Theme Planet (36 page)

He was seated, sideways from the
passenger side of the car. He simply pulled his legs in, removed the blanket,
closed the door, climbed over to the driver’s seat, touch-fired the car, and
drove away through the night.

Nobody seemed to notice.

Praise those pen-pushing,
form-filling, anal fucking bureaucrats,
he mused.

The roads were black, twisted
snakes before his weary eyes.

They gleamed like streamers.

After the third time he nearly
left the road and ploughed into the ocean, he
voluntarily
left the road
onto a dirt trail and bumped along for a while, lights cutting slices from the
black. Then, finding a quiet grove beneath a stand of black trees, he killed
the engine, locked the doors, and fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

~ * ~

It
was
another
fine sunny
day on Theme Planet. After awakening, Dex had yawned, and a backdoor headache
pummelled his brain into corrosive jelly. Now, he cruised on a newly stolen
hover bike down a wide street which sat, pretty much deserted, baking in the
tropical heat. It hadn’t been hard to dump the groundcar and find a
replacement; in this place, nothing was locked down. Not like London. In
London, he would have needed a nuclear chainsaw!

Dex slowed the bike past a series
of restaurants,
Monster’s Burger Mush,
the quite bizarre (in terms of
food offered)
Alien Buffet
- which Dex had previously found quite
amusing, in that to him
it
sounded as if they were serving
up
alien flesh as opposed to alien cuisine itself; and the infamous Quad-Gal
dining experience known as
WYSIWYG - Basic Food for Basic People!
Quite
a lot of Old Earth people ate there. Egg and chips. Sausage and chips. Egg,
sausage and chips. Egg, beans, sausage, eggy egg and chips. Sometimes served in
a massive aluminium “Feeding Trough.” Like a huge gents’ urinal, but from which
you ate, instead of into which you piss. This was the kind of fodder which, Dex
had to admit, was a category he fell to quite regularly, achieving mockery from
not just Katrina, but his poison-tongued little brood. “Come on, Dad, be
adventurous!” Molly would cry; a comment to which he did not deign reply.

Now, diners sat at diamond
windows, plugged into music or gamesets as they ate, their groundcars and hover
bikes parked up in the baking sun. Dex cruised past, not too fast, not too
slow, so as not to draw attention to himself.

Adventure Central. Which, he
knew, led to the Caves of Hades and a secret tunnel under the sea, emerging on
the Lost Island - the goal of every adventurous Theme Planet holiday
adventurer! Only for Dex it wasn’t an adventure. For Dex, it was the survival
of his wife and kids...

The road widened, leading to
Quick Blast bays along the stretch on the left, where gamers and ride-junkies
could get quick fixes of ride adrenaline on quick little coasters, punchers and
flingers. To the right, the turquoise sea glittered with silver streamers and
exploding sparkles.

Paradise,
thought Dex.

He slowed as he approached the
edge of the Kool Kid Zone island, his gaze scanning the huge arching Zip Tube,
which bridged between this pleasure fun ride island and the next, Adventure
Central. Distantly, Dex could just make out the land mass through a haze of
sunshine. The Zip Tube was huge and imposing, and Dex parked his bike, watching
for a while to see how things worked.

And this was how they worked.

A person or vehicle, be it bike,
car or even a long Squeezy-Bendy Coach (with a carrying capacity of five
hundred travellers) would approach the inlet valve of the Zip Tube, and then be
literally
sucked in and chucked through
the bridge tube, emerging - presumably
- unscathed at the other end.

Dex didn’t like it. But then, Dex
was old, and grumpy, and damn bloody
old fashioned.
If he was honest
with himself, he didn’t trust technology, didn’t even
like
technology,
much to the amusement of his young children. He fired up the bike again and
eased it forward, bobbing gently down the road. He was overtaken by two
groundcars and realised he was arousing suspicion with his over-cautious
approach. He accelerated, hover bike growling gently, and watched as the groundcar
in front hit a slight ramp, drove into what was, to all intents and purposes, a
giant
funnel,
and
pop.
Gone.
Shit.

Dex accelerated, cruised towards
the funnel, face twisted in abject old-man horror, and-

Ramp.
Pop. Suck.

Argh!

Dex blinked rapidly and sucked in
fresh air. He’d felt the
massive
acceleration of the Zip Tube, and
emerged five kilometres away from another, near-identical funnel -apparently
all in one piece. He cruised to a gentle halt by the side of the road, on a new
island now, in a new
Theme Planet Adventure Zone.
He patted himself all
over, as if worried he might have left an arm or leg behind.

“Hey, mister,” said a little
girl, who he hadn’t noticed before. She was wearing a swim costume and had long
black hair, not unlike Molly’s. She wore a red flower in her hair and was
beaming up at Dex.

“Er, hello?”

“Don’t worry. I did that the
first time as well.”

Dex grinned at her. “Pretty
weird, huh?”

“Yeah. Pretty weird, mister.”

“Do you know the way to the Caves
of Hades, little girl?”

“Sure.” She pointed, then
rummaged in a little white handbag. She pulled out a map. “Here. This’ll show
you the way.”

“Thanks. Don’t you need it?”

“Nah. I’ve been here nine weeks
now. I know my way around.”

The girl ambled off, and bought
an ice cream at a bobbing robotic ice cream stand. Dex studied the map, and
looked up just as a police groundcar cruised past. Dex watched it out of the
corner of his eye, continuing to stare at his map, and he saw the groundcar
gradually roll to a halt. Then it turned around, its green lights started to
flicker, and Dex groaned deep inside.

“Not again.”

“You THERE ON THE HOVER BIKE. DO
NOT MOVE. We HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU!”

Dex rammed open the throttle, the
hover bike screamed, and he shot off down the road like a bullet from a gun.
The groundcar growled and howled after him, whooshing past the little girl with
the ice cream, who stood, mouth open, raspberry syrup on her chin, eyes wide in
astonishment.

Head down, Dex opened the
throttle to full. The hover bike whined, nose lifting, and he zigzagged between
slower vehicles in the road in a manoeuvre that would have got him a slap from
his wife, and an instant ban in London.

In the distance, the vast
Skycloud Mountains loomed, glittering darkly.

“Bastards,” muttered Dex, and
watched the police car accelerate in his mirrors. They kept up with him no
problem. Their vehicle didn’t lack power, and as they all flew towards the
Forest of Iron, the loudhailer barked at him:

“Pull
over if you value your safety and the safety of
OTHERS.”

“Get fucked,” muttered Dex.

“You
are driving in a very dangerous and illogical manner. This is very
dangerous.
You
are causing a
danger.
You
are in breach of
Theme Planet law and must suffer our justice. Pull in and you will not be harmed.
I
must repeat, you are being very
dangerous.”

This actually cheered Dex. He
thought he’d been spotted by Monolith or some other bloody secret police
service operating on Theme Planet; he hadn’t. This was just some dumb-ass SIM,
he knew their sort, they’d been banned from Earth decades earlier. What was it
the pedantic sons-of-bitches always used to say? He wracked his brains, even as
he veered left, taking a wider and less congested road. He skimmed around more
tourist traffic, shaving millimetres of alloy from one rear bumper with his
footpeg. Horns, squeaky, high-pitched and nonthreatening, squeaked after him.

That was it. “There’s no comedy
in police work, son.” That had become the mantra of the terminally-pedantic
Justice SIMs. They were renowned across the Quad-Gal for having the worst sense
of humour of any species; human, alien or prov. And, meeting one now, Dex
realised, nobody was fucking kidding!

“PULL OVER. YOU MUST PULL OVER.
WE
DEMAND YOU PULL OVER. I DEMAND YOU
PULL OVER! PULL OVER THIS INSTANT. YOU ARE BEING VERY IRRESPONSIBLE BY NOT
PULLING OVER. If YOU DO NOT PULL OVER YOU MAY CAUSE SOME DANGER. We CANNOT
ALLOW YOU TO CAUSE DANGER. THERE’S NO COMEDY IN POLICE WORK, SON.
IF
YOU DO NOT PULL OVER, I WILL BE
FORCED TO BREAK OUT THE MINIGUNS.”

Dex paled.
Shit.

Right, he thought. Time to see
what this hover bike can do...

He pulled back on the yoke, and
the hover bike sailed up into the air. Below, the twisted iron trees from the
Forest of Iron spread out like a vast carpet, a vast game map, and in one quick
glimpse Dex saw the layout of the forest, with its adventure trails and forest
wolves to avoid - a
must
for all Theme Planet thrill seekers!

Dex checked his mirrors. The
groundcar had, miraculously, unfolded its wings and, with a supersonic
whump,
leapt up into the air in pursuit.
But it’s called a fucking “groundcar,“
he wanted to scream.
How can you call it a groundcar when it flies in the fucking
sky?

Looking back, Dex nearly collided
with a World Tree, a vast towering edifice that was a living, breathing,
organic
ride
in itself. It reared from the forest canopy below, vast and
towering and carrying carriages and CARs along its very branches. Riders
screamed and giggled and drooled, legs kicking, arms waving, and Dex saw
carriages topple away down vast branches as wide as a ten-lane freeway. Punters
screamed. Tourists waggled.
Great fun,
thought Dex, and swung his hover
bike down under a mammoth branch, then up through leaves which slapped at his
face like enraged lovers. Up, under, over branches Dex wove, the hover bike
whining. The SIM police car was in close pursuit. He could see green flashing
lights in his mirrors.

Dex burst free from the World
Tree’s foliage, only to see ten more World Trees up ahead - part of the great
Theme Planet experience within the Forest of Iron. “Great,” he muttered, and he
went to veer right - he had to travel right, according to the map, out past the
Lagoon of Serenity, back over The Lost Dunes and to the Caves of Hades... only
then could he find the secret tunnel.

Bullets howled and Dex ducked
instinctively, veering the bike left, away from his goal. Another burst of
minigun fire chewed through the World Tree ahead of him, showing Dex that the
mad bastard SIM was far from playing fucking games.

Dex slammed left, right, and
lifted the bike over a succession of huge boughs as thick as train carriages.
More bullets howled after him, and a ride CAR containing screaming, giggling
tourists was thrown from its rails and went toppling towards the ground, blood
spewing from minigun-punctured, ragdoll bodies. Dex saw the CAR fall, his face
turning grim. Not only was the police SIM gunning for him with a serious agenda,
he was showing his true colours and not caring for
any
human life. And
as a PUF officer, this rankled deep with Dex. How could one be a policeman and
wantonly destroy life? It didn’t fit. It didn’t work. It just wasn’t fucking
right...

“Okay, you bastard.”

Dex yanked the bike left and
right once more, dodging vast branches, then suddenly dropped towards ground
level and snapped through the Iron Forest canopy. “I’ll show you how this game
is played.”

He checked his mirrors. Now there
wasn’t just one SIM flying a police car after him. There were... Dex counted.
Five.
Five!
How did that happen?
How the fuck did that situation arise? But he knew with a deep sinking feeling
in his soul how it had arisen; the SIMs were anally retentive to the Nth
degree. Unable to stop Dex, this bastard had called in his mates.