Major Karnage (7 page)

“Ha,” Karnage said.

Huang shrank back behind his binder. He cleared his throat.
“So, ah . . . is it your contention that these, ah, ‘aliens’ blew up the
hospital?”

“It is my contention that you are a royal pain in the ass.”

“Ah!”

“It is also my contention that aliens are gettin’ ready to invade
this here dirtball, and you kitty cops need to get the hell outta my
way so I can find my troops and we can do our job!”

“So, ah, it is also your, ah . . . contention that your fellow inma—
ah, patients are alive?”

Karnage leaned forward, his voice a low growl. “Lemme tell you
something, Doc. I may not have all your fancy degrees or a big thick
binder to hide behind, but I can tell you this: you do not declare your
buddies dead until you got dog tags or body bags. And right now I got
nothing. They are MIA. Missing In Action! You get me, Huang, or do
I gotta draw you a goddamn diagram?!”

Huang jumped in his chair. “No, ah . . . thank you. I believe I, ah . . .
get you.” Huang took a moment to straighten his collar. He shuffled
his papers. “Ah . . . if I may—er, rather, would you be willing to, ah . . .
entertain an alternate theory?”

“Like what?”

Huang cleared his throat. “Well! Ah . . . perhaps . . . if you could
just, ah . . . picture for one moment, ah . . .”

“SPIT IT OUT, HUANG!”

Huang jumped. “Ah! Well, ah . . . what if these ‘aliens’ as you call
them weren’t really, ah . . . aliens at all?”

“Well, what the hell else could they be?!”

“Ah! Ha-ha! Well, perhaps they are, ah . . . part of some sort of,
ah . . . hallucination?”

Karnage leaned back. “So that’s how it is, huh? Keep the old
mushbrain talkin’ and maybe we can eventually get him to come
around to seeing things our way.”

“Ah, does that mean that, ah . . . you won’t, ah . . . consider—”

“You can take your goddamn theory and shove it up your ass!”

“Ah! I see.” Huang shut the binder. “Captain Riggs will be very, ah
. . . upset to hear about this.”

Riggs!
Karnage’s mind reeled. His ears rang. That single word
echoed in his head.

Riggs!

Karnage’s hands balled into tight fists. “What do you know about
Riggs?”

Huang nodded eagerly. “He, ah . . . served you with you during
the—ah, during the hostilities. And he was most disappointed to—”

Karnage laughed. Huang cringed at the sound. Karnage glowered
at Huang. “Nice try, Huang, but you boys gotta do better research.
Sergeant Riggs bought it back in Kandahar. I don’t know who this
captain you’re talkin’ about is, but it ain’t him.”

Huang blinked. “But . . . but I assure you that—”

“You got wax in your ears? Riggs is dead! Don’t think I don’t
see what’s goin’ on here. You’re just pushin’ my buttons, hopin’ I’ll
crack!”

“But I assure you it’s the same Riggs!” Huang said. “The very
same sergeant who served with you during The War—AH!” Huang
slapped his hand over his mouth.

The War!

Karnage’s blood boiled. Bullets and flames and death rained
down on his psyche.

The War!

Huang staggered up from his chair as the two Dabneycops pulled
their stun sticks and charged forward.

The War!

Karnage pulled at his restraints. There was the heavy creak of
metal fatigue. A wrist restraint snapped, and his right arm was free.

A stun stick came plunging down into Karnage’s vision. Karnage’s
free hand whipped up and grabbed the wrist that was holding it.
A quick twist snapped it. Somewhere outside of his vision a man
screamed. A second stun stick came thrusting in after the first.
Karnage adjusted his grip so he held both the broken wrist and the
accompanying stun stick and swung it around to meet the second
one barrelling towards him. The metal tines of both sticks struck
naked flesh. Hot sizzling and the stench of ozone filled Karnage’s
nostrils. Two sets of screams filled his ears. Somewhere deep in
his vocal chords, a guttural primal laugh flowed up and out and
reverberated throughout the room.

The two Dabneycops fell to the floor. Huang was pressed against
the two-way mirror, clutching the binder to his chest. Karnage
grabbed his remaining restraints and ripped them open with his
free hand.

“Don’t talk to me about
The War!”

Karnage tossed the table out of his way and charged Huang.
Huang pressed himself against the two-way mirror, screaming.
Karnage’s fingers wrapped around Huang’s throat. He slammed
Huang’s head against the mirror. The mirror sprouted a spiral of
jagged spiderweb cracks starting from the back of Huang’s head.

“You want to talk to me about The War?” Karnage hissed. “I’ll
tell you about—”

The door behind Karnage burst open. Boots stomped into the
room. A familiar voice shouted, “Karnage!”

Karnage turned around. There, standing in front of a line of
Dabneycops, was Riggs. His tall, lanky frame had filled out. His hair
was grey and pulled back in a ponytail. Crow’s feet had sprung up
around the eyes. But there was no mistaking those eyes. It was him.

“Riggs?” Karnage stared at his former sergeant. His fist stayed
closed around Huang’s throat.

“Mercy,” Huang weakly clawed at Karnage’s tightened fist.
“Please . . .”

A Dabneycop beside Riggs cocked his rifle. “Let the doctor go or
we will be forced to open fire!”

“Negative!” Riggs pushed the Dabneycop’s rifle down. “Nobody
fires until I give the order! Do I make myself clear, Murtaugh?”

“That’s not how Sydney would have us play it, sir.”

“Sydney’s not in charge here!”

“We found your dog tags. Half-melted, lost in that sea of rubble.
How could you . . . ?” Karnage’s fists clenched tighter around Huang’s
throat. Huang gasped in his grip. Karnage growled: “You ran. You
got scared and you turned tail and ran! Riggs The Roach. Always
comin’ out okay! Always! Right up until the end. Right up until the
goddamn end!”

“John—”

“We were counting on you to hold your position. When we came
back, there was nothing there but a pile of smoking rubble. Nobody
to meet us but Uncle Stanley. They came outta the hills like hornets,
Riggs. Like a goddamn
swarm!
We thought for sure you were dead.
The Roach had finally been crushed. We shed tears for you, you
asshole. We shed goddamn tears!”

“I can explain—”

“You left us behind!” Karnage’s fists tightened around Huang’s
neck.

“John, you’re killing Huang!”

“You left us, Riggs. YOU LEFT US!” Karnage dropped Huang and
lunged at Riggs.

Murtaugh levelled his weapon. “Open fire!”

“NO!”

Riggs’s cry was drowned out by the
pop-pop-pop
of automatic
weapons fire. The rounds slammed Karnage in the chest, throwing
him into the cracked mirror. It shattered. Karnage fell through. He
landed in a tumble of desks and screams on the other side.

The wounds in his chest went from hot to cold. Karnage
looked down. Brightly glowing ping pong balls covered his chest.
Tranquilizers
, Karnage thought. The icy coolness spread from his
chest to his limbs. He lost consciousness.

Karnage woke in a holding cell. Its thick metal bars were covered in
barbed wire. Blue sparks danced and crackled from the wire to the
bars. He stood up.

“Where the hell am I?”

A monitor on the wall behind him came to life. A
DC
logo splashed
across the screen. Dabby Tabby bounced onto the screen and leaned
against the logo. He was decked out in an orange prison jumpsuit.
His ankle sported a ball and chain. A gentle, female voice wafted
from the screen.

“Welcome to the Dabney Correctional Executive Class Hospitality
Centre. We hope your stay with us is a pleasant one. Please enjoy
these pastoral images and soothing mood music while you await
trial and sentencing. And remember—at Dabney Correctional, we
believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And it shows.”

Treacly music blasted from the walls and ceiling. Karnage
clamped his hands over his ears. The music vibrated through his
body and threatened to shake the fillings from his teeth. It was
unbearable. “Jesus Christ!”

The gentle female voice returned, now at a much higher decibel.
“Rather than use offensive language to express yourself, try to
articulate what you’re feeling.” Dabby Tabby unrolled a list of words
on the screen. “Please feel free to use this vocabulary of handy
alternatives to many common expletives.”

“You want vocabulary? How’s this? Shut up, you fucking
fuckknuckle!”

“Rather than use offensive language to express yourself, try
to—”

Karnage screamed in frustration and kicked the wall. His neck
buzzed. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Frothy Cream. Please
refrain from violent—”

“Goddammit! What do I have to do to get you cheery bastards to
shut the fuck up?!”

A voice shouted to him over the noise. “I can’t help you with that
voice in your neck, but I can get that music to stop for you.”

“Who the hell said that?” Karnage whipped around. A grizzled
old man in an orange jumpsuit sat in the cell across from his. A
pair of reading glasses sat perched on his nose. He held a tattered
paperback in his right hand. His left hand ended in a stump. He
pointed to the monitor with his stump.

“Tell it you’re hungry,” he said. “It gives you a fork you can use to
short the system.”

Karnage did. A tray popped out of the wall. A bowl full of steamy
grey pulp was bolted to the middle of the tray. A fork lay beside it.
Karnage picked up the fork.

“It’s attached to the tray with a cable.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the old man said. “Just bend up the
tines and jam it under the bowl. On the other side. You want it to get
jammed up inside the wall when the tray retracts.”

“How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

“What now?”

“Empty the bowl.”

Karnage eyed the oily grey slop. “I ain’t eatin’ that shit.”

“I don’t blame you,” the old man said. “It tastes worse than it
looks. Like ground-up cardboard soaked in bacon grease. There’s
enough sedatives and hypnodrugs in there to kill an elephant. Scoop
it out and dump it in the toilet. But don’t spill any. The sensors in the
floor call the cleaning staff when it’s dirty.”

Karnage scooped out the gooey grey mush with his hands, and
dumped it into the toilet. It was so heavily laced with narcotics it
made his skin tingle. Once the bowl was empty, the tray retracted.
The fork’s bent handle slid under the rim of the wall with a satisfying
thwock
. The tray seamlessly disappeared into the wall. The music
kept playing.“It didn’t work!” Karnage said.

“Yes, it did,” the old man said.

“Then why the fuck can I still hear music?!”

“Tell it you’re hungry again,” the old man said.

Karnage did. The edge of the tray appeared in the wall, then
stuck. Somewhere inside the wall, gears ground. Engines whined.
Karnage caught the faint scent of burning plastic. Something inside
the wall snapped. The tray shot forward an inch, then sagged back,
its bottom edge sticking out from the wall. The music stopped. The
monitor flashed blue. Three red Dabby Tabby heads appeared on the
screen.

“Error 503. Please wait for assistance.”

“See? What did I tell you?” The old man grinned.

“Sounds like it called for assistance,” Karnage said.

“Yeah. Tech support. Don’t worry about it. It’ll take them days
to get here.” The old man jerked his thumb toward his own blue
monitor. “Mine’s been like that for a week now and they still haven’t
fixed it.”

“You mean nobody’s noticed?“

“Oh, sure, they noticed. Nobody’s done anything about it, yet,
though. Other than charging me with cyber-terrorism.”

“Cyber-terrorism?”

“Circumventing security measures. Defacing public property. All
falls under the same law. Can’t say I was bothered by it. It’s what got
me locked up in here in the first place.”

“You some kind of terrorist?”

The old man snorted. “Yep. If you define terrorism as being
too curious for my own good. All I wanted to know was how those
biometric scanners worked. Is it my fault they’re so easy to get
around? All you have to do is pop the top off and twist the red and
green wires together. Bingo! Instant access.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound secure.”

“Of course it isn’t. But they’re not going to go around fixing these
things. There’s too many of ’em! It’s a lot cheaper to pass a law saying
its illegal to even look at ’em funny. Justice, my ass.”

“That’s idiotic.”

“That’s the Dabney Corporation.”

“Thanks for your help. You some kind of engineer or something?”

“Nope. Just a Lineman from the old C&E.”

“Communications and Electronics Branch?”

“That’s the one.”

“You’re a military man.”

“Was. Corporal Russel J. Stumpton. Haven’t been military in
over twenty years.”

“That how you lost the hand?”

Stumpton nodded wistfully, absently rubbing his stump. He
shook it off. “But that was a long time ago. Now I’m just another
veteran, like you.”

“What do you mean ‘like me’?”

“You’re Major Karnage, aren’t you?”

Karnage eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know my name?”

“Oh, come on, Major. Don’t look at me like that. Of course I know
who you are. They said your name enough times when they brought
you in here. Besides, even if they didn’t, I’d have figured it out for
myself. Nobody’s talked about anything but you for a while now.”