The Wake Up Call
Chapter 1.27: The Wake-Up Call
Hetch was surrounded by a dozen or so gorgeous looking women, all slim, shapely and very eager to please him. One dark haired vixen gracefully walked closer, then knelt down on the wide stone steps before him, lowered her head and offered a bowl filled with grapes. The arrangement was like the host, filled with juicy sweetness, round in all the right places and firm to the touch. Hetch plucked one grape and rolled it round and round between his thumb and first two fingers like an expensive cigar. Even the smell and colour was wonderful, so clean and fresh. He glanced around the room and could only see dozens of firm breasts held in place by silk costumes and the shy modesty of their owners. Hetch dropped the grape into his mouth and slid back onto the huge bed and sighed out loudly. This was heaven, a pure heaven beyond his imagination, but he hoped, not beyond his stamina. A second woman, as beautiful as the first, crawled across the bed next to him and held another grape above his mouth. He smiled, closed his eyes and opened his mouth. His mind raced with anticipation. His entire body resigned itself to the carnal thoughts of pleasures yet to come.
"Is there something I can do for you?"
Hetch grinned a huge, wide, naughty smile and gave his relaxed reply,
"Yes, but first give me another grape."
And with this Hetch opened and closed his mouth like a soap goldfish blowing bubbles.
The beautiful creature teased Hetch with a grape, rubbing it across the end of his nose and across his hungry lips.
"Open wide!"
Hetch laughed, dropped his jaw and slowly opened his pleasure filled eyes. There kneeling over him on the bed was the image of the stewardess. Her long, dark hair danced around in the wind like a modern day Venus. Instead of the bunch of juicy, ripe grapes was the metal case, held between her thumb and first finger.
"Be a good little boy and catch the case."
The case floated down towards his face as if it was a silver feather. Its solid metal sides seemed to melt into a large, bright, yellow sphere before bursting like a soap bubble on the end of his nose. Around him credits and shuttle tickets fluttered downwards, thrown around by the McKaff brothers and Trimble. His face was half-eaten away by a grisly gunshot wound at point blank range. He shouted "You did it!" with each new hand full of credits.
Hetch's head swam around. He was falling into and falling with no end in sight. Images from his jaded, drug induced memory came and went like the shuttle tickets them. The faces of the ugly, fat woman at the lost property department, the gorilla-like man in the suit on the shuttle, the cleaner with his mop and bucket, the taxi-pod drivers, the troops and the little kid Seven all rotated in a sick-inducing spiral around him. Ghosts and the still living tormented him. Populating his dream with confusion and discomfort. Flashes of a vid-screen bubbled with the static filled images of a wanted poster for Hetch heightened this inescapable roller coaster ride.
All of sudden the environment shifted. He was hiding in Mewco's sleazy, basement office like a cornered animal, injured and frightened. There in front of the cluttered desk stood a copy of himself dressed in biohazard boots and chrome kneepads. The flashing lights intruded from the surrounding nightclub and the room vibrated with a steady, low frequency bass sound. The cups of coffee on Mewco's desk pulsed their cold, stale fluids into ripples with each beat.
The locker on the side wall, hidden behind crates of illegal hardware, boxes of whiskey, pornographic virt-disks and a dirty, red curtain moved closer and closer to Hetch. It's flaky, grey door concealed some, dark secret. Through the small vent stared two, jet-black eyes. Their gaze pierced into room, capturing his attention. They seemed to suck the light from the room itself. An icy shiver ran up his spine. Someone was walking over his grave. No matter how hard he tried, their unnatural fix choked his attention. His head pounded as the bass sound grew louder and louder. He screamed out in pain as it crossed the line of discomfort and felt a small stream of sticky, red blood run from each ear.
"Enough!" screamed the figure sitting in Mewco's chair.
Hetch turned his head to see the biker from the cafe relaxing with his dirty boots on the desk. In his fist was the collection of key-cards, tools and sadomasochistic adult miniatures from the scoot-jockey gang. They swung back and forward like a creepy pendulum. The younger clone of him was standing in front of the desk, covered in the disguise of Mewco. Foul smelling water poured from his clothes as if the entire City's dirty rainfall had washed his skin.
"It was you!" said the strange doppelganger. And with this his hand gripped the side of his face. Digging his long, dirty nails into his cheek he clawed away the mask of Mewco. Underneath a horrifically damaged face began to emerge. It's skin sliced away by the rough flails of coarse tarmac road covering. The split cheekbone protruded from the hellish face as the hand continued to rip away the disguise. Blood leaked from this nightmarish peeling.
Hetch's throat choked on the rising feelings of repulsion. The flesh mask hit the floor with a wet, heavy slap and the head of its owner slowly turned to face Hetch. It was the stewardess.
"NO!"
Hetch screamed out and bolted upright on the hospital bed. The sides of his rib cage were almost bursting from his racing heartbeat. He gasped for breath. Sweat ran freely from the reddened pours of his bruised skin. His mouth dry with anxiety he called out, desperate to catch someone's attention.
"Hey! Someone there?"
He slumped back into the bed and looked at the ceiling. Its low lighting strips turned off and were only illuminated by a small bedside lamp pointing upwards. His nose twitched from the unmistakable aroma of cleaning agents and surgical ointments. The far wall was soaked in rows of locked cabinets all overflowing with medical supplies. The sidewall broken up by two, wide glass doors were shaded by a number of brutal looking dentist chairs and operating tables. This was clearly a back-street clinic, the type used to perform illegal transplants, implant removals and cosmetic surgery favoured by criminals needing a brand new identity.
One of the glass doors opened and Splice walked in carrying a tray of food and a bulletproof jacket over his arm stuffed full with ammo magazines.
"What the hell is going on Splice? The last thing I remember is climbing out of the troop carrier."
"You needed some rest. Some of those pain-relief pills were sleeping tablets. Besides we needed to treat your injuries."
Hetch pulled the clean, white shirt from his side and examined the burn. It was clean and patched up with a new skin job. Its edges still red and sore from the laser stitches but at least the black and blue hues of the burn were now gone.
"How much time have you just pissed away?"
"Don't worry."
"I didn't need this cheap skin job."
"You did. It was already badly infected. How far do you think you could get? A block, two, three?"
"How much?"
"We've got plenty of time. It's been arranged. The contact has given an extra 6 hours for the case."
Splice dropped the jacket onto the chair and slid the tray of food onto the table.
"And before you ask, I helped arrange the deal and the case's hardware protection. That's how I know."
"No. I mean how much in Credits?"
"Chalk this one up to Mewco. I cashed in one of his nest eggs. It wasn't easy getting a trustworthy surgeon at short notice, but it's done now."
Splice pressed a small remote and the room's light strips faded on with a steady humming sound.
"You look a 1000% better kido. How do you feel?"
"Better." sighed Hetch. "Thanks! I owe you one."
His legs turned and hung over the side of the bed. Their pale, clean skin covers almost looked liked someone else's. It almost felt like an age ago that they were this clean and free of dirt and blood.
"Any news?"
Splice handed Hetch a fresh set of clothes, thick heavy body armour all black and expensive looking. Their Teflon coating glistened in the artificial light like the scales on a snake.
"These should fit."
"I said, any news?" repeated Hetch.
"No. Sorry kido. Are you sure about the location?"
"Yeah. Just look for a taxi-pod wreck on the roof."
"I've got some people on it."
Hetch grabbed Splice's collar and looked into his eyes.
"You trust them?"
"Some old mercenary contacts of Mewco's. Some more of his assets were 'liquidated'. Loyalty isn't cheap these days, but they will get the job done."
"What about the McKaffs?"
Splice placed a finger over his mouth and shook his head.
Although Splice had already paid out a lifetime's worth of credits he couldn't be sure that he could entirely trust the surgeons in this back-street clinic. All three of the psychotic brothers were heavy users of transplant technology and now that Mewco was out of the way they were unleashed, free to brutalise every and anyone they wished. A mountain of credits wouldn't be enough to hide behind if one of the brothers thought you had betrayed them.
"You ready to go?"
Hetch stood up, looked around with a reluctant expression and took a deep breath of ammonia soaked hospital air.
"As ready as I will ever be."
"You know what we've got to do?"
"Yeah."
"And what will happen if we fail?"
Hetch's eyes turned up towards the tall, skinny features of his new accomplice.
"Trying not to think about it."
"There's a cargo barge heading for..." Splice stopped himself.
His nervous, paranoid nature was starting to taint Hetch who looked around, expecting to see Matt Hemlock with an entire hologram-vid camera crew listening to their conversation.
"Not here."
Hetch snapped a magazine clip into a deadly looking pistol and slid it inside his new black coat.
"Ok. Let's go and settle an old score."
Hetch followed Splice across the room, scanning its cold, hygienic, metal surfaces and trying to forget the nightmare vision, which had, woke him only a few minutes ago. There she was again, invading his reason and clouding his mind with unsettling thoughts. She was controlling his actions like a cheap automaton built to perform mindless, soul-less tasks without thinking, without feeling. His hand slid from the glass doors and they swept back and forth as he pushed his way through them and walked out into the night to face his dark future, alone.
To be continued...
TAD "