Biohell (42 page)

MICHELLE moved, so fast she was a
blur. Her mouth was open, razor teeth inches from Franco’s face. Her breath
eased out, smelling of hot oil and ozone. She could have quite easily removed
his tiny head. In fact, his entire being.

Franco stared into jaws of
impending death. He snuffled a little. “OK,” he managed, after a few moments of
careful contemplation. “I retract what I just said. And I... ‘pologise.”

Clanking, MICHELLE stood to her
full height, limbs whirring and rotating. Guns appeared along her forearms.
Missiles ejected from the sides of her boots.

“She’s a Class H military droid,”
said Xakus. “I was researching her for QGM under license to NanoTek. But like
all armies with an eye on the cheque book, the miserable whoresons pulled the
plug when costs became too great. So... I worked at the university. And built
her in my spare time. It would have been churlish to waste so much invested
research.”

Franco stared at Xakus. “A
regular Doctor Frankenstein, aren’t you pal? What’s your encore? Raising the
dead?”

“Franco, shut up!” snapped
Keenan. He turned to Xakus. “You said MICHELLE was some form of military
transport? Will she carry us? It just seems treacherous to be perched up on her
shoulders like some estranged sci-fi hobbit as rockets and bullets whizz around
our heads.”

Professor Xakus stroked his white
beard. His eyes gleamed. “She is far more ingenious than that, my friend. OK.
Listen up.” Olga and Knuckles had moved down the ramp, both staring in awe at
the giant biological machine. Knuckles was holding Olga’s hand. In her other,
she carried one of Franco’s Kekras. “MICHELLE stocks 7.62mm stowable miniguns
in each ankle. She carries Hellcat 55 SAMs, and a wide range of anti-tank
shells. However, in battle she is untested.”

“I’m not surprised,” muttered
Franco. “If you let her out for a game of fetch, she’d damn well destroy half
the city!
Then
they’d lock up the loony creator.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” said
Keenan, eyeing Franco. “You might be a dab hand with a D5 shotgun in a shit
situation, but I needn’t remind you how many missions you’ve put in jeopardy
because you can’t keep your parrot in your trousers.”

“Hey! A guy’s got to spread his
seed, right? It’s a primitive thing. Part of my genetics.”

Xakus coughed. “Due to MICHELLE’S
design brief, and to keep things compact and give her utmost agility, you will
notice she resembles a human in physical contours. However, to actually get
inside her, you need to traverse a simple rearward injection cylinder.”

“Like a syringe?” frowned Franco.

“More like a tube,” said Xakus. “Don’t
worry, once inside her chassis you’ll be completely impervious to bullets and
rockets. Her armour is incredibly thick. It’s a bit like being a baby cradled
in a mother’s womb. You’ll like it. It’s comfortable.”

Franco was frowning. “Where is
this tube?” he asked, suspiciously.

“It’s part of the rearward
undercarriage assembly. MICHELLE? Please adopt the position.”

MICHELLE clanked down onto all
fours, and the ground shook. From her rear chassis oozed a smooth ejection of a
narrow tube. Franco stared at it, then back at Xakus, then to Keenan, then to
Xakus again.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Xakus gave a tight smile. “It was
the only place to put it.”

“I ain’t climbing up her
arse,”
said Franco.

“It’s not her arse, Franco, it’s
her undercarriage,” said Keenan. “Her rearward assembly. Part of her chassis.
She’s a machine, mate. Now get up that pipe before I give you a size 10
persuasion.”

“Actually, she’s part
biological,”
said Franco, taking a step away from the wide and disturbingly quivering
tube. “That’s means she’s alive. And
that,
in my book, makes that thing
her damn arsehole. And I ain’t crawling up it. Oh no.”

“Why not?” said Keenan dryly. “I’m
sure you’ve been up a few in your time.”

“Amusing, Keenan. You are a
comedy maestro. However, I’ve had my fair share of arse problems in recent
years, everything from simple straining injuries to bloody damn well buggering
alien arse viruses! It’s a place I think of as being a holy place, a place of
quiet calm, somewhere to be respected and revered. Now, it can’t be nice for
liccle MICHELLE there having lots of strange blokes climbing up her pipe.”

“Keenan,” said Knuckles, who was
looking up the ramp. “We got company. I think the zombies are back.” Snarls and
moans drifted down from The Great Malkovitch Library chamber.

Keenan nodded. Glanced at Xakus. “After
you, mate. Show us how it’s done.”

Xakus approached the tube, lifted
his arms, and was sucked into the biological machine’s cabin. Olga followed,
then Knuckles, with another requisitioned PERMAFROST BIO FIRE EXTINGUISHER in
gloved hands. Keenan and Franco stood alone.

“After you,” said Keenan,
gesturing.

“Oh no, no, no.” Franco shook his
head. “You first, Keenan. I bloody insist.”

Zombies lined the top of the ramp
now, glaring down with feral yellow eyes. One lifted an Uzi, and bullets
whined, howling down at the two men and spitting sparks on the ramp.

Keenan ran to the tube, lifted
his arms, and was accepted into the bowels of MICHELLE.

Franco stood alone.

He stamped his foot.

“Damn and bloody bollocks!” he
shouted, sent a round of Kekra fire at the zombies, smacking several from their
feet with wet blood showers, then turning, he grimaced, screamed, and took a
sprint towards the quivering tube...

He soon discovered violent,
rearward entry hurt just as much as he thought it would.

~ * ~

Franco
opened his eyes. Inside MICHELLE it was cool, and the machine hummed softly
around him. The others were seated in front of a large screen—the view from
MICHELLE’S eyes. As she stood, clanking and stomping a boot to the
concrete-alloy, so the interior cabin rolled smooth, keeping them constantly
upright. Gyroscopes buzzed. Tiny computer readouts on the walls blinked and
flickered.

“Wow!” said Franco.

Keenan turned. “You OK now, Big
Man?”

“I kinda thought we’d be covered
in shit. Or something.”

“It’s a
machine,
Franco.
Get it in your head!”

“Yeah but, like, when her bio
side
does
need a shit, where does it come out? I’m guessing this chamber
can get a bit a stinky after she’s had a few beers and a kebab.”

The zombies streamed into the
underground chamber, and MICHELLE whirled, ducking, one huge metal arm smashing
through their ranks and sending ten flying through the air to compress with
crunches against the metal wall. Her cubic fist slammed down, crushing another
three. Yet still more zombies appeared. Guns whined, bullets flashing and
screaming. MICHELLE punched and stomped, killing and crushing and breaking. She
stomped, clanking, backwards and miniguns in her ankles ejected with neat
whirrs. Bullets scythed through the zombies, cutting them in half. Within a few
short seconds the chamber was a charnel house, thick with rivers of black blood
pooling the floor, walls plastered and splattered with gore and zombie gristle.

“That’s savage,” said Franco,
quietly.

“Better them than us,” said
Keenan.

“Damn right,” snapped Knuckles.
He still held Olga’s hand, and his eyes carried a strange, haunted look.

“Time for us to get out of here,”
said Professor Xakus. His eyes were gleaming, as, for the first time in
history, he tested his sparkling new toy.

MICHELLE turned and stomped
across the chamber. Reaching the wall, she lifted mighty alloy fists above
herself and grasped a thick, swinging chain. She pulled with a tremendous
effort and there came a grinding of distant heavy gears. Before their eyes, the
wall opened with a rugged shuddering of steel and stone panels. Night air
flooded in, and within their cocoon they could smell the freshness of the
night, still laced with a scent of smoke from recent fires.

MICHELLE stomped up massive
blocks which formed steps, and out onto the street. Dark cube-scrapers towered
around them. Zombies were milling everywhere, like insects. MICHELLE stepped on
a few, whirling and whirring, and Keenan leant close to Xakus. “I’ll give you
directions,” he whispered, feeling somehow that inside this creature, this
machine, this metal foetal sack, it just seemed the right thing to do.

“No need,” said Xakus. He pointed
at a small display. “MonkeyMan Sat-Nav. The Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance
Company, you say? We’re on it.
Come on MICHELLE, baby, show us what you can
do.”

And Keenan caught it. Heard it.
Like a whisper on the wind. A ghost-voice. A communion of spirit.
Yes,
Professor Xakus. Anything you ask my love.
Keenan shuddered, and decided
that in this life, in this world, in this teeming, confusing, whirlwind
Quad-Galaxy in which he suffered some kind of existence, there were some things
he would never understand, and even if he was offered the key to such
knowledge, would happily decline. Some things, thought Keenan, were better left
undiscovered. He glanced back at Franco. “You OK, buddy?”

Franco nodded, but looked far
from OK. He looked like he was going to be sick. Exorcist sick.

“Travel for one kilometre, then
take a left,” said the MonkeyMan Sat-Nav.

Keenan reached out. Touched
Franco on the arm. “It’s just like a tank,” he said, kindly.

“It’s messing with my head! We’re
in its—her— belly. It’s rank, Keenan. Just totally gross. What kind of nutcase
builds something like this? What kind of warped and freaky freaked-out fucking
individual?”

“Yeah Franco, but what kind of
maniac built the atomic bomb? Or the BABE grenade? Or the Halo Smash? Our
history is littered with those who only desire to kill. It’s in our nature.”

“And what about us?” said Franco,
as MICHELLE stomped across the city, squeezing between towering blocks of
endless, blank-windowed skyscrapers. His eyes looked distant; his demeanour
wounded. “We’re just part of this terrible machine, aren’t we?”

“We fight for a greater good,”
said Keenan.

“And you believe that?” said
Franco.

“I have to. Or I’d surely go mad.”

“That explains my affliction,
then,” muttered Franco, and suddenly remembering something, dragged his pack to
his knees and rummaged inside. He found something, and placed it on his tongue
without looking at Keenan.

“What’s that?”

“Something to help.”

“Something to keep you sane?”

Franco shook his head. He grinned
then. “You’ve got it all wrong, Keenan, my friend. You have a twisted
perspective. A deviated standpoint. This world. This life. This nightmare.” He
chuckled. “I’m the only sane thing in it. It’s
everybody else
that’s
mad. The pills just make
your
insanity bearable.”

Keenan stared at Franco. Stared
hard. Trying to understand the little ginger soldier was like trying to walk on
a razor, or cycle on water, like trying to peel yourself with a spoon. And
Keenan realised; in Franco’s bubble, he believed in
himself.
And that
worked for him. Made the world make sense.

I wish I could be like you, he
thought.

I really do.

~ * ~

“Please
take the next right. Take the next right. Take the next right. Take the next
right. Take the next right.”