Day 8: Massacre

Mike was reading and rereading his orders, clutching them with sweaty fingers. He figured he’d read them about a hundred times or so since he woke up, pretty much memorized the damn things.....But he couldn’t think of anything else to do, couldn’t find anywhere else to put his eyes. Nervous anticipation made him edgy, and fear for Splinter increased his agitation.

He’d been in to see Splinter that morning. Held his hand, talked to him. He’d been doing better, was able to sit up a little, and even talked some. He asked Mike how Leo and Raph and Don were doing, how HE was doing. Mike didn’t want to tell Splinter about the nightmares and the pain and the fear (hell, Splinter had his own problems), but he did anyway. Mike never lied to Splinter. He just couldn’t do it. And something in his eyes told Mike that he knew anyway, that it was okay, and that he understood. Mike had almost forgotten what it was like to open himself up to someone.

But all too soon, an orderly popped in to warn him not to tire Splinter, and to remind him that dawn was fast approaching. Wouldn’t do to piss Garret off by holding him up. Not today. So Mike reluctantly stood up to go, somehow managed to choke out a good-bye through the lump in his throat. Splinter was calmness itself: “Good-bye, my son.....I love you.”

Mike blinked back the tears which blurred his vision. Despite his attempts at stoicism, one dripped down onto the sheets of paper he held. He hurriedly swiped away the tears and the grief along with them. Maybe later he’d have the chance to get by himself somewhere and have a good cry. But not now. He had to be tough, play the soldier.

He turned as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Leo.

“You okay?” he asked, looking hard at Mike. He sighed knowingly and swiftly hugged his brother. “It’ll be all right.” Please don’t say anything else, Mike thought. Don’t say anything else, or I might start crying. And then I won’t be able to stop.

Leo was decked out in his blue and green ninja garb, katana strapped across his back. He looked totally professional, regal and commanding. The perfect leader. He was eyeballing the mass of moving blue and green that was his ninja group. Mike’s own group of 25 was drifting into the area, some dashing away tears brought on by their own good-byes.

How many of them will die? Mike wondered, as he always did. Most of the fighters were in their late teens and early 20s. Hell, they were just kids....But he had been a kid when he started fighting. Mike asked himself once again what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been forced to battle for his life right from the tender age of 15. Considerably more peaceful, perhaps. But without all the years of intense battle training, would he have survived the war this long?

Mike always felt sick to his stomach when he thought about leading a bunch of kids (Men and women, really, but still young enough to be my kids, maybe even my grandkids...) into a battle they most likely wouldn’t walk away from. T’mer, Raph’s son, was that age now, wasn’t he? Mike squinted and tried to remember. Lessee...he was a little over two years when Arik died.... Shit! T’mer must be 25 by now! Mike hadn’t seen him at all for nearly 23 years. When Raph dropped out of sight, he took T’mer with him. Eventually he turned up in the MHA, minus T’mer. Raph never talked about his son, and Mike never had the courage to ask much beyond whether the boy was alive or dead.

Leo was gazing out across the sea of warriors and commanders, all readying themselves to depart for Houston base. “Scared?”

“Of what?” Mike asked with a faint grin. “Marchin’ off to die in a raid on the biggest and best-armed Sentinel base in the world? Nah, ‘course not.”

“Seriously, Mike,” Leo said softly. “Are you scared?”

“Shitless,” he confessed.

“Me too.” They watched the sun peek over the horizon as Garret stomped his way to the front of the ranks and bellowed for everyone to get organized. “Be seein’ ya,” Leo finally said.

“Yeah,” Mike replied. Leo stalked back over to his ninjas, putting on a “tough warrior” act of his own, covering his fear so he could get things done. Mike stared at his orders one more time, reeled off the list of names. Each of the 25 was present, and he managed to get them into some kind of marching order before he hefted his pack, with all the food and supplies and shit, onto his back; officers usually rose horses, but it just wasn’t practical for a desert trip. He checked to see that his pistol was in its holster. Slung his laser rifle across his back. Slid his hand into his uniform jacket, to the big inside pocket, and fingered his nunchuku. Hardly ever used the damn things. But he got them from Splinter, and so they were important, if only for luck. Don’t leave home without ‘em.

Garret once again made himself heard over the crowd. “Awright, people. We got a lotta ground to cover. So make sure ya got all your gear and move your asses out!”

Mike gave his ‘chuks one last pat before he jogged to take his place in the column.

It was gonna be a long day.

* * *

~Raph stood looking at Arik’s body, as hideously mutilated as always. But this time, it did not rise to accuse him of murder. It was just a corpse, still and silent.

Raph wore an outfit that seemed to be a meld of biker fashions and homemade garments. Beads, bullets, various other decorations, his face painted black and red...And his ax strapped to his carapace. Just as on that terrible night when Arik died. Consciousness receded as memory took over, and Raph once again became Hatchet, the violent leader of the Kiola Clan, part of the Orabu Nation....

My little boy. Hatchet sobbed and gathered the bloody child into his arms. “Oh, Arik,” he moaned. He was only eight! He should not have died like this! Hatchet looked back to the man standing behind him. “Hawk,” he whispered, saying the man’s name as if it were a prayer. Hawk had been the one to see Mike and his people with the body. Mike would have tried to keep it secret for a time, Hatchet knew, but Hawk stopped that plan. And now Hatchet curled on the floor of a makeshift morgue, clutching his child and feeling rage building within him.

In his youth, he had often succumbed to such frightening rages. But he had, over the years, learned to control his temper. He was a chieftain in the Orabu Nation, and he didn’t become one by losing control. But now, he felt his face flush as his automatic coping system kicked in. Thoughts of, “How could someone do this?” changed to “How dare they!” Raph didn’t even try to stifle the anger; it was a welcome substitute for grief. He lifted his child in his arms. “Hawk,” he said in a chillingly calm way. “I will see to this. Call the others together.” Hawk nodded silently and was gone the next moment.....

The spies had led them true. Arik’s killers had bragged too many times, and Hatchet crouched on a rooftop, watching the door of the Melting Pot, a popular Tracker hangout. The two murderers were probably not expecting retribution for the death of a lone half-alien child; but they had surrounded themselves with dozens of friends. Just in case. Hatchet, too, had friends. His fighters blanketed the entire area, waiting for orders. In a series of quick hand signals, he gave them.

In, he signed. Kill.

Kill all.~

* * *

Another nightmare. Don rubbed his eyes and tried to think. The dream had been complex from the very start, with Raph dying and rising again, and variations on a theme wherein he and Madolini killed each other. But this time, it had been complicated further. Madolini had suddenly started speaking metaphysically; Donatello had never known him to be inclined to deep thought...only violence. And why did the dream-Madolini challenge his sense of reality? A horrid idea struck him.

Perhaps the Madolini in his dreams was the real thing.

Madolini had always been good at manipulating his victims’ minds. Was it possible that this manipulation was not psychological, but involved Madolini actually screwing around with people’s thoughts from the inside of their heads? Could Madolini intentionally go into Don’s dreams? That opened up a whole new realm of speculation involving the dream’s meaning. His recurring nightmare could just be Madolini’s sick game, an attempt to defeat him without a real confrontation. Don wished that he could manipulate dreams too....but even in his own, he seemed little more than an impartial observer. The dream version of himself was just a puppet, and Don was the audience while someone else pulled the strings. Don shuddered at the idea that the puppetmaster might be Madolini. The man was, as far as he could tell, completely evil.

(“What?” asked Madolini, noticing Don’s stunned expression as he turned.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” demanded Don. “You just killed that family!”

“That man was a mutant and an anti-Mastermold agitator,” Madolini said with a shrug. “We were ordered to eliminate him. That’s what I did.”

“But those children didn’t do anything-the little one can’t be more than a year old. And I’m almost positive that the woman is pregnant-” Don stared in horror at the bloody mess that used to be this family’s living room.

“So? What difference does it make? They’re just common mutants anyway. Come on, let’s go.” And Madolini strolled out the door, leaving Don to stare at the mangled bodies....)

Don acutely remembered the nearly 18 years he spent working with Madolini and people like him....18 years of hell. Feeling obligated to stay because after all those years, he was the best, the only Alliance spy who had been able to maintain his cover. He learned to avoid staining himself by faking deaths and using cheap parlor tricks, but he still had to keep company with the Trackers, still had to pretend delight in cruelty and murder. There were times he nearly buckled under the pressure, unable to handle the strain of maintaining his bloody reputation. In the end he got out, relatively unharmed; a miracle considering that most spies ended up discovered and dead after a year or so. At least, he appeared unharmed. But much of the damage was psychological.

Therapy had brought most of his problems under control. He started eating again, stopped going into hysterics every time he saw a fight of any kind. But even now, Madolini still haunted his dreams. Damn you! he thought. Leave me in peace! But the nightmares nagged at his mind.

Don tried to analyze the elements common to the dreams. In most of them, Madolini had killed Raph. Don remembered dreaming that someone would die. Could it be Raph? Now that Madolini and Raph were connected in reality as well as dreams, it was a real possibility....After dying in the dream, Raph usually came back to life and walked away. But that couldn’t be right......Don somehow doubted that Raph would rise from the dead. So maybe it was metaphorical death? Or metaphorical resurrection? In that case, the scene could mean any one of a thousand things-Don ground his teeth in frustration. DAMN it! Why wasn’t any of this making sense?

And then he and Madolini killed each other. He couldn’t find a way around the stark reality of that image. No matter how they killed each other, or who struck first, Don would still be dead....

Don looked at the door as it opened. The dreams were quickly fading as he remembered his problems here in reality.

“Good morning, Donatello, I’m glad to see you’re awake,” a kind-looking woman said brightly. “My name is Annie Hebner. I’m a psychiatrist.”

* * *

~Raph felt as though he were outside himself, watching it all. He wanted to step in and stop the action, prevent the scene from occurring, but he was only reliving a memory. And Raph did not know how to change the past.

Hatchet stood just inside the doorway, listening to the screams as the first of his people struck. Trackers leapt to their feet, drawing weapons. Some of the Orabu fell. But surprise was on their side, and many more Trackers than Orabu died. Hatchet paced through the club, watching his men and women work.

Red and Jerin teamed up to club one unarmed Tracker; his skull caved under the blows, and he crumpled to the ground. The pair beat him for several more seconds before realizing that he was dead. Talon held one struggling victim by the throat as she disemboweled him with a curved knife she held in her other hand. Shear rammed a sharpened pair of scissors through the eye of his victim, ignoring the shrieks of pain the man was producing. Elsewhere, groups used more conventional weaponry to slash throats and pierce hearts and brains, eliminating each person quickly so they could move to the next. Hatchet, their leader, had commanded that all within the Melting Pot die. Some of the Orabu were just enjoying the slaughter more than others.

Hatchet moved through the carnage, noting each new death, but remaining aloof. One Tracker leapt toward him with a drawn knife, but Hatchet quickly seized the outstretched arm, twisting and breaking the arm. He reached down and broke the man’s neck, then continued on his tour of the club. A shout hailed him from the left, and he turned that way. He weaved his way through the carnage, and stopped when he found Hawk, who had called out to him. Monster was kneeling on the back of a dazed woman in Tracker colors. Scream was holding a man.

“You bastard,” spat the man. “You Orabu freaks are crazy. I always said you were a buncha revolutionaries, but they never listened. We shoulda cleaned you out.” Hatchet’s expression was unreadable; it was his savage face, the one he put on for all the fools, to maintain the illusion that the Orabu Nation was an asylum....

“What do you want?” croaked the woman. She had been grabbed by the throat at some point in the struggle and her voice was hoarse.

“You have taken something from me. I have come to exact my payment.” Hatchet’s voice was as calm as his face. Nothing could reveal the turmoil in his mind.

“We don’t owe you anything,” the man snapped. But Hatchet was not a telepath for nothing. He quickly touched their minds. The man was a liar. These were the right two. But of course they could not know that he was Arik’s father.

“Go on and kill us,” the woman said defiantly. “We are not afraid to die.”

“Oh, you will die, believe me,” Hatchet said. He pulled from his pocket a switchblade, which he flicked open. “You will die.”

* * *

Leo stood silently, fingering the bottle in his pocket. The group had stopped for a short rest, and he wondered if he ought to take one of the pills. Mike’s doctor friend had handed the bottle to him as he checked out of the Infirmary that morning. She had told him that the pills would, like the drugs he had been taking the past few days, inhibit his telepathic abilities, and thus block the pain that surged to him through his connection with Raph.

Another tradeoff, he thought. After years of taking his mental gifts for granted, accepting them as part of himself, it was odd not to have access to them. No telepathic contact with his brothers, that was the worst. He wanted to talk to Don, but that looked impossible right now. He sighed and released the bottle as the order came down the line to move out again. Leo squinted at the sun before moving into his place and dragging his tiring body after the group in front of him. Soon, soon the sun would set and they would camp. Soon he could lose himself and his constant worry in sleep.

* * *

~Hatchet tuned out the woman’s screams and the man’s small cries of horror as he stood up. Crouching over the woman while Monster and Hawk held him still, Hatchet had carefully removed each of her fingers. He had pushed the knife cleanly through each digit, thinking of his son’s hands, how these people must have drunkenly laughed at his cries as they sliced his fingers off. Then, he neatly cut off her ears. Blood stained the knees of his pants where he had knelt on the floor. The outside world was gone for Hatchet. There was only him, and the Trackers, and his mental image of his son’s mangled corpse; their pain would mirror his child’s. And then they would die.

He sought his memory for the next step, and thrust his knife into the man’s leg, just above the ankle. Twisted the knife and yanked it out, listened to the man’s responding howl of pain. But no realization came over his face. They had probably mutilated and murdered so many, they did not remember what they had done to each individual victim. Good. Hatchet wanted them to die as Arik had died, alone and afraid and not understanding what was happening to him. At Hatchet’s signal, Scream hauled the man to his feet and held him. Terrified eyes searched Hatchet’s expressionless face. For the first time, he released his poise and allowed the full hatred he held in his eyes to wash over the man. Hatchet slashed the man’s cheek, not deeply, but just enough to spray some blood. The man whimpered. The knife slashed lightly at his arms, his chest...and Hatchet’s knife hand finally hovered at the man’s waist, giving him a clear idea of what was coming next.

“No...please,” he moaned.

Hatchet reached out with the knife in hand and sliced through the belt.~

* * *

Don sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and listened to Dr. Hebner.

After his last little exchange with the Raph mirage had been overheard, the doctors consulted and decided it would be best to turn him over to the Houston Camp psychiatrists. So now this doctor was sitting in the chair next to his bed, trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

“So you’ve been under a lot of stress lately?” Don clenched his fingers and tried to remember that she was just trying to help him. But it was difficult. If only she wasn’t so...clueless.

“I would say so, yes.”

“Hmmm....” Hebner studied him carefully.

“You know, Dr. Hebner, I am inclined to believe that my...er, hallucination, is merely an aftereffect of my illness, which as you can see, I am quite recovered from. I am not a danger to myself or anyone else, so I don’t see why I should be examined by a psychiatrist. In fact, I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t be released from the Infirmary.” Don sighed as Hebner shook her head.

“I don’t think that would be wise. I haven’t even reported my diagnosis yet.”

“How hard is it? I’m hallucinating. Do you think I’m crazy or something?”

Hebner flinched. “We prefer not to use the word ‘crazy,’ Donatello.” Don knew that. In fact, he had chosen his words for that very reason. Hebner shook her head again. “So what exactly is it that you see, again?”

Don began again. “Several times, starting shortly after my brother Raphael was captured by a Sentinel, I have seen him appear in the room, and conversed with him.”

“Hmmm...” Hebner said. Don buried his face in his hands. Oh, God....

* * *

~Scream let the man flop to the floor, sobbing with pain. Hatchet rammed the knife up to the hilt in the man’s shoulder, and stepped back at the resulting scream of agony. He turned away, and for a moment, the Trackers looked relieved. But he turned back again, pulling the ax from its sheath. The woman tried to struggle, feebly, as Hawk and Monster stretched her out. Hatchet ran the edge along her abdomen almost gently, and for a moment it appeared that he had not even cut her. Then blood welled up, the woman gasped, and the long wound gaped open, exposing internal organs. Hatchet knew the wound would bleed quickly, and he had to be quick.

He wrenched the knife out of the man’s shoulder. Kneeling at the woman’s head once again, he laid down the ax and plunged the knife directly into her left eye. She arched her back and screamed in agony as blood streamed from her wound. Hatchet waited until her screams subsided to softer cries before he thrust the knife into the other eye. The woman convulsed. She was bleeding profusely from her abdomen and eyes, and blood began to flow from her mouth as she tried to breathe. The breath rattled from the blood which was filling her lungs. As she gasped her last, Hatchet turned back to the man. He was lying on the floor, curled in fetal position and clutching his groin desperately.

Hatchet stood over him a minute, then bent to retrieve his ax. He walked all around the man once before kneeling at the man’s head to bury his knife in the eyes, twisting the knife in each eye before removing the blade, covered with blood. Hatchet stood again.

There was a reason he saved this man for last. He had been forced to threaten Hawk, to drag from him the full details of the body’s condition when found. Hatchet wanted them both to die slowly and painfully. But for the man in particular...There was no cruelty great enough to punish him for the crime Arik’s lower body had evidenced. With one furious cry of rage at the thought, Hatchet whipped his ax up and slammed it into the man’s back. He could feel his victim’s spinal cord snap, hear the cracking vertebrae, despite the man’s unbearably loud scream. The man thrashed his arms and spewed blood, splashing the boots and lower legs of his tormentors. His body began to still, and Hatchet knelt once more, planting one knee in a pool of wet, red blood. He seized the man by the hair and jerked his head to the side. Hatchet bent to whisper in the man’s ear.

“You raped my son.” Hatchet could not tell if the man could hear him or understand him. “You murdered my child.” But Hatchet felt better, somehow, having told the man.

He stood, took up his ax. With it, he swiftly decapitated both bodies. Little caring about the mess, he grabbed them by the hair and lifted the gory trophies. “Clear out!” he bellowed.

“But Hatchet,” protested a nearby Orabu. “There’s still some alive. We’ve got them trapped in the stockroom.”

“Forget them and get outside.” Hatchet held the heads in one hand, and with the other he smashed his ax across the bar, coating it with wine and broken glass. The others caught on, using bottles and barrels of alcohol to drench the interior. Finally, Hatchet led the group outside. Hawk struck the match and tossed it inside. The flames leapt high and bright as Hatchet stood watching. In front of the blazing building, several horses were tethered to a row of metal poles. Hatchet loosed the horses, and neatly planted each head on a pole. The faces stared grotesquely at Hatchet and his group, a warning for anyone who might pass this place in future. Hatchet turned his eyes away from the flames, turned his ears away from the screams of the trapped Trackers dying inside. He walked from the site as his people stood in utter silence. No one followed.

Hatchet walked home, went into his quarters. He locked himself into a bathroom and stared at the mirror. His clothing was soaked with blood. Blood streaked his face paint, and his hands were covered with gore from the mutilations he had performed. He lifted those hands to his face and stared. The whole episode seemed a dream already. Did any of it really happen? Hatchet wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything at all any more.

He wasn’t even sure who he was.

Hatchet sank to the tiled floor and began to cry.~