The tranquilizers knocked him out before he could finish the thought.
MK#9: DOUBLE THE KARNAGE, DOUBLE THE FUN!
CHAPTER ONE
The world spun in Karnage’s head, twirling violently, like he was circling down into a drain without end. Then, without warning, the spinning stopped. The world dipped, and Karnage felt himself propelled upward. He felt like he was flying, pushing through damp clouds, bursting out into cold blue sky, flying higher and higher until he was floating in ice cold black.
Bright pinpricks of consciousness pierced the black. They swelled in size. Features became visible in the soft circles of light. Black glasses and mouths like belly slits that curved up slightly at the corners. The faint outline of chauffeur’s caps resolved themselves in the gloom. They were all Patrick. Every one of them. They smiled and leered and stared down at him. The faces swirled around him as they talked amongst themselves.
“He’s ugly.”
“Much uglier than I would have thought.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“It’s him.”
“Amazing.”
“Astounding.”
“How many times has he killed us?”
“A hundred?”
“A thousand.”
“Really?”
“No, nothing like that. You’re exaggerating.”
“He could, though.”
“You’re being silly.”
“I’ve seen him in combat. He’s brilliant.”
“Simply brilliant.”
Karnage tried to focus his mind, to wake him himself up from this dream. The faces swirled tightly together, merging from thousands into hundreds.
“He’s trying to focus.”
“Can he see us?”
“He can see us.”
“Look at his eyes.”
“So cold.”
“So calculating.”
“So brilliant.”
Karnage tried to shake the vision away, but it wouldn’t go. The hundred Patricks merged again, down to tens, then to three. “Who caught him?”
“I did.”
“Good work.”
“Thank you.”
“Bravo.”
“Thank you both.”
Karnage’s eyes slowly came into focus, the three Patricks stubbornly staying apart. They were sharp and clear as day in front of him. And that’s when he realized it.
There were three of them.
The three Patricks stood in a line in front of Karnage. He was sitting in a wheelchair. Thick ropes tied him to the chair by his wrists and ankles. A single set of fluorescent tubes hung from a fixture overhead. The walls and ceiling were a dull metallic grey. He was inside a cargo container.
The three Patricks looked down at Karnage. Their faces beamed.
“Congratulations, Major,” the first one said.
“You’ve won the game,” the second one said.
“You’ve earned the prize,” the third one said.
“Would you like to see it?” the second one said.
The first one moved aside. “It would like to see you.”
Behind him was an old man sitting in an electric wheelchair. He hit the joystick on the armrest with a gnarled hand, and wheeled forward. The other Patricks stepped back in deference to the old man. He wore an old Uncle Stanley uniform that hung loosely from his frame. Medals clanked and gleamed against his chest. Four stars were affixed to each of his epaulets. A pair of plastic sunglasses covered half his face. He reached up with shaking hands and pulled them off, revealing thick lenses affixed to thin wire frames. They magnified his pale eyes, showing white dots of cataract in the pupils.
“Hello, you,” he said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Karnage said.
The old man smiled. “I was rather hoping introductions wouldn’t be necessary. That perhaps you would have recognized me without me having to—well, that was all a long time ago, wasn’t it? We were the greatest of enemies then. Oh, what a pair we made. But memories fade with time. Perhaps the name Patrick Mayhew will ring a bell?”
Karnage started. It did ring a bell. It rang a bell so loud and clear in Karnage’s skull it felt like there was an alarm klaxon blasting from one temple to the other. Karnage looked at the three Patricks and back at the old man. Finally, he twigged to the similarities. He recognized the faces. All of them. All four of them. Karnage’s heart thumped in his chest.
“General Patrick Mayhew,” he said. “Otherwise known as… General Mayhem.”
The old man shook his head. “I so wish you wouldn’t call me that. I never cared for that nickname.”
“Seemed a pretty accurate description to me,” Karnage growled. “What with all the people you killed. The trail of destruction you left behind.”
Mayhem smiled. “I was good at my job, wasn’t I? You were no slouch yourself, Major. I lost count of the number of times you laid waste to my best plans. The number of missions that had to be scrapped because of a stubborn little carpy known as Major Karnage. Oh, how you vexed me at first. I wanted nothing more than to see your head on a pike. But after your ingenious escape from New Baghdad, I found myself taking a shine to you. I surprised myself with that. There you were, my most despised enemy, the very embodiment of everything I hated most about the carpies, and yet, I just couldn’t help myself. You were so… brilliant.
“Your escapades amused me greatly. Your constant promotions and demotions—the demotions I loved most of all. You weren’t just a pain in my posterior. Your own superiors despised you as well. And yet, they couldn’t get rid of you. You were just too valuable to them, weren’t you? By my calculations, you should have earned the rank of Field Marshal five times over in your career. But that never mattered to you, did it? You didn’t care about your career. You cared only for the battle ahead, and for the men that served under you. If the carpies hadn’t been in such desperate straits, I’m sure they would have had you shot a hundred times over—and what a horrible waste that would have been.
“Whenever I was in the field, I always secretly hoped you’d try attacking us. How I longed to see you—to meet you face-to-face. To see for myself the infamous Major Karnage on the battlefield. I was sure it would be brilliant. But we never got that moment, did we? We were never allowed to share that spotlight. They brought an end to it all, didn’t they? Stopped the music, turned up the lights, and told us all to go home. But they didn’t really let us go home, did they, Major?
“Once the Nagasaki Treaties were signed and World Peace fell upon the Earth, I knew it was only a matter of time before they turned their backs on us. I could feel it in the air. It was palpable. So I slipped away—went into hiding before they could make me disappear. And I was right: they did make it all disappear.”
“Every battleship,” the first Patrick said.
“Every missile,” said the second.
“Every tank, pistol, and soldier,” the third one said.
“Gone,” the second one said.
“Right down to the last bullet,” added the first.
“It didn’t take them long to realize that they had acted rashly,” Mayhem went on. “That they still had a need for us. But they couldn’t admit that they were wrong. They had a reputation to uphold.”
“They were the saviours of the human race,” the first Patrick said.
“World Peace,” said the second.
“And all that,” said the third.
“And yet,” Mayhem continued, “there were still insurgents to eliminate. Rebellions to be quelled. Assassinations to be carried out. And who better to fulfil those needs than good old General Mayhem? I found I was able to contract out my services and expertise on a freelance basis—discreetly, of course. They had no idea who I really was.”