Titama felt a trill of guilt as she headed into the building. It wasn't for the two unconscious bodies she was leaving behind, Riotgrrrl and Skux were scumbags. Just like, in her heart of hearts, Titama knew she was a scumbag. Until tonight, Titama didn't even know what lines she had that she wouldn't cross. Fighting alongside Riotgrrrl and Skux in the past, Titama had always known someday the tables could turn and she could end up fighting or even killing them. Titama felt guilty for dragging Jojo into it. This work was the only kind of work he could find apart from pushing a mop around and Titama was destroying it for him. But then, if it wasn't for Titama then Muturangi would be involving Jojo in something potentially unforgivable. The girl in the tank wasn't just a piece of meat or a toy, not with a brain and the ability to feel grown into her.
The back hallway was abandoned. Cameras watched along the corridor and outside the doors though, and there were monitors in Muturangi's office. Jojo followed Titama to the freight elevator and they rattled down to the Farm again, unhindered.
The Farm looked exactly as it had before, empty except for the growing clones bubbling in their vats. The doors to the secret area were closed again and the two techs must have been inside. Titama crossed to a massive cabinet on one side of the room. The cabinet was filled with a variety of tools used in maintaining and decanting the tanks, and surgical tools, all potential weapons.
"We only have one shot at this, we've got to shut this shit down," Titama said. "He went too far, I've worked for Muturangi ever since I got to Neo Francisco, seen a lot of shit, but this time he's gone too far."
Titama removed a long-handled sledgehammer with a brick of a head from the cabinet and passed a crowbar to Jojo. The cabinet was cluttered with other tools and weapons. In the bottom was a grey tank, the type a scuba diver would use, attached to a hose and small, gun-shaped object. It was a boltgun, the tank full of compressed air and the gun portion capable of driving a steel rod through several centimetres of solid bone. Slaughterhouses used to use them to kill cattle before they went extinct. Since they didn't need to transport food clones alive they used the boltgun to put them down, or the sledgehammer Titama was holding if the boltgun was out of gas. If the geeks didn't open the double doors for her then the bolt gun might help take out the lock.
Carrying the hammer and boltgun along with its tank, Titama headed over to the sealed-off area. Muturangi might have warned the geeks that she was coming but before trying anything else she hammered the intercom beside the doors.
"Oi, it's me, Muturangi sent me back," Titama said. "There's a problem."
After a few moments, the intercom lit up. One of the geeks stared back at her through a thick pair of goggles, wearing his hooded cleanroom suit.
"What's the problem?" He asked.
Titama didn't say anything. The geek repeated the question but then got frustrated. He stepped away from the screen and moments later the two big doors opened. The white-clad figure stepped through the thick strips of opaque plastic that hung inside the doorway.
"Hey, what's the problem?" He said for a third time.
Titama casually jabbed the head of her sledgehammer into the man's stomach and air left his body in one explosive rush. He doubled over, clutching his midsection. Jojo, scratching the metallic band that wrapped around half of his skull, stood back looking nervous. Titama shoved the geek aside.
"Me," Titama said. "I'm the problem."
Titama swept through the plastic blocking the doorway. Jojo followed, circling around the downed tech. The second room was almost the same as the first but slightly smaller, with only room for a dozen cloning tanks. Only one of the mounts was empty, the monitors left behind but the cylinder gone. Clearly the one belonging to the cloned girl Titama and Jojo had in the van. The cylinders were all full-sized but the clones inside them were smaller. Just like the adults in the other room, the child clones were in various stages of growth. Some were like grapes that had died on the vine, shrunken and shrivelly, while others were ready to be plucked. It was hard to tell the boys from the girls without looking down. Prepubescent, they all had undeveloped chests, skinny limbs with narrow shoulders and hips, as well as peaceful, sleeping faces. Floating in the fluid, they all looked as vulnerable as the girl Titama had almost delivered. Evenly divided between girls and boys they came in a mix of different ethnicities.
"What's going on?" The second geek said.
Just to be sure, Titama went from monitor to monitor beside the tanks. The clones were all designed to be fully cognitive just like the girl in the van, capable of thoughts, emotions, the ability to learn and feel. The closest you could get to owning a human being. The second geek circled through the rows of tanks, keeping his distance from Titama and Jojo. The first stumbled back inside, holding his midsection.
"Get out of here, or I'll kill both of you," Titama said.
The geeks weren't fighters, and they could tell by Titama's voice that she was serious. The second man looped around and took off running. The first limped after him and disappeared.
"Jojo, watch the door," Titama said.
"Okay, Titama, okay, okay," Jojo said. "What-, what are you going to do?"
Without answering, Titama set the boltgun and its tank down and took the sledgehammer in both hands. She swung it with all her strength at the base of the nearest cylinder. The glass was reinforced and the hammer bounced off with a loud clunk, almost without leaving a mark. Titama hit it again, muscles bunching, and a spider web crack broke out across the surface of the tank. A third blow and the cylinder imploded. Thick, glowing fluid started to pour out of the hole and across the floor. Titama stepped away from the rapidly growing puddle. The boy in the cylinder hung from his tubes as the fluid drained. The monitor next to the cloning tank stopped beeping and started to flatline.
With the first monitor wailing, Titama turned on another tank. Lifting the hammer, she brought it down on the monitor and machinery attached to it. The monitor disintegrated in an explosion of sparks and debris. Ripping the sledgehammer free, Titama swept around and slammed it into another monitor. Quickly, she took out several more. The clones couldn't survive without the machinery attached to the vats if they weren't properly roused and decanted.
Titama supposed by her own logic she was murdering children, but until they came out of the tanks they were only the potential of children, blank slates. Sledgehammer abortion was a better fate than being born out of a test tube, used and abused then disposed of, she decided. For good measure, Titama turned and hammered the reinforced glass of another cylinder until she created another crater. Goo emptied out through the hole, covering the floor, and the twisted half-child thing attached to the tubes inside the cylinder dangled free.
"Stop! For the love of God, girl, what are you doing?" A voice roared.
"T-, Titama! Titama! It's Muturangi!" Jojo said.
Jojo stood in the corner and watched as instructed, holding his crowbar, as Muturangi and the three others from upstairs, Bash, Thrash and Jupiter, filled the entry to the room. The three younger men were all armed. Bash had a machete, Thrash a length of chain, and Jupiter was carrying a pair of knives. It was obvious they were ready for a fight to the death, her death.
"Thanks, Jojo," Titama said.
"Do you know how much this is all worth?" Muturangi said. "What the fuck are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking I can't let you do this," Titama said. "Maybe-, maybe if you had let us know what was going on with your little secret project, we could've talked about it. I could've tried to talk you out of it, but now-,"
"Too late for talking now," Muturangi said.
"Yeah, figured if you had already grown a bunch of them it was too late for that," Titama said. "Only one way to make sure this doesn't happen."
"Hey! All I'm doing is supplying a demand!" Muturangi said. "I don't like kiddy fiddlers any more than you but what's better? They buy one of these test tubes or try to grab a real kid? If we don't get in the market, someone else will."
"You chose to grow them with real brains, so they could think and feel," Titama said.
"They're meat!" Muturangi said.
"So are we," Titama said.
"They're meat, you're dead meat," Bash said.
Bash was turning the hilt of his machete in his hand. The two brothers looked hungry for a fight. Muturangi looked disappointed. He waved one big hand and walked back through the thick strips of plastic hanging across the doorway.
"Kill her," Muturangi said.
They were definitely past talking. Even though Titama knew she had started down a path of no return when she began destroying the equipment and tanks, hearing Muturangi say those words was still a punch in the gut. After knowing each other for years, the respect they'd once had for one another had collapsed. Muturangi left as if he couldn't bear to watch.
"Happy to, this uppy cunt has always gotten on my nerves," Bash said.
Bash, Thrash and Jupiter all started across the room with their weapons raised. They had to circle around the pools of greenish fluid from the tanks Titama had broken. Titama tightened both hands on her sledgehammer.
"No! No!" Jojo said.
Jojo ran forward, swinging his crowbar. Jupiter was forced to spin out of his reach and the weapon cut through the air, nearly clipping Jupiter's ribs. He slashed at Jojo with his two knives, the pair orbiting one another.
"For Christchurch's sake, take the retard, we've got the bitch," Bash said.
The two brothers threaded around the tanks and puddles of goo. Monitors were beeping and screaming, and the sweet but chemical smell of the oxygenated fluids from the broken tanks was starting to fill the room. The clones in the tanks, both living and dead, floated by looking peaceful.
"You don't want to do this," Titama said.
"Think I do, you hori bitch," Bash said.
Bash ran at Titama, machete raised. His equally hulking brother hung back for a moment, a pair of predators working in unison. Titama brought the handle of her sledgehammer up to block. The machete glanced off the hammer near Titama's fingers. Bash feinted, pulling the blade back and then trying to drive it into Titama's stomach. Titama twisted out of its path and swung the hammer, quickly but without a lot of force, into Bash's shoulder.
Thrash whipped around with his chain. Thick links of metal jangled. Titama was forced to twist and turn to avoid Bash and avoid being hit by the chain at the same time. Titama had seen Thrash in a few streetfights before and he was disturbingly good with the chain, like it was an extension of his own arm.
Titama had been measuring herself against guys like Bash and Thrash since she was a skinny stripe of a kid playing Junior Rugby in the days before New Zealand sank into the Pacific. She was heavily muscled but they were naturally stronger. Take one hundred men and one hundred women off the street and pick out the strongest hundred among them, you ended up with maybe ninety-seven men and three women. Bone density and natural mass went a long way. Titama would have counted herself among that theoretical three percent of course but that didn't mean she could get cocky. Against the two brothers, probably both stronger, both armed, Titama had to fight smarter.
Bash lunged again, swinging his machete. Titama moved just enough to avoid it and the blade glanced off one of the cloning vats. Feinting high, Titama went low. She kicked Bash in the kneecap so that his leg buckled and drove him back for a moment. Rather than push the advantage, Titama darted at Thrash who had been closing in from her other side. Surprised, the second brother didn't have time to use his chain. Titama pushed him and Thrash stumbled into the pool of viscous cloning tank fluid on the floor behind him. He slipped and fell in the goo, suddenly flailing.
Meanwhile, Jojo and Jupiter had been circling one another until Jupiter lashed out with one of his knives. The weapons were hunting knives, big and black with razor sharp blades and serrated backs. The blade slashed through Jojo's left forearm. He cried out and blood spilled through the tear in his old jacket.
"You fucking cyber-spastic!" Jupiter said.
"I'm not going to let you hurt Titama!" Jojo said. "We're partners!"
Jojo whipped around with his crowbar. It connected with Jupiter's left wrist and the knife flew from his hand, spinning away from them between the broken equipment and cloning vats. Jupiter yelled and stumbled back, protecting his wrist.
Titama raised her sledgehammer and brought it down, aimed at Thrash's head. Even on his back, however, Thrash had enough sense to roll sideways and avoid it. The roll covered him in sweet-smelling goo. Titama's hammer cracked the floor tiles. The blow travelled through the hammer and up Titama's arms. Thrash turned back around, grabbing Titama's sledgehammer by the handle before Titama could pull it away from him. They wrestled for a few moments over the weapon before Thrash, leaning back with his weight, managed to twist the hammer out of Titama's grasp. He threw it backward and it went rattling across the room.
"Come here, bitch," Bash said.
Grabbing her by the collar, Bash yanked Titama's head backward. He had his machete raised in his other hand. Titama turned and grabbed Bash's raised wrist with both hands. Wrenching it around, Titama twisted his arm and rammed it into one of the cloning tanks. It took several attempts but Bash released and the machete clattered to the ground. Titama kicked and sent it spinning away from them.
Titama and Bash wrestled, barely staying on their feet. This was exactly the kind of fight Titama didn't want to find herself in and it'd be worse if Bash got her on the ground. Grabbing the side of his face, Titama gouged a thumb into Bash's eye. Thrash was back on his feet, covered in goo. He hit Titama from behind and looped his chain over her head and shoulders. Automatically, Titama shot a hand up between the chain and her neck to stop herself from being choked. Thrash yanked her backward, pulling the chain up and trapping her hand under her chin.
"I don't need-, I don't need a machete to finish you, bitch," Bash said.
Thrash yanked Titama backward, immobilising her. Panting, Bash moved in with his fists and punched Titama in the stomach. Grunting with pain, Titama tried to free herself as Bash hit her a second time. Her eyes darted around and spotted Jojo but he was still fighting with Jupiter and couldn't help her. One of Bash's fists crashed into her temple, dazing her and knocking her head to the side.
"You know what I'm going to do?" Bash said. "I'm going to beat you to shit, and I'm going to crack open your fucking skull, put in one of those wetware CPUs we use for the porno clones, and then put you back together. You're going to be my personal muscle girl fucktoy!"
"Don't think it works like that, bro," Thrash said.
"Shut the fuck up, I'm going to make it work," Bash said. "You think I give a shit we're selling kids, clone or not? We're going to make so much money off this shit and when you're dead, Muturangi's going to make whatever we want happen."
Bash hit Titama again and again. Titama had managed to steer Thrash back toward the cloning tank fluid covering the floor but although his feet slid around a little he kept his footing and his grip didn't slacken on the chain around Titama's neck.
Suddenly, taking another blow to the midsection, Titama lurched forward. Bending over, Titama pulled Thrash and threw him over her back and shoulders in one explosive movement. Thrash was heavy and tall but caught by surprise and his footing was too slippery to resist. Titama flipped him into his brother in a bundle of limbs. The chain came loose from her neck. Bash fell, crying out with Thrash on top of him. With booted feet, Titama kicked at the pile created by the two bodies, just keeping them down.
Jojo was bleeding from a deep gash on the side of his stomach as well as his left arm. He wielded the crowbar in his other hand. Jupiter circled around with his remaining knife but he didn't have the same range as Jojo's long arms and crowbar.
Across the room, Jupiter saw Titama flip Thrash and take Bash down with him. He needed to finish this with Jojo and help them. Faking in one direction, Jupiter lunged at Jojo from the other side. Jojo was faster than expected though and swung the crowbar into Jupiter's right arm. There was a loud crack, one of the bones in his forearm snapping. Jupiter dropped the second knife and went to grab the break, although his left wrist was still also throbbing.
"She's my partner! She's my partner!" Jojo said.
"Jojo, wait!" Jupiter said.
Jojo swung the crowbar into the side of Jupiter's face. His chiselled jaw gave way like a popsicle stick. Jupiter stumbled into the wall, spitting out blood and fragments of teeth. His eyes were wide with terror but there was nothing he could do to avoid the next blow. Jojo swung again, striking him straight across the face. Yelling, Jojo kept hitting him in the skull, again and again.
"She's my partner!" Jojo shouted.
Titama stripped off her leather coat, freeing her musclebound arms. As she threw it aside she searched for a weapon. The closest that she spotted was the boltgun with its hose and tank. Bash and Thrash struggled to get up. Titama crossed to the tank and grabbed it, careful not to slip in the cloning tank fluid. Chain wrapped around his fists, Thrash was getting to his feet.
"You fucking bitch," Thrash said.
Body aching, Titama swung the boltgun tank into Thrash's face. There was a hollow noise as it bounced off Thrash's head and he flailed backward. Titama hit Thrash again with the tank, hammering him in the neck and dropping him to the ground. Titama grabbed at the boltgun on the end of the stiff hose. Twisting the nozzle on top of the tank, she drove the muzzle into the side of Thrash's head and pulled the trigger. The bolt shot out of the gun and punched through Thrash's skull like tissue paper, driving fragments deep into his brain. The man spasmed and died, hands clawing at the tiles. Titama pulled away as the boltgun's shaft retracted back into its barrel.
"Kevin, no! Bro!" Bash said.
Bash was on his hands and knees, trying to get up. Titama slammed the boltgun's tank into the top of Bash's head as well, dazing him. The sledgehammer Titama had been forced to give up was lying against the wall not far away. She dropped the boltgun and tank and went to grab her original weapon instead.
"Who's the bitch now, Bash?" Titama said.
Titama swept the sledgehammer down and around, into Bash's head, and the blow drove him face first into the tiled floor. Crunching, Bash's skull split open between the hammer and the ground. Gore splattered across the tiles. Blood and red-pink lumps mixed with the greenish fluid already pooled across the floor.
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Titama is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch: Serial Escalation by Sean E. Britten.
If you're enjoying Titama so far, please feel free to share, watch out for Part Six, and check out the Kill Switch series on Amazon, available in ebook and paperback.