by Andy Remic
Keenan swallowed, and glanced at Pippa.
"So all the nurses and doctors running wild on the surface - you do not control them?" she said.
"No. They follow their own deviated paths. Yes, I was instrumental in setting them on the road to their twisted medical civilisation; it is what I do. I plant a seed, but whether that seed grows into a bright beautiful flower, or a savage, suffocating, killing weed, I do not decide. I allow the chaos of nature that privilege." VOLOS laughed. "The great irony is that my power is all but gone. I am a shadow, a wisp of smoke, a decimation. The tests you went through to reach me - they were not my tests. They were created by the medical deviations, to stop any such as you reaching my Core. I am sorry you suffered so much pain on your journey here. It was never my intention."
"I thought we'd ignite the proto-matter and blast you to High Heaven, and then the loonies would have their world back," laughed Franco. "They'd all twist back into normality, and it'd be all fine and dandy. After all, Keenan here promised Lunatrick a new world..."
"No!" said VOLOS, and they felt the world shake, a trillion tremors running through every fault and line and lode. "Lunatrick is a dark spirit, he would have you transfer him to another, clean, new planet... so he could expand the corruption. You have to help me, Keenan. You have to help me grow strong."
"You are a machine?" said Keenan, remembering his conversation with the Junkala King.
VOLOS laughed then. "I have seen and heard your conversation, aeons past. Again, the Junkala had great arrogance. They imprisoned me! With machines! I was never truly imprisoned, but they restricted my energy, used ancient magic to stem my control. I am not a machine god, there is nothing mechanical about me. Yes, I am different physiologically, my blood is magma, my nerves are crystals; the Junkala, their history is as corrupt as their central nervous systems. I admit, I did not stand in the way of their deviation... but now, now I can start to put these things right."
"Why would you do that?" said Pippa.
"I have tasted humility," said VOLOS. "It is quite a thing to live in fear. Quite a thing to spend a million years growing ever more weak, watching those on your skin twist and corrupt and begin to understand you, to hunt you, to torture you. On your way here you saw the great machines they built, for burrowing under the ground. They were excavating me, searching out my Core. The creatures of Sick World want nothing more than to corrupt their Master." He laughed, a long sad laugh, like the extinction of comets. "If you help me, Keenan, if you help me I will save your friends, I will send them back to the surface where they can connect with the DropShip and leave this place..."
"And?" Keenan's eyes were bright.
"I will give you the key to unlocking the junks. You cannot fight their pestilence, Keenan. They are too strong. Instead, you must change them back again. Make them whole again, make them good and clean, make them pure, without a need to spread their toxic filth. I can do this. I can tell you where Leviathan hid the Soul of their Race. It is locked away in a Photon Shield. You can use it, spread it through the junks like a virus through software; and slowly, they will revert from poison."
"That's a strong bartering tool," said Keenan, warily. "What do you want of me?"
"You must give yourself to me."
There was silence. Keenan was frowning. "You wish me to die?"
"No. I wish you to merge with my Core. I need your Dark Flame, Keenan. I need the blood given to you by Emerald, by the Kahirrim. But you must give freely, or it will burn me, pollute my essence. I cannot force you. Will you do this, Keenan? Will you help me, help all the races of the Quad-Gal survive the junks?"
"No!" shouted Pippa. "You cannot ask this of him!" She turned to Keenan, grabbed him, shook him. "He's lying, VOLOS is lying, how do you know he tells the truth? How do you know he won't betray us, send us on a wild-goose chase? It's bollocks, Keenan, it's a lie!"
"There's something else," said Keenan, looking back to VOLOS. He was calm now. Serene. He could picture his little girls, in his mind, his Rachel, his Ally, and their deaths were a bitter pill under his tongue and in his throat and he realised; he was tired of life, tired of the fight, and all he wanted was to be reunited with his children. With his dead children...
"I can help you stop Leviathan," whispered VOLOS.
The avatar stepped forward, and in pale white hands it held a small envelope.
"Inside are instructions on how to halt Leviathan, how to build the machines used to imprison him... the machines that broke down, the machines you helped to... destroy. Combat K. You can put right that which you broke. You can save the Quad-Gal... and more. Protect it for another million years."
A hushed silence fell.
Pippa shook Keenan, harder now, and tears were coursing down her cheeks. Keenan lifted his hand, and made a strange gesture; from the black walls long green tubes emerged, like the wavering tendrils of creeping vines, and they slowly wound around Franco and Pippa. Pippa started to kick and struggle, but within a second she was held tight and lifted easily from the ground.
"You will send them back to the surface? With Betezh, and Olga, and Snake?"
"Yes," said VOLOS.
"I agree," said Keenan, face devoid of emotion.
"No!" screamed Pippa, as the avatar moved forward and handed the envelope to Franco. He clutched it tight, and tears stained his cheeks, ran down into his ginger goatee. "You don't have to do this, man," he snarled. "Keenan! Look at me! There are other ways to solve this problem! You don't have to die!"
"I won't be dying," said Keenan, gently. "I understand. Emerald gave me that gift. And I know VOLOS will not betray me; he will not betray us. This is our answer, Franco, our cure, Pippa. Don't be sad. This is a fine day, I assure you." His voice was melancholy and as Franco and Pippa were dragged backwards, upwards, to be deposited in tiny capsules and shot up through rock and stone and metal, they saw the last images of Keenan stepping forward, off the ledge, suspended, and then sucked down into the raging blinding black fire to be gone, and merged, and assimilated into the Core that was VOLOS.
The sun eased over the horizon, fingers of orange pushing away the green light of a dying moon. Heat flooded Sick World, and despite the snow, the remainder of Combat-K were warmed as they sat, on rocks, staring bleakly out across the rugged landscape.
Franco clutched the small envelope tightly, and rubbed at his nose occasionally, lost in thought. Betezh and Olga had built a fire near the Giga-Buggy and, using utensils and ingredients from the vehicle store, were cooking a pot of stew over the flames. Snake was locked by Snapwire to the Buggy's rail, his face dour, expression unreadable. He would await court martial and trial by Quad-Gal when they lifted from the planet.
And Pippa... Pippa sat a short way off, alone, a gentle breeze ruffling her hair. She had ceased crying, and her face had the rosy after-glow of sorrow, her eyes a hard edge of bad intent. She glanced up, as Cam emerged, weaving across the snow, and halted amidst the camp with a spinning shower of blue lights.
"What happened?" came his tinny voice.
Franco explained, in a low, quiet monotone, everything that had occurred since the Silglace and their crash. Cam listened in silence, spinning, all lights now gone from his battered casing. When Franco had finished, Cam simply sat, unmoving, in the cool winter breeze.
Pippa moved over, and sat close to Franco, leaning in to him, sharing his warmth. He reached around her, squeezed her, and for the first time in his life made no sexual innuendo, no lame jokes. Sadness ran like molten lead through his veins, melancholy through his mind. With regards dirty jokes; well, he simply no longer had it in him.
"I can't believe he's gone," said Pippa, eventually.
"No," said Franco.
"I loved him," said Pippa.
"Me too."
"He's at peace, now."
"With his little girls."
"Yeah." She smiled at that.
"Have you looked at the envelope?"
"Not yet." Franco opened it, for once fu
mbling with clumsy fingers normally used to setting the delicate det. cords on bombs. He pulled free a digital sheet; they asked Cam to translate.
"It's very simple," said Cam, for once without his bouncy humour. "There are co-ordinates, and a very simple set of instructions. You seek... the Junkala Soul. The Soul of their Race, taken by Leviathan and used to deviate their genetics. With this, you can re-infect them, as with a computer code virus, only on an organic level. You can make the junks good with a disease they once lost; you can stop the war, and the death."
Franco nodded.
"I haven't got the heart," said Pippa.
"What, you'd let the Quad-Gal die?" snarled Franco suddenly, feeling a surge of mad anger and they both leapt to their feet, guns out, aimed at one another's heads. Pippa's eyes were hard, cold, grey, filled with hate. Franco crumbled first, and lowered his Kekra.
"I'm sorry, Pippa," he said, miserably.
Pippa melted. She sighed, and sat down, re-holstering the D5 alongside her yukana swords. "Me too, Franco. You know I'd never harm you."
"Oh yeah?"
She stared at him. Hard. "Yes," she said, voice in cold stone. "I've lost one member of Combat K. I don't need to lose another."
"You must go to the Ganger World," said Cam, his AI voice soft.
"That's a bad place," said Franco.
"A dangerous place," agreed Pippa.
At that moment, they heard a distant rumbling, a grind, a slamming of steel on the hard-packed earth. From snow-heavy conifers there came a trembling, a crashing, breaking of branches and boles of trees; and then, like a vision from an esoteric metal nightmare, the digger lurched from the tree-line and ground its way through the snow and rocks, and basically anything that stood in its path.
Combat K watched the vehicle approach, then settle down with a sigh and a hiss of steam. A hatch opened, and Miller screamed as he was launched head-first into a deep snowdrift, where his legs kicked in a modestly comical fashion. Betezh moved over to him, dragged him out, rapped him on the head with a stew-ladle, and tied him up alongside Snake, who growled at the treatment. Nobody deserved to be locked up with a Health and Safety Inspector. Except, in fact, maybe a traffic warden.
"Mel!" bellowed Franco, and ran towards the digger.
Mel clambered down, and picked Franco up in an embrace that showed, despite the beatings, despite the screaming, despite the divorce, there was still love there. Olga looked on in disapproval, and stirred her stew, a woman cuckolded.
Franco looked around, beaming, elated that his true love, his true zombie love, was still alive. But there was no Keenan. No Keenan to make wise-ass cracks about taking her to the vets, being a bitch, or having her jabs done.
Franco let out another deep sigh, a sigh of disbelief, and of resignation. He moved back to Pippa whilst Mel disappeared to sort out her severe personal hygiene problems.
"I miss him already," he said.
"Yeah."
"Although he was a sarcastic bastard."
"That was our Keenan."
"So, what we gonna do now?" Franco peered around. "And where's that dumb mutt bloody dog, Sax, got to?"
"He trundled off across the snow going ticka ticka ticka, and muttering 'ruff' and 'borrocks', to pick up the damn DropShip so we can get our arses off this diseased and depressing ball of shit."
"Can he fly?" frowned Franco.
"Yeah," said Pippa, and smiled. "He showed me his license. He also told me about saving your dumb ass, on that collapsing snow cliff. He's one cute little metal doggie friend, y'know? Except for that wig. It's a bad wig."
"He's an acquired taste," muttered Franco. "Only I haven't acquired him yet."
Betezh brought them a bowl of stew and, reluctantly, Franco and Pippa sat alone, eating not tasting, and remembering Keenan. Only when Franco was dipping his third slice of sausage into the stew, did he repeat, voice little more than a whisper, "So, Pippa, what we gonna do now?" It was the voice of a small child.
Pippa looked at him, and drew her yukana sword. She angled the blade so that an esoteric blue glow from the snow flashed along the terrible, deadly weapon. "We're going to the gangers," she said, and smiled without humour, grey eyes bleak. "We're going to stop the junks."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Remic is a British writer with a love of extreme sports, kickass bikes and sword fighting. Once a member of an elite Combat-K squad, he has since retired from military service and works as an underground rebel fighting bureaucratic oppression wherever he finds it. He does not condone the use of biomods, and urges human- and alien-kind to rebel against the market-oppression of nihilistic mega-corporations.
Hardcore is his seventh novel.
You can discover more about Andy Remic at www.andyremic.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the inhabitants of SICK WORLD, for making themselves so easy to write. Kisses to Sonia, for modelling the, erm, nurses, uniforms, and big hugs to my mad and bad little boys for making life so entertaining. Thanks must also go to th3 m1ss1ng for their esoteric musical soundtrack, and to various friends and colleagues for fine test reading duties. Thanks also to Ian Graham... for liking the babies.
Finally, a big hearty sausage to all at SOLARIS, especially for that time when they got drunk and dressed up in PVC and, erm, taught me about the dark side of the medical profession.
Also by Andy Remic
Spiral
Quake
Warhead
War Machine
Biohell
Kell's Legend
Praise for Andy Remic
"Hard-hitting, galaxy-spanning, no-holds-barred, old-fashioned action adventure."
The Guardian on War Machine
"War Machine became my favourite science fiction novel of the year. Yes, you heard correctly... I loved every testosterone-fuelled second... And the sequel is easily one of my most anticipated new releases..."
Fantasy Book Critic on War Machine
"Non-stop blood-and-guts action thriller."
SciFi.com on War Machine
"A free-for-all punch-up, relentless and breathless and hugely enjoyable and for no extra cost, it's all held together by a clever storyline. A good read? Most definitely!"
SF Revu on Quake
"A hard-talkin', hard swearin', hard-fightin' chunk of military sci-fi."
SFX on Quake
"A new writer who knows what a regular reader sitting on the bus wants - action. Pure Die Hard, pure Rambo. This has got to be a film, surely!"
LadsMag on Warhead
Also from Solaris Books, The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove...
The Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all the other pantheons and divided the Earth into warring factions. Lt. David Westwynter, a British soldier, stumbles into Freegypt, the only place to have remained independent of the gods, and encounters the followers of a humanist freedom-fighter known as the Lightbringer. As the world heads towards an apocalyptic battle, there is far more to this leader than it seems...
"The kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write."
The Guardian on The Age of Zeus
www.solarisbooks.com
Also from Solaris Books, The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove...
The Olympians appeared a decade ago, living incarnations of the Ancient Greek gods, offering order and stability at the cost of placing humanity under the jackboot of divine oppression. Until former London police officer Sam Akehurst receives an invitation to join the Titans, the small band of battlesuited high-tech guerillas squaring off against the Olympians and their mythological monsters in a war they cannot all survive...
"The kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write."
The Guardian on The Age of Zeus
www.solarisbooks.com
Also from Solaris Books, The Age of Odin by James Lovegrove...
Gideon Coxall was a good soldier but bad at everything else, until a roadside explo
sive device leaves him with one deaf ear and a British Army half-pension. So when he hears about the Valhalla Project, it’s like a dream come true. They’re recruiting former service personnel for excellent pay, no questions asked, to take part in unspecified combat operations.
The last thing Gid expects is to find himself fighting alongside ancient Viking gods. The world is in the grip of one of the worst winters it has ever known, and Ragnarök - the fabled final conflict of the Sagas - is looming.
“The kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write.”
The Guardian on The Age of Zeus
www.solarisbooks.com
Indicia
Titles
Prologue
PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
PART TWO
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
PART THREE
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Also by Andy Remic
Praise for Andy Remic
'The Age of Ra' by James Lovegrove
'The Age of Zeus' by James Lovegrove
'The Age of Odin' by James Lovegrove