Biohell (28 page)

“No need,” said Keenan.

“Why’s that?”

Keenan gestured to where Mel
approached the grilles and attached her talons to metalwork. With a grunt, she
heaved, muscles writhing across her powerful, mottled body. There came a long
moment of locked tension, then a squeal as the grille gave way. Mel hurled it
aside, where it buckled against the wall and clattered into swirling
flood-water.

“Jesus,” said Betezh. “I’ve spent
the last couple of days trying to kill these bastards. Never thought I’d be
running away with one!” He glanced over at Franco. “What a beast, hey? And
ugly? Hell, you could crack bottles open on that face!”

“Shut up,” muttered Franco.

“But why?” Betezh frowned. “It’s
not like she’s your bird or anything.” He roared with laughter at his own joke,
and slapped Franco heartily on the back

Groans and roars came echoing
down into the skyscraper basement. “Looks like they breached the walls,” said
Franco. Keenan simply nodded, wincing. “You OK?”

“Headache.”

“Hangover?”

“No, Franco. It’s not a bloody
hangover.”

“OK. OK. Don’t get so tetchy.”

Keenan clicked the narrow
Mag-torch attached to his MPK, attempting to ignore the tiny, intrusive pain at
the back of his skull. Bright light leapt in a steady beam. And, with Betezh
and Franco close by his side, weapons at the ready, they waded into the flooded
service tunnel—into the darkness—and into the unknown.

~ * ~

They
crept through nigritude, with only a few torches to light their way. The tunnel
roof was circular, smooth, and gleamed with damp under pencil-thin beams. Water
sloshed around their knees, invading boots and making life uncomfortable.

Keenan and Franco were up near
the front, beside Betezh who led the way. It seemed he knew the tunnels well,
and when Keenan asked him why, he just gave a broad wink—which, on his scarred
and disfigured face, and in the light of the torches, looked quite horrific.
Certainly demonic.

“My God, what kind of monster did
I create?” mumbled Franco.

Keenan gave him a friendly slap
on the back.

Mel followed, in the midst of the
soldiers, who continually
didn’t-quite-point
their guns at her.
Occasionally she growled, and snapped at anybody who got too close. A lot of
makeshift squaddies came close to ND.

Far behind, the howls and groans
and screams followed them through the haunted tunnels. It would seem the
zombies, the mutants, the deviants, had not been fooled. And this new darkness,
and sense of enclosure, did nothing but heighten primal fears.

Franco was reliving many of his
own private nightmares. Not only was his woman a mutated monstrosity, but he
hated enclosed spaces almost as much as he hated a quarantined brothel. He
muttered in rhythm as he walked, words spilling out like a depraved marching
song.

“Bloody dark. Bloody zombies.
Bloody creepy gloom.”

“Bloody water. Bloody sloshing.
Bloody creepy shadows.”

“Wish I had a rainbow pill.”

“Wish I had a rainbow pill.”

This last mumbled sentence
referred to the days spent incarcerated at The Mount Pleasant Hilltop Institution,
the “nice and caring and friendly home for the mentally challenged”. Franco had
certainly been mentally challenged; now, he was merely mental.

“Ouch!” he screeched, doing a
sudden jig in the water which sent waves lapping against slick walls. “It’s there!
Down there! In the water! It’s a zombie! A zombie fish!” He unleashed a hail of
bullets from his Kekra quad-barrel machine pistol, the roar filling the tunnel,
the flash of fire illuminating his deranged features.

“Franco!” snapped Keenan.

Franco released the trigger. A
metallic booming rang up and down the tunnel. Acrid smoke filled the air.
Everything seemed suddenly much darker. Much more frightening.

“Sorry!” Franco held up his hand,
glancing back at the other soldiers. “My mistake. Just a piece of old tyre.”

“How the
fuck
can an old
piece of tyre be misconstrued as a zombie fish?” snarled Keenan.

“Hey, look, I said I was sorry,”
snapped Franco. “Excuse
me
for not being an expert on zombie marine
life.”

Keenan tutted, and moved ahead
with Betezh.

Franco pulled out his lower lip,
trudging through the oily water, listening to the distant sounds of slopping
zombie pursuit. Suddenly, there came a slapping of water, a few grunts and
curses of, “Hey, what you doin’?”, and Mel arrived beside Franco. He glanced
over at her, and gave a weak and watery smile.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“Grwwlll,”

“Oh yeah? Easy for you to
enunciate.”

Her head lowered, and she nuzzled
at him, just as Betezh turned and grinned through the gloom, his face eldritch
in the bobbing torchlight. “I think she fancies a slice of Franco pie,” he
said.

“Get stuffed Betezh.”

“Don’t be like that, Franco, we’ve
been through some tough times together! Some
great adventures!
We’re
like brothers in arms,
compadres,
a rag-tag firm of muscular savagery
and might!”

Franco stared at Betezh. “And you
thought
I
was insane?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Betezh, we
never
had any
good times.”

“Yeah we did!”

“What, like the fifty times you
electrocuted my testicles? Or maybe the time I punched you out of a
dive-bombing helicopter? Or what about the episode where I injected your brain
with a syringe— direct through your forehead? Maybe you’re referring to the
incident when I used an industrial bone-stapler on your saggy face? Ring any
bells? Notice any common themes of violence there?”

“Ach, that was just us fucking
wit’ each other.”

“Stop the games,” snapped Keenan,
“we’ve got a split in the tunnel ahead.”

They arrived at a large
cylindrical chamber which rose above the group for about a kilometre. Far far
above, against ink black, a few stars glittered.

“This is where we part company,”
said Betezh. He pointed. “Follow the tunnel that way, two or three klicks, it
leads to a service chute and back onto city streets; keep your eyes peeled
though, it’s an easy entrance to miss. Narrow, with a tiny ladder poking from
the tunnel roof. You’ll be in the heart of gangland then—just find yourself a
scumbag scrote-filled shit-stinking little hoodie and ask for directions. All
the gang members know the other gangs. They spend most of their time trying to
slaughter one another. Honour amongst thieves, eh?” He grinned, face like a
devil’s sick of sin.

“Where you going?” asked Keenan.

“We’ll have to try and find
another area to defend. Our barricade, whilst secure, was far too close to
street level. A foolish move, I fear; although I never expected the deviants to
form an army and attack
en masse.
I thought zombies were dumb and
stumbled willingly onto your gun barrel!”

“Well, thanks for this,” said
Keenan. He shook Betezh’s calloused, meaty hand. “We owe you one.”

“Yeah, cheers,” said Franco, a
tad grumpy, a tad sulky. “Go on Mel, say thank you.”

“Eers,” rumbled Mel, and Franco
gave her chain a tug. It jangled. Mel growled.

Betezh eyed the huge monster warily.
“Hell, I’d get that ugly bitch put down real fast, if I was you. Can’t have
deviants stumbling around in the dark. Gives us all the heebie jeebies! Listen,
we could do it now for you, if you like? As a favour?”

“We have it under control,” said
Franco, coolly.

“OK then. Well, so long!” Betezh
saluted. “Hey, and if you ever have another mission where you need a brave and
foolhardy accomplice...”

“Be assured, we won’t call you,”
muttered Franco.

They moved down the tunnel, with
Betezh’s booming laughter chasing them. It would seem he was in his element,
all animosity towards Franco gone and forgotten.

Silence closed in, and with it a
heavier, more claustrophobic atmosphere. Franco felt himself growing ever more
twitchy, goosebumps rising on his arms and neck as he constantly jumped at
shadows.

“Hey Keenan,” he said after half
a klick.

“Yeah mate?”

“What do you think the zombie
horde will do when it reaches a split in the tunnel?”

“I think our enemy is a damned
sight more intelligent than we give it credit for.” Keenan stopped, lit a
cigarette, and the flame lit the tunnel in a globe of light for a few
moments—then retreated. Darkness rolled back in, liquid ebony. “I think they’ll
divide, spread out, search all the tunnels.”

“Why do they want us?” asked
Franco.

Keenan shrugged. “I’m not sure
what drives them. I’m not a zombie. Ask your girl Mel over there.”

“Hey, she ain’t a zombie, Keenan.”

“Whatever.”

Cam, who had been silent with
damaged scanners doing their utmost to locate enemy activity, zipped in close
to Keenan. “Kee, I’m struggling here. I need to locate some specialist
circuitry and affect a repair. I am worse than useless. A few minutes ago, I
located
eight
Francos in the vicinity.”

“The
horror,”
said Keenan.

“Exactly! Look, I’m afraid I’m
going to have to leave you on your own for a few hours. Do you think you can
survive down here? Maybe find your way to this Knuckles lad?”

“Well, I’m not staying put,” said
Keenan. “Until we find some help for Mel, then Franco’s off-task. And when he’s
off-task, he’s useless to me in decoding the SinScript. The more time I waste
slopping around here in the grime, the longer I have to stay on this
godforsaken shit-hole. You go and do what you have to do—me and Franco, we’re
going to sort out Melanie. We’ll find Knuckles. Try and get her fixed. Ain’t
that right Francis?”

“Damn right bro’.”

Cam coughed. “Yes. Very well. I’ll
be off then. It’s starting to feel like an Arnie down here.”

Arnie, a famous actor from
thousands of years previous, had been
so successful
in action-movies
during his life that, upon his death, several of the unscrupulous up-and-coming
Ganger Agencies had genetically cloned him and sent his clones out to work
making, ironically, clones of the famous movie-star’s earlier movies. In
uproar, the Arnie Estate had filed a litany of lawsuits prohibiting Ganger
Agencies from genetically reproducing their recently dear and departed action
hero. However, due to a technicality of small-print in a contract from an early
Arnie movie, it seemed the Ganger Agencies had bought the rights to
him
from
GPA Films—the very rights to Arnie’s organic likeness. In effect, they owned
his body, and his
reproduction.
The following uproar led subsequently to
savage new anti-cloning laws, and despite the several thousand year legal
battle which followed, unfortunately for Arnie, his likeness and DNA were owned
not by himself, or his Estate, but by somebody else. His many clones no longer
owned their own bodies, and had to pay
rent
to inhabit their flesh,
which perpetuated yet more cloning and a continuation of movies... which
eventually became known simply as Arnies: a cliche of art where a muscle-bound
good guy beats up muscle-bound bad guys with a scattering of witty one-liners.
Brilliant, in terms of cheap entertainment value; not so brilliant in terms of
the poor man himself. As a clone, or
ganger,
a working Arnie had less
rights than a Battle Slab. There had recently been a series of secretly filmed
insider documentaries by the BBC on the terrible living and working conditions
of movie-bred Arnies, and there had been a public uproar and cries for an
internal inquiry into the depraved and unethical movie industry as a whole.
Across Quad-Gal, Arnies were horribly mistreated. Kept in narrow cages,
force-fed porridge, and only allowed out for an hour of sunlight a day. It just
wasn’t right.