to be just about time to change him.
'A goddamn cow on a milking machine, that’s all I am to you,' she said as she walked over to the couch. She plopped herself down on the sofa, puffs of dust springing up into the air.
Johnny lay where she’d left him and, thank the lord, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully for once. She picked him up brusquely, his body limp in her hands. She slid him like a football into the crook of her arm and checked the back of his diaper. Finding it empty, she once again pulled her tit from her uniform. As she did so, she felt the child stir slightly in her arms.
'Now you take this with no more of your goddamn complainin’,' she said, pressing her breast to his cobalt- tinged lips. She slid her nipple into the baby’s slack mouth and sat back into the well-worn arms of the couch. The baby roused a little and his mouth began the gentle sucking sensation that told her he was feeding.
'You must be feeling better, ya brat. You’re eatin’ again.'
Johnny awoke with little knowledge of his brief life or of his reprehensible death just a short time prior. All his brain knew was that the initial confusing whirlwind of sensations—the lights, the sounds, the tantalizing smells— had finally started to settle down. Slowly, they’d begun to focus in on just one: hunger. As he nursed, the hot fluid coursing over his tongue became distasteful; milky and acidic to his palate. It was a sour and nauseating excuse for a meal. And while Johnny had never gotten a chance to learn what life had in store for him, he had learned in his short stay on the planet that his mother’s breast could yield something that
~ * ~
Kathy Mae sat dozing on the couch, her cigarette burned down to a cylinder of ash in her hand. Far off in her senses, she could still feel the baby nursing. He’d been at it for what seemed like an awfully long time. He would need to stop soon, she thought, since she was starting to feel a little woozy. She glanced up at the clock over the stove and realized that she’d been sitting there sleepy-eyed for almost half an hour. Her head felt light to her somehow and the floor seemed uneven beneath her feet. Her sight made the angles of the room seem… off. Her perception waffled like an image in a fun house mirror.
She tried to pull the baby away from her breast, but surprisingly, he wouldn’t let go. From the way he was holding on, he must have been hungrier than she’d first thought. Pulling gently, she attempted to dislodge Johnny from her chest, but he had latched on too tightly. She tried again, harder this time, only his little hands kept pulling himself closer.
'Well, you’ve managed to mess up my only clean uniform, Johnny Boy. Good God, it feels all wet,' she said. 'I’m going ta have to go change now before my next shift at the diner!'
She reached up and forcibly dislodged Johnny’s mouth from her nipple. Her hand came away wet and coated in a dark, viscous fluid. She looked down at the baby and saw his mouth straining to get back to his nursing. His eyes were closed. His mouth remained pursed and sucking at the air.
'Goddam, Boy! What the fuck? Did you bite me, ya little bastard?'
Johnny looked up to meet his mother’s gaze. His eyes were unfocused and still gooey from his infection. His pupils were now clouded and opaque.
Kathy Mae’s mouth dropped open as her child pushed toward her and latched back onto the place where her areola had once been. Blood flowed out of the side of his tiny mouth as he abruptly bit into her flesh in earnest. Pain screamed through Kathy Mae’s drug-addled senses and instinct commanded her to push him away. She tried to get a decent grip on him, but his new-found vigor confounded her. He chewed and tore at her breast, insistently demanding the only sustenance his newly reawakened system could now tolerate.
Kathy Mae stood up and pulled the child forcibly away from her chest. In disgust, she held him at arm’s length. With all of the wriggling and kicking, he jerked out of her grip and dropped like a stone to the ground. With an audible grunting sound, what little air that was held captive in Johnny’s dead lungs came out in a rush. Kathy Mae tried to get to her feet, but her legs went all rubbery from the loss of blood. She stumbled and collapsed in a heap next to the couch. She tried to crawl away from her child, but her coordination was off and her limbs felt weak.
Pressing her back against the sofa, she looked across the floor and saw Little Johnny dragging himself rapidly toward her across the beer-stained rug. His mouth was still working busily and the pupils of his eyes shone creamy white. His expression seemed filled with a hunger that was like something she’d never seen before. As his cold, little hands grasped at her ankle and he began pulling himself up her leg, Kathy Mae drew a stuttering breath and started to scream.
Exordium
The landing gear of the UH-60M Blackhawk helicopter touched down on the helipad, its hydraulics hissing like venomous snakes under the weight of the aircraft. The titanium and fiberglass composite four-blade rotor began to whine down as power was cut to the T700-GE-701D engine. Almost immediately after the three wheels touched the paved ground, a clacking sound came from one of the copter’s side doors and it slid open on oiled rails. Two men jumped down heavily to the pavement— their boots making an empty and hollow sound— with their AR-15 rifles not drawn, but at the ready.
A quick survey of the landing space and one of the security men nodded back toward the darkness within the helicopter. From inside the cramped compartment, a man in an impeccably cut silk suit climbed out of the helicopter and out onto the tarmac. He surveyed the area, breathing deeply of the early morning’s cool air.
The man, one James Masterson by name, wore the officious bearing and no-nonsense demeanor of someone who was born to lead and had spent a lifetime doing so. His manner was one that demanded respect and was, more often than not, granted it. Short dark hair crowned his head and gave him a distinct military look. His dark eyes gleamed from over an aquiline nose, intellect cataloging minutiae, silently gathering details that— in another place and at another time— could spell the difference between life and death.
'Sir,' said one of the armed men, 'the area is secure.'
'Good job, Son,' said Masterson as he absentmindedly brushed his seams straight. 'Thank you.'
His baritone voice splintered slightly from lack of use, many hours having passed since he’d last spoken to another human being. It had been a long flight from what still passed for San Francisco and, in spite of his best efforts to the contrary, Masterson felt tired and more than a little cranky. The search for this new man had been long and arduous, but after having seen some of the footage of him at work, both Masterson and The League felt it would all soon be worth it—well worth it.
At least that was the hope…
The man now sitting in the shadows of the copter’s interior was as close to a natural fighter as Masterson had ever seen. His intuition was good, even if raw and untrained. His body was not large, but it was firmly put together: hard muscle mixed with a brain that could react, truth be told, even more effectively than Masterson’s own. All of this was impressive, in spite of the fact that up until now the man had been working on instinct, a big set of balls, and pure dumb-fuck luck.
Thinking back to the tapes he’d seen on the guy, it was no wonder that The League had ordered Masterson to personally escort him back to this facility. It wasn’t exactly irregular for them to send someone with Masterson’s pedigree out into the field to do something as simple as a retrieval, especially when there was so much money potentially riding on this dude’s ass. Better to protect their investment out of the gate with a trained and armed chaperone than lose it due to some bad planning.
Masterson turned at the hip and looked back into the inky black of the copter.
'Cleese…' he said into the darkness, 'Follow me.'
From within the shadows of the copter, a figure pulled itself from the blackness and moved slowly toward the door. Anyone could see that this was a man who radiated an innate sense of power with limbs that were both lithe and supple. His movements, although controlled, crackled with an energy that betrayed abilities learned in the blistering heat of battle. His build was forged in the Real World, not in some gym somewhere hefting weights. The man gave off the impression of a big, lethal cat that had been caught dozing. It was plain from his demeanor and body language that if something was to rile his ass up, there would surely be hell to pay.
Cleese’s face came almost reluctantly into the light. His features were lined, hard-edged, and dominated by a
