by Andy Remic
“Yeah, but they weren’t full of shit.”
“The only thing round here that’s full of shit,” said Keenan, “is you. Now move.”
Grumbling, Franco and the group followed Keenan into the narrow chute. The feeling was one of disorientation, as rings of what could only be described as muscle eased them one by one onto the pavement. Keenan was first free, and his Techrim covered arcs as Franco arrived, slumping onto the pavement in a heap, then wearily standing to cover Keenan with his Kekra, shuddering and shivering with massively repressed horror.
Olga, Knuckles and Xakus arrived, and Knuckles pushed forward to Keenan. His face was that of young boy again, obviously ready to see his friends—his gang. “Come on Keenan, let’s go!”
“Not so fast.”
“It’s quiet,” mumbled Franco.
“Too quiet,” agreed Keenan. “Franco, take point. Knuckles, stay with me. This place was crawling with deviants the last time we were here; I don’t see why it would be any different now.”
They moved to the building, which still had security shutters in place from Mel’s fortification. Franco gained entry using codes given him by Knuckles, and they stepped into the deserted skyscraper’s cool, glum interior.
“Let’s move,” said Keenan, and glancing back at Xakus he gave a short narrow smile. “I hope to God you can help Mel after all the garbage we’ve been through.”
“So do I,” said the large black man, voice soft. “Let me analyse her coding first. Then we’ll talk.”
They moved across the ground floor, past several zombies which Mel had slaughtered on her building flush. The lifts were still lit, and they climbed into a wide spacious interior. Franco hit R for ROOF. It triggered a distant memory; of being pursued through a mental institution during his breakout from Mount Pleasant. He grinned at the thought.
Music piped through tinny speakers as the lift hummed upwards. Ronan Keating’s truly ancient Life is a Roller coaster, the eternal re-re-re-rerecorded Quad-Gal hit, the one song in the entire Sinax Cluster which just never seemed to die, filled the ascending metal box with a surreal and ghostly presence.
Keenan tapped his foot in rhythm. Glanced at Olga, then Franco. He nudged Franco, and mouthed, We found love, So don’t hide it, Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it.
Franco nodded, grinning back with wide drug-plate eyes, and mouthed, Bugger off and suck dick you alcoholic arsehole. Then he gave Keenan the thumbs-up, hoisted his Kekras, and stepped forward as the lift reached the roof.
Immediately the doors opened they knew something was wrong. The fire was out. Not even glowing embers remained. The roof was deserted. Franco stepped forward, wary, guns tracking, humour wrenched from him like a tooth.
“Mel?” he called quietly. Then louder. “Melanie!”
No reply.
Knuckles burst out, past Franco, and stumbled through the dead fire. He stopped, whirled, eyes scanning—then let out a little cry. He sprinted towards a large air-con outlet, and Franco and Keenan ran after him, skidding to a stop as Knuckles fell to his knees beside the neatly piled corpses of the children.
“No!” screamed Knuckles, pounding the floor with fists as tear-filled eyes raked the rows of tiny, pale-white bodies, like ribs in a dead and rotten behemoth. Bullet wounds glistened in the night-gloom across every child’s torso. Eyes stared glassy at distant, cold, hydrogen-ringed stars.
“Franco, check the roof,” said Keenan, voice quiet, and dropped to one knee beside Knuckles, his Techrim by his cheek. “Knuckles... Knuckles, we have to get out of here, lad. Whatever did this...”
“We need to find them!” He turned his tear-streaked face to Keenan. “We need to find them, Mr Keenan. Find them—” he hardened, “and kill them.” Keenan nodded, and helped Knuckles to his feet.
“Come on.” He grasped the lad’s arm, lifted him up, eyes scanning the dead bodies of Skull, Sammy, Glass, Little Megan and the others. A huge weight fell from his soul, then, and a powerful feeling of meaninglessness encompassed him. Who shot these poor, orphaned children? What purpose did it serve? Keenan’s face hardened. It served no purpose. It was evil in its purest form.
Franco returned, panting. “Mel’s not here, Keenan. But I found this.” It was a small grey unit, not dissimilar to the PADs Combat K used. Keenan eyed it warily.
“Could be booby-trapped.”
“We’ll soon find out.”
Franco flipped free the lid and gazed at a black screen. A small red light blinked on off, on off, on off. The screen flickered, and a face materialised. It was lined with modest age, bore a neat black beard and unblinking brown eyes which seemed to smile with an internal humour.
“Voloshko,” hissed Franco, heart thumping wild in his breast.
“That is correct, Mr Franco Haggis, ex-Combat K soldier and recently vacated patient from The Mount Pleasant Hilltop Institution, the ‘nice and caring and friendly home for the mentally challenged’.” Voloshko sighed, as if all this really was a drag. “It would seem, Mr Haggis, that Fate has a sense of humour. You have hidden under my wings for quite some time, haven’t you boy? Taken my pay, used my facilities, enjoyed the honour of serving under my banner? Then, when all I want you to do is terminate a scumbag named Slick for violating my delicate and fragile wife, you decide upon a route of disobedience and slaughter my men.” He sighed again. His eyes were dark and hooded. He looked up, and a light source illuminated them; now, meaningful hatred replaced the gentle humour.
Franco stared with a grim, bitter look. “Get to the point, dickhead.”
Voloshko laughed, a tinkling of ice cubes in a champagne flute. “As I said, Fate has a sense of humour. Sometime, I pull jobs for NanoTek. They asked me to recover... something. I recovered her. And would you believe it, her name is Melanie and she’s your—” he laughed, “your fucking girlfriend.” He moved close to the screen, so his face filled it from digital edge to digital edge. “If you want her back, Franco, you better come and pay me a visit. Although the compensation I require for your behaviour is... unorthodox.”
“Where will I find you?”
“Why, at The Hammer Syndicate’s HQ. Come unarmed. Or I might just cut Melanie’s head off before you set foot across the threshold. Are we clear on that point?”
Franco nodded.
“One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I left you a present. Oh, I see you already found it.” He smiled a crooked smile, tutted, a click of tongue on teeth, and as the camera zoomed away he brushed a fleck of dust from his perfect pink crushed-coral jacket. “I do so despise children. So annoying, don’t you find?”
The screen died. Franco stared at it for a long time.
Keenan touched his arm. “We’ve got to go to NanoTek. All roads lead there. They will have answers to questions. Solutions to problems. NanoTek holds the key to the puzzle.”
“We’re going to get Mel.”
“Walk unarmed into a trap? Franco, use your brain, man. It would be suicide! Insanity! We need to get to NanoTek; Voloshko himself said he was pulling a job for NanoTek—they will have answers, Franco, trust me on this.”
Franco whirled, staring deep in Keenan’s eyes. “If it was Freya, or the girls, would you go and pay Voloshko a visit? Would you step unarmed into his fucking lair and face whatever bad shit he dared throw at you? Just for the smallest chance to rescue them?”
Keenan saw tears in Franco’s eyes, and he grasped both Franco’s shoulders in a powerful grip. “I hear what you’re saying, brother. I hear it good. But you are side-stepping logic. Voloshko wants you dead, merely for some petty personal revenge. There is no compensation. There is nothing you can do there. If you walk in unarmed... he’ll blow your damn head off.”
There came a whisper of sound from the bodies on the ground. Instantly, Franco pushed from Keenan and knelt, scanning, until his lightly moving hand came to rest on Little Megan’s inert form. Her eyes opened. She stared blind for a while, breathing shallow, ragged, then
her head turned and she smiled a watery smile.
“You came back,” she said, her voice an angel’s whisper.
“We came back, little one,” growled Franco, tears running freely down his cheeks and into his ginger beard. “After all, we couldn’t be leaving you alone now, could we?”
“Where is Melanie? I like Melanie. She sang for me, Franco. Did you hear her sing?”
“I heard her sing,” said Franco, voice crackling with emotion.
“Are you there, Knuckles?”
“I’m here, Megan, you little tinker.” Knuckles eyed the purple hole in Megan’s chest, and turned to Keenan. Keenan gave a sharp shake of his head in the negative.
“I missed you, Nuck. I missed the stories you used to tell. Will you tell me one now?”
“Of course I will, Megs.” He coughed, but Little Megan had closed her eyes again. Her body gave a shudder, and she was still. Franco checked for a pulse, then hung his head, crying.
Suddenly, he surged to his feet. Rubbed savagely at spent tears. His head turned with a crack and he stared hard at Keenan. “I’m going after Voloshko. I... understand it if you head out for NanoTek. You are right. It’s the logical place to go. I will meet you there... later.”
Keenan shook his head. Coughed. “No. We’ll visit Voloshko together. The bastard has it coming.” His voice was gentle. Smooth. An exhalation.
Franco cocked his Kekra. Patted Knuckles on the head. Scowled off over the millions of skyscraper roofs and points that formed the jagged, ragged skyline of the living hell known as The City.
“Let’s kill us some urban terrorists,” he said.
~ * ~
It began to snow, a thick, oily, grey snow which settled massively from iron-black clouds. Mr Ranger glanced up, face scrunching into a visage of absolute displeasure. “What’s going on with this shit-hole’s damn weather?” he muttered, then glanced down at the master controller in his gloved hand. A green glow bathed his palm, and he sat on the tailgate of the groundvan, fighting the urge to light another cigar. He was smoking so much his chest felt full of barbed wire.
Where were they?
His machines, his AI killers, his... girls.
He smiled at that, but the smile fell from his face like a tumbling mask. The GKs had lost (severed?) contact some three hours previously; presumably, they had entered some signal leak-free environment on their hunt for Combat K members Franco and Keenan... and the mutant, Mel. Still, the comms silence made Ranger twitchy.
Moans echoed down the street, and he glanced behind, into the van, which was loaded with all manner of shotguns—the D5, and the new D6 variant—sub-machine guns, pistols, grenades and even a couple of spare yukana swords.
“Come on.”
And on they came, drifting towards him like elegant ghosts through falling oil snow. Lamia and Momos moved smoothly, but Nyx limped, her hips crushed, her gait that of a deformed human. Ranger whistled between his teeth, jumping from the van and rushing forward.
“What happened?”
The three GKs stopped, looked at him with matt black eyes, then looked past him to something behind. Ranger felt the birth of a shiver, and spun...
She was tall, with a voluptuous athletic physique. Her hair was dark brown, bobbed, hugging her face in the damp, snowy atmosphere. Her face was strikingly beautiful, her eyes a cold grey and locked on Ranger. Her hands were bare, arms folded across her chest as she leant against the side of Ranger’s van.
“Do I know you?” he said.
“No. But I know you. I recommended your services to Dr Oz.”
Ranger nodded, taking in her modest, integrated WarSuit—a new design he’d never before seen; and searching her for weapons. All he could see was a single yukana sword sheathed on her back. It was silver.
Ranger’s eyes moved to the van, and his own stash of weapons. Dangerously out of reach. He smiled an easy smile. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t mind if you burst into flame.”
“Is there a problem?”
“You have failed.”
Ranger sucked on the cigar, shaking his head. “The GKs failed.”
“You programmed the HuntScript.”
“Still... I need to read their reports, to identify which environmental factors caused failure. Only then—”
“That’s enough.” Her voice was low, eyes fixed on him. “Nyx? Momos? Lamia?”
She glanced towards the three AIs. Ranger felt his heart leap, and he readied himself for action. What this stupid petty bureaucratic little Chief of NanoTek Security failed to understand was that Ranger had put an apotheosis clause into the script; he had given the machines belief. They thought he was their Lord. Their God. They would obey only him.
The woman met his gaze. She smiled. It was neat, and pretty.
“Kill him,” she said, and Ranger turned, the controller still hot in his hand as the three GKs leapt at him, weapons out, blades singing shrilly as disbelief clouded his eyes and he felt the hot bite of metal through his flesh, peeling through skin, cutting muscle, crashing through his bones like a train-wreck and a scream welled in his throat as the AIs cut through him like butter, Lamia’s arm slamming through his chest, twisting, pulling free his lungs so that he stood, swaying, staring at the twin bags of bloodied flesh skewered like ripe fruit on her blade. Strings of flesh and vein and tendon connected him to his excised lungs as a pain unimaginable ate acid through him, filling his brain with bright lights and a gushing roar like the ocean. Impossible, his brain tried to scream, as he floated out on calm black waters towards a boat that waited patiently to carry him away...
Ranger’s corpse hit the ground with a thump.
The three AIs stepped back, Nyx twisting awkwardly.
The woman moved, boots squelching in Ranger’s blood. She looked down into dead blue eyes. His mouth was open in shock, tongue lolling uselessly. Blood speckled his lips and face like pepper.
The Chief of Security glanced up at the three machines, which stood, motionless, awaiting their next instruction. “Get in the van,” she said. “We need to repair Nyx’s fractured pelvis hydraulics.”
Lamia tilted her head. “What is your name?”
The woman smiled. “You have known me simply as 1. I am hardwired into your systems as The Primary. But I see you are learning quickly from your environment. If we’re to have any kind of feminine bonding, I suppose you can refer to me by my birth name.”
The GKs moved forward, feet clashing through Ranger’s corpse. They leapt into the van, whirled, looked down at the woman expectantly. She smiled, but her eyes remained cold; grey, and cold; like a pall of nuclear ash on an extinct world.
“You can call me Pippa,” she smiled.
~ * ~
PART III
SCOURGE
“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
Schopenhauer.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 11
HAMMER & ANVIL
The City played host to all manner of eccentric and esoteric architectural designs. Never had so many planetary engineers been let loose with such a wild and varied sandbox in which to pit their deviated experimental design-skills against one another in ever-escalating, extravagant and downright odd examples of building design.
The Hammer Syndicate’s HQ was a concept and reality from one such nightmare imagination. It had been designed, originally, by a non-human organism, the term alien somehow having fallen from grace when humans constituted perhaps only two-thirds of The City’s population. Coogan III was, in fact, half human, half Jandlin. Jandlin were highly intelligent sacks of protein with armoured scales and the ability to mould themselves into the shapes of other creatures, albeit still retaining their semi-translucent flesh. Not so much chameleons as base-level shape-shifters, the Jandlin had failed miserably in their chosen profession—that of subterfuge and covert investigations—because any attempt by a Jandlin to imitate another life form became nothing more than an embarrassing example of diplomatic st
upidity. The Jandlin were far from bright, a situation not helped by having radial brains distributed around their inner skin sacks. Coogan III, by some miracle, was perhaps the only singular example of a child produced by Jandlin and human. After all, the Jandlin reproduced by sucking a mate inside themselves and constantly turning inside-out within one another until they imbibed, over a series of revolving generations, genetic information needed by the female to reproduce a moulded base-clone which could then be deviated by electro-stimulus into an altered genetic evolution. It wasn’t easy for a human sperm to find an egg to infuse when said egg didn’t, actually, exist.
The Hammer Syndicate HQ, viewed from the outside, was a three-hundred storey organic up-thrust, matt black, no windows, a wavering pinnacle of what on first glance appeared to be rock, but on closer inspection had its entirety of flesh held in a gently undulating, wavering, shuddering field. The walls moved as if summer waves rolled up and down their oceanic flesh contours. The summit was tapered, and usually ensconced in clouds. The HQ had no obvious doors or windows, and in the sunshine cast no shadow. However, in the current enforced darkness, it blended rather neatly with the night.