by Andy Remic
“Haven’t you got a home to go to?” asked Jmes, feeling a thrill run through him as he realised why she’d remained. There could only be one reason - especially after he had punished them so hard with such a long, gruelling tutorial session (even though his reputation was for long and gruelling tutorial sessions; they didn’t call him Old Iron Bastard for no reason, a nickname he secretly relished). No. There could only be one reason. For unlawful carnal knowledge. He smiled encouragingly.
“I have,” said Karenta, looking shyly at the ground. “I just thought, you know, that we could continue the session. “
There was something about the way she said session that made Professor Jmes hard. Harder than hard. Here was a ripe and succulent little fruit he intended on plucking. Not just plucking, but biting, sucking and fucking, if he had his way with her.
She moved closer. Outside, the light was fading fast in a dying shower, like a slow-exploding sun. Her face caught the sunlight and seemed to glow, perfect, her hair highlighted with violet, plastic dress with strategic transparent panels gleaming.
“You know,” said Jmes, stepping closer and inhaling her scent, “that a Professor like me, somebody as important as me, somebody so academically tuned, somebody so high up on the university ladder - well, to have a friend like me means you’ll go a long way in this education business.”
“I know,” said Karenta, and her voice was husky.
Jmes shuffled even closer.
“If you treat an old Professor like me in the right way, I can certainly guarantee you a wonderful future. I can guarantee you extra help, shall we say, and high grades, and sparkling success.”
“I understand,” said Karenta.
Jmes placed a hand on her hip. She swayed a little, and pressed in close to him. He felt his breath coming in short sharp bursts, and his cock was so hard it was ready to burst free from his neatly pressed suit trousers.
“You’re a gorgeous creature,” he said.
“Haven’t you a wife and child at home?” said Karenta.
“Er. Yes. But...”
“But nothing,” said Karenta, taking a small step back and punching him in the stomach.
Professor Jmes heard the “whoosh” of air expelled from his own body before he felt the pain, and was indeed already doubled up and foetal on the carpet before he even understood what had happened. He lay for a while, and for a period of time - it could have been seconds or minutes, or it could have stretched into hours - he simply lay, and waited, and prayed for the pain to go away. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, that blow; and he’d been shot by rubber donkey-bullets during the protest marches in his student years. No. This was worse. Far worse. Or maybe he’d simply gone soft in his mellowing older years?
He watched, barely able to see for the tears in his eyes and gasps in his throat, as Karenta crossed to his study door. She glanced back at him, then locked the door and switched off the light.
She moved back to him, and taking a bright table lamp, stood it on the floor where it shone in his eyes. She sat down, cross-legged on the carpet, and simply waited.
After a while, Professor Jmes started to regain his composure. He thought of the 9mm Glock Tock in his desk drawer, still unused, still in its cellophane wrapper. He’d never had need of it. Not until now.
“You crazy bitch,” he said, finally, words coming out between gasps and wheezes. “What did you do that for?”
Karenta stared at him, and said nothing.
“I’m sorry if you don’t find the fact that I have a wife and child at home palatable, but this is the way the fucking world works. Don’t you get it? You do me a favour, and I’ll give you good essay grades. It’s the way it’s always been...”
“Really?” said Karenta, raising an eyebrow. She reached up, peeled back her curls and tossed the wig to one side. It gave a buzz and folded down, over and into itself, until it was the size of a packet of gum.
Jmes gradually, painfully, pushed himself into a sitting position, his face red from pain and humiliation. “I’ll... I’ll... wait. Why the digiwig? Who are you?”
“I have been sent to talk to you,” said Karenta, and she smiled, but Jmes saw something in that smile he didn’t like. He surged forward, and Karenta grabbed his face in one hand and shoved him back down, savagely. Now the smile was gone. Her eyes pierced him, eyes that he’d thought of as beautiful, big and fluttering; now they were narrowed, focused, as if she were a machine with a job to do.
“Wait,” Jmes said, weakly. “Did... did Romero send you?”
Amba tilted her head at that. She considered him. “You know Romero?” she said.
“Oh, yes, we go back a long way.” Slowly, Jmes settled himself down for more comfort. He rubbed at his bristles. She could see his mind working, ticking away. “Which means, if he sent you, you’re... one of them.” He stopped. He looked up at her. There was pity in his eyes. Pity, and... superiority. She’d soon change that.
“What do you mean by ‘one of them’?” said Amba, voice level, voice controlled, but something tugging at the back of her brain, like a mental tick.
Jmes gave a bitter laugh, and spread his hands. “Shit. I’m fucking dead, aren’t I? If you’re here, then that’s it. Bullet in the brain. But tell me - how much is he paying you? I’ll double it. Triple it. I’ll give you a new contract - to go back to Romero and shove your fist up his arse.”
“Fine words for an academic,” said Amba, and pulled out her FRIEND. The small weapon sat in her hand, dull and black and menacing.
Shall I do it now?
Not yet. Wait a moment...
Professor Jmes paled, and lost his cocky assuredness. His eyes were fixed on the FRIEND; Amba wasn’t sure if he knew exactly what it was, or simply thought it was a weapon, an odd-looking gun capable of blowing off his head in a splatter of skull chunks.
“Will you take my commission? To kill Romero?” Jmes was licking his lips, and his eyes were wandering frantically. Looking for a weapon. A means of escape. Anything...
“You think I’m shit,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“No. I think you’re an android. Not human.”
“I have thoughts. Feelings.”
“Not real,” said Jmes.
“I’m not here to discuss this.” Amba leant forward slightly, and touched the FRIEND to Jmes’s head. “I’m looking for a woman. She’s called Lady Goo Goo, a Researcher for Ride Organics and Alien Testing. I know you know her. I know you were friends. I’ve read your file.”
“She’s gone into hiding after an attempt on her life,” said Jmes, slowly, looking beyond the FRIEND touching his skull, beyond, deep into Amba’s eyes. “I don’t know where. “
“Want to bet your life on that?”
“Wait. Don’t kill me. I don’t know it, I swear...”
Amba shrugged. “One last chance.”
Jmes shook his head. “If I tell you, will you let me go?” His voice was a dry croak.
“Too late,” said Amba, and fired.
~ * ~
The FRIEND whistled, and Zi cheered, and a memory bullet shot from the barrel and entered Professor Jmes’s forehead. It broke through the skull and wormed into his brain, and Jmes gasped and blood spurted from the wound and he was punched backwards against his desk, one leg kicking out and knocking over the lamp. The bullet slowed, and turned, mapping Jmes’s brain from the inside, then turning, it drilled through brain matter towards the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The bullet stopped, still spinning, and began to scan, relaying information back to Zi. After maybe a minute, in which Professor Jmes was twitching spastically on the floor, the bullet shifted again, drilling through to the parietal lobe.
Outside his skull, Amba Miskalov watched impassively from her seated position on the floor. Occasionally, a pulse of blood would leak from the bullet’s entry wound, and she held the FRIEND loosely, and hummed to herself, considering his words - the words of this clever man, this academic man, this professor man...
&
nbsp; You’re one of them... an android. Not human.
I have thoughts. Feelings.
Not real.
Amba thought back, to the airport, and the little girl she’d killed. The girl, and her mother. Innocent. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - when a cursed Anarchy Android went to work.
Why me, Mommy? Why did the bad lady shoot me?
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.
Amba pictured that little girl. The perfection of her skin. Glowing hair. Pretty lips. Just like the girl she would love to have, to feel growing inside her; nurtured and protected in her womb. The child she would always want. The child she could never have. Because of what sat in the white house. Because of what hid behind the pale blue door.
Jmes said she wasn’t human. And he was right.
“You fuckers,” growled Amba, and cleared her mind. She could feel the FRIEND’S bullet was nearly done, and she prepared herself for the sting of information. She steadied herself. Felt it coming, like a rush, like a tidal wave, a sensory overload flowing and gushing into her mind, into the channels of her brain designed for the purpose - and she was swimming, floating in this man’s life, and Zi was there holding her hand, and Zi was naked and beautiful and black - not the black of a different race, but a metallic black, like her skin was infused with the steel and alloy of the FRIEND...
Let me, said Zi, and Amba allowed her access and entry and total, utter control, for if she’d tried it herself then her brain would have twisted in upon itself with the sheer scope of thoughts and emotions, of an entire life within her own life, a mind within a mind fighting to be free.
Zi searched and channelled and worked.
And Zi smiled at her, and her teeth were glossy black, her tongue black, her eyes black, glowing, shining with the light of an alien place. Zi squeezed Amba’s hand, reassuring the Anarchy Android.
You’re safe, that hand said.
Safe with me...
~ * ~
Amba opened her eyes with a start. She shivered, as if somebody had walked over her grave. Everything, the world and life and evolution, was a blur. Gradually it cleared, and Amba shook her head. She coughed once and stared at Jmes.
He was swaying a little, where he sat, slumped against his desk. He seemed conscious but dazed, which was probable, for he had a bullet in the brain. As Amba watched, another trickle of blood slowly rolled from the bullet’s entry wound and down the professor’s forehead. Then, like slow-mo filmy in reverse, a circle of steel appeared at the dark hole, filling it. There was a tiny grating sound, of metal on bone, and the bullet reversed from its path, from its worming exploration, and Jmes lifted a hand and, with a tiny squelch, removed the bullet from his own skull.
He looked down dully at the tiny sliver of steel in his hand. His mouth worked spasmodically, jaws opening and closing, before he finally looked up at Amba and cocked his head to one side, eyes full of questions, pain haunting his features.
“You know?” he said, finally.
“I know. Lady Goo Goo is currently in hiding, under protection at Monolith’s Firelce Mountain High-Security Military Facility.”
“You’ll never get to her,” said Jmes.
“We’ll see.”
“I won’t say anything.”
“Huh?” Amba had turned away, scanning the darkened room. Outside, the sun had fully dropped below the horizon. Still the permanent party of the Theme Planet went on. People were laughing and cheering.
“I won’t say anything. If you let me live.”
Amba stood. Fireworks erupted in the sky, sparkling streamers as wide and high as cubescrapers, roaring into the heavens and filling the world with stars. Silver and gold petals glittered. Firework horns sheared off and faded into nothing.
There was a deep darkness after the display.
Amba lifted her FRIEND and fired, point blank, into Professor Jmes Kooky’s face. This time it was a real bullet, and it detonated his brain and skull across the side of his desk.
“Nobody gets to live,” said Amba, and holstering the FRIEND in her chest, turned and left the room.
~ * ~
CHAPTER SIX
LABYRINTH
Dex stood under the shade of turquoise trees, leaning against a slick, glossy trunk, watching the hotel. Everything appeared normal. There were no heavy-handed tourist police, no forensics, which was incredible because, technically, both kidnap and murder had happened under that very roof. Dex had worked PUF for years, he knew the protocols, and the whole damn place should have been shut down and crawling with forensics. But then, this was a tourist-fueled world. He’d read reports about Theme Planet. Once, a provax terrorist organisation called The Sons of Reality demanded that humans were not allowed on their theme park world due to atrocities committed during the Helix War. They had waged a war via planted IEDs which left various holes in various landscapes, and derailed a fair number of high-speed theme rides. Monolith Corporation’s first response had not been in Dex’s eyes the logical one -which was to communicate with the terrorist group. Instead, Monolith had deployed a veritable army of quick-response drones with the sole purpose of doing quick “cover-up” jobs, the ability to sniff out IED traces from a thousand klicks, then deliver to the perpetrators swift bloody retribution.
Dex rubbed at his tired eyes, and then the back of his neck where he’d been stung by Jim. The bastard.
He’d awoken a few streets away, lying on a bench in the sun, mouth tasting of metal.
What to do, what to do?
Had Jim been right? Get his gear and clear off TP? Was that the only thing he could do?
And what the hell was wrong with Police Urban Force officers visiting the damn planet in the first place? Dex had never heard of anything in news or papes with a negative spin on PUF visiting the theme world. Why would it matter? Who would care?
Questions upon questions upon questions, each one leading further into a labyrinth of questions. But the simple, glowing fact still remained - should Dex trust Jim and get the shit off the planet? Or should he try and get things done himself? Dex grinned, and it was a nasty grin, a bad grin, the grin of a man teetering on the knife-blade of insanity. After all - you could only push somebody so fucking far. And Dex’s whole world had turned to rat-shit. He could trust nobody. Fuck everybody. Everybody was a potential enemy. Dex wouldn’t get caught with his pants round his ankles.
He rubbed at his eyes. Shit. The only way Kat and Molly and Toffee were leaving Theme Planet was if Dex put in the groundwork.
Okay.
Backtrack.
Jim wanted him to leave, and had happily turned on his own. Did he really work for the police? For Monolith? Or was he part of the same organisation as had kidnapped his family? Had he helped Dex in order to help himself? But why would he do that?
Dex’s eyes narrowed. He, himself, was trouble. The Earth government knew he was on Theme Planet, and he was PUF, which meant Big People. Important people. People it was certainly harder to make disappear.
Okay. Assume, then, that Jim was helping him for a reason. But not the same reason Dex really thought.
Back up further.
Dex could trust nobody.
It had been suggested he pack his stuff and leave Theme Planet voluntarily. Which meant this had the sanction of Monolith - who else could clean up the hotel and allow him to waltz in, gather his shit, and leave? If that was the case, then he had to play the game for a little bit...
Okay. Play the game... see what happens.
He crossed the road and mounted the steps, wincing a little as he waited for the sniper’s bullet. But no. To kill him in broad daylight on the steps of the hotel - too risky. Anybody could see. They had back-pedalled themselves, now, and were treating him differently. His would not be a death on the street, or a clumsy bomb in a car. Amateurs had done their b
est to fuck it all up, and Jim had been called in to correct the situation. Dex was sure of it.
He crossed reception. He smiled at the receptionist, now a lady with bright green provax eyes, and Dex stopped at the lift. It had been repaired. Gods, that was fast! But then, Monolith were experts at the cover-up, ever since The Sons of Reality started blowing the tracks on rollercoasters.
He got in the lift, feeling strange. The last time he’d been in the lift he’d been battling for his life with a cross-wired PopBot. The doors closed with a bing and Dex studied the panels carefully, searching for a dent, a mark, a scorch from live wires, anything. But he could spy no evidence whatsoever. He started to consider the possibility that he’d gone crazy, and was currently paddling upstream through a mire of his own insanity, when the doors opened and he caught the whiff of fresh paint. Dex licked his lips. Not going mad after all.
