CHAPTER EIGHT
SLUSH PUPPY
Pippa's sword gleamed under the yellow moon. She stared without emotion at the charging wall of deviated gangers. There were men with three heads, no lips, and teeth gnashing like fevered surgery victims. There were women, totally naked, long and spindly limbs thrashing as they ran, squealing with the voices of the babies they'd ingested. There were curious hybrids, of men, women, dogs, cats, rats, men with furry ears and whiskers, women with the wings of birds flapping like bloodied fans from their knobbly shoulder-blades.
"We're going to die," said Pippa, rolling her neck.
"Not if I have anything to do with it," said her clone, twirling the yukana sword.
Then a noise crashed over the surroundings, echoing and reverberating from towering mountain walls. It was a rhythm of thunder, of hissing and smashing, and Pippa blinked as she realised it was the spinning rotors of a helicopter gunship... the same gunship that had attacked their hornet alongside a backup retinue of AI gunbots!
She set her mouth in a grim line. These were her clone's masters - the enemy. She suddenly laughed out loud at her choices: to die at the hands of the deviant gangers? Or their creators?
The gunship reared over the mountains, huge photofloods cutting through the night and making the charging deviants falter, howling and throwing up their arms, legs and tentacles to cover their eyes. Many turned and fled, aware of what was to follow... and follow it did. The miniguns screamed, as thousands of rounds cut into the mutants' ranks. Then, with a thunderous clanking, two rogue AI gunbots, like tall slender mechs with heavy missiles strapped to their arms, their slick alloy heads shining, came charging down the narrow paths from over the mountains, kicking house-sized boulders aside, their heavy steel claws gouging the rock.
"The cavalry has arrived," said Pippa's clone.
Pippa gave a nod. "Looks like you won." She tilted her head.
Her clone gave her a strange look, and stood up straight, gazing at the hundreds of fleeing deviant gangers. They were making a spirited attempt at escape, but the gunship had other ideas. The ship's rockets left trails of exhaust smoke, as explosions filled the rocky valley. Flames gushed and roared, and the twisted gangers were tossed like broken skittles, some on fire, their screams echoing against the dark vaults of heaven, many torn and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Pippa turned away, then looked up to the gunship wreaking havoc on the ganger deviants. She could see a face in there, framed by a shock of barbed-wire black hair. The face was a concentrated funnel, a ferret of concentration as she - for it was a woman, Pippa realised - mowed down the ganger mob without remorse.
Fire blossomed from the red-hot gun barrels. Pippa ground her teeth.
"We've got to stop her!"
Her clone glanced at Pippa, and gave a nod.
"So you'll help me?" Incredulous.
"You saved my life."
The two women, genetically the
same
woman, stared at one other. Above them, the gunship lifted a little, and its blazing searchlights swept backwards and forwards, as behind it the AI gunbots came to a halt on the side of the mountain cliffs, perched precariously a thousand feet from the valley floor, like monkeys on the branches of a rocky tree. Their heads swivelled. In the gunship, Teddy Sourballs resumed firing heavy-calibre minigun rounds at the fleeing gangers. Bullets churned through flesh. Limbs were shot off. Bodies merged into the soil...
"What I'd give for a gun," growled Pippa... as the incredible happened. The two AI gunbots leapt, as one, crashing through the rotors of the gunship with high-pitched squeals of compressing, folding, breaking steel and taking hold of the huge gunship. The engines screamed, sparks and fire ejecting from the smashed machine, and the miniguns scored trails into the rocky walls as the helicopter spun around and around, as if fighting the gunbots. Then the whole screaming, flailing, spinning mess of merged metal and folding steel nose-dived, ploughing into the canyon floor. Pillars of fire spat from the fuel tanks as the AIs jumped free and stood, hands on hips, surveying the destruction they had wrought.
"Shit," breathed Pippa, as after-images of the fire danced on her retinas.
"What happened then?" said her clone.
"I thought they'd reprogrammed the gunbots? As slaves? I thought they were immune?"
The clone shrugged. "They did. Maybe they had a change of heart, seeing so many helpless gangers ploughed into the rocks. Come on. Let's go see what happened."
They started down the huge, sloping, rocky descent, moving quicker than they would have liked. Boots squealed on shale and granite, slate and scree, and they spent the last hundred metres half running, half sliding through a sea of loose black stones. Hands out for balance, they were like surfers in the velvet of night, riding the mountain to its final rocky floor.
Pippa's clone moved towards the wreckage of the gunship, broken and bent, like a child's toy after a tantrum with an iron bar. Fires burned, too bright against the blackness, glittering from scarred alloy. The clone glanced nervously at the huge gunbots, which stood, one on either side of the ravaged gunship. They were motionless sentinels.
Pippa's clone halted fifty metres away, and Pippa came up beside her. They surveyed the wreckage, and watched the two gunbots watching them back.
"If they wanted us dead, it'd be a real short fight," growled Pippa. She looked the gunbots up and down - realising how
huge
they were close up. Thirty feet in height, they were skilfully crafted from a black alloy not unlike the yukana swords, or the QGM-created AI GG machines used for so many thankless tasks across the Four Galaxies. Despite being functional, the gunbots were
sculpted.
They looked modern, sleek, and despite occasional scarring on their robotic shells, they were in prime condition. Each one carried a personal arsenal of weaponry and Pippa knew, from reading specsheets years ago during a particularly dull training day in a huge room full of plastic chairs and free cakes and coffee, that the AI gunbots could scavenge, self-repair, and self-improve, and held detailed files on all manner of engineering and weaponry. They were awesome machines, not just useful as mobile self-propelled intelligent anti-aircraft measures - as they were being used here - but also on any field of battle. Especially against infantry and tanks.
Especially
against the infantry and tanks of races with inferior technology. After all, QGM always liked to have the upper hand.
"What happened here?" said Pippa, stepping forward. She decided that if she was going to die, then fuck it, she wouldn't do it with her head in the sand. She'd go out with some fucking
conviction.
The two gunbots turned to survey her.
Uh-oh,
she thought.
This is where I get a Kickass Stinger missile in the face!
She tensed, then frowned. "You two! State your model and mission directive," she snapped, voice harsh with a military abruptness she'd picked up from a hundred drill sergeants across a handful of star clusters.
One machine took a step forward, feet like clawed metal hands grasping the rocky floor. "We are Quad-Gal Military General Active System Gunbot AI Mechanisms, otherwise known as GASGAMs. Our mission directives are to protect and serve the Combat K operatives known as Pippa, Franco, Keenan. Scanning now. Your samples have been accepted. You are Pippa. We hereby serve."
The two GASGAMs stood a little bit straighter, with sleek hisses of digital hydraulics. They both orientated on Pippa, whose mouth had opened a little bit.
"You're sure about that?"
"Yes, O Commander."
"Can you be a bit less formal?"
"Sure thing, boss."
"Have you got names? Or do I have to keep referring to you as Quad-Gal Military General Active System Gunbot AI Mechanisms?"
"That's Frank. I'm Bert," said the huge machine, looking down at Pippa with emotionless silver eyes.
"Thirty foot, heavily armoured killing machines called Frank and Bert?"
"You said to be less formal."
"That I did. That I did." Pippa stared even harder.
Hmm
, she thought. "Who initiated your mission directives?"
"The QGM ship's computer known as Alice, registration LA05999ZXSPECCY200."
"That would explain a lot," said Pippa's clone, moving close to her. Words tickled Pippa's ear. She gave a curt nod.
"Yeah. These machines were hacked by the gangers. That needs hardware; pretty fucking sophisticated hardware - greater than these idiots possess. All Alice did was follow the same path in, and freshly corrupt the already corrupted data. She's put my DNA and codes in there. Now they're my tools. To help me get the job done. Clever, Alice. Real neat."
Pippa stared up at the thirty-foot high machines. Distantly, the sky brightened with a promise of a cold, bleak dawn. Light glinted from the GASGAM's alloy shells.
"So you're my boys, hey? You ready to work for your stripes?"
"Sure thing, boss," said Bert. Frank nodded. He seemed to be the strong, silent type.
The destroyed gunship, a destroyed crumpled husk, like something which had been crushed in a giant's fist, ticked and crackled softly on the rocky floor. Fires burned low. Oil dripped from somewhere inside it, forming a large black pool.
From inside, there came a curse. Then a scrabbling sound. A head appeared, a tangled mass of black frizzy hair above a narrow, nasty face. Teddy Sourballs looked up at the two gunbots.
"What the fuck did you do that for,
idiots?
I thought Ziggurat had you reprogrammed? I thought we were all... in this..." She stopped. She stared at Pippa, and Pippa's clone. "Oh. It's you." Her gaze narrowed. "And you. Why are you both alive?"
Pippa took a step forward. "I'm assuming you're the pretty lady I saw behind the controls of the minigun. And also an integral part in the scheme to have me
gangered
- and murdered." She took another step forward, and her boot connected with Teddy's face, snapping her head back with a spray of blood from lacerated lips. "Nice to meet you, cunt."
Teddy clutched her mouth and scowled, as Pippa's clone moved forward and hauled her to her feet. "We need to be careful. This bitch is a wild one." She ripped some optic cabling from a twisted housing on the gunship's battered flanks, and with her knee in the small of Teddy's back, bound her hands tightly behind her.
Teddy looked back, blood on her teeth. "You'll be exterminated for this,
ganger,"
she said, quite calmly. And there it was. It settled into Pippa's mind... another puzzle. Who was real? Who was the copy? Maybe they were
both copies
and the real Pippa was on a different mission?
Pippa's clone grinned. "Let's just say I've had a change of heart."
"You'll have a fucking change of heart when Ziggurat gets hold of you. He's an expert with sharp implements. He'll be spending
months
with you in his cellars. And that's
before
the Mistress gets involved."
"So that's the hierarchy, is it?" said Pippa softly. "This muppet, then Ziggurat, then the Mistress right at the top, overseeing mindless exterminations and warmongering like a shitlist bitch, lusting after another fucking wargasm."
"Yeah, the Mistress is Prime Core, General of the Royal Ganger Police Force and Commissioner for the entire Clone TV network. She's the one who, basically, controls the entire planet's TV, filmy and computer networks. She's the one in charge of media, the government, you name it. She's the bitch at the top."
"The bitch who needs stopping."
"I thought your mission was to find the 3Core? You know I know it. And you know I know you were heading for the Slush Pits; that's where the Pod Vault is, of course." She winked.
"And the Mistress knows I'm coming?"
"Of course. She knows everything that's going on, down here on Cloneworld. After all, she wouldn't be the unofficial Ganger Queen, if not."
"Queen of the Gangers, eh? I never did like royal blood."
"Unless it's on the tip of your sword."
Pippa chuckled. "You're so good, you remind me of me. I wonder, sometimes, who really is the clone. Maybe both of us, eh, girl?"
The clone nodded. "That would be a good fucking mind-job, wouldn't it?"
"To clone the clone. A copy of an imitation. Beautiful."
"But then, who's to say what's real? Who's to say who's the copy? To be honest, Pippa, I no longer care. My drives are your drives, and if I
am
a clone, as these bastards believe, they made a big mistake trying to replicate the real Pippa's DNA."
Teddy Sourballs started to laugh, and both Pippas turned to look at her.
"You think you're so clever, a couple of bitches fresh out of the Slush Pits. Go on, head for the Pod Vault; see what's waiting for you there. We know what you want, and you'll die trying."
Pippa took hold of Teddy's hair, and dragged her head down to the ground. She put her boot on Teddy's face, and pressed down hard. Teddy squealed like rat in a fire.
"Well, looks like I'm going to need a bartering tool, eh, love?"