4

IT WAS A WOMAN. SHE was wearing masculine work-wear – baggy trousers splattered with pockets and grease and dirt and minor repairs, boots that could easily kick you to death, a thick belt with tool clips and holsters, and above all that; I think you call them a ‘tank-top’? Rather skimpy, actually. On her tattooed shoulders was her breather ring, a real clunker to my eyes and evidently oft-repaired judging by the number of unofficial-looking access panels, and above that was the shimmering force-field that kept her alive. In full daylight, especially in the older models which didn’t have anti-distortion synchronization, it looked to me like a spherical multi-coloured mirror. (Mine, of course, would have looked the same to her.) As you can imagine I was speechless. I was still trying to figure out where she'd sprung from!

To my surprise she hooted with laughter. “Screw that, mate. Ain’t no ‘ma’am’s in this town. Now can ya just move your fuckin’ arse!”

She had pulled back, and I finally figured out the entire picture. She was standing on some sort of vehicle – a muscular/industrial conglomerate of machinery clustered under and around a sort of sea-shell cockpit. Two seats, one set of controls, and a plazglaze dome currently flipped back. Down below all that were those insectoid legs I had first seen.

Not wishing to annoy this technologically endowed savage by any unseemly delay I refrained from counting the legs and gingerly stepped across the gap (aware of her hand gripping me firmly by the shirt), slid gratefully into the passenger’s seat with my little suitcase tidy on my knee, and let her get on with it. She stepped right over me and dropped with practiced precision into the driver’s seat.

The inside of this thing was as makeshift as the outside. I had the sense that she, or her mechanic, had been keeping it repaired with non-original parts and a lot of ingenuity for at least a decade. But despite the erratic nature of the components, everything was strapped down very neatly with gaffer tape.

She slammed the lid down. Flicked at some controls. Tugged on her levers. Machinery that had previously purred now roared. We swayed sideways, lurched around, surged higher, and in seconds we were running away from the scene of the crisis. I twisted around to glance back. My broken taxi hung on the end of the broken roadway, still waggling in the light rain.

Something else began roaring. I felt it buffeting me. Ah: air blowers! She’d just set the scrubbers to high. Good. Our osmotic breather fields would soon become unnecessary and I could final see my rescuer. Naturally enough I’d been glancing at her, my relief starting to flood me with gratitude. Had to say something.

“Miracle? Bullshit! Just yer own dumbcluck-luck. About the only thing that keeps you Loopies alive most days! Where can I drop ya?”

At that moment the air reached its preset safety minimum and our breather fields both retracted at almost the same time. Air hit my face, it stank of Crush, but that was the least of what hit me. Her face! Holy crap; it was a complete tattoo!

I knew the reference: an animal called the ‘Tiger’. Went extinct, got revived. Symbolic emblem of no end of nations, armies, religions and concepts; ‘tiger-mothers’ being just one of them. I’d heard someone call my mother that once. Prompted me to Goog it on the Network. Not worth repeating. Back to this woman: She was total tiger – hair colour, ears and teeth. And of course what I wanted to know was: How was it done? I got the sick feeling she'd had it done the oldest, traditional-est, most painful way.

“Oh, very kind of you ... Mate,” I managed to answer smoothly enough, “Um, do you know the way to the Field Maintenance Clinic?”

She turned to look at me intently. Most un-nerving. “You’re the new Flake?”

I tried to laugh lightly, “Well, I’ll admit that off-duty we do say ‘flaker’, but ...”

She interrupted bluntly, “You’re just the Flake here, mate, so get used to it! Do yer job and that’s all ya do, okay?!” She was still looking at me, her sudden anger boring into me via those bizarre eyes, “And word of advice, Buckwheat: Don’t get offside with The Lizard. Keep to ya quota and he won’t run ya out of town. Comprende?”

“Ah yeah, comprende,” I answered as confidently as I could, “No problems with that, but, uh...” I glanced back, “... shouldn’t we report that or something?”

Meanwhile we’d been racing across a truly bizarre landscape parallel to the taxi-way – the rest of which seemed to be intact. The surface beneath me was composed of what looked like the fossilised remains of flattened ships, mostly layered neatly but some thrust up at weird angles as if pushed from below. It reminded me of micro-photographs of human skin. Ahead, through the rain, I could see what appeared to be gigantic beetles, but the smarter part of me realised they were the local version of buildings. Was this Edgetown?

She eased her levers and our vehicle turned remarkably smoothly. I could barely catch sight of its multiple legs as they flicked forwards, found a clear patch of ground to land on, then drove us across it. At least two steps per second by my count. Sure, I could barely see them, but I could certainly hear them, a constant staccato of high-tech pseudomuscles.

Straight ahead of us one of the ‘beetles’ had emerged clearly from the rain.

She was focused. I said nothing. This was getting scary again. We were still racing straight at it. I gripped my luggage, aware that I was damn-near hyperventilating. At the last moment we turned, went around the building instead of under it, and within bare seconds her machine, which I’d given the fanciful name of ‘spider-strider’, had slowed to almost zero. So smooth! As we edged in the final few metres I realised that the building was joined to the taxiway and she was aiming to drop me there. Her final action was to tug her controls in a new way and the strider stood tall until it matched the height of the taxiway.

“Now listen,” she told me in a tone that positively sparked with anger, “every Bug is screaming for a skinning. One day someone’s going to end up dead because of you damn Flakes, so take a lesson: Don’t screw it up like the last guy!”

Speaking of the last guy, I had already spotted someone in a rain-cape and breather standing near the clinic on the mesh-topped apron where taxis obviously made their turns. He was trying to slink out of sight. Was he the one who had become the bane of these locals, recently? Was he, in fact, atn this exact moment terrified for his life?

But it seemed an untidy moment for questions. I needed to be grateful, then get my arse out of this madwoman’s machine before she became any more inflamed.

Fwoomp. Her bubble-lid went up. Our breathers instantly triggered. Her face vanished. I clambered out, feeling the bruises I hadn't had the luxury of enjoying ten minutes ago. No more words were exchanged. She slammed down her lid and the pseudomuscles began popping again. Her spider-strider sank to its ideal travelling stance as it scuttled away. Within ten seconds it looked like nothing more than a parasite racing across someone’s skin.

I turned to look at my destination. This was the Edgetown Medical Centre? Surely not? It looked for all the world like a pre-owned airport hangar, and a shabby one at that. With a sinking heart I made out the faded words INTER-PLANETARY AIR painted across the end.

As soon as Tiger-face had driven off, that other someone came hurrying towards me from where he had been lurking in the shadows.

“You the new guy?” he shouted through his hood-field, “Here’s ya keys, dude. There’s a couple of bugs in there already. Enjoy!” I could see his face, now that our breather fields had synchronized, but he wasn’t looking at me at all. He seemed wary, nervous, wanting to get going. He kept glancing away from me towards where I figured his taxi would come from. Didn’t mention my brush with death, or my doubts about his chance of reaching the airport.

I glanced around too, suddenly worried. I had already decided this was some sort of warehousing district. It just looked like it: the way the buildings stood in a group and how the taxi tracks ran through and how desolate it all seemed. Not a soul in sight. Everything was shabby, streaked with rust, neglected.

No, actually: Why had my Destiny put me there?! Shit. Fuck. Damn. This was a mistake!

An empty taxi was coming towards us. It switched onto our spur and came murmuring and waggling the last few meters, mainly because none of the track lined up well. The seemingly fragile bubble of scratched uni-alloy and plazglaze jerked violently around our loop and had barely stopped before my un-named predecessor was scrambling in.

“Hey, hey, wait, wait, wait!” I shouted, grabbing him by the sleeve, “Who’s in charge here? Who do I report to?”

He looked at me as if I had the brain of a slug, “You’re in charge, man! You’re it; numero uno; The Boss. Like I said: enjoy!” He shook off my grip as if he were shaking off a murderer, spoke urgently to the taxi and it jerked forward while producing a mangled safety warming from some hidden outlet: “PeezSandGleer! ThizTaxeezEncaged!”

I fell back, perplexed. It certainly didn’t sound like he meant that final word. No sir, not one tiny little bit. If anything, it sounded like he meant the exact opposite.

Well sod him. What a loser! I had every intention of enjoying this! This was where my Enhanced Destiny Training had led me, and by God I wasn’t going to doubt it! I’d just survived a deadly roadway collapse, FFS, and that was a miracle not matter what that weirdo-fem said. This was my gig and I was here to make it work. Suck on that, losers!

Stewing, I hefted my set of keys and watched the receding taxi switch itself via series of jerks towards the main taxi-way. It turned behind a building, fading into the rain. He wouldn’t get far. Probably miss his plane. Whatever. See if I cared!

Realisation: I was actually the luckiest guy in town! I’d skipped the whole broken taxi-way problem and probably even arrived ahead of time! Sweet. You see: my Destiny was on my side! So I took a few calming breaths as I reminded myself that I had to accept the fact that other people weren’t as in touch with reality as I was!

Another smile. Yup; this was working out just fine. I didn’t ever need to doubt it!

I WALKED INTO THE CAVERNOUS ex-hanger. The lights were on. And oh what a dump it was! Two flaky Kirrikibat were already waiting for me, their outer shells hanging in tatters and stinking beautifully. My empty stomach heaved as I hurried towards what I took to be the clinic proper; a huge cylinder of stainless steel anchored part way down the hanger. It did not help my fragile disposition to read the faded words just visible on the upper edge of the curved side: ‘SEWAGE TANK NUMBER 3’.

I went through the human-sized airlock and my hood retracted with a faint buzz. I sniffed the air. Was it just my imagination, or was there still a trace of sewage in the air?

Inside, things were not noticeably better. Off from the main treatment bay were a number of human-sized rooms. I glanced into every doorway. There was a disused medical laboratory full of garbage, a human-scaled treatment room (grossly under-equipped), an office, a filthy kitchen, crude showers, and three pokey bedrooms. The final room had me totally baffled. It was the biggest of them all, with a higher ceiling, but it was all metal and pipes and hardware and controls. In the floor was a large circular zone that I couldn’t identify. There was a similar patch on the far wall. I turned around, realising I had passed right thorough ‘Sewage Tank Number 3’, which meant I was now looking at the end wall of the hanger. The air there wasn’t very nice. Sure, it was sealed and part of my air supply, but I sensed the outdoor world was awfully close. Was it a garage or something?

As I turned to go back I noticed a series of empty frames fixed to one wall, each labeled: ‘EMERGENCY RESCUE’ but none of them contained any rescue equipment. And where was my RRV? Wasn’t this meant to be a medical clinic, FFS?

But I had clients waiting. No time to waste. I had to be professional. I rushed back through the clinic, found the prep-room, scrubbed up and checked the available instruments. Not the best stuff, but I’d cope. Tightening my mask I hit the ready button. The big doors slid open. A gigantic insect charged in. As big as a small bus, clicker-click-clicker on six legs, its huge face dripping liquid, ... (beginning to sound familiar? Welcome to my day.) It spoke to me with all the sweet resonance of a jack-hammer down a toilet bowl. My translator blared, “Gidday, cobber! Weather’s gone to shit, eh?”

I hesitated, wondering what had gone wrong with the translator, then plunged my blade into its leg with professional vigor and twisted with expert precision.

Word went out. Three more Kirrikibats turned up. Consequently I didn’t finish work until seven-thirty. Five peels in a row; my new personal best. Understandably I was famished. After getting showered (it was disgusting, but I digress), I went through the kitchen. Every cupboard was empty except the last. It was crammed full of garish packets shouting ‘Instant Cheesy Stuff – With Real Live Cheese!’ I slammed it shut.

“Think I’ll eat out.”

I tried to order a taxi via my implant. Nothing. Not a flicker. I’d forgotten about those ‘technical difficulties’. Finally I noticed a push-button on the office wall; ‘TAXI’ in hand-printed lettering. I pushed it. It winked green. Holy crap. Okay. It would have to do.

I dressed up a bit and hurried outside. A taxi was waiting. Very good!

I told the taxi to take me into town. It whirred along its slot-way, clattering alarming across various switches and crossovers. Every jolt set my guts fluttering. I feared a repeat of the afternoon’s drama and it was everything I could do to stay aboard and at least halfway serene. There was nothing moving out there. Ahead of me was a soulless cluster of ugly metal buildings, all on stilts as everything was out here. Some, I began to notice, were connected by flexible walkways, presumably airtight. The largest group of them was clustered along a quarter-kilometre stretch of twin taxi-way with some sort of cover over the top. Holy crap – was that their Main Street? I got out. Rain fell through holes in the cover. Most of the streetlights were out, as were the neon shop signs. There were very few airlocks open. Exactly two, in fact. I debated my choice. There was something called the ‘Crush Club’ and the other option was the ‘Crush-Western Hotel’. Not a name that gave me a lot of reassurance.

I chose the hotel until I noticed the smaller sign saying ‘Restaurant Closed’. Damn; it was either The Crush Club or Instant Cheesy Stuff. I chose the Crush Club.

Fatal choice.