by Rob May
‘I’ve been here before,’ Brug said. ‘We call it Fat Rock. And that cave is a catron lair. Me and Bunk raided it last year, looking for catron teeth. Pretty sure there’s no tunnel to Perazim back there.’
‘Maybe you just didn’t look hard enough,’ Rana said. ‘Come on in.’
Brug ordered the rest of the balak army to wait outside with Bunk, while he and the humans and zelfs had a look inside the cave. Everyone was on edge, fearing a trap, but Brandon was calm. He had confirmed, through the bionoids, that Rana was indeed a blood relation, and he could sense that the rest of her crew were as apprehensive as they were—the zelfs were frightened of the balaks, the jungle and the creepy cave full of bones.
He bent down and picked up a small curved bone. It was the tip of a catron’s claw; Brandon could see the channel where the deadly poison once ran. The claw was viciously sharp, and it bit into his skin like a hot needle into a ripe zit. He cursed under his breath, healed himself with the bionoids, then carefully tucked the claw away in his jeans pocket.
Rana had reached the back of the cave. She waved a hand and the rocky surface flickered like a fluorescent strip light, the cave wall changing from natural rock to machine-tooled metal. They were now all looking at a pair of double doors.
‘Adaptive texture camouflage,’ Brandon said. He had seen this technology before, when they first discovered his father’s spaceship, Discord, back on Earth. ‘The surface molecules reconfigure to match the crystalline structure of surrounding natural elements. The bionoids do the same thing when taking on a solid shape.’
‘Your father actually developed this technology at the behest of the Arch Predicant, to use in his spy network,’ Brandon’s aunt told him. ‘But the resistance managed to acquire some prototypes to use down here.’
She pushed the doors open and led everyone into a dark corridor that sloped downwards until it was about fifty metres underground. The walls were bare rock, but carved with geometric, tribal designs.
‘The balak temple had similar carvings,’ Kat noticed. ‘But this is part of a zelf temple, isn’t it?’
‘The zelfs and the balaks weren’t that different thousands of years ago,’ Rana said was they walked. ‘They even looked fairly similar. Centuries of easy living have softened the zelfs, whereas the hard jungle continues to toughen the balaks.’
‘And I’ll bet before that, thousands more years ago, the zelfs and the balaks were all one tribe,’ Brandon said. ‘Some great cataclysm might have torn them apart, forcing them to evolve independently.’
Bunk was scratching his head. ‘Wait a minute. Are you saying that Zaal created balaks and zelfs at the same time?’
‘No!’ Brandon laughed. ‘I’m saying that Zaal didn’t—’
Kat put a hand over his mouth. ‘Let’s not go there right now,’ she said sweetly.
Brandon shut up. There was no point in starting an argument when, for the first time in years, zelfs and balaks were engaged in a joint enterprise. He decided instead, since they were still some distance from Perazim, to ask his aunt about their family.
‘Did you know my parents well?’
‘No,’ she said, as they walked side by side at the head of the column. ‘I barely knew your father. I knew Dravid better. He and my sister were very happy together for the first years of their marriage. Neither of them cared much about religion at first, but as he rose in rank Dravid discovered that his power and status were dependent on the whims of the Arch Predicant. Paran hated the things he had to do—hunt balaks, enforce religious law—but Dravid’s ambition and violent streak outweighed his conscience.’
‘So my mother turned to Talem Tarsus,’ Brandon said. ‘My father.’
‘Yes. They became close when Talem approached Paran with some secret documents relating to the Thanamorph project. Between them, they tried to get it shut down. The Arch Predicant wanted to create an army of monsters he could unleash in the jungle to destroy the balaks. Legally, it was immoral, and scientifically it was dangerous and untested. Between them, Paran and Talem fought to shut down the project.’
‘They failed,’ Brandon said, thinking of his home planet that was overrun with the lab-created biological horrors.
‘They found each other, though,’ Rana said. She clapped Brandon on the shoulder. ‘So something good came out of it, at least. They never wanted to hurt Dravid; if she could, Paran would have divorced her first husband. But in Perazim, marriage is for life. Zaal doesn’t approve of those who break his ancient laws.’
‘Was that when you and my parents rebooted the resistance?’ Brandon asked.
‘Not your father. Just us. Talem was a university professor and an influential scientist. Paran didn’t want to involve him and put his life in danger. Well, as it turned out, danger found him anyway; he wound up in the dungeons awaiting execution after his bionoid weapon went horribly wrong. But before Paran fled Corroza with him, all those years ago, she promised me one thing: that the resistance wouldn’t die, and that the bionoids would one day return to us.’
The tunnel ended in another double door. Rana tapped out a message on her handheld communicator, and they waited.
‘In the last twenty years, the resistance has grown. We have agents in many prominent positions now. One of us spent a decade infiltrating the city guard, and now has responsibility for operating the defensive force field. And since the balaks have been taken into slavery, we have been able to recruit a great many of them, to work against their zelf masters right under their noses!’
The door opened, and a balak in shabby dungarees beckoned them inside.
‘This is Bugga,’ Rana said. ‘As far as anyone else is concerned, his only responsibility is refilling the food cube dispensers in the dungeons underneath the Tower of the Moons. But we gave him the all-important task of being gatekeeper of the secret tunnels.’
Bugga gave Brandon a typical twisted balak grin.
‘So come on in,’ Rana said. ‘This is your hometown, after all. The resistance has been building to this day for twenty years. Tonight, the Arch Predicant will fall. Everything is in place, and all we are waiting for, Brandon, is you.’
* * *
The resistance headquarters was an old abandoned factory in the city’s manufacturing ring, about half a kilometre above ground level. The city’s rings were a cross-sectional levels, dividing Perazim from top to bottom. The residential and leisure rings were higher up, with the government and temple rings at the very top of the city.
Rana showed Brandon and the others around their base. Young freedom fighters, most of them not that much older than Brandon, were checking and cleaning guns and rifles. A group of older, academic-looking men and women were poring over blueprints of the city, discussing strategy and tactics.
‘They used to build robots here,’ Rana said, pointing out a conveyor belt loaded with artificial pelvises. ‘Another of the Arch Predicant’s crazy schemes: to build an artificial army bound to his will. Unfortunately for him, the plans went awry. The artificial intelligence proved unpredictable, and some of the robots decided they didn’t want to be ordered around, and went rogue.’
‘Saorise!’ Kat said. Rana looked at her in confusion.
‘One of the robots made it to Earth,’ Brandon explained. ‘We dealt with it … eventually. Let’s not talk about that now though; it was a dark time. I want to hear your plans for this revolution.’
Rana introduced Brandon, Kat, Hewson and the balak brothers to the group gathered around the maps. An elderly zelf with a long white beard introduced himself as Doctor Wisto, a former philosophy professor at the university.
‘They fired me, though,’ he lamented, ‘when word reached the Arch Predicant that I was teaching my students to question the meaning of free will.’
The professor droned on, but Brandon ignored him and examined the map of the city. It was rolled out on paper, but drawn from an isometric perspective, so he could visualise the layout of the city on all levels. Some chunks of scrap me
tal had been placed on the map, like counters, at twelve different points, and one large rusted piston was positioned one the temple atop the Tower of the Moons. Brandon could guess who that one represented. ‘What are all these?’ he asked, pointing at the others.
Doctor Wisto cut his waffle short, and cleared his throat. ‘The twelve predicants,’ he said. ‘They rank directly below the Arch Predicant. And they are our targets tonight!’
‘We have people in place to capture them all at the same time,’ Rana explained. ‘Once we have them, we will force the Arch Predicant to step down. Then, our man who infiltrated the guard will shut down the force field for long enough for the balak slaves in the city to escape. It will be a swift, and bloodless, coup! If anyone does get injured, you will be on hand to help them, Brandon.’
Everyone at the table looked to him, for a reaction. Brandon himself looked to Hewson. The lieutenant gave a very slight shake of his head.
Brandon sighed and looked around the table of zelfs. ‘Do you think this is all a game?’ he asked them. ‘Do you think this is like chess, where you win if you checkmate the king, or the Arch Predicant in this case? Are you so sure that he will play by your rules?’
Doctor Wisto held up his hands. ‘He will have no choice. We will have his entire church held hostage.’
Brandon shook his head. ‘No. The Arch Predicant ordered my father to be sacrificed to his bloody god, in order to negotiate a peace with the balaks. A peace he then shattered after the death of the balak king, by turning the balaks into slaves. You can’t predict what someone like that will do if you simply capture his priests. He might happily make martyrs of them all. We need to scrub your plan and make a new one.’
Taking this as his cue, Brug leaned in and swept all the scrap off the table, leaving only the largest standing. ‘When Princess Doo and Human Jason get here, we are going after the Arch Predicant. No messing around with silly plans and games.’
The zelfs shrank back from the table in fear and awe. Brandon put his hand on Brug’s massive forearm and tried to give the zelfs an apologetic smile.
‘You’ve been waiting for me for twenty years,’ he said, ‘but the balaks have been waiting for a hero like my friend Jason to save them. If we want to help them, we have to do things their way.’
Rana shook her head. ‘The Arch Predicant has a whole army protecting him. Even if we join forces and fight, we are still just a few zelfs and a gang of balaks armed with big sticks.’
She glanced at Brug and Bunk. ‘No offence.’
Brug shrugged. His brother Bunk smiled, stroking his big stick.
‘We can combine our skills,’ Brandon said. ‘We can use your knowledge of the city to put things in motion; to put the Arch Predicant off his guard and lay the groundwork for a surprise attack. Yes, it will be dangerous and violent, and there’s a pretty good chance people will get hurt and killed on both sides, but this is the only way to make sure we stop the Arch Predicant for good. If we want to build a safe future for zelfs, humans and balaks, we have to tear down the old system first and start anew.’
‘Brandon’s right,’ Kat said, putting her arms around him. ‘You know what they say—you can’t make a pancake without breaking a few eggs!’
* * *
A couple of hours later, Brandon stepped back out of the cave and into the jungle. It was starting to get dark. The eternal storm rumbled overhead. In the shadows under the trees, Brandon could see a figure sitting on a rock waiting for him.
‘I thought you had forgotten about me,’ the President said. ‘I was about to launch a rescue attempt.’
Brandon had ordered the bionoids to wait outside the city, just in case there was a chance their presence would be detected. He wasn’t sure if the President really could have overruled his orders and broken in, but even if he couldn’t, Brandon sensed that the time was fast approaching when he would no longer be able control the bionoids.
‘Did you find Jason and Doo?’ he asked.
‘I sure did,’ the President said. ‘They are about an hour away from the city right now.’
Well, that was good news. Brandon thought for a few minutes. The plan he had hammered out with the resistance was flexible: mainly, it hanged on Brandon giving everyone time to get in position for a surprise attack.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We can bring those two into the plan later. It might work best if they don’t know too much. Let’s go.’
They started off through the jungle, taking whatever was the easiest route around the dense undergrowth, but keeping the blue glow of the city in front of them. Brandon moved fast, using the bionoids to draw energy from the surrounding flora to power his limbs. And as he did so, he could sense in the back of his mind that the President was claiming maybe half of the total number to bionoids to form his own physical body. Brandon was worried; right now, the President seemed happy to follow Brandon’s orders, but when would the balance of power start to shift?
They came out at the top of a deep ravine, with an angry river blasting its way hundreds of metres below. Brandon summoned the bionoids to lift him up and over, turning what would have been a bunny hop into a leap of Olympic proportions.
‘So, what is the plan?’ the President asked as they both landed on the other side. ‘Why are we taking the hard road to the city? What was wrong with that tunnel you found?’
‘It’s part of the plan,’ Brandon said. ‘You were right all along: attack is the best form of defence. Jason, Doo and the others are going to strike at the very heart of Perazim—at the Arch Predicant himself—and you and I are going to help them.’
The President used the super strength of his bionoids body to tear back a twisted growth of thorny branches. ‘I can take out the entire zelf army in less than a minute,’ he boasted, ‘but I can’t pass through the force field. The electric charge will short circuit every one of the nanobots.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Brandon said. ‘They will hopefully let us in when I tell them I’m surrendering.’
They were approaching the edge of the jungle. The second they stepped out onto the concrete dead zone that surrounded the city, they would be spotted.
‘Surrender, huh?’ the President said. ‘A ruse, I take it.’
‘Of course,’ Brandon said. ‘I’ll offer the Arch Predicant my services—tell him he can use the bionoids for the good of the city, so long as he doesn’t see them as a weapon. I don’t expect him to agree to that condition, though!’
The President laughed. ‘At which point we kill him?’
‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘At which point I destroy the bionoids for good.’
The President grabbed Brandon by the arm as he went to step out of the jungle. ‘Wait! You want to destroy us?’
Brandon tried to stay calm. He had expected this reaction, but he needed to deal with the President now, before he upset the plan inside the city. ‘I said you were right about fighting,’ Brandon told him. ‘But we have to fight without the bionoids.’
‘And risk your lives?’ the President said.
‘Risking your life is the price of freedom,’ Brandon said glibly. ‘It’s too easy with drones or bionoids.’
That was it. That was the moment that forced the President’s hand. ‘I can’t let you destroy us,’ he said ominously.
‘So try and stop me,’ Brandon said, drawing the bionoids still at his command into his fist, and delivering a lethal right hook which sent the President flying back into the jungle. He hit the thick rubbery trunk of one of the lightning trees hard, and bounced back to the jungle floor, disappearing into the undergrowth.
But Brandon knew that one punch wasn’t going to be enough. He reached out with his mind and tried to force his will onto the bionoids that made up the President’s body, but as he expected he was quickly rebuffed.
The President emerged from the foliage, spitting leaves from his mouth. Brandon felt sudden pain prickling at the ends of his nerves as the President attempted to invade his body. He mustered h
is own army of bionoids to repel the assault.
A hard rain had begun to fall, and was now making its way down through the canopy and was gushing in torrents off the lips of the giant flat leaves of the surrounding trees. Water was getting in Brandon’s eyes, making the glow of the strange luminous jungle plants smear and blur. In the disorienting environment, Brandon lost sight of his opponent.
Then suddenly the President appeared at Brandon’s side, knocking him to the ground with a solid punch to the ribs. Brandon fell into the mud and slid across the clearing, only coming to a halt when he knocked his head on a rocky outcrop. Only the bionoids, wrapping his body in a protective shell, saved him from a broken skull.
‘I have a new plan,’ the President said, advancing on where Brandon lay in a painful heap. ‘I’ll assimilate your brain and knowledge, then destroy you and assume your form. Then I can do what you could never do, and kill the Arch Predicant myself, and anyone who dares stand against me.’
Brandon jumped to his feet and hurled himself at the President. Together they flew through the air, this time stopping only when the President was impaled on a giant poisonous thorn. It was a move that would have killed off any number of run-of-the-mill video game bosses.
But the wound only made the President laugh. ‘Poison, pain and violence may have killed me once, but this body is impervious to human frailties.’ He pulled himself off the thorn, and the wound in his belly closed up as if it was never there. ‘You should be happy to give up your mind to me, Brandon; you could be immortal!’
‘I’d be the living dead,’ Brandon said, mentally fighting off the President’s attempts to scan his brain. ‘A ghost in the machine. I’d rather be just dead.’
‘Then just die,’ the President said, launching himself off the ground, grabbing Brandon by the neck and shooting upwards until Brandon’s back was smashed against the hard trunk of a tree. Holding onto the branches with one hand, and Brandon’s neck with the other, the President smashed Brandon again and again against the truck. Brandon could feel his bionoid shield falling away with each smash, as his mind tired of the mental effort.
