Hemlock’s Heresy Part 4 – Like A Rat: MeatPunk Serial Fiction

This is the fourth part in the series. Here’s the previous three:

#1 Patricide
#2 The Descent 
#3 Same Inside

Part 4 – Like A Rat

The world seemed smaller. Harrison’s new larger body consumed more space than he was used to. Everyday objects appeared less significant, took up less space. Even the ceilings were lower. He knew he must be at least a foot taller now. Esma barely reached his shoulders, where before, in his old natural body, she would comfortably be at eye-level. 

Esma’s natural beauty hadn’t diminished though, and despite only a couple of days of physio, he knew enough about his new body that he would enjoy hers more than ever.

A red light flashed from the ceiling of the room. A siren wailed. “Physio time’s up, meet me at Roach’s. Playtime’s over.” Marlowe’s voice garbled over the PA.

Harrison sneered at the speaker and jolted his head back away from Esma’s punch as she tried to take advantage of his distraction.

“Man, you got your shit together quickly.” Esma crouched on agile knees. Holding a dagger she circled him. Darted forward. Jabbed the pointy end at his guts.

Grinning like a simpleton, Harrison dodged her strike with a swift side-step. Chopped the blade from her hand. Before she could retrieve it, he stamped a barefoot onto the flat of the blade, trapping it to the floor, and bent his knee.

Esma lost her balance. Fell over his extended leg with her forward momentum. With a gentle tap on the back of her head, she fell onto her front. Grazed her chin on the rough concrete of the Shade’s physio wing. Which wasn’t as great as it sounded being just a thirty-foot square concrete box with free-weights made from grain bags and wood.

“Bastard!” Esma spat dust from her lips. Wiped at the red gash on her chin with the back of her hand. She rolled onto her back and glared at Harrison. Nostrils flared.

Energy crackled throughout his musculature. He pictured stamping on her. Smashing the life from her. “I could crush you like a bug.” Harrison’s voice flattened with menace.  A part of him knew he could do it. Another part, a part that seemed to be lessened since his body-swap, wanted to mount her instead.

“That swine-licker Marlowe’s done too good a job on you. You’re fucking dead inside.”

Was that true? Harrison quickly analysed his internal thought processes. How could one make an informed decision like that? Swapping bodies hadn’t been done very often. Those that did swap had gone off the reservation in spectacular, destructive style. Who’s to say how much of one’s personality is in the mind alone?

The murderous desire waned. He relaxed his shoulders. “I’m still me; just — upgraded.”

“Yeah, some fucking upgrade. Still, needs must if you want these damned tomes.”

“I wouldn’t be in this body if you didn’t shoot the shit out of me.”

“Interesting point, but I had no real option. I did what had to be done. If you never trust anything else, trust me on that.”

Harrison mounted her. Thighs straddling her waist. She squirmed under his weight, but he rode her movements until she gave up and relaxed. “How does it feel now that I’ve got the upper hand on you — for a change?” He remembered back to their sultry nights of debauchery and how she delighted in wrestling him to submission only for her to ride him to her satisfaction — and ultimately his. The woman was a control freak, but one with mind-blowing freakery. “You hate this, don’t you? Not being the women you want to be. The feeling of powerlessness.”

Esma spat in his eye. Bucked like a bull. Twisted out of his mount. She vaulted him. Took his back. Slipped an elbow beneath his chin and applied a choke. “You might think you’re superman now, but you’re still slow as shit compared to me, you freakin’ automaton.”

Harrison clenched his jaw and flexed his considerable neck muscles. Esma’s choke was ineffective and he simply stood and strolled as if it were a Sunday afternoon to the physio room’s exit.

She clung to his back. Grunted with effort. But Harrison continued to breathe easily through his nose. She wrapped her legs around his waist and jerked backwards. Not much happened.

Harrison sighed. Continued to walk down the narrow concrete corridor. Like the shaft which descended down in the Pipes, this corridor was lined with a string of phosphorescent fungal cameras. They turned their sickly eyes towards him as he passed by. His skin crawled as he saw his mutated reflection in their greasy lenses.

Harrison stopped at a door with ‘Roach’s Lab’ scribbled on with marker pen. A fungal camera above it bulged and distended as it focused its semiconscious eye on them. They made him feel sick. Always had done. It seemed even with his upgrade, they still had the same effect. They were one of his dad’s inventions of course. It was one of his many brilliant breakthroughs: the successful splicing of living fungal organisms and electronics.

“I can’t stand Roach. You know he tried to grab my ass once?” Esma gave one final attempt at choking Harrison. She failed. Sighed.

“Are you finished yet?” Harrison asked as she clung to his back like a Koala.

“For now. Let’s get geared up and go get that tome you bitches are wetting yourselves over.” She kissed him on the cheek and hopped off. Esma patted down her combat overalls. Straightened her hair. Pouted. “How’d I look, fuckbag?”

“Dirty.”

“Just how you like ‘em, huh?” Esma winked.

“Only on Sundays.” Harrison flashed a sarcastic grin. Turned. Banged a fist against the door again. “Roach, you in there?”

“Like we’ve got all day.” Esma stepped forward. Kicked at it with her heavy combat boots.

“Hold your god-damned horses. I’ll be there in a sec.” A thin, wet voice called out. It hid a rattle beneath its tone. Like someone who smoked a hundred a day and had nicotine marbles rolling around in their lungs.

“Sure, like we ain’t got better shit to do than wait on you. Move it, cockroach,” Esma shouted. She wore a hint of a smile as she looked up at Harrison. That smile was ninety percent mischief and ten percent don’t-give-a-fuck.

“When we’ve got that tome, I’m going to do bad things to you, Ez,” Harrison said, feeling the heat in his testicles.

“I’m planning on it. Just keep yourself alive and able.”

The door creaked open. Amber light flooded out. The stench of metallic oil, smoke and fried mushrooms clung to the air. The stink caught at the back of Harrison’s throat and he coughed.

“Been frying turds again?” Esma wafted the air and grimaced.

“Charming as ever. Try not to breathe too much of that in; it’s not good for your neurons.” A gelatinous blob of a man, with sweaty skin and pimples waddled across the white lab from his workbench. On the surface were half-rat-half-robot contraptions, fungal weapons that resembled melted handguns, and various organic matter being spliced to multifarious mechanical devices.

Roach was a damn fine Wet-Tech. One of Harrison’s father’s best students. Despite his peccadilloes for eating rats and roaches, the fat bastard could meld meat with the best of them.

Twenty feet away, on the other side of the white lab stood a tripod with a cylindrical burner inside belching out a naked flame. On top of the burner was a metal container like a small trash can. Wet, velvety green smoke billowed from inside as it boiled over the flame.

“What the hell is that?” Harrison pointed to the steaming can.

“Your way into Philosophers’’ HQ.” Roach grinned. All jowls and fat flesh. His bulk stretched his white lab-coat. He wobbled as he chuckled to himself.

“You disgust me,” Esma said, fixing her black hair into a pony-tail. She checked herself in the reflection of a polished aluminium shield which hung from the wall. Harrison’s gaze followed Esma’s to the shield. It was engraved with a familiar handwritten script. His dad’s. It read:

Human’s are an island unto themselves. With individuality comes freedom.

A wave of grief and a black blanket of weakness spread throughout his guts. He seemed so much heavier then. A tear rolled from his left eye. Burned a salty path down his cheek.

Esma patted his bicep. “Hold that in until the mission’s complete. We need you on top of your game. Your father’s legacy needs you on top of your game.”

Harrison choked back the pain and loss. He’d not grieved for the old bastard yet, and he would be damned if he would do it now.

“So where’s fucking Marlowe, I want to get out of here,” Harrison said, glaring at Roach.

“Right here.”

Marlowe entered the room. Silent like a ninja. Dressed in all black. He glared at Harrison and Esma. His usual green eyes were dull. Just tiny pin-pricks of light in a pair of black, glossy orbs. His dreadlocked hair was swept back into a single bunch. It exposed the scarred flesh of his neck.

“Stop staring, scumbag, and listen up.” Marlowe handed Harrison a polished wooden box which filled the palm of his hand. “Open that. Put it on you right ear.”

Harrison opened the box. Inside something that resembled a miniature seashell moved. A worming tentacle flickered out from within its exoskeleton as if sniffing for food. Yellow, viscous slime dripped from it.

Harrison shuddered with revulsion. The bile churned in his stomach. “What the hell is this?”

Esma groaned and looked away.

“One of your old man’s inventions. Well, my design, but he made it work. It’s how I’ll know how you’re doing on your mission. You stick it in your ear and that little worm, we’ll, he’ll burrow into the soft flesh of your brain and connect your optical and aural systems to my network. Genius, huh?”

Harrison dropped the box to the floor and stepped away. “There’s no way I’m putting that in my brain. Are you fucking nuts?”

Marlowe took the small black box with the red button from his leather jacket pocket. “I’m tired of your bullshit. You want the book or not? If you do, put the god-damned comm-leach in your little brain, or we end this now.” Marlowe rubbed his finger across the red button that would active the neural spark unit and fry Harrison’s brain like an egg.

Harrison wanted to raise his boot and smash the comm-leach. But couldn’t. Trapped with indecision. Frustration burned within like a volcano. Hot sweat broke out across his skin.

“What’s it to be, boy? Die like your father, or achieve like your father?”