"I tried the marriage thing." He considered this. "First one became a zombie. Second
prospective
one became a... a kind of snake face."
"No way to talk about your fiancée, that," grinned Pippa.
"She's not my fiancée!"
"Did you break it off?"
"Er, no, but..."
"Well, you're still engaged then. Ergo, your fiancée."
"Just wait a bloody goddamn bloody bollicking minute!"
Pippa shivered. "I'd hate to be there on your wedding night. And just think of the mess when she
ate spaghetti!
"
"Here!" said Strogger, stopping before a huge wooden door. She raised her arms, and
split open
, a huge fat piston
whirring
out of her torso to smash the door from its hinges. It slammed backwards, destroying several shelves and leaving a pall of stone-dust hanging in the air.
"What is it?" mumbled Franco. "A sauna? A jacuzzi? A car factory? I can just hear the lads now, hear 'em with their mocking laughter, with their jokes and rib-poking. Old Claw Hand, they'll call me. And every time I pick my nose, I'll punch my nostrils through the top of my skull!"
"It's the armoury," said Pippa. She turned, face sombre, eyes gleaming through the dust. "Come on Franco. Stop moaning. It's time to tool up."
Broadcast... Clone TV Live TV! []
Reality war program, "Wargasm," Episode 1, cue music, cue credits, roll credits>>
WargasmLive>>
(C)HG20201 Clone TV/ Live TV!
Cue intro... zoom out, cross-fade...
Going live in three... two... one...
"
And ho, ho, ho! Welcome folks to this, the first live switching on of our new live reality TV show, Wargasm! brought to you by the one and only Clone TV, here from our very own CloneWorld, 3rd Quadrant Quad-Gal Cluster 5567#. You can rest assured, folks, you ain't never seen anything like this before, ho, ho, ho, and oh, look, you can see now the Q-Wing Fast Jets are here, give them all a wave as they zoom past on their way to their first bombing runs over our despicable and horrific enemy, The Orgs! Ho, ho, ho!"
Above The Org States, over the vast western coast, a line of three hundred Q-Wing Fast Jets appeared, carrying underwing SlamBam ClusterBombs. They flew with perfect precision and unity, as befitted pilot squadrons of
clones,
who thought in exactly the same way and were, in fact, perfect imitations of only one man - the best fighter pilot Clone Terra had ever produced.
The Q-Wing Fast Jets appeared, a glittering arc of speeding triumph, and as they reached the coast of The Org States they peeled apart, heading on individual missions and bombing runs. Right down the western seaboard of The Org States, gun turrets came alive on every available rooftop, and heavy calibre machine guns started booming and pounding, hot casings ejecting as millions of bullets spun, screaming, through the skies, guided by flickers of green and orange tracer. The Q-Wing Fast Jets' guns thundered, peppering and shattering the orgs' high buildings. Across the six cities on the western seaboard of The Org States - namely Synch, Dog, Mekal, Outpost 12, Outpost 9 and The Rod - missiles and bombs sailed through the heavens. Explosions detonated across the skies, and through the cities. Towers toppled, screaming, trailing dust and smoke and flames to the scream-filled city streets. In the blink of an eye, a calm and moderately civilised world was plunged into chaos. In the click of finger and thumb, sanity became insanity, law became chaos, calm became storm, love became hate.
"
And ho, ho, ho! Look at our brave ganger pilots go, raining down filth and pollution and hot retribution hellfire on those dirty bastard orgs! But here comes the fun part! Soon, the Cam Drones - a full ten thousand of the little beauties - will separate and link to individual remote handsets back in your own homes! That's right, folks, all you people out there in TV Land will have control over the battle! Have you ever heard such a crazy notion? Ho, ho! When you see this symbol flash up in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, you can access our Live TV! Live War! Wargasm! TV War Menu! You then have four options controlled by the buttons on your remote control!
"
Now listen carefully, folks. This is so easy, even you stupid sofa chompers and blobbers and burger stuffers and fast food fucknuggets can do it! Let's say a Q-Wing Fast Jet is bearing down on a dirty scumbag school hall filled with screaming children - press your red button to machine gun them all! Press your green button to send a missile into the school! Press the yellow button to use the undergun flamethrowers - ho, ho, ho, just smell the dirty flaming chargrilled child orgmeat cook and sizzle! - and finally, and this is the beauty, folks, the blue button can be used for occasional suicide attacks!
"
That's right! We have a true special treat for all you folks here in Clone TV Land! We've got together with Queen Strogger, that's right, the one and only Queen of the orgs! And she's, heh-heh-heh, given us all their dirty machine secrets! So, we've bred up some lovely smushed gangers in the Slop Pits and Slush Pits and Dirt Boxes and Fat Vats, and then we've - and you're hardly going to believe this folks! - we've used the org machines on them to create org gangers! Now these happy volunteers are to be used in suicide missions, for those oh-so-hard-to-target targets such as inner city schools, compound hospitals, underground church halls, you know, those really hard to find places where civilians cluster and whimper like big girls! Ho, ho, ho, folks! You heard it here first! Clone TV! Wargasm! War has never been so much fun, baby!"
Out in the military training grounds, nearly all practically deserted, around fifty huge screens had been erected - presumably for use in training exercises, or maybe for light entertainment during R&R (not that anybody thought, in their wildest dreams, that the psychopathic Mistress would
allow
any R&R). Now, the screens were blazing with images blasted across Cloneworld from ten thousand AI remote Cam Drones, programmed to cover
the best of the action, baby!
The massive screens played out images of The Org States being bombed, strafed, detonated, smashed; all blasted across the screens, huge noise screaming from the speakers. Schools and hospitals and factories and tower blocks were bombed and crushed and smashed. Orgs ran screaming through the streets, only to be cut in half by machine guns (get that lovely blood spurt! just as the Cam Drone darts through in a neat tracking shot). Orgs exploded, showering their surroundings with limbs, both natural and metal. Dogs and Archies were sent howling, peppered by bullets, spinning end over end into piles of rubble. It was Entertainment Evil on a huge scale. It was Insanity TV. It was the Massacre Movie of the Moment. It was Stupidity, squared to infinity.
"I just
don't believe it
," said Pippa, standing, mouth open.
A cold wind blew across the deserted parade grounds, bringing with it trailing wisps of snow. It smelt of ice, and desolation, and death.
"That's the craziest thing I've ever seen," agreed Franco, voice low. Then he looked over to Queen Strogger and Princess Anklebolt III. And although Franco had had his moments of antagonism with the two orgs, moments of confusion, and stupidity, of anger and hate and sheer frustration, the looks on their faces felled him as readily as any lump-hammer thud to the back of the skull.
Queen Strogger was crying, tears of black oil running down her metal-patched face. And it wasn't just her tears that conveyed her misery, but the look of total, utter hopelessness on her face. Because she knew,
knew
that at least partly, this was her own fault. She had brought the org secrets of machine-building and flesh-merging to the gangers, and they had imprisoned her, and built their own army of org clones, and no matter how skewed their motivations for TV war, Queen Strogger had been in a position to help. But she hadn't helped. And now, it had come to this...
"I cannot believe this is happening," said Queen Strogger, as guns and bombs, bullets and explosions blazed across the screens. Toddler orgs were smashed out of prams. Women-orgs screaming in the streets were smashed in hails of bullets, emblazed in unfurling petals of fire, peppered by payloads of burning hot shrapnel.
Pippa moved to her, carrying a brand new MPK from the Ganger Armoury. "You couldn't have stopped it."
"I could have tried!"
"Well, now we try," said Anklebolt III, moving to her mother. She took Queen Strogger in her arms, and gave her a big, metal-stinking hug. There came various
clacks
and
clangs
as the two cyborgs clumsily embraced. "I'm sorry, mummy, truly I am. For all the things I said and did."
Franco and Pippa exchanged glances. It was like watching two industrial refrigerators make up.
"And I'm sorry, little Anklebiter. I wasn't always there for you like a proper mum should have been. What with all the five hundred other screaming, mangy orgs snapping at my ankles..."
"That's all right, mummy. That's all right."
"There there, Princess."
"Snuffle-snuffle, mamma. Love you."
"Love you too."
Both orgs were crying, and hugging each other, although from a distance it could have been mistaken as a violent wrestling match between two earth-moving diggers.
"We need to move," said Franco. "We need to sort out this shit." His face was still ashen, but even more so from the scenes on the TV. It was one thing to be involved in war - war for a reason, war for a cause, no matter how misconstrued or politically twisted. But it was quite another experience to witness war being used for the sake of pure entertainment. For TV ratings. Warporn, for all the wrong reasons, the bad reasons, the fucked-up-perversion-of-humanity-and-all-its-twisted-deviants reasons.
Franco was wearing full combats, boots, and a pack stuffed with two D5 shotguns and bombs. Lots of bombs. He carried Kekra twin-barrel machine pistols. And he chewed a cigar. He looked the business. No, he looked
more
than
the business.
He looked The
Fucking Business.
Franco was ready to put this war down, like a scabby, rabies-riddled dog snapping at his testicles, like the worst of annoying yakker snakkers. It was often said that war was evil. This one
was.
And Franco knew exactly where to strike to make the bad go away...
"Okay." He looked around, and Pippa moved to stand beside him. "The Mistress has headed off in her War Balloon. Mad, I know, but then she's mad as a..." he smiled, "an eel in a bucket of snakes. And, like a snake, we cut off the head and the body dies real fucking fast."
"We can't stop the invasion," said Queen Strogger. "There's too many of them! Their firepower, their technology, they have control of airspace and all the damn GASGAM anti-aircraft AIs! And they have GASGAM loaded nukes to finish the job off! How could we stop all that? We're doomed!"
"Well," said Franco, eyeing Pippa. "I think Pippa has a few surprises up her sleeve with the programming on the nuke stuff. Teddy Sourballs didn't have such a keen eye as she thought. But first, we need a way through to the Mistress - we need to take her out, and we need to take out her camera crews. If we can disrupt her TV transmission, she loses the whole purpose of the invasion."
"There's soldiers, over there." Pippa pointed. They could see a battalion in the distance, still going through drills. They hadn't heard the men over the noise of the giant screens showing slaughter and carnage.
"Probably some reserve raw recruits," said Franco, rubbing his bristled chin thoughtfully. "I have an idea about that. But first, we're going to need vehicles. Pippa, you and Anklebolt head over to those WarSheds, see..." His voice trailed off.
A naked woman was walking towards them.
Tarly Winters.
"Uh-oh," said Pippa, taking a step back. "She's looking
real pissed.
She's your wife, Franco, why don't you deal with the bitch!"
Franco stared at Pippa. "I ain't married to her
yet!
"
"Well, she looks pretty angry to me. Maybe you forgot to buy the ring?"
More snow was falling, and Tarly's feet were leaving neat little footprints. Queen Strogger stepped forward, her legs and torso extending on their hydraulics and machine guns clattering out of her forearms and shoulders. Her teeth ground together.
"This bitch helped to bring this war to my people!" growled Strogger. "I want to deal with her."
"Er, yeah! Be my guest!" enthused Franco, who was never at his best when dealing with women at all, much less angry women - which happened a lot. Or at least, more than he'd like. Or could afford.
"Hi, love!" he said, giving a small half-wave as Queen Strogger, growling and hissing like a runaway train, strode out across the rocky parade square to meet her nemesis.
Tarly glanced at him and pointed. "I'll deal with
you
later!" she snapped, as Strogger broke into a thunderous, mechanical charge. At the last moment, her huge fist came up and over, and a massive hydraulic piston thundered out, slamming into Tarly Winters from above and burying her deep into the rock with a
bam!
so loud the mountains shook.
Smoke curled from around Strogger's piston-fist.