Flick: The Tank Girl Movie

The Novel: Tank Girl

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TANK GIRL: THE MOVIE

A NOVEL BY MARTIN MILLAR

BASED ON THE MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN BY TEDI SARAFIAN

BASED ON THE COMIC STRIP CREATED BY JAMIE HEWLETT AND ALAN MARTIN

BUT NOT BASED ON THEM ALL THAT MUCH

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN, February 1, 1996, 208 pages

ISBN 014 02 4876 5

Copyright Martin Millar

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/m.millar/

m.millar@dial.pipex.com

BY READING THIS YOU AGREE TO ONE DAY BUY ME A BEER

CHAPTER ONE

I do not like Tank Girl. Let me rephrase that: I detest Tank Girl. She is a braggart, a loud-mouth, a bully, a show-off, a cheat, a liar, a boor, a drunk, a fool, a thief; she wears terrible clothes, she has a ridiculous hairstyle, she doesn’t pay her debts, she has no culture and no good conversation. Even among the lowlife clientele of Big Mary’s Bar and Grill, she stands out as a notable example of detestableness.

’Your round, Tank Girl.’

’No I’m not, I’m long and skinny.’

Tank Girl is in paroxysms of laughter at her feeble joke. I hate her. In her customary arrogant manner, she sends Jet Girl off to the bar to pick up a trayful of beer.

Every year in the Wastelands it rains continuously for forty days and forty nights. Somewhere around day thirty-six the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition gets under way at Big Mary’s Bar and Grill, which is why I am now sitting at this filthy table surrounded by glasses of beer and piles of money. Around the table are my fellow players - some human, some kangaroo and some unconscious. One of those still conscious is, unfortunately, Tank Girl. At the end of every hand of snap each participant, apart from the winner, has to down a large glass of beer. Around the table are the prostrate bodies of those who have collapsed from the effects of twenty-four hours’ drinking. Anyone who collapses forfeits their stake to the table. Personally, I refuse to collapse, and though there are many better things I could be doing with my time, I refuse to lose to Tank Girl either at snap or at drinking.

We drink. Jet Girl, sitting beside Tank Girl, looks somewhat unsteady on her chair, but manages to stay awake.

’Had enough?’ asks Tank Girl, flashing her large, malicious smile.

’Deal the cards, Tank Girl,’ I reply.

She frowns; then pouts. Why she pouts, I don’t know. It looks ridiculous. She shuffles the cards and looks over at me.

’Did I ever tell you about the time I saved the world?’

CHAPTER TWO

Tank Girl fumbles with the pack. I watch her like a hawk, because I know she is trying to cheat.

’Did I ever tell you about the time I saved the world? she repeats.

’Yes, you did. Deal the cards.’

’It was some time after the great comet struck the earth,’ she continues, despite the fact that neither I nor anyone else around the table want to hear the story. Even her damned kangaroo companions are bored with it. But among Tank Girl’s many detestable character traits is an overwhelming urge to tell stories about herself: Where she gets these outlandish stories from is a mystery to me, because I’m sure she doesn’t have the intelligence to make them up. Perhaps Sub Girl makes them up for her. Sub Girl is at least rumoured to be intelligent. She’s also a pain, though not as bad as Tank Girl.

And Tank Girl begins to ramble on about the calamity that shook the earth back in the old days. I know why she’s doing it: she wishes to break everyone’s concentration on the game. With her propensity for cheating and her crude diversionary tactics, Tank Girl makes a terrible opponent.

’Deal the cards, Tank Girl,’ says Mining Jim, who is sitting on my left.

’In a minute. I was just telling you about the time the comet struck the earth...’

One of her kangaroo friends suddenly throws up over himself and falls off his chair. Tank Girl, Sub Girl and Jet Girl laugh till the tears flow down their faces. ’Ha ha,’ chortles Tank Girl. Poor old T-Saint never could hold his drink. Gather in his money’.

It is common knowledge around the Wastelands that Tank Girl sleeps with one of these kangaroos. Disgusting, or what? A grey fog suddenly envelops my head as the effects of twenty-four hours’ drinking catch up with me. I shake my head vigorously to clear it. I may be only a humble trader in late-’seventies antiques, but I’m damned if I’m going to lose a drinking contest to a woman who sleeps with a kangaroo.

Outside, the rain pours down. It is day thirty-seven of the rains. Three more to go. The weather was never like this in my old ’seventies videos. Three-hundred-and twenty-five days of burning sunshine, which bakes the desert hard, dry and dead, followed by forty days and forty nights of rain. At least it’s consistent.

Big Mary wanders up, kicks the fallen kangaroo out of the way and gathers up the glasses. She has muscular arms, long black hair and what looks like an old Colt revolver tucked in her apron. Big Mary doesn’t like any trouble in her bar.

’Yes,’ says Tank Girl, ’when the great comet struck I was only a little girl, can’t have been more than four or five. I was precociously intelligent and brave even then, of course, always having adventures and stuff. I remember, I crossed the desert on my tricycle, can’t have been more than three or four at the time. My parents were frantic-’

’No doubt in case you were rescued. Deal the cards, Tank Girl.’

Tank Girl’s eyes narrow, rather threateningly.

’Do I sense a slight hostility on your part, Trader?’

I don’t answer, but, not for the first time, I wish guns weren’t banned from Big Mary’s during the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition (apart from those carried by the bar-staff, of course). Everyone entering Big Mary’s has to either leave their gun outside or check it in with the doormen. I have a reasonably modern plasma rifle outside in the Big Trader Truck and am fairly proficient in its use - you don’t succeed as a ’seventies antique dealer in the Wastelands without learning how to look after yourself. Many’s the time I’ve been bushwhacked by gangs of ten or more armed robbers intent on stealing my cargo of ’Blake’s Seven’ and ’Tomorrow People’ videos, but they’ve never got the better of me. I’m no pushover.

’The Trader’s no pushover,’ as they say in the Wastelands. Although, to be absolutely honest, I’m only no pushover with my plasma rifle in my hand. Unarmed, Tank Girl would tear me apart.

I am on my own here. Tank Girl is accompanied by Jet Girl, Sub Girl and several strong kangaroos. Outside, they have a tank, a submarine and a jet, which made finding a parking space for the Big Trader Truck something of a problem. I guess it would be unwise to offend Tank Girl too much.

It strikes me that, even if I win the contest, it may not be easy to make a clean getaway with the prize money. Tank Girl is not the sort of person to honour agreements.

She picks at the sticking plaster on her forehead. She’s been letting on that she had a little trouble with some government soldiers on the way here, but, really, all that happened was that she fell over and banged her head when she was drunk. I know this for a fact. A kangaroo told me.

’Yep, that old comet certainly changed things around here,’ continues Tank Girl.

’It certainly did,’ agrees Jet Girl. ’Remember Kesslee?’

’Do I remember Kesslee? I certainly do. Now, was he a swine or not?’

’The worst,’ says Sub Girl.

’Appalling,’ agrees Booga, who, I understand, is Tank Girl’s favourite kangaroo. Or Genetically Engineered Super Soldier, as the kangaroos would have it, though if ’No Brain’ Booga is a Genetically Engineered Super Soldier, then I’m Santa Claus.

’...So, although the comet more or less wiped out civilisation as we knew it, turning the continent into a barren wasteland, altering the weather, throwing up new mountain ranges and making beer really hard to come by, I wasn’t too badly off, even though I was only five at the time. I knew how to look after myself and, when the gangs started to roam around in the chaos, I just took to the desert and survived in the wilds.

’Of course -’ she glances out of the window at the ceaseless downpour - ’there wasn’t even any rain then, so most people just died of thirst in the first couple of years. I survived by drinking milk from coconuts and stuff like that, no problem really for a woman of my capabilities, then I fell in with a bunch of hippies and lived with them for a while, which was okay-’

I grit my teeth. If this drunken woman thinks she’s going to put me off my cards with this sort of rambling, she’s much mistaken, but there is no stopping her. She loves the sound of her own voice too much. She dips one of her plaits into her beer, then sticks it in her mouth and carries on with her life story.

The cards are dealt and we start to go round. To tell you the truth, I am now feeling a little nervous. Tank Girl likes me no better than I like her and she’s eyeing my pot of money greedily. I would say that, if I am the ultimate winner of the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition, then there is little chance of me walking out of here with my winnings.

I have one thing in my favour. Prior to coming here I had the Big Trader Truck secretly supercharged at O’Halleran’s garage, just down from the Red Mountains. The Big Trader Truck, generally an object of ridicule and derision throughout the Wastelands, because of its inability to climb a slight incline at more than five miles an hour, is now the proud bearer of a brand-new XTF 98 engine. What exactly ’XTF 98’ means, I have no idea, but it goes pretty damn fast. If I do have to make a rapid getaway, as long as I can actually make it to the vehicle, I’ll be safe. Wasteland inhabitants, used to having a good laugh at the sight of the Big Trader Truck lumbering painfully over the dunes, will gape in wonder as I roar off like a bolt of lightning.

Of course, this would depend on me actually making it out of Big Mary’s Bar and Grill in the first place. After twenty-five hours’ continuous drinking I might well find it difficult to walk that far. No one would stop Tank Girl and her accomplices from robbing me. So, I’m just starting to think that things are looking very bad for me indeed, when, to my great relief, the door to Big Mary’s flies open and in come the Wasteland Ninjas.

’Shut that damned door,’ shouts Big Mary, as the wind and rain pour through. Ten or so Wasteland Ninjas file into the Bar and Grill, water glistening on their short blue hair and dripping from their black cloaks.

Tank Girl curses out loud.

’Not those Ninja weirdos,’ she growls. ’Who asked them here? They don’t play cards.

’Don’t drink either,’ says Jet Girl.

Indeed they don’t. All they do is wander about the desert practising survival skills and the ancient fighting arts, and this is very good news for me, because the Wasteland Ninjas are my allies. More than that, they positively love me, because I am the only man on the continent who can provide them with fresh supplies of their Holy Relic: videos of the ancient and revered Kung Fu TV series, starring the equally ancient and revered David Carradine.

Eldrich San, their leader, dispatches a minion to the bar for glasses of water or carrot juice or whatever disgusting thing it is they drink, and I hear Big Mary grumbling about the inconvenience of it all.

Eldrich San approaches the table. ’Greetings’.

’Bug off, freak-face,’ says Tank Girl.

Eldrich San ignores this, as befits a top-grade Ninja warrior, and turns to me.

’You have brought us videos to trade?’

’Absolutely,’ I say, and rather drunkenly clap him on the shoulder. He withdraws slightly, because the head of the Wasteland Ninjas does not really enjoy being clapped on the shoulder. Quite a social gaffe in fact, but never mind.

’Yes, I have located numbers three, eight and nine of the second series, as requested. They’re over there in that bag beside the statue.

During my last mission seeking antiques in the desert I dug up an old statue of a woman. It’s not worth anything, but I rather like it and have propped it on a seat in the corner, where someone has decorated it with a baseball cap and lipstick.

’I’m busy playing cards just now, but feel free to peruse them and I’ll be happy to negotiate their sale as soon as I’ve cleaned out my opponents in the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition.’

Eldrich San nods, gathers his soggy robes about him and goes back to his companions, who are gathered around the pinball machine. I’m pleased to see that Ootsie and Bitsy, two young recruits to the Wasteland Ninjas, are in the group, as they are friends of mine and owe me some favours.

Around the table there is silence, and I see that Tank Girl is herself re-evaluating the balance of forces.

Sub Girl, across the table from me, plays the eight of spades, and I whack down the eight of clubs.

’Snap!’ I scream in triumph, and gather in the pot of money in front of me. ’Another victory for the Trader!’

There is a murmur of appreciation from the watching audience.

’Sub Girl, you doom-brain, why did you play that?’ demands Tank Girl, to which the Mystic Prophetess and Underground Queen of the Submarines can only shrug her shoulders.

The glasses are filled and everybody has to drink except me, as I won the last hand. Jet Girl looks distinctly queasy, but Tank Girl drinks with apparent gusto. And Tank Girl, damn her, will not shut up.

CHAPTER THREE

Tank Girl claims that it was thanks to her that the old days came to an end, but Tank Girl is a notorious liar.

She is telling us about her time in the hippy commune. I wish she wouldn’t. For one thing, her voice irritates me, and for another, I do not much like thinking about the old days, because the old days were terrible. She spits on the table.

’Of course, by this time things had got pretty bad. After the comet struck, that is. Just desert everywhere, and the little water there was under the control. of Water and Power, which, you may remember, was itself controlled by that total creep Kesslee, number one asshole in the known universe. So, more or less everyone had to do what Water and Power said and everyone bad to buy water from them or else die, and it was illegal to find your own water; in fact, it was illegal to do anything at all. Life was just one great big desert filled with Kesslee’s soldiers, and Kesslee was running everything like a dictator, to the general distress of the suffering population. Pretty standard post-apocalyptic scenario in fact.

’But this hippy commune was tucked away in the Blue Dunes and they had their own secret well. Everything there was okay for a while, well, anyway, there was plenty of dope and I used to shag this guy called Richard who was all right except when he was lecturing me about being too stoned all the time to take my turn at communal cooking -’

Here she breaks off and laughs loudly at the very thought.

’I mean, can you imagine me making bowls of lentils for everyone? Completely ridiculous. Where was I?’

’You were about to play your card,’ I say.

’I’ll play when I’m ready,’ says Tank Girl.

Last card played was the four of clubs, and Tank Girl is delaying placing her card on top. Which makes me think that she quite possibly knows she has a four and is waiting till everyone else is distracted before putting it down so she can call ’snap’ first and win the round.

Does everyone know how to play snap? It’s the simplest game. The pack is dealt out face-down to all the players, so no one knows what card is going to be played next. Players take it in turn to play a card and, if two cards of the same denomination follow each other for instance, if someone plays the eight of clubs on top of the eight of spades - then the first person to call ’’snap’ and get their hand down on the pack wins the round. There is not a lot of skill involved. This competition is more about drinking and endurance. Still, you do have to win a round occasionally because, if you don’t have enough money to put in your stake, then you are out of the game.

So, no one is meant to know what card they are going to play next but, as Tank Girl has no morals, she is undoubtedly peeking. So am I.

’I met Little Wee Sam in the commune,’ she goes on. Everyone looks down at Little Wee Sam, who is lying under the table in a pool of vomit, being rather too small to withstand twenty-five hours’ drinking. ’Only ten at the time and a good artist, I seem to remember. This was before she started drinking, of course. But one day...

Tank Girl pauses, scratching her breasts. ’One day...

The rain pounds against the window. ’One day...’

’What?’

’Snap!’ screams Tank Girl, pounding down the four of hearts. ’Game to me’

’You cheated!’ I shout.

’Is that so?’ yells Tank Girl, standing up and glaring defiantly at me.

I stand up, the kangaroos stand up, Jet Girl and Sub Girl stand up, Mining Jim and his mates stand up, the Wasteland Ninjas make a move towards us, chaos threatens, and for a second it seems the expected battle may erupt.

’Shut up and drink,’ bawls Big Mary, smashing down a trayful of lager in front of us. ’I’ll have no fighting in my bar.

We sit down. Everyone has to drink except Tank Girl, who won. I detest her.

CHAPTER FOUR

Tank Girl is braying about her small victory, the kangaroos are slapping her on the back, and I am forcing down what seems like my hundredth glass of beer when - curse them! - the Shaolin Queens of the Desert walk in. What a terrible stroke of luck. The Shaolin Queens of the Desert are another menace to society. They wear their hair in topknots dyed red, and black combat clothes studded with cheap jewels and mirror fragments, and march around the desert threatening to fight anyone they don’t like the look of. I always get the feeling they don’t like the look of me. What makes this particularly unfortunate though, is that the Shaolin Queens of the Desert are natural enemies of the Wasteland Ninjas and will side against them in any fight. As the Shaolin Queens spend half their lives practising their Shaolin Kung Fu, they are not a group whom one would wish to fight unnecessarily. The odds have again swung in Tank Girl’s favour.

Tank Girl realises this and sends Booga the stupid kangaroo over to buy them all a drink. Booga is himself suffering the effects of alcohol. Hopping haphazardly towards the bar he makes a pathetic sight.

Less ascetic than the Wasteland Ninjas, the Shaolin Queens proceed to make merry with three bottles of whisky and a small glass of water and come over to watch the game.

’Welcome, Shaolin Queens of the Desert,’ bawls Tank Girl. ’Grab a chair and watch me clean up these suckers at cards. You’re just in time for my story about how the soldiers from Water and Power brought an abrupt end to my days of paradisiacal hippy living in the commune. ’

’Fire away,’ says Magdalen, leader of the Shaolin Queens, swinging her legs over a stool and clearing a place at the table with her elbows. Magdalen is an out-and-out thug if ever I met one. ’Always enjoy a good story.’

Tank Girl, out of bravado, drinks down her beer, though, as winner of the last round, she is not obliged to.

’Drink up, Trader,’ she says. ’You’re falling behind.’

I drink: I feel ill. Tank Girl carries on with her story, which puts me off my play. The game goes round and I seem unable to win another hand. The pile of money in front of me starts to shrink. This is perturbing. Due to various business expenses, notably the purchase of the XTF 98 engine and a four-week binge at the end of my last trip, I did not arrive at Big Mary’s with a great deal of money, although I do have various artefacts to sell. I try and concentrate. I will be furious if I am forced out of the game. Not only that, I’ll be in deep trouble with ZugZug the Bookmaker.

’Yes, that hippy commune was a strange place for a woman like me,’ continues Tank Girl. ’Plenty of dope but almost no excitement, unless you count the frequent arguments about whose turn it was to sweep the stairs and who ate all the peanut butter. As I never swept the stairs and continually ate the peanut butter, most of the arguments seemed to. centre on me. I guess I’m just not suited to communal living, unless all the other people do whatever I want. Like Booga here, for instance. To you he might just look like a pathetically deformed kangaroo, but to me he’s the best tea-maker in the Wastelands. Run and make me a brew in the kitchen will you?’.

Booga trots off.

’So for a bit of excitement, I used to go out in the desert and ride the buffalos.’

’Buffalos don’t live in the desert,’ says the Professor.

’The buffalos had adapted well to living in the desert,’ says Tank Girl. ’They are very clever animals. I used to hide behind a rock, wait till one wandered by, then leap on its back, and off we’d go. Sometimes I’d take one home to the commune, but all the hippies would start moaning about ’animal exploitation’ and ’poor buffalo’ and suchlike. I kept telling them the buffalo loved it, but they never understood. So, I mainly stayed out in the desert, and that was how I came to win my first serious fight, and also how I became such an expert with guns.

’One day, I was riding along quite contentedly singing ’Home, Home on the Range’ and eating a jar of peanut butter with my fingers, when a Water and Power armoured patrol appeared on the horizon. The patrols hadn’t been to our area for a while, so it took me by surprise. They spotted me and started coming my way. I was just going to turn and flee when, for the first time, my true Tank Girl nature came to the surface.

’’Why should I run away?’ I thought. I’ve as much right to be here as they have. Anyway, the stupid damn buffalo wouldn’t turn round. They were always quite hard to control. So I simply charged the patrol. Took them completely by surprise. There were two armoured cars and a truck full of troops, and I could see them all staring at me in amazement as I raced towards them.

’’Watch out, there’s a woman on a buffalo charging at us!’ I heard one of them scream, and then I rammed right into the side of one of the armoured cars. It skidded into the other one, and they both lost control and rolled down the side of this really steep sand-dune.

As she says this, Tank Girl rolls two glasses off the table, demonstrating how it happened. They smash on to the floor. I’d like to make some comment, but am lost for words. Here I am, sitting playing cards with a woman who claims to have destroyed two armoured cars armed only with a pet buffalo. Something must have gone wrong with my life somewhere.

’The soldiers spilled out of the truck. I whacked a few of them with my baseball bat and grabbed one of their guns. I’d never held a gun before but I took to it immediately. Most of them were dead before they got out of the truck, and the rest fled. Not particularly brave of them, but I suppose they were only expecting to come up against harmless hippies and starving peasants. Weren’t prepared at all for the savage and ferocious Tank Girl laying into them with a baseball bat.

’I gathered up all the guns, fed the buffalo the contents of the soldiers’ lunch-boxes and trotted off home.

Tank Girl pauses, frowning.

’And you know what happened when I got there? The stupid hippies were annoyed about it. Morons! You might have thought they’d be pleased, what with me single-handedly destroying a patrol and bringing home a bundle of weapons, but no, all they did was moan that I’d draw attention to the area, and now Water and Power would be out hunting the attackers. Just jealous, that was their problem.’

’But that was my first real fight. Afterwards, I used to take the guns out into the desert and practise. I practised till I could hit a coconut at 3000 yards. Soon there wasn’t a coconut left in the area. Look, why is everybody sitting around this table doing nothing? Are we playing cards or what?’

CHAPTER FIVE

Tank Girl, her legs up on the table (she is quite unable to sit properly on a chair), tells her less than thrilling story about life in the commune, which seems mainly to involve her being stoned all the time and occasionally playing with her sex toys.

’Pretty damned dull, in fact, apart from my pet buffalo, which I used to ride around on when I was bored. Still, it livened up when the Water and Power soldiers attacked .

’Why did they attack?’ asks the sycophantic Booga.

’Just felt like it, I suppose. They were like that, these Water and Power soldiers, always attacking someone or other. Kept them busy, I suppose. The excuse they used was that we had an illegal well. Remember, their company was supposed to be in charge of all the water. Water was hard to find after the giant comet struck -

’We’ve heard about the giant comet. Get to the point.’

’Okay, don’t rush a girl. I had, if I remember correctly, just been to see Little Wee Sam, who was remarkably cute in those days - ’

There is a brief pause while everybody glances at the still young but far from cute figure of Sam lying comatose under the table, a bottle of whisky cradled lovingly in her grubby arms.

’Sam was making me a sculpture. Doris Day, I think, or maybe Johnny Prophet. Anyway, after that I just nipped out into the desert, hoping to shag Richard - who was nothing great, I have to admit, but had a bit more stamina than the rest of the hippies - when these soldiers appeared from nowhere and started shooting at everyone. Complete chaos. I mean, we had a few guns stashed away, and I gave as good as I got, better, in fact, I was mowing them down like nobody’s business. A soldier came at me with a bayonet. I grabbed it off him. "Eat this, pig face," I said, and rammed it into him. Soon there was a pile of bodies at my feet - I realised I was quite enjoying myself - but the rest of the hippies - ’

She shrugs.

’Pretty hopeless, really. They were all dead in a few minutes.

Tank Girl displays a noticeable absence of grief at this sad revelation. She is completely heartless. I hate her. Jet Girl is nice, though. In fact, the more I drink, the nicer Jet Girl seems. She is wearing this really attractive yellow headscarf...I digress.

’They captured me and threw me into a helicopter, although even then I killed a few more with my bare hands.’

She bursts out laughing, remembering fondly how one of the soldiers had tried to molest her in the helicopter, and she had contrived to send him plunging out of the door, to splatter on the ground below. She laughs so much she almost chokes, and Booga has to pour a little beer down her throat to get her talking again.

’So, after that they chained me up and stayed well away from me till we landed in the huge, vast, technologically advanced military industrial complex that was in those days the headquarters of Water and Power. There were soldiers everywhere, and groaning slaves being whipped to make them work faster. I could tell that the opportunities for fun in such a place were going to be minimal.

’They dragged me up in front of Kesslee, and I do not exaggerate when I say that Kesslee was the biggest creep that ever walked the earth or crawled upon it. Everywhere else on the continent was just desert, but he used to sit around in an office that had so much water in it, it was like being in the middle of the ocean, and all these other creeps used to come in and go out with their heads bowed, like they were terrified of the guy.

’Kesslee was boss of Water and Power, which made him ruler of the continent. As soon as they took me inside I tripped over a plant and knocked over a fish tank. A terrible scene. We tried to rescue the fish, but it was hopeless. Every time anyone took a step, they’d squash one underfoot. Soon there were mangled fish everywhere. Got us off to a terrible start, really.’

Just round from me at the table, I can see that the Professor is nodding off, bored no doubt by the tediousness of Tank Girl’s story. Still, he’s done well to last this long in the game, being more the sort of guy built for intellect than physical endurance. The Professor’s still got a good pile of money in front of him, he’s been winning enough hands of snap to keep going and he’s drunk down as much beer as all the other players.

The Professor is very clever. I presume this is why he is called the Professor.

I rather like him. Only last week I sold him two ancient books: Thackeray’s ’Vanity Fair’ and Goldsmith’s ’The Vicar of Wakefield’. Let him have them at a bargain price. Mind you it’s a very small market these days, nineteenth-century literature. Well, to be honest, there probably wasn’t anyone else on the whole continent who would have wanted to buy them. Anyway, he was pleased.

Just as he is about to nod off, Big Mary pounds down another round and the crash of the tray on the table jerks him upright. He sips his beer, shakes his head and makes an effort to stay awake. Tank Girl is still droning on.

’Possibly the worst thing about Kesslee was that he used to quote poetry. Drove me to distraction. I mean, when you’re lying manacled at some guy’s feet and all your friends have just been shot, the last thing you want is somebody reciting poetry to you.

’Perhaps he was trying to be comforting?’ suggests the Professor. ’A nice poem can be very soothing in moments of crisis.

’Please, Professor,’ says Tank Girl, giving him a withering glance. ’If he’d wanted to comfort me, he’d have given me a cup of tea and a toasted muffin. He just liked the sound of his own voice. Much the same as me, I suppose.

’So what did Kesslee do?’ I ask, not because I am at all interested, just to move the story along so we can get back to playing cards.

’He asked me to work for him,’ replies Tank Girl. ’The man recognised quality when he saw it. ’Tank Girl’, he said, ’you killed forty-eight of my soldiers with an old rifle and your trusty baseball bat. An incredible performance. Water and Power needs you. Come and work for me and I’ll make you mistress of all you survey.’ He went on like this for a while, offering me fabulous wealth and power until, eventually, I fell asleep. I think that’;s what got s off to such a bad start. That and the dead fish. We were never really friends after that.’

CHAPTER SIX

A disturbance breaks out behind us as some of the Shaolin Queens of the Desert get into an argument with the Wasteland Ninjas over who is next on the pool table. As they are deadly enemies, it immediately threatens to turn violent and, as Big Mary hurries over to calm things down, I notice that she now has what appear to be two old Colt revolvers stuck in her apron. With the steam still rising off the Shaolin Queens’ wet clothes and the general smog in the room after twenty five hours of smoking, drinking and card-playing, it is a little difficult to see precisely what is happening, but, anyway, Magdalen, leader of the Shaolin Queens, is leaping over to see what the trouble is, and Eldrich San, the head Ninja, is up on his feet shouting that his name was the next one chalked up on the board.

I never knew Eldrich San was so keen on pool. It must be the influence of Ootsie and Bitsy, who, as I mentioned, are young recruits. Although they are both Wasteland Ninjas now and spend most of their time tramping over the desert, I can remember the days when they were never away from the pool-table. Pair of

young hustlers, in fact. Most unsuitable material for the Ninjas, I would have thought.

Before the disturbance at the pool-table can develop into anything serious, everyone’s attention is diverted by the door bursting open. The freezing rain and wind pour in again. Still audible over the noise of the storm is the sound of engines dying down.

’Big Mary, gimme a beer,’ bawls the new arrival, stomping into the room, followed by eight or nine others. They’re all dressed in shabby black leathers, big biker boots and full-scale Native American head-dresses made from buzzard feathers dyed green. Their faces are daubed with green warpaint and more buzzard feather jewellery hangs from their ears.

I rejoice. It’s the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls. They’ve come to watch the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition. Now, the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls are no particular friends of mine, though they are not enemies either, but the reason I rejoice is that they are sworn enemies of the Shaolin Queens of the Desert. If the fight I’m expecting does break out at the end of the competition, then the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls are bound to take my side against Tank Girl and the Shaolin Queens. And, as the Wasteland Ninjas are already spoiling for a fight with the Shaolin Queens, I reckon the odds are now in our favour. There are the kangaroos to consider, of course, but they are very, very drunk. Tank, Sub and Jet Girls have their formidable weaponry, but it is all outside in the car park.

Yes, things have definitely taken a turn for the better. I wave to Iris Grim, leader of the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls, and offer to buy her a drink. My hopes revive. If I end up being the winner, I reckon I now have a better than even chance of walking away safely with my winnings.

Unfortunately, these thoughts make me miss a chance to win a round, and it goes to Donner, another of the kangaroos. I curse. How is a man meant to play cards when Tank Girl is rambling on about Water and Power, and Ninjas and Shaolin Queens are fighting at the pool-table? Completely impossible. My pile of money continues to shrink. My hopes plummet.

In the bustle and confusion of the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls’ arrival, the fight between the Ninjas and the Shaolin Queens is smoothed over. The Biker Girls swarm towards the bar shouting for beer and crisps, shaking their head-dresses as they go, sending water flying around the room.

They bawl greetings to the Wasteland Ninjas and everyone else, apart from the Shaolin Queens, whom they ignore. Tank Girl, aware of their likely alliance against her, grunts in reply.

While all this is going on, I have decided that it is time for some direct action. I secrete the nine and ten of hearts up my sleeve. Next time it’s my turn, and there is either a nine or a ten face-up on the table, I will whip out the appropriate card, which will, of course, enable me to shout ’’snap’ before anyone else knows what’s happening. Shocking behaviour, of course. Quite unlike what you would expect from the popular and much-loved Trader, famed for his honesty from one end of the continent to the other, but necessary in the circumstances, I’m sure you will agree, faced as I am by the treacherous Tank Girl, one of the rawest cheats ever to blight the face of the earth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

’I foresee trouble,’ says Sub Girl, which is the sort of thing that Sub Girl tends to say, in between long periods of gloomy silence. She has a reputation as something of a prophet, although it doesn’t take much of a prophet to see that, if you put Tank Girl, the killer kangaroos, the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls, the Wasteland Ninjas, the Shaolin Queens of the Desert and various other roughhouse miners, gangsters and freeloaders in a smoky bar-room for twenty five hours and fill them full of beer, then there may well be trouble. Indeed, when, after a break in the game, Tank Girl comes back to find one of the Wasteland Ninjas occupying her seat, she pushes him off it in such a rough manner that it almost starts a fight there and then.

’Where was I?’ she says, straddling her seat again.

’In the toilet,’ answers Booga. Sadly, he is not making a joke.

’Deal the cards,’ grunts Mining Jim, impatient to get going.

Tank Girl ignores him.

’I was talking about Kesslee.

’And Sergeant Small,’ puts in Jet Girl, her first words for some time. She seems to have her nausea under control and is making something of a comeback. How pleasant Jet Girl is, Why does such a nice young woman hang around with the truly appalling Tank Girl? I wonder if I might persuade her to give me a lift somewhere in her jet?

’Right,’ says Tank Girl, lifting her beer. After twenty five hours of enforced drinking no one else around the table is lifting their glass, except at the end of each game, when all the losers are obliged to drink, but Tank Girl drinks freely and continuously. I cannot deny that she has an amazing capacity for beer. Of course, an amazing capacity for beer is nothing to shout about. Doesn’t make up for her numerous faults.

’Sergeant Small. Should I make a few jokes about his name and the size of his penis?’

’You usually do,’ says Donner, whose appearance is fairly ludicrous even by kangaroo standards. He wears pink sun-glasses and a flowery waistcoat. Preposterous.

’Yes, I guess I do. Well, leaving the penis jokes aside for a moment, though I will come back to them, Sergeant Small was almost as big a creep as Kesslee. The first time I met ol’ Jet Girl here, he was coming on to her in a truly repugnant fashion, and I was obliged to rescue her by snogging her, which seemed to put him off for a while. Jet Girl needed rescuing, of course, because she was just a shy little thing in those days, before I took her in hand and made her the woman she is today.’

’And a fine woman she is too,’ says Donner. I see that Donner is attached to Jet Girl. I feel jealous and wonder if I could come up with a good kebab joke. Tank Girl drones on. She has taken off her jacket and is wearing a small ripped vest, which she quite deliberately lifts up in order to scratch her breasts. This is, of course, merely a cynical manoeuvre to break the concentration of Mining Jim. I am completely unaffected myself. It would take a good deal more than Tank Girl’s breasts to put me off my cards.

’I was forced to work down in the repair pits, fixing the water pipes and making sandwiches, and a grim job it was too, dry, hot and difficult and the guards were utterly lacking in any sense of humour. Jet Girl was up in the hangars. Fixing jets, strangely enough.’

’Where was Sub Girl?’

’I hadn’t met her yet. I expect she was away prophesying somewhere. Back then she spent most of her time making prophecies. Anyway, it was around then that I came up with the first of my brilliant escape plans, namely, rolling a stone in front of one of the automatic doors so it wouldn’t shut properly, and sneaking out later.’

At this, the Professor sits up and speaks.

’You rolled a stone in front of one of the automatic doors so it wouldn’t shut properly?’

’That’s right.’

The Professor sniffs.

’I thought you said it was a huge, vast, technologically advanced military industrial complex?’

’It was.’

’Doesn’t sound very advanced to me, if you could get out so easily. Not much of a security system, I mean.’

I chuckle. I can see that the Professor is as bored as I am with all this.

Tank Girl frowns, not pleased.

’It’s all in the timing. I’m not saying just anyone could have made their escape like that. It took great skill and courage. And I had to find the right stone.’

’What was it like?’

’Never mind what the damn stone was like. Just take my word for it, it was right, and the whole affair took great skill and courage. And stop putting me off. I escaped from my slave pen, avoided a few guards and got into a tank - a nice, friendly tank it seemed to me but as soon as I got myself comfy and prepared to break my way out of the complex, the tank’s computer started pissing around, demanding security codes and other really unreasonable stuff, which I was, naturally, unable to provide. Then the cockpit filled up with poisonous gas.’

Not poisonous enough, I reflect.

’So, things were looking fairly bleak at that moment, when Jet Girl arrived and switched off the gas. She understood things like security codes and computers, Lucky break for me, though I expect I would have escaped from the crisis somehow or other.’

Learning that Jet Girl saved Tank Girl’s life, my esteem for her diminishes somewhat. Oh well, I suppose she was young at the time.

’So, that was that for that escape attempt. Whose deal is it?’

’Yours.’

Tank Girl deals out the cards and we start to play. And now even Tank Girl pays attention to the game. She leans wolf-like over the table, her braids and locks falling down over her eyes and her multiple earrings tinkling slightly as she follows the fall of cards round the table.

The Professor is next to me. I’m waiting for him to put down a nine or ten so I can whip out a hidden card from my sleeve and win the hand. He plays a three. It goes round again, each player playing the top card from their face-down bundle. No card of the same number falls twice. This time, the Professor’s card is a seven. Damn him. All round again and no snap. The table is hushed. The watching crowd holds its breath. Well, not literally, I suppose. But they’re slightly quieter than normal.

The rain beats down outside. By now it must be day thirty-seven of the rains. Three days to go. Why does it rain every year for forty days and forty nights? No one knows, not even the Professor. It does make everyone’s life hell, though.

It’s round to the Professor again. He plays a nine. With stunning dexterity and dazzling speed, I slip the nine out of my sleeve and slam it on to the pile.

’Snap’ I scream, before anyone else has time to react, and start scooping in the money.

I get some very suspicious looks from around the table. To hell with them. No one can prove a thing. I rake in the money gleefully, and everyone has to drink but me. Excellent. I can survive in the game for a while longer now and I notice that quite a few of the remaining players look very shaky indeed. I’ll out-drink and outlast them all yet.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The atmosphere at the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition has become noticeably strained. Rumours, and allegations of cheating and subterfuge are rife. Above the din I hear Big Mary complaining loudly to one of her barmen about the non-appearance of Alvin.

’That would have kept them in order for a while,’ she grunts, and makes a few threats about what she’ll do if Alvin does eventually show up.

I myself am rather disappointed at the non-appearance of Alvin, number-one rock star in the Wastelands. Not that I especially wanted to hear him play, my ears being a little too old to appreciate that sort of stuff these days, but I have some ancient artefacts with me that I’m sure he would be interested in. I’ve often sold him old music ephemera - books, records, a plectrum once used by Syd Barrett, that sort of thing - but now I have something of both great historical and practical value, namely a fuzzbox as used by the Sex Pistols in 1976. A working fuzzbox, the like of which you could not find today. The technology simply doesn’t exist any more to make such an item. It’s a miracle it survived beneath the desert sands for so long. Alvin is bound to pay me a load of money for it. After all, he claims to be a direct descendant of Donny Osmond, who, I know from my historical research, was a valued contemporary of the Sex Pistols.

As I was rather depending on Alvin buying the fuzzbox to guarantee me having enough money to stay in the game, I hope he shows up. Also, it would calm things down if he played. Most of the gangs of people here like Alvin. Even Tank Girl, who doesn’t really like anyone.

Mining Jim’s friend Mining Pete, a vast mountain of a man in a blue tartan shirt, can’t take another glass of beer. He tries to force it down, but it comes straight back up, and he slides slowly under the table. A few of the Shaolin Queens drag him away and dump him in a comer on top of some other comatose bodies, then sit down to watch the proceedings. Why do they wear their hair in topknots dyed red? I wonder. Almost as strange a hairstyle as that sported by Tank Girl, which is a mixture of shaved patches and coloured braids and dreadlocks. The Shaolin Queens’ clothes glitter as the light above the table catches the mirror fragments sewn on to their black combat clothes. Muscles stand out on their forearms. They are tough women. I’m glad the Wasteland Ninjas and Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls outnumber them.

The Professor is dealing the next hand. Tank Girl is carrying on with her story. I still have the ten of hearts up my sleeve.

’So, after I failed to get away in the tank, I planned another escape. I used to talk about them in the showers with Jet here.

Jet Girl shudders.

’The showers,’ she says, making a face, ’they were gross.’

’Utterly gross,’ agrees Tank Girl. ’Wasn’t even water, just some chemical powder that scraped off the dirt. Disgusting. Diabolical. No good at all for the young lady of fashion.’

She whacks her fist down on the table.

’And just when I came up with this marvellous, majestic escape plan, it turned out they’d put a listening device in the showers. Perverts, I call them. Sergeant Small and a squadron or two of soldiers dragged me off to see Kesslee again, and he shot me full of poison darts.’

I find this part of the story a little hard to follow. Poison darts?

’Poison darts?’

’That’s right, poison darts. You see, Kesslee was desperate to get me to work for him. ’I must have Tank Girl working for me,’ he used to say. Understandable of course, anyone would want a woman like me on their side, but I kept refusing, so he tried to break my spirit by chaining me up in this little room and shooting poison darts into me. The darts had germs in them and gave me cholera and bubonic plague and yellow fever and a really bad attack of measles and, honestly, it was just a bad period in my life altogether. The only fun I had was when I heard that the Rippers, as they were called, had massacred some soldiers in the desert and destroyed some water-pipes. Which is the crux of the tale. Kesslee controlled the whole continent, apart from the Blue Dunes, and whenever soldiers went to the Blue Dunes they got massacred by these strange terrifying creatures called the Rippers. Kesslee wanted me to find them.’

’Why?’ asks the Professor.

’What do you mean, why?’

’Why didn’t he just send his huge, technologically advanced army to wipe them out? Or devastate the area with nuclear weapons? And why couldn’t he find them with heat scanners or satellite imaging?’

Tank Girl frowns.

’Are you trying to spoil my story, Professor? I don’t know why. He didn’t invite me to his private councils. Maybe all the satellites were busy that week. All I know is, he was trying to get me to find them. I refused; he shot me full of diseases; I still refused; so he put me in this little narrow underground water-pipe. No room to move at all. Just me and the bubonic plague. Torture or what?’

The rain beats down. Tank Girl rambles on. Jet Girl wins the next hand and everyone forces down another beer. I start to feel terrible.

The door opens. Rain pours in. There is a general cheer in the bar. It’s Alvin. With him are a bunch of young men in rancid denim, and yellow bandannas. I groan. It’s the Post-Apocalypse Biker Boys with their dumb leader Marlin. Not unnaturally, they are deadly enemies of the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls. In any ensuing fight they will side against them, and with Tank Girl. The odds have swung against me again. I have had dealings with the Biker Boys. It was, in fact, me that inspired them, by selling them an ancient video of The Wild One. Watching it, Marlin was so impressed he named himself after Marlon Brando, the star. Unfortunately, he spelt it wrong and actually named himself after a fish. Standards of literacy are low these days in the Wastelands. The Biker Boys are particularly dumb.

Everyone is pleased to see Alvin.

’What kept you, you meat-head?’ asks Big Mary, but even she likes him, and whacks a tankard into his hand. Alvin apologises graciously for his late-coming, stating that his truck got stuck in a swamp some way down the road. As it has been raining for thirty-seven days, this is a reasonable excuse, although almost certainly not true. Alvin has most probably just woken up after some debauchery somewhere or other, but Big Mary lets it pass. Alvin is small and cute, and Big Mary has a soft spot for him. Most people have a soft spot for Alvin, the polite and cute little rock star, who looks like he has never shaved and will never need to, wears eye-liner behind his floppy fringe and sings songs about hopeless love.

It is well known that in his private life Alvin is completely debauched, spending his time ingesting huge cocktails of drugs while having sex with almost anything that moves, and would not know hopeless love if it came up and shook hands with him, but none the less, onstage he puts it across very well. During some of the quieter numbers people cry and think of better times.

The arrival of the Post-Apocalypse Biker Boys shakes my concentration, and I miss a chance to cheat with my ten. Tank Girl wins the hand, and the next two as well, and the pile of money in front of her is now the largest on the table. Unlike all the other players, her energy seems to increase as time wears on, and she becomes even louder and more obnoxious every time she wins.

’Another one to me,’ she bawls, raking in her winnings and giving Booga a huge slap on the back that sends him crashing on to the table. ’Tank Girl triumphs again! Now where was I?’

’Just sitting at the table,’ says. Booga, quite seriously. I wonder, not for the first time, why Tank Girl chooses Booga the stupid kangaroo as a mate. I can find no reason for it. After all, Tank Girl, despite being a cheat, a liar and a thief, is thought very attractive by many people. Young men flock around her. Why choose a stupid, ugly kangaroo? Would a male hero go out with a female kangaroo? Very unlikely. Perhaps Tank Girl was the personal fantasy of the God who created her. Perhaps the God who created Tank Girl could not bear the thought of any man having her. Which does not say an awful lot for her creator.

Big Mary declares a break in the game, as she does occasionally. This gives the players the chance to visit the toilet, stretch their legs and try to get themselves back to something like human while Big Mary and her staff clear the table of glasses, ashtrays and bodies.

I am pleased at the break, as it gives me the chance to approach Alvin with a view to doing a little business. I lurch over to him very unsteadily and trip over a chair.

’Hello, Trader,’ says Alvin, helping me to my feet.

’Got something for you. Sex Pistols’ fuzzbox. Used by Steve Jones. Excellent item. Worth a load of money. Lain in the desert for years and years. Years and years and years. Worth plenty. Lain in the desert. For years. Years and years. Fuzzbox. Sex Pistols. Lain in the desert for years and years.’

I collapse again. Normally, as an experienced trader, I try to take a rather more polished approach to a sale, but with so much beer inside me my standards are slipping.

’Years and years and years,’ I mutter, lying on top of Alvin’s boots.

The band helps me into a chair. At the next table some Wasteland Ninjas are sniggering. Let them. They don’t drink. Freaks.

’Years ’n’ years,’ I say, on the verge of passing out. ’Excuse me.’

I tumble off the chair and crawl towards the door. After some difficulty opening it, I plunge into the storm, sinking to my knees in the swamp outside. I’m sick. The rain is freezing. I feel a little better.

CHAPTER NINE

I am now wet through, which is most uncomfortable, but the coldness of the rain is refreshing. I stand around for a little while outside the Bar and Grill, but there is nothing really to look at, just floods everywhere and rain pouring down over the jet, the tank and the submarine which surround the Big Trader Truck. The Biker Gangs’ machines are dotted around, and here and there are nondescript vans, including the ancient crimson ambulance that transports the Shaolin Queens of the Desert from one place to another. Hanging limply from the van is a flag, on which is painted some mystic symbol.

I’m not sure how Sub Girl got her submarine here. It’s said that it can travel underground, but I don’t believe it. Maybe she just floated here in the flood.

Well, that’s enough about transportation in the Wastelands. I’m cold and wet, but I feel more able to cope with the prospect of another long session at cards. Tank Girl may be going strong at the moment, but she’ll crack some time. I am also in a better state for a spot of trading, and I love trading.

Alvin is busy downing a few beers before heading onstage. I fetch my bag over and spill out the goodies on the table, all the valuable artefacts I’ve picked up here and there in the Wastelands: some found, some bought and some obtained by dubious means. There is the fuzzbox for Alvin and also some fairly valuable Carpenters videos, two yellowing Doctor Who comics, one platform shoe, a Lynyrd Skynyrd Greatest Hits album, unfortunately with a chunk missing out of it, a poster of Starsky and Hutch in excellent condition, a ’Vote for Jimmy Carter’ campaign badge, a punctured orange Space Hopper and, rolled up in an advert for eight-track cartridge players, a genuine Donny Osmond cap. Alvin grabs the cap. I knew he’d like it.

’An interesting assortment, Trader.’

’Yep,’ I grin. ’All the best, rarest ’seventies items, brought to you by the Trader after painstaking historical research and laborious archaeological digging. You won’t find another Donny Osmond cap like that on the continent. And as for the fuzzbox ...’

I point with pride to the back, where Steve Jones, the Sex Pistols’ guitarist, has scratched his name.

’You see, it’s fully authenticated.’ Alvin is impressed. Idiot. I scratched the name on the back myself. No one will ever know.

’What’s that?’ asks Gina, who plays in Alvin’s band, pointing to the statue on the chair.

I shrug.

’Some statue of a woman. I found it in the desert. I thought the museum up in Lugit City might buy it.’

’It’s got no arms,’ she scoffs.

’I know. I suppose it isn’t worth much. But they might pay me fifty zoobies.’ Lugit is the largest town on the continent, and I’ve sold a few other old things to the museum, mainly things that nobody else wanted.

Alvin is fingering the fuzzbox.

’Of course, it was made for a guitar,’ I explain. ’And no one plays guitar any more, but just hook it up to one of your electronic boxes and it’ll sound just fine.’

I have no idea if it will sound just fine or not, or whether it will even work, but it’s worth a try. Alvin seems very keen, and I look forward to a big sale.

’Still got Syd Barrett’s plectrum?’

He nods and shows me where he has attached it on the end of a chain that he wears around his neck as a lucky talisman. I grin, gather up my other goods and head back to the game. After the freezing rain and the bartering with Alvin, I feel better.

’Just made it,’ mutters Mining Jim, as I clamber over a young Shaolin Queen of the Desert, who is sitting close to my position at the table.

’Ha ha, the Trader’s been puking his guts up,’ says Tank Girl. I maintain a dignified silence. The cards are dealt, and play continues. Tank Girl continues trying to put everyone off with her ridiculous story. Really, it’s quite out of order, the way she keeps going on and on, quite cynically trying to break everyone’s concentration. I would complain about her gross breach of the rules, except there aren’t any rules in the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition, apart from it being considered bad form to actually kill anyone before it’s proved they were cheating.

’Well, after a while I got bored in the pipe, nothing to do there except lie around thinking "I’m in a pipe’, which is not all that entertaining really, so I pretended I was desperate and called for help. Old Kesslee - have I described Kesslee? No? Well, he had sort of bleached white hair, a square jaw, and muscles, bit of a Nazi, really - that’s enough to be going on with. Kesslee thought I was giving up, but when they dragged me back into the office I just abused him as per usual and boy, was he mad! Totally furious. He ranted and raved when I told him it took more than a few days in a pipe with bubonic plague to break my spirit. The iron will of Tank Girl just refused to crack, and it really burned his ass. Because it wasn’t just that he thought I could help find the Rippers, who kept massacring his soldiers - he had this thing about wanting to break my will.’

’No one can break your will, Tank Girl,’ says Booga, who is a truly disgusting sycophant.

’Not like I broke yours,’ replies Tank Girl, and screams with laughter, although if there is a joke in there it escapes me. She scratches her breasts again, and Mining Jim completely fails to notice that he should have won the hand.

’Anyway, I got hauled out and driven with a lot of soldiers in a convoy to some especially God-forsaken part of the desert and shoved into this funny little elevator that went down into the sand. Called a subgate, I think. They wanted me to find out if the Rippers lived there.’

’Why, with all their technology, did they not just send down a robot probe?’ enquires the Professor. ’Much easier, surely?’

Tank Girl looks cross again.

’How the hell would I know? I wasn’t responsible for the actions of these people.’

’Snap’ says the Professor, having successfully diverted everyone’s attention from the game. He is a wily old man, the Professor. Tank Girl is furious.

’How can a girl play cards when you’re talking all the time?’ she demands. ’What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be away studying a book or something?’

’Doctum pecunia ipsum iuvat,’ replies the Professor. ’Money is pleasing even to a scholar.’

’Well, stop interrupting my story: we’re just reaching an exciting bit.’

It’s been a long time coming. I notice that Mining Pete is looking very shaky in his seat. Wanda, foremost gun dealer on the continent, does not look at all well either. Wanda has a large pile of money in front of her. She’s a good card-player and a fair drinker but I think she’s going to crack soon.

’Just as they were going to put me in the subgate, the Rippers attacked. Huge monstrous beasts tearing and slashing everywhere. Water and Power soldiers were cut to shreds, limbs flew in all directions, it was carnage all round. Really, it was the only fun I’d had in ages. There were a few blows aimed in my direction but, of course, it takes more than a savage Ripper to get me, what with me learning to ride a buffalo when I was three and surviving on my own in the desert since I was four, so I just stepped out the way and watched what was going on. Good battle, though, one of the best.

’After this the Rippers departed, leaving a lot of dead soldiers, and me. And Kesslee’s forearm, I seem to remember, which had been cut off in the battle. Kesslee escaped, though. I took out a knife and cut out the tracking probe Kesslee had inserted in my arm - or was it my leg? I can’t remember. He’d stuck a probe somewhere on my body, but I probably wasn’t paying much attention at the time. Anyway, I got rid of it and wondered what to do with the rest of my life. Armed insurrection against Kesslee? Prolonged guerrilla warfare against the state? Open a restaurant? Skiing holiday? The possibilities seemed endless, but then Jet Girl arrived, looking pleased with herself. I gave her a friendly greeting.’

’’Hello, Jet Girl, you dumb hippy dead brain, what are you looking so pleased about?’ She’d finally got herself together, given Sergeant Small the brush-off, and a knee to the groin, stolen a jet fighter and left Water and Power headquarters. She landed beside me, and it was at this point that I acquired my now famous tank, as may be seen parked outside next to the submarine. And a faithful friend that tank has proved to me over the past years, I must say. Yes sir, that tank and me are inseparable. I love it. It loves me. We drink together, sleep together, have adventures together, watch TV, shower, go to the shops, do everything together. Honestly, I’d be lost without it. No young woman of any standing should be without one.’

’I love my submarine,’ says Sub Girl. ’I built it with my own hands.’

Rather unlikely story this, it seems to me. Surely it takes more than one person to build a large submarine? Never mind, Tank Girl is still rambling on, while I endeavour to keep track of the cards as they’re played.

’So, me and Jet just decided to hang out in the desert together and have fun. Which we did. But after a while -’

The Professor plays a ten. I still have a ten secreted up my sleeve. I whip it out unobserved and play it, calling ’snap!’ immediately.

I start shovelling in the money, but Tank Girl interrupts me.

’Why is that card wet?’ she demands.

I see with horror that the card is wet. It is, in fact, completely soggy, having been up my sleeve when I left the bar to go outside into the rain. There is an awkward pause.

’Because it’s lying in a puddle of beer,’ I say, with a hurt tone in my voice, as if anyone could be casting aspersions on my honesty.

There is a lot of beer on the table.

Tank Girl leans over the table, positioning her face a few inches from mine.

’I’d hate to think that you were cheating, Trader.’

An angry Tank Girl is a frightening sight. I assume the nonchalant air I generally use when buying valuable heirlooms cheaply off the elderly and infirm.

’What’s the matter, Tank Girl? Can’t take another glass of beer?’

Tank Girl is taken aback. Almost the worst thing that anyone could think about her is that she can’t take another glass of beer. She is so annoyed at this slur on her name that she immediately sits down and drinks her beer to prove me wrong, and after this everyone else drinks. Well, by tradition all arguments about any round in this game are assumed to have ended when everyone has drunk, so the matter now has to be forgotten.

Tank Girl is exceedingly displeased but makes no further comment. I have for the meantime outsmarted her, which is not all that hard. She may be fierce but she’s not the cleverest woman ever to walk the planet.

CHAPTER TEN

With the rain pounding on the windows, Tank Girl and Jet Girl get to reminiscing about the old days in the desert, when there wasn’t any water.

’Couldn’t take a shower.’

’Or have a bath.’

’Or clean your teeth.’

’Or wash your clothes.’

’Or wash your hair.’

’Or play with toy boats.’

’Or go for a swim.’

’Or throw bread for the ducks.’

’Or skim flat stones over a pool.’

’Or throw people in a river fully clothed on a cold night.

’Or splash about in puddles.

’Or run the tank through puddles so everyone around got wet.’

’Or water-ski.’

’Or aqualung.’

’Or dive.’

’Or surf.’

’There must have been a sea somewhere you could surf in,’ says the Professor.

’Suppose so,’ agrees Tank Girl. ’But we could never find it. Anyway, the sea is no good for cleaning your teeth. Too salty and the seaweed sticks to your fillings. But the suffering caused by all the above was as nothing compared to the perpetual beer crisis. You might find it hard to believe, but there were actually days when we couldn’t get any beer at all.’

She stops, shuddering at the horror of the memory.

’Can you imagine? No beer! All wells and other sources of water were under the control of Water and Power and, naturally, they didn’t use the water to make beer for the general public. They kept it all to themselves. The soldiers used to walk around deliberately swigging cans of lager while the suffering public was forced to look on in torment.’

’There were a few small, illegal breweries hidden in valleys where people had found their own wells and used the water to make their own brew, but it was a dangerous business. Hunting down these illegal breweries was a number-one priority for Water and Power. Even if they survived undetected, it didn’t necessarily mean that Jet and me could get beer from them. There was so little of it around that sometimes they wouldn’t even sell a pint to a desperate woman, claiming they needed it all themselves. Such staggering meanness, it used to drive me insane. Had it been me with my own brewery, I would have distributed the product freely. Tank Girl is famed for her generosity.’

She is not. Famed for her stupidity, maybe.

’’Jet Girl,’ I used to say, ’We have to do something about this. Prolonged abstinence from beer is having a ruinous effect on my health and spoiling my sunny disposition. What we need is our own brewery. Let’s think of a plan.’’

’We thought for a while.’

’’What we need first,’ I said, ’is our own source of water.’’

’Didn’t I say that?’ asks Jet Girl.

’No, it was me. You said we should design the beer cans first. So we hunted around in the desert for water for a while, but it was pretty hopeless. I mean, have you ever tried finding a hidden underground stream in a hurry? Just doesn’t happen. Then, I remembered there used to be people called water-diviners, who wandered around holding a couple of sticks, and the sticks started to shake, or point, or something whenever they walked over a hidden source of water but, when we tried to find a water-diviner, we were unsuccessful. They’d all been put in prison by Kesslee. He’d declared that all water diviners were dangerous subversives.’

’By now I was completely frustrated. Water and Power had closed down all the illegal breweries we knew of and there was just no beer to be had anywhere .

’’To hell with this,’ I said. ’I’ll find some water myself. There can’t be too much to it. All you have to do is walk around waving a couple of sticks. I can do that.’’

’So, I sent Jet Girl off in her jet to find some hops and some barley and a recipe book for making beer while I got busy with the sticks.’ Tank Girl purses her lips.

’Have you ever tried walking over a burning-hot desert waving a couple of sticks? Completely stupid enterprise. Felt like a fool. Eventually, I figured out that it might be easier if I just sat on the back of my tank and trundled along, so I tried this for a while, sitting on my deck-chair holding the sticks, waiting for them to start shaking, or twitching, or whatever. I always enjoy sitting on the back of my tank: it’s very comfortable up there. As well as the deck-chair, I’ve got a fridge, a table, an armchair, a barbecue, some of my favourite bric-a-brac and, of course, the world-famous collection of Tank Girl weaponry - guns, missiles, baseball bats and catapults from all corners of the earth. All in excellent taste, of course. Only last month a man came down from the art gallery in Lugit City, wanting to put it in an exhibition. ’Installations from Duchamp to Tank Girl’. Duchamp, of course, was well known for decorating tanks.’

’Anyway, we’d been driving along for a couple of hours or so, and I was becoming more and more discouraged, when, suddenly, the sticks started shaking and vibrating like mad. The signal was so powerful that the whole tank shook! Wow! I thought. This is incredible. Must be an underground river at least. And you know what it was?’

’You’d found a well?’ asks Booga.

’No,’ says Tank Girl. ’I’d crashed into a government beer truck. Killed the driver instantly, and spilled crates everywhere. Huge truck it was; there were cans of beer rolling about in all directions. So, when Jet arrived back, we just gathered it all up and made off to our hide-out for a good drink. Of course, afterwards Jet Girl put the whole incident down to blind luck, but it wasn’t. It was sheer talent on my part. Other water diviners can only find little streams and stuff like that. I located a whole beer truck.’

’Tank Girl, you are fabulous,’ says Booga.

’Thank you,’ says Tank Girl.

’Puella Testudo mendax sus est,’ murmurs the Professor.

’What’s that?’ asks Tank Girl.

’Nothing, nothing,’ says the Professor mildly, which is just as well, as, when I ask him later, he informs me it is Latin for ’Tank Girl is a lying swine’.

Before the next hand gets under way my attention is diverted by a tug on my sleeve.

It is Magdalen, leader of the Shaolin Queens of the Desert. As well as a bright red column of hair sticking up on her head, she has four rings in her nose and thirty-two in her ears - a Wastelands record, I believe.

’How much are you selling the statue for?’ she asks.

’The statue? Well...’

I’m about to say that it is not really worth all that much, but, of course, my natural trader’s instinct takes over.

’Well, the museum up in Lugit City is always frantic to get hold of old statues. I figure they’ll pay me 1000 zoobies for it.’

Magdalen snorts, which is quite difficult to do when you’re whispering.

’You’re lying. The museum doesn’t have that sort of money these days. They’ll pay you ten if you’re lucky. The Shaolin Queens will offer you twenty-five zoobies for it.’

’I can’t go under 900.’

’Thirty. Take it or leave it. But, if you leave it, we will be obliged to offer definite proof to Tank Girl that you cheated in the last round. Four of us saw you bring that ten of hearts out of your sleeve.’

’Ehm, let me think about this one, Magdalen,’ I say, slightly distressed.

The next hand starts and Jet Girl wins it and the next one quickly. I’m trying to think what to do for the best, and it’s difficult, what with having to drink beer all the time and Magdalen threatening me, and Tank Girl still casting very suspicious glances in my direction. I’ve no idea why the Shaolin Queens would want the statue, but I don’t want to let it go for thirty zoobies. The museum will pay me fifty, I’m sure. There’s so little culture around these days that they’re always keen to get another relic, even a dull one like the one I’m selling.

Magdalen’s threat is quite worrying, though. Really, it is strange how the simple business of trading can get you into terrible difficulties. Only last month John the Brute, Bandit King of the Red Mountains, curse his name, threatened to tear me to pieces with his bare hands after imagining, quite incorrectly, that I’d swindled him in an arms deal.

Really, I was entirely innocent and was merely acting as a go-between for Wanda the Gun Dealer. The accusation that I had pocketed a substantial portion of the profits for myself was never substantiated, and Wanda believed me.

I understand John the Brute is still annoyed about it. I haven’t been back to the Red Mountains to check it out.

Still, I digress. I don’t like Magdalen threatening me in this way and I don’t see why I should make twenty zoobies less on the statue than I was expecting, what with money being so hard to come by these days. But my mind is made up for me when, after a run of extremely bad luck in the game, I find myself without enough to stake myself in for the next hand.

I seek out Magdalen and make the sale. She hands over the thirty zoobies, which lets me continue in the game. Not too bad for an old statue, really, I think, making the best of it. The museum might not have wanted it anyway. So, the Shaolin Queens of the Desert now own the statue, and good luck to them. Magdalen mentions they have been looking for a new representation of the Goddess for a while, although I don’t care if they use it as a Goddess or a hat-stand.

’Are you going to take it away just now?’ I ask.

’No. We have to stay around till the end of the game to pick up our bets from ZugZug the Bookmaker. We’ll leave it where it is till it’s time to go.

I glance over at the statue. One of the Shaolin Queens has draped her combat jacket over its shoulders. On the chair in the dark comer, it looks quite lifelike.

I lose again. Every time I call ’snap!’ I am much too late, and someone else is raking in the zoobies. My concentration is way off. The pile of money in front of me starts to shrink again. Everything seems to be difficult these days. I’m more or less cursing my luck and wondering why things refuse to get better, when the door opens with an extremely loud crash and a group of large, mean-faced individuals walk in, followed by some small, even meaner-faced individuals, followed by John the Brute, Bandit King of the Red Mountains, last seen threatening to tear me apart with his bare hands.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

’Okay!’ bawls Tank Girl. ’I got a gutful of beer, a handful of cards and a nose full of snot; it’s day thirty-eight of the rainy season; and it’s now time to clean up you suckers, so let’s play!’

She whacks down the first card of the next round and off we go again. With so much beer inside her, Tank Girl is becoming even more manic and starts balancing on the back of her chair, simultaneously playing snap and telling her story.

’So there I was, free at last, with a tank of my own, in the desert.’

She starts miming driving the tank, which seems to involve lots of grinding of gears and jamming down of the accelerator and going ’Boom! Boom! as she fires the gun. Meanwhile, Jet Girl is getting into the spirit of things and explaining that she was flying around up above in her jet, at which both she and Tank Girl hold out their arms like wings and go ’Whee! Whee! The kangaroos laugh and Tank Girl pretends to be shooting at them with her tank and starts tossing peanuts around the table so that the more sober onlookers, such as myself, Mining Jim and the Professor, have to continually dodge the barrage of missiles whilst endeavouring to maintain some level of concentration. Eventually, Mining Jim protests and Tank Girl roars with laughter and sticks out her tongue at him. Really, it’s a miracle no one’s killed her yet.

I, meanwhile, am slouched in my seat, partly to avoid the flying peanuts and partly in the vain hope that John the Brute, Bandit King of the Red Mountains, and his evil-smelling and extremely violent entourage don’t notice me.

Were it not for the fact that John the Brute has recently taken such an unfortunate dislike to me, I might actually have welcomed his arrival. Not on personal grounds, as John the Brute is the last person you’d want to invite to any sort of social gathering, but because of his well-known hatred of Tank Girl. The presence of him and his companions certainly swings the balance of odds against her.

Despite the fact that, as far as I know, they have never actually met, the animosity between Tank Girl and John the Brute is intense, going back to certain incidents last year, in which several large beer convoys heading for the Red Mountains were mysteriously hijacked by three female figures wearing Kermit the Frog masks and wielding baseball bats. Tank Girl blithely denied all knowledge of the events when confronted by ambassadors sent down from the Red Mountains to find out what was happening to their beer supplies but, as she, Jet Girl and Sub Girl were actually found floating contentedly in a large swimming-pool filled entirely with imported lager, her denials were hard to believe. Since then threats and insults have flown back and forth between the Wastelands and the Red Mountains. Now that Tank Girl and John the Brute are together in the same room, something bad is bound to happen. John the Brute is not the sort of man to let the hijacking of his beer convoys go unavenged.

It is very unusual for the Bandit King to leave the Red Mountains and risk running into government soldiers. The government is a bit of a joke these days, of course, but, occasionally, a patrol will come down from Lugit City and nose around for a while. So he must have a powerful reason for making the journey into the Wastelands, and his arrival has caused great surprise and shock to everybody in the Bar and Grill. Apart from Tank Girl. Despite everything, she is pretending not to notice.

’Yes sir, it was fun in the desert in those days,’ she continues. ’Just riding round in the old tank, playing with buffalos and having the odd skirmish with Water and Power soldiers. They were always coming around, demanding their tank back, and I had to keep blasting them out of existence: this was fine most of the time, before it became a little boring. That was when I had the extra-brilliant idea of disguising the tank.’

’It was my idea,’ says Jet Girl, shaking her long black hair.

’Whatever,’ says Tank Girl. ’We went to this workshop in the middle of nowhere to get a couple of paint jobs for the tank and the jet and who do you think we met there? Noddy and Big Ears! No, I’m lying, it was Sub Girl. She didn’t have a submarine in those days, of course, but you could see it was only a matter of time. She was obviously a submarine type of girl. I mean, she used to go around saying stuff like ’the rains are coming, the rains are coming’. In fact, now I think about it, that’s all she ever did say, which made for some odd conversations if, for instance, you were just asking her if she’d like a cup of tea.’

’It never rained in those days,’ says Sub Girl, who, with her funny part-shaved hairstyle and strangely mismatched leather clothes, looks not unlike Tank Girl. ’It hadn’t rained since the comet. But I could see rain in the future.

As it now rains every year for forty days and forty nights without a break, it’s hard to argue with this one.

’We did the most fabulous paint jobs on the tank and the jet. My tank just loved it. It was all washes of bright colours and chrome and cadillac stickers, a rolling funking war-machine fit for a girl of my standing in the community. And we would probably have gone on, just wandering around the desert having a good time, if Sub Girl hadn’t let slip that Little Wee Sam was a prisoner at the Liquid Silver Good Time Bordello. Which was bad news, if you remember that Little Wee Sam was only ten at the time the soldiers kidnapped her from the hippy commune and completely innocent of the wicked ways of the world.’

Little Wee Sam continues to snore drunkenly under the table, though her hand seems to have made its way between her legs. I expect Tank Girl has been a bad influence on her.

’So, what did we do?’

’Tell us, Tank Girl,’ asks Booga enthusiastically, ears flopping about in a particularly stupid manner.

’We set out to rescue her.’

The kangaroos cheer.

’Snap!’ screams Tank Girl, winning the hand. I drink, and grimace. It’s Mining Jim’s deal. He shuffles the cards.

Tank Girl seems to have lost the plot somewhat and is now going on about Kesslee and his robot-arm.

’He had this cyber-arm full of weapons and buzz-saws and stuff sewn on in place of the one he’d lost in the fight with the Rippers. He let out afterwards that he’d had the surgery done with no anaesthetic because he was immune to pain, but I expect he was lying. Mind you, he was a strange kind of guy. Practically no sense of humour at all. One time, when I was his prisoner, I put a dog turd on his favourite chair just before he sat on it and he absolutely refused to see the funny side. Had four of his guards executed, I remember. Anyway, enough of silly old Kesslee for now, although it is important to remember that he and his evil henchmen were still ruling the world at the time I’m talking about, and causing misery everywhere with excessive taxes and general tyranny.’

Bored with Tank Girl’s tedious ramblings, I ]et my eyes wander to the far side of the room. Through the smoke I notice that John the Brute is glaring over at us, but whether he is directing his evil stare at me or at Tank Girl, I’m not sure. At her, I hope.

She burps, and drinks down another beer, as does Sub Girl. I’m slightly suspicious of Sub Girl. She’s been going along quietly, winning a few hands, drinking her beer without showing too many ill effects, conserving her energy. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s in the contest right to the end.

While Mining Jim is shuffling the cards, the Professor leans over to me, a learned glint in his eye. I am a little worried by this, as it is not unknown for the Professor to quote lines of Latin. I always find this a little disturbing because, as far as I know, he is the only person in the entire world still able to understand Latin, and I’m always stuck for an answer. On this occasion, however, he spares me the ancient quotes, but does come up with something very interesting.

’I greatly appreciated the books you found for me, Trader. ’The Vicar of Wakefield’ was particularly fine. So I have some advice for you. Don’t sell that statue to the Shaolin Queens for thirty zoobies. Or to the museum for fifty.’

’Why not?’

’Because it is the Venus de Milo.’

’The what?’

’The Venus de Milo. Haven’t you heard of it?’

I shake my head. The ’seventies is my period, you understand.

’It was one of the most famous works of art in the world in the old days, before the comet struck. It’s fantastically valuable. Completely priceless. Even on this God-forsaken continent it must be worth about 1,000,000 zoobies.’

I’m dumbstruck - 1,000,000 zoobies?

’You’re joking.’

’I’m entirely serious.’

’But it can’t be worth that much,’ I protest. ’It doesn’t have any arms. They must have got broken off when the comet struck.’

The Professor says it never had any arms, even before the comet. Apparently it doesn’t matter. It’s still priceless.

I’m appalled. I’ve just sold 1,000,000 zoobies’ worth of statue to the Shaolin Queens for a measly thirty. Why couldn’t the Professor tell me earlier?

’1,000,000 zoobies,’ I groan.

’Did somebody just say "1,000,000 zoobies"?’ asks Tank Girl, leaning over the table, ears flapping. I clam up immediately.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Big Mary is hovering in the background with a mop and bucket, and I see that she is just waiting for this hand to finish before she announces the next break in play. I also see that, in addition to the two revolvers in her apron, she is now carrying a small shotgun strapped over her back, and I imagine she is slightly concerned about the arrival of John the Brute in her Bar and Grill. John the Brute generally just roams around the Red Mountains robbing anyone who comes his way. He is not known for his social calls. His arrival can only mean trouble.

As well as his usual entourage of thuggish bodyguards, including Loretta Dragon Slayer, Kung Fu champion of the continent, he is protected by the Four Dwarfs, and the Four Dwarfs are utterly grim. I mean, they’re not friendly little dwarfs with red hats and cheery faces: they’re horrible, mean, violent dwarfs about four feet tall and five feet wide with muscles like beer barrels and fists like sledgehammers, and they each carry a massive axe slung over their shoulders. They are just not the sort of people you’d want to sit down to. dinner with. Particularly if their boss is of the opinion that you have swindled him in an arms deal.

Well, with all this going on and the information from the Professor regarding the value of the statue, I find it hard to concentrate on the game, and I miss a chance to win the next hand, which is taken by Sub Girl. We all drink. I feel nauseous. Big Mary bustles up to announce a break.

I slip away from the table, but I am immediately grabbed by Loretta Dragon Slayer, who is flanked by two of the dwarfs, with axes.

’John the Brute wants to talk to you,’ she says.

’I’m busy at the moment,’ I reply. ’Would two o’clock tomorrow be convenient?’

Loretta takes my arm in a nerve-numbing death-grip and marches me across the room. Okay, I’ll go and talk to John the Brute.

The Wasteland Ninjas, Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls, Post-Apocalypse Biker Boys and the Shaolin Queens of the Desert are all sprawled around the bar drinking heavily, but they look on with interest as Loretta Dragon Slayer, clad in a fairly becoming silver Samurai outfit, escorts me over to the corner. John the Brute is waiting for me, although I fail to detect any signs of welcoming pleasure in his heavily scarred face as I arrive. I decide to brazen it out.

’Hello, John! the Brute; Bandit King of the Red Mountains,’ I say, fairly cheerily. ’How nice to see you away from your usual haunts. I was just saying the other day, how pleasant it would be if you were to stop hiding yourself away in the Red Mountains and visit us down here in the Wastelands. We’ve all missed you. How is everything? Still plenty of people to rob I trust?’

John the Brute, eight feet tall at least, picks me up and thrusts his face close to mine.

’I ought to kill you here on the spot,’ he snarls.

Behind him, the dwarfs chuckle.

’Kill me? Me? The honest and popular Trader? Surely you’re confusing me with someone else?’

He squeezes me so hard it is difficult to breathe. ’You swindled me in the arms deal.’

’Not at all,’ I gasp.

’Yes, you did. Money went missing somewhere between me and Wanda the Gun Dealer.’

’It’s the postal service again,’ I suggest. ’It’s terrible these days.’ John the Brute gives me a light tap on the head. I am knocked practically unconscious.

’You took it. Don’t bother denying it. But I didn’t come here for that. John the Brute does not travel long distances merely to retrieve a little money from a Wasteland worm like yourself. I’m here for the statue.’

Again, I find this a little hard to follow.

’Pardon?’

’The statue. The Venus de Milo. I know you have it, because it was in the back of your truck when you went to O’Halleran’s garage after you left the Red Mountains. O’Halleran is a friend of mine.’

I curse. What a mistake to show it there. Of course, I didn’t know what it was then. And who would have expected O’Halleran to be able to identify a valuable work of art? After a few drinks he couldn’t identify his own mother. Well, in truth, nobody could identify O’Halleran’s mother, but you know what I mean.

’Kindly put me down so we can discuss the matter fully.’

He drops me, and I thump on to the floor. The dwarfs chuckle. Beer churns around inside me, and I urgently try to organise my thoughts.

’Eh, why do you want it?’ I enquire politely, trying to gain a little time.

’A present for my partner,’ he says. ’Juliet, Bandit Queen of the Red Mountains.’

The dwarfs do not chuckle. He must be serious.

At the far end of the room Alvin and his band are tuning up, and Tank Girl is screaming her head off about something or other.

’Well, John the Brute, I will be delighted to do business with you, and look forward to opening negotiations on the matter at the earliest opportunity. But, I have to tell you, you are not the only buyer in the market. Already, I have received several generous bids, and interest is growing all the time. It is not every day that the world’s foremost art treasure turns up on the open market.’

John the Brute narrows his eyes and looks very mean indeed.

’Has Tank Girl made a bid?’ he asks suspiciously. ’If she’s after it, I’ll kill her.’

’She has expressed a vague interest,’ I lie, trying desperately to keep all my options open.

’I’ll give you 200 zoobies,’ says John.

’Well, I don’t think that you can expect to pick up such an item at a knock-down price like that,’ I say. ’Not a good enough offer to make me remove it from the extremely secure, hidden, well-guarded vault in which it now resides.’

This is a fairly desperate bluff on my part, as the Venus de Milo, far from being in a well-guarded vault, is, at this moment, actually sitting round the card-table. Still, it’s very gloomy in here, and she is wearing a baseball cap and a black combat jacket, so there is a chance he won’t notice. John the Brute grunts.

’How about if I just rip you to shreds, as promised?’

’Then the excellent Juliet, Bandit Queen of the Red Mountains, would never get the Venus de Milo to decorate her boudoir,’ I reply.

He looks thoughtful, and I take the opportunity to scurry back to the table, all the while thinking frantically. I could have just told the Bandit King that I’d already sold the statue to the Shaolin Queens, but I’ve no intention of letting this priceless item disappear for only thirty zoobies. Somehow, I will have to wangle it back from Magdalen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

’Liquid Silver!’ says Tank Girl, as the game resumes. ’Used to be the pleasure centre of the world. Cheap postcards of the desert and a five-star buffalo-burger restaurant. Late-night drinking and gambling, and no scum like me allowed in. And the Liquid Silver Good Time Bordello, where men who had the money would come to be entertained by singers, dancers, strippers and prostitutes. Water and Power owned it, like they owned everything.

’Now, Sam had been sent here after being captured, and it was definitely my duty to rescue her.

’And we had nothing better to do that weekend,’ puts in Jet Girl.

’And we had nothing better to do that weekend,’ agrees Tank Girl. ’So we drove there in the tank and politely asked the guard to let us in. ’Okay, pizza face,’ I said to him, ’move your ass before you get hurt.’

’He didn’t move, so I slugged him. I never like wasting a lot of time with doormen. When I got inside, some unpleasant woman came up to me, and I was going to slug her as well, but then I realised she thought I was there looking for work.

She throws back her head and laughs.

’Can you imagine me working as a prostitute?’

’Yes,’ murmurs the Professor, and Mining Jim and Wanda the Gun Dealer and me, but we mutter it quietly.

’So I followed her up to the preparation room, which was a kind of booth, where a computer told you what to do to become the perfect prostitute, that is, put on a long slinky dress and high heels and nice make-up and stuff, which, naturally, I declined to do, as long slinky dresses just don’t suit me at all and high heels are terrible for your spine. But they did have a fairly groovy little machine for putting in earrings, which I used to punch rings into my ears and a few other places, and I screwed around with the hairdressing machine so it gave me a few extensions on my locks and dyed bits and pieces of my hair green and yellow. All in all, with the dyed locks and blood still dripping out of where I’d pierced myself, and my ever trusty motorbike boots, I have to admit I was looking pretty good. Eye-catching even.

’When I left the booth, I was immediately in trouble. There were these guards everywhere, and the first one that saw me realised right away that something had gone wrong. I don’t know why, possibly it was the way I’d put lipstick under my eyes. He started shouting at me, so I used the earring machine to punch a few earrings through his cheeks, and after that he just lay around moaning, and I went off to look for Sam.’

’The bordello was tacky, extra tacky, all marble floors and Jacuzzis and suchlike, set at weird angles and kind of running into each other. Reminded me of a Salvador Dali poster they used to have in the hippy commune, but worse. Upstairs were private rooms. I started to search them, which was quite an interesting experience, what with various perversions going on in them. Some of them were really quite intriguing and made me think a bit about how it was time to improve my sex life, providing I could ever find a suitable partner. I can’t honestly say that the people in the rooms I entered were thrilled to see me - usually they tried to hide under the bedclothes or threw pillows at me - and soon there was quite a fuss, with clients running everywhere, demanding their money back. Fortunately, at this moment I heard Sam’s voice crying out from the next room.’

’She was shouting, ’Don’t touch me, you bad man, I am only ten years old and completely innocent!’ or something like that, anyway. So, I burst in to rescue her but, when I got there, she was doing not badly herself. She had a danger-ball, one of Water and Power’s fantastically advanced weapons, which explodes, then re-forms itself so you can use it again.’

’Scientifically impossible,’ says the Professor.

’None the less, she had one,’ says Tank Girl, pointedly. ’And she’d used it to explode the man’s hand off. It was no more than he deserved, as I explained to him as he was lying there bleeding.

’That’s what you get for being an old perv, pissface,’ I told him, quite sternly, and we departed. Sam was thrilled beyond measure to, see me, of course, and wept tears of joy as we raced downstairs. By now there were guards running everywhere, but I single-handedly fought them off with my trusty baseball bat -’

’No, you didn’t,’ says Jet Girl. ’I sneaked in the back way and helped you.’

’Jet Girl helped a little,’ concedes Tank Girl. ’But it was me that put a gun to the chief Madam’s head and threatened to blow it off if they didn’t all put down their guns and let us go. A trick I learned from various episodes of Kojak I’ve seen over the years. We went outside, leapt into the tank, picked up a few buffalo-burgers and a cup of tea and drove off, singing songs. That was that, really. Sam rescued, nice new outfit and haircut for me, and back to the desert for some fun and relaxation. Liquid Silver was in chaos, I’m pleased to say. I always like to leave chaos behind me. Doesn’t feel quite right otherwise.

’I got busy fitting up some deck-chairs and garden furniture on top of my tank so I could get a real good tan in between bouts of mayhem, destruction and drinking. Which reminds me...’

She finishes her beer and calls loudly for more.

’You don’t have the balls to out-drink me, Trader,’ she sneers. ’None of you do.’ She pours down another.

The next part of Tank Girl’s tale is insufferably tedious, consisting of endless stories of drinking and sunbathing with her tank. She talks about her tank as if it was a friend, which demonstrates what a strange person she is, or maybe that she’s just short of friends. While she is going on, however, I do notice her casting a few glances in the direction of John the Brute, and I can see that, although she has not deigned to acknowledge his presence, she is well aware that there is almost certainly trouble in store. Some of the messages Tank Girl sent to John the Brute after the business with the beer convoys were of such an insulting nature that it will be almost impossible for him to let them pass unanswered. Whatever the outcome of this, their first encounter, I can’t imagine it will be peaceful.

If John the Brute’s story is true, about wanting the statue for Juliet, then he did not come to Big Mary’s Bar and Grill specifically to meet Tank Girl, but he must have known it was likely she would be here. Tank Girl always plays in the Annual Wastelands Snap and Drinking Competition. I can only suppose that this is why he is accompanied not only by his usual thugs but also the Four Dwarfs and Loretta Dragon Slayer. Loretta has a truly awesome reputation as a fighter. Well, I mean, anyone who goes around slaying dragons must know how to look after themselves. And you don’t see many dragons around these days, so she must be good at it.

If things turn nasty we are in for quite a battle, and I wonder how I can come out on top, or at least come out of it alive.

I glance round at all the various forces arrayed in the bar-room and weigh up the odds, as I see them. Most probably it would be John the Brute, Loretta Dragon Slayer, the Four Dwarfs, the Wasteland Ninjas and the Post-Apocalypse Biker Girls versus Tank Girl, Jet Girl, Sub Girl, the kangaroos, the Shaolin Queens and the Post-Apocalypse Biker Boys. Quite a battle indeed. I’m not sure who would win. Of course, Tank Girl has never lost a fight. There again, neither has John the Brute.

The card-game continues, now made more difficult, as Alvin has started to play on the small stage at the end of the room. The noise is deafening, and anyone calling ’snap!’ has to scream at the top of their voice. Keeping concentration in these circumstances is extremely difficult, and only my grim determination to win money keeps me going. The only advantage is that the noise temporarily forces Tank Girl to stop telling her story, or at least it stops me from hearing it. The last thing she says is something like, ’But then that idiot Sam went and got herself kidnapped again by Water and Power, and they took her to their headquarters,’ before the din makes further talk impossible. I’m not clear about how Sam got kidnapped again. I don’t care I don’t expect Tank Girl cared either, unless it was Sam’s turn to buy the drinks.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I notice that Ootsie, young apprentice of the Wasteland Ninjas, has left his fellow Ninjas playing pool and worked his way through the bar-room crowd. He is now standing directly behind Sub Girl, looking on. Sub Girl pays no attention to him, as her concentration on the game is intense, even in the midst of all this clamour.

The Undersea Queen of the Deep is a woman of few words and does not join in either with Tank Girl’s banter or the raucous singing along with Alvin that is now taking place in the bar-room. Even Mining Jim, a large middle-aged man in a grubby vest, who is not given to pop music of any variety, is tapping his foot under the table, his inhibitions weakened by the twenty-seven-hour drinking bout. Sub Girl sits motionless, however, eyes fixed on the play, concentration intact.

Ever since Ootsie entered the bar, I’ve noticed he seems to be distracted by the women here. Understandable, I suppose. There are no women in the Wasteland Ninjas. Almost all of their time is spent scurrying around the desert, practising Ninja techniques with other men. When not practising, they sit around the camp-fire meditating silently. Before he joined the Ninjas, Ootsie used to frequent Big Mary’s, and I guess the sight of females has stirred some memories. I wonder if they might be getting stirred a little too much, as he now seems to be standing extremely close to Sub Girl. Were it not forbidden to Wasteland Ninjas, I’d say he was admiring her. A poor choice, I can but feel. Okay, Sub Girl is attractive enough if you like that sort of thing - all leather clothes, the sides of her head shaved and her hair tied back with a red ribbon - but she’s a thug of the worst order, almost as bad as Tank Girl

’What a pretty ribbon,’ mutters Ootsie, but so softly that no one but me hears it, which is just as well, as the Wasteland Ninjas are deadly enemies of Tank Girl and all her companions. Any Ninja paying a compliment to one of them is liable to get lynched.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Half an hour later Alvin finishes his first set. It has been a difficult half-hour for me, involving losing a lot of money and drinking a lot of beer. Since the terrible news about the Venus de Milo I have been unable to concentrate and have not won a hand. My head is muddled and my money is almost exhausted. Tank Girl, Sub Girl and Wanda the Gun Dealer are still figuring strongly, but myself, the Professor, Mining Jim and Jet Girl are all showing signs of fading, as are Booga and Donner, the two stupid kangaroos.

I am deeply tired, and more than once I feel like giving up altogether, but there are several important reasons I have to keep playing. For one thing, I have a reputation as a champion drinker to maintain, and I utterly refuse to let anyone out-drink me, although I have to admit that Tank Girl is doing a good job of it so far. For another, I want the 200 zoobie prize, plus table winnings, that comes to the last player left in the game. And for another, I’ve placed a huge bet on myself to win with ZugZug the Bookmaker and I am unable to actually meet this bet if I lose. Naturally, to survive as a bookmaker in the Wastelands, ZugZug is a violent thug, and she has plenty of collectors, always ready to do terrible things to defaulters.

There are way too many violent and terrible people in the Wastelands. Sometimes I think I should pack it all in and go and live quietly as a clerk in Lugit City.

Of course, if I was to make it up to Lugit with the Venus de Milo I could sell it for millions of zoobies, and all my problems would be solved. How to get it back from the Shaolin Queens, though, that’s the problem. No solution presents itself, but thinking about the Venus de Milo does give me a sudden inspiration as to how to raise some more money and stay in the game. I’ll sell it again. Of course, it already belongs to Magdalen but, when I win the game, I’ll be able to pay back whoever else I’ve palmed it off on.

This seems like an excellent plan. You must remember, I have now been drinking for nearly thirty hours.

As Alvin’s electronic thunder comes to an end, Tank Girl wastes no time in picking up her story where she left off.

’So there we were, shagged by fate once more,’ she says. ’Little Wee Sam in the hands of Water and Power, and this time taken to their headquarters, where she would be heavily guarded by whole armies of soldiers, and tanks and rockets and things. As you will all be aware, I’m not a woman to shirk my moral responsibilities, and felt that it was my duty to rescue her. So some weeks later, when our beer ran out, I got round to thinking of a plan.’

’What we need, I said to Jet Girl, is a bit of outside help. We should recruit an army and just barrel down on Water and Power headquarters and wipe them out once and for all. I mean, they deserve it. I’m sick of them always trying to spoil my fun. You can’t go out for a drink and a curry without a squadron of their soldiers turning up and spoiling things, and then, by the time you’ve wiped out the soldiers and washed the blood off your hands, your rice has gone cold. And now they’ve gone and kidnapped young - what was her name? - Sam, that’s it, now they’ve gone and kidnapped young Sam and are no doubt inflicting countless torments on her. You know that Kesslee person likes to quote poetry at his victims? The man’s a monster. No mercy at all. I’ve had enough. It’s time to consign Water and Power to the ashcan of history.’

The kangaroos cheer. Dumb beasts.

’Jet Girl was in full agreement, but she didn’t see where we could recruit an army. It was then I revealed what may well go down in history as one of the finest military manoeuvres yet conceived, which was to recruit the Rippers.’

The Kangaroos cheer again. Have you ever heard a kangaroo cheer? It’s not pleasant.

’Yes!’ roars Tank Girl, pounding her fist on the table. ’The Rippers! Those mysterious, powerful, seldom seen, yet implacable enemies of Water and Power, who alone held the area around the Blue Dunes free from tyranny, always turning up where they were least expected and mangling a few troops. ’Recruit the Rippers and we’ll be all right,’ I said. ’We’ll tear down the walls of Water and Power headquarters and set my people free. And if any of them are nice-looking we might get a good shag out of it as well.’ Because I have to admit that the Wastelands in those days were fairly short of opportunities for sex, being mainly populated by crazed hermits, radiation mutants and suchlike. Ever since wandering into the upstairs rooms at the Liquid Silver Bordello, my lack of a sex-life had been on my mind a little, but the crazed hermits and radiation mutants just weren’t suitable. Bits kept falling off them at the wrong time. Not erotic at all.’

’Jet Girl was frightened of approaching the Rippers - ’

’No, I wasn’t,’ interrupts Jet Girl.

’Yes, you were,’ says Tank Girl.

’I was not.’

’You were scared shitless.’

’That’s a lie.’

Play is interrupted by a brief argument.

’Jet Girl was moderately nervous of approaching the Rippers,’ continues Tank Girl after a while. ’I was quite looking forward to it. They had a reputation as ferocious and psychopathic killers. My sort of people, really.’

’So I got into the trusty tank, revved it up, fired a few shells into the Old Orphanage, or New Orphanage as it was then, just to get my aim in, and set off.

’We headed back to the place where the Water and Power soldiers had taken us before, the subgate or whatever it was, and walked straight in. Jet Girl, who is, I have to admit, a bit of a technical wizard, had built a special ’Ripper Detector Meter’ to let us know when they were about but it went wrong after I poured some beer over it, so after we’d gone down the subgate we just walked along the mine shaft shouting ’Yoohoo, where are you?’ and ’any deadly Rippers here?’ and that sort of thing for a while, and what do you know? Some Rippers appeared. I’ve always felt that life is simple if you just get directly to the point. Don’t muck around, that’s what I say. No point prevaricating. If you want a Ripper, just go and ask for one.’

At this point Tank Girl is so wrapped up in her own story that she fails to notice a trick, and the Professor scoops it up. Tank Girl snaps her fingers as if she doesn’t care and carries on talking.

’I expect you want to know what the Rippers were like?’

’No,’ say Mining Jim, the Professor, Wanda the Gun Dealer and me.

’They were ugly as hell,’ says Tank Girl, ignoring us. ’I mean, ugly. Really ugly. Big claws and wiry hair. Not much prospect of a shag here, I thought to myself, but they look strong and, under my brilliant leadership, may well be capable of storming the headquarters of Water and Power, vast, strong and technologically advanced as it is.’

’I was just about to put this to them, when I saw that they were under a few misapprehensions. For one thing, they thought we’d come to attack them and, for another, they thought they’d captured us. We were standing round discussing this for a while - who had actually captured who and suchlike - and they were looking threatening, and one of them even wanted to kill us, and I was just starting to think that maybe instead of recruiting them I should just hand out a few severe slappings, when the tunnels suddenly started to fill up with gas. It was their defence mechanism, activated by the presence of humans.’

’’Oh no, we’re doomed!’ cried Jet Girl.’

’No, I did not,’ protests Jet Girl, not looking very pleased.

’Yes, you did. Or something to that effect, anyway. I was just getting ready to leg it out of the tunnel, when I realised the smell was one I recognised. It was laughing gas. The Rippers had hooked up a big vat of the stuff to the tunnel. So there we were: me, Jet Girl, and eight deadly Rippers all rolling about laughing like we were old friends. Broke the ice completely, and they invited us to tea.’

’T-Saint didn’t want to invite you,’ remarks Booga, glancing at the large unconscious kangaroo in the corner.

’No, he didn’t. He was mean in those days. Couldn’t hold his drink then either. But apart from T-Saint, everyone else seemed pleased enough to see us. And when the Rippers took their body armour and helmets off they didn’t look so bad, and were in fact these cuddly kangaroos you see here now.

’And you know what happened after that?’ says Tank

’What?’ ’Snap!’ she says, and rakes in her winnings, looking pleased with herself.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A fight breaks out at the pinball table between a young Post-Apocalypse Biker Girl and one of the Wasteland Ninjas. A few others run over to join in, but it is all brought to a sudden halt when Loretta Dragon Slayer steps up and knocks everyone around the pinball table flying, with what seems like the slightest touch of her arm. I think this is because she does not want any violence to disturb her boss, John the Brute, rather than any desire on her part to play pinball. I could be wrong. The most unlikely people can get quite fanatical about pinball.

There are five or six bruised bodies now hauling themselves to their feet in the far corner.

’An impressive debut for Loretta Dragon Slayer,’ says the Professor.

There are some mutters of agreement around the table, but Tank Girl sneers loudly.

’Loretta Dragon Fucker,’ she mocks. ’Couldn’t fight her way out of a soggy cornflake packet.’

’She’s the Kung Fu champion of the continent.’

Tank Girl spits on the floor.

’Bollocks.’

She glances over at me.

’What’s this about 1,000,000 zoobies, Trader?’

I make no reply, and hope that Tank Girl does not choose to get involved in the Venus de Milo affair. Venus is still sitting in the dark corner in her baseball cap and combat jacket, the serenest figure in the place.

’You could do with a few zoobies,’ she says to me, mockingly. ’You’ve hardly got enough for your stake.’

’I have means of raising funds, Tank Girl.’

Which is what I set out to do. I hunt out Eldrich San and draw him to one side.

’Eldrich San. I have with me an immensely valuable work of art. Worth upwards of 1,000,000 zoobies. Its like will never be offered for sale again, and collectors in Lugit City will kill to buy it. And, as you’ve always been a good friend to me, I will let you have it for 1,000 zoobies, provided you can pay me right now.’

Eldrich San does not look impressed. He is not impolite, but does intimate that he finds this a little hard to believe.

’Really, it’s true. Go and ask the Professor. You know he is an expert on everything and is completely trustworthy. But be discreet. Don’t let anyone know about it - I don’t want to start a riot.’

One thing about Eldrich San; he doesn’t waste time. Ninja training, I suppose. He makes his way over to the Professor and whispers in his ear. He returns a few minutes latter.

’Well, Trader, it seems to be true. The statue is as valuable as you say. But why, I wonder, are you selling it for 1,000 zoobies?’

I decide that honesty will serve me best and admit to Eldrich San that I need money to stay in the game.

’Gambling is for fools,’ he says. ’Wait here.’

Eldrich San might disapprove of gambling, but he is obviously not averse to making a healthy profit, because he immediately goes to see how much money he can raise from the other Wasteland Ninjas. He returns with a small bag.

’600 zoobies,’ he says. ’All I can raise at such short notice.’

’I’ll take it.’

I grab it, because it is time for the game to start again.

’One thing,’ I say to Eldrich San before taking my leave, ’don’t mention this to anyone else. You can imagine what would happen in this den of thieves if word got out about 1,000,000-zoobie artwork. Just leave the statue where it is, and you can remove it discreetly at the end.

I am well pleased with myself. I am now able to remain in the game. There may be a little trouble later, when both Eldrich San and Magdalen claim ownership, but no doubt I’ll be able to sort it out. When I win the game, I’ll be rich. Everything will be fine.

Play continues. After the next round there is a surprise withdrawal. Wanda the Gun Dealer had seemed to be going well but abruptly she pushes away her beer.

’To hell with it,’ she growls, face going green. ’I quit.’

She stumbles away with the help of a few of her employees and the pile of money in front of her is pushed into the pot in the middle. This means that the next hand is a very valuable one.

Now left in the game are Tank Girl, Jet Girl, Sub Girl, Mining Jim, the Professor and me. Naturally, many of the people in the bar have been placing bets on the eventual winner all through the game, but the betting reaches a new frenzy as Wanda quits the scene and. ZugZug the Bookmaker enters the bar.

As the door swings open, there is the customary blast of howling wind and freezing rain; then, it’s back to normal, except that the throng of people in Big Mary’s place now includes ZugZug and her paid protectors, the Children of the Temple of the Sun.

The Children of the Temple of the Sun have shaved heads, yellow robes and pockets full of religious tracts. Usually, their hands are full of big plasma-blasting rifles, presumably for chastising heretics and blasphemers, but for now they’ve checked them in at the door. They wander around the desert chanting all the time, which is really irritating and, in between doing that, they hire themselves out to ZugZug as her protectors when she needs protecting, which is quite often, as a successful bookmaker can make a lot of enemies.

I am less than thrilled at their presence. When placing my bet with ZugZug, I had rather thought that she would not actually be here. I was intending to call in at her office next day if I’d won, and disappear without seeing her if I’d lost. Her arrival is very bad

news.

ZugZug is no more than average size and, with her short brown hair and her scruffy denim jacket, rather anonymous-looking among the exotic inhabitants of Big Mary’s, but she is extremely quick on the draw and has never in the past shown any hesitation about killing anyone defaulting on a bet. Or getting the Children of the Temple of the Sun to do it for her.

She will have checked her gun in with the doorman, and I wonder about the chances of fleeing to the newly supercharged Big Trader Truck and disappearing over the horizon before she could reclaim. it. But this is defeatism. I’ll win the game and everything will be fine. No need to disappear over the horizon, just rake in the cash from all sides and stroll off into the sunset.

ZugZug immediately comes up to see how play is progressing, while the Children take bets round the bar.

’Still in the running, Trader?’ she asks. ’Good for you. I take it you have the 500 zoobies ready to pay me if you lose?’

Tank Girl bursts out laughing.

’The Trader bet 500 zoobies on himself to win the game?’

’And why not?’ I demand. ’I’m still here, aren’t I?’

’Not for long, Trader. Drink up!’

Tank Girl downs another beer, although it is not the end of a round.

’Not till I have to,’ I say, rather lamely, and she laughs again, along with the kangaroos. How I hate these kangaroos. You can’t convince me they’re Genetically Engineered Super Soldiers.

’So, it turned out that the kangaroos were Genetically Engineered Super Soldiers,’ says Tank Girl. ’Designed by the fabled Johnny Prophet. They were meant to be working for Water and Power but had departed from the scene when Johnny Prophet went missing. They were carrying on a guerrilla war against Kesslee and were doing quite well at it, what with their genetic super-strength and their special body armour. They kept massacring patrols and pillaging isolated outposts of Water and Power, which was very bad for morale. Kesslee, as I mentioned earlier, was furious.’

’However, the Rippers weren’t making what I would have called real progress, and I quickly convinced them that what they needed most was a brilliant general to lead them to ultimate victory. Fortunately for them, that person had now arrived in the shape of Tank Girl, world-renowned as a brilliant general and famous for her capacity for beer.’

She drinks again. It is surprising that she never seems to put on weight.

’I told them about a few of my famous battles, such as my victory at Liquid Silver and my stunning defeat of a squadron of tanks that sneaked up on me one time, when I was having my afternoon nap. A disgraceful thing to do, for which I repaid them with a crushing barrage of fire, driving my tank up and down mountains with one hand and throwing rocks with the other. They couldn’t deal with this sort of thing and retreated as fast as they could. I followed them and annihilated the whole squadron, and still had time to finish my nap.’

’And then there was the time when fourteen huge jets sent by Kesslee started dive-bombing me when I was having my breakfast by the camp-fire. I was trapped out in the open but I just loaded up my catapult with sugar lumps and fired at their engines, and they started tumbling out of the sky, engines jammed up with sticky goo. Pilots were bailing out everywhere, so I got some good boomerang practice in. I hit three parachutists with one throw, and the boomerang still came back to me. Afterwards my tank was in a bad mood because I’d won the battle without him, so I had to be extra nice to him and take him to the toy shop to buy him a Thomas the Tank Engine book, which is his favourite. And all this was before breakfast!’

’Well, of course, when they heard about these famous victories, the Rippers couldn’t help being impressed. Awestruck, really.’

’Fabula etiamsi falsa lepida est,’ mutters the Professor, which he tells me afterwards roughly translates as, these stories are all total lies but you have to admit she tells them well.

Tank Girl continues.

Let’s go and do it!’ I cried, and made ready to leap into my tank and completely trash Water and Power headquarters. But the Rippers still hung back. Not because they were shy or anything, just scaredy-cats.’

’I wasn’t a scaredy-cat,’ protests Donner.

’Yes, you were,’ say Tank Girl and Jet Girl simultaneously. Donner looks suitably abashed.

’It was only natural to exhibit a little caution,’ he says.

’’Pah!’ Tank Girl snorts. ’I never exhibit caution. Caution is for wimps and kangaroos. Caution sucks, that’s what I say. I was all for driving straight up there and giving them hell, but the Rippers seemed to suspect we might be leading them into a trap. T-Saint, who was big and mean and seemed to be in charge, was still very dubious about the whole thing, so, eventually, me and Jet Girl said we’d go and do a little preparatory work that would show them what a safe bet it was to side with Tank Girl.

’Donner, who was their technical genius, or as close to a technical genius as a Genetically Engineered kangaroo can get, which is not all that close when it comes right d