by Andy Remic
“There’s something so wrong here,” he muttered, and wondered about talking to himself. Kat always told him off for his little guilty pleasure, but the more time he spent trawling the streets of London looking for crimes to solve, bad guys to put down, evils to cure, wrongs to right, the worse and worse he got. Only now, now he would have preferred London a thousand times over, preferred the dark violent corners of the Concrete Grove, rejoiced in the dirt and grime and human effluence in Downtown Bury, sang with celebration to the High Gods for only a moment of fighting in Dirtside Ringside - when compared to the plastic grass and fake pleasure of Theme Planet. “It’s bad here,” he realised. “As fake as plastic steak. As false as Bible II - The Remix.’”
There.
Jim had stepped out from the shade of the building, and was glancing up and down the street. He seemed wary -and quite rightly. If Dex had his way, he’d shove a fucking battleaxe up Jim the policeman’s arsehole, sideways, and with multiple prejudice.
Jim stood for a few moments, then lit a cigarette. Even from this distance Dex could see the glow of the tip, and he imagined he could smell the smoke. Bastard, he thought, now even having more reason to hate the man. That son of a bitch’s bitch. Dex wondered if he could take a cigarette from a dying man’s mouth...
And now Dex knew something was corrupt. The last time Jim was at the police station, he’d been sprinting and shooting fellow policemen. And here he was, cool as cucumber, on the scene of a recent massacre?
Yeah right.
Seemingly satisfied that no Dexter Colls was going to leap out and machine gun him, Jim walked down the steps and started along the street. He stopped by a battered old brown Ford - somewhat at contrast to the sleek hydrogen groundcars of Theme Planet - opened the door, and looked up and down the street again. He knows, poked Dex’s paranoia. He fucking knows what you’re thinking, knows what you’re planning. But of course he didn’t. As far as Jim was concerned, Dex was being a good boy and getting on the next Shuttle bound for Earth. In Jim’s world of tough hotshot cops, fuckers did what they were told, and if they didn’t, Jim shot them. He was old-school; Dex could tell. He’d met men like Jim a thousand times over - and they weren’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, they got the job done, and got the job done good.
~ * ~
Dex landed on the paved car park, boots thudding, and ran to his groundcar. He wheelspun from the car park, hammered down the road, then slowed as he saw the brown Ford up ahead. He dropped back further and allowed a few cars to interject between himself and the car he was tailing. Having worked PUF in London for years, Dex was proficient in following suspects, but as he so rightly recognised, Jim was police, and police were the best in the business not just at following, but at recognising, in turn, that they were being tailed. Dex kept a good distance, and they headed inland, away from the tourist resort to the north of the Kool Kid Zone.
The sun was still gleaming in the sky, and Dex felt incredibly tired as he followed Jim. He was filled with self-doubt and a constant, niggling fear. The what-ifs which could poison a man’s brain.
No, he told himself. You have to stay focused, buddy. You have to see the job through and get the job done, no matter what the cost. And this Jim bastard? Well, he’s going to become a casualty of war.
Jim did nothing suspicious, nothing to make Dex think he knew he was being followed. But Dex knew he would check; all police did, simply as a matter of course. After all, in this day and age, there was always some dangerous motherfucker wanting you dead. Dex knew that better than most. London was a rough town, one of the worst. A living, breathing beast, a dark beast, which sucked people in and only allowed them to escape in pieces.
They turned from the interstate after twenty minutes of driving, and Dex allowed Jim to escape into a gated housing estate complex. There was no way he could successfully tail him in such close confines. He had to cruise, so as not to be discovered. It was much better this way.
Dex waited five minutes to give Jim time, then as another car entered he nipped through the gates behind it - a woman driven an elderly lady who drove as if her car carried a gyroscope triggered nuclear bomb, with greatest, anally-retentive trepidation.
Once inside the housing compound, Dex eased the Honda around the sweeping streets between colourful trees, with red, yellow, blue and green trunks as well as leaves, and between bushes of what smelled like lavender and rose. The whole place was alive with sensory information. Ha. The benefits of being Theme Planet police. But it’s still fucking fake!
It took him ten minutes to find Jim’s car, and then he settled down up the street in the shade of various multicoloured, sighing trees. Opening his window, again Dex craved a smoke. Just to soothe his nerves. Just for old time’s sake. After all, any minute now he could get a sniper’s round in the back of the skull...
If they wanted him offworld that bad.
If they wanted him quiet.
Dex eased back the Honda’s seat and tried his best to relax. He imagined Jim entering the house after a hard day’s work, placing his gun on the side, kissing his wife on the cheek as she emerged from the kitchen with an apron covered in flour. “Hi honey,” she’d say. “Hard day at work?” He’d frown a little, and then mutter, “No, nothing unusual. Fucked over an Earth policeman called Dex Colls, but hey, that’s just the way of the world, isn’t it?” Then his kids would come galloping down the stairs and he’d swing them into the air, kissing their scented hair, smiling in response to their laughter...
Dex awoke. Something had changed. He wiped away a tear, and focused on the brown Ford. Jim was standing outside in casual clothes (well, casual for a piggy-pig-pig, thought Dex, bitterly) and his wife stepped out. She had long, curled black hair, and the two boys that emerged shared her dark colouring. Jim ruffled one boy’s hair as he passed and climbed into the back of the Ford, and for some reason, despite his earlier fantasy, despite his earlier imaginative rambling, this clamped Dex’s heart worse than any electric-shock therapy, and squeezed it, and filled him with bitterness and bile. This was no longer some fantasy, this was real, and Jim had his own family and that was just bad, so bad, worse than anything Dex had ever felt. “Man, where’s your fucking empathy?” he thought. “Where’s your fucking humanity? How could you do this to me, how could you treat me like this? I’m the same as you, I’m the fucking same, Jimboy.”
The Ford reversed off the drive, and headed down the street like something out of the old Earth filmys. Dex followed at a casual distance, wondering idly where they were headed, but not really caring. The worst of the burn had eased off, and the sun was finally sinking. It was cooling down, shadows lengthening as they hit the highway and flashed past signs for Dinozens, Kiddy’s Coaster Overload and Lolly Pop Forest.
Surely not now, thought Dex. Not rollercoasters, now...
They finally reached the Dinozens turnoff, and Dex followed the Ford up a wide twenty-lane sliproad and through colourful avenues, until they reached a car park which stretched off for as far as the eye could see. Jim parked up and his family climbed out of the car. The young boys were bouncing excitedly.
The car park wasn’t the only thing that stretched off for as far as the eye could see. So did... the dinozens.
Dex sat, and stared up, and stared up, and gawped like a drooling village idiot. They were big. Hell yes, they were BIG.
“What, in the name of fuck, are those?” he mumbled, and climbed out of his groundcar. He glanced around warily, but received no undue attention. He stared at the beasts. There were perhaps fifty of them that he could see, each as big as a forty-storey towerblock or cubescraper. They were all manner of shapes and sizes, some reptilian with great jagged heads covered with armoured plates and tusks and scales that gleamed violet in the dying rays of the sun. Their eyes glowed; several breathed fire. And it was with a blink they reminded Dex of dinosaurs. Of course, he groaned inwardly. Dinozens. Dinosaurs. Aliens. Alien dinosaurs...
They were a deformed mimicry of Earth�
��s ancient fossils, even bigger than Earth dinosaurs, even wilder of eye and sharper of tooth and fang and tusk and claw. They roamed around this section of the Kool Kid Zone with great ponderousness, swinging their huge heads, some sharp, some armoured, some shaggy like a wild thing, moving and turning, shifting and watching with baleful reptilian eyes.
Dex realised Jim and his bouncing family were getting away, and he followed at a wary distance. Now all he needed were a few spare moments with Jim. That was all it would take, Dex knew. He gave a sour grin. Oh yes. The hand had been dealt, Dex treated like a fucking loon. Not any longer. Now, Dex was wiser than wise, harder that hard, streetcool and tuned in to the game, fucker.
He made the gates, passed through the turnstiles (there were no charges here, not like other theme parks where charges applied at every damn step of the way, sucker -pay for travel, pay to park, pay for entry, pay to piss, pay to eat, pay to fucking breathe in some of those money-grabbing bastard establishments - and those were the ones Dex could mention and remember and spit and moan about). He took a map. Dinozens was zoned, with different breeds of dinozen occupying different areas, some with very high fences and warning notices. Dex narrowed his eyes, only giving the map a cursory glance. It couldn’t be that dangerous; after all, it was for the kids, right? And anyway, he was more intent on seeing where Jim and his wife and kids went.
There. Down a wide, leafy walkway.
“You back-stabbing traitor,” muttered Dex, and hurried after them. So, they were out for an evening’s entertainment. Enjoy the Theme Planet on which they lived and worked, and on which so many poor dumb schmucks had to pay a fortune just to visit for two or three weeks.
I’ll show you some entertainment, thought Dex.
They moved past various pens, Jim’s boys cooing and warbling in wonder. Then a gift was offered to Dex on a big golden platter, probably sprinkled with God-nectar and dipped in Whiskey-ambrosia. Jim’s wife took the two boys into a toilet block, cleverly disguised as a dinozen backside - thus making its overt purpose artful, in-theme and conspicuous.
Dex looked around, and started to move quickly. It was evening, and there were only a few people about, despite each and every park or zone or yard being open 24/7. Yes, people sometimes visited for evening jaunts, as Jim was showing, but on the whole it was a damn sight quieter than during the bustling day.
Dex paused, as a sixty-foot creature with feet as big as cars plodded past, then he moved with extreme caution to stand behind Jim. He palmed the knife, and stuck it against Jim’s back.
“Don’t even move, motherfucker, or I’ll make your wife a widow and your kids instant orphans.”
Jim half turned. He was tensed harder than an archer’s bowstring. “I thought you got the Shuttle.”
“No, dickhead. I didn’t get the Shuttle. Now, don’t move. I’m going to take your gun.”
Expertly, Dex eased his hand around Jim’s waist, removed the gun, prodded the gun in Jim’s back, and slid the knife into his belt.
“Let’s move,” he said. “Up ahead. Don’t look back. If you do anything, I’ll fucking drill you. Nod once if you understand.”
Jim nodded, and they started to walk, past the stomping feet of a big green dinozen and then veering right, down a narrow walkway, then left, down another. They passed between heavy screens of bushes, until Dex was sure they’d cleared Jim’s family.
“You’re insane,” said Jim, slowly.
“Shut up unless I ask you a fucking question.”
“You should have gone back to Earth,” said Jim, shaking his head.
“Over there. Through those trees. Move!”
They headed off the path, into what appeared to be a sparsely populated conifer woodland. The ground was soft and spongy, filled with a riot of colours. Each tree was a spread fan of rich, thick needles, some green, some orange, displaying wild and wonderful patterns. Above the canopy, the eerie shapes of the dinozens loomed and wandered ponderously in and out of view.
They moved deeper into the woodland - into a fake woodland. It was quiet here. The trees sighed occasionally, or gave a gentle pattering of needlefall on the sumptuous carpet.
“Stop.” Dex’s voice seemed unnecessarily loud and brash.
They stopped. Jim turned to face Dex, and his face was curled into a snarl. “What are you doing, you crazy bastard?”
“Saving the situation,” growled Dex, jabbing the gun towards Jim’s face. “So shut the fuck up, listen, and answer my questions, or I swear by all that’s holy I’m going to kill you where you stand.”
Jim paled.
“Don’t do that, Dexter. I was only doing what’s best for you. You know that, right?”
“I know shit, you back-stabbing motherfucker. Now answer me this. Where are my wife and children?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are my family?”
“I don’t know, Dexter.”
“So help me, if you say that one more time you get a bullet in the skull.”
“Dex, you don’t understand.”
“No, you cunt, you don’t understand. I’ve been Urban Force for long enough now, I know the rules, I know how the game is played - by both sides. Monolith are in on this, Monolith are responsible for taking my family - for God only knows what purpose. But I want them back, and I’m willing to kill the entire fucking planet to get what I want.”
“No,” said Jim.
“Where are they?”
“This is nothing to do with Monolith,” said Jim, and his face was shadowed, painted by brushstrokes of violet from the dying sun. He looked suddenly very, very dangerous. Demonic.
“Oh, yeah? Who is it, then, my mother?”
“No, Dexter, this has come from on high. From Oblivion Government. From the very people who rule Earth.”
Dex paused, shock registering on his face. “What?” he said.
“I warned you, Dex. You shouldn’t be here. You should have been told. You’re an illegal here. You’re not wanted.” He smiled, and it was a grim but knowing smile. The smile bit Dex like a knife between his ribs.
“What do you mean, I’m an illegal?”
“Somebody really should have told you, Dex. You’re PUF. London Squad.” He shook his head sadly. “You’re not welcome, mate.”
“And Oblivion give you an open passport to shoot the shit out of your own policemen over here? That brings a new meaning to interstellar legal cooperation, don’t you think?”
“Ah, that. The escape? Is that what’s bothering you? A lot of it was staged, Dexter. “
“Staged?” Dex hated the stupidity, simplicity and naivety of his own questions.
“Robots. Animatronics. Fast filmy exploding realtime makeup for gunshot wounds.” He winked. “We’re good with stuff like that. No policemen were harmed in the making of this feature, and all that shit.”
“That fucking traffic cop who melted into the pleasure liner wasn’t staged; and the damned boat going down and killing thousands of people wasn’t staged, either.”
“That was... unfortunate.” But by the look on his face, Dex could see Jim cared nothing for the innocents. He was hard, and he was brutal, and now given the opportunity he’d slot Dexter hardtime bullet-time.
“Where are my family?” Dex’s voice was soft.
“No fucking idea.”
Dex lowered the gun, and fired a single shot into Jim’s kneecap. Jim screamed, his scream swallowed by the surrounding conifers as bone shards exploded from the back of his leg, and blood drenched the springy heather behind him.
Jim rolled on his side, clutching his bent, twisted leg, face torn into a cracked platter of agony.
“Now, my friend, you’re going to limp for the rest of your life,” said Dex, and lined up the gun again. “The next shot guarantees you’ll be a cripple.”
“Wait man,” panted Jim. “Stop, stop,” he held out a hand stained with blood. “I can’t tell you. Monolith will kill me.”
“I thought you said it was Ear
th Government, fuckface?“
“They’re working together,” said Jim, panting, spittle foaming on his lips. “They want you off Theme Planet. They want you off bad.”
Dex’s brain wrestled with itself. He needed to know where his family was, but he also wanted to know why this policeman claimed the two most powerful organisations in the QuadGal had supposedly turned against him... bullshit, he realised, shaking his head. It had to be bullshit.
“Last chance,” he said, kneeling, and putting the gun to Jim’s other knee. “Where’s my family?”
“Dex, please, they’ll kill me if I tell you,” he hissed, eyes wide with fear.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“They’re on The Lost Island,” panted Jim, eyes squeezing shut in pain as he rolled onto his back, wheezing, blood pumping between his fingers. “Please don’t kill me!”