‘Perfectly entitled; but what they’re really seething over, of course, is that they’ve spent most of the morning hoping to achieve a fraction of your natural beauty.’
‘Hmn, hardly natural, Joel; besides, are your really saying they could be jealous of someone who’s not even human?’
There’s absolutely no way that these young girls could have mistaken me for being human. They’ve seen enough magazine articles, enough adverting videos, to realise that a perfect beauty is the prerogative of only the most expensive droids
It must be hard for them, being held up for scrutiny against an otherwise unachievable beauty.
Some of these girls will have come across some of the cheaper droids in their daily lives; the sales assistants, waitresses, that kind of role (though no droids, as far as I’m aware, are allowed by the unions and what have you to be models or actors). Of course, even those rare droids graced with gorgeous looks will never be a love rival as far as these girls are concerned: it’s not just that their bodies are too hard, too basic – bizarrely, it’s also because they don’t emit those unconscious signals associated with natural bodily scents, which play a far greater role in attraction (and yes, even envy and anger) than most people realise.
Me, I have those natural scents.
Which means Joel could be right; those girls might be envious of me.
‘Well I’m jealous of them,’ I state flatly. ‘I’d sacrifice my beauty to be human, believe me.’
Joel looks at me with a questioning gaze, like he’s trying to work out if I really mean that.
‘I think of you as being human,’ he says, his voice a touch hesitant, the tones of someone who’s worried they might have divulged their innermost thoughts only to be rebuffed.
I slip my arm through his, warmly pull him a little closer.
‘You know what Joel?’ I say as light-heartedly as I can manage, ‘I reckon that what with your false heart and me being who I am, we’re going to give this ride its most intense test it’s ever had!’
*
Chapter 7
The swan boats are surprisingly comfortable, with thickly padded seats that, because they curl up into the wings, just about force any couple to sit closely together.
Joel has worked on this ride before, he assures me, so he knows how to decouple the boat from the line up and let the underwater chains and wheels drag it out into the main waterway.
All work has finished on it, and it’s all fine to go, he assures me yet again as he starts the whole ride up with a turn of a key, a press of a button, and jumps into the boat alongside me as everything whirrs into motion.
The first area is a bit of a disappointment, nothing more than animatronic models and filmic holograms recreating (well, okay, I suppose this is a little apt) Cinderella’s rags to riches tale. It’s all perfectly recreated of course, with magical transformations, glorious illumination and even realistic scents, breezes and rainfall, while the canal itself elegantly weaves through it, even rising and falling now and again to give you an extra thrill of sudden speed, or douse you in light spray: yet even I know it’s not exactly tuned into what any romantically inclined couple would be hoping to experience.
We pass a number of branches that could lead off into the more exciting areas, ‘the more tempestuous, more heated ones’ as Joel describes them, but each time the points fail to trip, so we continue to sail through further fairyland adventures of Rapunzel, of Red Riding Hood.
‘Looks like we’re destined for the kiddies’ version I’m afraid,’ Joel sighs miserably.
‘Damn this stone heart of mine!’ he adds, though I’m not sure how serious he’s being.
*
At last we reach a branch lane that, with a surprisingly gut wrenching move, we’re sent off down rather then being allowed to continue on our way through yet more fairy tales.
The turn is so unexpectedly sharp, the swan boat has to swing around with an almost shocking violence. We’re sent colliding together upon our seat, such that our heads almost painfully crash.
The boat swoops down a slight incline, no longer requiring the underwater tracks and drains to drag it along. We dip beneath an arch of overhanging and thickly entwined trees, one drooping so low we have to quickly duck our heads to ensure we’re not caught up in the tangled branches.
Then, abruptly, we’re careering even faster along an underground waterway lit by only the most basic of lighting systems.
Even in this dim light, however, I can see – or perhaps sense that – Joel is uneasy about the way we’ve been sent off hurtling down this waterway of swirling rapids.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
‘Well, er…I can’t understand it but, er…this isn’t part of the course.’
‘You don’t say?’ I reply, noting that it is especially dank and filthy down here. ‘So what sort of canal is it then?’
‘Er, well, there’s a kind of feeder system of canals; you know, to keep the water at the right level?’
‘But if this were a feeder canal, wouldn't we be sort of flowing towards the regular course ways?’ I point out anxiously.
‘Yeah, I’m afraid you’ve got it in one, Einstein,’ Joel replies, sounding even more apprehensive than I did. ‘Which means this is for excess water…’
‘Waste, you mean? We’re heading down a waste duct – right?’
*
Chapter 8
Just a few moments ago, we’d been drifting along so slowly, in channels that were quite narrow, that we could have simply stepped ashore if we’d chosen to.
Now we were caught up in what was an increasingly violent surge of water, in what could be more accurately described as a pipe rather than a canal.
Wow, some tunnel of love this journey has turned out to be, right?
Joel takes my hands in his.
Oh yeah, Joel; that's so reassuring!
This way, we can drown together holding hands, rather than uselessly flailing around in the water trying to save ourselves.
Wonderful; just wonderful.
Moments like this, I wish I’d just stayed in my box.
All around us now, the waves are crashing endlessly against each other, all fighting for prominence, all insisting I’m the one going in the right direction, you’re going the wrong way!
All churning away, making the water broil.
Striking one of these recoiling waves, the boat suddenly leaps up, the swan’s elegant neck shattering as the head collides with the pipe’s sides. We’re showered with a smattering of wood splinters, of gaily painted plaster.
The wingtips are next to be sheared off, the cracked wooden pieces vanishing into what is now a maelstrom. The boat twirls uncontrollably, as if caught up in a vicious whirlpool, as there’s nothing to keep it heading straight ahead.
We have to hold tightly to each other now, if only to stop ourselves from being thrown out of the boat. We keep our heads low, too, tucking them in towards each others shoulder, worried that if we don’t we’re going to end up losing them just like the swan did.
‘Where’s it all end?’ I scream out to Joel, hoping he can hear above the thunderous noise of the waters so angrily swirling around us in such a confined space. ‘Where’s it going to throw us out?’
‘It won’t throw us out anywhere!’ Joel yells back, momentarily raising my hopes a little until he adds worriedly, ‘All the water’s cleaned before being pumped back into the cisterns!’
‘Cleaned?’ I repeat ominously, imagining all sorts of violent ways water might be mechanically cleaned, not one of which allows anything larger than a fly to survive.
‘Don’t worry,’ he shouts back, ‘it has fail-safes!’
‘Oh that’s all right then!’ I shriek back sarcastically. ‘Just like the ride had fail-safes, yeah?’
*
Despite Joel’s efforts to reassure me that everything would be okay, he’s the one anxiously peering into the gloom lying ahead of us.
‘Joel: what i
s it you’re looking for?’ I warily cry out to him over the thunderous noise of the waves crashing about us.
‘Well…there should be a sort of fork in the pipe ahead…’ he screams back, his eyes wide with what seems like fear to me.
‘A fork?’ Now I’m more suspicious than ever that Joel isn’t quite being honest when he says we should be safe. ‘And – let me guess – we’re safe as long as we take the right branch?’
‘The left branch, actually…’ he shrieks back.
He grabs my hand, begins pulling me closer towards him, like he’s being all protective once more.
‘We need to weight it to the left!’ he yells, pulling me harder than ever as the boat tips so precariously we’re virtually struggling to climb uphill. ‘Help guide it through the pipe we want…’
‘Joel, there isn’t any left on a boat that’s spinning around!’
Sure enough, even as I say this, the boat twirls completely around a number of times – and when the worst of the spinning at last briefly comes to a halt, we’re lying in what is now the right-hand side of the boat.
The way the boat is being chaotically tossed around, however, is now worse than ever.
Just ahead of us now, I can make out the division in the pipe, where the waves clashing against each other as they fight for prominence are a maelstrom in miniature, the creamy white foam of the wave tops rising up everywhere about us. The boat rocks and whirls uncontrollably, crashing again and again into the sides of the pipe, sending us bowling across the floor.
For just the very briefest of seconds, the misty spray enveloping us appears to me to take shape, to seem wraithlike in the way the milky foam congeals towards the right-hand side of our boat.
It looks like a woman: no, a girl.
Even crazier, this girl created from the churning of the waves seems to me to push at the boat’s side, to thrust us away from the pipe’s right-hand fork
Whatever it was I actually saw within that tempest of complete chaos, thankfully, we find ourselves rushing off down the left fork of the pipe.
*
Chapter 9
Naturally, we’re still uncontrollably hurtling along the dimly lit pipe, still being violently tossed by the screamingly angry waves.
But Joel is acting now like it’s the must fun filled ride on Nevaeh, laughing richly as the spray lashes his face, his drenched hair flying about him as the boat rocks and lurches.
There’s an abrupt dip in the pipe, the boat sickeningly dropping as if, at last, it’s about to be swallowed by the waves; then we’re suddenly rushing beneath not the overhead curvature of pipe but arches of thickly entwined bushes and trees.
As we clear even the arching web of branches, we’re thrown out into what is now a curving canal, our still swiftly moving boat causing a powerful wave to rush on ahead of us, sloshing everywhere over the waterway’s banks. We’re now in a vast room, one that’s mostly dark, but abruptly lit up every now and again with a surge of vast fountains of roaring fire.
Within those momentary flares of illumination, I see the suddenly illuminated sails or dragonheads of languidly floating Viking ships.
It’s another ride, the Fires of Helhiem, where the goddess Hel attempts to deter the adventurers foolish enough to enter her realm.
I recognise it immediately, because it was one of my favourite rides when my parents treated me to a few days in Nevaeh, one I insisted going on a number of times.
Not far ahead of the line of exploring Viking ships, a colossal cliff of glittering ice towers over everything.
‘Watch out!’ I cry out to Joel, reaching across for him and dragging him lower down behind the sides of our boat.
I’m only just in time.
The dragon swoops down out of the darkness, the searing flames of its fiery breath passing so close I feel their intense heat against my skin. Like the night sky it drops down from, the dragon is of the purest black, meaning it would be invisible but for its immense presence, the downdraft from its massively extended wings as icy cold as its breath was hot.
Its grasping claws miss Joel, miss me too, thankfully; but they clunk hard against the rear of our boat, the violence of the blow propelling us into a fresh burst of speed. There’s another crash, yet more splintering wood, as our boat barges through the thin barrier separating the very top of the feeder canal from the coursing channels of the main waterway.
Our battered, headless swan boat whirls out into the path of a looming Viking ship, its handful of white-faced passengers obviously more terrified of our unexpected arrival than they have been of anything else they’ve experienced so far on their journey into Helhiem
(Their journey will get more frightening, believe me!)
It’s only a miniature Viking ship, of course, yet it’s still far larger than our own sorely injured swan: and it continues to bear down upon our gradually slowing boat. I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes as I wait for the crunch as it rams and sinks us.
Then, abruptly, the ship jerks to a halt.
So, too, does the ship lying ahead of us, such that we’re the ones who – in a slow yet unstoppable whirling of our boat – softly bump into its rear.
Relatively bright inspection lights click into life everywhere around us, the magic of the ride unforgivably exposed as nothing but the trickery of ingenious machinery.
The stirring music and sound affects emanating from the innumerable speakers dies, replaced with a female voice politely requesting everyone to remain calm.
‘Please stay seated; we will be restarting your ride as soon as appropriately possible. Please stay…’
Joel grins, glad that we’re safe.
Reaching out towards me, he hugs me gratefully.
‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘for saving me: I don’t know how you managed to see that thing coming out of the darkness!’
‘It’s the ice cliff,’ I explain. ‘I remembered from riding on this as a little girl that, just before you sail into the ice tunnel, a dragon swoops down and takes all the wind out of your sails; it just misses the ships, obviously, but I realised we would be in its path.’
‘So, you’re saying, you rode on the Viking ships as a child?’
For a brief moment I can’t understand why his amused grin is wider than ever.
Then it dawns on me.
I was never a child, was I?
All I’m really recalling is my programmed false memories.
*
Chapter 10
‘A ride coming to a complete standstill for almost twenty minutes; a smashed swan boat; barriers broken: and a severely damaged Viking ship–’
‘Hardly “severely damaged,” Dad!’ Joel protests at last, having up till now remained shamefaced, like me, as we stood before the Womb Master. ‘We hardly hit it when–’
‘So that’s all right, is it?’ The eyes of Joel’s father widen in shock that he has been cut off in his listing of the damage we’ve caused. ‘“We hardly hit it.’”
‘Well, yeah, okay, Dad; all the other things we – I – I take responsibility for–’
‘Really? So you’re prepared to pay for all the damage you’ve caused, are you?’
‘I’ll work as hard and for as long as it takes to–’
‘The wages you earn, the jobs you’re capable of doing? It’ll be a long time before you even come close to paying off your debt!’
I remain silent.
I had tried to speak, to apologise, when we had first been ushered into the Womb Master’s office, only to be met with a blast of invective informing me that he wasn’t as crazed as his son and so didn’t either speak or listen to machinery.
He wasn’t tall, yet he was incredibly broad, the build of the many men who have grown up bending reluctant mechanical systems to their will, using any amount of force they deemed appropriate, whether it be wrench, sledgehammer or hacksaw.
It seems he can be every bit as hard in his dealings with humans, from what Joel has told me of him.
; Joel’s mother had been one of the shows dancers, whom the younger yet still relatively ancient Womb Master had taken a liking to. It was one of many dalliances he rewarded himself with for his hard work and commitment to running Nevaeh, but in this case it had unfortunately resulted in a child, Joel.
As it wouldn’t have been possible for the girl to both continue to dance and adequately oversee Joel’s upbringing, the Womb Master had decided that the boy would be brought up by a series of ever-changing nursemaids, thereby ensuring his child didn’t forge any unnecessary and hindering attachments. To further ensure this, the dancer was also asked to leave Nevaeh.
And now, after all the Womb Masters’ best efforts to bring his boy up as totally independent, his loyalty reserved only for Nevaeh, here was Joel standing before him, being tasked with explaining to his father the role I served in his life.
‘The way I see it,’ the Master growls, cutting off any further protests from Joel with the irate raising of an arm, ‘I’ve ended up producing one heck of a mixed up kid; one who ends up falling in love with a girl who’s really nothing more than a machine!’
*
I fleetingly glance Joel’s way, hoping the Womb Master won’t notice my move, my shock.
Joel catches me glancing his way, however.
He blushes richly, thoroughly embarrassed by his father’s revelation.
Naturally, I’d noticed and been flattered by Joel’s obvious interest in me.
Yet I had enough sense – at least, that's the way I’d thought of it up until now – not to flatter myself so much that I believed Joel could ever see me as a real girl, let alone fall in love with me.
After all, I was well aware what particular function I’d been specifically built for.
And Joel, of course, was also well aware of what was supposed to be my primary purpose too.
So, I’d told myself; Joel just sees me, I bet, as a ‘girl’ who’ll offer him all the pleasures he craves but without any of the usual, attendant complications.
An experiment. An experience.