Taken Hostage

by Hutchins, Hollie

  Alvarez frowned. “So what would happen if you both GFARTed at the same time?”

  Again she was reduced to schoolgirl giggles.

  He rolled his eyes. “It would get real cold You’d get an ice age with ice caps going right down to San Francisco, Spain, Iraq, northern India…”

  “Wow, pretty cold, huh?”

  “All trace of this civilization would be wiped out.”

  “Cool…”

  She rolled on top of him. “So where you going to go? What you gonna do…?”

  He slipped his arm round her and stroked her waist and her ass.

  “I’m going to buy the best cruiser on the market. There are whole sectors, millions of light years across, in this galaxy that have not been explored yet. I think I’ll go and explore them, and give the Flarvoxians time to cool off a bit.” He kissed her long and slow. “You wanna come?”

  “You mean come with you in your explorations, or just, you know, come…?”

  “Both…”

  “You bet!”

  Only about thirty yards away, up and to the left, Bernie found himself in absolute darkness. He was not claustrophobic, so he wasn’t too worried about that, but he did have the feeling he had been going in circles, or perhaps squares, for a long time and he was getting bored. He knew there were several chairs in the room because he had fallen over all of them. He also knew there were banks of what might be computers. But they all seemed to be switched off.

  Eventually he had found the light by a pure fluke. Bernie was not claustrophobic, but he did have a phobia of flying insects. In one of his many exploratory circuits of the room he had passed beneath a ventilation shaft, which had blown a wisp of his tousled and unruly hair across the back of his neck, making it feel as though a small insect was crawling there. The feeling had triggered an automatic response from his autonomic system and he had slapped his neck.

  The noise of the smack had switched on the light.

  He swore eloquently, exploring the genesis of the engineers who had designed the craft, and the frequency with which the canine species had intervened in said genesis. It was a largish room, and along one wall there was indeed a bank of computers. All dead or sleeping. Ranged in front of them was a line of black chairs. He dropped into the centre chair and stared at the blind screens. He thought of the clap that had switched the lights on and clapped again. Not surprisingly the lights went out.

  He clapped again. They came on.

  He thought of Star Trek and said, in resonant Shakespearian English, “Computer, switch on the computers!”

  They came on and he jumped around the room, laughing and punching the air. After a minute he sat down again and stared at the screen in front of him. He had no idea what to do, but shrugged and spread his hands and said, “Voice activated… It’s voice activated, right? So…it’s voice activated…” he coughed and brought Captain Jean Luke Picard to his mind again, imagined himself bald and said, “Computer, interface with GFART!”

  “Interface activated.”

  There was a bleep from the console and a different voice said, “What would you like to do?”

  “That easy, huh?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand the instruction. What would you like to do?”

  Bernie racked his brain for information about CO2 levels, what they were and what they should be and what they had been. He remembered that 400 ppm was bad, and that was where we were. He remembered, or he thought he did, 280 ppm was where we had been for ten thousand years until the industrial revolution. He was suddenly gripped by uncertainty. Any drop would have to be good, right? He blurted, “Reduce the earth’s atmospheric CO2 levels by one hundred parts per million!”

  The voice said, “Reducing…”

  He grinned. That would bring it down to 300 ppm. That might be enough. “Cool.” He waited a bit. “So what else can you do?”

  “There are approximately two hundred and fifty thousand things that I can do, speaking in general terms. I can create tactile holograms, I can…”

  “Wait, wait, wait! Tactile holograms? You mean a hologram I can feel?”

  “Yes. That is correct.”

  “O – kaaaay… So if I say to you, Gal Gadot, do you know who I am talking about…?”

  Far below, in Central Park, Clay lay on the back seat of the Jeep gazing up at the billions of stars that lay carelessly strewn across the infinite void and wondered at the immensity of it all. Everything was just so…immense…

  He inhaled on his third joint, dragged it deep, held and closed his eyes. Immense… a cold breeze made him shudder…

  Fourteen

  In the GFART cube, by the dim glow of the flashlight, Erickson and Stella had managed to open the control panel. But that was where they had got stuck. They had spent half an hour pressing buttons, cautiously at first, but with increasingly reckless abandon. None of them did anything.

  In frustration Stella slid to the floor and said, “You’d think in a ship as immense as this, and as sophisticated, they would have voice recognition activated.”

  A voice said, “Voice recognition activated. What would you like to do?”

  Stella buried her face in her hands and giggled helplessly. Erickson stared at her and said, “If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d shag your brains out all over again.”

  He glanced at the various screens that had come to life.

  “OK, let’s see what you can do…”

  “There are approximately two hundred and fifty thousand things I can do.”

  “Jesus! OK, well lets start with just one, for now. I need you to reduce the CO2 parts per million in the atmosphere of the planet. Can you do that?”

  “I certainly can. Thank you for asking. How much would you like me to reduce it by?”

  “Shit…”

  “That is not a percentile I am familiar with. Can you express the figure in a number?”

  Stella stared at him. She said, “We tipped over four hundred parts per million a couple of years ago. I know we were at three hundred in the fifties and sixties last century…”

  He rubbed his chin. “There was a number, like an ideal, where we were at for ten thousand years till the Industrial Revolution…but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “We are not going to get this chance again. Go too low and you plunge the earth into an ice age.”

  “But don’t go low enough and these bastards stay. Fuck…” He bit his lip and said, “Reduce the global CO2 parts per million by…fifty per…”

  Stella snapped, “No! one hundred parts per million!”

  “Reducing…”

  Which brought them down to 200 ppm, well below the average for the past fifteen thousand years.

  Erickson said, “I was going to say fifty percent.”

  “You are a reckless animal.”

  “Three hundred is still very high.”

  “I have a bad feeling. Computer, open the door please, and put the lights on.”

  There was a clunk a hiss and a buzz. The lights came on and the door opened.

  They stepped out and heard feet approaching. Erickson pulled his automatic from his waistband and said, “Two people. A man and a woman. Could be Thorvall and Alvarez…”

  It wasn’t. Around the side of the cube Bernie appeared, with Gal Gadot on his arm, gazing up at him and stroking his face. Stella said, “Wonder Woman?”

  Erickson said, “What the fuck…?”

  “It’s the GFART, it can do two hundred and fifty thousand different operations, and one of them, get this, one of them is tactile holograms. It’s insane. I know! I know you’ll say I am insane! But I am in love with a hologram! And why not, Erickson? You get me, right, Stella? Why not? I mean where is it written that love must be for a sentient, organic being…? Where?”

  Erickson said, “You used the GFART? How much did you reduce it by?”

  Bernie was not hearing him. He was saying, “In a way it’s like being in love with a Light Being. Am I wrong? Can you t
ell me I am wrong?”

  Ertickson rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard more fuckin’ sense talked at chucking out time at the Hereford Arms. We have to get out of here. We need to get Alvarez back and go.”

  Alvarez lay flat out staring at the ceiling. Thorvall lay next to her. He said, “I am sore and raw.”

  “Dude, we have to do the CO2 thing. That’s the deal. Then we can go.”

  “OK…” he closed his eyes and began softly to snore. She smacked him hard. “Thorvall! Do it! Now!”

  “OK, ok… Computer.”

  “Yes, Thorvall. You both look very cozy there. Would you like me to join you? I have just made a very nice Gal Gadot…”

  “No, perhaps some other time…”

  Alvarez glared at him, “Excuse me?”

  “What? Come on! Gal Gadot…and she’s not real! It’s just a tactile hologram.”

  Alvarez raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, she is pretty hot…” Then she smacked his head. “Come on! Focus!”

  “Computer, GFART interface. Parts per million of CO2 in Earths atmosphere. Reduce by, let me think, we are at just over four hundred, so bring it down to two eighty, so reduce by one hundred and twenty parts.”

  “Reducing…”

  So the CO2 ppm of the Earth’s atmosphere was now down to a very chilly 80 parts per million, where it hadn’t been since it was practically a ball of ice.

  Far below Clay lay staring at the immense disk that hovered over the city he loved. His city. He looked at it and thought of all the pretty girls and all the beautiful women who had been stolen and enslaved by the immense army of aliens who lived aboard that immense ship. And as he watched, black clouds began to accumulate on the horizon, gradually obscuring the stars in the east. He shivered with the growing cold, and as he grew colder, so his anger grew hotter; and as the clouds boiled toward a storm, so his anger boiled towards bloody rage.

  After five joints he was not at his most rational, but his emotions and his sense of cosmic justice were flowing freely and he knew, suddenly, exactly what he needed to do. He climbed to his feet, settled himself in the seat of the laser cannon, pointed it in the general direction of the immense ship and, hollering at the top of his voice, opened fire.

  To clay, his target looked vast – three miles across, in fact. The reality of course was that of those three miles, only a sphere one hundred and fifty feet across was actual target. His laser shots hit the holographic matrix and the whole ship erupted into an aurora borealis of wild and wonderful lights, among which billions of spaceships were projected all across the sky and the city. Clay’s eyes went like saucers, he whooped and shouted and opened up some more, sending thousands of blasts of laser light up at the gigantic holograph, making it explode into the wildest light show the world had ever seen.

  In his room the computer said to Thorvall, “The ship is under attack from a laser cannon in Central Park, Thorvall.”

  Alvarez said, “Clay…!”

  Thorvall said, “Son of a bitch! What happened to the blessed kleine tod? Can’t a man enjoy his post coital rest? Shields up!”

  He climbed out of bed and walked naked to his sitting room, where he gazed out of his vast, panoramic window. He smiled, “Wow, Alvarez, come and look at this.”

  The light display was stunning. The entire stratosphere from Canada to Mexico was alive with explosions of every conceivable color, and billions of reproductions of the ship spreading into infinity.

  Thorvall took her in his arms and kissed her. “This,” he said, “is a good omen. Computer, take us clean across the galaxy. But first…”

  Alvarez grinned and leaned into him. She said, “Oh man, I love when you talk dirty…”

  Bernie was engaged at that moment in jumping up and down and pulling savagely at his own hair. Gal Gadot kept flickering in and out of existence and all the computer would say to him was, “Incongruent data. The ship is under attack. Shields are up. Incongruent data. The ship is under attack. Shields are up.”

  Erickson said, “Who the fuck is attacking the ship? Computer, shut up and tell me who is attacking the ship!”

  “Incongruent data…”

  Stella said, “We just have to search the docking bays till we come to a shuttle…”

  “You know how to fly one? Cause I don’t.”

  “Shit! We have to find…”

  She closed her mouth. They all turned as they heard feet approaching at a run. The docking bay doors were open and Alvarez came flying in, staggered to a halt and shouted, “Next docking bay! Escape pod! Now!”

  She ran and they scrambled after her. They followed her down a passage, round a bend and down another passage. She skidded to a halt and put her hand on a panel. The door opened. Erickson barked, “How can you do that?”

  “Not now, Boss! We have to get out of here now! This baby is about to blow!”

  They were in. There was a ship, thirty foot long, similar to the shuttles but more streamlined. Alvarez barked, “Pod! Open hatches!” And four hatches hissed open. They scrambled in and she said, “Close hatches. Auto pilot engage. Lock on to Clay, Jeep, Central Park Meadow. Go!”

  And the next moment they were erupting from the ship amid a wild blaze of colors that seemed to fill the entire sky. They all gasped and invoked the sacred nature of excrement and next thing they were plummeting down towards New York.

  Erickson, struggling to keep a grip on his mind said, “Alvarez, how? Why…?”

  He was silenced by the fact that she had started crackling, much as Gal Gadot had done in the cube.

  He said, “She’s a fucking hologram…”

  She winked out of existence and Bernie said, “What the hell, man…?”

  Stella echoed him, “What the hell has happened to the weather?”

  Beneath them the extraordinary light display was beginning to reflect of mountains of boiling cloud. And as the clouds accumulated, so the laser cannon could no longer penetrate them to reach its target. A few moments later the display stopped and they were hurtling down through dense, black, boiling vapor.

  The next moment they had emerged into a transformed world. A stygian darkness had enfolded the city. A howling wind was tearing at the Atlantic beneath them, hurling columns of spume as high as the skyscrapers. Thundering waves curled and crashed against Manhattan and Long island, coiling and twisting up the Hudson and the Bronx. And out of the black air, snow fell in twisting, writing squalls, like a billion white banshee let loose from the splintering gates of hell.

  They hurtled down towards the park, and as they fell the dark oblong was transformed into white luminescence. The billions of lights that illuminated the Big Apple, borough by borough, began to wink out. With each borough, the darkness grew deeper and blacker.

  As they slowed to land, they saw the headlamps of the Jeep, and in the glow they could make out the giant form of Clay running around, jumping up and down and waving his fists in the air.

  They clambered out into the freezing air and, despite the cold, they were struck by the clean intensity of the smells that came to them on the wind. Clay was whooping and shouting, “Did you see that? Man! Did you see what I did? Woohoo! Wow! I just… I aimed and I… Man!”

  Erickson put his arm around him and guided him toward the shuttle. “You did this, Clay?”

  “I did this! Man, I just aimed and, whoop!”

  “OK, mate, we have to get out of he. We have to head south…”

  By a combination of common sense and freakish good luck they managed to get the shuttle back up in the air and turned south toward Arizona and New Mexico. As they traveled, everywhere they saw powerful beams of light breaking through the clouds, penetrating the most populous areas. They did not know what it meant, but when they finally arrived in Tucson, they found it was deserted. Not a human soul was left in the place. The same was true of Phoenix, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

  The cold was bitter, and as it drove them farther south, slowly they began to encounter people, though precious few. They
never did work out that between them they had reduced the CO2 to a mere 80 ppm, and in the end it became easier just to blame Clay, who became know in legend as the Snow Man, or Clay the Snow Bringer.

  Many legends would grow up around the small band of friends: about Erick and Stella in the Garden of Centralpark, and how she had lured him into the Gfart of Knowledge, to the perdition of mankind. How Erickson and Stella’s disobedience had led the God Thorvall to turn his back on humanity in anger, but how eventually the couple led the chosen tribe the promised land in De Careebeean.

  Thorval and Alvarez stayed together for the rest of their lives and, after a few thousand years, become emperors of the universe. They never did return to Earth, though.

  As to Bernie, well, he never lost hope of one day finding the love of his life and, by one of those bizarre coincidences that seem to happen in certain people’s lives, strolling along the beach one day in the Gulf of Mexico, he happened to bump into Gal Gadot, who just happened to be there. And it was. It was love at first sight.

  And Olaf Olafsen, well, he built a ship, and sailed east…

  Her Darkest Fantasies: The Dragon’s Heart

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance

  The imperious and beautiful Lady Emma Danby of Chidester is in her early twenties, but she has spent her entire adult life blinding herself to love, pursuing instead, since her father’s death, her fascination with Norse myth, magic and dragons - never suspecting for one moment that there might be any truth in these ancient legends.

  For the past seven years, Lord Richard Pastern has loved her, and for seven years she has ignored him, thinking him agreeable but weak. Secretly, in her darkest fantasies and dreams, she has longed for something altogether more powerful, more bestial…

  And then professor Sigurd Dreki walks into her life, bringing with him fantasies more wild than she has ever dreamt possible – fantasies, and the terrible secret of the soul held prisoner for a thousand years, and she – only she, has the key to his freedom!