Casanova, p.19
Casanova, page 19
“It’s that left hook, man. That left hook always gets ’em.”
Casanova glanced back at him.
He was blowing huge puffs of air as he did his weird sparring ritual with an invisible opponent, shifting back and forth and cracking off fearsome lashes into the empty space. Each strike made a hollow snapping sound that made the air tingle. He kept talking, seemingly allowing Casanova some time to recuperate.
“Do you know why my eyes go all small and beady before a fight? It’s not to look good, I can tell you that – got me looking like a retarded motha- in this place.”
He grinned and looked directly at Casanova. “It’s for focus. Y’know, like wearing blinders? All I see is the person I’m beating down. Plus when they shrink, they’re a small target so it makes it harder for people to try gouging ’em out. Took me a while to get the logistics behind it. And this?”
He was pointing to his nose. It had broadened at the start of the fight and was spread across his face.
“It’s big so I can take in more oxygen – but that’s more obvious. Point is, I can’t get over how good all this power feels! I haven’t met many people who could get me this pumped before so I gotta say,” he nodded respectfully as Casanova finally managed to stand, “thanks, brother.”
Casanova broke off one of the stanchions.
“Looks like you’re ready for me,” Malcom said, taking off toward him.
Casanova stood his ground like a batter at the pitch and nodded to Jinx.
“Break...” he rasped.
The train squealed to an abrupt stop and Malcom came flying forward. Casanova swung.
Crack!
Malcom flipped like a coin, and as he landed, Jinx sped the train forward, sending him tumbling into Casanova. Without missing a beat, Casanova locked his arms around him and suplexed him with everything he had – the impact plunging Malcom’s head through the bottom of the train. There was a gross splattering sound – probably Malcom’s brains shredding across the tracks – before he went still.
For a moment they held their breath. Dropping the body, Casanova fell to his knees shaking from the strain. He locked eyes with Jinx who had come out of her deep dive and kept looking wide-eyed from the corpse and back to him.
“Is he –?” she started.
The cart creaked.
“No,” Malcom rumbled as he pulled his still reforming head from the hole, “he isn’t.”
Jinx’s hands flew to her mouth in a silent gag. It was too much – the sight of the beating mass of grey matter oozing out between shards of ruptured bone. With half of his head looking as if it had been dunked into a melting pot, he grinned lopsidedly and grabbed Casanova by the neck.
“You gave me one hell of a makeover, my friend,” he said.
Before he could snap his neck, Casanova’s eyes glowed red. Malcom stiffened, paused, then slowly reached for his firearm. He raised the piece to his own head and offloaded, the shots exploding in a choir of otherworldly echoes as the noise bounced around underground. Finally, he slumped over. But seconds later roared up again, crushing Casanova’s throat between his meaty fingers. Casanova flashed him with his crimson gaze again, and again Malcom raised the gun to his head and fired.
Only this time it had no effect.
“Jinx!” Casanova choked.
She stood up, looking on frantically. “Dante?”
He was sweating, veins throbbing in his temple and neck as he struggled to keep his mental hold on Malcom.
“How much longer?” he huffed.
She hesitated. Her eyes fell to the floor.
“Fifteen…” she muttered, “fifteen more minutes.”
Casanova let out a strangled chuckle. This was everything he had to give and they were still so far away.
Malcom lowered the gun and Casanova tried once more to make him raise it. With an expression of mild discomfort, Malcom stopped its ascent and managed to push it back into the holster.
Frantically, Casanova cast his gaze over the man, but it only made him hesitate for a couple seconds before finally its effects were completely useless. Casanova laughed – the nervous laugh of a man coming to terms with his inevitable demise – and plunged his astral form into Malcom in a last ditch attempt.
His body went limp and fell from Malcom’s grip as he battled for control over his mind. He began drawing Malcom away from his own vulnerable body, one painful footstep at a time. Malcom’s mind always felt like acid. It strongly rejected his presence until finally it broke free, shunting Casanova back to where he had come from.
For a moment he blacked out, but he could hear Jinx at his side, calling his name. His eyes flew open just in time to see Malcom descending on them. Jinx yelped as Malcom flung her out of the way and began pounding Casanova into submission. The symbiont snaked out, trying its best in vain to protect him and get Malcom off. But it was Jinx, slamming into Malcom with the fallen stanchion, that did it. He went flying up to the ceiling, leaving an imprint in the metal before crashing back down.
“Get up!” she said, trying to help Casanova to his feet.
A shadow loomed over them and she glanced up. Malcom reached down and picked her up by the hair.
“Stay out of it,” he growled.
Then he flung her against the seats and was about to do her in when Casanova stepped between them and offloaded a few punches into his ribs. Malcom turned back to Casanova to deal with him but buckled slightly as Jinx stomped him in the back of the knee.
As the two wailed on him, Malcom adjusted – eyes spreading further apart to accommodate a wider field of vision, and muscle mass decreasing to enable improved flexibility and speed. Casanova, coughing blood into his face, was already severely weakened, so Malcom simply kicked him in the kneecap. There was a satisfying crack as the leg broke and bent back like a V. Seizing his throat once more, Malcom threw him across the cart and swung around to face Jinx. He stopped her mid-punch with one hand and smiled, before ripping her arm clean out of its socket. She screamed. Dark fluid squirted out of her shoulder, and he grabbed her other arm.
“Stop!”
He paused to look back.
Casanova was crumpled on the floor, bloody and wounded and crying.
“Stop, please,” his words came through gritted teeth. “We can’t beat you so just put me out of my misery, but don’t hurt her anymore. Please, just promise me for old time’s sake, that you’ll get her out of here alive. You killed my wife once already, so at least do me this one favour.”
He fell forward, pressing his forehead to the floor.
“Please,” he sobbed, “I’m begging.
29
Dead Man Walking
Malcom’s body began to shrink down, reverting to its original size. He shook his head disdainfully, not taking his eyes off Casanova.
“You serious? You’re willing to give up your life for hers? You really have gone back to being a blue pill, beta male even after all you’ve been through. The hell is wrong with you? You’ve seen firsthand these women don’t really love us – they just love what we can do for them, and once we’re not useful anymore they trade us in for a man who can do better. Can’t you see this one’s just using you to help her accomplish her goals? How many times do you have to keep learning this lesson, man?”
Casanova forced a laugh.
“Yeah, I guess you were right all along. I was just one blowjob away from going back to being a beta male provider.”
“But I’ve shown you, man! These whores ain’t nothing but parasites.”
“I don't believe that anymore,” Casanova wheezed. “It’s not bad women that are the problem – it’s bad people. Bad women and bad men that use and abuse each other. And I let myself become one of those people. I should’ve never allowed some slut from my past to change who I am in the first place… Jinx isn’t like that, she helped me find the real me again – my morals – made me understand why I once believed in love and commitment. I’m tired of this hook up culture, man. It’s unhealthy and I’m done with it.”
He turned his head to look at Jinx and smiled. “At the end of the day we still have to try, no matter how much the game’s rigged against us. Like with anything else, you just try to make the best choice and then do your best to make it work.”
“That’s beautiful, man. Spoken like a true fruitcake.”
“I think you of all people know exactly what I’m talking about. Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where you could trust your girl and know that she won’t run off with your best friend?”
Malcom immediately shot him three times about the body and he screamed out in pain. Jinx struggled to get away and go over to him, but Malcom trained his gun on her.
“Don’t do that, sweetheart, the men are talking.”
Casanova chimed in, “It’s fine. Stay where you are, baby. I’m dead anyway.”
Then holding up a hand to signal his defeat, said, “You’re right, that was out of line.”
Malcom’s fingers twiddled over the trigger.
“And –” Casanova continued quickly, “I’m sorry. I never appreciated what you did for me back then with my wife, and even though I still think you were wrong to take that choice out of my hands, I get it. You were just looking out for me in your own way and how I reacted wasn’t right. But right now, you have to understand that I made the choice to be the man I was before and stay committed to Jinx. I want her to be safe.”
When he was finished, Malcom stared at him for a while and nobody made a sound. Then he cracked a smile and picked his way over the hole in the train to Casanova’s side.
“God damn, that’s why I love you, man. I never told you that I love you before, but it’s true. When I saw how committed you were to your marriage and the way you put up with shit for the good of the family, it really left an impression on me. Made me respect you. I used to think, if every man in this world acted like you, maybe kids like us wouldn’t be sold off like meat. If we had strong men who were willing to step up and take responsibility, know what I mean? It was what I admired about you even when the other guys looked down on you – the way you were willing to take all that shit from them and still stay loyal to your values. It takes a lot of strength to do that.”
He paused and his voice took a hard tone. “But then I lost that respect because men who sleep with married or taken women are part of the problem. If men were more selective about the women they slept with and had discipline and principles then things would be different. No woman would dare leave a man to ruin her reputation if she knew all men would judge her for it. But what you did? Only weak men do what you did. I would’ve respected you more if you’d just killed the whore, but you chose to sleep with her, and that’s plain disrespectful. Only females make those kind of under-the-belt moves. And they do it ’cause they’re powerless and weak. I could never respect a man like that.”
He glanced back at where he’d left Jinx. “But I do respect you owning up to your beta male role and going down dying still believing in love and marriage. That’s a man with morals – a man I can respect and lay my life down for ’cause he sticks to what he believes in.”
It seemed for a brief moment to Casanova, that Malcom just might be persuaded to their side. He regretted thinking so hopefully once Malcom looked back at him wearing a cold expression. Apparently his speech wasn’t over.
“But even though I respect you, bro, I have a job to do. So it’s like I said before: the only way you and your woman are getting out of this is dead.”
With those words, he cocked his gun.
30
Dead or Alive
At the starport, several hundred clone soldiers waited alongside several hundred more enhanced supersoldiers in a barricade at the entrance. Above them, the combined drone of over a dozen war copters coated the air with noise. Each kept a yellow spotlight aimed at the train stop as they circled like metal flies. Leading the battalion of soldiers was the very same commander Malcom had earlier saved. He was out of his bionic suit and donned a Milantran military uniform in its place, pacing and growling beneath his breath at the front of the line. This was Milantra and he was a commander – the culprits couldn’t really think they would outmanoeuvre them.
Then coming up fast from a distance, the screech of brakes cut through the hum of propellers and the runaway subway cart pulled to a stop under a wash of artificial lights. The commander ran up, eyes opened wide and lips peeled back in a smirk, as it came to a full stop. He raised his arm in a silent signal for his troops to take aim.
As the sliding doors pushed to either side, a pre-recorded voice bid all passengers to ‘Watch your step upon disembarking, and please enjoy your day!’.
No light strips inside the cart seemed to be operational, and as the commander peered inside, a prickle of unease crawled over his skin.
He cleared his throat – a bit too conspicuously, so that his ears and cheeks went red in embarrassment.
“Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands in the air! Failure to comply will result in your immediate termination!”
Silence whispered over the platform even under the roar of the war copters. Some of the soldiers shifted and coughed behind him. Just when the lack of response was getting unbearable, out of the darkness of the cart, someone came flying out. The limp body hit the floor and rolled up just short of the commander’s shoes, like an old mannequin being tossed out by a store owner on closing day. The commander tensed.
Casanova lay lifeless, illuminated at the centre of a golden halo as if he had transcended the human form and become a spirit creature. Before anyone could take a breath, the second body dropped beside the first – the woman he had been running with.
At the sight of their mangled remains, the commander felt his top lip curl in disgust. Backing away from the corpses quickly, he confirmed their identities from a few feet away. All the while, images of the team he had led to their deaths flickered in his mind, bringing the sour taste of bile to the back of his throat.
He had never seen a dead body before today.
Now he had seen more than his fair share of spilled guts, burnt flesh, and crushed bones. But for some reason, he was relieved. The ordeal was finally over. He had brought the criminals to justice and would still be promoted in the morning.
A concise motion to some of his men to take the bodies away brought them jogging over in a neat line, but before anyone could touch the bodies, the darkness in the subway cart seemed to speak.
It was a low, patient voice that froze everyone in their tracks. “Hands off.”
A figure moved in the shadows, and a man built like a horse, stepped out into the glare of the choppers. He reached up to remove a burning cigar from his mouth and sighed, letting a fat cloud of dense smoke billow out. Strolling up to the commander, he cracked a sideways smile and said, “Remember me, buddy? I’m the guy that saved your damsel-in-distress ass. Sorry to bust your bubble, but you can’t have these two; their bodies are GTF property.”
The commander’s mouth flapped open and closed in shock before he regained his composure.
“Tho – those are criminals!” he stuttered.
“Wrong. These are the enhanced bodies of two criminals, which represent a significant investment to very large corporations, not to mention the many copyright protections within them. Now I’m sure you know that in situations where we’re talking about multimillion-credit investments, I have all the authority.”
“Yes, well...” he fumbled, looking around at the soldiers’ confused faces.
He raised his voice loud enough for those around him to hear. “Very well, I officially transfer all rights of these criminals to you via Act 40, Passage 1 of the Galactic Code of Law, and leave this to you, officer – uh?”
“Malcom.”
Malcom looked down at the bodies strewn crudely at their feet and shook his head.
“I told you to just sit back and let me handle them. Maybe if you had, none of your men would have died back there.”
“Yes,” the commander said, too ashamed to speak above a whisper now. “I should have listened. Because of me several good men are...”
“Dead?” Malcom shrugged. “Don’t beat yourself up too hard, Commander. Men die all the time. Whether at a thousand years or at ten, we all die at some point. And everyone knows the risks that come with these types of jobs. At least this city can say it only had its first terrorist attack in thousands of years, but other places aren’t that lucky. For some, that kinda thing’s part of daily life. You can put your team’s death down to the fact that you weren’t equipped for this level of violence.”
The commander looked like a defeated man.
“I see,” he said. “You must have seen a lot of this kind of thing before.”
Malcom pulled a long, hard drag of his smoke as if in deep thought, then slowly breathed it out his nose.
“More than I care for.”
“I feel sorry for you.”
Malcom stared at him before flicking the butt of his cigar away.
“You should.”
Then he hoisted the bodies, each one over a broad shoulder, and walked off.
31
Armistice
Customs was quick. Malcom had simply flashed his badge and was promptly escorted to where he had docked his ship. Stepping on-board, the ship came out of hibernation upon instant full-body DNA recognition.
“Computer, prep the engines for lift and send a message to command informing them that the target has been neutralised and the mission was successful.”
He slumped into the captain’s chair and continued, “And bring Rejuvenation Chamber Number Two, online.”
“Are you serious?” a computerised female voice snorted in surround sound. “You didn’t even ask if the plan worked.”
“Also fetch me a beer – I need one,” Malcom waved a hand dismissively.
