Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  Winker struggled to move, to do as his nickname suggested, but there was a strange lethargy percolating through his body. He … he couldn't disappear. What … what was … how was this even possible? "Die, fucking Goddie scum, die."

  Bereft of options, he tried head-butting the Latelian asshole's face into mist.

  "Stop that." Sella ordered briskly, trying his best not to laugh at the Heavy's efforts. "You're embarrassing yourself. You're a Heavy."

  Winker started up with his feet, sending kick after kick against the Goddie's armor-plated stomach. "Give up, Goddie. You can't kill all of us!"

  "Kill?" Griff looked at his friend Sella. "Are we killing these guys now?"

  "What?" Sella looked over at Griff. "What? No. No … I … no, we're not killing these guys. Do you have the piece of paper? I can't … fuck this guy's a spaz … I can't read the offer and keep him from disappearing at the same time."

  "Aww." Griff rumbled, pawing through his pockets in search of the paper Ergot had handed out just before they'd launched. "I don't like reading. You know that."

  "Yes, well, I'm the Twoesie and you're the Onesie so guess how this is gonna play out?" Sella squeezed the teleporter's arm harder, just a bit, just enough to convince the idiot to stop trying various methods of death dealing because nothing the goof could bring was going to work.

  "By, like, three minutes, Sella, and you know it." Griff grumbled, pulling out the thin piece of mostly-indestructible paper. Holding it between enormous thumb and forefinger, the Onesie squinted ever so slightly, pausing to look and see if anyone was making fun of him. When no one was even looking his way -well, the teleporter idiot was sort of trying to make eye contact, but that might be because on the last effort to headbutt Sella into oblivion, he'd cranged his own skull good and proper- Griff started reading.

  "We, the rep … representatives of the La-Latelian Commonwealth mean you no harm…"

  ***

  Flits loved the new ship. Ever since they'd all pooled their Reclamation Points together -a number far larger than they'd imagined- and rescued the Galyssian vessel from SpecSer dry-dock, Flits figured he was the happiest he'd ever been, and for one obvious reason.

  The main hallway. Well, technically, because the ship was one of the biggest in the fleet, that hallway was more of a very long, narrow, walled-in road, but the most important feature of the corridor was that it was the entire length of the ship, giving him freedom.

  Freedom to zoom back and forth at almost top speed. Freedom to feel the rush of air slide past his face as he sped faster and faster. The world at top speed was a different place altogether, one he'd tried explaining to his teammates. Sadly, the only one who could even come close to appreciating the pure sensation of joy he felt when he flew was Winker, and Winker was a fucking idiot. Teleporting was having a significant impact on his ability to think, and some of them were beginning to think that the power had addictive properties.

  But not flight. No, not at…

  "What the?" Flits thought about trying to make a tight curve to come swinging back the other way, but he was between Agriculture and Life Sciences -or the Galyssian version of those two things- which left him hardly anything in the way of banking space, so on his next zip back, he'd slow his ass down.

  Because he was pretty fucking certain he'd heard giggling coming from one of the adjunct hallways leading off to … yeah, leading off to Recycling Section #3, and to Flits' certain knowledge, not a single one of the Heavies onboard the ship right that moment would have any reason to giggle about anything.

  No one giggled. Not on his watch. Flits decided to speed up somewhat. Get to the end faster, so he could come around and make good and goddamn sure he'd only been hearing things.

  ***

  "So … this guy? All he does is fly?" Goddie Sporn furrowed his gigantic, cratered forehead. "That's just … stupid."

  Goddie Alderick shrugged. "I dunno. I bet if he hit you when he's goin' top speed, that'd probably hurt a whole bunch. Also, like, you got to consider all the wind velocity and stuff. He's going darn near the speed of sound, okay, and since he's not zooming all over the place with no skin on, those outer layers got to be tough."

  "Gross." Sporn made a face. "Bet his skin's like shubin leather left out in the sun for a thousand years."

  "Haha, oh man, that's an image." Alderick checked the time. At the velocity their flier was moving combined with where they were in relative position in the primary corridor, the Twoesie reckoned they’d be hearing the noisy bastard’s return in a few minutes; factoring in the fact that the guy probably had to slow down or stop altogether to redirect and that he wouldn’t be running … flying … at top speed straightaway, Alderick decided to make it … five minutes. Tops.

  “Still, though.” Sporn mused as he resumed working on meshing their ultra-fine climbing ropes together. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t?”

  “What?” Alderick picked up his end of the ropes and started twining them together.

  “Well, these guys are the terror of The Cordon now, right?” Sporn kept wanting to hum an old tune his Grandma used to hum when she was knitting, but also wanted to chat with Alderick, so he played it through Harmony instead.

  “Oh, that’s nice. I haven’t heard this one in fifteen hundred years. And yeah,” Alderick nodded, half an ear trained to the corridor outside, “they definitely are the scourge of cross-Cordon systems. Just look at Nickels.”

  “Pssshht.” Sporn rolled his eyes. “Can’t count him. Being a Specter is a downgrade for that guy.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “It’s just that if these guys are the big bad dudes across The Cordon, why are they such bloody pushovers?” Sporn jerked his chin.

  “Yeah, I hear him.” The two Goddies held the thing they’d been working on up high, allowing them both to inspect their handiwork before deploying it. “What d’you reckon? Think he’ll stop?”

  Sporn snorted a second time. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll stop, but I hope he’s got some implants or something inside of him because brother, when he hits this thing and he isn’t augmented in some kind of way, we’re gonna have hand-sized chunks of stupid flying guy all over the place. Ergot’ll be choked.”

  “I wanted to use a baseball bat.” Alderick reminded Sporn as he moved towards the corridor; in a rousing game of rock, paper, scissors, Nickels, he’d lost, which meant he, the Twoesie was the one standing out in the hallway with his dick in the wind. “Remember that.”

  “Baseball bat’d kill him right out. Put his brains right through his ass.”

  “Funny though.” Alderick started counting down the seconds.

  “You’re not wrong, sa, you are not wrong.” Sporn braced himself, willed his boot-clamps to magnetically latch to the floor. Four loud clangs popped around him, and the Twoesie was suddenly one with the deck plate.

  “And … go.” Alderick leaped sideways as fast as only a God soldier could manage, holding his end of the hastily knitted-together spider web made of climbing gear.

  ***

  Flits didn’t even know why he was here, not really. It honestly wasn’t like he was any good on spaceships, and now that he was being all introspective and whatnot, he really had to admit to himself that he barely even qualified as a Heavy, not when he started comparing himself to the others aboard. Hell, Winker was more of a Heavy than he was.

  Hell, the only reason SpecSer’d quantified him as a Heavy was because he’d gotten his flight upgrade from some kind of fucked up spore inside Trinityspace, and that kind of situation automatically sent you to Heavy status on the off chance that your infection was the spreadable kind.

  His wasn’t. And to make matters worse, the fucking flight fungus or spore or whatever –honestly, Flits didn’t even care enough to look into it properly- that allowed him to fly was one hundred percent guaranteed effective when it came to protecting him from all other kinds of communicable Cordon weirdness and flat out loathed Cordon-tech augments. The last time he’d t
ried adding something simple like some new eyes, not only had his body begun rejecting the orbs violently, he’d had volcanic shits the whole fucking time.

  Still, though. When he was on a planet with the others, there was no one else better suited for reconnaissance, or invisible bombing runs, or –as usually happened- he was the team’s premier reclamation specialist, zipping all over wherever and stealing everything he could.

  It was, technically speaking, a fair trade. Though … he wasn’t technically a Heavy.

  “Which side corridor was it?” Flits murmured to himself as he picked up speed; he’d slowed down to damn near a crawl at the other end of the ship so that on his next trip round the world he’d be going at a speed that’d allow him to check out the halls on either side more easily.

  Hopefully Marker wouldn’t ask if he’d maintained proper speed throughout. He was a terrible liar.

  Something big and green and carrying something bright-looking and moving faster than anything that size had any right to move suddenly lurched out of fucking nowhere and planted it’s gigantic-ass feet on the deck plates loud enough to sound like thunder and the next fucking thing Flits knew, he was caught.

  Like a butterfly in a net.

  And that was that, because the very next thing Flits knew was that he was dipping towards the very same deck plate the Goddie was stuck on at speed.

  “Well, shitballs.” Flits prepared himself for impact. He’d be fine. He was always fine. He’d bounce ba…

  A very loud bang followed by darkness hammered the Heavy.

  ***

  “Shit.” Alderick looked at the unconscious flier at his feet, nudging the guy’s head with a foot. Limp as a ragdoll. He looked at Sporn, who was standing there, open-mouthed. “The fuck we do now?”

  “Leave him?” Sporn dropped his end of the net and came over to look at the unconscious guy. “He hit the floor really, really hard. He prolly broke something. I know I would not want to do the same bloody thing.”

  Alderick crouched down to stick his hand near the Heavy’s face. “He’s breathing. We can’t leave him. Ergot specifically said that we had to read the letter to them when they’re awake.”

  Sporn was shaking his head, face full of pity. “Still can’t get over how sad these guys are. It’s like they’re not even trying.”

  Alderick flipped the Heavy –who really wasn’t even heavy, which meant no augments or implants, at least none of any consequence, which was a letdown- over onto his back so he wouldn’t choke on his own tongue or anything. “Hey, be reasonable, now. There’s a few million Army guys on the other side of Huey’s Wall, right? Now, imagine if they’d all gotten through. Be a different story, then.”

  “Sure.” Sporn agreed charitably. “I’ll allow it. But these guys,” The Onesie toed the slumbering flier –who had a smile on his face, for crying out loud, “are supposed to be the equivalent of us.”

  “That’s not a fair comparison.” Alderick settled back on his haunches. “You’re nine hundred and some years old, I’m a squat over a two thousand. Ergot is something like forty-one hundred years old, though he doesn’t like talking about it.” The Twoesie waved his hands around. “All these guys, they’re like, kids.”

  “Kids with some big guns and stuff.” Sporn made a face. He’d rather be home, goofing around with his ultimate-grand children. They were hilarious. The youngest, Calland, kept trying to stab him with various household products. Three years old and the kid had a grip like a Foursie on overdrive. “We really gotta hang around here until the goof wakes up?”

  “Yes. Rules are rules. You’d know how important rules are if you were a Twoesie.” Alderick pulled out a pack of cigarettes, freed one for himself, then tossed the pack to Sporn. “And before we read the letter, we can ask him how come he sucks so much.”

  Sporn leaned against the wall, cigarette trailing a huge white plume of smoke. “Agreed.”

  ***

  “Hey!”

  Smack smack smack.

  “Hey!”

  Smacksmacksmack

  “Fucking guy’s not waking up, ‘rick.”

  “Yeah he is. Look, he’s stirring.”

  “He’s like a dog. His legs are twitching because he thinks he’s flying right now. Come on, let’s fuck off and break something. These Galyssian-class ships are fun. You break the right support beams, all kinds of shit starts falling all over the place.”

  “You can go if you want. I’ve gotta … ah! You see? Wake up, wake up, sleepyhead. The early hunter slaughters the shubin!”

  Flits opened his eyes slowly, feeling deep in his bones that he’d quite certainly gone completely mental. He groaned thickly. Right, yes. He’d crashed into the floor, which was the fountain from which his madness had sprung.

  Because frankly, there was no fucking way the two God soldiers who’d netted him like a flying fish were still here, waiting for him to wake up.

  The moment his were all the way open, Flits frowned, groaned, and rubbed his abused head. “What the fuck?”

  Sporn cursed under his breath, then moved to squat next to Alderick. “Shit. I was hoping you were dead.”

  “That’s not nice, Sporn. Sporn is sorry, flying guy.” Alderick nodded his head and smiled pleasantly, making sure to show lots and lots of teeth. That was how you let people know you were friendly. Flying guy flinched a bit, but kept his cool, which was nice to see. “So anyways, Sporn and me, we were wondering …”

  “How old are you?” Sporn interrupted. “Like, when, exactly, were you born? If you could use Galactic Constant for that, too, please? I joined the God Army because I can’t do maths properly.”

  “Same.” Alderick said somberly. “It was the promise of implants that could do it all for me. So much easier.”

  “Right?” Sporn poked the silent flier in the forehead with a massive pinky. “How old are you?”

  Flits was struggling to find his place in the Universe. The two chatty mountains of muscle and cybernetic implants were perhaps the two oddest things he’d ever encountered in his entire life. Still, all they wanted to know how old he was, and he was still alive, so there was some hope that, at the end of answering all their weird questions, he’d remain that way. “Forty-seven?”

  Alderick shook his head. “Are you asking us or telling us?”

  “I’m forty … forty-seven years old.” Flits tried struggling to a sitting position, but the one that wasn’t the one named ‘Sporn’ –the Heavy wasn’t entirely convinced that was a real name, because seriously- simply rested his hand –a hand about the size of a table- on him until he stopped moving.

  “See?” Alderick looked at his friend. “Forty-seven. That’s like, three in God soldier years. We can’t blame him for being soft. Hey, flying guy, it’s not your fault you suck at life, okay? I mean, I didn’t figure anything out until I was already over a thousand years old, okay? Don’t take this too personally. Once you get to be our age … ah. Yeah. Right. I am so awkward … ”

  “Way to go, Alderick. Geez.” Sporn blew a raspberry at his friend, then chuckled at the way ‘rick’s face went red. “Hey, flying guy, don’t sweat it. There’s always next time. Y’know, after all this.”

  “N… next time?” Flits looked from Alderick to Sporn and back again. “What do you mean? Are you going to kill me?”

  “Nah.” Alderick fished the flimsy piece of paper from his pocket. “At least, me and Sporn specifically aren’t going to kill you. Between this moment right here and the next, there’s a rock solid chance you are going to be killed and probably pretty painfully, but between you, me and Sporn, it’s also pretty likely that we are also going to be killed in a similar manner, so, that kind of works out to be fair. Fair-ish.”

  Sporn put one of his hands up to the side of his mouth and whispered to their captured goof. “That’s what he thinks. I’m still young enough to believe I’mma live forever.”

  Alderick held up the letter in a significant manner. “Now if we’re all done making acquaint
ances?” The Twoesie looked at Flying Guy. “Okay, so, Flying Guy, I gotta read this letter to you. It’s from our Chairman, Chairman DuPont. He’s a nice guy and wants this done legitimately. After I’m done reading it, you get to make a choice. I hope you make the right one, because that leaves us very few options. For a young guy with kind of stupid powers, you look like you got a head on your shoulders, Flying Guy, so … yeah.”

  “Flits.”

  Sporn stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around until his earhole started clicking. “I’m sorry, did you sneeze or something?”

  “Flits.” Flits shifted on the deck. “My name. Is Flits.”

  Alderick sighed. “Fucking unbelievable.” He cleared his throat. “We, the representatives of the Latelian Commonwealth mean you no harm. We engaged in no activity, implied or otherwise, to cause this conflict between ourselves and you, a member of the Trinityspace Combined Galactic Center. We…”

  ***

  "Now that," Threesie Durn pointed to the gigantic metal guy three floors down currently engaged in beating the relative snot out of three Onesies and a Twoesie, "is a big fucking guy."

  Threesie Ellerton nodded, working at something stuck between two molars; he'd snacked on some carefully packed Charbo Onion Rings before leaving on mission, and some of the breading was wedged in there really deep. "Where in the hell did he get his augments from? This is actually kind of ridiculous."

  Durn, who was cycling through the database of Cordon-locations that had a tendency to spawn the weirder sort of technological innovations that usually resulted in people like the Heavy down below, shrugged. "Coming up blank. Must be from one of the Galaxies we never got around to charting."

  Ellerton groaned with enthusiastic support as two of the Onesies -Brillix and Pendler- got thoroughly bounced atop their skulls and then booted against the far bulkheads with enough force for them to be essentially embedded in the metal. "Oh, that's got to hurt. Brillz and Pendly won’t forget this any time soon. Hey, do any of those guys know how to do the, you know, the bigger thing?"