Theme Planet (27 page)

Amba slowed the hover bike at the
foot of a tower, and lowered it to the ground. She sensed the AI pulse laser
watching her from above.

Amba climbed from the bike,
staggered theatrically, and went down on one knee, hand slapping out to break her
fall.

“YOU MUST VACATE THIS LOCATION AT
ONCE,” boomed a suitably metallic robot voice. “Or
you shall be shot!”

Amba fell to her other knee, and
held up a hand to the tower. “It’s okay, I’m okay, just give me a minute...”

“You
WILL GET BACK ON YOUR HOVER BIKE
AND LEAVE IMMEDIATELY - OR YOU WILL BE SHOT. I WILL SHOOT YOU. I AM NOT JOKING
ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. I REPEAT, YOU WILL BE SHOT.
Shot dead.
By
me.
In
the head. With a laser.”

Amba vomited on the floor, then
flopped to her side and lay still.

The AI pulse laser shuffled
forward to the edge of the guard tower and peered down past its wide, flat
barrel containing metal eyes.

“Are you
all right, human meat?”

Amba remained motionless.

The AI pulse laser considered its
options for a while, and then sent a buzz back to the guard tower control block
at the foot of the mountain. A few minutes later, a JEEP snorted into life and
throttled across the rough rocky ground, tyres thudding and bouncing over
rocks, its engine growling, thick black fumes spitting from its exhaust.
Aboard, there was a Battle SIM in full desert camouflage combats, heavy armour,
and carrying an MP7000. The SIM was a big man, with a helmet and a face that
screamed
Sonny, there just ain’t no comedy in war.
SIMs were universally
renowned for having a serious lack of a sense of humour - so bad, in fact, that
many a comedy stand-up routine on Earth poked fun at SIMs and their anal
retention, saying they didn’t just lack a funny bone, they did in fact have
negative
comedy appreciation. Obviously, serious SIMs found these comedy routines
seriously non-funny, and took every opportunity to shoot up, massacre and
generally exterminate comedians at every opportunity. They considered it fair
payback.

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 bugger! 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.”