Sublime Intervention

By Skot De Luce

Tarran Dale is one of planet Earth's more industrious loafers. So when he gets a somewhat unorthodox call from his ex-employers to retrieve a dysfunctional artificial from the northern hemisphere of Titan, he simply jumps at the opportunity with all the enthusiasm of a crippled slug. However, as soon as he finds out exactly what kind of artificial she is, he suddenly realises that this is exactly the job he was looking for.
But then, how was he supposed to know that this artificial was possessed by a vicious cybergeist with an unimaginably old score to settle? Or that he would become embroiled in a prophecy and end up heading a rebellion against the very client he was sent there to appease? Or that he would be the one called upon to save an entire pseudo-continent from annihilation while being hunted by a two metre-fifty terminator called Sally?
So, as our surrogate hero finds himself sinking further and further up to his bristles in a mission that would have even tried the patience of God herself, he begins to wonder why things have been going so meticulously wrong for him. Mind you, as he becomes more and more entangled with a synchropathic clone of Nora Proxïma's magnitude, he finally begins to fathom out why this is.
Nevertheless, while Tarran is tiptoeing his way unstealthfully through the surrounding mayhem, he does discover that no matter what caliber of shit you may find yourself in, real love is never that far away....... But that it doesn't necessarily help.
Some jobs suck. This one very nearly did!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skot De Luce
• Release date: Feb 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463062746

Skot De Luce

Skot de Luce was born in England where he spent the first forty-five years of his childhood, writing, making music, and working just to earn a crust . Slowly moving westward, he finally settled in Cornwall, a land he dearly loved - so much so, in fact, he moved to France in 2003 where he now lives with his family, writing, making music and working just to earn a crust. Like Nostradamus said; Le plus ça change, le plus c'est la même chose.

Book preview

Prologue

It was towards the end of the early part of the late 26th Century when the Commission of Free Enterprise imposed its restrictions on the manufacturing of artificial humans. They created what they called The Bill of Status.

This was the bible for all manufacturers and users of artificials alike. It specified in excruciating detail the limits of everything from physical size right down to the smallest of annoyances. Nothing was left to interpretation.

However, the Commission soon realised that a Bill of this kind actually carried about as much weight as a bulimic ant, so they created what was simply known as The Bureau, a ruthless body of men and terminators whose job it was, was to make damn sure their Bill was being taken seriously, however tiresome that might be.

The Bureau were diligent and efficient. They had the power to close down whole corporations if they proved to be uncooperative. And although certain indiscretions could be discretely overlooked, this normally came at a suitably immodest price. However, the Prime Dictate, which states that it is an intolerable and non-negotiable crime to knowingly duplicate any human being, in either mind or in body, alive, dead, or otherwise, wasn’t.

Of course, the upside of all this was that it did give the artificials some degree of social protection. After all, you can’t afford to have a society in which sentient individuals are being abused, mistreated and exploited, now can you? - at least, not while there are still plenty of humans prepared to do it for money!

Nevertheless, it was The Bureau who held the unique privilege of terminating any non-conforming artificial, should the need arise itself. And this was something they usually did so very well.

But then, this isn’t a story about them .....

One

AD 2629, South Yorkshire

The slender shadow of an approaching Narcosian guard rippled its way slowly across the ground. Behind him the sun had already dipped deep into the pale western sky, while to the east the ghost of a moon was just rising amid a cluster of bright space debris, hanging around as uselessly and ugly as a set of poison jewels above a grey and wrinkled skyline.

Tarran pressed his back even tighter against the boulder, even though he did suspect it was probably only fear that was pinning him there. But what he did know for a fact, and believed to be true, was that it was no more than the voice of common sense that was frantically screaming into his ear, telling him he had to take this guard out, and that it had to be now. If he waited any longer, more of the buggers would arrive, and he certainly didn’t see the point in treading in any more trouble than was absolutely necessary.

He clenched the handle of his pulse gun firmly in both hands while he braced himself, listening intently for that inadvertent crunch of a boot on the ground: A loose stone, a twig, a mine - anything that might finally give him the guard’s exact position.

But all too suddenly, there it came.

He quickly blew a last persistent dewdrop of sweat from the end of his nose, and with his heart thumping like a great big jellyfish, he swung around the rock and vaguely aimed the gun at the figure before him, closing his eyes tightly as his fingers squeezed hard around the small, black trigger pad. He then let out a small, involuntary prayer.

But the purple blob spun straight out from the point of the gun and hit the guard full in the chest before he even had time to react. A dull ‘puck’ hit the air and left behind it a jagged smudge of smoke, as little less than a handful of dust fell to the ground where it smouldered for a while until finally dimming away.

However, before Tarran could even congratulate himself, he saw there were already two more guards directly ahead of him. They reached for their weapons the instant they saw him, but with a Schwartsenegoid reflex he quickly raised his gun and shot them both before scurrying to the cover of a nearby rock where he fell panting, trying to regain as much of his breath as he could.

But squinting briefly around his rock, he could see he wasn’t too far from the stronghold. A small incline rose up towards a set of bright metal steps which were stoutly flanked by two rows of impressive stone pillars. Beyond them stood only a single reinforced door, but that looked suitably impenetrable. And although his pulse gun had made light work of the guards, it clearly wasn’t going to penetrate anything quite as thick as this. Furthermore, Tarran knew there must be at least one guard left hiding somewhere close to the entrance. After all, this was just the kind of underhanded trick they normally employed - a trick that luckily he knew all too well after their many, many encounters over the years.

Cautiously he peered a little further around his rock, and saw once again he wasn’t about to be disappointed. The shadow of one of the pillars appeared to be twitching in readiness, and since he knew for a fact that solid stone pillars didn’t usually twitch in this way, he reasoned there was indeed a guard concealed behind the pillar to the left of the doorway. But what he also knew was that he needed a much wider angle if he was ever going to pick the guard off. His rock was good protection, though. But then so too was that pillar.

Not wasting any time to think any further, he made a dash into the open and dived headlong to the ground, spraying up as much dust as he could. He quickly lifted up his gun with both hands and, knowing that a failed shot now would surely spell the end of his chances, he aimed it very carefully before firing.

Sure enough, there came a reassuring bright flash from between the pillars as his blob of plasma hit the wall. But his heart quickly sank as it soon dawned on him that that was all his blob of plasma had hit.

‘Shit!’ Tarran then watched in petrified horror as the guard then rounded the pillar and quickly took his aim.

But somewhere between luck and a slightly smallish miracle, the blob suddenly crackled back to life. It promptly exploded with even more force than before and caught the guard squarely from behind, instantly blowing him to vapour and possibly somewhere beyond. After that, everything fell silent. So this time Tarran decided to congratulate himself properly.

‘Bollocks!’

Frankly, he could have kicked himself in them. What was he doing? What was he thinking? He should have known he needed the guard’s hand to activate that door - a fact that quickly raced into his mind on horseback as he realised immediately what he had done wrong. Unfortunately, though, and as is so often the case, immediately was far too late. Once again, it appeared he just hadn’t thought the whole thing through properly.

‘Mega bollocks!’ He shook his head in disgust and duly cursed himself for his utter devotion to the God of stupidity. He then checked one more time to see that the coast was clear, and hurried up the incline, keeping as low as he could while he scrambled over the loose stones towards the base of the doorway. Even though, there seemed to him to be little point any more.

But somewhere in a sudden flash of inspiration, he pressed his own hand firmly onto the oval doorpad, realising that there was, in fact, a chance that it would work for him. It didn’t. Instead, the pad just flashed back at him in an irate burst of red light, and since it was now a fair to middling guess that the alarms were bound to go off any second, he took a single pace backwards and simply blasted at the ignorant control panel.

Almost immediately, a siren started to screech loudly in his ears. Klaxons began sounding all around him, and before very soon there were light-beams dancing like bright scythes across the enveloping smoke. Nevertheless, somewhere amid the noise and the chaos, the heavy metal door slid up with a surprising swash, whereupon two more guards appeared out of the swirls of grey. But Tarran didn’t even stop to hesitate; he dispatched them both with clinical efficiency, and probably with every bit as much pleasure as he had the others, truth be told. He then checked again to see that the coast was really clear this time, and took a tentative step inside.

‘You!’ he heard a voice say, as a dark figure emerged rapidly from the smoke away to his right.

Quickly raising his gun, Tarran trained it carefully on the helmeted silhouette. Not wanting to take any chances, he was just about to deliver another blast, however, when something familiar about that voice made him stop and lower his arm. It might well have been nothing more than instinct that had held his trigger finger back for that vital second, but as the smoke began to clear and the figure slowly lifted the visor of her helmet, it suddenly felt to Tarran like something slightly larger than a huge miracle. He looked at her in stark amazement. He knew he had a recovery target on this particular mission, but this was exactly what he hadn’t been expecting.

‘You blew up the guard, didn’t you?’ she sayd, curtly.

‘Yes, why? Did you want to?’

He could only offer her a limp smile by way of an apology, knowing what a stupid thing it was to have done. But even with her moulded silicon-fibre helmet and that black, ribbed bodysuit, he had few doubts as to who the owner of that voice could be: No one else but binary agent Magentra could have possibly possessed such a voluptuous pair of vocal chords. Not only was she the singularly most desirable cyberality heroine and undisputed object of pretty well every hetero-blooded male’s fantasy, but here she was standing in front of him in real flesh and blood. But not only that, if he’d understood the situation correctly, she was also the undisputed object of his rescue mission - a fact that momentarily left Tarran not totally believing in his apparent good fortune - until she spoke again, that is.

‘I suppose you realise those alarms will have alerted the mobile units,’ she snapped, furiously. ‘And I presume you’ve planned for the fact that the place will be crawling with them in less than twenty seconds?’

‘Erm…..’

‘Knob head.’ She then trained a reproving frown at him while he looked around hopelessly for an idea or two.

But after a while, he noticed her face begin to lighten. An impish gleam suddenly sparkled up in her eyes as though the smell of this new challenge had just ignited something deep inside of her. And as lovely as she was with her black suit clinging so perfectly to that beautifully female body beneath it, Tarran could have sworn on one of his mothers’ lives that Magentra wasn’t necessarily about to give the situation that gentle feminine touch.

‘Well it looks to me as though we’re going to have to seriously fry the mother suckers,’ she sayd with a steely smile. ‘That’s the only way we’ll be able to bugger off out of here. There can’t be more than about two hundred of them. And I’m telling you, I don’t intend staying here hostage for a moment longer than I sodding well have to.’

Tarran stepped back from the doorway as, sure enough, the whine of approaching jet skeeters began phasing through the opening. Although, by the sound of them, Magentra’s estimation was heavily on the lightweight side, so he thought that under the circumstances it might be wiser if he were to take matters into his own hands. He decided he’d better get one or two small points straightened out right from the start. The only one small problem was that he didn’t actually have a clue as to what else they could do.

‘Ok then,’ he conceded finally, as a loud starburst cracked at the entrance and showered hot metal embers onto them from one of the pillars.

Seeing this, Magentra quickly threw him a blast-gun from a hidden panel in the wall while she gave him a quick wink for good luck. They then forced their backs against the metal stanchions either side of the doorway in order to prepare themselves for the inevitable fight.

‘Make as much smoke as you can. But don’t blast all the flights,’ Magentra told him. ‘We’re going to need some getaway. Unless you can run faster than a jet skeeter, that is?’

Tarran shook his head as he grimly gripped his blast-gun around its cone shaped barrel. He knew that up until now he’d probably been riding his luck somewhat, but he sensed that this time he was going to be pushing it along by the handlebars. However, when they did finally round the doorway in unison, they let fly with such an impressive volley of fire it probably would have torched the polar caps down to dry rock, and still left plenty over for a good old go at Norway. Bodies were volatilised, skeeters burst into flame - and before very soon, a mantle of thick, dark smoke was swaying back and forth against the blood-gold ribbon of the sunset.

When she was sure their smokescreen was thick enough, Magentra set her gun to automatic fire. Wedging it tightly into the angle of the door, she then signalled for Tarran to follow her.

For some bizarre reason she seemed to think that with all the noise and confusion they would be able to make their way on all fours to the far end of the stronghold without being spotted and filled with inconvenient holes. Tarran, however, wasn’t about to stand around and argue the point with her. Seeing how the intensity of the return fire had increased significantly, he could see that staying where they were clearly wasn’t a much better option. So he just gritted his teeth and hoped he’d still have them in five minutes.

But not only did they make it completely unscathed, when they finally got to cover they found a pair of two free jet skeeters conveniently waiting for them, their owners nowhere to be seen. It was something that immediately made Tarran suspicious, though. After all, it did seem on the face of it slightly too fortuitous. Who would leave a pair of machines like that just lying around?

So that was exactly what they didn’t do.

‘Keep the output power low, it makes less noise.’ Magentra indicated the power control lever that was located just beside Tarran’s left knee while she kicked her skeeter into life. When she’d seen that he had done likewise, she glided slowly away through the smoke then lead the way in the direction of the moorland, leaving the mobile unit shooting at nothing but the billows of smoke - although, Tarran couldn’t help wondering for how much longer that would be.

But before too long, they were accelerating off completely unseen. Across a rippling landscape of short grass and scrub, they hugged the dips and skirted the crests wherever possible, racing on frantically until finally the sound of gunfire was mercifully no more than a crackle, far away in the distance.

Presently, Magentra slowed her skeeter, eventually letting it come to rest in the cover of a small coppice. She cut her engine and parked the machine by a fallen tree, climbing nimbly down from her saddle and brushing a speck of dust from her bodysuit. But as she briefly inspected herself for any signs of damage, Tarran watched her in awe. He couldn’t help thinking that from where he was sitting she looked more than perfectly fine to him. However, when she removed her helmet and he saw the tumbling waves of thick, auburn hair fall around her shoulders like a cascade of engulfing flames, all he could do was stare - she looked stunning. He could only wonder how she’d managed to get all that stuff inside one helmet.

‘You did it pretty well in the end…..er?…….’

‘Tarran Dale,’ he offered.

‘You did it the slightly silly way, though,’ she told him, ‘but pretty well.’ She then walked casually over to him as he dismounted stiffly from his skeeter.

‘Thanks,’ Tarran acknowledged, with a brief smile. ‘Can I take that as a thumbs up from the illustrious Agent Magentra, then?’

‘Thumbs up?’ she frowned. ‘Oh I think we can do a little bit better than thumbs up. Don’t you think? Much better, in fact.’

To his utter surprise she slid a long fingered hand up over his chest and cupped it softly around his neck. Then, to his further utter surprise, the other one started to unfasten her bodysuit ever so slowly.

‘I reckon we’ve got about twenty minutes worth of thumbs up before they work out we’re not there and start looking for us,’ she whispered. ‘There’s no great hurry. ‘Why don’t we just............ enjoy the moment while we can?’

Tarran swallowed the planet that was in his throat as he watched her suit fall with a flump to the ground. He knew very well that twenty minutes would have been something of a record for him under any circumstances. And he would have had time to go out and get a few beers in - maybe a curry, too.

But as the afterglow of the sunset traced an highly enticing crimson line around the profile of her naked body, he momentarily forgot all about his panic. Besides, through a pair of long, dark lashes, those well-known bright emerald eyes of hers were fixing him with a demanding stare he couldn’t easily ignore. Then, with the faint tendrils of her musty perfume tickling intoxicatingly against the inside of his nose, he didn’t put up too much resistance when she slowly pulled him back against the sloping trunk of a tree and started unbuttoning his tunic, too.

In a sudden, frenzied moment, they were tumbling to the ground amid a torrid tangle of frantic hands and arms. Her mouth found his, and his mouth found hers right back as he quickly fought his way out of his clothing and deftly kicked away the last persistent hangers-on, all the while mentally preparing himself for a performance that he prayed for all the world would be more than amply befitting the moment.

But as with the great many of his few conquests, that pleasant little tingle that he’d had in his groins not a moment or two ago had mysteriously grown in magnitude, and he felt that uncontrollable cold flush rush upwards and across his back. And as it quickly prickled its way back down over his chest to join that pleasant little tingle he’d had in his groins not a moment ago, he could no more than unceremoniously heave himself on top of her and just hope for the best. The sound of nearing gunfire was no more than a mere detail, however, as it dissolved so easily into the rapidly moistening air.

But to his amazement, Magentra’s ecstatic cries were soon resounding loudly around the clearing. He felt her warm, soft body beneath him begin to twist and writhe in waves of pure excitement as her hands gripped at him, holding him closer and tighter into her. He then felt a rapid pulse of hot adrenaline surge through the whole of his body as he suddenly realised that for the first time in his dull, nondescript life, he felt well and truly alive. He felt a sense of accomplishment, a sense of real stature, that sense of final vindication, even. He then felt his face squashed hard against the wet patch on his pillow, and suddenly realised there was some complete and total moron thumping at his door as though every milligram of their sanity depended on it.

Tarran rolled over and flashed open his eyes. For a brief moment he simply stared up at the paint-flakes on the ceiling while he hurriedly tried to gather a few of his senses together. But what he did know for a fact, and believed to be true, was how much he hated being woken up. And since this particular interruption had also trashed what had been a very expensive dream, he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t necessarily going to be in a highly receptive mood.

It was a fair chance it was only the accommodation squad come to move him on. They were pretty persistent. But then, they didn’t usually bother to knock first. The door-to-door Agnostics, they generally gave up after about two or three tries, and since he didn’t remember ordering a curry for breakfast, it could only mean that this was somebody else. But whoever it was, it appeared they had only one mission in life that morning. And that was to completely bugger it up for him.

Finally, he could take no more. He leaned out of his sleeping capsule and made a vaguely abstract gesture towards a large, black sheet that was fixed across his window. If you’re going to ignore someone, he reasoned, it only seemed polite to find out who it was. Unfortunately, though, and with gravity being what it is, the only thing he found out was that the sheet wasn’t fixed that well. His eyes were suddenly filled with blinding sunlight, and the floor came up and hit him before he even had a chance to stop it.

Gradually, a large hand scraped away the layers of dust from the window, and a pair of rapid blue eyes peered in through the hole to scan the room meticulously for any signs of intelligent life. As soon as they’d located the small human being, still struggling on the floor with his sheet, the owner’s face broke into what could only be described as a hideous attempt at a grin. It then disappeared from sight again.

‘Sod off! I’m asleep!’ Tarran squinted back through the blur of sunlight with no doubt a similarly weird expression, but by then the visitor was already back at the door thumping. The only difference was that this time it felt as though both of their sanities were depending on it, so begrudgingly Tarran eased himself up against one of the plastic bed supports and flicked the remote doorlock switch with one of his overgrown toenails. He then fanned his face with his latest eviction notice while he listened to the visitor enter and scuff their way awkwardly along the narrow entrance passageway to his living dome.

‘Coo-ee!’

It had always been an accepted fact that number 11390 Caligula Boulevard, New Scunthorpe, was no palace. It wasn’t built to be a palace and made absolutely no effort to be one. However, for Tarran Dale, it was home. But for how much longer, that remained to be seen. At his last calculation, he was several months behind with his rent, he had absolutely no job, his flyer had been repossessed, and he hadn’t paid his unemployment tax since when, he couldn’t remember. So things weren’t going that well.

He aimed a frown at the empty phial of Dr. Dreamster’s that lay on the floor next to a plate of something from last week, and sighed. It was going to be a long time before he could afford anything quite that good again, he reflected dismally. He then let his eyes drift slowly over the mess on the floor and up to the foot of the doorway where a large, blue synthate shoe carefully trod on a tube of sunscreen, emptying the contents over his very last clean sweatvest.

‘A good morning,’ the visitor noted, far too brightly. ‘My world, is it already seven thirty-three? There are clear blue skies over the whole of Europica, thirty-six degrees local, and airborne pollution is only forty percent noxious. Ah, and there’s a good westerly breeze of point one metres per second.’ He quickly smoothed down a rogue tuft of jet-black hair with a jerky hand that he then jabbed in Tarran’s direction. ‘I do take it you didn’t want to stay in bed on a nice morning like today?’ he sayd.

‘Well, I thought I would,’ Tarran mumbled back, purposely ignoring the hand in order to wince at the visitor’s odd clothing. It looked something like a badly fitting two-piece suit, the jacket of which had reflective lapels. Now what were they all about? Surely no self-respecting person would walk about dressed like that on purpose, he thought. Unless, of course, they happened to be an artificial. …….Ah!

Tarran then looked a little closer at the face of his visitor. He could see that the skin did indeed have a vague, regular kind of opacity to it - slightly putty coloured, like one of those perma-tans that had faded in the sun. It was a little bit too tight around the eyes for comfort, and, well frankly no one had ever got the design of the ears quite right. But more importantly, and as hard as Tarran searched, he couldn’t see a bead of sweat anywhere on him, despite the fact that the day was already becoming uncomfortably hot.

Mind you, this wasn’t just any old run of the garden artificial like an android, say - he could see that straight away. No, this one bore all the hallmarks of an Emesis Corporation Emulant. They were different. After all, androids were simply inane bits of plastic that generally went around just pissing people about. But Emulants, they were in a completely different class of artificial altogether. They could really be a pain in the nads. And to that end, this one was already acquitting himself quite admirably.

‘I am Slikker,’ sayd Slikker, and again presented his hand, which this time Tarran took to pull himself up.

‘Thanks,’ Tarran sayd, sarcastically. ‘Anyway, what do you want? I don’t remember ordering a twatogram.’

He did allow himself a small chuckle at this, but after a closer look at the Emulant’s physique, he realised that apart from being about eight sizes larger than he was, this wake up call was either wearing a shirt made out of rugby balls stitched together, or he had been exceptionally well built in the muscle department. He assumed it was the latter, and he quickly pulled up the sheet in order to wrap it around his own white and puny offering.

‘Well,’ he went on, ‘thank you for personally sharing this moment of misery with me, but you can go away now and play with something sharp. Don’t you think I’ve had enough of Emesis artificials to last me the rest of my life, if not longer. And I certainly don’t need an irritating door-to-door reminder service. Ok?’ Then, to give his delivery just bit more poignancy, he added, ‘Knob head!’

With this, Slikker’s bright expression suddenly plunged into a deep and quite unusual stare. For a moment he just stood there glaring down at the small human being, still clinging fast to his sheet. But when he took one carefully measured step backwards and deftly slipped a hand inside his suit, Tarran started to wonder what it possibly could have been that he might have sayd wrong.

But to his relief, the Emulant only brought out a piece of paper, which he then started to unfold very carefully while he graced Tarran with a sultry look across the bridge of his nose.

‘I have an very urgent message for you,’ he sayd, flatly. ‘You probably don’t deserve it, but I’ll read it at you anyway.’

‘It’s ok. I have done reading before,’ Tarran explained, thinking perhaps it might well be worth pointing out the fact even at this early stage in their relationship. However, when he found the note thrust to within an inch of his face, he found himself wishing he hadn’t bothered. He tugged it from Slikker’s hand and tried to focus his eyes on the scrawly writing.

It read:

I have a proposition for you that should be of mutual benefit. Maybe to both of us. You will come over to my office this morning and discuss it with me. I’ve sent our series E-8 Emulant to fetch you. If you don’t come he’s been told to kill you. I think you know where I’m coming from!

P.S. Couldn’t reach you on your communicator. Apparently you haven’t paid your bill.

Nominally yours, Reynold Wolfsukler.'

‘Hmmm. Reynold Wolfsukler himself, eh?’ Tarran mused aloud once he had finally managed to decipher the writing. It certainly had all the hallmarks of urgency as far as he could see. It had obviously been rapidly hand scribbled, too. But more importantly, it was penned by the great man himself - and on Emesis Corporation headed scribbling paper.

Now, Reynold Wolfsuckler had been head of commercial operations at Emesis for as far back as anyone cared to remember. However, Tarran certainly didn’t need any reminding, because it was Reynold who had been the single most factor in his eventual dismissal. Even so, there are always two sides to everything - except for water, maybe - and if Tarran was going to be honest, it had partly been his own fault, in reality. After all, he was always moaning on about how he always got the crappy jobs, and how he wasn’t truly valued. So when he burst in drunk that fateful afternoon to tell Reynold face to face that it was about sodding time he got what he rightfully deserved from the company, it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise when Reynold obligingly gave him just that. But it was.

Even now, that little episode of Tarran’s life still left the salty taste of rejection clinging firmly to his mouth, and he immediately felt a host of memories on horseback come galloping into his mind. And even though it was well over one year, three months and eight days ago that his short reign as an Emesis late payment technician came to such an abrupt end, it still made his stomach churn just thinking about it. A bit like that chicken napalm from Mohatma Jackett’s last night, he suddenly recalled.

But if Tarran was ever going to admit to anything in his life, it was that he did miss having some brass in his pocket, even if it was plastic brass nowadays. For redundancy had certainly come at a bad time for him, it had to be sayd. His whole life had come at a bad time for him, in all truthfulness. But then, certain things really are way beyond your control, it would seem.

‘So what’s with all this, then?’ he asked, flicking disparagingly at the note and wiping away a sleep dangler from the corner of his mouth.

‘It’s an urgent message from Mr. Wolfsuckler,’ the Emulant replied, less than helpfully.

‘I can see that. But what do you suppose Big W wants me to do?’

Tarran knew from personal experience that it was always a good idea to get at least a good idea of what Renold had in store. He could be a meticulously devious man at times, and quite a hard one to stomach, too - even if it did involve money.

The Emulant just rolled his eyes incredulously. ‘He wants you to go back with me to the central offices to see him, of course. I thought you sayd you’d done reading.’

‘No….. I mean yes…. I mean, but what - does - he - want - with - me?’

The Emulant grinned. ‘Ah. That’s for me to know and you not to find out,’ he sayd, mysteriously. ‘You know as well as I do that the abattoir of Mr. Wolfsukler’s mind is a very special place. I think you ought to just feel honoured that he thought of you. Now, are you going to come with me, or am I going to have to kill you?’

So Tarran considered his options. He looked thoughtfully at Slikker who, as big as he was, didn’t exactly seem the killing type. Besides, Tarran knew full well that the only place in the Bill of Status where it states that artificials could be used for menial jobs such as killing, was nowhere. You needed a very special licence for that kind of thing, and generally a helmet. Anyway, Emesis products had always been strictly servile, so he assumed that this was probably just one of Reynold’s little pleasantries.

But while they were on the subject of death, the Emulant was maybe still cause for concern here. Because, if Tarran had read the situation correctly, this one was going to be his chauffeur all the way back to the central offices of Emesis - and this was nearly two and a half hours away, as the cow flies. Furthermore, as he peered out through the smudge on the window at the scratched rear fins of the skycar, he could also see that it had been parked somewhat haphazardly across the boulevard.

‘Only if I drive, then,’ he asserted, having never really felt comfortable with an artificial at the controls, and seeing as how staying alive had always been quite a big priority in his life. Besides, the thought of flying the latest WNKR mark 3 with its dual deep throat injection nozzle and hands-off signalling system had already sent the maniac in him scrambling across the tarmac of opportunity. It had been a long while since he’d thrashed the paint off a company vehicle and he didn’t see why he should let the chance get away from him now.

‘Ah. You don’t have to worry about that,’ Slikker quickly reassured him. ‘That little sky nymph out there is fitted with ANORAK. It is the very latest gizmo: Automatic Navigation with Oral Recognition Algorithms,’ he recited.

‘What does the K stand for then?’ Tarran was intrigued. ‘Clever?’

‘I haven’t a clue. But I might suggest we get a move on,’ the Emulant urged. ‘Mr. Wolfsukler does hate to be left hanging around.’

‘And I’d so hate to leave him hanging around,’ Tarran agreed.

He then contemplated the situation further while he groped absently for a handful of salt tablets from a shelf by the doorway. It was, after all, a very timely opportunity. He could pay off his debts and finally get his life back into some kind of sensible order. Then he’d be able to get back down the gamerama and drink as much Vodka-Grand Marnier as he liked.

So he finally agreed, and wasted no further time. He quick-stepped his way deftly through the mess on the floor, and sidled into the wash-tube with the Emulant looking on blandly with a shake of his head.

‘Ok. But I guess the only pferson who really knows whash going on is Reynold,’ he shouted, through the hiss of the vapour jets. ‘True, he doesh like to keep his little schemes to himselppf. He’d make an excellent terminator. Or a politiciumm, come to that.’

Then something suddenly occurred to him. ‘You’re not having any trouble from The Bureau, are you?’

But there immediately came no reply from the Emulant. However, the low whine of the skycar’s starters coming from outside in the boulevard told Tarran that if he didn’t get his fist out pretty quickly, he might just miss out on what sounded like some relatively easy money - at least, that was his understanding of the situation. He only hoped that was all that Big W wanted to discuss with him.

He jumped out of the wash-tube and quickly grabbed his sweatvest from the floor as he landed. There obviously wasn’t enough time to deliberate over what colour scheme to go for, so he thought he’d better play it safe. He pulled on a pair of flagella-yellow seemers with a pink belt, then yanked on a pair of knee-length metallic gold socks. He finished off this tasteful ensemble with a nice little Kelvin Clone fly-neck gripper in a sort of cyanide blue. But as he forced his feet into his well-worn pair of Bitchkickers and tangoed his way along the narrow passageway, he couldn’t help wondering why it was that Reynold should suddenly be wanting to contact him. Surely there must be some other unfortunate sods still on the Emesis payroll.

But luckily the skycar was still there when he emerged into the heat of the morning. Her tail-fins gleamed like brilliant sabres in the bright sunlight, while her pearlescent mauve paintwork and go-faster stripes were whispering to him ever so gently, ‘take me as fast as you dare.’

It certainly looked as though Emesis were doing something right these days because vehicles of this calibre were never in their budget when Tarran was working for them. She looked sleek and so elegant. In fact, she looked everything that Slikker wasn’t, so perhaps it was no small relief to know that she could actually fly herself.

Tarran hauled himself stiffly in over the lip of the cockpit and slammed down the hood as he slipped on what he reckoned was the coolest pair of Ray-burn solar filters since they’d come back into fashion.

‘Ok gorgeous, open up that throttle and take me to the gates of ecstasy,’ he sayd, speaking in the direction of the synthetic leather-clad control panel.

Slikker gave him a curious look and flexed his fingers. ‘You really are such a non-being, you know,’ he sayd. He then revved the jets with a heavy foot and jerked them abruptly into the air.

‘I thought you sayd this thing had auto-navigation?’

‘It has,’ Slikker replied, evading Tarran’s glare. ‘But you know, I never feel really comfortable with a computer at the controls. Call me old fashioned, but it always seems much safer when there’s someone actually in control. Don’t you think?’

Tarran ducked as there was a near miss with a sky-surfer picking out the morning thermals. ‘But I didn’t think lying was still acceptable protocol for you artificials!’

Slikker then shot him a dark frown. ‘I’d be delighted if you didn’t use that word any more. It sounds so …… plastic,’ he sayd, frostily. ‘E-8’s are actually made of chemically programmable polytetrasiliconcarbide dymethyl-fluorpolymer over an iridium filament sub-frame. And that’s certainly not plastic in my book. Knobhead! Anyway, I wasn’t technically lying.’ He then swerved the craft so violently between a cooling tower and a virtual advertising screen that Tarran didn’t bother pursuing the matter any further.

But in all fairness, the Emulant did manage to skim the flyer adequately through the twisting inner-city habitations. And when they eventually joined the Kirkwhelpington to Paris express route, it seemed no more erratic than the rest of the early morning traffic that was frantically scurrying along to that highly important meeting, or to that just-must-be-there appointment.

How supposedly intelligent beings had managed to contrive a lifestyle that involved them dashing about at ridiculous times of the day just to get paid had always been completely beyond Tarran’s comprehension. Things were never done in a particular hurry where he was involved. If he’d known that being the dominant species had meant becoming slave to an alarm clock, then he never would have bothered. Anyway, right now there were far more important things weighing on his mind - he cringed as their exit junction loomed up ahead.

‘So what time is it now?’ he asked, after noticing the long, slanting shadows that were streaking silently below the small craft.

Slikker gave him a sideways glance and rolled his eyes. ‘Oh don’t you start,’ he moaned. ‘It’s still earth vector time. We haven’t even gone metric yet. I mean, you still have to allow for a sidereal correction factor of zero point zero three seconds every week. I don’t know about you, but it always buggers up my timekeeping.’ He then tutted loudly and returned his attention to the horizon.

And it was around about then that Tarran learned the true pointlessness of asking this Emulant anything at all. He decided he’d probably get far more sense from a frontal lobotomy. So to pass the time instead, he amused himself by eyesurfing the tangle of disused roads that flashed beneath them like a mass of untidy, grey veins. Who would have thought that this was once just a barren wasteland of green pastures and trees? But at least his one consolation was that it wasn’t going to be too much longer before he found out what all this urgency of big W’s was about. And more importantly, he could get himself a stiff cup of coffee.

A short while later, he squinted out through the small side window, where he could just make out the tall, dark ceramic buildings of the Emesis complex, gathering themselves like a small funeral procession just below the horizon. Beyond them, a thin needle of sea reflected brightly in the sunlight and shimmered serenely through the air currents rising up from the Earth. From their vantage point it was a truly tranquil sight, if ever there was one. However, he knew it was a far, far cry from the chaotic reality that lurked down there at ground zero.

Slikker suddenly strained at the controls to halt the craft. They then watched in unison as he swung the horizon slowly round to nestle the complex bang in the centre of the sloped, tinted windshield. The craft wobbled a little while it hung in the air, then shuddered for a moment as it locked on to the south-western navigation grid. They then accelerated off across an expanse of dust-brown hills like a large, mauve manta ray in the direction of the unavoidable twin towers of Emesis, rising up as ever like a defiant gesture against the rest of the skyline.

Two

The skycar skidded to an abrupt halt on a small, raised landing platform, and there it perched high above the complex’s main access road. As Slikker started to make a pedantic check of the instrument panel, Tarran climbed out.

‘I just have to record the mileage,’ he heard the Emulant mumble as he tapped at one of the digital instruments. ‘Then, and only then, will I take you to see Mr. Wolfsukler.’

But Tarran was already leaning over the railing at the edge of the platform. He sniffed at the steady stream of sweet, salty air that came inland from the sea only to be greeted by the jagged tops of the Emesis central offices.

They must be doing something right, he thought to himself, seeing how dramatically the place had expanded. He had to admit it made quite an impressive sight. However, the architect must have been on something pretty bad because the resulting creation had the carbon black walls facing inwards and outwards at such ridiculous angles that the only view from anywhere in the building was of itself.

But high above this visual chaos, stood the calm and perfect symmetry of the enormous twin towers that thrust up nearly a kilometre into the clear morning sky. It was in these very towers that all the advanced design work was done, corporate decisions were made behind very closed doors, and the coffee didn’t taste like it was made out of plastic. And that’s just what Tarran knew he needed right now - a stiff coffee, that is.

Suddenly he felt a pair of strong hands grab him from behind. In less than a second he found himself dangling horizontally over the edge of the railing with a fair to excellent view of the hard surface of the roadway below. Funnily enough, it looked a lot further down than it had earlier on, and he was just beginning to wonder if Emesis had maybe decided to change their interviewing techniques just a tad when Slikker’s voice spoke to him.

‘Careful! I don’t think that railing is particularly stable,’ he sayd, lifting Tarran into the air, as effortlessly as if he were an empty paper bag.

‘You’re not so pucker yourself. Now put me down, will you.’ Tarran jerked himself clear of Slikker as soon as his feet touched the ground. He then tried to regain some of his composure before he could thank him properly for his concern. ‘You great big Barbie. Are you a complete moron, or what!?’

The Emulant grinned and simply brushed meticulously at Tarran’s gripper to remove most of the stretch marks. ‘Well, I am missing a few implants,’ he reflected. ‘But that’s due to my rehabilitation programme. Anyway, I didn’t like to think of you getting damaged. Not before your operation, that is.’

Slikker then wasted no time in ushering Tarran onto a thin maintenance walkway that jutted worryingly out from the landing platform and zigzagged down to the roadway below. It seemed a strange kind of decision because there was a perfectly good lift. Still, the walkway did end up directly opposite the reception building, so Tarran conceded to the Emulant’s choice. But as he followed along at a sensible distance, feeling it creak and sway under Slikker’s weight, something suddenly occurred to him.

‘What operation?’

But Slikker didn’t answer. Nor did he stop when he reached the bottom of the walkway. He simply lurched across the road and stood like a badly dressed bouncer in front of a pair of tall, oval sliding doors where he dutifully waited while Tarran briskly sauntered across to join him.

As it happens, Tarran knew the reception area very well. It was here he used to pick up his urgent assignments for the