And there was Happy, forcing a hideous smile and saying that the former news conference was held in error and that nothing at all was wrong with Vega and that the rest of the galaxy should just carry on as if nothing happened. Because it didn't. There was another obvious edit, and the loop restarted with the courthouse steps.
"Huh," Drexyl said. "You're right, that is odd even by Vega standards. What do you think it means?"
"Maybe Ari knows," Soda said. "I'll call her back and see." She dialed, and it rang. Then it rang some more and went to voicemail. "Oh well, voicemail. See? She's probably fine. We have enough going on here in Arcturis, we shouldn't have to worry about the weirdos in Vega too."
"Maybe I should go back and check on her," Drexyl volunteered.
"I don't think there's an emergency going on so drastic that all casino security dropped dead, Drexyl. Besides, I need you for the next couple of days. Then I'll set you up with that cushy job. After that maybe we can talk Ari into helping us clear some of your current casino crimes. How does that sound?"
"That'll work," Drexyl answered.
Soda's phone buzzed. She waited to see if it was going to be Ari calling her back, but it wasn't. It was Kirian. "Oh," Soda said. "It's Kirian. I wonder if she had any success killing Floyd." She answered it.
"Kirian? How'd it go? Un-huh. Okay. Are you sure? Well, okay, bye."
"What did she say?" Drexyl asked.
"Floyd survived. And she said she's out."
"Out of what?" Drexyl asked.
"Out of killing him for me, I guess," Soda responded.
Drexyl's phone rang. He glanced down at it. "I gotta take this outside, okay?" The door made the familiar chime as he left.
Soda's phone buzzed in a text message. "What now?" She wasn't sure if she was more worried that it was from Ari, since she didn't care about what was going on in Vega anymore, or Kirian who she was now irritated with.
As it turned out, the message was from Floyd: You coward, sissy cephalopod. Sending a lackey who doesn't even technically work for you anymore to my place of business? Rude. That does it. Sunrise tomorrow. Arcturis Square. Winner take all.
Soda read the text out loud to the room and they all had a good laugh. Soda laughed so hard she had to use her tentacles to wipe stray laughter tears away. Then she took a deep breath and responded. Floyd? Is that you? Did you get Arcturis confused with the wild west? Meet me at sundown? I'll kill you alright. But on my terms and on my timetable.
She got another text. Oh no, you'll be there at dawn. Wild west or not.
Soda frowned. She was sure that her first response would have an impact. What did he possibly have to gain by digging in his heels, or whatever passed for heels on a Preying Mantis. She texted back: The answer, again, is no. But just for the sake of asking, why would I bother meeting you?
The next text came lightning fast, so fast that Soda wondered if he had even bothered to read her message before responding. That concern was addressed when the message answered her question in a nutshell: Because I have your boy toy. You'll show up if you want him back alive.
Soda snarled. "No!"
"What is it? What did the message say?" Callie asked.
Soda didn't answer, she threw herself out the door and into the street. Callie followed.
Soda yelled into the night. "Drexyl! Drexyl, where are you?" She felt silly, like she was probably overreacting despite the text message, but each passing second confirmed her worst fears. The night was quiet and there was no sign of Drexyl.
"Call him," Callie said. "You have his number, right?"
"Good idea." Soda dialed his number and waited. It rang. That was a good sign, right? It had to be better than going to voicemail. And then she heard it. His ringtone. She followed the sound to a cement table outside a nearby restaurant.
Drexyl's phone, with Drexyl nowhere in sight, continued to ring. There was no way around it now, he was gone. She hung up and stood there for a moment, thinking. Drexyl's phone stopped ringing. Then it rang again. Floyd, she thought. She picked up the phone. "Look here, you bloviated, giant insect-looking-"
"Soda? I was calling Drexyl. Why are you answering his phone?"
"Ray?" Soda asked. "Why are you calling Drexyl?"
"I wanted to place a bet on tomorrow's football game. Is he around? I got a tip. I'm feeling lucky."
"No, he's not around. Leave a message, he'll call you back." Soda hung up. Then she picked up Drexyl's cell phone and took it with her.
"Why'd you take his phone?" Callie asked.
"So that I can give it back to him tomorrow after I kill Floyd. I'll be here at dawn. It's time to finish this."
37
Froggy and his people rendezvoused back at his lair. He threw the door open and screamed at the ceiling. Underlings scurried ahead of him as he made his way to his chair and slumped into it.
Celia approached and put a hand on his shoulder. "That was a very good start," she said. "You nearly had her."
"I didn't want to nearly have her. I wanted her out of the way."
"I know," she said, "so that you can go after Ray and Floyd, the low hanging fruit. Well, you'd better have a good plan moving forward, because I don't think she's going to underestimate you again."
He wiped his face with his hand. "Did you know?" he asked.
She scrunched up her face in confusion. "Did I know what?"
"Did you know that she could teleport?" he screamed loud enough to make her take a couple of steps backward.
"I didn't," she replied, "but that's because I oversaw the robot and logistics, not research. Lenny was in charge of research."
"Okay," he said. His voice was softer now. "Please bring Lenny in here."
Froggy sat in his comfy chair for a few minutes and waited, reviewing the whole thing in his head. Celia was right. He was going to have to up his game to keep pace with Soda. She was just too powerful, and now he had lost his biggest asset, the element of surprise. Lenny came in and that broke him out of his inner monologue. He fixed Lenny with a stare and then wearily pulled his laser pistol out and pointed it at him.
Lenny stopped in his tracks and raised his hands. "Whoa, man. I guess you didn't win. But you're here, so you didn't lose either."
"There was an intelligence issue," Froggy said. "It could have gotten me killed and I'm a little upset." He pushed the button to energize the laser and then repointed it at Lenny. "Help me calm down by explaining to me how I went to war with the ex-Neon Octopus Overlord without knowing that she could teleport."
"She can teleport?" Lenny asked.
"Wrong answer," said Froggy.
"Wait!" Lenny yelled, closing his eyes. "I can fix this, I just found something awesome."
"Awesome enough to make up for tonight?" Froggy asked.
"Yes. I think so. I know where she's going to be. I caught her on surveillance. I've been surveilling her since she entered the city, and since she's been here she hasn't teleported at all."
"Of course she hasn't since she's been here, she hasn't needed to. Research means going back to a point before today in order to be prepared. I mean, I really want to shoot you right now, but for the sake of being thorough, what do you have for me?"
"The octopus," he said. "I have her on surveillance video outside a coffee shop saying that she's going to battle Floyd at dawn in Arcturis Square. She's really mad and really distracted. She's not even thinking about you. It's the perfect opportunity. And besides, I wasn't in charge of research, research, I was in charge of surveillance. Why would I look up Soda's life history? Nobody told me to do that."
Froggy was dubious. "Why would she be mad and distracted at somebody else when we just had a giant battle a few hours ago?"
"Floyd took her boyfriend or something. It was brutal. Wanna see it?"
Froggy and Lenny watched the scene play out on the screen. Froggy sat there and steepled his fingers and rewound the end part with Soda half a dozen times. Lenny was right, it all looked authentic. Maybe this
really was an opportunity. Perhaps this boyfriend was the secret to keeping Soda out of the way. And if Floyd got killed in the process, all the better. "Okay, Lenny. You're right, this does look like an opportunity. Keep up the surveillance and let me know if anything changes."
38
Floyd fumed as he arrived back at his apartment. It wasn't because he was wounded. He glanced down at his leg which was barely even bleeding anymore. He was a fast healer. And it wasn't necessarily that he was ambushed, he had been expecting that ever since the Anti-Parliamentary rules had gone into effect. No, what had irritated him the most was that Kirian had outed him in front of the All My Wormholes cast and crew.
He threw himself onto his comfiest couch and looked out over the city while he thought. Was it really a bad thing? They'd probably never argue with him again if they knew his true form. Or maybe he could pass it off as another mass hallucination. Was it too soon for that? They were all on substances anyway, but the same hallucination at the same time? Probably not. Especially since he was going to be Overlord. They'd continue to do whatever he wanted, only due to fear and intimidation instead of brainwashing and manipulation. In the end it didn't really matter.
He sighed. That was a load off his mind. The only problem was that his secret was going to get out now. Weak human Floyd, the last place candidate in the Overlord Candidate Power Index was really Mantix? They would ask. His numbers would go up, for sure, and people would start to take him seriously. But now, time was not on his side.
Floyd's phone chimed. It was a video message. From an unknown number. He stared at it, unsure of what to do. This was, after all, the textbook definition of how you get a terrible phone virus.
A text message also came in. It was from the same unknown number. He read it. It said that the message was safe to read and was related to the Overlord Candidate Battle. Floyd considered this. How detailed was the personal information available to these scammers, anyway? He had never once been stupid enough to open an iffy attachment on his phone and he wasn't about to start now.
Oh, for stars sake, a third message said, I'm an unlikely ally in the Overlord Candidate race and I have information about Soda that you are probably very interested in right now.
Floyd continued to stare at his phone as if it had betrayed him.
Fine, another message chimed, turn on your television.
That, Floyd was willing to do. He turned on his television, happy that he didn’t have to compromise his phone. No harm could come from turning on the television. That is, unless he were one of the weak-willed people living in this galaxy who watched All My Wormholes, because he was secretly using the dialogue in the show to brainwash people and use them as unwitting minions.
The television sprang to life and there was Soda, outside of a sketchy looking coffee shop with a weirdo. She looked angry. Floyd knew that look well, it was the look that she always gave him any time she saw him, talked to him, or interacted with him in any way.
"I'll be there at dawn tomorrow," angry Soda said, "right here in Arcturis Square." Huh, thought Floyd out loud. "How do I know that this video wasn't recorded years ago?" He was, after all, in the television industry and he knew too well how easy it was to manipulate people.
Look at the time stamp, a new message chimed onto his phone.
"Oh," he said, and got up to move closer to the screen. "There it is. That video does appear to take place tonight." He glanced at his watch. "Just about an hour ago, in fact. Okay, I'll bite. Tomorrow at dawn, I finally get to take on that pompous, insufferable cephalopod." He raised a fist. Then he looked around suspiciously. "Hey, who are you and how do you know all of this anyway?"
The television turned itself off.
39
Ray returned from Floyd's apartment, crossed the breadth of his new lair, and sat down on his throne. "Can I get a drink please? Make it a double." A servant's echoing footfalls sounded heading off in the direction of the kitchen as he contemplated everything he had done in the last couple of hours.
He screamed in frustration. "Are you happy, magic dice? They are all going to be right there attempting to kill each other in Arcturis Square at dawn tomorrow. Yippee." He went to tap his fingers on the arm of his throne and that's when he remembered that he still had Floyd's television remote. He threw it. It went clattering across the room, also echoing. His new lair was a big place. It had to be, because of his troll, Chipmunk.
Returning footfalls announced the return of the minion with his drink. He took a sip, then he downed the whole thing. "Another."
These dice, the very magic dice that had made him a legend across galaxies- not this one of course, this one had been nothing but trouble- were now causing him to do cheap parlor tricks. All because of a stupid, unknown threat that they failed to disclose to him. Why couldn't he see what was coming? And why did he have to jump through all these hoops. Couldn't the dice find somebody else who could help?
And just like that, the dice called again. Screeching and mewling in a sound only he could hear, like caged wild animals that wanted to roar. And he had to answer. He had no choice in the matter. It was a double-edged sword. If he answered the dice, then he knew what was coming, and he was always right. If he didn't answer the dice, he would eventually go mad. The sound was more than he could take, it was more than anybody could take.
So once more, the dice called to him. He took a deep breath and thought about it. He didn't know what the dice could want now. All the main players in the Overlord competition would be there at dawn, he had seen to that. He only needed to take a single step toward the dice and he knew what it was about. Fleek. Fleek? What in stars name could he possibly have to do with any of this?
He crossed to the howling dice, picked them up, and threw them into the machine. The mewling stopped, and they sprang into action, taking on an energy unlike any other in the universe. The mythology said that the dice were the last breath of energy of a dying star just before it was sucked into a black hole. Nonsense, he thought, how could somebody even think about taking something so sacred and mysterious and throwing it into casino dice?
His train of thought was thrown off course when the dice came to a stop. Ray took a step back, staggered by the revelation of the dice. "Fleek's in prison? Framed for being Fractal? But he is Fractal. Who frames somebody for something that they actually did?"
Yes, Ray was in a habit of talking to the dice about the revelations that they gave him. Even after the dice were thrown, they continued to give off reverberations of information. It was a process developed over years as the dice imprinted to him. That didn't mean that the process wasn't frustrating.
"What do you mean he must be freed? What am I supposed to do about it?" he asked.
The dices' answer surprised him. He crossed back to his throne and sat down. What they were asking him to do this time was more than just a cheap parlor trick. It was something not done in this galaxy for a very long time. Something only he could pull off. And it was much better than just sneaking around turning on televisions and tricking people into meeting and trying to kill each other. Besides, with his current position as Overlord participant, nothing he did could be considered illegal. Which was good, because what he was about to do was very, very, very, illegal.
"Chipmunk! I'll be back in a little while, okay?"
40
For Ray, popping into the prison on Arcturis where Fleek was currently incarcerated would be child's play. In addition to all the Oracle stuff, he was also a certified magician, which was cooler than people made it out to be. And he couldn't be held responsible legally, which was a big plus.
The teleporting thing was new to Ray. He had to go through all the stupid packed boxes from his old place to find the imported spatial relocation orbs he had saved for a rainy day. There were only three of them, and they had cost him an exorbitant amount of money. He had used two and now he stared at the last one in his hand. It shimmered a crystal blue. It would get him to a single location and back. And th
en he'd be out of them.
The other issue was a little bit trickier. It never made sense to Ray why Fractals themselves had been banned from this galaxy. Sure they were considered a fun, mind-altering drug, but since when had that stopped anybody? The rumor had been that it was Soda who had them banned, but he had asked her about it once and she said that she didn't have any idea what he was talking about. She had made a halfhearted attempt once to undo the ban, but in her words: "for some reason, it just didn't take, and I'm busy, leave me alone."
Despite the fact that it's unusual around the universe for there to be a ban in the first place, and nobody seemed to know why it was illegal in the second, the enforcement was maniacal and top notch. It was a fact that always left him shaking his head. And although he wasn't particularly frightened of this galaxy's provincial law enforcement methods or tactics, he didn't need a giant pain in the ass legal matter hanging over him either. And being an Overlord candidate ironically now allowed him to do the very fun and spectacularly illegal thing that the dice had suggested.
He was excited. It had been a long time since he had had any experience with Fractals, but he knew exactly where to find them. He went to his computer, tapped in some commands, and entered the dark web. There was a nagging question in the back of his mind regarding the practical matter of presenting the Fractal to Fleek inside the prison. The Fractals were digitally based and laced with holistic color patterns. They required a computer or some type of electric device to decode them. Did Fleek have access to a computer in prison? Would Ray have to bring his laptop?
It didn't take long once he got into the dark web to find what he was looking for, and once that happened, all his questions were answered. Well, not immediately, but with a little bit of playing around. This newest Fractal was freaky. It seemed to be organically coded into the software. In layman's terms that meant that it was ready to explode into reality. What he was looking at now was the newest Fractal in the library- he checked his watch. The Fractal was only twelve minutes old, having originated just before the dice told him to use it. The wonder of it all was that the Fractal was, in fact, a magic spell.
Overlord Brawl: Book 1 of the Neon Octopus Ally Series Page 15