Cerebus - Turn 4

“All aboard for Pyke Station,” intones the Noose, “Mind the gap and stand clear of the doors please!”

“I was going to say that,” says Cerebus with a smile, putting his Silver Card back in the card sheath at his side.

A handful of people get off the train as a handful of meks get on.

The carriage the group has climbed aboard contains eight people, four of whom seem to be one family consisting of the parents and two teenage girls. They look to be tourists from the snap cams hanging from their wrists and the T shirts emblazoned with the slogans ‘I Get a Buzz from Electropolis’ and ‘Thrash Rock Café’. The girls nudge each other and giggle on seeing the meks whilst the other passengers become rather nervous.

“We are the new ticket inspectors,” the voice of a fiery-eyed Noose intones pointing to himself and Mex-bot as he moves down the carriage. “Please show us your passes.”

Cerebus activates his Sharp Scan and looking across the carriage, he spots that a young juve sitting to the rear of it has a machine pistol beneath his bulky jacket. Passing this information on to Mex-Bot, Mex-Bot then hisses it to The Noose who strides towards the punk.

“Show me your train pass!”

The lad reaches into his jacket, but he is too slow for The Noose whose own arm darts forwards and crushes the juve’s hand around the weapon he was going for. As the lad’s eyes water in pain, The Noose pulls out his namesake and waves it before the face of the juve with a look that says ‘you shouldn’t have done that’.

Hanging the punk by the neck from the nearest strap hang, he can see that the other human occupants of the train are horrified. “This is the new get tough policy on ticket dodgers,” he says with his thumb indicating to the choking example. The reaction is almost instant as all along the carriage, passes are held up in sweaty hands.

“Not exactly inconspicuous,” comments Cerebus to Mex-Bot as the two of them repair themselves and witness Slammer putting on a metal muscle display for the snap happy teenage girls. “But at least he’s… normal.” This latter comment is aimed at Screwball whose logic circuits appear to have come loose again.

“Choo Choo, Lemmeeee drive,” screeches the multicoloured mek, completely forgetting that steam trains are ancient history.

Screwball has left the carriage and is moving down the train in the direction of the drive cabin.

Cerebus at least wants to keep one carriage under control and asks all passengers, “You ‘norms’ give me your communication devices.”

As soon as he has the pile of wrist coms and wallet phones, he squeezes them between his hands and activates his Energy Drain to suck them all dry and leave them useless.

“I thought that, according to my data banks, your kind rob trains amigo,” The Noose tells Mex-Bot as he signs his autograph for one of the two teenage girls. The other girl is snapping pictures of her father holding up his hands in mock horror as an obliging Slammer holds his Sinister Gun to the man’s head.

“Eeets true,” replies Mex-Bot, “and iy theenk dee scroowee whan ees beating me too eet.”

Screwball has forced open the door of the driver’s cabin in a burst of sparks and finds that the driver is a mek unit. It consists of a torso, arms and a head jutting from a fixed base that is all a part of the train. Due to people’s mistrust of vehicles running without drivers, mek units were installed to give them something to trust, which might be the reason that the mek has a terrible fixed grin and a stupid peaked cap.

“Lemmeeee drive,” Screwball screeches at the mek whose head turns to him like that of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“Unauthorised personnel are not permitted up front… please go back to your seat…”

“Lemmeeee drive,” Screwball screeches again at the mek, his optics rolling wildly within their sockets.

“Please go back to your seat… unauthorised personnel are not permitted up front… please go back to your seat…”

“I theenk you are not leeseneeng greengo,” hisses Mex-Bot, the end of his laser rifle tapping up against the side of the driver’s head, “we are takeeng thees train.”

“You are not authorised… please go bacZZZZzzzxxxzz..zz..zzz.”

Mex-Bot blows on the end of his smoking laser rifle as Screwball wrenches the limp driver mek from its base and takes up position before the controls.

“Choo Choo!” he whoops as he starts pressing buttons and flipping switches.

“That was my stop,” complains one of the passengers as the train zips past the lights of the Larson Blocks station, leaving puzzled people on the platform.

“It’s Pyke or bust,” declares Slammer, towering above the man, “you got a problem with that!”

“Nooo no no no,” says the man forcing a smile to his face, “Pyke’s fine.”

Other passengers look worriedly out of the windows, the train going much faster than ever before, sparks leaping from the tunnel walls at a curve.

The passengers look even more worried when the ‘tanoy’ activates and a voice shrieks, “Choo Choo!”

The stop is sudden and people are flung from their seats and tumble along aisles.

The doors hiss open and from the chaos of the train onto the relative calm of Pyke Station steps Cerebus and the others, ‘the magnificent five’.

“Follow the true path of the Noose or die,” The Noose calls back into the mound of groaning people, “if you are scanned again without my colours then you are legitimate targets!”

“Slammer we lurve yoo!” calls out one of the teenage girls, the mek now sporting a lipstick kiss mark on his cheek.

“Which way?” asks Mex-Bot, who has had to drag the train mad Screwball from the zipper. “Let’s find out,” says Cerebus whose scan has pinpointed Pyke Station Info Terminal.

“You’re driving too fast again George!”

“Look Martha,” George Buntle sighed, “it’s a thirty zone and we’re doing twenty, at this rate we’ll be pulled over as slowsters.”

<THUMP!>

“What was that?”

<THUMP… THUMP…CRUNCH!>

“GEOOORGE!”

The roof has been torn open and the metal hand has reached in and dragged the driver clean out of his seat. The last thing he saw was the smiling face of Screwball before being flung from his own hover car.

“Bye Bye!” says Screwball as he kicks the matronly lady from the vehicle and the four meks bundle themselves into the car. Screeching back into the early evening traffic, the mad mek puts his foot down as Cerebus gives directions.

It is less than a couple of minutes before Rixby Block is reached and Screwball skids the vehicle into a parking spot across the street from it. From the car it is possible to see the illuminated windows all around the bottom of the block which holds displays of some of the treasures which await in the Picasphere Collection of Fine Objects. The main entrance to the block appears to have two rotund and ‘friendly’ security meks, Cerebus’ scan revealing both to be armed with pulse rifles. The meks appear to be simply watching those coming in and out of the building.

“I once made a greeblie look like that,” comments Slammer, pointing to a very red modernist splatter on a canvas in one of the displays. “Actually I have an idea,” he adds, looking across at some of the tourist types coming out of the block.

“I’m back,” he says as he climbs back into the hover car carrying, a hand vid cam, a snap cam, a bag of tacky souvenirs, a wallet and the true prize he sought from his now ‘mugged’ target… a Fine Objects Collection pamphlet:
 

Picasphere - Fine Objects Collection                                                                                             Picasphere - Art for Arts sake!

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