Keenan stared into Pippa’s eyes. She stumbled into silence.
She reached out, and touched his cheek.
He felt himself fall into her, and some devil took away his control and the situation was lost to him. He fell into Pippa, on that beach on Molkrush Fed, dived into her, and they were kissing, lips brushing, tongues teasing, and he had her head in his hands, kneeling before her in that purity of white sugar, and his heart pounded like an adolescent’s and he was lost, lost, lost.
“
I didn’t expect that,” she said, pulling away from his kiss. Sand stuck to her golden skin. Her eyes sparkled.
“Neither did I.”
“What is this, Kee?”
“What is what?”
“Stop being evasive.”
He grinned. “I’m not evading anything,” he evaded.
She slapped his thick bicep, and leant forward, part of her fringe dropping across her forehead. Her hair was slightly damp from a recent swim; her lips were rimmed with salt.
“Do it again,” she said.
“What, evade you?”
And they were kissing, touching, easing gently down to the sand. In the distance behind them, the escape pod from the war-destroyed Hunter lay disguised by huge Splay Ferns, which they’d dragged, giggling like children, over the polymer hull. That had been a month ago, followed by a panicked escape after a detonation of rogue AI missiles had taken out their ship. Their entry to the S3 planet had been tense, their landing violent. And now, it would appear, their distress beacon was being either ignored... or worse, the Helix War was lost. They were lost: alone.
Pippa suddenly pulled away. “We might have to spend our lives here,” she said.
“OK.”
“Together.”
“That’s fine.”
“That would be like... a dream to me.”
Keenan looked at her, really looked at her. Deep into her cool grey eyes; eyes he had so long considered the disconnected gaze of a killer. Only now he read the gentleness there, the need, the longing. He saw the love in her eyes and wondered how long he had ignored it. Or suppressed it? After all, there were certain protocols to follow. Combat K squads were not encouraged to fall in love
.
They were comrades, brothers-in-arms, no matter what their sex, creed, religion or even species. They were encouraged to think as brothers; even indoctrinated to some extent, the mental stimulations, exercises and drugs reinforcing that effect. Then, of course, there had been his wife... despite her infidelity.
Keenan kissed Pippa. Her response was incredible and he felt wanted, needed, loved
.
It was something that had been gradually diluted from his life, a colour drained away into bone-bleach black and white without his knowledge, without even his consent.
When had it gone so wrong?
he wondered idly, as Pippa’s hand traced down his chest and his hard belly, and rested lightly, teasingly, lingering on his inner thigh. Such thoughts were pulverised from his mind as her hand, moving snail-slow, soothed up the leg of his shorts, undid the button, slid down the glass zip and took him hard. Keenan groaned. His head rolled back. His past, his present, his future; none were of consequence as Pippa gave him the simple thing that all people—ultimately—craved...
The knowledge that he was wanted, needed... and loved.
Chapter 7
Sydicate Wars
Franco tensed, waiting for the bullet he knew would come. Everything was in focus; minutiae exploded into mainstream. Beads of sweat trembled on Betezh’s forehead. The man’s shaved head gleamed. Tiger-stripes of sunlight jigged across his black clothing. Distantly, a kube rattled. Somewhere in the street below, a child laughed, and Franco cringed as he felt life slip between his fingers, like sand draining from the hourglass of time and life, and trickling its last few grains, which pitter-pattered onto the pyramid, sum of all his dreams and ideas and aspirations... and he realised with a massive sadness that there was so much left for him to do: so much to explore, so much to drink,and so much more he could give.
The roof exploded.
Detonations crackled and screamed, spitting chunks of alloy and concrete. Dust poured down in a desert storm like a flood. Fire lashed the sky. Betezh was knocked like a doll across the room by flying masonry, and Franco didn’t see what happened to Louis but there was a heavy final clunk
.
Then the roof, in its entirety, lifted into the air, and only then, Franco heard the
whine
of a stealth-modded industrial chopper. Franco blinked up into falling dust and debris. Huge chunks of H-Section steel twisted and groaned, dangling from the twisted, deformed, detachedroof, which shifted and moved to allow watery sunlight to pour through the raining dust. Franco choked, eyes blinking furiously; he tried to nudge and shuffle to safety on his chair.
Rescue! screamed his brain. I’m being rescued! Thank the Lord!
Exo-S clad figures appeared around the jagged concrete rim of the battered hotel, MPK sub-machine guns pointing into the whirlwind chaos interior. Franco cheered as they leapt onto churned carpets and cut the raze-wire fastening him to the chair.
Franco grinned into chrome-plated masks, seeing the humour of his own face reflected a million times.
“Thanks guys! Who sent you? Keenan? Pippa? Fortune?”
A gun poked viciously in his ribs.
“The human is to put its hands on its head,” said the false mechanical voice of the Battle SIM. “Or I shoot it through skull.”
“Hey, I thought this was a rescue?”
“No rescue, pep. This is reintegration. Somebody like to see the human, somebody important. It is not to speak. It is not to attempt escape. It is not to be funny wise-guy, OK? Or I will shoot it without prejudice.”
Franco stared at the chrome mask. The SIM’s mechanical eyes clicked. There was no emotion there, no empathy. But then, how could there be? This was a SIM: a simulant, a false human.
“Shit.” He put his hands on his head. “Don’t shoot!” He’d seen these trigger happy characters in action; they had no concept of empathy or grades of violence. Their brains were binary. Everything had two states. So: humans were just living... or dead
.
They led Franco past the unconscious, slumped body of Betezh, who the SIMs ignored as if he were merely inconvenient crumpled furniture. They led Franco down the hotel stairs and out onto the pavement where a flyer was bobbing.
“Get in.”
“OK boss.”
“Don’t refer to me as boss.”
“Are all SIMs so anal?”
There came a long pause. The chrome mask locked on Franco. The gun wavered, moving to an inch in front of Franco’s eyes. He could smell cold cordite.
“Hey! Hey, chill out boss! I was only fuckin’ witcha!”
“Don’t refer to me as boss.”
Franco breathed a deep sigh. If only they had worked on the SIM’s personalities instead of their physical prowess, maybe they could have made a positive contribution to society.
The flyer hissed, and lifted vertically into a darkening night sky.
Keenan came round to the sound of voices, irate, bickering, and he remained still and silent for a few moments trying to solidify his dreams and thoughts and memories. Razor Syndicate, skyscraper rooftop:
Shit.
Metal bands were fastened tightly around his wrists, and he rubbed them uncomfortably as he listened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s obvious. You have feelings for him.”
“Go to hell.”
“You can deny it all you please, but I see it in your actions, your face, your eyes. The way you talk to him, the way you respond to him: your mouth moves and hot air emerges to deny it, but Pippa, you don’t even convince yourself.”
“When we get out of this cell,” spat Pippa, “I will kill you.”
“Why?” It was such a simple, innocent response, for a few moments Pippa was lost for words.
“Just keep your damn opinion to yourself.”
“Would you object, then, if I took him? Caressed him? Kissed him? Held him? Stroked him? Would it pain you to see me with him? Naked, writhing, oiled under a cold orange strip-light?”
Keenan opened his eyes and sat up. He blinked, shocked by his immediate surroundings, like waking intoa nightmare. This was no normal cell; it was a GRILL. “Great,” he muttered, not really knowing if he referred to the cell or the audition of two bickering women.
“Back to the land of the living,” said Pippa, her voice rimmed with ice.
Keenan nodded.
Rebekka moved close to him, placing her hand on his arm. “Are you OK? You’ve been out for some time. We were starting to get worried the insta-drugs had penetrated too far. They do that sometimes; leave you in a coma, vegetate you.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I lay for a while. I was listening to your worries.”
Pippa reddened, and gestured with her hand. “How the hell are we going to get out of this? This shit? I admit it’s kind of you to rescue me from
Hardcore
, Keenan, but at least I had some semblance of freedom there, albeit within controlled boundaries
.
I could go where I wanted, kill whoever I desired...” She cast a glance at Rebekka, “I could fuck anybody who crossed my path.”
Keenan stretched his cramped, aching shoulders. “Girls, girls, save it for the playground, for Christ’s sake. Retract your claws. Reclaim your handbags. Shut up.”
Uneasy silence filled the cell. Keenan stood and looked carefully about. They were still in the vast rooftop chamber. The floor was gloss black. Above them arched the panels of the retractable roof shields. The GRILL hung, suspended by thick cables from a distant gloomy interior, and within the GRILL was a gently swaying platter. Electronics beneath the platter created bars of almost invisible heat forming the walls of the cell. To cross this threshold would cause a human to be sliced into thick flesh chunks, ready for any BBQ. Hence, GRILL.
The chamber was the entirety of the skyscraper’s roof. Although a large clear space occupied most of the centre—a wide chopper landing site—around the rest of the space there were strange angular machines, shrouded in shadows, row upon row of computer workstations, several vehicles with tarpaulins covering their vaguely military shapes; and three gleaming new attack helicopters, dark and foreboding, silent and still. Their guns gleamed with grease. The tinted cockpits stared like insect eyes. Keenan lingered on them for a while, then turned to watch the two women.
“You’re a bastard, Keenan.” Pippa gave a sardonic smile.
“I’m just the way the world made me.” He patted his pockets, and was delighted to find his tobacco case. “God, I need this,” he muttered, and rolled himself a thin cigarette with evil black Widow Makertobacco. He lit up, breathed deep. Nicotine infused his system with toxin. He relaxed
,
and rubbed again at the metal bands, fashioned from what looked like copper with a dull sheen.
“OK. What’s the situation?”
“We’re not dead,” said Pippa, moving closer and sitting cross-legged before him, “which means they want, or need, something from us. I don’t accept they knew we were coming, which means we were either clocked when we landed, or the unthinkable happened.”
“Fortune?”
“Yeah. He could have turned us in.” Pippa waved away smoke.
“He’s always been reliable in the past.”
“He may have his reasons. After all, we know where he is, and he’d do anything to avoid detection and subsequent arrest; Fortune is one of those rare AIs who will never die. Would you want to spend an eternity in a Black Hole Holding Cell? A real eternity?”
Keenan nodded. “Let’s skip the shit. What can we do now?”
Pippa shrugged, head tilted to one side. Keenan met her gaze coolly. “You’re the boss, boss. You work it out.”
A hiss of alloy emanated from the other side of the chamber; the GG AI from earlier entered, dragging a small unconscious man. Hydraulics thumped their way across the hall, and the GG stood on a pad, which lifted from the floor, extending on a thin alloy arm to the GRILL cage where they sat, Keenan smoking, eyes appraising the scene with the detachment of controlled anger.
“One of your comrades,” said the GG. He did something with a small control, and some of the heat haze from the bars died. Franco was tossed inside and the bars re-emerged instantly.
Pippa rolled Franco to his back. Blood stained his lips and teeth, and bruises painted his face. One eye was swollen. Franco groaned, opened his good eye, and beamed.
“Hey hey! Pippa! Things are looking up!”
The GG retreated, stood for a moment staring strangely at their suspended cell, then disappeared into a brightly lit corridor beyond. Doors slammed. Silence invaded the chamber on a mission.
“Did they get the ship?” said Keenan.
Franco orientated, and sat up with winces and groans. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
“What happened to Cam?”
Franco winced again, then looked shiftily from side to side. “Hmm... I’m not quite sure, Keenan. I’m a little concussed; don’t really remember what happened. But hey did I put up one mean fight! And that bastard bugger Betezh...”