A granite-lump of pressure had appeared in Dumar's chest and throat as he tried to comfort his only friend. As Dumar made his way around to cradle Smitty's head on his knees, he heard his friend begging him.
"Kill. Me. Du-mar."
In spite of the agony it must have caused, Smitty tried to raise his hand to Dumar's face. "Don't. Cry. Mate. Just. Make. It. Stop." Dumar was shaking his head.
"Smitty man, I can't. You're gonna be okay," he knew even as he said it how ridiculous it sounded.
McCabe had made sure Smitty was going to die, he had also made sure he would suffer for hours before he did. Dumar watched as Smitty's face crumpled in a grimace and his abdomen rippled in what Dumar hoped had been a laugh.
"Fuck off, Du-mar. If you. Were ever. My friend..." Smitty's pain filled growl cut off as he began to cough. "Can't breathe." He complained. "They broke. Some ribs.
Dumar realised they must have punctured a lung causing a pneumothorax.
Smitty's chest was filling with air that leaked from his lung, forcing it to crumple and stop working.
Dumar knew only one way to relieve the build-up of gas, by cutting into Smitty's chest and inserting a tube to let the air out and re-inflate the lung. Dumar had not been allowed weapons of any kind in his living quarters in case he used them to attack the staff so a knife was out of the equation.
"Kill. Me. Du-mar," Smitty repeated. "Please. Mate," his single, remaining eye implored Dumar to end his pain, bringing more tears to the big man's eyes.
"No, Smitty, there's got to be another way. We'll get the doctors in, they can save you..." He stopped as Smitty started to pant, his chest labouring to get air into his remaining lung.
"The doc's. Did this. To me,
Dumar mind reeled, how could doctors, committed to saving others cause so much pain?
"They cut. My balls off. Du-mar." Smitty's remaining eye dripped a tear. "My. Fucking. BALLS!" The effort of trying to shout had reduced Smitty's voice to a whisper. "Please. Mate. Make it. Stop. Kill me."
Dumar leaned down to hear his friend beg for release and put his forehead on Smitty's own.
"I'm sorry, Smitty," Dumar croaked. "I'm so very sorry."
Dumar wrapped his powerful arms around his only friend's head and snapped his neck with a single jerk, tearing through his spinal cord and ending his pain.
Dumar had sat with his dead friend's body as its bowels drained on the carpet, the heat of life began dissipating from it and rigour mortis started in his eyelids, neck and jaw.
In those two hours, Dumar cried for the loss of his friend, screamed in rage at McCabe and the Company for doing this to them both and contemplated his future.
McCabe was never going to stop, he had escalated from hurting Dumar to having Smitty torn to pieces in an attempt to bring him in line.
Then it hit Dumar like a brick to the back of his head – McCabe had won. He had got Dumar to kill in spite of his vow that he never would, not only that but he had made him kill his only friend.
Hatred sat like a cup of acid in his stomach and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if McCabe walked in now he would squeeze the life from the bastard as soon as look at him.
Eventually Dumar had got up, gone back into his bedroom and grabbed the thing he had managed to keep secret for months. Hidden in a hole he had made beneath his mattress was a machine pistol he had managed to steal and get back here.
He had hidden the gun in the hopes he might be able to threaten his way out of the building and to find some kind of freedom. Now he knew that had been a stupid, childish dream and the only possible use the weapon could be put to would be end his own existence.
The only way he could stop McCabe from torturing someone else to death and using it against him. Dumar had killed his only friend, broken his vow to himself and lost to McCabe. What more could he be expected to endure? Dumar flicked off the safety, pulled back the slide to put a round in the chamber and put the muzzle under his chin.
***
Some of the memories surrounding the end of his life had begun to return, he was clearly able to remember making the decision to shoot himself, for example. What remained unclear was exactly what had happened subsequently.
He had a vague recollection of waking up in the very bed on which he now sat and some kind of conversation with the old man, Grethron, then nothing until his awakening earlier this night.
Had he attempted suicide and failed? Although the possibility was extremely unlikely, it was one he had to consider. He could also currently be laying on an examination table in the Company's laboratories, hooked up to life support machines and numerous data collecting devices.
The entire world in which he found himself could be a construct of his damaged brain and stressed mind. Dumar barked a bitter laugh. That would be the icing on the cake, he thought, if the Dumar Project, a highly developed killing machine, had made a mess of his own death.
Another possibility Dumar considered was that McCabe or the Company had somehow managed to hook him up to a virtual reality simulator. During his training, Dumar had been exposed to virtual reality in a number of ways.
Although these programs had been extremely advanced they had their limitations and Dumar had his reservations that this could be one of those. The complexities of a program this detailed and the sheer processing power required to sustain this entire world including all that Dumar could hear, see, feel, taste and smell made that possibility highly unlikely.
That left two options Dumar was able to think of, either he had managed to kill himself and this was the afterlife, which Dumar dismissed almost immediately, or he had managed to kill himself and he was really here.
As difficult as it was to believe, Dumar thought this last idea was the most likely and with the lack of any other facts or evidence, this was the one he would have to attempt to deal with.
Dumar stood and stripped off his clothing, climbed into the plush bed and closed his eyes. Trying to get to sleep in a potentially alien world with images of Smitty floating though his head, Dumar eventually managed to sleep.