by Andy Remic
There came a click as the door opened, and a small, wizened man hobbled into the bath chambers of the Monastery. He closed the door behind himself, and worked his way forward with the curious ambling of the hunchback. He halted a respectful distance from the bath, and watched as the snakes squirmed and writhed, glistening.
"I have brought a message, Mistress," he said finally, his voice very low, very quiet, his eyes small black pebbles in a dark-skinned face that hadn't been shaved in a week.
The snakes writhed faster, then merged into what appeared, for just an instant, as a bloody mash of pulped muscle - before shifting and becoming one. Becoming whole. Becoming what appeared, to the naked human eye, a woman.
The Mistress surged from the bath, her eyes a solid black, the only feature that set her apart from her human counterparts. She took a white silk robe and draped it over her shoulders. She had shoulder length, perfectly straight black hair, and pale white skin - almost translucent in its perfection. She moved slowly, languorously, sexually; always poised, always... alluring. She stopped before the hunchback and reached down to pat him on the head. He began to purr.
Finally, she turned to a drinks cabinet and poured out a small glass of something black, oily and foul smelling. The hunchback knew better than to interrupt this ritual, for it was part of the binding, part of the Mistress shifting from her myriad snake form to the human. He waited patiently, one leg throbbing, his hump itching terribly, but he resisted the urge to squirm around and try to reach the itch - he never could - and instead simply squinted at the Mistress through eyes which were not just different colours, but different shapes and sizes.
She drank the black goo, which was so thick she had to coax it from the glass with a finger. Then she shuddered, and stood for a moment with her eyes closed. Finally, she blinked, and placed the glass down with a tiny clack.
"Ziggurat. My faithful friend." She moved to him, and knelt by the tiny hunchback man. She took him in her arms, and they embraced, and then she stood and moved back to the cabinet, pouring another drink, a normal drink to wash down the binding tonic. "What is the message?"
"He is here."
"At last! He has come!" The Mistress's eyes gleamed. "I knew he would. It was only a matter of time before they sent somebody sniffing around. Does he know what he's looking for?"
"I believe he does," said Ziggurat, shaping each word with care, for his mouth was slightly upturned at one side and could give him great difficulty in forming some words. "Sourballs has him. He has caused quite a stir! Did you not see the reports concerning Opera?"
The Mistress tilted her head to one side. "No. Speak on, what has happened to Opera?"
"Somehow, this man, this..." Ziggurat framed the name carefully, as if it was an alien taste on his lips, "this Franco Haggis, managed to get caught up in the Snare Nets. He must have done something bad, or given the drones cause to think he was a degenerate vagrant. Whatever. The drones thought he would not be missed, picked him up from a club, and he was filtered through the TV producers and placed on Torture!"
"And?" The Mistress's voice was suddenly icy. She could sense impending bad news, and like all egotistical power junkies, she did not like bad news.
"Well, the dumb bastard really thought he was about to be tortured. And, unbeknownst to us until now, he turned out to be Combat K."
"Quad-Gal's elite."
"Yes," nodded Ziggurat.
"What did he do?"
"He killed the thug-like actors, and according to reports - for the live footage is a crazy piece of panic shit that veers all over the place - well, he cut off Opera's head with a laser chainsaw."
The Mistress did not groan, but she performed the nearest visual equivalent. She moved slowly, gracefully, to the window and peered out over her domain. Her dominion. She peered out over Nechudnazzar, but more, she peered out over the continent of Clone Terra, and onto the occasionally war-ravaged planet of Cloneworld.
"She is dead?"
"Dead as an org with a nuke up its arse."
"What about the SlushPits?"
"Tried it. We were too late. Ahh... Sourballs was more intent on arresting and incarcerating Haggis than saving Opera. Or so it would seem. There were mistakes made. There were... errors."
The Mistress considered these problems for a while, fingers steepled, dark eyes glowering. Then she said, "Do you think he knows? Do you think he was sent here by Quad-Gal Military to find out... well, our plans, shall we say, concerning the orgs? About our little..." she paused, considering. "About Live TV? About the Disintegrator?"
"It's impossible he, or QGM, could know our extended plans," said Ziggurat smugly.
"I disagree. QGM are more resourceful than you think, despite being distracted by the invading junks. I don't like this." She tapped her lower lip with her index finger. "I don't want him here. I don't want a TV trial. No judges. No voting panels. No. I want him dead. Tell Sourballs to kill Franco Haggis. Tell her to kill him now."
"Of course."
Ziggurat turned to leave, then stopped. He looked back, instinctively realising there was something else to come. Ziggurat had known the Mistress for too long. After all, he had been her sexual plaything for... millennia.
"Make sure Sourballs keeps it quiet, totally covert, and she follows this Haggis infiltrator on his grunge path to the Smelting Halls and SlushPits. I want him pulverised into smush and fed back into the genetic tanks as a liquid dribble."
"My pleasure," said Ziggurat, with a cold smile, and hobbled away.
"Nooo!" squealed Franco, holding up his hands as the ancient org slipped from her oil-stained underwear, trying desperately to act seductive. Then there came a clank, and the door slid open, and there stood the barbed-wire head of Sourballs, hands on hips, a sour slick smile on her excuse for a face.
"What are you two lovebirds up to?" She waved away the guards, who retreated uncertainly, lowering their Steyr laser cannons. "It's okay. I have this pussycat under control, isn't that right, little man who's about to receive a publicly-voted death penalty followed by genetic pulping?" The door closed with a click.
"Well," said Franco, swaggering close to Sourballs, panting, weak, deranged from being locked away with a mad, sexually-deviant org, still stinking of whiskey and still as cunning as a fox's cunning uncle, and he launched himself at the ganger quicker than a striking cobra, his right fist slamming into her jaw, his left knee coming up hard into her groin with a crunch which suggested a hefty bulge of wedding tackle, and as she doubled forward, eyes crossing and tongue lolling, his forehead slapped her straight on the nose. She dropped with a grunt and a splatter of blood, and Franco was out the door, wearing just his big white Asda underpants. The two guards stood, wearing leather armour, their Steyr laser cannons pointing at the ground, their mouths slowly dropping open as they saw the frantic ginger squaddie emerge like a tsunami, Sourballs's blood gleaming on his knuckles. Before they could even shift, Franco was on them. He kicked one in the crotch, thumped the second in the helmet, side-kicked the first in the head, and slammed both fists on top of the second guard's head. They both dropped, howling, and Franco stooped, hefting the two laser cannons thoughtfully. Despite being an occasional drunkard and, to superficial glances, an aimless, useless pile of shit, Franco was stunningly proficient with explosives, closely followed by his knowledge of armaments. He might look like a stocky pugilist with a bad haircut and a love of pies, but he was a damn sight more dangerous than he first appeared, which usually led to gross underestimation on the part of his enemies. Which was just fine, by Franco's twisted logic.
His eyes scanned the laser cannons. He made a few minor tweaks to dials. They whined as he eked out 25% more power, and he grinned, showing his missing tooth - or tuff, as he liked to call it. "Right, baby," he said. "Time to escape."
Clanking and whining, the old clattering org emerged from her cell, and Franco whirled, both cannons levelled at the cell doorway which had, until a few moments ago, been his pit of incarceratio
n. The old org staggered out, leaking a puddle of hot oil like brown piss, and she grinned at him with metal teeth as her shoulder cannons waved around manically but uselessly.
"You'll never find your way out without me," she croaked.
"I get the feeling you'll be more of a hindrance," muttered Franco, eyeing her with suspicious, beady eyes.
"No, I know the prison, Nechudnazzar, and indeed the whole of Clone Terra like the back of my cyborg hand appendage. I used to work spy missions for The Org States, running shit out of Outpost 9 and Zeg. Trust me, I am your best chance of escape."
"Bets?"
"I promise not to molest you."
Franco sighed. "Okay." He pointed a laser cannon between her eyes. "But don't get any frisky ideas, reet? The last thing I need in a firefight is the hand of an ancient metal crone on my arse cheek."
"Really?" muttered the org, as Franco padded forward down a steel corridor. "I find it helps immensely."
Behind, Theresa Sourballs, Governor of the Nechudnazzar Correctional and Reintegration Facility, staggered to the door, her face coated in a slick of blood, eyes wild beneath her frizzy bobbing mop. On the ground, the two guards - sans weapons - were groaning and gradually reintegrating into a world of consciousness. One thing could be said for Franco Haggis; he had a right hook like a hydraulic piston.
"You two!"
"Yes, ma'am?" they groaned, staggering to their feet. Their helmets were dented. Their faces were bruised. They winced and minced, and looked suddenly extremely unhappy to be part of the Nechudnazzar Correctional and Reintegration Facility.
"Get after him! Capture him! Shoot off his legs! But do not kill him..."
"Yes, ma'am," they grumbled miserably, and, bearing nothing but truncheons, set off in the kind of weary jog which illustrated more clearly than neon lights that they really did not want to catch up with their "prey."
Sourballs pulled out a PAD. She hit a button.
Throughout the Nechudnazzar Correctional and Reintegration Facility, alarms screeched, red stroboscopic lights flickered, and certain heavily barred doors dropped and locked in place. She gave a narrow, blood-slick smile. "Let's see you get out of this, you little maggot," she snarled through spittle and blood.
Franco jogged, and the old org clanked after him, her metal feet occasionally leaving imprints in the alloyconcrete floor. Franco stopped at a junction, just as the alarms sounded and red lights strobed and, before him, a gate whizzed shut with a clank.
"Great," said Franco, scratching his beard.
A guard appeared to his right, bearing a Sphinx AT laser cannon and a gormless expression. He stopped when he saw Franco, and turned to run, and Franco coolly gave him a blast of green laser up his pumping, retreating arse. The guard slithered along the ground on his belly, arse-cheeks a smoking mash of charred flesh, unconscious. Franco walked over, stooped, and took the guard's weapon, casually handing it to the old org woman. She grasped the gun in metal fingers, leaving imprints in the alloy.
"You're pretty strong," observed Franco.
"Better believe it, bastad."
"What's your name? I can't keep calling you old org crone. It's bad for my karma sutra." He paused, seeing a rage like a thunderstorm pass across her face. Casually, he continued, "Not that I think you're old, nor a crone. Indeed, I think out of all the orgs I've ever met, you're probably the most..." he groped for a word, "mechanised?"
The org settled down a little, and her face - part old crone flesh, part metal - relaxed. "I am Strogger 7576889," she said.
Franco chortled. "What, that's your fucking... na..." He closed his mouth with a clack. "I like it. Nice. Sexy. Has a certain quick-fire ring to it, you know, like the kind of sort of chick you'd find dancing in a warehouse nightclub with greased poles..." He saw her face darken again, wrinkling, tiny pistons whumping in her cheeks. "Or, you know, maybe the name for a waitress working in a cocktail bar..." - her face darkened further - "A sexy nurse in a rubber outfit?" he suggested, and the thunderstorm crowded overhead, as Franco's voice went up yet another octave. "Maybe, you know, some top-brass secret service assassin who always overcomes insurmountable odds?" He paused for breath, and Strogger 7576889 relaxed a little again, nodding in approval, her wrinkled face breaking into a smile that had nothing to do with her eyes.
"Hmm. Yes. I like that, you little bastad."
"I'm Franco. Franco Haggis. I think I already said."
"You did," wheezed Strogger 7576889. "What I suggest, though, is that you call me what my children call me."
"You have children?" blurted Franco, strobing red light glistening in his beard.
"Oh yes. Five hundred and thirty three of the little bastads. Never stop bloody arguing, they don't."
Franco groped for words, aware he wasn't just out of his league, he was bloody Captain Nemo, twenty thousand leagues out of his fucking depth. "Er," he managed, looking around as if for some moral or at least social support, and finally settled for scratching under one armpit. "Er, you look very slim for it," he said.
"You can call me Mrs Strogger," she said.
"Okay. Mrs Strogger. Got it. I'm on the money. Now, you say you know the way out of here?"
"I do. And I'll get you out, on one condition."
"Name it. As long as it's nothing rude."
"You look like the sort of guy who has air support."
"Er." Franco looked suddenly shifty. He shrugged. "You know as well as I that aircraft are banned all across Cloneworld. You know as well as I, that the rampant rogue AI AA mechs that roam the planet would take down any aircraft I had, if I had aircraft, which I don't."
"How did you get in then?"
"Freefall."
"What, from outer space?" snapped the org. "Listen. You're special ops. I ain't that stupid. With age comes wisdom, and all that. Now. Without airlifts, we'll never get off Clone Terra. It's a damn long trek through enemy territory, and an even longer sea voyage either through The Squeeze or the Mek Straits which border the vertical stretch of The Teeth like a frozen chastity belt. Cloneworld is terraformed, yeah? Two continents, split down the middle - with the aim that never the twain shall meet. We need an airlift if I'm ever going home. Can you help with that, little bastad?"
Franco shrugged. "I'll see what I can do," he said.
"Don't mess with me," said Mrs Strogger. "Don't betray me. Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
"I'm pretty sure I don't like it when you're happy, either." Her face darkened. Gods, he thought, here we go again! Is there nothing a rampant switch-on cool-dude Combat K squaddie can say that doesn't rub this org chick up the wrong way? He changed tactics. "Listen. Listen. We are, you know, symbi... sybet... we need to rely on each other, reet? You scratch my back, and I'll, er, rub my nails down your scaled iron exoskeleton. Get me out of this damn and bloody bullocks prison complex, and I'll guarantee you a flight home."
"Done," said Mrs Strogger, and held out a mechanised claw. Franco shook it, aware she could probably rip out all his fingers with one wrench.
"Agreed. Now, which way?"
"First, I need to reactivate and recharge my weapons. There are many gates and bars between here and the outside world."
"Are your weapons that hardy?" said Franco.
"Oh yes," said Mrs Strogger, and gave him a dazzling smile full of machinery.
The two pursuing guards crawled along the corridor, truncheons raised, showing willing but knowing their hearts weren't really in it. After all, in terms of ganger employment, they were pretty near the bottom of the scummy heap. The Nechudnazzar Correctional and Reintegration Facility wasn't renowned for paying good wages. In fact, it was known as being a really shit employer.
"There they are," said Grandall, stopping. His friend, Bebooz, bumped into him from behind.
"Shit. We caught them up. What're they doing?"
"Talking."
"Arguing, more like."
"Hey, maybe they'll shoot each other?"
"We could
hang on a few moments, see if they throttle each another?"
"Sounds like a plan."
They waited, stepping impatiently from one foot to the other to the other.
"Hey, if one kills the other, there'll still be one left."
The guards considered this.
"Yeah," said Grandall, "but he, or she, will presumably be weakened. Maybe even wounded."
They brightened at this concept.
They waited some more. They could see the big one, the old org blend, getting madder and madder. Then the little one, that Sourballs had called a "human intruder," pacified her. Grandall and Bebooz grumbled to one another, and further down the corridor heard Teddy Sourballs screaming orders at what they assumed were guards come to back them up. Backup! Their faces soured further. What they had to do now was perform a delicate balancing act; they had to approach the escapees, so that they were in the act of confrontation when Sourballs arrived with the troops. Do it too late, and Sourballs would sniff out their cowardly ruse and demote them to the slush bins. But attack too soon and they'd have to face the horrible pair...
Franco hoisted his two laser cannons, and whilst they didn't have the same sturdy weight and killing smash as Kekra quad-barrel machine pistols, they felt better than using his hands against guards armed with guns. Gangers, he corrected himself. These were all clones.
Franco scowled, and at that moment a pair of guards shuffled unhurriedly into view, looking nervously over their shoulders. They seemed to be whimpering. They stood in the shadows, illuminated by the flickering red prison panic lights, and stared uneasily at Franco as if hoping he wouldn't spot them. But he did. He grinned at them, as behind him Mrs Strogger rose threateningly on her core waist-piston with a sound like an industrial ratchet.
The guards ambled forward, looking again over their shoulders, and Franco snapped, "Drop your weapons!"
Obediently, they dropped their weapons. Franco approached, laser cannon aimed, and said, "Throw me your keys, key cards, and any other entry devices we need to access the gates."