by Jane Brooke
Tough guy body guard, maniac, killer, nada tonight and certainly not with her, not now and not ever. Unless he was dreaming of having his fat head loped off.
So he swallowed his fear, sniffed more fear into his gut. He jerked his head behind him. Stepping aside he watched as the two Rangers walked through the door, he, grinding it closed behind them.
It was a massive warehouse, maybe three thousand square meters. It had sky high ceiling slotted with glass in them, as well as twenty or so five meter square vats. All of them we’re percolating semi boiling green liquids in them. The vats were puking out gas, a hellacious stink, made worse by the heat and humidity, which was crippling.
There were also holding pens, scales, lab beakers, neon, lots of blue, weighing machines, axes, knives, cutters, all kinds of implements and machines needed to raise and nurture a most nasty character, called Slakes.
It wasn’t exactly a legal operation, but with famine always present, Central Command had turned their eyes away, usually. For it was better letting the cannibals eat the shit, then their children’s eye balls in THE BUBBLES.
Atmospheric conditions didn’t much bother Venus as she was impervious to such thing. Well mostly she was and if it did bother her, no one ever knew it.
It was a different story for human Krull.
Humans were high maintenance; cold, heat killed them. Venus knew that. She watched as her man un-hinged his bullet proof vest, lowered his breather, as well as his laser carbine to the dirt floor. He opened his silver reflector coat and slotted his goggles to his forehead. He sighed, took a deep breath and exhaled glad that at least he was breathing purified, though scalding oxygen.
Krull had no ego concerning his partner. After all she was what she was. He most always let her run point. Hell that was what Spec. 24-3’3 had been built for to begin with. He wasn’t exactly thrilled being near Slakes. He feared them and detested them, but it was Assad’s turf. So be it.
Nurture the little bastards from pollywogs, feed them along the way, keep them warm and watch them grow, avoid rows of razor teeth, bad attitudes too and, then murder them.
Basically, what Venus and Krull were looking at, as they stared down the line of vats, was a futuristic meat processing and packaging assembly line plant. At the far end, there were about a dozen Chinese coolies. They we’re outfitted in flip flops, bare chests, pajamas, sorting, butchering and packaging The Magic Meat to a consumer that was begging for the slag.
Tired, spent like a used cartridge shell, Krull nodded to Venus to get on with it.
She nodded back and in a war mood, didn’t smile, turned and with Krull in tow, sweating profusely, they moved toward the end of the plant. Once there, they stalled along side a small man in a blue Bio Suit. There we’re oxygen and air conditioning tubes connected to the roof, pumping air and coolant into it.
One hundred and twenty degrees was usually the limit for a human to exist in any kind of stable way. Just ask those slaves busting their nuts up there on BRITISH MOON about that.
Venus, just wanting the night to end, tapped Master Assad on the shoulder. Startled, Assad whipped around and leered through his clear face mask, eye balls stark at the last thing he wanted to see. That was of course was a Cyborg Ozone Ranger, and her notorious cop buddy, who was as much bad news as her partner.
Looking up, way up at Venus, he swallowed his fear as Venus asked, in that low growl of hers.
“King Mohammad, where? We ask only once.”
Lots of juggling scenarios, options, consequences, fear, terror, that’s what was going through The Masters eyes, as they kept blinking, jacking off, as sweat began to fog his mask.
Have his larynx crushed by the green eyed monster towering over him, or have his balls cut off by perhaps an even more horrible monster, well those are hard core options for an entrepreneur to make. Especially by HER as he felt the urine gathering in his Bio Suit and spilling down his legs.
Gurgle, gurgle, more stutters, more Yank Speak, more terror, as his words splattered out; lies of course, why not.
“Th...The King...Por Favor, Assad no..not know...As...Assad ju...ju...Just business man...Ari Gato, lo siento...sorry...ca...can not help Ozone...much so...sorry...so sooory.”
Venus could feel her gills expanding, her breathing increasing and her solar flare temper main lining.
She wasn’t exactly pissed, or even angry. But, because she was frustrated, concerned, she knew she had to get her man out of the purgatory she felt they were trapped in.
Get him home, feed him, clean him, fuck him, maybe suck his GOD cock and, then pamper him.
That was what was paramount to her.
So get to it Venus, so she did.
She hesitated, exhaled and clicked her eyes at Krull. Seeing that he was staring at the vats and was sweating torrents and seemed agitated being anywhere near the Slakes, she sighed again and reached a single hand forward.
She grasped the twin tubes of life slotted into his suit in her fist. She cut the cold air off and the oxygen too. With eyes never leaving Assad’s, she easily lifted him off the ground; felt his flip flop feet tangoing. She leaned in and leered through his mask as she heard screams, many pleases sputtering from inside of his now reconstructed suit.
Several moments passed. Assad’s face started to turn blue. More sputters and gurgles filtered out of his fogged face plate. Venus tilted her head. Her eyes began to brighten to a more strident green, which was the norm for her when in a state of fury.
“King Mohammad. You tell now. Or you die.” She hissed.
Assad, feet dancing in the air, hands slapping at his face plate nodded furiously to her. He was now telling her that perhaps now he might know something.
For good measure, she held him a moment longer. She lowered his feet to floor, released her grip on the tubes and looked at Krull, who was still leering at the Slake vats. He seemed uninterested in what she was doing. They we’re two pros. One better at doing some thing better than the other, mutual respect shared. She loved him for that.
Once his feet were back on the ground, Assad fell in a heap to the slat floor and began to hyperventilate. Venus casually reached down, grabbed his collar. She lifted him level to her eyes and leered into his terrified face.
“You said?”
“Ya...ya...je...jest a...a moment...ya...The King. Ya, Master maybe know. Help Ranger...Ya.”
“NOW.” She hissed.
Difficult decisions are often hard to make; especially when you’re a dead man, one way or the other. Assad knew that. But what:
Free roll now, a casket now, or, cut a dead chink deal with the cops now?
There were few or no options open to him.
“Ye...ya...The King...Por favor... Assad te...tell...Miss Venus...pl...Please...No...no tell the King...OK...Assad tell...Ki...King kill Assad, he...he know he tell. Pi...Pink...Pa...Panic Club...OK...de...Deal? Gracious senora.”
Venus wasn’t a sadist, or un-reasonable, for she knew quite well that Assad would be collateral damage if King Mohammad found out he had turned The King out.
“Deal...Speak.”
Whether Assad believed her or not, well that was a homicidal Lotto punch. He knew it. She knew it, so he punched his own ticket. A winner he hoped.
“Ya...Section 25-67, Muslim se...section...ware house 22, he move The Pi...Pink; many guns...Have bad men, droids, many...Mi...Miss Venus. You no tell, OK...Assad help...yo...gracias...you no tell...OK?”
All Assad could think was:
Dead Rag Head walking.
She exhaled through her gills, nodded that he was correct. Scanning him, she saw he was telling the truth. She glanced at Krull, saw he was still mesmerized with the Slakes, maybe remembering the Bolivian sewers. She nodded again at Assad and took Krull by the arm.
Coming back, his eyes blinked
. He wiped sweat from them, looked at Venus with a confused look in his eyes. She smiled, wiped more sweat from his face and concerned, so concerned by the look on his ravaged face she whispered.
“We go? Yes Krull?”
He quarter smiled back at her or through her and nodded.
He then allowed himself to be ushered back across the factory and once back at the iron door, they stalled at it. Worried sick by his condition, she watched as Krull re-fastened his gear and, leered back into the factory at the vats of Slakes.
What ever he was thinking, looking at into his memory, well Venus wanted none of it. More moments passed. Venus opened the door, no sign of the obese giant. She took Krull’s arm, gave it a tug and almost dragged him out of the warehouse.
Once back in the alley, they stalled out for they heard more gun shots off in the distance.
“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.” The redoubts hardly made either blink at all.
Krull looked at his girl as he sighed in exhaustion and, then whispered through clenched teeth.
“What do you say, Venus. We take The King out tonight?”
Internally Venus groaned. The last thing she wanted was to get into an all or nothing death battle with one of the most violent sociopaths on Earth.
No options left for Krull was who he was as she Rangered up. She nodded her head and growled.
“No time like now, my Major.”
She was in a war mood, as Krull smiled and nodded. He took a massive breath of oxygen through his breather. He looked at her for a long moment, smiled through his face plate, and as he turned to walk, he whispered.
“You got that fucking right.”
So now, as two courageous warriors walked through the snow and into the abyss towards Sector-25-67 and the ultra-violent world of King Mohammad neither knew that their worlds would gravitate shortly within the world of deep space.
Once there, secrets would be exposed, and the World would change forever. Men, women, Cyborgs and Droids would die, and perhaps only the courage and love of a Cyborg Girl for her man could salvage any of it all.
Krull would get his wish for a visit to British Moon. Once there he would find that at times it is better for a cop to never wish for anything, especially an illusion that would bring such carnage to a world unprepared for it.
Part 3
Ridnium Dreams On A British Moon
GIANT Earth Graders, plows, diggers, caterpillars, plows, turbine earth loaders many three stories tall, weighing thousands of kilos, black smoke billowing out of their stacks gouged great swaths out of the barren land of British Moon.
Tens of thousands of worker, slaves, wearing their blue hermetically sealed and cooled hooded and masked skins, toiled with picks, shovels, hydraulic jacks, drills and axes and as expendable worker ants surrounded the machines that ripped and tore at the land.
Massive dump trucks, loaded with the rich elements, Copper, Magnesium, Zinc, Gold, Silver, brass, Uranium, etc ground toward massive smelting factories with smoke stacking out of their chimneys. The buildings were massive, some three kilometers by two kilometers and three stories tall.
Adjacent to them were what Central Command with in a sadistic moment of genius had named the Worker Villages. Hundreds of low to the earth silver domed habitants, in rows and columns, with kitchens, dormitories, bathing facilities, even wreck rooms with large INFO FEED video screens were staked into the earth.
In unison, all of the domes had stenciled in each village a blue number on the outside of their roofs.
1,2,3,4 were the numbers. They were the carrot, the stick the ruler of the realm used to keep people working themselves to death in un-bearable conditions.
Year ONE, meant that the workers were just one year away from paradise. That paradise being a life of hope in a BUBBLE back on Earth.
In the workers wreck rooms, and running 24/7 were massive video screens with a beautiful woman with a silky and alluring voice talking and showing videos of life in the BUBBLE worlds.
“You have earned it and now deserve it our valuable patriots. Think now, just one year more and, then you will share the wonderful and giving pleasures of our gift to you of paradise.”
And, then the videos of THE BUBBLE worlds would be, in continuous loops be played on the screen. It showed picture perfect mothers and fathers, pristine children playing in parks. It beamed to these desperate people images of grocery stores, lakes, boats, bicycles, children flying kites, people happy and laughing in a wonder world of cleanliness and clean air.
It was to keep the slaves toiling, and perhaps the greatest sadistic lie since the first Americans had decimated multiple millions of Native Indians over centuries within the vicious lies of a Manifest Destiny set of horrific lies.
Set three kilometers off from The Villages and edging a green algae struck ocean, were three kilometers by two kilometers, one kilometer tall Platinum domed buildings. There were meter thick sky window placed within their roofs.
The domes were connected by sewers, walkways constructed of clear glass tubular tunnels. They were the Command Center for the transports delivering cargo and prisoners out and the monitoring centers for the other dome structure, the prison.
The prison held on a rotating basis three thousand of the most hard core and dangerous men, Droids and women in them. A new prison was already being built.
With life so expendable there was always the question of why?
Why the prisons. Why not just vaporize them in deep space or execute them on Earth?
The answer was easy. Deep underground in the mines, where conditions were almost un-livable, workers were still needed. Even the most desperate of the workers refuse such work. Thus, Central had used the most dangerous and barbarous of the prison population to work as miners.
It was in one word, a death sentence.
Everywhere one looked there were the silver domes that were hermetically sealed, no Bubble yet. Great infrastructure was needed for their construction and that was still being built by basically slave labor.
Edged along the great algae covered ocean protruding out in docks adjacent to the Central Command Main Dome were the space transport shuttle docks with there hydraulically powered lifting-ramp’s.
That is where the cargo ships blasted out into space, carrying the loot as well as the returning slaves back to Earth that had done there time.
In another great glass tubular piece of engineering were the entrance and exit points leading in and out of the great mining operations of the planet. One monorail in and one out and it was felt by the military to be impenetrable.
It was surrounded by a five hundred meter tall carbon based wall. On the walls, strategically placed, were gun turrets, cannons and black uniformed guards carrying laser cannons. They wore black helmeted oxygen head gear and all were dressed in their black sealed HERMO SKINS, connected to black cooling tubes trailing behind them as they did their shifts.
The massive domed building was where British-Prison-Cargo Command was stationed and lived and where the shuttle docks were set on an offshoot of land edging the vibrant, yet dead of all life except algae, sea.
Spread in a shanty town of grief and a kilometer away were the sprawling worker barracks. It was where the desperate droids and human being existed as they worked 18 hour shifts building a new and better world for everyone but themselves.
It was a hundred and sixty degrees and only because the one percent needed these sub human beings to survive as they worked and died, the barracks were cooled by great Ridnium turbines.
For four decades, since British Moon had been discovered, The British and Americans had started the reseeding process, thus starting forestation projects with the thought that would eventually draw the blistering temperature down.
Already seeded by Bio Feeding Agricultural Drones were a million square hectares of
the planet. Since the planet had fresh water rivers and lakes, and it rained so often, the genetically altered seed, ones that could survive the intense heat had blossomed.
Looking out from the main camps and off on the horizon, one could see sprawling forests, savannahs, meadows and range land already flourishing. Already and well over three decades the temperature on British had dropped six degrees.
OF course, with so much danger from so many of the criminally insane workers, guard houses had been built along the walls. They were the first barrier of The Shoot, which entered Central Command and where dozens of Hermo Skinned black uniformed guards stood at watch.
The glass tubular Shoot was the only entry to Command Central.
It was where about a two dozen high and low ranking British military men and woman worked, monitoring the entire operation of construction and mining.
Especially the worker shuttle transports for those, and they were few that had done their time, thus surviving working The Pits on British Moon.
Those slaves that did survive were cleaned up, given American Script, clothes and a toothbrush. And, then on monorails were moved to the transport docks adjacent to Central Commands operation building. Once there, they were processed and waited for the next shuttle flight back to Earth, and a promised Bubble life there.
Once ejected from British Moon, they would pass in Space the real guts of the operation, a high orbiting space ship station, some eight hundred kilometers above British Moon.
The orbiting space station was where the highest of the highest of the American and mostly high ranking military British ran the entire operations of the Bubble Worlds. Also it was where they monitored the cargo ships returning back to earth with the elements and minerals that made British Moon so desirable to begin with.
They had, because the work force on British Moon was populated by mostly savages, murders, sociopaths, the diseased and the deranged and had revolted before, set up the Central Command Bubble Beaming Monitoring (CCSBM) ships somewhere that it could not be touched.