"Oh." Ari smiled. "Up in the director’s office, I reversed the flow in the settings. It's completely experimental. Normally the camera pulls the images around it inward. I made the energy flow outward. Had no idea it would work. Thanks for saving me. We make a pretty good team."
She took a final look at Lrrrje, shuddered, and retrieved the electromagnetic camera and the Stingr.
"Okay," he answered. "I guess you're right, we do make a good team."
"Last chance, Carpe," Fleek said over the communicator. He sounded mad. "We need you, man. Can you get to the coordinates I’m sending you?"
"I gotta do this," Carpe said to Ari. Then he pushed the button on his communicator. "I'm on my way, Fleek. Good luck, Ari." He winked at her and then was gone.
Ari took the camera and headed outside. The first test had been a success. Would the rest of her plan fare as well?
A nearby yell from Kirian made Ari sprint toward the sound. The one thing for sure was that whatever was happening so far in this city, it was aimed at Kirian.
When Fleek returned with Carpe, the two of them made their way back to the studio using communicator flashlights. As they entered the room, the power returned, and everything came back on. Sort of.
Before the power failure, the lighting had given a semi-drab, poorly-lit ambiance, but the light was now blinding like the sun. They groaned and covered their eyes to give themselves time to adjust.
"What did you do?" Fleek asked Marco, who he hoped was nearby and could hear him.
"Let's just say that it's extremely illegal, but from now on you'll have no problems running your coffee pot."
After a couple of minutes, their eyes adjusted, their equipment was ready, their sparkling avatars were perfect, and they were on stage ready to go.
"Ok guys," said Fleek, settling in at his keyboard with the television camera remote in his hand. "Are you ready to make history by breaking every broadcast law, noise code violation, and music industry regulations in the galaxy? Are you ready to rocket us to Pirate Radio Stardom?"
The band cheered.
He hit the button to go live. The camera started recording, and the band started playing. The latest technology and the most expensive, state-of-the-art, not yet legal, amplified boosters that billions of units of hacked currency had bought, kicked into gear.
"We are Chemical Zombies," Fleek screamed. "And this lame galaxy has been waiting a long time for a song this great, so here goes. Oh yeah, and we'd like to dedicate this song to Kirian, Destroyer of Planets."
Fleek gave himself fully to the music, to the song, to the fractal math that had led his whole life to this moment. To fame and fortune and groupies.
Rock and roll.
Chapter 26
Drexyl scanned the room. The console was on, and Soda stood in front of it, staring at the images playing on the screen. He jumped up and rushed to her side.
Kirian was on the screen battling a new wave of TPHWs. A battle she was on the verge of losing.
"Why is Kirian up there again so soon? She should have had the requisite seventy-two hours to rest and plan and—"
"I changed the rules," Soda said, turning to him savagely. "They're my rules. My servants. I do whatever I want, and nobody can stop me."
Drexyl stared at Soda, who was concentrating, fixated on the screen. She had one tentacle over her head, three in front of the screen, and one on each side of her in a strange, fixed position. Like she was trying to be a television antenna.
"What are you doing to her?" he demanded.
"I'm going to kill her. And I wanted you to see it. Thank goodness you woke up in time," she said without moving or breaking eye contact.
"Stop it!" he pleaded.
He had no power, and neither did Kirian. All he could do was watch the screen. Soda leaned forward, and Kirian dropped to her knees, the lights in her hair brightened and then went out.
"No. I'll do anything, Soda. Don't kill her, please."
"Oh, this is happening," she answered. "And why all of this anger? This fear? You think this woman cares about you? She doesn't. You're just another Overseer minion to her. Somebody who orders her around. Someone who works for me. Name one reason she would care about you?"
Drexyl froze.
Soda was right. How could Kirian possibly know how he felt about her? He’d never told her. He couldn't. Not in front of Soda.
His world since captivity had been Soda and the Celestials. Soda and Kirian. Kirian had fascinated him since the first time he saw her.
The creatures on the screen charged at Kirian. She was going to die. Right there on the screen. Right in front of him. With a scream he charged Soda, knocking her down and breaking her concentration.
Taken by surprise, her tentacles splayed. Her wobbly head with eyes huge in surprise bulged before she hit the floor. From that moment on, everything slowed into a strange, out of time experience.
After listening to Brad's explanation of what might happen, Trisha expected the explosions to begin downtown, where they already were, but that wasn't the case. The first explosion came from the opposite direction.
"Come on," Brad said, "I have a rental car."
Explosion chasing. That woke Trisha up a little. This was what she hoped journalism would be like, chasing actual events and not just conspiracy theories. She was pretty sure whatever this distant disruption turned out to be, it probably wasn't conspiracy theory related because she had heard it with her own ears. She jumped into his car, and they sped off.
Trisha, in the passenger's seat, texted Jen to let her know what kind of adventure she was having. It took a couple of minutes to figure out exactly how to word the particular text, though, and by the time she hit send they had reached the vicinity of the explosion.
Brad hit the brakes, and the car screeched to a halt. The smoke was several blocks away, but close enough to smell once they got out of the car. Trisha checked her phone for a reply. Nothing. A message told her the text had not sent.
Weird.
Brad led the way toward the smoke. People were running past them, fleeing the area. Trisha grabbed one. "What's going on?"
"Gas leak. They're evacuating the area."
Men in uniforms worked machinery near the smoke. Trisha had covered local gas leaks on her planet, and this was not normally how things went down.
Usually, fire crews evacuated everybody, shut off the gas main, which took a while, and then they usually brought in the rest of the crew.
If the explosion was from a gas leak then why were there workers in uniform digging in the earth at the site of the blast? She and Brad exchanged a nervous glance and continued toward the commotion instead of away from it.
As they drew close, an armed guard in the uniform of a security guard held up his hand. "You people are supposed to be evacuating."
"What's going on?" Trisha demanded.
"A gas leak, lady. Now beat it."
"Who uses armed guards to keep people away from a gas leak?" Brad asked. "Why aren't you and your men evacuating, then?"
"Because we're fixing it, aren't we?"
The man was getting mad, and a vein popped out on his forehead. He kept looking nervously around at the other workers and the machinery in motion. "I'm telling you for the last time to get out of here."
Trisha held her phone up and zoomed in on the machinery in time to record a chunk of earth and metal being thrown out of the hole onto the ground nearby. Several men in the same uniform as the guard collected the hunk of rock.
The guard saw Trisha recording the video and pointed his weapon at her.
"Let it go, Ken," one of the workers behind him said, "leave ‘em. We're almost done here anyway."
Ken turned and joined the rest of the crew. Brad and Trisha stood still wondering what to do next. The men were leaving the site, and the place was emptying out fast.
Neither had the time to think about what to do next. A series of ground rocking explosions, much louder and stronger than before,
turned a piece of downtown into a pile of smoldering rubble.
Trisha turned toward it and frowned. Enough of Brad's crazy conspiracy theory had bled into her consciousness to know that things were turning bad fast. Brad’s face drained of color.
"What's the matter, Brad? You're the one who knows about all of this stuff, right? Haven't you been through this before? What do we do now?"
He shook his head. "I know the stories, I've seen anecdotal evidence, but I've never been on the planet for an actual event. Because usually, these on-planet events end with…"
He didn't finish.
"With planetary deletion," Trisha finished the thought for him, hoping he was wrong. She rechecked her phone. No messages were getting in or out.
Crap.
She wished she was still back at the dorm studying.
Kirian swung wildly, a light sword in each hand. Sweat poured off of her body from the effort.
She felt the pain from several wounds, and a trickle of blood ran down her left leg. There was never a break from the humming of regeneration, and the incessant flow of opponents.
This was it. She was going to die live and on television. Thus passes Kirian, Destroyer of Planets, she thought.
"Hey, are you people getting this?" she taunted. "Do I have the high score yet?"
It wasn't just the TPHWs either; there was something else, she could feel it. A presence, maybe.
If she had her normal break between waves, she could have figured it out. Maybe. Or at least identified it. But there was barely time to breathe and bleed, and she was doing plenty of both.
The one good thing, despite the increased size and number of her opponents, is that they didn't seem any smarter. If anything, it was quite the opposite. They milled more than they attacked, approaching randomly and slowly. It was only a problem when they grew too numerous and surrounded her, stepping forward to slash when her back was turned.
Kirian could feel…her? The Overseer?
A voice broke through the background noise.
"Kirian," it said. "Time to die."
In the past, the creatures had howled when they attacked, but in all her years as a Celestial, none had ever spoken.
"Soda is that you? What in stars name are you doing here?"
Kirian knew the Overseer was located on the capital planet surrounded by security in a secret location. It just wasn't making any sense.
"Foolish being. I have powers you couldn't dream about. Powers nobody in this galaxy has ever seen."
Ari moved close enough to Kirian and the battle to see the dog TPHWs spilling out. She fired a test shot and hit two of them in the chest with a purple stream. They slowed and flickered, but it didn't stop them. It disrupted the field the TPHW creatures were using. The camera worked—at least in part.
Fleek's voice thundered around her, and the Chemical Zombies played The Song.
Great, the live-streamed end of our lives will have a rock soundtrack.
Her idea had worked. Her camera weapon had disrupted the TPHW field, but it wasn’t enough. She had a nagging idea though, about the electromagnetic field. Was there another frequency that would be more effective?
In theory, it would be like a master electromagnetic key. She searched the camera’s electromagnetic options, but still wasn’t sure.
When she looked up again, the TPHWs were parting as a tentacled monster materialized in front of her and Kirian. It appeared to be the Overseer herself. Not possible.
How can she be here?
"I came to kill you myself," she said.
The Overseer slithered forward through the horde of manufactured creatures and paused. "Ugh, what is this awful music? I'll take care of that after I take care of you, Kirian."
Ari aimed at her and fired.
Soda laughed and turned to her, waving a tentacle. A blast of wind from her direction hit Ari and threw her backward down the street. She dropped the camera.
Ari looked up to see Soda advancing on Kirian. Without touching her, without even making physical contact, just by gesturing, Soda picked Kirian up and lifted her three feet into the air. Kirian’s arms reached up to her throat, gasping for breath, struggling against the unseen force.
Ari got up and lunged for the camera.
Soda glanced and then let her. "Your light ray can't hurt me, dear. Don't worry; you're next."
Drexyl expected Soda to rage at him. To kill him. Something. Instead, she got back up, shot him a wicked smile, and refocused on the console.
Drexyl watched her move into an entirely different configuration of angles, tentacles, and body placement.
"Watch this," she said.
Ari ran into the picture. What was she doing there? She had something in her hand. A camera?
Ari pointed it and fired. The TPHW she hit with the beam of light flickered.
For a moment, he dared to hope. Then, on the screen, Soda materialized in front of Ari.
Drexyl swiveled his gaze from Soda here in the room, to the screen, and then back.
Soda was concentrating again, eyes closed, tentacles stiff with exertion. She appeared in both places at once. And on the screen, she was approaching Kirian.
What was going on?
The several minutes it took for Brad to drive them downtown gave Trisha time to consider the reckless, sleep-deprived choices she had been making recently. She wanted a do-over and very much hoped that when they got to the source of this new disruption, it was something mundane. Like an interstellar attack or a slumbering monster awakened by a brand-new energy accelerator.
Brad brought the car to a screeching halt just outside the chaos zone, close enough to see, but far enough away to stave off, at least temporarily, any real collateral damage.
Now that they had a view, they could see a wild-looking girl wielding double light swords and battling what looked like very large, badly done CGI walking dogs.
“Ok,” Trisha said, “help me out, what am I looking at here?”
"I see what appears to be TPHWs and possibly a Celestial." He zoomed in on the girl with his camera. "Oh no, it looks like Kirian, Destroyer of Planets. What do you think? Should we help her?"
"Help her?" Trisha asked, still not believing her eyes and trying to figure out if she was hallucinating.
"So those dog-looking things are the weapons generated by the Octopus Overlord?"
"Yes, that’s right. Cool, eh?"
"She can just make them out of thin air?"
"That's the consensus."
"Wait, according to you guys, the Celestials are her warriors. Right?"
"Yes again. I gotta say, I didn't think you were paying that much attention earlier, but you were getting the gist of it."
"So why is she attacking her own warrior? It doesn't make sense."
"Oh yeah," said Brad. "You've got a point."
They sat in the car for a few moments, watching the situation unfold. Try as she might, Trisha couldn’t think of a plan.
If this planet was going to be destroyed and it was all going to end soon anyway, she wasn't sure why she should bother getting out of the car.
Then, a giant Praying Mantis ran by. It had a bloody arm in its mouth and a briefcase in one hand. Trisha locked her car door; then she started hyperventilating. Brad screamed like a girl.
"You saw that, right?" Trish asked between ragged breaths. Maybe he didn’t see it. Maybe it wasn’t real.
Brad stopped screaming long enough to answer. "The Praying Mantis with the, um, briefcase? Y-Yes."
"Is that related to the TPHSs or the warrior girl or whatever?"
"Never heard of one of those," Brad answered, his voice deeper than usual, overcompensating for the earlier screaming.
Trisha was inclined to stay in the car before that thing ran by, she certainly wasn't going to risk getting out now.
As if the events weren’t surreal enough, rock music started playing. Actually, it started with a male voice introducing the band. Called themselves Chemical Zombies and t
hen music exploded through the atmosphere. It was ear-shatteringly loud, and if not for the possible gas leak, hordes of giant dog TPHWs, explosions, and the Praying Mantis to worry about, Trisha would have probably complained to the proper authorities about the music’s volume.
"What in bloody stars is going on now?" Trisha shouted, trying to be heard above the music.
Brad didn’t answer. The two of them sat in the car listening. "Do all planetary destructions get a soundtrack or just us? Because frankly, despite being way too loud, I kind of like it."
"Yeah, me too."
Some light blasts added to the confrontation, but Trish and Brad were far enough away not to get hit by any stray shots.
“Looks to me like a tourist blasting things with a television camera,” Trisha said, hoping that matched what Brad was seeing.
“Yup,” he answered.
A meteor rocketed down in a spectacular plume of light and smoke and hit the tourist with the camera smack in the face.
"Ooooohh," they reacted together.
"Did you see that?" Brad yelled over the music. "Brutal."
"I mean, what are the odds of that happening while everything else is going on?" Trisha asked.
"Hey, look at that, she got back up," Brad said, "good for her. Too bad the planet's about to explode, though. But hey, she's a feisty one."
Continuing to watch the scene like television commentators, Trisha wished she had a snack. Then something appeared in the middle of the dogs.
"What’s that?” Trisha asked.
"What?" Brad asked. He had been zoning out in the other direction.
"Look," Trisha shouted, "what does that look like to you?"
"It can’t be,” Brad said. “The Neon Octopus Overlord?”
Floyd had run through the circuit of his favorite phone games several times when the first downtown explosions shook the windows and the surrounding buildings.
Finally.
He was getting seriously bored.
Frightened patrons inside of the coffee shop first huddled and then left to find cover or go home. Floyd relaxed. He had a few minutes to spare. Soon it was just him, the cook, and a single barista looking over the place.
Destroyer of Planets: Book 1 of the Neon Octopus Overlord Series Page 14
