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  “Holy shit,” I said. “You mean the plastic bimbo that punched Kaboom’s ticket was a real person?”

  “You mean lead scientist Doctor Tessa McClusky?” said Classic Melon. “Oh yes, according to Zed’s own memories, such that I pried into, she was very real indeed.”

  “And I think I look rather fetching, now that my hair and ears have grown back,” said New Melon using T9’s voice as it was before she was annexed by him.

  “Could she have been – ” I started to say.

  “No,” said Classic Melon. “I didn’t get all that much from your memories, but Tessa was not the mother of your child.”

  “Damn shame,” said Kam, cycling close to the Kambulance. “You’d have been well out of your league, though, Zed.” He laughed and swerved aside as I tried to clout him with my stump.

  Classic Melon chuckled too. “She was indeed out of your league,” he said. “She used to look down on you because of her much higher I.Q. score.” Kam’s laughter redoubled.

  “What was he,” called Oxley from just behind the Kambulance. “The janitor?”

  I ignored him. “You’re sure there’s nothing left of her, or the others inside their Warden heads?” I said.

  “Quite the contrary,” said New Melon. “Her full personality will have been recorded and used in the virtual reconstruction and simulation of her brain, just like yours was. Given time, I could make her as, well, almost human as I have made you.”

  “Almost human?” I said. “Up yours Doc.”

  “With your little nozzle?” called Oxley. “The doc wouldn’t feel a thing.”

  “Quite,” said Classic Melon. “Time is one thing we don’t have much of. The Kon Ramar are on their way. Obviously, I’ve been here five years – rather than the seventeen I lied about spending on the colony ship in orbit – but the Kon Ramar, well, I’m surprised we’ve had five years grace, to be honest. the fact that Chester Boram is, somehow, activating cyborgs right now, implies he knows just how imminent the Kon Ramar’s arrival is.”

  “And what’s going to happen when these guys show up?” said Lothar, puffing away alongside me – still letting out the odd fart whenever he had to strain in the saddle.

  “I should imagine that they will take charge quickly,” said New Melon.

  “Indeed,” said Classic Melon. “The unactivated cyborgs will activate, with their full Warden program in effect, the Kon Ramar will use chemical weapons from orbit to subdue the human population. It will be up to whatever forces we have managed to array against them to stop the Wardens from basically running around ripping the living brains out of people, and starting work on the next brain-construct monstrosity.”

  Ah-ha.

  “So, that’s the purpose of us Wardens?” I said.

  “That’s your end-game purpose on any given planet, yes” said Classic Melon.

  “Prior to that, however,” said New Melon. “Your mission is supposed to be to hide in plain sight, to observe the humans, and to act with a devastating, brutal and over-the-top level of response if any person, group or faction should make any unexpected technological leaps, or find a way to leave the planet. From that moment on, that particular planet will know it is a prison planet; has been all along.”

  “And yet, most of Deliverance’s Wardens are still asleep,” I said. “Despite the humans having plasma weapons, and, apparently despite Chester having access to the colony flagship.”

  “Indeed,” said New Melon. “That is the curious part. The Wardens never woke up. The obvious explanation is that there is something wrong with the command ship. It is supposed to control the Wardens, and to monitor the humans; to integrate into whatever information networks the humans established, such as the ‘net as you call it here. And yet, it doesn’t seem to have done its job at all.”

  “Quite the opposite,” I said. “Chester – or rather the Boram family in general – got first their laser, and then their plasma technology from the computers aboard the flagship, or so he told me.”

  “I find that unfathomably implausible.” said Classic Melon.

  “And yet, it is also the only likely explanation,” said New Melon.

  “Speaking of fathoms,” I said. “If the flagship is under water off the coast of Boram Bay, then you might find it’s been damaged by the rather voracious sea-life around these parts. There are things in there that find metal to be a tasty treat. They’d be far from averse to munching on a starship.”

  “I see,” said both Melons together.”

  “I suggest we deal with this next pair of Wardens as quickly as possible and then go and find the flagship,” said Classic Melon.

  “At last, we agree on something, Doc,” I said.

  We cycled on, stopping twice so that Lothar and I could swap places with Kam and Oxley. I was back to pulling the Kambulance with Lothar when a long lull in conversation was broken.

  “Doc?” said Lothar. “And I don’t care which damn one answers, as long as it is just one of you.”

  “Yes?” said Classic Melon, sounding hesitant.

  “You said something about arraying forces against the Kon Ramar,” said Lothar. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well,” said Classic Melon. “Ah. Um. Well.”

  “What my esteemed colleague means,” said New Melon. “Is that I had hoped Zed here would be enough.”

  “Against a possible forty-two hostile Wardens?” I said.

  “No,” said New Melon.

  “I, well, that is to say,” said Classic Melon. “That when I arrived and found Zed aboard the stranded colony ship in space, and after I spoke to Chester Boram and realised he was already trying to use the cyborgs to his own ends, I decided to write off Deliverance.”

  “You what?” yelled Kam. “Why?”

  “Because, while the Kon Ramar were, albeit very briefly, subduing Deliverance,” said Classic Melon, “It would give Zed and myself a perfect opportunity to board their ship and simply have Zed wipe them out.”

  “You call that a plan, Doc?” said Lothar. He sounded disgusted.

  “It was a perfectly sound plan,” said New Melon. “If you know the Kon Ramar as I do.”

  “Yes,” said Classic Melon. “Their leadership consists purely of their lead scientific research team, who are also the figureheads of the Kon Ramar religion – the religion that motivates every absurdity they’ve perpetrated around the galaxy – don’t get me started on the planet of the cyborg badgers. Uh, where was I? Oh yes. Their leaders travel on a poorly defended spaceship, and once Zed was aboard, it would be like setting a rabid wolf loose in a nursery.”

  “Doc, I really, really hate your analogies,” said Kam.

  “Well, never mind that,” said Classic Melon. “Zed could single-handedly defeat the Kon Ramar leadership, and then, with me able to use their technology, we could dictate the terms of their surrender to them.”

  “It would be the first and only time the Kon Ramar came up against anything that even resembled opposition. They would be utterly floored by it,” said New Melon.

  “Well,” I said. “It’s a shame we can’t go ahead with that plan.”

  “Why not?” said Classic Melon.

  “Dur,” said Oxley. “We ain’t in space.”

  “Bah,” said Classic Melon. “I could get any of the colony ship bridge shuttles launched again, quite easily.”

  “It’s not that, Doc” I said.

  “Oh?” said both the Melons.

  “It’s the abandoning Deliverance thing,” I said. “This is Kam, Lothar and hell, even Oxley’s home. And whilst it may also be a stinking den of villains and arseholes, there are plenty of normal, innocent people here too – children so young they’ve barely even considered selling their granny to the televised fighting pits. Even I don’t want to see their brains being ripped out by a bunch of under-achieving cyborgs.”

  “Oh Zed,” said New Melon. “I’m touched at your sudden discovery of something resembling a human conscience. But, we can’t figh
t them down here. Deliverance will have to be sacrificed to save every other human colony planet. I was supposed to arrive here and subvert all of the Wardens against their masters, but that just isn’t feasible, what with the Boram Bay Overlords’ interference.”

  “Besides,” said Classic Melon. “Our victory aboard the Kon Ramar ship might be so swift, that very little damage would have been done to the gassed human population by the time we were able to make them call the Wardens off.”

  “And what happens if they don’t, or can’t call them off?” I said.

  “Then we would find a way,” said New Melon.

  “Unacceptable, Doc.” It wasn’t really, though. Devoid of emotion and on a galactic scale, the basic thrust of the Melons’ plan made sound, logical and strategic sense. But, damn it, no: An image, freshly cached in my memory banks, of a crying little boy screaming for his daddy meant that I could no longer bow to mere ‘sound logic’. The Wardens would not harvest a single human brain on Deliverance whilst I still drew power from my core.

  We cycled on in silence once again, as we ate up the miles to the bunker. Talk soon resumed though, as we turned to discussing what was just beginning to almost, barely, pass for a plan; how we would overpower two probably very wary Wardens.

  We finally settled on something as the gates of the bunker perimeter came into view, something that might, just might work. It was a foolish plan and came with such a high percentage chance of failure that I wanted to wince, but it was all we had. We were simply going to be over-matched by the two fully operational, undamaged cyborgs. I didn’t really want to go through with it, but missing a chance to fight two cyborgs, rather than five at once, was even more foolish than our plan for tackling these two.

  As we pulled up at the bunker gate and Lothar keyed in the code to open it, I addressed the Melons.

  “What can you tell me from my memories about the two people inside the Wardens that are heading here?” I said.

  “very little,” said New Melon. “R1, or rather Rupert Mordesh is someone you joked had so little personality he might already be living proof that someone had beaten you to creating a cyborg – a personality observation that seems quite accurate, given that the Kon Ramar were happy with his Warden-subdued personality with just the first iteration of his cyborg mind-upload. Hence the one, in R1.”

  “W12 however, you seemed to be a lot more fond of,” said Classic Melon. “Wendy Harrison was a bright young postgraduate student. The Kon Ramar killed her outright when she fought back against them, and then encoded her brain anyway while her corpse was still warm.”

  “Pleasant,” I said. I didn’t seem to have any feelings of sorrow for these people welling up inside me – hell, with not just forgotten, but deleted memories, I had essentially never known them and never would. Yet it still made the prospect of destroying them in combat one that the human side of me did not relish. Oddly though, another part of my inner-human was looking forward to wasting a pair of cyborg Warden mother-fuckers. I’d have to go devise a cyber-shrink diagnostic program when this was all over.

  We pulled up at the bunker itself. As everyone dismounted I spoke to the humans.

  “After the coming scrap, we could fight the rest of the Wardens more effectively if you three weren’t such pathetically weak sacks of piss and bone,” I said, giving them my cheesiest of fake smiles.

  Lothar’s eyes crinkled in return. He guessed what I was about to suggest and he said, “No, Zee, buddy. I will not become one of them. Not for you, not for anybody, and not even to get rid of my piles and arthritis.”

  “Go on, Lo,” I said. “You’re a professional soldier, surely it makes sense to become the best weapon you can be.”

  “Zee, buddy, I’m too old and set in my ways. I don’t even want to change what I have for breakfast of a morning, so changing, what would you call it? My species? Whatever. Changing into a damn machine ain’t something I would ever want to do. And if I die, I want one of my boys here to incinerate me immediately, so the part where my last will and testament doesn’t expressly tell Zee not to stick me into a goddamn machine doesn’t come back to bite me in my shiny new, metal ass.”

  I shrugged. “How about you Kam?”

  “No offence, Zed, my friend,” said Kam without giving it a moment’s thought. “I don’t mind saying my buddy’s a killer cyborg from outer space, but, well being one is a whole different cauldron of Manooglas. If I die though, then sure, bring me back.”

  “Okay I wi – ”

  “That doesn’t mean you can kill me now, just so you can go right ahead and upgrade me,” said Kam hurriedly. I was sure he didn’t really think that of me. Did he?

  “Hey,” I said. “Why would I slay a human with mind-reading skills like those? You’re clearly an evolutionary wonder; mind and body.” I cracked another cheesy smile as Kam flexed various muscles like a posing body-builder. He did have the kind of body any lunk-head Warden would kill and maim for.

  “That leaves you, Ox,” I said. “You want to join the masterful cyborg race?”

  “I was so, so, so, so, totally up for it,” said Oxley. He started gyrating and thrusting his pelvis. “Just imagine how fast I could drill a girl with robo-hips, man. But a world where I don’t have a penis is a world I don’t want to live in.”

  “Funny that,” said Kam. “Because that’d be a world everyone else would relish.”

  “So not one of you is prepared to give up your humanity to save your planet?” I said.

  “Sorry, buddy. No.”

  “No, mate.”

  “Hell no, man. No way.”

  I wasn’t surprised, it was a tall order, and besides I’d had to find a part of my own humanity before I’d started to give even the merest hint of a shit about saving anything.

  “There’s a non-lethal brain encoding procedure,” I said. “Melon told me about it. It just involves you sitting still in a chair for a few months. If we had the time…?”

  I was met with three stony stares.

  “Okay, okay, I give up,” I said. “A crippled cyborg, three obsolete humans, two copies of a disembodied, possibly mad scientist and the homeless, stored personality of an unhinged explosives expert will have to be enough to defeat a million-year-old galactic space empire. It’ll be a cinch.”

  Kam grinned and Oxley, fully believing my sarcasm, offered me a high-five. I left him hanging.

  “Lothar,” I said. “Stash everything inside, then get back out here with whatever digging tools you can find.” I hobbled to a nice big clear spot a few metres away from the bunker entrance. A spot where there were lots of gaps between the already sparsely planted trees inside the compound. “And then,” I said, scuffing the dry ground with my broken foot, “you can bury me right about here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was three minutes past five a.m. and the first dawn light was beginning to show. New Melon, whose head was sitting on the floor directly above the shallow grave the humans had buried me in, reported that he’d picked up two jetpack heat-signatures closing rapidly from the south. That tallied with where the cyborg network we were spying on said they should be. New Melon was just two inches above me, separated by a thin crust of earth, but we conversed via private network session to ensure we could not be overheard. He told me that they had landed well clear of the outer perimeter; very sensibly not flying within weapon range of the bunker complex. He assumed they were now heading this way on foot.

  New Melon asked for the hundredth time – literally, I have internal logs that can verify this – if I thought this was a good idea. Once again, I replied that no, of course it wasn’t, so why did he keep asking?

  After a lengthy wait – which would have been unbearably tense for a human, but which gave me time to catch up on the news and do a bit of admin for my neglected porn hosting – New Melon told me that the two enemy Wardens had entered the compound and where now sixteen feet away from his position above me. They were scanning the area. I told him to shut down, bef
ore they spotted him and to reboot in two minutes. He did so, leaving me effectively blind, but able to feel faint tremors in the ground as what felt like one of the two Wardens approached what, to them, appeared to be a deactivated Warden’s head; one that matched the configuration of their missing colleague, T9.

  Their scans of the area would pick up no heat or electrical signatures, so the next logical thing to do, was for one of them to retrieve the head, whilst the other hung back, ready to respond to what was in all likelihood a trap.

  Damn right it was a trap. Just probably not a very clever one. The thudding footsteps came closer and closer until they were right on top of me, where they stopped. I waited just long enough for the Warden to be in mid-stoop, about to pick up the head, before punching my hand up through the ground, and grabbing one of its ankles. The Warden’s response was to instantly blast off with its jetpack, to clear the ground-based trap. Good.

  As it felt my weight, the Warden gave the jetpack extra thrust so it could clear the ground. I held on tight, and was pulled up, out of my shallow grave and into the air with it. I looked up as the mud fell away from my rising face. It was R1 that I had hold of; the male Warden, Rupert. He tried to kick my grip away with his free foot as we slowly rose above the treetops, but it was a clumsy attempt. Still, I wouldn’t have long before he broke grip, and probably my fingers. R1’s jetpack flame was singeing my hair, but luckily it wasn’t quite close enough to cook the flesh off my face. Damn it, though, I had held a slim hope my latest regen would last longer than a few hours. Where was the support from Kam and Oxley?

  “Now!” I shouted. Amplifying my voice to its maximum level.

  Oxley and Kam were at opposite ends of the bunker complex, out by the perimeter fence. They themselves were hidden in hastily constructed, cramped concrete mini-bunkers that would have shielded their heat signatures from the approaching cyborgs. At my shout, they stood up, collapsing their cover around them, and freeing them up to target the rising Warden through the trees with their laser rifles. I’d chosen locations for them that had good line of sight to my grave, with as few trees as possible between us.