Space Team

Planet of the Japes

Barry J. Hutchison

Zertex Books

Copyright © 2017 by Barry J. Hutchison

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published worldwide by Zertex Books.

www.barryjhutchison.com

JAPE (Noun)A joke; jest; quip.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Your Free Starter Library

Oh! I Almost forgot…

Also by Barry J. Hutchison

One

Cal Carver closed his eyes and concentrated.

How long had they been locked in battle now? Two hours? Three? Long enough. Too long, actually.

Waaaay too fonking long.

The next words out of his mouth could end it. They could stop all this, release him from this self-inflicted Hell he was currently trapped in. He just had to find them. He just had to ask the right question.

“OK,” he said, blowing out his cheeks. He took a moment to compose himself. “Do I live underwater?”

Across the table, the cyborg, Mech, sighed and looked at the card on Cal’s forehead. “How the fonk should I know?”

“Well do I look like I live underwater?” Cal asked, trying without much success to hide his irritation.

Mech looked at the card again. “I don’t know. Kind of, I guess.”

“Jesus,” Cal muttered. “OK. So… Am I… an alligator?”

“No.”

Cal bit his fist so hard he almost drew blood, then banged it on the table. “God dange it!” He took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. “OK, your turn.”

“Do I live underwater?” Mech asked.

Cal clenched his jaw. “You can’t just keep asking the same question I just asked,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You just can’t. It’s not fun that way.”

“It ain’t fun any fonking way. And I read the rules, man,” said Mech, leaning back on the bench and folding his arms. “Ain’t nothing in there about asking the same question as—”

“Fine! Fine, OK, fine!” said Cal. “Ask what you like. Yes, you live underwater.”

Mech considered this. “Am I a floopsoid?”

“What the f…?” Cal threw up his arms and shook his head. “Earth animals, Mech. They’re all Earth animals. We’ve already established this.”

“I don’t know any Earth animals!”

“Well whose fault is that?” Cal asked, raising an accusing eyebrow. “Huh? Whose fault is that?”

They had been confined to the Currently Untitled for almost a week now, while the ship’s artificially intelligent computer system, Kevin, had made some necessary repairs and recalibrations. It turned out that being wrenched into the void between dimensions had caused all kinds of problems, including playing havoc with the navigation systems, scrambling several vital security protocols, and bending at least one light fitting in the bathroom.

At first, cruising at impulse speed through the endless expanse of outer space had been relaxing. Cal wasn’t a fan of faster than light travel, as his ever-growing collection of vomit-catching receptacles would attest, and the slower pace had been awesome.

Then it had been pleasant.

Two hours later, it had become the single most tedious thing to have ever happened to him in his life.

Cal had picked up a selection of board games on their recent visit to his home planet, which he’d hoped would help the time pass more quickly.

He was wrong.

They had been cruising for seven whole days now, and Cal was starting to suspect he was on the brink of going mad. Yesterday, he’d spent more hours than he’d care to admit pretending to be each of the Thundercats in turn. Even the show’s token woman, Cheetara.

Especially Cheetara, in fact.

Since then, he had occasionally caught himself wondering if he actually was one of the Thundercats, and only pretending to be some guy on a spaceship. A really boring spaceship. With really boring board games.

Mostly, though, he wondered why he hadn’t thought to leave the board games behind and pick up an Xbox, instead.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cal tried to remember everything that had been said in the game so far. “OK, so I’m not a sasquatch, I’ve got four legs, no tail, I don’t have spots or stripes, I can’t fly, I’m either a carnivore or vegetarian, you’re not sure, I don’t have a long neck, I don’t have a noticeably shorter than average neck, either, I’m not a flightless bird, I’m small, and I live underwater.”

“You might live underwater,” Mech corrected.

“I might live underwater. And I’m not an alligator.”

“Right,” Mech agreed.

Cal spent several seconds staring into space. Literally. The window of the kitchen area looked out over a big patch of nothing. Pinpricks of light dotted the darkness, but otherwise there was very little of interest to report.

“And you’re absolutely sure I’m not an alligator?”

Mech looked at the card again. “Well, it don’t say ‘alligator’ on it. Was that your question?”

“What? No! That wasn’t my question.”

“It sounded like a question.”

“It was a clarification of an earlier question,” said Cal. “That’s not the same thing.”

He thought again.

“OK. Am I like an alligator.”

Mech closed his eyes, just for a moment, and muttered quietly below his breath. “Again,” he said. “I don’t know what an alligator is.”

It was Mech’s turn to bang a fist on the table. His metal knuckles left a noticeable dent. “Why are we even playing this fonking game, anyway?”

“You know why, Mech,” Cal snapped.

Mech rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”

“Because you broke Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”

The door to the kitchen slid open, revealing the wolf-woman, Mizette. She frowned as she looked between Mech and Cal, then regarded the card on Cal’s head.

“What’s an elephant?” she asked.

Cal’s eyes widened. “What?” he yanked the card from the plastic headband and flipped it over. “I’m an elephant? Elephants don’t live underwater!”

“Well what the fonk’s that thing on its face for?” Mech asked. “Anyway, I said you might live underwater.”

“And they’ve got tails!”

“Well then they should show that in the picture,” the cyborg spat.

“And since when was an elephant small?”

Mech gestured to the card. “Look at it. It’s, like, three inches tall.”

Cal threw down the card in outrage. “Wait, you thought all these pictures were actual size?”

“Guys!” Miz barked. “Stop talking about the stupid game, already. We picked up a distress signal. There’s some kids freezing to death on an ice planet, or whatever.”

Cal jumped to his feet and cheered. “Yes! Thank God!”

He caught the looks from the others, then sat down again. “I mean, obviously that’s terrible. Just awful news. Can we reach them? Kevin, how long until the warp thingy is fixed?”

The voice of the ship’s AI emerged from a hidden speaker somewhere up near the ceiling. “Minus sixty-three hours, sir,” Kevin intoned.

Cal winced. “Sixty-three hours? They could be dead by then.”

“Minus sixty-three hours,” Kevin corrected.

Cal blinked. “Huh? Wait, what? What are you saying?”

Kevin’s voice took on a slightly impatient tone. “I’m saying, sir, that warp capability was restored sixty-three hours ago,” he said. “Along with the rest of the ship’s functionality.”

Mech, Cal and Miz all looked up.

“Although, I’m having some difficulty getting the kink out of the bathroom light fitting,” Kevin continued. “But I shall persevere.”

The words tripped from Cal’s mouth. “The ship has been fixed for sixty-three hours?!”

“Indeed, sir,” Kevin confirmed.

“Well why didn’t you tell us?”

“I did, sir,” said the AI.

The occupants of the room all exchanged glances.

“Uh, no,” said Mech. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t I?” said Kevin. “Oh.”

“Oh?” yelped Cal, standing up again. “That’s all you have to say? Just oh? You keep us prisoner here for days, and all you have to say is, ‘Oh’?”

“Would you prefer, ‘Whoops’?” Kevin asked.

“Uh, hello?” called Loren, the kind-of pilot, from the front of the ship. “Children freezing to death?”

“Right. Right. The kids,” said Cal. He made for the door, then hesitated. “Wait. Has anyone seen Splurt?”

The plastic headpiece Cal wore squirmed as if alive, making him scream, just briefly, in panic. The band became a snot-like string of goo, then squished itself into a ball shape and dropped onto Cal’s shoulder.

Cal’s mood lightened instantly. “You adorable little weirdo,” he said, and Splurt nuzzled against the side of his head.

“Kids freezing!” shouted Loren from up front. “To death.”

“Shizz, yeah. I keep forgetting about that,” said Cal. He pointed dramatically to the kitchen door. “Space Team!” he boomed. “To the rescue!”

* * *

“Oh, sweet Jesus, this is cold,” Cal wheezed, tucking his gloved hands in under his armpits and stomping his boots in the snow. “How is this possible? How can it be this cold?”

“It’s an ice planet,” Mech grunted. “What do you expect?”

Cal half-gasped, but even with his helmet on, it made his lungs cramp up, so he quickly stopped. He shot Miz a sideways glance. She was trudging beside him, her tail swishing through the powdery whiteness. “Wait. Ice planet? I thought you said nice planet.”

“You thought I said there were kids freezing to death on a nice planet?” Miz asked.

“Yes!”

Mech tutted. “What kind of ‘nice planet’ would have kids freezing to death on it?”

“Well, I mean…” Cal began to protest, but he quickly ran out of steam. “I mean, I guess that would make it less nice.”

As soon as Cal had heard that the planet’s atmosphere was breathable, he’d shunned Mech’s offer of a spacesuit and raced purposefully down the landing ramp, desperate to feel the fresh air on his face. To his surprise and disappointment, his eyes had stuck open and his tongue had instantly frozen to the roof of his mouth.

He was kitted out in a suit now, but the cold still stabbed at him like thousands of tiny icicles, piercing through the fabric, through his skin, and right down into his core.

Miz hadn’t gone ‘full space suit’ but she was wearing more layers than Cal had ever seen her wear before, including a bobble hat that was stretched almost to ripping point over her head. Her brown fur was a palette of whites and grays, and her nose was already dry and cracked.

Mech hadn’t gone to any extra effort to protect himself from the cold beyond the obvious one of being almost exclusively made of metal. Little blooms of frost had begun to spread on the few patches of skin he had on his face, but if they were affecting him in any way, he wasn’t letting it show.

The Currently Untitled slouched on an incline a couple of hundred feet back the way, although the falling snow meant it was already hidden from sight. It was reasonably near to the closest spot they could get to the distress signal, but far enough away that there was minimum risk of Loren landing the ship directly on top of it, and instantly killing everyone involved.

Mech had scouted out a flat patch of ice that was sheltered from the blizzard, and Loren had aimed for there. As they had all come to expect, though, she’d missed it, overshot by quite some distance, and thumped sideways into a snow drift, instead.

If Cal listened carefully, he could just make out the sound of Splurt digging the ship free, although it was hard to hear it over the howling of the wind, the tinny echo of his breath in the helmet, and the creaking of his blood freezing in his veins.

“So where are these kids supposed to be?” Cal asked. “And, by the way, did I mention it is fonking freezing?”

“You did,” said Mech. “And they’re this way.”

He trudged on into the storm. Cal wiped a deposit of ice crystals from his visor and followed, his thighs burning – but not in a way he welcomed – as he heaved himself through the rising blanket of snow, trying to follow in Mech’s footsteps where possible.

A few seconds later, a shape appeared in the curtain of white ahead of them. As they drew closer, the shape became a spacecraft, and one that was clearly the wrong way up.

“It’s a Scout ship,” said Mech.

“Jesus. Who sends kids out on scouting missions?” asked Cal.

“No, Celestial Scouts,” said Mech.

Cal’s eyebrows met in the middle. “Celestial? You mean like angels?” he gasped.

“What? No. What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech snapped. “Celestial Scouts. You know, uniforms, badges, helping old ladies, or whatever.”

“Oh, you mean Space Boy Scouts. Gotcha. Just, when you said, ‘celestial’ I thought, you know, Heaven or whatever. You can see why I got confused.”

From Mech’s expression it was clear he didn’t see why Cal had got confused. Cal waved a hand. “Forget it. Let’s go save those Space Scouts!”

“Celestial Scouts,” Mech corrected.

Cal wrinkled his nose. “No. No, I think Space Scouts is better.”

“But it isn’t their name,” Miz pointed out.

Cal raised a finger. “You mean it isn’t their name yet,” he said, then he shivered from head to toe. “Did I mention it’s fonking freezing, by the way?”

“Yeah,” said Mech, trudging on. “You did. A lot.”

They plodded around the ship, searching for an entrance, but the whole thing had rolled over onto its side, presumably burying the doors in the snow and trapping everyone inside. The ship itself was a long, cigar shaped thing, with no visible wings or other distinguishing features. If there were windows, Cal couldn’t see any, although if the ship had rolled over – Mech had said so, but Cal couldn’t quite work out how you’d tell – then the windows could be up on top somewhere, and would be by now be completely buried under snow.

Cal, Mech and Miz all stepped in close to the rounded hull, taking cover from the blizzard.

“Is there anyone inside?” Miz asked.

Mech checked his scanner. “Yeah. Getting twenty-six life signs. Mix of species, all of them juveniles. No adults.”

“That seems irresponsible,” said Cal. “No wonder they crashed.”

“I’m guessing there were adults on board,” Mech said. “Probably killed when they hit. Or maybe they went looking for help and didn’t come back.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Still, twenty-six,” said Cal. “Can we even fit twenty-six people on the Untitled? I mean, if they’re small enough, I guess we could stack them up.”

“What are you talking about, ‘stack them up’?” Mech grunted. “We can’t stack them up.”

“Because they’re too big?” said Cal.

“Because they’re kids!”

“Oh. Right. Right,” said Cal. “Gotcha.”

“Anyway, we ain’t taking them on the ship,” Mech said.

Miz shrugged and started walking back the way they’d come. “Works for me. It’s freezing out here. It’s their own fault for crashing or whatever, anyway.”

“Wait, what? We’re just leaving them?” asked Cal. “Is that what’s happening now?”

“No!” said Mech. He gestured to the scanner on his arm, but the display made no sense to Cal, so he ignored it. “The ship’s still intact. We can tow them home.”

“Tow them?” said Cal. “Like with a rope?”

“Well, not exactly, but that’s the general idea.”

He explained his plan. It was, to Cal’s mind, quite a complicated plan, but this was partly because he stopped listening midway through, and tried to draw shapes in the condensation on the inside of his helmet with his tongue, instead. The sight of him licking the moisture off the glass made Mech hesitate, but only for a moment, before he gamely pressed on.

“Make sense?” Mech asked, once he’d explained it all.

“Hmm?” said Cal. “Oh. Yeah. Totally.”

Mech sighed. “You didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?”

“I listened to some of the words you said. Which, I’ll be honest, is more than I usually do.”

“Did you listen to the part where you wait here while I go back to the ship?” Mech asked.

“Who waits where?”

“You,” said Mech, pointing to Cal. “Wait here.” He pointed to the snow at their feet.

“On my own? What about Miz?”

Mech shrugged noisily. “She’s probably halfway back to the ship by now. I need to go get everything prepped, then get Loren to fly over here.”

“Can’t you radio her?”

“Not in this storm,” said Mech.

“Well can’t I come? Why do I have to wait here?” Cal asked. “It’s cold, and there might be space yetis.”

“What’s a…?” Mech began, then he shook his head. “In fact, I ain’t even gonna ask. The cold’s the most dangerous thing out here. There’s a hatch up on top,” he said, indicating the side of the cylindrical ship that was currently facing the sky. “You’re going to go inside and let them know help’s coming.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Oh. So, I’ll be inside? OK. That’s not too bad.”

He thought for a moment.

“Wait. How do I get up there?”

Mech’s metal jaw curved into a grin as he grabbed Cal by the front of his spacesuit.

“Ah, shizz,” Cal groaned. “I had to ask.”

Two

Cal sailed upwards, thudded against the side of the ship, grabbed frantically at its smooth sides, then fell backwards. He landed in a star shape, more or less in the exact same spot he’d landed the previous four times.

Mech appeared above him. “Missed again, huh?”

“I swear to God, you’re doing this on purpose,” Cal wheezed. He took Mech’s offered hand and let the cyborg pull him to his feet. “I never thought I’d say this, but you have to throw me higher.”

“Gravity in this place is stronger than I’m used to,” Mech said. “I don’t want overcompensate and risk you going all the way over the other side.”

“Well I don’t want to risk concussion and brain damage, so if you could fix it that I don’t hit a spaceship then fall thirty feet to the ground this time, I’d really appreciate it,” Cal said.

“You’ll heal,” said Mech.

Cal paused. “Uh yeah, about that,” he said, but Mech had already begun his upwards swing, and Cal could only grit his teeth and close his eyes as he rocketed up past the ship’s curved sides again.

Very quickly, he began to slow. “Dammit, Mech,” he muttered, but then he passed an imprint of himself in the snow that clung to the hull, and continued on upwards for a few more feet.

The top of the cylinder came into sight. Cal threw out his hands and clawed at the ice and frost, desperately trying to get a grip on something. Icicles fractured in his hands, and he felt the extra-strong gravity take hold again.

“No, no, no, no,” he groaned, then his arms jerked as his fingers found a ridge buried beneath the powdery snow.

“Yes!” he cheered. He laughed, despite the cold stabbing at him from every direction. “I did it. I did it.”

In fact, he hadn’t quite done it, and it was only after three more minutes of fighting against the gravitational pull, slippery metal, and full-scale blizzard that he managed to heave himself up onto a more solid footing. By which point, he was no longer laughing.

“OK. Fonk. OK,” he said, his breath coming in racehorse-like gulps. “I’m up. I’m up.”

He rolled over to call down to Mech, immediately began to slip, and threw himself onto his back again. “Ooh, shizz, that was close,” he whispered. “Mech! I’m up!”

No answer.

Reaching around him, Cal pulled together enough snow to make a snowball, and tossed it over the edge in what he guessed was Mech’s direction. “I’m up! Go get the ship!”

He needn’t have bothered. Mech, in fact, had already left to get the ship while Cal was scrabbling up the side, and was already halfway up the landing ramp. It took Cal three more snowballs and a lot more shouting to figure this out.

Once he had, he carefully shimmied himself onto his side, and felt for the ridge he used to pull himself up. Brushing the snow aside, he found a small airplane-style window. It was far too small to climb through, and someone had pulled a blind down on the other side, meaning he couldn’t even see inside.

“Shizz,” Cal muttered. He began crawling on his belly along the hull, sliding along like a penguin as he searched for some kind of entrance.

A minute or so later, he uncovered another window. There was no blind covering this one, but a layer of ice made it hard to see more than a few blurry shapes inside, picked out by a suggestion of red emergency lighting. Cal banged a fist against the frozen glass. “Hey! Up here! We’ve come to rescue you!” he shouted. “Now please let me in before I die.”

He cupped his hands and peered through the swirls of ice, trying to figure out if the shapes had noticed him. He didn’t think so, but it was hard to tell for sure.

“Hey! Where’s the door?”

He banged again.

Nothing.

“Jesus. Fine, I’ll find it myself. Thanks for all your help.”

He resumed his undignified slide across the metal. Halfway to the next window, he heard something out there in the storm. It was something between a squeal and a roar, and immediately made Cal think of a small lion eating a large pig. And yet, at the same time, he suspected the sound had come from one creature, not two. It came again, and made his mind up.

Yep. One thing. One big thing, he reckoned.

Cal remembered what Mech had said. The cold was ‘the most dangerous thing here’.

Most dangerous.

Not only.

The roar-squeal came again, closer this time. The vibration shook the snow, starting a number of mini avalanches around Cal that threatened to pull him over the sloping edge. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he whimpered, propelling himself onwards as fast as he could.

His boots thudded against the hull as he kicked on, the wind whistling and snow swirling around him. Even over all that, he heard the sound of whatever the fonk was out there again, so close now he was sure he’d be able to see it if he turned his head.

He told himself not to turn his head. Turning his head would only slow him down, and it wasn’t like he could go any faster, even if he did see something behind him. No, turning his head would be stupid.

He turned his head.

All he saw was the inside of his space helmet, which was both a relief and disappointment at the same time.

His forearms found another ridge in the snow. Brushing the white powder aside, Cal uncovered another window. He banged on it with both fists, then with his helmet, trying to make as much noise as possible. This was mainly to get the attention of the people inside, but also, if he were honest, to drown out the low, guttural snorting sound from behind him that suggested he was about to be eaten at any moment.

“Let me in!” he hollered. “You hear me, you little bamstons? Let me—”

The door, which Cal had unwittingly been lying on, dropped open, and Cal was presented with a view of the opposite wall.

Quite a distant view of the opposite wall, in fact, but one that rapidly became less distant as the extra-strength gravity caught him and pulled him sharply downwards.

Ooh, he thought. This is really going to—

And then it really did. Quite a lot.

He hit the wall, which currently served as a floor, cursed loudly, then rolled over onto his back just as something big white and furry appeared at the open hatch high overhead.

“Space yeti!” he cried, jabbing a finger upwards. “I knew it!”

The shape tumbled through. Too exhausted to move, Cal could only watch it flop down towards him. It was surprisingly soft and fluffy-looking, he realized, like a giant blow-dried sheep. He’d been expecting teeth of some kind – probably claws, if his past luck was anything to go by – but there was nothing vicious-looking about the thing at all.

It landed softly on top of him, the impact making it emit a sound not unlike a baby’s first giggle. It rolled off him, chittering to itself in a way that brought a big, beaming smile to Cal’s face.

Sitting up, Cal reached out a gloved hand and patted the thing. It quivered, and let out a series of soft coos and aahs.

“Well, look at you. Aren’t you a cutey?” said Cal, then the shadows came alive around them, and twenty-six children in Celestial Scouts uniforms launched themselves at the thing and set about beating it to death.

“Holy shizz! Stop! What are you doing?” Cal yelped, shuffling clear. The scouts were getting really stuck into the thing now, kicking and punching and tearing at its soft, fluffy fur. It squealed and shrieked and thrashed around in panic.

“Leave it alone, you little psychos,” said Cal, grabbing for the closest kid. The boy turned, hissing, and flew at him, his face all bunched up in rage. He was oddly smooth-skinned, like a doll, with a nose that was barely a bump right between his narrowed eyes.

The kid drove his forehead into the glass of Cal’s visor, then followed up with a kick aimed squarely between his legs. There wasn’t much force to it, and the space suit blocked most of what there was, but Cal felt it all the same.

“Cut it out!” Cal said, shoving the boy away. The kid tripped over Cal’s feet and hit the floor with a loud clang that caught the attention of some of the others.

As they stopped attacking the fluffball, it saw its chance. With a single bound, it launched itself up through the hatch again, and was immediately whipped away by the wind.

The children – all twenty-six in total – slowly turned to Cal. They were a range of shapes and sizes, with varying arrangements of facial features and limb configurations. They all wore the same uniform, but the clothes were mostly torn and all of them, somewhat to Cal’s consternation, were blood-stained.

Some of the kids’ faces were blood-stained, too, particularly around the mouth.

The two adult-sized skeletons lying slumped on the floor were blood-stained, also.

Cal began to get a picture of what had really happened to the scout leaders. Then he got a picture of it happening to him, next.

“Aw, Jesus,” he groaned, right before the Celestial Scout troop pounced, and Cal was buried under a pile of flailing eight-year-olds.

* * *

Mech’s magnetic feet carried him up the side of the scout ship and onto what was currently its roof. He could have used the same method to carry Cal up there earlier, of course, and saved all those problems with him hitting the hull then falling backwards into the snow, but where would the fun have been in that?

The Currently Untitled hovered overhead, its tow beam projector primed and ready to fire. First, though, Mech had to warn Cal and the kids, and make sure everyone was safely strapped in. Traveling in a ship flown by Loren was a health hazard at the best of times. Traveling in a ship being pulled through space behind a ship flown by Loren was likely to be even more so.

Still, he was sure Cal wouldn’t mind staying with the scouts for the trip. Hell, the man was practically a child himself. They were probably getting along like a house on fire.

Mech arrived at the hatch and looked down, just as Cal swung a Celestial Scout around by the legs, using him to smash three others to the floor. At the end of the swing, he released the child he’d been holding. The boy screamed as he flipped sideways through the air, then smashed against the hull and crumpled into a whimpering heap.

Cal stood in the middle of a circle of semi-conscious children, breathing heavily, the gloves of his space suit clenched into fists. A clump of snow slid down from above and plopped onto his helmet. He looked up and met the wide-eyed, slack-jawed stare of Mech looking down.

“Oh, hey,” said Cal, giving the cyborg a wave. He regarded the carnage around him, then raised his head again. “This totally isn’t what it looks like.”

“You mean like you just kicked shizz out of twenty-six kids?”

Cal looked down again. “Oh. Right. Then yeah. It totally is what it looks like.”

One of the scouts sat up, bending at the middle like a vampire rising from the grave. Cal floored the boy again with a right cross. He gave his hand a shake and flexed his fingers, then raised his eyes to the hatch again.

“Now get me the fonk out of here before they all wake up.”

* * *

Loren sat in the pilot’s seat, one hand covering her mouth, her shoulders heaving.

“It’s not funny,” said Cal. He turned in his chair to find Miz and Mech both hiding grins of their own. “I could’ve fonking died. It’s not funny.”

“I agree, sir,” said Kevin. “The situation you found yourself in was most grave indeed, and we should not be—”

He made a sound like a lot of air escaping from a balloon at once.

“Sorry, I can’t do it,” he sniggered. “It’s hilarious.”

“No! It isn’t!” Cal protested. “I was almost eaten by cannibal eight-year-olds!”

Miz let out a snort and quickly turned her chair away. Cal listened to it creaking as she rocked with silent laughter.

Cal shook his head, then caught Mech’s expression. “Mech, are you… are you fonking crying?”

“What? No! No, I… uh… Tiny bit,” Mech squeaked, then the laughter exploded out of him. This set Loren and Miz off, and the bridge was filled with the sound of roaring, giggling and sniggering.

Cal sat in silence, drumming his fingers on his armrest and waiting for the hilarity to stop.

It took some time.

Eventually, Loren managed to get her breathless guffaws down to just the occasional chuckle. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt and blew out her aching cheeks.

“Oh. Wow,” she wheezed. “Just… wow. How does this stuff keep happening to you?”

“How should I know?” Cal asked. He shifted in his seat. “Fonking Space Scouts,” he muttered, which immediately set Loren off again.

Cal crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. He caught sight of Splurt up there, tucked in among the vents and pipes near the ceiling. The little guy’s blobby body was wracked by violent shudders.

“Not you, too,” Cal groaned. He turned in his chair, half-expecting to find a sniggering Tobey Maguire standing in the doorway, then spun all the way back to the front. He gestured to the viewscreen, which was rapidly becoming covered in snow. “Now, is someone going to fly us out of here, or do I have to do it myself?”

Three

A few hours later, with a cylinder full of cannibalistic children trailing in its wake, the Currently Untitled dropped out of warp a few thousand miles from an orange-brown planet with very little in the way of water covering its surface.

As was tradition, Loren completely fonked the slowdown, resulting in everything in the ship that wasn’t fastened down being launched forwards at high speed. This extended to the scout ship, which twanged forward on its invisible tow rope, then rebounded back again.

Mech winced. “Probably should’ve told those kids to put on their seatbelts.”

“Nah. Serves them right,” Cal said. “In fact, can we go around and do that again, like, another twice?”

“Well this place looks awesome,” said Miz, glancing at the screen for a fraction of a second before turning her attention back to a knot in her fur which she had spent the last twenty minutes picking at.

“I believe that was sarcasm,” Kevin intoned.

“Oh really? You think so?” said Loren.

“Yes, ma’am. I have a very good ear for that sort of thing.”

“Obviously,” said Cal. He gestured towards the planet. “OK, Loren, take us to Tatooine, or wherever the fonk this is, and we’ll hand our tub of psychopaths into the Space Police, or whoever. Let them deal with the little shizznods.”

“Atmosphere entry could be rough,” Loren pointed out.

“Unlike all the other times, you mean?” Miz mumbled.

“Again…” began Kevin.

“We know,” said Loren.

Cal leaned forward in his chair. “Rough on who? Us or them?” He jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the scout ship behind them.

“Both,” said Loren. “But mostly them.”

Cal gave a nod of satisfaction. “Excellent,” he said. “Then take us down, and don’t spare the horses.”

Loren looked back over her shoulder. “What’s a—?”

“Quickly,” Cal sighed. “Take us down quickly. Jesus.”

“Alright, alright,” said Loren. She faced front again, but then turned back. “You OK?”

“Hmm?” said Cal, distractedly. He shrugged, straightened up, and smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, fine. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” said Loren.

“He’s been totally grouchy for days,” Miz said, not looking up.

“I haven’t been grouchy,” Cal protested. “I mean, was I upset about Hungry, Hungry Hippos? Yes. Yes, I was.”

“You cried for three hours,” Mech said. “That ain’t right.”

“It’s a classic game, OK?” Cal snapped. “It deserved better.”

He twitched in irritation, then unclipped his belt and stood up. “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are we to crash when you land?”

“Ten,” said Miz.

Loren tutted. “Uh, no,” she said. “I don’t know. Like, two. Three, tops. Unless there are mountains.”

“There are mountains,” said Mech.

“Then four,” Loren admitted. “But barely. Practically a three.”

“I’ll take my chances,” said Cal. “I’ll be through the back. Shout me when we touch down.”

“Don’t worry,” said Miz. “The screaming and explosions will totally give it away.”

She looked up to see Cal’s reaction, but he had already left the bridge. Her gaze flicked over to Mech and Loren instead, her eyebrows raising. They both shrugged.

“Beats me,” said Mech.

“Maybe someone should go talk to him,” Loren suggested.

Miz pointed to the viewscreen. “Maybe you should avoid that asteroid.”

Loren spun in her chair in time to see a huge chunk of rock tumbling towards them. She jerked her stick to the side, sending the Untitled into a roll.

From out in the corridor there came a loud thump.

“Thank you for that,” Cal called.

“Sorry!” said Loren, then they all listened as the kitchen door swished open, and Cal shuffled inside.

“He’ll be fine,” said Mech.

“How do you know?” asked Loren.

“Because he’s always fine.”

Loren couldn’t really argue with that. Generally speaking, Cal was the most upbeat person she’d ever known, to the extent that his positivity often became teeth-gratingly annoying. That just made his current behaviour even stranger, though. She’d never seen him so… flat before. It worried her.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, then she turned her attention to the controls, and the planetary atmosphere that was now looming ahead. “Now everyone hold on. This could get a little bumpy.”

* * *

The atmosphere entry and landing were both textbook. Unfortunately, they were from ‘Textbook Loren’, rather than a textbook written by, say, someone who actually knew how to effectively do either of those things.

The first part, when they’d entered the planet’s atmosphere, had gone smoothly right up until the actual atmosphere entry part, whereupon it had quite quickly started to go wrong. The problem – or one of them, at least – was the dead weight of the scout ship. While it had been following behind them through space without any issues, the effects of the planet’s gravity immediately dragged it down, yanking the Untitled with it and sending both ships into a spin, like two dance partners whirling around one another. Only larger, more cumbersome, and hurtling towards the fast-approaching ground.

Thanks to interventions from Mech and Kevin – plus some withering commentary from Miz – both ships had been brought under control, and the rest of the descent had gone… not smoothly, exactly, but smoother.

The landing, on the other hand, was rocky. Literally. Rather than touch down on one of the planet’s many designated landing pads, the Untitled had overshot, shaved a foot and a half off a mountain range, then scraped to a stop in a field of stalagmites on the other side.

As luck would have it – although Loren insisted it was entirely by design – the Scout ship came to a rest on the same side it had rolled onto back on the ice planet, meaning the doors were once more pinned underneath the hull or pointing to the sky, thereby preventing the flesh-eating little shizznods getting out.

After detaching the tow beam, Mech had fired off a warning message on local law enforcement channels, then Loren had taken them back over the ridge and nearer to a landing pad.

Not onto a landing pad, but nearer to one, which was a start.

“Well,” she said, releasing the controls and turning to face the others. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“Just bad enough, ma’am,” said Kevin.

A frown darted across Loren’s brow. “Uh. Right. Thanks,” she said, then she tapped her hands on her knees a few times. “So. What do we do now?”

“Don’t know,” said Mech. “Back into space, I guess.”

“No way,” said Miz. “Desert shizzhole or not, I need off this ship. You guys might not notice it, but you all totally stink. I don’t care what Cal says, we’re staying here, at least for a couple of hours.”

Loren shrugged. “Fair enough. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs.”

“I wouldn’t mind stretching your legs, either,” said Miz. She replayed the sentence in her head. “In a painful and violent way, I mean. Not, like, you know, in a sex—”

“Yes! I get it,” said Loren. “Thank you.”

She stood up. “I’ll go tell Cal we’re staying.”

“It appears he already knows, ma’am,” said Kevin.

Loren looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Master Carver left the ship twenty seconds ago.”

* * *

Loren caught up with Cal on a street lined with market stalls and traders, all of which he was pointedly ignoring in favor of studying the fronts of the buildings behind them. It reminded him of Marrakesh, despite the fact he’d never been there or, to the best of his knowledge, seen pictures of it. It just had that Marrakeshy sort of vibe to it, although he doubted the good people of Marrakesh shared the ‘starving slug’ appearance of this place’s dominant species.

Although, again, he’d never been, so he couldn’t be completely certain about that. He was sure he’d have heard about it on the news or seen a documentary about it if they did, though.

The surface of the street looked half-finished, like it had either been pristine along time ago, or was slowly working its way up to it. It was a mix of smooth rock and rough sand, although ‘mix’ wasn’t quite the right word. It was as if both those surfaces were trying to exist in the same place at the same time, and neither side was willing to give any ground to the other.

The little tents covering the market stalls were similarly past their best. Their colors – swirls of reds and purples, mostly – had been faded by the relentless glare of the planet’s two suns. Judging by the way both suns hung above opposite horizons, Cal guessed the place must be in near-constant daylight, although he’d be the first to highlight the word ‘guessed’ in that sentence.

Voices drifted out from each tent. He didn’t understand much of what was being said, which either meant his translation chip was on the fritz, or there were no equivalent Earth words for whatever the traders were selling.

“Unk. Beautiful unk. All the way from the Coorap Mines. Best unk in town.”

“Oosjuice, friend? You. Yes, you. Sup on my Oosjuice? Zingy. Refreshing. Yes?”

“I have what you want. Anything you want. You want chintz? I have chintz. Much chintz.”

Cal ignored them and pressed on. He didn’t hear Loren approaching until she jogged to a stop behind him.

“Hey,” she said.

Cal didn’t turn.

“Hey,” he replied.

“Uh, you left,” said Loren. “The ship. You left the ship.”

Cal looked round, as if noticing her for the first time. “Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Sorry, didn’t I say?”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I was looking for a…” He stopped and pointed to a building over on the right. Like all the other buildings, this one seemed to have been neatly carved from a single piece of rock. It was bigger than the others, and there were lots of people gathered inside. “Does that look like a bar to you?”

Loren studied the building. “Kind of. Yeah.”

“Excellent,” said Cal, leading the way over to it.

There was no door, just a carefully hewn space for one in the stone. As soon as he stepped inside, Cal knew he was right. This place had ‘Bar’ written all over it. And not just metaphorically. A series of chalk symbols swam before his eyes as they were translated to reveal the word in foot-high letters on three of the four walls.

The bar itself was carved from the same stone as the building, as were the tables and chairs. It was as if someone had taken a cube of rock and chiseled away until a rough approximation of a drinking establishment was all that was left.

Several of the tables had the starving slug creatures sitting at them, most of them nursing a drink like they were afraid someone was going to take it from them. A few other species were dotted around – a thing with glowing hair, something that looked like a partially-melted wizard – but they didn’t seem to be interacting much with the slug guys.

A grinding sound from the door drew the attention of everyone inside. Mech squeezed himself through the doorway, his bulky metal body scraping across both sides of the narrow gap. Miz ducked through behind him.

“Uh, sorry,” said Mech, catching the accusatory look from the bartender. “You should really get a wider door.”

“Well, looks like they’ve got one now,” said Loren, eyeing the damage. She turned back to Cal, but he was already at the bar.

“Uh, we’ll have four… I don’t know. What’s that green stuff?” he asked, pointing to a display behind the bartender.

The little slug-man looked back over his stooped shoulder. “Dish soap,” he said.

“You mean actual dish soap, or is that just a funny name you guys have for alcohol?”

“Actual dish soap.”

Cal thought about it.

“Nah. What about the blue one?”

“Floor polish.”

“Jesus,” said Cal. “Don’t you think having those out there on display is asking for trouble? It feels like a recipe for disaster.”

He stopped talking and glanced around. “Wait, this is a bar, right? It’s not a cleaning product store? Because if so, discount everything I just said.”

“Yes. It’s a bar,” the slug guy said, lowering his voice and glancing around.

“Great. OK, then four of your strongest drinks, please,” Cal said. He jabbed a thumb in Mech’s direction without looking. “He’s paying.”

“What? How come I’m paying?”

“Uh, maybe because you’re the only one hooked up to the ship, where the money is?” Miz pointed out.

Mech opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. “Oh. Yeah. I guess I am.”

Four short, squat stone cups were set on the bar. A glug of urine-colored liquid was sloshed into each one. Cal picked one up before the liquid had settled, then knocked it back in a single gulp.

His face contorted. His breathing became labored. A tremble shook his body from his head all the way down to his toes, three of which went completely numb.

“Holy shizz,” he coughed, stamping his feet a few times, as if trying to drive out the cold. “Are you sure that isn’t the floor polish?”

He gestured to the bottle. “Just give us the whole thing. And have another on standby.”

Miz, Mech and Loren all watched as Cal took the bottle and refilled his cup. Without a word, he turned, scanned the bar, then found them a table right in the center of the room. Still saying nothing, he made a bee-line for it, tried to pull one of the carved stone chairs out a little, then realized it was a battle he wasn’t going to win.

By the time the others joined him, Cal was pouring himself his third drink.

Everyone took a seat at the table. This was easy for Loren, moderately challenging for Miz, and involved a lot more metal scraping against stone for Mech.

“It ain’t my fault,” he said to all the faces that turned his way. “OK? It ain’t my fault. These ain’t built for the… larger gentleman.”

Cal waved the bottle vaguely at the rest of the crew. Miz knocked back her drink, then held her mug out. Cal filled it, although it took some concentration on his part. He closed one eye, but he couldn’t quite work out if this made it more of a challenge or less of one.

Loren swirled the liquid around and sniffed the cup. She sipped, recoiled, inhaled sharply, then set the container down on the table as far away from her as she could without it looking weird.

She looked at Mech and raised her eyebrows. Mech shrugged, just slightly, and glanced at Miz. Miz scowled at Loren, but she had been doing that already, and it had little, if anything, to do with the current uncomfortable silence.

Mech cleared his throat. It was made of metal, and there was no need for him to do so, but he felt it appropriate. “So, uh. How you doing, man?” he asked.

Cal looked up from his drink. “Who, me? Fine. I’m fine. Totally fine.”

“Good. That’s good,” said Mech.

Loren glared at him. Mech sighed.

“I mean, it’s just… You don’t seem fine.”

“Don’t I?” said Cal. He raised his eyebrows as if in surprise, but then they fell again. “I mean, I guess…”

The others waited for him to continue.

“You guess what?” asked Miz, who was the least patient by quite some distance.

“It’s just…” Cal twisted his cup between finger and thumb. “Like…”

“Wow. Spit it out, already,” said Miz.

Cal leaned back in his chair and sighed. “It’s just, maybe it’s hitting home, you know?”

Mech and Loren swapped confused looked.

“What’s hitting home?” asked Mech.

“That I’m… you know.”

“An irritating shizznod?” Mech said. He smirked, but then realized no-one else was joining him. “Sorry, probably not the right time,” he admitted. “Bad call on my part.”

“A week ago I was surrounded by… well, me. You know?” Cal said. “I could talk about, I don’t know, Ghostbusters, or whatever, and at least some of them knew what I was talking about. There was a shared… A mutual… Whatever.”

He bent forwards again, leaning his elbows on the table. “And there was Lily, of course. That was… I don’t know what that was, but it was something.”

He leaned back again. Loren was starting to suspect it was some kind of exercise routine. “And then we went to Earth, and I was reminded yet again that everyone I’ve ever known is dead, or infected by evil bugs, or whatever, and… I don’t know. Hell, even Sinclair, you know?”

“That piece of shizz?” Mech snorted. “What about him?”

“He’s gone. And I mean, that’s great, I’m all in favor of that, but… I guess, I mean, what now?” said Cal. “He was the Joker to my Batman. The Ric Flair to my Hulk Hogan. That other guy to my Sherlock Holmes, or whatever.”

He caught the blank expressions on their faces. “Not even Batman? Jesus. See? This is what I’m talking about,” he said. “I say ‘Batman’ and I get that look.”

“We know stuff,” Mech protested. “Matter of fact, I’ve been picking up a lot about Earth culture.”

“You thought elephants were two inches tall.”

“What’s an elephant?” asked Loren.

“It’s some underwater thing,” Miz said.

Cal threw up his hands. “See? This is what I’m talking about. I rest my case,” he said, then he downed the contents of his cup, experienced a number of unpleasant side effects all at the same time, and reached for the bottle again.

“Seriously, forget I said anything. I’m fine. Just… you know.”

Miz’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. “Yeah,” she said, her dark brown eyes meeting his. “We know.”

She punched him playfully on the arm. It hurt quite a lot, which reminded him of something else. He stood up and worked the buckle of his belt.

“And then there’s this,” he said, turning and dropping his pants a few inches to reveal a sizeable portion of his butt.

Mech recoiled. Loren blushed and darted her eyes away. Miz tried to resist the deeply-ingrained instinct to sniff, and came admirably close to succeeding.

“What the fonk are you doing, man?” Mech said. “Cover that thing up.”

“Look at it,” said Cal, twisting to look back over his shoulder. “Notice anything?”

“I notice you dropping your motherfonking pants in the middle of a crowded bar,” Mech said.

“The bruise. See the bruise?”

“I see it,” said Miz.

“How could you not see it?” Mech snapped. “Your face is, like, three inches away.”

Cal pulled his pants up, and realized everyone in the bar was watching him. He smiled and waved. “That was… for medicinal purposes,” he said, then he sat down. Only then did Loren look at him again.

“So, you’ve got a bruise,” she said. “What’s the big…? Oh.”

“Oh. Exactly,” said Cal. “I got that when I fell on the ice earlier, after Mech tried throwing me onto the roof of the Scout ship. Several times. Although, I’m not convinced he was really trying. It’s still there.”

He pushed back his hair, revealing a red blemish high on his forehead. “That’s from when Miz threw the little dog at me two days ago.”

“You took all my money,” Miz reminded him.

“It was Monopoly,” said Cal. “That’s the whole point.”

“You ain’t healing,” Mech realized.

Cal nodded. “Exactly. I’m not healing. Not like I was.”

It had been just a few short weeks since Cal had been given the remaining lifeforce of Tullok, one of the tribespeople they’d encountered while searching for the missing Splurt. Tullok had literally turned into ash as he’d transferred all that he was into Cal, making Cal stronger, faster and – most usefully – able to heal from any injury including, on at least one occasion, death.

Now, though, his ass was bruised and his forehead was dented, and that feeling of boundless energy he’d been charged with was fading by the day.

“So… what?” said Mech. “You used up that guy’s entire lifespan in less than a month?”

“Well, I did get shot in the chest, taken over by a big weird space thing, and punched in the face and head a lot,” Cal pointed out. “Plus the evil wasp. Was that before or after the life force thing?”

“Before,” said Loren.

“Oh. OK, so not that, but all that other stuff. It takes its toll, that’s all I’m saying,” said Cal.

Loren took a sip of her drink, having forgotten quite how awful it was. She choked, shooting some of the liquid down her nose, exclaimed, “Fonk!” more loudly than she’d intended, and slid the cup toward the center of the table as far as she could, all while hoping nobody noticed.

“Nice recovery,” said Cal.

“Thanks,” Loren grimaced.

Cal shook his head. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m just… Forget it.” He mustered the best smile he could, trying to convince himself with it as much as the other. “This is not the time for long faces. We’ve saved the universe – all universes, in fact. We’ve got a fonkload of money, a cool ship, and a whole galaxy waiting to be explored. So what if you think elephants live underwater? Maybe they should!”

He shrugged. “I mean, they’d almost certainly die, I guess, and that would kind of suck, but… I have no idea where I’m going with that,” he concluded. He raised his cup. “Fonk it, doesn’t matter. To Space Team.”

He waited for a moment, then tutted. “You’re all supposed to raise your… Ah, forget it, that doesn’t matter, either.”

He drained the cup, blew out his lips, which now felt like they belonged to someone else, and reached for one of the three bottles which now stood on the table. His hand passed through two of them before he found the real one.

“Wow. Is this strong getting stuffer?” he asked, then he shut one eye and replayed the sentence in his head. There was definitely something wrong with it, he reckoned, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

The alcohol had just begun sloshing into Cal’s cup when one of the skinny slug-people appeared in the doorway from outside. “Company!” it hissed. “Hurry.”

From the other tables, there came a chorus of concern. Cups were drained then smashed against the stone floor, where the gray fragments were instantly camouflaged. Cal watched, his frown deepening, as the bartender hurriedly shoved the bottles under the bar, his eyes wide with fear. Three of the bar’s customers rubbed their arms across the symbols on the wall, smearing them away.

It wasn’t until Cal felt the dampness on his pants that he realized he was still pouring. Looking down, he saw a dark patch spreading around his crotch. It took a full three seconds for his brain to process it.

“Shizz,” he eventually slurred. He twisted the bottle upright, overshot, and splashed a good-sized glug in Mech’s face.

“Hey, watch it,” Mech protested.

Cal looked at him. At them, in fact, as he was now a set of conjoined triplets, all scowling in unison. “Huh?” Cal said, trying to pick a face to focus on. “Watch what?”

His frown deepened even further and he cast his eyes down to his groin. “Oh man, I peed my pants.”

The bar’s other occupants, including the bartender himself, hurried past, headed for the exit. They had almost reached it when a hulking figure in an all-too-familiar military uniform appeared, filling the doorway in every direction.

“Zertex,” Miz spat. “Great. What do they want?”

“Cal Carver?” said the trooper. His voice was a rich and booming baritone. It made Cal’s scalp vibrate, although that may have just been the alcohol.

Cal looked back at him blankly, then reacted. “Oh. Wait. That’s me.” He raised a hand, then leaned closer to the three-headed Mech and whispered loudly. “That is me, right?”

“Yeah, man,” said the Mechs. “It’s you.”

Cal wiped a hand across his forehead. “Phew. Could’ve been embarrassing.”

He stood up. This took quite some time, and involved a lot of muttering. When he’d finished, the world was leaning slightly sideways. He leaned in the opposite direction, to try to compensate.

He fell over.

The process of standing up began again. This time took slightly longer than the last one, as the ground selfishly turned itself into some sort of spongy material beneath Cal’s hands and feet.

When he finally stood up, Cal jabbed a finger at no-one in particular.

“Yes! I’m Cal Carver,” he announced, in a voice like a 17th century English monarch. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he wasn’t about to question it. “Pray tell, what can I do for you, my good man?”

The Zertex man stepped through the doorway, and the bar’s clientele all shuffled backwards in unison, keeping their distance from the soldier, and – more importantly - from the blaster rifle in his hands.

“Come with me,” the trooper commanded. “Your presence is requested at the highest level.”

Cal’s frown returned with such a vengeance it forced both his eyes closed. It took him several seconds to realize this, and a few more to work out how to open them again. Once he had, he pointed roughly in the direction of ‘up’. “The highest level? You mean the roof?”

“I mean the president,” the Zertex man replied. “The president will see you now.”

Four

A desk had been set up in the street outside the bar, positioned so it was facing the door. A woman – or female, at least - with half-inch long white hair sat behind the desk in a functional but far from fancy chair, two Zertex troopers holding parasol umbrellas above her head to shield her from the twin suns. Her pale, scaly skin glistened as if wet, making her look somewhat fishy, in the most literal possible sense.

She rose, smiling, as Cal stumbled out of the bar with the others following behind him. Once the team were clear of the building, the first soldier took up his position in the doorway again, preventing anyone else leaving.

Two walls of armed guards had taken up positions on the street a few hundred feet away on either side of the woman, their backs to her, their guns held ready. Three ships…

Cal concentrated.

No, wait. One ship stood a short distance behind her, the landing legs having crushed at least one of the colorful tents, and possibly more.

Most of Cal’s attention was focused on making his legs move in the correct sequence, so he noticed very few of these details. Despite his efforts, the leg thing wasn’t working out very well, either. He’d get as far as ‘left, right, left’ then have no idea what was supposed to come next, and so have to stop for a moment, before starting from the beginning again.

“Mr Carver,” the woman said, looking him up and down with a remarkable degree of subtlety and tact. She smiled, and it wasn’t a shark’s smile like Sinclair’s had been. It was… warm-ish. Not all the way friendly, but professional, and lacking any obvious sinister overtones.

Again, though, Cal noticed none of this. He scuffed to a stop fifteen feet from the desk, briefly wondered where he was, then remembered something about…

“The president,” he announced, pointing to the sky for no discernible reason. “I demand to see the space president at once!”

“Haha. Yes. Well, good news. You’re looking at her,” said the woman. The parasol carriers followed her as she emerged from behind the desk and crossed to Cal. “President Haska Valtrax.”

Cal closed both eyes, which was one more than he had intended to close. His brain tried to figure out where the sun had gone, before his eyelids sprung open again, painfully wide.

“You’re the space president?” he asked, far too loudly. To her credit, the president didn’t so much as twitch.

“I am the new president of the Zertex Corporation, and of Zertex Space,” said Valtrax, nodding curtly as if using the gesture as punctuation. “I’m told you had some… interactions with my predecessor.”

“That fonking shizznod,” Cal muttered. “He a friend of yours?”

“President Sinclair was the single greatest mistake this company has ever inflicted upon the galaxy. He was a traitor, a charlatan, a warmonger – a disease, in fact, and one I am delighted has been eradicated,” said Valtrax.

“You didn’t answer the question,” said Cal.

“I think I did.”

“Oh,” Cal said. He raised his eyebrows, processing this. “What was the question again?”

President Valtrax, once again to her credit, continued to smile. “You asked if President Sinclair was a friend of mine. He was not.”

“Well… good,” said Cal. “That fonking shizznod.”

Behind him, Loren leaned closer to Mech. “I’ve never seen him this drunk before,” she whispered. “How strong was that stuff?”

“Don’t know. But I’m guessing ‘too strong’.”

President Valtrax crossed her arms behind her back. “Sinclair was not my friend, but I’d very much like you to be, Mr Carver. All of you, in fact. I am of the opinion that Zertex owes you a great debt.”

“You can say that again,” Cal said. “I saved the whole universe. All the whole universes. Plural.”

He held up three fingers and studied them. “Does plural mean what I think it means?” he whispered, apparently aiming the question at his own hand.

“We saved the whole universe,” Mech pointed out.

“Yes! We. I meant we,” Cal agreed. “But mostly me.”

“Bullshizz,” Mech spat. “It was all of us.”

“I know, I know, totally,” Cal said. “It was all of us. Definitely all of us. But, like, fifty-one per cent me. Or, like…”

He began to count on his fingers, but as he had three times as many as he’d been expecting, he didn’t get very far.

“Fonk it, doesn’t matter,” he muttered. He glanced around, then reacted to President Valtrax as if only now noticing her for the first time.

It was round about this point that the hangover hit. It came on him swiftly and without mercy, stabbing into his brain like an ice pick through the skull, and pouring raw sobriety in through the hole.

“Ow, ow, ow. Jesus!” he bellowed, his knees liquifying and almost dropping him to the ground. He clutched his head with both hands, like he was afraid it was about to fall off and explode, not necessarily in that order. “Oh God! Oh, dear God! What the Hell is happening to my head?”

The pleasingly-intoxicated feeling was fast becoming nothing but a memory. Cal tried to hold onto it, but found only sobering discomfort where the giddy lightheadedness had just a moment ago been.

He shot an accusing look back at the others. “Did someone just stab me through the skull? Mech, I’m looking at you here.”

“Hangover,” Mech said. “Guess that stuff kicks out as fast as it kicks in.”

The president raised one eyebrow. “You realize the consumption of alcohol is a criminal offence in this sector?” she said. She held Cal’s gaze for a moment, then smiled. “But I’m sure we can let that pass. As I say, the galaxy owes you a great debt. All of you. I’d like to reward you in some way.”

“No thanks,” said Loren. “We don’t want anything from Zertex.”

Valtrax dipped her head in Loren’s direction. “Of course. I understand, Gunso Loren.”

“Just Loren. I don’t work for Zertex anymore.”

“But you could,” said Valtrax. “All of you could. We would be honored to have you. Working with us, I mean. Not for us. Independent contractors, working on some key projects.”

“You wish,” Miz said. “I’d rather eat my own eyeballs. Or, like, her eyeballs, anyway.” She jabbed a clawed thumb in Loren’s direction.

“I see,” said the president. “And, of course, I understand. You have no reason to trust us. To trust me. Not yet. But I intend to earn it. Zertex is not what you think it is. And if it is, I intend to make sure it changes. You have my word on that.”

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” Mech said.

“Of course,” said Valtrax. She glanced across their faces. “And there’s nothing I can offer you? No reward I can provide you with?”

“I got one,” said Cal, wincing with the pain his own voice drilled into his skull. “The translation chip. The censorship thing.”

“What about it?”

“Sinclair added a new word. ‘Dange’. I’d like it removed.”

Confusion flitted across the president’s fine features. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” said Cal. “Do that, and we’re even. We’ll call it quits.”

Valtrax glanced upwards, just for a moment, as if searching for something. “Done.”

“Already?” said Cal. He put it to the test. “Damn, that was fast. Damn. Damn! It works! I’ll be damned.”

“And you’re sure that’s everything?” Valtrax asked.

“You’re damn right that’s everything,” Cal confirmed. He started to turn away, then stopped. “Unless, you can rewind time and stop billions of parasitic bugs wiping out my home planet?”

Valtrax glanced down, uncomfortable with the question. “I am afraid not. I can only extend my personal condolences, and assure you that—”

“Well OK, then,” said Cal, completing his turn so his back was to her. “Then I guess we’ll be on our way.”

“Safe travels, all of you,” Valtrax said. Cal raised a hand in a half-wave, then led the others back in the direction of the ship. The president watched one of the walls of soldiers part for them, and kept watching until Cal and the others were lost in the crowds on the other side.

“Well, that went about as well as could be expected,” she said, as much to herself as to her umbrella-bearers. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t do more to reward them.”

She about-turned and started to march back to her ship, her attendants hurrying to keep pace. Behind her, three other troops picked up her desk and chair, and began shuffling in the direction of the landing ramp.

“Madam President?” called the guard blocking the doorway to the bar. “What about the rest of them?”

Valtrax turned. “The rest of who?”

The soldier gestured behind him to the occupants of the bar. “Them.”

“Oh, yes. Them. Were they drinking alcohol?”

“Possibly,” the soldier said. “I’d have to investigate further to be sure.”

“Really? An investigation into whether… what? A dozen people were consuming alcoholic drinks? That rather feels like a waste of your time, wouldn’t you say? So no, let’s not do waste our time on something like that,” said the president. She glanced along the street in the direction Cal and the others had gone, then back to the trooper in the doorway. “Just kill them,” she instructed. “Kill them all.”

* * *

Cal lowered himself into his seat, being careful to keep his head perfectly level. Tilting it more than a couple of degrees in either direction made everything spin, while simultaneously stabbing hundreds of tiny pins into his eyes and, if he went another degree or two far enough, kicking him firmly in the balls.

The leather creaked as his weight sunk into it. He held his breath, waiting for another bomb blast of pain to go off inside his skull, but was relieved when nothing—

A bomb blast of pain went off inside his skull.

“Motherfonker,” he hissed, gripping his arm rests. “I am never drinking again,” he said, then he quickly amended it to, “I am never drinking that stuff again.”

Splurt stretched down from the ceiling and took up residence on Cal’s shoulder. Cal barely seemed to notice.

Loren turned her chair to face the rest of the crew. “So, where to now?”

“A hospital, maybe?” Cal suggested, kneading his temples. “Or we could skip that step and one of you could just kill me.”

Mech raised a hand. “I’d like to put myself forward for that.”

“We should go somewhere awesome,” said Miz, slouching in her seat. She noticed the others looking at her and shrugged. “Or somewhere lame. Whatever. Who cares?”

Cal raised his eyebrows. It hurt. “No, you could be onto something. Somewhere awesome would be, you know, awesome. Loren, know anywhere awesome?”

Miz snorted incredulously.

Loren glowered at her for a moment, then spun to face the console. She tapped a few controls and the view of the stalagmite field was replaced by a map of planets and stars.

“Somewhere awesome. Somewhere awesome,” she said, clicking her tongue against the back of her teeth. A glowing rectangle appeared on screen, then the image zoomed in to show four planets all grouped closely together. “Here’s something. The To’k Shipyards. It’s a fully functioning ship construction system with dedicated museum and—”

“Christ, no,” said Cal. “What else is there?”

The screen zoomed out, then in again, this time bringing a white and ever so slightly pointy-looking world into view. “The planet Tinel. Composed entirely of living crystals that sing in harmony when the light hits them.”

A box popped up beside the planet, and reams of text began scrolling by. “Reviews are good. ‘A must see.’ ‘Breathtaking – we all loved it.’ ‘Five stars, although the gift shop is a little on the expensive side,’” she read.

“Right,” said Cal. “I was thinking somewhere more exciting. Somewhere that didn’t involve crystals or museums or whatever. Something fun.”

“Now you’re just confusing her,” said Miz. “She doesn’t know what fun is.”

“I do so,” Loren protested. She began zooming in on a neighboring salt mine exhibition, then thought better of it and zoomed out again. “If you think you can do better, you find something.”

Miz flicked her eyes to the screen, then pointed. “That one.”

“Pah!” said Loren, zooming in. “I bet there’s nothing even…”

The image zoomed in to show a world flooded with lights. A text box helpfully told them what they were looking at.

“It’s just a big city planet,” Loren said. She swiped the rest of the text away.

“Did that say ‘parties’?” Cal asked.

Loren shook her head. “No. Don’t think so.”

“I’m pretty sure that said ‘parties’. Bring it back up.”

Loren hesitated. “I can’t. It’s… broken.”

Mech tapped his console and the text box appeared again.

“Oh good, Mech fixed it,” Loren muttered.

Cal read the planet’s info box. “…renowned for its month-long parties, often attended by high-profile celebrity guests from all across the galaxy.” His eyes widened. “Holy shizz, how have we never been to this place before?”

“Is that really going to be fun, though?” Loren asked. “Just a lot of parties?”

“Yes!” said Cal. “Of course it is. Are you even listening to what you’re saying? Plot a course. Take us there.”

“I mean, the shipyard system is closer,” Loren pointed out.

“OK, I’ll tell you what, you drop us at the party planet, then go see your museum. Pick is up in, I don’t know, three weeks. How does that sound?”

“Awesome,” said Miz. “I can totally get behind that plan.”

Loren tutted and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Party planet it is. But, just for the record, the shipyard museum is rated the twelfth best attraction in this sector.”

The Untitled shuddered as she fired up the engines. “In the museum category,” she quietly added, just as the engine roar was at its loudest.

“Totally heard that,” Miz said.

Loren mouthed something, almost silently.

“And that,” Miz said, then the Untitled banked unevenly into the air, angled steeply upwards, and rocketed off into space.

Five

Cal sat in the kitchen, his jaw moving as he chewed a mouthful of banoffee pie into a swallowable consistency. Sitting on the table, Splurt looked back at him, blankly.

“So, you see the symbols?” said Cal, spraying crumbs onto the curiously-shaped icons on the table between them.

Splurt’s eyes flicked down to the symbols, then back to Cal. As always, he said nothing.

“You understand the significance of them?” Cal asked. More crumbs flobbed out onto the tabletop.

Splurt’s eyes lowered again. He looked for longer this time, before meeting Cal’s gaze again.

Cal put a finger on one of the symbols and slid it closer to the other. “Identical. You see that? Absolutely identical.”

Splurt held Cal’s gaze. Cal swallowed the last few clumps of pie and took a sip of milkshake. It was banoffee flavored, like pretty much everything that came out of the food replicator these days. He was starting to think he might have some rare form of mental illness.

Space mental illness.

He turned his attention back to the two symbols on the table. They had been one atop the other a moment ago, but he’d moved them to give Splurt a better view, in the hope their importance was revealed to him. It was not, however, going well.

Cal smiled, a little wearily. “So…?” He raised his eyebrows hopefully. Splurt’s bloodshot eyes didn’t flicker. “So, that’s a snap.”

Splurt looked down. An arm grew from his body, the hand whipping down until it slapped onto the cards with a bang.

“There you go!” Cal said. “See, wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He gestured to the pile of cards. “OK, now you take those.”

Cal watched as the cards were absorbed into Splurt’s rubbery hand. They oozed along the length of his arm, then both the limb and the cards were pulled into the center of the little guy’s body. Cal could see them bobbing around behind his eyeballs.

“You know what? I think that’s probably enough Snap for now,” Cal said.

He regarded the stack of board games on the table beside them. Trivial Pursuit was out, obviously. Clue would only lead to tears of frustration again. His, probably.

The Game of Life?

Cal tried to imagine Splurt settling down with a job and a family, even in board game form.

No. No, probably not.

“Mouse Trap it is,” Cal announced, and he began setting up the board.

They had been at warp speed for a few hours now. Cal had slept for some of it, and woken up feeling far healthier than he had been before he’d nodded off. The headache was gone, the nausea was notable by its absence, and he was no longer interested in having Mech carry out a mercy killing.

The streaking stars had threatened to bring the queasiness back, though, so he’d retired to the kitchen, where he, Splurt and Kevin had spent an enjoyable five minutes, and then a substantially less enjoyable forty-two minutes playing the ‘What am I?’ game that Kevin insisted he’d invented. Splurt appeared to dispute that, and Cal was pretty sure there had been a cable show based around the same concept back in the 90s, but he decided not to bring it up.

It took Cal several minutes to set up the Mouse Trap board, slotting all the trap pieces in place. Only then did he look at the instructions.

“OK,” he said, reading from the sheet. “Mouse Trap. For two to four players.” He lifted his eyes to Splurt, just briefly. “Object of the game. Here we go, listen up, buddy.”

Cal cleared his throat. Splurt presumably listened up, although he gave no outward signs of it.

“Take turns building the mouse trap as you move around the board,” Cal read.

He frowned, and moved the sheet aside, giving him a clear view of the fully constructed mouse trap.

He returned to the sheet and read it again, more slowly. “Take turns building the mouse trap as you move around the board.”

He picked up the box lid and examined the picture on the front, then returned to the instructions.

“Take turns building the mouse trap as you—”

The Currently Untitled decelerated at eye-popping speed. Mouse Trap, Clue, and most of the stack of board games, up to and including Buckaroo, were launched off the table. Cal was launched off the table, too, but while the games only stopped when they smacked into the wall, a gloopy green tendril caught Cal and prevented him flying too far.

“Thanks, buddy,” he wheezed, once the ship had fully come to rest. He looked up. “Kevin, what the fonk has happened now?”

“Sorry, sir. Can’t talk,” Kevin said. “Rather busy.”

“Busy? Busy doing what?”

“Cal!” Loren called. “Cal, you should get up here.”

Cal dropped the Mouse Trap instructions on the table. “What do you think it is this time?” he asked Splurt. “Space monsters? Space pirates? Space monster pirates?”

His eyes widened. “I hope it’s space monster pirates. That would be awesome. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

Splurt grew shoulders specifically so he could shrug.

“Come on,” said Cal, leaping to his feet and tapping himself on the shoulder to indicate Splurt should jump aboard. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, lighting up his brain in a way that it hadn’t done all week. A shoot-out with space monster pirates was exactly what the doctor ordered. That would alleviate his boredom. He hadn’t had a decent space battle in days.

“Let’s go find out what we’re dealing with!”

They reached the bridge in time to see Mech topple backwards onto the floor. The screen, which traditionally showed stars and planets and all that stuff while flying through space – or, when Cal was around, cute space kittens doing funny things – was awash with lines of blinking red code.

Loren stabbed at her controls and swiped across her screens, but from the way she threw up her arms in frustration afterwards, Cal guessed it was all non-responsive.

Even Miz was sitting upright in her chair looking alert and attentive. That was arguably the most worrying thing of all.

“Hey. What’s going on?” Cal asked. He pointed to the horizontal cyborg. “Did Mech just die?”

“We’re being hacked,” Loren said, not looking back.

“Oh,” said Cal. “As in…?”

He mimed typing quickly on a little keyboard.

Loren looked confused. “Tiny spiders?”

“What? No! Forget it.” Cal gestured towards Mech. “That doesn’t explain why—”

“I am attempting to initiate a defensive strategy,” Mech chimed. His voice emerged from within him without his mouth moving, and Cal realized the dial on the cyborg’s chest had been turned all the way up to intellect mode. “However, the attack is incredibly advanced, and I have not yet carried out a full range of diagnostic tests following my recent repairs, so I am unable to accurately predict the chances of retaining our credit balance.”

Cal’s brain was operating a full three words behind Mech’s voice. It took him a second or two to catch up.

“Wait, credit balance?” he said. “You mean…?”

“They’re stealing the money,” Miz said.

“As in our money?” Cal asked. “As in, our two million credits worth of money? How? Who?”

“Someone good,” said Loren. “Kevin and Mech are both working on it, but whoever it is… they’re getting through.”

“Well, switch it off!” said Cal.

Loren looked round. “Switch what off?”

“Everything! The computer. The space internet. Shut it down.”

“Do you want to keep breathing?” Loren asked. “Because if so, we can’t shut it down.”

“Narp,” said Cal, punching his fist into his palm. “I bet it’s Narp.”

Miz frowned. “Who’s Narp?”

“That kid who found out where Sinclair was when we thought he had Splurt,” Cal said. “His mom made the Spit Nibbles.”

Miz looked blankly back at him.

“And gave us a giant robot.”

“Was I there?” Miz asked.

“Yes!”

“I don’t believe Narp is the perpetrator,” Mech said. “From what little I can ascertain, this is someone new. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s some sort of living entity inhabiting the code. Not something I’ve encountered before at… Oh.”

Mech’s voice glitched, just slightly. “Oh my.”

“What? What is it?” asked Loren.

“Don’t you lose our money, Mech!” Cal warned him. “Don’t lose our money.”

“I no longer appear to be fully in control of my processors,” Mech chimed. “My firewalls have been penetrated.”

Cal snorted, instinctively. “Penetrated.”

Kevin’s voice came as an uneven crackle. “Hostile breach of ship’s systems,” he announced. “Attempting to override now.”

The lights all went out, one by one.

“No, wait, wrong button,” Kevin said.

The lights all came back on, one by one.

The mish-mash of symbols and code strings on the screen died into darkness, as if the screen had snapped off. A moment later, the display was filled by what looked like video footage of some pipes. There was something familiar about them, Cal thought, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“What’s this now?” he asked.

The footage flickered, giving a glimpse of the Untitled’s bridge. It was from earlier in the day, and showed Cal getting up and heading out through the door.

“Hey, that was us,” Cal said. “Miz, Loren, Splurt, me. But no Mech.”

“It was Mech’s point of view,” Loren realized. She gestured to the pipes, which had now returned. “And that’s what he’s looking at now.”

Cal compared the ceiling above Mech’s head with what was on screen. “Huh. You’re right. We’re in Mechvision.”

A series of images began to flit rapidly across the screen, like the pages of a flipbook. Cal stepped back as the images assaulted him. The bar from earlier; Hungry, Hungry Hippos; Mech’s fist punching an armored rhinoceros; a baby spider-dragon lunging directly to ‘camera’.

On and on they went, ploughing backwards through Mech’s memories, moving so fast now Cal’s brain couldn’t register the contents, just the feelings they evoked. Excitement. Anger. Then further back, loss and fear.

So much fear.

“It appears Master Mech’s memory banks are live-streaming onto the viewscreen,” Kevin said.

“So, this is Mech’s memory?” Cal said. “This is, like, all his deepest darkest secrets?”

“Something like that, sir,” Kevin confirmed.

“Please tell me you’re recording all this.”

The imagery stopped, leaving only darkness.

No, not only darkness. There was text at the bottom right corner of the screen, blinking on and off.

“Memory dump, ninety-eight per cent,” Cal read. “What does that mean?”

Miz shrugged. “That he’s dumped ninety-eight per cent of his memory? Who cares? What’s happening with our money.”

“Hmm?” said Kevin. “Oh, the money. That’s long gone.”

“What?!” Cal, and Miz both spluttered at the same time.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Loren. “Mech said something about this, way back. When we took Miz to see her dad. After we crashed.”

“You crashed,” Miz corrected.

“He said someone was going to take our money?” asked Cal. “You mean Mech can see the future?”

Loren shook her head. “No. He realized part of his brain was, I don’t know, hidden. Locked away, or something. Two per cent. He couldn’t access it.”

Cal gestured to the screen. “Looks like someone is.”

The number in the bottom of the screen jumped from ninety-eight to ninety-eight-point-one. As it did, thousands of star maps were overlaid on the display, each one interlocking like pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle.

A line appeared and began tracing a route through the stars, as if someone were drawing it on before their eyes.

On screen, ninety-eight-point-one became ninety-eight-point-three.

Cal sidled closer to Loren. “Any ideas?” he asked. “What is this?”

“I think it’s a big map,” Loren guessed.

“Impressive piece of deduction, Columbo,” Cal replied. “Obviously it’s a big map. But of what? And please don’t say ‘space.’”

“Uh, guys,” said Miz, a note of concern in her voice. She pointed to Mech. “Should he be doing that?”

There came a series of rattles and clanks as the previously inert Mech began thrashing around on the floor.

“Shizz,” said Cal, rushing to the cyborg’s side. “Mech? Old pal? You OK?”

He rapped his knuckles on Mech’s metal skull. “Hello? Anyone home?”

“Try his dial,” Loren urged.

Cal looked down at the control switch on Mech’s chest. It had recently been replaced, and was chunkier than the old one. Cal gripped it with both hands and twisted it back towards the center position.

Mech’s thrashing became more violent. The ship’s lights flickered and dimmed.

“Kevin! Cut it out,” Cal cried. “Keep the lights on.”

“It isn’t me, sir,” Kevin replied.

On screen, the star maps flashed by faster and faster, each square patch of space shrinking as it zoomed and locked into position. The white line zig-zagged through solar systems, curving around suns and black holes as it carved a route through the depths of space.

Mech’s eyes rolled back in his head. His back arched. His elbows dented the floor as all four limbs spasmed.

Cal glanced at the screen. Ninety-nine-point-two per cent.

“It isn’t stopping,” Cal said. “Whatever’s doing this, it isn’t stopping.”

“He’s still connected, sir,” Kevin said. “His intellect is still hooked up to the attacker.”

“What do we do?” Loren asked. “It’s like it’s killing him.”

Cal looked at the screen. “His intellect is still hooked up?”

He looked at the dial on Mech’s chest.

“Ah, fonk it,” he muttered, then he twisted the dial all the way to Mech’s right, diverting all power from his brains to his brawn.

Mech stopped thrashing immediately. The viewscreen froze, the numbers stuck at ninety-nine-point-five.

Cal let out a phew of relief, but it stuck in his throat as Mech’s hand grabbed him, the metal fingers meeting behind Cal’s neck.

“Ack! Hey now,” Cal wheezed. Mech was on his feet in an instant, and hoisting Cal off his just another instant later.

“Mech, relax,” Loren urged. “Put him—”

Cal slammed into her, butt first. They both collided with the control console, flipped over it, and landed in a tangle of arms and legs on the other side.

“Thanks for that,” Cal said. “Also, ow.”

Loren shoved him off her and pulled herself up on the console. “Miz, his dial, turn it back.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Miz sneered.

“Seriously, you’re doing this now?” Loren spat.

Mizette rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”

She bounded from her chair and lunged for Mech’s dial. He caught her, mid-leap, his hands clamping onto her shoulders. She brought both feet up, trying to kick the dial back towards center, but he raised her above his head then slammed her backwards against the floor, knocking the air from her in a shrill dog-like yelp.

“Ooh, that had to hurt,” Cal winced. “Splurt, you’re up, buddy!”

There was a rubbery twang as Splurt rolled up Cal’s back and launched himself over the console. In the space of a second, he switched from ‘little green blob’ to ‘slightly larger green blob with several hundred squirming arms’.

Mech spun and drove a fist into the approaching Splurt. It sunk into Splurt’s gloopy body with a flomp, and rolled the shapeshifter’s eyes all the way around to his back.

Splurt’s arms spread out, slapping and prodding at Mech from all directions at once. Mech roared with rage as he tried to fight off all several hundred limbs at the same time. He was so pre-occupied with the dozen or so that were nipping him in the face that he failed to notice the solitary arm that wrapped around his dial and twisted it back to his left.

The rage left him with a barely audible click. The fury that had been etched across his face fell away, then briefly returned when Splurt poked him in the eye, pinched his nose, and did that wibble-wibble-wibble thing with his fleshy top lip, all at the same time.

“What the fonk are you doing?” Mech demanded, pulling away. “Cut it out.”

Mech noticed Miz on the floor, breathing deeply as she tried to get her lungs working again. He spotted Cal and Loren taking cover behind the control console.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did I miss something?”

Cal stood and brushed himself down. “No, you got all of us. Well done.”

Mech frowned. “Say what?”

“You got into some kind of duel with whoever was hacking us. Somehow your hard drive or whatever started uploading everything to the screen.”

Mech’s jaw flapped open. “The hack! What happened? Did we stop it?”

“Ugh. Not really,” said Cal. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Kevin, how much money do we have left?”

“One moment, sir,” Kevin intoned.

They waited. Mech tried to help Miz up, but she slapped his hand away and heaved herself back into her chair. Splurt rolled over to Cal’s feet and clambered onto his back.

“Right. Calculations done,” Kevin said. “Would you like the actual credit balance, or the percentage of the original balance you still have left?”

Cal shrugged. “Either one. No, wait. Credit balance.”

“Zero,” said Kevin.

Cal blinked several times, then slowly nodded. “OK. And percentage?”

“Also zero,” Kevin confirmed. “Don’t know why I offered you the choice, really.”

Mech’s face suggested he was about to flip out again. “They took all our money?! You have got to be shizzing me. Tell me this is a joke.”

“I never joke, sir,” Kevin replied.

“Yes, you do,” said Loren. “All the time. Usually about stuff like this.”

“Do I, ma’am?” Kevin asked. “I don’t think I’m joking. Would you like me to double-check?”

“Do it,” Cal urged.

Kevin double-checked.

“No, it’s all still gone,” he confirmed.

“Son of a bedge!” Mech cried, his hands balling into fists.

“Did you get a trace on them?” Loren asked. “Whoever hacked us?”

“Yes, ma’am. I have pinpointed their exact whereabouts,” said Kevin.

“You have? That’s great!”

“Just my little joke,” Kevin said, chuckling lightly. “I have absolutely no idea who or where they might be.”

Loren dropped into her chair and stared blankly at her controls. “Our money. All that money.”

“Obviously, it’s not great news,” said Cal. “But we’ll figure something out. The money doesn’t matter right now. What does matter…”

He turned to the screen. “…is that.”

Mech stepped closer. The map was frozen on there, the line terminating at a lonely-looking planet orbiting a small-ish red sun.

“What is it?” Mech asked.

“We think it’s a big map,” Loren said.

Cal gestured to himself, Miz and Splurt. “Well, we know it’s a big map. Loren apparently only thinks so, but we’re hoping she’ll catch up.”

“A map?” said Mech. “Where did it come from?”

“Far as we can tell? From inside your head,” Cal said.

“Your missing two per cent,” said Loren.

Cal joined Mech at the screen. “Seen it before?”

Mech shook his head. “No. I mean… No, don’t think so. It don’t look familiar.”

Cal pointed to the planet. “Can we find out where that is?”

Loren tapped her controls, then banged the console a few times with the side of a fist. Miraculously, the image unfroze, and a zoom rectangle appeared around the highlighted planet.

Cal’s eyebrows crept higher and higher on his forehead as he read the text box that appeared next to the magnified image of the little red and yellow sphere. There wasn’t a whole lot of text in the box, so it didn’t take long, but he read it three times in case he’d made a mistake.

“Funworld,” he said. “A World of Fun. Well, they really went above and beyond with the sales pitch, didn’t they? The marketing guys must have pulled a double shift to nail that one.”

He looked around at the others. “Ever heard of it?”

Loren shook her head. “Nope.”

“Not me,” Mech added. “That is one truly awful name, though.”

Cal looked back at Mizette. “Miz?”

The wolf-woman tutted and looked up. “What?”

“Ever heard of this place?”

Miz rolled her eyes, then made a show of very deliberately looking at the screen. “Sounds lame,” she said.

“Well, that settles it,” said Cal. He jumped into his chair and fastened his belt.

“Settles what?” asked Mech. “We need to get our money back.”

“The money’s gone, let’s put it behind us,” Cal said. “I mean, the failure to keep hold of it rests entirely on your shoulders, but… bygones, right? Let’s move on. You messed up. We all know that. We all hold you responsible, but what’s done is done.”

“Fonk you, man!”

“It’s gone. It’s in the past. You’re forgiven,” said Cal. “This is more important.”

Loren turned in her chair. “What is?”

Cal grinned. A mystery. An actual honest-to-God mystery.

No. Better than that.

A space mystery.

“Loren, fire up the engines,” Cal said. “Space Team is going to Funworld!”

Six

A vaguely oval-shaped planet hung in space ahead of the Currently Untitled, half in shadow. Clouds marbled the surface, offering only glimpses of reds and yellows below.

“It doesn’t look very fun,” Miz pointed out.

“Are you kidding me?” said Cal. “Look at it. It’s not quite round. That’s fun.”

“Actually, it suggests a degree of core instability, sir,” said Kevin.

“Which is fun,” Cal countered.

“If you consider potentially devastating seismic activity ‘fun’ then yes, I suppose it is.”

“There you go!” said Cal. “Loren, take us in for a landing.”

“I can’t,” said Loren.

“Hasn’t stopped you trying before,” Miz muttered.

“No, I mean the planet’s shielded. We can’t get through.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Oh. Right. So, what do we…?”

His voice tailed off as the incoming transmission icon illuminated on the screen. Loren answered it, and the whole screen was painted in a series of green and orange vertical stripes.

A drumroll rattled out through the speaker system. It ended with a badum, a tish, and a loud, comical honk, and then a small, wiry-looking man with a brightly-painted face exploded through the colored stripes, revealing them to be nothing more than a large sheet of flimsy paper.

“Layyy-dieeeeeees and gentlesquirts!” the little man cried, in a voice like fingernails being dragged down the inside of Pee-wee Herman’s voice box. He let out an exaggerated guffaw of laughter, then squeezed a pump in his hand until water spat from a plastic flower on his lapel. “Welcome, to the funnest place in the whole wide universe – Funworld!”

“Is this live?” Cal asked.

Loren shook her head. “No, it’s a pre-recorded welcome message. We must have triggered it when we came out of warp.”

There were more comical honks, then a number of whizzes, pops and whooshes like fireworks going off in the distance. On screen, the little man pulled on a hat with a miniature windmill on top. It spun, blowing multi-colored bubbles from a hole in the front. He jigged around, popping them, laughing the whole time.

“OK, so this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Cal said. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

Sensing Cal’s discomfort, Mech made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “No way, man. If the map in my head told us to go here, then we’re going here.”

“But look at that… that clown,” said Cal, nodding at the screen. “I hate clowns. And I know what you’re going to say, ‘Everyone hates clowns,’ so let me clarify that statement - I really fonking hate clowns.”

Mech fought against the grin that tugged at his metal jaw. “What you talking about? That ain’t no clown.”

Cal frowned for a moment, then widened his eyes in surprise. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

“It’s a…”

“I’m warning you, Mech.”

“…space clown,” Mech said.

Cal stared at him, aghast. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you used my own thing against me.”

“Your own space thing,” said Mech.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Cal pointed out.

“You mean it don’t make space sense,” Mech said, then he shook his head. “I’m gonna stop now. I’m actually annoying myself.”

On screen, the little clown dude produced something a bit like a trumpet, and blew a long, continuous and deeply unpleasant note that outstayed its welcome by a clear twenty seconds.

He blew until his cheeks turned red, then finished with a sort of spluttering gasp that was presumably supposed to be funny, but instead made Cal wish him actual bodily harm.

“Laaay-dies and gentlesquirts,” he said, despite it not having been even remotely amusing the first time, and having aged poorly. “To fully welcome you to our world of fun, it is my pleasure to present to you the founder of Funworld, the Captain of Comedy, the Joke-Jester-General, the one… the only…”

“He is totally dragging this out,” Miz sighed, looking up from her claws.

“…the one and only…”

“You can say that again,” said Mech.

“Miiiiiiiiiisteeeeer…”

“Jesus, is this guy being paid by the hour? Spit it out, already.”

“Thurp Tingle!”

The image changed to show a much more somber-looking man in a top hat and long gray coat that was wrapped around him like a cloak. A single hand extended from within the coat, its manicured black fingernails wrapped around the crystal top of a walking cane.

The brim of his hat cast much of his face into shadow, but his eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. The tip of a long, hooked nose and the straight line of a thin-lipped mouth were the only features on display. Wrinkles ran like trenches between the corners of his mouth and either side of his pointed chin, making him look like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Cal really hoped he wasn’t. Clowns were bad enough. Clowns led by a sinister-looking sentient dummy? That was fast approaching ‘nuke from orbit’ territory.

“Welcome, traveler,” Thurp began.

From off screen, the space clown said, “Tingle-ingle-ingle-ingle,” getting quieter and quieter like a fading echo. Irritation flickered, just briefly, in the shadows of Thurp’s face, before he rallied.

“Thank you.” He nodded off camera to his left, then opened his mouth to speak again. The parp of a horn made him jump. He shot the off-screen space clown a look of utter contempt, his eyes flashing dangerously, then turned to face the camera again.

“Welcome, traveler,” he said again. He paused for a moment, clearly expecting another interruption. When one didn’t come, he continued. “Welcome to everything you have ever wished for. Welcome to a world built just for – no, not fun. For you. Yes, you. You sitting there in your vessel. This – all of this – is my gift to you.”

“Nice of him,” said Cal.

“Here on Funworld you will find whatever your heart desires. Happiness and laughter? Of course. Danger and thrills? If you wish. Adventure? Mystery? Intrigue?” He smirked, just a little. “Romance? Passion? Love, even? Your wish is our command. Your desires are ours to deliver. Your pleasure, our priority.”

“This is more like it,” said Cal, confident that clowns – space or otherwise – wouldn’t feature anywhere in his desires, unless co-starring with a length of sturdy rope, a set of bolt-cutters and a military-grade flamethrower.

Thurp hobbled a few paces closer to the camera, and the shadow drew further down his face until all that could be made out out were his eyes, sparkling like stars in the darkness.

“Everything you wish for awaits below. If that isn’t of interest, I shall bid you farewell, and thank you for listening.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But if you enjoy the idea of your every desire being meticulously attended to, then please make haste to—”

A different, more mechanical voice cut over his. “Docking Platform Two.”

“—where one of my colleagues will be waiting to greet you. Until then, I wish you a safe—”

Something creamy and pie-like splatted against the side of his head, accompanied by a hoot of laughter from off-screen. Thurp Tingle turned sharply, raising his cane, but then the feed ended, and was replaced by the Funworld logo, with an image of a bare-chested green clown leering out from behind it.

A moment later, the logo vanished, too, and a view of the planet returned. A targeting reticle popped up, highlighting an orbiting platform hanging just outside the planet’s shield. Docking Platform Two, Cal assumed.

He looked around at the others. “So? What do we think?”

“Honestly, sir?” Kevin replied. “I think we should fire the Omega Cannon and get out of here as fast as we possibly can. This whole place gives me the heebie-jeebies. A world of limitless pleasure, indeed! Who would be interested in such a thing?”

“Haha. Yeah,” said Cal. “Who’d be interested in something like that?”

Miz raised a hand. “Uh.”

“Yeah, totally a rhetorical question,” said Cal. “We’re going, clowns or no clowns.”

* * *

A set of clamps attached themselves to the Untitled’s landing legs, locking them to the deck. This annoyed Kevin no end, but Cal ignored his complaints and led the others down the ramp towards Docking Platform Two.

Just before he reached the bottom, Cal turned to the others. “Now, has everyone been to the bathroom? We don’t know when we’ll next get to go.”

“Shut the fonk up, and get going,” Mech spat. “We ain’t children.”

“Last chance,” said Cal. “This is your last opportunity to… Actually, I need to go.”

Mech rolled his eyes as Cal darted back up the ramp, passing the others at the top and scuttling off to the bathroom.

The others waited. Mech tapped a metal foot. Loren crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the hatchway.

“Smell anything?” Loren asked.

Miz pulled a disgusted face. “Ugh, no, you weirdo.”

“No, not from the bathroom, I meant…” Loren gestured down the ramp at the patch of floor they could see. She crossed her arms again. “Doesn’t matter.”

Cal emerged from the bathroom. “There,” he said. He made it a full two paces before turning. “Forgot to wash my hands. One minute.”

He vanished back into the room again. Loren bent forwards, trying to scope out a bit more of where they’d landed, but the ship’s overhang meant she couldn’t see more than a few feet.

Ideally, they’d have been given a clear view of the interior when they’d docked, but Loren had come in at an unconventional angle (she hesitated to use the word ‘wrong’ to describe it, even if the others didn’t share her reservations) and they’d come to a stop facing directly onto a high, featureless wall.

They’d spotted another ship on a different landing pad when making the final approach, but she’d been concentrating too hard on not hitting it to notice much about it, other than that it looked expensive.

Cal emerged from the bathroom again, wiping his hands on his cargo pants. “There, all done,” he said. “No-one else?”

“No!” Mech said. “Let’s get a move on. I want to find out what the fonk is going on.”

Loren raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Kevin, are you still working on processing the data from Mech’s… whatever?”

“Data, ma’am?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah,” said Mech. “You know, about the planet? You were going to rerun the memory dump, and try to figure out why I had a map in my head pointing to a funfair.”

“A fun planet,” Cal corrected. “Let’s not cheapen it.”

“Who was?” asked Kevin.

“You,” Mech replied. “You were.”

“Was I, sir? Oh. I mean, yes, yes, of course,” said Kevin. “It’s well underway. Definitely. Going great guns so far.”

Mech’s jaw tensed, but he resisted the urge to start an argument. “OK, then. Good. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Will do,” said Kevin. There was a pause. “About…?”

“The memory dump,” said Cal. “The map.”

“Of course, sir,” said Kevin. “I’ll see if I can find one.”

“Great,” said Cal. He started down the ramp, then stopped. “Wait, one what?”

“A map. I’ll see if I can find you one.”

Cal met Loren’s gaze, just as she rolled her eyes.

“No, we’ve got the map,” said Cal. “The map was in Mech’s head. We want you to figure out why.”

“Oh. That’s easy,” said Kevin. “Presumably because someone put it there. Mystery solved.”

“We know someone put it there!” Mech growled. “We want to know who, and why. What’s here, and why did someone hide a map to it in my data banks?”

“Right,” said Kevin. “Why didn’t you just say? I’ll get on it at once.”

Mech opened his mouth to reply, but Cal put a hand on his arm and gave an ‘it’s not worth it,’ shake of his head.

“Good stuff, Kevin. Keep us posted,” Cal said. He skipped down the ramp, pausing only to shout back over his shoulder. “Splurt, you coming?”

A flailing green shape shot between Mech’s legs and half-slid, half-rolled down the ramp. Splurt was the same color and consistency as ever, but maybe twice the size, and notably more human-shaped. He had stubby arms and legs, but no hands or feet at the ends of them. His eyes now gazed out of a vaguely head-shaped bump, and atop it he wore a yellow cap with the Funworld logo embroidered across the front.

A matching t-shirt covered the top part of his torso, the bottom half as squidgy and semi-transparent as ever. In one fingerless fist he clutched a Funworld flag, which he waved excitedly as he bounced up and down on the spot.

“Where’d he get that stuff?” Miz asked.

Cal bent down and tried to pluck the hat from Splurt’s head. It remained firmly attached. “Yeah, it’s actually him,” Cal said. “He didn’t get that stuff, he is that stuff.”

Ruffling the top of Splurt’s head, Cal shot him a grin. “Excited, little buddy? You ready for this?”

Splurt nodded enthusiastically. Cal took him by one arm-stump and began walking out from beneath the Untitled. “OK, then,” he said. “Let the fun begin!”

They emerged onto a gun-metal gray concourse that had very clearly seen better days. The walls were patched in darker and lighter shades, suggesting damp or other stains had been painted over in the past, with no real care or attention.

Several lights were out across the landing area, while a handful more flickered and buzzed, sending shadows scampering across the pads. A murky blue liquid dripped from one of a number of rusty pipes running along the ceiling, before plopping into a bucket that had been positioned on the floor below it.

Posters of the Funworld logo – complete with semi-naked clown mascot – adorned the walls, but they were all peeling at the corners, or torn across the middle or, in one instance, had a number of penises drawn on with a space Sharpie.

Cal let out a little “Ha!” at that. Clearly penis-based graffiti was funny no matter where you were in the galaxy.

The ship they’d skimmed past when landing stood on the next pad over. It was maybe a third of the size of the Untitled, and looked classy more than flashy. It suggested vast wealth to Cal, but the kind of wealth that doesn’t feel the need to draw attention to itself.

Of course, he had virtually no knowledge of space-based vehicles whatsoever, so this was a complete guess. It could have been a cleaner’s ship, for all he knew. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even a spaceship at all.

Along the concourse sat something that looked like a small garbage truck with wings. The Funworld logo was printed on the side, but peeling badly at the edges. There were some portholes running along the ship’s hull which Cal thought were tinted, but then realized were just dirty.

OK, so this was probably a cleaner’s ship, Cal reckoned. Although clearly not a very good one.

“You know, I actually am smelling something,” Miz said.

“Oh?” said Loren.

“I’m smelling how much this place sucks.”

“It is pretty fonking grim,” Mech agreed.

“Hey, guys,” Cal hissed, gesturing to the still-bouncing Splurt with his eyes. “Let’s not be total killjoys, huh? Some of us are pretty excited. Besides, it’s like they say, never judge a theme park planet by its docking area.”

“No-one ever says that,” said Loren. She caught Cal’s look, then glanced down into the eager eyes of Splurt. “But you’re right. I mean, we’ve just landed. For all we know, the fun starts right around this corner.”

They turned a corner. The fun was conspicuous by its absence.

No hilarity or entertainment awaited. What did await them was a roped-off queuing area that zig-zagged like a snake, folding in on itself as it weaved its way towards a row of ticket booths at the far end of the room.

Only one of the booths seemed to be in operation, but as the line currently consisted of just one person, this was unlikely to be problematic.

“Oh, now this is much better,” said Miz. “I totally spoke too soon. I don’t know about you guys, but now I’m, like, totally excited.”

Her veneer of enthusiasm fell away. She slouched her weight onto one hip. “Oh, and in case you didn’t notice…?”

“Sarcasm,” said Cal. “Don’t worry, we picked up on it.”

Splurt yanked free of Cal’s grip and raced towards the ticket booth. He was shorter than the ropes that marked out the line, and darted beneath them easily. Cal gave chase, weaving and winding his way through the maze of ropes, gradually making his way towards the front.

“Hey, Splurt, get back here!” he shouted, but Splurt was already at the front. He was standing behind the only other visitor, bounding eagerly from footless leg stump to footless leg stump, and looking for all the world like a lime-flavored jelly baby that had come to life.

The man at the front had just finished being served. He collected his ticket and slid it into his shirt pocket, then turned and almost tripped over Splurt.

“Whoa! Sorry, uh, kid,” he said. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Hey, can you keep him with you?” Cal called over to the man. He hung a left, ran several feet back in the direction of the Untitled, then the queue turned one-eighty so he was headed back in the direction of the ticket booth again. “I’ll be right there in, like, forty minutes.”

In fact, it took Cal only another twenty seconds to reach the front. This was largely because he realized he could unhook the ropes and proceed in a straight line towards the ticket booth far more quickly and efficiently than he could stick to the path.

“Thanks,” he said, giving the stranger a nod. He squatted down until he was at Splurt’s eye-level, and wagged a finger. “Don’t you run off on me like that again, mister,” he said. “I know you’re excited, but I don’t want you getting lost.”

Splurt hung his head. If he’d had lips, his bottom one would almost certainly have stuck out. Cal smiled and shook his head. How could he stay mad with this guy? “We’re going to have fun, right?”

Splurt’s head raised again. His eyes, already impossibly wide, seemed to become even more so. “There’s my little champ,” said Cal, squeezing his squidgy shoulder and standing again. He turned to the stranger, only to find him staring back, open-mouthed.

“Thanks for your help,” said Cal. “He’s usually much more responsible.”

“Uh…” said the man.

And he was a man. For perhaps the first time, Cal felt fully comfortable in thinking of the guy as such. He had no extra limbs, no additional facial features, and exactly the right number of heads. Everything he did have was where it should be, too, which was rare.

He wasn’t too big, and wasn’t too small. If there was a Goldilocks zone of ideal human heights, this guy was slap-bang in the middle.

He would be average build for a human, too. Better than average, even. He had the build of someone who spent a lot of time swimming or climbing, but perhaps didn’t take it too seriously.

He was dressed for a vacation – colorfully-patterned shirt, knee-length shorts, and a battered old pair of sneakers with frayed laces.

Cal met the man’s eye again, before the sneakers dragged his attention back down.

There was something about them. Something he couldn’t quite place.

“Um. OK. Sorry,” said the man. “This is going to sound insane, but… are you Cal Carver?”

“What? I mean, yes. I mean… how do you know my name?” asked Cal, tearing his eyes from the shoes. “Oh! Wait, yes. I guess we’re probably famous now. Cal Carver and Space Team, saviors of the multi-verse.”

“Uh, haha, right,” said the man. “But I meant… No, not that. It’s just… and, again, I appreciate this is a stupid question, but… Were you a friend of Lori Thomas?”

The name hit Cal like a rabbit-punch to the chest. Lori Thomas. He’d dated her for… what? Four months? Five? They’d traveled together in Cal’s younger days. Got as far as Europe before a hot Spanish belly-dancer had caught his eye and led him astray.

Lori Thomas. God, he hadn’t thought about her in years.

“You both stayed with her cousin, Dave, when you were in Belgium. You went to that nightclub together. It was raining. The roof leaked. You said it was simultaneously the best and worst night of your life.”

“But mostly the worst,” they both said at the same time.

Cal’s gaze flitted across the man’s face, trying to figure out what the fonk was going on. “How the fonk do you know about that stuff?” he asked. “Are you… Are you psychic?”

Suddenly, even though he was no longer looking at them, Cal knew what was unusual about the sneakers. Or not unusual. Usual. Very usual.

The swoosh. The sneakers had a swoosh.

The guy was wearing a beaten-up pair of Nikes.

“No,” said the man, holding out a hand and smiling in a way that suggested he was just as perplexed as Cal was. “I’m Lori’s cousin, Dave.”

Seven

Cal found himself gaping at the outstretched hand, just as pretty much everyone he’d met had done to his from the moment he’d arrived in space.

A handshake. This guy knew what a handshake was.

Cal clutched the hand in his, and let out an involuntary chirp of laughter as they shook. Dave was clearly an accomplished hand shaker. His grip was firm, but not overly so. He pumped up and down just enough, and Cal felt a twinge of something like grief when he pulled his hand away again.

For the next few seconds, Cal just stared at his own hand in a sort of stupor of disbelief, then lowered it to his side and stared at Dave, instead.

Dave, for his part, stared back.

Quite a lot of staring transpired, in fact.

They were locked in a particularly intense bit of gawping when a buzzer rasped angrily from the ticket booth, making them both jump.

Behind the counter, a vaguely female-looking robot with a painted smile whirred its head in Cal’s direction. “Next customer,” barked a voice from somewhere behind the unmoving mouth. “Keep the line moving, we’ve got a lot of guests to get through.”

Cal glanced back at the line, which was empty aside from Mech, Loren and Miz, who were currently weaving their way through it. Dave stepped aside as Splurt raced to the ticket booth and stood on tippy-stumps so he could see over the top of the counter.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry,” said Cal, plastering on a smile. He was too stunned to know which of his many smiles it was, but as the server’s eyes were as painted-on as her mouth, he didn’t think it really mattered. “Five for Funworld, please.”

The ticket-seller raised a mechanical hand and pointed to Splurt, whose eyes were just visible above the counter-top. “Age?”

Cal glanced down at Splurt, then shrugged. “Uh, not sure.”

The robotic clerk let out an audible sigh. “Adult or child?”

“I’d say… child,” Cal said.

He found his eyes pulling in Dave’s direction as the clerk began ringing up the order on a cash register that wouldn’t have been out of place on Earth in the 70s. Dave quickly looked away, trying to hide the fact he’d been staring in wonder at Cal throughout the whole ticket ordering process.

“That’ll be eighteen thousand credits.”

“Fonk. What?” Cal spluttered. “How much?”

“Eighteen thousand credits.”

“I know, I heard you. I just… How much?”

“Eighteen thousand cr—”

“No, I know. It’s just… Jesus.”

Dave laughed. “Jesus! Wow. There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”

“Do you maybe do, like, a family discount?”

The ticket-bot groaned impatiently. “Do you have two or more children in your party?”

“No,” said Cal, then, “Wait! Yes. Mizette is six! I mean, you wouldn’t think it to look at her. Or listen to her. Or, you know, be around her at all, but—”

“Sixteen thousand credits.”

“Aha! That’s more like it,” Cal said. He rested an elbow on the counter and leaned closer to the ticket-bot. “But, well, the thing is, we don’t have sixteen thousand credits right now. We did have, but it was stolen. So, what could we get for, let’s see… zero credits?”

Despite them being painted on, irritation seemed to flicker behind the robot’s eyes. “Next customer, please.”

“Hey, come on, I’m sure we can work something out,” Cal said, filling the sentence with as much charm as he could muster. This wasn’t a whole lot, but then the majority of his brain was still stuck on the Dave situation, so he reckoned he could be forgiven.

“Please return to your vessel and vacate the docking platform,” the voice crackled. “Next customer, please.”

“Look, we need to get down there,” said Cal. “It’s important that we…”

A small hatch flipped open in the robot’s chest. Cal was about to remark on it when a small prong shot out of it and attached itself to his face with a hooked barb.

“Ow! What the—?” he managed to say, before an electrical charge poured from the barb and filled the inside of his head.

His teeth clamped together and his eyes went wide. His whole body, from the head down to his toes, locked rigid, and he could only watch helplessly as the ticket booth rolled away from him and he toppled backwards like a falling oak.

“Whoa, whoa!” Dave cried, catching Cal before he could hit the floor. “It’s fine, I’ll pay them in. Here, charge it to my account.”

He heaved Cal upright again and reached for his wallet. Still rigid, Cal immediately fell sideways, managing to eject a whimper before he crashed to the floor.

“Oh shizz, I’m sorry,” Dave said, covering his mouth with a hand. He bent and plucked the metal prong from Cal’s cheek, then tossed it into the ticket booth. It clanked against the ticket-bot’s head, then fell onto her desk.

Dave addressed the robot sternly. “I want the last two minutes logged and sent as an official complaint to a supervisor. I expect a response in my inbox within the hour. Understood?”

“Understood,” the ticket-bot said. “Complaint noted.”

The tightness that had locked all Cal’s muscles slackened. With Dave’s help, he propped himself up onto his elbows and shot Splurt a dirty look. “Seriously? You were right there, and you couldn’t have caught me?”

Splurt waved his flag, as if to indicate he had his hands (or lack of them) full, then gestured impatiently towards the ticket booth with his head.

“You OK?” asked Loren, as she, Mech and Miz finally arrived at the front of the line.

“You mean aside from being shot in the face and electrocuted? Yeah, totally fine,” said Cal. He dragged himself back to a standing position, although the wobble in his legs suggested he might not stay there for long.

“What’s happening?” Mech asked. “Did you get the tickets?”

“No. Turns out you have to pay for them,” said Cal. He shrugged, throwing up his arms. “I know, right? I mean, who saw that coming?”

“Shizz,” said Loren. “So, what are we going to do?”

Cal placed the back of his hand next to his mouth and whispered. “Well, I thought Mech could sleep with the ticket seller, and while she was distracted—”

“Fonk you, man. I ain’t screwing no robot.”

“Screwing,” said Cal. “Good one. You know, because you’re both held together with—”

“We get it,” Mech said.

“Anyway, he can’t,” said Miz. “I mean, he doesn’t even have a—”

“Can we please not discuss this right now?” Mech snapped. “It ain’t happening, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Dave. He held up five tickets. “Ta-daa!”

“What? No way. We can’t accept these,” said Cal, immediately plucking the tickets from Dave’s hand and clutching them to his chest.

“Seriously, it’s fine,” said Dave. “Because if you think I’m going in there without you…? You and I have a lot to catch up on.”

“Uh, you haven’t introduced us, Cal,” said Loren.

“Yeah, who’s your friend?” asked Miz, spitting out the last word as if it offended her taste buds.

“Right, yes! Of course!” said Cal. “Loren, Miz, Mech, this is Dave. Dave, Loren, Miz, Mech.”

Dave didn’t bother reaching in for a handshake this time. He just smiled, and waved with an easy sort of confidence that suggested blue-skinned women, cyborgs and wolf-creatures were an everyday occurrence.

“Dave here,” said Cal, rocking back on his heels. “Is from Earth.”

The next few seconds were swallowed by a stunned silence.

“Earth?” said Loren.

“As in… your Earth?” asked Mech. “As in that backwater shizzhole in the—”

“That’s the one,” said Cal, cutting him off. “Earth. My home planet. Our home planet.”

“I’m Lori’s cousin,” Dave added. “Lori Thomas.”

“Who?” said Miz.

Dave’s confident smile took a quizzical turn. “You didn’t tell them about Lori?” he asked, a hint of accusation to his tone.

“Who?” said Cal. “I mean, what? Did I tell them about Lori?” He snorted. “Well, yeah! Only all the fonking time.”

“Uh, like, no. You didn’t,” Miz insisted.

Cal laughed and put an arm around Miz’s shoulders. Or around as much of them as he could reach, anyway. “Ha! Oh, Miz. You do make me laugh.”

Dave’s smile returned. “I’m kidding. Relax. It was, what? Fifteen years ago? Eighteen? I’m just messing with you.”

He thumbed in the direction of a set of double-doors a short distance behind the ticket booth. A number of symbols had been painted on the wall above. As Cal looked at them, they untangled to form the words, ‘A World of Imagination Awaits!’

“The next shuttle down to the surface will be leaving soon, and we’ve still got the induction to go through.” Dave faked a yawn. “It’s a bit of a borefest, but got to be done,” he said, then he stepped aside so Splurt could lead the way. “So… shall we?”

* * *

The induction was even more tedious than Dave had prepared them for, and the robot delivering it made the ticket-bot seem like a bottomless well of charisma.

This one had a male voice, a scuffed exterior, and a slight sideways tilt that made Cal subconsciously lean a bit to his left in sympathy. It spoke at length about rules, about what was and wasn’t permitted while on Funworld’s surface, and prattled extensively about safety procedures, and what to do in the event of a fire, flood, earthquake, or worldwide catastrophe.

Cal switched off at about the fourth word, and diverted everything except the ‘nodding and smiling’ part of his brain to the Dave situation.

He kind of remembered him. Sort of. Maybe.

He recalled Lori had a cousin they had stayed with, but he didn’t remember much about him. He was friendly enough, but pretty quiet. Did he come to the nightclub? Maybe. There had been several people in the group – strangers, mostly, but a few of Lori’s college friends who were also making their way around Europe at the time.

Cal tried to subtly study Dave’s face. It wasn’t unfamiliar, but there was nothing that immediately triggered any memories, either.

If he tried to picture Lori’s cousin, he couldn’t see any details, just that vague impression of someone affable, but a little reclusive and unsure of himself.

This Dave was certainly friendly, but he had a confidence about him that Cal wouldn’t have associated with the guy whose apartment they’d crashed in. Cal had a niggling recollection of borrowing money from the guy, knowing he wasn’t the type to ever ask for it back. This Dave, though, with his confident swagger and his stern complaints to supervisors – this Dave would ask for it back, and probably with interest.

“You are welcome, of course, to bring your weapons,” droned the inducto-bot. It gestured to the blaster on Loren’s hip, but as its mechanisms seemed to be in desperate need of a full service, this took several awkward seconds. “However, the technology dampening field will ensure they cease to function.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Mech. “What do you mean, ‘technology dampening field’?”

“Please save all questions for a designated clarification break,” the inducto-bot said.

It paused long enough for Cal to suspect its batteries had run out, then its voice crackled out of it again.

“Designated clarification break.”

Mech muttered something below his breath, then raised his voice to normal levels. “What do you mean, ‘technology dampening field’?” he asked. “Is that gonna apply to me?”

“Good question,” said Cal. “Is he going to go all Tin Man on us, and just, like, freeze in place?”

“Wizard of Oz!” cried Dave, with perhaps more enthusiasm than anyone had ever said the words before. He twisted his face into a wicked snarl. “I’ll get you, my pretty.”

“And your little dog, too!” Cal witch-cackled back.

He and Dave both laughed, then turned to find Mech, Loren and Miz watching them. “What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech asked.

“Huh?” said Cal. “Oh! Doesn’t matter. It’s an Earth guy thing.”

“No,” said the inducto-bot.

“Great!” said Cal. He narrowed his eyes, just a fraction. “What was the question again?”

“The dampening field will apply only to weapons and certain enhanced abilities – psychic power, flight ability, organic energy projectiles, and so on.”

“Wait a minute,” said Cal. “There are people who can fly? Space people, I mean?”

“Oh, yeah, lots,” said Dave, before any of the others could respond. “There’s this one race, the Orskii – I don’t know if you remember an old cartoon called Masters of the Universe?”

Cal’s face lit-up like a slot machine that had just hit the jackpot. “Uh… yes!” He held aloft an imaginary magic sword and cried, “By the power of Grayskull!”

Dave whipped out an imaginary magic sword of his own. “I haaaaaave the powwwwer!”

They exchanged a high-five. It was, Cal reckoned, the greatest high-five of his life.

“Remember Stratos? The flying guy?” Dave continued.

“I had the action figure. Disappointingly, it couldn’t fly, as I discovered when I threw it off the Empire State Building.”

“Ha!” Dave snorted. “How old were you?”

“Twenty-six.”

Dave laughed, but it was a slightly uncertain one, like he wasn’t sure if Cal were being serious. “Well, OK! Anyway, the Orskii, they look pretty much exactly like Stratos. Just guys with beards, feathers and big goggles.”

“Oh man, we totally have to go there!” Cal said.

Dave tilted his head awkwardly from side to side. “Yeah, well, the thing is, they’re not exactly friendly.”

“It’ll be fine. Who wouldn’t love us?”

“They’re pretty violent, actually,” said Dave. He leaned in and whispered. “Sexually.”

“Jesus. Wow,” said Cal, a little rocked by this. “I did not see that coming. OK, let’s not go there, then.” He shook his head in disgust, dismay and disappointment. “Fonking Stratos.”

Throughout this exchange, Mech, Miz, Loren and Splurt had all watched on in silence. Splurt always watched on in silence, so there was nothing new there, but it was rare that the others would have so little to say.

“If I may continue?” the inducto-bot asked. The tone of his voice hadn’t changed much, but there was just a hint of impatience in it now. “We have a lot more to get through before we proceed to the drop.”

“OK, OK, sorry,” said Cal. “Continue.”

The inducto-bot’s metal head dipped forwards in a nod. “The—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Cal. “Drop?”

He looked from the inducto-bot to the others, then back again. “What do you mean, ‘the drop’?”

* * *

Cal fell.

Mech, Miz, Loren, Splurt and Dave all fell, too, but Cal was confident he was falling faster and harder than any of those guys.

‘Falling’, in fact, was selling it short. He plunged. And as he plunged, he screamed, gripping his shoulder straps in soul-numbing panic, and trying very hard not to throw up.

They were in a round pod, about half the size of the Untitled’s bridge, their backs to the curved wall so they were all facing each other in a circle. The pod rolled like a ball as it tumbled down through Funworld’s atmosphere, spinning and flipping and spiraling Cal around and around and around.

He’d been relieved that he wasn’t the only one screaming, but had recently realized that he actually was, and that the screeches coming at him from all directions at once were all his own, bouncing back off the constantly revolving pod walls, floor and ceiling.

“Oh Jesus, we’re all going to die,” Cal yelped. “It’s gone wrong. This must have gone wrong. This can’t be deliberate.”

“What can’t be deliberate?” asked Miz, scraping some dirt out from beneath her claw with a tooth.

“This!” Cal cried, removing a hand from his shoulder strap, briefly gesturing around the pod, then quickly grabbing hold again.

Miz raised her eyes and looked around. “Oh. Wait, are we moving?”

“Yes,” said Loren. “Downwards and – I think – in a spin.”

“You think in a spin?” said Cal, his stomach backflipping as the wall became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor.

“I didn’t ask you,” Miz said, scowling at Loren.

“You didn’t not ask me, either. You asked generally. I answered.”

Splurt sat between them, kicking his legs and bobbing excitedly in his seat. When Cal met his eye, Splurt waved his flag so fast it became little more than a blur. The added motion made the visual center of Cal’s brain howl in protest, so he shut his eyes and swallowed several times, in the hope he could force the rising nausea back down.

“You OK, man?” asked Mech from Cal’s left. “You’re looking kinda green around the girls. You’d better not puke on me.”

“No, I’m not OK,” Cal snapped. “Do I look OK?”

“No, you do not. That’s why I asked. That’s why I said, ‘Are you OK?’ and that you’re green around the girls.”

“Well, it was a stupid question! Of course I’m not OK,” Cal told him. “And it’s gills.”

“Say what?”

“It’s ‘green around the gills’, not girls.”

“But you ain’t got gills. That don’t make no sense.”

“It makes more sense than ‘green around the girls’!” Cal pointed out. “I mean, what does that even—?”

The pod stopped suddenly. Not Loren coming out of warp suddenly, but suddenly, all the same. Cal let out an involuntary scream, which he followed up quickly with a voluntary one, before ending on several seconds of relieved weeping as a mechanical voice chimed out from the pod’s speaker system.

“We have arrived. Welcome to Funworld – a world so fun you’ll never want to leave!”

“Oh, thank God,” Cal wheezed.

And then, with a hurp, he vomited on the floor.

Eight

The drop pod door swished open, and Cal tumbled out onto a rubber mat. He lay on it, face down, hugging it with his body weight, until Mech barked at him to, “Get out of the fonking way,” and threatened to step on him.

Standing up was completely out of the question. The pod may have stopped spinning, but everything else in the universe was still going at it. Cal caught glimpses of a blue-green sky, some colorful buildings, and not a whole lot else as he dragged himself forwards on his hands and knees, making room for the others to exit the pod.

The ground beneath him became hard and uncomfortable against his palms. He tried to keep going, but his brain and body teamed up to put a stop to it. They’d both been through quite enough in the past few minutes, thank you – not to mention the previous few weeks – and this was the last straw.

Cal’s arms gave way. He fell, partly on the rubber mat, partly on a paved surface, and hiccupped out another little mouthful of sick.

A pair of Nikes appeared in his line of sight. Dave squatted down and put a hand on Cal’s back. “The first time can be pretty rough. Sorry, I should have warned you. You must be pretty new to all this.”

“To Funworld?” Cal groaned. His face was squished against the ground, and made the words come out at an odd angle.

“To space travel. After a while, you barely notice that stuff. I guess you get flipped around so much you learn to adjust.”

“Yay,” said Cal, raising a shaky thumb in celebration. “That’s something to look forward to.”

Loren and Miz both grabbed him by an arm and started hoisting him to his feet. “It’s fine, I’ve got him,” said Loren.

“What? Yeah, right. I totally had him first,” Miz argued. She yanked on Cal’s arm, pulling him towards her, but Loren held on tightly, and tugged him back the other way.

“I told you, I’ve got him,” she insisted.

“I’m stronger,” Miz warned. “I can pull him way harder. I could pull his arm right off.”

“Oh yeah?” said Loren. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I fonking wouldn’t!” Cal protested. “Also, ow.”

He inhaled deeply through his nose, then glanced between the two women. “I’m fine. Thank you for your help. You can let go.”

“See? You can let go,” sneered Miz.

“You let go,” said Loren.

“You can both let go,” said Cal. “Also, again, ow.”

“OK, but her first,” Miz said.

“What? No! You first,” said Loren.

Mech tutted. “Just let the motherfonker go,” he instructed.

Loren and Miz swapped glares. “Fine,” said Loren, releasing her grip.

“Whatever,” said Miz, releasing hers.

“Thank you,” said Cal. “See? Totally not a problem,” he added, seemingly unaware of the fact he was toppling sideways.

The moment he hit the ground, Miz and Loren both pounced, but Dave got to him first. “Uh, it’s fine. Why don’t I give him a hand?” he said, smiling nervously at both women, as if waiting for their approval. When they both stopped advancing, he took that as the go-ahead to support Cal in his efforts to get – and more importantly, stay – upright.

“Well, that was kind of embarrassing,” Cal admitted, once back on his feet. He took a few deep breaths and shut his eyes for a couple of seconds.

When he opened them again, the world was… wobbling, which was significantly better than spinning or somersaulting, both of which it had been doing just a moment ago.

He nodded to Dave, who released the grip on his arm. Cal swayed on the spot, but managed to remain standing.

“OK. OK, it’s all good,” Cal said, forcing a smile. “Just a little motion sickness, but it’s gone now. I’m all set and raring to go.”

Splurt grabbed his hand and gestured towards a towering Helter Skelter type ride that rose several hundred feet into the air.

“Christ, no!” Cal spluttered. “Have you lost your fonking mind? Look at that thing!”

“Besides, we ain’t here to have fun,” said Mech.

Dave frowned. “You came to a place called Funworld, and you’re not here to have fun?”

Cal groaned. “Aw, come on, don’t look at me like that, buddy,” Cal said, doing his best to avoid Splurt’s moist-eyed gaze. “Isn’t there, like, a Hook a Duck stall or something we can do? Maybe we can win you a coconut. Or, you know, the space equivalent.”

He met Mech’s glare. “A space coconut,” he said, then he narrowed his eyes. “Oh yeah. I’m totally reclaiming that, bedge.”

Mech gave a grunt, but said nothing. Cal nodded in satisfaction, then his moment of victory collapsed when he saw Splurt gazing up at him again, his bloodshot eyes all hopeful and imploring.

“Aw, come on, Splurt,” Cal groaned. “I literally threw up in my mouth less than three minutes ago.”

“I’ll take him,” said Loren and Miz at the same time. They scowled at each other.

“Fine,” said Loren. “You do it.”

“Whatever,” Miz snapped. “You go.”

They both looked down in surprise when Splurt took their hands in his. He gripped them tightly in his smooth, fingerless stumps, his flag now nowhere to be seen. He concentrated for a moment. At first, nothing happened, but then the flag grew slowly from the top of his hat like a sprouting tree. He bobbed happily as the flag wagged back and forth like a dog’s tail, then he set off towards the Helter Skelter, dragging Miz and Loren behind him.

“Hey, let go, you little weirdo,” Miz protested.

“Splurt, what are you doing?” Loren asked, but then they were out of Cal’s earshot, and he was too relieved to intervene.

“Have fun, you crazy kids!” he called.

Now that the world had settled down and become relatively stable, Cal noticed the rest of the surrounding area for the first time. It resembled a low-rent traveling carnival. And not even a good low-rent traveling carnival. If there was a scale of low-rent traveling carnivals, then this one would have staked out its territory somewhere near the bottom some years ago, and been slowly dropping in the charts ever since.

The paint was peeling on pretty much everything, the colors all long-faded by the sun. Rusted hydraulics and grease-soaked machinery were clearly on display around some of the rides, and litter blew like Fall leaves across the stone slabs, occasionally snagging on the weeds that had stubbornly forced their way up through the gaps.

There were a few sideshows and circus-style tents with weary-looking robots standing guard beside them. None of the bots were moving, and Cal wondered if there really had been a Tin Man epidemic that had left them all frozen in place.

Most of the rides looked like variations of those found on Earth. There was the Helter Skelter, some kind of hovering bumper car set-up, and a carousel featuring grotesquely misshapen alien figures, all wearing saddles. Beyond those were several other rides, all similarly awful-looking, and a handful of buildings that seemed to be stores, fast-food joints and maybe a hotel. Further still, past all those, a wall stretched a full hundred feet or more towards the sky. It curved around the entire area, penning Cal and the others in the center of a wide circle roughly a couple of miles across.

The only thing the place had going for it was scale. The rides, like the wall, were enormous. They had clearly been designed to cope with vast numbers of visitors. Now, though, with the park all-but empty, it just made them look a bit desperate and over-eager to please.

“Well,” said Cal, putting his hands on his hips. “This is…”

“Fonking terrible?” said Mech.

“Well, that isn’t quite how I’d…”

Cal looked around.

“No. No, you’re right. It’s terrible. This is not what I expected at all.”

Dave folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. He tried to hide a grin, but his excitement shone through. “Oh? And what were you expecting, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” said Cal. He shrugged. “Something, you know, exciting.”

“Something exciting, huh?” said Dave. He glanced around and upwards, looking for something. “Five, four, three, two…”

A scream rang out from inside one of the tents. The structure shook as something that threatened to make Cal start vomiting again tore its way free, hissing and snarling and shrieking all at the same time.

It looked like it had once been humanoid, but had become twisted and warped somehow. It was mostly bald, aside from its bare back. Its chest suggested it was a woman. Three women, actually. All six breasts were different sizes, pocked with crater-like scars and burns, and jiggled disturbingly. She… No, it. Definitely an it, Cal thought. It scratched at its sinewy arms and clawed at its neck as it ran forwards, off-balance on its gnarled back legs. Or maybe just ‘legs’, since the front two were more like arms.

Its eyes were ringed with black, its mouth and cheeks awash with crimson red. There was a collar around its neck, a broken chain trailing from the back of it.

“The slorg!” hollered a voice from inside the tent. “The slorg is free!”

“What the fonk’s a slorg?” Cal wondered.

And then it hit him. Not the answer to his question, but the actual slorg itself. Its misshapen, multi-breasted body crashed into him and knocked him back onto a ground he was becoming a little too painfully familiar with.

The weight of the thing was immense – far more than its gnarled frame would suggest. It pinned Cal beneath it, its purple tongue flicking hungrily across rotting teeth, dribbling hot saliva into Cal’s eyes.

“Jesus Christ! Mech, what the fonk are…? Get it off me!” Cal protested, trying to push the thing away, but struggling to find a place to put his hands that wouldn’t lead to a potential groping charge somewhere down the line.

“I ain’t touching that thing!” Mech barked.

“Then shoot it!” Cal yelped. “Hurry up and shoot the fonker!”

Mech raised his arm and fired.

Or tried to fire, but didn’t. Where his arm blaster should have launched a powerful bolt of energy at the slorg, all it managed was a faint hum and a soft click.

“Ain’t working,” Mech said.

“It’s the dampening field,” Dave explained. He looked far too relaxed about Cal’s current predicament, Cal thought. “Guns don’t fire. Guns from outside, anyway. Fortunately…”

He rummaged in a pocket and produced a tiny blaster pistol. It looked like something that might fall out of a Christmas cracker, and be immediately lost among the paper hats and awful jokes. He turned it over in his hands a few times, muttering about an on switch.

Having now accepted the fact that help wasn’t coming any time soon, Cal jammed his forearm against the slorg’s throat, twisted violently, and managed to roll around so he was on top of the thing.

“Aha!” he cried, then his momentum carried him all the way over, and he found himself pinned beneath it again, his face awash once again with hot, sticky slobber.

“Got it,” said Dave. He took aim with his little gun and pulled the trigger. A thin beam of light, like the glow from a torch, hit the Slorg.

It exploded immediately, spraying custard-like yellow innards over Dave, Mech and Cal.

But mostly Cal. Almost exclusively Cal, in fact, with just a light mist of the goo reaching the others.

Cal sat up, frantically scooping the sludge from his eye sockets and blowing it out of his nose. “What… What the Hell was that?” he wheezed.

“That, I think you’ll agree,” said Dave, blowing make-believe smoke from the barrel of his tiny pistol. “Was exciting!”

* * *

Loren has spent all of her teenage years training for her Zertex cadetship. Part of that preparation had been physical, and she’d prided herself on her ability to run for miles carrying a heavy pack, then dish out a flying roundhouse kick to whichever unlucky cadet was partnered up with her for combat training.

Despite that – despite the years of early morning runs, the endless months of squats, cardio and stretching – her legs were fonking killing her.

“How many steps are in this thing?” she asked, trying to hide the wheeze that rattled in her lungs with every word. “I mean, we must be almost back into space.”

“What’s the matter? Tired?” Miz asked, the words punctuated by several short, gasping breaths. She was walking behind, with Loren in front and Splurt between them. Splurt, for his part, didn’t look bothered by the climb, and was as perky and full of energy as ever. “I could… do this… all day.”

Loren shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I mean, me too. I’m not tired, I’m just bored,” she managed to say, before the tightness in her lungs became too much. She pretended to yawn, using it as an excuse to draw in as much air as possible. “In fact, I was going to suggest a race.”

“Oh yeah?” Miz asked.

“Yeah,” said Loren, while silently chastising herself. A race. What was she thinking?

“A race, huh?”

“Yep.”

They all plodded on around the curving staircase.

“You and me? Racing?”

“That’s the idea,” Loren said, adding, Please say no, please say no, in her head.

“OK. Fine. Let’s do it,” Miz said. There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice, but Loren was too exhausted to pick up on it.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Loren nodded and swallowed. “Well… Good. Alright, then.”

“We’re totally going to do this,” Miz agreed.

Splurt looked between them, his little head-flag fluttering from side to side each time he turned.

“All the way to the top?” Miz asked.

“Unless you’d prefer something else?” Loren asked. “Like, I don’t know, a ten second dash, say?”

Miz considered this. “Or, what if we went, like, totally flat out for five seconds? Like, top speed, that whole time? That’d decide the winner.”

“It would,” Loren agreed. She nodded. “OK, five second sprint, going in… ten seconds. Nine. Eight.”

Just before she got to “three” they reached the top, and Loren almost sobbed with relief.

“We’re here. I won.”

“What? No way!” Miz snarled. “You didn’t win. We hadn’t started.”

“Yes, we had,” Loren said, as they stepped onto the top level, where a dark round hole in the wall marked the start of the slide. “We hadn’t started the sprint part, but it was still a race.”

“No way!” Miz said. “You never said that.”

She shoved Loren on the shoulder, forcing her to take a step back. Loren rallied quickly and puffed her chest up, standing her ground. “Don’t push me,” she said.

“Why?” asked Miz, pushing her again. “What are you going to do about it?” She pushed her a third time, slightly harder than before.

“Look, what is your problem?” Loren demanded, her hands balling into fists.

“Uh, maybe that I totally hate you?” Miz retorted.

“You’ve been a real bedge to me ever since the whole multi-verse stuff,” Loren pointed out. “More than usual, I mean. Did I do something to offend you?”

“Besides exist, you mean?”

“Oh, grow up, Miz!” Loren spat. “OK? Just grow up.”

“You grow up,” Mizette retorted. She raised both hands and tried to shove Loren again, but Loren was ready for it. She ducked, twisted, and used Miz’s momentum to flip the wolf-woman over her shoulder.

Miz hit the floor in front of the entrance to the slide. She sprung to her feet immediately, claws and teeth both out and ready for action. “Oh, now you’ve totally done it,” Miz growled.

And then the black hole of the slide entrance seemed to open wider behind her. Miz vanished as she was violently dragged off her feet, and swallowed by the yawning aperture.

Silence fell. Loren glanced down at Splurt. He met her eye and gave a sort of rubbery shrug. “Oh, shizz,” Loren muttered. She approached the hole cautiously, bending low as she peered into the gloom. “Miz? Miz, are you OK?”

Nothing.

“Mizette? Hello?”

The echo of her own voice was the only sound from the tunnel of darkness.

Loren sighed. “I guess we’re going to have to—”

An in-rush of air dragged yanked her through the opening to the slide. Loren found herself tumbling helplessly along the pitch-black tunnel, bouncing and thumping and squeaking along the steeply curved walls.

Slapping her hands against the sides, she tried to slow her descent, but the friction burned her palms as the suction pulled her on faster and faster.

Several rotations down, she hit something big, hairy and angry.

“Ow! What are you doing?” Miz snarled, as Loren’s boots thudded into her face. There was a screech of claws slipping on metal, and then they were both falling together, each collision against the sides sending a rumble of thunder off along the inside of the enormous curved pipe.

Less than a minute later, they were both launched out of the tunnel mouth at the bottom of the ride. They rolled and tumbled across a smoothly polished surface, then Miz slammed hard into a padded barricade, and Loren slammed even harder into Miz.

They rolled apart, and both lay there on the ground, not moving beyond the heaving of their chests as they tried to catch their breath.

“OK,” said Miz, her tongue flopping out as she panted. “Well that was totally awesome.”

Loren sat up. Everything ached. She smiled, shakily.

“That actually was kind of fun,” she said, then a giant Jelly Baby in a Funworld ensemble was launched from the slide and splatted against the wall between them.

Splurt was back on his feet before they were. He thrust his pudgy hands above his head and jumped into the air, looking more excited than either of the women had ever seen him. He raced back to the bottom of the Helter Skelter steps, beckoned for the others to follow, then shot on ahead.

Groaning, Loren began up the steps after him. Miz plodded along behind, her head down.

“You got married,” Miz muttered.

Loren looked back over her shoulder. “What? Who?”

“You. The other you. An other you. From, like, one of those other dimensions, or whatever. You got married. To Cal.”

“Oh,” said Loren, then, “Oh.”

She shook her head and snorted out a sort-of laugh. “But that’s not… There’s no way that he’d… That we’d… I mean, that’s there. That’s not here. I’m not… We’re not…”

She stopped talking until she’d managed to pull together a coherent thought. The one she finally settled on wasn’t one she was expecting, and took her by surprise as it slipped out of her mouth.

“Were we happy?”

Miz shrugged. “How should I know? I guess so. He was the president.”

“The president?” Loren stopped walking. “Of what?”

“Zertex. And, like, all Zertex space.”

Loren stared at Miz blankly for a few seconds, then her laughter echoed up the staircase. “President? Cal? Our Cal? Of Zertex? Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Miz said, sounding a little annoyed.

“Come on,” said Loren. “Do you really think our Cal is ever going to be president of Zertex?”

Miz shifted on her hairy feet. “Well, I mean… No. I doubt it.”

Loren smiled. “Well, then. That’s their universe, this is ours. Obviously, we’re all very different people.” She began walking again. “Cal is never going to be president, and he and I are never going to be married. Nothing to worry about.”

“Who said I was worried?” Miz asked. “I don’t care.”

They plodded on for a while. When it came, Miz’s voice was much quieter than usual.

“You promise?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I promise,” said Loren, smiling too broadly. She took a deep breath. “Right, then,” she said, changing the subject as she began the long, slow climb back to the top. “Here we go again.”

* * *

Cal sat in a window booth in a dilapidated restaurant, gazing out through the grease-filmed glass at the park beyond.

“So, like, anything?” he asked.

Dave shrugged, and helped himself to another of Cal’s fries. They weren’t fries in the strict Earth definition of the word – they were tapered to a point for one thing, a vaguely luminous green, for another – but they tasted similar enough for Cal not to really notice the difference.

“No, not anything,” Dave conceded. “It’s not magic.”

“Then what is it?” Cal asked.

“It’s…” Dave moved the food around his mouth thoughtfully. “Prepared. It’s prepared. It runs a sort of low level mind scan, and figures out what you want.”

Cal pointed through the window, back towards where he’d been attacked by the slorg. “And it thought I wanted to be pinned to the ground and drooled on by Little Sally Six-Tits? Uh-uh. It was way off.”

“Was it?” Dave asked.

Cal began to reply, then stopped. Compared to falling out of the sky in a metal ball or – God forbid – hurtling down a Helter Skelter the size of the Empire State Building, fighting with the slorg had been… not ‘fun’ exactly, but not not fun, either. Exciting? Yes. A welcome change of pace? Certainly.

And the way it had exploded was pretty cool, even if he’d be smelling and tasting the yellow sludge for weeks.

“You said you wanted something exciting,” Dave reminded him. “So, it gave you that.”

“And it seriously wasn’t real?” Cal said. “The slorg, I mean?”

“Genetically engineered bio-bots,” said Dave. “Some are generic – you know, monsters, sex squids, whatever. Others are custom-built from the molecular level up, just for you, to service some need or desire you might not even be fully aware you have.”

“Right,” said Cal. He frowned, then sat up straight. “Wait, ‘sex squids? What are…?”

He stopped.

“I mean, do I even want to…?”

He stopped.

“No. No, I don’t think I do,” Cal decided. “Go on.”

“You sure seem to know a lot about this place,” said Mech. He was standing beside the booth, his weight too much for the aging seats to bear. “Especially for someone who’s supposed to be from Earth.”

Dave shrugged. “Yeah, well. I come here a lot. Every year, actually. I met my wife here.”

It occurred to Cal that the events of the past half hour had overtaken him, and he hadn’t yet had a chance to ask what was, perhaps, the most pressing question of all.

“How come you’re out here, anyway?” he asked. “You know, in space, I mean? How did you get here?”

“Abduction,” said Dave, matter-of-factly. “Back in… ooh, what? Ninety-eight? Nine? Before the Millennium, anyway. How did that Y2K thing work out, by the way?” He chuckled. “The way they were talking about it, it was like everyone on Earth was going to end up dead!”

“What? Oh, that. Yeah, it was fine. Nothing happened,” Cal said. “Like, literally not a thing.”

“That’s good to know. So, everyone’s OK?”

“Um…” Cal made a weighing motion with his hands. “That depends on how you define ‘OK’.”

“Well, I guess… alive?” said Dave.

“Oh. Well, in that case, no. They’re definitely not OK,” Cal said. “Killer bugs. Zertex. Genocide. It’s a whole thing.”

Dave blinked. “Jesus Christ.”

“That’s pretty much what I said.” Cal leaned his elbows on the crumb-strewn table. “So… abducted?”

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” said Dave, still a little dumbstruck by the whole genocide situation. He shook himself out of his stupor, then took another of the space fries and blew on it to cool it down a little. He bit the end off and chewed slowly. “It’s kind of a long story,” he warned.

“Kind of a Long Story is my middle name,” said Cal.

“What, seriously?” Mech asked.

“Oh Mech,” said Cal, smiling benevolently up at him. “You beautiful idiot.” He nodded to Dave. “Let’s hear it.”

“OK. You asked for it,” said Dave. And then, waving the uneaten half of the fry like a tiny conductor’s baton, he began to explain.

Nine

There had been probing involved. A substantial amount of probing.

The first two to three minutes of the story featured very little else but probing, in fact, and Cal was starting to wonder if the level of detail was really necessary for the purposes of the explanation.

As it turned out, though, all that probing was key to what came next.

“Four, maybe five days in, I demanded to see a supervisor,” Dave explained.

“Five days,” Cal spluttered. “Jesus. What did they think they’d find up there, the Lost Kingdom of Atlantis?”

“I know, right?” said Dave, shifting uncomfortably at the memory. “You’d think after you’d probed once, you’d have pretty much all the information you needed. I could maybe understand twice, if you forgot something the first time.”

“Or, like, if someone left their watch up there,” Cal added.

“Exactly. But five days?” Dave shook his head. “No. That was too much.”

Cal agreed, and shot Mech a dirty look. “Five days,” he said, a little accusingly.

“Why you looking at me?” Mech asked. “I didn’t do it.”

“Well, not personally,” said Cal. “But, you know. Space people.” He raised his eyebrows in quite a smug way, suggesting his point – whatever it was – had someone been proven, then turned back to Dave.

“Wait, you asked to see a supervisor? No way. What did they say?”

“Fonked if I know,” Dave said. “I didn’t have a chip. Not back then. But I eventually kicked up enough of a fuss that they took me to see the captain of the ship, and I logged an official complaint.”

“Too much butt-stuff,” said Cal.

Dave nodded and ate the other piece of his fry. “Too much butt-stuff. I mean, those weren’t the exact words I used, but close enough.”

He leaned forwards. “And that’s when it got interesting.”

Dave explained he had been abducted by a race known as the Oovil. The Oovil were renowned for two things, one of which was their fascination with anal probing. Dave’s complaint about his first-hand experiences of this then drew to his attention the second thing the Oovil were known for – their outstanding customer service, and their eagerness to compensate those who felt the Oovil had slighted them.

“They gave you their ship?” Cal gasped. “Seriously?”

Dave nodded. “Ship, crew, cargo, an extensive amount of anal probe related paraphernalia – they signed it all over to me there and then. Oh, and a chip, of course, so I could understand them.”

“Holy shizz,” said Cal. “What did you do?”

Dave shrugged. “I knew I had a choice. I could get them to take me back home. I was single, working in a job I hated, going nowhere, and still – for reasons I have yet to figure out – living in Belgium. I could go back to all that, or I could just head out, you know? Just get them to fly me somewhere, and see what the galaxy had to offer.”

“In my experience, motion sickness and scary shizz trying to kill you,” said Cal.

“At first, yeah,” Dave agreed. “But then, with the Oovil’s help, I started building something.”

“A bigger spaceship?” Cal guessed. He slapped a hand on the table. “The Starship Enterprise!” He gasped. “The Millennium Falcon!”

Dave smiled. “I wish. A business. Cargo haulage. You’ll have heard of Transol.”

“Definitely,” Cal lied.

“Well, that’s me,” said Dave. “Me and a few hundred thousand staff, anyway. We’ve got two thousand depots in this sector alone. A trillion deliveries every year – every Earth year, I mean, I can’t shake that calendar. And that’s growing. We’re already ten per cent up on last year.”

“That is interesting,” Cal said, lying again. “And you met your wife here? So, she’s… what? An alien?”

“She… yeah.” Dave puffed out his cheeks. “I guess you stop thinking in those terms, eventually. We met… God, I don’t know. You lose track of time out here. Maybe a couple of years after I left Earth.”

“Where is she?” Mech asked.

Dave picked up one of the fries, turned it over a couple of times, then set it back down. “She, uh, she died,” he said. “The Xandrie hijacked one of our depots a while back. She got caught in the crossfire. I only found out when she didn’t come home that night.”

“Oh, man. Dave. I’m sorry,” said Cal. “Those Xandrie fonks. You know, they killed me, too?”

Dave nodded, accepting the sympathy. Eventually, the rest of the sentence filtered through. “They what?”

“Yeah. I mean, I got better, you wouldn’t know it to look at me,” said Cal. “There was this, like, tunnel of light, and Tobey Maguire – you know, the actor?”

Dave’s expression was completely blank.

“Maybe after your time. Spider-Man? No? Forget it. Pleasantville? They did a whole black and white… forget it, doesn’t matter. Anyway…” Cal drummed his fingers on the table. “What were we talking about?”

“The man’s dead wife,” Mech said.

“Right! Yes.” Cal reached across the table and squeezed Dave’s hand. “You have our condolences.”

“Uh, right. Thanks,” Dave said. He gazed out of the grimy window for a while, then visibly forced himself to perk up. “So, anyway, I threw myself into work, and tried to get on with things. But I come back here every year, on the day we met. Or, you know, probably. Like I say, time’s pretty much meaningless up here.”

“Why the fonk do you do that?” Mech asked, looking around at the run-down restaurant. “This place is a shizzhole.”

“Jesus, Mech. Show some respect,” said Cal. “First you people probe him for five days, and now you’re questioning his grieving process.”

“I didn’t probe no-one!”

“To remember her, I guess,” Dave said, the solemn tone of his voice cutting the argument short. “And it didn’t used to be like this. It’s just since…” He glanced left and right, then leaned in closer to Cal. “Since the incident.”

Cal leaned in closer, too, dropping his voice. “The incident?”

Dave’s voice became a whisper. “Yep. The incident.”

Cal nodded. “Gotcha,” he whispered. Then, more loudly, he added, “What incident?”

Dave looked from Cal to Mech and back again, confusion curving his features. “You mean… you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About the incident?”

“What fonking incident?” Mech snapped.

Dave leaned back and blinked several times, his gaze tick-tocking between them. “Why did you come to Funworld?”

“Well, you might not believe this,” Cal began.

Mech loudly cleared his throat.

“So, we were flying through space, minding our own business...”

Mech coughed, louder still.

“When all of a sudden there’s this, like, cyber attack on our ship. Bam. Straight out of nowhere.”

Mech’s throat clearing rattled the glass in the window. Cal sighed and turned to him. “What is wrong with you? Do you have, like, robot throat cancer, or something?”

“No. There ain’t nothing wrong,” Mech snapped. He motioned very deliberately towards Dave with his eyes.

“Then why do you sound like you’re choking on one of Miz’s hairballs?” Cal asked, completely missing the signal. “Seriously, if you’re going to do that, can you do it somewhere over there? I can barely hear myself— Ulp!”

Cal was hoisted off the chair by the back of his jacket. Mech looked down at Dave and managed a grim smile. “Excuse us. We’re gonna be right back,” he said, then he whirled around and marched away from the booth, with Cal dangling limply in his grip.

“Hey, cut it out!” Cal protested. “Do you know how much this jacket cost?”

“You stole it,” Mech pointed out.

“That’s not the point! Put me down. What are you doing?”

“No, what are you doing?” Mech hissed, bringing Cal closer to his face. “Why are you telling that dude our fonking life story?”

“Who, Dave? Dave’s OK. He’s one of the guys. You can trust him,” Cal said. “And, for the record, this really hurts.”

“Oh, I know it does,” Mech grunted. “But you know what I don’t know?”

“The right size for an elephant?”

“That guy. I don’t know him,” said Mech, pointing towards Dave, who was politely looking the other way and pretending he couldn’t hear them arguing. “That guy could be anyone. Hell, maybe he’s the one who hacked us.”

Cal gasped. “Oh God, you’re right. He probably stole all our money, then felt so guilty he spent some of it paying us into a theme park to try to make up for it.”

Mech shrugged noisily. “Stranger things have happened.”

Cal couldn’t really argue with that. Stranger things had happened. They happened fairly regularly, in fact, and they mostly happened mostly to him. “That may be, but Dave’s fine. We can trust him. I’ll vouch for him.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you,” Cal pointed out. “Technically, we go way back. I mean, in a way, he’s my oldest friend.”

“What’s his last name?” Mech asked.

Cal blinked. He rotated slightly as he dangled there, his jacket digging in under his armpits and forcing his arms out like a scarecrow’s. “Dave…” He rolled the word around in his mouth, hoping it would lead on to the next part of the answer. “…Dave?”

“Dave Dave?” said Mech. “You think his name’s Dave Dave? Seriously?”

“OK, no, that would be insane,” Cal conceded. “But hey, stranger things have happened. You said so yourself.”

Mech ground his jaws together. His voice lowered, his tone softening. “Look, man. Whatever brought us here, it came from inside my head. It was tucked away in there since… since I don’t know. But it’s important. I can feel it. And I don’t want no random Earth guy screwing it up.”

“Are you talking about me or him?” Cal asked.

“Both. Either,” said Mech. “We clear?”

Cal sighed. “Fine. Fine. I won’t tell him. But did it occur to you that he might be able to help? He knows about this place. Maybe he can, I don’t know, point us in the right direction.”

Mech glanced over at Dave, then shook his head. “Until we find out what we’re doing here, I don’t want anyone else brought in on it.”

Cal shrugged, which wasn’t easy. “OK. Your call. We’ll keep it between ourselves.”

Mech eyeballed him for a few seconds, then let him drop. “Thanks,” the cyborg grunted. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” said Cal. He pointed to the window. “And look, the guys are back.”

Mech turned to the window, and Cal seized his chance. Darting out of Mech’s reach, he blurted out, “Mech had a secret bit in his brain and there was all this stuff hidden in there including co-ordinates that led us here to Funworld and we think there’s something hidden here and we’ve come to find out what it is!” all in one big breath.

“Uh… OK,” said Dave.

“Son of a bedge!” Mech snapped.

“Trust me, it’s for your own good,” said Cal, keeping his distance from the furious-looking Mech. He was furious-looking most of the time – his face just naturally fell into that sort of position – but right now it was very clearly a deliberate choice, and not just an unfortunate arrangement of facial features.

Mech advanced, shoving aside a table Cal tried to hide behind. It had been fixed in place, and came free with a bang of snapping metal bolts.

“Mech, come on now, old pal,” Cal said, holding his hands up in surrender as he backed further away. “Easy, now. It’s for the best that Dave knows. He can help us.”

“Um…” said Dave. “I’m not sure that—”

Cal silenced him with a point. “Dave. Please. Not now.”

Another table was thrown aside. The robot that had taken their order turned its head their way, then sunk down behind the counter, its rusted hinges creaking as it lowered out of sight.

“I asked you not to tell him,” Mech said. “I said those fonking words. This shizz?” He tapped the side of his head. “Whatever it is, this shizz is private.”

“I get it, I do,” said Cal. “Totally private. But Dave’s OK. He’s one of us.”

Cal stretched and looked over Mech’s shoulder. “Hey, the guys are back. Really this time.”

Mech turned, and Cal took advantage of his cunning distraction. He made a move to dodge past Mech, only for the cyborg’s hand to grab him by the front of his jacket.

“I ain’t falling for that again,” Mech said, but before he could do anything, the sound of sirens filled the restaurant. Outside, some kind of police vehicle skidded to a stop.

It was small. That was the first thing Cal noticed. It looked like a tiny bubble car, with wheels that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a toddler’s first bike. It was blue. No, it was blue. An eye-popping shade of electric blue, just one peek at which threatened to give Cal a migraine.

A red light flashed atop the car’s curved roof, the glass dome comically oversized for the rest of the vehicle.

A door in the side of the car opened, and someone fell out. Literally fell out. They landed face-first, their bulbous red nose emitting a loud honk as it hit the ground. Another figure flailed out behind it. This one tripped over the first, but performed a full forward roll before springing onto their feet. A little badum-tish accompanied the move, apparently from nowhere.

“What the fonk is this?” Mech muttered, as a third, then a fourth, fifth and sixth figure emerged from the car. They were all under three feet tall, and wore variations of police-style uniforms, but with the additions of big bow ties, enormous shoes, and the occasional brightly-colored pom-pom.

“Clown police,” Cal guessed.

“Park security,” said Dave, sliding out of the booth and dusting down his shirt. “Maybe you’d better let me handle this.”

They all watched as three more security guards tumbled out of the car. They all bickered and fought, fumbling with batons and stun-guns as if they were props in a comedy show.

Eventually, following what appeared to be a well-rehearsed skit that involved trying to push open a pull-door, they piled into the restaurant, chirping and chittering in a high-pitched register that somehow managed to make them sound even more irritating than they looked.

Dave held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Hey, guys,” he said, then a taser-style weapon shot him in the testicles and he fell, convulsing, to the floor.

“Ooh, Jesus, that looks painful,” said Cal, wincing. “Still, I guess I should be grateful it didn’t happen to me for once.”

A taser-style weapon shot him in the testicles.

“Motherf—” he groaned, then he fell, convulsing, to the floor.

The security guards fanned out, surrounding Mech. He bunched his metal fingers into fists and gave a slow, deliberate shake of his head. “Trust me, you do not want to do this,” he said.

And then, with a chorus of chirps and honks and mysterious drum-stings, a dozen tiny clowns all pounced on him as one.

Ten

Cal had a nagging feeling he’d been here before.

He had opened his eyes to see a child-sized figure being spun around by the ankles, its frantically flapping body knocking aside several other, equally child-sized figures, as it scythed through the air.

At first, he’d thought he was having some sort of out of body experience, and was watching himself fighting the horde of man-eating space scouts inside their crashed ship.

Then he realized that, for that to be the case, he must not only have traveled outside his body, but backwards in time. One of those things was plausible, he reckoned. But both? Unlikely. Very unlikely.

Also, he wasn’t made of metal or seven feet tall, and none of the space scouts had – to the best of his memory – been wearing police uniforms. Nor, for that matter, had they been clowns.

A realization crackled through his lightly-charred brain. He wasn’t watching himself, he was watching Mech.

At the same time, he realized something else. He realized his nuts hurt.

He remembered the taser.

Cautiously, his hand crept down to his crotch. He let out a tiny scream when he found a metal barb there. It had torn clean through his pants and got its hooks deep into one of his two most prized assets.

“Oh Jesus,” he grimaced, as he was filled with the very specific sinking feeling that comes only from discovering a projectile weapon is embedded half an inch deep in one’s scrotum.

Several feet away, Dave let out a little yelp of his own, having just made the same grim discovery.

“It’s OK, Dave. We’ll get through this,” Cal said, trying to sound reassuring. The fact the sentence ended in a loud, throaty sob didn’t exactly help, though.

A clown-cop sailed through the air above him, hit a table, and slid over the other side. It sprang back upright almost immediately, and raced towards Mech again. Cal stopped it with an uppercut to the balls that lifted it clean off its oversized feet. As the punch connected, the clown’s gonads made a comedy ding noise, like the chime of a tiny bell. It wasn’t laughing, though, when it crumpled to the floor, coughing and spluttering and cupping its hands to its groin.

“Not so funny now, is it?” Cal said, then he howled as two other clown-cops jumped on him from behind, their batons rattling against his skull with a series of hilariously exaggerated thonks.

* * *

Loren limped across the weed-ridden paving slabs, a tiny groan escaping through her lips with every step. Miz padded along beside her, her tongue flopping limply, her fur shiny with sweat.

Splurt skipped on ahead of them both, leaping from slab to slab, studiously avoiding any that had cracks on them. As most of the slabs had at least some sort of damage, it had taken a full ten minutes to get from the Helter Skelter to where they’d last seen Cal and the others. Neither Loren nor Miz had complained once about the slow pace.

“So, any ideas?” Loren asked, her leg muscles screaming at her as she shuffled around on the spot, searching for any signs of life.

Miz sniffed the air, but there was a pile of yellow goo on the ground nearby that was masking the scent of pretty much anything else. “I can’t smell them,” she admitted.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Loren. “I’ve found them.”

“Where?”

Loren gestured past a small row of sideshows. A tiny police car was parked outside a building, its light flashing. As they watched, a mini police officer in a small, polka-dotted hat exploded through the window, bounced once on the ground, then immediately got up and raced back inside.

Miz nodded. “Yep,” she said. “That’s totally got to be them.”

Taking Splurt by his stubby not-quite hands, they led him in the direction of the building. He swung himself off the ground several times as they walked, his face – what little there was of it – a picture of pure, innocent joy.

Loren found herself trying to reconcile the Splurt beside her with the shapeshifting killing machine she’d watched single-handedly take out a dozen heavily armed Xandrie enforcers, but her brain refused to let the two images join up.

They arrived outside the building to find Mech surrounded by a number of semi-conscious tiny clowns. They watched as he swung one final clown above his head with one hand, before smashing it through a table like a sledgehammer.

Cal and Dave were lying on the floor beside each other, shoulder to shoulder. One of Cal’s hands was on Dave’s crotch. One of Dave’s hands was on Cal’s crotch. They both appeared to be crying.

“What the fonk did we miss?” Miz wondered.

Loren shook her head. “I have no idea,” she mumbled.

“O-OK,” Dave whimpered. “On three.”

“Wait!” said Cal. “Are you actually going to go on three, or are you going to go on two so you surprise me?”

“You’re holding a metal spike in my balls. Why the fonk would I want to surprise you?” Dave said, his voice bordering on hysteria.

The wailing of the police siren was starting to annoy Loren. She opened the driver’s door, only for several colorful snake-like springs to boing out at her. She was looking for the off-switch when Miz knocked the flashing light off the top of the car, and the siren squealed into a strangled silence.

They returned to the window. Mech was stacking unconscious clowns in a pile. Cal and Dave were still hand-to-crotch with each other.

“You didn’t pull!” Dave said.

“Well neither did you!”

“I started to, then I realized you weren’t!”

“Well… same here,” said Cal. He puffed out his cheeks several times, drawing in oxygen. “OK. This time. Three. Two…. One!”

Neither of them pulled.

“God damn it!” Cal cried.

“You didn’t go!”

“Neither did you!”

They both took their hands away, but slowly, so as to avoid any accidental snagging. “OK. OK, we can do this,” Cal said.

He closed his eyes, but opened them again when he heard a faint scuffing down near his feet. Splurt stood there, one stubby foot between Cal’s legs, one between Dave’s.

“Oh, h-hey, buddy,” said Cal, then he and Dave both howled as Splurt reached down and plucked both prongs free in a couple of swift tugs.

“Yaaaargh!”

“Fooooooonk!”

“Splurt! Never do that again!” Cal spluttered. “You could have pulled it right out. And I don’t mean the spike.”

His face fell. It had already fallen all the way to ground level, but now it was practically subterranean. “Oh Jesus, what if you did? You might have pulled my balls out.”

“What?!” Dave wailed.

Slowly, gingerly, Dave felt around the damaged area. To his relief, everything felt present and correct.

“They’re still there. Thank God.”

Dave let out another strangled sob. “Mine, too.”

Splurt studied the metal barbs for a moment, then shrugged and tossed them over his shoulder. When he looked back at Cal and Dave, both men were attempting to maneuver themselves into an upright position without closing their legs. Loren and Miz watched them from the doorway.

“So,” Loren began, crossing her arms and leaning against the frame. “Anything happen when we were out?”

“Oh, you know,” said Cal, gesturing around at the trashed restaurant and the pile of groaning clown-cops. “The usual.”

Lore nodded. “So I see.”

“This was all Mech’s fault,” Cal said.

“Say what? How was this my fault?” the cyborg demanded, as he deposited the final clown on the pile.

“Uh, well let me see. Maybe because you started breaking shizz and trying to kill me?” said Cal.

“Only because you went blabbing my secrets to a fonking stranger,” Mech countered.

“A stranger? May I remind you, Mech, that this man just took a nut-shot while trying to help us. An electrified nut-shot. That practically makes him family.”

Mech scowled. “No, it don’t.”

“Have you ever taken a nut-shot for the team, Mech?” Cal demanded.

Miz shook her head. “He doesn’t have—”

“That ain’t the fonking point!” barked Mech.

“And why are you stacking up clowns?” Cal asked.

Mech glanced back at the neat pile of unconscious bodies. They were all set out in variations of the recovery position. “I don’t want them getting hurt.”

“We literally just watched you smash one through a table,” Loren pointed out. He glared at her, and she held her hands up in a gesture of mini surrender. “Hey, just saying.”

“Um… Sorry to interrupt,” said Dave. He shrunk back a little under the full-beam of everyone’s gaze. “It’s just, they’ll send reinforcements. More bio-bots. These ones will probably be bigger.”

He smiled shakily. “Just… Just thought you should know.”

“See?” said Cal, shooting Mech a scolding look. “Helpful. Offering us advice, even after you got him shot in the balls.”

“He’s right,” said Miz, cocking her head to one side. “I hear an alarm.”

“There are access tunnels running below most of the buildings,” Dave said. “We used to deliver here, and that’s how we’d move the cargo around. I can show you.”

Cal raised his eyebrows in Mech’s direction, just as a number of sirens began shrieking in the distance. “Well, Mech? Do we trust him, or do we wait here and see what comes through those doors?”

He squeezed his lips together and in a reedy, high-pitched voice, added: “Please trust him, big robot man, we don’t want to get shot again.”

Cal’s voice returned to normal as he pointed to his crotch. “And yes,” he said. “That was my testicles talking.”

Mech’s mechanisms whirred as he looked from Cal to Dave to the broken window. The sirens were getting louder now. Time was running out.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “Where do we find these access tunnels?”

* * *

The weight of the wooden hatch rested on Cal’s head as he peered through the floor-level gap, watching a squad of more serious, less slapstick-orientated cops storm the restaurant. From this angle, he could only make out their feet and part of their legs, but based on what little information he had, these guys were huge. Their voices were a series of barked, guttural grunts that the translation chip either couldn’t decipher, or didn’t want to.

The grunting grew more urgent as the new security team discovered the old security team all neatly stacked up. There was some gruff, throaty discussion between the newcomers, then Cal glimpsed the glow of a light beam.

A moment later, the little sleeping clown-cops exploded into yellow gunge.

“Jesus,” Cal whispered, then he lowered his head, letting the hatch fall quietly into place before anyone could spot him.

Clambering down a rusted – and notably low-tech – metal ladder, Cal found himself in a long, hollowed-out passageway that had been carved through solid rock. The walls were rough and uneven, suggesting whoever had built the tunnel network had done so quickly, and without a great deal of care.

The walls, floor and ceiling all formed a square-ish shape that was ever so slightly wider at the bottom. A rail ran along the length of the ceiling, with a notch in the middle that suggested something should be hanging from it, but nothing was.

At regular intervals along the tunnel, little side rooms had been carved out. Storage crates were stacked up in each of these alcoves, most of them with variations of the Transol Shipping logo stuck to the side.

“Some of these must have been here for years,” Dave remarked. His voice, though barely a whisper, scuttled along the passageway in both directions. He ran his fingers across the surface of one of the boxes. “This logo is two generations ago.”

“Fascinating. Seriously,” said Mech. He gestured along the passageway in both directions. “But which way do we go?”

“Depends where you’re trying to get to,” said Dave. He winced. “Which wasn’t supposed to make me sound like quite so much of a smart-ams,” he said. “I mean, left takes you back in the direction of the drop pod, right takes you over in the direction of the wall. Either way, we can climb up elsewhere and check the lie of the land.”

“What is it with the wall, anyway?” asked Cal. “Did they build that after the incident?”

“What incident?” Loren asked.

Cal shrugged. “No idea,” he admitted. “It just feels cool to say. ‘The incident’. See?”

“The wall has always been there,” Dave said. “But after the incident, they made it bigger. Much bigger.”

“What happened?” asked Miz.

Dave opened his mouth to speak, then looked up at the hatch above them. “We should probably get moving. I’ll explain while we walk,” he said. “Which way do you want to go?”

“Let’s head for the wall,” Cal suggested. “Ideally, I’ll never set eyes on that fonking pod thing again.”

“Fair enough,” said Dave. With another glance up, he led them along the passageway on the right, and as they walked, he filled them in.

The incident had occurred four years previously, and had made all the local news networks, as well as a few of the bigger, galaxy-wide stations. One of the bio-bots – a large clown character, not unlike the one of the Funworld logo, only blue – had killed a guest.

It wasn’t the first time a visitor to the park had died – accidents happened – but it was the manner of death which caused the Funworld operators some concern. It had involved a metal fence spike, an unsuspecting orifice, and a vigorous application of upward momentum.

Still, even this would have barely registered as a minor inconvenience, had the bio-bot – Mr Bongle – not gone on to kill another guest in a similar manner. Then another. And another.

Soon, a whole sector of the park was awash with blood, and almost exclusively devoid of fence rails. Security had moved in, of course, but like the thousand or more guests that had been enjoying the activities on offer in the area when Mr Bongle broke his programming, they never came back out.

“Jesus,” said Cal, whistling quietly through his teeth. “So that big wall is to keep one evil clown at bay?”

Dave shook his head. “No. Whatever had happened to make Bongle flip out, it happened to others, too. Maybe he did it to them, maybe it was just some programming glitch. No-one really knows. But last time anyone did a flyover of that area, the whole place was overrun.”

“By evil clowns,” said Cal, because he felt it was something that needed to be emphasized.

“Pretty much,” Dave confirmed. “There must be a couple of thousand of them beyond the wall.”

“What happened to them?” Loren asked. “How did they malfunction, or break their programming, or whatever?”

“No-one knows. No-one’s ever gone back in to try to find out.”

“Wow. I can see why this place isn’t pulling the crowds,” said Cal. “I mean, that whole saying, ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’? I’m not sure it stretches to being speared up the anus by a clown-monster.”

They walked on a while longer, Dave, Cal, Mech, Loren, Splurt and Miz all forming a single line down the center of the tunnel. There were no lights – no electric ones, anyway – but a bioluminescent moss on the ceiling and walls cast a glow as bright as any lamp.

“Genetically engineered,” said Dave, as if reading Cal’s thoughts. “Like the clowns.”

Cal shot the moss a wary look, then stopped.

“Wait a minute. Hold on,” he said. “If there’s an army of pasty-faced butt-stabbers on the other side of the wall, why are we heading towards it? Won’t this tunnel take us right under there?”

Dave shook his head. “Originally, yes. But when they made the wall higher, they blocked off the tunnel, too. Either way, our exit is just up ahead. The wall’s still a few hundred feet beyond that.”

“For an Earth guy, you sure know a lot about this place,” said Miz.

“That’s what I said,” Mech told her.

“It’s, like, kinda suspicious, if you ask me,” Miz continued.

Cal sighed. “OK, first up, Dave, it’s nothing personal. They’re always like this,” he said. “Secondly, Dave’s been in space a lot longer than I have. He was abducted. He was probed. A lot. Like… a lot. And now he runs a space business making space deliveries, and this place was one of his clients.”

He turned and looked back over his shoulder. “Clear? We all up to speed on Dave now? Also, let me remind you again, the guy took a nut-shot, and just saved us from Clown Police version two-point-oh. I think he’s proved at this point that we can trust—”

“Shut up,” said Miz.

“Well, that seems harsh,” said Cal. “I was only trying to—”

Mech’s hand clamped over Cal’s face. “I hear it, too,” he said.

“Hear what?” asked Loren, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“Something’s coming,” Mech replied.

Cal pointed frantically to his face, most of which was currently squashed against Mech’s metal palm. Mech released his grip and Cal exhaled sharply. “Jesus, was that really necessary?” he asked. “You could’ve—”

Mech’s hand covered Cal’s mouth again. “Awm cmm nnn,” Cal protested.

Dave and Loren looked in opposite directions along the passageway. Miz and Mech listened. Cal suffocated. Splurt tried to jump up to touch the moss, but fell several feet short. This did not, however, stop him trying again.

“Security?” Dave guessed. “They know about the underground network, too. Makes sense they’d come looking.”

“I can’t tell,” Miz admitted. “This stupid tunnel is bouncing the sound all over the place.”

“Mech? What are your scanners telling you?” Loren asked.

“Not a whole lot,” said Mech. “The dampening field must be affecting those, too.”

“Wm shd gt oo th a’er,” Cal mumbled.

“We should probably get to the ladder,” whispered Dave.

“Thts wt I sd!”

Mech let go of Cal’s face. Cal stretched his jaw and rubbed his cheeks. “You have disturbingly smooth hands,” he whispered, then he stumbled after Dave as Loren shoved him in the back.

“Come on, move,” she hissed. “We don’t want them to find us.”

Miz tutted. “OK, that is, like, the most obvious thing anyone has ever said.”

“Shh. Both of you. Quiet,” said Mech.

“You’ve got metal feet,” Loren pointed out. “You’re making more noise than all the rest of us combined.”

“It ain’t my fault I got metal feet,” Mech said. “But it’s both your fault that your motherfonking jaws keep flapping.”

“You tell ‘em, Mech,” said Cal.

“Shut the fonk up!” Mech hissed. “Everyone just keep quiet.”

“We’re almost there,” Dave whispered, leading them around a bend in the tunnel. “I can see a ladder up ahead. It’ll take us…”

His voice died into silence.

He was right, there was a ladder up ahead. It hung down from a hole in the tunnel roof, near where the glow of the moss light came to a stop. Darkness extended beyond it, a rich, velvety black that seemed to swallow everything beyond the exit ladder, turning it into an empty abyss.

No.

Not empty.

Something moved in the darkness. Cal could hear it now, too, the sound of footsteps scuffing on stone.

Big footsteps.

Way too big.

Something like a giggle was ejected from deep in the blanket of shadow. It made the hair on the back of Cal’s neck stand on end, and his buttocks clench in anxious anticipation.

“Oh God,” Dave said, his voice a scratchy sob. “They got through.”

“The clowns? From behind the wall.”

“Except they’re not behind the wall anymore,” he said, his eyes two saucers filled with terror. “They’re in here. They’re in here with us!”

“Maybe we should go back,” Loren suggested, the giggling darkness making her uneasy.

“Can’t,” said Miz, her head tilted. “Those other guys are back that way. I can hear them coming.”

“Oh well,” said Cal cricking his neck and bouncing from foot to foot. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned run for it!”

Eleven

They all reached the ladder at approximately the same time, and everyone, with the exception of Splurt and Mech, tried to climb it at once.

“Hey, out of the way, I’m captain,” Cal protested, trying without much success to shove Miz aside.

“I don’t care. I’m next,” Miz scowled, reaching up and grabbing one of the higher rungs.

Dave was already scrabbling up the ladder, and as he shoved open the hatch, another expanse of darkness was revealed.

While everyone else continued to fight to not be at the back of the queue, Splurt stood gazing into the black void of the tunnel. He craned his neck to look up at Mech, then pointed a stump of an arm into the gloom.

The thing that was out there – whatever it was – was getting closer.

“Yeah. I know,” said Mech. “We should go.”

He crouched and held a hand out, palm upwards. Splurt hopped aboard, sitting on the hand and holding onto the wrist as Mech lifted him towards the ladder. He clambered up it behind Cal, leaving Mech alone with the shuffling, giggling thing in the shadows.

Over those sounds, he heard something else. Music. A soft tinkling chime, like an old wind-up music box, but one where the springs had gone wonky, making the music play at half speed and in a slightly different key.

T-tring, tring, triiing-a-tring tring, tring, triiiing.

Despite not technically owning one, Mech felt a shiver travel the length of his spine. He gazed into the all-consuming valley of darkness, where the world seemed to fall away into nothing.

“Now that shizz is just creepy,” he muttered, then he reached for an upper rung, grabbed hold, and hauled himself up towards the open hatch above.

He clambered through without too much difficulty. The hatch was wide, and designed for large objects to be moved through with ease. As soon as he was up, Cal quickly and quietly closed the hatch, then Mech stood on top of it. Whatever was down there, there was no way it was going to be able to heave the hatch open with Mech’s weight pinning it down.

With the hatch closed, the darkness was absolute.

“Everyone here?” Cal asked.

“Yeah, everyone’s here,” Miz confirmed.

“Dave, you here?” Cal asked.

Miz tutted. “I told you, everyone’s here.”

“I’m here,” Dave confirmed.

“Splurt?”

“Seriously?” Miz snapped. “Everyone’s here. Like, just trust me, OK?”

“OK, good,” said Cal.

A moment of silence passed.

“Loren?”

“What?”

“Are you here?”

“Well, clearly.”

Miz tutted. “Why do I even bother?”

“To be fair,” said Loren, “you very rarely do.”

“Tch. What-ever.”

From through the hatch, they heard the faint tinkling of the music, and the soft, throaty giggle of the clown. They heard several sets of footsteps, too, racing along the tunnel, getting steadily louder.

“Quiet,” Cal warned.

“We were being quiet,” Loren whispered.

“Well you’re not now. Shh.”

“But…” Loren began, then she decided just to bite her lip, instead.

A burst of shouts and panicked cries went off below. The clown-thing’s giggle rose in volume and pitch, and the corridor was filled with the screams of blaster pistols and, more pressingly, the screams of the dying.

“N-no, please, no!”

“G-get away from me, get away!”

“Yaaieeergk!”

And then, silence.

Nothing.

Not a sound.

And then the giggle again. And the music - T-tring, tring, triiing-a-tring tring, tring, triiiing – fading gradually as the clown-thing returned to the darkness.

Cal’s eyes were starting to adjust to the near total absence of light. He put a finger to his lips, gesturing for everyone to stay quiet until they were sure the monster was all the way gone.

“Hello everyone! Having fun?”

Kevin’s voice spat from somewhere in Mech’s arm, making everyone jump and Cal blurt out a breathless, “Waah!” of panic.

Down below, the music stopped fading, and some oversized shoes scuffed to a stop.

“I do hope so, because I’m having a whale of a time here on my own with no-one for company and nothing to do. It’s a veritable laugh a minute up here.”

“Shh! Shut up!” Cal hissed.

“Oh, well that’s charming,” said Kevin. “I give you a call to check on your well-being, and that’s the thanks I get.”

“Mech, shut it up!” Loren whispered.

“I’m trying,” said Mech, jabbing a finger against the controls on his forearm.

“It?!” Kevin exclaimed. “Who’s ‘it’?”

T-tring, tring, triiing. The music drew closer, the thing’s breathing a fast, excited rasping.

Cal leaned closer to Mech’s arm. “Kevin! We’re this close to being murdered down here, so please – for the love of God – stop talking.”

“Very good, sir,” said Kevin.

The silence lasted barely a second.

“How close is ‘this close’ exactly?” Kevin asked. “I can’t help but feel that I’m missing a visual clue.”

“Who the Hell is that?” Dave whispered, glaring at Mech’s arm. “Tell him to shut up.”

“I did! He won’t,” Cal replied.

The hatch thudded beneath Mech. To everyone’s surprise – arguably Mech’s, most of all – his weight wasn’t enough to stop the hatch raising an inch or so, before falling back down.

“OK, so… should it be able to do that?” Cal whispered.

“Should what be able to do what, sir?” Kevin asked, his voice as loud as ever. “Again, I feel like I must be missing something.”

“Shh! Jesus! Shut the fonk up!” Cal yelped.

Mech jammed the arm under his opposite armpit, and whatever Kevin said next came out muffled and indistinct.

“You think it knows we’re here?” Loren asked.

The hatch shook again. This time, Mech was forced to take a half-step to keep his balance. A breathless snigger made it through the gap before the hatch fell closed again.

“Of course it knows we’re here,” Cal said, his voice barely a scratch at the back of his throat. “But hopefully, once it figures out it can’t get in, it’ll go away.”

The hatch raised again. Mech pulled Miz onto it with him, and their combined weight pushed it down with a bang.

“OK, good thinking,” said Cal. “Now, let’s figure out where the fonk we are, then we can—”

There was a click and the room was flooded with bright, brilliant, blinding light.

“Shizz!” Loren spat.

“Fonk. I’m blind,” gasped Cal, although this – not entirely unusually for him – was a wild exaggeration.

Once his retinas had stopped burning, he blinked away a pool of tears to find Splurt standing below a light switch, looking ever so slightly guilty.

“Maybe some warning next time,” Cal suggested, and Splurt wobbled in what Cal took to be an apology.

With the lights on, Cal could see they were inside what seemed to be a large walk-in freezer with smooth metal walls and several racks of industrial shelves, all empty. It wasn’t cold, so either the room wasn’t a freezer at all, or it was currently switched off. Another thud from below distracted him from thinking about it too much.

The music tinkled. The giggling giggled. And yet, with the lights on, the fear of the evil clown-thing had already started to lose its edge.

Was Cal looking forward to facing the thing? No. God, no.

But he was surrounded by a cyborg, a wolf-woman, a crazy-good martial artist and, perhaps most importantly, an apparently indestructible shapeshifter. If Splurt could stamp half a dozen space bears into a thin gruel without breaking a sweat, then he could handle one malfunctioning clown-bot. Or clone. Or whatever it was.

Taking Dave by the arm, he guided him away from the hatch. “Want to see something cool?” Cal asked.

Dave shot a wary glance to the hatch as it was raised a full two inches. Miz stamped a foot down on it, forcing it back into place.

“Fonking quit it,” she snarled. The only response was a high, child-like laugh.

“Uh… now?” Dave asked.

“Trust me. It’s going to be awesome,” Cal said. He gestured for Splurt to get closer to the hatch. Splurt’s wide eyes gazed at him for a few moments until he figured out what he was supposed to do. He scampered over on his stumpy legs, then looked to Cal for confirmation.

“Perfect!” Cal told him. “OK, Miz, Mech, jump clear when I say.”

“What?!” Dave gasped. “You can’t! It’ll get in!”

“Relax,” said Cal. “It’s all in hand. Have you ever seen The Golden Girls?”

Dave’s brow crinkled. “Huh?”

“The Golden Girls. The sitcom,” said Cal. “Remember Dorothy?”

“What? Yes. Yes, I’ve… I just… What’s that got to do with anything?”

Cal’s grin threatened to split his head all the way open. “You have? That’s awesome! Finally, someone who’ll appreciate this.”

Loren had backed up against the opposite wall, her fists raised, ready for whatever might emerge through the hatch. Splurt rocked idly on his leg-stumps, his stubby hands behind his back.

“You sure about this, man?” Mech asked.

Cal shrugged. “It’s either this or you two stay there all day.”

“No thanks,” Miz muttered. Folding her arms, she walked away from the hatch and leaned against one of the shelves, already looking bored.

Mech stepped aside, and the next impact threw the hatch all the way open on its hinges. The top hit the floor with a bang, and Cal rubbed his hands together in delight.

“OK, buddy,” he said, pointing to the hatch just as something blue and curly began to rise through the gap. “Dorothy the shizz out of that thing!”

Splurt planted his feet and clenched his fingerless fists. Just beyond him, the head of the space clown was all the way through the hatch, teetering atop a long, snake-like neck as its purple-ringed eyes flitted hungrily over the occupants of the room.

A white-painted hand emerged and slapped down onto the floor in front of Splurt. A pointed black tongue slithered from between the clown’s ruby-red lips, and flicked lazily across its ragged stumps of teeth.

Icy fingers of fear gripped Cal’s lower intestine and squeezed. Holy shizz, this thing was worse than he thought. Thank fonk Splurt was there to deal with it.

The little guy lifted his arms.

Cal nudged Dave. “Here we go,” he whispered.

Splurt raised himself up onto what would have been his tiptoes, if his feet hadn’t been featureless round stumps.

“It’s uncanny. Seriously,” said Cal. “Just wait. You won’t believe this.”

Splurt lowered his arms and looked down at the stubby ends.

“Any second,” Cal said. “Keep watching.”

Splurt turned back to Cal, his eyes wider than Cal had ever seen them. He shrugged, then a scything blow from the clown-thing sent him sailing across the room and smashing through a stack of shelves.

Cal gaped at the wreckage, and the little green figure tangled up inside it. Behind him, he heard Dave swallow nervously. “Uh, which one’s Dorothy again?” Dave whispered.

“Leave this thing to me,” Miz spat, pouncing at the clown, her claws out and ready. All five feet of its neck had made it through the gap in the floor, and its chest and shoulders were following behind. It wore a garish purple top that shone as if made of liquid metal. Stray threads hung from the front, suggesting there had once been pom-pom buttons there, but they were long gone now.

With its head wobbling atop its long, thin neck, the thing looked like some sort of sea serpent, albeit one painted to look like a rough approximation of a clown, and wearing a tightly-curled blue wig.

It giggled as its head swung down, its neck slamming into Miz, mid-leap, and smashing her into Mech. To stop Miz being crushed against his metal frame, Mech had no choice but to roll with the impact. They both went down hard, and Miz was preparing to voice her displeasure about the whole situation when the clown-thing’s hand caught her by the tail.

She yipped in pain as she was dragged towards the hatch, her claws tearing grooves in the floor. The clown sunk down through the hole, retreating back into the tunnel. Only three feet of its neck were visible now.

Now two.

Now one.

The whole thing seemed to be happening in two speeds at once. Cal could see every one of the different expressions passing across Miz’s face – anger, rage, a different kind of rage, then shock, then fear – and yet both her and the clown were flailing blurs of speed.

Cal was frozen to the spot. He could say nothing, do nothing, just watch as Miz was torn across the floor.

Only the clown-thing’s head and one arm stuck up through the hatch now. Its giggle was a silky rustle as it pulled Miz closer and closer to the hole. One final tug and she’d be gone.

“Get off me!” Miz growled. She tried to kick at the thing’s hand, but her feet couldn’t find it. “I mean it, let me go!”

The clown’s mouth opened, showing off that tongue and those teeth again. It laughed, louder this time, more violently – a sickening shriek that promised nothing but bad things.

Then it gagged as a length of broken shelving pierced the back of its skull and emerged with a schlop through one of its eye sockets.

“Jesus Christ!” Cal barked, finally finding his voice.

Yellow goo fountained from the wound, spraying Miz, Cal, Dave and Mech, but falling a little short of the shelving unit where Splurt was still buried. The clown thrashed, but only for a split-second, and then its fingers went limp on Mizette’s tail and it fell with a thonk through the hatch.

Loren was revealed behind it, a spray of yellow on her face, another piece of broken shelving clutched in front of her like a spear. She glanced down into the tunnel below, then hooked her foot under the hatch and flipped it closed.

Miz stood up, flicking some of the stringier, more rubbery chunks of goo off her fur. She scowled down her snout in Loren’s direction. “I hope you don’t expect me to, like, thank you.”

“Expect it? No,” said Loren. “I mean, it’d be nice, but—”

“Whatever,” said Miz. She started to turn, but then stopped. An almost imperceptible nod passed between her and Loren, then Cal pushed past them as he rushed over to the partially-toppled shelving unit.

“Splurt? Splurt, buddy? Speak to me!” Cal said, dropping to his knees and peering into the wreckage. “I mean, not speak, I guess. Unless you want to start now, obviously. But just…”

He turned to Mech and shouted. “Someone give me a hand here!”

A blobby green arm reached out from inside the tangle of metal, and gripped Cal’s wrist.

“Oh, thank God,” Cal whispered. He held onto Splurt with both hands as Mech, Loren, Miz and Dave pushed, pulled and prized the debris apart.

Splurt slid out and into Cal’s arms. “I got you, buddy. I got you,” Cal said, pulling the little guy in against his chest. Splurt’s hands went around Cal’s neck, and the others watched in slightly awkward silence as man and blob hugged it out.

“What the Hell happened?” Cal asked, once they’d separated. “Why didn’t you change?”

Splurt held his fingerless hands up in front of him, studied them both, then shrugged.

“You can change, right?” Cal said.

Splurt’s squidgy brow furrowed in concentration. His cheeks, while still green, took on the faintest suggestion of red.

And then it passed, and his whole body seemed to sag in defeat. He shrugged again, but this time followed it up with a sad little shake of his head.

“You can’t?” Cal gasped. He turned to the others. “He can’t change. Splurt can’t change!”

“Why?” asked Loren. “What does it mean?”

“It means we’re totally going to die,” Cal said. “We should get off this planet right now, before…” He gestured towards the hatch while his increasingly panic-stricken brain tried to come up with a suitably devastating insult. It failed. “Clowny McClown-Clown, or one of his buddies come looking for us.”

“But why can’t he change?” Mech asked. “Is he sick?”

“The dampening field,” said Dave.

Cal and the others turned to look at him, at least three of them having completely forgotten he was even there. He shrunk back a little under the combined force of their gazes. “Originally, it could only stop guns, but there were guests with… abilities. You know, palm blasts, laser vision, that sort of thing. They extended the dampening field to block those, too.”

“You think it’s affecting Splurt?” Cal asked.

Dave held up his hands. “Hey, I don’t know. I don’t know what he was like before, or whatever, but it’s possible. If he’s got an ability that no longer works, the dampening field is as likely a culprit as anything else.”

“So, as long as we’re here, Splurt can’t shapeshift?” said Loren. “Like, not at all?”

“Don’t look like it,” Mech said.

“What about his flag?” asked Miz.

Cal glanced at the flag sticking out through the top of Splurt’s Funworld hat. “What about it?”

“He shapeshifted that. It was in his hand, and now it’s in his head.”

“I’d say it’s more on his head, rather than in,” Cal corrected.

Miz scowled at him and he quickly smiled. “Which I appreciate isn’t your point.”

“She’s right,” said Loren. “The flag was in his hand earlier. I watched him, you know, shift it. I mean, it looked more difficult than usual, but he did it.”

“OK. So maybe he’s not completely useless,” said Cal. He shot Splurt an apologetic look. “I mean that in the most complimentary possible way.”

“And if it is the dampening field, then chances are it isn’t permanent,” Loren added.

“Hear that, buddy? You’re going to be just fine,” said Cal.

“I mean, I don’t really have anything to base that on—

“Juuuuuust fine,” Cal repeated, loud enough to drown out the rest of Loren’s sentence.

“Well,” said Kevin from the speaker in Mech’s arm. “That all sounded rather exciting.”

“Thanks again for drawing that thing’s attention,” Cal said. “What did you want, anyway?”

Kevin hesitated. “Do you know… you’ll laugh at this, sir. I can’t actually remember!”

Cal bit his lip and mimed punching Mech’s arm. “Ha! Really?” he said, forcing some lightness into his voice. “Well isn’t that… hilarious?”

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Kevin. “Enjoy.”

“Wait. What about the analysis?” Mech asked.

Silence.

“Analysis?”

Mech raised his eyes to the ceiling. He, too, mimed punching his arm. “Yeah. The analysis on the data.”

“Data, sir?”

“From my head!”

“Oh, that analysis.”

Mech waited for more information to be forthcoming. It wasn’t.

“Did you do it?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Another few moments of painful silence passed.

“And?!”

“Oh! Wait! The analysis!” Kevin chimed. “That’s why I was calling you. I found something.”

“Was it Mech’s subconscious mind?” Cal asked. “Am I in there? What does the think of me? Tell me honestly. Unless its mean, in which case lie.”

“Shut the fonk up,” Mech barked.

“I found co-ordinates. Planetary co-ordinates, I mean, for down there,” Kevin announced. “Transmitting them now. From what I can gather, they seem to point to something hidden near the planet’s core.”

“Something like what?” Mech asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t say, sir. The data didn’t fully download, and what I did get was either corrupted, encrypted or both. It appears to be something of great importance and value, however.”

“Value?” said Cal, his ears pricking up. “What kind of value?”

“Again, I can’t really say,” Kevin replied. “Although I did find reference to a sum of money in the region of one hundred million credits.”

Miz stopped picking gunk out of her fur. Loren’s jaw dropped. Even Mech’s face – what little there was of it – brightened.

“A hundred million credits?” said Cal. He glanced at the others. “That’s a lot, right?”

“No, man, that’s a lot of a lot,” said Mech. “That’s like, a lot squared.”

“You could buy a planet with that,” Loren said. “I mean, it’d be a fixer-upper, but still.” She whistled through her teeth. “A hundred million credits.”

“And it’s here?” asked Miz. “It’s on this dump?”

“As I say, the information isn’t easy to decipher, but… yes,” said Kevin. “Yes, it seems to be. The data I sent to Master Mech contains all the information I have.”

Mech spun on his heels to face Dave. “Hey. Earth guy,” he said.

Dave tried not to look terrified as Mech loomed over him. It didn’t really work. “Uh, yeah?”

“You want to be on the team? Find us a damn computer terminal, right fonking now!”

Twelve

Cal and the others stood around a circular table, looking down at the holographic park map currently rising up from its surface. Splurt stretched up as high as he could, but only his eyes were visible above the tabletop. The light from the map made them glisten and shine.

Six times. That was how often Cal had tried to touch the shimmering holograms, proclaiming, “But it looks so real,” after each failed attempt.

He tried a seventh time, just to be sure.

“Will you please stop doing that?” Mech grunted. “You can’t touch it. We’ve established that.”

“But it looks—”

“So real,” said Loren. “Yes. We get it. But it isn’t.”

She and Mech both fixed Cal with stern glares, as if daring him to try again, then Mech nodded to Dave. “Continue.”

They had emerged from the freezer into an equally abandoned kitchen area, where most of the equipment had been covered by tarp. Finding a terminal had involved nothing more complicated than kicking down the door to the manager’s office and powering the tabletop terminal on.

“Right. Yes. Right,” said Dave. He indicated a circle in the middle of the map. There were two more concentric circles around it with a line running straight down the middle of them. It was only the small central circle that wasn’t cut in two, the line stopping and resuming again at its edges. “So, this is us. We’re here.”

“This is the restaurant?” said Cal, indicating the circle. “Is it really that big?”

Dave hesitated. “No, this is the area of the park we’re in. Those are the rides, that’s the drop pod.”

“Gotcha,” said Cal. He leaned in closer. “So, where’s this place?”

Dave indicated a cube-shaped bump on the map. “Uh… there.”

“Cool,” said Cal.

He touched the cube-shaped bump, then shook his head in wonder. “It looks so real.”

“Right,” Dave agreed. He indicated the four other lined-off section of the outer rings. “So, anyway, these are the different areas of the park that used to be open to the public. We’re in the Hub. That was always the family friendly area. The others? They were adults only.”

“Oh really?” said Cal, raising an eyebrow. “Tell me more.”

“People came to Funworld for three things. Wholesome family fun, sex, and violence,” Dave said. “The Hub was where you found the first, sex was to the West, violence to the East. Further out you went, the more, uh, extreme it became.”

“So which part did you meet your wife in?” Miz wondered.

Dave blushed, just slightly. “Ha! Here in the Hub. Honest.”

“But those other areas are all closed off now?” Loren asked.

“Right,” said Dave. “When the bio-bots went rogue, they walled them in. Each of these lines is a wall, hundreds of feet high. Nothing gets in or out.”

“Uh, the ache in my tail begs to differ,” Miz said.

“Right, but we don’t know if that came through the wall, or if it was just wandering down here for whatever reason. Maybe the Hub bots have started to malfunction, too.”

“This is all very interesting,” said Mech. “But how do we get to the money?”

“The co-ordinates you gave me, they’re deep below the surface,” Dave said. “It’s probably some kind of storage, maybe a research and development area, I don’t know. Either way, it’s only accessible from the dark side of the planet. The staff only area. Funworld is tidally locked, so that whole area never sees daylight.”

“Seriously, that’s the only way?” Loren asked.

Dave blew out his cheeks. “I mean, I think so. I don’t know. I guess there might be other routes down from this side, but I wouldn’t know where to even start looking.”

“OK, then let’s go,” said Cal. He let out a rasping breath, and put on his best Darth Vader voice. “Let us begin our journey to the Dark Side.”

“Join me!” said Dave, pulling off a decent Vader of his own. “Together, we can rule the galaxy as father and—”

“Do you mind?” Mech snapped. “Can we get back to the matter at hand?”

Dave blushed. “Right. Yes, right. Sorry. Well… it’s not as easy as just wandering to the dark… to the other side,” he said.

Loren crossed her arms. “It never is. What do we have to do?”

“Well, circumnavigate half the globe, for starters. Now, it’s a small planet, so that in itself isn’t a deal-breaker. But it means passing through the other areas of the park.” Dave looked at the others in turn, making sure they understood the full significance of this. “The walled off areas. With the rogue bio-bots.”

“Man, for a hundred million credits, I will fight every one of those motherfonkers,” Mech said.

“Yeah,” said Cal. He nodded, slowly at first, but then with growing conviction. “Yeah. How bad can it really be?”

Dave shrugged. “OK. Have you ever seen the movies Escape from New York and Aliens?”

“Of course,” said Cal. “Who hasn’t? Except all these guys, obviously.”

“Mash them together, and that’s this place,” said Dave, pointing to the sector immediately to the East. “Gangs of bio-bots who will shoot, stab, burn, impale, or generally hurt and kill us in any way they can.”

He pointed further East, to one of the two largest segments of the circle. “And here. You seen Jurassic Park?”

“One, two and three,” Cal confirmed.

Dave hesitated. “They made a three?” he asked. “Any good?”

“No. Fonking terrible,” Cal said. “You missed nothing.”

Dave seemed pleased to hear it. “OK, well this here, this is Jurassic Park, only instead of rampaging dinosaurs, it has rampaging giant clown-monsters that’ll eat us all alive.”

Cal winced. “OK. Maybe we shouldn’t go that way. What about West?”

Dave’s finger swung West of the Hub, and stopped over the smaller of the two sections. “You ever see the movie Deliverance?”

“Uh… yeah,” said Cal, pretty sure he knew what was coming next.

“OK. Picture that scene. You know the one.”

“I do,” Cal confirmed.

“Right. Now picture it a thousand times worse,” said Dave. “Only with funny wigs, big shoes and a lot of comical honking noises.”

Cal tried very hard not to visualize it, but the way his body spasmed in horror suggested he’d failed.

“And as for further out,” Dave began, pointing to the final sector. “Have you seen the movie Jurassic Deliverance?”

“No…”

“Because it doesn’t exist,” said Dave. “Because nobody in their right mind would watch it. And yet, that’s pretty much what would be waiting for us in this section, if we set foot on the other side of that wall.”

“OK, then. East it is!” said Cal.

Dave laughed. “Ha. Yeah,” he said, then it dawned on him that nobody else was sharing in the joke. “Wait, you’re not serious? You’re not actually considering going?”

“Considering going? No,” said Cal.

“Thank God.”

“Going? You bet your ams we are.”

“But… But… You can’t. Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s suicide!” said Dave.

Cal waved the concern away. “Meh. We do this sort of thing all the time.”

“No. Trust me, you don’t,” said Dave. “When the first few bio-bots went rogue, hundreds of people died. Hundreds. And not just guests, security teams, too. Zertex even sent in squads of shock-troopers. They never came out. No-one came out. And that was just a few malfunctioning bots. Now they’ve all gone nuts. You can’t go in there. It’s… It’s madness.”

“It’s a hundred million credits,” Mech corrected. “And we weren’t asking for your permission.”

Cal put an arm around Dave’s shoulders. “Besides, it’ll be fun. It’ll be an adventure. When was the last time you had a real adventure, Dave? A real space adventure?”

“I… I mean…”

“Look at us. A couple of Earth guys, out here exploring the galaxy,” said Cal, gesturing to the air in front of them, as if the entire cosmos was spread out there in all its glory. “I’ve saved the multiverse. I’ve seen other realities, fought giant spider-dragons, died and come back to life…”

He squeezed Dave’s shoulder. “And you’re running a transport company. I mean, great job, well done – seriously, it’s impressive – but don’t you ever wish you could just do something… crazy? Something amazing? Something cray-mazing? I totally just invented that, by the way, so no-one steal it.”

He pointed to the hologram map, and resisted the urge to try to touch it. “This, Dave. This is cray-mazing. You think we bumped into each other so we could catch up on old times? We bumped into each other because of one thing.”

“Massive coincidence?” Dave guessed.

“Destiny,” Cal said, in his most dramatic whisper. “Your destiny. To come with us on this adventure. To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and… No, wait, that’s Star Trek.”

He shrugged. “Look, just come with us, OK? It’ll be great.”

Dave shifted awkwardly on his feet, sighed, then scraped together some semblance of a smile. “No, it won’t be great,” he said. “It’ll be cray-mazing.”

“Yes! That’s the spirit!” Cal cried. He squeezed Dave’s shoulder. “Also, I copyrighted the ‘cray-mazing’ thing. You owe me ten bucks.”

* * *

Mech, Loren and Miz plodded in the direction of the barricaded gate that led East from the Hub. Splurt clung to Loren’s back, his arms too short and stumpy to reach around either Mech or Miz’s shoulders.

Cal and Dave were thirty feet or more ahead, talking and laughing and sharing the occasional high-five. They had spent the first ten minutes of the trek singing their favorite TV theme songs, and were now playing ‘Marry, Fonk, Kill,’ with the cast of The Simpsons, albeit only the early seasons.

“Look at them,” Mech grunted. “Talking.”

“Yep,” said Loren. “They’re definitely talking.”

Mech shook his head. “I don’t trust him.”

“Dave?” said Loren. “Why not?”

“Me neither,” said Miz. “There’s something about him.”

Loren’s smirked as the penny dropped. “Wait, are you two jealous?”

“What? As if,” Miz snorted.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mech snapped. “I mean… What are you even talking about? That’s crazy.”

“Oh wow. You are. You’re both jealous,” said Loren.

“Am not!” Miz scowled.

“Bedge, you’re crazy,” said Mech. “Jealous? Me? Of that guy? Uh-uh. No way. No way, no how.”

“Aw, don’t feel bad,” said Loren, pouting out her bottom lip. “It’s good for him. To meet someone else from Earth, I mean. You saw what he was getting like. He was lonely. I mean, not lonely, he had us, but he was getting miserable. This is good for him. It’s someone with shared experiences. Someone he can relate to. If you ask me, Dave’s exactly what Cal needed right now.”

She had walked on three more paces before she realized Mech had stopped. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re right,” said Mech. Loren could practically hear the synapses firing in his head. “Dave’s just what Cal needed right now.”

“Right. Good. Well… I’m glad you agree,” said Loren.

“Because he ain’t real,” Mech added.

Miz’s furry brow knotted above her nose. “Who, Cal?”

“What? No! Of course Cal’s real. I mean Dave. He ain’t real. He’s a bio-bot, or whatever the fonk they’re called.”

Loren watched Dave and Cal continue on ahead for a while, still laughing and joking.

“I think that’s a stretch.”

“No, it makes total sense,” Mech insisted. “The dude said it himself. The park scans your brain and creates custom bots from the molecular level up, designed just for you. Designed to be exactly what you need them to be.”

“Well how come we don’t have one?” Miz asked, sounding a little put-out. “I have needs, too.”

“Yeah, we’re aware of that. You tell us on a regular basis,” said Loren with a shudder. “But, Mech, I mean… no. It doesn’t make sense. We met him outside the park. He paid our entry fee. Why would he do that if he was a bot? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why would a guy Cal knew from Earth just happen to be visiting a shizzhole of a carnival planet at the exact same time we were?” Mech asked. “I mean, I could calculate you the odds, but it’s a big fonking number, and it’d take me a while to say it out loud.” His eyes narrowed as Cal and Dave began belting out the theme to Fraggle Rock.

“That guy’s a fonking bio-bot,” said Mech. “That’s the only way this makes sense. You mark my words.”

Miz cocked her head to the side. “I hear more cops.”

“Coming this way?” Loren asked, gazing back the way they’d come. The buildings stood still and silent, dust swirling lightly over the paving stones. “I can’t see anyone. Are you sure that—?”

“Maybe if you’d quit yacking I could hear,” Miz said. She listened again. “No. I think they’re going down into the tunnels. Probably trying to find out what happened to the other guys. I think we’re OK.”

“For now,” said Loren, as the resumed walking. “If Dave’s right about what’s over the wall, this could get messy. And we don’t have guns. Or Splurt.”

Splurt bobbed happily at the mention of his name. Loren patted the arm slung around her neck.

“How are we supposed to get all the way around a planet?” Miz asked. “Isn’t that, like, a long way?”

“You’d fonk Maude Flanders?!” Cal cried. “Seriously?”

Mech grunted in annoyance. “Bio-bot. I’m telling you.”

“Yes, it’s a long way,” Loren confirmed. “But we don’t have to get all the way around to the opposite side. Dave says there should be an entrance just beyond the last wall, so we only have to cover, like, a quarter of the planet’s surface. Maybe slightly less.”

“That still sounds like a long way,” Miz pointed out.

“Yeah, but Dave thinks—”

“Oh, Dave thinks!” Mech snapped. “Dave thinks. Ain’t Dave just the fonking greatest?”

Loren and Miz exchanged glances. “Uh, OK,” said Miz.

“Seriously, Mech, chill out,” Loren soothed. “Even if he is a bio-bot – which he isn’t – Dave’s OK. He’s helping us.”

“Or he’s leading us to be killed or eaten or fonk knows what else by whatever’s beyond that wall.”

Loren shrugged. “We could turn back. We could go. I mean, it’s only money.”

“Fonk that shizz,” Mech barked, picking up the pace. “We’re doing what we have to do, but one wrong move from Dave, and it’s no more Mr Nice Mech.”

He pulled ahead as he powered off after the two Earth men. “Wait,” said Loren, fighting a grin as she called after him. “This is you being nice?”

* * *

The gate that led Eastwards from the Hub was no longer a gate at all. The outline of a gate was still visible, just faintly, the opening itself having been swallowed by the same space concrete that had been hastily used to make the wall taller.

Up close, it didn’t really look all that much like a wall. Not in the traditional sense, at least. It was a barrier, definitely, but it looked more like a cliff-face, like millions of gallons of the space concrete had been poured over the existing structure until the resulting structure was tall enough to stop anything climbing over.

It sloped upwards at the bottom, then climbed steeply towards the sky. The surface was marbled with gloopy rivulets that had long-since dried hard. Cal rapped his knuckles on the wall, but the substance it was made of was so dense it didn’t make a sound.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” said Dave. “There’s no way through.”

“Uh, you didn’t tell us that,” said Mech. “You told us we’d be killed by clown-monsters.”

“Hmm?” Cal raised his eyebrows. “Oh, no, Dave and I were talking about it on our way here. He said the gate would be blocked, I told him we’d figure something out.”

“Oh. I see,” said Mech, making no effort to hide his irritation.

Cal looked at him expectantly. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Have you figured something out? I mean, there must be some way through, right?”

“Oh, you want my help?” Mech asked. “Why? Can’t Dave find us a way through?”

Dave shook his head. “Me? No. No idea.”

Miz extended her claws and reached upwards. She tried to hook them into the stone, but it was too dense, the bumpy surface too smooth for her to find a handhold.

“We can’t go over it,” she said.

“And we can’t go under it,” Loren added. “Even if the tunnel wall has collapsed down there, it’s full of cops.”

“It’s for the best,” said Dave, visibly relaxing. “Like I said, I don’t think we should be doing this, anyway?”

“Oh, you don’t?” said Mech. “You don’t think we should be doing this?”

“No. No, I think it’s best if we all just—”

Mech’s fist struck the wall, dead in the center of the gate’s outline. Cal and the others all stepped back as Mech drew his arm back again, his eyes locked on Dave’s. “Looks like I don’t give a shizz what you think,” he said, then he hammered the wall again. A crack – faint and small, but definitely there – appeared on the surface.

“Hold on,” Mech said, his arm withdrawing again. “This’ll only take a minute.”

* * *

Two hours later, Mech was still at it. The others sat around on the ground, idly tugging on weeds, juggling stones, and doing whatever else they could to pass the time. Cal and Dave were discussing their favorite 90s movies. It had almost descended into a punch-up when Dave had said he thought Toy Story was overrated, but their mutual love of The Big Lebowski had gone some way to ease tensions.

Through it all, Mech continued to punch the wall. Bam. Bam. Bam. Sparks flew from his knuckles with almost every strike. He had chipped away a large bowl-shaped indent in the center of the gateway, and was confident of breaking through at any moment.

Of course, he’d been confident of breaking through at any moment for the past hundred and nineteen minutes, but this time he was really confident.

Any minute now.

Any fonking minute.

He punched the wall again. Bam. Sparks flew from his knuckles.

“You realize we’re ringing the dinner bell for everything on the other side?” said Dave.

“Me-mee-me-me-me-mee-me me,” Mech muttered, mimicking Dave’s voice in the style of Beaker from The Muppets, although not consciously, as he had never heard of Beaker out of The Muppets.

He had, however, come face to face with Animal out of The Muppets, although he didn’t realize it at the time. Or, for that matter, later.

“You got a better idea?” he asked, this time in the style of himself.

If Dave did have a better idea, he didn’t get a chance to voice it. Mech punctuated his sentence with a final jackhammer punch that shattered the remaining thin sliver of space cement. Most of the stone inside the frame of the gate crumbled away, leaving a gap large enough for even Mech to get through.

Everyone was on their feet in an instant, all at various levels of readiness. Loren topped the readiness chart, crouching, poised and alert, her stance suggesting she was one quick jump away from spinning-roundhouse-kicking the head off whatever made the mistake of coming through the door.

Miz was next. Normally, she wasn’t the type to show interest in much, but violence was one of the few things that got her excited, and having recently been humiliated by one of the clown-things, she was itching to get her revenge.

Next was Cal. His fists were raised and his feet were planted, but he occasionally glanced away from the gate, escape routes plotting themselves out in his head.

From there, the levels of readiness took quite a steep drop.

Dave stood awkwardly, his arms at his side, his eyes in constant motion as they went from the crew to the door in an endless panicky loop.

Last of all was Splurt, who was doing a handstand.

“Mech, see anything?” Cal whispered.

“I see the same as you,” Mech whispered back. “Big hole in the wall.”

“Then look through,” Cal suggested.

“What? Fonk you, man. I ain’t putting my face through there. I don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“That’s why you should put your face through it,” Cal pointed out.

“If you’re so keen to find out, why don’t you do it?”

“You’re closer.”

“So? You’re less than eight feet away. You could just walk over here and stick your face through.”

“My face isn’t made of metal.”

“Neither is mine!”

“But it’s partly made of metal.”

“But it partly ain’t!”

There was a sudden pitter-patter of feet. Everyone who was ready became readier. Everyone who was Dave whimpered softly and closed their eyes.

Cal heard the pitter-patter grow louder, and realized it wasn’t coming from beyond the wall, but from behind him. He realized this just as Splurt scampered past, his stubby arms pumping, his stumpy legs waddling him quickly towards the gap.

“Wait, Splurt, no,” Cal said. “Mech, grab him.”

Mech made a lunge for Splurt, but the little guy tucked himself into a ball and forward-rolled under Mech’s outstretched hand. He sprang upright, rippled happily, then shot through the hole in the wall.

“One thing,” Cal tutted. “I asked you to do one thing.”

“Fonk you, man, he’s quicker than he looks,” Mech retorted.

“Ah, God damn it,” Cal muttered. He rocked on his heels a few times, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Last one to the other side is a giant shizzworm,” he announced, then he ran to the hole and, without bothering to check what was on the other side, hurled himself through it.

Thirteen

Cal’s foot found something wet and rubbery. At first, he was afraid he’d landed on Splurt, but the wet, rubbery thing he’d landed in was red. Purple in places, too, but mostly red.

Wet, rubbery, red, purple, and smelly. Very smelly.

It had been less smelly before Cal’s foot had burst it open, spilling a sulfurous yellow-green fluid out onto the ruined and overgrown paving slabs. The odor forced its way up Cal’s nostrils, violating his airways and making his overactive gag reflex kick in with a vengeance.

He stumbled away, tripping over a ribcage with too many ribs. Off-balance, he threw out a foot to steady himself. Rather than reach solid ground, though, his foot found the top of a skull, which skittered sideways beneath his weight, sending him stumbling in the opposite direction.

He realized, to his dismay, that he was now falling, face-first, towards the wet, rubbery, red, purple, yellow-green smelly stuff.

He was already gagging, too, which meant his mouth would likely be open when he landed.

Marvelous.

Just fonking marvelous.

Cal jerked to a stop three inches from the slimy puddle of innards and body fluids. “Totally should have just let you drop,” Mech said, but then Cal, to his relief, was hoisted back upright.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, not wanting to breathe in any more of that smell than he had to. He tapped a finger to his forehead in salute. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want you walking around covered in that stuff, stinking the whole damn place up.”

Cal turned and quickly found Splurt. He was holding part of what could have been a foot, studying it like it was a rare archaeological find.

“You put that down, mister,” Cal ordered. “You don’t know where that’s been.”

Splurt met Cal’s gaze, looked at the foot, then dropped it. It landed with a sploosh in a soup of brain matter and eyes.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you running off,” Cal said. “We’ll talk about that later.”

Splurt’s shoulders slumped. He kicked a pebble. Or possibly a kidney stone, Cal was too far away to tell.

“What is this thing?” Loren asked, nudging a pelvis with the toe of her boot.

“A dead body,” said Cal. “A really dead body.”

Loren tutted. “Yes, I know. I meant… What was it?”

Cal shrugged. “Funnily enough, I didn’t think to ask it for its ID. One of those clown-things, I guess.”

“Don’t they turn, like, all yellow and mushy?” said Miz.

“Yeah. Actually… maybe,” Cal said. “Let’s ask Dave.”

“Yeah! Let’s ask Dave!” said Mech, with a frankly terrifying amount of enthusiasm. “Dave will know! Dave knows everything!”

“Uh, OK,” said Cal. He turned to the hole in the wall. “Dave, it’s clear, you can come through.”

Mech leaned down. “You want to know something about Dave? Cause I worked it out, see?” He tapped himself on the side of the head. “I figured out that Dave ain’t what—”

Dave’s clumsy clambering over the debris stopped Mech saying any more.

“Hey, Loren, give him a hand, will you?” Cal asked. Loren took Dave by the arm and helped guide him over the rubble, then steered him past the pile of mushy remains.

“Oh my God. What is that?” Dave asked.

Mech rocked on his heels. “Oh, looks like Dave don’t know, after all.”

But Dave wasn’t finished. “It looks like an Antarosh. The skull, I mean. And… yep. The ribs, that confirms it. Antarosh. Got to be.”

“You were saying?” said Cal, shooting Mech a sideways glance. He stepped past the cyborg, covering his mouth and nose with one hand to block out the smell. Miz had backed away a good ten or more feet, the stench proving too much for her heightened nose to cope with.

“So, it’s not a clown-thing?” Loren asked.

“Hmm? What, this? No. The bio-bots don’t have a bone structure. Not in the way we understand it, anyway. They also bleed yellow, not red.”

“There was some yellow in there somewhere,” said Cal. “I got a pretty good look at it.”

“Bile, or some sort of intestinal fluid,” said Dave.

Cal dry-heaved. “Right. Gotcha.”

“Maybe a pustule, or some mucus.”

“Jesus, OK. Message received and understood. It’s not a clown-thing.”

Dave shook his head. “But that doesn’t make sense. It’s been dead for… I don’t know. Not long. It shouldn’t be here. There shouldn’t be anything here, except the bio-bots.”

“Well, it’s here,” said Cal. “And over there. And there’s something wet and spongy over there. What the Hell could make it explode like this?”

Dave shrugged. “I… I don’t know. Something big must have hit it.”

“Or it hit something big,” Loren suggested. She pointed upwards. There, embedded in the wall fifty feet up, were two axe-like implements. A trail of chiseled handholds ran upwards towards them.

“It was trying to climb out,” Cal said. “It must have fallen.”

“Must’ve taken it weeks to carve out those holes,” Mech said. “Months, maybe.”

“But… But it’s not possible,” Dave insisted. “There’s nothing here but the bio-bots. That’s what the park operators have always said. Everyone who was in here who wasn’t a bot, they’ve been dead for years.”

“Maybe they lied,” said Loren.

“Or maybe someone else is,” Mech added, glaring very deliberately in Dave’s direction.

“Either way, it’s not why we’re here,” said Cal. “We’re here for the buried treasure.”

He gasped with such force it almost blew him backwards off his feet. “Oh shizz. Oh shizz, I just realized something!”

“What?” asked Loren, suddenly on high-alert. “What is it?”

“Creepy funfair. Buried treasure. Mysterious goings-on.” Cal’s face lit up like Fourth of July fireworks. “We’re Scooby-Doo!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mech. “What’s Scooby-Doo?”

Cal began pointing around the group. “Scoob, Shaggy, Daphne, Velma,” he said, indicating Splurt, himself, Miz and Loren in turn. His finger swayed between Dave and Mech. “Fred,” he decided, pointing to Dave. “And Mech, you’re Scrappy-Doo.”

“I’m what?”

“The good news is, you’re brave and fearless, and always ready for a fight. The bad news is, everyone hates you and wishes you were dead,” Cal explained. “So, you know, swings and roundabouts.”

“I’m Fred?” asked Dave. He smiled. It was a shaky, terrified smile, but it was a smile all the same. “Do I get a cravat?”

“As soon as we find one, it’s yours,” said Cal. It was stupid – a tiny thing – but just having someone around who didn’t only know what Scooby-Doo was, but knew the wardrobe choices of the main cast made Cal’s heart soar. Despite everything, he laughed.

Before the others could ask too many questions and completely suck all the joy out of the moment, Cal turned on his heels and took in their surroundings for the first time. He’d vaguely looked around a few times in the past couple of minutes, but largely just to check nothing huge or horrifying was racing towards them with murder in its eyes. This was the first time he’d really paid attention to the place itself.

“Like, Zoinks!” he exclaimed, fully aware than no-one else would get the reference but him and Dave. Maybe Splurt, in his own strange little way, but definitely none of the others. “This place is worse than I thought.”

And it was. It had been something not unlike a city at one point, Cal reckoned, although it was so crumbling and overgrown that it was hard to be sure.

Where they were standing was a long plaza area that ran the length of the wall. It was dotted with fountains (none of them working) and statues (few of them standing), and the weeds and grass that pushed through the paving stones were jungle-thick. A few of the twisted stems stood taller than Mech. Several had Venus Fly Trap-like heads that Cal made a mental note to stay the fonk away from, just in case they tried to bite his face off.

Who was he kidding? Of course they’d try to bite his face off.

Beyond the plaza, the buildings of the city rose upwards towards the sky. Unfortunately, they didn’t get anywhere close. Most of them were burned out shells. Those that weren’t were crumbling, their wooden facades rotting.

Layout-wise, it looked like most Earth cities – long streets with buildings (or the remains of them) lining each side, all interconnected to form a grid-like road network. The weeds had claimed the streets, too, turning them into rivers of green.

Signposts were placed regularly along the plaza. Some were missing, others toppled. A few stood nobly upright despite the weight of the dozen or more arrow-shaped signs affixed to their posts. Cal presumed they were pointing the way to different attractions, but the signs were thick with lichen and moss, and he didn’t really feel the need to get in there and give them a scrub.

“It doesn’t look like a theme park,” Cal said.

“It wasn’t supposed to,” Dave replied. “It was supposed to simulate an urban environment. If people wanted a roller-coaster, they stayed in the Hub. If they wanted something more… edgy, they came here.”

“I don’t get it,” said Loren. “They paid money to come here and, what? Fight?”

“Pretty much,” said Dave.

“They should have just, like, hung out with us,” said Miz. “We get into fights all the time.”

“She’s right,” said Cal. “One guy tried to make me eat my own arm.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s fine. I cut his butler’s head open with an axe, and we eventually blew him to pieces.”

Dave blinked. “The butler?”

“No, the guy. Karnock.”

“Kornack,” Mech corrected.

“Yeah, him,” Cal said. “And that’s only, like, the sixteenth most violent thing that’s happened to us this month.”

“This month?” Dave yelped. He glanced back towards the hole in the wall, clearly wondering if it was too late to turn back. “How are you still alive?”

“Sheer will and determination,” said Cal.

“And luck,” said Loren.

“Yes, and luck.”

“And that witch-doctor guy magicked you his life-force, or whatever,” Miz added.

“And that. Yes,” said Cal. “Although might I remind you that that now seems to have worn off? So, if everyone could make keeping me alive their number one priority, I’d appreciate it.”

Mech conducted a scan of the buildings. As his scanners weren’t working, he had to conduct the scan visually, which basically just involved him looking at the buildings one at a time, and wasn’t nearly as impressive as it might have sounded.

“So much for ringing the dinner bell,” he said, sneering vaguely in Dave’s direction. “Thought you said the bots were going to come running?”

“I… Yeah. I thought they would,” Dave admitted.

“Well, I don’t see any,” said Mech. “In fact, I don’t see much of anything.”

“Well don’t sound so disappointed about it,” said Cal. “The fact that nothing has come running at us is – at least from where I’m standing – a good thing. Dave was just warning us of potential danger, that’s all.”

He gave his fellow Earthman a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks for looking out for us, Dave.”

“Hey. Yeah. Any time,” Dave replied.

“Yeah, Dave,” Mech spat. “Thanks for getting us all worried about noth—”

The clown that leapt from the undergrowth was small and wiry, with a mane of green hair that circled its face and ran the length of its curved spine. It was also naked, screaming, and ridiculously fast.

It latched onto Mech’s face and began gnawing at his metal skull, its eyes bulging like they might fire out of its head at any given moment.

“Fonk!” Mech grunted. He grabbed for the thing, but it wrapped itself around his wrist, then scurried up his arm and onto his shoulder. It was roughly the size of a small chimpanzee, but faster and more agile. Its elongated, chalk-white fingers dug into the join between the plates in Mech’s neck, trying to tug at the colorful wires concealed inside.

“Get off me, you little shizznod,” Mech barked. He spun, but no matter which direction he turned, the monkey-clown was one step, jump or frantic scamper ahead of him.

“You know you’re all just standing there watching, right?” Mech said. “Someone help me catch this slippery motherfonker.”

“I don’t think he means any harm,” said Cal. He reached for the thing, which was currently upside-down and clinging to Mech’s back. “It’s probably more scared of you than you are of—”

He jumped back as the thing flashed its pointed teeth and hissed, its eyes becoming two narrow slits of rage.

“Oh Christ, no. It’s a monster,” Cal said. “It will not stop until we’re all dead.”

He gestured to the thing. “Miz? Would you mind?”

“On it,” Miz said. She slashed at the monkey-clown, but it flipped straight upwards, hooking its legs over Mech’s face so its naked crotch was grinding against his face. Sparks flew as Miz’s claws slashed across Mech’s back. He began to protest, before realizing that doing so would leave him with a mouth full of clown-butt.

“C’mere, you,” said Loren, grabbing for the fast-moving critter. It leaned over and spat a wad of something black and sticky into her face. She stumbled back, blinded, clawing the gunk away.

And then, there was a faint beam of light, and the clown exploded. It burst like a balloon filled with yellow paint, covering Mech’s face, head, shoulders, chest, upper torso, lower torso, thighs, shins, and feet in the gelatinous sunshine gloop that made up the bio-bots.

When he had finished scooping the thing’s remains away, Mech saw Dave standing with his toy-sized blaster pistol, his hand shaking, his eyes wide.

“G-got it,” Dave said. “I got it.”

“Way to go, Dave!” cheered Cal. “Fred and his tiny gun for the win!”

He held up his hand for a high-five. Still shaken, Dave stared at it blankly for a while, then slapped his hand against Cal’s. “Th-thanks,” Dave said, exhaling slowly. “It was actually pretty fun.”

“Not from where I was standing,” Mech grunted, his face still caked in goo. “How come your gun works, anyway?”

Dave appeared momentarily puzzled, then he looked down at the weapon in his hand. “Oh, this? This is from the park. This section, before it closed, guests were armed with these. The bio-bots are programmed to be affected by the light it emits. You know, on the molecular level?”

“What other level is there?” Cal asked, for no other reason than it sounded like quite a clever thing to say. He got ready to fake a nosebleed, in case anyone asked him to explain what he meant by the statement.

“So… wait,” said Loren. “You’re saying that gun kills these things?”

“Uh, yeah. In the Hub and this area, at least. Further East, as things get bigger? I’m not so sure.”

“Can we all get one?” Cal asked. “Is there, like, a store or something we can pick them up?”

Dave shook his head. “No, I don’t… No. Guests were given them at the gate, and were supposed to hand them back in when they left. I didn’t return it.”

Cal grinned. “You sly dog,” he said. “I knew there was a space adventurer in there somewhere.”

“What? Oh. No, I forgot, that’s all,” said Dave. “I put it in the bag with my packed lunch by mistake.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Right.”

“Couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards. Kept thinking I was going to get in trouble.”

“Well… still. Handy you’ve got it now,” Cal said. He turned back in the direction of the city. “So, based on what we know, how far is it to where we need to go?”

“Well, if Dave ain’t filling us full of shizz and actually knows what he’s talking about, and based on what I was able to calculate from the map…” Mech began.

“Yeah, yeah, we don’t need you to show us your working,” Cal told him. “Just how far? Roughly?”

“A little under three thousand miles,” Mech said. “If we go in a straight line. If we have to deviate from that and start zig-zagging all over the place? I don’t know.”

“Longer?” Cal guessed.

“Of course longer,” said Mech. “How would it not be longer?”

“Well I don’t know, I’m not a scientist or a… a…” He reached for an appropriate job title, but drew a blank, “a miles counting guy.”

“What the fonk is a miles counting guy?” asked Mech. “Is that a thing where you come from? A miles counting guy?”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” said Cal, quickly adding: “But don’t ask Dave about them, because they were only introduced recently, and so he won’t have heard of them. Right, Dave?”

“Uh, yeah. OK,” Dave said, not quite sure what he was agreeing with.

“See?” said Cal. He basked in some imagined victory for a moment, then puffed out his cheeks. “Three thousand miles. Isn’t there a shortcut?”

“A shortcut? I just told you, I’m taking you in a straight line. How could there be a shortcut?”

“I don’t know,” Cal admitted. “Maybe, like, a shorter straight line? Again, not a miles counting guy. Although, if I ever become a Blues singer, ‘Miles Counting Guy’ is absolutely going to be my stage name. But for now, I’m only the Shaggy in this situation. I think it’d serve us all well to remember that.”

Loren looked to Dave for help. “What does that mean?”

Dave shrugged. “I don’t… I’m not really sure.” He smiled, although it was more of an anxious grimace. “It’s Scooby-Doo,” he said, which didn’t really help make it clearer for anyone. Despite that, he said it again. “It’s Scooby-Doo.”

Cal set off across the plaza, heading for one of the streets. “We’re not going to get anywhere standing here yakking all day,” he said. “Let’s hit the road.”

“That’s the wrong way,” Mech pointed out.

Cal deviated right, heading for another road. “Also the wrong way,” Mech told him.

“Jesus. Well, can you point?”

Mech pointed.

“Thank you,” said Cal, setting off in that direction. “Everyone follow me, stay close, and protect me with your life.”

He’d walked for almost a minute before he realized the others were all following Mech in a completely different direction.

“Son of a…” he muttered, then he scampered across the overgrown plaza and joined the rest of the group, unaware of the cold, soulless eyes watching his every move.

Fourteen

Later, when they discussed the following few hours, they’d forget the eighty or more minutes of uneventful, disaster-free walking.

They’d fail to recall the time spent striding through the deserted streets, their initial caution soon replaced by a growing confidence that nothing was waiting to jump out and kill them. They’d neglect to recollect the conversations, the time Cal spent getting to know Dave better, and the stories they swapped of their respective times on Earth and in space.

Cal wouldn’t even remember the moment when he’d almost cried for no other reason than that he’d found someone who could hum the Pink Panther theme, and knew what Kool-Aid was.

No, looking back, they’d remember very little of the stuff that happened between when they set off, and when the arrows started to fly.

They rained from the windows on either side of a narrow street, cascading down like two crashing waterfalls, only with pointy bits made of metal at the ends. Had Miz not heard the arrows being notched and barked out a warning, everyone in the group who wasn’t a massive armored cyborg would have been pin-cushioned.

Thanks to Miz’s ears, they managed to take cover behind a food cart just before the projectiles rained down. Half of the arrows thudded and thunked against the shuttered front of the dilapidated cart, while Mech did his best to shield the rest of the group from the hail of them coming the other way. The angle of the cart helped block most of those, too, but still the chinking of arrowheads on cyborg torso rang out like dozens of tiny bells.

And then, the arrows stopped, and the only sound was the collective heaving of deep breaths, and a faint whimpering from Dave.

“They’re reloading,” Miz said.

“In there,” said Loren, dodging past Mech and racing for a door. She flew at it, shoulder-first, and it crashed wide. “Clear!”

Grabbing both Splurt and Dave by their wrists, Cal powered into the building. Miz bounded in behind them, with Mech clanking through last. He closed the door, and Loren and Miz shoved a vending machine in front of it to help keep it shut.

“Arrows! They were shooting arrows,” Cal pointed out.

“Yeah, we noticed,” said Mech. One of the projectiles had become wedged between two of his metal plates – a million to one shot. He pulled it free and studied the tip. It was metal, but inexpertly shaped, as if someone had beat a piece of a tin can into something a bit like a triangle.

“At us,” Cal said. “They were shooting arrows at us.”

“We know!” said Loren.

“I’ve been shot with an arrow before. It hurts,” Cal said. “It’s not something I’d like to repeat.”

An arrow crashed through the window and boinged into the floor. Cal cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted, “I said it’s not something I’d like to repeat.”

Loren sidled up to Mech. “Bio-bots?”

“Beats me,” said Mech. “Maybe. I guess so.”

“What do you think, Dave?” Cal asked.

Mech tutted. “Yeah, Dave. What do you think?”

Dave became flustered as he found himself the center of attention. “I… I mean, I guess it could be the bio-bots, although all the reports when they went rogue said they became brutally violent.”

“Well, they did just try to kill us by firing pointy bits of metal in our direction,” Cal said.

“No, I mean… animalistic. They regressed to a less intellectually capable state. Like cavemen, I suppose. Like we saw with the little one earlier.”

Two more arrows came through the now-broken window. One stuck in the floor just a few inches from Cal’s feet, and he retreated towards the back of the musty, dust-covered convenience store, beckoning for Dave and Splurt to follow.

“The way I see it, we have two options,” Cal said. “One, we go out there, and they shoot us with arrows until we die. Or two – which is my preferred option – we don’t do that.”

“You mean just wait in here?” Loren asked.

“Exactly. I mean, whoever they are, they’re bound to run out of arrows sooner or later. It’s not like they’re going to have an unlimited supply.”

Another arrow hit the floor. Cal acknowledged it with a glance, opened his mouth to speak again, the did a double-take.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he groaned, watching the flames that clung to the arrow’s end take hold of the wooden floor.

Another blazing projectile followed. Then another. Then another.

“Fire,” said Dave, jabbing a trembling finger towards the now very much ablaze floor. “F-fire!”

Cal drew in a deep breath and blew as hard as he could on the growing carpet of foot-high flames. It had zero effect whatsoever. “Shizz, thought that’d work,” he muttered, then he gestured to Mizette. “Miz. Blow that out.”

“What? I can’t blow it out.”

“Seriously? That’s what you wolf-people do, isn’t it? Huff and puff and… No?”

“I have, like, no clue what you’re talking about right now.”

“Damn it. Worth a try,” Cal said.

Behind him, Loren kicked open a door. The way it flew open without any resistance suggested it hadn’t been properly closed, but Loren was clearly in full flow, so Cal thought it best not to point it out.

A staircase was revealed, leading up into the building above them. Loren started towards it, but Cal called her back.

“Uh, is that wise? Aren’t you supposed to get out of a burning building, not go further into them?”

Mech side-stepped closer to the window. A hail of arrows immediately hammered against his back.

“OK, good point, well made,” said Cal, plumes of black smoke now tangling around his legs. “Up the stairs we go!”

Bending, Cal helped Splurt onto his back, then pulled Dave behind him as he followed Loren towards the staircase. She moved quickly but quietly, her back sliding along the wall, her hands poised as if clutching something in front of her. Cal watched her, trying to figure out what she was doing. It was only when she raised both hands in front of her at the corner that it clicked.

“Are you holding an imaginary gun?” he whispered.

Loren glanced back at him, frowned, then looked down at her hands. She dropped them to her sides immediately. “What? No!” she said, snorting out a half-laugh. “That would be…”

“Adorable?” Cal said.

“Stupid. That would be stupid,” Loren said, her pale blue skin purpling just a little around the cheeks.

“And adorable,” Cal assured her. “I mean… You’re creeping up the stairs with an imaginary gun. What’s not to love?” Her eyes darted to his again, and her look of shock almost choked him. “Like, I mean. What’s not to like? Also, you have your real gun in your holster.”

“It doesn’t work,” Loren reminded him.

“Pretty sure it works better than the imaginary one.”

They arrived on the second floor, with the smoke hot on their heels. It coated the back of Cal’s throat, filling his mouth with a bitter, acrid taste, and making his tongue feel like someone had used it as an ashtray.

The staircase continued on upwards. This floor looked as if it had once been some sort of store room, but the crates had all been prized open or smashed to pieces, their contents now long-gone.

“Keep going,” Mech instructed. “I got an idea.”

“Does it involve us waking up and realizing this was all just a crazy dream?” Cal asked. “Because, if so, I’m in favor.”

“Not exactly,” said Mech. “Or, you know, even vaguely. Just wait and see.”

“Are you going to punch a hole in an upstairs wall so we can all escape to the next building?” Dave asked.

Mech hesitated. “What?” he said. “Ha. No. That ain’t it at all.”

“It’s a good plan, though,” said Loren, bounding up another few steps.

“Sounds pretty foolproof to me,” Miz agreed.

“Let’s hear Mech out first,” said Cal. “What’s your plan, big guy?”

Silence fell, punctuated only by the thudding of feet on the stairs as they pressed on upwards.

“OK, fine. That was the plan,” Mech admitted.

“Seriously?” said Cal. He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. I think you realized Dave’s plan was better, and are now trying to take credit for it.”

“What? No, I ain’t! Punching through to next door was my plan the whole time.”

“Sorry, I just find that hard to believe,” Cal said. “I mean, why wouldn’t you just say, if that’s what it was?”

“You know why? Because ‘fonk you’, that’s why,” Mech grumbled. He stopped when they reached the next floor, spun towards the closest wall, and drew back his fist.

“Wait!” Cal yelped.

Mech’s arm remained fixed in place. “What now? You want to ask Dave to do it?” He stepped aside and glowered in Dave’s direction. “Please. Be my guest.”

“I, uh, I can’t punch through walls,” Dave said.

“Oh really? You don’t say.”

“Mech, get your arm back up, quit messing around,” Cal said. “But first – Miz, can you hear anything? I don’t want us stumbling through into a trap.”

“Makes sense,” said Loren.

Mech tutted. It did make sense, of course, but there was no way he was about to admit it.

Miz cocked her head. Her ears swiveled as they angled towards the wall. “No, I think we’re clear,” she said.

Mech’s fist swung immediately, powering through the wall like a jackhammer. He let the rest of his weight follow behind it, creating an unevenly-shaped doorway in the brick and plaster.

When he stopped stumbling, Mech found himself surrounded by dozens of white-faced figures. Crying out in surprise, he swung and punched one. Its plastic head snapped off its artificial shoulders, then thunked against the floor.

Mannequins. They were fonking mannequins.

“Well, you sure taught that guy a lesson,” Cal said, giving the partially-collapsed head a kick and sending it skidding across the floor.

“It’s dark,” said Mech, indicating the shuttered windows which only let the barest slivers of light through. “I was taking precautions, that’s all.”

“Is that why you screamed?” Cal asked.

“Fonk you, I didn’t scream,” Mech said, although there was a glimmer of doubt in his eyes. “If I made a noise, it was a warning cry, that’s all.”

“‘Aaah, get away from me, get away!’ was a warning cry?”

Mech scowled and jabbed a thumb towards the next wall over. “Miz?”

Miz listened. “Nothing.”

Mech nodded, then lowered his head into a charge. He reached close to top speed just as he hit the wall, and exploded through it as if it were made of paper. The others watched as his momentum carried him across the next room, then they listened to the crash as he charged through yet another wall.

“He seems quite angry,” said Dave.

“Mech? Angry?” said Cal. “God yes. All the time. It’s like his default programming.”

He began to turn away, then quickly turned back. “But he’s not a robot. Sweet Jesus, don’t make that mistake, or you will never hear the end of it. Seriously, it’s a whole can of worms.”

They ducked through the wall in single file, Splurt still clinging to Cal’s back. Cal gave the gooey green arms around his neck a pat. “Look at you. Like a little green Yoda,” he said.

“Yoda was little and green,” Dave pointed out.

Cal grinned and nudged Loren. “He’s right. God, I love this guy!”

“Wouldn’t have been able to guess,” said Loren. She gave Dave a subtle up-down look, trying to figure out if Mech was right. He seemed real, and if he was a theme park creation, why would he have paid their entry fee? That made no sense.

But then, as Mech had pointed out, Cal randomly chancing upon one of his old friends from Earth out here in the unending abyss of space? Also pretty unlikely, and probably more so.

Before she could think about it any further, there was another crash of breaking wood. At first, she thought it was a wall getting the ‘running Mech’ treatment, but then she heard Mech’s cry of surprise, which rapidly got further away until another, much fainter crash echoed through the empty building. It was followed, a couple of seconds later by the thunderous boom of something heavy landing hard.

“Did you guys hear that?” Miz asked.

“Kind of hard not to,” said Cal, breaking into a jog. Not a run – he didn’t feel it necessarily warranted a full-on run - but a jog? Definitely. “Pretty sure Kevin would have heard that out in space.”

They soon arrived at a hole in the floor. And the floor below that. The fall through two stories had churned up clouds of pale gray dust, and Cal had to peer through a swirling fog to make out the shape of Mech below.

From what Cal could tell, Mech was standing upright, either unhurt or putting a brave face on it. The room he had landed in was dark, which was bad, but not currently on fire, which was good. Nothing seemed to be jumping onto Mech, or firing spiky things at him. Similarly, no-one was attempting to drag him into a hole in the ground, and all high-pitched giggling was only notable by its absence.

“You OK?” Cal called down.

“Shh,” Loren urged. “Someone might hear you.”

Cal met her eye. “I don’t know if you noticed, but a heavily-built mechanical gentlemen just fell through two ceilings,” he pointed out. “If they didn’t hear that, they’re not going to hear me.”

“Well… Maybe,” Loren said. She pulled a face Cal had seen more and more of lately. It was a face that suggested she knew she was right, but was humoring him.

At least, that’s what she wanted it to suggest, but Cal knew better. In reality, it was a face that suggested she knew she was wrong, but wanted Cal to think that she thought she was right, and was humoring him, probably to make him doubt himself so he thought she was right, and would be grateful for her humoring him.

Or, you know, something like that.

Unfortunately, he was yet to figure out the correct response, so just shrugged and shouted into the hole again.

“Is it safe? Down there, I mean. Clearly, up here is an accident waiting to happen. These floors are dangerously flimsy.”

“Yeah. Ain’t nothing down here but…” His voice tailed off into silence. “Wait a minute.”

“Oh Jesus, what is it now?” Cal fretted. “Monster-clowns? Is it monster-clowns?”

“No. You might want to get down here to see for yourself.”

“To be honest, I’d prefer you to describe it from a distance,” Cal replied. “Paint me a picture with your words.”

“Just get the fonk down here,” Mech barked.

Cal sighed. “OK. But we’re taking the stairs. We can’t all just drop two stories.”

Miz stepped off the floor’s broken edge and dropped two stories.

“OK, so Miz can, but the rest of us… And Splurt can, too. Apparently also Splurt. Thanks a lot, buddy. Way to have my back.”

He raised his eyes to Loren. “You going to jump, too?”

Loren shook her head. “No. I can’t jump that far.”

“Good,” said Cal. “At least someone—”

Loren sat on the edge, dropped, caught a broken floorboard, swung, tucked, grabbed, then did the whole thing again a second time.

“I can swing, though,” she called up to him, and through the dust-cloud, he thought he saw her grin.

Cal exhaled slowly, shaking his head. He spotted Dave watching him, his face a picture of angst.

“You’re not going to jump down, are you?” Dave asked.

“Down there? No. I mean, I could,” Cal said. “I definitely could jump down, it’s just I’d probably shatter my pelvis and never walk again. So, I’m thinking… stairs?”

Dave nodded and smiled with relief. “Stairs,” he agreed, and they both set off to find them.

It took them less than a minute to make it down to the first floor, and a couple more to figure out which of the several rooms Mech and the others were in.

When they finally found them, the excitement in the room was palpable. Loren called to Cal the moment he opened the door. “Check this out!”

If Cal were being generous, he’d say there was a vehicle in the room with them. If he was being less generous, he’d say there was a vehicle in need of repair in the room with them.

If he were being honest, he’d say, “Seriously, you got excited about that thing?”

Mech had landed in a garage, or maybe some kind of workshop. Tools and scrap metal lay strewn across the floor, as if the room had been hit by a localized earthquake, and everything in it had jumped into the air in fright.

In the center, just a few feet from where Mech had landed, was a… truck, maybe? It stood on four short, stocky legs, had a sort of double-decker driver’s cab up front, and a flatbed area at the back. There was no covering over the flatbed part, aside from three curved supports that stuck up like dinosaur bones around it.

That was the first-glance impression of it, but the more Cal looked, the worse it got. It had no windshield. One of its legs was wonky. Rust patterned the driver’s door, chewing holes in the metal.

Years’ worth of dust could be seen through the gap where the windshield should have been, covering every surface like a layer of powdery snow. The lower of the two front seats was caked with a layer of yellow mush that had dried hard, then decayed into shades of orange and brown.

“You know what I’m thinking?” said Mech.

“That we should put this thing out of its misery?” Cal guessed.

“That we just solved our transportation problem.”

Cal looked at the truck.

He looked at Mech.

He looked at the truck again.

“You don’t mean this thing?”

“Of course I mean this thing! What else would I be talking about?”

“I don’t know, I thought maybe you’d found a map to a helicopter or something. We can’t take this!”

Mech shrugged. “Ain’t no-one gonna miss it.”

“No, I don’t mean for moral reasons,” said Cal. “I mean… look at it. Are we even sure it’s a vehicle? Couldn’t it just be a lot of other things that happen to be leaning against each other?”

“It’s an old trash barge, I think,” said Dave. He wilted once again when everyone looked at him. “For… for collecting trash.”

“Are you sure this isn’t just the contents, and the barge itself isn’t parked elsewhere?” Cal asked. “Because there is no way that thing is ever going to—”

The barge’s engine hummed into life. Splurt’s head popped up from behind the dash and he gave what Cal guessed was a thumbs-up, despite his total lack of thumbs.

“Well, it starts,” said Loren. She made a ‘cut’ gesture to Splurt, and he ducked down under the dash again.

The barge’s spotlights illuminated, blinding everyone with their brilliance. “Ow. Jesus. Turn them off,” Cal hissed.

The lights went out.

A horn blared.

“Shh. Shut up!” Loren yelped. She leaped onto the front of the barge and leaned inside. The engine cut off with a shudder and a cough.

“It has no wheels,” Cal pointed out.

“Because it hovers,” said Mech.

“And the windshield’s broken. And the back, where most of us are going to have to go, that’s completely exposed. Going out there in that thing – in the condition it’s in – it’s suicide.”

Dave shuffled on the spot, then opened his mouth. “Although…”

Cal’s eyes became saucers of surprise. “Stop right there, Dave, I know what you’re going to say,” he uttered, slightly breathlessly.

“You do?”

“Yes! And you’re right. You fonking genius!” Cal grinned and jabbed a finger towards the wreck of the garbage scow. “We are going to A-Team the shizz out of that thing!”

He turned to the others. “Guys, collect up all that scrap, grab some tools…” Cal’s face lit up, radiant with joy, like he’d been waiting for this moment for his entire life. “…and cue the montage music!”

Nobody moved. Cal sighed. “We’re going to turn it into a tank or an armored car or something. Using all this metal.”

“Oh,” said Loren, looking around them at the scrap. “Oh. Right. That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

Mech grunted, begrudgingly. “I guess I heard worse.”

Cal rocked on his heels. “Miz? What do you think?”

Miz, who had been sitting on a workbench, looked up at the sound of her name. “About what? I wasn’t listening.”

“About turning this thing into a tank.”

Miz looked past him to the trash barge. She shrugged. “Whatever.”

“That’s the spirit!” said Cal. “It was all Dave’s idea, you know?” he said to the room in general.

“Actually, I was going to suggest we try looking next door, in case there was one in better condition through there,” Dave said. “The A-Team thing was all you.”

“Ha!” Mech snorted.

Cal patted Dave on the shoulder. “I guess having you around just makes me smarter,” he said, then he picked up something he hoped was a blow torch, and held it at the most dramatic possible angle. “Space Team, let’s get to work!”

Fifteen

Splurt and Dave kept watch while the others worked. Having realized he didn’t know what any of the tools lying around actually did, aside from one he was reasonably sure was a hammer - although he’d been wrong about the welding torch, the saw and three different screwdrivers, so he wasn’t putting money on it – Cal had assigned himself a supervisory position, and set about guiding the others so they could bring his vision to life.

The thing they ended up with wasn’t exactly what he had pictured, but it wasn’t a million miles away. Mostly, this was because the others had completely disregarded his advice, and just applied a liberal helping of common sense to the job, instead.

The missing windshield had been replaced by sheets of corrugated space-iron (Mech had told him its actual name, but Cal preferred his own terminology) with slots cut into them to allow the driver and front passenger to see through.

Mech had bent a number of space steel girders to form a battering ram at the front of the barge, while Loren had covered the skeleton of the flatbed with more space-iron sheets. Miz, meanwhile, had set about making the whole thing as harmful as possible to anyone who got too close. Rolls of razor-wire protected the sides, while dozens of rusty nails stuck upwards through the roof. Cal had urged her to add spinning blades to the wheels before she pointed out – again – that it didn’t have any.

It had taken longer than the A-Team style montage Cal had been anticipating – what he’d thought would be fun three minute interlude turned out, in fact, to be a noisy four hour slog – but it was finally done, and they were ready to roll.

Or almost ready.

“How do we get in?” Dave asked.

Cal, Loren, Miz and Mech studied the armored trash barge. “What do you mean?” Cal asked.

“Well… I mean, it’s completely cocooned in razor wire and spikes,” Dave pointed out.

Cal, Loren, Miz and Mech studied the armored trash barge again. “Shizz,” said Cal. “He’s right.”

“Way to go, Miz,” said Loren.

“I told you what I was doing,” Miz retorted.

“You didn’t tell us you were wrapping it around the entire thing!” Loren bit back. “Including the doors.”

“Well I didn’t not tell you that, either!”

Cal got between them. It wasn’t a particularly wise move, but then very few of his moves ever were. “Look, it’s not a big deal. Mech, can you… you know, do something clever?”

“Something clever?” Mech regarded the tangle of razor wire for a moment, then tore it off in a single tug. “That clever enough?”

“That took me hours,” Miz protested.

“Yeah, well it was going to take us longer to get in,” Loren replied.

Miz crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “What-ever. That’s the last time I help do anything.”

“You promise?” Loren asked. “Can we get that in writing?”

Miz extended the middle fingers of both hands in Loren’s direction. As she did, her claws slowly and deliberately grew from the ends of them.

“OK, that one major design flaw aside, I think we did a pretty good job,” Cal said. Splurt appeared beside him, bobbing excitedly. “I know, not bad, is it, buddy?” He turned to Mech and Loren. “Is it ready to roll?”

“Almost,” said Mech. “I noticed the steering module is unseated. That needs to go back in, and I think we should probably reinforce the side walls. I don’t trust them not to fall in on us if anything hits them.”

Splurt jumped up and down on the spot in front of Cal, waving his stubby arms.

“Give me a sec, buddy, OK? Trying to listen to Mech here. You know, for once.”

“How long will that take?” Miz asked.

Mech shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes, if Loren gives me a hand.”

“And what? Like, ten if she doesn’t?” Miz asked.

Splurt punched Cal on the thigh. The impact made the little guy’s whole body ripple.

“Ow! Jesus! What was that for?” Cal asked, finally looking properly at Splurt. He was bouncing up and down again, gesturing wildly towards a small, grime-covered window.

Crossing to it, Cal wiped away some of the dirt with the side of his hand. At first, he saw nothing but what he thought was the blinding white light of the world outside. Then his eyes became more accustomed to it, and part of the white became a shock of green. Another part became a line of red. As Cal watched, it curved upwards, revealing two rows of dirty yellow teeth.

And then it dropped away out of sight below the window, and the street beyond was revealed. A gathering of twisted, deformed figures hobbled, crawled and skipped around out there, their grimaces and grins all stretched into freakish mockeries of themselves.

They were different shapes, sizes and colors, but they all had one thing in common. They were all looking back at Cal through the window.

“Uh, guys,” Cal whispered.

“What? What’s wrong?” asked Loren, who knew that tone of voice only too well by now. She joined Cal at the window. “Oh, shizz,” she muttered, just as the roll-up garage door rumbled like thunder, something hammering against it from the other side.

“Everyone on the truck,” Cal ordered.

“But it ain’t ready,” Mech warned.

“It’s as ready as it’s going to get. Everyone on. Now,” Cal said. “You guys get in the back. I’ll go up front with Loren.”

“What?” Miz groaned. “She’s not driving, is she?”

The garage door shook again. Something giggled, low and breathless. Thin, spindly fingers wriggled through the gap at the bottom. Shizz. Was it locked? Had anyone checked?

“Get in. Now,” Cal barked. “Take Splurt and Dave. Loren, with me.”

Loren bounded up the side of the cab, sprung from the lower door handle, and swung herself into the upper seat. Cal, was midway through an undignified sprackle into the bottom cab when Loren’s voice came at him urgently.

“I think they’re coming through.”

Cal kicked, lunged, and tumbled into the cab just as the roll-up door began bending inwards under the weight of the clowns pushing against it. “Everyone aboard?” he hollered. Two thunks on the wall behind his head answered his question.

The engine fired up. The truck teetered unsteadily as it rose into the air, then immediately tilted left and slid towards a garage wall.

“Weight’s uneven,” Loren grimaced, wrestling with the wheel. “Mech, go right!” she cried.

There was a clanking of metal on metal, and the truck’s balance point shifted.

“Better?”

“Better!” Loren confirmed.

A loud, desperate screeching filled the garage as the door gave way, and a mass of thrashing, heaving bodies tumbled through. Loren slid the wheel hard right and several port thrusters ignited in a surprised-sounding whoosh.

Most of the bio-bots hadn’t yet made it back to their feet before the truck smashed into them, splitting several of them open like sacks of overripe fruit. Still the others laughed, though, their sniggers sliding in through the gaps in the corrugated space-iron and making Cal’s skin crawl.

He banged on the ceiling above his head. “Get us out of here, Loren,” he urged.

He needn’t have bothered. Before he was even midway through the sentence, the barge lurched forwards, its rear thruster setting a group of the clown-things ablaze. Cal was slammed back into his seat as Loren powered them partly through the gaping doorway, and partly through the wall, then he thudded against every available surface inside the cab as she spun them into a skid that left the barge pointing straight down the street.

“Nice driving!” Cal said.

Loren let out a breath she’d been holding in. “Thanks.”

“I mean, you almost took out an entire wall, and I’m pretty sure we’re facing the wrong way, but still.”

“What do you mean? How are we facing the wrong way?”

Cal leaned closer to the horizontal viewing slow cut in the metal sheeting. “Well, you see that building that’s on fire, and all those arrows? They should be behind us, not—”

Something screeched as it hurled itself at the shielded window. Cal caught a glimpse of colorfully painted eyes and a bulbous red nose through the slit, then he saw nothing but fingers and tongue as the monster tried to force its way through.

“Ah! Fonk off!” he yelped. He tried to slam the heel of his hands against the fingers, but the tongue flicked over and slobbered unpleasantly across his palm. He tried again with the other hand, but got another tongue-lashing for his trouble.

“Quit licking me, you weirdo,” he warned.

Loren hit the forward thrusters again and the barge screamed ahead. Cal pushed himself back in his seat as the thin black tongue waggled in the air in front of him, inching closer and closer, like a snake on the hunt.

And then Loren hit the brakes. Hard.

The bio-bot lost its grip. Or, more accurately, it lost its fingers. The sudden stop forced the sharp metal sheeting up through its hands, amputating eight of its digits, and a good fourteen inches of tongue.

All eight fingers landed on the floor. The tongue landed in Cal’s lap. He reacted like he’d been caught in the throes of a violent seizure, his body flapping limply and wildly as he attempted to remove the still-wriggling tongue without any other part of him touching it.

And then, just a moment later, the amputated bits all collapsed into a custardy yellow goo that dribbled down his inside thighs and pooled in the seat beneath him.

The barge accelerated rapidly again, then the back end swung out, spinning the whole vehicle in a full one-eighty, and bringing a chorus of thuds and oofs from the back.

“Sorry!” Loren called. “Forgot you guys were there.”

“That was totally on purpose,” Miz snapped.

Loren fought against her grin. “Well, maybe a little,” she whispered.

“You know I heard that,” Miz growled.

Mech’s voice boomed out, extinguishing the argument before it could properly begin. “More of those ugly motherfonkers coming after us. Go, go, go.”

“Going. Everyone hold on,” Loren warned, as she revved the engine and peered ahead through the narrow gap in the metal. “This might get a little bumpy.”

She launched them onwards, misjudged the first turn, and took a chunk of out the corner of the final building on the street. From the back, there came another series of thumps, even heavier than the last ones.

“Worst. Driver. Ever!” Miz barked.

Loren blushed. “Or, you know, a lot bumpy.”

“Hey, don’t listen to her,” Cal called. “You’re doing great.”

Metal screeched as the flatbed part of the barge scraped along the wall, throwing sparks out behind them.

“Ish,” Cal added, then he reached for his seatbelt, realized he didn’t have one, and prepared himself for the very real possibility of death.

* * *

After the initial onslaught of clown-bots, the truck trundled through the streets more or less unmolested for several dozen blocks. Cal experienced a brief moment of all-consuming terror when the wall behind his head was punctured and partially ripped open, before he realized it was only Mech making what the cyborg described as ‘a window’ but what Cal was reasonably sure was simply ‘a big hole’.

“See anything?” Mech asked.

Cal leaned closer to the viewing slot, but was careful to remain beyond licking distance, just in case anything was out there biding its time. He saw a widescreen ratio view of some burned-out buildings, and wondered for a moment if Loren had taken them in circles.

He soon spotted the wreckage of some kind of flying vehicle – a spaceship, maybe, although it would have to have been a small one – partially embedded in one of the buildings, and partly strewn all over the ground. If the trash barge had had wheels, they would have been well and truly stuck, unable to continue along the street. Fortunately, they were able to glide effortlessly above it, bumping into barely eight or nine large, easily-avoidable chunks of debris along the way.

“It’s not as simple as it looks, OK?” Loren called down, before anyone could say anything.

“I’ll bet it isn’t,” Cal shouted up to her. He lowered his voice and turned his face to the window/gaping hole in the back wall. “Although it looks pretty fonking simple.”

“What did you say?” Loren asked.

“Nothing!”

“He said it looks totally easy,” Miz chipped in. “He thinks a kid could do it. And, like, not even a smart kid. A really dumb kid. With no hands.”

“I did not say any of that,” Cal said.

“No, but you were thinking it,” said Miz, her lips pulling up into a smirk.

“Well… maybe not the no hands part.”

He turned further, so he could see deeper into the back of the barge. The walls and roof they’d added cast the whole flatbed area into rich shadow that was eased only by a thin shafts of light that came in through viewing slots cut into the metal sheeting.

Mech stood on the right hand side of the truck, while Miz was slouching over on the left. Dave sat all the way at the rear, his back against the wall, a shell-shocked look on his face.

“You OK, Dave?” Cal asked.

Dave blinked, as if waking for a dream, and pulled together something like a smile. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. It’s just… not the vacation I expected.”

“Better, right?” said Cal, grinning.

Dave hesitated. “Different,” he said, as diplomatically as possible.

“If you don’t want to come, we can drop you off any time you like,” Mech said, not looking at him.

Cal frowned. “Jesus. What is your problem?”

“He’s jealous,” said Miz.

“You’re jealous?” Cal asked.

Mech ground his jaws together. “Are you nuts? Of course I ain’t jealous. I just…” He shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”

The top of Splurt’s head appeared at the bottom of the hole Mech had made. Cal leaned through, and the little blobby guy held his arms up, like a child who was fed up of walking and now wanted to be carried.

With some effort, Cal managed to heave Splurt into the front and sit him on his knee. Splurt immediately looked at and touched every single thing in the cab, then grabbed an imaginary steering wheel and pretended to drive.

“How long until we’re at the next wall?” Cal asked.

“Maybe an hour,” Mech estimated. “This thing moves pretty fast.”

“OK, so once we get there, can I assume you have a plan to get through said wall?”

“What? No,” said Mech.

“Aw, seriously?” Cal groaned. “You knew it was coming. Why don’t you have a plan?”

“Why don’t you have a plan?”

“I had the plan to take this thing,” Cal said, indicating the barge.

“What?! No, you didn’t. That was my idea,” Mech argued.

“Suuuure it was,” said Cal. He winked theatrically.

“It was! I said, ‘I think we just solved our transporation problem,’ and you were like, ‘What? This thing? No way!’”

“Riiiight. That’s exactly how it happened,” Cal said. He winked again, then tapped the side of his nose.

“I hate you, sometimes,” Mech grunted. “I want you to know that.”

“Suuuure you do.”

Cal rocked forwards as the barge decelerated and came to a stop. “Uh, guys?” Loren said. “We’ve got a problem. There’s something blocking the road.”

“Can’t you just go over it?” Cal asked. He leaned towards the armored window and peered through the slot. A wall of flaming debris was strewn from one side of the street to the other, too perfectly-placed to have got there by accident. This wasn’t just something blocking the road, this was a roadblock.

“Back up, slowly,” Cal whispered. “We’ll try another—”

THUNK.

The head of a spear pierced the cab wall and came to a stop between the back of Splurt’s head and the front of Cal’s face. Splurt’s eyes flipped over inside his semi-transparent head, and they both started at the weapon for a good few seconds before Cal reacted.

“Loren, get us out of here!” he yelped, raising his voice to be heard over the sudden drum solo of thuds and thumps that indicated dozens of spears and arrows were hammering into the barge from the left and right.

“We’re under attack!” Loren announced.

“Oh, you think so?” Miz spat, diving towards the middle of the truck just as a couple of spear heads pierced the metal behind her.

“Mech, fire the weapons!” Cal ordered.

“What weapons? We ain’t got any.”

“We don’t have weapons?!” Cal howled. “I told you to fit a melon launcher or power hose or big catapult, or something. Something clever, but non-lethal, like the A-Team used to do!”

“And I told you,” Mech retorted, staggering slightly as the barge shot backwards. “We didn’t have any of those things.”

“Then you build them! Jesus, do I have to think of everything?”

“I don’t even know what a melon is,” Mech pointed out.

The barge spun into a one-eighty turn, and Cal’s voice came out as a panicky shout. “It’s a huge fruit.”

The barge screeched to a stop, and for a moment there was no sound but the rasping of their panicky breathing.

“Right, Dave?” Cal wheezed.

Dave, who currently had his head between his knees and his arms wrapped protectively over it, glanced up. “W-what?”

“Melons. They’re big fruit.”

“Uh… Uh… Yes.”

“See?” said Cal, shooting Mech an accusing look. “You could have just asked Dave, if you weren’t being such a shizznod towards him.”

There was a thunk as something dropped onto the roof, then a scream as it found Miz’s spikes. Her face lit up with glee as they listened to whatever was up there hopping around in agony, each movement almost certainly forcing yet more of the rusty nails through its flesh.

With a final howl, it fell off the roof, then hit the ground with a sound that was both solid and damp, like a large boulder being dropped into wet concrete. They heard it whimpering, then a scuffing as it dragged itself away.

“High time we were gone,” Cal urged. He peered through his viewing slot, then drew back as a wall of flame burst into life ahead of them, blocking their retreat.

Figures emerged from the ruined buildings on either side, spears and axes and clubs raised above their heads, bare feet pounding the weed-littered paving slabs. They were a mix of species – some humanoid, but most not – and while many of them were naked, a few covered their modesty with dirty rags that were tied on like loincloths.

“These guys don’t look like bio-bots,” Cal said.

“Also don’t look friendly,” Loren pointed out. “Floor it?”

Cal nodded. “Floor it.”

Loren floored it. Technically, she pushed it, as no pedals were involved in the operation of the truck, but that didn’t sound as dramatic.

The barge’s back end shimmied from side to side a little as it powered forwards. Rather than scatter, as she’d thought they would, or just stand around and allow themselves to be flattened, like she’d hoped they would, the approaching horde all hurled their spears and axes, or fired their arrows at the fast-approaching vehicle.

The armor didn’t stand a chance. Cal, Loren and Splurt all drew back as projectile after projectile pierced the corrugated space-iron and stabbed deep into both cabs. Instinctively, Loren spun the wheel. The steering suddenly became too light. The barge shuddered all the way from the front to the back. Everyone – although mostly Dave and Cal – screamed as the vehicle passed some unknown tipping point, and tumbled into a sideways roll, its thrusters drastically accelerating the rate at which is flipped, tumbled and smashed against the ground.

“Engines!” Mech spat, his magnetic feet holding him in position while Miz and Dave tumbled around him like clothes in a washing machine. “Cut the fonking engines.”

Loren flailed out at the controls, adrenaline making it difficult to recall precisely where the ‘off’ switch was. She hit the lights and the horn, then found the engine control. The thrusters shut down with a disappointed whine, and the barge rolled another twice before coming to a rest on its roof.

For a few seconds, no-one did anything but groan. It was Cal who finally spoke.

“You know, on second thoughts, who cares about some old treasure, anyway?”

“Everyone OK?” Loren cried.

“Yeah,” Miz announced. “Except my faith in your ability to pilot a vehicle, which has totally died. I mean, it was basically on life support, anyway...”

“Dave?” Cal called. “In one piece?”

“I shouldn’t have come,” Dave whimpered. “It’s… I’m only here for my anniversary. I sh-shouldn’t have come.”

Cal turned (it hurt), smiled (it also hurt) and did his best to console his new friend. “Hey, it’s OK, Dave. This is nothing. We’ve been in way worse situations than this,” Cal said.

“I haven’t!” Dave yelped, shambling onto his feet. “This might be normal for you, but I’m not used to any of—”

Four hands, all identical, tore through the wall at Dave’s back. He began to turn, his brow creasing, his whole body shaking in fear, but then the hands had him. Cal watched, open-mouthed, as Dave was pulled through the remains of the wall with such sudden, shocking force that he didn’t even have time to scream.

“Dave?” Cal called. “Dave!”

But Dave was gone.

“Shizz! Splurt, stay here and stay down,” Cal instructed, lowering the little guy into the foot well of the cab.

“What? Where are you going?” Miz asked.

Cal grabbed the shaft of the spear that was sticking through the door and pulled it all the way inside. “I’m going to get Dave back,” he said, shouldering the door open.

“What?!” Mech spat. “You can’t be serious!”

“Cal, don’t!” Loren warned.

“Have to. My fault he got into this,” Cal said. He took a deep breath, then jumped down from the cab and slammed the door before anyone could try to stop him. Brandishing the spear in both hands, he faced down the approaching horde.

“Scooby-Dooby-Doo, motherfonkers,” he growled, then he raised the weapon in front of him, lowered his head, and charged.

Sixteen

Cal was halfway to the approaching crowd when it occurred to him that this might have been a mistake. There were fifty or more of them, all armed, all dressed and acting like savages. And all racing towards him, the group narrowing to a point as every one of its members made Cal the subject of their focus.

The four-armed thing that had taken Dave had raced off with the squirming Earthman over his shoulder. He’d powered through the approaching crowd, and Cal was sure he’d seen him vanish inside one of the ruined, crumbling buildings, holding Dave aloft like a trophy.

Cal wondered if his healing ability had returned. That would be nice. He hadn’t checked the bruise on his ass in a while, so it could be gone for all he knew. He touched his head, trying to find the dent that Miz had caused when she’d hurled her Monopoly token at him, but he couldn’t feel it.

So maybe. Maybe he’d recover from an axe through the skull, or a spear through the intestines. Maybe he wouldn’t die writhing on the ground trillions of miles from home.

Maybe.

But ‘maybe’ wasn’t good enough.

“I just won’t let any of that stuff happen,” he said. “Simple as that.”

The mob was closing fast. Fortunately, Cal had an ace up his sleeve.

“Holy shizz, look over there!” he shouted, pointing behind the crowd and to the left. They didn’t turn, didn’t slow, just kept racing towards him, loincloths, weapons and exposed body parts all flapping around wildly. “Seriously, it’s awesome. Just look!” he said, then he sighed. “Fine. Forget it.”

Cal raced ahead, his hands gripping the spear until his fingers went white. He could hear Miz’s claws on the ground behind him, closing in. The sound of her approaching boosted his confidence enough for him to open his mouth and roar at the closing horde.

He could see the whites of their eyes now. Not all of them – some of them didn’t have whites of their eyes. Some of them didn’t have eyes, for that matter. But he saw the whites of some of their eyes, wide and staring and bloodshot.

Shifting his grip on the spear, Cal aimed for the third largest member of the crowd. Taking out the third largest would send a strong message to the rest of the horde, he reckoned. Taking down the first or second largest would have sent a stronger message, obviously, but they were both enormous, and so the only message he’d send if he attempted to challenge them would be how easily his limbs could be plucked from his body.

He’d have to rely on Miz to take care of the first and second largest. And then – ideally – everyone from the fourth largest downwards.

But the third largest? The third largest, with its wild hair, piggy nose and butt-crack chin – the third largest was all his.

He had it squarely in his sights and was getting ready to put his back into the charge when the entire mob changed direction, swinging to their right in a panicky stampede. At first, Cal didn’t realize why, until a shout from Loren filled in the blanks.

“Bio-bots!” she bellowed. “Incoming!”

Cal stole a glance along the street, and panic jabbed him like a hot poker up the shizzpipe. Dozens – hundreds – of clowns were shambling, limping, lurching, crawling, bouncing, running and, in one instance, cartwheeling, towards the horde of savages, their oversized shoes thwapping the street, their faces a twisted mess of greasepaint and rage.

There were fat ones, thin ones, tall ones, short ones. There were clowns with insect-like legs, clowns with one huge arm and one withered one, clowns with painted mandibles, clawed fingers, and dark, soulless eyes.

Cal was sure he’d been more afraid in the past. When he’d been lost in the void between universes, maybe. Or that time he’d died and thought he was stuck forever with the ghost of Tobey Maguire. Those things must have been more terrifying than this, he thought.

And yet, his body was telling him otherwise. Cold sweat stuck his shirt to his back. Hot panic flushed his cheeks. Everything from his buttocks to midway up his chest was taut with terror, like a harp string spun from raw, primal fear.

His legs powered him on, cutting directly across in front of the bio-bots at a right angle. He kept watching them, waiting for them to rush towards him, but they continued straight ahead like they hadn’t noticed him.

Cal was watching a rotund but remarkably agile clown-thing come bounding along the street when an arrow sunk into its eye socket and buried deep in its brain. It collapsed, mid-run, yellow goo oozing from the wound.

The clowns behind it tripped and fell, and then Cal heard the savages approaching from his other side, all shouts and roars and swishing pointy things.

He realized, somewhat to his dismay, that both factions were racing towards each other, and that he was in the middle.

His lungs got together and ejected a sound from his throat, all by themselves. It was a high-pitched warbling sort of sound, like the mating call of a rare bird, or the death throes of an exotic monkey.

Whatever the sound was, it seemed to send a message to his legs, and they took it upon themselves to start moving faster.

The ground flew by beneath Cal’s feet, little more than a blur of rock and weeds. The clowns closed in on one side, the roaring savages on the other. Up ahead was the door Cal was sure Dave had been dragged through. FIfty feet away. Less, even. He was close.

But would ‘close’ be close enough?

* * *

Dave’s feet slipped and slid as he tried in vain to find purchase on the rotten linoleum floor. The four-armed thing dragged him along by the hair, one of its oversized fists tangled in his increasingly unkempt locks. It hurt. A lot. He was making no attempt to hide this fact.

“Yeow! Ow! P-please, no. No. Don’t do this, don’t do this!” he pleaded. “I have money. I can get you money.”

He spun suddenly, the world lurching into a high-speed flip. He didn’t notice the door until he smashed backwards through it. He hit the ground next, then rolled to a clumsy and largely undignified stop in a dimly-lit room that reeked of damp and dust and death.

There was a skeleton beside him. It wasn’t an intact skeleton by any stretch of the imagination, but with a bit of work and a sufficient amount of glue, the mound of individual bones could probably be arranged back into one. Maybe two.

Three, at a push.

The walls were a mess of dried yellow and red-brown smears. Some of it had been splashed or sprayed on, but other areas looked the finger paintings of a madman. A madman with big, powerful fingers. Twenty of them.

Dave shuffled backwards, scrabbling and kicking through the remains of the carcass, his head whipping left and right as he searched frantically for some other way out. The only exit was through the door he’d entered by, though, and it was currently blocked by the hulking four-armed figure.

It wasn’t a bio-bot. That much was clear. Its face was a lattice-work of red scars, some hot and vibrant, others muted and dull. Several of its knuckles were ragged and torn from punching through the metal, and a series of scrapes ran up the inside of each forearm. Blood seeped from some of the wounds. Red blood. Real blood.

Dave looked from the thing’s injuries to its face. It took all his willpower not to look away again, and similar amounts of determination not to throw up. The eyes were dark pools, half-hidden beneath thick eyebrows that were flecked with gray. Its teeth were sharp, but something about them suggested it wasn’t natural, and that each tooth had instead been filed to a point.

It was a Kodaped, he thought, although that species was renowned for its kindness and good grace. This thing didn’t look gracious at all, and there was no kindness to be found anywhere behind those eyes.

The Kodaped clenched all four fists and hissed to itself as it padded into the room, its bare feet slapping against the ruined floor.

“Look, just… Don’t hurt me,” Dave begged, continuing his backwards slide across the floor.

He backed up against a stack of something he thought were boxes, and yelped in fear as the topmost one fell. It sprung open, spilling its contents across the floor.

Dirty clothes. A broken toothbrush. A park map, badly torn and smeared with something unpleasant.

He looked at the box itself. No, not a box. A suitcase.

In that moment, as it drew closer, Dave realized what the Kodaped was. Not a monster. Not a bio-bot.

A guest. A park guest, walled in here with the clown-things when everything had gone tits-up.

A survivor. A survivor, at any cost.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “You’ve been here this whole time?” He held both hands up in front of him. “Look, I can help. I can get you out of here. Just please, don’t hurt me.”

The Kodaped raised all four hands above its head as its face twisted into a dark, murderous rage. “Huuuungry,” it said, in a clumsy fat-lipped voice. “Huuuungry!”

“No, please, don’t!” Dave wailed, scrunching himself into a ball and covering his head with his arms.

SHHHCK.

The spear erupted through the Kodaped’s stomach, right below where gut met chest. Two of its arms reached down and grabbed the shaft, but made no attempt to pull it out. The other two arms remained raised, but the fists became slack as the fingers uncurled in confusion.

“Huuungry?” it said, cocking its head to one side. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of its mouth.

It fell like a majestic oak, its lower half creaking as its top half led the descent. The spear hit the ground first, folding the Kodaped over so its forehead clonked against the floor.

“Huuungry,” it grunted, its mouth gnashing uselessly against the linoleum.

And then it stopped, its eyes wide and staring at Dave, as its life drained slowly out of it.

“You OK?” Cal asked.

Dave’s mouth was dry and his throat was tight. It took him three attempts to force a sound out, and two more to convert that sound into words.

“Like, zoinks,” he whispered.

Cal held out a hand. Dave stared blankly at it for a moment, then took it and allowed himself to be hoisted onto his feet.

“So that thing’s going to go all yellow and mushy any second now, right?” sald Cal. “Any second… now. No, wait… Nnnnnnow. Now. Any second…”

“It’s not a bio-bot,” Dave explaind. “It’s… It’s a Kodaped.”

“A Kodaped? Seriously?” said Cal. He peered down at it for a moment, then back at Dave. “What the fonk’s a Kodaped?”

Dave shrugged. He didn’t have the energy to explain. “One of them,” he said, gesturing to the thing. “They’re usually peaceful, but something h-happened to this one. I think he was a guest. I think he’s been stuck here since the wall went up.”

Cal looked down again, and quietly whistled through his teeth. “Wow. That is unfortunate.”

He grabbed his spear and tore it free with a schlop.

Dave’s jaw tightened as the shock of the last few minutes began to hit home. “It was going to kill me,” he whispered. “I n-nearly died.”

Cal put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “It’s OK, Dave. You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be OK.”

He smiled warmly, then began to turn.

“Oh,” he said, stopping. “There’s just one tiny little thing…”

* * *

Cal and Dave crouched in the doorway, gazing out at the chaos raging in the street. The army of bio-bots and the horde of guests-turned-savages were locked in battle. Arrows whistled. Clowns giggled. Axes swung, and necks snapped.

The weeds were littered with the dead and dying, and glistening with mounds of yellow gunge. The trash barge was still upside-down, but now a column of black smoke rose from within it. Neither Miz, nor the rest of the crew were anywhere to be seen.

“Oh God,” Dave wheezed. “How is this ‘safe’? Look at them all! We can’t go out there.”

“We have to. The others are… somewhere. We have to find them,” Cal said. “Besides, these guys are too distracted to even notice us. Watch.”

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey! You all fight like a bunch of pimsies!” he hollered.

Immediately, half a dozen bio-bots snapped their heads towards him. Three big clown-things broke ranks and lurched towards them, teeth glinting behind their rictus grins.

“No, wait. I think they have noticed us,” Cal admitted. “That totally backfired.”

“C-come on,” Dave urged, stumbling backwards. “There must be another way out.”

Cal looked down at the spear in his hands, then up at the three approaching clown-monsters. They were all bigger than average, and one nightmarish specimen in particular looked nigh-on unstoppable. At least, not without the help of three more people, several more spears, and extensive air support.

“OK, right behind you,” Cal groaned, closing the door and following Dave back into the building.

From what Cal could gather, the place was some sort of call center with several smaller meeting rooms and one large main area filled with desks and something he identified as ‘space phones’. Quite why a theme park – even one as fonked up as this one – would have a call center was something of a mystery.

“Is this, like, the customer service department?” he whispered, jogging between the desks behind Dave, one eye keeping watch on the door leading out to the foyer they’d just come from.

Dave shook his head. “No. This whole area of the planet was built for guests to act out their violent fantasies, remember?”

“Right,” said Cal, nodding slowly, even though that didn’t really explain anything. “So?”

Taking a right down an aisle of little cubicle stations, Dave made for another door. “So, three per cent of the galaxy works in places like these. Of those, something like ninety per cent dream of murdering their boss or co-workers. Here, they get to. Or got to.”

“Three per cent of the galaxy works in call centers?” Cal asked.

Dave nodded. “And yet, it still takes you two hours to get through to anywhere,” he said. “Even then, they never really answer your question.”

They reached an exit door. It was unlike the other doors they’d come across before now, in that it was made of thick, dense metal, with no handle that either of them could see. Cal waited for Dave to do some clever space thing that would make the door swoosh open like in Star Trek. Instead, Dave slapped the flats of his hands against it, grunting and groaning as he tried to slide it aside.

Across the other side of the room, the door to the foyer creaked open. A high, shrill giggle followed, then the unmistakable thwap of clown shoes on vinyl flooring.

“Shizz,” Cal hissed. Resting the spear against the wall, he pressed his hands on the door above and below Dave’s. “OK, on three. One. Two. Three.”

They both pushed in opposite directions.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Cal said. “We’re going different ways. Try again. One, to, three.”

They pushed in different opposite directions. The giggling and thwapping drew closer. Heavy desks rumbled on the floor as they were nudged aside by the bio-bots’ bulk.

“Jesus, we’re still doing it,” Cal realized. “Try towards me. One, two…”

Dave pushed and Cal pulled together, finally working in harmony like a well-oiled machine. The door, however, didn’t budge.

“Maybe towards you?” Cal suggested. “One…”

Dave pulled. Cal pushed. The door did nothing whatsoever.

“God damn it,” Cal spat, grabbing for his spear. “Dave, tell me you’ve got your little gun.”

Dave blinked, then his eyes widened. The little gun! He thrust a hand into his pocket and rummaged around in there.

Then he thrust a different hand into a different pocket, and rummaged around in that one.

Then he patted both pockets with both hands.

Then, because it was just the done thing, he patted the rest of his torso with both hands, too, like he might find it taped to his chest somewhere. His movements became increasingly frantic as he was struck by a terrible truth.

“I’ve lost it,” he croaked. “It must’ve fallen out when the barge flipped. Oh, God.”

“Shizz,” Cal said, unable to hide his dismay. He pulled himself together and plastered on a grin. “Still, we’ve got a pointy stick. And you know what they say about us Earthmen?”

Dave swallowed. “That we taste good in sandwiches?”

Cal laughed. “Ha! No… Wait, they don’t say that, do they?”

Dave nodded. “A surprising number of species do, yeah.”

“Jesus. OK, but that’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking about that other thing they say.” Cal twirled in the spear inexpertly. In his head, it made him look like Bruce Lee. In reality, it made him look like a cheerleader on the first day of baton practice. “We’re the best at killing space clowns!”

“I don’t think anyone does ever say that,” Dave pointed out.

“Maybe not,” Cal admitted. “But they will after today. YAH!”

He hurled the spear with all his might at the closest clown. It was the biggest and ugliest of them all, with six arms that were varyingly gnarled and withered, and a mouth that resembled an explosion in a dental implant lab.

The spear flew past it and made a clonk as the shaft hit the side of a desk. Cal sighed as they watched it drop to the floor.

“Damn. That totally worked better in my head.”

“What do we do? What do we do?” Dave whimpered, bouncing anxiously from foot to foot like a child desperate to use the bathroom.

“First, we don’t panic,” Cal said.

The nightmarish clown – although, to be fair, Cal was sure all three of them would haunt his dreams from now on, should he survive – unfurled its pointed tongue and waddled closer, sniggering through its triangular red-painted nose.

“Second, we panic a little bit,” Cal continued, fear tightening his chest. The bio-bots didn’t exactly scream ‘intellectually gifted’ at him, but whether it was by accident or design, they had spread out to cover all possible routes back to the foyer door.

Cal lunged for the closest desk and pulled open a drawer. “Find a weapon,” he urged. “Anything.”

He pulled out something a bit like an iPad and tossed it at the closest clown. It missed.

“Damn it! I so need to practice throwing stuff.”

Rummaging around, he found something not unlike a stapler. He tossed that, and this time it found its target, clipping the bio-bot on the side of its white daubed forehead. It bounced off, and the monster’s only reaction was another shrill giggle.

Dave hurled a handful of paper clips at another of the clowns, then a ring-binder, a dirty mug, and a soft toy holding a sign that said, ‘On a Bathroom Break – Back in 5’. None of them slowed its approach, although that didn’t really come as much of a surprise.

There was a low whumming as Cal swung a space phone-headset around by its elasticated cord. It twirled in the air above him like a lasso, then the assembly of thin metal and foam thacked against the side of the nightmare clown’s head, with precisely zero effect whatsoever.

“Jesus, will nothing stop these guys?” Cal yelped.

He and Dave quickly ran out of things to throw and bunched together, shoulder to shoulder, fists shaking, but defiantly raised. The clown-things were almost on them now. Cal could smell the acrid stench of their breath, and the stale stink of synthetic sweat.

“I just want you to know,” Cal said. “I’m glad I met you. I was… well, I was kind of in a bad place. Or getting there, at least. I thought I was the last one, you know? The last Earth guy. And then I bump into you and… You changed everything.” He gave Dave an affectionate nudge with his shoulder. “So… Yeah. I’m glad I met you.”

“I’m not!” Dave sobbed. “This was supposed to be a vacation! It’s my anniversary!”

“Today? Huh. Well, congratulations, I guess,” said Cal.

Dave’s eyes widened and his voice became hoarse. “My anniversary. God, I’m going to die on my anniversary.”

“Still, try to look on the bright side.”

“What bright side?” Dave yelped. “I’m going to be murdered by clowns on my anniversary!”

“Space clowns,” Cal corrected. “And, well, I mean… It looks grim right now, yes, but we’re not dead yet.” He looked around them, then up. “A vent!” he said, pointing to the ceiling. “There’s an air duct up there! You ever seen Die Hard? Or Die Hard Two? Or, like, literally any other action movie set in a building?”

Dave followed his finger. Hope surged through him, then spluttered away as quickly as it had appeared. “It’s twenty feet in the air,” he pointed out.

“We could make a human pyramid,” Cal suggested.

“With two people? How would that be a pyramid?” asked Dave, unable to mask the irritation in his voice. “Also, it’s about six inches across. Even if we could reach it – which we can’t – we’d barely get an arm in.”

“You know what the Japanese word for ‘problem’ is, Dave? Problemtunity. Or opperproblemity. Or something. I don’t remember the exact details. But the point is…” He frowned. “Actually, I don’t know what the point is. ‘Hope finds a way,’ maybe? ‘Stay the fonk away from space clowns?’ Probably one of those, anyway.”

Dave said nothing. If Cal’s pep talk had inspired him and lifted his spirits, he wasn’t letting on.

The clowns closed in.

Cal sucked on his bottom lip. “OK, OK, so what if…?”

And then there was no time for ‘what ifs’. The nightmare clown shoved aside the final desk, the furniture’s metal feet shrieking in protest across the vinyl flooring. All three of the bio-bots giggled and hissed, their eyes blazing with hunger and hatred and every other shade in between. The big one would reach them first, but the other two would be right behind.

Not for the first time in the past few weeks, Cal saw his life flash before his eyes. It rattled past like a high-speed train, each blurred carriage jarring him with some new emotional impact. His wife. His daughter. Their wrecked car at the side of the highway. Cheap booze. Cheap women. An extended chase sequence featuring Ozzy Osbourne.

Then onwards. Prison. Bugs. Space. Tobey Maguire. The Shatner. The Symmorium. Loren, Mech, Miz and Splurt. Kornack. Soonsho. Nana Joan and the Space Teens (He wondered, just briefly, what they were up to). Dan Deadman. Old Man Carver. The Currently Untitled. President Sinclair.

Tobey Maguire again.

From there, it became a cavalcade of imagery, most of it flitting past too quickly for him to identify. A shapeless swirl of nebulas and vomit and banoffee pie and genital discomfort. Tastes and sensations more than actual thoughts.

And Loren again. He saw her as if they were back on the Untitled, her back to him, her hands working the controls. He felt himself exhale, wishing he could just sit here a moment. Just sit here, watching her work.

He couldn’t see them, but he could sense the others there, too. Miz, slouched in her chair. Mech standing by the screen. Splurt… somewhere. Probably doing weird shizz.

And then, it hit him. He’d been thinking about Earth so much of late – how he’d never go home again - that he hadn’t realized what was staring him in the face. This. There. Them. That was home. A different one, granted, but home, all the same.

“God damn,” he whispered, then the urgency of the present overrode the dreams of the past. The flashback tore apart like a broken film reel, revealing a big fonking space clown standing right in front of Cal. It giggled and snorted as its twisted fingers grabbed for his face. The top half of its head flopped backwards like the lid of a pedal bin, as if its mouth was one big tooth-filled hinge.

THLURP!

The bio-bot exploded, painting Cal and Dave with gallons of yellow goo. The force of the blast slammed them backwards against the door, which had become similarly plastered in the lemon-colored gunk.

Frantically scooping the stuff from his eyes, Cal saw Splurt standing a few feet away, Dave’s little pistol wedged awkwardly between his stubby hands. He had managed to grow a single stump of a finger with which to pull the trigger, and he waved the gun above his head excitedly when Cal spotted him.

Cal wanted to tell them about his revelation. Wanted to throw his arms around them, and tell them what they meant to him – what they all meant to him.

But he didn’t, obviously.

“Great work, Scoob!” was all he said in the end, but in its own way, that was enough.

The other clown-things, which had been flanking the first, spun on their heels and locked onto the little green guy. Cal would’ve been concerned by this, was Splurt himself not flanked by Miz and Loren, with Mech looming behind, watching the foyer door.

The clown closest to Miz made its move first. It was a move that ultimately concluded with its gungy yellow innards on the floor, and Miz picking blobs of it out of her fur.

The other bio-bot didn’t have enough sense to take the hint. It made it own lunge for Splurt, only for Loren’s spinning heel to twist its head a full two-hundred or so degrees around on its neck.

While the clown-bot tried to figure out why everything in the room was now facing a different direction, Loren hooked Cal’s spear with her foot, flipped it into the air, then ran it straight through the back of the thing’s skull. Another mound of goo oozed across the floor like melting butter.

“Oh, man, am I glad to see you guys!” Cal said. “I totally thought we were done for.”

He shot Dave a sideways glance. “By which I mean, I absolutely had that under control, and there was nothing for anyone to worry about.”

Cal turned and met Loren’s eye. Something passed between them. Some relief they shared at Cal’s continued state of being alive. He smiled at her, but quizzically, like there was something he’d forgotten to tell her.

“What?” she said.

Cal shook his head, just once. “Nothing.”

Loren blushed, just a little, and brushed a strand of hair back over her ear. As she did, she caught the expression on Miz’s face, and quickly pulled herself together.

“Is he OK?” she asked, gesturing to Dave.

Dave still looked shell-shocked. He stood relatively motionless, his back against the sliding door, a good seventy per cent of his face and body plastered in yellow clown gunge. Only a slight bubbling of the goo around one nostril revealed that he was breathing, and were it not for the fact he was standing upright and sobbing ever so quietly, you’d be forgiven for assuming he was dead.

“How’s it looking out there?” Cal asked, gesturing to the door.

“Like we ain’t getting through it alive,” Mech said. “Both sides just got reinforcements, and neither one looks like they’re going to be surrendering any time soon.”

“How’s the truck?”

“In pieces,” Mech said.

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Well, that was four hours well spent.”

“Maybe we should turn back,” said Loren.

Everyone - except Dave, who was still staring blankly and wide-eyed into thin air – turned to look at her. “Like, hello?” said Miz. “A hundred million credits?”

“What good will it do us if we’re all dead?” Loren asked.

“Loren raises an interesting point,” said Cal.

“Thank you,” said Loren, shooting Miz a smug look.

“But obviously we’re totally going to ignore it,” Cal added. “Miz is right. Think of the money. Right now, we have zero credits. None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Bupkis.”

“We get the idea,” said Loren.

“If we dig up the treasure, we’ll have a hundred million credits,” Cal continued. “That’s way more credits than we have right now. That’s like…” He calculated, then his jaw dropped. “That’s infinity times more money than we have now.”

“Yes, but—”

“Infinity times!”

“But – again - if we’re infinity times deader than we are now, what’s the point?” Loren retorted, crossing her arms.

“It ain’t about the money.”

Mech’s voice was flat and controlled, his usual ‘I’m one wrong word away from going apeshizz on everyone’ attitude nowhere to be found.

“It’s about the adventure!” Cal said.

Mech shook his head.

“It’s about the thrill of the chase?” Cal guessed. “About the lessons learned and friendships formed along the way? Come on, Mech, throw me a bone, or we’ll be here all day.”

Mech tapped the side of his metal skull. “Someone put those co-ordinates up here. Someone hid them from me,” he said. “Someone was inside my head, and I didn’t know a fonking thing about it.”

He drew himself up to his full impressive height. “Do I want a hundred million credits? You bet your ams I do. But more than that, I want to find out who put the information there. I want to find out why. And then I want to make sure they don’t ever do it again. And I want to find out if there’s anything else hidden up there. If there’s some other part of me still locked away that I know nothing about. This isn’t just about no treasure for me. It never was.”

There came a series of clanks and whirrs as he shrugged his vast shoulders. “You want to turn back? Be my guest. I can’t. I won’t. Ain’t nothing going to stop me reaching those co-ordinates, and finding out what the fonk is going on. Nothing.”

“Well, for me, it’s totally about the money, and, like, there’s no way I’m turning back either,” Miz said, the she hissed and clamped her hands over her ears. “Ack! What is that?”

Cal frowned. “What’s what?” he asked, but then he heard it, too. No, he didn’t hear it, he felt it. An ache that started in his ears and bloomed behind his eyes.

Miz groaned as the sound became higher and louder. Splurt’s body vibrated in a regular repeating rhythm. He looked down at it in surprise. There was a paff and the room was filled by a flash of white, like a camera flash going off.

Cal’s tongue flopped out and his eyes rolled upwards. He tried to think, but his brain was a jumbled mush of incomprehensible shapes and notions. He watched the others fall over, unaware that he, too, was already toppling.

All six of them hit the floor one after another, their eyes wide, their expressions vacant. Particularly Splurt, but then he looked like that most of the time, anyway.

The last thing Cal’s brain successfully processed before it surrendered to unconsciousness was the metal door sliding open, revealing a green, grinning, and partially naked figure beyond.

Seventeen

Something was vigorously rubbing Cal’s crotch. That was the first thing he noticed. The joint-second things he noticed was that he was lying on a hard floor, and that his brain was working again.

The third thing he noticed – or the fourth, depending on how you counted it - was that it wasn’t only his brain that was working. Certain other parts of his body were working, too. One in particular, in fact, and a lot of his blood was flowing in that direction.

Something continued to rub his crotch.

Even with his brain belching and farting out gibberish as he’d toppled to the floor, it had still been filled with a certain amount of dread about what was going to come next. He remembered vague notions of torture and death and being eaten in a sandwich. The reality, it turned out, was far more pleasant.

Cal opened his eyes. A rat-sized creature with an eyeless, scrunched-up face and a mouth like a tiny lion’s snuffled at his groin. Shrieking in panic, Cal tried to bat it away, but his hands were tied together and hooked onto something on the wall, so his arms were stuck stretched out above his head.

He twisted his hips, trying to scare the thing off. It retreated, but only a little, its crooked nose twitching as it presumably tried to figure out what was going on.

“Fonk off!” Cal yelped. He’d heard that Sumo wrestlers had the ability to draw their testicles up inside their bodies at will, although he couldn’t remember why. Cool party trick, maybe? Whatever, he tried to master the technique there and then, but the results were mixed, at best.

The rat-thing opened its (relatively) huge mouth. Cal squashed his thighs together, trapping it between them. It squirmed and wriggled, forcing its way closer to Cal’s crotch, those teeth gnashing the air.

Cal tried to crush it.

He tried to flick it away.

He made a number of disparaging remarks about its parentage.

He attempted some firm negotiation.

He attempted some substantially less firm negotiation that involved crying.

All to no avail. He felt the thing’s hot breath through his pants. He heard it let out a groan of hungry anticipation.

And then Mech grabbed it between two fingers and, with a flick of his wrist, exploded it against a wall.

Cal’s wide eyes found Mech’s face in the gloom. He jerked his head around and saw Loren and Miz leaning against another wall. Splurt was between them, doing a handstand. He waved a stumpy hand, then immediately fell over.

Dave sat on the floor in the corner, half-hidden behind his own knees. He was less yellow and gooey than he had been, but not by much. His eyes stared blankly straight ahead.

“W-wait,” Cal wheezed. He tugged on the bonds around his wrists. “Am I the only one they tied up?”

“Nah. I broke us all out,” said Mech.

“Oh.”

Cal thought about this.

“But you didn’t break me out?”

“Not yet.”

“Even though there was a space rat about to bite my junk off?”

Mech grinned. “Who do you think put it there?” he said.

Cal’s brain was still a little fogged. It took him some time to figure out who would do such a thing.

“Wait, you? Why the fonk would you do that?” he demanded.

“You weren’t waking up, or whatever,” said Miz.

“And it was just sitting there, doing nothing,” Loren added.

Cal frowned. “My penis?”

Loren’s eyes darted, inadvertently, to Cal’s crotch. “No! The… space rat,” she said. “We… Well, mostly Mech… thought it would be funny.”

“Knew it would be funny,” Mech corrected. “Which it was.”

“No! No, it wasn’t,” Cal said. “Trust me, I know funny, and me having my genitalia eaten by a… by a… fonking rodent doesn’t even come close.”

“Guess we’re gonna have to agree to disagree,” said Mech. He bent over Cal again, but this time snapped the restraints holding his arms in place. Cal’s shoulders ached as he brought his arms down in front of him and sat up.

“Is Dave OK?” he asked, although the expression of vacant horror on Dave’s face pretty much answered that question.

“He hasn’t really said anything since he woke up,” Loren said.

“He did make a noise, though,” said Miz. She tried to replicate the sound – a sort of throaty ejection of utter despair and hopelessness with some wobbly bits at the end – then chuckled gently. “It was pretty funny.”

“Shizz. Poor guy,” said Cal. He watched the unmoving Dave for a moment, then turned and looked around.

They were in a box. That was the best way to describe it. The walls were smooth and white (aside from the spot the rat had hit which was lumpy and red). The ceiling was smooth and white. The floor was a little less smooth and a little less white, but mostly still fit the bill.

It was brightly lit, although Cal couldn’t figure out what the actual source of the light was. It seemed to emanate from the air in the center of the room, fading slightly as it reached the walls. Under any normal circumstances, he’d have considered that impossible, but the last few weeks had gone some way to redefine his line in the sand with regards to what was and wasn’t a possibility. He wasn’t even sure if there was a line anymore, let alone where it was.

There was what Cal at first thought was a small window, but soon came to realize was actually some kind of projection onto one of the walls. What was displayed on the screen moved as if it were a window, though – as Cal leaned left and right, the viewing angle changed, showing more of the image.

He wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing through it yet, and he had some other concerns to deal with before he felt ready to move onto that.

“Where the fonk are we?”

That was the main one.

“Some kind of prison cell,” Mech said. He hit the wall. “Solid, too. Ain’t no way I’m breaking through that, even if I turn my dial all the way up.”

A memory danced at the edges of Cal’s recollection. “There was a green guy. Big smile. Puffy nipples. Anyone else see him?”

The others shook their heads or shrugged. All except one.

“I s-see it,” said Dave.

“Hey there, buddy!” said Cal, plastering on a smile he hoped would be equal parts uplifting and reassuring. “Good to have you back with us.”

Dave said nothing. He just kept staring straight ahead at… no, not nothing, which was what Cal had originally assumed. He was staring at the screen, or virtual window, or whatever it was.

Cal could still see nothing of note through there, but as he crossed over to Dave, the screen was filled with an expanse of green skin. The clown-thing had its back to the camera, but from the movements it was making and the sounds that emerged, it was clear what it was doing.

It was sharpening knives. And if the drawn-out sssssshhhhhhhhhkt sounds were anything to go by, they were long knives, at that.

“Is that… Is that the guy from the logo?” Cal asked.

Dave nodded.

Cal tilted his head. “I thought he’d be bigger. Has he lost weight?”

“If he has, looks like he’s fixing to put it back on,” said Mech.

“I knew we should have turned back,” Loren said.

“Like I said, I ain’t turning back,” Mech told her.

“Also, you said that, like, thirty seconds before we all got zapped, or whatever,” Miz pointed out with her usual levels of disdain. “It’s not like it would’ve made any difference, even if we’d listened to you. Which, by the way, we never do.”

Cal rubbed his forehead. He could still feel the ache there, although the sound was no longer screeching through his ears.

“What the Hell was that, anyway?”

“Nullifier,” Dave mumbled, his gaze still locked on the screen. His face seemed less slack now, though, like it had been frozen, but was now starting to thaw. “It’s… It’s part of the security system. Sometimes, guests would get out of hand and start fighting each other instead of the bots. The Nullifiers would shut them down without doing any lasting damage.”

“Dave, you are a fountain of information,” said Cal, ramping up that encouraging smile a notch or two. “Thank you. We’re lucky you’re around.”

“Yeah, real lucky,” said Mech. “Or maybe he’s part of the problem.”

“Uh, no. Evil clown thing putting us in a cell? Pretty sure that’s the problem,” Cal replied.

Mech slowly advanced on Dave. “Don’t you think it’s weird, us meeting another Earth guy all the way out here? Light years from Earth itself? A planet with no space travel capabilities.”

“Hey, we’ve got space travel capabilities,” Cal protested. “We went to the moon.”

Everyone who wasn’t from Earth snorted with derisory laughter at that. Except Splurt, who briefly rippled, instead.

“We’re pretty far past the motherfonking moon,” Mech said.

“Well, yeah. It’s weird,” said Cal. “But we already discussed that. We figured it out. It’s destiny. Mystery solved.”

“You know the odds of that happening? The odds of two people from Earth just bumping into one another out here?” continued Mech. “And as for it being someone you know…? I’d have to crank my brainpower to maximum just to calculate the chances of that happening. But they’re low. They’re all the fonking way low. Low enough to be impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Cal said, even though he was sure he’d had the same argument before.

“What was your mental state before we arrived here?” Mech asked. “Would you say you were happy?”

“What are you, my therapist? It’s me we’re talking about. I’m always happy,” Cal said, but his eyes didn’t back that statement up. “I mean, yeah, I’ve been happier, but…”

“You were lonely. You felt like you were the only one of your kind in the whole galaxy. Like you were never going to be able to shoot the shizz with someone from Earth again,” Mech said.

Cal shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I guess. A little of that, maybe. But that’s perfectly normal.”

“Then we came here, and suddenly all your prayers are answered,” Mech said. “Suddenly, you ain’t the only one. Suddenly, you got another Earth guy to talk to, just like you dreamed of.”

“Yes. I know. I was there. What’s your point, Mech?” Cal asked, growing impatient now.

Mech had stopped in front of Dave, and was blocking his view of the screen. Dave blinked and looked up into the towering cyborg’s eyes.

“He said it himself,” Mech continued. “You heard him. This place can create bots just for you, molecule by molecule, shaping them to be whatever you want them – no, whatever you need them to be. You don’t even know it’s happening.”

“Ha!” Cal ejected the sound all the way from the pit of his stomach, which was tightening strangely now. “That’s… That’s just nonsense. That’s not what this is. Dave’s… Dave. He remembers things. From Earth.”

“He remembers things you remember,” Mech said, raising a finger and gesturing vaguely upwards. “Psychic scan, remember? They pick the shizz out of your brain they need to create your ideal bot. That’s what this guy is, man. He’s been lying to us from the moment we got here. From before that, even.”

Dave shook his head. “N-no. No, that’s not true.”

“Relax, Dave, I’m not buying it,” Cal assured him. “Mech, it’s an interesting theory, but it’s bullshizz. Dave isn’t one of those things. He’s Dave, OK? We go way back.”

“Oh really?” said Mech. “And what if I can prove it? You gonna believe me then?”

“You can prove he’s a bio-bot?” said Cal. He glanced down at Dave, who was still shaking his head and looking increasingly uneasy at this turn of events. “How?”

“Easy,” said Mech. “Like this.”

He bent sharply forwards, metal unfolding at his wrist. Something like a tiny buzz-saw emerged, spinning into a blur of whirring teeth.

“W-wait, no, stop!” Dave wailed, holding up his hands for protection. The saw blade curved and sliced, neatly amputating the top of his right ring finger. It fell to the floor with the faintest of thoks, and silence returned as the saw retracted back into Mech’s forearm.

Dave stared, wide-eyed, at the spot where the top part of his finger had been. Cal, Mech and Loren stared, too. Miz, on the other hand, was busy scratching herself, while Splurt was standing on one leg and trying not to fall over.

A spray of warm liquid spurted from the end of Dave’s finger.

Warm red liquid.

“Ooh,” said Loren, biting her lip. “Fonk.”

“Jesus Christ, Mech!” Cal yelled. “What did you do?”

“Oh,” said Mech, his face falling as the blood trickled down Dave’s arm and fell in droplets to the floor. “There is a possibility that I may have made a slight error of judgement,” he admitted.

“You think?”

Dave’s jaw flapped open and closed. “My… my finger. He cut off my finger.” He pressed the palm of his other hand against the stump, trying to stem the blood flow. Instead, it squirted the spray in a different direction which, unfortunately, was the same direction his own face was in. He spluttered and spat, then his voice came as an angst-filled shriek. “You cut off my finger!”

“Dave. Relax,” said Cal. “Breathe. Breathe. In. Out. In. Etcetera, etcetera. You know the drill.”

“He cut off my finger!”

“Shizz, man, I am so sorry,” said Mech. “I thought you were one of the bio-bots.”

“Why would I have paid for you to get in?” Dave howled.

“See?” said Loren, slapping Mech on the arm. “That’s what I said. Why would he have paid us in. It doesn’t make sense!”

There was a snorting sound from along the wall. Cal looked back over his shoulder to find Miz’s shoulders heaving as she tried very hard not to laugh. Or reasonably hard, at least. He gestured for her to shut the fonk up, then turned his attention back to the increasingly hysterical Dave.

“Look, it isn’t badly damaged,” Cal said, kneeling and picking the piece of finger up. He blew on the end a couple of times to get rid of any dust, then picked one of Miz’s hairs off it. “I’m sure it’ll just stick back on.”

Taking hold of Dave’s hand, Cal pressed the end of the finger back into place. “See? Good as… Wait, that’s back to front.”

Cal turned the finger over so the nail was pointing upwards. “There. Perfect,” he said, letting go of the decapitated appendage. It immediately fell off and hit the floor again.

Cal winced. “I don’t suppose you happen to be carrying superglue?”

Dave shook his head.

“Guys?” Cal asked.

Everyone else shook their heads, too.

“Uh, no. Sorry,” said Mech.

“Oh, so you have a tiny saw, but no glue? You have the means with which to amputate a human finger, but not to reattach one, is that what you’re saying?” Cal asked.

Mech shifted on his feet. “Look, I said I was sorry. What more do you want.”

“My fonking finger back!” Dave howled.

“Yeah. Guess I kind of walked into that one,” Mech muttered.

Dave made that sound he’d made earlier – a choked exclamation of panicky terror. Cal assumed it was because of the whole finger situation, but then he spotted the real reason. The clown-thing no longer had its back to them. It approached the window screen, waddling slightly, its bare belly jiggling as it plodded closer. The blades it held in its hands were long and curved, and very recently sharpened. Getting one rammed into him was right down near the bottom of Cal’s list of things to do. He spun around, searching the walls for anything that suggested a doorway.

“Looks like our friend is coming,” Cal warned. “Everyone be ready. As soon as he steps in here, we take him out. We finish him, hard and fast.”

Miz smirked. “Then maybe you can finish me hard and—”

“Miz, not now!”

From somewhere beyond the walls came the slap-slap-slapping of the clown-thing’s shoes.

Clenching his fists, Cal ushered Splurt to safety behind him. “OK, he’s going to be here any second. The moment you have a shot at him, take it.”

Loren adopted a fighting stance. Mech clenched his metal fists. Mizette sighed and shrugged. “Fine. Whatever,” she said, then she winced.

At the same time, an ache drilled into Cal’s skull that forced his eyes closed. Miz covered her ears and spat out a curse the others could barely hear over the rising ultrasonic tone.

“Aw… shizz,” Cal said. “Not again.”

Then, with a paff and a flash, his brain fogged over again and his forehead was introduced, once more, to the floor.

* * *

It was the giggling that next woke Cal up. It came from beyond a wall of shadow in a dank, dark room, barely a scratchy whisper of a laugh. As wake-ups went, he couldn’t tell if he preferred this or the previous one.

On reflection, he decided the space-rat was better. At least it had started well, which was more than could be said for this one.

He was strapped to some kind of harness, supported at a forty-five degree angle so he was neither lying down nor standing up, but somewhere in between. He could feel at least two clamps on each leg – one across the ankle, one across the thigh – and a similar number holding his arms to the rigid board behind him. Or beneath him. Or whatever.

His head ached. His eyes stung. His throat felt like he’d been gargling crushed glass, and the inside of his mouth tasted of copper and batteries.

This room made the featureless cell look like a palace. It was all rough stone and furry moss, with the only illumination coming from three harsh overhead spotlights. Their brilliance was doing nothing for his headache or eye pain, but he suspected no-one would turn the brightness down, even if he asked nicely.

He asked anyway.

“Can we dim these a little?” he called into the shadows. “You know, just a fraction below ‘brighter than the sun’ would be awesome.”

The giggle came again. Another followed. Then another. And another.

The lights, as expected, didn’t darken.

“Already tried that.” That was Loren’s voice from somewhere on Cal’s right. He tried to turn his head, but a searing pain stabbed into it just above his ear, forcing him to face front again.

“Loren?” he said. “Who else is here?”

“We’re all here,” Mech replied.

“Jesus, was I the last one to wake up again?” Cal asked.

“Yep,” Mech confirmed. “We all came around before you.”

“Even Dave?”

“Oh yeah, Dave’s wide awake,” said Miz, sounding like her limited patience had been stretched to the limit. “He keeps crying about his toe, or whatever.”

“My finger!”

Miz rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It was funny when he started, but now he won’t shut up,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, great. Joke’s totally over, already,’ but he just keeps going on.”

“Because he chopped off my finger!”

“See?”

“Wait! Can anyone move their heads? Can anyone see Splurt?”

There was a general murmuring that suggested no-one could see him. Fortunately, one of them didn’t have to.

“He’s here. I can smell him,” Miz said.

More giggling emerged through the shadows. Cal pulled on his bonds, but could tell in the first half-second or less that he wasn’t going to be able to break them.

“Sounds like we’ve got company.”

“Oh yeah, totally. I can smell them, too, although I wish I couldn’t,” Miz said.

“How many?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know. Like… a lot.”

More giggles. More sniggers. It came from a number of different spots beyond the shadow veil, and Cal got the impression that the room was a large one, of which he could see only a small fraction.

“Mech? You planning on breaking us out any time soon?” Cal asked.

“Can’t,” Mech said, and there was a note of embarrassment in his voice. “Fonked if I know what these shackles are made of, but I can’t get them to budge a damn inch.”

“Can you reach your dial?”

“My hands are tied.”

“Shizz,” Cal spat. “Can anyone else reach Mech’s dial?”

“Our hands are tied, too,” Loren pointed out.

“Oh. Yeah. Damn it. But we have a plan, right?” said Cal, his tone flavored with just a hint of hysteria. “I mean, you all figured out an escape plan while I was still sleeping. Didn’t you?”

“Sadly not,” said Loren.

Cal exhaled slowly. “OK. OK, gotcha. So, we’re stuck here, with no hope of escape. That’s fine. That’s not a problem. It’s a problemtunity. That’s what the Japanese would call it. Right Dave?”

“He cut off my fonking finger!”

“See? Dave knows what I’m talking about.”

From the shadows, there came a scuffing sound. Movement. Cal tensed, sweat slicking his back as his fight or flight reflex kicked in, realized it currently served no purpose whatsoever, and so trickled out through his pores instead.

Cal had no idea what was going to emerge in front of him. The big, green, puffy-nippled guy was a pretty safe bet, although he was crossing his fingers for the Space Police, or a parallel universe version of himself who’d popped over to save the day. The Avengers, maybe. Hell, a random stranger with a set of bolt cutters would be a welcome sight at this point.

None of those emerged from the darkness, though. Instead, something the size of a three-year-old child came swishing from the shadows teetering atop an oversized unicycle. There were no pedals on the thing – the wheel seemed to turn itself – and the child-sized figure kicked his legs out and waved its arms above its head as is passed.

Its skin was the color of the summer sky, but with dark, dirty streaks like running mascara covering its face and neck. It wore a white satin one-piece suit, with a line of tiny bells sewn around the middle like a belt. Two weird sucker-come-mandible things stuck out from its neck at right angles, like bolts on Frankenstein’s monster. As the thing passed, they opened and closed, emitting a series of loud parps and honks.

With a giggle, the bio-bot returned to the shadows, only to emerge again a moment later, this time doing a handstand atop the unicycle’s saddle.

Its neck things parped again, and the thing took one hand off the saddle so it was supporting itself on just one as it swerved back into darkness.

“I hate to say it, but that was actually pretty impressive,” said Cal. “You know, with the one hand, and everything.”

Music began to play. If it had been faster, it would had been the sort of jolly, slightly manic tune that was appropriate for a circus. At less than half-speed, and interrupted as it was by a number of short, jerky scratches, it would be more at home in a funeral service, horror movie, or bad acid flashback. Not necessarily in that order.

Two more clown-things broke through the wall of shadow, forward-rolling into the light, their oversized shoes flailing clumsily. They both fumbled themselves into a standing position, then turned abruptly and crashed into each other. As their bulging bellies collided, two ‘amusing’ honks were farted out.

Behind them, in the darkness, dozens of voices sniggered and whispered.

Both clown-things jumped back in surprise, then turned away, crossing their arms in indignation. Their butts collided. There was more honking. Laughter followed.

“Are they… Are they putting on a show?” Loren asked.

“I think I’d prefer if they just went ahead and killed us,” said Cal. “I mean, the handstand guy had potential, but this is bottom of the barrel stuff.”

The laughter stopped, replaced by a low, unhappy murmuring.

The two clowns cut short their theatrics and turned, as one, to Cal, rage blistering behind their eyes.

“You had to open your fonking mouth,” Mech said. “You couldn’t just have watched the damn show. Which I, for one, was enjoying, by the way.”

“No, you weren’t,” said Miz, but Mech offered no comment in reply.

The shadows became alive with noise and movement. One by one, a series of grotesquely grinning visages appeared from the darkness. Some were smaller than the unicycle guy. Others loomed eight or nine feet in the air, their faces visible, but their bodies still hidden by the gloom.

“Hey! Look, the gang’s all here,” said Cal, his tongue rasping around inside his desert-dry mouth.

“Shizz. We’re in trouble,” said Loren.

“Maybe not,” said Cal. “Maybe they’re just going to take a bow, then fonk off and leave us alone.”

Some of the faces shuffled aside, and another shape emerged. This time, it was a stomach that appeared first – big and round and lime green, with a little hair-filled indent where the belly button either was, or should have been.

The nipples came next, like two puffy little soufflés. They were darker than the rest of the thing’s skin, and drew Cal’s eye despite his best efforts not to look.

Next to appear was the face. It was a face Cal had seen a lot of since their arrival on Funworld, grinning out as it did from behind every instance of the planet’s logo he’d seen dotted around the place. In print, it had bordered that line between jolly and creepy, but now there was no such balancing act. From its stretched lips to its bulbous eyes, this thing was all the way terrifying.

It moved slowly and awkwardly, shuffling its hippo-like legs along, wearing nothing but dirty white underwear and one enormous shoe. Its breathing was uneven and unpleasantly damp-sounding, like the air had to pass through a layer of mucus to escape.

It was somewhere around then that Cal spotted the knives. The clown-thing held them down at its sides, their points scraping lightly across the floor. They were machete-like, but with some twiddly bits and holes in the blade that may have been designed to make them look more interesting, or may be there to make being stabbed with them hurt even more.

“On second thoughts, who doesn’t like some well-choreographed slapstick?” said Cal. He forced a laugh. “Right? More of that sort of thing, I say.”

The clown-thing limped closer. The others drew in behind it, shambling from the shadows like the most colorful zombie horde that ever lived. Or unlived. Or whatever.

“I’d love to give you guys the round of applause you so richly deserve, but unfortunately, I’m currently restrained,” Cal said, in case this was somehow coming as news to any of the grinning freaks currently closing rank around him. He could smell them now, all sweat and blood and horror. His mouth moved faster, beginning to babble out words all by itself. “So, if one of you could just untie me and my friends here, we would be more than happy to show our appreciation for what I for one have always considered to be the noblest of all the arts.”

The mascot’s grin somehow stretched even further, showing more of his ample complement of teeth. Behind him, its minions sniggered and giggled.

“Leave him alone,” Loren cried.

“Yeah, back off you freakshows,” Miz growled.

Mech roared as he heaved against his restraints. “Come… on!”

“Oh God. Oh God, this is it,” Dave whimpered. His voice became a piercing cry. “Help us! Somebody help us! Please! I don’t want to die here.”

He broke into a mess of sobbing and snot. “It’s my anniversary! I’m supposed to be having fun.”

“I guess it’s kind of fun,” Cal whispered. “You know, in a sense.”

Dave scowled. “In what sense?”

“In a sort of ‘we’re all about to die’ sense,” Cal replied. “Still, look on the bright side.”

“What bright side?”

Cal hesitated. “Give me a minute. I’ll come up with something,” he said.

But he didn’t. There were no more minutes left. No more seconds left. No more time, period. The two slapstick clowns lumbered forwards, their rough hands going to Cal’s face.

“Hey, careful. Ow, ow, ow!” he complained, as they dug their fingers in around his eyes and forced them wide. Forced them to watch as the mascot-clown juggled both blades (it was quite impressive, Cal was forced to admit), then caught them, flipped them, and jerked them upwards in a violent stabbing motion.

Cal gasped as he heard metal tear through clothing and flesh. Mech roared. Loren screamed. Miz whined.

And then the hands pressing on Cal’s face became gelatinous mounds of quivering yellow, and the mascot clown’s smile fell away.

“Relax,” it said, in a voice like rich chocolate cake. “Everything is under control.”

Then it spun in an arc, completely decapitating three other clowns, and partially-decapitating a fourth from somewhere just above the nose.

Cal’s mouth fell open, letting out a breath he’d been holding in for far too long. “Well,” he said, in a low, shaky whisper. “I did not see that coming.”

Eighteen

For its size, shape and general disheveled demeanor, there was something almost balletic about the mascot-bot in action. Its arms moved like two independent living organisms, hacking and slicing and stabbing and thrusting, each strike turning another of the clown-things into custardy mush.

Most of them were too shocked to react, but one or two were pulling themselves together. A little guy – possibly the unicyclist, although his hair was greener than Cal remembered – bounded onto the head of one of its colleagues and launched himself at the traitor in their midst.

Without even looking round, the mascot jabbed the handle of one sword backwards, smashing open the incoming clown-thing’s bulbous red nose. It exploded with a honk, and a spray of colorful confetti spewed out down its chin, before drifting gently to the floor.

A flick of a wrist, a backward thrust beneath his own armpit, and the mascot-clown reduced his attacker to first a column, then a pile, then a puddle of gloop.

It spun, ducked, swung both swords upwards, briefly cleaving another of the bio-bots into thirds before all three sections disintegrated into yellow sludge.

“Anyone know what’s going on?” Cal wondered. “Because I have literally no clue at this stage. I mean… is this good? Are we rooting for this guy?”

The mascot-clown pirouetted neatly, removing two more heads from two more bodies, then finishing with spin, a thrust, and a textbook disemboweling.

“Long as he’s killing them and not us, I’m on his side,” Loren said.

“Unless he’s killing them so he can keep us all to himself,” Cal replied. “You know, like all to himself.”

“Right…” said Loren.

“Like, in an intimate way.”

“Yes, I get it.”

“By which I mean he might try to have sex with us.”

“Yes! I get what you’re saying,” Loren sighed. “But I don’t think he will.”

“Look at those nipples,” Cal said. “He’s absolutely going to try to have sex with us.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Mech said.

Cal squirmed. “I fonking wouldn’t. But if he does, I want to go first. No, wait. Last. I want to go last.” He bit his lip. “Or would it be better to get it over with? Shizz. What do you guys think?”

“I think you should stop talking,” Dave told him, clearly stifling a sob. “Please.”

The mascot stabbed a fat, slug-like clown through the head, then hurled his swords away from him in opposite directions. They tore through the chest of the second-last remaining clown, and punched a hole in the forehead of the last one standing. Both bio-bots toppled, one at a time, both becoming mush at almost exactly the same moment.

The swords clattered as they fell to the stone floor. The mascot-clown invested a couple of seconds making sure everything that had been solid and clowny was now soft and squidgy, then he retrieved the weapons and cleaned the blades by squeezing them under his armpits and pulling them through.

“Apologies for the scare. I had to wait until I had them all together before I acted. I couldn’t risk you being hurt.”

“Oh, thank God,” Dave spluttered. “You mean you don’t want to hurt us?”

“Of course not.”

“Great. That’s great,” said Cal. “And, out of interest, what is your position with regards having sex with us?”

The mascot-clown blinked a few times. “You’re not really my type,” he said. “No offence.”

“None taken. It’s fine. Totally fine,” said Cal. He was grinning so hard the mascot was forced to do a double-take to make sure he hadn’t missed a rogue clown-bot. “On behalf of Space Team, I’d like to say a huge ‘thank you’ for…”

The clown stepped past him and stopped in front of Mech. Tucking both swords under one arm, he snapped off a salute that involved a clenched fist and a series of strikes against his own bare chest.

Once he’d finished, he bowed his head in a gesture of deference and respect. “Commander Disselpoof,” he said, keeping his gaze averted from Mech’s. “It is an honor to see you again.”

Cal raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Aaaand suddenly I’m back to having no idea what’s going on.”

“Say what?” said Mech. “Uh, no. You got the wrong guy, man. I ain’t no commander.”

The mascot gave a single nod of his oversized bald head. “You warned us you would say something like that, should you ever return.”

“No, I didn’t,” Mech insisted. “And ‘return’? What do you mean ‘return’? I ain’t never been here before.”

“Oh, but you have, commander,” the mascot replied. He gestured vaguely around them. “You built it. You built this whole place.”

* * *

The crew, Dave and the thing everyone had thought was a clown-bot, but possibly wasn’t, all stood in a large freight elevator, swaying gently as it roared downwards towards the planet’s center. Of them all, Cal was the only one currently clutching the handrail until his knuckles went white. He was also the only one pressing his face against the elevator wall, hoping the cool metal against his skin would help him fend off the rising feelings of nausea and utter brain-melting terror.

“Holy shizz, this thing is fast,” he said, gulping back mouthfuls of bitter-tasting saliva. “I think, like, six of my vertebrae were just compacted into dust.”

The others mostly ignored him, with the exception of Splurt, who gave him a consoling pat on the back. Everyone else had focused their attention on the mascot. He had identified himself as Bobo 4, and was in the process of trying to deflect as many of their questions as he could.

Mech was asking most of the questions, although it was largely just the same question over and over again, with occasional alterations to the exact phrasing.

“What the fonk is going on?” he demanded. Again.

“Everything will make much more sense once we reach the complex,” Bobo promised. “The systems picked you up on your arrival, commander. I wanted to reveal myself sooner, but the risk was too great. I did, however, dispatch a squadron of security guards to assist you when you were in the hub…”

“Wait. You mean the little dudes? You sent those guys?”

“…but you bludgeoned them all into unconsciousness, leaving me no choice but to…” He looked down at his bare chest and dirty underwear. “…go undercover to bring you in myself.”

The mascot’s face brightened, taking on an almost hopeful expression. “Still, you’re here now. Please, commander, don’t consider this impertinent, but it is good to see you again.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say,” Mech muttered. He looked to Loren, but all she could offer as a shrug.

“Are these more inmates?” Bobo asked, glancing around at the others.

“Inmates? What? No,” said Mech. “These are my… Uh… These are my travelling companions.”

“Seriously?” said Loren, raising an eyebrow. “After everything we’ve been through?”

Mech sighed. “Fine. These are my friends. There. Happy?” He pointed to Dave. “Except that guy, who I don’t really know.”

Bobo regarded Dave, making the Earthman shift uncomfortably.

“He cut off my finger,” Dave said, holding up his right hand as Exhibit A. Some sort of rubbery wad now covered the severed stump, preventing any more blood loss.

“I noticed,” said Bobo. “The sealant will encourage healing.”

Dave studied the putty-like lump. “Will it grow back?”

Bobo raised one eyebrow. “Does it normally?”

“No.”

“Then I expect not.”

“Oh,” said Dave, failing to hide his disappointment.

Miz, who only now seemed to be catching up with the conversation, voiced a concern. “What do you mean by ‘inmates’ anyway? Isn’t this place, like, the lamest theme park in the universe? Why would a theme park have inmates?”

“All in good time,” Bobo promised.

Mech shifted his weight in a calculated display of menace. “I’d say now’s a pretty fonking excellent time,” he said. “Answer the question.”

Bobo appeared pained for a moment, but then nodded. “Very good, commander,” he said, addressing the group in general. “Funworld is not a theme park. Not really. That’s just a cover story we used to explain the extensive construction work required. We, under Commander Disselpoof’s direction, built this whole place from core to crust.”

“OK, first of all – no, you didn’t, because I ain’t ever been here before,” said Mech. “And second of all – why would you build a whole planet?”

A brief flicker of bemusement flitted over Bobo’s face. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Remind me.”

“We didn’t build a planet, commander,” Bobo said. “We built a prison. A prison designed to hold a single inmate. The most dangerous man in the universe.”

“Oh Jesus,” Cal wheezed, his voice muffled by the way the elevator wall was squishing his face. “Why do I get the feeling this is not going to end well?”

* * *

Cal fell through the elevator doors, spent a few moments hugging the floor, then was hoisted to his feet by Loren and Miz. As soon as they let him go, he began to fall again, so they both hooked one of his arms through their own, propping him up.

“Is it… Are we still moving down?” Cal asked.

“No,” said Loren.

“Because it feels like it’s still moving.”

“It isn’t.”

Cal closed his eyes for a moment.

“I think it is.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” Loren assured him.

Cal turned to Miz. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Are we going down?”

Miz’s eyes lit up. “I would totally be into that.”

“In the elevator, he meant,” said Loren. “He thinks the floor is still moving.”

“Oh.” Miz was unable to disguise her disappointment. “Then no. We’re not moving.”

Ahead of them, Mech, Dave and Splurt followed Bobo towards a heavily reinforced door.

“What’s happening?” Cal asked.

“We’re moving,” said Loren.

“Ha! I fonking knew—”

“Not like that,” Loren added, then she and Miz hoisted Cal off his feet and carried him after the others.

There was a scanner next to the door, positioned roughly at Bobo’s head height. He leaned towards it, then stopped as an idea hit him. He turned and gestured to Mech. “Commander? Would you do the honors?”

Mech hesitated, glanced at the others, then approached the door. He ran a finger across the metal casing of the scanner, and looked the door up and down. Then, he ducked forwards, bringing his eyes in front of the little rectangle of glass. A red light appeared and began swooshing from left to right and back again.

“So that’s what happened to KITT after Knight Rider ended,” said Cal. He grinned in Dave’s direction, but Dave was too interested in his missing finger to notice.

“Welcome, Commander Gluk Disselpoof,” the door said. There was a loud, angry-sounding buzz, like a big wasp with an attitude problem, then a series of clunks, rattles and thuds as various locking mechanisms disengaged.

The door slid aside, revealing a short corridor and another almost identical door up ahead. Bobo led the way, with Mech padding along behind.

“How did that work?” Mech asked. “How did that know me?”

“Like I said, because you built it. You built all of this.”

“What about that other guy? With the cane. On the video?” Cal asked. “Tingle? Something Tingle?”

“Ah. Thurp Tingle. Yes,” said Bobo. “A bio-bot playing a role. He is no longer with us.”

“Aw. I wanted to meet him,” Cal said. “He looked fun.”

“He beheaded a guest with his bare hands,” Bobo said. “I destroyed him myself.”

“You know, I thought there was something worrying about that guy.”

They reached the next door, and this time Bobo took care of the ID scan. “I should warn you, commander, much has changed since you left us,” he said. “We did what we could, but our forces are deteriorated, our resources depleted. The prison itself is still intact, of course, but staffing levels down here in the complex are… minimal.”

“How many of you are there?” Loren asked.

The door swished open, revealing a vast room with a heavily armored box-like building at the center. While the dark metal sides of the box were pristine, the rest of the place was badly in need of repair. Damp and scorch-marks stained the clinically white walls. Rust pock-marked the walkway-style metal floor. Through the gaps in the metal, the blue glow of some enormous power source provided a softly flickering light source that made the whole room feel like it was part of an underwater lair.

There was no sound from inside the room. No movement.

“There’s me,” said Bobo. “There’s only me left now.”

He pressed on, leading them into this new area. Cal nodded to Loren and Miz, letting them know he could walk on his own again. His first few steps were awkward and zombie-like, but he soon got the hang of it again, and made his way over to Dave.

“Hey. How’s the finger?” he asked.

“Still missing,” Dave replied, but there was a suggestion of a smile in there somewhere.

“Sorry,” Cal said. “He can be a real shizznod sometimes.”

Even though he’d deliberately raised his voice to make sure Mech heard him, the cyborg didn’t respond. Instead, Mech just plodded along after Bobo in a sort of angry bewildered daze.

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault,” Dave said. He glanced away, his cheeks reddening. “Sorry if I freaked out back there.”

“Freaked out? You? Nah,” said Cal.

“I think I might have,” Dave insisted.

Cal grinned. “Well… maybe just a little.”

“Maybe I should’ve been Shaggy.”

“Nah,” said Cal, shaking his head. “Listen, I bet even Fred gets scared sometimes.”

“Think so?”

“Sure!” Cal said. “I mean, I don’t know why, exactly. You’d think they’d have figured out by now that all those ghost sightings are bullshizz, and the monsters are just some creepy janitor dressed up, right?”

“Right,” Dave agreed. He frowned. “So… are we actually just talking about Scooby-Doo now, or is this a metaphor for something?”

“Hmm? Oh. No, we’re just talking about Scooby-Doo,” Cal said. He shook his head, looking genuinely quite angry about the whole thing for some reason. “Fonking janitors.”

“Yeah. Fonking janitors,” Dave agreed. He gestured ahead to the box-like building. “This is exciting, isn’t it? I’ve been coming here for years and had no idea all this was down here. I mean… it’s amazing.”

Cal shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so. I mean, I’ll be honest, I’ve seen weirder shizz. A lot weirder. One time, we found this old castle filled with clones of this inventor guy, and…”

Up ahead, Bob stopped at an apparently completely arbitrary spot roughly halfway between the door and the metal construction, and Cal decided to continue the story another time. The building stood around three stories tall, and was only slightly less wide. The longer Cal looked at it, the more enormous he realized the rest of the place had to be to accommodate it.

A number of complicated-looking control panels rose from the floor around Bobo. His sausage fingers prodded at the controls, and a hologram of Funworld appeared in the air. The image flickered and rolled a little, like the technology was old or in need of repair.

Once Bobo had fixed the image in place, he turned to Mech. “You have questions, commander.”

“You bet your fonking ams I got questions,” Mech said.

Bobo gave a curt nod of his large domed head. “Then please,” he said. “Allow me to explain.”

And he did.

Nineteen

Normally, Cal was not a fan of PowerPoint presentations. Back in what now felt like another life, he’d gone through a number of jobs in quite rapid succession, and several of those changes of career had come about directly as a result of having to sit through a presentation involving PowerPoint.

There was something about watching all those slightly blurry slides click by on a cheap fold-down screen that made him question all his life choices leading up to that moment. If only he’d gone left instead of right. If only he’d worked harder at school. If only he’d stayed in bed that day. So many if onlys, all of which would have meant he wasn’t sitting in a semi-darkened room listening to someone with all the charisma of a door handle explain a series of tedious graphs.

He wasn’t alone in feeling that way, of course - joined as he was by every other living creature in the entire history of the world – but his loathing for those presentations was of a raw, visceral type that ran far deeper than that of most people.

Space PowerPoint, on the other hand, was much better.

Well, a bit better.

Well, not so awful that he contemplated self-harming.

Much.

Bobo, for all his jolly, demented-looking exterior, was a pretty dull public speaker, and if it hadn’t been for Loren prodding him in the ribs with a finger a couple of times, Cal would almost certainly have glazed over during the entire presentation.

As it stood, he picked up maybe ninety per cent of it, and was reasonably confident he had the basic gist.

The whole of Funworld had been constructed around a single sphere, which was currently housed inside the metal construction dead ahead of them. Inside the sphere was a collapsing black hole, frozen in something called a ‘stasis field’. Inside the collapsing black hole was someone Bobo dubbed ‘the most evil being alive’. From the way he whispered it, and the expression on his face as the words passed his lips, Cal knew the prisoner had to be Grade A bad news. The lengths that people had gone to in order to keep the guy locked up – collapsing a star on him, then building an entire planet over the top – also suggested he probably wasn’t someone Cal wanted to get any better acquainted with.

The idea of turning the place into a theme park world had apparently been Mech’s from the start, although he was still in a state of denial about that. Keeping the black hole in a state of permanent stasis wasn’t cheap, and the proceeds of Funworld were intended to help offset the massive cost.

The massive one hundred million credits a year cost.

“So, wait,” said Miz, cutting in at that point. “That’s what the hundred million Kevin found in Mech’s head was? Like, the running costs, or whatever? You mean there’s no treasure?”

Bobo had explained that no, there wasn’t any treasure, and while he had no idea who ‘Kevin’ was, he confirmed that any reference to that specific sum of money was likely to be referring to the yearly energy bill.

“Great. So, we came all this way for nothing,” Miz said.

“You got to have a go on that big slide,” Cal pointed out, but Miz just rolled her eyes and tutted.

From there, Bobo went on to explain where the rest of the bio-bot security staff had gone (some had malfunctioned and/or gone nuts, the rest were now yellow mush for various reasons) and how he’d managed to keep the place running for so long on his own (with great difficulty, and not very well).

He also touched on ‘the incident’ that had started the chain reaction of bio-bot insanity ripping through the park, turning it into a survivalist’s wet dream, and severely hampering its ability to generate a self-sustaining income.

“Can’t you just ask for more funding?” Mech asked. “If you’re really holding the most dangerous dude in the universe, then surely it’s in Zertex’s best interests to up your budget.”

“Zertex don’t know about this place. No-one does,” said Bobo. “This complex predates Zertex by over a hundred years.”

Mech raised his eyebrows. “Well then, there you go! Whoever this commander is, it can’t be me. I wasn’t even alive back then, let alone building no planet-sized super prisons.”

“You were,” Bobo replied. “Your mission was capture and restraint. Once those were achieved, you left. Protocol demanded a memory wipe to erase all knowledge of this place’s existence.”

“I ain’t hundreds of years old,” Mech said. “I mean, that’s crazy.”

Bobo’s fingers danced across his controls. The image changed to show a slowly rotating 3D hologram of someone that looked a lot like Mech. His mechanical parts were smaller, and there were a couple of additional fleshy patches on his head and neck, but there was no denying it was him. He wore a tight-fitting uniform, and was pointing forwards in a, ‘Your Country Needs YOU!’ kind of pose.

“That does look like you,” Loren said.

Mech shook his head, but there was no conviction behind the movement. “No, I… I don’t… That’s not… That can’t be.”

“You’ve put on weight,” Cal pointed out. “I mean, I’m not saying you’ve got fat, exactly, but you’ve definitely put on weight.”

“Who is it?” Miz asked.

“It’s Mech,” Cal said. “I thought we’d established that?”

Miz tutted loudly. It echoed around the vast room. “I meant who’s the prisoner? Who have they got locked up that’s so dangerous they need a whole planet to themselves?”

“Tell me,” said Bobo. “Are you familiar with the name Geronimus Krone?”

“Ha!” Loren snorted. “Good one.”

“Who’s Geronimus Krone?” Cal asked. “You know, aside from the guy with the second worst name in the galaxy.”

Mech frowned. “Second? So, who’s got the worst name in…?” He caught Cal’s gleeful look, then sighed. “Oh. Right. Gotcha.”

“Gluk Disselpoof,” said Cal, grinning from ear to ear. “Still gets me every time.”

“You remember those guys you told us about?” Loren asked, turning to Cal.

“I told you about a lot of guys,” Cal replied. “Can you be more specific?”

“The scary ones.”

Cal thought back. “The Munsters?”

“No. The made-up ones.”

“I’m pretty sure the Munsters were made-up.” He turned to the only other person in the room likely to have any authority on the subject whatsoever. “Dave?”

Dave blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Hmm?”

“The Munsters.”

“What?”

“The Munsters.”

Dave frowned. “Why are you saying ‘the Munsters’ at me? What about them?”

“Are they real or fictional?”

“Fictional.”

“You sure?”

“Hundred per cent. Definitely fictional. Same goes for the Addams Family.”

“Well, obviously they’re not real,” Cal said, shooting Dave a look that suggested he was out of his fonking mind. Cal turned back to Loren. “Like I thought, the Munsters are definitely fictional,” he said, then: “What’s that got to do with anything? Why are you asking about the Munsters?”

“What? I wasn’t,” Loren replied.

“What the fonk are you two talking about now?” Mech demanded.

“I don’t know, she’s the one who started saying the Munsters are real!” Cal protested. “They aren’t, by the way. I checked.”

“What? No, I didn’t!” Loren snapped. “I don’t even know who the Munsters are!”

“They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and—”

“That’s the Addams Family,” Dave said.

“Damn it! So it is.”

Loren was about to continue arguing, but then she gritted her teeth, held them together for a few moments, and exhaled slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was more controlled. “You mentioned other people. Bad people. Scary stories that people on Earth made up to frighten kids. The Boggleman, or something?”

“Ah! You mean the Boogeyman,” said Cal.

“Right! And who was the other one?”

Miz glanced up from examining her fingernails. “Hitler.”

“That’s it!” Loren said. “The Boogeyman and Hitler. You know how you said those were made up to scare kids?”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t include Hitler in that, but go on,” said Cal.

“Well, that’s Geronimus Krone,” Loren concluded.

Cal nodded a little vaguely. “Oh. So, you’re saying… You’re saying… Actually, what are you saying?” He gasped and pointed to the box, suddenly wide-eyed. “Space Hitler’s in there?”

“No! Well, I mean, yes,” said Loren. “I mean Geronimus Krone doesn’t exist. He’s a fairy tale. If kids misbehave, or won’t do what they’re told, their parents tell them he’s going to come and eat their eyes out.”

“Jesus! That is some terrible parenting,” said Cal. “I mean, that’s going to screw up a child for the rest of their life.”

Loren folded her arms defensively. “My parents used to say it to me all the time.”

“The prosecution rests its case,” said Miz.

“So, you used to misbehave, huh?” said Cal, smirking as he looked Loren up and down. “You know, bad girls are pretty hot.”

“I was nine,” Loren pointed out.

“Ooo-kay, then,” said Cal, his face falling. He cleared his throat and nodded to Bobo, who had been watching them in a sort of bewildered fascination. “Anyway, let’s all go back to listening to the clown guy and pretend that last conversation didn’t happen. You were saying?”

“Geronimus Krone is no fairy tale,” Bobo said. His voice dropped into a barely audible whisper. Cal wasn’t sure if it was for effect or if he was genuinely worried that whoever was inside the box might hear him. “For months, he tore across the galaxy, carrying out atrocity after atrocity. Mass-murder. Genocide. Extinction level events that left entire planets devoid of even plant-based life.”

“Busy guy,” said Cal.

“Whole systems stood against him. Differences were put aside and galaxy-wide alliances were formed in an attempt to halt his progress. All of them were unsuccessful. All of them failed.”

“That’s pretty much the story I heard,” Loren confirmed. “Except it’s not real.”

“It is. He is. I assure you,” said Bobo. “Geronimus Krone is as real as you are. He murdered billions of innocent people. He boiled atmospheres and snuffed out suns, and it seemed that no-one could stop him. And then he was stopped. Here. By him.”

All eyes went to Mech. The cyborg looked slightly uncomfortable at all the attention, then he shrugged. “What can I say? I’m fonking awesome.”

“And he has been here ever since,” Bobo concluded. “Held prisoner, away from the eyes of the universe.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to, you know, just kill him?” said Cal. “I refuse to believe ‘build a theme park on him’ was the most efficient solution to the problem.”

“We tried,” said Bobo. “Many tried. But Krone would not die. He lives even now, frozen in time, crushed forever by the weight of an imploding star.”

Miz picked at her claws and exhaled, like she’d just been subjected to the single most tedious experience of her entire life, and possibly of anyone else’s entire life, too.

“I, like, totally hate to agree with Miss Childhood Trauma here,” she said, flicking a contemptuous look in Loren’s direction. “But she’s right. “Geronimus Krone isn’t real. He can’t be.”

Bobo appeared thoughtful for a moment, then he shrugged his big bare shoulders. The sudden upwards movement of his nipples caught Cal’s eye, and he watched them, mesmerized, like a cat catching sight of some dangling string. He was able to resist the urge to paw inquisitively at them, although only just.

“It is understandable that you would have doubts,” Bobo said. “That Geronimus Krone has become the thing of legend does not come as any great surprise.” He raised a hand and gestured in the direction of the box. “So, perhaps you would like to see for yourself?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Cal, waving his hands over his head. “Abort. Abort. Back up. Stop right there. We are not going to go in and take a look at the most dangerous guy in the universe.”

“Why not?” asked Mech.

“Because we’ll mess it up! It’s what we do,” Cal said. “Miz will slouch on the wrong control panel, or I’ll trip over Splurt and land on the ‘release prisoner’ switch, or Loren will, I don’t know, somehow crash a vehicle into something important, and it’ll all be terrible.”

He looked across the faces of the others and crossed his arms defiantly. “I am not being responsible for accidentally freeing Make-Believe Space Hitler. No way. Not happening.”

“The security protocols would prevent any such calamities,” said Bobo. “I assure you, it’s perfectly safe.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He shrugged. “Fonk it, then. I guess there’s no harm in taking a look.”

* * *

Splurt clung to Cal’s leg as everyone followed Bobo into the metal box through a door that hadn’t even been there until the clown-dude had scanned his eyeballs on the wall. The inside of the box was illuminated in a purple-pink, and an electrical humming made the hairs stand up along Cal’s arms.

It also made the hairs stand up along Miz’s everything. She tried smoothing the worst of it down, but static crackled between her fur and her fingers, and she let out a little yelp of shock.

“Apologies,” said Bobo. “The shielding generator can have a number of side effects on those inside the vault. Static shocks, nausea, headaches, dizziness, cancer...”

“Gotcha,” said Cal. “Wait, what?”

“Cardiac arrest, impotence and sterility among males, baldness, aneurisms, blindness, crippling mental disorders, complete organ failure,” Bobo continued. “It varies.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“One gentleman – a security consultant – inflated. Just inflated, right before my eyes.”

“Did he deflate again?” Loren asked.

Bobo chose his next few words carefully. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Shouldn’t all this information be, like, written in big letters on the door outside?” asked Cal. He looked down, then grabbed Splurt and held him up like a blobby shield. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, but Splurt looked quite pleased about this turn of events.

From behind his protective barricade of sentient goo, Cal examined the room. There was very little in it besides four intersecting walls of energy – two running parallel from floor to ceiling, two bisecting these horizontally.

The energy walls effectively split the room into nine sections. If one of the metal walls could have been removed and the room viewed from side-on, it would resemble a Tic Tac Toe grid, with a big fat circle already drawn in the center space.

“Is that it?” asked Miz, not bothering to hide her disappointment as she peered through the forcefield at the dull gray ball floating in the center of the middle boxed-off area. “I thought we were going to see Geronimus Krone?”

“This is his prison,” Bobo explained, his voice becoming a whisper of awe. “That Indestructium sphere contains the heart of an imploding star, and inside that lies Krone himself. Frozen. Trapped. Forever.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” said Cal. “Indestructium? That’s not it’s real name, surely?”

Bobo raised an eyebrow in confusion. “It is. What of it?”

“Indestructium,” Cal said. He looked around at the others, expecting to find them looking equally amused. None of them did. “So, let me guess, it’s indestructible? That’s why it’s called that?”

“Why else would it be called that?” Mech asked.

Cal shook his head, grinning. “No. I mean, you’re right. If you’re going to make indestructible metal, you may as well call it indestructium. Fonk it, why not?” He nodded to Bobo. “Continue.”

“Yes. Right. As I was saying, Krone is trapped forever within this sphere.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll be here forever,” said a voice from behind them.

Cal and the others turned to see Dave finish inserting something into both ears. Earphones, Cal thought, although he couldn’t see any wires.

“You don’t?” said Cal. “How come?”

He watched as Dave reached into his pocket and withdrew something that looked not unlike a large pen with a series of lights running down the side. Before the words ‘space pen’ could even begin to form in Cal’s mind, Dave raised the device above his head and closed his eyes. There was a high-pitched whine that made Miz hiss, then a blinding flash filled the inside of the metal box.

This time, Cal didn’t feel his brain turn to mush, but his body immediately gave up on him. His legs slipped in opposite directions and Splurt tumbled from his arms as Cal lost control of his muscles.

Loren, Miz and Bobo all dropped, too. Only Mech remained standing, but his arms fell to his sides and his head listed at an awkward angle like a boat letting in water.

Dave opened one eye, swiveled it around to make sure everyone was down, then grinned and flipped the device into the air, before catching it again. “So, turns out that worked,” he announced, slipping the gadget back into his pocket. He pulled a couple of small white balls from his ears, rolled them between his fingers, then flicked them both at the energy shield. They sizzled, then fell to the floor, smoking and charred.

“I mean, I knew it’d work, of course,” said Dave, slipping off his shoes. He picked them up, gave them an experimental sniff, then pulled a mildly disgusted face. “Took months and a lot – a lot – of money to develop, but we tested it extensively before taking it into the field. Didn’t want to screw this one up – am I right?”

“Wh-aat arrre you t-t-talllking ab-b-out?” Cal asked. His mouth felt fat, swollen and – weirdly – far away.

“Oh, Cal. Cal Carver. Adorable imbecile, Cal Carver,” said Dave, jiggling Cal with his foot. “So far out of his depth he doesn’t even know he’s drowning.”

Reaching inside his shoes, Dave pulled out two small circles of metal, each a little larger than a poker chip. He dropped his shoes and began wriggling his feet back inside, then flipped both the disks like coins.

“You really believed all that, didn’t you?” Dave said. “That we knew each other. That somehow, in this whole big, bad nothingness, we just happened to bump into one another at a theme park, of all places. You genuinely believed that’s what happened.”

Dave leered down at Cal and jabbed a finger in the direction of the motionless Mech. “He knew! He tried to tell you that the odds were astronomical, but you didn’t listen, did you? And why? Because you wanted it to be true. You needed it to be true so badly that you ignored all evidence to the contrary.”

With his shoes back on, he squatted down next to Cal and ruffled his hair. “The truth is, Cal, we’d never met until the landing bay. I mean, I’d been tailing you for a while – well, your cyborg, at least – that’s how I knew about the reward money I stole from you. Say goodbye to that, by the way, you’re never getting it back.” He mimed tapping a keyboard very quickly. “I’m also the one who unlocked the cyborg’s secret brain compartment, knowing you’d have to come and investigate. I needed him to get through security. But met? Us? Me and you? No, I’m afraid not.”

A dribble of saliva fell from Cal’s lips like spider silk. “H-how diiiid…?”

“How did I know the stuff I knew? Like I said, I’d been following you. I picked up a few things, used some fairly standard con tricks to get the rest out of you. Oh, and the AI on my ship was patched into the park’s psychic scanners. That helped a lot. A lot.”

He slapped Cal on the cheek a couple of times in a way that was partly playful, and partly painful.

“I kneeeeew h-h-h-he werennnnn’t from Ear-t-t-th,” said Mech through unmoving lips. His voice sounded like it was on an old tape recording that had become badly entangled in the cassette player.

“Oh, I’m from Earth,” said Dave. He thumped himself on the chest. “One hundred per cent U.S. bred beef right here. In fact, most of the story I told you is true. You know, about being abducted? The Oovil and their probing little fingers.”

He stiffened, just slightly, at the memory, then continued. “Except I didn’t complain to their supervisor, and they didn’t give me their ship. I killed them and took the ship. Well, I killed most of them. I left one alive and forced him to show me how to fly the thing, and then I killed him.” He laughed. “Technically, I began killing him. It took a while. He was quite the stubborn little butthole. Had one, too. Wasn’t so keen on probing when the shoe was on the other foot. Or the spike was up the other… you know.”

“B-b-buuuutthooole,” Cal said. “W-weee caaan…?”

“Yes, yes, we can say ‘butthole,’” Dave said. “I have a whole list of words the filters don’t screen for. Would you like me to tell you them?”

Cal tried to nod, but his body completely ignored him. Dave leaned in closer, his voice becoming a manic little whisper. “Well, I’m not going to.”

He sniffed the air, a faraway look rearranging the features of his face. He glanced at Splurt, sniffed again, then turned back to Cal. “By the way, do you know your weird fat kid smells like Silly Putty?”

Giving Cal’s face a stroke, Dave sprang to his feet, words tumbling out of him now as if he was up against the clock. “Anyway, long story short, I explored space for a while, fell in with what some might consider ‘the wrong crowd’, killed a sizeable number of other people, aliens, things, whatever you want to call them, and then found myself rising swiftly through the ranks of a very exclusive, and extremely well-connected organization. Yadda-yadda-yadda, blah, blah, blah, fast forward a couple of years and here I am about to set free the most dangerous man in the universe!”

He threw up his hands and laughed drily, like he couldn’t quite believe it all.

“What a day,” he said. “Oh! And by the way…”

He spun, raised a foot, and slammed it as high up Mech’s torso as he could reach. To everyone’s surprise – not least his own - Mech toppled backwards, then clanged against the metal floor. Anger flared in Dave’s eyes. “That’s for my fonking finger.”

From behind him there came the sound of claws scratching on the floor. Dave spun and saw Miz’s arm shift a couple of inches towards him, her chest heaving from the concentration and effort. He drove his foot against the side of her head, snapping it around and taking all the remaining fight out of her.

“Down, doggy,” he said.

“Ffffoooonking k-k-iiilll y-yooo,” Cal wheezed.

“Haha! Yes. Good luck with that,” Dave said. He clapped his hands, then rubbed them together. “Now, if it’s all the same with you guys, I think it’s time we got started!” He stood over Bobo and smiled down at the inert bio-bot. “First up, handsome, I’m afraid I’m going to need your eyes.”

Twenty

Dave grunted and struggled as he dragged Bobo across the floor, one arm wrapped around the bio-bot’s neck, the other gripping the waistband of his underwear. For Bobo, it wasn’t exactly a dignified means of travel, but the fact that his body was limp and lifeless meant that at least he wouldn’t feel the record-breaking wedgie he was currently being subjected to.

Breathing heavily, Dave rolled the enormous clown-thing over on his front and began hoisting him up onto his knees, just as two eye-scanners rose out of the floor on stalks a few feet apart.

“OK, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dave urged, trying to angle Bobo’s eyes towards one of the little scanning screens, but the bio-bot’s head lolled forwards and both stalks continued growing for another three feet or so.

“Ballsacks,” Dave spat. He began inserting himself underneath Bobo, trying to support the weight of the clown-thing across his back and shoulders. “I know what you’re thinking,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “That I should just cut its head off, or pop his eyes out. That’d be easier.”

Cal wasn’t thinking either of those things, but he didn’t have the energy to argue.

“But it’d turn to mush, you see? It’d be useless, and so I’m stuck having to…” He grimaced as he straightened his legs, bringing Bobo’s head closer to the scanner height. The clown’s face was angled down, and it took a few attempts for Dave to hook a shoulder under his chin and raise Bobo’s eyes to the scanner.

There was a faint bleep and the scanner retracted back into the floor, leaving the other one standing by itself over on Dave’s right. He sighed with relief as he shrugged the bio-bot off, then put a hand on his back and physically straightened himself.

“Phew. I am glad that’s done,” said Dave. He pointed down at the slumped green-skinned figure. “And look, I didn’t even have to kill him.”

Lunging, Dave caught Bobo by the head and twisted until something went snap. The others watched on in mute, helpless horror as the space clown became yellow sludge.

“I didn’t have to, but I did it anyway,” Dave sniggered. “See, that’s just the way I roll.”

He cackled as he flicked some of the goo in Cal’s direction, then spun on his heels until he was facing Mech. “Now it’s your turn, big guy,” he said, shuffling towards him in a series of dance steps that somehow managed to convey something like sarcasm.

“C-caaan’t l-lift meeee,” Mech warbled.

“We’ll see about that,” said Dave. He flicked both the metal disks he’d taken from his shoes, one in each hand, then caught them. “Ptchow, ptchow!” he said, tossing them both at Mech’s chest. They clamped on like magnets, and Dave waved his hands above the currently horizontal cyborg. “Abracadabra… Machinus risum…”

Nothing happened.

“Oh well, worth a try,” said Dave, then he reached down and found a couple of handholds in Mech’s frame. The disks pulsed with a faint blue light and Dave hoisted Mech off the ground as if he were lighter than air.

“Wh-aaaat th-e-e f-fonnk?” said Mech, as he was carried over to the second scanning stalk.

“I know. Cool, isn’t it?” Dave said. “Technology. Where would we be without it?”

He hummed under his breath as he turned Mech towards the scanner. “Argh,” he said, when he recognized the tune. He shot Cal a look of amused irritation. “I’ve got the fonking Addams Family theme stuck in my head, thanks to you.”

Dave shrugged. “Still, small price to pay to get my hands on this, I suppose.”

He forced Mech’s face in front of the scanner. The red light swooshed, bleeped, then the whole thing retreated into the floor. The energy walls flickered ominously, before shutting down one by one.

“Yes!” Dave roared, gazing up at the now exposed Indestructium sphere. It still hung in the middle of the room, showing no signs of moving. “I’ve got it. I’ve actually got it!”

He pulled the disks from Mech’s chest and jumped aside as Mech dropped like a stone – or, more accurately, like an enormous metal man - to the floor.

“I mean, I never really doubted it, but… Wow. I’ve done it!”

He turned the metal disks over in his hands, then tossed them both at the sphere. They clanged against the side, lighting up in an urgent shade of red as they attached. Dave stepped back as the ball fell. The impact of it shook the building, and quite possibly the planet itself.

Reaching a tentative hand towards the metal, Dave gave it a poke. He studied the end of his finger, presumably to make sure nothing terrible had happened to it, then pressed his whole hand against the sphere’s side. “It’s cold,” he said. “It’s freezing. I mean, I guess that makes sense.”

He rapped his knuckles against the metal. “Yoo-hoo! Anyone home?” Turning, he winked at Cal. “Just kidding. I know he’s in there. But he won’t be for long.”

Reaching into his pocket, Dave withdrew another gadget. This one was a small rectangle, slightly larger and thicker than a credit card. Cal wondered how he was going to open the sphere with that, but then Dave raised the thing to his mouth and spoke into it. Lights flickered across its surface in time with each syllable.

“Got it. Lock on and prime for extraction,” he commanded, then he yelped and was sent staggering when something small green and slimy crashed into his chest, stubby arms thrashing and flailing.

“What the fonk is…? Weird fat kid?” Dave laughed, shielding himself from Splurt’s frenzied flurry of punches. “You know, I wondered if the Fritzer would work on you. Guess I got my answer.”

“S-Spluuuurt, n-n-no!” Cal stammered.

Grabbing Splurt by the front of his Funworld t-shirt, Dave wrenched him away. His fist left an indent in the little guy’s head, and Splurt rippled in distress.

“God damn, you smell like Silly Putty,” Dave told him, then he spun around and tossed Splurt across the room. Splurt hit the wall with a damp, painful-sounding splat and rolled down it until he found the floor. He lay there, his back curved towards the rest of the room, unmoving.

“Y-youu m-mooonster,” Loren wheezed. Her arm twitched, but her body otherwise refused to respond.

“Haha! Yeah,” said Dave, slightly dreamily. He shrugged, then returned to the sphere. “Under normal circumstances, I’d kill you all now, but… I don’t know. Where would be the fun in that?”

He aimed the next part directly at Cal. “Fact is, I like knowing you’re out there. I want you to come after me. I urge you to. I really do. You think you’re some cool action hero, flying around, having adventures, and I want to show you the truth.”

Dave bit his bottom lip, wanting to delay this moment so he could truly savor it. “I want to show you that you’re nothing, Cal Carver. That you’re a little boy playing big boy games. I want to show you the strength of my organization, and how truly, utterly, completely insignificant you are.”

“F-f-onk—”

“Yes! Backchat! I love it,” said Dave. “Keep that up. Don’t ever change. It’ll make breaking you all the more entertaining.”

A halo of light encircled Dave and the Indestructium sphere. He looked up, just briefly, and couldn’t quite manage to hide his disappointment.

“Ah, shizz. Looks like my ride’s here,” he said. “This has been a blast. Truly. We’ll definitely do it again sometime, OK? Probably when you least expect it. You kids be good in the meantime, you hear?”

He put his arms down at his side and looked upwards, then remembered something. “Oh, and Cal?” he said. “I fonking hate The Big Lebowski.”

“S-s-son offff a—” Cal began, but then the light became brilliant and blinding, and the spot where Dave and the sphere had been became empty and silent.

Several stunned seconds passed without comment. It was Cal who finally chipped in.

“Buttth-hole.”

Over by the wall, Splurt rolled over, his bloodshot eyes scanning for trouble. Having made certain the coast was clear, he jumped to his feet and scampered over to Cal, something clutched in his stubby fist. Something that looked awfully like a pen.

No, not a pen. A space pen.

“W-way to g-ggoo, buuuddy.”

“Seeeee if-f it haaas a r-r-r-r-r—” Mech stammered.

“R-reverssse,” Loren finished for him.

Splurt held the device above his head, like He-Man with his magic sword, then lowered it and studied the controls. With his one tiny finger he prodded a button on the side. A light flashed, and Cal felt himself lose what little bladder control he’d been able to retain the first time.

“W-wronnnng o-n-n-nne,” he said, his voice now a barely intelligible series of slurred consonants and vowels. “Trrryyy ag-g-gain.”

Splurt pushed another button. Pain tore through everyone, thrashing them around in violent convulsions. The little blob watched them for a while, wide-eyed, then pushed the button again. The thrashing stopped.

“J-Jeeeeesush,” Cal sobbed. “N-neeeever t-touch thaaaaaaat ag-g-ain.”

Splurt prodded another button. Everyone braced themselves, which was tricky with zero muscle control. There was… no, not a flash. An absence of flash, like all the light was temporarily sucked out of the room and into the device.

When the light returned, Cal blinked. It was the first time he’d blinked in a few minutes, and he’d forgotten how enjoyable it was.

He blinked a second time, swore to himself he’d never take his eyelids for granted again, then scrambled to his feet. Loren and Miz were already up, and Mech was whirring himself into position.

“That fonking fonking… fonk!” Cal hissed. “I’m going to kill him. Seriously. I am totally going to kill that butthole-faced ballsack.”

“Join the queue,” said Miz, rubbing her cheek where Dave’s foot had smashed into it.

“First, we need to get out of here,” Cal said. He spun to find Mech standing over the mound of yellow mush. Cal put an arm as far around the cyborg’s shoulders as he could reach. “Hey, you big lug. You OK?”

“What? Yeah, man,” Mech said. “It’s just… He had the answers, you know? If what he said is true, then it turns out my whole damn life has been a lie, and he might be the only one who knows the truth. Knew the truth.”

“I know. I know,” said Cal, patting Mech’s back. “Want me to say a few words?”

“Not really.”

Cal nodded. “Well, I’m going to anyway.”

He set his jaw and stared solemnly down at the mush pile. “We didn’t know each other long, but based on what little we knew about you, I think you were a good… man? Is that racist? I don’t know. Let’s just say space clown. You were a good space clown. I mean, truly fonking horrifying to look at, but your heart was in the right place. If, I don’t know, if you had a heart. I’m not an expert on… whatever you were.”

He sniffed, as if fighting back tears. “For a while there, you were one of us. You were one of the team. One of Space Team. And now you’re custard. But we’ll always remember you, and I swear now, over your dead body, we will avenge you, Coco.”

Mech sighed. “Bobo.”

Cal looked at him blankly.

“Bobo. His name’s Bobo,” said Mech.

“Oh,” Cal replied. He frowned. “What did I call him?”

“Coco.”

Cal continued with the blank look.

“And that’s wrong,” said Mech. “It ain’t Coco. It’s Bobo.”

“Seriously? Have I had his name wrong this whole time?” Cal wondered. “Did I say it out loud to him at any point? God, that’s embarrassing.”

“I’d imagine it’s low on his list of concerns,” Loren chipped in.

Cal shrugged. “Anyway, my point is, we’ll avenge your death, Bobo. Even if it takes all day.”

“And if it takes longer than a day?” Mech asked.

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, we need to get out of here and find that lying, two-faced, treacherous, fonk.”

“And the most dangerous man in the universe,” Loren reminded him.

“One thing at a time,” Cal told her. “Mech, I officially promote you to Fred. Dave, if that’s even his real name, Dave is now Scrappy-Doo.”

Mech shrugged. “Whatever, man.”

“Well at least try to show a bit of enthusiasm,” Cal said.

Mech forced a smile that was more like a grimace.

“Fonk it, that’ll have to do,” said Cal. “Now, can we do the beam-up thing that he did?”

Loren shook her head. “No.”

Cal tutted. “Vajazzle could do it. Dave can do it. Why can’t we do it? Is this, like, exclusively bad guy technology, or something? Jesus,” Cal said. He took a breath composing himself. “Fine. We can’t beam up, that’s fine. We can still do this. Space Team…”

He pointed dramatically towards the open door behind them. “To the elevators!”

* * *

Cal followed Mech, Loren and Miz into one of what seemed to be dozens of elevators, none of them marked with anything that indicated where they led to.

“I have a good feeling about this one,” Cal said. “I think this one will take us to the Hub, then we can jump on the drop pod thing and—”

“Just press the button, already,” Miz snapped. “That guy is so not getting away.”

“Right, right, yeah,” said Cal. The control panel had two buttons, one near the top, and one near the bottom. Cal pushed the top one. They waited for the doors to close.

The doors didn’t close.

Cal pressed it again. “Is it on? Maybe it’s broken,” he said.

“I think it might have to scan me,” Mech said, indicating the eye-scanner at head height.

There was a small scuffle as everyone shuffled aside so Mech could get to the front. The red light flashed in his face and he pressed the ‘up’ button.

“Goodbye, Commander Disselpoof,” the elevator chimed as the doors swished closed.

Just before they did, Splurt hopped backwards into the hallway. Cal grabbed for him.

“Splurt, no!”

But then the doors thoomed closed and G-Force pushed down on them all as the elevator car rocketed up towards the surface.

“We have to go back!” Cal yelped. “Splurt’s still down there.”

Loren put a hand on his arm. “We will. Don’t worry. We’ll get him. He’ll be OK.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he’ll be OK,” said Cal, bracing himself against the wall as the elevator somehow picked up speed, hurtling them faster and faster towards the surface.

In just a few seconds – although it felt like significantly longer to Cal – it began to slow. The car jerked a little as it came to a complete stop, then the doors opened, revealing a wide open plain that was fringed in the distance with alien-looking trees.

There was a Tyrannosaurus Rex looking back at them. Or something that bore more than a passing resemblance to one, anyway.

It was around the size of a T-Rex, with a long tail that ended in a spiky club. Its snout was a scarred, deformed lump of a thing, the mouth twisted upwards into a clown-like rictus grin. Its eyes were two baseball-sized dots, set deep in a head that on its own was larger than Mech’s entire body, and sturdier-looking, too.

Jets of hot white steam billowed from its nostrils as it stared down at the door that had opened in the side of a gnarled old tree, and at the occupants lurking inside it.

“I don’t think this is the Hub,” Loren whispered. The monster cocked its head, its eyes narrowing to slits. “We came too far east.”

“We hope,” Cal murmured. “The alternative is, we’ve come too far west, in which case this thing won’t just want to eat us.”

“Aw, man. You are never getting to choose the elevator again,” said Mech.

“Just press the button, try not to make it angry,” Cal urged. “We’ll go back down and—”

The clown-rex’s tail smashed into the tree, crumpling the side of the elevator and sending everyone but Mech staggering. It drew back and swung again, and this time Mech shoved the others through the door, then stumbled out behind them. The second impact obliterated most of the tree, and sent the elevator car plummeting downwards, out of control.

The monster lowered its head and screeched at them. Its breath hit Cal like a hurricane force wind, flipping him over into a sort of tumbling somersault that ended when he hit something large and solid.

Groaning, he looked up into the dark, hungry eyes of a huge bird-like creature. A car-sized beak opened, then snapped down. Cal ducked, dived and rolled clear. The thing wailed furiously as it pecked nothing but ground.

Far off below, they heard the elevator car hit the bottom. Several seconds later, they felt the rumble of it beneath their feet.

“Anyone have any ideas?” Cal asked, bunching together with the others. Several more enormous creatures had emerged from behind rocks, crawled out of a murky lake, or burrowed up from below ground. There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to their design, like a box full of assorted horrifying animal parts had been tossed in the air then assembled in whatever order the pieces landed.

Most of them wore the same face-stretching smile as the T-Rex-thing, but there any similarities between them ended.

Except their interest in killing Cal and the others, of course. They seemed to be fully in agreement on that particular matter.

“I can take care of them,” Miz reckoned.

“I don’t know,” said Cal, as diplomatically as he could. “They look kind of mean.”

“Cal’s right,” Loren agreed. “You could probably take out some of them, but we should stick together.”

“We’re not together,” Cal said, looking back at the carnage of the elevator.

“We’ll get him,” Loren promised. “But for now, we need to— Look out!”

Something big, scaly and stupid-looking pounced. Shoving Cal out of its path, Mech drove his fist hard against the side of its head, right below one of its four eye sockets. The thing staggered and squealed, but – much to everyone’s annoyance - didn’t fall. An arm unfolded from within its chest, scything into Mech’s metal ribcage. The impact lifted him, depositing him again several feet away, with two grinning brutes growling down at him.

“Aw… fonk,” he grunted, then he caught a set of slavering jaws that chomped at him, his arms shaking as he tried to force the ugly big bamston away.

A rock clacked off the side of the thing’s head. A saucer-sized eyeball swiveled and found Cal waving at it. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said. He gestured down at himself. “Want some of this?”

Cal was so occupied with trying to draw the attention of the beast that he failed to notice quite how effectively he was drawing the attention of several others. Loren shoulder-barged him aside as a whip-like appendage snapped at the air where he’d been standing. Miz bounded onto it, claws slashing, teeth biting, her whole body a furry frenzy of fury.

Something clipped Loren’s leg, knocking them from beneath her and spinning her into a full sideways flip. He boots caught Cal on the chin, and they both hit the ground more or less simultaneously.

Mech, meanwhile, was still wrestling with those enormous jaws. Something else was gnawing on at least one of his legs. He pulled up a system status report and watched as the damage readout scrolled upwards past his field of view. Nothing major so far, but the pressure the thing’s teeth were exerting meant it was only a matter of time before…

Something in the status report changed color. At first, Mech feared the worst, until he realized the text had changed from red to green, indicating something coming back online.

“How the fonk…?” he wondered as he read the display, then he decided not to question it any further. Instead, he twisted his wrist, turned his face away, and fired a bolt of concentrated energy through the head of the thing he was fighting with.

The skull erupted into yellow goo, the rest of the body following soon after. It washed over Mech, burying him from head to toe. As he wriggled free, he felt the ground beneath him begin to tremble and shake.

Cal and the others felt it, too. Miz glanced down, just for a moment, but it was a moment too long. The creature she’d been tearing into seized its chance, hammering her with an overhead strike from its one giant fist.

The monsters began to draw in around them. Mech raised both arms and took aim. “Hey, you ugly pieces of shizz!” he bellowed, drawing their attention. “Eat this.”

Two blobs of yellow goo spluttered and oozed out from within his clogged-up arm cannons. He stared at them in disbelief. “Aw, son of a—” he managed, before he was buried beneath a thrashing mound of arms, legs, claws and teeth.

The ground shook again, more violently this time. Cal and Loren pulled each other to their feet, then helped Miz up, too. The rumbling grew louder, faster, more intense. Not an earthquake, Cal thought. More like what he imagined a volcano might sound like right before it erupted.

Something was rushing up the elevator shaft. Something big. Something fast.

And then it emerged – an enormous brown mass that seemed to expand as it stretched out from within the narrow lift-shaft.

A foot – no, not a foot, Cal realized, a paw, slammed down on the ground beside them with enough force to shake even the monster-things several inches into the air.

“What the fonk is that?” Loren cried.

Cal’s grin lit up his whole face. Tears sprung to his eyes for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.

“What’s that?” he said, in a whisper of awe. “Scooooby-Dooby-Dooooo!”

Twenty-One

Cal wished he had popcorn.

Despite the fact that Dave had likely now escaped, despite the fact they had – just as he’d predicted – been instrumental in freeing Space Hitler, and despite the fact they were surrounded by either very violent or very horny giant clown-monsters, he wished he had popcorn. It wasn’t every day you got to see giant Scooby-Doo fighting a smiling dinosaur, after all.

Had he been watching this on TV, he’d consider it up there with one of the greatest episodes of Scooby-Doo ever. Darker than most other episodes, granted – what with all the violence and killing and screaming – but still awesome.

“Guess he stayed behind to take out the dampening field,” said Loren, sidling up to Cal. They watched as the Scooby-shaped Splurt bit the head off another grinning monster, reducing it to goo.

“Looks like it,” Cal agreed.

Something huge and ape-like leaped towards Splurt’s tail. A second Scooby-Doo head bloomed from the end of it, and swallowed the thing whole.

“You know, we probably don’t give him enough credit,” Loren said.

Cal nodded. “You’re probably right,” he agreed.

Behind them, Mech spoke into his communicator. “Kevin. You there?”

“Where?” came the somewhat startled reply. “Oh! Yes. Yes, I’m here. Hello, sir.”

Cal rushed over to Mech’s side. “Great! Kevin, we need you to get down here and pick us up. If you can’t find us, just look for the fifty feet high animated Great Dane. Chances are we’re near that.”

“What about the planetary shielding, sir?” Kevin asked. “I’m afraid getting through it is quite impossible.”

“Can you blow it up?” Cal asked.

“Oh, yes. Yes, I suppose I could do that,” Kevin admitted.

Loren arrived at Mech’s other side. “Has anyone left recently?” she asked.

“No, not that I’ve noticed,” said Kevin.

“Thank God,” said Cal. “Then they might still be around.”

“Unless you mean that other ship,” Kevin continued.

Cal clenched a fist and raised it threateningly in the direction of the speaker. “Yes, we mean the other ship. Has it gone?”

“Just, sir,” said Kevin.

“Did anyone get aboard?” Mech asked. “You know, like some nine-fingered dude with a big metal ball?”

Kevin hesitated. “A big metal what, sir?”

Miz leaned over Mech’s shoulder. “Just, like, anyone,” she barked. “Did anyone get on the ship, or whatever?”

“I wasn’t really paying too much attention,” Kevin confessed. “I was playing Hide and Seek.”

“On your own?” Cal asked.

“Well… how else would one play Hide and Seek, sir?”

Everyone exchanged glances. Behind them, Scooby-Doo murdered a two-headed dino-clown.

“Forget it, we don’t want to know,” said Cal. “Just get down here.”

“Very good, sir.”

The voice was cut off by the sound of the Untitled’s engines igniting. Cal immediately looked up, searching for some sign of the ship.

“He probably teleported aboard, or whatever that was,” Loren said.

“Beamed,” said Cal. “Where I come from, we call that ‘beaming up’.”

“Bullshizz,” Mech snorted. “You ain’t got technology anything like that.”

“Tell that to the crew of the Starship Enterprise,” said Cal, in what he thought was a suitably vague and mysterious way.

“It’s from some stupid TV show, isn’t it?” Miz asked.

Damn it.

“Oh look,” said Cal, pointing up and deliberately changing the subject. Something exploded over near the horizon. The sky flickered as the planetary shield fizzled out. “Kevin’s coming.”

He turned, raising his voice. “Scooby-Doo, where are…?”

Splurt sat on the ground behind him, pulsing gently, his wide eyes gazing up through his gloopy green ball of a body. Behind him, the terrain was thick with yellow gunge, but noticeably clear of monster-clowns.

“Good to have you back, buddy,” Cal said, then he ducked as the Currently Untitled swooped past just above everyone’s heads, fired its landing thrusters, and lowered to the ground in a cloud of dust and a spray of gloopy monster parts.

Cal turned and addressed the planet at large. “Funworld, it’s been… Not ‘fun’ exactly, but—”

Mech grabbed him by the neck and bundled him towards the landing ramp. “Shut up and get on the fonking ship!”

* * *

“Hurry along now, everyone,” Kevin intoned, as the crew entered the bridge. “I suspect the operators of Funworld may take issue with me blowing their expensive shield generator to pieces.”

“I doubt that,” said Cal, dropping into his chair. “Pretty sure this place doesn’t have any operators left.”

“Really, sir?” Kevin asked. A small square window appeared overlaid on the main screen. “Then who are this lot?”

Five ships approached, their paint jobs bright and colorful, their hulls amusingly fat and rounded.

“I don’t know,” Cal admitted. “Maybe they’ve come to help.”

The ground around the Untitled erupted in a hail of cannon-fire. The thack-thack-thack of the blasts striking the shield echoed around the bridge.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say maybe they haven’t,” Kevin replied.

“Shizz. Loren, take us out of here,” Cal barked.

“On it,” said Loren, her control panel locking into place around her.

“Oh, she’s flying now, is she?” Kevin asked. “Suddenly, I’m not good enough.”

“Loren flies the ship. That’s just how it works,” Cal explained. “If she wasn’t the pilot, we’d have to get rid of her, and nobody wants that.”

Miz opened her mouth.

“Almost nobody wants that,” Cal corrected, cutting her off. “Now get us airborne before—”

More cannon-fire rained down, rocking the ship.

“That happens!”

Loren’s fingers flew across the controls. The Untitled lurched into the air just as the ground where it had been standing was obliterated by another series of blasts.

“Mech, can you talk to these guys? Tell them who you are?”

“Who is he?” Kevin asked.

“Long story,” said Cal, dragging his seat belt across his chest as the ship suddenly dropped several dozen feet to avoid a scything stream of scorching energy from one of the attacking ships. “Jethus! I jutht bit my tongue!” Cal yelped.

“Can’t be done,” Mech said.

“Yeth it can,” Cal said, pointing to his mouth. “Of courthe it can.”

“Not your tongue, shizznod! I mean I can’t talk to those ships. They’re automated defense drones. Ain’t no-one to talk to.”

“They’re faster than they look,” Loren warned, rolling the Untitled out of a torpedo lock.

“That’s not exactly saying much,” Miz said.

“Should I return fire, sir?” Kevin ask.

“Yurth!” said Cal, then he stopped rubbing his tongue and tried again. “Yes! Of course! Shoot back!”

“Very good, sir.”

Splurt hopped into Cal’s lap and snuggled in. On screen, five approaching drones became four, then three, then two.

Cal missed the guns. The guns were fun. He had to admit, though, that Kevin was by far the better shot. Personally, Cal preferred a more seat-of-the-pants, frantic battle for survival type shootout, but given the circumstances, there was something to be said for the cold, clinical efficiency with which Kevin was destroying the attacking ships.

“They don’t even appear to be shielded,” Kevin announced, locking onto the final ship. “I almost feel guilty.”

The cannons flared. The last colorful, jolly-looking drone became debris. Cal watched it fall until it hit the ground, then gave a nod of satisfaction.

“Nice shooting, Tex,” he said. “Now get scanning. Find that ship.”

“Which ship?” Kevin asked.

“The ship. The other ship,” Cal said. “On the landing platform. The ship we asked you about.”

“The ship,” said Loren, as if that would somehow clear everything up.

“The one that flew away,” Cal continued. “The one that was on the landing platform with you. We asked you about it, and you said it flew away.”

“Oh! The ship,” said Kevin. “What about it?”

“We need you to find it,” Cal said.

“Aha! Right. Got you, sir. That’s an easy one,” Kevin replied.

“Great!” Cal cheered. “Where is it?”

“It’s behind us.”

The Untitled shuddered violently. Alarms screamed. Lights flickered, then returned in shades of stark, worrying red as reams of damage report data rolled up the screen.

“We’re under attack!” Loren warned.

Miz tutted. “Seriously? Like, we totally hadn’t noticed.”

“We’re being hailed,” Mech announced.

“On screen!” said Cal, but a box showing Dave’s smirking face had already appeared.

“Wow. ‘On screen’?” he sniggered. “You really do fancy yourself as quite the Captain Kirk, don’t you?”

“Beam this up, Scotty,” Cal retorted, giving Dave the finger. “Now, give us back the big ball of evil, or we’ll blow you out of the sky.”

“I was content to let you live, you know? I was being serious about all that stuff,” Dave said. “But you had to go and spoil it.”

“That’s what we do,” said Cal. “Spoil things.”

He narrowed his eyes, considering his last statement. “I mean, not everything. Just, you know, bad guy stuff, or whatever. It’s not like we spoil… Know what? Forget it.”

“All I wanted was a head start,” Dave explained. “But you couldn’t even give me that. I assume your weird fat child took the Fritzer. Clever. I’m actually impressed.”

“I aim to please,” said Cal.

“Yeah. It’s not you I’m impressed with,” Dave said. “You just lay there dribbling down your chin.”

“Or did I?” said Cal, raising one eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes, you did.”

Cal hesitated, then conceded with a nod. “Touché.”

“Anyway, as a result, I’m going to have to kill you sooner, rather than later, which is all a bit disappointing.”

Dave sighed, and began adjusting controls on a panel just below the camera’s field of view. “Goodbye, Cal.”

“Wait!” Cal said, the note of desperation in his voice taking him by surprise. “Don’t go. Not… not yet.”

Dave paused, and raised his eyes to the screen again. Cal shifted in his seat, like he couldn’t quite get comfortable. Splurt gazed up at him, wide-eyed.

“Are we the last?” Cal asked.

Something passed, just fleetingly, behind Dave’s eyes. “By now, I assume so, yes.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. “And you’re OK with this? Us killing each other?”

“No. No, I’m not OK with that,” Dave replied. “Fortunately, we won’t be killing each other. I’ll be killing you. That’s quite different.”

“You know what I mean,” Cal said. “You’re OK with killing the only other Earthman in the universe?”

Dave looked up, as if in thought. “Yep. Yep, I think I’m fine with that,” he said.

“Good. Just checking. Me, too,” said Cal. “Kevin, fire!”

Nothing happened.

Several awkward moments passed.

“Hmm? Sorry, sir, were you talking to me? I was miles away.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

A torpedo slammed into the shielding, sending the Untitled into a downwards list. Mech jabbed a finger towards the screen. Dave’s face had gone, and the view was now of nothing but uninterrupted land mass in all directions.

“Ground, ground, ground!” Mech shouted.

“I see it!” Loren cried.

“Like, I should fonking hope so,” Miz chipped in. “It’s covering the whole screen.”

“Loren, you need to pull up!” Cal bellowed.

“I know!”

Heaving on the stick, Loren punched the front take-off and landing thrusters, nudging the nose upwards until the horizon came into view. It was a horizon that quite prominently featured Dave’s ship, and even more prominently featured a large number of torpedoes.

“Oh… shizz,” Loren mumbled. “Brace, brace, brace!”

The sound was incredible. It exploded from all directions in rapid succession – bang, boom, crack – shaking and shuddering the ship until Cal felt like his brain was turning to mush inside his skull.

“Shields at twenty per cent,” Mech announced, once the onslaught had stopped.

“Kevin, fonking shoot that guy!” Cal commanded.

“He’s coming back around. Everyone hold on!” Loren yelped, pulling the ship into a steep upwards climb that almost made Cal choke on his own tongue. Cannon-fire scorched the air. The shield flickered, then Dave’s ship whistled past beneath them, already looping into a figure of eight pattern designed to bring the Untitled back into its firing line.

“Sixteen per cent,” Mech said. “We can’t take much more.”

“Kevin! I do not hear any shooting from our guns! Are you going to return fire, or do I have to do it myself?”

“Firing now, sir,” said Kevin. A swarm of small white rocket-like projectiles appeared briefly at both sides of the view screen, then sharply banked off in the direction of Dave’s ship, which was rapidly coming up behind them again. “Ooh, that was a new one,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know we had those.”

“Show me,” Cal ordered. An overlay appeared showing the rockets closing on Dave’s ship. He zig-zagged through them, and while one or two ricocheted off his shielding, most of them exploded against the ground.

“Damn it. Fire again!”

“Very good, sir,” said Kevin.

“Wait!” Loren cried. She stole a glance back over her shoulder. “Is this wise? If we blow him up, won’t we free Krone?”

“He’s in an indestructible bubble,” Cal reminded her.

“Indestructium isn’t actually indestructible.”

“It isn’t?” said Cal. He threw up his hands. “Then why the fonk is it called Indestructium?”

He sighed and shook his head. “Kevin, hold our fire for now.”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry, sir. The missile’s already away. I shot it ages ago.”

“Ah well, fonk it,” said Cal. “It’s not like we’ve got a whole lot of options. If Dave gets away, then Space Hitler will be free, anyway. If we take the ship down, at least we’ll be alive to stop him. Or run away. One of those.”

“It missed, incidentally,” Kevin said. “He’s an exceptional pilot. Much better than ours.”

“Hey!” Loren protested, jamming the ship into a dive as she tried to shake off another torpedo lock.

“Just my little joke, ma’am,” said Kevin. His voice lowered to a whisper as he addressed Cal. “You can’t see it, sir, but I was winking when I said that.”

“I can still hear you!” Loren said.

The Untitled skimmed above some treetops, staying low. Something large and scaly reared up from within the foliage, then was instantly decapitated by a tailfin. A warning alarm chimed as Dave’s ship bore down on them from above.

“Fonk this guy!” Cal said. “We need to take him down now! Let’s hit him with everything we’ve got.”

“He’s only going to dodge it,” Miz said. “What’s the point?”

“Uh, the point is not to die,” Mech said. “But she’s right. We’ll need to hit him a whole lot of times to even get through his shields.”

Mech straightened with a whirr. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Cal asked, then he flopped wildly as the Untitled corkscrewed, turned upside down, then spun into a climb. “Christ,” he wheezed, as Splurt detached himself from the ceiling and dropped into his lap again. “Was that necessary?”

“Yes!”

“OK, then. Carry on,” Cal said.

“Oh man. Oh man!” Mech boomed. “The connection’s still open.”

Cal spun his chair towards him. “Connection? What connection?”

“When he hacked us. When he accessed our databanks and stole all our fonking money, he had to connect wirelessly to our ship.”

“If you’ve got a point, Mech, make it quickly. I’m about to vomit myself inside out.”

“I can track back along the connection and bring down his shield!”

Cal sat forward in his seat. “You can?”

“Yeah. I mean, maybe. I mean… it’s a long shot, but at this stage it’s worth a try.”

Miz shrugged. “I mean, unless I’m missing something, all you do is stand there reading stuff off the screen that we can all read for ourselves anyway,” she said. “You might as well give it a shot.”

“Do it,” Cal said, holding onto Splurt as the Untitled banked sharply to avoid a screaming torpedo. Mech cranked his dial to his left and immediately toppled backwards.

“Interfacing now underway,” he said, his voice now higher in pitch. “Penetrating firewall now.”

Cal smirked. “Penetrating.”

A stream of burning red energy raked across the underbelly of the ship. Cal, Loren and Miz all looked at the corner of the screen.

“Nine per cent,” Cal said. “Huh, you’re right, Miz, we can just read it ourselves. It’s probably easier, actually.”

“Fonk,” Loren spat, throwing her weight into the stick and sending them into a sideway spin. “He’s coming again. I don’t know how long I can keep holding him off for.”

“You’re not exactly holding him off now,” Miz pointed out.

“Mech, how you doing down there?” Cal asked.

“I’m currently infiltrating via a back door,” chimed Mech’s voice.

Cal thought about smirking and saying, “Back door,” but decided against it.

“I now have limited access to the ship’s system, including the shield controls,” Mech said.

“Then shut them down!” Cal barked. “Kevin, get ready to hit him with everything we’ve got.”

“Very good, sir,” said Kevin. “Weapons, too?”

Cal frowned. “What? Yes. Yes, weapons, too. In fact, just weapons. What else did you think...? Forget it. Just get ready.”

“Oh,” said Mech.

“Oh? What’s ‘oh’?” Cal asked.

“It appears the warp disk is unshielded,” Mech said. “I could destabilize it, triggering a detonation from within the ship. A self-destruct sequence, if you will.”

“What’ll happen to the big ball of evil?”

“Impossible to predict,” Mech replied. “However, we will be alive, which would otherwise seem an unlikely prospect.”

Cal nodded. “Do it.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Done.”

The incoming message icon flicked up on screen. It blinked on and off several times before Cal glanced around. “Is someone going to answer that?”

“I would, but I’m currently immobile,” Mech pointed out.

“Oh, so that’s what he does!” said Cal. “Loren, could you…?”

“Trying not to die,” Loren retorted, gritting her teeth as she pulled the ship out of a sharp dive.

Splurt stretched himself over to Mech’s console, tapped a single button, then returned to Cal’s lap. Dave’s face appeared in the top corner, looking far less confident than it had last time.

“Hey, Dave!” said Cal. “Fancy seeing you here. Everything OK?”

“What have you done?” Dave growled. Smoke drifted up from the console in front of him. He wafted it away. “This was you, wasn’t it? This was you?”

“What was us?” Cal asked.

“You compromised my warp disk!”

Cal pulled a surprised face, then looked at the others. “Did any of you guys compromise Dave’s warp disk? No? Anyone?”

Pushing an ear forward, Cal pretended to listen to Mech. “Wait. Yeah, apparently that was us,” Cal said. He leaned forward in his chair. “So, here’s the deal. Land your ship, hand over Geronimo What’s-his-name and we’ll make sure that—”

On screen, Dave’s ship exploded. His scream crackled from the Currently Untitled’s speakers, then was abruptly silenced. His face remained frozen on the display for a moment. Cal stared at him. The second-last man alive.

Or, at least, he had been.

The imaged fizzled out. They all watched as the flaming debris of Dave’s ship fell towards the surface of Funworld far below.

“OK, so that blew to bits far quicker than I thought it would,” Cal said, then he pointed to the debris, and to the large metal sphere tumbling through it. “There! Space Hitler, one o’clock.”

“Scanners suggest the sphere is damaged, but its integrity is still intact,” Mech’s voice announced.

“Oh, thank God,” Cal said, relaxing back into his chair. “That’s good.”

“However, the impact with the ground will almost certainly cause said integrity to fail,” Mech continued. “Thereby unleashing a collapsing black hole, and the proclaimed most dangerous man in the universe.”

“That’s less good,” Cal said.

“Should I shoot it, sir?” Kevin asked.

“No!” Loren said. “We want to keep it intact.”

“Then we catch it,” said Cal.

“How?” Miz asked.

“The tow rope. Or beam. Or whatever,” Cal said. “The thing we used on the scout ship.”

Loren didn’t waste time replying. She leaned forwards on the stick and engaged the thrusters, hurtling them into a steep downwards dive, chasing down the plummeting sphere.

Flaming debris passed through the shield and clanged against the hull as the Untitled rocketed down, down, down, the screen now filled with ground, ball, and not a whole lot else.

“Someone else needs to aim the tow beam,” Loren said, shouting to be heard over the screaming of the engines. “Kevin?”

“Currently on repair duty, ma’am,” the AI replied. “Rather busy stopping the ship falling apart.”

A joystick twanged up from Cal’s chair and hit Splurt between the eyes. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. Cal stared at it, uncomprehending, then suddenly it all made sense.

“OK, where’s my viewfinder thing?” he called, grabbing the stick.

“I’m afraid it isn’t connected to the tow beam systems, sir. You’re going to have to eyeball it.”

“Fonk. OK.”

Cal waggled the stick, and a tiny set of crosshairs shimmied around on screen. “Got it. OK.”

Taking aim at the ball, he squeezed the trigger. Nothing appeared to happen. “Did I get it?”

“We’re not close enough,” Kevin said. “The targeting reticle will illuminate when we’re within range.”

The sphere tumbled and rolled towards the waiting ground. Cal could see the tops of trees, large boulders, and a few monstrous-looking things roaming around now. It was all coming up too soon, too fast.

“We’re going to hit!” Loren said. “I’m pulling up.”

“Wait, not yet!” Cal told her. He clenched his back teeth together. “Come on, come on, come on. Light up you shizznod.”

“Cal! We’re going to crash!”

“Just be ready.”

“Oh, great. We’re totally all going to die,” Miz said. “Like, thanks a lot you guys.”

Cal glowered at the crosshairs, willing them to change. “Come on! What are you waiting…?”

The reticle went from black to red. Cal squeezed the trigger and felt a shudder of feedback along the stick.

“Got it!”

Loren performed a number of sudden pulls, jerks, twists, tugs and kicks, putting everything the ship had into pulling up. The ground was still hurtling towards them, the sphere suspended midway between the Untitled and a spectacular meeting of metal and rock.

“Kevin, I need more power!” Loren screamed.

On screen, the shield display dropped to zero. The red warning lights that had been illuminating the bridge evaporated into darkness. Cal felt Splurt tremble in his lap, but could only grit his teeth and grab his arm rests and brace himself as the ship juddered and bounced and shook.

Monsters scattered on the plain below. Dust clouds billowed around, churned up by the Untitled’s thrusters.

“We’re not going to make it!” Cal cried. He closed his eyes, swallowed, and shouted: “I love you guys! Even Mech! Sometimes! There, I said it! I’m sorry I acted like a miserable shizznod. I missed home, but this – you guys – this is home. I’m sorry, I should have realized sooner! I should have—”

“Cal.”

“Loren! God, Loren, there’s so much I wanted to say to you. So much I wanted us to do together, and now…”

“Cal!”

Cal opened his eyes. The horizon loomed ahead, dropping further and further down the screen as the Untitled climbed towards the clouds.

“We’re OK. We made it,” Loren said. She shot a wary glance at Miz, only to find her glowering back. Loren smiled hopefully, but Mizette sneered, looked possessively in Cal’s direction, then hooked her legs over the arm rest of her chair and went back to examining her claws.

“We did?” said Cal. He sat upright. “I mean… Yes. We did! Great.”

He chuckled, trying to hide his embarrassment. “We’re alive. Yay! And we may or may not have said things in the heat of the moment which me may or may not have meant in the cold light of day! Go us!”

“Whatever you say,” said Loren. She tried to meet Miz’s eye again, but Mizette was too busy with her nails. “So. What now?”

Cal tapped a fingernail against his teeth. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “How do you solve a problem like Space Hitler? That’s from a song by the way.” He shrugged. “You know, kind of. Can we just stick him back, do you think?”

“No. That is not a possibility,” Mech’s voice informed them. “It appears your fellow Earthman had a final trick up his sleeve.”

“Is it a fun trick?” Cal asked hopefully.

“Before his ship was destroyed, I intercepted a signal. It appears he has started a chain reaction at Funworld’s core,” Mech said.

“I also intercepted that signal,” Kevin said. “In case anyone was wondering.”

“We weren’t,” said Cal. “What do you mean, ‘a chain reaction’? What kind of chain reaction?”

There was a flash from the bottom of the screen as a fountain of flame erupted through the planet’s crust. “Oh, that kind. Gotcha,” said Cal.

“Quick reminder – we have no shields,” Kevin intoned. “Might I recommend we collectively get the fonk out of here, sir?”

Another geyser of fire punched through the surface of Funworld, hurling molten balls of rock and metal into the air.

“Recommendation accepted,” Cal said. “Loren, punch it.”

“Punching it,” Loren confirmed. The Untitled rumbled as it lifted its nose to the atmosphere and accelerated towards space.

“Kevin, show me the planet’s surface,” Cal said. An overlay from the rear view camera appeared in the corner of the screen.

Funworld’s crust was criss-crossed by cracks and chasms. Flames burned in the spaces between them, belching black smoke into the air.

Cal barely noticed. Instead, he focused on the scattered debris of a single ship, and watched it grow smaller and more distant, until it was consumed by a growing lake of lava.

“I hope you don’t think it impertinent of me to say so, sir,” Kevin intoned. “But we love you, too.”

Cal tore his eyes away from the screen and looked up. “Thanks, Kevin.”

“Well, some of us,” Kevin said.

Cal’s smile remained fixed in place. “Right. Good to know.”

“Others, naming no names, not so much.”

“Gotcha. Thanks again.”

“Any time, sir.”

As the Untitled punched through the atmosphere, Cal slapped his hands on his thighs. “OK. So, the most evil man in the universe is currently dangling beneath our ship. I think we’re all agreed we can’t leave him there indefinitely.”

“You appear to have no problem with leaving me here indefinitely,” Mech’s voice said with a note of accusation. “If someone could be so kind as to adjust my dial, it would be tremendously appreciated.”

Splurt hopped down from Cal’s lap and rolled over to Mech. With a twist of the control knob, Mech’s hydraulics clattered back into life. He sat up, his scowl returning. “Next time, how about you don’t make me have to ask?” he said, then he clambered back to his feet. “Oh, and by the way, shields are at zero per cent, and if you must know, I also occasionally push the map button. You’re welcome.”

“Jesus. OK. Well, you know, good job, keep it up,” said Cal. “Now, about old Geronimo down there.”

“Geronimus,” said Loren.

“Yeah, that’s the one. So, I have an idea on how to deal with him.” He spun in his chair, taking a moment to fix on his most compelling, trustworthy smile. “But there’s a chance you might not approve.”

Twenty-Two

Cal, Loren, Miz and Mech all stood in a line, watching the sphere be loaded aboard an unmarked ship. They were on… a moon, Cal thought. Maybe a planet. Somewhere out of the way and boring, anyway, just as he’d instructed.

He hadn’t expected the president herself to come. That was a nice touch. She stood with a number of generals or Legates or whatever the fonk Zertex called them, observing the loading process.

“For the record, I do not think this is a good idea,” Mech said. “Handing this guy over to Zertex? I don’t like it.”

“What else were we supposed to do with him? Just drag him around with us like some kind of ship’s mascot?” Cal asked. “How would that have looked? ’Hi, we’re Space Team. What, this old thing? Oh, that’s the most evil man in the universe. We carry him around in a big ball for luck.’”

“But Zertex, man. Fonking Zertex.”

“Yeah, but new and improved Zertex,” Cal said. “The new president seems nice. I have a good feeling about her, and I’m an excellent judge of character.”

The others all looked at him as one. “What about Dave?” Loren asked.

“Exactly! Mech thought he was a bio-bot. I knew he wasn’t.”

“He was evil, though,” Miz pointed out.

“Those are just details,” Cal replied, waving a hand dismissively. “Besides, Zertex won’t want that guy to get free any more than we do.”

Loren shrugged. “He’s right. It’s in everyone’s best interests if he stays locked away. Like it or not, Zertex are probably the best-placed to do that.”

“Couldn’t we have, like, given him to the Symmorium?” Miz asked.

Silence fell.

“Now you fonking make that suggestion,” Cal said. “You couldn’t have said that three hours ago before we called Zertex?”

He puffed out his cheeks, then watched as the sphere vanished inside the cargo bay of the ship. “It’ll be fine. It’s going to be fine.”

“You can trust me, Mr Carver,” said President Valtrax, striding towards them. She was flanked by guards on both sides, but indicated for them to stay back as she drew closer. “I appreciate your concerns, I do, but I am not President Sinclair. My word is my bond, and I give you my word that the contents of that vault will remain safely hidden and locked away. No-one wants someone like that on the loose.”

“Exactly. Couldn’t agree more,” Cal said. “Appreciate the help on this one.”

Valtrax nodded. “Of course. It is my pleasure,” she said. “I will contact you when we wish you to repay the favor.”

“Right,” said Cal. “Well, I guess it’s time we… Wait. What?”

“What favor?” asked Loren.

The president looked momentarily puzzled. “Taking care of your problem. The resources required will be considerable.”

“No, but you said you wanted to repay us,” Cal reminded her. “For the whole saving the universe and-or exposing Sinclair thing.”

“And we did,” said Valtrax. “You wanted an adjustment made to the censorship functionality of our translation chips. The adjustment was made. You said yourself, that made us even. You, if I remember your phrasing correctly, called it ‘quits’.”

She gestured back towards the ship. “This? This is the beginning of a new deal. We do you a favor, and one day shall expect a favor of you in return. That’s how friendships work.”

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t,” said Cal.

“Hey, now, wait a minute…” Mech began.

“Relax, Mr Disselpoof,” Valtrax said. “It may never happen. And if it does… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She smiled efficiently. “For now, a galactic-level threat has been averted. That’s all that matters.”

“Thanks to us,” Miz pointed out.

“Yes. Us,” the president agreed. “We really do make rather a good team.”

She about-turned crisply. “You’ll be hearing from me in due course,” she said, then she beckoned her guards to her side and they marched, together, into the ship.

“What the Hell just happened?” Loren asked. “We just stopped the bad guy. How are we now beholding to Zertex?”

“Yeah. That absolutely backfired,” Cal admitted.

“Totally should’ve gone to the Symmorium,” Miz muttered.

“Again, useful suggestion three hours ago,” Cal said. He sighed heavily, squeezed the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, then shrugged. “Ah, fonk it, we’ll just block her number. It’ll be fine. The main thing is, we stopped the bad guy. Right?”

“Right,” said Loren.

“I guess,” Miz grunted. “I can’t believe that psycho was going to free Geronimus Krone.”

“I can’t believe there’s actually a Geronimus Krone,” Loren said.

Mech nodded. “And he would’ve gotten away with it, too…”

Cal laughed. It exploded out of him unexpectedly, taking with it that nagging feeling of empty dread that had been dragging him down since Earth.

“What?” Mech asked. “Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, doesn’t matter,” said Cal. “Now come on, you pesky kids.”

He gestured upwards to the dark abyss of space. “Let’s go team the shizz out of that thing.”

They had barely gone three paces in the direction of the ship when Loren went and spoiled the moment.

“What does that even mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It sounded better in my head,” Cal admitted. He looked ahead to the Untitled, and to the vast universe of possibility that lay beyond. He might be a lone Earthman, but at least he wasn’t an alone one.

He rubbed his hands together and made for the ramp. “Now,” he said, grinning hopefully. “Who’s all up for Monopoly?”

* * *

Far away, near the fringes of the galaxy, a lone ship sliced through space, moving much faster than its clunky shape and peeling paintwork would suggest possible. A grinning green clown stared out from the side of the hull, a single word emblazoned beneath it: Funworld.

Aboard, behind the controls, the only other Earthman alive rocked gently in his chair, humming the theme to The Addams Family beneath his breath.

Occasionally, he stole a glance back over his shoulder at the large metal sphere that took up most of the ship’s interior. The cold radiated from it in waves, prickling the hairs at the back of his neck. He shivered, less with the chill than with the thrill of what was to come.

They’d fallen for the fake ship. They’d brought the other ball to Zertex.

Everything had gone to plan.

And the plan was only just beginning.

“We’ll have you out of there in no time, Mr Krone,” he promised, then he giggled like a space clown as his ship steamed onwards into the black.

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Also by Barry J. Hutchison

SPACE TEAM SERIES

Space Team

Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle

Space Team: The Search for Spurt

Space Team: Song of the Space Siren

Space Team: The Guns of Nana Joan

Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy

Space Team: Planet of the Japes

Space Team: A Lot of Weird Space Shizz

DAN DEADMAN SERIES

“Dial D for Deadman”

“Dead Inside”

EVERYTHING ELSE

The Bug