by Marc Horne
Chapter 23
With a qualified glee - like they had been given permission to spank a troublesome baby but were worried about breaking it - Tamano, Scarfe and Kim pounced on Boa Morte. What made it even better of course was that he was already pretending to be gagged and tied so the work was half done.
They made his neck bulge good and proper until the princess wagged a finger. But even she was less strict on them than you would have imagined given that it was her hero Xolo whose gullet was allegedly being caved.
The holographic icon of Xolo's head tipped their brains out of balance. Gods trump humans every time. Floating heads are gods, even in the 24th century. Humans who hate robots will stay humans forever, really.
So they had him all held down and crisscrossed. He didn’t fight back. Was it his space royalty cool? Was it a fighting trick? Or was it something else: an unraveling that begins in the eyes.
Tamano went to the controls. They were pretty intuitive. She slowed the paracopters down what she hoped would be just enough to not look weird.
The holohead started talking. There were bits missing from its voice.
“I'm a low-rez clone of Xolo's brain. Don't ask me about money. I can't talk about money. Also every word uncoils me a little.
“Boa Morte: Delete!”
Boa Morte's body completely switched off, like he had been shot in the head at the end of a deep, pounding three-hour massage.
Everyone had a little what the fuck moment. The genie. The dragon. The black. The torture. The laughing heads full of battle gravy just off the starboard bow. The soldiers all kind of moshed around in their 'space ship' a little bit in a way that would make you cry if you saw it, unless you are the type who would laugh if he saw a possum step in a bear trap.
Xolo Boa Morte's eyes flicked open. He looked over at his hologram and winked. The hologram said, “I think I am back in my brain. I have to go now. I'm a slave. They are coming for me. Bust me out big poppa!”
Then he dissolved with over the top flesh peel transitions. Bones crumbled. Pixels that clung to the illusion of life.
Life truly is that sweet.
The big silver dragon.
Did
Not
Bother
Xolo
One
Jot
Boom! He was out of his bounds. None of those tough warriors even had a chance to grimace about it.
They didn’t know what to do, but his muscles and eyes told them not to do anything. He stood there like he had just invented blue jeans. He tapped his head to a beat. He rubbed his hand across his bristly pate.
“Are we…on a kamikaze mission here?” he asked Sunny. “Please tell me that that idiot Boa Morte isn’t going to blow up the Princess Sun-Moon. And me. And you. You guys look cool. I remember you! Gomez right? The mantis man.”
Sunny ran up and hugged him. But with porcelain composure.
“Semi-kami-kaze. He has a ship full of those zombies over there [see?] and they are run by an old computer that hates humans and is not on the headnet and those are the Gukkool’s ships and he thinks with the computer’s help we can conquer the fleet.”
“Okay. Okay,” said Xolo. “Wow. How did he live so long? I guess he got through troops at an outrageous rate. He had the flesh cushion that makes rich people think the universe makes sense. Know’m’sayin?”
The many space ships were looming. The paracopters were at the focal point of a lot of power. The entry way to the main dragon: a spider web path. The safest and most dangerous route to the amber colored womb that awaited. Once you crossed the threshold you were sorted. But up until 1mm before you were in, there was nothing that could be destroyed more easily. Not even a mood.
“Why is it so black?” mumbled Gomez, looking at space. “What’s...what’s out there. Is it…is it coal?”
The big amber womb pulled them in. In the other helicopter was a preview of the death that awaited them and the computer that invalidated them. There was a princess with them on this paracopter but she was just a little girl. A star-crushing rebel had just evaporated in front of them.
Much depended on Xolo meaning something.
Know’m’sayin?
