Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  “Hmm,” said Dex, drinking his lager. “We’ll see.”

  The hover bus hummed away from the Shuttle Port and down rolling lanes between rolling fields. Sunshine shone, and distantly children giggled and soft music played and this new world, this alien Theme Planet, seemed like a wonderful, perfect place to be right now.

  ~ * ~

  It was later. Much later.

  The Kool Kid Zone was... perfect. And the Colls family didn’t get a room. They got a suite of rooms with every technological advancement, and everything they could ever dream of in a holiday suite, provided as standard. Forget upgrades. The whole of the Kool Kid Zone Hilton was an upgrade.

  PopBot Lex entertained the children with an alien holo puppetshow and Gigglegum tricks whilst Dex and Katrina took a long, relaxing bath. She swam over to him (yes, the Jacuzzi was that big) and snuggled up close, soaping his chest.

  “We’re going to have such a good time, aren’t we, honey?” she said.

  Dex smiled. “You know what? I have started to relax. And it’s the first time I’ve ever been on a holiday where everything ran so smoothly; ran like clockwork. I am agog with wonder. I simply cannot believe my eyes.”

  Kat kissed him, and for long minutes they savoured the kiss, hands stroking one another under the bubbles. Then Kat pulled away.

  “You hungry, Mister?”

  “Only for you, babe. Come back here. I’ve got something to give you...”

  “Haha, oh, I bet you have. Not now, though, come on, the kids are starving and Lex has recommended a fine Japachinese restaurant just a few minutes away. He’s even pre-booked us a table just in case we want to take him up on his recommendation. And he’s persuaded the kids to have a relaxing first day and we’ll start on the big rides tomorrow. How cool is that? God only knows what he promised them. Drugs, probably.”

  Dex snorted a laugh. “Hell, that’s more like it! The slimy little Lex bastard. I don’t trust him.” Dex winked. “First chance I get, I’ll pour some Cokey Cola down his arse-slot.”

  Katrina rose from the bubbles and pulled on a silk robe. “Come on, lazy mutt. Out you get. I’m starving. And if you’re a good boy...”

  “Yes?”

  “You can have me for dessert.” She winked.

  ~ * ~

  DEXTER STOOD OUTSIDE the entrance to Insane. He gazed up. And up. And up. Man, that’s a big fucking rollercoaster, he thought to himself. Closely followed by, there’s no way on Earth my little girls will want to go on this when they get up close and personal. Will they? Or did I breed proper little psychopaths?

  He looked down. Molly held one hand. Toffee held the other. They both gazed at him adoringly. As if to say: come on, Dad, don’t let us down now, don’t let us down again. We want to go on the ride! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease...

  Dex glanced back, over his shoulder, to the viewing area where one-hundred-inch screens zoomed and snapped around with close-ups and pans, and took comedy photographs of screaming punters screaming.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  “Go on!” yelled Katrina. “What are you waiting for, you big girl? Waiter service?”

  “Ha-bloody-ha,” said Dexter, voice wooden.

  “Come on, Dad!”

  “This way, Dad!”

  “Don’t be scared, Dad!”

  “It’ll be a great laugh, Dad!”

  They moved through to the queuing area. Please let there be a queue. Please let there be a really, really huge fucking queue. But for once, there wasn’t. For once, Dex had been betrayed by the God of Queues. The bastard. He wanted to stamp his foot in sheer frustration. You bastard! He waved a mental fist up at the heavens, scowling. You bastarding bastard!

  “Look, Dad, there’s no queue!” beamed Molly.

  “Great,” muttered Dex.

  “This way dad,” said Toffee, tugging his hand.

  “Fine,” muttered Dex.

  “I’ll buy the photo!” shouted Katrina, helpfully, from the viewing area.

  “Great!” he shouted back. Then muttered: “And I’ll buy you a gag.”

  They walked down various gleaming corridors showing The History of the Rollercoaster, each with a Terrormeter Rating - which started off with Is and 2s, and finally, just as they were about to board the CAR, revealed that Insane had an official Terrormeter Rating of 10.

  “Out of a hundred?” asked Dex, hopefully.

  “Out of ten, dad!” said Molly, and tugged him into the darkness of the CAR.

  ~ * ~

  Chains clanked.

  Three thousand people sat in bright-eyed anticipation, knuckles white, teeth clenched, gasps gasping. Sunlight defined a glittering broad canvas, as big as the world. A subtle breeze, ripe with vegetation, caressed the graceful, mechanical ascent. There was a background of excited chatter; a hum of anticipation, and energy.

  Except for Dex. Yes, his knuckles were white. Yes, his teeth were clenched - but that was more from a need to stop himself cursing like a space bum than any real anticipation of the horror to come. Rollercoasters! Ha! Who invented them? What bloody idiotic idiot invented such a pointless way of achieving “fun”? Eh?

  A breeze whipped Molly’s hair, as she peered over the edge of Insane’s carriage CAR. Like a long metal caterpillar, it clanked and ground its way up the massive incline. And the problem with a massive incline was not just the massive descent waiting for you on the other side, indeed, but the massive anticipation of the massive descent waiting for you on the other side.

  “Ain’t this fun, Dad?” beamed Molly. He’d never seen her so happy. Gone was the sullen, dark, moody expression, as if she were some kind of reject from Munsters, Part 6000. No. She had brightened. She had come alive. And for that alone, it was worth the price of entry.

  The clanking continued.

  Metal, killing metal.

  Dex breathed deep. They were high now. He tried not to look down. Shit. He failed.

  He glanced at Toffee, with her perpetual bright expression of bouncing happiness. Her face was framed by blonde curls; she really was Daddy’s Little Girl. Again, Dex’s heart melted at the look of sheer exhilaration on her face. The pure joy.

  Eventually, the climb ended a full five kilometres up. The world, the theme park, the Theme Planet, spread before the assembled ride freaks: colourful, and awesome, and vast.

  To the left, fields of dancing pastel flowers jigged in the wind.

  To the right, mountains of obsidian sat like majestic dragon’s teeth, quiescent, waiting, glittering.

  Ahead, amidst gleaming oiled bodies, jewels sparkled on a turquoise sea crested with foam.

  “Aren’t we high up, Daddy?” shouted Molly over the buffeting tussle of the wind.

  “Mmmmm,” said Dex, clinging on in absolute terror.

  “Isn’t this fun, Dad?” enthused Toffee, her blonde curls whipping about her head.

  “Grrrrt,” he managed between clenched teeth.

  There came a hiatus:

  A long moment of peace, and serenity, a pause for thought, a moment to study one’s own wisdom in these things; one’s own mortality; one’s own longevity; one’s own connection to God.

  Then there came a bang, a clank, a lurch... and a sudden, violent drop into infinity and oblivion, and Dex screamed and he didn’t mind admitting it, he screamed like a girl because everybody screamed like a girl as they were caught in the Fist of the Gods and hurled towards the ground at breakneck speed, hitting a loop and careering out of control and hitting a flick-back and Dex felt his spine coming up through his mouth. Is it fucking safe? screamed his speed-and dope-addled brain. Of course it fucking isn’t! How can something this bloody insane be bloody safe? But then, it’s all in the name you puddle-brained muppet. It’s called Insane because it IT’S FUCKING INSANE!

  “Waaaaaaaaahh!” went Molly, giggling.

  “Braaaaaahhaaaaaaahh!” went Toffee, waving her hands in the air.

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Dex, clutching his stomach and wondering again how b
loody old he was, how bloody grumpy he was, and hadn’t he liked shit like this as well when he was younger? Enjoyed the speed? Relished the adrenaline? Thrived on danger? Yeah, right up to the point where you see a dead body, all squashed up and crushed up and broken like a train-wreck doll. Then it didn’t seem so much fun anymore...

  The Insane CAR bucked and rolled, spun and looped the loop-the-loop. It banked and jigged and did all manner of things Dex was pretty sure were impossible under the Laws of Physics. It was a bloody miracle his breakfast stayed in his belly, and that was all Dex could think about. The churn.

  What was Theme Planet’s neat little extended strapline, again? It’s better than drugs! It’s better than sex! It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s neat... If you haven’t been sick, you soon will be! Dex grimaced in his rapid descent. Yeah. Well. When he had boots on solid ground again, he was going to find the manager of Theme Planet and be sick in his lunch. That’d teach the bastard.

  “It’s coming!” somebody yelled, and Dex strained to see behind himself; but of course he couldn’t, because he was locked in tight and supposed to be looking forward and focusing on the experience.

  “What’s coming?” he yelled, and glanced at Toffee, and saw her eyes widen just a fraction in their buffeting, clanking, clanging, thrashing, screaming descent.

  Oh, no, he thought, and turned his head back as... they hit the sea...

  Water splashed up and around filling his world with a deep green watery vision, and it was all around him and he thought, Oh, my God, they’re going to kill us; oh, my God, we’re going to drown...

  But of course, they weren’t, and it took Dex long, long seconds of struggling violently at his restraining rollercoaster brace to realise that it was all for effect, all for fun, baby, and they cruised and dropped, jerked and spanked and flipped and flopped, all within the totally safe confines of a clear tube beneath the ocean.

  “Wow,” said Molly.

  “Wowsers,” agreed Toffee.

  The Insane rollercoaster continued to roll and coast, far beneath the waves.

  And even though they were still falling, even though they were still looping-the-loop, now they could see swarms of fishes, colours glittering through the subterranean twilight. Schools of sharks and whales and all manner of other marine life - or whatever Theme Planet alien-breed aquatic equivalent they happened to be - swam and flapped majestically around the still-falling, tumbling, looping rollercoaster.

  It’s never going to end, realised Dex.

  I’m trapped. In Hell. I’ve been a Bad Man. And it’s going toooo laaaassssstt for ever.

  There came a solid clunk. Dex felt himself jerk forward, then snap back. Tentatively, licking dry lips, he opened his eyes. They were at a disembarkation station, and two thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine happy customers were disembarking, chattering happily, faces aglow with awe and wonder, laughing and joking, giggling and slapping backs as if... Dex frowned. As if they’d been into battle together, and survived. As if they’d shared some common adversity!

  Dex looked around, frowning, to see if anybody else was complaining. They weren’t.

  So, stubborn as a rampant bull, he looked around for somebody to complain to. There was nobody.

  Within less than a minute, Dex sat alone in the Insane CAR with Molly and Toffee standing on the concrete platform, staring at him.

  “Come on, Dad,” said Molly. “We’re the last ones out! Gross!”

  “Can we do it again?” beamed Toffee.

  Dex clambered out like a monkey with four arms, fighting himself. He was muttering. His eyes had gone hard.

  “Didn’t you like it, Dad?” asked Molly.

  “Yeah. Great. Or something.”

  “Haha, Dad didn’t like it,” said Toffee.

  Molly grinned with a strain of wisdom that should have had no right crossing an eight-year-old’s face. “I bet Dad thought we were really going to drown under the sea,” said Molly, to Toffee, who sniggered behind her hand. “You know Karen Johnson at school? Well, she came here, and she said that her dad wet his pants and screamed like a baby! Thought he was going to drown. Complained to the authorities, and said he was going to the papers and everything. He caused a right stink, and they were banned from the Theme Planet, and shipped off, and kicked out, and sent home, and everybody at school laughed at her when she came in with the photos. They called her a lam0 and a t-plan3t n00b.” “A... a t-planet noob?” asked Dex, meekly.

  “No, Dad. A n00b!”

  “Oh. Yes. Silly me. Well. Ahem.” He coughed theatrically. “Lead the way.” He followed the girls from the tunnel complex, and onto automated walkways that whizzed them back to the surface and Insane’s Landing Pad. Katrina was waiting. She was holding something. She had a look of supreme comedy on her pretty features.

  “Hey, Dexter...”

  “I don’t want to see it...”

  “You should see it!”

  “Let me look!”

  “Let me look!”

  Mother and daughters spent a few moments laughing at the photo of the three of them, caught at the exact moment the CAR supposedly hit the sea. Dexter Colls did indeed look ridiculous. Not just like a man having a heart-attack, and a man squeezing out a hernia, but also like a man ready to kill. Only Dex saw it. In his eyes. The Hunted Animal look. Gleaming. Deadly.

  Shit. I know myself too well.

  Katrina put her arm around his shoulders and he staggered to a bench under some blue-petalled trees, sinking gratefully into a state of non-movement and non-excitement. “You okay, Big Man?”

  “Great. Great! Wonderful.”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “Nah, it was nothing. I think you should have a go.” He gave her a nasty sideways glance.

  “Ooh, you’re tetchy. It was only a ride, Dex.”

  Dex made a growling sound.

  “Come on, Lex is taking us to Area 5IB.”

  “What happens there? They experiment on my internal organs ‘cos I’m an alien on this planet?”

  “No, Dexter. Nothing like that. Come on. All we have to do is watch...”

  “Good, ‘cos I’m fucking damned if you’re going to get me on another ride.”

  “Tsch. Language.”

  Dex gave her a hard stare. “Fuck off,” he said, with zero trace of humour.

  ~ * ~

  Dex stared at his food with suspicion. Dex always stared at his food with suspicion. He was what Jones generously called “a suspicious eater.” Unless he cooked it himself, Dex didn’t like to touch it. He was the sort of man who washed pre-washed salad. The sort of man who cut the crusts off bread. The sort of man who didn’t like any sort of interference within a one metre circumference of his plate of food - for fear of it being contaminated. He once put an official complaint in at work, citing Health and Safety legislation, because the sinks in the gents’ toilets “smelled of fish.” He was the sort of man Katrina called a “mardy arse,” and the sort Jones referred to as a “pain in the arse.” Dex used to grin, and tell them all to “kiss his arse.”

  Katrina cut her fish-steak, and allowed a morsel to melt on her tongue with a piquant delicacy. “Mmm,” she said, eyes widening a little. “Delicious! Absolutely fabulous!”

  This was Mojojos, the “fine authentic Japachinese restaurant” which had been recommended by Lex, their PD PopBot. The building itself was built in traditional Japachinese white brick and terracotta tile, with -apparently - all materials transported from Earth at very great expense during the old Transport Days, that heady period of Outer-Planet Colonisation.

  The interior of Mojojos was cool and dark, with hanging vines and great dark pools filled with the vibrant colours of huge Koi carp - again, transported from Earth and now bred in VATS on the Theme Planet using Ganger technology, which although still in its infancy, was fine for fishpond displays.

  Dex pushed his decapus curry around his plate for a while. Kat scowled at him.

  “Go on. Eat some.”

  “I’
m just...”

  “What?”

  “I’m not used to being able to actually finish a whole bloody sentence! You know, without Molly or Toffee kicking their way into the conversation in their size tens.”

  “I know what you mean.” Katrina looked around, in mock fear. “It’s way too weird. I just hope they’re okay!”