Toxicity

by Andy Remic

  Jenny sighed. After all, Randy was the newest member of the team. Yes, he looked like a popinjay, but his bomb circuit-building was unbelievably brilliant. His bomb-making was... just perfect. And this was to be the test. To see if they could justify it - and him - to Cell Commander McGowan.

  “Why the photos?” said Randy.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  When the shit hit the fan, they had to have evidence for the media: that way, they weren’t seen as terrorists picking soft targets, but as freedom fighters attempting to save the planet. Which, Jenny knew in all their hearts, was what they were. It’s just sometimes certain radical idiots got in the way. Sometimes, real bad people used “The Fight” as a personal vendetta and things got out of hand. Innocent people died. That wasn’t the way Impurity5 operated.

  “Go on, tell me now.”

  “Be quiet, dickhead, and focus on the job in hand.”

  Randy opened his mouth, but Zanzibar gave him a stern look, and Randy closed it again. The huge Asian had a reputation. No. He had A Reputation. You didn’t mess with Zanzibar. Not if you wanted to keep a hold of your kneecaps. Or your face.

  Zanzibar threw Jenny a smile and a shrug. Jenny replied with a nod, and got back behind her Long Lens. The tankers were almost in, now. Behind her, there came a steady shring shring as Meat Cleaver started sharpening his knives.

  “What now?” said Randy. He was impatient, full of energy. Sexual energy, from where Jenny was sitting.

  “We wait,” said Jenny, settling back. She looked around, and smiled. These were the moments she liked, revered. The quiet times. Reflective. With her squad, her unit. The people in the world she knew she could trust; but more, who were fighting alongside her to achieve a common goal...

  And what’s the goal, girl? came the voice of Nixa.

  Jenny froze for a moment, as she always did. Her eyes flickered around the group, wondering if any of them had heard the words, or even seen her stiffen at the ghostly interruption. Meat Cleaver was sharpening. Sick Note was smoking endlessly, a tiny smoke-extractor on a ring on his index finger making sure no fumes escaped and gave even a hint of their hide-hole. Flizz was seated in a corner, silent, watching, as she always was. Randy had tried it on with Flizz first; Flizz was stunningly beautiful, it had to be said, but when Randy persisted Flizz put a knife to his groin and got in close and whispered, “I’ll cut it off, wide boy,” and Randy got the message. To Randy, having a penisectomy was worse than death itself. Randy was the sort of man who wore a Kevlar codpiece rather than a helmet. Or, as he wittily put it, a helmet over his helmet. Nobody laughed.

  The goal is to close down Greenstar. To show them up as the liars they are. We want the toxicity gone from our planet. We want our world back. No longer a tipping ground for the crap of Manna. We want freedom. A clean planet. Clean air for our children. Clean water to drink. We want the politicians to stop lying to us. We want The Company to fuck off. We never asked for it, and the people of this world don’t want it!

  A noble goal, mocked Nixa. Every world wants the same.

  “Uh?” said Jenny.

  Randy was staring at her, a quizzical expression on his face. “I said, gorgeous girlfriend, what games can we play whilst we wait?”

  “We hired you to make bombs, not to dick around,” said Jenny harshly. She was unsettled by Nixa. Nixa usually only came at the time of sleep. Why was she here now? Haunting her during her waking moments, and more importantly, when she was out on a mission?

  “I know that,” said Randy, smoothly, and Jenny looked into his eyes and for the first time she understood him. He was there, genuinely, out of support for their clean world ideology. He was there to help. But... a leopard never changes its spots. What Randy said and did; that was just the way he was. And Jenny would have to get used to it, or kick him from the squad. And they were down Jones now; they needed all the manpower they could get.

  Jones. Gone, after his beating. That had been four weeks ago...

  Vanished! Self-discharged from the hospital, he’d taken his kit and fucked off. Now, the whole incident sat uneasy with Jenny. Something was wrong. Out of kilter. Jenny had a funny feeling she hadn’t seen the last of him...

  Still, the rest of the cell were happy Jones was gone. He was like a maggot at the core of a fresh apple, nibbling away from the inside out until all the goodness was gone; or he over-gorged himself and died in the process.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s the matter?” rumbled Zanz.

  “Just thinking about Jones.”

  “Don’t mention that bastard to me. We should have dealt with him sooner. We shouldn’t have let him run.”

  Jenny nodded. She understood. He knew too much. And Jones was the sort of man likely to wage a vendetta against their unit. She corrected herself. Against her. She knew his type.

  They watched the Reprocessing Plant, and Jenny studied its lines for the thousandth time. She had the plans stored in her head; every corridor, every level, every staircase, every vat, every press, every blast chamber. All of it. As a team they’d gone over the maps time and time again until they knew it like their own bedchambers. They’d built a model in a rented cellar, and sat around drinking coffee and smoking and playing out scenarios with tiny holographic figures. Tommy Tom™ holographic action figures, in 7D! The most played with Tommy Tom™ toy in the Quad-Galaxy! TommyTom™ was guaranteed to give your little Tom decades of endless fun. Some of the guys in Impurity5 thought it was highly amusing to be using TommyTom™ to plan out their destruction of a fake reprocessing plant; a factory that was an integral player in the pollution of the world known as Toxicity.

  Jenny didn’t find the TommyTom™ so funny. The name Tom always reminded her of her dad.

  And that was a bad place to be.

  “They’re coming out,” said Randy, and Jenny got behind her Long Lens. The iron gates opened smoothly and the first of the Super Tankers, bobbing on air suspension, poked its long black snout from the factory and began to emerge - as Sick Note so inelegantly put it - like a turd from a pipe.

  They watched the tankers. Jenny took more pics on her cube.

  Evidence. Right there before her.

  “See it?” she said, turning to Randy.

  “I just see a whole load of tankers rolling out after delivering their loads for reprocessing. What’s there to see? We can’t justify this det, Jenny. They’ll crucify us in the papes and on ggg!”

  Jenny and Zanzibar exchanged glances. “Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

  “You do it,” rumbled Zanzibar, and gave a broad grin showing yellow teeth.

  “Look at the ride height,” said Jenny.

  Randy squinted. “Looks the same to me.”

  “Compare the images.” She showed him on the Long Lens cam monitor. Randy licked his lips.

  “They’re lower on their suspension coming out.”

  “Which means?”

  “They entered empty, filled up, and now they’re going somewhere to dump the shit.”

  “Good boy.”

  Randy shrugged. “My skills lie in, shall we say, other areas.” He gave her a wink, and she laughed.

  “You have tenacity, my friend.”

  “Better believe it. So what now?”

  Zanzibar stood, and stretched his mighty shoulders. “It’s time for action,” he said.

  ~ * ~

  IMPURITY5 HAD SPLIT into two groups. Jenny, alongside Randy, Sick Note and Flizz, would hit the Reprocessing Plant; and Zanzibar, with Meat Cleaver, Bull and Nanny, would attack the Super Tankers. They would co-ordinate attacks to detonate at the same time, whilst making sure the print and ggg media found out real fast so they could get reporters on the job and to the gig and putting down Greenstar’s lying ways for good.

  The two groups spent the next twenty-four hours planning infil, det and exfil, and cross-referencing plans and data, checking weapons, and analysing Randy’s incredibly brilliant new bombs. Both Jenny and Zanzibar had never s
een anything quite like the tiny machines. Randy said they were based on alien tech, but more than that he would not say. He’d tap his nose with his finger, smile, and try and get a kiss from Jenny.

  Finally, they were ready. One of the scouts had sent a comm; the Super Tankers were loading up. It was evening. The sun was falling fast from the sky. It was time to get the job done.

  Zanzibar stood and embraced Jenny.

  “For freedom,” he said.

  “For freedom,” she echoed.

  And hoisting packs and weapons, they headed out into the night.

  Last to leave was Randy. He gave a look behind him, a smile, and pulling a small button from his pocket he gave it a tiny click and dropped it on the floor, where it glowed blue, briefly, before returning to the disguise of a normal button.

  “For freedom,” he muttered, and vanished into the falling gloom.

  ~ * ~

  SICK NOTE LOOMED from the darkness, pale and pasty and looking like shit. He crouched in the hole beside Jenny and gave a single nod.

  “All three?”

  “Out for the count, mate.”

  Jenny gave a single nod. The Reprocessing Factories had originally been easy meat; pretty much unguarded targets. Until Jenny, her crew, Impurity5, and the Impurity Movement as a whole started detonating them. Subsequently, security had been increased, but was nothing somebody with the military background of Sick Note could not easily overcome.

  Jenny watched Sick Note move. A hypochondriac he might be, constantly moaning about his knees, back, elbows, headaches, flu, and a million other minor ailments that either inspired roaring laughter or complete frustration. “How are you going, mate?” he’d always ask; not as a genuine inquiry into your health, but as a prelude to a litany of his own woes. It was a question most of the unit had learned to neatly side-step. But despite his moans and groans, he was a dab hand at stealthily rendering guards unconscious. Formerly special forces, Sick Note was a damn sight more deadly than he looked. Especially when not in bed whining with Man Flu.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Jenny, Sick Note and Flizz climbed and slithered up the muddy slope, boots kicking in, closely followed by Randy, who was focused on Flizz’s fantastically shaped behind. She glanced back at him with a deep scowl, gloved hands muddy, hair tight back and face dark with camo cream. “Don’t get any ideas, motherfucker,” she snapped.

  Randy held his arms wide with a smile, as if to say, I wouldn’t dream of it, angel.

  They crawled under cover of twisted, leafless trees, one of The Company’s toxic gifts to the flora and fauna of the planet. It was rare to find anything organic on Toxicity not affected by the pollution of the past thirty years. Toxicity was a horticulturist’s idea of Hell. And a perfect model for people’s idea of a poisoned world.

  They stopped at the edge of the trees and surveyed the comically named Reprocessing Plant. Even though Jenny had memorised the plans, the layout, the wiring and ducting schematics, now - here, up close - the place was not only huge, but dark, brooding and intimidating. Jenny didn’t know if The Company had set out to build a factory which oozed malice, but they had certainly succeeded. Its vast matt-black walls, lack of windows, and massive array of cooling towers, vats, pipes and open engines, all black, all without lights; well. Jenny smiled. They wouldn’t be throwing any children’s parties there, that was for sure.

  Randy had pulled out a sniper scope and was surveying the plant. Up close, the place wasn’t just dark and foreboding, it was loud. A constant buzz and smash and thump and grind, as if the place lived. It was loud on the ears, and the thumping pounded a person to the pit of his stomach. The constant onslaught made Jenny feel physically sick.

  “How does it look?”

  “Deserted,” said Randy. “Night shift. Skeleton staff. As we expected. The last loading of the Super Tankers have just gone. It’s like taking pie from a kiddie, darling.”

  “We’ll see,” said Jenny. “Okay. We all know what to do. Comm silence unless it’s an emergency. We clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  “Clear, girlfriend.”

  Jenny gave a tight dry smile. “Let’s move.”

  They ran through the darkness in crouches, boots churning mud and long grass. The Plant was surrounded by a high spiked fence. Dropping at the base, Jenny pulled out an ECube and activated the laser, which cut through five bars in as many seconds. Smoke drifted from the glowing steel, and they crawled through the narrow gap and silently split up, Jenny and Sick Note to one corner of the Reprocessing Plant, Randy and Flizz to another. They would work their way around, covertly placing charges, then meet back at this hole in the fence to co-ordinate with Zanzibar for the simultaneous detonation.

  Jenny ran, and a million emotions pumped through her like a narcotic. Fear was there, of course, harnessed and used to keep her on edge. Joy was also a factor, mingled in with exultation at what they were about to do; not just a thorn in Greenstar’s side, they were a vicious multi-pronged spike right up its arse. They would make Quad-Gal’s governments sit up and take note. They would force a change. The people on the planet of Toxicity had had enough of the lies, enough of the political bullshit, enough of the poison. They wanted their world back, and the Impurity Movement were there to give the people what they so desired.

  Jenny crouched by a corner, and Sick Note was close, his unhealthy, pock-marked face pale in the gloom. This was the one time you’d find him without a cigarette and a bottle of whiskey. The one and only time you’d find him focused, and realise his underrated professionalism.

  “We good?”

  “Yeah.”

  They drew silenced Sig72 pistols and moved towards a blank metal door, checking behind them, then towards the perimeter sirens and emergency lights they knew were awaiting them. They’d seen the wiring diagrams.

  “Can you talk?” came Zanzibar over the net.

  “Yes. Be quick.”

  “There’s something wrong.”

  A cool chill blew over Jenny’s soul.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure.” Zanzibar’s voice was low, slow, controlled, but something had twitched him. Jenny cursed. “Let’s call it a hunch. Some tiny element is out of place. Out of alignment. I feel like we’re being watched. Set up. How is it there?”

  “All good,” said Jenny. “Go with your instincts, Zanz. If you want to withdraw, withdraw. Even one hit on this shit-hole will send a middle-finger message to the bastards at Greenstar. We don’t need the double-det.” But inside, she was seething. Cold and annoyed. They both knew the double detonation would have a much larger impact.

  “No. I’m good, Jen. Jumping at shadows. Will keep you updated.”

  “Good lad.”

  Jenny signalled Sick Note, who took out the lock using a tiny sliver of what looked like silver, but was in fact a controllable fluid pick. It took him half a minute, and then he opened the blank metal door and they slid inside.

  They were in.

  ~ * ~

  A COOL DARKNESS greeted Jenny, along with an undercurrent of stench that made her flinch. Living on the planet of Toxicity, the constant aroma of rotting crap was ever-present. For all who lived there, all those who called it home, olfactory senses became eventually dulled, and from childhood to adulthood, as Greenstar gradually wasted the planet of her kin, Jenny had come to see this gradual stripping of her senses as a sensory theft. Olfactory rape and murder. Another reason to curse Greenstar. Another reason to hate The Company.

  But this. This was real bad.

  Even Sick Note coughed, grip tightening on his Sig72.

  Jenny signalled, and they moved down a narrow corridor. Through the walls, the thumping and grinding was louder now; more harsh. Like bricks in a grinder. It set Jen’s teeth on edge, like a steel claw being dragged across a blackboard, and she fought to control herself. Focus. Job in hand. Plant charges.

  Swiftly, they moved through the gloom of the Reprocessing Pl
ant. Reaching several camera points they followed the same slick routine: Jenny would halt, Sick Note would come forward, and release his tiny silver worm, which would crawl its way up the wall, enter the camera and destroy its internal digital structure. One by one the cameras were shut down, and Sick Note grinned his sick grin. “No challenge for this technological master,” he muttered, and winked at Jen. She patted his arm and they continued through the gloom.

  Randy had been right. Skeleton night staff. But then, that’s what they’d expected. What they’d seen during the days and weeks of monitoring. The Greenstar Company were methodical and predictable, if nothing else.