Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  “I’d rather be alone,“ he said.

  The generously bosomed midwife gave a little “huff” and shook her shoulders (and her ample bosom) as if to say, Ha, very well, stuff you, bozo! and she mooched away to examine various wall posters about contracting the vast range of weird and wonderful alien viruses that had presented themselves across Quad-Gal.

  Dex waited patiently, heart booming in his chest, hands clammy with fear. What if something happened? What if something went terribly wrong? Yeah, but all these professional people are here to help! Here in case something does go wrong!

  Still Dex fretted, and he’d never thought of himself as a worrier before, but he was shitting bricks right now.

  The doors opened.

  “You can come inside, Mr Colls.”

  Dex hurried through the doors. Katrina was lying on her back with some kind of frame over her midriff. Dex was guided to stand beside her head, so that he couldn’t exactly see what was going on below.

  He took her hand, and squeezed it, and stared suspiciously at the huge machine, the size of an upended groundcar, that squatted patiently, awaiting its chance to perform the caesarean and remove his breech child from his wife’s womb.

  “How do you feel?” he said, not taking his eyes off the machine. Various limbs had started to flex and move, and Dex realised it had eight metal arms - like a giant spider. He shivered; felt chilled to ice inside.

  “I feel great, Dex! The drugs are doing their job!”

  “Yeah. Well.”

  There came various buzzes and spinning blade sounds as the machine tested its various implements. The doctors and nurses were all standing around, beaming with big white teeth as if they were on some TV or filmy advertising Whiter Than White Teeth toothpaste.

  “Now vatch carefully, Meester Colls!’’ said a funny looking doctor with a big brown quiff.

  The machine suddenly sprang into life, and Dex nearly drew his fucking pistol, it made him jump so much. All eight arms slammed into action, and it was like Katrina was being attacked by a metal hybrid of car and octopus. Kat squeezed his hand again and he forced himself to look into her eyes, and he realised he was crying, and the moment was beautiful (except for the whirring and drilling and sounds of a circular saw cutting flesh).

  Everything flowed into honey, and then there came a squawk, and the metal arms lifted a new-born babe into the air. A midwife took the child, and cut the umbilical, and carried the babe to the weighing scales, which shuffled around on little legs to accept this, The Prize.

  The midwife gestured to Dex and he sidled over, looking down in awe at his new child.

  “Do you have a name for her?”

  “It’s a her?”

  “She’s a she, yes. “

  “Wow!”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “We said we’d call her Toffee. “

  “She’s beautiful. She has her mother’s eyes.“

  “Wow,” agreed Dexter, mouth open, as he quickly counted arms and legs and fingers and toes. “Is she okay? Is she healthy? Is she fine?”

  “She’s a fine little girl,” said the midwife.

  There came a massive clanking as the machine crossed the birthing suite, and extended a metal linkage to Dex. Dex stared at the greased ball-joint. “Yes?” he enquired politely.

  “Dr Jojo Brunstfield III, +7, at your service, Mr Colls. We hope this is a pleasant memory for you. We HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT TIME. If YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH YOUR BABY UNIT, PLEASE BRING IT BACK TO THE HOSPITAL AND WE WILL INVESTIGATE IT. THANK. YOU.”

  All the time it was shaking Dex’s hand.

  The midwife wrapped the child in a blanket and handed her to Dex. It’d been a few years since he’d held a newborn, and he remembered how delicate they felt, how tiny their fingers and toes, how totally vulnerable they were.

  “Hello little Toffee,” he said, grinning like an idiot and stroking her silky soft baby skin. He toyed gently with her fingers as he carried her to Katrina, and together they cooed over the baby as the giant clanking machine sewed Katrina’s body back together again.

  “She’s beautiful!“ said Katrina.

  “She’s a little star,” said Dex. “Well done, Toffee, fighting your way to freedom like that! I just know you’re going to be Daddy’s little girl, and I’m going to spoil you rotten, and you’ll never want for anything, and I’m going protect you and nurture you and love you with all my heart until the stars go out and die...”

  ~ * ~

  Toffee stood in the corridor up ahead, waiting for him. Her head was lowered, eyes narrowed, stance aggressive but patient. In her hands she carried the fizzing, sparking wand. The wand used to put androids down and out of the game...

  Dex had followed Katrina’s trail of destruction; it hadn’t been difficult. She’d left a path like an Industrial Chainsaw FukTruk through protected jungle. Dex had pounded down the white, glowing corridors, and dropped down through the holes in the floor, wincing at the fleshy feel to the wounds she’d cut or blasted into existence. It looked to Dex like Kat was using the FRIEND for speed, now, blowing vast holes in the very living flesh of SARAH just to progress; to get to her target.

  When the surroundings suddenly changed, shifting from glowing white to a dark, moody blue, that was when Dex came across Toffee. He stopped dead, and his chin wobbled, and his knees knocked. Here was his pretty little girl. His beautiful girl cub whom he’d nurtured and cared for and loved with so much love his heart could have burst. And she was waiting for him. Waiting to kill him...

  “Daddy,” she said, and her head lifted, and Dex could not read her eyes, nor her intentions. A flower sparkled in his heart; sparkled with hope.

  “Toffee, my sweet little princess. Sweet as toffee.” It was his bedtime invocation, the words he always used when tucking her beneath the sheets and kissing her one last time before she drifted off to sleep. The words that always brought a cheeky imp smile and a gleam of love in her eyes.

  Now, it brought a snort.

  “I’m not your little princess any longer.”

  “Toffee!”

  “You did a bad thing, Daddy.”

  “What bad thing?”

  “You should have become a proper android, like us. You’re being a bad man. You’re breaking up the family.”

  “No, no, you have to learn not to be like this, Little One. You have to forget all this rubbish about androids and killing - that’s not you, that’s not the lovely little girl who rescued the injured kitten and helped make it a bed and stayed up all night worrying about its broken leg. You nursed that kitten for four weeks, fed it, gave it milk, forced me to make a bloody splint for its leg! What happened to you, Toffee? What happened to that sweet, beautiful, caring child?”

  “I became what I was supposed to become. They flicked my switch, Daddy. Now I understand. I understand everything - how cold and cruel the world is. How life is worth nothing, and how we can - and will - kill without mercy. The universe is a terrible glittering place. It’s filled with emptiness. It is a void. There is no such thing as God, or the soul, there is only life and death and money.”

  Dex walked slowly forward, until he was in striking distance. He looked down in horror at his youngest child. “By all that’s Holy, what did they do to you?” he said.

  “Nothing Holy, Daddy,” she said, and looked at him with adult eyes.

  Dex knelt, slowly, so that he was on the same level as Toffee.

  He stared hard at his little girl.

  “What do I have to do? To get you back again?”

  “That’s easy,” said the little girl. “You must not pass. If you try, then I will kill you.”

  “I cannot fight you,” said Dex.

  “Good. Because you will not pass. Katrina said it must be so.”

  “Why not Mummy?”

  “She is Katrina now. She is an android. We are all androids. Allow them into your mind, Daddy. Allow them to do the right thing; come back to us, as the father we know and lov
e. We can hunt together. We can kill together. “

  “Those are not your words,” said Dex, and rocked back fast on his heels - a good thing, for the wand lashed out in a savage movement, a hateful sudden strike, and slashed before Dex’s face so close he felt the sparks discharge on his nose...

  Dex rolled to one side as the wand pursued him, slashing left and right like a sword, and he came up, ducked under a blow, and though it pained him to the very roots of his soul, he hit Toffee in the chest with a straight right. She flew back, a tangled mess of limbs, dropping the fizzing wand.

  Dex stepped forward and picked it up.

  Toffee was lying on her back, wheezing, clutching her chest.

  Dex strode forward, and looked down at his daughter, or what was once his daughter, and he felt nothing but love for her. Nothing but love and joy, mixed with horror and fear at what she had become. And a doubt. A nagging, nagging feeling tickling the base of his skull...

  “Toffee?”

  “What, bastard?”

  “You are not Toffee.”

  Silence.

  “You are not my little girl.”

  Silence.

  “Where is my little girl?”

  Toffee glared up at him, and suddenly something released in his heart, and he felt a flood of joy and happiness like nothing he had ever felt. Of course! This was not the real Toffee - because he, and Katrina, and Amba - they were engineered creations, created androids. But Molly and Toffee could not be manipulated in the same way; they were a product of a union of love, not engineering. In which case, at some point they had been switched with - what? Android recreations of the real thing? Maybe? Why?

  Why, to force his cooperation, of course.

  To buy his loyalty.

  To force him to do what he was told.

  Dex brought the fizzing crackling wand close to the fake Toffee and she recoiled, like a snake before a flaming brand.

  “Where are my children?” he said.

  Toffee started to laugh, and it was almost an adult laugh. Her eyes glittered. “You think it is that easy? That it would be so simple? Like we’re just fakes, or clones, and your real, beautiful, angelic little girls are really holed up somewhere nasty, clutching prison bars and waiting for their sweet Daddy to come and rescue them?” She laughed again, and it was a nasty sound that made Dex clench his fists. “Well it isn’t like that, sweet Daddy, it isn’t like that at all. The round shape doesn’t always fit into the round hole, because the hole gets warped, and twisted, and just because your children were good to you for the last few years, doesn’t mean they’re not now filled with hate and ready to do the job for which they were designed. The job of torture. And killing.”

  “No,” whispered Dex.

  “Oh yes,” said Toffee. “I am your baby. Your sweet little Toffee. And I want you dead, motherfucker...” She launched herself at him with a snarl, fingers curled into claws, teeth bared and drooling like a predator attacking... going for the kill.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BAD DADDY

  Toffee attacked. His own daughter attacked! Dex moved fast, the wand lashing out and touching Toffee’s temple. She was flung sideways, spinning, and hit the wall, collapsing in a heap.

  If this was any other enemy, Dex would have closed fast for the kill.

  But this was his little girl.

  How could he do that? How could he do that to her?

  Snarling in frustration, he moved to the wall, to the neat alloy panels emitting the soothing blue light. Dex started to kick one, and after several hefty blows the alloy buckled. He got fingers behind the edge and dragged it free, revealing a mass of ducting and cables. Dex grabbed a handful of wires and ripped them free with a shower of sparks, then moved to Toffee, knelt and tied her hands tightly behind her back; then moved down and bound her ankles.

  As she regained consciousness she struggled, spinning around in tight circles, snarling.

  Satisfied, Dex pocketed the rest of the wires and hefted the wand thoughtfully. He approached the bound form of Toffee and knelt by her, hand moving out, halting her struggles. She glared at him.

  Dex ruffled her hair.

  “Go to Hell,” she snarled.

  Dex reached forward, and grasping her head tightly, kissed her gently on the forehead. Then he pulled back, tears shining in his eyes. “I love you, Toffee, no matter what you say or do. I’ll love you until the stars go out.”

  Dexter stood.

  Toffee continued to struggle.

  Dex looked down at the wand. Would Molly be so easy to pacify? If easy was the right word?

  He doubted it.

  And Katrina?

  Dex shuddered, and his eyes were hard. He had a bad feeling he would have to send that bitch to Hell.

  ~ * ~

  Amba moved through a hundred different landscapes. First came fields of black, wavering grass, the stalks bending in a breeze which felt fresh and light. Amba wasn’t sure when her surroundings had metamorphosed, but she had her FRIEND in her chest and felt happy, at peace, for the first time in her life.

  You like this Dexter a lot, don’t you?

  We understand each other.

  Do you really? Well you’re the first people in history to do so.

  You called us “people. “

  Maybe I did. Maybe you have... worked your way outside the box. After all, what is human ? What is real? Who’s to say the so-called real humans haven’t actually devolved to a state where they no longer can be classified as human under their own stupid rules? It’s all just labels anyway. A person is defined by their thoughts, their words, their actions. If you think you feel love for Dexter, then I’d say that’s something approaching humanity -especially for you.

  What is love, Zi? Is that what’s happened to me?

  What is love? Laughter. That’s something I could never explain to you, child.

  Now Amba moved through an army of silent rollercoaster carriages. They were everywhere, packed in tightly under a candyfloss sky. Each carriage was a different size and shape and function; each one carried a riotous blaze of colourful paintwork.

  Are these new? Waiting to be used?

  No, said Zi, these are the dead, the abused, the cast-off. We all end up here one day. Even you, poor android. Zi considered this. Even me.

  Unless we die in a hail of heroic bullet-fire and destruction.

  Yeah, there is that.

  Amba moved through the hundreds, thousands - tens of thousands - of cars and carriages. Before long the blaze of colours became a blur until nothing else seemed real, and Amba thought the rollercoaster graveyard would go on forever.

  Where is this place?

  The dark side of your soul, child.

  She walked for what felt like hours, stretching off into days. All around her lay cold, dented metal, tarnished alloy, twisted steel, splintered wooden slats, tattered, faded flags. It was a sad place, and Amba felt melancholy creeping into her heart. These faithful rides had given so must joy, fun, laughter - now they were left here to rot.

  Melancholy is a human emotion, said Zi.

  Maybe I’m not as terrible as my makers intended?

  That’s a novel thought, said Zi. But I disagree.

  Eventually a wall of dark rock began working its way towards them, looming larger with every thousand footsteps. It was massive, high and rough and violent, running from horizon to horizon. Amba knew she would have to climb this obstacle - but then, who said reaching the Theme Planet Advertising Broadcast Station would be easy?

  I think SARAH is starting to malfunction, said Zi.

  Why’s that?

  Why put the obstacle?

  Maybe it was always here.

  Maybe she’s testing you. Maybe she doesn’t trust you.

  Now that, said Amba, I can understand.

  Amba reached the foot of the cliff and glanced behind her, at the gleaming colours of a million different carriage designs. And she frowned. For Theme Planet hadn’
t been operating for that long, surely? There was no way so many millions of cars could have been made obsolete. Was there?

  Maybe SARAH has been around a lot longer than you think. Zi sounded... not smug, but as if some kind of cunning had filtered down through her subconscious; an intrinsic understanding which she now grasped, but wasn’t wholly about to share. Maybe this isn’t the first Theme Planet? Maybe it... came from somewhere else?