Hardcore - 03

by Andy Remic

  "Optimism?" ventured Franco.

  Pippa tutted, eyed Keenan, and said, "All comms are up. I'll see you back here in five. And you?"

  "Yeah?" beamed Franco.

  "Don't get killed."

  "Aye aye, Cap'n."

  Pippa stalked off, and herded a newly squabbling Betezh and Olga back into the DropShip. Pippa could be seen directing a grumbling crew in carrying huge, rectangular alloy cases.

  "Better be off," beamed Franco, holding out his hand to Keenan. "I'm sure one of the gals will lend me a jacket."

  "I'm sure they will," agreed Keenan, shaking Franco's hand. "And Pippa was right. Don't get killed. And don't get into any trouble. And if you do get into trouble, use your kube, comms, even your linked Tuff-Map. You got all that?"

  "Yeah." Franco turned, and waved to the female soldiers lounging like lizards in the shadow of the DropShip.

  "And Franco?"

  "Yeah mate?"

  "I have a question."

  "Shoot."

  "It's about, well, I'm just curious, it's just that, when you said that, I mean, when you got married, right, and you and Mel, well, when you made it back to the hotel room, what I wanted to ask, was, well, did you, y'know, and, well...

  What was it like?"

  Franco stared, stonily, ahead. He coughed. Turned. And without a word, strode back towards his DropShip.

  Keenan shrugged. "That bad, eh?" he muttered, and lit a cigarette.

  "Change of plan," said Pippa, hoisting her weapons and her pack. Franco, who had been poking suspiciously in his own pack as the teams made final preparations to separate and begin their search and analysis of Sick World, glanced up. He smiled, a broad smile, and produced a long, evil-looking, purple sausage. It was slick with grease, and smelt of death.

  "Found it!" Triumph.

  "What the hell," said Pippa, "is that?"

  "It's a sausage, muppet. A Slim Jim." He bit it, with a crunching sound, and began to chew. It sounded like cogs in a blender.

  "This is the score, and I've cleared it with Keenan so no bloody moaning. Because Candy was pulled for another mission at the last minute, and you're a team member down, we're transferring Olga to you."

  Franco pointed at Pippa with the purple bratwurst. "No."

  "It's orders. Betezh and Olga are fighting like cat and dog, so it'll immediately alleviate that problem. I'll take Miller with me, because the moaning, whining son-of-a-bitch will have a harder time trying to talk when I pierce both his cheeks with my yukana. Franco, this situation is not up for negotiation."

  Franco, about to speak, waggled his sausage... and there came a shring, a blur of movement, and six slices of meat tumbled to the soil. Franco focused on the end of the decimated weiner, grimaced, then extended his focus beyond to a poised and quivering Pippa, sword raised above one shoulder, her stance that of a formidable ancient sword-fighting warrior queen.

  Franco popped the last of the sausage into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "I'd get that blade oiled, love. Looking a bit battered, a bit the worse for wear." He shook his head, face showing regret. "A shame, to let a fine weapon like that rot."

  Pippa clucked in annoyance, and sheathed her blade. She stepped in close, an embodiment of menace. Voice low, she muttered, "be careful where you wave your next sausage, dickhead. It might just get the same treatment."

  "What?" Franco beamed. "So you're offering up your services as a bona fide sausage chopper from now until the end of time? You're such a girl. Such a lass. Such a -" he leered speculatively, "fine specimen of a woman."

  Pippa stalked off, furious despite herself, stomping past Keenan who walked to Franco, tightening straps and pulling on his desert EBH despite the heat. "You ready?"

  "As ever, bro."

  "No shit, right? No drinking, no shagging. You're on mission, on task, and I'll bust you down to toilet inspector if you fuck with me on this one."

  "OK, OK, why's everybody on Franco's bloody case this morning, eh? Answer me that? Eh? Just answer it?"

  "Because you're a fucking liability, mate."

  Keenan stalked away. Franco mumbled something sulkily, and rooted in his pack for another Slim Jim.

  In-ship, Pippa co-ordinated a final communications check, and when happy everybody could talk to everybody else, and all equipment was ready to go, the three DropShips lifted into the sky, jets turning areas of the beach to crinkling, crackling glass, and veered off in three discrete directions, Keenan to Second Djio, the equatorial desert region and Franco to Yax, a northern ice continent where once the doctors of Sick World had carried out RECs, namely research, experimentation and confinements. She, Pippa, as she grasped controls and climbed the DropShip into thinner reaches of atmosphere so that a luxurious rich verdant world fell away beneath and spread out, a vast and colourful vibrancy, a tapestry of silks and wools, thrumming with depth and colour and vivid contrasts, realised with a start that Sick World, the so-called abandoned Sick World, was a truly stunning and beautiful place.

  Distantly, Keenan and Franco's ships disappeared in opposite directions. Pippa glanced back, to where Mel was gnawing on a bone, Betezh was oiling his MPK morbidly, and Miller sat, arms folded, grey eyes stoic as he observed every single minute action (presumably with a nod to health and safety implications). Pippa noted Miller had no safety harness fastened, contravening his own regulations. She snorted, smiled at the irony, and forced the DropShip into what it did best: a Target Drop.

  It took three hours for Miller to regain consciousness.

  "Stick that in your risk assessment," she muttered.

  "It's gorgeous!" beamed Betezh, gazing from the cockpit.

  "Yeah," said Pippa.

  "Grwll," added Mel, conversationally, her head tilting above Pippa and a long spool of drool descending to land on Pippa's WarSuit. Pippa returned her gaze to the lush, vibrant scenery, and frowned.

  Before the cooling, clicking DropShip, which perched on a mountain plateau, sat a valley of unsurpassable beauty. Grey and purple rock faces curved away, gently scooped, through a scattering of tall noble trees, swaying gently, to a distant lake which shimmered, silver, catching the afternoon sun.

  "It's perfect," gabbled Betezh.

  Pippa threw him a glance. "I didn't think scenery would be your sort of thing."

  "Hey, just 'cos I look like a reject from a horror movie prop bin, doesn't mean I don't appreciate nature. I like to stroll through trees, feel the breeze in my hair - well, on my scalp - and swim in cool fresh waters just like the next man." He seemed to squirm, suddenly prim and proper.

  Miller, whom Mel had strapped into a MedBag, mumbled incoherently. The lump on his head, from his flailing and accelerating connection with the cockpit interior, was the size of an egg from a hormone-fuelled uber-chicken.

  Pippa opened the door, and a ramp slid to the rocky ground on hydraulic hisses. She strode down and a cool mountain breeze nudged her shoulder-length brown hair. Pippa placed a hand against the DropShip's hull, as if steadying herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She remained, poised, as Betezh poked out his head.

  Hands on hips, he strode forward and gazed about. "It's wondrous! Mel, are you coming out? Come on girl, get some fresh air, I feel like a caged chicken after being cooped up in that shit-hole for so long."

  Tentatively, Mel, stooping due to her considerable height, clomped down the ramp and stood with head bobbing at the end of her corrugated, armoured zombie neck. Mel, it had to be said, had a long and interesting history, which she recalled in infintesimal personal detail in her semi-autobiographical semi-autobiography, BIOHELL - The Story of a Zombie Super Soldier, available from all good bookshops Quad-Galaxy wide.

  Betezh strode to a ledge and leapt up with surprising agility. He surveyed the uninhabited expanse before him. "It's a whole world! With no people! Or zombies..." he half turned, "no offence meant, love. There's nothing to pollute the natural calm! Nothing to destroy the equilibrium! It's bloody superb! I think I might just move here..
."

  "It's wrong," said Pippa. She stood still, eyes closed, hand on ship hull.

  "Huh?"

  Pippa's eyes clicked open. "This place. It's wrong. It feels wrong."

  "What do you mean it feels wrong, you crazy daft wee girl? Just look about you! We are in Eden! Paradise! It's a Farashko painting made real, a De'zano sculpture animated by the gods!" Betezh took a deep, exaggerated breath. "And by God, it smells damn fine."

  Pippa moved forward, mouth a thin line, brows knitted. She dropped her pack, glanced around, and gave a little shake of her head. "There's something bad here," she muttered, rubbed at tired eyes, and turned, lifting her remote. "OK. We'll set up BaseCamp here. Now stand back." She smiled. "After all, in the name of Health and Safety, I wouldn't like anybody to get squashed."

  Pippa keyed in a nine-digit code, and flicked a switch. With a groan, huge cubes slid from the DropShip's rear quarters and suddenly the whole ship reared up, as if on legs, sections moving, sliding, realigning to a symphony of disjointed metallic cracks. Whirrs and hisses filled the mountain plateau as the DropShip transformed into a cubic shelter, a base, an analysis station from which Combat-K could begin their admittedly simple mission.

  Clicks and hisses finally died away.

  Betezh grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Let's get a brew on," he said.

  Mel and Pippa patrolled the perimeter, weapons drawn, faces tight. They picked their way across alien rocks, pushing through huge ferns and bowing trees, the scent of summer high on the breeze and the world feeling empty, serene, and perfect.

  "It's too nice," snarled a sweat-streaked Pippa, as they completed a three-klick circuit and appeared back at the DropShip BaseCamp. "Just too perfect. As fake as a wedding cake. As painful as twenty-year marital sex."

  Mel growled.

  "No offence meant. And anyway, you're divorced now, right?"

  Betezh had lit a fire, and was boiling a pan of water on the flames. Insane, in reality, because a CoffeeChef[tm] would provide any hot beverage of choice, as long as you wanted gritty tar-shit in a gritty shit-cup.

  Pippa strode across the rocky clearing, boots clumping, and kicked the pan free. Water spiralled. She stomped the flames, until dead. Betezh, still holding a forlorn spoon, looked up at her with questions.

  "No fires. No smoke. We could be seen for miles."

  "The planet's uninhabited," said Betezh, quietly.

  "Says who?"

  "The reports. The DropBots. The AnalysisBots. That's who."

  "To hell with the DropBots. An empty world? I'll believe it when I see it."

  "You mean you can't see it?" He caught her eye, and shut up. Trust me to get lumbered with the Dull Party, he thought.

  Grunting, Betezh stomped up the BaseCamp's ramp and, grumbling, ignited the CoffeeChef[tm].

  Pippa stared at Mel. "Any problems?"

  Mel, eight-foot transmogrification that she was, shook her head. "Rwwll."

  "Good girl."

  Pippa moved to the lip of rock which overlooked the valley, and leapt lightly atop the precipice poised over a three-thousand foot drop. Her eyes followed jagged contours of rock on the violent descent down, then spread, encompassing the picturesque valley. She snorted. "Yeah. Right."

  Betezh appeared, peering warily over the edge. He carried a cup, which he passed up to Pippa. "Long way down."

  "Don't be such a pussy."

  Betezh stared long and hard at Pippa. "Is there anything I can say, anything at all, to which your retort will not in some way offend? I mean, you're so masculine it's damned scary."

  "Masculine?" Danger.

  "Yeah." Betezh sipped his machine tar, and grimaced. "All you do is wave your sword, or guns, and shoot things and kill things. Franco told me, about way back on the Dead World, when I was unconscious. Apparently, you wanted to shoot me there and then." He gave a nasty grin.

  "That's right." Pippa's gaze was a challenging one.

  "Don't you think that attitude is a little bit... wrong? To shoot a man whilst he's on the deck?"

  "No."

  "Don't you have any compassion?"

  "No."

  "Not for anyone?"

  "No. Now fuck off and fix the CoffeeChef[tm]. This shit tastes like... shit."

  Grumbling, Betezh retreated, and Pippa turned back, staring over the valley. She sipped the warm gritty brew. Tears stained her cheeks.

  "So this is Kludek, hey?"

  "Grwll."

  "Wait here."

  Betezh, mouth open, hand outstretched with a new cup of coffee, watched in amazement as Pippa moved nimbly across the treacherous rocks and began to climb a nearby rock face. Sword and guns sheathed, she ascended a steep rocky wall in seconds and was gone. Betezh turned to Mel, whose head bobbed. He shrugged. "She must have something in mind. You want this coffee? No?" He sighed. "Suppose I better drink it." He drank it. Choked a little. "S'funny really. They should rename the damn machine... call it a CoffeeShit. With a [tm] of course."

  Mel stared at Betezh, her MPK machine gun held loose but strangely threatening. Betezh eyed the weapon, wary for a moment, his eyes straying to survey the corrugations of Mel's deformed body. She stretched and he watched her pus-dribbling breasts wobble. Then her eyes, small and black, locked to his, and he blushed suddenly.

  "Grwwll grwl grl."

  "What? What do you mean, I'm staring at your tits?"

  "Grwwll." Mel shook her head, and blew a pile of snot onto the ground. Betezh's eyes followed the trajectory of mucus, which collected and formed a neat pyramid pile and sat there, green, glistening, wobbling.

  Betezh looked deep into Mel's eyes. He cleared his throat. "So then," he began, and with flapping lips, and widening eyes, searched his limited mental filing cabinet desperately for a topic with which to converse with a zombie-mutated female ex-tax inspector. "Did you enjoy being married to Franco, or what?"

  Mel turned her back on Betezh. She let off a long, evil, sour fart, and moved back to the DropShip BaseCamp, wide hips wiggling.

  Betezh shrugged, and gazed off uneasily across the beautiful valley.

  Maybe Pippa was right. It was too stunning. Too perfect.

  Betezh lit a KJ cigarette and puffed the spark-filled orange smoke.

  Pippa climbed, sweat rolling down her face, her limbs revelling in the violent exercise which for so long had been denied her. Up she flung herself, fingers searching out ridges of rock, boots finding lips and edges, pushing her ever upwards. Quickly she climbed, confidently, sweat glistening on her brow and turning her hair lank. Her muscles sang, and her fingertips burned, scratches soon appearing on her palms and the backs of her hands, her fingernails battered and scratched, her skin scuffed. She paused, halfway up a teetering tower of rock-wall and, reaching behind in her pack, pulled out thin gloves. She examined her fingernails. "Bollocks." She pulled the gloves on, gazed up the vertical ascent, sweat running back down to drip from her hair, then hoisted herself up with a grunt and accelerated once more into a rapid, steep climb.

  Pippa climbed for minutes, which lengthened into a good half hour of fast-paced scrabbling, swinging, grunting and heaving. Finally, her breathing laboured, her WarSuit soaked within and humming softly to dissipate sweat, the Combat-K assassin hauled herself over the final lip and slumped onto her back, eyes closed, face scrunched, allowing her panting to fast recover. She sat up, sunlight blinding her for a moment, a cool breeze kissing her deliciously, then climbed to her knees on the ragged pinnacle of rock. She was on top of the mountain. For a brief moment of glorious joy, she felt on top of the world...

  Kludek spread out in a glorious 360° panorama. Forests followed the contours of the land, leading to huge shimmering lakes and more distant, purple-sided mountains. On the surface, it was entrancing, emotive, and totally absorbing. Pippa pulled out miniBinos and clipped them to her nose. They clicked and buzzed, aligning with her eyes and hot-wiring to her brain using WhizzWaves. Hands on hips, Pippa scanned a seventy kilometre area, taking her time,
moving through the trees, examining the surfaces of lakes, looking for?

  What are you looking for? she thought, and gave a tiny internal shrug. Something. Anything. Not just signs of life, but... evidence of previous junk existence. Maybe even current junk existence. But then, how could that be even remotely possible? The junks were toxic, contagious, they poisoned and destroyed everything they came into contact with. They were natural born killers. A scourge on the living. To the junks, life was simply something born to die.

  Pippa's gaze swept the glorious land.

  There!

  Her gaze moved back, more carefully this time. It was screened by forest, but it was there, a klick from a large oval lake. It was a building. A large building, mammoth in fact, constructed from grim grey concrete. There were barred windows, and it reminded her sourly of a prison complex. Pippa had spent her fair share of time in prison.

  Adjusting the brain focus, she moved in closer and saw the edges of walls were crumbling and streaked with the detritus of millennia. Understanding dawned. This was an old hospital complex, from the days of Sick World's operational past. And yet... why hadn't the forest reclaimed the building? Surely, after a thousand years, Nature's awesome might should have taken the hospital and pulverised it into base fragments?

  A puzzle, then.

  And a place to be explored... Steinhauer wanted samples, soil, rock, and exploration of anything out of the ordinary. Well, this was out of the ordinary. Pippa locked the location, removed the microBinos, and clambered to the rim of the precipice. A near five-thousand-foot drop loomed, sheer, foreboding, but it held no fear for Pippa. She wiped free sweat. Nothing held fear for Pippa; she'd seen too much, done too much. Fear was just a pointless emotion that happened to other people.

  She dropped into the abyss, towards the toy BaseCamp below.