A Toaster on Mars (10 page)

Gastanon stepped up to the microphone.

‘Is this thing on?' he asked, tapping it. ‘Can you hear me down the back?' A bunch of people yelled in the affirmative. ‘Wonderful. You have no doubt heard the exciting news—the Prophets have returned!'

The crowd went wild with excitement, cheering and clapping. The sound of their applause echoed about the interior of the cavern.

‘As you know,' Gastanon continued, ‘the Prophets work in mysterious ways. They want us to relate our history before we begin our Ascension.'

‘The Dummies guide would be good,' Nicki added.

Gastanon smiled serenely. ‘It began with the great cleansing, the war that devastated the surface of the Earth, leaving it uninhabitable for a million years. We, the Survivors, had already built our underground world knowing that humanity would soon face total annihilation.'

‘Who told you to do this?' Nicki interrupted.

Gastanon laughed. ‘You are jesting, of course.'

‘Yeah, I'm jesting. I've never jested so much in my entire life. Now just tell me whose bright idea this was.'

‘The great Quasido Smith, of course. Our founder, our hero, the man who saved us from utter devastation.'

Taking out her datapad, Nicki started tapping keys.

‘Our ancestors gave up everything to come down here,' Gastanon continued. ‘They carved this cavern with their bare hands. They starved so that the first crops would grow. They ruthlessly slaughtered the weakest citizens to make way for the strong. They fought tooth and nail to build a new world.

‘But build it they did. After facing starvation, conflict, internal strife and a really bad flea infestation, they finally built the ultimate community—Perfection.'

‘And where did you put it?' Astrid asked, peering about into the distance.

‘Pardon?'

‘Where is it?'

‘Why, here, of course,' Gastanon said. ‘This is Perfection.'

‘Oh.'

‘We have lived in complete harmony since those dark early days,' Gastanon continued. ‘Crime is extinct and war is over. For more than a century there has been only peace.' He paused. ‘But we have waited.'

‘I know the feeling,' Blake muttered.

‘Quasido Smith said that one day the Prophets would arrive to lead us to the Promised Land,' he said. ‘Now that day has arrived!'

The crowd went wild again. Many wept with joy. Some fell to their knees, thumping their chests. A couple went into convulsions.

‘Take us!' one yelled. ‘Take us to the Promised Land!'

Another called, ‘When will we go?'

‘I want to see our ancestors!' a man screamed. ‘Have they been asking about me?'

Gastanon stepped aside and indicated that Blake should take the microphone. Slowly, Blake inched towards it, clearing his throat.

‘Uh,' he said. ‘Hello.'

It took another five minutes to calm down the crowd.

‘So,' Blake said, finally. ‘I've got some good news.'

‘Tell us the good news!' the crowd screamed.

‘Well, you see, it's like this…'

Nicki motioned Blake out of the way. ‘What Blake's trying to say is that there was no war. The human race didn't go extinct. It's chugging along fine, if you ignore the pollution, famine, overcrowding and politicians.'

The crowd stared at her.

‘There's good stuff up there,' she said. ‘You can travel to other planets, meet aliens from a thousand different worlds and explore unknown space.' She paused. ‘Or if you want to stay on Earth, there are 2000 types of flavoured ice-cream, 24,000,000 television channels and food from all over the galaxy.' She shrugged. ‘It's kind of cool.'

Gastanon's face had fallen. ‘You're jesting, of course,' he said. ‘The surface is devastated. Nothing can live up there.'

‘There are places like that,' Astrid conceded. ‘Some of the McBurger restaurants are really unhygienic… Believe me, you don't want to go there.'

Nicki nodded in earnest agreement. ‘But mostly it's fine,' she said. ‘I did a search on Quasido Smith. He was the guy who told you to live in this hole? Right?'

‘Yes,' Gastanon said, crestfallen.

‘Turns out he was picked up for fraud in 2281 and jailed for ninety-nine years. Seems he had this scam where he convinced people the world was coming to an end. They would give him all their worldly possessions in exchange for a way to survive the apocalypse.' Nicki sighed. ‘It sounds like your ancestors got taken for a ride.'

‘A…ride.'

‘Yeah,' Blake said, nodding thoughtfully. ‘I remember reading about Quasido Smith in the PBI history books. He was a real scammer.'

‘So,' Nicki said, trying to make sense of all this, ‘your ancestors moved down here because…?'

‘Quasido Smith said it would save us,' Gastanon said, ‘from the end of the world.'

‘Well,' Astrid said. ‘You must be pleased that the world still exists.'

Still exists.

The words echoed around the interior of the cavern.

Gastanon spoke slowly, struggling to piece together the puzzle. ‘You're saying Quasido Smith was a conman and everything is fine up above.'

‘I wouldn't exactly say fine,' Blake said.

‘Oh,' Gastanon said, looking relieved.

‘But pretty good.'

Nicki and Astrid agreed.

‘You're saying everything is okay.' Gastanon looked out at the crowd in dismay. ‘We've slaved away for two centuries to build Perfection and you're saying it's built on a lie. That the deprivation, pain, humiliation and daily torment we've suffered is…okay?'

‘Um…well…' Blake said.

Astrid chimed up. ‘You should be proud of yourselves,' she said. ‘You're living here in peace and harmony. You're living here in…Perfection.'

‘Perfection?' Gastanon's face twitched. ‘We're living in a hole in the ground. A dirty, grubby underground bunker.' He spun around, wildly. ‘Do you know how many people I've wanted to punch in the face?' He pointed at a man in the audience. ‘Starting with you!' He picked up the microphone stand and hurled it. ‘You never take out the rubbish on time—and I'm sick of it!'

The microphone stand hit the stranger in the head and rebounded into someone else's face. They punched someone who had nothing to do with anything. Another person grabbed the stand and started stabbing people at random.

‘Kill you!' Gastanon screamed. ‘I'm going to kill—'

Whatever else he had to say was stifled as he leapt into the crowd.

Within seconds the audience was involved in the biggest brawl since the riots of 2309. Knives were produced, gardening implements were raised and axes thrown. Blood and body parts began to fly.

‘I think we should go,' Blake said.

‘No arguments here,' Astrid said.

They pushed through the crowd, carving their way to an exit. Within minutes they had reached the elevator, where Nicki made a pleasant discovery.

‘Look,' she said, pointing down. ‘There's a button with a sign above it.'

‘What's it say?' Blake asked.

‘
Push to reinitialise elevator
.'

She pushed the button, the doors opened wide and they slipped in. The sound of screaming and fighting died away as the doors slid shut.

Nicki shook her head. ‘Eternal peace,' she said, as she pushed
Up
. ‘It never lasts.'

15

‘What do you want
now
?' Bartholomew Badde asked.

‘A Game Prism would be a good start,' Lisa said. ‘And a bag of bacon-flavoured chips. Oh, and a bottle of Hypergo.'

‘You're too young to be drinking Hypergo.'

‘Who are you? My mother?'

‘I'm just saying—'

‘And it's
waaay
too dark in here,' Lisa said, peering about. ‘Really unpleasant.'

The jail looked like something from olden times. Maybe even ancient Rome. The cell had only one window—a small, barred frame set high on the other side of the room—and contained a bunk bed and a chair.

The only modern thing in the room, unfortunately, was the triple-digitised combination lock attached to the bars. Lisa thought she could crack it if she tried every single combination, but that would probably take about 7,000,000 years.

Badde himself was thin and bald, with a neat black moustache. The wrinkles around his eyes made him look like he was sixty, but he moved like a man half that age. He wore a plain grey suit, white button-down shirt and black shoes.

‘It's supposed to be unpleasant,' Badde said. ‘You're a hostage, and I'm the greatest diabolical genius in history, responsible for crimes across the galaxy. My name will go down in history with—'

‘Yeah, yeah,' Lisa said. ‘Yada, yada, yada.'

‘Yada—what?'

‘Yada—as in, I've heard it all before.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Evil criminal geniuses are always doing nasty things. That's how they're programmed.'

‘But I am the
most
evil genius in history.'

‘I know, and it's nice to have goals, but you need to be ready for when things go wrong.'

‘Things won't go wrong.'

‘That's what they all say,' Lisa said, patiently. ‘But there's always that part of the movie where the evil genius says, “Okay, Mr Jones, I've got to leave now to bake some cookies while you're slowly lowered into a vat of bubbling acid.” The villain leaves, and the hero
uses his absence to escape.'

‘But your name isn't Jones and I don't have a vat of bubbling acid,' Badde said, frowning. ‘Mind you, it's not a bad idea…'

‘But you see what I mean,' Lisa said. ‘And besides, you don't want damaged goods.'

‘I don't?'

‘I'm worth money. Lots of money. But hostage negotiations can take forever. I might be here for years.'

‘You won't be here for years. Once I get those
Brady Bunch
episodes underway—'

‘I'll admit they're pretty revolting,' Lisa said. It was in fact the worst television show she'd ever seen. ‘But don't you know a happy hostage is a compliant hostage?'

Badde considered this. ‘I suppose I can turn on the lights,' he said. ‘That's easy.'

‘And I need Chuckie's Chicken.'

‘Whose chicken?'

Lisa Carter looked at Badde as if he'd grown a second head.

‘You've never heard of Chuckie's Chicken!' Lisa exclaimed. ‘Where have you been living?'

Badde folded his arms. ‘I've been busy.'

‘Doing what?'

‘Oh, the usual evil things. Robberies, forgeries assaults.'

Lisa sighed. ‘Anyway, I'll have the Chuckie Two Pack with chips,' she said. ‘Extra chocolate salt on the chips, and don't forget my bottle of Hypergo.'

When Badde left, Lisa stood in the centre of the cell for another moment before carefully stepping backwards and falling onto her bed.

At last
. Now she could relax.

Despite her bravado, her heart had been pounding the whole time she was talking to Badde. She had gotten the upper hand—for now—but she wasn't sure how long that would last. It looked like he had turned nasty into an art form.

And I'm his canvas
, she thought.

Lisa's heart eventually stopped thudding. The room had gone quiet, apart from the occasional wheeze of an
interplanetary shuttle passing by, or the shudder of an orbital lift carrying people into space. Both were close by, but they gave no clue as to her location.

She had been walking home from the 704th level Super-Mall when a shadowy figure had stepped from a dark alley and shot her with a stun gun. Her next conscious thought had been when she woke up in this mangy cell with a killer headache.

‘Sprot,' she said. ‘And double sprot.'

According to Badde, her father had to retrieve the Maria virus or she would be made to pay. Lisa wondered how he was doing. She had not spoken to him in years, but once or twice she thought she'd spotted him lurking outside her school. Not talking to him all this time had hurt her, but she hurt even more when she thought about her birthday party.

It had been the most embarrassing day of her life. She had promised all the girls that he was going to make an amazing appearance—maybe skydiving in from the edge of space or teleporting into the middle of the living room. Instead he had surprised her by not turning up at all.