"At 5 is another new squad - Urban Revival."
'Didn't they used to be called Urban Gothic?'
"Sort of. I think we'll be seeing more of this squad soon though."
Excerpt taken from Mort's Top Ten Squads, Sponsored by Third Eye News and Gorezone. Reproduced with permission.
"Mr Bena, Mr Fayete? Thorn Black, SCL 5b, pleased to meet you. May I call you Johnny and George? Good. Now I watched your recent programme with interest... Beg pardon? My interest? Oh I see. I'm interested because Urban Renewal, yes Johnny it is Renewal rather than Revival, Urban Renewal is one of my squad's. I'm Urban Renewal's financier and I was also a member of Urban Gothic. When ' Gothic went under I decided to opt for the easy life and swapped my chain-gun for a desk and a comfy leather chair. Beg Pardon? Whatever happened to Urban Gothic? Actually that's why I wanted to see you. Now that ' Renewal has made the top ten I'd like to keep them there - maximum exposure so to speak - so I've come to give you fine gentlemen the lowdown. It all happened like this:
1.
“Buzz, buzz, choppy, choppy!” bellowed the maniac in the spiked armour as he lashed out at the terrorist with his chain axe. The terrorist was clearly the more agile of the two men and in the tight confines of Sarah’s office that gave him the advantage. As the chain axe whistled toward him, he threw himself bodily over Sarah’s desk leaving the maniac to cut through empty air and a sizeable corner of the shelving unit. Its supports promptly gave way and a shower of box files and dataslug storage racks thudded down on to the desk and the floor.
From beneath the desk, Sarah shrieked as McNally’s Media Contacts, a hefty three-volume directory of Mort’s journalistic elite, lost its battle with gravity, slid from the top of the teetering shelves and crashed to the floor mere inches from her head.
Sarah was beginning to think she’d been better off alone with the terrorist. All he’d done was point a gun at her and bark one-word commands. The idiotic SLOp who seemed to think he was going to ‘save’ her had already emptied an entire chopper pack into the computer terminal and destroyed almost 50 per cent of the furniture. Now he was trying to brain her! And despite all that, he had yet to lay a finger on the slippery felon.
Raul, the felon in question, was no more than a DarkNight sympathiser with a gun. He agreed with the propaganda, SLA Industries was the pits, but he couldn’t care less about the cause if his own ass was on the line. Right now Raul was beginning to think he’d bitten off more than he could chew. He’d been assured it would be a quick job – threatening the corporate wage slaves and making sure no one got an emergency signal out, while the real terrorists made one last Channel Resistance broadcast and blew the ‘Relay’ to kingdom-come. Huh, some quick job. He’d already been here, eyeing up the cute blonde, for 15 minutes when the SLOp’s arrived and it had taken this spiky freak a while longer to make his way to the office level and start causing a ruckus. The only thing keeping Raul alive was the guy’s attitude – he was a serious showboat, playing for unseen cameras with a melodramatic flair. Hell, even the guy’s image was a scream for attention. He was human with spiky black hair and an eye-patch. His Powercell armour had been seriously modified and every inch of ceramic plate now sported spikes of varying sizes. The guy’s massive codpiece and knee-guards were painted with acid-man smiley’s and all of his weapons – chain axe, power discs and Chopper fit the theme. Raul ducked under another swing of the chain axe, which promptly decapitated a sizeable cheese-plant in the corner of the room, and rolled out, down the side of the desk toward the filing cabinets. As he stood, the Op swung a massive spike-gauntleted fist at his head and he dropped quickly to the floor once more. Looking up, he saw a dent in the filing cabinet where his head had just been and he also saw his pistol, knocked from his hand in the initial scuffle with the SLOp, lying on the glass top of the open photocopier. Hoping the Op would be slow to recover, he darted across the room and made a grab for the pistol.
Operative Buzzsaw, SCL 8a, was a man with a plan – a plan to be one of Mort’s top contract killers. He knew what the people wanted – they wanted extravagance, flair and showmanship, so he provided them. He knew what the people liked – they liked heroes and villains equally, provided the image was right, and they liked to be scared, at least a little. He had made himself in the image of what he perceived the people would like and would want. Right now, the busty blonde under the desk wanted him to impress her as he saved her from the DarkNight rogue while the rogue wanted a damn good kicking – something Buzzsaw would happily administer once he had finished toying with him for the ratings. Deep inside, a part of Buzzsaw knew there were no camera’s on this BPN but it wouldn’t do for the façade to slip, not even slightly. The slippery weasel ducked Buzzsaw’s grin-to-camera / punch combo and he staved in the front of the filing cabinet with his fist. His own inherent touch of clumsiness was amplified by the awkward design of his spiky armour but it didn’t bother him. He felt it added a touch of human weakness that made the crowds love him even more when everything went to plan. Although clumsy, there was nothing wrong with his reflexes or his mind and as the terrorist lunged across the room, Buzzsaw recalled his pistol was somewhere near the photocopier. Wheeling round, he saw the terrorist leaning across the open top of the machine, his fingers closing around the gun. Two quick steps put Buzzsaw on the terrorist’s side of the room and he quickly kicked both his knees from the rear, forcing his legs to bend and dropping the crook into a kneel. Grabbing the scruff of the man’s neck and the hair on the back of his head, Buzzsaw repeatedly slammed the terrorist’s face against the photocopier – ignoring the fact that the first blow had hit the copier’s execute button. A tidy stack of close-ups of the man’s bloody nose was steadily building in the machine’s OUT tray. Hauling the terrorist to his feet, Buzzsaw slipped easily into the left-jab / right-jab / left-jab / right-hook combo and as the man wheeled away from his final blow Buzzsaw grabbed his jacket and hauled him back for ‘The Money Shot’. Spiked kneepad connected with cloth-covered testicles and Mr DarkNight fell to the floor, a growing pool of blood from his injured groin rapidly staining the floor.
It had all gone deadly quiet in the office but whimpering under the desk, Sarah had already made her mind up not to come out until the Shivers or someone of recognisable authority arrived. She yelped in fear as the maniacal SLOp leapt up onto the desk. She had a sinking feeling he would be striking a heroic pose. Suddenly, the lunatic's head appeared hanging down over the edge of the desk, Sarah jumped backwards and reflexively pulled away from him but if anything the SLOp’s smile just got broader.
“Hello pretty,” he rasped, his voice deep, husky and placing emphasis on the rolled ‘r’.
“Paint your lips and pucker up, baby,” he leered. “I’ll be back to claim my reward later – what’s your life worth eh? Save those favours for me, pretty.”
The head pulled back out of sight and Sarah heard the loony stand up on the desk above. It groaned under his weight and wobbled as though he was having trouble maintaining his balance. Finally he seemed to give up and jumped down to the floor. Sarah watched him go out into the corridor picking up weapons and mag-padding them to his armour as he went. Outside the office door, he knelt down and began tinkering with something out of Sarah’s line of sight. After a few moments, a high-pitched whine started and Sarah’s heart sank. Stepping back into the doorway with a flourish, the SLOp brandished a circular power-saw in Sarah’s general direction and bellowed “Buzz buzz, choppy, choppy!” A hail of bullets cut his melodrama short – Sarah saw his body jerk from the impact of one or two hits but couldn’t tell whether or not he had been wounded. Raising the circular saw, the Op charged down the corridor toward his assailant bellowing like a wounded boar. Fuck waiting for someone of authority thought Sarah, deciding she’d rather take her chances with DarkNight than hang around for the Op to come back expecting to be rewarded. She fished the terrorist’s pistol out from behind the photocopier and feeling just slightly more confident, left the office in search of the quickest, safest route home.
That's part one done but there will be more to follow. Comments are welcome as ever.
N.