Major Karnage (2 page)

Invasion!

The word set off fireworks in Karnage’s brain. His ears burned.
His blood pumped hot and fast through his body.

He always knew this would happen. There would always be
another battle. Always had been. Always would be. It had just been a
matter of time. And now, after all these years, that time had finally
come.

Karnage strained against his bonds. His voiced boomed with
his best drill sergeant bark. “Corporal! We’ve got to act fast! Call
the general! Mobilize the infantry! Get me my rifle! Get me outta
this bed! Uncle Stanley won’t get the drop on us this time. There’s a
battle needs fightin’ and we’re the grunts to do it. Don’t just stand
there, Corporal! Do something! Velasquez! Heckler! Koch! On your
feet, soldiers!”

“Major, please,” Cookie frantically jerked his sleeve back down
over his forearm. “Fridge’ll hear you!”

“What the hell’s going on over there?” Fridge unholstered his
stun gun. Blue sparks danced across the metal tines. “You boys need
a little lesson in discipline?”

“No, Fridge,” squeaked Cookie.

“We don’t have time for this!” Karnage wriggled and struggled
so hard the bed’s casters bounced on the floor. He jerked his head at
Fridge. “Cookie! Crack him across the neck like you did those Uncle
Stanley
skerks
back in Kabul! You can take him!” Karnage turned to
the other patients. “Come on, troops! Mobilize! He can’t take us all.
On your feet, soldiers!”

“Nobody do nothing stupid,” Fridge pointed at Velasquez and
Koch who were in the middle of rising up off their beds. They halted.
They looked from Fridge to Karnage and back again.

The doors to the ward burst open. Doctor Flaherty walked into
the room. His balding bespectacled face wore a wide grin. A pair of
nurses flanked him on either side. They were the spitting image of
Fridge though they went by the names Mammoth and Skyscraper.
Straggling behind them was a less portly and slightly hairier doctor
they’d never seen before. His ID tag read “Johnson.” He looked
furtively from side to side as he scribbled notes on a clipboard.
Flaherty was in mid-sentence, gesturing grandly into the room.

“And in here we have—Stevens, what’s going on here?”

Fridge slapped the stun gun back down to his side. “The ol’ major
is having a freakout. Nothing I can’t handle, Doctor.”

Flaherty eyed the stun gun. “Indeed. Let’s see if I can’t get
through to him first, hmm?”

“Doctor!” Karnage barked. “Get me outta this bed. This is an
emergency!”

Flaherty turned to Johnson. “You’re in for a real treat here. The
major isn’t usually this talkative. Normally all we can get out of him
is his name, rank, and serial number.”

Karnage struggled against his bonds. “Doctor! We have a
situation here! Time is of the essence!”

“Major,” Flaherty’s tone was soft and cordial. “I’d like to
introduce you to Dr. Johnson. He’ll be replacing Dr. Kubota, who
opted to resign after that little incident last week. Dr. Johnson, may
I introduce you to Major John Karneski.”

“Karneski?” Johnson’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean . . . is this
Major Karnage?”

“We prefer to refer to our patients by their given names here.
Isn’t that right, John?”

“That’s Major to you, asshole,” Velasquez shouted from her bed.

Johnson reached a hand out towards Karnage. “It’s an honour to
meet you, sir.”

Flaherty grabbed Johnson’s arm. “I’d advise against that,
Johnson. It’s always a good idea to give the major a wide berth.”

“But he’s strapped to the bed,” Johnson said.

“Still, one can never be too careful around the major. Isn’t that
right, John?”

“Doctor, you are wearin’ my patience down to a bloody stump! I
don’t have time for this rigamarole. You gotta let me outta this bed
on the double before the enemy gets the drop on us!”

“What enemy, John?” Flaherty asked.

Karnage sneered. “That’s the big question mark, isn’t it? Who
is the enemy? Who can you trust? I thought I knew who the enemy
was. But then some civilian assmonkey is stickin’ medals on my
chest with one hand while shovin’ my sorry ass into this hellhole
with the other!”

“John, I can understand your frustration, but you’re going to
have to learn to let go.”

“Doctor, you are interferin’ with a military operation! That is in
direct violation of military ordinance number—”

“John,” Flaherty’s tone grew firm. “There are no more military
ordinances. There is no military. Your continued persistence in
believing in this delusion—”

“Delusion, my ass! You can take your world peace and your
Nagasaki treaties and shove ’em down your piehole! You know what
your problem is? You got the wrong guys locked up, that’s what.
There are enemies out there just waitin’ to pounce on you when your
guard is down. Like a lion stalkin’ a herd o’ gazelle. You get me? And
when guys like me get locked up while guys like you run the asylum,
you gotta wonder just what the hell went wrong with the world. But
the enemy doesn’t care about the why. They’re just waitin’ out there
with their seventeen inch bayonets . . . waiting for the right time to
shove those blades right up your ass! That time is lookin’ to be now,
Doc. So you best unfuck yourself and lemme outta this bed!”

Flaherty turned to the other patients. “Who did this? Who riled
him up like this?”

Fridge jerked a thumb at Cookie. “The old major was fine until
Chucky there started hovering over his bed.”

Cookie squeaked.

“Charles?” Flaherty turned to Cookie. “Was it you?”

Cookie stared at the ground. He nodded.

“What did you tell him, Charles?” Flaherty said.

“You don’t have to tell him shit, Corporal,” Karnage said.

Cookie looked at Karnage, then Flaherty. He quickly darted his
head back down again. He gripped his forearm tightly.

“What do you have there, Charles?” Flaherty asked patiently.

“Nothin’,” Karnage said. “He’s got nothin’!”

“Let me see your forearm,” Flaherty said.

Cookie made another squeak and slowly pulled up his shirt sleeve,
revealing the squiggles. Flaherty looked at the mass of writing, then
at Cookie. “Are you hearing voices again, Charles?”

“They’re
not
voices!”
Karnage
shouted.
“They’re
alien
communications!”

“Aliens?” Flaherty’s eyebrows rose so high they nearly met his
receding hairline.

“That’s right! Aliens! Extra
tee
-restrials! Unidentified Flying
Objects of Death! You get me?!”

“I’m afraid I do.” Flaherty sighed. He turned to Cookie. “I’m very
disappointed in you, Charles. You should have come to me. I’m here
to help.”

Cookie fingered his bandages and whimpered.

Flaherty turned to Fridge. “Take Charles to the showers and
clean him up.”

“No!” Cookie yelped. “I haven’t cracked the code yet! You can’t
take ’em off until I’ve cracked the code!”

“Charles.” Flaherty’s voice was stern. He looked at Cookie over
the rims of his glasses.

Cookie instantly deflated. Fridge grabbed Cookie under his
arm and dragged him away. Karnage squirmed and wriggled as he
shouted.

“No! Don’t let ’em do it! You’re a trained soldier! You can take
’em! Bite off his ear! Knee him in the crotch! Tear out his guts! Snap
him—”

Karnage winced as jolts of electricity shot down his spine. An
alarm softly pinged. An angelic female voice emanated from the
base of Karnage’s skull. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Lemon
Breeze. Please refrain from violent behaviour. Thank you.”

“What was that?” Johnson said.

Flaherty’s eyes lit up.
Just like Cookie’s
, Karnage thought.

“Oh, it’s an ingenious little device! Major, would you mind if I
showed him?”

“Go to hell.”

Flaherty shook his head. “You really need to learn to be more cooperative.” Flaherty flipped a switch beside Karnage’s bed. The bed
flipped onto its side. Flaherty pulled a long-handled pointer with
a U-shaped end covered in rubber from his labcoat. He slipped the
U around the back of Karnage’s neck and pushed his head forward.
There was a tiny LED display at the base of Karnage’s skull. The
screen pulsed a soft pale yellow.

Flaherty turned to Johnson. “I call it the Sanity Patch. This
is just the prototype. I designed it myself. Think of it as a sort of
sanity fail-safe, if you like. It’s tied directly into the central nervous
system. It scans the major’s brainwaves for indications of violent
tendencies. There’s a tiered system with a number of different
warning thresholds. Currently the major is rated at Lemon Breeze.
That’s pretty good for John, actually. The thresholds move all the
way up the colour spectrum to indicate his state of mind. The scale
runs from Snow White to Tricycle Red. Fortunately, John has never
hit Tricycle Red. The furthest he has ever hit was Frosty Pink. And
that was plenty close enough for our liking. Wasn’t it, John?”

“Eat donkey dick,” Karnage growled.

“What happens if he hits Tricycle Red?” Johnson asked.

“Tricycle Red activates the fail-safe. The subject is terminated
before he can cause further harm to himself or others.”

“Terminated?”

“He means if I hit Tricycle Red, my fuckin’ head blows off,”
Karnage said.

“Is that true?” Johnson asked.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes. The subject’s spinal cord
is severed from his brain. It’s not as barbaric as it sounds, really.
It’s a worst case scenario, something we work diligently to prevent.
Don’t we, John?”

“You’re nuts,” Karnage said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Flaherty winked at Johnson.

“I ain’t the guy implantin’ explosives into people’s brains!”

“I wish you’d stop looking at it that way, John. I’m trying to
reintegrate you back into society. You have some extremely violent
tendencies that simply must be addressed before anything of the
sort can happen.” Flaherty turned to Johnson. “Come along,
Johnson. Let me show you the O.R.”

Flaherty headed to the door, expecting Johnson to follow.
Johnson didn’t. He took a few steps towards Karnage and put a
hand on his shoulder. “I just want to say how much I appreciate the
sacrifices you made for us in The War.”

The War!

Karnage’s eyes bulged. His heart hammered in his chest.
The War!

The entire room dissolved. Karnage’s vision filled with flames, crumbling buildings, and death.

The War!

Rage pulsed through his limbs. The straps binding him to the bed bulged. There was the faint sound of tearing.

“Johnson! Get away!”

Karnage’s bed straps exploded in all directions. His right hand whipped up and grabbed Johnson by the throat. The Sanity Patch
sent electric jolts shooting up his spine. He didn’t flinch. The Patch’s
cheery voice informed everyone that Karnage’s sanity level was now
at “Peachy Keen.”

Karnage slowly sat up, lifting Johnson into the air. His voice
hissed through his teeth as the remaining straps gave way one by
one with a loud snap.

“Don’t . . .”

Snap!

“. . . talk to me . . .”

Snap-snap!

“. . . about
The War!”

With a final snap, Karnage erupted from the bed. He lifted Johnson high into the air. Johnson grabbed futilely at Karnage’s
wrist. Johnson’s face was beet red. The Sanity Patch crooned “Tangy
Orange” as Skyscraper and Mammoth charged towards Karnage.
Karnage turned to meet them, smiling crazily.

Battle! This was what he knew. He kicked the bed with his foot
towards the charging nurses. Skyscraper dodged out of the way as
the bed slammed into Mammoth, knocking him down. Skyscraper
whipped out his stun gun and stabbed it at Karnage. Karnage
deftly sidestepped Skyscraper, tripped him and pulled the stun gun
from his fingers. He slammed his knee into Skyscraper’s back, and
slammed the stun gun into the base of his skull. Karnage gave him
full blast until Skyscraper’s screaming and flailing subsided into
silent fish flops.

The major rose up just in time to catch Mammoth full in the gut
with the stun gun. He juiced him hard, all the while keeping a firm
grip on Johnson’s throat, whipping him around like a rag doll. Once
Mammoth stopped moving, Karnage threw Johnson up into the
wall, pinning him by his neck. In the back of his mind somewhere,
he was conscious of alarms blaring and Flaherty screaming for
security. A voice at the back of his neck whispered that he had just
hit “Sharp Cheddar.” Karnage didn’t care. They could ring their
alarms and call their security and blow his head off. None of that
mattered. Karnage’s entire world had shrunk down to just him and
Johnson.

“You want to talk to me about The War? I’ll tell you about The
War. New Baghdad. 1-1-5-2-5. Urban warfare on a grand scale.
You ever been at ground zero while a whole city block is crumbling
around you? I have. I lost thirty men that day. Benneli. Kahr.
Mossberg. Weatherby. I’ll never forget their names. The only reason
any of us survived was we were holed up against a column in that
underground parking lot when it came down on top of us. I had
thirty thousand tons of steel and concrete pressing down on my
chest. You know what that’s like? You know how that feels? It feels
a lot like having your throat crushed.” The pressure increased on
Johnson’s throat. “Like that. Real slowly. Millimetre by millimetre.
The life slowly sucked outta your body. Every few minutes, you hear
a fresh snap—like that one. Your veins bulge out—just like that.
You want to breathe so bad, but you can’t. You know why? Cuz Uncle
Stanley’s gone and dropped seventy-five megatons of radioactive
shit on your head. And all you got is one pinky you can use to dig
you and your buddies out. You want to talk to me about The War?
I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT THE WAR!”