by Andy Remic
Their boots echoed on the alloy as they climbed the arch of the narrow bridge. It spun across a vast abyss filled with darkness, like oil. In his mind, Dex wondered if it really was oil; and if an answer to his problem, an end to his self-torture, was to simply leap. Three quick footsteps off the edge - a long silent fall - plunge under the oil, plunge into an eternity of dark fluid which would accept him, fill him, drown him, absorb him.
Death. That was an option.
Dex smiled, and felt quite sick.
As they reached the apex of the bridge, Amba stopped for a moment, holding up her hand. And Dex heard it too; tiny buzzing sounds like motors, revving high and fast and accelerating even as they heard them...
“PopBots... be ready!” snarled Amba.
Dex levelled the SMKK, and from the gloom burst a shower of small black balls, showing no colours but with obvious intention. They slammed around Amba and Dex. Dex’s SMKK blossomed into fire, bullets screaming to ping and blat from PopBot shells, whilst Amba’s FRIEND gave massive, near-silent bams of energy, which pulsed through the PopBots like a net through fish. Dex watched, frowning, as his SMKK was pretty much ineffectual at stopping the little machines, whereas Amba’s sleek FRIEND slaughtered them with lazy arrogance.
Several, however, made it past the FRIEND, and Dex twitched left as a PopBot hammered past where his face had been. He palmed his Makarov, and sent three rounds drilling the case. The PopBot described a graceful arc, falling down into the darkness trailing sparks and smoke...
Dex fired at more of the tiny black missiles, and dodged them when they charged him, buzzing as they whipped and snarled around his head. More Makarov bullets took down the PopBots, and Dex realised with a grim smile that the gun was police issue; it obviously had a specific function. PopBots were supposedly AI. Maybe they went occasionally berserk? Whatever, the Makarov was a useful tool against their charge...
Amba despatched more of the buzzing machines, and said, “We need to get off the bridge. We’re attracting them like flies to shit.”
“I agree.”
They ran, firing weapons, as another wave of PopBots buzzed from the darkness of the vast cavern. They came in patterns, in waves and formations like squadrons of mini-fighter planes. Amba’s FRIEND took care of most of them, igniting a hundred at a time to fall, like spidering stars, into the abyss below.
Dex did what he could with his Makarov, until they reached the far edge of the bridge and dived thankfully through an arched doorway. Amba rolled, turned, and waited. A horde of PopBots came in fast, in a tight cluster, jostling one another to get through the doorway. Amba gave a blast with the FRIEND, and they all suddenly stopped, hanging in the air momentarily before falling like a burst sack of marbles, crackling with flames. The PopBots tumbled off down the rocky slopes into oblivion below, and Dex could hear cracks and bangs as they detonated.
“Help me close this.”
There was a door, a solid steel portal, and it took both Dex and Amba to close it. It squealed on its massive heavy hinges, like a poorly oiled bank vault door. They closed it, and shot the bolts, and spun the wheels, and monitors lit up against the steel, blinking and glittering with red and green lights.
Dex stood back, fast. His eyes narrowed.
“Have we just sealed ourselves in here?” he said, understanding dawning.
“No going back,” said Amba.
“I’m here to rescue my family, that’s all,” said Dex.
“Okay. Let’s go rescue them,” said Amba.
~ * ~
They stood at a path that led into woodland. It was dark, a deep and oppressive darkness, and the trees numbered in their thousands, crooked and warped, angular and without leaves. Their trunks were black, like aged, withered limbs. Dexter stepped forward and placed his hand against a trunk.
“It’s made of metal,” he said, frowning.
“The forest guards the foothills, leading...” Amba pointed.
There, up through the black clouds and motionless against a black sky, was a vast, oppressive mountain. It was silent, brooding, heavy, and massive, and Dexter found his gaze drawn and locked to it.
“What... is it?” he said, finally.
“I believe that is the Monolith Mainframe.”
“The mountain itself? It’s a... computer?”
“Yes. It has been here a long time. A long time. Before the provax. It’s natural, part of this world. Maybe it controls the provax, helped them build their Theme Planet... who knows? All I understand is...” she tilted her head, as if listening to something, as if considering some internal counsel. She smiled. “I understand it is alive. And it is old.“
“And we’re here to destroy it?”
“I am not sure. Yet. I seek answers. To questions.”
“You were sent here as an assassin,” said Dex.
“Yes. But also for answers. Earth’s Oblivion Government, and my controller, Cardinal Romero; they have locked questions inside my head. Only when the time is right will the questions, and indeed the full mission, come to me.” She turned then, and her words stunned Dex. “Just like your android status has been locked inside you. You did not know what you were. You do not know who you are. Until... until the lock goes click and you are released into reality.”
“You think I’ve been shown a door?”
“Yes. And I think you are starting to believe.”
Dex shook his head, but did not reply. He could not reply. For Amba was right - he was starting to believe. Or at the very least, he was starting to question his own past, his own mind, his own memories, his own reality.
“So we climb the mountain?”
“Your family are up there.”
“Prisoners of SARAH?”
“Yes.”
“Your mission is to destroy SARAH, isn’t it?”
“We shall see,” said Amba softly, eyes glowing.
~ * ~
At first the forest of iron trees seemed like any other forest, aside from the continual smell of hot oil. But after several hours, the trees began to change, subtly at first, simply in the texture of their “bark,” which, instead of being smooth or pitted with rust, became knurled, as if it had been through a machining process. Dex and Amba walked through these machined trees, picking their way between trunks on an ever increasing incline. And it was Dex who first noted the nuts and bolts, and pointed them out to Amba. “Look,” he said. “They were created.” “Everything on Theme Planet is created.”
“Yeah, but these trees - they were bolted together.”
“They’re not trees,” said Amba.
“Look like trees to me,” said Dex.
“They’re part of the machine. Part of SARAH. Maybe they give feedback? Listening, or sensory apparatus?”
Dex shut his mouth.
They must have been moving for ten hours when Dex called a halt. He was bone weary, but had pushed himself on for many, many more hours than he would ever have thought possible - and this minor miracle in itself rankled him, because it was supporting evidence for the case of him being an android. The case of his whole past, every memory in his head, being a fake.
Amba found a clearing amidst the iron trees, and sat on a rock whilst Dex laid himself out on the ground. There was no moss, and the ground was solid rock, but Dex no longer cared. Exhaustion was all-consuming, and he was asleep in minutes. He did not dream, unless it was a dream of simple darkness without emotion, without feeling, without worry, without fear or love or despair. Pretty much how he imagined being an android to be. He awoke, and sat up swiftly. Amba was still seated, and she had her FRIEND on her knees, split into several sections. She was carefully cleaning the components with a tiny wire.
Dex sat up and yawned.
“You feel better?”
“Well enough to go on.”
“It hits us androids like that, sometimes. We push and push, until we collapse. Like a machine breaking down.”
“I am no machine,” said Dexter, mood souring.
“Tell me about Romero,” he said.
“Cardinal Romero of Oblivion? What is there to tell? He gives me missions. I carry them out.”
“To kill people?”
“Sometimes.”
“And this doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“Because people live and breathe, laugh and cry; they have dreams and desires, and to be cut down in your prime is a crime against humanity. Every man and woman and child has a right to breathe, to live.”
“Why then, do people kill other people?”
“Because some people are bad.”
“Then that is even worse. It is extremely sad.”
“Why so?” said Dex.
“Because I have no choice. I feel nothing for humans. I simply carry out a job. Like a machine. But for you people, people with souls, to actually choose to do these things to one another; that is in another league of cruelty.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Dex, “to some extent. We excel at fucking one another up. We’ve refined it to an art form. It’s not something of which I’m particularly proud.”
Amba was tactful in not pointing out that Dex was, in her estimation, not human.
They sat, in silence, as Amba delicately fitted several sections of the FRIEND together. It looked crazy for a moment, all angles and sections, and suddenly in a blur it clicked neatly into place.
“That’s an... interesting weapon,” said Dex.
“This is my FRIEND.”
“What model is it?”
“Simply a FRIEND,” said Amba, meeting Dex’s stare. “And don’t ask where I got it. I could not tell you.”
“Well, it certainly ain’t standard issue. Can I hold it?”
“Yes, but it won’t fire for you. It’s hardwired to my DNA.”
“Useful.”
Amba reluctantly handed Dexter the weapon, and he cradled it for a few moments. It felt light, and certainly not capable of delivering the punches he’d seen back on the bridge. It was more than the sum of its parts.
Suddenly, the world around him seemed to slow, the spin of the world, the hiss of the breeze between metal tree branches all decelerating into a crawl of time and space. Above, black clouds sat stationary, as if standing watch over a funeral. Dex stared at Amba, but she was locked in a static pose, a tableau, still retracting her hand.
Hello, Mr Colls, said Zi.
Dex blinked and licked his lips.
Am I talking to the gun?
Yes. The FRIEND.
Is that some clever pseudonym? Does it stand for Freaky Rotary Integrated Explosive Nuclear Device, or something? Something clever and destined to show what a kickass weapon you really are?
No. I am simply the FRIEND. My name is Zi.
Who made you?
Nobody made me. I simply am.
So you’re eternal? Immortal?
I am not immortal, for I do not live. But, I suppose, yes; eternal, in a way.
Does Amba know you’re speaking with me?
No. She believes we have a special bond.
And of course you do not, said Dex, intuition kicking him in the kidneys. You work for yourself, don’t you, pretty little Zi? You have your own mission objectives. You have your own agenda in your... existence.
It was a strange sensation, and Dex realised, it was a transmitted feeling. Zi was smiling.
You are observant and clever, Mr Colls. Try not to be too clever. Return me to Amba. We will speak again.
And you want me to remain quiet about this little exchange?
Your life depends on it, concluded Zi.
The world hissed back into place, and Amba gave Dex an odd look and said, “What do you think?”
“A little on the light side. Packs a punch though, doesn’t it? The little fucker.”
“It’s a powerful weapon. She has kept me alive on many an occasion.”
“She?”
“We have a special bond,” smiled Amba, and stood swiftly, taking the FRIEND from Dex’s grip. He felt reluctant to hand the weapon over; as if it might take a strip of skin with it. Or something.
“We should move on,” said Dex. “I want to find my family.”
“I think you will be unhappy.”
“We shall see,” said Dex.
~ * ~
Slowly they climbed upwards across the flanks of the mountain, through trees which became more and more mechanised with every passing hour. Finally, the forest had become a forest of engines, the branches pistons, the bark knurled steel and chamfered gears, their trunks pillars of complex machinery that glistened with oil like sap. Amba seemed twitchy, looking around nervously, staring hard at the machine trees as if they might come alive and chase her.
So, even androids have bad dreams, thought Dex. And the thought didn’t make him feel any better.
They climbed above the tree-line, although why there should have been a tree line in this place was not immediately apparent to Dex. On Theme Planet, he had become accustomed to the strange being normal, the weird being an everyday occurrence; and he had simply ceased to question.
Out of the trees, the wind whipped them and snapped at them with steel jaws. They climbed higher, following no particular path, and picking their way through rocks and broken metal tree stumps.
They stopped for a break, and Dex said, “I don’t see how you can know the way.”
“I got it. From Napper. When he held me... from inside of him.”
“What do you mean inside?”
“He trapped my soul, using his.”
“You don’t have a soul, you are an android,” said Dex.
“Yes,” said Amba, and stared at him. And he realised -she did not have the answers. Confusion was also hers. And that made Dexter’s heart sing with joy, for if that was the case, and she was only one step above him in supposedly understanding, then maybe she was completely wrong, claiming he was an android. He grimaced. But then, he knew that. Knew she was wrong. Because he was human. He could feel it in his soul.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a rollercoaster CAR slammed out of the gloomy sky. People were sat aboard, hands above their heads, screaming, but these really were screaming in fear, not in simulated pleasure, and they slammed overhead on a black oiled rail that Dexter had failed to spot. The CAR cannoned off into the distance over the forest, and Dex, who had ducked, clamping himself like a limpet to the ground, glanced up at Amba.
Amba shrugged. “Looks like they even have rides in here. “
“What, rides through Hell?”
“Seems likely,” said Amba, voice soft, and Dex realised she was serious.
“How much further?” said Dex. “I’m sick of this shit.”
“We’ll enter the mountain. Enter the mainframe.”
“Inside the computer?”
“Yes. She has your family.”
“SARAH?”
“Yes.”
Dex said nothing. They carried on, following the dark track above their heads which gleamed, and was easy to follow now Dex had clocked it. He wondered how he’d missed it in the first place. He also wondered why he felt so damned surprised.
They came to a dark hole in the mountainside. The track spewed from the hole, like a metal tongue. Dex stepped forward, but Amba stopped him with a touch to his upper arm.
“What is it?”
“Whatever happens in here... trust nothing. Nobody. Not even me.”
Dex shrugged. “That’s my philosophy already.”
“SARAH will test us. We will be put through mind games... like Napper did to me. Only last time I failed. Failed horribly.”
“Which is why you need me?”
“Confusing, yes?”
“Not at all. It’s one of the sanest things I’ve heard. After everything I’ve seen on the Theme Planet, I’d expect nothing but complete chaos at the heart of the computer running it all. Is this the point wh
ere we go our separate ways?”
“I do not know,” confessed Amba. “Romero’s engineers briefed me up to this point. Afterwards...”
Dex felt a sudden pang of suspicion. “Are you sure my family are here?”
“All paths lead to SARAH,” said Amba, as if reciting a line from a poem.