OVER THE SILVER SKY TO THE WORLD OF NEVER : Part 47 - I'm Afraid That's Not Going To Happen.

in #story5 years ago

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. So Shakespeare wrote all those years ago in Shakespearean times. He wrote a lot for those days when nobody could read. Makes you wonder why he bothered really doesn't it. What was the point? I'll let him off on the plays, but not the sonnets. There was no need for them. They were gratuitous in my opinion. That's my word for the day and now I've used it gratuitously. It's one of those words with more than one meaning and I don't know either. Some believe Shakespeare didn't write all those plays. They think it was done by Jacob Marley out of "A Christmas Carol." by Dickens, Charles. I suppose it's possible. Marley was dead in Dickensian times and so was Shakespeare. With him being entirely fictional it must have been extremely difficult to get published. So good for him, or her. I'm not going to get all sexist. For all I know Jacob Marley could have been a woman. They like writing and they are very good at it. I don't have a favorite play what he wrote. They are all equally shit, but if you put a gun to my head I'd nominate "The Merchant of Penis." Purely for the industrial strength antisemitism and the fact Arthur Colon Doyle came up with Shylock Herpes after reading it while taking a dump in his own hat. What a legend.


(The copyright for this image is the property of Dain Yoon.)

"I told you. I'm incognito." Doxy responded tensely. Her hand still inside her long cloak and certainly resting on some kind of weapon.
"Which also explains the wig. Are you a wanted woman everywhere?" Jake asked.
"I'm not a wanted woman here. I have full clearance to enter the city."
Jake gave her a long intense look.
"Now I'm starting to doubt you're the real Doxy. The one I knew would have said everyone wanted her, in a sexual way. It must be that wig. Your brain is overheating."
She huffed sullenly.
"If you must know I'm a frigging celebrity in this place. My adventures in The Never are very popular. If anyone here recognizes me I will be mobbed. That gets noticed by others."
"Can I have your autograph?"
"No. You can have a kick in the ass for wandering off. What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"Hey you only needed me to get bail money. After that I was surplus to requirements as far as I could tell."
"What the hell are you on about? I told you we'd be breaking the crew out."
"Making it crystal clear I was only to be a decoy to draw the guard towers fire. I figured with everyone loving you, you'd have no problem finding volunteers who would be a lot more use than me. I'm pretty useless in any situation. You've made that perfectly clear to me. More than once."
She avoided eye contact, turning her head to the side so he couldn't see her face.
"You've got your uses. Some hidden talents maybe. Hacking one Custodian has never been done before and you hacked eight."
"Oh so you believe I'm me now."
"No I don't. This place freaks me out right? It's okay for you Jake. You haven't got a neural net inside your brain. I have. The Central Consensus can monitor and control you using a net. It records everything you do and say. It can download your personality into just about anything it likes. I wouldn't even know I'm not me. I could still be me but have all my memories changed. That gives me the chills."
"Hence the awful wig."
"Shut up. It's not awful. It's perfectly alright. It has a dual purpose." She pulled back the hood then lifted the front of the wig a tiny bit. There was some kind of steel web or mesh in its lining. "This shields me. It also contains the me that entered here."
"Yesterday? That's how I found you. My spherical comrades spotted you coming in. Where did you spend the night."
"Back at the fucking settlement. I've been here looking for you every day since you pissed off and left. You selfish prick. No way I'm spending a night here. They could do anything to me when I'm asleep."
"Fuck You." Doxy punched him in the face. "Ow. Why did.. Right. My fault. That's what I called the first Custodian I hacked. Poor choice really. Got a bit to full of myself. Can't change it now though."
"Why not?"
"It won't let me. As far as it's concerned I'm its father and I named it when I hacked it. Sometimes I get the impression it's proud of its name. Hey how about taking them with you when you do the jail break thing?"
"Pointless. They won't work outside the dome."
"Ah well. Never mind. Do you fancy coming back to my place? I've got a lovely little apartment. Only ten or fifteen minutes walk away."
"No. We're leaving."
"I'm afraid that's not going to happen." If looks could kill his intestines would be spread all over the ground. "I need to get into the city proper."
"Bullshit... How did you get in anyway?"
Jake filled her in on all that had happened with Honda Kawasaki. Including the cryptic instructions Angelique had left with him.
"So far I've only managed to search this bloody place. Trying to find a way into the city proper. All I've succeeded in doing so far is gate crashing a few simulations. Seen about eight people and spoken to one who was no use whatsoever. It makes no sense. Tens of millions of people yet no one around."
"This place hasn't been popular for decades. Well before my time. They say it used to be packed 24/7. Now it's gone out of fashion, as have most of the games available. A few retro gamers use it. That's all. Things have been very wrong here for a long time. Every now and then new arrivals will make use of the accommodations here if they can't handle the city proper."
"Look my place is this way. Why don't we pop over and see what our options are."
She arched an eyebrow artfully.
"Asking me back for coffee?"
"Unfortunately no. No coffee. Only some nutritional drinks and protein bars and I've run out of both. I can't get anything out of the vending machines and when my drones do it they tend to destroy the machine which brings out more drones that we have to deal with. It's a shame you didn't bring Pip with you."
Doxy snorted. If he were a sensitive man he'd have said it was derisive.
"Bring a child here? They'd take her away and lock her up as soon as she set foot inside."
"What the hell for?" Jake asked, aghast.
"Nobody has been born on this planet for hundreds of years. There are no children. She's unique."
"Shit. So the people are forbidden from having children then?"
"No. You can do pretty much what you like. And what everybody liked was not to produce children. No one knows why. Not even the Consensus." Doxy blinked and scrunched her eyes. "Did you see that?"
"If you mean the dark shadow crossing my peripheral vision, I did indeed. We've got to run and hide haven't we."
"Well spotted. Time Agents. On two. Two!"

The pair of them set off. Jake having to turn around. He'd instinctively been heading back to his base. Doxy was the expert here and she showed it. There were alleys and passages he'd never discovered in all his searching. Cleverly concealed entrances with optical illusions keeping them hidden. That for example wasn't a flat wall. There was a narrow entrance and if you turned right then left you found yourself running like the wind. Jake still had no idea who or what Time Agents were. They were bad though. He felt that in his bones. Doxy led them on a wild sprint into areas he'd never seen. There was a concealed exit up ahead. Almost as they turned into it a very black shadow crossed their intended path. Jake found himself being grabbed and dragged again. Into another hiding place. A door closed behind them. It wasn't much larger than a coffin. Very dark as well.

"How long do you think we should wait?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"How long this elevator takes to descend two hundred floors and then come back up again. This is a maintenance elevator. The machines use it. For cleaning and servicing. It could be twenty minutes or an hour."
"Won't we suffocate?"
"Oh yeah. We'll be dead in fifteen at most. Unless I can open up one of the vents."
"Well it was nice knowing you Doxy. Why didn't I just call up my boys? They'd have taken care of those Time Agents."
"Eventually I expect but the amount of damage they'd do would only make things worse. You had 8 Custodians, there were at least four agents I saw. Yep that would very quickly go nuclear. They'd only send more. I'm pretty sure the controls are by you."
"Right. What do you need me to do?"
"Get out of the way you tool."
"That's all very well for you to say."
The two of them struggled and shuffled their bodies round until Doxy was approximately where Jake had been. She turned away from him to the wall and made some space to work in. This had an unintended consequence as her shapely behind ground into him at a very personal level.
"Right." Doxy panted. "I just need to pry this panel open... Oh... Is that..?"
"Yes." Jake replied through gritted teeth. "Before you say anything I need to explain that you are very attractive and I am a man."
She wiggled her behind. Jake cursed.
"Mmmm. So you're a grower, not a shower."
"Ha bloody ha. It's perfectly natural phenomenon."
"I wouldn't have said it was phenomenal." Doxy bumped him. He swore and flinched. "My aren't you a big boy. This new body of yours has had some upgrades I see."
"You know very well that's my forearm."
"Yes but a girl can dream." She giggled.
"Oh God. Roll on suffocation. If you've got a gun I could shoot myself."
"No need. It's quite flattering in a way."
"Is it?"
"No. You're a man. You can get an erection just looking at your right hand."
"That's a complete myth... Right okay I'll admit the point. Not all men are the same though."
"Yes. Some are gay. And if you were we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Given what I'm going through I will have to disagree with you on that count. Shit even your sweat smells nice."
"Wish I could say the same for you."
"That's my clothes. I couldn't work out how to use the laundry machine and the bloody Custodians were no help. Are you going to be much longer opening the vents?"
Her knees bent her bottom dipped and then she straightened up making him groan.
"Finished them ages ago. Now I'm chilling until we can get out. Here. Let me turn round."
"No... don't. Aaaaaaagggghhhhh God."
She'd ignored him and continued to do so jerking herself round to face him once more.
"Why ever not? See. There we go all... Oh. I feel what you mean. It's worse isn't it."
"Oh yeah. Much, much worse."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked in a sultry voice.
"Yes. You can stop breathing."

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