by Mia Archer
"You think that the creature disappeared into the sewers?" CORVAC said.
"That seems obvious," I said. “And we don't have any way to watch the sewers. It’s not like we can get a drone down in there.”
"That is a problem mistress," CORVAC said. "I could try to fly one of the drones down there and…"
"Don't bother," I said. "I have a feeling even if you did manage to find the thing, those worms are so dense they're going to take over the entire sewer. It would only lose us a drone."
"Affirmative, mistress," he said.
There was a pause, and I knew a pause always meant he was about to say something that was going to piss me off.
“What is it CORVAC?” I asked.
“I told you we should have invested more money in the experimental program to use genetically mutated turtles to scout the city’s sewer system,” CORVAC said.
“I cut that off when you tried sneaking in fees for martial arts lessons at the McDojo down the street and you know it,” I said. “We are not using valuable resources to satisfy your pop culture predilections.”
“As you say, mistress, but it would be useful to have them now.”
“Shut up.”
I looked to downtown. To the skyscrapers that rose high over the city. Skyscrapers that had proved to be a temptation for every giant creature, villain, or alien invader who’d ever tried to take over the world by stopping in Starlight City first.
"Besides. I don't think we have to worry about finding the thing. I know exactly where that bitch is headed."
30
Making My Way Downtown
“Get on the seismometers,” I said. “That’s how we track this bitch. She might think she’s being clever, but we’ll track her the same way we track everything else that comes through downtown Starlight City.”
“Like in that Kevin Bacon movie?” CORVAC asked.
“Something like that,” I said. “You’ve really been taking me seriously about checking out pop culture beyond machines trying to take over the world, haven’t you?”
“I have been surprised at the breadth of entertainment options available, yes,” CORVAC said.
“Right, well worry about that later,” I said. “Right now we need to take care of this bitch and make sure she doesn’t take over this world.”
I sighed.
“Is something bothering you mistress?” CORVAC asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Not in the grand scheme of things.”
“Is it bothering you that you are saving the world yet again?” CORVAC asked. “Because you could simply view it as getting rid of a competitor rather than saving the world.”
“It’s not that CORVAC,” I said. “Mostly it’s that if these worms really were the dominant form of life on that other planet it means she’s gone. Like even if she somehow survived being thrown through that portal, and assuming she somehow survived the radiation, I can’t imagine her lasting long on a world ruled by damned dirty worms.”
“You never know mistress,” CORVAC said. “The young woman has proved herself to be very resilient in the past. It is entirely possible that she has survived even this latest setback.”
“It’s nice of you to say that,” I said. “But I think it might be time that I finally accept this for what it is. I’m stopping an alien invasion here. I’m not trying to get information so I can save my girlfriend because she’s gone.”
“Come now mistress,” CORVAC said. “Right before a potential fight to the death is hardly the time for depressing introspection.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because it might lead you to do something stupid like attempting to make a heroic sacrifice.”
I held up my wrist blaster and let it charge for a moment before letting it die down. I didn’t want to fire it off just yet.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I’m not a hero, and I’m not doing anything heroic today. This is all about revenge. I can’t get it on Dr. Lana, but what I can do is get it on something that comes from the planet Fialux met her end on.”
I flew over downtown and saw crowds gathered out in the streets. They seemed to be streaming towards the other end of downtown, though when I zoomed in I could see that some people were obviously confused and pointing back the way the monster had been coming from.
Because there was no monster to be seen there now. I could hear the stupid logic running through their pea brains. If there was no monster menacing downtown why bother to get the hell out of there and interrupting their day?
“Anything on the seismometers CORVAC?” I asked.
“I am detecting something large moving under the surface towards the center of downtown,” CORVAC said. “Though there is nothing to indicate where it will stop.”
“I was afraid you were going to say something like that,” I muttered. “All those people are down on the ground and out in the open where they can get caught, too. This is not good. It’s like an all you can eat office drone buffet.”
“I would agree mistress,” CORVAC said. “It would be far more advisable for them to shelter in place.”
“If I didn’t know any better I’d say that worm thing could see the signal I was sending out and adjusted accordingly,” I growled.
“Perhaps,” CORVAC said. “But I believe you are giving entirely too much credit to the creature with that line of reasoning.”
“I need a way to tell people to do the opposite of what I just told them to do, and fast,” I said.
I cast around looking for something, anything. There were the usual drones flying over the city, but then I spotted something that looked like an even better idea. I pulled up the window showing the SCNN feed and it moved until it filled my heads up display.
Nancy Norris stood on the roof of the SCNN building putting herself in mortal danger in the name of getting a story.
That went against everything I’d ever taught in my class, but I had to admire her spunk getting out there and reporting the story even when there was the potential of being eaten alive.
“I’m heading down to the SCNN building,” I said. “I think I see a better way of getting the word out.”
“Are you sure that is your entire reason mistress?” CORVAC asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as I swooped down.
“Nothing at all mistress,” CORVAC said. “Simply that if you are going to accept that Fialux is gone then at some point you will have to start moving on with your life.”
“I’m going to go ahead and ignore that you said that,” I said. “And I’m not going to blow up one of your data centers, but I’m thinking about it. I know you’re just being an unfeeling computer and not insensitive, but it’s a fine line.”
“Affirmative, mistress,” CORVAC said.
I landed on top of the SCNN building and found myself eyeing the anchor who’d taken over for Rex Roth.
She had dark hair that went down to her shoulders, striking green eyes, and a smile that promised things. Seeing someone in person rather than on the screen almost always showed that the screen didn’t do them justice.
That was definitely true with this girl.
“Night Terror,” she said, inclining her head ever so slightly. She didn’t seem terrified of me in the least. She held a hand out and smiled. “Norris. Nancy Norris. Nice to meet you.”
Uh-oh.
“Is something wrong Ms. Terror?” she asked, cocking her head to the side and hitting me with a thousand watt smile.
Okay. So I know I’d just bitched CORVAC out for ever insinuating that I should move on with my life, but it was like admitting to myself finally that Fialux was no more was enough to open the floodgates. Sure I’d thought this girl was hot before, but I was feeling warm and tingly all over.
Not what I needed in the middle of a fight. Even though that’s exactly what I got in the middle of a fight back when I was going toe to toe with Fialux.
“Um, nothing,” I said. “I’ve just g
otten myself in trouble before with girls who have a little too much alliteration in their name.”
“Mistress,” CORVAC said in a tone that was entirely too neutral to be truly neutral. “I am showing elevated heart rate and a pupillary response that would indicate…”
“Shut up CORVAC,” I muttered.
“What was that?” Nancy asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just talking to my AI assistant.”
“Your AI what?” CORVAC asked, sounding even more indignant than usual.
I needed to concentrate on work. Not on hitting the rebound hard when I finally admitted to myself I was chasing a memory and not a living person. Work. That was the ticket.
I pointed to a camera being held by a big burly cameraman who looked like he would’ve been more suited to the wrestling arena than carrying a news camera.
I felt a flash of jealousy at that. She was probably into beefcakes like this guy and that’s why…
Motherfucker. I was not going to think like this.
“Is that thing going out live?” I asked.
“It isn’t,” she said. “But it could be. All I have to do is give the word.”
“Right. Give me just a moment,” I said.
I turned away from Nancy and looked out over the city. It was skyscrapers as far as the eye could see and any moment now a whole bunch of “hell no” was going to come up through the basement of one of those things and give everyone in it a really bad day.
That’s if we were lucky. If I was unlucky then the thing would come up through one of the manhole covers and start devouring everyone who was already out in the open because I told them they needed to be out there escaping.
“CORVAC, I’m going to need a reading on where the hell that thing is. Any ideas?”
“It would appear that it has distributed itself through the sewer system under several buildings, but there are no indications that it is going up through those buildings yet.”
I looked at an overlay map he’d put on my heads up display. Several buildings nearby were targeted, and I had a feeling they hadn’t been emptied even though I’d told people to get the hell out of there.
Still, they’d be less populated than the streets if the people in that building followed my evacuation order. A big “if” in Starlight City.
“We’re fucked no matter what we do,” I muttered. “The thing could come up through one of those buildings and kill everyone inside, or it could come out in the open and kill everyone who’s trying to escape. It’s the fucking Kobayashi Maru.”
“Hey,” someone said, a hand coming down on my shoulder.
I turned to see Nancy Norris looking at me with genuine concern. God she looked hot when she was concerned, and the last thing I should be thinking was that another girl looked hot when I was in a relationship with…
A dead girl. It’d been too long. I kept coming back to that, and it kept stabbing me like a knife to the gut every time it hit me.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re Night Terror. You don’t have no-win scenarios.”
I blinked. “You know what the Kobayashi Maru is?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do. I was a journalism student. I might not look like it, but there aren’t many non-geeks who make their way through that program, Professor Terror.”
I blinked again. It took a moment for what she’d said to truly register.
“You knew?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Putting on glasses to try and cover up who you are is like the oldest trick in the book. I mean it would take an idiot to fall for something like that.”
I stared at her for a long moment. A long flat stare. Finally she blushed and looked away.
“Okay, so maybe every other idiot in that classroom fell for it, but I figured out what was going on,” she said. “Why do you think all your coverage has suddenly gotten way more positive? You saved our lives with your class.”
“I did wonder about that,” I said. “But we have more important things going on right now Nancy. Like we need to save a bunch of people who are about to become worm food.”
“That bad, huh?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said. “So if you could fire that thing on I’d greatly appreciate it.”
“Sure thing,” she said.
The camera pointed towards me. The only indication that it was broadcasting was a bright red light that appeared on the front. Nancy stood in front of it.
“This is Nancy Norris coming to you from the roof of the Starlight City News Network,” she said. “And we have a special report featuring Starlight City’s own unlikely heroine, Night Terror.”
I winced at that. Unlikely heroine. Sure that did describe what I was right about now, but it hurt.
I’m not a hero, damn it, but it looked like heroics was exactly what I was about to get up to.
31
Special Report
“People of Starlight City,” I said. “The giant monster that was heading downtown has made its way into the sewer systems below the city. I’m beaming a map now that shows where the thing is based on seismometer readings.”
I paused as a small laser beamed a map onto the camera lens. It showed the buildings the thing was under in bright red. Right now it was only a couple of buildings, but I had a feeling that was going to change if she got the food she was looking for.
“This thing is likely to come up through the sewers into the pictured buildings. If you are in any of these buildings then you need to evacuate immediately. Unless the idea of becoming alien worm shit is your thing, in which case you do you but tell your friends to get the hell out.”
A low vibration had started as I made my broadcast. One of the buildings pictured was only a few blocks away and it was tall enough that I could see it from here. The vibration seemed to be coming from that building.
“What is that?” Nancy whispered.
“CORVAC,” I said. “Show me the seismic readings for that building.”
The overlay appeared on my heads up display again. Only now instead of a couple of buildings there was only the one building showing seismic activity. As though there was something big moving right under that thing.
“She’s in there,” I whispered. “Fuck.”
And then it hit me exactly what was happening. If people had evacuated then they probably would’ve left all the TVs running in their building. If they hadn’t evacuated then they would’ve been caught watching SCNN for updates on their certain doom because monster watching parties were a popular thing in Starlight City even though there was always at least one party, usually more, that died gruesome deaths.
“She’s in there and she can see this broadcast,” I said.
“That makes sense mistress,” CORVAC said. “All indications would seem to point to the queen learning about our culture from television, so it’s certainly a habit she got into when she arrived.”
I turned back to the camera. “This alien is weak and ineffective.”
“What are you talking about?” Nancy hissed. “I thought you were just telling everyone they needed to get the hell out of downtown.”
I made a little cutting motion with my hand. I could see from the feed pumping through my heads up display that the motion wasn’t going through to the live feed since the camera cut off everything below my chest. Nancy frowned, but she didn’t try to interrupt me again.
“In fact I don’t think anyone has anything to worry about,” I said. “Obviously this alien bitch is so terrified of me that she’s hiding where I can’t find her. Clearly the people of downtown Starlight City are safe as long as I’m around to keep them safe!”
There was a rumbling off in the distance. The sound of glass breaking. Like a lot of glass breaking at the same time.
“I think that you have gotten her attention, mistress,” CORVAC said.
“That’s the idea,” I muttered low enough that it wouldn’t be picked up by the camera.
“In fact I’d be willing to
hazard a guess, good people of Starlight City, that once this creature knew it was dealing with the great and terrible Night Terror she decided she wasn’t going to bother our world any longer! Because any alien knows that it’s not a good idea to mess with me!”
“What the hell are you…”
Whatever Nancy had been about to say was lost in the sound of shattering glass, and when I looked in the direction of that noise I saw none other than the giant alien monster flowing out of that skyscraper.
“You drew her out,” Nancy said. “You knew she was watching the broadcast and so you said something to piss her off so that…”
“So I could do a little something like this,” I said. “Keep that camera on me, because I’m about to do something impressive.”
“Got it,” Nancy said.
I held out my wrist blaster and had it start a good old fashioned ominous hum. There was nothing I liked more than one of my weapons making an ominous hum, and it was rendered even more impressive by the sure knowledge that this impressive moment was being caught by the SCNN cameras and being broadcast to the world.
“CORVAC,” I said. “Could you be a dear and move the drone swarm around that bitch and pin her down so she can’t get away? There’s not going to be any escaping this time around.”
The beautiful thing was now that the stupid bitch had brought herself out in the open it would be easy enough to take care of business. It was when she was in hiding, no doubt devouring any idiots who’d been too stupid to evacuate that building, that I had a problem.
I felt bad for the poor bastards caught in that building. Even if they were idiots, they didn’t deserve to get swarmed by a bunch of alien worms that devoured them.
Not a pleasant thought.
As the creature lurched out of the skyscraper the building collapsed behind her leaving a telltale trail of dust that had been all too familiar in pop culture over the past couple of decades.
I winced. Usually buildings got knocked around a bit in these attacks, sure, but it was rare that they were completely destroyed.
