Part 15: The One-eyed King wins?

15.1

Davey felt fear creeping into his heart, and, though he fought it, it was as useless as fighting the tides of the sea.

The city appeared before them, its seamless, hundred foot high concrete walls stained with what looked like greyed-out ashes.

That’s probably the ashes of the poor bastards vaporised in the blast, Davey thought with a frown.

The tops of a few dozen skyscrapers peeked over the top. They were also greyed-out, stained black in places.

A few lights were illuminated in some of the blocks.

Dark clouds roiled overhead. It was certainly not a good omen.

They approached the city down a long straight road which led to the walls.

Armed guards in what looked like spacesuits suddenly appeared at outposts which were placed on the walls like the battlements of a castle. Huge Gatling guns were mounted to each outpost, which seemed to have three of the spacemen occupying it.

The red laser sights from their sniper rifles traced a path over Papa Grim and his party.

‘No further,’ said a deafening and ominously distorted voice. ‘State your business here.’

‘I have brought you King Solomon,’ Papa Grim declared. ‘I know the Mayor would like to see him.’

The number of laser sights seemed to multiply exponentially.

The nearest cullsman lifted his visor and squinted down at them through the sniper scope of his rifle.

‘Holy shit, that is King Solomon,’ the distorted voice boomed.

Indecipherable muttering came from behind him, closely followed by the sound of one of the cullsmen reporting the matter to his superiors.

The cullsman dropped his visor.

‘Bring him in. One of you.’

‘We need to all be there, to make sure there is no funny business,’ Papa Grim shouted. ‘I want my reward fair and square.’

The cullsman paused, seemingly to think about it.

The red dots wavered over their heads for an interminable pause.

‘Drive into the tunnel. Slowly.’

Their bikes crawled into the dark maw of the tunnel that seemed to lead beneath the walls.

As they entered the tunnel, neon lights stabbed into their retinas like broken glass.

There was a small army of the silver-suited cullsmen down here too, gleaming machine guns in their gloved hands.

They surrounded Papa Grim’s group of four bikers and their captives, King Solomon and Davey. The cullsmen moved fluidly, their movements weirdly synchronised.

‘Approach the checkpoint,’ the nearest cullsman said, his voice echoing strangely inside the helmet of his spacesuit. ‘Slowly draw your weapons and throw them in the dirt.’

‘No can do,’ Papa Grim shouted up. ‘We’ll be defenceless.’

Davey could have sworn he heard the cullsman mutter, ‘Fuck’s sake.’

The cullsmen’s posture stiffened.

Red laser dots covered them from every angle. Davey did notice that the dots on King Solomon were aimed at his limbs rather than his torso or head, so they were intended to maim rather than kill. It seemed obvious the Mayor wanted the pleasure of killing the king himself.

Stolen story; please report.

The dots on everyone else, Davey included, were on their torsos and heads.

We get this wrong and we’re mincemeat, Davey thought.

‘Throw your weapons in the dirt. Or we’ll take the King for ourselves and tell Mayor Craven we caught him.’

Papa Grim scowled, the skull tattooed on his face twisting and wrinkling.

‘Fucking pricks,’ he uttered.

‘You fucking what?’ the cullsman snapped.

‘Just give them the fucking guns, PG,’ King Solomon snapped. ‘You’re going to get your dumb ass killed.’

Papa Grim threw his assault rifle.

Then his twin handguns.

Then his knife.

‘Anything else?’ the cullsman said, shining his rifle’s red laser sight directly into Papa Grim’s eyes.

Papa Grim blinked furiously. ‘No.’

‘If I find anything on the check, I will put you down like a sick dog.’

‘There’s nothing to find,’ Papa Grim beamed.

King Solomon furrowed his brow. He knew Papa Grim never went anywhere without his signature cutthroat razor. He’d started using that many years ago when they’d been in the biker gang together.

‘They find anything and they’ll fucking kill you,’ King Solomon said. ‘No questions asked.’

‘There’s nothing to find,’ Papa Grim repeated, smiling smugly.

The cullsman extended his arm, palm up, and gave a brisk curl of his fingers to indicate Papa Grim should approach the checkpoint first.

‘He’s just got his dumb ass killed,’ King Solomon muttered to Davey. ‘He’s still got his cutthroat.’

Davey’s eyes were wide.

The cullsman ran what looked like a handheld metal detector over every inch of Papa Grim’s body.

‘Happy?’ Papa Grim said, grinning like a lunatic.

‘Ecstatic,’ the cullsman said, pushing the side of his head with the gun.

‘I’m goan take your fucking face for that, boy,’ Papa Grim drawled, staring straight at the visor of the cullsman’s helmet.

‘Get your sorry ass to the next checkpoint before I change my mind.’

Papa Grim moved away, still staring into the cullsman’s face until the cullsman turned to the next member of the party. ‘That’s what I fucking thought,’ he muttered to himself.

‘How’d he manage that then?’ King Solomon whispered to Davey.

Davey looked at him in bemusement but one of the cullsmen came over to them before King Solomon could elaborate.

‘Rest of you sorry fuckers cough up quick,’ the cullsman said, unfazed. ‘We ain’t got time to fuck around.’

The rest of the bikers threw their guns down without any fuss.

‘Get off the bikes. Raise your hands and form a line by the checkpoint. Any sudden movements will get you cre-mated, y’get me?’ The cullsman gave a demonstrative blast of his flamethrower by way of explanation.

They all nodded.

Stepped into the line.

The cullsman ran the metal detector over them. To Solomon’s surprise, all of the bikers were cleared. He felt certain they had more weapons on them.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though as they were now being tested with a yellow beeping device that seemed to be a Geiger counter.

‘This one seems to be reading high, Walker,’ the cullsman with the Geiger counter said.

It wasn’t clear who they were talking about.

‘It’s fine,’ Walker, the lead cullsman, said after a tense pause.

Before Davey could figure it out, Walker was bellowing at him again; ‘Line up.’

They were taken aback as a high-pressured jet of ice-cold water hit them. The impact felt like an icy fist to the gut for Davey. Even King Solomon seemed to shrink from the force of the blast.

‘Turn around.’

They did as instructed and the water hit their backs seemingly hard enough to bruise.

‘Shame it didn’t wash that dumbass tattoo off,’ King Solomon chuckled, staring at Papa Grim.

‘We’ll have the last laugh here, Solomon, when we’re chowing down on all that delicious free food.’

Solomon laughed, shaking his head. ‘You really trust them, don’t you? I didn’t think it possible, but it seems you’re even dumber than you look.’

‘Shut up,’ Walker shouted over. ‘Approach the door. No sudden movements.’

A sea of red laser sights still danced around them.

Still dripping and shivering, they approached the concrete wall. The wall slid sideways, allowing them into a narrow, silver-walled room. Half a dozen of the cullsmen followed them.

The concrete smoothly slid shut behind them, as if the outside world was no longer there and never had been there.

A pair of highly polished stainless steel doors awaited at the far end of the room.

Armed cullsmen wearing the ubiquitous spacesuits lined the right hand wall of the room, ready for the slightest sign of trouble.

The silver doors opened smoothly. They entered one by one, still covered by the red laser dots.

The doors slid shut behind them.

‘Welcome to the City, fuckers,’ Walker said.