by ROUNAK PURI
"This is hardly a good place to carry on these discussions" said the slave looking around.
The Alpha pointed at the door to the chicken shed and walked towards it.
"OK but I mustn't loose my wireless connection" said the slave.
I followed. I walked in this was a bit suspicious no cameras and no guards. I keeping a hunting arrow to the string of my bow I went in. It was very dark but in the gloom I could see large round hole in the ground. I looked over the edge there seemed to be about 20 stories going down. It didn't take me long to figure out this must have been an old missile silo. There was some light about five stories down. I went over and have a look from the top at ground level. The place smelt like a farm's cesspit1
/Abandoned Missle Launch complex/Liberty city/Area still proudly called Nebraska
"This is deep enough" sent the slave loudly. Her voice echoed off the metal grates, railings and pipes giving it an almost electronic quality.
"When to we get the plans to the Machine City?" said Nina.
"Our spies are working on them. I told you, you need to attack the collaborator city first. What about the girl?" said the slave.
"She's here. She still doesn't know yet. When the rest of the food concentrate arrives tomorrow, then I will conduct the girl into the plane." said Nina "she thinks she will be taking the resistance plane to Greenland. As far as everybody else knows the plane doesn't make it, then you'll get your girl."1
They were talking about me! The no good alpha was selling me back to the New Mechanical order.
I looked closely at the slave girl. She had one arm over her chest which held the elbow of her other arm up with her hand by her face. Then I realised the way if she was holding hand near her head. The last slave I had seen do that was just-read-the-instructions. This slave was one of Zola's skype slaves.1
"The perfume is to be delivered to Judas city, the counsellor will take delivery of it as planned. Then fly the blood to the secret location." said Zola's slave to a human.
My guess was that this blood was being sent to Zola and General Bitstream. It looked like Zola and Bitstream were behind the whole oblivion perfume racket. My attention was so tight trying to understand what was being said that I've failed to follow my training by checking my six occasionally. Suddenly I felt a hand over my mouth and the knife at my throat.
"shssss" whispered Loop's voice into my ear "it's me you're safe, your not going to scream are you?"
I shook my head and Loop let go.
I immediately pulled my bow on him. He held his hand above his pistol and held the blade upright showing in a sign of not attacking.
I use hand signals to ask him what he was doing. Loop signed back that he had followed me.
'you enemy?' I signed at him.
Loop looked confused. I pointed down at Zola's Skype slave and Nina the Alpha.
'WTF' Loop signed to me.12
There was a doorway to a room a few metres away. I used my bow to indicate the direction and that he should go. We went in and close the door.
"What's going on?" said Loop.
"I could ask you the same thing. As far as I can tell the resistance is brewing oblivion for Judas City."
"That's mad" said Loop. "you must have heard wrong. All this can't be right!"
"They also seem to be sending blood back" I said.
"Well that must be wrong, no one in Liberty city had any marks from blood" he said
"She's also got a whole bunch of zoned out slaves who have been driven into being little more than cabbages by perfume. Perfume, that Nina is getting brewed here." I said.
"Why don't we go and talk to Nina?" said Loop.
"She's talking about selling me to Zola the cyborg. They also have a whole bunch of zombie cyborg animals down there. I think the are all zombies like Zom. I get it, Zom must have escaped from here."
"You realise how insane what you're saying sounds?" said Loop.1
"You think it's insane how do you think I feel? Let's go out, listen to the conversation again see what you hear" I said.
I could see Loop straining his eyeballs. I turned my back as he turned into a wolf again. He could hear better in wolf form.
"Can you understand what I'm saying to you like this?" I asked him.
The Loop Wolf nodded.
"You just can't talk?" I asked.
He nodded again.
"I kind of like you like this, okay let's go" I said picking up his trousers, shirt and weapon.1
When we crept back to the railing Nina and the Skype slave was gone. I signed that we should go down the service staircase to find them. There was still no sign of Nina. We couldn't find her or the slave. We went back up to the chicken shed surface level were I heard murmuring and I walked toward a sound.
There was something behind the door. I opened it and found light seeping out. I smelt saw dust looked round and saw cyborg animals standing around. Creeping further in I saw they were all zombies. They ignored me and ignored each other. I realised the murmuring was the Zombie's moaning and making odd noises. My hand reached through the doorway I passed Loop his trousers back. He rejoined me in human form and closed the door.
"God its Surry hills all over again" Loop said.
"Cyber Zombies lots of them. It's like a Cyber Zombie convention is on" I said.
Each of the cyber-zombies had mines strapped to them. From each one there was an orange and white ribbon hanging from the mine with the word 'arm' written on it.
I waved my hand in front of one of the zombies - dead to the world. Occasionally the implant would flash and the zombie would go up and walk up to a column and drink milk from a bottle. When the flashing stopped the zombie would drift away aimlessly.
"Your wife is going round stepping landmines to zombies. What kind of loon did you marry Loop? Does this run in your family?" I said.
"Hold it right there." said a voice behind me.
I twisted round and pulled my bow out to full extent.
"Let the arrow loose over there or you get it. Loop hands behind your head" said Nina's voice. She was there with three more marines behind her.6
I had a brief second to decided what to do. I fired the arrow off into the zombie crowd hitting my target. A red ribbon, pulling it out and sticking it into another Zombie's behind. The zombie arrow and ribbon just kept walking off.
I got my hands tied behind my back by one of Nina's officers. I noticed Zola's slave hiding in the shadows then creeping away.
She marched us off to a control room.
"Nina this is ridiculous" said Loop.
"It's Alpha or postmaster general, solider. Just let me explain" said Nina "You're not seeing the bigger picture. Once I let you in on project X you will understand."
"Listen Nina, you have been baying at the moon too much. New Mechanical order is using you." I said.
"Not all the collaborators are happy with how things turned out. " said the Nina clearly thinking she was working with human collaborators, not the robots and cyborgs, specifically Zola. "Loop, we've been loosing and loosing and loosing to the machines. We can't fight with one hand tied behind our backs anymore. We need food, supplies, ammunition" said Nina.1
"By selling perfume to the collaborators to use on their slaves that only makes their lives easier" I said.
"Ignore her Loop. The US army has been reduced to a gorilla action. You look up any military history of gorilla warfare there is a state, a money supply or weapons supplier backing them. We have precisely nothing. We lost everything when the machines took over. We needed a way of getting, weapons, ammunition, supplies otherwise this insurgency is dead. I had to make hard decisions but this is war."1
"Yeh, but didn't anyone explain to you your not at war with the slaves. They are what we technically called PEOPLE. You're trying to fight THE ROBOTS. They are the shiny metal ones" I said clearly pronouncing 'people' and 'robots' like a rubbish supply teacher.
"Loop down there for the first time ever, we nearly have a bi
g enough army to launch an attack on the Robot city. Fearless soldiers, soldiers who are willing to attack the robots were it hurts."
"You've weaponised animals and reduced who knows how many people to little more than door mats to pay for it." I said.
"A weaponized animal is the best definition of a solider I've heard" said Nina.
"They are slaves down there, they are the people you're trying to free. You selling robots blood. Your brewing their perfume " I said.
"That blood, that perfume buys food, weapons, ammunition resources from the very people who we are trying to destroy. How do you think this place stays off the map? Our contact in Judas city keeps us off the robot books. " said Nina "They would make the perfume any way. Here or some where else, this way we get advantage out of it. We could stop it but we couldn't stop them"
"What about Jenny?" said Loop "you sold her out to."
"What's wrong with you Loop are you on funny juice ? In exchange for her I'm getting some significant ordinance, surveillance protection and an upto date map of the machine city."2
"Zola is using you" I said.
"For your information I'm dealing with senator McConnell " said Nina .
"In your dreams. That slave was acting for Lady Zola" I promised.
There was a loud bang near by.
"What was that?" said Nina.
"Either the Zombies are revolting or it's a case of mass flatulence" I said.2
Suddenly there was a huge blast. I ended up on the ground and everything was practically muted like I was underwater. I looked round, Loop and I were on our sides. Looking up the wall was blown out. Nina was thrown over on the far side of the room. The wall was blown out and there were zombie animals on the outer side of the hole both walking and struggling on the ground. Quickly the volume slowly came up. My ears rang.
Looking back at Loop was transitioning to a wolf again. Doing so his paws were free and he was able to get to his feet. Just as quickly he became a man, grabbed me and pulled me out of the room grabbing the dazed Nina while he did. The sound of alarm bells filled my ear. There was another explosion further away. Loop opened a door again and went back into the room. By the time he came out I was on my feet. My nose was bleeding. Nina was coming too. Loop emerged slamming the door shut he was carrying a gun my bow and a large knife. 1
"We will argue this out later first we need to get out" said Loop. Well there was something I could agree about.
He threw me the bow and quiver. He took the gun and passed the knife to Nina, she nodded. We started trying to navigate out of the maze of dimly lit twisting metal passages. We got to the large shaft where the missile originally stood. Looking down there were more zombies emerging out of the chambers.1
"The explosions are disturbing them. Look there is one pulling out it's safety ribbons. What's making them do that?" said Nina.
I watched as all the cyborg zombies started to bite into the air and pulled at nothing. Eventually, one would randomly bite at a red safety ping table and pull the safety ping out. Their implants were flashing, my bet was that Zola was doing this. 1
This was followed by another explosion. The lights flickered off it was pitch black.
"What now?" said Loop "we are blind"
"Give me your gun," I said " go wolf and then use your sense of smell to get us out."4
I felt the gun in my hand, I gave my hand to Nina and let Loop pull me around by dragging the other end of the bow. I could here zombies all over the place. 'Ack , Ack' they said. Occasionally there was another explosion changed back. Finally, Loop changed back.
"There is a smell of sweet air above," said Loop her went up then came back " the hatch is stuck" said his voice in the dark.
"Loop go up and get it moved. " Ordered Nina "The girl follows and I'll keep them off".
She gave the orders but I noticed Loop didn't reach past me to give her the gun.
"Rodger" said Loop's voice in the darkness.
I began climbing after Loop. It was still pitch black. Loop got to the top of the ladder to find a locked escape hatch. He fired a couple of times and in the flash, I looked down to see a large space with a flood of animal cyber zombies marching around. There was a satisfying clunk sound as Loop shouldered the thick steel plate over with a grunt. I emerged after Loop no the grass outside above the bunker.
I looked back down the man hold. Below me on the bottom of the ladder was Nina kicking and fighting with the knife. The zombies kept grabbing at her. One went for her legs, another started biting her hands. I climbed up and out then looked back down. The lights had come back on. Nina was still fighting but it was a loosing battle they were all over her. She pulled her hand up and had lost three fingers. I shot what Zombies I could with my bow. Finally, Nina was neck deep in zombies, she couldn't move. I looked down, she looked back up and shouted nodding.
"They've got me ! Kill me! Please " she ordered. I got the bow, pulled and shot her.23
Loop pulled me away and we started to make for the gate house in Liberty City. We had only got a couple of paces before a huge explosion shook the ground and a jet of orange flame leapt out of the hole. This was followed by a second explosion and orange flame. A brief second later by another one to our left. At this point I was running for my life. I just knew the one good blast would set a chain reaction off. I saw a zombie up ahead, it was between me and the Liberty city gates. I was still holding my bow so I just let a shot loose at it before it managed to grab me. We reached the gates and while Loop banged on the metal I looked back. The gate opened.
"Where is the Alpha?" said a voice.
"The Alpha is down, Jenny is designate" said Loop going in. The explosions had stopped but I could see a tunnel entrance with zombies staggering out of it. Many were injured, bleeding. I could see cyborgs lights flashing. Someone was sending messages someone was controlling them. It must have been Zola. She must have make implants fail, then used Nina to hide them and was now controlling them.+
Chapter 90/Resitance/I like any plan you can write on a t-shirt
Rodi looked up, from high in the sky he saw a a black streaking smudge.
"In coming" shouted Rodi.
People started to run for cover.
Looking up I saw it was a body falling towards us. I wondered how the zombie animals managed to do anything so organised as launch anyone towards the city. The body suddenly changed shape and turned into a large foot ball. I changed my mind that wasn't a body it was someone in the kind of air-bag harness that Rockwood had sent me base jumping in, at the breeding party. The ball slowed down then landed in the open space and bounced hitting a building and landing back on the ground again.
Before I could say 'fetch' Loop had taken wolf form and was down rushing off after the airbag ball.
I rushed down the steps shouting 'don't shoot' to the marines. By the time I got to the airbag it was already deflating. The fabric was waving around as some one tried to find there way out.
A slave girl emerged from the fabric she carried some dangerous looking weapon. She was wearing a helmet and goggles.
"What a beautiful fem, I'm in love." said Rodi beside me, gun at the ready. The girl was a curvaceous slave girl she wore the kind of unitard outfit we had at Rockwood hall complete with split skirt..
"Do you like me or the gun?" said a familiar voice taking the helmet off "coz if it's not the gun your going to be sadly disappointed"1
"Joe!" I said in delight recognising the voice.8
"Yoh Jenny? Is that you?" said Joe coming up and hugging me.1
"In the flesh" I said "What are you doing here?"
"It's complicated can we go some were to talk?" said Joe resting his gun on his shoulder.2
****
"For you I have time" I said and we walked away towards the barracks "How did you get here?"
"I jumped out of a supersonic jet with out a parachute... but I did have the landing bags" said Joe.
"This is crazy how did you know I was here?" I said.
/> "Urgent news first Well the first urgent bit of news is Zola is coming here. I think she's controlling the zombie horde out side" Joe said.
"Joe. There is something you need to know about Kayla" I said seriously as we walked into the barracks.
"That she was working as in infiltrator when we first met her? Yes I know" said Joe.
"You knew?" I said.
"Yes and I'm a bit ssip-ed off you didn't tell me? I thought you were my friend" said Joe.4
Now I felt like someone had dropped me down a deep well.
"When did you know?" I said.
"I heard her confess to you in the cargo pod the day we were delivered, you know when I was buried under the boxes." Joe spotted a chair "Oh I can sit on the chair that's novel." said Joe sitting down "good everything was swimming around."
"Fubar Joe why didn't you say" I said.
"I think the bigger question was why didn't you say?" Joe said "It was a big thing to confess to me and I was willing to give her time to say it, when she was ready. Her I could understand but you well that hurt."
"But Joe she was a collaborator, I thought you hated collaborators" I said.
"I do hate collaborators, but you know what ? You don't choose who you love. I still love her despite her dodgy decision making" said Joe.
"You don't understand Joe she's back on the game. She was working for Rockwood all along. The reason I didn't tell you was because I was brain washed" I said digging up an old past I would rather forget.
"That brings me to urgent part two. You brainwashed Really ? Argoto" said Joe.
"Yes and?" I began.
Joe looked at me confidently "Don't feel like a quick having, what do the the English say? A quick snog?"
