by Andy Remic
One by one they climbed into the shaft, and Zanz pulled the grille back into place behind them. Then, stowing away weapons and moving on all fours as quietly as they could, they headed - east, by Jenny’s reckoning - into the heart of the Greenstar Factory.
It didn’t take them long to find the station from which they should have emerged on their Accelerator-blasted train. In fact, the carriage stood there to one side, surrounded by soldiers with machine guns and disintegrators, huge weapons that buzzed softly, nozzles glowing blue.
Jenny felt herself turn cold, and through a tiny air grille could count... maybe a hundred armed men and women in olive-green uniforms, with the gold emblem of the Greenstar Company.
If they had ridden the train to its termination, they would have been the ones terminated.
The soldiers were on edge, wary, constantly looking about them. Several groups had taken positions on opposite platforms. Anything coming out of that tunnel would be cut to bloody ribbons within the blink of an eye.
She turned back to Zanzibar. “You were right to seek an alternative.”
“Yes.”
“We need to find some kind of control centre.”
“Yes.”
“Then bring this motherfucking place to the ground.”
“Let’s do it.”
~ * ~
HORACE SWAM, AND he felt more powerful than he had ever felt in his android life. He had killed hundreds of people... killed thousands of people using his superior strength, and agility, and intellect... but never had he felt like he felt now, infused with the organic toxic sludge of an evolved sentient decadence. He was filled to overflowing with toxic waste. It brimmed in him, like a jug filled with water, to the point of overflowing. And he welcomed the feeling, revelled in the power, and swam under the water, under the Biohazard Ocean, until he found the inlet which met with the fast-moving waters from the Yellow Virus Peaks: the River Tox. Horace flexed his muscles and drank in toxic waste, breathing on the pulp of radiation and heavy metals and chemical slurry... and with each gulp it made him stronger, made him more powerful, until he felt like he would burst...
He swam, powering upriver, skimming the river bed with its vast collection of dumped waste. And as he swam in great lazy strokes, so he felt others join him, psi-children who emerged from the underwater rocks and dumped, battered cars and old oil drums. They emerged, and smiled, and swam behind him and he did not mind, welcomed their company, for it meant he would not go into battle alone...
He swam for a day and a night, never tiring, his toxic intake and excretion working in perfect harmony. It was only when he reached the first set of vast waste pipes, leaving the Greenstar Factory Hub and dumping straight under the wide, swirling, deep waters of the River Tox, that he began to feel strange. First it came in his forearms; a gradual swelling of the muscles, a tightening of his new body all over, but mainly in his forearms. The uncomfortable feeling spread through him and he paused, under the sludge, grasping hold of the thick metal grate guarding the exit from the massive pipe into the river. With one hand curled around the huge bars, Horace looked down at himself, at his naked toxic form, his flesh now a puke-green colour, his skin covered with warts and sores and bubbles and lumps, open wounds bubbling with pus and toxic venom, and something, a sudden uncertainty, rippled through him. Is this right? Or am I bubbling away, disintegrating before I can complete my mission? Have my genetics rebelled? Has the toxic overload destroyed me?
And then a hand, on his shoulder. It was one of the psi-children. He looked back at her, down at her, and realised she had shrunk. No. He had grown. He had become filled with toxicity. Filled with waste. A carrier of filth and hardcore poison.
It’s okay. Do not be frightened.
I will not die?
We all die.
I will not die... yet?
Not yet. Be strong. Fulfil your destiny.
With a roar, Horace grasped the heavy grille protecting the outlet pipe, and his toxic muscles bunched and warped and the steel screamed and bent, and bubbles shot up to the surface of the river. Horace clamped himself to the grille, and fought the steel, and slowly it bent out of all shape and recognition, and in disgust, Horace tossed it onto the river bed, where ancient sludge awoke, arose, and engulfed the iron, sucking it down into its toxic embrace.
You are inside, said the girl. And she smiled.
Yes. I will go now.
We will accompany you.
Thank you.
They swam, a phalanx of toxic creatures, inside the massive pipe, through which a juggernaut could easily pass. Horace led the way, and now a hundred or so psi-children swam in his wake, like an army of mermaids, only these had no pretty faces or pretty fins or tails, for these psi-children were made from chemical effluvia and disease and sludge and waste and poison.
I am the trigger, he thought.
And then, Don’t ever lose your temper.
And he smiled. And he remembered. And he found regret.
On they swam. Through the pipes.
Into the Heart of Greenstar.
~ * ~
SVOOL STOOD ON the blasted, bleached moorland. It was dark, and a cold, sour wind blew from the south, chilling him to his very core and filling him with bitter thoughts. To one side, Sergeant Hardspore and his men, Quad-Gal Military in all but name and sent on this insane rescue mission by the Shamans of Manna, had set up a base camp. Three sets of cameras had been arranged in banks, with the Greenstar Factory Hub in the far distant background. Between here and there was a bog, a bubbling waste of fetid, sulphur-stinking marshes. They made Svool feel sick.
He was about to head for his tent - in the hopes it hadn’t melted - when the army AD arrived, waving a sheaf of notes. “Oh, Mr Koolimax, Mr Koolimax, I need to go over a few things before you retire to your trailer...”
“I haven’t got a trailer.”
The AD looked at him, head to one side, as if to say, oh, how unprofessional of you to point out such a basic lack of film-maker luxury for our main star! but he didn’t actually say it. Just drilled it into Svool’s head with the drill-bit of his stare.
“We need to go over a few directions...”
“Wait! Wait!” Svool held up a hand. “You want me to create a poem, right? The most incredible piece of anti-Greenstar poetry ever, yes? Well, I need to finish the damn thing.”
Svool stalked off across the barren wasteground, and ducked as he entered his military green tent. Lumar was lying back on a small canvas bed, reading a manual. Svool slumped down onto his own bed, which creaked in warning.
“Are you okay, Svool?”
“Yes. Let me work.”
And he picked up his pad, which he had named The Pad of Doom, and he opened it and stared down at this, the most incredible poem he had ever written, filled with mourning for an entire planet, laid waste by the decadence and stupidity of the creatures who abused Her...
Only he didn’t.
Because, for the first time in his life, Svool had writer’s block.
~ * ~
SIXTEEN
JENNY HALTED, AND held up her fist. Behind her, Zanzibar, Nanny and Meat Cleaver readied their weapons as quietly as they could. They had agreed it was time to leave the ventilation shafts, find a core location, and put down some heavy destruction before they were found and killed. But this had proved trickier than any of them had anticipated. A few hundred metres back, they had passed some kind of control room - vast in size, and containing massive black tubs, short and squat and fat, and numbering perhaps a thousand in total. Some of them bubbled, and some were still. Around the entire vast laboratory were banks and rows of computers and delicate machinery, and many benches set up with apparatus for obvious experimentation. And yet they were still stuck in this shaft...
“What is it?”
“I think I’ve found something.”
Jenny crawled forward, her gloved fingers describing the shape of the inspection hatch beneath her. She listened for a while, then eased
her fingers under the rim and lifted the hatch. She popped her head down, then lowered herself, dropping into a crouch in the corridor. She braced her SMKK and covered both ends of the corridor whilst Nanny and Meat Cleaver dropped down behind her. Zanzibar came last, slotting the hatch back into place as he fell. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it didn’t leave a gaping hole in the ceiling to attract immediate attention.
“We going to check out the lab?” said Zanz.
“Yeah. Looks like an important centre for operations. What concerns me is the lack of lab rats.”
“Lunch break?”
“Too convenient. You got the HighJ? I would suggest this is a good place to start.”
Zanzibar rattled the canvas sack. “Let’s leave them a present they won’t ever forget,” he grinned.
They moved warily into the vast laboratory. The black tubs bubbled, and the bright lighting soon gave Jenny a headache. Zanz tossed her a few cubes of HighJ, and more to the rest of the squad, and they moved across the laboratory to the centre. Everything was pristine, immaculate. Almost as if...
“It’s unused,” said Jenny, the penny finally dropping. “The staff aren’t away on a lunch break; they’re just not here. It’s new. Clean. Perfect.” The others looked around the room, and had to agree.
“I don’t get it,” said Zanzibar.
“Well it’s quite simple, really,” said Vasta. She had stepped from a half-concealed side-door. The E3 Accelerator that had killed Bull was in her hands, and she had a tight, cruel smile on her face.
“You bitch,” snarled Jenny.
“So we meet again,” smiled Vasta, and ran a hand through her hair, as if preening before a new boyfriend. “It’s interesting, tracking you - for believe me, you leave a trail so wide a new college boy could follow you blindfolded - how totally incompetent you really are. Is this really the best ECO terrorist outfit that Mr Candle could summon to do his dirty work?” She laughed, a cold, cruel laugh. “Well. You won’t be carrying out any more of your little plots and schemes. Flizz is dead. Sick Note is, shall we say, very, very sick. Or at least, in separate pieces. And Bull... poor old Bull.” She pulled out a sulky lower lip, like a child who’d had a lollipop confiscated. “You all ran off in such a hurry, you didn’t hear him begging and squealing on that underground train track.” Her face went hard. “An 11mm Techrim bullet soon put an end to that.”
Zanzibar growled and reached for his gun, but Jenny’s hand shot out, halting him.
At that moment, from both ends of the laboratory, came the rattle of guns being readied and cocked. The olive-green-uniformed soldiers came stampeding through the lab, boots stomping, guns trained on the four ECO terrorists. Guns trained on Jenny and her squad. She felt a cold fear settle in her belly.
They weren’t getting out of this one alive, that was for sure.
Jenny felt the cube of HighJ in her hand. If she could just arm it... then if they shot her, BAM! They’d all be cat food. She twisted her hand, attempting to shield the small black cube, but Vasta caught the movement and gestured. Three Greenstar soldiers strode forward and relieved her first of the HighJ, then of her SMKK.
“Such a shame it had to end like this. Mr Candle will be so disappointed...”
Jenny tensed. She could feel the killing moment speeding towards her. She tensed. And heard a tub go gloop. She frowned. Another tub went gloop. Vasta didn’t notice; she was too busy self-eulogising.
“And so we followed your little squad - you thought you were so clever, so covert, using those back-door disused tunnels, but that was a sadly obvious tactic. If you’d actually taken the time to really think things through...”
There came another... gloop.
This time, a large one.
Vasta stopped talking, and moved her focus from Jenny to the tub. She gestured to a soldier with a short beard, who walked across the polished lab tiles, boots clacking. The black tub came up to the man’s waist; he halted at its edge, looking down into what appeared to be a thick, black tar.
It gave another gloop.
The man looked to Vasta, half-smiled, and shrugged... as an explosion from the tar showered him. Something, a figure, a small, lithe figure with long wild hair and flashing bright eyes, leapt from the tub, attached itself to the soldier using hands and feet, and bit into his face. The man suddenly screamed, staggering back, and his SMKK stuttered and coughed, bullets cutting a line across the ceiling in an explosion of shattered tiles and popping lights and sparks. The creature growled and bit and wrestled with the man’s flesh, tugging and chewing him, pulling his beard and lips away in a long string of skin. The man, screaming, punched at the figure, to no obvious effect.
“Get it off him!” snapped Vasta, attention focused on the sudden fight.
Three soldiers moved to the man’s aid, grasping the childlike figure and attempting to drag it off. All they did was tear their comrade’s face further from his skull, and he hit the ground with a bustle around him, still fighting and thrashing and moaning as the child bit and chewed and absorbed the blows of the three large soldiers. One finally hit the figure in the head with the butt of his SMKK. The crack sang across the lab - and had no effect.
Vasta levelled her E3 Accelerator. All the soldiers in the vicinity suddenly ducked, hands covering heads. As...
More figures leapt from the tubs, an explosion of action and activity all across the labs. They landed on the soldiers, on the ceiling, on the floor, crouched on all fours like cats, backs arched, choosing targets and leaping again in a single spring. Fingers flexed like claws, slashing throats and tearing out eyes. Teeth snarled and bit. Blood pattered across the floor. The world of serenity in the lab went from calm to insanity in a few quick heartbeats. Jenny charged Vasta, whose E3 was still levelled at the first victim and his chewing attacker; she slammed into the Head of Greenstar Security, one hand grabbing the controlling arm and pushing it up. There came a whump and a diagonal shaft was sliced up through the ceiling, up through vents and pipework and flooring to the room above. It started to rain desks and computer equipment, screens and keyboards bouncing down into the tubs of black goo, stationery clattering from the scuffling forms of the panicked soldiers.
Jenny, grasping Vasta’s arms, drove an elbow back into the woman’s face. There came a crack, but Vasta was already moving, rolling with the blow. She drove a low punch into Jenny’s ribs, but Jenny whirled about, releasing Vasta’s arms and slamming the palms of both hands into Vasta’s face. Vasta let go of the weapon and staggered back, clawing her own eyes. The E3 clattered to the ground. Jenny leapt forward, almost serene, eyes calm, breathing regulated, and pounded her fist into Vasta’s retreating form, three times. Vasta fell back, but her boot slammed out, kicking Jenny in the stomach. Air exploded from her, but she came on and Vasta grabbed her, tossing her backwards over her head and scrambling to her feet.
Jenny rolled and leapt up. She turned on Vasta, fists raised, but Vasta drew a knife. Zanzibar turned his SMKK on Vasta but Jenny waved him away. “This bitch is mine.”
“You reckon?” snapped Vasta. “I’ve heard puppies yakking just like you. Come on, cunt, let’s see how well you bleed.”
Jenny drew her own combat knife and advanced, as all around them the lithe figures with the wild hair covered in tar leapt and cavorted, biting and swiping, chewing and dancing. Occasionally an SMKK rattled or a pistol fired, and everybody ducked. None of the children - the girls - seemed to die. But soldiers died. Plenty of soldiers.
Knives hissed through the air, and Jenny parried a blow. Sparks glittered. She stepped back as a soldier staggered between the two, a child on his face vomiting toxic puke that burnt out his eyes. He fell, screaming, head steaming, hair in flames.
Vasta leapt over his squirming body, her knife tearing at Jenny’s eyes. Jenny twitched, focused on the knife, and brought her own weapon up suddenly. Vasta took it in the belly and gagged, then staggered back, hissing and spitting. The knife was dragged from Jenny’s hands. Blood soaked through
Vasta’s uniform and she looked down in disbelief. Slowly, she took hold of the dagger and withdrew it from her flesh. She stood and allowed the weapon to clatter to the ground in a pool of gore.
“I’m gonna kill you for that.”
She leapt, and the punch lifted Jenny, slamming her back against a bench. Delicate glass equipment shivered and toppled, clattering and chiming and smashing all around Jenny. The blow had been too quick, too sudden; especially for a woman with a mortal knife wound to the abdomen.
Vasta was on her, and another blow rocked Jenny. She felt a tooth come out, and blood flooded her mouth. Her arms slammed up, catching Vasta under the chin, but the Head of Security rode the blow and grinned down at Jenny. She’d dropped her knife, and they wrestled for a moment, until Vasta pinned Jenny’s arms above her head and leaned down, her mouth opening, so close her words almost tickled.