by Andy Remic
“The zombies! They’ve formed an army! They’re marching through the streets to NanoTek!”
“What do they want?”
“They’re coming home to sleep! They’re the new junks, Franco. NanoTek have created an army for Leviathan!”
As the two men flashed into the heavens above The City, both Keenan and Franco could see the tens of thousands of zombies filling and packing the streets, flooding like a necrotic tide over ravaged highways towards the Black Rose Citadel.
“How many?” shouted Franco.
“Half a million, I reckon,” yelled Keenan. “But there’ll be more to come. Many, many more.”
They ascended. And gazed down, dumb-struck with horror.
They had to stop the zombies.
They had to destroy the GreenSource Mainframe.
Franco, eyes narrowed, mouth a slit, bile in his brain, was suddenly nudged by instinct, and he glanced down.
Nyx was there!
He yelled, a sound of pure panic, and stamped down with his sandal, slapping against the AI’s head with a metallic thump. Again he kicked, and again, and Nyx stretched up with gleaming claws and grabbed his ankle.
“Help! It’s got me! Keenan, it’s got me!”
Keenan turned, hair streaming, rolled so that he was facing down towards Franco. The Makarov sang in steady hands still scarred by a webbing of subcutaneous pathways from his brush with toxic biowire... bullets thumped on trajectories of howling fire, slamming into Nyx’s face which stared up at him, eyes emotionless, jaws working soundlessly on black enamel hydraulics. Five bullets, ten, fifteen. One of Nyx’s eyes cracked, then fluttered away leaving a tiny wriggling stalk of alloy. Franco kicked out with his free sandal, slapping at Nyx’s head again. More bullets crashed down on the AI’s TitaniumVI skull, and suddenly it released Franco, falling back down the Line until it steadied itself and glanced up—ready to attack...
“Shoot it again!” shouted Franco. “Shit man! Go on! What are you waiting for?”
He met Keenan’s gaze.
Keenan smiled. It could have frozen nuclear fire. “Out of bullets,” he mouthed.
They both watched, powerless, as Nyx growled, seemed to shiver, then stretched herself out, elongating slim alloy limbs and surging to dive up the Line after them...
~ * ~
Mel climbed. The rocky wall was jagged, and she struggled with her long claws and her own physical bodyweight, but scrabbling and scraping, distended jaws chewing at air, working spasmodically like a dog with a bone, Mel climbed and climbed, ascending towards the green glow high above. Below, magma churned. During the climb the lava seemed to be growing in molten discontent. Mel shrugged. She didn’t understand such things. All she knew was that Franco, her beloved, was somewhere up there... and she couldn’t leave him to die.
Claws raking rock, Mel finally heaved her bulk over the edge of the precipice, and dripping blood from a hundred wounds torn in mottled torso and thick corded muscles, and with tiny head bobbing, black pebble-eyes narrowing, she turned to see—
Dr Oz.
The man responsible for the creation of the bio-mod “human upgrade”.
The man, then, responsible for her present condition.
As deviant...
Mel lowered her head. Saw Pippa, unconscious, beyond. She glanced left, tracking for Nyx, but couldn’t locate the escaped AI. Mel growled, a low, low rumbling which started in her bowels and travelled up through her belly, to finally emerge through cracked and distended jaws...
Mel leapt, snarling, and Oz whirled, the yukana hissing out, causing Mel to rear backwards. Oz slammed the blade down, but Mel moved far faster than he’d anticipated. She grabbed the black sword, and flung it off where it clattered against the far wall, and toppled down end over end into molten magma.
Distantly, the blade sizzled, and vanished.
Mel grinned at Oz. Then charged him. His fists came up, delivering a cracking right hook that shook Mel’s small head but she rolled with the blow, long neck crackling, claws lashing out and grabbing Oz and picking him up, hoisting him high above her head where she strained at him, bending him and he screamed as his spine cracked and snapped and then was almost instantly repaired by the nanobots. Holding his feet, Mel slammed Oz against the rocky ground and his head caved in, then melted back into shape and she lifted him once more, slamming him down, where again his head caved in. Brains splashed volcanic rock. Mel lifted him, and the wounds healed and Oz screamed, “No more! No more!” but Mel slammed him down a third time, and his head detached, rolling away and disappearing under the SLAM Cruiser. Mel tossed the limp body aside and moved to Pippa, stooping, staring down at the injured woman. Pippa lay in a wide pool of her own blood.
Behind Mel, there came a crack.
Mel stood, confused, and turned to see Oz on his feet, head swirling, engulfed by a black mist, flesh melting, skin and skull forming into a solid, perfect rendition of that which he’d just lost—
Oz smiled a dark smile. His eyes glittered. He rocked his head sideways, and there came the crack of realigning vertebrae. “I wish you people would stop doing that!”
He leapt, even as Mel leapt, and his boots slammed Mel’s head sending the mutated woman reeling back, claws scraping grooves in the rock. Blow after blow followed, rocking the large deviant and she bellowed, snarling, pus and saliva spraying out under the pounding onslaught of Oz’s fists and shoes. Suddenly, he dropped to the ground, hand groping and lifting the CNP 1mm dropped by Steinhauer.
“Bitch,” he snarled. “I should never have created you!” He fired, a screaming stream of needles hurtling into Mel’s body, ripping and tearing. Blood splashed the slippery rock. She charged Oz, screaming, and picked him up above her head, mighty muscles curling, to hurl him towards the Green-Source Mainframe... where he was half-absorbed, then violently ejected...
~ * ~
Pippa groaned, and pushed herself to her elbows. She coughed, and pain slammed her throat. She breathed oxygen, and it was the sweetest flavour she had ever enjoyed. No mind it was laced with the stench of blood, and pus, sulphur, and distant scorched rock. It was honey. It was nectar. Sweet and oh so necessary.
Pippa rolled to her feet, and clutched at her opened side. She swayed, almost collapsing, and focused on the battle a hundred metres away. Mel and Oz were rolling on the ground, pounding each other, and she watched for a while as one of Mel’s weighty claws punched clean through Oz’s head leaving a gaping ring of skull-bone, face and brain totally demolished, claws flexing at the back of his hollowed out skull. Mel pulled out her fist with a sickening squelch. Instantly, Oz’s features reformed and he was screaming...
Maybe the biomods had seemed like a good idea, she thought. At first. But here, and now, she read the agony on Oz’s face. She shuddered. His soul was tortured. His spirit was broken. Sometimes, she thought, it’s better just to die.
Pippa gathered herself, and jogged across rock towards the SLAM Cruiser. She glanced up, but could see no sign of Keenan, nor Franco. But she knew. When they came, they’d be moving fast... and Hell would be on their tail.
~ * ~
Keenan slammed to the top of the Line, and with a hiss it slid him neatly sideways and deposited him on a sterile tiled floor. His sweeping gaze read the chamber. The SPIRAL dock was large, circular, the hub a suite of desks and screens for checking in and out, but currently deserted of staff or customers, presumably due to The City’s state of emergency and martial law under QGM instruct. The ceiling was high, vaulted, and covered by a single flowing liquid plasma screen, currently set to a serene silver lake effect where gentle ripples curved out, flowing across the ceiling and promoting... calm. Rows of traditional seats were set in eco clusters, along with comfortbubbles and against one wall a high row of Swallow Couches. They filled the majority of space. Keenan’s head turned left as Franco stepped from the Line close by, and running to the wall Keenan delivered a powerful sidekick which shattered safety glass. He pulled free a hefty steel fire-axe,
tossed it to a dazed Franco.
“Deal with the AI. I’ll plant the explosives.”
Franco tossed back the axe, which Keenan grabbed from mid-air.
“Hey, why don’t you deal with the AI, after all, I’m the damn and bloody detonations expert! I’ll plant the explosives!”
Keenan hurled back the fire-axe, and snarled, “Because I know where the detonation points are, idiot, and I haven’t got time to fucking explain!” Keenan hoisted the pack of High-J, and sprinted away. Franco stared at the long gleaming axe in his hands, then turned as Nyx stepped from the Line... He swung the weapon with a mighty roar, and it bounced from Nyx’s head, slamming the AI back into the Line booth with a shower of sparks. Franco heard a growl. He gulped.
Nyx sprang from the booth, hammering into Franco and sending the man stumbling back, axe held up between them both, poisoned jaws snapping frantically at his face. Franco cracked a right-hook, shaking Nyx’s head, then another as he was forced back, stumbling over a seat and landing heavily on his back with Nyx atop him. Poisoned needles rippled across her torso, and man and machine wrestled for a few moments, face to jaws.
Franco watched glooping poison glimmer above him from rows of razor teeth. Then, as he stared, hypnotic, a snake before a charmer, a long umbilical detached, lazily, and started to fizzle the alloy floor by his ear.
Franco began to struggle like a maniac.
But Nyx was too strong...
~ * ~
Keenan halted, panting, and wiped sweat from his eyes. Four points of explosion would do it. He knew how SPIRAL docks were constructed. They were built using AGE anti-gravity engines placed equidistant around the dock’s perimeter in order to stop the structure’s sheer weight tearing itself from low orbit and crashing into the world below.
Keenan’s eyes scanned. There. He kicked through the unauthorised access door, ran down a short corridor, and stopped, glancing left, sweat whipping from his hair. He could hear a thrum. And smell the acid of an organic engine. He moved on, and the heat was incredible now, and still rising, as he came to a large room. At the centre, pulsing, was an AGE. It looked like a giant, red heart, a muscle, beating, the very pulse of the SPIRAL dock. Some spiritualists said an AGE was the detached heart from a long-extinct alien species. Keenan didn’t know. All he did understand was they were awesomely powerful, and nobody truly understood their origins, despite what academics might argue.
He ran down galvanised steps, boots echoing, and knelt. He planted a High-J charge. Set the control timer. Activated a quad-synchronicity circuit. Then switched it on.
The High-J beeped. A small blue light glowed.
Keenan turned, and sprinted for the exit...
~ * ~
“God, your breath stinks!” said Franco, snarling up at the AI’s face close above. It was beautiful, he realised, lovingly sculpted and yet—inherently evil. False life. False life created to remove real life, which was just plain wrong, if that made sense. It made sense in Franco’s head. But then, he was a madman.
“You are destined to die, Franco Haggis!” said Nyx, voice powerful, mature, more full-bodied woman than machine. Franco gawped, mouth open, as they struggled around the barrier of the fire-axe.
“You can speak?” he squawked.
“Fool. Of course I can speak.” Nyx released her grip on the axe, and punched down at Franco’s head. He twisted, her knuckles grazing his cheek, and her fist went straight through the tiles and embedded in the floor. The AI tugged at it, but her one remaining arm was locked in a mesh of under-floor piping.
Franco wriggled out from under the snarling, kicking machine. Nyx’s head slammed left, single black eye focusing on Franco as he hefted the axe and weighed it thoughtfully.
“Look, I’m sorry about this, love.”
He swung the axe with all his might, and the blade clanged from Nyx’s head, veering off and clattering against the floor with such shock that Franco dropped the haft. He picked it up again, blowing on his vibrating fingers.
“Hot damn! That hurt!”
“I will poison your soul,” hissed Nyx.
“Look, I’m not too happy about axing a lady in the head, if that’s any consolation.”
“I will curse you to eternity, human!”
Franco looked at the machine thoughtfully. “Aye,” he said. “But then, I’m the one with the axe.” He slammed the hefty blade at the machine again, and Nyx squirmed around the pivotal point of her trapped fist; sparks flew, and Franco leapt back from snapping jaws and clutching feet-fingers. Again he struck, and again, dancing around like a madman waving the axe, then blundering in and thumping the hard-forged axe-head against Nyx’s battered spine and abdomen and legs and distorted skull. TitaniumVI was tough. But it could only take so much. Franco noted it was starting to flake.
“I need something stronger!” he muttered. He ran off, clutching the axe like a prize, eyes scanning the SPIRAL dock for something he could use to kill Nyx. “Shit. SHIT! Bugger. BUGGER!” Completing a circuit of the lounge, he came to the reluctant conclusion he was going to have to bash on with the axe until he finally bludgeoned her to death. It, he corrected himself. He ran back to where Nyx was pinned, then stopped, mouth open, tongue lolling out.
Nyx had gone.
Are you sure this is where you left her? teased an internal dialogue.
Yeah! I mean, I think this is where she was.
Are you sure? Are you 100% sure? Crazy boy? Dog dick? Madman? After all, you had all those weird imaginings at The Mount Pleasant Hilltop Institution, the “nice and caring and friendly home for the mentally challenged”. Remember the pills? Remember the electrodes? Remember your testicles?
“Argh!” shouted Franco, as his eyes fell on the jagged hole in the floor. He ran forward, battered sandals flapping, and dropped to his knees beside the tangle of mashed alloy. It was this movement which saved his life.
Nyx’s needle-knuckles slashed the air millimetres from where his head had been, and Franco rolled fast, axe sweeping out and knocking Nyx’s legs from under her. The AI rolled, came up, leapt at Franco—
He lashed out, and the axe slammed Nyx’s head. She took the blow well, rolled and spun around, then grinned at him. Poison glinted on fangs.
“You’re already dead,” she said.
“What?” Franco slammed the axe, which whistled past Nyx’s face.
“I injected a fine toxic air-mist. Tricklium III. You breathed it in when we wrestled over the axe.”
“Bollocks!”
“Trust me.” Nyx’s metal face was almost serene. “You have approximately five minutes. It works more slowly in mist form. Injection is far—more— effective.”
She leapt, and Franco staggered back. The axe rapped against Nyx’s shoulder. Sparks leapt, sparkling in Franco’s panic-filled eyes.
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I? In a few moments you’ll feel the sickness. It will rage through you, and you’ll vomit your insides out through your skull hole. That alone will make you beg for death as your body tries everything it can to eject the poison. I am told it is excruciating. Then comes paralysis. And, if I choose not to kill you, but instead watch the drama unfold, you’ll twitch like a rabid epileptic until the poison crushes your insides for the final minute of your diseased and worthless life. You will suffer. It will be bad. Torturous, even. But then, why invent a poison which is fun?”
Franco, listening, had been continually backing away.
Now, he ground his teeth, turned, and ran...
Nyx’s laughter followed him as he reached the Line booth. He stopped. The AI wasn’t following. It had turned, and was trying to locate Keenan. And that could only mean...
Pain jabbed Franco in the belly, then washed out through him. He gagged, and, as Nyx had explained, sickness napalmed his system, smashed through him with the ferocity of a powerful narcotic. He fell to his knees, dropping the fire-axe from shaking, useless fingers. He vomited on the tiled floor.
Franco heave
d and heaved, pain wracking him, tears blinding him, and he realised his vulnerability and grabbed the fire-axe, covered in his own vomit, and lifted it shakily to his chest, casting about, searching for Nyx...
Something rattled across the floor. Franco tried to focus, then dropped suddenly and covered his head with sick-stained arms.
Nyx glanced down.
The BABE Grenade explosion picked the AI up and flung it like a rag-doll across the entire dock lounge. Nyx connected with a pillar mid-way, folding around it with crunches of compressing alloy, then veering off at an angle, legs flapping, to hit the far window with a thud. Nyx slid down the transparent wall in a crumpled heap of alloy.
Keenan ran to Franco, dropping to his knees and grasping his friend. “What’s wrong?”