by Archer, Mia
I wasn’t going to worry too much as long as I had the upper hand. It didn’t look like that was something that was going to change any time soon. Not to mention I figured I didn’t have much to worry about as long as she needed me to complete whatever plan she’d come up with.
Yeah, I liked the way this plan was coming together.
20
Hijacking
I flew high over the city. I figured it didn’t matter whether I was high or low since Sabine said whatever radiation turned those lizards into giant pissed off monstrosities also messed with radar signals so they’d never developed the tech here.
Besides, apparently there was no need for radar when there was a city where everyone was telepathically linked to a cat-controlled worm hivemind where anyone and everyone could be used to triangulate location better than any radar could.
“It’s not like it matters,” Sabine said, obviously reading the worry on my face. “They’re going to know we’re here in a few minutes no matter what we do. Besides, flying high is better than flying low. Fewer people to see you up here.”
“Whatever you say,” I said.
“Trust me on this,” she said. “The response is going to be a heck of a lot slower this time around. They don’t have forces already scrambled to try and capture those giant monsters.”
I frowned over that as well. The giant monster fight had been beamed all over their local television, right up to the moment that it looked like they were getting close to actually capturing one of the things.
I was pretty sure the monster that’d been coming at me that day, the one that’d been riding their flying saucers until I’d given it a one way trip to outer space, had been under the worms’ control.
A disturbing thought. It was bad enough when there was an entire city arrayed against me. It was even worse that they had military technology that made the stuff back on earth look like cap guns in comparison. I tried not to think about what the hive mind might be able to do if it got a couple of those lizards working on its side.
Not to mention I really didn’t want to think about how many of those lizards might still be left on this world. There was no telling how busy Dr. Lana had been with her portal before I got here, and that could mean more trouble growing out there in the purple desert.
“There’s the target,” Sabine said. “You ready to do this?”
For all that she’d been reluctant to get out here and do a bit of liberating she seemed pretty excited about what was about to go down. She sounded like this was something she’d been looking forward to for a long time.
At least I figured that’s what it was. She was acting exactly like Natalie before we did that ill-advised run against the Applied Sciences Department that ended with me losing my powers.
I looked down to a massive stadium that stood in the shadow of Sabine’s volcano lair. I’m sure when they built the thing it’d been with the idea of having the stadium in the shadow of the beautiful dormant volcano in the distance. Back before they had any idea that a strange earthling was going to come to their world and reactivate the thing creating a danger.
Hovering over it was a flying saucer that I’m pretty sure served the same purpose as blimps at games like this back on earth. At least I hoped it was a glorified blimp taking video, because if it was armed then it could put a serious cramp in our plans.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s get to this. Those things aren’t going to drop themselves.”
“Right,” Sabine said. “You do the honors. I’m not in the mood to get my butt shot off.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
We were over the stadium, but there wasn’t the response I would’ve expected from the good people of Starlight City. Usually when someone went flying in under their own power in Starlight City there were people pointing up into the skies in disbelief. Disbelief that always struck me as odd considering the sheer number of people in Starlight City who could fly without the benefit of an airplane around them.
Here everyone just stared at the sport being played down below. It was like they didn’t realize or care we were up here.
“That’s creepy,” I said.
“What?” Sabine asked. “All the people down there watching a bunch of people tossing a ball around?”
“No, that’s not…”
“Not right at all,” she said. “I totally get you on that. Who knew that organized sports would be one of the stupid things that was consistent across advanced civilizations?”
I had my own opinion about organized sports that was a lot more positive than Natalie or, apparently, Sabine, but I figured I’d keep that to myself. I’d been the popular cheerleader type, and I had a feeling these two had the whole hot nerd hiding behind her glasses thing going for them in high school.
“Whatever,” I said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about all the aliens down there watching the big game in silence.”
“Oh, that,” she said.
“What’s the point of even doing this?” I asked. “Isn’t it sort of like watching a video of someone playing a game or something?”
Sabine shrugged. “For some reason the hive mind likes this kind of thing. I never questioned it all that much.”
“Huh,” I said. “Maybe the control isn’t as complete as we think it is or something. Maybe they need to blow off steam like this sometimes for the hive mind to keep control.”
“Well if that’s the case then this is a perfect spot for us to test out the new toy,” she said. “Now can we please stop all this boring world building stuff and get to the action?”
“What?” I asked.
“Life is a narrative,” Sabine said, sounding as though she was quoting something. “And you’re making this one boring.”
“You and Natalie are really weird about this stuff,” I said. “But you’re right. We need to get to the action before they figure out what we’re doing and start shooting at us.”
“It’s always a good idea to put your plan in motion before someone starts shooting at you,” Sabine said.
She made a motion as though to say “after you.”
“Keep thinking about that as you’re floating up here presenting an obvious squishy target,” I said with a grin. “You’re the first one they’re going to start firing on with the big guns once this all goes pear shaped.”
Her eyes went wide as she realized I was right.
“Hey! I didn’t think of that!”
I was already diving for the deck by the time that realization hit her. Though it wasn’t diving for the deck so much as it was diving for that giant flying saucer that looked like it had been coopted for civilian use.
I really hoped this thing wasn’t armed. Then again they had military stuff flying over games back on earth all the time, so who knew?
I went for a spot along the bottom of the saucer. That’s where they’d have the control room for this thing. Or at least that’s where Sabine said they kept the control room for the things.
I swooped around the bottom and found myself staring at a wide window that ran around the bottom. There were blue aliens in there controlling the thing and pointing cameras down at the game below.
Yup. Glorified sports blimp.
“All right,” I said. “This is to free everyone.”
I had to remind myself of that because there was a good chance I was about to hurt some of the aliens in there in an attempt to free them from the oppression they suffered under on a daily basis.
The people inside realized there was someone floating outside and they obviously started to panic. Not that panic was going to do them much good. I was pretty sure they were calling the local military, but that wasn’t going to do them much good either.
Sabine had tables of how long it took them to scramble the military when they weren’t already out fighting giant monsters. It turns out I’d arrived on this world at an inopportune moment, but we should have plenty of time to do our thing today before they had time to reac
t.
I slammed my fist into the glass. It went right through, but the glass stayed in place.
“Damn,” Sabine said, floating up next to me.
I turned and arched an eyebrow at her.
“What happened to all that stuff you were saying about not wanting to put your butt on the line any more than you had to?” I asked.
“I’m putting my butt less on the line here by not presenting an obvious target,” she said. “Now can we please get on with this?”
She glanced over her shoulder. As though she was worried that some of those military flying saucers might come flying over the horizon at any moment.
“How accurate were those scramble timetables you put together anyway?” I asked.
“Accurate enough,” she said. “Now let’s get to it. We have worse things to worry about than the local military getting a wild hair up their collective ass.”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I was pretty sure if there were worse things on this world than having a bunch of trigger happy aliens hitting you with everything they had then I didn’t want to meet it.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s get to it!”
I yanked back and the entire window pulled with it. Like I’m talking around the entire ring of the flying saucer. The aliens inside were looking at it and freaking out like they were worried I was going to sweep them out into the nothingness by continuing to pull on that ring until they were pulled over the edge.
Of course I wasn’t going to do anything of the sort, but it did leave me wondering what kind of things Sabine had done to these people that the first thought they had when a human was confronting them was someone being murderous.
I tried pulling my hand out, but it was good and stuck in there. Like every time I pulled it just pulled the whole window ring along with it and brought everyone in there that much closer to getting shoved over the edge.
Not that many of them were that close, but it had to be terrifying for them. Which I figured was good, on balance. Maybe a little terror would help free their minds from the hive mind control.
“Could you help me with this?” I asked.
“Happy to,” Sabine said.
She pulled out her gun, it was still weird to see someone in a suit Natalie had put together wielding a true gun rather than the wrist blasters Natalie preferred, but whatever. She fired a couple of times, right at me thank you very much, and the glass shattered.
“You didn’t have to shoot right at me,” I growled.
“Yeah, but it was pretty fun considering all the headaches you’ve given me since you got here,” she said.
“So sorry,” I replied. “Now can we please do this?”
Sabine flew into the control room with her gun held high. She fired it a couple of times without hitting anyone. She looked for all the world like a thug from some bank robbery movie or something.
“Anyone going to cause any trouble?” she asked.
They all held their hands up and looked like trouble was the last thing they wanted. If this was on earth then that’s probably where everything would’ve ended.
Though of course we weren’t on earth, so that wasn’t close to where everything was going to end. No, they were shaking their heads and making it clear they didn’t want anything to do with this, but then a couple of the cats I hadn’t even noticed stood and shook themselves off. They turned and regarded me with the same sort of look I’d seen house cats give a can of tuna when it was getting a spin on a can opener.
Whatever independence the aliens had been on the verge of exhibiting disappeared as the cats took over with their mind control mojo. The aliens all went glassy eyed, and then a moment later they looked at us with fury.
“I think it’s time for you to use that proof of concept,” I said.
“Got it,” Sabine said.
She pulled something off her side and rolled it through the bridge. The thing came to a halt on a massive support cylinder in the middle, one of several that’d obviously been holding the floor up after I did away with that window. A red light blinked on top of the thing.
I looked at the thing and cocked my head to the side. "That's all it does? A blinking light?”
"What were you expecting?" Sabine asked, a defensive note coming to her voice.
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Usually when Natalie does something like that she does it with a sense of style. Like she's stealing designs from some of those shows she loves to watch and…"
"Look, I'm doing the best that I can with what I can find on this shithole of a planet, and unfortunately the level of aesthetic development they have here when it comes to super science isn't all that great!"
“Um, excuse me?” a blue dude with an epic bristling mustache wearing a uniform that made him look like some sort of authority on this bucket of bolts said. I assumed he was the captain.
I was a little surprised that he could speak English, but that was a question for later. After the impossible situation had been resolved. Preferably with no one getting shot, though that was seeming less and less likely.
"That's it," Sabine said, her voice growing more and more irritated by the moment. Irritated enough that she looked like she was about to do something stupid. She pointed her gun at the guy I presumed to be the captain.
"Wait," I said, holding my hands up and trying to avert certain disaster before it struck. "There's no need for you to do that."
"There absolutely is!" she said. "I'm sick and tired of this bitch queen fucking with me and I’m not waiting around to…”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off as the red blinking light turned solid red. The cats started yowling and screaming, and all the aliens in the room started blinking and looking around as though they had no idea what they were doing there.
"What happened?" the captain dude asked, his mustache still bristling with irritation. "And why are you pointing a weapon at me?
“It’s a long story,” I said, talking quickly before Sabine did something we both might regret.
After all, if these people were starting to come to their senses then the last thing I wanted to do was give them a reason to want to fight us.
“Try me,” the guy said.
21
Explanations
To the maybe-captain’s credit he didn’t seem particularly perturbed that someone was pointing a weapon at him. He was cool under pressure, which I totally didn’t expect from a dude who just woke up from being mind controlled to find a weapon being pointed between his eyes.
“The short version? Your world has been overrun by telepathically controlled cats being taken on a civilization dominating joyride by parasitic worms using their latent telekinetic abilities to…"
"The worms…"
"Exactly," I said. "The worms that have taken over your world. I don't know how long ago it was, but…"
The man wheeled around and stared at the cat. There was pure hatred in his eyes. He reached down to his side like he expected to find a weapon, but there was nothing waiting for him there.
"The last thing I remember is you bastards busting in on the bridge on my old ship. What did you do to them? What did you…"
"Excuse me Cap?”
He wheeled on Sabine. She still had her gun up, but she twisted it around so the stock was facing him instead of the shooty end. He grinned, and this time when his mustache bristled it looked decidedly more menacing. He took the gun from Sabine, and before I could stop him he’d wheeled around and fired two shots.
I suppose I could take some comfort in the knowledge that they were relatively clean shots. Right through the cats’ foreheads. One moment they were poised as though they were about to kill somebody, and the next they were falling over in heaps on the floor.
I would've complained, but honestly I figured that was the least the cats deserved for the whole world domination thing. Though, when you got down to it, weren't they just as much victims of circumstance as the blue humanoids?
&nbs
p; I wasn't sure. It was a moot point now anyway. They were good and dead, with smoking holes through their heads. There was no coming back from that.
I did turn to Sabine and let some of my irritation show.
"Was that really necessary?"
"Maybe. Maybe not," she said. "But we needed a way to make sure the mind control was permanently neutralized."
"I thought you said we needed to make sure the cats couldn't repossess them when we set off the disrupter,” I said. “We can’t very well see if they can repossess these people if the cats are dead.”
Sabine shrugged and grinned a grin that said she didn't regret what she'd done one bit. And honestly it was tough to be too angry with her since I found myself more and more inclined to agree with her, as much as that annoyed me.
"Maybe we were supposed to do that," she said. "But it seemed like the good captain here needed to take a bit of revenge against his captors. Can you blame me for giving him the opportunity?"
"Whatever," I growled.
"Can I count on your assistance now?" Sabine asked, turning to the captain who still held her gun thingy.
He only hesitated for a moment before handing her gun back. To be fair he also glanced at the window we’d busted open. Clearly he was thinking about his chances of fighting us off and not liking them.
The captain nodded to a couple of other blue aliens who stood to attention. All the people on this glorified sports blimp suddenly had a far more militaristic air to them.
"Do a search of the rest of the ship. Make sure we don't have any more of the furry bastards onboard trying to do their thing. You know what you're up against."
Several of them nodded, and then they were off.
"They'll take care of what needs taken care of," the captain said.
There was a chilling finality to his words. If I didn’t have my powers this wouldn’t the kind of guy I’d want to run up against in a dark alley, is all I’m saying.
