Biohell (25 page)

Franco bounded forward, and
wrapped the chain around his fist. “Don’t you worry you none, Keenan, I’ll look
after her, she won’t be one ounce of trouble, I promise! Just get us to that
Knuckles lad and let’s get this business sorted.”

“Come on,” sighed Keenan. “Let’s
get to the vets.”

“The vets?”

“Sorry mate. I meant the market.”

~ * ~

The
street was deserted. Rain pounded a torrent. Keenan led the way, with Franco
and Mel close behind, Mel’s claws raking the enamel-tarmac. Cam brought up the
rear with sensors spinning.

“Something’s affecting my gyroscope,”
said Cam.

Keenan halted, boots splashing
puddles. “Which means?”

“There’s a big power surge
coming.”

“What kind of power surge?” said
Keenan, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I suggest,” suggested Cam, voice
smooth and calm, “that everybody hits the ground. Right about
now!”

They hit the ground, and the
storm-clouds above
crackled.
A cold wind smashed down the street. Below,
the ground rumbled. The wind increased, pounding the rain horizontally as the
two Combat K soldiers and their mutant accomplice crawled to the edge of the
desecrated road and cowered below a teetering, wobbling skyscraper.

“What is it?” screamed Keenan
over the roar of the wind. “An earthquake?”

“No. There’s a surge pretty much
as big as anything I’ve ever felt. It’s rolling across the planet.”

“A surge? Of what? What the hell
is
it?”

“Just scanning.”

Franco grinned at Keenan,
gripping his guns to his chest. “Just like the old days, eh buddy?”

“I don’t remember crawling
through puddles with an eight-foot monster. Which old days do you mean,
exactly?”

“I meant, the facing of uncertain
odds, Combat K out in the wilds again. Y’know? That sort of nostalgic
bull-shit. All we need now is... Pippa.” Franco saw Keenan’s face darken, and
he put a hand on the arm of Keenan’s storm-drenched War-Suit. “I’m sorry, mate.”

“So am I.”

“Here it comes. Cover your heads!”

A roar filled the ground, filled
the sky, filled the world. The streets shook. Distantly, three tower blocks
crumbled and dust
whumped
into the sky in blossoming dark mushroom
clouds. For a terrible, heart-lurching moment Keenan thought the Quad-Gal boys
had nuked the planet to rid it of its zombie infestation; one quick succession
of strikes, or maybe a single Halo Strike from a Titan IV, and bam. Game over.
Dogmeat. For
everybody.

A smell like acid washed down the
street. Keenan’s nose wrinkled as the powerful stench invaded his senses,
burning his nostrils, scouring his throat...

And then—

The lights went out.

Like a dimmer switch on The City’s
orbiting twin suns, the world was slowly turned down into darkness. The rain
still pounded, the storm howled, but now nothing more than an eerie glow shone
from the sky. Distant stars glittered. It was...

“Night,” said Keenan, crawling to
his knees. Ozone filled his nostrils and he coughed on tox. He could feel every
pore of his skin tingling. “What happened, Cam? Where are the suns?”

“The City has no self-sustaining
climate. It relies on machines, what are known in the trade as Global
Equilibrium Pumps; they come from the old days, back from the time of
terraformers—before the Helix War blasted World Builders and Ion Platforms into
infinity and beyond.”

“A Global Equilibrium Pump?”

“Climate control. On a global
scale. Stops The City
frying.
Now, I’ve tapped into the local news,”
said Cam. “It appears the zombies have taken control of the GEPs. It would
appear...”

Cam paused, and Keenan and Franco
climbed to their feet. Electricity sparkled down the street, leaping from
skyscraper to tower-block to cubescraper.

“Ah.”

“Ah’s bad, right?” said Franco.

“The zombies have blown the main
GEP, and now have control of all subordinate machines. They’re in control of
The City’s climate. Its weather. Its day and night cycle. Its ocean tides.”

“Why would they do that?” said
Franco, frowning.

“They don’t like the sun,” said
Keenan, voice soft. “Right?”

“I don’t get it?”

Keenan’s head snapped right. His
eyes focused on Cam. “It’s the biomods. They slow down in the heat. If the
zombies can shield the planet from the sun—cool The City down...”

“They will become faster, more
dangerous, harder to kill,” said Cam.

“Great,” muttered Franco.

Mel lifted her head, small dark
eyes glittering, and emitted a long, mournful howl.

Keenan hoisted his MPK with a
rattle, and checked the mag on his Techrim. “Come on Franco,” he snapped. “And
whilst you’re at it, smack your bitch up. She’s driving me barking mad.”

“Very funny, Keenan.” Franco
scowled. “I’m laughing so hard I pissed myself.”

~ * ~

The
black panel groundvan sat at the corner of two intersecting streets, now bathed
in gleaming darkness. The sparking, ravaging energy which had smashed down the
freeway rocked the van on heavy suspension, then left, like a fast-vanishing
mountain storm. The van clicked softly, cooling. Panels shone, reflecting
ambient light, the van and its precision engineering at odds with the
surrounding detritus and destruction. Several zombies ambled past, but took no
interest in the vehicle; there was no heady, needful, lustful aroma of brains.

The doors slid back revealing a
black interior. Cigar smoke drifted free, and Mr Ranger leapt from inside,
heavy boots thumping the ground and crushing broken glass. He looked swiftly up
and down the street, blue eyes raking devastation. Then he motioned, and the
groundvan rocked and groaned on heavily up-rated suspension as...

They exited smoothly, as if
fashioned from animate liquid. There were three GK machines, all humanoid in
shape, black, glossy, thin-limbed, sculpted—almost works of art. Beyond the
ergonomic and functional semi-hydraulic joints, the enamelled TitaniumVI
casings, the long elegant powerful limbs, there came teardrop heads with dulled
matt black eyes. Each head was swept back to a point, and long slim jaws
gleamed revealing rows and rows of tiny needle-thin teeth, each capable of
injecting a variety of terminal poisons.

Ranger stood with one hand on the
controller, which emitted a soft green smoke, curling like oiled umbilicals
around his fingers and integrating with his flesh, with his blood; his free
hand sat in the pocket of his heavy overcoat.

Ranger watched the three GK
machines stand their ground and survey surroundings. Newborns. They had to
learn fast. Ranger smiled; there was no fear in the machines, just an
inquisitiveness of new life. Ranger licked his lips. Despite their machine AI
status, they were quite definitely
female.

Ranger’s smile was dark. “Nyx?”

“Yes, lord.” Her voice was full,
powerful, mature and sentient. The GK shifted, her head dropping and rotating
to fix matt black eyes on the old soldier. Nyx was the leader, stockier than
the other two AIs; her gaze made Ranger shiver just a little, and take an
involuntary step back. These machines were new, untested, straight from the
crate. More prototype than prototype. Nothing like these had ever existed
across the starfields of Quad-Gal.

“Show me.”

Nyx dropped to a crouch, rows of
teeth widening in a silent roar as spikes rippled across her slick metal torso.
They spread across her spine, her neck, her head, a wave of hypodermics
undulating across arms and legs. Each of the five thousand points gleamed with
the promise of a painful, toxic death.

“Good. Momos? Lamia? Special
functions?”

Momos withdrew two long black
yukana swords from thin metal sheaves on her back; each was fashioned from a
single molecule and could cut twelve-inch hull armour. She spun the weapons
idly, dark eyes fixed on Ranger, then went through a complex and stunningly
fast choreographed kata where blades hummed and
sang.
Ranger stood,
transfixed by the show of awesome skill. Never had he seen such fluidity,
speed, skill or timing. He licked dry lips, and released a slow breath as Momos
finally wound down from her display and sheathed the twin yukana blades.

Finally Lamia, the thinnest, most
elegant of the three GK machines, drew herself up as if standing on metal
tip-toe. Her dark eyes seemed to shimmer, and with tiny metallic crackles her
elegantly sculpted hands and feet, her arms and legs, they rippled with scales
of shifting, blending, blurring metal, shimmering as they became four long
black killing blades. Lamia started to dance, a slow rhythmical movement,
elegant, mournful, the TitaniumVI blades clacking and clashing on the buckled
road with harsh discordant sound. Faster she moved and spun, the four long killing
blades flashing and spinning in a haze of incredible deadly motion. To get
within reach of the GK was to be cut into chunks of bloody meat. Then Lamia
leapt and Ranger stumbled back as blades slashed faster than the eye could see
around his head, his body, his own delicate frail flesh limbs and Lamia spun
away, halted her dance, a curious smile on her metal face. She folded her arms,
which blurred back into a semblance of machine normality.

Ranger nodded, lifted his hat,
ran a hand through sweat-streaked grey hair. “Good. Your programming is
efficient. You know where your loyalties lie?”

“To you, lord,” came the three
female voices.

“You must kill them. Combat K:
Keenan, and Franco. And the deviated monster who travels with them. Not just
kill them, but annihilate them from our plane of existence. Do you understand
this directive?”

“We do, lord.”

“Go. Do not leave any trace.
Slaughter anyone or anything that gets in your way. Have no mercy, no
compassion, no empathy; you must simply obey the One Law.”

“Yes, lord. The One Law is to
Kill. We will Kill, Lord.”

Ranger watched the three machines
lope off into the stygian gloom, padding through falling rain and mist with the
tiniest of suppressed hisses. As Ranger surveyed, they passed a cluster of
zombies, busy tearing at a fallen corpse. The six zombies turned, grunting and
moaning with curiosity as the GKs approached. Without breaking stride the GK
machines blurred into action and were through the zombies in less than a second
leaving behind a scatter of body parts and heads, and streaks of tainted blood
against buckled pavements.

Ranger climbed into his
groundvan, and slammed the door with a solid
thunk.
It had been hard finding
Franco Haggis, for the man was ex-Combat K and covered his tracks well. However,
once Melanie had transformed into the... deviant (Ranger smiled at that) the
trace had been narrowed and location easily pin-pointed through GreenSource.
Keenan had been in the right place at the right time; Ranger’s eyes scanned the
tracers on the walls of the ground van. Ranger had a hot pirate-link straight
to the Quad-Gal Military database. Wherever Keenan went, Ranger—and the
GKs—could follow.

Ranger lit a cigar, and with grim
fascination looked out into an abused world through the eyes of his newborn AI
killers.

“This should be... entertaining,”
he said.

~ * ~

CHAPTER 7

SINPLI(CITY)