Theme Planet (37 page)

As Dex’s hover bike zipped down
to ground level, and whizzed through the forest as if in some crazy video game
or movie, the cars spread out and
five
miniguns opened fire. Trees
screamed and groaned, and trunks from trees a thousand years old came crashing
to the ground.

Bullets whizzed and spun past Dex
like hail, and he suddenly slammed the hover bike into reverse, dipping the
yoke to clear the lead groundcar, then opened the throttle again, came up fast
behind the SIM’s car, got the front of his bike under its rear bumper and
twitched it up. The groundcar lifted slightly, then ploughed its nose into the
ground as Dex pulled left, cutting between two more cars. The crashing car cut
a huge groove through the forest floor and hit a tree with a
wham,
a
spattering of debris, and a sudden, howling, rushing inferno.

The two cars alongside Dex then
opened fire behind him, miniguns spewing spinning steel; Bullets slapped along
panels, and the two cars cut each other in half, dropping bits of steel and
alloy and punctured SIM limbs to the forest floor. They hit the ground in
pieces, fucked up and out of the game.

Dex banked right, and the two
final cars jigged in line to open fire at him. Shit.
Shit!
Bullets screamed and impacts ran along the back of the
hover bike, punching through the alloy. Black smoke poured from the arse of the
bike, and Dex felt the machine shudder under his fists.
Oh, no. No! Don’t do
this to me, baby. Don’t die on me now!
Suddenly, it picked up power, and a
grin spread like jam over Dex’s face. But then the engine cut, the fail-safes
blipped into place, and the hover bike glided down slowly through the trees,
still billowing black smoke, and came to rest with dignity on the forest floor.

Ob, you prick-teasing bitch. Oh,
I just can’t believe you let me down! I can’t believe you’ve left me at the
mercy of the SIMs...

Dex hopped from the bike, turned,
reached for his Makarov.

“DON’T
EVEN THINK ABOUT IT,
MOTHERFUCKER. BELIEVE ME, I HAVE NO HUMOUR ABOUT THIS SITUATION!”

The two groundcars were floating
ten metres away, minigun barrels smoking, their engines purring like clockwork.
The guns were focused on Dex and Dex alone. He could feel their evil eyes, tiny
black holes staring into Hell and death. Dex’s mouth was dry, because he knew
SIMs, and he knew them well - and Dex had been responsible for the death of
their kind. There was no going back now. No talking his way out of this
situation. SIMs were evil motherfuckers by anybody’s stretch of the
imagination, and they
could
slaughter him, and
would
slaughter
him. Probably after torture. Lots of torture.

Dex raised his hands above his
head. “Don’t shoot!” he yelled, hoping to any god that would listen that he
could get them out, on the ground. At least he’d have a chance with his
Makarov. As long as they were behind a set of miniguns, he was so much meat
pate. “We need to talk about this!”

He could almost
feel
them
splutter down their microphones. He could
sense
their exasperation,
their indignation, their feelings of
listen-to-this-cheeky-motherfucker
made into a physical thing.

“You
have a cheek, little man! You have caused the
DEATHS OF OUR
SIM COMPANIONS! FOR THIS YOU ARE GOING TO BE DESTROYED IN A MOST UNPLEASANT
WAY.”

“I’m a policeman,” said Dex,
clutching at straws, grasping slivers of time like a drowning man clutching
greased rope. “I’m part of the PUF in London, Earth. I know how you feel! It
was all an accident... a set-up! I’m being hunted, and I thought you were the
bad guys!”

There was silence for a while. He
could almost hear the muffled, heated exchange between the SIMs.
Jesus,
he
thought,
imagine giving a position of responsibility to these gun-toting,
trigger-happy, crazy-eyed bastards! Is that what Theme Planet really thinks of
its tourists? Legs shot off in the back of the van? Eyes put out with an
ice-axe? Still-beating heart ripped from jagged chest-cavity by over-zealous
justice nutcases on an ironic mission for justice? Yeah, that was the SIMs.
Crazy bastards, distilled.

“Do
not move.
We
are
coming out to discuss this situation.”

Great. A chance at... freedom?
Certainly not justice. He’d have to be fast, and hit hard.
He could feel the Makarov in his
pocket, a solid weight, a weight that equated to escape. It was his only
chance. Dex ground his teeth in frustration. Every damn step he took,
bureaucracy seemed to interject in his fate; it was as if he was cursed by policymakers.
Mocked by procedure. Haunted by the very police he had once sworn to serve.

This is not a good situation,
he thought.

This is not a good week.

The SIMs stepped from their
vehicles, which bobbed slightly as the heavy mass of SIM and associated battle
armour was removed from suspended suspension. There were four of them, two in
each groundcar. Their armour was black and dulled silver, and their mechanical
eyes gave tiny
clicks
and
buzzes
as they focused on Dexter. All
four SIMs carried SMKK machine guns, and they were pretty savage weapons even
in gentle hands. In the strangler grip of nutcase nutjob killers like your
average psychotic SIM, an SMKK was something truly to be feared. Not so much a
tool of justice as a guaranteed one-way trip to a deep hole in the ground.

The SIMs strode forward and
arranged themselves in a line. Mechanical eyes watched Dexter with care, SMKKs
presented with safety catches off. He didn’t like it one bit.

“You
have led us a merry dance, little man.
You
are
IN THE SHIT, YOU KNOW THAT? YOU
HAVE BROKEN LAW AND FUCKED WITH Gov!”

“Listen guys, listen, it’s all
been a terrible mistake!” said Dexter - and an arrow appeared in the lead SIM’s
face. It stuck there, feathers quivering, as mechanical eyes swivelled down to
examine the yew shaft embedded just beneath.

“I AM NOT HAPPY WITH THIS
SITUATION!” Said the SIM, reaching up and grabbing the arrow in his gloved
fist. There was a
crack
as he snapped it off, and Dex, whose mouth was
hanging open, glanced over his shoulder and saw the shit hitting the fan.

Dex hit the ground and covered
his head as a hundred shafts hissed from the dense undergrowth of the forest,
peppering the SIMs until they resembled porcupines. The SMKKs rose and whined,
rattling bullets into the undergrowth and cutting branches from trees, leaves
from branches,
churning
up the greenery into damp wood shavings.

Dex drew his Makarov and started
pumping bullets at the SIMs, aware that whoever was firing the arrows was on
his
side.

“Keep your head covered!”
bellowed a voice in an accent somewhere between Australian, Irish and
Afro-Caribbean. Dex obeyed as a rain of slow, heavy arrows whined from the
trees.

The first one hit a SIM, who
looked down in sudden recognition.
“Shit!”
said the Justice model, who promptly exploded. Limbs and chunks of flesh
flew off in all directions, as exploding arrows embedded in the three remaining
SIMs and they, too, exploded with deep, grinding
WHUMPS.
The greenery was soon turned red, decorated as it
was with skin, muscle and entrails.

Dex climbed warily to his knees,
looking around. Something had stuck to his jacket, and with great distaste he
plucked free a mechanical eye. It squelched, and with a grimace Dex dropped it
to the forest floor.

“You’re a long way from home, sonny
boy!” said a cheery voice, as a group of bandits strode out of the trees. They
were dressed in Lincoln green, and carried longbows of hardy yew. Their eyes
shone with merriment and good humour, and much to Dex’s amazement, the leader
arrived and gave his thigh a hearty slap.

Dex looked around at the twelve
men. Yes, there was an overweight monk. There was a short, dangerous looking
man with a scowl and angry eyes. There, hovering in the background, was a
pretty maid.

Dex groaned. “You’re shitting me,
right?”

“Shitting you we are not! Welcome
to our forest! We are the Merry Men, and my name, good sir, is Robin!”

“Robin? Merry Men? Is this a
theme
section of the Theme Park?”

“Yes, good sir!” beamed Robin,
who wore a dainty little pointed green hat. It had a feather in it.

Dex felt an urgent need to scream
and giggle well up within him, and he forced it down savagely, like drunken
kebab vomit. “You’re robots?”

“AIs,” corrected Robin. He gave a
wink, and hit his thigh again, with a hearty
slap.

“And your purpose is?”

“To patrol this fine woodland and
protect the tourists! We may also rob from the SIMs and give to the needy. That
goes without saying.”

“Rob? From the...” Dex shook his
head. “I don’t recall the history filmys showing Robin with exploding arrows?”

“One feels one must move with the
times,” said Robin, with a slick, neat smile. But damn, you had to admire that
programming. “Come hither, brave adventurer! Back, through the forest, and away
from this SIM debris before more of those nasty fellows decide to invade our
privacy.”

“Er,” said Dex. “Actually, I’m on
an important mission to find my wife and children. I’ll just get back on my
hover bike and leave you guys to it. Okay?”

Robin drew back his bowstring,
until the feathers of the arrow touched his cheek. Dex found himself looking
down the very sharp steel point of an arrow. He gave a wide grin, and spread
his hands out wide...

“Hey!”

“I fear you must come with us,
good chap,” said Robin, voice warbling a little. “I do insist. Will, be so good
as to remove the intruder’s weapon. And Friar?”

“Yes, Robin?”

“Go and put the soup on, there’s
a hardy fellow.”

~ * ~

Dex marched through
the dense woodland, eyes narrowed, hands tied behind
his back with
twine.
Fucking
twine,
he thought. The ignominy. He
followed with,
fucking idiots.
Why does this shit choose
now
, of
all times, to happen to me? Had these crazy AIs gone gung-ho crazy and
kidnapped him for a purpose? Had they maybe flipped their programming, melted
solder into their cooling slots, and basically deleted their inhibition codes?
Shit.
Shit.

Dex stumbled on, his progress
hindered by the thin rope biting into his wrists. It was so damn humiliating.
After all the high tech battles he’d been through, to be taken down by a man
with a bow and arrow, and - he confirmed it -yes. Green tights. He’d been taken
out of the game by a fucking cross-dresser in nylons.

“Wonderful,” he groaned.

Soon, noises came to his ears.
The familiar sounds of cars on tracks, the rumbling of rollercoaster rides, the
chatter of excited voices, screams of exhilaration as cars plummeted down the
vertical drops. Dex frowned. What the hell was going on? Where were these
freaks
taking him?

“Don’t worry,” beamed Robin, as
he strode ahead, slapping his thigh occasionally, “all will be revealed,
adventurer!”

They burst from the dense
undergrowth to reveal - a Robin Hood themed section!

Dex groaned. “For fuck’s sake,”
he muttered.

There were all manner of rides
and attractions: rollercoasters built through, around, and vertically down
into
the giant trees; a replica of a castle under siege with huge siege engines
thundering and throwing missiles at shattered battlements; a village fair, with
barrels of water and peasants milling around, chasing chickens and braiding
young girls’ hair. There were jesters, and horses, and mud, and dung. There
were more rides, further through the theme section clearing, just for the
kiddies - giant leaves on tracks, fairies and dryads and all manner of forest
folk.