by Andy Remic
There came a tremendous, deafening explosion as the tank fired twin shells in the direction of the trapped Spiral operatives ...
Sonia J walked with an easy, measured stride down the rain-swept street, wearing a long dark coat which glistened with the damp. She waited for a break in the stream of traffic and then crossed under the archway of the Nex Garrison post built to one side of the Sentinel Tower.
She stopped for a moment, huddling in a doorway, and lit a cigarette. Her long eyelashes blinked rapidly and she shivered.
God, I hate this place, she thought.
She watched warily four Nex across the street. They moved smoothly, athletically. Their copper-eyed gazes swept the street, the buildings, constantly searching for trouble. Their stares locked on her for a long moment... Sonia J felt her heart rise slowly to fill her throat. Then the cold insect-like glares passed away from her once they’d rated her as a simple zero threat.
She breathed again and waited, thinking that when the freezing ice-filled rain let up she would make a break for it and head for the HIVE Media Studio [London Division]. Then she’d burrow her way through the labyrinthine complex until she reached her own little niche of Quazatron Productions—which had exploded in recent months with three of the most popular shows to grace any TV network, ever ... thus propelling Sonia J into the dazzling spotlight of global celebrity.
Peering out, Sonia nixed any idea of running through the rain. The Nex and JT8 police squads were out in force, patrolling like the natural predators they were. Sonia, like most other citizens, had caught the news between sips of coffee and spoonfuls of SugarBran; the previous day’s bomb attack on the most advanced Nex Enhancement Programme centre, or Production Plant, which had cost $22.8 million (US) to build had been costly not only in terms of lost lives, Nex-conversions pulped and actual structural and financial damage. It had also carried a cost in terms of negative publicity. Something the HIVE Media Empire—supporters of the NEP cause—were keen to address by running Anti-Spiral, Anti-REB and Anti-GD-terrorist adverts in near-constant rotation on ChainTV, blending and merging images of death and war and torture.
The Nex were operating on hair triggers.
To run through the rain would be foolish.
‘Stuff it. A girl can only get so bloody wet.’ Sonia finished her cigarette, dropped the still-smoking butt and stepped out into the downpour. She walked, her boots clacking against the pavements. She kept a lookout for any Nex. Not only did they give her the creeps, making her shiver and occasionally filling her nightmares with their masked faces and copper eyes. There was also something she could not quite place. Something inherently ... evil, whispered the voice in her mind.
Sonia J walked, head down. She reached the first set of gates in front of the huge HIVE Media Building, a tower block almost as large as the Sentinel HQ but built post-strike and sporting impressive defensive features.
Sonia flashed her pass and was laser-read by HIVE security technology. Just as she was about to step forward, she heard a commotion through the rain behind her. She didn’t want to turn but felt she had to.
In the distance she could distinguish a small group of women, perhaps twenty of them, bearing banners. They were moving down the road, arms linked, with a few children at their feet scampering along through the rubble. To one side, on the pavement, stood four Nex, guns half raised, their stares scanning not just the group but the surroundings.
Sonia’s lips pressed together in a tight line. There was something wrong with the Nex movements, something out of synch.
Her sharp eyes read the slogans on the banners and placards; they concerned the imprisonment of the women’s husbands, without trial, for alleged crimes against the State. This small group had appeared out of nowhere and was heading slowly towards HIVE Media . . . and the hope of a slice of instant global coverage.
Sonia stood, rooted to the spot. The Nex on the pavement were twitchy—and slowly one lifted a gloved hand to a hidden earpiece. Its copper-eyed gaze met Sonia J’s and she instantly froze—caught in the act of witness. She could not read the Nex’s expression behind the mask, but it held her gaze for a moment. Then it turned and said something to its three comrades. They levelled their Steyr TMPs at the crowd of women and children—and opened fire. The group of women was mown down, felled in an instant; they flung up their arms, tried to protect their children, but all in vain.
In an instant it was over. Sonia heard the distant sirens as a K-truck slid around a corner, its bulk hiding the carnage: the dead eyes of the women, and the children’s corpses, mouths open and tongues lolling.
Sonia finally managed to swallow, and then it was there—
A Nex.
It stood casually in front of her, its gun levelled at Sonia J’s face. Sonia found that she could hardly breathe.
The Steyr TMP’s muzzle was steaming softly as raindrops fizzed against the hot barrel. The Nex nodded towards her. ‘You are the lady, Sonia J, from HIVE Media?’
She stared down the dark eye of the Austrian submachine gun’s barrel, reliving the horror of the women and children flopping to the road. Shock pounded in her chest.
‘Yes,’ she managed to gasp.
‘Well, you live today.’ The Nex seemed to be smiling behind the mask.
‘I ... I won’t say anything.’ Sonia’s hand fell to the small 8mm pistol in her pocket. It pressed hard against her skin as if willing her to draw and fire; to use it the way it was meant to be used: to shoot the dirty murdering Nex bastard in the face . . .
The Nex nodded, receiving some instruction through its earpiece. ‘We know you will remain silent. Now. Go inside, little lady—go and record your TV programme and entertain the people.’ The soft asexual voice made Sonia shiver: she fancied that she could detect mockery in its tone. She turned her back on the Nex and felt the itching of fear across her unprotected spine.
Sonia walked stiffly towards the entrance of HIVE Media, almost unable to breathe and unable to think.
And fell through the digital doorway with tears flooding down her frozen cheeks.
Sonia reclined on the couch. She saw the cam lights winking from the crane as the cameras zoomed down across the buzzing audience and then zeroed in on her crotch ...
The scene cut to her face and she smiled sweetly. Cleverly placed lights reflected from an invisible paint on her teeth, giving the camera a rapid, fluttering sparkle.
‘Welcome back to Pussy Jive! And, as promised for your delectable delectation, here for the first time in front of a live TV audience is Vincent Alexandra, chief engineer and sponsor for the Nex Enhancement Programme. Working from a variety of NEP laboratories across the globe, including the renowned New York, Paris and Hong Kong outfits, Dr Alexandra is single-handedly responsible for the smoothing of the genetic Nex transformation process—and for providing the common, everyday man, woman and child the chance, the opportunity to elevate themselves above the ranks of common mortal man ... to, as the NEP so elegantly puts it, Evolve. Welcome, Dr Alexandra.’
As Sonia had been speaking, a small Nex dressed in an inoffensive black suit had walked primly across the stage and seated himself neatly on one of the settees.
‘Good day to you, Sonia. And thank you for inviting me on your show.’
‘My pleasure ... After all, it’s not every day we get somebody so powerful and important onto the settee to prove to our audience that they’re not a—mewling fucking Pussy!’
The audience gave a half-laugh, looking around at one another and the stage-herders uncertainly. A few chuckled, but many looked deeply confused. After all, this was Vincent Alexandra—he graced their TV sets all the time, civilised, well-mannered, the perfect propaganda representative, the perfect front man for the NEP. And now Sonia was antagonising him in a manner that had not been evident in rehearsals, and which had an undercurrent of... nastiness. Something had changed.
Sonia’s EARMIC buzzed. ‘What the hell are you doing? Just what the hell are you doing, you crazy bitch?’
Sonia J ignored the EARMIC. She gave Vincent Alexandra a thin smile, and his dark eyes focused on her. His lips moved—as if mouthing some silent dialogue. Then he smiled with apparently genuine humour.
‘I am sure your audience and the people at home will be the judge of that.’ Alexandra folded his hands in his lap and waited, his small dark eyes focused unblinkingly on Sonia J.
She licked her lips. Her EARMIC had gone strangely silent. ‘OK, then. As we all know, you head up the genetics division for the Nex Enhancement Programme.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dr Alexandra smoothly. He turned his head slightly, surveying the audience, that hint of a smile still on his lips.
Sonia J found herself scowling a little. There was something unnerving about Alexandro. Something inherently bad.
‘The Nex Enhancement Programme’—he gave a flourish with his neat little hands—‘is what we like to refer to as the ultimate in plastic surgery. Even before the War billions of people had gone under the surgeon’s knife—and why? Their aims were always obvious—they wanted self-improvement. They wanted to be rid of excess fat, they wanted breast or lip or penis enhancements. But it was all false. Surgeons used implants, non-organic and semi-toxic substances which—ultimately—could do as much harm as good. And often did.’
Sonia J nodded.
‘Just keep it cool,’ spat her EARMIC with a tone of poison she had never before heard. She was dicking with Alexandro; fucking with the Big Man. And her bosses knew it... and were far from impressed at her tactics.
Sonia’s lips compressed to a thin line. A picture flashed into her brain: murdered women and children lying in the street, their blood leaking in wide pools. And the Nex soldier, its copper eyes studying her. And the look in its eyes ... as if she was nothing.
‘Originally, the NEP was a military enhancement designed to create the ultimate soldier. Using modified genetics from a variety of sources, when the subject is blended they become stronger, more agile, incredibly athletic. They become highly resistant to disease, and biological and chemical weapons—and, yes, they become mostly immune even to that scourge of our modern world, the biological poison HATE. When you—’ Alexandra’s gaze suddenly switched not to the cameras, but to fix on the billions watching their TVs at home. ‘When you subscribe to the NEP then you also release yourself from the imprisonment of the cities. You are able to travel throughout the HATE-restricted zones ... and thus you earn back your well-deserved liberty.’
Alexandra paused ... and Sonia leapt in. ‘Is it not true that anybody signing on the dotted line for this admittedly sophisticated genetic treatment has to serve a period under contract within the Nex military?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. Any subject undergoing the massive benefits of NEP are signed up for a three-month trial period in the Nex battalion of their choice. This is for the subject’s protection as well as ours, because the contractual-obligation time is merely a period of monitoring and assessment, not warfare, as some negative-media journalists have suggested. It is where we check that the genetic spirals have complimented one another. But, after this simple and short trial period, the subject becomes a free citizen once more. There are no strings attached, Miss J.’
‘Do you not find that ninety-eight per cent of new Nex choose to stay within their battalion? Why is that, do you think, Dr Alexandra?’
Alexandro shrugged non-committally. ‘It offers a superb career structure, global travel, a brotherhood, you could say—a brotherhood of strength.’ He smiled again. Sonia felt herself shiver deep inside. ‘You become one of the Nex—one of the Enhanced, one of the Evolved. You have superior mental and neurological processes. You Elevate, Miss Sonia J. You Elevate above the norm.’
‘Don’t even think about it, Sonia,’ buzzed her EARMIC; it was the strained voice of Bobby Clough, HIVE Media’s chief executive. ‘I’m fucking warning you, your job is on the line here! Don’t go down that road! He’s too big to fuck with ...’
Sonia J smiled.
The studio flowed into a blurred swirling of bright lights and colours, of audience laughter and buzz, with the perfect, haunting face of Alexandro the focus of all attention. And the ghosts of the murdered howled softly in Sonia’s brain, accusing her, screaming at her. ‘How can you be part of this world? How can you protect this set-up? How can you subscribe to this global human assassination?’
‘I have a question, Dr Alexandra.’
‘Yes?’
‘Nooo!’ howled her EARMIC.
Sonia J’s stare fixed on Alexandro. For a moment—a moment only—she faltered. Then she ploughed on, teeth grinding and jaw tightening as the strength which had propelled her to the summit of TV current affairs and live media forced her onwards. ‘If,’ she began, ‘the Nex Enhancement Programme is such a benefit to society, to humanity as a whole—then how can you justify the scenes reported by REB and Spiral leaflets and a hundred underground newspapers? There are reports of the wholesale massacre of innocent men, women and children carried out by the Nex and their machine guns.’
Alexandro stared at her. The audience fell into a hushed silence. Then Alexandro smiled thinly. ‘I think you will find, Miss J, that these are merely unfounded rumours put about by those who would bring down the current World Government. It is the voice of jealousy. It is an accusation by the truly evil.’
‘Is it then true that you blend people with insects, Dr Alexandro? That is to say, to produce a Nex you take a person and a selection of insects and merge them together in a genetic slop: and the end product is a Nex soldier without emotions? Yes, you give—you give strength and agility and resistance to poisons ... but you also take. The process removes many of the emotions that we associate with a human—and thus the emotions that make a human human?
‘In very early trials there was a slight dipping of emotional awareness but current statistics show—’ began Alexandro.
‘What insects do you use?’ interrupted Sonia J. ‘Ants? Centipedes? Cockroaches?’ She stood then and glanced around at the hushed audience. She saw the lights on the cameras still winking. She was still on live TV. Still broadcasting. And she smiled—because she had them by the balls. To cut the live feed now would be to remove Dr Alexandro’s platform, leaving too many unanswered questions.
Alexandro remained seated, his dark eyes were glittering. He turned from the audience to face Sonia J. When he spoke, his voice was a soft lilting sound.
‘You are beginning to sound like one of the REBS, Miss Sonia J.’ He laughed unconvincingly. The audience mimicked his laughter without a prompt, glad of some release from tension. ‘However, I appreciate your position as the Queen of Media and how you must pose those unthinkable questions—vicious and nasty unfounded rumours though they are. You must address these issues and I must defend our position from those who would remove the joy of the Nex Process from the masses…’ Alexandra was smooth and sophisticated. ‘In answer to your questions, we use certain genetic spirals from a variety of insects, mammals and marine life. The aim is to strengthen a human’s own natural physiological resources. To accelerate an organism’s evolution. Current Nex production does nothing to reduce the emotional capacity of the subject. A human person is the same person when they leave, sporting nothing but enhancements—the process gives everything, and takes nothing away. And finally, this “wholesale massacre”—where is your proof? Yes, there have been battles, but there are always battles between governments and terrorists the world over. This is a violent and unstable world in which we live. The Nex units defend against the Violators of Peace, mainly that global thorn Spiral and its terrorist activities—and, of course, the REBS who sadly grow stronger by the day. But all free-speak media across the globe report these conflicts in full ... there is never wholesale slaughter of innocents. That is ... how do you say? An urban myth.’
The audience started to clap, and their applause rolled out to engulf the standing figure of Sonia J.
Sonia’s gaze flicked to the autocue. It was highlighted in red—whi
ch meant she was being ordered to speak the words.
‘Just do what you’re told,’ came the bitter voice in her EARMIC. The voice sounded bleak and unforgiving. Bobby Clough was far from happy.
The autocue began to flash, building in urgency as the cameras swept down from the false glittering sky on robotic hydraulics, hissing softly, and Sonia gazed around at the clapping audience. She wanted to say, ‘I saw it, I saw the murders this morning, the murders you will never show on TV because you fucking own the fucking media companies and you fucking own the people under your control—all of us, all of us ... all of us ...’ She could see the dead children in the road but she forced herself to smile and grit her teeth and lift her pretty glittering face to the cameras and say, in a proud strong voice, ‘Thank you for that most vigorous interview, Dr Alexandra—I think you will all agree, our resident guest for the show has undoubtedly proved that he is not a Pussy! Now, to the adverts, and stay timed for the stand-up comedy of Roger R Thorpe and his Musical Opus of the Tired and Lethargic.’
The cameras flickered from red to black; the music suddenly halted.
The live feed had been killed. They were off air.
Sonia J and Vincent Alexandra both stood now, facing one another. Alexandro stepped forward until he looked up into Sonia J’s face. As they shook hands, he said in a soft and very dangerous voice, ‘Thank you for your invigorating questions. Your views were very ... enlightening. We must certainly do a second show sometime in the near future.’
‘Of course,’ said Sonia woodenly.
And then Alexandro was gone, a slight hint of a metallic scent briefly caressing Sonia’s nostrils. Her gaze swept to the JT8s standing in small clusters at the foot of the steps leading to the audience seats. They were watching her, gas-mask eyes reflecting the studio lights—they looked suddenly and frighteningly like androids, automatons ... insects.