by Andy Remic
“Ouch!” he screeched, doing a sudden jig in the water which sent waves lapping against slick walls. “It’s there! Down there! In the water! It’s a zombie! A zombie fish!” He unleashed a hail of bullets from his Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol, the roar filling the tunnel, the flash of fire illuminating his deranged features.
“Franco!” snapped Keenan.
Franco released the trigger. A metallic booming rang up and down the tunnel. Acrid smoke filled the air. Everything seemed suddenly much darker. Much more frightening.
“Sorry!” Franco held up his hand, glancing back at the other soldiers. “My mistake. Just a piece of old tyre.”
“How the fuck can an old piece of tyre be misconstrued as a zombie fish?” snarled Keenan.
“Hey, look, I said I was sorry,” snapped Franco. “Excuse me for not being an expert on zombie marine life.”
Keenan tutted, and moved ahead with Betezh.
Franco pulled out his lower lip, trudging through the oily water, listening to the distant sounds of slopping zombie pursuit. Suddenly, there came a slapping of water, a few grunts and curses of, “Hey, what you doin’?”, and Mel arrived beside Franco. He glanced over at her, and gave a weak and watery smile.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“Grwwlll,”
“Oh yeah? Easy for you to enunciate.”
Her head lowered, and she nuzzled at him, just as Betezh turned and grinned through the gloom, his face eldritch in the bobbing torchlight. “I think she fancies a slice of Franco pie,” he said.
“Get stuffed Betezh.”
“Don’t be like that, Franco, we’ve been through some tough times together! Some great adventures! We’re like brothers in arms, compadres, a rag-tag firm of muscular savagery and might!”
Franco stared at Betezh. “And you thought I was insane?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Betezh, we never had any good times.”
“Yeah we did!”
“What, like the fifty times you electrocuted my testicles? Or maybe the time I punched you out of a dive-bombing helicopter? Or what about the episode where I injected your brain with a syringe— direct through your forehead? Maybe you’re referring to the incident when I used an industrial bone-stapler on your saggy face? Ring any bells? Notice any common themes of violence there?”
“Ach, that was just us fucking wit’ each other.”
“Stop the games,” snapped Keenan, “we’ve got a split in the tunnel ahead.”
They arrived at a large cylindrical chamber which rose above the group for about a kilometre. Far far above, against ink black, a few stars glittered.
“This is where we part company,” said Betezh. He pointed. “Follow the tunnel that way, two or three klicks, it leads to a service chute and back onto city streets; keep your eyes peeled though, it’s an easy entrance to miss. Narrow, with a tiny ladder poking from the tunnel roof. You’ll be in the heart of gangland then—just find yourself a scumbag scrote-filled shit-stinking little hoodie and ask for directions. All the gang members know the other gangs. They spend most of their time trying to slaughter one another. Honour amongst thieves, eh?” He grinned, face like a devil’s sick of sin.
“Where you going?” asked Keenan.
“We’ll have to try and find another area to defend. Our barricade, whilst secure, was far too close to street level. A foolish move, I fear; although I never expected the deviants to form an army and attack en masse. I thought zombies were dumb and stumbled willingly onto your gun barrel!”
“Well, thanks for this,” said Keenan. He shook Betezh’s calloused, meaty hand. “We owe you one.”
“Yeah, cheers,” said Franco, a tad grumpy, a tad sulky. “Go on Mel, say thank you.”
“Eers,” rumbled Mel, and Franco gave her chain a tug. It jangled. Mel growled.
Betezh eyed the huge monster warily. “Hell, I’d get that ugly bitch put down real fast, if I was you. Can’t have deviants stumbling around in the dark. Gives us all the heebie jeebies! Listen, we could do it now for you, if you like? As a favour?”
“We have it under control,” said Franco, coolly.
“OK then. Well, so long!” Betezh saluted. “Hey, and if you ever have another mission where you need a brave and foolhardy accomplice...”
“Be assured, we won’t call you,” muttered Franco.
They moved down the tunnel, with Betezh’s booming laughter chasing them. It would seem he was in his element, all animosity towards Franco gone and forgotten.
Silence closed in, and with it a heavier, more claustrophobic atmosphere. Franco felt himself growing ever more twitchy, goosebumps rising on his arms and neck as he constantly jumped at shadows.
“Hey Keenan,” he said after half a klick.
“Yeah mate?”
“What do you think the zombie horde will do when it reaches a split in the tunnel?”
“I think our enemy is a damned sight more intelligent than we give it credit for.” Keenan stopped, lit a cigarette, and the flame lit the tunnel in a globe of light for a few moments—then retreated. Darkness rolled back in, liquid ebony. “I think they’ll divide, spread out, search all the tunnels.”
“Why do they want us?” asked Franco.
Keenan shrugged. “I’m not sure what drives them. I’m not a zombie. Ask your girl Mel over there.”
“Hey, she ain’t a zombie, Keenan.”
“Whatever.”
Cam, who had been silent with damaged scanners doing their utmost to locate enemy activity, zipped in close to Keenan. “Kee, I’m struggling here. I need to locate some specialist circuitry and affect a repair. I am worse than useless. A few minutes ago, I located eight Francos in the vicinity.”
“The horror,” said Keenan.
“Exactly! Look, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you on your own for a few hours. Do you think you can survive down here? Maybe find your way to this Knuckles lad?”
“Well, I’m not staying put,” said Keenan. “Until we find some help for Mel, then Franco’s off-task. And when he’s off-task, he’s useless to me in decoding the SinScript. The more time I waste slopping around here in the grime, the longer I have to stay on this godforsaken shit-hole. You go and do what you have to do—me and Franco, we’re going to sort out Melanie. We’ll find Knuckles. Try and get her fixed. Ain’t that right Francis?”
“Damn right bro’.”
Cam coughed. “Yes. Very well. I’ll be off then. It’s starting to feel like an Arnie down here.”
Arnie, a famous actor from thousands of years previous, had been so successful in action-movies during his life that, upon his death, several of the unscrupulous up-and-coming Ganger Agencies had genetically cloned him and sent his clones out to work making, ironically, clones of the famous movie-star’s earlier movies. In uproar, the Arnie Estate had filed a litany of lawsuits prohibiting Ganger Agencies from genetically reproducing their recently dear and departed action hero. However, due to a technicality of small-print in a contract from an early Arnie movie, it seemed the Ganger Agencies had bought the rights to him from GPA Films—the very rights to Arnie’s organic likeness. In effect, they owned his body, and his reproduction. The following uproar led subsequently to savage new anti-cloning laws, and despite the several thousand year legal battle which followed, unfortunately for Arnie, his likeness and DNA were owned not by himself, or his Estate, but by somebody else. His many clones no longer owned their own bodies, and had to pay rent to inhabit their flesh, which perpetuated yet more cloning and a continuation of movies... which eventually became known simply as Arnies: a cliche of art where a muscle-bound good guy beats up muscle-bound bad guys with a scattering of witty one-liners. Brilliant, in terms of cheap entertainment value; not so brilliant in terms of the poor man himself. As a clone, or ganger, a working Arnie had less rights than a Battle Slab. There had recently been a series of secretly filmed insider documentaries by the BBC on the terrible living and working conditions of movie
-bred Arnies, and there had been a public uproar and cries for an internal inquiry into the depraved and unethical movie industry as a whole. Across Quad-Gal, Arnies were horribly mistreated. Kept in narrow cages, force-fed porridge, and only allowed out for an hour of sunlight a day. It just wasn’t right.
Cam zipped off into the black, and was instantly swallowed.
Franco peered at Keenan. “Hey, now it’s really spooky. We’re alone together!” he said, and shuffled a little closer.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
Franco looked injured. “I was just, y’know, attempting a bit of brotherly solidarity. A bit o’ bonding. Strength in union, an’ all that.”
“Well, give your girlfriend a cuddle,” said Keenan, voice harsh, eyes sweeping the tunnel. “She looks like she could do with a bit of sweetening up.”
They moved through the swirling water, warily, twitchy, constantly on the lookout for pursuing zombies or whatever hell else was down in the tunnels. Franco stayed close to Keenan, eyes wide, and Mel followed to the rear, head sometimes banging from the tunnel roof and smashing tiles to tumble with concrete pepper into the soup through which they trudged.
“What is this place, anyway?” asked Franco after a while.
Keenan shrugged. “Not sure. But look at the walls.” He moved his MPK, which highlighted several horizontal streaks. Franco stared at the streaks, then back at Keenan.
“So, it’s got streaks?” he ventured.
“No, those are marks left when the water level is higher, up near the top of the roof.”
Franco considered this. “So it floods?”
“Aye, either it floods, or there is some kind of sluice. Draining water from somewhere to somewhere.”
“So water could come smashing down at any moment and wash us away?”
“Yeah. Our dickhead friend Betezh forgot to mention that bit, didn’t he?”
Franco nodded, chewing his lip. “I definitely do not like this place. It gives me the jitters, the creeps, the heebie jeebies. Come on, let’s push on; get back up to the fresh air.”
“Fresh air filled with zombies?”
“Zombies I can shoot,” muttered Franco. “But down here?” He stared at Keenan, deadly serious, mouth a line which had lost all sense of humour. “Down here, well, it’s enough to make a man mad.”
~ * ~
“You hear it?”
“Hear what?”
They stopped, water lapping lazy at the edges of the tunnel.
“It was a hiss,” said Franco.
Keenan glowered at him. “Don’t start jumping at shadows again, you mad midget. Zombie fish? Hah! I don’t want any gunfire until a target’s identified. Clear?”
Franco said nothing. He was staring past Keenan.
“You mean like that?” he muttered.
Keenan whirled to see three dark shadows moving fast along the edges of the tunnel. They gleamed, metallic, and were quite obviously designed as killing machines.
“They don’t look like the sort of robots I’d want to meet in a dark alleyway.” Franco licked dry lips. “Shit. I think we should, like, run.” Franco sprinted away down the tunnel, water slopping his groin and chest. Keenan ran after him, struggling to move at speed through the high water-level, and he cocked his MPK ready for contact. Mel kept pace with the two men.
Keenan drew alongside Franco. “Look out for the service chute,” he hissed.
Distantly, there came a deep, bass rumble.
“Hell’s teeth, what are they, Keenan?”
“Advanced killing machines.”
Franco glanced back. “They’re gaining.”
There came a series of metallic shrings. Nyx, Momos and Lamia were running in a tight, close formation, a dark, inverted V of water in their wake; Momos had drawn her yukana swords and the three machines gleamed, faces rigid, gloss black and terrifying in the gloom as they closed for the kill...
“There!” snapped Franco. Above, a chute protruded into the tunnel with ragged edges of twisted ladder barely visible. They stopped, and Keenan and Franco sent volleys of machine gun fire screaming down the tunnel at the pursuing AIs. Bullets rattled. Everything was chaos. Fire lit the darkness. Metallic screams charged the air. The three GKs ignored the spinning bullets which spat sparks from casings, deflected by hardy TitaniumVI armour.
“Get up there, Franco,” snarled Keenan, pulling free a savage BABE grenade. So named because, as the military contract literature proudly proclaimed, IT GIVES YOU A GOOD FUCKING!
“I can’t make that jump!” wailed Franco. “I’m only a little fella!” Mel was there instantly, and she hoisted him towards the roof where Franco grasped metal rungs, legs dangling and kicking. With a grunt he hauled himself up, and glanced back.
Again, there came a deep rumble. This time deeper, so deep as to not be heard, just sensed. The walls shook. Water sloshed wildly around Keenan’s waist.
“Come on Keenan!” Franco bellowed.
“One minute,” said Keenan, holding up a finger.
Mel followed Franco, squeezing herself into the narrow aperture with a crunching of armour, a tearing of concrete, a twisting of steel. Powdered concrete rained down on Keenan... as the tunnel began to vibrate.
Keenan pulled the pin from the grenade.
The three GKs were closing fast, but Keenan blinked, eyes narrowing as he watched the machines pursued by an increase in rumbling, thundering, shaking and he realised the tunnel water level was rising, swirling violently about him and he tossed the BABE, a small matt globe which sailed out towards the charging enemy robots as a wall of water slammed them from behind picking them up and spinning them and Keenan leapt for the ladder—but too late as a smash of frothing, seething liquid plucked him from his jump and pummelled him along with the flailing, shrieking GKs, and Keenan’s MPK roared and spat under froth and foam, and somewhere, distant, as if deep down in a dream muffled by distance and the ocean, there came a terrible subdued crack and super-heated water and steam rushed past him in a terrifying violent surge and he thought or dreamt he heard a high-pitched metallic scream but everything was chaos and Keenan was pummelled and torn and smashed, he hit the tunnel wall hard, battered, slapped, was slammed along without control until something snagged his WarSuit, held him there under the onslaught of charging water like a fish struggling for life on a hook—
Water surged and pumped. The world was darker than dark, filled with violent random currents and bubbles. Keenan was slapped repeatedly against concrete, and each blow felt like it shattered bones. He could feel his WarSuit, so many times a saviour, this time betraying him, holding him ensnared with invisible fingers... holding him there to drown. He kicked out uselessly, trying his hardest to swim with the current; his MPK was lost and everything was dark and choking and suddenly so very, very cold. Keenan couldn’t breathe, simply could not breathe, and pain slammed his brain with flowering stars as he struggled desperately, trapped under the flooded tunnel. A dawning realisation forced clarity like a burst of fireworks exploding in his mind.
After all the shit he’d endured, all the battles and wars and demons and AIs he’d faced and fought and killed... here, now, Keenan realised with an ultimate clinical certainty that he was going to die.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 8
CHILD PROTECTION
It’s been said a man’s life flashes before his eyes prior to death. For Keenan, it wasn’t his life—it was a single moment, a solitary incident stretching away unto infinity. It was a moment of beautiful simplicity, of honesty, of happiness. Standing in the park, in the sunshine, his two girls—Rachel and Ally—on the swings, giggling, squealing when he pushed them too high. To one side, on a bench, sat his wife Freya. She’d tossed back her long hair in the sunshine, and rays sparkled through individual floating strands. Her face looked so calm, so serene, so ultimately at peace. This image, a tableau, remained fixed in Keenan’s mind as the powerful rage of the underground flood buffeted him, pounded him, and his burning screaming
screeching lungs finally gave out and he breathed—breathed in water. Keenan gagged, choked, tried to vomit—and in doing so inhaled even more, desperately drawing more water into his oxygen starved body, arms and legs thrashing wildly and panic, a raging beast closing jaws over his brain, his sanity, his ability to think. Keenan fought the invisible foe of the flood; and for once, for one long and painful moment he realised this was a foe he could not beat. Tears fell from frustrated eyes to mingle with the flood.
And... he could see his girls.
His sweet, dead girls.
Waiting for him by the swings...
Something grabbed him, a harsh connection, violent in its suddenness, and he was jerked with a jarring pain back into a world of snarling reality. Everything was a confusion of bubbles. He was stunned. A blow connected with his jaw and he spat in anger, hatred and pent-up frustration and violence as he blinked and realised—
