by Marc Landau
Usually it’s money, or a helicopter-glider-shuttle to a planet with no extradition, and that was actually sort of what I was going to demand. I was going to get off this crazy rock with the jewels (a.k.a. the Ultra), and I was going to do it on a glider shuttle (a.k.a. an alien sphere).
I had no clue what to do after that, but first things first. It was time to get out of the throne room and off the planet.
Chapter Twenty-One
“We’re leaving now, and you’re going to help,” I said.
It blipped and beeped its frustration. “You may not leave with the Ultra!”
“Then the Ultra dies,” I replied, squeezing Kat’s neck but making it look much worse than it was. I barely applied pressure—there was no need. Kat was on my team now so she hammed it up big-time, rolling her eyes back and choking violently like she was on the brink of death.
“Stop! Please do not damage the Ultra. We will do as requested.”
I relaxed the pressure on her neck. “That’s better.”
“What do you want?” it asked.
By the way, in the movies, it never works out for the criminal. They always get busted. Okay, I won’t say never. Every once in a while a super talented, highly organized team of criminals outsmarts the cops or the GFI (Global Federation of Investigation), FBI, CIA, LMNOP, or whoever, but it’s rare.
I wasn’t smarter than professional criminals, and I hadn’t spent years developing a plan to steal rare art or a jewel. Ironically, I was kind of stealing the world's most rare and expensive jewel. The Ultra. In its original form, as the bespeckled ruby-red sarcophagus it was likely worth ten fortunes. Not to mention it was the most important artifact ever discovered. And I was about to heist it from its home planet, with thousands of alien soldiers surrounding me, all because they never saw a heist vid.
At least, I prayed to the universe that that’s what was going to happen.
Here we go. Let’s do this thing! the little voice said.
“Okay, Farmy, here’s what’s going to happen if you want to ever see the Ultra alive again.” Yeah, that’s it. Pour on the sap, the little voice urged and suddenly I was channeling some ancient gangster movie from the forties.
“Yeah, see. You want the Ultra? I’ll fill her full of lead. See? Now go get me some spheres, see?”
The bot-alien blipped and buzzed in confusion. Maybe I was overdoing it. I’d better just shut up and keep it simple.
“I want you to send us back to the ship.”
The robot hesitated, and I squeezed Kat’s throat again.
“Blip. As you require,” it replied.
“That’s a good boy, Farmy. Keep doing what I say, and your Ultra will make it out of this alive.”
Okay, I was overdoing it with the bad cliches but I just couldn’t help myself. I was hoping by keeping the thing as agitated as possible, it wouldn’t be able to figure out a way to kill me before we got the hellvian out of here.
“Get me some spheres, and get us out of here! Now!”
“Beep. Spheres?”
“The things that took us down heree. You know, the same things that surrounded the ship and tried to destroy it.”
“My brethren?” it asked.
“Yes, those. Get a few brethren to take us back up to where you found us.”The bot didn’t do it quick enough so I pressed my forearm against Kat’s throat again. “Do it now!”
A sphere moved off the far wall, floated over and hovered about five feet in front of us.
I motioned for the bot to move back, so I could get space to move inside. It complied, and I stepped cautiously toward the sphere. The bot made a slight move, like it might try to jump me, and I pulled hard on Kat’s neck. It immediately backed off.
I tested the exterior of the bubble with my foot, making sure it was safe. My foot easily passed through the jello and wiggled around on the other side. So far, so good. I took a deep breath and prayed they hadn’t come up with some plan to make me dissolve or teleport me away the moment we passed through.
I pulled Kat closer to me, her perfect rear pressed against my groin…
Focus!
I stepped into the sphere with a shimmy and a wobble, just like when we’d left the ship. So far, so good. I smiled at the bot-alien. “Good Farmy. Now, let’s go get the dogs. And no funny business.” I couldn’t help but add the corny vid lines. When would I ever get the chance to talk like an old-time mobster again?
Another sphere dislodged itself from a near wall and floated over to the robot. It bounced off the pathway and over to the throne, then came down over the bot’s head, engulfing it with a small bloop sound.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered to Kat, and she replied with a barely perceptible nod.
The next thing I knew, we were off the floor and hovering back into the metal tunnel. I was relieved they were using a transport tube and not shooting up through the roof of the throne room. When we’d passed through the ship’s hull on the trip down, it had shaken my molecules to the core. I wasn’t ready to be scrambled on a subatomic level again.
We WHOOSHED through the tunnel at lightning speed. These balls could move. Ironically, I figured balls would roll, not glide, but I guess their interpretation of both physics and balls was different from my primitive human understanding. Good thing, because I didn’t want to be bounced through the tube like a pinball.
As we traveled my mind wandered.
Speaking of balls, why do horror vids use balls to scare people? How did a ball become a staple of terror? Seeing a ball slowly rolling down a hallway or bouncing down a set of stairs sends chills down my spine. Why the frak is that so terrifying?
It’s the same with children’s toys. Stuffed animals staring blankly, rocking horses swaying back and forth.
And then there’s the actual kids. They’re the most terrifying of all. Standing there with a creepy smile. Why is a smiling child terrifying? Isn’t it supposed to be cute?
We made it through the chute in no time. All the digging the bot-alien had done at the entrance made it easy for the sphere to slip out of the entrance with ease. When I saw the forest, the trees, the sky, it was a big relief. It was a faux sky and forest and planet, but my senses still appreciated the freedom after being chased though a tunnel then trapped underground in that throne room. A sliver of hope broke through my panic. We were actually going to make it. Whatever that meant.
We made even better time cutting over the river and through the woods, to Kat’s dream house we go. Well, not exactly to her house. Closer to Kat’s waterfall, where original Poka and clone-Poka were still sniffing around.
I couldn’t help but smile. That damn dog always made me smile, even when I didn’t want to. And now wasn’t the best time. I had to keep my game face on for the sake of all of us. If the aliens sensed my weakness or saw an opportunity to wrestle the Ultra from my grasp, it would be end of us.
Just keep your shat together until we’re back on the ship, the little voice scolded.
I wanted to ask the voice what the hellvian we were supposed to do if we actually got back there. We’d still be stuck orbiting a planet full of angry super-powered aliens until our food reserves ran out.
It will be as it is, a deep, resonant voice echoed in my head. It wasn’t my own little voice. It wasn’t Kat or the robot. It was the voice I’d heard a couple of times now. The obtuse voice that never explained anything. The Ultra.
At least it was saying something. And the sentence sort of made sense. I still had no clue what its cryptic words meant, but was hopeful the communication would continue to get better, the longer it was within Kat.
I wanted real answers. I wanted to be able to just ask, “Hey, Ultra, can you make this alien-robot disappear?”
“Yes, I can do that, Wil. Is there anything else you would like?”
“Hmmm. Maybe extract Kat without killing her?”
“Sure, Wil. Anything else I can do?”
“I’ll think about it and let you know. Thanks
for asking.”
“No problem, Wil.
Of course that would be too easy. Way too easy. I had to have hallucinations, emotional triggers, and random thunderous God-like proclamations that made no sense.
It will be as it is.
Thanks a lot, Ultra. That’s really helpful
Chapter Twenty-Two
Poka the original, and Poka the clone, had decided to take a nap on one another’s bellies. The image was so cute, a tear almost burst forth. Of course they were snoring so loudly it shook the thick wall of the jello sphere. They snorted in unison. One would suck in while the other snorted out, in a synchronized jam session that would drive any living organism insane in less than ten minutes.
I wished I could’ve made the bot-alien stand and listen to it for hours. It would be worse than the tortures of a Kelson screech owl. No way it could bear it for more than a few minutes before running off screaming, “We surrender, we surrender!”
The military could weaponize Poka's snores and use them to drive at least fifty alien species insane. I’d put up with it for years and deserved a purple medal for being injured during combat-snoring duty.
I couldn’t believe how much louder the two of them were than just one. They were amplifying each other. Every snort exponentially increasing the volume of the other. I could swear the ground below was shaking with each inhale and exhale. I wondered if it went on long enough could they shatter the planet?
Maybe that would be for the best. It would suck to have us all dead, but at least the aliens would go down with the rest of us. Then again, these things were so powerful, I couldn’t be sure even a shattered planet would crack the spheres like eggs. It was just as possible it would send alien balls flying out in different directions throughout the infinite universe. Who knows what trouble that would cause? I’d only found one of them, and look at the trouble it was causing.
I couldn’t fathom having thousands, or millions of them floating around, wreaking havoc. I wasn’t even sure how many there were. All I’d seen was the throne room. There could be nests of these things in pockets underneath the surface everywhere on the planet.
Forget about all that shat. At the moment, I was trying not to laugh at the Pokas snoring. Yes, it drove me insane and woke me up many nights in my life, and made me want to stuff forks into my ears, but it also made me laugh my butt off. Her snorts were so ridiculous. Like some crazy horse-Hulvan hybrid. You can’t imagine it, unless you have a dog.
I was going to yell to wake her up and tell her to come to me, but I remembered sound didn’t escape these damn spheres. Turns out I didn’t need to scream to wake her up. She sensed the spheres coming and did another one of her annoying habits that shocked me out of sweet sleep. She suddenly snapped wide awake, barking hysterically. Great for a watchdog. Horrible for a good night’s rest.
BARK! BARK! BARK!
Good girl for trying to protect us, but please, it’s just us. Shut the frak up.
BARK! BARK! BARK!
Now the clone-Poka got snapped to attention and joined the action, and we had two barking Pokas.
BARK! BARK! BARK!
“Can you make your creatures be silent?” the walrus said from its sphere. Weird that it was piping the sound into my sphere, but okay.
“Or I can make them silent, if you wish,” it said.
“No. Don’t do anything. Just bring us closer.”
The bot grumbled a beep at another lost opportunity to destroy Poka and motioned for the sphere to move closer.
The Pokas barked and hesitantly backed away as we moved in, tails and ears low. They might look angry, but I knew they were getting ready to run like a chicken in the opposite direction.
When we finally got close enough, she did exactly what I thought she would. Original Poka saw it was me, and her defensive posture turned on a dime into a joyous frak-out session like she hadn’t seen me for a hundred years.
Yet another weird aspect of dogs. They can’t tell time. One minute is like forever for them. It must be tough being a dog, thinking every time someone steps out of the house they’re never coming back. Leave for five minutes, and when you come back, they act like you went to war for a decade.
Cats, on the other hand, are like, “Whatever. Go grab me a snack.” And Erkans, as cute as they are, sleep most of the time, so they usually don’t even notice you’ve gone anywhere. On the plus side, they make a soothing, cooing sound more powerful than a cat’s purr. I’m sure cats would be jealous if they cared. But they don’t. That’s why they’re cats.
The original Poka’s eyes went wide as saucers when she saw Kat and I. She didn’t notice that my arm was around Kat’s throat in a death grip. She probably just thought we were playing. We were. But what we were playing was the deadliest game.
Enough with the cheesy one liners, the little voice chided.
Corny thoughts were spilling out of my mind in an attempt to mess with the bot-alien’s mind-reading capabilities. I had no idea what it was picking up from me. I just knew I was loud, and couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself, and had to be very careful about revealing my plan. I had to keep it confused, or at least distracted. I couldn’t let it know the truth, that I would never ever hurt…
Don’t say it. It’s listening! the little voice said.
“How do you know?”
Because you’re screaming your thought you idiot.
“Right. Thanks.”
No prob. I hope you don’t have to kill Kat. But who knows? You might murder her any second if they don’t do what you say. You’re so wild and unpredictable. Wink-wink.
“Okay. Got it. No need to ham it up.”
Why not? You’re doing it.
“Good point. Okay, do whatever. It can’t go much worse anyway.”
The two Pokas raced full-gallop towards the sphere. Neither would hesitate. Not for a moment. They had zero concerns about whether it was solid, or what would happen once they stepped through. They were a single minded.
“Get to Wil and Kat now! And step on it!”
The spheres could be covered in razor-blade plasma knives, and the damn dogs would run right through them without a second thought. Poka didn’t have many second thoughts. She barely had first thoughts.
She (they) was (were) laser focused, which I admired. I wished I could be in that zone as often as she (they) was (were). If the military ever figured out a way to make Soldier Pokas, they would be a great line of offense for the first wave of an attack. They’d charge directly into the fold. Injury or death be damned. The military just had to figure out a way to edit out the fear genes, or she’d run the other way at the first sight of an actual enemy. Even a harmless two-foot tall holo-multipede would make her turn tail and run.
Original Poka leaped through the exterior of the sphere, her image shimmying like she’d just jumped into a reflection of herself in a pool of water. A moment later, clone-Poka was airborne and flying through the wall.
They landed with a dull thud on the cushy surface, their paws making indents in the soft floor of the ball. It was the moment of truth. If they jumped me and knocked Kat out of my grip, we were all goners. I couldn’t let that happen. There was only one thing to do, and neither would like it.
Poka looked up at me with her big, loving dog eyes full of joy and excitement, ready to jump up and say, “I’m so happy you’re baaaaaaaack!!!” She was on her haunches, twitching them slightly, getting ready to lunge and lick. I had to act fast.
“POKA, NO!” I screamed. “Go to your spot!”
Her face fell. The joy turned to sadness, hurt. Her tail went under her butt and she skulked miserably to the furthest side of the sphere. Poka-clone acted like an exact replica and did the same thing. Now the two Pokas were at the far end of the sphere, curled up next to one another, miserable.
It broke my heart to see them looking so pathetic but I was relieved she-they had listened. I don’t know how I could’ve fended off two leaping, licking Pokas.
Sorry, Poke
s. I owe you some extra fun and treats later.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We were all back together, the whole rag-tag family. Me, Kat, Poka, and our newest member, Poka-clone. Sure, we were on an alien world of doom surrounded by frakishly powerful and bizarrely obtuse aliens, but we were together again. Now we just had to get back to the ship and slowly die of starvation.
I looked at the bot-alien hovering in its sphere and gave it the most serious, “don’t mess with me” face I could muster.
“Okay. Now bring us back up to the ship.”
Again the walrus hesitated, and again I faked choking Kat, and again she put on an Olivian award-winning performance for coughing, hacking, and eye-rolling. She even took it a bit too far, bucking and writhing, then pretending to pass out.
“Did you expire the Ultra’s host?” The bot-alien screamed in a thunderous roar that made the spheres shake. “If you have expired the Ultra’s host, you will be exo-repelled like none other before you has ever been exo-repelled! I swear it by the oath of the Ultra’s predecessors!”
Exo-repelled? I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded bad. Really bad. I definitely did not want to be exo-repelled.
I leaned into Kat’s ear and whispered, “You’re putting it on a little thick. Farmy’s losing his shat. Can you wake up now, please?”
But she didn’t.
“I will begin the ritual of exo-repulsion now!” the bot thundered, shaking the spheres to their cores.
“Kat! Cut the shat!” I yell-whispered.
I saw her lips curl into a small smirk.
“Very funny. You butt-face, Open your damn eyeballs.”
The bot beeped, blipped then made a weird buzzing sound. It started saying words I didn’t understand. I didn’t even know if they were words. It was like numbers and sounds and sentences and pictures, all rolled up into one bizarre speaking-in-tongues, chant. Great. More insane chanting.
“The ritual has begun. Shamalalapai129x-#((@*!W!”
