Free Cloneworld - 04 by Andy Remic Page B

recognised their illustrious Governor Sourballs and were loathe to fill her full of lead. Although Franco couldn't think of a better ending for the irascible bitch.
    "I have a deal! You've run down here, thinking there is a way out, but you are mistaken! You're trapped! You are pincered down with pincered claws! As if caught by a crab! Ha-ha. You cannot ever leave here without my help! Well, what I offer is for you to come on trial, on TV, and get a fair trial, and we will get good TV ratings right across Quad-Gal and we'll all be winners. I can..." she paused, as if listening to commands through an earpiece. " What? You'd give the little fucker those terms - oh, oh, sorry, yes, I am now in a position to offer you a guaranteed safety clause. You are Franco Haggis, Combat K, and this will get us better viewings than Torture! In fact, the episode where you decapitated Opera - well, it appears my, er , boss and superior, the Mistress, has received the viewing figures. You are a star, Franco Haggis! By your act of violence, you have earned our TV network more commissions, advertising revenue and new subscribers in one day than we've had in the last three years!"
    She paused, out of breath from gabbling. Franco considered this.
    There came a bang, the whine of a discharged round, and a shot that nearly took Sourballs's head clean off. It parted her hair in a rush of spinning steel. Theresa scowled, and one of her guards lasered the chef in the face, leaving him burnt and broken and twitching.
    "I said ceasefire!" screeched Sourballs. Here was a woman used to getting what she wanted via screeching. It was quite worrying.
    Franco scratched his stubble.
    "Well, what do you say? You are a Quad-Gal phenomenon, Franco Haggis! Okay, the people hate you for what you did to Opera, but in terms of monetary value, you are going to be... rich! Very rich. In fact, one of the richest individuals on the planet!"
    "You want me to work for you?" said Franco, frowning as understanding bit his balls.
    "Yes!" beamed Theresa. She had strode forward, and stood in the doorway, her confidence growing with each passing second that no bullet or laser round removed her head. "You can come, act on our network. We'll have a trial, milk it out, play to the media for months and months - it will be most lucrative for all of us!"
    Franco stood up. The guards had followed Sourballs, and were crowding round her in the doorway. Everybody seemed to be smiling. From some dregs of distant memory, Franco remember watching filmy on how the gangers were obsessed with TV, with digMedia, with stars and reality shows and all manner of extreme digital entertainment. They had taken it to such an extreme that some gangers had, by a combination of genetic modification and basic evolutionary necessity, become huge mounds of flesh which sat in an armchair all day, one short arm used for the remote, the other for feeding food into a hole in their chest, alongside eyes and nose. Blobbers, they were called, and they existed simply to eat and shit and watch. Now, a little of the obsession started to dredge through into Franco's confused mind. These bastards were willing to give him a reprieve . Willing to let him go. And he could play along, if he was wily and cunning like a wily cunning fox - until he found a moment to either contact Pippa, or do a runner.
    Franco rubbed his bristly beard. "Well, that sounds like a great deal to me," he said, and he was the sort of man who, if the truth be known, would trade in his old granny for a crate of PreCheese and a barrel of pungent horseradish. "Would I need an agent? What percentage would I get? Net, not gross, unless maybe I don't have to pay Quad-Gal tax because I'm, you know, exempt for being sometimes mad. I've had a few bad run-ins with the Quad-Gal Revenue." He twitched, remembering his ex-wife Mel, one time tax inspector and later zombie super-soldier. It hadn't turned out well - either in marital terms, or in terms of Quad-Gal