by Andy Remic
1024°.
There came a whump, and Cam had timed his circular projection so the explosion of pressure thumped him up from the bottom of The Sump, up and up through narrow passageways riding a wave of thrust forced out by the chemical ignition of all those billions of gallons of coolant. Cam rode the wave like an expert surfer. He screamed in joy at cerebral superiority, as behind him, deep deep down and far behind, the K1LLBots were crushed and compressed and burned into tiny molten pebbles which dribbled into little more than a chemical imbalance...
“Weeeee!” squawked Cam, aware that only a few inches behind heaved enough pressure and heat and chemical irregularity to squash him like a Vitis Vinifera under the stomping feet of an experienced grape crusher. He slammed like a bullet from a gun. A sperm from a testicle. A SPAW from a spawning barrel-tube. And his atomic heart sang...
~ * ~
Cam flowed. And as he flowed, he thought to himself, I wonder what the cooling system cools?
Soon, his question would be answered.
Because it cooled the GreenSource Mainframe.
~ * ~
Pippa crawled to her feet, watched Dr Oz swinging the black-bladed yukana. She backed away, fear eating into her. She’d won. She’d cut his damn head off! And now he’d gone and had the bad grace to grow a new one.
Oz attacked, a blistering assault, sword hammering left and right, whirling, cutting at Pippa’s legs then slashing up past her face and reversing to cut her head from her shoulders... she stumbled, back again, sweat stinging her eyes, hair lank, aware of the terrible drop behind. She could imagine that furnace of lava far below; it was ready to eat flesh from her bones.
“You should be dead!” she snapped, pointing, unable to contain her fury.
Oz considered this. His smile glittered like alien jewels, which it surely was. “That’s the thing, dear Pippa. When I employed you to be my Chief Security Officer... well, I didn’t explain, did I? However, it should have been self-evident. My position was prominent on the job description proforma.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not just the head of NanoTek. I am NanoTek. I embody NanoTek. I have become... shall we say, 100% enthused with the business. Why live on in an organic state, when there is something so much better?”
“You’re made completely from nanobots?”
“Yes. That would be correct. And hey, it could even form an interesting ice-breaker at parties.”
The sword slammed for Pippa’s neck, but she twisted in a blur, an inhuman shift, her own blade up, a shower of sparks sparkling through the green gloom. She rolled her wrist and her own blade slid down in a shower of sparks, severing Oz’s arm just below the elbow. Both arm and yukana clattered for a moment, rolling, then toppled from the precipice and into the abyss.
Oz clucked in annoyance as his arm swiftly reformed, running like melted plastic. “Such a waste of a fine weapon! Now I’ll have to use my damn hands!” With a snarl he leapt at Pippa, and her blade slammed up cutting neatly through his groin, separating his testicles, and embedding with a wrist-wrenching thud deep in his stomach, up to the hilt. However, Oz ignored-—or did not feel—the pain, as his hands closed on Pippa’s throat and they went down, Pippa’s head rammed back to slam rock, stars filling her mind, blood pumping and booming and pulsing in her ears. Oz’s fingers were iron crushing her windpipe. She blacked out for a moment. She could smell magma, deep down below. Magma and... something else. Something metallic. The aftershave of the biomod. The cologne of the false human.
The stench of NanoTek.
Embedded in Oz, the hilt of Pippa’s yukana dug against her own abdomen as he writhed atop her in a parody of love. She began a wild struggle, fists slamming Oz’s head. One blow broke his cheekbone, Pippa’s knuckles compressing his head into a distorted shape; it instantly reformed. Another blow smashed his nose, but the biomods inside Oz, fully in their stride now, primed and running at 100% efficiency, reanimated his flesh and aligned the broken bones in an instant. Pippa started to panic. Blow after blow she cannoned into Oz’s head, each one massaged back into apparent human perfection by the rampant nanobot technology flowing through the man—and that which had become the man.
He’s a creature made from a trillion microscopic robots, screamed her brain.
How can you fight that?
How can you kill it?
Some things are hard to kill.
But some things are impossible...
Deep red light danced behind Pippa’s eyes, and she could no longer see. She suddenly heard a choking sound, and realised it was her own dying voice. In a fresh surge of panic she slammed blow after blow into Oz’s head, then reached down, pushing her arms between their struggling bodies, and grasped the hilt of the yukana. She tugged, attempting to wrench the weapon sideways, but with instantly rebuilding muscle contractions Oz held the blade tight, using pure muscle control, his teeth gritted, his bones grinding as the single-molecule blade bit and tore and cut and deep within Oz the biomods fought to repair the grinding wounds as quickly as they occurred...
I am going to die, realised Pippa suddenly.
I am going to die here.
A sudden urge to cry swept over her. She remembered the good times on the beach on Molkrush Fed, running through sand with Keenan, hand in hand, warm and full of life and thinking their new future was secure, optimistic, filled with eternal hope and a deep understanding and love which would carry them onwards and forwards for ever and ever and ever... Pippa tumbled into a well of blackness and remembered Keenan’s lips brushing her neck her breasts her belly I love you he said words echoing bright and metallic down long corridors of fiery history and she smiled she remembered that perfect moment and knew she would die floating on a cold cushion of that memory... Amen.
~ * ~
Keenan was suffocating, squirming in agony, head compressed and the jelly of the GreenSource Mainframe forcing its way into his mouth and throat, down his oesophagus and into his belly. It spread out there, like a cancer, and started to eat at his insides and he wanted to scream in pain, in raw hot agony but he had no air and no voice, and he tried to punch, to kick, to fight, but every avenue of defence or attack had been taken away from him.
~ * ~
Franco, thrashing in panic with his one free hand, tried to stretch behind himself to his pack, but he could not reach and he tried to kick but his sandaled feet were trapped and held and he cursed and sweated and scowled, and tried again to reach his pack and realised, with sudden dawning relief that he had grenades on his bandolier. “Hot sugary dog dick!” he ejaculated, and pulled a grenade free with a pop, but then wondered what he could do with it. Explode it? What, and kill them both? His faced dropped into an imitation of a tortured stone gargoyle. No, he had to risk his freedom and life on a long shot... growling, Franco pulled free the pin with his teeth, and with a crack, his repaired false tooth fell away, tumbling down with Franco staring forlornly after his involuntary dentistry. “Bugger!” Far below, the tuff bounced from Nyx’s scrambling shell with a tiny cling and Franco stared goggle-eyed at the machine. He shook his head. Not good, not good. OK, he thought, scowl growing darker and darker, and he plunged his free arm into the jelly and... released the grenade.
Trapped now, he waited and prayed. He peered over his shoulder, and could see the enamelled shell of Nyx growing closer. Needles rippled along her back and one remaining arm. They shone, like the glistening points of five thousand hypodermic needles... which took Franco shivering and twitching right back to his living horror at Mount Pleasant, his incarceration at the depraved and unhappy Mental Institute.
“Bugger! Bugger! Needles! Come on!”
He wiggled his fingers, feeling the jelly growing tight, and hoping hoping hoping the explosion wouldn’t kill him, or Keenan, or both of them because... well, then they’d really be fucked.
The boom was muffled; distant.
Franco blinked. He could smell explosives.
Howev
er, nothing happened.
“No!” he wailed, realising his last chance long shot had failed. He would have beaten his fists, if they hadn’t been trapped in a wall of computational jelly. “No no no! Bastard bugger bastard!”
Below, Nyx growled, and surged on up...
~ * ~
Cam ejected on a spurt of hot gunk, and fell, spinning, motors whirring, until he halted, suspended above a mammoth cylinder. Below, the gunk began to bubble. Geysers of steam erupted. Cam’s scanners scanned. All around him, irrational lights flickered and flowed up tarnished walls. And inside the PopBot’s tiny brain, it clicked.
The GreenSource. The gunk cooled the Green-Source.
And the hotter she got, the more confused she would become!
Cam shot off, scanners searching for Keenan...
~ * ~
Franco heard a sound. Like blood rainfall.
Before him, practically around him, the GreenSource Mainframe shuddered. Huge waves pounded and pulsed through the behemoth. And Franco realised he could suddenly move his fingers, his hands, his wrists, his arms, and he pulled back with squelching sounds of extraction as the GreenSource malfunctioned, saw Keenan erupt backwards above him gagging and reeling, retching a long stream of green jelly vomit which poured past Franco and bounced from Nyx’s hull below.
“Franco?”
“Yeah mate?”
“Pass me a bomb.”
“Sure mate.”
Franco held up a BABE, and Keenan pulled the pin, squinted, paused—a hiatus of intricate timing—then dropped the grenade. They both watched, twisting to look down, as the small globe fell, spinning, and detonated with a savage harsh scream. Nyx was flung from the tower, sailing out and down, legs kicking madly, to hit the ground far below in a crumpled heap. Again, the tower before them shuddered. The GreenSource Mainframe seemed to be suffering.
“Let’s climb.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
“And Franco?”
“Yeah Boss?”
“Thanks.”
“No problem, Boss.”
They climbed. GreenSource shuddered several times as the two Combat K soldiers continued their ascent. The walls were no longer soft and malleable; they’d hardened, as if the Mainframe was trying to establish an outer shell of protection.
“It’s coming again,” said Franco.
“What?” Keenan stared down. Nyx had uncurled, and was once more climbing the tower far below. This time, however, the GK was moving with inhuman speed, claws finding exceptional grip on the tower-wall now that it had solidified.
“It looks a bit pissed, mate.”
“Good. Come on.”
They climbed, sweat streaming, muscles cramping, the glow of the Line leading to the SPIRAL dock growing closer. Finally, the two weary men hauled themselves onto a narrow circular platform near the summit of the central tower. It squelched, compressing organically beneath their feet.
Franco scratched his beard.
“I don’t understand.”
“What?” Keenan was peering up.
“It’d be better to blow the tower from the base, right? Unless you’re thinking of separating it from the Line.” Franco was casting his experienced eye over proceedings. He scratched his arse. “I mean, detonation’ll only commit limited blast damage up here...”
“No,” said Keenan, eyes gleaming.
“Eh?”
“I’m thinking of something more... drastic.”
“Explain please?”
Keenan grabbed the Makarov from Franco’s belt, and started to fire; bullets slammed down, bouncing from Nyx’s sculpted—and slightly twisted—skull. The machine snarled at the two men, blank eyes focused on them, head tilted to deflect the bullets... Yet still she climbed. At that moment, she seemed totally unstoppable.
“We have to ride the Line,” snapped Keenan. “There! Run!”
They sprinted for Line Base, Franco’s sandals slapping, Keenan glancing behind. Nyx leapt, and landed on the platform with perfect balance. Her incisors grew in length, and ripples of needles pulsed down her back and arm. Claws flexed.
Keenan stepped into Line Base, and shot up, accelerating with a gasp.
Franco glared at Nyx, and pointed at the machine. “When this is over, lass, I’m gonna fuck you up for what you did to Mel. You hear me, calculator brain?”
Nyx roared, a metallic, shrieking scream, and pounced...
Franco stumbled back in panic, into the Line Base. He shot up, following Keenan high through the smooth vertical tunnel of rock, accelerating at a phenomenal rate and gasping, breath knocked from him for a moment as his beard streamed in the wind-flow and he giggled, suddenly, at the insanity of the rush.
Nyx looked around. She seemed to be listening to an internal voice.
Kill them, said GreenSource.
Nyx stepped into the Line.
With a hiss, the advanced prototype AI machine flashed upwards, head raised, lights glittering from matt eyes... and with CPU set in closed and locked pursuit.
~ * ~
Steinhauer groaned, coughed, and blood ran down his chin in a thick pulse. His eyes flickered open. He breathed. Pain pumped through him like some evil narcotic. Everything was fuzzy, and tinged with green. He levered himself up on elbows, aware of a choking sound to one side. He squinted, blinking, trying to focus. He could see Pippa. She was being strangled by Dr Oz.
With a great force of will, dragging severed stumps behind him, Steinhauer began to crawl. Clawed hands scraped rock, snapping two fingernails. His teeth ground, filling his mouth with enamel pepper. He glanced down, and almost wailed as he saw the bloody streamers of skin which followed his slug-like, wavering trail.
Steinhauer pushed on. His mind calmed, and started to scroll with clarity. He should be dead. But he wasn’t. And he knew why, although he had never experienced the sensation through long years in the military. As a General, he’d been infused with basic Military Grade biomods, 1st generation, non-AI, programmed to keep him alive, channel energies, heal tissue, cauterise wounds. And that had happened. Despite the pain, and fear, and horror, the military biomods had sealed the stumps of his legs... or at least, slowed down the rate at which he would expire.
He was close now. Could see Pippa’s face, a pale and drawn puppet, jerked and shaken by the powerful grip of Oz—like a dog with a bone. Steinhauer pulled free a semi-automatic CNP 1mm—a Compact Nail Pistol—from inside his uniform. With a shaking hand web-tattooed with his own gore, he aimed.
“Hey, Oz.”
Dr Oz turned, a swift movement, lips drawing back into a snarl over ruby teeth.
Steinhauer squeezed the trigger, and held it hard. Needle bullets, tiny, whipping, flashing needles, gleaming bright with silver light, slammed from the pistol and riddled Oz’s face. Oz screamed, scrambling back, but Steinhauer, up on his stumps now, teeth grinding in agony, staggered forward in jerking stump-steps, gun wavering but held true despite his fatigue and blood-loss and pain. Hundreds of needles distorted Oz’s face, ripping his visage apart, tearing at his brain, puncturing his eyes, splattering his face into twisted rubber platters of stretched spaghetti. The gun clicked, an empty click, and Steinhauer reloaded the CNP, then turned to Pippa. He fell forward, onto his hands, and began to crawl to her white, deathly-still body.
Oz, face distorted, head exploded into thick octopus-leg tendrils, lurched forward and grabbed Steinhauer by the stumps. He threw the legless man hard. The CNP 1mm clattered. Steinhauer flew, slapped the ground, and rolled fast to an unconscious halt beside the SLAM Cruiser’s ramp.
Slowly, Oz’s face, misted and hazy with a cloud of a million nanobots, eased like moulding putty back into shape, torn strands of flesh pulled in and healed, popped eyeballs sucked together and organically reformed. Oz coughed, and his hands came up, pressing at his features as if surprised to find them whole.
With a grunt, he pulled Pippa’s yukana from his stomach with three painful jerks, and looked down as the flesh melted togethe
r and his own blood coated his hands like gloves.
And, holding the blade, tip to the floor, he moved in to finish the job.
~ * ~
Keenan and Franco accelerated into the sky. The Line left the cover of the NanoTek HQ, and suddenly, through transparent walls darkness flooded their vision interspersed by a million fires. They were flying. They were soaring. Distantly, out over The City’s ravaged battle-scarred streets, ranks of zombies merged, coalesced, gathered with roars, all drawn towards the NanoTek HQ as if summoned by some unspeakable force, drawn to this, their Creator, a Monster returning for a final Feed.
Keenan glanced down at Franco.
“You see it?”
“What?”
