Cloneworld - 04 (46 page)

Each Franco Haggis was short, a little pot-bellied, with a shaved head and ginger goatee beard. However, whilst Pippa acknowledge
her
original Franco Haggis was, if one was truthful about the whole situation, something of a
slob,
here and now this battalion of Francos were smart, uniformed; their boots shone, their beards were combed, no horseradish stains marred their jackets, and their eyes shone with pride as they were drilled around the huge parade square with precision, and with none of the sloppiness Pippa had grown to love and loathe.

A stomp of a thousand boots, in perfect harmony, rattled across the parade ground.

"I don't fucking believe it!" said Pippa.

"Synthetic testing and probability controls show the Franco_grade infantry grunt is a very good infantry soldier indeed. He may be short and fat, but what he lacks in height and suppleness he clearly makes up for in raw aggression and lack of cowardice on the battlefield. This battalion is a miracle."

"It's a fucking abomination, is what it is!"

"We'll see how successful my predications are when the cameras start to roll."

"Mistress, you're a sick, sick lady, is all I can say. You've bred a thousand sexual perverts! You've bred a thousand versions of a known psychopathic lunatic! How could you do that? Did you think it
all the way though
, eh?"

"My choices will be vindicated," said the Mistress, smugly. She made a gesture, and the HJeep moved on. Pippa buried her head in her hands.
Oh, no. Oh, no. How can it be? Not one Franco, but a thousand of them! What's she going to show me next? A thousand Ronan Keatings? A thousand bloody Doctor Whos? A thousand Schwarzeneggar_grade soldiers? Shit. It'll be a damn miracle if I don't go insane!

They sped off, and the Mistress showed Pippa the full circuit of her vast War Host before returning to The Monastery, where she was taken up a wide set of bare stone steps to a large room, filled wall-to-wall with advanced military hardware, all marked with the QGM logo. Military grade computers. Stolen! Nicked! For Pippa to work on. She sighed.

Ziggurat moved over and removed his clothes. The little hunchback sat on a simple wooden chair and regarded Pippa with his odd eyes, smiling.

The Mistress stood before Pippa. She held out the 3Core, which Pippa took, almost reverently. Here could be their answer to the junks, and the sweeping Quad-Gal invasion...

If she could just get it away from the hands of this mad, media-obsessed, multi-snake alien!

"One mistake, any attempt to escape,
anything,"
said the Mistress, "and Ziggurat here will fry you. And not just a tickle like the last time. This time he'll burn you to coal. Understand?"

"Yes."

"You'll find the codes on the desktop. In the folder called Codes."

"How original."

"I want the 3Core unlocking. It will then control the modified GASGAM rockets. You understand?"

"I'll find my way round it," said Pippa, and watched the Mistress leave.

So, she wants me to program the GASGAM to take off and deliver nukes to every org city and war factory on the continent at her command? Well, I'll program them all right. I'll fucking program them good...

Pippa removed her thin leather gloves, plugged the 3Core into the console, took hold of the mouse and clicked Open.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MOLE HOLE

They stood in the cockpit. Around them, Tarly felt the whole planet pressing in, pressing down, focusing its hatred at what was about to happen. A burrowing machine capable of going through mountains; an engine capable of travelling
through the core of the world
. This was not just a train built for
tunneling
, a small tool in the great terraforming canon of available weapons; it was something which could, possibly, undermine an entire planet.

They opened a door, which disengaged and slid open with a gentle
hiss.
Franco led the way into what could only be described as a train carriage, closely followed by Tarly, Strogger and Anklebolt. Just before the door closed on its thick iron-black hinges, Polly the Parrot nipped in, with a strangled "squawk."

They moved through a tight underlit central corridor. To each side were sleeping compartments and store rooms. The Mole was designed to run underground, completely self-sufficient, for very long periods of time.

The cab up front had tinted windows. It had a small air freshener in the shape of a spaceship dangling from a rear-view monitor. Franco stood staring at the lifeless black controls. Each button looked like a blank eye to Tarly as she also glanced down, then back to Anklebolt. Polly had, thankfully, followed them to the cab and hopped up onto Queen Strogger's shoulder. The mad old org seemed not to mind. Franco scowled at the bird, mouthing silent obscenities.

"Alice?" he said.

"Yes?" said Alice, her voice dreamy from the small black BCube.

"Are you okay?"

"I feel... distant. Lost, almost."

"Hmm. Can you locate Pippa? Using her spinal logic cube implants?"

"I will try. For now, head west, then we'll update co-ordinates when I can pinpoint her."

Franco nodded, and rested his hands on the controls. "Okay," he said, "here goes nuffink!"

Franco might have been a shaven-headed, goatee-bearded, pot-bellied, psychopathic, nutjob fucknugget, but he was also a great sniper, a brilliantly deviant demolition's expert, and had an amazing affinity with machines. Many was the time Keenan had kicked him up the arse for tinkering with his Permatex WarSuit with a Phillips screwdriver. Many was the time Pippa had scolded him with violent expletives as he rose from a Hornet's EngineBay carrying a bag of spanners.

Franco and machines - they just got on.

Whereas Franco and people - they just had to agree to disagree.

Franco worked out the controls intuitively, and hit three buttons. The Mole's atomic reactor came back online, with a deep and distant rumble. Digits and bars flickered up on the HUD. Outside, the world looked very black.

"Ooh, there's power in this baby," said Franco, licking his lips.

"It isn't a racing car," snapped Tarly.

"
Nooo,
but it's all about the driver, reet, and not the vehicle. I mean, take your average woman driver..."

"Yes?" Tarly's voice was cold.

"Well, well, you see..." Franco's eyes glazed over as he saw the look on his beloved's face. "What is it?"

"Don't be giving me your
women are bad drivers
bullshit, or I'll kick you outside and stick this whole Mole up your arse."

"Hey, I was just saying..." whined Franco.

"Just drive!"

"Okay, okay, hey, I'm not the kind of driver who crashes into skips and supermarket shopping trolleys, though, am I?" He engaged the
iDrive
with a clunk and, grabbing a control throttle, eased the Mole forward. It trundled through the darkness with a dull roar and a whine of suppressed rage. Franco hit another button, and dazzling lights blazed from the Mole's snout, and Franco grabbed another lever and engaged the
iDiggers.
To each side, the paddles shifted and stretched forward with tiny clicks and clanks, and scoops and blades could be seen. They started to spin and gyrate, hypnotic in their implied violence.

"This is going to be fun," said Franco, and accelerated slightly, heading for the wall. Around them, machinery flashed past.

"If it doesn't work, or you screw it up, we're dead," said Tarly, fingers clutching the arm-rests of her chair.

"Ach, don't be such a pussy!"

They hit the wall, and the Mole's arms and scoops, blades and chewers
ground
into the rock and... they
flashed
into a tunnel. Darkness closed in. The Mole
vibrated
; rock-debris passed through an under-carriage chute to be spat out of the Mole's arse.

Lights illuminated a mash of churning.

Franco released his breath, and settled back. "See? I told ya it'd work!"

"Ha! You're a good bluffer, Franco Haggis."

"Hey, they don't call me Franco 'Cool Cucumber' Haggis for nowt, y'know? I'm a geezer. Part of the Smart Party!"

"Squawk! You're a lunatic, is what you are, buster!" squawked Polly.

Franco threw his robotic Special Friend an evil glare, gauging the distance between her alloy head and his right hook. Then he settled back a bit more and glanced at Queen Strogger and Princess Anklebolt III.

"You two not kissed and made up yet?"

"I would rather die!" sniffed Anklebolt imperiously, tilting her nose up. Which was quite something for a woman with a face like a bucket of bolts.

"That can be arranged, bastad," snapped Strogger.

"Oh mother, you were always such a bad-tempered bully!"

"Bully? You were going to bloody
hang me
! Me! You're good ol' mom!"

"The only good thing you ever did was set fire to the palace - with you in it."

"Hey, that was an accident with the chip pan!"

"Maybe if you spent less time frying chips and more time spending quality moments with your offspring..."

"Quality moments! There were bloody five hundred and thirty three of you, you little bunch of scrotes! Never a moment's peace! It was like giving birth to an alien fucking
zoo!
"

"Well, you should have learnt to keep your legs shut."

"
You
should have learnt to keep your mouth shut!"

"
I
only kept my mouth as shut as you kept your saggy, machine-fed pussy!"

"How dare you!"

"I dare, because I..."

Tarly pulled Franco to one side. "This thing has an automatic pilot, y'know?"

"What, the Mole?"

"Yeah, the Mole."

"So?"

"It means you don't have to man the controls. Not for a while, anyway."

"Yes."

"So."

"Yup." Franco scratched his beard.

"
So...
we could, you know, go for a little walk."

"Indeed we could."

"Or something."

"What kind of something?"

"You know." She winked and reached around, squeezing his bum. "Something."

"Oh! Ah! Ah! I see. Really? Now?"

"Yes. Really. Now."

"Lead the way!"

"I shall."

"Geronimo!"

"What?"

"Is just a figure of speech." He winked.

The sleeping chamber was surprisingly plush for what was, effectively, a rock-burrowing train. Franco and Tarly stood across from one other, nervous now, like teenage lovers finding themselves alone for the first time.

"Er," said Franco.

"Come here," said Tarly, and stepped into him, and her mouth was on his, hot and eager, and Franco responded with a surge of lust. After all, it had been a while. And even then, she'd been a zombie.

Tarly kissed him, hot and steamy. Her tongue ranged around the inside of Franco's mouth like an eel. Her hands were all over him, almost as if she had more than two. Franco reeled and was lost in the moment, and felt himself falling into their sex, and they were rolling together, naked, and she kissed his chest and belly and then lower, taking his snake in her mouth as she said, "This reminds me of something."

"Oooh, aaah, oooh, hope it was something nice."

"Oh, yes," said Tarly.

And then she leapt atop him, wriggled on top of him, and Franco's hands were all over her nakedness and she forced him into her, and Franco was crooning and moaning and falling into that hot honey otherworld of pleasure. In the gloom, as she writhed above him, her face seemed curiously blurred and Franco rubbed his eyes, but Tarly reached out and dimmed the lights as she fucked him, fucked him hard...

And Franco couldn't understand why he couldn't get the image of spaghetti out of his brain.

They lay together, entwined like snakes. Franco kissed Tarly's forehead, and she looked up at him, a sweet smile on her beautiful face.

"Did you enjoy that, lover?"

"I did!"

"You're special, Franco Haggis. A very special man."

"I know," he said, proudly, grinning, and puffed out his hairy, curly chest.

"What are your thoughts? On the clones?"

"I think it's a bit of a dirty trade."

"What?"

"It's a damn and bloody disgrace that you can be copied. I mean, is nothing sacred? It's like... like bloody shagging a bird, reet, and then finding out she's a monster! Or something."

"Disgraceful," said Tarly, her snake-like tongue leaving wet trails across his chest.

"Squawk! Emergency! Emergency! There's an emergency going on!" Polly was in the sleeping chamber with them.

"You move bloody quiet for a parrot," snapped Franco, leaping out of the bed and pulling on his pants.