Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  “I wish there was,” said SARAH, face filled with apology.

  “Yeah. Right.” Katrina’s eyes narrowed. “Then let’s do it. You go first. And if I get squashed, you make damn sure you get my children out of here alive.”

  “I will endeavour to meet your wishes,” said SARAH.

  They moved fast, eyes turned up. At first, nothing was happening; it was as if the ride - above ground, up there on Theme Planet - as if it wasn’t running. And that was just fine with Katrina. After all, it was only fun. Enjoyment. Second-hand pleasure. Fake fear.

  A piston screamed down, some way to Kat’s right. A distant pillar of steel sent by God to smash the unholy. She gave a sour, bitter smile. “Shit,” she muttered, nervous now, and pushed on, into what was not exactly a run. Not exactly.

  The girls were trailing behind, holding hands, moaning constantly. It was a truism that all children of the Theme Planet generation abhorred physical effort unless it meant working thumbs and hips on the latest game console.

  “Come on,” muttered Kat.

  “But I’m tired,” said Molly. “Can we have a rest yet?”

  “We’re in a very dangerous place, sweetie,” said Kat through gritted teeth. “We can’t exactly sit down and have a picnic.”

  “I don’t see no danger,” said Molly, staring hard at her mother. God, you’re going to be trouble when you’re older, Katrina thought, but kept from vocalising the prospect. The last thing she needed here and now was a mutiny.

  They moved on, fast through the gloom. The stench of hot oil got stronger and stronger, and occasionally a distant thump echoed through failing light. Pistons rocketed from the heavens at progressively shorter intervals, easing from a sporadic, occasional thump to a sound like a stampede of dinosaurs, or maybe a sequence of pounding canon fire. Katrina found she was half-running, her head hunched down subconsciously - as if that would somehow protect against a million tonnes of pressurised steel cylinder.

  “I wish daddy was here,” said Toffee, panting, red in the face.

  Katrina dragged her onwards. “So do I,” she said.

  And then... the storm began. Not a storm filled with clouds and rain, and ice, and thunder and lightning. This was a storm of oil clouds filled with hot groaning steel, with pistons slamming from the heavens and discharges of static leaping between columns of thundering steel like some crazy firework or special effects show.

  Katrina felt the build-up of oil in the air. As she ran - yes, now she was running, SARAH a blur up ahead -she rubbed her thumb against her fingers. The air had felt greasy to begin with, but now there was a definite residue in the atmosphere, and it stung her eyes a little and settled on her tongue like acid fallout. Glancing at Molly, she saw the sheen of oil on the young girl’s face, collecting thickly in her hair like some crude shampoo. Both girls were whimpering now, sensing the urgency, sensing the primal terror of their situation. Around them, more pistons thundered and clattered, their groans and screams filling the air with a cacophony not unlike Nature’s work; but here, displayed in its full synthetic glory. The pistons hammered from the sky, faster and faster, falling all around in what appeared to be a completely random manner. SARAH, up ahead, offered no help, no solace, no encouragement. She was simply a constant, there to be followed through the haze of oily atmosphere.

  Suddenly, a piston screamed above them and Katrina yanked the girls aside reflexively. She felt the whoosh as a metal wall slammed down just inches from her face, then it groaned a deafening groan like a dying leviathan, before slowly beginning its ratchet clank up towards infinity and beyond...

  “Bastard,” said Katrina, and tentatively reached out, touching the retracting piston. She yelped, leaving a circle of skin on the giant cylinder, and sucked at her oily finger.

  “Was it hot?” asked Toffee, eyes wide in fear.

  “Cold,” said Katrina. “Terribly cold.”

  They carried on running, as more pistons slammed and groaned around them. SARAH had almost disappeared up ahead now; Katrina’s eyes narrowed and she cursed the Monolith avatar. Oh yeah? Sent here to help us, were you, motherfucker? Fat lot of good you are... we might as well run blindly through this hell-chamber on our own merit, because we’re not following you and I don’t believe you even know where you’re going!

  More pistons slammed close, and each time Katrina yelped and jerked her girls towards her, as if she could protect them from these giant pistons, shield them with her fragile bone shell. Which of course, she couldn’t. If they’d been struck, they would have ended up as human spam.

  They ran.

  Pistons fell, like the inside of some giant, deviant, alien engine...

  Which it was.

  The internal mechanics of Theme Planet.

  The poisonous underbelly of the fun.

  “When will it ever end?” wailed Toffee at one point, and Katrina could not answer. She knew not when it would end, just as she knew not when it had begun. Time had ceased, reality evaporating into the oil mist. She only knew it was endless, and she was tired enough to fall, tired enough to give up her life because she could not go on, and the girls could not go on, and they should surrender, and lay down, and die...

  ~ * ~

  Katrina opened her eyes with a jump. A fire burned in a rocky hollow. Molly and Toffee were both snoring, covered with thin blankets. SARAH sat across the fire, cross-legged, watching her.

  Katrina sat up slowly, groaning. “What happened?”

  “You passed out. I came back for you, carried you the rest of the way. You nearly made the perimeter.”

  Katrina glanced back, but rocky walls filled her vision. She looked around again, and revelled in a cool breeze that caressed her face. “We are safe here?”

  “You are safe,” said SARAH.

  “Thank you. Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you for saving my children.”

  click...

  SARAH stood, crossed to Katrina, placed a finger against her lips. “Shh. Sleep now. You are exhausted. We will talk... in the morning.”

  “We’re not out yet?”

  “No. We have a long way to go,” said SARAH, smiling.

  ~ * ~

  Flames crackled, consuming wood, except in this place there were no flames and there was no wood. SARAH closed her eyes and said the command, and opened them on a different plane, a different place, a different reality.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I do not know,” she said.

  “They can mask it cleverly; they have become very advanced.”

  “Evolved is what I call it,” said SARAH.

  “What do you think of her?”

  “She is strong, she has great courage. She lasted longer than most in that place; and we pushed her harder than most people could take without snapping. Up here.” She tapped her skull, and her dark eyes, the dark portals, narrowed. “And that’s what worries me. That’s what poses yet more questions.”

  “And Dexter?”

  SARAH smiled then. “Yes. Dexter. Let’s see if Dexter survives. Then we will talk.”

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER NINE

  IF YOU HAVENT BEEN SICK...

  The second oily green cat had slunk into the clearing, circling its comrade, both of them hissing. And... “We’re danjos,” said a soft voice right by Dex’s ear. So close they could kiss. Dex could smell its oiled body, had become aware of the creature’s mass, its strength and power and killing prowess. The other two danjos watched him. Dex could sense, almost as if he were in a strange computer game, their positions, and their feral hatred. Here were creatures bred for entertainment, baby, locked up in enclosures with gawping tourists gawping and clicking piccy pics. For a creature of intelligence, of majesty, it was an insult to their very existence. And when an animal, recreated alien dinosaur, whatever, felt insulted to their very core - well, in Dex’s experience, they tended to lash out. With claws. And fangs. And all things horrible.

  Very, very slowly, as slow as an ice age, De
x turned to look into the danjo’s face. It grinned at him, and a sliver of sympathy ran through him, invaded every atom, and he gave a shudder. There was such intelligence there. Such... understanding. And he knew the cold, quiet, calm gun in his hand was a million miles away... if it wanted to, this ancient, malevolent alien creature could rip his face off.

  “What do you want, Mr Colls?” said the danjo.

  Dex gawped, spittle drooling down his chin. He licked his lips. Had it really spoken? Or was he descending into a drug-crazed, hypertense, psychopathic fucking incident? Where were the pills? He needed more than a full bottle...

  “Er,” he said, words little more than an exhalation.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “Are you telepathic?” he whispered.

  “I can sense your need,” said the ancient alien predator.

  “And what do I need?”

  “To find yourself.”

  “No. No. I need to find my wife, and my children...”

  “That will come later,” whispered the reptile, and its breath and fangs were so close to Dex he could taste it. Its body was close to him, and he saw its claws - huge, huge claws - flexing softly on the jungle vegetation.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We rarely do.”

  “Stay where you are,” came a voice, a human voice, carried both through the air and, seemingly, to Dex’s brain by some kind of direct communication. “They’re slippery motherfuckers; if you move, you may lose your head.”

  “Wait...” began Dex.

  There came a phuzz and Dex felt a blast of superheated air. Beside him, the danjo’s head exploded in a shower of spaghetti meat, and blood slapped across Dex’s face, across his jacket, soaked him to the skin. The mass of muscle beside him leant against him for a moment, as if deflating, then slid slowly sideways and twitched as its bowels released in a steaming mess. The other two danjos screamed, a high-pitched ululation, and sprinted to their fallen... friend?

  “No!” screamed Dex, but the laser slashed across the jungle, dazzlingly bright and dazzlingly deadly. The other two danjos were cut in half even as they nuzzled at their fallen companion, and Dex watched weakly, disjointedly, as they slid apart in cross-sections of muscle and bone and internal organs. The three creatures lay dismembered on the jungle floor, slowly steaming.

  Five provax, wearing khaki, stepped from the trees carrying military laser weapons. They walked slowly, in a line, heads turning left and right in synchronisation with their weapons as they scanned the jungle, looking for more lethal predators. One carried a blip scanner, which blipped once a second.

  Dex, face grim, mouth dry, slowly climbed to his feet. He released a pent-up breath. What happened then? asked his twisted mind as it fell upon itself like a collapsing star. I don’t understand.

  The five provax stopped, staring at Dex, and he wondered if he’d have to fight his way out again. He didn’t know if he still had it in him. He didn’t know if he had the energy, the hatred, or the drive. And then he pictured Katrina, and Molly, and Toffee, and realised he’d happily kill every single motherfucker on the planet to get to them.

  “How do you feel, sir?” asked one warden.

  Dex blinked. “Shaken,” he managed.

  “It must have been quite an ordeal,” said another, stepping forward and patting Dex on the arm. “You can be assured, this sort of thing doesn’t happen on the Theme Planet. You will be fully compensated for your experience.”

  “Compensated?” Confusion.

  “Monetarily speaking,” said another. “Come, let us escort you to a car. They’ll take you back to your hotel and you can have a quick discussion with our underwriters. I am sure there will be a considerable payout for you to, ahh, retain your silence.”

  Dex coughed. “Yes. Yes. It’s a disgrace, actually. I can’t believe this horrific thing happened to me! I need a strong whiskey.”

  “Of course, sir. We will see to it.”

  Dex was helped down various paths, past more jungle wardens, or alien dinosaur wardens, or whatever the fuck they were until they reached normality, reached safety, reached houses and estates and flashing lights and people and hotels. Dex felt something small crumble inside him. Some small part of his soul, given over to despair, longed for a return to the normal world. But he couldn’t give in to it. His family were still gone. Missing. Taken. And he would not fucking stand for it.

  “Here you go, sir.”

  A blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, and people were talking beyond barricades, and he was taken to a long low black car. He was given a flask of hot sweet tea. Then the men and women - the provax? - moved away, talking amongst themselves. Dex saw extensive paperwork being filled in. Damn those fucking bureaucrats, he thought.

  He was seated, sideways from the passenger side of the car. He simply pulled his legs in, removed the blanket, closed the door, climbed over to the driver’s seat, touch-fired the car, and drove away through the night.

  Nobody seemed to notice.

  Praise those pen-pushing, form-filling, anal fucking bureaucrats, he mused.

  The roads were black, twisted snakes before his weary eyes.

  They gleamed like streamers.

  After the third time he nearly left the road and ploughed into the ocean, he voluntarily left the road onto a dirt trail and bumped along for a while, lights cutting slices from the black. Then, finding a quiet grove beneath a stand of black trees, he killed the engine, locked the doors, and fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

  ~ * ~

  It was another fine sunny day on Theme Planet. After awakening, Dex had yawned, and a backdoor headache pummelled his brain into corrosive jelly. Now, he cruised on a newly stolen hover bike down a wide street which sat, pretty much deserted, baking in the tropical heat. It hadn’t been hard to dump the groundcar and find a replacement; in this place, nothing was locked down. Not like London. In London, he would have needed a nuclear chainsaw!

  Dex slowed the bike past a series of restaurants, Monster’s Burger Mush, the quite bizarre (in terms of food offered) Alien Buffet - which Dex had previously found quite amusing, in that to him it sounded as if they were serving up alien flesh as opposed to alien cuisine itself; and the infamous Quad-Gal dining experience known as WYSIWYG - Basic Food for Basic People! Quite a lot of Old Earth people ate there. Egg and chips. Sausage and chips. Egg, sausage and chips. Egg, beans, sausage, eggy egg and chips. Sometimes served in a massive aluminium “Feeding Trough.” Like a huge gents’ urinal, but from which you ate, instead of into which you piss. This was the kind of fodder which, Dex had to admit, was a category he fell to quite regularly, achieving mockery from not just Katrina, but his poison-tongued little brood. “Come on, Dad, be adventurous!” Molly would cry; a comment to which he did not deign reply.

  Now, diners sat at diamond windows, plugged into music or gamesets as they ate, their groundcars and hover bikes parked up in the baking sun. Dex cruised past, not too fast, not too slow, so as not to draw attention to himself.

  Adventure Central. Which, he knew, led to the Caves of Hades and a secret tunnel under the sea, emerging on the Lost Island - the goal of every adventurous Theme Planet holiday adventurer! Only for Dex it wasn’t an adventure. For Dex, it was the survival of his wife and kids...

  The road widened, leading to Quick Blast bays along the stretch on the left, where gamers and ride-junkies could get quick fixes of ride adrenaline on quick little coasters, punchers and flingers. To the right, the turquoise sea glittered with silver streamers and exploding sparkles.

  Paradise, thought Dex.

  He slowed as he approached the edge of the Kool Kid Zone island, his gaze scanning the huge arching Zip Tube, which bridged between this pleasure fun ride island and the next, Adventure Central. Distantly, Dex could just make out the land mass through a haze of sunshine. The Zip Tube was huge and imposing, and Dex parked his bike, watching for a while to see how things worked.

  And this was how they worked.


  A person or vehicle, be it bike, car or even a long Squeezy-Bendy Coach (with a carrying capacity of five hundred travellers) would approach the inlet valve of the Zip Tube, and then be literally sucked in and chucked through the bridge tube, emerging - presumably - unscathed at the other end.

  Dex didn’t like it. But then, Dex was old, and grumpy, and damn bloody old fashioned. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t trust technology, didn’t even like technology, much to the amusement of his young children. He fired up the bike again and eased it forward, bobbing gently down the road. He was overtaken by two groundcars and realised he was arousing suspicion with his over-cautious approach. He accelerated, hover bike growling gently, and watched as the groundcar in front hit a slight ramp, drove into what was, to all intents and purposes, a giant funnel, and pop. Gone. Shit.