Cloneworld - 04 (18 page)

Wife.

Kids.

Franco thought about Mel. Melanie! She'd been his true love. Love at first sight! Okay, technically she'd been investigating him for non-payment of taxes, but they'd hit it off pretty fast after a humorous incident concerning the chopping of raw chillies and a rather vague fumbling in the vaginal area. But they'd gone from strength to strength, making love, not war, and then... then...

Franco's eyes filled with tears.

Mel, after foolishly dipping of her toe into the realm of illegal biomods at the hands of the Nanotek Corporation, had been turned - along with pretty much the entire population of the planet known as
The City,
or at least, those who had experimented with personal augmentation -
turned
into
an eight-foot-tall deviant super-soldier. One who was a mass of pus and drooling saliva. One who was a little bit necrotic. One who was, to all intents and purposes, a
zombie.
Shit followed shit, and after the mission, and the rescue of The City by the dutiful Combat K squad, it emerged that Mel's affliction was a
special case.
She was a one-way transmogrification. There was no backtracking on her zombification. She was undead. Undead as an undodo. And proud of it.

More shit followed more shit, and after a bizarre sequence of arguments, Mel had filed for divorce. Franco had been
divorced
by an eight foot mutated super-soldier! This still rankled pretty deep with him. He was filled with bitterness. Annoyance. Disbelief! After all, he'd been the one brave enough to go down on a jellied pussy!

Now, however, it brought a tear to Franco's eye. In those long and lovely moments after making love (before she became a zombie), when he and Mel had been curled together, a tangle of pale limbs, their hearts beating as one, they had planned out their future. And their future had contained children. Franco, goddammit, wanted children! He lusted after having his own family! Not just something to secure his genetic longevity, but something to drag him away from the demands of... War.

Franco was getting old.

Franco was getting tired.

Franco wanted babies!

A bit drunk now, he stood, and swayed, and at least had the foresight to pull on his knife-cut combat shorts. He staggered out into the corridor. All was quiet. He staggered down the corridor. He staggered out into the cockpit area. He leered around myopically.

"Hello?" he said, slurring his words a little.
Damn, that whiskey was strong. Or maybe it was just the three pints he'd drunk? Drank? Dunk? But then, with a fine Japachinese Single Malt, it'd be rude not too, right?

"Hello."

The pilot's chair swivelled, revealing General Tarly Winters,
sans
uniform. She wore a long black nightdress and her red curls were scraped back. Her china skin glowed under the ship's ambient lighting.

Franco blinked, and licked his lips, and thought,
play it cool, remember, you want some babies. Kids! A family! A family unit with which to play on the beaches, using buckets and spades. Hot damn, I want to change shitty nappies! I want to be squawked at through the night, precluding any sort of sleep for at least four years! I want to be puked upon just after putting on my finest black suit! Hell, I want aggravation for every waking moment, because, because, because, with all the hard shit, all the tough shit, all the impossible shit, there'll be a million tiny perfect moments which is what life is all about.

In a glimmer of perfect clarity, Franco realised he no longer wanted to be alone.

"Come and sit down," said Tarly, and patted the pilot's chair next to her. "Come on. I want a good ol' chat with you, Franco Haggis. Because - you are a conundrum to me. I come here ready to fire your ass from a fucking rocket, bust you down from Combat K on a list of severe competency issues so long you could have used it as a toilet roll. But you got the job done, didn't you?"

"I always get the job done," said Franco, and took a seat next to Tarly. He eyed her up and down, crafty-like, a technique most men employed. Only Franco wasn't that crafty. The whiskey made an idiot of his brain; made him grin like a Cheshire Cat.

"I've looked at your QGM sheet."

"Yeah, and full of shit that's likely to be. As full of shit as a pint of Scrotum's Old Todge Clogger - Finest Single Malt."

"Not so." Tarly tilted her head to one side. "It made for some...
interesting
reading. Made for some hilarious damn reading, if I'm brutally honest. I mean, Melanie
divorced you?
How the hell did that happen?"

"Hey, laugh it up. The rest of the fucking army have."

"I'm not laughing, Franco. I think she just didn't understand and appreciate your masculine side. I mean, any more macho and you'd be joining The Village People, right?"

Franco eyed Tarly warily. "Okay. Come on. What's the game?"

"No game." Tarly smiled. "I'm just... intrigued. You intrigue me. Believe me, I've waded through the paperwork of entire
battalions.
You, however, stand out as a true conundrum. As you say, you're wild and weird, but strangely, you always seem to get the job done."

"I just am what I am. There's no secrets here. What you see is what you get. I'm exactly what it says on the tin."

"And what's that?"

Franco shrugged, and hit the InfinityChef[tm], which obediently delivered him a pint of frothing Guinness, complete with sculpted shamrock atop the creamy head. Franco sipped it, giving him a moustache atop his goatee beard. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "You're the one with the qualifications, General. You tell me. After all, I'm just a grunt."

"No. You're Combat K," she said, and untied her long curls, allowing them to tumble across her shoulders. "But anyway. Let's talk about something else."

"Such as?"

"Keenan. Tell me about Keenan."

"Aah, so that's the game you're playing," said Pippa, leaning against the doorway. In her hand was a battered Techrim 11mm, which had once belonged to Zak Keenan - Pippa's lover, and Pippa's nemesis. "Here to sniff out what happened down on Sick World, are you?"

"I read the reports," said Tarly, softly.

"But you don't believe them," smiled Pippa. She played distractedly with the gun. "Well, General. What I'd say to you is, what we wrote in the QGM Post-Mission reports is exactly what actually happened. Take it or leave it. There are no other answers to give."

"And that's your reply?" said Tarly, shifting her gaze to Franco. He gazed into her beautiful eyes. He licked his lips nervously. Here was a dangerous woman. Here was the most dangerous woman of all: one he desperately wanted... which pretty much summed up anything that walked or crawled.

"Err..."

"Yes, it is," snapped Pippa. "Now I'd ask you for a bit of privacy. Me and Franco need to talk."

"No problem," smiled Tarly, standing, and for a moment showing a tantalising amount of pale thigh. Then her black nightdress fell into place, and Franco swallowed, and somehow the fact she was fully covered was a million times worse. She moved to the doorway.

Franco coughed, an over-deep, masculine, macho cough. "Er, yes, well, thanks for the chat Tarly, we'll be seeing you around."

"Yes, Franco," she smiled. "I'll be seeing you around."

She disappeared and Franco gawped, and then went cross-eyed as the barrel of the Techrim 11mm touched the end of his nose. "I ain't even fucking with you," snarled Pippa, "when I say that if you speak about Keenan, even one fucking word, I'll shove this gun so far up your arse you'll be coughing bullets."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Keenan would like you to arse-render me with his favourite 11mm, for sure."

"It's just a warning, Franco. Just a warning."

"I don't
need
your warnings. I have my own in-built warning systems. Like, er, whiskey. And sausage. And, er, using my brain. I
can
use my brain you know! I know you think I can't use my brain, and it's something that's overrated, but I can use my brain when I need to use my brain!"

"Quite," said Pippa, removing the gun and gazing down at it, lovingly.

Franco drank his pint. In one. And smacked his lips. "You miss him. Don't you?"

"I miss him," nodded Pippa, and there were tears on her cheeks. "When he stepped into... when he was
absorbed
into VOLOS, in return for the information leading us to the Junkala Soul - well, I know what he was thinking, I know he felt guilt, like the weight of a planet resting across his shoulders. He wanted to see his dead girls again, travel beyond the realms of
life
and seek them out. See if there was something beyond."

"He didn't die," said Franco, softly, reaching out and placing his hand over Pippa's.

"Yes, but he isn't fucking
here!"
she snapped. "It was a one-way journey. He gave away his body, his flesh, his soul - to that
thing.
That eternal creature! Well, I'm telling you, Franco, one day I'm going back for him - when all this, all this
shit
is over and done with. One day I'm going back to VOLOS and he'll given me Keenan back, or I'll destroy the whole fucking planet trying."

Franco thought about this. Pippa's hand was warm under his. Comforting. It felt good to have human contact again. Felt good to have a
connection
with a woman.

"He did what he did for the greater good. And I also think he'd had enough, you know? Enough of the struggle. Enough of the fight. These are hard times we're living through, Pippa. Savage times."

"I know that, Franco." She softened. Then she hardened again. "But I swear, if you tell that Tarly bitch
anything
..."

"Hey! Trust me!" Franco grinned. "They don't call me Franco 'Perfect Trust' Haggis for nothing, you know!"

"They don't call you that at all." She grinned at him. "We've been through some shit together, haven't we?"

"Sure, sweetie." He squeezed her hand.

"Fancy a walk outside?"

"In the mountain air? Don't mind if I do."

"I'd put some clothes on first, though. Might be a bit chilly."

"Ha! Yes!"

Five minutes later, they trotted down the ramp. Night had fallen, and three moons sat at varying degrees on the horizon, two white and one blue. Blue light sparkled on snow, and a cold wind whipped down from the peaks as Franco and Pippa walked across the barren rocks, and stood staring down from the edge of the plateau.

"It's beautiful," said Pippa.

"Bloody freezing, is what it is," said Franco, ice riming his beard.

"Come here." Pippa put her arms around his waist, and they stood for a while, hugging, sharing their body-heat. Moonlight spread in mercury pools across the vast landscapes beyond, and below, stretching for mile after mile, reared mountains and rocky slopes, towering crags and sheer chimneys. Pippa and Franco watched The Gangers under pastel moonlight, and it was rarely that either had seen anything quite so beautiful.

"Much as I love you pressing against me," said Franco after a while, "I think I'm in serious jeopardy of my nuts retreating so far into my body they'll be Missing in Action. Or No Action, as the case may be."

Pippa turned. "Gods, look at the ship! That WormMek Missile sure made a mess of it."

They stared for a while at the damaged rear end of the Fast Attack Hornet. Huge struts emerged from the ship's arse, and the whole rearward bulk was a jagged, shattered mess filled with molten scars and scorch marks. As Pippa and Franco watched, the tiny PopBot repair modules buzzed and skimmed about, welding and sparking, disappearing into the long dark spaces and reappearing in bright flashes, and carrying out other essential repairs. It was like watching a hive of buzzbees, or a nest of mutt ants.

"Busy busy busy," said Pippa, lips compressed.

"I'm going in for a whiskey. You joining me?"

Pippa looked up at him. She smiled, a genuine smile of warmth and friendship. "Yeah, Franco. Don't mind if I do."

Pippa followed Franco up the ramp, and as he disappeared into the gloom of the hold she stopped, and turned, and gazed out over Clone Terra, over Cloneworld. In the distance, artillery boomed. Tiny flickers, like fireworks, but she knew from experience they were tracer and explosions. People fighting. People dying. Dying, massacred in the mud. She shook her head, lips compressed, and followed Franco into the darkness.

It was later. Much later.

Both Franco and Pippa were draped over SlumCouches, which moulded to your shape to mimic every whim and desire. Drinks were in hand, lips were wet, eyes were glazed. Mrs Strogger had popped in for a chat after her oil bath, and was looking...
younger.
Still a cyborg, metal machine parts gleaming and making both Pippa and Franco feel just that
little bit uneasy
- conscious that with machine elegance, she could reach out and rip off their heads - but they tried not to let that worry them. After all, she had helped rescue Franco. And they still had the resources to fulfil their half of the bargain of returning her to The Org States.

Provided Alice managed to fix the Hornet. It didn't bear thinking about what would happen if she couldn't...