Hardcore - 03

by Andy Remic

  Around the perimeter of the cavern there seemed to be a wide running track. Along this tiled tarmac oval squads pounded, many with trolleys. One song that wafted up to the peering Combat-K soldiers made Franco grin, until Fizzy punched him on the arm, bringing a large, instant purple bruise in the shape of her knuckles...

  I don't know but I've been told,

  A nurse on her back is as good as gold,

  If you want fun in the combat zone,

  Wobble those breasts and run for home,

  Every nurse I've ever met,

  Had the ability to make me wet,

  All that flab is fun to wobble,

  Every good nurse likes a tasty gobble.

  Shazza cocked her weapon. She was scowling. "So then? We gonna go and earn our pay?"

  "Whoa girl!" said Franco, grabbing her arm. She stared at his fingers until he let go. "Wait just a goddamn minute there, Flash. What's the hurry? What makes you think they're the enemy? And what makes you think you can take on six-thousand armed geezers, even if they are wearing backless hospital gowns?"

  "No bastard sings songs like that in my training unit," snarled Shazza.

  "This ain't your training unit, soldier," said Franco, locking her gaze. "And anyway," he continued, voice a little more gentle, "the lads must have surely sung similar ditties during training? They all do it."

  "Not in my training unit," said Shazza. "I used to bust their balls."

  "Have a lot of fun training, did you?"

  "We weren't there to have fun!"

  "Yeah, I see that."

  "Something's happening," said Fizzy, peering down into the distant cavern. "Something's coming."

  They watched. Into the huge space floated five huge, graceful objects. They had rigid skeletons and cloth panels, and they carried, slung below their huge, bulbous bodies, landing gantries, each nearly three hundred metres long. Their bulks, despite their mammoth size, were swallowed by the enormity of the cavern. However, the greatest surprise was their stealth. They moved gracefully, silently, like Dreadnought Space-Cruisers in the vacuum of space.

  "What, in the name of Rancid German Sausages, are they?" spluttered Franco. Never had he seen a more ridiculous vehicle. It was all he could do not to dribble spittle down his ginger beard.

  Fizzy and Shazza shrugged, eyes wide, but Olga was staring hard, her breath laboured. "You OK, Olga?" asked Fizzy.

  "Ya. I know what zese things are," she said. "They are airships, sometimes called zeppelins. And yes, they are huge, and look ridiculous, but they are silent and deadly, especially at night. Just think, you could be sat in your trenches with ze warm mug of cocoa, and one of these silent bastards disgorge a thousand infantry in utmost silence. Surprise? I think it ze big nasty shock factor making you spill that cocoa!"

  "Airships," mused Franco. "I think I read something like that, as well."

  They watched, curious beyond belief, as the airships lowered until the huge landing platforms were within reach, and locked in place by chains just above the ground. The soldiers started to load onto gantries via ladders, hundreds of them, all carrying their strange thin machine guns. Franco squinted, noticing for the first time that not all the soldiers seemed... quite normal.

  "You see it as well?" said Olga. "This place, when we enter, it called the REC Centre. Research, Experimentation, Confinement. I think these are ze key words to describe what going on down there, what we can see."

  "These patients have been here for a thousand years," said Franco.

  "Experimentation," said Olga, rolling the word uneasily around her mouth. The four soldiers looked at one another. "What kind of ze experimentation, I wondering?"

  "And confinement," said Shazza. "What in God's name do you need to confine?"

  "Whatever it is, it's armed with machine guns and getting onto large zeppelins down there," said Franco. He puffed out his chest. "Squad, this is a lot worse than I first surmised. We must escape this place, find Keenan and Pippa, and get word back to QGM. Some weird shit is happening down here, but I'm pretty sure it ain't anything to do with invading junk armies."

  "And you'd know that, would you, sleuth?"

  "Hey, they don't call me Franco 'Sherlock Holmes' Haggis for nowt, y'know, love. Come on. This way."

  They moved further along the corridor, and Franco opened the door at the end. It was some kind of storeroom, with an old, rusted service elevator at the end, at least wide enough to take three stretchered bodies along with associated medical staff.

  They moved warily into the gloom. Distantly, they heard the hum of electricity. Somewhere in the darkness, there came a fresh fizzle of blue sparks.

  "Oh no," said Franco, hurrying into the storeroom. Then he stopped by a long rack of clothes. Uniforms. Nurse uniforms. They were white, with large red crosses, some blackened in places by fire and mouldy with age, and some had holes for extra arms, legs, or other appendages. But on the whole, they were a rack of fine and dandy nurse uniforms.

  "Why've we stopped?" snapped Shazza. "I thought those Convulsers were nearby?"

  "Disguises," said Franco, eyes gleaming.

  "Oh no," said Shazza, eyeing the nurse uniforms. "You're not getting me in one of those!"

  "Our lives may depend on it," said Franco, searching through the racks and pulling free a skimpy white outfit. "Here, try this for size." He threw it to Shazza, who scowled.

  "What about the WarSuits?"

  "Aha! There is a dial, for just this situation. It thins the fabric of the core, makes them near invisible; less protective, I'll warrant you, but ideal for our situation. You have to remove the arms and legs, but it protects your body, your vitals. Girls, if we meet more nurses or weird doctors or whatever, we will instantly be taken as deformo nurses and allowed to pass along with our business! What better way of infiltrating the REC?"

  "Infiltrating? I thought we were trying to escape?"

  "That's what I meant! Come on, strip off."

  Franco could barely disguise his delight, then his utter anguish, as first Fizzy and Shazza dropped packs, removed WarSuit arms and legs, then thinned their core WarSuits, revealing fetching lace underwear tastefully done in combat camouflage. This was followed by Olga, who proudly showed off her Huge Silk Bridget Knickers, designed to Bulge In Your Belly[tm], Disintegrate Your Donut[tm], Squeeze In Your Sell-u-lite[tm], and, ultimately, Turn A Fat Woman Into A Thin Woman[tm] (patent pending). Franco didn't know where to put his eyes, and focused instead on getting his bra padding just right, as he clambered into his little white PVC number.

  Newly disguised, they stared at one another. Fizzy and Shazza made damn fine examples of nurses, albeit without the seemingly obligatory donut rings, peroxide-blonde hair and cherry-red lipstick. Olga had manfully squeezed into the largest uniform she could find, but her bulges bulged everywhere making her look like a hippo ballerina in the world's largest tutu. "It just doesn't fit," she wailed, not unsurprisingly.

  Most entertaining of all was Franco.

  He was like a big fat ginger bloke, in a dress.

  "Cool," said Fizzy.

  "Fetching," said Shazza.

  "You think so?" Franco did a twirl, and his skirt flared up showing his white ASDA underpants.

  "I wouldn't do that," said Fizzy.

  "The bulge kinda ruins the effect."

  "Ah yes," said Franco, "but we are disguised as deformed nurses." He beamed, as if that answered all their problems. Picking up his shotgun, he waved the three squaddies over towards the elevator... as a background hum filled the air and the double doors swung open with fizzes and pops and crackles of discharged electricity. There were Convulsers, their hands revealing ECT pads hot-wired to battery packs. They were grinning, like a pack of wolves that's cornered a deer, their huge round hairless heads distended and each one curiously unique in its blobby shape, as if each had been hot-moulded from a piece of putty.

  There were rather a lot of them.

  The three women glared at Franco, then back at the Convu
lsers.

  The pack, numbering perhaps fifteen, maybe twenty, it was hard to tell in the gloom with so many fizzing, popping electrical sparking appendages - it was like being trapped in an electricity generator - they squeezed and flowed through the doors, filling the end of the room with a bobbing, jigging frenzy.

  "What now?" said Fizzy from the corner of her mouth.

  Franco had gone white. His last meeting with a Convulser had hurt...

  "I think," said Shazza, also from the corner of her mouth, "that we need to run."

  "On three," said Olga.

  "One," said Shazza.

  "Two," said Fizzy.

  The Convulsers screamed, in unity, as one, and huge arcs of electricity sprang from their ECT hands and their thin wiry bodies leapt forward, and they sprinted with awesome, unbelievable, inhuman speed towards the group -

  Franco's D5 discharged, but shells were swallowed easily by the squirming, sparking throng...

  "Run!" he screamed and, turning, found he was alone. The three women were already a good twenty feet ahead and still accelerating towards the service elevator doors.

  Franco pumped his arms, as an arc of electricity sprang out, and stung him a savage and violent shock to the arse.

  He leapt a foot in the air, and ran faster. It seemed the most sensible thing to do...

  Cam was a PopBot, technically a personalised servant model. However, during earlier adventures, he had been fitted with Put Down[tm] War Technology, something for which Franco endlessly teased the little PopBot. However, in the real world it meant Cam could, at the expense of battery power, processor cycles, and even hardware longevity, channel everything into a singular process in order to achieve a distilled end result. It would leave him useless until recharged, or rebooted, but that was a price he would have to pay.

  Cam ran down a series of menus, disabling function after function after function. He shut down processor cycles and channelled all power into his thrusters and, from his prone position on the sand, stretched his multi-motors to their operational limits, as Snake pulled the triggers on the D5 shotgun and the weapon discharged, so that Cam accelerated at a rate faster than a striking serpent.

  Shells howled, and Cam interjected himself between Keenan's head and the hot, howling metal. Shrapnel screamed off in random directions and Keenan, sure he was dead, blinked a few times until his gaze fastened on the smoking shell of Cam, half-buried in the sand. Keenan growled, and his right straight caught Snake a savage blow to the nose, his right hook cannoned Snake's temple, and his right kick lifted the shocked man from his feet, depositing him in the sand. Keenan reached down, took the D5, and as Snake tried to formulate words with twisted lips, Keenan rammed the butt into Snake's good eye, slamming the man backwards into unconsciousness.

  Keenan allowed a long breath to ease between his lips, whistling. His gaze fell on the dead body of Maximux, then he whirled on Ed, who was crawling across the sand in the opposite direction to Keenan. He strode over to Ed, and kicked him up the arse.

  "Going somewhere?"

  "Don't kill me, Keenan!" There was fear in his eyes, a deep understanding of what this enraged man before him could achieve.

  "Why not?" Keenan's voice was low, beyond rage. He pulled free his Widow Maker tobacco, and rolled a cigarette, D5 cradled against his arm. He surveyed the desert surroundings, and welcomed - temporarily - the heat from the fast rising sun. "You were quite happy to slot a few shells between my ears. You, and that bag of shit carcass over there."

  "No, Keenan. Please."

  Keenan lit his smoke, and enjoyed it for a few moments before hoisting the weapon in one hand and lowering the barrels to touch Ed's head. "You care nothing for stopping the junks, for saving millions, perhaps trillions, of people from certain death. All you think about is the cash in your damn pocket, here, and now. I can be the judge and jury on this one, no problem. I find you guilty. And I sentence you to death."

  "No," came a tiny voice. It was Cam. In the sand. His casing was drifting smoke.

  Cursing, Keenan ran over to the small machine and hoisted it in his hand. He weighed Cam thoughtfully, and there came a sprinkling of weak orange lights.

  "You did a brave thing, little buddy."

  "I will be useless - until recharged," said Cam.

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "Don't kill them, Keenan."

  "Why the hell not?" Keenan's fury broke free. "They would have murdered us, both of us, Cam. And all for money." He spat in the sand. "Mercenaries. Shit-heads. Scum of the fucking earth. We put our own lives in further danger by taking them along; can't you see?"

  "Not like this," said Cam. "Not in anger. Never in anger."

  Keenan cursed, and gently placed Cam in his pack. Then he moved back to Ed, and stared at the cringing man for a long, long time. Finishing his cigarette, he ground the butt under his boot and threw a tiny silver filament onto the sand. Ed stared at it, then back at Keenan.

  "That's a SnapWire," Ed said, slowly.

  "Yep. Put it on."

  "I'm not putting that on! If you try and escape, it'll cut off your hands!"

  "Yeah." Keenan grinned. "I know."

  "Suck my dick, Keenan."

  Keenan's boot crashed Ed's face, and when Ed came around he was sat back-to-back with Snake. They both had SnapWires around their wrists, and the sun was burning their skin something horrid.

  Keenan was surveying the crashed 6X6 Giga-Buggy. It was battered, tatty, the chassis a little bent. Leaning inside, he flicked several switches and the Buggy blipped and beeped. Suddenly, a TurboRam shot from the roof, flipping the car back onto its wheels where it creaked on damaged suspension, rocking from the impact. Slowly, on greased hydraulics, the TurboRam retracted back into the roof and Keenan looked to the sky, silently thanking the gods for such a vehicle.

  "I didn't know it could do that," said Snake, softly.

  "You should have read the manual, boy."

  Keenan climbed into the cockpit, and started the engine. Fumes belched, the engine roared, and with an odd whining and rhythmic clicking the Buggy settled into some semblance of its former self. Keenan hit a switch, and armoured segments of roof folded back; the final two, near the rear wheels, stuck and started to grind in imitation pain. Keenan switched it off, pulled free Cam, and set him on the dashboard. He searched the Buggy, pulling free a recharge lead, and after a few moments of fiddling, plugged Cam in. Rainbow lights flickered across Cam's shell.

  "Thank you, Keenan."

  "Don't mention it. How long to recharge?"

  "Not for that. For Ed and Snake's lives."

  Keenan waved his hand, and climbed from the vehicle, dragging first Ed to the rear of the Buggy and sitting him down with a slap. He attached the SnapWire to the Buggy's roll-cage, and repeated the process with Snake, who was groggy from his beating. Both men glared sullenly at Keenan, who'd lit a cigarette. He blew smoke at them, and Ed coughed.

  "What now?" said Cam.

  "The Junkala King told me to seek the Silver River. But I've been studying the PAD maps of the planet, and it doesn't make sense. This is a normal Earth Standard planet, Y7. All the rivers are natural water, that's why it's so inhabitable, why they built the Sick World here."

  "So what are you thinking?"

  "North, where the desert meets the sea, there is a long arm of weird geological strata; a glacier, still retreating to the poles but able to survive the edges of the desert sun. It's the only anomaly I can find on this whole ball of rock. On the maps it's named Tekarren Ka, but translated, that means Silglace. That's my only lead."

  "You're wrong with the translation," said Cam. "Silglace is an abbreviation of the literal. It means Silver Glacier, or more precisely, The glacier which has silver at its core. You've found something there, Keenan."

  "Hmm." He rubbed at his stubble, and winced at his battered body's aches and pains. "I feel like I'm clutching at straws."

  "Still no comms with Franco or Pippa?"

  "No. Not
hing. Not even QGM or LongWave."

  "You want to explore?"

  Keenan shrugged. "It's on a direct bearing towards Pippa's BaseCamp, so we might as well start there. If the Junkala King was indeed who he said he was, if this whole damn situation isn't just a prick tease, then it's the only viable option I can see."

  Snake laughed, from the back of the Buggy. "Fucking heroes, out to save the world again." He growled as Keenan lowered the D5 to his face.

  "I suggest you shut up."

  "Or what? You'll blow my head off?"

  "Exactly," said Keenan, cool eyes meeting Snake's. "You're court-martialled, son. Your days in Combat-K are over. You know it, I know it, and Cam here, property of QGM in wartime, fucking knows it. When it's upheld, you'll be Little Man. And Little Man dies as easy as any other Non-Mil."

  Snake gritted his teeth, muscles on his jaws standing out, but said no more.

  Keenan hit the MonkeyMan SatNav, which blipped into existence. He punched in co-ordinates from the PAD, and the Buggy's console sprang into life.

  "Follow the desert north-north-east for two hundred and fifty miles," said the SatNav. "Then take a right. Ooh."

  "Great," muttered Keenan, slammed the Buggy in gear, and wheel-spun through the sand.

  A rocky mountain range forced them north through the sand and rock fields, evidence of millennia of the terrifying Rockfalls. Keenan drove in silence, face grim, mulling over his encounter not just with Elana, but the Junkala King of a different age. Cam hummed to himself, apparently happy with the recharge juice flowing through batteries and circuits, whilst in the back, wired to the roll-cage, Snake and Ed sat in sullen silence, eyes dark rimmed, faces blank.

  They pounded over harsh desert landscape, eventually circumnavigating the mountain range and turning northeasterly to compensate for navigational deviations. The landscape started to change, with more harsh, spiked plants, cacti and the occasional gnarled tree, some towering to several hundred feet in height, solitary sentinels stretching aged limbs for the sun and wearing their bark like a cancer.