Toxicity by Andy Remic Page A

Randy,
annoyed now. “I swapped the trigger lines.” He gave his own dark smile then; it
was almost as dark as his hooded, glassy eyes.
     
    “And I’m explaining now,” said
Jenny, dipping her head a little and lifting the detonator in her gloved fist, “that
I bypassed them altogether. I didn’t trust your alien shit. I wanted the job
done.”
     
    Her hand was high in the air,
now. Her eyes shifted and met Sick Note’s. He knew what to do.
     
    “So - it’s live?” he asked.
     
    Jenny could see a pulse beating
at Randy’s temple. It was flickering wildly.
     
    “Oh, yes,” she said, and squeezed
the detonator like a lover... and in a dream, watched the world come tumbling
down.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    THREE
     
     
     
     
    NEVER LOSE YOUR temper.
     
    Horace was bald. Horace liked
being bald. He especially liked it when somebody shouted, “Oi! You! Bald
bastard!” Then, Horace would have to remove a few teeth. Horace had removed
lots of teeth in his career, but that wasn’t why they called him The Dentist.
     
    “Never lose your temper.”
     
    Horace stood cupped in the
shadows of the gloomy, low-rent, drag-strip neon-tattooed bar, arms limp by his
sides, face neutral, and stared at the three large, hairy, overly-angry men
before him. Glass lay shattered on the whiskey-stained boards. A woman in a
leopard-skin mini-skirt sat, stunned, blood trickling from her smashed lip.
     
    One man growled something
incomprehensible, and snapped a pool cue over one knee. Horace gave a long,
slow, reptilian blink. The length of splintered wood whistled as it slammed
through the air, and the modest-looking, mild-mannered Horace twitched and
swayed to the side by just enough, eyes cool, face serene, breathing calmly.
     
    The second strike was avoided
with equal ease, and screaming in frustration, the large, heavily muscled
wife-beater leapt at Horace, who simply turned sideways, allowing the huge man
to cannon past, charge uncontrollably into a stack of tables, and send the
whole tower tumbling down with a noise like a fat man falling down the stairs.
     
    With neat little movements,
Horace turned his back on the group and walked towards the exit. On his way out
from the darkened, seedy bar he pocketed a photo cube in his expensive neat
black suit pocket. A glass flew past him, shattering on the wall, and then
Horace was outside, breathing cool, snow-laced air, neon party-lights
flickering above him with promises of SEX SEX SEX and CUNT CUNT CUNT. Digital
echoes played across Horace’s alabaster skin.
     
    He started down the sidewalk,
filtering out the noise of the partying nightlife all around. He sensed the
three men emerge from the bar behind him. A door cracked shut.
     
    “Oi, you! I said YOU! Bald
fucker!”
     
    Horace stopped dead.
     
    A tiny muscle twitched in his
jaw.
     
    Horace sighed. And turned. He
watched the three men charging towards him, and waited until the last moment
before twitching sideways to the right, right fist driving upwards under the
middle man’s jaw and lifting him clean off his feet. In a reversal of the same
movement, his elbow drove backwards into another man’s eye socket -
disintegrating the bone - and as the third man stood suddenly still, shock
registering through alcohol and hate, Horace stepped in close and leant towards
him.
     
    “Do you know what they call me?”
he said, quite placidly.
     
    The man tried to take a backward
step, but realised Horace had hold of his belt. He stared down at the neat white
features, the polished dome of the bald head, and he felt a tremor of terror
ripple down his spine.
     
    “No,” he managed, gusting sour
whiskey fumes and spittle.
     
    “They call me The Dentist,” said
Horace, gently, words little more than an exhalation of calm air. “Have you
heard my name?”
     
    The half-drunken thug nodded,
eyes growing wide. Everybody had heard of The Dentist. Everybody had heard bad
things about The Dentist. Growing up in Callister Town, the