The Medida War

by Pat Mills

  Behind his dust veil, Rosesand made calculating plans. He focused telepathically on the boy, and established a mind-link with him. It would be necessary when the time came.

  "No conscience to bother you," hissed Deadlock, his glacial voice barely a whisper as he suddenly re-entered the farmhouse, followed by Mek-Quake and Mongrol.

  The wizard held a large burnt-out metal cylinder that smouldered in his hand.

  He threw it down at the feet of Seraph Rosesand.

  "What is the meaning of-?" Rosesand began, but he was cut off by Deadlock, who raised his hand abruptly and pointed accusingly at the hooded man.

  "That is my question, liar!" snarled Deadlock.

  FIVE

  Hammerstein had often marvelled at his own programming and the programming of the other ABCs. The fact was, the Warriors knew exactly what the smoking object was the instant Deadlock had thrown it down.

  They knew because their cognitive abilities were enhanced beyond that of any human, and this was as a result of the design of their neural net. Their neural pathways were capable of reading and analysing any object instantly from normal vision, X-ray and telescopic, infra-red, night vision and holographic cross-sectioning. These features of their visual sensor arrays were vital for robots of their kind. Especially in warfare.

  So Hammerstein knew just how lethal and treacherous the device was, as did the other ABC Warriors. Even if Mongrol and Mek-Quake couldn't have given you a detailed science report.

  "A special payload for Medusa, eh, Rosesand?" Deadlock's sibilant tones were now mocking and mirthless. "Your vile plan nearly worked," he continued coldly. "You sent this carcinogenic torpedo, laced with a cocktail of the deadliest chemicals known to mankind, down that well knowing it would pour into her water table and cause her great suffering.

  "You knew she would react by attacking those she thought were responsible. These poor indentured farmers. She began by killing off the females so the humans who were tormenting her could no longer reproduce. When the poison continued to course through her underground veins, she took further desperate measures by starting to eliminate them entirely.

  "I imagine you released the final dose of the poison into her body to coincide with our arrival. You then sought to engage our sympathy and elicit our support by blaming the resulting slaughter entirely on Medusa."

  "Oh, superb, superb," exclaimed Blackblood, almost shuddering with pleasure. "You tried to hoodwink us. Oh, what a true child of Judas you are."

  "Shut up, Blackblood," barked Morrigun. "You're despicable!"

  "What's going on? Why is everyone shouting?" said Rusty as he sleepily entered the room, drawn there by Seraph's mind-link. The ragged cloaked figure became a black smear as he shot forward with inhuman speed and seized hold of the boy.

  Deadlock drew his Ace of Swords. "Our enemy has been in our midst the whole time," he intoned gravely. "Capture him alive if you can. He has much to tell us."

  The Warriors surged towards Rosesand. But Hoodwink had the frightened redhead by the throat in a choking hand lock. "Back away! Back away or I'll break his neck!" he warned them.

  He tightened his grip on the boy.

  The Warriors retreated slowly.

  "You should never have come back to Mars. We don't want you. We don't need you here," the old man spat vindictively.

  Seraph moved towards the door. "Back right away. Unless you want an innocent human's life on your hands. And I'm sure this is the place, Hammerstein, where you say something like, 'No. There's been enough blood shed already.'"

  "You know him so well," hissed Blackblood. "But I don't believe in compunction." He raised a sub-machine gun. "I believe in extreme unction."

  "No, Blackblood," warned Joe.

  Hammerstein scowled at Seraph. "You bootleg." He reluctantly allowed him to move away with the boy.

  They all slowly retreated out of the farmhouse. Outside the sky was beginning to lighten from the inky darkness of night to a twilight grey.

  Morrigun, Deadlock and Hammerstein were in a tight knot apart from Blackblood, Mongrol, and Mek-Quake. Joe Pineapples was split from all of them.

  This meant that Hoodwink had to busy himself looking in three different directions. His face veil dropped as his eyes flicked this way and that. Rusty looked up horrified at his horribly warped features and desperately tried to get away. Hoodwink's grip on the boy tightened.

  The Warriors had trained for hostage situations such as this. They mind-commed each other, so they could coordinate their moves. It would be Joe who would make the hit. It would be a ricochet shot. He would fire at the doorframe of one of the steel kennels. The bullet would bounce off and enter the back of Seraph's head. He would use a probability program, which would ensure angle and timing were perfect. At the same time, Hammerstein would run in to grab hold of the boy.

  Hoodwink let his fourth dimensional cohort increase his control and influence over his creased and crooked body. Snnktts alerted him to the impending attack. Seraph's twisted mouth hissed open and a toad-like tongue slid out and flicked at the air. The stench of a sulphurous odour began to fill the air like a gas leak.

  Suddenly the landscape began to shimmer and warp. The Warriors found the farmhouse backdrop becoming unsteady and distorted.

  "Dimensional distortion!" cried Deadlock.

  Even as he barked the warning, the Warriors saw a dozen simulacra of Rosesand suddenly materialize in different places around the farmhouse. All these figures grasped a dozen corresponding duplicates of the Seedsower boy.

  Joe scanned and rescanned. But there was no way of knowing which was the real Seraph Rosesand. He couldn't make the hit.

  "I can't stand up straight," complained Blackblood. The ground beneath his feet began to writhe like a river in a storm. It opened up and enveloped him.

  Joe Pineapples felt himself elongate like melting liquorice. He was bending, twisting and plaiting himself. Then he spread out like black melted plastic, and lapped against the warping wall of the house.

  Morrigun saw her legs running blindly ahead of her. The rest of her torso clung to the smashed front door of the farmhouse, trying to prevent it from floating away.

  Hammerstein tried to move but his hammer had grown to an enormous size and he could not shift it. He tried to stand but it pulled him down and now it was making a gaping hole in the ground because of its weight. It was sinking into the earth and taking him with it.

  Deadlock found himself discorporated from his spirit. His ectoplasmic form was locked out from his body that became an empty shell.

  Mongrol crawled around blindly on all fours, calling for Lara repeatedly. He kept reaching out his massive hand to grasp at the air. He could see nothing through his electrically barbed and skewed vision.

  Morrigun was laid out on her back. She was immobilized, except for her flaying arms and her head that jerked from side to side.

  There was an attempt at demonic possession on Mek-Quake, but as ghastly creatures from the fourth dimension eddied around him, he responded by saying, "Mek-Quake like it. It turn him on. It make him feel... hrrrgh!... dirty." Other-dimensional warping resulted in just mild fluctuations and distortions of objects at the periphery of his visual sensors. Of all the Warriors, Mek-Quake was least affected, thanks to his nano-sized brain.

  But he could see that the other Warriors were incapacitated. He could see that Rosesand had the boy in his grasp. More importantly, he could see only one Rosesand.

  Without really thinking about it or computing his chances for success, Mek-Quake ran at Hoodwink.

  Neither Separh nor Snnktts expected any of the Warriors to be in a fit state to retaliate so quickly. Snnktts had poured vast reserves of his temporal warping energy into this trap for the robots and his capacity at operating over such vast distances was limited.

  So when Mek-Quake punched the old man, Snnktts was barely able to use his dimension warp to soften the force of the blow. Mek-Quake was able to seize the boy from him and leap away.
/>   At that moment, Mass Destruction finally arrived. "Get in the house, boy!" said Mek-Quake. "Run!" The boy did as he was bid.

  The nano-brained robot turned to face Mass Destruction while his comrades lay helpless in their delirium.

  "One against one. This is going to be a walkover," said MD. "Prepare to be deactivated inhumanely."

  "Prepare for Big Jobs," said Mek-Quake.

  The two robots went for it.

  Mek-Quake was now running a recently acquired program based on the Mekomaniaxe gladiatorial games on Mekka, one of the free robot planets. These consisted of savage robot encounters between the home team, the Mekomaniaxes, and visiting teams such as Hells Hooliguns. However, it was not the robot gladiators in the arena on which the program was based. It was the supporters on the terraces. The battles between the Mekomaniaxe supporters and the Hells Hooligun supporters had become so savage and so vicious that they surpassed anything that was going on down in the arena. The gladiators would end up watching as the carnage went on above them.

  Mekomaniaxe had truly become a spectator sport.

  And it was with the full savagery of a Mekomaniaxe supporter that Mek-Quake was now endowed. Mass Destruction, by contrast, used classical moves and high-tech weapons. Impressive as these were, they were based on the assumption that the opponent would respond with some sort of pugilistic style, with combat finesse.

  Not Mek-Quake. Opening his chest cavity, he removed a maniaxe, an electric axe, and began belabouring MD with it. The blows were so powerful that they cut through the metal. He became a thugtek, a steelhead yobbo. In Mek-Quake's head, he was up there on the terraces, snorting batteries, and giving the rival Hooligun supporters the Mekka Kiss - a full laser head butt - followed by a serious stomping. No one could put the boot in like a maniaxe, as MD soon discovered. This was not going to be the walkover he had originally expected. They rolled over and over, kicking, punching, shooting and getting into some serious maniaction.

  Suddenly MD felt a vicious stab in the back. It was Blackblood applying his road drill. "Drilling for oil!" the robot laughed. His treacherous nature was such that it had shielded him from the worst effects of the delirium, but he had pretended to be out of action to take the enemy off-guard.

  He had been concerned by the way MD had mentioned Blackblood's involvement with the Straw Dogs and his custom of drinking oil. This was during a period of Blackblood's life which he preferred to keep private and it annoyed him that MD knew so much about his past. His privacy was extremely important to him and he tried to impart this to MD by emptying his sub-machine gun into his metal face.

  "What the frag do you know about me, fan boy?" he snarled. "You want my autograph? Here's my autograph!"

  Budababudabudabudabuda!

  Oil was spouting from various orifices on MD now. It reminded Blackblood of the old days when he was more obsessed with it than the Seven Sisters oil companies. To him, it was like blood. He would regularly drink the oil of his robot victims until the ABC Warriors reprogrammed him. Even then, he continued to drink it secretly, until he picked a nasty dose of something from a tin tramp. Now the sight of MD's life oil spurting everywhere sent him into a killing frenzy.

  MD fought back strongly. He hurled a blow into Blackblood's chest, which broke a silver chain around his neck that had a little gallows hanging off it.

  "Right, you're really in my bad book now!" snarled Blackblood. The "bad book" was a reference to his Book of Judas. Instinctively, with his torture training, he knew the places to rip, poke, twist and burn MD. There was an electronic screech from his opponent, like a siren wailing.

  By now, the other ABCs were beginning to recover. Snnktts was no longer able to hold the dimension warp. Rosesand decided it was time to go and he mind-commed MD to this effect. Mass Destruction blasted a couple of spikes into Mek-Quake and headbutted Blackblood backwards. Then he swung around to his master.

  Using transformer nanobot technology, sections of his body mekamorphosised into a command throne that swept down and scooped the old man up. "Later for both of you," said Hoodwink.

  "Yes, later, biscuit tin. I'm going to kick your metal hide," said MD.

  "Frag off, geek," said Blackblood.

  MD hurtled out of the farm with Seraph on board, and thundered off into the desert. Behind him, clouds of dry red dust swept up to the bleak morning sky. The war machine gradually shrank to a speck on the rolling horizon and disappeared.

  It would only be later when MD was giving himself a major service, that he would discover Mek-Quake had spray painted "Big Jobs!" on his back.

  Rusty came out of the house again. "Is it safe, sir?" he asked. "Have they gone?"

  "Yes. Thanks to Mek-Quake," said Hammerstein. Along with the other Warriors, he had begun to recover his composure.

  "Gee! Thank you, Mr Mek-Quake, sir."

  "When it comes to saving the day, you can rely on Mek-Quake, chums and pals."

  "Yes, well done, Mek-Quake," said Hammerstein grudgingly.

  Joe curtly nodded in the huge robot's direction. Morrigun barely managed that. Mek-Quake's brain was so tiny that he would misinterpret any acknowledgement she made as a sign that she was attracted to him. This had led to some difficulties in the past. When he had touched her chassis, Mongrol had leapt to her defence and nearly demolished Mek-Quake.

  Deadlock was gazing out at the blood red desert as the sun began to climb above the boulder-strewn horizon. He was lost in thought once more, musing on when and how they might see their enemy Seraph Rosesand again. He knew that the foe they faced must not be underestimated. And Mongrol was grunting; he was not really sure what had been going on.

  None of them acknowledged Blackblood's part in saving them. This was at his own request, because he found any sign of such "human" warmth unpleasant. It was not his preferred way of getting close to other robots.

  Hammerstein was concerned for the boy. "How's he doing?"

  "He's been through a terrible shock," said Morrigun with some concern, stroking the lad's freckled forehead. "Come on, let's wrap you up again," she said.

  Blackblood could hardly keep down the black oil he'd sucked out of MD, he was so nauseated. He knew this maternalism was bogus. She was a black witch, a member of the sisterhood of the hell horses known as the Maras. What did she care about the floppy? He knew she was secretly getting off on it. He recalled the way she used to hold the hands of dying floppies on the battlefield, because she enjoyed tasting their fear.

  Once she had explained it to him. "I like to bond with humans, so I can harvest the maximum energy from them. Their sadness and pain is the sweetest."

  Blackblood found it quite tiresome. Everyone castigated him as a villain because he was more open in admitting his evil. Really, he was just jealous of Morrigun.

  "You're a big brave boy," said Hammerstein, ruffling Rusty's red hair.

  "Oh, frag," said Blackblood.

  "You gotta get him," Rusty whispered hoarsely, "and make him pay for what he's done to Momma and Poppa and Sandy and Fertility." Tears welled up and trickled down his face. It was getting more difficult to speak and he stopped. Which Blackblood was thankful for.

  "We will, son," said Hammerstein.

  "I think it's time you rested," said Morrigun. She escorted the boy away. She was good, Blackblood had to give her that. There was only just the slightest flicker in her eyes to show how much she relished her robot nurse routine.

  The boy looked up at Hammerstein. "Take it easy, son," said the massive war droid kindly.

  Morrigun shepherded Rusty inside.

  "And when you're tucked up in bed, I'll be in to tell you a foundry fable," Blackblood called after him. "Once upon a time, there were some Straw Dogs; robots who covered themselves in straw and emerged from the jungle to kill floppies-"

  He stopped short, his attention suddenly directed to the body bags of Pa and Sandy which crackled and shuffled as they became animate, and rose clumsily.

  This time it was no dream, altho
ugh, mercifully, Rusty was not there to witness it.

  The grotesque black plastic shapes shambled toward the robots. Blackblood raised a sub-machine gun.

  "No," warned Deadlock. "They are the planet incarnate. To shoot at them is to empty your gun into the ground beneath your feet.

  Hear me, ABC Warriors. I mean to take my world back.

  "Greetings, my lady," said Deadlock bowing deeply. The other robots followed suit.

  I am using these cadavers in order to speak with you.

  "I understand, my lady."

  I mean to return to my long sleep that was ruptured by the binary vermin who now infest my lands.

  The corpses tore at their plastic cladding; their pale green and yellowed forms emerging from the ruptured plastic. They looked shrunken and bereft, emaciated and stiffened. Their sightless eyes stared accusingly.

  "You must understand, my lady, that your actions could mean the deaths of millions of innocent people," Deadlock replied earnestly.

  "They are the offspring of Gaia. They do not belong here," said Jack Seedsower.

  "But they have nowhere else to go. They have built a new life here."

  "Why should I care?" asked Sandy Seedsower.

  "Because all life is precious."

  "Even a disease that ravages my body?"

  "We can persuade the colonists to go easy on the ravaging. We can help right the balance."

  "The middle way. I understand that. It is the nature of Mars. But the extra-martials do not."

  "Then give us the time to convince them."

  "There is no more time," said the corpses.

  Jack and Sandy collapsed into dead heaps like rag dolls whose strings had suddenly been clipped. They lay there in a twisted lifeless huddle.

  Inside the farmhouse, the freckle-faced boy looked up at the strange female robot holding his hand. "Why do bad things happen, Morrigun?"

  "Why do you think they happen, Rusty?"

  "Well, Pa said it was just the way things was on Mars. He said biol happens here and we just got to accept it."