by Andy Remic
I feel my mind unravel.
I feel it spin out, drawn out unto infinity by the claws of the solar spider.
Pippa's clone, or her template, her reality, was asleep. Snoring gently. The flames cast gentle orange shadows on her features, softening them in sleep. Pippa found herself caught in the bizarre situation where she could study herself. Study her own face in sleep. And she shuddered. I'd be better off dead, she realised.
Better off exterminated, my ash ploughed under the soil.
Another day had passed in uncomfortable travel. Whilst the GASGAMs were unparalleled for bringing down a wide range of aerial warcraft with minimum fuss and maximum violence, they were not the comfiest of donkeys. As a long day of biting wind and diagonal drizzle across vast, open plains filled with hidden rocks and unexpected peat bogs finally dragged to a painful, back-breaking end, so they dismounted in the lee of a group of lode-streaked boulders beside a small stand of black conifers.
Stretching, and feeling in need of exercise, Pippa climbed up the rocky outcrop, enjoying the sudden exercise after miles and miles of cramped, thumping travel.
Fingers burning, she stood on the top and surveyed the landscape. The sun was sinking in horizontal slashes of magenta and pink. Shading her eyes, Pippa tried to make out the distant Slush Pits, but saw nothing. She turned, and behind towered The Gangers, a violent, serrated knife in the belly of the land. They looked ominous, even from this distance, and Pippa shivered. She never wanted to go back to their deviant, freak-infested peaks...
"Fresh air?"
Pippa glanced at her ganger cousin. She'd decided it best to think of this other Pippa in that way, in the hope of dispelling the random murder images and lusts which kept slashing through her mind. Whilst the sane part of Pippa thought to herself - she's you, the same blood, the same mind, the same person - another part of her replayed the attack back in the mountains, and even worse, the murder of Freya and the girls... and Keenan's willingness to join them in the Chaos Halls.
Pippa shuddered, and took a deep breath.
"You still want to kill me, right?"
"It's the nature of the beast."
"You're undecided. Unsure. Confused. Broken."
"I've been broken for a very, very long time."
"You can be fixed, Pippa."
Pippa stared at her clone, and shrugged. "I think, sometimes, in this world, in this life, some things cannot be repaired." She turned and leapt onto a parapet of rocks, then scrambled down the incline.
Her ganger turned and faced the sinking sun.
We all die, she thought.
Some, sooner than others.
Then she followed Pippa into the shadow-lengthening camp.
Teddy Sourballs started to laugh.
"Something funny?" said Pippa. She was reclining, eating some kind of thin gruel supplied by the GASGAM's emergency life-support stores. They could keep a human alive indefinitely by reconstituting any kind of organic materials into a thin but very nutritious grey gruel. But, as Pippa had pointed out, it didn't do one's appetite any good to think they were eating pulped rodents and genetically reorganised horse-shit.
"You're going to the Slush Pits. Ziggurat will be waiting for you."
"Yeah, but we have you as a hostage, right?"
Teddy shrugged. "I can always be rebuilt."
Pippa frowned. "What does that mean?"
"She means when she dies, they just clone her. In a Vat. In a place very similar to the Slush Pits, only this one is a bit more refined and reserved for TV Royalty and Important People. Usually ganger politicians and filmy stars. It makes you sick to see such an abuse of money and power. Ordinary people have to go to the Slushers, and even that costs them an arm and a leg. Quite literally, sometimes. They're the equivalent of back-street, rusty-knife abortions carried out by sick doctors struck off the medical register for unsafe practice."
"So when a ganger dies, they can be brought back?"
"Yeah. A ganger is - how can I put this? - allotted a certain amount of changes in their lifetime. Some famous people, like the TV and filmy star Rebecca Rebecca, sell templates of their DNA so that gangers can copy them, with a few minor twists of course; somebody as famous as Rebecca Rebecca wouldn't want to be refused entry to The Ganger Awards or anything like that, would she? So sometimes they build in genetic Clauses."
"So this is a society surrounding TV? That's how it looks. Especially going off the reaction when Franco - the idiot - slotted Opera."
"Yeah, media is everything to a ganger. Vanity is everything. I mean, would you want to copy somebody else's DNA, absorb it into your own system, make it the dominant life force? It takes a certain type of ego, of narcissism, to do that."
"Surely if you absorb an alien DNA, then you take on other things? Their thought patterns, for example. Characteristics. Social views and habits. That sort of thing."
"In the Slush Pits you can have Options. Whereas Clauses are enforced, Options are your chosen preferences - they buy you different grades of cloning. If it's a Straight Cheap Transfer, you're fucked. But if you have a bit of money, or want to remortgage your five bedroom ApartBubble, you can have more control. Gradients of cloning, if you will."
Pippa scratched her head. "I'm sorry. I'm a bit lost. I thought gangers had a natural, innate ability to clone others? I thought any ganger could take a sample from me, be it hair, or saliva, and copy me. That's why they were so feared. That's why they - you - were effectively imprisoned here by QGM. No off-world travel for the gangers; or next thing you know, one's impersonated General Steinhauer and is running Quad-Gal Military behind everyone's backs." She laughed, coldly.
Pippa's clone smiled. "Yes. Quite. We are massively different, organically, from the base human species. I think gangers always thought themselves superior; after all, they could mimic and imitate without problem, without remorse or empathic regret - and that could and would make us naturally superior. A ganger could take the strength of one creature, the agility of another, the ferocity of a third, and blend them all into one psychopathic killing-shell that would piss all over human armies. That's why we were banished here. Imprisoned. That's why everybody is so scared of us. We have the potential for massive... upset. Domination. Now, the elite are simply used by QGM for missions. With certain caveats, of course."
"Caveats?"
"Spinal Logic Cubes. Control implants. A little bit like what they used on you and your Combat K buddies. AI control. Behaviour devices. If I go walk-about from Cloneworld - bam! I'm a jelly donut in a skin sack."
"Is that why the orgs were put here?"
"Yeah." Pippa's clone gave a cold smile. "Yet another control mechanism, although the orgs claim they were here first - I think it helps pacify their religious warlike tendencies. Gives them credence. It was QGM playing Mother Nature again. A balance, you see? I came to understand after decades of study. The orgs were introduced as creatures of hatred - and vice versa. We are at war continually; and when a race is at war, it helps keep the numbers down, right? We're fighting ourselves into an extinction pit, and nobody seems to see the irony."
"The irony?"
"We're all pawns. All game pieces on a planetary gameboard. It makes me wonder sometimes if the whole fucking show isn't being televised for God's benefit." She gave a cold, bitter laugh, and Pippa realised with a shock that the ganger still had layers of her own personality. Which meant...
She wasn't a direct copy of Pippa.
She did kill Keenan's wife and children; must have! For Pippa knew, felt deep down inside, that this was something she could never knowingly do. But the ganger, the half-clone - it looked like Pippa, walked like Pippa, even killed like Pippa. But there were essential differences.
The clone didn't love Keenan.
Pippa did. And because of that, she knew she was the real Pippa, the real woman, the template; and the ganger, the clone, it was fucking with her skull, playing games with her mind and soul.
Slowly, Pippa closed her mouth. H
er eyes went hard. Her heart went hard.
Soon, she would kill her.
After they reached the Slush Pits.
After they found the 3Core.
After she had served her purpose...
It was dawn. The sun crept over a blank horizon and threatened winter sunlight, slung low like a sharpshooter's sagging gun-belt. Pippa peered over the rocky ground using binos supplied by the GASGAMs.
The Slush Pits, from the outside, looked like one huge warehouse. A warehouse five kilometres wide. It was a characterless black building, which looked like it had been constructed from corrugated black alloy. It rose perhaps five stories in height, but without windows. The only markings on the surface, mid-point down the five-klick stretch, were the giant words: Gangers Inc. Sunlight gleamed from alloy walls, highlighting morning dew and hints of frost.
Pippa sat back, and bit her lower lip.
"Heavy fortifications?"
Pippa shook her head. "On the contrary. Wire perimeter fence, one road in and out, security hut with a guard picking his nose and reading filmy slips. But then, that's what makes me suspicious, yeah?"
"There's an underground train for gangers coming here for modifications or with cloning jars," said Pippa's clone. "That's all I know. I've never been in. Never wanted to go in."
"There's a big surprise waiting in there for you, fuckers," snarled Teddy Sourballs, face a curious mixture of sneering superiority, and fear, and hate - all blended into a face like a punchbag. A used one.
Pippa barked a laugh. "Not much of a surprise now, is it? You've told us about it. And if we know about it, we're prepared for it. Understand, idiot?"
Teddy frowned. "Er..."
"You're a dumb clone, that's for sure. What does the Mistress pay you for, anyway? Stupidity?"
"It's not my fault," scowled Sourballs. "This," she waved her bound hands, "wasn't part of my original job description! I was a teacher, all right? My job was to win over the rich parents, get the little bastards into the building, and make sure we filled up their books with as much stuff as possible to justify our huge fees. Didn't matter what we put in their books, any old shite would do. We used to bribe exam markers. Got the top results! One of the top schools on Clone Terra! Bloody gangers thought we were supreme!"
She looked up. Pippa was staring at her.
"You were a fucking teacher?" snarled Pippa. "A teacher, piloting a gunship? Call me old fashioned, but there's a conflict of images here. What do you do during break? Torture? Rape? Sodomy? What about your spare time? Do you pilot submarines? Fix leaking Deep Space Marine Vessels? Machine gun combat fucking GKs?"
"No." Teddy had retreated into her shell like a snail under the shadow of a boot. "I never asked for this. But I got dragged along, all right? My job description specified that I was to take useless little fuckers, fill their books with irrelevant crap, then punt out top-level gangers who looked good on paper. We didn't care about their education. Oh no. We cared about their monies, because it was on the back of that cash the Mistress built the TV networks. She'd funnel the money from excessively wealthy parents into expanding her TV Empire. It was all for the greater good. You see?"
"What did you teach?" said Pippa, softly.
"English." Teddy sniffed. "Actually, I was the Head of English."
"How can you be the Head of something when you freely admit you weren't actually interested in teaching? Simply justifying your excessive fees? Gods, what kind of school was it?"
"We provided a service," growled Teddy, barbed-wire hair bobbing like a particularly badly fitting wig. "And we did it to the best of our ability!"
"Oh yeah? A service to your own back pockets to make a fucking big pot of cash."
"There is no crime in making money!"
"There is when it's at the expense of somebody's education! Go on, what was your prime objective? The school's mission statement?"
Teddy thought for a moment. "Okay, yes, I agree to some extent, we were a business. We had to make money to survive, to prosper, to expand! We were oppressed by QGM, the gangers were downtrodden and forced into a position of weakness. But one day," her eyes gleamed, "one day we will overthrow you! You've already seen, we have learned how to crack your GASGAMs. We have built a secret..." Her voice trailed off. "No. I have said too much."
Pippa stepped forward and snapped out a right straight that dropped Teddy in an instant. The frizzy ganger glared up at her through tear-filled eyes, blood dripping from her nose. "That's for all the kids you fucked over," Pippa snarled through a mouthful of saliva and hate. She kicked Teddy in the face, slamming her back and rendering her unconscious. "And that's for being a bitch. I hate bitches."
Pippa's clone stepped forward. "But you're a bitch!"
"Yeah, well, I hate myself," snapped Pippa.
"That's my boss you just laid out cold."
"Well, I don't want her screwing up my plan. Because it's a good plan. And it needs her unconscious so her big, flapping mouth can't flap like a bitch-landed fish on a schooner's deck."
"You've thought of a way to get in?"
"Oh yeah," said Pippa, her green eyes gleaming.
The guard's name was Squib, and he was a squib. All squibs were little fellas, about two feet in height, and bred in a FatVat with identical DNA. They were all called "Squib" which, in terms of individual identification, made life a nightmare, but because nobody working for Gangers Inc. gave a flying bollock about any forms of personal identification or the rights of the squib individual, it was a moot point.
Squib sat in his guard box, scowling, and he scowled a lot because the squibs, as genetically-engineered servile species go, were a pretty bad tempered bunch. Not to their Lords and Masters and Betters, of course, oh, no; that had been genetically dredged out of them with a fine clawed hammer. But to one another. There wasn't a single one of the six thousand squibs who worked in the Slush Pits who wasn't filled with absolute hate and loathing for his fellow squib, despite their identical nature.
And so Squib sat, his metal guard box gleaming with the crimson rays of the sinking sun, and he watched the road, and the fence, and searched earnestly for signs of intruders. Oh how he'd like to find an intruder. "I'd love to find an intruder," he often said to himself, "just to see what it was like to find an intruder!" This would obviously necessitate acts of hideous violence, for what Squib lacked in verticality he made up for in raw aggression and a willingness to torture even small animals to within an inch of their death.
Squib sat.
Squib fumed.
Squib contemplated.
Squib hated.
Squib had managed to build up quite a well of hatred, frustration, anger, apathy, disgust, loathing and downright detestation for everything, because he'd been sat in his hut for nearly ten years now. Ten years without an intruder! Ten years waiting to vent his glowing ball of intensity on some unlucky traveller stumbling stupidly into his nasty web.
"I'll show them," he'd often muttered over the past ten years, ragged eyebrows frowning so hard they'd touch in the middle of his round, pudgy face. "I'll kill them! Wipe them from the planet! Torture them! Cause them raw agony! I'll peel them! I'll, I'll, I will..." And he'd realise, with sinking dejection, what he really would do. What he really would do is ask for their pass. Shit. Ha! But if they didn't have a pass? Hey! Then killing, torture and raw agony were on the menu, that's for sure!
Squib sat, as he had for countless thousands of days, contemplating the bleak rocky horizon. Occasionally, he would turn and examine the huge black fortress building behind him, worried that somebody might sneak up on him. He was paranoid like that. And he knew the paranoia had been growing for years.
Now, however, on this late evening, filled with dying wintry sunlight, with the shadows of The Ganger Mountains stretching out like long, rubber teeth over the barren rocky ground, there came a muffled clank.
Squib frowned. Had he really heard a clank? Or was the clank just a clanking figment of his clanking imagination?
The clank clanked again.
Squib felt a thrill of excitement and fear run charge through his veins. Here it was! Something out of the ordinary! Forget them damn, damn bastard squibs with their guns, and rocket launchers, and stories of things going wrong on the underground tube-missile trains from Nechudnazzar and Raifnazzar, from Purple and Green and the distant far north city of Harmony. Forget all their bullshit and hero tales! Their jabbering of high adventure, and gunfights, and gangers trying to sneak into the Slush Pits for secret love trysts with surgeons willing to take sex in order to regrow an arm or leg or vagina! No, this was Squib's time, this was Squib's moment, this was Squib's adventure, man!
He stood. He brushed down his neat black uniform. He took the heavy calibre rifle from its rack, and ran a pudgy-fingered hand along the smooth, cool, black stock. The gun was polished to a high gleam. Squib had put many man-hours into polishing that gun. Indeed, it was his third gun, having polished his way through two previous incarnations. That's how much time Squib had. That's how fucking bored he was. But then, boredom served a purpose. It made you ready for the action! Yeah!
More clanks echoed across the barren ground, and from behind a bank of rolling hills Squib watched with a growing erection as a huge, metal monstrosity rose, and rose. And rose. It was huge. Thirty feet tall! It could squash Squib with an ill-timed footfall! It was fifteen times his height! Nay! Maybe twenty times! In his imagination, and for the purposes of tales down the Squib Arms later, drinking Squib's Finest Ale and eating Squib Pie (don't ask), it could possibly be a hundred fucking times taller than him!