by Jack Lance
Immediately he was blinded by a rainbow coloured beam and then deafened by the cries of the heletank. Arc looked into the beam, stunned slightly, and heard the chain guns begin to rev up.
The crowd of escorts stood and waited to see what would happen next. They had waited a while when they saw Arc leap through the cloaking field on the motorbike.
The bike leaped out and landed on the corner of one of the holo projectors, inches away from the searing beam.
He dropped from it skimming against the outer fence surrounding the track and field, and landed hard on the sandy track. The huge wheels ground a deep groove into it as it gained a footing and then the bike jerked out over the grass.
“Yeeeeeeeeah!” he heard one of the girls cry, apparently missing the point that he was heading to murder her ‘trix’ as they say.
Behind them, the heletank bombed through the field and began screaming at Arc, who had nearly ridden to the opposite end of the field. He took it through an underpass leading beneath the seating on that side, and skidded around onto the central walkway.
It was a smooth path leading right across the citadel zone, and branching in a lot of directions here and there, leading to other features, some of which Arc had no idea about.
He accelerated along toward a ramp curving around to the gaping hole in the side of the closest citadel, that appeared to be the only way in or out. Using the back of the stands as cover against the heletank that was now searching very low overhead, he made it to the ramp, and leaned the bike onto the upward curve.
He kept accelerating as the ramp rose up from the ground, trying to build enough speed to cross the bridgeless gap. Ahead the heletank swung around behind the wall of the ramp and charged up its chain guns.
As Arc rode close by it it screeched out and opened fire while Arc leaned further down to use the smooth stone walls of the ramp as a meagre cover. The chain gun fire tore through it, but not in time to catch Arc.
He sped faster to the end of the path and darted out over the gap. The speed was enough to catch the path at the other side, and then in seconds he had arrowed through the brown, leather lined archway.
The citadel was huge in width, about the same distance across as any of the city caverns. Being as tall as it was, it could hold hundreds of thousands of people, which could give for a greater diversity in the genetic pool.
Maybe it will all be alright?
Arc chuckled.
The bike flew along the dark, arched corridor passing by each of the open doorways that led to broad spaces and auditoriums on both sides. The air smelled of damp chalk, and the walls looked to be made of a similar substance.
The end of the corridor, at the center of the citadel drew near, and Arc saw within, a pyramid of steps leading up to a red glowing platform.
As he passed by the last of the auditoriums and entered the pyramid room he heard a stifled voice shout at him from behind.
“Hey wait!” it yelled and Arc heard the patter of bare footsteps give chase.
Arc didn’t wait, and instead rode up the steps to the top of the pyramid and wheelspun around on the teleport pad there so that he was within arm’s reach of the holographic touch panel.
A short hairy figure ran out of the corridor and up the steps to him as he tapped in commands to teleport to the floor marked as “Living”.
There was only one floor marked as living space he found, with the others being technical or administrative, or disused such as the bottom floor.
He engaged the teleporter and the pad glowed red beneath the bike.
Arc looked at the strange person behind the clear touch panel, and found it to be a short man, covered in hair with beady bright blue eyeballs and rodent like teeth. He had clear deformities from the hundreds of generations of close inbreeding, such as a third hand that seemed to be reaching through the skin of its left shoulder.
Arc smiled at it, and pointed with a gun he made from his hand. He then blurred and teleported up to the living floor, close to the top of the citadel.
He emerged in a burst of static atop a similar pyramid of a different colour, and immediately rode down its steps. He accelerated along a much taller corridor in the same direction he had come, searching its adjoining smaller corridors for some indication of where to go next. The living places were a huge but claustrophobic construction of opulent marble and stone, mint in colour and draped with blood purple curtains along the walls.
There was the same dank chalk smell cut here with milk and something else he couldn’t quite place.
Arc sped along the tall hall passing other people with other mutations of their own. Some were slightly too tall, or too tall on one side, while others had primitive features such as hands that were too long or a large horn protruding from the top of their head. They were all tragic figures but didn’t seem to realize the fact. They watched Arc pass by with a calm curiosity, some nonchalantly walking to communications panel on the wall to report him.
Arc saw the end of the corridor and its huge window set into the wall, and realized that he was effectively chasing his tail. The place was a maze of corridors such as this, and if he wanted to make any kind of ground he’d need to ask for directions.
He saw a girl ahead before the window with her back to him and a virtual reality band around her head. She was dancing in front of three holograms of famous people from colony media, trying to match their dance moves to the music.
He stopped the bike behind her on the carpets and coughed.
She turned to look at him through the goggles in the band, while behind her the holograms turned red and the words ‘game over’ began to scroll.
“Oh! You messed up my game!” she said.
“I am sorry.” Arc said, trying not to draw attention to the fact that the girl had no nose, but a gap in the middle of her face so deep you could see the nose holes in her skull. “I’m looking for Horald Kinnyck?”
She pointed in the direction of the window and said “Banquet hall. Left at the wall and around the perimeter until you see the little sign saying… guess… banquet hall.”
“Thank you very much.” he smiled and accelerated past her.
He heard her shout “Rape!” as he left, but then he was too far away to care.
He turned in the direction she had said and raced along the outer path past many of the same large windows looking out over the fake sunny landscape of their homeworld.
What is this? The mighty Arc Micormic, scared?
“I’ll scare you in a minute.”
Back at the colony, the men and women escaping had walked across the whole breadth of the rim mountains. It was a long and winding walk, and they’d had to pass by a number of the huge speakers that had been either dragged or air dropped in. Squads of Earth troops charged by them at regular intervals toward the bloodbath the robots would undoubtedly send them into. The mountains were more tall than wide however, and so they’d reached the far side in a comfortable time.
They walked around the last of the jagged outcrops and saw the final opening of the narrow gorge. Beyond was a broad flat space that looked to have been artificially carved out, widening the natural gorge just before the end of the mountains. Beyond the two mountains it dropped steeply, with the peaks of other mountains descending away into the blizzards.
Nobody said anything, but watched as Farnon walked onward into the space, between two decayed office buildings without roofs, that on entering further they saw reached around the outside of the wider snowfield.
There were troops running left and right firing high powered rifles at the robots that were using the broken walls of the ruins for cover.
Ahead, at the precipice at the far side a mini dropship bouldered down out of the clouds. It was a metal box dragged down from orbit by two antigravity aerials that stuck out from the roof. It lowered the box over the huge precipice, level to the ground before opening the nearest side of the box. It swung down and slammed onto the ground doubling up as a ramp, and another load
of troops leaped out and ran into action, with most of them being cut down by a fan of plasma fire in the first few seconds. The remainder found decent cover and bided their time for an assault. The glow of the antennas died and the dropship fell away over the precipice, with two of the slower troops still inside.
They cried out but were too late, and fell with the box to join the others in a stack of them far below.
Farnon walked on through the space, and they found that Bailey’s theory had been true. They were being completely ignored by the troops. Shadow Security had authority over them, issued their orders, made the rules. As long as they remained under cover they would be safe from the troops.
As they made it to the center of the wide space between buildings a robot ran out and skidded in the snow beside them.
“Trespassers will be killed.” it said in English, and then shot Rhia in the side with a powerful bolt of plasma.
Farnon and Thom grabbed her before she could fall, and the others panicked and ran forward ahead of them to the one single ship that had landed.
The shadow security shuttle stood on four metal prongs just before the first slope of the precipice.
They ran up the ramp at the back between the short wings, no longer caring if the troops recognized them or not. Thom and Farnon dragged Rhia with her bare high heels leaving a trail through the snow behind them. They made it to the ramp and dragged her up into the narrow compartment within.
The others were huddled at the back with a few in the cockpit.
“Wait!” Farnon said, and pushed past them all. “Get out of there!”
He dragged two people out of the cockpit, not knowing who either of them were under their shrouds, and then sat in the pilot seat. On taking the controls he found that they were all covered in a film of light slime.
“Argh heck.” he said, then flicked his fingers over the controls and powered the shuttle up.
The ramp at the back began to raise and Thom pulled Rhia further in so to get clear of the it. He pulled away her shroud and they all saw the wound she had suffered.
She lay on the floor of the shuttle smiling up at them, with a huge hole in her abdomen showing clearly the wires and circuitry within.
“What were you sent here for again? Prostitution?” Faye said, sounding amused.
“Robot hooker?” Allstar chuckled.
The shuttle lifted off into the air and shouldered out over the long drop as the sleet steadily abused the upper side of the fuselage. As it turned to face away from the colourful exchange of plasma fire, another set of dropships bouldered down through the clouds, escorted by a slightly larger logistics ship.
“Darn it.” Farnon said flicking his hands over the control panels.
“What is it? What’s the problem now?” Faye said looking up at the approaching shapes.
“That escort is covered in scanning equipment. If they inventory this craft they’ll see we aren’t the proper crew.” Farnon said then looked over his shoulder through to the rear window. “Hold on.”
He took the shuttle back over, skimming the tops of the derelict buildings and then between the jagged peaks of the mountains. With a balancing act of anti gravity and thrust he took it right back through the narrow space above the ravine path, and then over the power station and hovered over the valley next to the dome.
Seeing that the ships had descended below the mountains and out of sight, Farnon slowly turned the ship around so that he was looking down on the door leading into Red Sector.
“Oh my word. Look.” Faye said pointing down.
Others from behind leaned to look through the cockpit window, and at first the most noticeable thing was the dark, open room above the door, and what looked to be a crucified person within. Below it within the flood lamps a crowd of people were slowly walking out of the doorway, filling the valley below.
Farnon swept spotlights at the front of the shuttle over their faces slowly.
None of them needed to say a word, as they knew too well now the look and feel of Old Gang’s narcotic junkies. They stood around on the ice and patches of bright blue rock below, staring transfixed at the shuttle as it banked away through the snow flurries, and then cut its lights.
Antigravity nodes on the front began throwing the ship away from the moon’s gravity well, kicking a small hole through the thick flow of storm clouds and then up above them toward the clear night sky.
Back at the citadel, Arc had reached the banquet hall.
Arc raised the front wheel and rammed the double doors open, seeing at first a large dining table surrounded by men. The closest was a fat man with his back to him, and a larger than average blinking eye staring from the back of his head through the hair.
Arc bunny hopped the bike up past him onto the table and then began shooting each of them in succession, doing his best to ignore their deformities. He ended at the fat man, and found there that the gun had emptied, and clicked repeatedly as Arc desperately tried to kill him.
The man was Horald Kinnyck, who now threw his yellow napkin onto the table with a dull anger.
“Ah Arc Micormic, I knew you would come.” he said as Arc frantically tried to reload the pistol. “So I was prepared.”
Kinnyck gestured as if something were supposed to happen, and Arc having now reloaded and cocked the pistol looked around to see what it could be. Nothing happened and so Arc cocked his head at Kinnyck and then shot him square in the chest, the force of which toppled him back in his chair.
That’s quite a misconception.
Sadly it wasn't, and a moment later more freaks began piling into the room behind them, this time armed with jagged whips and restraints. Half of them chickened out on actually setting eyes on Arc and scrambled to run back out of the door. The others didn't look so easily scared.
Arc wheel spun the bike and accelerated from the table, and the roasted body parts of colonists that were displayed in wood bowls all around it.
He used a raised front wheel to knock open another set of double doors to a preparation room, and then through another to the kitchens. The room was huge and filled with stoves and marble benches.
Behind him a smaller EMP device Arc had dropped onto the table, ticked down to zero as it lay on the cheek of half of a roasted child's face. The psychopaths were starting their chase when the bomb burst and they fell forward, unconscious.
Arc took the bike between the kitchen equipment and tables as the gold colony robots stood at each preparing vegetables, fruit and meat in a production line for various types of dish. As he rode past each he passed the stages of preparation back toward the refrigerators along the back wall.
The meat tables led to one door, and Arc rode inside. The mists of the refrigeration swept around the wheels and on either side of the bike, dismembered human carcasses hung from meat hooks, hung from chains in the ceiling.
He rode into the murky room and through it all the way to the back, where the bodies were fresher and less mutilated. There was a rack of them all hung from cuffs along a metal bar between the corner walls.
Jayne was second from the right. She hung naked and soaking wet, with her head bowed and eyes closed.
Jayne don’t be dead.
“Jayne.” Arc said in a low voice, then shouted “Jayne!”
Her eyes snapped open, and she slowly raised her head to look at him. He stepped from the bike and walked to her, and looked at her straight for a moment. She looked delirious either from the cold, or from something they had done to her. He turned a steel wheel on the wall lowering the bar, and then unscrewed the bolts in the cuffs.
Jayne fell forward and Arc caught her, and lowered her to the freezing floor. He manhandled her feet so they were standing on his shoes, and crouched beside her, hugging her for warmth.
She coughed and said “Why have you done this? Any of it?”
Arc took her face in his hands and looked at her.
“What are friends for?” he whispered, and hugged her again. “Let’s get outa her
e.”
Arc picked her up and placed her on the back of the bike, then mounted it and spun it around in the lonely, bloodstained alcove. With the tires screeching they raced out through the dirty mists toward the doors.
Way up high above them, far above the glowing white curve of the moon, a relatively tiny shuttle arrowed out of the grip of the world and began banking around away from it. The huge gas giant that was the moon's parent stood in the sky at their side, looking over at it all from a distance, and what was happening. It’s other more distant moons were cemented in their positions in orbit; looking now like other bits of dirty rock caught in a trap. The closer world below them now came to a holistic view, with its violently abused surface pummelled and twisted over centuries by space, and by its own internal cauldrons.
Faye entered the pilot’s cabin and put a hand on Farnon’s chair while looking out over the spread of stars and space-vehicles that had anchored at positions in a higher orbit of the moon.
Farnon was turning the ship away from the huge weather station in its low orbit toward the Shadow Security ship, that hung at a greater height over the planet like it were welded in place. Closer now they could make out it's structure, a very square box like vehicle tilted forward and very slightly to the right. These types of ships weren't meant to ever enter an atmosphere, and so it's super structure was designed to be immense with it's longest side being tens of miles across, and it's shortest not much less. The endless thick grated patterning that armoured it's shell had been ground down by constant pummelling of rock and space dust that had managed to breach it's various layering of forcefield, and now come before them a dirty brown hulk. But it was magnificent and powerful despite it's wear and tear, an awesome sight of pylons and steeples and a huge double arm at the end of a colossal rod on it's underside, that would spin to generate backspace and cloaking abilities.
Farnon smiled at seeing something like this again after so long.
