‘You killed Yawlander and Blackburn.’ The evidence was circumstantial, the link tenuous, but Helix clung to it as something that might make some sense amidst the confusion.
Beardy raised his eyebrows but otherwise remained impassive. He offered the straw again.
‘I’ll take the eyebrows as a yes.’ He swallowed again. ‘Where’s my brother?’
Beardy turned away and went back to work on the dogs’ heads.
‘What have you done with Ethan? Answer me, dickhead.’
‘Insults w-won’t work, Major Helix,’ a male voice said from behind him. ‘It will t-take more than that to penetrate D-doctor Archer’s thick skin.’
Helix strained his eyes at the limits of his peripheral vision. ‘Doctor Archer?’
‘Yes. Appearances c-can be deceptive. W-what we see, is not necessarily what we get.’
The voice was familiar. The stutter. ‘Where’s my brother? What have you done with him?’
‘Ethan is in excellent h-hands,’ the holographic rendering said as it stepped from behind the seat.
‘Lytkin?’ Helix said. ‘Valerian Lytkin. You’re—’
‘D-dead. Yes. Sadly the earthly power of resurrection remains elusive. And as dear G-Gabrielle’s letter tells us, what was left of me was eventually d-discovered by the police smeared all over the walls of my apartment like one of the Jackson Pollock paintings hanging on its walls.’
‘What do you want – sympathy? You got what you deserved or should I say he got what he deserved. So, enough with the impressions, who the fuck are you?’
‘Who do you want me to be?’ The hologram shimmered and pixilated briefly.
‘You sound like a hooker in a cheap whore house.’
The hologram re-rendered taking on a new appearance and voice to match. ‘How about this?’
Helix stared back at his murdered older brother Jon. ‘Fucking comedian and a piss-poor impressionist.’
‘Or this.’ The hologram shape-shifted into Terry McGill, the architect of Jon’s death. ‘Nathan Helix VC DSO – some fucking war hero you turned out to be,’ it mocked.
‘Nice one. At least I had the pleasure of putting a couple of bullets into that cunt while he squealed a slick of his own blood and vomit.’
‘Or perhaps Ethan in all his former glory. Hey Nate.’
Helix closed his eyes, fought to control his breathing. ‘Where is he? What do you want?’
‘The latter is a question I can answer, Major,’ Julia Ormandy replied.
Helix’s eyes sprung open.
Ormandy’s image morphed into Yawlander’s as it stepped over to the tray containing Gabrielle’s letter.
‘OK. You’ve made your point. Whoever you are. Whatever you look like. I will find you and I will kill you if you’ve harmed a hair on my brother’s head.’
‘This is quite the confession, Helix, and something you chose not to disclose. That could put you on a sticky wicket with your new boss,’ Yawlander’s avatar said. ‘How did she put it? “He made me a murderer,” written in her own hand. And, “I try to reconcile what I did with the greater benefit to humanity.” How very noble. Gabrielle Stepper – saviour of humanity – again.’
The General morphed into the form of his eight-year-old daughter Lauren and climbed onto Helix’s lap. ‘I want Gabrielle,’ the child whispered, running a curious finger over one of Helix’s many scars.
He could have done without the reminder that he needed to deliver the news of Lauren’s father’s death. ‘You want Gabrielle?’
The child nodded before assuming the appearance of the husky-voiced Anastasia Sachman, the news anchor from the BBC, the capital’s single Government controlled news channel. Sachman’s avatar slid from his lap and sauntered across the room to Archer. Reaching up on tiptoes, she whispered into the giant’s ear. He nodded and left the room. All three of the dogs’ heads Archer had been working on had now been skinned and stripped of flesh, the eyes and tongues set aside like the ingredients for a macabre meal.
They wanted Gabrielle? Helix’s mind raced. Whoever was behind the various personas wasn’t clear. Regardless of gender, what could anyone want with Gabrielle? Old theories bounced around his head. Was somebody cleaning up? Were Yawlander and Blackburn the first ones? Ethan’s missing. And what about himself? He wasn’t sure where he was, apart from being held hostage by a towering taxidermist. Was Gabrielle next? And what about Gabrielle’s twin sister, SJ? They were the nexus. The ones responsible for Justin Wheeler’s very public fall from grace and Valerian Lytkin’s— His eyes fell upon the dogs’ skulls mounted on a three-armed frame with the two Dobermans flanking the retriever. ‘Cerberus.’ He mumbled.
‘Something to say, Major?’ Sachman breathed, coming up alongside him.
‘Cerberus - the hound of Hades. The pseudonym Valerian Lytkin attempted to hide behind when he was threatening Gabrielle Stepper. But Valerian Lytkin is dead and good riddance.’
Sachman’s jaw tightened as she folded her arms over her ample augmented bust.
‘His father is long dead,’ he continued. ‘His mother was murdered as the family escaped the war-ravaged Ukraine, his sister was abducted at the same time, missing, presumed…’
‘Presumed?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I’m impressed, Major. You really are everything I expected.’
‘The disappeared daughter. The silenced sister.’ He snorted. ‘Looks like she’s back from the dead. You can ditch the charade now, Miss Lytkin.’
The hologram of Anastasia Sachman shimmered as she laughed. ‘Miss Lytkin? I haven’t been called “Miss” for I don’t know how long. And I haven’t been called Ulyana Lytkin for even longer. The only thing that ties me to that name is blood. And you know what they say about blood being thicker than water, Major.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘You and I are not so different,’ Lytkin said, extending her holographic fingers, examining the polished nails. ‘We have both lost people close to us.’
‘You, me and pretty much every other member of the human race. I imagine there’s little or nothing else we have in common.’
‘We’ll see.’ She smiled, losing interest in her fingers. ‘Your brother. Jon, wasn’t it? Killed in an accident—’
‘Don’t even mention his name,’ he said, pressing up against the wide straps. ‘It wasn’t an accident and you know it.’
‘Deliberate, accident, incompetence, fate, call it what you will. And what about Ethan?’
The question hung in the air. Sweat ran between Helix’s shoulders as he arched his back
