[Danny]

second to last post...

CHAPTER 33

The Magog Cartel has always been extremely good at punishments. The Glukkons have always treated the Vykkers’ latest devices with extreme relish. You could say they have a flare for it. A morbid talent. They even make their own improvements to the Vykker-designed torture racks on occasion, when the originals are judged to be not painful enough, or causing death too quickly. It was two such racks that me and Yan were now affixed to. There was a lot of activity around us, but I blocked it out as best I could, trying my hardest to release the part of me that could save us, even if it meant surrendering to the darkness within me.

My body went numb, as it usually did. Unlike usual, however, I did not launch straight into the attack. I listened to the seemingly far-away activity, and felt what was happening to me, and judged when the moment would come. This kind of cooperation between my rational conscious mind and the irrational killer that was the Other part of me was unheard-of, but could hardly be a bad thing.

I struck. A slig was strapping one of my arms down, while an intern was fitting the pain enhancers to my skull. I swung my arm, catching the slig across the face. At the same time, I pushed my head up fast, headbutting the intern off-balance, while I tore away the straps on my other limbs. As the slig raised his fist, I tore the pain enhancers from my head and, as I caught his fist, I applied them to his head, turning the gain up to full. I punched him lightly, and the immense pain fried his brain. Unfortunately, this drew the attention of the pair who were engaged with Yan, as well as the pair of guards at the door, who readied their weapons. The Glukkon supervisor squinted in our direction.

“What’s goin’ on?”

I threw a scalpel with the kind of pinpoint accuracy that would never have been possible when I was in my right mind, and it embedded in the glukkon’s eye socket, causing him to go down, his screams mixing with those of the slig.

Reaching down, I snatched up a length of strap that had been tying me down, and threw it around the intern’s neck. As it struggled to remove the choking material, I swung it over my head, impaling it on a large electrical skewer, whose purpose I can only guess at. As I pressed the green button on the machine, the intern’s skin began to melt and char, and its body withered into a dry husk.

I didn’t stop to watch this, for there was a hail of bullets from the doorguards. Swinging myself off my rack, I pushed it across the floor towards the door. The guards leapt out of the way, but the poor glukkon wasn’t so fortunate, and was buried beneath a heap of torture equipment, and the exchange bought me valuable time. I ran towards Yan’s bed. The slig and intern that had been working on him fled to the safety of behind mine, where the guards were now sheltering. Hurriedly, I untied the listless Yan and overturned his bed, to use as shelter from bullets.

My mind was racing, trying to think of the best way out of this. This hadn’t happened before; I usually operated purely on instinct at this point. I hoped it was a good sign, that I was learning to control my dark side, but it didn’t help me in my immediate situation.

My eyes fell on a rack of test tubes lying on the floor where they’d been flung. I recognised several toxic gases from when I’d worked for Zell. But I couldn’t use them, because then we’d be trapped in here, blocked from the doorway by the fumes. Then I noticed one tube that had a different label to the others. I racked my brains to think what it was, and then I remembered. Kristogen. Poisonous to sligs, but not mudokons. I wasn’t sure of its effect on interns, but it was our best bet on evening the odds. I threw it over the bed, towards our tormentors. For a moment, nothing happened, but then I saw wisps of bluish gas rising towards the ceiling, and the gunfire ceased. I cautiously stood.

I saw the three sligs curled into foetal positions on the floor, convulsing. The intern was crouched among them, seemingly trying to work out how to operate one of their rifles. I ran up to the intern, snatched the rifle from it, pointing it at him. My finger squeezed the trigger, but stopped. I motioned to it to stand.

“Do you understand me?”

I reined in my dark side, trying to box it away again, but it seemed reluctant to go away, even more than before. I didn’t consider it important. I knew how to control it now, and I didn’t need to bottle it up.

The intern nodded.

“Now, you’re going to lead us to the Flyer hangar, as if you were escorting us to be tortured. If you take us there, and do not give us away, I will let you live. Okay?”

The intern’s eyes narrowed, but it nodded.

“It’s alright, Yan, you can come out.”

Yan emerged from behind the bed. “What do we do now?”

In reply, I looked at the intern, and gestured to the doorway with my rifle.

“Lead on.”