Code, Chapter One

The whole thing was like something out of a computer game, if you asked Carmilla Neetkins about it.

Maybe that was only to be expected when you and your three sisters went into battle against a computer, or maybe Carmilla had just spent too much time hanging round arcades in her teenage vampire days. But right from the start, she pictured their Grindo starship in full profile on a side-scrolling screen as Scientooth’s high-speed interceptors, ignoring all hails for a peaceful conference, brought herself and her sisters crashing aground somewhere deep in the Junkyard Belts of Nebula Seven. An introductory sequence straight out of the sixteen-bit era, though Carmilla was aware she was starting to sound like he whose life they had ventured here to save.

Evidently it was a multi-player game, because in short order the sorority had exited their burning ship and were kicking off Level One in living breathing tribute to Konami. Along a floor of rugged reddish space-rock the foursome marched, while behind them in the middle-distance hung great sprawling rings of scrapped space-vessels white and grey, and farthest off the greenish glow of the nebula tinted a night sky that passed in perfect parallax. Re-outfitted robots, once junked and now pirated for Scientooth’s purposes, steadily advanced on the girls first one by one and then in increasingly large groups. There was everything from the earliest blocklike rustbuckets to salvaged Nemsinod Robig androids of the recent Solidity era, but all went down before fists and feet or the special abilities unique to each Neetkins. Blubulous bombs hurtling from the heavy blaster hefted by Carmilla splattered masses of mechanoids in spectacular chain-reactions, precision energy-beams from Phoenix’s gauntlets pierced a dozen chassis at a time in one uninterrupted straight, Phoenix Prime’s waves of unstoppable flame tore through the metal militia, and 4-H-N crushed exoskeletons with the brute force of a Grindo hydraulic arm she had adopted. Carmilla by now was shaking her head in disbelief.

Just when she was thinking it couldn’t get any worse, they came upon an arch made of two derelict nosecones end-to-end, and proceeding underneath it found themselves in a rough circular arena whose hoardings were the remains of hulls. Arrayed on the bleachers were hundreds more derelict droids, cheering bloodthirstily, their jerky movements eerily resembling two-frame animation. Directly ahead of the sisters, and far above on a kind of throne made up of old fuselage, sat the tiny green mechanical skull that was Scientooth.

Carmilla was actually startled when the following conversation turned out to be vocal. She’d been expecting speech-bubbles, or text running along the blank space at the bottom of the screen.

“You fought well, my pretties,” burred Scientooth in the tones of a misaligned synthesizer, the hunk of tin that served as his jaw-unit sliding rhythmically up and down. “But this resistance is henceforth at an end. As you can see, my many minions await but one command to surge forth and overpower you.”

“I wish zem bon chance,” Phoenix replied, and hit a button on her glove. Back on board the Grindo ship an electronic disruptor-bomb detonated, blanketing the asteroid with interference. Circuits blew and diodes fizzled all along Scientooth’s ravenous spectators, and their baying was silenced at a stroke.

“You see, they can’t hurt us, they’re only background characters,” smirked 4-H-N.

“I’m so glad it’s not just me who’s noticed that,” Carmilla told her thankfully.

Phoenix Prime aimed one blazing hand aloft to target Scientooth’s dome of a forehead.

“We made sure you’d be spared any ill-effects, so we could finally have that talk,” she announced. “Now that we’ve offered you amicable negotiations, only to be gunned down and attacked, let me outline the deal as it currently stands. You give us the information we need to cure Dylan, and we leave you here safe and sound in your delightful home. Refuse, and we drag you back to the Toothfire-Flash Club alliance so you and the Vernderernders can settle your old differences face-to-face. I could hazard a wild guess as to what they do to defectors.”

Scientooth’s monocle glinted. “And do you think, pretty,” he inquired, “that acknowledging the possibility of so unappealing a choice, I would not make provision for a third option…?”

If Carmilla had ever heard a cue for the whole picture to start shaking, that was it. Sure enough, the one-time cargo-bay door beneath Scientooth’s dais began to heave its corroded gears into a vertical ascent with all the requisite vibrations and rumbling sound-effects. From out of the blackness beyond leapt four somersaulting humanoid figures, and the nebula-light disclosed flesh and hair and muscle.

“Alors! ’E ’as sentients!” Phoenix yelled. “Zey will not be affected by ze jammair!”

“That figures,” muttered Carmilla. “Bosses.”

END OF CHAPTER ONE