Toxicity (9 page)

The goal is to close down
Greenstar. To show them up as the liars they are. We want the toxicity gone
from our planet. We want our world back. No longer a tipping ground for the
crap of Manna. We want freedom. A clean planet. Clean air for our children.
Clean water to drink. We want the politicians to stop lying to us. We want The
Company to fuck off. We never asked for it, and the people of this world don’t
want it!

A noble goal,
mocked Nixa.
Every world wants
the same.

“Uh?” said Jenny.

Randy was staring at her, a
quizzical expression on his face. “I
said,
gorgeous girlfriend, what
games can we play whilst we wait?”

“We hired you to make bombs, not
to dick around,” said Jenny harshly. She was unsettled by Nixa. Nixa usually
only came at the time of sleep. Why was she here now? Haunting her during her
waking moments, and more importantly, when she was out on a mission?

“I know that,” said Randy,
smoothly, and Jenny looked into his eyes and for the first time she
understood
him. He was there, genuinely, out of support for their clean world
ideology. He was there to help. But... a leopard never changes its spots. What
Randy said and did; that was just the way he was. And Jenny would have to get
used to it, or kick him from the squad. And they were down Jones now; they
needed all the manpower they could get.

Jones. Gone, after his beating.
That had been four weeks ago...

Vanished! Self-discharged from
the hospital, he’d taken his kit and fucked off. Now, the whole incident sat
uneasy with Jenny. Something was
wrong.
Out of kilter. Jenny had a funny
feeling she hadn’t seen the last of him...

Still, the rest of the cell were
happy Jones was gone. He was like a maggot at the core of a fresh apple,
nibbling away from the inside out until all the goodness was gone; or he
over-gorged himself and died in the process.

“Shit.”

“What’s the matter?” rumbled
Zanz.

“Just thinking about Jones.”

“Don’t mention that bastard to
me. We should have dealt with him sooner. We shouldn’t have let him run.”

Jenny nodded. She understood. He
knew
too much. And Jones was the sort of man likely to wage a vendetta against
their unit. She corrected herself. Against
her.
She knew his type.

They watched the Reprocessing
Plant, and Jenny studied its lines for the thousandth time. She had the plans
stored in her head; every corridor, every level, every staircase, every vat,
every press, every blast chamber. All of it. As a team they’d gone over the
maps time and time again until they knew it like their own bedchambers. They’d
built a model in a rented cellar, and sat around drinking coffee and smoking
and playing out scenarios with tiny holographic figures. Tommy Tom™ holographic
action figures, in 7D! The most played with Tommy Tom™ toy in the Quad-Galaxy!
TommyTom™ was guaranteed to give your little Tom
decades
of endless fun.
Some of the guys in Impurity5 thought it was highly amusing to be using
TommyTom™ to plan out their destruction of a fake reprocessing plant; a factory
that was an integral player in the
pollution
of the world known as
Toxicity.

Jenny didn’t find the TommyTom™
so funny. The name Tom always reminded her of her dad.

And that was a bad place to be.

“They’re coming out,” said Randy,
and Jenny got behind her Long Lens. The iron gates opened smoothly and the
first of the Super Tankers, bobbing on air suspension, poked its long black
snout from the factory and began to emerge - as Sick Note so inelegantly put it
- like a turd from a pipe.

They watched the tankers. Jenny
took more pics on her cube.

Evidence. Right there before her.

“See it?” she said, turning to
Randy.

“I just see a whole load of
tankers rolling out after delivering their loads for reprocessing. What’s there
to see? We can’t justify this det, Jenny. They’ll crucify us in the papes and
on ggg!”

Jenny and Zanzibar exchanged
glances. “Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

“You do it,” rumbled Zanzibar,
and gave a broad grin showing yellow teeth.

“Look at the ride height,” said
Jenny.

Randy squinted. “Looks the same
to me.”

“Compare the images.” She showed
him on the Long Lens cam monitor. Randy licked his lips.

“They’re lower on their
suspension coming out.”

“Which means?”

“They entered empty, filled up,
and now they’re going somewhere to dump the shit.”

“Good boy.”

Randy shrugged. “My skills lie
in, shall we say, other areas.” He gave her a wink, and she laughed.

“You have tenacity, my friend.”

“Better believe it. So what now?”

Zanzibar stood, and stretched his
mighty shoulders. “It’s time for action,” he said.

~ * ~

IMPURITY5
HAD SPLIT into two groups. Jenny, alongside Randy, Sick Note and Flizz, would
hit the Reprocessing Plant; and Zanzibar, with Meat Cleaver, Bull and Nanny,
would attack the Super Tankers. They would co-ordinate attacks to detonate at
the same time, whilst making sure the print and ggg media found out
real
fast
so they could get reporters on the job and to the gig and putting down
Greenstar’s lying ways for good.

The two groups spent the next
twenty-four hours planning infil, det and exfil, and cross-referencing plans
and data, checking weapons, and analysing Randy’s incredibly brilliant new
bombs. Both Jenny and Zanzibar had never seen anything quite like the tiny
machines. Randy said they were based on alien tech, but more than that he would
not say. He’d tap his nose with his finger, smile, and try and get a kiss from
Jenny.

Finally, they were ready. One of
the scouts had sent a comm; the Super Tankers were loading up. It was evening.
The sun was falling fast from the sky. It was time to get the job done.

Zanzibar stood and embraced
Jenny.

“For freedom,” he said.

“For freedom,” she echoed.

And hoisting packs and weapons,
they headed out into the night.

Last to leave was Randy. He gave
a look behind him, a smile, and pulling a small button from his pocket he gave
it a tiny
click
and dropped it on the floor, where it glowed blue,
briefly, before returning to the disguise of a normal button.

“For freedom,” he muttered, and
vanished into the falling gloom.

~ * ~

SICK
NOTE LOOMED from the darkness, pale and pasty and looking like shit. He
crouched in the hole beside Jenny and gave a single nod.

“All three?”

“Out for the count, mate.”

Jenny gave a single nod. The
Reprocessing Factories had originally been easy meat; pretty much unguarded
targets. Until Jenny, her crew, Impurity5, and the Impurity Movement as a whole
started detonating them. Subsequently, security had been increased, but was
nothing somebody with the military background of Sick Note could not easily
overcome.

Jenny watched Sick Note move. A
hypochondriac he might be, constantly moaning about his knees, back, elbows,
headaches, flu, and a million other minor ailments that either inspired roaring
laughter or complete frustration. “How are you going, mate?” he’d always ask;
not as a genuine inquiry into your health, but as a prelude to a litany of his
own woes. It was a question most of the unit had learned to neatly side-step.
But despite his moans and groans, he was a dab hand at stealthily rendering
guards unconscious. Formerly special forces, Sick Note was a damn sight more
deadly than he looked. Especially when not in bed whining with Man Flu.

“Let’s do it.”

Jenny, Sick Note and Flizz
climbed and slithered up the muddy slope, boots kicking in, closely followed by
Randy, who was focused on Flizz’s fantastically shaped behind. She glanced back
at him with a deep scowl, gloved hands muddy, hair tight back and face dark
with camo cream. “Don’t get any ideas, motherfucker,” she snapped.

Randy held his arms wide with a
smile, as if to say,
I
wouldn’t dream of it, angel.

They crawled under cover of
twisted, leafless trees, one of The Company’s toxic gifts to the flora and
fauna of the planet. It was rare to find anything organic on Toxicity
not
affected
by the pollution of the past thirty years. Toxicity was a horticulturist’s idea
of
Hell.
And a perfect model for people’s idea of a poisoned world.

They stopped at the edge of the
trees and surveyed the comically named Reprocessing Plant. Even though Jenny
had memorised the plans, the layout, the wiring and ducting schematics, now -
here, up close - the place was not only
huge,
but dark, brooding and
intimidating. Jenny didn’t know if The Company had set out to build a factory
which oozed malice, but they had certainly succeeded. Its vast matt-black
walls, lack of windows, and massive array of cooling towers, vats, pipes and
open engines, all black, all without lights; well. Jenny smiled. They wouldn’t
be throwing any children’s parties there, that was for sure.

Randy had pulled out a sniper
scope and was surveying the plant. Up close, the place wasn’t just dark and
foreboding, it was
loud.
A constant buzz and smash and thump and grind,
as if the place lived. It was loud on the ears, and the thumping pounded a
person to the pit of his stomach. The constant onslaught made Jenny feel
physically sick.

“How does it look?”

“Deserted,” said Randy. “Night
shift. Skeleton staff. As we expected. The last loading of the Super Tankers
have just gone. It’s like taking pie from a kiddie, darling.”

“We’ll see,” said Jenny. “Okay.
We all know what to do. Comm silence unless it’s an emergency. We clear?”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

“Clear, girlfriend.”

Jenny gave a tight dry smile. “Let’s
move.”

They ran through the darkness in
crouches, boots churning mud and long grass. The Plant was surrounded by a high
spiked fence. Dropping at the base, Jenny pulled out an ECube and activated the
laser, which cut through five bars in as many seconds. Smoke drifted from the
glowing steel, and they crawled through the narrow gap and silently split up,
Jenny and Sick Note to one corner of the Reprocessing Plant, Randy and Flizz to
another. They would work their way around, covertly placing charges, then meet
back at this hole in the fence to co-ordinate with Zanzibar for the
simultaneous detonation.

Jenny ran, and a million emotions
pumped through her like a narcotic. Fear was there, of course, harnessed and
used to keep her on edge. Joy was also a factor, mingled in with exultation at
what they were about to do; not just a thorn in Greenstar’s side, they were a
vicious multi-pronged spike right up its arse. They would make Quad-Gal’s
governments sit up and take note. They
would
force a change. The people
on the planet of Toxicity had had enough of the lies, enough of the political
bullshit, enough of the poison. They wanted their world back, and the Impurity
Movement were there to give the people what they so desired.

Jenny crouched by a corner, and
Sick Note was close, his unhealthy, pock-marked face pale in the gloom. This
was the one time you’d find him without a cigarette and a bottle of whiskey.
The one and only time you’d find him focused, and realise his underrated
professionalism.