Biohell (39 page)

“Time to go,” said Franco,
softly.

Keenan nodded. “Xakus?”

“Follow me.”

They ran, back through narrow,
wood-lined corridors which smelt strongly of musty old tomes. Thick carpets
lined the way, and ancient oil paintings hung at intervals, stern faces staring
down disapprovingly at the fleeing group.

“What did he mean, nineteen-forty-four?”

Xakus gave a cold smile. “Only
the insane burn books,” panted the old black man, stopping for a moment, sweat
rolling down his face. “Give me a moment, lads, I’m not used to all this
excitement.”

“Is this back door at the back?”
said Franco.

“A classic question,” said
Keenan.

“Actually, no,” said Xakus. “It’s
beneath us.”

“Not back to the tunnels!”
groaned Franco.

“This is something different,”
said Xakus.

They ran on, as gunfire and
screams echoed behind. The zombies had flooded the library’s foyer, many
leaping past the old men who had formed a circle of guns, and were killing with
ancient cackles and the madness of the doomed.

Zombies spilled into corridors
and lecture halls, storage rooms and high-ceilinged halls. They galloped, teeth
gnashing, and several picked up the strong scent of
brains
and
fresh
meat...

Xakus stopped by a keypad in the
wall. His gnarled hand flickered, and the floor suddenly opened at their feet,
a ramp hissing down into a subterranean vault on heavy hydraulics. Lights
glittered into life as the group peered down at what appeared to be an
underground runway.

“MICHELLE’S down there?” asked
Franco, peering warily into the ice-chilled gloom.

“Follow me.”

They were alerted by snarls and
moans, and Keenan and Franco whirled, guns booming and cracking. Two charging
zombies were caught in the hail, smashed up and back, limbs flailing as black
blood and pus splattered out in an arcing gore rainfall. Behind, more zombies
were advancing, yellow eyes narrowed, broken teeth bared in menacing snarls.

“Get moving!” roared Keenan, as
his Techrim destroyed a zombie’s head and sent cubes of skull thumping across
plush carpet.

“We’ve got a problem,” said
Knuckles, voice edged with a filigree of panic.

Keenan glanced back at their
escape route, down the long metal ramp to where tiny lights flickered like
stars. At the bottom, standing patiently, were the three alloy GK AIs, thin
gloss black limbs motionless, matt black eyes fixed on the group above. Keenan’s
mouth dropped. The three GKs spread apart, the central one drawing twin yukana
swords from metal sheaths on its back. The one to the left suddenly sprouted a
thousand gleaming, shimmering needles which rippled across alloy limbs and back
and head. The one to the right transformed arms and legs into long killing
blades which clattered at the foot of the ramp, kicking up sparks.

“Holy duck shit!” boomed Franco,
as a flood of zombies from behind, punching and kicking and snarling and
scratching, fought one another to get down the corridor leading to the stinking
stench of pumping meaty brain...

Keenan stood, frozen, between
hammer and anvil.

The spiked AI’s eyes swivelled to
lock on Keenan. A moment passed between them—in which Keenan felt himself
totally ensnared, fixated by a graceful example of a beautifully advanced
prototype technology. In a simple, measured, elegant female voice, the AI
spoke.

322 Biohell

“Combat K.” She seemed to smile,
giving a single nod, glossy hydraulic jaws hissing as they worked in a sad
mimicry of human speech. “It’s time to retire.”

~ * ~

CHAPTER 10

HURT

Melanie
rocked back on her haunches, watching the children who had gathered round the
small fire on the rooftop of the Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance Company.
They were singing softly, a lilting ballad led by Little Megan, with Skull and
Glass crooning in the background as Sammy tapped out a rhythm on an old tin can
with a long, dangerous looking stiletto dagger. Drool pooled from Mel’s
distended jaws, ran down her chin, and formed a long, sticky umbilical to the
floor. She glanced down. There was a large oval puddle, from the recent
torrential opening of the heavens, and Mel shuffled herself to the pool and
gazed at herself. One taloned hand lifted, the arm slim and wiry, skin a mottled
dark brown and spotted with black, rippled and corrugated in places as if her
own skin didn’t quite fit her, like a badly oversized rubber jacket. Her skin
was slick with grease, and it shone. Her small black eyes moved down the
shimmering reflection of her own body, past the obscenely dangling breasts with
massive, pus-oozing nipples, to the angular and bony disjointed legs with knees
that worked the wrong way and large, flapping, taloned feet. And then she gazed
at her face, and let out a little whimper through her stepped-out lower jaw.
Her head, small and round and hairless, sat atop a long neck with crackling
armour plating.

What am I? she thought.

You are Melanie.

What have I become?

You have always been this way...

No, no, I was different. Before.
I was a... woman. A human. With white flesh and long brown hair and gentle
eyes. She closed her tiny black pin-pricks and focused
internally.
Somewhere,
in her confused and raging skull, an image forced itself clear of the mire of
hunger and hatred and blood-red rage; Mel concentrated on that image, held it
strong in her mind, and holding its hand brought it to the fore of
consciousness. She could see herself. As she had been. When she was...

Normal.

I was normal.

So what am I now?

Her eyes opened, neck crackling
as her head moved and lowered, staring into a rippled reflection of organic
horror.

I am a monster, she realised with
shock.

I have become a deviant.

Sorrow washed through Mel, and
she felt herself slipping down a slick greased slope into the broiling pot of
turmoil and anger and hatred. Grinding her teeth, her stepped-out lower jaw
clacking, she dragged herself back up the mental slope and touched again a
world of humanity, a world of remembrance, a world of normality.

So... what happened? How did I
come to this?

She remembered her job. A
tax
inspector.
She smiled. It was so gratifying.

And she remembered...

Mel frowned.
Francis.
Her
boyfriend. Her lover. The man she wanted to...

Marry.

Where had he gone? Had he
abandoned her?

Melanie felt tears well within
her mottled, distended breast, and she breathed deep, triple lungs rasping air
through teeth more titanium than bone. Memories danced just out of reach.
Images, blurred, of a childhood, of friends, of a job, a love-life. Emotions
raged within her, and she felt herself slipping back into an uncontrollable pit
of rage and despair... where a demon lived, a demon that wasn’t her, filled
with the need to hunt and feed and rip and tear and kill...

“Mel?” It was Little Megan. She
touched Mel’s grooved talons; tenderly, like a child touching its mother. “What
are you doing sitting here all by yourself? Come over to the fire, where it’s
warm.”

Mel nodded, eased herself to her
feet and towered over the tiny girl. She lolled to the fire and all the
children glanced up, smiling as they huddled together. Little Megan patted a
space on the ground and Mel squeezed beside the kids, feeling huge and
cumbersome, ungainly and suddenly very, very ugly.

Who did this to me? she thought
idly, as the singing resumed.

Who changed me into this
horrorshow?

Little Megan rested her head
against Mel’s arm, ignoring the slick grease on the deviant’s skin. The orphan
girl gave a little sigh and closed her eyes, and Mel started to croon, a
lilting noise that rose in volume and joined with the children’s sad, steady
rhythm. And Mel sang, sang to the sky, sang to the stars, sang to the children,
a song without words and yet which conveyed emotion—that of love, and sympathy,
and sorrow; a song about loneliness murmured in dreams; a song about life. And,
ultimately, death.

Mel did not know that she’d
fallen asleep, only that she awoke.

The fire had gone out, was
nothing more than glowing embers, lava etched on charcoal. Her nostrils
twitched, at the woodsmoke, and at... something else. Something alien to her
surroundings.

She scanned the group. The
children slept, peaceful, breathing deeply in their little comfort circle.
Peaceful, at rest, safe in the knowledge that they were protected by an
eight-foot deviant mutation who had successfully battled zombies and expelled
them from the Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance Company.

But, ultimately, how much am I
like the enemy?
thought
Mel.

Am I a zombie... as well? Am I
undead
? A
non-person?
An
eater of brains and flesh?

She frowned. More and more
human
thoughts were starting to cascade through a mind she now acknowledged as
bestial and base. What was happening? Was she
learning?
Learning to be
human again?

There came a tiny sound, of steel
on wood. Her head slammed left—and there, not ten feet away, crouched a man. He
was bulky, tall, his face aged but handsome, with neat black hair and a neat
black beard. But his eyes were hooded, brown, bottomless windows to a soul
twisted with pain and degradation.

The man smiled. “Hello, Melanie.”

“Grwllllll!”

“Do not be alarmed.” The man was
holding a stick and a knife. Again, he shaved a sliver from the stick, watched
it curl to the floor, then tested the point of sharpened wood with his thumb.

Mel wanted to say,
what do you
want? I warn you, I’ll rip off your head, rip out your spleen, chew through
your face and spit out your eyes!
But the rage waned, and something cold
settled across her soul. The man exuded power. And his eyes... his flesh was
young, the prime of health and youth. But his eyes were
old.

The man tutted, and glanced down
at the length of wood in his powerful, thick-fingered hands. “It’s a very great
shame it has come to this, Melanie. You do not know me... only of me. You are
the pretty, transmogrified girlfriend of Franco Haggis. Franco Haggis has done
me a very great harm. However, it is you I seek. And you have been
very
difficult
to track down.”

Mel surged to her feet, talons
clacking, but the man put his finger to his lips. His old eyes were smiling. “Shh.
Be calm, my sweet. This won’t take long.”

From out of nowhere three Apache
F52 Gunships roared from the false horizon of the skyscraper’s roof, veering up
from their rapid smashing vertical ascent and dropping, levelling, engines
screaming and groaning with leashed power behind the brown-eyed man. He stood
smoothly, tossing away the stick and sheathing his knife beneath his coat. He
placed hands in pockets, coat tails flapping in the awesome downdraught of
three thrumming, enraged war machines with miniguns primed. Mel took a step
back, glanced down at the sleeping children who were stirring now, and gave a
growl so deep and guttural it went unheard.

The Apaches disgorged a swarm of
Battle SIMs, heavily armed and armoured, mechanical eyes glowing faintly as
boots hit the ground with synchronised
thuds.
Their armour clicked and
whistled, like a platoon of insects; the SIMs spread out behind the man.