Theme Planet (17 page)

“You okay, buster? You seem a bit
twitchy.”

“I’m far from fucking okay,”
snapped Dex.

“Hey, okay, okay! I just work
here, man!”

They came to a highway and
blasted along, overtaking other HumCars and regular vehicles like trucks and
tankers. High walls of rock hid the surroundings, but in the distance,
overhead, Dex spied the glinting rails of massive rollercoasters, rolling and
twisting through the air. They even zoomed under a chunky water ride, and the
HumCar’s wipers kicked in to clear the overspray.

“You here with your family?”

“Yeah,” said Dex.

“You have something stolen?”

“You could say that.”

After a few minutes they turned
from the highway, and Dex watched as they headed inland. The trees grew more
and more clustered, until the rock walls gave way and they were in the midst of
a deep forest. The thick green conifers were occasionally broken by the fanned
branches of a tree with glossy blue leaves.

Dex stared out of the window, and
a frown slowly formed - reflected in the glass. To the right, in the distance,
there were logging trucks. And then they passed a long, low industrial estate,
containing hundreds of thick black pipes which, with a blink, Dex realised were
ride tracks. The HumCar turned right into the compound and suddenly screeched
to a halt, tyres chewing gravel.

Dex was thrown forward, then
back, and came up to face -

A gun.

“This is getting tiresome,” he
muttered.

“Sometimes, you just need to
learn how to play dead.”

“What did we do wrong?” said Dex
softly, looking into the man’s eyes. He wasn’t a prov, this one. Oh no. He was
human. A back-stabbing human who’d sold out his own fucking species for the
aliens...

“I just work here,” said the taxi
driver. “Now get out. I don’t want to ruin my seats.”

Dex fired through the back of the
leather, and the bullet entered the taxi driver’s stomach low down, clawing
through his bowel. He tensed, looking as if he were going to shoot, but slowly the
gun slipped from his fingers and his eyes rolled up. Blood came out of his
mouth and he slumped sideways, head banging off the glass.

Dex sat for long, long moments,
staring out of the car’s side-window.

Outside, trees swayed in the
gentle breeze rolling in from the ocean.

So then. The PopBot, the
receptionist, the man in the cream suit, the woman in the corridor, the taxi
driver.

Crazy. He’d been stitched up
tighter than a fat man in a wetsuit.

Now what? What to do?

The police? Yes. There was
no
way
the police could be so corrupt. This had to be the work of some kind of
gang which had infiltrated the hotel. They’d taken Kat and the girls, and Dex
was supposed to either pay a ransom, or go on TV weeping and begging the Theme
Planet government - indeed, the Monolith Corporation - to meet whatever demands
the terrorists had in mind. He had to get to the police.
Had
to. Out
here, he was operating alone; no backup. And he couldn’t fight this sort of
organisation alone... he had the heart, just not the guns.

Dex climbed out of the HumCar and
stood, listening. Trees whispered. That was all.

He dragged the body of the taxi
driver from the vehicle and across the dirt, grunting at the man’s dead weight.
“Too many Porky Paul burgers, buddy,” he muttered, and dumped him in the dust
behind a rack of old, burned ride tracks.

Burned? Odd. I thought Theme
Planet was
perfect...

Back to the HumCar, and using the
taxi-driver’s jacket, he soaked up the worst of the blood. Looking in the boot
he found blankets, and draped them over the car seat. After all, he didn’t want
to march into a police station covered in dead man’s skull chunks.

Shit.
Shit.
He stood
there, and shook his head.

Madness. Total madness.

He climbed in, wound down the
window, and started the smooth, quiet engine. No
noise pollution on Theme
Planet!
he mused, dancing along the edges of a building hysteria. He spun
the car, wriggling a little at the bullet hole and charred leather in the back
of his seat which dug into him like poking fingers.

Grimly, he headed back to the
highway.

~ * ~

Dex parked the
car
and stared up at the neat, white police HQ. It looked so pristine, so smart, so
noble. A pinnacle of law enforcement. Not that there were many crimes on Theme
Planet. Monolith prided itself on its tiny, tiny crime figures. Criminals were
dealt with most harshly.

Dex walked up the wide marble
steps, past a proliferation of police officers, his bad nerves disappearing,
confidence returning. If anybody would help him, these people would help him.
He
was police,
they
were police. They were his kind of people. They were
brothers in adversity. They were brothers in the solving of crimes!

Officers filed past him on the
steps, dutifully ignoring him. To these officers in their smart black uniforms,
he was simply another tourist. But he would soon get some attention. Soon
illustrate the gravity of the situation.

He stepped through the doors,
into the heaving complex of the police precinct...

Into an ants’ nest of insane
activity...

And the world came alive, with
screeching sirens and bright flashing lights directed into his eyes, blinding
him instantly. Reflexively, Dex’s arms came up, shielding his eyes from the
harsh intensity. He heard the cocking of many weapons; a field of hardware. An
arsenal.

“On the ground, motherfucker!”
somebody screamed.

“Get down!”

“Down, dickhead!”

Slowly, Dex fell to his knees. “It’s
okay,” he said. “I’m a police officer. From London, Earth. I’m police.”

“Two pistols,” he heard somebody
say.

“Room 237,” came another voice.

Then something hit him across the
back of the head, and the world went black.

~ * ~

Water splashed his
face, and he groaned. His head was thumping. His
mouth was dry and tasted of vomit. He opened his eyes. He was in a bare grey
room, seated on a steel chair before a steel table, his hands tied tight behind
him. Spaghetti Cuffs, no doubt. Live Wire. Very dangerous shit.

Dex breathed deeply, and tried to
focus. Two men came into view. One wore a black suit, one a cream suit.

“Well, well,” said cream suit. He
carried a small DigPad, and he placed it on the steel table with a
clack.
“You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you, Dexter Colls?”

Dex leaned forward and spat blood
on the floor. He coughed, and looked up, into the man’s eyes. And he was a man
- not a provax. He was human. That was good. Very good. They should be able to
connect. Dex turned to the man in the black suit, who had his eyes hidden
behind shades - because the daylight hurt him, hurt his bright bright eyes. He
was a provax, brought up on a dark world, a nocturne world. That was why he was
so pale. Earthmen called them vampires; the provax hated it.

“My name is Rogen,” said the
provax in the black suit. “Tell us what you’ve done with them and this will go
easier for you.”

“Done
with... with who?”

“Don’t play the smart fucking
arse with us,” said the man in the cream suit. Dex saw his small, neat name
badge. It read:
Jim.

“If you mean my wife, Katrina,
and my little girls, Molly and Toffee, then they’ve been kidnapped. Taken! And
then I was attacked, first in the lift by that...”

Rogen held up his hand. “Destroying
a PopBot is an offence, Mr Colls,” he said, “under the Trade and Tourism Laws.
You do understand that, don’t you?”

Dex took a deep breath. “Listen,
you two apes. And listen good. I am Dexter Colls, Precinct 881, London. You can
call my Commanding Officer there, Jackson. He will vouch for me. I have over
twenty years on the PUF.”

“Oh, he vouched for you all right,”
said Jim, perching himself on the edge of the desk. “But then, murder
is
murder
- no matter if you’re Police Urban or just little people. Isn’t that right,
Rogan?”

“Damn right, Jim.”

They exchanged a long glance. Dex
frowned. He wasn’t sure what that glance meant, and he was good at reading
people - hell, he’d had decades of experience.

He licked his lips, and his brain
hurt. This was crazy. Insane! And panic thumped him with iron fists as he
thought about his wife and children. He had to find them. Help them. Rescue
them! Instead, he was here, with these crazy fuckers who were intent on framing
him for the very crime he wished to solve.

“Listen,” said Dex, leaning
forward.

“No,
you
listen, sonny
boy,” snapped Jim, eyes angry now and glaring down at Dex. “You fucking
tourists, you come out here to Theme Planet and you think you’re above the law!
If you’re not getting pissed and causing fights with each other or the locals
because of race hate, or your basic human superiority complex, then you’re shagging
on the beaches or trying to deviate the bloody ride drives. You’re like a virus
on the face of this planet. If I were the provax, I’d kick the lot of you out.”

Dex closed his mouth with a clack
at this vehement outburst. He glanced at Rogen, who was grinning.

“But - you don’t often come here
and commit
murders,”
he said. “Tell us where you buried the bodies and
we’ll go easy on you.”

“I told you what happened, and
this is a bad fucking joke!” growled Dex, face harsh, eyes falling down into
hate. “They’ve been kidnapped, you dumb plod, taken - so what makes you so
adamant it was me?”

“We have evidence,” said Rogen,
smoothly, and pulled up a chair, reversing it and sitting with a panel of steel
between himself and Dexter. “Lots of evidence. An orgy of evidence. So, let’s
begin again.”

“Bullshit,” snapped Dex. “You
have nothing!”

“What we
do
have,” said
Rogen, voice still calm and controlled, “is the Theme Planet Travel and Tourism
Torture Laws.”

“Torture Laws?” said Dex, going
cold. He could see himself reflected in Rogen’s shades. He did not have a good
look.

“It’s part of Quad-Gal Statute
with regards aliens, in this case
you,
visiting the land of a protected
species, that’s
us.
Yes, we invite you here; yes, we take your money;
but you
are
expected to behave. You should have read your in-flight
literature, Mr Colls. It explains about our Torture Tubes, way down below the
ground. Down where the rollercoasters go to die.” He smiled, and coughed, and
stood up. “We have certain, if not God-given rights, then certainly
Gov
-given
rights.” He coughed again, and nodded to Jim. “I’m going to give you a few
moments to think about your situation. When I come back in, I strongly
recommend you have some information for me about the whereabouts of your
family.”

Rogen left the room. Jim remained
standing, staring at Dex.

Dex ran his hands through his
short brown hair and groaned.
This couldn’t be happening! The bastards
should be out there looking for his little girls! They should be doing their
jobs, like all good police! Instead, he was locked up here, being threatened
with torture...