Science Fiction and Fantasy Box Set 1: The Squishies Series

by Claire Chilton

  “Oh, this isn’t crazy,” Bex said. “This is normal.”

  “I can’t wait to see crazy.” Carla grinned at her new friend.

  Bex met Carla’s eyes, offering a spookily serious expression. “Oh, you will,” she said. Then she creased up laughing again.

  Carla nudged open the apartment door with her foot and pushed her way through it. Her arms were full of bags, and she was exhausted.

  “Nice place, huh?” Bex’s voice came up behind her as she dragged Carla’s suitcase into the room and shut the door.

  Carla peered around the large apartment. It was spotlessly clean with modern furniture and lots of open space to move around in.

  She opened the hall cupboard, curiously glancing inside it, but yelped when a surfboard nearly fell on her. She pushed it back, cramming it into the small space. The cupboard was a mess of sporting equipment, skis, bikes, surfboards, old computers and electronics. Carla pushed the door shut and leaned against it. That’s more like the Parklon I know.

  She glanced around the room. There was an expensive music system next to the couch with surround sound and a huge widescreen television in front of the couch. On the back wall was a modern fireplace with imitation flames and lights flickering on it.

  She smiled at the photograph on the fireplace mantel. It was of her, Parklon and Bob outside the bar Different Shades in Derobmi. They were all laughing. She remembered when it had been taken, over six-months ago. Happier days, days she missed very much right now.

  “It feels like home already.” She smiled at Bex. “Thanks for letting me stay here, and for your help.”

  “Anytime, chica. It was fun, and I’m always up for that.”

  Carla nervously bit her lip. “You don’t think we’ll get into trouble, do you?” She was referring to the fact that she hadn’t paid her hotel bill. She had sneaked out with her belongings instead.

  “Nah, they don’t even have your credit card details. They’ll just write it off and forget about it.” Bex sounded confident.

  I guess she’s done that before .

  Carla was still very uncomfortable about it. She’d never done anything like that before, but Bex had been very convincing when she’d suggested it earlier at the hotel.

  Bex’s argument for skipping out on the bill had made sense at the time. Bex had explained it in a way that implied it was almost the hotel’s fault for not telling her the cost of the room in the first place.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Carla said. “Anyway it’s done now. No going back.” She grinned at Bex, with the memory still fresh in her mind of the two of them sneaking out of the hotel’s fire door. It was true what they said—it felt good to be bad.

  Bex winked at her. “They should have told you how much the room cost at the start. If they had, I wouldn’t have done this.” She pulled a hotel towel out of Carla’s suitcase, and then another one.

  “Oh, no, what did you do?” Carla asked, grinning. She couldn’t help it. Bex was so wild and exciting to be around. Carla was a ‘no rules’ kind of girl, but Bex rewrote the rules to suit her.

  Bex pulled a lamp out of Carla’s suitcase. “What? It’ll look better in here, anyway.” She grinned.

  “You’re insane,” Carla laughed.

  “Hey, it’ll look nice in my apartment too, if you don’t want it?” Bex fluffed up her multicolored hair and pretended to look offended.

  “Oh no, you don’t! I think it should go just there.” Carla pointed to the mantelpiece, laughing.

  “Fine!” Bex chuckled and pretended to stomp over to the fireplace in a huff. She slammed the lamp down onto the mantelpiece with quite a lot of force.

  The photograph of Carla, Parklon and Bob toppled over from the vibration and smashed on the hard wood floor. Bex grimaced and looked down at it.

  Carla rushed over and knelt down to pick it up. The glass had shattered, but the photograph and frame were still intact. She brushed the shards out of the frame and picked it up.

  “Oops,” Bex said. “Boss’ll go apeshit over that.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Carla smiled, a bit less enthusiastically this time. “I’ll get it fixed.”

  “Cool stuff,” Bex said, completely oblivious to Carla’s sadness over the broken picture. “I gotta head home and hit the sack. But hey, what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Umm, I don’t know yet. Not much.”

  “Fab, let’s get snazzy, go out and party tomorrow night. It’ll be a blast!”

  Carla thought about it. “Shouldn’t I wait to hear from Parklon? I really need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  “You’re staying in his apartment now. You’ll find him when he comes home. While you’re waiting around, you might as well have some fun.” Bex shrugged.

  She was right. It wasn’t as if Carla could do anything else right now.

  “Okay, you’re on. What does a snazzy person wear in Zoola?”

  “As little as possible, babe,” Bex said. “I’ll come around tomorrow at nine. Until then, break some rules.” She winked and left the apartment with a dramatic flip of her hair and a giggle.

  Carla watched her leave with a smile. Then she glanced down at the photograph in her hands. She missed Parklon’s smile. He had a good smile. It’d been too long since she’d seen it.

  She put the picture back on the mantelpiece and promised herself to replace the frame tomorrow.

  Once Bex was gone, she glanced around the apartment. It was a bit strange being in Parklon’s apartment without him knowing she was there. She decided to worry about that when he came back. In the meantime, she needed to sleep. It had been a really long day.

  Trying to shake the feeling that she shouldn’t be here, she tentatively explored the apartment. There was an open-plan living room and a kitchen with a breakfast bar. A door on the left led into a home office, which contained a desk, a computer, lots of books and a doorway leading to another room.

  She opened the second door and peeked inside. A mini-laboratory! It had a workbench, Bunsen burners and shelves stacked with chemicals and God knows what else. Looks like he’s still a mad scientist in the making. She chuckled as she closed the door.

  Next, she went back to the living area and decided to explore the spiral staircase that led up to a second level of the apartment.

  She climbed up the staircase, which was made of shiny metal and vibrated as she ascended. She gripped the rail, not liking how unsteady it felt under her feet.

  She felt a bit rude going through Parklon’s private domain. It’s not as if you can go back to the hotel now. She hoped he wouldn’t mind her intrusion into his home.

  Once she reached the small landing at the top of the stairs, she found two doors leading to more rooms. She headed for the left one and stepped inside.

  It was a masculine bedroom with a king-size bed in the center of it. Built-in wardrobes lined the far wall, and a window looked out onto the street below. There was a second doorway leading off to an adjoining bathroom.

  She wandered into the bathroom and stared in the mirror. Her face looked pale and she seemed nervous. She probably was nervous.

  She picked up the aftershave on the shelf above the sink and sniffed it. It smelled like Parklon. This must be his bathroom, and the room behind me must be his bedroom.

  If he walked in right now, what would he say? She tried to imagine it. Would he be like the guy she remembered?

  She frowned. Does he remember me anymore? Unsettled by the idea that she had been forgotten, she turned on her heel and hurried into his bedroom. Without thinking, she idly opened the closet. It was all so neat.

  She ran her fingers over his shirts. They all looked new and a bit more mature in style than those he used to wear. What if he’s a different guy now? What if he’s a stranger when he comes back here?

  She shook herself out of it. She couldn’t sleep in here. It would be too weird. She left the room, crossing the landing and heading for the door opposite.

  She opened the do
or, hoping for another bedroom. Her prayers were answered with a neat little spare guestroom that had a comfy-looking single bed in it and a nice bathroom off to the side, containing a big luxurious bathtub.

  “Oh, this is perfect!” She flopped onto the bed and relaxed for the first time in days. She fell asleep a few minutes later, fully clothed and dreaming about Parklon.

  Parklon sat on a hillside overlooking the Haimfield Medical Institute, watching the building through a pair of long-range binoculars. The grounds had cameras everywhere, and it looked as if sneaking in was going to be a challenge.

  Going into the building was easy, but leaving it was another matter. He glanced at the building schematics. There wasn’t even a rear exit. Everything went through the front door, and that was a problem.

  It had state-of-the-art security and an automatic lockdown system. No wonder the guards were lazy. Any trouble and all they had to do was press a button. DalsonCorp didn’t rely on human error. They used electrical systems to guard their prisoners.

  Further research into the institute had shown it housed a lot of people that DalsonCorp had an interest in, and they were all tagged electronically. If the patients stepped foot outside the building, they were tracked on an international grid at DalsonCorp headquarters.

  In an escape attempt four years ago, a patient had been electrocuted on the grounds of the institute. He’d been alone in the wooded driveway at the time. All that could have killed him was his electronic tag.

  It was beginning to look like an impossible task. Parklon had almost given up on the idea of getting Foamy out of there because he’d probably be dead the minute he set foot outside his room.

  But Parklon had a plan. It was risky, but there was a good chance that it would work.

  He climbed into a white van marked: ‘Carlton Laundry Services’. Every night at nine o’clock, Carlton Laundry Services would arrive to collect the dirty linen and replace it with clean linen.

  They always parked outside Foamy’s ground-floor room at the back of the building, and then did their job.

  As regular as clockwork, the driver would wait in his van for exactly twenty minutes, having a smoke before setting off. The driver had told Parklon it was to do with time. If he were tracked leaving the building early, he would lose an hour of pay, so he just sat there until the right time and then drove back to the depot.

  Parklon had paid the driver to take the night off and lend him his van, under a strict promise to do the job well. The driver hadn’t cared too much as long as he got paid.

  There were several things that could go wrong, but it was his only chance of getting Foamy out of there.

  Parklon put on the company baseball cap and tugged it low over his eyes. He drove the van down the hillside and onto the main road that led to Haimfield’s driveway.

  He turned off the main road into the driveway and watched the building while he drove toward it. He drove around the back and parked beside Foamy’s barred window.

  After he climbed out of the van, he hurried to the back of it and wheeled out a large plastic basket, which was filled with clean linen. He pushed the basket around the building, carefully glancing around. Everything looked the same as the night before.

  He opened the front doors and wheeled the basket in ahead of him.

  The guard barely glanced at him.

  The driver had told him that he never spoke to the staff. He just dropped off the clean laundry and picked up the dirty washing.

  Parklon walked past the security desk, acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He found a basket, similar to the one he was wheeling, leaning against the left wall. He replaced it with the clean one and then began wheeling the dirty linen back out of the building.

  “Hey!” The guard’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

  Parklon’s heart hammered, but he turned around calmly. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Don’t forget to sign the time sheet.” The guard nodded at a sheet of paper on the wall near the security desk.

  “Thanks, mate. I can’t believe I forgot that.” Parklon mentally slapped the driver for not telling him about a time sheet.

  He walked over to the wall and pulled a pen out of his uniform’s shirt pocket. The pen and shirt both had the company logo on them, which was a blue cloud with a yellow lightning streak through it. He studied at the sheet. It was just a list of scrawls showing the same name, a date and the time on each line. He did his best to imitate the style of writing, and signed it with today’s date.

  He put the pen back in his pocket and smiled at the guard, who had gone back to reading his book. Parklon turned and left, pushing the dirty washing basket in front of him.

  He walked out of the building and sighed when he stepped outside. That was the easy part.

  When he reached the van, he opened the back doors and wheeled the basket into it. Then he climbed in, glanced around to ensure no one was watching, and then closed the doors behind him.

  He quickly pulled down a shelf he’d installed in the van earlier. There was a black hold all and a laptop on it, ready to use. The laptop was already hacked into the security cameras outside the building.

  Parklon hit the ‘play’ button on the first screen on the laptop. A loop of footage of the previous day’s delivery began to play on all the security cameras surrounding the building. There was a risk that the guard would notice that the driver was a little less muscled than Parklon, but—since the guy didn’t leave the van in the footage—it probably wasn’t going to be an issue.

  He pressed alt tab to switch to a second screen. He studied the security footage of Lord Foamy in his room. Foamy looked nervous. Not surprising since I’m a day late.

  He hadn’t rescued him yesterday as he’d promised. He’d had to do more reconnaissance and planning than he’d expected.

  Parklon watched the room for a second. The meds had been administered, and Foamy had eaten his dinner. He wouldn’t be getting any more visits tonight.

  Parklon hit ‘play’ and looped footage from the previous night through the cameras.

  Grabbing the black hold off the shelf, he checked it still contained his tools. Then he cautiously opened the back door of the van. He stuck his head out and glanced around. The area was clear, no people or prying eyes. He stepped out of the van and hurried over to Foamy’s window.

  He dropped the hold all on the floor and took a small electrical tool out of it. It looked like a man’s hair trimmer, but it had a vicious whirring blade. This was a miniature saw that had been souped-up by HQ. He turned it on, and his hand trembled under the vibrations. The blade was diamond-edged, making it both sharp and unstoppable.

  After pulling on his goggles to protect his eyes, he began cutting through the bars on Lord Foamy’s window. The blade sliced through them easily without making too much noise. Fiery sparks came off the metal when the saw cut through the bottom of all the bars.

  His hand shook violently under the force of the saw. He held it with both hands, tensing his muscles to hold it steady. The pressure on his arms lessened when the saw went through the last bar.

  He paused to check the time. Four minutes had passed. Hurrying to stay on schedule, he reached up to saw through the top of the bars. It was more difficult when he had gravity working against him, and he had to reach up to cut through the top.

  Sweat beaded his brow, but he didn’t take his eyes off the bars. The first one came loose and dropped to the ground with a loud clank.

  He winced and kicked the hold all under the window, so the next four dropped onto it with very little noise.

  Once the bars were gone from the window, he removed the goggles and dropped the saw back into his bag.

  After studying the window for a moment, he pulled a small electronic scrambler out of his bag and hooked it onto the wires for the alarm that ran up the length of the window. Once connected to the system, he controlled the window, and the alarm in the room.

  He turned off the alarm in this roo
m, smiling when he heard the lock ping when it unlatched.

  He opened the window, peering inside.

  Lord Foamy lay strapped to his bed, watching him. “The cameras, you fool!” Foamy hissed at him.

  “I’ve turned them off,” Parklon said quietly. “Now shut up, and let me get you out of here.”

  “You’re late,” Foamy snapped.

  “Better late than never,” Parklon muttered as he reached into the bag for a medical kit, and then climbed through the window, hurrying over to Foamy’s bed.

  “Untie me,” Foamy demanded.

  “Not yet. We need to remove your tracker.”

  “What tracker?” Worry furrowed Foamy’s brow.

  “The injections they gave you released a tracking device into your bloodstream. It’s genetically programmed to attach itself to your cerebral cortex. If you step outside the building with it in your body, it’ll trigger the alarms and track where you are, and then they can electrocute you from any location.”

  “Get that thing out of me.” The older man widened his eyes in fear.

  “I will, but it’s not going to be pleasant,” Parklon said.

  “Neither was marrying a Derobmi. Just get it done.” Foamy scowled at him, determinedly clenching his jaw.

  Parklon hid a grin. Derobmi women were a high-maintenance breed. Even Carla had her Derobmi moments.

  Stop wasting time, he told himself, shaking off more pleasant thoughts so he could focus on the job at hand.

  He pulled a syringe and a small blade out of the medical kit.

  “This is going to change the tracker’s system. It’ll detach from your cerebral cortex and re-enter your bloodstream. It’ll do it quickly, but it will hurt like hell when it comes off. Once it’s in the bloodstream it should come to the surface underneath your skin, here.” Parklon pointed to the top of Foamy’s left palm. “Then I’m going to cut it out.”

  Foamy gritted his teeth. “Do it. I’m ready.”

  “One more thing, there’s some programming in the tracking chip that I couldn’t decode. I’m not certain it’ll work,” Parklon said. “It might kill you, but it’s all we have.”