Theme Planet

by Andy Remic

  “I’ve come to say I’m sorry. Mommy’s been a bad mommy. She sent me to kill you, to erase you from the planet for being anti-android. And yet...” - she frowned, confused - “and yet you could not kill me. Would not kill me. Because I’m your little girl, and we had so many good times together, and this is not fun, this is not what I want my life to be like. I want it how it was, Daddy. I want you back. I want our friendship back.”

  Dex crawled to his knees, then stood with a groan. Everything ached. Every muscle, and ligament, and tendon, and bone creaked and moaned at him with their accumulated dissatisfaction.

  Dex smiled, and patted Toffee on the head. “That’s good. You’re a good girl. But you shouldn’t have stabbed your mother in the ribs.”

  “It was the only way to stop her killing you,” said Toffee, eyes gleaming with tears. And Dex watched in wonder and awe as his android daughter cried. Tears ran down her cheeks and she ran to him, and unconsciously his arms circled her and he hugged her, and he had his little girl back, and a nasty cynical side of him thought, oh, yeah, when does she pull out the dagger and stick it in my heart? but another part of him yearned for what they’d once had. But it could never be like that again. Things had changed. Things always change.

  Slowly, Dex unpeeled Toffee from the embrace and looked over at Katrina. He moved to her, crouched - but not too close - and touched her shoulder. Her eyes opened and she smiled weakly. Blood glittered on her teeth.

  “That little bitch got me good,” she said.

  “I think she was taking a cue from you, sweetie.”

  “You always were an understanding bastard,” she said.

  “I’m sorry it came to this,” said Dex.

  “So am I. Look what the fucker did to my clothes.”

  “What happened to us, eh?”

  “Just pieces in the Great Game, Dexter,” said Katrina, and her eyes were heavy-lidded and hollow. Dex stared into those portals, leading straight down to Katrina’s android soul, and he saw the pain there, saw fires raging bigger than the world, saw torture tearing her soul in two; saw the raw, bare, engineered agony.

  “It should never have ended like this,” said Dex.

  “It’s ending the way it should...” said Katrina, and glanced up, over at the FRIEND in SARAH’s core. Dex followed her eyes and a coldness crept fingers around his heart.

  The FRIEND!

  Shit. In his own private world of misery, he’d forgotten, for just a moment...

  The FRIEND was ready to detonate!

  Dex kicked himself into action, charging for the core as SARAH’s long, loud, high-pitched scream wailed in the distance and through the entirety of Theme Planet. She was dying. The FRIEND was killing her. And Dex realised with horror that there would be no giant explosion; this was not a detonation, this was more parasite and host, and the FRIEND was... poisoning her? Absorbing her? There was no countdown... in fact, the detonation had already begun. A slow detonation. A gradual, calculated murder...

  “No!” he screamed, sprinting, and something hard hit him in the side, smashing him from his feet in a tangle of limbs and it was like being hit by a groundcar, hit by a fucking truck, and it knocked all sense and feeling out of Dex and he just lay there, stunned, broken, wondering what the fuck had hit him...

  “Hiya, darling,” said Amba Miskalov, and her boot stomped down. Dex rolled, and the glossy black floor cracked under the force of the blow. Amba knelt and her fist slammed down; again, Dex twisted, and her knuckles left imprints in the alloy.

  Dex slammed his knee up, catching her in the groin, but she ignored it and grabbed his head in both hands; twisting, he bit down hard, sinking his teeth in down to Amba’s reinforced bones. Amba did not gasp, showed no pain, even as Dex tore out a mouthful of tendon and muscle and struggled back, rolling from under her in a scramble of disorganised panic, and defending against her one remaining fist even as he retreated, scrambling back, spitting out her flesh. Her eyes were dark and there was no reasoning there. And Dex realised how special Amba was, much more dangerous than Katrina...

  “I thought we had a connection?” said Dexter. “Something special?”

  Amba’s fist whirred past his face, and she stepped in close, twisting, elbow ramming back into his ear with piledriver force. But Dex was rolling with the blow, his own right hook smashing into Amba’s ribs, and she grunted as bone cracked and splintered under the awesome blow; and they moved apart, squaring off, weighing each other up.

  From the corner of his eye, Dex could see Katrina. Her head touched the ground, drool trailing to the floor in an umbilical. Dex thought she had died... thought his wife was gone...

  Toffee attacked, leaping onto Amba’s back, but Amba caught the child by the legs, and with a savage snarl, twirled her around like a doll, and dashed her head against the ground. Toffee lay still, blood leaking from a cracked skull.

  “No...” hissed Dex, tears in his eyes.

  “Give up the game and let SARAH die,” said a darkhaired stranger, stepping out of the gloom.

  Amba was working her damaged hand, but two fingers no longer operated. She bared her teeth at Dex in what he assumed was a bitter smile, an acknowledgement that he was more fucking dangerous than he looked.

  “You’d be Romero, right, fucker?”

  “You should indeed recognise me.” His voice was low, controlled, and controlling. “After all, we came from the same VAT. We were engineered together, Dexter Colls. Look into my face, brother, look into my eyes. Can you not see yourself in me? Can you not see that we are the same? We are brothers?”

  Romero moved forward, placing a hand on Amba’s shoulder, and she stepped back. Romero moved closer, eyes fixed on Dexter, whose heart had accelerated, was thundering like a deviated, twisted train charging through his ears and breast.

  He did indeed recognise Romero.

  How could he not?

  They had the same face...

  Slowly, Dexter released a breath. Pain drum-rolled through his heart, stabbed him in the skull. “What is this shit?” he said slowly, voice a drawl, eyes flickering from Amba to Romero and back again. “You’re in charge of Earth’s Oblivion Government, right? How could we possibly be brothers? This is a con. A trick. Who comes next? My sister?”

  “What’s happening here, Dexter - well, this has been a long, long time in the planning - by minds much greater than ours. Yes, I control Oblivion and the Ministers of Joy. But you” - he stepped closer, taking Dex’s face in his hands - “you, my faithful brother, you were the pivotal implant. You were key to getting us inside SARAH, getting the FRIEND to her core. Dexter. Congratulations. You have brought down the Theme Planet.”

  “Not yet, I haven’t,” he growled.

  “Listen to SARAH scream, it is the most beautiful music in the Quad-Gal,” smiled Romero, face lifting, turning, eyes staring at the high darkness as he appreciated the constant, keening wail of torture and agony and devolution... he glanced back to Dexter’s face. “You did your job well, brother. Despite all the problems, the deviations, the fuck-ups. Katrina and the girls aided you perfectly - were faultless in conducting your progress. You are the finest of tools; you just have to be controlled in the right manner.” He sighed. “Anyway. What matters is we got here in the end.”

  “Fuck you,” said Dexter, leaning closer with a snarl, with a swirling rage in his eyes and on his face like a savage tattoo; Romero’s hands fell away.

  “You have a glittering career ahead of you,” said Romero, smiling easily, relaxed.

  “I want no career from you.”

  “When your memories return, you will realise our brotherly love, our sense of... family is the strongest chain in the whole of the Four Galaxies! We will drink together, we will whore together, and you will quickly forget this pettiness. Forget your time with your fake wife Katrina, and your fake fucking pointless children. You don’t need all that baggage, Dexter. You need to come back to me, to Oblivion! Your Minister’s Throne is cold and it’s been that way
far too long, my brother.”

  “I am not,” snarled Dex, eyes glowing, “your brother.” He knocked Romero’s hands aside, and Romero took a step back, head to one side, his smile failing from his face. Behind him, Amba pulled out her own FRIEND, Zi, and pointed it at Dex.

  “Don’t even go down this route, Dexter. You’re an android, yes, but Amba here will blow a hole in you so wide I could climb through it. And I know what you’re thinking, that you’ve been misled, a wriggling pointless pawn in a bigger game and all that other bullshit - and that might be how you feel now, but it’s not right, because this whole thing is something you agreed. You’re an Earth Minister, for the love of God. We could never force you down this path! You chose it, Dexter. Brother. You chose to have a temporary memory block. You chose to spend years married to Katrina, to have your engineered children - yes, you were allowed that privilege - because it was decided that only that could get you past the fucking provax guarding SARAH.”

  “No,” said Dex, “this is all wrong, this is all lies and bullshit!”

  “We tried to release you, to give you back your memories - of before, of your life as a Minister of Joy on Earth. Then you’d realise this was your mission, your long-term plan. To start the invasion. Not just to cripple Monolith and Theme Planet and SARAH, no, but to take her - the most incredible, awesome, wonderful living alien - and to turn her to our War Effort! To our new Empire!”

  “I thought you were trying to destroy her?”

  Romero laughed. “Destroy her? She’s the most devastating and advanced biological weapon ever to evolve. Above, our bombers and missiles are destroying the humans who are polluting her; we are cleaning out the detritus, removing the wart, lancing the boil, cutting out the cancer with fire. No weapons we have up there can destroy SARAH - she covers the entire planet; it would take interstellar HALO strikes to do it. We don’t want that, Dexter. We want her. You’ve seen her hatching theme rides and theme CARs and shit, yes? She can so easily give birth to anything we instruct... tanks and bombs and missiles, cyborgs, HALO jets, SLAM fighters - fuck, Dexter, if we give her enough raw materials she can birth Warships and Cruisers and Destroyers!”

  “Raw materials?”

  “She consumes planets, Dexter. Don’t you see? She takes their surface materials and reconstitutes them on a molecular level, all the time imbuing them with a part of herself, a controlling part of her soul. Anybody who controlled SARAH, well...”

  “They’d conquer the Four Galaxies,” said Dexter, slowly.

  “You’re catching on fast, brother. Drop her into any environment and watch her spread, watch her conquer, watch her reconstitute everything in her path... now, we just need to know her secrets. Of transportation. Of design. Of control.”

  “The FRIEND,” said Dex, wearily. “It’s torturing her?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Romero darkly. “Showing her who is boss. Showing her who is in control.”

  Dex transferred his gaze to Amba. She was watching him with bright eyes, FRIEND held steady. “I thought we had something, Amba. I thought we had... a connection. Something special. If not love, then... understanding. We’re the same, Amba, and I have a curious feeling we’re destined to be together. One day.”

  “Dexter,” said Romero, “when you come back to Oblivion, you can take whatever you want. You want Amba warming your bed and sucking your cock? That can be arranged. Even though we are androids, there is a hierarchy to observe. And you, my Brother, are right at the top.”

  Dex licked his lips. He looked at Katrina. He looked at the still body of Toffee. He listened to the screams of SARAH. And his face went hard. No matter what he had been, he knew what he was now, knew how he felt now, and understood that he had transcended material considerations. He had empathy; he had understanding. He knew he had a soul, and no matter whether you were born human or engineered, it wasn’t about your creation, your beginnings, it was about what you were, deep down inside.

  “Your warmongering, your invasion, your torture, your murder - it’s evil, Romero. It’s just plain wrong. I wish no part in it. In fact, I’d rather fucking die than be related to you, and this fucking abomination you call an existence.”

  Romero’s face was grim.

  “You’d rather die?”

  “I’d rather die,” said Dex, and spat in Romero’s face. “So stop fucking whining and do it, before I rip out your throat with my teeth and chew on your diseased fucking spine.”

  The corner of Romero’s eye twitched. He lifted his hand a few inches, a subtle signal, then dropped it again. In a croak, he said, “Kill him.”

  “With pleasure,” whispered Amba.

  ~ * ~

  A thousand Big Belly Bombers droned over the Savage Mountains of South Kardoom, and General Kome, in the lead bomber, leaned forward, eyes gleaming in anticipation as they approached the jewel in the crown of Theme Planet’s ride extravaganzas, the newest ride and current highlight of mass TV and filmy advertising campaigns: Mayhem. The biggest rollercoaster ever built. The wildest rollercoaster ever built. It started on the edge of the atmosphere, and dropped vertically for five kilometres before hitting its first spin and roll - which went on for another five. It was said, at one point, the rollercoaster entered another dimension via a transferable modular singularity. That marketing fact was a closely guarded secret.

  “Ahhhh,” said General Kome, “I do so enjoy flying happily into an unguarded soon-to-be-warzone where we have guaranteed intelligence that the pointless and soon-to-be spineless victims have no real firepower with which to retaliate; I do so love attacking an innocent people and culture, and blowing them all the way to the arsehole of Hell. And, if the truth be known, Theme Planet, and Monolith Corporation, with all its wealth and acumen, with all its reserves and technology, well, they deserve everything I fucking throw at them for leaving such a ripe and wealthy jackpot unguarded, just there, a honey globule waiting to be picked.” He rubbed his hands together and lit a fat cigar. “I’m going to give this SARAH a proper going over. Stick it to her from behind, so to speak. Teach her who’s the boss, who’s the daddy, who’s the overlord, and who is ultimately going to be holding her new leash.”

  At ground level, the earth had begun to tremble. The air became chaotic, a riot, and was filled with grease. Clouds broiled through the sky, which darkened as if anticipating a violent thunderstorm. The mountains, now scrolling past to General Rome’s right, began to vibrate, and the large military man frowned, chewing his cigar with prejudice.

  “Peterson, any seismic or volcanic activity detected?”

  Petersen, a small neat man, lifted his finger, scanning the binary reports. “No, sir. Er. Sir, there’s something else...”

  “Go on?”

  “There’s... some kind of activity. The computers are showing... ah.”

  “Showing what, idiot?” snapped General Kome, voice the bark of a Rottweiler.

  “Ah. According to the scanners, sir, the entire surface area beneath us is moving.”

  “Moving? An earthquake?”

  “Negative, sir. No earthquake.”

  “What do you mean, then, moving? Speak sense! Decode it, man, decode it! “

  “It appears to be just - expanding, sir.”

  “That’s impossible. Over what size area?”

  “As far as the scanners detect.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ten thousand square klicks, sir.”

  “You mean to tell me ten thousand square fucking kilometres of the ground is expanding?”

  “Affirmative, General Kome.”

  Kome stared at the wobbling mountains to his right, and the glittering ocean to his left which, he noted, had become extremely choppy (this was an understatement; the waves were riding ten metres high). He rubbed his stubbled chin and chewed on his cigar. “What I suggest,” he said, but didn’t get much further, because at that point something big did move in his peripheral vision, and as he turned his head to focus, his mouth dropped open and the cigar topp
led to the console, spilling a trail of random ash.

  “Holy Mother of Mary,” said Peterson, eyes wide, hands trembling on air-scanners. “I’ve never seen anything quite like... that...”

  Kome grabbed the comm, hit Send to all bombers, and screamed, “Evasive action, evasive action!”

  But he was too late.

  ~ * ~

  Dex stared down the barrel of the FRIEND and he knew he was dead. He’d had Zi in his head; he knew what she could do. Had detected her... amorality? After all, she was nothing more than a KillChip. An AI designed to torture and murder for its masters. Ha-ha. Like us, thought Dex, wondering what death would be like. Would there be a Heaven? With glowing winged android angels? Yeah, right, motherfucker.