‘Mother!’ she called out. ‘You’re…a…a real person, aren’t you?’
Mother smiled. ‘Oh…well done. You really are quite a clever girl.’
The cartoon face in the sky vanished and then a moment later, in its place was a photograph of a woman. A woman, Ellie guessed, in her mid-50’s. Grey hair pulled back into a practical bun, just the hint of a smile on her lips and blue eyes that looked benignly down on the world.
‘I was a person. Once upon a time….before I died, that is.’
‘Died?’
‘To all intents and purposes…yes, Ellie, died.’
Ellie turned to Jez. She was standing there with her jaw slung open, three sentences behind what was going on.
‘You…you were one of the crew, weren’t you?’
Mother’s cartoon avatar returned to the sky. ‘Yes. There were twelve of us.’
‘Did you…did you kill them?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘Why would I lie to you, Ellie? The truth is…there was an accident. Radiation shielding in one of the biomes failed. We were all inside. By pure chance, I happened to be beside the exit when it occurred. I was only partially bathed in gamma rays.’ The photograph of Helen Meade was replaced once again with Mother’s cartoon avatar. ‘They died very quickly. All of them within hours. On the other hand, I died slowly.’
‘Those things…those personal things down on the mezzanine deck?’
Mother nodded. ‘Yes. I put those there. It was the best I could manage to do for all of them. I wish I could have done more.’
Jez decided to join in. ‘So…you…you’re alive still?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. My neural network is digitized. Interfaced with WonderWorld’s computer system.’
Ellie looked at Shelby and Gray, standing a dozen yards away from them, looking up at the sky with confused expressions. ‘So…Shelby and Graham, never knew that…?’
Her beady eyes shifted to them. ‘My two boys…my two good boys, lovely boys, never knew about me. Never knew of Helen Meade.’
Lovely boys? Mother’s choice of words…she loves them?
‘Mother…is that why you’re doing this? Is that why you want me and Jez dead? Because…you, because…you’re jealous?’
Mother smiled. ‘Oh dear me, no. I’m not jealous. They’re my boys…my sons. Any mother would want her sons to be happy, don’t you think, Ellie?’
‘Then why? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to hurt us?’
‘My boys were perfectly happy before you arrived, Ellie. They were content with the reality we have here. What Graham told you, Jez, was true…you really will not find a better place to call a home in this universe than right here.’
Mother shook her head sadly. ‘The problem is that you’ve contaminated them. They won’t be content living here any more. I heard Shelby. I know he wants to leave with you. And Graham? I think he’d never be the same after Jez and you left. I owe it to my boys to wipe the slate clean and start over. To make them both happy again.’
Gray laughed drunkenly. ‘I’m happy! I’m gonna have some fun, then I’m going to kill the stupid bitches!’
Mother sighed. ‘Please forgive him, girls…he really is a good boy. It’s just the pheromones talking now. They’re both functioning on primitive instinct.’
‘Turn them off, then!’ said Ellie. ‘You can do that, right? Make the air normal again? Make your boys normal again!’
‘Of course I can, Ellie. But they won’t be, as you say, ‘normal’ again. They’ll never be like they were. They’ll never be content again. Not now that they know what they are.’
Ellie could see where Mother was going with this. She was going to start over, wipe the slate clean. ‘Please! Just let us go then!’
‘How? There is no going anywhere, Ellie. There are no shuttles, no escape pods, or-’
‘Can’t you just send out a message? Call for help?’
‘I could. And someone might just come. And what do you think would happen then? The authorities would become involved. The truth is, the company that built this place no longer exists. They went bankrupt twenty-six years ago, Ellie, this place would be subject to Administration salvage laws. This whole world would be completely decommissioned. Deconstructed. Asset-stripped.’ Mother’s ‘sad’ face reappeared. ‘This perfect oasis, this heaven, would become nothing more than a derelict hulk. Do you really want something like that to happen to a place as wonderful as this?’
‘Then we’ll stay!’ said Jez. ‘We’ll stay here. Forever! We promise!’
‘That’s really rather thoughtful of you, Jez…but I think the damage has already been done. I think the sensible thing for me to do is to put things back to the way they were.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘There must be something else that we can-’
‘I’m afraid that means you’ve got to go. Then, I shall have to recycle my boys and fabricate them all over again. A lot of work, but I’ll have things back to normal in a few weeks.’
Ellie looked at both young men. Wondering if hearing what she had planned might affect them. But no, they still looked like two naughty boys, getting bored of listening to the adults talk and eager for the fun and games to resume.
‘Please don’t!’ she cried. ‘Mother, Helen…you were human once! Someone with a conscience, right? Please…don’t do this! Please don’t kill-’
‘I’m so very sorry, Ellie. You really do seem like a lovely girl. But…what this essentially comes down to is…it’s the pair of you, or me and my two boys.’
‘We’ll make them happy! I promise! We’ll be good and-’
‘No, you won’t. You’ll promise me everything now, and, my goodness, you might even mean some of it, but later you will convince Shelby to reboot the system and wipe me. I’m really very sorry girls. I truly am.’
‘Oh God! Please! There’s got to be some other way we-’
‘If it’s any consolation to you, Ellie, I’m giving some thought to fabricating you both. I have DNA samples of you now. I have recordings of your voices, your speech patterns. It might be nice for Graham and Shelby to have girlfriends just like you two. Perhaps I’ll rewrite the memories to include you as members of the crew who survived the accident. I’ll write your memories so you’ll be in love with Shelby and Graham. But, I promise you…I’ll do my best to keep some of your personality. Some of your spirit for adventure. I know that’s what has impressed my boys so much about you both.’ Mother smiled. ‘A very feisty pair of girls.’
‘Please! I don’t want to die, Mother! I’m scared!’
Mother’s ‘pause’ animation suddenly appeared in the sky. It remained there for half a minute. The plaza was silent as her booming voice echoed away to nothing. Ellie and Jez looked at each other. ‘Crud!’ whispered Jez. ‘Do you think she’s thinking about letting us live?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
Eventually, the knitting animation was replaced with her face blinking, beady-eyed face once more. ‘I don’t want to be unnecessarily cruel. I’m not a monster. Just a concerned mother. I wish there was some other way.’
Jez suddenly reached out for Ellie’s wrist and grabbed it tightly. ‘Alright, enough of this talking-her-round crud,’ she hissed. “RUN!!!’
CHAPTER 27
They scrambled down the pathway from the plaza and into the flower gardens, Frasier right behind them, his waddling efforts to remain dignified and run upright like a human expediently dispensed with and replaced with the knuckles-and-feet gait of a scampering simian.
They passed through beds of CandyBliss plants that stirred as they went by, their heavy bulbs flexing and pulsing as they sensed the motion. Behind them they heard Shelby whooping with delight and Gray calling out after them like this was some party game.
Mother’s face remained in the sky, looking down on them, ever-watchful. ‘Ellie, Jez…why run? There's no escape,’ her voice filled the biome. ‘Y
ou're only prolonging the inevitable…this really doesn’t have to be such a traumatic process.’
They emerged from claustrophobic confines of hedgerows and into the long wild grass of the sloping meadow.
Jeez stopped to grab her breath. ‘Which way now?!’
‘I don’t know….I don’t know! Frasier?’
The chimpanzee shook his head. ‘There really is nowhere to go.’
‘What about World Three? said Ellie.
Jezz turned to her. ‘Full of giant scorpions and killer bears?’
‘Maybe they’re all still knocked out?’
As if in answer to her that, downhill from them, the large entrance leading to World Three began to slide open. They turned to look at the opening leading into the dimly lit passageway, hoping that that was all they were going to see, but a moment later the first of them emerged from the gloom; Ellie’s bears, Jez’s dark coloured gremlin-men and several giant scorpions.
Jez wilted, her grasp on Ellie’s wrist loosened. ‘That’s it then…we really are totally screwed!’
The menagerie of creatures began instinctively to veer towards them, drawn by their human scent, by an instinct to hunt and kill.
Above them, at the top of the meadow, Shelby and Gray appeared, accompanied by a dozen of the garden jimps, still clutching their rakes, watering cans and pruning shears. Below them, Ellie and Jez’s freak show creations were spreading out across the field, now into the shadow of the nearest of the oak tree’s low boughs, then back out into the pleasantly warming sunlight once more.
‘Jez,’ said Ellie. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘Bringing you along. You should have stayed with Aaron.’
‘Don’t be such a limp-gimp.’
‘You’d be alive Jez…if you’d never picked me up off the street in-’
‘I’d still be shaking my toosh for pervos in that cruddy bar, El’.’ She hefted the shear-blade in her hands. ‘I’ve seen more of the universe with you than I ever would’ve done on my own.’
Ellie reached out and clasped her hand. ‘Thank you for everything. I love you, Jez.’
‘Yeah, yeah…let’s not get all mooshie yet.’ She swiped the blade through the air. ‘I still reckon we got a chance here. Right monkey?’
Frasier flexed his arms. ‘I shall endeavour to do my best.’
‘Anyway,’ Jez grinned and swished her blade through the air again. ‘We’re not going to die here, Ellie….I totally know that.’
‘How?! How the hell can you possibly know-’
‘That boojam? Remember him? Kazammo, or whatever his name was? He said we’d get out of the system. So we can’t die here!’
Ellie turned to look at her, incredulous. She really did seem to believe in that superstitious nonsense. There was something heartening in that. Something to lace her fingers though and grab hold of. Jez seemed to live her life thinking it was like a sopa-dram with her as the heroine….too beautiful to die, the leading lady always lived to see a happy ending. It was stupid. It was child-like-stupid, it was typical Jez, but it was something.
She nodded to herself. Okay…so now would be a good time for a happy ending to make an appearance then.
The creatures were now fanning out around them. Uphill of them, Gray and Shelby and the jimps came to a halt. ‘Hey there, ladies!’ called out Gray. ‘Nice running…but I guess it’s game over now.’
Shelby stuck a finger in the air. ‘Hmmm…next time we do a war game, shall we try a hide-n-seek scenario? What did you call it…Fox and Hounds?’
‘Yeah, Shelbs. Good idea.’
The sky flickered with movement. Mother’s active face was gone and replaced with the I’m-busy-knitting-animation once more.
‘Gray,’ tried Jez once more. ‘You let me and Ellie live, and we’ll both be your flesh slaves. Anything you want, do you understand? Anything at all you want…?’
‘What is it with girls?’ Shelby curled his lips in disgust. ‘It's like they think all we think about is sex.'
'Yeah, man…like we're just dumb sex-obsessed apes.' Gray winked at Frasier. 'No offence, mate.'
'Shall we just finish the game?’
Gray shrugged. ‘Yeah, okay, man. I’m getting hungry anyway. I fancy a big fucking juicy prot-burger after this.’
They advanced on them, the jimps dutifully following behind. Ellie turned round, the bears, her bears were now waddling towards her. She recognised her two ‘lieutenants’ Jonny and Max among the wall of fur and claws and teeth. ‘Hey! It’s me! It’s Ellie! Your General!!’
Her desperate plea made no difference, they advanced regardless; half-sized hairy soldiers with the dead-eyed expression of desensitised killers.
And then…all of a sudden they stopped. The bears, the little all-black stick men, the scorpions. She turned to look at Shelby, Gray and the jimps. Them too. Everyone, everything, frozen like statues.
‘Huh?’ Jez looked around. ‘What’s…?’
Ellie looked up. Mother was still knitting. Something’s happened. She’s occupied with something else. Something going on elsewhere?
Ellie turned to the young men. ‘Shelby?’
He stared straight through her. Not appearing to hear her. Swaying gently, like someone stopped mid-stride, trying hard to remember if they’d left the front door unlocked, or an unnecessary appliance on.
‘Shelby? Gray?’
No response.
Then, as if summoned by some unheard voice, Shelby, Gray and the jimps turned on their heels and began to jog uphill towards the flower gardens. The bears, the gremlins and the giant lumbering scorpions surged forward. Jez braced herself to swing at them, but they brushed past, completely oblivious to her.
‘What’s…what the hell's happening?’
‘I suspect Mother’s summoned them,’ said Frasier.
‘I didn’t hear her.’
‘It’s in the air. She’s attracting them somewhere else…for some reason.’
They watched the creatures clambering in among the hedgerows, disappearing from sight. Further up the hill Ellie saw Gray and Shelby climbing the path and stepping back onto the edge of the plaza, and finally disappearing from sight.
Then, a moment later, they heard the first crack of gunfire.
One shot, followed by another. Then rapid fire, one gun. Then a second. They heard a high-pitched keening. Ellie saw the lumbering scorpions hastening up hill, clambering up through the garden to the lip of the plaza and onto it. She heard another, deeper weapon thudding percussively, one of the scorpion's giant claws exploded in a shower of muscle tissue and chitinous shell.
‘My God…somebody’s come to our rescue!’ screamed Jez. She turned to Ellie. ‘I told you! I told you!!! We don't die!’
Or to kill us. Ellie thought. Who? The Administration?
As the other scorpions clambered up onto the plaza, the heavier sounding gun, thudded again and again and again. The bears were now clambering over the lip and out of view, charging, oblivious to fear and danger towards whoever was shooting up there. The guns rattled staccato shots out over each other, the air was thick with the mewling dying cries of the small creatures.
The unseen slaughter lasted five minutes, and for five minutes Ellie dreaded it coming to a faltering end. While they heard gunshots…whoever was up there, was killing fabricants, whittling them down, improving their chances of survival.
Finally, with one last shot peeling around the biome’s curved sky, it stopped. They waited silently, standing stock-still in the meadow, wondering whether their mysterious saviours would appear…or whether they'd see the first of the fabricants reappearing to come back downhill and finish their work.
'Look!' gasped Jez.
The silhouette of a figure appeared at the edge of the plaza, raised a hand to shadow his eyes and surveyed the landscape below. Then several others stepped up beside him, shouldering guns and looking around.
The first figure spotted them.
??
?Whoever that is…he’s just seen us,’ said Jez.
‘I know.’
Alone, the first figure made his way down the steps onto the pathway, temporarily out of sight as he descended into the gardens, then a minute later he emerged from the hedgerow at the top of the meadow.
Ellie stared at him as he stood where he was There was something vaguely familiar about him.
I know him. We've met before.
An old man, lean and agile for his age, but with a pale and creased face, shadowed with the bristles of an un-tamed salt and pepper beard. He waded through the tall grass towards them, hands spread out showing he meant no harm
He drew up a dozen yards short of the two girls and Frasier.
‘Who the fregg are you?’ gasped Jez breaking the protracted silence. She quickly tempered that with a friendly grin. ‘Not that we’re ungrateful or anything. But seriously, who are you?’
The old man completely blanked her. His gaze settled firmly, almost reverentially on Ellie.
‘Hello again, Ellie,’ he smiled.
‘Hey? What?’ Jez gawped. ‘’Again?’ You…you know her? You know Ellie?’
He ignored her and stepped slowly forwards, stopping just in front of her. ‘How are you doing?’
She managed a weak nod. ‘I’m…I’m okay, I guess.’
‘You remember me?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you remember?’
She nodded slowly. ‘You're….you're Mason.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mason. ‘I’ve come to take good care of you. You really have no idea how important you are, do you?’ He held out a hand to her. 'Together…you and I, we're going to change the universe.'
CHAPTER 28
Deacon arrived in the cruiser’s infirmary, flustered and out of breath. Councillor Hayden was right beside him.
Both of them had been awoken by Dr Takeo-Jones. On the ship’s time cycle it was Night-Plus-four hours. Five minutes ago Deacon had been fast asleep on his gel-cot dreaming of Councillor Hayden. They’d been making love in a wood, naked and entwined. He’d been simultaneously aroused and revolted by the dream.