Shuttle’s engines
decelerated with rumbling whines, and as they slowed, and slowed further, and
dropped towards the Theme Planet’s plush Port Terminal, more shouts echoed up
and down the Shuttle’s interior.
Criss-Cross! There’s Criss-Cross!
Monster Mash! You can see the
monsters, look! Look!
Oh, wow, Mum, it’s the Power
Matrix!
Look, look, it’s A-mazing, it’s totally amazing!
That’s the Survival Jungle!
Over there, Dad, you can see the
Movie-Scape...
The Molecule Machine! I can’t
believe it, I’ve always wanted to go on the Molecule Machine!
There’s Adventure Central! Mum!
Auntie Ethel! Uncle Bob! You can see the Museum of Baron Nutcase! And there’s our hotel!
I can’t wait to eat at Monster’s
Burger Mush! They say the Slopper is
a burger as big as your head!
And so on.
Dex found it quite exhausting. He
lay back. Closed his eyes. Folded his arms. And said, “Wake me up when we get
there.”
~ * ~
It was sooner than
he anticipated. The Theme Planet’s Landing and Immigration Service was perfect
to the point of anal. Which was a good thing for eager, tired travellers; a bad
thing for Dexter’s snooze-time.
Hundreds of people disgorged from
the Shuttle into a series of plush, elegant connecting tunnels, and various
families in dodgy sports-gear rushed off with squeaking trolleys as if they’d
been injected with a damaging narcotic. Dex frowned as he watched two
shell-suit wearing grannies stomp off, each carrying twin walking sticks, as if
they were in a race for their lives.
“Come on, Dad!”
“Faster!”
“They’ll beat us!”
“There’s no point,” whined Dex. “Listen
to me, I’ve done this a million times, right. I am well versed in immigration
matters, and we’re good to wait for a few bloody hours in this first queue
alone, I can absolutely guarantee it. They have to take fingerprints,
blood samples, urine samples, retina scans, faecal-passage scrapes. We have to
be assigned genetically modified Personal Drones. Kids, sorry to disappoint,
but we’re in this queue, and the next one, and the one after that for the best
part of the damn day. I know bureaucracy. It’s a curse, I agree. And
Theme Planet, even in all its splendour, can’t cure the absolute blight of the
low-paid clipboard-wielding official.”
“Bah, humbug,” said Kat. “Come on
girls! Daddy’s a rotten egg! He can catch us up on the beach!”
And with that, Dex watched his
family stream off like so many other charging idiots, and Dex frowned and got
his stubborn head on, and formed his stubborn jaw, and decided he wasn’t going
to play the idiot’s game and wasn’t going to show himself up. Oh, no. He was
going to walk at a normal pace and be civilised and dignified about this whole business and to Hell and bloody fire damnation with getting
on the rides first...
~ * ~
But Dex was wrong.
There were no queues. There were no bureaucrats. There weren’t even any
clipboards. Everything was automated, and there were beautiful smiling women in
smart uniforms handing out welcome flowers to the ladies, welcome bottles of
whiskey to the men, and very specific toys to the children. Molly got a
Hellhorror PinkPunk doll, and Toffee got a My Little Alien, complete with “realistic
slime-puke regurge action.” They all stepped through scanners, which blipped
and blopped, and then they were through the five-hundred-slot immigration
counters, out onto Theme Planet itself...
A heady aroma of flowers and
fresh pine wafted in through the Port Terminal’s huge reception. There was a
bustle of activity, and each family met their Personal Drone when the Personal
Drone arrived towing each family’s unmolested luggage. No queues. No waiting.
No lost bags. No drama, baby.
Kat raised her eyebrows at Dex,
as if to say, there you go, idiot, First Class++++++ service! All with a
smile! And no bureaucrats! And no
decelerated with rumbling whines, and as they slowed, and slowed further, and
dropped towards the Theme Planet’s plush Port Terminal, more shouts echoed up
and down the Shuttle’s interior.
Criss-Cross! There’s Criss-Cross!
Monster Mash! You can see the
monsters, look! Look!
Oh, wow, Mum, it’s the Power
Matrix!
Look, look, it’s A-mazing, it’s totally amazing!
That’s the Survival Jungle!
Over there, Dad, you can see the
Movie-Scape...
The Molecule Machine! I can’t
believe it, I’ve always wanted to go on the Molecule Machine!
There’s Adventure Central! Mum!
Auntie Ethel! Uncle Bob! You can see the Museum of Baron Nutcase! And there’s our hotel!
I can’t wait to eat at Monster’s
Burger Mush! They say the Slopper is
a burger as big as your head!
And so on.
Dex found it quite exhausting. He
lay back. Closed his eyes. Folded his arms. And said, “Wake me up when we get
there.”
~ * ~
It was sooner than
he anticipated. The Theme Planet’s Landing and Immigration Service was perfect
to the point of anal. Which was a good thing for eager, tired travellers; a bad
thing for Dexter’s snooze-time.
Hundreds of people disgorged from
the Shuttle into a series of plush, elegant connecting tunnels, and various
families in dodgy sports-gear rushed off with squeaking trolleys as if they’d
been injected with a damaging narcotic. Dex frowned as he watched two
shell-suit wearing grannies stomp off, each carrying twin walking sticks, as if
they were in a race for their lives.
“Come on, Dad!”
“Faster!”
“They’ll beat us!”
“There’s no point,” whined Dex. “Listen
to me, I’ve done this a million times, right. I am well versed in immigration
matters, and we’re good to wait for a few bloody hours in this first queue
alone, I can absolutely guarantee it. They have to take fingerprints,
blood samples, urine samples, retina scans, faecal-passage scrapes. We have to
be assigned genetically modified Personal Drones. Kids, sorry to disappoint,
but we’re in this queue, and the next one, and the one after that for the best
part of the damn day. I know bureaucracy. It’s a curse, I agree. And
Theme Planet, even in all its splendour, can’t cure the absolute blight of the
low-paid clipboard-wielding official.”
“Bah, humbug,” said Kat. “Come on
girls! Daddy’s a rotten egg! He can catch us up on the beach!”
And with that, Dex watched his
family stream off like so many other charging idiots, and Dex frowned and got
his stubborn head on, and formed his stubborn jaw, and decided he wasn’t going
to play the idiot’s game and wasn’t going to show himself up. Oh, no. He was
going to walk at a normal pace and be civilised and dignified about this whole business and to Hell and bloody fire damnation with getting
on the rides first...
~ * ~
But Dex was wrong.
There were no queues. There were no bureaucrats. There weren’t even any
clipboards. Everything was automated, and there were beautiful smiling women in
smart uniforms handing out welcome flowers to the ladies, welcome bottles of
whiskey to the men, and very specific toys to the children. Molly got a
Hellhorror PinkPunk doll, and Toffee got a My Little Alien, complete with “realistic
slime-puke regurge action.” They all stepped through scanners, which blipped
and blopped, and then they were through the five-hundred-slot immigration
counters, out onto Theme Planet itself...
A heady aroma of flowers and
fresh pine wafted in through the Port Terminal’s huge reception. There was a
bustle of activity, and each family met their Personal Drone when the Personal
Drone arrived towing each family’s unmolested luggage. No queues. No waiting.
No lost bags. No drama, baby.
Kat raised her eyebrows at Dex,
as if to say, there you go, idiot, First Class++++++ service! All with a
smile! And no bureaucrats! And no
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