“Yes, but—”
“Infinity times!”
“But – again - if we’re infinity times deader than we are now, what’s the point?” Loren retorted, crossing her arms.
“It ain’t about the money.”
Mech’s voice was flat and controlled, his usual ‘I’m one wrong word away from going apeshizz on everyone’ attitude nowhere to be found.
“It’s about the adventure!” Cal said.
Mech shook his head.
“It’s about the thrill of the chase?” Cal guessed. “About the lessons learned and friendships formed along the way? Come on, Mech, throw me a bone, or we’ll be here all day.”
Mech tapped the side of his metal skull. “Someone put those co-ordinates up here. Someone hid them from me,” he said. “Someone was inside my head, and I didn’t know a fonking thing about it.”
He drew himself up to his full impressive height. “Do I want a hundred million credits? You bet your ams I do. But more than that, I want to find out who put the information there. I want to find out why. And then I want to make sure they don’t ever do it again. And I want to find out if there’s anything else hidden up there. If there’s some other part of me still locked away that I know nothing about. This isn’t just about no treasure for me. It never was.”
There came a series of clanks and whirrs as he shrugged his vast shoulders. “You want to turn back? Be my guest. I can’t. I won’t. Ain’t nothing going to stop me reaching those co-ordinates, and finding out what the fonk is going on. Nothing.”
“Well, for me, it’s totally about the money, and, like, there’s no way I’m turning back either,” Miz said, then she hissed and clamped her hands over her ears. “Ack! What is that?”
Cal frowned. “What’s what?” he asked, but then he heard it too. No, he didn’t hear it, he felt it. An ache that started in his ears and bloomed behind his eyes.
Miz groaned as the sound became higher and louder. Splurt’s body vibrated in a regular repeating rhythm. He looked down at it in surprise. There was a paff and the room was filled by a flash of white, like a camera flash going off.
Cal’s tongue flopped out and his eyes rolled upwards. He tried to think, but his brain was a jumbled mush of incomprehensible shapes and notions. He watched the others fall over, unaware that he, too, was already toppling.
All six of them hit the floor one after another, their eyes wide, their expressions vacant. Particularly Splurt, but then he looked like that most of the time, anyway.
The last thing Cal’s brain successfully processed before it surrendered to unconsciousness was the metal door sliding open, revealing a green, grinning, and partially naked figure beyond.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Something was vigorously rubbing Cal’s crotch. That was the first thing he noticed. The joint-second things he noticed was that he was lying on a hard floor, and that his brain was working again.
The third thing he noticed – or the fourth, depending on how you counted it – was that it wasn’t only his brain that was working. Certain other parts of his body were working, too. One in particular, in fact, and a lot of his blood was flowing in that direction.
Something continued to rub his crotch.
Even with his brain belching and farting out gibberish as he’d toppled to the floor, it had still been filled with a certain amount of dread about what was going to come next. He remembered vague notions of torture and death and being eaten in a sandwich. The reality, it turned out, was far more pleasant.
Cal opened his eyes. A rat-sized creature with an eyeless, scrunched-up face and a mouth like a tiny lion’s snuffled at his groin. Shrieking in panic, Cal tried to bat it away, but his hands were tied together and hooked onto something on the wall, so his arms were stuck stretched out above his head.
He twisted his hips, trying to scare the thing off. It retreated, but only a little, its crooked nose twitching as it presumably tried to figure out what was going on.
“Fonk off!” Cal yelped. He’d heard that Sumo wrestlers had the ability to draw their testicles up inside their bodies at will, although he couldn’t remember why. Cool party trick, maybe? Whatever, he tried to master the technique there and then, but the results were mixed, at best.
The rat-thing opened its (relatively) huge mouth. Cal squashed his thighs together, trapping it between them. It squirmed and wriggled, forcing its way closer to Cal’s crotch, those teeth gnashing the air.
Cal tried to crush it.
He tried to flick it away.
He made a number of disparaging remarks about its parentage.
He attempted some firm negotiation.
He attempted some substantially less firm negotiation that involved crying.
All to no avail. He felt the thing’s hot breath through his pants. He heard it let out a groan of hungry anticipation.
And then Mech grabbed it between two fingers and, with a flick of his wrist, exploded it against a wall.
Cal’s wide eyes found Mech’s face in the gloom. He jerked his head around and saw Loren and Miz leaning against another wall. Splurt was between them, doing a handstand. He waved a stumpy hand, then immediately fell over.
Dave sat on the floor in the corner, half-hidden behind his own knees. He was less yellow and gooey than he had been, but not by much. His eyes stared blankly straight ahead.
“W-wait,” Cal wheezed. He tugged on the bonds around his wrists. “Am I the only one they tied up?”
“Nah. I broke us all out,” said Mech.
“Oh.”
Cal thought about this.
“But you didn’t break me out?”
“Not yet.”
“Even though there was a space rat about to bite my junk off?”
Mech grinned. “Who do you think put it there?” he said.
Cal’s brain was still a little fogged. It took him some time to figure out who would do such a thing.
“Wait, you? Why the fonk would you do that?” he demanded.
“You weren’t waking up, or whatever,” said Miz.
“And it was just sitting there, doing nothing,” Loren added.
Cal frowned. “My penis?”
Loren’s eyes darted, inadvertently, to Cal’s crotch. “No! The… space rat,” she said. “We… Well, mostly Mech… thought it would be funny.”
“Knew it would be funny,” Mech corrected. “Which it was.”
“No! No, it wasn’t,” Cal said. “Trust me, I know funny, and me having my genitalia eaten by a… by a… fonking rodent doesn’t even come close.”
“Guess we’re gonna have to agree to disagree,” said Mech. He bent over Cal again, but this time snapped the restraints holding his arms in place. Cal’s shoulders ached as he brought his arms down in front of him and sat up.
“Is Dave OK?” he asked, although the expression of vacant horror on Dave’s face pretty much answered that question.
“He hasn’t really said anything since he woke up,” Loren said.
“He did make a noise, though,” said Miz. She tried to replicate the sound – a sort of throaty ejection of utter despair and hopelessness with some wobbly bits at the end – then chuckled gently. “It was pretty funny.”
“Shizz. Poor guy,” said Cal. He watched the unmoving Dave for a moment, then turned and looked around.
They were in a box. That was the best way to describe it. The walls were smooth and white (aside from the spot the rat had hit which was lumpy and red). The ceiling was smooth and white. The floor was a little less smooth and a little less white, but mostly still fit the bill.
It was brightly lit, although Cal couldn’t figure out what the actual source of the light was. It seemed to emanate from the air in the center of the room, fading slightly as it reached the walls. Under any normal circumstances, he’d have considered that impossible, but the last few weeks had gone some way to redefine his line in the sand with regards to what was and wasn’t a possibility. He wasn’t even sure if there was a line an
ymore, let alone where it was.
There was what Cal at first thought was a small window, but soon came to realize was actually some kind of projection onto one of the walls. What was displayed on the screen moved as if it were a window, though – as Cal leaned left and right, the viewing angle changed, showing more of the image.
He wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing through it yet, and he had some other concerns to deal with before he felt ready to move onto that.
“Where the fonk are we?”
That was the main one.
“Some kind of prison cell,” Mech said. He hit the wall. “Solid, too. Ain’t no way I’m breaking through that, even if I turn my dial all the way up.”
A memory danced at the edges of Cal’s recollection. “There was a green guy. Big smile. Puffy nipples. Anyone else see him?”
The others shook their heads or shrugged. All except one.
“I s-see it,” said Dave.
“Hey there, buddy!” said Cal, plastering on a smile he hoped would be equal parts uplifting and reassuring. “Good to have you back with us.”
Dave said nothing. He just kept staring straight ahead at… no, not nothing, which was what Cal had originally assumed. He was staring at the screen, or virtual window, or whatever it was.
Cal could still see nothing of note through there, but as he crossed over to Dave, the screen was filled with an expanse of green skin. The clown-thing had its back to the camera, but from the movements it was making and the sounds that emerged, it was clear what it was doing.
It was sharpening knives. And if the drawn-out sssssshhhhhhhhhkt sounds were anything to go by, they were long knives, at that.
“Is that… Is that the guy from the logo?” Cal asked.
Dave nodded.
Cal tilted his head. “I thought he’d be bigger. Has he lost weight?”
“If he has, looks like he’s fixing to put it back on,” said Mech.
“I knew we should have turned back,” Loren said.
“Like I said, I ain’t turning back,” Mech told her.
“Also, you said that, like, thirty seconds before we all got zapped, or whatever,” Miz pointed out with her usual levels of disdain. “It’s not like it would’ve made any difference, even if we’d listened to you. Which, by the way, we never do.”
Cal rubbed his forehead. He could still feel the ache there, although the sound was no longer screeching through his ears.
“What the Hell was that, anyway?”
“Nullifier,” Dave mumbled, his gaze still locked on the screen. His face seemed less slack now, though, like it had been frozen, but was now starting to thaw. “It’s… It’s part of the security system. Sometimes, guests would get out of hand and start fighting each other instead of the bots. The Nullifiers would shut them down without doing any lasting damage.”
“Dave, you are a fountain of information,” said Cal, ramping up that encouraging smile a notch or two. “Thank you. We’re lucky you’re around.”
“Yeah, real lucky,” said Mech. “Or maybe he’s part of the problem.”
“Uh, no. Evil clown thing putting us in a cell? Pretty sure that’s the problem,” Cal replied.
Mech slowly advanced on Dave. “Don’t you think it’s weird, us meeting another Earth guy all the way out here? Light years from Earth itself? A planet with no space travel capabilities.”
“Hey, we’ve got space travel capabilities,” Cal protested. “We went to the moon.”
Everyone who wasn’t from Earth snorted with derisory laughter at that. Except Splurt, who briefly rippled, instead.
“We’re pretty far past the motherfonking moon,” Mech said.
“Well, yeah. It’s weird,” said Cal. “But we already discussed that. We figured it out. It’s destiny. Mystery solved.”
“You know the odds of that happening? The odds of two people from Earth just bumping into one another out here?” continued Mech. “And as for it being someone you know…? I’d have to crank my brainpower to maximum just to calculate the chances of that happening. But they’re low. They’re all the fonking way low. Low enough to be impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Cal said, even though he was sure he’d had the same argument before.
“What was your mental state before we arrived here?” Mech asked. “Would you say you were happy?”
“What are you, my therapist? It’s me we’re talking about. I’m always happy,” Cal said, but his eyes didn’t back that statement up. “I mean, yeah, I’ve been happier, but…”
“You were lonely. You felt like you were the only one of your kind in the whole galaxy. Like you were never going to be able to shoot the shizz with someone from Earth again,” Mech said.
Cal shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I guess. A little of that, maybe. But that’s perfectly normal.”
“Then we came here, and suddenly all your prayers are answered,” Mech said. “Suddenly, you ain’t the only one. Suddenly, you got another Earth guy to talk to, just like you dreamed of.”
“Yes. I know. I was there. What’s your point, Mech?” Cal asked, growing impatient now.
Mech had stopped in front of Dave, and was blocking his view of the screen. Dave blinked and looked up into the towering cyborg’s eyes.
“He said it himself,” Mech continued. “You heard him. This place can create bots just for you, molecule by molecule, shaping them to be whatever you want them – no, whatever you need them to be. You don’t even know it’s happening.”
“Ha!” Cal ejected the sound all the way from the pit of his stomach, which was tightening strangely now. “That’s… That’s just nonsense. That’s not what this is. Dave’s… Dave. He remembers things. From Earth.”
“He remembers things you remember,” Mech said, raising a finger and gesturing vaguely upwards. “Psychic scan, remember? They pick the shizz out of your brain they need to create your ideal bot. That’s what this guy is, man. He’s been lying to us from the moment we got here. From before that, even.”
Dave shook his head. “N-no. No, that’s not true.”
“Relax, Dave, I’m not buying it,” Cal assured him. “Mech, it’s an interesting theory, but it’s bullshizz. Dave isn’t one of those things. He’s Dave, OK? We go way back.”
“Oh really?” said Mech. “And what if I can prove it? You gonna believe me then?”
“You can prove he’s a bio-bot?” said Cal. He glanced down at Dave, who was still shaking his head and looking increasingly uneasy at this turn of events. “How?”
“Easy,” said Mech. “Like this.”
He bent sharply forwards, metal unfolding at his wrist. Something like a tiny buzz-saw emerged, spinning into a blur of whirring teeth.
“W-wait, no, stop!” Dave wailed, holding up his hands for protection. The saw blade curved and sliced, neatly amputating the top of his right ring finger. It fell to the floor with the faintest of thocks, and silence returned as the saw retracted back into Mech’s forearm.
Dave stared, wide-eyed, at the spot where the top part of his finger had been. Cal, Mech and Loren stared, too. Miz, on the other hand, was busy scratching herself, while Splurt was standing on one leg and trying not to fall over.
A spray of warm liquid spurted from the end of Dave’s finger.
Warm red liquid.
“Ooh,” said Loren, biting her lip. “Fonk.”
“Jesus Christ, Mech!” Cal yelled. “What did you do?”
“Oh,” said Mech, his face falling as the blood trickled down Dave’s arm and fell in droplets to the floor. “There is a possibility that I may have made a slight error of judgement,” he admitted.
“You think?”
Dave’s jaw flapped open and closed. “My… my finger. He cut off my finger.” He pressed the palm of his other hand against the stump, trying to stem the blood flow. Instead, it squirted the spray in a different direction which, unfortunately, was the same direction his own face was in. He spluttered and spat, then his voice came as an an
gst-filled shriek. “You cut off my finger!”
“Dave. Relax,” said Cal. “Breathe. Breathe. In. Out. In. Etcetera, etcetera. You know the drill.”
“He cut off my finger!”
“Shizz, man, I am so sorry,” said Mech. “I thought you were one of the bio-bots.”
“Why would I have paid for you to get in?” Dave howled.
“See?” said Loren, slapping Mech on the arm. “That’s what I said. Why would he have paid us in. It doesn’t make sense!”
There was a snorting sound from along the wall. Cal looked back over his shoulder to find Miz’s shoulders heaving as she tried very hard not to laugh. Or reasonably hard, at least. He gestured for her to shut the fonk up, then turned his attention back to the increasingly hysterical Dave.
“Look, it isn’t badly damaged,” Cal said, kneeling and picking the piece of finger up. He blew on the end a couple of times to get rid of any dust, then picked one of Miz’s hairs off it. “I’m sure it’ll just stick back on.”
Taking hold of Dave’s hand, Cal pressed the end of the finger back into place. “See? Good as… Wait, that’s back to front.”
Cal turned the finger over so the nail was pointing upwards. “There. Perfect,” he said, letting go of the decapitated appendage. It immediately fell off and hit the floor again.
Cal winced. “I don’t suppose you happen to be carrying superglue?”
Dave shook his head.
“Guys?” Cal asked.
Everyone else shook their heads, too.
“Uh, no. Sorry,” said Mech.
“Oh, so you have a tiny saw, but no glue? You have the means with which to amputate a human finger, but not to reattach one, is that what you’re saying?” Cal asked.
Mech shifted on his feet. “Look, I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”
“My fonking finger back!” Dave howled.
“Yeah. Guess I kind of walked into that one,” Mech muttered.
Dave made that sound he’d made earlier – a choked exclamation of panicky terror. Cal assumed it was because of the whole finger situation, but then he spotted the real reason. The clown-thing no longer had its back to them. It approached the window screen, waddling slightly, its bare belly jiggling as it plodded closer. The blades it held in its hands were long and curved, and very recently sharpened. Getting one rammed into him was right down near the bottom of Cal’s list of things to do. He spun around, searching the walls for anything that suggested a doorway.
Space Team: Planet of the Japes Page 19
