Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  “Any questions?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t want to know what they’ve done?”

  “No.”

  “Other Anarchy models... well, they want to know. They want to know details. They want justification.”

  “I don’t care.” She fixed Romero with that chilling gaze once more, and raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that supposed to be the point? The reason we were made? We’re not supposed to care. We’re not supposed to crave... humanity.”

  “Yes, but you always do,” said Romero, his voice very, very quiet.

  Amba gave a swift shake of her head, and stood. She tucked the hit-list inside her clothing and turned, striding towards the door. She reached the handle, paused, and turned back. Romero was watching her with an expression she could not place.

  “You engineered me to kill,” she said. And smiled. “So I kill.”

  Then she was gone, and Romero released his hold on the gun underneath the desk. It was a Techrim 13mm Splinterpistol. They were known, to those in the know, as Android Splitters. And Romero wondered idly if she knew about the gun. Probably, he realised. After all, she seemed to know about every other concealed weapon in the room. As she said: it was why they made her. It was what she did.

  ~ * ~

  Amba lay on her bed, in the dark, waiting for her Shuttle time. It was a nameless basic cheap motel room on the outskirts of LLA - one of thousands Amba had stayed in. She did not own a house, felt no affinity nor connection with any property she had ever visited. Why try to be human? she’d reasoned. They’d only kill her for it. The government. Oblivion. Named well, she smiled, and closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing.

  Outside in a black sedan, two of Romero’s killers were watching the apartment. She considered killing them, simply because she did not like being watched - surely her privacy was the one thing she had which they could not invade, could not control. Her inner thoughts. Her feelings. Her desires...

  “Other Anarchy models... well, they want to know. They want to know details. “

  Her reply to Romero had been truthful. She did not want to know. She did not care. One assignment was much like any other assignment. And the minute she started to learn was the minute she started to care. That was a sure-fire way of getting herself fired. Ha. Yes. Fired. A bullet fired in the back of her slender skull. Probably from Romero’s own Splinterpistol. The coward.

  The ceiling cooler hissed and Amba stared at the flickering streamers. She thought back, through long, long years. How many, she really didn’t remember. It had been too many, though.

  Were you always so cynical? Or did it come after the first few kills? The first five? Ten? Fifty ? A hundred? When did it happen? When did the bitterness set in? When did the... death of your longing to join humanity kick you in the guts?

  She smiled. Yes. Once she had wanted to be human. Didn’t they all? Wanted it so much it burned like a red-hot iron brand in her skull. She had The Dream, and The Dream was a long one, and The Dream was a recurring dream... now a nightmare.

  Amba closed her eyes. She prayed, as she always prayed, that she would sleep without dreams, and especially, sleep without The Dream. But it was not to be. God, or the God of Anarchy Androids, was in a bitter, foul mood. He was pissed, pissed at Amber and pissed at her killing. So he would torture her...

  Again.

  Her eyes closed. She slept.

  Amba lived in a small house by the river. It had white walls, and at one corner the brickwork was crumbling and she knew one day she’d have to get round to that damn repair. The windows were very old-Earth, traditional -wooden frames with peeling white paint and single panes of glass. Nothing tech, no plastic-plasty quad-core e-glass thermal glassy glass, oh, no, sir; this was the old type of glass. The stuff that broke and sliced flesh. Nasty shit.

  The roof of the house had terracotta tiles, the sort that were kiln-fired. Oldskill. Tradwork. Several were cracked, but such was the roof’s construction that no water leaked in. And that was good.

  Amba walked up the crushed stone path, her flat shoes crunching, and she breathed the scent from the pine trees surrounding her house. And that was the problem, although not a problem in the dream. Or The Dream.

  It was her house. Ownership. Possession.

  And she revelled in it.

  Get to the best bit, bitch, said Zi.

  Hey, girl, I knew you’d turn up at the stench of death and corruption! Well done! Welcome to the party.

  Hey, fuck you, it’s your dream, you invited me.

  Zi, nobody would ever invite you. You’re worse than plague. More evil than cancer. Go away, somewhere quiet, out in the forest over there. Lie down. And die.

  Amba crunched up the path, a gentle incline, and the house came slowly into view, scrolling like a Krunchy Krunch Komputer Game. The white walls. The terracotta roof. And the door. A pale blue door, battered and a little warped, with peeling paint. And it sent shivers down Amba’s spine, made her heart skip a beat and lurch up into her mouth like bile. The door. The blue door.

  Behind the house, the trees sighed in the wind. Small animals scurried through woodland detritus. The scent of pine was strong, an aromatic wildland perfume. To the right, a river gurgled over rocks. To the left, the forest curved like a scar and rose up the flanks of another pine-clad hill to a circle of stones which sat on the summit, ancient and magical, grey flanks shining.

  There was a church up there, as well. Or, more precisely, the remains of a church, with crumbled stone walls, a collapsed rotten roof, and frost-bitten crumbling gravestones. Amba shivered at the thought... and continued up the path towards the door. The blue door.

  What’s behind the blue door, O little one?

  What song will you sing this time?

  What dreams will you savour?

  Amba reached the top of the path and stopped, panting slightly, drinking in the majesty of the place, and yet... yet filled with the deep fear which always came during The Dream.

  Her head moved, shifted, and nothing was real, yet this was more real than real. She focused on the blue door. Behind it was Heaven and Hell. Her wonder and her nightmare. Something so bad, so evil, so soul-destroying she locked it out of her skull every single fucking time, and threw away the key. But with the key fell memory, and so she returned, again and again, to suffer...

  Open it, urged Zi, and Amba could sense her inner dark sister’s glee.

  She did not want to. And as she moved down the path, took hold of the handle, stared at the faded blue peeling paint, she knew - knew in her darkest innermost dark evil place - that she should stop, cease, desist, but she pushed it open anyway... as if there was a switch in her head, a reset switch that could change her, deform her, break her will...

  And to Zi’s cackle of pleasure, Amba screamed a scream to put out the stars.

  ~ * ~

  Is it so different to be human than android? I mean, we look the same, act the same, are made of the same organic substance, the same flesh and bones; the same raw materials. We eat the same food, shit the same shit. We have the same chemical responses. We both feel love and hate and fear and joy. We respond the same way in most situations. So how can a human have all the rights of life, and yet androids have nothing? We are treated like machines by some, as vermin by others. How does that work? Just because we are created in a laboratory or VAT chamber? Hell, we are genetic cousins...

  Don’t be naive, said Zi, crawling into the back of her mind like a slug up the pipe of her spine. They hate you because you were made better than them. Faster, stronger, more intelligent, more deadly. Humans are frail fucking shells, and they fucking know you’re better at everything. They fear you because they want to be you. They hate you, because they are naturally weak, and you are naturally their superior. They will not grant you the gift of recognised life because the early androids committed atrocities that would make even you blush - yes, even with your incredible track record.

  Amba felt herself wither insid
e, for she knew what Zi said was true.

  What shall I do? I cannot carry on like this forever. I cannot kill for Romero and the Oblivion Government indefinitely. At some point, it has to end. At some point, it all must stop; I must stop...

  The day you stop is the day you die, said Zi.

  And you’d fucking love that, wouldn’t you, bitch? snarled Amba. You’d like to rip out my spine and watch my blood soak into the soil. You’d squat down and piss on my grave, and giggle like a loon as you were doing it.

  Not so, said Zi.

  Hah!

  Truly. I want you alive, Amba, because if you’re not alive, then I’m not alive. If you disintegrate, then I disintegrate. We are symbiotic, my friend; my lover, my sister, my mother. Can you not see that? We are one and the same. Conjoined in mind. Chemically twisted in the flesh...

  No, said Amba, no, that’s not the way. Explain it to me, Zi. What are you? Why are you in my head? What brought you here? What brought you to me? What is your end-game? I cannot take your torture any longer... I want you gone, you hear? I want you slaughtered and cast away as ash in the wind. I’ll take the fucking FRIEND and toss it into an Infinity Well!

  You don’t mean that, said Zi, and Amba heard the hardness in her voice. Like granite. Like lead. Like finely-machined metal designed only to kill.

  Yes I do, bitch! I want you gone from my skull!

  And who would help you then? snarled Zi, and Amba sensed the sudden rise of her temper, something she had felt a hundred times, a thousand times on the battlefield, in dark alleys filled with murder, in bloody crime scenes with the death-drenched FRIEND in her hand. Who would bail you out when progress became impossible? Who would help you in your moments of weakness, when you break down and squat in the mud in the piss and the shit, and weep your tears of pure unadulterated weakness? Who’d save you then, Amba? Who’d be your backup? Who’d be your saviour?

  You are not my saviour! she screamed, then. Not my FUCKING SAVIOUR, DO YOU HEAR?

  Zi left; and Amba heard her hollow laughter rattling off like dice made from human knuckles on the tin-lid of a pauper’s coffin. On the bed, Amba sat up and put her head in her hands.

  Am I going crazy ?

  This is not part of being an android.

  This is nothing to do with the Anarchy Models.

  Zi, well, Zi is something else...

  Again, she considered destroying the FRIEND. It sat on the dresser, small and black and harmless looking. But it was dangerous. She was dangerous. Zi was the most dangerous weapon ever created. But it wasn’t supposed to speak to her; to mock her, taunt her, drive her insane with its challenge. And Zi would never speak of why she was created; what, in fact, was her ultimate purpose.

  Amba had once broken into a high-security Oblivion Gov Unit and hijacked the files on Anarchy. She’d wanted to know... more. It had been a quest, not so much about identity, as about understanding. She wished to understand herself - at a basic level. At basic concept. At basic construct.

  Amba was, to all intents and purposes, human. She had the same genetic core. But her bones were blended with a natural titanium alloy produced by special glands in her throat. Her muscles were harder, stronger, woven with Kevlar. Her internal organs were lined with chitin taken from insect DNA. She was impervious to most toxins, including radiation. And her brain synapses operated at a constant higher rate than a “normal” human creature. Amba was hard. Harder than hard. She was the perfect soldier. The perfect killer. And yet...

  Nowhere in the files was there mention of Zi.

  Zi, her happy, friendly, bio-encoded FRIEND.

  Zi was a weapon. She wasn’t supposed to have a... personality.

  Zi was a bug in the code. A worm in the apple core. A glitch in the matrix.

  And, whether Amba liked it or not, Zi was here to stay...

  “Why can’t I be human?”

  Because you are not.

  “Why can I not live a simple human life?”

  Because they despise you.

  “How can I escape?”

  Then she lay on the bed, and she cried, and she dreamt of a time when she would find a man, find the right man, a man to love, and he would kiss her and hold her in the darkness and tell her not to be frightened. Everything would be all right. And they would breakfast in sunlight. They would laugh together at things that were funny, and cry together at things that were sad. They would go for meals at posh restaurants. They would visit the cinema and eat popcorn and hot-dogs, then go out for drinks to discuss the themes in the film. They would visit friends and tell stories and drink wine and laugh long into the night. Then, when they settled down, she would get pregnant and she would have a child...

  have a child...

  a pretty little girl...

  and buy a house...

  A house with a pale blue door.

  ~ * ~

  “Twenty minutes, Ma’am.”

  Amba nodded and shouldered her pack. She looked around the crappy hotel room for the last time. She would never come back to this room - a place she’d called home for three months whilst she completed a series of missions. No. Now, it was time to move on. Now she had a new job. Six hits. On Theme Planet...

  And then what?

  She smiled, a sour, bitter smile.

  And then nothing. Keep on going. Keep moving. Keep on killing.

  Until they killed her.

  Amba stepped out the door and it gave a rattling click behind her. The corridor was plush, with fake rich-gilt wallpaper and semi-liquid carpets; fake, like me, she thought. She walked down the long corridor to the sicklift, which dropped her to ground floor and reception. As she stepped from the sicklift Amba scanned reception, clocking the two men who’d followed her previously -either for Oblivion or... for somebody else. It didn’t matter. It was irrelevant. If they made a move, she’d waste them.

  Amba moved out into the sunshine. Northside LLA was a heaving termite heap of activity. The roads, both upper and lower levels, were crammed with traffic belching eco-fumes. Snakes of people streamed down footwalks and the whole overpopulated mess was a bustling chaos of bustling hellside.

  Amba sighed, licked her lips, subtly checked her pursuers, and stepped into the snakes.

  Was sucked into their blood.

  Swallowed by their venom.

  ~ * ~

  The Theme Planet Shuttle was on time. The Theme Planet Shuttle was always on time. Amba stood at the fifty-foot-high windows watching the huge passenger liner coming in to land, jets belching fire, the throb of the Shuttle’s matrix engines pulsing through the floor, through her boots.

  Amba finished her coffee, where the cheap beans left a bitter taste, and dropping the cup into a CheeryBin (“Hey-hey-hey! Thank you, ma’am, for not littering! Have a neeeeeice day!”) headed for the restrooms, signified by door images of a woman and various female alien life-forms. And a red blob.

  The restroom was deserted, and Amba moved to a cubicle, hung her pack on the back of the door, dropped her pants and pissed, head to one side, listening. There came a click. Heavy boots trod slowly on bathroom tiles.

  Amba pulled up her pants and gently lifted her pack. She lowered it to her back, tightening both straps, eyes narrowing. Her nostrils twitched. Whoever was out there was male. There came the tiniest of sounds; the sound of something well-oiled, steel, threaded. Like a nut and bolt. Like a silencer being fastened to a pistol...

  “Ma’am, this is LLA Shuttleport Security. Can you step out of the cubicle, please?”

  “I’m on the toilet, I have bad stomach pains. What seems to be the problem, officer?” she said, flattening herself to one side of the wall.

  The door exploded with shards of torn wood as five silenced bullets ate through the cubicle and shattered the porcelain eco-toilet. Amba stepped back into the firing line and front-kicked the door from its hinges. The door slammed into the man, throwing him back with a grunt, and Amba dropped to one knee and peered out. There were four men in black suits, all c
arrying guns, blinking fast and only just reacting to the kicked door... Amba rolled forward, and as bullets started to ping around her, she took the silenced pistol from the hand of the man felled by door, turned, steadied the pistol with both hands - cool, calm - delivered four headshots in quick succession. Blood sprayed the walls and mirrors. Four men hit the ground wetly, their skulls exploded. Pulped brain leaked across the white tiles. Tongues lolled and popped eyeballs turned inwards. Skull shards glistened like teeth.

  Amba turned, grabbed the throat of the man stunned by the door, and lifted him up, ramming him back against the vanity mirror wall. The wall cracked under the impact, and the man struggled for a moment in pain, confused, before regaining his composure and looking deep into Amba’s eyes.