Kill Switch_Serial Escalation Page 16

  “We’ve had a couple of skirmishes without payoff, Rick, but no sign of a mid-game lull this season!” One of the commentators said.

  “Contestants just can’t wait to see what surprises we’ve got waiting for them in the third act endgame, Fred!” The other replied, “Santa Muerte and Priest showed Runner and T-Bone West some bad religion!”

  “I think that’s what you call going Old Testament, Rick.” The said, “Turns out great white sharks like their T-Bones extra-rare! Meanwhile, Yoyo and Mark Rizzio had a chance to try off their shiny new toy but Southpaw and Thao Seong turned out to be too tough for them and Rizzio’s come out of that with one less kneecap.”

  “Southpaw and Seong now making a beeline for the New Detroit main police station, still inside the walls of the arena.” The second commentator said, “It’s a little late for them to be turning themselves in now, Fred.”

  “Seems Thao Seong is still having an identity crisis and his memories haven’t returned from that adverse reaction to some of the drugs he was given, Rick.” The first man said, “Don’t know if he’s going to like what he finds out! Seems we have a blackout in the building and no cameras on them, so we’ll just have to wait to find out.”

  “Be a shame if something were to happen in the meantime, like one of the other teams setting up an ambush, Fred.” The other replied.

  Baxter Webley / Reaper

  Billy Blight / Wing Chun

  Church Harper / Jeannie St Sunshine

  Donna Pardee / Raptor Rawlins

  Drago Vorobyov / Wolf Hutchins

  Drake Mooney / Billy-Bob Boomer

  Francois Connard / Neena Twist

  Jacob Schmidt / Pedro de la Mar

  Layla Jackson / Thao Seong

  Q. Chrissie / Maurice Lester

  Santa Muerte / Priest

  T-Bone West / Runner

  Titama / Anaconda

  Ursula Paxton / Dogboy

  Yoyo Yokatomi / Mark Rizzio

  With a pop, a section of the wall near Baxter’s medpod hissed open. Hanging inside was a suit and shirt identical to the one Baxter had been given at the beginning of the game. Right hand whirring softly, Baxter stripped the rags off his flabby body.

  Madness started to glow in Baxter’s eyes as he got dressed again. He’d wanted nothing more than to be severed from the game and escape on his own, terrified of the other contestants. But after wandering aimlessly he’d come to think there might be a better way. Baxter suddenly felt a deep and spiritual connection with the tall and attractive, heavily muscled soldier with the prosthetic arm called Layla ‘Southpaw’ Jackson. Tapping his own new arm, he hovered over her profile. The darkness in Baxter’s chest rose, filling him with bloodlust.

  Baxter’s twin drones circled overhead. The medpod, its lid closed again, let out a loud crack as a fire started in its circuitry and exploded through the casing. Picking up his short vibroblade sword, Baxter felt it hum in his left fist. Now that he no longer needed it he left the arm he’d severed from Dogboy behind next to the burning medpod along with the rags of his original clothes.

  “I’m coming for you, baby.” Baxter said.

  xXx

  After their run-in with the fake supply bag full of tiny robots, Titama and Anaconda were still moving but being extra wary. Buildings that looked like they were struggling to stay upright and crooked alleyways stretched away to either side of them. The middle of the road had been cleared but the sides were littered with battered vehicles. They were covered in rubble and dust. Titama and Anaconda had to keep moving to keep ahead of the map updates and the other teams. Their camera drones bobbed along behind them, rotors whirring. Santa Muerte and Priest had been close behind them but they’d been drawn off toward a weapon drop after dealing with Runner and T-Bone.

  Titama carried her long-handled sledgehammer easily. Anaconda had the strap of his M249 machine gun hooked over one of his broad shoulders, the canvas box of ammunition under the weapon jostling. One of his big hands was wrapped around the machine gun’s hilt. Anaconda’s finger was quivering around the trigger, ready to fire.

  “Bro, I’m telling you, they’ve got us running around like rats in a maze down here, right?” Anaconda said, “After that whole supply bag thing? You know, they’re running the show, they’re ten stops ahead, bro, and they’re going to do whatever they want to us.”

  “I’m not your bro, don’t call me bro, mate.” Titama said.

  “I’m just saying-, that car over there, that could turn into a killer robot soon as we walk past it. They could flood the whole arena with poison gas if they wanted. They could, fucking-, I don’t know, the ads said there would be an Abomination Round, what the fuck could that even mean?” Anaconda said.

  Suddenly, a small object came sailing from out of the air. Titama clocked its ridged, olive sides and recognised the object as an old-fashioned grenade. It had been thrown from the cover of a nearby building. Having seen the earlier updates, broadcasting earlier kills, Titama knew Church Harper had used the same kind of grenade on Billy-Bob Boomer and Drake Mooney.

  “Move it, it’s Church Harper!” Titama yelled.

  The grenade landed in the middle of the street, bouncing and skittering on the cracked asphalt. Titama threw herself sideways. The heavily muscled Anaconda moved awkwardly after his partner. Titama was also built like a weightlifter but she was faster and more lithe, and she threaded between two of the wrecked cars. Anaconda hit the ground and scrambled for cover, clutching the M249 to his chest. Behind them, the grenade exploded. Shrapnel ripped apart the vehicles to either side of the road and broke windows in the surrounding buildings as the eruption deafened them both. The shockwave seemed to roll across the empty city.

  “What the fuck, bro?” Anaconda said.

  Anaconda had narrowly avoided injury by diving between the bumpers of two parked cars and his head rang. He grabbed the sidewalk and dragged himself upright. Titama was crouched down, using the engine block of another vehicle for cover.

  A second grenade rattled down the sidewalk, rolling end over end toward them. The first grenade had just been a distraction and the second was meant to maim them. It tumbled to a stop in a perfect position between Titama and Anaconda, ripe with destructive potential. Titama’s eyes widened and she lashed out, using her sledgehammer like an extension of her own arm. The blocky head of the hammer connected with the grenade perfectly and sent it spinning back in the direction it had come. Halfway back down the block, the second grenade exploded as well. It landed underneath an old catering van and ripped the vehicle in two, scattering pieces in all directions while Titama and Anaconda took refuge from the shrapnel. Smoke from both explosions filled the street and billowed between the surrounding buildings.

  Coat furling behind him, Church Harper moved out from the entry of the apartment building where he’d been hidden. He raised his SPAS-12 shotgun and fired, cycling through shells. Shot tore through the vehicles surrounding Titama and Anaconda, leaving massive, jagged holes scattered across their sides. His face was set in grim determination.

  “Fuck you, Harper!” Titama yelled.

  For gangs like the one Titama used to belong to, Church Harper was the bogeyman. He was a vigilante who killed without expectation of reward or any reason except a twisted view of justice. Titama had seen him on the earlier season of Slayerz when he had been a contestant. He ambushed his human prey and wiped them out with overwhelming force. Titama and Anaconda took cover between the abandoned vehicles down the side of the road. Anaconda went to bring his weapon to bear but he moved awkwardly with the big gun.

  Suddenly, a lance of boiling light ripped through the rooftops of the vehicles surrounding Titama and Anaconda. Jeannie St Sunshine moved across the street from Church. The pulse cannon she was carrying was smoking, the body of the bulky weapon encompassing half of her arm. She fired again and a perfect hole was blown through the car between Titama and Anaconda, the beam creating a blasted crater in the sidewalk. The young girl struggled unde
r the weight of the arm cannon, stumbling into the road.

  “What are you doing? Get back to your hiding place!” Church said.

  “No, I know what I’m doing now! I can help you.” Jeannie said.

  They could try to retreat back the way they had come but Titama knew the best defence was a good offence. Running at Church, Titama darted onto the sidewalk. She swung around with her sledgehammer and pitched the weapon out in front of her. While Church was still distracted the sledgehammer crashed into his SPAS-12 and wrenched it out of his hands. Numbness travelled up Church’s right arm from the blow. Titama closed the distance between them, sprinting toward him with her head and shoulders tucked low.

  Titama slammed into Church, her tackle lifting the big man off his feet. Her momentum carried him through the air for several metres before they crashed to the hard concrete together. The breath was knocked out of Church’s body. Church immediately fought back as Titama clamoured up his body, wedging his legs against Titama’s pelvis and shoving her backward. Titama swung wildly at Church’s head. She was younger and faster, potentially stronger, but Church had more experience and training. He grabbed her by the wrist in both hands and twisted, painfully locking up her arm, and then swung her around with his legs as well, driving her into the sidewalk.

  “The girl! Get the girl!” Titama yelled.

  Church tried to pull Titama’s heavily muscled and tattooed arm around behind her shoulder. Anaconda stumbled to his feet, lugging his machine gun around his shoulders. He and Jeannie eyed each other from both sides of the road. Jeannie looked like a deer caught in the headlamps.

  “Run!” Church yelled.

  Anaconda shimmied between the cars he and Titama had taken cover behind, now blasted from the grenades and from Jeannie’s arm cannon. Jeannie stumbled back and started running. Carting the hefty arm cannon, she ran toward the nearest alleyway. Anaconda ignored the strap of the machine gun bouncing up and down on his shoulders and took off after her.

  Church tried to get on top of Titama, the vigilante shoving the untattooed half of the young woman’s face into the pavement while she snarled in frustration. Thrashing like a fish, Titama brought her legs around with a powerful kick. They connected with the back of Church’s knee and nearly knocked the leg out from under him. His grip loosened enough that Titama was able to wiggle free. Her left shoulder throbbed but she climbed onto her knees and swung around with her right fist. Church was knocked even further off-balance and Titama grabbed him by the front of his long, leather coat. Titama picked him up and flipped him, hurling the big man onto the sidewalk as well as if he weighed almost nothing. Church’s SPAS-12 and Titama’s sledgehammer had both fallen not far away. Titama started toward them but then one of Church’s hands grabbed her by the face and yanked her back. She slammed an elbow into his collar and the two of them fell to the ground, wrestling.

  “You came at us, motherfucker! You came at us, I didn’t want to tangle with none of you! I didn’t want to hurt the kid! It’s on you now!” Titama said.

  Jeannie raced into the wide mouth of a passage between two buildings. Trash and rubble along with a couple of old dumpsters filled the thoroughfare where even the weak light of the sky overhead couldn’t reach. Jeannie’s mind was on carrying her heavy pulse cannon and on escaping. The silvery thread of a tripwire ran from wall to wall just inside the entrance to the alley but Jeannie failed to even notice. Luckily, she ran right over the top of the wire and missed it. She continued to negotiate her way around the dumpsters and piles of old garbage with Anaconda close behind her.

  Anaconda sprinted into the alley, rebounding off the corner near the entrance. As he followed Jeannie, one of his boots tangled in the silvery tripwire. The wire came loose and snapped around his ankle.

  “What the-, fuck?” Anaconda said.

  A landmine exploded out of the rubble halfway down the alleyway. Unfortunately for Jeannie it appeared almost directly in front of her, almost clipping her as it whirled straight up until it was hovering in mid-air. The mine was designed like an old-fashioned Bouncing Betty, intended to erupt with shrapnel in all directions and cause maximum havoc, but higher tech. The size of a trashcan lid, it hung there, whining, with its sides bristling with tiny saw-toothed spikes before exploding.

  Realising what he’d done, Anaconda threw himself sideways beside one of the hulking dumpsters. Jeannie was almost frozen in fear and confusion but at the last nanosecond, ducked. Rather than try to run, Jeannie dived into the crater directly beneath the hovering object. With a screaming noise, the landmine exploded with rows and rows of flechettes in a 360-degree arc. It continued to do so as it fell from the air again. The heaps of old garbage bags and other trash surrounding the landmine were shredded beyond recognition. The tiny spikes hit the walls of the alleyway and ricocheted at crazy angles, filling the alley from end to end with flying death. The only safe space was in the small crater that Jeannie had nestled into. Behind the dumpster, Anaconda cowered into as small a ball as he could make himself and covered his face but even so he was still struck by half a dozen ricochets, drawing blood or embedding themselves shallowly in his flesh and body armour. Expended, the landmine crashed back to earth. Jeannie let out a short scream as the emptied but still heavy mine landed on top of her.

  “This place sucks!” Anaconda said.

  Anaconda pulled one of the small barbs out of his upper arm where it had impaled the body of the snake tattoo crossing one of his bulging biceps. As he did, it triggered a sense memory of pulling a similarly sized thorn from out of his forearm, back in his old, unremembered life. He’d been tending to a patch of genetically engineered rose vines. They were used by rich people as a deterrent to intruders wrapped around the walls of their estates, vines of impossibly gorgeous and velvety red roses, or roses of any other colour desired, hiding curved and wickedly sharp thorns that cut through flesh like razor blades.

  Down the alleyway, Jeannie St Sunshine was still crying out and struggling. Needing to concentrate on the present, Anaconda shook the memory away and hurriedly picked himself up along with his SAW M249.

  Bruised, Jeannie had struggled to get out from under the expended landmine but her arm cannon was still pinned to the ground underneath it. Her eyes widened in terror as she saw Anaconda approaching. He aimed his machine gun at her head, finger hovering over the trigger. His partner was still out on the street fighting with Church Harper, and Anaconda knew every second counted. Looking into the young girl’s eyes though, Anaconda couldn’t bring himself to do it. Tears streamed down Jeannie’s face.

  “P-please, I’m sorry! I don’t know why I’m even here, I can’t remember anything!” Jeannie said.

  “You don’t? I-, don’t remember anything either.” Anaconda said, “Let go of the gun, and get up.”

  Across the road from the alleyway, Titama and Church had heard the whining explosion of the landmine but hadn’t let it distract them. Neither could gain the upper hand in their fight. Titama wrapped her thick legs around Church’s midsection to try and gain some leverage. Her fists hammered his face. Church picked the Maori woman up, however, and pounded her into the sidewalk again, both collapsing into a pile of wrestling limbs. Suddenly, Anaconda’s machine gun roared and bullets thundered into the wall above the two of them, creating a cloud of dust. The two of them broke apart, not sure whether to seek cover.

  “Cut it out! It’s over, I’ve got your partner!” Anaconda said.

  Anaconda levelled his machine gun at Jeannie’s head again. Without her arm cannon, Jeannie was wringing her hands together and sobbing as the frizzy bundles of hair on top of her head shook.

  “Stand up! Put your hands on your head or-, three, two-,” Anaconda said.

  Reluctantly, Church Harper stood up, raising his hands, and then laced his fingers across the back of his head. A purplish bruise was already starting to swell under his left eye. His expression was mostly stoic but burned with anger. Titama scrambled upright. Darting away from Church, Titam
a ran to where both of their weapons had fallen and picked up Church’s SPAS-12 shotgun. She aimed it at the man’s head as she straightened to her full height.

  “Good job, now we could waste them both at the same time.” Titama panted.

  “Don’t miss.” Church said.

  “No! No, I don’t-, I might not remember who I am but I’m not a killer! I don’t want to hurt anyone unless they don’t give me any other choice.” Anaconda said, “I just-, why don’t we just take their weapons and let them go, they won’t mess with us again.”

  “Are you kidding me? Do you even know who this guy is? He’s a former champion, he’s too dangerous to leave alive!” Titama said, “The girl is just collateral damage, that’s life.”

  “Wait, wait.” Church said, “What do you mean you don’t remember who you are?”

  “Just what I said, I don’t remember anything. They said I had-, like, a bad reaction to some drugs, bro.” Anaconda said, “Just some-, like, flashes of stuff here and there.”

  “Because the same thing happened to her.” Church said.

  Church’s hands were still glued to the back of his head but he gestured toward Jeannie. Jeanne St Sunshine nodded frantically at Titama.

  “It’s true! I’m not really a bad person, I’m not meant to be here! At least-, I don’t think I am.” Jeannie said.

  “I know, she told me back there in the alley.” Anaconda said.

  “So, what? Why should we give a shit?” Titama said.

  “So, what if they’re both right? And they’re not meant to be in here?” Church said.

  “Shut up, you’re just saying whatever you need to save your arse.” Titama said.

  Titama ratcheted the pump action on Church’s SPAS-12. None of the others moved. Smoke still filled the street from the grenades with the camera drones circling overhead.

  “Thought of dying never bothered me much before, but you know who I am. You know what I do.” Church said, “I kill pushers, pimps, hired killers and thugs, murderers, no innocents.”