Cloneworld - 04 (31 page)

"I'll show them," he'd often muttered over the past ten years, ragged eyebrows frowning so hard they'd touch in the middle of his round, pudgy face. "I'll kill them! Wipe them from the planet! Torture them! Cause them raw agony! I'll peel them! I'll, I'll, I will..." And he'd realise, with sinking dejection, what he really
would
do. What he really
would
do is
ask for their pass.
Shit. Ha! But if they didn't have a pass?
Hey! Then
killing, torture and raw agony were on the menu, that's for sure!

Squib sat, as he had for countless thousands of days, contemplating the bleak rocky horizon. Occasionally, he would turn and examine the huge black fortress building behind him, worried that somebody might sneak up on him. He was paranoid like that. And he knew the paranoia had been growing for years.

Now, however, on this late evening, filled with dying wintry sunlight, with the shadows of The Ganger Mountains stretching out like long, rubber teeth over the barren rocky ground, there came a muffled
clank.

Squib frowned. Had he really heard a clank? Or was the clank just a clanking figment of his clanking imagination?

The
clank
clanked again.

Squib felt a thrill of excitement and fear run charge through his veins. Here it was! Something out of the ordinary!
Forget them damn, damn bastard squibs with their guns, and rocket launchers, and stories of things going wrong on the underground tube-missile trains from Nechudnazzar and Raifnazzar, from Purple and Green and the distant far north city of Harmony. Forget all their bullshit and hero tales! Their jabbering of high adventure, and gunfights, and gangers trying to sneak into the Slush Pits for secret love trysts with surgeons willing to take sex in order to regrow an arm or leg or vagina! No, this was Squib's time, this was Squib's moment, this was Squib's
adventure
, man!

He stood. He brushed down his neat black uniform. He took the heavy calibre rifle from its rack, and ran a pudgy-fingered hand along the smooth, cool, black stock. The gun was polished to a high gleam. Squib had put many man-hours into polishing that gun. Indeed, it was his third gun, having polished his way through two previous incarnations. That's how much time Squib had. That's how fucking bored he was. But then, boredom served a purpose. It made you ready for the action! Yeah!

More clanks echoed across the barren ground, and from behind a bank of rolling hills Squib watched with a growing erection as a huge, metal monstrosity rose, and rose. And rose. It was huge. Thirty feet tall! It could squash Squib with an ill-timed footfall!
It was fifteen times his height! Nay! Maybe twenty times!
In his imagination, and for the purposes of tales down the Squib Arms later, drinking Squib's Finest Ale and eating Squib Pie (don't ask), it could possibly be
a hundred fucking times taller than him!

Squib puffed out his chest, clutched his gun tight, and opened the metal door with a long, slow creak. He stepped out into cool night air. The sun was dying over the horizon like a blood ghost. He felt a fresh wave of excitement rush through him. His cock pressed hard and true against his pants. He was ready. Ready for the challenge. Ready for the fight!

As the huge metal robot marched forward, inadvertently (and, Squib thought, clumsily) stepping on the metal fence with a
crunch
, so Squib waddled forward and lifted his well-polished carbine.

The huge machine clanked forward, swaying a little with each step, and Squib thought proudly to himself,
It's like a filmy. Like one of those famous ones like
The Squib, The Squib and the Squib, For a Few Squibs More, Once Upon a Time in Squibland
, and the seminal
Squib Wars. He preened, not even considering the Herculean task of attempting to kill a thirty-foot-tall metal monstrosity. After all, he was the hero, right? The righteous dude pouring furious and righteous anger on his foes. Or something.

"Halt!" Squib screamed, face twisted into the purest expression of anger and hatred, run through with a little streak of sexual fulfilment. "Who goes there? I will fire if you do not halt!"

The GASGAM clanked and stomped towards the squib, seemingly oblivious to this little angry man, yakking like a little, annoying dog. A yakker snakker. The GASGAM had bigger fish to fry.

Like the building.

There was a click, as a missile slid sideways and into place on the GASGAM's arm, then a
roar
as the missile detached and slammed at the Slush Pit factory. Tiny holes opened up on the flanks of the building and counter-missiles launched in retaliation. Fire screamed through the heavens, and black, billowing smoke filled the sky. The GASGAM opened up with its heavy machine guns, strafing the side of the factory. Missiles slammed at the GASGAM, which knocked them aside without thought. Many exploded, but did little or no damage to the gunbot's impenetrable armour.

And all the while, Squib the squib danced like a maniac at the GASGAM's feet, trying to get noticed. He fired his weapon, and realised with horror he'd not fitted a magazine to the carbine.
Oh what an idiot squib you are! Oh how the other squibs will laugh at you down at The Squib and Jockey on Friday night! How they'll take the piss and pour beer over your head when you're laid out and unconscious with shame! You dumb little mutt!

The GASGAM continued to attack the building. Rockets and bombs rained down fire and hell from the sky, but not a mark scathed the structure's exterior.

Amidst the turmoil, the chaos, the violence, there came twin
phwwts
as Pippa and her clone were ejected by the GASGAM, ejected and
projected
like missiles towards the building's roof. The GASGAM's calculations were perfect, and both Pippas landed lightly on the lip of the building, took a quick look behind at the flames and billowing smoke, the craters in the rocky ground and the exploding chaos around the GASGAM, then dropped onto the flat roof and hunkered down behind the rim.

Its quarry safely delivered, the GASGAM fired six final rockets, which filled the sky with purple fire as they were destroyed in a screaming line by 25t Bitchcats, and turned to leave, job done, mission accomplished. It slid for a moment, as it stepped on an unexpected obstruction; there was a tiny
squeak
, and a sound of crunching bones, but this barely registered in its fast-scrolling million-core AI cell. The GASGAM strolled off towards the distant rocky hills, swatting pursuing rockets from the air like gnats.

Behind it, the gunbot left a smear of purple squib grease on the rocks.

Pippa felt a thrill of adrenaline and speed as she was launched from the GASGAM. Her ascent was a perfectly synchronised arc, and she landed lightly on the lip of the roof, having used up every joule of energy needed to carry her to her target. She dropped and checked her weapons, her yukana sword and an MPK machine gun provided by the GASGAM's competent in-built Quad-Gal Military stores, and glanced at her clone. She checked for cams, and spied the roof access. She signalled to her clone, who nodded in understanding, and under cover of fast-falling, bruised darkness they both ran in half crouches towards the Slush Pit entrance...

A door slid up in the wall of the factory. Ziggurat was there, bulky and hunched, one yellow eye and one green eye surveying the damage wreaked by the GASGAM.

"Sir, I thought they were under our control?"

"So did I," said Ziggurat, hobbling forward, a ridiculous figure, a figure of fun to be laughed at - or he would have been, if it hadn't been for the neat tool-roll of very sharp medical implements at his belt, coupled with an intrinsic knowledge of the ganger anatomy and a willingness to show no mercy, no matter how much his victim screamed. The soldiers from The Bad Army knew this. Which is why they gave Ziggurat enormous respect and a considerable, eager berth at every eventuality.

Ziggurat hobbled across scorched earth, and stopped by the splatter that was Squib the squib. He was wafer thin. He was, indeed, a pool of goo with crushed bones mixed in.

"Shall we bury him, sir?" asked one soldier.

Ziggurat looked up at the sky, then shrugged, which, on a hunchback, had double the effect. "No. Leave him for the buzzards. He can be easily replaced."

Then Ziggurat took out a small communicator. Matt black, with a single red light to signify transmission. He smiled, his curious lop-sided face twisting into deformity. He spoke into the comms.

"Pippa's inside. Be ready. Kill her on sight. Out."

CHAPTER NINE

PIRATES OF THE ORGIBBEAN

Franco scowled as the rope-ladder was rolled down to their craft and, with a host of perhaps eighty guns pointing at them from along the galleon's crusty, uneven rail, he took hold of the first rung and started to climb. The ladder flapped and slapped against the side of the ship, sea-spray splashed him, and the wind mocked him with a whining cackle. He passed huge letters carved into the flank of the pirate galleon. They read:
The Nice Lady.

Hmm,
thought Franco.
Somehow I don't think this is going to be all that nice an experience, and they don't call me Franco "Yo, Ho, Ho" Haggis for nothing!

Franco reached the deck, fists clenched, and was decked with a club from behind. He groaned, rolling on the salty, sea-strewn planks, and felt his hands tied roughly behind him with coarse rope.

Tarly followed next, and was given the same treatment. The BCube containing a still-silent Alice was taken by Cap'n Bluetit and examined with only modest interest, before being tossed onto a chest brimming with gold and silver doubloons, necklaces of peals and all manner of glittering magpie treasure.

Four huge pirates - and Franco blinked, for they could only be described
as
pirates - stepped forward. They wore traditional costume: ballooning pants, heavy boots, slime-smeared jerkins of leather and wool; one even wore a red and white striped vest. They possessed all manner of bushy beards and shaggy, drooping moustaches, their hands were festooned with heavy rings like the finest of knuckle-dusters, and they wore brightly coloured headscarves wrapped, not surprisingly, around their heads. However. They were orgs, and so their pirate costumes were slightly ruined by their mechanical arms and legs, which hissed and fizzed and slid on greased hydraulic poles. Some had alloy machine faces, glittering with whirling gears and cogs. Some had augmented
bodies
, and were larger than any real man had a right to be, bulked out with metal armour and casing, but still wearing brightly coloured striped vests. The whole effect made Franco wince. It was like they'd ineptly copied an image from an ancient Earth filmy.

The four huge pirates carried a heaped net made of thick metal strands, each fizzing and humming and burping. Occasionally it sparked. They acted as if the metal net was causing them some pain, and nimbly, despite their size and bulk, leapt up to stand in a swaying line along the galleon's rail, despite the huge ship shifting and rolling at the whim of the Teeth Ocean.

"A-har!" grinned Cap'n Bluetit, winking and chewing on a cigar. "'Tis an org Net, me hearties. Should slow down that there enemy org a right treat, so it should, a-har!"

The pirates threw the fizzing, popping net down over Queen Strogger, who had her head down, subdued, as if she knew her fate. It was as if she had lain down to die. She was captured; she knew it, they knew it. And if she was captured by the Pirates of the Orgibbean, then her fate was assured.

She was going to get a kicking.

Probably a lot, lot worse.

Ropes were looped around not just Queen Strogger, but the inflatable QGM boat, and the pirates formed two lines. "Heave!" they shouted, then "Heave-ho," and, working in rhythm, the two lines of pirates hoisted Queen Strogger, boat and all, up onto the brine-swilled decks of
The Nice Lady
.

Franco and Tarly, trussed up on the boards, got a gasping faceful of sea water as Queen Strogger was landed like the most undignified of fish. The org net engulfing her was fizzing and popping, and she was
writhing
at its core.

"At least we've still got our emergency supplies," said Franco, and gave Tarly a big grin and a wink.

She scowled at him.

"You there, stop talking!" bellowed an ugly org pirate with lumps and bumps all over his face. He leaned back, and Franco blinked as he realised the pirate carried a... a... a
whip?
It lashed across Franco's bare back with a
crack
. There was a moment of nothing, then pain like fire screamed across Franco's whole being and he let out a momentous howl that shook
The Nice Lady
to its watery bowels.

Franco struggled, slipping, to his knees, and scowled at the pirate. "You
bastard,"
he snapped, leaping forward and, his hands tied tightly behind his back, doing what he did best: brawling. He kicked the org pirate in the nuts. The pirate howled long and hard, eyes crossing as his legs closed reflexively and he fell to the decks in a foetal position. A fist whirred by Franco's head like a flapping partridge, but Franco swayed, stamped on the attacker's toes, and as the huge, seven-foot tall pirate bellowed and leant forward, Franco head-butted him good and hard on the nose, breaking it with a
crack
. A punch caught Franco in the back of the head, but he rolled with it, leg kicking out to break a knee-cap. Suddenly, he was a whirlwind of ginger beard at the core of pandemonium. Fists and kicks were flying, but Franco seemed to be dancing amongst the clumsy, oafish orgs, feet and knees making short work of many an unexposed groin, big flat head flattening any exposed nose that got in his way. Swords were drawn, flashing in the sunlight, and Tarly screamed, "Franco, behind you!" Franco whirled, as a blade whizzed down and cut the bottom inch of his beard clean off. There was a momentary pause as Franco watched an inch of ginger fluff waft gently down to the planks of the galleon, drifting from side to side as it fell. A scowl of fury took over Franco's face.