“Yeah,” Cal admitted. “But it really is an excellent ship. And we can round up others,” he continued. “Like I said, everyone in the multi-verse’ll come together to fight that thing.”
“How?” Lily demanded. “How are you going to arrange that? Phone them up? Send out invitations? How are you possibly going to recruit the whole multi-verse before Ikumordo starts to consume everything? Look at it. Those tendrils? It’s already starting.”
“OK, maybe not the whole multi-verse, then, but there must be somewhere we can get ships?” Cal said.
“No. There isn’t,” said Lily.
“Uh…” began Carver Two. He met Lily’s gaze, looked chastised for a moment, but then planted his feet in defiance. “I might know somewhere we can get some. Pilots, too.”
“Alright,” said Cal. “Now we’re talking. So, what are we waiting for?”
Two gestured towards the doorway. “Council, lead the way,” he said.
“Wait, this is idiotic,” said Lily. “This is suicide.”
“So’s staying here,” Old Man Carver pointed out.
“But he’s the one who doomed us all!” Lily protested. “He’s the one who messed everything up!”
Cal spun on his heels to face her. “Or maybe I’m the guy who’s going to save everyone,” he said, meeting her petulant gaze. He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door, where the other Carvers had all started to file through. Then, much to her annoyance, he placed a hand on her head and ruffled her hair. “So, kiddo, how about we go find out?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They heard the screaming the moment they stepped through the doorway. At first, Cal thought it was the wind, which had whipped up from nowhere, and almost knocked him off his feet as soon as he returned to the blister universe.
But then he saw the Carvers flailing wildly, battered by the hurricane, their faces alive with fear as the inky darkness of the Void devoured the sky.
“Uh, like, I’m guessing this is bad?” said Miz.
“Yes. You could say that,” said Cal, then he stumbled as Lily barged past him.
“Shizz, shizz, shizz, shizz, shizz,” she spat. “Void breach.”
“Is this Ikumordo?” Mech asked.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” said Lily. She ran ahead and started gesturing to a number of carefully memorized spots across the grass. Every time she pointed, another doorway sprang up from the ground, glowing even more brightly in the growing darkness.
“Carvers, go!” Two boomed. Some of the council members were huddled together in frightened groups, but many more ran around in aimless terror, trying to escape the inescapable.
Two caught the arm of a panic-stricken younger Cal with some kind of robotic eye implant, and shoved him through the closest doorway.
“Calm down!” Two bellowed, making a grab for another Carver, but missing. “The doors! Use the fonking doors!”
“Mech, Miz, help him get everyone out,” Cal barked. He lifted the woman’s shoe from his shoulder and tossed it to Mech. The shoe became a green blob as it flipped through the air. “Splurt, go with them, get everyone safe. Loren, you come with me, we need to get to the ship before—”
A camping stove cracked him across the back of the head. “Ow! Jesus, what was—?”
He turned in time for a flying tent to envelop him. Tangled in the rope and canvas, Cal was dragged several feet across the grass in the direction of the Void, before Miz pounced and slashed him free.
“Thanks.”
“Whatever,” said Miz, but she bared her teeth in something not unlike a smile.
Carver Eighty-Three tumbled past, upside-down, very possibly drowning in his own beard. “Go. Help them,” said Cal. Miz tutted and rolled her eyes, but pounced again, pinning Eighty-Three to the grass. Almost immediately, the little man started to scream.
“Like, shut up,” said Miz. “I’m not going to eat you. I totally just saved your life.”
Eighty-three continued to scream, regardless.
“Loren, let’s go,” Cal ordered.
The Currently Untitled stood between them and the growing Void. Or where Cal guessed the Void breach had first started, at least. Now, the darkness was covering most of the sky, its inky tendrils stretching towards the horizon, and the original breach point was a full-scale howling vortex, dragging the miniature universe inside, inch by agonizing inch.
There was no distance at all – fifteen feet, maybe less – between the Untitled and the point where the grass and the sky fell away into the abyss. This was going to be close.
Cal powered on, the ground a blur beneath his feet. The Untitled tilted towards the Void, before a series of harpoon cables spat from the ship’s underside, anchoring it to the grass. “Yes, Kevin!” Cal cried, forcing his legs to move even faster. “Hold on, buddy!”
Back at the camp, Mech stood by one of the doors, acting as a windbreak as Splurt used the long arms he’d sprouted to shove Carvers through the portal. Many more had already scattered through the other doors, but there were still a dozen or so of the most frightened left, too numb with terror to follow simple instructions. Carver Two was rounding most of them up and shepherding them to safety, but the increasing volume of the wind meant it was becoming harder and harder to shout orders.
Miz was carrying two struggling Carvers over her shoulders, both of whom shared the concern that they were about to be eaten alive, and were currently protesting quite firmly.
“I’m saving you! Quit fonking hitting me!” Miz growled. She tossed them both through one of the doors, then turned and lunged for another of the council members. He jumped back in panic, before Old Man Carver grabbed his arm.
“Calm down, you idiot,” the old man said. “She’s trying to help.”
Nodding his bald head at Miz, he shoved the other Carver through. “Don’t get stuck here,” the old man warned, then he jumped through the doorway, and vanished.
Cal powered on. Since a tribal healer had passed on all his life-force, Cal had been reaping the benefits. As well as healing from any injury – including death, on at least one occasion – he was stronger and more agile than he had been before. And, more importantly, what with everything currently going on, faster.
He was just a few seconds away from the Untitled’s open ramp when a scream cut through the roar of the wind and the crashing of his heartbeat in his head. There had been a lot of screaming, but this one was different. This one he couldn’t ignore – had been genetically programmed never to ignore.
Cal stumbled. “Lily?”
The girl tumbled and rolled across the grass further back on Cal’s right, tangled in a tent just like he had been. She kicked and flailed inside it, flipping and bouncing across the ground, hurtling faster and faster towards the void.
“Loren, get to the ship!” Cal shouted, not looking back to where Loren was racing along behind him. He diverted right, trying to anticipate where to aim himself so he could intercept the canvas cocoon. He picked a spot and ran. Fast. Faster than he’d ever run before, nine years of guilt and pain and sorrow pushing him on.
He wouldn’t fail her. He wouldn’t let her die. Not again.
“I’m coming, baby!” he called, but the words choked him, as his eyes blurred with tears. The wind. He blamed the wind.
Lily screamed again, high and panicked and piercing enough to stab deep into Cal’s already breaking heart. He threw himself to the ground in front of her, bracing himself for the impact.
The tangled tent bounced unexpectedly, then flipped and rolled over him, its ropes cracking in the air like bullwhips as it hurtled the final few feet towards the black.
“No!”
Cal kicked off, throwing himself towards the tent, and the girl wrapped up inside. Their eyes met, just briefly, through a gap in the canvas, then Cal’s fingers found the fabric and he gripped it with every ounce of strength he had.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you!”
Unfortunately, no one had him. The extra wei
ght slowed the tent’s progress, but not by much. Instead, it dragged Cal with it towards the beckoning Void.
Cal saw a billion formless shapes waiting there in the multi-colored blackness, and then a hand caught him around the ankle and he had to scramble to keep a hold of the canvas as he jerked to a stop.
“Hold on!” Loren hissed. She dug her heels into the grass, gritted her teeth, and began pushing backwards, away from the Void. Over on the left, there was a twang as the abyss reached one of the Untitled’s ropes snapping it in two.
Cal shoved an arm inside the tangled tent. A hand, unfamiliar yet unmistakable, slipped into his. He laughed. He couldn’t say why, exactly, but he laughed.
The tent was pulled free in one sharp tug. Cal saw it go tumbling into the Void, leaving just Lily gripping his hand.
“Don’t let go,” she said. It was a whisper – barely a whisper, even - but he heard it, all the same.
“Never. I’ve got you,” he told her, then he winked. “That’s a Cal Carver guarantee.”
Straining with the effort, he heaved Lily towards him and rolled onto his back. “Give me my leg,” he told Loren, then he scrambled to his feet when she released her grip, both of them pulling Lily up beside them.
“The ship! Get to the ship!” Cal bellowed, the wind snatching away every second syllable. He turned to the Untitled, preparing to run, then stopped. The ground beneath the ship was almost gone, the anchor lines now flapping in the hurricane-force gale.
With a final few twangs and a groaning of metal, the Untitled tipped over the receding edge of the grass, rolled sideways, and went tumbling into the Void.
“Shizz, Kevin!” Cal cried. He started to run, but Lily and Loren both held on, jerking him to a stop.
“What are you doing?” Lily demanded.
“Getting my ship back!”
“You can’t just jump into the Void!”
Cal pulled his arms free. “If we’re going to stop Ikumordo, we need the Untitled.”
Lily looked past him to where the ship was now barely a speck in the darkness. She clenched her jaw, muttered something inaudible, then beckoned for Cal and Loren to follow her. “Come with me.”
They fought against the gales, bending low and edging forwards until they reached what Cal had assumed was another of the misshapen tents. On closer inspection, though, it was a sheet of dark green tarp, flapping violently in the strengthening wind.
Lily drew a knife and sliced through the cord ties. The tarp immediately flew off, revealing two… things. Cal had no idea what they were. If a motorbike and a spaceship had got drunk together one night, and had one thing had led to another, these things would be the result. They were curved and sleek like a particularly sexy fighter ship, but with a vague sort of motorcycle shape to them. They had no wheels, and just hovered above the grass, apparently unperturbed by the gaping abyss growing steadily closer.
“Void rigs,” said Lily, as if that explained everything. She swung her leg over one and pointed to the other. “You two get on that one.”
“No way,” said Cal, swinging into the seat behind Lily. “I’ve seen her fly.”
Loren gave him the finger, then hopped onto the other bike. A blue button illuminated between the handlebars. Lily pressed hers first, and a domed energy canopy snapped closed over her and Cal. She waited until Loren had done the same, then demonstrated the controls.
“Faster, slower, turn, boost,” she said, indicating each pedal, lever and grip as she did. “Got it?”
“Got it,” said Loren. She gunned the throttle, shot backwards at high speed, and somehow managed to hit the only remaining tent, flattening it to the ground.
“You see what I’m talking about?” said Cal, then Loren rocketed past them and he felt the Void rig below him purr into life.
Cal looked across at the blue and white doorways. Mech, Miz and Carver Two were still there, shoving the final few Cals through. The darkness was racing towards them now, devouring the sky and the ground and everything in between.
“Guys, go, go!” Cal called to them, but then the Void rig shot forwards, his stomach shot upwards and, like the first drop on a roller-coaster, the bike plunged into the abyss.
Mech watched the bikes streak off into the darkness as he shoved the last stray Carver through the door. “Thank you,” said Carver Two.
Mech nodded in reply. “No problem.”
Two hurried through the door, leaving just Mech and Miz behind. Mech beckoned for Miz to come over to his door, holding a hand out to her and bracing himself against the spiraling storm. Splurt wrapped around his outstretched hand, became a length of rope, and fed himself towards Miz.
“Come on. This way!” Mech urged, but even Miz’s ears couldn’t hear him over the screeching gales.
She figured it out, though, and was about to make her move when Mech realized there was no time. The Void was almost on her, hungrily devouring everything in its path as it closed in on her and her door.
“Wait, go through, go through!” he boomed, gesturing furiously towards the door beside her. Miz frowned.
Miz turned.
Miz’s eyes opened wide.
And then, both Mizette and her doorway were wrenched into the darkness.
“Miz!” Mech bellowed, but there was nothing he could do. As the Void closed in on him he shot it the meanest, dirtiest look he could muster, then hurled himself and Splurt through the portal as the blister universe collapsed into nothingness.
* * *
Mech fell briefly, hit the ground heavily, then stood up. Angrily. The other Carvers and Number Two were all running for cover, but there was no cover to be had. They were in a long trench, with two tall walls penning them in. The ground beneath their feet was made up of hundreds of large black tiles. Two lines of the tiles were illuminated, each line stretching the length of the trench.
High up at the top of the wall, an audience watched on. They were jeering, but the jeers were quietening into a kind of mumbled confusion as everyone got around to noticing the twenty or more people who had appeared in the trench from the now rapidly-shrinking rectangle of light.
It was thanks to the growing silence that Mech heard the rumble, like distant thunder, and felt the ground trembling beneath his feet. He looked to his left and saw a shape hurtling towards him. Had he ever seen one before, he may well have thought, ‘Oh, that looks a bit like a rhino,’ but he hadn’t, so he didn’t think that. If anything, he thought, ‘Oh, fonk,’ as the enormous horned beast bounded towards him, a figure – apparently dressed entirely in neon yellow lights – sitting astride its back. The figure carried a long pointy jousting stick, which lowered slightly to take aim at Mech’s head.
There was more thunder on Mech’s right. He turned to find another of the things he couldn’t identify as rhinos approaching from that direction, too. Like the first, this one also carried someone, although this time covered in an intricate pattern of little red lights. This figure, too, lowered its jousting stick a fraction.
“Oh, well ain’t this just great?” Mech muttered, then he adjusted his dial, planted his feet, and braced himself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I feel it’s only fair to warn you,” said Cal, raising his voice above the whine of the Void rig. “There’s a fair to moderate chance I might throw up.”
Up ahead, the darkness folded in on itself like a kaleidoscope of darkness. Visually, very little happened, and yet Cal somehow felt the Void’s movement deep in the animal part of his brain.
“Wait, no… moderate to high.”
“Don’t you dare!” Lily hissed. She gunned the throttle, pulling level with Loren’s rig. Loren glanced over, but it made her swerve dangerously towards Cal and Lily, and so she quickly faced front again.
“Jesus. Guess they didn’t have a simulator for one of these.”
“I heard that,” said Loren’s voice from a speaker somewhere up front.
“Totally meant you to,” he lied, then he quickly changed the subj
ect. “Why isn’t Kevin just flying back to us?”
“Ships can’t operate in the Void,” said Lily. “Its systems will be non-operational.”
“So how do we get back out?” Loren wondered. It was a question that hadn’t occurred to Cal, but which now sent him into a brief-but-spiralling panic.
“Shizz. How do we get back out?”
“The jumpers are still attached from when we brought the ship through,” Lily said, gesturing to the clamps attached to the Untitled. “We can use those.”
Something hot and purple sparked across the Void ahead, briefly casting the tumbling Untitled into silhouette. A second flash caught Cal’s eye from over on his left. It left a little imprint of itself on his retina for a few seconds – a single jagged line stabbing down from above.
“Was that lightning? Is there pink lightning in here?” he asked. “Oh, and by the way, we’re totally calling this bike ‘Pink Lightning’ from now on. Loren, you can be ‘Brown Thunder.’”
“Is he always like this?” Lily asked.
Loren shrugged. “Pretty much.”
Lily sighed. “Great,” she said. “The lightning is Void Energy.”
“Is it dangerous?” asked Cal.
Another line of electric fire tore across the darkness ahead of them, like a split in the Void itself. “Guess,” Lily muttered. “We need to get your ship and jump it out of here before we get much deeper.”
“Why?” asked Cal. “What happens if we go deeper?”
“The longer we stay here, the weirder it’s going to get,” Lily explained, her eyes darting at the vast nothingness looming in front of them.
“Like fun weird?” Cal asked.
“Like head-imploding weird.”
“Like fun head-imploding weird?”
Lily drew him a withering look over her shoulder, then twisted the throttle further, pulling ahead of Loren. “Try to stay close,” she said. “If you get lost in here, we’ll never find you.”
Another bolt of Void lightning cracked the sky.
Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy Page 13
