Terror Firma

Like many of its more conventional counterparts it was of a multi-storey construction, but that’s where the similarity ended. While the traditional direction to build a hospital was upwards, this one delved into the bowels of the earth like an overly zealous intern given his first taste of surgery and a very sharp laser scalpel.

Three levels up from the current floor, and nearly twenty years back in time, the bright boys who ministered to the Shadow Government had discovered a general cure for every form of cancer under the sun. Their discovery hadn’t made the evening news.

Market forces precluded its release – which was to say there were still way too many tax-funded research dollars sloshing around the Cancer Cure Industry for the pharmaceutical conglomerates to let this particular cat out of the bag just yet. On the surface, capitalism might have relied on competition to drive its stuttering heart – not so the cosy tight-lipped gaggle of cartels which gerrymandered this shady world. As long as everyone kept quiet, all could prosper. You scratch my back, I’ll watch yours.

Like so many other groundbreaking discoveries, the wonder drugs had been locked away in the deepest, darkest vaults; along with the common-cold remedies, everlasting light-bulbs and high-calorie foodstuffs which could have solved the world hunger crisis before you could say ‘Do ya want fries with that?’ There were now so many prototype water-driven engines on the 42nd floor they were fast running out of space to store them. That fossilized dinosaur steam engine was going to have to be moved.

These miracles of modern technology were not for general consumption,1 they had been created for the benefit of the all-powerful ruling elite – first by benefiting them directly, and then by benefiting their bank accounts. The Illuminanti had paid for the R&D, why shouldn’t they have sole usage until comprehensive strategies for full exploitation could be formed? When your timescale ran to centuries a few decades here or there made no difference. This was an organization which could afford to take the longest view. The Committee had a duty to see the profits and power of its descendants maximized – it was only fair after all.

Some of the real money-spinners, wisely held back by their forefathers, were only now being hatched into profitable schemes. A bio-technology bonanza was in the offing and for once it would have nothing to do with overexposure to pesticides. As soon as the public could be manoeuvred into accepting animal transplantation as a matter of course, and not a cause for Luddite revulsion, the real profits would start rolling in. A fresh killing was patiently waiting to be made, and this beast had blood-shot rolled-back eyes.

Years before, those woolly-minded do-gooders voted into power had allowed themselves to be bullied by a superstitious, small-minded public into banning the sale of human organs – something about it being ‘immoral’. Hypocrites and killjoys, the lot of them, the Committee had concluded. Well, that distant setback was about to be avenged.

Pig hearts had one big advantage over human ones, pulled from the dwindling supply of public-spirited accident victims. Cute little porkers reared in labs could have their vital organs ripped out to be legally sold at $12,000 a pop – so much better for the balance sheet than printing more of those fiddly donor cards. It was a loophole which would allow the drug firms their final slice of the lucrative Transplant Organ Pie.1

Even the other 99.9% of the valiant animal could be put to profitable use. Slap it in a pitta bread, drench it in chilli sauce and no one would ever be the wiser – a sustainable income stream from waste products. This was what the Project’s Para-Accountants and Ninja-Management Consultants liked to call a ‘win-win’ situation. Which was a rather better situation than the secret hospital’s only current patient was presently in.

This particular invalid wasn’t lucky enough to be a member of the Committee of 300 – he was an expendable minion, but one with a crucial tale to tell. If he could tell it all.

All told, Captain Freemantle had seen better days. And judging by the look of intense frustration splashed across his weathered features, so too had the lumbering figure towering above him.

Nearby a nervous surgeon eyed Becker with considerable disdain, as only a member of his profession could hope to get away with and live to tell the tale.

‘You know that this dosage will probably kill him? This much babble-juice will not sit happily will the medication we’ve used to stabilize his condition.’

The Dark Man fixed the surgeon with a stare that had brought slack-jawed presidents to their knees, and reduced more than one pope to a blubbering wreck.

‘This is a matter of planetary security. Have you heard what went on in England? Daily the Opposition ups the stakes – we might not have much time left. He’s only a grunt, he knew the risks when he took his oath, just like you and me. Do your duty, so that he can do his.’

With a heavy sigh the surgeon uncapped a syringe and flicked its large-bore needle. He had watched the news reports from across the pond – there could have been few humans who hadn’t. As to the significance of what he’d seen he was currently reserving judgement; better stick to what he knew. With practised ease he found a vein and administered the dose.

Freemantle went rigid from head to toe. For a moment Becker thought rigor mortis must have set in with exceptional speed, but then, with a convulsion that nearly shook their subterranean bunker, the captain’s eyes snapped open and the words flooded forth.

His rantings wouldn’t have made sense to an outsider. Fortunately Becker was about as much of an insider as you could get without actually becoming inside out. He had also come prepared. Holding a small dictaphone as close to Freemantle as his rabid saliva-flecked monologue would allow, Becker recorded every word for posterity and for the next chapter of his voluminous memoirs.

When the tirade had run its course the surgeon looked bemused. ‘Machu Picchu. That’s the Inca capital in the Andes, isn’t it?

But when he turned to question Becker further he was faced only by a furiously swinging door.

1 These days it isn’t only angst-ridden poets in fluffy white shirts who die of TB. With the help of virulent new strains resistant to those tried and tested (i.e. cheap, out-of-patent) drugs, almost anyone can receive the benefits of the ultimate creative muse. All over the globe this old favourite was making a comeback as the most efficient regulator of the urban poor, not to mention a most efficient filler of drug corporations’ bank accounts. Potent new strains require potent new cures, which in turn require potent research grants and tax incentives.

1 Not to be confused with the Donor Kebab. As in: ‘I wish I could donate my stomach to science. Pass me a fresh bucket please.’

11. Assault

For no obvious reason, suddenly Frank was alert.

Nothing had changed in the dingy third-floor apartment, but like a US Marine’s genitals on his first trip ashore in Manila, the hairs on the back of McIntyre’s neck had become instantly erect. The TV news still blared in the corner – a hectic report about a military take-over in some tin-pot Central Asian republic. The bowl of Coco Puffs still hovered above Frank’s heroically stained T-shirt,1 the spoonful of the same choc-flavoured corn-based breakfast cereal still suspended precariously half-way to his lips.

But something was different.

Some unknown set of relays had clicked inside Frank’s head. The highly tuned sixth sense which had saved his skin on countless occasions had kicked in again. So Frank McIntyre, Master Sergeant US Special Forces (ret), was in danger, but (as he reflected with a detached professional confidence) as of that instant not half as much danger as the other guy.

Just who that ‘other guy’ might be didn’t bother him at this stage. Frank hadn’t stopped to consider who had been wearing the Vietcong-issue pyjamas, or enquire after the health of the balaclava-swathed terrorists. The personalities behind the Federal Marshals’ badges hadn’t entered into the equation. He’d simply seen them as enemies, obstacles to his continued existence – and now there were other ‘obstacles’ crowding in on him. Frank was an equal opportunities killing machine, as free with his political allegiances as he was with his ammunition.

That was another good point. His Heckler & Koch sub-machine gun was tucked safely under the bed – no way to reach that now. The laser sight was a toy, but one that gave him and the drivers of the big eighteen-wheel semis that thundered beneath his window constant amusement. Frank owned a fine collection of handguns, but his Colt automatic was shut in his desk draw. His .345 Smith & Wesson Magnum was, as usual, taped to the inside of the toilet cistern. With bitter irony he reflected that he was currently equidistant from all his carefully placed hardware.

If he was going to leave with his guest when the fun started he was going to have to move very fast indeed. Abandoning his guns was not a happy thought, but he knew the deadliest weapon of all was carried with him. The United Nations had never tried to ban it, nor had it been the subject of arms limitation talks, yet its facility to unleash unrivalled mayhem and slaughter was impossible to match. It was the twin handful of pink-grey blancmange that quivered between Frank’s ears, and what’s more it was currently working overtime.

For the briefest of seconds he contemplated leaving the contents of his fridge undisturbed. No way, hosayovich. His uncommunicative guest represented the chance of several million lifetimes. He had no doubt it was the thing in his chiller cabinet ‘they’ were after. It was too much of a coincidence to hope his former employers wanted a chat for anything less. They also wanted to take him alive. Otherwise he’d already be dead. Frank knew how these guys operated – he’d all but written the manual himself. But knowing he was wanted for interrogation gave him a slender advantage, and right now he needed all the help he could get.

These thoughts went through Frank’s head in a split second. He didn’t have to think about them, the act of knowing he’d been compromised and analysing the tactical situation happened so fast as to be instantaneous. How would he plan it if he were commanding the assault? First off he’d place a sniper team in the derelict warehouse across the street. Secondly, he’d put a back-up squad at the bottom of the fire escape, to rush up when the main team hit the front door. He’d make sure he had every detail planned three ways in advance. But the time for preparation was at an end, now it was time for action.

Slowly, Frank lowered his bowl and made a careful show of appearing relaxed. The surveillance spooks would have him scoped at that very moment; his every move carefully analysed for signs of stress. As Frank got up and stretched, from the corner of the room, the confessional TV show presenter pointed out the problems faced by single-parent-transvestite households. There was a careful line Frank had to tread between haste and circumspection. Too fast and he risked letting on he knew of the raid, too slow and he’d be yesterday’s enchiladas before you could say ‘justifiable force’. As nonchalantly as he was able he headed for the kitchen, as if to fetch a morning beer.

His speed/stealth quandary was resolved for him. Before he’d gone three steps with low-battery flatness his musical doorbell creaked to life. When the first bars of ‘Do You Know the Way to San José?’ had trailed away, a carefully measured voice (too quick) called out, ‘Floral delivery for Mr McIntyre. I need your signature.’

The image of fifteen black berets, spread-eagled along the threadbare hallway, shotguns and battering rams at the ready, one reading from a carefully prepared script, sprung alarmingly to mind and refused to go away. That settled things. Speed was of the essence, and he’d have to leave by the window. Painful, but not half as painful as getting shot.

‘Coming,’ Frank called in a none-too-convincing effort to buy time, as he ducked into the kitchen. He knew that wouldn’t stall them for long, but at least he was hidden from view in the pokey windowless room.

Working quickly, he bundled his decaying guest from the fridge, removing its satchel as he did so. Checking the inhuman buckle he securely fastened the bulging sack around his neck. The document it contained was most definitely leaving with him. Next, he jammed the alien under one sinewy arm and tucked its legs up into his armpit. This way he was able to carry the feather-light carcass with surprising ease.

Now came the minor matter of making his escape. Talented and trained he might have been, but Frank held no illusions as to his chances. With a softly spoken ‘Hail Mary’ he crawled back into the living room. He had the makings of a plan. It wasn’t good, but it was painfully simple – with the emphasis very much on the painful part.

Stealthily he backed up against one damp mould-encrusted wall. Next to him the apartment’s main window overlooked the busy street below. Luckily they hadn’t stopped the traffic going past, otherwise his embryonic plan would have fallen in tatters at his sneaker-clad feet. A loud crash from the hallway’s front door told him that the ‘delivery man’ really wanted to give him those flowers. Sure enough tear-gas soon followed.

The full-length window next to him opened out onto a small balcony, the apartment’s single redeeming feature. With an impressive shower of glass Frank kicked his way through it and was onto the veranda in a tobacco-stained flash. Instantly a high-velocity ‘whoosh’ came racing in from the building across the street. A split second later a black-flighted crossbow-bolt embedded itself in the rail scant inches from his elbow. Frank recognized the lethal projectile before it had stopped twanging; he had used them himself on more than one occasion. But this was no time to stand around admiring the view. It was just as well that out of the corner of his twitching eye he spotted just what he was after. Up at the intersection a big eighteen-wheel road-transporter rounded the corner and ponderously accelerated down the main street beneath him.

With recklessness born of desperation Frank threw himself from the balcony, his unearthly passenger grasped tightly for dear life. For a stomach-churning second he thought he’d gone too soon, and would slam into the dusty roadway in the vehicle’s path. But then, as if in slow motion, the hissing juggernaut arrived beneath him. A bone-crunching impact later and Frank was attached like a limpet to the container section’s boxy flank.

One arm grasped the canvas-covered top as the other clung to the alien with grim determination. The bulk of the transporter now shielded Frank from the tactical position across the street. Shortly his pursuers were firing more than just arrows. Within seconds the gaudy awning was peppered with the gaping exit wounds of automatic fire. Soon the barrage was augmented from his rear, as the assault-team joined the party from the balcony above. Frank’s flaring nostrils filled with the evil smell of cordite, dragged along amidst the turbulent airflow of the truck’s lengthening wake.

The vehicle thundered on, the driver either unaware of the hail of bullets or more likely terrified out of his wits. Frank decided he could hardly blame him. Remorselessly he began the slow process of clambering up on top of the hurtling juggernaut.

By now they were well clear of the apartment block and quickly leaving the crackle of gunfire behind them. Frank judged he was in more danger of being thrown off than of getting hit by a lucky long-range shot. There was a nasty moment as they sped around a corner, the highlight of which saw Frank clinging on by mere fingernails, his glassy-eyed companion grasped desperately by the other hand – spread-eagled like a bony grey starfish – but as they slalomed through the crowded streets the centrifugal forces flung them both back into the body of the careering lorry.

Grimly Frank hauled himself along the length of the tarpaulin. When he reached the container’s leading edge he had good reason to thank the gods of chance once more. In front of him, across the metre-wide gap that separated the cab from its articulated container section, the driver’s window lay open.

With a superhuman effort Frank swung his posthumous passenger in a wide arc and in through the open window. Seconds later Frank followed his mouldy companion through the opening.

The driver was looking more than a trifle alarmed, as well he might. Yelling at the top of his prodigious lungs he wrestled with the lifeless freeze-dried alien, simultaneously struggling to steer the big vehicle with his enormous belly. Frank’s wide-eyed arrival did nothing to calm him.

‘Get the fuck out of my cab!’ he screamed, scant moments before Frank’s fist undid $900 of careful dental bridgework.

‘Mmmmrrrph!’ the driver spluttered, spitting like a popcorn machine, as Frank unlatched the door and bundled him from the cab.

The ex-commando had no time for remorse, not that he would have fallen victim to such an emotion anyway. All his nerve-endings had long since been cauterized by the searing heat of battle. This was a shooting war now and the occasional civilian was bound to get hurt. Frank was neither stimulated nor disturbed by this certainty, he merely accepted it as matter-of-factly as he’d accept the readout on a laser range-finder. Besides, it was the forces of ‘law and order’ which had fired the first shots – he knew from bitter experience they would be no more careful with the lives of the electorate than they had to be.

But there was another good reason why Frank had no time to feel guilty. With testicle-tightening certainty the thought came crashing home that, along with a semi-mummified extra-terrestrial, he was suddenly in control of a decidedly out-of-control juggernaut. The very act of not crashing was going to be a major achievement in itself, never mind the slightly more complex issue of safely bringing the vehicle under control and escaping his omniscient pursuers.

Either side of the highway the city limits gave way to desert at a shuddering pace. This fact at least brought a partial improvement; Frank was no longer in danger of taking half a city block with him on his final death charge. Unfortunately the petering-out of civilization had another, less welcome effect – the road surface over which they flew was no longer capable of sustaining such a speed. When Frank hit the first series of potholes the truck seemed to buck from under him like a Saigon call-girl he’d once known. Stamping on the brakes did little to improve matters, merely sparking off the sort of skid that could have brought tears to the Michelin Man’s eyes.

Ahead the road ran up a gentle gradient which did little to bleed off the frightening momentum. Worse was to follow. As the highway plunged over the far side it veered to the left. The wheels barely touching the ground, there was no way Frank could steer his mount around this bend. But it wasn’t just a large sandy hill that blocked his path. Half way up the rise a towering advertising hoarding for ‘Yoke Cola – as real as you’ll want to get!’ blocked their path. Across it, a scantily-clad young lady frolicked on a deserted beach, red lips clasped around the distinctly shaped bottle.

Seconds later the hoarding no longer blocked Frank’s path, because the juggernaut had slammed through it, to embed itself cab-deep in the dusty slope beyond.

Moments before impact Frank had buckled himself into the cab’s elaborate strapping system. He was fortunate this truck was a luxury top-of-the-range model. It was fitted with the sort of safety features which could have done spacecraft proud. The gel-filled air-bag offered the ultimate in protection, but also the ultimate in subliminal advertising – being carefully designed to maximize customer exposure to the brand logo at a moment of maximum stress and susceptibility. Frank was saved from serious injury, but left with a peculiar everlasting urge to purchase Ford motor vehicles for the remainder of his unnatural life. Unbeknownst to him his terrified mind had been subjected to some of the most effective and subtle advertising yet known to man.1

Admittedly there were strange-coloured shapes dancing before his eyes, and far off in the distance he could have sworn he heard an ice-cream van jingle, but there was nothing new in that. A few scratches and scrapes, and tomorrow some seriously impressive bruising, was all he was going to have to show for his morning’s adventure. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the alien.

Amidst the general mayhem the cab’s glove compartment had sprung open – somehow the creature’s bulbous cranium had got wedged inside. On impact its head had been clasped firmly in this vice-like grip, while its frail body was free to snap wildly around. A fearful whiplash had resulted that by rights should have decapitated the poor creature. If it had been a horse it would have almost certainly been shot by now to put it out of its misery – that’s if it hadn’t already been long dead of course.

Grabbing the satchel and prising the tenderized alien from its resting place, Frank jumped out into the clear morning air. Clambering out of the gaping hole cut in the towering young lady’s blossoming left breast, he surveyed the swathe of destruction cut through cacti and tumbleweed alike. Briefly he paused, experiencing a terrible and sudden desire for a fizzy sugar-filled caramel-based drink, but he shook it from his mind with iron military discipline.

Gulping past the pain of his itching throat, Frank checked his ponderous load and began trekking off into the baking desert. It was going to be a blazingly hot day, but he had a lot of ground to cover by nightfall. He was going to have to find a more controllable transport if he was to put sufficient distance between himself and his pursuers.

1 ‘LIVE FREE and BUY! I’ve visited Preacher Jack’s Old-Time Trading Post and Ammunition Store: Free Wyoming’s foremost survivalist retail outlet. Discounts available with NRA membership cards. (No Queers, Papists or UN Stooges.)’

1 Even more effective than the compelling 1990s campaign by the MIEC to enslave the masses to mobile phone use. Conducted over decades, through a combination of cultural familiarization (‘Star Trek’ communicators), electromagnetic long-distant brainwashing (those relay transmitters don’t just ‘boost the signal’), and cynically blatant association with a well-known TV show depicting the uncovering of the One World Shadow Government. Who needs an ID card when everyone carries a transponder and their very own number-of-the-beast?

12. The Jimmy Maxwell Show

The studio audience had been whipped up into a frenzy of anticipation. For Kate Jennings, standing off in one darkened wing watching the recording on a monitor, the transformation never ceased to be a surreal and slightly scary experience. No matter how many true-life confessionals she worked on it was always a little alarming just how easily a group of otherwise sane human beings could be agitated into a baying mob; each herd-member impatient for the moment they could sink their fangs into the carnival of human misfortune paraded before them. What had, until half an hour before, been nothing more than a studio full of perfectly normal Britons, united admittedly in the fact that they had nothing better to do than attend the recording of a daytime TV show, was no longer a pretty sight. Each individual’s identity and inhibitions was lost in the anonymity of the pack.

It wasn’t as if the techniques Kate’s show used were particularly sophisticated. The procession of hadn’t-been comedians and enthusiastic young floor-assistants were not what instantly sprung to mind when you thought of subtle weapons of psychological warfare. But they were all that was needed.

A more informative and depressing insight into the darker reaches of the human psyche you’d be hard pressed to find – and the show hadn’t even begun yet. With the first bars of the terminally cheerful theme tune, Kate knew the unnaturally orange host couldn’t be far behind.