Mutant Story

On the way back to the Patrol Hall Luke's hitherto reasonably good
mood descended quickly into an ugly shade of black, and everyone who
met him made it their business to get out of his way. Something in
Marianne's so-called fortune really bothered him, but he didn't quite
know what or why.

On arrival at the Hall he went to the Patrol's post-hole and read
through the collection of memos and other paraphernalia that'd
collected there over the six weeks he'd been away. He was still doing
that when he became aware of someone standing nearby - too near for
comfort. Luke turned round slowly to find himself looking down at the
clerk who'd been plaguing him earlier on, and he was in no mood for pen
pushers.

"Your memo from Commander Rico, sir" the clerk said stiffly. He took
the memo and glared at the clerk, who this time felt brave enough to
glare back. "I remind you, sir, I have to confirm that you've read it
-!"

"If you don't get out of my face - right now - I'm gonna ram this 409
up your arse and blow your fuckin' head off with it" he answered very,
very quietly. The clerk looked at the ZX409 rifle, saw murder in his
eyes, and immediately decided the orders weren't worth it. He saluted
quickly and walked away. "Fuckin' arse-wipe" Luke muttered after
him.

The memo was, in fact, an order for him to meet up with Illya
Petrovost, his opposite number in the Inner City Patrol. The time
stipulated for their meeting had long since gone, so Luke scanned
around the Hall hoping to catch sight of him. There was no obvious sign
but, asking about, he tracked Illya down to a whore's pallet at the
other end of the room.

Illya was a youngster of around twenty-two and only recently promoted
so Luke should have known full well where to start looking, really. The
fascination most of the newly-commissioned had with whores tended to
fade with their first dose of something nasty anyhow, so he had no
scruples about pulling back the dirty, threadbare curtain and giving
Illya's thrusting backside a kick.

"Oi! What the -!" he spluttered angrily.

"You might have all day, pal, but I haven't. Put your dick away and get
out here" Luke said, and then paused as an afterthought struck him.
"Please" he added with a particularly winning smile.

"Just who the fuck d'you think you are?" Illya complained when he
reappeared a few moments later. "If you're that desperate for some, go
find yourself a corner to jack off in instead of bothering me!"

"Hey keep your wig on, Doris - if your world revolves around a quickie
with the ugliest tart in the Hall you've got a real problem coming on,
d'you know that?" Luke grinned.

"What the hell d'you want anyway, Cavlan?" Illya returned
irritably.

Luke held the memo up in front of him. "Had one of these?" he asked.
Illya squinted at the memo and mumbled a groaning curse.

"Yes" he said.

"When did you get it?"

"Last week some time...dunno exactly" he said; he knew exactly what was
coming.

Luke screwed the memo up in his hand and let it fall. "So why the hell
were you in there when you should've been out here setting up a meeting
with me? Non-compliance with a Command directive, Doris - consider your
arse well and truly nailed"

"Mootshit, Cavlan! You've been back long enough to share responsibility
for -!"

"Oh no no! " he laughed humourlessly. "Read up on the fuckin' rules,
arsehole! If you want help Underground from the Border Patrol it's up
to you to find me - not the other way round"

Illya slumped back hard against the wall and stared into space,
subdued. "How did you know that's what it's about?"

"It's all you ICP bastards ever want us for," he said. "I learned that
a long time ago." When all the other members of the Border Patrol
assembled in the Hall that evening, they listened with disgust to what
Command - via the notorious memo - wanted them to do. Underground. The
Pit. Just thinking about the place was enough to send shivers down even
the hardest patrol veteran's spine. Knowing the time had come for
another excursion down there made the ones with experience of it wish
they hadn't bothered coming home - Luke included. "...So, like I was
saying, GC's having trouble with its non-paying guests and Petrovost is
crapping himself 'cos the cheeky buggers have started shooting back" he
was telling them. "The fun starts at 20:00."

"If they need more manpower why don't GC step up recruitment into the
City Patrol?" Roman complained angrily, speaking for everybody. "We've
been six weeks out policing the borders, Leader - it's a break we all
need, not a stint down the damn Pit! It's not even our sodding
job!"

"Objection noted, Sergeant - but if you don't want to do this, you can
go right along to Patrol Command and tell Rico all about it yourself,
'cos I'm sick to death of having insubordination charges waved at me
for arguing about shit deals like this one!" Luke returned irritably.
Roman sat back on his chair and ran his hands across his mouth,
cursing. "Look, I know Camille's about to drop the kid, mate" he said
quietly "I also know she's not been too good these last few months, but
I'm gonna need you down there tonight, Roman...we all are..."

"What about Wil here?" Johnathan said. "The Pit's no place for a
fresher"

"No one's excluded" he muttered, avoiding Roman's accusing stare. "Go
back home and get some more rest, all of you. I want you packed up and
ready for 7.30"

He watched the Patrol leave, staring after Roman with some concern.
Much as he wanted to, he couldn't bend the rules on this one; if he did
where would it end? Wearily, he wrote out a brief note of compliance in
answer to Command's wretched memo and then started eating a wedge of
Renatta's herbal bread, feeling totally rotten. He decided in that
moment that he'd been wrong earlier in saying he didn't hate anything,
because in actual fact he did. He hated his damned job.

As Luke put the note in one of Command's many post-holes a woman
touched his arm and smiled up at him, but behind the smile her eyes
were tired and cold. "You want company, Patrol Leader? For that suachi
I'll give you a good time...a real good time." He looked at her for a
moment and then looked at the thick slice of suachi bread he held in
his hand. She might've been beautiful once; perhaps not so long ago,
either; but the pathetic creature standing before him seemed scarcely
more than an animated cadaver. "I've got narco if you want it, Patrol
Leader...narco and an hour on my pallet over there...it's a good deal"
she purred, raking her fingers on his arm. She was so spaced out she
almost fell over when he pushed her away.

"I'd need more than dope to get me through an hour on your pallet,
whore..." he said, watching her. She straightened up and pressed a
small bag of fine powder against her thin lips, inhaling its aroma deep
into her lungs.

"I heard you don't like women no more, Luke Cavlan...shame on you,
pretty boy...you should have many women"

"For suachi?" he grinned, letting her accusation go. He took one more
bite and then held the bread out for her to take.

"Ah, you're a good man, Patrol Leader...I'll give you a good time,
you'll see" she slurred.

"No thanks. Death for you could mean death for me, too. Take the suachi
if you want it, but forget the good time. And the narco" he said.

Luke watched her sink her teeth hungrily into the bread and walk away
from him, and as he did his thoughts started to drift back to his
youth, when sharing narco with a favourite whore was all he wanted out
of life. For a kid of seventeen a decent hit could transform the
ugliest Patrol Hall whore into a vision of sheer loveliness and keep
her that way for hours - even days - on end. But like most things, the
delights of narco had their price, and he'd discovered that in the form
of heavy addiction and an infamy it had taken him years to live down.
Now - at thirty- one - he just felt old and washed out, and even the
simple task of getting up in the morning was fast becoming too much of
a bind.

Is this all you've got to look forward to, Cavlan ? he mused wearily.
Suachi bread, and the come-on from whores that're old enough to be your
mother? May as well end it all here and now and have done with the
fuckin' lot of it. Yeah, right. And wouldn't Ben Ludz just love it if
you did that? He'd be there cheering you on if he didn't have his
finger next to yours on the fuckin' trigger!

Yeah, those were the days...narco and a tart to round off the tour. If
you think back hard enough you can still taste all that spunk and
sweat, can't you Cavlan? Oh yeah, I forgot - you were too far out of
your brain in those days to remember much of anything, weren't you?
Still, you miss those times all the same.

He watched the chaotic melee of Hall life in disgruntled silence a
while longer and felt a familiar, dull ache gnaw even deeper at his
insides, but after a time all the comings and goings made him
weary...weary enough to find a corner to curl up and sleep in.

If there was one place in the whole of the Sect virtually guaranteed to
give people the creeps it was Underground; or The Pit, as most called
it at the time. No one seemed to know what it was exactly, only that it
had always been there and that there were better places to go for a
good time. The patrols didn't spend long down there if they could
possibly get away with it, and being more used to the open spaces of
the borderlands Luke's patrol hated the place more than most, but at
the given time they were all armed and ready to go.

The Inner City was already dark and silent as they walked through the
empty streets to a covered shaft in one of the roads on the East side
of town. Access points into the Pit were few and far between inside the
City and non-existent outside, as far as anyone knew. They were covered
with heavy metal trapdoors, which could only be removed by unlocking
them with a special key. Just as well, seeing as the Pit was a known
breeding ground for mutants - possibly thousands of them. The idea of
them gaining access to the City via the shafts was enough to make any
sane person's skin crawl. Be it the BP, ICP or Mid Sec they all had
families so they all mucked in when it came to the Pit, because even
though everybody hated it the alternative was even worse!

Wilhem's nerves were already jangling as they started down an ageing
metal ladder that stretched some fifty feet to the bottom of the shaft.
Roman just about managed to grab hold of the freshman and steady him
after his boot slipped on the worn, rusty rungs at the top, and he
grimaced at Luke before making his own way down. "This isn't a good
idea" he muttered "and you can put that in your report as a direct
quote if you like"

"Yeah, noted" Luke returned as Roman disappeared into the well of
darkness below. When they were all at the bottom of the shaft he took
them through a labyrinth of reeking tunnels and over a series of
metallic tracks that criss-crossed the ground at various points. It
wasn't totally dark down there in the outer passages, however. Above
them small electric lights glowed weakly at regular intervals on the
rough-hewn walls, and it always puzzled Luke why and even how those
lamps still worked. It was the only place he knew of (apart from
Government Centre) which had an electricity supply - and he'd never
known it to fail, whereas at GC the lights seemed to go out with
monotonous regularity. Stopping at a box on the wall he prised off its
metal cover and surveyed a row of switches inside. As he looked at the
ancient circuitry his mind drifted to thoughts of his father, as it
always did in that forsaken place. He'd died there like so many others
- alone and trapped by legions of mutants in these same stinking
tunnels. Death at mutant hands was messy; the lucky ones didn't know
much about it but the unlucky ones - the ones who'd discovered what it
was like to be eaten alive - outnumbered them by hundreds to one. With
a chill on his spine he threw the switches and turned to the rest of
the patrol, who were suddenly bathed in eerie yellow light. "Right,
then. No quota limit - twenty minutes and then back here, understand?"
Heads nodded and visors snapped down. "Wilhem? Keep your ammo handy but
don't go mad in there. Short bursts only - we don't want you getting
hit by your own ricochets," he said, checking the youngster over one
last time. "Okay, twenty minutes - let's go"

As the patrol went about its business in the tunnels scores of mutants
were shot dead as they ran, stood and slept. It wasn't a particularly
rewarding job, hunting down and killing un-armed people whoever they
were, and some took more joy in it than others, but Luke could hide
behind orders with the best of them when it suited him. Out in the
borderlands he was getting a conscience about butchering mutants armed
with nothing more than their own claws and teeth, but the Pit was
different. If you stopped concentrating and let anything get behind you
down there you'd had it, good style, which was why Ben Ludz got in a
real state when - after the allotted twenty minutes - Johnathan Gray
hadn't returned to the rendezvous point with the rest of them.

"You're not serious...?" he protested when he saw Luke glance at his
watch.

"We can't hang around, Ben - we're moot fodder down here," Luke
murmured, and he signalled them all back towards the shaft.

"I'll wait - he probably just took a wrong turn!" Ben argued, but
before Luke could even answer him a horde of disfigured beings come out
of the tunnels on their far right and started to converge on
them.

"Back to the shaft and OUT!" Luke shouted. He rounded on the mutants
and let rip with an arc of automatic gunfire, which proved to Wilhem
there and then that his Patrol Leader wasn't one for taking his own
advice.

The patrol fled and, spurred on by Roman, they managed to reach the top
of the shaft safely. Luke was the next to show, and for what seemed a
very long time they all waited in tense silence as gunfire continued to
rage below. They each gave a huge sigh of relief when they finally saw
Ben hauling himself and Johnathan up the ladder.

"Is he alive?" Wil asked as Francis ran to where Johnathan lay. As
field medics went Francis was competent enough, despite his Sergeant's
misgivings, but his skills were severely limited when it came to
mutant-inflicted injuries.

"He'd better be" Ben growled, surveying the mauled body, then Luke,
with angry eyes. "'Cos if he ain't...?" He left the question
hanging.

"Moot claw, Leader...a deep one" Francis said at last.

"Let's get him to the healing woman" Roman murmured. "She works faster
than the quacks at Command and she's nearer, too." He levelled his gaze
at Ben and struggled to keep the heat out of his voice. "Can it, Ludz.
You're very lucky you got out of there with your own skin intact"

"Yeah - no thanks to you bunch o' bleeding' faggots!"

"Ben, you can fuck around with your own mortality as much as you like,
but you don't with mine and you don't with theirs!" Luke said icily,
thumbing towards the rest of them. "A moment longer down there and we
could've all been dinner! Don't ever compromise the safety of this
Patrol again, have you got that?"

"I got the sod out, didn't I?"

"That's not the fucking point!"

"Leader?" Francis cut in, wearily. "If you don't decide soon where to
take this guy Ben's heroics are gonna be academic."

Luke turned away and told Francis to get Johnathan to the healing
woman, wishing he could have it out with Ben Ludz once and for all. But
it was outside curfew and he couldn't afford an argument - not there
and then on the street. The ICP would've loved it, and he wasn't
prepared to give someone like Illya Petrovost or any of his cronies the
pleasure of witnessing a bust-up.

Renatta's house stood at the centre of a row of terraced houses in what
was little more than a glorified back street, quite some distance from
Government Centre. When Roman started hammering insistently on her
door, however, she was more than reluctant to let them bring their
injured man inside.

"Oh aye? What's the life of your comrade worth to you?" she asked him,
and Roman stared back at her in perplexed silence.

"What's going on, Renatta?" Luke asked in disbelief. "Selling your
skills off to the highest bidder these days, or what?"

"Could be, since the rain ruined the soy harvest!" she snapped. "It's
outside curfew - my door shouldn't even be open!"

"Never mind all that, you tight-fisted old moot! This poor bastard's
not responsible for the weather!" he shouted back at her.

Renatta ignored him and regarded the rest of the patrol with chilly
detachment. "So why bring him to me anyway? The government normally
takes care of its own"

Luke glared at her and counted to ten slowly. "He's been cut by a moot
claw...you can cure him, Renatta - you can cure anything - but you have
to do it now 'cos we're running out of time!"

The ageing healing woman narrowed her green eyes at him and cackled
long and low. "True enough" she said as a groan of pain came from where
Johnathan lay.

"RENATTA!" he shouted again, but she remained unmoved. "Look...for
Terran's sake, just listen to me, will you?" he murmured, changing
tack. "His name's Johnathan Gray...he's a good soldier and a good
friend. Without the likes of him where would people like you and all
your neighbours - your customers -be, eh...? You're the only chance
he's got and he's dying here on the street outside your door! Is that
all he comes down to - the price of a few fuckin' soy plants?"

The healing woman held Luke's gaze for a few moments and there was a
long, strained silence, broken only by Johnathan's sporadic groaning.
"Oh all right, bring him in...I'll do what I can" she finally
agreed.