Veteran

3

I followed the tracks to the road, sending out data requests as I walked back to the bike. I straddled the bike, sitting low between the two huge wheels, and pressed the ignition. The bike growled into life. I received an answer to one of my info requests. The checkpoint on the Coupar Angus road had processed a park ranger pickup truck about half an hour before I’d gone through it. The truck had been heading into Dundee.

It may have been nothing, a different four-by-four to the one whose tracks I’d found, but so far it was all I had to go on. Also the pickup, according to the vehicle’s profile, had the correct tyres to make the tracks that I’d found. I received the ranger’s address. It was inside the city limits, some mid-level habitation block. Private but with reasonable security, probably full of police, civil servants and retired officers, as well as park personnel too poor to live in the park.

The gate was opened for me as I approached the habitat. I had sent my clearance ahead of me. The habitation block was a series of four-storey identical flats with a walkway connecting them all, just off the Broughty Ferry Road. You could look down the hill to the skeletal metal city that was the Rigs. A darkened city illuminated only by flickering electric lights and the trash-can fires here and there. I nodded at the security guard with the assault rifle at the gate.

Parking was at a premium and probably something that the inhabitants liked to argue about. I considered parking behind the muddy park service pickup but decided against it. I looked over the vehicle; in the flatbed I found telltale traces of a black fluid. It was definite now: the park ranger had transported it. I was left wondering why some people were storing a dangerous alien killing machine in their apartment. I guess they couldn’t afford a dog. Who could?

Heading up the stairs, I decided that the Mastodon would have the best psychological impact on the ranger and ballistic impact on the Ninja. According to the park service personnel files I’d received, the ranger was one Morton Rayment. He lived in the apartment with his girlfriend Joy Sverdlof. Thermographics told me that there were two human-sized heat sources in there. It seemed unlikely that either of the heat sources was the Ninja. This did not mean that the Ninja wasn’t in the apartment, just that I couldn’t see it. Though both Rayment and Sverdlof still seemed to be alive, which was promising.

Moving quietly along the walkway I made it up to their apartment and palmed my very illegal lock burner. Boosting my hearing, I stopped to listen, amplifying the muffled voices through the paper-thin walls and filtering them until I could understand their conversation. .. what if the authorities trace it to me?’ This was the male voice, local but well educated, presumably Rayment.

‘Bit late for that now, should’ve thought about that before you loaded it up.’ This was presumably Sverdlof, probably second generation but you could still hear traces of her eastern European accent. ‘Look at all this money, just think what we can do.’

‘How? It’s all black, we can’t declare it.’ Rayment said. His voice was becoming a panicky whine. I was wondering how this guy had had the balls to load a potentially dangerous alien life form into the back of his pickup. I wasn’t sure I’d have the balls. I’d have been more likely to turn it into a puddle. I slipped the lock burner into the apartment’s card slot.

‘There are lots of things you can do with black money – you can get stuff you can’t get with real money,’ The woman said. I slipped into their apartment. It was a tiny box. They were stood over their mock-pine table in the dining/living/kitchen area. On the table were piles of dirty paper cash. Rayment, still wearing his ranger’s uniform, was stood looking nervously at the piles. Next to him, greed lighting her eyes, was Sverdlof. Neither of them had heard me enter though they were standing opposite the door. This was good. This meant I wasn’t completely useless.

Rayment looked up as I said,’Isn’t that the truth?’ and lost control of his bladder as he found himself looking down the barrel of the huge revolver. His hand not going anywhere near the automatic holstered at his side.

Sverdlof was made of sterner stuff. She made a dive for the apartment’s personal defence weapon in its rack on the wall. My left fist caught her on the chin, picking her up off her feet and sending her flying onto the small two-seater sofa, which broke under her weight. She sat up glaring at me, looking feral and angry. Clearly I had pointed the gun at the wrong person. I brought the Mastodon to bear on her.

‘This,’ I said, nodding at the revolver, ‘is more than capable of shooting through walls, and I can see through them, do you understand?’ The girl nodded, Rayment just shook a bit. I moved into their small bedroom and as soon as I was out of sight the girl began to move towards the PDW. I poked my head back out of the bedroom. The girl froze.

‘Do I have to shoot you? For fuck’s sake, darling, sit down,’ I told her. She just glared at me.

‘Do as he says!’ Rayment pleaded. Sverdlof gave him a look of contempt before sitting down. Clearly she was poorer than him and the money meant more to her. I searched every place that they could hide one of Them. It was not in the apartment. I had assumed as much when I’d seen the cash but I had to check.

I came out of their tiny bathroom, having ensured it wasn’t in there showering. I headed back into the living area just as the apartment’s rapid response unit turned up. In this case the rapid response unit was a fat guy called Larry with a pump-action shotgun.

‘I have already given you my clearance, now go away,’ I said. Larry looked me up and down, sizing up his chances and not really liking them.

‘I’m sorry sir,’ Larry wheezed, trying to recover his breath from the run to the apartment, ‘but we are contractually obligated to protect the inhabitants. I’m going to have to ask you-’ Then I was holding Larry’s shotgun.

‘You did the best you could, Larry, now fuck off,’ I said, beginning to lose patience. Larry turned and left with one final apologetic look at Rayment and Sverdlof. I turned to the pair of them.

‘Where is it?’ I asked, my eyes drifting to the large bundles of cash on the table.

‘Where’s what?’ Sverdlof replied. I sighed.

‘Look, I am going to find out what I want to know anyway. The only real question for you guys is how hurt or dead you get in the process.’

‘Maybe, but what if whoever took it from us is a bigger bastard than you?’ she asked.

‘Is he a more immediate problem?’ I said. ‘Look, you’ve got your money; you can do a bunk. Though chances are whoever has the thing is not going to be a problem for much longer.’

‘For fuck’s sake tell him,’ Rayment whimpered.

‘Why don’t you tell me, Morton?’ I asked.

‘What’s it worth?’ Sverdlof asked.

‘Why don’t I beat it out of your boyfriend?’ I said.

‘Ex-boyfriend.’

‘You’re leaving me!’ Rayment said and burst into tears.

‘Hard to see why,’ I said, looking at the park ranger with mild bemusement. Sverdlof nodded. She seemed to be weighing up her options, and like Larry she did not like the conclusions she was coming to.

‘We sold it to Cassidy MacFarlane,’ she finally said. This confused me.

‘The pimp? Why?’ Sverdlof shrugged. ‘What sort of state was it in?’ I demanded.

‘Pretty messed up, leaking, not moving much, not making any noise. Difficult to tell with those things. It didn’t seem very threatening.’

‘How long ago?’

Sverdlof shrugged again. ‘Maybe an hour.’

‘Know where he was taking it?’

‘No,’ she said. I was pretty sure she’d told me as much as she could. So I nipped back into their bedroom and came back with a small sports holdall and began filling it with their black money, the Mastodon still levelled at Sverdlof.

‘What are you doing?’ Sverdlof shouted.

‘Taking your money,’ I told her, feeling like a total bastard. I was secure in the knowledge that official business or not there was nothing they could really do. Reporting it meant incriminating themselves. Not that I really cared one way or another. Let the Major sort it out.

‘What am I going to use if I have to run from MacFarlane?’ Sverdlof demanded. I ignored the question. Finally with all the money packed I backed out of the tiny apartment, Sverdlof glaring after me.

‘Come after me and I will have to kill you, you know that,’ I told her. Sverdlof just continued to glare at me with undiluted hatred in her eyes.

I left the apartment, closing the door behind me. As the door clicked shut Sverdlof started screaming, berating Rayment for cowardice. Not that there was much he could have done, except maybe not wet himself or burst into tears. I smiled and then spun round bringing the revolver up.

Leaning against the wall a few feet away from me was Josephine. She looked as drab and nondescript as normal. Rumour was that she had had herself surgically altered to look as uninteresting as possible. She was difficult to describe because nothing stuck out about her appearance. Even her clothes were drab.

‘Losing your touch?’ she asked, not looking me in the eyes. She always avoided eye contact. I lowered the gun and then holstered it.

‘Oh, hi, Josey,’ I said sarcastically, trying to mask my fear. The Grey Lady had always unnerved me. She was right though. Josephine was good but she should not have snuck up on me that easily. She shook her head.

The Major wants you to do it,’ she said. I knew exactly what she meant.

‘And if I don’t?’ I asked.

‘Oh, you know,’ she said awkwardly, examining her nails. ‘He’ll just make making you miserable his hobby.’

‘He’s not doing that already?’ I asked.

‘Give me the money, Jakob,’ she said shyly. I sighed.

‘This is fucking petty even by his standards. You turn up to rob me?’ I asked. She shook her head.

‘Give me the money and go and kill them.’ She sounded quiet and meek. I dropped the bag of notes at her feet and tried to walk past her. She held a hand out. It just touched my chest but I stopped.

Til cover for you just once,’ she said and looked me in the eyes. My mouth went very dry and I swallowed involuntarily. She dropped her hand, letting me past. As I went down the steps the muzzle flashes from inside the apartment illuminated the car park briefly.

I rode through the superstructure of the Rigs. Moving just a little faster than was safe for the rickety wooden boards and metal sheets that passed for roads. I wanted to stop, return to the cube, start drinking and maybe listen to some music. Try not to think about the two poor fuckers I’d just got killed for doing what we all have to do to survive. I knew, however, that if I did that Rolleston would keep on hounding me.

Now I’d seen the Grey Lady I had a sense of urgency. I wanted this wrapped up and forgotten. I also needed the promised week in the sense booths, being fed by a drip, getting bedsores, my muscles atrophying and most importantly achieving a total loss of self, to forget about all this.

Although I’d never been a special forces operator who enjoyed his work particularly, I also had to admit that the feeling that came from my enhancements, the feeling of moving like lightning when everyone else was mired down, was something I never grew tired of. So I was going to kill some stupid people and take out one more of Them. Big deal, another tiny step in a conflict that seemed to consume everything.

They were the only other life that we’d ever encountered in space and we were at war with Them. This had to be a tiny drop in the ocean to the universe. Yet sometimes, when space was filled with bright beams burning across the night. When I was waiting in an assault shuttle for a drop, my life in someone else’s hands. When I was watching other shuttles tumbling towards planets to burn on entry. Sometimes it looked and felt like the entire universe was at war.