We climbed. Eight or nine inches at a time. Carving a path out of the sheer rock. Moving hands and legs in a steady rhythm. Never looking down. Keeping two limbs nailed to the rock at all times. And with our ears switched off to avoid hearing the madness-inducing scream of the wind around us.
At noon, the winds died down, and the clouds rolled away. And the planet became a place of bliss. We could see for mile upon mile. We marvelled at the immense vistas of snow fields and ice-mountains tipped with mossy outcrops. The beauty of it all took my breath away. The sheer mountain ranges! The pink-tinged clouds! The dazzling whiteness of the expanse! For two hours a day, around noon, Ice is a planet fit for habitation, and I could see why its people loved it.
But after two hours of sun, the winds returned and grim clouds greyed the sky once more. And Ice returned to being a bleak wilderness.
We continued climbing. When the cliff became too brittle, we blasted deep holes in the rock to create hand-holds. We were not connected by ropes, for each of us was so heavy a fall would bring the others tumbling down with us. We all had jetpacks though, and rockets in our boots. So we had a faint chance of survival if we fell off – provided we weren’t caught up in a cyclonic current.
As the day wore on, the winds became even more intense. Our bodies were pummelled with gales. A rock outcrop gave way under my hand – it was ice, not rock – and I let myself fall. Ice-boulders crashed past me as I tumbled off the cliff. Then I lunged forward and dug my hook-claws into the rockface. The claws skidded off moss, but then sank in. I took a breather.
Then I recommenced my slow climb.
“Billy, still here.”
“Artemis, still here.”
“Max, still here.”
Conversation was impossible, but every sixty seconds we called in to tell our comrades of our continuing existence. I could not see them, I could see nothing except rock and snowy wind. I had no sense of my direction other than “up.” Anyone who saw me in my climb could easily pick me off with a rifle shot. I had not an atom of consciousness free to keep an eye out for danger.
We were lost to the journey, which took us high into the clouds.
And after two days and six hours, we reached the summit.
“Now,” said Billy, “let’s kill some—”
But he ran out of words. Exhaustion enveloped us. We stood on the apex of the vast ice-mountain, ankle-deep in snow, and waggled our arms and legs. Three giant white monsters engaged in a weary dance.
Then the Lopers appeared.
They were quick, I’ll give them that, and we were slow.
All our sim training failed to pay off. We weren’t alert. We weren’t prepared for the effects of snowblindness and physical exhaustion. So we just stood there like dummies on a firing range as the body-armoured Lopers opened fire. They rained plasma fire on us, burning off our snowy wraps and revealing the black warsuits underneath. And then they peppered us with explosive shells, which crashed against our armour, cracking and weakening it but not yet penetrating. And they screamed! Loper war cries of devastating ferocity assailed our ears, which had now been switched back on to their maximum setting.
In short, they really woke us up.
“Two four one low, all on three high,” I shouted, meaning that I would target the Loper second from the left on our visual array, Billy would fire at the Loper on the far right, Max would aim for the guy on the far left, then we’d all go for the last one standing. We rolled and drew our Xenos rifles from their scabbards and fired as one. We aimed low, hit our targets repeatedly but didn’t kill them; so instead we fired low and burned the snow and rock beneath the Lopers so that they lost their balance. Then we switched to projectile bullets and aimed shot after shot after shot at the forehead of each of our targets. My twentieth bullet broke my target’s armour and plunged into skull and exploded. Ffiteen seconds had elapsed since I fired my first bullet.
By now the surviving Loper was shooting at us, his bullets rocking our armours with brutal smacks. We all turned our guns on him and he leaped high in the air – agile despite his body armour – and continued to rain plasma fire upon us as he aerially turned. An elegant manoeuvre. But I grabbed Billy and threw him upwards and he drop kicked the Loper who flew off into space and fell off the cliff.
Billy then crashed to ground, near the edge. The ice beneath him cracked. I threw him a rope and we pulled him back away as the entire mountain side fell away.
We took a moment to sitrep. We were all alive. They were all dead. Not so bad, despite our terrible start.
“Heat sensor.” Billy took out his wand and wafted it. On our arrays we saw the flashing red that indicated a source of heat. This was the entrance to the passageway through which the Lopers had come. It was invisible to the eye, but as we approached the rock the illusion vanished and we could see a gateway, slightly ajar. We stepped inside.
Then we began to lightly jog through the rock tunnel. The sides were scorched black, a sure sign that this was an artificial pathway burned out by plasma beams. Billy waved the wand again to trigger the stealth setting, making us invisible to sensors and a casual glance. And as I ran, I used my Rebus chip to make contact with this planet’s QRC – feeling the mind – yes – registering my presence – winning it over to accept my comradeship.
I had it! The computer was mine. I could see a visual array map of the mountain complex.
“Living Spirit,” I subvoced, “is he here?” Just automatically, really, as a piece of standard protocol.
“Yes he is,” said the Ice computer.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Problem?” subvoced Max.
“The Magician,” I said, “is here.”
Max was staring at me, with a puzzled look in his eyes, not understanding how I could know such a thing.
“Trust me,” I said.
I checked my visual array. There was a latticework of tunnels in this mountain, at various levels. And right at the base of the mountain, on the inside, was the Loper city of Harbin.
We turned on our holos. We were now three red-furred Loper warriors. If you looked closely enough, the image didn’t quite convince. But it was good enough for now.
We began to jog through the rock tunnels, mazing this way and that, sometimes scrambling downwards, until we reached the main vertical shaft. It was much smaller than I’d expected. We looked around for an elevator, or a staircase or – something. But no. Just a sheer well leading deep into the mountain.
So we rigged our ropes and chimneyed down in single file. As an entrance to a lost world, it truly sucked.
After a long painstaking descent, we reached the bottom and dropped down. We left the ropes in place, just in case; though the chances of us surviving and escaping seemed slim.
We looked around and saw that the tunnel where we now stood had an artifical floor and a ceiling embedded with lights. But the ceiling was cracked, and drops of water were oozing out and dripping downwards, spattering us; and the bright blue mosaic pathway on which we walked was moist and flecked with sprouts of moss, its bold patterns discoloured and flaking. The ceiling lights cast a feeble gold sheen over the grey rocks and fucked-up-azure floor. But this was definitely a habitat now, not just a hole in the mountain.
We jogged on.
It was claustrophobic, to say the least. We were surrounded by tons of rock, running down a corridor inside the mountain which we had, previously, so painfully climbed up. And because the dim ceiling lights left the walls mostly dark, and eerily highlighted the blue floor, it felt as if we were running on a frozen river. There was a flow of breathable air coming from somewhere; although, suited up, we did not breathe it.
“Great lair,” said Billy. Standard joke. You need ’em, from time to time.
Then we reached a broader cavern, and saw there was a stairway leading downwards, coated in crumbling stucco that was wrapped aroung the ancient mountain rock. We walked down the slippery, mossy steps with care. The air was less stale; we masked down
and could feel a breeze on our cheeks. There was, remarkably, a metal door in the rockface.
We masked up again. Checked our guns, which didn’t need checking. Inspected each other’s Loper holos, which were pretty plausible but not perfect. Then I unlocked the door with my mind and we walked through.
And now we were in Harbin.
We stood at the top of an immense rock cave the size of a small country. Below us, a city of stone and glass, with single-Loper fliers buzzing in the air, and houses with gardens and trees and shops. Inhabited towers of gnarled and twisted rock sprouted from the ground like stalagmites. Furred Lopers were conveyed across the vast chamber on moving walkways held up by thin cables. My gauges told me the air outside my warsuit was warm.
We saw four Loper soldiers approaching us, and greeted them casually with a wave. They saw us, weren’t fooled by our holos, and began firing.
“Fuck ’em up a bit,” I told Billy.
Billy threw a bomb into the air – a tornado bomb – and we rolled backwards, and dug crampon spikes into the rock to brace ourselves.
The bomb hovered. The Lopers approached closer, clearly confident they could easily get rid of these three intruders.
Ten seconds later the bomb blew, creating a wild vortex of air that spiralled up and around and crashed into the cavern walls and sent the Lopers flying off the narrow walkway. Then the gale carried on its crazy path, and there were screams of pain and terror as the mini-tornado wreaked its havoc.
The surviving Lopers began firing bullets in our general direction; but in the angry murk they had little chance – they were shooting blind. For the tornado was whipping up spirals of stone dust into the air, destroying visibility.
Then we set the rats to run – three rat-sized robots that generated holos of the three of us in the air above them, creating virtual replicas of Artemis, Max and Billy. The rats scrambled down a narrow pathway towards the city. A couple of Lopers saw them and let out a cry. The three body-armoured Kamikazes ran faster and flashes of light appeared from their (non-existent) Xenos rifles. We watched with amusement as a posse of Lopers chased the chimeras into a spur of the main cavern.
Meanwhile, the murk generated by the bomb was starting to lift; and the tornado was spiralling downwards, towards Harbin.
We destealthed and resumed our Loper holos, then proceeded at a brisk military jog down the stone steps towards the city. Ahead of us, like an insane vanguard, the tornado was smashing into buildings, slowly losing energy. And the Lopers began to chase the chimeras into a spur of the main cavern.
At the foot of the staircase we were spotted by a Loper General, who bellowed something angry at us.
“Protection duties,” I screamed, in what I considered to be an utterly faultless Loper dialect. “I’m here to guard the capobastone.”
He glared at me. I showed him a military chit with just those instructions, carefully forged by Fraser’s boffins.
The air was still murky; the holos were now passing muster. I was calm. Ready for disaster, but calm.
“He’s in the Heart’s Tower,” the General snapped at length. “Get him out of here, we think this wind is being caused by a planetary quake.”
“What about the intruders?” I screamed back.
“They won’t get far.”
We proceeded on our way. In the haze and dust and confusion our holo-images passed muster. In less chaotic circumstances, however, we would have stood out almost immediately.
My visual array guided us to the Heart’s Tower. This was the broadest and the highest of the rock towers, not exactly heart-shaped but certainly less insanely distorted than some of the other sculptured rock dwellings. The alarm klazon continued to drone. We barked urgent instructions at all we passed to assist our deception, and finally entered the front gates of the tower, which magically opened for us.
“How are you doing this?” asked Billy, but I didn’t reply.
A platoon of Loper warriors were leading a silver-armoured figure towards us. It was, just as I’d hoped, Living Spirit.
“Result,” said Max, speaking just a moment too soon.
For as we reached for our guns, an eerie haze of solid light surrounded us. And when I fired, the bullet bounced against air and flew back and crashed against my warsuit. Max’s energy blast was also reflected and caught him full beam and lit him up like a candle. Billy meanwhile was left with gun poised in hand, reconsidering his decision to shoot. And I realised we were trapped inside translucent walls of force field energy.
Yup, that’s right, trapped.
Living Spirit sauntered towards us.
“Your accent,” said Living Spirit, “leaves much to be desired.”
Yeah, okay, I can’t always be right.
Billy shrugged, fatalistically. Max swore, operatically. I was silent.
Then, when Max’s tirade had ceased, Living Spirit looked at me; and he raised his middle finger stump. To demonstrate his status in the Clan, and his acknowledgement that I had a place in that culture too.
“Any last words?” sneered Living Spirit. An old Clan tradition, usually honoured by neglect.
“Fuck you,” said Billy, not reading the ritual subtext.
“And fuck your mother too; oh no, I already did!” taunted Max.
Living Spirit was, predictably, undistressed by the ritual taunting. But then I had my say.
“As a capobastone in the Clanning of Cúchulainn,” I said, “I challenge thee, Living Spirit, in the combat of your choosing.”
The Loper laughed. Billy snorted. Max looked at me askance.
“Are you kidding me?” demanded Living Spirit. “You do not have the right—”
“Daxox was capobastone of the Cúchulainn Clanning,” I reminded him. “And I killed him with my bare hands, while in the body of a robot. I carry his tattoo here,” I said, patting my arm. “I therefore,” I concluded, “claim his authority under the Rules of Seizure.”4
Living Spirit came closer. I lowered my face mask, then unbuckled my warsuit, and peeled off the torso covering, and finally the sleeves. Then I showed him the tattoo on my shoulder. It represented the Death of Daxox; the D of Daxox enveloped by a serpent. It had been carved on to my skin by a Clan Scribe in his own unique style before I left for the Rock. It was hardly proof positive, but such images carry a powerful totemic resonance for Clan members.
“I can also show you film footage of his death,” I said, “if you really want to be an arsehole about this. My name is Artemis. You may have heard of me.”
“I have,” replied Living Spirit.
“Then—”
“You dare challenge me?” roared Living Spirit.
“I do.”
Beside me, Billy was smiling. He always loved it when, out of the jaws of defeat, I snatched further defeat. But, let’s face it, even a few more minutes of life is worth having.
By this point the silver Loper’s rage was overwhelming. But he dared not refuse the challenge.
“What is your chosen weapon? Swords? Guns? Rifles? Wits?” he asked me, in tones of coldest scorn.
“That has to be your choice.” Any other answer would have secured me instant death. Sweet Shiva, the rules you have to learn.
Living Spirit laughed and said what I knew he would say:
“Claws.”
I felt naked.
In fact I was naked. But that in itself didn’t bother me. I’m not, for fuck’s sake, especially when facing near-certain death, shy.
No, it was my body armour that I missed. My knives, my guns, my bolas, my force field, my knuckle shields, my elbow spikes, my toe-blades. All the weapons I was used to using in mano a mano battles with the enemy. But now, all I had were my hands, my feet, my finger and feet spikes, and the power and speed of my augmented body.
I was pitted against Living Spirit, also stripped naked, and resplendent in his silver fur and fanged teeth. He was a monster, seven foot tall and almost four foot broad. He looked more gorilla than human. But there was
a beauty in his features. His shaggy fur concealed his male organs, more or less, but his brute animal presence oppressed me all the same. His claws were like small sabre blades, rounded and sharp and deadly.
Max and Billy were still trapped inside the confining cage. The Lopers gathered round the combat ring in a semicircle. Some carried buckets of water for cleaning away the blood, and storage bags with which to convey away my body parts for the organ banks. My defeat was clearly anticipated.
“What happens,” called out Max, “if you win?”
“We die anyway, but I become a legend,” I explained.
“Ah. Everything to play for then.”
“We have a mission,” I pointed out.
Ideally, the Recon Committee wanted Living Spirit alive or dead-but-revivable. But failing that, true-dead would do. Which meant I had to kill him and then – sorry, there’s no nice way of saying this – eat his brains.
And so, if all went well, I would do this one last and utterly repugnant thing to save humanity – before being slaughtered by Living Spirit’s acolytes. No one would ever know what I had achieved. But I was confident that it would be done.
Well, fairly confident.
The Lopers began baying.
Lopers, by the way, to give them their due, are pretty sophisticated creatures. They are smarter than most non mutant humans. And there’s nothing in their genetics to cause them to be feral. They were built to withstand inhospitable alien habitats, whilst remaining human in all fundamental respects. They weren’t meant to be monsters.
But I guess, things evolve. ’Cause these fucking creatures were more ape than man, and they scared the living fuck out of me.
I circled. Living Spirit circled too. I could feel a breeze coming from somewhere, chilling my bare skin, and I silently asked the Ice computer to start charting me a way out. I also asked it to open the confining energy cage trapping Billy and Max, on my command. I also, suddenly playing a wild hunch, asked it for the location of the armoury, and a route through the rocky tunnels to get there.
My idea was that if we fled and got hold of the guns, we could die fighting, rather than be sitting Kraal ripe for the slaughter.
Artemis Page 22
