Toxicity by Andy Remic

it was with incredible relief they ran to the fence and their rendezvous
with Randy and Flizz. The two hadn’t yet arrived, and Jenny waited impatiently,
crouched by the wire, eyes focused on the direction from which she thought they
would emerge. A cold wind blew across her, and it felt strange; like somebody
crawling over her grave. Amazing, as she wasn’t dead yet. Not yet.
     
    “Still can’t raise Zanzibar. What
do you think is going down?”
     
    “Bad shit. Zanzibar wouldn’t have
cut in on our mission like that for fun. It sounded like an all-out warzone.”
     
    “They’re here.”
     
    Jenny glanced left, a tiny frown
creasing her pale skin. Randy had emerged from a narrow alleyway, looked left
and right, then cautiously approached in a crouched run. “Shit, did you hear
Zanzibar on the comm?” he hissed, dropping to his knees before Jen.
     
    “Where’s Flizz?”
     
    Randy stared at Jenny. “She’s just
finishing up. Laying spool decoy, or something. Don’t panic. Have you got the
det?”
     
    “Yes,” said Jen, showing him her
left hand where the digital detonator squatted like an oval bug.
     
    “Good,” said Randy, and placed
the muzzle of his pistol against Jenny’s head. “Then you’ll be handing that
over to me,” he said. He smiled.
     
    Sick Note spun, eyes filled with
rage, body tense for combat.
     
    “I wouldn’t, motherfucker. This
baby has a hairline trigger and could go off with the slightest squeeze. And by
that, I don’t mean Jenny’s clit.”
     
    “How much did they pay you,
Randy?”
     
    “Not enough,” he said, voice
charming now as he stood and Jenny rose with him. Her guns and bombs; so close
and yet so far. If she could just...
     
    “Do not be fooled by my apparel,
nor my nonchalant charm,” said Randy, leaning in close to her. “I’d kill you as
readily as swatting a fly. I will spread your brains across the wall.”
     
    “What did you do with Flizz?”
     
    “Let’s just say some big men in
big coats with a big black van took her away. Somewhere nice. She can, oooh,
perhaps have a snooze, with a nice meal; then a spot of torture for dessert? I
think that may be on the menu.”
     
    “Blow it,” said Sick Note, eyes
and gun fixed on Randy.
     
    “She’ll have a job,” said Randy,
smiling easily. “I swapped the trigger lines. Now, give me the det.”
     
    Suddenly, there was a deafening
clatter of three choppers, slick and glossy, which zoomed across the sky,
searchlights painting massive circles of light against the ground. Jenny
sensed, more than saw or heard, the special ops soldiers behind her; creeping
through grass, drifting like ghosts between the trees with weapons primed and
hearts hard. They really had been set up. The enemy. The Company. Aided and
abetted by a back-stabbing Randy. The bastard.
     
    Jenny turned and looked at him. “Why?”
she said, eyes haunted, lost, hurt. Then she spat in his face and watched the
dandy in him leave, like a soul drifting upwards from a corpse. Was it just
a persona? A created character for our benefit; to get inside Impurity? To get
inside us? To break us?
     
    “Give me the detonator, bitch,”
he said.
     
    The special ops soldiers were
through the fence now, a ring of weapons around Jenny and Sick Note. Slowly,
Sick Note bent and placed his weapon on the ground, hands in the air, game over.
Jenny, however, seemed locked in battle with Randy. As if some great contest of
wills was taking place, and he really didn’t have a gun to her head.
     
    “When I detonate,” said Jenny,
slowly, enunciating every word with care, her eyes locked to Randy’s, “you know
as well as I the whole fucking place is going to come smashing down. This
close, it’s a toss-up between whether we live” - she licked her lips, and
smiled - “or die. I believe in my cause, and I’m willing to die with honour,
Randy. Are you in the same place? In your heart? In your soul?”
     
    “I explained,” barked