by Zack Archer
We were boxed in, so Liberty pulled back on the controls, causing our sled to swing violently back in the other direction, headed directly for Big Dread and the others. She pulled out a black saber enveloped in a fine blue mist that I’d seen her grab back at the Lout’s armory and gestured to me. “TAKE THE CONTROLS, QUINCY!”
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FLY IT!”
“IT’S IDIOT PROOF!”
I positioned myself at the front of the vessel which was fast approaching the raised subway platform. A train was on the platform breezing past at what I reckoned to be thirty or forty miles per hour.
I put my hands on the sled’s control screen, and that’s when it happened.
The screen went black and the machine dropped toward the ground.
64
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO IT?!” Liberty screamed.
“YOU SAID IT WAS IDIOT PROOF!”
“Gods!” she shrieked in response. She moved over and tapped the screen which powered back up as she gave me a three-second tutorial on how to fly, brake and accelerate.
I looked up from the screen and all I could see was Big Dread swooping down to intercept us.
The villainess threw up her hands as if ready to fire a blast of energy at us, as Kree and Lyric opened fire on her. Big Dread evoked an orange forcefield that liquified the rounds before they could hit her.
I slotted the controls and the wave sled banked hard and shot down over a stone boulevard that wound its way along the edge of the subway platform.
Without warning, Liberty dropped out of the wave sled, soaring ten feet to the ground where she began attacking a pod of Synths.
I looked up and realized we were once again cornered, pinned in between the Snouts and the Morningstars. If I didn’t do something fast, we’d be overrun.
“GO FOR THE SUBWAY!” I shouted to Kree and Lyric.
Lyric hesitated. “What about you?!”
“I’ve got a plan!”
“Your plans tend to suck, Quincy!” Lyric replied.
I smirked. “I’ll meet you down the street!”
Both of the ladies flung me nervous smiles as I lowered the wave sled and they hopped off. Then, I pulled back on the controls and mashed the accelerator as the area all around me came under withering fire from the Snouts and Big Dread.
Flicking the controls, I sent the wave sled gliding down and over the street like a sloop.
I buzzed over the heads of the Snouts, creating a small shield that protected me from their fire which ripped holes through the unprotected sections of the vessel.
I processed several options and alarming scenarios all at once, most of which weren’t particularly good ones. My best bet was to try and outrace Big Dread, to distract her long enough to allow the others to hide or find a way to ambush her and the other Morningstars. But then I realized, to my horror, that Big Dread’s wave sled was indeed much faster and far more maneuverable than mine.
I spotted the villain peripherally, her sled propelled by jets of blue flame that roared from the back of the craft.
She fired on me as she blasted forward, the energy flung from her hands tearing up the streets, the back of my sled, and what looked like a domed amphitheater off to my right.
I shunted the wave sled down and through an alley and Big Dread pursued, along with several of the Snouts’ mechanized fighting machines. She was closest and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed the facades of a cluster of nearby buildings.
There was a gaseous WHUMP! from somewhere behind as Big Dread launched a wave of blue light at me.
There was an aerial explosion up ahead as the light tore through the top of a building, ripping it clean off.
The resulting debris rained down and I leaned into the controls and headed into a curving turn—
Only to see another squadron of Snouts in their mechanized fighting machines, their mechs, rushing forward to take me out.
I flew right at the mechs, lobbing a pair of plasma balls that detonated, scattering them. They quickly recovered and swung into action alongside Big Dread.
I flipped switches and toggled the controls, furiously piloting the sled down over the city streets, trying like hell to outdistance my pursuers.
The wave sled’s engine snarled and sputtered before coming back to life. I wasn’t surprised to see that most of the major systems were blinking red, which I took as a very bad sign. I was beginning to think the machine was running on fumes and my only hope was that it had enough juice in the tank to finish the battle.
I could hear the squawk and whine of the mechs echoing from behind as they chased me.
I slouched in my seat and flipped the controls, flying under an arched overpass crowned with a walkway that was soon obliterated by Big Dead.
Accelerating, I dove over a huge drop off, a chasm, an opening that led down to the lower levels of the city that were swarming with wave sleds flown by panicked city-dwellers. The mechanized Snouts couldn’t follow me down into the chasm, but Big Dread could.
My stomach lurched as I dropped down into a space that was congested, like Los Angeles during rush hour, people flying down into the hole in the ground or coming back up.
The drivers and riders in the nearby machines were understandably shocked as Big Dread fired on me and I fired back.
She continued to shoot at me even as I maintained a protective shield, but it was beginning to falter. Her incoming fire was just too overwhelming, so I cut the power to the wave sled.
The machine hung in the air for an instant and then plunged down.
I white-knuckled the controls, riding the wave sled into the chasm, able to somehow juke around the other machines that were swerving—
Honking their horns.
Fighting not to crash into me.
I held on for dear life, thrusting a spiral of energy out in front, shoving aside several other wave sleds that were on a collision course with me.
The sheer lunacy of the maneuver, of my incredibly dangerous free-fall, worked to my benefit, however. Big Dread wasn’t able to keep up, at least for the moment, and when I got to within a few hundred feet of the first underground level, I powered the wave sled back up and zoomed down a tunnel.
Slotting the controls, I flew through an open-air emporium, knifing over the heads of startled city-dwellers.
I passed into another space and had to duck to avoid being decapitated only to see a wave of Snouts moving forward, headed to the Upperworld.
Yanking back on the controls, I juiced the engines a final time and whipped the sled through an opening in the ceiling.
Rocketing up through a chute in the ground, I soon found myself back up on the streets of the Upperworld only to see Big Dread circling above. She hadn’t taken the bait, but instead, had headed back up to wait for me.
I followed one of the subway cars, using it for cover, and Big Dread pounded me with energy balls. Breaking away from the subway, I glided down a side street that the villainess riddled with fire, barely managing to avoid the resulting falling debris. I extended a middle finger to Big Dread and drove the sled through the heart of the damaged structure before slicing out onto another road. I did this for several minutes, whipping down over the deserted city streets, leading Big Dread away on a wild goose chase, hoping like hell that the others might show up and take her down at some point.
It was when I circled back up toward the park, carving over a section of relatively open road, that Big Dread closed on me. The bitch used the jets on her wave sled to close and then she fired several rockets that buzzed by so closely, I could reach out and touch them.
Veering around a corner, I pressed down on the controls, the wave sled dipping violently. I swerved right and shot through a gaping hole in the shell of an office building as the structure around me was atomized by energy balls fired by Big Dread.
Managing to avoid a number of obstacles inside the building, I neared the rear wall and that’s when I realized what I had to do.
I had
to do something unexpected to turn the tables on the villainess and so running on instinct, I powered the wave sled up and brought it around, slamming the controls down. The machine jolted to a stop as Big Dread’s sled appeared near the original opening.
Before she could react, I was on her, driving my sled directly toward her. My surprise attack was direct, powerful and alarmingly fast.
The supervillain stood up and a look of sheer disbelief creased her face.
I dove from my wave sled an instant before—
The nose of my sled jackhammered into her machine.
My vessel crumpled like a crushed beer can, the impact detonating whatever munitions were stored inside hers.
Several attendant explosions spewed a wall of flames that rolled over the machine, birthing secondary blasts that ripped it apart.
I tumbled fifteen feet down through the air and smashed through a brick wall, coming to a stop on the ground, ears ringing, breathing revved up, but very much alive.
Big Dread was nowhere in sight, so I staggered to my feet and picked my way toward a large hole at the back of the structure, hoping to catch up with the others.
Visibility was obscured when I emerged from the rear of the building, due to the smoke caused by the explosions, but I could see forms moving down street. I couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe and I took a step—
THUMP!
Something rammed into my back.
It felt as if a million volts of electricity had just sizzled through my body.
My legs gave out and I fell forward.
I managed to brace my fall and heard the sound of laughter echoing from behind. Rolling over, I gaped up and spotted Big Dread. She was fire-blackened but still so very alive and pulling herself through the smoke, a vulpine grin on her face and malice in her eyes.
I fought to lift one of my hands, but Big Dread was faster than a gunslinger.
She flicked a black cloud that slammed into my head, ushering me into complete and total darkness.
65
I woke to the smell of sweat and urine and what sounded like weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Groggy, I fought to lift my head and peered around.
I was down in a vast, semi-darkened room with roughly hewn walls and a floor made of what looked like volcanic gravel.
Tiny pinpricks of light shafted down from gaps in the metal grating that functioned as a ceiling.
I was upright, pinned against a wall, my arms and legs bound at my sides by loops of orange energy that glowed and crackled. I tried to move, but the more I fidgeted, the more they grew taut.
Squinting, I spotted other forms around the wall, other people who were similarly stationed.
Some of them were barely clothed.
Others were naked.
They were chained to metal poles or the wall, while others were lashed across what looked like doors and wooden wheels, and still more hung from the ceiling, harnessed to elastic bands or cocooned in the kind of contraptions that had been used for enhanced interrogation back in the day.
It was pretty clear I was down in some sort of subterranean torture chamber slash prison.
My thoughts returned to Big Dread who’d incapacitated me and I cursed her, vowing revenge if I ever found a way out and then I’d—
A sound echoed.
A disturbing sound.
The kind made by something big and bulky as it drags itself across stone.
I looked sideways. Something was toiling in the murk.
Several somethings.
A human, a one-eared, large-jointed man in a gray cloak accompanied by three of the largest creatures I’d ever seen standing on two feet. The beasts were easily nine feet tall, broad-shouldered with olive colored scales instead of flesh, and angular, serpentlike heads.
The blunt-faced, one-eared man stopped and sighed. The snake beasts stood behind him silently, long tongues flicking back and forth.
“Quincy?” the one-eared man said.
“That all depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether being Quincy is a bad thing.”
The man didn’t seem amused by this. He drew near me, holding a small yellow flower in his hands. The flower was crowned with the kind of spores you might see atop a dandelion.
“For me?” I asked. And when the man didn’t reply, “Whoever said romance is dead is a liar.”
The man stared at me, stone-faced, and then he blew the spores in my face.
I coughed and breathed some of them in and instantly felt more alert.
“What the hell was that?”
“A little pick me up,” the one-eared man said. “The man likes people to be wide-eyed when they meet him for the first time.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s difficult to humble yourself and appreciate the lessons of pain if you’re not fully awake.”
He smiled and withdrew a green baton from his cloak and flicked his wrist. The baton extended several feet. He looked me up and down. “So you’re him, huh? The mortal who’s caused so much trouble.”
“Impressed?”
“Not really. You don’t look like much.”
“Least I have both of my ears.”
The man hit me in the stomach with the baton, and it hurt like a sonofabitch. Then the man stood back and bowed awkwardly. “My name is Dez.”
“That’s a helluva greeting, Dez.”
Dez grinned, showing a mouth full of blackened teeth. “Mind your manners and it won’t happen again.”
“May I ask a question?”
Dez nodded.
“Is Big Dread around anywhere? ‘Cause I’d really love to thank her for all that she’s done for me.”
He snickered. “She’s gone on to her reward.”
“Where am I?” I asked.
“You’re only allowed one question,” Dez barked. “I’ll be asking the others from here on out.”
“Okay, but you’ve got to come closer because I’m hard of hearing.”
Dez inched closer, and I spat in his face. Looking back, that wasn’t a smart thing to do, but I was in pain, groggy, and pissed so I wasn’t thinking clearly. I compounded the mistake by spitting again while growling: “That’s for your poor fucking manners, dickhead.”
He thumped me again with the baton. Then he moved in close so that I could smell the odor of burned meat and sweat on him. He reached up, grabbed my hair and forced me to look at the serpent creatures. “You know what those are, Quincy?”
“No, but hopefully they’re not hungry.”
“They’re called Stemwinders,” Dez said. “They’re the personal guard for the man who runs this city now.”
“The Harbinger?”
Dez nodded. “You’re in his domain.”
“He could use a little redecorating.”
“Mind your manners, boy. This is his fortress, his home.”
“If that’s true what is this place?” I asked. “The reception area?”
Dez sucked on his teeth. “You think everything’s a joke?”
“Not everything. Just you.”
Dez hit me in the ribs with the baton and then he whistled to the serpent creatures. Two of them loped over, emitting a powerful odor that burned my eyes and curled my nostrils. A scent that smelled an awful lot like a diaper set on fire.
The things clucked their teeth and then trilled a sound while showing off the fangs that protruded from their oversized mouths.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you guys stink.”
The serpents traded a look and chuckled. They reached their tiny, whip-like arms down and undid my bindings.
I pitched forward and the serpents grabbed and held me up in the air like some kind of sacrificial offering.
Dez barked orders at the serpents who carried me through an archway on the other side of the prison.
“What about them?” I asked, referencing the other people being held there.
“Be grateful you’re l
eaving,” Dez replied.
66
I was carried through a side door and down a long, twisty corridor. We passed by translucent offices filled with banks of computers, moving faster up a stairwell and down another hallway.
We entered an airlock and were waved through a security checkpoint, the guards not even bothering to hazard a glance in my direction.
The structure, a monolith of stone and glimmering exotic alloys, was much more impressive on the inside. We moved over a catwalk and into a concourse that opened to a rotunda that allowed me (given the fact that I was staring straight up), to see almost the entirety of the structure.
The rotunda appeared to function as the building’s town plaza, a wide apron of stone that was wreathed by massive ramps that climbed the outer walls, stretching from the floor all the way up to the top of the construct, which couldn’t be seen it was so many stories above us.
It felt like I was inside a pyramid, a ziggurat out in the middle of the jungle. We continued up the ramp, moving between floors.
I saw what looked like sleeping quarters on one floor and a place where food was served on another, and still another floor where vegetables and fruit were being grown in vertical gardens. And everywhere there was a continuous stream of people and security in the form of the snakelike creatures, bulked-up guards, and heavily-armed drones that flew and wheeled past us.
It was much more than a building.
It was a self-contained city.
“How big is this place?” I asked, stealing a glance at Dez.
“Large enough that many who enter never see the light of day again.” Dez laughed and continued, “We had another one from your planet here once. He mentioned a song to me that talks about a place called the Hotel California. This place in the song, this hotel, is not unlike the Harbinger’s fortress. It’s very easy to check into, almost impossible to get out of.”
“Especially if you’re a kid.”
Dez regarded me with a strange interest and I noticed a look of recognition in his beady eyes. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Where are the children who’ve been taken here?”
