As well as the trouble with the frock, finding the right place to go to was another of the problems Beatrice had had to contend with. She initially instructed her Andy flicar driver to fly her to 'Dave's Dump' which she was sure would be listed in the Halzone Business Directory, unfortunately it wasn't, and she had been forced to wait while the Andy driver used a special prior name search to find out exactly where it was, because all air traffic had to file in a destination with HAGS before taking off. It finally found the new listing under AAABC Pre-loved Property Depository and at last they were able to rise from the ground up into the air. By this time Beatrice had swallowed two more pills, but thank Hal the delays were over and after an unavoidably lengthy flight, during which she employed every relaxation technique she could think of such as mantra reciting, deep breathing and worry bead counting plus another pill top up before landing to keep her precarious cool intact, she arrived.
With a flutter from the diaphanous multi-layered pink and silver thread garment that swirled about her, a glitter from the rainbow bright beads woven into her scarlet hair, a sparkle from the long earrings and multiple necklaces, a musical jingling from the tiers of arm and leg bracelets, and a gleam from the nose ornaments faintly visible through the delicate pale pink veil covering the lower part of her face, she stepped from the vehicle and came tottering toward the waiting group on her tiny jewel encrusted very high heeled shoes. What she lacked in height she made up for in augmented physical female attributes and exotic embellishments.
Reth stared at her, hardly able to believe his eyes. She hadn't changed a bit. “Beatrice!” he said. “At last!” Promptly dumping the eskey down on the ground he rushed toward her to take her in his arms. As he reached her, she almost flung herself at him in response, hugging him close to the ample expanse of her frontage while tears of joy flowed copiously from her cosmetically enhanced eyes down her pinkly rouged cheeks to dampen her veil without doing any damage to her make up guaranteed as it was to continue keeping the wearer looking fresh and lovely all day long.
“Reth! It really is you!” she cried, letting go of him just a little after the first wild embrace in order to retrieve a little square of perfumed pink lace out of the pink purse dangling from one arm and delicately dab at her eyes with it before smiling joyfully up at him and saying, “They told me that you'd joined the great majority in Hals heavenly abode! Not that I believed it, no way!” A small sob escaped from between her painted rosebud lips. “How could my darling Reth be gone from me and crossed over to the other side without my feeling it, I asked them, and they had no answer to that. A woman knows, believe you me! Oh the hours I spent on my knees in the Temple praying to Hal for your safe return! That silly Brenda, you remember her don't you? She took me to a medium. Paid good credits for a seance I did and got nothing! Absolutely zilch! Only some nonsense about pyramids! My personal astrological forecaster was absolutely spot on though. He said that right now with my birth star in such a fortunate aspect this would be one of the most momentous days of my life. And it is! It is!”
As she rattled on Reth looked down at her so close in his arms all the while thinking that she was still as gorgeous as the day when they'd said good bye.
Jack couldn't speak at first, his jaw was so tight with annoyance. Finally, he managed to suppress his tempotary physical handicap for long enough to step forward and interrupt Beatrice's verbal flow. “What are you doing here?” he hissed through clenched teeth.
She half turned away from Reth toward him. “My dear Jack,” she said icily, “I was invited. And if I had known previous to my arrival that you were here I certainly wouldn't be.”
“Well of course I'd be here stupid! Reth's my brother!”
“And do you really think for one tiny little itzy bitzy micro second that I,” and her silver arm bracelets chimed together as she placed one of her hands, each heavily ringed finger sparkling with gems spread open on her bountiful bosom, “could ever be so unfeeling as to ignore the return of my sweetheart, my own darlingest Reth? And I did look for your flicar before I landed, and it's not here.”
“So I bought a new one!”
“Which I knew nothing about because you didn't tell me, did you?”
Mutely, Jack shook his head.
“So it's not my fault then, is it?”
“If you had thought a little, something that appears to be beyond your mental capacity for most of the time, you would have realised that I would come to see my twin. You did this on purpose just to annoy me. You know damn well I don't ever want to see you without a prearranged appointment made through my solicitor!”
“I don't care what you want, you disgusting little piece of bovine excreta.”
“How dare you speak to me in that way!”
“I'll speak to you any way I want,” Beatrice replied haughtily. “Never forget, my dear husband, that we are still married and that I'm still the major shareholder of J and B Consolidated's corporate assets.” Her voice was loaded syrup sweet yet sharp with an acid overtone of reason.
The revelation hit Reth like a bolt of lightening. “You . . . you're married?” he heard himself saying distantly. “To each other? How can that be?”
Beatrice turned back to gaze soulfully up into his face. “It happened at a time when I was feeling really miserable after you were officially pronounced permanently departed” she explained. “I was deep in grief, Jack comforted me, one thing led to another, and bang! All of a sudden we were wed.”
Reth glared at Jack and stammered. “You . . . you . . . you friggin' low down bastard!”
“Take it easy brother!” said Jack.
“You took friggin' advantage of my wife!”
“But you'd passed on,” Jack protested backing away with his hands held up for protection as Reth, his face reddened with rage, moved out from Beatrice's embrace to advance threateningly upon his brother.
Dave inserted himself adroitly between his two sons. “Flamin' shut it the both of youse! Not even half a day is Reth back ‘n same ‘s ever youse're both flamin' fired up 'n out to kill each other. Flamin' stupid pair! You're flamin' brothers fer Hal's sake!”
With both fists clenched and raised ready for battle, Reth ignored the plea and pushed precipitately past his father. Jack quickly retreated but in so doing his back foot collided with a corner of the eskey and involuntarily, he glanced down. Reth wasn't slow to take advantage of his brothers distraction and his right fist caught Jack a sharp blow to the side of the head. Unprepared and off balance Jack stumbled backward to sit down rather heavily on the roadway, his white hat tumbling off and rolling away among the weeds.
Reth danced around him punching at the air with both fists shouting, “Get up! Come on now, get up you friggin' filthy little prick!”
Jack was furious. He scrambled part way to his feet. “You little shit!” he screamed and still half bent over, rushed at his brother. His head caught Reth square in the midriff with enough force to wind him, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling awkwardly on the ground. Jack immediately fell upon his brother and began pummelling at his head and body with both fists in a flurry of short hard jabs. Reth, being initially short of breath was at first unable to retaliate. But not for long. Furiously he began to fight back, a well aimed blow to his brother's soft underbelly and all at once the two of them were punching and rolling and wrestling about together in the dirt of the old roadway in a no holds barred, no quarter given or taken, all out undignified brawl.
Beatrice began alternately screaming and sobbing, Dave circled round his sons shouting at them to flamin' stop, while the Orthians watched in wonder having never observed such a sight as this at first hand before. Until thinking that she had Mem recorded enough unnecessary violence and that if it went on too much longer somebody might get really hurt, Chan pulled out her Dazer and beamed both of them. In one pink flash the fight was over.
Shocked at the sight of the two combatants lying so lifeless clasped together in each others arms, Beatrice turned on an unsuspecting Chan.
She fumbled frantically in her purse for her small, silver barrelled, pink pearl handled pistol. Pulling the weapon from its Handy Holster she raised it to take aim at Chan who right then was limply holding her dazer pointing downward at her side, shrieking “You've killed them!”
And that was as far as Beatrice got, for Alf had already seen and realised what she intended. His Dazer was in his hand and he was firing well before she managed to pull the pistols trigger. A beam of sparkling pink light engulfed her and she slowly slumped to the ground in a crumpled heap.
“Crikey!” said Dave. “Y've gorn 'n beamed Bee!”
“Now what?” BB asked as they stood surveying the sleeping.
“I don't know,” said Chan with a small shrug of her shoulders.
“Perhaps we could borrow a flicar and take off?” Alf suggested hopefully. “We've got such a lot to explore.”
“Y' better beam me too then,” said Dave equally hopefully. “Or I might try 'n stop youse.”
Chan lifted her Dazer pointed it at him and said, “How about you behave yourself sir, or I'll . .. I'll . ..” Her mind raced through several possibilities as she sought for a likely alternative.
“Or youse'll what?” sneered Dave.
Suddenly it came to her. “Or I'll push the other button on my Dazer and turn you into a mouse!”
Dave stared hard at Chan trying to work out whether this was a joke or not. She gazed back at him, unsmilingly straight faced.
“Flamin' smart arse shielas is all the same,” Dave finally muttered in disgust to himself, as he decided, rather reluctantly, not to test Chan's veracity.
“I agree that we should certainly get on with our exploration of Terra,” said BB, “but may I suggest that we send Reth and Beatrice off together in her flicar and then take Dave and Jack with us in his. It looks much roomier then Beatrice's little pink contraption and we can keep an eye on them if we have them with us.”
“Wait a minute,” said Chan. “I imagine Beatrice has a CMe. What's to stop her calling out the local guardians of the law when she wakes up?”
“They all received close-range Dazer beams,” said BB. “We'll be long gone in Jack's flicar before either Reth or Beatrice wake up, and they'll have no way of knowing where we are, will they!”
“Probably not,” agreed Alf. “And we can put Dave to sleep and Jack again too if he wakes up before we leave the flicar Then they won't know where we've gone.”
“Youse're wastin' yer time y' know,” Dave said smugly. “I don't mind the goin' to sleep bit, lookin' forward t' that,” he smiled at the recollection of his dream, “but only Jack 'n Bee bein' like them flicars owners, c'n tell them Andy drivers where t' go.”
The three Orthians stared up through the tinted windows of the flicar at the driver, the first unbroken Terran Andy they had encountered up to now. They couldn't see very much, just the outline of a human looking shoulders and head with a cap on it.
“How do you know that the driver's an Andy sir?” demanded Chan.
“'Cause they always is.”
“Always sir?”
“Course. 'Sides which it's wearin' it's collar. See them lights round it's neck?” They could see them now, a row of small faintly glowing amber lights. “Andys always 'as t' wear collars,” Dave informed them. “It's the law.”
“Oh,” said Chan.
“It must be like the Server then. Voice recognition only,” said Alf, and he hesitated, standing frowning in thought.
“Problem solved,” Chan said as the answer suddenly came to her. “I'll use my Mem player.”
Alf grinned. “That's a good idea. It'd certainly work for Jack's flicar because he talked about the shopping mall and that would be the perfect place to go to.”
“But I don't think Beatrice mentioned any place that might be used as a destination for her flicar,” said BB.
“No,” Alf agreed. “I don't believe she did.”
“I'll check,” said Chan. She put her Dazer away, took off her pack and got out her portable HoloScreen player, a flat black box with the word ‘MEMORYS' set inside a large circle above a row of four smaller ones embossed in gold on its top. Then she opened the face of her watch, carefully removing the disc concealed inside and placing it exactly so it was centred on the O in the word. With a small click the disc sunk into the larger circle and a ball of light popped up. Chan pressed one of the smaller circles and there on show inside of it was Chan's Mem record of recent events. The scene ran rapidly backward to the point of the pink flicars arrival, Chan pressed another of the circles to send it forward and there it was. After watching and listening to the small Beatrice in the HoloScreen player they agreed that there was nothing she said that they could use.
“We'll just have to leave them where they are then,” said Alf.
“It might be a good idea to put Beatrice's weapon back in her purse and to drag them over beside her flicar into the shade,” suggested Chan. “It's quite hot out here and they look so uncomfortable all crumpled up like that.”
Alf and BB pulled the pair into the recommended straightened position out of the sun while Chan pressed the circle on her player again. In double quick time the past passed in reverse until Chan halted it saying, “This is about the right place,” and a moment later there he was, a miniature Jack in the bubble uttering the words, 'Wally's Wonder World.'
Dave had watched every move Chan made, his mouth half open in awe. One thing he now knew for sure was that these Orthians had unimagined powers, what with their Dazers and their glowing crystal balls. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better not to try to cross them just in case they really could turn people into mice.
“That will do fine Chan,” smiled BB. “Come on now Alf let's load Jack on board.”
With a great deal of effort because he was rather heavy, BB and Alf picked Jack up and pushed him in through the still open door of his flicar onto the floor. Chan climbed in after him while BB retrieved Jack's now not so white hat and tossed that in as well.
“You get in too please sir,” Alf ordered Dave.
“Don't forget me eskey,” Dave reminded them with a hopeful smile, so they carried that in with them.
Once everybody was inside Chan turned up the volume of the player the recording of Jack's voice informed the Andy driver of their destination, the door closed and off they flew.
Reth woke first. For a moment he lay where he was while his dream still lingered, trying to recall what had happened to him and why he appeared to be lying on the road staring up at the distant blue of the sky and the near shiny pink underside of a flicar. Then a movement and a little sigh next to him caused him to suddenly become aware that he was not alone.
“Beatrice!” he said as a turn of his head brought realisation flooding back.
“Reth!” Beatrice cried weakly. “Am I still dreaming or is it really you?”
“It's me all right,” replied Reth.
Beatrice wept with joy again to find that it certainly was him and that he was very much alive. Reth held her close while assuring her of his continuing love and devotion and as she lay nestled in his arms she reassured him of her never ending deeply felt passionate love for him and when that was all over they stood up and gently dusted each other down.
“What ever happened?” asked Beatrice.
The tender spots on his body and arms, the sore knuckles and the slight ache in his midriff reminded Reth of his battle with his brother. That and his knowledge of the Orthian's and their Dazers gave him enough to work out what had most probably occurred.
“I remember fighting with Jack. After that we must've been beamed by my friends,” he told her.
“You mean they were your friends? I thought they were some sort of vulgar lower class customers come to buy spare parts for their vehicles or whatever from your father.”
“No. Those three came with me. They have Dazers with sleep inducing beams. That's what they put us to sleep with.”
“I've never heard of Dazers,” she said, “but Jack's flicar is gone and they are too so it's obvious that they must have gone together, but I can't imagine Jack letting those sort of persons, I mean the way they're dressed and all into his new flicar. Not for a minute. They must have used some sort of weapon to force him to take them with him. After all, they couldn't take off without him.”
“What do you mean, couldn't take off?”
“Because Andy's only obey their owners commands of course, so they must have forced Jack to give the orders and now they've stolen the flicar and kidnapped him and your father as well!”
“Perhaps” Reth said thoughtfully.
“And what's happened to my Blazer? And where's my purse?” Beatrice suddenly remembered that she had been holding the missing items and began frantically looking about for them. “They've stolen them too!”
“Your purse is over here on the ground” said Reth picking it up from where it lay a short distance away and handing it back to her.
Beatrice snapped it open and glanced inside. “Well there's a relief,” she said flourishing the pink pistol triumphantly.
“Is that some new sort of Peacekeeper?” asked Reth.
“They're the very latest in personal defence. Just one flash and your enemy's ash!”
“That sounds like an awfully final solution.”
“It certainly is. I never go anywhere without my Blazer.”
“Could you put it away now please my sweet?”
“Of course. I'll just put the safety catch back on first. Now where's my CMe?” Beatrice rummaged through the contents of her purse. “I must call the Order Keepers straight away,” she said as she pulled out the device, pearly pink to match her Blazer, flipped it open, thumbed in a coded signal and waited for her call to go through. And waited and waited until the sweetly reasonable tones of the female auto operator finally sounded in her ear and she obediently followed the given directions thumbing in the necessary sequence of numbers as prompted and then waiting some more. “At last,” she said as a male voice finally answered demanding that she give her ID code and answer his questions. “BCB 777 slash 49000865403 . .. Yes. Yes. . . No. . . Yes. . . Yes. . . . . Yes.” She thumbed in another coded signal and snapped the CMe shut. “Bastard crap auto cue answering,” she muttered frowning down at it for a moment before putting it away in her purse again and saying, “Let's go home now Reth darling.”
Reth smiled. “Those are the exact words I've been dreaming of hearing you say for years.”
“Door driver,” Beatrice called.
The flicar's pink door slid open and she stepped up inside. Reth was just about to follow right after her when, all at once, the ball of white fur curled up on the pink, softly padded seat fitted across the rear of the passenger compartment sprang into instant action.
“Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!” it barked, jumping furiously up and down on its four small thin legs tipped with tiny paws. Two little triangles for ears, three black dots for two eyes and a nose and a red mouth lined with needle sharp teeth marked its front end while a fluffy, spring coiled tail wagged madly to and fro at the other.
Beatrice scooped it up into her arms. “Did you miss your mummy then, did you? Did you?” she said lowering her face to make kissing noises through her mask into it's furry stomach before holding it out for introduction. “This is my Snookums. Say hullo to Reth darling.”
“Yip.”
“Don't be frightened. She's quite safe so long as you don't hurt me in any way. She's programmed to bite anyone who does that. This model of dog may be small but it can be quite vicious.”
Cautiously Reth entered the flicar while Beatrice, with a now docile Snookums on her lap sat down and patted the seat next to her, indicating that this was where he should sit. When they were both settled in place pink safety belts fashioned to look like garlands of flowers automatically fastened around them. A Terra Vis screen on the back of the Andy drivers compartment was mutely showing strips of pictures at the side and base with a central image of females displaying over and underwear, jewellery, cosmetics and hairstyles, all flipping past in rapid succession.
Beatrice pushed a button on the console beside her.
“You don't want to watch that. It's my Vis Mag 'Me and Mine'.” she said and the main screen image altered to show a garden full of flowers waving gracefully in an unfelt breeze. Soft soothing music sounded through the cool sweet scented air.
“Interior atmosphere clear,” said a mechanical voice.
Beatrice removed her veil. “Home driver,” she ordered and as the flicar rose smoothly into the air Reth put his arms around her, drew her close and kissed her.
This was what he had so recently been dreaming of doing while under the influence of Chan's Dazer. Only this time it was real and so was the sweetness of her lips. Reth drew back frowning in puzzlement and licked his lips. “What's that taste?”
“It's my Super Luscious Strawberry Lippy,” Beatrice said smiling happily. “I thought you'd remember that flavour. It was always your favourite.”
Reth didn't have the heart to tell her that though he may have liked it before, he didn't remember doing so, and right now he found the taste quite cloyingly over sweet.
Beatrice clasped his hands in hers and said, “Tell me now my dearest, what happened to you?”
Once again Reth told the edited story of his escape from disaster. “Lucky for me I landed on Orth and got a lift home,” he finished.
“How truly wondrous are the ways of Hal who guards over us all,” said Beatrice with round-eyed solemnity.
“Wondrous indeed,” agreed Reth equally solemnly. “Although I still don't understand how it happened. I mean, you getting married again. And to Jack of all people!”
Beatrice burst into tears, sobbing piteously into the already damp scrap of lace she hastily retrieved from her purse.
Reth reacted by immediately put his arms around her again. “Don't cry my sweet! Please don't cry!” he begged.
“But you're cross with me and I can't bear it when you're cross! If Jack hadn't looked so much like you my darling, I never would have done it! It's you I love Reth, I'll always love you!” She fumbled with her dispenser took out two more pills and swallowed them.
“What are they?” asked Reth.
“My Therapist prescribed them for my condition.”
“You have a condition?”
“It's a stress related syndrome. When things get too much for me I have to take them.”
Reth was instantly contrite. “I'm so sorry darling, I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't realise. Please, please don't cry. I love you so much.”
Beatrice smiled through her tears at him. “Then please my sweetest, let's just not talk about my disastrous marriage to your brother any more.”
“All right darling. I'll not say another word.”
“Good,” said Beatrice and she pushed a button on the console beside her. A small door beside the Terra Vis screen folded open downward and a tray filled with an array of coloured frost-coated bottles slid out from its storage compartment. “How about a tipple,” she said brightly,” to celebrate your return. There's Zizz and Snap both with JC, or Up with Viga Juice.”
“I'll have the Up thanks,” said Reth. “I don't like JC. Never have.”
Beatrice raised her eyebrows and gazed at him in wonder. “Really? I don't ever remember that!”
Jack lay sleeping on the floor of the flicar while Dave sat on the seat with his eskey by his feet warily watching the Orthians who were totally absorbed in peering out through the vehicles tinted windows at the drab sameness of suburban Halzone passing below, hoping to Mem something of interest.
Alf noticed the flash of brightness on the skyline above the distant city, the same one as that they had seen on the HoloScreen during their earlier arrival in the Shuttle. “Excuse me sir,” he asked Dave, “but can you tell us what that light up ahead is?”
“Here. See fer yer self.” Dave pushed a button on the console and the main picture on the Terra Vis screen of squadrons of ships flying through space shooting coloured beams at each other and exploding in enormous balls of fire vanished, to be replaced by a map of the city with the line of the flicar flight path picked out on it in red and a row of small icons representing places of interest down the side. “Touch what's on the list t' see it in a closed up.”
Alf followed Dave's advice and after a couple of wrong choices the picture that he wanted came up on the screen. It showed that the light originated from among a collection of antenna spiking up in the centre of a cylindrical construction supported by three giant curving legs that met on its underside. It was identified as 'Middle Point Casino' and, as the tallest structure in the city, it soared imperiously above the mass of aspiring tower buildings that crowded about its base.
“Let's have a look at some other places,” suggested Chan. “I'd like to know what Wally's Wonder World looks like.”
“Touch the triple dub u's,” said Dave.
It was easy enough to find. The picture that popped up showed the mall as a great white, shining, fairy tale type castle, with coloured flags flying from the clusters of pointed turrets spaced around its outer walls. It was set in the middle of a circular moat filled with blue water which, in turn, was surrounded by a wide expanse of red paved open plaza. After that they took turns at studying the map and picking spots for close ups, all the while recording everything they saw in their Mems for later reference.
“Is there still a Big Beef 'n Bacon Burger Take Away somewhere?” Reth asked.
“I suppose so,” Beatrice answered.
“I often thought about eating Crunchy Chick on a Stick, Pork Pops and Double Beef 'n Bacon Fried Cheese Super Big Burgers while I was away. It's been so long since I tasted decent food! Do you think we could get some please Babe?”
Beatrice smiled up at him. “My pet name! Nobody's ever called me Babe but you Big Boy.”
For a moment they gazed deeply into each other's eyes as past intimacies were recalled, then Beatrice said, “Sorry darling, but I'm not really much into eating common takeaway food these days. Wait until we get home and you can order something much nicer from my Chef Deluxe Server.”
Jack dreamt that he stood on a stage draped with flags. A spotlight shone directly on him, yet in spite of its dazzling brightness he could see the audience that lay before him. Packed into every tier and corner of the massive auditorium were men just like him, each one immaculately groomed and dressed in well tailored expensive suits, all standing on their feet, calling out and cheering and clapping and whistling. Great waves of thunderous applause rolled and echoed round the room and it was all for him, the centre of their attention. Beaming with pleasure, he grandiosely gestured and bowed in acknowledgement of their praise . . . and woke to the smell of the new carpet his nose was buried in, a metallic taste of blood in his mouth, and a faint ache in his head. From the slight vibration he could feel and the faint sound of an engine thrumming he knew that he must be lying on the floor of a flicar.
Beatrice attempted to raise the Order Keepers on her CMe again. “I don't understand it,” she said frowning with annoyance. “No answer at all. Why haven't they called me back I'd like to know? Not a squeak yet I said it was urgent. I'll be putting in a complaint, mark my words I will! They've got Extra Fast flicars and Super Spec Surveillance Systems and the best Blazers out, but what happens when you really need them? Nothing! Why your father and Jack could both be murdered by now!”
“My friends aren't killers,” Reth protested.
“So you say. But how can you be sure? There's all sorts of crazies about and some terrible things happen these days. Only last week a friend of mine told me about how her cousin's sister's best friend was drowned in a flood of powdered coffee after one of the MTT receivers in the SunUps cafe where she was trying to buy a double-malted, low-fat, creamy de-caf mocha went wild. Sabotaged by terrorists they said. By the time they dug her out she was gone! Every orifice of her body plugged up with powder! Where's the security when such a terrible thing can happen? Our Security Tax credits are being poured straight down a black hole I reckon!”
Jack heard a voice say, “We're nearly there according to the map.” Cautiously he opened his eyes just a slit. It was enough to see a several pairs of boots, their soles dirtied by dried mud, planted firmly on the black carpet of what he recognised by the gold thread woven through it as being the one in his new flicar. It had been specially made with a woven design embodying his initials, JUB. In an effort to see more he moved his head slightly but the sudden sharp twinge he felt down the back of his neck forced him inadvertently to give a small gasp of pain.
“He's waking up,” someone said.
“Shall I beam him again?” said another.
“Put them both to sleep now,” said the first voice.
A pink light blinded him and Jack fell asleep again.
Reth said suddenly, “I know my friends aren't killers and I don't think they'd need to force Jack to order his flicar. He would've been asleep so I reckon they probably used one of their recorded Mems of Jack when he was talking. They could play the recording back on their portable player and use his voice to give the order.”
“Recorded Mems? What are you talking about?”
Reth explained about Mems and Beatrice said, “You really mean to tell me that they record everything that happens to them and that they can play the whole lot back for anybody to hear and see?”
“Yes.”
“That's disgusting!”
“They don't think so.”
“Well I do! And so would any decent minded person who values their personal privacy. And you say those nasty little perverted voyeurs are your friends?” Beatrice shuddered theatrically. “Disgusting!” she repeated.
“But surely Mems are no more invasive of privacy then a CMe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone can see you on your Cme when you answer it can't they?”
“The seeing function on a CMe is merely one of the many extra options available. Nobody ever turns it on,” Beatrice haughtily informed him.
As Jack's flicar approached Wally's and the city centre, it dropped down to a lower level and reduced speed, an automatic action which enabled it to join in on the tail end of a slow moving queue of flicars waiting to land. While they were gradually transported in line along the designated flight path, the Orthians peered through the forward windows hoping to see their objective, but were unable to catch even the briefest glimpse of it between the tall buildings that surrounded them. The stony facades of the older buildings were all overlain by large lighted screens displaying in moving pictures the abundance of commodities and services available to the fortunate citizens of Halzone, while the shiny metal and mirror glass walls of the newer structures when not flashing with advertisments, reflected and distorted the shining display of the rest myriad times over. It was a totally brilliant resplendent array which blocked out any clear view of Wally's. After a lengthy hovering wait, during which the Orthians became a little concerned that Jack and Dave might wake prematurely and would need dazing again, the flicar zoomed forward allowing them only a fleeting view of the mall before it settled down on the landing stage. Following on the actions of those around them, they used Jacks recorded order to open the door and alighted, allowing the flicar to roll away onto the automatic customer parking service elevator. As it sank down out of sight for storage below they were at last able to turn their attention toward Mem recording the mall.
They were near the outer edge of the flat open expanse of the plaza, at least ten times larger than Central Square back in Unity, surfaced in a hard, pink tinted material inlaid with a pattern of intertwined triple Ws in red. The Mega Domed Extra Grand Super Hyper Shopping Mall, called Wally's Wonder World or triple dub u as most Terrans knew it, stood in its centre, rising straight up from out of the surrounding moat which was separated from the open plaza by a low red wall. Wallys was truly massive, a great shining castle glittering in the sun much larger in reality then it had looked to be on the flicar screen. Its sheer outer walls and tall pointed turrets were faced with a prismatic material which refracted the light into a billion little dazzling rainbows all faithfully reflected in the mirror still surface of the moat.
The area next to the landing stage where the Orthians stood Memming was busy with a constant flow of potential customers alighting from flicars. They were dressed in a varied assortment of clothing for what was dictated as being fashionable in Halzone changed almost by the day, which was fortunate for the Orthians, for it meant that they were in no danger of standing out from the crowd. Most of the Terrans here were adult females, always with an Andy and often with a child or two, or sometimes more, in tow. Most wore semi-transparent masks covering the lower half of their faces and many chatted into the CMe's they wore dangling from torcs clipped round their necks with an audio plug in one ear. The air was filled with the sounds of one sided conversations along with cheerfully light and bright music coming from an unseen source, the shrill voices of children and the muffled roar of city traffic. One thing every Terran had in common was an impatience to get on with their shopping, and the Orthians were unknowingly blocking the way. That is until Chan received a bump in the back from a big woman accompanied by her two super size children and an Andy.
“Move!” she snarled at the group.
Obediently the three Orthians did as requested so as to allow her and other customers unhindered passage toward a nearby entrance to the mall. It was one of several, all wide, high arched clear covered tunnels with multiple long travelators moving inside, that rose at a slight angle from their base point on the plaza over the low wall across the moat and on into the castle through a similarly arching opening. Set above every one of them on the castle wall was an extra large multiple screen Terra Vision which flashed an endless stream of pictures to the prospective customers both outside on the plaza and in the process of entering, informing them of the stupendous bargains and diverse delights that awaited them inside. A row of turnstyles, revolving metal bars set between long waist high metal blocks with lighted slots in them, blocked off the tunnels at their plaza entrances. Four tall black uniformed, big booted and shiny helmeted guards stood in pairs at both ends of each row. Their faces were concealed behind mirrored visors and the assorted devices important for their duties which hung from the wide belts buckled round each ample middle, included two guns snug inside large holsters strapped securely to their sides. The words 'Order Keeper' were emblazoned on both their chests and backs,and the printed letters 'OK' prominent on the front of their helmets.
Narrow platforms were set above the turnstyles, and on each stood an Andy, dressed in a smart green and red uniform with a wide grin on its face and WWW written across the front of the cap on its constantly nodding head. 'Welcome to Wally's Wonder World' it piped in a shrill, endlessly cheerful litany. A message written in brightly flashing lights ran continuously across the platforms rim. It read 'Only valid Credit Cards can be used to obtain entry'. Eagerly the crowd pressed forward, thrusting their Credit Cards into the waiting slots and then, after the green glowing sign fitted into the frame above had flashed the word VALID and the mechanism had clicked round, walking through the turn styles, retrieving their now registered customer cards, and stepping onto the travelators. Once on the moving belts they become part of the stream of life being effortlessly carried up over the moat, through the sparkle of the domes alien extermination field, and on toward their freely chosen collective and acquisitive destiny.
An opening from one of the several exit tunnels which protruded out from the mall stood a short distance away. It was much like the entrance in appearance, except that had freely turning styles at its base, and it bore streams of shopping satiated Terrans followed by their tireless Andy attendants either carrying their purchases or pushing full to the brim Crash Free Carry Carts on its down ward travelators. MTT was available but it could be expensive so smart shoppers looking for a bargain inevitably used the much cheaper Andys they already owned as goods carriers. Once back on the malls open plaza they all determined that reaching their destination be it public or private transport as quickly as possible, was of the utmost importance. Even though it was impossible for the carts to actually crash hard into each other by reason of the soft padding all round, and even though there appeared to be plenty of room, it was obviously not enough. Loud voiced disagreements and shouted disputes over precedence continually occurred, and Andys were constantly being bumped by carts propelled by other Andys, for it was their owners that gave the orders and many of them seemed to delight in scoring a hit on the attendant of the any other Terran who annoyed them.
“Praise be to Max for our Mems,” said Alf surveying the scene.
“Where's the dome?” asked Chan. “I can't see it.”
“That's odd. Neither can I,” Alf agreed.
“Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there,” said BB. “Its most likely transparent.”
“Well I want to have a good look at it,” said Chan and she led the way forward, dodging and weaving around the Terran shoppers intending to examine the invisible a little more closely.
They reached a point where they could read the words 'Beware of the Dome' and 'Another Fine Nano Particle Product' written in Terran in a continuous line along the top of the low red wall and Chan was just about to reach out and touch the empty looking space above it when all at once, the whooping scream of a siren split the air. Chan stayed her hand and turned, as did everyone within earshot, toward the source of the noise. It came from one of the entrance turn-styles where the sign above it flashed the word INVALID in bright red. As the crowd thinned moving rapidly away from the vicinity of the disturbance, the Orthians were able to see that it had stopped revolving and that a terrified young Terran male was trying to escape from where he was trapped in its rigid metal mesh embrace. But not for long. The two guards nearest to the trouble spot strode forward to retrieve the offender from his temporary prison.
“Stop! Stop! It's a mistake! I'm not an invalid!” the terrified Terran squawked as one of the OKs unlocked the contraption with a gadget selected from his belt. Effortlesslythey picked him up by the arms and with his feet dangling uselessly began to carry him away between them. All the while he continued to protest his innocence and struggle until one of the OKs silenced him with a sharp rap on the side of the head from the short, heavy looking truncheon that he pulled from off his belt.
The Orthians watched and Memmed it all.
Jack dreamt he stood on a stage draped with flags again. A spotlight shone on him and in spite of its brightness he could see the audience, packed into every tier and corner of the massive auditorium that lay before him. They were all adult males, immaculately groomed and dressed in well tailored expensive suits and they were all standing on their feet, cheering and clapping and whistling and calling out and he was thoroughly enjoying being the centre of their attention. For a few moments that was, because somehow, something about their applause began to bother him. Why were they calling out like that? And was that laughter? It almost sounded as if they were making fun of him. What in Hals name were they laughing for? And what were they pointing at? Puzzled by their strange behaviour, he looked down at himself to see what it was that they found so very amusing. And then Jack realised the awful truth. It was him!
He was standing before them utterly and completely naked with his most private parts exposed, and the audience thought it hilarious.
Dave was dreaming much the same dream as before. Overhead arched the clearest of clear blue skies and all around lay a meadow full of lushly soft green grass where colourful sweet scented flowers danced in the gentle breeze. The sun was warm on his back and he was running, running faster then the wind with an easy loping stride on two good legs but this time there was no joyous laughter as he ran because he knew for sure certain that something was chasing him! And that it was getting closer and closer all the time! And that if it caught him . . . Dave's heart pounded with the increase in effort as he felt its hot breath on the back of his neck.
“In view of what just happened it's obvious that even if Wally's has any oranges we'll never be able to buy them without having Terran Credit Cards,” said Alf, “so I suggest that we find Jack's bank and change our tokens.”
“There is the other option,” Chan pointed out. “What about Dave's friend?”
“I think we should try the official method first. It might be wiser not to get mixed up with anything that could be even slightly illegal. We don't want to call attention to ourselves.”
“Very well,” Chan conceded. “Dave's friend can be Plan B. Now how do we get out of here?”
Turning away from the Dome, they began looking for a way out. They saw now that there were several arches gaping open along the outer edges of the plaza with Exit written in Terran above them. Built to slope down and tunnel under the traffic choked roadways encircling the Mall they too were fitted with travelators to carry the citizens safely into the rest of Halzone City.
Beatrice said, “Nearly home now darling. See. There's my Dome,” and she pointed forward toward the leafy tops of the tall trees showing above the other side of the high wall they were rapidly approaching.
Reth stared through the window. “I can't see any dome,” he said.
“Of course not,” Beatrice replied. “It's invisible to the naked eye because it's built of the very finest nanno particles ever devised.”
When a collision with the brick wall appeared to be almost inevitable, the flicar suddenly veered off sideways away and landed on the empty road next to the pair of tall, ornately decorative wrought metal gates set in it. Through them, Reth could see the curving gravelled driveway lined with beds of beautiful flowers and graceful trees that lay on the other side. In obedience to a silent coded signal emitted by the flicar the gates swung inward allowing them to roll in through. As they passed through the gap, a sparkling blue light engulfed the craft and Reth felt a strange tingling sensation on his skin.
“What was that?”
“Just my Domes alien debugging field,” explained Beatrice. “It operates automatically in case we picked up any strays.”
“Oh.”
On they went around the curve and up the driveway, while Reth wondered how many alien strays there were waiting around to be picked up and why they were deemed to be dangerous.
The trees thinned out and “Destination reached,” said the Andy driver as the flicar came to a halt in front of the magnificence that was Beatrice's home.
Jack was furious. He had woken up feeling rather groggy and upset, and after gathering his senses and getting to his feet had deduced by the notice fastened to the wall right outside the window of the flicar informing all non Andys that it was illegal and highly dangerous to remain inside of a vehicle during the WWW's parking procedure, that he was about to be shunted into an underground car stacking slot.
“What in Hals name is going on! Return us to the surface immediately you imbecile!” he shouted at his Andy driver.
Dave woke as the flicar rose upward to the loading stage, the panic from his dream still with him. “Save me! F' Hals sake save me!” he whimpered standing shakily upright and grabbing at Jack for support.
“Pull yourself together you silly old goat,” snapped Jack. “Door open,” he ordered, “and call the OKs driver. A serious offence has been committed here and I want the perpetrators arrested immediately! They can't have got far.”
As soon as the door opened he jumped out from the flicar. From here, much of the plaza was hidden by the ranks of waiting vehicles and the busy shoppers loading up their purchases and themselves so he pulled out Dave's eskey, lugged it over to a relatively clear spot and stepped up on top of its flat fitted lid. Now he was tall enough to see where the criminals might be in among the crowds of shoppers filling the Plaza.
Alf, BB and Chan were making their way toward the nearest tunnel exit when it happened.
“Stop or we shoot!”
The shouted command coming from behind them was clearly audible above the roar of the city. Looking back they saw Jack's head and his hand with one finger pointing toward them sticking up above the crowd right beside the helmeted heads of two tall OK guards. Both of the OKs waved big ugly looking weapons threateningly in the air and one also held the cone shaped voice amplifier he had unclipped from his belt up to the mouth piece of his face shield.
“Stop or we shoot!” he bellowed through it again.
The Orthians couldn't see Dave but he was there praying to Hal that the lid of his eskey didn't crack under Jack's weight. Then deciding that as things were getting real exciting and he didn't want to miss out on playing a part in them, he suddenly jumped up and using one hand pulled the amplifier in the startled OK's hold down to his level.
“Aliens! They're aliens,” Dave screeched through it, and following Jack's example he vaguely indicate the Orthians direction with an excitedly trembling finger of his other raised hand.
Thinking quickly, Alf instantly yelled “Aliens!” and pointed forward toward the backs of the unsuspecting Terrans in front of him.
BB followed Alf's lead. “There they go!” he called out.
“Do something dammit!” Jack screamed furiously at the OKs. “They're getting away!”
Crack! Crack!
The sharp sound of two fiercely hot explosive Blazer shots echoed round the plaza as the OKs fired over the heads of the crowd. For an instant the startled mass stood frozen, then pandemonium broke out as screaming, panic stricken shoppers scrambled for safety. Caught in the frantic rush to escape, the Orthians were swept off in two different directions, BB and Chan to the right and Alf away to the left.
Beatrice's grandiose multi-level residence of pink marble with blue tinted mirror glass windows stood on a rise in the middle of a broad expanse of ever-green never-grow lawn that sloped gently downward on one side toward a small lake where a central fountain spouting water in graceful arcs sent rippling waves across its sparkling surface. All around lay a beautifully landscaped garden set with curving flower beds filled with masses of bright blossoms, groups of exotic specimen trees and dotted with life size painted imitation stone sculptures of elegantly draped shapely ladies and handsome well built gentlemen in delicately romantic poses.
“Since when could you afford all this?” Reth asked in astonishment.
“Ever since I began investing my share of the profits from J and B Consolidated Halistic Initiatives Ltd into the First Incorporated Banking and Spiritual Union Limited. I bought this place after my level of taxable income looked like it might become something of a problem. Nobody in their right mind and with a half-way decent accountant gives credits away to the taxman. You see, as a FIBSUL capital investment, this house and the other properties in my portfolio are all tax exempt.”
“I see.”
“Door open,” Beatrice ordered and with Snookums tucked under one arm she and Reth stepped out and onto the waiting glass enclosed travelator fitted with elegant safety rails. It immediately began to move, carrying them up over the broad steps between two of the several tall columns supporting the roof of the porch, through the automatically opening blue tinted glass double doors etched with a pattern of intertwined roses and on into a spacious semicircular vestibule. Soft music and the scent of roses redolent in the temperature stabilised air greeted their senses as the travelator came to a gentle halt, allowing them to step off and sink almost ankle deep into the pristine white, luxuriously soft, wall-to-wall carpeted floor. Delicately legged glass-topped tables with vases full of perfectly arranged pink roses balanced on them stood here and there about the room, while overhead a glittering crystal chandelier hung suspended by a long gold chain from the centre of the vaulted ceiling three floors above. Half way across the room a broad marble staircase with an elegantly wrought gilded metal and polished wood banister curved gracefully up around a great glass tube etched with the same decorative pattern as that on the entrance doors. The walls of the vestibule were decorated with a painted mural showing a sylvan scene where plump nearly naked females and lustfully leering extra hairy males with goats horns protruding from their foreheads and hooves instead of feet gaily cavorted in amongst the graceful trees of a lush landscape.
A tall physically well developed young man with an even golden tan, short cut bleached white hair and handsomely regular facial features wearing a tiny pair of tightly fitting white shorts and a matching tank top with 'Ralph 041' printed in red on the left chest, stepped forward to meet them.
“Vill you be vanting your massage directly Madam?” he asked.
“Not right now Ralph,” Beatrice replied. “You may retire and wait for further orders.”
Ralph obediently marched over to a concealed doorway in the wall. It slid silently open, he entered, and it slid shut again behind him.
Reth frowned darkly after him. “What's going on? Who's that?”
“Silly boy!” Beatrice smiled indulgently. “Why, I do believe you're jealous again! But you've no need to be my darling. Ralph's just the very latest development in Personal Aide Technology.”
“You mean that Ralph's an Andy?”
“It's rather more than an Andy my sweet. Ralph is an extremely expensive piece of hardware loaded with enough software to give him massage skills par excellence! Now where's that stupid . . .” Beatrice broke off in mid sentence as she remembered where her Handy Maid was. “Crap! Oh well, we don't need that heap of outdated rubbish. This way Reth dearest. We'll use the lift. The stairs are only for decoration.”
She placed her Andy dog feet first on the carpet, said “Heel Snookums,” and with both Reth and Snookums following she crossed the vestibule's expanse of yielding white carpeted softness over to the lift waiting in the base of the tube.
Chan and BB climbed the first flight of concrete steps that they found leading upward and emerged onto the paved footpath of the city. They had foregone the temptation of Memming the big brilliantly lit windows of the hundreds of shops crammed with an astonishing variety of carefully arranged glitz and glamour available for purchase by the discerning customer that filled every level of Halzones spacious underground network of tunnels in order to reach the street and look for Alf as soon as possible. Here in the built up centre of Halzone the richly grandiose erections soared skyward above shops identical to those lying beneath their feet, the only difference here being that a pale strip of sky was visible high overhead above the multiple layers of wiring strung every which way between tall metal poles and the buildings themselves. On one side of the footpath were the shops, while on the other a low curb was all that separated pedestrians from the endless streams of two way vehicular traffic packing the narrow road. Grim faced CMee using Terrans intent on going about their business with as little delay as possible hurried along the footpaths on both sides of the street. Some of them made use of Fender Andys to aid in their owner's advancement by emitting a series of constant beeping warnings as they strode swiftly forward before them but generally most of the Andys followed behind carrying their owners property. Other Terrans used two or more Andys at a time, with fenders in front and carriers at back, and occasionally Andys carried their owners along on specially designed chairs suspended from poles. Much to the Orthians puzzlement, for they were taught when children that meals should always be eaten while sitting down, many of the pedestrians appeared to be so eager to get to where they wanted to go that they were eating while in transit, their hands full of food and their mouths rhythmically chewing.
“They must be really hungry,” said BB.
It was very noisy, with all the shouting into Cmes, the beeping Andys and the roar of motorised traffic. It also reeked with a clash of odours; the stench of burning hydrocarbons, the perfumes liberally splashed on themselves by Terrans hopeful of concealing their bodily odours, the peculiar smells of strange foodstuffs and the occasional whiff from gross unidentifiable nastinesses mingled randomly together in the hot heavy atmosphere. Discarded food containers and wrappers with uneaten leftovers in them, drink bottles both whole and smashed plus other miscellaneous rubbish carelessly dropped by pedestrians or thrown from passing vehicles lay in the gutters and underfoot.
“Disgusting!” snorted Chan as she fastidiously stepped over something that might have been edible at one time but was now very squishy and heedlessly trodden on several times by the look of it.
An incessant flickering and flashing of light emitted by the multiple luridly colourful advertisements with their attention arresting displays were everywhere they looked, yet amid all this plethora of consumer information, there was not one street name or any other indicator, so far as the Orthians could see, to tell them where they actually were.
“Which way?” BB almost shouted into Chan's ear.
“From what I saw in Jack's flicar, Capital Place should be to the right,” Chan near shouted back. “That's where Alf will go.”
The lift stopped on the first floor and Beatrice and Reth stepped out onto the thick carpet of the broad, semicircular landing beside the top of the stairs. The polished banisters with their gilded supports which rose from below on both sides of the stair, continued on to left and right bf the lift tube above the vestibule below. Several, deeply recessed, polished wood panelled doors, stood widely spaced apart along the curving pale pink wall facing them.
“Come on now Reth darling. My door is over there on the right. I've a whole suite of private rooms with Terra Vision and an MTT server so we won't want for anything, will we?”
Reth looked toward the nearest door on the left. There was a plaque displaying a picture of white roses fastened to it with the name Sharon and Private written on it. “Who's Sharon? Do you share the house or something?”
“My daughter lives here too. That's her suite,” said Beatrice waving a hand casually toward the door, “but she's not in right now.”
“Your daughter?”
“Oh dear. I forgot to tell you didn't I?”
“Forgot?”
“There's two of them,” Beatrice stammered, her gaze sliding off to one side past Reth. “Children, I mean, though they're mostly grown up now.” Her attempt at a smile failed as Reth stood silent. “There's my daughter Sharon, she's the eldest,” Beatrice twisted her hands nervously together as she spoke, “and then there's Jackson, my son who's nearly thirteen. That's his suite over there.” She indicated his suites direction with a slight movement of her head.
Reth walked over to look at the closed door on the extreme left. There was a wide band striped diagonally in black and yellow with the words ‘OK LINE DO NOT CROSS' printed several times along its length, taped over the alcove at about waist height, and a piece of cardboard with 'KEEP OUT FUCK OFF THIS MEANS YOU' crudely lettered on it above a badly drawn skull and cross bones, hung crookedly from a large nail roughly hammered into the doors otherwise pristine surface. Now that he was closer Reth could hear the muffled noise issuing from within the room. It sounded as if a mighty battle involving several large mechanical monsters throwing each other at regular intervals against heavy sheets of metal while stomping on hordes of screaming wailing victims of their displeasure was taking place inside. He could even feel the floor beneath his feet trembling in sympathetic vibration.
Beatrice came to stand beside him and touch him tentatively on the arm. “He's playing his music again,” she said. “Best not to disturb him right now. Come along darling, you'll meet them both later.”
Reth didn't move. “Why didn't you tell me about them before?” he asked.
Beatrice began to weep again, the salt tears welling up from her Never Run Mascara lashed eyes and streaming down her rouged cheeks as she frantically fumbled for her pill dispenser.
Sharon made a radiant bride. She stood hand in hand with her lover before the Andy marriage celebrant and gave her reply to the question 'Do you take Jan Baxter as your legal spouse?' in a soft yet firm voice.
“I do.”
They sealed the agreement with a kiss, signed for the certificate of legitimate union and the brief pre-paid-for ceremony was over. As they exited from the orange-blossom-scented-for-only-fifty-credits-extra chapel, the images of Sharon's choice of white roses filling the screen walls vanished. Past the queue of couples waiting to take advantage of the special wedding deal (today only twenty five thousand credits all in) they went and out into the street.
“Let's have a celebratory Oomph or two now,” suggested Jan.
“Let's,” Sharon agreed. “While I still can.”
“Exactly.” Jan smiled at her new partner. “Once you have the AI you'll have to be extra careful. Alcohol is poison for a growing embryo, so there'll no drinkies then.”
“Exactly.” Sharon smiled in return.
Alf had no idea where he was. The street was busy with both pedestrian and motor traffic, and the noise, stench and heat did nothing to help him in his confusion. He had lost all sense of direction and there was no place private enough for him to open his Mem player and check with the map he had recorded from Jack's flicar. There wasn't a street sign anywhere either so far as he could see, and he dared not ask for directions feeling it unwise to call attention to himself so soon after his escape from the OKs in the plaza. So he made a random choice and set off to the left hoping it was the right way.
Chan and BB had already found Capital Place. Unlike the majority of the streets in Halzone city, it was a clearly sign posted, remarkably wide thoroughfare. However, the usual extra imposing buildings lined it on both sides, all crowded together and vying for custom via the lighted signs and moving pictures displayed on their exteriors, informing prospective investors why this or that individual financial institution was so very superior to any other. When they reached Number 999 at the far end of the street, Chan and BB found it to be a particularly striking structure with the biggest and brightest show in the Place, featuring great twisting columns of small gold and silver cards appearing magically just above the entrance and whirling to the top of its facade where they vanished into a big horizontal slit. The two Orthians joined the constant inward stream of customers passing through the two sets of automatically opening double doors, and entered into the foyer. It was spacious enough to accommodate a great circular pool of crystal clear water with a fountain in the middle spouting numerous jets of sparkling water high into the air, as well as a larger than life bronzed sculpture on a high plinth. The main statue was that of a heavily muscled man wearing the financier's uniform suit and a hat with Mysa written on it. Clenched in the fist of one raised outstretched arm was the head of a serpent, it's tail falling down uselessly to the ground behind him. The serpents mouth gaped open in his choking hold, spewing forth a great torrent of credits into the waiting open arms of the naked women and two cherubic children who knelt at his feet. Carved around the base of the plinth were the words 'YOU CAN RELY ON MYSA TO CARE' and it was supposed to represent the triumph of the J and B Consolidated Halistic Initiatives Ltd Bank over any forces that might threaten its financial stability, as well as the benefits available to Mysa's fortunate customers.
Chan and BB looked toward the interior doors which provided access to the inner sanctum of the establishment. They were furnished with turnstyles almost identical to those at the entrance to Wally's except that they had the words 'Welcome to Mysa' written in continuously flashing golden lights above them and the two guards standing at either end had wide bright smiles fixed to their faces and the word Mysa written in gold across their chests. In spite of these, it was obvious that without cards to insert into the turn-styles slot this was as far as the two Orthians could go.
“Looks like this is as far as we can go,” said BB.
“It certainly does.”
“Under the circumstances I think we should leave right now and go find Alf. He has Jack's card in his pocket and it might serve as a pass to let us in.”
“So long as Jack's not told them to be on the lookout for us.”
“True. We'll ask Alf what he thinks about it when we find him.”
“He can't be that far off,” said Chan. “I'll see if I can locate him.”
They went out through the doors and moved away down the Place until they found a quiet corner where Chan could consult with her watch without her action being registered as too unusual. She turned the outer ring around the rim of the dial face a notch to the right and waited for a minute or two as it switched over to finder mode.
“There he is,” she said as a tiny point of bright light glowed on the flat green shaded field marked with paler lines to indicate distance, “We'll have to hurry! It looks very much as if he's gone wandering way off to the east somewhere!”
She turned her watch back to its normal mode and they hurried back along Capital Place hoping to catch up with Alf before he went too far.
One Terran hour after leaving the Mall Alf admitted to himself that he was lost. If Halzone city had been laid out in an orderly fashion same as Unity, or if he could see a street sign or a landmark of significance that might jog his recollection of what he'd seen on Jack's map, or if he could find a place away from the masses of Terrans where he might consult with his mems, he wouldn't have become so hopelessly confused. There did not seem to be anywhere private enough, and now Alf was in a definitely ill-favoured section of the city. Here the narrow, twisting, broken surfaced streets were lined by grimy blank faced buildings with many of the ground level shops closed and boarded up. Those that were open gaudily informed passers by of the alcohol, girls and gambling available within. Solidly built tough looking males with shaven bullet heads and mirrored dark glasses stood in the doorways of the establishments with their beefy tattooed arms folded across their barrel chests ready to check out the customers. Cars were parked in garbage filled gutters and strange symbols mixed with vulgarities were daubed in coloured paint on every surface within easy reach and some that were more difficult to get at. Vehicular traffic was light, with Andys conspicuously absent. The mostly male pedestrians strolled casually along both the pavement and the road or stood idling about singly or in groups, often leaning against walls or anything else that might offer them support. Under-dressed females, openly displaying their charms were ranged along the curb.
Resolutely Alf plodded on past these temptations until he rounded a corner and come to a stop at a place where the street ended at the intersection point of several other torturous Terran ways, in an irregularly shaped open space with a headless, one-armed, graffiti decorated statue of some long forgotten dignitary canted crookedly on a plinth in its approximate middle. The surrounding buildings were all boarded up, there were no cars, and only a scattering of aimlessly loitering Terrans about. Here was an almost deserted island of calm, just what Alf was hoping for. 'Now I can look at my mems,' he thought.
Chan checked her watch again. The tiny blip showing Alf's position assured her that they were going in the right direction and that he had stopped moving.
“This way” she said as she led BB deeper into the tangled thoroughfares of Halzone.
Even as he moved toward a nearby quiet corner, Alf heard the noise coming from a street on his left, and a moment later, with a ragged chorus of whistles, shouts and yells, a horde of young males burst out from it. They waved red and yellow flags, their faces were painted vertically half and half in the same two colours, and they carried a variety of weapons in their hands such as bulbouos clubs and long stout sticks which they brandished menacingly above their heads. Some held heavy metal chains which they swung about and rattled noisily along the ground to add to the din. Almost at the same time a nearly identical mob of shouting, weapon and chain toting youths poured out from a street to Alf's right, the only difference being that they waved flags of blue and green and their faces were painted to match. The few Terrans loitering in the area rapidly vanished from the scene, but Alf, having previously watched an episode of 'Regenesis' back on Orth in which a demonstration to show dissatisfaction had taken place, decided that here was an opportunity for him to accurately record just such an event.
“It'll make a marvellous Mem to take home,” he thought. “A genuine display of organised ad hoc disruptive behaviour.”
He backed off a little to stand in what he judged to be a safe position, not too near yet not too far from where he hoped he would obtain a really good Mem of the clash.
“Fuckin' red arse holes!”
The shout came from the mob off to his right as the gap between the two forces narrowed.
“Fuckin' blue bastards!” came the reply from the other side.
A large rock thrown from somewhere in the back of one side or the other, Alf wasn't quite sure which, drew the first blood. It plummeted down from high in the air to shatter on the road and spatter those unfortunates in the front lines with a razor sharp shower of broken shards resulting in mostly minor, yet gory, red rage inducing wounds to unprotected flesh. It was followed by a veritable hail of rocks, stones, bricks and other missiles brought by the protagonists precisely for the purpose, flung up into the air to fill it with a momentarily suspended menace before they crashed and smashed down in a heavy hard rain on the heads of both sides. Shouts of fury mingled with screams of pain as the two opposing forces, galvanised into action by an infectious overwhelming need for violence, abruptly rushed headlong at each other, madly flailing about with their weapons in an undisciplined yet determined attempt to seriously damage or perhaps even slaughter as many of the opposition as possible. All at once, the peaceful area around the broken statue had become a blood stained battlefield.
Chan said, “Alf must be somewhere round that next corner.”
The street ahead was blocked by a traffic jam of vehicles their engines growling and their Andy drivers waiting patiently. Most of the passengers though, were shouting angrily, as were the non Andy drivers who also blew their cars horns in a cacophony of sound.
BB stopped, placing his hand on her arm. “What's that?”
She halted, for even above the nearby noise she could hear it too, a terrible crashing and banging mingled with shouts and yells coming from beyond the bend in the street just ahead. Even as they hesitated a much louder sound, a shriek of sirens rising rapidly in pitch and intensity came from behind and above them. Suddenly the street was bathed in alternating flashes of red and blue light. BB and Chan looked skyward toward the source of the noise and the colours, and saw that they came from the fleet of flicars painted in wide black and yellow rings, marked on their undersides with the initials OK and a string of numbers. As they passed overhead, the echoing stridence of their wailing sirens was nearly deafening in the enclosed space of the canyon between the buildings.
Cautiously, the Orthians along with a few other curious pedestrians followed in their wake. Part way round the bend they went, halting when they reached a point close enough to see where the OK fleet were gathered, hovering in a howling swarm above whatever it was that demanded their attention in the open space ahead where the street ended. Even as they watched, vents in the bellies of the flicars opened to release several small round dark objects. Down these dropped and the whoomp whoomp of muffled explosions could be heard as the bombs, bursting before they touched the ground sent clouds of thick yellow vapour drifting through the air.
“Gas!” someone screamed and immediately the scene became one of chaos as everybody in the vicinity tried to escape as fast as possible, pushing, shoving, falling and even trampling over each other amid the stalled traffic in their panic stricken effort to get away.
The rioting mob directly beneath the gas bombs when they exploded were almost instantly knocked out by the fumes, losing their senses and dropping helplessly down as their legs folded up beneath them. Although Alf missed being immediately affected by the gas, he was still close enough to receive a large dose of the sickly sweet tasting sticky yellow cloud. He tried not to inhale the awful stuff, holding his breath and putting his arm across his face to cover his nose and mouth and in spite of his burning badly watering eyes he even managed to stagger away a few steps before completely losing control of his limbs. As he fell to his knees, the intense sensation of suffocation overwhelmed him, causing him to gasp for air, a reaction that inevitably filled his lungs with gas. A moment later and Alf collapsed completely, joining the other unconscious victims lying crumpled on the ground.
Fortunately Chan and BB didn't inhale any of the drifting gas and although they ran with the crowd they had, by some miracle, escaped without being knocked down by stampeding Terrans. A short time later, judging that the fumes had dispersed somewhat, they therefore cautiously ventured out from their place of refuge in a closed shop doorway to look for Alf. Back up the street and around the curve they went, and then halted at the edge of the place which had so recently been filled with the furious violence of a battle. Before them now, in the open space, lay the inert forms of the gassed along with the debris of their
The OKs swept back and forth above the still forms in a carefully ordered formation, probing the passive bodies below them with the long fingers of sparkling blue light that they beamed down from their flicars noses. Vulture like Terrans wearing ugly face masks to conceal their identity and prevent them from inhaling any residual gas had already gathered to pick over the possessions of the immobilised. They scurried furtively about, expertly evading the beams as they stowed their booty away into the bags they carried.
Within minutes of BB and Chan's arrival on the scene, a squadron of unmarked black flicars appeared, buzzing up the street and waiting hovering in an arc at the perimeter of the open space. As the OKs finished their job, they flew up and away and the black flicars took over, coming in low and pausing directly over the bodies that the OK's blue beam had lingered on. They then extended six telescopic legs to stand on, opened double flaps on their bellies, extruded two long arms with large shovel shaped hands on the ends from the cavity and swiftly scooped up the chosen into the interior. Each black flicar repeated the pausing, standing and scooping actions several times before finally closing its flaps and flying away.
“Oh no!” BB gasped in dismay.
“What is it?” asked Chan.
BB had caught sight of one of the victims vanishing into a black belly and there was no mistaking that form and those clothes. “I saw Alf being picked up,” he replied.
Chan surreptitiously consulted her finder again. “You're right. Alf's blip is moving away to the west. Where do you think they're taking him?”
“Obviously he's been taken into custody,” said BB.
“You mean arrested?”
“What else?”
“And taken to prison?”
“Probably.”
“What shall we do?” Chan's concern was obvious from her tone.
“I don't know. And I don't think there's anything in the 'What Happens Next' file in our Mems that covers an event like this.”
“No. There isn't. So what are we going to do? We have to do something! We just can't let him be put away in some awful cell or . . .”
“We'll work out a plan of our own then, won't we,” said BB encouragingly.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Of course.”
They stood irresolutely watching as the last remaining selected were safely loaded up into a black flicar, and they were still there after it had flown away when Halzone's Sanitary Squad arrived in the form of several bulky red and white striped flicars,. Their rear doors flipped back open to form wide ramps which teams of Andys wearing white coveralls marched down. They immediately started work, filling up the flicars with the casualties left lying on the ground. Whether dead or alive, being incapable of resistance meant they all could be treated in the same manner. Once securely fastened ontO-Bare metal stretchers by wide webbing straps, they were picked up and carried off to be packed in tiers on the racks fitted inside the waiting transports. When filled to capacity each red and white flicar flew away, until there were no more bodies to collect. Only a scattering of scavengers sorting through the left behind litter in the hope of finding lost treasures remained.
“Come on,” said BB as he turned and began walking away.
Chan hurried after him. “Where are we going?”
“Right now I think our best option is to head west and see if we can pick up Alf's blip again.”
“He could be hundreds of qubits away by now!”
“However far off it is that Alf has been transported doesn't justify our not trying to find him.”
“Of course we're going to find him! It's just that if we want to catch up with his signal within a reasonable time we'll need to do more than walk, and that means having credits to pay for travel.”
“Right. So keep a look out for a likely place where we might exchange some of our tokens without already having cards, or calling unnecessary attention to ourselves. Dave's friend can't be the only Terran in Halzone willing to do a deal.”
V and Ratty squatted on the bed to sort through the stuff in the pack, tipping its contents out onto the stained mattress between them. So far the takings from the demo were pretty average, cheap watches, a few low value CCs and some CMes with call time left on them. The gun must have been at the bottom of the pack because it fell out last on top of the heap. V grabbed it and examined it curiously. It was quite small, with a butt that fitted easily into his hand allowing his forefinger to curl smoothly around the trigger inside its guard. His firsthand experience of firearms didn't cover this model, so he aimed it at the old easy chair in the corner and fired. As he felt the faint click of connection, a pretty pink flash floodlit the filthy furniture and the grimy wall behind.
“Must be a fuckin' toy,” he sneered.
Ratty wasn't listening. “Fuck me! Look at this!” he exclaimed, his shrill voice squeaking with excitement.
He had been pawing through the rest of the pile, finding only some new yet old fashioned clothing, several containers of blue liquid, some biscuits and a flat black box he couldn't work out how to open, none of which he judged to be of any great value. But what he had found in the easily opened drawstring pouch quite surely was. V turned to stare down at the five pieces of gold gleaming up at him from Ratty's grubby palm.
BB and Chans need for credits if they were to continue in their search for Alf was uppermost in their minds. They had already seen fume belching buses trundling along the streets and ordinary cars as well as flicars were available for hire. Jack had said something about Halzone having a train system as well but obviously none of these were going to be free. Even relief stations couldn't be used without paying for the privilege with a Credit Card. With no other option available to them they were forced to look for a shop with a Loans sign outside of it in the decadent district they were presently in. Some time later there search was rewarded and the cheerlessly taciturn proprietor sitting behind the steel mesh protected counter inside the dingy premises relieved them of their tokens, replacing them with what BB and Chan both knew was most likely a totally inadequate number of credits. They also knew that they dare not complain, although Chan did mutter something about a robbers den which fortunately the proprietor didn't appear to hear.
They decided, after considering Jack's remark concerning cheapness and the limitations of their available credits that train travel would suit their purpose best. With this in mind, off they went in search of an underground railway station which wasn't easy because when Chan surreptitiously consulted her mem of the map in Jack's flicar, it didn't shown any. They could find no indications as to where they might be either, but then most of the roads, streets, avenues or other types of thoroughfare lacked signage too, and they seemed to slope up and down, or change direction or be blocked off for no obvious reason. It was a feature of Halzone's layout that the Orthians hadn't been fully aware of before, and now it meant that they often seemed to be covering the same ground as that which they had already traversed.
“Whoever recorded Jack's flycar mapping fantasy must have been dreaming,” observed Chan acidly.
“It was probably only meant for those travelling by air,” said BB.
“That's no excuse for inaccuracy,” Chan countered grumpily.
When at last,they finally located a station, they then had to work out which train to catch, one that would take them due west which was a bit of a puzzle because the diagrams of the system were not that clear. Finally they worked out an agreed upon choice, they paid for the required tickets with a number of credits: far too many according to Chan, a comment which fortunately nobody heard. After having registered their tickets as they passed through the turn styles positioned at the top of the long high escalators, they descended into the poorly lit, cavernous depths of Halzones underground railway transport system. Here they stood and waited, and waited some more, on a cold draughty platform that reeked of unsanitary practices, buffeted by shifting throngs of assorted Terrans and Andys, as trains roared and rattled in and out of the multi level station until at last, with a blast of ozone laden air the train they needed to board, according to the lighted signs overhead, pulled in. It stopped, and as the doors slid open a torrent of passengers gushed forth, pushing and shoving their way out through those waiting to get in. As the final few struggled free, the Orthians were propelled forward by a great rush of Terrans into the nearest carriage, already crowded with passengers. A warning beep sounded, the doors slid shut, and with a series of jerks and a harsh grinding together of metal surfaces, the train began moving forward.
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