V. Moody's Blog, page 24

Book 2 – 39: The Drop

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Site.

 

Point-Two watched as Nifell disappeared into the darkness below. He didn’t scream, he just looked horribly betrayed. By the one person he had decided to put his faith in.

“He’ll be okay,” said Ubik, leaning over the precipice. “Falling at the speed won’t even break any bones. As long as there aren’t any spikes down there. Or acid. Or angry robots.”

“Can you hear me, Nifell,” said Fig. “Are you okay?” There was no response.

Point-Two took a breath. The air was different here. Better. It didn’t smell stale or tainted with the odd taste it had had in the kill room. It tasted clean, almost sweet. An increased level of oxygen.

The change in gravity was unexpected. A localised field on a large scale was very hard to sustain. How large, though? The darkness kept the size of this place hidden.

“Wait,” said Fig, “I think I can hear him.”

Point-Two could hear it, too. A sniffing sound. The speakers in the collar of his suit worked better when his head was covered by the bubble-helmet.

Fig raised the visor on his helmet, the enclosed space acting like an amplifier. The sound was much louder but still hard to identify.

“He’s fine,” said Ubik. “That’s him crying.”

“Nifell, respond,” said Fig.

“What can you see?” said Ubik. “Observe and report.”

It would be easy to think of Ubik as a psychopath with no regard for human life, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Even when he had sent the other Enayan under the wedged entrance to the Ollo base to be shot by the sentry drones, there had been a purpose to it. If they had gone in without checking, then they would be the ones riddled with laser blasts. And since it was the Enayan’s own sentry drone, deployed to kill, there was a certain macabre justness to it.

Those who were willing to hand it out should be able to take it in return. That was Ubik’s mentality. You took your shot and if you missed the mark, then you had to stand firm as fire was returned.

Nifell was just taking his turn at rolling the die. The odds weren’t too bad in his case — a fall in greatly reduced gravity. Ubik liked to offer people odds he would happily take himself. He would roll the die when his turn came, prepared to take the loss if it came to it. He was insane, but not a psycho.

“I… I’m alive,” said Nifell, his voice breaking.

“Of course you are,” said Ubik. “You’re the recon team. I wouldn’t send you in if you weren’t the right man for the job. What’s down there? Droid graveyard? Antecessor bones?”

“I don’t know.” Nifell’s voice was full of panic. He had already been on the verge of a nervous breakdown so putting him under more stress probably wasn’t helping. “It’s dark, it’s so dark.”

“Turn your suit lights on,” said Fig.

Laboured breathing followed for a few seconds. “It’s still dark.”

“Try opening your eyes,” suggested Point-Two.

“Oh… yes. I can see now.”

Point-Two was used to people freezing under pressure. He had been on many exercises and missions on the Liberator Garu where death or endless drifting through space were very real possibilities. There was a certain group of people who just didn’t do well under those circumstances. They were a threat to themselves and to those around them, making the situation actively worse, every instinct urging them to do exactly the wrong thing.

Nifell was one of those people. His threshold might be fairly high thanks to his training and general level of experience dealing with pressurised conditions, but a combination of long-term isolation, abnormal events, and Ubik had pushed him past his natural levels of tolerance. He wasn’t going to be of much use to anyone from now on.

“Great,” said Ubik. “You’re doing a fantastic job, Nif. I knew you were the right one to keep alive. Not like that other guy.”

“He… he was my best friend.”

“Was he? Oh, shame. My condolences. Anyway, take a look around and tell me what you see.”

“I… I can see the floor. It’s uneven. I don’t think anyone’s been down here in a long time.”

“Are you lying face down?” asked Point-Two. “Try turning over.”

“Hold on… Wait a… Okay, I can… Oh no…”

“What is it?” said Fig.

“Nothing. There’s nothing here. It’s a hole, a black hole of emptiness. I knew I should never have applied for special duties. My fitness evaluation was so high though it seemed the logical next step. And the benefits were so much better. Now I’ll die down here, in a hole. A black hole.”

“Good thing you sent him,” said Point-Two. “How else would we know it was dark down there?”

“Nifell, stay positive, buddy,” said Ubik. “We’re coming.”

“You’re coming to get me?” Nifell’s voice climbed higher with rising hope. “A rescue mission?”

“Sure,” said Ubik, “we can call it that if you like. Just stay put.” He turned to Point-Two. “We know there isn’t an immediate threat waiting for us, don’t we? Seems like a successful recon to me.” Ubik stepped off the ledge.

Fig looked at Point-Two, who shrugged. They jumped after him. A mournful wail followed them from above.

“Couldn’t we bring Junior with us?” said Fig as they slowly fell. “He might come in useful.”

“Too big,” said Ubik. “He wouldn’t fit.”

“Still Antecessor tech,” said Point-Two. “Can’t it change shape?”

“Nope,” said Ubik. “I think it’s stuck like that. Poor thing got composited into a hard-case endomorph.”

“How many of those words did you just make up?” said Point-Two.

“They’re all real words,” said Ubik. “They may not have been used in that order before, but they’re all real.”

They sank through the darkness, Fig’s suit’s lights creating a sphere of white around them that illuminated nothing.

“I can see you,” said Nifell. “I can see you coming… no, no, not there, you’re going to—”

Point-Two landed gently, the reduced gravity making it very easy to stay on his feet.

“Oof,” said Nifell.

“Sorry,” said Ubik, bouncing off the man lying on the floor. “Didn’t see you there.”

Point-Two looked around. The area they were in was too large for the lights to reach the walls, assuming there were some. There was no indication of which way to go.

“This is big,” said Fig. “It shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t fit.”

“Can you use the nanodrones to scout the place?” said Point-Two.

“Didn’t bring them,” said Ubik.

“What?” said Point-Two. “Why not? They were our best tool.”

“Our hearts are our best tool,” said Ubik. “And our imaginations. I thought Junior might get lonely so I left them up there to keep him company.”

Point-Two was finding it hard not to lose his temper. He could remain calm under the most trying conditions but Ubik was beyond his zenity.

“They don’t work well under low-grav conditions,” said Fig. “It’s in case they get loose inside a ship or orbital facility. My father wanted a failsafe that couldn’t be tampered with. The asteroid is supposed to have greater gravitational pull the further down you go. Nothing like this place has ever been found before. The nanodrones would be next to useless in this kind of environment.”

“And also that,” said Ubik.

“I can do a short-range scan with my suit,” said Fig. “One moment.”

If he didn’t know better, Point-Two would say Ubik was deliberately trying to goad him. But he did know better. That was exactly what the little twit was doing.

“You don’t think like a normal person, Ubik,” said Point-Two.

“Thank you very much,” said Ubik.

“Walking blindly into every dangerous situation isn’t a good way to proceed.”

Ubik shook his head. “If you see a path that’s an obvious trap, what do you do?”

“Don’t take it?” said Point-Two.

“That’s right, you take it,” said Ubik, not listening as usual. “Because what will the trap-setter have planned for? If someone sees the trap, they won’t go that way, and if they go that way, it’ll be because they haven’t seen the trap. But no one will expect someone to see the trap and walk into it. They won’t be ready. Advantage Ubik.”

It was worrying that Point-Two found himself nodding, like any of that made the remotest amount of sense.

“I want to go home, now,” said Nifell timidly, up on his feet and bouncing up and down to test his changed weight. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can be of any help to you. I’m just not prepared for this.”

“Don’t be so down on yourself,” said Ubik. “You’re one of the team, one of the boys.”

Nifell backed away. “No, you just want to use me to spring traps and test dangerous areas. If I’m going to die, I’d much rather do it up there, with that thing.”

“Junior won’t hurt you. He’s a sweetie. And you’ve got it all wrong. You took the fall this time, next time it’ll be me, then him. We take these things in turn. No special treatment. We’re all equal.”

He was clearly stringing Nifell along. For what reason Point-Two dreaded to think.

“What about him,” said Nifell, nodding towards Fig who was staring at the panel on his arm while he swept it from side to side.

“Even him. No favourites here. My first boss, he’d send us into absolute dire predicaments, no chance of getting out alive but everyone’s first mission, he’d go with you. Be your partner, side by side, show you he wouldn’t send you anywhere he wouldn’t go himself. That’s how a real team operates. We share the laughter and the tears.”

“What happened to him?” asked Nifell. “Your old boss.”

“Oh, he died. Horrible. It was my first time as well. Not a nice way to start a career.” Ubik grinned. “Feel better?”

Point-Two couldn’t tell how Nifell was feeling but he certainly didn’t look any better after Ubik’s pep talk.

“I think there’s something over there,” said Fig.

“Let’s go,” said Ubik, taking Nifell by the arm and setting off with large bouncy steps. “You’ll see, this’ll be fun. Think positive. We’re the first people to step foot on this ground. We’ve discovered an Antecessor site no one else has ever seen, not even Ramon Ollo, and he’s been searching this place for years. Imagine. And we bypassed all the usual defences, didn’t even have to find a key or nothing. We’re going to be known as the fastest Antecessor site divers in history. We laugh in the face of the Antecessors. Ha ha ha ha.”

The sound echoed around them as they bounded effortlessly across the floor, shrouded in darkness.

After a few minutes their lights revealed a wall. It was nothing like the walls in the facility above. There were no white lines, no smooth finish. It looked like the rock wall to a cave.

“Look,” said Ubik. “Natural, untouched.”

“Not quite,” said Fig, turning his light to the side where there were a wide set of steps carved out of the rock. They were roughly hewn, none of the precise lines the Antecessors were known for.

They walked up them, lightly drifting over two or three at a time, the top not visible until they were there. Another ledge, but this one was bigger, stretching out on both sides. And ahead of them was an archway with figures painted on its surface, at least that’s how it seemed to Point-Two. Not people, but creatures of some kind, with many limbs. The Antecessors’ true form?

There was something menacing about it, a feeling of sinister surveillance, like they were being watched.

“There was more than one kind,” said Fig. “The Antecessors weren’t unified. They fought each other. Different factions. Different species.”

Point-Two wouldn’t necessarily have jumped to that conclusion from the convoluted pictograms, but it was certainly one way to interpret the images.

“I’m not going first,” said Nifell, stepping backwards and nearly falling down the steps.

Ubik caught him by the arm. “I’ll go this time. You just stay here and watch.”

For all his lies and exaggerations, Ubik really was prepared to enter the archway first. He walked up to it in long strides. There was a passage on the other side.

Fig grabbed him. “No, if it’s going to let anyone through, it’ll be me.”

Ubik stepped aside like he was always planning to. “Go ahead.”

Fig checked the panel on his arm one more time and then walked forward.

What looked like jets of steam gushed out from the underside of the arch, enveloping Fig. He fell to his knees screaming. Point-Two rushed forward but as soon as he touched the white mist he was thrown back.

Fig held his head as he sank to the floor and lay there, not moving. The steam dissipated.

Point-Two shot forward and rolled Fig over. “Are you alright?”

Fig’s arm came up, a hand indicating he was okay. “I think… it scrambled my brains.”

“Erm, excuse me,” said Nifell.

“Analysed you, probably,” said Ubik. “Checking if you passed the test.”

“I think I must have failed,” said Fig, sitting up and holding the side of his head.

“You’re alive,” said Point-Two. “I’d call that a pass.”

“Mr Ubik, sir.” Nifell’s more urgent tone made the others turn and look.

In the middle of the chamber there was a giant head. It was some kind of hologram but not like a Holover. This was very faint and more two-dimensional, a blue wash making it seem old and faded.

The head wasn’t human. It had no mouth or nose, but the two eyes, one above the other, contained several rings that contracted and expanded.

“Welcome,” said a voice, toneless and artificial. “We were the survivors of a dead universe. We came here to avoid sharing its fate, but they came after us. They hunted us. They will hunt you. We do not know how long it has taken for you to find this message but this is the time you have remaining.”

A long list of digits appeared above the head, counting down.

“We can provide you with the history of our people, the nature of the hunters and the path to salvation. Please choose.”

Three coloured lights appeared below the head.

“Nice,” said Ubik. “I think we’re through to the help desk.”

Chapter 473

The Palace was quiet. You expect a certain amount of activity in the seat of power, but it was probably lunchtime and you know how it is with government jobs— all expense accounts and extended vacations.

We were at a junction where two endless corridors met. The carpeted hallways stretched out in every direction with no signposts to help.

“They should provide you with a map,” I said as I tried to remember the way to the throne room.

“You could have asked for directions,” said Jenny, “before you killed everyone.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “You can’t kill what’s already dead. They’re just indisposed for the time being.” I looked over at Claire. “You must know where we need to go.”

Claire looked down each hallway in turn. “I don’t usually come in this way.”

“Ah think it’s this one,” said Flossie.

“Right,” I said, “so not that way. One of these two.”

“Hey,” said Flossie, pouting. “Ah could be right.”

“You picked right once,” I said, “when you picked Dudley. You’ve used up all your lucky guesses.”

Flossie opened her mouth to say something barely intelligible, then looked at Dudley, smiled and hugged him. If only all the people in my life were so easily dealt with.

“Can’t we just try one and then try the other way if we’re wrong?” said Jenny.

“Yes,” I said. “If you want to go about it like a noob.”

“I think it’s this way,” said Claire.

“Okay. So, not that way either. Must be this way.” I took the third option and left it up to them to decide if they wanted to come along. They did, but one of these days...

“How have you managed to put up with him for this long?” said Claire.

“You get used to it,” said Jenny. “The thing about Colin is that he doesn’t change.”

“How is that a good thing?” said Claire.

“I didn’t say it was,” said Jenny. “But to love him at his best is also to love him at his worst. It saves a lot of time and means no nasty surprises.”

She was talking about me as though I wasn’t right there, but that’s how you should talk about people behind their back — when they’re literally standing in front of you.

Of course, you’re supposed to change as you grow older. You mature, you become wiser, you see things from a more seasoned perspective.

Like fuck you do.

That’s the difference between the trailer and the movie; everything looks like it’s going to be great when you have it cut to music. In the theatrical cut, people don’t learn how to accept their faults and be tolerant of others, they learn how to hide their screw-ups and try to get everyone else into trouble.

If you assume everyone who is trying to do you a favour or wants to make the world a better place is actually a self-serving prick, then you will become a cynical and jaded bitter piece of shit. Hello, I’m Colin.

That might not seem like the ideal state of mind to carry around with you as you journey through this relentless series of tricks and traps we call life but trust me, you shouldn’t play poker the same way when you have a pair of deuces as when you have aces over kings.

I got a crash course in helpful humans at a young age. When you deal with social services, health professionals, charities, you soon learn to tell the difference between the good, the bad and the incompetent.

There are those who are genuinely interested in assisting people in need, but they get worn out pretty quickly. What you will find more often than not is that the person who wants to help improve the world is just looking for attention; the guy who wants to cure world poverty is more interested in banging third world prostitutes; and the guy who wants to spread the word of Christ… well, those guys have a whole bingo card you could fill out.

You change to adapt to your surroundings. You have to survive among people who are going to try to fuck you — in the metaphorical sense, in the literal sense, in the sense that they will be perfectly nice and reasonable until an opportunity comes along which will be better for them than it will for you and asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission, especially if you have no intention of doing either.

But if you aren’t interested in improving your social standing, because you aren’t social and you can’t stand the people you grew up around, then change is just something to do with your underwear. How will society punish my complete lack of interest in what it thinks is cool and hip? Turn its back on me?

“Change is inevitable,” said Claire. “You either get lucky and you both change the same way, or you don’t.”

“It’s that kind of thinking that’s going to turn you into a bitter and twisted old woman,” I said. “Instead of a bitter and twisted young woman.”

“But how can I force Maurice into doing what I want?” said Claire.

“That is the most horrific and yet most Claire thing I think you’ve ever said.” Ahead of us was a room with chairs arranged in a grid. “Look, I was right. Again. There’s a valuable lesson here, girls.”

“You’re insufferable,” said Claire.

“Insufferably correct,” I said. “Be more like me, Claire.”

“The universe hates me,” muttered Claire.

“There you go,” I said.

There was a desk with what appeared to be a dead woman sitting at it, although she might just have been a temp. They don’t tend to be the most energetic people.

The woman looked at us as we approached. She had a blank expression and soulless eyes, which was about what you expect from a receptionist. The dead were made for customer service positions.

She stood up but didn’t say anything. She seemed to be in pretty good shape — no bits of flesh hanging off her, no sight of bones through torn skin. The double doors behind her desk opened and a dozen guards came marching out. They were carrying spears but had them pointed up. They formed a line on either side of the open doorway.

“This is nice,” said Dudley. “An honour guard to welcome us.”

Our guards honoured us by tightening their grips on their shafts (not a euphemism).

We walked past them without getting stabbed. They came in behind us, closed the doors and blocked the way out.

The throne room had undergone some changes since my last visit. Then again, I have a terrible memory for these things so maybe it was exactly the same but with new occupants.

There were two thrones now, there had been only one before. I think. Anyway, the Fairy Queen — big lass, smug face — was sat looking bored in one of them.

Maurice, in his new body, was stood in front of a large table with a model of Flatland built on it, bent over, huge wings folded behind him, very carefully painting a tree.

I could imagine Maurice taking his time to get everything to look right — lots of papier-mâché and hours spent with very fine brushes getting the shading just so — although it was called Flatland for a reason (the reason being a lack of imagination) so most of it could have been done with a roller and some green paint. Still, there were a lot of details. Trees, caves, rivers that glistened like they actually had water flowing in them.

“Nice,” I said looking over the fields and valleys, as you do. “Good to have a hobby while you wait for the next disaster.”

“Colin!” said Maurice, looking up like he hadn’t realised anyone had come in. Not an affectation, I think he was busy working out where to put the model railway he was planning. “You’re back. How was your trip home?” It was odd seeing him without glasses; his new improved body didn’t require them.

“Lovely,” I said. “The walking dead are running things over there, too.”

Maurice stood up straighter, towering over me. He had the same face as before but everything else was all swollen and engorged. He was also naked, which was disconcerting. Obviously, you get a new phone, bigger, better, more features, you want people to notice it. You take it out all the time and nonchalantly wave it about as you speak. I guess it’s the same when you have new genitalia.

“They aren’t running things,” said Maurice. “They’re making life better for everyone. It’s a win-win.”

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t for them.”

“They don’t count,” said Maurice. “They’re dead.”

“Sure,” I said. “I have no issue with it. Same as raising them to fight in an undead army. Makes no difference if it’s that or being someone’s butler.”

“Right,” said Maurice, absent-mindedly pushing glasses that weren’t there up his nose. “See, Claire? That’s all it is.”

Claire was tight-lipped and arms-folded. She seemed more concerned about the queen on her throne. Jealousy was a green-eyed monster, and the Fairy Queen was literally a monster with green eyes. I wondered if there was something going on between Maurice and the queen. It wasn’t impossible, even if Maurice was far more interested in his model and getting the right colour for autumn leaves.

“How are you controlling all these dead people? Is she pulling the strings?”

We both looked over at the queen, who yawned. She didn’t seem very concerned by my arrival. Probably couldn’t remember who I was.

“No, not her. Not exactly,” said Maurice. “It’s Joshaya who controls the dead.”

“He’s working for you? No? For her?”

“He’s…” Maurice struggled to find the words. “He’s trapped in the Void having his powers siphoned out of him like a cow being milked.”

I would have preferred if he had taken a little more time to come up with a less gross image.

“That sounds unpleasant. Still, he did get us into this mess. Got what he deserved.”

“Right, right.” Maurice seemed very pleased that I was on board with his mission to put an undead servant in every home. Cheap, effective and fully compostable. “The queen keeps Joshaya in check, and in return she gets to do what she wants. “

I looked over at the queen again. What she wanted to do was apparently lounge around.

“Did you drug her or anything?” I asked.

“No,” said Maurice. “That’s just how she is. She doesn’t really get excited about things unless there’s some sort of battle to fight or lands to conquer. You’ll see when the fighting starts. We’re expecting things to kick off soon, actually — I’m hoping to get my figurines finished before then so I can use them to show troop movements on here.” This was clearly what he was most excited about. “There’ll be some hardships — no one likes change, after all — but once it’s over, I think people will settle down and learn to accept the new order. It’s much simpler to be accepted as supreme overlord of the known world if you provide people with indoor plumbing.”

“And zombie butlers.”

“Exactly.” He beamed at me. All new teeth, only slightly green. “So what about you? What are you going to do now you’re back.”

“I’m going to go see Joshaya,” I said.

Maurice’s attitude changed. His brow wrinkled, his wings flapped and his pecs bounced up and down. I’m not sure what emotion that indicated, might have been unconnected.

“I don’t think you should do that.”

“I don’t think I care what you think.”

He looked over at the queen. “She doesn’t like it when people interfere with her possessions.”

“I don’t think I care what she thinks, either. Has the vegetable oil started clogging your arteries? Maurice? Since when did I take anyone’s word for anything? Whatever’s going on here with you and the queen of the fairies, I have no interest in breaking it up. Good luck, have fun. But someone’s up to something. You, her, Peter, whoever.”

“Not Peter,” said Maurice. “I took care of him. He’s out of the picture.”

“How? He has a habit of coming back from the dead.”

“I turned him into one of them.” Maurice pointed at the guards at the far end of the room. “Feedback loop so his power strengthens his own captivity. He’s completely cut off from everyone.”

“Where is he?”

“In one of the spires. I can take you to him if you like.”

“Sure. After I see Joshaya.”

“Really, I’m not being controlled by anyone,” said Maurice, spread his arms out. “You can check if you like.”

“Alright, I will.” I left my body. If Maurice was being controlled by the queen or Peter or maybe even Joshaya, I’d be able to see it from the adjacent world. It was the one place people couldn’t deceive me.

As soon as I exited my body, I was surrounded by vines, floor to ceiling. But none from Maurice, who was completely smooth and unconnected, not even to Claire.

There were a lot more vines than I’d been expecting since most of the people in the room were dead and only had the one. They mostly emanated from the queen, who was off her throne and drifting towards me through a sea of tentacles. I didn’t recall her having this many.

“You wish to see Joshaya,” she said in drawl. “That can be arranged. Permanently.”

“I’m sorry,” said Maurice, even more slowly. “I knew you’d come back and try to ruin everything.” He was threatening me but his slowed-down voice made him sound like he was from Devon, so it was hard to take him seriously.

Both of them were moving in slow-motion so I had no idea what they thought they could do to me in here. Not to blow my own trumpet but I had home-field advantage.

There was one area that was clear of vines, and that was the table. It no longer had woods and dales dotted on its surface, it was completely black. Like a portal.

Maurice picked the table up and stood it upright.

As the queen approached me, I found myself being pushed back by some invisible force. Their goal was pretty obvious. I go through the door. They close the door. Adios Colin.

Only, they hadn’t really thought this through. It wasn’t a bad idea; they probably spent a lot of time preparing it. They expected me to come back and they didn’t intend to put up with any of my mullarkey. Shenanigan-free zone. Which was fine and dandy, except, I had already said I wanted to go see Joshaya. This was where I’d asked them to send me, so I didn’t understand what they were so excited about.

I turned around and walked through the portal.

The moment I was through, I felt an immense sense of relief. Not the usual response to entering a trap, but these days it’s not easy finding a quiet place where you won’t be bothered every ten minutes.

“What are you doing here?” said Joshaya, sounding surprised and displeased. He was in front of me, not looking much different to before, maybe lost a little weight. “You’re not here to rescue me, are you? I’m not going back out there.”

Not the reaction I had expected. “No. I’m just visiting. Do you have cake?”

“No,” said Joshaya. “I’m not leaving.” He was adamant in rejecting any rescue attempt, not that I had offered.

“Fine. You can stay as long as you want. How are you controlling all the dead people from in here?” I couldn’t see any vines at all.

“I’m not. Nothing to do with me. I’ve been shut out. I’m not controlling anything.”

“Then who is?” I asked.

“Your friend. That girl. Big nose.”

“Claire?” Honestly, you can’t trust anyone these days.

“And that other one. Half-face.”

There was almost an inevitability about it. Claire and Jenny together. What were they up to? Something they felt was important and necessary, probably. And I was part of the plan whether I liked it or not. Not, for the record.

Well, whatever they had in mind, they could do it without me.

“So, where’s my room?”

“How long are you staying?” said Joshaya.

“Long term,” I said. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Apart from the lack of cake. Is there an oven? We can learn to bake together.”

“I am not a replacement for your woman,” said Joshaya.

“No,” I said. “That’s what the cake’s for.”

Book 2 – 38: Walls Fall Down

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Restricted Area 2B.

 

Figaro was finding it hard to accept what he was seeing. Ubik had surprised him a number of times, but taming the Beast of Tethari was by far the most astonishing thing he had done. Today. So far.

“How did you know draining its stomach would work?” he asked.

“Huh?” said Ubik. “I didn’t even mean to do that. The nanodrones, it was their idea. That’s what happens when you allow a little initiative in the workforce.”

“When did you teach them hand signals?” said PT.

“I didn’t. They’re blind, don’t have any visual input.”

“He’s right,” said Nifell, his voice a hushed whisper. “They don’t have eyes. They echo-locate.”

The Beast was sitting there like some kind of lap dog, poking its own stomach with the tip of its snout while Ubik instructed it to behave itself from now on. Could the Beast understand him? It didn’t respond but it didn’t attack him, either.

“Stop staring at your belly button,” said Ubik. “Look at me. Hey.” He kicked it the shin, or the part of its foreleg that might be construed as that.

The Beast looked up and the opening in its chest spun wider — the sign it was about to consume you.

“No. Bad. No more eating people. You’re not hungry, are you? No. We don’t eat when we aren’t hungry. Snacking is bad for you. Do you want to get fat?”

A rumbling growl emanated from the Beast’s stomach. Ubik pulled a face and sniffed. He leaned forward. Then he climbed up the front leg and grabbed the lip of the open aperture and stuck his head inside.

Figaro winced involuntarily, fully expecting the aperture to spin shut and Ubik’s headless corpse to drop to the floor.

“Looks fine,” echoed Ubik’s voice. “You’re cured. I have healed you.” He pulled his head back out. He looked over at the others. “Another patient saved by Dr Ubik.”

“Stop messing about,” said PT. “We have to get out of here before more people arrive.”

“Just hold on a minute,” said Ubik. “Before we go anywhere, I want to find out what Junior’s been guarding all these years. Okay, everyone,” said Ubik to the floor, “spread out and search every corner of this place.” He spread his arms wide.

The floor, or the nanodrones sitting at his feet, scuttled off in every direction.

“I told you,” said Figaro, “there’s nothing else here.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be anything else on the Origin,” said Ubik. “But there was, wasn’t there?”

He had a point, Figaro couldn’t deny that.

“Junior?” said PT.

“Ubik Jr. That’s what I’ve named him.” The Beast tilted its head like this was the first it was hearing about its new appellation.

“I don’t think I’m ready for two Ubiks,” said PT.

“My father says being ready is the least important part of any venture,” said Figaro.

“What’s the most important part?” asked PT.

“Him,” said Nifell. The Enayan was staring at Ubik with a touch of what might be described as hero-worship. Ubik’s antics, distressing as they were to witness, appealed to the common man. The way news of a disaster caught everyone’s attention.

“Let’s see if you feel the same way an hour from now,” said PT.

“What’s going to happen in an hour?” asked Nifell.

“Nobody knows,” said PT. “That’s what makes it so terrifying. How do we get out of here, Fig?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“Come on, this is no time to start doubting yourself. Those VendX agents are going to find a way to turn off the asteroid’s defences and then we’re going to have company. Lots of it. We need to find your father and get out of here before that happens. You’ve spent hundreds of hours in this site, haven’t you?”

“Only in the sim-U,” said Figaro. “This is my first time up here, same as you. Shouldn’t we ask—”

“No,” said PT. “Ubik isn’t someone you consult.”

“Dr Ubik,” shouted Ubik. “Consultations by appointment.”

“Shut up. Consultants aren’t referred to as doctor.” PT looked around. “You’re the resident expert, Fig. Put your brain back in gear. What part of the site are we in? What are the nearest facilities we can access? How far to the place where your father was last seen?”

PT was being level-headed and professional. He was able to remain calm and focused under the most trying circumstances. Figaro would have claimed the same thing about himself, until recently. Now he wasn’t so sure.

No, it was irrelevant how he felt. There was no room for dithering here. This might not be the same Tethari he had been trained in, but he was still an expert in all things Antecessor. It made no difference what changes the site made, he would adapt.

“We can’t get out of here, not by using force,” said Figaro. “This is meant to be a prison for that thing.”

The Beast shook his head and sparks flew around the room.

“Stop that,” said Ubik laughing, covering his eyes so he wouldn’t be blinded.

“The dead walls keep it isolated from the rest of the site.”

“What about the nanodrones?” said PT. “They ate through the exterior wall once it was turned off. Same with these dead walls?”

“Only until they reach the barrier on the other side. These walls don’t lead to the outside. The only way out...” said Figaro, “is the way we came in.”

“The kill room?” said PT.

“Yes. I think the droid would have taken me out through a hidden exit, like the one on the Origin. That hadn’t been seen before, either. If the ship was able to hide a whole section of its hull, there’s a good chance this site can do something similar.”

Figaro walked over to where the trapdoor was.

“So you’re saying the kill room might not have been added specially for us,” said PT.

“It could have been here and just not active,” said Figaro.

“Until you came,” said PT.

“Possibly. I’ve never been allowed in this room, not even in the sim-U. If I am the trigger, like on the Origin, then that would make sense.”

“Then couldn’t this be what Junior was guarding?” said PT.

Figaro nodded. It was feasible. They could have entered and passed through the very thing they were looking for.

“That means there could be another exit down there,” said Figaro. “One the droids would have taken me through.”

“Yeah,” said PT. “After disposing of us.”

“But if we’re correct,” said Figaro, “how are we meant to open the way without the droids?”

On the Origin, Figaro had been ferried through the hidden portals by droids. They had restrained him and carried him. He had no idea how to operate the openings himself.

“Ubik,” said PT.

“Hold on, I’m still looking.”

“Ubik, we’ve—”

“Just give me a second. I’m doing a full sweep of the room. These nanodrones can get into cracks and crevices we can’t even see. If there’s a secret compartment holding a treasure beyond comprehension, I’ll find it.”

“We’ve found it,” said Figaro.

“You have?” said Ubik. “Where?”

Figaro and PT pointed at the floor.

“Down there? We’ve already been… Oh. You mean like on the Origin. I suppose that could be it. Not very exciting. I was hoping for some kind of puzzle with instant death if we got it wrong. We could use Nifell as a down payment.”

“Whatever you say, Mr Ubik,” said Nifell.

“Now he’s got two pets,” said PT. The nanodrones scuttled up the walls. “And an army.”

“He’s a great man,” said Nifell. “I can tell. He’s the real thing.” He stared at Figaro.

“Yes?” said Figaro. “Is there something?”

“You. I know who you are. I didn’t recognise you at first, without your hair.”

“Ah,” said Figaro, not sure what the man was getting at.

“You have all that white hair on the stamps.”

“Yes,” said Figaro.

“You have your own stamps?” said PT. “And a spaceport named after you.”

Figaro nodded. It wasn’t something he thought about much. His family was an Enayan institution. His face and his name were part of the planet’s culture.

“Your father’s a tyrant,” said Nifell. “Your family has kept us oppressed for generations.” He looked over at Ubik.

Figaro wasn’t sure what to say. He knew people felt that way about his father but they rarely said so to his face. The man had been inspired by Ubik to challenge authority.

PT shook his head. “Misplaced hope in a far worse fate.”

“Guys,” said Ubik, “I’ve had a brilliant idea. Another one. We livestream our adventures in the depths of Tethari, beamed across the quadrant. Think about it, we already defeated the undefeatable Beast of Tethari. Imagine the audience reaction. Who knows what terrifying creation of the Antecessors we’ll encounter next.”

“Ubik, we’re trying to avoid attracting attention right now,” said PT. “Because people are trying to kill us.”

“But we’ll have the public on our side,” said Ubik.

“And what good is that?” asked PT.

“Well, you know, lots of likes on social media.”

“We only livestream internally,” said Figaro. “No one wants to make their discoveries public.”

“Sure, sure,” said Ubik. “But this is a privately owned facility. No one but us Ollos can get in. No harm in putting on a bit of a show.”

“Us Ollos?” said PT. “When did you join the family?”

Ubik shrugged. “Might get an invite if I save the big man, right?”

Figaro was at a loss. “You want my father to adopt you?”

“No, no. Not unless he wants to. We’d be brothers. You, me and Junior. The Ollo boys.”

PT had his hand over his eyes. “I can’t… it’s not…”

“Oh, sorry, sorry, don’t get upset,” said Ubik. “Didn’t mean to leave you out. I can put in a good word for you.”

“Please don’t,” said PT. “I think it’s best if we end this conversation.” He walked forward and dropped into the trap like a man gladly accepting his fate.

Figaro followed him.

The trap snapped shut over them. The kill room was quiet and empty. The white streaks of lights whizzed up and down the walls. Unlike the room above, this place was still connected to the grid. Didn’t that mean the site was aware of them? Would more droids be sent to apprehend him?

“This place is active,” said PT.

“Yes,” said Figaro.

“Upstairs isn’t. To stop the Bea… to stop Junior, right?”

“Right,” agreed Figaro.

“So…”

“So this place is vulnerable to Junior,” said Figaro. He looked up at the roof. The trapdoor was closed but even open it wouldn’t be big enough to allow Junior down here. Not all of him.

“Hey, Ubik!” there was no response. “Hey…”

The doors fell open and Ubik dropped down. “Yeah, what’s up, Bro?”

Nifell came hurrying after him, a fearful look on his face.

Figaro took a moment. “We need to find a way through these walls.”

“Might respond to you,” said Ubik. “Have you tried ordering it to let you pass?”

“No, I don’t think that will—”

“Or it might react to your DNA. Lick the wall.”

“I’d rather not. Can we get Junior down here to—”

“Sure, sure, that might work, I guess.” Ubik whistled, loud and piercing

The trapdoor opened again. A square face peered down at them. The snout could fit through but that was about all. The one big eye gave the impression it was curious. The spiral design turned and glowed red. Sparks fell.

The strands of cable that formed a mane around Junior’s head snaked into the pit. They moved around, prehensile. Strands slithered down the walls, touching and feeling.

The white lights changed pattern. They hurried away from the tendrils seeking them out. They flashed and fled, only to find other tendrils in their path. There was no escape.

The lines of light got pushed together, squeezed into one area of the room, one block on the wall. They formed a rectangle. The rectangle began to unlock.

Parts of the wall slid apart to reveal an opening. A black hole.

“What’s through there?” said Ubik.

“It doesn’t look safe,” said Nifell, the words shaking out of him.

“You can stay here with Junior if you like,” said Ubik.

“No, no. I’m with you, sir.”

“Okay, in you go then.” Ubik moved aside and indicated Nifell should go first.

“Me? But, but…”

“You’re part of the team now, Nif. Nice and slow.”

Junior’s tendrils snaked around the entrance, sparking. Nifell hesitantly edged forward.

He disappeared into the shadows.

“How’s it going?” said Ubik.

“Fine. I feel a bit argggggh...”

Figaro rushed forward and turned his suit’s lights to full. As he passed through the opening, the lights revealed an enormous cavern. He slowed as his movements became sluggish. His foot struck something and he stopped to look down.

There was a ledge, hanging from which was Nifell, his eyes wide with panic.

“Gravity’s reduced here,” said PT from next to him. “Point-six standard, I’d say. Wonder what’s down there.”

“Good job, Nif,” said Ubik as he walked up and kicked the man’s clinging fingers.

Nifell slowly fell out of sight.

Chapter 472

I know it’s not good to generalise but in most cases I can think of I am against the idea of slavery.

Hear me out. Radical as my position might seem, I have to make my stand on this hill. Slavery bad. There are not good people on both sides of this argument, no matter what your favourite fat dumbfuck wants you to think.

However.

If you are going to make someone a slave, then choosing the dead does make a lot of sense.

I mean, they’re only taking up valuable real estate, contributing little and updating their Instagram very infrequently. Why not put them to work for no payment?

How many times as a working person have you wished you were dead? Well, these people have achieved the dream. The perfect workforce for the modern business world. Jeff Bezos would be all over that shit.

“It’s not a good idea,” said Claire. She had the ability to look down at me without being taller. Something to do with the long nose, skewed the perspective.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You were thinking it,” said Claire.

“You can’t read minds, Claire,” I said.

“I don’t need to,” said Claire. “Everything you’re thinking, Maurice already tried to use to convince me.”

“Yeah. But I’m not—”

“Dead people don’t count. They don’t care. They don’t have feelings. They won’t unionise. They’re carbon neutral. Health and Safety isn’t an issue. I could go on.”

“No,” I said, “that’s fine.” She had reeled off the list in such a despondent tone I didn’t have the heart to argue with her. Not that she was wrong, but I would like to think I could come up with some angles Maurice hadn’t considered.

I looked around at the city. There was an air of contentment that hadn’t been here last time I visited. A feeling of stability. Mind you, last time I visited, I brought an invading army with me. Many of whom were undead and not paid to be there.

“Everyone here has slaves now?” I asked.

“Most people,” said Claire. “Everyone else is trying to earn the contribution points to get their own.”

“Contribution points?”

Claire took a breath. “Maurice set up a system where citizens complete tasks to get contribution points, then they can use their points to claim rewards, one of which is your own slave.”

“He gives out quests?” You leave the planet for a few days and suddenly it’s been gamified. Wasn’t that supposed to happen when I arrived?

“It’s not as cool as it sounds,” said Claire. I could tell she was finding this whole process exasperating. She’d already been through something similar with Maurice, trying to convince him what he’d done wasn’t okay, when clearly it was both okay and cool, if you were into the whole making life less difficult for you and screw everyone else (and who wasn’t?)

“I’m not saying it’s cool or not cool,” I said. “I’m just thinking it through from Maurice’s perspective. He must have had a reason to go this route, right? It might not be the best idea ever, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work out in the long run. Ideas evolve, flaws get ironed out, bugs get fixed. Anyone can earn these contribution points, can they? What other rewards are there?”

Claire’s shoulders sagged and she looked over at Jenny. “I can’t go on like this. They’re both the same. They’re both idiots. We can’t win against idiots.”

Jenny stepped past me and put her arms around Claire and they hugged in mutual commiseration. Two girls who had realised they had made the ultimate mistake of falling for thoughtful, intelligent men. You wouldn’t think something like that would come back to bite you in the ass.

You would have thought life would be a lot simpler with a guy you could bully and argue with as an equal, and even beat in arm-wrestling two times out of three. But women forget that a man — even a nerd or a gay or a feminist — is still a man.

We are driven by hormones the same way as women. Maybe be we don’t bleed internally every twenty-eight days, but that doesn’t stop us acting unreasonably. Like what we want is more important than what everyone else wants.

Hormones are just drugs, and all drugs have the same effect. They make you think about you.

“Alright, calm down,” I said as Flossie joined the huddle. Fuck knows what she thought she had to complain about. Her bloke was only interested in making her happy, the fool.

Dudley was still next to me, but I could tell he only needed the nod to go over

“You haven’t got to the point where you can blame men for your problems. You had a hand in the choices you made, you know. This is your own fault.”

Three beady sets of glowering eyes aimed at me, target locked.

The three of them had changed quite a lot on the surface. Claire especially was in expensive clothing and had her hair and makeup done to a high level. Other than that, though, they hadn’t changed that much.

“Look, Maurice came up with an idea,” I said, calmly and in a reasonable manner. Like that was going to help. “It might not be a very morally defensible idea, but it looks like a pretty effective one. People here like it, right? They’re on board because their lives are easier, they have more free time, and they have servants to do all the jobs they don’t want to do. Who wouldn’t love that?”

“Are you looking for a job in Maurice’s PR department,” said Claire, somewhat sarcastically. Although not as sarcastically as I had expected.

“Are you saying he has a PR department?”

“Yes,” said Claire. “It was his first order when he became the Lord Protector of the city.”

“Hey,” I said, “that’s my title.” I didn’t care that much if Maurice wanted to keep the Jews in Egypt (pointless mounds of pointy stones won’t pile themselves) but you don’t nick other people’s usernames. Not cool.

“I thought… I thought you would understand,” said Claire.

“Understand what?”

“That slavery is wrong!” said Claire, her voice rising with the insanity of what she was having to say. “I thought everyone would. Especially a black guy!”

“Now you’re just being racist,” I said. She didn’t take the accusation very well. Women who bang black guys think they get an auto-pass or something.

Black people, of course, are the ones traditionally associated with the anti-slavery movement. The logic is pretty obvious. They suffered from it the most, the most recently, so they get to lead the charge against. Expert witnesses.

But slavery has nothing to do with actual skin colour. Lots of people have been used as slaves throughout history, of all races.

Anyone with power will try to use it against anyone without it. I don’t know if you’re a history buff, but I think a quick look over the last six thousand or so years will show I’m correct. Even the last sixty years.

Everyone treated unfairly protests their treatment and advocates fairness. Right up until the moment they get the upper hand.

White people opened up a lead on the rest of the world and did what race leaders have always done. Used their winnings to fuck over their competitors. That’s how the free market works. You don’t use money to invest or increase production — certainly not to pay workers more than you have to — you use it to put traps down for the people coming up from behind.

You know who does really well in sports? Black people. They still cheat and take drugs to get an edge. I mean, you expect it of the Russian sprinter, what chance has he got otherwise? But all these record-breakers who can outrun a bullet, they still do it.

Anyone with an advantage will try to exploit it. And they won’t just do it within the rules agreed to by all sides. What’s the point of winning if you can’t use it to not get treated the same as non-winners?

Maurice wasn’t thinking like a black person, he was thinking like a powerful person. Not only was he using those who weren’t able to defend themselves, he was using them to bribe those who could.

There is no master race, there is only the master. And if you aren’t it, you’re the servant.

“You’re not going to stop him, are you?” said Claire.

“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” I said. “Free the enslaved undead so they can stand around doing nothing?”

“I don’t care about them,” said Claire. “They’re dead, they can do what they like. Don’t you understand? What kind of person thinks it’s okay to use others without consent? Urgh. Why am I asking you? You’re the last person who would understand.”

I did understand. I completely got it. Whether or not the dead were working for below minimum wage was not the issue. It was the position Maurice had taken when he decided he could take control of them. Just because they couldn’t say no didn’t mean he could take that as a yes. The dead might not care what Maurice made them do, but Claire did. And the fact it made no difference to Maurice was a deep wound to their relationship.

“What about Joshaya?” I said. “He’s the one who raised the dead in the first place. He must have something to say about it.”

“He hasn’t been here since you left,” said Claire.

“And the Fairy Queen?”

A look passed over Claire’s face that made it clear there were some unresolved matters there.

“She is… helping Maurice.”

“Oh. Helping? They’re working together, are they?”

Claire nodded, eyes narrowed, lips tightly together.

The Fairy Queen, as I recalled, had the whole sexy/evil thing going on. And Maurice had recently acquired a new body. Vegetable-based, but still quite buff.

“Do you think she’s controlling him?” I asked.

“No,” said Claire. “If anything, he’s controlling her.”

“Really?” I couldn’t imagine Maurice dominating anyone. “Well, I wouldn’t mind going to say hello.”

“He won’t see you,” said Claire.

“What? Why not?”

“They won’t see anyone. Too busy making plans for the rest of the world. They’ve done so well here, they intend to roll out the slave business to all the other cities. There are a lot of dead people here. You just have to dig them up.”

“They’ll see me, though. Maurice wouldn’t ghost me. Not even for the dead.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Claire. “He’s changed.”

“Yeah, but I think you’re forgetting how little I care what other people want. I wasn’t going to knock on the palace gates and ask to be let in. This place, this city, you guys only took over because I didn’t want it. This is your problem, Claire. You think you earned your way to the top, how it’s unfair things aren’t the way you’d like when you’re so special. None of you are special. Remember when you first got here, how hopeless you were? Other than the nicer togs, you’re the same person. And so am I. Now fucking lead the way. Won’t see me. I fucking own this place, you lot are just squatters.”

The people around us, who had grown bored of the new arrivals and were only mildly interested in the dragon, stopped at my bold declaration. I hadn’t even said it very loudly, but ears are tuned to pick up that kind of extreme sound. The sound of someone bullshitting.

They parted to let us through and followed from behind, keen to see how this would end. They were expecting it to go badly for me. They could be right. Maybe if they had any idea who I was they might think differently, but I doubted it.

I could tell from Claire’s shoulders, even from behind, that she was inclined to agree with the crowd. She knew what I was capable, but she knew what Maurice was capable of now. And Maurice had put her in his place, so he must be truly powerful, right? I mean, if a little twerp like me could overcome his majesty, then what did that say about her handling it so poorly?

Everyone just sees everything from their perspective and assumes that’s the important one.

We had quite a retinue as we approached the palace, the seat of power. I hadn’t asked what happened to Laney. I was afraid if I said her name she would suddenly appear.

There were guards outside the palace. Very clearly undead guards. Their skin was the giveaway — in serious need of moisturising. And their captain was familiar.

“Caim, got yourself a new job?”

Caim stared at me like he had never seen me before. “No entry.” His voice was like slabs of stone falling like dominoes.

“Get the fuck out of the way. I took you out of the ground, I can put you back in it.” It wasn’t like me to go full retard off the bat, but you can’t play it subtle with the dead. Dulled sensibilities.

The guards drew their weapons. I sighed. It wasn’t like I expected fear or even respect. Just a little short-term memory would do. I left my body. When I returned to it, the guards all dropped to the ground, including Caim.

They needed a connection to the living, and I happened to have a wooden sword that was very good at severing the same. Hell, it was about the only thing I was good at. Maurice might have enslaved the dead but it wasn’t going to do him much good against me. I was all about setting people free.

“Right,” I said, “this way is it?” I pushed the gate and found it heavier than I’d expected. The crowd watched me strain to get it open, which kind of undermined my display of omnipotence from a moment ago.

Jenny appeared next to me, pushing the gate too, with Dudley and Flossie joining in. the gate slowly swung open.

The crowd made to follow us in but I turned around and raised my hand. “You can stay here. You’re all bloody useless.”

They looked like they might want to argue with me, but somewhere in the dark recesses of their peasant brains the recalled I had just dismissed a dozen undead soldiers without breaking a sweat. Even if they suspected someone else had done it and I was a big faker, that someone else might still be around.

“Who are you?” said a chubby guy with a bald head. He was actually interested in knowing my name, would probably spread it around as the story was told across the city. My chance to start the Legend of Colin.

“Go fuck yourself.” I turned around and entered the palace grounds.

Book 2 – 37: Drone vs Droid

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Restricted Area 2B.

 

“He won’t listen,” said Point-Two. “He has to think of it himself. If he didn’t, he’ll try to think of something better, just to show you he can.”

“But what else can he do?” said Fig. “It’s going to kill him.”

Ubik was running from the droid in ultimate mode. The droid was twice as big as before, with four times as many limbs. It moved a little slower than it had down in the kill room, but it was able to reach in all directions at once. If it cornered Ubik, there would be no escape.

But Ubik wasn’t heading for the corners, he was leading it towards the Beast. If he could get them to engage each other, one was bound to destroy the other. Not that one unstoppable monster would be easy to deal with but it was still better than two.

However, the droid seemed aware of this plan and was doing its best to corral Ubik in the other direction.

“I think his strange movements help disguise his intentions,” said Fig.

“He runs like he’s having a seizure, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Fig. “I think it’s confusing the droid.”

The droid jerked from side to side, as though it was predicting where Ubik would go next and then having to course-correct when it was proved wrong.

“Good,” said Point-Two. “Look at the big one.”

The Beast, which had been stalking across the room towards them like a cat coming for a treat, or a mouse, had stopped. It seemed as bemused by the chase as them. It was no longer standing, it had sat down, its head tilted to one side. Even the lights around the room, which had been intensely crimson a moment ago, had dulled to a mere burgundy. 

“I bet your father never thought about offering the Beast some entertainment.”

“No,” said Fig. “I don’t think anyone would think this was a good idea.”

They watched from the side where the three other people in the room were left alone, practically ignored. Ubik bounced off the walls and leapt into the air for no particular reason, landing and tumbling, slapping the sides of his boots to activate something or other. It was quite a show.

The Beast watched also, its head following Ubik and his pursuer around, no indication it would join in or which side it was supporting.

“My boots aren’t working,” shouted Ubik as he sprinted past, elegantly hopping into the air and holding the pose like he wanted everyone to admire his form. “I can’t get the height in here.”

He was trying to use his boots’ magnetic ability to gain an advantage. In the kill room, their repulsive power had been greatly improved, but that was not true in this room for some reason.

“It won’t work the same in here,” Fig shouted back. “This room is inert. It isn’t the same material on the walls.”

Ubik turned in mid-air as the droid closed in on him and blasted it in the face with his feet. The magnets still worked on it. This made him ping away like a missile, and drove the droid into a frenzy, the white strips of light covering its combined bodies flaring to a sharp blue.

The Beast’s head came up and the spiral on its chest spun open. Something sloshed around inside. A piercing howl came out like a sonic beam, snapping off two of the droid’s limbs. The droids lights instantly faded. Its broken arms came hurtling back to rejoin the body.

The bright lights had apparently been not to the Beast’s liking. I do the fancy stuff in my house.

Ubik had one foot raised at the droid.

“I don’t think enraging is a good idea,” Fig added. “They don’t like magnets.”

“I know,” Ubik shouted back. “Let’s see if there’s a ceiling on how mad it can get. For science.”

Point-Two saw nothing scientific in what Ubik was trying to do. He had it in his head to get the two droids to fight each other, which was a perfectly reasonable idea if you could do it without having to personally perform the introductions.

The Beast, fortunately, appeared to be willing to wait to see who would come out on top and then eat the winner. If what Fig had said was accurate, the Beast had no loyalty to the Antecessors or their other droids. If Ubik lost and the droids engaged each other, it might provide an opportunity to escape. They just had to come up with an exit plan.

“Think of a way out,” shouted Ubik. “For when I win.”

If Ubik did somehow manage to defeat the droid, the options would be greatly reduced. The Beast would come for all of them, and Ubik would make sure he was the last to be targeted. In fact, he might even serve them up as an appetiser and hope the Beast was too full for dessert.

“The nanodrones…” said Fig, still trying to get Ubik to use the one weapon he had that had been shown to be effective against Antecessor tech.

“No, I’m saving them for an emergency.” Droid limbs lashed out, just barely missing him. The droid was all black now, not wanting to aggravate the other monster in the room.

“This looks like an emergency,” said Point-Two.

“This?” said Ubik. “No. This is nothing.”

It was better to let him take his time. It gave Point-Two a little longer to think. There was always a chance Ubik would solve the problem by himself, but it was just as likely he would solve it only for himself.

“I don’t understand something,” said Point-Two. “Why is there a trapdoor in here? Who’s it meant to trap?”

“There shouldn’t be,” said Fig. “It’s not in the simulation. And I don’t recall any mention of it in the report on the attack on this area by my father. It’s either been added or it was inactive until now.”

The shielding around the kill room had been lowered, obviously to let them in. The nanodrones had been able to eat through the walls and then stopped, which wasn’t something they would do without being told to. And then they had disappeared without being picked up. Point-Two had been watching Ubik — if you didn’t, you might not know when to run — and he never had time to grab them.

The Antecessor site had allowed them in — had allowed Fig in — but why welcome him in to only put him into a life-threatening situation? The only answer he could come up with was that Ubik was perverting the Antecessor’s version of hospitality to make it less hospitable. Instead of letting it be nice to Fig and deadly to everyone else, he was making sure Fig was as in danger as the rest of them.

Ubik knew only Fig would be treated as a guest and they were of no use. The kill room and the trap door were new, then. They had been added to a site thousands of years old just to separate Fig from his companions.

The nanodrones ate through the exterior wall but stopped because the other walls were active. They nanodrones couldn’t eat active walls, or droids. They could only eat inactive ones like the wall that had been turned off to let them in, and this one. This room that was turned off to keep the Beast captive.

But how did any of that help them find a way out when Ubik finally tired and got caught?

Ubik was still trying to steer the ultimated droid into the Beast. The Beast was sitting low to the ground with its head resting on its extended front legs, its mane shimmering with arcs of electricity.

“Why?” said Nifell, who was crouched and cowering between Fig and Point-Two. “Why is he risking his life to save us. He’s some kind of… heroic idiot.” His eyes followed Ubik around the room, like the others, mesmerised by the spectacle.

“You’re half right,” said Point-Two. “Ubik! Use the nanodrones to make them fight each other.”

Ubik wasn’t going to use someone else’s idea, not unless it was a way to instigate his own idea.

“Right, right,” said Ubik. He stopped running and turned to face the droid.

The droid came in fast, seeing its chance and taking it. Droids were better at setting traps than avoiding them.

The nanodrones came spewing out from Ubik’s collar. They had been inside the suit — how had they got in?

One thing was clear, for all Ubik’s talk about not using a leash, he had a very tight control on these drones. They were following orders, although how Ubik was doing it wasn’t clear. Without the console in the bunker, what was he using to communicate with them?

The nanodrones smacked into the droid, the sound of them hitting was like going through a comet’s tail as the dust and debris plinked off the ship’s outer shielding.

The droid stopped. At the other end of the room, the Beast sat up. The droid began floating backwards. Its limbs began to flail. Two of them disintegrated. Lights reappeared across its body.

The droid began to spin, faster and faster. At first it seemed it had lost control, but then tiny particles began to fly off in every direction. It was ridding itself of the infestation.

Point-Two’s helmet went up just in time to deflect the hail of nanodrones.

“Down,” said Fig, throwing himself flat.

Point-Two joined him. Nifell, who was already crouched, threw himself flat. Even with Ubik in control, the nanodrones posed a threat to them. Especially with Ubik in control.

There was a howling scream and the spinning droid was no longer spinning, it was flying off in all directions, shattered into pieces.

The Beast had had enough. Nanodrones had struck it, too. They were hardly a concern, small particles that did no damage on impact, but once they landed, they set to work. The Beast shook its head in irritation, sparks filling the room. It hit itself on the head with a paw, swiping at its mane. It rolled over and smashed into the wall.

The pieces of the exploded droid began to come back together again. As they reformed, the Beast staggered into the middle of the room. It was too enraged to target anyone in particular, but just the right amount of enraged to target everything at once.

The droid slotted back together to form four separate units. Ubik came flying in feet first and hit them with a blast of magnetic boot-fury. The droids slammed together to rebuild their ultimate form.

More nanodrones leapt from Ubik’s suit and landed on the droid like a shower. Then they lit up like fireflies. The nanodrones in the Beast’s mane matched the effect.

The Beast’s head snapped to look at the droid. It was now the source of the Beast’s irritation. The droid, which was ready to deal with Ubik, stopped and darted to the side.

It wasn’t fast enough. A foot came slamming down and flattened it. Some pieces were squeezed out of the sides but most of it was caught under the huge paw. The Beast leaned forwards and there was a crunch, The angular components of the leg seemed to ripple and a second, decisive crunch followed.

The Beast lifted its foot and looked down at the remains. The circle on its chest opened in a swirl and a rush of air pulled what was left of the crushed droid into the Beast’s body.

The reason for the droids reluctance to face the Beast was more than clear. Eating meat wasn’t its only abnormality.

“It worked,” said Ubik. “My plan worked.”

Ubik was looking over at them with a huge grin on his face. He was completely ignoring the enormous head lowering itself over him.

Point-Two, Fig and Nifell pointed as one.

The hole in the Beast’s chest opened again.

Ubik turned his head to look the Beast in the eye, then he changed the angle to look into the open aperture. He raised one hand in a fist, then he raised a finger, closed his fist again, three fingers, closed, thumb out to the side.

The beast convulsed and staggered sideways into the wall.

Hand signals? Ubik had taught the nanodrones hand signals?

“They shouldn’t be able to survive in its stomach,” said Fig. “The nanodrones are very susceptible to acids. It’s what’s used to neutralise them if they get out of hand.”

“I don’t think it matters,” said Point-Two. A hole had appeared in the Beast’s side. Liquid was pouring out.

Ubik was standing there, small and insignificant in comparison to the Beast lying on its side, trembling.

The liquid stopped. Ubik raised his hand again. He made a series of shapes and a wave of nanodrones came gushing out. They scuttled across the floor and gathered around Ubik’s feet.

The Beast stopped shaking. The hole in its side sealed up. It got back onto its feet and stood unsteadily. It didn’t seem to know what had just happened. It looked down, its neck bending almost in half. The ‘mouth’ in its chest opened and closed like it was testing it.

“Hey,” Ubik called out. “Hey, look at me.”

The Beast slowly lifted its head and aimed its eye at Ubik. It slowly blinked its one eye.

“No more eating. You hear me? You don’t have to feed. The hunger’s gone.”

The Beast blinked again.

Ubik frowned like he wasn’t happy with the response, then he pulled down the top of his suit. Fig looked down at the panel on his arm. Point-Two could tell what he was checking. Ubik had needed Fig to operate the suit; not anymore.

Ubik took out a sandwich. How many did he still have?

“Me eat.” Ubik took a bite. “You no eat.” He waved the sandwich around in front of the Beast.

A large head came forward, like it was sniffing. Ubik waited until it was close enough and then slapped it away.

“No. Food for me. Not for you.”

The Beast’s head jerked back. Point-Two winced, expecting an attack. But it just sat down on its haunches, the hole in its chest opening and closing.

“Has he…” said Fig.

“Yes,” said Point-Two. “He made it his pet.”

Book 2 – 36: Beast Mode

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Restricted Area 2B.

 

Figaro switched his internal field of view filter. The room went from a deep red wash to light pink. Contrast was vastly improved and he could see details more clearly. The wall at the far end was moving. Limbs had emerged and were extending towards the floor. From what he could remember about this particular droid, it was slow.

Which would be an advantage if they had somewhere to run to.

“Aren’t we going?” said Nifell, pulling on PT’s sleeve like a child. “We should run away.” His voice was strained and desperate.

“No,” said Figaro. “The doors are locked now. We’d need an orbital laser to blast them apart. They won’t open until it finishes feeding.”

The droid had detached from the wall in an amorphous mass. It was still assembling itself — how long since it was last active? — but its size was obvious. It was enormous.

“We can try,” said Nifell. “We’ll die here. We’ll… we… we...” He was hyperventilating. “How can we face that thing? Why are we facing a monster?”

Nifell turned and ran for the door. His panic was entirely justified but going for the door would do him no good.

Ubik tripped him up as he tried to get past, sending him sprawling. He grabbed Nifell by the boot and dragged him back, sliding face-down along the floor.

“This should buy us some time,” said Ubik, lining up a shot aimed at the droid.

PT was in front of him before he could send Nifell skimming towards certain death.

“Leave him.”

“Why? He’s a liability.”

“I’ve still got a use for him,” said PT.

“The nanodrones?” said Ubik. “You’re still on that? That’s yesterday’s news.”

“Where are the nanodrones, Ubik?” PT’s head was at an inquiring angle. “They were in the kill room, but I didn’t see them when I was hanging there. I don’t know what you have planned for them, but I’m keeping Nif on the team until I find out.”

Ubik threw up his hands. “We have bigger issues at the moment than harmless little drones.”

“Plus I gave him my word he’ll stay alive as long as we do.”

Ubik shook his head and let go of Nifell’s foot. “He’s going to get you all killed.”

PT bent down and helped Nifell up by yanking the collar of his suit, snapping him into an upright position. He looked startled to be back on his feet so quickly.

“I notice you didn’t say he’d get us all killed.”

“Of course not,” said Ubik. “No point being a defeatist — where will that get you? I’ll be fine, it’s you two I’m worried about.”

The droid had detached itself completely, pulling the last of its tendrils free, and had taken shape. It resembled a large cat, an abstract image with sharp angles and nothing rounded. It moved on four limbs with a predator’s grace. The head, which was crowned with a mane of hanging cables, dripped sparks.

No other droid looked like this or behaved in this way. It acted like an animal. It ignored its true nature, even when its innate abilities would be far more useful. And it was completely unpredictable.

It was still a machine. It should follow repetitive routines and perform tasks in the same manner. But it didn’t. It swung its head from side to side like it was stretching its neck after a long slumber.

The four of them backed away. It didn’t put very much extra distance between them and it, but it was an instinctive reaction.

“What’s its attack pattern?” said PT.

“It isn’t consistent,” said Figaro. “But it’s slow to get going. It likes to take its time. It even plays with its prey if it feels they aren’t much of a threat.”

“We have to go, we have to go,” rambled Nifell.

“Quiet, Nif,” said PT. “But it’s beatable, right? Your father must have beaten it. At least in a sim-U.”

Figaro nodded. PT was thinking clearly and asking the right questions. He was able to keep a level head in this situation, without any of the training Figaro had been through. He felt disappointed in himself.

They had managed to get out of the kill room thanks to Figaro’s suggestions, but neither of his ideas had worked the way he had intended them to. Only between the three of them had they somehow made it work.

It was gratifying they had been willing to follow his instructions even if they were untested. And illuminating that they were willing to rebuke him when a suggestion wasn’t worth considering. That wasn’t how a disciplined hierarchy worked. He wasn’t the leader of this trio; their relationship was structured in some different way. He had yet to figure out what that was.

But he could provide information. He knew everything his father knew, and if his father had been here, he would think of something. Between the three of them, they could too.

“This place,” said Figaro, “they use it as rites of passage. When you join the Primary Exploratory Team, you run this room in the sim-U.”

“And what’s the best way to beat it?” asked PT.

“No one ever has,” said Figaro. “You aren’t expected to. You get eaten by it. Everyone goes through it, a simulated death to removes fear of the unknown. They call it the Beast.”

“Wow,” said Ubik. “Your dad’s a troll.”

“That thing’s the troll,” said PT. “Doesn’t follow the rules, destroys everything in its way, not part of the system. You two should get on. It’s the Ubik of the droid world.”

The Beast turned around, its mane swinging from side to side, sparks pouring down.

The head was a large square block of black and red, or pink through Figaro’s visor. The design made it look like it had one round eye in the middle of its head.

Unlike the other droids, it didn’t float. It moved with deliberate, heavy steps. It was one of the reasons it was so slow. But that didn’t make it any less dangerous.

“I don’t see a mouth,” said Ubik. “How’s it going to eat us?”

“The mouth is in its chest,” said Figaro. There was a spiral pattern just below the head, partially hidden by the curtain of sparks. It opened like an iris and led directly to the stomach, which was filled with acid.

“What about you?” said PT. “Did you get eaten?”

“I’m supposed to run it next year. I was meant to do it on my last birthday but my father decided I wasn’t ready.” There had been many arguments about that, but now Figaro could see his father’s reasoning more clearly. He probably wouldn’t be ready by his next birthday if things so far were any indication.

“But you said your father managed to beat it,” said PT.

“Yes,” said Figaro. “After many, many attempts in the sim-U, he found one method that worked. The only one. But the sim-U didn’t reveal what the Beast was guarding. So he came here and used the same method. It took three attempts before it worked. A lot of lives were lost in the process.”

“And?” said Ubik. “What was the secret to defeating it? Did he build his own Beast and have them duke it out?”

“No,” said Figaro. “He brought in one-hundred-man teams and blasted it to pieces.”

The great Ramon Ollo reduced to relying on brute force. It wasn’t something he liked talking about but it had been the only way.

The Beast was padding from side to side, raising its head like it was smelling the air. None of its behaviour made sense. It was aware of them, knew exactly where they were and what danger they posed. The rest was some kind of weird charade.

“And what was it guarding?” asked PT.

“Nothing,” said Figaro. “They didn’t find anything. They looked all over this room, same as the sim-U. No secrets. So he let it reform. Decided to leave it here.”

Usually, after defeating a droid like this one, you would dismantle the pieces and store them separately to stop the thing regenerating, as well as to study it, maybe sell the parts. But his father had decided to let this one droid return to its post as a mark of his respect for its unique design.

“That’s no good,” said PT. “We can’t overwhelm it with numbers. It seems a bit strange that there’s nothing here, though.”

“Rubbish,” said Ubik. “Of course it’s guarding something. A treasure even Ramon Ollo missed, and we’re going to be the first to find out what. This is great. I bet normally you have to work your way through a bunch of low-level trash to get to a room like this, but we got sent straight into its den, direct delivery. Not even VendX offers this kind of premium service. You’re all very welcome.”

“Are you mad?” wailed Nifell. “We’ll die here. I don’t want to be eaten. Slowly dissolving in that thing’s stomach. I couldn’t stand it.”

“I could break your neck, if you like,” said Ubik. “Just put your head on the floor.” He raised one boot and indicated the space underneath. “My Delgados have a special setting, you won’t feel a thing.”

Nifell's look of horror became more horrified.

The Beast finally began to stalk towards their end of the room. Its head was nearly hitting the roof. The building blocks used to make the angular body were the same as any other droid in the site, but far more intricately put together.

The shoulders rose and the head dipped down. The opening in the torso pulsed as it opened and closed.

“No, no, no,” said Nifell.

“Ready, Ubik?” said PT.

“Ready for what?” said Ubik.

“To save the day,” said PT.

A flicker of confusion crossed Ubik’s face. “And how am I supp—”

PT kicked him. It was fast and sharp, in the chests. Figaro could read it well enough to see it was more of a push than a strike. Ubik went flying backwards. He probably could have avoided it or at least rolled with it to absorb the force of the kick, but he took the hit. Probably as curious as Figaro to see how this would help.

It took him a second to realise he had ended up over the trap door. A second too late.

The floor dropped beneath him and he dropped into the hole.

“Why did you…?” Figaro stopped when PT raised a hand.

“The Beast doesn’t get on with the rest of the facility, right?”

Fig nodded, still not understanding.

Then Ubik came flying out of the hole. He had used his boots again to repel himself out, but this time he was followed by the droids from below floating out in Ultimate mode, combined into one large amalgam of Antecessor wrath.

“I get it,” said Ubik excitedly. “We get them to fight each other. This was my idea. I came up with it first.”

He had suggested a fight between Beasts, a duplicate made by his father. And PT had used the idea to recruit the droid Ubik had already goaded into a frenzy as the second combatant. This was how you pooled ideas into an actionable plan into action.

But would it work? These were just restriction droids. Even in ultimate mode, they weren’t a match for the Beast. Although it had paused its advance when the droid appeared.

“No, that’s not the idea,” said PT. “I don’t think it’ll take on the Beast. It’s too taken with you and your boots.”

He was right. The droid ignored the beast and attacked Ubik.

Ubik backed away. “I take it back. I don’t like this plan.”

“Then do something,” said PT.

“Like what?”

Figaro finally understood. “Release the nanodrones.”

471: City Break

It had been a while since I’d flown on a dragon. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was. I think that’s part of the human condition — the ability to forget unpleasantness. You still get a flashback every now and again, a sudden vivid memory of some stupid shit you did when you were fourteen, but it passes (after your whole body convulses with revulsion and self-loathing).

We can’t hold onto those feelings or memories of intense pain because there are parts of our lives that are horrific to go through but deemed necessary. Like giving birth. Or watching someone give birth.

You would think if nature was so desperate for us to reproduce it would make the process a little less painful. It encourages the conception with all sorts of prizes and rewards, but that parts optional so it needs to bribe you into doing it. By the third trimester, you’ve got no choice. Nature doesn’t need to offer incentives, so it doesn’t.

That kind of sums up what we mean to nature. All hearts and flowers at the start, cold disinterest at the other end. And then the slate gets wiped clean so we can have the same trick played on us again.

“It won’t be as bad as you think,” said Jenny. She was sitting next to me on the dragon’s back, her head on my shoulder. This kind of comfortable intimacy was something I liked very much. There was a sense of relief that came with it. A sense of not having to go out to prove anything. Once you got what you wanted, who cared what else there was to do?

It never worked that way, though. First you want it, then you get it, then you try to keep it, then you lose, then you try to get it back, then… it never ends.

“I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this,” I said.

“Okay,” said Jenny.

“Whatever Maurice has done, it’s none of my business.”

“Sure,” said Jenny.

“And Claire can take a flying fuck, too.”

“Of course,” said Jenny.

“Just because I gave them the confidence to strike out on their own doesn’t mean I’m responsible for every little mistake they made.”

“No one thinks that,” said Jenny.

She wasn’t agreeing with me, obviously. She was just letting me vent.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” I said.

“You’re here because I asked you,” said Jenny. “It doesn’t matter about Maurice or Claire or anyone. You’re here for me. And if we’re going to live in this world, I need you to make sure it doesn’t collapse into chaos.” She said it very simply and clearly.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“And after that?”

“We’ll find somewhere quiet and out of the way and, you know, try to find something to do. I might take up gardening.”

What she was saying sounded very reasonable. Comforting and appealing. She was up to something.

“Might get a bit boring,” I said.

“You can do magic,” she said. “And I have a vagina. We’ll think of something.”

Definitely up to something.

Not that my goals were any different to hers, but I had the niggling feeling it wouldn’t be quite as easy as she was making out. I was pretty sure last time I tried to save these dumbasses from themselves it didn’t go very well, although I couldn’t quite recall the specifics.

“We’ll be there soon,” said Flossie. She was standing in front of me, stupid grin on her face.

I looked towards the front at the pilotless dragon. She did this all the time. She was the Dragonrider and there was no reason for concern. Still, I would have felt better if she’d stayed in the driver’s seat.

“Fengarad?” I said.

“No,” said Flossie, “first we have to pick up mah Dudley. He’s waiting at home. Babysitting.”

I didn’t bother asking who he was babysitting. They probably adopted a large rock.

“When you say home…?”

“The grotto, of course. Yo’ said we should go there, so we made it our base of operations — that’s what Dudley calls it. We can make it our headquarters, now that we’re all back togethaaaaa.”

“We aren’t back together,” I said.

“It’ll be great, it will. We can have loads of adventures, but it won’t be like before. Not like when we were scared and useless and had no idea what we were doing.”

“No?” I said.

“Yo’ don’t think we’re the same as when we first got here, do yo’? Jenny, tell him.”

“We’re not the same,” said Jenny. “Apart from you. You haven’t changed at all.”

She said it to me without any facial cues, so it was hard to tell how she meant it. “Is that a good thing?”

“It means you’re true to who you are,” said Jenny. “Could be a good thing. Depends on who you are. The problem is that you don’t like people. Makes it hard to live in the same place as them, and they tend to be everywhere. You don’t like talking to them or mixing with them or thinking about them. I think when you spend a little time apart you start to miss them — some of them — but the craving to be around them quickly turns into dread the moment you see them again.”

The reason I was willing to spend time with this girl was that she got me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had interest from others. Once I got a little power and influence, my attractiveness went up. Women like a guy who’s successful in some way, it appeals to their nature. Their shallow, greedy, self-centred nature.

But aren’t men also shallow, greedy and self-centred? Why yes, yes they are. That’s why we deserve each other.

“What was it like back home?” asked Flossie.

“Horrible. The far-right are taking over, climate change is wrecking the environment and people are turning a blind eye to the next holocaust because they don’t want to miss out on cheap Chinese goods.”

“Oh,” said Flossie. “Did yo’ visit Birmingham? Has it changed?”

“I didn’t. But the world’s in turmoil and there seems to be a new Dark Ages on the horizon. I doubt Brummies will be able to tell the difference.”

“Oi, that’s not fair. It’s a very upwardly mobile city of culture.” She sounded like she was quoting from a brochure. “More canals than Venice.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “Venice is all canals these days.”

Bertie soared through the skies with wings spread and nothing to slow him down. I was flying on the back of a dragon, treating it like it was a short-haul flight on Ryanair. Even I could see how unreasonable I was being. Things could be a lot worse. I could be flying Ryanair.

“Well, Ah’m glad you’re back,” said Flossie. “Nothing’s been going right since you left. It’s very weird what’s happening in Fengarad.”

“How do you know?” I asked her. If she’d been holed up with Dudley all this time, I didn’t see how she was up to date on the political goings-on in the big smoke.

“Ah hear things. Keep mah ear to the ground.” She nodded knowingly, which on her looked like she was about to sneeze. “And the dragons aren’t happy. They can sense trouble. That’s how Ah knew yo’ were coming.” She smiled smugly at me, like she’d just delivered a zinger.

Bertie Airways took us over the chasm that separated Monsterland from Flatland — no sign of the giant — and brought us down in a quiet glade packed with dragons. There were hundreds of the things, munching and chewing everything that couldn’t move. Well, maybe not hundreds, but a few dozen at least.

And roaming through the herd was a plump, naked man. He waved at us as we came into land. The other dragons raised their heads and mooed, flapped their wings, took a shit. Business as usual.

As we climbed down off Bertie, Dudley came striding over, proud as you like.

“Hello, hello, welcome. Will you be staying for tea?”

“Dudley,” I said, “why are you naked?”

“Hmm?” said Dudley. He looked down and his eyes popped out of his head like a cartoon.

“Oh my. I… I totally forgot.” He covered his privates and blushed in Technicolor™. “I’m so used to no one being around, and the dragons don’t mind…” His mouth split into a rictus grin of embarrassment.

Five seconds back and I was already making people feel uncomfortable. It’s a gift.

“I’ll just…” He turned and ran off, prancing naked between the dragons, his hand doing a terrible job of covering his large wobbly behind. Not that I was looking, but it was hard not to.

“You wander around starkers, too, do you?” I asked Flossie.

“Yes. If you get acid on your clothes it burns right through them.”

“And your skin?” I could see the logic of not wanting to lose perfectly good clothes to a dragon coughing at the wrong moment, but I assumed human skin was just as susceptible to being burned, as Jenny’s face clearly demonstrated.

“It’s fine as long as you, er…” Now it was Flossie’s turn to go red.

“As long as you what?”

“Wash it off quickly.”

“They probably jump in the grotto pool,” said Jenny.

“We tried that. Water only makes it worse,” I said. “Oh my god, you don’t…” Flossie went brighter red. “Leave you alone for two minutes and you turn into bloody deviants.”

“What?” said Jenny.

“They’ve been showering each other, in gold.”

“It’s sterile,” said Flossie.

“Can’t you behave like normal people? This isn’t Germany.”

Germans get a bad rap for being into scat porn and weird shit (literally) but I guess it’s understandable. Sometimes one extreme is the only way to distract from another.

“Vell, you know, it’s just how ve are as a people — no kink-shaming, please. Ve have been like this all the way back to the seventies, you know. No, no, don’t look past there, please, nothing to see. Here, vatch me shit on this beautifully engineered glass table.”

Dudley came back dressed, his bow on his back and his sweaty face shaded by a helmet that looked like it had been made out of a hollowed fruit.

“Right, here I am. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Flossie. “Shall we go.” She hurried back to Bertie who was still refuelling.

“What happened?” Dudley looked confused, which was how he always looked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Are you sure you won’t need the bathroom before we leave?”

“I already went,” said Dudley.

“I bet.” It’s not that terrible to try out weird stuff when you get into a relationship. Try everything once apart from incest and country dancing, they say. I guess if you live in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nowhere to go, you find ways to amuse yourself. Was this the life awaiting me once I’d completed my task here?

We could have taken a break and gone for a dip in the hot spring, but it was probably better to find out what needed doing in Fengarad and get it out of the way. Plus, I wasn’t sure I wanted to share the same bathwater with them two.

We were soon back in the air, leaving the dragons behind. It was good to know Flossie had her own army to call on. They would probably be needed at some point.

It took less than an hour to spot the spires of Fengarad. And the fliers swooping around them. As we got closer, the skies became busier. No dragons, but plenty of fairies, lizards with wings and giant flying insects with riders. If ever I’d needed a reminder of the kind of world I was in, this did the job.

There were no signs of fighting or armies on the brink of attack. It seemed quite calm. Nothing on fire, no screams wafting over the battlements.

Some of the fliers came towards us, a little wary as we were by far the biggest thing in the sky. As we entered the airspace over the city we had quite a retinue with us.

Down below, people stopped to look up at us. I say people, there were just as many non-humans from what I could tell. A truly multicultural city; very woke. Sort of like Islington but with more lizardmen and fewer pretentious tossers who think they personally defeated Apartheid in the 80s.

Flossie brought us down in the main square. I could hear people whisper, “Dragonrider,” and, “Two-Faced Witch.” The girls were famous, it seemed. No one mentioned me, which was fine, even though I had saved this fucking place twice already and had my own key to the city (somewhere) but why remember me, their constant saviour?

We climbed down from Bertie’s back and the crowd kept their distance. Other than the general atmosphere of wary curiosity, there didn’t appear to be much tension in the air. No trouble in the offing. The humans and the non-humans appeared to be getting on.

Perhaps Maurice had done a good job of uniting the species and maintaining order, as hard as that was to believe. Some people are good at that kind of stuff. Usually it involves death squads and re-education camps, but maybe he had found another way.

There was a slight commotion and the crowd parted. Claire came walking up to us, her face oddly sad. She looked quite distressed and like she’d been crying.

“You came.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not sure what for. Seems fine. I can’t remember it being this happy around here. Maurice must have done something.”

“He did,” said Claire. “He introduced slavery.”

Not the solution to urban living I was expecting. I looked around. Humans and monsters stood next to each other as equals.

“Who did he enslave?” I asked.

“The dead,” said Claire. “The whole workforce is undead. Come, see for yourself.”

Book 2 – 35: Escape Artists

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Kill Room.

 

Figaro couldn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t understand it. He had run this map a thousand times. He had begged his father to let him try the real thing but his requests had fallen on deaf ears. He was ready, he had always believed that. And now here he was. He didn’t feel ready.

His father had been right, this didn’t feel like the simulation. There was a pressure coming off these droids that the sim-U versions had never produced. It wasn’t physical, it was on a completely different level. It was like intent. He could sense their intent to apprehend and remove the foreign objects in their area of authority.

Everything he had learned about droids — how they operated, how they fought, how to beat them — was available to him. He could remember it all. It didn’t help. He had no idea what he should do. Or rather, he had numerous ideas of what to do. It was picking the right one that was leaving him frozen.

He tried harder to find the correct answer. Usually he didn’t even have to think, the right course of action was obvious.

There were four droids, each two metres tall with numerous appendages flailing under the black central unit. White streaks of light shot up and down their torsos and along their arms. They could split up into smaller units, or combine into bigger ones. Their ability to adapt made them hard to out-fight.

They were class three restriction droids. They closed in on intruders who entered their designated patrol area and captured them. Very basic. Once you were enmeshed in their limbs, they constricted and crushed until there was a small compact version of you, easy to dispose of. Normal laser fire would do nothing to them. Fighting and struggling were useless.

You could overcome them with high-intensity cannons which were too large to be manoeuvrable inside the site, or you could ignore them if you wore a special pressure suit. It was bulky and not really practical — these weren’t the only droids in the facility and tailoring your loadout to suit one particular class of droid would leave you vulnerable to the other types.

His father had made specialised suits to make sure nothing was missed. Every droid on this level had been beaten at least once. These kinds of droids weren’t used to guard anything, they were there to remove unauthorised elements. They were housekeeping droids.

There was no need to face them so the best option was to avoid them. Don’t fall into traps and you could ignore them altogether.

That was the path Figaro had always taken in the simulations. Now he saw that was a mistake — he could have used the experience.

It wasn’t like he’d never been in an encounter with this droid class before, but it was usually with a team. Each person with a specific role. With the necessary weapons. With a plan.

Walking into a situation like this unprepared brought with it an entirely different experience. Even what had happened in the Origin map, which had been unexpected, hadn’t felt like this.

“Hey, snap out of it,” said PT. “What do we do?”

They were back to back in the middle of the room. The droids were closing in, slowly closing the circle. It was their most basic move, one they didn’t get to use very often because very few people were dumb enough to get caught like this.

The others were looking to him for answers. For leadership. He had told them he was familiar with this place, had hundreds of hours logged. Unlike his father, they thought it meant something.

“I… I’m not sure.”

“Come on, come on,” said Ubik. “This is what real pressure feels like. They haven’t found an algorithm to replicate it so enjoy while you can. Gets the blood pumping doesn’t it?”

It was no surprise that Ubik found the sensation invigorating. This was what he had been brought up in, not artificially safe facsimiles.

“You know this place,” said PT. “Focus. What’s the way out?”

“Don’t think,” said Ubik. “What’s your gut say?”

They were telling him to do two different things. Both sounded correct.

“Why are we inside the site?” said Nifell. He was shaking and almost sitting on the floor. Fear was making him curl up. It was a reasonable psychological response, making himself a smaller target. “They said we wouldn’t have to enter the site. I didn’t sign up for this.”

“We should have gone in through the front door,” said PT. “With guns.”

Figaro had told them not to bring any firearms. His experience on the Origin had convinced him they would only make them appear as a threat.

“Guns wouldn’t work against these droids,” said Figaro. It sounded like a weak excuse.

“We could use them on ourselves,” said Ubik cheerfully. “I have a feeling this isn’t going to end pleasantly.”

Figaro came to a decision. He wasn’t sure he was right but he was sure doing nothing was definitely wrong. He took off his helmet. The droids stopped moving. Maybe he could communicate with them.

“It’s me they want. I’ll keep them busy while you get away. I don’t think they’ll harm me.”

The air here was warm and tasted slightly tangy. He breathed it in. He felt a lot better now he’d made a choice.

“That is a terrible idea,” said PT.

“Dumbest one yet,” said Ubik. Neither of them seemed impressed by his sacrifice.

“They wanted me here. I should be fine.”

“Never mind you being fine,” said PT. “You have the controls to our suits.”

“I can take it off him,” said Ubik.

“I’d rather have no control than have you be in control,” said PT. “And where are we supposed to go? We’re in a box, if you’d forgotten.”

“The doors are pressure activated,” said Figaro. “Very sensitive. If you step on them, they open immediately, but they snap shut once you fall through. G-tag, that involves wall running, right?”

PT looked up at the ceiling. It was about ten metres above them. Even with the reduced gravity, there was no way to jump that high.

“You think they’ll react from this side?” said PT. “Worth a try.”

And then he was moving. He ran past the droids.

It was an astonishing thing to witness. Figaro had seen numerous battles fought against droids, real and simulated. He had never seen someone dodge a droid so effortlessly.

You couldn’t read a droid’s movements. They were machines, their bodies didn’t shift and tense up to indicate their intentions. Even the pressure Figaro could feel from them now was shapeless; he had no idea where the threat was aimed, he could just tell there was a lot of it.

But PT didn’t read what the droids were going to do, he predicted what they would do in response to the best line he could take, then he faked taking that line. When the droids did as he expected, he shifted to the actual line, a far less efficient one, and far less likely to successfully evade capture, if he had gone with it first.

“Look at them slinky hips,” said Ubik. “I could move like that with those hips. Genetic lottery, that’s what that is.”

PT wasn’t finished displaying what his chromosomes were capable of. Once he was past the droids, he ran up the wall. Even the droids had stopped to watch.

The reduced gravity was partly responsible but it was more than just that. He managed to get up about halfway and then pushed off soaring over the droids, face pointed up, angled towards the ceiling. His right arm was outstretched. A firm slap should be enough to spring the release mechanism.

PT’s hand missed by a good metre.

He came falling down backwards, the trajectory sending him straight into the waiting embrace of one of the droids.

“Ubik, the walls are made of a metal with similar properties to steel. Magnetic. Maybe…”

“Say no more,” said Ubik. “Time for tronics to put DNA in its place.”

Ubik set off in the opposite direction, using PT’s fall as a distraction. The droids had moved to surround PT, allowing Ubik to run up the other wall in a similar fashion, only not quite so far. And he didn’t fall, either. His first step was about a meter up and the second was a little under two. His feet remained stuck there with Ubik horizontal to the ground.

“What are these walls made of?” wailed Ubik. “I can’t demagnetise.”

“Perfect,” said PT. “Stay like that.”

PT came down on top of one of the droids. It was ready and waiting for him, no need to do anything else but wait for delivery. But PT came down hands first, placed a palm on the top of the droids head and rotated.

The droids sent its limbs up towards PT, closing around him like the petals of a flower at dusk. PT didn’t wait for them to slam shut with him inside, he pushed off and backed up, slipping through the gaps between the tentacles.

He landed on his feet and ran towards Ubik still sticking out of the wall. The droids turned to watch. Figaro had the feeling they were quite interested to see where this was going.

PT ran at the wall at an angle this time. He jumped up using Ubik’s planted feet like steps — sending Ubik crashing to the floor — and managed to keep wall-running much higher this time.

His legs pushed with explosive force and launched him across the room again. He didn’t have to reach very far to hit the ceiling, his nose almost touching it this time. He thumped his fists several times on the surface as he soared by.

The third hit did the trick and the trap door fell open, two flaps on either side of PT. A beam of light washed over him as he fell, arms out to the sides.

His hands latched onto the edges of the flaps before they fell away from him and kept them from falling any further. His legs dropped beneath him as he stayed there in an iron cross position. There was nothing to hold him up except for immense grip strength.

“Quick, let’s go,” grunted PT.

“How?” said Ubik. “Fly?”

PT’s feet were well out of reach, and even if they were able to grab hold of them, they’d only bring PT crashing down.

“Reverse polarity on your boots,” said Figaro. “If the attraction was stronger than you expected, so will the repelling force.”

“Sounds ridiculous,” said Ubik. “I like it.” He bent down and tapped his boots, and went flying into the air, hit the ceiling and came down face first.

Droid limbs lashed out to catch him but he managed to twist so his boots faced the droids. He went flying away from them.

“This is great,” said Ubik. He angled his feet down and grabbed Figaro by the collar. They rose in wonky, unstable lurch towards the opening. “We’ve discovered the Antecissor’s weakness. They can’t catch what they repel.”

“Not really,” said Figaro, as they shot out of the hole and landed in a heap. “Magnets drive Antecessor tech into ultimate mode. They kill everything they see.”

“Hey, guys,” said PT. “The droids are doing something weird.”

Figaro looked down into the hole. The droids were merging together.

“How do we get you out?” he said to PT.

“Ubik, boost me.”

“You want me to go back in?”

“And grab Nifell on the way,” PT added.

Nifell was currently curled in a ball on the floor below, hoping to be ignored by the droids. The plan had worked quite well so far.

“Do we really need him?” said Ubik.

“It is on your way,” said Figaro.

Ubik sighed and then dropped into the hole. A moment ago he had been wildly out of control, barely keeping from smashing himself to pieces. This time, he landed next to Nifell, grabbed him and bounced back out, hooking PT on the return trip.

The landing could still use some work but they made it out before the trap door slammed shut. The three of them slid across the floor. Now that Figaro looked at it, the floor design in this room was familiar.

“Delgados to the rescue,” said Ubik lying face down on the floor. “I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder.”

“Good job, Fig,” said PT.

“What about me?” said Ubik.

Nifell just groaned and curled up again.

“How do we get out of here before more of them turn up?” said PT, ignoring Ubik.

They were in a much larger room with double doors on the far side. The walls had similar white markings to the one below, but these weren’t moving. For a good reason. Actually, for a very bad reason.

“That way,” said Ubik, pointing at the doors. “Probably locked but we’ll soon put a stop to that.”

“Wait. There’s something I should tell you,” said Figaro.

“Uh oh,” said Ubik. “Is this one of those famous Fig ‘um’ moments?”

“It’s the room. I recognise it. We shouldn’t be here.”

“We just got out of a kill room,” said PT. “What’s this one called?”

“Restricted area 2B,” said Figaro.

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” said Nifell, sticking his head out, a hopeful twang to his words.

“It’s not the room, it’s the droid that lives here.”

“Lives here?” said PT.

“It’s not an ordinary droid. My father thinks it was an experiment that went wrong. This room is cut off from the rest of the facility. It’s like the Antecessors wanted nothing to do with it. It’s a very unusual droid, the only one of its kind.”

“What classification is it?” asked PT.

“Insanity class.”

“You people love your dramatic names,” said Ubik. “How insane can it be?”

“It doesn’t think of itself as a machine. It thinks it’s alive. And it needs to eat.”

“What… what does it eat?” asked Nifell.

“Meat,” said Figaro. “Maybe if we’re quiet and just leave it won’t wake up.”

The white lines on the walls turned red.

470: Welcome Home

“Did yo’ miss me?” said Flossie, grinning like a loon.

The dragon gently flapped its wings to hover over us. The hill on the other side was quite steep so there was room for it to create downforce without knocking us all down.

There were some clicks and snaps from behind me. I turned to see Jack and his men holding their plastic guns pointed at the dragon.

“Can you ease off on the shoot-everything-that-moves policy?” I said. “There aren’t any villagers with sticks for you to mow down. I’ll let you know if we come across any kids that need a good napalming, you insufferable tosspots. Put the guns down or I’ll cut off your dicks and wear them as a necklace.”

The men looked a bit hurt by my unfair and unjustified accusations, and a little disgusted by my choice of jewellery. It wasn’t like I had any proof of their dire intentions, so how could they be tried in an international war crimes tribunal? Especially one they hadn’t signed up to?

It amazes me how people can be so supportive of the military with the kind of track record they have. The idea of the armed forces is certainly a good one. Defend democracy, protect the weak, stand up to tyranny. The actual guys wearing the uniforms and saluting the shit out of every flag they see, they aren’t so impressive. I know I’m generalising but anyone who’s spent time with a large group of guys can tell you they don’t lean towards being chill and amiable. And that’s when they’re not armed.

“His mood hasn’t improved much,” said Flossie.

“He thinks people are going to bother him now that he’s back,” said Jenny. “You know, expect him to act like a human being.”

Flossie rolled her eyes. “Like any of us would expect that.”

“So it begins,” I said. “Where are we?”

“This is Monsterland,” said Flossie. “We’re in the heart of enemy territory.” She tried to make it sound menacing, but it came out like she was telling a spooky story to five-year-olds, widening her eyes and elongating words.

“And how the hell did you know we’d come out here?”

“Ah didn’t,” said Flossie. “It’s Bertie you’ve got to thank for that.” She patted the dragon’s head. “He knew yo’ were on your way back, couldn’t wait to see yo’ again.”

“That’s Bertie? He’s grown a bit hasn’t he?”

Bertie was the baby dragon I saved. He was now about the same size as Vikchutni. In fact, he looked exactly the same. Yes, I’m a dragon racist, although I’m not sure if it counts if you can’t tell relatives apart.

Not that the problem with racists is their inability to tell people apart. It’s more to do with them assuming their lack of discernment means they can treat everyone as guilty. I’m referring to the police, mostly.

Not that the police should be blamed for being incompetent. They all failed hard at school so it wasn’t like we didn’t know how fucking dumb they were when they were hired. It’s just that no one else wanted to do the job, so we got stuck with the Keystone Klux Klan.

 “That’s cos we fed him on lots of lurrrrv, didn’t we babby?” She patted him on the head some more. The dragon was staring at me with big cow eyes. “Who are those people? Should Ah tell Bertie to fire a warning shot?”

I looked over my shoulder at Jack and his men. They had lowered their weapons but only halfway. I could appreciate how hard it was for them to take this in. The usual reaction to this sort of situation would be to fire at will and roll around while shouting militaristic phrases they’d heard in movies.

“No, but can you get rid of those drones?” I pointed at the flying machines on the grass, made of the same material as the guns. They looked ready to launch. I had no idea how they were powered — clockwork? — but I didn’t think they’d be used for taking cool aerial shots with a GoPro in the nose section.

“No problem. Okay, Bertie, time for din-dins.”

Bertie seemed to know what to do. His mouth opened and a stream of green liquid gushed out, hitting one of the drones. To little effect.

The green acid frothed and turned the grass to mulch but the drone remained intact. Acid-resistant plastic? These guys really came prepared.

“Oh,” said Flossie. “That’s not right.”

“Stop,” said Jack. “What are you doing? We need them.”

“He’s American,” said Flossie. “Are they marines? They’re not here to start trouble, are they?”

“Yes, they are,” said Jenny. “But they won’t.”  She turned around and looked at Jack. 

Jack seemed a little perplexed at Jenny staring at him. I knew the feeling. Women always expect you to know what’s on their mind, as though telepathy is the true sign of real relationship. Maybe it is and we’re still one evolutionary stage away from really understanding one another. If so, I’m glad I missed it. I’d hate to see what goes on inside other people’s minds. I can barely stand what goes on in mine.

Jack started to cry. He was weeping and looking very sad. He fell to his knees, all limp and feeble. Jenny looked up at the men behind him and they all burst into tears. Bunch of wusses. It took her twice as long to get me in that sort of state. Admittedly, she could do it to me without using her ability.

The dragon landed and bumped its head against me, nearly knocking me over. It tried to lick me but I dodged. 

“Look, food,” I said pointing at the ground. 

Delighted by my recommendation, it started eating, unimpressed by the US forces’ synchronised bawling. The US army are well known for being the most in-touch with their feelings. They’re the only ones who go back to the place where they killed lots of people in their own homes and make movies about how upset it made them to remember all the screaming.

Everyone sympathises with veterans who suffer from PTSD. It’s a very real condition, although it was a lot more accurately labelled when they called it shell shock back in the day. It referred to the nervous system breaking down due to the insane stress of soldiers bombing the shit out of each other under orders from distant generals who didn’t care what happened to them. When it’s a disorder caused by the trauma of watching the gangrape of a thirteen-year-old girl in the backstreets of Iraq by your buddies, fuck you. 

Before I thank anyone for their service, I’d like to know what that service was. Every soldier has a chest full of ribbons, most of them are just participation medals. When they add the skull badges for heinous acts of inhumanity, then we’ll have a much clearer picture of whose hand to shake.

“I see you’ve got your powers back,” I said to Jenny. As low as my opinion was of Jack and his ilk, it brought me no pleasure to see them suffer in this manner. It’s like seeing a guy get kicked in the nuts — you feel his pain as though it were your own. I don’t know if it’s bros before hoes but it certainly helps to have hands before balls.

“Yes,” said Jenny. “What are we going to do with them? How did they get past all the demons?” It was a good question. 

“Hey, Jack, what happened in the Void? Did you kill the demons?” If he did, I’d like to know how. Probably come in useful at some point.

Jack looked up at me with eyes full of regret. Tears were falling down his cheeks and his lips trembled. He was a big macho bloke, so the effect was a little comical. A guy can cry, even gorillas like him. If you lose a loved one, a kid, a dog even, I think people would expect to see some emotion. But the truth is feelings are devious little bastards that are rarely honest. 

No one should judge someone based on how emotional they can get, even though we’re built to empathise. Well, some people are. I’m not.

“Can you ease off so he can answer?” I asked Jenny.

“I’ve already stopped,” said Jenny, “I don’t know what he’s so upset about.”

Once you open the floodgates, I guess.

While he recovered from his first intense Jenny experience (might take a while, I was only just in remission myself) I walked over and examined the drones. There were four of them and they were put together so well you couldn’t even see the joins. They were clearly very advanced technology and probably cost a shedload of money to make. Years in the making, powered on sunshine and rainbows, guaranteed to wipe out primitive civilisations while keeping your hands clean.

If the dragon acid wasn’t strong enough to destroy them, then what would?

I took out my wooden swords and sliced through them like butter. The men, who were just recovering, transitioned their sadness into horror. Their boys were being massacred.

I have to admit it felt good. Unlike on Earth, here my powers came easily. I felt in control of them and nothing seemed to be a problem. A dangerous feeling. The people who have it easy are never good people. They might start out that way, they may have the best of intentions, but in the end their access to power makes them douchebags.

It’s very rare that it happens otherwise. And when it does, the douches gather quickly and in secret and whisper and conspire to have the powerful non-douches taken care of. You can’t have one guy going around making everyone else look bad. The optics, dude, the optics.

Was I in danger of turning out like that? I had certainly become OP from lowly beginnings. I could take over, proclaim myself king of the world and get up to all the usual nonsense. The idea was repugnant to me.

It helped that I was in a place where nothing appealed to my deepest desires. That place wasn’t here, it was in my head. Having a bunch of people do what I told them to a low standard with terrible after-sale service was not my idea of a good time. I mean sure, I could force thousands to build me a huge monument, a pyramid, a tower, hanging gardens etc. Why the fuck would I want to? How bored out of your mind do you have to be to start designing giant buildings? I’ll tell you. Bored enough to play Minecraft.

“Stop, please stop,” said Jack. 

“Guns, ammo, all of it,”  I said. “On the ground.” I waved my glowing sword about. I was bullying them, which as we know is a bad thing.

Sure it is. 

How much better things are with nerds running around free and wild, no predators to keep their numbers down. And women wearing big glasses with thick rims to catch themselves a tech millionaire, selling nudes and bathwater to pass the time.

No one complied with my instructions. I stepped forward and sliced off Jack’s hand. It came off cauterised, which was very nice of me, I thought.

Someone shot me. They fired a gun and a pellet flew towards my head. I left my body and everything stopped. Not to blow my own horn, but I was like a god here. It hadn’t really seemed that way until I went home and realised what it felt like to be normal again. Even with some powers, I still felt like I had too much of a mountain to climb to get anything done over there. The powers that be were too well entrenched, their foundations too deep to dig up.

Here, I could actually affect change. I could, if I wanted, fix things. 

I was on super-dangerous ground. How easy it would be to convince myself I was the only hope for the future, and then fuck everyone who got in my way. They were not worthy but I was. A different breed. A different species.

Thing is, real change, real evolutionary change only works one way — sex. And plenty of it.

You get a mutation, a new feature. A longer neck, a thinner beak, thicker fur. Whatever it is, it gives you an advantage finding food or surviving the environment or whatever, and that guy gets strong and healthy and has the looks and the energy to fuck. A lot.

He bangs. He gets kids that are a chip off the old proverbial. 

The missing link, the other branch of the ancestral tree, those guys didn’t get killed for being different, they weren’t treated to bigotry and contempt because they were dragging knuckles when the cool new mode of transportation was walking upright with hands in pockets. They phased out because they couldn’t get laid. They went incel and had no shitty online forum to complain on. Gone and forgotten.

If a guy cheats, he’s just trying to help human development. It’s a noble goal. Me, on the other hand, I don’t really want to bang lots of chicks. Not because I’m faithful or honourable — I think I’ve proven that well beyond a reasonable doubt — but because I really don’t fancy having to talk to that many women and pretend I’m interested in their boring lives. I mean sex is great but you never have a sudden horrible embarrassing flashback to that time you didn’t speak to anyone for a week.

I moved the bullet, which looked like it was made from stone, and attached some black goo to it. I re-entered my body and the pellet flew past me and then came twanging back to land in my hand. It looked like I had plucked it out of the air. It hurt quite a lot but I covered my pain by shrieking. 

“Fuck me,” I said. I took the pellet out of my bleeding palm and healed myself. 

Jack, whose hand I’d cut off, hadn’t made any sound and was just breathing heavily. 

“If any of you shoot again, it’s gonna get ugly.” I could already sense myself turning into a cocky wanker.

I picked up Jack’s hand and stuck it back on. Only took a few seconds.

“Now, here’s what you’re going to do. You’ll hand over your weapons and supplies and then you’re free to go. This place is called Monsterland and for a very good reason. The place with the people is…” I looked around to get my bearings and couldn’t find them anywhere.

“That way,” said Flossie, pointing.

“Right. Over there. You can’t miss it, there’s a bridge with a giant on it. You’ll see. It’s up to you how you get across, assuming you make it. We arrived with nothing and we managed, you can too. Maybe you’ll learn something about yourselves on the way. I fucking doubt it, but you never know. Let’s go, all your cool gear.”

Jack gave the others a look and everyone started dropping their stuff.

I went around cutting it up, leaving a terrible mess. I’d probably get fined for littering. 

Once that was done, I prepared myself for a final speech, something that would leave this lot in the right state of mind for what was to come.

“Right, I know you came here to—what the fuck…”

The ground shook and I fell over. A huge worm erupted from below and shot into the air. Panic ensued as the worm opened its giant mouth to reveal several sets of sharp teeth.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t I even finish one thing without being interrupted. Kungen, you piece of shit, what kind of entrance was that? Hey, wait a minute, you owe me don’t you. You can help me. I need—” I only got halfway into making my demands of the giant worm that had once been a troll before it dived back into the ground and legged it, metaphorically speaking.

“Hey, come back here. Stop shirking your responsibilities, you bloody worm.”

It was too late, the Kungen-worm was gone. Not so much a special guest star appearance as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.

“Damn it. I see nothing’s changed this side of the divide. Might as well go sort this out myself.” I looked back at Jack and his men who were huddled together, waiting for the order to shit themselves. “I forgot what I was going to say. Good luck, have fun. Let’s go.”

Bertie, who had taken off with Flossie when Kungen arrived, came down looking a bit shame-faced. 

“Oh, decided to come back did you?” I got on the dragon’s back. Looked like I was going to do it all myself, as usual. “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” said Jenny, grinning. “I didn’t think you’d be in the mood.”

“What mood?” 

“This mood.” Her smile broadened. “Get things done quickly mood. I like it when you’re like this.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I wasn’t in the mood to get things done. I was in the mood to be left alone. Unfortunately, the only way to do that was to get things done.

Book 2 – 34: Room for One

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Bunker.

 

Ubik crouched down and sorted through the pile of nanodrones. They were small and inert, giving no indication of what they were capable of. From a cursory look they were all identical, a simple self-replicating, self-powered consumption engine, miniaturised and given a singular purpose. It was a supremely elegant design.

“These are great,” said Ubik, squeezing one of the nanodrones. The body gave a little under pressure. A gel to remove the need for complex connective architecture. “Shame we don’t have more of them.”

“There are several more cans of them back there,” said PT. He pointed his thumb at the dark passage he had just emerged from.

“We should be careful,” said Fig. “They’re a lot more dangerous than they look.”

“Even better,” said Ubik. He got up and decided to check the stores.

“Not really,” said Fig. “If they get out of control, they could eat through the whole asteroid.”

“Won’t they run out of power eventually?” said PT.

“No,” said Fig. “Everything they eat is converted to energy and used to keep them eating. As long as they have food, they can keep going.”

“Shouldn’t something like that be banned?” said PT.

“If people knew they existed, then yes. My father didn’t make them public, so it’s surprising he gave them away so easily.”

Ubik left them discussing matters of morality and galactic disintegration. He wasn’t particularly interested.

Inside the narrow passage the smell was something else. Ubik had spent much of his life in a junkyard so he was no stranger to disgusting odours, but this was horrific.

Fortunately, the room with the canisters was the first one he looked in. He grabbed two and stuck them under his arms and picked up two more. Then he quickly returned holding his bounty and his breath.

“So they do wear out eventually,” PT was saying to Fig, still in the same conversation.

“Yes,” said Fig. “But a small rock like this wouldn’t take long for them to digest. They also use any excess materials they dig up to reproduce. They’re simple enough to be able to make replicas.”

“They’d be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands,” said PT.

“I don’t know what you did back there,” said Ubik as he poured his newly acquired nanodrones onto the floor with the others, “but you should change your diet.”

PT pulled a face. “That wasn’t me. That’s the result of long-term—”

“Hey, you were the last one to go in there,” said Ubik. “And now it smells like that. You should seek medical advice.”

PT’s frown tightened into a thin-lipped grimace but he didn’t say anything. He was getting too good at ignoring bait. Ubik would have to improve the quality of his lures. He put it on his to-do list and inspected his improved collection of nandrones. The heap rose to a point about level with the top of his Delgados. Seemed an appropriate amount.

“We never used that many,” said Gerd from his bunk. His voice sounded shaky. “They made it clear to us we should only use tiny amounts. I mean, that’s what Nifell said. He was the only one trained to handle them. The more you use, the harder it is to keep control of them.”

“Nifell?” said Ubik. “The dead guy? Here’s some advice for you. Don’t put a lot of weight behind advice from dead people. If it didn’t work for them, it probably won’t work for you.”

“The drones didn’t kill him,” said PT. “You did.”

“Assisted suicide,” said Ubik, “but my point still stands.”

“No,” said PT, “it doesn’t. Listen to how scared the guy is. He’s more freaked out by the nanodrones than he is by you. Do you realise how dangerous they must be?”

“It’s fine,” said Ubik. He had an excellent grasp of the situation. One error and they’d all wind up dead. How was that different from any other day of his life? “The important thing is to get inside the base and find Fig’s dad, right?” He looked to Fig for confirmation.

“I think my father would prefer to be rescued into a secure environment rather than a catastrophic one.”

“Rescued is rescued,” said Ubik. “Now, let’s get these babies fired up.”

He turned to the console and opened a control panel he’d spotted earlier. He hadn’t known what it was then; a supervision suite for drones that didn’t exist as far as he could make out. Now he understood perfectly.

The nanodrones were activated and monitored from here. Give them a task, send them off, put in a recall command for when they were done. What could be simpler?

“Whew,” said Ubik, looking over the parameters. “This is really basic. Who programmed this? Nifell, I bet. That guy…”

“What?” said PT. He was looking at the screen with the gormless expression of someone who had no idea what he was seeing. Pretty much his regular look.

“This is a very simplified set of directives,” said Ubik. “How many of these did you use at a time? Twelve?”

“No,” said a defensive voice from the top bunk. “ A few hundred. They replicate very quickly so we could only use a few to start with. We had to sweep them up and put them in those cans to stop them breeding. They’re dangerous. Like a virus. We had to sterilise them and even that didn’t stop them multiplying.”

“I really don’t like this,” said PT.

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Fig. “We should proceed with the utmost—”

“Nanodrones activate!” said Ubik, flicking a switch. The pile of drones on the floor began to vibrate and buzz. “Good thing your dad put all this spyware in here, makes taking control of them a lot easier.”

PT and Fig stepped back.

“Don’t look so worried,” said Ubik as he began the process of initialising the nanodrones. “Gonna scrap most of this...” He waved a hand at the screen. “I’m going to compile a completely new set of instructions with built-in fail-safes and a host of improvements, amendments and fine-tuning. The self-repair mechanism will act as a regulator for any excess production. Won’t be able to go exponential. This will be a newer, safer nanodrone. Some people would dismantle where they were supposed to build, others would duplicate what they were meant to replace. The risk is you end up releasing millions of potential cancer cells into an otherwise healthy body, decimating it. And then you have to keep track of each one. They could quite easily eviscerate everything in their path, or accidentally breach the containment around a hazardous core. Even if all goes well, the whole process could take days or weeks to perfect.” Ubik sat back. “Finished.”

“What?” said PT. “What do you mean, finished? You said it could take days.”

“Weeks,” added Fig.

“That took you thirty seconds,” said PT.

“I know what I’m doing,” said Ubik.

“Did you do all the safety checks?” said PT. “The fail-safes, did you add the fail-safes?”

“Mainly they’re just for show. A redundant system to make people feel better about the dangers.”

“I know,” said PT. “I want to feel better about the dangers.”

“Is it alright if I leave now,” said Gerd. “I promise I won’t tell anyone about what happened here.”

“Look, you doubters,” said Ubik, “this isn’t my first time running a hot rig on the fly. I’ve made more complex calculations while dodging strafing drone-fire, nailed it every time. This will work just fine. Watch.”

Ubik sent the commands to the nanodrones. People had a tendency to get anxious before anything had even happened. They could easily work themselves into such a state that they ended up causing the disaster they were so afraid of. You just had to jump in and make corrections in the moment. It was the only way to get good, assuming you didn’t die in the process.

The drones moved across the floor like a dark rug. They reached the wall to the left of the console and crawled up it. The wall caved in with hardly any noise or dust, just a blast of warm air.

“What did you tell them to do?” asked Fig.

“I sent them to the base, most direct route. Shouldn’t take very long. They’re fully automated so they’ll come back when they’re done.”

“You gave them full-autonomy?” said PT, sounding needlessly horrified.

“It’s more efficient,” said Ubik. “You have to have faith in your work.”

“Um,” said Fig. He managed to sound troubled in just the one syllable. Deeply troubled.

“What?” said PT.

“The base is that way,” said Fig, pointing in the opposite direction to the one the nanodrones had taken.

“Is it?” said Ubik. He looked around the room, trying to remember which way they’d entered. “Are you sure?”

“Excellent,” said PT.

“It’s an easy miscalculation to make.”

“I thought you could make perfect calculations under drone-fire,” said PT.

“I can, but there isn’t any drone-fire here,” said Ubik. “That’s what threw me.”

PT just stared at Ubik for a long time. Then he turned to the top bunk. “Where did you put that gun you had?”

“It’s fine,” said Fig. “They’re coming back.” He pointed at the newly created tunnel. A black carpet crept back into the room.

“See?” said Ubik. “Self-correcting. Which way is the base?”

Fig pointed at the wall the bunks were against.

“Okay, boys,” said Ubik, “don’t make daddy look bad.”

The carpet disappeared under the bottom bunks and then all the bunks collapsed, ejecting Gerd in the process. He fell out backwards, slamming the back of his head on the ground.

“Don’t let them eat me,” he cried out in a panic, rolling to get clear of the devastation. The wall behind the bunks disappeared.

Gerd lay there rubbing a rising bump on the back of his head. He had a pinched, pallid face and dazed eyes.

“Come on, get up,” said PT. He bent down and pulled Gerd to his feet. “You can’t lie around all day.”

“I could stay here.”

“I don’t think so, Nifell,” said PT. “It is Nifell, isn’t it?”

The man looked like he was about to protest, but he just ended up looking glum. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“No, better that you be honest,” said PT. “I was going to kill you but now I’m going to keep you around in case Ubik disappears and leaves us with a drone plague to deal with. It’s the sort of thing he would do.”

“Harsh,” said Ubik. “But fair.”

“Don’t worry,” said PT. “Me and you, we’re in the same boat.”

“We are?” said Nifell.

“Sure,” said PT. “I know what it’s like trying to survive while someone else calls the shots. The shots that are aimed at you. These two have no idea what that’s like. He’s in the family business and he’s self-employed. I’m the only one who knows what it’s like to have a boss.”

“I’ve worked under other people,” said Fig.

“Family doesn’t count,” said PT. “They prefer to keep you alive.”

“How are you any different to my other bosses?” said Nifell.

“If we die, you die,” said PT. “If we live, you live. That’s the best I can offer.”

Nifell nodded, seeming to take the offer. It was a novel approach, giving the enemy a chance to come out of a dire situation intact. One with inherent risks attached. Ubik approved.

“Let’s get going then,” said Ubik. The nanodrones had had plenty of time to burrow their way to the target.

“Wait,” said Nifell, pulling Ubik back. “The superheated air in the tunnel makes it impossible—”

Ubik pushed past him. “It’ll be fine. These suits are—”

PT pushed him back. “Listen to the man. He’s an expert.”

“I’m an expert,” said Ubik.

“Yes, but he’s an expert who respects death,” said PT.

“Fine,” said Ubik. “Let’s stay here and do nothing.”

They waited for five minutes until Nifell gave the all-clear. “Shouldn’t be too bad now.”

“Okay, Ubik,” said PT. “Lead the way.”

“You want me to take point?”

“Yes. If anything happens to you, we still have Nifell.”

Ubik liked PT’s new approach. He thought he was reducing the chances of harm and injury by taking as many precautions as possible. All it really did was encourage Ubik to think up new stuff to try. You always had to be innovating if you wanted to stay ahead of the crowd.

The others held back as Ubik climbed over broken beds and entered the tunnel, his helmet went up and the suit stiffened as it reacted to the intense heat. If it was this strong now, it must have been scorching a few minutes ago. Good thing they waited. His chest glowed and a brilliant light flushed the interior. A long passage stretched out in front of him.

“How is it?” asked PT.

“Lovely,” said Ubik. “Light tropical.” More light poured in from behind as the others entered. “This way.”

“This is the only way,” said PT.

“Then I must be right,” said Ubik.

The tunnel walls were smooth and humming. The dissipating heat was making the rock sing. There was no sign of the nanodrones.

“They’ve stopped,” said Fig.

“How do you know?” said PT.

“I interfaced with the console back there.” Fig was looking down at the panel on his arm, a light on top of his helmet illuminating it. “I thought it would be best to keep an eye on things. Just mirroring the display. I can’t control the drones, though.”

“Don’t need to,” said Ubik. “They know what to do.”

“I don’t think that’s how they work,” said Nifell.

“That’s how they work now,” said Ubik. “No leash.”

The tunnel ended up ahead. There was a wall with a hole in it.

“This is it,” said Ubik in a low voice. “Once we’re through there, we’ll be in enemy territory. Try not to ruin all my hard work.”

“Are you thinking out loud?” asked PT. “Note to self?”

“We’re inside the base,” said Ubik. “As promised. Another successful mission from Ubik Industries.”

“Bit early for that claim,” said PT. “What’s inside?”

Ubik edged closer. As he approached the hole light from his suit revealed a dark room with black walls, empty except for a small pyramid on the floor. The nanodrones were piled up in the middle of the room.

“All clear,” said Ubik. “The nanodrones are waiting for us. Looks like some kind of storeroom.” He climbed through the hole.

The drones were just sitting there. They were supposed to keep going until they reached their target location and then return. Apparently they’d made an executive decision to stay here.

Ubik took a closer look at the wall. He couldn’t see an exit anywhere.

“Where’s the door?” said PT.

“Um,” said Fig. Everyone turned to look at him.

Fig turned his light on full. The black walls responded by lighting up with white lines.

“Up there,” said Fig, pointing at the ceiling. “This is a kill room. It’s where you drop into if you trigger one of the traps on the second level of the Antecessor facility under the base.”

“Wait, we’re in the facility?” said PT. “How? You said the site was shielded from the outside.”

“It is,” said Fig. “It must have let us in.”

Ubik turned around and looked at the hole they’d come through. There was a shimmer across it. “Looks like it doesn’t want to let us out.”

“When you say kill room…” said Nifell.

The walls moved. Droids detached from them, hovering in the air on all sides of them.

“Everyone relax,” said Ubik. “It let us in. It wants Fig here. It invited him, remember. This isn’t a trap, it’s a friendly welcome.”

The pyramid of nanodrones got narrower and taller. It was almost like the nanodrones were frightened.