|
Da Cybork Menace Chapta 2 | |
|
Chapta 2 |
“Gone?” the ork yelled, pulling his surgical mask from his face, “Wot d’ya mean ‘e’s gone?” In front of him a group of gretchin trembled. “Well,” one of the gretchin began, “we ‘ad just given ’em all dare food for da evenin’ and we went off to play bubbles…” “Bubbles?” the ork bellowed. “Yeah,” said another gretchin, “its where ya stand in water up past ya waist and whoever makes most bubbles…” “Without any lumps,” another gretchin added. “Well yeah, without any lumps obviously,” the second gretchin said, “well dey is da winner.” “So we wos playin’ bubbles,” the first gretchin interrupted as loudly as he could before, at a lower volume, adding, “and we reckon dat when Flaggit shut da gate ‘e didn’t do it proper like, and dat’s ‘ow ‘e got out.” “So,” the surgeon said, “ya is tellin’ me dat one of da lads is missin’, and runnin’ about in mega armour just because ya were all in a hurry to stand in a puddle fartin’?” The gretchin muttered amongst themselves. “Well yeah,” the first one said, ” we reckon dat about sums it up. But Flaggit ‘as gone off to find ‘im, so dat’s alright aint it?” “Yaaargh!” the surgeon yelled, and he grabbed a large surgical blade from his workbench. Before the first gretchin had chance to move out of the way, the surgeon swung the blade and sliced through its neck. The gretchin’s head dropped to the floor, landing with a squelch, where the surgeon kicked it across the room. “Get out of ‘ere and don’t come back without dat lad,” the surgeon bellowed, and the assembled group of gretchin rushed to get away from their enraged employer. The group of gretchin with the cart pulled it behind them, following Dok Brok through the streets of the city to his place of business. As they made their may through the streets numerous orks stopped to watch. Mega armour was unheard of in this system, so to see a corpse clad in it being dragged through the streets caught the interest of many. To defeat an ork so well protected was no trivial matter, and questions regarding who had been tough enough to manage such a feat began to spread like wild fire. Several times Dok Brok found himself having to beat away orks who got too close for his liking, or just didn’t get out of his way. But for the entire journey, he failed to see that he was being followed. Had he seen his pursuer he would have ignored him anyway because, as far as he was concerned, gretchin just didn’t matter. Reaching the surgery, Dok Brok found a note stuck to the door with a nail. Crudely scrawled on the note was: DOK’S GONE TIL LATER. SOD OFF, and he ripped it from the door before shoving it open. “Da dok,” he yelled at his assistant who was dosing in his chair, “is back,” and he hurled the remains of the note at the gretchin as, suddenly awoken, he fell to the floor. Picking himself up he saw a group of other gretchin dragging the corpse of an armoured ork towards his master’s surgery while the ork looked on. “I’ll get ya tools ready den master,” the gretchin said. “Make it quick,” Dok Brok said, “I’m on a fixed fee ‘ere.” The operating table creaked under the weight of the dead ork and his armour, but Dok Brok was satisfied that it would hold up long enough for him to crack open the thick plating. He sorted through the tools that his assistant had spread out on a second table and found the biggest hammer he had. Gripping it tightly in both hands, Dok Brok braced himself, took a deep breath and swung the hammer. ‘Clang!’ The sound of the impact of the hammer on the armour reverberating around the room, and Dok Brok barely kept hold of the tool as vibrations travelled up his arms. His assistant clamped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes, ready for the next blow. ‘Clang! Clang! Clang!’ Dok Brok delivered a rapid trio of blows to the same spot, before leaning in for a closer look at the effect it had had on the armour. “Barely scratched it,” he said, disappointed, “I reckon dat dis calls for even more brute force.” “Wot about dat master?” his assistant said having opened one eye and uncovered one ear as he pointed towards a spot on the armour beneath the dead ork’s armpit where the front and rear of the armour appeared to be joined by a single bolt. “Well obviously dat’s wot I wos goin’ to do,” Dok Brok said, even though he had not even thought to look for any fastenings on the armour, “but I is goin’ to need some really big pinchers to do it.” Dok Brok dropped his hammer to the floor, and as his assistant rushed to pick it up he began to rummage through his other tools again. “’Ere we go,” he exclaimed as he found an exceptionally large pair of pliers. He strode around the table until he stood next to the bolt holding the armour shut and clamped the pliers around its exposed head. Then, with a single mighty heave, Dok Brok twisted the bolt and yanked it free. He was rewarded with the sound of the two ill-fitting halves of the armour popping open. Dok Brok promptly dropped the pliers to the floor and reached down to the table and gripped the exposed edge of the front of the armour. He took another deep breath and pulled the heavy chest plate of the armour away. “Well dat’s weird,” he said as he looked down at the body of the ork within the armoured suit, “I wonder where da rest of ‘im is.” Dok Brok’s assistant stood on the tips of his toes and peered at the ork on the table. With the chest plate of the armour removed what remained of his torso was now visible and it was clear that the ork was in fact an integral part of the armoured suit. Most of his internal organs were visible, held in place by a network of metal struts. Only the lungs were hidden from view, each contained in a sealed metal cylinder and Dok Brok started here by ripping one of the cylinders out of the ork’s open chest. “Dis is weird,” he said as he held the cylinder in his hand, “metal shouldn’t be dis light. ‘Ere put it somewhere safe,” and he tossed the cylinder to his assistant, who failed to catch it. Instead the cylinder rolled across the floor and the gretchin chased after it while Dok Brok continued with his study of the corpse. For a short time Dok Brok prodded and poked at the exposed innards of the ork before turning his attention to the head. Following the fight with Hazug the head hung loosely on a few remaining fibres of muscle and skin. But it was the metal plate that replaced the top of the ork’s skull that interested Dok Brok. While his assistant was trying to retrieve the metal cylinder holding the lung from where it had rolled behind a cabinet, the painboy selected a small set of pliers with sharpened edges. Then, holding the head firmly with one hand he began to prise the nails that held the plate to the dead ork’s skull loose. When the last of the nails had been removed the plate fell free and clattered to the floor. “Dis is even weirder,” Dok Brok said to himself as he peered into the open skull and saw the brass frame lodged within and the nerve clusters that hung loosely from it. He pulled the frame out of the skull, the retaining rods scrapping against the bone as he did so. The nerve clusters first stretched, and then snapped as Dok Brok pulled the framework further from the skull. He held the framework up to the light and saw the tiny brain contained within the basket at its centre, briefly he shook what he held. “Dis aint ‘is own brain,” Dok Brok said to himself, then looked for his assistant who had found the lung cylinder and was carrying it out of the room. “Oi grot,” he shouted, “take dis with ya an all,” and he threw the framework at the gretchin. It landed at his feet and he picked it up on his way out of the surgery into Dok Brok’s cold storage room. With the two most interesting samples removed from the head and chest of the corpse, Dok Brok turned his attention to its limbs. These remained fully encased in the mega armour, and following his failure to smash open the body, Dok Brok searched for signs of catches that would allow the armour to be removed. Only the thighs and upper arms had any such fastenings and the painboy began to prise them free. Removing the fastening s from one of the thighs, Dok Brok was able to remove another of the armour plates that had protected the ork, and just as he had found beneath the chest plate not all of the ork remained. His leg ended part way down his thigh in a stump that was a mass of scar tissue. To this stump was melded a prosthetic leg that appeared to be fully integrated with his armoured suit. Various wires and pulleys protruded from what remained of the ork’s own leg and ran down the prosthetic, replacing the nerves that would had controlled the amputated limb and instead allowing the tiny brain that Dok Brok had removed to control the replacement. “So ya is sure dis is where dey took ‘im?” the ork asked gretchin sat next to him in the front of the truck as he stared at the entrance to Dok Brok’s place of business. “Dis is it master,” the gretchin answered, “we followed ‘em ‘ere from da bar.” “Right den, let’s sort dis mess out,” and he climbed down from the truck and walked around to the back. “Get out,” he commanded the occupants of the truck’s rear compartment, “Dare’s work to be done.” Dok Brok was about to probe one of the wires in the ork’s leg further when there was the sound of his waiting room door being pushed open. “Ang on a mo, I’ll be right out” he yelled as he stood up and walked towards the waiting room, and he opened the door from his surgery to waiting room. Before him stood a pair of orks, both of who had various parts of their bodies replaced with crude orkish bionics. Both of them had the tops of their heads replaced by metal skullcaps. They stared at the painboy vacantly until a voice in the waiting room outside yelled, “Get ‘im!” “Ah crap,” Dok Brok said, and he retreated back into his surgery as the two orks charged at him. Dok Brok slammed the surgery door shut behind him, but it was reduce to splinters when the first of his assailants reached it and burst through into the surgery behind him. With all of his tools laid out ready for the autopsy, Dok Brok had no difficulty in finding something suitable to use as a weapon. He picked up the largest bone saw he could finding and turned to face the orks behind him. He lunged forwards with the saw outstretched, and drove it into the abdomen of the first ork, but his attacker didn’t even slow down as the blade cut deeply into him. Instead he raised a bionic fist and rammed it into Dok Brok’s face. There was a crunch as Dok Brok’s nose broke, and blood splattered over both his face and his attacker’s fist. Dok Brok staggered backwards, but kept hold his weapon and as the blade withdrew form the ork it sliced open his abdomen further, and the contents began to spill out. Normally this would be a fatal wound, even for the largest of orks. But instead of dropping out of the gaping hole, the ork’s intestines were instead held back by a web of wires wrapped around them. Ignoring his own injury, Dok Brok lunged forwards again this time aiming his blade towards his opponent’s neck, hoping to decapitate him. But as he moved in the second ork clambered onto the examination table where the dead ork in mega armour still lay and kicked the weapon from Dok Brok’s hand. Now he paused for a moment while he looked for another weapon. This was enough of a pause for the first ork to lean forwards, open his mouth and bite down on Dok Brok’s outstretched hand with sharpened metal teeth, severing the fingers easily. Dok Brok cried out in pain and clutched at his injured hand. Again this pause gave his enemies time to drive home their attack, and the ork standing on his surgical table jumped onto the wounded painboy, the pair of them collapsing in a heap on the floor. As they fell they knocked over the bench on which Dok Brok’s medical tools were laid out on, and they too were scattered across the floor. Pushing what was left of his injured hand under the ork’s chin, Dok Brok tried to push his attacker off him while with his free hand he felt around for anything else that he might be able to use as a weapon. Just as he felt another of his tools beneath his hand, Dok Brok succeeded in pushing his attacker off him and he scrabbled back to his feet, clutching his new weapon. The ork with the stomach wound clambered over his companion and advanced steadily on Dok Brok. The painboy tried once more to deliver a blow to the ork’s neck, but this time his attacker was ready and simply reached out and grabbed Dok Brok’s wrist as he made his swing, gripping it tight enough for him to drop the tool. Dok Brok kicked at the ork, aiming for a knee. But although his aim was good the remained standing and kept its grip on him. Though the ork’s trousers covered his legs fully, Dok Brok suspected from his resilience to the kick that at least that leg was bionic. Dok Brok delivered his next strike with his head, butting the ork in his face. The blow was strong enough for the ork to release his grip on Dok Brok’s wrist, and he slipped free. But as he reached out to retrieve the tool he had just dropped the second of his assailants struck again, striking the side of the painboy’s head with a metal fist. The blow stunned Dok Brok and he dropped to his knees. His two opponents struck him again and again, raining blows from their cybernetically enhanced limbs down onto his head. Dok Brok fell forwards and lay face down on the floor where his assailants continued to strike him, now stamping on him with their feet as well as using their fists. Each impact was accompanied by a snapping sound as another bone was shattered, and the pool of blood that poured from Dok Brok’s wounds spread slowly across the floor. The two orks continued with their attack even after the painboy was dead. In the storage room to the side of the surgery, Dok Brok’s gretchin assistant heard the noise of the battle between his master and the intruders, and by opening the door a crack he was able to watch as his master was killed. Then he heard a voice call out from near the waiting room, where he was unable to see. “Stop!” the voice called out, and the gretchin felt that he had heard the voice somewhere before, “Now pick up all of this and get it in the truck.” Clutching both the light metal cylinder and the brass frame close to him, the gretchin clambered of the storage room’s small window into the alleyway at the side of the building and fled. |
|
Copyright Notice The Warhammer 40,000 universe is the intellectual property of Games Workshop Ltd. The fiction presented here is a derived work. It is completely unofficial and Games Workshop Ltd has not endorsed any of it. |
Background image miniature design copyright Games Workshop Ltd
This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free HTML Editor