by Andy Remic
"Pretty hot," said Snake, leaning against the rim of the doorway and staring down at Keenan, his one beady eye squinting in bright light after the gloomy interior.
"Aye." Keenan lit the weed, and took a deep, deep drag.
"You roll one of those for me, soldier?"
"You'll be asking to share my bunk, next."
Snake laughed, a low, easy, rolling laugh, and strode down the ramp, slapping Keenan on the back. "I think we got off to a bad start, me and thee. I think you have a very low opinion of the work I've done."
"Cam?"
"Yeah boss?" Cam spun into view, silent, stealthy. Snake whirled, fast, gun clacking gently against Cam's case. Cam flickered a fast series of coloured lights, which Keenan read and gave a single nod.
"Should watch where you're poking that thing," said Cam. "Somebody might take it and shove it up your arse."
"You're a tad tetchy for a little PopBot," said Snake, holstering the 11mm with a whisper of leather. He smiled, but it was a cold smile, an imitation of humour, and Keenan could see the message in Snake's eye. He'd been close to pulling the trigger; and he didn't like Cam... or maybe just PopBots in general. Keenan filed this for another day.
"Cam, sort out the DropShip. We're gonna take the Buggy, do some scouting." He looked sideways at Snake. "That OK with you, Big Man?"
Snake smiled easily, his dark eye unreadable. "Whatever you say, Keenan. You're in charge."
"I just wouldn't like to step on your toes," said Keenan, and handed Snake the cigarette.
Snake took a long drag, and blew a cloud of tox over Cam, who backed away, motors whirring. "I'm a snake, pal," he said. "No toes to step on."
Whilst Cam fine-tuned the DropShip into a BaseCamp, Keenan, Snake and Ed headed off in the Giga-Buggy to secure the area, and make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting out in the sand. Cam busied himself with the BaseCamp's computer, whistling happily to himself as he tweaked emissions, regulated aircon, sampled the immediate sand around the BaseCamp using CampGrippers (which brought to mind several rude jokes via a comedy subroutine), and generally checked that all was working and well; especially necessary after the initial apparent sabotage during descent.
There came a tiny click, and Cam spun fast. Maximux was stood, stripped to the waist, his body wiry and taut, tendons standing out like cables under chicken-skin. A light sheen of sweat bathed him, and he wore long combat trousers and high black boots, strapped with the latest TitaniumIV digital garrotte laces. His head was down as he fiddled with a tiny metal mechanism.
Cam bobbed for a moment, watching Max suspiciously, then he chided himself. They were all Combat-K now, and despite being on what was widely regarded as an easy gig, they still had a job to do, and would do it to the best of their ability. After all, were they not consummate professionals?
"What are you thinking?" came Max's drawl, and his head lifted, eyes staring at Cam. His hands went still.
"Um," said Cam. "I was just considering our position. That we're all Combat K, and we'll get the job done to the best of our ability."
"Yeah." Maximux grinned, and his face contorted, looking not quite right against a human head. Cam's lights flickered. He felt uneasy, which was a rare feat, for he had no glands or chemicals with which to feel such an emotion. It was the nearest machine code equivalent. "We'll certainly do that, boy."
"Um. Actually," said Cam, ever the pedant, "I'm not a boy, I'm a GradeA+1 Security Mechanism with advanced SynthAI and a Machine Intelligence Rating (MIR) of 3450. I have integral weapon inserts, a quad-core military database, and Put Down[tm] War Technology. I am," if he'd had a mouth, he would have beamed a smile, "quite a prize. The Prodigal Son. The light that burns twice as bright."
Maximux took a step forward, then stopped again, fiddling with the tiny, intricate metallic contraption in his hands. "What the hell is Put Down[tm] War Technology, if you don't mind me asking?"
"It's a war technology that allows me to put you down."
"Very droll, tinner."
"Tinner?" Cam's voice was aghast. Tinner was pre-war slang, very, very old. It was used in the Bad Old Days when bots were introduced with poor slung-back AI, riddled with codebugs and datagremlins, and bots got a reputation for the mass-slaughter of their physically inferior human makers. Millions had used the term tinner to refer to bots which had been sentenced to die for crimes against organity. To a PopBot, there could be no greater curse, no greater prejudice, no better form of slavery insult. It was "nigger" for the machine digital age. "I..." Cam considered his words very carefully, and focused a core on the metallic object which Maximux carried, but it registered as 0% threat, "I haven't heard that word in a long time."
"Yeah, well." Max stopped his fiddling. Fixed Cam with those dark, crazy eyes again, reminding Cam to do a quick file.folder recce and convince himself that Maximux, despite current submissive demeanour, was a raving psychotic paranoid lunatic. Too many drugs and too much battle. He'd murdered his own grandmother over a loaf of bread. Slaughtered his own sister due to drug paranoia and a transferral of his own faults and shortcomings onto her innocent psyche. Max was, to all intents and purposes, a top class Grade A genocidal fuck-up. "The thing is, Cam, PopBot, War T and M treknology bastard SynthArseache MIP fucking rusty old oil-stinking tinner, the thing is, I don't fucking like you."
Cam considered this. "Maybe that's a good thing?"
"It's not a fucking good thing!" screamed Max suddenly, eyes popping forward, veins standing out on his neck. "How can it fucking be a fucking good thing, you fucking rusty little bag of colostomy spuke? You insult my intelligence, you insult my bravado, you better be careful tinner or we'll have to take this outside."
Cam contemplated this. He was, obviously, dealing with a madman. He backed off a little, displaying calming blue lights, and buzzing as he armed his many internal weapon systems. Cam might have looked like a battered metal testicle, he may have emitted the odd sour-oil and ozone smell and had little or no élan when it came to conversing with psychotic members of the crew, but he was dangerous in his own little way. He'd fought, bettered, and killed superior models of PopBot, and many a nutcase alien, without a backward glance at the slippery blood trail. A pussy, he was not.
"OK, OK, calm down," said Cam. "This is like one of those pub-fight things, isn't it, where the bad guy slicks his way into the taverna and starts to pick a fight with the good guy, dressed all in silver and white, and there's no way the good guy can actually wriggle out of the situation, and a fight is inevitable but obviously the good guy always wins."
"No," said Max, lifting up his hand with the metal object, "the good guy does not always win. In my experience," he smiled, showing several blackened teeth, or McGowans as they were known, "I usually fuck him over and buy myself a drink."
"Oh." Cam scanned the object again. It was some kind of tiny projectile weapon, completely harmless to a PopBot who could move far faster than any metal projectile weapon ever invented. "What are you doing with that?"
"Putting you down?"
Cam snorted a laugh. "I think it's time I called this in to Keenan..."
Maximux fired, an object spun, stopped a metre from the barrel of the PopBot, flicked open a series of directional panels, like the petals of some tiny flower unfurling, and hit Cam with a concentrated blast of Nitrogen-funnelled EEMP.
Cam clattered to the deck, jiggling.
Max moved forward, knelt, and poked Cam. Cam buzzed. Max poked him again. Cam buzzed again, but was unable to speak. Max moved close, grinning. "It's an Enhanced Electro Magnetic Pulse. But you couldn't see it, it's invisible to your scanners because it's purely mechanical. Uses and distorts a planet's natural magnetic field for the pulse, thus it needs to carry no charge. We used to use them on Pulleekon, hunting down the rogue tinners there. But then, you don't know that. The missions were illegals. Nothing's recorded. And this machine doesn't officially exist."
Max stood, stretched, his spine popping like castanets. Then he walked out,
returning with a lead-lined AI CageBox. He dropped it to the floor, and tiny legs sprouted. It walked over to Cam, and using retractable claws ushered the disabled PopBot into its interior.
"The thing is," said Max, to Cam, who could hear every word but not respond, "we're gonna fuck your good buddy Keenan up. We're gonna take over this fine equipment. And we're gonna make us some pretty pennies. And I know what you're thinking, tinner, you're thinking that there's a war going down, and the junks are spreading, and invading, toxing and killing all those innocent people and aliens an' all that, and yeah, that's bad," he grinned again, a very wide and humour-filled visage, "but like I always said, there's money to be made in war." He paused, contemplating Cam in the AI CageBox. "This war's gonna make some people very, very rich. And I like being rich. Better go get my guns ready. I believe this Keenan's a feisty one."
They slammed across the desert, Keenan leaning on the wheel to avoid huge boulders which littered the ground at regular intervals. Dust plumed behind, a trailing cloak of sand, filling the sky like yellow mist.
"Hey, Keenan," said Snake from the back seat. His long hair whipped in the wind created by speed, and his skin had a gritted texture from sand sticking to sweaty flesh. "You know that Pippa lady, do you think she's kinda pretty?"
Keenan glanced over his shoulder, and there was a clang from beneath the 6X6 Buggy. Keenan focused back to the desert, revving hard as they climbed a high series of dunes, leaping from the tops and powering down opposite slopes, engine growling, huge tyres digging in and paddling great sweeps of desert into their wake. "Kinda pretty? Snake, my man, have you got a death wish?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"She's a dangerous lady."
"I'm a dangerous type of guy," he swaggered.
"No, I mean, sword-in-the-back-of-your-neck-whilst-you're-asleep type of dangerous. You can't fuck with her."
"I don't want to fuck with her," grinned Snake. "Just fuck her."
Ed sniggered, leaning back to Snake and lighting the mercenary's cigarette. Snake blew plumes of smoke, hair whipping, one eye fixed on the back of Keenan's head. "So what do you say?" he half-shouted, over the roar of the engine, words exhaled on plumes of smoke. "Can you fix it for me? A date, I mean."
"No."
"Come on Keenan, you know her better than most."
"No."
"Why's that? Trying a keep a slice of that sweet tasting pussy pie for yourself?"
Keenan slammed the Giga-Buggy's brakes, and they slewed sideways down a towering sand dune, all six wheels spinning, engine roaring, until they juddered to a halt. Keenan turned in his seat, demeanour cool but eyes burning. "I'll give you one piece of advice, Snake, and I'll say it only once. Don't talk to me about Pippa. Not if you don't want to pick your teeth from the sand with broken fingers."
"Ooh," said Ed, "bit touchy on that subject, are we?" He rubbed sand from his tattooed face, and drank from his canteen, dribbling a goodly amount down his white vest.
"It's a... long story. Something I'm not willing to discuss. Let's just say she's damaged goods, off limits for discussion, and Snake can try and tease her with his snake all he likes, but if he's not careful, she'll bite the damn thing off." His eyes transferred to something over Ed's shoulder, and his expression changed from annoyance to awe. "Shit, will you look at that!"
From the sand rose a squat tower of rock, searing, jagged, rougher than a redneck and a deep crimson in colour, skein-threaded with silver and blue webs of mineral deposits that caught the light and glittered solemnly. But the most incredible feature was the carvings, etched with minute precision across the monolith's surface in entirety, some images large and sweeping, full battle scenes, others tiny pictures, either of creatures, animals, or simply scenes from daily life. Together, the montage formed a whole - the image of a planet, circular, black, rugged.
"That's awesome," enthused Ed, jumping out of the Buggy and standing, hands on hips, staring at the edifice. It powered up, perhaps three or four hundred feet in height and sheltered from the wind, from the desert, by an almost protective circle of high sand dunes. The dunes also hid the structure behind folds of sand, allowing it near invisibility from the planes above.
Keenan stood up in his seat, eyes scanning, then he glanced back at Snake, who shrugged his shoulders.
"I thought this place was extinct," he said, rubbing his eye-patch.
"Yeah, but we're looking for remains, archaeology pointing to this being the cradle of birth for the junks. Doesn't mean anything has to exist here now."
"You want to explore?"
"We need to take a look." Keenan rubbed his chin.
"I think we should go back for Max and Cam. Get some more specific equipment; the more hands we have on this, the better."
Keenan checked his watch. "We have time, and equipment enough. I stocked up the Buggy before we left, although I didn't expect anything this... drastic." Keenan jumped into the sand and approached the edifice, which he realised was not simply a geological feature, but had become a totem, a monument from a time long past. His eyes scanned across the images, piecing together battle scenes and wars, all described pictorially in elegant and finely-carved detail. And yet... curiously, it made no sense. There was something disturbing about what he could see, something a touch out of synch with reality. The creatures represented were human, and human-like, and quite beautiful. But there was something wrong with the carvings. Keenan could feel it in his bones...
Now the Buggy's engine was dead, a great silence fell upon the three men. Occasionally, the wind would hook a howl from the monument's summit, long, mournful, drawn out like intestines from a quartered victim; but then silence would fall again, interspersed by the occasional hiss of sand over sand, and the panting of three rapidly over-heating squaddies.
They circled the monument, searching with care, and found one opening leading steeply down. They stood, looking down into the black pit.
"I ain't going down that," said Ed, staring with undisguised horror. "Nobody said anything about crawling around in caves. There could be anything down there; snakes, scorpions, kleeklags, bloody anything."
"Your bravery astounds me," snapped Snake. "I'll go."
"You sure?" said Keenan.
Snake grinned. "There's nothing down there nastier than me."
Keenan locked a Leech to the monument's face, ran it through a loop on his own belt, and attached the G-Ring to Snake's belt. Snake pulled free his gun and checked the magazine, then nodded to Keenan. He stepped back, feet against the frighteningly steep decline and, lowering his head, squeezed down into the aperture. Within seconds, he was gone, swallowed by the monument's mouth.
The sun beat down on Keenan like a hammer on an anvil. Sweat coursed down him, and Snake's weight was a heavy burden, torturing his hands and back and making him realise he was getting far too old to continue without the genetic surgery so fashionable in the military these days. After a while, the line went limp and Ed, seated in the sand, glanced at Keenan.
"Wonder what's down there?"
"Something spectacular," said Keenan, and lit a cigarette. Smoke stung his eyes, but he did not care. He craved the fix.
After a few moments, Keenan felt twin tugs on the line, the signal for him to start hauling Snake out of the pit. Keenan braced himself, his smoke dangling between sun-baked lips, and as he took up the strain something, some sixth sense, warned him with a screeching of alarm bells ripping his brain out through his ears and he spun to see Ed, the needle by Keenan's neck and dripping bright blue fluid, as his arms slammed up and grabbed Ed's arms and the two men grappled, thudding to the ground, Ed atop Keenan, Keenan holding the needle millimetres from his throat. They grunted, shifting around, but Ed was heavy, heavier than he looked, and his sweat dripped into Keenan's eyes.
"What you doing, fucker?" snarled Keenan.
Ed did not reply.
"You're being a stupid arsehole. Get off me!"
Ed did something, a flick of the wrist, and t
he needle spat from the syringe and stabbed Keenan's throat. Blue liquor injected, and Keenan's vision swam. He laughed, then, a gurgling of honey as darkness fast-swamped him and the merry-go-round of the world stopped, allowing him to step neatly off.
The world tasted sour, in his mouth and in his brain. Betrayed, that taste told him. The bastards stabbed him in the back. In the balls. For a long time Keenan dreamt of his two girls, his Rachel and Ally, and he remembered the fine times, the good times, the best times, before they died, before they were murdered. It almost made it worthwhile to be poisoned, or drugged, or whatever his mentally diseased accomplices had done to him.
Groggily, Keenan came round, and he could feel something slick, something sluggish surging through his veins in rhythmical spurts which matched his own heartbeat. He sat up, in darkness, feeling rock beneath his hands. Realisation hit him, and he groaned. The bastards had thrown him down the pit.
Keenan sat for a moment, orientating himself, pain slamming through his left hand. He could not believe, just could not damn well believe the bastards had turned on him. And for what? What possible reason, what possible motive could they have for betrayal?
Keenan tried his earlobe comms. "Pippa? Franco? You copy?"
Dead. Great.
All at once a score of bruises, aches and pains rushed him and he groaned again, cradling his hand, realising he'd broken two fingers. Methodically he searched himself, checking for other broken bones or torn muscles or ligaments, anything that would impede his function, as pain from the long fall, the battering of the fast rocky descent, thumped him in the brain. Keenan gritted his teeth, and as he pulled free a med-strip and neighbour-bound his broken fingers, wincing and taking deep breaths, he amused himself with what he'd do to Snake and Ed if he managed to get free and catch up with them.