Biohell (40 page)

“Forgive me.” He smiled, but not
with his eyes. “I am being rude. Let me introduce myself. I am Mr Voloshko. I
own The Hammer Syndicate, one of the seven largest ruling conglomerates on this
decadent and rocky ball of shit. You have been a
very
naughty girl,
Melanie.”

Mel launched herself in rapid
acceleration to the attack, talons up and hammering in a dark arc for Voloshko’s
throat. He flipped to one side with surprising agility for one so large, and
five of the SIMs lowered broad-barrelled guns... and fired.

No bullets, but TitaniumMesh, a
living, organic biomerge of wire and AI threads. It ensnared a suddenly
growling, hissing, thrashing, struggling Mel. Her talons lashed out, but could
not penetrate the fibres. Sparks crackled along web circuits. The TitaniumMesh
stung her, and she yelped, a base canine sound as five layers merged and slid
and oozed and tightened. They slid around her struggling, slapping body,
constricting her; within seconds she fell, her limbs pinned to her sides, her
head locked in a vicelike grip.

There was a
slap
as she
hit the rooftop.

Voloshko strode forward, leant
down, ran his hand along Mel’s trapped jaw. Then he turned to the SIMs, waved
them in. “Take her back to Hammer HQ.”

SIMs ran forward and hooked the
TitaniumMesh to an Apache. Rotors thrummed, engines roaring, and the machine
leapt into the air. Cables pulled taut, and Mel was hoisted violently up, away
from the roof of the skyscraper, into the freezing cold of sudden high
altitude.

She gazed down at the children.
Watched Voloshko turn his back on the waking group, and glance purposefully at
the emotionless group of insectile Battle SIMs. He smiled a broad smile,
showing a single gold incisor.

“Kill the kids,” he said.

~ * ~

“Give
me the shotgun,” said Keenan, voice barely more than a growl. He did not shift
his gaze from the rigid AIs at the bottom of the ramp. He felt the touch of
barrels against his glove, the proximity of Franco close behind. He heard the
click of Franco’s Kekra quad-barrel machine pistols as he took the D5,
cautiously, in one fist...

“Leave the zombies to me,”
growled Olga, turning with Knuckles by her side. The young lad grimaced, and
brandished his rusted machete in sweating hands.

Keenan twitched a look behind, at
the snarling, charging mass. And back, to where Nyx was moving like flowing
liquid metal...

Keenan leapt down the ramp, D5
booming. Nyx was caught in the blast, spun, and fired backwards with a screech
of stressed alloy. Franco charged with Keenan, both hands firing Kekras.
Bullets howled and whined. Sparks flew. Nyx, blasted, curled into a ball,
rolling with the D5 onslaught. Momos, with yukana swords whirling, was punched
back, along with the twirling blades of Lamia. But even as Keenan pounded the
steel, so Nyx turned the roll into a move which defied physics, spinning, and
like a globe of needles she rolled at Keenan. The D5 snarled again. Franco
halted, dropping to one knee, Kekra tracking Momos who circled in the dark
underground vault. Franco fired, but quad-shots hissed over Momos’ head.

Behind, at the top of the ramp,
Xakus ran for the small console on the wall. Olga and Knuckles ignored him, for
the wall of charging zombies were almost on them. One leapt to the attack, and
Olga caught its grey flesh in powerful hands. With a crack, she snapped its
spine and tossed it aside. And she howled, her huge jowls wobbling as her face changed
into a mask of basic animal fury. Knuckles leapt, his machete swinging with the
anger of the condemned. A zombie head rolled, the body collapsing sending arcs
of black blood spurting. Some zombies tripped, slipping on blood. Knuckles
hacked at them blindly, furious, sure now he would die here and it would all
have been for nothing! His entire, pointless pathetic young existence, all for
nothing! Teeth bared, he hacked and slashed, cutting hands from arms, feet from
legs. He felt zombie blood wash over him. He laughed maniacally, lost from
sanity as the world became this moment, this wail of hating snarling flesh
and... he slipped, on gore, fell back under the weight of zombies and watched,
frozen, as they fell towards him, their stench on him and in him, and he
breathed in their deep slime and pus and blood which ran thick like black honey
over his face and into his mouth and he screamed...

Keenan’s D5 boomed again five
times in quick succession, and Nyx was sent spinning away—as Momos leapt,
yukana swords whirling for Keenan’s head. He ducked, stumbling back as the
blades hissed around him. One slashed his WarSuit, which buzzed a warning.
Keenan unleashed the D5 in Momos’ face. He heard a low feminine chuckle,
followed by the blasts of Franco’s Kekras. Keenan’s boots slammed Momos, and
she staggered back. Again Franco’s guns boomed, and the force sent Momos
skittering across the base of the ramp, yukanas showering sparks over alloy—as
Keenan turned, into the frenzied whirl of Lamia, her arms and legs glittering
blades, and Keenan and Franco scrambled back up the ramp in hasty retreat,
slipping, sliding, guns snarling, bullets whining and smashing and everything,
all discipline, all procedure forgotten under that panic of bright whirling
attack of blades too fast for the eye to follow—

Knuckles gurgled on zombie blood
like engine oil, which ran down his throat and into his belly and he tried to
scream but nothing would come and he realised he was drowning. He felt claws
caress his skull. This was it. Realisation hit him like a brick. They would eat
his brain... then Olga was there, her bulk pushing the mass aside as huge
shovel-like hands punched and slammed, fists smacking faces, cracking noses and
cheekbones, breaking jaws, crushing skulls, lifting and throwing and snapping
backs and arms and legs like brittle firewood. She reached down, lifted
Knuckles, tossed him away, back to Professor Xakus who was tapping furiously at
the wall console. It buzzed at him, red lights flickering. Knuckles rolled to a
halt on the cold, hard metal ground, stunned.

Both arm blades slammed down, and
Keenan slipped back, his D5, held in both fists, stopping a blow from cleaving
his skull like ripe fruit. Pain and vibration shuddered down his arms, nearly
dislocating his elbows. Again Lamia cut down, and the D5 buckled in Keenan’s
grasp, barrels bent, the shotgun useless, and Keenan snarled, boots kicking out
uselessly at Lamia’s elegant and perfect machine body. Lamia’s blades slid,
grinding sparks over the D5, and down, agonisingly, towards Keenan’s face. He
grunted under the effort, straining against the bent shotgun, the only thing
between him and decapitation. There came a
clonk,
and Keenan saw Franco’s
hand withdraw. Lamia looked down. Keenan’s boots smashed her chest, and she
took three steps back. Franco’s Kekras boomed in her face and she whirled away,
blades flashing... as the funnelled BABE—now attached to her abdomen—
detonated. Fire and smoke screamed, roared, and Lamia was flung like a metal
ragdoll across the dark underground chamber, away, clattering with sparks into
the shadows. Nyx rolled, leapt at Keenan who hurled the battered D5 and drew
his Techrim. Nyx uncurled, at the base of the ramp. She was smiling, head
tilted to one side. Her jaws worked, and Keenan saw poison gleaming on
thousands of needles which protruded from her metal skeleton. Keenan realised
his mouth was dry. Fear was something to which he was unused, but as he watched
Lamia stroll from the darkness, only a few scorch marks on her black casing—evidence
of a
full
BABE fucking—he knew the weapons they carried were
ineffective. They could not kill these GKs. The machines were far too advanced.
The smile fell from Nyx’s face, as Lamia and Momos closed ranks behind her. Nyx
stepped onto the ramp, lowering her head, and readying herself for a final
charge Keenan knew they could not withstand...

Olga lifted her head to the
ceiling of The Great Malkovitch Library and roared. The zombies cowered for a
moment, yellow feral eyes glittering, many of their fallen, deviant kind
littering the floor, broken and bent, many squirming, trying to crawl with
snapped spines, broken femurs, crushed heads; Olga charged them, a sudden
movement from the huge woman, and talons came up, slashed out, but Olga batted
them aside as she powered into the mass, fists slamming, pounding, beating,
pulping, every blow a devastating jackhammer, every headbutt crushing deformed
noses and skulls. She was a mighty powerhouse, an unstoppable bear of a woman,
growling and roaring, her fists her weapons. She forced the zombies back into
the narrow corridor, where they could only attack her two abreast, and she
slammed them down, broke them down, until they were crawling over their fallen
to reach her brains and wobbling, plentiful fresh flesh.

There came a high, ululating
call, and suddenly the zombies fell back. Olga stood, her hands and arms
covered in gore as if she were some bizarre butcher caught ripping a carcass
apart. Olga stared at the snarling, spitting mass with contempt, a sneer
forming on her lips. “You filth! You cannot beat Olga! Olga triumph, yes?”

The zombies parted, and from
their midst came three with a brightness in their eyes, an intelligence Olga
recognised. They moved smoothly, almost feline in grace, and the other zombies
seemed to show reverence to these creatures which now faced the great woman...

One lifted its hand, and Olga
tracked talons. And realised with a start it carried a small black gun. The gun
slammed,
boom echoing, and the bullet caught Olga high in the chest,
punching her back scrabbling at the gunshot-wound, then slipping on the spilled
gore of the fallen.

“We are the New Breed,” said the
zombie, eyes glinting. It half-turned, to the growling, urgent mass. “Eat her!”
it commanded.

Nyx charged Keenan, as Professor
Xakus hit RETURN. There came a
click,
and the ramp slammed upwards,
catching Nyx in mid-charge and pinning her by her abdomen between ramp and
frame. Motors whirred, straining, cogs grinding and clicking against powerful
ratchets.

Keenan deflated a little. Relief
flooded him. He moved forward, where Nyx glared up at him, struggling, matt
black eyes clicking, her hands flexing as they tried to grab his soft human
flesh. Keenan halted just out of range and dropped to one knee. “Who sent you?”

“Keenan... the zombies!” snapped
Franco; he turned, and charged at the zombies which flooded the chamber from
the corridor above, charging at the fallen figure of Olga, who lay with eyes
fluttering, blood spreading across her punctured chest...

Keenan turned and ran after
Franco, and they opened fire. Bullets tore into grey flesh and zombies were
kicked spinning backwards. But the two Combat K men realised in an instant;
they could not hold the flood. There were too many of them.

And then Knuckles was there, the
young lad struggling under the weight of a fire canister. It was red, and down
one side, past signs of a skull and crossbones, of toxic danger, biohazard and
horrible bioreaction, it read:
DANGER—PERMAFROST BIO FIRE EXTINGUISHER*

[*NOT TO BE USED BY MINORS].

“Stand back!” screamed Knuckles,
aiming the nozzle. There came a buzz, a click, then a HISS as a cloud poured
from the PERMAFROST BIO FIRE EXTINGUISHER’S wide cone nozzle, shuddering in
Knuckle’s hands. Like raw chemical ice the cloud slammed the charging zombies,
freezing them solid. Screaming, Knuckles advanced, the canister rumbling and
spitting as the stream of chemicals gushed and billowed over the zombies,
turning them instantly white and crisp. He reached Olga, fell to his knees by
her side, and only then did he release his grip and the chemical cloud
evaporated leaving a silent wall of rigid zombies, a frozen tableaux of
unyielding aggression.

“Reminds me of the last time I
saw the football,” said Franco, turning, scanning, checking for any other
dangers that might emerge to bite them on the arse.

“See to Olga,” said Keenan,
replacing the mag in his Techrim. He turned, nodded at Xakus, who grinned
weakly and gave a
thumbs up,
then strode back to the still-straining
ramp. Gears were whining. The ramp gave little rhythmical judders, still trying
to feed its mammoth weight into its acceptance grooves. Nyx was still
struggling to break free. She looked far from impressed.

Keenan crouched, just out of
reach. Still, Nyx grappled for him, inches away from his living flesh. The GK’s
jaws worked, soundlessly, and Keenan could see its legs kicking beyond
entrapment in the heavy ramp snare.

Keenan sat down, cross-legged,
placed his Techrim on the ramp with a
clack,
and lit a cigarette. Nyx
watched him. Beyond, he could see Momos and Lamia pacing. He blew smoke into
the GK’s face.