Quake (8 page)

One downside was a change to the subject’s mind-state. Many subjects lost all emotions, lost the ability to love, to nurture, to care. The mind became like that of an insect - sterile and completely focused on tasks.

Spiral withdrew funding following bad media coverage, several laboratory catastrophes and a growing concern over the moral standpoint.

Keyword SEARCH>> NEX, SAD, SPIRAL_sadt, DURELL, FEUCHTER, QIII, Spiral_NX

S
am and Mongrel stood outside the wide H2 military-green metal-studded door, their faces long, sulking like naughty schoolboys waiting outside the headmaster’s office. They exchanged glances, and Jam wrapped his long leather coat more tightly around his shoulders as if this thick black skin was armour; a temporary protective exoskeleton.

‘You ask him.’

Mongrel frowned, his naturally brooding Slavic features positively hangdog now. ‘I ain’t asking him.’

‘It’s your fucking turn.’

‘But you
know
what that big dumb bastard said!’

‘Yeah, he said he wouldn’t give us any more ammo, and if we came back to ask for more he might just shove it up our arses.
That’s
what the bastard said. I just don’t know if he was joking or not - you know, playing around in a friendly sort of fashion, or meaning it in an evil-bastardy sort of fashion. You know Simmo!’ Jam scowled, seemingly unsure of himself.

‘
Da
, I know him - and I know he fucking unpredictable.’

They both stared at the wide metal door. The plastic plaque screwed into the steel read: SGT SIMMO -STORES. Such a simple epithet, and yet one which had repercussions throughout the whole of Spiral_H, including the different H2, H3 and H4 divisions. In the same way that a secretary could run a school, the guard on a front gate could run a whole electronics corporation, or an air-traffic controller could coordinate an entire airport - so the nasty shaven-headed squaddie in charge of the stores could run the whole of Spiral.

Sort of.

Sgt Simmo was in charge of weapons, ammunition, gadgets, motorbikes, trucks, tanks and helicopters. If you needed something, you had to see Sgt Simmo. If you needed something in an emergency, you still had to see Sgt Simmo. And always, always, always ... you had to sign for it in triplicate.

‘Just follow my lead, pussy,’ said Jam, and pushed the door open with a gentleness uncommon for the large killer.

Mongrel, muttering insults, followed Jam into the gloomy office which fronted the huge maze of warehouse stores containing a billion items of equipment. The office shouldn’t have been gloomy - it was painted a bright military green, and had plenty of lighting. But something sinister nevertheless created an ominous murky half-light which one could only attribute to the personification of fear in the very air itself, lurking like the bad after-smell of a poisoned curry.

‘He’s not here,’ said Jam, breathing a sigh of relief.

‘Fucking horny old goat probably shagging Mrs Spud.’

Sgt Simmo rose from behind the counter, like a glacier sliding ominously into view. He was a mammoth hulk, a man-mountain with a shaved head, black goatee beard, fearsome bushy eyebrows, and the terrible narrowed eyes of a killer. He weighed in at around twenty-four stone and his barrel chest was just that. He insisted on wearing urban combats, even in desert or jungle combat situations. When asked why, he always replied, ‘Wouldn’t want to fucking blend in, would I?’ even though that, apparently, was the point. His arms, hands, neck and any other bare visible skin was heavily tattooed with lists and military script, and he grinned a nasty missing-toothed grin that told of a life of brawling in pubs.

Mongrel, who was a huge man himself, seemed dwarfed as Simmo reared up from behind that counter.

‘What wrong with Mrs Spud?’ rumbled Simmo.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ murmured Mongrel, reading the list of men that Simmo had killed that was tattooed on his throat with ticks against each name. Mongrel always read that list. It went: McGibbon, Dike, Hando, Pilchard, Begbie, Twat-57, Fat Bob Smith ... and then trailed off into drunken tattoo smush which Simmo would never explain. Not that Mongrel asked, but he knew that if he
was
to ask then an explanation would be forthcoming - in a violent wide-fisted sort of way.

‘Mrs Spud is fine lady friend of The Sergeant,’ growled Simmo, frowning like an eyebrow avalanche, ‘Mrs Spud, as well as cooking fine fish and chips in canteen and always giving The Sergeant his daily feed for free, also gives damn fine good blow job at no extra cost. There no feeling on this world that her false teeth not conjure, so don’t you fucking be disrespecting Mrs Spud or The Sergeant be very angry man!’ His voice had risen to a roar.

Mongrel was looking down, kicking his size thirteen polished boots against the bottom of the counter, guiltily. ‘Sorry, Sarge,’ he muttered. ‘Really, really - sorry.’

Simmo deflated a little as Jam pushed Mongrel out of the way with a tut and slapped his hand on the counter. He beamed up at Sgt Simmo with the sort of insane wide-faced innocence that had deceived many enemies and sent them to their graves.

‘Hi there, Simmo old buddy,’ said Jam. ‘Listen.’ He leaned in close, much to the obvious distaste of Simmo. ‘This - um - Mrs Spud ...’

‘Yes?’

‘You and her - you a bit of an item then, or what?’

Simmo stared at Jam with eyes that had watched one thousand, four hundred and seventy-two men scream at the point of death.

‘Yes,’ he rumbled. ‘That a problem for you?’

‘No no no!’ Jam beamed. ‘Listen, hey man, it’s your choice, she has a fine set of, um, cheeks, I’m sure, and those muscles in her square jaw surely must mean that she does what you said earlier, give a man a good BJ, and I’m sure that when she sits on your fucking face and pisses it gives you a happy warm glow inside - but hey, I need some fucking ammo and our Comanche leaves in five fucking minutes. So be a good lad, and open the fucking gate.’

Jam grinned up at Simmo.

Simmo’s fists had clenched. Then he relaxed, deflating once more, and leered at Jam with teeth that had stripped the flesh from a dead comrade’s thighs to keep a battle-weary Simmo from starving in the field. He laughed then, an explosion of rattling sound like bones in a tin can, which only confirmed in Jam’s mind that The Sergeant was not used to laughing.

Simmo hit the buzzer, there was - predictably - a buzz and the huge iron gate behind him unlocked.

‘Thank you,’ said Jam, checking his watch.

‘I know you only fuck with The Sergeant.’ The huge soldier grinned and as Jam strode past a hand the size of a shovel slapped him on the back, nearly sending his face through the iron gate.

Jam coughed, and forced a laugh.

‘Yeah, just fucking with you.’

Sgt Simmo frowned. ‘You have three minutes. Get what you need and return here for the paperwork.’

‘Will do.’

Mongrel followed Jam through the gate and into a wide strip-lit corridor that led on for as far as the eye could see. Doors and gates opened off this central corridor, feeding into hangars and testing stations, into firing ranges and mock terrorist positions; into stores filled with everything from 9mm clips to torpedoes and tank shells.

They headed for the ammunition warehouse, but on the way Jam suddenly stopped at an unmarked door. ‘Hey, Mongrel, come take a look at this.’ Jam pointed at the unmarked military-green door, which looked just like so many of the other military-green doors.

‘I do not think we should,’ said Mongrel uneasily.

‘Come on, don’t be a pussy!’

‘Simmo might be watching,’ whispered Mongrel.

‘Fuck him!’

‘Shh! He might hear!’

‘Ahh, fuck him. Come on, you need to see this ...’ And Jam was already pushing open the green portal leading into a monumental underground chamber with a dirty stone floor and bare rocky walls stretching off into the distance. The lights were dim, and Mongrel squinted in the gloom as the door slammed shut behind him. A heavy boom echoed through the chamber, making Mongrel jump.

‘What is it?’

‘Over here,’ said Jam, heading off across the dust. Mongrel followed, frowning. He could see nothing and such a huge chamber would not normally be wasted on empty space. Spiral never wasted space. He followed Jam’s footprints in the dirt.

‘I thought you only had five minutes?’

‘Nah, Slater is still in bed and TT is getting our food supplies - funnily enough, from Mrs Spud. TT has a way with Spud. What about you - when do you leave?’

‘About an hour.’

Jam nodded, chewing his lip thoughtfully. ‘You off to Africa again?’

‘Yeah. Nigeria.’

‘We’re paying a trip to Slovenia; we have a lead there. A hot lead, should see us shave a few more pounds from the Nex. Fry the fuckers and kill the pig, that’s what I say. Always did have a thing for bacon.’

Jam halted in front of something covered with a huge green tarpaulin, grabbed a corner, and heaved. The tarpaulin rolled free, revealing the huge bulk of a tank, gleaming dully under a coat of fresh black paint and looking very big, very menacing, and very deadly.

‘A tank,’ said Mongrel, wholly unimpressed. ‘Jam, I have lot of work to do before I head for Africa, I really think ...’

‘Look
closely
,’ whispered Jam, placing a hand almost reverently against the flank of the mammoth metal beast. Jam was dwarfed beside the tracks, which rose to the height of his head.

Mongrel frowned, and was about to say something when he noticed the tracks. They looked somehow -wrong. That would never work, Mongrel thought. Then it clicked.

‘An HTank?’

‘Prototype,’ breathed Jam, eyes gleaming. ‘Beautiful, ain’t she?’

The HTank was a tank so advanced that it made the most modern military models look no better than the French Char d’Assaut Schneider, the early prototype that had failed in the muddy battlefields of the First World War.

It was an HTank, a Hover Tank - with the ability to hover over obstacles, using the most advanced turbo-track matrix-fission engine and track displacements. If the HTank reached a near-vertical wall? The huge beast would tilt its nose to the sky and climb almost vertically with the aid of its colossally powerful engines. And it had a few other tricks up its sleeve ...

Jam patted the machine, gazing up at it almost adoringly. ‘You wondering why it’s black?’ He waggled his eyebrows in that cocky, cheeky way only Jam could manage, grinning at Mongrel’s obvious frown.

‘Go on, Jam, why it black?’

‘It’s not.’

‘Da, it is.
Look
,’ said Mongrel.

‘No, it’s not,’ said Jam, grinning more widely.

‘How that, then?’

‘It’s a CamCloak.’ Jam paused, for effect more than anything, and Mongrel’s frown deepened as he shifted from one boot to the other, obviously nervous at the prospect of getting caught by the humourless psycho who was Simmo.

‘Jam, we not supposed to be in here!’

‘Don’t be a bean.’

‘Jam!’

‘Go on.’

‘Go on what?’

‘Ask me.’

‘Ask you what?’

Jam tutted, running a hand through his short but growing black hair, which had been pampered and nurtured and had broken many a lady’s heart. Often he would get grief from the other Spiral operatives - along the philosophical lines of ‘Jam, you poof’ and ‘You look like a fucking girl, get a haircut.’ But Jam always put forward the argument that his current locks got him laid, and for that fact alone they deserved respect.

‘About the CamCloak, you dumb-spud monkey.’

‘Go on, then, but make it quick. I got suspicion Sgt Simmo will be looking for us and waiting for us, and he will not be happy that we go snooping into classified military equipment...’

‘Instead of just painting the tank, the CamCloak will replicate any environment at the press of a button; you want advanced blending, you got it. The HTank can operate in hostile terrain almost invisibly. And its weapons systems! Fuck, don’t get me started on the weapons systems! They—’

‘Jam, I going for ammo. Simmo will be really pissed off.’

‘Aw, fuck ‘im!’

Mongrel retreated, and with a final longing glance at the HTank prototype Jam followed Mongrel across the dusty floor, their boots leaving imprints. A hundred security cameras tracked their slow departure.

Laden with canvas sacks of ammunition in a variety of calibres, Jam and Mongrel made their way along the long straight corridor and paused at the iron gate. They waited, and then Jam peered through between the bars to where Sgt Simmo was seated at the high desk, a sheaf of papers in front of him, his finger poised delicately above something that had captured his attention.

Jam coughed.

There was no response.

Jam coughed again, this time louder.

Slowly, Sgt Simmo turned his huge bullet head on his thick bull neck, which spilled over the collar of his urban-combat jacket, and glared at the two men. Then, casually and without obvious hurry, he reached over and hit the release, which buzzed in an annoying fashion.

Jam and Mongrel stepped through this magic portal, their bags of bullets clanking as they paused in front of the desk and Simmo’s raised bushy eyebrows. He grinned at them. It was a particularly nasty grin.