Bad Moon E-Zine #1 - New Moon (3 page)

- - -

Fortress Europe

by Tom
Laimer-Read

1.

The pond
was not in a good state. It contained a broken bicycle, a rusting
bedstead, and one bedraggled mutant duck, poisoned by sporadic
periods of acid rain, pollution and a particularly bad diet of
sludgeworms. Nermal sat on a dilapidated bench looking wearily into
the rainbow oil spill pools, tracing the edges of the
ripples.

“
That’s a rare Norwegian Wigeon,” thought Nermal, a student of
ornithology.

A
raincoat-clad figure came and sat uncomfortably closely beside
him.

“
The swallow flies south for winter,” it mumbled.

Nermal
was familiar with this migratory route, and returned the rejoinder,
“Straight as the crow flies.”

“
Ah, good. Here is the package, now go to the pick up in
Brussels. The details are in this envelope!” hissed the figure,
placing a parcel and envelope next to Nermal, then scurrying off
into the mist. In the direction that the figure had gone, there
were gun shots. Nermal ducked behind the bench, as did the mutant
duck. As they sat there, somebody else approached, looking shifty,
and sat down, not noticing Nermal in his hidden
position.

Yet
another figure slid up to the one on the bench, and said in hushed
tones, “Which way does the swallow fly?”

He
revealed a silencer pistol and fired.

“
This bird has flown!” he cawed, and fled into the night. The
other seated fellow flopped forwards.

“
Er, are you alright?” enquired Nermal. The body clearly
wasn’t. It slowly rolled forwards, and the plopped into the pond,
which fizzed slightly. The body floated on the surface, the duck
eyed it, surreptitiously, then sunk without trace. It had left a
briefcase next to the bench, which was still there.

Nermal
was stunned.

He
wasn’t sure what to do, but decided to get away from this spot
quickly. He grabbed the briefcase and flew, not knowing of any
other course of action.

- - -

Nermal
entered his ziggurat-like apartment block, swiping his personalised
keycard on the door. It didn’t work first time, so he had to give
it a couple more goes at a variety of angles, then rubbed it on his
trousers and tried again, until eventually the door clunked
open.

As he
slipped inside he regained his breath.

“
That was unusual,” he muttered to himself. “Now what’s
this?”

Nermal
unravelled the package that he had been given by the peculiar
stranger. It contained a key-drive for a computer. Curious as to
what it was, Nermal had tried to read it, but the files required a
password. Nermal then opened the envelope that he had also been
given. The memo inside read:

"Agent
Sparrow

You are
in the utmost danger. You must escape from England to Belgium where
you must make contact with Agent Oriole/Crane. The fate of Europe
depends upon you, you must not fail. Call on the enclosed duck
caller if you require emergency back up.
Be safe

The
Twitcher Squad"

Nermal perused the note a couple of times. It seemed perplexing to
him, a humble ornithology student, that such a task had landed in
his lap. It was nearly half term break, so he had a week or so to
venture elsewhere, and didn’t have any other plans, apart from a
case study module, but some time away from his studies would do him
good. The bit about being in the utmost danger didn’t entice him
greatly. He decided to go anyway. The area he had been was not a No
Go Zone with a controlling order on it, and he wasn’t sure if the
CCTV was operational, probably gone to pot like the rest of the
country. Still, it was possible that he was being tracked on his
obligatory student tag and keycard, so he thought he had better
scarper as soon as he could. He packed a small rucksack and was
about to leave for the magnorail station when there was a buzz on
his intercom. He spoke through it.

“
Hello?”

“
Hey, it’s security, open up! We wanna word with you!” said
the gruff voice at the other end.

“
Umm, I’m not in, this is a recorded message,” said Nermal,
thinking relatively slowly.

“
Our scanners indicate that there is one Nermal Buxton living
at this residence and he is here now.”

Nermal
hammered the button a few times.

“
Sorry about that,” he cried, “Left the ansafone on!
Whoopsadaisy. Well, how can I help you?”

“
We want to speak to you about a parcel,” spat the security
officer.

“
Oh, have you brought me a present?” chanted
Nermal.

“
No, apart from a slap round the chops if you don’t open up
presently!” came the rasping voice.

Nermal
was in a tight spot. He wasn’t used to being at the wrong end of
authority. He was hassled on the streets and at checkpoints like
everybody else, but no more than the usual shakedown. Now he was in
trouble, and he didn’t like it, especially as it was for something
he didn’t do. He felt the duck call in the envelope, but felt the
situation didn’t require it, just yet.

“
If you don’t open up,” warned the voice, “We’re coming in
anyway!”

It began
swiping the entrance swiper with an override device, but the faulty
reader wasn’t having any of it.

“
Come on you blurping thing!”

Nermal
remembered something useful, the recorded message that he used to
deter his roboprofessors when they came knocking, asking for his
essays.

“
Sorry, Sir, I’m notable to help you now…” it went into a long
spiel. During this, Nermal hastily exited out of the window and
scurried down the alleyway.

- - -

death sushi

by Tom Laimer-Read

Jaxxon De-flux
02189 lived on the 2672nd floor of his mega tower block complex in
Tokyo 6. From where he lived, he had a pretty good view of the
entire city, at least the part that his window looked out onto.
Tokyo 6 was called Tokyo 6 as it was the sixth incarnation of the
Japanese city of Tokyo after it had subsequently been destroyed
five times before. The first time was by nuclear holocaust, the
second by mutant zombie invasion, third by some kind of alien squid
type pufferfish type creature type thing, fourth by another nuclear
holocaust because if there’s one thing that humans do well it’s not
learning from their past and repeating the same mistakes, and the
fifth from a tragic photon energy generator incident that
inadvertently imploded, taking most of the city with it, after the
city elders deemed it sufficiently safe to operate, even though
there was the small matter of mass incineration in case anything
went wrong, such as somebody dropping some prawn toast down the
back on one of the machines, which is inevitably what happened. Now
in its sixth iteration, this huge metropolis was one of the global
innovators and developers of modern technology, at the forefront of
the technological revolution that was taking place in the 26th
century. Huge, vaulting mega tower blocks joined with commercial
fortresses and industrial palaces. Traffic swirled around the city
in spiralling light tubes, each speck within the tubes an unusual
passenger on their way to some salacious social event or devious
destination. It wasn’t possible to go out into the open air due to
its highly toxic content, so instead the place was joined together
by these interconnecting light tubes, which make it appear like
some kind of giant ant colony from afar, such as was the view that
Jaxxon had from his window.

Watching the
neon colours flashing by was strangely hypnotic. Jaxxon couldn’t
afford a telebox, his assigned wage credit payment structure didn’t
allow for it, but he managed to get by and scraped a meagre living
as a button operator, which meant that he manufactured buttons for
machines, his designated role as denoted by the city elders at
birth.

High up in the
Rook Zone, the area right at the top of the tower where the
ordinary people met, so-called because of the infestation of those
famous black birds that roosted there, Jaxxon met his friend Bobo
and had a jelly drink with him.

“So, Jaxx,
have you heard about that crazy new sushi that’s doing the
rounds?”

“No, fellow,
what’s that? I never get to hear any news. I’m not plugged in at
all, you know?”

“Yeah, too
true. Look out, here come the rooks!”

The pair had
to take cover as an automated laser turret battle took place
between the rooftop cannons and the rooks, which were not exactly
the smallish black birds that we know in our present time, but huge
eight foot monsters with burning eyes and a lustful craving for
human flesh.

Inside, in
relative safety, Jaxxon and Bobo continued their conversation.

“Yeah, it’s
mad, fellow! There’s this new kind of sushi that you can get from
some kind of ‘special’ sources, I don’t know where exactly, but
I’ve heard about it. They say it gives you a feeling so intense
it’s like the light of a thousand suns is burning your eyeballs and
your body feels as if it’s being stretched through hyperspace, then
you witness the beginning of the universe, just before you
die!”

“That sounds
über cool and chonky impressive, my fellow, but how could anyone
know what happens, when the end result is that you die after you
experience it?”

“Ah, well, I
heard that one guy had a weaker batch and came back from near death
to report it. After that the whole place has been going wild for
the stuff. I mean, what have we got to live for, when it all comes
down to it? You might as well experience the hit of your life,
right?”

“Or death,”
added Jaxxon to himself, uncertainly. He was unconvinced about the
properties that Bobo had described, yet curiously intrigued.

If there was
one thing that Jaxxon had learned from life, it was to expect
something bad to happen when things looked as if they were going
well. There was always a metaphorical dog turd to step in just
around the corner, especially just after you’d bought a shiny new
pair of shoes. This, for him and his kind at least, seemed like a
universal constant, the ultimate truth, a fixed infinity, the great
cosmic joke – or one of them, anyway. He was always the punchline,
and in some cases, punchbag. The algorhythm of Fate had already
been decided for Jaxxon, worked out by computers a long while ago,
which was why Jaxxon had been assigned the job and wage credit
structure that he had been. However, he always had a sneaking
feeling that there had been an error somewhere, that some galactic
glitch had cropped up meaning that bad luck constantly dogged him.
He was born under an unlucky star, a dark sign, or in the shadow of
some bad moon.

Still, it
didn’t prevent him from attempting to embark upon new ventures,
even if he was ever wary of the inevitably bad outcome. You have to
try, right? He resolved to do just that, and began
investigating

His first port
of destination was the seedy marketplace by the commercial district
where rowdy crowds gathered and yelled things at each other hoping
to get better deals, but very rarely did. He meandered around the
shacks and derelict stalls, probing for information in the desolate
surroundings. Nobody seemed to know what he was asking about, or if
they did know, they were keeping it very quiet.

After hours of
traipsing around the area, he decided to give up and go home. It
was at this point that a voice called out to him in a hushed
rasp.

“Hey, kid. I
got what you’re asking for.”

Jaxxon looked
about, but couldn’t see the origin of the voice, to begin with. His
eyes slowly focused on a small gentleman standing in a hidden
doorway. The gentleman was so small he could almost have been
classed as a midget, and perhaps he was one. Still, he had what
Jaxxon was looking for, so his inquiries had not been in vain.

“Ok, fellow,”
spoke Jaxxon, slowly. “Show me what you got.”

“Not here,
that would be incredibly foolish. Follow me, young man, and make
sure that we are not being followed. You’ve already raised enough
suspicions with your investigations as it is!”

Jaxxon felt a
pang of uncertainty in his gut. Was this really what he wanted? He
was curious, sure, but this? He had to consider his options for a
moment.

“Wait, where
are you taking me?” he asked.

“Don’t be an
idiot. I can’t tell you that! I will take you somewhere safe. At
least I know for certain that you’re not an undercover officer,
they would never ask such dumb questions at all!”

Jaxxon took
this as an inverted, back-handed compliment and pursued the small
man as he walked away.

“What exactly
is this stuff?” he whispered.

“It is the
finest delicacy known to man. The ingredients are incredibly rare,
and you will only get to try them once in a lifetime - haha. Just
my little joke there.”

For a small
guy, the man was very fast. Jaxxon looked confused, but pursued the
gentleman through the back alleys and side streets of Tokyo 6,
along the transportation tubes and through the commercial district,
out onto a wasteground hub beside an industrial section.

“Where are
we?” asked Jaxxon.

“We’re
here.”

“I know that,
but where’s here?”

“I can’t tell
you. If I did, I’d have to kill you. Soon, that won’t matter
anymore. So, do you want to try it?”