War Machine (The Combat-K Series)

by Andy Remic

  “A hundred?” said Keenan. His jaw hardened. “Well, it’s about time we got you some payback.”

  They dried themselves in front of the metta-melt furnace. Franco tied Betezh to an array of thick pipes, and the shaven-headed man sat, battered head down, eyes hooded.

  The children had hidden when the rest of the group arrived, but slowly emerged, wary and wide-eyed. Klik brought them food, meagre supplies of cheese and fish in tins. Pippa smiled, as Rebekka stood and moved among the black children, stroking their heads and patting shoulders. Her face had come alight, as if she had finally come home.

  “I cannot believe it,” said Rebekka after the tale had been re-told, “a hundred of you! Dead! By machines?” She stared hard at Keenan. “We must stop this. We must end this.”

  “And we must find weapons,” said Keenan, voice gentle. He smiled. “OK, volunteers for Operation Dog Trap?”

  “Me,” said Franco. “I fancy me some road kill.”

  “You mean gun kill,” said Pippa, glancing at him.

  “Whatever.”

  “You been taking your tablets, Franco?”

  “Funnily enough, after you got our Hornet blasted, flaming and honking from the skies, there doesn’t seem to be a local pharmacy.” He smiled. “But then, I’ve never felt better! Absolutely buzzing! Full of beans! Full of... life!” He grinned again.

  “It won’t last long,” said Betezh, voice hardly more than a growl.

  Attention focused on him, on his battered, dirt-smeared physique. His head rose slowly, eyes glowing dark by the light of the metta-melt furnace. He stared at the group with ill-disguised contempt.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Pippa.

  “The drugs,” said Betezh, rubbing at his eyes. Raze-wire cut his wrists, opening old wounds. Blood ran down his flesh, and dripped to the rusted metal between battered boots. “They were a very special concoction. Reactive, you could say.”

  “Reactive?”

  “Tetra hydrochlorinate, fezta sulphide, pallium binoxroate: the drugs are ingested, bond to human DNA receptors, become part of the patient, until death. It’s the latest breakthrough in medical science.” He laughed, focusing on Franco. “Ideal for mental patients.”

  “Why’s that?” said Franco, a deep crease furrowing his brow.

  “Because if supply is withdrawn, the patient dies.”

  “Bullshit,” said Pippa. “Don’t believe him. He’s bluffing.”

  “Am I?” said Betezh. “Why would I? It’s not like I’m bartering. It’s not like I really give a fuck. All I know is, if Franco doesn’t get his fix—and soon—strange things will start happening to him, ending, obviously, in an instant but very painful collapse.”

  “What will happen?” Franco had gone ashen.

  “Every molecule in your body will slowly implode. Takes about an hour. I’ve seen the results. Even the photos make you want to puke. Franco, I’ve never heard screams like it. I watched, from an Experiment Booth. I wasn’t aware that human vocal chords were capable of such sounds, and for such a prolonged period.” Betezh gave a fake shudder. “Gives me the heebie jeebies.”

  Franco levelled his gun.

  “No,” said Keenan. “No! Franco, get over there. Pippa, check him over. And for God’s sake, take his gun off him... Betezh.” Keenan put his own MPK in Betezh’s battered face. “Keep your mouth shut, fucker, or I will drill you full of metal.”

  Betezh shrugged, but closed his mouth. His eyes returned to the floor.

  “OK,” said Keenan. “Me, Pippa, Franco, we’ll go and sort these Dogs out. Rebekka,” he handed her a gun, which she took, a little reluctantly, “you keep an eye on our resident shit-stirrer. If he blinks, shoot him.”

  “What, in front of the kids?”

  “Yes, in front of the kids. Rebekka, they’ve seen a hundred of their friends ripped to shreds by mechanical creatures; I think one more atrocity won’t tip them over the edge. And Cam?”

  “Yes, Keenan?”

  “Have you heard of these Dogs?”

  “No, Keenan, sorry.” The small PopBot spun. The metta-melt glittered from its dark case. “They sound a bit like Andalusian Mek-Backs, but those creatures are AIs. They’d never kill children. AIs are not like that. And anyway, they’re very rare; were decommissioned centuries ago.”

  Pippa snorted.

  “Well, we’ll soon find out. Rebekka, you OK?”

  She nodded.

  “Franco, Pippa, let’s go and see what all the fuss is about.”

  Deck 15.

  The leading corridor was lit by a few stuttering lights. An enclosed area, the corridors were narrow and lined with pipes, silent and cold within the belly of the Rig... and as dead as the rest of the rotting shell. This was soon followed by an area of titanic proportions: the Gem Rig’s storeroom.

  It was dark, gloom-laden: a ceiling-high stacked hive of crates, metal cubes, alloy canisters, barrels, boxes, shelving, tubs, jars, tubes, and a myriad of alienstorage units, several of which twisted into another dimension and created brain-ache at a glance.

  Franco was sweating, and sweating hard. On his hands and knees, with distant red light giving weak illumination, he waited, listening, sweat beading his forehead, prickling between his shoulder blades, lathering his flanks.

  “Volunteer,”he muttered, a frown eating his brows. Then, affecting Keenan’s voice, he said, “Ha! I need a volunteer. As the decoy! Ahhh Franco. So good of you to raise your hand!” And Franco, stood there, scratching his nose. “Wha’?”

  Now he knelt, and jiggled like a pressure nozzle being gradually turned up. Franco had to admit it; his nerves were getting to him.

  Somewhere in this warren, maze, labyrinth, hive, were three metal creatures the children referred to as Dogs, which had slaughtered their way through a hundred little people. It made Franco sick; it made him want to kill; but most of all, he knew how resourceful children could be, and so it made him a tad nervous of what he was actually up against. So far, Ket hadn’t appeared too friendly.

  Franco scampered forward on hands and knees. He checked his earpiece, linked back to the battered PAD and locked in to Cam’s frequencies for relaying and bouncing signals.

  “You still there, Franco?”

  “Still here, boss.”

  “See anything?”

  “Nada.”

  “There’s nothing on the PAD, nothing at all: no movement, no life. The place is as dead as a very dead dodo.”

  Franco chewed his lip. He’d been in the game long enough to know that just because a scanner wasn’t picking up danger, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. After all, a hundred dead kids were howling from beyond the grave. He had to push on; how could he let any more suffer when he had the hardware to do something about it? That would make him worse than any maggot.

  “I’ll keep on it.”

  “Good man.”

  Keenan and Pippa, some hundred metres behind Franco and tracking him carefully, wore their WarSuits with protection turned to full; their MPKs were primed and ready for an assault.

  Franco halted. Red strobe-lights striped his face. His eyes gleamed like a demon’s. He wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced around. Towering metal crates loomed over him, forming an unnatural tunnel. Red light gleamed from ersatz metal walls. Franco felt a glimmer of claustrophobia crawl into his mouth, down his throat, and squeeze his stomach in a fist of pressure.

  “It’s too quiet,” said Franco. “It’s unnatural.”

  “Keep moving. They’ll be watching you.”

  “Cheers,” said Franco sourly. “You make me feel a whole lot better.”

  He moved on in a crouch, eyes picking out shadows warily, head moving in steady turns as he tracked for danger. Something was out there; he could smell it, taste it. And it tasted bad.

  Working his way through a maze of stacked metal cubic crates, each stamped with stencilled alien lettering, their frames a matt black, their walls polished chrome, Franco halted. He was painfully aware
he was open from all angles. There was no wall to place his back against, no bulwark behind which he could seek cover. This was a place of openness, a place of... ambush.

  Franco swallowed.

  It had come up ahead of him, what appeared to be...

  What appeared to be a swarm of glinting dust motes.

  The tiny metal objects fluttered and swirled like a swarm of bees, interweaving and moving in almost modulated pulses. They flowed like liquid around the corner and formed into a broad, vaguely rectangular shape.

  Franco blinked... and the fluttering, dust-like apparition hardened. It solidified. Went from dust to object; a bare, silver, plain rectangular block of what looked like metal.

  Franco pointed his gun. He wasn’t ashamed of the fact that the muzzle wavered.

  “It’s here.”

  “Yeah,” crackled Keenan’s voice through the far-from-technologically advanced temporary comms systems. “It’s just shown up on the PAD. What is it?”

  “It was dust,” hissed Franco. Sweat was trickling under his WarSuit; heat prickled his scalp under his ginger shaved stubble. “Particles, all swirling. That’s why the PAD couldn’t get a fix.”

  “What do you mean, particles?”

  “Like dust, like... shit,” said Franco.

  “I know what it is,” said Cam’s voice over the link. “It’s an MMPS. Not an AI, but a system that runs to a set of algorithms. Therefore, it has non-life, non-human status. It feels no empathy, just carries out its job. It will be assigned to protect these stores; after all, you don’t want any little mook wandering in and stealing military-grade RPGs or RPNs, do you?”

  “What’s an MMPS?” said Keenan.

  “A Myriad Metal Particle System. Can take any shape the programmers decide; similar to a swarm of Nanobots, only much bigger, much less intelligent. At the forefront of military development about ten years ago, before NanoTek became involved and upped the stakes of nano-molecular technology. MMPS was the forerunner; the simple, and retarded, father.”

  “Is it dangerous?” asked Franco, eyeing the solid block with a squint of wariness.

  “Oh yes,” said Cam’s voice, very soft now, little more than a digital whisper.

  “What’s it doing?” said Keenan.

  “Nothing. Just... well, it’s just there. A solid block, about the size of—wait, wait... it’s growing.”

  The block seemed, for a moment, to become insubstantial, like a ghost. Then it flexed, and started to enlarge. Franco wanted desperately to back away, but decided not to move. What happened if it hunted on movement? Shit. Shit! He chewed his lip, glancing down at his MPK. It seemed, suddenly, pointless. He had no armour piercing rounds, no glow-shells, no liq-N bombs. How could he fight something that was, to all intents and purposes, a cloud of metal dust?

  Franco heard the sound of tearing metal through his earpiece.

  “We’ve found some weapons,” said Keenan’s voice. “We’re going to tool up, come and meet you.”

  “Good,” breathed Franco in relief.

  Then he watched as the rectangular block of metal started to... morph.

  “Keenan, it’s doing something.”

  “Be there in a minute.”

  “Keenan, it’s changing.”

  “Give us a minute, Franco. You’re the decoy. You’re there to let us get some better weapons. Use your brain. If it charges, run, lead it on a wild goose-chase... or something.”

  “Cheers Keenan!”

  The block was changing, ghost-like, pulsing, legs extruding from the metal body, a head pushing forward with liquid smoothness. It morphed and transmogrified, until it became... a dog.

  But it wasn’t like any dog Franco had ever seen; this was monstrous, a kind of reptilian dog-shaped horror from the pit of a genetically mutated dog-hell. He blinked. He frowned. He chewed his lip. He cursed. “Shit,” he said, and he meant it, realising his hands were sweat-slippery against his matt weapon. The metal dog was moving, weaving its still elongating and pulsing head from side to side. Scales like armour rippled along its flanks, and huge disjointed teeth crunched from a maw without the ability to close. Pale blanks of dull silver—which served as eyes—turned on Franco and he felt chilled. The thrashing halted.

  The Dog stood. It focused on Franco.

  It growled.

  “Great,” snapped Franco, turned, and head down, he ran.

  The Dog leapt after him, claws smashing sparks from metal panels on the floor. Its galloping thudded and boomed around the storehouse. Franco pumped his arms like pistons, jaw muscles rigid, MPK flapping uselessly against his chest.

  He whirled around a corner, skidding along a stack of crates with the Dog’s jaws snapping inches from his arse. Franco yelped, spun, and unleashed a hail of bullets that screamed from the MPK, clattering from armour plates, deflected like droplets of foam. The Dog slid, claws gouging the floor, losing ground. It turned and leapt again, closing on Franco, who pounded down another corridor of storage. Franco leapt, grasping the edge of a huge metal drum and hauling himself up. The Dog’s jaws dug sparking grooves in the drum; then it bounced back, clattering to the ground. Franco hauled himself up, moaning and groaning, and stood, looking down at the Dog.

  It growled again; a sound like spanners caught in cog wheels.

  “Gods, you’re one ugly little sucker,” spat Franco.

  The Dog snapped. Its blank eyes sent shivers down Franco’s spine: no intelligence, no sentience, and yet a glimmer there, almost like headlights on a car. There was no life, but sometimes, just in the right light, it could almostlook... alive.

  Franco fired off more rounds. The Dog’s metal hide deflected bullets easily. It ignored the irritant like fleas.

  “Keenan?”

  “We’re in, Franco. Whoo-ee, holy shit, we have ourselves an arsenal!”

  “Keenan, I’ve got a problem.” Franco watched the Dog trotting away. No, he thought, it can’t be thateasy. And he was right. It wasn’t. “Keenan, they’re impervious to bullets. You’re gonna need bombs. High J would be a good idea. We need to melt these little maggots.”

  The Dog was staring, not at Franco, but at the tall drum on which he stood. Franco glanced around. Crates teetered to either side, but were too far away for him to jump. He swallowed with a dry throat, and watched the Dog lower its head, and... charge.

  “Bastard,” he muttered as the metal thing pounded towards the drum. Franco tensed, and as the Dog connected so he leapt, screeching like a banshee, for the nearest stack of crates. His fingers, outstretched, shaved dust from the top crate, scraped lines of flesh down the wood, and lodged on the second crate down. Franco’s legs slammed against the stack and he bounced, thudding, against the wood.

  “I made it,” he breathed.

  The Dog’s impact left a huge dent in the massive barrel, which slowly folded, the base appearing to melt inwards, and then crashed to the walkway. The Dog began to savage the metal, twisted jaws and fangs tearing stupidly at the barrel’s rim, and pulling free long strips of alloy, curled spiralled shavings, which rattled on the ground.

  Franco kicked, struggling to heave himself up to the top crate. His fingers, scorched by friction, scrabbled uselessly. Sweat dripped in his eyes. “Damn and bloody bollocks,” he said, watching the Dog finish its impromptu meal of metal, and then turn slowly to stare up at him. It seemed to be grinning.

  “Nice doggy,” said Franco.

  It growled, but the growl seemed suddenly to amplify, to take on a much deeper, resonant tone, a reverberation of metal animal noise that bounced around the corridor and filled Franco’s head with a feeling of nausea right down to his belly. Franco altered his angle of viewing, and realised why.

  Another two Dogs had appeared, and their growling seemed synchronous. Yet they looked different, one larger than the first, black metal with spikes sticking like spears along its arched ridged spine, and another smaller, sleeker, but with an infinitely more evil look on its long slim metal face. They all had the same blan
k platters of metal for eyes. Franco watched them pace around the base of the crates, watched the slim one peel off—almost like a fighter in a squadron—and pad away into strip-lit red gloom.

  Where’s it gone? Bugger. BUGGER!

  “Keenan?”

  “We’re coming.”

  “You got bombs?”

  “We got bombs.”

  “Thank God!”

  “But we can’t use them.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Cam tells me this place is unstable.”

  “Unstable? Unstable? What the bollocks does he mean unstable? What’s unstable about it? Keenan, I’m about to get bloody eaten by these horrible terrible uglythings!”

  “Listen, the whole Gem Rig is a structure for drilling gems, not enduring a bout of grenade warfare. Because of its age, Cam thinks any heavy metal detonation might seriously weaken some of the supporting struts, due to resonation, or something.”

  “Great. Bastard. Just great.”

  “It’s OK. I have ‘A Plan’.”

  “It’d better be a good one!”

  “Just hang in there!”

  Franco stared at the ground. “I’m trying,” he whimpered. He started trying to climb again, and made it halfway up the top crate. Then he caught sight of the slim Dog returning; with a high pitched whine it started to clatter down the corridor, gathering speed and then leaping, sailing through the air with jaws wide. Franco realised with fast-dawning horror that he was not high enough, that it could reach him, that, without its reduced size and weight, it could actually get to him.

  He swayed, his whole body a pendulum as the Dog crashed into the wooden crate, crashed into and through the wooden wall of the crate to lodge, half in and half out of the destroyed cube. Franco swung back, his legs bouncing from the stack. The Dog started to kick, growling and whining in a sick parody of a realdog; its legs thrashed and tore at the wood as it tried to reverse. Franco felt a shudder run through the stack of crates, and remembered noticing earlier that the stack was—well—unstable. It had been unevenly stacked, listing dangerously to one side. That meant it could very easily and quite possibly... Fall.