Cloneworld - 04 (52 page)

"
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 bollocks! 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?"

"No," said Queen Strogger. "From what I've witnessed, if there's one mad fucker who can pull this off, it's Franco Haggis."

The battalion were going through endless drills without any form of drill sergeant when Franco drew close. His eyes narrowed as he watched their formations, their movements, their military executions. "Sloppy!" he muttered to himself. "I mean, just look at the way they're holding their guns! Like it's a length of severed flesh, or something.
No respect,
man." He moved yet closer, boots slapping the rocky ground. "And look at that! You call that a fast march? I've seen
dead people
march better." And he had.

The battalion wheeled about, stood to attention, brought their MPKs to shoulder height, and saluted.

"What a sloppy fucking salute," muttered Franco, scratching his head. "If a soldier of mine saluted
me
like that, I'd slap him around the whole bloody drill square!"

Closer, closer, closer...

"And just
look
how overweight they are! Carrying their bellies like they've
eaten
a pregnant baboon, or at least fifteen vindaloos and twenty-seven pints of Japachinese lager. A fucking disgrace, is what it is. Where's their CO?"

Franco looked around. Then he stopped.

Slowly, he turned to stare at the battalion, who now stood to attention once again, big bellies bulging over sloppily-pressed uniforms. Left unattended for just a few hours, boots were now unpolished and scuffed. Some shirts were done up like crazy pirate rigging. On a few of the men, Franco could even see the ragged string vests they wore under their army shirts.

Slowly, as one, the battalion wheeled to face Franco.

Two thousand boots stamped.

Franco's eye twitched.

With great care, he moved towards the soldiers - the
thousand
soldiers - who looked exactly the same as him.

"Ho. Lee. Jee. Zus."

The thousand or so
Franco Haggis
clones turned to look at the lone ginger squaddie as he walked up and down before them, muttering, looking at the floor, looking at them, looking at the floor, muttering, looking at them again, looking at the floor... and their eyes followed him wherever he moved. Without a sound.

Finally, he stopped, and put his hands on his hips, and stared at them.

"Reet," he said, and even as a thousand squaddies' sloppily-polished machine guns levelled at him, he did not blink, did not flinch, did not back down in the face of insurmountable odds. That's the sort of insane and stubborn bastard he was.

"Reet!" he bellowed. "Looks like some bastard's been taking a liberty! Looks like some bastard's stole my genetic wotsit, and copied me, and I'm not that bloody happy about all that!"

Silence greeted him.

"Do any of you even
recognise
me?"

Silence.

Franco took a deep breath.

"I am your leader!" he announced.

Still, silence.

"I am your Master, your Template, the Spunk from which you have been copied like cheap and skanky third-rate porn magazines! You know, those really dirty ones you sometimes borrow, with all the pages stuck together."

Silence.

"I am your Boss. You will do what I say! I need you to follow me, over there," he pointed with his metal hand, and their eyes followed his metal finger for a moment before returning to his battered, bruised and scruffy exterior, "and we'll talk
then
about your shit-scruffy uniforms, your retrograde attitude, your ridiculously sloppy drill, and how the fuck you can manage to even
think about
calling yourselves soldiers!"

Still, silence.

Franco started to sweat a little.

One Franco Haggis stepped forward from the line. He stared hard at His Master. His Template. His Boss.

"Who," he said, and pointed, "the fuck are you?"

The entire battalion burst into uproarious laughter, slapping their knees, slapping each other's knees, giving high-fives and generally having a great old laugh at Franco's expense.

Franco beamed beetroot red. Then a scowl overtook his face. He looked far from even a hint of happy. "
I
am Franco Haggis!" boomed Franco Haggis, proudly.

The Franco who had stepped forward, turned to his mates, then said, "No,
I
am Franco Haggis."

Another clone stepped forward. "No!
I
am Franco Haggis."

Yet another: "No!
I
am Franco Haggis."

And another: "No!
I
am Franco Haggis."

A fifth: "No!
I
am Franco Haggis."

A sixth: "No!
I
am Franco Haggis."

"Wait! Wait!" Franco held up his hands. "I can see this is going to take a
fucking
long time, yeah? I get the joke, guys. I've seen the filmy. Heard the monkeytapes. But listen up, we have a situation and I need your help. The Org States are under horrible, terrible attack! The gangers have invaded, and are slaughtering civilians in their beds..."

"Aren't we the gangers?" said one Franco.

"We sure bloody are!" said another Franco.

"Damn and bloody bollocks! Does that mean we're missing the fight?"

"Yeah, and the party afterwards!"

"With lots of fat chicks!"

"And PreCheese!"

"CubeSausage!"