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Chapter 20
Yzo wandered out of the lift and
into the wide hallway. The vending
lobby one floor down had been out of the dola he was seeking, so determined to
find the condiment, he had decided to try another floor. As the door closed
behind him he tripped into the nearby familiarly designed second vending lobby.
Like the first he’d just visited this one had the same type of vendobots all
milling about vying for his attention and Otatops. There was also an identical
ice-o-bot hocking small free samples of its premium and somewhat addictive Pandar
Glacier ice in a mock tropical setting.
“Sure is a hot one!” the ice-o-bot
said in a scripted sexy voice. “Why not put a little Glacier in your glass?
Feel the tingling sensation!”
“Thanks, no. I'm just looking for
some dola. Who’s got it?”
“Dola! Get your dola here,” cried
out a tall clear-chested vendobot, then added some baseball park sound effects
that were wasted on aliens with little taste for human nostalgia.
Yzo quickly paid the robot who
then dispensed in to a small cup for him a spicy white sauce from a groin-level
spigot. Yzo reached into his satchel for his sandwich but he would not get to
eat it or even smear on the elusive dola for at that very moment a crazed half
naked man lunged from behind the tropical motif and tackled him to the floor.
“I got you, fleabag!” screeched
Chen.
“Get off me you pervert!” Yzo
yelled. He struggled with all his might but his captor was young and strong and
apparently fairly insane. They rolled about on the stylishly riveted laminate
flooring in a smear of food that was meant to be Yzo’s dinner.
Chen had Yzo in an awkward head
lock. Apprehending a prisoner without his armor on was one thing but doing it
with his nuts jangling about was all together another. Still he was determined
to present the infuriated empress with this gift to cement himself in her good
graces, after the evening had gone so awry. “Hold still, prisoner! Resistance
is futile!”
His resistance in fact was not
entirely futile for Yzo managed somehow to
slip out of the headlock. But Chen quickly switched to a Buko-Juengan body
hold, the inertia of which sent them both ass-over-teakettle into a display of
brochures. Where the teakettle had come from no one quite knew, but the robotic
vendors all whooped and cheered excitedly at the aggressive contest, for their
lives were otherwise quite dull.
Suddenly a sickening throb pulsed
loudly through the room thudding into the floor. The struggling pair looked up
to see the crowd of vendobots fleeing the scene as Tamary stood there
dramatically with the smoking gun in her grip.
“Empress, look, I’ve captured the
prisoner for you!”
“So you have, Chen! I was thinking
of demoting you to personal sex slave
but maybe you’re not so worthless after all. Bring him! It’s time to go!”
“Wait a minute,” Yzo protested,
“you’re both making a mistake. I'm not-…”
Yzo’s words were cut short. The
room groaned and then violently dropped a foot. The floor now tilted
drastically and was still moving slowly, whining, cracking, shaking and from
all the ornately patterned rivet holes it was glowing!
Beneath the sloping floor the once
shiny ultrasteel rivets had been pressure welded to an efficiently designed
ultrasteel grid. The grid was securely welded to an interconnected network of
secondary ultrasteel reinforcement ribs which were in turn meld-mounted into
the several mile high primary ultrasteel superstructure of the entire club, all
of which was now luminously glowing like an ancient video monitor looping
through some colorful and ridiculous animated cartoon buried deep with in the
walls, floors and supports of Club N. The building began to shake and shift
with a dull distant rumble as its new five-dimensional loctagrine support
skeleton fazed randomly through differing shapes and densities, stretching and
cracking under the enormous strain, creating increasing destruction and havoc
throughout the colossal construction.
A
club-wide cacophony of alarms began to sound along with a shrill din of screams
and panic. “Quickly, to the lift tubes!” commanded Tamary as she pushed the two
into the shaking hall and then on to the nearest open lift cell.
Chapter
21
Tarx
pulled himself from the bed readjusting his brain to his host body. His head
pounded in two locations now; the jaytee slave brain and his own boxed one that
skated behind as he stumbled out the door and down the oddly vibrating stone
bridge. The alarms blared. What has she done!? He thought, and then the bridge collapsed as the whole
room quaked. A horrifying vision of himself drowning in the lagoon below
flashed in his mind. Oddly there was no splash, no water at all, just an
awkward jarring three foot fall. Scrambling off the rubble he saw that the
stone bridge had crumbled on top of what had used to be water but now was
somehow gelled into a rubbery green mass similar to the texture of the
Pegtillian spice orchids perched atop it.
“Who’s
there? Somebody help me, I'm blind!” cried the disfigured Cowcheck as he felt
around the viridian carpet.
“Emperor,
what’s happened to you?!” Tarx approached the crunchy skinned mess that was
Cowcheck, but hardly knew what to do for him and certainly did not want to
touch the nasty sticky creature.
Suddenly
the room began to shake again and this time the walls began to burst and crack.
A shimmery glowing jelly started seeping from the faults. “Tarx, help me, I
can’t see! That vile harpy has blinded me!”
Could
my invention actually have worked? wondered
Tarx. The possibility excited him but he knew the room was literally about to
implode. The door to relative safety was there beckoning. He would surely make
it if he hurried but did he really want to be slowed down by the burden of the
crippled emperor? He knew the answer but if by some unlikely chance that
Cowcheck survived the impending disaster Tarx would have his actions to answer
for.
Suddenly
a shiny blue head emerged from the depths of the love pool; Turquoise had
fallen in during the quake. “I believe we should all evacuate,” he droned
calmly as he climbed out of the viscous purple fluid.
“YES!”
exclaimed Tarx, “Yes, why don’t you make yourself useful, mechaman! The poor
emperor is hurt. You must help him out of here!” With that Tarx made a hasty
exit of all his own.
Turquoise gingerly helped Cowcheck
to his feet and was leading him carefully towards the exit when a loud smashing
tumble of collapsing corridor outside sent a gusting cloud of dust into the
suite. The robot automatically switched to his infrared vision, surveying the
damage and analyzing the optimum safety route. Sensing the overwhelming stress
of the suite walls and extrapolating imminent collapse he quickly whisked the
emperor into the dusty hallway as the jungle room burst. For a moment the air
currents reversed clearing the majority of dust from the air. Turquoise
calculated that quite likely air pressure might be one of the few forces
slowing the disintegration of the entire club. Much of the airborne particles
had flowed down the liftotubes which he could see had been gashed open and
rendered inoperable when the corridor ceiling had collapsed only moments
before.
“Oh, help me! I'm trapped!” The
voice came from the pile of rubble down the hall before the liftos. It was Tarx
screaming as his legs were pinned under a kiloton chunk of plasticrete.
Turquoise leaned the emperor
against a wall and said, “Stay here, sir. I will return for you shortly.”
Without hesitation the blue green robot rushed to aid Tarx. Approaching the
pile he saw that much of the debris had punctured the floor. Turquoise
instantly did an acrobatic spinning leap on his spring loaded limbs to avoid
the gaping five meter hole. Landing agilely next to Tarx he began trying to
lift the huge block from the trapped jaytee body.
“That’s very noble, robot,” Tarx
said sinisterly, “but I'm afraid your naïve nobility is your downfall … and
it’s my opportunity.” Tarx pulled an emergency auxiliary cable he’d previously
installed in a hole on the back of the jaytee skull and firmly jammed the jack
into an access port at the base of T-9’s robotic spine. Tarx easily commandeered
the robot’s microcircuits and took control of T-9’s mechanical body,
vanquishing Turquoise’s consciousness to a virtual dark holding cell.
Looking out now from the bright photo receptors Tarx
activated a utility laser razor in T-9’s mechanical arm and surgically sliced
through the decrepit old flesh of his own trapped legs. There was no feeling as
he had completely withdrawn all sensation reception, but minimal life support
was necessary to maintain for the entire system; he needed those damn orange
organs.
Throwing the limp jaytee torso
with its connected boxes over his borrowed mechanoid shoulder he nimbly leapt
into a damaged liftotube and like a cockroach fleeing down a wall began the
frantic descent to his escape.
“Wait, we must not leave the
emperor. He is in danger,” T-9’s captive consciousness protested from his dark
virtual corner.
“Well that’s your fault mechaman.
I guess you shouldn’t have left him,” Tarx replied internally as he skittered
downward through the shaft.
Sightless, Cowcheck could hear
other guests coughing and yelling in panic as they stumbled through the dusty
corridor.
“The west liftos are fucked! Head to the other end!” somebody
cried. Did they even see Cowcheck leaning there? Would they even recognize the
Emperor all sticky and encrusted with dust and debris? He was quite large but
so was a lot of the rubble that had fallen and he blended quite well.
Cowcheck began to stumble about
blindly. “Turquoise? Where did you go?” he yelled but suddenly the floor
dropped out below him as he fell through the huge hole. Tumbling painfully and
helplessly against the inclined hanging fragments he landed on his back on the
next floor down.
“Holy Gordo! Are you ok?” asked a
somewhat familiar voice.
Cowcheck groaned. “Yes, I think
so. But I'm quite blind. Can you help me?”
“Emperor Von Fuego? Is that you?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Who-…”
“It’s me, Tardo. Here let me help
you. I don’t know what happened but I think we need to get outa’ here.”
“Yes, my little friend, you are
right,” said Cowcheck as he stood. He was beaten and battered… in more ways
than one. His blood vessels and nerve fibers suspended precariously in the
acidic sticky gel had actually benefited from the extra protection provided by
the layer of caked and crusting dust that had formed. “Here get on my shoulders
and navigate me through this mess. Gently, please!”
Tardo quickly did as Cowcheck
asked. He himself had not been sure how he would get around this pile that had
nearly crushed him moments ago as he wandered the hall. Now from a higher
vantage point he could see well. What he suddenly realized though was this: The
hallway was going to cave in. The walls to either side of the hall were clearly
and progressively bowing outward and wall seams were starting to buckle and
snap. An electrical conduit suddenly burst with sparks and Tardo realized they
only had moments to escape. “Run! Forward! Move like your ass is on fire!”
Chapter 22
The evacuation alarms shrieked a
dull echoing howl that could be heard for many miles. Various parts of the
mountainous mega high rise were sinking and falling apart as the previously
ultrasteel superstructure of the club fazed through an extra dimension in its
new molecular makeup. Disastrous accidents were happening through out the
shuddering building. Emergency lights flashed in an attempt to motivate all the
patrons to get the hell out. The voice of a synthesized emergency information
system echoed loudly but despite its calm feminine tone it incited more panic
than it was worth. “Warning: Evacuate the premises immediately. Structural
failure in sectors 9, 11, 24, 25, 27 and the Virgilian Neighborhood. Fire in
sectors 12, 23, 44, 45, 46 and the flaming, five-dimensional cheese ball sector
is 2. All patrons please precede directly to the evac tubes on the promenade
levels.”
Professor Nooter and Doctor Vonek
ran into the reception area. Kimi and Kanda were still there; their conflict
derailed for the moment.
“Professor,
what’s going on?! Are we under attack?” asked Kanda.
“I
don’t know. Something’s happened to the Club! We should go!”
They all ran out the door and into
the hallway. The floor was slowly undulating and cracking in both directions
but Nooter was mesmerized by something else. The walls were oozing a glowing
pulsating substance, the surface of which seemed to be conveying more
complexity than anyone could visually understand. Cautiously Nooter approached
the strange matter, sniffed it, and then nibbled it. “Why, this is loctagrine!
Severin, taste this.”
“Really Hiram, must you go testing
everything with your tongue?”
“What’s loctagrine?” asked Kimi as
she kept a close nervous eye on the stretching juddering floor.
“Five
dimensional space cheese. It’s amazing!” replied Nooter.
“Five
dimensional space cheese?” Kanda questioned in disbelief. “Does that really
exist?”
“Sure,” replied Nooter, “but it’s
really rare, and we only see the part that intersects our visible dimensions,
-and even then, only when it does.”
“Ok,” Kimi said a bit bemused,
“should I just smile and nod politely, or is this something I’ll need to
actually know to get out of here?”
“C’mon Hiram, we need to keep
moving.” Vonek ushered them cautiously forward into the causeway that creaked
and groaned. The haunting alarms wailed and distant crashes and explosions
could also be heard.
“Here,” As they cautiously made
their way along the shuddering floor Nooter grabbed a page of newspaper from a
trash receptacle to illustrate his point. “It’s like this page of comics. The
characters are all going about their business in two dimensions and suddeny
something 3-D like say… my snout… intersects it.” He pushed the tip of his long
nose through a little tear in the sheet center. “The silly little 2-D
characters are aware of my nose passing through their environment, but can only
sense the thin layer of it that is in line with their page world. As it
continues to pass through, it apparently changes texturally and structurally to
them.”
“Professor,”
Kanda interjected as he tested the floor with an outstretched toe, “can a 5-D
substance diminish in size too, or even cease to exist?”
“It’s
possible, our perception of it, yes.”
“Oh
glagol!” Vonek had had it with all the rhetoric and had become increasingly
aware of the entire causeway beginning to shift and twist drastically. “Will
you stop all the chatter? We’ve got to get out of here before the building goes
down!”
They all ran down the shifting
hallway and headed east for the primary liftotubes. Suddenly a terrifying
tumbling thunder and a fiery explosion came from around the corner and a cloud
of dust and smoke filled the hall before them. They all stopped abruptly. A
huge hideous dust covered figure emerged groping around with total blindness.
And then they saw that Tardo was riding atop the behemoth acting as a guide,
telling him which way to go. “Left, left! And …step over the dead bell hop… Ok,
Forward!”
“Tardo!
Over here!” Kanda yelled.
“Guys, this is Emperor Von Fuego,”
said Tardo urgently. “Forward and…stop! He’s been badly injured and can’t see.”
“Saint fuckin’ Sonilok!” exclaimed
Nooter at Cowcheck’s hideous encrusted face. “Agent twenty nine? What’s
happened to you?”
Kimi
looked at Kanda in mutual surprise. “The Emperor’s an agent?”
“There’s no time for this!” cried
Vonek. “We’ve all got to get out of here, the building’s coming down!”
“Well
you’re not going that way!” said Tardo.
“We’re
trapped?” Kimi said hysterically. “There must be another way!”
As flames began to engulf the
collapsed hall from where Tardo and Cowcheck had come. They turned to the only
other direction available and began to run. Just then a huge figure with a
heroic boulder-like physique strode thunderously into the far western end of
the corridor from an adjacent suite. Torzun Onkalo raised a small crystalline remote
beacon and held it out before him towards the broad curved plate glass window
on the northwest side of the hall. The beacon pulsed excitedly and in the
exterior distance against the moon lit horizon a blazing meteor-like object
rose into view from the outer hills and began speeding smoothly toward the
window growing ever larger as it neared.
Another eruption at the east end
of the hall shook the walls.
“Please help us!” Kimi screamed
hysterically as they all ran toward the huge figure.
Unexpectedly from the same doorway
as the massive rukk had stepped, a slim shapely high-haired xetenu woman
emerged. Silma looked back with her large widely stalked eyes and saw the group
of people hurrying toward them. “Wait, it’s not safe yet! Get in here!” She said
firmly.
“Everybody,
take cover, this is going to get messy!” yelled Torzun as the fiery meteor now
filled the view.
They all ducked into the suite
with Silma. It was some sort of gift shop. The meteor-like Rukk vessel slowed
as it approached, but still smashed violently through the wall of glass making
a rain of shards as it came to a controlled halt embedded in the building. As
they all emerged from the suite they saw the stony-skinned alien brushing
himself off as he activated a crater framed hatchway on the vessel. It spiraled
open like a molten vortex revealing an invitingly lit interior.
“Quickly
my darlings, everyone on board!” Silma ushered them all in. “We must hurry!”
“Wait,
where’s Yzo?” Kanda said in a moment of panic. “Tardo, did you see Yzo?”
“No, Kanda,” Tardo looked
seriously into Kanda’s dark oval eyes. “I'm sure he’s found his own way. Come
on, we’ve got to go.”
The crater-pocked stony starship’s
molten core engine kicked out a massive burst of negative gravitons and pulled
powerfully out of the club architecture just in time as the west wing of guest
accommodations wobbled on its shifting cheesy superstructure and collapsed into
an avalanche of debris and hyper-dimensional muck. As they rounded the towering
ultra complex Torzun could see the entire mountainous structure was sinking and
beginning to crumble. The southern upper atrium had erupted under the
tremendous pressure blowing shards of glass and diamolite for miles while a
river of flaming fromage flowed down the side igniting the condominium luxury
terraces as well as the Trolian business spires like a futuristic volcano.
Wedged helplessly in the upper most parking garage tier the gigantic robo-valet
had broken free of its track mountings and climbed as high as it could to escape
the wall of fire. As it’s circuits fried in agony it pitched patron’s luxury
starships insanely about like burning marshmallows. “I never did trust that
valet,” Torzun said to himself. This was exactly why he always parked in the
Kotapese rock garden outside.
Silma settled their guests in what
seemed like a gothic library. And they all braced them selves against the
centrifugal force of the accelerating arc the ship was in. With whipping might
the ship flung itself into space.
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