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Left, left, up, up-

Up, up, down, down, right, left, select, start, down-

Left, left, down, down, start, select-

Left, left, up, down, select, start, A, B, left, right, left-

Up, up, down, down, right, up-

Fack it.

I leave the gun on the table and focus on my half-drawn poster. It’s not bad, so far. Blood’s a little pink, but not enough to infantilise it. And the derelict mansion looks good. Imposing. Strong. No one would guess it’s meant to be Summerlin, Las Vegas. At least, I don’t think they would.

Williams might’ve, I suppose…if he’d seen the marking on the side part of-…on the side of the garage.

Would he?

No se.

I get up and walk around the room, looking at the four hundred odd other posters pinned next to and on top of each other. Some so old the colours have faded, others so new they look like cartoons. None distinctive enough to stay in my head. Except maybe the Barbarella one, and only cos of the three pretty heads; Sarah, my wife Sarah, and Jane Fonda, all sucking on a very ripe banana. Nipples peeking out from behind the peeled skin. That one is quite memorable. If the mood is right.

I finish a lap then do another.

Stop at the end, run a fingernail down Fonda’s banana.

Think of the canyon-planet below.

Combat in Cutter’s camp.

Killing marlocks.

It’s been almost five hours.

Eight and a half is the record, and that was…when?

Six months ago?

Seven?

I look over at Matthews’ calendar poster. The lines are still blurry. Far as I can tell, the month says June and the year says 2824. Wasn’t June gone already?

I start walking over to get a closer look.

The siren sounds.

Fack.

I look at the gun sitting next to the crayons on the other side of the room, but there’s no time.

No problema.

It’s coming with me whether I’m holding it or not.

I straighten up.

White flash.

The room deletes and sky grows in.

+

+

Pinkish, radioactive sky.

Just like always.

I shake my arms, my nerves.

I’m on the canyon edge, field shirt on, gun in claw.

Same as ever.

No sign of anyone else.

No sign of Matthews.

No problema.

Probably for the best.

The guy’s been a little out of sorts lately.

Not updating the calendar.

Hiding in his room.

Ignoring my evening monologues.

Better if he sits a few out.

I look around, even though I know this place like the back of my moustache.

Green wedge that could be grass, mail crate down and left hiding a turret, one of Cutter’s Marlock goons running my way…

I shoot without thinking.

Marlock dies in one shot, just like Sarah.

Lucky bastard.

Now he can go back to wherever it is he goes.

Cutter’s base?

Green room?

No se.

Wherever it is, they don’t seem to want him gone long.

The guy runs, doesn’t shoot…every facking time.

Is that the orders he gets?

Run but don’t kill.

No se.

The fallen Marlock starts to flicker, his suit and all the messy shit inside beaming off the canyon dirt floor.

Second Marlock spawns in, same strategy as the first.

I send four “persuaders” his way.

He falls back like a rag doll.

Dumb Marly.

Only chance he’s got is if I’m taking a shit.

Or spawning in drunk.

Or mid-soliloquy.

Nah.

If I were drunk, I’d shoot even faster.

Aim?

Who cares? There’s up, there’s down, there’s thirty yards ahead. There’s diagonal down for those fackers trying to clip my feet. There’s diagonal up for those plastic drone pigeons spoiling the sky. There’s backwards too, if I can face turning round.

I never miss.

+

+

The third Marlock spawns in.

I shoot him, astronaut reflex, and go back to what ifs.

Fack, I’ve been standing here…how long?

Good job there’s no time limit.

I look up and see the four mountains floating in the sky, purple mist cutting off their bases, and…what’s that?

It’s dark, so it’s tough to make out, but-

Fack.

There’s a monitor.

Some text.

245 seconds left.

Huh?

That’s new.

I re-tribulate my scanner and look forward, far as I can.

Yeah, I know this place.

It’s not so hard.

245 seconds is enough.

No…238.

I look for the reload button on my huge facking gun then realise there is none.

Okay.

Kill time.

I load up the Wile E Coyote tune and put it on loop.

Run around a bit, shoot a bit.

I shoot real fast, faster than the Marlocks.

Faster than Cutter’s bush turrets too.

+

+

Things die.

Things stop coming.

Things fall quiet.

I scan forward.

Cutter’s Rape Crisis Centre is a hundred metres ahead, politely not firing until I’m staring right up its nose.

I wait.

It’s quiet now and I like it.

I want to sit down and read Faulkner.

Sit down and drink maybe.

Sit down and drink and then dream of fondling Sarah’s bloody corpse while reading Absalom, Absa–

Fack.

I don’t want to go inside the base.

Not yet.

Not again.

Not-

I look up.

156 seconds.

Plenty of time.

I rub the side of my gun.

Check my field shirt for pockets even though I know there are none.

I wave at the vague Marlock shapes advertising the base.

They don’t wave back.

I look at the four mountains

They don’t wave back either.

Gods, I’m bored.

Some gun play maybe?

Ant stamping?

I shoot upwards like one of those black and white cowboys me and Matthews watch on the old TV set every night, the one I borrowed after grandma died.

It’s okay, the bullets don’t come back.

I glance up again, towards the monitor.

82 seconds.

Fack.

I’ve never run out of time before.

Does it hurt?

Nah, probably not.

No worse than getting shot anyway.

I look up again.

68 seconds left.

Okay then.

I run forward slow enough not to sweat.

Sweat makes the moustache itch.

Don’t want that again.

I shoot at the wooden shacks and the Marlocks who are too professional to wave back.

Some of them shoot white dots my way, slowly, badly.

I lie flat on the ground and dodge when I have to.

One of those little white dots will hit me soon enough, but-

But I’m not supposed to think about that.

Ha.

Even though it doesn’t really hurt, I’m not supposed to think about it.

Not while I’m active.

Not with whatshisface still out there…Cutter…plotting to rape the planet and the station and the greater Barstow area and Sarah and Barbarella and…whatever the rest of his plan is.

I’m not supposed to think about that either.

It’s not productive.

That’s what Williams always said.

It’s not productive so just get down there, blow up Cutter’s rape farm and get back. Keep dying to a minimum.

Ha, a minimum.

Williams was a funny guy.

I’ve been stuck here six, seven, eight months already and I must’ve died a thousand-

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+

One of the white dots hits me in the field shirt.

I die.

Instantly re-spawn, back on the cliff edge.

What?

You’re putting me back here?

I was at Cutter’s base. I was at the fucking door of his-

‘Hey.’

No answer.

‘You never hear of checkpoints?’

No answer.

‘I was at Cutter’s base…why am I here?’

No answer.

I shoot at the four mountains, annoyed.

Then a few shots at the green.

I try jumping onto the platform a few feet to the left, but the field shirt won’t let me.

I try dropping my gun, but I can’t do that either.

I lie down and point my gun at nothing.

I discreetly rub my cock against the ground and think of the bikini warrior from the end of Metroid. Then Sarah and the neck slit, the blood rolling down between her-

No feeling at all, not even pain.

Gods, back at the fucking start.

The starting place.

Every single time.

But it’s not the start, is it? I wasn’t born on a canyon edge. I didn’t begin my life on this facking planet. Or that station. Or the mansion in Summerlin. It feels like it, but I didn’t. I had other missions before this. I had training with Matthews and Williams and Jane Fonda. I had a childhood. I had parent survivalists called Steve and grandparent survivalists called Steve and possibly other people who loved me but weren’t survivalists called Steve. I can’t remember any of them, but I had them, I know I did.

+

+

Ah fack it, I’m done for today.

Someone else can halt the advance.

Matthews, maybe.

I get up and wait for the first Marlock to shoot me.

It takes a while, but eventually he co-operates.

It doesn’t hurt.

I respawn in the same place and wait for him to do it again.

Don’t know if he’s surprised or not, if Cutter will cut off his balls later for the mistake.

Don’t really care.

White flash.

Sky deleted.

I re-spawn in the poster-making room, back in what the window tells me is Griffith Park. No, Summerlin, Las Vegas. Both of them. One or the other.

The gun is right where I left it, next to the crayons.

That’s weird.

They usually put it back in my quarters.

Why is it here?

No se.

Maybe there’s a glitch?

Or no iso-patch to my quarters?

No problema.

I walk over to the window and look at the canyon-like planet below, in the distance, whatever.

It’s green and red and desolate, just like Lake Arrowhead.

Planet Arrowhead.

No one would ever think there was a war going on down there.

If you can call this thing a war.

We die, they die, we re-spawn, they re-spawn.

No se.

I know why we do it, I understand, but-

It’s like back home.

No matter how bad things got, no one ever took a bomb to Lake Arrowhead.

Some things are sacred, y’know?

Yeah.

Yeah, Williams, you’re right.

Some things are.

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+

I stare at the metal walls covered in mindless scribbles. Four…five hundred of them, a mix of slogans, pics and abuse.

‘MARLIES DON’T BLEED…ENOUGH’

‘THIS ROCK DONT SERVE MARLOCK’

‘ONLY GOOD MARLOCK IS A ‘KILLED BY ME’ MARLOCK’

‘BARKETT 4 EVER’

At least seven of them are mine.

All done when I first mentally simulated a crash landing here.

When I was fresh.

When I walked everywhere holding my gun, yelling, ‘CUTTERRRRR! YOU BALD BITCH!’

‘Marlocks don’t waste time scribbling on walls,’ I mutter, staring down at my poster-in-the-making. ‘Marlocks don’t-‘

I pick up the poster, scrunch it into a ball and throw it at the window.

‘Marlocks don’t do anything.’

I leave the poster-making room and head down the corridor with the Natalie Verbeke Mark 7 poster. Like Sarah, she could be persuaded to take her top off, to just stand there blank-looking. Oh Sarah…my one true love…both of you…Sarah the First and Sarah Two.

I pass the room with the tools and the automatic engine.

Engineering, Matthews calls it.

Ha, Matthews.

He’s not a bad guy, even if he is a bit of a sulk.

And he wasn’t always.

Only the last month or so…or the last month and a half…the last seven weeks, if you-

Nah, he’s okay.

Wonder if he’s in.

Or if he’s up to talking yet.

+

+

I head down a few more corridors, ignoring the volleyball posters, and knock on Matthews’ door.

‘You in there, amigo?’

‘No.’

‘Thought you might be canyon-side, foraging for dinner.’

No answer.

‘What you doing in there, amigo?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?

‘Cleaning my gun.’

‘Err…is it okay if I come in?’

‘No time to talk.’

‘It’s okay, I’m not drunk, I know you’re not Sarah. That won’t happen again, I swear. And I promise I won’t stay long.’

‘No time.’

‘Really? Not even five minutes?’

‘See you on the field, mate.’

‘Okay. Fine. On the field then. In the field shirt. With field face.’

I head back to the other quarters, taking off my field shirt as I go, pulling up the straps of the trusted blank tank top underneath.

My hands are cold. Not as ice, but still cold.

I take a shower, fast, dry myself and watch some old TV on grandma’s box.

There’s not much on.

No Country for Old Barkett.

Barkett in the Mist.

Barkett Magnolias.

I’m not really liking any of-

Ah, Barkett Beach.

I sit down and grab a cushion.

Sarah Seven is in the kitchen, topless, putting her hair in a clip.

She seems distracted.

I know why.

It’s cos she’s pregnant.

She’s pregnant with the sixteen cells that were transferred from Barkett Nine ten cycles ago.

Barkett Fourteen doesn’t have a clue.

He’s making breakfast, field shirt on.

Bacon [4 pixels], fried egg [5 pixels] and coffee [2 pixels].

That’s a small coffee, Barkett Fourteen.

No wonder she’s fucking other guys.

I hear the siren.

No, not-

+

+

White Flash.

Dark, pinkish sky.

I’m on the canyon edge again.

Matthews is there, hands on barrel, face Cutter-esque.

‘Bout time I got some facking action.’

‘Man-‘

‘I sweep first, you mop up.’

Long shrug.

Can’t be bothered with this.

At all.

I raise my gun.

The first Marlock somehow gets past Matthews and rushes me. I stand still and let his tiny white dot hit me in the gut.

‘Steve, what the…?’

I re-spawn, a few yards back.

‘…fack?’

I jump down into the water.

‘Amigo, what are you doing?’

The bush turret adjusts and fires at my head, raping my brain, fingering the Faulkner extracts.

I don’t do a damn thing.

When I rematerialize, Matthews is staring at me. No, not Matthews, Cutter. Cutter is staring at me, bald as fack. No, not Cutter, Matthews again. Matthews is staring at me, gun rubbing against his crotch.

‘Are you fried or something?’

‘Nope-ski.’

‘What then?’

‘Tired.’

‘Tired? Of what?’

I drop off the canyon ledge and into the water again.

He follows me down.

‘Look, you’re facking with my strategy, amigo. What’s going on?’

‘I told you…amigo. I’m tired.’

‘What, you’d rather be back in that prison cell, that spaceship, that filthy mansion shithole, whatever you call it?’

‘You fight on without me.’

‘Don’t be facking stupid, we’re still-‘

I charge into the next bush turret and take a dot square in the chest.

It works.

Death times three = whiteout, back to the start.

Last thing I see is Matthews looking at me like I’m Chairman Mao. Is that his name? The fat Chinese vampire they told me about at kindergarten. That guy. Worse than Cutter and half as smart.

‘You facking nutjob,’ I shriek, re-energised.

I shoot at him en-dematerialisation-res, but it’s too late.

He’s gone.

Or I’m gone.

He’s about a hundred yards ahead, just standing there. Nope, now he’s gone. Dematerialised into red canyon air.

+

+

I jump up onto the platform and wipe my gun. Tired? Ha. These Marlock bastards killed Sarah, pan-fried her clit. And Matthews just lay there, pretending to be unconscious. Did nothing to save the one person in this world who was available for reshoots. And now she’s dead. Almost un-fuckable. All because of him. Tonal dissonance? Ha. Man is an amalgamation of many things. Sex, Art, Violence, Fingering two women at the same time, Satire. Melancholy?

I hide behind a bush, waiting to see if he spawns back in below.

He doesn’t.

Must’ve bailed out. Gone home to his little room to masturbate over my dead Sarah sketch. Pull her out of the basement and fuck her behind my back. Just like he did before Cutter came, Cutter and his tiny dick, Cutter and his way less charming monolog-

Fack.

One of those Marlock bastards is running my way.

I pull out the knife, ready.

Could use the gun, but I wanna feel this one.

The Marlock gets close and my knife disappears.

Fack.

Every time.

Did Matthews do that, from back on the station?

Probably.

He’s been acting funny lately.

Like he doesn’t like this anymore. But then suddenly he does like it. But not really. Not like he did when Sarah was alive, sharing my bed, shivering cold until the camera went away and she could go borrow some more records from the basement for a few hours, play them full blast while ad-libbing moaning noises like ‘right there, deeper, more curve, more-

+

+

Fack.

The mountains are spiralling, the sky feels pinker.

Maybe Matthews doesn’t like this.

Maybe he’s gone soft.

Maybe he’s planning something.

Him and Sarah’s rotting corpse.

Maybe I should lock my door from now on.

I realise the gun is raised again.

Good.

I fire into the Marlock’s legs and then his face.

Feels good.

But it’s not enough.

Where are the rest of those Marly bastards?

I’ve been locked up for days. Tired is a pussy mirage.

Why aren’t there more of them?

I run ahead and three more appear.

Fack, fack…

I shoot fast and regret it almost straight away.

Run back and let them spawn in again.

I jump around and dodge their pathetic little dots then run in close and try to get my hands on those motherfackers but the field shirt won’t let me, it won’t facking let me.

I die and spawn back in and I’m angry.

I look around for something to rip to pieces but there’s only the bush turret and all I can use is this goddamned gun and it’s not enough, it’s not enough.

I wanna feel it.

I wanna get my hands on these Marly bastards and-

+

+

White light, white whoosh.

I phase back home and Barkett Beach is still playing.

It’s way far ahead though.

There’s a factory site.

Some metal containers.

A few crate turrets.

Barkett Fourteen is standing in the mud, holding a grenade.

He’s asking Sarah Seven if she still loves him.

She says yes then looks away, guilty as fack.

I nod.

It’s a complicated thing, life.

Easier when you’re shooting and being shot at.

Even if you do die a few times.

Not that it matters.

Dying doesn’t hurt much.

It’s dot on field shirt and you know you’re always coming back.

What was it Matthews said?

Tax is permanent, death is twenty times a day.

Ha.

Sabio bastard.

I wonder how far he’s got with the sketch.

Second base?

I hear an explosion, electronic.

Look at the screen.

Jesus.

Barkett Fourteen pulled the pin.

Blew them all to Hell.

Even the kid.

I laugh.

Even the unborn kid.

I stop then laugh again.

I feel shocked at my lack of shock.

My lack of schlock.

I laugh again.

None of it matters, does it?

It’s TV.

They die every cycle.

Then re-spawn, have a different problem and die again.

That’s serialised drama.

And it’s never a bad death anyway.

Never a frustrating death.

Not like some of mine down there.

No way.

Barkett Fourteen’s never gonna know what it’s like to get shot by a bush turret.

One facking bush turret.

One facking bush turret that can’t even move.

Mother Brain.

Stupid, stupido way to die.

+

+

I think I hear a beep but it’s just the TV.

Phew.

I grab a beer from the fridge and wonder if I’ll have time to drink it.

It’s already been twenty-three minutes.

Maybe I can take it to the canyon edge with me.

Share it with Matthews.

Nah, not Matthews.

He’s too hyper.

Always charging ahead before I’ve even raised my gun. Hiding in his grotty, little room with the Sarah sketch, eating out the bitch I hired to stand there and look blank while I played with her tits like a good man and-

Ha, I know.

I’ll share it with that poor bastard who can’t shoot fast enough.

Yeah, why not?

Me and the first Marlock.

The second Marlock too.

Maybe even Cutter, if he apologises for the Sarah incident.

Nah, too much.

Cutter is Cutter, murderer of kids, rapist of overly-pliant washing machine models.

But the Marlocks, okay.

Number one and number two.

All three of us.

Sitting down on the canyon edge and having our own Xmas Day 1914.

Toasting to the future.

Smiling Americanly.

Seeing what we’ve got in common.

Talking about things that aren’t killing.

Ah, that’d be nice.

I smile for real.

I drink more beer.

I watch TV.

I hear the sound of a door sliding open and a knife unsheathing, but that’s not what’s on the TV.

Huh?

I sit up.

A breeze comes from nowhere.

Feels like it’s going through my field shirt.

I slouch and look at my chest.

It’s half green, half red.

‘What-‘

‘Hush, amigo.’

I look up.

Matthews and Cutter and Chairman Mao and Dead Sarah and Sarah My Wife are standing behind me, five blurred heads sharing one normal-sized field shirt.

‘Look there, at the TV.’

‘You stabbed my field shirt.’

‘The TV, Steve.’

I can’t see their hand but I’m pretty sure it’s on the knife.

‘Amigo… Sarahs…Mao…’

‘TV, not me.’

‘I’m bleeding out.’

‘You deaf?’

‘Cutter, I’m bleeding out.’

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+

I rub some of the blood off the right side of my field shirt, hold it up to the hydra’s face that is not Matthews anymore, but Cutter and Sarah, Sarah and Cutter, the pair of them staring down at the mess, clearly disappointed.

The blood does nothing.

I try rubbing harder, getting more off to show them, but my hand feels weak.

‘Stop rubbing the shirt.’

Brain feels weak too, no fresh blooms, only weeds, only-

‘It’s irritating.’

‘Fack.

‘Why you looking at me like that, Steve?’

I try to answer, cos it’s not Cutter or Sarah anymore, they’re both dead in the fridge, it’s Matthews again, wearing the face of a child who I suspect is not really mine, but my mouth won’t open and my brain has only those fixed words that I don’t want to say, that I long to say, that may or may not be suitable for the ears of a small chi-

‘Stop it.’

‘Am I gonna die? I’m afraid so.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t cry, son. You’ll be alright.’

‘Son?’

‘We’ve had some good times together, haven’t we?’

‘You’re delusional, amigo.’

‘I’ll miss you.’

‘Bloody delusional.’

‘Just remember to keep drawing that line…’

‘Facking hell.’

‘…just as you did today. Stand firmly by and the world will be yours.’

‘Die already.’

‘I love you, Matth-‘

The cushion goes over the face, and the moustache, killing my Faulkner impression stone dead. Dead as a washing machine model with no bra. Dead as a-

I refuse to struggle.

This is the end.

Of Barkett, of the world, of the-

‘Sleep, you Marlock bastard.’

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