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  With the last brain squished under my fist, Chester’s eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the floor, spilling his brain out of his open skull, ripping it free from his spinal column and killing him instantly.

  I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much.

  I had Doctor Harold Melon to thank for that.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Oh, Zed,” said Melon, chiding. “You really shouldn’t have done that. We could have learned so much from this experiment.”

  “Careful, Doc, you’re starting to sound like these Kon Ramar guys.”

  “Never! It’s just that, since there’s a living, working brain-construct right here…”

  “Melon, I may be piece-by-piece catching up with you in some kind of extreme cyborg slimming contest, but I still have a fist, and you still have a very vulnerable looking head.”

  “Don’t be so tetchy, Zed.”

  I dragged myself over to Chester’s spilled-out brain and punched it as hard as I could from the side, so it flew off into a wall, where it split open like, well, a melon. The good doctor took the hint, although making sure Chester was gone had been my main aim.

  “Would the Kon Ramar have fallen for Boram’s plan?” I said. It seemed highly unlikely.

  “Oh goodness me, no,” said Melon. “They’re insane and arrogant, not stupid.” Melon laughed.

  Just then I heard two sets of footsteps, jogging at a steady pace. They were coming from the tunnel where I’d fought the Wardens. Before I could turn my body around on the floor to look, Melon piped up again.

  “Oh,” he said. “I must have over-estimated the sleeping gas recovery period. Hello gentlemen.”

  I turned. Clumsily.

  “Oh, Zed,” said a grey-faced, shaky-looking Kam. “You’ve really let yourself go, mate.” He shook his head, unable to hide how appalled he was at the state of me, despite his joking. “You should really take better care of yourself. What would your cyber-mum say?”

  “Zee, buddy,” said a groggy Lothar. “Care to tell me why you left me giving Kam a goodnight cuddle, tucked up under some filthy old tarpaulin? And why did you leave the hacked off head of one of my best soldiers eyeballing me when I woke up?”

  Melon was muttering to himself, “…and so I could have mis-translated the notes about the duration of the…” he said.

  “Hey, I saved your arses,” I said. “No, wait, I saved your brains. Although clearly there wasn’t much worth saving.”

  “…once the subjects were removed from an area where they would be breathing the gas…” said Melon quietly.

  Lothar and Kam looked blankly at me. They of course had no way of knowing about events above ground. Part of me wanted to shudder at what was probably still going on out there. Millions of humans just lying around unconscious, whilst fully Kon Ramar controlled Wardens and floating trash-cans robbed them of their brains. Weird. Weird, shitty and wrong. There had to be a way to stop it, I mean we were right next door to some sort of fucking command ship.

  “…no sign of the amnesia suffered by those initially kidnapped and bound for Deliverance…”

  I filled Lothar and Kam in on what had happened since they saw Oxley die, whilst Melon continued trying to explain stuff to himself.

  “…some kind of additional effect, applied to the unconscious people before waking…”

  “Can I arrange to be unconscious for your next mini-adventure, Zed?” said Kam. I think he was having a hard time adjusting to how broken I was. “What are we going to do with all these brains?”

  “Nothing right now,” I said. “There’s no time. Let them sit here and drink that goop in the fish-tank, we’ve got to stop what’s going on above ground before everybody dies.”

  Lothar nodded, even as he wobbled on his feet. “What about Oxley?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Lo. He’s not been gone long, but there’s no real chance of getting him to the ship at the Heights, so…” I trailed off deliberately.

  “Maybe this flagship’s got a brain transfer thingy,” said Kam.

  “No doubt it has,” said Doc Melon. “But only one which would create a Warden-based cyborg profile. One where the the simulated copy of Oxley’s brain would be entirely dominated by the Warden. It took me a long, long time to re-code the transfer software at the Manoogla Heights to deliver results where the human personality code was in charge, even tenuously so.”

  Lothar had been staring with loathing at the masses of brains on the floor and in the liquid-filled tanks. “What about this green shit in here?” he said. “Is this keeping these brains alive?”

  “Indeed it is,” said Melon, eager for someone, anyone, to show an interest, so he could babble about it. “Although I have no idea how.” Oh, so much for the eager babbling then.

  “Thought you were some big-shot scientist, Doc,” said Lothar.

  “No, no,” said Melon, laughing. “I’m just a self-proclaimed ‘Doctor’, who’s scrabbled together some knowledge about bits and pieces of what the Kon Ramar do. I would imagine, though, that this green solution is highly oxygenated and – ”

  “So, if we put Ox’s pea-sized brain in a bowl full of that stuff and take it with us, would he survive?” said Lothar, reaching into the tank and stirring the liquid with a gnarled forefinger.

  “On the basis that we have living, apparently healthy brains all around us: Yes,” said Melon. “Although these unprotected ones on the floor will die from any number of causes any time now. The Grand Overlord’s done this all wrong. All wrong.”

  “Don’t sound too disappointed Doc,” I said.

  “Get a few more fishtanks, recover the brains above ground and you could start up Zed’s outreach centre for homeless grey matter,” said Kam.

  “Sounds like this is worth a try, though,” said Lothar, ignoring Kam.

  “Yes,” I said. “Okay, here’s the plan people – and Melon: Lothar, Kam head back up the tunnel, relieve the grey-skin corpses that you’ll have already seen of their gas masks and weapons. Put the masks on and carry spares. One of you grab Oxley’s head, bring it here, get his brain out and put it in the aquarium – just be sure you know which one it is once it’s in there.

  “The other one of you should open up a small hole in the blocked bunker entrance and see what’s going on out there. With luck the harvesters will have moved on to find brains elsewhere. If they haven’t, block it back up and return here. If it’s all clear, wait for your partner then exit the bunker and, please, if you would be so kind, retrieve the jetpacks from the wreckage of the wheelchair.

  “Take zero risks. It’s just not worth it. Get back here as soon as you can. Melon and I are going through that door, where, hopefully we’ll find a big old colony fleet flagship and the computer that Chester Boram got all his Melon-rivalling Kon Ramar knowledge from.”

  “Roger that,” said Lothar, and the two humans sloped off back up the tunnel at a tired jog, clearly still feeling the effects of the gas.

  “You know,” I said to Melon as I dragged myself over to where his pole-mounted head lay on the floor in a puddle of squished brain, “Gas plus gas masks equals flawed attack plan. Or rather it should do. Don’t the Kon Ramar worry that a human planet could just hide away a mask-wearing army to fight back with when the aliens come for them?”

  “No,” said Melon. “And not just due to that arrogance I keep referring to, but, because the colony flagship’s computer is supposed to have seamlessly integrated itself into planetary communications. It should know what they know; the humans aren’t supposed to know about the Kon Ramar, nor their attack methods, and, the computer should use the Wardens – either as lone agents, small teams or in full force – to prevent the humans ever being able to get to a point where the Kon Ramar wouldn’t want them to be – such as being able to defend themselves.”

  “But arrogance has a lot to do with it too, huh?”

  “Oh boy yes,” said Melon. “Even when they arrived in
orbit they probably refused to believe there was any kind of threat down here.”

  “I’m feeling very threatening right now,” I said.

  “You often are,” said Melon.

  “Doc?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry about sacrificing two of your heads.”

  Melon glanced at the data storage unit he’d spat out of his mouth when we arrived in this room. “You did what you had to do,” he said. “You know I’d have sacrificed you quite happily to gain an edge over the Kon Ramar.”

  “And you still would,” I said, contorting the last shreds of my burned and torn lips and skin into a smile.

  “Oh golly, yes, without a second thought,” Melon said seriously.

  “I’m not really all that sorry,” I said, just as seriously.

  “I know,” said Melon, smiling back at me. “Zed?”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you feel about your son being alive? I see no reason for Chester to have lied about that, really. Although it is a possibility.”

  “I don’t know, Doc. I really don’t know. He’s from a past I never had.” Irrelevant thought processes. Not pertinent to current objectives. Child related thought process terminated. “Come on, Doc, let’s go see if we can save the universe, or at least a few people on Deliverance.”

  It turned out the door on the other side of the room had a palm-reading security device, so I had to snap Chester’s hand off at the wrist and throw it as hard as I could, palm splayed open at the reader, until I got lucky and it was in contact with the reader long enough and fully enough for the door to open.

  I half-expected some sort of fanfare, or radiant white light to emanate from the doorway as it opened, but instead there was just a naked red bulb illuminating a rubber-sealed extendable airlock, that was joined to a door identical to the one in the Heights – just without the cool rock-hologram camouflage. I reached for the Doc, and threw him into the airlock.

  “Access. Granted. Warden. Cleared. For. Entry,” said a familiar, robotic voice as the door to the colony flagship opened. I might have all-but forgotten – or rather disregarded as no longer relevant – that this version of Doc Melon had originally been Warden Q4, but these ships clearly hadn’t.

  With Melon’s head lying right next to the spaceship door it remained invitingly open. I shuffled along the floor, went through the door – pushing Melon over the threshold with my own head – and looked around the interior of the lead ship of the Deliverance colony fleet; the flagship, the command and control centre of what had been a stunning, technically amazing operation to move thirty million people many, many light years across the galaxy.

  So I was quite disappointed to discover it was just a cube, ten feet wide and tall. In the centre of the room was a seat just like the two in the shuttle – which had been the bridge section of a complete colony ship – hidden by Melon in the Manoogla Heights. The interior was a smaller copy of the layout of the Manoogla shuttle. Blast-shielded view port, a computer screen displaying a bunch of alien symbols and a flashing, patiently waiting cursor, and, most interestingly another door, the look, size and shape of which corresponded exactly with the one inside the Manoogla shuttle. A door that looked as much like a futuristic cupboard door as someone might imagine.

  “Doc,” I said. “Is there going to be a Warden behind that door?”

  “It seems likely,” said Melon. “After all, when I boarded the stranded colony ship in orbit, you had emerged from such an alcove in your utterly failed attempt to communicate with and repair the ship.”

  “And then luckily for me,” I said. “Doctor Melon, alleged passenger aboard the colony ship came to my rescue.” After my first conversation with Chester Boram, where he’d told me that Melon really had nothing to do with the Deliverance fleet, I’d not pursued Melon’s original lie and had chosen to accept his second story of being from Iceholme, where he had studied the Kon Ramar and their technology on the sly. There had been some lingering questions that just didn’t matter to me at the time, but that seemed relevant now.

  “Ok, Melon, seventeen years you said you spent trapped aboard the Manoogla ship – having been chosen by the kidnapped colonists up there – before you figured out how to land the shuttle at the Heights. How long were you really aboard?”

  “Five days,” he said. “That’s how long it took me to get you back into a working state, and to get you to the point where you freaked out, rebooted and stole the ship I arrived in, that was docked with the shuttle.”

  “Not an escape pod then?”

  “No,” said Melon. “You stole what the Kon Ramar call an inter-stellar light-raft, which is one of their most modern ships. It travels above light speed and is, basically, a one-man life-raft with a forcefield instead of anything resembling a hull. You feel like you’re completely open to the universe whilst aboard it. It’s terrifying. I climbed aboard one on Iceholme, punched in the Deliverance co-ordinates and shut my eyes.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Not a clue, old boy. My illicitly-gained speciality is Wardens and evil Kon Ramar plans, not faster-than-light travel. I read something about it using an interconnected series of localised mini-wormholes that the ship throws out ahead of itself as it travels. It all went over my head though really.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Oh indeed,” said Melon. “Or, in my case, ‘Oh shit, make it stop, god, please!’” He smiled. “I kept my eyes closed for most of the month it took me to get here.”

  “A month? How long would it take to get to Earth from here in one of those?”

  “Twice as long.”

  “As opposed to the unknown number of centuries it took for the Deliverance fleet to get here from Earth,” I said. Impressive.

  “Almost five centuries, actually” said Melon.

  “So, you got here, docked with the stranded colony ship and found out from the computer there that the trapped colonists aboard were doing okay,” I said. “Then you reprogrammed me, turning me from a ruthless killer into a slightly less ruthless killer who thinks he’s funny, but let me storm off in a huff. After that you decided to collude with an evil madman for a while, giving him the pieces of the puzzle he needed to start activating cyborgs. And then finally you came looking for your lost pet cyborg, killing yourself in the process, because despite the undeniable genius, you’re a stupid twat.”

  “Ah, um, yes,” said Melon with a grin. “That’s spot on. Good summary.”

  “And here we are, with another potential enemy in the broom-cupboard, there,” I said.

  “Quite,” said Melon. He then addressed the ship’s computer, “Computer. Species: Human. Confirm Warden authority.”

  “Wardens. Q4. Z14. Confirmed.”

  “Computer, provide command interface unit.”

  A panel in the ceiling opened up above the command seat and a nondescript black box fell out, swinging on a black cable, at what should have been head-height for a seated person.

  “Ah,” said Melon. “Computer, lower the unit to the floor, please.” The computer obliged and the black box nestled on the floor, as more cable spooled out of the open panel.

  “Zed, my dear, would you mind attaching that unit to me?”

  It took some awkward shuffling around in my condition, but I managed to get hold of the unit, find the button that extended the inevitable data spike and jam it into Melon’s ear.

  “Right,” said Melon, one point four five seconds later. “I’ve just downloaded the computer’s logs, and also begun querying its databases. I know what it’s been up to. Or rather, I know why it’s not been up to much.”

  “Wonderful, what do you know, and is there anything we can do from here to stop the brain drain that’s going on outside?”

  “There is indeed a Warden in the cyborg storage alcove over there,” said Melon. “One per ship in the fleet holds true for the flagship as well, it seems.”

  “Is it active?” I said.

  “No.”


  “Why not? Why would Chester not activate this one? He activated the one in the city above, and all the other nearby ones.”

  “According to the audio logs the computer recorded, Chester and the technicians he had working on the computer here decided to keep this one back as a reserve. I guess we interrupted things before Chester could activate him.”

  “Okay, but why did this ship not do what it was meant to do? Why didn’t it keep tabs on the Deliverance population and communicate with the cyborgs?”

  “When the ship first landed here, seeking a good place to hide itself, it raised its communication antenna through the rock and the seabed. After a short time, invasive aquatic life-forms destroyed the antenna.”

  “Fish ate the radio mast?” I said. “Welcome to Deliverance. Why didn’t the ship relocate to a less hostile local environment?”

  “Invasive aquatic life forms destroyed the sub-atmospheric directional and attitude control systems,” said Melon.

  “Fish ate the rudder,” I said.

  “Quite. What a curious choice of indigenous life the aliens seeded this planet with,” said Melon. “Metal-eating fish?”

  “Forty-nine different species,” I said. “They’re partial to dead human scientists, too.”

  “A shudder just ran through the body I don’t have.”

  “Doc, you knew about the Kon Ramar, you studied them surreptitiously and you spent half your life learning from them. I can accept you being able to stick your beak into Kon Ramar business and mess with their tech, but the Boram family, rulers of a backwater pile of shit planet being able to interact with advanced alien technology is not in the least bit credible.”

  “You’re right,” said Melon. “The logs show that the ship decided to reveal itself to the planetary authorities. Doing so was actually part of the theme of the Kon Ramar experiment for this planet’s colonisation and growth, not that I can begin to fathom what they were up to – and not that it matters, now that they’ve decided to just switch to the main aim of funnelling their God into a bunch of brains

  “Shall I open the cyborg storage alcove?”