Noticing the whiteness on Drej’s knuckles the doctor grows very suspicious. “Drop the sheet.”
“Why?”
Del rips the sheet out of Drej’s grasp with a lightning fast movement revealing Drej’s naked body. His sea of sliced flesh is exposed. Long scars run down his thighs and down his calves. Three gouges run across his chest, and others down his arms, always down the bone. The wounds are held together with extremely fine cable. Caufmann knows better. “Is that stitching made of your muscle fibre?”
“I’m not finished,” says Drej simply.
Drake takes a step back. “What the fuck have you done to yourself?”
Even Antares is shocked. “I didn’t even know he was cut, there’s no blood.”
“What were you doing?” asks Caufmann slowly.
Drej turns and lifts his mattress, producing a pearlescent bladed knife and the hilt of a sword with a partly formed blade.
“I’m making these. I pressed the fibres into a shape,” his fingers glow with energy, “ then sealed it.”
Caufmann is intrigued. The others are disgusted or frightened.
“Thermosteel weapons?” asks the doctor.
Drej nods, “Part of me.”
“Why?”
“The thing calling for help from under the city likes to talk. It told me that my swords aren’t enough. I must turn my body into a weapon. After a while I figured out how.”
“You’ve been left in here too long, Arca, we’re taking you out of here,” says Caufmann shaking his head at how far gone Drej has become in the many weeks of solitary confinement.
“I can feel with these blades. Not when they’re on the floor,” he says placing the bone-knife down, “but when I hold it,” he says picking it up again. “I can feel with the tip of it like it’s my own finger.”
Rennin takes a breath wearily. “So you’ll be able to feel ‘yourself’ enter another’s body when you stab them, and you think that’s, somehow, going to help you become a more balanced individual?”
Drej points at Caufmann, “He cuts into himself.”
Suggestion: Let Deserter finish his construct, displays Del.
“Why?” asks Caufmann.
Then his insanity has run its course. More feasible therapy can begin. Swords made of self denotes need for defence, building own being into something stronger. I was told in my first combat protocols that a weapon must be an extension of oneself. Derangement has made statement literal; a confidence of body. If Deserter does not finish the sword, he will be incomplete.
Caufmann looks at Del with something like pride in his scarred eyes. He looks to Rennin. “He works, Rennin.”
The watchman isn’t sure how to react so just says the first thing he thinks of. “I know it.”
“Alright, Arca, finish the sword, but that is all. No more cutting into yourself afterwards. We don’t have time. How are you growing it back so fast?”
Drej shrugs. “I just think about it. They grow back like human bones, just faster. I try to imagine it growing back and when I open my eyes my bones where I started from were healed. Then I just kept doing circuits around my body, opening up the wounds in the order I made them and taking more. Sometimes thinking about it didn’t work and I’d have to really focus. Burns a lot of energy.”
“How long before you finish?”
“Eight hours if I really try.”
Caufmann nods then turns to Antares. “Get back to the tombs and let the automated system scan you. It’ll open up a cache of your armour and weapons, then return here,” the doctor says, turning to Rennin. “Report to your barracks before you’re registered as AWOL,” he says turning to Drake. “Stay with Arca.”
“What? While he’s hacking himself up? No way!”
“Alright, alright! Go and talk to Mia, we’ll need her sniper rifle. Del will stay with Arca,” he says turning to his creation. “Make sure he doesn’t cut anything off that won’t grow back.”
Acknowledged.
“You’re joining the military?” asks Drej to Rennin.
“Long story,” the watchman shrugs.
Drej looks at Caufmann. “How will we contact him?”
“Let me worry about that,” says Caufmann.
Drej picks up the knife made of his own bone and hands it to Rennin who doesn’t make a move to take it. “If you carry this, I’ll be able to track you.”
Rennin’s eyes are fixed on the knife. “Um… look, pal, carrying parts of someone else might make a good trophy but that thing looks like it’s alive.”
“Of course it’s alive, it’s part of me. I’ll need it back but wherever you go, I’ll be able to find you.”
Caufmann sighs, “It’s a good idea, really, it will make it easier for the group to come get you.”
Rennin takes the knife carefully. “Can you feel me holding it?”
Drej’s gaze turns distant. “No, but I can feel where the knife is, sort of like being unconsciously aware of where my hands and feet are when I’m not looking at them.”
Rennin nods then looks to Caufmann. “You should get your wounds sorted out, I’m not sure if I’m willing to date you while you’re bleeding everywhere.”
Caufmann nods, “Once I sequester that gunship.”
10.
The Roads Run Red
Rennin is standing at attention in a warehouse converted for military purposes, while they prepare to make an incursion into several of the most affected areas. He has been newly attired in the black fatigues of the Horizon Military. Offsetting the matte black uniform is a dark grey armour chest plate, pauldrons, back plate, leg guards and arm guards. He feels like a walking cliché. This uniform is the absolute epitome of the first scene in homoerotic pornography to Rennin’s jaded mind.
Some of my favourites start like this.
His father used to say: ‘A man can mud-stab all he wants in my book, because it’ll keep him off your sister and your wife.’ Rennin unwittingly smiles at the memory of his less than subtle father, unfortunately drawing the attention of the loudmouthed full-patriot shouting his brick-brained motivational abuse at the hundreds of assembled recruits.
“Did I say something funny, Fuckface?” the officer yells up at Rennin from more than a foot below his face.
The former watchman looks to him with the kind of disdain one would if they found a gigantic cow pat where their breakfast should be. Rennin is in his forties, he doesn’t get spoken to like that by anyone.
Little prick.
“I’ve seen this episode before. It was on twenty years ago when I first joined up, do you mind if I fast forward?” he asks, getting a slight giggle from several of the others in earshot.
The angry leprechaun’s face turns red. “You think you’re that slick?”
Rennin shrugs, “Just point me in the direction that needs the bullets and get the hell out of my way.”
“Don’t you make me break your head off to shit down your neck!” mister small-man-syndrome attempts to yell at Rennin’s neck, his redness only increasing from tomato to beetroot as Rennin parrots his mouth movements in perfect unison to this threat.
“I’m telling you, I’ve seen this episode.”
The officer lands a sudden blow to Rennin’s gut that almost doubles him over. “How do you feel about doing fifty?”
Did I just sidestep to 1975?
Rennin straightens up and sucks in a quick breath of air. “Alright, you lie down, relax, and I’ll climb aboard. If I take longer than fifty thrusts, I owe you a coke.”
Pocket-rocket throws a vicious punch that connects sharply with Rennin’s cheek, nearly knocking him out. He manages only to stumble, groggily holding himself upright. His vision begins clearing and he sees the officer, or whatever he is, walking calmly away.