by Andy Remic
But he needn’t have worried.
Things were about to get a whole lot worse.
~ * ~
Franco crept down the sixty-nine flights of stairs, Mel following behind on the TitaniumIII leash. Her claws raked grooves in the concrete, but Franco pretended not to notice.
“What we’ll do,” he said, “is find you a good doctor. He’ll be able to sort this out. No problem. I promise, sweetie.”
“Grwwll,” said Mel, and blinked back faecal-matter tears.
The descent seemed to take an eternity, and Franco reached the hall and peered around. It was curiously quiet. Where is everybody? How can they have simply... vanished? Am I in a dream? A nightmare? He glanced behind himself, stared at Mel, and suddenly wished he was.
He stepped onto the street. Skyscrapers soared above him. Cubescrapers hunkered and squatted further down the street, in a variety of architectural shapes and blobs. A wind blew cool air, disturbing several papers which gusted, soaring across the deserted metalled roadway and pavements, hissing along on a platter of disturbed dust.
Franco padded along the pavement. He stopped. Checked behind him. The D5 shotgun in his hands wavered. He shivered, as foreboding crawled up and down his spine.
“This just ain’t right.” His voice boomed, crashed, echoed loud and brash amongst the deserted towering blocks. He gazed up, looking for faces in the millions of windows all around.
He could see nobody.
“Focus. Doctor.”
He padded on, Mel behind him, her claws clacking the pavement like an obedient hound. Occasionally, Franco glanced back at his fiancee, all eight-feet of muscled rangy monstrosity. He shivered in apprehension. Gods, what would happen if he couldn’t get her changed back? Imagine the food bill.
The local doctor’s was only a couple of blocks away, and as Franco turned a corner he stopped. There was a corpse, in the road. It had no head. Franco glanced about, and felt the hairs on his arms and neck prickle. He pumped the D5 and moved to the centre of the road, approaching the headless corpse with apprehension. Blood streamers led off across the street, swimming with a few lumps of vegetable soup gristle.
Franco’s eyes narrowed. “Not good,” he muttered, spinning in a slow wide circle, D5 primed as he eyed the many, many narrow alleys, dark doorways, perfect places where an enemy could hide and ambush unwary Francos.
He stopped. Heard a slurp. He blinked. “No,” he said. Turning, he stared hard at where Mel had her disjointed muzzle buried in the corpse’s open neck cavity. “Urgh! Gerroff! You dirty bitch!” He whacked Mel across the head with the butt of his shotgun, and she pulled free her muzzle and stared up at him with wounded eyes. As if to say, What did you do that for?
Franco held up a finger, his eyes wide. “No! No eating corpses! Bad girl! Dirty girl.”
Mel whined, and a long brown tongue like a slug slurped blood and chunks from her tightly stretched mottled lips.
“Come on. Follow me.”
Again they moved, Franco on a hairline trigger, his tension building with each and every footstep. There! He thought he saw a shadow move in a doorway. And there! He was sure he saw the flash of a pale white face. Franco accelerated, little legs pumping, until he reached the block where his doctor’s surgery nestled. He stopped by the door, and glanced up and down the street. Distantly, he could see something and he squinted. It looked like... a pile of bodies? Franco shuddered. Prioritise, he thought. Sort Mel out. Get her back to normal. Then worry about the apparent disappearance of The City’s entire population.
He moved to the door, shaded his eyes and peered inside. There seemed to be signs of a struggle. A smear of blood led to the lift. Franco frowned, and behind him Mel rattled the chain which tugged against his hand—like a dog straining against its leash. “Down girl,” he said, without any hint of comedy.
He hit the kube’s buzzer. It buzzed.
After a long pause, so long Franco was about to turn and walk away, a wavering voice said, “Hel... hello?”
“Hi,” said Franco. “This is Franco Haggis. I’ve come to see Doctor Gentle. He’s my doctor, he is.”
There came a long, considered pause. Strange rustling and grunting noises came over the kube.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Franco Haggis.”
“Are you one of them?”
“One of who?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to see Doctor Gentle.”
“He’s dead.”
“What? How?”
“One of the things bit off his arm.”
“The things?”
The kube went dead. Franco buzzed it again.
“Yes?” snapped the voice.
“Can I see another doctor, then?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s my girlfriend. She’s...” Franco’s brain worked fast. “... ill,” he said. “Nasty virus. Laid her low. Made her... a bit odd.”
Above, ten storeys above, a window opened. A head peered out.
Franco stepped back, staring up at the face.
“Is that her? Hell, man, you weren’t bloody joking when you said she was a bit odd! She’s had a biomod, hasn’t she? Changed into one of the things.”
Franco shrugged. “What things? What’re you talking about?”
“What the hell have you been doing, you lunatic?” said the head from the window. “Everybody went crazy. People—those people still normal—are saying it’s because of the biomods. The nanobots have mutated people! Lots of people. Millions of people! It was on the news, until they took down Broadcast Central. Now all the TVs are dead.”
“Let me in,” said Franco.
“Oh no. You might be infected.”
“With what?”
“The biomods!” hissed the head. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I said?”
“Wait. Wait.” Franco held up his hand. “Look at my girl here. Mel, she’s called. She’s like a little lamb. A little puppy.” Mel growled. Franco kicked her. “She wouldn’t do no harm to nobody. All I want is to be let in, we’ll get a doctor to see her, sort her out, get her back to normal, job’s a good ‘un.” Franco beamed. It seemed quite logical to him.
“There are no doctors left,” said the disembodied head. “They were all vain! They all took biomods! So they all... changed.”
Franco put his hands on his hips. “Now listen here,” he said. “This just sounds like a load of horseradish bullshit to me. Are you sure you’re not drugged up from the partying? This hot damn bloody bollocks of a situation is all bloody ridiculous, so it is.”
“Shit, they’re coming back!”
Another head appeared. A woman. She looked worn out, bedraggled, even from ten storeys below. “Oh no!” she groaned, her voice low and bubbling with terror. “That’s where they’ve been!”
“Where?” said the first head.
“For weapons!” hissed the woman.
Distantly, they heard the rattle of a machine gun. And an explosion, which boomed, a muffled detonation. Franco’s ears pricked up. That was a G7 Frag Grenade. Military. His head tilted to one side. He frowned. A G7 shouldn’t be used in urban developments.
“You’d better go!” snapped the woman, looking down at Franco with haunted eyes. “They’ll rip you apart, eat your liver, tear out your spine! We’ve seen them. We’ve watched them!”
“Why don’t you just let me in?” said Franco, persistent as a terrier, through gritted teeth.
The window slammed shut, and Franco heard the click of a high-tensile lock. He buzzed the buzzer, again, then rattled the doors. Taking a step back, he levelled the D5 and a boom rocked the street. The lock held. “Damn and buggery.” He turned to Mel, but Mel’s long neck was stretched out, her small round head focused on something further down the street. Her distended jaw worked noiselessly. Saliva pooled in long streamers, like thick tobacco drool, to connect her with greasy umbilicals to the road.
“What is it, love?”<
br />
“Grwlll.”
And they came, stampeding down the road, hundreds, thousands of distorted, grotesque, twisted, transmogrified figures, monsters, beasts, abominations, flesh hanging from faces, eyes dead in disjointed skulls, many with missing limbs or bearing huge jagged wounds; they grunted and moaned and screamed and chomped, teeth gnashing; they stomped in a dark grey pus-oozing swarm, a tidal wave of rotting flesh preceded by a stench...
“They’re...”
Franco paled.
“They’re...!”
Franco’s eyes went saucer-wide.
“They’re...!!”
He turned, and with Mel on the leash, sprinted for his life, arms pumping as the fast-moving surge of deformed, twisted, ragged creatures swept after him, the stench of putrefaction and decay washing over Franco and making him gag, vomit splashing down his shirt even as he ran with all his might, Mel galloping alongside him on her chain, her head down, talons crashing the road...
Groans filled the air, a terrible moaning, wailing sound of agony and despair.
“They’re zombies!” screamed Franco in terror. “Bloody zombies!”
He turned, stumbling for a moment, and they were almost on him. Hands clawed at him, raking his flesh and trying to find a grip, trying to put out his eyes and pull him down to the ground. And they moved... fast. Dangerously fast.
Franco slammed a right hook. Kicked a zombie in the crotch. Punched another, cracking its six-inch long grey-pus nose. The D5 boomed. A zombie’s head was blasted clean from his tattered ragged disjointed body, but still he came at Franco who was stumbling backwards, Mel at his heels, the swarm before him, ululating. Franco’s D5 boomed again, and the monster’s legs were blown off at the knees. And still the headless, legless torso crawled after him leaving a slick trail of gore.
Franco stared into a sea of snarling gibbering hanging grey faces, many without ears or eyes, or teeth or hands, some with puke-green flesh, some the brown and black of necrotic leprosy. And he realised, in the blink of an eye, that this diseased and decadent mob carried...
Guns.
They sported shotguns, rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols, and Franco saw the gleam of a grenade. Weapons bristled amongst the decaying, flesh-eating ranks.
“Holy mother of God,” whispered Franco.
He turned, and sprinted for his life...
As machine gun bullets slapped his heels.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 4
A KNIGHT AT THE OPERA
The sound of a 1250cc LC12 titanium lekradite single-cylinder engine cut through the Galhari morning, a high-pitched screech to the backing track of heavy industrial military might. Choppers swam through the distant sky. Infantry K Freighters hung on the horizon.
Keenan slammed the quiet roads on the outskirts of the city, Dekkan Tell. Dekkan Tell was a low-slung scatter of white stone buildings sporting terracotta tiled roofs, orange doors and shutters, and connected by wide paved highways and a proliferation of the bright orange Dekka flower which gave the locality its name. Whilst classified a city, it had a modest population which coincided with the solitude of Galhari as a planet on the fringes of the Quad-Gal in general, and made an ideal place for those wishing for a quiet existence. Until now, it would seem.
Head thumping, mind weary, and leaving a trail of dust in his wake, Keenan smashed down twisting roads in a controlled panic. He had to get a message to the Quad-Gal Military. If the junks were invading Galhari, Keenan was sure the quiet, peaceful, and easily outnumbered authorities would already have fallen. Keenan, however, being Combat K, had military-grade kit. He could kube for help on military channels...
He pulled from the main highway and roared down a dusty single-track road. Stopping beside his white-walled wooden house, he kicked the bike onto its stand and pulled free his lid. Beneath, his hair was sweat-streaked and he ran a hand through the tangle, then glanced off towards the sea. It glittered turquoise, and he could see boats with brightly coloured sails, bobbing. They seemed crazily at odds with the warfleet hanging ominously from the sky.
Grimly, Keenan ran up the path and steps, boots pounding. As he approached the door he palmed his Techrim 11mm and entered, dumping his lid and jacket on a low-slung leather couch. Keenan searched through his home methodically, Techrim by his cheek, a casual comrade in violence, and only when he’d cleared the final room did his powerful frame relax a little and he placed the Techrim back in its holster.
He moved to his study, with its low TitaniumIV furniture and business-like air. Opening a high cupboard, he dragged free a matt black box which looked distinctly battered, and of very little value. Keenan activated the power cells, and sent a PB—a Panic Burst—to the nearest Quad-Gal Military Sentry Ship.
A red light illuminated. Keenan cursed.
The signal had been blocked.
“Son of a bitch.”
What next? Keenan had to get off the planet. If, as he suspected, the junks in massive numbers had performed a surprise invasion, it could be weeks before QGM might be alerted.
What do they want on Galhari?
Why invade this peaceful, modest, and modestly armed planet?
Keenan grabbed a pack and stuffed it with a few essential items, growling all the time that Cam, his little Security PopBot, had chosen a fine time to abscond for system upgrades.
Moving to the kitchen, Keenan paused, rubbing at his damaged flank. The bleeding had stopped now thanks to the application of WORM-strips, but the pain still nagged him. Against his better judgement, he grabbed a bottle of Jataxa and a glass, poured himself a generous measure, then stared at the amber liquid, shaking in his hand.
No.
He placed the glass down with a clack...
As the cold barrel of a gun nudged the back of his head.
“Where is it?”
The voice had the same kind of high-pitched buzzing the junk made back in the quarry. Keenan cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid? He dropped his pack to the floor.
“Where’s what?”
“Don’t be smart. The black disk.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Turn around.”
The gun pulled back, and Keenan turned. Five junks stood in his home, their bodies encased in black armour, their faces warped and distorted, old, pitted metal, disease personified. Keenan could almost imagine fumes rising from them. Their eyes were narrow, red, blood-filled emotionless discs. They all carried guns. Keenan felt his Techrim dig against his hip. He allowed breath to leave his body like a soft-knifed tyre.
“We witnessed the mess you made of our scouts.” The junk tilted its head. To Keenan, it sounded as if the creature struggled to form human speech. “You burned us. You took the SinScript. The SinScript looks like a coin. A disk. But then, you already know this.” Its eyes narrowed. “You know what we are... and so you know I want it back. Need it back. Or you’ll suffer, scourge, like no other human ever suffered.”
“OK. OK.” Keenan held up his hands. “Listen mate,” he laughed weakly, “it’s not in the house.” He slammed forward, smashing his left forearm against the gun which discharged, bullet whining into the ceiling. Keenan cannoned into the alien, head crashing against the pitted metal face, right hand drawing his Techrim and shooting another junk in the throat. The junk staggered back, blood flowing between scabbed fingers. The others lifted weapons... but to shoot Keenan was to shoot their commander.
Again Keenan smashed his head into the metal face, wrapped his arm under the junk’s, locking it in place, and put his Techrim against the creature’s skull.
“Tell them to lose the guns, fucker.”
The junk shook against him, and Keenan realised it was laughing. He stared into those red eyes, only inches from his own. The stench of the junk was awesome.
Slowly, where his arm locked the alien in an iron grip he felt its flesh slowly melt away and turn and lock into a different limb, forcing his own arm painfully away from its body
and almost snapping his bones. Snarling in surprise, Keenan fired his Techrim, kicking himself back away from the creature as blood sprayed from an 11mm gunshot wound and the junk whirled, blood splashing in a horizontal spray, eyes glowing in fury as it leapt at Keenan, bearing him violently to the ground. Both arms slammed Keenan’s head with a boom and the junk took his Techrim neatly, tossing it, clattering, to one side.
Keenan groaned, blinded by the blow. Old alcohol tasted bad in his mouth. And he realised, with a bitter, nasty kick, that he was a shadow of his former self. A replicant. A dark and spineless ghost.