Vending Machine Lunch (7 page)

Jonathan
snorted with slight amusement, "Good luck."

He shoved a key
through the lock and twisted. The lock clunked and squeaked. The
door creaked open. Jonathan swung the door open and they
entered.

Inside, was J,
handcuffed to a chair behind a table. In front of the table, if
luck would have it, were two wooden chairs for Jessica and Jordan.
On the wall was a clock, ticking it's mechanical tick loudly,
echoing off the hard stone walls of the cell. On the table was a
discarded bit of paper, slightly crinkled and a battered black tape
recorder that lacked both a cassette and power cells.

Jessica and
Jordan sat down, J's eyes burning holes into both of them. He
smiled.

"Let me guess,"
J smiled, "Good Enforcer, bad Enforcer? Or in this case,
Speaker?"

Jordan began.
"You are without any sort of detonation device or any device that
can trigger or stop a detonation. How do you plan to blow up the
Ares Flood Defences?"

"Hurr- how do
you plan to evacuate the areas at risk in time?" was the reply.

"We don't,"
said Jordan, frowning slightly at J, "Now answer my question."

"You don't!?"
said J, acting shocked. Whether he genuinely was or not was another
matter, "So I'm guessing I'm getting full leadership in the next
five or so. Because if that hand reaches the six and I'm not in
power, God forbid."

"Let me ask you
a question," said Jessica, "Do you really hope to get away with
this? I mean, there is an explosives specialist Enforcer unit
searching the Areas Defences as we speak. Those men are very
efficient and well trained. You may as well consider your
explosives disarmed. Do you really think you can do this without
any sort of 'fight'?"

"Let me ask you
a question," replied J, "Do you really hope to get away with this?
I mean, it's either I get full power or I swamp the place with
water. Do you really think you can hide something as huge as this
from the public?"

"Listen to me
J," said Jordan, "We can make this very easy for you, or
alternatively, we can go the difficult route. You claim you're
fighting for the public and yet at this rate you're gonna kill a
hell of a lot of them. Why don't you just tell us how to stop this
from happening?"

"Ha! You
already know," said J, smiling insanely, leaning forward from his
chair, "This all stops if I become leader."

"You already
know we can't do that," grunted Jordan.

"Has anyone
ever told you that you have an abnormally large nose?" asked J,
staring at Jordan inquisitively.

Jordan sighed,
and put his face into his hands. There was a moment of silence
apart from the loud ticking of the clock. He pulled his face up
from his hands and turned to Jessica.

"This is
useless," he muttered, he's not going to tell us anything. We may
as well just let the explosive unit just do their job and bang this
God damn son-of-a-bishop in prison."

"The Enforcer
explosive unit will not be successful," said J, still smiling,
"Trust me when I tell you this."

"Well then you
must know that you're going to die along with a lot of the public
then? This station is well within the flood risk boundaries," said
Jessica.

"Hurr-
yeah."

Jessica raised
her palms in confusion, "Um... so you want to die then?"

"I'm not that
fussed if I'm quite honest. Do you think I won't have thought this
through?" said J, "Believe me when I say this my dearest Jess, I
have planned this to the finest detail, to every eventuality
possible. And I gotta say, you guys are not disappointing me.
You're not even bothering evacuating. Ha! Unbelievable."

"Don't call me
Jess. You're doing this for the entertainment?"

"Ha! Partly,"
grinned J, "I mean, what would I do without you guys? I'd have to
go back to watching casuals on the CRT display all day.
No...thankyouverymuch."

"So you're
happy going down in history as the mass neo-terrorist who killed a
large population of this land, are you?" asked Jessica, leaning
into J's face.

"Hurr- do you
really think that is what the public are going to see after this?"
said J, showing off his yellow teeth in Jessica's face, "Or do you
think they'll see a government which didn't bother informing the
public about the danger and just let everyone in the flood danger
area die a watery death? Do you think they're going to give one
toss about the guy who did it? Or are they going care more about
the fact that the government and the Enforcers knew about it, but
did nothing in order to protect the public. But instead, wasted
futile resources on trying to quieten the whole thing up?
Unbelievable, as I said. You guys never fail to disappoint."

Jessica pulled
herself back. She looked at the clock. There was three to go.

"That's a nice
necklace you've got there Jessica," said J smugly, "It suits you
brilliantly. You are very beautiful if you don't mind me saying.
Does it have a locket?"

"Yes," replied
Jessica, as Jordan picked himself up and left the cell.

"Where's he off
to?" asked J, after Jordan had closed the door.

"Probably to
check on the status of the explosives unit," said Jessica,
narrowing her eyes, "You know, the ones probably disarming your
terrible plot as we speak."

"You think I'm
calling your bluff?" chucked J, "Well, never mind that for now.
Might I possibly take a look at the locket."

"You can look,
but not touch," said Jessica coldly, pulling the locket out of her
cleavage.

J leant
forward, scrutinising it, "I can't touch anything Jessica but the
back of this chair and these handcuffs. And just as I thought,
K.B.O. Do you know what it means?"

"As far as I'm
aware, it's an old war saying. Keep Bouncing On."

"Ha! Bouncing?"
said J, looking at Jessica in disbelief, "It's bumbling you fool!
Keep Bumbling On! Why would anyone want to bounce in a war? Why
would anyone bounce in the first place, unless they had the mental
age of a three year old?"

"Shut up,"
snapped Jessica, "I know for a fact that the word is
'bouncing.'"

The door opened
behind Jessica, it was both Jordan and Jonathan.

"We have
received news from the explosive unit that there are no explosives
on the defences," said Jonathan, "It seems our friend here was
lying."

Jessica
breathed a sigh of relief, J's grin grew.

"Why did you
even try this?" said Jessica, almost laughing with relief, "It was
a stupid plan really wasn't it?"

"Hurr- I don't
care about that at the moment," grinned J, "The word is bumbling!
Not bouncing."

"What is he on
about?" asked Jordan.

"The phrase
K.B.O," said Jessica, quickly putting the necklace down her top
again and then turning to face Jordan and Jonathan, "The B stands
for 'bouncing' does it not?"

"No," replied
Jordan, "It stands for 'beating'. Keep Beating On."

"What?" said
Jessica in almost disbelief.

"Well I thought
it meant 'booming,'" said Jonathan, his shadowy face looking at
them all rather seriously.

"Booming?" J
laughed, "Now that's an interesting one. I'm telling you guys, it's
bumbling."

"Hardly
matters," said Jessica, standing up and leaving the cell. She
turned around in the doorway with Jordan and Jonathan, "This nutter
is a waste of space. Does he even deserve a trial?"

Jordan turned
to Jessica, "Whoa, that's a bit extreme for you isn't it? Naturally
I concur with you, however, don't you stand up for fair trials for
everyone."

"This is an
exception," snarled Jessica, furious at the games J had played,
"He's a waste of God-damn time."

"Have you
anything to say before we charge you with conspiracy for genocide
and the many acts of destruction and death you have done before?"
asked Jonathan, looking upon J disapprovingly as though the whole
ordeal had been disappointing for him.

"Hurr- why
don't you wait until it's six, just to be sure?" was the reply.

They glanced at
the ticking clock in the cell.

"There is one
left until six," said J, smiling again, "We might see some
fireworks yet."

"How?" asked
Jonathan, "We had our entire explosives unit search the flood
defences. They searched every possible area in and around it. They
found nothing. To blow up a structure as huge as that, you'd need
more than a firework. You'd need a hell of a lot of explosive
actually."

J's smile
widened sickeningly, "Ha! This is why I pity you guys so much. What
on earth made you think I strapped explosives to the Ares Flood
Defences?"

"How else would
you flood the place?" asked Jordan, confused.

"Since there is
only one left until six, I will keep this brief," grinned J, close
to laughing, "As you will probably know now, for years, independent
scientists have been warning about something called 'profanation of
the local environment.' Even some government scientists confirmed
it, not that you guys or our great leader took any noticed. It was
all hushed up and dismissed as a myth. However, this is just yet
another example of something that our leader and his government
tried to hush up, which is true.

"This means,
basically, water levels have been rising. And it was said by many
land scientists that a sudden release of energy from our land's...
land, and we would more than likely have a scenario where an
overflow would take place.

"Now, as I
tried to explain to you in the house of speakers, I'm a man of
simple ideas. After all, what is an explosive, than a sudden
release of energy? Why would I even want to wire up the defences
when all I need to do is blow up some water?"

Jordan's face
had gone pale with fear. So had Jessica's. Jonathan's eyes had
widened.

The clock
clunked. The hand had reached the six.

"So basically,
I'd advise you to run," chuckled J, "And when the water hits you,
keep bouncing, bumbling, beating, booming on. And with a bit of
luck you'll have enough air in your lungs for you to reach the
surface, because this is gonna be big. Bigger than Copland."

There was a
disturbing rumbling in the distance. It was a nasty rumble. It
rumbled their insides. The walls shuddered, the ground growled.

"RUN!" yelled
Jordan, running down the trembling corridor. Jonathan and Jessica
followed, leaving the laughing neo-terrorist behind in the
cell.

They were at
the end of the corridor and Jessica was already out of breath. She
glanced out the window briefly, to see masses and masses of water
pouring over the top of the defences, miles away.

They burst out
of the building, many people doing similar in other buildings. In
an instant, the wall of water hit them, swamping everything out of
sight, tearing down buildings, the impact alone killing the
majority of people immediately.

Those who were
lucky enough to survive the horrifying impact of the wall of water,
had no choice but to keep bouncing, bumbling, beating, booming on.
Not that it would help at all, but bodily survival functions
considered it marginally better than doing nothing.

I’m Sorry For This Mess.

Little James wasn’t
really impressed with the outdoor land. His father had led him to a
balcony, positioned on the roof. It provided the best view of the
land outside. Or at least it would have, if that view had been any
good. It startled James. He had seen glimpses before, but never
expected what hit his retinas.

The books that
his father had provided envisioned a land of green, fields
stretching for miles, cities slowly climbing higher into the
beautiful horizon of a setting day as time went on, seasons of
snow, sun and water. He hadn’t expected it to be actually like
that, the small gap in the boarded up window had long shattered his
dreams. However, deep down inside him, he had hoped that the land
was a beautiful place, as described in now what seemed like the
obviously fictional books that had been there to propagate over his
life.

As James had
expected, the sky was an ugly mess, angry clouds constantly
rumbling their fury to the land below. But the land below didn’t
look all that good either. A dark and dingy mass of buildings, that
were either half built or half destroyed. Row upon row of tall,
cramped buildings filled the horizon, constantly continuing for
what seemed like forever. But far far away in the distance, James
could see the sea of broken, ugly, industrial, dormant buildings
come to a halt. He couldn’t quite make out what came after that, it
just looked like a massive patch of- nothingness. One rather large
area of the land looked to be submerged in water, running across
one side of the perimeter of the flooded area was a large
structure, which just looked like a large metallic curved wall. His
eyes brushed over the other side of the horizon, where there looked
to be a large crater, as though some explosion had happened.

But that wasn’t
the worst of it.

There were
people down there. He could see them. Very small, obviously, and
hard to see as the majority of the place wasn’t lit up, but still
just visible. Just about. It was hard to make out what they were
doing. It didn’t look like much.

“Are you sure
orange is my sorta colour Jack?” said his father, eyeing his tie in
his mechanical hands with his digital eyes.

“It’s James,”
snarled James, “And don’t worry, it looks fine. What is this
place?”

“This boy,”
said his father, importantly striding out to the railings at the
edge of the balcony, “Is Elision City. And one day son, this will
all be yours.”

“What, this,
mess?”

“Well, yeah,
sorry about that boy, things went a bit wrong.”

“What do you
mean wrong!?

“First things
first boy, you need a tour of this place,” said his father, waving
a dismissive robotic hand at James’s question, “Now the basic
things you need to know are, this is Elision City. Our rival city,
Union is somewhere over there,” he pointed at the horizon, “there
are a few more cities but they are unimportant. And we are all
separated by the wasteland.”