Kill Bill
Title: Kill Bill (4/?)
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG - NC17
Warnings: AU, violence, blood, lots of unpleasantness. Character deaths very possible.
Summary: World peace is attained at a cost. The question is whose cost it was.
Note: Aliases/glossary.
=18712datelog=logsecure
=27522wickerman::login
=attn::171244captain::
::27522wickerman:: What news.
::171244captain:: Standby. 81276rockstar has not verified.
::27522wickerman:: Deploy another.
::171244captain:: Sir? Should we not wait for verification?
::27522wickerman:: Your op was in place to eliminate a code x who is assumed self aware. It should have been a 30 minute operation. His session will have worn off.
::171244captain:: Trace shows he has moved to a new location. Possibly lying in wait. Seratonin levels just dropped, we were about to reinsert him.
::27522wickerman:: No. If he had time to sleep, then he failed. We do not tolerate failure here. That one was always rebellious, I’m surprised you put him on this. Deploy another and eliminate them both.
::171244captain:: Yes sir.
::27522wickerman:: You will report any developments directly to me, Hill.
::171244captain:: Understood sir.
JULY 18. MANCHESTER.
Billy jerked awake with a gasp, his head swimming with the remnants of his dreams; staring down the barrel of a gun, being chased, running until his lungs were bursting from those steely blue eyes.
As he looked around, that was exactly what he saw, the man bound to the post in the center of his room. Billy yelped, jerking the ratty blanket up in pure reflex as those eyes crawled over him, the shirt that had covered them shifted and pushed out of his frame of vision, but still draped haphazardly over his hair. The man smirked, the lines beside those eyes deepening as they narrowed, a breath of laughter puffing from his swollen, bruised nose.
“Ynn mmm tnnknn,” the man mumbled beneath the duct tape still covering his mouth, though it looked like he’d tried to free it as well, one edge curled like he’d spent some time rubbing it against the shoulder of his jacket.
Billy tried to settle himself, taking his eyes from the man only briefly enough to glimpse the arrival of dawn through the single grubby window. “Shite.”
“Mmm,” agreed the man, the back of his head softly thumping against the post, letting out a low, painful moan.
Billy’d done a number on him, that was for sure. He looked like he’d gone through hell, nose swollen and bruised, the tape beneath crusted over with dried blood, the lower orbit of one eye blacked, his right shoulder held weirdly dropped. Billy had never beaten anyone up in his life. At least not in the life he knew of. Yet he’d known, almost on instinct, exactly what to do to overpower a man of similar size and weight, twice in the same night.
Reaching over to the milk crate, he picked up the gun. The man rolled his head back toward him, eyeing it and him. Billy flicked the button to drop the clip again, checking to be sure that bullet was still straight and true. He fitted it back in, took the safety off and aimed at the man, right between the eyes. He wouldn’t miss, certainly not at this range. Billy did not know how he knew that.
The man looked steadily back, his eyes meeting Billy’s, the square of tape over his mouth stealing his expression. Then he swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing beneath his crooked, stubbly chin.
“’S not very nice, is it?” Billy murmured lowly. “Looking down the business end of one of these.”
The man looked back, a slash gathering between his brows, and those eyes changed, widened and then dropped, as if to look down at himself and his pathetic predicament.
“I don’t know much, but I know I don’t want to go out like that,” Billy stood, keeping the pistol trained on the man, who raised his eyes and tracked him. He approached warily and crouched, plucking the shirt from his head, keeping the gun pointed at his face. “Don’t you try anything or I’ll do it.”
The man snorted, his eyes slipping down to his bound body and then back.
“Aye, you’re in no condition anyway,” Billy smirked. With his free hand he tugged at the man’s jacket, heavy with the smell of alcohol from last night, searching the pockets, and finding nothing but a bloody wad of tissue. Tossing that aside, he patted down the man’s jeans, his fingers digging awkwardly to pull a PID from the front pocket. He couldn’t activate his ident files, though, not without freeing his hands to get his thumbprint.
He looked back at him uncertainly. “Anyone follow you here?”
The man did nothing until Billy pushed the muzzle of the silencer against his bruised cheekbone, then he gave a short shake of his head.
“I take this tape off, and you’re not to yell. No one in this neighborhood will care anyway.” The man nodded, bracing his head back against the post. Billy hesitated, then grasped the peeled-up corner of the duct tape and yanked it off fast.
“Fuck,” the man grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and opening his jaw wide to stretch it, taking a deep breath as he looked grouchily back up at Billy. “Won’t need a shave, at least. You talk in your sleep.”
“What?”
“You were talking, earlier, in your sleep. Telling someone to leave you alone.”
Billy sat back on his heel, “I was dreaming of you.”
The man’s brow went up and he grinned smugly, “I have that effect on people. I don’t suppose you have any paracematol? Or something stronger?”
“Why are you after me? Why’d you try to kill me?” Billy asked.
“Mate, I don’t know what the bloody fuck you’re on,” the man chuckled, looking back down at himself, “Must have been a hell of a bender, though.”
Billy gripped his dislocated shoulder, making him cry out. “Last night, you killed my boss with this gun, and then you tried to shoot me, and then you followed me home and tried again. Why?”
Those eyes narrowed, watering with pain and fury now, his reply breathed raggedly through clenched teeth, “You’re round the fucking twist, arsehole, this is England, I don’t even know how to use a gun.”
“Bullshit,” Billy spat, “You shot Angus with this gun. You tried to kill me. Would have done if it hadn’t jammed.”
“Somehow I’m regretting I didn’t manage it, then,” the man growled, “Who the fuck is Angus?”
“The barman at the pub,” Billy raised his eyes, leveling a hard glare at him. “If you can’t remember the man who handed you your last beer, maybe it’s time you left off the drink.”
“Mate,” the man retorted, “I don’t remember last night any more than I remember my first lay or my mum’s tits, but I’m bloody fucking certain I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I?”
“You killed Angus,” Billy snapped, “He’d a wife and three grandchildren. He gave me a job, even though it was clear I was running from something. From you. You murdered a good man, trying to get to me.”
The man simply gazed back like he had three heads, then spoke, “Right. Look, if you’ll just let me go, maybe point me in the direction of the nearest hospital, I promise, I won’t talk. I won’t go to the bill and tell them some maniac beat the hell out of me, held me hostage and waved a gun in my face, alright? I’ll just tell them I had a bad bender and don’t remember anything. Because honestly, I don’t remember anything from last night. So, we’re square. Wouldn’t be the first thing in my life I’ve forgotten.”
Billy blinked at him. “How do you not remember? You were at Angus’ Pub. He made last call, he sent everyone off, and then you shot him in the head.”
“I don’t know any Angus’ Pub. I don’t even…” the man glanced around the attic, as if it would provide reference, “Where are we? I never left Stockport.”
Billy shook his head, “This is Oldham. Who were you with?”
“No one. I don’t know anyone. How did I get here? The last thing I remember I was....” the man paused, thinking, “was eating at Morgan’s. Always eat at Morgan’s on Sunday. They do that Sunday lunch special with the curry.”
“Sunday lunch?” Tilting his head, Billy looked the man over, back at those lively eyes, bright and watery as they opened, genuinely confused and really rather scared, he realized. Not at all the same as the cold, dead, expressionless eyes from last night, looking down the barrel of this gun. “Today’s Thursday.”
The man’s eyes grew wide, then squeezed shut again, moaning as he squirmed in his bindings. “Fuck, I’ll never drink again if I could just keep things together.”
“What’s your name?” he asked, “Do you remember that?”
“Charlie,” the man said, “Name’s Charlie Pace.”
“What else don’t you remember? You said, earlier, you don’t remember things?”
“Mate, I don’t remember half my bloody life, I just try to get by, you know?” Charlie gave a pained laugh, “I have a memory problem. It says right there in my medfile,” he lifted his chin to the PID Billy held.
“You don’t remember-what? Your parents? Your childhood, the wars everyone talks about?” Billy spoke hurriedly, stunned by this.
“No. It’s weird, isn’t it?” Charlie said, “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.”
“I don’t remember any of that either,” Billy confessed. “I don’t remember my whole life up to a few years ago.”
Charlie looked back up at him, “So you go around beating up random people, then? They have therapy for that, you know. Anger management. Get you over your daddy issues or whatever.”
“No, you git,” Billy grated, “I don’t even know how I know how to use this thing. I don’t know how I knew how to beat the hell out of you. I’ve never done this before.”
“Well, you did a good job of it,” Charlie gave an imploring grin, “Mate, please, can you just let me go? I won’t remember you in two days anyway, I’m that forgetful. I’ll just be on my way and you’ll never see me again.”
“No,” Billy said, then stronger, lifting the pistol again, “No. You did try to kill me last night. You’ve been chasing me for four days. You’re in this, same as me, and I need to figure out what the fuck is going on.”
The man eyed the gun again, squirming. “Right, okay, okay, just… Look, mate, whatever happened last night, I need a piss something fierce. D’you mind?”
Billy eyed him with distrust. Letting the man piss meant freeing him, both his legs and his hands.
Charlie sighed, squirming some more, his eyes deep blue and imploring, “Please, can I use the loo? ‘S not going to matter in a minute when I piss down my leg, y’know.”
Billy worried his lip. All he could see was this man standing over him yesterday, with this gun in his face, the utter fear of it, the questions, why?. Ever since he’d stopped getting those injections, ever since he’d pulled that thing out of his back, nothing about the world made sense. It hadn’t then either, but as Jamie, he’d just accepted it, nothing had ever given him a reason to think otherwise. He’d never considered choices or the option to ask questions, thus the ability to form his own opinions about anything until his head started clearing. Now the question was whether to trust that the man who just last night had nearly killed him was telling the truth. If anything, he had to rely on the nearly instinctive knowledge that he had at least disabled him enough that he had the upper hand.
He kneed over to the duffle and dug for the pocketknife, using it to cut the tape to free the man from the post. He lifted the gun again, “On your stomach. Go on.”
Charlie gave a small sigh of relief, awkwardly tipping to one side, catching the bulk of his weight on his undamaged shoulder and easing over to his front.
Billy had to set the gun down in order to cut through the bindings on his ankles and then his knees. He straddled the man again, pressing a hand to the back of his neck for a moment, “Don’t you move, even after I’ve done your hands, aye? Wouldn’t take much for this knife to find its way into your spine from here.” He drew the point across the back of Charlie’s neck to illustrate.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Finally, Billy carefully cut through the remaining tape between the man’s wrists and hands, which remained crossed over his back even as Billy peeled the remainder from his fingers, scooting back and grabbed up the gun again, keeping it trained on him from a distance, the knife ready in his other hand. “Get up.”
Charlie gave a sigh, and then a pained whimper as he moved his arms, the right one held awkwardly tight and curled against his torso. He used the other to push himself up from floor and roll over to stand, his eyes cutting to Billy as he slowly stood, his left hand out and spread in placation. He pointed toward the loo doorway, asking permission again, to which Billy nodded, following him in and keeping him at gunpoint from the door as he made his way to the toilet. It was when Charlie struggled a bit to undo his trousers and had trouble even using his injured arm to hold himself that Billy began to suspect he really had hurt him to a point that he wasn’t much of a threat.
Charlie glanced at him, left hand steadying him on the wall above the john and sighing as he pissed, and giving a pathetic chuckle, “Whatever I did last night, I’m sorry, alright? I know I’m beat when I can barely hold my own prick in the morning.”
He finished, awkwardly zipping up and darting a glance at Billy again as he stepped toward the sink and mirror. Very lightly, he poked at the bruise under his eye and at his nose, plucking the bloody tissue from the one nostril. He brought his left hand to his right shoulder, trying to slip the jacket from it but stopping fast with a pinched noise, his face absolutely crumpling with the pain of even trying to move it. Instead he simply gripped the arm, cradling it gingerly as he turned back to Billy and the gun. “So, what did I do to deserve this?”
Billy narrowed his brows, “Thought I just told you? You tried to kill me, remember?”
Charlie frowned, looking at the floor before squeezing his eyes shut. “Can I go home? I don’t…” he opened them again, wide blue and pleading, “I’m sorry I can’t remember. I just… this really hurts, and I just want to go home and forget.” He looked on the verge of tears, his skin pale and clammy, quaking a bit. And he was worse off than Billy was, if he couldn’t remember something he’d been told only minutes before. “Please? I want to forget you.”
A wave of vertigo slammed against Billy at those words, a roiling sense of déjà vu that made his heart clench and his guts twist up. He closed the knife blade and pocketed it. “You can’t go home,” he murmured, “Not any more than I can.”
He backed his way out of the bathroom, Charlie following at a safe distance. Standing by the door, he ordered, “That duffle there. I want you to pack it. The clothes, the torch, that notepad there.” Charlie obeyed, slowly with his good arm, as Billy directed him. “Leave the books, I don’t need them. Right, you carry it.”
Billy indicated the door, unscrewing the silencer from the gun and pushing it into his jacket pocket with Charlie’s PID, “Out, go on. Don’t even think of yelling for anyone out there either.”
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked, the duffle over his good shoulder as he went slowly down the steps.
“Away,” Billy said, “Away from here. Whatever you were meant to do, you didn’t do it. All that means is that they’ll send someone else.” He paused to tuck the gun into the back of his jeans and hide it under his shirt as they stepped out into the bright morning. There were few people out this early. Billy had a count of five within his sights up and down the block in a second, and knew exactly how and what to do to put them all down to escape if he needed to. “You walk in front of me. Don’t act suspicious, you already look a mess. Just walk.”
Billy remained on high alert as they moved, telling Charlie what streets to take, keeping an eye out, ducking down alleys any time anyone looked sideways at them, moving in a generally northward direction along side streets and drainage ditches. He wasn’t sure himself where to go from here, he just knew moving was better than staying still.
The sun was high in the sky when Charlie stumbled, gasping a bit as they trudged alongside a railway, going down hard on his knees.
“Get up.” Billy kept a hand on the gun, wary of the stores and the people just the other side of the rise becoming active with the morning. He skirted to the side, finding Charlie hunched around his dislocated arm, his face looking pallid and pinched. “What’s wrong with you, eh?”
“Christ, where do I start? My arm’s broken, I can’t see much from my right eye, my head’s going to explode and I’m being made to walk to Aberfuckingdeen by a delusional maniac with a gun who is positive I did something I don’t remember doing,” Charlie looked up, looking thoroughly steamed and ill, “Does that about cover it? What the fuck do you want from me?”
Billy looked around, checking all sides before drawing the gun on him again, “I want you to get up.”
Charlie eyed the gun again, breathing heavy as he resignedly obeyed. They walked a short distance to a railway tunnel leading to an abandoned station.
“Stop here, we’ll rest a bit,” Billy told him in the dim of the brick archway, waiting for him to collapse against the wall before sitting across from him and answering his question. “I asked you the same thing, last night. Did you know that? ‘What do you want from me?’” He looked down at the gun. “I want to know why you tried to kill me. I want to know why I can’t remember. I want to know who I am. I want to know why you can’t remember too. Did you never ask yourself that?”
“What difference does it make?” Charlie scowled, leaning back against the bricks and clutching his arm, “I don’t know who you are. I can’t remember anyone anyway. Only way I know my own fucking name is ‘cause it’s in my PID.”
“And you’ve never, ever asked yourself why that is?” Billy asked.
Charlie looked across at him and then away, down the tunnel, as if this was the first time anyone had even suggested such a thing. “I… I drink too much, I can’t hold down a job cause I can’t remember to show up…”
“And yet someone pays your way,” Billy said, “You live in a nice flat and someone, somewhere pays your bills and refills your credit accounts so you never have to think about it, yeah? I’ll bet you go to some pretty doctor for allergy shots as well?”
Charlie pulled his gaze back at Billy’s face, searching and surprised, but then shrugged, wincing afterward, “Dunno how you know that. Dunno why that obligates you to hold me hostage either.”
“You tried to kill me, remember?” Billy offered a small smile. “Besides, you’re the only other person I’ve met who’s like me. You’ve got to be part of it somehow.”
Billy crossed over to him, pulling Charlie’s PID out of his own pocket, activating the ident files and holding it out. Charlie hesitantly put his thumb on the screen to verify, and the files came up showing his photo, his birthdate and other identifiable info, and the same flag at the bottom stating he had an anonymous voucher in the event he ever got into trouble or hurt, that Billy remembered from Jamie’s files. He’d never questioned that either, not until he figured out no one else had that.
“Used to be I only knew my own name because it was in mine,” he said, looking back at Charlie, “Same as you.”
Digging the pocketknife out of his pocket, Billy used it to unscrew and wrench the back of the PID open as Charlie watched, looking as confused as ever. He pried up the memchip, set it on the train track and smashed it with the butt of the knife handle.
He fitted the PID back together and handed it back. “Now you’re not Charlie Pace anymore. You don’t have memory problem, or anything else that thing told you. Come on, we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll know I did that just now.”
The man pulled himself up, and with a last glance at the shattered memchip on the steel, pocketed the PID and then started walking in front of Billy again.
“I didn’t know it was that easy,” the man said quietly, his words echoing a little in the tunnel, “Not to be me.”
“It’s harder than you’d think,” Billy answered. “They still found me somehow, or you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been sent after me.”
“Who are they?”
Billy strode on for awhile, before the man looked back at him. “I don’t know.”
“Who are you?” the man asked next, dropped back a bit to walk by Billy’s side.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at him. “You can call me Billy though.”
“Is that what they called you?”
“No, it’s just a name I like. I don’t know why.”
They strode on for a while. “Dominic.”
“Hmm?”
“That’s a name I always liked.”
“Dominic,” Billy said, his brows gathering at how familiar that seemed, and looked up at him as they came out into the light at the end of the tunnel, and smirked, “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but it really wasn’t.”
Dominic huffed a tight laugh, still clutching his painful arm, “Not really, no.”
=171244captain::login
=attn::27522wickerman::
::171244captain:: Sir, city authorities have discovered a body at last night’s location.
::27522wickerman:: Dammit. Why was it not cleaned?
::171244captain:: It was not 28868beesting. We were not aware a civilian had been killed. It should not have happened.
::27522wickerman:: Of course not. Deploy Erasures. This cannot make it to the media.
::171244captain:: Already been done, sir.
::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar is on the move. His path is erratic, he may still be tracking his target. Should we not reinsert?
::171244captain:: Wait. Just a moment please.
::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar has just compromised his PID.
::27522wickerman:: Dammit. No. Do not reinsert.
::171244captain:: Sir, if he is in 28868beesting’s presence and we reinsert now, he would be able to complete his mission.
::27522wickerman:: No. We know the 1st gen NLGN serum is compromised. I’m questioning Bishop’s entire apothecary at this point. 81276rockstar was always rebellious of the protocol, last night’s mess only proves he was never meant for this program. The 2nd gen insertion serum could have been the culprit there as well.
::171244captain:: Perhaps they are past their expiration date?
::27522wickerman:: Don’t be a smartarse, Hill, I am in no mood. Be sure you are only deploying 3rd gen ops as of now, at least we know they’ve been serviced recently. Just the same, keep them on a tight leash. Any deviations from routine should be questioned. All 2nd gen ops are to be recalled and grounded. I want them all brought in and eliminated before this accelerates.
::171244captain:: Lear won’t be pleased with that.
::27522wickerman:: Lear’s soft feelings are irrelevant. They are expendable assets and they’ve served their purpose as far as we are concerned. Continue monitoring the trace. At least you can still track him that way. Find them both. This cannot get any farther away from us than it already has.
::171244captain:: Yes sir.
CHAPTER FIVE
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG - NC17
Warnings: AU, violence, blood, lots of unpleasantness. Character deaths very possible.
Summary: World peace is attained at a cost. The question is whose cost it was.
Note: Aliases/glossary.
=18712datelog=logsecure
=27522wickerman::login
=attn::171244captain::
::27522wickerman:: What news.
::171244captain:: Standby. 81276rockstar has not verified.
::27522wickerman:: Deploy another.
::171244captain:: Sir? Should we not wait for verification?
::27522wickerman:: Your op was in place to eliminate a code x who is assumed self aware. It should have been a 30 minute operation. His session will have worn off.
::171244captain:: Trace shows he has moved to a new location. Possibly lying in wait. Seratonin levels just dropped, we were about to reinsert him.
::27522wickerman:: No. If he had time to sleep, then he failed. We do not tolerate failure here. That one was always rebellious, I’m surprised you put him on this. Deploy another and eliminate them both.
::171244captain:: Yes sir.
::27522wickerman:: You will report any developments directly to me, Hill.
::171244captain:: Understood sir.
JULY 18. MANCHESTER.
Billy jerked awake with a gasp, his head swimming with the remnants of his dreams; staring down the barrel of a gun, being chased, running until his lungs were bursting from those steely blue eyes.
As he looked around, that was exactly what he saw, the man bound to the post in the center of his room. Billy yelped, jerking the ratty blanket up in pure reflex as those eyes crawled over him, the shirt that had covered them shifted and pushed out of his frame of vision, but still draped haphazardly over his hair. The man smirked, the lines beside those eyes deepening as they narrowed, a breath of laughter puffing from his swollen, bruised nose.
“Ynn mmm tnnknn,” the man mumbled beneath the duct tape still covering his mouth, though it looked like he’d tried to free it as well, one edge curled like he’d spent some time rubbing it against the shoulder of his jacket.
Billy tried to settle himself, taking his eyes from the man only briefly enough to glimpse the arrival of dawn through the single grubby window. “Shite.”
“Mmm,” agreed the man, the back of his head softly thumping against the post, letting out a low, painful moan.
Billy’d done a number on him, that was for sure. He looked like he’d gone through hell, nose swollen and bruised, the tape beneath crusted over with dried blood, the lower orbit of one eye blacked, his right shoulder held weirdly dropped. Billy had never beaten anyone up in his life. At least not in the life he knew of. Yet he’d known, almost on instinct, exactly what to do to overpower a man of similar size and weight, twice in the same night.
Reaching over to the milk crate, he picked up the gun. The man rolled his head back toward him, eyeing it and him. Billy flicked the button to drop the clip again, checking to be sure that bullet was still straight and true. He fitted it back in, took the safety off and aimed at the man, right between the eyes. He wouldn’t miss, certainly not at this range. Billy did not know how he knew that.
The man looked steadily back, his eyes meeting Billy’s, the square of tape over his mouth stealing his expression. Then he swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing beneath his crooked, stubbly chin.
“’S not very nice, is it?” Billy murmured lowly. “Looking down the business end of one of these.”
The man looked back, a slash gathering between his brows, and those eyes changed, widened and then dropped, as if to look down at himself and his pathetic predicament.
“I don’t know much, but I know I don’t want to go out like that,” Billy stood, keeping the pistol trained on the man, who raised his eyes and tracked him. He approached warily and crouched, plucking the shirt from his head, keeping the gun pointed at his face. “Don’t you try anything or I’ll do it.”
The man snorted, his eyes slipping down to his bound body and then back.
“Aye, you’re in no condition anyway,” Billy smirked. With his free hand he tugged at the man’s jacket, heavy with the smell of alcohol from last night, searching the pockets, and finding nothing but a bloody wad of tissue. Tossing that aside, he patted down the man’s jeans, his fingers digging awkwardly to pull a PID from the front pocket. He couldn’t activate his ident files, though, not without freeing his hands to get his thumbprint.
He looked back at him uncertainly. “Anyone follow you here?”
The man did nothing until Billy pushed the muzzle of the silencer against his bruised cheekbone, then he gave a short shake of his head.
“I take this tape off, and you’re not to yell. No one in this neighborhood will care anyway.” The man nodded, bracing his head back against the post. Billy hesitated, then grasped the peeled-up corner of the duct tape and yanked it off fast.
“Fuck,” the man grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and opening his jaw wide to stretch it, taking a deep breath as he looked grouchily back up at Billy. “Won’t need a shave, at least. You talk in your sleep.”
“What?”
“You were talking, earlier, in your sleep. Telling someone to leave you alone.”
Billy sat back on his heel, “I was dreaming of you.”
The man’s brow went up and he grinned smugly, “I have that effect on people. I don’t suppose you have any paracematol? Or something stronger?”
“Why are you after me? Why’d you try to kill me?” Billy asked.
“Mate, I don’t know what the bloody fuck you’re on,” the man chuckled, looking back down at himself, “Must have been a hell of a bender, though.”
Billy gripped his dislocated shoulder, making him cry out. “Last night, you killed my boss with this gun, and then you tried to shoot me, and then you followed me home and tried again. Why?”
Those eyes narrowed, watering with pain and fury now, his reply breathed raggedly through clenched teeth, “You’re round the fucking twist, arsehole, this is England, I don’t even know how to use a gun.”
“Bullshit,” Billy spat, “You shot Angus with this gun. You tried to kill me. Would have done if it hadn’t jammed.”
“Somehow I’m regretting I didn’t manage it, then,” the man growled, “Who the fuck is Angus?”
“The barman at the pub,” Billy raised his eyes, leveling a hard glare at him. “If you can’t remember the man who handed you your last beer, maybe it’s time you left off the drink.”
“Mate,” the man retorted, “I don’t remember last night any more than I remember my first lay or my mum’s tits, but I’m bloody fucking certain I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I?”
“You killed Angus,” Billy snapped, “He’d a wife and three grandchildren. He gave me a job, even though it was clear I was running from something. From you. You murdered a good man, trying to get to me.”
The man simply gazed back like he had three heads, then spoke, “Right. Look, if you’ll just let me go, maybe point me in the direction of the nearest hospital, I promise, I won’t talk. I won’t go to the bill and tell them some maniac beat the hell out of me, held me hostage and waved a gun in my face, alright? I’ll just tell them I had a bad bender and don’t remember anything. Because honestly, I don’t remember anything from last night. So, we’re square. Wouldn’t be the first thing in my life I’ve forgotten.”
Billy blinked at him. “How do you not remember? You were at Angus’ Pub. He made last call, he sent everyone off, and then you shot him in the head.”
“I don’t know any Angus’ Pub. I don’t even…” the man glanced around the attic, as if it would provide reference, “Where are we? I never left Stockport.”
Billy shook his head, “This is Oldham. Who were you with?”
“No one. I don’t know anyone. How did I get here? The last thing I remember I was....” the man paused, thinking, “was eating at Morgan’s. Always eat at Morgan’s on Sunday. They do that Sunday lunch special with the curry.”
“Sunday lunch?” Tilting his head, Billy looked the man over, back at those lively eyes, bright and watery as they opened, genuinely confused and really rather scared, he realized. Not at all the same as the cold, dead, expressionless eyes from last night, looking down the barrel of this gun. “Today’s Thursday.”
The man’s eyes grew wide, then squeezed shut again, moaning as he squirmed in his bindings. “Fuck, I’ll never drink again if I could just keep things together.”
“What’s your name?” he asked, “Do you remember that?”
“Charlie,” the man said, “Name’s Charlie Pace.”
“What else don’t you remember? You said, earlier, you don’t remember things?”
“Mate, I don’t remember half my bloody life, I just try to get by, you know?” Charlie gave a pained laugh, “I have a memory problem. It says right there in my medfile,” he lifted his chin to the PID Billy held.
“You don’t remember-what? Your parents? Your childhood, the wars everyone talks about?” Billy spoke hurriedly, stunned by this.
“No. It’s weird, isn’t it?” Charlie said, “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.”
“I don’t remember any of that either,” Billy confessed. “I don’t remember my whole life up to a few years ago.”
Charlie looked back up at him, “So you go around beating up random people, then? They have therapy for that, you know. Anger management. Get you over your daddy issues or whatever.”
“No, you git,” Billy grated, “I don’t even know how I know how to use this thing. I don’t know how I knew how to beat the hell out of you. I’ve never done this before.”
“Well, you did a good job of it,” Charlie gave an imploring grin, “Mate, please, can you just let me go? I won’t remember you in two days anyway, I’m that forgetful. I’ll just be on my way and you’ll never see me again.”
“No,” Billy said, then stronger, lifting the pistol again, “No. You did try to kill me last night. You’ve been chasing me for four days. You’re in this, same as me, and I need to figure out what the fuck is going on.”
The man eyed the gun again, squirming. “Right, okay, okay, just… Look, mate, whatever happened last night, I need a piss something fierce. D’you mind?”
Billy eyed him with distrust. Letting the man piss meant freeing him, both his legs and his hands.
Charlie sighed, squirming some more, his eyes deep blue and imploring, “Please, can I use the loo? ‘S not going to matter in a minute when I piss down my leg, y’know.”
Billy worried his lip. All he could see was this man standing over him yesterday, with this gun in his face, the utter fear of it, the questions, why?. Ever since he’d stopped getting those injections, ever since he’d pulled that thing out of his back, nothing about the world made sense. It hadn’t then either, but as Jamie, he’d just accepted it, nothing had ever given him a reason to think otherwise. He’d never considered choices or the option to ask questions, thus the ability to form his own opinions about anything until his head started clearing. Now the question was whether to trust that the man who just last night had nearly killed him was telling the truth. If anything, he had to rely on the nearly instinctive knowledge that he had at least disabled him enough that he had the upper hand.
He kneed over to the duffle and dug for the pocketknife, using it to cut the tape to free the man from the post. He lifted the gun again, “On your stomach. Go on.”
Charlie gave a small sigh of relief, awkwardly tipping to one side, catching the bulk of his weight on his undamaged shoulder and easing over to his front.
Billy had to set the gun down in order to cut through the bindings on his ankles and then his knees. He straddled the man again, pressing a hand to the back of his neck for a moment, “Don’t you move, even after I’ve done your hands, aye? Wouldn’t take much for this knife to find its way into your spine from here.” He drew the point across the back of Charlie’s neck to illustrate.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Finally, Billy carefully cut through the remaining tape between the man’s wrists and hands, which remained crossed over his back even as Billy peeled the remainder from his fingers, scooting back and grabbed up the gun again, keeping it trained on him from a distance, the knife ready in his other hand. “Get up.”
Charlie gave a sigh, and then a pained whimper as he moved his arms, the right one held awkwardly tight and curled against his torso. He used the other to push himself up from floor and roll over to stand, his eyes cutting to Billy as he slowly stood, his left hand out and spread in placation. He pointed toward the loo doorway, asking permission again, to which Billy nodded, following him in and keeping him at gunpoint from the door as he made his way to the toilet. It was when Charlie struggled a bit to undo his trousers and had trouble even using his injured arm to hold himself that Billy began to suspect he really had hurt him to a point that he wasn’t much of a threat.
Charlie glanced at him, left hand steadying him on the wall above the john and sighing as he pissed, and giving a pathetic chuckle, “Whatever I did last night, I’m sorry, alright? I know I’m beat when I can barely hold my own prick in the morning.”
He finished, awkwardly zipping up and darting a glance at Billy again as he stepped toward the sink and mirror. Very lightly, he poked at the bruise under his eye and at his nose, plucking the bloody tissue from the one nostril. He brought his left hand to his right shoulder, trying to slip the jacket from it but stopping fast with a pinched noise, his face absolutely crumpling with the pain of even trying to move it. Instead he simply gripped the arm, cradling it gingerly as he turned back to Billy and the gun. “So, what did I do to deserve this?”
Billy narrowed his brows, “Thought I just told you? You tried to kill me, remember?”
Charlie frowned, looking at the floor before squeezing his eyes shut. “Can I go home? I don’t…” he opened them again, wide blue and pleading, “I’m sorry I can’t remember. I just… this really hurts, and I just want to go home and forget.” He looked on the verge of tears, his skin pale and clammy, quaking a bit. And he was worse off than Billy was, if he couldn’t remember something he’d been told only minutes before. “Please? I want to forget you.”
A wave of vertigo slammed against Billy at those words, a roiling sense of déjà vu that made his heart clench and his guts twist up. He closed the knife blade and pocketed it. “You can’t go home,” he murmured, “Not any more than I can.”
He backed his way out of the bathroom, Charlie following at a safe distance. Standing by the door, he ordered, “That duffle there. I want you to pack it. The clothes, the torch, that notepad there.” Charlie obeyed, slowly with his good arm, as Billy directed him. “Leave the books, I don’t need them. Right, you carry it.”
Billy indicated the door, unscrewing the silencer from the gun and pushing it into his jacket pocket with Charlie’s PID, “Out, go on. Don’t even think of yelling for anyone out there either.”
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked, the duffle over his good shoulder as he went slowly down the steps.
“Away,” Billy said, “Away from here. Whatever you were meant to do, you didn’t do it. All that means is that they’ll send someone else.” He paused to tuck the gun into the back of his jeans and hide it under his shirt as they stepped out into the bright morning. There were few people out this early. Billy had a count of five within his sights up and down the block in a second, and knew exactly how and what to do to put them all down to escape if he needed to. “You walk in front of me. Don’t act suspicious, you already look a mess. Just walk.”
Billy remained on high alert as they moved, telling Charlie what streets to take, keeping an eye out, ducking down alleys any time anyone looked sideways at them, moving in a generally northward direction along side streets and drainage ditches. He wasn’t sure himself where to go from here, he just knew moving was better than staying still.
The sun was high in the sky when Charlie stumbled, gasping a bit as they trudged alongside a railway, going down hard on his knees.
“Get up.” Billy kept a hand on the gun, wary of the stores and the people just the other side of the rise becoming active with the morning. He skirted to the side, finding Charlie hunched around his dislocated arm, his face looking pallid and pinched. “What’s wrong with you, eh?”
“Christ, where do I start? My arm’s broken, I can’t see much from my right eye, my head’s going to explode and I’m being made to walk to Aberfuckingdeen by a delusional maniac with a gun who is positive I did something I don’t remember doing,” Charlie looked up, looking thoroughly steamed and ill, “Does that about cover it? What the fuck do you want from me?”
Billy looked around, checking all sides before drawing the gun on him again, “I want you to get up.”
Charlie eyed the gun again, breathing heavy as he resignedly obeyed. They walked a short distance to a railway tunnel leading to an abandoned station.
“Stop here, we’ll rest a bit,” Billy told him in the dim of the brick archway, waiting for him to collapse against the wall before sitting across from him and answering his question. “I asked you the same thing, last night. Did you know that? ‘What do you want from me?’” He looked down at the gun. “I want to know why you tried to kill me. I want to know why I can’t remember. I want to know who I am. I want to know why you can’t remember too. Did you never ask yourself that?”
“What difference does it make?” Charlie scowled, leaning back against the bricks and clutching his arm, “I don’t know who you are. I can’t remember anyone anyway. Only way I know my own fucking name is ‘cause it’s in my PID.”
“And you’ve never, ever asked yourself why that is?” Billy asked.
Charlie looked across at him and then away, down the tunnel, as if this was the first time anyone had even suggested such a thing. “I… I drink too much, I can’t hold down a job cause I can’t remember to show up…”
“And yet someone pays your way,” Billy said, “You live in a nice flat and someone, somewhere pays your bills and refills your credit accounts so you never have to think about it, yeah? I’ll bet you go to some pretty doctor for allergy shots as well?”
Charlie pulled his gaze back at Billy’s face, searching and surprised, but then shrugged, wincing afterward, “Dunno how you know that. Dunno why that obligates you to hold me hostage either.”
“You tried to kill me, remember?” Billy offered a small smile. “Besides, you’re the only other person I’ve met who’s like me. You’ve got to be part of it somehow.”
Billy crossed over to him, pulling Charlie’s PID out of his own pocket, activating the ident files and holding it out. Charlie hesitantly put his thumb on the screen to verify, and the files came up showing his photo, his birthdate and other identifiable info, and the same flag at the bottom stating he had an anonymous voucher in the event he ever got into trouble or hurt, that Billy remembered from Jamie’s files. He’d never questioned that either, not until he figured out no one else had that.
“Used to be I only knew my own name because it was in mine,” he said, looking back at Charlie, “Same as you.”
Digging the pocketknife out of his pocket, Billy used it to unscrew and wrench the back of the PID open as Charlie watched, looking as confused as ever. He pried up the memchip, set it on the train track and smashed it with the butt of the knife handle.
He fitted the PID back together and handed it back. “Now you’re not Charlie Pace anymore. You don’t have memory problem, or anything else that thing told you. Come on, we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll know I did that just now.”
The man pulled himself up, and with a last glance at the shattered memchip on the steel, pocketed the PID and then started walking in front of Billy again.
“I didn’t know it was that easy,” the man said quietly, his words echoing a little in the tunnel, “Not to be me.”
“It’s harder than you’d think,” Billy answered. “They still found me somehow, or you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been sent after me.”
“Who are they?”
Billy strode on for awhile, before the man looked back at him. “I don’t know.”
“Who are you?” the man asked next, dropped back a bit to walk by Billy’s side.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at him. “You can call me Billy though.”
“Is that what they called you?”
“No, it’s just a name I like. I don’t know why.”
They strode on for a while. “Dominic.”
“Hmm?”
“That’s a name I always liked.”
“Dominic,” Billy said, his brows gathering at how familiar that seemed, and looked up at him as they came out into the light at the end of the tunnel, and smirked, “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but it really wasn’t.”
Dominic huffed a tight laugh, still clutching his painful arm, “Not really, no.”
=171244captain::login
=attn::27522wickerman::
::171244captain:: Sir, city authorities have discovered a body at last night’s location.
::27522wickerman:: Dammit. Why was it not cleaned?
::171244captain:: It was not 28868beesting. We were not aware a civilian had been killed. It should not have happened.
::27522wickerman:: Of course not. Deploy Erasures. This cannot make it to the media.
::171244captain:: Already been done, sir.
::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar is on the move. His path is erratic, he may still be tracking his target. Should we not reinsert?
::171244captain:: Wait. Just a moment please.
::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar has just compromised his PID.
::27522wickerman:: Dammit. No. Do not reinsert.
::171244captain:: Sir, if he is in 28868beesting’s presence and we reinsert now, he would be able to complete his mission.
::27522wickerman:: No. We know the 1st gen NLGN serum is compromised. I’m questioning Bishop’s entire apothecary at this point. 81276rockstar was always rebellious of the protocol, last night’s mess only proves he was never meant for this program. The 2nd gen insertion serum could have been the culprit there as well.
::171244captain:: Perhaps they are past their expiration date?
::27522wickerman:: Don’t be a smartarse, Hill, I am in no mood. Be sure you are only deploying 3rd gen ops as of now, at least we know they’ve been serviced recently. Just the same, keep them on a tight leash. Any deviations from routine should be questioned. All 2nd gen ops are to be recalled and grounded. I want them all brought in and eliminated before this accelerates.
::171244captain:: Lear won’t be pleased with that.
::27522wickerman:: Lear’s soft feelings are irrelevant. They are expendable assets and they’ve served their purpose as far as we are concerned. Continue monitoring the trace. At least you can still track him that way. Find them both. This cannot get any farther away from us than it already has.
::171244captain:: Yes sir.
CHAPTER FIVE