Olivia knew there was a brief scene with butler robots before she had to go on. Was it enough time to kiss him? ‘You were?’ she said, looking into his silver-coloured face.
‘Yes, I just wanted …’ Jackson trailed off.
‘Julietron!’ hissed Ivy from somewhere nearby. ‘Cue Julietron with the Capulets!’
Just one second, Olivia thought. Please!
But Jackson was already backing off. ‘You’re doing so great,’ he whispered. ‘Get back out there and knock ’em dead.’
Olivia wasn’t sure her heart could take any more almost-kisses. She knew she was supposed to be on stage, but it was time to take matters into her own hands. She was just going to kiss him – now or never.
She took a step forwards.
‘Olivia!’ Ivy’s voice stopped her in her tracks. ‘Your cue!’
‘Arg!’ Olivia said, peeling away from Jackson to rush on stage into a melee of metallic masks and actors jerking about like mechanical puppets.
The fates were against Romeo and Juliet, Olivia thought as she moved around to the thumping synthetic music, and they are determined not to let me kiss my boyfriend!
In every break during the rest of the performance, Olivia tried to find Jackson again, but the closest she came was a glimpse across the backstage area while she was rushing for a costume change. Operation Cyborg Smooching had failed.
Now, Olivia was lying as still as she could while Garrick twitched around the cryogenic tomb she was on top of, performing his last monologue in the scene where Romezog arrives to find Julietron apparently dead, not knowing that she has been injected with an internal cryogenesis solution that gives the appearance of death.
‘Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty,’ he was saying. Olivia was impressed by Garrick – he had only missed a line or two throughout the whole show. The audience was silent, and Olivia hoped they were feeling the building climax of the tragedy.
With each line Garrick spoke, she knew it came closer and closer to the end where she would have to kiss him – and there was nothing to convince her that it would be anything but the grossest moment of her life.
She would have to make sure she didn’t vomit in front of everyone.
Garrick climbed on to the tomb with her and accidentally whacked her in the face with one of his costume’s arms. Olivia struggled not to react; she was supposed to be in system malfunction mode.
‘Eyes, look your last!’ Garrick was building up to the end. ‘Arms, take your last embrace!’ With that, he whacked her again with an octopus arm.
He lay down beside her and drank a purple vial of Astrolaudanum. Garrick gasped and choked and hammed up his death for at least a minute too long, then went silent.
That was Olivia’s cue to wake up.
‘What’s here?’ she said. She was pretending it was Jackson that she was looking at, imagining what it might feel like if that was him. ‘A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.’
She reached up to the back of her head to turn herself off and when she slumped on top of Garrick, Olivia heard several people sniffling in the audience – they were crying!
She had to bite the inside of her cheeks not to smile broadly.
Of course, they don’t know what’s coming next, Olivia thought. This was not the end of their show. Camilla had written an extra scene where Olivia would have no choice but to kiss the beastly boy.
The lights turned red, green, blue and purple and the theatre filled with an electronic humming sound. On cue, Olivia and Garrick stood bolt upright as the audience gasped in astonishment. They knew this wasn’t how the story of Romeo and Juliet went. Camilla’s big rewrite was to have them come back to life after dying, to give them the happy ending Shakespeare denied them.
Garrick and Olivia looked at each other and continued the scene. Olivia had to raise her voice over a muttering that she thought might be a disapproving Mr Wagenbach.
‘Sometimes, the fates do not stand for good people making mistakes,’ Olivia intoned.
Oddly, there was a silence. Has Garrick forgotten his next line? Olivia wondered.
But then Garrick started up again. ‘Thou lookest most delicious, my Julietron.’
What? Olivia knew that wasn’t what he was supposed to say. It should have been something about the power of love.
‘Cometh into my alien arms,’ Garrick went on.
Olivia could see Ivy just off-stage frantically gesturing at Garrick to get back on script.
What is he up to? Olivia started to panic. Is this the extra stuff he had planned? That fake Shakespeare sounds awful!
‘A taste, sweet Julietron, of your tinny flesh. Just one bite!’
Bite? Garrick leaned closer and Olivia saw that he was wearing a set of false vampire teeth! When did he put those on? He was trying to turn Camilla’s sci-fi theme into a vampire one.
Olivia hopped off the tomb to get away from him and continued with the lines as Camilla wrote them, trying to force Garrick back on script. ‘A peace between our races would serve the fates.’
‘Who cares about peace? You’re supposed to be mine!’ Garrick advanced, his ten arms outstretched, trying to grab hold of Olivia.
She decided to buy herself some time, running away from Garrick. But she had to stay in character and run like a robot. Garrick chased her with his twitchy, itchy shuffle.
The both looked absolutely ridiculous.
She should have known, when it came down to it, they could not trust Garrick.
You are in so much trouble! Olivia thought. When this mess is over, I am going to pluck your arms off one by one! And then Ivy and I – and Camilla – will bash you with them!
Just as Garrick was about to catch her, someone shouted, ‘Behold!’
Garrick froze.
Jackson, in only part of his Merc-X88 costume, leaped on stage from the wings. ‘I thought my fate was sealed by that foul Tybalt,’ he said, improvising much better Shakespeare than Garrick. ‘Now it seems I am the cat with nine lives.’
‘You cannot stop me,’ Garrick muttered.
Jackson darted in front of him. ‘Romezog, selfishness has consumed you. You must be banished from Veronova.’
Olivia saw Camilla pushing three supporting actors on stage to help Jackson restrain Garrick and haul him off, making it look like an arrest. He shouted the whole time that Romezog would return.