Theme Planet (21 page)

Karenta nodded and made several
notes, dark curls falling down over her EPad. Jmes watched her, and felt a deep
stirring within.

~ * ~

It
was
evening.
Outside, the
sun was sinking in a stunning violet blaze of fire. Rides still clanked and
rattled, an eternal theme park aural soundtrack; riders screamed and laughed,
and holidaymakers enjoyed the pleasures and thrills of the Theme Planet.

Jmes stood at the window, looking
down at the university grounds, with their mock stone and fountains, flowerbeds
and manicured lawns. At the centre of the campus was a five-kilometre-high
vertical drop rollercoaster called the
Splat,
and it was a test of nerve for every first-year undergraduate to drink
ten pints, eat a kebab then do three runs on
Splat.
Presumably to see if a) they made a splat, or b) they produced a splat.
Whatever, the rails gleamed in the light of the dying sun, and high up, a
solitary five-man CAR was cresting the summit. It paused, glinting, and then
plummeted towards the university and its manicured lawns, screams wailing out
over the campus.

Jmes turned back to his study.

The tutorial had gone on far
longer than expected, with a two-hour break in the middle. It had gone on for
so long, with Karenta bringing up so many interesting concepts and questions,
that the punk’s Mohican had started to flop, the spotty kid’s spots had all
popped, and even the fat girl seemed miraculously to lose some weight without a
never-ending supply of Fatto Fat Burgers. Thankfully, Professor Jmes called an
end to the torturously long session, and with his back turned, invited the
students to scuttle off to whatever little hellholes of student digs they
inhabited, replete with crappy little cooking facilities, dirty needles and
unprotected sex.

The door clacked shut.

Jmes turned back, expecting an
empty room, but Karenta had remained. She was smiling at him and here, now, she
appeared much less innocent and naive. In fact, she seemed suddenly older than
her years.

“Haven’t you got a home to go to?”
asked Jmes, feeling a thrill run through him as he realised why she’d remained.
There could only be one reason - especially after he had punished them so hard
with such a long, gruelling tutorial session (even though his reputation
was
for long and gruelling tutorial sessions; they didn’t call him Old Iron Bastard
for no reason, a nickname he secretly relished). No. There could only be one
reason. For unlawful carnal knowledge. He smiled encouragingly.

“I have,” said Karenta, looking
shyly at the ground. “I just thought, you know, that we could continue the
session. “

There was something about the way
she said
session
that made Professor Jmes hard. Harder than hard. Here
was a ripe and succulent little fruit he intended on plucking. Not just
plucking, but biting, sucking and fucking, if he had his way with her.

She moved closer. Outside, the
light was fading fast in a dying shower, like a slow-exploding sun. Her face
caught the sunlight and seemed to glow, perfect, her hair highlighted with
violet, plastic dress with strategic transparent panels gleaming.

“You know,” said Jmes, stepping
closer and inhaling her scent, “that a Professor like me, somebody as important
as me, somebody so academically tuned, somebody so high up on the university
ladder - well, to have a friend like
me
means you’ll go a long way in
this education business.”

“I know,” said Karenta, and her
voice was husky.

Jmes shuffled even closer.

“If you treat an old Professor
like me in the right way, I can certainly guarantee you a wonderful future. I
can guarantee you extra
help,
shall we say, and high grades, and
sparkling success.”

“I understand,” said Karenta.

Jmes placed a hand on her hip.
She swayed a little, and pressed in close to him. He felt his breath coming in
short sharp bursts, and his cock was so hard it was ready to burst free from
his neatly pressed suit trousers.

“You’re a gorgeous creature,” he
said.

“Haven’t you a wife and child at
home?” said Karenta.

“Er. Yes. But...”

“But nothing,” said Karenta,
taking a small step back and punching him in the stomach.

Professor Jmes heard the “whoosh”
of air expelled from his own body before he felt the pain, and was indeed
already doubled up and foetal on the carpet before he even understood what had
happened. He lay for a while, and for a period of time - it could have been
seconds or minutes, or it could have stretched into hours - he simply lay, and
waited, and prayed for the pain to go away. It was like nothing he’d ever felt
before, that blow; and he’d been shot by rubber donkey-bullets during the
protest marches in his student years. No. This was worse. Far worse. Or maybe
he’d simply gone soft in his mellowing older years?

He watched, barely able to see
for the tears in his eyes and gasps in his throat, as Karenta crossed to his
study door. She glanced back at him, then locked the door and switched off the
light.

She moved back to him, and taking
a bright table lamp, stood it on the floor where it shone in his eyes. She sat
down, cross-legged on the carpet, and simply waited.

After a while, Professor Jmes
started to regain his composure. He thought of the 9mm Glock Tock in his desk
drawer, still unused, still in its cellophane wrapper. He’d never had need of
it. Not until now.

“You crazy bitch,” he said,
finally, words coming out between gasps and wheezes. “What did you do that for?”

Karenta stared at him, and said
nothing.

“I’m sorry if you don’t find the
fact that I have a wife and child at home palatable, but this is the way the
fucking world works. Don’t you get it? You do me a favour, and I’ll give you good
essay grades. It’s the way it’s always been...”

“Really?” said Karenta, raising
an eyebrow. She reached up, peeled back her curls and tossed the wig to one
side. It gave a
buzz
and folded down, over and into itself, until it was
the size of a packet of gum.

Jmes gradually, painfully, pushed
himself into a sitting position, his face red from pain and humiliation. “I’ll...
I’ll... wait. Why the digiwig? Who are you?”

“I have been sent to talk to you,”
said Karenta, and she smiled, but Jmes saw something in that smile he didn’t
like. He surged forward, and Karenta grabbed his face in one hand and shoved
him back down, savagely. Now the smile was gone. Her eyes pierced him, eyes that
he’d thought of as beautiful, big and fluttering; now they were narrowed,
focused, as if she were a machine with a job to do.

“Wait,” Jmes said, weakly. “Did...
did Romero send you?”

Amba tilted her head at that. She
considered him. “You know Romero?” she said.

“Oh, yes, we go back a long way.”
Slowly, Jmes settled himself down for more comfort. He rubbed at his bristles.
She could see his mind working, ticking away. “Which means, if he sent you, you’re...
one of them.”
He stopped. He looked up at her. There was pity in his
eyes. Pity, and... superiority. She’d soon change that.

“What do you mean by ‘one of them’?”
said Amba, voice level, voice controlled, but something tugging at the back of
her brain, like a mental tick.

Jmes gave a bitter laugh, and
spread his hands. “Shit. I’m fucking dead, aren’t I? If you’re here, then that’s
it. Bullet in the brain. But tell me - how much is he paying you? I’ll double
it. Triple it. I’ll give you a new contract - to go back to Romero and shove
your fist up his arse.”

“Fine words for an academic,”
said Amba, and pulled out her FRIEND. The small weapon sat in her hand, dull
and black and menacing.

Shall I do it now?

Not yet. Wait a moment...

Professor Jmes paled, and lost
his cocky assuredness. His eyes were fixed on the FRIEND; Amba wasn’t sure if
he knew
exactly
what it was, or simply thought it was a weapon, an
odd-looking gun capable of blowing off his head in a splatter of skull chunks.

“Will you take my commission? To
kill Romero?” Jmes was licking his lips, and his eyes were wandering
frantically. Looking for a weapon. A means of escape.
Anything...

“You think I’m shit,” she said. “Don’t
you?”

“No. I think you’re an android.
Not human.”

“I have thoughts. Feelings.”

“Not real,” said Jmes.

“I’m not here to discuss this.”
Amba leant forward slightly, and touched the FRIEND to Jmes’s head. “I’m
looking for a woman. She’s called Lady Goo Goo, a Researcher for Ride Organics
and Alien Testing. I know you know her. I know you were friends. I’ve read your
file.”

“She’s gone into hiding after an
attempt on her life,” said Jmes, slowly, looking beyond the FRIEND touching his
skull, beyond, deep into Amba’s eyes. “I don’t know where. “

“Want to bet your life on that?”

“Wait. Don’t kill me. I don’t
know it, I swear...”

Amba shrugged. “One last chance.”

Jmes shook his head. “If I tell
you, will you let me go?” His voice was a dry croak.

“Too late,” said Amba, and fired.

~ * ~

The
FRIEND
whistled,
and Zi cheered, and a
memory bullet shot from the barrel and entered Professor Jmes’s forehead. It
broke through the skull and wormed into his brain, and Jmes gasped and blood
spurted from the wound and he was punched backwards against his desk, one leg
kicking out and knocking over the lamp. The bullet slowed, and turned, mapping
Jmes’s brain from the inside, then turning, it drilled through brain matter
towards the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The bullet stopped, still spinning,
and began to scan, relaying information back to Zi. After maybe a minute, in
which Professor Jmes was twitching spastically on the floor, the bullet shifted
again, drilling through to the parietal lobe.

Outside his skull, Amba Miskalov
watched impassively from her seated position on the floor. Occasionally, a
pulse of blood would leak from the bullet’s entry wound, and she held the
FRIEND loosely, and hummed to herself, considering his words - the words of
this clever man, this academic man, this professor man...

You’re one of them... an android.
Not human.

I have thoughts. Feelings.

Not real.

Amba thought back, to the
airport, and the little girl she’d killed. The girl, and her mother. Innocent.
Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - when a cursed Anarchy Android
went to work.

Why me, Mommy? Why did the bad
lady shoot me?

Because she had to, darling.
Because she had to protect her own anonymity.

But I wouldn’t have said
anything, Mommy. I promise! If only she hadn’t shot us. If only she hadn’t
killed us.

Amba pictured that little girl.
The perfection of her skin. Glowing hair. Pretty lips. Just like the girl she
would love to have, to feel growing inside her; nurtured and protected in her
womb. The child she would always want. The child she could never have. Because
of what sat in the white house. Because of what hid behind the pale blue door.

Jmes said she wasn’t human. And
he was right.

“You fuckers,” growled Amba, and
cleared her mind. She could feel the FRIEND’S bullet was nearly done, and she
prepared herself for the
sting
of information. She steadied herself.
Felt it coming, like a rush, like a tidal wave, a sensory overload flowing and
gushing into her mind, into the channels of her brain designed for the purpose
- and she was swimming, floating in this man’s life, and Zi was there holding
her hand, and Zi was naked and beautiful and black - not the black of a
different race, but a metallic black, like her skin was infused with the steel
and alloy of the
FRIEND...