by Andy Remic
No more imminent Rockfalls threatened them under the harsh, beating sun.
"I need a piss," said Snake, eventually.
"Piss in your pants," said Keenan without turning. He had one elbow on the Buggy's door, a breeze whipping his short hair, a smoke dangling between his lips.
"They say smoking kills you," said Ed, after another few miles.
"Not as quickly as a D5 in the mouth. I'll take my chances, thanks very much."
"I'm serious, Keenan, I need a piss."
And I'm serious, Snake, piss in your pants."
"You have no compassion, brother."
"I have plenty of compassion for the people I like. You don't fall into that category. And don't call me your fucking brother; if I was any relation of yours, I would have executed our mother shortly after your birth."
They continued, the Buggy hammering across rocks and through ruts and the occasional wadi. Keenan kept an eye on the console readouts, aware the engine temperature was creeping into the red.
"You're going to have to stop soon," said Cam, voice low.
"I know. I'm pushing too hard."
"And then can I have a piss?" said Snake.
Keenan slammed the Buggy to the right, slewing through sand and dust and shale, which spat in a wide arc like scattering rainfall. The Buggy crunched to a stop beside a towering, solitary tree, and Keenan turned in his seat, glaring at Snake.
"Are you going to whine all the way to the Silglace, Snake, or do I use the BoneStapler from the medical box to staple your fucking mouth shut."
"I'm bored."
"Nice to meet you, Bored, that's an unusual name. Some people call me Killer, for obvious reasons. Now. Keep your damn mouth shut and I won't be forced to put a bullet in your spine."
"He's cracking," said Ed.
Snake nodded, smiling. "You're a fool, Keenan."
"You reckon?" Keenan climbed from the Buggy and stretched his back, twisting in both directions to loosen tense muscles. Pain battered him dully, like punches through a pillow, reminding him of recent exploits. He could picture Elana in his mind; one minute alive, the next squashed flat. Instant death. He grimaced. She had been his key to this place... and she'd been taken away in the blink of an eye. Just like we all go, he thought. Shit!
As Keenan stretched his legs, Snake prattled on, hands suspended slightly above his head, his single dark orb following Keenan like a missile tracking a target. "There's so much about this place you do not understand."
"What, and you've got a degree in the place?"
"I've been here before," said Snake, voice quiet.
Keenan turned, stared at the one-eyed mercenary. "Yeah, right. Bull and Shit, mate."
"I swear it, Keenan. It was a long time ago, well, not by the standards of this place. But I have been here; on a mission. Far north, in the ice and snow wastelands."
Keenan moved close, and offered Snake a gun in the face. "And what pearls of wisdom did you learn whilst you were down here?"
"It's busier than you think."
"Meaning?"
"The DropBots got it wrong, Keenan. They scanned the area, but were... misled. There's something here of incredible power. Something of which you have no understanding; it could crush you like a leaf in a storm."
"You talk of VOLOS?"
Snake went quiet, his head dropping a little. Then he looked up, and his single eye gleamed. He sniffed, and gazed around at the desert. "He's everywhere. Can see everything. This is his planet. His world. His..." Snake laughed, "his Sick World."
"What else do you know?"
"Hey, wouldn't you like me to spill."
Keenan slammed the D5's butt into Snake's head, and the mercenary was punched to one side, hanging, suspended by the SnapWire which drew eager blood from his wrists. Snake coughed, and spat on the Buggy's floor. Then he looked up and grinned. "That's the spirit," he said. "Go on, beat the shit out of me. Then we'll see who QGM court-martial. You getting all this, Cam? You recording it for your employers?"
Cam said nothing, and Keenan glanced at the little PopBot.
"What's he talking about?"
"I am required by QGM Law to report such things."
"This just gets better and better."
"We're in a State of War," said Snake. "There are rules. I may have broken them. But so have you."
Keenan, eyes narrowed, moved close to Snake. "You listen to me, shithead, between us lovers there are no rules no more. I'll do what I have to do, to get the job done. You tried to kill me, and no doubt would have done the same to the other squads without a second thought; that makes you expendable. Now, I advise you to keep your mouth shut, or I swear by everything I hold holy, not even Cam will drag me off you."
Snake gave a nod, and stayed silent.
Keenan strode off, pissing behind the towering tree, allowing his temper to slowly dissipate. Cam buzzed alongside him. "You want some advice?"
"Fuck off."
"Don't be like that, Keenan."
"Is that true? About having to report to QGM?"
"It's hardwired into all domestic models," said Cam, his voice uneasy. "It's so the military can commandeer every AI in the event of war. We are now in the event of war. I am, technically, no longer your property."
"So you obey QGM?"
"Yes."
"And if they were to order you to kill me?"
"Technically, I'd have to kill you."
"So, you'd betray me, as well?" He looked sideways at Cam.
"Of course not, Keenan! I'm yours, and we've been through a lot of shit together. Anyway, are you forgetting the Spinal Logic Cubes so quickly? QGM don't need me in order to carry out murder; they can spike you from ten billion miles away!"
Keenan leant against the tree and lit another cigarette. He stared off at distant mountains, huge and grey and orange, shaking his head, lost in thought. "This place is so wrong," he muttered. "What's going on here, Cam? Why did the DropBots fail to spot anything?"
"It seems to be linked to this VOLOS character."
"What is he? A robot? Deranged AI? An ancient king? I don't understand. And where is his centre of operations?"
"Something's coming."
Keenan stomped out his cigarette and scanned the desert. "Where? A buggy? A hovership?"
"Something substantially... bigger."
Keenan caught the tone in Cam's voice, and shielded his eyes. Then his teeth clamped tight shut as twenty mammoth SlamShips approached with a fast drone and whizzed overhead, massive, square black undercarriages flickering with green lights against matt black alloy. Keenan watched, as momentarily they blocked out the sun, and then they were gone leaving trails of ozone and exhaust vapour.
"Did they clock us?"
"Highly probable," said Cam. "They're Mk IVs. Old, in fact, obsolete in military terms. If we had a decent Hornet it'd take out all twenty in a blink; but we don't have a Hornet so it's totally academic. Here, in this place, now, they're the most advanced hardware I've witnessed. They saw us. And they pose a significant threat."
"To whom?"
"Our mission," said Cam.
"Yeah, right, our mission is to explore. To collect samples. Our mission is a piss-steam mission. It's a lame gig, buddy."
"Unless we find something, Keenan. And you found something. You found a junk who told you of VOLOS; you found a link to the civilisation we hunt, the civilisation that threatens the very fabric of Quad Gal. Keenan, we need to get this data out to QGM. We need to establish contact."
"All comms are down," said Keenan, quietly.
"I think I can re-establish contact."
"How?"
"Those ships," said Cam. "That warfleet. They will have components. I can cobble something together."
"You mean DekHelix Pro-Blag LightYear Projectors?"
"Yes," said Cam. "Something like that."
"You said warfleet. I'd have to agree, it looks like that. What disturbs me, Cam, my little tennis ball buddy, is where are they going? And mor
e importantly, who are they going to fight? Ships like that - they can carry, what? Eight, nine thousand infantry?"
"More like ten."
"This game is fast changing, Cam."
"Are we still heading for the Silglace?"
"For now. I want to track this Silver River. Can you log the trajectory of those ships? We can look them up next, put a few more pieces of the puzzle in place."
"Not only can I plot trajectories, now I've scanned mass and dimension I can track them. Theoretically. Unless VOLOS has something else up his sleeve."
"Good boy. Keep an eye on them, Cam. I can do without ten thousand enemy squaddies up my arse when I'm not expecting it."
"What about establishing contact with QGM?"
"All in good time," said Keenan. "Come. Let's get back to the Buggy. Snake and Ed are looking bored, and a little bit red. You got some sun cream? Thought not, a shame; we'll just have to let the fuckers burn."
They drove for eight hours, with occasional breaks where Cam would extract water - or a thick, bitter, honeyed approximation of water - from narrow-leaved spiky plants with an interesting organic disposition: the ability to fire poisoned barbs. They filled water bottles in dribbles, and bemoaned the harsh pounding of the sun.
Keenan, head shaded by his EBH in desert camouflage colours, watched as Snake and Ed slowly broiled in the back of the Buggy, moaning and whining, their pale white skin, too long idle in brothels and disreputable bars, graduating through scarlet shades to a bright and painful lobster red. Ed's facial tattoos did funny things when combined with the scorched torture of reddened skin, making him look considerably demonic. Ed complained long and hard about this perceived abuse.
As the MonkeyMan SatNav guided them with the unerring accuracy of a digital primate, they crested a rise in rolling, undulating dunes which seemed to fill the world with apparently endless fluctuations, an ocean of sand, a desolation of desert.
Keenan caressed the brakes, and the Buggy slowed, squeaked, and stopped. He killed the engine.
Below spread the ocean.
"Wow," said Ed, eyeing the sparkling expanse of rolling blue. "Where the desert meets the sea. Romantic."
Keenan glanced up at the sun, noting its position. "I'd say we have another hour of daylight."
"So what?" said Snake, weary now, his body slumped against the pressure of his SnapWires.
"I'm thinking of that rock rainfall; and wondering if it's attached, somehow, to the night."
"You think we need shelter?"
"I think so," said Keenan. He eyed the MonkeyMan. Fifty miles, to this so-called Silglace. But would it provide any form of shelter? Improbable. They had no way of knowing. "Cam, you want to scoot ahead, see if you can find a place to hide if God begins dropping boulders on our heads?"
"Sure thing, Kee. Will you be all right with these two idiots?"
Keenan smiled. "Oh yes. They are my... friends."
Cam zipped off, and Keenan cruised down to the edges of the ocean, where blue-silver waters had smoothed the beach in a massive crescent of flat, damp, solid sand. After the bumps and bashes of the rocky desert region, this hard-packed platter was like a fine racetrack and Keenan put his foot to the floor. The Buggy growled, surging ahead, picking up speed. They slammed along the flat beach, a salt-smell of ocean in their nostrils, the sun gradually lowering over the horizon and allowing green tinges from the still-invisible moon to filter into the scene. The ocean's rolling waves turned from blue-silver to blue-green, and the desert took on an alien hue, giving the Combat-K men no doubt they were on an esoteric world. A junk world. A sick world.
"Great," snapped Ed, as they powered along.
"What's that?" Keenan did not turn.
"There's a storm coming."
Keenan turned, could see towering dark clouds in the distance. He grimaced. "Is it coming this way?"
They powered along, and Keenan glanced back after a few minutes. The blackness filling the sky was closer. They heard the deep bass rumble of thunder. Green lightning flickered. Static seemed to fill the air.
"It is getting closer," said Ed.
"Shit," muttered Keenan, boot edging lower on the accelerator. The Buggy surged ahead, engine howling, and reached its maximum speed. Keenan watched the temp gauge. It touched the red.
"It's coming in fast," said Ed, a note of panic caressing his voice, and Keenan turned. The whole sky was black now, as on the opposite horizon the sun dipped out of sight, leaving a surreal, orange glow painting the rim of the world.
"How far?" came Snake's easy drawl.
"Twenty miles."
"We'll never make it."
"You don't say?"
"You must untie us," said Snake, face locked to Keenan. "When the storm hits, the rocks will bury this car. By leaving us Snapped up, well, it's nothing short of murder. It's a War Crime, Keenan."
"No."
"That's plain evil!" snapped Ed. "We'll die out here if you don't take off the wires!"
"Then you'll die," said Keenan, settling back into his seat and watching the needle creep ever more into the red. Yeah, he thought sourly. We'll all die. We'll all die when this heap of shit decides to weld its engine into one huge lump of useless alloy.
They powered along. Thunder rumbled, deafening now. And with it came a distant pitter patter, a tribal drumbeat of falling rocks. Both Ed and Snake were staring out the back of the Buggy as Keenan screamed along the flat beach, the ocean crashing to his left -
And realisation dawned.
There were no craters on the beach. It was flat, unmarked, devoid of rocks. Which meant one of two things; either the Rockfall storm had never ventured this far to the coast before - unlikely, after judging its widespread ferocity the previous night; or that, just possibly, it was following them.
"Shit!"
Cam slammed out of the fading twilight like a cannon shell, and forced an equilibrium beside Keenan's head. "The Silglace is up ahead, Keenan. We're on the correct trajectory. And you were right, there's a river that runs deep into the heart of the glacier - it's silver, a river of mercury!"
"But?"
"How'd you guess? It's guarded."
"By our friends in the SlamShips?"
"No. By Cryo Medics with IceTanks."
"By..." Keenan stared hard at Cam. "You're pulling my bell, right?"
"I swear to you, Keenan. IceTanks. They distil shells from the air, from the sea spray, freeze them, and fire them. There's twenty of the behemoths, they're real old, real... odd. And fifty of the... well, I'll call them soldiers for want of a better description. They have weapons."
"Machine guns?"
"Um. Sort of."
"What's a 'sort-of-machine-gun'?"
"They fire mercury shells. They seem to be based around... thermometers."
"What?" But all conversation was lost as Ed gave an animal howl and the storm - raging behind the speeding Buggy like a solid wall of tsunami, rocks pounding the beach from a raging torrent of skies and smashing it from a flat smooth racetrack into a garbled pebble-dash of geological mush - howled with a cacophony of thunder and an incredible dazzling light-show of crackling, discharging lightning...
"Ten miles," snarled Keenan.
The Buggy's needle touched the top of the red. Steam curled from the edges of the bonnet. The Buggy's speed very gradually, began to fall...
"What are you doing?" screamed Snake over the noise of the storm. Tribal drums filled the air, deafening and terrible, like God playing with a set of world-sized tom-toms to the accompaniment of devil-run acid-house factory-hell.
Keenan pumped the accelerator, his boot stamping in rising panic. But the Buggy continued to slow.
And the Rockfall storm swept over them...
CHAPTER EIGHT
PARA-MEDICS
Pippa, Betezh, Mel and Miller backtracked fast under the screeching advancing buffer blades of the wild-eyed cleaner, who in herself looked suddenly wild, elemental, a million miles removed from any semblance of normal
organic life...
"I must apologise," screamed the cleaner over the roaring of the buffer-turned-killing machine, "but you're dirtying up my corridor! You must be swept clean! Buffed to a shine! Sucked away! Scourged!" Cackling, the cleaner swung the slicer left and right, humming through the air like a bad trip, an out-of-control helicopter, and the group scattered backwards in panic.
Pippa caught Betezh's attention, and gestured; Betezh gave a tight-lipped nod.
He ran right, slamming into the wall and diving into a fast roll past humming blades as Pippa lifted, then hefted, her yukana sword, and launched it like a spear. The blade flashed through the air, and the cleaner moved fast, but not fast enough. The blade slammed through her external pumping heart, showering the floor with a splatter of blood. There came an "oof" of shock, and the deadly buffing machine slowed with a whine, left her fingers, clattered against the wall, shearing bricks and mortar in a shower of powdered debris, then gradually fell still with strangled shrings. The deadly blades lay motionless, battered and twisted.
The cleaner hit the floor, bleeding, grunting, and Pippa walked forward with the D4 aimed at her head. As Pippa gazed down, the cleaner fished in a leather bag at her hip, pulling free a fresh oiled and slippery heart. She fumbled for a minute, nearly dropping the organ, then unclipped the severed heart from her neck chain and went suddenly blue. With clumsy fingers, breathing suspended, she fitted the new heart in place and it stuttered, fluttering like an encased butterfly, shuddered and started to beat. The cleaner took a deep, exaggerated breath, easing herself from blue-tinged panic into calm, then turned and glared at Pippa.
"That damn well hurt!" she snapped.
Pippa lowered the D4, and poked the cleaner in the teeth. "Not as much as this will. Now listen, you freak, you're going to give me some answers because I'm fast getting sick of this place. Understand?"
"I will tell you nothing!"
"Then I'll blow off your stupid head."
"Do it!" snarled the cleaner. "You think I care? You think you can torture me more than my current existence? Well fuck you, city girl, there's nothing you can do that hasn't already been done. Torture me, rape me, cut out my organs..." her eyes gleamed. "Kill me. It matters nothing." She snarled again, like a caged animal, and spat at Pippa.
