by Mike Wild
It was not, however, Marineris City itself that was of interest to Maggie, but Bowel Town - the foundations that lay under Marineris City. Bowel Town was a colony in its own right, a shanty colony existing inside a sprawling stinking crater that had become home to Crazies, Humpies, Cyboons and a variety of alien jetsam from across the Sol system.
Right then, all that could be seen of it was the crater's rim, some way out in the desert. Looking at Hammerstein, Maggie swung the Sunset Streaker off the Trans-Martian Highway and headed straight towards it.
"Maggie," Hammerstein pointed out, "the access road is over-"
Maggie laughed loudly. "Forget it, Sarge. You think in your condition we're gonna drive on up into Marineris, take a U-Crane, get stuck in Spaghetti Junction, and wait for an elevator to take us down into Bowel Town? I don't think so, Mister. You need help a bit faster than that."
Maggie sped across the desert floor. "Did they say anything meaningful?"
"Who?" Hammerstein asked.
Maggie gunned the engine and, with a lurch, the Sunset Streaker shot forward, throwing Hammerstein's head from the dashboard and into Maggie's lap. He was reminded that she was wearing very little in the way of fashion beneath her leather coat and he discovered just where it was that Maggie had her DA tattoo.
"Who?" Hammerstein asked again, but his voice was muffled. "WHO?" he shouted.
"Thelma and Louise!" Maggie said, gulping on Wooze.
"Who are Thelm-?" Hammerstein began, but it was too late.
Maggie propelled the sports car directly towards the rim of the crater, keeping her foot to the floor all the way. The car's wheels reached the rim and bounced over, abruptly departing company with the desert floor. Its engine whining, the Sunset Streaker took flight and arced majestically through the air.
"WAH-HOO!" Maggie screamed.
A group of Cyboons in the street below looked up and screeched excitedly before leaping for safety; a Crazy went a lot crazier still; a Humpie found himself breathless with shock and then ran like hell.
And the Sunset Streaker arrived in Bowel Town through the roof of a neuropeptide den - a shooteasy - gleaning only disinterested glances from its pepped-up clientele.
Maggie wasn't surprised by the reaction. She was, after all, home.
"Hey, guys," she said, clambering out of the wrecked car.
"Maggie."
"Mags."
A pepped-up trimorph tried to pick a fight with Maggie. She bopped him on the nose and he went sprawling in a corner.
"Don't mind him," a Humpie said. "He's new around here. The Whores & Cart didn't work out then?"
"Nah," Maggie said. There was silence. "Hey, it wasn't my-"
The trimorph held up a hand. "Don't wanna hear it, girl - just glad to see ya back."
"Yeah, well," Maggie said. She dug Hammerstein's head out of the seat-well and wrapped it in a blanket. Then she pointed at the weapons on the front seat and his body parts that were piled in the back. "Do me a favour and look after these things for a while? There's someone I need to see."
"Siggy?"
"Yeah."
"Wooh! Rather me than you girl, after what you did..."
"Is he still... You know?"
"Sore? Ohhhh yeeeaahhh..."
Maggie nodded. "Best be on my, er, guard, then," she said, staring down below her waist.
The neuropeptide den erupted with laughter.
Maggie made her way through the labyrinth of Bowel Town until she arrived at a small shack. A sign hung above the door that described it as "Siggy's Sybernetics. The sign wasn't misspelled; it was simply a conceit of its owner.
Maggie went inside. The shack was filled with cyborg and robot parts of every possible description, piled to the ceiling. An equipment-filled bench was the only free space and against this a man worked with his back to her.
"Hello, Sigmund," Maggie said.
"Hello, Maggie," Sigmund Jimarigg answered without turning. "That you in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang just now?"
"Uh-huh."
"Might have known." He turned, wiping his hands on a rag. "What is it you want, girl?"
Maggie showed him Hammerstein's head.
Sigmund whistled. "An ABC Warrior, if I'm not too much mistaken. Not too many of those still around." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why bring him here?"
"I want you to do what you do best," Maggie said. "I want you to fix him."
Sigmund stared, his eyebrows raised. "Ohhhh," he said. "Is that all?"
Maggie nodded hopefully. "He's a bit of a mess. Among other things, his twirlybobblestop needs sorting out-"
"Hey, I know the feeling," Sigmund growled.
"Yeah. Uh, look - sorry about that."
"You're sorry?"
"Yeah... Uh-huh... Really." She had to look anywhere but down there. "Er... is it... how is it?"
"Still singing."
"What is it this week?"
"The Shoop-Shoop Song."
"Ah. Can't... um... hear it. "
"Thick underwear."
"Right."
Changing the subject quickly, Maggie produced the arm-and-gimble device from a pocket and held it out. Sigmund regarded it.
"He saved my life," Maggie said. "I know we've had our differences, but-"
"Differences," Sigmund interjected in something of a high-pitched voice. "You call what you did-"
"Please, Sigmund."
Sigmund leered at her. "Tell me you need my help," he said quickly.
"I need your help," Maggie gave him her best puppy-dog eyes. Deep down she knew Sigmund wouldn't be able to resist a challenge.
Sigmund paused, sighing; he looked long and hard at Maggie.
"Wooze?" Maggie offered.
Sigmund snatched it from her hand and took a long swig. "Okay," he said. "Where's the rest of him?"
Sigmund Jimarigg was a battlecomber, or at least he had been, way back when. Battlecombers were considered by many to be a sub-breed, living as they did off the robotic salvage of battlefields across the galaxy - in other words, stripping the dead. But Sigmund had never been just a normal battlecomber. Since his grandfather had first introduced him to the "art", he had always wanted to do more than simply sell his booty. He had wanted to rebuild it and then sell it. This he did, creating rank upon rank of ever more elaborate meks from the remains of their companions, a practice which had earned him the nickname "Frankenfragger". Whatever the morality of his trade, he became very good at what he did - so much so that he became a threat to the mek-builder corporations themselves.
A very disposable threat.
He was forced to go into hiding in Bowel Town. Despite their differences, there was no one that Maggie trusted more to restore Hammerstein. Maggie and Sigmund returned with the remains of the ABC Warrior and preparations for the operation were made. When Sigmund had finished, Hammerstein lay prone on the operating slab, appearing whole but on closer inspection separated still into his component body parts, the wires and circuitry from each touching slightly. It was in these areas that Sigmund would be performing microsurgery.
Next to the operating slab laid a collection of scrap metals and electronic components, heavy-duty wiring and fibre optics. These had been salvaged from all over Bowel Town to replace those parts of Hammerstein that had taken the brunt of the heat-rays and were beyond repair. They were makeshift but they would have to do.
For the time being at least, for ease of access to his more delicate areas, Hammerstein's entire internal arsenal of weapons had been stripped from the ABC Warrior, and machine guns, plex guns and laser guns had all been arranged on a table. Removed from the concealing compartments of their wielder, the armaments piled high, and Maggie was reminded that, whatever his sensitive side, her new friend Hammerstein remained very much a soldier. More than that in fact: the ultimate killing machine. There was enough ordnance here to start not a small war but a large one.
Monitors and holoscreens beeped and fizzed all around the patient. Oil pumps shushed up and do
wn. Emergency reanimators waited in readiness. There was not a part of Hammerstein that was not linked or wired up in some way to the bank of machines that surrounded him. The bulk of connections, though, centred on his head - and the largest of these were the cables that were going to administer his electronic anaesthetic. For what Sigmund was going to attempt to be able to work, Hammerstein had to be completely shut down.
"No promises, Maggie," Sigmund said when he was ready. "Now might be a time to say goodbye to your friend."
"Goodbye?"
"What I'm trying to say, Maggie, is that your friend has rerouted so many systems, routines and sub routines in order to keep himself alive that I'm afraid his Master Program may have become irredeemably corrupt. Possibly even the memory dump itself. Once we shut him down, there's no guarantee that we can bring him back the way he was. There's no guarantee that we can bring him back at all."
The Master Program, Maggie thought. Otherwise known as "The Soul". What Siggy was telling her was that, despite his best efforts, Hammerstein could still die.
She walked over to Hammerstein's side. "You know the risks, eh?" she said to the fading robot.
Hammerstein blinked, yes.
Maggie held his hand. Even though, strictly speaking, it wasn't his hand yet.
"Maggie," Hammerstein said softly. "Before this begins there is something I need to ask you. Something," he went on slowly, "that has troubled me since we met..."
Maggie stared at him, concerned. "Is this about you and me? You know, the robot meets woman thing? Only if it is - if you're in any way embarrassed about being seen with me-"
"Me being seen with you?" Hammerstein said, surprised. "No... No..." He coughed slightly. "If anything..."
"Yes?"
Hammerstein's body parts jolted as Sigmund applied the anaesthetic current. The monitor next to the operating slab peaked and then settled into a gentle wave pattern. Hammerstein's body parts relaxed.
"Shouldn't be long now," Sigmund said. "Give him a second to get used to the wave forms."
He drew Maggie aside. "Is it true what they say? The tripods are coming?"
"Oh, yeah," Maggie said.
"Mmaaaggiie..." Hammerstein muttered.
Maggie was by his side in a second. "Here, Sarge. Is this what you wanted to ask? Go on," she said.
"What is...?"
"Yes?"
"Maggie, what is a Smash Martian?"
Maggie looked at him incredulously. But she recovered. "You know," she adopted a high-pitched, mechanical voice, "they peel them with their metal knives-"
Hammerstein looked blank.
"They boil them for twenty of their minutes, and then they smash them all to bits. They truly are a primitive people, a-a-a-a-a..."
Maggie faded out and pouted. A small burp escaped her. "Arb."
"You're going to be okay," she said, taking hold of Hammerstein's hand and stroking it.
But the ABC Warrior was fading fast, and in a moment he was under. He never saw the sudden look of alarm that appeared on Maggie's face. And he never heard the screams that began outside. Instead he heard:
"So I'm kneeling there thinking, what the frag do I do now? Do I give him CPR or do I give him a CPU!"
There were hoots of hysterical laughter, some giggles, cackling, and a mechanical braying that sounded like a donkey suffering badly from laryngitis.
Someone slapped what sounded like a table. Cutlery rattled, glass chinked.
"Hey, watch it, short stuff - you'll spill the Wooze!"
"Yes, easy, Ro-Jaws," a voice said. "That's an order."
Ro-Jaws? Hammerstein thought. And was that Colonel Lash? He opened his eyes and found that he was seated at an ornately laden table in an old-fashioned dining room.
"Well now, lookee here," said a familiar voice. "Hammy the Hammerstein is back in town. How ya doin', chief?"
Happy Shrapnel fired twin six-guns into the air. Large chunks of the ceiling crashed down.
"On second thoughts, forget the Wooze," Maggie hissed. "I seem to be a little plastered."
Hammerstein shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The people he thought he saw were still there, Maggie and all of those impossible people from his past.
What was happening?
"Give yourself a moment, Craig," a soothing voice said. "You're bound to be feeling a little disorientated."
Hammerstein felt a hand stroke his cheek. Whoever it was that belonged to the hand kissed him on the back of the head.
"It's good to see you again, my darling."
Terri? Hammerstein stood up, regretting it instantly. He swayed, overcome by waves of dizziness.
A hand clamped onto his arm. "Hey there, take it easy, young robot," Jodi Jones said.
"My gyros..." Hammerstein said.
Colonel Lash clapped him on the back. "Gyros, shmyros," the colonel said. "Forget about 'em. And forget about those injuries, too. They don't matter, not here."
Where's here? the ABC Warrior thought. Hammerstein looked down at his body. The colonel was right. He was as intact as he had been before -
Before what? Hammerstein sat back down; he realised he didn't know.
"You've had one helluva day, Sergeant Hammerstein. One helluva day."
"Where am I?" Hammerstein asked slowly.
They all looked at him.
"Where are you? Hee-haw," Happy Shrapnel said. "Hell, you're at a parteee!"
"A party?"
"Yay!" Maggie said. She offered him a can. "Wooze?"
"I... don't understand," Hammerstein said.
"What's to understand?" Ro-Jaws said. He picked up a case of wine, bit the tops of all the bottles, and emptied the lot down his throat. There was a sound like a drain emptying. "It's a party so let's enjoy!"
And without understanding why, Hammerstein did, very much.
Too much. Suddenly it was dark and late. Hammerstein realised that he was intensely weary. And so the party began to break up. Hammerstein couldn't rid himself of the feeling that had he wished it to continue, the party would have done so.
Almost everyone retired upstairs to bed. Only at that moment did Hammerstein realise there was an upstairs. He had never had any need to do the same, but tonight, for some reason, he yearned for the softness of a mattress and the warmth it brought with it. The warmth from...
He turned. Maggie was lingering on the stairs.
"See you in a minute," she said. Hammerstein stared at her.
"Yes," he said after a second - as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Hammerstein finished his drink and walked slowly to the stairs.
"It isn't what you think, you know," Ro-Jaws said from where he still sat beside a roaring fire. The ex-ABC Warrior tipped another case of wine down his neck and burped loudly.
"There's something very strange going on here," Ro-Jaws said, staring at him.
Hammerstein stared back questioningly.
"Very strange indeed," Ro-Jaws said. "Trust me."
Hammerstein left his friend to the booze. He ascended the stairs and thought that maybe he had a lot to think about, but it could wait until the morning.
Outside, for a second, he thought he heard the sound of heat-rays, but he couldn't be sure.
THIRTEEN
Outer Perimeter Defence Sensor 39 - part of the ring that had already been nicknamed "the sphincter" by the staff of Camp Diaz - was a full fifteen kilometres outside the senator's ancestral home, slap bang in the middle of nowhere. Like its companions in the ring, it was capable of broad-spectrum detection - visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile - and was sensitive enough to catch a cold.
It watched over nothing, saw nothing. But since he had heard that Medusa's Tripod army had gone on the offensive at Viking City, the senator and aspirant to the future presidency of Mars had come to believe, rather rapidly, in playing things even safer than he had ever played them before. In the bustling hubbub of the council chamber of Marineris City, the members conservatively estimated t
hat Diaz had spent the equivalent of - some said that it actually was - their entire defence budget for the next two years, just to beef-up security for his personal estate. The more trusting of his staff believed that Diaz had cast his net this wide so as to be able to defend them fully against any assault. These were, of course, the naive ones. Those who knew the man somewhat better understood that the sphincter served simply to give the bastard enough time to get his sorry, sweaty ass out of there, if and when the occasion necessitated it; hence, the nickname. One twitch of the sphincter and Diaz would want to evacuate.
Whatever the truth behind Diaz's tactic, there remained nothing but desert out there, a vast expanse of boringly red Martian emptiness. Trudging across it, Wallace T Boober thought it was as close as a man could ever get to stepping back two thousand years and standing on the original, unspoiled surface of this alien world. Buy why would anyone want to do that, he wondered. Not for the first time did Wallace T Bloober question the sanity of the Foundation Fathers for ever bothering to come here in the first place. Mars was a gods forsaken planet and it reminded Boober of hell.
But, he was here. Such were the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He was here and he had a job to do.
Wallace T Boober sighed as he approached number 39, finding it quite ironic that a state of the art defence system that had been installed just the day before had already been taken down by something so simple. Ironic and amusing, he thought.
The deathkite that had impacted with the sensor hung on it, draped on the top of the sensor like a feathery hat that dripped entrails, straight into the main circuit board.
Stupid fragger, Boober thought. Deathkites had to be the dimmest creatures on a world full of dim creatures. Blind, too. The things had three eyes, for frag's sake - you'd think that at least one of them would look where it was fragging going.
"Wait here," Wallace T Boober said to his clone guard escort. The two Dead Eyes regarded him blankly. Boober indicated the desert just beyond 39. "Whatever you do, do not go beyond this point," he explained as if he were talking to two morons, which in a sense he was. "Or it's bang, understand - BANG!" He shouted the last word but there was no discernable reaction from the clones. They simply stood and watched the desert as Boober worked.