A Toaster on Mars Read online

  Message robots weaved through the crowd, passing beneath the B-class security scanners. A new desk opened for business and one robot was knocked over and trampled in the frenzy to be served.

  Blake pushed through the crowd to the security entrance at the far end, pausing at the barriers. The detectors on either side fired x-rays, ultraviolet light, alpha waves and enough energy to power a cloned AC/DC concert. He was amazed anyone survived the experience without glowing in the dark.

  He headed to the briefing room on the 300th floor, a huge hall with standing room only. The last time I saw this many agents was at the last Christmas party, he thought. And most of them were drunk or comatose.

  A man pushed through the crowd to a stage at the front.

  Sprot! That’s Cecil Pomphrey.

  The assistant director only left the office for one of three reasons: hard drinking, football and delivering bad news. Blake doubted he was here to share a drink or toss a ball around.

  Those who hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Cecil Pomphrey always received a shock. The name Cecil tended to conjure up the image of a skinny man with glasses, dressed in a slightly too large suit. A man who, possibly, lived with his elderly mother, watching old movies each night while eating shortbread biscuits and drinking cups of watery tea.

  Cecil Pomphrey looked like a wrestler. He was bald, with ears that looked as beaten as a pair of shoes trampled by a herd of Tradian elephants. His hands were so large that more than one subordinate had suggested calling the Galactic Book of Records to make a claim. His voice was a growl, as if he spent his spare time gargling lava.

  Zeeb says:

  Through a strange coincidence, I am actually related by marriage to Cecil Pomphrey. His wife is my third cousin, Barbara, who is twice removed from my Auntie Bluck. Although that information has no bearing on this story, it’s interesting how we’re all related to each other, and yet another reason why we should have intergalactic peace.

  ‘PBI agents,’ Pomphrey’s booming voice cut through the chatter of the assembled throng, ‘thank you for your prompt attendance.’

  The room fell silent.

  ‘At 10pm last night, a weapon of unimaginable destruction was stolen from the Ministry of Defence. It was a Super-EMP device—the most powerful ever developed.’

  An agent near Blake frowned. ‘What’s a Super-EMP?’ he asked.

  ‘It can wipe out all electrical devices on Earth,’ Blake explained. ‘Hospitals, transportation, water recycling, food distribution—they’d all fail. Billions of lives would be lost, plunging Earth into a new Dark Age.’

  ‘What about television?’

  ‘There would be no television.’

  ‘No television,’ the agent muttered. ‘That’s serious.’

  A loud buzz had broken out. Pomphrey held up his hands for quiet.

  ‘The perpetrator of the crime has demanded a ransom of 100 billion credits. If the money is not paid within five days to an off-planet account, he’ll use the weapon.’

  Another agent held up her hand. ‘You’re saying he,’ she said. ‘Do you know who’s responsible?’

  ‘The perpetrator is Bartholomew Badde,’ Pomphrey said, his eyes sweeping the room to eventually settle on Blake.

  Bartholomew Badde.

  Blake’s vision swam. The criminal mastermind was famous throughout the galaxy and aspired to be remembered as history’s greatest villain.

  Badde had evaded the law for so many years that most departments had given up on trying to catch him—he had changed his face more than a dozen times so that no one now knew what he looked like. The assignment had been handed over to Blake and his partner, Bailey Jones. Following Badde to Venus, they had been crossing a volcanic plain when—

  Blake shook his head. The memory was too painful.

  Pomphrey had started talking again. ‘One of our agents has been following up on Badde for years,’ he said, ‘and his research will be distributed shortly. This will be our number one priority until this crisis is over. Badde must be stopped.’

  Blake caught sight of his section commander, Senior Agent Capelli, who had come marching over. She was Tyrinian, a reptilian race: short and thickset with a cobra-like face and flared neck.

  ‘Looks like you’re the man of the hour,’ Capelli said.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Capelli took Blake down to her office on the 221st floor. It was a small room with a billboard outside the window flashing Holidays to Neptune—Bring your woollies!

  Blake had always liked Capelli. She was a no-nonsense agent with a good arrest record. Her wall was decorated with citations for meritorious conduct. She had won Agent of the Year three years running.

  Capelli stopped at her desk, reached in and pulled out a snack box. She caught the rat as it leapt out.

  ‘I suppose you still want me heading up the Badde investigation,’ Blake said, trying to ignore the squirming rodent. ‘I’ve got some ideas about how to find him.’

  ‘That’s great,’ she said, biting off the rat’s head and wolfing it down. ‘We’ll need all the help we can get.’ She tossed the rest of the rat into her mouth and swallowed.

  Blake leant forward. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that—it’ll be a team effort.’

  ‘But surely you want me in charge? I’m the expert on Badde.’

  Capelli sighed. ‘We appreciate the work you’ve done, Blake,’ she said. ‘But this is straight from Pomphrey: I’ll be taking over from here.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We need a team player heading up this investigation,’ Capelli said. She took out another rat, which gave Blake a desperate look before it disappeared into Capelli’s mouth. ‘And you’re the only agent in the PBI who works alone.’

  ‘I work better alone.’

  ‘We’ve taken the liberty of transferring your files to the server.’

  ‘But those are my private files!’

  ‘This is the PBI,’ she said, her steely eyes fixing on Blake. ‘Nothing’s private here.’

  Woodenly, Blake made his way to the door. ‘I should be heading up this investigation,’ he said. ‘I know how Badde thinks. I’m the only one who can catch him.’

  Capelli put down her snack box and scowled. ‘It’s that sort of thinking that’s kept you off this case,’ she said.

  Making his way to the lift, Blake checked the main server on his wristcomm.

  Sprot!

  Capelli had been right: his files had now been shared with the entire bureau. A few passing agents gave him a brief nod. Blake could read their expressions: they knew the case had been taken away from him.

  When the lift arrived, he hit the button for the basement. He should have headed for his office, but Capelli’s news, not to mention her breakfast, had left his stomach churning.

  I need to get out of here, he thought. I’m the laughing stock of the PBI.

  ‘Back already?’ Sally asked as he climbed behind the wheel. ‘Bad day at the office?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Blake fumed. On a hunch, he checked his wristcomm again, but this time scanned the mail files. An anonymous message had been delivered to him: Check the personnel files of the Tygonian temple if you want to locate Bartholomew Badde.

  He tried tracing the message, but it was masked. This could be something or nothing at all. It might be a hoax—but why send him to a Tygonian temple?

  ‘Where are we going?’ Sally asked.

  Blake started the engine. ‘We’re going to find God,’ he replied.

  3

  An acid rain fell across Neo City.

  It fell on the good, the bad and the ugly, but it especially fell on those who had not bothered to catch the warning on the evening news. It cascaded over the super skyscrapers, down into the deep canyon streets and onto Blake Carter, who was unsuccessfully trying to huddle under an awning.

  Short-term exposure was harmless, but any longer could turn a human to sludge. And while Blake did not fear death, he did h
ave an aversion to ending up as anything that didn’t look much like him.

  Tightening his trench coat, he tipped his scarlet fedora forwards. It was almost 11pm and it had been a long day. It had taken him ages to find a way into the Tygonian temple.

  Where is this guy? Blake wondered.

  A drunk in a nearby apartment started singing ‘Loving My Three-Eyed Girl on Venus’. Mid-chorus, he broke into a loud sob and hurled a chair through his window. Blake watched it bounce down the alley, stunning a pigeon who then crash-landed on a window ledge. The pigeon flapped its wings once before being gobbled up by a carnivorous potted plant on the next ledge.

  Blake wrinkled his nose. What is that smell?

  Looking down, he saw a plastic dog excreting a pile of silicon poo at his feet. The animal gave him a satisfied look before trotting down the alley.

  Blake shuffled into the next doorway.

  This part of town was about as safe as landing a paper glider on the surface of the sun. PBI agents had come down here and never been seen again.

  At least I’ve got my blaster, he thought.

  A monitor next to Blake’s face flickered to life. Grey static dissolved into a grinning face.

  ‘Bob Flatulent,’ the face introduced itself. ‘From Flatulent Insurance. And you are?’

  ‘Nobody,’ Blake said.

  ‘Life is unexpected, my friend—’

  ‘Are you selling life insurance?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m offering you an opportunity. Do you know how many people were impaled by musical instruments last year? Twenty-three! I know what you’re thinking. A flute, a violin—those you can walk away from. But what about an oboe? A tuba? A trombone? You don’t walk away after being impaled by a trombone.’

  Blake elbowed the screen and it went dark.

  ‘Salesmen,’ he muttered.

  A shape moved at the other end of the alley. Checking the blaster under his coat, Blake watched as a man wearing a monk’s habit flitted from shadow to shadow until he reached a doorway with the letter ‘T’ spray-painted over it.

  The monk motioned for Blake to approach, pushing back his hood to reveal a goatee, a shaved head and an advertisement on his forehead that read Joe’s Facelifts: You age ’em! We stretch ’em!

  ‘Brother Puttlik?’ Blake said.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Blake Carter. Planetary Bureau of Investigation.’

  ‘And you wish to enter the temple? Why?’

  ‘That’s PBI business.’

  ‘If it is because of food hygiene, I assure you those grasshoppers were entirely accidental—’

  ‘This has nothing to do with grasshoppers,’ Blake said, lowering his voice. ‘It’s got to do with Bartholomew Badde.’

  ‘The criminal?’

  The news had broken during the day about Badde’s theft of the Super-EMP. There must have been a leak within the PBI—not surprising considering the significance of the story. The Hypernet had exploded with rumours about the end of civilisation. The stock market had bottomed out. People were scrambling to get off-planet.

  The world president had promised the weapon would be recovered. He didn’t say if that meant paying Badde or capturing him.

  ‘The entire PBI’s trying to track down Badde,’ Blake said, ‘but it’s like looking for a Rastarian needle in a Cytonian haystack.’

  Zeeb says:

  Which is really hard, if you didn’t already know.

  Blake told Puttlik about the tip-off. ‘I need to check your personnel files,’ he said.

  ‘Access to our computer system is forbidden,’ Puttlik said. ‘And my faith is strong—’

  ‘How about a hundred credits?’

  ‘—but my wallet is empty.’

  Puttlik pulled out a card reader and swiped Blake’s cash card. After unlocking the door, he led Blake into a laundry where, from the bottom shelf, he produced a robe, sending a batch of electric cockroaches scurrying.

  He handed the robe to Blake. ‘Wear this,’ he said.

  Donning the robe, Blake followed Puttlik into a hall that looked like it had once been an ugly warehouse and had now been transformed into an ugly warehouse with drapes.

  A fifty-foot cross-legged plastic statue of Tygon had been placed in the centre of the floor. The god looked quite serene, with one hand gently touching a huge wart on his chin as if he were considering the infinite mysteries of the universe. Around him, one hundred devotees meditated, mimicking the pose.

  ‘Impressive,’ Puttlik said. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh,’ Blake said. ‘Very.’

  Zeeb says:

  If you’re wondering how Tygon gained a following, the answer lies in Garlek’s Law, which states that no matter how stupid an idea, there will always be people who will believe it.

  In this instance, Tygon, a banker living on Hydor Seven, was fixing his TV antenna during a storm when he fell off his roof, knocking himself unconscious. On waking, he became convinced that God was speaking to him through his wart.

  Yes, you read that right. His wart.

  For the next thirty years Tygon listened to his wart, carefully jotting down its sage wisdom. If you think a faith based on listening to a talking wart is silly, then I will remind you that Tygonianism is only one of the universe’s 12,245,543 major religions. Many are even sillier.

  Puttlik silently led Blake past the worshippers and down a winding torch-lit staircase.

  ‘You don’t have electricity?’ Blake asked.

  ‘It’s cosier this way.’

  How do I end up in these situations? Blake wondered.

  Last month he had faced down a mutant chihuahua, a killer known as the Tickle Torturer, and a car wash that had taken three vehicles hostage, threatening to kill them if the quality of its detergent wasn’t improved.

  Now this.

  After descending a further fifteen flights of stairs, they finally reached the dingy basement. Smelling of mould and mushrooms, the room held another statue of Tygon, this time positioned on a square pedestal.

  ‘We’re a long way down,’ Blake said, peering into the gloom. ‘Is there another way out?’

  ‘Oh, there’s the elevator.’

  ‘There’s an elevator?’

  ‘But the scenic route is much more interesting.’

  Blake resisted the urge to mash Puttlik’s face into the wall.

  ‘Where’s the mainframe?’ he asked instead.

  Striding past the statue, Puttlik led Blake to another room where an ancient computer sat on a desk in the corner. Blake attached a hack drive to the system. It took 0.452 seconds to search more than ten billion records.

  ‘Nothing,’ he sighed.

  ‘Who is this man?’ an angry voice demanded.

  Swinging around, Blake saw two devotees in the doorway.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Puttlik said, wringing his hands. ‘I heard a sound and came in to investigate—and here he was!’

  ‘Death is the penalty for breaking into our computer system!’ one of the men snapped.

  Blake flashed his ID. ‘I’m a PBI agent. If anything happens to me, the government will turn your temple into toast—’

  ‘There will be no toasting our temple!’

  ‘—so you’ll step aside so I can walk right out of here.’

  But one of the men leapt at Blake, grabbing his throat. ‘You will not leave here! You will languish in our deepest cell until the end of recorded time! Your only sustenance will be the sweat of the other prisoners—’

  Pulling out his blaster, Blake stunned the two men and they collapsed in an untidy heap.

  ‘Where’s the elevator?’

  ‘Behind the statue,’ Puttlik whimpered. ‘But the other devotees will kill me if they think I betrayed them.’

  ‘I don’t want that.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  So Blake stunned him too.

  ‘The things I do for love,’ he muttered.

  Blake realised this could turn very nasty, very quickly. More
devotees could turn up at any moment. As the elevator ascended, he sent an emergency signal on his wristcomm. Backup would be here in minutes, but it might be too late.

  The doors opened. The prayer session had just ended and devotees were everywhere. Blake pushed through, keeping his head low. He was almost out. Only a few more feet…

  ‘Stop him!’ someone yelled. ‘He’s an infidel!’

  Oh, sprot.

  Blake waved his badge, firing his blaster into the ceiling, but there were too many of them, and they were picking things up to use as weapons: spoons, mops, books. Someone waved a chainsaw. The door was only a few feet away, but it might as well have been the other side of the galaxy.

  ‘I’m a PBI agent!’ he shouted. ‘You’re all under arrest for assaulting a police officer—’ He hit the emergency communicator on his wrist again, but he knew reinforcements wouldn’t reach him in time.

  A figure appeared waving a trombone.

  Sprot!

  The musical instrument slammed into Blake’s head and everything went black.

  4

  At first there was darkness. Then a bright spot of light appeared. Blake thought he might have been witnessing the Big Bang—until he realised it was too late for that.

  A ceiling shifted into view. No, this is definitely not the Big Bang. The Big Bang didn’t have a ceiling. Walls arrived. Then windows.

  This was a hospital. His eyes shifted to a chair and a man sitting in it.

  Sprot, he thought. Cecil Pomphrey.

  Blake forced himself to sit up. ‘Assistant Director,’ he said.

  Speaking hurt. In fact, everything did. He was in more pain now than when he’d fallen into an Inverse Quantum Polaric Hypersingularity Generator—and that had hurt a lot.

  ‘Agent Carter.’ Pomphrey’s voice was deep. ‘You look like crap.’

  ‘Really? Don’t hold back…’

  ‘I’ve seen agents busted up before, but you had bones broken that the docs didn’t even know existed.’ Pomphrey stood up and began pacing the room. ‘I’ve been watching you, Blake.’