“Pippa? Pippa!”
She groaned, eyes fluttering. With a burst of effort Keenan stood, picked her lithe, muscular form from the curled shell, and struggled up the beach, leaving a wide, zig-zagging trail.
The heat smashed down.
The twin suns were copper pans nailed to the sky.
Keenan collapsed at the edge of the fearsome jungle, welcoming its shade like an old friend. It was cooler here, not much, but more bearable than the furnace of the sand and endless sky; the beach didn’t scorch him. Keenan gently placed Pippa on her back and surveyed the creepers with a wary eye; pulling free a small knife he dragged free a long vine and sliced carefully into its flesh; water dribbled, thick and glutinous. Keenan touched it to his lips, then to his tongue, then allowed a little into his throat. He waited a few minutes to see if there were any sudden adverse effects, eyes scanning the white sea and the mirage of the horizon. There was no sign of the Hornet, or its wreckage. Eventually, carefully, he guided the creeper to Pippa’s mouth and allowed precious liquid into her bone-dry maw.
Pippa’s eyes opened. She breathed laboriously. She ran a hand across her scorched brow and blinked rapidly, looking from Keenan to the beach to the white sea beyond.
“What happened?” she murmured.
“I was hoping you could tell me. The ship...”
“Of course, the ship. We were hit.”
“Hit?”
“By ATA missiles. I didn’t even know we were targeted; whatever took us out was very, very advanced. That Hornet was a modern fighter, had some serious hardware and advanced AI detection systems. Shit. It didn’t even see the missiles coming!”
“Where is it?”
Pippa smiled. “The Hornet?” She gestured, a broad sweeping motion with her sun-scorched arm. “Out there, Keenan. Out there.” She shook her head, then put it in her hands.
“You OK?”
“Mmm. Just like before, isn’t it?”
Keenan didn’t answer. Because he knew; knew exactly what she was referring to, Molkrush Fed: their abandonment; their survival, which in turn had led to their union; and the beginning of all their problems spiralling down and down and down, right to this very moment.
Keenan stood, moving away from the shade of the jungle. Behind, insects hummed. There was a crashing sound deep in the jungle, and a honking as of a great pig. He shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon. No sign of Franco, or Rebekka... or Betezh. No sign of the Hornet, their guns, their equipment, bombs, WarSuits, shit.
“Bastard.” Keenan kicked sand into the air and turned. Pippa shrugged. She had pulled a large yellow fruit from a tree, and deftly skinned it with Keenan’s knife. She cut a cube from the fruit, sniffed it warily, then swallowed.
“It’s good.”
Keenan accepted a piece and sat back down in the sand. “What a great start.”
“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” said Pippa.
“Great sentiment: optimistic. When the hell did you study for a philosophy degree?”
“Just stating the obvious. We should camp here, build a small fire, gather some fruit. I’ll see if I can kill a pig—or whatever the hell was making that unholy racket—back in the jungle.”
“I think we should look for Franco,” said Keenan.
“What? And have both of us tear-arsing up and down the beach? No, we stay put, see if we can salvage gear from the Hornet. Franco will find us, if he is able. If we all set off wandering we’ll end up moving away from one another. He should have the sense to find us.”
“We have another problem.”
“Which is?”
“If they—whoever they are—shot us from the sky, then they know we’re here. Our enemies may know we survived; they will probably come looking for us.”
“We should be discreet, then,” said Pippa gently. She ate more fruit. “After all, we don’t want to be forced to kill them... do we?” Her smile was sweet and deadly.
The twin suns faded towards a muggy hot evening. Night was about to fall—for the entirety of one hour—and Pippa had gone a short way, exploring, while Keenan smashed his own route forcibly into the jungle and pulled free large Splay Ferns, which he arranged into a small makeshift shelter... but also as camouflage to disguise them from aircraft. Propped on canes Keenan had broken with a rock, the small shelter was sturdy and he lined the floor with more wide-leaved fronds. He made makeshift mugs from hollowed fruit skins, and filled them with drinking water found in a small pool deep in the jungle, balancing them on a small ledge of curved driftwood he found on the beach.
Pippa returned, walking warily along the edge of the jungle. She carried something in her arms.
“Well, well, quite the little homemaker, aren’t we?” she said, voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Just keeping myself busy.”
“Waiting for Rebekka to show?”
Keenan eyed Pippa levelly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Then he noticed the gun; it was an MPK crusted with jewels of sand. Pippa held it not quite pointing at him, cradled like a wounded babe in her arms.
“Well, you didhave that cosy little thing going, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“I saw you, in bed together, coupled like Siamese Twins. I thought I could smell the blossoming of true love; stank like rotting cabbage and old fish heads.”
Keenan shrugged. “So what? Why would you care? You said you had no more feelings for me. So... why give a damn? Listen to Pippa, queen of the double standard. Hypocrisy’s her middle name.”
The MPK shifted. Keenan eyed the barrel warily.
They stood in silence for a while, both lost for words, caught up in emotions that tumbled back for a decade. Finally, Keenan noticed something flopping at the edge of the sea. His stomach lurched, a coldness flooding him like bad adrenaline. It was a body.
“Shit.”
Pippa turned, following his gaze.
The body shifted with the surf, rolling, one arm flopping over. Pippa threw down her salvaged gun and they both moved uneasily across the sand, dreading, but knowing, deep down, what they might, or would
,
find.
The twin suns beat at them: relentless, uncompromising, merciless.
They slowed as they approached the corpse, apprehension filling both with toxins. Then Pippa barked a laugh, and Keenan glared at her. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s a WarSuit,” she said. “Look.”
“Jeez!” Keenan waded out, grabbing the high-tech integrated body armour and dragging the WarSuit up onto the sand. He laughed too, tension flooding away.
“I was convinced it was Franco.”
“Me too.”
Pippa flopped down beside him. Her hair was tied up, and she removed the band, shaking free shoulder-length dark locks. They were matted with sand, but to Keenan she had never looked more beautiful. Her eyes glowed. Her face wore a simple radiance.
“I feel we got off to a bad start,” she said. She smiled.
“Well.” Keenan considered this. “You did say that if I got in your way you’d slit my fucking throat. And, I believe, you also mentioned gutting me like a fish. I think those were your exact words. Charming, I’m sure, but definitely not guaranteed to get you a date.”
Pippa punched him on the arm. “You knowthat was only little old me.”
“I kind of believed you. I seem to remember you saying that I broke your heart?”
“You did.” Her tone was serious.
Keenan sighed. He breathed deeply. “When I thought Franco was dead, a whole shit-load of problems came into perspective. It’s been... a long time... since I suffered like when... well, you know. It was hard, Pippa. It nearly destroyed me; nearly took me down. Months went by, where every morning and every night I found it hard to think of a reason to go on, a reason not to eat a bullet.”
“So why didn’t you?” Her voice was soft.
“My girls, Pippa: I kept seeing their faces. What would they have thought? Their daddy giving up, giving in, taking the easy way out, taking the easy option: the easy option was never my way, Pippa. You know that.”
“So you’re still alive because of stubbornness?”
“I’m still alive because I love my girls.”
“And Freya?”
“You know I loved her. You know we drifted apart. You know... shit, Pippa. I loved you, I still love you. That’s just the way the world works; it’s the way people work. People change and shift and move on. Friendships morph and die, shift and alter. Relationships—something so passionate you would have killed for, would have died for—they become nothing more than a petty annoyance. Who left the cap off the toothpaste tube? Get your stinking muddy boots out of the hall! Why can’t you flush the toilet when you’ve used it? I think, deep down, we’re just solitary creatures who thinkwe need permanent companionship, but we don’t. Ideally, we need to be alone... more than anything.”
“You’re describing yourself, Keenan, not the whole of humanity.”
Keenan shrugged. “Maybe. Shall we get back in the shade? I think the sun is making me jabber like a monkey.”
“Hey. You’re doing just fine.” She placed her hand on his arm.
“So, we OK, then?” He looked at her. There was hope in his eyes.
“Let’s walk first, yeah? Before we run.”
“OK.”
“After all, I’ve still got my gutting knife on standby, just in case.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he grinned.
During the course of the evening they retrieved a large amount of kit, five MPK machine guns and a serious number of magazines. They managed to save three WarSuits, and quite a few HighJ bombs. Pippa made it her obsession to strip down all the weapons and clean them using Keenan’s torn-up T-shirt. They stashed the kit in the leaf-lined shelter, and as night fell and a sudden total darkness blanketed the jungle, Pippa built a small fire and sat, staring into the flames.
Keenan, lying on his side, watched her face lit by a demon-glow.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?”
“I know.”
“So modest.”
“Beauty is never enough.”
“Yeah,” sighed Keenan. “Iknow that. But you’ve got everything, Pippa: beauty, brains, the figure, the education. Why haven’t you settled down? Why haven’t you had children? What dragged you into this world of war?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s something to do with scissors, isn’t it?” His voice was soft, eyes fixed on her.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“OK. I hear you.” He changed the subject. “I hope Francis is OK.”
“Franco’s a big boy. Well, five feet, anyway. He can look after himself.”
“Yeah, I suppose he can. God, I wish I had a smoke.”
“I didn’t find your smokes, Keenan, but I did get you a present.”
“What’s that?”
She tossed something through the darkness. It landed heavily, thudding, and Keenan lifted the salt-encrusted Techrim.
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“It was down by the sea. I’d give it a good clean first.”
“Yes.”
Pippa gazed into baby flames.
Keenan closed his eyes, cradling his gun. And, despite their predicament, sleep came far too easily.
Wow, thought Franco. That was some rush! What kind of drugs were they? They blew ma fackeeeen maaind! He blinked. His mouth tasted of sulphur, and was dry, very, very, very dry. He felt sweat trickling down his back and heat prickling his scalp. Hmm, he thought. So, some party hey? Wonder if I scored? Some sexy little blonde chick yeah I know the one, Kristel with her thick blonde hair and baby blue eyes sweet sweet sweet little Kristel, bet she goes like a slick whore on KY acid.
Salt. Sand.
Franco opened his eyes and stared at the white water before him.
A beach? Was it a beach party? Damn fine beach party if you ask me, sure there were lots of naked ladies and folks getting jiggy with it and giving it all the zigga zig ahhhh
.
Franco rolled onto his back. He groaned, although hardly any sound escaped through cracked and swollen dry lips. That’s some dehydration, he thought, must have drunk like a horse. If only I was as good looking as one ha ha ha!
A shadow loomed over him.
Ahh. This will be room service, thought Franco optimistically.
The figure leant close.
It was Dr. Betezh: Betezh, with a seriously stapled Frankenstein-reject face. Betezh, who looked as if he’d not only had a bad day, but a bad week, month, year and decade.
Franco’s mouth opened in an inflatable doll O of surprise... as Betezh’s still-bound sausage-finger hands came down with a double
thump
on Franco’s skull.
“Ouch! You bastard! That hurt that did it really hurt!”
“Hurt!” seethed Betezh, “Hurt! I’ll fucking show you pain my little ginger cockroach, have you seen what you did to my fucking face? I just spent a whole hour looking into a milky pool, trying to work out who’s the most sexy, me, or a genetic experiment at the hands of the fucking Nazis!”
“You need to calm down,” said Franco, as a flood of really bad memories tumbled into his skull: Mount Pleasant, escape,
Hardcore
, Pippa, PopBot, Right-hook, Guinness, Razor-droid, hotel, Hornet, industrial staple gun, Crash, Betezh free... ahhhhhhhhhhh
,
Betezh free
.
Shit. “Calm down lad,” said Franco hopefully.