Broke and Famous

by Elizabeth Gannon

  “What’s this guy’s motivation?” Colby asked, moving Zoe out of the way so that she could reach the pitcher in the center of the table. “Is he out to control all of existence? Bring about an eternal darkness? Raise an army of some kind of demonic giraffe monsters? What?”

  “He doesn’t want to die.” Thraex told her, leaning back in his chair.

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Seems pretty simple then.”

  “Except I don’t want to die either. And one of us has to.” Thraex spread out his hands to show the central conundrum of the situation. “Which presents me a fairly major obstacle.”

  Kurtz leaned back in his chair, cigarette between his fingers. “So… the Westgates need to merc a living god and hand him his own ass in a to-go bag.” He took a thoughtful drag, then nodded. “Cake. I’m in.”

  “This will be fun!” Colby agreed, excitedly twirling around in a circle. “Doesn’t it sound like fun, Zoe?”

  Zoe the giraffe did not look like she was having fun. She mainly just looked motion sick from the spinning.

  “Just tell us what to do.” Colby answered for the giraffe.

  Sasha realized with a start that they were all looking at her, for some reason.

  “I can’t do this.” She sputtered. “No, no, I can’t even install a video camera without there being deaths.”

  “There’s nobody in this world who can do this if you can’t.” Thraex assured her softly, reaching out to take her hand. “You’ve sat in the seat by the window long enough, chère.”

  She looked into his eyes, feeling her heart melt.

  “Christ.” Kurtz made an irritated sound and snuffed out his cigarette. “It’s like that scene in Dirty Dancing, only everything about it is wrong and horrible and is killing me.”

  “Listen, we know why he’s here and what he wants.” Sasha reminded them. “We even know where he’s going to be.”

  “He needs a cosmic generator to complete the machine.” He informed them. “Triumph Industries has got the only one in town. And since Magnolia left it there, that’s probably where the machine itself is.”

  “So all we have to do is figure out a way to keep him from uniting the crystal, the power source and the wire.” She nodded, feeling better about this now. “We’ve got to stop him. And free our trapped friends before they’re sent into hell.”

  “How?”

  “Westgate rule #1: The perception of the problem is always the problem.” She smiled, feeling more confident. “He wants to come here and take over our dimension. He’ll win here. So let’s fight him somewhere else.”

  “I vote outer space.” Kurtz decided. “Some Forbidden Planet shit. That’d rock.”

  Colby and Zoe ignored that. “Another dimension? How would we go about doing that?”

  “We’ve already done that.” Sasha spread her arms out to show them their lobby. “We’re the First Family of Interdimensional Travel.” She snorted in dismissal. “We’ve already been in more dimensions than he has.” She pointed towards where her workshop was located, floors above. “We’re not superheroes. We’re scientists.” She reminded them. “We had to choose to be great. And fate has presented us with a challenge, Westgates. A test of how smart we are.” She pointed at the table. “We have to kill a living god. Right now. With only our pre-existing inventions and the supplies we can quickly obtain in this building.” She looked around at them, meeting each of their eyes. “Go.”

  “Zoe and I will do the technical specs on the kind of weapon we’re talking here.” Colby announced excitedly, instantly getting to her feet and running off with her pet. “Math, Zoe! You love math!”

  Zoe the giraffe gave no indication that she loved mathematics.

  “Even a rail gun isn’t going to dent a god.” Kurtz thought aloud. “We’d need… Wait. The Deneuves.” He said softly, looking over at her.

  “No.” She shook her head, terrified by that idea. “The last time…”

  “They died.” Kurtz agreed. “But you can run the numbers again and see how far we can push it.” He turned to look at Thraex. “How do you think your dad would react if we sent pieces of him to a hundred different dimensions?”

  “Not well.” Thraex intoned dryly.

  “If we recalibrate the atomic-matter scrambler, we can hit him with that and...”

  “It’ll be like firing a bullet through ballistics gel.” She nodded. “It’ll send him through dimension after dimension, but sooner or later he’ll hit one which stops him cold. And then he’s ours.”

  “How would we power something like that though?” Kurtz squinted, thinking that over. “That’s a lot of power.”

  “Well…” Sasha shrugged. “We know where there’s a cosmic generator, right? Magnolia was in charge of Triumph and I seriously doubt she’d worry about Jaxx discovering the machine if it was there. And a cosmic generator is what’s powering the God Machine. So, let’s just go steal it before Xerzinax can add the crystal to it and doom us all.”

  “Nice!” Kurtz reached for his bottle, then stopped and picked up the pitcher of water instead. “Then it’s just a matter of getting the atomic activators we need…”

  Sasha jolted as something banged against the glass partition to her left. To her surprise, her brother Baxter was leaning against the glass.

  She squinted at him for a moment, then turned to face Kurtz again. “The activators of Bax’s time machine.” She announced. “He super-charged them, that’s what caused the rest of the device to short out and switch him with the dinosaur in the first place.” She turned to look at her brother, as he once again disappeared into the foliage. “We might as well make his accident mean something to the world.”

  Kurtz nodded, and took off towards his workshop.

  Sasha raced from the room a second later, intent on retrofitting all of her family’s failures into a weapon to save the world.

  “So I’ll just say here then?” Thraex called after them. “Y’all call me when we’re done bein’ smart and we can get to fightin’ things.”

  Chapter 20

  “Eula Westgate. Died 1964. Kidnapped by formless alien blobs of energy and forced to live out her days on a train platform they’d built to re-create the natural habitat of humans. All things considered… not the worst way to go. They had a hamster wheel for her and everythin’.”

  – Thraex, Damn Fool Ways Westgates Ended Up Graveyard Dead: Vol. 1

  Despite their claims to the contrary, Triumph Industries was not actually located in Reichelt Park. They had sold their former headquarters near the river and had moved further away, to a hilly area where costs were cheaper. Money was always a concern, even if you had wealthy backers like Magnolia.

  But it also meant that the Westgates had to invest time they didn’t have to get there. Each second that went by, the people trapped inside the park got closer and closer to winking into the worst possible reality in the infinite number of realities.

  She slammed the door to the sedan and pointed at the guard station. “You and Zoe go distract the guard, please.” She told Colby. “This could get… messy.”

  The girl nodded. “I don’t like it here.” She complained. “Zoe thinks it’s too cold.”

  Thraex pointed at her. “Buy her a damn sweater. Don’t mess with the weather here too.”

  Colby made a face at him, but hurried off to speak with the guards.

  Sasha stalked up to the front door of the building. “Let me do the talking.” She told Thraex, moving in front of him.

  “’Prolly for the best.” He agreed, opening the door for her. “Folks don’t always take too kindly to my way of askin’.”

  Sasha nodded to the receptionist. “We’re here to see Jaxx Brixton. It’s an emergency.”

  The woman nodded and handed her a form to fill out. “Please sign in and he’ll be with you sometime after lunch.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” Sasha insisted. “This is a genuine emergency, we need t
o see him right now.”

  The receptionist paused. “Why? Are you the energy drink people?”

  “No, we’re…”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Thraex assured the woman, flashing her his flirtiest smile. “We’re here to put Jaxx’s face on every bottle we sell. You tell him to get that famous tail of his down here this second, we need him to move our brand.” He winked at her. “Although, if you don’t mind me sayin’, I think we’d sell more if we put your face on our packagin’.”

  The woman blushed and immediately reached for the phone to call her employer.

  “I thought I was going to do the talking.” Sasha whispered to him.

  He popped one of the mints from the little jar on the receptionist’s desk into his mouth. “The inspiration for the song was all you, Miss Sasha, I just freestyled with the lyrics a bit.”

  A moment later, Jaxx practically ran from the elevator, eager to sell himself in some new media. “I thought you weren’t coming until…” He trailed off, his simpering smile fading. “Oh… It’s just you.” He cleared his throat. “Are you here to accept my offer?”

  “Something like that.” Thraex moved forward, grabbing the man by the back of his idiotic hipster jacket and all but throwing him into the conference room. “Come on, fella, we got some business to talk.”

  Jaxx stumbled into the room, catching his balance on the large table. “You can’t just come in here and…” He began indignantly.

  “Magnolia Lafayette-Dupree is dead.” She informed him, closing the door.

  Jaxx turned to glare at Thraex. “Dear god, you’ve killed another one!?!”

  Thraex let out an exasperated gasp, obviously feeling persecuted. “Why do folks always say that?”

  “It wasn’t Thraex.” Sasha moved to stand beside him. “It was his father.”

  “Right.” Jaxx straightened his coat. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “You’re supposed to believe that Magnolia arranged the end of the world. She bankrolled Triumph and used you to clear out the other labs in town, so that she could destroy Reichelt Park unopposed and use your damn condos to string up the wire she needed to create a field large enough to shift the whole community out of this dimension. A field which is currently trapping most of the residents inside the festival, waiting to kill them.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And you’re supposed to believe that unless you give us your cosmic generator,” she checked her watch, “in the next twenty minutes, half of this town is going to be a crater.”

  Jaxx made an appalled sound. “So, I tell you that Thraex is trying to bring his father into this dimension by acquiring certain technology, and you tell me he’d never do that.” He sank down into one of the chairs. “And then he tells you that his father is coming and that the only way to stop him is if you give him that very technology I warned you he was after?”

  “Yes.” Sasha nodded immediately. “I need it. Please give it to me or we’re all going to die.”

  Jaxx ran a hand through his hair, still looking shell-shocked. “No,” he shook his head, “I’m not going to hand over tech like that to some nobody who’s trying to let his evil father loose.” He pointed towards the door. “Let yourselves out.”

  Sasha turned to look at Thraex. “I can’t build what I need to stop Xerzinax without that piece.” She told him simply.

  Thraex nodded, turning to immediately belt Jaxx with an uppercut, toppling him over, chair and all. He reached down and grabbed the man’s ID card, then headed for the door. “Time for you to do the talkin’ in his lab, Miss Sasha.”

  He stormed from the room and straight down the corridor, headed for the lab area. They reached a set of locked double doors and she tried to scan Jaxx’s card, but couldn’t get it to work. Jaxx didn’t have access to Magnolia’s lab, because he only cared about condos and being a “lifestyle brand.”

  “No time for this…” Thraex said simply, then leaned back and kicked the reinforced doors straight off their hinges.

  Alarms sounded in the facility.

  “Find it.” He pointed to the equipment beyond the doors. “I got this.”

  Sasha hurried into the room and started looking for the component she needed. It took her several tries, but she finally managed to locate Magnolia’s version of the God Machine.

  She stared at it in amazement, seeing the faint traces of what was obviously her father’s design, mixed with Magnolia’s much cruder attempts at replicating his vision based only on looking at his design and equations for a few minutes.

  She swallowed, recognizing that she now had two out of three of the pieces necessary to have any life she could possibly choose. She could do anything she ever wanted…

  She used her screwdriver to pry off the access panel, and ripped out the cosmic generator, destroying the machine. Then held up the power source to Thraex. “Got it!”

  Thraex dropped one of the security guards to the floor and stepped over the pile of the man’s colleagues who were already unconscious at his feet. “Good.” He ushered her towards the exit. “We gotta go, right now, Darlin’.”

  She held up a finger, taking a moment to destroy all traces of the machine from the room with a hastily created explosive.

  Thirty seconds later they burst through the front doors like bank robbers, racing for their car.

  Colby met them on the front steps. “What on earth happened in there? Zoe was worried sick!”

  Zoe the giraffe looked more sleepy than worried, but it was often difficult to judge her moods given her supposed stoicism.

  Thraex took the stairs three at a time, pulling Sasha along behind him. “Just another day in the science field, Pichouette. You know how…”

  When they were twenty feet from their car, it exploded.

  Thraex moved to shield them both with his body, swearing a blue streak in three different languages.

  A shadow moved through the flames, and the tall red alien woman stepped through the inferno. “Xerzinax!” She growled out, dropping a nasty looking mace weapon to the ground. “Your time in this dimension is over.”

  “I ain’t my daddy.” Thraex informed her.

  “You will be.” The woman retorted, prowling towards them until she was only a few feet away. “Soon. And that’s why we have to kill you now.”

  “I’m tryin’ to stop that damn bastard too!” Thraex shot back, still holding Sasha and Colby away.

  “He cannot be stopped. He can only be prevented from spreading. Once he’s on your planet… it will need to be destroyed so that ours can live.” Behind her, more shadows appeared. “We have come to ensure that you no longer threaten our lives with your reckless choices in this regard.”

  “We can handle this ourselves, thanks.” Sasha assured her.

  “As long as this creature exists, the entire universe is in peril.” The woman informed them. “His is a face destined to be fear by all humankind.”

  Jaxx suddenly burst through the front of the building, sending down a cascade of glass and steel. “THRAEX!” He screamed, obviously furious and overreacting.

  Thraex pushed them to the ground and ducked to the side, dodging Jaxx’s attack and sending him straight into the alien woman.

  “Go!” Thraex helped Sasha and Colby to their feet, and pointed down an alley beside the building. “Time to get gone!”

  Jaxx and his security forces began to battle the alien woman and her men, too preoccupied to chase after them.

  Sasha ushered Colby ahead of her, trying to keep the girl in sight in case shooting started. She reached down to her belt and hit her Westgate communicator. “Nash?”

  The woman’s calm voice came over the radio a moment later. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We need an evac at…” She turned to look at the road sign they raced past and mentally calculated a likely rendezvous spot several blocks further on. “Sinnott Blvd, heading west.”

  “You’ve got the car, ma’am.” Nash reminded her. “I don’t know what you want me to…”r />
  “Just do it!” Thraex yelled angrily. “I don’t care how you get here, just get here!”

  The woman was quiet for a moment. “Pickup at Sinnott Blvd. Five minutes. Heard.” Then the line went dead.

  Sasha turned to look over her shoulder, watching as another explosion went off behind them, filling the sky with flame. “Thraex?” She got out worriedly.

  “It’ll be fine…” He assured her, although he didn’t sound very confident. “We’ve been in worse spots than this.”

  “We’re now fighting an evil god, a scientist Cape who hates us, and a pissed-off alien warlord lady.” She reminded him. “And…” she checked her watch, “we now have less than 10 minutes until your father regains his power and/or everyone in Reichelt Park is transported to a hell dimension.”

  “Plenty of time,” he assured her, “we can…” He trailed off as they hit a dead-end. “On the other hand, maybe we’ve got the Westgate luck after all.”

  Colby set Zoe down and reached into her purse. “Zoe and I have this, don’t worry.” She yanked out a laser weapon and pointed it at the structure, pulling the trigger. Instantly, the entire thing started to shrink down in size until it was so small that Zoe had to step over it. Colby squatted down to look at it on the street. “Isn’t it cute, Zoe?”

  Zoe the giraffe looked entirely uninterested in the miniature building.

  Thraex helped Sasha down into the now vacant foundation of the building, and then pulled her up the other side. He did the same for Colby, then looked back at the miniature building expectantly.

  Colby frowned at him in confusion. “What?”

  Thraex gestured with his hands. “Aren’t you going to… make it big again?”