The Iron Swamp (45 page)

Becky!

I was bleeding badly but that didn't matter. I needed to get to her. Calling was useless against the ringing. There was no power in me to stand, so I pushed myself forwards in a crawl.

Bits of rubble gave way beneath my hands and knees, and something sharp sank into my middle finger as I moved by. Flames danced red across the black and silver, lighting my way. Pipes and casings bent into spikes and shards ready to skewer me with the first bad step. An orange glow of blistering metal pulsed beneath the rubble.

I felt my way as much as I saw it. I just needed to find Becky, and then I could stop. As the volume of rubble increased, I began to surmount it, dragging myself on my side. The rip in my gut began to tear its way across my abdomen, blood gushing from the wound, smearing a trail as I went.

Bits of ceiling sprinkled on my back and head like plaster gravel; metal supports the size of boulders dropped around me large enough to flatten me; and dust filled the air, thicker than the densest Kaeroshi fog.

I saw an arm and hastened towards it, forcing myself along like a beached leviathan, grabbing Becky by the hand and gripping it as tightly as I could. Her lips quivered as she turned her eyes to me, unable to move her head. I could see she was trying to talk to me, but I couldn't understand. Every word was hidden by the alarm rattling in my head.

I forced a smile and reprimanded her for coming. I told her how stupid she was to disobey my orders. But even before I finished, the life drained from her eyes. Her lips ceased quivering, and whatever words she wanted me to hear were ended, lost to the ground.

I howled soundlessly into the wreckage.

I squeezed her hand so tightly that I felt the bone snap.

I screamed, though even that was masked by ringing.

Stupid girl.

Why did she have to come?

All the things I wanted to tell her, I poured the words over a corpse. Even when she was deaf and dying, I had not the courage to say them. There was no heaven, no afterlife, nothing that allowed me hope, though I was desperate to believe in it.

She came for me and I let her die. The one person on this whole miserable planet who cared whether I lived or died. I'd killed her.

Still holding her broken hand as if it contained my heart, I planted my face in the rubble, unable to look at her. Blood and swelling had malformed her beauty into something too reminiscent of the other, the one responsible.

With that thought I held onto consciousness until the paramedics arrived.

Epilogue

23/11/2256 FC

As far back as I could remember, I always thought I was broken. Some piece of me was missing that hollowed me like a dead tree, but I saw now that I was wrong. There was no break or hole, but a worm, chewing, as it had always been chewing.

I called out into the blackness, paralyzed by the pain. The fact that I could see it now, when everything else was darkness, I knew that meant something. If only the pain would stop and my blindness would dissipate I could see its import. But equally I knew that the pain would never stop, and the blackness would span eternity, just as the worm was both truth and lie.

My whole life had been a lie. I pretended that I was my parents' son, but sacrifice was not in me and never had been. I could always see the falsehood, even at the moment I tried to save Sariah by throwing myself into the flames. My parents had given themselves for the greater good of Cos in spite of me. I gave myself for them. Every stake I added to my pyre was done for my dead parents – the pride of ghosts. But because I saw the lie, I didn't give myself to the fire as completely as they did. I didn't burn to ash and nothingness. I mouldered, bitter and resentful in the knowledge that I was not the man they wanted me to be, that I was ruining my life for nothing. I didn't share their desire for death. I wanted to crush my enemies, not sacrifice myself to them.

That was me. That was the man I had been denying for so long, but I was done denying it now. I could not unfind the worm that latched and tunneled within me, immutable in the darkness.

I opened my eyes to see nurse Lint standing over me once again. "I told you, Mr. Nidess, as I told you before, if you left so quickly then you'd be back here."

I glared at the muscular black woman, wondering if I could throttle her. Three times I had woken to that ugly face, stern as stone, etching onto my retina. I needed no further reminder that I did not want to see it a fourth.

Becky was gone. Murdered. And the pit she left behind threatened to swallow me.

Ruby exploded the wall right above her head. That was how she intended to escape after killing me; protocol for a blast of that size was an emergency retreat, creating a shambles. It was the perfect strategy.

"Thank you, nurse," said a familiar voice. Denrick Hayson walked into my suite, alive and apparently unharmed. "You did it! Cythuria knows how, but you managed it." He coughed, an almost affectionate tone in his voice. "They've fitted Wayland with mech eyes, lungs and a bioengineered throat, but he's alive and well, thanks to you." Awkwardly, he placed a hand on my shoulder, his eyes full of uncertainty. "We aren't friends, but I owe you for that, and I won't forget it."

Slowly, I realized that only one of my eyes had opened, pressing on the skin around the blind one.

Hayson frowned. "One of your eyes was too far gone. Your new mech eye has not been activated, but when it does you will have perfect vision again." He clapped his hands together. "Some say that mechanical eyes are better than the ones they had before."

I'd heard the same, but only from the blue veins; people who'd swap their brains for mech ones if they could. There were many and more besides who said blindness was preferable – that mech vision was not true vision at all. Whether Hayson wanted to believe for Sikes, or if he was comforting me, I could not tell. I still had one human eye at least.

Voices from the corridor outside, and Hayson looked suddenly frantic. "There are things we need to go over before they get here. Never mind where I really was, as far as you're concerned I've been on holiday. I'll tell you what actually happened later. Secondly, the stuff with the pimp, Oldan, story is that you and he were abducted by Lisbold and Fache. They killed him, and the swamp net and degodile killed them." He looked at the door. "Though you got damn lucky, if that's what actually happened."

The voices grew louder and he lent in. "Most importantly, after you found out Ruby was a serial killer, you traced her to her next victim, and that's why you were at the baths trying to save Loshe's life. I've laid a trail. If they don't look too hard, no one will ever know anything different."

Pollo and Reens appeared in the doorway. "Ah, the hero is awake. How are you feeling?" came Pollo's nasal whisper.

I didn't answer. I had no stomach contents for the title of
hero
. The person I needed was gone. Oblivion. I remembered my hope that perhaps there was an afterlife, but the thought disgusted me. That wasn't how life worked. The Kaerosh didn't reward good people so why should the afterlife? That was delusion. The only justice in this whole fetid place was what we made for ourselves, and I would carve it out for her through flesh and bone, whatever stood in my way.

"True, you failed to apprehend the suspect at the crime scene or save agent Loshe," Pollo said reproachfully, "but the President considers that after your ordeal the previous day in Von Ras that it was beyond the call of duty for you to even try."

I looked away from them as I remembered her face all battered and puffy, whispering her name into my pillow.

They must have thought it was a question because all three men were still. A dragon egg ran down Hayson's throat as he replaced his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Nidess. She didn't make it."

I shouted at them – meaningless things, but the words wouldn't stay down.

I knew she was dead. She died in front of me surrounded by ringing and fire.

Pollo looked nervous for a moment but began again as if the conversation had never changed. "The President congratulates you on having discovered the killer and all of her previous crimes for which innocent people were sadly condemned. He wishes to offer you the reward of taking Loshe's old position in the SP."

I ran a sleeve across my face and crushed the forming droplets with my eyelid. My hands clenched until nail broke flesh, and my palms were warm and wet. I turned away from them as my remaining eye welled up. The red brick buildings outside the window smudged and grayed until they were the same concrete blocks as the rest of The Kaerosh. I was tired of being shot and stabbed, beaten and broken. It was my turn now. My enemies were going to regret the day they fracked with me. Vins and Pressen, the goblin, Bensol, they were all going to share my pain.

Monsters breed monsters
.

Reens eyed Pollo with the same contempt I felt for all three of them. "You were not the President's first choice for the job, but Archbishon Liegon persuaded him you were a good fit." His eyes inspected me from head to toe, then side to side. "I suppose she was grateful that you proved her innocence so she can go back to causing trouble with the mechs, but she was right that you at least already know the secrets you will be responsible for protecting."

Pollo made a brief frown before returning to his sinewy grin, begging me to gouge his eyes out. "Shame about that. If she'd been guilty it might have saved the President a lot of problems. Still, you'll be able to continue your search for the girl."

Ruby
.

I was safe, a member of the SP as I planned, but none of it mattered. It was all just darkness. The worm was still there, still eating.

I was void of purpose, save one.

"Tell Clazran I'll have the bitch's head on a plate."

Encyclopaedia of Cos: Entry 1569342

Chorionix

Origin: The Kaerosh

Family: Nymid Amphibians

Status: Locally common

Length: 1.2-2.1m

Weight: 70-100kg

Speed: Unknown

Location: The Kaerosh

Diet: Meat

Food Chain: Mid-high level predator

Sociability: Solitary

Aliases: Snap lizard

Chorionix is most at home in the pools of the great swamps of The Kaerosh, driven to extinction in most of the lesser swamps outside reserves.

Its front feet contain claws used to pull it out of swamps with speed, while its back flippers and finned tail aid in swimming. Although often mistakenly classed with more primitive amphibians preceding the evolution of proper limbs, chorionix lost its hind limbs in preference for flippers.

Alone amongst the nymids, chorionix is capable of producing a powerful electric current from the two tendrils growing from its head. Initially formed from horns, the tendrils are now made up almost entirely of nerve cells, and can channel large amounts of current into surrounding pools, or directly into the bodies of predators and prey. It covers itself in a thick layer of waxy insulation which prevents the electricity from damaging its own internal organs.

Chorionix earned the name snap lizard (although not a lizard) from the locals because of the peculiar noise it makes by bashing its lower jaw against its upper one when attracting a mate.

Author's Note

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