Mutated Chosen Chaos Marine
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Chapter One
Nuclear Winter
"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."
-Honore de Balzac
It happened on a brisk autumn morning. Things were just starting to cool down, and all around Tyrian people were bracing for a long winter. The war had been over for a few weeks now, and society was starting to rebuild itself. The last of the Hrud had been scorched off the face of the earth, and the last few Ultramarines were leaving for Macragge. Graven faced statues, the huge ones that seem to be looking down on you, were being carved by the thousands. Though the war was over, scientists were saying the bombs had kicked up too much grit. It was all building up in the sky, blocking out the sun. Nuclear winter, they called it.
On that brisk autumn morning, one Senior Manager Owen Jareth opened the door to his manufactorum, and regretted it deeply. He didn't regret it because his manufactorum's smoke stalks were billowing toxic gak and staining the clouds an ugly shade of bruise purple. He didn't regret it because the manufactorum was understaffed and the workers underpaid, and the company had a strange hold over their little lives. And he most certainly didn't regret it because his manufactorum was building bombs intended to reduce people to red confetti.
No, Mr. Senior Manager Owen Jareth regretted it because the instant the door flew up, Trec pressed the barrel of a gun to his forehead. His joints locked up and his body went stiff as a plank, in true hostage fashion. "Ever felt the hot kiss of a hollow-point bullet?" Trec ays, speaking with the cool voice of a professional killer. "Would you like to?"
"Pleasedontkillme."
Harvey strides towards our Mr. Senior Manager. Wayne and I, guarding Harvey's flanks, walk with him. I've got an Accatran pattern, model 34 combat shotgun. It looks almost ridiculous, with its sawn off barrel, pistol grip, and extended stock. The thing looks like the inbred son of a cheap hunting rifle and a fat barreled magnum. Wayne's got some cheap autogun with MARS written on the side, but its just a knockoff brand. The muzzle flashes so bright and the recoil kicks so badly that its near impossible to aim in combat. Wayne lets the weapon hang from a loose strap around his shoulder, letting the gun's bloodstained bayonet speak for itself.
"I'm sorry," says Harvey, his voice clipped and regal. He spent a month in Terra, and now he goes around talking in a bad Terran accent. "I didn't hear you. Could you repeat that?"
"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Mr. Senior Manager wails. "PLEASE! I GOT KIDS!"
"And I'm sure the bombs you make ave killed plenty of 'em," Trec says. He pushes the pistol's barrel in farther. That gun is an actual Martian model. The thing's a work of art; Trec claims he took it from a mob boss he killed. Its such a waste in his clumsy hands. I should have that gun, not him.
"Now, now, Trec. We need him alive," Harvey says, smooth and reassuring like. "We'd like to purchase a bomb that can blow open a bank safe."
Five months earlier, I am lying in a hospital bed. They're keeping me in a backroom, like something to be ashamed of. The death certificate's already been filled out. I'll never pay taxes again. Never wait in line at the DMV. Never attend a mandatory prayer council, or get called for jury duty. My blood is rich with the finest painkillers that money can buy. I can feel my heartbeat in my earlobes and in my fingertips, like a spartan drumbeat. My body, all covered in scar tissue and stitching and casts, is weightless.
This is better than real life.
They're going to have to wean me off my painkillers. I'm going to have to learn to walk again. Get back to work. If I were rich I could live like this forever.
Before the accident, Harvey told me why we're not rich. He said that advances in medical procedures have doomed humanity, and it started with the first pacemarker. The rich can buy immortality. Pills to keep your mind fresh, glasses and bionics to keep your eyes sharp. You get arthritis and you just buy new joints. Human bodies aren't too complicated. Nothing that can't be replicated in metal and plastic.
The rich don't die, and that means they don't retire. We have entire generations of workers that refuse to step aside and give the next generation a shot. There's no job openings, no promotions. The lucky people were born at the dawn of immortality, Harvey says. They're the ones who got to exploit it. The rest of us, who they'll never promote; we have to promote ourselves.
This is how the rich live. Moving from one hospital bed to the next, being waited on twenty four hours a day, collecting paychecks for jobs they barely work.
This is better than real life.
Harvey tells me that he'll cover the medical treatments in exchange for doing a job. And not just the surgery either. He'll cover the bone marrow and blood transplants, the rehabilitation therapy, and the drugs. He knows that if I don't pay, the hospital administrator will void my bs death certificate and the Arbites will be after me again. This is extortion, plain and simple. We both know that if I don't accept this job, I'm going to end up sharing a prison cell with a half dozen murderers and rapists. The guards will turn a blind eye to my nightly cries for help.
They say that in prison they tattoo tits on the new arrivals' backs, so that they can pretend that they're doing it with a woman. Harvey doesn't say this. He knows he doesn't need to.
"Get well soon" Harvey says.
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