by Nate Crowley
Still, the silence persisted – until I trod on the bloody bone. It was a rib or something, and I barely had time to register the bitemarks along its length before it had snapped in two, echoing through the bleached streets like a gunshot. We froze as the first howl drifted up from some distant rooftop, before being answered from right across the street. Then the noise was everywhere, a dreadful moan that harrowed our nerves, loosened our bladders and rattled the cracked windows in their panes.
The zombies emerged from the darkened lobbies in their thousands, dragging mangled limbs as they lurched beneath the faded logos of ancient firms. Their skin was wrinkled and papery over yellowed bone, torn and flapping like the rags of their suits. Desiccated tongues hung from their mouths like the threadbare ties that still adorned their necks.
We fired clip after clip into the mass, but it was like trying to stop an incoming tide with a teaspoon – in no time at all they had us surrounded in a ring of outstretched, grasping arms, and still more poured from the shattered offices. We were just considering whether to save the last bullets for ourselves when I noticed something. The zombies were not reaching to grab us. They were reaching out, yes, but they were holding things out to us. As a sultana-eyed wretch staggered up to me, I heard words in its moan. They were barely there at all, like whistles in the wind, but once I noticed them, they were clear as the noon sun. It was saying it wanted to add me to its professional network. I looked again at the withered claw of its hand, and there it was: a business card. Torn and filth-encrusted, but unmistakable.
When our guide clocked this, her orders were clear.
‘Take the cards,’ she hissed. ‘Take the cards, shake their hands, say you’ll give them a call – and then run.’ And so we did. We shook every one of those horrible hands, we said we’d call to arrange a meeting, and we ran until we threw up. Reader, I don’t mind telling you that I never followed up on a single introduction.
— FROM THE TRAVEL JOURNAL OF FLOYD WATT
DAY 10
After a number of episodic encounters with the living dead,[35] you will finally reach your destination. Just be aware that nine times out of ten, the settlement you’ve set out to save will either turn out to be entirely overrun – making the whole endeavour pointless – or run by a local madman whose draconian social-control mechanisms prove that mankind was worse than the zombies all along. That’s just the way of things in the Land of the Dead.
2. PLANET OF THE JAPES:
(1 WEEK)
The Lighter Side of the Wasteland
Want a taste of the Wastes without the full-on nihilism of the warlord lifestyle? Got a desperate urge to be grifted by a chimp?[36] This short break is the one for you.
DAYS 1–2
After entering the Monkey Zone, you’ll meet with Gubbles, your host for a two-day homestay. Gubbles is a laid-back, middle-class orangutan whose well-appointed treehouse boasts a fountain of actual clean water, a gallery of curiosities from the old world and a retinue of human ‘helpers.’[37] Accompanied by Gubbles, you’ll be able to join the Apes on horseback tours of their feudal realm, and pay a small fortune to be photographed alongside a poor-quality replica of a smashed-up Big Ben.
DAYS 3–4
On day three, your wallet will groan with relief as your time in the tourist trap of the Monkey Zone comes to an end. Guided by Gubbles, you’ll head south to the Ultradome, a huge arena constructed by the Apes and one of the few large buildings in the wasteland that isn’t in ruins. It’s the venue for the famous Megalympics, where weapons are banned and teams from all over the Wasteland come to compete under the hospitality of the Apes. Ordinary sportspeople are banned: Megalympians need either crude cybernetic upgrades, wild mutations or vast amounts of sports drugs to compete, and preferably all three. Events include Throwing an Engine Block at the Sun, Fighting Huge Scorpions, and Running Through a Giant Microwave, as well as the classic Everyone Gets Locked in a Shipping Container and Fights to the Death. It’s superb fun, but do make sure to get a seat further from the ring than you expect anyone could throw an engine block.
APOC-CON
When there are no sports on due to Flying Rat Season, the Ultradome doubles up as an exhibition space and hosts Apoc-con, the annual trade show for marauding despots. This massive exhibition and conference, operating under a blanket ceasefire, gives petrol-headed maniacs the chance to network with peers, share best practice and listen to talks by thought leaders in the field of running histrionic death cults. Here’s last year’s agenda:
08.00
Chairman’s introduction, followed by distribution of water to assembled scum from the gloating balcony
Duke Gorethumb, conference chair and Lord of Bonesaw Gulch
08.30
Keynote speech – Fire and Blood: Navigating an increasingly competitive Badlands environment
Jimmy Fiveirons, Prince of the Dog Men
09.30
Debate – Pig gas or slave treadmills? Choosing the right power source for your citadel
Commodore Smokebelch, the Tycoon of Smog Valley
Judi Piston, the Gasolina Tsarina
10.30
Morning break (speed networking available; speed provided, please bring your own motorcycle)
11.00
Sponsored presentation – Choosing the right ornaments for your battlewagon
Three-eyed Joe, proprietor of the Biletown Motor Dungeon Panel Discussion – Spikes, rivets … sensible shoes? Is fetish gear going out of fashion?
Lord Gigantus, the Kaiser of Beefcake City
Strix Nebulosa, Archbitch of Gunsmoke Canyon
Good Times Gordon, Chief of the Lounge Boyz
12.00
Presentation – Is spray paint really enough? How to avoid mediocrity in motivating your death cult
‘Eternal’ Mike Japes, the Bodhisattva of Beastmode
12.30
Buffet lunch (tiger-meat trough sponsored by Trixie Switchblade’s Circus of Suffering)
14.00
Masterclass – Frugal fury: running a landbound death armada on a tight budget
Legatus Tyrannica, Chief War Officer of the Pain Valley Ruffians
15.00
Debate: What must we do to hasten the coming of the Burger Lord?
Culminating in a live sacrifice, and chaired by the Pickles Tasty, High Priestess of the Burger People
16.00
Conference close, followed by Battle Golf – delegates may reconvene at 19.00 for the Warlord of the Year award ceremony.
DAY 5
After all the excitement of the arena, it’s time to bid Gubbles farewell and enter the Badlands’ gloomy underworld of bunkers and fallout shelters. After decontamination, you’ll pass through the steel blast doors of Contingency 6, one of a series of identical bunkers, each housing more than 300,000 former government workers, and thus the largest settlements on the planet beside Hierarchia. Contingency 6 is a relatively peaceful place but exists in a constant state of cold war with Contingency 7, the next bunker along, over a difference in spelling between their versions of a particular administrative form. This disagreement might seem minor, but when life is as monotonous as it can get in a cramped steel cylinder full of civil servants, people will do anything for a bit of excitement.[38] Once you’re settled in, why not take in one of the three propaganda films on rotation in the bunker’s cinema, or watch wheat slowly grow in one of the hydroponics chambers?
DAY 6
After a breakfast sampling of Contingency cuisine – they grow three different crops and two types of artificial meat, so it won’t take long – it’s time to head to the surface again, aiming for the trenches of the Robot Wars.[39] To get there, you’ll need to head through a semi-abandoned subway rail network, where a society of stoic nihilists have carved out their Stygian fiefdom. They’re unpleasant sorts, acting as middlemen and spivs between the C-series bunkers and the Resistance fighters above, but they brew legendary vodka from the mushrooms that grow in their tunnels. Do h
ang around to try some, but be sure to make a brisk exit when it looks like everyone’s drunk enough to start shooting each other.
DAY 7
As you escape the tunnels, you’ll emerge into a pitched struggle between the humans of Jack Banner’s heroic Resistance and their skull-faced adversaries. Feel free to watch the laser show for as long as you like, then take five minutes to spray your face silver, put on a cockney accent and do a cheeky walk right behind Robot lines. Greeted like an old mucker by the skeletal combatants, you’ll be ushered to a chrono-warfare facility to watch an M-200 assassin get sent back in time, before being dragged to a Robot pub to celebrate with a good old-fashioned knees-up. You’ll drink warm beer from dirty glasses,[40] dance like an urchin and sing riotous songs around a big Robot piano (which also has a skull face, and plays itself). It’s a joyous conclusion to the trip – just don’t bother getting into a pub debate about the mechanics of time travel. The Robots may have the godlike technology required to achieve it on an industrial scale, but they just don’t get it.
3. HUNGER FOR GAMES:
(1 WEEK)
Revolting Times in Hierarchia
Separated from the rest of the Wastes by an impassable wall, the city state of Hierarchia is truly a destination apart, and this trip is tailored specifically for teenage visitors to live the magic.
DAY 1
Thanks to its ever-growing number of would-be revolutionaries, Hierarchia now runs a timeshare system whereby if a dictatorship survives a hundred days without being overthrown, it’s uninstalled and returned to the queue, giving another set of tyrants and rebels a chance to play. You’ll arrive right after a scheduled changeover, as the new government works out what mad rules to split society by. Orient yourself by working out which bleedingly obvious visual signifiers of caste are currently in vogue: sometimes it’s ‘the lower your social rank, the more thumbs you have’,[41] sometimes it’s the shape of the scarf people wear or whether they can roll their tongues or not.
You’ll spend your first evening enjoying the hospitality at the Leader’s Palace, sitting like an incredibly fancy gold hat at the very top of the city. Its appearance and layout changes depending on who’s at home, but you can count on extravagant throne rooms, huge open-air party spaces, and plenty of spires and rooftops for climactic duels.[42] Enjoy the decadence, as it’s the only time you’ll see it outside the context of the violent revolution to come.
DAY 2
As you begin your journey down the city, enjoy the statue garden set up around the structure’s core, where the huge monuments favoured by off-rotation regimes are stored while they wait for their turn to come round again.[43] Statues from fallen regimes are kept here too, defaced with graffiti, and some may even acquire garlands of vat-grown flowers, as nostalgic citizens sneak in at night to pay homage to classic dictatorships of years past.[44] Further down, you’ll pass the Gloat-o-scopes, where massive screens display the luxuries being wasted above by the social elite, in order to needlessly enrage the downtrodden lower classes. Finally, you’ll reach the sprawling Titanaeum, where Hierarchia’s famous teenager deathmatches are held. No matter what regime is in power, it will – for some reason – rely upon mass-broadcast young-adult blood sports to function, and this is where the magic happens. Whether it’s the sons and daughters of the aristocracy duelling for the right to join the ranks of their parents, a fight between teams of different castes in a grim labyrinth, or just a load of random kids unleashed into a room full of hammers, you can be sure of a banging show.
CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
Since the relentless, awful action of the Titanaeum is the single biggest spark for rebellion in Hierarchia, it’s no surprise that successful revolutionaries always set out with the sworn intention of ending the games for good. Nevertheless, after each revolution, the blood sports always quietly come back. Every rebel leader comes to realise, in the end, that the people would riot just as hard if they didn’t have their games.[45]
DAY 3
Your third day will see you visit the Nethercity, where the lowest social class – known as the Nethers – live in teeming millions. While the aesthetics of the upper city may transform dramatically in the wake of a new regime, barely anything changes down here: the Nethers work in factories and mines, they drink, they dream of a better tomorrow. They’re universally beautiful, but in a very slightly grubbier way than the elites. And they tend to take over the city every few months, led by a teenage visionary whose parents died in tragic circumstances. The Nethercity is a gloomy industrial catacomb dotted with shabby markets and shanty towns that encrust the city’s support girders like barnacles. In this cacophonous warren you can visit the humble childhood homes of famed revolutionaries of the past, and enjoy an evening of tweedly-deedly fiddle music and homebrewed spirits.
— TESTIMONIALS —
I took my girlfriend to Hierarchia to propose to her, and wanted to pop the question on the barricades as the old regime fell. Sadly, she got a bit involved in the uprising. Now she’s their prophesied hero and just accepted a marriage proposal from the woman who forged her sword. Shit holiday.
— Ben Fist, 19, Car Dealer
Even as an offworlder, I’ve been a keen fan of the Hierarchian political cycle for years, and it was amazing to actually make it to an overthrow. And that last season – what an upset! Can’t believe there was a second band of rebels waiting to snatch the state from the first set when they were just a week into government! I mean, they’re a bunch of jokers and opportunists, and I guarantee they’ll be off the throne by winter, but still – what a play.
— Sasha Bees, 32, Civil Engineer
Outstanding break. We’d been working hard all year and had been promising ourselves a holiday for a while, and Hierarchia was just the ticket. Cocktails on a balcony a mile in the air, and great sports on the TV every night – bliss. There was a revolution halfway through our stay, but aside from a brief hostage situation (where the rebels were frankly charming), it barely disrupted things at all.
— Spencer Work, 44, Solicitor
I came here to admire the architecture of the megastructure itself, but I have to say I’ve ended up wondering about other structures altogether. This whole mechanic with new governments every three months and constant rebellions … isn’t that … a system in itself, which ensures nothing ever changes? I’m not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it does seem nobody here’s even curious about that, let alone keen to rebel against it. Odd.
—Evelyn Bread, 64, Architect
DON’T MISS: DUNUPRISING
‘Not everyone can be the hero’ reads the sign above the doors to this quiet community, just outside Hierarchia. It’s a bittersweet, quiet place – a retirement home for failed rebels. After all, even with the sheer number of opportunities offered by the timeshare system, not every aspiring champion can end up burning the world down. Some just never make it, despite years of trying, and this is where they end up. Burnt out in their early twenties, these poor souls realise they just can’t face another year of trying to be the unlikely central figure of a revolution, and retire to Dunuprising for the start of their rehabilitation. It’s worth a look before you leave.
DAY 4
You’ll have the chance to meet and greet the various hotheads vying to lead the next overthrow of the government, and you are almost certain to become romantically entangled with at least a handful of them, if you’re of a certain age. Life in an insurrectionist fighting force entirely comprising beautiful people in their late teens is a tornado of hormones waiting to happen, and it will be an unusual day indeed if it doesn’t end with you bogged down in at least three love triangles.
DAY 5
Your trip will be timed so that day five coincides with some kind of highly spiritual coming-of-age ceremony for the Nethers, in which the potential revolutionaries get to jostle with their rivals in a test of courage and skill. Whatever the set-up, these events almost always end up escalating into riots and then full-scale revolu
tion, and it’s a joy to watch: one minute things are just a bit rowdy, then you clock someone giving a speech and kicking the head off a statue, and suddenly everyone’s chanting and bashing in windows. One of your love interests might have a bit of a die in the carnage, but don’t worry: you’ll get over it in the long run, and in the short term you’ll be too busy assaulting the Leader’s Palace to care much.
DAY 7
After a wild night overthrowing the tyrannical regime of the former leader, your trip will finish where it began: in the golden splendour of the Apex, as the new leader ponders how to set up the society that has fallen into their hands. Take a little time to enjoy the electric sense of optimism washing over the newly liberated Nethers, but don’t dally too long – it’ll be a day at most before the new leader faces their first dark dilemma and starts Hierarchia back on the slippery slope to dystopia.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Floyd’s footnote to Eliza following his trip to Mundania was the last copy he ever filed. Until we began to assemble this manuscript, nobody knew where he had gone, and it was presumed his final destination would remain a mystery for ever. That was until we found a recording of a voicemail addressed to Eliza in the archive we purchased, dated two weeks after Floyd’s last footnote was penned. Going by other records, we know that Eliza Salt left her office just an hour after she received this message and was never seen again. The next day, access to the Worlds appeared to be closed for good. While this message doesn’t do much to explain the disappearances or the vanishing of the Worlds, we have decided to include a full transcript below, for the sake of completeness.