War Machine (The Combat-K Series) (58 page)

“Daddy!”

Keenan pulled away a little, staring down into both girls’ tear-filled eyes. They hugged him again, hugs so tight he knew they would never let go. He kissed their heads, their hair, their eyes. And he knew, then, realised with a certainty he had never believed possible...

He wanted to die.

He wanted to be with them.

Revenge meant nothing; revenge was a fable, an empty promise, an unfulfilled dream. It would solve nothing; not now. It could do no good. All Keenan wanted was to spend eternity with his children.

“Listen, Daddy.” It was Rachel, her face set, stern despite its youth, serious.

“I love you two so much,” he smiled, tears still falling.

“You’re in great danger, Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“You must trust nobody, not even those close to you. They will get you killed.”

“Rachel?”

Then Keenan felt the tug, felt himself being dragged away from the girl by snaps of wind, and pushed, cracked, heaved towards the edge of the mountain. The girls were straining to hold on to him, straining to touch him, to never let go... they could never let go, and the mountain lurched, tipped violently as if upended by a roaring giant, and the copper sky flashed before him, crashed before his eyes, and nausea swamped him.

“Keenan! You OK, Keenan?”

He opened his eyes. Pippa was staring down at him.

“I saw them,” he whispered, as he became aware of the rumbling engine of the Buggy.

“Saw who?”

Keenan frowned, then clamped his jaw shut. The warning came back to him, but he shook his head, clouded, confused; just a dream, the product of a fried mind in a near-death situation. He closed his eyes, and could still smell his children’s hair.

Keenan heaved himself up, and stared bitterly down into a diamond infinity.

“What happened?”

“You lost... control?” said Pippa, eyes concerned. “You were out of it, but somehow—by some miracle—you stopped the Buggy before we went over the edge. Otherwise, we’d have been dog meat. Keenan, you’d better let me drive from now on.”

Keenan nodded, did not argue, could not argue. Below, the Lake of Diamonds shimmered, and seemed to beckon him with a beautiful decadence. However, it just seemed sour now, fake, a cheap imitation of something rank and pointless. What could replace love? Want? Need? Nothing, nothing material mattered.

He swapped seats with Pippa, and she expertly eased the Buggy back from the precipice. She drove the vehicle away, slowly, getting a feel for the Buggy, and watching for random movements in the spine of the bridge. Gradually, she increased the speed, and Keenan slumped back in his seat, chin to chest, hooded eyes staring darkly out over the Buggy’s battered bonnet.

Franco touched his shoulder. “You OK, Big Yin?”

“Yeah,” he grinned, glancing back. “Sorry. Seems I’m not as reliable as I think I am.”

“Hey, we all suffer shit, man. I would have seen us killed years ago. You and Pippa are the only reason I’m still breathing good clean air. Don’t worry about it, bro’. We’re here as a team.”

Betezh snorted.

Franco pushed his Kekra under Betezh’s chin. “You got something to add, motherfucker?”

“No, no, nothing to add.”

“I still haven’t forgotten the bad drugs, or the fucking testicular electrocution.”

“I’m glad I made a lasting impression.”

“I’ll make a lasting impression in your fucking skull.”

“
Franco,” warned Keenan.

The Buggy rode the twisting bucking bridge, and Pippa with her innate skill and confidence-inspiring pilot’s eye brought them safely down to the opposite bank. The Lake of Diamonds receded behind them, changing from a sea of stars to a glittering wall, to a line, to nothing more than a twinkling firefly. Darkness flooded back into the underground chamber, which seemed to go on beneath the crust of Teller’s World for ever.

“What’s coming up?” said Pippa, warily, slowing the Buggy at the approaching wall of black. She turned, glancing at Emerald, who was slumped back, eyes closed, breathing ragged. Pippa shot Keenan a look, as if to say, “she’s deteriorating”, and Keenan gave a single nod. His lips were a tight compress. If Emerald died he would not get his name, but then, did it matter? Did any of it matter?

Emerald sighed and opened her eyes, and for a moment they were pools of oil before rotating, becoming the bright green Combat K knew.

“Emerald?” Pippa’s voice was soft.

“Yes.” She grunted, shifting her weight. The Buggy creaked on battered suspension. Despite her size, Emerald was a lot heavier than she looked. “You are looking at the Lake of Protons, although the description is inaccurate. As we approach, you must avert your eyes; the protons are twisted matter, the deviant material found on the other side of Black Holes.”

“I thought that was fable?”

Emerald shook her head. “Twisted Protons are real.” She coughed, a cough heavy with phlegm. Her smile was diluted. “With the right equipment, it can be mined.”

“What is its purpose?” asked Betezh.

Emerald turned to him, eyes bright. “Why, little man, it is the stuff of War Machines.”

Betezh licked dry lips. “There is something wrong here. Something doesn’t fit the puzzle.”

“It’s dead easy to understand,” said Franco. “You keep your mouth shut, and we get the job done, or I blow your head off. You understand that equation, dickhead?”

Betezh gave a nod.

The Buggy continued.

The wall of black came closer, only it wasn’t a wall of black; there was something on the other side. It was like looking at a billion reflected images, mirror upon mirror upon mirror, all reflecting the same colour but with angular disjoints through every conceivable atom. As Pippa looked she felt her gaze being drawn, wrenched out of her head, and immediately—even from a distance—she got the most incredible pounding migraine. She cried out, one hand snapping to cover her eyes.

“How will you drive over the bridge?” asked Franco.

“There is no bridge,” said Emerald. “We must wade the Lake, but everybody has to keep their eyes tight shut, or this place will lever your skull out through your ears.”

They halted, and Keenan tore a pair of black combats into strips using his knife. Each member of Combat K—and Betezh—covered their eyes with the makeshift blindfolds. Once ready, Pippa cruised the Buggy, and hydraulics ejected floaters. Slowly, the Buggy descended a slope and was soon half submerged in the Lake of Protons. A curious euphoria flooded the group. A gradual ecstasy flowed through sluggish veins, and Pippa, powering the vehicle, felt an orgasm building within her so powerful and intense she could not stop herself; her hand dropped to her groin, felt the flowing wetness between her legs... but instead of the orgasm building into pleasure, it built into—

What did she feel?

It was wrong, a basic wrong, like orgasm in rape, being fucked by a father, molesting a child.

“Get us through this shit!” growled Keenan, panic in his voice, his body shivering violently. “It’s fake, a second-hand false experience. Pippa, put your boot to the floor and don’t you fucking stop.”

They heard Betezh throwing up over the side of the Buggy, and then scrabbling with his blindfold. He grasped the cloth, pulled it free with a cry, opened his eyes, and stared into the surrounding twisted envelopment, into the mesh, a matrix, of the Twisted Proton world.

Betezh screamed, drool ejecting like vomit from between frozen lips. His eyes grew wide, dangerously wide, and he saw things—bad things—that no human should ever see.

Franco’s right hook connected, and dropped Betezh into a well of instant unconsciousness. Franco massaged bruised knuckles as Betezh slipped down to lie, half in, half out of the Buggy’s foot-well.

“Good thinking,” said Keenan, voice sober.

“I’ve been waiting ages to do that,” said Franco.

Pippa powered the Buggy through the... it felt like treacle, and offered serious resistance to the vehicle. But, with a howling engine and a slipping clutch, she slewed through the matter. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, tyres found purchase on a slippery black slope, and the Buggy lurched free of its elastic prison, wheel-spun up the gradient at 17,000 revs. It leapt like a bird from a cage, soaring through brittle cold air and landing, suspension
clanging
as it bottomed out, and then screaming for a while until Pippa eased free of the accelerator and finally came to a juddering, shuddering halt. She stalled the Buggy with a cough. It clicked violently.

Keenan removed his blindfold, and glanced back at Betezh. The man was slumped, limbs useless, mouth open, eyes open, blood oozing from tear ducts.

“Is he dead?”

Franco checked for a pulse. “No, more’s the pity. The maggot has a pulse like a tom-tom played by a fitting epileptic after injecting a cocktail of speedballs and acid.”

“Nice simile, Franco.” Pippa gave him a full-teeth smile.

Franco beamed. “Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment, you arse.”

“I know that, you pussy.”

“Let’s get on,” said Keenan, rubbing at his thundering temples. Despite not looking at the Twisted Protons, a pounding had come upon him, needles driving into his brain. Even from the edges of peripheral vision, the warped and deviant visual array was affecting him—torturing him—with a visual toxicity.

“What we going to do with him?” Franco pushed Betezh with the tip of his boot.

“Well he’s your doctor, you can carry him.”

“I’ll be bloody buggered if I do!” snorted Franco.

“That can be arranged,” said Pippa, with a touch of nastiness to her voice.

“Anyway, what’s this third lake called?” asked Franco. “I’m getting sick of this place. I want it done and over, and out of the way so we can get back to the ship and enjoy some sausage.”

“The Lake of Desecration,” said Emerald.

“How does that work?” said Pippa. “I didn’t think there was—or could be—a physical embodiment of... desecration?”

“In this place, anything is possible,” said Emerald. Again, her voice was gentle. Her eyes were closed. Her chest heaved with the effort of speech. “This is a place where the evil go to die.”

“Like a graveyard?” asked Franco, face illuminating fear.

“More a spiritual resting place,” said Emerald, “for those you would consider evil, those who have desecrated life, those who have forfeited the right to an eternal peace.”

“So, a bit like Hell, then?” said Franco.

“A lot like Hell,” agreed Emerald.

“So,” he considered this, rubbing at his hairy chin, “not much money to be made here, then?”

“Only the currency of misery,” said Emerald.

Franco grimaced. “I take your point.”

They continued across the rocky, uneven floor, the Buggy thundering, wheels pounding, and slowly the walls started to close in, narrowing from a massive expanse and converging on a point far ahead: a huge, underground inverted V of rock.

“I feel like the walls are closing in,” muttered Franco.

“They are.”

“I know they are, but I feel like they are as well, up here, in my head.” He tapped his skull.

“That’s the only thing going on up there,” said Pippa caustically.

Franco shrugged, and started rummaging through his pack, sorting out his bombs, his explosives, his timers, his detonation charges. Subtly, he was getting ready for war.

As the walls closed, so too did the light. Darkness fell, closing in on the group and their little Buggy; ahead, an ethereal glow filled the world, and all guessed it was the Lake of Desecration. Pippa slowed their advance, tyres pounding rock, suspension creaking, and finally drew the Buggy to a halt. With the engine rumbling, she climbed out and stood, hands on hips, staring out over the Lake.

They had halted at the tip of the Lake, which stretched off before them, long and narrow. The water was silver, with a hint of a sheen, as if reflecting moonlight. It was perfectly still, glass, a platter of molten metal. Pippa licked her lips.

“There’s no way round, or over.”

Emerald roused herself, wearily climbed from the Buggy, and stood beside Pippa, staring out over the serenity of the Lake. “No. We must travel by foot from this point.”

Franco and Keenan joined them, and Cam came buzzing over to float beside Emerald.

“That’s not water,” said the little PopBot.

“No,” agreed Emerald.

“What is it?” asked Franco.

Emerald gave a small shrug, then swept the group with her bright green eyes. She smiled then, a warm smile, a smile of... not just friendship, but sad friendship.

“You do not have to continue,” she said, suddenly, and her eyes closed, fingers coming up to her temples. Something writhed under her skin, like a maggot trying to break free of a black cocoon. She went down on one knee, her whole body tensed like coiled steel, and then it was gone. She released a deep breath, and climbed to her feet.

“I feel weaker than I could believe possible,” she said. “It is this place; it saps the soul, draws the spirit. Can you not feel the evil? The evil of the trapped, condemned souls?”