Why me, Mommy? Why did the bad
lady shoot me?
Cold, hard eyes staring at her.
Because
she had to, darling. Because she had to protect her own anonymity.
But I wouldn’t have said
anything, Mommy. I promise! If only she hadn’t shot us. If only she hadn’t
killed us.
Shh, darling. Go to sleep. Go to
sleep for... well. Forever.
But why, Mommy ? Why?
Hard eyes. Cold eyes. Eyes
drilling into her soul. Eyes drilling right down to the core of her existence
to find the apple-core was rotten; and she was dead inside. Dead. And lost. And
gone.
Because,
said Mommy, slowly, her mouth
forming words with care, her smashed mouth, her torn mouth with its broken
teeth and ripped tongue and bullet-slashed lips, mouth filling with blood even
as she spoke, blood which spilled down her chin and stained her flowery blouse,
because she is an android, and androids aren’t human; they look human, they
sound human, but there’s something missing that no genetic engineer can ever
create. You see, they’re a made thing, a machine organism, and, my sweet, there’s
no genetic craftsman alive in the Four Galaxies who can build a soul...
~ * ~
The Shuttle cruised
smooth, and Amba dreamed about the white house with
the terracotta roof. She walked towards the door, the peeling door, the blue
door - only now, in her path, stood the young girl she had shot. The bullet
hole above the child’s eye glistened. She looked pale as moonlight. Dead as a
corpse.
What do you want
?
I want to understand.
Why?
Because until I understand, I can
never be at peace.
What do you want to know?
Why you killed me. Why you killed
us. We did you no harm.
I killed you because I had to. To
protect my position as...
A killer?
Catch 22.
Round and round we go. Where we’ll
stop, nobody knows.
~ * ~
Amba awoke with
a
start, and spent a moment reorientating herself. It was rare she slept. The
Anarchy models could operate on one hour’s sleep every sixty. She gazed out of
the Shuttle’s porthole at the endless drifts of space. Amba shivered. Here was
something far more vast than the desolation of her soul; more empty than her
empathy. Here was eternity. Here was cold death.
Amba shivered, and accepted a
coffee from a passing drone, which also offered her a thermblanket when it
noted her temperature. The drone hovered for a moment, then disappeared. Amba
sipped the hot bitter brew, and wrapped herself up tight. She was shivering,
and felt far from well. What the hell was the matter with her?
Guilt?
mocked Zi, crawling from under
her mental rock.
Get fucked.
You need me.
I need you like a hole in the
head.
For the hundredth time Amba
pictured the little girl she’d killed, and recognised in herself that she
was
not right.
Nothing affected her like this. Not murder. Not mass execution.
Not genocide. So what was so fucking different now? Where the fuck had this new
humanity crawled from?
A queasiness crept over her, and
she felt sick. She stumbled down the aisle and into the toilet, which locked
behind her and began to play a gentle piano track. She heaved over the sink,
vomiting coffee, and then stayed there for a while, shivering, her skin clammy,
a sour taste in her mouth and in her soul.
“Damn this place,” she muttered. “Damn
this mission.”
~ * ~
When she awoke,
a
planet filled the Shuttle’s porthole. It was vast.
Vast.
Theme Planet turned below, in slow motion, majestic,
titanic, the oceans painted blue like some wonderful pastel painting, its
different continents showing amber and grey and green. Clouds streamed like
molten silver. Sunlight painted vast patterns across the oceans. Amba was
impressed, and it took a lot to impress the cynical Anarchy Android.
She watched, entranced, as they
began to plummet through the atmosphere, and felt a queasy sensation inside.
The Shuttle was smooth, with only a little entry vibration, and Amba sipped a
snorkel of water and listened to the squeaks of joy from children around her,
bouncing in their seats as the Theme Planet’s rides steadily came into focus.
“Ladies and gentleman, this is
your pilot, Kevin, speaking. During our approach to Theme Planet, you can just
make out to your left Adventure Central. I, Kevin, can personally recommend the
Museum of Baron Nutcase, which I have wandered around for days at a time. For
those with an adventurous streak, and I count myself amongst those people,
there’s the Skycloud Mountains, especially popular with climbers who want the
thrill and danger of high peaks without the danger of falling off and dying...
a-ha-ha-ha... there’s the Pterodactyl Castle, in which I heartily recommend the
Hunt Your Own T-Rex Supper
quest, and if you squint really tight
right now
you can see The Canyon of Eternal
Torture. See how big it is? See how deep it is? See how many have been impaled
a
ha ha ha
only joking youngsters! To your right, the pink, quivering,
wobbling island you can make out amongst gently lapping silver waters is
Pleasure
Island,
and this one is for the mums and dads, boyfriends and girlfriends,
and young lovers of every alien persuasion. I can heartily recommend Sex City
where, ahem, every whim and nuance is catered for [sigh] and indeed, walk hand
in hand through the Glade of Eternal Delight, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
and around the lapping shores of Virgin’s Lake, which is exactly the same shape
as a pus... oh, we’re coming into land, buckle yourselves down and prepare to
visit...” - all the children joined in to shout the words - “the Theme Planet!
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! BLEEEUURGGHHHH hahahahahahahaha!”
Amba sipped her water. She heard
the
crack
and whine as landing gear descended, and then closed her eyes
and rested her head back, because she was thinking, reliving memories of a
thousand infiltrations and fast SLAM drops and going into battle, machine guns
rattling, yammering, bombs exploding, the pattering of shrapnel on the hull of
armoured vehicles. She shivered. Shit. And here she was. Back on the ground.
Back in the jaws. Ready for the kill. She opened her eyes and shrugged off her
humanity like a disintegrating shroud.
Good.
That was the way it fucking
should be.
Six murders. Six hits.
Then she could go home.
Then they could all go home.
~ * ~
“Madam, could you please come with us?”
Amba stopped, holding up the
queue of people eager to get through immigration and onto the rides.
“Come on, missus, get out of the
way!” said one little girl with green eyes and black hair. Amba stepped
smoothly to the side, and one of the guards took her arm in an iron-firm
don’t-fuck-with-me
grip.
Amba glanced around. There were
five guards, armoured, with black insect-eye helmets. To the right, she saw
another ten with machine guns. And there were people - hordes of people,
pushing and jostling, eager to get out on the rides, eager to enjoy the Theme
Planet, to enjoy their vacation!
“Am I in some kind of trouble,
officer?” Amba said, smoothly. “There must have been a mistake.”
She moved with the man, who
guided her expertly. Amba could have killed him five times by the time they
reached the flat grey door, a door that was easy to miss and blended with the
wall. Amba tutted to herself. She had let her guard down for an instant, and
they’d taken her in a public place. Far too public. No. She would bide her
time. Wait.
“This way,” he repeated.
She stepped through the door, and
something cold touched the back of her neck and zapped her. She was unconscious
before she hit the floor.
~ * ~
Amba opened her
eyes.
The walls and floor and ceiling were chrome, polished and gleaming. “That was
neat, what you did back on Earth,” came a voice, a female voice, and Amba
frowned. It rang some distant memory. She placed her hand to her chest,
protectively, but Zi was still there, as hard as her heart. She smiled at that.
Very funny.
We can do it now,
said Zi.
Soon,
she soothed, recognising she
would need the FRIEND’s violence. Intuitively, she realised things were
getting... serious.
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” said Amba.
“Well, your denial is of no
consequence.”
There came a hissing sound and
Amba’s eyes flared wide. Gas! So quick? She hadn’t anticipated...
Her nostrils twitched. Krakkium
cyanide.
She leapt at the wall, hands
tearing at the smooth chrome, but was punched back by a massive electric shock
which tossed her limp and rolling across the floor.
“Relax,” chuckled the voice. “Enjoy
the ride.”
~ * ~
CHAPTER FOUR
TH3 M1SS1NG
Dex yawned and
came
round slowly from a deep, necessary sleep. Recharge, he thought. That’s what
this holiday is. A recharge! The option to get away from it all, get away from the
stresses of life in London. To sit back, and relax, and weigh up one’s options
in life.
Gradually, light oozed through
his slumber and, yawning, Dex rolled over and reached out for Katrina, hoping
for that soft warm flesh contact that made sleeping with a woman so special.
The space next to him was empty. But damn, she was an early riser - even after
all the wine and sex? Dex grinned to himself, remembering their previous
evening’s antics.
God, I’m good,
he thought.
Slowly, he sat up. “Katrina?” No
response.
Dex climbed to his feet, back
aching a little, knees aching a little, everything aching a little.
I’m
getting old,
he thought with just a touch of sourness.
Soon it’ll be
time to visit the joint-refit doctors!
But he knew, deep down, he never
would. Some people visited the
blades
for sheer fun. Vanity obsessives.
Others, more restrained, visited only when their human shells - their organic
chassis - started to break down, to creak, to show its age like a ground-down,
ungreased ball-joint. But Dex, Dex was old school; probably got it from his
dad. He hated machines. Hated doctors. Hated scalpels and needles and medical
circular saws... he shivered.
Dex padded into the bathroom and
peered in the mirror. “Getting old, you old gimmer bastard,” he said to his
reflection, eyes serious, then cracked his face like an egg and broke into a
yolk smile. “Yes, but it’s your children that make you feel young again. Right?”
Talking of children, why weren’t they bouncing up and down on his fat belly?
Dex yawned again, and hit the red
button on the mirror console. The mirror shimmered and two tiny openings
appeared; from the quivering holes emerged two metal arms, which whirred into
life, one holding a toothbrush with paste, which was gently inserted into Dex’s
mouth to brush at his teeth, the second holding a self-foaming razor, which
began its shaving duties. Dex stood, grumbling a little and wondering why he
couldn’t just do it himself, but Kat insisted he “catch up with the machine
times” and “enjoy the technology of today” and, more specifically, that he “stop
being a moaning old git of a goat.”