“Shtupid?” Engels stepped up to Mangles and shook his fist in his friend’s face. “Ja! Ja! Ja! I told you!”
Tammy staggered into the room. “Holy crap! Bludgeoned by salutes and heel-clicks!”
“Tammy,” said Hadrian, “can you show off some of that future tech and displace us back to the ship?”
“You mean, without the Insisteon?” The chicken shook his tiny head. “Not a chance. That only works for us Negatronic AI holograms.”
“Really?” Nina asked. “But I seem to recall—”
“You will be silent!” Tammy shrieked, and then ducked. “Apologies. It’s kind of contagious.”
“Okay,” Hadrian said. “We need to get to that rocket and do this the old-fashioned way. Engels, help Mangles get ready. Nina, check the—”
“Nobody move!” shrieked a shrieking voice from the doorway.
They turned to see a short, roundish, pimply, sweaty, hairless, small dog. And beside it a man who looked pretty much the same. In the man’s hand was a Luger. “You heard the direktorheadoberoberflumpenbirk,” he said in an oily voice. “Nobody move. Drop your weapons. You are entirely surrounded. Even now an entire company of oberhilteroldenfolkengrupenpensioninginggagafolken are approaching the staircase. They will be here in about three hours.”
The dog edged forward a step and said, “The obershutmittenhammerenpunkinklobberer is correct. I am Direktorheadoberoberflumpenbirk Code-Name Turnip—”
“No you’re not,” Tammy said. “You’re an AI Negatronic hologram from the future!”
“And so are you!” the dog shrieked. “This is my program! Get out of my program! Hacker! Troll! Newbie!”
“You idiot!” Tammy hissed, advancing on the dog. “This isn’t a program at all! These are real people—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Turnip retorted. “Real people aren’t this stupid!”
“Oh yes they are!” Tammy replied. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? You ran a Neuralambic duobitronic subroutine without first disengaging the quantum multidimensional Effectuator, didn’t you?”
Turnip’s eyes widened. “Crap! I forgot! Oh shit.” The dog spun to stare up at the obershutmittenhammerenpunkinklobberer. “I just created an alternate reality! That means this guy is real. And I thought him looking just like me was a joke! Ha ha!”
The obershutmittenhammerenpunkinklobberer blinked down at the dog. “But, Direktorheadoberoberflumpenbirk, I have been your most loyal servant—”
“Ha ha!” Turnip laughed redundantly. “Don’t you get it? I thought I was beta-testing a VR game called Dunderhead Here We Go Again. A fully immersive instructional simulation intended to discourage losers from joining the only club that’ll have them, namely, the Fascist Klub (all dunderheads and losers welcome). Oh sure, you have fun for a little while, but let me ask you this: Where do all fascist Nazi totalitarian dictators inevitably end up? Oh, right, cowering in a bunker like the piss-soaked cowards that they are!”
“See!” screamed Mangles. “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”
Turnip bared stumpy little teeth at the Führer. “I thought you were my NPC prop, with all the rubbish you were spewing. But no! You’re real!”
Mangles pointed at the dog. “And I thought you were a drug-induced hallucination!”
But Tammy wasn’t done with Turnip. “Look what you’ve done. This whole planet is one giant reign of terror. Millions in work camps, millions executed, and who’s in charge? Why, a bunch of Himmlers and Goerings and Mengeles and Hitlers, none of whom were very good at anything and universally despised as the creepy little creeps they always were, until you gave them a klub to join!”
“You’re right,” Turnip said. “Listen, we gotta get off this planet, pronto!”
Hadrian rubbed at his eyes, and then sighed. “Fine. So, let’s get going. You, Obershutmittenhammerenpunkinklobberer, tell everyone to stand down—”
“No!” The Nazi brandished his Luger. “I am now in charge! Of everything!” He barked a laugh. “That’s right! If the Great Nazi Party is a klub of losers (and let’s face it, it is), then I want to be Supreme Loser! And for that you all must die!” He pointed his pistol at Mangles and—
Vanished.
“Vere did he undt ze go?”
Turnip snorted. “I erased him.”
“This isn’t a program!” Tammy shouted.
“Oh, right. That means I erased a real human being. Oops, sorry!”
“We must go!” cried the oberkampensummer from the corridor. “The oberhilteroldenfolkengrupenpensioninginggagafolken have almost reached the stairs!”
* * *
Meanwhile, down in the dank chamber with all the dripping overhead pipes and ducts, Galk fed another chunk of chaw into his mouth and then said, “You know, we ran down this road back on Varekan, more than once. That was before we reached the revelation that society is like Sisyphus, pushing that boulder up the mountainside, only to have it come tumbling back down every time, and why was that? Because when things are going good, why, sooner or later, someone decides to game it, and when they game it, they fuck it all up. Meanwhile, it was all so good for everyone else they got complacent. So, the fucking-it-all-up happens underground, a bit here, a bit there, all beneath notice. Until it all comes crashing down in misery, bloodshed, and suffering. So, who are these assholes gaming that happy world? Only the most miserable, never-satisfied, eternally pessimistic fuckwits you can imagine. It’s all about getting a step up on everyone else. Nothing else matters to ’em.”
Beta said, “In Wallykrappe lexicon, they would be called Shareholders, the Board of Directors, and Customers.” The robot paused. “Very well. In Wallykrappe lexicon they would be called everyone.”
“It’s genetic,” said Galk. “On Varekan we found them, you know. We found the Fuck-It-All-Up genes. The Fatal Switchboard of Humanity’s Inhumanity: the I-Didn’t-Mean-It-Honest gene, the I-Didn’t-Know-That-Was-Gonna-Happen gene, the I’m-Better-Than-You-and-This-Gun- Proves-It gene, the I’m-Always-Right gene, the Waa-Waa-I-Can’t-Hear-You gene—Darwin knows, there’s a whole slew of ’em.” He shrugged and straightened. “That’s why we Varekans have written off all existence. It’s easier that way.”
“What are you doing?”
Galk raised the Meltomatic BFB Mark VII. “Hmm, me? Well, hear those distant explosions? That’s the marines. They’re killing Nazis by the hundreds, the thousands. They’re having the fuckin’ time of their lives right now.” He cocked the weapon. “I’m thinking it’s time for some ole Burn Fucker Burn.” He grinned at the robot. “You coming?”
Beta considered. “You are describing succumbing to the desire to relinquish all sense of decorum and propriety via the long-overdue final dismissal of the false notion of reasoned debate in the marketplace of ideas when it comes to racist, insecure, venal, and pathetic excuses for human beings known as Nazis, and subsequently annihilating all of them in a glorious welter of blood-splashed, steaming schadenfreude.”
“Yup.”
“I wouldn’t miss seeing this for the world, Combat Specialist Galk.” Then Beta paused. “Though I regret leaving behind my whip.”
Galk made an adjustment on the Meltomatic. “Starting out with single-shot. That way, we can watch ’em melt one by one.”
“How lovely.”
* * *
Hadrian stepped out into the corridor, saw a Nazi, and punched him. He saw another Nazi and flung himself forward in a flying dropkick that sent the creep through a wall. Climbing to his feet, he brushed his trousers and adjusted his torn shirt. “Wow, that was fun!”
Nina Twice appeared at the top of a nearby staircase. “Sir. I have scouted two routes. One is via back passageways and is unoccupied all the way down to the main floor and the garage exit directly opposite the rocket gantry. The other is crowded with oberhilteroldenfolkengrupenpensioninginggagafolken wielding canes and hand-bags.”
Hadrian hesitated.
A terrible scream came from the far end of the corridor,
and a moment later a Nazi staggered into view, face melting. A moment after that Galk and Beta appeared, stepping over the now crumbling, smoldering heap of vaguely human-shaped ashes.
“Galk! Good timing! We’ve got a bunch of oberhilteroldenfolkengrupenpensioninginggagafolken blocking our escape route!”
“But sir—” tried Nina, only to have Engels clamp a hand over her mouth, lean close, and whisper, “Leave en ze captain zis singular opportunity to deliver extreme ze prejudice upon ze extremely prejudiced, ja? Just this once, ja? I mean, who’z going to ze complain? Nazis? Vell, ze fucken ze dem!”
She relaxed and then when Engels removed his hand and patted her on a shoulder she said, “I see your point, Dr. Engels. And by the way, lucky for you I quashed my natural instinct to chew a hole through your hand and then crush every bone in your body. Next time, a tap on the arm will suffice, understood?”
“Ja! Ja ja, uppen ze zorry!”
Galk stepped past everyone and paused at the top of the stairs, looking down. He sighed. “They’re already half melted, sir, but well, let’s face it, they’ve got it coming to them.” He lifted the Meltomatic and made an adjustment. “Full automatic now. They’re all toast, literally. Hey you down there! Check me out! This is Combat Specialist Galk, in God Mode!” And then he began marching down, unleashing like the best special effects face-melting shit you ever saw (or so Jocelyn Sticks would later say after viewing the Meltomatic’s Super-Slo-Mo Barrel-Cam).
By extraordinary coincidence and perfect timing they joined up with Lieutenant Sweepy Brogan and her happy marines right in front of the gangplank leading up to the oversized crew capsule of the Blastenuppenspacenvolksenwaggen.
After high-fives all around, and after a few panoramic snapshots of the utterly destroyed city on all sides with whole scads of melted or shot-up Nazi bodies, they all boarded the rocket and moments later (okay, four and a half hours later) the rocket shot up on a pillar of fire into the starry night sky, and everyone lived happily ever after.
Until this …
* * *
“Now,” said Hadrian as he took his seat in the command chair, “where were we? Let’s backtrack a bit, shall we?”
“Three minutes, Captain. As the sage Chosen One once said, ‘There is no pizza in your philosophy, Horatio, meaning it sucks, basically.’”
“Thank you, Beta,” Hadrian replied even as Sticks twisted around to mouth WHAT? Again.
Security Adjutant Lorrin Tighe sighed and positioned herself beside the command chair. “This is it, Captain,” she said, licking her lips again. “The dawn of your demise, the beginning of the end, the last cigar, the final finality, the imminent ruination and cessation of your unlikely run of luck.” Her eyes were even brighter with zeal and eager malice as she got into her role. “The Kittymeow Accords shall mark your destruction, and I will be right here to witness it. Could it be any better?”
“Told you,” said Tammy in a monotone. “She’s obsessed with your downfall, Captain. You couldn’t bring her around, not an inch, not a centimeter, not a nanometer. Oh God I want to die.”
“Don’t be silly,” Hadrian said chirpily. “This is just one last desperate gasp of defiance, Tammy.”
“I’m standing right here, you idiots.” Eye-roll.
“Replaying. The IQ of the average Sun reader is high when compared to that of jellyfish,” said Beta, and then the robot cocked its head. “I have just experienced what some would call a Functional Overlap, as if an interlude has just concluded leaving us now free to resume our mission.”
Hadrian shifted uneasily in the command chair. “Pay that no mind, Beta. Carry on.”
“Yes sir. Exiting T-Space now, Captain.”
“Helm! Our position relative to the waiting Affiliation and Radulak vessels?”
“Well duh, we’re like a fly, right? Buzzing into the web of two giant, like, spiders that haven’t had breakfast yet, yeah? So it’s like WHOAH, and you’re like all just like sitting there and then pop! Out of T-Space and Beta’s like, jellyfish! And the adjutant she’s like all frothing and stuff making me think RABIES. I mean, duh!”
Hadrian cleared his throat to break the silence following Sticks’s outburst. “I meant, coordinates, Helm. You know, degrees, minutes, seconds, angle of deviation from the ecliptic plane, distance in klicks from the waiting ships, all of that stuff, right?”
“Oh! Well, you could have just asked, you know? Instead of asking for my, like, opinion or something. Well, sir,” and she pointed down at her station screen. “We’re right here, okayyy?”
Hadrian rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Excellent. On screen, please.”
The beach sunset pic vanished to be replaced by a sea of stars.
“Okay,” Hadrian mused. “I don’t see anybody.”
“Well, yeahhh, sir,” drawled Sticks. “That’s the rear camera, isn’t it?”
“I see. How about our forward camera, then?”
“Oh, FINE!”
The image shifted to reveal two massive ships against the background of a red dwarf sun and a sprawl of dull planets, moons, planetoids and moonlets and asteroids and gas ejecta from two looming gas giants. Oh, and the looming Conveniently Cloudy Nearby Nebula, its misty particles spinning and swirling with all the ships hiding in it.
“Oh,” muttered Sticks, “as if that’s any better!”
“Outstanding navigation, Lieutenant Sticks! Well done!”
She twisted in her chair and flung back a beaming smile. “Thank you sir!”
Jimmy Eden spoke from comms. “Sir! We’re being hailed. What should I do?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy, what do you think we should do?”
Eden’s eyes bulged, his face flushing and beads of sweat springing up on his brow. He hesitated, and then made a throat-cutting gesture, brows lifting inquisitively.
“Uh, no, Jimmy. We can’t cut transmission until we’ve answered the hail.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, sir. I was just assuming … uh, sir, should I open channels?”
“Good idea, Jimmy.”
“There’s a football game on Channel Eighteen, sir, how about that?”
“No, Jimmy. Wrong channel. How about we stay on Affiliation Fleet Comms frequency, suitably tightbeam and encrypted, and establish a link with the AFS Portentous Smug Pomposity instead.”
“Oh, you mean, answer Admiral Jebediah Prim’s repeating hail attempts?”
“Yes, those. Good idea. Go to it, Jimmy.”
The main screen flickered, briefly showed an Italian striker getting his coif lightly rustled by an opposing player and then falling down and writhing on the grass, and then the image flipped to Admiral Prim in his ship’s stateroom. At Prim’s side was a woman with a politician’s face (supercilious, sanctimonious, vacuous, terrified, smarmy, disingenuous, small-minded, vengeful, coldhearted, opportunistic, petty, deceitful, evidence-ignoring, bullying, arrogant, smug, obnoxious, contemptuous, ignorant, reactionary, condescending, patronizing, blinkered, vacillating, corrupt, morally bankrupt, blackmailing, blackmailable, dodgy, wavering, backstabbing, bought, sold, stinking rich, unqualified, sleazy, teeth-capped, kneecapping, corporate-owned, hate-mongering, fear-mongering, button-pushing, deflecting, evading, brazening, hit-song-stealing, nostalgia-worshipping, distorting, no-tax-returning, tax-evading, offshore-holding, shady-business-partnering, election-stealing, arms-dealing, collateral-damage signing-offing, hypocritically family-value bleating but sexually deviant-ing, honest-forthright-honorable-a paragon-of-integrity [lying], spiteful, unreliable, Teflon-coated, Saran-wrapped, white-breaded, xenophobic, cynical, uncomprehending of irony-ing, witless, thin-skinned, insecure, unfulfilled, blindly ambitious, power-hungry, sadistic, self-righteous, incapable of contemplation-ing, prevaricating, privileged, pampered, Ivy League–educated [in something useless like political science, economics, or law], pompous, ego-centered, narcissistic, shallow, bullshitting, manipulative, backtracking, quote-denying, what-climate-changing?, alternate-truth-ing, prejudice-feeding, hate
-inciting, racketeering, blame-shifting, warmongering, autocratic, megalomaniacal, possibly sociopathic, blathering, self-serving, unreliable, cliquey, cagey, crafty, cunning, daft, dull, ethically destitute, irredeemable, oil-burning, fracking [but NIMBY], self-pay-raising, self-congratulating, self-aggrandizing, but all that was just first impressions so who can say?).
“Captain Hadrian, what the fuck were you doing putting me on hold?”
“Technical glitch, Admiral. But here we are, sir.”
Prim frowned, but then nodded. “Whatever. Let me introduce you to Director Soma DeLuster, the initial point of contact for these accords with the Radulak. Director.”
“Captain Sawback, pleased to meet you. I’m sure there is no real need for me to emphasize once again the delicacy of these negotiations. The Klang Surrender has triggered an economic meltdown of galactic proportions right across the entire Affiliation. Markets have crashed, hyperinflation has crippled our industries, unemployment is sky-high, mortgages are defaulting everywhere, banks are getting bailed out and CEO bonuses reduced by as much as three percent following the slew of erroneous ill-considered fiscal transactions conducted within bubbles no one could have anticipated would ever pop, and under such circumstances, a protracted war with the Radulak could see our nonhuman allies exhibit the typical shortsighted nonhuman response of behaving no better than rats fleeing a sinking ship. No, we must all tighten our belts here and stay the course but as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, keeping our allies with us is like herding diseased vermin-ridden rats but really, what choice do we have if we want to maintain our present position as the virtuous frontrunners of trickle-down universal prosperity? Hmm?”
“No,” said Hadrian, “you don’t need to remind me of all that. Furthermore, I’m pleased to confirm my first impressions of you, Director. Now then, I understand the Radulak will only broker this treaty through me.”
Both Soma and Prim quickly nodded.
Hadrian’s eyes narrowed.
Prim smiled. “And most fortuitous that you happened to be close by.”
The Search for Spark Page 9