Biohell (50 page)

“No.”

“It helped murder... MICHELLE.”

“I am a peaceful man,” said
Xakus, eyes filled with tears.

Franco lowered his gun, then
leapt back as the SIM was suddenly slammed in half, the body sliding in two
directions, melted flesh glowing, a cross-section of abdomen, bowel, spine,
fat, flesh, all sliding and melding together to an accompanying aroma of roast
pig.

Franco’s head rose, slowly, to
stare at Knuckles. The young lad’s face was grim, tears on his cheeks streaking
lines through smears of dirt. He held the IMS not quite pointing at the group.

“Drop the weapon, lad,” said
Franco, voice soothing.

“I had to kill it! It wanted us
dead!”

“Sure you did, son.” Franco moved
forward, stepping over the slopped SIM corpse. He reached out, prised the IMS
from Knuckles’ knuckles, then glanced back at Keenan as Olga hurried forward to
embrace the shivering child. Keenan nodded as a concept flickered between the
two Combat K men—

Knuckles was a danger to himself,
to the group, and to the mission. They needed to cut him free, but safely...
The group dynamic had become too complex. And where they were going, deep into
the heart of The Hammer Syndicate... well, they’d be lucky to walk out alive.

Franco moved to Knuckles. “Look
at me, lad.”

“Yes?” There was a snarl of
defiance there; Franco smiled.

“You’ve proved yourself
efficient. So I’ve got a job for you.”

Knuckles’ eyes narrowed. “You’re
getting rid of me.”

“No lad. This is important.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Franco eyed the approaching
battle; he needed something to keep Knuckles occupied, to get him away from the
battle and the huge concentration of zombies.

“We’re heading for The Black Rose
Citadel— NanoTek’s HQ. But we can’t infiltrate alone. There’s a man, a Combat K
man, Slick Guinness. You need to find him. Tell him what we’re doing, explain
about the corruption of the biomods. Tell him to round up any Combat K
squaddies who still survive in The City—and to bring them to us, to The Black
Rose. We’ll need all the help we can get. Can you do that?”

“Where will I start?”

“I’ll write down his address. Can
you do this?”

“I can do it.”

“Franco, why are you sending ze
boy away?” scowled Olga. “He will die for sure!”

“No!” Franco glared at her. “You
understand? We’re heading to The Hammer Syndicate. And NanoTek. You’ve heard of
those guys, right? And you’d want me to drag a ten-year-old into their lair?”

Olga nodded. She laid a hand on
Knuckles’ shoulder. “I will help him. I will take him to zis Slick Guinness.
But I do it for you, Franco. Because you saved my life. Because I... have
feelings for you.”

“I am betrothed to another,”
croaked Franco.

“Still. I will wait for you. If
it take eternity!”

Franco stared at her quivering
bulk, and gave a weak smile. “Whatever you say, love.”

An engine roared, and Franco
glanced over to Keenan who’d hot-wired a Jeep 6X6.
Fumes plumed from
spluttering exhaust. Franco pointed to the vehicle. “Your transport.”

Olga suddenly reached out,
clasped Franco’s cheeks between the iron grip of mighty hands, and planted a
long and lingering kiss on his lips. Franco squirmed and grunted, kicking his
legs as Olga lifted him from the ground, still kissing him, her eyes closed and
mind lost in a faraway place of romance and pleasure. Then she dropped him,
suddenly, and he hit the ground on his arse.

“Knuckles! Come! We have ze
important mission, no?”

Knuckles saluted, giving Franco a
lop-sided (and somewhat evil) grin, and followed his adopted matriarch to the
Jeep. He turned then, staring at the three men, and the slow spinning battered
PopBot. “I won’t let you down,” he said, and gave a single nod.

The group watched the mammoth
figure of Olga reverse the Jeep with a clatter of crunching debris, and head
off through rubble and smoke, heading away from the fast-approaching roar of
battle.

An eerie veil descended through
the smoke. Distantly, guns rattled. An explosion lit the underside of the
clouds—and the sky suddenly ignited in a roaring sheet of flame, a nuclear
umbilical between World and God.

“Will they be safe?” said Xakus,
voice soft.

“Safer than with us,” grunted
Franco.

“That was a clever thing you did,”
said Cam, moving close to Franco. “You have probably saved both their lives. I
doubt they will even find Slick Guinness; not in this insanity, this mess of a
world. You have gone up in my estimation, Franco Haggis. You are a kind man. A
man of honourable character.”

“Bugger off, you little poisoned
scrotum,” said the old soldier, scowling.

“Also, I’m absolutely
certain
your
plan had nothing to do with getting rid of a certain amorous member of the
party.”

Franco eyed the machine beadily. “I
don’t know what you mean. She chose to help him. She chose her own path.”

“Olga would never have let
Knuckles travel alone. And she had, on six previous occasions, shown signs of
mothering the boy. It doesn’t take a brain-box to work out the probable outcome
of sending Knuckles on a mission.”

“Like I said, I don’t know what
you mean.”

The HTank roared into life, and
Keenan popped from the hatch. “Time to move, guys. The BABE caused only
superficial damage; this monster is still operational.”

“Oh no,” said Franco. “I remember
what happened the
last
time you drove an HTank. You sent it over a
cliff, all rolling down and smashing trees and ending up on its roof on top of
a guard barracks! You were drunker than a skunk and singing a song about
sausages!”

Keenan stared hard at Franco. “That
was
you,
dickhead.”

“So it was.”

“Get in. And Franco?”

“Yeah boss?”

“Grab the IMS. We might need it
later.”

~ * ~

In
a dark vault beneath the earth it waited, without power, without sense, without
intelligence, without emotion, without instruction, without
focus.
It
was one step away from death. Drowning and lost, deep below a catatonic state
of sleep.

It rotated, a slow, aimless
drifting on ionised currents which preserved its State.

There came a tiny, tiny
buzz.

Voltage flowed through
nano-circuits, rapidly expanding, rapidly accelerating until life and flow and
instruction and need slammed the tiny machine and trillions of instructions
slammed and it felt suddenly—

Alive.

A single pin-prick of light
illuminated. White. Piercing.

#proximity series15000

#scanning perimeters...
perimeters scanned OK loading files

#instructions received/ k5
integrate interface communications

integrated received understood
co-ordinates loading............

#uploaded all date structures OK

There was a low, deep grumble,
like a minor earthquake. Inside the vault more pin-pricks of light glowed, and
the hundreds, the
thousands
of machines illuminated one another in an
eerie, eldritch witch-light.

#systems accelerating fully
online OK

#sequences initiated; structures
analysed

#destinations secured

#END.

Distantly, a door slid revealing
light—and freedom. As one, the six thousand Detonation PopBots jostled and
moved, lights blinking, feeding neatly out through the horizontal slot and
speeding off up, into the sky, into the snow, into the night...

~ * ~

The
HTank rumbled through long quiet streets and stopped, grinding stone to dust.
The hatch opened, and Franco popped up like a mole from a hole, peering about
myopically with his TRISPIES flickering through a myriad of different filters.

“Don’t be seeing nuffink up here.”

“The HTank’s scanners work
fine,
Franco. Get back down.”

“I’m just making sure,” Franco
said, testily.

“No, you’re playing at being a
superhero secret agent.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with
that! A man has to have his fantasy.”

“I saw enough of your fantasies
back at Porky Pauper’s depot.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When Olga gave you that big
snog.”

“Hey, that was under
protest.”

“Didn’t look that way to me.”

“She grabbed my head! Lifted me
off the ground! I kicked my little legs!”

“So what? From where
I
was
standing, it looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

“Get stuffed.”

“Temper.”

“I was
not
enjoying it.”

“I’m sure you were using your
tongue.”

“I was
not
using my damned
bloody tongue!”

“And I’m sure there was a little
bit of trouser action going on.”

“Meaning?”

“You know what I’m meaning. Down
below.”

“You think Olga’s kiss
excited
me?”

“Certainly looked that way.
Although maybe you were just twisted at a funny angle.”

“I didn’t get a hard-on, Keenan.
That’s slander, that is. I could have you sued. That’s derogatory inflammation,
mate.”

“Franco, the only thing inflamed
was your pants.”

“I’ll sue! I will! Don’t push me!
I’ll sue!”

“You think you’d find a good
zombie lawyer knocking around down here then, do you? Someone who could really
get his
claws
into your case. Really get to use his
brain.”

“Very droll.”

“Are you getting your arse down
here, Franco, before a sniper picks you out as a big fat-headed peacock target?
Gods lad, we’re in the middle of a war zone!”

Franco dropped below, face sulky.
Even Xakus was smiling at the exchange. The mood seemed to have lifted a
little; an oasis in the midst of the storm. Cam spun close, and made a large
sucking kissing slurping noise.

“I love to watch the course of
true love.”

“Bugger off.”

“She’ll be waiting for you,”
crooned Cam.

“I hope you rust.”

“She’ll never, ever stop loving
you, baby.”

“I hope you get
magnetised.”

“She’ll hunt you to the ends of
the earth!”

Franco swung a punch at Cam, but
the PopBot described a neat swerve around swishing air. “Not catch me like that
again, little Franco punchy. Oh no. I remember the
last time.
”