Family Affairs Part 4
19 May 2017Stryker Aune
Amphisatsu, Wantabe TerminalStryker was against the floor leaning on his hefty arm and trying to catch his breath. The laser-pistol slipped from his fingers as he saw his brother-in-law fall backwards against the wall. Blood was slowly crept along the fabric like the growing legs of some perverse crimson spider.
What have I done? He heard his sister wail, cradling her dead husband.
“You murder! You killed him!” she screeched through sobs. “How could you!”
Stryker’s mind was spinning, just as the room seemed to. He saw the gun. He saw the corpse. He saw his hand. He saw Freyja clamber over to a table with a holo-com.
“No don’t!” He heard himself cry out.
With a shaking hand she swiped the terminal and a view screen popped into existence.
He felt the tips of his fingers grope for the gun.
Her shaky fingers typed in a command
He pushed himself up.
The emblem of the stations security flickered to life.
The butt of the gun stuck the back of her sister’s head. She fell forward smacking her forehead against the glass table. The frail women slumped to her side as her hand slowly opened.
Stryker knew the blow was too much, but in vain he took her pulse. Nothing. He cried out, shaking her, hoping that that would bring her back.
“No, no no no!” he shouted in anger, but that quickly changed to immense sadness as the muscular man fell to his knees and sobbed. “I’m so sorry….”
He had so many things he wanted to say to her. But they were never able to bridge the gap that life cruelly put between them. His mind flashed back to their youth, when their parents were alive. How close the siblings had been. Sharing in joy and happiness, and now it was gone.
A harrowing thought flashed into his mind. His biological family was gone; traded in for a surrogate. A new family, that would care less for him. One that ruled through pain, despair, threats, and power.
Stryker gently laid his sister’s head onto the floor. He watched her silky hair brush along the metal claw and regretted the fact he couldn’t feel it. In that moment as he let her go he abandoned the notion of ever being loved. That wasn’t possible in the pegasi region.
* * * * * * * *
Stryker’s organic hand was in the pocket of his pants as he walked back to the dingy office. His attention was partially on the metallic claw he was flexing, but his numb thoughts were elsewhere.
The door slammed into the wall as Stryker pushed into the dingy and smelly office.
“There you are, you piece of shit.” John looked like a fat and ugly sour fruit as. He held a glass of amber liquid in a tumbler and Stryker presumed it was some nasty cheap whiskey. “So where’s the head?”
Wordlessly Stryker doffed the heavy rucksack that was slung over his burly shoulder. He slowly pulled the zipper down and lifted the crudely severed head of his brother-in-law. His cybernetic claw twitched.
“Fucking worthless piece of shit.” John spat. “Served the idiot right. And I’m glad this dumbshit...” John pointed to Stryker as he spoke drunkenly to the head, “...was the one to extract payment…” John held up a holo-slate and sent a transmission that the debt had been paid.
Stryker couldn’t believe it. A good man dead, by his own hand. All so this worthless sack of humanity before him could drink, and waste oxygen.
There is no justice… He felt as if he was falling into a dark well.
Stryker’s mind snapped back to reality. John was talking at him. “And for your abysmal performance…”
Stryker had had enough. He turned to leave. He felt a fist strike his face and slowly turned, seemingly unfazed.
“Don’t you turn your back on me boy. I own….”
All the abuse Stryker had suffered as a boy under the careful administration of Grunt came flooding back to him. He saw Marra sneering at him when she callously affixed the claw to him. The ridicule he endured from other soldiers within the organization seared into his mind.
He seized John by the throat. The metal talons were ripping into the flesh. Stryker saw the blood oozing over the metal. He was repulsed for a moment, then it was almost instantly replaced with fascination. He heard the fat man gargle and wheeze for breath.
For the first time he allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of raw power. Reveal in the dominance and control; to watch the life strangle out of the man. This is justice…
Stryker heard the sound of vertebra snap and dropped the man watching the obese form twitch at feet. His face twisted into a sneer; In a brutal assault of hatred and rage, he and he brought his heavy boot upon the face. He heard the bones crunch, and his anger was fed more. He brought the boot down again. Blood splattered low against the wall. He brought it down again.
With a heaving chest, the large man dropped the rucksack onto the floor turned his back on the whole bloody affair and walked out of the small office. From the corner of his eye, he saw the cat slip out of the shadows and chew on the dead man’s finger.
Special thanks to Jubei Himura and Xeknos for their edits and suggestions.