Free Biohell by Andy Remic Page B

scattered
No-Go areas of the poor, the diseased, the low-lifes and the No-Creds. Above,
the world was under ICE—but there were no such extravagant luxuries down here.
     
    Slick moved carefully for a while
and paused, turning. He’d heard something.
     
    The street was deserted.
     
    He turned back—into the butt of a
D5 shotgun. Slick went down. He went down hard. Franco stared without emotion
at the bloodied, battered features, then lowered his weapon and gestured to Keg
and Tag, who lifted Slick and dumped him in the boot of the Mercedes groundcar.
     
    “Well?” said Franco.
     
    “Well what?”
     
    “Check him for weapons, dickhead.”
     
    “Yeah. Sorry.” They stripped
Slick of guns and knives and bullets. Then Tag held up Slick’s limp hand. “Hey,
Franco, what do you make of this?”
     
    Franco stared at the tiny,
serrated knife protruding from Slick’s thumbnail.
     
    Franco shrugged. “No idea. Get in
the car.”
     
    They slammed shut the boot. And
with a scream of exhaust headed into darkness.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    The
Jumper Dockside was pretty much deserted on the outskirts of a contaminated
TOXIC AREA; a disused, abandoned, derelict relic of fifteen, maybe twenty years
ago when Jumpers would shuttle cargo to and from huge Class I freighters in
orbit around The City, leapfrogging into the sky like giant metal insects. Now
the transport was redundant thanks to SPIRAL PORT technology, and the land had
not yet been reclaimed for building due to heavy localised radiation. It made a
brilliant dumping ground for bodies.
     
    Franco sat on the end of a steel
pier, legs dangling over the edge, staring out across the Blood River. The
waters ran thick, red, heavy with natural mineral deposits from deep beneath
the rock—minerals which also ate flesh and bone to nothing within an hour. A
natural, toxic solution for the murdered. A final baptism for the damned.
     
    In the distance, The City’s dawn
haze filled the horizon and the world with a muggy smog. Background noise, a
constant buzzing and hissing, a low-level cacophony of trillions at work and
play, imbued the distant ambient air with background level annoyance.
     
    Franco cradled the D5 and spat
into the river.
     
    Dumb bastards, he thought, eyes narrowing as he
remembered the short journey. Tag and Keg—ever the wannabe gangstas—poking him
and cajoling him. Tell us another story! Tell us what it’s like to go to war!
Tell us what it’s like to shoot a SIM in the face! Franco shook his head,
wondering if he’d lost his raw edge, his killer instinct. Maybe he’d just got
old, lost his fire, lost his need to fight and hurt and kill. The very
qualities which had earned him a place in Combat K. Or maybe it was Mel; the
new love of a good woman? A gradual, dawning feeling that one day, and one day
soon, he would like to settle down. Yeah, get married, but there was more.
Children. Harmony. Equilibrium. OK, Franco knew that to many, marriage and kids
were outdated concepts, scoffed at by a street-savvy society. Kids? Ha! More
trouble than they’re worth. Instead, why not buy a poodle and save your money
for interstellar exploration and adrenaline adventures on Ket?
     
    But Franco? He shivered. He longed for simplicity. He longed for calm. And peace. An end to violence. An end
to madness. “Shit.” Franco wondered if he was going soft. Developing a cheese
brain.
     
    “Kick him. Not like that, like
this.” Tag kicked the unconscious body on the ground, and Keg cackled like a
kid with a new toy. Slick’s unconscious form jiggled under the heavy pounding
from the two men’s boots.
     
    “Enough!” roared Franco, heaving
himself to his feet and standing, back to the Blood River, dawn sunlight
glimmering behind him and placing him neatly in silhouette.
     
    Tag and Keg stopped, staring at
Franco with open mouths.
     
    “What’s the problem?” scowled Tag
suddenly. “It’s only a bit of fun. Right? We’re going to kill him