Hardcore - 03 (46 page)

"Exactly what it says on the tin. I was here, Keenan, from the start. I was here at the beginning of Sick World. I watched the Sick Crates being lowered, helped smash off the sides and watched the wounded, the lame, the diseased, watched the krooped, the muffled, and the kijangered, watched them all limp, walk, hop, and slither from their Sick Crates. But we never cured them, did we? We never helped them... we just made matters worse."

Keenan realised with a start that Lunatrick was crying, huge tears from his huge brown eyes. Despite his obvious lack of secure screws, it was still a touching sight. Lunatrick cared about the deviants of Sick World. Because he remembered them when they were not so; remembered the abuse of medical trust.

"OK," said Keenan, throwing Pippa a scowl. She shook her head, and rubbed at weary eyes. "I'll make a deal. Lead us to VOLOS and QGM will find you a planet. Uninhabited. And we'll do an airlift for all who want to leave. How does that sound? A fresh start. The chance to begin again."

"There's something else," said Lunatrick, rubbing at his eyes and sucking up huge drools of snot that hung from his over-large nostrils. He chewed for a few moments, thinking, then swallowed.

"What do you want next, our fucking eyeballs?" muttered Pippa.

"Shut up," snapped Keenan. Then, "Go on, what is it?"

"You must reverse the mutations," said Lunatrick. "Everything you see here, on this planet, it is as a result of VOLOS. We are his personal playthings. The wars they fight up above," he gestured with a hand the size of Franco's head, "they are engineered by VOLOS. But more importantly, we are a test bed for the junks, guinea pigs, experimentations, VOLOS serves a Higher Purpose. Or so he thinks. I we us are tired of seeing the abuse and endless suffering. We want it to end."

"We can end it with napalm," muttered Pippa.

"I will do what I can," said Keenan, "because I understand, understand VOLOS, I can see glimpses of his mind like water droplets in ice. And, bizarrely, VOLOS is intrigued by our little escapade. I don't think he'll hinder us, too much."

"Why not?" snarled Pippa. "He's done a damn good job so far."

"Because," said Keenan, eyes narrowed, "he wants something."

"What's that? Our testicles?" said Franco.

"No," said Keenan, staring hard at Lunatrick, who had started gibbering and playing with his fingers. "When the
Kahirrim,
Emerald, entered each of our minds, she left a residue, a substance which has altered us from human. Made us..."

"Hot damn superhuman!" exclaimed Franco. "I always knew I was special!" he beamed.

"Yeah, special fucking needs," said Pippa caustically.

"I'll give you some special needs," Franco said, and licked his lips.

"Only when I'm unconscious," said Pippa.

"That can be arranged."

"You're a bloody pervert!"

"I try," said Franco, with a grin.

"He wants us. To experiment with." Keenan's smile was glass-cold. "He wants to add us to the Sick World gene pool, see what new and interesting breeds he can develop. This place has become stale for VOLOS; there's no new blood, no new meat. There's been no new genetics for a thousand years; the place is a DNA ghost-ship."

"Except for us," said Pippa, voice cold. "Shit. Keenan, we've come stumbling in blind. They've not been trying to kill us, not all of them; they've been
playing
with us. We're the icing for the cake. The cherry on the Bakewell."

"Using Emerald's special powers," said Keenan, quietly. He could see it, now, the colossal cold spaces of VOLOS's brain; or at least, whatever the thing was that formed VOLOS's brain, "I can
feel
him."

"He's not human, is he?" said Pippa.

"No. He's trapped here. He's stuck. Locked in place. All fresh meat has to come to him; he has to use a carrot, a lure, bait to entice you into his trap. I bet he threw a party when they set up Sick World; I bet he was like a naive kid in a brand new sweet factory."

"I'm losing this," said Franco. "Who's the kid in the sweet factory?"

"Just check your bombs," said Keenan, voice cool. "We're gonna need lots."

Lunatrick led the way, down spotless corridors, past immaculate wheelchairs and trolleys and wheeled stretchers. They crossed wards full of sparkling equipment, polished floors, beds made up with fresh linen just waiting to receive patients - patients who would never arrive.

"I don't get it," said Franco, as they followed Lunatrick down a long ward containing perhaps fifty beds, all neatly made, all with immaculate bedside cabinets containing jugs of fresh water, sprays of colourful flowers, handmade "Get Well Soon" cards and cardboard piss-pots. There were TVs on extendable arms. It was most civilised. "Why keep it so neat? So tidy? What happened to entropy? What happened to the damn and bloody kipple, eh, I ask you?"

"Because," said Lunatrick, whirling and causing everyone to back-peddle. He smiled. "I have pride in my work." He turned, and continued his ponderous march on heavy boots, flab bouncing.

Franco composed his ruffled feathers. "Hot damn, he nearly got a D5 shotgun blast up his nostrils." He shouted, "Hey mate, don't do that again, reet? I nearly shot your big fat head clean off!"

Lunatrick stopped before large white swing doors. Beyond, there was a roaring sound, a little bit like a waterfall. He focused on Franco, and said, "You wouldn't be the first, my friend, no he wouldn't would he tell him about Big Bill Bates and the Mighty Morphine Shotgun Sellers oh we can't what do you mean we can't why can't you two simply be quiet when I'm trying to have a damn conversation all that bloody happens is you confuse the situation and everyone gets mentally mashed up and we don't know who the hell is talking to who. Right? Right. Right." He smiled, nodding in understanding; an understanding only he understood.

Franco was about to utter a retort when Lunatrick pushed open the swing doors and Franco's jaw clacked shut. For beyond was a hospital ward bigger than anything Franco, or the others, had ever seen. It was like a football pitch. No. It was like
ten
football pitches. The roof was high and airy, the whole place suffused with a strange white light, not quite daylight, but near enough. There were beds. Thousands and thousands of beds, all laid out in neat rows. Amidst this apparent order scampered and cavorted Lunatrick's Army of the Mad. Five thousand mental inmates, more loony than loony, locked away inter-breeding for a thousand years to create -

"Wow," said Keenan, honestly stunned; and not in a good way.

"It's like an inter-galactic gene-pool gone wrong," said Pippa.

"It's cool!" beamed Franco watching a
flock
of about a hundred patients, wearing straightjackets, go swarming across one area of the massive ward in very much the manner of a shoal of fish.

"What are they all doing?" said Keenan, in awe.

"They are keeping the place clean," said Lunatrick, voice soft as he led the group to a balcony which overlooked the vast ward. "Awaiting the day the great god from the sky rescues them and takes them to a New World."

Franco moved close, and patted Keenan on the shoulder. "That'd be you, then, mate," he said, relishing the irony.

"Shut up," said Keenan from between clenched teeth.

"God to Five Thousand Looonies!"

"Shut up."

"Father to an Army of the Mad!" Franco persisted, never one to let go of a good bone.

"I'll give you an army of my
fist
in the middle of your
face,"
said Keenan.

"Now now," said Franco, holding up a hand, "no need to be like that! Getting all violent, like. I was just making an observation."

"'
Getting all violent?'"
snarled Keenan. "We're bloody soldiers!" He calmed himself, and focused. He saw Shazza and Fizzy grinning at him, and gave a short laugh, rubbing his eyes. "Gods, this isn't what I expected when we touched down... well, what seems over a month ago now!"

Olga moved forward, eyes watching the thousands of cavorting lunatics down below. "You are doing well, Keenan. Let's go an find ze VOLOS, no? Let's kick his big Sick World ass to the moon and back, no?" She rumbled with laughter, and cracked her knuckles.

"This way," said Lunatrick. "We need to get on the LooonieTrain. It will take us through the Layers to the Upsamid." They moved down wide metal steps - all scrubbed spotlessly clean - and beneath the staircase stood a small, white train, which gleamed with chrome parts and polished steel. It had a single carriage, filled with luxury.

"This is one damn strange place," muttered Franco.

"Get in," hissed Pippa. "And don't say a word."

"Why, what's the problem?"

"Nothing."

"It's made of bone," said Olga, leaning close to Franco, so close he could see the small blue dots tattooed on her cheeks. "Ze whole thing, carved from one huge piece of bone! It is most disturbing to see, if you take ze step back!"

"Holy hot damn and bloody crotch bollocks!" snapped Franco, staring, eyes wide at what he realised was a very
clever
piece of... sculpture. A modern art masterpiece, no less. He moved close, eyed the polished tracks of the narrow-gauge lines, then ran his hand down the train's gleaming flank. It was smooth, and polished, like aged ivory.

Lunatrick gestured, and the group piled into the carriage. Lunatrick moved to the engine block, which even now was hissing softly and emitting thin jets of steam. Suddenly, a horde of lunatics came sprinting over the beds and down the ward aisles, gibbering and chundering, drooling and monkeying, some in straightjackets, some with their arms on backwards, many with only one leg, hopping enthusiastically, eyes a-gleaming. Franco leant back, boot raised to ascend the carriage with a squeak of rubbery PVC nurse uniform and revealing one huge and hairy buttock, but the lunatics swarmed past Franco, unseeing, and crowded around Lunatrick, hoisting the fat King's bulk up and heaving, squashing him into the engine cockpit like a rat squeezed into a matchbox. Lunatrick made many grunting, moaning sounds. Franco stared, eyes wide.

Shazza prodded him with her gun. "Get
in,
idiot."

Franco gawped, but climbed into the carriage and sat on the polished bone seat. The squad piled in, bristling with guns, and stared around at the smooth, polished environment. Despite its cleanliness, it was the cleanliness of a carcass picked clean by buzzards. Despite a lack of stench, it was the non-stench of a quarantined leper colony. Despite its bloodlessness, it was the bloodlessness of a vampire-scourged city. Drank clean.

Franco shivered. "It's like a morgue," he said.

"Don't be so melodramatic," snapped Pippa. "It's a damn train carriage. Act your age."

"No, I agree," said Keenan, and lit a cigarette. Harsh Widow Maker tobacco filled the small compartment. Snake started coughing, and Olga's gun wavered towards the eye-patch wearing mercenary who had remained strangely silent since rejoining the group. Keenan hoped it was a form of contrition; but he doubted it. "This is so plain and simple, yet so creepy. Inside a hollowed out bone. The question that leaps to my mind is, what sort of creature made the bone?"

"It was a big one," said Pippa.

"A big bone," said Franco, slowly.

"Don't," said Pippa, wincing.

"Oh. My. God." Franco's face went wide. "We're inside a cock!" he snapped, face white with shock, straggle-haired beard bristling. "I can't bloody believe it! I've been inside an arse, I've been inside a giant dildo, and now a steam-powered cock! Does the god of Franco Humiliation
know
no bounds? Does the many-spined omniscient monstrosity of Mocked Francos
have
no remorse? Of course not! Because Francis is here to be ridiculed by the Many Gods of Humour Central, to be joked about, to be mocked and slapped and ribbed and poked! If Nature is a natural entity, She is having a laugh, She is pointing Her finger, and She is rolling on Her back spewing comedy situations for our heroic hero, that's me, that is, Franco! to fall and stumble and tumble into unexpectedly like a flickering fly into a Venus Fly Trap, only probably! yes probably! with a giant vagina at the bottom, or maybe a giant vagina bottom, at the bottom! Ha!"

"Here," said Keenan, and handed Franco a small blue pill.

"Cheers mate."

Franco chewed in silence, as everyone stared at him, many with horror. Thankfully, Lunatrick chose that moment to fire up the bone engine and, with a jolt, they eased away from the huge steel staircase and set off between thousands of rows of neatly-made hospital beds.

"What a place," said Keenan, smoking, and watching the lunatics scroll past. Many waved, those without arms encumbered by straightjackets. Keenan waved back.

"It's horrorshow," agreed Pippa, and watched Fizzy and Shazza talking quietly, heads leant close together, eyes shining. They seemed upset. Fizzy reached out, and stroked a strand of hair from Shazza's eyes and
something
went click, inside Pippa, inside her breast, inside her heart. Suddenly, she realised she missed contact. Real, honest, naked physical contact. She was so caught up in the process of violence and death, destruction and detonation, that she had forgotten, or pushed aside, the simple needs of the woman inside, the girl inside. To be held, to be touched, to be kissed. Simple, real, human contact.