“Yeehaw, we got ourselves a live one, boys and girls!” Luke yelled.
Luke’s brother and sister, Lonny and Lorelai, were moving down the other side of the street. All three of them had the same greyish prison pallor, washed out blonde hair and stringy musculature. They were all carrying compact firearms.
“Who the hell you think you talking to, you goddamn fool?” Lorelai said, “Ain’t nobody here but us!”
“I’m talking to the people at home!” Luke jerked his head toward the camera drones hovering overhead, “When we get out of here I’m going to get my own reality TV show and leave you two losers behind!”
Yoyo and Rizzio retreated back to a narrow side street, branching between the overhanging buildings. Puppy went with them, still firing from its minigun. Rizzio had his shotgun raised, pressed to his shoulder as he dragged his leg behind him. Luke Tanner kept Puppy distracted but Lonny and Lorelai threaded their way through the buildings. Lonny raised his stumpy and old-fashioned TEC-9 automatic pistol, firing a short blast.
“You guys suck!” Yoyo said.
“You stupid bitch, you’re going to get us both killed!” Rizzio said.
“Come on now, we killed all them people, you think you two and a little robot is going to give us any trouble?” Lonny said.
“Cover me, you idiot!” Lorelai said.
Puppy swivelled, bullets thundering, and the two closest Tanner triplets ducked. Lonny fired again one-handed, aiming at the mech’s head. Lorelai rolled across the sidewalk strewn with trash and rubble before taking aim at Yoyo and Rizzio, taking cover behind Puppy. Blasts from Lorelai’s submachine gun whistled past the two and Rizzio spun around, collapsing onto his one working knee. The triplets were overconfident and advancing on Yoyo and Rizzio. Puppy also helped draw their attention with its blazing minigun, giving Rizzio time to line up his shot, with his injured leg splayed out beside him.
Rizzio squeezed and his shot hit Lorelai from across the road, a simple and clean lucky shot amongst all the chaos. Half of Lorelai’s head exploded, pieces of skull and brains spraying through the air. She flopped over, tumbling to the ground. The mech continued pouring bullets into their surroundings while the Tanner sister died and the kill switch on her arm started to wail.
“Sis!” Lonny said.
The sleeve on Lonny’s right arm started to sing as well and he stiffened as needles entered his skin. Luke was too far away to have seen Lorelai go down, but his sleeve started wailing as well.
“What the fuck?” Luke yelled.
“You thought we was going to kill you before? We-, we is going to kill you twice as much now!” Lonny said.
Tears were streaming out of Lonny’s eyes. Both Lonny and Luke received a dose of adrenaline and drugs, enough to supercharge their systems but not enough to kill them. Enraged and dosed up, the two brothers closed in on Yoyo, Rizzio and the mech. Puppy fired, spinning barrels blazing, and hit Lonny as the young man lurched out from behind cover. He caught the bullets in his chest armour. They flattened without penetrating but the impacts still sent him staggering back.
Luke, meanwhile, raced toward them firing his AKM at head height. Yoyo ducked and leapt toward Luke before Rizzio could stop her. Luke kept coming and spraying bullets wildly, too amped up to care until Yoyo had closed the distance between them. Yoyo swung her bat into Luke’s stomach and the spikes tore through the armour covering Luke’s side, sinking into the flesh. Blood sprayed out of the wounds but Luke ignored them. He swung the body of his AKM at Yoyo’s head. Yoyo tipped over backwards but turned the motion into a flip, her feet whipping up to kick Luke Tanner in the jaw.
Lonny scrabbled to his feet with bullets chewing up the earth around him. A ricochet sparked off the asphalt and tore a neat hole through the centre of his left hand. Amped up on adrenaline and drugs, Lonny only glanced down at it and kept moving. The drugs had filled him with a psychotic sense of purpose, drool pouring from his mouth and over his chin as he thought of nothing but revenge.
Running directly at Puppy, Lonny threw himself between the mech’s legs and scraped across the ground. He fired the TEC-9 at Puppy’s underbelly to no effect. Rizzio was firing as well, dragging his stiffened leg upright again. A blast shredded through Lonny’s upper right arm, a non-lethal wound. With animal strength and speed, Lonny got up and launched himself at Rizzio. He swung the TEC-9 like a blunt instrument, connecting with Rizzio’s jaw. The two fell to the ground, wrestling, clawing and biting. In a drug-fuelled fury, Lonny clearly had the upper hand.
Puppy swung back and forth as if uncertain of what to do. With his masters so close to the targets he couldn’t shoot, only let off the occasional short burst that went whining past the two Tanners. Yoyo tried to get around Luke but the ringer dropped his AKM and got his hands around her throat.
“You fucking bitch! You killed my sister!” Luke yelled.
Luke pulled Yoyo into the air and then drove her into the ground as he strangled her. Blood was still pouring out of the injury in his side but it didn’t seem to be slowing him down. The air burst out of Yoyo’s body but she kept a hold of her bat, trying to jab it between her and Luke.
Lonny Tanner got on top of Rizzio, stomping on Rizzio’s injured leg. The brace broke and Rizzio’s leg twisted but the painkillers meant he still couldn’t feel it. Lonny swung the TEC-9 into Rizzio’s head again, ignoring Rizzio clawing at his face, and then wedged the barrel of the weapon into the man’s throat.
“Wait!” Rizzio choked.
Lonny squeezed and rounds chewed upward through Rizzio’s jaw and blew open the back of his head. The man died instantly.
The kill switch on Rizzio’s wrist started to shriek. Sensing Rizzio’s death, the mech realised it no longer had to be careful with its aim. It sprayed the area liberally with bullets aimed at Lonny’s exposed back as it stalked closer. Lonny’s back was armoured but several rounds drilled through it from close range and the Tanner triplet yelled in pain and anger. The mech swung one massive foot around, clipping Lonny and throwing him off Rizzio’s bullet-riddled corpse. Meanwhile, Yoyo’s bracelet started to scream as she continued to struggle with Luke Tanner.
“That’s the good stuff!” Yoyo said.
The injections hit Yoyo like an electric shock. Her bracelet flooded her system with drugs and adrenaline. Yoyo grabbed one of Luke’s wrists and wrenched out of his grip, twisting his hand backward. The lethal dose of chemicals meant Yoyo was now more evenly matched with Luke.
“You ain’t going nowhere, bitch!” Luke said, “I’m going to stick that bat up your Jap twat!”
Luke snatched at Yoyo’s weapon with his free hand. Pulling it out of his reach, Yoyo swung her weaponised bat and slammed it into Luke’s chest. The man buckled over slightly, hands going to protect his chest, and Yoyo ripped it free then swung again into the side of Luke’s head. Two spikes penetrated deep through his skull and into his brain. Shuffling forward with momentum, Luke’s eyes slid around as if trying to roll back in his skull and find the spikes. Finally, he went limp and his kill switch wailed. Yoyo withdrew the bat with its spikes clotted in gore.
“Motherfucker.” Lonny slurred.
Lonny tried to get up as a second, lethal dose of drugs and toxins entered his system. They filled him with renewed strength and in spite of the bullet holes in his back Lonny twisted and tried to sit up. The TEC-9 Lonny had killed Rizzio with was still bunched in his fist.
Spotting Yoyo standing over his brother, Lonny brought the TEC-9 around stiffly. Puppy, however, loomed over the last remaining triplet. Raising one enormous footpad, Puppy brought it down on Lonny’s chest and drove him to the ground again. The drugs could do nothing to help as Lonny’s chest was crushed, flattening his heart and other internal organs and killing him almost instantly.
Yoyo stumbled over to the tanklike mech and stood beside it. Breathing hard, she glanced over at Rizzio’s body with her heart pounding in her chest like it was about to explode. She patted the side of the mech gently.
The young woman crumpled onto her knees. She slumped and went silent as the drugs finished her off. Her wickedly spiked bat rang off the asphalt and tumbled to a stop a couple of metres away.
Letting out a mechanical whine, the mech turned on Yoyo. It squatted and prodded at her with one of its small, t-rex arms. Yoyo tumbled over bonelessly at its touch. Still whining, Puppy poked at her gently with the hot barrels of its minigun and still got no response before it straightened up. Aimless, the robot backed away and wandered off into the ruined city.
Chapter Sixteen.
“Too long? Too short? Too hot or too cold? Too big or too little? Too hard? Too blue? Too slow? Too heavy or too dark or too hairy? Or is it, just right?”
“In Go for Goldilocks, contestants must identify which of the three items before them is just right or three hungry bears get released into the room to maul them to death!”
“Go for Goldilocks, someone’s been mauling in my house!”
Thao and Layla had crossed back over the flooded street to the side with the police station, and continued toward the top of the arena. Between them they carried the weapons they had taken from Drago and Hutchins, short on ammo though they were. Layla had Drago’s M32 grenade launcher as well as her P90 and one last thermite grenade. Thao carried Hutchins’ MP5 uncertainly, handgun shoved in his pants.
Above them, they had seen Jackrabbit Slim cutting across the darkening sky. From what they could tell his parachute had landed only streets away. Kohler, the arsonist, had leapfrogged the central crater with his blazing jetpack but in an apparent attempt to save on fuel he had come down further away. They didn’t seem as restricted by their sleeves as Thao and Layla were, or at least they weren’t just yet, as the new contestants were still some distance apart from one another.
“Why are we moving this way? I’m sure we could be heading right for those two maniacs!” Thao said, “You could take one of them I’m sure, but both? They’re better armed and armoured than us.”
“I didn’t want to get sandwiched between them and the triplets, if we moved the other way it was a distinct possibility.” Layla said.
Layla was unaware that at that moment the triplets and the team of Yoyo and Mark Rizzio were in the process of wiping each other out. Distant gunfire echoed across the city but it was almost meaningless background noise at that stage. Tired and bloody, Layla stopped for a moment to retrieve the last of the protein shakes she had gotten from the earlier food drop. Ripping it open she guzzled the thick, grey liquid.
“So, we know these guys are guilty, right?” Thao said, “I mean, you know this Kohler guy is a psychopath at least. Anyone could be hiding behind the bunny guy’s weird mask.”
“Of course they’re guilty, they’re in here with us, aren’t they?” Layla said.
“Isn’t it worth asking? They stuck me in here, the DNA machine proved I wasn’t who they said I was.” Thao said, “There could be others, they could even implant false memories if they really wanted to take the time.”
“Too tricky, if there are other fake contestants they’ll all be going through amnesia as well, and these ringers are too high profile for that. So, if you have a shot this time, don’t hesitate.” Layla said.
“They keep changing the rules, how do we even know they’re going to let us out of here?” Thao said, “Especially knowing what we know?”
“We don’t, but what do our other options look like? To lay down and die?” Layla said, “I’m not getting cooked alive so that psycho Kohler can get his roasted nuts off the only way he knows how anymore.”
Layla blinked and swiped at the right side of her face. Blood from her unevenly stapled cuts was getting into her eye. The crooked bits of metal that Thao had put there had started to slip out from all the fighting and exertion, and were doing less and less to hold the gruesome wounds together.
“Are you alright? We should get to one of the medical drops so you can get those fixed.” Thao whipped around suddenly, “What was that?”
A piece of rubble rolled across the street with a gentle noise. Thao shouldered his new MP5 like he’d seen Layla do, finger hunting for the safety. The street was empty, huge fissures tearing up crags of asphalt which had tossed cars around like toys a decade ago when the quake hit.
“Wait, it came from up there!” Layla said.
A tall, slender figure made his way across the rooftop, silhouetted against the darkening sky. The rabbit-like ears of his metal hockey mask made the ex-soldier instantly recognisable. Jackrabbit Slim moved with long, bounding steps. Having knocked the piece of rubble off the lip of the roof, Jackrabbit realised he’d been spotted. In one hand, Jackrabbit was carrying a miniature submachine gun, an ultra-compact MP5K. He swept it around and opened up, the shots going wild across the asphalt and concrete around Thao and Layla as they searched for cover. Thao fired back blindly, squeezing the trigger and raking the top of the nearby office buildings. Jackrabbit herded them toward the open space of the nearest intersection.
“Shit!” Layla said.
Layla swapped her P90 for the grenade launcher. Overhead, the man moved just as swiftly as his namesake. The bladelike prostheses that had replaced his lower legs coiled and then shot out like springs, giving him the ability to run and leap much faster and further than a regular person. Jackrabbit showed no hesitation as he bounced over rooftops and the perilous gaps between buildings. He moved with the grace of a gymnast, guns swinging from the ends of his arms.
Sprinting, Layla extended the drum-loaded grenade launcher in her left hand and fired. Her mechanical arm absorbed the recoil but her aim was off. The grenade streaked into the window of a corner office on the top floor of the building Jackrabbit was running across. The explosion ripped through the wall. Burning office furniture along with a flurry of papers was ejected from the blast. Jackrabbit fell back, disappearing behind the edge of the roof as the shockwave shattered dozens of other windows across the building.
As if on cue, a roar of flame came from the direction where they’d been originally headed. Jets blazing, Donny Kohler came leaping over another building in his dark armour. He landed on the roof of a fast food restaurant. Up close, the armour looked much heavier and more complicated than it had appeared on camera. Even with the jetpack, Kohler was slow and his footsteps plodding. Kohler let loose with one of his flamethrowers and a curtain of blazing napalm poured filled the road, clinging to the rubble where it hit. The tank of an abandoned car apparently had enough fuel to catch and a blast erupted from the shell of the old vehicle, spraying wreckage in all directions. A bloated fireball ballooned into the air, belching black and oily smoke.
They had Thao and Layla in a box, the two criminal soldiers working in concert. Kohler provided the heavy artillery, his flamethrowers showing off their ridiculous range which made the road impassable. Jackrabbit Slim moved from building to building. He unleashed a hail of bullets and moved in for the kill while Thao and Layla cowered behind cover.
xXx
The ex-champion Church Harper and the others on his team had taken refuge in a small park. Remains of trees and plants littered the park, collapsing slowly in the blackened soil. A sinkhole had taken out one large section of the grounds and drained a small lake of all its water, leaving behind a cratered slab of old mud. Walls topped with arrowhead points surrounded the park. Before the ringers had been revealed the four had only been anticipating Santa Muerte and Priest. They’d mined the entrances with the C4 taken from Neena Twist and Francois Connard, improvised explosives camouflaged to take out the other team. Now that the ringers were involved, however, Church wasn’t so sure it would work.
Spotlights painting the sky, the top of the central building could only be glimpsed between a few of the surrounding towers. Church, Jeannie, Titama and Anaconda were sheltered by an amphitheatre at the far end of the park. It was a grey clamshell of a building with a raised stage. Upturned benche
s and trash cans surrounded the amphitheatre. Holding his auto-shotgun, Church scanned the walls and the visible entrances of the park. His other hand hovered over the remote detonators on his belt. Titama came up behind Church.
“According to the map, the two lady wrestlers are around here somewhere.” Church said.
“I swear I saw one of them come down on one of those buildings over there.” Titama said.
“What are they up to?” Church said.
Cassidy Crusher and Maryanne Mauler, the two-woman wrestling team, moved across one long and flat building. Two iconic skyscrapers slumped together nearby on the point of collapse. The new contestants had ditched their parachutes but still were wearing the packs, which had backup chutes they could still use. Mauler had her side-loaded machine gun slung against her waist, taking the weight easily while Crusher’s wedge-shaped sledgehammer jostled from her hand. Both women wore bloodthirsty scowls as well as their chutes, body armour and short coats. Other hand wrapped around the ripcord for her backup chute, Crusher sprinted to the corner of the building and dived off, followed by Mauler.
“Over there! What’s that?” Titama said.
Across the park and the intersection beyond that two chutes blossomed in the gloomy air. They split up and started coming in fast, descending on the park. Crusher and Mauler sailed over the walls and the bombs that had been planted at the entrances.
“Damn it!” Church said.
Church’s shotgun wouldn’t be enough to knock the two wrestlers out of the air. He ran to Jeannie, taking the bulky arm cannon they’d looted from Billy-Bob Boomer. Dropping his shotgun, Church fit the cannon over his right hand and forearm.
“Don’t just stand there, start shooting!” Church turned to Anaconda, “These two are definitely no innocents!”
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