Chapter 16 as it appeared
Part 3: Evolution Bites
Authors: Gabby, PCat
Acknowledgment: Based on an idea by Ian, Extra input from BD, Kulko and Tarrok
Chapter 16: Truth and Reconciliation
Malton +64
"You better watch those hands, sonny," Sam growled at the police officer. Vicky followed him through the door.
"It's fine, Sam, was just a patting down. Nothing to worry about."
"Sam! Vicky! You made it! I thought you weren't coming!" Gabby exclaimed, emerging from the kitchen with a fat slice of cake halfway to his mouth.
"We made time; thought you could use the company."
"Yeah, that's the problem. This house arrest thing is pretty cushy, but it does get a bit lonely. Especially since Cat buggered off."
"So you're coping? They're treating you well?" Vicky asked.
"Oh yeah, great! They bring me food, I've got Internet and guitar, and no-one tries to make me get out and exercise anymore!"
"You can ask them for an exercise machine - it's your right."
"Sh! I don't want to go jogging. I'm happy eating cake and watching telly!"
Vicky made a disapproving face, but seemed to drop the issue. "Gabby, can I use your media-screen?"
"Sure, it's over there. Don't try and eikipedia Simon Brankin - that's one of the pages they're blocking for some reason. Fairly nice. I also convinced them the Rick Roll was a coded message, so they block those too."
Vicky sighed. "Have you actually received a Rick Roll any time in the last fifty years?"
Gabby shrugged. As Vicky settled down in front of the screen, he turned to Sam. "So, Sammy. When is Ian getting me out of here?"
"I dunno, mate, he says it's tricky. Aside from anything else, he's a bit snowed under. You took full responsibility for Beijing. A lot of people died there and a lot of their friends and families now support Ian. Then all that business with the Flying Fortress didn't help. God knows how many you and Cat killed."
"Fewer than you killed in Moscow, and you're still out and about."
"Ah, but that falls under the amnesty, which I'm not sure was ever extended to you."
"Gabby, what's this? 'Download complete: sexy brunette teen and...' What exactly are you doing with your spare time?"
"Wanking, by the looks of it." Sam smirked. They crossed the room to the media-screen and Sam tapped the download window, bringing up a video.
"Gabby, really? Are those two even of age?" Vicky elbowed Sam in the stomach to drag his attention away from the cavorting bodies on screen.
"Oh I don't watch them! Well, not all of them. It's to..." Gabby paused, distracted by the last piece of clothing sliding off onscreen, "...to fuck with the guards. They're filtering my Internet traffic, blocking sensitive material and stuff. I saw one of them, he's definitely a virgin, and the other one had a cross round her neck. I want to see how far I can push them. What?" Gabby demanded, looking between the dumbfounded couple. "I get bored," he said defensively.
"Well, I've ordered you a treadmill - it's a smart one. It keeps records, and I can make it send them to me, since I'm a doctor. If I find out you've been slacking, I'll... shove one of those up your arse," Vicky said dryly, nodding at the action on screen.
"You've got one that big?"
It was raining again. The kind of torrential downpour you really only got in the rainforest. Cat stopped. She was halfway through a swollen stream and the water came up to her waist. If it got any higher it would get inside her wader.
"What am I doing here?"
BD, ahead of her, turned around. "Returning to town?"
"Urgh!" Cat looked at her arm. "I've got another leech."
"We'll get it off on the other side. Come on Cat. There's no point just standing there."
Cat made a face and carried on forwards. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for this."
"You're doing great Cat. We need more people with a finance background. Everyone hits a low point around six months."
"But that's not really what I meant," said Cat as she struggled up the far side. "Why did I come out here?"
"To do some good?"
Cat sighed. "I'm running away from Gabby."
BD shrugged. "You can look at it like that if you want. I prefer to think of it as giving yourself the space to come to your senses."
"I had space, BD, after Beijing. It didn't really change anything."
"He's a walking disaster area Cat."
Cat smiled. "I know. I'm going home BD. This is stupid."
BD shook his head. "Ant! Cat says she's going back to Gabby!"
Ant, who was standing on the path ahead of them, turned around. "Hale-fucking-luya!"
"Ant! That doesn't help."
"I'm sorry BD, but I'm fed up with the two of them moping after each other. It's about time they had a good shag and got it out of their systems."
"She's my sister Ant!"
"And, for some unknown reason, she needs to be fucked by Gabe. I can't help that."
Cat laughed and walked up to kiss Anton on the cheek. "Your faith in the power of a good fuck should be an example to us all."
"I'm ninety years old. I am wise and know these things."
Inspector Joe Scalia (sometimes known as Biohazard) stretched idly and gazed out of his office window. It had been a quiet afternoon. These days, in Santa Teresa, that still meant half a dozen murders and a food riot but he had good men covering them all. He was waiting for the paperwork to start coming in.
He hadn't exactly emerged unscathed from Simon Brankin's regime. He'd spent a long time in jail after getting caught up in Bob's resistance network, but it had been a low security jail in Southern California. He'd got to like the climate and the people and when they let him out, he'd stuck around. When an opening had come up for an Inspector in Santa Teresa, Ian had written personally to explain the gap in his employment record and now there was a generous compensation policy for political prisoners which set him up nicely. All in all, Joe thought, life was looking good.
A silent alert flashed on the media wall. Joe frowned and highlighted it. He got one of the security feeds from the outer office. He couldn't see the deputy who should have been on the desk, but there was the body of what looked like a tramp on the floor and a lot of blood. Joe hit the high alert button, wondering why it hadn't already sounded. Nothing. Something was obviously jamming the system.
He pulled on his dataglasses and set them into the police security mode. Half a dozen little tags appeared giving the location of several of his officers. He pulled on an earpiece and throat microphone and tuned into dispatch. Static. Joe rapidly hit the security code on the arms case by the door of his office and pulled out an automatic. Then he stepped cautiously into the corridor.
"Grady?" he called cautiously. According to his glasses, Grady was just around the corner. No answer. Joe took a few tentative steps forward, his stomach churning.
There was a gurgling sound and a shot. Joe pulled up his gun, just as the lights cut out. Cursing, he fumbled with his glasses, trying to flick them onto low-light vision. Heavy footfalls sounded ahead of him. A table toppled over, sending small objects clattering across the floor. The low-light vision finally activated, and Joe was momentarily blinded by the adjustment flare. Blinking back white spots, he peered ahead. Something else fell over. Joe spotted movement at the end of the corridor. There was an inhuman roar. He shivered. A shape surged down the corridor and he opened fire, setting the gun to fully automatic when he saw the size of the thing approaching. He got an impression of a vast humanoid form filling the corridor. His gun stuttered to empty. He fumbled for a second clip. Whatever it was staggered and the advance slowed but it came on, there was a flash of screaming teeth. The second clip slotted into place and Joe opened fire once more. There was a grating scream and then whatever it was crashed, bleeding, through a window. Joe rushed over, switching in a third clip. Something was moving through the alleyway below and he fired again. It vanished around a corner.
Cat hadn't really reckoned on being quite so dog-tired when she got back to her flat. The last two days of the journey had been a nightmare of missed connections and over-booked hotels. She was grubby and half-asleep and ravenously hungry. Getting frisked in the entrance hallway hadn't helped any either. Cautiously she unlocked the door.
Unsurprisingly her flat had been gabbified. Most obvious were the guitars and speakers, but a glance into the kitchen told her someone didn't wash up very often. Gabby was sat on the couch, listening to a loud rhythmic music she didn't recognise. She let the door slam shut behind her. That made him start and turn round.
"Cat!" he said, clearly surprised. "I wasn't expecting you back for, well, years!"
"Are there any women here?" she couldn't help asking.
"No!"
"Any expected later?"
"No!" he switched off the music. "Look! If you just came back to check on my love life. There aren't any women, OK! Happy?"
Cat realised she was starting to cry.
"Oh Cat! I didn't mean to shout."
"It's OK, really. I had this big speech prepared but I hadn't reckoned on being so tired."
"You want to try the speech?"
"I don't know. It had stuff in it about how I only went to Africa to run away from you which seemed kind of silly so I came back."
Gabby looked suddenly hopeful. "Came back to me?"
"Yes, you daft twat. I came back to you."
Gabby was across the room in seconds, leaving footprints on the back of the sofa, and his arms were around her. "Really?"
"Yes, really."
It was twenty-five years since they had last kissed. A bubble of laughter welled up inside Cat.
"Now you're laughing and crying. What's wrong with you woman?"
"I'm in love, what do you think is wrong with me?" She kissed him again. This kiss lingered and Gabby's hands started to wander. She batted them away. "OK! I need a shower. You had better fix something to eat."
A smirk settled on his face. She rather liked his smirks. "You want help with that shower?"
"No, I'm tired, hungry and I smell. You've got as much as you're getting until those are all fixed." She headed for the bathroom.
"What! Even the tired bit?"
"That depends how good the food is." She shut the bathroom door.
"Damn! Pot noodle won't do then?" he shouted through it.
"No!"
"Bloody wimmenz."
Heaven help her, she even loved it when he called her a wimmenz.
Gabby was back in the torture chamber in Simon's flying fortress. The moment was approaching when another `session' would begin but right now Simon was simply circling him, a calculating smile on his face, and Gabby felt the sick dread and tension building up inside him. Sometime, maybe in a minute, maybe in ten, the pain would start again. Just now Simon was walking, selecting each instrument in turn from a table as he went past, but Gabby had to keep watching, waiting for the moment.
After a second of apparent calculation Simon selected a whip from the table. It had small metal spikes knotted into it.
"Mr. Mallows," said Simon, "let me explain how flaying works."
"No!" pleaded Gabby. Simon had already explained this a hundred times. He knew how flaying worked, knew what it looked like to watch his skin peel away. "Simon please!"
"Gabby! Gabby! Hush! It's all right. Hush!"
Gabby struggled at the sound of Cat's voice. It must be another dream, he realised. Sometimes Cat turned up at the end of the dreams. He fought to remain asleep as he looked for her. He was tired of waking up in the empty flat.
"Ssh! Gabby. It's going to be OK."
Someone was holding onto him and stroking his hair. Gabby kept his eyes shut while his heart rate slowed back down and the fear left him. He tried to remember who it might be. There wasn't a big list. The guards only let in people he already knew.
"It's all right Gabby. Simon's not here."
It sounded like Cat's voice and then he remembered that she had come back, yesterday afternoon, and now she was here, in his bed, holding him tight. He turned over to face her and cracked open his eyes. She'd turned on the bedside lamp and it cast a soft warm glow over her face.
"Bad dream," he managed.
"I realised," she said drily and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
"Shrink says they'll get less frequent as time goes by."
"The shrink's right."
He closed his eyes once more and snuggled in close. "'Fraid I'm going to be a bit high maintenance for a while."
"Gabby dearest, you have always been high maintenance." Her voice was full of affection as Gabby drifted asleep once more.
Malton +65
The suit didn't fit. He had paid some fancy Italian tailor the price of a Gibson Les Paul or two to make him a suit, and it didn't fit. Gabby sighed. It felt too tight around the waist and thighs, and too loose on the arms, but it was heavy on the shoulders.
"You look fine - it's nice to see you looking dashing and respectable for a change," Cat said reassuringly, smoothing off his shoulders as they stood in front of the mirror. Gabby scowled at his reflection. He was going to court today. This meant abandoning the rock star image he was carefully rebuilding, in favour of becoming some "boring fucker in a Dolce and Gabbana suit" as he had complained when he had heard about it.
"This is just for today, right?"
"Depends, Gabby. Theoretically, they'll just read out your crimes and Simon's for the cameras, then issue you with pardons, then you two of you will probably shake hands or something. Big media buzz, thank you, goodnight. You can't not go, Gabby."
"I know. But... what if it takes longer, and I have to keep wearing this fuck?" Gabby grumbled, flicking his lapel.
"Then you'll have a few extra pieces of clothing to kick off when we get home at night," Cat said coyly. Gabby's concerns melted away as she slipped out of the hotel dressing room, winking at him. He checked his watch, pondering if he could get away with arriving fifteen minutes late.
"No, Gabby, not now. Tonight."
"I didn't say anything," he protested. How the fuck had she seen him check his watch?
"You didn't need to," came the reply.
Gabby sighed.
"Gabriel Mallows, do you acknowledge that you have committed these crimes?"
Over one hundred counts of murder. Two counts of kidnap. Twenty counts of destruction of government property. Conspiracy to overthrow the government. And quite a few other, more minor charges.
"Yes, your Honour, I do. And I apologise for them."
The last part wasn't required, but Gabby decided it would look good. His lawyer made an approving noise next to him.
"Simon Brankin. You have been accused of conspiracy to pervert democracy, and abusing the Constitution. Do you acknowledge that you have committed these crimes?"
Before Simon answered, he cast a glance at Gabby, his lips curling into a smile. Gabby knew this smile - he had seen it in Simon's torture dungeon.
"Fuck this," he murmured, and louder, "Objection!"
"Gabby," Cat warned from behind him.
"Yes, Mr. Mallows?" The judge sounded impatient. The trial was being held in the Old Bailey, some sort of symbolic measure. Gabby thought it would have made more sense to put it in one of the cities that had been a victim of the Three Gorges attacks, but he didn't count. He was a figure-head, not a leader. Ian was the leader. Gabby was just there for photo-ops - that was why this hearing was so publicised. The others were open to the public, but mostly ignored. But Simon and Gabby? The last time he had seen a double billing that big, it had been when Muse had toured with Guns N' Roses. Gabby had seen them at Wembley. He drifted off for a moment, remembering the encore, when both bands had played together.
"Mr. Mallows!"
"Yes. Why is his crime-list so short?"
"These are all the proven accusations we have against Mr. Brankin. There was no evidence for the claims made by the resistance."
"We need evidence?" Gabby snapped.
"Yes, Mr. Mallows. This is a court of law."
"But... He was fucking Emperor! Of course there's no evidence. It would have been destroyed, if it was even gathered!"
"You can't prove that." Simon broke his silence, glaring at Gabby. Gabby turned to face him.
"Simon Brankin. You are accused of ordering the murders of any who opposed you, including civilians, democratically elected politicians, and armed forces servicemen who resisted your orders. Of a blatant disregard for human rights, equality, and the Constitution. Of torture, kidnap, theft, not to mention slander, defamation, and the unlawful imprisonment of, literally, millions. Do you accept these accusations?"
"Your Honour!" Simon's lawyer spluttered. "This is most unorthodox."
The judge remained silent. Gabby stole a glance over his shoulder, and saw that she was frowning at Simon.
"This is a truth and reconciliation hearing, correct?" Gabby demanded.
"Yes," the lawyer said reluctantly.
"For it to be effective, all crimes should therefore be admitted. After all, there's no worry of repercussions - all crimes will be absolved. Forgiveness. 'Ask, and it will be given you'," Gabby quoted, advancing towards Simon. He was trembling with the desire to break free from his restraint and deck Simon, but he kept a calm face as he leant on the desk. "Isn't that what your little handbook says? Isn't that what you said to get confessions out of resisters before you had them shot, if they were lucky? Or gang-raped, tortured, and thrown in jail if they weren't? Come on, Simon. We're all adults here."
Gabby could almost feel the cameras zooming in on the exchange. It probably made a perfect photo - Gabby, his hair messy and falling loose over his forehead, his tie coming apart as he leaned over Simon, whose air of cool composure was being challenged.
"So what's stopping you? Your reputation? They can be won back, Simon. I know. You dragged mine into the dirt and kept it there for forty years, and now look at me - I'm on fire." Gabby lowered his voice to a whisper, so only Simon could hear. "We still have that data Cat stole so we can still implicate you in the Three Gorges. We do that, how long before someone works out you were behind Beijing as well?"
Simon blinked slowly. "You and Ian have gone to a lot of trouble to keep Cat out of these hearings."
"Don't really want her to have to sit up there and explain what you did to her. But if you think she couldn't do that and couldn't reveal you for the scum you are and wouldn't if it was the only way left to get the truth out, then you never really understood her at all."
Simon blinked once more and then glanced in Cat's direction. "Unfortunately I can't reveal the evidence because there is none."
"You'd better make some up then," Gabby said flatly, standing up, straightening his tie and heading for his seat.
"I admit to the charges levelled against me by the... jester," Simon said contemptuously. The cameras were almost urging Gabby to turn around and knock him out. Instead, Gabby turned around slowly.
"Your Honour, can we take the photos now, and go home? I'm starving."
For some reason, this drew a standing ovation. Gabby nodded his head appreciatively, spread his arms wide for a moment, then sat down in his chair and listened to the judge wrapping things up. This was why he was the figure-head. He had a tendency to make things deviate in good ways.
Malton +66
Gabby took a hopeful drag on the spliff he'd just been handed and then passed it on to Cat. He'd always suspected that pot didn't really work on him the same way as everyone else and Cat had pretty much confirmed it the first time he persuaded her to come along to a night spent chatting and jamming with the band. After half an hour she'd frowned at the spliff she was holding and said, "Either this stuff has got a lot weaker in the past eighty years or my memory's not what it was."
"Your memory's shot to hell old woman," Gabby had said fondly.
"Or it's those nanite things the two of you have," Gary had said darkly.
Gary had left the band last month citing creative differences. Gabby was frankly relieved. The man had never let up about nanites and Gabby had begun to feel a little persecuted about it. He watched Cat take a long draw on the spliff before she passed it back. They'd both discovered that if you smoked enough pot, you did get an effect but if you were sharing with the rest of the room, they all sank into extreme lethargy long before you did. These days, they brought their own and chain smoked it between them.
"Did you see that piece on the Telegraph feed?" asked Christa.
Gabby scowled at her. "Rock stars don't read the fucking Telegraph, sheesh!" Christa was Gary's replacement. Gabby had doubts about her but didn't like to voice them in case Cat called him a sexist... again.
"Gary wrote it," she said. "He's signed up with that pressure group that wants immortals banned from holding office."
"Fucking wanker," opined Gabby. "Can't say I'm surprised though. Did he give grounds or just the normal, `they're all the same as Simon Brankin' shit."
"Something about how you were all clearly not human, because you couldn't interbreed."
"The fuck? What's that all about? Interbreeding? Immortals can have children. Cat's had four."
"The first was before I became immortal," Cat pointed out.
"Yeah!" Gabby grinned, "last time you were a groupie." It had amused him no end to discover Cat's mis-spent youth had involved following some small-time band around Malton, at least for long enough to get pregnant.
Cat slapped his arm lightly. "The other three were with Simon. He's also immortal."
"What about Carol?" asked Gabby frowning and trying to recall school biology. "I mean she's got kids too, so obviously your children can interbreed."
"She married the son of one of Simon's old DEM buddies. Neither Tim nor Janine have had children."
"But they're not actually immortal are they? Carol and Whatshisface?" Gabby put the spliff aside. Suddenly he felt the need to concentrate.
Cat shrugged. "Anyway Gary's right. There are no recorded cases of interbreeding, for which you should be grateful otherwise you'd have this vast horde of bastards to maintain."
"Hey! I'm always careful."
Cat snorted and reached across him for the spliff. "I'm careful. You alternate random panic with sweet, hot, passionate and total forgetfulness."
"And so it is, having consulted with the best psychiatrists in the world, I have to conclude that my wife is suffering from a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome. I urge her to consider her position and, even if she is not willing to return to the family home, to seek counselling and help. I will not, therefore, be initiating divorce proceedings."
"The fuck!?" said Gabby angrily at the media-screen. "Can he do that?"
"Unless we go public with the abuse, yes," said Cat.
"We go public with the abuse then."
Cat shook her head. "No."
"Cat!"
"I said no, OK. Quite apart from anything else we'd get into a long legal row about whether his abuse or my adultery took place first, since that will be the key when it comes to allocating fault."
"Wait! wait! wait! the fuck! The abuse way, way precedes the adultery."
"Can you prove that?" asked Cat. "Remember the concert?"
"Oh fuck! fuck! fuck!" Gabby ran his hands through his hair. "Does the two of you still being married make any difference to anything?"
Cat shrugged. "If I die, he's entitled to fight any will I make in which my assets don't go to him or our children. I can't marry anyone else. Right now, not a lot else. Law might change though."
"Yeah, but Ian's going to repeal this bat-shit law about no divorce without fault, right?"
"I'm not sure, maybe. He'll certainly reduce the penalties accruing to the person shown to be at fault. So if Simon ever does decide to grant a divorce, we probably won't have to pay so much in damages."
"Ah the fuck!" Gabby sighed and pulled Cat into his arms. "We'll leave it as it is for the time being, but I wish you were free of him."
Cat nestled close. "Me too, but I'd rather he just left us alone than we get into a big legal fight over it."
Arthur hadn't had a great deal of contact with the DHPD since Malton. In the early days they were too keen to cling onto each other with endless reunions as if none of them could quite manage to move on from what had happened. It had been sad in a way. He'd turned his back on them and set about making a new life for himself as a journalist. Simon Brankin and Gabriel Mallows had pretty much put paid to that. He'd been in Reykjavik covering the Inuit independence movement which, within months, had become the Inuit separatist movement and then, in due course, the Inuit insurgency. He'd kept his head down and his body out of the hands of the world government which had meant spending most of his time in rural bloody Greenland being hidden by Inuit separatists who were mad as badgers on a good day. He'd helped them out from time to time out of self-preservation, while trying to persuade them that no, the Welsh weren't likely to join their cause.
That ignored Paj. Arthur shut that bit of his life away and tried not to think about it. It was easier to pretend Paj had never happened. The Inuit had all been mad and he'd only ever been involved entirely against his will.
Once the amnesty was announced, again no thanks to Gabriel Mallows, he'd high-tailed it out of Greenland, vowing to spend the rest of his immortal life as far from the Inuit and anywhere cold as possible and, after a little to-ing and fro-ing, he'd decided California was the place. The climate was nice. Joe was there and he was one of the less objectionable of the former DHPD and Hollywood was still barking enough to provide plenty of no-sweat copy for a jobbing journalist. Arthur became a celebrity columnist. He wasn't going to win the Pulitzer but the pay was good and the view and perks were better. He was just staggering back from a party. He was more than a little the worse for drink, which was probably why the starlet he'd been chatting up had ended up going off with a weaselly man who claimed, rather improbably, to be a big name director travelling incognito.
He was fumbling at the door to his Hollywood mansion when some noise alerted him. He paused, looking around, trying to locate the cause. A large form came barrelling out of the bushes, Arthur had a brief impression of bloodshot eyes and grasping claws and then something plunged into his gut. He staggered backwards and gaped at the strangely familiar face before him. It raised a bloody lump to its mouth and took a bite. Arthur looked down in horror to where the nanites within his system were presumably frantically trying to repair the damage. He felt his legs weaken and knew he was starting to lose consciousness. Casually the creature in front of him thrust its other hand into his chest. Arthur blacked out.
When the police came by the next day, alerted by a neighbour. Arthur's body was "shredded" as the autopsy report put it. Most of it was present, though damaged beyond repair, except the liver that appeared to be missing.