Lethal Planet (12 page)

‘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 his 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.

‘Just remember,’ the President said, ‘that I’m only doing this in self-defence. I can’t let you destroy me. And don’t say that I didn’t give you a choice: you could have lived a thousand lives if you joined yourself to the bionoids. You could have lived forever!’

‘Who wants …’ Brandon said between blows ‘… to live forever?’

The President’s words caused his mind to flash back to a book he had read recently—an exciting spy thriller he had found in the library of the
Proteus
, when they had been sailing across the Atlantic. ‘There’s a saying,’ he said, marking time as he waited for the chance to make his next move. ‘You only live twice, anyway: once when you are born … and once when you look death in the face …’

‘And do you see your death now?’ the President sneered as lighting flashed and thunder rolled overhead.

‘No,’ Brandon said, bracing his feet back against the tree. ‘I see
yours
!’

And with that he pushed forward, using the remaining power of his mind to propel himself and his opponent into the air. They flew towards the lightning tree three hundred metres away—more specifically, to an open knothole high up on its trunk, a hole large enough to swallow the two antagonists.

There was a metallic clang as the President’s back hit the hard core of the lightning tree’s inner trunk. Brandon held him there with all his strength, until the moment when the hairs on the back his neck rose up, and the air lasted like aluminium in his mouth.

Then he sprang backwards, just at the moment when lightning struck the top of the tree and sent a billion volts racing down the trunk. The President was not so much short-circuited as obliterated as the nanoscopic robots that made up his body were scorched away.

Brandon floated down to the ground on his own cushion of bionoids. He looked back up to where smoke was billowing out of the knot hole.

‘That was the end of your second term,’ Brandon said. ‘Presidents don’t get any more.’

Then he turned his back on the scene and headed for the city.

17—
ASCENT

Jason lay dying, in the wreck of the zelf prison ship they had commandeered just ten minutes ago. So much for their revolution. Brandon had crawled up beside him, promising that it wasn’t over yet. He had grabbed Jason’s hand, but had then collapsed and fallen silent. Over the sound of groaning metal and crackling flames, Jason could hear the whine of engines, as the zelf captain who had shot them down landed nearby.

He was coming to finish the job.

Jason tried to turn his head as something moved behind him.

‘Don’t try to move.’ Hewson said. ‘I’ll hold off the zelfs.’

‘Why aren’t you dead too?’ Jason coughed.

‘Zelf armour,’ Hewson said, making a rapping sound like he was striking his chest. ‘Now don’t try to move
or
talk.’

‘Oh, just get the hell out of here, Hewson,’ Jason said, hacking up blood as he tried to breathe. ‘Get to the tunnels and escape, while you still can!’

A shadow fell over his face. ‘We’re not leaving you,’ another voice said; a rough, gravelly voice, but one that made Jason’s heart surge.

‘Doo!’ he spluttered. ‘You’re alive!’

‘Before we crashed, my seat suddenly popped up and shot out of the ship,’ she said.

What was she talking about? ‘Ejector seat!’ Jason suddenly realised. ‘Lucky you! But don’t hang around waiting for me to make a miraculous recovery—run, Doo. Go back home and be queen of the balaks! Come back and rescue Grok another time.’

‘No,’ she said, fingering one of her long knives. ‘If you die, then I’ll die avenging you. We are fated to be together, Jason, in life or death.’

What could he say to that? He lay back, barely conscious, listening to Hewson and Doo as they prepared for their last stand. Hewson was giving the princess some in-the-field training with a laser rifle. Sparks flew as their position came under fire from the approaching zelf soldiers. Jason could feel waves and undertows of pain washing over and dragging back through his body. His final thought was a memory of Doo—her face, as it had looked the moment she stepped smiling out in the aisle on the their wedding day … the moment before all hell had broken loose and postponed their happiness forever …

Then there was nothing.

* * *

Absolute silence. No pain. No sense of danger or terror.

It was quite nice. Being dead wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

Jason!

Oh what now?
Hell, Brandon, leave me alone, alright? How can you even get inside my head anyway? Firstly, I’m dead. Secondly, you destroyed the bionoids. And thirdly, I’m dead. I know that’s only two points really, but the first one was so important, I thought I’d mention it twice.

Well
, Brandon’s voice echoed in Jason’s skull.
You’re wrong about being dead. You’re right about the bionoids though. I did destroy all of them … well, almost all of them …

Jason was finding it tough to work out what Brandon was going on about. The pain in his body was intensifying; it was like being poked with a thousand needles all at once, while being simultaneously tickled and roasted over a hot barbeque. You weren’t supposed to still feel pain when you were dead!

The Arch Predicant scanned for bionoids after your destroyed them, Brandon! Don’t tell me you managed to hide some from him.

No
, Brandon said.
Not some …

Then how are you talking to me now?

We entered the city though secret tunnels under the force field,
Brandon said.
Me, Kat, Hewson and the balaks. I ordered the bionoids to wait outside, but I found a place where I could hide one single bionoid … safe from any scanners, safe even from the other bionoids.

Jason was confused.
One bionoid? One tiny robot, smaller than a speck of nothing? What was the point of that?

The point
, Brandon said,
was to reboot the entire bionoid program—to start from scratch. When I went back out into the jungle, I had to destroy half of the bionoids because they had become independent—they had harnessed the power of the President’s mind and had become stronger than me. Then I had to destroy the rest in the temple, when the Arch Predicant almost managed to gain control of them and kill you!

Yeah, thanks for that
, Jason said.
Then suddenly he twigged
. The catron’s claw! That’s where you hid the last bionoid! You gave it to Kat to look after, and she brought it back to you in the prison. I remember now—you said the claw was like the toughest shield ever.

Yep
, Brandon said, with maybe the faintest trace of pride in his thoughts.
And the claw is not only the best place to hide a bionoid, but it’s also the best material to build new ones out of, too. The bionoids are self-replicating, and the new generation are shielded with catron bone: impossible to detect, and impossible for anyone to steal control!

And then Jason realised that while they had been talking, the pain that had been torturing his body had been ebbing away. He opened his eyes—both eyes, because his wrecked eye had now been rebuilt and repaired. Brandon was kneeling next to him, his wounds also healed, and with a crazy grin on his face.

‘Wait a minute!’ Jason said. ‘You said you all got into the city through tunnels?’

‘Yeah,’ Brandon said. ‘Come on, get up and I’ll fill you in later.’

‘So you didn’t use rubber sheets to get through the force field?’

‘What? No, of course not. That would have been a ridiculous idea!’

‘Ah hell!’ Jason said. ‘I was so proud of that plan! Did you have to resurrect me just to tell me what an idiot I am?’

* * *

The dark streets of Perazim were wet with rain. With no force field to burn away the storm, the city was like a bare forest of trees without a canopy. The drains were already overflowing, and the approaching zelf soldiers were wading through water that came up to their knees.

Doo was taking pot shots at the soldiers from the cover of the wreckage. When she saw Jason get to his feet, she didn’t waste words. ‘Take this,’ she said, handing him the gun. ‘I’ve not managed to hit one of them yet.’

Jason poked his head above the wreckage and was greeted by a volley of laser fire. He ducked back down again. ‘I didn’t rise from the dead to get a laser bolt between my eyes,’ he said. ‘We need to think of another way out of here.’

Hewson crawled over to them from where he had been laying down defensive fire. ‘There are eight of them and the captain. They’re all grouped together, in the middle of the road where the water is shallowest. If we had a grenade, or some way of taking them out all at once …’

Jason turned to Brandon. ‘Power me up,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You’ve used the bionoids before to increase our strength, give us energy, make us jump further and move faster. Power me up, and I’ll go deal with them.’

‘You’ll kill them?’

‘I’ll show them a world of pain,’ Jason said. ‘But with my fists, not the bionoids. Trust me, Brandon—let me do the things that you can’t. My conscience isn’t as delicate as yours. I’m not a puss—’

Brandon raised an eyebrow.

‘Just hit me up, would you!’ Jason urged.

Brandon smiled. ‘You think I saved the bionoids
not
to use them? Go do your worst!’

Jason returned the grin, then leaped up onto the smashed hull of the prison transport ship. Lasers flews towards him almost as densely as the rain poured down, but as the bionoids flooded his mind and unlocked his senses, he could get a handle on the situation like he was using a slo-mo power-up in a video game.

He turned side on and tilted his head back. The lasers passed harmlessly by. Then he bent his legs slightly, straightened up …

… and flew through the air in a massive arc, splashing down right in the centre of the gang of soldiers. Before they even had chance to wipe the water off their visors, he had smashed in the helmets of four of them with his bionic fist. He grabbed the rifle barrels of two others, and crossed them over each other. When the soldiers fired, they shot each other dead. Jason kicked out at the soldier behind him, sending him first crashing back into his squadmate, and then sending them both crashing back across the road until they were taken by the current raging down the  gutter.

The zelf captain took one look at the carnage and fled back to his ship. Jason was still buzzing from the fight. He made to give chase, but suddenly collapsed, struggling to catch his breath.

Brandon, Doo and Hewson were at his side. Brandon looked as exhausted as he was; it had been a huge mental effort supporting Jason during the fight.

‘Listen,’ Brandon said. ‘You have to pace yourself, or you’ll burn out. The bionoids are still replicating—there’s not as many of them as there once was. But I’m going to give you half now and link them to your mind. Then we can divide up: you go after the Arch Predicant; I’ll go find Kat and help her get all the slaves out of the city.’

Jason nodded enthusiastically. But it hadn’t passed him by that something significant had just happened. ‘You trust me with the bionoids?’

Brandon nodded. ‘Use them responsibly, but use them as you see fit. The universe doesn’t need people like me selfishly holding onto the bionoids; it needs people like you, too, who aren’t afraid to face up to the realities of the bionoids’ true nature. They are a medicine
and
a weapon, and if anyone’s going to take responsibility for that weapon, I want it to be you.’

Jason put his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, almost crushing him. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said.

Their little moment was interrupted by some thunderous crashing and the sound of laser fire and explosions. Further down the long, wide street, an armoured tank swerved out from an intersection and headed their way. The turret on top, however, was facing backwards and firing at something pursuing it. Jason eye’s widened as three giant dragons rounded the corner and stomped down the street.

‘We should go,’ Hewson said, as calm as you like.

‘The jungle beasts will keep the zelf army busy,’ Brandon said, ‘and the Arch Predicant shouldn’t be able to detect the new catron-armoured bionoids. Think you can get to him, Jason?’

Jason looked up at the imposing edifice that was the Tower of the Moons. ‘It’ll be easier to climb the
outside
than fight my up through every level,’ he said. ‘I logged plenty of time practicing on the climbing wall back at school, though.’

‘Yes, the one that was only twenty metres high,’ Brandon said.  ‘But I get your point. Good luck!’ They bumped fists, and Brandon and Hewson split. Only Doo remained at Jason’s side.

‘I’m not letting you take him on alone,’ she said.

Jason shrugged. ‘I thought we didn’t have to do everything together until
after
we were married?’

‘I just want to make sure my brother Grok is alright before you go in there and start smashing things up,’ Doo said. ‘Then, when he is safely out of the way, I’ll
help
you smash things up!’

‘My kind of girl!’ Jason said. ‘Come on!’

Doo wrapped her arms around Jason’s neck, and he jumped upwards. They landed on a ledge, fifty metres up, and watched the zelf tank rumble past beneath them, the dragons stomping and splashing after it.

As he rested to regain his mental energy, Jason watched the giant bald chicken monsters disappear out of view. ‘I don’t blame them too much now for ruining our big day back in the jungle,’ he said.

‘
This
is our big day,’ Doo said. ‘The day the balaks regain their freedom. And anyone is welcome to join in: dragons, catrons, humans … just not zelfs!’

‘What about the friendly zelfs?’ Jason said, as he resumed the climb. ‘The resistance, the innocent civilians … Brandon?’

Doo sniffed. ‘Well, maybe one day we might all live in harmony.
Maybe
.’

Jason concentrated on the climb. The bionoids flowed through his body, down his arms and into his fingertips, giving him a Spider-man-style grip on even the tiniest cracks. He felt invincible, and soon they were halfway up the tower, passing through the city’s residential sector. Soldiers hurried along the bridges, walkways and suspended plazas that linked the buildings. Civilians were being ushered indoors. There were no jungle creatures to be seen this high up … although Jason did notice a squad of zelfs shooting at something that had just leaped away around a corner. The wildlife of Corroza, who were used to the maze of treetops, would love their new playground.

‘Look out!’ Doo shouted.

Clinging to a window ledge, Jason twisted his head to see what she could see. The zelf captain’s big black spacecraft had swung into view from around the opposite side of the Tower of the Moons, and was now strafing past them with all guns blazing. On instinct, Jason willed up a protective bubble of bionoids, like he had seen Brandon do so many times before. Doo gasped in relief as the lasers bounced harmlessly away.