Toxicity (47 page)

What are you thinking about?
came the suspicious voice of
Renazzi Lode.

Nothing.

You sure?

Oh, yes.

Shit. Great. Bastard. Bitch! Just
what he needed. It was one thing to go on a terrible mission; another to go on
a terrible mission with your throat half-ripped out. But to have your boss in
your head as you did it? It was the ultimate in managerial observation tools,
and to be fair to Renazzi Lode, it was used in many a “profession” where a boss
might want to keep
a very close eye
on an employee. LET US FUCK WITH
YOUR EMPLOYEES, went the marketing slogan for iSPY, the “spying solution for
all managerial needs.” LET’S WATCH THEM TOGETHER! LET’S SEE WHAT THEY GET UP
TO! LET’S CHECK THEY DO THEIR JOB PROPERLY! LET’S REMOVE THEIR MOTIVATION,
CREATIVITY, AND INDIVIDUALITY AND SHOW THEM THE LACK OF RESPECT THEY DESERVE.
THE FUCKERS.

Randy had added that last bit
himself.

Randy had a friend who’d been a
teacher. Damn good at his job, teaching at the New Space Academy in London,
Earth. The kids loved him, and he loved his job. And one day some engineers had
arrived, just as he was teaching
Astro Macbeth,
and installed video
surveillance equipment in his classroom, much to the amusement of his pupils -
until he pointed out to them that they wouldn’t be able to get up to any
mischief either.

After the lesson, he visited the
Head. This was how the conversation went:

“What’s with the video
surveillance equipment?”

“That would be for your own
protection.”

“How so?”

“In case anything happens in the
classroom.”

“Such as?”

“A pupil attacking you.” Mr Bob,
for ‘twas his name, looked down at himself. He was six foot five inches, and
used to play quarter back for the London Olympic Stags.

“I’ve never been attacked.”

“You might.”

“What you mean to say is, ‘it’s
there to protect the kids.’ Go on. What have I done that you don’t trust me any
longer?”

“Nothing. It’s just a
surveillance measure.”

“But I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

It was actually a valid question,
and Mr Bob had to search inside himself for a long, long time to find the
answer. “It’s about freedom,” he said. “It’s about trust. It’s about
professionalism. It’s about stress. It’s about permission.” He shrugged. “You’ve
read Orwell, right?”

“Wasn’t he that corrupt
politician?”

“No. Look, I just want it noted
that I don’t like it, okay?”

“Your comments have been duly
registered, Mr Bob.”

Mr Bob left, muttering, and spent
the next month being watched 24/7. And he proved that he was indeed
trustworthy, and professional, and honourable, and that his lessons were great
fun and his relationship with the kids provided for lots of learning. But iSPY
had just developed
their new managerial monitoring system,
the FU-ckU/
vl.2. Mr Bob had it installed in his head. And for two weeks, all day, every
day, Mr Bob had his boss in his head
with him
during every single
lesson, offering a constant stream of advice, tweaking his performance and
offering constant and permanent happy appraisal! It was a manager’s wet dream.
And better than reality TV.

After two weeks, Mr Bob walked in
the Head’s office, fired up a set of petrol hedge-clippers on the third pull of
the starter-cord, and, amidst accelerating shouts of panic and alarm, proceeded
to trim the head’s hair. From the neck up.

Randy had visited him in the
clink. “They pushed me too far,” moaned Mr Bob, head in his hands. And Randy
had made soothing noises, but now, finally, he knew how Mr Bob had felt.
You
don’t get the best results from fucking over your staff! You don’t get superior
performance by shitting on those below you! Just... leave them alone to do
their fucking jobs!

And now. Oh, the irony.

Did you hear that?

What?

The scream? Frustration?

Randy narrowed his eyes, and he
wanted
to think to himself - I’ll show you frustration when I see you again,
bitch. I’ll shove this pistol sideways up your arse! But he knew he could not.
She was crawling inside his head like an electric ant, poking into every tiny
place, into every orifice. He could feel her scratching across the outer
surface of his brain. He could feel her raping through his memories. It hurt
him. Hurt him more than the hole in his throat. Hurt him more than his
lost-then-badly-rebuilt face.

Dammit!

Go on, up ahead. Move fast,
now...

Renazzi... please... give me some
mental space! You’re sending me mad!

Meaning?
He could not believe how frosty
the words were as they tumbled over themselves in his skull. And now her anger
came. Now, her rage. It pounded the inside of his brain like an enraged tomcat
trying to escape from inside a dustbin.

I need you out! Out of my fucking
skull! What do you hope to achieve? What do you get out of giving me this
little hit more torture? Do you think I’ll
thank
you for it? Do you think I’ll buy you
chocolates and an expensive fizzy wine?

No. But
I
will give you
this...

The mental blast slammed Randy,
and now it was his turn to scream. He could not lift his arms up to grasp his
head, such were the confines of his entrapment, but if he could have, he would.

Panting, and drooling, his throat
a raw agony, head pounding, face a constant burning field of napalm, Randy
Zaglax struggled on through the narrow tube, struggled on, squirming and
fighting his way forward in search of Jenny...

Good boy,
chuckled Renazzi.

~ * ~

WHY
DO YOU hate your father?

Oh, well, that’s a long story. A
complicated story.

Well, why do you hate your
brother?

Longer. More complicated. More
savage.

And your mother?

Poor dead mother. Don’t cry for
me, darling.

And... your sister.

Nixa? Poor sweet dead Nixa. I’ll
cry for you, honey. We’ll all cry for you.

~ * ~

AND
AGAIN.

Why do you hate your father?

Oh, well, that’s a long story. A
complicated story.

Why do you hate him?

I hate him because...

Go on. Explain it to me. Was it
because of the drink? The womanising? More drink? The whiskey bottle,
constantly stuck to his lips like a baby bottle? He’d glug it down, couldn’t
get enough, stagger down the middle of the road with groundcars swerving around
him, then fall over outside his own house, piss in his pants, sleep on the
concrete. Isn’t that right? ISN’T THAT RIGHT?

Nixa. You came back.

Why do you hate him, Jenny?

I hate him because he died. I
hate him because he left me. I hate him because... I love him so much.

~ * ~

JENNY
HELD HIS hand. It was warm. Too warm. Warm with the fever. She looked down into
his eyes. They were watering, and weak, so unlike the strength he had once
shown. Strength, and a love for his country. His world. Amaranth. Beautiful
Amaranth...

“I want... to say. Something.”

She looked down with pity, and
her own tears fell into his eyes. They shared an intimacy that only incoming
death can bring. A total intimacy that made a mockery of words.

“Of course,” she whispered, her
lips trembling with fear; because it was Old Tom, her father, her dad, the man
who held her in his arms when she was frightened, the man whom she snuggled up
to, smelling of tobacco and whiskey, his whiskers rasping against her skin and
making her squeal. And he was as big as a giant, bigger than God; bigger than
the world. Swimming in the sea, he supported her weight and stopped her sinking
under the waves. In the woods, he pushed branches out of her way and lifted her
over fallen trunks. When riding her bike he was there, holding the saddle and
laughing as she weaved a random track, learning her balance. But he was always
there. To stop the fall.

How could he die?

How?

“I love you, Jenny. You know
that, don’t you? I’ve always loved you. Ever since I held you as a babe. I
couldn’t cut the cord - you know that? The midwives laughed at me. I said I was
frightened of hurting you.” He started to cough, and endured a savage coughing
fit. She held a handkerchief to his mouth. It came away with spots of blood.

She held his hand. It was huge.
How could a man with such huge, strong hands die? It was impossible. They were
wrong. The doctors had to be wrong. After all, what did they know?

“I want you to promise me
something,” he said. His eyes were distant. Milky. Dreaming.

“Anything. Anything at all.”

“I want you to save Amaranth.
Save our world. Make it green again.”

“I will. I promise.”

Old Tom smiled then. And his eyes
closed. And he died.

~ * ~

“I
WILL. I promise.”

Jenny opened her eyes. She was
shivering. Freezing cold, fingers and toes frozen and stiff. Something smelled funny.
Something smelled...
bad.
And then she realised. She knew the scent.
Knew that scent more than her own. It was Randy Zaglax, the pampered poodle
without a face. She should have known. He’d spent enough hours trying to smooch
up to her with the sole intention of getting her into bed. Now, the only bed
she’d be willing to share would be a coffin.

She started forward again, and
then froze as fingers closed around her ankle.

“Gotcha,” he said.

She lifted her knee, and drove
her free foot as hard as she could into his patchwork face. There came a breaking
sound, and Randy screamed, long and loud. She stomped him again. He screamed
again. It gave her some small satisfaction.

Jenny scrambled forward as fast
as she could, pistol still gripped tight in one chilled hand, claustrophobia a
cold dark mistress in her chest. Her mouth was full of her panicked heart.

“I’m going to kill you, whore!”
shrieked Randy. He fired his own pistol, and a bullet whined and whizzed up the
tube. It hissed past Jenny so close she felt the spin and heat of the bullet.
This sent another burst of panic firing through her. How many shots would it
take in such a confined space to hit her?

Another shot whined past,
bouncing from the inside of the tube and sending sparks shrieking.

Jenny was sobbing now, and she
stopped, and tried to focus. She rolled onto her back, opened her legs in a
most undignified posture, and pointed the gun, like a black metal dick, and
fired from her own crotch into the darkness of the tunnel.

There was a pause, and a
slap,
and Randy started screaming, screaming so long and hard that Jenny thought
her ears would bleed. She scrambled along again, arms and legs, elbows and
knees raw and scraped and bruised and battered - and suddenly the ground seemed
to give way, and Jenny was falling amidst a tumble of what felt like
polystyrene planks.