Biohell (43 page)

Xakus thumped the MonkeyMan
Sat-Nav.

“Please take the next right,” it
said. “Oo.”

“Why did it say oo?” frowned
Franco.

“It’s a MonkeyMan,” said Xakus,
as if that was explanation enough.

MICHELLE clanked through The City
with a heavy, weighted, rolling motion. Huge swathes of urban sprawl now seemed
strangely uninhabited, and for an hour they met no resistance, MICHELLE’S
scanners picking up little or no localised zombie activity. It was as if the
creatures had clubbed together, for strength in numbers; either that, or simply
vanished. Keenan pointed out that this trait, again, indicated intelligence, a
need for survival, a common goal. Not activity usually associated with the
undead—even if they were a nanobot deviated zombification.

Franco managed to calm down after
a while, and Keenan fell into a brooding silence, a half-sleep of exhaustion,
no doubt reminiscing on his past, his dead wife Freya, and his slaughtered
girls. They filled his thoughts often, and Franco caught him reaching for a
Jataxa bottle in his inside pocket; a bottle that was no longer there.

Eventually, Keenan drifted in and
out of sleep. And in his dreams, he remembered Freya. He remembered his girls.
But most of all, he remembered Pippa...

As a Combat K squad proficient in
infiltration, assassination, demolition, the original unity of Keenan, Franco
and Pippa had been tighter than tight. They were a finely honed fighting
instrument working for the Quad-Gal’s Peace Unification Army with the original
intent of ending the Helix War. However, events transpired to reveal that his
love of Pippa—which led to his rejection of her love, and a perceived
betrayal—eventually directed the psychotic and deranged female assassin to
Keenan’s family, where she slaughtered them without mercy. Keenan had sworn he
would avenge his family, and Pippa had fled—with Keenan in pursuit. He had
chased her for a year... and three times came close to wiping her from the face
of existence.

The first time he’d caught up
with her, asleep in a sleazy, damp, rat-infested hotel on the decadent mining
planet of Mistral. As he coolly aimed his silenced pistol at Pippa’s sleeping
body, revellers in the street outside disturbed the peace and she was instantly
awake, Keenan kicked backwards by a stunning fast blow, and Pippa’s athletic
figure gone from the three storey window. Keenan fired off five shots at her
dodging, fleeing figure in the freeze-cool night, but was hindered by the dark
of the zero moon planet, the pounding rain, and the flush of blood in his eyes
from a narrow cut across his forehead. It was only then he had realised Pippa
had slash-razors in her boots. His mood descended into fury, and a brooding
oblivion.

The second instance had been a
chance encounter as he followed clues to her whereabouts on the busy,
hedonistic pleasure planet of Tantalus IV. Tantalus IV—or the
Theme Planet
—was
an entire world dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, an entire planet
dedicated to enjoyment, fun and hedonism. The Theme Planet incorporated the
very latest in high-tech rides, new drugs, sexual exploration and virtual
stellar experiences. Ever wanted to be inside a star when it’s born? Ever
wanted to journey through a black hole? Ever wanted to ride on the backs of
loveless and
technically dead
Stellar Dragons? Well baby,
now
you
can...

Keenan hated the place, filled as
it was with pleasure rides such as INSANE, MOTHERLODE, MONSTER MASH and BUBBLE
GUTS. The marketing motto ran:

THEME PLANET!

it’s better than drugs!

it’s better than sex!

it’s fun it’s fast it’s slick it’s
neat...

if you haven’t been sick yet you
soon will be.

And it was right. Keenan
was
sick—but
not from the ‘enjoyable’ adrenaline junky rides; no. Just from the cacophony of
noise and bustle and charging screaming teenagers—screemagers. Keenan had
always thought he discovered his personal hell on the overcrowded industrial
compact of The City; however, he had been wrong. Watching thousands of
squealing, over-excited, caffeine-riddled adolescents covered in popcorn,
candyfloss and puke, push and jostle their way around sunny walkways littered
with half-eaten hotdogs and the odd discarded teddy-bear—on a
planetary
scale
—filled him with a loathing for organic life that went far beyond
Cosmic Joke.

As on any planet, Tantalus IV
suffered from an underworld of criminal activity. Contacting the dreg-heads in
command Keenan had bought information on inbound Shuttles, which in turn had
led him to The Green Zone—or
Tranquil Park.
It seemed the parents of
screaming, jostling kids needed a place to
relax.
The Green Zone was
filled with flowers and trees and shrubs, gondola rides on calm waterways,
soaring cable-car rides through snowbound peaks. The architecture was ancient
alien stone, spires and towers and curving paved walkways ascending gentle
hills to blue-stone castles and orange towers. The
rides
were rides
dedicated to relaxation; immersion games of gentle pursuit or carefree,
lulling, tantric sex.

Stepping from the delivery
zeppelin, and watching idly as this huge helium-filled vehicle soared away in
an eerie, looming silence, Keenan had wandered down to the gardens and a map
which said: YOU ARE HERE, and spread out a myriad of attractions before him
across one thousand square kilometres of
chill time baby.

Checking into a local hotel,
Keenan had headed for the bar, dropped his pack at his feet, lifted his hand to
call the barman and froze. To his right, in a curved leather chair, a small PAD
computer on her knee, sat Pippa; clothed in a long floral-pattern dress, her
dark shoulder-length hair held back with blue clips, she looked fresh-faced,
eyes sparkling, stunningly beautiful. Keenan’s breath caught in his throat. He
was pole-axed by her femininity. Stunned by her womanhood. He remembered
kissing those sensuous lips. Remembered tracing erotic lines through the sweat
on her flank. Remembered her dulcet tones tongue-whispering tickles in his
ear... as she drew a matt Makarov from a thigh-holster and opened fire on him—

Keenan dived over the bar,
Techrim in his fist. He returned fire, but she was gone. Like a ghost. A
terrible, fleeting angel.

“You spill her drink, mate?”
asked the cowering barman with a toothless but wary grin.

Growling, Keenan had sprinted
after her... but the hotel lay in heavily wooded grounds. He searched for an
hour before he found a trace of her passing; and by the time he reached the
Shuttle Docks Pippa had already fled the planet.

The third time Keenan had contact
with Pippa, it wasn’t he who found her—but the other way round.

Hekkan Grail.

He shivered.

A strange, improbable world. A
world of contrasts, of opposites, of salted wine, sweet main courses and bitter
desserts. Of women with penis extensions, and men with triple vaginas. It was a
place of acquired taste. And, on a fast-cruise across an endless warm green
ocean, snow tumbling from cold-sun skies, Keenan’s deck apartment—with a cloth
shield roof—allowed him to watch the falling snow diffused with sunlight. Even
at night.

When he had woken, in the
darkness, sun and snow piercing fingers high above him through the black, the
cold barrel against his head had sent a shiver reverberating down his locked
spine.

The figure, a black outline in
the dark, retreated a little. There came a
hiss
of breath.

“Pippa?” said Keenan, realising
the game was now, ultimately, over. Within a few seconds he would be dead
meat... for Pippa was a killer, and she’d pre-empted his hunt. She found him. “Shit.”
He had smiled in the darkness. A stray beam of green-sun cut a shaft across the
room, for an instant illuminating Pippa’s eyes. Then it was gone.

“I warned you not to follow me,
Kee.”

“But you knew I would.”

“I didn’t mean to kill them.”

Keenan’s humour left him. Anger
flared. “But you did. And there’s no forgiving that.”

“Why won’t you leave me alone? I’m
sick
of looking over my shoulder. Sick of being frightened.”

“There’s only one way you’re going
to stop me.”

Her voice, when she replied, was
dangerously low. “Yeah, Kee. I know that.”

Keenan had tensed, waiting for
the shot...

Which did not come. And then he
realised; Pippa was crying. Hot tears coursed her cheeks. Her gun wavered. And
he knew; knew if he drew out his Techrim he could take her. Blow her damned
head clean off. End this scourge on his existence; on his
past.
And on
his future.

But he did not. He could not.

Pippa had backed from the room;
was gone.

Keenan had slumped back to his
bed, and covered his face with his hands. He realised he, too, was crying and
he hated himself for it. Why didn’t you avenge us, daddy? asked Rachel in his
dreams. Why didn’t you kill the bad lady?

Keenan awoke scowling. He
coughed, and rubbed at his eyes as he orientated on his surroundings. MICHELLE.
Mission. Shit. “Can I smoke?” he asked, voice a growl.

“In here?” said Xakus, turning
and raising a white eyebrow. Keenan stared into deep brown eyes.

“Yeah. In here. I’m feeling... a
need.”

“Would
you
like somebody
smoking inside
your
belly?”

“Good point, but it doesn’t
answer my question.”

“Let me put it this way, Mr
Keenan. Have you ever seen a fifty-foot enraged bio-mechanical war machine
rampaging across a city killing indiscriminately with a huge arsenal of
military grade weapons? Would you like to?”

“A simple ‘no’ would have
sufficed.”

“Ha, a stupid question, no?”
roared Franco, slapping Keenan on the back. Keenan’s head swivelled.

“That’s rich, coming from the
resident Housewives’ Choice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Keenan gave a wide smile, and
nodded past Franco, to where Olga sat, her huge frame squeezed into
the—seemingly—tiny chair. Olga’s eyes were wide and filled with pure
puppy-love. Her gaze was locked by chains of steel to Franco.

Franco grinned weakly. Olga
lifted a hand and gave a delicate wave.

“Have you noticed a certain
lop-sidedness to her smile?” said Keenan.

“It’s the three missing teeth,”
said Franco, through his own, which were gritted tight in a rictus grimace that
would have impressed Death’s dentist. “Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to get
out of this situation with my dignity.”

“I’m gonna have to agree with you
on that one,” said Keenan. He pulled free a home-rolled “Widow Maker. Met Xakus’s
eyes. Cursed. Stowed the weed away. At the back of his skull, his recurring
headache started to nag again. He rubbed the back of his head, wincing.

“At the next junction, turn left.
Oo oo.”

“It’ll be asking for a banana
next,” hissed Keenan.

Olga shuffled towards Franco, and
sat beside him. She placed a hand on his knee. Around them, a distant clanging
and clanking and clashing of gears were the only noises to intrude in this
comfortable, almost serene, hiatus in a world of violence.

“A. Haha. Ha.” Franco’s eyes
betrayed his discomfort.

“Olga would like to thank you.”

“For what?”

“Saving Olga’s life!” She beamed.
Squeezed his knee a little harder. And with a little more...
urgency.

“Um. What? Back there with the
zombies? When you got, shot? Ahh, ‘twas nothing. Honest.” He eyed her like he
would a particularly manky cat. “Um. You can let go of my knee now.”