Cloneworld - 04

by Andy Remic

  "Your concern for my welfare is much appreciated," said Franco through gritted teeth, voice dripping sarcasm.

  "Good! Now then! Pippa! The way I currently understand this situation is that the Mistress and her sister, Tarly Winters, are waging war against the orgs. Their infantry and ships and weapons have set off to attack The Org States! Is this correct?"

  "It is."

  "We must stop them."

  "I have a few ideas about that," said Pippa, smiling grimly.

  They moved through The Monastery. It was deserted of personnel, and an eerie silence blew through the stone corridors. Outside the thick stone walls they occasionally heard shouts and yells and engines and rotors. But the army had moved on, moved away, headed off on its attack in the name of Live TV! on Clone TV.

  Queen Strogger led the way. She was purposeful now, head held high, mechanicals whirring and thumping in her cyborg body. Princess Anklebolt III followed, quite obviously subservient. Both orgs clearly understood - their whole world was under attack, and they had to work together to sort out the shit. Only afterwards could they resolve their petty differences. Which, surely, they would.

  Franco and Pippa jogged along behind the two orgs who, despite their age and sheer mechanical size, made fast progress. Franco waved his metal arm about forlornly.

  "Look what she did to me!" he hissed. "She made me... bionic! I have a bionic hand! I'm one fifth metal! I don't believe it! I just don't bloody believe it! I mean, of all the rotten stinking luck..."

  "You're a moaning twat," snapped Pippa. "Most amputees would beg for what you've been freely given! You're a fucking ingrate, Franco Haggis. Be thankful you're still breathing the fresh mountain air!"

  "Twat! Squawk!"

  "Oh great, the parrot's back. You big green coward! And hey, hey! Who're you calling an ingrate, anyway? An ingrate is it? But then, how could you understand anything about it, you're a bloody woman!"

  "What's me being a woman got to do with it?" snapped Pippa. "You lost your arm! Now you've got a better one! Be pragmatic for once, will you?"

  "Yeah but, y'know."

  They'd stopped, Strogger peering up and down the deserted stone corridors. Then she set off, metal legs stomping across the cobbles, towards a steep spiral staircase. Anklebolt III followed. Behind Franco, out of reach of his bionic punch, fluttered Polly.

  "'Y'know' what?"

  "Just. Y'know."

  "What the fuck are you talking about? I know Strogger said she was pumping you full of pills, but this is the Franco Haggis I remember from Mount Pleasant!"

  "Don't mention that place."

  "What, Mount Pleasant? The 'nice and caring and friendly home for the mentally challenged'?" Pippa grinned. "Go on. What's your problem now, dickhead?"

  "This arm! This hand! It's just it's, my, well, you know, my personal use hand."

  Pippa considered this. Only Franco could bring up the subject of masturbation on his way to a battle and impending death by bullets and detonation.

  "Go on."

  "Go on what? It's my, er, my special hand. Only it isn't anymore, is it? I mean, every time I do the dirty deed, I'll be bloody thinking about that there old Strogger machine thing, won't I?"

  "Maybe it'll clean you up."

  "Meaning?"

  "Stop you being such a wanker!"

  "Wanker!" squawked Polly.

  "That's a bloody misrepresentation, that is!" snapped Franco.

  "Yeah," continued Pippa, "maybe this will make the wild bad rag-tag Franco settle down, get married, have children. You know. The stuff any normal heterosexual individual is supposed to want to do."

  "You ain't got no kids," sulked Franco.

  "I ain't normal," said Pippa.

  "I tried the marriage thing." He considered this. "First one became a zombie. Second prospective one became a... a kind of snake face."

  "No way to talk about your fiancée, that," grinned Pippa.

  "She's not my fiancée!"

  "Did you break it off?"

  "Er, no, but..."

  "Well, you're still engaged then. Ergo, your fiancée."

  "Just wait a bloody goddamn bloody bollicking minute!"

  Pippa shivered. "I'd hate to be there on your wedding night. And just think of the mess when she ate spaghetti!"

  "Here!" said Strogger, stopping before a huge wooden door. She raised her arms, and split open, a huge fat piston whirring out of her torso to smash the door from its hinges. It slammed backwards, destroying several shelves and leaving a pall of stone-dust hanging in the air.

  "What is it?" mumbled Franco. "A sauna? A jacuzzi? A car factory? I can just hear the lads now, hear 'em with their mocking laughter, with their jokes and rib-poking. Old Claw Hand, they'll call me. And every time I pick my nose, I'll punch my nostrils through the top of my skull!"

  "It's the armoury," said Pippa. She turned, face sombre, eyes gleaming through the dust. "Come on Franco. Stop moaning. It's time to tool up."

  Broadcast... Clone TV Live TV! []

  Reality war program, "Wargasm," Episode 1, cue music, cue credits, roll credits>>

  WargasmLive>>

  (C)HG20201 Clone TV/ Live TV!

  Cue intro... zoom out, cross-fade...

  Going live in three... two... one...

  "And ho, ho, ho! Welcome folks to this, the first live switching on of our new live reality TV show, Wargasm! brought to you by the one and only Clone TV, here from our very own CloneWorld, 3rd Quadrant Quad-Gal Cluster 5567#. You can rest assured, folks, you ain't never seen anything like this before, ho, ho, ho, and oh, look, you can see now the Q-Wing Fast Jets are here, give them all a wave as they zoom past on their way to their first bombing runs over our despicable and horrific enemy, The Orgs! Ho, ho, ho!"

  Above The Org States, over the vast western coast, a line of three hundred Q-Wing Fast Jets appeared, carrying underwing SlamBam ClusterBombs. They flew with perfect precision and unity, as befitted pilot squadrons of clones, who thought in exactly the same way and were, in fact, perfect imitations of only one man - the best fighter pilot Clone Terra had ever produced.

  The Q-Wing Fast Jets appeared, a glittering arc of speeding triumph, and as they reached the coast of The Org States they peeled apart, heading on individual missions and bombing runs. Right down the western seaboard of The Org States, gun turrets came alive on every available rooftop, and heavy calibre machine guns started booming and pounding, hot casings ejecting as millions of bullets spun, screaming, through the skies, guided by flickers of green and orange tracer. The Q-Wing Fast Jets' guns thundered, peppering and shattering the orgs' high buildings. Across the six cities on the western seaboard of The Org States - namely Synch, Dog, Mekal, Outpost 12, Outpost 9 and The Rod - missiles and bombs sailed through the heavens. Explosions detonated across the skies, and through the cities. Towers toppled, screaming, trailing dust and smoke and flames to the scream-filled city streets. In the blink of an eye, a calm and moderately civilised world was plunged into chaos. In the click of finger and thumb, sanity became insanity, law became chaos, calm became storm, love became hate.

  "And ho, ho, ho! Look at our brave ganger pilots go, raining down filth and pollution and hot retribution hellfire on those dirty bastard orgs! But here comes the fun part! Soon, the Cam Drones - a full ten thousand of the little beauties - will separate and link to individual remote handsets back in your own homes! That's right, folks, all you people out there in TV Land will have control over the battle! Have you ever heard such a crazy notion? Ho, ho! When you see this symbol flash up in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, you can access our Live TV! Live War! Wargasm! TV War Menu! You then have four options controlled by the buttons on your remote control!

  "Now listen carefully, folks. This is so easy, even you stupid sofa chompers and blobbers and burger stuffers and fast food fucknuggets can do it! Let's say a Q-Wing Fast Jet is bearing down on a dirty scumbag school hall filled with screaming children - press your red button to machine gun them a
ll! Press your green button to send a missile into the school! Press the yellow button to use the undergun flamethrowers - ho, ho, ho, just smell the dirty flaming chargrilled child orgmeat cook and sizzle! - and finally, and this is the beauty, folks, the blue button can be used for occasional suicide attacks!

  "That's right! We have a true special treat for all you folks here in Clone TV Land! We've got together with Queen Strogger, that's right, the one and only Queen of the orgs! And she's, heh-heh-heh, given us all their dirty machine secrets! So, we've bred up some lovely smushed gangers in the Slop Pits and Slush Pits and Dirt Boxes and Fat Vats, and then we've - and you're hardly going to believe this folks! - we've used the org machines on them to create org gangers! Now these happy volunteers are to be used in suicide missions, for those oh-so-hard-to-target targets such as inner city schools, compound hospitals, underground church halls, you know, those really hard to find places where civilians cluster and whimper like big girls! Ho, ho, ho, folks! You heard it here first! Clone TV! Wargasm! War has never been so much fun, baby!"

  Out in the military training grounds, nearly all practically deserted, around fifty huge screens had been erected - presumably for use in training exercises, or maybe for light entertainment during R&R (not that anybody thought, in their wildest dreams, that the psychopathic Mistress would allow any R&R). Now, the screens were blazing with images blasted across Cloneworld from ten thousand AI remote Cam Drones, programmed to cover the best of the action, baby!

  The massive screens played out images of The Org States being bombed, strafed, detonated, smashed; all blasted across the screens, huge noise screaming from the speakers. Schools and hospitals and factories and tower blocks were bombed and crushed and smashed. Orgs ran screaming through the streets, only to be cut in half by machine guns (get that lovely blood spurt! just as the Cam Drone darts through in a neat tracking shot). Orgs exploded, showering their surroundings with limbs, both natural and metal. Dogs and Archies were sent howling, peppered by bullets, spinning end over end into piles of rubble. It was Entertainment Evil on a huge scale. It was Insanity TV. It was the Massacre Movie of the Moment. It was Stupidity, squared to infinity.

  "I just don't believe it," said Pippa, standing, mouth open.

  A cold wind blew across the deserted parade grounds, bringing with it trailing wisps of snow. It smelt of ice, and desolation, and death.

  "That's the craziest thing I've ever seen," agreed Franco, voice low. Then he looked over to Queen Strogger and Princess Anklebolt III. And although Franco had had his moments of antagonism with the two orgs, moments of confusion, and stupidity, of anger and hate and sheer frustration, the looks on their faces felled him as readily as any lump-hammer thud to the back of the skull.

  Queen Strogger was crying, tears of black oil running down her metal-patched face. And it wasn't just her tears that conveyed her misery, but the look of total, utter hopelessness on her face. Because she knew, knew that at least partly, this was her own fault. She had brought the org secrets of machine-building and flesh-merging to the gangers, and they had imprisoned her, and built their own army of org clones, and no matter how skewed their motivations for TV war, Queen Strogger had been in a position to help. But she hadn't helped. And now, it had come to this...

  "I cannot believe this is happening," said Queen Strogger, as guns and bombs, bullets and explosions blazed across the screens. Toddler orgs were smashed out of prams. Women-orgs screaming in the streets were smashed in hails of bullets, emblazed in unfurling petals of fire, peppered by payloads of burning hot shrapnel.

  Pippa moved to her, carrying a brand new MPK from the Ganger Armoury. "You couldn't have stopped it."

  "I could have tried!"

  "Well, now we try," said Anklebolt III, moving to her mother. She took Queen Strogger in her arms, and gave her a big, metal-stinking hug. There came various clacks and clangs as the two cyborgs clumsily embraced. "I'm sorry, mummy, truly I am. For all the things I said and did."

  Franco and Pippa exchanged glances. It was like watching two industrial refrigerators make up.

  "And I'm sorry, little Anklebiter. I wasn't always there for you like a proper mum should have been. What with all the five hundred other screaming, mangy orgs snapping at my ankles..."

  "That's all right, mummy. That's all right."

  "There there, Princess."

  "Snuffle-snuffle, mamma. Love you."

  "Love you too."

  Both orgs were crying, and hugging each other, although from a distance it could have been mistaken as a violent wrestling match between two earth-moving diggers.

  "We need to move," said Franco. "We need to sort out this shit." His face was still ashen, but even more so from the scenes on the TV. It was one thing to be involved in war - war for a reason, war for a cause, no matter how misconstrued or politically twisted. But it was quite another experience to witness war being used for the sake of pure entertainment. For TV ratings. Warporn, for all the wrong reasons, the bad reasons, the fucked-up-perversion-of-humanity-and-all-its-twisted-deviants reasons.

  Franco was wearing full combats, boots, and a pack stuffed with two D5 shotguns and bombs. Lots of bombs. He carried Kekra twin-barrel machine pistols. And he chewed a cigar. He looked the business. No, he looked more than the business. He looked The Fucking Business. Franco was ready to put this war down, like a scabby, rabies-riddled dog snapping at his testicles, like the worst of annoying yakker snakkers. It was often said that war was evil. This one was. And Franco knew exactly where to strike to make the bad go away...

  "Okay." He looked around, and Pippa moved to stand beside him. "The Mistress has headed off in her War Balloon. Mad, I know, but then she's mad as a..." he smiled, "an eel in a bucket of snakes. And, like a snake, we cut off the head and the body dies real fucking fast."

  "We can't stop the invasion," said Queen Strogger. "There's too many of them! Their firepower, their technology, they have control of airspace and all the damn GASGAM anti-aircraft AIs! And they have GASGAM loaded nukes to finish the job off! How could we stop all that? We're doomed!"

  "Well," said Franco, eyeing Pippa. "I think Pippa has a few surprises up her sleeve with the programming on the nuke stuff. Teddy Sourballs didn't have such a keen eye as she thought. But first, we need a way through to the Mistress - we need to take her out, and we need to take out her camera crews. If we can disrupt her TV transmission, she loses the whole purpose of the invasion."

  "There's soldiers, over there." Pippa pointed. They could see a battalion in the distance, still going through drills. They hadn't heard the men over the noise of the giant screens showing slaughter and carnage.

  "Probably some reserve raw recruits," said Franco, rubbing his bristled chin thoughtfully. "I have an idea about that. But first, we're going to need vehicles. Pippa, you and Anklebolt head over to those WarSheds, see..." His voice trailed off.

  A naked woman was walking towards them.

  Tarly Winters.

  "Uh-oh," said Pippa, taking a step back. "She's looking real pissed. She's your wife, Franco, why don't you deal with the bitch!"

  Franco stared at Pippa. "I ain't married to her yet!"

  "Well, she looks pretty angry to me. Maybe you forgot to buy the ring?"

  More snow was falling, and Tarly's feet were leaving neat little footprints. Queen Strogger stepped forward, her legs and torso extending on their hydraulics and machine guns clattering out of her forearms and shoulders. Her teeth ground together.

  "This bitch helped to bring this war to my people!" growled Strogger. "I want to deal with her."

  "Er, yeah! Be my guest!" enthused Franco, who was never at his best when dealing with women at all, much less angry women - which happened a lot. Or at least, more than he'd like. Or could afford.

  "Hi, love!" he said, giving a small half-wave as Queen Strogger, growling and hissing like a runaway train, strode out across the rocky parade square to meet her nemesis.

  Tarly glanced at him and pointed. "I'll deal
with you later!" she snapped, as Strogger broke into a thunderous, mechanical charge. At the last moment, her huge fist came up and over, and a massive hydraulic piston thundered out, slamming into Tarly Winters from above and burying her deep into the rock with a bam! so loud the mountains shook.

  Smoke curled from around Strogger's piston-fist.

  Slowly, and oozing cooling oil and steam, Strogger reversed and retracted the piston, dropping tiny lumps of rock into the pit she'd just created.

  "Well," chirped Franco, happily. "That's the end of that, then! Let's just say it was a happy divorce before the necessity of the wedding ceremony." He was unreasonably chipper; it was nauseating to witness.

  Tarly rose from the pit vertically, unharmed, and her feet touched down on the rim. She grabbed the still-retracting piston, and twisted, flinging the huge, mighty Strogger a good hundred metres down the parade ground.

  Strogger rolled like a marble, steel and iron and alloy parts grinding and crashing, sending showers of sparks into the air and cutting deep jagged grooves across the alloyconcrete.

  "Shit," said Pippa, blinking, and hoisted her MPK. She flicked off the safety catch.

  Franco glanced down. "Er. You think that'll work?"

  "It's worth a fucking try, unless you've got a better idea?" snapped Pippa.

  Franco hoisted his Kekras, and they unleashed a payload of screaming bullets on General Tarly Winters, bullets spinning and whining through the air, thumping into her flesh with thump-thump-thumps as she turned from Strogger's flailing, rocking body - like a turtle stranded on its back - lowered her head, staring straight at Franco -

  And ran at them...

  Franco shook his yammering gun, as if urging it to fire yet more bullets through willpower alone. Hundreds of bullets slammed into Tarly Winters, but were absorbed into her flesh, ejected from her naked back as if passing through molten wax, like maggots wriggling from a corpse. And all the while, her flesh squirmed, like snakes in a barrel, noodles in a honey-pan, larvae in a nest of rotting, rancid corpse-meat.