PAYBACK
Graham McNeill


GUNSMOKE AND BRICK dust filled the stinking bedroom, blasted clear by the gunfire from outside. Cornelius sat below the window with his back to the wall, holding his stubber between his knees as he thumbed more cartridges into the breech. Shouted commands and the sound of running feet told him he didn't have much time before Constantine's men came for him. As he loaded the weapon he kept his laspistol trained through the broken mirror door. Low moans and anguished cries drifted from the landing outside, and the mutant whore's shrill screaming from the bed grated on his already taut nerves.
He snapped the stubber's breech shut and aimed the gun at the shrieking mutant.
'You'd better shut up unless you want to be next,' he growled, nodding towards the bullet-riddled body of Trask, his naked body lying on top of the bloody bedsheets.
Trask's heavy boots hung over the end of the bed, the laces dangling to the floor. Cornelius shook his head at his former partner's lack of class. Only a low-life like Trask would pay for one of Mama Pollyanna's girls and take her to bed with his boots on.
The girl in question clutched a spattered blanket around her, her black eyes wide and her whipping tongue stretched fully a foot from her mouth as she screamed the place down. A thick mane of fiery orange hair spilled around her feline face, running in a mohawked trail down her spine. Her skin was bronzed and smooth, like honey, and he could well understand why Trask had picked her. What other talents her mutations had granted her in her profession he could only guess at.
He heard heavy footfalls and whispered conversation from outside the room as a spray of bullets and lasbolts ripped through the window, splintering the frame and raining broken glass to the floor. The girl screamed again and pounced from the bed, clawing at him with her nails as two of Constantine's thugs burst into the room, shotguns at the ready.
Cornelius fired twice, both shots going wild as the naked girl kicked and punched, dragging her long, painted nails down his face while shrieking like a banshee. He rolled and hammered his elbow into her face, snapping her head back. The first thug opened up with his shotgun, blasting a plate-sized chunk of brickwork from the wall.
Cornelius swung the unconscious girl around in front of him, using her body as a shield, and blew the back of the shooter's head clear with a single lasbolt. The second gunman hesitated, trying to draw a bead on Cornelius without hitting Mama's most requested girl. Cornelius didn't give him a chance to regret his mistake and shot him in the belly with his stubber. The man screamed and crumpled, clutching his bloody midriff.
Cornelius threw the mutant girl onto the bed as an explosion above him rained timber and plaster from a hole blasted in the ceiling. He saw shapes through the pall of smoke and dived forwards, scooping up a fallen shotgun and rolling onto his back below the hole.
Pain tore at him as the synth-flesh bandage Monque had applied ripped free and blood ran down his side. He racked the shotgun's slide and fired upwards three times, hearing the screams of wounded men and the thump of bodies on the floor above him.
Keeping the shotgun aimed through the hole in the ceiling, Cornelius scrambled to his knees, turning and putting a lasbolt through the skull of the second man who'd come through the door as he weakly reached for his fallen weapon.
He crawled back to his position beneath the window, sweat pouring from his face as he heard the wailing sirens of approaching Special Security Agent Rhinos.
Cornelius swore silently to himself.
How had he allowed things to get messed up?

'CORNELIUS BARDEN?' SAID the girl. 'I've not heard of you before.'
'No reason you should have,' replied Cornelius. 'I'm new on Karis Cephalon.'
The girl nodded, cocking her head to one side. 'Trask says you killed six men at the spaceport when you jacked these weapons.'
'Trask talks too much,' said Cornelius.
The girl smiled in agreement and he was again struck by how young she was. Trask's contacts had set this meeting up, but he'd had trouble believing that this girl, Lathesia, could actually be the leader of the mutant resistance here in Cephalon. But she knew her stuff and he was impressed by her easy confidence.
'Hey, easy, Con! I'm standin' right here,' whined Cornelius's partner, Milos Trask.
Both Cornelius and Lathesia ignored him.
'Is it true though? Did you kill them?' she pressed.
'Yes, I killed them. So what?' shrugged Cornelius.
'So what indeed,' agreed Lathesia. Her black eyes glittered in the dim light cast by the hooded glowlamps as she knelt and lifted a blue-steel plasma gun from one of the packing crates sitting on the ground between them.
'Who did these belong to?' she asked, tapping her fingers against the scorched side of the crate where a shipping marking had once been stamped.
'What do you care?' replied Cornelius.
'I don't.'
'Then why ask?'
'I just wanted to see if you'd tell me,' shrugged Lathesia, handing the plasma gun to one of the two heavily-built men flanking her. Both were mutants, their skin a mottled purple and their limbs grossly swollen. Cornelius could tell they were just itching for an excuse to use the battered rifles - antique PDF surplus - they carried. Though if this deal went through, the mutant resistance would suddenly become a whole lot better armed and he'd be a whole lot richer.
There was just one catch.
''Red'' Ivan Constantine.
Selling weapons to mutants was treading on Constantine's toes and if the arms dealer knew about this deal, he'd be lethally opposed to it.
Cornelius knew this deal was dangerous and his senses were electric. Everyone was nervous. Everyone but him and Lathesia.
The deal vibed strange. The deal vibed wrong.
Trask was tight as a drum. Sweat stink and nervous energy poured from him in waves. Cornelius didn't like it. It smelled of set-up. But of who?
He shook his head with a smile. 'You want to go direct to source next time. Cut out the middle man.'
'Something like that,' nodded the teenage girl, running a hand through her dark hair, and even in the dim light, Cornelius could make out the scabbing flesh on her arms. Aside from her eyes, it was one of the few visible signs of her mutant heritage.
Anyplace else, she'd be ostracised, but here in the mutant ghetto, he was the outsider.
She caught his gaze and smiled humourlessly.
'Do you have a problem that I'm a mutant?'
'Not so long as you pay us, little girl,' said Trask, unashamedly ogling her curves.
The largest of Lathesia's mutant guards stepped forward, lips pursed together.
'Call her that again and I'll put bullets in you, Trask,' he snapped.
Trask raised his hands in mock terror and laughed, 'Ooooh, the mutants are mad at me! I'm so scared.'
The mutant raised his rifle, but Lathesia stopped him with a curt gesture.
Cornelius masked his annoyance at Trask, again regretting his decision to hook up with the man on this venture. It had seemed like an easy score; selling arms at inflated prices to the mutant population of Karis Cephalon, who were too dumb to realise they were being ripped off. Ever since they had heisted the guns from the spaceport, Trask had been nothing but a liability, his loose mouth and lack of personal hygiene at odds with Cornelius's stoicism and careful grooming. But for his contacts within the mutant underground, Cornelius would have killed him the moment they'd made their escape from the heist.
'I don't give a damn if you're a mutant, xeno or pureblood,' said Cornelius. 'Your cash is as good as anyone else's.'
Lathesia locked eyes with him, holding his gaze for long seconds until, at last, she nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer. She waved her hand to the less aggressive of her companions, who stepped forwards with a burlap sack, secured at the neck with a rope drawstring. He tossed it at Cornelius's feet, where Trask seized upon it with a whooping laugh. Cornelius kept his eyes on Lathesia as Trask lifted out bundles of tied bills and fed them into an auto-counter. The machine flickered quickly through the money, its tiny machine spirit checking denominations and for counterfeit bills.
At a shade over two metres, Cornelius Barden was of above average height, and his build was that of a pit-fighter. His shoulders were wide and powerful, his waist narrow and his chest slabbed with thick muscle. He wore a long greatcoat, hiked over the butt of his stubber and his silver hair and beard reflected the torchlight. Every movement spoke of control.
Over the mumbled counting of Trask, Cornelius heard a scrape of metal. He made sure not to move, but his senses cranked up a notch. Someone was out there. Not SSA. Not this deep in the mutant ghetto; the alarm would have been sounded long ago and they'd be roaring in with bullhorns and searchlights. No, this was something else. Constantine? Log that as a possible.
Trask finished counting the money and pulled the bag's drawstring tight.
'We happy?' asked Cornelius.
'Damn straight we happy, Con,' said Trask, dropping the auto-counter into the sack, slinging it over his shoulder and backing away from the mutants. Cornelius lost sight of Trask as he moved beyond his peripheral vision. He heard another scrape. Boots on gravel. Upgrade the Constantine possibility to a probability.
Closer now, more steps. Lathesia noticed it now, eyes narrowing, unable to see much beyond the torchlight. She shot a hurried glance at Cornelius. He shook his head and reached for his stubber. She whipped out a heavy revolver and sprinted for cover.
Gunshots split the night, pistols and lasguns. Cornelius felt a whipcrack sting of bullet fragments against his cheek. Something snatched at the hem of his greatcoat as he dived towards a built-up pile of debris.
One of the mutants was down, his guts burned open by twin lasblasts. The other returned fire into the darkness, screaming in defiance.
Very dumb, thought Cornelius as a flurry of bullet impacts cratered his chest. A final shot took off the top of his head. Cornelius heard the boom of Lathesia's gun and low crawled back the way he'd come, trying to spot the attackers and, more importantly, Trask and the money. Lathesia was on her own. He owed her nothing.
He heard scrabbling feet, ten metres west, and made his way through the rubble towards it as a voice echoed through the night.
'Barden! I know you can hear me, so you listen good eh? I only want my money. This turf, it mine, and you know it. Just hand over the money and I call it even! What you say to that, huh?'
Cornelius had seen Ivan Constantine, though had never spoken to him. But he knew instinctively that the thickly accented voice was his. He silently backed away from the source of the shout. If Constantine thought he was dumb enough to answer, then they had a lot to learn about Cornelius Barden.
He ghosted through the detritus of the mutant ghetto, putting as much distance between him and Constantine. The deal was done and he wanted to get out of here before the arms dealer's men realised he was gone. He had to find Trask. Quickly. Give the man ten minutes and he'd blow the score in dice games or on a girl. His partner would have no compunction about ditching Cornelius the moment it looked like he was in trouble, but Cornelius didn't blame him. He'd do the same.
The noise he'd been circling towards resolved itself as a man, crouched low with a long barrelled lasrifle. Cornelius drew a power knife and thumbed the activation rune, the blade glowing faintly with lethal energy.
Two steps and he closed the gap, wrapping his thick arms around the man's neck. His victim's arms came up, clawing. Cornelius hammered the full length of the power knife through the man's armpit and into his heart. The man's struggles ceased instantly. Cornelius eased the corpse to the ground, too late catching the click of a hammer easing back behind him.
He spun. He caught a muzzle flash and a silhouette. Fiery red pain flared in his side. He fell, blood pumped, hot and fast. He snapped off a couple of shots - wide. His vision blurred as he hit the ground hard. Fireflies spun before his eyes. More shouts sounded behind him. Constantine's men coming for him.
The one who'd shot him turned and ran from the shouts. His direction and his sweat stink told Cornelius who it was.
Trask.

HE RAN. HE stumbled. He fell. But he kept going. Gritting his teeth and pressing his hand hard into the wound, he kept going. Several times his pursuers came close, but each time he hunkered down, fighting to keep his breathing quiet and even. He almost blacked out twice, biting his lip till it bled to keep from slipping into unconsciousness. His body was running on pure adrenaline, but he could feel his strength fading fast. He had to keep moving, to stop was to die.
He pulled a stimm inhaler from his coat and took a huge breath. Fresh vigour poured through his limbs as the Spur took effect. It was risky taking a stimm when he'd lost so much blood, but what choice did he have?
Blood soaked his fatigues and filled his boot, leaving bloody prints in his wake. He needed help badly and there was only one place in Cephalon where he could get it.
It was nearly a kilometre away in the old royal quarter, but he had no choice.

CHIRURGEON MONQUE PULLED back the bolt on his door, unlocking the six padlocks that secured the steel door to his ad-hoc surgery. He was no stranger to midnight callers and was therefore not surprised to see the slumped form of a man gripping the metal frame of his door. There had been gunshots earlier, but with increased SSA crackdowns and riots breaking out almost daily, that wasn't unusual.
He knelt beside the man, pressing his fingers against his neck. There was a pulse; erratic, but strong.
Monque checked the street in both directions to see if this man had brought trouble to his door, but there was nothing to be seen other than the usual collection of vicious night-owls that prowled the streets of Cephalon in this unsavoury district.
He lifted the man's blood-soaked coat, grimacing as he saw the bullet wound in his side. He rolled the man over onto his side, shaking his head as he saw there was no exit wound. Which meant the bullet was probably lodged deep in a vital organ or had fragmented on a bone, shredding his intestines.
Monque sighed and replaced the man's coat over his wound.
He said, 'I think you might be out of luck, my friend.'
As he made to stand, the man's hand reached up, gripping him tightly and Monque was amazed at his strength.
'I have money,' he hissed, thrusting a handful of bills towards Monque.
Monque snatched them from the man's hand and smiled.
'Well why didn't you say so?' said Monque and dragged Cornelius inside.

CORNELIUS TOOK ANOTHER swig from the bottle, feeling the cheep rotgut sear its way down his gullet. As filthy a concoction as it surely was, it dulled his senses to the agony in his side. He drank again and laid his head back on the table.
'I'll add that to your bill,' said Monque, wheeling over a rusted gurney laden with surgical instruments.
'Whatever. Just get on with it, damn you,' said Cornelius as Monque snapped on a pair of surgical gloves.
The chirurgeon took the bottle from Cornelius's fingers, placing it on a nearby cabinet filled with vials of coloured solutions. A gurgling medicae transfuser pumped fresh blood into his body, and he experienced a moment of panic as he suddenly wondered where it came from. Was it mutant blood? Might it be infected with the plague that had swept through the mutant population in the last few weeks? Would it make him like the twisted wretches he'd seen eking out a slave's existence in the mutant ghetto?
Monque saw his concern and chuckled.
'Don't worry; it's clean. And anyway, despite what the priests will tell you, mutant blood is just like yours and mine. Their corruption is of the soul, not the blood.'
The chirurgeon selected a plastic hypo-syringe from the tray before him and stabbed the needle into a bottle filled with murky liquid. He half-filled the injector and tapped it before squirting a few droplets from the needle to release any remaining air bubbles.
'Is that sterile?'
'Probably not,' admitted Monque, 'But it will help the pain. It's a little concoction of my own actually. I call it Ease… you know, because it helps—'
'Ease the pain, yeah, I get it,' groaned Cornelius.
Monque sniffed, piqued at having his witticism ruined and jabbed the needle into Cornelius's arm with rather more force than was necessary. Cornelius winced, but smiled dreamily as the pain suppressant went to work almost instantaneously. Whatever other flaws Monque had, he brewed some damn fine chemicals.
Cornelius watched as Monque replaced the hypo on the tray and lifted a set of thin-legged forceps. The pain from his wound was still there, burning like a hot coal in his belly, but he felt strangely removed from it, as though it belonged to another person.
His thoughts, normally so quick and sharp, flowed like syrup, meandering their way towards a conclusion whose point was forgotten by the time his numbed brain even remembered that there was one. It wasn't a sensation he particularly liked.
Monque lifted clear the bloody leather of his coat and shook his head again.
'The bullet has pushed dirt and burnt leather into the wound. You'll be lucky if you don't get an infection from this.'
Cornelius tried to answer, but his tongue felt too heavy to form the words. Monque smiled.
'Don't try and speak, the Ease will make that next to impossible.'
'Right,' slurred Cornelius and Monque's eyebrow rose a fraction.
Monque returned his attention to the wound and wiped it clear with a sodden rag. Blood pulsed weakly from the hole.
He extended his little finger and forced it into the bullet hole, twisting and prodding inside Cornelius's belly. He shook his head and pushed deeper, past the knuckle, rooting around for the hard touch of the bullet.
'Well at least it didn't strike any bone and fragment,' murmured Monque to himself.
Cornelius watched as more blood spilled across his belly, pooling beneath him on the table and dripping to the cracked tile floor. He groaned in pain, the none-too-tender ministrations of Monque penetrating even the fog of his Ease. He felt the forceps push into his flesh, Monque rummaging around in his belly for the bullet.
Monque grimaced. 'I can feel the Emperor-damned thing, but I can't quite reach it yet.'
He swapped the forceps for a surgical scalpel, pressing the sharp blade against the ragged edge of the bullet hole, cutting it wider and spreading the wound. He picked up the forceps once again and dug into Cornelius, tugging at the reluctant bullet.
Cornelius gripped the metal rails at the side of the table, knuckles white.
Three more times, Monque widened the wound with the scalpel before eventually the bullet came free in a wash of blood.
Cornelius roared in agony, ripping the metal rails free from the table.
He flopped back into a sticky red pool, the table awash with his blood.
Monque lifted the forceps and held them before Cornelius's eyes.
The bullet was less than a centimetre long, a flattened oval of silver steel spattered red.
He felt his strength fading again as Monque said, 'There, that wasn't so bad, was it?' Cornelius blacked out.

SUNLIGHT BREAKING THROUGH a clear polythene window woke him. Cornelius blinked his gummed eyes open and licked his cracked lips. Then the pain hit him and he groaned. He lay on a stinking pallet bed, the thin sheet stained and malodorous. He pulled it back and looked at his bruised and raw flesh. A synth-flesh bandage had been applied to his wound.
He tried to push himself upright, but gave in as pain zipped up his side and set off supernovas in his head. He contented himself with propping himself up on his elbows and checking out his surroundings.
Through the window he could see the spire of the Amethyst Palace the locals called the Needle of Sennamis, which meant he was still in the old royal quarter. Probably still at Monque's then. How long had he been out? He rubbed a hand across his face, judging the stubble there to be a night's worth of growth.
The room was dirty, the tiles that remained on the walls cracked and stained a mouldy green. A bare wooden floor lay an inch deep in dust, and footprints led from the door to the bed. An upturned packing crate with a faded medicae stencil served as a makeshift table beside the bed. His guns lay on the crate. He checked both, unsurprised to find both empty.
The door opened. Instantly Cornelius swung his laspistol round.
'I do hope you're not planning on using that in here,' said Monque, setting a vial and syringe next to Cornelius's stubber.
'That depends.'
'Oh, on what?'
'On who comes through that door.'
Monque nodded, preparing another hypo-syringe from the bottle. 'I knew the moment I saw you, that you were trouble.'
'So why help me?' asked Cornelius, setting down his pistol.
'I have many weaknesses, my friend, and money is first among them. You gave me quite a sum last night. Don't you remember?'
'No.'
'Well, it was enough to run roughshod over my otherwise highly-tuned sense of self-preservation, I can tell you. However, having said that, I want you out of here. I can smell trouble on you and when it finds you: be somewhere else. I have enough of my own without your type bringing me more.'
'I'll be gone within the hour,' promised Cornelius, 'I have to find someone.'
'I just bet you do. I wouldn't want to be him, whoever he is,' said Monque.
'No, you wouldn't,' agreed Cornelius, grabbing Monque's hand as he pressed the needle of the syringe against his forearm.
'What's in that?'
'It's a dose of Ease, but don't worry, it's much weaker than the shot I gave you last night. It'll help the pain, but won't turn your head inside out.'
Cornelius released the chirurgeon's arm and allowed him to spike his vein.
The plunger was halfway when Cornelius heard the creak of a door opening downstairs. He whipped his arm away from Monque and wrapped his hand around the chirurgeon's neck.
'Did you tell anyone I was here?' hissed Cornelius.
Monque gasped, dropping the hypo and shaking his head furiously.
'No! I swear! Why would I?'
'So how did Constantine's men know to find me here?'
'Constantine? Ivan Constantine?' spluttered Monque. 'Emperor's holy blood! I knew you were trouble.'
He heard heavy footfalls on the stairs. The snap of a weapon being cocked.
'How did they know I was here?' demanded Cornelius again.
'There were a dozen or more people on the street last night!' wheezed Monque, his face purpling. 'Any one of them could have told Red Ivan you were here if his men wanted to find you.'
Cornelius swore, knowing Monque was right. 'Where's the energy pack? Quickly, before I break your damn neck.'
Monque nodded hurriedly. The footsteps neared the door. Floorboards creaked.
Monque reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a silver-steel laspistol power pack.
Cornelius grabbed it and slammed it home.
The door burst open. Cornelius aimed the laspistol.
Monque hit the floor. Bullets ripped through, cratering the wall above him. Cornelius rolled from the bed, crying out as pain engulfed his side. He put his first lasbolts through the door, but couldn't see if they hit anything.
The barrel of an autogun poked around the door, the barrel flaring as wild shots tore up the bed. Dust, smoke and roaring noise filled the room. A shadowy figure lurched inside, spraying the room with bullets.
Lying on his back, Cornelius gripped his pistol two-handed and squeezed the trigger three times.
The figure grunted and staggered backwards. For good measure, Cornelius fired three more times, pitching his victim through the window.
Monque poked his head above the level of the bed, looking through the torn, flapping polythene.
'Did you kill him?' he asked.
'I damn well hope so,' said Cornelius, 'because I don't have any more power.'
Monque threw Cornelius the pouch of ammunition.
'You need to go now,' he said emphatically.

CORNELIUS WAS AS good as his word, leaving Monque's surgery within minutes, dropping another handful of crushed bills onto the bloody operating table on his way out. With his guns loaded, Cornelius left Monque's through the back, taking great pains to ensure he was unobserved.
His wound pulled tight. It bled a little. It hurt a lot.
But he'd been lucky. Had Trask's bullet been a few centimetres to the right, he'd be in the ground by now. He made his way through the streets of Cephalon, the city sweltering and stinking in the heat. Hover carriages passed him and shuttles screamed overhead, heading towards the spaceport as he limped from the royal quarter. He kept clear of the main arterial routes through the city, heading north towards the mutant ghetto.
He passed posters of Space Marines, promising him that His warriors were protecting him, devotional slogans painted on building sides and PDF recruitment posters.
He couldn't go back to the place he'd stowed his gear; Trask would surely have betrayed its location to Constantine.
It didn't matter. There was nothing there he'd miss.
He carried all his money with him and anything else he needed he could buy or steal.
But first he needed a place to rest up for a few days. He wasn't strong enough to take on Constantine yet.
Finding lodgings was easy enough. Cornelius paid for three nights in a run-down flophouse, run by a fat man with an eye-patch and a shotgun. Cornelius greased him with some bills. He found his room, a filthy, bug-infested firetrap. He slept for sixteen hours.
He spent the time building his strength, working out his strategy.
Find Trask. Kill Trask. Take whatever was left of the score. Pretty simple really.
The days blurred. Cornelius stripped his weapons, preparing special hand-loads for the stubber. Dumdums and man-stoppers. One shot killers.
He ate in his room, he drank in the flophouse's excuse for a bar. He listened to the talk.
Riots had erupted in the mutant ghetto again. SSA snatch squads hit suspected mutant resistance safe houses, killing anyone they found. The mutants reciprocated, ambushing two SSA patrols and bombing several mercantile trading houses.
Rumour was that the ambushes had been carried out with some brand new weaponry. Weaponry the mutants weren't supposed to have. Questions were bound to be asked by senior members of the SSA and Cornelius knew it wouldn't take them long to come up with his name. Even if Constantine didn't give him up, SSA snitches would hear it from Trask's flapping mouth.
Simmering tension filled the streets. Gunshots became endemic.
People talked of revolution. Cornelius saw opportunities.
Cephalon's movers and shakers tried to put a soothing spin on events. Holocasts of Cardinal Kodazcka showed the holy man appealing for calm from his pulpit. The powerful mercantile families called for the Governor to maintain order and protect their holdings. Nothing was forthcoming from the Amethyst Palace but stony silence. Rumours flew that the Governor was missing. Said rumours were denied vehemently.
As night drew in on the third day, Cornelius holstered his pistols, filled his belt loops with speed-loaders and pulled on his greatcoat. He'd rested long enough and though he was nowhere near fully fit, he was strong enough to take out Trask.
Time to get going. Where would Trask go?
The answer came easy: gambling dens and whorehouses.

THE NORTH-EAST quarter of Cephalon was a haven for mutants, desperadoes, killers, thieves and deviants. If Trask was going to be anyplace, it would be here. Cephalon by night was loud, brash and unashamed. The wild scions of the wealthy families slummed it here, trolling the whorehouses and dope dens for thrills they couldn't get elsewhere.
The streets heaved with bodies. Dealers sold their wares from street corners. Women sold themselves from shadowed doorways. Voices were raised and flashing neon bathed everything in rainbows of sickly light.
Cornelius moved through the crowds, his eyes constantly in motion as he scanned faces. He changed direction often, checking for anyone following him. He saw no one, but in this place there could be a dozen people tailing him and he wouldn't know it.
Trask was here somewhere; he could smell him.
He pictured Trask's narrow, pale face, trying to think like him. Brothels, drug dens and dice halls lined the roads. Where to start? He picked one at random, easing through the doors and circulating.
Smoke from bac-sticks and cheap cigars hugged the ceiling. Gamblers and hustlers filled the den, but Cornelius knew this place was out of Trask's league. He'd know he'd get fleeced here before he'd finished his first drink.
Cornelius ruled out twelve more places before he found Mama Pollyana's.
The moment he saw the place he knew he'd hit paydirt. Trask would riff on this place.
An ugly, sprawling stucco pile with neon and holo-streamers cavorting above the roof. Flame-wreathed columns spurted fire either side of the ribbed oval doorway as revellers drank and howled before the building. A hugely fat woman paraded before the entrance with a bullhorn, extolling the virtues of Mama's girls.
Mutant tail, the best there is. Come inside and do the twist.
Cornelius marched up the worn steps and brushed off the fat woman's hand, noticing the scarred texture of her mutant flesh.
Trask was here. He was sure of it.

THE BARMAN WAS a mutant. All the workers in Mama Pollyana's place were; the bar staff, the bruisers, the whores, the singers and the gunmen loitering in the shadows. He tagged four mutants with guns. None looked threatening. Two of them guarded the stairs that led upwards to the private booths. If Trask was here, that's where he'd be.
Cornelius ordered a glass of amasec, sipping the drink slowly and panning across the room. Three girls gyrated to a pounding soundtrack on a stage at the far end of the wide hall, thrusting their altered bodies towards the baying crowd. Unlike the vast majority of mutants, most of these girls had escaped the worst horrors of their condition; the atrophied limbs, the scaled skin or distended, molten faces.
One girl's bikini top had been extensively modified to accommodate her altered physique while a whipping, prehensile tail swished behind the second. Barely a metre tall, she nevertheless had her fair share of whooping admirers. Cornelius couldn't see any visible mutations on the last girl until she leapt onto a silvered pole and spun around it, her every joint twisting in unnatural ways. She bent herself backwards, flipping her legs through a loop of her arms and vaulted over the heads of the other girls. She landed on her hands, spinning onto her feet to rapturous applause.
Cornelius grinned, imagining how versatile she could be in her chosen profession. Working girls circulated the bar and Cornelius caught the eye of a young woman wearing a scarlet rubber bodyglove, strategically holed to best display her wares. Her skin was patterned with red blotches and dozens of multicoloured electoos writhed beneath her flesh, rotating and swirling with the discolouration of her skin to form a kaleidoscope of colours and images. The birth of a star, a swelling sunrise and a bleeding heart.
She smiled, coquettishly angling her head to one side and sashaying towards him, unlacing her upper bodice. She leaned on the bar next to him and lifted his amasec, draining it in a single swallow.
'You want to buy me another?' she asked, leaning forward and giving Cornelius a glimpse of her multi-coloured flesh.
Cornelius shook his head. 'No. I want to go upstairs.'
She grinned. 'You don't mess about, do you?'
'Not if I can help it, no,' said Cornelius, sliding a roll of bills across to her.
'Alright then, honey,' purred the girl, slipping the cash into her cleavage and playing with his collar. 'I can be real nice to you, or I can be sure to punish you if you've been bad. If you know what I mean.'
Cornelius nodded and allowed himself to be led towards the stairs. He played meek as the armed mutants checked him out. The girl walked ahead of him, the rubber of her outfit gleaming as it stretched tight across her backside.
The landing at the top of the stairs curled around the hall below, the wood-panelled walls studded with mirrored doors. Opaque from inside, transparent from the outside, the views were designed to titillate.
Electro-candles flickered, held aloft in bobbing suspensor fields. Business must be booming.
The girl turned left, beckoning him with a curling finger. Instead, Cornelius turned right, checking out the rooms on the opposite side of the landing. He heard the girl call after him, but ignored her, pressing his face to the glass of each door in turn.
There. Cornelius smiled humourlessly as he saw Trask's skinny legs poking from under a bedsheet and his lank hair flopping over a girl with a bright orange mane.
He pushed open the door and drew his laspistol. Trask leapt from the bed, his face going from indignant rage to sheer terror in the space of a second.
'Con! You're alive!'
'No thanks to you, you bastard,' replied Cornelius, backhanding his pistol across Trask's jaw. Trask dropped, blood sprayed the wall and teeth flew. Trask's girl screamed.
Behind him, he heard the girl who'd led him upstairs shout for the armed mutants at the bottom of the stairs. He picked up Trask, his jaw drooling blood to the carpet.
'Where's my money?' demanded Cornelius.
Trask shook his head and Cornelius hit him again, hard. Once in the face, once in the gut. Trask folded, but Cornelius held him up.
'I'm going to ask you once more, Trask. And then I'll put my fist through your face.'
Before Trask could answer, Cornelius heard the mutant gunmen outside. He released Trask and dropped to his knees, swinging round and emptying his clip through the mirrored door. He heard screams and the sound of falling bodies.
Trask grabbed for a pistol beside the bed, but Cornelius was ready for him and batted it from his hands, sending it crashing through the window. As the window shattered, he saw upturned faces and a group of armed men making their way through the crowds of people towards the brothel. He recognised Constantine at the centre of the group and cursed as he realised he'd been set up.
They knew he'd go after Trask and just waited for him to put his head in the noose.
He locked eyes with Constantine, hearing him bark orders and seeing his men raise their weapons. He dropped to the floor as bullets and lasbolts shells blasted through the window and popped chunks of brickwork from the wall.
Trask's torso disintegrated under the fusillade, his body torn to pieces. He flopped onto the bed, the mutant whore's screams reaching new heights.
Cornelius kept his head down as bullets peppered the outside wall, rising to his knees and firing both his guns into Constantine's men. Most of his shots went wide, but four of Constantine's men went down. Screams filled the street.
Constantine's men scattered, running for the entrance to Mama Pollyana's. Cornelius emptied the stubber, ducking back to reload.
Things were now officially messed up.

THE WAIL OF sirens told Cornelius that the SSA were now on their way. He risked a glance out the shattered window, seeing three black Rhinos lumber down the street and grind to a halt just in front of the brothel.
Constantine was nowhere to be seen. Was he already inside or had he made good his getaway when he'd heard the sirens? It didn't matter at the moment, Cornelius had to avoid capture first. If the SSA got hold of him, it wouldn't take them long to link him to the stolen guns and the mutant resistance's ambushes.
He leaned over, wincing as fresh blood leaked from the wound in his side and shook his head at Trask's foolishness as he pulled out the sack Lathesia had given them from under the bed. There was bound to be some cash missing, but there was still a satisfying weight to it.
Quickly, he slung the bag and holstered his pistols. He discarded the shotgun he'd fired through the ceiling - the SSA would shoot a man with a shotgun on sight - and slipped from the room.
He stepped over the two mutants he'd shot through the door and into a scene of utter bedlam. At least two dozen SSA agents were trashing the joint; clubbing aside mutants and purebloods as they dragged anyone they could lay their hands on outside. Their shock mauls rose and fell in time to the thumping music. Flashing strobes rendered everything surreal.
The brothel's patrons screamed, desperate to escape.
He saw a lone SSA agent behind the bar. The agent clubbed the barman, splitting his skull open and pounding his brains out. Cornelius vaulted the balcony, landing feet-first on the SSA agent's neck and breaking his back. He rolled, keeping out of sight behind the bar, gritting his teeth in pain. Holding his injured side, he dragged the dead agent towards him.
He shucked off his greatcoat and swiftly began stripping the agent's armour and uniform. A thrown tankard shattered mirrored glass and liquor bottles above him.
Cornelius worked fast, pulling on the agent's grey trousers and jacket. Swiftly he buckled on the heavy breastplate and took the agent's helmet, slipping it on and sliding down the visor. Grabbing the agent's shock maul, he rose to his feet and slammed it down hard on the dead barman, shouting, 'Filthy mutant scum!'
Still gripping the burlap sack, he made his way round the bar and waded into the mass of bodies, clubbing his way towards the main doors.
The SSA agents ignored him, but a young man wearing expensive clothes tried to barge past him. He slammed his fist into his face twice, breaking the man's nose and rendering him insensible. Cornelius dragged him through the door and down the steps of the brothel to the waiting Rhinos.
Flashing lights on the troop transports cast a flickering glow across the brothel. Jeering crowds filled the street behind the black troop vehicles. SSA agents manned pintel mounted guns as a line of troops bundled the brothel's patrons into the holding cells in the back of the vehicles.
Cornelius walked confidently towards the furthest Rhino, hauling the staggering young man towards the SSA agent standing there. He glanced round. All attention was focussed on Mama Pollyana's.
'One for the cells,' said Cornelius. He pushed his victim into the SSA agent, who grabbed the falling man. Cornelius stepped close and hammered his upturned palm into the agent's windpipe. The man dropped, gagging for breath, and Cornelius pushed both men into the back of the transport.
He ditched the stolen helmet and undipped the breastplate. He kept the shock maul and jogged away from the transports, quickly joining the concealing ranks of the crowd. He gripped the money sack tight, his other held tight over the synth-flesh bandage as he pushed his way through.
Even as he made his way from Mama Pollyana's, he grinned wolfishly as he saw Ivan Constantine lurking at the back of the crowd in the shadowed doorway of a derelict building. Two of his thugs stood either side of him, the bulge of firearms clearly visible.
Taking an oblique route, he circled towards them, his thumb hovering above the activation rune of the shock maul. A small circle of space surrounded the arms dealer, his bodyguards allowing no-one to come too close to their boss. Cornelius knew stealth was out of the question and pressed the activation rune of the shock maul, marching straight towards the group.
The nearest bodyguard saw him coming and moved to intercept.
Cornelius slammed the maul across his face, breaking his jaw. The second drew a bead on him with his gun. Cornelius didn't give him a chance to fire, driving the crackling weapon into his groin and dropping him to the ground. The stench of scorched flesh hit his nostrils.
Constantine drew a silver laspistol. Cornelius smashed the maul across his hand, breaking fingers, then drove it hard into the arms dealer's gut. Constantine dropped to his knees.
Cornelius kicked open the sagging door behind Constantine and, gripping him by the hair, dragged him inside. Cornelius pulled the wheezing Constantine to the furthest corner of the burnt-out building.
He pulled his stubber, emptied out half the shells and spun the barrel. He showed Constantine, then jammed it under his jaw.
'You know who I am?' asked Cornelius.
'You're a dead man,' sneered Constantine.
'Wrong answer,' said Cornelius and pulled the trigger.
The hammer slammed down on an empty chamber. Constantine yelped.
'Now I'll assume that was just a necessary show of bravado,' continued Cornelius, 'and that you're ready to listen to me now.'
Constantine bit his lip and Cornelius smiled, placing the cash Lathesia had paid him beside him.
'I could kill you now, Ivan, but I'm not going to. I've killed a bunch of your men, but I'm not going to kill you.'
Seeing Constantine's puzzled expression, Cornelius said, 'Here's the deal. You're buying your life with this money. I don't kill you, walk away with whatever Trask's left me of it and we call this whole sorry mess even. Live and let live, agreed?'
Constantine said nothing, his eyes blazing hatred.
Cornelius pulled the trigger again.
The hammer clicked down on another empty chamber.
'Alright, alright!' snapped Constantine, but his eyes told another story.
Cornelius nodded and rose to his feet. 'Smart decision, Ivan. I figure there's got to be enough money to be made on this Emperor-forsaken planet to keep us both happy. And I just know you're smart enough to know that we can be useful to each other.'
'Very well,' hissed Constantine. 'I won't have you killed for this, but pull a stunt like this again and you're a dead man, Cornelius Barden.'
Cornelius shrugged. 'I can live with that. It's all just part of the game, Ivan,' he said.
He turned and disappeared into the flickering glow of Cephalon's night.