“Ah, I, uh—” Glenn swallowed and waded around on the spot, “P-Police?”
“Yes, caller. This is the STPD connecting on your Individimedia channel.”
SCH-PRRAANNGG!
The SUV crashed against a giant tree. A cloud of smoke billowed out from under the battered hood. The left indicator blinked on and off as the cats made their escape.
“Caller?”
Glenn couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He double-took and looked at his forearm, “Uh. You’ll never guess what’s j-just h-happened. A bunch of cats has c-comm—” he spluttered and tried to keep from laughing, “Commandeered a… c-car.”
“Very funny, caller,” the voice sounded extremely put-out, “Please stop wasting our time. Good evening.”
Chapter 4
Pink Symphony
The tree that wasn’t a tree had grown in size since its re-emergence from the ocean. Standing one thousand feet in height, it sprouted a second stump and root and now resembled a nightmarish hell of pure black.
Its two stumps stormed through the water, carrying Space Opera Beta at the end of one of its twelve branches. It twisted the spacecraft upright in its ‘palm’.
Hundreds of thousands of Shanta scurried around the sandy shore hundreds of feet below.
A large number of them crawled over the tree’s bark-like stumps. Most of them tumbled back down to the ground. Despite having twelve limbs themselves, they weren’t able to climb very far up the root.
The tree hulked its way through the water and headed for the dunes. It arched its mid-section and squealed as the blinding light from the converged three suns blossomed in the pink-black sky.
The rumbling from the celestial event taking place thousands of miles above Pink Symphony forced the grains of sand to shimmy around. If something fantastic had already happened then perhaps the crew had been misinformed, or gotten the wrong end of the stick.
The real fantastic event had yet to occur…
The Control Deck
Space Opera Beta - Level One
Tripp led the charge along the revolving walkway. The door to the deck lay on its side in the distance as he, Bonnie, Jaycee, and Tor raced along the wall. The bizarre geography resembled a tumbling carnival ride that threatened to return to normal any moment.
“Guys, make sure you keep your center of gravity,” Tripp hopped over three wall pipes like a racehorse.
“What the hell is happening around here?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully Manuel can give us some answers,” Tripp reached the panel on the wall and slammed his palm onto it.
The door slid across and allowed them inside.
They were used to seeing the communication console on the left-hand wall. Due to the imbalance of gravity it was technically on the ground.
Tripp walked over it, careful not to damage the panel, “Tor, get Manuel online.”
“Yes, okay,” Tor snapped his fingers and tested the environment, “Manuel?”
“Be careful with your weight, Jaycee. Don’t tread on anything important,” Bonnie tiptoed over the screen and ran to the windshield at the far end of the room.
“It’s not easy, you know,” Jaycee clomped his way past Tor and looked up at the flight deck - which was now on the wall, “What in the hell?”
“A-W-A-K-E,” Tor lifted the keyboard and sat next to the panel, “Four, five, seven.”
The console whirred to life and attempted to boot up.
“Success,” Tor clapped his hands and turned to Tripp at the windshield, “We’ve got—”
Tor’s eyes grew with disbelief at the view from outside.
“Jesus Christ.”
“I know. Look,” Tripp pointed at the view of Pink Symphony.
The horizon staggered up, down, left and right, due to the tree’s transportation of the vessel. They could see the edge of the universe due to the height they had.
Pink Symphony wasn’t a globe as previously thought. It was a disc - the quasi-planetary equivalent of a dinner plate. Where the horizon would naturally curve, instead, it simply ended.
Thousands of tiny white dots scrambled hundreds of feet below them. The Shanta.
The enlarged sun provided a brilliant light source for the view. Worse, it seemed to be growing by the second.
“Is this heaven?” Jaycee attempted to take in the spectacular view, “How are we moving?”
CREEAAAKK-WOOOOSH
The ‘floor’ tilted up and around, forcing the communication console to climb up the wall to its regular position.
Tripp, Bonnie, Tor, and Jaycee barrel-rolled down from the wall and hit the ground. They were finally upright once again.
“I think that black tree is carrying us,” Tripp turned to Tor for an answer, “Where’s Manuel?”
“Waiting for him to boot up,” Tor tried to ignore an unusual shifting noise coming from the ceiling, “What do you mean carrying us?”
Tripp pointed at the edge of the universe through the windshield, “Look out there, we’ve—”
CREAK-THWUCK!
A giant Shanta carcass slammed to the ground. Its pink, gloopy remains splattered in all directions.
“Gaahhh,” Tripp kicked himself back, scared it would attack him.
“No, no. Wait,” Tripp held the others back and approached the gory miasma of flesh and limbs with trepidation, “It’s dead.”
Everyone turned to face the flight deck. A cylindrical metal disc rolled from under the desk and fell onto its side.
“The Decapidisc?” Tor said in fright, “It’s been used.”
Jaycee thumped his fists together, “Yeah, I think that one was for your friend.”
Tripp looked around for something, “Speaking of Baldron, where is he?”
THWUMP!
Baldron’s decapitated android corpse crashed against the ground behind the crew.
Everyone jumped back in fright.
“Damn,” Jaycee stepped back onto Baldron’s severed head, “That’s one dead Russkie.”
His boot accidentally kicked the severed head toward Tor. The jumbled fusion of synthetic skin and protruding neck wires sparked and fizzed as the football of a head rolled toward Tor’s knees.
Tripp stomped his feet to the floor, “Okay, everyone. Just keep calm. They’re dead. We know about them. We know what happened.”
The console produced a succession of beeps.
Manuel’s holograph appeared in the middle of the room, swinging his pages around like a flailing Octopus.
“Duh-duh-duh… ¿Dónde estoy?”
“Huh?” Tor pressed the return key on the keyboard, “Say that again?”
“Estoy confundido. ¿Qué me pasó?”
“Eh?” Bonnie asked, “Is that Spanish?”
“He must have taken a serious knock, or something,” Tor punched in a command on the keyboard, “Wait. Let me try something.”
Manuel flapped his pages like an angry pigeon, “¿Compréndeme? ¿Holaaa?”
“Nah, this is no use,” Tor hit a button the keyboard, “Let me try something else.”
“¡Oh, por Dios! Es ridículo…”
As Manuel spoke, his sentence shifted from Spanish to English.
“… You changed my language, you morons,” Manuel slowed his speech down and realized the crew understood the latter half of his complaint perfectly well, “Umm, did you hear that last part?”
Everyone nodded, taking great exception to what he’d said.
“Yeah,” Tripp said. “We did.”
“I apologize.”
“You can make amends by telling us what’s going out there.”
Manuel’s shivering covers caused some consternation in the crew, “My scan suggests we are still on Pink Symphony.”
Jaycee grabbed Baldron’s ankles and dragged him over to the door, “Yeah. We figured that out on our own. What’s going on out there?”
Manuel shook himself and floated over to the windshield. He took in t
he impressive view of the edge of the universe.
“Oh my. Would you look at that?”
“What?” Bonnie rocked up behind him and watched the sun with him, “What’s wrong?”
“The entity that’s carrying us. It’s moving us for a reason.”
“It’s pulled us away from the Shanta creatures. Where is it taking us?”
Manuel bent his spine and ducked, “Its off the charts. That ball of fire in the sky is going to destroy everything. It’s headed straight for us.”
“So we’re all dead, then?” Tripp asked without a trace of emotion.
“Oh n-no,” Manuel freaked out and whizzed over to the comms panel, “Everyone grab hold of something. Now!”
BZZZOOOOWWW!
The power in the control deck snapped off.
“Guuuuh,” Manuel vanished into thin air.
“You heard him,” Tripp clutched the solid surface of the flight deck, “Grab hold of something and get ready.”
Tor dropped the keyboard and grabbed hold of the door, “Ughhh, I don’t wanna die.”
“Shut up,” Bonnie and Jaycee blurted at the man in unison.
The interior of the ship rumbled up a storm. Jaycee and Bonnie held onto each other and hit the deck.
“Gahhhh!”
Baldron’s body and the dead Shanta slid across the floor and slammed against the wall.
The ground lifted into the air and pushed the crew towards the ceiling.
Tripp closed his eyes and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Hold on, everyone!”
SCHWAAMM!
The rumbling noise grew louder and louder. Anything that wasn’t bolted to the floor sprang from the floor and crashed against the ceiling.
Everyone’s legs lifted away from the floor.
The windshield staggered around and threatened to break free from its housing.
Pink Symphony’s horizon sparked and elongated, appearing to zoom closer and closer against the roaring ball of white sun against the stars…
***
“What was that noise?” Wool lifted her thumb away from the wall. A thin blue line recorded Jelly’s height; three feet and three inches.
Jelly stepped away from the wall and looked at the window, “It’s coming,” she whined and flicked her ears with concern.
“I can see that,” Wool slid her detached nail onto the end of her thumb and joined her, “Stay there, honey. By your bed.”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
Wool saw the edge of Pink Symphony rock up and down through Medix’s window, “I know. We’re all scared,”
SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP…
The ground thundered beneath Wool’s feet. She spun around and shouted at Jelly, “Honey, grab hold of the bed.”
“Miew,” Jelly did as instructed and coiled her tail around the metal head rest, “Mommy, I d-don’t want to die.”
Wool moved to the door and rolled her left sleeve up fer forearm. She ran her thumb along her Individimedia ink and roared into her wrist, “Tripp? Anyone? Does anybody read me—”
KER-WUMP!
Another blast across the ground sent Wool to her knees. She rolled across the floor and grabbed Jelly’s bed with her right hand, keeping her left forearm against her face.
“I don’t know where you are, but we could use some help up here.”
The lack of response caused Wool and Jelly to tremble with fear as they clutched onto the bed for dear life.
Wool’s legs launched into the air as the ground thumped harder and harder.
Just then, a blast of pure white light flooded the entirety of the room.
“My G-God…” Wool’s pupils dilated as she witnessed the horizon blast towards the window, “We’re g-going to…”
Jelly took a final look at the picture of Jamie on the wall. She gripped the side of her bed to prevent herself from flying off, “I want to go home.”
She buried her head in her pillow and squealed. The ferocious shaking became unmanageable. The bed’s casters rocked from side to side.
“If anyone can hear me, we’re trapped inside Medix,” Wool yelled into her wrist as her feet darted to the ceiling. Her entire body fell upwards, pulling her right hand away from the bed frame.
A low-pitched hum shot around the room. Angelic in nature, and with an underlying sense of anger.
“Honey. Hold tight—”
Jelly threw her arm under the bedside rail and squeezed her eyes shut.
Wool’s voice slowed to a crashing halt, “Don’t… let… go…”
Her last utterance echoed around the room.
The white light bleached through the window and turned the room into a miasma of heavenly wonder.
Chapter 5
Forty-Five Minutes Later…
Jelly felt her nose twitch but couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were shut.
The eerie silence didn’t help matters.
A horizontal sliver of light crept against her eyeballs as she came to. The Medix interior appeared on its side with the beds stuck to the wall.
A blurred vision of a woman peered into the horizontal line with her hands outstretched. Her voice was muffled, “Are you okay, honey?”
Her thumbs pressed Jelly’s ears back, enabling a clarity in her voice, “You look like you’ve hurt yourself, honey.”
Jelly shook her head and tried to throw away the disorientation.
It took a few tries.
The beds on the wall crept back to the ground. Such was Jelly’s discombobulation; she’d been lying sideways. The confusion slowly melted away and gave rise to the fact that she’d been knocked unconscious.
“Where am I?” Jelly muttered.
FLUMP.
Jaycee dropped Baldron’s carcass onto a bed behind Jelly. The noise made her jump to her feet in fright.
“Right, let’s see if we can’t make some use of this ex-talking junkyard,” Jaycee twisted Baldron’s left hand away from his wrist. It screwed around and came free.
Jelly hopped onto her bed and licked her lips, “What’s he doing?”
Jaycee looked up and brushed away the protruding wires from his own forearm.
“Spare parts, pet.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Anybody need any?” Jaycee placed the removed hand’s wrist at the large screw joint at the end of his forearm. It spun around and locked into place, “Bingo.”
He admired his new appendage and squeezed the mechanical fingers in and out.
Wool looked away in disgust, “No, thank you. That wouldn’t be any use to me.”
“Are you sure, Wool?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He lifted Baldron’s severed head away from the neck and pointed at the cheek-bone, “I can fillet some skin to cover your scratch if you like?”
“I said no,” Wool strained her vocal chords in protest, “Now, just drop it.”
“What’s all this shouting?” Manuel fluttered into the room, followed by Tripp, “Is there something seriously amiss?”
Jaycee waved at Tripp with his new hand, “Hey, Healy.”
“Hey.”
“Like my new toy?”
Tripp approached the bed and analyzed the new hand. It seemed slightly smaller than normal, “Ha. Is that Baldron’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Bit small, isn’t it?”
“Pfft, better than no hand at all,” Jaycee pointed at Baldron’s face, “We can fix you up with a new cheekbone. Won’t take me a few minutes to solder it on?”
Tripp felt his facial cavity and closed his eyes. Since waking up from the event, he’d forgotten - much like Jaycee, and the others - that he wasn’t human.
“It never gets easier.”
Tripp ran his fingertips through the hole at the side of his face. The tops of the bottom row of his teeth pressed into the fleshy part of his fingers, “But I might take you up on the offer.”
“Just let me know when.”
Bonnie and Tor walked in and spotted Jelly and Wool by th
e first bed.
“Thank God, you’re okay,” Bonnie looked from Jelly to Jaycee and clocked Baldron’s corpse on the bed, “Spare parts? A regular junkyard sale, isn’t it?”
“You know it,” Jaycee smirked and pushed the body onto its side by the shoulder, “We can get you that new battery you need.”
“Ugh. Maybe, maybe not,” Bonnie stroked Jelly’s hair and sniggered at Baldron’s frozen face of fear, “Thank God I don’t need a new brain.”
Everyone sniggered to themselves.
“What?” Bonnie protested.
“Nothing,” Tripp snapped his fingers and waved Manuel over, “Okay, listen up. Manuel has some information on what’s just happened.”
The holographic book opened up and landed three-quarters of the way through its tome, “The giant tree thing that we thought was going to kill us turned out to have bought us some time. It was trying to save us, by all accounts.”
“Save us?” Jaycee snorted, “From what? A tumble-drier death?”
“It threw us to the other side of Pink Symphony. Away from the Shanta. Bought us some time.”
“We could have been killed, Crash landing like that.”
“Well, it was either that or be outnumbered,” Manuel said. He projected an image of three suns floating together, “Pink Symphony has a heavenly body headed toward it. As you can see here, the three suns converged. It’s going to wipe everything out in an instant.”
The three suns melded together to form a solitary ball of white light.
“By my calculations, I figure we have around twelve Earth hours until it strikes.”
Jelly hopped off the bed and made for the hologram, “I want it.”
“No, Jelly,” Manuel swung his pages around and whipped the projection up against the ceiling, “It’s not a toy.”
“Miew,” she whined, knowing it was too far away to catch.
Tripp turned to Manuel, “You said something a while ago about one month here equals a period of time back on Earth?”
“That’s correct. One hour here equals one month on Earth.”
“How long have we been here?”
“A little over twenty hours.”
Bonnie ducked her head, “Ugh. Two years?”
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