Ellie Quin - 04 - Ellie Quin in WonderLand (15 page)

Eighteen hours later, after a sleepless night of excited anticipation and after Frasier had served her and Shelby a breakfast of freshly grown fruit and real coffee down on the sun-warmed piazza, Mother informed Shelby that the fabrication process was finally complete.

Now, they were standing beside the large closed hatchway to World1. Ellie was fidgeting impatiently for the damned hatch to open. But Shelby explained the world needed to finish re-pressurising and the nano-fabricating machinery needed to withdraw from the biome first.

'Nearly done,' he said consulting the readout on a screen by the entrance. 'I must admit, it's always a somewhat exhilarating moment waiting to get the first glimpse of a creation that's been sitting in your mind.' He said deadpan. 'Are we excited?'

She grinned. 'Well, duh! Of course I am!'

Mother's cartoon face appeared on the screen by the entrance. 'Your world is now ready to enter, Shelby and Ellie.' Her smile was all cookies and crochet. 'Have a lovely time inside.'

Ellie heard the dull whir of servo motors engaging and the hiss of atmospheres equalising as the hatch began to slide slowly sideways. With a loud clunk the hatch opened and Ellie squealed with delight, hopping on the spot. She turned to Shelby. 'I
made
that!'

'Yes you did.' He nodded. Then he dampened the moment by adding, 'In truth you only
specified
that. Mother actually
made
it for you.'

She took a step over the lip of the entrance and a dozen more into her world;

Crud, this feels so real!

She was now standing on the side of a snow-capped mountain. The snow itself was
real
, properly fabricated genuine granules of ice that crunched beneath their feet. She took in the artificial view of the mountain range, the pine covered valley below, the distant snow-tipped peaks, the crisp blue sky above. Shelby joined her and they shuddered together as an ice cold wind whipped at and buffeted them both. The temperature was cold, just a degree or two above freezing, but not as cold as it would be for real in a place like this, Mother had informed her.

Ellie's choice…she wanted it to be cold enough to feel realistic, but not make it unbearably so.

All the same, Shelby was already hugging himself. 'Sh-should have made it w-warmer!' he cried above the rumble of a fresh wind.

She was beginning to shiver too but she smiled and shook her head. 'No, this is perfect! Just like a real place!'

He made a face. A quick approving nod. 'Well…g-good job. But I'm s-stepping back out again before I die of h-hypothermia.'

She watched him trudge back across the snow and step back into the open doorway. Then once again took in the craggy peaks. The rising sun defining razor sharp geometry, glowing pink on the virgin snow and leaving deep purple in shadows.

I made this
.

For a moment she felt she understood how God-like a vast sandpit 'toy' like one of these biomes, could make you feel; to have the power to create worlds on a whim, to populate them with whatever creatures you could imagine…then, on another whim, delete it all and make another.

She could imagine how that could seriously mess with your head.

CHAPTER 20

'So, Graham, what's this
idea
that's so great you couldn't just message me about it?'

Gray laughed. 'Hey, Shelbs! No '
hey Gray, how's it going my ol' buddy? Been far too long, man?
'

Shelby looked at him deadpan. 'I saw you a week ago. That's more than we normally see of each other.'

'I'm just messing with you, man.'

'Well don't. You know your version of humour confuses me.'

They were meeting in the central biome's water gardens. A cloistered enclosure of decorative fountains, ponds and colourful flowerbeds.

Ellie waved at Jez. 'I haven't seen you in days either. What have you been up to?'

Jez unlooped her arm from Gray's, crossed the space between them and hugged Ellie. 'Oh, just havin' a ball!' She grinned. 'Like,
literally
. Gray's got this big ballroom in his castle. All glowy candles and archways and fussy painty old world crud on the ceiling. Totally froobie. We held a freako's ball.'

Gray overheard her. 'Freaks from history, Ellie. The mysterious and monstrous. A
Danse Macabre
.'

'You ever heard of things called
vampires
?' asked Jez.

Ellie shook her head.

'Apparently, they were, like, this huge thing in the twenty-first century. Vampires and the other ones….zommies?'

'Zombies,' corrected Gray.

'Yeah, them.' She laughed. 'Oh-My-Fregg, apparently they practically took over Old Earth back whenever. Every flicker was about them and vampires running around munching on people!' Jez looked back at Gray. 'So it was his idea to have a zombie and vampire orchestra playing weird old music while we, like, danced on a floor full of freakos.'

Shelby looked disapprovingly at them. 'Graham, I hope you weren't breaking the ninety percent protocol?'

'Dude…c'mon,' he splayed his hands disarmingly. 'Of course not.'

'What's that?' asked Ellie. 'The ninety percent thing?'

'Health and safety protocol,' replied Shelby. 'This facility is governed by guidelines on recreational genetic engineering. None of our creations are allowed to look a hundred percent human.'

'Why not?'

'Well, obviously, so guests don't wind up killing each other by accident,' said Gray. 'Think about it…this place was set up so the rich n' famous could indulge their wildest fantasies. Which of course is almost certainly gonna involve killing and maiming stuff. You know what rich people are like.'

'Indeed.' Shelby shrugged. 'Such is the nature of people. So…we're not allowed to generate products that would look completely human.'

'But we can get pretty close,' Gray grinned. 'Mother will block a design that gets too close anyway. So…it's all, you know, cool.'

'Anyway, Ellie,' Jez was gagging to carry on. 'Gray had me all dressed up in this ball gown! You should've seen me! This big dress thing with loads of frilly stuff and this waist thing I had to lace up well tight so my joobies got pushed up together and-!'

'You looked amazing,' said Gray.

Ellie nodded. 'That sounds great.'

'Fregg, it was so incredo!'

Ellie reached for Jez's arm and tugged her away gently. 'Let's go check out the fish, have you seen the fish here?'

'Uh? Fish? No.'

'C'mon. You'll like them. They actually smile.'

Shelby watched the girls as they wandered, arm in arm over towards the nearest pond. 'So, what's this big idea of yours, Graham?'

'A war game.'

'A war game? We only recently had one. Have you cleaned up and reset the world by the way?'

'Yeeesss.' Gray sighed. 'Jesus, what are you? My mom?'

Shelby ignored that. 'Anyway, I thought you said you were getting bored of them? Hence your rather silly creature designs and ridiculous environment last time.'

'Yeah, well…I was just trying to spice things up a bit. It was getting a bit, you know, stale, all that recreating
actual
historical battles. Anyway, look…' He glanced at the girls. 'It's got a bit more interesting now.'

Shelby followed his gaze. He cocked a sceptical brow. 'You think those girls might be interested in a war game?'

'You kidding me? It was
her
idea.'

'Really?'

'We could make it doubles. Me and Jez verses you and Ellie.'

Shelby tapped his lips thoughtfully with steepled fingers. 'I'm not entirely convinced they'd take a war game particularly seriously.'

'You have no idea, Shelbs. Jez is quite a wild child. Very competitive.'

Shelby looked at him. 'You…you rather
like
her don't you?'

He made a face. 'She's pretty hot. And she's
fun
.'

'Let me guess, you're hoping she'll choose to stay when the supply shuttle comes?'

He smiled. 'She'll stay, Shelbs….she'll stay.'

'Oh my freg!' gasped Jez. 'I thought you were ragging me. These fish really
do
smile!'

'Uh-huh. Shelby says they're called Karma Carp.' Ellie squatted down beside the pond and dipped her fingers in the water. A school of fish swam towards where she was stirring the surface. Small human-like faces that made them look wise old men with long foo-man-choo whiskers. Their lips emerged from the surface curling into odd looking smiles. One of the bigger fish, muscled its way forward and gummed at her hand, its lips closing around one of her finger tips.

Jez giggled. 'It's sucking on you like a baby.'

She nodded. 'Tickles. Try it.'

Jez knelt down, leant forward dipped her hand in the water and chuckled as carp began to crowd around her hand, clamping their lips onto her fingers.

They watched the fish and giggled at the odd expressions they were pulling, not just improbable smiles, but bulges of flesh above their eyes that looked almost like human brows, folding and flexing making them look surprised, remorseful, disapproving, sceptical.

Finally Ellie broke the silence. 'Are you okay, Jez?'

'Okay? Sure!' She looked at Ellie curiously. 'Hang on….what do you mean by that?'

What exactly
did
she mean? She wasn't too sure. It was just that she was seeing a different side to Jez for the first time. Not the bolshy, mouthy, thick skinned, blabber mouth she normally was. Not the city-chik so used to casually picking up and discarding guys like fast food wrappers. Instead, here was Jez all doe-eyed and loved-up. Or at least she seemed to be.

'I don't know…I guess, it's just…I've never seen you like this before.'

'Like what?'

'All mooshy.'

'Mooshy?' She arched a perfectly formed brow. Then noted Ellie glancing across at the two young men. 'What?! You think I'm getting all luvvy-duvvy over Gray?!'

Ellie nodded.

'God! No!!' Jez was now doing the frown and puffy thing with her cheeks, the thing she did when she protested too much. 'He's just some easy fun, Ellie. He's a totally cool tool, and…to be fair, as geekoid brainheads go, he's not too bad looking either.'

'I just….you know, it just looks like you're totally getting into him. I've never seen you get like that over a man.'

'I'm just having a laugh, El'. That's all!'

'And…I'm kind of worried that he's….'

'What?'

'That…he's kind of, a bit….
strange
.'

Jez laughed. 'Oh, you mean that crazy world of his?

'It's not crazy…it's sick. Isn't it?'

'That's just men, Ellie. That's the kind of weird crud they dream up all the time. Give a baby boy some modelling gel, what's the first thing he makes? A gun, right? It's just normal man stuff.'

She was probably right. Ted had a habit of weaponizing anything he could lay his hands on. That, and torturing his toys. 'I guess.'

'And…before you say anything more, before you start worrying that I'm doing the 'L' thing. I don't do '
love
'. Not for anyone…except myself that is.' She sat back from the fish pond. 'I'm just having some fun here, while we're waiting for that stupid supply shuttle to finally turn up.'

Ellie looked at her. 'You do know, Jez,….' she started.

'What?'

'Well, just saying, that if you ever happened to meet someone, you know, someone really
special
while we're on our travels…?'

On our travels? That
was a pretty stupid way of putting it.
On the run for our fregging lives
was probably more accurate.

Jez suddenly reached out and grabbed Ellie's jaw in one of her large hands.

'Ellie? You and me are sisters. Right? Always. We go together. Wherever we go, it's together. If you're getting on that shuttle when it arrives, so am I. Understandy?'

Ellie found it hard to reply with her lips mushed up. She tried. 'I guesh sho.'

'Right then. So Gray's pretty hot. Pretty good fun. And I'm having a blast here at the coolest fregging place in the galaxy. But, when that shuttle turns up, I'm leaving with you Ellie. That's a double crossed heart promise. Okay?'

Ellie nodded.

'Good.' She turned round to look at the other two. 'But you know? While we're marooned here, why not try and have some fun as well? Huh? Hey, why not give ol' Shelbs a go? As pasty-faced rubber neck nerdoids go…if you can get past the whipped-cream hair and blubber lips, he doesn't look
too
horrendous.'

Ellie's eyes rounded at that. 'You cannot be serious?'

Jez shrugged. 'As far as I'm aware, you've never…actually…you know….'

'Jez! For crud's sake!'

'Just sayin', El'.'

'You're right! No. I. haven't! And I'm certainly not going to start doing
that
….with, well, with…'

'Fair enough.' Jez nodded slowly. 'Maybe you're right to save yourself.' She looked down at the carp still swimming in restless circles around the point where she'd dipped her hand into the water. Their pale pasty faces and slimy lips kept breaking the surface, their lips pursed into little eager 'O's.

'I guess you're right. Probably want to aim a little higher than Shelby for your very
first time
.'

Ellie shook her head and punched her friend's arm lightly. 'Can we just lay off talking about my non-existent sex life. Huh? As it happens I've got far bigger things to worry about right now.'

'What?'

'The Administration?'

'Oh, yeah…that.' Jez stuck her fingers back in the water and drew idle circles. She cackled as the carp hurried over and started jostling each other to suck on her fingers once again. 'Oh, by the way,' she said after a moment. 'Gray suggested we play some kind of war game. You up for that?'

'War game?'

'I'm not exactly sure what that means. Soldiers and guns and 'splosions I guess. But he was talking about me and him verses you and Shelby.'

Ellie sighed. 'Yeah, I get it, Jez….I go babysit Shelby while you get yourself some Gray-time in.'

Jez looked guilty. 'Kind of. It does sound fun though.'

'A war game, huh?' She rolled her eyes. 'Well….why not?'