Resurrection

“And how are the dreams since we last saw each other Gerard ?”
“Better. I think the new medication is really helping.”
Gerard smiled at the doctor, grateful as always that his shrink had been able to help him so much. The other man smiled back, seeing the handsome young man in the suit was such a big difference to the frightened snarling thing that Korse had first taken him to see. He wrote down again in the file and adjusted his glasses against the artificial sun that came into the windows of his bright white office.
“Are they still the same dreams ?”
Gerard hesitated, something in his mind not wanting to be totally truthful but it was overridden by the mix of chemicals in his system and the brainwashing in his head. He frowned and straitened his tie, the haircut and suit made him look younger than his years. Certainly a world away from the wiry fighter that had graced all those wanted posters. The hazel eyes were still bright but this was a different man.
“Yes. They are always the same. The dark haired girl, the redhead and the men. I know they were people I knew back when I was sick but I don’t remember their names.”
Dr Rhodes made more notes and tapped his pencil against the pad, seeing how Gerard was now a little agitated. Clearly the mind was still fighting against the conditioning as his masters had said it would. The defeat at the former Battery City caused by this man and his friends had been a setback but BLI had risen again, the demon Korse with it and now they were in a position to destroy the enemy once and for all.
“Nothing to worry about. You suffered a terrible trauma out there and it’s only natural for you to need time to heal. Your career is just taking off I hear, quite the hit songmaker.”
The psychiatrist glanced up at the hidden cameras and then over to the strange creature in the pink suit that seemed to follow Gerard everywhere. His children’s show was very popular all over the BLI empire, a fledgling music career taking off now that everyone had been reminded of who he had been before the world ended in nuclear fire. It had all come around full circle and yet Gerard felt it was wrong.
“I hope so. I would like to remember even if they are bad memories.”
“You will. In time. For now it is unimportant.”
Gerard took the bottle of pills from the man and excused himself, the hour always seemed to go slower than most of the others and he wanted to be punctual. He would leave Lola at the studio and go home to sleep for a few hours before he was needed in the studio again. The sun glinted as he pushed past dracs and onto the tube train that carried him across the sky bubble of Battery City reborn. Down below people moved around, lived and worked in harmony as the droids and troops moved among them.
It was safe but it was wrong.
He shook the thought away and chatted to some people on the train who had recognised him from television. They no longer saw him as a threat, most of them had accepted that he had been reborn in the kind busom of BLI and Gerard was grateful for that, the guilt of knowing what he had been before bothered him even though the shrink and everyone else told him that his redemption was nearly complete.
That thought was still in his head when he reached the apartment, his block in one of the better sectors and spacious despite he being the only occupant. He had been approached by many women for dates and yet, nothing seemed to feel right in that department either. The shrink had suggested post traumatic stress and provided yet more pills. Gerard silently wondered if he was beginning to rattle before locking the door and dismissing the guards outside. The clock said it was four, Gerard loosened his tie and flung off the jacket. One hand automatically messed up his hair as he checked his mail and sat down in the kitchen to drink a cold glass of lemonade.
He liked to sit and look out of the window, the patches of green that were parks within the metropolis could be seen so much clearer from up here and he almost imagined he could taste fresh air. That was another thought he hadn’t mentioned to the shrink, another thing to feel a stab of guilt about. He had it good now and Gerard reminded himself that he should be grateful. A voice call reminded him that the studio would need him at eight and that Korse requested his company for breakfast the following day. Gerard frowned, turning the phone off and finishing the lemonade before walking into his small bathroom and flicking on the light.
Even in the city water was at a premium, the desert landscape that surrounded the dome was still saturated with radiation, more so as the blackened dome of the original city could still be seen in the distance and reminded the citizens that the killjoy evil had still not been eradicated and punished for the destruction it had wrought. The war simply went on and Gerard hoped he could do his part to help win it. He slipped the shirt from his body and stared into the mirror.
There were still so many scars.
He lifted his chin a little, the one there faded but still visible without makeup to cover it. The others were older, more ghostly against his skin and the result of laser fire and the oldest that spoke of some self harm. Gerard kept them hidden, even now he still felt a little embarrassment over his body and the scars made it worse. He dropped his eyes and concentrated on watching the water fill the bowl, his fingers creating swirling whirlpools before he looked up again and into the mirror.
The person staring back was no longer him.
It was the other version of him and it stared back with a cruel smile. His hair was a tangled mess of red locks and the familiar eyes were hidden behind a yellow mask. His body was criss-crossed with the same scars but they were bright and livid. Some of them still wept blood, especially the one under his chin, the one that looked fresh and still smoked. For a moment the flesh Gerard could do nothing but stare at the ghostly reminder of his old life.
“Nobody is innocent Party, not you, not me and not them….”
The soft female voice whispered in his brain and for a moment he thought he saw the dark haired girl behind him, alluring and naked beneath a single white sheet from his bed. He was shaking, physically unable to move and even realise that he was screaming until a medic entered and quickly drove a syringe into his arm before guiding the bewildered man out of the bathroom and towards the bedroom.
Dr Rhodes and Korse watched the tiny monitor dispassionately as their most successful patient was sedated. Raising people from the dead was easy, that’s what most of the dracs were at the end of the day, dead things that remembered nothing. Gerard was so much more than that and so much more important and if Korse had been able to feel he would have been annoyed.
“He is still not perfect.”
“You cannot expect perfection with a mind like his but he is proving very useful. We will continue the drug therapy to make him more docile.”
The unnaturally pale man nodded, his masters had taken pride in killing the most famous of the killjoys and now they would be used to bring down the others. It amused them they said, to see this man now working for BLI instead of against it. A glorious weapon that would finish the resistance forever. Korse didn’t care for that, he had his orders and would make sure that they were followed to the letter.
“And the others ?”
Rhodes turned to another bank of monitors, flicking some switches until another man appeared on the screen. This one was tall and rail thin, his dark brown hair swept back and shaved close at the sides, a pair of heavy glasses shading his eyes. He was in a simple white shirt and black tie, diligently tapping information into a bank of computers somewhere in the east of the city. Far away from the man that was his brother and safely unknowing.
“Michael has reacted well to the conditioning. He is a good boy and is fitting in well with his co-workers. So far there has been little sign of trauma.”
“Watch him. That one was just as dangerous as the other one.”
Rhodes made a note on his ever present pad and turned another set of dials. The picture this time was grainy and a little out of focus. It took a couple of minutes to locate the man he was looking for. This man was of larger build, a riot of curly hair slicked down and he wore a white lab coat. He moved amongst the other scientists, moulding and creating super weapons and new drugs with which BLI would triumph. One eye was bionic, the eye patch he had formerly worn now replaced with a better alternative.
“Ray is more problematic, like Gerard the base memories keep threatening to come through.”
Korse stared, no emotion registering in his face. All of the men were needed, they would all prove useful and he did not want to be forced into the alternative action. This one had an amazing mind, his knowledge of electronics and weapons would not be wasted because the doctors could not control him.
“Increase the treatment as you have with Gerard.”
“It could turn out to harm them permanently.”
There was no change and the doctor dropped the subject. He was well aware that once the Killjoys had been defeated there would be no use for these men and it wouldn’t matter. He waited for Korse to ask about the final subject, the one that had been the most problematic of them all.
“So that just leaves Mr Iero….”
Rhodes sighed and turned on the last of the monitors. This showed a cell, dirty and underground literally in the bowels of the city. It was dank and cold down there, the walls dripping and slimy as a young man hung on rusty chains. The top half of his body was bare, streaked in dirt and his own blood which hid the tattoos that moved over his skin. His head was against his chest, the face hidden by a shock of black hair. He looked to be unconscious until the doctor pressed a button and spoke in pleasant, condescending tones.
“Good evening Frank.”
The man raised his head, one eye black but the other clear and his mouth now twisted into a smile. It was amazing that he still had this much fire, Rhodes knew that most people would barely last a month in the chambers of the city and they were still frustratingly far from breaking this one.
“Fuck you, my name is Fun Ghoul. I am a killjoy.”
“You’re a dead man that we raised again. You should be grateful.”
There was a savage laugh from the man in chains, the scars of the wounds that had killed him still very much visible on his chest. Korse leaned in, he had his orders that all four must be turned or the experiment would be a failure. That this one refused to yield was simply another hurdle to overcome.
Dr Rhodes turned off all the cameras and turned back to the team of surgeons and medics that had been involved in the project thus far, dispensing orders and another round of tests as Korse relayed the latest information back to his masters and prepared for the next stage in the operation. He would see to it that these Fabulous Killjoys all turned on their former friends, that the war was ended and then, and only then, would he have the pleasure of killing them for the second and final time.

Notes