The God Complex: The Book Of Alan, Destroyer Of Worlds

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A bead of anxious sweat trickled down Gabe's forehead, he knew this dream only too well.

Walking slowly across a desolate hospital car park, he refused to look up; he didn't need to to know how grey and bleak the sky looked over the stark frame of the hospital, or that there were no other cars parked there that morning, or how still the bushes looked that boxed them in and hid the motorway beyond, or that she was there - whether he looked up or not it never made a difference to that sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sadness and anger - the place reeked of it. It was woven into the fine sheet of rain that hung silent in the morning air, penetrating everything it touched. Every direction he moved there it was: sadness and anger.

A shape in the distance caught his attention forcing him instinctively to look up as the guilt hit him hard in the guts. There she was, there she always was: Wendy.

Her face, already twisted in rage, was drenched under a broken mask of wet hair and makeup. She staggered mournfully towards him in abject grief as Gabe took a step back and hopelessly began pleading with her, shutting his eyes and covering his ears in the hope he wouldn't have to hear her accusation again, but it never worked and her words, once more, slashed through him like a shower of razors.

'YOU DID NOTHING!'

He woke in a cold sweat and curled up into a ball, anxiously holding his fists to his eyes to feel the reassuring pain of reality. In the month since leaving Earth that dream had become worryingly more frequent.

He picked himself up and splashed his face in the sink, the halogen lit bathroom flickered as he stared vacantly at his reflection. Throwing on an old t-shirt and trousers from the floor, he saw his brother's leather jacket illuminated in the wardrobe, walking over he felt the coldness of the leather against his face and closed his eyes - that coldness remained as he sealed it back in its wardrobe and turned away. At the door Gabe took a deep breath and left the stark white of his bunk for the stark white of the Archangel corridor.

Walking gingerly towards the control room he overheard Jaibles and Monkey bickering in the kitchen.

'Smell it!' Yelled Jaibles.

'For the last time no, how can you even stretch it that far? Doesn't it hurt?'

Gabe sensibly chose not to get involved and kept on walking. Resting in the pilot's seat and staring out at the unnerving endlessness of space, his thoughts turned to what they always did after that dream: the satisfaction he'd take in ending Cain's life.

It no longer mattered if Cain's story was true or not, or if it went all the way through EDEN and up to Abaddon, they took everything from him and he was going to burn it down regardless.

'Gabe?'

His revenge fantasy ruined before it could start.

Monkey and Jaibles crashed into the control room mid argument and spun his chair around to face them.

'Are you going to wear a mask or not?' Said Jaibles accusingly.

'What?' mouthed Gabe rubbing his face.

'All I said,' explained Monkey clearly exasperated, 'was that if we were serious about this space pirate business...'

'Which we clearly are,' interjected Jaibles.

'Then shouldn't we think about some sort of disguise to retain a little anonymity from the people we're pirating, or at the very least the Military Police. That's all.'

'You're completely missing the point, Monkey,' yelled Jaibles. 'Did Blackbeard hide his face? Did Long John Silver? Did Johnny Depp? No. We want people to know who we are, recognise us and the Archangel and fear it, so when we eventually board Abaddon's shuttle, steal his loot and stowaway some salty wenches to shiver their timbers, they'll know exactly who did it. Bring on the infamy, I say, let's go down in a blaze of petty theft and raunchy double entendres.'