Dex headed off into the gloom,
wandering down a narrow track between rocks. He picked his way carefully,
heading for the cliffs and away from the obvious main exit, one hand on his
gun, eyes wary, scouting for trouble... because he knew. Trouble was going to
come to him. It always did.
Always
did.
He moved slowly, alert,
constantly on the lookout for SIMs or the police. He was at least happy with
one thing; Jim was dead. That bastard. How could he do that, how could he
betray the humans? Betray his position of power and authority? Ha. But then
there would always be the corrupt, those willing to sell their own fucking
granny for a lousy dollar. Dex shook his head.
It’s just the way the world
is, baby. One huge comedy horrorshow.
Dex tracked down from the
ridgeline, then headed slowly for the Monolith Ride Museum’s wild side. He
fancied he might come across a few tourists, which could keep him safe - but
then, after the slaughterhouse in the forest with Robin Hoodie and his Merry
Backstabbers, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Had they really been rogue SIMs on a
crazy mission of extermination? Or had they been
instructed
that way?
Dex knew how anally retentive the Theme Planet creators were about bad
exposure. You didn’t want people getting shot up on the rollercoasters; that’d
bring nothing but catastrophe to your business balance sheet.
Just like a rogue cop with a kidnapped
wife and children, on a mission of rampage with a fucking SMKK machine gun,
shooting up SIMs and policemen and tearing around in a military chopper. Now,
loose with a pocket of grenades and enough bullets to take out a battalion,
here he was trying to set the world to rights.
Or at least, find his family.
Dex thought about Molly and
Toffee. He thought about Katrina.
He missed them terribly.
Mouth a grim line, he headed away
from the tourist paths. He headed for the cliffs...
~ * ~
Amba blinked. Something
was strange. Hell, something was
downright
weird.
The world felt wrong. Like she was pushing through
cotton wool. It was dark, the air oily and filled with rancid grease.
How
did I get here, Zi? What happened?
No answer.
Zi?
Fear now. Zi had always
been with her, was her companion, through thick and thin, through life and
death, through murder and mayhem. Zi was a part of Amba. An integral element of
the Anarchy Android...
Amba’s hand flashed up, and she
realised with heart-stopping
horror
that Zi, the FRIEND, was gone. She
patted her chest for a few moments, but there was no disguising it; the FRIEND
had vanished. And that was impossible. How could she have not known? How had
she
not felt the pressure, on body, mind and soul?
She stopped dead, boots sliding a
little in oil. She looked around. Took a
good
look around. The walls
were complex, mesh upon mesh upon mesh. There were girders and support struts
everywhere, most gleaming with oil and grease. There were huge flywheels and
cogs and gears, some still and dripping oil, many moving slowly, turning, gears
clicking as they shifted and changed and slicked neatly into finely engineered
new positions. It was like being inside a giant clock. Like being inside a vast
machine.
How did I get here?
How did I come here?
There had been no transition. No
change. In a moment of panic, Amba tried to recall her memories, but could not.
Then the panic settled like nuclear fallout, into a roadmap back into her past;
a roadmap through murder.
You are in the machine,
came Zi’s voice. And Amba
remembered. The Ride Museum. She was looking for Terry Napper, head of the
Monolith Secret Police. And it had been so easy. Quiet corridors, no guards...
no
guards.
No. This place was guarded with something different. Something...
alien.
An entity, or presence, across which Amba had never before stumbled. Or been
pushed.
She thought about Romero, then.
Cardinal Romero. Could picture his tall frame, heavy build, good looking dark
features, black hair slicked back. In his hand he carried his Zippo, flicking
it open, shut, open, shut, open, shut. He was smiling at her, but the smile was
a knowing smile, the smile was a killing smile. There was a
click.
A
memory unlocked in her android brain.
I want you to find Terry Napper. He
runs the Monolith Secret Police. He knows secrets, many secrets about the
Monolith Army being raised by the provax on Theme Planet. I want you to
discover those secrets. I want you to torture him, bring him pain like no pain
he has ever felt. Make him sing. Sing long and sweet. I want to know every
aspect of Theme Planet’s military plans. I want to know its size, and more
importantly, I want to know its technology. Can you do this for me, sweet Amba?
I can do it, General.
One last thing.
Yes?
Be careful. He is guarded, but
not as you would understand a person being guarded. Napper is core to the
Monolith Movement; he knows too many of their secrets, and they have something
very special for him. You understand
?
I don’t think I do.
You will find out.
Inevitably.
She opened her eyes. She was
inside a machine. She didn’t know how she had arrived. And her FRIEND had gone.
Had it been gas? Or was this a mind-fuck? Her eyes narrowed. Either way, she would
have to get through it... because whatever
it
was, it had identified her
as a threat and was working on her.
She moved, running fast, boots
sliding on oil. She flashed through endless corridors of machinery, breaking
through a mesh panel and into a cavern of machines. They were vast, and dark,
pistons as huge as tower blocks, wheels and spinning cogs a kilometre high and
interlinked with more cogs, hundreds of cogs and gears, thousands, and this was
the machinery on the underside of the Theme Planet, Amba suddenly knew, and she
felt intuitively that she was in some kind of half-world, a second-hand shadow.
She had been forced there by the machines. Taken there, against her will,
without her knowledge. As an act of quarantine?
She had to break out. She had to
negotiate the maze. Were they watching her? Could they observe her? Was it
Napper? It had to be. She was in The Ride Museum, and it was
his
base of
Operations. The core of the Monolith Secret Police - from where every damn
tourist who visited Theme Planet was watched, spied upon, monitored, listened
to. Their minds were probed. Not a single person who entered Theme Planet had a
moment of secrecy, of privacy. The Monolith Secret Police were watching.
Studying. Every room of every hotel was rigged with mics and cameras. Every
nuance of human interaction, integration, every moment of comedy and fear and
sadness; all were studied, all were observed.
Something went
click
in
Amba’s mind. Romero had triggered a memory. Romero had triggered an
allowance.
An understanding. For only with understanding could Amba get through this
shit, through this alien
machine
to face Napper. He was cunning, he was
evil - but most of all, he was in a position of
control.
He had her in
his grip, and she was now his slave. She had to break the chains. She had to
gain her freedom. Before she could kill him.
Amba stood still, amidst a
million whining, clanking, thrumming machines.
She considered her options.
Theme Planet had been created to
monitor humanity. Why?
Were the provax so in
awe
of mankind’s empathy?
In the same way that androids
were in awe of humanity’s ability to care?
And she realised. Provax and
androids... they were the same. Maybe not chemically, biologically, organically
- but it was there. In their confusion as to what made humanity human.
Truly
human. And how, despite this
humanity,
they were then able to side-step
the natural urges and become
inhuman.
Amba frowned. She was nearly
there. Clutching at threads of silk whilst balancing on a high wire above a
tank of piranhas. Nearly there, but losing her balance, twitching, fighting,
trying to achieve clarity...
Did Monolith wish to
destroy
humanity?
Romero had mentioned an army.
Military organisation.
But why?
Amba frowned again. How could
that be? There were a million easier ways to destroy a race than invite it to a
pleasure park. No. It had to be something more complex. And she was there for
answers. For the answers lay with the Monolith Army. The answers lay with Terry
Napper, head of Monolith’s Secret Police.
She moved, and around her the
machinery of Theme Planet moved with her. The rhythms and clanks and whines
changed, with every movement of her hand, every footstep, every blink of an
eyelash, with every beat of her android heart.
Amba stopped. She blinked. She
coughed. Around her, the machinery seemed to blend, to twist, to
move.
Huge cogs now seemed to be eyes, watching her. She walked along a wide avenue
lined with belching engines. Their rhythms were words, and they sang to her,
saying,
Leave us leave us leave us,
and,
save us save us save us.
Noises and thumps and screeches of metal on metal hammered through Amba’s mind.
She felt her brain cracking, like a spoon through an egg, and she broke into a
run, panic like nothing she had ever felt rioting through her body and spirit.
This was no simple dream, she was there,
had been drawn there,
into the
heart of the machine, in to the heart of Theme Planet and -
It was alive.
It was the SA34000RAH.
A living, breathing machine.
SARAH.
She ran again, brain whirring.
She missed her FRIEND. She missed Zi.
Damn it, you bitch, why can’t you be
here when I need you? Yeah, yeah, I know I moaned, I know I used to slag you
off for the random murders and the senseless violence... but we both know I
need you. We both know I can’t do this thing without you...
Something flashed from the
darkness, and Amba rolled left, fast. A metal object, long and sleek, snapped
past her ear. Amba launched herself forward, crashing into a... a
machine,
like
a miniature version of the machines around her. It was an engine, open and
belching, metal parts spinning and clanking, belts thrumming, like a drive
engine, shit, like a
ride
engine. This was one of the ride machines...
and here it was...
attacking her!
There was a
snap
and a piston
broken free, skimming past Amba’s nose. She twitched right, snapped out a right
punch, and felt a knuckle crack. She didn’t dent the machine. She didn’t rock
it. It groaned, and whined, and she backflipped five times, putting distance
between, herself and the oily engine. It staggered towards her, rocking
slightly from side to side in time with its pistons. Its legs were short and
stumpy, its arms a mass of linkages and rods and drive-belts. It whirred and snapped
and droned. Fumes pumped from an exhaust pipe which erupted vertically from its
neck, where a human being’s head would have been.
“What the fuck are you?”
It charged her, and she leapt
left, grabbing hold of a huge cog and clambering up it. She glanced down.
Amazingly, the engine thing was following, belching noxious fumes. Chains
clattered on its cogs as it pursued her. Amba frowned and climbed further, then
leapt onto a massive engine housing. She found a length of tubing, kicked it
again, and again, until it split, and hefted the heavy steel tube as the engine
climbed up to her level and leapt at her. She took a step back, and watched the
engine-creature hit the ledge at her feet and tumble back to the corridor
below, landing heavily. Amba narrowed her eyes and jumped down onto it, ramming
the metal tube into an engine orifice with all her might. With a high-pitched
squeal, the engine bucked, shuddered, and juddered to a halt - like a groundcar
breaking down. Black smoke belched from the port, and the whirring belts
clattered to a stop.