Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

LETTERING IN FLAMES:

  Brought to you by Theme Planet™

  The Theme Planet Advertising Broadcast Station (ggg) and The Monolith Corporation©

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER ONE

  PUF

  Dexter ran through heavy rain, pounding the New Kensington pavement, and it felt good. Pain, he realised, always feels good. It tells you you’re still alive. Still breathing. Still fighting. Yeah, right.

  Breathing heavy, with water dripping from his ridged brow and high cheekbones, he glanced right, checking for traffic, crossed the road - stepping in a puddle with a splash - and ducked down Canker’s Alley.

  Emerging onto a street clogged with QuadDecker buses farting toxins and filth, Dex turned left, jogging under a crescent of plastic trees and finally arriving at Port Square just as the rain stopped and sunlight peeped almost sheepishly from behind iron bruised clouds. Dex looked up, scowling, as steam rose from knurled alloy pavements and Auto-gutters chugged with water, gears thrashing thanks to the sudden flash downpour.

  “Great,” he muttered, and jogged up the steps to his apartment. His thumbprint opened the door, and he kicked off TekTek trainers in the hall, nose twitching at the smell of frying synbacon and eggy eggs. “Still. The day might improve.” Or not, mocked his persistent internal mockery.

  He climbed more steps, thighs shaking a little after the long run, and peered into the kitchen. His wife Katrina was standing at the ultra aga with a PlakFrak AutoFrying Pan. She glanced over. “Hi, hun. Just in time for breakfast. Get a little wet, did you?” There was a playful gleam in her eye and Dex scrunched his nose.

  “You could say that. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Have I missed the kids?”

  “You’re not that lucky,” grinned Kat, ladling eggy eggs onto a steel plate. “They’re still brushing their teeth. Come on, sit down, before it gets cold.”

  “I’ll just pull on something dry.”

  Dex was back in less than a minute, and sat opposite Kat, who had a simple plate of cardboard diet toast before her. She picked up the flake and nibbled the corner.

  “Why the full fry breks, love?”

  Kat shrugged. “Celebrating. Last day at work, and all that. We’re going to have such a great holiday, hun.”

  “Is that why you’re eating... that.”

  “What?”

  “That plastic shit.”

  “It’s good for the waistline, hun.”

  “You should come running with me,” said Dex, sucking up an eggy egg like a long cylinder of phlegm. He winked. “You’ll soon drop that puppy blubber.”

  “Why, you cheeky...”

  “Hi Dad!”

  “Hi...”

  “Dad, Toff says if you use mouthwash it’s full of alcohol and you’ll be drunk all day at school, but I said she’s talking rubbish like the Trashmen of Trashworld because you’re a PUF policeman and you use mouthwash and you’re not drunk all day at the station are you, and you’ve got a gun, and that wouldn’t work if you were a drunk policeman, would it? You’d be shooting everybody all day, wouldn’t you, and that’s not right for a PUF because killing people is bad no matter what they say in computer games, our teacher told us so.”

  “Dad, Dad, that’s not what I said, what I said was if you swallow the mouthwash then it’ll rot your guts and...”

  Their whirlwind tornadoed out of the opposite door and Dex and Kat stared at one another, then burst out laughing.

  “Well, shit,” said Dex. “I didn’t get time to even answer, let alone comment on the conversation.”

  “I think that was the point.”

  “Oh, yeah? The old man’s viewpoint not count now, does it?”

  “I suppose it does,” said Kat, her eyes twinkling. She ran a hand through her short, black, spiked hair and continued to nibble card toast. “You okay with this, hun?”

  “The holiday?”

  “Yeah. The Theme Planet!”

  “Sure, sure. I mean, we’ll have to remortgage the damned apartment...”

  “Oh come on, it isn’t that expensive.”

  Dex clutched his side. “I know. Argh! I still had to sell that kidney, though...”

  Kat laughed, a tinkling of crystal. “You really are a miserly old bastard,” she said, standing and moving around the table to him. The table shuffled sideways on little furry feet to accommodate her. She draped her arms over his shoulders from behind, and dropped until her lips touched his ear. “But you’re my miserly old bastard. And I still love you.” She kissed his neck.

  “Even after three eggy eggs?” he said.

  “Even after three eggy eggs,” she said, and nibbled his ear.

  “What time are the kids going to school?”

  She caught the tone of his voice and laughed. “Hey, you haven’t got that much time, mister. You’d be late for work...”

  “So? It is my last day.”

  “Yes. But you know I’m not a morning kinda girl. We’ll save it for tonight.” Kat kissed his cheek, and returned to her card toast. “Just think. Four whole weeks! Four weeks of you, me and the kids. Enjoying the sun, the wild theme rides, the rolling beaches, the alien menageries, the crazy funky nightlife...”

  Dex pulled a face. “Shit. Now you put it like that... the horror! Do I really want to go? I’d rather stay in London shooting bad guys in the face.”

  Kat threw toast at him, and he ducked, laughing.

  “You know what I mean. It’ll be a great break. We haven’t had a holiday together for...”

  “Four years. Toffee was one. She threw up over that snotty businesstyke on the plane; ruined his suit. He tried to invoice us for it. I told him to shove it up his bottom.”

  Kat barked a laugh. “Oh God, I forgot about that! And then you threatened to shoot him!”

  “Hmm. So I did. Well, they shouldn’t have split up our bloody seating, should they? It was my vomit to endure.”

  They giggled together for a few moments, remembering the sun and surf, the hot beaches and hotter nightlife. Then Kat gave a small frown, and pursed her lips, eyes looking worried for a moment. “Listen. Dex. Talking of splitting up, I said you’d have a chat with Pegg tonight. Let him bend your ear. Give him some much needed advice.”

  Dex muffled a groan behind powerful hands, then rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Oh, come on, please tell me you’re joking, Katrina. Tonight? Shit. Why tonight of all nights? I’ve... got packing to do.”

  Kat reached over and punched him in the chest. “Dex, he needs some brother-in-law advice. Come on. You’re his friend. Act like a bloody friend! Don’t be hiding under the bed covers when the going gets tough.”

  “Yeah. Well. The problem with Pegg, friend or no friend, is you spend months giving him good solid honest advice; then he ignores it anyway.”

  “The point is, you gave it to him. It’s his to act on. That’s what advice is for.”

  Dex sighed. “Go on. What happened in our private little soap opera?”

  “He caught her.”

  “No shit? Well he’d been following her for long enough. Do we know who the lucky back-stabbing bastard of a whoremonger is?”

  “Smark E. Smith.”

  “Pegg’s best mate?” Dex shuddered, then looked hard at Kat. Through gritted teeth, he said, “This is my last day at work. I just want a nice easy day, and a relaxing evening to pack. But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  “Does the BearPope shit in the ChurchWoods?”

  He gave a tight little smile. “You have such a wonderful way with words, my darling.”

  They ate in silence for a while, whilst upstairs the children thumped around - as children do.

  Eventually, Kat sighed, and tossed her card toast onto her steel plate, where it rattled. “Damn this diet. It’s not working, you know? I think you reach a certain age...”

  “When your muscles give up and suddenly you’re a fat bastard?”

  “No!” Sharply. “I was going to say, from a woman’s perspective, when you’ve had two kids and t
he old undercarriage has stretched a little bit.”

  “That’s such a romantic way you have with words, hun,” said Dexter, finishing his synbacon and laying his knife and spork down. “Thinking of your saggy old stretched undercarriage makes me all goosebumpy with desire.”

  Kat threw another piece of toast. Dex ducked - again.

  “Will you stop ducking? I can’t hit you straight.”

  “Stop firing bloody bread projectiles then,” he grinned.

  “Hey, can I help it if you’re such a bad target?”

  “Must be this slim, agile physique,” smiled Dex, good humour returning a little. One day of crap at the office. One evening of cuckolded moaning. Then... sit back and relax. Ahhhh. He stood, and his stool shuffled out of the way on little furry feet. “Listen. I gotta shower and go. You know what it’s like on your last day; gotta make sure all that paperwork’s tied up nice and tight. Make sure the steel docks are clean of bad people. I can do without Jones calling me on the beach to nag about unsigned cases and whoring perps.”

  “He’d better not.” Kat scowled, and the scowl had nothing to do with banter. “Nothing’s going to ruin this holiday on Theme Planet,” she said, and moved to him again, pressing her small, lithe body in close. He leant down into her kiss, and hugged her tight, and they stayed like that for several minutes until the door burst open...

  “Dad, Molly says I’m not allowed to have a Jelly Coat for my birthday because in bright sunlight they turn into sloppy slop, say it’s not true, say it’s...”

  Dex and Kat burst out laughing.

  ~ * ~

  Dex kicked the locker at work, and it squeaked open. He changed, slowly, into his PUF uniform. PUF. Police Urban Force. Ten years in, fifteen to go in order to earn that coveted pension, baby, the pension! Along with “a free family trip round the Solar System!!” With double exclamation marks!!

  “You okay, man?” growled Jones, slapping him on the shoulder.

  Dex glanced back at the stocky black man, who wore an afro which doubled the size of his head. He grinned. “Jones, you big fairy. Of course I’m all right. Last day, then I... whoosh! Soar off to the Theme Planet.” His right hand imitated a Shuttle taking off for orbit - and beyond.

  “Yeah, well, be careful over there, man. You know what they say about those provax aliens.”

  Dex frowned. “Go on. What do they say about those provax aliens?”

  “They steal your dreams, man.” He saw Dex’s cynical scepticism slip into place like a mask. “No, serious Dex. I saw a documentary. On the Twisted Discovery Channel. Straight up.”

  “Jones, do you realise you’re the sort of killdick dickjoy who ruins every good party? You know that? You’re the sort of policeman nobody wants to invite.”

  “I have a disability,” said Jones, dark eyes narrowing a little. “I have the urge to tell the truth, no matter in what form I find it.”

  “Yeah. Well tell it to someone else, mate. I need this holiday.” Dex stood, and stretched his back. He rolled his head and his neck gave a pistol crack. “Man, I’m getting old. “

  “Yeah,” said Jones, grinning. “And I just fucking don’t fucking believe I’m older than you, man. I look ten years younger!”

  “That’s the mileage, mate,” said Dex, grinning again. “Come on. Bad guys won’t lock themselves up.”

  “I wish the shitbags would. It’d make our jobs a whole lot easier.” Jones strapped a D4 shotgun to his back and holstered twin Kekra quad-barrel machine pistols. “With it being your last day an’ all, Dexter, I thought we’d do the Pussy Patrol. Don’t want you getting shot up before your holidays, now, do we?”

  “Very kind of you, Jones. In that case, the donuts are on me.”

  ~ * ~

  The BMW PUF Battlecar hissed across wet concretesteel, huge tyres carving grooves through toxrain, speed low, Dex and Jones looking for trouble. It wasn’t that there was a lot of trouble in London these days - no more than there’d ever been, anyway. There’d been the Five Great Food Riots back in ‘68, and Anti-Alien Marches which turned nasty in ‘72. Serial Killers, and indeed the organised organisation Serial Killers Inc., had been a problem for a while, where it became fashionable and fucking chic to kill your neighbour - for anything, even trivial stuff like a yakking dog or catshit on the back black plastilawn. But men like Dex and Jones with their trusty shotguns soon put an end to that fad. As Jones used to say, there’s nothing as much fun as shooting a serial killer in the face. You want to be remembered, Mr Nobody? Well, be remembered like this.

  The rain came down hard from a hard slate sky, and the hover-wipers flitted about like angry moths, clearing water from the car’s airscreen-windscreen.

  “Stop,” said Jones.

  “You see something?”

  “Over there. The red-brick warehouse.”

  They were in an old, decrepit, crumbling section of town. The air had a charcoal texture. Water gurgled in leaking iron gutters. Dex squinted, and saw a figure slip through a doorway, wearing a balaclava.

  “What’s in there?”

  Jones punched up the PNC and images spun around into the PUF logo, with a gleaming London bobby holding a traditional electrified truncheon. He aimed the scanner and it gave a blip.

  “Diamond wholesalers.”

  “Down here?” said Dex. “Are they mad?”

  “There are probably some tax implications involved.”

  “Yeah, like a lack of declaration.”

  Jones grinned. “That’s just the way of the world, bro. We both know that shit.”

  Jones logged in with PUF central and they climbed from the BMW Battlecar and checked D4 shotguns. Then, glancing up and down the street, they splashed through puddles as distant day-lasers wrote sickspam and junkymail against the grey, rain-filled London skies.

  You want VW-Viagra, Big Boy? Telemail 999 696969!

  Do you need to get high? Without the PUF porkers sniffing out your stash? Our anti-sniff Sniff Sniffer Sniff-Stash Sniff-Bags are the bags for stashing your stash!

  Dial EASYSNIFFSTASH on your logic cube right now!!

  Letters glowed against the clouds selling products nobody wanted to idiots who could afford them. Dex could see the slogans reflected in the dull shine of his shotgun’s twin barrels, and he squinted, growling in unease. He’d been the victim of far too much sick sickspam over the years. It made a man want to kill.

  Hello sweet friend, I have unkle in your cuntry who has just received US$57 billion, and needs help transferring funds into his account For this help you receive US$3 billion all you need to do is send your bank details and a skin sample from your inner thigh... and you look very horny and sexy, by the way. Please send photo and I love you long time sweet friend.

  Dex and Jones slammed backs against crumbling brickwork and glanced up and down the street. “No getaway groundcar,” said Dex, mouth now a grim line as reality dropped through his brain. Last day. Last fucking day and a suspected heist going down like bad shit. Fucking great. Just fucking typical!

  “They’ll have something planned.”

  Dex glanced at the skies. “We going in?”

  “With extreme prejudice,” said Jones, mouth a grim line, eyes hard, afro wavering. Dex groaned inwardly. When Jones got in a mood like this, in an I’m the good guy and I’m going to take down the bad guys mood, well, it was hard to get any sense out of the man, and best just to humour him; let him beat it out of his system. Or at least, beat it out of the bad guys.

  “I don’t want a slaughterhouse,” said Dex.

  “Well, that’s up to them guys, ain’t it?” said Jones.

  Lightning crackled overhead. A God-venom discharge. Jones peered into the portal, signalled to Dex, and headed in. Dex followed, out of the rain, nose twitching at the smell of... fuel. High-octane. Shuttle fuel. Shit.

  The corridor was long and dark, crumbling and damp. Jones moved slowly through ankle-deep fluid, and it was only when they reached the end of the corridor that Dex realised -with a
growing horror - that the fluid through which they stepped was indeed spaceship fuel. Toxic. Deadly. Probably eating their anti-tox toxboots. And very highly flammable.

  Dex signalled to Jones, and pointed downwards. An errant spark, and kaboom! - Broiled Dexter. Roasted Jones. Not good. Especially considering Dex was due to take his family on holiday tomorrow...

  They could hear voices up ahead. And several shouts. There came the crack of a pistol and Dex winced.

  One spark...

  Jones accelerated and Dex went taut, compact, all thoughts of the Theme Planet vanishing like mist under hot sunlight as they reached the end of the fuel-filled corridor and stepped neatly into -