Toxicity (53 page)

“Such a shame it had to end like
this. Mr Candle will be
so
disappointed...”

Jenny tensed. She could feel the
killing moment speeding towards her. She tensed. And heard a tub go
gloop.
She
frowned. Another tub went
gloop.
Vasta didn’t notice; she was too busy
self-eulogising.

“And so we followed your little
squad - you thought you were so clever, so covert, using those back-door disused
tunnels, but that was a sadly obvious tactic. If you’d actually taken the time
to really think things through...”

There came another...
gloop.

This time, a large one.

Vasta stopped talking, and moved
her focus from Jenny to the tub. She gestured to a soldier with a short beard,
who walked across the polished lab tiles, boots clacking. The black tub came up
to the man’s waist; he halted at its edge, looking down into what appeared to
be a thick, black tar.

It gave another
gloop.

The man looked to Vasta,
half-smiled, and shrugged... as an explosion from the tar showered him.
Something,
a figure, a small, lithe figure with long wild hair and flashing bright
eyes, leapt from the tub, attached itself to the soldier using hands and feet,
and bit into his face. The man suddenly screamed, staggering back, and his SMKK
stuttered and coughed, bullets cutting a line across the ceiling in an
explosion of shattered tiles and popping lights and sparks. The
creature
growled
and bit and wrestled with the man’s flesh, tugging and chewing him, pulling his
beard and lips away in a long string of skin. The man, screaming, punched at
the figure, to no obvious effect.

“Get it off him!” snapped Vasta,
attention focused on the sudden fight.

Three soldiers moved to the man’s
aid, grasping the childlike figure and attempting to drag it off. All they did
was tear their comrade’s face further from his skull, and he hit the ground
with a bustle around him, still fighting and thrashing and moaning as the child
bit and chewed and absorbed the blows of the three large soldiers. One finally
hit the figure in the head with the butt of his SMKK. The
crack
sang
across the lab - and had
no
effect.

Vasta levelled her E3
Accelerator. All the soldiers in the vicinity suddenly ducked, hands covering
heads. As...

More figures leapt from the tubs,
an explosion of action and activity all across the labs. They landed on the
soldiers, on the ceiling, on the floor, crouched on all fours like cats, backs
arched, choosing targets and leaping again in a single spring. Fingers flexed
like claws, slashing throats and tearing out eyes. Teeth snarled and bit. Blood
pattered across the floor. The world of serenity in the lab went from calm to
insanity in a few quick heartbeats. Jenny charged Vasta, whose E3 was still
levelled at the first victim and his chewing attacker; she slammed into the
Head of Greenstar Security, one hand grabbing the controlling arm and pushing
it
up.
There came a
whump
and a diagonal shaft was sliced up through
the ceiling, up through vents and pipework and flooring to the room above. It
started to rain desks and computer equipment, screens and keyboards bouncing
down into the tubs of black goo, stationery clattering from the scuffling forms
of the panicked soldiers.

Jenny, grasping Vasta’s arms,
drove an elbow back into the woman’s face. There came a
crack,
but Vasta
was already moving, rolling with the blow. She drove a low punch into Jenny’s
ribs, but Jenny whirled about, releasing Vasta’s arms and slamming the palms of
both hands into Vasta’s face. Vasta let go of the weapon and staggered back,
clawing her own eyes. The E3 clattered to the ground. Jenny leapt forward,
almost serene, eyes calm, breathing regulated, and pounded her fist into Vasta’s
retreating form, three times. Vasta fell back, but her boot slammed out,
kicking Jenny in the stomach. Air exploded from her, but she came on and Vasta
grabbed her, tossing her backwards over her head and scrambling to her feet.

Jenny rolled and leapt up. She
turned on Vasta, fists raised, but Vasta drew a knife. Zanzibar turned his SMKK
on Vasta but Jenny waved him away. “This bitch is mine.”

“You reckon?” snapped Vasta. “I’ve
heard puppies yakking just like you. Come on, cunt, let’s see how well you
bleed.”

Jenny drew her own combat knife
and advanced, as all around them the lithe figures with the wild hair covered
in tar leapt and cavorted, biting and swiping, chewing and dancing.
Occasionally an SMKK rattled or a pistol fired, and everybody ducked. None of
the children - the
girls -
seemed to die. But soldiers died. Plenty of
soldiers.

Knives hissed through the air,
and Jenny parried a blow. Sparks glittered. She stepped back as a soldier
staggered between the two, a child on his face vomiting toxic puke that burnt
out his eyes. He fell, screaming, head steaming, hair in flames.

Vasta leapt over his squirming
body, her knife tearing at Jenny’s eyes. Jenny twitched, focused on the knife,
and brought her own weapon up suddenly. Vasta took it in the belly and gagged,
then staggered back, hissing and spitting. The knife was dragged from Jenny’s
hands. Blood soaked through Vasta’s uniform and she looked down in disbelief.
Slowly, she took hold of the dagger and withdrew it from her flesh. She stood
and allowed the weapon to clatter to the ground in a pool of gore.

“I’m gonna kill you for that.”

She leapt, and the punch lifted
Jenny, slamming her back against a bench. Delicate glass equipment shivered and
toppled, clattering and chiming and smashing all around Jenny. The blow had
been too quick, too sudden; especially for a woman with a mortal knife wound to
the abdomen.

Vasta was on her, and another
blow rocked Jenny. She felt a tooth come out, and blood flooded her mouth. Her
arms slammed up, catching Vasta under the chin, but the Head of Security rode
the blow and grinned down at Jenny. She’d dropped her knife, and they wrestled
for a moment, until Vasta pinned Jenny’s arms above her head and leaned down,
her mouth opening, so close her words almost tickled.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,”
she said.

The blow hit Vasta in the side of
the head, catapulting her from Jenny’s prone form and into an incredible
tumble. She landed on her feet, atop a lab bench, uncurling gracefully. A few
droplets of blood had trailed across the bench surface. She glanced down at
Zanzibar with a frown. He was holding a length of iron. A crowbar. She tutted,
and touched the long red welt on the side of her head.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she
said.

“What are you?” said Zanzibar. “Class
JJ? Or android?”

Vasta tilted her head. Then
relaxed, and smiled. “Android.”

“What class?”

“You don’t ask a girl a question
like that,” said Vasta, clenching her fists. “Now, who wants to die first?”

“That’d be you,” said Nanny, a
cigar in her grizzled old mouth, as she pulled the trigger on the E3
Accelerator. The E3 gave a
whine
and energy exploded outwards. Vasta
moved damn fast, but not fast enough. Her leap carried her torso, head and arms
above the blast - but her legs were torn and
accelerated
free in a
sudden slurry of blood and bone and winding, stretching,
snapping
tendon.

There came a long, long pause.

Most of the violence had
finished, and the soldiers were dead or dying. The tar-coated figures were arranged
around the laboratory, heads hung low, eyes averted, almost as if they were
ashamed. Or... had completed their mission?

Jenny shuddered, and breathed
deeply. She climbed to her feet and walked over to the bench where Vasta’s
corpse lay. Only it wasn’t a corpse. She was still alive, her eyes bright and
feverish, her lips working soundlessly. She suddenly focused on Jenny and
smiled.

“Come. Here. My. Child.”

Jenny moved close. Vasta was
twitching, and blood surged out of her mouth. “Yeah, motherfucker?”

“You were... tougher. Tougher.
Than you. Look.” She smiled, and looked away, almost in regret. Her hands were
quivering. More blood and drool ran down her chin. She looked back up.

“Better believe it,” grimaced
Jenny.

“I’m an android. Anarchy Android.
Waiting. Here for. Horace.”

“Horace?”

Vasta’s eyes were glazed. Her
whole body, or the remains of it, was twitching now; twitching on the bench,
like a side of quartered beef.

“It doesn’t matter. I killed him.
Killed my... own kind.”

Her eyes lowered. Jenny shuffled
closer. Suddenly, Vasta’s hands shot out and closed round Jenny’s throat. The
strength was incredible, as if all the lost energy and power from Vasta’s legs
had transferred into her arms. Jenny’s hands slammed up, trying to relieve the
grip, but they were iron. Vasta pulled Jenny close. Real close. Her eyes were
bloodshot and burning, burning bright. Her mouth opened and she was grinning,
blood on her teeth, a maniacal snarl hijacking her face.

“I should have tortured you...”
she said... as Zanzibar slammed Jenny’s combat knife straight between her eyes
with a
crack
of puncturing skull. Vasta went rigid, then relaxed, and
Jenny fought her way from under the android’s grip.

Zanzibar grabbed her shoulders. “You
okay?”

Jenny nodded. “Yes. Yes! Shit.
What a bitch. A torturing android bitch.”

“Look,” said Zanzibar, and Jenny
gazed around. The child-like figures had lifted their heads after the mass
slaughter of the hundred or so soldiers. Now, they were watching Jenny. One
came forward, a slim girl, and she smiled up at Jenny, who was still rubbing at
the savage bruises on her throat.

“It’s time,” she said.

“Time?” said Jenny.

“Time to plant your HighJ
charges. I’m Chorzaranalista. Me and the other psi-children have come to help.”

“But...”

“We saw you. In a dream. A
prophecy. For us, the future is written. The toxicity has given us that gift...
at the expense of many other things.”

“I don’t understand. Where have
you come from?”

“The waste. The shit. The Toxicity.
But you need to move quick. You need to focus
now.
More soldiers come.
Thousands more! And...
one
who is hidden from me.” She touched her
temples then, as if in great pain. When she opened her eyes, they were bright
as falling stars. “This chamber is a connecting Fuel Port. Blow this with
enough force, and the chain reaction will spread like you could never believe
possible... destroy this Fuel Port and you destroy the Greenstar Factory. You
destroy Greenstar.”

Jenny nodded, and signalled to
Nanny and Meat Cleaver, as Zanzibar hoisted his pack of HighJ explosives.

“Come on, guys. Let’s blow this
fucking place to the stars.”

~ * ~

“WAIT.”

It was almost a whisper. Almost.

He stood there, in his armour and
carrying his weapon, and he looked out of place, alien, but it was him. It was
him, all right.

“Saul,” said Jenny, and stared at
her brother.

Her brother.

After so much, after so much time
and so many millions of miles and years. He was here. He was now. He was part
of this. He was part of Greenstar. A betrayer. A back-stabber. Acting a part to
get Jenny to confess. Tortured? Ha. He wasn’t just an actor. He was a base,
gutter-Greenstar pawn.

“What the fuck do you want?” Her
SMKK was already in sweaty fingers. She wanted to kill him. Kill him
now.
He
hadn’t just betrayed Amaranth. He had betrayed her. He had betrayed their
father. He had betrayed their fucking
species.