Amba stood slowly and conducted a
quick scan of the courtyard, where cobbles lay rimed in ice. She looked to the
far doorway, the edges lit from within, and kicked into a fast sprint, stopping
to one side of the portal. She reached out and flung open the heavy oak door,
and machine gun fire screamed, opening the night like a zip.
It would seem they spotted you,
soothed Zi in her mind, easing
in there like cream into coffee, smelling the kill, the promise of the kill,
and the need to take possession. The need to take control and... break free.
Have some fun.
Focused and unwilling to chat,
Amba grunted and rolled across the opening in a quick blur, loosing one shot
down the corridor. The guard behind his mounted HMG fell hard and slid across
the terracotta tiled floor.
They should give you a medal...
Will you SHUT UP!
Amba appeared silhouetted against
the night and drifted along the cold tiles. She reached an intersection and
paused, listening, recalling the layout of the facility. She eased up a tight
spiral staircase, both P7 pistols before her, but met no more guards. There
were
more, though; there were always more.
She reached the top. Another
corridor, dimly lit. At the end, she knew, was her target. She stopped, and
looked around the corridor. She shrugged, and strode forwards, and her acute
hearing detected the hiss of gas. Still she walked, and the hissing increased
and now she spotted the nozzles set in the ceiling, could see a vapour easing
free. No doubt some terrible toxin. Some violent and deadly poison.
Amba glanced up with interest,
and walked on.
She stopped by the door, which
was reinforced with steel. It was large, and heavy, and she took a deep breath
and a step back, and front-kicked the door from its hinges and locks with a
screeching groan of tortured steel. The door clattered across the room and half-crushed
a large oak desk into firewood. Amba stepped inside and stared at the shocked
man, seated to one side behind the part-obliterated desk and aiming a pistol at
her. He fired and she twitched, a bullet whining past her head. Another shot
spun towards her on a column of hot gas, and again Amba shifted so subtly she
hardly appeared to move, and the bullet passed between arm and flank, making a
dull
thunk
in the rich wood panelling lining the room. Amba dropped, and
a small black knife appeared in hand from her boot. The knife whined, sticking
in the man’s shoulder, and he cried out, fingers twitching spasmodically,
forcing him to drop the gun.
Amba walked forward carefully,
eyes scanning the room.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
Mid-stride, she drew a second
knife from an inverted chest-sheath and leapt onto the flattened, armoured
door, walking up to stand on the table, towering over the man.
“One more chance.”
“I have absolutely no idea...”
“Have it your way,” she said,
face neutral.
~ * ~
After the screams,
the whimpers, the pleading and the dying were done,
Amba stepped from the smashed doorway carrying a small black case. She wiped a
stray droplet of blood from her cheek and pulled free a tiny alloy ECube, which
unfolded like a blood-dark flower in her small hand. It had the appearance of
something extremely delicate and technologically advanced; in reality, it was
very, very
tough
and technologically advanced.
“Maul, I need that airlift.”
“Fifteen minutes, Amba,” came his
friendly bear-rumble. “I’ll grab you from the south tower.”
Five minutes later she climbed
the stairs to the tower, eyeing her recent handiwork. The tower guard was
slumped back against the wall, one arm thrown over his head, a bullet hole in
one cheek, the back of his skull decorating the rough stones like
Maju
art. He looked strangely at peace, and Amba crouched by him, staring into
glassy eyes.
“Was it worth it?” she asked.
Is it ever worth it?
mocked Zi.
Come on Amba, time
to move. Next, you’ll be giving the fucker a bedtime kiss!
Amba climbed onto the narrow
ledge, glancing at the vast drop to the rough earth and cobbles below. She
leaned back, clipped the briefcase to her belt, hooked her fingers onto the
ice-slippery tiles, swung out over the abyss, legs dangling, and hauled herself
onto the steep slope with a grunt. Slowly, stooped, she walked up to the apex
and stood, boots planted on the ice, surveying the land around her and the
decimated base beneath. Snow-peppered forests spread off in every direction for
fifty klicks, and Amba stood like a Queen surveying her Night Realm, head held
high, eyes bright. Too bright. Almost as if they glinted with unshed tears.
Her ECube buzzed. “Three minutes,”
came Maul’s rumble. “Did you bring the... General with you?”
“No, I’m... alone,” said Amba. “He
didn’t make it.”
“Shit,
Amba. You were supposed to bring
him in alive!”
“He had a different agenda.”
“Romero’s gonna go
fucking
crazy, man.”
“He’ll have to go crazy, then,
won’t he?”
She killed the transmission and
breathed deep. Below, eleven corpses decorated the snow and ice-flecked earth.
Even from this distance, Amba could see fresh bullet-chips in the stone. No
doubt the Earth’s Oblivion Investigators, and the Ministers of Joy, would read
the battle and understand exactly what she was. And of what she was capable.
But then, they’d created her, so they shouldn’t fucking complain.
Maul’s words came back to her:
Romero’s
gonna go fucking crazy, man.
And as the Manta hummed low over
distant forest, smashing through the night with rotors thumping and jets
burning, so Amba smiled again, and gave a small nod. She would take any
punishment without comment. For an Anarchy Android, an engineered human, an
engineered
killer
and servant to the Ministers of Joy, this was simply
expected.
Androids had no right of appeal.
~ * ~
THE MONOLITH
CORPORATION™
Official Advertisement
AUDIO
[deep male voice - think Clinty Eastwood]:
The
Monolith Corporation™ in association with Earth’s
Oblivion
Government presents,
A
Theme Planet™
Production!
VIDEO
[close up]:
A
man dressed in colourless, shapeless clothing. This man is a bland and
colourless
human.
He is bowed with age, face wrinkled and worn by the
ravages of time. The dude is defeated and... queuing... what he is queuing for
is not quite clear, but the old bro is queuing and the queue is a long one; a
very long one -
[camera pulls back/smooth tracking shot].
The
queue is an incredible and horizon-bending vast and terrible queue! A queue to
make you sick! A queue to make you slit your wrists!
VIDEO
[close-up]:
Watery
blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles convey an inner message of emptiness,
frustration and despair.
CUT TO:
The old man’s feet shuffling forward a
step, then pulling back again to show thousands and thousands of people
shuffling forward... all by a single step.
AUDIO:
A
deep and throaty sigh [followed by the deep male voice again, think Minkles
Caine]:
Are
you tired of your life? Your existence? Your age, dude, your fucking
age?
Are
you disgruntled with an eternity of pointless queuing?
Like
you get in
every
damn
theme park ever created, bro?
VIDEO
[close-up]:
A
nod. Resignation. Disillusionment.
AUDIO:
Are
you tired of
your... molecules?
VIDEO:
The
eyebrows lift, questioning. That old face is now full of dawning wonder, and
suddenly filled with intelligence and inspiration and hope. Hope! Open, in
fact, to the suggestion of a new and incredibly life-changing experience!
AUDIO:
Well
dude, there’s no need to be.
VIDEO:
Suddenly,
this world-weary example of humanity’s disintegration is disassembled, beamed
through the glowing atmosphere of Theme Planet™ - and reassembled with a look
of total orgasm. The old man’s face is filled with
new youth.
Vitality.
Eagerness.
Energy, baby, fucking energy!
He looks horny as hell.
AUDIO
[song/accompanied by happy jolly music]:
It’s
better than drugs!
It’s
better than sex!
It’s
fun, it’s fast, it’s neat..
If
you haven’t been sick, you soon will be!
Zip
through a thousand light years on...
The
Molecule Machine™!
VIDEO:
Molecules
swirling to form an old man’s young smile.
LETTERING
IN FLAMES:
Brought
to you by
Theme
Planet™
The
Theme Planet Advertising Broadcast Station (ggg)
and
The Monolith
Corporation©
~ * ~
CHAPTER ONE
PUF
Dexter ran through
heavy rain, pounding the New Kensington pavement,
and it felt good.
Pain,
he realised,
always feels good. It tells you
you’re still alive. Still breathing. Still fighting. Yeah, right.
Breathing heavy, with water
dripping from his ridged brow and high cheekbones, he glanced right, checking
for traffic, crossed the road - stepping in a puddle with a splash - and ducked
down Canker’s Alley.
Emerging onto a street clogged
with QuadDecker buses farting toxins and filth, Dex turned left, jogging under
a crescent of plastic trees and finally arriving at Port Square just as the
rain stopped and sunlight peeped almost sheepishly from behind iron bruised
clouds. Dex looked up, scowling, as steam rose from knurled alloy pavements and
Auto-gutters chugged with water, gears thrashing thanks to the sudden flash
downpour.
“Great,” he muttered, and jogged
up the steps to his apartment. His thumbprint opened the door, and he kicked
off TekTek trainers in the hall, nose twitching at the smell of frying synbacon
and eggy eggs. “Still. The day might improve.”
Or not,
mocked his
persistent internal mockery.
He climbed more steps, thighs
shaking a little after the long run, and peered into the kitchen. His wife
Katrina was standing at the ultra aga with a PlakFrak AutoFrying Pan. She
glanced over. “Hi, hun. Just in time for breakfast. Get a little wet, did you?”
There was a playful gleam in her eye and Dex scrunched his nose.
“You could say that. It’s quiet.
Too quiet. Have I missed the kids?”
“You’re not that lucky,” grinned
Kat, ladling eggy eggs onto a steel plate. “They’re still brushing their teeth.
Come on, sit down, before it gets cold.”