War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  Suddenly, it flexed backwards and withdrew its black Sliver Sword. The blade, incredibly thin, shimmered in the gloom of the roof bay as Pippa backed away, uncertain whether this was a fight... or an execution.

  “Give her a weapon you metal piece of coward shit!” screamed Franco, battered face glaring down from his imprisonment. “Or are you merely indicative of your mercury-bowelled chickenhead kind?”

  The GG paused. He glanced at Pippa. Then back up to Franco. With a click Pippa’s hands released. The GG gestured to the wall where consoles lined every inch of available space. “Over there. You will find your weapon. Choose with care, little lady.”

  Pippa sprinted, as above her Franco sat back on his haunches.

  “Indicative?” said Keenan, staring hard at Franco.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. It must have been the beating; released some rogue verbs into my slopstream.” He smiled, a little shamefacedly. He scratched his ginger, recently shaved head. “But it got her a sword. Look!”

  “Well done, Franco.” Keenan’s voice was soft. Worry etched his brow. His eyes were dark and hooded.

  “Hey, well, they don’t call me Mr. Smooth for nothing, you know?” Franco’s optimism was a crazy thing.

  Below, Pippa was whirling an identical single-molecule Sliver Sword. It hissed and screamed, slicing air as she spun and, apparently satisfied with its balance and edge, she turned to face the AI.

  “I know you,” said the GG, readying its weapon.

  “Come and eat this,” hissed Pippa, and charged to the attack.

  Swords clashed, Pippa spun and swayed back as the GG’s blade nearly took her face clean off. She retreated, the GG advancing, sword a blur of spinning dark death.

  Again Pippa attacked, blades clashing, smashing together, grating and ramming up to the hilts. Their faces grew close. The GG’s dark eyes dilated. “You’re going to die a long hard death,” it snarled.

  “That’s what they all said,” smiled Pippa sweetly, “just before I hacked their heads from their junk-top necks.”

  With a grunt, Pippa kicked away, the GG’s sword following. It sliced a narrow line across her calf and she flipped, landing lightly with a pattering of blood. Her head snapped up. The GG grinned with black hydraulic jaws.

  “Sloppy,” said Pippa.

  The GG growled, stalking forward.

  Again they clashed in a whirl of blades, which saw Pippa backing madly away. She was quite clearly outclassed. Her back slammed against a group of consoles, she ducked right, and the GG’s sword cut a glowing line through steel and exited in a shower of high-voltage sparks. Pippa rolled, sword hacking at a knee-cap, but the GG flexed and side-stepped, its sword nearly decapitating the woman.

  She paused, a tense coil, down on one knee, face lifted. Sweat traced a fine sheen on her brow. A touch of uncertainty etched her cold grey eyes.

  This was a fight, she knew, she could not win. And yet, what other option did she have? To run was to die, and to leave her friends to a patiently drawn-out execution? Never.

  Yet to fight? Well, she was giving the GG exactly what it desired: an easy execution, a playful retribution.

  The machine attacked, metal feet scouring the floor. Pippa rolled fast, her sword lashing out only to be carried by the GG’s flashing blade, rolled from her sweating grip, and sent spinning and sparking across the glossy ground. Pippa backed away, snarling, then turned and sprinted for the three dark, insect-like helicopters.

  It took a moment for the GG to focus. It made a cracking sound, possibly of annoyance. The last thing it needed was to chase a lithe woman on a long sprint around the indoor arena. It would catch her in the end, superior stamina. But depending on her speed, it might take a while.

  Pippa sprinted, then veered, slamming the catch on the nearest attack chopper. The door slid silently, and Pippa was ducking and squeezing into the narrow functional alloy confines before it was even halfway open.

  The GG chuckled, a nasty metallic sound. It strode forward, almost nonchalantly, swinging its sword. “You can’t hide in there for ever, my pretty,” it said, dark eyes glowing. Hydraulic thumps echoed through the chamber. It halted, spinning its sword. It could taste the kill. The taste, even for an AI, was sweet, a metal chemical cocktail.

  Pippa looked up. The GG could just about see her silhouette through the tinted cockpit windshield.

  She looked... triumphant?

  The GG frowned, tiny metal scales sliding into place.

  “Who said anything about hiding?” asked Pippa. There was a shring as quad mini-guns slammed down and locked; then a turbo-whine as the barrels accelerated and spun up, and Pippa squeezed both triggers.

  The GG was turning to flee in sudden horrified realisation as a thousand heavy calibre rounds tore into its frame, its shell, pulverising it limb from limb in a violent bright flashing scream of hot metal shavings, molten alloy and disintegrating panels. The GG was massacred, decimated, crumbled. The Sliver Sword spun across the black ground. Metal pieces shot out and scattered. The guns roared. The GG’s head bounced, scarred and dead, against the skyscraper floor, then was chased spinning by a line of flashing bullets.

  The guns whined down. Smoke poured from barrels. Pippa leapt down and waved up at Keenan, who dazzled her with a smile. “Good girl,” he whispered up on the platform, as Pippa jogged to the consoles and activated the lift to the prison GRILL cell.

  “Easy come, easy go,” said Franco amiably.

  “Does nothing ruffle you?” said Keenan.

  “Plenty, mate. I’m just good at hiding it.” He winked.

  “She’s a very dangerous lady,” said Rebekka, voice quiet, eyes hooded, face pale.

  “More than you could believe.”

  “I’ll be careful around her.” She placed a hand on his arm. “And thank you, again, for saving me, for keeping me... alive. I am not a part of this madness. I am not your nemesis.”

  Keenan nodded.

  As they waited for the lift, Pippa moved back to the attack chopper; it was an Apache K50, military grade, bearing full armaments. She played around with a few controls, and started warming the engines. The Apache whined, growled, spat exhaust fumes, and slowly the rotors began a lethargic rotation.

  The lift deposited Keenan, Franco and Rebekka on the ground. Keenan leapt into action.

  “Rebekka, go to Pippa. Do not leave her side. Franco, with me.”

  “Where we going?”

  “To tool up.”

  “Now that’s a good idea.”

  They jogged through the gloomy space. Distantly, alarms sounded and Keenan threw a glance at Pippa. She gave a thumbs up, and the Apache lifted slightly, gliding across the vast interior of the chamber and settling down, guns and rockets focused on the main doors to the room’s interior. Any soldiers who came through that entrance would end up mashed mince-meat.

  The grenade-blasted bullet-riddled container bearing the kit they had originally purchased from Rebekka and her team nestled in the shadows to one side. The doors, blackened and charred, swung open easily with buckled groans, and Keenan and Franco hurried inside and armed themselves with MPKs. They pocketed magazines. With a smile, Keenan reclaimed his battered Techrim.

  “They’re coming!” screamed Pippa across the chamber. Her screens were alive with activity.

  “Franco, get the roof open: then load up the chopper. I want all this kit with us. When we get to Ket, I’ve a bad feeling we’re gonna need every last shell.”

  “OK boss. Where you going?”

  Keenan grinned. “I have a score to settle.”

  Keenan pocketed several items from the inside of the container, then sprinted away into the gloom. Free of constraints, he felt his senses vibrating, humming with adrenaline. This was it! How it used to be in the old days before the squad, when Keenan had worked MILintel missions alone: infiltration, demolition, assassination, sometimes protection, but more often than not the cessation of life. That had been a long time ago, before he’d met Pippa, before
he’d met Freya: the women who changed him, shaped him, moulded his life, exorcised his darkest demons and laid them to rest.

  Now, however, the demons were creeping; they were back. And once again Keenan felt the talons of a dark soul creeping into him, turning him from human into... something else.

  Keenan moved along the wall, eyes glinting in the darkness; he checked his location and found a low narrow access door leading to a utility corridor. He slipped inside, amongst the pipes and cables, supports and bare concrete walls. His hand touched the rough surface tenderly; he guided himself along the stretch to a junction. He stopped, listened. Muffled gunshots hammered from the chopper’s mini-gun. Keenan smiled grimly. Pippa would hold well; would do her job. He could trust her to do that.

  He switched to another corridor, and padding along with his Techrim up by his cheek, moved through the almost complete darkness. Steam shifted around his boots. Somewhere, through solid-merc wire-work grilles purple lights strobed and flickered tiger-stripes of shadow across his face.

  Keenan stopped, his entrance blocked by a concrete wall. Beyond this lay the corridor through which soldiers moved to the rooftop chamber: their prison. He pulled a neutral PAD free and drilled a hole through the concrete, slowly, easily, carefully, using its cool laser. The wall was a metre thick; Keenan inserted a tiny digital spy mirror and gazed down onto the ranks of soldiers that were advancing, heavily armed, towards their rendezvous with Pippa’s mini-guns.

  “Where are you?” muttered Keenan. He shifted the mirror subtly, altering its angle, scanning the wide steel corridor. There: McEvoy, face twisted in a grimace of fury, finger gesticulating and lips spitting as he instructed his soldiers, drilled them with command, and spat curses at advancing heavy artillery SIM support. His white wispy hair was more unkempt than before, as if he’d been dragged from sleep. A light sheen of sweat bathed his brow.

  You might be the leader of one of the Seven Syndicates, thought Keenan, but you’re just as human as the rest of us: just as weak, just as flappable, and just as fucking expendable.

  He set the five tiny Pebble Charges and moved five steps back down the narrow corridor; at the flick of a thumb-switch the directed detonation howled, fire flowing out into the corridor like magma, and half the wall caved in, crushing, compressing and instantly killing ten SIMs. Dust rolled out like atomic fallout. Keenan leapt free of the sudden opening, smashed a right hook against McEvoy’s jaw, stunning him, and took the man’s gun like candy from a child. Slowly, he pushed the barrel of his Techrim under the old man’s chin. Keenan slammed his back against the wall amidst sounds of choking. He grinned. It was an evil expression, without humour.

  “I remember you,” said Keenan, voice soothing, mouth touching McEvoy’s ear. “It’s all come flooding back like a bad dose of syphilis. I tracked your exploits until intel missions got in the way. You’ve been responsible for everything from gun-running to child pornography, you deviant piece of shit.”

  McEvoy said nothing. His breathing rasped on the dust. His face twitched nervously.

  “Tell them to lay down their guns and back away, or I’ll shoot your jaw bone through the top of your fucking head.”

  “Weapons down!” screamed McEvoy. Keenan could feel the man’s sweat slick under his grip. “Retreat to Central, I repeat, retreat to Central.” Slowly, the soldiers and SIMs started to withdraw. Their looks burrowed with fury and hatred into Keenan. He shrugged away their animosity like dandruff and jabbed his weapon tighter against McEvoy’s flesh.

  “Good boy,” he growled.

  He walked McEvoy towards the roof chamber, stumbling at first over the debris from the channelled explosion, then past a litter of bullet-riddled corpses surrounding the entrance in a cadaver arc. The steel doors were pock marked, dented, buckled by the fury of the Apache’s mini-guns. Keenan peered cautiously through the smoke.

  “Coming in, Pippa,” he bellowed.

  “All clear, boss.”

  The chamber stank of cordite. Franco had just finished loading the Apache as Keenan, keeping close to McEvoy—like a lover—inched forward. “Found me a pretty plaything,” he said.

  “We need to go.” Urgency raped Pippa’s voice. “They’re regrouping.”

  Keenan nodded. “Franco?”

  “We’re on. Rebekka’s in the chopper. Let’s move.”

  Franco boarded the ramp, grabbed McEvoy and hauled him up, and Keenan kicked away the steel, which clattered. Pippa flicked several switches and motors jerked, whining.

  She turned to stare at McEvoy, whose eyes glared malevolently at his captors. “What are the codes? To unlock the roof?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I could strap you to the front of the mini-gun and try to ram our way free?”

  McEvoy considered this; he stared at her for long seconds, then relinquished and gave her a stream of digits, which she punched into the Apache’s console. Above, locks made slick grinding noises, like iron filings in grease, and the roof began to fold open, revealing a fresh spread of black sky. Stars glittered, crystals of frozen hydrogen sugar.

  The Apache lifted, engines roaring and fire flickering from underbelly jets. It escaped the confines of the chamber as a flood of soldiers burst in, sub-machine guns roaring, and shot vertically into the great black, banked, and disappeared like a ghost into the night.

  The Apache hovered at three thousand feet above an expanse of cold black sea. Far, far below tiny tracers of white chased one another over the waves. Keenan slid open the door, pushed McEvoy roughly to the edge and placed a short black blade against his throat. Behind him, Pippa and Franco exchanged glances but said nothing; something was burning Keenan, and they knew better than to step in from a position of ignorance.

  “I found out allabout you,” said Keenan, at last.

  McEvoy had lost his cockiness; a man realising death was staring him full in the face, and that none of his billions of hoarded gold and jewels, and dollarcards, ultimately, mattered. None of his arms and armies could help him here, in this place, at this time. No GG AI was there to protect him; no PopBot to pull him back from the dangerous brink. For probably the first time in fifty years McEvoy was totally alone.

  “I have money, Keenan, more money than you could ever imagine! I could give it to you! All of it!”

  “Dirty money,” snarled Keenan. The knife jerked savagely, and a thin trickle of blood appeared at McEvoy’s throat. It bubbled around the knife-blade, then ran in twin rivulets, creating glistening trails of guilt. “Money made from selling kids to perverts, you sick little fuck.”

  “All flesh is a commodity,” said McEvoy stiffly. There was no point in denial. Keenan had worked the files; he knew what he knew and there was no denying the Syndicate’s appreciation of the paedophile trade. It was one of its claims to fortune.

  “If I could hunt down every sick little bastard, and cut out their hearts, I would. I know, I understand, we live in a sick place. I have acknowledged the way things work, but I will never comprehend, McEvoy. How can you seek to understand the workings of a deviant? By definition, it is corrupt.”

  “I am not a deviant,” said McEvoy, voice made hoarse by the pressing blade.

  Keenan increased the pressure. Blood flowed. His eyes were dark coals. His sanity teetered on the edge of a razor. “The human organism is like any other organism,” said Keenan, “and sometimes it becomes wounded, diseased, deranged. Sometimes, the human grows on a diverted path; a place where it can no longer be classified as human, no longer be classed as life. That’s where the paedophiles belong: the deviant, non-human, non-life. And then there’s you, fucker, the bastard who makes their dreams come true.”

  Keenan heard Pippa’s intake of breath. But it was too late: too late to stop the murder.

  He pressed hard, felt the blade cut through skin, muscle, tendon, windpipe. It cut deep and savage in a bright fountain of crimson, the tip slicing right down to the spinal column. And as McEvoy’s head lolled back with a gaping crimson mouth Kee
nan kicked the body from the chopper. It toppled, tumbling end over end, and was consumed by the sea.

  Franco peered after it, and shivered.

  “You’ll have the Seven Syndicates after us, now,” he said.

  “Fuck ’em.”

  “You’d fight every last one?”

  Keenan’s eyes gleamed. “The baby abusers? I’ll fucking kill them all. Burn them. No problem.”

  Pippa moved forward. She placed her hand gently on Keenan’s shoulder. The man was lost to anger, to hatred, was deep in a bad place filled with a dark violent energy. Gently, Pippa reached up and rubbed speckles of McEvoy’s blood from Keenan’s cheeks. “Killing this scumbag won’t change anything.”

  “I know that!” Keenan pulled away, moving into the Apache’s interior. Rebekka shrank in the shadows, horrified by this apparent... insanity. This was something she had never seen: a base primal animal logic; a primitive need to kill, and to kill, and to keep on killing until all the bad men were dead unto dust. “I can put a spanner in the machine. I can slow it down, and by slowing it down I hit them where it hurts most: financially.” He gave a bitter laugh and rubbed at weary eyes. “Come on. Let’s get out of this depraved shit-hole. The City.” He snorted a derisory laugh. “What a fucking toilet.”

  Pippa retook the controls and the Apache banked, dropping towards the rolling sea, and hugging the waves for protection so the moving water could mask their digital signature. It sped towards Freeport 557 and the waiting Hornet.

  The Hornet gleamed slick in the cold night air. Despite the late hour, people moved in thick streams down walkways and roads, huge snakes of living moving flesh, human mixing with slab and alien, proxer and kjell. The Apache helicopter came in discreet, low from the Tekkajemnon River, skimming the bulky concrete buildings of hydra-turbines and touching down with minimum fuss on the deserted outskirts of Freeport 557. Slowly rotors died, thumping rhythmically to a halt. In the gloom of the cockpit, Franco glanced nervously at Keenan, his face albino in the glow of the consoles.