Ellie Quin Episode 5: A Girl Reborn (7 page)

He cocked his head. ‘My name is Jonny. I am licensed to Hewson Leisure Corporation. I’m here to do whatever you ask of me.’ She wondered if that was another pre-programmed answer.

'Look, I feel pretty bad about this…I…I thought it sounded like a fun idea at the time, but now…'

He cocked his head the other way. 'What are your orders,
Ell-ee-Kwin
?'

She decided that it might be better leaving her conscience out of this. The game was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not. Jez was propably already whipping up her creations into a frenzy of bloodlust.

She tried to assure herself, that even though they were living, breathing creatures, they were really no more ‘alive’ than a child’s robotic plaything. No more alive than Ted’s old robo-dog. Just toys, albeit flesh and blood toys.

She looked at the creatures arrayed before her. Approximately a third of them were the batch she’d assigned to be fabricated before Shelby had hurriedly stepped in and advised her to weaponise the design more. The other two thirds were armed with those scary-looking tusk-like teeth and brutal scythe claws.

The toothless and clawless ones were going to be utterly useless at fighting. But at least she could put them to work rolling the peach up hill; they'd be her
peach
-
rollers
. The rest…could be her soldiers.

‘Jonny?’

‘Yes, Ell-ee-Kwin?’

Jonny was from the first batch, he didn’t have the teeth and claws. ‘You’re going to be in charge of all the batch-one products. The one’s like you without claws. Okay?’

He nodded.

‘You’re in charge of getting that peach up in here.’ She stepped towards the other one. ‘Okay, 78-2. Your name from now on is…
Max
.’

Max’s lips widened, revealing more of his razor sharp teeth.

‘Max, you’re in charge of the batch two products. Your job will be protecting Jonny and his batch.’

Max nodded. ‘Yes, Ell-ee-Kwin.’

‘And you and Jonny…and everyone else…you’re going to call me, General…or,
Sir
, from now on. Is that clear?’

They chorused a mixture of ‘yes sir’s and ‘yes, Generals’.

For the second time she experienced a guilty shudder of pleasure at the chorus of obedience.

I could get used to this
.

She spent the next half hour on the wall of the small castle, looking out over the crenellations with Max and Jonny perched on the wall beside her, evaluating the rolling landscape for choke points and pitfalls, and scrutinising the other castle on the far side of the low valley.

She thought she spotted movement along the top of the distant mint green wall and guessed that that was probably Jez looking right back at her.

I wonder what horrible monsters she
’
s come up with?

‘Is that the enemy, General?’ asked Max.

‘Yes.’

‘What do you know about the enemy, General?’

‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Other than…knowing the other General, as I do…they’ll be pretty nasty.’

Max ground his teeth together and flexed his claws. 'We are ready to fight to the death for you, General Ell-ee-Kwin.’

‘Max…when the
game
…’ she felt the need to correct herself, ‘when the
battle
starts, I want you to split your creatures into two groups. One group is to go over there, to the slopes over there on the left, and the others on the right.’

She remembered playing one of Ted’s games on the holotoob. A battle simulator. Ted, even though he’d been just five at the time, had explained to her some rudimentary principles of warfare.

Hit the bad guys from two sides. It
’
s called out-flanking, Ellie
.

‘We’re going to ‘out-flank’ them; charge down and hit them from two sides at the same time.’

‘Yes, General.’

‘But only when I give the signal though, okay?’

‘Yes, General.’ Max nodded. Then his furry brow furrowed slightly. ‘What is the signal?’

She pondered on that for a moment. She needed some gesture he’d be able to spot from across the miniature world. She lifted both arms above high above her head and made her fingers do flexing claws. ‘This is the ATTACK signal.’

‘Yes, General.’

‘And if you see me pointing my fingers at something…that’s what I want you to attack. And…let me see, if I wave my hand in a big circle above my head. That means
stop
attacking and run back to our castle. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, General.’

She figured that was pretty much all she’d need for signals. Three commands; Attack, Stop and Run-For-Your-Little-Lives. As far as she was aware from all the battle-dram viddees she’d seen, that was about as sophisticated as warfare got.

The klaxon suddenly sounded. It boomed around the biome and caught Ellie by surprise. The sky filled with a projected image of Shelby and Gray’s faces, they were sitting on a couch somewhere, Gray sipped a mug of coffee and nodded at Shelby to go ahead.

‘
Ladies, the battle may now begin!
’ Shelby’s shrill voice boomed. ‘
May the best General win!
’

‘Oh crap!’ uttered Ellie. She should have had her soldiers mustered by the oak doors and ready to pile out. ‘Max, get your two groups out of the front door!’

The creature nodded, hopped off the top of the wall and padded down the rampart to the courtyard.

‘What are
my
orders, General?’ asked Jonny.

‘As soon as Max’s creaures are out, get your peach-rollers down to that big peach, over there okay?’

Jonny nodded. He hopped off the wall and followed Max down the ramp.

Ellie remained where she was, intently studying the other castle. Finally, she saw it’s oak doors swinging inwards.

‘
Ah-hah!
’ It was Gray’s voice. ‘
Look
’
s like General Jez is ready to kick some ass!
’

Jez’s army began to emerge into the sunlight…and Ellie couldn’t quite believe her eyes. ‘Oh, crap-o-la…’

CHAPTER 10

They were large and dark, almost coal-black, shuffling out through the castle gates. She couldn’t make out what they were, but they were low to the ground and
large
and she counted about ten of them. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified; she’d been expecting Jez to try and reproduce those giant aliens that spat flames and acid, the ones they’d seen attacking Shuttle Stop 7.

They looked scuttley and crab-like with far too many legs to be cute. It looked as though they had powerful 'arms' at the front. But there were only ten of them. Maybe Jez had blown her entire budget of biomass on those things then. But, no…there were more things coming out. These were dark again, but much smaller, mere dots from here.

Below her, the castle's oak doors swung open and her army poured out, Max marshalling his toothed and clawed creatures and Jonny leading out his un-armed peach-rollers. She looked down at them and had the awful feeling she was a observing meadow full of fresh-born lambs being sent out to their slaughter.

‘
And, ladies and gentlemen, we have Ellie Quin
’
s army of
…
what the crap are those, Shelbs! Are those teddy bears?!
’

‘
They
’
re small hairy hominids
.’ Shelby corrected.

Ellie looked up at the sky, filled with the image of the two men enjoying the show. She wondered where they were viewing it from, they seemed to have a bird’s eye view. Then she saw it. A small hovering platform, near the apex of the biome’s domed sky. They must be sitting on that.

‘
Teddy bears, Shelbs
…
versus what appear to be giant scorpions
.’

‘
Appear to be?
’ Shelby shook his head. ‘
Don
’
t act as if this is the first time you
’
ve seen them
.’

‘
Hey, dude
…
seriously
…
there was no help from me. This is all from her own warped mind. Trust me
.’

Scorpions? Ellie knew what one of those those was. She’d seen one tattooed on an old farmer’s arm once. The tattooed creature had two large claws that
snapped shut and opened as he flexed his tendons and the senso-ink reacted to his nerve impulses.

All of a sudden she had visions of those ten distant beasts effortlessly chomping through her fabricants, snapping her poor creatures in half like corn dollies.

Her army was now assembled in three groups. She saw Max standing in front of his batch looking up at her. She waved her arms, instructing him to split them up as agreed.

She saw him flapping his stubby arms, relaying her command, and the clawed creatures split into two roughly even groups of a couple of hundred each. They scampered off towards the edges of the world, one group to the left, the other to the right and after a couple of minutes they arrived where she’d wanted them placed; one group at three o’clock, one at nine o’clock. The prized peach was bang in the middle of the clock face.

‘
Ahh
…
now that looks like your classic flanking manoeuvre. Very clever. I presume that was, like, all
her
idea was it Shelbs? No coaching, huh?
’

‘
Of course, I gave her some basic instruction on battlefield tactics
.’

‘
Well, I
’
m not sure how much good that
’
s going to do her. Cutesy teddies going toe-to-toe with giant scorpions? You know, man, this
’
ll be an interesting game!
’

‘
Oh, they
’
re not just cutesy teddies, Graham. Trust me
…’

On the far side of the battlefield, Ellie could see Jez’s scorpions beginning to move. They looked like they were mirroring her movements, splitting into two groups, five heading to the right, five to the left. She watched them moving, very slowly and very clumsily.

She
’
s made their legs far too spindly. Their bodies are too heavy for them
.

Ellie grinned as a strategy began to form in her head.
I
’
ll just wear those giant bugs out
.
That's all I need to do
. Her bears were easily nimble enough to outpace them. She looked at the remaining pack of black dots just outside Jez’s castle and wondered what they were, though. There looked to be no more than fifty or so of them. Perhaps they'd been an afterthought - Jez using up what was left of her biomass budget.

She decided to make the first move. While the scorpions wore themselves out making their way toward Max’s creatures, she might as well set Jonny and his peach-rollers to work. She looked down, saw him, craning his neck, waiting for her instructions. She gestured at the peach.

'Go get the ball!'

Jonny nodded, then yelped the order and the two hundred bears scrambled down the slope towards the peach in the middle. She just had to hope it wasn’t going to be too damned heavy for them to push uphill.

‘
Looks like Ellie Quin is making the first big move for the flag, sports fans!
’ boomed Gray’s voice.

Ellie cursed. She'd been hoping to speedily resolve this game with a quick bloodless win. But Gray was
deliberately
drawing Jez’s attention to the whole point of the game. Jez, she could imagine had probably been jumping up and down and yipping with blood-curdling glee at the prospect of her monster scorpions tearing Ellie’s creatures to pieces…and had completely forgotten about the peach in the middle.

Thanks, Gray
.

The gap between Max’s bears and the giant scorpions was slowly narrowing on either side of the field. She wasn’t entirely sure which side Max had gone with, she'd lost sight of him as they'd split and scampered off. Whichever side he was, she hoped he was looking her way. She raised her hand and swung it in a big, slow, deliberate circle….the retreat signal. All they needed to do was keep their distance and keep the scorpions plodding, exhausting themselves.

She was going to assume that Jez hadn’t thought about discussing hand signals with her creatures. She suspected Jez would be more of the point-them-in-the-right-direction-and-let-‘em-loose school of tactics. The scorpions presumably would go trundling on after her bears and she wouldn't be able to order them to stop. Meanwhile Jonny’s rollers could be working that peach up the hill towards her.

She could see movement.

The group of her soldier-bears on the left was beginning to move away. She guessed Max was with them and had spotted her retreat signal. The others on the right, however, were stoically rooted to the spot, staring at the approaching monster scorpions bearing down on them. She realised she should have appointed a third ‘officer’ to keep an eye open for her commands over there.

Her first big mistake.

‘
Uh-oh
…
looks like we
’
re heading for a teddy bear massacre on the right flank, folks!
’ boomed Gray.

In the middle of the battlefield, Jonny’s creatures had gathered around the giant peach and, to her relief, with their combined weight thrown behind it and a chorus of grunting and straining, the peach was beginning to roll her way.

On the right, the scorpions and teddy bears finally closed in on each other. She watched with horror as a giant jagged-edged pincer snapped shut around the waist of the nearest bear and effortlessly sheared it two. From where she was standing on the wall, she could hear the faint sound of the creature’s pitiful scream as it was tossed through the air trailing an arc of bloody offal behind it.

Seeing that, it hit her hard and suddenly, like a slap across the face. The guilty little thrill of 'command' she'd allowed herself to feel earlier, suddenly became a wave of nausea. All of a sudden she felt sick to her stomach, any notion that this was some kind of a
game
was a grotesque thought.

How the hell is this supposed to be
fun
?

She shot a glance up at the floating platform, at Shelby and Gray’s faces in the sky, grinning like a pair of idiots.

How the fregg is watching things die
….
fun
?