"You'll have to. No bringing attention to yourself, right?" She sounded annoyed now; which was ironic, as far as Franco could see. "We can do without compromising the mission before it even begins! You know the rules, Franco. The whole planet is in a constant flux of political upheaval, and teetering on the brink of total war. The gangers and orgs hate each other, and need little enough persuasion to fire off a few micronukes or HighJ spikes. The last thing Quad-Gal and Combat K need is to be caught up in the middle of some dogshit dogfight. So you do what we all do in these situations, Franco, and you bloody well keep a low profile and use your brain. Right?"
"Of course," said Franco, with a slick, easy, ready smile. "I am a total professional." Then he cut the link.
Big Ben was a politician for the New Ganger Freedom Party, a New Party for a New Free Age. He was big, hence the Big, and he was called Ben, hence the Ben. He thought his name gave him the kind of friendly and happy trustworthy persona which other gangers would really dig. And trust. It made him sound friendly. And trustworthy. He hoped it would get him votes. Lots of votes. Enough votes to make
a lot of money!
The Coolskin Hotel was a class place. A place for the inordinately wealthy. And also the trustworthy. A hive for the morally corrupt. A pleasure palace for those seeking pleasure. A sin-pit for those seeking hedonism. Five hundred floors of plex-glass steel and titaniumIII, it rose like a rocket, a shimmering glittering tower pointing defiance at the gods and screaming wealth and power with just a sprinkling of light decadence sprinkled over the creamy cream. That it was forty nine kilometres from Nechudnazzar was an oversight; or maybe its saviour. For whilst it did not rub brotherly shoulders with other overtly wealthy hotel conglomerates from the sprawling - some would say bloated - mechanised, over-populated Machine Age nightmare that was Nechudnazzar, it offered a certain
something
. Discretion, indeed. Notoriety, certainly. But away from the core sprawls of the twin ganger capital cities, the Coolskin Hotel offered something much more desirable.
Anonymity.
Big Ben was currently in his hotel suite, although "suite" was perhaps an understatement, as Big Ben had reserved an entire
floor
of the Coolskin Hotel, using funds from the New Ganger Freedom Party's deep and healthy coffers. The way his logic ran was: I am keeping the people happy and serving the people, thus the peoples' money can keep me happy and serve my every whim. It was a good financial policy. It was like taking candy from a kid. A bone from a dog. A slick tongue-twisting kiss from a touting hooker.
The political party's collective funds had been put to other trustworthy and useful pursuits. Big Ben sat on a leather watercouch, bobbing a little with every movement, wearing silver hotpants and an erection you could hang a pervert's mac on. The erection was unwavering, thanks to the drugs. And there were lots of drugs. There were mountains of
Grey
, a hallucinatory narcotic grey powder said to give sexual stimulation
even to those without sex organs!
There were huge jars filled with
Pebbles
and
Skivs.
On a mirror, one of Big Ben's new lady friends was cutting and snorting lines of
Greebo,
which gave the best high and sex and high sex on this or any continent, but had the unfortunate temporary side-effect of making the user turn green.
Big Ben slopped off the watercouch onto carpets so thick they encompassed his ankles and ran static charges up his inner legs to crackle on his already over-charged testicles. "Hey, baby, save some for me," he crooned, slicking one hand through his long slick hair, as he finished the journey towards her on hands and knees, his tongue hanging out.
"I always shoot first," winked the naked lady, and what a naked lady she was! Breasts to her ankles, ripe plump buttocks you could fry an egg on, and a direct Zuiss bank account which charged Big Ben
by the second, baby, by the second!
Big Ben reached the mirror, faltered, and ploughed his nose into a pile of Greebo. It got caught up in his whiskers and he giggled, snorting out a puff of powder worth thirty of his constituents' annual salaries.
"Oh, Ben," said Rebecca, giggling coquettishly. She wore her brown hair in a fashionable basin haircut, and her podgy squidgy face had been gangered to mimic the greatest actress of the Ganger Age, Rebecca Rebecca, star of screen and stage, warrior actress and unreservedly best shot with the Bausch & Harris Sniper Rifles, models KZ1526 and KZ1527. "Don't snort it everywhere! You know how hard it is to come by! And we have so much fun planned!"
They did indeed. As the buzz took Big Ben, he gazed around at the thirty other hookers in the suite of apartments. They were caught in myriad poses and gestures and acts, and his mind swam with the perfect base
beauty
of the scene.
"Come to me!" cried Big Ben, opening wide his arms, his silver pants glittering, and the thirty women (with a couple of men thrown in for sheer variety) ran to Big Ben, and smothered him with their nakedness, with their soft bits and hard bits, with their floppy bits and hairy bits.
I just fucking love expenses,
Big Ben revelled, falling onto his back as he was swamped, tickled, and caressed, and a squirming orgy encompassed him...
"Ahem."
The cough was the sort of cough coughed by somebody who knew he shouldn't be interrupting Big Ben's multiple carnal pleasures, but had indeed something of great importance to impart. When the first cough went unnoticed amongst the huge breasts, the slathering flesh, and the moans reverberating from the organic pink SuckPaper[tm] wallpaper, the man coughed again. Only this time a little louder.
"Ahem."
"Yes, yes, yes, what is it, why am I being interrupted, is there no bloody privacy in this whole damn place? I'm having the time of my life here and you have to come coughing your guts up all over my lovely naked men and women... oh, it's you, what do you want? Can't you bloody see I'm bloody busy?"
Johnson, Head of Private Security, was a sensible man. You had to be a sensible man when working for insane narcissistic-types, like politicians, rockstars and head teachers. Johnson gave a thin smile from his black bearded face, and smoothed out an imaginary crease on his perfectly pressed black uniform. "Mr Ben. Sorry to intrude on your..." - the pause was calculated - "
business meeting,
but it would appear somebody is trying to steal your motorcycle."
Big Ben gawped at Johnson for a moment, mouth opening and closing, flapping like a guppy fish. "Well... well... well..." he spluttered, clambering over three buxom hookers who squealed in delight. He managed to get to his feet, sliding in something slick and juicy. "
Do something about it!
Shoot the bastard! That's what I pay you for!"
"Perhaps that could be considered a tad excessive? After all, if we kill a man, the Royal Ganger Police Force will be here in a few short minutes. And I thought you were supposed to be dutifully engaged in a month-long off-world conference on ecology and the saving of the planet." He gave a brittle smile.
And not,
he added mentally,
living it up with decadents whilst snorting enough puff to put a strap-on rocket into space.
"Yes. Yes. Well, er, send some men. Bring him down, then bring him to me."
Johnson departed the business-meeting-which-resembled-an-orgy, and Big Ben slapped off several questing fingers and rushed to the window. He peered down. And there - by all the gods indeed! - there was a short stocky fellow, a little stick man in the distance, fumbling with the mechanical innards of Grace.
"Enhance," snapped Big Ben, and the window hissed softly to enhance his view, tracking Ben's eye movements. There! A bastard with a shaved head and an untidy ginger goatee beard! Not a man who would be hard to forget, since due to the hot climate of Cloneworld most people, gangers and orgs included, were of darker skin and hair colouring. (Yes, some gangers had gone to extremes, but the ginger gangers were something of a rarity - indeed, a cult! It was something which never seemed to catch on in the clone community.) As a result, the shaven-headed ginger-bearded thief stood out like an org at a ganger SF convention.
Ben shifted his perspective. He saw a group of men running across the car park. Aha! They would have him now! His view shifted back to the thief, but there came the roar of a HondaHarley V24 even from this distance, and a massive burst of black fumes, and the
maniac
opened the throttle wide, leaving a twenty-inch streak of molten rubber across the alloyconcrete as he powered off, veering and swerving, and the security men grabbed frantically and pointlessly for the fast-disappearing thief.
"Baby, come back and do that thing with your tongue," crooned Rebecca, cupping her ankle-length stretched breasts with a grunt, her bowl haircut wobbling sexily.
"Johnson!" screamed Big Ben, and ran out into the corridor. "Johnson!" He was in the shuttlelift, thumping buttons, and sprinting out into the lobby before anybody could mutter "
Bastard bike thief...
"
"Sir," said Johnson, smiling a narrow smile. He seemed calm, unruffled, in perfect control. He was always calm, unruffled, and in perfect control.
"Get after him! Call the RGPF! Get in the gunships! Blow the motherfucker into a steaming puddle of motherfucking oilgrease!"
"Sir. I think, first, you need some pants."
Big Ben looked down. He was still proud. And he was definitely naked.
Big Ben looked up. A glittering crystal room crammed with succulent diners had paused, forks to mouths, spoons in soup, glasses to lips, to observe his outburst. Suddenly, there came a
click
and a
flash.
Kunta, the worst of the worst global tabloid paparazzi, gave him a big grin and a thumbs-up, and slid out of the revolving hotel doors before Big Ben realised what was happening...
Big Ben lifted his hand. His face was covered in Greebo.
He looked down. His skin was as green as his erection was hard.
Shit. Shit and damn! Shit and bastard bloody buggering bastards!
Cursing in yet more languages, Big Ben hurried back to his flesh-filled hotel suites, already wording apologies, hypothesising his explanations on
News At Eleven
as he stood on the podium, a stricken-looking harrowed wife on one arm, happy smiling children gambolling at his feet - and he would wail as to how he had become a slave to the drugs, and the drugs made him do it, and his wife was strong and stood by his side, and how all he needed was time, and hope, and the trust and honour and belief of his constituents and the Prime Manager!
His eyes glittered with hatred and rage. Once again, he pictured the ginger bearded one.
"It's all your fault! You've ruined me! Ruined my political career! Ruined my funtime!" It didn't occur to Big Ben that, in fact, it was his own doing. The logic of the politician clicked neatly into place. "You've got a micronuke up the arse coming real soon, my friend," he muttered.
"I was simply walking down the street."
Franco enjoyed the rush of the HondaHarley V24 over the rough, dusty and pretty much deserted roads which led, like gently curving tributaries, to the distant, glowing, and slowly
growing
city of Nechudnazzar.
As the klicks clicked down, Nechudnazzar grew alarmingly, until its towers towered over Franco, its ramparts glistened like black oil, its mammoth walls and buildings and temples and factories formed a huge and towering blur, its vastness and sheer
height
almost beyond comprehension. Now, Franco was a veteran of big cities, of vast cities, of cities so titanic they inspired new cultures and species within their urban sprawls. Franco was a denizen of every sleazy pub, bar, brothel and gambling den it was possible to be a denizen
of.
But Nechudnazzar was different. It looked like a vast and unforgiving mountain range. It filled his vision like the frightening and near-mythical Black Pike Mountains of distant legend. It ran from horizon to horizon, from corner to corner. Nechudnazzar seemed to
fill
the world. It certainly filled Franco's head, with the glimmer of...
possibilities.
He pulled the HondaHarley into the side of the road with a rumble, and sat there, twenty-four pistons thumping and idling, as he gazed with slack jaw and possibly slack
brain
at the massiveness before him. It reached all the way up to the sky. It stunk like a corpse pit, waves of stench rolling out over Franco as his palms grew sweaty in agitation and his mind started to do strange things, to tread well-known paths of terrible imagination.
Do nothing, touch nothing, fuck nothing,
came Pippa's echoing, long-distant, unbidden words.
Ahead, Nechudnazzar seemed to
breathe
, like some huge, decadent, dying beast.
This was the largest capital city of the gangers.
This was the core of the cloning civilisation.
No drinking! No bars! No women! You're there to do a job, and do a job you shall!
"Bah," said Franco, kicked the bike into second, and roared towards the behemoth that filled his world, and now his imagination. He zipped past a battered titaniumII sign which read:
Welcome to Nechudnazzar