“Put us to sleep, Manuel,” Jaycee crossed his arms over his pectoral muscles and closed his eyes.
“My pleasure.”
Manuel blasted two beams from his pages, forcing the glass fronts to slide into place.
Dressed in her underwear, Wool helped Jelly remove her ridiculously tight jeans, “Honey, we’re about to go to sleep for a while. You can’t wear these in the pods.”
“I know,” she clung to Wool for balance, “I hate wearing clothes. How do you spend all day in them?”
“No time to talk now,” Wool chucked the jeans over her shoulder and grabbed Jelly’s hand. They walked over to the third pod, “Okay, climb in and pretend you’re going to bed.”
“Nap time?”
Wool smiled and kept an eye on Tripp, “Yes, nap time.”
“Please, Miss Anderson. Hurry.”
“Okay, fine,” Jelly let go of Wool’s hand and climbed into her pod, “I’m going. Happy now?”
“Immeasurably.”
Jelly looked up at Manuel and screwed her face, “I don’t like you, you know.”
“That’s really of no consequence at this precise moment, Miss Anderson. Now, close your eyes.”
Manuel shot a beam over Jelly’s pod. The hatch slid up and bolted shut, pressing a shaft of gas within the tomb. Jelly closed her eyes and passed out.
“Phew. There, she’s done,” Manuel spun around and darted over to Tripp, “So, just you and Wool left—Oh.”
He caught Wool and Tripp hugging each other. A quiet and solemn embrace. A moment of sanity in an otherwise insane situation.
Wool’s pink tears wet her cheeks as she spoke, “Hold me.”
“I am,” Tripp breathed her scent in, “I am. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve held someone?”
“Too long,” Wool kept her grip on his shoulders and moved her face in front of his, “Longer for me than for you, I think.”
“I may be married, but that’s no guarantee of physical contact.”
“Not now, Tripp,” Wool looked down and sobbed into his chest. He held her gently in his hands.
“Tripp?” Manuel mouthed, “Hurry up.”
“Wait,” Tripp mouthed back and tilted his head down to Wool, “Hey. It’s okay.”
He held her face in his hands and looked in her bleary eyes, “We did everything we could. Right?”
She nodded and wiped her messy nose, “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”
“It’s going to be okay, you know.”
Wool chuckled with disdain. She wasn’t buying a word of that particular lie.
“No. It’s not going to be okay, Tripp. Going to sleep is just going to prolong the misery. That’s all it’s going to do.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled it away from her face, “But that’s what I love about you, Tripp.”
“What?”
“Your optimism,” she pecked him on the cheek and turned to the fourth free pod, “Okay, Manuel. Load me in.”
“Certainly.”
Tripp soaked up Wool’s last words. It’s possible he was far too optimistic. But that was the whole point of being a successful captain, wasn’t it? He thought as much in his mind.
Tripp lay in the pod and closed his eyes.
“Are you ready?” Manuel asked.
“I’m ready. Seal me in and wake me up if we survive.”
“And if we don’t?”
Tripp inhaled and exhaled with a degree of peace, “Then leave me alone.”
The hatch slid up and released the sleeping gas.
Tripp may or may never see his crew again.
They may not survive the event in the sky. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t get back home. If they did they wouldn’t be able to go near anyone. They were contaminated with Symphonium.
The odds got bleaker by the nanosecond. The best thing to do was not think about it at all.
After all, there was a sliver of a possibility that all this was stupid a stupid dream.
“Yeah, right. A dream,” Tripp’s final thought steamrollered through his mind before he conked out, “Dream on, Opera Beta.”
***
The sun scorched its way across the stars in the sky. The tree stomped forward and threw its branches out at it in a loving embrace.
GRRUUNNT.
The ball of white fire slammed into its root and stem as the branches closed around it. The two shimmied together and became one.
Next to it, the water from the ocean formed a twisting line in the air and sucked through into the duo like a straw.
One by one, the remaining Shanta creatures exploded as a chorus of light blasted through them.
Space Opera Beta sluiced into the harmonious concoction of light and wonder.
Everything went white - an act of God previously unseen by anyone or anything that ever lived...
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chrome Valley
United Kingdom
“Happy birthday, poppet.”
Emily and Tony clapped their hands together and encouraged Jamie to take a deep breath. He blew out all eight candles on his birthday cake.
Emily rubbed his back as Tony slipped out of the front room. She whispered in his ear, “What did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”
“Hmm,” she looked at the frame of the door, along with her son, “Was it something along the lines of this?”
Tony stepped out of the way of the huge gift-wrapped birthday present, “Happy birthday, son.”
“Oh, wow.”
Jamie jumped from the chair and ran over to the flowery wrapping, “Is it what I think it is?”
“It might be,” Tony winked.
Jamie pushed his hand through the pink wrapping paper and felt a cold, metal bar, “Oh, wow. It is.”
Off came the wrapping paper in one fell swoop. Jamie laid eyes on the gift standing proud in the middle of the room, “Oh, wow. I thought you said I couldn’t have one?”
“No, no. It’s okay,” Tony moved over to the gift and retrieved two rubber sticks and ear buds, “See it muffles the sound. You put these in your ears. When you strike the pad it plays in your ears.”
Jamie took the buds from Tony’s hands and slipped them in his ears. He lifted the stick and thwacked it against the pad.
BOMPH.
“Oww,” Jamie yanked the plugs out from his ears.
“Bit too loud, huh?” Tony pointed at the slider on the side of the sticks, “Just turn the volume down.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The impressive drum kit meant the world to Jamie. He’d all but destroyed his a few of years ago in an attempt to ‘find out what made it bang’, as he described it. He loved to bash things. Why not create a cheerful tune in the process, he thought.
He felt life was complete now that he had a new drum kit. Tony and Emily were happy for him.
Jolene toddled over to the table and helped herself to some of Jamie’s birthday cake. Her hands scooped up some icing. Most of it went over her face rather than in her stomach.
“Jojo,” Emily said. “Please. Stop doing that.”
Jamie giggled to himself as he banged away at the drum.
Da-da-da-dummm…
Jolene, Emily, and Tony couldn’t hear what Jamie was playing. He’d heard the piece of music throughout his life. A fan of ancient classical music (as it was known) his mother used to play the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky to him as a very young boy. She didn’t seem to bother doing the same with his younger half-sister, Jolene, though. He put it down to a change of influence now that his biological father had passed away.
Jamie smiled at Tony as he continued to whack the drum skin at full pelt. Like his real father, Tony seemed to be fitting in nicely. His mother seemed much happier.
Something was missing, though - a feline keepsake she bestowed on him shortly before his father died. She, the gorgeous ball of orange fluff who should not be named, for fear of reminder of what they had
done.
Jamie bashed the drum panels. He felt a tingling sensation crawl up his left forearm.
Boom-boom-boom… he continued playing, using the kit’s synthesizer rhythm track to keep him in tune.
Beep-beep-beep. The ink on his forearm became visible as his sleeve rode up to the crook of his elbow.
The ink on his forearm swirled around his skin and formed three flashing dots.
An Individimedia call from someone unknown to him.
He looked up from behind the kit and saw Emily spoon feeding his sister. Tony pinched his thumbnail and removed it from his hand. He placed it on the table and snapped his fingers.
The thumbnail projected a holographic news report above the table. A top-down view of Santiago Sibald looking up at the lens, standing by a purple SUV. Its fender hanging from the front, it had hit a tree and the occupants had fled.
Swarms of STPD officers surrounded the scene.
“Earlier reports from a witness who wishes to remain anonymous recounts that the vehicle had been commandeered by a bunch of cats?” Santiago looked at his wrist and shook his head, “No. That can’t be right—”
Glenn, the witness, appeared in silhouette on the screen. He addressed the interviewee in a state of shock, barely able to form a sentence.
“I-It was w-w-weird,” Glenn burped. “Cats everywhere, I tell ya. They made the man s-stop the c-car and then jumped inside an’ drove off, yonder.”
“You’re saying cats did this?”
“Yah-yup,” the silhouetted figure threw his hands into the air, “Sure as I’m standin’ here, my f-friend. One of them was real ugly, like, with a long-ass body and stupid pointy ears. That one acted all dead in the middle of the freeway.”
Jamie covered his forearm and, much like Tony was wont to do on most occasions, slipped out of the front room without being seen.
Jamie hopped into his bedroom and jumped onto his bed. He analyzed his wrist and wondered whether he should answer the call or not.
His arm kept buzzing, begging for attention. A final look at the bedroom door was all he needed. He planted the sole of his boot on it and pushed it shut.
SCHWUMP.
A poster for USARIC’s Star Cat Project Finals featuring Bisoubisou, Jelly, and Suzie Q-Two hung on the back of the door. Jamie took a deep breath and smeared the three inked dots along his forearm.
“Hello?” he whispered.
“Is this Jamie Anderson?” a stern-sounding female’s voice radiated from the pinpricks in his arm.
“Yes.”
“No, it’s no good. I can’t see you,” she said, “Look, I’ll—”
“—My mom and dad won’t allow me to visualize. I’ll get in trouble.”
“That’s okay. We know what you look like. Listen, there’s nothing to be afraid of, okay? We’re the good guys.”
“What? What do you mean don’t be afraid?”
“Hang on,” the voice cut off.
Jamie shook his forearm. The ink sprawled over the skin on his forearm and formed the face of a woman’s head. Featureless, it moved just enough to suggest the woman was producing a live feed.
“Do you see me?”
“Yes,” Jamie folded his legs and pushed himself against the wall, out of view of the door, “Look, I can’t talk to you. I’m not supposed to speak to strangers.”
“I know about Jelly, Jamie.”
“You know about—” Jamie thought twice about his reaction. On the cusp of giving the game away, he decided to change tact, “What about Jelly? What do you want?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Anderson. That Individimedia broadcast Handax sent out. He said Bisoubisou never made it on Opera Beta. If she didn’t go, then who did?”
A pang of terror ran down Jamie’s spine. He’d been busted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“—Shut up, kid.”
Jamie swallowed hard and drew the curtains shut, “Okay?”
“Where’s Jelly right now?”
“She’s, uh,” Jamie looked around his bedroom for an excuse. The USARIC poster didn’t help. The scattered pictures of his family and Jelly were too distracting. Jamie thought on his feet and lied, “She’s at the medician’s.”
“Really?”
“Yes, she got, uh, cat flu.”
“Liar.”
“No, I mean it, she’s—” Jamie’s voice croaked as he began to tear up. He knew he was in trouble.
“—Don’t lie to me, Jamie. I know those scumbags at USARIC brought you and your mom back and had you hand Jelly over. She’s not been seen since. Go on, deny it.”
Jamie blubbed, “Please leave me alone—”
“—No, shut up. And don’t tell your mom or dad, or anyone, about this call. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good,” the dark figure tilted its head on Jamie’s arm and took on a more affable posture, “Listen, Jamie. We’re not the bad guys. I know it’s hard to believe right now. We’re going to help you.”
“Help me?”
“Yes. You want to see Jelly again, don’t you?”
Jamie wiped the tears from his eyes. His left wrist’s Individimedia panel caught most of the liquid.
“Ugh. What’s the squelching noise?”
“Sorry,” Jamie sniffed and returned to his forearm.
“Opera Beta went missing. USARIC are sending up a vessel to go and find them. You remember a guy named Handax, right?”
Images of a carry case containing Jelly flooded into Jamie’s mind. Before long, a man in his twenties with blue hair came to mind.
“Yes, he gave us Jelly.”
“You saw his broadcast, didn’t you? Everyone did.”
“Yes.”
“They set free a bunch of felines at USARIC. Most of them were caught. It’s all over the news.”
“I know, I saw something just now—”
“—That’s not important right now. What is important is that you tell the truth. Did Jelly go to Saturn in Bisoubisou’s place? Yes or no?”
Jamie closed his eyes and wiped his face. The woman was serious and seemed genuine.
“Yes, she did.”
“I knew it,” her voice filtered through his wrist, “Thanks for confirming, Jamie—”
“—But we swore we wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“It’s okay. We’re not anyone. That’s all we needed to know. Goodbye.”
“Hey, wait,” Jamie interrupted, demanding an explanation, “Who are you?”
“It’s better that you don’t know. If anyone asks and you genuinely don’t know, then you and your family are safe,” she said. “There’s going to come a time soon when people will know Jelly went in Bisoubisou’s place. And when that time comes, the media and others are going to hound you for answers. If that happens, USARIC could act, and no one wants that for you.”
“Okay.”
“You and your family must tell the media that you didn’t know.”
“You mean, like, lie?”
“Yes, we mean like lie.”
“We?”
“Damn,” the woman cleared her throat and lowered her voice, “Jamie, so you know Opera Charlie is launching in the next few days. To go and look for Opera Beta?”
“No.”
“Well you do now. Charlie’s mission is to destroy Beta. Kill everything. The crew are all sick.”
“What do you mean sick?”
“Ugh, I can’t explain. One of our team is undercover on the Charlie mission—” the woman paused, hesitantly, “I can’t talk. I have to go.”
“But wait—”
“You’ll hear from us again. Stay sharp, kid.”
The head shape on Jamie’s forearm stretched into three separate lines. The connection disabled, leaving Jamie on his bed, alone and concerned.
USARIC Training Compound
Cape Claudius, South Texas, USA
A man in his early twenties approached the weapons bench. An selection
of firearms lay on the table - the familiar K-SPARK shotgun and Rez-9 among them. A range of grenades and utilities lined its outer edges.
The man clenched his gloved fists. On the side of his arm he clocked the USARIC logo along with his name - A. Hughes.
Beyond the bench lay a makeshift walkway, resembling a movie set. He adjusted his visor and flicked the lever down by his ear.
Bzzzzz.
The headgear whirred to life, “Heads Up Display activated,” a friendly female voice advised, “Okay, Alex. You have ninety seconds to breach the perimeter and take out all the hostiles. It’s up to you which weapon you choose."
The contours of each firearm lit up as he scanned the table. A medium-sized semi-automatic caught his attention, “I’ll go with the D-Rez.”
“Ah, nice,” she said. “Lightweight, versatile. Are you much of a run-and-gun?”
“Not really. I prefer precision.”
“Fifty compact rounds per magazine. Slider indicates three-shot burst, then five, and finally outright automatic.”
“I’ll go with the three,” Alex knuckled the lever right up and inspected the side of the firearm. He grabbed a pair of flash grenades and hooked them around his belt.
“Remember. Don’t point your gun and the people you work with. Or any of the civilians.”
“I don’t intend to.”
The woman giggled through his headgear, “That’s the spirit. Approach the start position, please.”
“Understood.”
Alex stepped up to the red line on the floor, ready to breach the first the "building’.
“You look kinda cute in this get-up, by the way,” the woman said. “Fancy a drink after the show’s over?”
“No, thank you,” Alex clutched the grip on the gun and scanned the first room, prepared for battle, “Let’s do this.”
“Record time is ninety point seven seconds.”
“I’ll do it in eighty-five.”
The room’s lights snapped on revealing a variety of desks, chairs, a screen, and a table.
“Here we go. Standby.”
CLUNK-CLICK-BZZZZ.
“Go, go, go,” her voice threatened. “Tango to the right.”
A holographic bad guy jumped up from behind the computer desk and aimed his rifle at Alex, who slid across the floor and fired three bullets.
Star Cat: War Mage Page 9
