Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  The JEEP slammed to a stop, and the Battle SIM fought for a while, rocking the vehicle as he tried to extricate his slabbed bulk from the narrow seat. Finally, he managed to work his way free (ho ho! the comedians would have joked, too many tins of beans and sausage for that fat blob SIM!) and then he stomped over to the fence and the nearest section of fence looking out over Amba’s prostrate form. Although there was no door in the thick cable mesh, the Battle SIM punched digits into a mobile door bar, reached out and opened a section of the fence - which became a door under his control. Doors could be summoned at any point in the fence; it was the premier unique selling point for the military fence company.

  The SIM peered out, looking carefully to left and right in what would have been a comedy exaggeration if he hadn’t meant it in all complete seriousness, a seriousness backed up by an MP7000 and an itchy trigger-finger.

  Happy there was no ambush, the SIM stepped out onto the rocky ground, boots kicking up little squirts of dust. He strode over to Amba and, reaching out with the long barrel of the MP7000, poked her in the head.

  “You. Human. Get up.”

  Amba did not move.

  “Human. You not allowed here. This is a secure area. Gov will have the human smashed and locked up if the human stays here or tries any kind of infiltration. The human must listen carefully. The human must get on hover bike and leave.”

  Amba groaned, and rolled onto her back. Her eyelids flickered. The Battle SIM was stepping from one armoured boot to the other. He cursed, shouldered his MP7000 and reached down, easily lifting Amba into his chunky battle-arms, and walked back to the JEEP, carefully closing and evaporating the door in the thick cable fence behind him. His heavy boots thudded on rock. He was staring straight ahead, armour-plated face showing no emotion.

  Amba gave a little whimper. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  The Battle SIM stopped by the JEEP. He stared down at Amba. He frowned. “The human is not to get any ideas, Battle SIMs are not fond of humans and likely to shoot them into a pulp. I am only helping the human because I have orders to help useless pathetic wounded humans under some kind of treaty arrangement with Monolith Corporation, and if it was left to me, then the human would be left out in the desert to bake in sun and get killed and get eaten by any passing snake predator. So the human is not to make any noise. The human is not to make any movements. I will take the human into the Base Cave and the human can recover enough to fuck off. I hope the human understands all this.”

  “Uh huh,” moaned Amba, throwing back one arm unconsciously, which slapped at the Battle SIM’s armoured face - not hard, but enough to widen his scowl. He dumped her in the back of the JEEP, squeezed his body into the driver’s seat with several grunts, and started the engine with a rattle and plume of black smoke.

  Amba opened one eye as they bounced along, the fence and AI guns disappearing, the Battle SIM bumping and farting up front. He was moaning. Something about the terrible effects of B&S on his digestion. Amba did not understand.

  You did well, said Zi.

  Yes.

  You outsmarted the so-called bloody smart guns! So much for AI. It’s fucking overrated, if you ask me.

  Yeah. Well. They’ll be waiting for me on my way out.

  But you’ll be moving fast, then, said Zi.

  Yeah. Moving fast.

  The JEEP growled, and suddenly the rock face seemed to shift in perspective and Amba spied a wide tunnel that had not been there previously, either by accident or design - and knowing Theme Planet, definitely by design. The JEEP zoomed into the rocky enclosure and the sunlight was extinguished like a snuffed-out candle. Darkness and shadows fell over Amba’s face. Cold air surrounded her, and she could smell damp, fungus, and gun-oil. An armoury? More SIMs?

  They zoomed through the cold and the dark, and the JEEP was wrenched to a halt by a heavy application of brakes. Amba sat up, looked quickly around - there was a steel-walled guard house of some kind, filled with computer equipment and blinking lights. Then she nimbly leapt from the JEEP and scanned for more enemies...

  There were none.

  She focused on the Battle SIM, who was staring at her with a particular kind of loathing. “The human has moved,” he said, and started rocking, trying to get out of the JEEP. The whole vehicle creaked and squeaked on ancient leaf suspension.

  “Whoa, fat boy, just wait there for a minute,” she said, holding out a finger.

  The SIM stopped his rocking, and scowled at her. “You dare to call a Battle SIM ‘fat boy’?”

  “Yeah, that and more, dickhead.”

  “You dare to call a Battle SIM ‘dickhead’?”

  “You really are a dumb fuck, aren’t you, SIM?”

  “You dare to call a Battle SIM ‘dumb fuck’?”

  “Wait, wait, wait a minute.” Amba held out all her fingers. “With your limited intellect I fear this argument could go on for way too long. So let’s cut to the chase.”

  As the SIM’s lips formed around the words and his brow creased in concentration, Amba leapt at him, her right fist cracking his face three, four, five times with blows that would have felled a lesser man. Indeed, would have dropped a Justice SIM.

  Slowly, the Battle SIM lifted his head and glared up at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, small, piggy, evil. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth and his nose, from under the armoured plates. It had been said Amba’s punch was as hefty as a kicking horse. She’d never put it to a direct test, but here, and now, she realised it wasn’t quite hard enough. Not for this brute.

  Shoot him, urged Zi.

  I can’t... the sensors will pick up the discharge. She gestured up to the corners of the chamber, and several narrow steel poles. Energy scanners.

  Well, they’ll know you’re here soon enough anyway...

  The Battle SIM surged from the JEEP with an almighty grunt, and there came a massive crack as his fat arse split the vehicle in two. Steam spat and fizzled from a broken cooling system, and bits of automotive metal tinkled to the ground. The SIM surged free, and looked suddenly behind him, realisation crashing across his stupid, armoured face.

  “Did I do just that?” he rumbled.

  “Your fat arse did,” said Amba, and a second later both boots struck the SIM’s face. But he was surprisingly fast, he was bulky, stocky, powerful; yes with an overhanging gut of beer and B&S, but he was a Battle SIM, and he was a tough motherfucker. He caught her legs, and flung her across the cave.

  Amba flew, and rolled lightly, coming up in a crouch. Poised. A natural predator. Natural fighter.

  The Battle SIM began a charge to the steel hut, but Amba interjected herself between the two and the SIM stopped. He eyed her warily, and scratched at his chin. Then he reached around, pulled free his MP7000, and aimed the weapon.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Amba, smiling.

  “Ha! The human say I have fat arse! The human make deroga... docraga... dickorrogaragotory... fuck it, bad comments about me. I not stand for it! I not take it! I shoot human in face and face consequences later, if there are consequences, because stupid human meat should not be here in this military compound in the first place...” He paused. He seemed to remember where he was, what his job was, and what the problem was. It was a big problem. A problem he needed to sort out. Probably with extreme prejudice.

  The SIM opened fire...

  Only he didn’t, because at some point during their combat connection, Amba had activated the twin-switch auto-disassemble function of the MP7000. With a tiny series of whirrs, the MP7000 started to deconstruct itself into three hundred and seventy nine discrete parts, guaranteed to make any squaddie sweat, which fell from the Battle SIM’s hands like a tumbling metal waterfall.

  The Battle SIM stared in disbelief at the weapon parts, then at his hands, then up at Amba with an ever-widening scowl of understanding. “You bugger, you. Human meat bugger! Well, here’s something for you, human, when I get my hands on you, I’m going to flip you over and give you a bug
ger! It’ll take me five whole damn hours to put gun back together again! I is not amused!”

  With a determined step and determined glint in his eye, the SIM advanced. Amba raised her fists.

  “This is going to hurt, fat boy,” she said.

  “Stop calling me fat, human effluence!” snapped the SIM, reaching her and taking a wide swing that Amba shifted away from. Another punch whirred past her, and another. Five, six, seven, eight punches - all aimed at taking her head off, all dodged with ease and, seemingly, a minimum of effort.

  “You need to be better than that,” said Amba, and gave him a cracking right hook that sent him stumbling to one side.

  The Battle SIM glared at her. “The human is little shit,” he said.

  Amba hit him again, and again. He smashed a left cross, but she moved easily from the SIM’s cumbersome path. She hit him with a combination of blows, increasing her power with incremental steps, until the SIM was staggering around, waving his arms around his head and trying to ward off her blows as if she were a cloud of stinging insects. She stopped, and he lowered his hands, and Amba ducked a little, came in close and delivered a crippling uppercut that, although it didn’t lift him from his feet (the SIM was way too heavy for that), at least uncompressed his spine, pointed his chin at the cave’s roof, and sat him back on his backside with an “ooof.”

  Amba lowered her hands, and pulled out the FRIEND. Her eyes flickered around the chamber. Still, there were no alarms. She had triggered no sensors. Despite the infiltration, the fight, the noise, nobody had come rushing to the Battle SIM’s aid.

  They trust the AI guns, said Zi.

  Maybe...

  “The human is a cheat,” said the SIM, scowling, his eyes focused on the FRIEND in Amba’s hands. “But then, I understand now, the human not playing fair, because the human isn’t a real human, the human is one of those super-duper snazzy made-in-a-VAT humans, ain’t that right?”

  The SIM looked at Amba with his tiny piggy eyes, and Amba clamped her mouth shut. She narrowed her eyes, also. So. He’d realised...

  “Androids are not made in vats,” said Amba, voice soft.

  “Ooh, touch a nerve, did I?” said the SIM. “And you call me touchy about my B&S overhang! Well, at least I not hated by the humans, well not much, except bastard comedians - damn them all to hell and buggery - but at least I not a slave like you. You’re not legal, fucking android, and you and I know they kill you on sight. So do your worst, because even if it take me a hundred years to die, screaming and bloody on a bloody battlefield, my eyes in my lap and my balls in my boots, even if it take me a thousand years to die, at least I not suffer the disrespect you suffer. At least I not despised by those who create me. You is like a plague, android, a pestilence hated by all. You are dirty. Right down to your clockwork soul.”

  Amba stepped forward, touched the weapon to the SIM’s forehead as if injecting a bolt into cattle, and pulled the trigger. There came a dull blam and the SIM slid slowly sideways. Amba grinned a sickly grin, and looked around once more, FRIEND in her hand, mind settling to calm.

  Good shot, said Zi. You put that aggressive moaning whining warmongering milporn bastard out of his misery, hey? And don’t listen to him slagging off androids, after all, he’s a fucking Battle SIM, by all the gods, how the hell could he ever know what he was talking about? Right?

  No, said Amba, and she seemed to shrink for a moment. He was right.

  What bullshit is this? snarled Zi.

  He’s right. I am hated. By everybody. Hated, like a rat. Like a leper. Hated and unclean and infectious.

  Awww, bullshit, Amba. Come on, let’s find this Lady Goo Goo bitch and spread her body parts around the room. That’ll make you feel better! Just like in the good old days when you’d go on a Double Kill, a Triple Kill, a fucking rampage! You’re unstoppable, Amba, you are the fucking best, and the only reason you are hated is because you are feared! You’re the top of the food chain, my girl, and you should be damn happy you’re there. Because...

  Yeah?

  If you’re not top of the food chain, then you’re just meat.

  Amba said nothing, simply staring at the dead SIM. His blood was leaking out onto the rocks and he looked, strangely, at peace. Even his armoured face plates did nothing to ruin the look of serenity on his features. He was at peace. At last. At peace...

  Don’t get any fucking ideas, growled Zi.

  Not yet, pulsed Amba, but in the back of her mind, in the tiny dark cave where nobody was allowed, not even the intrusive dark angel Zi, back in that dark private recess she thought to herself -

  But soon.

  ~ * ~

  The blast had tripped silent alarms.

  Amba knelt in a narrow stone corridor, one hand touching the wall to steady herself as, below her, the world fell away into a vast deep chamber, like the inside of a volcano. Below, the world glowed a distant, molten red, and heat streamed past her face.

  How do you know? said Zi.

  I can feel it.

  And she could. She could feel the alarms had been tripped. She wondered if anybody had stumbled across the body of the Battle SIM back in the groundcar compound. He needed a proper burial...

  There it was again. Regret. Sorrow. Just like the little girl in the sparkly LLA restroom...

  Amba could feel the alarm through her hands, through her feet, smell it in the air, taste it in the warm volcanic breeze. She moved a little closer to the edge of the drop, where her tunnel had come to an abrupt halt. Her hair ruffled in the heated updraft. She felt a sense of massive space before her, around her; got a sudden injection of how damn big the mountain really was.

  Big. No. Big.

  And she was a tiny, insignificant speck of dust within the hugeness, a tiny morsel of uncooked meat struggling like a worm through soil and rock and striving to get up towards the light. Amba grinned then, face illuminated like a fiery demon. Yeah. A tiny morsel of meat, admittedly, but one able to kill all the other tiny morsels of meat.

  Amba glanced up. Shit. She was going to have to climb.

  Far down the tunnel, she heard the stomp of boots, the rattle of guns, the murmur of growling voices. SIMs, no doubt, filled with bloodlust and out to avenge their slaughtered comrade. Which was a fair motivation. Amba held them no ill-will.

  Amba squeezed from the narrow aperture, twisting with the agility of a cat and hooking fingers into hooks and cracks in the rough stone of the cavern’s interior. More hot air blasted up, ruffling her hair, and Amba took a deep breath. She glanced down, not with fear, just an awareness it was a damn long way to fall, into depths that were simply a glowing red.

  Amba started to climb. Lady Goo Goo, her target, was up there somewhere. Up in her Ivory Tower. In her High Castle.

  Sweat beaded her brow. Within seconds her fingers were scratched and scarred by the glass-sharp rock. She moved with speed, assuredly, mostly looking up. Looking down was a fruitless exercise; after all, a hundred feet or ten thousand, it all killed you. Killed you flat and broken like a doll under a hammer.

  Amba moved like a well-oiled machine, always precise, every choice perfect. Up she went, through shades of orange and red, into darkness above. All around her was a soft humming, as if the mountain were alive. In a moment of connection Amba realised the mountain was her friend, her partner, her lover. It didn’t want her dead; it wanted her inside, wanted to embrace her... or maybe to kill her, make her a permanent fixture of its rock and bones? She smiled softly. If that was the case, then so be it...

  It was a strange, spiritual feeling, and something to which Amba was quite unused. To feel a connection with a lump of rock. That was alien. Wrong. Illogical. And yet she felt it anyway, and her heart fluttered, and sweat beaded her lip, and her fingers were rigid and filled with pain as she climbed and climbed, upwards, through drifts of smoke, across patches and slabs of slick rock.

  Maybe this is what it feels like to be human?

  Don’t kid yourself, bitch, said Zi.


  Thanks for your support.

  That is my support.

  From the drifts of smoke Amba could see something ahead, above, and she slowed her climb. She licked her lips, a frown creasing her brow, her muscles quivering. How could that be? How could such a thing be here?

  Amba realised she had stopped climbing, so confused was she by the field of ice above her. There were stalactites and stalagmites of frosted ice, some small, some as big as skyscrapers, protruding from rocky arms and ledges, spiralling out from the rock face in all manner of random angles. There were bridges of ice crossing the chasm above her, distant and twisted and spiralling, like chains of magnified sugary DNA. And Amba’s internal perspective rearranged itself, seemed to magnify because she started to truly realise, to understand, just how vast this hollowed-out mountain core was.