A Brother's Shadow: Murder, Friendship and Deception, page 16
‘He’s secure.’
‘Thank you, you can leave us now,’ the man in the doorway replied.
The guard squeezed out of the cell as the second man remained with his back to Marco.
Marco assessed his restraints; as he shook his limbs, they rattled but stayed firmly in place. He shuffled his weight in an attempt to move his chair, but it only shifted a few millimetres and as a consequence made the restraints on his hands dig further into his skin. Accepting defeat, Marco went back to studying the figure in the doorway.
‘Truthfully speaking, I was expecting a bit more fight in you than that. They can’t have been feeding you well.’
Finally, the man turned around and Marco knew he had met the person before. The man stepped over to the desk and placed his hands upon it. Leaning forward with both arms locked in place, he spoke. ‘Remember me, War Starter?’ he said in a playful tone.
Marco noticed how one of the man’s arms did not extend fully and was slightly misshapen. ‘I’ve a strong feeling I do,’ Marco replied quietly, still trying to work out where from.
The man tilted his head. ‘Don’t worry, after our meeting I’m sure you’ll remember for the future.’ He pulled his arms from the table and walked out of the room. Marco stared at the opening, hoping for a miracle to walk in.
A grinding sound began outside Marco’s cell. It grew louder as it got closer to the cell until finally the man returned. Behind him, he was lackadaisically dragging a chair. Once in the cell, the noise from the chair was beyond obnoxious and Marco was relieved when the man finally let go. He sat down opposite Marco and leant forward on his arms which were crossed upon the table. Tilting his head to one side, he grinned. His lips spread wide creating folds of skin on either side of his mouth, but his eyebrows remained low over menacing eyes. With this expression, he slowly tilted his head to the other side where he kept it for a period, staring deeply into Marco’s eyes. Without warning, he stood and started pacing the cell. ‘First, I shall start with some good news. There’s plans to move you from this cell to that moon you used to be on. It’s costly keeping someone alive, and we’re at war, so I reckon they’re gonna make you mine with the robots.’
Marco squirmed in his seat. ‘There’s a reason only robots do the mining.’
‘I’m sure our leaders don’t want to kill you too quickly, so it’s likely you’ll stay alive.’
Marco huffed. ‘Great, what about my rights as a human?’
‘Well, Marco, your actions, expelling Vytech from the Coalition, have put us in some kind of limbo. Technically we should still follow the Coalition guidelines, but this is unexplored territory and there was no true plan for an exit. So, unfortunately for you, I suppose people are exploiting the situation where they can.’
The man pulled a fist-sized sphere from his pocket and watched it intently as he repeatedly threw it in the air. ‘I’ve even more good news.’
Marco did not bother responding; instead, he slouched back in his chair.
‘I’ve noticed your father has gathered a motley collection of people to campaign for you.’ The man caught the ball and with his free hand made quotation marks. ‘And to hunt for the truth.’ He tapped Marco on the shoulder with the sphere. ‘But we all know they’re wasting their time don’t we, Marco?’
Marco spun viciously but was snapped back by his restraints. ‘You set me up!’ he barked, saliva spraying as if he was a rabid dog.
The man chuckled in a croaky low pitch. ‘Oh, oh, oh, this does make things interesting.’ He clasped the sphere in both hands. ‘You genuinely didn’t do it.’ He let out another small chuckle and then continued. ‘As proud as I am that you believe I could have set up something so magnificent, it was not me.’ Excitement surged across the man’s face as if he was a child at Christmas. ‘I now have so many questions. The door, the timing. Was it a coincidence? Surely not. Then who hates you as much as I do? Ooh, so many questions. Anyway, I have digressed. So, as I was—’ The man halted side on to Marco, revealing a scar that crept out of his collar and up his neck. His pupils moved to the corners of his eyes as he looked down at Marco. ‘Go on, what is it?’
Marco was caught off guard and wondered if he was always this easy to read. ‘I was just going to ask if you knew who was helping my dad?’
‘There was a big one not wearing a shirt, a scrawny kid, and a girl who they called Klara, if I remember correctly.’
Marco slowly nodded, looking straight ahead at the open doorway.
‘Wait, do you have feelings for this Klara?’ the man said, inspecting Marco. Marco maintained his stare.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ the man said with intrigue in his voice. ‘Well, I believe she likes you. It seems a shame to waste a beautiful woman’s heart like that.’
‘Leave her out of this,’ Marco said sternly.
‘I’ll do what I do,’ the man jested.
There was a clank as the man placed the sphere on the desk by his empty chair. He then stepped behind it, filling Marco’s vision and blocking most of the light entering the room. As Marco’s eyes moved up from the man’s stomach to his face, the man raised a finger. ‘I am sorry. I didn’t mean to tempt you with false hopes like that.’ He strode casually to the door and called for a guard to close it. As the room moved into a darker state, the man positioned himself on his seat. When he had stopped shifting his body and chair, he rested his hands on top of the sphere. Marco noticed the fingers on one of the man’s hands start to twitch. He pushed his fingers down with the other hand but when he removed the pressure, the fingers began to twitch again. Clenching his teeth, the man let out a hiss, reached into a pocket and pulled out a syringe-like device. After pressing a button, a short needle appeared. He swiftly stabbed it into his deformed arm and there was a quick buzz. As the man placed the syringe back into his pocket, Marco spoke. ‘I know who you are.’
‘Took your time,’ the man said, rolling his eyes.
‘You are the guy from Testing who was beating Archer in the changing room.’
‘I go by Jerome, but yes, that was me.’
Marco’s arrival at who Jerome was appeared to make the man even more gleeful. ‘And I’ll tell you, you getting arrested on this station really was the best early birthday present you could have got me, so thank you. Being Deputy Port Master meant I knew you were on the station, but you’ve made my life so much easier.’
‘At least I made some people happy,’ Marco muttered.
‘Oh, that you have. My arm was not in a good way when Francis pushed me off those ladders, and yes, I still intend to punish him further but it’s just quite hard to access him. Still, after that, my arm was going to fully recover. Then you just had to, well.’ Jerome lifted his misshapen arm. ‘What you did to me in that changing room, pitiful. You ended my one dream of going into combat for Vytech.’
‘Why did you not just get it fixed?’ Marco asked.
‘I was having it operated on when the bomb landed on the hospital. Being at war at the time meant it was years before I was high enough up the waiting list again. By that point they told me it had basically healed itself, and I would have to pay the costs. I asked my parents for help, but they told me they could not afford to pay for the operation, especially as it was already healed.’ Jerome inspected his arm. ‘Clearly, nobody agrees with me on the definition of healed.’
‘You deserved it, prick.’
Jerome’s mouth formed a large ring as he inhaled sharply. ‘You still have some soul in you. This only confirms that the Imperator was wrong when he said you could not be punished any further.’ Jerome picked up the sphere and rolled it from one hand to the other, creating a metallic rumble as it travelled. He then held it still and twisted it. The top half came away from the bottom, revealing a creature sitting on a plinth in the middle.
Jerome pulled a small device from his pocket and pressed a button. The creature briefly buzzed its wings before becoming motionless again. ‘What would you say is humanity’s greatest weakness?’ Jerome asked while staring admiringly at the creature.
Marco decided he might as well play Jerome’s game. ‘Greed?’
‘That’s a good one but greed can lead to progress and I’m thinking deeper than that, something we cannot avoid.’
‘People like you?’
Jerome laughed in his one-of-a-kind way. ‘Ah, you’re getting better but no. The subconscious. It controls us yet, as much as we try, we cannot control it. Take your dad, for example. I had a nice conversation with him, but it seems he is very much struggling to hold onto a reason to live. His current life support is the idea that you are innocent. He lives for the fight to make the galaxy accept this. I ask you now, what happens if a seed is planted in his subconscious with the idea you’re not?’
Marco’s expression intensified; his heartbeat quickened. Jerome looked back to his creature. ‘How familiar are you with the tarantula hawk?’
Marco shrugged. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s a fascinating little thing from Earth. Instead of worrying about its young, this wasp knocks out a tarantula... You know what a tarantula is right?’
Marco nodded.
‘So, it knocks out the tarantula and injects the eggs of its offspring inside the unconscious body and flies away. As the larvae grow, they will feed off the live tarantula, starting with the non-essential parts to make sure it survives for as long as possible.’
Jerome pressed some more buttons and the wasp started buzzing around the room. ‘Like the larvae in the tarantula, once the thought of you being guilty is placed in your father’s subconscious, it will grow and will slowly eat away at him.’
Marco clenched his fists.
‘To further the tarantula’s woes, there is nothing it can do to defend against the larvae.’
The buzzing intensified around Marco’s ear. He heard a tap and the buzzing abruptly stopped. Marco noticed the wasp had landed on the desk by his hand.
Jerome continued, speaking slowly. ‘It is hard to imagine how the tarantulas can have such an exploitable weakness without any method of defence, yet they do. A fault of evolution you could say.’
With a quick flurry the wasp hopped onto Marco’s hand. He tried to shake it off, but his restricted movement meant the wasp was unhindered.
‘However, we should not be so quick to judge the tarantula. As I touched on earlier, our subconscious is just as exposed. We hold no defences against parasitic thoughts inside it. Once planted, they are stuck, and able to grow.’
The wasp had begun making its way up Marco’s arm.
‘You see, Marco, this is why the Imperator was wrong. He may have removed all your possessions and any hope for you to live any semblance of a life, but that is not all you care about.’
Marco felt an irritating tingling sensation as the wasp roamed freely around his face. Instinctively, he tried to swat it away, but a clank of metal put a speedy halt to the movement. He tried curving his lips in an attempt to blow the wasp away, but it did nothing.
‘All I need to do is place the idea of you not being innocent in your dad’s subconscious, and over time, it will wear him down. It will be gradual and painful, and by the end he will be praying for a lethal blow.’
The wasp proceeded to crawl up Marco’s nose. His body started to shiver, and his stomach was churning. Heavy exhalations only slowed the wasp in its progress. Suddenly, it halted.
Jerome played with the controller and the wasp flew back to its case which Jerome then sealed. ‘There’s no fun in making you die early. On your moon, or wherever you are, you will know your father is slowly losing a battle that he has no tools to defend himself against. His suffering will reach levels that even you may struggle to understand. And the best part is, all you will know with certainty is that it’s all your fault.’
Jerome stood up and knocked on the door with three succinct taps. It slid open and he looked back for one last time. ‘Have a good life, Marco.’
20.
Time felt like it had stopped. The only way Marco could attempt to comprehend its passing was by the delivery of plates of cold food although, he was certain that they arrived at any point of the guards choosing. Marco’s body had deteriorated to nothing but a bony frame. He felt relieved every time the light in his cell dimmed to such an extent that he could no longer see himself. His facial hair had become wiry, and he pictured it looking like the beard of the lawyer who had visited him before his trial. Occasionally, he considered how his future could have looked different if he had followed the old man’s advice and pleaded guilty, but he did not allow himself to regret his decision.
Marco could not smell his stench; however, he knew he had one. Guards would occasionally pull him outside his cell and hose him down, their noses usually pinched the entire time. Sometimes guards would even appear with gas masks on, but Marco assumed that was just an internal joke. In the periods between showers, Marco’s uncharacteristically pale skin would gradually darken as it picked up grime. He would often have lengthy conversations with himself, detailing how dirty he looked. Other talks included topics like what he was likely to have for dinner or whether it was going to be a cold night. For the first week or so, he had considered the idea that he was set up, but could not establish who could have done so, or why. The theories became increasingly nonsensical and when he did think about the situation, he also would consider his father. Without fail, this would terrify Marco as he pondered what Jerome may have done or was going to do. Because of this, Marco tried to keep his conversations away from what had happened, but such thoughts kept creeping into his mind.
On a day like many others, Marco was thinking of ways to escape. This was another frequent topic of thought, but it provided little stimulation due to the limited equipment available to him. The best time for broadening this stream of thought was when he was being hosed down, as he was able to see extra tools such as the equipment the guards carried. He had always considered those moments his best option for escaping too, as it was the only time he would be outside his cell and not restrained.
Over time, Marco had worked away at the casing that lay flat on the wall in front of the cell’s light source. He had managed to scratch away enough of the wall around one corner to be able to get some purchase on the casing with a finger. He waited until he had been delivered food and then went to work. He moved his mattress and stood on it so he was at a more comfortable height. He then tried pulling at the casing. It provided resistance but as he attempted to jiggle it, small bits started flaking from the wall around its base. Soon, he could get a firm grip on the casing which made the process a lot easier. Careful not to cause too much damage, he continued to shake it until he could eventually fit all his fingers underneath and onto the other side. As he slid his fingers through, they scratched against the gritty surface. He did not consider the pain of the scraping as what the guards had done to him made most else numb. However, the heat from the light was unbearable, and his body would not allow him to voluntarily scald his fingers. He pulled them out and pushed the casing back against the wall.
By the time the next meal arrived, the light was much dimmer, as it often would be. Marco waited for the guard to walk away and moved over to the light. Carefully lifting the casing, he slid the fingers of his left hand back under. It was a more tolerable temperature. He could see there was a glass tube covering the light itself and he dabbed at it with his fingers. As soon as his skin touched the glass, he received a sharp scalding. He considered hitting the glass but decided against doing so as it would risk breaking the light which would cause him big problems when the guards next arrived. Marco almost gave up as he did not even have a plan for the glass, but he knew it could give him a small and much needed advantage at some point.
Marco moved his eyes to the gap under the slightly clouded casing. The glass over the light appeared to be screwed on. As he looked away, shapes of varying colours drifted across his view and his eyes spasmed in an attempt to recover from such direct exposure. After normal vision returned, he gritted his teeth and secured the glass in his thumb and two fingers. Letting out a loud grunt, he tried to twist the glass but it would not shift. He closed his fingers slightly tighter. The pain was incredible, and Marco continually emitted a low-pitched moan. Saliva was being thrown out of his clenched teeth, but then, to his relief, there was a click and the glass began to rotate. As quickly as he could, he manipulated his fingers and eventually the glass came free. He knocked it in the gap between the casing and the wall and it fell to the mattress. As soon as the glass landed, the full extent of the pain hit Marco. He pulled his fingers free and wailed louder than ever before. His cries shook the walls.
Using his head, Marco pushed the casing back to being flat against the wall. While he did this, he clenched the palm of his injured left hand with his right one. The sweat made his forehead slide down until it met the coarse line where the casing had been removed from the wall. Breathing intensely, Marco summoned the courage to look down at his fingers. He was almost sick.
The padded side of his middle finger and the top, by the nails of the other two fingers, were unrecognisable. The skin had been burned away, revealing various layers accompanied by a mixture of red and white scalded flesh. Marco paced the room, waiting for the pain to subside, but as time passed it only intensified.
Still marching around the room, Marco heard footsteps coming from the far end of the corridor. He dived over to the glass tube and broke it into sizeable shards. With one piece he hurriedly made a slit on the end of the mattress, creating a small pocket. The door slid open and with his body hiding what was happening, Marco slipped the glass inside.
