Fan Fiction ❯ Beamish Boy ❯ Beamish Boy ( One-Shot )

BEAMISH BOY

© Craig "Black Seventeen" Norris 2003

The lights in the subway car flickered as it shook down the track. Brillig tilted his fedora even further over his eyes, trying to block out the distraction of the florescents. Unfortunately he could do nothing about the other distraction; that being the tortured screams of the woman at the other end of the car. She was being savagely accosted by three large, scruffy-looking men who were attempting to have their way with her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw them finally succeed in pinning her arms behind her, her shrieks growing ever more piercing.

One of the men whipped out a five-inch blade and held it to the woman's neck. "You'd better play nice, or I'll slit your fuckin' throat!" Soon the sound of tearing cloth intermingled with the clickety-clack of the subway car.

"Shut your mouth, bitch! The only thing I want to hear you scream for is my cock!"

The protests of the woman were finally muffled as one of the men thrust his member into her mouth, grabbing her long brown hair tightly so she could not move her head. Another of the group pried her struggling legs apart and began to finger between her legs. "Hey, her pussy's sopping wet!"

"Heh, just as I thought. You're a real slut, aren't you? Suck harder, you fuckin' whore!"

Brillig sighed deeply, tuning out the pathetic whimpers of the woman. A new sound entered his ears; a low, throaty growl. It came from Matthew, who stood tensely next to him. Brillig could easily guess what was on his mind. Before Matthew made a move, Brillig stuck his arm out. "Don't bother."

"Brillig, we should help," he whispered earnestly.

"Why? She is of no concern to us."

Matthew responded with another growl, but a sharp glance from Brillig made him be silent and turn away.

The largest of the men, seeing that Brillig and Matthew were taking an interest in their situation, ceased his amorous assault and strode slowly towards them. "Hey, you got a fuckin' problem, pal?"

"No problem at all. You go on and have your fun." Brillig did not make eye contact.

The man snorted. "Well, you sure as hell killed the mood."

"I think that's more your problem," Matthew spat.

"What did you say, you stupid little fuck?"

"You'll have to excuse my associate," Brillig cut in. "Apparently, sometimes his childish sense of justice gets in the way of his duties."

This raised a chuckle from the man. "If you're apologizing, it ain't enough." His eyes fell to the case next to Brillig. "Tell you what: why don't you give us that case you got there and we'll call it even?"

Brillig looked down at the four foot long, slender metal case that rested at his feet. "You mean this case? The one sitting next to me?"

"You see any other cases around here, dipshit?"

Brillig sighed; he did not like the direction this was going. "Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't agree to those terms."

"Aww, c'mon, don't be that way," the man taunted. "Hey, we'll even give you a turn with the girl."

"Yeah! Plenty to go around!" one of the others joked as he spread the woman's legs open wider, exposing her moistened green panties.

Finally, Brillig felt compelled to turn and look the man right in the eyes, which revealed the huge scars that ran down the right side of his face.

The man whistled. "Hell of a scratch you got there, pal."

"You can rape whoever the hell you want until your dick falls off for all I care," said Brillig. "But the case is mine."

The man's frown returned. "Why you fuckin'... Gimme that fuckin' case!" The man drew a knife of his own and lunged at Brillig, who easily side-stepped the awkward attack. He swung his hand down hard onto the man's neck, shattering the bones and spinal chord under the pressure of his palm. The man fell face down, dead before he hit the floor.

Seeing their associate struck down, the other two men halted their activities with the girl, hurriedly pulling their pants up. "Shit! Is he a fuckin' cyborg?" one yelled.

"Let's find out!" the other said, and rushed forward with a club he drew out of his jacket. He swung the club down hard at Brillig, who made no movement to dodge. Instead, he brought his left arm up to guard. The wooden club hit, and shattered against his forearm. Brillig cocked his right arm back and drove his flattened palm into the attacker's chest, feeling the ribs splinter as his hand mashed through the organs, finally reaching the spine, which he snapped with a single grasp. The man shuddered for a few seconds around the impaling arm, and then lay still. Brillig lowered his arm and let the corpse slide onto the floor.

With fear in his eyes, the third man hoisted the woman to her feet and stood behind her, his head barely peeking out from behind hers, and pressed his knife against her throat. She whimpered in fear. "I'll cut her!" he said in desperation. "I swear to God, I'll cut this bitch's fuckin' throat!"

"Do as you wish," Brillig said evenly. Blood dripped onto the floor from his right arm, and soaked further into the sleeve of his brown jacket. "Just don't touch my case."

Brillig heard the familiar sound of a gunshot from behind him. The man with the knife jerked backwards and let go of the woman, who sank to her knees. The entry wound was clearly visible just above the left eyebrow. As the man staggered, the bullet detonated, exploding his head in a shower of blood and skull fragments, spattering the already filthy windows with red. The headless body collapsed to the floor, twitching and gushing blood from its bloody stump of a neck. Brillig turned around to see Matthew, his smoking pistol still leveled.

"Matthew," Brillig said with more than slight annoyance, "you are never to use company ammunition on unsanctioned targets!"

"She might have been killed!" Matthew shouted.

"So what? Have you already forgotten your job? You know as well as I do that one dead raped girl in the subway means precisely shit!" Brillig turned to the girl. "You! Wipe yourself off and get out of here."

The girl, too shocked by what she had witnessed to move, remained on her knees, trembling. Tears began to well in her eyes, and the blood leaking from the dead attackers continued to soak into her ripped powder blue blouse. Whatever she might have wanted to say only came out as a choked-off whimper.

"You got wax in your ears, or something?" Brillig thundered. "Go! Now!" Rattled back to cognizance by Brillig's harshness, she leapt to her feet like a deer and ran off, holding what remained of her clothes in her clenched, shaking fists.

As he looked around the car, Brillig put a hand to his forehead, pushing the fedora back from his eyes. "Well, this is kind of messy. I thought you knew better, Matthew."

Matthew holstered his gun back in his leather jacket. "I... I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry."

The train shuddered to a halt at the station. Brillig tore the shirt off one of the dead attackers and used it to wipe the blood off his arm. "Well, no point in worrying about it now, I guess. But don't pull this kind of stunt again. You're not a cop anymore; no more of this hero bullshit, understand?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"Good. Now grab the case and let's get out of here before the police show up. I really don't feel like explaining this cluster-fuck."

Matthew picked up the metal case and went through the sliding doors after Brillig, who jerked his hat back down over his eyes. As they climbed the steps towards daylight,

Brillig said, "By the way, nice shot."

*************************************************************** ****************

Matthew sat with his back to the wall in Brillig's sparsely furnished office. If a former supply room could even be considered an office, that is. Despite his importance to their corporation, Vorpal Genetics didn't see fit to offer him any more square footage than they had to. Brillig didn't mind. He sat indifferently at his desk, rifling through a stack of files. Finally he came to one which his eyes lingered on. "Hey, looks like their latest batch of tests is coming more under control everyday. Maybe soon we'll be out of a job."

Matthew made no reply. He continued to stare at his own feet with a thoughtful expression on his face that wrinkled his young features.

"Still thinking about this morning? I said not to worry about it."

"It's easy for you to say, but..."

Brillig put down the file with a noisy rustle. "You know, Matthew, I used to be just like you. I thought that I could use my abilities to help everyone that needed it. But the fact of the matter is that we'd drive ourselves crazy if we worried about all the little things."

"You consider a woman being gang-raped a little thing?" Matthew asked.

"I'm doing more for people than anyone outside of this building can possibly realize. You know that more than anyone. So if you really want to help, leave the human criminals to the police and focus on the situation you were recruited to address."

Matthew shook his head. "It's so different now. All that time on the force I noticed it all because it was my job. Now, to be expected to forget all that..."

Brillig lit a cigarette and took a puff, before setting it down in the clogged ashtray in front of him. "When you've been around it for as long as I have, you start to go numb. Things get put in perspective, and your priorities totally change. You start to not care about things like that. Have you ever seen what a jabberwock does to a person?"

Matthew raised his head. "Yeah, you showed me the photos, remember?"

"I don't mean photos. I mean being in the same room as it happens. Once you see that, once you see someone being torn limb from limb, putting all their remaining strength into screaming as their intestines get eaten, then you'll know what I mean."

There was a long silence as Brillig resumed looking at his files. The thick smoke from the cigarette encircled his head in a bluish haze. So much so that Matthew could barely see the scars on Brillig's face through it. "It makes no sense."

"I told you to quit worrying about it, Matthew."

"No, I mean the jabberwocks. Why does Vorpal keep making them?"

Brillig put out his cigarette, and stopped perusing the files. "Well, the military paid good money for the project, and they want results. Besides, I can't go on forever, and they'll need something to take my place to fight those party crashers the terrorists send over."

"But most of the specimens don't survive to maturity. And the ones that do are destroyed most of the time. What makes them think that they can make this work? Don't tell me it's just because of one success."

"Well, that one success proves that it can be done. And they liked the results, so they keep at it. Besides, even some of the failed specimens show their potential. They just can't be controlled very well."

"At the expense of how many people so far?" Matthew muttered.

Brillig smiled. "Now you're getting the picture. So what's worse; a threesome of rapists, or a ten-foot tall carnivorous human-insect hybrid?"

Twenty years ago, the American military approached all the large genetic firms in the country, requesting the development of a unique hybrid specifically engineered to become the perfect weapon. In the end it was Vorpal Genetics that won out, proposing the hybridization of humans and insects, a program called Jabberwock. It was a project that had begun several years previous, so many advances had already been made by Vorpal in the fusing of genes. The human specimens would be cultured from egg and sperm samples from willing donors, and sometime during the initial stages of cell division insect DNA would be introduced and incorporate itself into the embryo. Brillig wasn't sure of the exact science behind it, only knowing that it was far from perfected. Ideally, the plan was for the jabberwock to have a mainly human frame, with an exoskeleton covered by a thin layer of skin and flesh to house the organs. The chitinous exoskeleton was much stronger than bone, and proved to be nearly indestructible. Also, the hybrid would inherit the same mass to strength ratio as an insect. The result would be a perfect soldier, almost bulletproof and able to force its way in and out of nearly any situation.

However, that was only the ideal. Most of the embryos mutated wildly out of control, only to die before maturity. Those that survived were more insect than human, in both physical appearance and mentality. As a result, they could not be controlled. Regardless, the military used some of the early jabberwocks in an attempt to eradicate a massive terrorist cell in the mountains of Pakistan. The jabberwocks wiped out the target, and then decided on their own to wipe out the remainder of the country. Several battalions of U.S. marines succeeded in stopping them from crossing the border into Afghanistan, but not before making a sobering discovery: that the jabberwocks were capable of breeding.

It was from this information, leaked to them by unknown means, that the terrorists found a way to get back at the U.S. The remnants of the cell had raided an isolated nest and succeeded in slaughtering the adults. They then took the eggs and began raising their own jabberwocks for use against the U.S. A typical plan would be to smuggle the fertilized eggs of a jabberwock into the country and leave them somewhere in a populated area, like the air ducts of an office building or apartment complex. There the eggs would hatch and begin devouring anyone in their general vicinity. It only took two to three days for a half dozen jabberwocks to reach full size by feeding in a populated building. The jabberwocks were so effective in mass killings that they became highly prized on the black market, and soon had been acquired by terrorist organizations all over the world.

That was where Brillig came in. The military wanted to effectively wash its hands of the matter, so it secretly provided funding to Vorpal for the development of a tactical division. To the public, it looked like the military had no involvement, and Vorpal was trying valiantly to clean up its own mess. The first employee of this tactical division was Brillig. When a jabberwock infestation was confirmed, he was dispatched by Vorpal to eliminate them. After a few solo assignments, the last of which resulted in the scars on his face and an eye which needed cybernetic replacement, he requested a partner. Vorpal gave him free choice and a substantial budget. He began raiding the most elite organizations for talent. The Army Rangers, Navy Seals, and Secret Service had all yielded a partner or two. Unfortunately, their innate talents were never enough to save them, as all eight of his previous partners had been killed on assignment. Matthew, a former Miami-Dade police officer with off-the-chart reflexes, with few living relatives and tempted by the ridiculously high salary, was number nine.

Number nine stood up stiffly and saluted as the chief of operations walked into the cramped office. Brillig leaned back in his chair and brought his eyes up from his files. "Something the matter, Walt?"

Walt looked at him gravely. "There's a situation. We need you."

*************************************************************** ****************

The helicopter touched down on a cleared space near the ten-story office building. Caution tape and cars with whirling light bars created a barrier, ensuring that no one could come near, and that nothing could get out. Brillig hopped out and casually walked towards the scene, leaving Walt in the seat next to him. Matthew, dressed in modified riot gear and carrying a machine gun and the same metal case that Brillig had guarded so carefully on the subway, walked a few steps behind as one of the officers approached them.

"Lieutenant Frank Garber, LAPD," he introduced himself gruffly. He shook hands with Brillig and Matthew. "Thanks for coming out. We didn't know what the hell to do here."

"How long have you known about the jabberwock infestation?" Brillig asked, his eyes barely visible from beneath the brim of his fedora.

"We got reports of some strange activity in the building approximately thirty six hours ago. We sent a couple of officers to investigate, but they never reported back. It took us a while to figure out what we were dealing with. That's when we called you. We set up a perimeter a few hours ago. So far nothing's tried to come out, and we haven't seen any movement in the building. We don't even know how many we're dealing with."

Brillig turned away from the Lieutenant and stared at the building. To Matthew and the officers, it looked like he was in deep thought about something. After a few moments, he turned back to the Lieutenant. "There are seven adults inside, mostly on the upper levels. They're preparing the site for nesting, though they haven't bred yet. Call in more men to reinforce the perimeter; once we go in and start the operation, they might want to make a quick exit. We start in ten." Brillig ended the conversation by swiftly turning away and walking towards the building.

The Lieutenant turned to Matthew. "How do you suppose he knows all that?"

"I'm afraid that information is classified," Matthew said. He then picked up the case and followed Brillig.

Matthew dropped the case at Brillig's feet, who leaned back on a police car casually smoking a cigarette. "Seven. Damn. We'll be really lucky to come out of this one without a scratch or two."

"That's not what I need to hear," Matthew deadpanned. "Why did I take this job again?"

"Because we're paying you ungodly amounts of money, that's why. Open the case so I can get my steak knife."

Matthew unlocked the case and opened it. The item inside was Brillig's "steak knife": a four foot long, double-edged blade crafted from a titanium alloy, with large serrations on both sides. It weighed in at a hefty forty five pounds, much too unwieldy for a normal person. But it suited Brillig perfectly, and he had slain the majority of the jabberwocks he encountered with it.

Brillig withdrew the sword from its case. "Let's go kill some bugs, Matthew."

Matthew patted the pair of holstered pistols that framed his hips as he followed Brillig to the main entrance. With dozens of police officers maintaining the perimeter, the two exterminators stepped into the lobby.

Twenty six minutes and six floors later, no jabberwocks had been encountered. Evidence of them, on the other hand, was plentiful. Strewn limbs and gut piles peppered the floor and walls. Unidentifiable entrails swung limply from light fixtures. So much blood was soaked into the carpeting that Brillig was hard-pressed to find a spot that retained its original gray color. It was hard to tell, but Brillig estimated that at least thirty people had been devoured. That was more than enough meat to allow seven jabberwocks to mature to full size.

Matthew gaped at the severed parts and blood spray. He had stopped twice to vomit as he searched the floors. He breathed heavily as he followed Brillig up the stairs to floor seven. "This... I can't believe this. This is... this is unforgivable!"

"You're not here to forgive," Brillig said. "Be ready. They're close now."

Compared to the other floors, seven was surprisingly clean. "They must be using the lower floors for food storage. Probably dragged some people down there while they were still alive. They're real close now. I can almost smell the bastards."

Near the center of the floor stood an arrangement of cubicles. A shuffling could be heard from one of them, and the two immediately tensed and stopped. Brillig nodded to Matthew, and slunk towards the sound on a sideways route. Matthew picked up a nearby computer keyboard, yanked it free of the CPU, and threw it into the cubicle. A harsh screech cut through the silence, and up leapt a large creature that bore likeness to a praying mantis. Horny chitin broke through the pink skin in several spots, and nearly all four of its walking legs seemed to be different lengths. Its imposing forearms were caked with dried blood. The only thing remotely human about it was the lumpy head, and even that shape was rendered vague by a pair of mandibles dripping saliva. Matthew almost threw up anew at the sight of a half-eaten human head clamped firm in its jaws.

Matthew brought his machine gun to his shoulder and opened fire. The creature agilely leapt for him, as he sent an entire clip into it. Not dead but severely slowed down, the creature continued to wobble towards him. Suddenly its motion was stopped in a silvery flash, as Brillig caught it from behind with his sword, cleanly lopping its head off. The head fell to the floor, still clinging to its grisly meal.

"Mantis jabberwocks," Brillig said flatly. He would much rather have preferred the beetle variety, which was heavily armored but considerably slower. The mantis variety was responsible for the artificial eye in his right socket. "No doubt that gunfire caught their attention. They'll all be here soon. I can feel them already on the move."

"We should make a stand here," Matthew said. "These cubicles should provide good cover." Brillig agreed, and they both sat in wait for the coming attack.

The wait was not long. The first jabberwock raced in from the left, and immediately ran for Brillig. Brillig drew his own pistol from his coat and snapped off two quick shots. The exploding pistol rounds sank into the jabberwock's large front arm and blew it from its body. With the jabberwock thrown off balance by the shock, Brillig swept his sword three times across its chest, emptying the thorax of its contents. The creature fell dead at his feet.

Meanwhile, Matthew was busy with the two that had come in from the other side. With the machine gun in his right hand, he aimed for where the legs met the body. When both became hobbled, he drew his pistol with his left hand and punched a round cleanly into each of their hideous heads, ending their lives with a shower of green blood and chitin. Matthew put a fresh clip into his machine gun and awaited the next attack.

Two jabberwocks rushed to confront Brillig, who trained his pistol on the closest. The other remaining jabberwock levied his attention on Matthew, who was all too ready to receive it. As Matthew picked away with his machine gun, Brillig fired the last two explosive rounds from his clip into his target However, the quick leaping of the jabberwock made him miss the mark, and he only succeeded in hitting the abdomen, which would not produce a lethal hit. The rounds exploded and knocked the creature down, but it quickly attempted to regain its footing. Brillig, with no time to reload, had no choice but to rush at it with his sword. He deftly sliced the head from it, but not before it lashed at him with its forearm and sliced into his bicep, knocking his fedora off in the process. The other jabberwock used the opportunity to slip past Brillig unharmed, lunging at Matthew, who was still dealing with the third. Brillig tried his best to leap out and swipe with his sword, but only succeeded in making a gash in the abdomen. The jabberwock did not even slow as it approached Matthew's blind side.

"Matthew, watch out!"

Matthew's reflexes, the main reason why Brillig had asked him to be his partner, were what saved his life. He turned just in time to see the jabberwock's front arm swing down at him. He could not fully dodge in time, but he was quick enough to move his vital organs out of harm's way, and the jabbberwock had to settle on ripping through the flesh of his arm. The searing pain brought Matthew to his knees, and the third jabberwock, battle-scarred but still alive, snapped his mandibles into Matthew's leg, severing tendons and crushing bones with an audible crunching sound.

As quickly as he could, Brillig picked up his pistol, reloaded, and madly fired all of the rounds in the clip. The jabberwock that had latched onto Matthew's leg took two rounds full in the thorax, which succeeded in killing it. However, the other creature was not mortally wounded by the attack, and still hunched over Matthew, bringing its clacking mandibles ever closer to his face.

Somehow able to think through the maddening pain, Matthew drew his second pistol and shoved it in the face of the jabberwock. He emptied its clip into the creature's head, which exploded and splattered his face with green blood. He dropped the pistol and shrieked in agony from his wounds, his red blood mixing with the green blood on the floor.

Brillig counted the carcasses. Seven altogether, and he didn't sense any more. The building was clean. He picked Matthew up and carried him as delicately as he could out to the street below, his mangled leg swinging limply as they went.

*************************************************************** ****************

The two were immediately met by emergency medical personnel, who quickly laid Matthew on a stretcher and wheeled him to an ambulance. Brillig shook his head as they took him away. Matthew's arm might heal all right, but his ravaged leg would need a cybernetic replacement. He hoped Matthew could get used to his new leg before the next infestation was discovered.

The Vorpal cleaning crew quickly rushed past Brillig, towards the now harmless office building, as he walked back to the helicopter. Bringing up the rear of the group was Walt. "Another successful mission, I see."

"Matthew's hurt pretty bad, but he'll recover with a few new parts."

"And you?"

"Just a scratch," Brillig said, pointing to the cut in his arm.

"Get on the chopper; we leave in ten," Walt said. He then turned to Lieutenant Garber to debrief him on the situation. Brillig did as he was told and made his way to the waiting helicopter.

As he walked, he overheard the conversation of two of the officers working the perimeter. "Man, fuckin' Vorpal. They screwed this shit up. These bugs are all their fuckin' fault."

"Yeah, and they expect us to help clean up after `em," the other officer said. "What a fuckin' joke!"

Brillig sneered. "Excuse me, but who's cleaning up around here? Get your facts straight before you start pointing fingers, gentlemen."

Incensed, the officers opened their mouths to insult him. But they stopped and stood horrified when they caught a glimpse of the green blood that slowly dripped from the wound in Brillig's arm.

Brillig pulled out a cigarette and lit it, giving the office building one final look. By now the cleaning crew was busily sweeping up the remains of both humans and jabberwocks. They'd also retrieve all the dropped weapons, and with any luck his fedora as well. He really liked that hat. He savored a drag from his cigarette. It had been a frabjous day.