Z14 Read online

  “You sure it’s not going to leap out and kick me in the face? Or, best case scenario, it’s not even going to leap out and kick you in the face?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Do it.”

  With a soft whooshing sound the door opened.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What do you think of your new body, Zed?” said Doctor Melon.

  “My new body?” I said.

  “Indeed,” said Melon. “My little gift to you, to finally put the past – admittedly much of which you don’t know about – behind us.”

  “Aw, Doc, that’s so sweet. I feel terrible, I didn’t get you anything,” I said, with my gruesome grin.

  Melon smiled. “I could command the computer to reach down out of the ceiling with a pair of maintenance arms and switch my head with the chap in the alcove there, but, Zed, I want you to have it.”

  Inside the alcove was an apparently slumbering, upright figure, with a Slavic look about him – most evident in his prominent cheek-bones. He had neat, short black hair and must’ve been in his mid-forties.

  “Well, thanks, Doc,” I said. “How does it work?”

  The doctor sent me a network message containing a command that I should run. I did so and my head fell off. It didn’t have far to fall, lying on the floor, as I was. The next thing I knew, a solid rubber hand on the end of a long metal arm shot out of the ceiling and grabbed me by the top of the head. I noticed the alcove-cyborg’s head topple off and then, an instant later the robotic arm placed my own head upon the vacated shoulders. Everything lined up perfectly and clicked into place and I began absorbing reams of internal data about my new body and the condition it was in – which could be summed up in one word: “Prime”. I looked down at the inactive head of the cyborg who’s body I’d just hijacked.

  “His name was – ” Doctor Melon started to say.

  “No, don’t tell me, Doc. I might end up having to write myself some sort of guilt sub-routines.”

  “Ah, okay, then,” said the doctor. “You’ve gained just over an inch in height, but apart from that, the two of your cyborg bodies are very similar – all of the human-stock Wardens were. One of the female members of your old research team who got, ah, converted, was five feet tall, yet she still became a six foot cyborg.”

  I stepped out of the alcove, flexing my fingers, rolling my shoulders, turning my head, twisting my torso and lifting my knees high – just revelling in the ease of movement and the full range of humanoid mobility I had again. I allowed my human side to flood me with a quick rush of relief and excitement. Z14, back from the brink.

  “What about regeneration, Doc? When I go into regen mode and re-grow my face, am I going to end up looking like that poor fucker on the floor?”

  “No,” said Melon. “Your D.N.A. Is encoded deep down in that ugly, burnt head of yours, and it will be used to re-write that of the stem-cell matrix in your new body’s digestive system. You’ll basically grow back your own flesh.”

  “Cool,” I said. “These aliens make some awesome shit, it’s almost a shame I’m going to have to exterminate them.”

  “Zed, really, there’s no need for that. We just need to show them that we can be their equals, and then we can – ”

  “Yawn,” I said, even as I suppressed that image from flashing up in my mind – too late though. “No, Daddy, come back!” reverberated around my head yet again.

  “I’ve got another gift for you, Zed,” said Melon, as I did a few squat-thrusts and push-ups, enjoying my new body.

  “What’s that?” I said warily.

  “I’ve been trawling the computer’s database while we’ve been talking. I’ve found all the original memory files for each of the Wardens created on Earth.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I said.

  “You don’t? Why? Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “Take them, Zed. You might never get the chance again.”

  “Why? That’s not me anymore. I’m Z14, assassin and hopefully soon-to-be saviour of humanity from a short-lived future as lab-rats. Not a scientist who should have died centuries ago, and certainly not a father to some frozen brat, lost somewhere on a completely different planet.”

  “Take them anyway, Zed. Store them, don’t access them, avoid them, but take them. You never know, the ones that cover your dealings with the Kon Ramar – your team made first contact, Zed – might even hold information that could be useful in fighting them.”

  “Okay, that’s logical,” I said. “Have the computer beam them over.” Instead, a cabled data unit fell out of the ceiling. I sighed, stabbed it into my ear with a wince and took the transfer, being sure to mark each of the incoming files with a flag that said “Do Not Open - Shit I Don’t Care About Inside”. If I accessed one of those files, that was it, it would become a memory. I didn’t know if I could purge my own memories, and I didn’t want to risk uncovering something I didn’t want to know – whatever that might be, obviously I had no idea – and have no way to rid myself of it.

  Through the open door of the flagship, I heard running feet approaching again. With a bit of my old confidence and swagger returned to me along with this new body, I strolled outside to see who it was. I stumbled over my old, broken body and kicked the useless thing out of the way. No trace of human sentimentality there, then. Good.

  Lothar and Kam had returned. I was pleased to see they had the two jetpacks from poor Oxley’s wheelchair. That was good, because my new body wasn’t wearing a jetpack. Lothar was just in the act of dropping a bloody brain into the goop-filled aquarium – Oxley, I presumed.

  As I emerged from the ship, the two humans levelled their rifles at me, shocked to see an able-bodied human figure coming out.

  “Zee?” said Lothar.

  “Course it is,” said Kam. “I’d recognise that ugly bastard anywhere. Even with the improvements all of his hideous burns have made.”

  “Kam, would you like to be the first human these new hands of mine strangle?” I said. I walked over – walked, not limped, shuffled or dragged – to Kam and took the two jetpacks off of him. I strapped the one with the most fuel in it to my back, created a wireless link to it, and handed the other one back to Kam.

  “I wish we could use these things,” said Kam wistfully.

  “Zee buddy, there’s a freakishly tall blue guy walking around outside,” said Lothar. “We only got a glimpse of him through the gas clouds, but I’ll be guessing he’s one of your aliens.”

  “Yeah, we were on our way back here with the ‘packs when we saw him. You told us to take no risks, so we came back,” said Kam.

  “Good call,” I said. “Right then, we’ll go back up there. He must have some sort of shuttle or something nearby, maybe even their main ship, who knows?”

  “Yee-haw,” shouted Kam. “Let’s go screw some alien ass!”

  I looked at him.

  “What?” he said. “I’m just filling in for Ox. I miss him.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get the little idiot back,” I said.

  I ducked back into the flagship. Melon would be interested in this new development.

  “It’s no good,” said Melon as I entered. “I’d hoped we’d be able to send commands to all the Wardens on the planet from the flagship’s computer, but the fish-eaten antenna makes that impossible.”

  “How the hell did Boram activate ten Wardens from here, then?” I said.

  Melon smiled. “Again, according to the audio logs the computer took, he used his modest connections as ruler of a planet to get a replacement antenna built and guided into place from a specially-constructed platform out in the bay.

  “The fish ate it, of course, but not before he’d had time to send out the activation commands to the Wardens.”

  “So where does that leave us?” I said.

  “We need to get into space, get aboard the ship or ships the Kon Ramar have arrived in, take them over and cancel the Deliverance harvest mission from a computer aboard
ship.

  “I could probably get any of the old colony ship’s bridge shuttles launched. Preferably the one in the Heights. It knows me, so it would be faster there.” I smiled as I remembered the obsequious reverence the doctor had programmed into that ship’s computer. Silly idiot.

  “What about if the Kon Ramar had landed on the planet?” I said. “Might they have a more expedient way of getting back to their own orbiting ship?”

  “Definitely, why do you ask?”

  “Lothar and Kam just a gangly blue thing wandering around topside.”

  “They did what?” cried Melon. “Pick me up! Now! Let’s go, go, go!”

  With Melon tucked under my arm, we all rushed back to the surface, emerging from the Kaboom-blasted castle bunker entrance. I scanned the area and found a single life sign nearby. A big one. I passed Melon to Kam and walked towards it, a short way. As I drew closer, it must’ve heard me coming because it froze for a moment, before heading our way. Perhaps it felt it had nothing to fear down here. I found that strange, as the timing of their attack had made both Melon and me suspect they’d been watching us for a while from orbit. So they surely knew they had a rogue Warden on this planet, and that I was the only cyborg within four and a half hours of here, but this thing approaching me wasn’t scared. Well, neither was I. A human weakness. None of that rubbish for me, thank you very much. It was time for a balls-out confrontation with the alien antagonists. Except, as the alien emerged from the swirling gas cloud I realised it was way ahead of me on the balls-out front. It was naked.

  I called over my shoulder to Melon and the others, a short way behind. “I thought you said they were nearly human, Doc,” I said.

  “Well,” called back Melon, “despite outward appearances, the physiological simi-”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this on a human,” I said. “It looks like a hose.”

  “Ah, yes, disgusting isn’t it. Just, well, try not to look at it.” His voice sounded like he’d be shuddering, if he could.

  “I might rip it off and strangle him with it.” Yep, it definitely looked like a ‘him’.

  “That chap’s probably cold, too,” said Melon. “Could you imagine it at full-”

  “Enough, Doc!”

  The alien had a painfully skinny, pale blue-tinged body, which sprouted long, spindly arms and legs with sharp, knobbly knees and elbows. Its head looked mostly human, although the nose was so long and thin that it looked almost more blade-like than nose-like. Large, circular eyes that were black pools within a milky murk narrowed slightly as he regarded me. He raised a pale blue palm towards me, as though casually ordering me to halt. Then he shook his head, causing his long black hair to fly back and forth.

  “Grobular mon sock tu-allar gurk,” he said, in a deep but peevish tone.

  “Welcome to Deliverance,” I said, then I broke into a run and charged straight at him.

  His eyes widened and an odd, frilly, gill-like thing – that Melon hadn’t mentioned – fanned out around the front and sides of its neck, becoming visibly engorged with blood and turning red. I imagine that effect would have surprised a human somewhat, causing a corresponding drop in his attention, and therefore combat readiness, but I filtered it out as irrelevant to the fight. The alien suddenly looked scared; he looked like he was going through a fight or flight mental coin-toss.

  His tiny nostrils flared, as, with a very nasal, almost trumpet-like tone the he said, “Phleet!” The word was long, drawn out and constantly rising in pitch. He took a step backwards. Ah-ha, hesitation. Gotcha. I launched into a dive and tackled the thing about the midriff, making sure to give a certain invitingly exposed target a quick punch, as he fell over backwards with me on top. His flappy, frilly neck ‘sack’, or whatever it was, deflated, becoming invisible against his skin once more.

  I scrabbled into a position where I was sitting on his chest. Being careful that my great weight didn’t crush the stick-like creature’s ribs. I gave him a few slaps to the face, still being careful not to do any real damage.

  He tried to take on a submissive posture that reminded me of a pack animal showing deference to the leader. Damn right, bluey, I’m the leader of the pack around here.

  “Scurl!” he said.

  “Rhubarb!” I shouted at him.

  “Zoil gronna sock. Sock. Sock!”

  Well, this could go on all day. I’d quite happily trade gibberish with him until he died of old age, except that this thing’s servitors were still out there, slicing people’s heads open and sucking out their brains. I grabbed the alien’s throat in one hand and squeezed ever so gently – for me – just hard enough to make it hard for him to breath. I turned my head and shouted, “Melon! Come!”

  I held the alien there, on the edge of consciousness until Lothar and Kam – wearing big gas masks, with clear plastic face plates – came running, Kam carrying the doctor’s head. Getting their first proper look at the alien, Kam uttered an expression of amazement, whilst Lothar just shook his head with a kind of detached interest and grim look that implied the neighbourhood was going to hell in a handcart. Lothar had my old bag slung over his back. It contained the head of the Unknown Warden, whose body I’d hijacked, Kaboom’s stored personality and a brand new ‘Kam-special’ laser-weld contraption: He’d melted the face plates of a bunch of gas masks together, to make a bowl, which he’d filled with green brain-food goop…and Oxley’s brain. He’d then sealed the contraption up with some more precision melting and we had our very own Oxley in a jar. It’d be just our luck that the Kon Ramar god would take a fancy to Oxley’s brain and manifest himself inside it.

  “Melon, can you speak their language?” I said. “This one seems to like socks.”

  “Sock? That means, roughly, ‘I command you, slave’,” said Melon. “But no, I can’t speak their language, only read it. If this one doesn’t speak every major human language though, then I’d be very surprised.”

  I stared into the alien’s eyes. “Point to your ship.”

  It did so. Keeping one hand around its neck, I moved off of it, wrapped my other hand around both of its skinny naked ankles and lifted it up in front of me, horizontally. It was almost like carrying a long broom-handle, it was so light.

  “Keep pointing to your ship,” I said. “If I see something I don’t like, I’ll drop your spine onto my knee. Got it?”

  “Phleet!” said the alien, in its flattened trumpet tone again.

  “That better be something like, ‘Please don’t kill me’,” I said, glancing at Melon – who Kam was kindly holding up, so as to give him a good view of events. The doctor had that frustrated look on his face which I had already learned to realise was him trying to nod when he couldn’t.

  “Something like that,” he said eventually.

  We all followed the alien’s outstretched arm, like some captive, biological compass, until we came to a two-foot thick sheet of metal with a tall control column sticking up out of the centre. It was hovering half a foot off the ground and continually swirling away the ever-encroaching gas cloud from underneath it.

  “A light-raft!” shouted Melon.

  “Wonderful. Can you fly it?” I asked Melon.

  “Yes, if this Kon Ramar gets us through the forcefield. It will be attuned to his touch – that means he needs to be alive, Zed.”

  I brought the alien’s face close to mine. “Do it,” I said to him. I walked towards the chunk of floating metal that passed as the Kon Ramar’s space shuttle. Melon hadn’t been joking when he’d told me a while ago that the Deliverance colonisation had been left to an old, obsolete fleet of ships. This thing was positively, well, alien.”

  “Worgord foz-fold,” said the alien, as I felt a strong static charge in the air ahead. The creature held out a palm and I edged forward a little more. There was a quick white flash around the alien’s hand and the charge dissipated.

  “All aboard who are coming aboard,” I said as I jumped up onto the metal platform, still holding the passive alien.
The platform didn’t budge a millimetre as I landed. It stayed rock-steady. Very impressive. Kam stepped up, bringing Melon with him. Lothar screwed his face up, shut his eyes, shook his head and stepped aboard too. It was pretty crowded up here now.

  “Kam, get Melon a look at that control column, will you?”

  “Aye, aye, cap’n,” said Kam. It took a bit of delicate shuffling around between the three of us, and I accidentally winded Lothar with the alien’s head as I tried to get out of Kam’s way.

  “Sorry, Lo,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” said Lothar, on his knees, wheezing.

  “Borrack mung-toh!” said the alien. Then it laughed. I didn’t like that laugh. I laid the alien back down on the floor, and sat astride him again.

  “So, Melon, you can fly this thing, right?” I said.

  The doctor was intently studying the console. “Mmmm, yes,” he said. “It’s quite simple. There’s a button to re-enable the forcefield, and another to return to the mother ship, which, according to the readout on this control panel, is directly above us.”

  “That does sound simple, Doc,” I said. “Does that mean we don’t need all this extra weight?” I gestured at the alien.

  “Technically, no, bu – ”

  I deliberately played my son’s last words to the original me in my head, as I tightened my fingers ever harder around the alien’s neck. It was like increasing the pressure on a pencil between your fingers before it suddenly snaps. The alien died instantly. I let go and kicked his corpse off of the light-raft.

  “Zed!” cried Melon.

  “What?” I said. “You said we should show the Kon Ramar that we could be their equals. I make that: Kon Ramar, many billions. Humanity – as championed by Warden Z14 – one. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re equal.”

  “I didn’t mean that kind of equ – ”

  “Alright!” said Kam. “Give me some skin, Zed!”

  “No way, I’ve only just got this body, I’m not parting with its skin anytime soon.”

  Kam grinned.

  “Doc,” I said. “Show Kam what buttons to press to re-enable the forcefield, and to get us docked with their mother-ship.”