by Andy Remic
Franco stood up. The guards had followed Sourballs, and were crowding round her in the doorway. Everybody seemed to be smiling. From some dregs of distant memory, Franco remember watching filmy on how the gangers were obsessed with TV, with digMedia, with stars and reality shows and all manner of extreme digital entertainment. They had taken it to such an extreme that some gangers had, by a combination of genetic modification and basic evolutionary necessity, become huge mounds of flesh which sat in an armchair all day, one short arm used for the remote, the other for feeding food into a hole in their chest, alongside eyes and nose. Blobbers, they were called, and they existed simply to eat and shit and watch. Now, a little of the obsession started to dredge through into Franco's confused mind. These bastards were willing to give him a reprieve. Willing to let him go. And he could play along, if he was wily and cunning like a wily cunning fox - until he found a moment to either contact Pippa, or do a runner.
Franco rubbed his bristly beard. "Well, that sounds like a great deal to me," he said, and he was the sort of man who, if the truth be known, would trade in his old granny for a crate of PreCheese and a barrel of pungent horseradish. "Would I need an agent? What percentage would I get? Net, not gross, unless maybe I don't have to pay Quad-Gal tax because I'm, you know, exempt for being sometimes mad. I've had a few bad run-ins with the Quad-Gal Revenue." He twitched, remembering his ex-wife Mel, one time tax inspector and later zombie super-soldier. It hadn't turned out well - either in marital terms, or in terms of Quad-Gal Revenue fines. He was still making the repayments. And would be, for the next one thousand and eighty years.
"I am sure," said Teddy Sourballs, holding her arms wide apart, "that we can come to some kind of wonderful arrangement."
Through the silence of minds working out figures, there was a tiny click.
"Aaah," said Mrs Strogger, and with various clanks and clonks, she stood up. She looked around. "Aaaahh!" she said, and unplugged her groinal cable. There came a phuzzz noise as it retracted into her groin like a cheap spring-loaded lead from a vacuum sucker. "Aaaahh! That felt wonderful, brilliant; a full fast-recharge, and now I'm ready for battle." She squinted myopically. "Right, Franco. Where're the bad guys?"
"No!" said Franco, smiling frantically. "Wait!"
There came a huge roar, clanking sounds and ratchet thumps. Mrs Strogger suddenly seemed to expand as her cyborg upgrades, now fully charged and armed, came into existence. Guns sprouted along her arms, her legs beefed out with armoured plating, her midriff shot up on its piston so she towered over proceedings, and her shoulder-mounted lasers spun around, locating targets and locking on with tiny red beams.
"Happy days," said the old org, in a quiet little voice... as all Hell seemed to break loose. Lasers whined and spat, and Mrs Strogger picked up a whole row of benches and threw them at the gawping chefs. Guards returned fire, criss-crossing the room with red and green laser flashes, and Franco ran for it, diving behind a bank of steel cabinets as bullets filled the air from the chefs and Sourballs was screaming for another ceasefire and Mrs Strogger crunched over to her, legs whining and clacking, and reaching out with steel mandibles which seemed suddenly larger to Franco than before. She picked Teddy Sourballs up with a growl and threw her sideways down the corridor. Sourballs, whirling, limbs flailing like a ragdoll's, bounced from the wall and cannoned into six guards, taking them all out in a mash of tangled broken limbs. Mrs Strogger whirled back, legs hissing and clanking, and strode forward through the kitchen - quite literally through it - stomping steel cabinets down into platters, slamming through ovens, ignoring the bullets of the now frantically firing and reloading chefs until she reached the cowering, chubby, happy men with wobbling jowls and fat fingers, blasting them off their feet with her lasers as her claws lashed out on huge steel tentacles, grabbing chefs and tossing them around, flesh crunching against walls, bodies slamming into steel, bones breaking and skulls cracking.
Then silence followed, amidst the steam of spilled cabbage.
Franco Haggis uncurled, stood up, and stared hard at Mrs Strogger. "You ruined that deal, didn't you?"
"What deal?"
"My TV-being-famous-and-making-lots-of-money deal. Look! You squashed everybody! Or shot them!" Franco stared up at the huge, heavily armoured war org, and frowned. "What the bloody buggering hell happened to you? I thought you were a little old lady?"
"I've had upgrades," said Mrs Strogger, somewhat smugly.
"I can see that. You look like, like a, like a, I don't know what you look like, but you look like a big one!"
Mrs Strogger clanked forward, five tonnes of war-grade steel tenuously attached to the deranged mind of a little old woman. She leered down at Franco. Lasers aligned, and six red dots appeared over Franco's near-naked body. Suddenly, the laser cannon in Franco's hands felt like a toy. He licked his lips nervously.
"I think our situation has changed," said Mrs Strogger, voice growing stronger by the second.
"Er," said Franco, uneasily. "Meaning?"
"I think you're a pulpy little pathetic human, just like these pulpy little pathetic gangers. You're the same breed, aren't you, bastad? Little sacks of pissy shit, held together by nothing more than stretchy flesh all willing to break apart under my org claws. Well..."
Franco's eyes widened. No, he thought. This can't be happening... I'm just about to bloody escape this carnage, and make a pretty penny into the bargain, and my enemies turn out to be my friends and my friend turns out to be my enemy and what's the whole bloody world coming to, eh? I ask you, eh?
"Can't we talk about this?" said Franco, stalling for time. He was good at that.
"Orgs hate gangers," said Mrs Strogger, bright teeth gleaming, drool drooling from ancient jaws. "We are superior. We are more powerful. We are at war! Or we should be... and you are just another insignificant organic blob to be squashed out of existence..."
With a whine, and a clank, Mrs Strogger attacked...
CHAPTER THREE
CHASE ME
She had performed missions before. A thousand missions. She'd killed men, women, children, of every colour and "alien" species to walk the multiple exotic soils of the thousands of worlds of Quad-Gal. She'd blown up factories, oil rigs, military installations, tank depots, politicians' headquarters, schools, and hospitals; she knew no mercy, had no empathy, felt no remorse. She knew the myriad memories would have blurred into one, if they'd not been forcibly erased. They were erased to protect her. If tortured, her pain tolerance was incredibly high, but without memories, she could not talk at all. But then, she had never been caught. She was efficient. She was... perfect.
Now, she walked through the rainswept city. The streets were deserted. She stopped at an intersection, glanced up and down the gleaming black roads, and considered. She knew where she must go. She knew where her target would go. After all - she smiled - they had something very important in common. Something more intimate than a shared lover, a childhood memory, a death-defying experience, a bonding of drug-minds. Yes. They had something perfect linking them... She glanced down. Saw her reflection in a puddle. And the shimmering, ghostly, almost metallic face of Pippa stared back.
Pippa was not in the best of moods. She sat watching the TV, as all manner of images flashed and flickered across at first one, then five, then twenty, then every single channel (which was a lot) being beamed throughout the Quad-Gal and Super High-UF Frequency Light Electron TV carrier signals (SHUFFLE TV, they called it). And the longer Pippa watched, from the pilot's crib of the Fast Attack Hornet Metallika, the more her colour miraculously shifted. First, she turned from pink to a deep, rich pink, then from a deep, rich pink to red, then from red to purple, and finally she finished her chameleonic display by turning a furious white.
"Franco," she muttered, as yet another report slammed across the SHUFFLE. In the report, there was Franco's beaming face, there was Franco's gurning face, there was Franco's shouting face, there was Franco wandering the streets, there was Franco drinking in a bar,
all caught on Global Cams, and finally, there was Franco Haggis, covert Combat K operative, cutting off the head of Opera, Quad-Gal's most famous reality TV host, on the live TV show Torture! Well, it didn't exactly show him cutting off her head, but in the confusion of bobbing cameras and pandemonium, Opera collapsed to the floor with her head rolling away and blood gouting from her neck stump, and Franco was in the midst of the mess being beaten by the over-zealous RGPF.
Pippa lowered her face into her hands and groaned.
"How are you feeling?" said Alice, the ship computer, her voice - as usual - calm and soothing.
"That little bastard has killed our mission."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Well, it looks to me like he dropped in via chute and, instead of following our leads in Nechudnazzar, decided to go on a drinking spree which led to his arrest and placement on the TV show Torture!"
"That's a good show," observed Alice.
"Not any more. Franco cut off Opera's head."
"That's yet to be proved."
Pippa eyed the glittering computer banks with narrowed eyes. "Oh yeah? Well, I know Franco Haggis, and I know what the mad little ginger bastard is capable of. I can't believe I trusted him, I can't believe I allowed him to persuade me to let him go in. I thought he was grief-stricken because of Keenan's death. I thought he was a changed character. But oh, no, not Franco bloody Haggis, how can I have been so stupid, Alice? You'd think I would have learnt my lesson. I swear, when I get my hands on him, I'm going to beat him till he squeals like a pig on the end of a spear."
"Beat him?"
"Yes," snarled Pippa, fists clenched. "But first we've got to rescue him. We'll rescue him, then I'll batter him like a plate of stinking fish. What's the situation with the AAMs?"
"You know what the situation is," said Alice, soothingly.
The problem was, Cloneworld was a seething pit of violence and warfare. Centuries earlier, the Quad-Gal Peace Unification Army had imposed certain rules and restrictions on the planet in order to try and halt its seemingly permanently escalating violence spilling out and polluting the rest of the Quad-Gal territories. Now, Cloneworld was a zero-trade zone. And Cloneworld was prohibited for all forms of aircraft. This, reasoned QGM, would cut down on the gangers' and orgs' ability to wage war against one another. After all, the terraformed planet was two vast continents separated by the most huge and terrible mountain range ever built by man or alien: The Teeth, an eight-thousand-kilometre stretch of mountain range sitting on its own discrete island, and pretty much impassable except by the most foolhardy of climbers. Yes, there were two sea passages through The Teeth - the northern, and aptly named, The Squeeze, and the southern Mek Straits, which were easily patrolled by both races and spent at least eight months of the year clogged with ice chunks. To enforce with zero tolerance the restrictions on all forms of aircraft, QGM had installed several thousand automated AI Anti-Aircraft gunbots - also known as Quad-Gal GASGAMs. These highly intelligent and highly proficient machines had space-grade armour and the intelligence to be self-repairing and self-sustaining, with sufficient weaponry to bring down anything as small as a P Class Hunter, a fast one-man spacecraft, all the way up to Class III Bombers and Offense Frigates.
The problem was, if Pippa took their ship in, looking for Franco, there was a chance she'd get blown from the sky by a rogue wandering GASGAM. Pippa was the best pilot in Quad-Gal, without a shadow of a doubt; but she'd been saving her skills only in the case of emergency - not a Franco exfil necessitated by a screwed-up mission after a heavy drinking session. Pippa was not a happy bunny.
"Can't we target the AIs using brain scans? They show up as advanced cerebral activity."
"They can cloak activity," said Alice. "You know this. We can go in, but it'll be dangerous. The only thing we've got going for us is speed. Unfortunately, we don't know what weapons the gunbots are carrying, and in that kind of situation... Goodbye, cruel world."
"Hmm."
Pippa put her chin on her fist and brooded. She knew what she'd have to do, and as she stared from the portal at the slowly spinning world below, a wealth of green and blue and amber scattered with millions of square miles of cloud cover, filled with millions of gangers and orgs - all of which loathed humans, and especially QGM, especially Combat K because of sanctions imposed on their particular strain of humanity - well, Pippa loathed the idea of putting her neck on the line for Franco's ten pints of Guinness.
"Ship requesting permission to dock."
"What?" snapped Pippa, leaping from her crib. "Alice - I'm amazed! No proximity warnings? No registration idents?"
"I am sorry," said Alice, and to her credit, she sounded ashamed. "I was given strict orders. From the top. Only now was I allowed to break silence. Truly, Pippa, I did not enjoy the subterfuge."
"Who is it?"
"General Tarly Winters."
"The Ice Queen?"
"That would be common derogatory slang in your soldiery ranks, yes; I will advise you she does not take kindly to the term. After all, she is a ranking QGM general."
"Who's with her?" said Pippa, eyes hooded. She did not get on well with other women. In fact, she did not get on well with people. Full stop.
"She is alone," said Alice. "I have granted docking clearances. Three minutes until she steps on board."
"Alone?" said Pippa. "A general, coming here, alone..." and then it dawned on her. "This is because of Franco, is it not?"
"I have no knowledge of the general's intentions," said Alice, soothingly.
"Ha, yeah, like you'd fucking tell me."
"That hurts, Pippa. Truly, it hurts."
"Well keep me in the damn loop then!" she snapped, and slumped back to her crib. "And - tell Her Highness that I'm not in the fucking mood for visitors. And if she doesn't like it, she can fuck off back to whatever Class X disgorged her fat frumpy arse."
There came a clunk, and a shudder as the two Hornets connected via fluid umbilical.
Below, Cloneworld spun.
Eventually, the door slid open with a hiss and Pippa was aware of a presence entering Metallika. She did not turn, but studiously kept her back to the general and her hand on the pistol in her belt. Let her fucking push me, she thought. I dare her. Double dare!
Without a word, the figure moved through the Hornet; when finally Pippa did turn, eaten by curiosity, Tarly Winters had gone. Frowning, Pippa stood and moved down the narrow corridor to the four sleeping quarters. She stopped. Standing in one of the rooms, unpacking a small kit-bag, was a tall, lithe woman with a tumble of curled red hair.
Pippa coughed.
Tarly Winters turned, and smiled at Pippa: a cold smile, from a china-white face, piercing green eyes boring into and through Pippa like titaniumIII drill-bits through diamond.
"You would be Pippa, Combat K operative under Section 57 of QGM. I thank you for your cooperation."
"I'm cooperating?" said Pippa, her own voice cold as the grave.
"Oh yes," said the general, and turned back to her unpacking. With a clack, she placed a sniper rifle case on the high shelf above her bunk.
"Why are you unpacking?" said Pippa, frowning despite herself.
Tarly stopped, and turned. Again, her smile was frosty, and Pippa recalled a hundred stories of The Ice Queen from her days in the canteens of a hundred different bases across a scatter of random planets.
"Well," she said, and ran a hand through her long, deeply luscious red hair, "I have to unpack my clothes if I am to be sleeping here for a while - or else, how would I be able to find them to dress?"
"You're not staying here," snapped Pippa, too quickly.
"Really?"
"Er, what I meant to say, Tarly..."
"General Winters," said General Winters. Again, that thin-lipped smile.
"What I meant to say, was..."
"I have been assigned to assist you concerning the 'Franco Haggis Situation.'"
"The 'Franco Haggis Situation'?" Pippa gave a bitter smile.
>
"Hey, lady, don't act like a naïve whore the first time a sailor gets his cock out. You fucked up, soldier. You both fucked up bad. In fact, you both fucked up so bad I can guarantee your arses will be slung in the brig when we hit Realtime Bigshow out of here. You hearing me, little lady?"
Pippa growled, but held her tongue.
"You are dismissed," said Tarly, turning her back on Pippa.
Pippa stood for a moment, face burning, furious at being spoken to in such a way. If anybody else had done it, they'd be wearing their spine as a necklace. In fact...
Pippa's hand touched her pistol.
"Do that, and I'll remove your hand at the wrist," said Tarly, softly, her words barely audible.
Pippa disappeared.
Tarly smiled, and finished unpacking.
"What a fucking bitch," said Pippa, strapping on yet another weapon from the armoury. Her bunk was strewn with kit, guns and knives and her twin yukana swords capable of slicing hull steel. Her kit bag was filled with field rations, med kits, her PAD computer with a billion different functions and several tools and gun tools.
"I advise caution," said Alice, ever the diplomat.
Pippa cast an eye skywards, a movement she saved for when she fancied she was eyeing the seemingly omniscient ship computer. "Oh yeah? Is that because you're contracted to report back on my every word?"
"I am, yet again, deeply offended."
"Well she's a fucking scrote bitch. She's sucked and fucked her way up the ladder, taking it up the arse all the way to the top. I know that sort of bitch, and I'll be damned if I'm working under her, taking orders from her, or lying on my back with my legs spread wide for her. Tarly Ice Queen is a slap bitch of the lowest order, and I'm going after Franco whether she likes it or not."
"She'll place you under house arrest," warned Alice.