Biohell (34 page)

“Mel is staying here. She’ll
protect them. Can you think of anybody better?”

“She has agreed to this?”

“She suggested it,” said
Knuckles. “I think she wants to play at being mommy. And Franco said we’d move
faster without her—find her help, and bring it back.”

Keenan nodded, grabbed his pack
and stood, stretching his back. The recent bullet score from the junks in the
quarry nagged at his flank, like a bite of internal acid, and the more recent
knocks and bruises had left their mark across his flesh despite the protection
of the Permatex WarSuit. “Well, we can’t leave your group unprotected; one of
us would have to stay until we can arrange transport out of this biohell. It
may as well be Melanie.” He smiled. “She does draw a lot of attention to us out
on the road.” He slapped Knuckles on the back. “Come on lad. Let’s see what new
toy Franco’s found.”

~ * ~

“What,
the fuck,” said Keenan, “is
that?”

“It’s a Corvette Scrambler,” said
Franco proudly.

Keenan’s eyes roved over the
flared arches, the huge knobbled tyres, the thick triple exhaust pipes poking
from the roof. It was like a steel-girder cage mounted on an engine and
H-section chassis. It was, without doubt, a serious off-road tool. Or may have
been, once, perhaps sixty years previous. Rust had eaten long jagged holes in
the metal flanks, which had once born a proud paint-job of roaring, searing
flames.

“Flames?” inquired Keenan.

“I thought it added a touch of
panache,” said Franco, face straight.

“The panache of the pimp?”

“Look Keenan, it’s the best I
could do at short notice. I’d like to see
you
rustle up some serious off
road shit, so stop moaning and get in. It takes a while to start.”

Grumbling, Keenan turned and gave
Mel a small wave. He watched Knuckles leap into the stocky vehicle, then
climbed in himself. The suspension dipped only a little, springs squeaking.

Franco moved to Mel, stared into
her tiny black eyes. “I won’t be long, love,” he said.

“‘e ‘areful.”

“I will.”

There was a moment of uneasiness,
and Mel stooped closer, distended, slime-covered lips puckering. Franco gave
her a peck, wiped a handful of slime from his mouth, which slithered, pooling
in a long stream to the rubble-strewn ground, then he leapt into the Corvette’s
driving seat and fired the starter.

The engine turned, making a noise
like a bucket of bolts in a tumble drier. Franco gave an apologised grimace. “Sorry.
Sorry!
Soreee.
It just needs the right bit of love and attention.” He
slammed his fist into the console, muttered, “Start, you bastard bugger,” and
the engine roared into stunned life. Black fumes poured from the roof exhaust,
and Keenan groaned.

“Great. We’ll be seen for miles
around.”

“Keenan! Stop it!”

“Sorry mum,” he grinned.

“Let’s go.” Franco’s gaze fixed
ahead, on the crowd of zombies that were gathering, milling, moaning, frumping,
at the end of the street, some pointing towards the rumbling Corvette, the
smoke fountain, and the advertisement of sentient life within.

Behind, Mel slammed down steel
shutters.

Franco stomped the accelerator.

They roared towards the
zombies... and The Great Malkovitch Library beyond.

~ * ~

Combat
K cruised, slowly, through decimated, rubble-strewn streets, the Corvette
rumbling and belching, Keenan hanging over one side with a loaded Kekra and his
Techrim close to hand, Knuckles sat on the back seat, his machete in his lap,
his eyes cold. “Turn left at the end of this street,” he said, voice low.
Franco nodded.

An eerie silence had descended on
the group, and indeed, across the cold desolate world in its entirety. A
mournful wind blew down the street, bringing with it a smell of fire. Franco
shivered.

“What have they done to my home?”
he said.

“Who?”

“Whoever turned all these people
into zombies. This was supposed to be The Quantum Carnival. It was supposed to
be party time for the entire bloody city; instead, it turned into a big bloody
massacre by deviants. It’s a bloody disgrace.”

“Best time to catch everybody,”
mused Keenan.

“What?”

“It’s a coincidence that this
plague, this scourge, whatever the hell happened here; well, a coincidence it
happened at
just the right time.
Yeah? As The City had a large influx of
tourists for the carnival. Wouldn’t you say it was convenient?”

“You think it’s man—or
alien—made?”

“I guarantee it,” said Keenan,
eyeing the domineering buildings as the group cruised past. His eyes lifted,
staring up at blank glass walls, vast obsidian cliffs towering high above him
and exuding
cold.
“Whatever happened here—well, it stinks of expediency.
And whether the hackers and the pirates intended it or not,
if
this
thing was caused by the biomods, then it’s a fucking scandal.”

“I always said people should take
more care of what they put into their bodies,” nodded Franco.

“No you didn’t,” frowned Keenan. “I’ve
watched you shovel mountains of shit into the charnel house that is your belly.
Everything, mate, from the mangiest kebabs ever to hang from a ten-week skewer
of disease-riddled grease, to that odd alien lager which used to turn your piss
black and made your skin erupt in orange pin-prick blotches.”

“Ahh,
Ye Olde Burklewurts.
A
fine pint of alien ale.” He smacked his chops. “Could just do with a pint now.
Anyway Keenan.” Franco fixed him with a baleful stare. “I heard you’d stepped
up your drinking regime, partaking of the odd litre of Jataxa between meals.”

Keenan spluttered on his
cigarette, and laughed. “Hell, Franco, ever the discreet diplomat, hey? Where
did you hear that?”

“I just heard it.”

“Where?”

“Here and there. Knocking about.
You know how it is. So then? Are you a mess?”

“Don’t worry mate, I’m not a
raging alcoholic.”

“The mantra hiccupped by every
raging alcoholic.”

Keenan fixed him with a hard
stare. “I stepped up my drinking. Yeah. I fucked myself up on regular occasion.
I have that right. What happened with Pippa... and my kids...”

Franco slowed the Corvette. “Listen
Kee, I know it’s none of my business, nothing ever is, but I haven’t let that
minor indiscretion stop me before. You have to let that Pippa shit go, bro’.
You have to let it pass. To die. Before it kills
you.”

“Pippa murdered my kids.”

“I don’t believe she did,” said
Franco, slowly.

“What do you mean?”

Franco tapped his skull. “Hey
man, you’re talking to the expert in psy... pscolog... head problems, here. I’m
the guy who spent years at Mount Pleasant having my testes zapped and my brains
subjected to every form of mental narcotic on the market. I know a thing or two
about craz
ees.
Betta believe it.”

“So... explain it to me.” Keenan’s
eyes were rock.

“OK. You were married, with two
beautiful kids. Pippa was your lover, and your wife found out. Then, whilst we’re
all stuffed in prison, your wife and kids are murdered before you have time to
explain. Pippa felt guilty about all of this... she felt like, somehow, it was
her fault. She imposed blame on herself—so hard, it tortured her, and she ended
up believing it.” Franco nodded to himself. “People do it all the time. Tell
themselves something over and over again until they believe the bullshit.
Either with denial, or in this case, with Pippa, an act of murder she did not,
actually, physically, commit. But she still felt responsible. Because she was
shagging you, and in her head that led to their deaths. You dig, yeah?”

Keenan stared at Franco. The
smell of fire was getting stronger. The Corvette rumbled.

“A possibility?” said Franco,
eventually, looking sideways at his partner.

“Do you have any proof?” said
Keenan. His voice was barely audible over the roar of the Corvette’s belching
exhaust.

“No-oo,” said Franco. “And I
might be wrong. But it
is
possible, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s
possible,”
snapped
Franco. “You never gave Pippa a chance to explain, and when we blasted out of
Teller’s World, and performed that—I might add—insane K Jump which led to all
that shit in the Dark Zone after we put down Leviathan, well,” Franco rubbed at
his ginger beard. “You two never got the chance to talk.”

Keenan gave a single nod. “I’ll
think on it.”

“Stop here,” said Knuckles, and
reluctantly Franco halted the Corvette in the middle of the road, amidst
abandoned vehicles, many of which had been burned.

“You see something?”

Knuckles stood on the back seat,
holding on to the Corvette’s cage, head poking out into a cold wind reeking of
fire. “I think our route is blocked.”

“By?”

“Burning zombies,” said Knuckles.

Keenan and Franco both stood on
their creaking seats, staring down the ominous road. There was indeed a distant
glow, filling the street like a sea of molten lava. The wind gusted, again,
with a raw stench of fire. And it carried with it a low grumbling sound, an
undercurrent of bass dissension.

“But hot damn, you’ve got good
eyesight,” snapped Franco.

“How close are we to this
library?” said Keenan.

“A few kilometres.”

“Is there another way round?”

“Yes.” Knuckles nodded. “Straight
ahead, for a few hundred metres; I’ll show you a maze of alleys we can cut
through.”

The Corvette rumbled on, weaving
between burned out cars and the occasional dismembered body, either of a human
or alien, regularly showing the head slit open, cranium removed, and all brains
scoured out. Sometimes, they saw the carcass of a zombie. Many had been burned
into blackened husks.

“Seems there’s some resistance,”
said Franco.

Keenan nodded. “Maybe some areas
were hit worse than others?”

“Down there,” snapped Knuckles.

Franco steered the Corvette into
a narrow network of alleys between decrepit buildings. This was an older, more
original area of The City with far less glass and alloy on display, and more
ancient, blackened, crumbling brickwork, sometimes stone, and even wooden
buildings. Here they weren’t high edifices, but short stocky buildings, rimed
with filth and centuries of pollution.

“Nice place,” sneered Franco.

“This is where I was born,” said
Knuckles.

Franco shut up. He’d started to
sweat, despite the cool breeze rampant in the streets. It was getting more and
more narrow, with frequent blockages of groundcars, barrels, lumps of masonry,
abandoned market stalls; sometimes Franco guided the revving, spewing Corvette
high onto a mound of rubble or wood, huge knobbled tyres crunching and grinding
and spinning, his hands sweat-slippery on the sturdy wheel of the off-roader.
Once, as they breached a rise of loose white stones, the engine stalled and
they slithered back towards street level, wailing, tyres locked and sliding
without control. The Corvette thumped onto the road, suspension clanging, and
Keenan glared at Franco.