by Mike Wild
"Oh, that's right," Medusa said. "Do you know, I'd actually quite forgotten that my Arch-Marzah was dead."
Deadlock stared down at the body in disbelief.
"At the cathedral," he said. "You said that you were going to save him."
"Tried. Couldn't. Sorry."
"But with your powers..." Deadlock appealed.
"I said COULDN'T!" Medusa blurted suddenly. Her eyes were like fire once more.
Deadlock stared at her. "You planned this all along," he said, suddenly aware of the precariousness of the situation he was in. "Once you'd heard from Diaz with his offer, you had no further intention of keeping me as your champion, did you? This-" Deadlock gestured around the court, "-this whole charade was just another one of your games." He stared at Medusa. "It's true, isn't it, Medusa? Now that you have Diaz's weapon, all that you want to do is kill."
"Bingo," Medusa said.
Deadlock stepped back in the dock. "Great Gaia, the Arch-Marzah was right," he said. "You really have gone mad."
Medusa smiled coldly. She wiggled her fingers and on the courtroom floor, the body of the Arch-Marzah twitched unnaturally. With a further motion of her hand, Medusa raised it to a standing position.
"We still haven't heard who your old friend's voting for," she said. "Arch-Marzah? Can you hear me, Arch-Marzah? I SAID COME-IN, ARCH-MARZAH!"
"Senator Diaz," said a voice from beyond the grave. And then the body collapsed back to the floor.
Deadlock slumped. A puppet had just decided his fate.
Medusa turned to face Senator Diaz.
"Senator Diaz," she declared. "By a vote of four of my marzahs to two, you are hereby declared officially and in perpetuity, my new champion of Mars. Do you have anything that you would like to say?"
"Er, thank you?" Diaz ventured.
"Very polite, I'm sure."
Medusa was just turning to Deadlock when Cobb raised a finger.
"There is something else, Senator Diaz?" Medusa asked.
"Actually, Ma'am," Diaz said. "Yes. Yes, there is."
Deadlock regarded the senator suspiciously. The man had what he wanted - Medusa's backing - and with that kind of power he could realise any political dream that he ever wanted. What else could the man want from her?
"It may have escaped milady's attention," Diaz said, "but my current state of health leaves a considerable amount to be desired. And with the state of your world being what it is today, I fear it may be some time before I can obtain proper medical care."
Diaz paused.
Deadlock stared at him. What was he up to?
"That time," Diaz continued, "is something I fear that I may not have."
"My champion does not come with a guarantee?"
"No, Ma'am, he doesn't," Diaz said. He paused again. "But if I may, I do have a suggestion."
"Oh?"
"Transform me, Ma'am," Diaz said. "Infuse me with the power of your world so that I may live and serve it as a proper champion of Mars."
What the frag, Deadlock thought. There was something very wrong about to happen.
"Medusa-"
"SILENCE!" Medusa raged.
Deadlock found that he could no longer speak.
Medusa eyed Diaz suspiciously. "You would become one of my vessels? You would become made of the stuff of Mars?"
"I would wish to retain my own soul and my will, of course," Diaz said. Deadlock noticed a sly glint in his eyes. "But yes, I offer my human shell to you as the... ultimate tribute. Take it, Medusa. Make me anew."
"Very well," Medusa said, obviously pleased.
Do not do this, Deadlock willed. There was something wrong... something very wrong.
But it was too late.
"I warn you," Medusa said. "This might sting a bit. Or hurt like hell. Whichever it is. Oh, and you might feel a little prick."
Deadlock was too concerned about what was about to happen to pick up on that joke. Medusa gestured.
Suddenly an agonised screaming filled the room. In his mobile life-support unit Diaz writhed and twisted as the powers of Medusa began to alter him from within. His skin stretched. His bones cracked. His shape changed.
A stench of marshrooms filled the courtroom.
Diaz vanished inside a bubbling, pulsating mound of fungus. His limbs could be seen shifting inside. His face contorted by pain.
Finally, the screaming stopped. Diaz stopped moving.
And then he stepped out of the mound.
Diaz looked like the old Diaz, before his injuries. But there was something otherworldly about him too: a hint of Martian sand, a hint of marshroom - and more than a whiff of Medusa.
He was one with her, one with Mars.
"Yeeesss," Diaz said, flexing his new body. "Yeeeess."
Oh Gaia, Medusa, Deadlock thought. You have just made a very big mistake.
Diaz's transformation complete, Medusa turned back to Deadlock. The ABC Warrior found that he could speak again. Not that he had chance to say much of anything at all.
"You have failed in your quest to become champion of Mars, ABC Warrior," Medusa said. "The sentence for failure is death."
"Medusa, wait," Deadlock said. "It's Diaz. I think he plans to-"
But Medusa wasn't listening. Deadlock felt a sudden intense pressure on his limbs, a crushing sensation.
So much pain... Deadlock began to scream.
TWENTY
Mongrol was having a crisis of faith. The ABC Warrior was seriously beginning to doubt in the existence of GODD.
"Where is it, Cobb?" he said. "There's nothing here."
"It's here," the president said. "It must be."
They were standing at the exact coordinates that Cobb had been given as the location of GODD. And there was nothing there, nothing at all.
Immediately after the successful liberation of Coldmitz Castle, Cobb had approached Mongrol. He had told him that the co-ordinates in his head roughly matched the location that they were in. The legendary ancient weapon called GODD could be found somewhere near the prison itself, right in the foothills of the Olympian Heights.
This had come as quite a surprise. Diverted as they had been by their incarceration in the Coldmitz prison, it had not occurred to any of them that Medusa and Steelhorn would have actually done the convoy a favour by bringing them to GODD's doorstep.
Not that either Medusa or Steelhorn realised that they had, of course.
The original plan had been for the convoy to continue deeper into the mountain range, but this changed things.
A new plan had been drawn up between Mongrol and Mek-Quake. As Coldmitz was safely in their hands, it had been decided that there was, for the time being, no safer place for the humans to remain while the Medusa War was resolved. They had food, shelter, companionship and warmth - everything they needed to survive. And above all it looked like they had a place to hide.
For strangely there had been no retaliation from Medusa for their insurgence at the prison; no tripod siege, no sudden reanimation of her dead Martian guards, no hail of fire sent to teach them a lesson from the skies.
Medusa appeared, in fact, not to have noticed that her food had gone off. Wherever she was, she had other things on her mind. And so, for all intents and purposes, Coldmitz had become theirs. As he had originally volunteered to do at the Red House, Mongrol had arranged to escort President Cobb to their final destination. With them went Cobb's vitriolic wife, Nancy, and their two bodyguards. They had set off that morning.
As he too had originally volunteered to do at the Red House, Mek-Quake remained behind at Coldmitz, to look after his little jobs. At least he had company there in the form of the strange interloper, Two-Ton Carmen.
Exactly where she had come from neither of the ABC Warriors had a clue, though she professed to be a friend of Blackblood's. Mek-Quake and Mongrol couldn't imagine a more unlikely scenario.
They were grateful that she had come, though. And she liked Mek-Quake and Mek-Quake seemed to like her.
Mongro
l had thought her a bit of a spooky stalker, if the truth were known. He wondered how the two of them had gotten on back at the castle since he had left them some hours before.
The sun beat down on him relentlessly. In the sky above, a trio of deathkites circled, their hungry cries sounding hollow and flat in the wilderness. Mongrol regarded Cobb with suspicion. Perhaps he'd been lying all along. Where the frag was GODD?
"It should be here, I promise you," Cobb said.
Mongrol pulled out his weapon and levelled it at the president. He had always recognised the possibility that George C Cobb would lead them on a wild goose chase just to save his own skin - and if that had indeed become the case, well then, George C Cobb's goose was about to be well and truly cooked.
Mongrol's finger tightened on the trigger.
"I swear to Gaia," Cobb said, breaking into a sweat at the sight of the gun. "These are the right co-ordinates. There has to be something here."
The first lady stepped forward. "My husband is telling you the truth, robot," she said. "Think about it - why would he lie to you out here? There's nowhere he can run now, is there?"
Mongrol conceded that point. But if Cobb wasn't lying, then where?
"Over there," Nancy Cobb shouted.
Mongrol turned, surprised to see that she was right. A small structure had just become visible out of the desert heat haze. Mongrol zoomed, what he saw quite unexpected - and as unlike something called GODD as could be.
Standing alone out there in the foothills there was a small, ramshackle wooden hut.
Flowery curtained windows looked out onto the sand. A twisted chimney pointed crookedly at the sky. By the side of the hut lay an old metal bathtub. The hut had a porch. On the porch there were two aged-looking rocking chairs. And in the rocking chairs, two figures, a man and a woman.
Hillbillies. Neither of them moved. Cautiously, Mongrol and the others approached the hut, all of them wondering just what it was they had stumbled across here. Mongrol raised a weapon. Still the figures did not move. It was only when they were virtually on top of the two figures that the group realised why. The hillbillies appeared to be ancient robots. And by the layers of sand and dust that covered them, they had not moved in a long, long time.
If this was indeed the place of GODD, then GODD seemed to have forsaken it a long time ago.
"This has to be the place," Cobb said.
"Cobb, no," Mongrol warned, but too late.
Cobb stepped onto the porch. Beneath his feet, a board cracked, then splintered into dust. Cobb dropped half a metre into the foundations.
"Seems like we got us some visitors, Ma," a voice said in a hillbilly accent.
"Visitors, Pa?" said another.
There was a whirring of ancient gears and suddenly the robots to either side of Cobb began to rock slowly back and forth in their chairs, the runners creaking as if they, too, would collapse any second. A pair of knitting needles began to clack in the old woman's hands. The old man began to whittle at a piece of wood. It looked like he was carving himself a pipe.
"Somethin' we can do for you, boys?" the old man asked. He spat a lump of chewing tobacco at a spittoon at his feet. The tobacco had been in the dormant robot's mouth for so long that it was as hard as stone, and ricocheted around the spittoon with a series of metallic clangs.
"Now Pa," the old woman admonished. "Where are your manners?"
"Beggin' yer pardin, Ma. Old Jed does tend to fergit hisself sometimes."
"Ask the boys for their password, dear."
Password? Mongrol thought. Now that was odd. Normally speaking, passwords were not a requirement to gain access to tumbledown old huts - unless they were the kind of tumbledown old huts that Blackblood frequented on his jollys, of course. Huts where vats of oil bubbled evilly and the robots couldn't stand up straight.
But he very much doubted this hut contained a still. Was it possible that they were in the right place, after all?
"Ma says I gitta be askin' yer for yer password, boys," Pa said. "Yer got your password, boys?"
"P... Password?" Cobb said. It was clear he hadn't been expecting this particular complication. "We... don't have a password."
"Danged if that ain't unfortunate," Pa said. He leaned forward in his chair. "Well now, I siggest you boys just mosey on back the way yer came, then. That is, if yer knows what's good fer yer."
"But I'm The President," Cobb declared.
"HEE-HAW!" Pa cackled. He slapped his stomach hard and fell back in his chair, rocking hard. "The Presidint, he says. Hee-hee-hee-haw! Now that's a good 'un. Ain't that a good 'un, Ma?" He stopped rocking suddenly. "But it ain't the password!" He leaned down the side of the chair and produced an old style double-barrelled shotgun that he rested casually across his lap. This done, he began to chew again. "Yer got one more chance, Mister Presidint," he drawled threateningly. "Ah suggist yer don't waste it."
Ma tutted three times. "It's probably best not to tick Pa off," she advised with a cold smile.
Mongrol looked at Cobb. Cobb shrugged; he didn't have a clue.
The ABC Warrior laid a hand on his weapon. He didn't like the way this was going. They were the unlikeliest pair he had ever seen, but from their reactions there was no doubt that they were dealing with security robots- even if they were, as he suspected, two thousand years old. He was about to tell Cobb to keep silent.
"OPEN SESAME!" Cobb blurted. "SHAZZAN! SPECTRUM IS GREEN!" He paused, desperately scrabbling for more inane ideas. "SHAZBOT! SUPERCALIFRA - OH, FRAG IT!"
"Wrong answer," Pa said. "And boy," he added, "ah will not have ya cussin' in front of the missus, yer hear."
"DOWN, COBB!" Mongrol shouted.
Mongrol threw himself backwards, fired at Pa's shotgun. The aged weapon exploded in the robot's lap, shredding its shirt and revealing mitanium plating beneath. Decoy, Mongrol realised instantly. Because as he had fired, the tops of both Ma and Pa's heads had swivelled rapidly open to reveal miniature Gatling gun mountings that spun freely, spewing rapid-fire rounds in all directions. In addition, panels on their chest slid open exposing small glitter-ball like devices that Mongrol recognised as laser disseminators. He suddenly felt that he was in the middle of a very deadly disco. As if that wasn't enough, the robots' kneecaps proceeded to flip open to reveal four extremely pointed, extremely armour piercing homing missiles.
Mongrol wasn't even going to give those a chance to fire.
The front of the cabin disintegrated as he opened up. So did the security robots. Thankfully, munitions had improved somewhat in over two thousand years.
As the barrel of Mongrol's chain gun span down, Cobb dug himself out of the foundations. One of his feet was jammed in Pa's spittoon and Ma's knitting needles dangled from his shoulders. The knitting itself, a half-finished cardigan, rested like a woolly pink crown on his head. At least he had something to mop up the puddle at his feet.
"I guess that means we are in the right place," Mongrol said.
He moved back to the hut, noting how beneath the wooden facade it too was built of mitanium plating.
"When this is over," Cobb said, pointing, "I am going to have you scrapped. I am going to take your ball bearings and turn them into ball earrings for my wife. I am going to-"
Mongrol shoved a hand in the president's face and proceeded to the door. It was electronically sealed but a quick frazzle with his inbuilt lock-pick soon took care of that. The door's security protocols were very dated.
Obviously not having decayed to the same degree as the facade, the door slid open with an efficient hiss. Cold but strangely fresh air met Mongrol and Cobb.
They stepped warily inside. Needless to say, they did not step inside a wooden hut. Instead there was a single chamber, mitanium plated again, and totally featureless apart from a small node with what resembled a Digital Arch Angel logo above it on the far wall. The logo was older and not as stylised as its modern counterpart but undoubtedly that was what it was.
Recessed lights activated in the
walls, bathing the chamber in white. Mongrol and Cobb waited. And nothing else happened.
"This is your ultimate weapon?" Mongrol queried. "It looks like a fraggin' fridge to me. Do you suppose if we close the door, the light'll go out?"
"I don't know what to expect any more than you-" Cobb said, then collapsed. He began to roll about on the floor, seemingly in some agony. Mongrol watched, unsure whether to help or to get a couple of kicks in himself, while he had the chance.
Then he noticed that the node beneath the Digital Arch Angel logo was pulsing rapidly. President Cobb was being scanned.
"It's your Arch Angel," Mongrol explained to the crying president. "The node is attempting to interface with it. And I suspect that as yours is two thousand years more up to date than the models it's used to, it's having a few problems." Mongrol smirked robotically. "Should be over soon."
"Help me, you mechanical masochist."
"That'd be sadist. And nah. I don't think so."
As it happened, he didn't need to, because as Mongrol spoke, the scan ended - sadly much too soon for the ABC Warrior's liking. The node had found codes embedded in Cobb's Arch Angel that had been specially inputted when he had been elected to office, codes he shared with the occupiers of that office back down the years. Those and the holders of darker offices, that was.
"Identity tree confirmed," a soothing mechanical voice intoned. Mongrol wondered why doomsday devices always had soothing voices, never ones that said, "I'M BIIIIIG AN' I'M BAAAAAD! NOW LET ME AT THOSE MOTHERFRAGGERS!".
"Authorisation verified," the voice continued, "user number zero-one-four-seven. Welcome to gee-oh-dee-dee, Mister President. How may I help you today?"
"I - uh - need to save the world," Cobb said awkwardly. "Only I - I don't know how."
"Please proceed to the node."
"I don't understand."
"Comprehensive instructions on the usage of gee-oh-dee-dee will be directly uploaded to your Digital Arch Angel. This information is classified "For Your Synapses Only." Please proceed to the node, Mister President."
