Biohell (10 page)

Tag leant closer. Coffee steam
made his brow glisten. “Word’s come down from Konan. We’ve got a pick-up. We’ve
got ourselves our first
execution. “

Keg grinned. Most of his teeth
were black. It was an ugly sight. “We’ve finally got the chance to prove
ourselves, Franco. We’re being given some responsibility! No more shitty little
errands—we’re dancing with the big boys!” He slid a shotgun across the
laminated worktop to Franco. “It’s time to start the killing.”

Franco stared at the gun. His
face screwed up. Carefully, he said, “I’m not really sure I like this idea,
boys.”

“Hey!” snapped Tag. “You’re
either with us... or against us.” His eyes glittered. And his face said it all.
There was no mercy there, no humanity. Not even for a fellow
roughboy.
Tag
was out for promotion. Recognition. Acceleration. Notoriety.
Respect, man.
And
woe betide anybody who got in his way.

Franco picked up the shotgun. It
was a heavy, solid piece of engineering. It took sixty collapsible shells, and
had a 25gig bandwidth mark. Auto-aiming. Digital trigger.
Expensive.
Designer
killware.
Franco
hated
that. Murder
and
fashion combined.
Dolce and Gabbana for the diseased. Versace for the vulgar. Prada for the
perverse. Sick sick
sick.

He watched Tag and Keg climb to
their feet and roll shoulders to ease tension. They were nervous, Franco could
smell it. They were hairline triggers waiting to be caressed. Somebody was
going to suffer in order to banish their insecurities.

“You coming, little guy? Or do we
tell Konan and Voloshko you lost your balls?
Maybe
they were never there
in the first place.
Maybe
all those tall stories of life in a combat
squad were just bullshit.”

Keg sniggered.

Franco stood, cracked open the D5
shotgun, checked the payload, and slammed the weapon shut. Keg jumped. His
nerves were shot to shit. Franco stared levelly at his two accomplices in
mediocrity; his face was suddenly a gargoyle carved from tek-stone.

His voice, when he spoke, was
dangerously quiet. “Well then, let’s go kill somebody,” he said.

~ * ~

Slick
Guinness oozed pain. Not just from the beating—although it had rattled his cage
and brought home the prolonged mental torture of a good physical pounding—but
also from the tiny, emergency Nail_blade which even now was cutting the
hardened titanium_nylon cable which secured his hands to the chair. It was also
making a terrible mess of his own flesh; but that would be a problem for
another day... if he survived.

The Nail_blade was a device
reserved for military special forces. It nestled in a PTFE organic sheath
within a finger or thumb nail, and could be teased free for a variety of useful
purposes: opening tins of B&S, slicing the detonation cords on HighJ bombs,
or severing titanium_nylon bindings when tied to a chair suffering serious
physical torture and maiming.

“He offers a lesson you will
never forget.” Konan approached, razor knife outstretched, as Slick felt his
own bindings part and he leapt forward, right fist slamming Konan’s forehead,
left taking the blade neatly from the gangster’s flapping grip, right boot
lifting to connect with Konan’s chin in a side-kick that sent the man sprawling
upwards and backwards to land with a grunt of shock. Slick dropped to a crouch
by Konan’s side and rammed the blade savagely into the man’s heaving chest.

It slid free easily as the other,
heavy-set men started with shock at this spurt of high-speed violence from a
man who had—nanoseconds earlier—been constrained by chair and wire. Blood
pumped and eased from the narrow wound in Konan’s chest, and blood bubbled,
staining the corners of the gangster’s twitching mouth.

Slick uncoiled slowly and stood,
arms by his sides, the bloodied knife and his bloodied fist— immobile. He
smiled then, smiled at the five large bulky men who had just spent the best
part of thirty minutes beating the shit from him.

“You
bastards,”
he
snarled.

One gangster went for his inside
pocket—a gun— and the action triggered Slick into a dance of death. He cannoned
forward, the knife slashing left then right in twin splattered showers of
horizontal blood; he ducked a clumsy steroid punch, dropped to one knee and
rammed the dagger into the gangster’s groin, leaving it embedded as the huge
muscle man screamed and screamed and screamed and Slick took his matt black
pistol: a German-built Heckler & Koch P227 taking 9mm Parabellum cartridges
in an 80 round micro-clip. The gun lifted, and two shots rang out, dropping two
men in twin fountains of purple, spewing gore.

Slick stared at the six dead men.
Then, with a smile, realised Mr Konan was breathing, pink froth bubbling at his
lips. Slick moved to kneel by the gangster’s side and grinned down through his
own inflicted punishment.

“Surprised, fucker?”

“Mr Voloshko will... have...
you... killed for this.”

“You don’t say? Well, he wasn’t
successful today, was he? I’d keep my empty threats to myself, if I was you.”

“How... how... how did—”

“Bit of a stutter you have there,
my friend. Want to get that seen to. Some form of speech therapy might be in
order. I believe it’s extremely effective nowadays. But then, oh yes, I
forgot... you have an urgent appointment. With Death.”

Slick lifted the 9mm P227. His
eyes shone.

“No,” said Mr Konan. “Please, don’t
shoot...”

Slick shrugged, sighed, and pulled
the trigger, spreading Konan’s head across the cellar floor.

Slick stripped one of the dead
gangsters, pulling on the flapping trousers and ridiculously large shirt. The
boots, at least, were a good fit and allowed him to walk. Taking a long
overcoat, he filled the pockets with guns, knives and several magazines of
ammunition.

More noise rattled from the top
of the stone steps, and Slick moved to the side of the doorway. Two men
entered, heavyset and carrying Ruger P-85 pistols. They stared down, dumbly, at
their fallen comrades as Slick put two bullets in two skulls, stole their 9mm
ammunition, and took the stairs three at a time to pause in a crouch at the
top, breathing cold night air and gazing up at distant stars. Several
starships, Titan Class III freighters, sat in orbit, grey and foreboding in
their hugeness. Slick glanced down the street. Several cars with blackened
windows stood nearby, engines idling, but Slick couldn’t make out if they had
occupants. He glanced left and right.
Where the hell am I?
he
thought—then
smelt
the sluggish, toxic waters of the heavily polluted
Kruger River. West Dregside—deep down beyond and below the
money.

Slick eased himself along a wall,
then darted right down a narrow tunnel between the concrete and alloy slab bases
of titanic skyscrapers which towered, gleaming and alloy and bright with wealth
and honour and love and menace.

The Dregs—scattered across The
City in patches and tunnels and spidering labyrinths, like a gnawing cancer,
hiding, mostly, beneath the ground and the wealth. They were the scattered
No-Go areas of the poor, the diseased, the low-lifes and the No-Creds. Above,
the world was under ICE—but there were no such extravagant luxuries down
here.

Slick moved carefully for a while
and paused, turning. He’d heard something.

The street was deserted.

He turned back—into the butt of a
D5 shotgun. Slick went down. He went down hard. Franco stared without emotion
at the bloodied, battered features, then lowered his weapon and gestured to Keg
and Tag, who lifted Slick and dumped him in the boot of the Mercedes groundcar.

“Well?” said Franco.

“Well what?”

“Check him for
weapons,
dickhead.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” They stripped
Slick of guns and knives and bullets. Then Tag held up Slick’s limp hand. “Hey,
Franco, what do you make of this?”

Franco stared at the tiny,
serrated knife protruding from Slick’s thumbnail.

Franco shrugged. “No idea. Get in
the car.”

They slammed shut the boot. And
with a scream of exhaust headed into darkness.

~ * ~

The
Jumper Dockside was pretty much deserted on the outskirts of a contaminated
TOXIC AREA; a disused, abandoned, derelict relic of fifteen, maybe twenty years
ago when Jumpers would shuttle cargo to and from huge Class I freighters in
orbit around The City, leapfrogging into the sky like giant metal insects. Now
the transport was redundant thanks to SPIRAL PORT technology, and the land had
not yet been reclaimed for building due to heavy localised radiation. It made a
brilliant dumping ground for bodies.

Franco sat on the end of a steel
pier, legs dangling over the edge, staring out across the Blood River. The
waters ran thick, red, heavy with natural mineral deposits from deep beneath
the rock—minerals which also ate flesh and bone to nothing within an hour. A
natural, toxic solution for the murdered. A final baptism for the damned.

In the distance, The City’s dawn
haze filled the horizon and the world with a muggy smog. Background noise, a
constant buzzing and hissing, a low-level cacophony of trillions at work and
play, imbued the distant ambient air with background level annoyance.

Franco cradled the D5 and spat
into the river.

Dumb bastards,
he thought, eyes narrowing as he
remembered the short journey. Tag and Keg—ever the wannabe gangstas—poking him
and cajoling him. Tell us another story! Tell us what it’s like to go to war!
Tell us what it’s like to shoot a SIM in the face! Franco shook his head,
wondering if he’d lost his raw edge, his killer instinct. Maybe he’d just got
old, lost his fire, lost his
need
to fight and hurt and kill. The very
qualities which had earned him a place in Combat K. Or maybe it was Mel; the
new love of a good woman? A gradual, dawning feeling that one day, and one day
soon, he would like to settle down. Yeah, get married, but there was more.
Children. Harmony. Equilibrium. OK, Franco knew that to many, marriage and kids
were outdated concepts, scoffed at by a street-savvy society. Kids? Ha! More
trouble than they’re worth. Instead, why not buy a poodle and save your money
for interstellar exploration and adrenaline adventures on Ket?

But Franco? He shivered. He
longed
for simplicity. He longed for calm. And peace. An end to violence. An end
to madness. “Shit.” Franco wondered if he was going soft. Developing a cheese
brain.

“Kick him. Not like that, like
this.” Tag kicked the unconscious body on the ground, and Keg cackled like a
kid with a new toy. Slick’s unconscious form jiggled under the heavy pounding
from the two men’s boots.

“Enough!” roared Franco, heaving
himself to his feet and standing, back to the Blood River, dawn sunlight
glimmering behind him and placing him neatly in silhouette.

Tag and Keg stopped, staring at
Franco with open mouths.

“What’s the problem?” scowled Tag
suddenly. “It’s only a bit of fun. Right? We’re going to kill him anyway.”

“Yeah,” snorted Keg. “Bastard’s
going in the river. He’ll be mush in an hour.”

Tag gestured with his D5. “There’s
something wrong with you, old timer. You’re not with the programme anymore, are
you? Go on, admit it! You’ve lost your
fucking
bottle!”

Franco sighed. Then smiled
wearily, nodding. Both Tag and Keg were squinting, the rising sun dazzling
their eyes.

“Our instruction is to kill the
man. Not torture him.”

“And what’s wrong with a bit of
torture?” snarled Tag. “We should be allowed a bit of fun! It’s playtime!”

Franco shook his head. “No. No.
No. You’ve got it all wrong, lads. You see, I believe in this old concept—it’s
called
honour.
You don’t kick a man when he’s down. You always promote a
fair fight. Mate, I just
hate
gangs, ten on one, unfair odds, it makes
me fucking
sick.
And... you defend the weak against the strong, good
against evil. It’s a simple concept— some might say old-fashioned, an outmoded
idea, but it’s something I believe in.” He took a deep breath. His voice was
low, a tame growl. “I believe in basic honour, I believe it’s inbuilt. Part of
your genetics, you might say. However...”