Ned Loses His Mind
Best Meta can recall the conversation, Caspyr’s exact words were, “Ned has lost his fucking mind. Might be time to find a new chemist.”
Seeing how Caspyr is more than slightly eccentric himself—he’s gotta be to live with Jerri, his hot mess of a wife—Meta interpreted the observation as “Ned is in the midst of a bad time. Tread lightly,” and then filed it away in some back corner of her mind. After collecting Nebula at South End Station, she drove out to Ned’s country lab to procure the latest batch of explosive compound required for anti-Klorman charity work.
Things didn’t go well. Around the time Ned clamped his bionic arms around Meta and pressed a chemical-soaked rag over her face, she understood, yes, he’s truly lost his fucking mind. As eyelids fluttered and consciousness packed for vacation, Meta distantly realized Nebula was latched onto the half-cyborg bastard’s back, pounding the ever-loving hell out of his cranium, but it was bare fists versus titanium skull.
The professional courtesy of not bringing weapons into Ned’s home lab, in retrospect, seemed like a terrible mistake.
Nebula, at some point, crashed into a wall on the other side of the room, leaving behind an ass-shaped dent and a small cloud of plaster. After that, despite her best efforts, Meta went to sleep.
***
Crawling out of the depths some unknown amount of time later, the blurry room on its edge and a headache of cosmic proportions pulsing between her temples, Meta groans. The muffled noise that results conveys in no uncertain terms that she’s gagged. A quick examination with her jaw reveals it’s the adhesive variety, aided by a wad of fabric jammed between her teeth.
Arguably even worse, Meta’s wrists and ankles are bound—hands behind her, feet pulled up into her butt, effectively a hog-tie. Ned’s implement of choice seems to have been smart binding wire or zip-ties. She can’t say which, but either way, she won’t be squirming out of it.
In the course of evaluating herself, she notes with some relief that’s she still wearing her bra and panties. Nothing down below feels violated, and the only thing in her mouth besides the gag is the lingering taste of Ned’s knock-out chemical. The fact that she was stripped at all reeks of a slave-grab in progress, but at least she hasn’t been literally fucked just yet.
Ned has lost his fucking mind.
Nebula is nearby, lying on her side, purple dreads a tangled mess around her head. She is bound and gagged also—hands behind her, wide strips of black tape covering the lower portion of her face—but her legs aren’t tied. Ned the perv slipped off her shorts at some point, but she’s still wearing boots, panties and her top. Steady breath and a lack of visible injuries suggest she survived her violent, ass-first impact with the wall.
As Meta’s brain continues shaking off the sedative, and her eyes regain some measure of focus, she’s finally able to take stock of the room around them, and it’s unfamiliar. In all her years of working with Ned on Caspyr’s behalf, she’s never been invited into the basement, where she assumes the crazy half-cyborg does most of his work. This is probably it. Glowing equipment and racks of chemical bottles cover every wall. An ominous restraint table sits nearby, with cracked leather upholstery and worn straps, which seems odd equipment for a chemistry laboratory. An acrid odor permeates the air—nothing identifiable, but perhaps the combination of so many substances crammed into a small space.
Meta figures her cancer risk over the next twenty years just went up by a solid ten percent.
This optimistically assumes she’ll be around in twenty years ... or days, or hours.
“Sorry for getting rough,” Ned says.
Meta flinches and cuts her eyes toward the voice. He’s standing right beside her, bionic hands on hips, staring at the main display of some machine. In the fog of sedation, she totally missed him.
She groans again.
“It’ll wear off within the hour,” Ned explains. He misses a beat, then adds, “Long as I don’t have to use it again. Don’t fight, okay? You’re not going anywhere, least not till it’s time, and there’s no point in making this hard on yourself.”
“Uh duh uh
uhmph!” Meta demands through the wad of cloth and layers of tape.
The sound is embarrassing and unintelligible, but it has the unintended side-effect of stirring Nebula back to life beside her.
“I’m not going to explain myself,” Ned says, as if the gag-talk made perfect sense. He taps synskin-coated metal fingers on the machine in front of him. “The details aren’t important anyway. All you need to know is somebody is gunning for Caspyr and Jerri, and they knew I could get to them. Of course, getting
to Caspyr and Jerri and actually
getting them aren’t the same thing, and that’s where you two come in. Actually just you, Meta, but I realize you and ‘Bula are a package deal. A
lot of money is involved, as well as long-term security, and that’s all I can say.”
Meta considers explaining how fucked in the head he must to be to think any incentive short of a brain-wipe will make her turn on Caspyr. Forgoing more incoherent gag noise, she instead just glares at him, but he refuses to meet her eyes.
Ned wanders off, starts messing around on a table across the room.
Meta takes the opportunity to rock herself up onto her knees. It isn’t comfortable, and her head swims, but she prefers it over lying down. Nebula follows suit, working herself into a sitting position with her knees together and her boot-covered feet splayed to either side.
When Ned returns, he’s holding up a nasty syrine filled with puke-green liquid. Meta swears it glows, but she can’t even begin to guess what it is.
“Phase one,” Ned announces, as if that explains everything. “It doesn’t hurt, besides the stick. Phase two hurts a lot, and I’ll be strapping you to the tables. Unless you want to get strapped down early, I suggest the two of you don’t get any wise ideas.”
In flurry of motion, perhaps perceived faster than it was due to Meta’s drugged state, Ned thrusts out his bionic right arm and catches her by the throat. He pins her to the wall, and the needle sinks into her neck despite her spirited attempts to struggle away from it. She screams into her gag.
Ned lied. It’s not an unbearable level of pain, but the green shit burns going in.
He empties half the syringe before the power goes out.
“Goddamn budget genny!” Ned cries. “It’ll be the first thing I upgrade!”
Not sure what just happened, and not really caring, Meta redoubles her struggling efforts. Ned’s viselike grip on her throat doesn’t relent, not at first, but Nebula bursts into action to Meta’s right. It’s pitch-black, no way to tell what’s happening, but the result is Ned tumbling away. The needle exits Nebula’s neck with uncontrolled force, ripping a hole that leaves warm blood trickling toward her left collarbone.
She throws herself in the opposite direction of Ned’s fall and immediately goes down face-first, smashing her chin and breasts on the conrete floor. With her ankles connected to her wrists behind her, locomotion options are severely compromised.
Still, the displacement draws a sharp, “Fuckfuckfuck!” from Ned.
More clattering of metallic bionics as Nebula attacks him again, followed by a fleshy crunch and a muffled squeal when he retaliates.
I’m tied too tight to help her!
Across the room, metal hinges groan in the darkness an instant before light blasts it away. Two shadowy figures appear at the top of a stairway, male and female, pistols drawn.
The scuffle on the floor freezes like a paused video.
“Ned, you robotic sum’bitch!” shouts Caspyr. “Unless you’re hell-bent on finding out what happens when that chrome dome of yours tangles with an AP round, I
strongly suggest backing away from my girls. Do you copy, fuck meat?”
Ned screeches in a manner reminiscent of an angry toddler. “This isn’t happening! Goddamn it, Caspyr!”
“You can take it up with God after I send you to him, if you want.”
“I’m backing off! Don’t shoot!”
“Back is the operative word,” Caspyr says. “Don’t turn around. Just back the fuck up, and nobody dies.”
“Fuck!”
Meta rolls onto her side, getting weight off her sore breasts, and watches Ned obey.
When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, Caspyr descends to meet him.
“Easy now, robo-man. Get those chrome appendages behind you.”
Ned growls. “You’re fucking kidding.”
“The AP-to-skull experiment is still an option, man.”
“You have no idea what you’re getting into here, Caspyr. Not a fucking clue.”
“Two of my best friends in the world are tied up on your floor, I’m guessing without their consent. Whatever else I might be
getting into, my priority is getting them
out of here. Now, if you don’t mind....”
With a shake of his metal-encased head, Ned places his hands behind his back. Caspyr slaps on a set of heavy-duty digital handcuffs, the kind designed for restraining bionic limbs. Click-click, and Ned’s powerful arms become dead weight.
Placing a boot against Ned’s ass, Caspyr says, “Sit down,” and kicks him across the room.
Ned stumbles ahead with three big strides before ramming a wheeled cart and going down in a heap of flesh and robotic analogs. Chemical bottles rain onto and around him, but they must be shatter-proof since nothing breaks except the fucker’s pride.
Glancing upstairs, Caspyr says, “Hit the lights, love.”
“Copy,” Jerri replies.
She disappears, and a few seconds latter the overhead fluorescents sputter to life.
Caspyr holsters his pistol and crosses the room, no longer all that concerned about Ned since the guy can hardly move.
Kneeling in front of Meta, green mohawk aglow and a smirk on his face, Caspyr says, “Should I just leave you like this for being stupid?”
“Uhh phuh uh-phi mmph,” Meta replies, and again regrets attempting to speak through the gag.
Caspyr raps his knuckles on her ballcap. “Was that a yes? Have you done gone and got kinky on me?”
“Grrrrrrmph!”
“You guys okay? Nebula?”
Meta nods. Against the wall, one side of her taped face displaying the early stages of a nasty bruise, Nebula does the same.
As it turns out, Ned’s restraints of choice were in fact zip-ties, not smartwire. A multitool on Caspyr’s belt makes short work of the outer plastic and steel core. Seconds later, Meta and Nebula remove their own gags and the drool-soaked rags behind them, and then huddle together on the floor while nursing their injuries.
“He got about half that shit in me,” Meta says, pointing at the syringe Ned dropped halfway to the stairs. “No idea what it is.”
Caspyr picks up the syringe, studies it. “Me neither, but robo-man is gonna enlighten us. Aren’t you, robo-man?”
“Fuck off,” Ned replies.
“Or I can just start shooting. So much of you is chrome, I bet I can go through five, six mags before I have to move on to your squishy bits. And even then, I can draw this out a long-ass time. Wanna see?”
“It’s Surrenderol,” Ned says, “a prep dose.”
Caspyr frowns. “Is that so? The real Andorian stuff, or a knock-off? Prep dose for what?”
“It’s legit, imported from Andor. Prep for a brain-wipe.”
“Interesting. Why?”
“I just love the pretty green glow.”
“Someone’s paying him big to eliminate you,” Meta says, “or so he claimed while he still thought he was getting away with this bullshit.”
Caspyr plants a boot on Ned’s back. “Who’s paying, robo-man?”
Ned turns his head, scowls. “Eat shit, Cas. Eat a freighter full of shit.”
Caspyr has always been something of a quick-draw (usually explaining it with a smile and the “I grew up in Texas” line), but his pistol barks in the confined concrete lab before Meta even realizes he’s gone for it.
Just one shot, right in the hollow of Ned’s right knee. Sparks fly, and the limb convulses a few times before losing power.
“How’s it feel to have a couple of cinder blocks where you leg should be?” Caspyr wondered. “Shall we make two more on the other side? How will you ever drag you worthless ass up the stairs if that happens, hmm?”
Ned flops over, or tries to, but the dead weight of three useless limbs make it an awkward affair that only halfway works.
“It’s the social unrest, you ignorant fuck,” Ned says, “abolitionism specifically. The Bay Bridge Hanging sorted things out for a couple decades. But Earth Authority’s handling of Sage Gallows, and now a surge in activity from Broken Chain and their ilk, that explosive mess with Paula Broadway, and now some student-led bullshit bubbling up out of SSU.... It’s got Klorman Syndicate worried, ‘specially with elections coming up.
“Anybody even close to being on the radar—people like you—well, let’s just say you’re problematic, and Klorman’s searching for solutions outside official channels.”
“Name some of these solutions,” Caspyr says.
“Me, for one,” Ned obliges.
“You’re a joke. Who else?”
“I don’t know. You think every contractor is aware of every other contractor? The whole filthy operation would implode in a day.”
Caspyr smiles. “I’ve known you too long, and you don’t work blind.”
Ned swallows hard. “So maybe I dug up a few rumors first. You know Sledge Kriger?”
“By reputation.”
“Right. Well, word is he tangled with Broken Chain, got fucked up, lost an arm and his condo. Some slave deal gone wrong, and his syndicate handlers put him on a tight leash after he cost them a bundle. He and that slimy partner of his, Marcus Giovanni—they’re working for the cops now.”
With a shrugs, Caspyr says, “They’ve always worked for the cops, and vice versa.”
Ned shakes his head. “No, no, no. This isn’t the usual corruption. Sledge is
on the beat. He’s been spotted in full armor, trotting around with some KSS hotshot, and the two of them have been worming their way into Crysix, the abolitionist-turned-merc splinter cell. They want a backdoor into Broken Chain, to take it down from the inside. With Paula Broadway collared, I guess Petra Bellevue is next, but I don’t think they realize the bulk of Broken Chain is off-world now.”
“You didn’t enlighten them?” Caspyr asks.
“I don’t work for Sledge or his masters,” Ned replies, “and their concerns aren’t mine. They want that kind of info, they can pay me for it.”
“Who in Crysix is feeding Klorman Syndicate about Broken Chain?”
“All I’ve got is a nick—Toasty. Works from the darknet, supposedly ex-BC. I got nothing else. He or she is quite the ghost.”
Caspyr gestures at nothing particular, as if confused. “But you somehow know Toasty is drip-feeding Klorman Syndicate? How’s that work?”
“Jobs, Cas, fuckin’ jobs. Shit gets done, and I hear about it. Over time it’s not hard to build up a profile and connect dots. Toasty might be Klorman Syndicate’s best friend in the underworld, though I’d wager only a handful of agents know it. It’s the sort of thing you don’t want getting around. Election year, remember.”
Caspyr asks, “You got any connections to Toasty?”
Ned replied, “Nope. Just the usual Crysix contacts and paranoid obfuscation. Good luck.”
“Thanks, pal.”
Caspyr lifts his pistol and discharges a round right between Ned’s eyes. There’s a red mist, and Ned’s metal-encased head is snapped back so Meta doesn’t see the final result.
She’s glad. Not an image she wants decorating her dreams. Bad enough already.
“Should’ve started between his legs,” Jerri says from the stairwell, “and then ripped off his arms and legs and let him squirm around like a human potato while he bled out over the next hour.”
“He was a good asset for a long time,” Caspyr replies with a regretful tone, staring down at the twitchy corpse.
“Till he wasn’t. Back-stabbing sack o’ shit.”
“Right.” Caspyr glances at Meta. “If you wanna resign after this, I don’t blame you. I’ll pay you and Nebula for the rest of year, till you can find your feet again.”
Meta blinks and stands up.
“You outta your mind?” she says. “I want a raise, and I want....”
Her head swims, and she’s on her way down when Nebula catches her under the arms. Jerri rushes in to help, and the two of them keep Meta upright.
“It’s the Surrenderol,” Jerri says.
“Probably,” Caspyr agrees. He steps forward and looks Meta in the eye. “Do you suddenly feel submissive or uncharacteristically vulnerable to suggestion?”
“Fuck off,” Meta snaps.
“Just checking. Let’s get you ladies outta here. Dinner’s on me.”
“What about robo-man?” Jerri asks.
Caspyr heads for the stairs and doesn’t even look back.
“Leave him for the rats ... in whatever form they might arrive.”
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