by Jenn Thorson
Rollie gave him a puzzled look. “Same way we got in. There’s only just the one way, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, but you noticed the Deltan RegForce out there, right?”
“Sure, and they were looking for a Tryfling and a Deltan. While we’re a simple trioptic Underworld peddler and his poor, aged, incontinent maternal archetype.” Rollie beamed with the face that was not his. “I’ll manage. I always do.”
“Incontinent?” Bertram protested.
There was a white flash behind the smoke in Tseethe’s helmet. It might have been a grin. “Okay, well, good luck on Nett, Captain. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Thereby leaving my options flexible.” Rollie pushed a button to release the pressure-sealed door. “Paar too.”
“Vimn-tsargh tsoo,” Tseethe said, which Bertram’s Translachew turned roughly into some sort of wishes for health. And Bertram and Rollie stepped inside the back of the Crater Club’s kitchen refrigerator.
“I do hope you save your planet, Tryfeman,” Xylith called into it with Face One, her voice 80 degrees warmer than the fridge they stood in. Face Two added, “Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.”
Bertram felt his neck redden again. “You know, I’d really li—” The door closed tight behind them with a final puff of sound.
Rollie snickered. They were moving out of the chill of the refrigerator and into the bustling kitchen. Maybe it was the jubies talking, but Bertram was still feeling pretty upbeat about things. For a catatonic megalomaniac without a gameplan, he thought he wasn’t doing half-bad. His mind drifted to two pairs of soft rose lips and four sparkling amethyst eyes.
Rollie’s voice jarred him back. “That one is more trouble than a bag of Marglenian fighting fish, Ludlow. Trust me.” The words contained no tone of malice, just a kind of light amusement. He stole two towels from a kitchen workstation and tossed one to Bertram, draping his own over his forearm in an official manner.
Bertram took the towel but found he didn’t really want to discuss Xylith with Rollie. He had a feeling it would put a damper on his jubies high, and he was enjoying not over-thinking things for a change. He slung the towel over his own arm and tried to look crisp and efficient, like he belonged there. He was uncertain of the effect, since he was also a three-eyed old woman in a cloak.
They were almost to the elevators, when Rollie paused and snatched a tray of colorful alien desserts from a nearby dumbwaiter system. He leaned over and grinned. “You know what you get once you’ve turned-on a two-faced woman, don’t you, Ludlow? Strife in stereo.” He laughed like this was the greatest joke he’d heard in a long time. Then he disappeared with the tray into the elevator.
Bertram just shook his head.
He’d only set foot in the car when the doors slammed shut and the elevator lurched up, up, and up at a break-neck pace. They reached the proper floor and it stopped so abruptly, the elevator practically poured them out. It was either a testament to the forces of alien physics or Hyphiz Deltan balance that the dessert tray remained intact.
Bertram’s equilibrium was still settling when they exited the Rim Room door to the main hallway. And there in that hallway, now camped out in front of the Quake Room, were the Deltan RegForce officers.
They’d mixed it up a little, Bertram noticed. Yes, both the Deltan from the Uninet and his partner were still trying to blend into the crowd. But now the scholarly-looking Deltan had traded his hors d’oeuvre plate for an electronic conference booklet from the Association for the Fraternal Order of Fraternia-12. And the pop-eyed RegForcer was wearing a hat with a large, round blue sphere bobbing on it that read, “Ask Me About My Moon Polyps.”
With them were other life-forms, conference-goers either pulled into the cause or innocently waiting for their next event. But most of the beings milling around were more interested in cocktails in the Comet Room, receptions in the Rupture Room and Q&A in the Quiver Room.
They never spied what Bertram saw as two attendees shuffled by.
With a push of a button on a gadget hidden under his e-brochure, the heavier Deltan cast a thin red beam on the legs of one passing attendee. The beam waved and bounced along the humanoid’s form in a quiet, little light display, then vanished.
The same thing occurred with another group trouping through, laughing and chatting. One member was singled out. That member was scanned with the red beam, none the wiser. The RegForce was randomly testing attendees. Perhaps they’d been testing all along. And, jubies or no, the back of Bertram’s neck broke out in a sweat.
There was no subtle way to tell Rollie what he’d seen. And even if there were, there was nowhere to hide, only to go forward, to pass the officers directly and hope the three-eyed figures would not be subject to random scanning themselves. Bertram had a very strong feeling that the scanner would go straight through a projected holowatch image. Straight through the cloak and three eyes and the hairy, hairy mole. Bertram really didn’t want to find out what would happen after that.
Worse, Rollie gave no indication he’d spotted anything worrisome. He strode down the hall with that tray of desserts held in a confident, professional way, like he’d been carting dessert to and fro for decades and was likely to do so for decades more.
So they pressed on, closer, closer to the Deltan RegForce officers, until too-soon they were passing before them. Now, Bertram’s knees felt like rubber, and he was beginning to wonder whether Rollie’s earlier incontinence joke might not be about to have some unexpected, unfortunate truth to it.
Yet Bertram forced himself to move forward, forced himself to move beyond and …
“Excuse me. Stop there, would you?”
Bertram’s heart did a somersault, his stomach a cartwheel, and his brain commanded the whole crew to turn and look casually.
The Deltan with the scanner was looking right at Rollie.
Rollie addressed him with a placid efficiency. “Yes, sir?” Bertram noticed he seemed to be trying to smooth out his clipped Deltan accent.
“Where are you going with those?” the RegForce rep asked. His expression was mild, interested, but otherwise a cipher.
“Just there.” With a free hand, Rollie pointed into a large bustling reception room.
The RegForce officer nodded gravely. “As I thought.”
Done for, Bertram thought. We are done for. There’d be no saving the Earth from inside a Hyphiz Deltan prison. He doubted he’d find much sanity there, either. Probably just some large angry, alien cellmate named Mxylplx, who liked to knit stylish gags and handcuffs for his roomies.
But if Rollie shared Bertram’s concern, he didn’t show it. His three holographic eyes met those of the RegForce officer in equally mild interest. He waited. Waited as if he had all of the time in the world to wait. Which, knowing Rollie, was impressive since Rollie did not wait well for anything.
Bertram waited, too, but he could feel his body poising itself to run … Grounded and prepped like he would for a tennis match, waiting for the serve, the one move that would spring him into action. Bertram looked at the faces of the other life-forms standing with the officer. The pop-eyed fellow in the moon polyp hat watched keenly with too-blue eyes. The others glanced from the lead lawman, to the tray, to the lawman again.
Finally, the Deltan with the scanner said, “I’ll have the Hanzigrette pudding, if I might.” He gave an embarrassed smile. “No sense you carting it all the way in there.”
Rollie nodded and let him take the pudding. Bertram waited as Rollie then strode purposefully into the reception room, placed the tray of desserts on the nearest flat surface—which happened to be the head of a refuse robot—and swept out again. Bertram fell quickly into step, and the two headed down the hallway, out of the Conference Center and Exposition.
It was only as they stepped into the Crater Club main lobby that Bertram exhaled with relief. “Holy heart arrhythmia,” Bertram said under his breath, “I think I sweat straight through my boxers. At least, I hope that’s sweat.”
<
br /> “Shut it,” Rollie warned.
“What?” Bertram whispered. “But we’re cool. He just wanted dessert, he—”
Rollie cut him off with a curt, “Shpp.”
Bertram looked at the main entrance, where life-forms were gliding gently to the floor, complimentary beverages and spelunker hats intact, and expressions glazed with wide-eyed wonder. “Can we get out that way?”
“Here.” Rollie motioned Bertram to another short corridor where Vos Laegos daylight filtered onto the floor in a rough sphere. The exit!
They’d no sooner stepped into the light when Bertram felt his feet lift off the floor, felt himself being swept by some strange, manufactured up-draft.
“Thank you for visiting the Crater Club!” said one of the staff members, standing on a balcony and waving as they silently glided to the surface.
“The Crater Club thanks you, come again!” said another, flashing a bright smile.
“We hope you’ll visit us here at the Crater Club again real soon!” said a third.
And with an invisible shove, Bertram and Rollie were tossed up and out, onto the Vos Laegos City street.
“Thank God,” Bertram murmured, wiping his brow. He sighed again, bigger this time. There just didn’t seem to be enough oxygen to expel the energy from his jangled up nerves. He wanted the jubies back. The jubies would make things seem happy, possible, right again. But apparently natural endorphins beat the jubies two to one. He was sorry to see ’em go. “Wow, we made it, I mean I never imagined—”
“Run,” Rollie said in a low, firm voice.
“What?” Bertram looked around the bustling Vos Laegos strip, trying to spot their latest peril. Left, right, Bertram’s eyes were still getting used to the change in light between the dim Crater Club and the shining, sun-spotty outdoors. He didn’t even know what he was looking at.
“Run!” Rollie shouted. The calm firmness had drained from his voice and was replaced with an edge of panic. In a flash, the XJ-37 was in his hand, capping off shots over his shoulder. He took off like there were wings on his feet. Bertram sprung to follow him as laser shots twanged in response where he’d stood just seconds before.
Keeping up with the Deltan, as he wound back through the hodge-podge maze of the Vos Laegos layout, proved difficult. Not only did Rollie have a long stride, but he had good solid boots with heavy traction, where Bertram was working with worn socks and soft feet—feet that hadn’t seen the outside of an athletic shoe in public for going on ten years now. Then there were the Vos Laegos obstacles: puddles of spilled drinks, expressions of bodily fluids, meandering life-forms with no agenda and the luxury of not having the Hyphiz Deltan RegForce on their tails. Bertram had to keep his eyes fixed to Rollie’s back instead of where he stepped and who he’d stepped on, or he’d never find his way back to the ICV.
Every now and then, Bertram would hear a shriek or crash. So in his wake he jettisoned assorted apologies—“My bad!” or “Put ice on that!”—and simply pressed on.
Bertram caught up with Rollie only as the Deltan slowed, feeling around one-handed for something within his holographic robes. “Where is it? Where. Is. It?!” the alien spat. “Ah?”
He pulled out an item from seemingly nowhere, which looked to be some kind of memo recorder. He held it up before his face. “Bleedin’, fraggin’, blasted, zoggin’ son of a Keeltsar!” he shouted, and flung the unwanted item. It bounced off the sidewalk, bits and pieces showering from it.
“What are you looking for?” Bertram asked breathlessly as they continued on. If he recalled the catalog of stuff Rollie carted around on his person, it could be pretty much anything.
“It won’t matter, if I don’t fragging-well find it soon,” Rollie hissed.
Bertram could hear the heavy running footsteps behind them closing in. A laser blast went off through Bertram’s holographic hood, actually singeing the side of Bertram’s hair. It smelled warm and too organic. He shrieked, and patted the side of his head, which was crackling with sparks. Then he turned and spied the buggy-eyed Deltan RegForcer, well in the lead of his crew and coming up fast. The man had an effortless grace, and long, taut limbs propelled him forward. His smile was one of a man who enjoyed what he did and was confident he’d get whatever he set out to capture.
“Ah-ha!” Suddenly Rollie erupted into a mad shriek of joy as they fled, hoisting an electronic something-or-other in a triumphant grip. The captain raised his arm high over his head—like some three-eyed, druidic version of the Statue of Liberty doing the New York Marathon—and he pressed a large black button on the device in his hand.
“Zzzt,” said the button.
Bertram had expected great alarms to wail. Robot armies prepped to exterminate. Explosives to go boom.
Rollie seemed to have found just the thing to make a good “Zzzt” noise.
“Oh, great!” Bertram shouted. “I can’t go to Deltan prison. I have delicate features, I’ve never fashioned a shiv, and I took two free Tae-Kwon Do classes and we didn’t even get to the Do. I’m gonna die.”
“Just shut it and run, Ludlow,” Rollie ordered. He looked to his right and then jarred to a halt, motioning Bertram. “Here! In here!” At first, Bertram didn’t know how they could go “in,” anywhere. The place Rollie indicated looked like just another part of the busy sidewalk; there was grass and exotic plants. But as Bertram spied the life-forms standing around some gaming tables he realized: this was the building they’d seen earlier from the air. The one crafted entirely of clear materials. Inside looked like outside, and the outside in. Bertram followed Rollie under a sign, which read, “The Greenhouse” in brightly lit lettering, which sprouted and appeared to grow yoonie cards.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t consider them viable hideout material, Bertram thought. He spotted the familiar faces of the two towering RegForcers on the street, just as they spotted Bertram.
Only Rollie, apparently, wasn’t trying to hide. He’d seized some large leafy orchid, which turned out to be a Greenhouse employee, and said in urgent tones, “The observatory. How do you get there?”
The orchid looked startled at being manhandled; she must have been a delicate flower. “Down the hall, make a left, and take that elevator straight to the top,” she gasped.
“Thanks.” And Rollie dashed off.
Or tried.
Just being in the building itself was confusing. You could see where you’d like to go, but not how many corridors and rooms away your destination actually was. After a near concussion making the left down the hall, Bertram and Rollie found themselves feeling their way toward the elevator like blind men, an excruciatingly slow process.
Bertram imagined the casino made most of its money selling antiseptic and icepacks.
By now, the RegForce had plunged through the Greenhouse entrance and were scanning the lobby for their three-eyed fugitives. It wasn’t long before Bertram and Rollie were in their sights. The bulbous-eyed officer glared, pressed his nose to the glass, shielded his eyes, and then pointed the other RegForce officers in Bertram’s and Rollie’s direction.
But soon he discovered, as they had, that seeing the escapees was one thing. Getting to them was quite another. As the Deltan and Tryfeman stepped into the crystalline elevator and shot skyward, Rollie laughed and waved. The RegForce was still busy trying to find their way out of what Bertram thought was a poorly-conceived restroom concept.
“They’ll stumble their way out of the bathroom sooner or later, you know,” Bertram warned. “It’s not exactly hard to track us down, and now we have nowhere to run.” He looked to his right and saw his companion was no longer the dark, three-eyed being, but a tall, lean Deltan with a weird thumb and very yellow hair.
Rollie just grinned, a smile considerably more demonic than that of his holowatch disguise. He stepped out of the elevator onto the Greenhouse roof patio, brandishing the electronic device in his hand skyward once more. He pushed the button.
“Zzzt.”
Be
rtram sighed. He didn’t know why he was so worried about life in Hyphiz Deltan jail when he was probably already in some kind of mental home. He thought it might be because his temple burned and his feet hurt. A real hurt. The kind of hurt you don’t have in dreams, not ever. Not even the unbalanced ones of a raving Ph.D. candidate. Not unless something very unpleasant was happening to you in real life, as well.
So as he exited the elevator, on a sudden impulse, Bertram whisked a clear chair over from a clear patio table and wedged it in the clear elevator door. The door banged helplessly. Bells rang and rattled down the elevator shaft.
Rollie glanced over his shoulder, nodded with satisfaction, and then scanned the sky as if he were still searching for those imaginary robot hoards. Or some kind of deity.
Bertram, on the other hand, couldn’t rip his gaze from below, down through the many floors, to the cluster of RegForce officers crawling around on ground level. They were feeling their way down the halls. They were congregating around the base of the frozen lift. They were talking to management. One gesticulated wildly. Another stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Bertram didn’t like it. They were planning something. Then they found the door to a stairwell and began the trek to the roof. “Company’s coming,” Bertram cautioned.
The wind picked up.
“Ah,” said Rollie, whether in response to Bertram’s warning or the burst of weather, Bertram wasn’t sure. Rollie grinned again, his orange eyes reflecting the color of the dipping Vos Laegos sun. “Ready, Ludlow?”
“Ready? For what?” The wind around his head was really strong now, swirling his hair, and making an unnatural amount of racket. Whirring, clanking, grinding. “What the hell is that noise?”
And from nothing unfolded a light metal ladder that dropped down in front of them. Rollie hopped onto it and scrambled into the void, vanishing completely.
“Ah,” said Bertram. He seized the ladder without question and followed the Deltan’s path. Yet unlike Rollie, he was unable to resist one fleeting backwards glance over his shoulder.
The stringy pop-eyed officer was but one floor away now, his eyes wider and poppier than ever at the sight of this ladder, these escapees, vanishing into the ozone. He was trying to do three stairs at a time now in some futile tactic to catch up. But even his long, wiry legs couldn’t quite manage it. Tripping, glaring, and causing a pile-up of half the Hyphiz Deltan RegForce, he pointed to Bertram, his mouth moving in some unintelligible vow for, presumably, bitter revenge.
