Don't Feed the Strays (short story)

 Don’t Feed the Strays

First published in Troublemaker Firestarter Volume 10 Fairweather 18/01/26

 

                Big yellow eyes stared at me from the end of the garden, from within the gloom of the bougainvillea.  Or was it the hydrangea?  I didn’t know; John had planted them, and he loved those plants more than me.  What I did know was that the eyes were bigger than they should be, I think, or was that just my tiredness playing tricks?

“Don’t feed the strays.”

                That’s what John had told me when he left at the crack of dawn.  Before he set off to abandon me for a week.  He said it was work.  Ha.  He was probably fucking some rotted twink in a sleazy hotel.

                “If you feed them again George, they’ll just keep coming back,” he said.  “They’ll mess up my plants.”

                I didn’t care about his plants.

                Did he speak like this to that floozie of his too?

I waited at the window, staring into the dark of the back garden.  Trying not to think about John and his whore.  The stray cats never came in the day, and I spent the morning pacing, this afternoon arguing with her from number six about leaving her bins out, and then this evening I pigged out on snacks and stared out of the back window almost non-stop.  I sat in the dark, my lights switched off.  Waiting.  Watching.  I didn’t have anything else in my life.  Not with John abandoning me.

The yellow eyes had come to keep me company.

                Just one cat tonight; there were usually more.

                I slipped from my perch, grabbed the pack of ham I kept at the ready, and slithered to the back door as soundlessly as I could; I didn’t want to scare away a new friend.  I eased open the door, not trusting the oil I’d applied to the hinges a couple of hours ago.  A cold evening breeze tickled the bare skin on my arms.

                I blinked against the dark gloom.  The night wasn’t as quiet as it should have been; amongst the windy whispers of the bushes, the distant traffic of the motorway, and the wheeze of my asthmatic lungs, interrupted the blare of late-night gameshows from the open windows of her from number six.

                “Sandra,” I shouted, “turn that bloody shit down!”

                Damn it, what had I done?  The yellow eyes had gone.

                I ignored the “fuck off” I heard in response to my exclamation, dropped some ham on the patio just in case the stray returned, and headed back inside.

 #

                I was woken the next morning by a phone call from John.  I didn’t tell him about the stray.  I didn’t ask him about his rotted twink.  I complained about her from number six; he complained about work, though I didn’t believe him.  I knew what he was doing, who he was doing, and it wasn’t work that took his attention from me.  This was all our relationship had become.

                “Don’t feed the strays,” he reminded me again.  And I thought that was exactly what he was doing with the guys he was cheating on me with, feeding his strays.  I hated him, I think.

                The ham had gone when I checked, but anything could’ve taken it.  I forced myself to believe it was the stray cat from last night, though maybe it’d been her from number six; I wouldn’t put it past her to scavenge meat from the floor.

                I returned to bed after that, slept the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, making up for the lateness last night and the lateness to come.

                I returned to my position at the window that evening, sitting and snacking in the dark once more, staring out into my dingy back garden, scouring the bushes for any glint of a yellow eye, any shadow in the gloom.

                It was almost 3am when I caught sight of something moving at the end of the garden.  A dark shape slinking along the grass.  Large.  Maybe.  It was hard to tell its size in the pitch night.

                I was sure it was my stray cat.

                I hurried to the door with the ham and slipped out into the cold evening.

                “Pss, pss, pss,” I whispered.  I tiptoed along the patio and onto the grass.  The shadow had moved into the deep shade of the hydrangea/bougainvillea.  It was there.  I knew it was there.  “Pss, pss, pss.”  I tried to make my eyes adjust to the darkness, to see it.  To see the cat.  I could only see shadows.  “Pss, pss, pss.”  I waved the slimy slice like a maiden’s handkerchief and crouched lower.  I still couldn’t see it.  There was just a… shape.  “Pss, pss, pss.”  I threw the ham into the bushes, and it fell through the leaves and flowers as if there was nothing hiding beneath them.  No concealed cat.  But it had to be there.  Had to be.

                “Pss, pss, pss,” I repeated, louder this time, and threw another piece of ham into the flora.  “Pss, pss, pss.”

                The cat was silent, but a cranky human voice replied instead.  “Piss off George!”  Her from number six.  She screamed at me from her window.

                I returned a volley of insults and swears, some I’m not proud of, some I’m very proud of, but it was no less than she deserved.  She gave as much as she got.

                I chucked the rest of the ham into the bushes and headed to bed.

 #

                John woke me again the next morning.  Early.  He called to break up with me, to tell me it was over.  That things weren’t working out between us.  I’d known they weren’t.  We both knew.  I told him I loved him, and he said nothing back.  John told me we’d talk more when he came back from his work trip.  Work.  Ha!  Sort out the divorce.  I didn’t mention his rotted twink.  I didn’t mention the stray.  I didn’t even mention her from number six.

                I hung up on him.

                I cried myself back into a restless and broken nightmare-ridden sleep.

                When I woke again, when I dragged myself out of bed, eyes red and swollen, it was already evening.  I couldn’t cry anymore.

                I slinked out to the shop, bought more ham for the stray cat, along with a bottle of wine for myself.  Two bottles.  It was already dark by the time I reached my street.

                Her from number six had her television turned up again, louder than usual, and I banged and screamed on her door for five minutes telling her to show some respect, but she ignored me.  I think.  I couldn’t hear anything inside over her idiotic gameshows, and she had good reason not to reply.  I was enraged.  Furious.  I hated her, I think.

                I hurried home, embarrassed at my outburst.

                As I returned to my kitchen to spy for strays, I realised something wasn’t right.  There was a coppery smell in the air.  Metallic.  Fresh.  Shivers ran up my arms like static.  I placed my shopping on the counter and sought the source, checking the cooker and fridge, the lights, making sure… I don’t know… making sure the electrics hadn’t blown, but no, they were all working.

                The smell was strongest by the back door.

                I didn’t look out the window, though I probably should have; I swung open the door and let the cold and dark night rush inside.

                And there on the patio was a gift.

                A mauled and bloodied gift.

                I knew about cats.  I often fed the strays, much to John’s displeasure.  Not that he mattered now.  But something I knew about cats, something I guess most people understand, is that sometimes cats like to bring presents, as if they know you’ve forgotten the prehistoric hunt of your ancestors, as if you’re a useless giant kitten who can’t feed themselves.  Or was the real reason that the cat understands tit for tat.  You feed them and they feed you.  No.  This felt like more than that, like the stray cat had stalked the neurons of my brain, pounced on my anger and fury and seen me.

                There, sprawled on my patio, laid out on display either for my banquet or for my revenge, was her from number six.  Dead.  Cleary dead.  Her belly had been slashed open.  Her viscera exposed, partially eaten.  There were two big, bloodied punctures on her neck.  A deadly bite.

                It was no ordinary stray cat that’d done this.

                I couldn’t stop staring at her.  I felt sick.

                A deep and short growl broke my focus from the corpse, and I looked up.  Me and her weren’t alone.  Sat at the end of the garden near the bougainvillea or hydrangea, nonchalant but arrogant like all cats, was the stray.  It was huge, a big black cat, taller than me, built of shadowy sinews and muscle.  A massive bulky shape in the dark.  It was almost invisible against the night, but its size was clear, its presence obvious.  I knew it could kill me with one swipe.  I could see its fangs, its curious neon eyes.  It was watching me.

                “Don’t feed the strays,” that’s what John had told me.  He’d broken up with me for that rotted twink, abandoned me from afar.  Left me alone.

                “Don’t feed the strays.”

                He wanted me to be lonely.

                It was almost funny.

                I looked back down at her from number six, at her corpse, and then stared back into those yellow orbs by the bushes, and I knew why the big cat was here.  I knew.  I knew why it’d picked me.  Why it had appeased with this gory gift at my feet.

                “Don’t feed the strays.”

                I knew why.

                I knew.

The End.

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The Toll (short story)

 

The Toll

(Random 2-word prompt- pavement, toll)

 

                “How much?!”  Flower threw his hands in the air in frustration.  He could feel the heat in his face radiating to his ears.  “But you just let the two people in front of me pass for free!”

The tall burly man crossed his arms tighter, then growled a noise that indicated he didn’t care.  He seemed to grow, muscles bulging in his shirt, his large body blocking access to the bridge even more so than before.  He glared down at Flower, his small head tucked between two engorged shoulders.

“Come on!” pleaded Flower.  It was cold in the shadow of the man, the bright morning sun trapped behind that large back.  “I just want to get home!  I’ve never had to pay a toll before!”

“It’s new,” grumbled the guard.  “Pay up.”

Flower sighed, blowing air through his nostrils as if he were a dragon.  “I haven’t got enough; I’ve only got a few coins on me.”

“Not my problem.”

“Urgh, can’t I just owe you?”

The big man shook his head, frowning.

Flower looked down at his feet.  He considered making a run for it, trying to dart around the guard and sprinting across the bridge, but he knew he stood no chance.  He was only small, and the big burly guard would catch him and grind him to a pulp in seconds.  He didn’t fancy being pulped; he already felt drained enough this morning and his innards would make a weak jam.

He turned to walk away, but…

“How much you got?” gruffed the guard.

Hope.  Flower smiled at the man; he reached into his pocket and held his coins out on his palm.  “Four coins,” he said.  “Is that okay to pass?  Will you take it?”

The big guard laughed.  “It’s not for me dummy.”  His arms unfurled, and a thumb swung to his left.  “Head down the steps to the river; the ferryman will take you across for a couple of coins.”

“The ferryman?”  Flower had never heard of any ferry crossing the river before, though there’d never been a man stopping people crossing the bridge before either.

“The ferryman,” repeated the guard, his grimace returning, joined by a condescending tone in his voice.  “Down the steps.  Two coins.”  He refolded his arms and become the imposing stoic statue once more.  “Fuck off.”

Flower didn’t say thanks; he shook his head and sighed, then headed out of the large man’s shadow and toward the steps.

The stairway was bereft of the dazzling morning sunlight, yet it still retained some heat; it was humid, sticky.  He tried not to slip on the stones as he descended into the misty gloom below the bridge.  Flower lost sight of the pavement above.

It had been quiet up there, it was early, and he’d only seen the guard and two other people; down here, it was quieter.  Too quiet.  The mist thickened with each step.  He could hear the lapping of the shore, slow and steady, like a whisper.  He could hear his boots crunch against the gravel.  He could hear his chest wheeze through the damp air.  There was nothing else to hear.  No birds singing.  No crickets chirping.  Nothing.  It was as if the misty waters had sucked away all the usual noises of the riverbank.

A shadow emerged from the grey clouds.  It was tall, taller than the guard, but thinner.  Much thinner.  It wore black robes, tattered, hooded.  Flower could see no face beneath the cowl.  The wooden boat washed up against the shore with nary a sound.

“Are you the ferryman?”  He gulped.  There was no reply.  “Ferrywoman?  Ferryperson?”  Flower took a step toward the river, then pointed up.  “The guard told me there’d be a ferryman… that you’d take me across the river for a couple of coins.”

The hooded figure looked up, then back at Flower.  It nodded a slow and deliberate nod.

“Uh… okay,” said Flower.  He hesitated closer, glanced around, then stepped onto the ferryman’s boat.  It wobbled in the water.

A bony and open hand extended out to him, and Flower hurriedly placed two coins on its palm.  The skin was cold and dry, the antithesis of the muggy air.  The hand withdrew back within the black robes, and the tall figure nodded it’s slow and deliberate nod once more.

Flower sat down.  “Er… th… th… thank you,” he stuttered.  He wasn’t sure whether he was happy to finally be heading home or scared shitless by whatever was happening down here under the bridge.

Flower smiled at the ferryman, who leant onto the long pole it carried and pushed off into the river.

“It’s… uh… a lovely morning, isn’t it?”  The thick mist had consumed the air, and he could no longer see the shore behind him, or the blue skies above.  It was grey and swampy.  He wondered if the glorious morning continued without them.

The ferryman said nothing.  The skiff continued gliding through the water.

“Do you get many people down here?” babbled Flower.  His nerves shook the words from his mouth in a jabber of syllables.  “I expect so; the river is lovely in the summer.”

The silence continued.  So did the boat.  The only sound was the swish of the disturbed river as they moved.

“It’s warm, isn’t it?” he said.  Flower flapped his hands in his face, an unsuccessful action to cool his sweating body.  The humidity was starting to get to him; the misty clouds closing in, sticking to his skin, moisture refusing to leave him.  “Aren’t you warm in that cloak?  It looks like it’s made of a thick wool.”

Again, he was met with no reply from the gangly ferryman.  The wooden boat answered instead, creaking as it rocked along the waters, moving ever forward for what seemed forever.  He wondered if he’d made a mistake; would they ever reach the other shore?  He’d jumped into a boat with a stranger.

“Uh…”  The silence felt even more palpable now; it was as thick as the muggy mist, and almost as slick.  Flower’s words would just slip right off, ignored by the taciturn ferryman.  He wanted to say something, but his voice would be futile.

He was lost on the river, deep in the mist, with a tall and cloaked figure.

And then the skiff hit the shore, wooden hull scraping against the stones, screeching and rasping.  They came to a halt.  Flower was saved.

He stood.  “Th… thanks again.”

The slender, towering ferryman reached out an icy hand and touched his shoulder, freezing Flower to the spot.  The cloaked man leant close, and, in a gravelly voice that stank of the grave, whispered two chilling words into his ear, words so cold that they curdled Flower’s blood.  He didn’t know what to say, how to respond, but he watched as the ferryman straightened, lifted his bony finger up and back towards the bridge, and pointed through the thick mist to where the burly guard had blocked his passage.

The ferryman laughed, a rattling hiss emanating from within the folds of the black cowl, and turned back to Flower.

He saw the reality within the hood.

Flower ran, jumping from the boat, racing up the steps from the river.  He ran and ran, didn’t stop until he was safely within his home.

He knew that tomorrow, the ferryman would be gone, and that he’d never need to pay a toll to cross the bridge ever again.

The End.

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Foggy Flower (short story)

 

Foggy Flower

(Random 2-word prompt- inspector, grounds)

 

                The mist was thick and cold.  So was he.  Cold, that is.  His clothes were soaked with a penetrating and perpetual damp that sank right down to his bones.  Flower shivered, his breath caught by the icy air, condensing around his lips with every exhale.

                His torch did very little to help his visibility in the dark of the night; it’s narrow beam only caught misty grey walls closing in on him… and yet, he could still somehow feel the wide-open castle grounds around him.  It was both claustrophobic and agoraphobic.  He felt vulnerable.

                Flower kept walking, a quick pace; he wanted to get home.  His dull footsteps, and their accompanied syncopated echo, were the only sound of life in the gardens, though a gentle breeze tussled the bushes intermittently too.

                He’d heard that ghosts haunted the castle grounds.  George, the old guard, had regaled him with terrifying tales and supernatural stories all evening, and those eerie yarns had spooked him.

                Flower’s torch flickered.

                George had told him of headless knights stalking the paths, vengeful wailing maidens in white dresses with slit wrists creeping through the bougainvillea.  He’d spun fables of gruesome beasts hiding under the hedgerows, creatures with long red claws and creepy grins, waiting to grab unsuspecting victims by their ankles and pull them into their lair.  He’d told Flower about the evil witches and warlocks who, hundreds of years ago, used these grounds for their dark rituals and blood sacrifices, and who, while being tortured and burnt at the stake, swore a cursed revenge in their afterlife as spirits.

                His torch flickered again.  And again.

George had told Flower that the witches and warlocks could still sometimes be heard, crying out their pained curses in the middle of the night, casting malevolent spells on those with fear in their hearts.

Of course, Flower didn’t believe any of those fictional fables…

The torch died, and Flower came to a sudden stop, the echo of his footsteps following suit almost immediately.  The walls of grey mist were replaced with walls of blind darkness in an instant.  There was nowhere to go.  He couldn’t see anything in front of him.  He shuddered in the cold.  His clothes deepened the icy feeling on his skin, sodden by the damp air, and goosebumps stalked up his arms.

The wind crept around him, and the flora of the gardens whispered secrets to it.  Flower’s heart quickened, so did his breathing.  He was alone, hoped he was alone, in the quiet dark.  He began to see the grey of the mist as his eyes adjusted to the dark; it did little to improve his vision.  He looked at his feet; he could just about make out the path.

And then, a high-pitched cry in the distance broke the silence of the night.  The whinny of a horse in the castle stables.  Or was it a witch, a warlock, cursing him?  Was it a gruesome beast in the hedgerows?  Or a wailing maiden?

The silence retuned just as quickly as it’d been disturbed.

And…

Flower broke in a run, boots thumping against the stone path, eyes straining in the dark.  He ran and he ran and he ran.  He could feel it behind him.  Something was there, following.  It echoed his steps, chased him through the fog.  His legs strained to move faster.  His heart thrummed hard.  He ran.  His lungs struggled.  He tried not to scream, but fearful utterances escaped his lips.

A rock or a branch caught his foot.  He cried out as he fell, his body slammed into the dewy grass, his face collided with the earth.  He was winded and hurt.

                He didn’t move, couldn’t move.  He shivered in the dirt, but not from the cold.

                The pursuing footsteps came to halt, and Flower could sense the presence standing over him.  He could hear it wheeze and groan; it gurgled a death rattle.

                The supernatural creature was about to pounce.

                “Flower?” came a breathless, yet familiar voice.

                Flower twisted onto his back and looked up into a light that now shone on his prone body.

                “You forgot your keys,” wheezed George the guard, pointing his torch down at the man.  He tossed the keys to Flower.  “Why did you have to run so fast?  Silly bugger.  I could barely keep up.”

The End.

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Flower, Eggs, Milk (short story)

 

Flower, Eggs, Milk

(Random 2-word prompt- egg, wreck)

 

                He needed eggs for the kitchen... for the cook.  Just one tray.  And just a short walk up the street and back.

                It should’ve been easy.  Over easy.

                It should’ve been quick.  Quiche?

                But it had all ended up a bit of a pavlova.

                Mrs Spatchcock was baking tarts for the palace, but Flower had overslept- he’d been up late working at the pier- and he’d scrambled his responsibilities; it was his job to order the ingredients, and he’d messed up.  He’d meant to order a churn of milk and two dozen eggs, but…

                “What on earth am I meant to do with this much milk?”  The cook shouted and screamed, and cracked him round the ear with her palm.  “And one egg?!”

                “Uhm… let me fix it.”  And Flower had whisked away, with a bruise on his head and some coins in his hand, to the sunny side up of town, to the grocer’s, to buy a new tray of eggs… and to escape a beating from the cook.

He ran up the street and bought the goods with haste.

                “Oi! You gotta pay for that!”  The grocer caught him poaching a roll from the counter, he was starving, as he’d left with his arm full of eggs, and he tossed a spare coin to the man before he walked out the door with a spring in his step and no longer a care in the world.

                But that coin was devilled; it fell, and it bounced, and it chased Flower outside.  He hummed a tune as he chewed the bread, nonchalant, unaware of the catastrophe that rolled between his feet and took the lead.

                The coin careened down the hill, and swerved left as it hit a loose stone; it rattled to a halt and waited in front of a shop.

                Flower, his bread devoured, whistled and walked.  He could see the door of the kitchens at the bottom of the street, and Mrs Spatchcock in the doorway, arms crossed and face thawing.  The morning was improving, or so he thought…

                Meanwhile, a man in a hat spotted the cursed coin, and ducked to retrieve it, but as he rose up triumphantly, the golden disc aloft in his hand, a woman burst from the shop, blinded by parcels stacked high, and barrelled into him.  The coin flipped from his grasp.

                Ignorant Flower, unaware of the calamitous collision, waved to the cook with his free hand; he was almost back.

                The money continued its path through the air; it clinked onto a roof, trundled down the tiles and swung into the guttering.  It sauntered along the half-pipe, swinging to and fro, never quite risking a leap to the ground.  It swirled the entrance to the downpipe, and then clattered into the tube.

                The coin rolled out, wheeling along and between the paving stones, ringing a chaotic tune along its rim before it fell, then stuck unfortuitously between two slabs just a few metres in front of Mrs Spatchcock.  It stood defiantly on its edge, half in and half out of the pavement… and unnoticed by the cook, or by Flower.

                And as Flower neared the kitchens, his toe caught on the coin in just the right place, and his gait faltered and jerked, and the tray of eggs was unleashed from his grasp and into the atmosphere.

                Flower found his balance just before he fell, but as he stumbled forward, his eyes caught the horror on the cook’s face as the tray flew up and back down.

The eggs smashed all over her frittatas, and she screamed.  A cry of shock, at first, but it evolved into rage.

Flower ran, but Mrs Spatchcock was faster, and she caught him in her grip within seconds.  The buxom cook, bosom sodden with ovum and shells, accosted the short man, who shrank back in terror.

The cook kicked.

Punishment was dealt; Flower fell to the floor, clutching his bruised macarons.

And he realised that it wouldn’t just be the kitchen that needed new eggs…

Ow.

The End.

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In His Sights (short story)

 In His Sights

By T. A. Jenkins 

Q33RX steadied the barrel of the gun on the window ledge.  His cybernetic enhancements synchronised his eyesight with the muscles in his hand and arm, and he brought his prey into his sights.  It would be a clean headshot.  No collateral damage.

Nick Calon was going to die tonight.

His target looked happy, surrounded by his friends in the restaurant, a drink in hand.  Laughing.  Smiling.  But that didn’t matter.  Nick Calon had been judged guilty by the Religitron Mainframe and would face justice.  He was the enemy.

The shot was lined up, Calon’s face caught in the crosshairs.  The man smiled, almost directly at the cyborg assassin.

Q33RX stroked the trigger and… hesitated.

Déjà vu?

There was something about that smile.  Nick… Nick Calon’s smile, his face... he’d seen it before.

No.  That wasn’t right.  Of course he’d seen the man’s face before; he knew who he was going to kill.  He’d seen the mission brief.  He’d memorised the face of the man he needed to kill.

He lined up his shot once more.

But why the déjà vu?  Had the interspace teleporter messed up the wiring in his brain?  Like his arm?  He’d fixed that, but he couldn’t fix his brain.

And Calon was still there, smiling.

Q33RX had a mission.

He adjusted his grip on the rifle; the sight had slipped again, and he returned Nick Calon’s head to the crosshairs.

This was it.

Time to carry out the mission.

Time to kill an enemy of the Mainframe.

His finger stalled on the trigger; he couldn’t do it.  It should be easy.  It was his job, his mission.

Why couldn’t he do it?

Was he really that broken?

His hand held a frozen grip on the gun, ready to shoot.

Ready to kill.

This was why he was here, why he’d climbed up through the depths of the space station to get here, now.  He knew who he was going to kill.  Nick Calon had to die, no matter how he smiled, how he laughed with his friends, or how…

No.

Q33RX took a breath, steadied his resolve, and fired.

 

5 hours earlier.

 

It felt like an intake of breath, a gasp, but there’d been no air in the in-between.

Q33RX was there… and now, he was here.

A sudden, unpleasant jolt through spacetime.

It had taken a toll on him.

Colours flashed in his head; his eyes prickled as if a thousand needles had caressed the surface all at once, and his naked body dropped to its hands and knees.  He felt sick.

He’d tried to focus, to tell his cybernetic form to get its act together, but his thoughts weren’t quite in the same place as he was, almost as if they’d been left behind where he’d been and hadn’t caught up.

His stomach convulsed and he retched; he hadn’t been allowed any solid food for the last twenty-four hours and that worsened the cramps in his midriff.

He needed to move, to stand up.

He had a mission to carry out.

His blurred vision was starting to clear, and he found himself staring at a tiled ceramic floor.  It was dark, but he could still make out an alternating black and white pattern sprawling beneath him.  A chessboard floor.

The mission would be simpler than chess; an assassination, his first, but the conversion process had prepared him well.

Cyber-agent Q33RX climbed to his feet.  He was unsteady, still dizzy from the teleportation, and the robotics in his left arm had shorted out through the in-between space.  Easy enough to fix.  Inorganic material wasn’t well suited to instantaneous transport; it bore major risk, but his more human, fleshy exterior was mostly protective of his internal, non-human components.  Mostly.  He was lucky it was only his arm that’d been damaged.  He’d heard some agents had suffered complete neural overload.  They’d seen ghosts.  Gone crazy.  Failed.

He wouldn’t fail.

Q33RX found himself in a closet, abandoned, given the state of the small room.  Dried out rotten mops and decayed brushes huddled together in a corner, and, lurking nearby, a rusted bucket containing a murky and chunky liquid.  A shelving unit leant against the wall to his right, mostly empty, but he could see, amongst some other paraphernalia, the remnants of abandoned cleaning fluids and decayed toilet paper within its carcass.  An old wooden door bowed awkwardly in its jamb before him; it was closed but drastically misshapen.  Dim green light whispered though the glass panel and highlighted the word ‘MAINTAINENCE’ which was printed backwards on the surface.

He’d arrived, as planned, somewhere in the old and neglected central levels of the space station and, like many Earth cities, it had grown over time by building on top of existing structures, quite literally burying the past as the population grew.  Though in this case it had expanded outwards, an inflating sphere of twisted metal, plastic, and flesh.

He looked at his left arm, a limp limb of metal and plastic wrapped in his nude flesh.  The teleport system had only transported him.  No clothes, no weapons.  And until he made his way to the drop point, where a spy had secreted a mission case, he’d only be able to rely on his own cybernetic enhancements.  Right now, he had what he needed for a simple repair.  With his right arm he reached into his mouth and retrieved a small multitool concealed within the cavity in his throat.  He released the blade from the tool and begun to cut into the flesh of his left arm.  It hurt, but he could handle it; he needed both limbs to kill and a little pain was a fair trade off.

He got to work.  He unscrewed a panel just beneath the surface of his skin and dug into the circuits within with the tool.  He had to be quick; he knew the consequences if he failed this mission.  It was all or nothing.  He clipped a wire and swore at a painful spark.  If he didn’t succeed, or if he was detected, the Religitron Mainframe would send another cyber-agent to destroy him and finish the job.  The Mainframe didn’t accept failure.  He disconnected a couple of wires, then reconnected them onto different circuits, causing a surge through his left arm.  That should do it.  He tested every joint and muscle, flexing his fingers and rotating his wrist, extending and retracting his elbow, rolling his shoulder.  Yes, all fixed.

He found an old first aid kit tucked at the back of one the shelves.  The bandages inside were a little decrepit but would be good enough; he used one roll to wipe away the excess blood and wrapped the rest of the bandages tightly around his arm.  It was the first bit of clothing he’d worn since he’d stripped off for the teleporter.  A full set of clothes was his next step, but not because of any sense of modesty; he needed to be able to navigate the higher levels of the space station without drawing any undue attention.  Nudity in public spaces wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

He headed for the exit.  The door handle was a little rusted, and he found he needed to shove hard against the jammed, warped door to open it.  It gave way with a splintered crunch.  Q33RX stepped out of the closet into a desolate corridor beyond.

The space station was huge, a city of cities, and he only had a vague idea where he was within its depths.  The hall was lit by dim green emergency lights, a sign that no power was diverted here, and it’s non-descript walls gave little away.  Not even the station’s homeless came here.  Not even rats.

It was a place for ghosts.

And cyborg assassins.

He could see several doors in the gloomy hall, and it only took a short search to find some old maintenance overalls and a pair of serviceable boots in one of the rooms.  He couldn’t make out their colour; they may have been brown, blue, green, or even pink; it was difficult to see the full spectrum in this emerald light.  Not that it mattered.  Clothes were clothes.  Aside from what he’d needed, there’d been very little else of note to be found; most of rooms contained old computer terminals that were useless without power, or rows and rows of filing cabinets.  Abandoned admin.

As he wandered, he found himself lost, and all he could do was choose a direction and keep going until he found something to clue him in on his location.  He had five hours to complete his mission.  Five hours to kill.

It was an hour later when he was a little less lost; he found a map.  As he approached it, he thought he saw a face staring back at him from the reflective surface; it wasn’t his own, but someone familiar.  A trick of the light.  Shadows.  It disappeared almost as soon as he’d seen it, replaced with his own grim face looking back at him from behind the diagram.

It’d been a ghost, his imagination directing him to his pick-up point.

Another hour passed before Q33RX reached an abandoned office several floors up.  It’d taken much longer than expected to get here; some of the passages had been blocked by debris.  Some had collapsed entirely.  There’d been no direct route.

The office was littered with hundreds of desks, lined in imperfect rows skewed by time, all with broken computer terminals.  Most were cracked open like rancid eggs and stripped of their electronic yokes.  They were dusty and stained.  Useless.  He walked between them, checking the desk numbers, counting along until he reached the one he needed.

Zero-thirty-three.

It was almost indistinguishable from the others, though a fractured chair lay sprawled on its back in front of the terminal.  He kicked it to one side.  There was a filing cabinet under the desk, and he yanked opened the bottom drawer to find a metal box.  The mission case, just as planned.  He lifted it out and placed it on the desk next to the busted computer.

He froze, hearing the click of a trigger behind him.

“Don’t turn around,” said a man.  His voice was deep, smooth, almost comforting.  “I just want to ask you a question.”

“Why?”  He ran a finger along the metal seems of the case; there would be a gun inside.  “Who are you?”  He wasn’t sure if he’d be fast enough to get it before the intruder could fire his own.

“I’m asking the questions.”

“Are you the spy?” said Q33RX.  “Did you leave me this case?”  He wondered if he was talking to a double agent.

“Does it matter?”

“What do you want?”

“I told you; I want to ask you something.”  The voice was coming from his back left, around five metres back.  “About what you’re about to do.”  Q33RX had clocked a doorway near there, one of only a few ways into this office.  “I want you to think about your mission.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve got on my mind,” said Q33RX.  He kept his hand on the metal case, almost willing it open to get the gun.  “I know what I need to do.”

“You should get that arm looked at.”

He didn’t reply.

“Tell me, do you know who you’re going to kill?”

“The enemy,” he snapped.  He considered throwing the box at him, to distract him, skew his gun’s aim, so he could charge at him.  “Everything I need is in here.”

“Do you know who you’re going to kill?”  The man’s voice was sterner this time, pointed.  “Do you?

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“Who are you?!”  Q33RX screamed, grabbed the metal case, turned on his heel, and threw it at… nothing.  Just an empty doorway.  He, whoever he was, had disappeared.  The box clattered into the room beyond and bounced, echoing from within, the contents rattling and rolling as it settled.

He rushed after it, hoping to catch the stranger, to find out who he was, what he wanted, why he was there, what he meant by his bizarre question.

The room was empty.

A lonely computer terminal was overturned on the floor, no chair, and to its right was the remains of a battered and rusty filing cabinet.  Nearby he found the box he’d weaponised.  He squatted and opened it, ignoring the files and pulling the gun from inside.  He cocked it.  Another quick scan of the room confirmed he was alone.  There was only a sealed-up doorway to another part of the building, but there was no way he’d escaped through there, not without a welding torch.  Besides, it was sealed from the inside.

This was impossible.

Had Q33RX been wrong?  Had the man been somewhere else in the office?  No, this was definitely where the voice had come from.

And who was he?  A spy?  Double agent?  Was he working for the enemy?  Or had he imagined the man?  Another ghost?  Had the whole thing just been a product of damage to his cybernetic brain, damage caused by the teleportation?  Like his arm?

He placed his back against a wall, keeping his eyeline on the open doorway in case the disappearing man returned, and finally looked at the mission files from the box.

Nick Calon.  That’s who file told him he was going to kill.  He didn’t recognise the name, or anything else in the man’s bio.  The cyber-agent hadn’t even been to this space station before, so how could he know who he was going to kill?  The stranger’s question had been nonsense.  He turned the page to the reconnaissance photos.  Nick Calon.  The face was unknown to him.  Another stranger.  No.  Wait.  He…

His arm briefly twinged with a short, sharp pain; he grasped it instinctively, bloodying his hand.  The pain was gone as quickly as it had occurred.

Q33RX refocused his attention.  The mission was all that was important, not the strange man and his confusing words, not the pain in his arm, and not whether he know who he was going to kill.  Nick Calon was going to die.  He spent a few minutes memorising the paperwork and photos, before burning it all with the matches left in the metal case.  No evidence left behind.  There was some extra equipment in the box, some sniper attachments for his gun, and he secreted them within his overalls.

It was time to move.

He had everything he needed.

He was armed.

He knew where to go.

He knew who to assassinate.

Nick Calon was going to die in three hours.

The cyber-agent took another look around the office with its rows of terminals, searching for any sign of his ghostly visitor, but found nothing.  As he’d expected.  If the stranger was a traitor, a double agent, it made no sense.  He hadn’t stopped him.  The man had still left the files, the gun.  If he was working for the enemy, why would he do that?  The stranger had just left him with a cryptic question and gone silent.  What sort of game was being played?

‘Do you know who you’re going to kill?’

He did… now.

Q33RX headed for his next location: a recently empty tower block in the populated upper levels of the space station.  A perfect sniper spot opposite where his target, Nick Calon, would be celebrating a friend’s engagement.

An hour and a half later, and after crawling up and along crumbled passageways and corridors, he emerged from a manhole into an alleyway just off the main concourse of a busy street.  He’d heard the bustle and chaos, the buzz and clamour of the city, almost as soon as he’d started headed upwards.  It’d been getting louder and louder as he neared his goal.  It was deafening now.  The several homeless people he’d passed on the levels just below the surface, and the one or two in the alley, were unfazed by the cacophony.  Desensitised.  Vehicles zoomed through the air above.  Cars chugged along the streets.  Dogs barked.  Sirens and alarms sang intermittently in the distance, and musical genres competed for attention.  People shouted, laughed, and talked.  And even the light boomed; bright and colourful illuminations pierced every corner, a mix of tasteless advertisements and gaudy flashing neon signs.  It was an assault on his senses.

And the smell…

He tried not to think about it; it’d been bad enough picking up its hideous gaseous tendrils as he’d moved from the musty lower depths of the space station and neared the surface, but here it permeated everything.

Q33RX entered the designated tower block through the back door, making sure to disable the security system.  Just because the building was for sale and the estate agent never showed people around on the weekends, didn’t mean he could just break the lock and do whatever he wanted.  He needed to be careful not to jeopardize the mission.

It was quieter inside, the walls protecting him from the discord outside, and he tried to revel in the silence as he rode the elevator to one of the upper floors.  His thoughts filled the quiet.  He needed to focus, to try and ignore the feelings of doubt that crept up his metal spine.

Did he know who he was going to kill?

The ping of the elevator doors took him out of his contemplation, and he quickly made his way to the room where he’d take his shot.

Nick Calon was going to die tonight.

Q33RX readied himself, opening the window and allowing the frenzied sounds of the city to wash over him.

He waited.

And waited.

He kept his target’s face in his mind, trying to concentrate only on the mission, only on killing the enemy.  It was his only purpose right now.

He waited.

And waited.

It was almost time; he’d arrived.

Nick Calon.

The cyber-agent watched his prey greet his friends on the roof of the building opposite and he kept waiting.  He waited as he watched the target eat, drink, and be merry.  Calon looked happy.

He would die happy.

Q33RX steadied the barrel of the gun on the window ledge and brought his prey into his sights.  A clean headshot.  No collateral damage.

Nick Calon had been judged guilty by the Religitron Mainframe and would face justice.  He was the enemy.

The shot was lined up, Calon’s face caught in the crosshairs.  The man smiled, almost directly at the cyborg assassin.

Q33RX stroked the trigger and… hesitated.

Déjà vu?

There was something about that smile.  Nick… Nick Calon’s smile, his face... he’d seen it before.

No.  That wasn’t right.  Of course he’d seen the man’s face before; he’d seen the mission brief.  He’d memorised the face of the man he needed to kill.

He lined up his shot once more.

Did he know who he was going to kill?

He adjusted his grip on the rifle; the sight had slipped again, and he returned Nick Calon’s head to the crosshairs.

This was it.

Time to carry out the mission.

Time to kill an enemy of the Mainframe.

His finger stalled on the trigger; he couldn’t do it.  It should be easy.  It was his job, his mission.

Why couldn’t he do it?

Was he really that broken?

His hand held a frozen grip on the gun, ready to shoot.

Ready to kill.

This was why he was here, why he’d climbed up through the depths of the space station to get here, now.  He knew who he was going to kill, didn’t he?

Nick Calon had to die.  No matter how he smiled, how he laughed with his friends, or how…

No.

Q33RX took a breath, steadied his resolve, and fired.

 

He missed.

 

The bullet shattered several wine glasses and tumblers on the shelves behind the bar; no-one, not even Nick Calon, was harmed.  But the bullet had shattered the happiness.  His prey no longer smiled, no longer laughed; he was scared.  He ducked below the tables, following the lead of the screaming and shouting guests at the restaurant.  What should’ve been a precision hit, became chaos.

Nick Calon was still alive.

The déjà vu was still alive too.

Did he know who he’d tried to kill?

Had that mysterious man, the voice in the depths of the space station, been real?  Or a ghost?  Was his cybernetic brain twisted up in knots from the teleportation?  Neural overload?  No.  What was happening to him?

He leapt to his feet and screamed.  He punched the wall, plaster exploded outward, and his fist went right through.  It didn’t hurt, but he screamed again, punched again.  And again.  And again.

There wasn’t time for this; if he finished the mission, if he killed Nick Calon, maybe these feelings and thoughts would die too.

There was no other way.

Q33RX unscrewed the sniper attachments from his gun, shortening the length, and abandoned them on the floor, before climbing out the window and onto the fire escape.

His vantage point was almost at the top of the building, and his prey was on the large roof plaza of a much shorter building opposite; there was a significant height and gap between them.

The cyber-agent knew what he needed to do.  The raw calculations from the computerised parts of his brain could be accurate, if he could trust them, but it was impossible to know every variable.  The soft, squishy parts of his brain, instinct, would compensate.

He readied his stance, one foot back, one forward; he braced his legs, preparing the cyber enhanced muscles in his thighs and calves.

He eyed his target.

Nick Calon, along with the other people at the event, were still taking cover under the tables.  He could hear sirens in the distance, and it was hard to tell if they were part of the usual melodies of the city or whether they were coming closer.  The traffic, flying cars and transports, continued undeterred, and life surrounding the restaurant continued as if no gun had been fired.  People were too concerned with their own lives and used to the chaos of this place of sin.

Q33RX leapt from the building, jumping into the gaudy illumination and the cacophonic commotion of the city.  His body fell between the flying vehicles, and he felt the whoosh and zip as they zoomed around him.  He thought he’d get hit, get knocked from his path, but either luck or his calculating brain were on his side.

He hit the paved floor of the plaza and rolled, scrambling to his feet, and keeping some of the momentum as he ran.

Someone screamed, a pedestrian, but he ignored her and pushed through anyone in his way.

He kept his focus on Nick Calon.

Did he know who he was going to kill?

He raced toward the restaurant.

Did he know?

He kicked open the door and cocked his gun.

Did he?

As he entered, he saw the food abandoned on tables, drinks spilled, and the guests huddled beneath the furniture.  He heard someone sobbing to his right.  He could feel the fear in the room.  Not that it mattered.  Q33RX kept moving forward.  He needed to complete the mission, to prove to himself that he wasn’t going crazy, to prove he could kill Nick Calon.

For the mission.

For the Religitron Mainframe.

For…

His prey was in his sights.

The cyber-agent grabbed the table and threw it to one side.  Plates and glasses cascaded and flipped from its surface as it smashed against the restaurant’s bar.

He took aim at Nick Calon.

Did he know who he was going to kill?

His finger pressed against the trigger.

“Quinn?” said his prey.  His voice was deep, smooth, almost comforting.

Something changed.

It felt like an intake of breath, a gasp, but there’d been no air in his lungs.

A sudden, uneasy jolt through spacetime.

The words had taken his breath away.

Colours flashed in his head; his skin tingled as if a thousand kisses had caressed its surface all at once, and his body dropped to its hands and knees.  He felt sick.

He knew who he was going to kill.

He tried to focus, to tell his cybernetic form to get its act together, but his thoughts were suddenly in the same place as he was, almost as if they’d been left behind and had finally caught up.

Flickers of moments, forgotten memories, bombarded his brain.  Romantic meals, holding hands in the park, snuggling on the sofa.  Echoes of another life washed over him.  A kiss on the cheek, laughing at the same jokes, playing games together, splashing about and having fun in the seas of a distant planet.  How could he have forgotten so much?  His smile, his eyes… how could he have forgotten?

Those eyes, that smile… they were his home.

“Quinn? Is that really you?” said Nick.

He’d lost everything to the mission.

Wiped away, converted, by the Religitron Mainframe.

His gun clattered to the floor.

“Quinn.”  A hand, a familiar and welcoming hand, touched his.  “It’s okay.”

He looked up with teary eyes; he didn’t realise he’d been crying.  The mysterious stranger, the voice he’d heard in the lower level… it had been no stranger.  Had it been his imagination?  Memories?  A ghost from his past?  His own mind had warned him with a voice he now felt relieved to hear once more.  He blinked through watery eyes to see someone he knew with all his heart.

“Nick,” he said.  “I… I…”

“I know.”  The other man stood, guiding him up at the same time.  Nick grabbed both his hands.  “Quinn, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I was going to…”

The other man placed his finger on his lips and smiled.  Everything melted away, all the commotion and chaos, all the past and all the future; there was only the present… and the two of them.  And those eyes.  He didn’t want this to end.  He wanted to stay lost in those eyes forever.  Q33RX… no, Quinn… pulled Nick close.  They embraced, bodies and lips meeting for what felt like the first time.  Fireworks flooded his cybernetic heart.  He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten all this.  Forgotten him.

It had been stolen from him.

He was going to take it all back.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” he said as they broke apart.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Nick squeezed his hand, “and you found me.”

“I… I failed my mission.”  He placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder.  “And now we’re both in danger.”

“I know.”

Quinn looked around the restaurant.  Police sirens were growing louder outside, and he could see Nick’s friends and relatives, still hiding under the tables, less scared more nervous.  They’d be okay; they weren’t targets.  But Quinn and Nick needed to flee.  “The Religitron Mainframe will be sending another cyber-agent to finish the job,” he said.  He nodded toward the door that led to the kitchen, and undoubtedly an exit.  He took Nick’s hand.  “Come with me if you want to live.”

As the words left his lips, Quinn knew that he wouldn’t just be saving Nick’s life, but that Nick would also be saving his, to be able to live as he truly was, and with who he was meant to be with.  He wanted to live.

The lovers ran, Quinn holding Nick tight, and he vowed to never lose him, never forget him, ever again.

He was finally home.

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