Biohell

by Andy Remic

  “Surprised, fucker?”

  “Mr Voloshko will... have... you... killed for this.”

  “You don’t say? Well, he wasn’t successful today, was he? I’d keep my empty threats to myself, if I was you.”

  “How... how... how did—”

  “Bit of a stutter you have there, my friend. Want to get that seen to. Some form of speech therapy might be in order. I believe it’s extremely effective nowadays. But then, oh yes, I forgot... you have an urgent appointment. With Death.”

  Slick lifted the 9mm P227. His eyes shone.

  “No,” said Mr Konan. “Please, don’t shoot...”

  Slick shrugged, sighed, and pulled the trigger, spreading Konan’s head across the cellar floor.

  Slick stripped one of the dead gangsters, pulling on the flapping trousers and ridiculously large shirt. The boots, at least, were a good fit and allowed him to walk. Taking a long overcoat, he filled the pockets with guns, knives and several magazines of ammunition.

  More noise rattled from the top of the stone steps, and Slick moved to the side of the doorway. Two men entered, heavyset and carrying Ruger P-85 pistols. They stared down, dumbly, at their fallen comrades as Slick put two bullets in two skulls, stole their 9mm ammunition, and took the stairs three at a time to pause in a crouch at the top, breathing cold night air and gazing up at distant stars. Several starships, Titan Class III freighters, sat in orbit, grey and foreboding in their hugeness. Slick glanced down the street. Several cars with blackened windows stood nearby, engines idling, but Slick couldn’t make out if they had occupants. He glanced left and right. Where the hell am I? he thought—then smelt the sluggish, toxic waters of the heavily polluted Kruger River. West Dregside—deep down beyond and below the money.

  Slick eased himself along a wall, then darted right down a narrow tunnel between the concrete and alloy slab bases of titanic skyscrapers which towered, gleaming and alloy and bright with wealth and honour and love and menace.

  The Dregs—scattered across The City in patches and tunnels and spidering labyrinths, like a gnawing cancer, hiding, mostly, beneath the ground and the wealth. They were the scattered No-Go areas of the poor, the diseased, the low-lifes and the No-Creds. Above, the world was under ICE—but there were no such extravagant luxuries down here.

  Slick moved carefully for a while and paused, turning. He’d heard something.

  The street was deserted.

  He turned back—into the butt of a D5 shotgun. Slick went down. He went down hard. Franco stared without emotion at the bloodied, battered features, then lowered his weapon and gestured to Keg and Tag, who lifted Slick and dumped him in the boot of the Mercedes groundcar.

  “Well?” said Franco.

  “Well what?”

  “Check him for weapons, dickhead.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” They stripped Slick of guns and knives and bullets. Then Tag held up Slick’s limp hand. “Hey, Franco, what do you make of this?”

  Franco stared at the tiny, serrated knife protruding from Slick’s thumbnail.

  Franco shrugged. “No idea. Get in the car.”

  They slammed shut the boot. And with a scream of exhaust headed into darkness.

  ~ * ~

  The Jumper Dockside was pretty much deserted on the outskirts of a contaminated TOXIC AREA; a disused, abandoned, derelict relic of fifteen, maybe twenty years ago when Jumpers would shuttle cargo to and from huge Class I freighters in orbit around The City, leapfrogging into the sky like giant metal insects. Now the transport was redundant thanks to SPIRAL PORT technology, and the land had not yet been reclaimed for building due to heavy localised radiation. It made a brilliant dumping ground for bodies.

  Franco sat on the end of a steel pier, legs dangling over the edge, staring out across the Blood River. The waters ran thick, red, heavy with natural mineral deposits from deep beneath the rock—minerals which also ate flesh and bone to nothing within an hour. A natural, toxic solution for the murdered. A final baptism for the damned.

  In the distance, The City’s dawn haze filled the horizon and the world with a muggy smog. Background noise, a constant buzzing and hissing, a low-level cacophony of trillions at work and play, imbued the distant ambient air with background level annoyance.

  Franco cradled the D5 and spat into the river.

  Dumb bastards, he thought, eyes narrowing as he remembered the short journey. Tag and Keg—ever the wannabe gangstas—poking him and cajoling him. Tell us another story! Tell us what it’s like to go to war! Tell us what it’s like to shoot a SIM in the face! Franco shook his head, wondering if he’d lost his raw edge, his killer instinct. Maybe he’d just got old, lost his fire, lost his need to fight and hurt and kill. The very qualities which had earned him a place in Combat K. Or maybe it was Mel; the new love of a good woman? A gradual, dawning feeling that one day, and one day soon, he would like to settle down. Yeah, get married, but there was more. Children. Harmony. Equilibrium. OK, Franco knew that to many, marriage and kids were outdated concepts, scoffed at by a street-savvy society. Kids? Ha! More trouble than they’re worth. Instead, why not buy a poodle and save your money for interstellar exploration and adrenaline adventures on Ket?

  But Franco? He shivered. He longed for simplicity. He longed for calm. And peace. An end to violence. An end to madness. “Shit.” Franco wondered if he was going soft. Developing a cheese brain.

  “Kick him. Not like that, like this.” Tag kicked the unconscious body on the ground, and Keg cackled like a kid with a new toy. Slick’s unconscious form jiggled under the heavy pounding from the two men’s boots.

  “Enough!” roared Franco, heaving himself to his feet and standing, back to the Blood River, dawn sunlight glimmering behind him and placing him neatly in silhouette.

  Tag and Keg stopped, staring at Franco with open mouths.

  “What’s the problem?” scowled Tag suddenly. “It’s only a bit of fun. Right? We’re going to kill him anyway.”

  “Yeah,” snorted Keg. “Bastard’s going in the river. He’ll be mush in an hour.”

  Tag gestured with his D5. “There’s something wrong with you, old timer. You’re not with the programme anymore, are you? Go on, admit it! You’ve lost your fucking bottle!”

  Franco sighed. Then smiled wearily, nodding. Both Tag and Keg were squinting, the rising sun dazzling their eyes.

  “Our instruction is to kill the man. Not torture him.”

  “And what’s wrong with a bit of torture?” snarled Tag. “We should be allowed a bit of fun! It’s playtime!”

  Franco shook his head. “No. No. No. You’ve got it all wrong, lads. You see, I believe in this old concept—it’s called honour. You don’t kick a man when he’s down. You always promote a fair fight. Mate, I just hate gangs, ten on one, unfair odds, it makes me fucking sick. And... you defend the weak against the strong, good against evil. It’s a simple concept— some might say old-fashioned, an outmoded idea, but it’s something I believe in.” He took a deep breath. His voice was low, a tame growl. “I believe in basic honour, I believe it’s inbuilt. Part of your genetics, you might say. However...”

  The shotgun lifted and twin snarls screamed across the steel jetty. Tag was picked up and hurled backwards with incredible force. He slammed the dockside wall, leaving a huge red smear on alloy bricks, and with eyes filled with questions and tears as he scrabbled at his own destroyed chest he slid to the ground and was, eventually, finally, still.

  “... if you have bad blood, you have bad blood. And there’s no educating some people.”

  Keg rounded on Franco. He was shaking—with fear, and rage. A bomb awaiting detonation.

  “What you doing?” he screamed.

  Calm, Franco moved forward and stared down at Slick. “He deserves better than this.”

  “He’s a scumbag!” bellowed Keg, and Franco watched as the man’s edge of fear was replaced by anger; like a vessel filling to the brim. “He’s a dreg. A lowlife zero-cred nobody. And I’m going to kill him...”<
br />
  Keg lurched forward.

  Franco’s shotgun lifted, and Keg stopped.

  “I think you were right.” Franco’s voice was soft. Low. Dangerous. “For a while there, I did lose my balls. Went soft. Lost some of my fire. But not in the way you understand it. To you, ten blokes kicking shit out of an unconscious man is... heroic. To me, that’s just feeble. Weak, you understand? The mark of the true coward. Gangs.” He laughed. “I spit on them.”

  Keg lifted his own shotgun. Ten metres separated the two men. Franco’s eyes gleamed.

  “I’m going to murder you,” breathed Keg, lifting his own D5 with threatening menace.

  “You ever been under fire, son?” Franco smiled.

  Keg pulled twin triggers, and the shotgun snarled, shells pounding the air and whistling over Franco’s shoulder. Franco did not flinch. Did not blink.

  Franco’s shotgun boomed, and Keg’s head was taken clean off leaving a headless corpse standing, fingers twitching as blood fountained and pitter-pattered onto the steel jetty. First, Keg’s gun clattered to the ground. Then his legs folded at the knees, and he hit the docks with a damp slap.

  “I have,” muttered Franco, “and it ain’t a nice feeling. But hey, you get used to it. Right?” He holstered his D5 on his back, bent, and lifted Slick in stocky, powerful arms. He carried the unconscious man to the back seat of the Merc and laid him out.

  Slick’s eyes opened in puffed slits. He forced a grin through his broken face. “Thanks, man,” he croaked.

  “Anytime,” nodded Franco.

  “Why did you do it? Why save me?”

  “The Nail_blade. You’re Combat K.”

  “Yeah. Slick Guinness.”

  “Franco Haggis.”

  “I’ve heard of you. You’re...” he coughed, and struggled into a seated position. “You’re a legend.”

  “Am I?” Franco nodded. “Yeah. I suppose I am.”

  For the next few minutes Franco checked Slick over. He gave him some adrenalin and vitamin boosters, a drink, and a stab of painkillers from the Merc’s first-aid kit. Franco moved to Tag, dragged the man by his boots and tossed him into the Blood River. The body sank instantly. Franco dragged the headless corpse of Keg, tossing this in as well. He found Keg’s head, and with a mighty kick sent it sailing out over the blood-red waters.

  He returned to Slick carrying spare D5 shotguns and an ammunition pouch. Slick was standing beside the Mercedes groundcar now, breathing deeply, and rolling his neck. Franco tossed him a weapon; which Slick caught in lacerated hands.

  “Why did Voloshko want you dead?”

  “I shagged his wife.”

  “Ahh. But... he’s about a hundred, ain’t he?”

  “Maybe that’s why she needed my sport,” said Slick. “Listen. Franco. Really. Thanks. You don’t know me, and you’ve stuck your neck out. I just want to tell you... I’m a good guy. I just hope you don’t end up regretting the help you’ve kindly offered...”

  “Nah! It’ll be reet,” said Franco, beaming. He pulled out a small bottle, removed a white pill, and swallowed it with a wince. “You’re Combat K. That’s all I need to know. And as for those two dreg chickenheads... they had it coming, mate. Believe me.”

  Time to move on, thought Franco. Time to take Mel and start a new life. Away from this insanity. Away from this hell. He shook his head, and nodded to himself. Shit. I’m definitely going soft.

  Distantly, fireworks fired the sky. They sparkled, exploded in showers. And then—the darkness of the short city night was unzipped and showered by a billion explosions shooting to illuminate the horizon. Crackles, zips and pops echoed and reverberated. Smoke filled the sky in a 360-degree rotation. Franco spun around, eyes taking in the superb extravagance of opulent fiery celebration which seemed to cover the entire world.

  “And so The Quantum Carnival begins,” said Slick. “Man, I’m just glad I’m alive to see it.”

  Franco nodded. It was like... a sign! A sign that his life had changed, been ripped apart like the night sky before him! And yes, he had changed. He no longer wanted to live on The City. No longer wanted to work with violence. And Syndicates. And guns. He twitched. He felt an unerring desire to start gardening.

  Inside the Merc, the kube buzzed.

  Franco and Slick looked at each other.

  It buzzed again; louder, more urgent.

  “You going to answer that?” said Slick, voice low.

  Franco lifted the kube. “Hello?”

  “Franco. This is Mr Voloshko. I don’t quite know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. Because this was your first kill mission, we were monitoring the event—you know, for future training exercises, your own health and safety, etcetera. However, it would appear that you’ve killed your two work colleagues and teamed up with the man I want dead. Would you say this is a fair appraisal of the situation?”

  “Ahh.” Franco frowned. His eyebrows wiggled a little. “Yeah. I suppose that sums it up nice.”

  “You have one last chance to redeem yourself, Francis. Kill Mr Guinness. Now.”

  Franco considered this. “Fuck you?” he suggested.

  “As you will.” Voloshko’s voice was crushed ice. The kube went dead.

  “What now?” said Slick; he looked quickly around, eyes reflecting the coloured crackle of fireworks.

  “Ahh relax,” said Franco, waving his hand. “Voloshko’s just some tired old ponce who can’t please his wife. All we need to do is...”

  An engine roared, loud even above the sounds of a billion firecrackers eating the sky, and over the nearby dockside buildings rose an Apache F52 Gunship, gleaming in its urban camouflage cloak, rotors whining and twin minigun eyes spinning with the distinct clicking sounds of a building fury.

  Then, there came a different roar, and a missile detached and Franco and Slick sprinted with arms piston-pumping, to dive, landing and sliding on their bellies in the dirt as the missile slammed over them, connected with the Merc groundcar and pounded it upwards into oblivion. A fireball exploded with a cackle, and purple smoke rolled into the sky blocking out the carnival fireworks.

  Slick glanced at Franco. “You were saying?”

  “Run for it?” suggested Franco.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They sprinted through the smoke, Franco’s sandals crunching Merc debris as miniguns roared and bullets chased them spitting puffs of concretealloy at their heels. The two men slammed between towering warehouses lining the old Jumper Wharf.

  Behind, the Apache bellowed like a caged beast.

  Its nose dipped...

  And slammed towards them, guns thundering.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER 3

  NANOTEK

  Knuckles, spaceship-thief, drugsmoke entrepreneur, wheeler and dealer and ducker and diver, stood on a Sub-C street corner, leaning nonchalantly against a concrete support stained with streamers of rancid tox. Before him, the traffic was a solid block of noise and mass and fumes. People writhed down the pavements like flesh noodles. Noise filled his head. Fumes and scents from a thousand stalls filled his nose. The mass of people, of traffic, of sheer exhilar8ting bustle filled his soul like a heady perfume and he smiled, narrow sharp eyes focusing on the slab of people in order to locate his next sting...

  There. Tourist. Blue hair. Mini-skirt. High glitter boots. Briefcase. What gave her away was the large map she carried, occasionally stopping and gawping aimlessly around as if the very sky itself would proffer directions.

  Knuckles pushed off from the wall and approached slowly, from behind; a predator. The briefcase was a slim white affair with anti-snatch cabling. As Knuckles approached, he directed the micro-laser and watched a tiny plume of smoke start to writhe from the cable; then, with perfect choreography, he leapt and caught the bag as the woman screeched in pain from sudden laser burn— and took off through the crowd, weaving and jigging, bouncing and dodging and followed by screams and wails and he knew he was good and gone, and escaped.

  “W
icked!”

  Five minutes later he’d rifled the contents. A thousand gem-dollars and five Good-Cred cards sat snug in his pants. Christiane Solomonsson, read the name on the cards. Knuckles shrugged, and discarded papers to litter the dark alley around his red gloss boots. And then, from the bottom of the case, in his groping hand he brought free a... a vial of biomods. He could see they had ZERO registration. They were unmarked. Untagged. Unconnected to GreenSource. The biomods could not be traced...

  Knuckles, spaceship-thief, drugsmoke entrepreneur, wheeler and dealer and ducker and diver, rough and tough, wiser than a prophet, harder than hardcore, bitter and decadent and cynical before his time, grinned with his ten-year old face. Gr8, he thought. Th1s could be th3 start of a n3w car33r! O:-)