Cloneworld - 04

by Andy Remic

  "Shiiiiit..." screamed Franco as Tarly came closer, and closer, and then she was there, grinning at him, and she swung her arm left, snapping Pippa's still-juddering MPK machine gun in two, and reached through Franco's gunfire to take his Kekras from him like toffees from a child. She tossed them aside, where they clattered across rock.

  "Hello, Franco," she said.

  "Er, you wouldn't hurt me, would you, love? After all, we are going to get married!"

  "That's a cheap trick," growled Pippa.

  Tarly turned on her. "Shut up, bitch." She back-handed Pippa and sent her rolling off across the parade ground, blood spraying from smashed lips.

  Franco held up his hands, and started to shuffle slowly backwards.

  "Now listen, love..."

  "I'm not your love!" squealed Tarly, and leapt - to be caught around the midriff in the pincer grip of Princess Anklebolt III's expanded mechanical hand. It was huge, like a set of giant pincers, each hinged gripper exploding to the size of landcar.

  Anklebolt threw Tarly into a giant TV screen. The glass shattered, screeching, and the hundred-foot screen imploded with a detonation of electricity. Power surged through Tarly Winters, sparks ejecting like industrial fireworks through her as she jiggled in the centre of the screen, energy pouring through every atom. When finally the light show ended, Tarly toppled from the centre of the destroyed screen, hit the ground with a wet smack, and slowly stood up and rested her hands on her hips.

  "Uh-oh," said Franco, and looked around in panic. He rushed over to Pippa, and helped the Combat K killer to her feet.

  "I think you upset her," said Pippa, wiping blood from her mouth with a grimace.

  "I fucking upset her? Why is it always me, eh? Why can't it be some other dumb schmuck?"

  Tarly charged Anklebolt, looking ridiculous - like a midget attacking a giant. Again, the pincers came crashing down, but Tarly was ready and dodged the blow. Anklebolt's steel claws smashed through the rocky ground and lodged there. Tarly walked casually around Anklebolt's back, leapt up, and ripped something free from her spine. Anklebolt went suddenly rigid, and almost with a gesture of contempt, Tarly dropped a small cube to the ground and kicked it away.

  She turned and looked at Franco.

  He gulped.

  Tarly started towards him.

  "What's wrong with her face?" said Pippa softly, head tilting, eyes narrowing.

  Franco blinked. Something had happened to Tarly's face during her massive electrocution in the giant TV. Now, it was open to her brain, or open to something slick and glossy inside; slick, and glossy, pulsing, and glooping. Fingers of snake tentacle wavered around the open pit of her face, like the half-burned petals of a predatory flower.

  "That's pretty damn gross," said Franco, weakly.

  "She's your fucking fiancée!" snapped Pippa.

  "Will you stop saying that!"

  "Distract her! I'll be back in a minute!"

  "What?"

  And then Pippa was gone, and Franco flapped around in a sudden panic, running to grab his discarded Kekras and turning back just in time to stare at his betrothed marching towards him, her face detonated open. He went weak at the knees. Suddenly, his biomechanical arm didn't feel like such a disfiguration.

  Tarly stopped in front of him.

  Franco could see through to the centre of her skull, the hole surrounded by wavering snake tentacles, each snake having its own set of eyes and an open maw and flickering tongue.

  "I hope you ain't come for a snog," said Franco.

  "No, Franco, my darling," said Tarly, and her voice was tinny, distant, as if she'd swallowed her voicebox and was speaking from inside her belly. "I've come here to kill you."

  "That's all right then," he snapped. "Because if I had to kiss that then I'd want to be fucking dead."

  Tarly squealed, a high-pitched buzzing noise: half woman's scream, half hissing snake. She leapt at Franco, who stumbled back, Kekra coming up to fire directly in her open face, her open brain, unleashing screaming bullets on hot streams of fire and gas that ate into Tarly, kicking her back to roll, and come up fast, and leap again. Again, Franco fired a volley into her snake-rimmed face, watching with horror as the snake tentacles wriggled and thrashed, the centre of her head seeming to absorb the bullets and spit them out the back of her skull. The white flesh was churned up, but no blood came out, and Franco was back-pedalling, panting, and he realised with a mental kick he needed his grenades, lots of fucking grenades! But the best he had was in his pack. On his back. With the shotguns. What bloody good are weapons on your back, slackboy nutjob? his mind screamed at him. You're a gremlin-faced dumb-arse pot-bellied Combat K reject!

  Hey! he snapped back at himself. I didn't realise my fiancée's face was going to explode and wriggle like a can of industrial maggots on a fishing trip, did I?

  Tarly forced her way forward like a climber through a blizzard, leaning into the onslaught as she approached, and Franco went paler than pale. For the second time she snatched his guns. The hail of fire halted, leaving a ringing sound reverberating through the snow, and she lifted the guns to her open face and... ate them. The snakes thrashed in a feeding frenzy, and from the back of Tarly's head came curls of hot metal shavings, ejecting with wisps of steam and a high-pitched zinging sound.

  "Er," said Franco, backing away even faster.

  "That wasn't a nice thing to do to a woman you shared such intimate experiences with," said Tarly, snakes writhing.

  "Er," said Franco, and in a rush, scrabbled with his pack, yanking free a D5 and presenting himself aggressively, as if to say, A-har! You didn't expect that, did you?

  "Tut, tut," said Tarly. "You're so predictable."

  "And you're so dead, snake meat!" A boom echoed across the rocks, and echoed back from the rearing mountains. Franco peered through the smoke to see how much damage he'd done - which was none at all.

  "Foolish," said Tarly. "That hurt."

  "Yeah, well, it shouldn't have done - you already look like a woman with her head torn open!" She grabbed the gun with a fluid movement that left Franco staring stupidly at his hands.

  She levelled the D5 at him. "Let's see how you like it," she said.

  "Now don't be like that, love," said Franco, lifting up both hands and cringing.

  "Squawk!" Polly screeched at the last moment of her vertical dive from high above, and Tarly glanced up - to get the parrot Special Friend full in the face - hole - thrashing-tentacles - whatever. There was a metallic whump, and Tarly dropped the D5, both hands snapping up to the parrot now wedged in her head-hole, pecking like mad, its beak a flurry of violent activity as Franco dropped to his knees and scrabbled in his pack. He pulled out two Babe grenades - so named because they gave you a good fucking.

  "Polly, get out of there!" screamed Franco, but he needn't have shouted. Tarly had grabbed the bird, and dragged it slowly away from her face - along with ribbons of her own stringy, writhing snake flesh.

  Polly was flapping and squawking. Tarly threw the metal bird to the ground and ground it underfoot. The Special Friend flapped around listlessly, emitting pops and little blue sparks, and then was still.

  Tarly looked up.

  "Catch!" snapped Franco, and threw a Babe grenade into her open writhing face. There was a pause, but a short one because Franco had initiated a slam-fuse - then a boom!

  Tarly went spinning backwards, black smoke pouring from her head, and Franco rubbed his hands together and grinned. "Job's a good 'un," he congratulated himself, and walked cockily to Tarly's prone, shattered body. He stared down at the blackened stump of her neck. He'd quite literally blown her head clean off.

  "I fucking told you not to mess with me," said Franco, wagging his finger. "Everybody underestimates Old Haggis, so they do, but this time you got it, and you got it good."

  Smoke drifted from Tarly's detonated head.

  Her leg twitched.

  Franco glanced back, to see Pippa emerging. She carried a yukana sword, and Franco s
houted, "Hey, little lady, you won't be needing that anymore! I did the job, and did it well, with a good old bomb!"

  "Franco!" she screamed, and something about the look on Pippa's face told Franco it was damn serious. And he was right. Hands grabbed his arms, and he struggled for a moment, wrestling with... with...

  He turned. "But... you're dead!" he wailed. She obviously wasn't. Yes, she had no head, but more snakes had erupted from the scorched stump of her neck, wavering around madly, little black eyes staring at him with unabridged evil. "Get off!" he struggled. But Tarly was strong. Real strong. "Get it off me!" screamed Franco, fighting as hard as he could, but he was outclassed, and he knew it...

  There was a hiss, a slap of flesh, and one of Tarly's arms came free. Franco gawped, uncomprehending. There came another hiss from Pippa's yukana as she cut Tarly's other arm off. Both arms were still holding onto Franco and he staggered back, a creature of four flapping arms, and howled a long, high howl as befitted any man put through such trials and tribulations. He tried to pull free the severed arms, which still gripped him and squeezed and shook. He screamed and slapped at them, and they quivered, and he tugged at them, and Pippa ran to him, cutting them again into four pieces. Finally, the pieces fell to the rocky ground and Franco danced back like a man on hot coals. "Eugh! Eugh! Eaurch!" he was saying.

  "Keep away from them," said Pippa, and turned her attention back to Tarly. She was standing perfectly still, armless, headless, and Pippa wondered how many more bits she'd have to cut off before the bitch got the message. Suddenly, Tarly Winters... shattered. Or melted. Her body seemed to turn into a blob, sinking down towards the rocky ground in a fattening mass. From her clothing burst a hundred pale white snakes, and they wriggled in a high-speed frenzy, down between the rocks, down into cracks and holes and gaps, down through snow and ice and - Pippa blinked - in an instant, the snakes were gone. Tarly was gone.

  "It it dead?" muttered Franco, grabbing his D5 shotgun and poking one of the cut arms with the toe of his boot.

  "I... don't think so," said Pippa. "Gone, but not forgotten, yeah?"

  "What a bitch," said Franco.

  "You pulled her."

  "I didn't know she was an alien!"

  Pippa levelled a beady eye at him. "Yeah, right, that's what they all say. I'll go and help Strogger and Anklebolt. But you!" She pointed.

  "Yeah?" he said, suddenly bright at the prospect of not having to marry General Tarly Winters.

  "Go and see to the parrot."

  "And ho, ho, ho! Here we are above the battle, with the Mistress herself live in her War Balloon! Hello, there, Mistress, can you tell me how do you think the war is going?"

  "The War is going very well, Eamonn, and as you know we've sent in our Q-Wing Fast Jets and delivered a series of bombs across all manner of dirty, stinking org cities... we've had heavy casualties to various infantry battalions in the capital city of Org, but we're on our way there now, because that seems to be the orgs' focus of defence. Are you getting some good footage?"

  "Oh, yes, Mistress! This is the most wonderful thing ever to happen on Live TV! Earlier, at the Heap7 Mountains, we had a swarm of ten thousand infantry bravely overrunning an enemy org position of several hundred orgs! It was stunning! The slaughter was terrible, unfortunately, because the dirty, stinking orgs refused to lay down their weapons and surrender and be shot, but there's always atrocity in war, that's what I always say! Ho, ho, ho!"

  "Yes, always atrocity in war. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to co-ordinate the HTanks, HJeeps and HCarriers as we advance on the capital city of The Org States."

  "Yes, of course, Mistress, no problem, Mistress, and there she goes, our voluptuous and fabulous Mistress! Lets hear it for her from the studio audience, and I'm sure she'll be joining us later for the After-War Tactic Talks with Dermot O'Dreary..."

  The War Balloon cruised through cold high-altitude air, the Mistress leaning on one alloy rail and gazing down at the landscape below. There, she could see five battalions marching across metal deserts, whole dunes of iron filings shimmering and sparkling in the cold sun's haze. And there, a hundred HTanks humming towards the Steel Forest to rain a hundred thousand shells into the tangled steel foliage to flush out the renegades. It was pointed out to the Mistress that surely they should concentrate on the main point of battle, the assault on Org itself, and she listened attentively to her Generals and then waved them away. She was not the sort of woman to take advice from subordinates - any subordinates! She found the tactics which had once worked in education worked equally well in warfare. After all, her point of view was the only point of view, wasn't it? Other people were there simply to make noise. Yes, they wanted to sound like they were giving opinions and a variety of alternatives, but all they were really doing was greasing their own CVs, right? It was simply the way of the world.

  The War Balloon shuddered as a huge gun emplacement fired a shell at it. Her own guns turned on the AA weapon and thundered, raining down fire and bombs and pounding it - and a surrounding town, in its entirety - into oblivion.

  To call the vessel in which she rode a War Balloon was to understate the vehicle. It was massive, a truly titanic Zeppelin made from brass and silver, each panel of the strange construct's decks shimmering under the cold light. The actual balloon part of the vehicle itself was a liquid metal orb with intrinsic anti-grav properties, and this main bulbous chamber - nearly a kilometre long - could therefore not be punctured in any way. The liquid metal simply rolled back into position when fired upon and stayed aloft.

  She had named the War Balloon Conqueror, and smiled every time she considered the simplicity and gravity of the name.

  "Mistress!" It was Teddy Sourballs, barbed-wire hair bobbing, rancid face screwed into a little ball of hatred and constant misunderstanding. "There are reports that we've taken great losses in the south, mainly at the armoured cities of Zeg and Zob."

  "How many casualties?"

  "Fifteen thousand infantry and three hundred tanks, at least."

  "Did the cameras capture it?"

  "No, Mistress. I've just despatched a platoon of Cam Drones..."

  "What? No fucking cameras? Am I truly surrounded by fucking retarded retards?" she raged, and clutched at her own hair, pulling out clumps. "What's the point of staging a live fucking war on live fucking TV, if we don't film the live fucking action and live fucking deaths? Hey?"

  "No reason, Mistress," said Teddy, hanging her head miserably.

  "Get over to those fucking Order Consoles and sort it out!" she screeched.

  "Yes, Mistress."

  "And Teddy?"

  "Yes, Mistress?"

  "Make me a cup of tea when you've done that, okay?"

  "Yes, Mistress!"

  Franco appeared, bearing his screwdriver and grinning. "There. That should have spanked the monkey."

  There came a grinding sound, then a clank. With a long drawn out groan, Princess Anklebolt III levered herself upright and clenched her fists. "That little bastad! If she wasn't already dead, I'd kill her!"

  "We have more pressing matters," said Pippa, hurriedly.

  "Such as?"

  "The war's acceleration. The gangers are attacking the city of Org."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I've been watching it on the telly whilst Franco's been fixing your ass."

  "Fair enough."

  Franco packed away his toolkit and hefted a D5 shotgun. "Okay Pippa, you seem to be on the money. What's the deal? What's the plan? What's the gig, sweet lips?"

  "The Mistress has kept a thousand jets here in reserve. So we need a thousand pilots."

  "So, our own army, then?" mused Franco. He frowned. "Hey! Those guys, over there!" He pointed. "Must be damn near a full battalion! If we could get those guys to come with us, we'd have ourselves an army!"

  "We can't use them," said Pippa, shaking her head.

  "Why not?"

  "Trust me, Franco. We can't."

  "Ha! Snot and bloody bolloc
ks! I'll convince them, you see if I don't! Just you watch me! Just you watch me charm their pants! Just you watch, there's still life in this fat, saggy old body yet. They don't call me Franco 'The Sexy Snake Charmer' Haggis for nothing, okay?"

  "You didn't charm that last snake," said Pippa.

  "Ooh, below the belt, below the belt." Franco hoisted his shotgun and set off across the battle-scarred parade ground. Halfway across he turned, and shouted, "Just you watch me! I'll stun you with my charm skills! You'll be stunned, you will! Stunned!"

  "Not as stunned as you," muttered Pippa.

  Queen Strogger settled down next to her, with a hiss and a clank. Pippa glanced at the old wrinkled org, and realised she really, really liked the old... woman. She'd miss her if she was gone, that's for sure.

  "A clever tactic."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Who better to persuade a battalion of Francos than the template himself?"

  "Do you think it'll work?"

  "No."

  Pippa looked into Strogger's ancient eyes. She felt a chill in her soul. "Why not?"

  "It's been tried. A hundred times. A thousand times. It's an instinct thing. When the gangers tried it, in test after test, the clones always turned on their ganger template."

  "Why?"

  "Because a clone who knows it's a clone has the world's biggest inferiority complex. It's hard enough getting a kid to listen to its mother. Imagine if you were just a copy? Not even your own individual; just a copy. Not real. Not human. And then some bossy bastad turned up and started telling you what to do, because it was your genetic master. Would you listen?"

  "Oh. Shit. I see."

  "Good luck to him."

  "Do you think I should go help?"