Theme Planet (18 page)

Jim moved close. He seemed to be
scanning the room. Dex tensed. What was this? More ‘good cop, bad cop’?

“Listen carefully. Your life depends
on it,” said Jim, without looking at Dex.

“Go on.”

“Follow my lead.”

“Follow your...”

The door opened, and Rogen
returned, carrying a cup of coffee, steam curling from the surface like mist
from a lake. Jim turned in one swift movement, drawing his holstered police
issue Makarov and firing a single shot. There was a dull
crack
as the
bullet smashed through Rogen’s shades and entered his skull between the eyes,
exiting in a mushroom shower of brainslop which splattered up the grey walls of
the holding cell.

There was a moment, a hiatus in
time which lasted an infinity, like stars unspooling from a galaxy reel.

Rogen staggered back, hit the
wall, and collapsed suddenly in an untidy heap.

Dex, mouth open, stared at the
body. Jim leapt to the dead provax policeman, reached inside his dark jacket,
took out a gun. The first thought that flitted through Dex’s mind was
hell,
I’m being framed. How much harder can my day get?
But then Jim crossed to
him, pulled free a small knife and cut through the wires. Dex rubbed his
wrists. Jim stood to one side, staring at the provax corpse.

“Here.” He handed Dex the dead
alien’s gun.

Dex turned the small pistol over
and over in his hands. He’d never seen this type of Makarov before.

“It’s prov issue. Don’t be fooled
by its size, this fucker will bring down an Air Tank.”

“What’s happening?” said Dex.

“Just follow my lead. If we get
out of here alive, I’ll explain. Just now, you’re my prisoner, and we’re going
to walk out the front doors. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Jim moved to the door, Dex close
behind. Jim took hold of Dex’s wrists, which he crossed as if bound, and they
stepped out into the busy precinct.

The floor heaved like a disturbed
anthill, a ceaseless flow of police personnel, both in and out of uniform. As
Jim led Dex through the throng, moving slow with the tide of bodies beneath
high arches of white marble, Dex glanced around nervously. Most police were
provax, but he caught sight of the occasional human. It was the eyes, always
the eyes which gave them away.

“Over here,” said Jim. They were
halfway to the precinct doors. They tried to quicken their pace, but it was
impossible.

Dex felt like he was swimming
with sharks. Or, at least, piranhas.

His mind screamed with a million
questions. Where were his family? Why was this policeman helping him? In fact,
why had he killed a fellow officer? Not exactly normal police procedure!

They were ten metres from the
door when somebody screamed. Alarms screeched from wall-mounted PopBots. Jim
pushed Dex forward and they started to run.

“There!” somebody yelled.

Dex heard a blast, felt a
whoosh
of superheated air and the woman next to him was picked up and tossed violently
across the precinct, her body horizontal, spinning, slamming into other police
and mowing them down. Dex ducked, and Jim, ahead of him, turned and started
firing with the Makarov.

Policemen were smashed from their
feet in a ballet of collapsing bodies. Dex ran for the door, head down, cursing
as more people around him were hurled from their feet or, even worse, exploded,
showering the precinct with blood - red and milk.
They’re fucking firing on
their own!
screamed his mind.
What the fuck’s going
on?
Since
when do your own people become expendable?

He leapt through the scanners and
hit the doors with his back, spinning through as they opened, and then stood on
the high marble steps, stunned for a moment by the sunshine. In the distance,
on a three-klick-high rollercoaster, people put their arms in the air and
screamed in joy and pleasure on the long descent. Dex could hear the rumble of
wheels on track, even from this distance.

Jim burst out behind him. His
cream suit was stained with blood, and his eyes were hard, hard like Dex had
seen in the war. During Helix. During the Bad Times.

He shivered.

“This way,” growled Jim.

Dex ran down the steps, needing
little urging, and there was a traffic cop’s parked hover bike. The cop was
standing five feet away, smart uniform, goldfish-bowl helmet with blue and
white stripes, flashing red light atop the helmet. Even as they ran, Jim’s gun
came up. Dex wanted to cry, “No!” because this man was an innocent, a victim, a
human-fucking-being, but the gun gave a blast and Dex felt the suck of rushing
wind, and the traffic policeman’s head was blown clean off, to roll clattering
down the street, like a penalty football, rattling and bouncing and spraying
red blood. Human blood.

The woman who’d been speaking to
the cop ran, face behind her hands, screaming.

Jim levelled his gun, but Dex
shoulder-charged him and the blast howled off into the sky, over towards a
cluster of whirling, whizzing machines containing screaming, laughing tourists.

“No!” he snarled.

Jim stared at him for a moment,
then shrugged. “Get on the bike.”

Jim leapt on, and Dex climbed on
behind him, frowning at his submissive role. But he had to admit, between
clenched teeth, that he was being rescued. By a psycho cop-killer, oh, yes, but
rescued he was.

Now, a platoon of police were
piling out of the precinct. They scattered onto the steps like fire-ants from a
burning nest. Jim kicked the hover bike from its leash and they leapt up into
the sky, nearly vertical. Dex felt immediately, violently sick as Theme Planet
was tossed away and the islands and towering rides and posh hotels and sandy
snaking beaches all grew quickly small; became toys scattered in a sandbox.

Dex held on tight, as if fearful
of falling, but the BMW had fieldgrips which made sure he didn’t topple from
the bike and die in a mangled heap of man and rollercoaster far below. Still,
he clung to Jim like a drowning man to an Olympic swimmer, mouth opening and closing
at the sheer insane acceleration of this powerful bike.

They soared across Theme Planet,
taking in the sights and sounds from a God’s-eye-view.

“Shit,” muttered Jim, and Dex
felt his body tense. He glanced behind. Three hover bikes were in pursuit, and
the body language of the traffic cops said
grim.
Jim - and Dex by
association - were cop-killers. Not a good thing to be.

Suddenly the bike dropped, and Dex
felt his stomach crawl up his oesophagus and claw its way past his teeth. Every
atom of his being screamed at this abuse of physics. Beneath him, the engine
throbbed like a missile - which was, in fact, what it was.

They slammed towards the ocean,
the three bikes in pursuit. Fumes left tracer across the sky. Roars from the
abused engine bounced around the heavens over Theme Planet. Dex watched
helplessly as they jigged right and veered towards high gleaming rails of a
vast, high rollercoaster. The cars passed, holding people with open mouths and
wide eyes, staring at them as they dropped and hammered through an O of curling
track. Dex ducked involuntarily and the people in the CARS screamed for a
different reason...

Behind, the three cop bikes
spread out, tearing past the ride.

Jim dropped them towards the sea
once more, turning inland and skimming low over the beach. The three cop bikes
followed, unshakeable. Then their guns began to fire, blatting and clacking.
The bike rocked as the shells came close, superheating the air and scorching
Dex’s legs. Jim dropped them towards the sand and they smashed through a
collection of wooden deckchairs. Splinters spun off behind them, accompanied by
colourful streamers of torn fabric.

Jim turned. “Shoot them!” he
screamed, and Dex remembered the gun in his hand. He leaned back, sighted
through the slipstream of hazy hot air, and fired off two shots, three, four,
five. The bikes jigged in evasive action, but he must have hit something,
because one cop bike suddenly lifted its nose and, faster than Dex could blink,
looped-the-loop, ploughed into the beach, and exploded. Black smoke billowed up
in a thick pillar. Tourists ran up the beach screaming, dripping sun-tan cream
and coral dust.

“Good shooting,” yelled Jim.

Dex felt sick.

Through the cloud of smoke
screamed the two remaining bikes. Jim veered left, inland, and at mere inches
above road level, headed for Tengall, the nearest city. Dex felt even more cold
inside.

The cop bikes followed. They
fired again, blats slamming past Dex’s head. Dex lined up his gun to fire, but
Jim slammed right and they veered down a narrow alley riddled with steel fire
escapes and criss-crossing bridges. They hummed and spun past walkways, which
hissed in his ears as they passed. The cops followed, dodging with equal
success until Jim jockeyed the bike right, screamed, “Hang on!” and jerked the
arse-end of the vehicle into a steel bridge. Sparks scattered behind them like
a shower of industrial fireworks, and both bikes came through them - into the
path of another bridge. The lead bike saw the obstacle and swept up, over it,
but his bulk obscured the obstacle from his companion, who came to a halt with
a heavy
clang
which reverberated up and down the valley. It would take
five police with shovels to put their friend in a bodybag.

One more, thought Dex, but felt
sicker than sick. There was no pleasure in this. No joy. The whole thing was
horseshit. The whole journey was
wrong...
They were police. They didn’t
deserve to die.

But then, neither did his
family...

They shot from the alley like a
bullet from a gun, veering left and entering a maze of moving traffic. Still at
ground level; it was obvious Jim hoped to throw off their final pursuer by
ploughing him into a car or truck. But he was good. As good a pilot as Jim, at
least.

They slammed along the highway,
weaving, dodging, and the police bike gained on them. Dex glanced back, could
see the shades on the provax, the grim line of his mouth, the trace of sweat on
his upper lip. This was one determined son-of-a-bitch. He was no longer hunting
for arrest. This was personal; this was execution. And the sad thing was, Dex
understood.
And he
agreed.
But he couldn’t let it happen. Because to die now was to
let Kat and the girls down. And they’d have to bury him first...

They came to a wide, high bridge
over a mammoth gleaming river, which fed the sea. Large green seagulls cawed
and circled, and the banks of the river were thriving with yachts and pleasure
cruisers. People were sunbathing, partying. Sunlight sparkled off crystal. Dex
imagined he could hear the clink of ice cubes in bourbon.

They slammed along the highway,
and Dex glanced right. A large pleasure-liner with three massive black funnels
was creeping along the river, obviously on its way out for a slow romantic
crawl around the islands. Alarms started sounding on the bridge, and the
traffic stopped. Instead of slowing, Jim powered the bike along and lifted it a
little, skimming over the rooftops of the groundcars. On the liner, Dex could
see high towers with personnel controlling the bridge. Sunlight glittered on
car glass. The throb of the cruiser’s engines echoed across the water.

The bridge was rising, and they
skimmed over its parting, rising decks, the traffic cop close behind now, a gun
in his hand. His face was thunder. His bike vibrated hard and Dex squinted,
realising it was damaged. Fuel spilled from a hole in the rear flank. One of
his bullets must have cut through the alloy. The rider seemed unaware, or
uncaring... shots followed them, and Jim veered right, between tight rungs of
steel - and then they were out, roaring over the river, gulls circling above
them, screeching in protest, or in hunger.

Dex squeezed Jim’s shoulder. “Go
right!” he yelled. “Head over the ship!”