Part 2

THEY HAD lazed in the Sun and blue skies of Virtual for a day and, then because Krull was Krull, they had returned back to their isolated loft world.

Forever stealing any down time for Krull for he needed it for rest and rejuvenation, Adray had allowed him to sleep through the approaching night.

Night was upon them, though the only way Krull could tell that was from the electronics he had scattered around his loft. Venus, with an ever ticking time clock in her head knew everything at virtually ever tick of real time.

Time, temperature, distance, weather, moods, lies, truth and above all Krulls Bio, Cerebral and Med Rhythms; she especially monitored those.

The fact that she would never die or really age a hundred of the man she loved life span crushed her great heart. She had a remedy for that. Krull being Krull, and so selfless, well in the end she knew she just might have to highjack him, literally, for her plan for his salvation to come to fruition.

Krull had awakened and it was night time. Venus was sitting there, a glass of chilled pomegranate fruit juice waiting for him.

Obeying her orders, he ingested her nutrient enriched secret potion. He got a good boy kiss on his shaved dome for following her wisdom.

They had geared up and had hit the streets again. They we’re on the hunt for King Mohammad and his secret Pink Panic Club again.

They had picked up some info from a drug addicted street whore female snitch named Candy Girl about the wear a bouts of The Kings number one lieutenant. He was a nasty little piece of work named, Master Assad.

Adray had laid Ten Script on the hooker, thanked her, monitored her and knew she would be dead in a month. If a deadly rape or a bullet hadn’t found her yet, Aids would.

It was, just one more-bad-roll of the dice for any female born in the wrong century and the wrong world.

Through the night, with the snow falling harder and it growing ever colder they searched for the first link in the chain of finding the Power Lord King Mohammad.

And, then:

“Well, what do we have here?” Venus asked.

Moving out of a fog shrouded alley as Krull smoked a cigarette, Venus towered over a small Arab man, a ragged brown and burnt skinned man.

A man she was levitating off the ground with one arm as she gripped his coat collar and she was all business. He was wearing ragged reflector clothes, goggles, no air breather and the standard silver shield coolie hat.

All the chinks and Arabs wore them, and he was now terrified. He had good reasons for that.

“Seems Gun here, has not seen Master Assad. Odd I think. I scanned him, he is lying.”

Krull sighed, and exhausted had no time for the usual cryptic bull shit Arabic/Chinese games.

The Arabs ran most of the illegal shit, down in THE ZONE.

Krull knew that this Gun character worked for Master Assad and was a notorious SLAKE grower.

Of course they were the killer snake like, two meter long reptiles, plated scaled skin, literally swimming jagged tooth threshing machines that through evolution had vomited out of the sewers of S. America.

CENTRAL BIO had figured they had metamorphosed from rats and cock roaches. First in the latrines and sewers in Bolivia and, then they had migrated north.

Nasty fuckers, they had rows of razor teeth and had eventually taken over the sewers, putrid rivers of the USA. They needed water to live, breed and were the one thing on the planet that Krull feared.

He had been down deep, in the cesspools, the sewers of La Paz, Bolivia, with his troops and a Sgt. named Adray Venus. Only because of her valor and ferocity with her twin swords had they barely got out alive.

The Slakes had flourished there; first time; no one knew they had even existed.

It had been a blood bath, and he had gotten out alive because Venus had saved his sorry ass. He remembered her Samurai like swords flashing, ripping, tearing a path through the blood of men, Slakes, and many 1st edition, low level Battle Droids that had gone over to the other side.

The droids, all men, were 1st edition AE grunts workers, constructed internally of hard nonferrous metals, and wrapped in human skin. With basic human brains, they had been the expendable front line soldiers in all the wars. Basically, they were low level, powerful workers, many of tremendous durability and strength. They were the diggers, lifters, labors and workers and their numbers were down to ten percent of their original count.

Some were seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. Through the decades, especially after the far superior Cyborg Girls hit the scene they had been worked into oblivion. Yet still they held desires and many were used by men like King Mohammad as their enforcement muscle.

Central Command figured another decade until they vanished finally from the planet. No one would miss them. Evolution again had been perfect.

During the Hispanic wars it had been the Droids that had taken the greatest hit from the Slakes. At the end of that war Adray and Krull had been the only two of the platoon that had ever seen the light of day again.

Slakes were good eatin’ though and no one ever dared go to the sewers to get them, for ya never came back if you did.

There were though men, or Droids that grew them, nurtured them and, then sold or bartered them after feeding them human offal, which the slimy pukes loved. It was strictly black market stuff, mostly in illegal off shoot hot houses, for the Slakes we’re not fond of the cold.

But of course it wasn’t cold in the sewers and most on the streets called it Magic Meat.

The moniker had stuck.

Krull still had the scars from their vicious attacks when he had been fighting street by street, sewer by sewer in Bolivia, and there were no shortage of nightmares, which came more than not nightly.

Knowing that Gun was Master Assad’s number one, as Master Assad was King Mohammad’s number one, he felt little patience. Just wanting the night to end, be over, so he could get some TLC from his gal again, Krull was in a fucked up mood.

Knowing the shortest string between two eye balls was a hollow-point, he figured lets get down to it. So, he did.

Venus, watching, lowered Guns flip flops to the alley floor. Krull un-holstered his 357, shoved it into the terrified gimps mouth. Guns eyes, rabid pin balls, through his goggles, spittle spilling down his wisp beard, gurgled and stuttered.

Krull got up close, personal, and growled. “Fuck you, Assad, he in there?”

Krull nodded down the alley, where there was one massive carbon steel iron door welded into another Carbon steel wall. There was a blue strip of neon illuminating a hand ID pad welded into the wall.

Above that were two CCTV cameras, with blinking red lights on them.

“Gurgle gurgle, no no...no...nothin’, nada, nunca.”

Gibberish, street lingo, mix of Arabic, English, Jap and Spanish.

YANK TALK that’s what they called it. None of it was making Krull feel warm and fuzzy; none of it at all.

Spit and blood from a broken lip, terror in his eyes, Ozone Cops, one a pissed off looking Cyborg Girl cop, well never fuck with one of those. Especially Krull as then “Click” Krull cocked his magnum.

He had a cold isotope look in his blue eyes.

“Last chance amigo, Master Assad he in there?”

Venus leered at the fury in Krull’s face. She was one very worried girl, for no one, nada, had to tell her huge brain that her human man was:

Messed up, on the edge; burnt out, way burnt out.

Staring at a black iron tube, a hole in its end, a hollow point behind that, well sometimes that handgun barrel looks blue to a mutt.

It also looks like a fucking death warrant.

Instantly Gun nodded, nodded again, tears dripping down his burnt face, saliva, blood mix mastering in his chin whiskers as he stuttered.

“Si, ya, Master aaah...Assad wit da Slakes, ya, el dentro. Por favor, no kill Gun...Por favor. Arigato”

“Click.” Krull’s gloved thumb lowered the hammer.

Venus exhaled, wanted to touch her mans burnt face, skin, his blistered lips with her aquiline fingers. She didn’t, inhaled through her gills to calm herself, waited.

“I’m not going to kill you, but if you’re lying, she will.” He tilted his head at Venus.

His body vibrating, not from the cold, but fear, Gun leered at Venus’s green eyes. They looked back at him hard, cold, a drilled death machine look in them.

No one had to tell Gun what the beauty bots were capable of. They didn’t need any whisper reminders of their savagery as reminders that he would be cold dead if the pretty machine had chosen to snap his neck, one of their fav things.

“No...noo lies, senor Krull...Assad, inside...wi...with da Slakes...Ya in der.”

Venus, feeling her internal temperature rising, got into Gun’s face and snarled. “And The King?”

“Da...Don’t kn...kow...Por favor...Pink Panic...si...Ass...Asssad...Assa know...Very bad...The pink...Por favor...”

Krull swallowed his fatigue, said disgustedly. “Go. Get the fuck out of here.”

Gun turned and like a rat shuffled down the alley. At its end he looked back, saw Venus’s glowing eyes. He gulped, merged into the crowds along the stalls of the street and was gone.

Smiling a broken Cyborg smile, for humans we’re so vulnerable, so temporary, Venus touched her lovers face. She looked at him with such love, and above all concern and whispered.

“Krull, come, it is late. We go home, yes? There is tomorrow...Yes my man?” She spoke every language known to man, and often she had an accent when she spoke.

More and more she could see his mind had been drifting, falling, failing and so filled with pain and of course she had known why. More and more and even with their down time in Virtual he was not recuperating and now bit by bit he was diminishing.

She knew that Krull yearned for a new world, a clean world, an air world. He dreamed nightly of water, clean water, some place, any place where there was no violence, no-death and no-half human people that murdered at a consummate level.

But, where was that place?

They had talked, BRITISH MOON of course. But he was years away on that list, even though his heroics in the wars had given him some privileges, basic perks. Perks like the hermetically sealed warehouse/loft they lived in now.

But that wasn’t the truth and she knew that Krull knew it also.

Somewhere in her great female heart she had known that she had been responsible for him still living in a putrid garbage heap, called Miami. She was formulating an outrageous plan to save him, herself, and late at night as her man slept she had been working in the depths of the sewers on that plan. It was a last ditch bailout, her secret.

What she did not know was that sometimes secret plans change to a deadly and brutal reality within the tick tock of a girl’s genetically made heart.

Time was ticking, mostly on Krull’s human clock, she would see.

Though Central Command had tolerated him being with a Cyborg, don’t ask, don’t tell, still it was what it was; a human loving a half machine.

Few if any men ever really made the trip out there into the dark void, especially if they were dragging a SPEC-24-3 twist with them. Unless of course they became half human also, meaning robotics, bionics for severed limbs, where then they were considered half humans also.

All kind of rules could be bent for war heroes, for after all good PR, any PR was exactly that. Good PR.

Over their time together she had loved him so much that she had offered herself up as a one way ticket to The Crushers. You know, becoming a can opener, maybe a gear for a Magnetic Electrio Car, the kind they had in the BUBBLE WORLDS.

Maybe that would be a last chance lotto ticket to set her man free. Fuck, lots a Cyborg Girls had committed suicide and were still doing it on a daily basis.

Why not her, had been her reasoning.

Krull had had none of it, none of it at all.

Fuck, though in any other world and in any other eco system she would have been thought as exceptional, unique, valuable for so many different reasons, in their world she was no more than an expendable tin can with a brain. Until Krull had chosen to save her, with his love, that is.

Krull dreaming, distracted, his Breather lying on his chest blinked though his reflector goggles, blinked again, looked out towards the blue neon of Master Assad’s door. His flack vest felt heavy on his powerful and muscled body; that was just how tired he was.

He felt savage tonight. Cold, bone drilling cold, arctic cold, deep in his marrow and he felt perhaps it was time to shut it down, TLC time. It was brutal in THE ZONE even for Rangers, and for Bots. Everyone needed some love, a touch.

Why the fuck not?

But yet, not now for still there was work to be done.

Was he close to going insane? Of course he was. But it was sometimes hard to get The Ranger out of a man’s heart. It was that way for Krull.

For Adray Venus, she needed her man, a touch, kisses, her Nanominium skin pressed against his skin, his human dick inside of her cunt, mouth, food, sex, passion and perhaps a little madness in each other arms.

She sighed deeply, for at least a Cyborg gal can dream about things like that; can’t she?

Again, they would opt for Krull’s Hermo warehouse/loft, disinfect in the Powder Showers. After, bath in water, distilled and filtered water, hot water, real water, sex on their minds, tenderness too, sexual savagery too, why the fuck not.

Krull was like that, a coin flip, so tender, sometimes hard, crazy and violent and at other times brutal. She thrived within every moment of it

If Krull was spent, she could use the MACHINES, he watching, maybe not. It didn’t really matter one machine fucking another. After all it wasn’t about her to begin with. It was always about her man for her.

Orgasms, his, hers were good things in a world with so little pleasure and she, all spindle, muscled six ft. two of her, all mismatched of rare elements of her, could be insatiable and she would do anything for him, and she did. All she knew at the moment was that she again needed Krull. She needed him bad; needed him real bad.

“Krull...Krull.”

Blink, blink, blink, Krulls eyes were agitated and cryptic. There was nothing new about that.

Finally her voice broke his barriers as he shook his head, stared directly into her incandescent eyes. Adray’s eyes were soft, tender, caring, he needed that. Yet, he was manic tonight. He needed to find King Mohammad, war lord, drug lord, of Section 58-28. Why, it was easy that answer, if indeed there were any easy answers left in his dying world.

Drugs were rampant in THE ZONES nothing new about that. The war on drugs, well that had always been an illusion and a joke. Fuck, people wanted their highs, needed to alter reality anyway they could and nobody was going to stop it.

They were tolerated, black markets flourished, eyes turned, Blue Skies, Red Meanies, Purple Pleasure, they had all the cool names. Highs, mind fuck you highs, lows, mind altering shit, mood makers, mood breakers, bend reality, virtual reality, anything to keep the savages modulated, drugged, anesthetized.

Keep them from storming the bastilles, THE SHOOTS the Guard Turrets’ protecting the THE BUBBLES. Keep them at bay and puke the wall up and defend it. Anything to make them forget just how dead they really were. Anything to keep them from those that paid the bills.

Drugged out zoned out zombies were far better than hyped up, static, wild eyed maniacs prowling the streets. Though there were no shortages of them, staring at THE BUBBLES with new eyes, wondering what fresh meat actually tasted like in side of them, human or otherwise.

But Kind Mohammad had changed that gig and he had changed the rules. The new drug, its nick PINK PANIC was all the street rage and it had been a game changer.

A Psycho Tropic Mood Elevator, it was a real ZOOMER as the street called it.

Pink Panic was cellular DNA and Chromosome mood breaker that rumbled into the neuron count, straight lined within seconds into the Cerebral Cortex, fueled it, powered it, bent it, savaged it, and then made it hyperbolic violent.

It had caused unequivocal violence, as well as carnage along the streets.

Sex was un-fucking believable on it, all night, all day and all the time.

Who needed sleep when you could fuck, be fucked forever. Any senses of reality had jettisoned THE SHOOT the entry tubes into THE BUBBLES as well as memories and any hints of being human as well.

The shit made that old school drug from The Da,y Crystal Meth seem like green tea. It also made men, women, droids, especially Cyborgs feel invincible, ego maniacs, real monsters, capable of complete carnage. They would do anything to get it, and they did. It took more than a clip of 357 hollow point slugs to take down the lunatics that were BLASTING with it and that had been a bad thing.

THE ZONE had worked in its surreal way because though almost anything went, meaning prostitution, theft, robbery, homicide, it worked because the pukes were doing it to themselves.

It didn’t work any longer, when the killers, smugglers, criminals began hanging around THE BUBBLES hi jacking the trains, attacking BUBBLE guards. Then, killing them if they would not turn out and, then hacking into the globes, killing the one per centers; nope, that was tripping across the line.

No one ever fucked with the rich, hell that’s why they were rich to begin with. Then, hard line orders had come from Central Command. Krull, other seared out cops like him had again become front line soldiers in a new war. It was something they, already stressed to the max, just hadn’t needed.

How do Ozone-Cops fight legions of crazed, savage and berserk hyper stoned out killers. Maniacs that didn’t remember that a blast from a laser canon could vaporize them as easily as a flame thrower could incinerate a moth; well there was a way.

Krull’s thing, well, why not, no time on the clock left. Why mess around, use blunt force trauma, leave nothing to the imagination. Find the source, cauterize it and take a pair of bolt cutters, snip, snip and snip. There-goes finger digits, knuckles, tongue, balls and King Mohammad’s dick.

Why not make a snuff movie out of the playa making the shit? Pass the hologram flick around the stalls, a real visual, visceral carrousel of what happened when a gangster fucked with an Ozone Cop.

But, maybe not tonight; not this night; why the fuck not?

For Krull was a driven maniac, a mad dog at times. He was a burnt out cop and once he had the bit, well, Krull seldom spit it out until the flesh was ripped from the bone. Krull hated loose ends. He was a duty kind of guy after all.

Coming back, Krull’s brain, frying, and static light altering reason blinked as he lowered his goggles and looked at Venus through his agitated and burning eyes; that fixed him for the moment. He saw her smile, her blue lips, and her white perfect teeth. He thought more about it. He nodded and kinda smirked, as he pulled off a silver glove.

He leaned forward, touched her silver face and graced her full azure lips with his trembling fingers. He saw her blue tongue dancing around her pout. White teeth again, small nose, those eyes, always her eyes, her smile, so filled with love. He nodded that she was right. Leaning in, he kissed her.

She felt like she was melting, she always did from his kisses.

Lacing her fingers around the back of his head, she kissed him deeper, longer. She felt her heart thump, thump, thumping, her gills expanding, her body beginning to liquefy.

The kiss ended, they always did. Krull backed away, touched her face sweetly, which broke her Bot heart to its core.

He was silent staring at her. Her heart broke further, for he was a human, a man and fallible, breakable, and would age, grow old and, then would die in her arms.

Her life storage value, well her kind aged slowly and never would feel the bliss of a crushing life ending moment. Unless, of course they choose The Crushers or a poison pill or a magnum lead pellet through their own brain.

How long human Krull had left on the planet, she did not know. But she knew in the end, when his eyes closed finally, his heart stopped breathing that he would not be alone on his final journey to where ever humans went when they died.

Moments passed, Krull slotted his goggles over his blue eyes, ticked his head at her. His face twitched and, then he growled,

“Fuck it. We see Master Assad, and then call it a night. You OK with that, Doll?”

Her silver skin grew a little more translucent, glowed a little more, her kind of blush, for he always called her doll, something she so loved. Not a good idea tonight visiting Assad, but that was her Ranger for you. Never abort a mission, always do the right thing, even if the gig made no sense; no sense at all.

She smiled, touched his face, whispered. “Yes my Major, anything, anything you want my love.”

He chuckled, for he loved her rye sense of humor, her wit, for it was razor sharp, something that few knew that The Cyborg Girls even had. Why, because rarely had anyone ever loved them at all so they could see it.

Slotting his air breather to his chapped lips, he inhaled. He winced from the burning oxygen striping down his lungs. Nodding, he, un-holstered his 357 magnum, chambered a hollow point into it. Turning, he began to walk towards the blue neon, Adray leading point.

Bad news, much like a drone strike, spreads quickly in THE ZONE; especially when Ozone Cops are rumbling.

Some twenty meters away from Master Assad’s blue neon pulsing crib, suddenly eight men, appeared. Four were huge Droids, gargoyle like accompanied by four huge men, diseased men, and all armed with knives, spears, clubs and blade men appeared out of the smoke.

Venus, on point by a meter stalled. She waited for Krull to amble up along side of her. When he was, she looked at him and, then at the men that were formidable. She looked back at him, thus getting a rye smile from Krull, which made her smile.

In unison, they both starred directly at the men and Androids.

They appeared formidable and wore mismatched clothes, rags, reflector stuff, body armor, battle-armament; three of the brute droids had gladiator helmets on; berserk eyes leering at the two cops.

Obviously they were the last line of defense for any fool that thought they were tough enough to get a sit down with Boss Assad, THE MASTER without an invite.

Venus looked at Krull; he shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head at the gang, whispered.

“You need some help here, Sergeant?”

Venus grinned, her lips seemed soft, her eyes radiant, as she whispered.

“No darling. You have a smoke, OK, I’ll be right back. I need the practice.”

Krull nodded and not surprised in the slightest, he watched as his girl unlaced her laser carbine from her shoulder and her 357 magnum from her hip. She handed them both to him. She mischievously winked at him, just to get a wink in return, which made her skin glow even further.

Venus turned, and began her stroll, and when eight meters from the point man, a huge, powerful Droid, maybe 6 ft 5, 320 lbs, carrying a twelve foot spear, and wearing a brass face mask, she smiled at him.

She could see his red tinted eyes through the eye slits, and they showed no fear. She figured he was hyped up by The Pink, stoned, crazed, manic, or all of the above. It was the usual MO for street rumblers when they had been Zooming.

Since she was not a sadist, but a realist, and did not enjoy killing for killings sake. She then, as clearly as she could, gave the man his ultimatum; the only one he would get from her.

“Ozone.” Please... (She actually said please) move aside and there will be no trouble.”

For a moment her words stunned him. That’s what THE PINK did to a thug. It made them forget the ABC’s of street survival. With his gang support behind him, all insane deviant killers, he leered at her. He laughed, looked back at his buddies and roared in laughter.

“LOOK BOYS. A FUCKING TIN CAN WITH A CUNT AND IT CAN TALK TOO.”

His troop exploded in laughter, banging spears, machetes, club and blades against home made shields, which some of the men held. They also banged their body armor and their own heads, obviously impervious to pain.

Venus smiled to herself. She liked a joke as much as the next girl. And, then in an instant all of that changed from the guys next words, which wiped her sweet smile right off of her face.

“Fuck you BITCH...Come GET SOME ya pile a bolt’s.”

“BITCH.” The magic word she hated, for she had heard it so often when in the trenches.

She was Krull’s bitch, and only Krull’s bitch. Monitoring her battle arena her mood altered, turning bad.

She heard uproarious laughter, screams, taunts, shouts as after a moment she reached over her shoulder with both of her hands, grasped the handles of her swords.

“Swish.”

Was the sound that the twin blades made as she withdrew them from her scabbards?

As the men taunted her and began to nudge towards her, she calmly moved to sideways battle stance. She bent her knees and lifted one sword above her head, allowing the other to remain prone along her side.

Looking at the silver spindle holding the swords, and of course being completely deranged from THE PINK and forgetting just what they were dealing with, the men laughed and chided her more and, then in an instant, it all began.

The leader bellowed, reared back and unleashed his spear. It whistled across the alley and in a ballet, perhaps of war, Venus allowed her one blade to rest against her knee.

With reflexes and muscle twitch almost three times faster than a human, she gripped the spear in mid flight, a foot from her breasts. She stood, and as the leader looked at her in shock, consuming what he had just seen, he bellowed again. He pulled a sword and with his gang following, began to bull rush her.

With her pulse barely metronoming out of kilter, and within a quarter of a human eye blink, she reared back and with in a micro second sent the spear speeding across the expanse. It impacted the brute between the eyes.

Whether he knew he was dead, she did not know. As he fell, she gripped both blades and very Ninja like, and instead of waiting, she fluidly moved towards the rabid dog’s rushing her.

It is quite an awe inspiring thing to see a Spec-24-3 in a full war mood, for their muscle twitch, tendon memories were genetically engineered for speed and perfection. They had been designed for complete anillation of any foe that should care to challenge them.

Within a micro second, the first head was lopped clean off. And, then another skull joined that one, as she bent, twirled, and savagely thrusted and slashed arms, legs and torsos off. All of that happened in the first few second.

Men screamed, bellowed, and gurgled and chocked to death in their own blood. Like a threshing machine she went through them with her blades, leaving dead chafe behind her.

All but three were dead, as she then avoided a machete thrust from a seven foot Droid. She bent and severed the man’s legs off of his torso, brought the blade up, drove the blade point through his heart.

She whipped around, and sensing through her in house sensors a man behind her, she never looked back. She simply slashed her sword back, impaling him in the chest.

She withdrew the blade and in a crouch, both blades raised above her head, she faced a huge giant of a Droid, a spear in his hand, pointed directly at her.

She smiled, just as he lunged with the spear aimed at her breasts. Her hand, much like a bull whip moved, gripped it, and pulled it forward, ripping it from his hand. His eyes blinked and it took no more than that amount of time, for her to flip the spear up and drive into in his throat.

Jugular artery severed, he gawked at her as she pulled the spear from his throat, raised her blade and severed his head from his neck.

For a moment, in her war pose, knees bent, blades raised above her head (she was a diva after all) her blades were ready for more fight as she perused the carnage. She tilted her head curiously she saw death everywhere and, then seeing only corpses, she fell to a knee. She wiped the blades clean of blood on the dead mans shirt.

She stood, pushed her blades behind her back, re sheaved them and scanned the area. Seeing no problems, she turned and a contented girl, she strolled back to Krull, who as she had asked, was smoking a cigarette.

Krull, shaking his head back and forth and feeling rye, so proud of his girl, smiled and cynically said.

“That went well. What took you so long?”

Venus gulped, blinked and, then got his human sense of humor. She bent over, began to belly laugh. It was something she mostly only ever did when they were alone. Few men on the planet had ever seen a Cyborg Girl laugh, only having ever seen their indigo tears.

Watching her giggling away, he simply felt awe. For the magnificent species he had just witnessed chain saw her way through a gang of heinous murders, loved him. He knew he was the luckiest grunt in the world for it.

After a few moments of wild chuckling, that actually brought blue tear drops to her massive set of eyes, she straightened. Allowing her pulse to calm, she stared at Krull with an intensity he felt drilling through his loins.

She smiled, touched her lips with her blue tongue and wrapped her fingers around Krull’s head. Pulling him in, she pressed her body against his, felt his hands on her butt and pressed her lips against his.

The kiss lasted for sometime as Venus felt her toes curling in her sensor boots, her gill plates expanding and deflating, her heart pounding, a moisture building between her legs.

She was allowing herself to be the complete female that so few of her kind ever felt.

Krull, on the other hand was fighting an erection. Not every guy was so lucky to have a such a stunner girl friend with such a brain, body, THAT BODY.

With the hour glass still dripping mission time sand into Krull’s brain, he ended the kiss. Placing her at arm’s length, he saw her intense breathing, the glow in her eyes at its ultimate mood level. He knew that, meant lots of fun later. He touched her face, smiled, tilted his head playfully, winked at her and whispered.

“You just calm down, you. We’ll settle this later. Let’s see Assad and, then get the hell out of here. OK?”

She smiled, touched his face, felt her pulse lesson and exhaled. Duty was duty, so she cowboy upped her desire, nodded and said through a whispered.

“Yes Lieutenant, Sgt. Adray Venus ready for duty.”

Krull looked at her coyly and, then burst out in laughter, which always please her so. After a few moments, he got right, grew his cop skin back. He reached to the alley floor, picked up her laser carbine and Magnum, handed them to her and said.

“Yeah, you just behave your self, doll. Let’s go.”

She saluted him, which got amused head shakes back to her. They turned in unison and began to walk through a waste pile of human corpses.

Moments later, they stalled in front of the massive carbon door, blue neon hand pad glowing against their eyes.

“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM” cannon shots exploded from some place out in THE ZONE.

They heard multiple screams and gun shots coming from THE ZONE. There was nothing new about that. They knew that other Ozone Cops were doing their thing; Street Cleaning is what they called it.

Other cops were scanning digital, Bionic Digital ID’s, checking out Cyborgs, Droids, humans, half or otherwise and others of the desperate. They were making sure that they had the right digital Life Transit Permits to be out, doing what ever they did when they were out in THE ZONE.

A cyborg, a Droid, had the wrong Scan-Info, counterfeit, or an expired Walk-Around-Badge well that’s why The Crushers were running, 24-7.

No questions asked. No court, no habeas corpus, nada. Chromium bracelets and a Cyborg Girl’s blue tears and a one way ride in a cop’s Magnetic Confine Truck, the end, final and forever, The Crushers.

Ignoring the usual street noise, Krull looked at the door slot, the small Dot Camera pointed at them. He looked at Venus; the neon lit Hand Pad, nodded at the Dot camera.

No doubt they were in Digital Optical already, no doubt about that at all. Venus stepped to the door, took the butt of her 357 magnum, whacked the carbon three times, stepped back and waited.

Time clicked bye. The slot slid open as a pair of massive yellow eyes leered at them, along with a voice that sounded like a gravel pit seeping through the slot.

“What you want? Who you?”

Both cops stood off to the side, just a little. Neither wanting to be the recipients of a laser gun blast, Venus slapped her glowing, digital Ranger badge against the slot, lowered it and growled.

“Ozone, open door, NOW.”

The yellow eyes blinked, scanned Krull and clearly agitated, leered at Venus. They blinked again and, then vanished behind the slot as the door latch slotted back into its carriage.

Who ever, or what ever Yellow Eyes was, IT didn’t need a mind refreshing experience to know that you just never fucked with a Cyborg Ranger. Perfect example; the eight dead cadavers polluted along the alleys floor.

Nope, that was a one way ticket into a permanent home of a Carbon Street Casket. Most thugs knew that.

They heard multiple latches, locks being disengaged as then the door creaked open.

Instantly, a horrific thermal stench hit their faces. Krull stepped back, winced, felt like vomiting, didn’t; Venus hardly was affected by it at all. A blast of torrid air hit both cops. They were not surprised by it and they had expected it. It actually felt comforting to Krull’s human, cold skin.

Front line, always, to take the first in coming salvo to protect Krull, her sensors monitoring everything, auditory, optical, chemical analysis, all of it, she measured the room tempt at 120 degrees.

Standing before them was a hulk, a 6ft 8, at least, 350 LB behemoth sweating black man, tumors covering his face, scabs, blistered bald head, bare massive chest and muscled arms. He was naked and wearing a simple black vinyl apron. A curved, one meter foot blade was gripped in his powerful hand.

His eyes were bright yellow, pupil’s black, lined with red veins; a pure MO that he was using The Pink.

He leered at Krull as he scowled through a set of drug ravaged black teeth. Of course that look vanished when his rabid eyes jerked off on Venus.

Venus might have been a chirping sweet and loving bird with her man, a real sugar cube, but in the trenches she was formidable, a violent killing machine, most likely two times stronger than Big Boy leering at them.

A Cyborg Cop, no reading her violent stat sheet was needed. A hard rep always for-shadowed her kind, and did he know it. He also knew if he fucked with her, most likely having witnessed her dismantling of his cronies through the Pin Cameras, that he would be a dead giant; very dead, right pronto.

Krull mostly let the mere presence of Venus handle the initial sit down. That usually worked. For fear usually unglued a tough dude’s tongue, no matter how big or stoned they were when confronted with a pure threshing combine of violence.

With his cryptic red eyes pin balling back and forth, her weapons, eyes, Krull, her eyes again, twin curved blades strapped to her back, he took a step back.

Venus asked in the low growl of that voice of hers. “Ozone, Master Assad.”

Tough guy body guard, maniac, killer, nada tonight and certainly not with her, not now and not ever. Unless he was dreaming of having his fat head loped off.

So he swallowed his fear, sniffed more fear into his gut. He jerked his head behind him. Stepping aside he watched as the two Rangers walked through the door, he, grinding it closed behind them.

It was a massive warehouse, maybe three thousand square meters. It had sky high ceiling slotted with glass in them, as well as twenty or so five meter square vats. All of them we’re percolating semi boiling green liquids in them. The vats were puking out gas, a hellacious stink, made worse by the heat and humidity, which was crippling.

There were also holding pens, scales, lab beakers, neon, lots of blue, weighing machines, axes, knives, cutters, all kinds of implements and machines needed to raise and nurture a most nasty character, called Slakes.

It wasn’t exactly a legal operation, but with famine always present, Central Command had turned their eyes away, usually. For it was better letting the cannibals eat the shit, then their children’s eye balls in THE BUBBLES.

Atmospheric conditions didn’t much bother Venus as she was impervious to such thing. Well mostly she was and if it did bother her, no one ever knew it.

It was a different story for human Krull.

Humans were high maintenance; cold, heat killed them. Venus knew that. She watched as her man un-hinged his bullet proof vest, lowered his breather, as well as his laser carbine to the dirt floor. He opened his silver reflector coat and slotted his goggles to his forehead. He sighed, took a deep breath and exhaled glad that at least he was breathing purified, though scalding oxygen.

Krull had no ego concerning his partner. After all she was what she was. He most always let her run point. Hell that was what Spec. 24-3’3 had been built for to begin with. He wasn’t exactly thrilled being near Slakes. He feared them and detested them, but it was Assad’s turf. So be it.

Nurture the little bastards from pollywogs, feed them along the way, keep them warm and watch them grow, avoid rows of razor teeth, bad attitudes too and, then murder them.

Basically, what Venus and Krull were looking at, as they stared down the line of vats, was a futuristic meat processing and packaging assembly line plant. At the far end, there were about a dozen Chinese coolies. They we’re outfitted in flip flops, bare chests, pajamas, sorting, butchering and packaging The Magic Meat to a consumer that was begging for the slag.

Tired, spent like a used cartridge shell, Krull nodded to Venus to get on with it.

She nodded back and in a war mood, didn’t smile, turned and with Krull in tow, sweating profusely, they moved toward the end of the plant. Once there, they stalled along side a small man in a blue Bio Suit. There we’re oxygen and air conditioning tubes connected to the roof, pumping air and coolant into it.

One hundred and twenty degrees was usually the limit for a human to exist in any kind of stable way. Just ask those slaves busting their nuts up there on BRITISH MOON about that.

Venus, just wanting the night to end, tapped Master Assad on the shoulder. Startled, Assad whipped around and leered through his clear face mask, eye balls stark at the last thing he wanted to see. That was of course was a Cyborg Ozone Ranger, and her notorious cop buddy, who was as much bad news as her partner.

Looking up, way up at Venus, he swallowed his fear as Venus asked, in that low growl of hers.

“King Mohammad, where? We ask only once.”

Lots of juggling scenarios, options, consequences, fear, terror, that’s what was going through The Masters eyes, as they kept blinking, jacking off, as sweat began to fog his mask.

Have his larynx crushed by the green eyed monster towering over him, or have his balls cut off by perhaps an even more horrible monster, well those are hard core options for an entrepreneur to make. Especially by HER as he felt the urine gathering in his Bio Suit and spilling down his legs.

Gurgle, gurgle, more stutters, more Yank Speak, more terror, as his words splattered out; lies of course, why not.

“Th...The King...Por Favor, Assad no..not know...As...Assad ju...ju...Just business man...Ari Gato, lo siento...sorry...ca...can not help Ozone...much so...sorry...so sooory.”

Venus could feel her gills expanding, her breathing increasing and her solar flare temper main lining.

She wasn’t exactly pissed, or even angry. But, because she was frustrated, concerned, she knew she had to get her man out of the purgatory she felt they were trapped in.

Get him home, feed him, clean him, fuck him, maybe suck his GOD cock and, then pamper him.

That was what was paramount to her.

So get to it Venus, so she did.

She hesitated, exhaled and clicked her eyes at Krull. Seeing that he was staring at the vats and was sweating torrents and seemed agitated being anywhere near the Slakes, she sighed again and reached a single hand forward.

She grasped the twin tubes of life slotted into his suit in her fist. She cut the cold air off and the oxygen too. With eyes never leaving Assad’s, she easily lifted him off the ground; felt his flip flop feet tangoing. She leaned in and leered through his mask as she heard screams, many pleases sputtering from inside of his now reconstructed suit.

Several moments passed. Assad’s face started to turn blue. More sputters and gurgles filtered out of his fogged face plate. Venus tilted her head. Her eyes began to brighten to a more strident green, which was the norm for her when in a state of fury.

“King Mohammad. You tell now. Or you die.” She hissed.

Assad, feet dancing in the air, hands slapping at his face plate nodded furiously to her. He was now telling her that perhaps now he might know something.

For good measure, she held him a moment longer. She lowered his feet to floor, released her grip on the tubes and looked at Krull, who was still leering at the Slake vats. He seemed uninterested in what she was doing. They we’re two pros. One better at doing some thing better than the other, mutual respect shared. She loved him for that.

Once his feet were back on the ground, Assad fell in a heap to the slat floor and began to hyperventilate. Venus casually reached down, grabbed his collar. She lifted him level to her eyes and leered into his terrified face.

“You said?”

“Ya...ya...je...jest a...a moment...ya...The King. Ya, Master maybe know. Help Ranger...Ya.”

“NOW.” She hissed.

Difficult decisions are often hard to make; especially when you’re a dead man, one way or the other. Assad knew that. But what:

Free roll now, a casket now, or, cut a dead chink deal with the cops now?

There were few or no options open to him.

“Ye...ya...The King...Por favor... Assad te...tell...Miss Venus...pl...Please...No...no tell the King...OK...Assad tell...Ki...King kill Assad, he...he know he tell. Pi...Pink...Pa...Panic Club...OK...de...Deal? Gracious senora.”

Venus wasn’t a sadist, or un-reasonable, for she knew quite well that Assad would be collateral damage if King Mohammad found out he had turned The King out.

“Deal...Speak.”

Whether Assad believed her or not, well that was a homicidal Lotto punch. He knew it. She knew it, so he punched his own ticket. A winner he hoped.

“Ya...Section 25-67, Muslim se...section...ware house 22, he move The Pi...Pink; many guns...Have bad men, droids, many...Mi...Miss Venus. You no tell, OK...Assad help...yo...gracias...you no tell...OK?”

All Assad could think was:

Dead Rag Head walking.

She exhaled through her gills, nodded that he was correct. Scanning him, she saw he was telling the truth. She glanced at Krull, saw he was still mesmerized with the Slakes, maybe remembering the Bolivian sewers. She nodded again at Assad and took Krull by the arm.

Coming back, his eyes blinked. He wiped sweat from them, looked at Venus with a confused look in his eyes. She smiled, wiped more sweat from his face and concerned, so concerned by the look on his ravaged face she whispered.

“We go? Yes Krull?”

He quarter smiled back at her or through her and nodded.

He then allowed himself to be ushered back across the factory and once back at the iron door, they stalled at it. Worried sick by his condition, she watched as Krull re-fastened his gear and, leered back into the factory at the vats of Slakes.

What ever he was thinking, looking at into his memory, well Venus wanted none of it. More moments passed. Venus opened the door, no sign of the obese giant. She took Krull’s arm, gave it a tug and almost dragged him out of the warehouse.

Once back in the alley, they stalled out for they heard more gun shots off in the distance.

“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.” The redoubts hardly made either blink at all.

Krull looked at his girl as he sighed in exhaustion and, then whispered through clenched teeth.

“What do you say, Venus. We take The King out tonight?”

Internally Venus groaned. The last thing she wanted was to get into an all or nothing death battle with one of the most violent sociopaths on Earth.

No options left for Krull was who he was as she Rangered up. She nodded her head and growled.

“No time like now, my Major.”

She was in a war mood, as Krull smiled and nodded. He took a massive breath of oxygen through his breather. He looked at her for a long moment, smiled through his face plate, and as he turned to walk, he whispered.

“You got that fucking right.”

So now, as two courageous warriors walked through the snow and into the abyss towards Sector-25-67 and the ultra-violent world of King Mohammad neither knew that their worlds would gravitate shortly within the world of deep space.

Once there, secrets would be exposed, and the World would change forever. Men, women, Cyborgs and Droids would die, and perhaps only the courage and love of a Cyborg Girl for her man could salvage any of it all.

Krull would get his wish for a visit to British Moon. Once there he would find that at times it is better for a cop to never wish for anything, especially an illusion that would bring such carnage to a world unprepared for it.