Fan Fiction ❯ Titan ❯ Strange Events ( Chapter 6 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The door of the Duck's Head pub burst open to a blast of song. Dan and Arthur stumbled out, arms around each other's shoulders singing an old song called 'Mack the Knife'. They tottered in a happy stew along the streets, forgetting the words and chuckling away most of the song. Arthur tripped on the curb and landed face down on the road. Dan stared at him for a moment before laughing so hard he nearly fell over too. Arthur raised his head and, giggling quietly, wiped the mud from his face. He got up and waved a taxi down. The driver rolled the window down.
"Where to mate?" he said.
Dan stopped laughing and stared at Arthur in a daze.
"Where do we wanna go?" he said "The sun's barely gone down. There's a lot of the night left."
Arthur looked thoughtful for a while and said,
"I couldn't......... can't really say."
They both stood in the street for a while in silence.
"Ay mate..." said the driver "... 'ow much you 'ad then?"
The two men looked at each other for a moment and burst into a fit of roaring laughter. The driver rolled his eyes.
"Jesus Christ, you pair 'r' out of it."
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a box with the Geneta symbol on it. He opened it and pulled out a pair of red pills which he passed out to the two men fighting for breath on the pavement.
"Here, take these."
Dan and Arthur stuffed the pills into their mouths and swallowed them. After a minute or two they stopped laughing and straightened up.
"Err, yes..... thankyou. Sorry about that. Celebratory drink." said Arthur in an embarrassed voice.
"Oh shut up Arthur and get in the cab. I'm sure he gets this all the time." said Dan getting into the rear seat.
"Damn right." said the driver "Now where to?"
"Ahhh well lets see. We could go and get drunk again?"
"No, I don't think so. Wanna go an' see Liz? She'll probably want to see us as much as possible before we leave."
Dan thought about it for a while and then nodded.
"Yeah go on then."
He gave the driver the address and they sped off down the road. The sun was slowly disappearing behind the horizon.
Elizabeth lay in the bottom of a small wooden boat, floating in a gigantic martian lake. She had her legs crossed and her shoes off. In one hand she held a book on genetic engineering and in the other a long fishing rod, the line dipped in the water over the boat's edge. After a while she sat up quickly, flung her book to the rear of the boat and began to reel the line in. She fought with the snagged fish for a while before eventually hauling it out of the water. She removed the electric pulse hook from it's mouth and dropped the catfish carefully into a large bowl of water. She rolled up her sleeve and peered at her watch. Then she sighed and began to row back through the dimming light. The evening had gone really well. She had caught three fish today and they had taken really well to her algae infested water. It had had an interesting effect on one though. There had been some sort of symbiosis between the catfish and the algae, although she wasn't totally certain what it seemed beneficial. No ill effects whatsoever apparently. Maybe she'd sell it to the company. If it passed the necessary tests of course. Maybe only as a natural mutagenic species, to introduce solely to controlled environments. Well never mind. Business was business and leisure was leisure. Best to just enjoy it while it lasted. Fishing was a popular sport now that they had these pulse hooks. No pain for the fish, just forces their mouths closed when they bite it. Elizabeth loved the sport of fishing but she hated hurting things. She'd been a vegetarian since she was little and had kept a lot of pets as well as plants. They had eventually passed on from old age or disease or had been put down but she still had an old vegeleon, a type of chameleon engineered to live on plants, named Stan. Liz also loved 'Laurel and Hardy'. She pulled the boat up to the bank and climbed out carrying her book, her rod and the tank of catfish. She dropped her stuff off in the car and took the boat to a small dock where she tied it up and pressed a button to activate a robot guard for the boat. A small camera would monitor it until she came to use it again. She trotted back to the smartcar and hopped in with a smile on her face. She cruised casually along the country lanes, humming a catchy little tune as she went. On her way home she decided to stop and buy a cake to eat with her father for tea. She bought a banana cake. Fruit was her favourite food. She placed the cake on the passenger seat and turned the radio on as she headed for home. Liz flipped through the radio stations until she found something she liked. A song from over a century ago flooded from the speakers. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen was one of her favorites, it was a classic. She cranked the volume up to full blast and sang along at the top of her voice.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see. I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low."
She skimmed along the roads, singing loudly to herself as she went. When she got home she would have dinner with her dad and then go out to a club and party.
"Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me. Dun dun-dun-dun dun, dun dun-dun-dun dun. Mama, just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he's dead."
Already her adrenaline was rising and she wanted to go out and dance, maybe she would treat herself to something, a new set of clothes, or a better fishing rod perhaps.
"Mama, life had just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all away. Mama, oo oo oooooo, didn't mean to make you cry, if I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters."
She sang the gentle words as the memory of her dad playing this song when she was little flowed into her mind
"Too late. My time has come. Sent shivers down my spine, body's achin' all the time. Goodbye everybody, I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth. Mama oo oo oooooo, I don't wanna die, sometimes wish I'd never been born at all."
She felt the excitement building up in her as the music quickened it's pace and a guitar rang out.
"I see a little silhouetteo of a man, scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango? Thunderbolts and lightning very, very frightening me."
Liz made up her mind and powered down a different road in a red haze of hormones and emotion as the music.
"Galileo, galileo, galileo, galileo, galileo figaro- magnifico-oo-oo-ooo. I'm just a poor boy boy nobody loves me. He's just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity."
Liz put her foot down as she rounded a corner and once again began to exceed the speed limit as she became giddy with the ferocity of her feelings.
"Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismila, no we will not let you go. Let him go. Bismila, we will not let you go. Let him go. Bismila, we will let you go. Let me go. Will not let you go. Let me go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh mamamia, mamamia, mamamia let me go."
She even began to beep the horn to the tune as she shot like a missile through the dimming light.
"Beelzebub, has the Devil put aside for me."
She took the car up to the next gear and opened the windows to feel the wind rushing past her body.
"For me."
The car began to reach top speed.
"For meeeeeeeeeee."
The guitar launched it's music straight into her brain as she began to head-bang in true rock and roll fashion.
"So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye."
Liz screamed the words, her face radiating with joy as the sound roared around her skull.
"So you think you can love me and leave me to die."
The smartcar skidded around a corner, it's passenger yelling her ecstasy to the world.
"Ooooooooh baby, can't do this to me baby, just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here."
Liz put one last burst of energy into the vehicle, her head felt like it was on fire as she let her feelings ring from her mouth.
"Oooooh yeah, oooooh yeah."
The car began to slow with the music now, as the driver settled back down and listened to the soft sound, her voice quiet but her face still beaming.
"Nothing really matters, anyone can see. Nothing really matters, nothing really matters......... to meeeeeeeeeeee."
The car pulled up slowly outside a nightclub as the song ended and the music died away. Liz lay back in the seat for a while, eyes closed, letting the last echoes of the music swim gently through her head . She sat still for a moment, the frozen smile preserved on her face as old memories glided across her mind. Her smile widened slightly as she took a deep breath and opened the door of the car. She stepped out into the twilight air, taking in the dying sun as it descended below the horizon. She watched the distant star until it finally disappeared, throwing it's final rays upon the beautiful woman standing on the face of the red planet.
Arthur sat silently in the taxi, listening to the muffled snorts that was Dan laughing as he told jokes with the driver. Would he ever find the first extraterrestrial life, something beyond Earth, something that could exist naturally without ever relying on the thriving lithosphere of humanity's homeworld. There had to be life out there, he didn't doubt it for a second, but no matter how much Daniel reassured him that it would be them to discover it, he couldn't help feeling that it was just out of their reach. A little voice kept insisting that alien life may be discovered in another solar system, in which case it would never be them to discover it. Even at lightspeed it would take decades to reach another solar system so if Geneta ever suspected an area of being inhabited sometime in the future, then it would be years, centuries even before they would be able to get there, by which time the human colonists in the system would have long ago found it. Or what if the aliens found us? It would be random who they contacted when they arrived. Unless life existed in this solar system then they wouldn't have a chance, and it was now clear that it didn't. Earth was inhabited, Mars was colonised and Titan had been investigated. It seemed only Earth would ever have truly native creatures in the Sol system. Maybe in the galaxy. It was a thought that utterly depressed him. The mere idea of alien life fascinated him to the depths of his soul. Odd appendages and strange organs wriggled across his mind, microorganisms squirmed in pools of festering ooze and winged animals flapped gently, high above an alien cloudline. What it would be like to stare out into an environment stranger than the vast oceans of Earth, to have only a piece of environmental glass between him and an unexplored world. He stared out of the window in a wondrous daze, the street lights throwing their soft glow on his vacant face. His face flashed a perfect image of his mind, light, dark, light, dark, light. The black thoughts of his dread pivoted swiftly down the road of the white, brilliant imagination.
Dan finished a particularly amusing punchline and turned towards his friend who was looking out into space with unseeing eyes and a faint smile. A vicious elbow jab swiftly changed that.
"Ow, hey that hurt." Arthur said accusingly.
Dan chuckled happily and fished a can of lager from some recess of his jacket and popped the ringpull. He adjusted his dark glasses and took a swig.
"Hey lighten up man." he said with a grin, taking another long gulp from the beer can. He produced a handheld computer and tapped lazily at the keypad.
"You were out of it mate." he told his companion "What were you thinking about? Whatever it was it was having some weird effect on you." When he didn't receive an answer dan looked over at his friend who was resting his head on his hands and peering intently at the ceiling. Dan sighed and lit a cigarette.
"You really are wasted aren't you?"
"Hmmmmm?" mumbled Arthur.
Dan settled further into his seat.
"Nevermind."
He smiled and blew a plume of greasy smoke into the air. The computer beeped in his hand and he glanced down at it. He prodded a few more keys, closed his eyes and took a long drag at his cigarette. He let his mind wander, about his friends, his family on Vesta, his job and his life. His family had never mattered to him. From what he could remember of them they had always attempted to suppress his talents, make him an asteroidal mineral miner like they were. They had wanted him to be normal, just another face. No wonder he had rebelled. The security systems on Vesta were old and out of date, they hadn't been hard to break through. But it had been a godsend for him. He had set up a terminal in his room, just a basic piece of kit that he had found in the junkyard, but it had served him well. He had probed the protected files gently until he knew how to get around them. Vesta had been at his mercy and laid the ground work for his potent abilities to develop. He had got into a lot of trouble for erasing the mineral distribution file, a lot of money was lost and he was detained in his quarters until he could be transported to Earth. So he had hacked into Earth's systems instead. Here was a challenge. The advanced firewalls and encryptions of a planetary security system had dropped on him like a nuclear bomb, as soon as he had entered the network. A virtual war had raged around him, companies and organisations ranging from area 51 to plastic manufacturers had hit him with their best stuff but even though they had stopped him hacking into their data, they couldn't get rid of him. For two hours they had stood evenly matched until Daniel had struck the pentagon. The officials there had heard of a new hacker disrupting major companies and had offered help. By this time they had been furiously fending him off the networks they were trying to protect and in doing so, had forgotten about their own. Dan planted a virus in a military computer system and as soon as someone in the pentagon turned to erase it, he had snuck through and ceased all activities. They thought they had won. They thought he was gone. But he wasn't. He lay dormant for a few days, checking now and then to keep himself hidden and then swiftly and without warning hit the main top secret files with every trick he could muster. And to his surprise, defeated them. He kicked the pentagon officials off their own system and suddenly found himself in control of American security. The power there had been astounding, he had learned secrets that no one had seen in over a century and had brought down complex systems that had kept him at bay during his two hour war. But he gave it up. After causing a major upset he decided enough was enough, he had done what he set out to do and more and now it was time to give it back. In handing control back to the government they inevitably found him and arrested him. He was sent to an Earth based UP prison for a very long sentence but Geneta had been watching. They paid his bail, he was released and they very quickly hired. So now here he was, with new friends and a new job and a new life. Military training, piloting skills, the best hacker in the inhabited universe and not a care in the world. Here he was.......
Suddenly Dan heard the beeping. He looked down and realised his computer had been alerting him for ten minutes. He glared around in angry surprise and noted that neither the driver nor Arthur had noticed the noise either. He felt odd, dreamlike. His mind kept trying to forget reality and drop into a cloud of pink smoke. This wasn't right. He was always focused and never daydreamed. There was always a task for him to do and he never had any trouble doing it. Until now. He shook his head and fumbled around in his many pockets for his medical kit. Most people had one, but not many had a Geneta brand bacterial hormone kit. He flipped the box on, pressed it to his arm and flipped the dial around to select a concentration drug. The box whirred for a second or two and then he felt a small needle prick his skin. He sat still for a moment and felt his head clear. That was better. Now, what was going on. He fiddled with the dial again until it read 'FULL FUNCTION CHECK' and waited for a result as he plugged his computer into it. A message appeared on the screen, 'NO ABNORMALITIES'. No abnormalities? That shouldn't be. Something was affecting all of them but the computer told him that there were no abnormalities. Then he sighed. Probably just an after effect of the alcohol or something. And Arthur was always preoccupied. He was worrying unnecessarily. There was nothing wrong. Everything was fine. He looked past the driver out onto the dark road and watched the landscape go by. Then he saw something, a small glow further along the road. An erect figure was standing in it's own personal light directly ahead of the approaching car. As they came closer Dan saw it had it's back to them. It was human, or so it appeared, but what was the strange light, why was it standing in the middle of the road and why was there no comment from the other two? It was getting awfully near now and Dan began to panic.
"Yo, Arthur."
No answer came from the other man.
"ARTHUR!"
His friend jerked back to reality with a start.
"What, what?"
Daniel pointed ahead of them.
"What's that?"
Arthur stared out the window.
"What's what?"
"That."
The car was going to hit it in a few seconds if they didn't change direction. Dan grabbed the driver's unresisting shoulders and tried to avoid hitting the figure ahead.
"STOP!!!!!" he shouted at the zoned out man.
The being turned as the car was about to strike and Dan saw that it was, infact, not human. The vehicle collided with the thing at forty miles an hour and for a millisecond Dan saw the terrible face flash inches infront of his own, teeth glinted, nostrils flared and red eyes glowed. He could almost feel it's breath as the tiny chunk of time was stretched out over an eternity. Then it faded and was gone. A voice called out to him as the car screeched to a halt.
"What's going on? Why are we stopping?" the driver said, turning around in his seat. Arthur was looking at him with a puzzled expression. Dan slid gently off his seat and sat on the floor of the vehicle shaking.
A few hours later a nightclub door opened and a woman glided gently out of it with a broad smile on her face. She danced gracefully to her car and pulled the door open, spinning herself slowly and falling backwards into the drivers seat. She laughed and climbed properly into the seat as she started the car and shut the door. It had been a long time since she had been out dancing. She drove home, unusually for her obeying the speed limit, and fifteen minutes later pulled into the driveway of her house. She opened the car door and twisted and turned down the garden path to the large, white dome with her eyes closed. She tapped a button by the door which slid open with a quiet hiss. Liz stepped inside and pirouetted up the stairs of the plant infested building, humming to herself as she went. She dumped her bag in her bedroom and took the cake to her fathers room. She approached the door and knocked. There was no reply from inside so she pushed the door open and gasped. The tears streamed down her face as she dropped the cake and stumbled backwards, fighting for breath. She choked out her agony and fled the house in a swirling nightmare. Liz fell on her face as she tried frantically to flee and she scrabbled backwards through the dirt, staring at the building with a look of terror. Her mind was filled with fear and she knew she had to escape, she had to run. She finally got to her feet and yanked at the car door frantically, but she had lost her keys. She hadn't got the time to look for them and she ran off into the night. Upstairs in the bedroom, a barbed shoot protruded through the bloody corpse of Anthony Kane, as he twitched in a final death spasm.