Peter Ingham© 2011 De-Generation X Extract 1

Boot – Dream Collapsing

1 Hell On A Cold Day

Audio and visual static finally cut out, an iron curtain draped over his head, retention of dead

space a priority, his mind clawing for quintessential tranquillity like a drowning man hungers for

a lungful of air.

Left only with his thoughts and a headache that threatened to crack his skull open like a

cheap piece of china he scraped at the headset that clung to him, spider‟s web cast in chrome, its

purpose alien.

He flung it to the floor, screamed as it hit the concrete, shattering the audible barricade he‟d

spent mere seconds laying the foundations of.

Inhaling, chest rising weakly like a half-hearted attempt to inflate a balloon, he exhaled a

plume of pallid smoke, didn‟t feel the cold until now, senses booting up, practiced

anthropological mechanics eventually broadcasting a shiver up his spine. He tried to get up,

couldn‟t.

Touching his brow he found it covered in sweat, a rivulet trickled down a through a thick

beard that hadn‟t seen a shave in god knows how long. His hands scoured the floor, half

expecting it to collapse and swallow up his paralyzed frame.

 Ingham / De-Generation X / 2

The man discerned four razor slits of rectangular light over at the enclosures far side, motes

of dust dancing between luminous cracks. Ocular processes accommodating to the gloom, the

place was a concrete skeleton, just him and that freaky metal headset. He picked it up, examining

the sensory pads that lined its underside; it reminded him of the octopuses they used to have in

the ocean. Someone had once said they could strip the paint off a car if they wanted to.

Something knocked against his thinly covered thigh, a black cable, blue in the light, or lack

of it, winding down from the back of octopus. With his other hand, he instinctively reached

behind his ear to where a rough patch of skin several millimetres in diameter lay. A fingernail

flicked open the seam, a metallic opening sat inside.

His other hand traced the nub of the cable, perfect match.

This time he placed it on the floor, pushed it away, whatever it was its presence only strived

to perpetuate a rising sense of dread within his gut.

Running a hand through his matted hair he tried to piece together the road that had lead him

here, wherever the hell „here‟ was. He knew how to take apart an MK.II, track a mark through an

urban warfare environment, snap a guy‟s neck like a chicken. He remembered Valiant Ocelot,

Valkyrie, all of that shitstorm came back in waves, nausea wringing his neck.

VO was the last piece he could put in place; the road was still cracked and brittle.

Unexplainable inherent fear firewalling the prospect of casting his mind back further, examining

his past in depth, as though scrutiny would cause it to crumble.

He‟d killed Lazarus, that much he knew, earned a scar on his torso for the effort. That was

the last memory he could get a handle on, the rest was a haze of assumption swathed in mental

anarchy. Then…
 Ingham / De-Generation X / 3

The headache returned, skull caught in a vice, teeth grinding like he was attempting to file

them down into dust.

The sliding of a bolt cut through the pain, a rustic banshee scream from the outside. Looking

across the room, he focused on the slits of light framing dust. Booted heals echoed in hollow

unison, a pin drop of noise evolved into a cacophony of footsteps like kodo drums.

The discord reached its crescendo outside his door. Dead silence then broken by a shrill beep

and several locks disengaging. A handle turned, the thin slits became a solid block of sickly

yellow with a man silhouetted in the centre. He was decked out in black garb, not dissimilar he

recalled, to what he had once worn.

He was armed with an assault rifle, M16 carbine with self-reproductive incapacitation rounds

mainly used for none lethal operations and, he remembered, used wildly in insurgent

encampments.

The silhouette was flanked by several others who appeared birthed out of the light. All of

them wearing black ski masks, eyes like two holes of piss in a snow bank, military grade, the

kind that gave augmented data and statistics of your surroundings.

The guy in charge, for he led from the front and carried himself in a certain way that

contrasted the other men, let his rifle rest in its rear holster as he retrieved a punch-syringe from

one of his flak jacket compartments. The Velcro made a tearing sound like a thick plaster being

removed from an old wound, it made his jaw clench.

The others trained their guns on him as the shepherd of this unknown military flock got to

one knee and raised an arm.

 Ingham / De-Generation X / 4

The hand came in fast going for his neck. He instinctively went to block, his forearm

connecting with the leader‟s elbow joint staying the action.

In an instant, the butt of one of the other‟s rifles connected with his jaw. Warm liquid pooled

in his mouth, the taste of metal quenching a dry tongue. He would have screamed if he‟d had the

energy, if he thought there was any point, this whole scenario would end with that needle finding

his neck. No reason putting off the inevitable, despite the protests his aching body might attempt.

A hiss of air that powered the tiny hydraulic plunger whispered in his ear. He could feel the

fluid coursing through his body like mercury. His leg twitched, movement returning to him but

strength nowhere to be found.

Two of them hefted him to his feet; he felt like one of those baby deer that he‟d seen on some

archived nature footage. Took him a few seconds to find his footing, it came back, confident he

could have stood by his own volition he doubted his captors were up for that.

The leader shot him a grin, all shark teeth, perfect like little white tombstones. Two of them

held his hands behind his back as the man in charge returned to the mother ship of light.

Outside, two more men had their weapons trained on him. The hallway had a number of

cells, identical to his piece of hell that seemed to snake on into forever.

Then he heard the screams, the reasons to which they had not entered into his consciousness

earlier proved elusive, his subconscious doing him a favour, or was the walls just that thick?

Now though, they were deafening, souls of the damned screaming in anguished fear. He thought

it may parallel the sound you‟d hear as you crossed the Styx, so they could let you know what

was in store for you, hoping you‟d shit yourself in abject terror.
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The barrel of a gun the diameter of a thick pen jabbed him in the centre of his shoulder

blades like an icy finger. That‟s when it hit him, this hallway, with its floor of frozen concrete,

this was the river. And that smiling son of a bitch was the ferrymen.

Hell on a cold day.

He searched for the fear, came up with squat, didn‟t have it in him, that part of his brain

chose not to compute, as if it had been all rinsed out or removed. All he could come up with was

the overwhelming feeling of resignation backed by a raw and visceral anger. One part telling him

“not yet, it‟s not over yet” and the other saying, well, resignation never sounded like much, a

mental exhalation of air if that were even possible.

He mused on why they were present, no point dwelling on it though. A bullet through the

head would probably be the mental equivalent of some asshole tearing out the last chapter of a

book, just before you got to see where it was all going.

His feet made a wet slapping noise on the stone, like a fish being thrown onto a counter.

One of the guy‟s boots were squeaking, must be new.

After turning a corner, one of the prisoners locked up screaming so exquisitely falsetto he

probably would have been a good addition to a choir, he saw the door.

His eyes had adjusted to the light, he could see white flecks of snow whipping and twirling

against the thick glass around the ceiling of the building. If these people were feeling a little lazy,

they could probably just chuck him outside and he‟d be dead in a matter a minutes, a pink blot of

convulsing flesh on a pale canvas. That would never happen though, they were dedicated,

probably got off on it, the place didn‟t look like it was a riot most of the time.
 Ingham / De-Generation X / 6

One of the guards broke out of formation and walked over to a console located by the giant

metallic doors. He punched in a code turning the red L.E.D to green.

The great door yawned and creaked like an awakened goliath. It belched out subzero wind

and ice, the cold flooding the building after being dammed in. Gooseflesh rose all around his

body like a human brail parchment they used to have before they could just give you new eyes.

His body already began to shiver as they marched him forwards into the waxen maelstrom.

All he had on was those damn thin pants, he felt like pissing on himself just to stay warm, but

it‟d probably freeze midstream.

There was a hard crunch as his feet hit the snow, like a brittle twig snapping. The storm

choked back visual clarity, only able to see about a foot in front of him to the back of the man in

charge. His weapon was free of its holster now, the rounds most probably changed to lethal ones,

„shredders‟ is what they were called, fragmented upon impact then combusted. A firing squad of

them would make it look like he had swallowed a grenade. Hell of a last meal.

They shoved him to his knees, the snow soaking into the cheap surgeons scrubs. He was

shaking so violently now it could‟ve probably passed for some drug induced jig, kinda funny,

kinda pathetic.

Straightening his back, he clasped his hands firmly behind his head, the air burning his lungs

with every freezing inhalation.

The men walked away, about fifty paces, levelled their rifles.

He wished he had more time; he‟d been in this place for an indiscernible period, days, weeks,

years, just numbers to label a man-made device of stability, he‟d never wanted to see a calendar

so badly.
 Ingham / De-Generation X / 7

It‟d all been a blur, like a car rocketing down a highway stopped only by ploughing into a

concrete barrier. That millisecond of lucidity you get as your body lurches forwards and through

the windscreen.

Everything seemed so close, the pieces slowly aligning again.

He saw their hands move, the safety‟s disengaged. In his mind, he heard the click, like a

conductor tapping his baton against a stand before giving his performance. One last gunshot

serenade, a final swansong as the Valkyries dragged him to hell.

Time to die.