by J. S. Volpe
* * *
“You!” Megalito said to Lucifer Brown and Marcy. “Sing for me, my musical bitches.”
His light-pattern shifted again, and the music became sweeping and waltz-like.
Lucifer began to dance, stepping and spinning as if he were dancing with a human partner. Instead there was only Marcy, flying in loops around him.
And Lucifer sang:
Some men are born to labor all their days
And some are born to live in abject misery.
But some, like me, are born for greater things.
Some of us are blessed with a greater destiny!
And Marcy sang:
All men need a reason to get out of bed.
They need to think they’re special and unique.
So they fabricate delusions out of air
To make themselves believe that life is not so bleak.
To each other they sang:
You’re full of shit, my friend,
So full of shit it’s leaking out your mouth.
That awful outhouse stench hangs about you like a cloud.
I gag, I gasp, I puke
When I hear that crap you spew.
That fecal stew just isn’t true.
So save it for the coprophiles, my dear.
Save it for the coprophiles, my dear.
Lucifer:
From the day of my birth I’ve been blessed by the Twelve.
They picked out a path just for me.
They help me and aid me, protect me from harm
For the sake of my great destiny.
I’ve lived through disasters and madness galore
Without so much as a scratch on my knee.
I’ve survived bar-fights and floodings and fires and more
‘Cause I’ve got a great destiny!
Marcy:
I was made to serve Garlock the Captain, ‘tis true.
He had picked out a path just for me!
A robot companion, a bright metal friend,
With the persona of his lost sweetie.
But then came disaster! The captain he died,
And I was stuck underground for eons.
Until I was found by this cocky young man
Who is truly the king of morons.
Together again:
You’re full of shit, my friend,
So full of shit it’s leaking out your mouth.
That awful outhouse stench hangs about you like a cloud.
I gag, I gasp, I puke
When I hear that crap you spew.
That fecal stew just isn’t true,
So save it for the coprophiles, my dear.
Save it for the coprophiles, my dear.
Lucifer:
I’m destined for fortune and glory and fame.
I’ll fuck a new gal every night.
I’ll have mountains of gold and piles of gems.
My future is nothing but bright.
No one can stop me, I’m unconquerable.
The powers that be are my friends.
So out of my way, eat my dust, kiss my ass,
I’m seeing this through to the end.
Marcy:
A few bits of good luck and you think you’re a king,
But that’s not how the universe works.
All men are small—infinitesimal specks
In a sea of celestial murk.
You’re just a bundle of atoms and cells
No different from dogs, trees, or rocks.
If you think you’re a lord or a saint or a god,
Then you’re due for one hell of a shock.
Together again:
You’re full of shit, my friend,
So full of shit it’s leaking out your mouth.
That awful outhouse stench hangs about you like a cloud.
I gag, I gasp, I puke,
When I hear that crap you spew.
That fecal stew just isn’t true,
So save it for the coprophiles, my dear.
Save it for the fucking coprophiles.
Their dance ended with the two of them slowly drifting apart as the music trailed off.
“Goodness!” giggled Megalito. “Such lovely tension.” He looked around and his gaze fixed on Illyana and Luornu. “Your turn, ladies.”
More spotlights came on, this time focused on the two women, and Megalito’s lights and music changed once more, transforming into the rich twangy strains of an Andilurian fourteen-string guitar backed by tomboppa drums and maracas.
Immediately Illyana and Luornu began performing a standard Andilurian dance, complete with the usual twirling and shimmying.
And they sang:
We wait the tables.
We take the tips.
We pour your ale.
We take your shit!
That is a day in the life of a maid.
That’s the circle of hell in which we’ve been enslaved.
Illyana sang on alone:
You swat my ass.
You grope my tits.
I hold my tongue.
I take your shit.
But behind my gaze so vacant and dull
Are visions of sledgehammers smashing your skull.
And under my smile so placid and thick
Are two rows of teeth that could chomp off your dick.
You think you’re a stud.
You’re so sure you’re the best,
A real man’s man with whom the world has been blessed.
But I know that deep down you’ve a warm, tender heart,
And I’d love nothing more than to tear it right out of your chest!
Illyana and Luornu together:
We wait the tables.
We take the tips.
We pour your ale.
We take your shit!
That’s just a day in the life of a maid.
That’s the section of hell in which we’ve been enslaved.
And now Luornu alone:
You leer at me.
You call me bitch.
I just smile back.
I take your shit.
But these hands that serve your ales and cakes
Are tipped with nails that could rake off your face.
And at the ends of these legs you keep leering at
Are two booted feet that could flatten your ‘nads.
You think I’m a thing
That’s here only to serve you,
A robot provider of food, brews, and screws.
But inside this chest that you ogle and paw
Beats a heart filled with hope you’ll soon be reduced to wormfood.
Illyana and Luornu together again:
We wait the tables.
We take the tips.
We pour your ale.
We take your shit!
Oh, we wait the tables,
While we wait for the tables to turn,
While we wait and we pray for the glorious day
We can give you your shit in return.
Yes, we wait for the day—that beautiful day—we can give you your shit in return.
As their song and dance ended, the swinging doors flew open and Chief Constable Avery and Captain Strang stomped inside, their swords drawn.
“All right everybody,” Avery yelled, her voice booming like an ogre’s in the vast space, “you’re all under arrest! You’re all…all…”
She blinked at the giant worm on the stage as its lights and music transmuted once again. Her mouth opened and closed a few times but nothing came out.
“Well well well,” Megalito said. “It seems we have some lovely new guests. Let’s see what they have to say, shall we?”
The music had by now became a sort of march, with trumpets and tubas and drums. All at once, Avery, Strang, and Zan strode to the center of the floor and formed a line. As they sang, they marched in place, bent arms pumping, knees rising almost to their chests.
They sang:
Oh, you’re under arrest, you’re under
arrest, you’re under arrest, you skel.
You’ll come with us now, there’ll be an inquest, you’ll be our guest, in a cell.
We’re the law, we’re the law, we’re the law, yes we are.
We watch and we wait and we pounce
On the crooks and the scum, then we lock ‘em all up
And we make sure they never get out.
Avery stepped forward out of the line, a spotlight following her. She sang:
I’m the chief, I’m the chief, I’m the chief, yes I am.
I am the top dog in the pound.
If you steal or murder or rape or embezzle,
I’ll run your ass into the ground.
The law’s all we have to keep us in line.
It’s what differentiates us from the beasts.
If you fuck with it, I will fuck you right back,
So if you’re thinkin’ of crookin’, please cease.
She stepped back into the line, and they all sang:
Oh, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you punk.
As if you haven’t guessed, you have failed life’s test, so sorry, my boy, you are sunk.
We’re the law, we’re the law, we’re the law, yes we are.
We investigate every last crime.
We catch scum like you and we lock them away
And we make sure that they do their time.
And now Captain Strang marched forward and sang:
I’m the captain, the captain, the captain, I am.
I’m a link in the chain of command.
Mine’s not to wonder or ponder or doubt
But to enact my boss’s demands.
I don’t care what they are, not one little bit.
I’ll enact them, make sure they succeed.
A job is a job and a boss is a boss,
And I’ve got a wife and six children to feed.
He returned to his place in line, and the trio sang:
Oh, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you scum.
This isn’t a jest, your freedom’s suppressed, you lost it because you are dumb.
We’re the law, we’re the law, we’re the law, yes we are,
The law that you pissed on, you boob.
Pissing on it means pissing on us.
Now, dipshit, we’re pissing on you.
And now it was Zan’s turn to step forward and do his bit, though hardly anyone noticed:
I’m the spy, I’m the spy, I’m the spy, yes I am.
I watch with invisible eyes.
I see every foul deed and hear every fool brag,
While I stay unseen in plain sight.
No one can see me, nobody at all.
It’s so lonely I feel I could die.
Just once, only once, I’d like a beautiful girl
To tell me that I caught her eye.
He stepped back in line, and they sang:
Oh, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you’re under arrest, you shit.
Stop beating your breast, because no one’s impressed, not even the tiniest bit.
We’re the law, we’re the law, we’re the law, yes we are.
You’re the bad guy, and we’ll make you pay.
Deep down you knew this was how it would end.
Yes, you knew this was coming one day.
O there’s no other way that your story could end,
‘Cause the bad guys, they always must pay.
“Oooh, I love a good march,” Megalito said. His enormous head moved from side to side as he scanned the group. “Hm. There are only a few of you who haven’t performed for me yet. In other words, we’ve almost come to the end of today’s program. But no matter, you’ll have plenty more opportunities to sing and dance for me in the weeks to come. Eventually you’ll run out of energy, of course, and then I’ll have to feed you to the others, but that’s showbiz.” He heaved a mock-resigned sigh. “Ah, well. On with the show! And our next act will be…” He turned to Gaspard and Merizen as his lights changed and the music transformed into a rather sultry number dominated by a wah-wahing trumpet. “You!”
Gaspard and Merizen took each other’s hands and began doing a slow, slinky dance, while singing:
Dirty money
Filthy lucre
It really gets around.
By the time it’s in your pocket,
A thousand hands have been upon it.
It gets so roughly handled,
So grabbed and used and fondled,
As it goes from hand to hand
Passed from man to woman to man.
Merizen alone sang:
Dirty money
Filthy lucre
Nothing else can measure up.
I love fat wads of money,
Oh so very thick and heavy,
Ones so big around
I can barely fit them in my hands.
The only time I’m really satisfied
Is when my safe deposit box is fully stuffed.
Gaspard took his turn:
Dirty money
Filthy lucre
That’s the only thing she ever really wants.
She can think of nothing else.
She can never get enough.
Gold and silver’s winking gleam
Even penetrates her dreams.
So I make sure to slip her all I’ve got
At every opportunity that comes.
Both together:
Dirty money
Dirty money
Filthy, filthy lucre
We’re always on the make for a fresh new score.
For though we try to make the money last
As long as we possibly can,
Eventually it dwindles,
Slips away in spurts and dribbles,
And before you know what’s happening
It’s spent,
It’s spent,
It’s speeeeeent.
“How odd,” said Megalito. “I have a sudden urge for a cigarette. Ah, well, never mind. I think we have only one final number, and then we can call it a day.” He turned his gaze upon Sister Moshi. His puzzle pieces flashed, and the music turned into the somber tinkling of a lone piano. Every spotlight except the one above Sister Moshi dimmed until she was the brightest thing in the room, the center of attention, a young woman in a shaft of yellow light surrounded by murk. Even Megalito’s blinking hide now seemed muted and somehow insignificant.
“Now sing,” Megalito demanded. “Sing!”
She didn’t. Not exactly. Instead she spoke in a faintly rhythmic fashion, as if she were reciting free verse:
When I was a girl I didn’t have friend in the world.
The kids in my town, they all hated me.
I was the weird little Ajin, with witch-hair and slant-eyes.
And it didn’t help I was smarter than them.
They mocked me and beat and made my life hell.
All was misery, all was pure crap.
I woke up every morning disappointed to still be alive.
And then one day when I was thirteen, I was sitting alone in my room,
I was sewing a bag with kittens on the sides,
I thought it was so very pretty.
So there I sat sewing, when spontaneously,
Completely out of the blue,
Awareness came over me
Of how transient everything is,
Every bag, every kitten, every person, evey day.
None of it lasts. Time eats it all up.
Even that moment—me sewing the bag—would soon end and be gone for all time.
I could never reclaim it, no matter how hard I tried.
It would simply no longer exist.
Time would have eaten it up, and left nothing behind—
Not the bag, not the kittens, not me, not the day.
And I cried, how I cried, at this vision of sorrow.
I just cried the whole afternoon through.
T
he bag is now dust-cloths, the kitten loose threads.
The day became night became day.
And that sad little girl who cried cried cried cried?
That sad little girl who just wanted to die?
Well, she stopped crying for good when she figured it out,
When she grasped the truth of her vision,
And saw what reality’s really about…
The music paused as Sister Moshi reached up, tore the hood from her head, and cast it on the floor. Her long, glossy black hair spilled out.
And then all the spotlights flashed back on, brighter than ever, and the sad piano music was washed away by pumping, thumping rock-n-roll, electric guitars chugging, drums pounding.
She thrashed about to the beat, hair flying, the black skirt of her robe swirling about her. Everyone else began dancing, too, forming a circle of spinning, flailing, ever-moving bodies around Sister Moshi as she belted out her song:
Everything is chaos chaos chaos!
Yes, chaos conquers all!
The only thing that doesn’t change
Is the fact of change itself.
It isn’t happy, isn’t sad,
It simply is, and nothing else.
It’s just your preconceived ideas
That make you believe it’s hell.
All is chaos chaos chaos!
Nothing’s gonna last!
Today won’t start again!
It just fades into the past.
But why do people find that sad,
So bad and discouraging?
Though today is dying as we speak
Tomorrow’s waiting in the wings.
And trust me, kids,
There’s no one knows
What tomorrow’s gonna bring!
All is chaos chaos chaos!
Chaos marches on
Nothing ever lasts too long
Soon everything is gone.
But nothing’s ever truly lost
So hush those mourning bells.
Everything that seems to end,
Has just been turned into something else!
Some people say the universe
Is a big clockwork machine
Where we could foresee everything
If we just knew every piece.
But that ain’t gonna happen,
With the pieces so profuse;
A vigintillion pinballs
Makes life a big stochastic stew.
Try as you may
There ain’t no way
To determine how all those pinballs ricochet.
All is chaos chaos chaos!
Human beings, you and me,
Are amazing singularities,
Every one of us unique.
Our minds are unpredictable
Fonts of creativity.
That can concoct amazing things
Never previously seen—
New points of view
New things to do
New pinballs for the stew!
All is chaos chaos chaos!
There’s no telling where we’ll be
At this time tomorrow,
Or next month, or in three years.
You can guess, but it’s a guess.
No one really has a clue.
‘Cause those vigintillion pinballs
Make life a big stochastic stew.
Chaos chaos chaos!
Chaos always wins.
Every god and tree and star and worm—
Time eats them in the end,
Then shits them out
In brand new forms
In an ever-changing flux!
Oh, chaos chaos chaos!
Expect the unexpected!
The swinging doors flew open, and Ludwig van Beethoven stomped into the room. He looked exhausted and grumpy, and periodically he winced and squirmed about in pain.
If anyone had a right to be grumpy, it was Ludwig van Beethoven. Ever since that anus-sniffing bird-gorgim had slammed him into a tree, he hadn’t been able to fly for more than five minutes before excruciating back pains forced him to land and lie down for a while. Thus, his trip here had been a sad tale of short flights—little more than hops, really—bounded by agony.
But now here he was, and after all he had been through, he deserved that fucking gold. He didn’t understand what was going on in here, or why everybody was just standing around, or why there was a ludicrous worm-thing on the stage, but he could see the gold sitting right there on the floor, and by fuck, it was his by right of pain.
As Beethoven strode toward the gold, surprised and a little perturbed that everyone was simply staring at him with wide, alarmed eyes and making no move to stop him, Megalito’s lights flashed rapidly and the strains of a classical symphony unfurled from the enormous worm’s multicolored hide.
Ludwig van Beethoven frowned at Megalito, then shielded his eyes with one hand.
“Fucking cunt! All those flashy lights give Ludwig van Beethoven a fucking headache!”
“What’s this?” Meglito cried. “You should be my little singing slavey by now! How are you resisting? How are…wait, did you say ‘Ludwig van Beethoven’? That’s preposterous, of course. The real Beethoven’s been dead so long even his bones are gone. But you do bear an uncanny resemblance to him, so perhaps you’re deaf like him as well. Which means you aren’t hearing a word I’m saying, are you? So I’ll just shut up now and have my troupe kill you. Sad to say, this is a handicapped-unfriendly establishment. No one here knows a lick of sign language.”
In response to an F-sharp and a green light from Megalito’s hide, Chizzer Wazzo and the rest of Megalito’s chorus line charged out from stage right. They leaped off the stage and raced toward Beethoven.
Beethoven saw there was no way he could make it to the gold before they caught up with him, so he stopped and squared his shoulders and got ready for a fight.
And then the swinging doors banged open again, and Brother Tantora staggered into the room. The entire front of his robe was shiny with blood, and his face was ghastly pale. His eyes, though, were bright and blazing with hate, which was the only thing keeping him alive at this point. In his arms he held the Omega-Class Flensing Cloud. The clear plastic cover that shielded the red activation button was already up, and his left index finger wavered an inch above the button.
His eyes darted wildly about until they located Sister Moshi.
“Filthy Nünite!” he roared. “In the name of the Yellow King, I give you blessed entropy!”
He pressed the red button. The sphere emitted a single long beep, and then with a faint whir the many small squares that covered the sphere began to slide open.
Megalito’s eyes widened into huge white circles. “I don’t believe it! You brought a flensing cloud in here? You insidious bitch!”
The green light on his hide went out and a pink one came on. Chizzer Wazzo and the other music-zombies veered away from Beethoven and headed straight for Brother Tantora. Beethoven glared at them as they surged past him, then shrugged and resumed stalking toward the block of gold on the floor.
Brother Tantora didn’t even notice the music-zombies until Chizzer Wazzo tackled him, and they both crashed to the floor. The other zombies piled on top of them, forming a heap of flailing arms and legs. Barely visible at the heart of it all, Brother Tantora retained hold of the sphere, keeping it cradled to his chest. He was grinning, his eyes alight with glee at his impending nonexistence. The sphere continued beeping and its squares slowly opening.
“Fuck it,” said Megalito. “I’m outta here. That’s all, folks!”
He reared up like a cobra about to strike, and then slammed his huge head into the wooden stage hard enough to punch straight through it. With surprising rapidity, he slithered away through the hole.
The moment he was gone, the hypnosis ended, and the room dissolved into chaos.
Blunt, realizing that the sphere was the primary threat, rushed toward the pile of bodies.
“Don’t w
orry, Mr. Kirby,” he shouted. “I’ll get rid of it.”
Kirby didn’t respond. He was too busy staring in horror at Blunt. While they had been in Megalito’s thrall, Blunt’s condition had worsened dramatically. Every square inch of his body was covered with humanoid lumps like some grotesque fresco, and every single one of these humanoid lumps bore a striking resemblance to Blunt.
“Blunt,” Kirby said. “What’s…” He realized he didn’t know what to say.
Blunt took six steps toward the heap of bodies, and then his right leg broke apart inside his pants, disintegrating into a bunch of lumps roughly the size of large potatoes.
“Yowie!” Blunt cried as he toppled over. It was the last thing he ever said, because the moment he hit the floor his entire body came apart. Gaps appeared between all the tiny Blunts and then they all started wriggling violently. With faint ripping sounds that reminded Kirby of the peel being torn from an orange, the mini-Blunts separated. Then they started screaming. Then they started racing toward the nearest living beings.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH—”
While all that had been going on, Beethoven had reached the gold and was stooping to grab it when Sister Moshi ran up behind him and kicked him as hard as she could in the ass. With a yelp, he flew forward over the block of gold and slammed head-first to the floor with a sound not unlike that of a pair of coconuts clacking together. Beethoven shuddered, emitted a tiny groan, and then lay still.
As Sister Moshi bent down to grab the gold, a hand grabbed her arm, jerked her upright, and roughly spun her around to face the hand’s owner. It was Lucifer Brown. Marcy hovered over his right shoulder, watching.
“The gold’s mine,” he said with calm certainty. “It’s my destiny.”
“Didn’t you get the memo?” she said, smiling. “Nothing is destined. Everything’s up for grabs.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Oh, please—”
And then the Psychotron Mark VI smashed over his head so hard that the machine burst. Buttons and metal plates and psycho-circuits clattered to the floor.
Lucifer said, “Whuzzafug?” and collapsed, revealing Zan standing behind him. Zan looked down at Lucifer’s unconscious form with a guilty grimace.
“Um, sorry,” he said.
Zan and Sister Moshi stared at each other while Marcy streaked down and hovered over Lucifer’s face, crying, “Sir! Sir! Wake up!”
Meanwhile, the squares in the flensing sphere had slid fully open, revealing only darkness inside. For a moment nothing happened, and then from the darkness came a high-pitched buzz, like that of a thousand wasps on speed.
From every hole poured hundreds of tiny metal bugs, each the size of a fly. They had wings, and tiny glowing red eyes, but instead of legs, each had half a dozen razor-sharp hooked blades that whirled about so fast they were silver blurs.
The robot bugs swiftly engulfed first Brother Tantora, then Chizzer Wazzo and the rest of the music-zombies until the heap of bodies appeared to be one huge mass of bugs. The bugs’ buzz grew shrill like a dentist’s drill, and a fine mist of blood sprayed out from the mass and fell like a gentle rain upon the floor. None of those trapped inside the swarm even had time to scream.
It was over in less than three seconds. The mass of bugs broke apart and flew off in search of other flesh-and-blood beings to flense, leaving behind nothing except a heap of blood-streaked bones with not a shred of tissue left upon them.
While that was happening, the several dozen mini-Blunts had raced straight toward the nearest living things, which happened to be Chief Constable Avery and Captain Strang.
“What the fuck are these things?” Avery barked. Strang didn’t give an answer, and Avery didn’t wait for one. She just spun around and ran as fast as she could.
Unfortunately, given her heft, it wasn’t very fast at all, and before she knew what was happening, there were four or five explosions around her calves, shredding her pant-legs and driving countless tiny black seeds into her skin.
“Fuck!” she cried as the pain in her calves made her stumble and fall.
A dozen more spiries swarmed over her and exploded, concussing her and tearing up her clothes and skin.
“Fuckers!” she snarled, trying to get up. She could hear more screams rapidly approaching her from behind.
And then the screams were drowned out by the incessant buzz of the flensing bugs as they descended on both Chief Constable Avery and the dozen nearest spiries. Blood-mist rose up from the bugs covering Avery. From beneath the ones covering the spiries came a dozen explosions. When their job was done, the bugs moved on in search of their next target.
By now, though, the targets in the Starlight were few and far between. Gaspard and Merizen, upon seeing the flensing sphere activated and the spiries running loose, wisely decided to just get the hell out of there and were currently bursting through the brown door in the moraine slope. Not daring to waste even a millisecond looking back, they bolted away down the gulch.
“This is a fiasco,” Merizen snapped, scowling. “We didn’t get the gold, and my clothes are absolutely ruined.”
Gaspard flashed her a humorless smile that showed a lot of teeth.
“Just shut up and run, dear,” he said.
Had they bothered to look back, they would have seen Illyana and Luornu barely two hundred feet behind them, the two girls likewise having decided that flight was the wisest option. Illyana still had the Snowman’s pistols tucked into her waistband, but, really, what good were those against tiny screaming fungoid things and swarms of robot bugs that skinned you alive?
As they vanished around the nearest bend in the gulch, the door flew open again, and Kirby sprinted out, crying, “Damn it, Blunt, you stupid asshole, what’d you have to go and get infected for? You fucking retard!” The wind of his flight dried the tears in his eyes almost as fast as they appeared.
Meanwhile, inside the Starlight Zan was saying, “I think I should probably be arresting you.”
Sister Moshi gave him a shy smile. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you help me carry this gold out of here?”
“Um…” He looked around for Avery or Strang, but since Avery had already been reduced to a skeleton and Strang was currently being engulfed in flensing bugs (as he faced his demise he managed to actually grimace; it was quite liberating), Zan didn’t see either one of them. “I…I guess so.”
She had thought they would carry it together, but he was strong enough to heft it himself. Even so, his face turned bright red from the effort, and veins bulged in his arms and hands.
He turned toward the door, then said, “Oh, dear.”
Between them and the door were clouds of flensing bugs and scads of screaming spiries.
“Not that way,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. She took a moment to give his bulging bicep a quick, savoring squeeze. “The other way.”
It took him a moment to realize what she had said, for he had trouble getting past the fact that this lovely young girl was actually touching him. He cleared his throat, hoping she didn’t notice he was blushing.
“What other way?” he asked.
“Follow me,” she said.
She raced up onto the stage, Zan following as quickly as he could with what felt like 100-plus pounds of gold weighing him down, and stopped next to the hole Megalito had made.
“Down there?” he asked incredulously. “You don’t know where it goes.”
She grinned at him. “You never know where any road’s gonna go.”
He thought about this, then smiled. “No, I guess you don’t.”
She jumped into the hole. Still smiling, he followed.
Back on the dance floor, Marcy was shouting, “Wake up, sir! Wake up!” It wasn’t working. All Lucifer did was roll his head back and forth a little and groan.
More drastic measures were needed.
“You’re doomed to failure!” the drone shouted.
That did it. Lucifer’s eyes flew open, and he glared at Marcy.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he growled.
“It means if you don’t get up and get out of here as soon as possible, you’ll be flensed.”
“Flensed?”
“You’ll have your flesh stripped off your bones.”
“Oh.” Lucifer tilted his head back and looked around. The flensing bugs had finished with Captain Strang and were now picking off the last two dozen spiries. Or at least most of them were; a swarm of them, just enough to cover a grown man, were buzzing straight toward Lucifer.
“Can’t have that,” he cried, springing to his feet. The world spun for a moment. Whoever had hit him had hit him pretty hard. Something warm and wet trickled down his head behind his right ear.
Lucifer stared at the onrushing swarm without a clue what to do. Given how fast they were moving and how far he was from both the swinging doors and the hole in the stage floor, there was absolutely no way he could get out of the room before the drones were upon him.
He was about to start running anyway—better to try something and maybe get lucky than to just give up and let them kill him—when there was a groan behind him and Ludwig van Beethoven pushed himself to his feet.
“Ludwig van Beethoven is going to find whoever kicked him and take a massive shit in their mouth!”
Lucifer smiled. The Twelve always provided.
As Beethoven patted the floor-dust from his breeches, Lucifer reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and swung him around into the path of the bugs.
“What is the meaning of—”
He never got a chance to finish the sentence, because the bugs were upon him. They covered his body like ants on honey, a fine mist of blood sprayed out, and then the bugs moved on, leaving behind the skeleton of Ludwig van Beethoven, nee Vretch Ploom.
While Beethoven’s bones clattered to the floor, Lucifer and Marcy burst through the swinging doors and into the lobby. With the last of the spiries having just been destroyed, Lucifer was the only living thing in the building, and so every single flensing bug came together into one huge, whirring cloud and set off in pursuit.
As Lucifer sprinted along the lobby toward the Starlight’s front door, he heard the rising buzz on the other side of the swinging doors, and then a rapid hail-like pattering as the mass of little metal bugs slammed into the doors hard enough to throw them open.
“Shit!” Lucifer screamed. From somewhere he found the strength to run faster, and he made it to the front door before the bugs were halfway across the lobby.
He pushed through the door, Marcy sailing out with him, then slammed it closed.
As he turned to flee, the bugs struck the door, again sounding like the world’s worst hailstorm. The door, which had no lock or latch but was much heavier than the swinging doors inside, slowly began to scrape open. The buzz of the bugs grew shriller and shriller as they strained against the metal door.
“What the fuck do we do?” Lucifer cried, staring at the door in horror. “If those things get out…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. The thought was too terrible. If they got out, they’d just flense and flense and flense their way across the world. And there was virtually nothing that could stop them. Maybe fire-breathing dragons or giant robots with death-ray eyes or something, but there weren’t any of those anywhere near Glí.
He looked around for Marcy and spotted the drone about ten feet away, examining the moraine slope.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lucifer asked.
The door scraped open another millimeter. The buzz inside grew louder.
“Do you see that piece of moraine there, down at the bottom of the slope?” Marcy said. “The one with the brown striations?”
“Stry-what?”
“The stone with the brown stripes! Do you see it?”
“Um…” Lucifer tore his eyes from the door—it had opened a little more, and he could now actually see the silver gleam of tiny metal blades flicking through the crack—and looked at the moraine. “Yeah, I see it. So what?”
“Snatch it out of the slope.”
“What? But—”
“Do it now!”
Too startled by Marcy’s shouting to do anything else, Lucifer obeyed.
The moment he plucked the rock from the slope, the rocks above it started moving, some just settling into new positions in the stack, others clacking down the slope to the floor of the gulch. Then the rocks above and around those started moving, then the ones above and around those, and so on and so on in a chain reaction radiating up and out from the space where that single rock had been removed, a chain reaction that Lucifer realized would very quickly become an avalanche.
“Now run!” Marcy shouted.
He did. As he raced away, he heard the door grind open a little more, then the suddenly louder buzz as the bugs emerged in a narrow stream through the gap in the doorway. And then the buzz vanished beneath the deep, rolling rumble of thousands of tons of moraine crashing down.
Right before he rounded the first bend, Lucifer looked back. There was no sign of the Starlight. It had been completely buried. There were no flensing bugs, either. The few that had gotten out the door hadn’t been fast enough to escape the avalanche.
“How’d you know that would happen?” Lucifer asked Marcy as he slowed to a jog.
“It was fairly simple math,” Marcy said. “While I might not be able to calculate the movements of a vigintillion pinballs, a few hundred thousand is child’s play.”
