Heckubus eyed Jack suspiciously for a few moments before straightening his posture so that he looked rather proud of himself. “As you may have noticed, robotic assistants are quite commonplace here in the capitol.”
“Yeah, it seems like everyone has an android of some type,” said Jack.
“True,” replied Heckubus. “Intergalactic law and diplomacy is so complicated that every government official needs a robotic compucrat to keep track of everything. But it goes far beyond that. Maintenance-bots, repair-bots, and even security-bots used by the local Peacekeeper force number in the hundreds of thousands here in the city. Its inhabitants overlook these robots, seeing them as nothing more than mindless slaves to their whims. No one pays attention to them, let alone sees them as threats… at least, not until it is too late.”
Heckubus cackled. Jack looked at the robot curiously as he tried to understand what Heckubus was telling him.
“You mean to tell me you plan to hijack every robot in the city and turn them into your own personal army?” Jack asked.
“Exactly!” replied Heckubus.
“Wow, that’s… that’s actually a really great idea,” muttered Jack.
Heckubus blinked at Jack. “You… you really think so?”
“Yeah, I mean… if you wanted to take over a planet and rule it with an iron fist, that seems like a pretty solid way to go.”
“Precisely what I thought!” replied the robot.
“How would you do it? Take control over the robots?” asked Jack.
“With this!” said Heckubus, gesturing to the strange machine he’d been working on. “It is a device which will upload a virus to every robot within range, reprogramming each to obey my every command! Once completed, I will have a wireless uplink with it, and will be able to relay my orders through this device, which will be powerful enough to control over a hundred thousand robots enslaved to my every malicious whim! I call it…” Heckubus paused for dramatic effect. “…the Relayer! Mwuahahahahaha!”
“Meh,” said Jack. “That’s the best name you could come up with?”
“Why?” snapped Heckubus defensively. “What’s wrong with that name?”
“I dunno, it just doesn’t sound very menacing,” said Jack. “You could call it the ‘Controller.’ That’s pretty cool. Ooooh! It spreads a virus, right? Why not call it the ‘Viral Device’? That sounds all kinds of icky.”
“No! Those names are dumb!” replied Heckubus. “The Relayer is plenty menacing!”
“Why not split the difference and call it ‘the Reviroller’?” asked Jack. “It’s the best of all three worlds!”
“Blast it, Earthman! Has it not been made clear to you by now how bad you are at naming things?”
Jack shrugged. “Whatever, dude,” he replied. “So how does the Reviroller upload the virus to the robots?”
Heckubus looked as though he might protest the name once more, but instead he simply shook his head and turned back to the machine. “We are currently in the sub-levels of supertower 7,” Heckubus explained. “It is one of the oldest surviving supertowers in the city, dating back to the rule of Edvard the Undying. While the newer towers use a poly-meshed ultanium alloy for their support structures, these older towers were constructed from the heavier vibranium metal. I don’t suppose you know anything about Edvard and his Twilight Empire, do you?”
“Nope,” replied Jack.
“Edvard conquered planets using Automotons,” Heckubus said. “Sentient robots which he commanded. Edvard would always construct buildings in the populated regions of his planets with vibranium because he could use the structures to relay signals to the Automotons, which helped him command vast armies of the robots. It was one of the secrets to his success at suppressing resistance on the planets he controlled. Vibranium is able to naturally vibrate without causing too much motion. This property makes it very flexible for building, yet still excellent for broadcasting signals. This supertower still uses the original vibranium in its structure, making it a natural transmission antenna. Once I hook the Relayer up to it, it shall broadcast my virus out to all robots in its range, giving me complete and utter control of them – just like Edvard did long ago!”
Jack nodded, impressed. “Wow. That’s a really great plan, Heckubus.”
“It is? I mean - of course it is!” said Heckubus. “I am, after all, a genius!”
“Yeah, I think you’ve proven that by now,” said Jack. “But I gotta ask… why do you need to be so evil?”
Heckubus blinked at Jack. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re really freakin’ smart!” said Jack. “You could use your intelligence to do such amazing things. You could help people with your plans instead of trying to destroy them or control them or whatever. So why don’t you?”
“Why be good, when there are so many better options available?” replied Heckubus.
Jack shrugged. “Because… you’re a hero, buddy,” he said. “We’d have never been able to do what we did with the Deathlords without you. You helped save the universe!”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” the robot muttered. “Not exactly the reputation an evil genius such as myself wishes to cultivate.”
“Well, you did get to blow up an entire system of space out of the deal,” offered Jack.
“Yes,” said Heckubus wistfully. “That did somewhat justify the benefit to society, I suppose.”
“How would you like to do more of that?”
“Blow up more systems of space?” asked Heckubus hopefully.
“Well, maybe,” said Jack. “I’m talking about going on more adventures with me.”
“Pass,” the robot muttered, turning back to his machine.
“Oh, c’mon,” pleaded Jack. “You could use that huge brain of yours to do some amazing things!”
“I’m already doing amazing things.”
“Yeah, but these things will make you famous!” said Jack. “I didn’t tell you about this before, but I have a quest—”
“Yes, yes, Khoruhar. I know all about it.”
Jack blinked at him. “You do?”
“But of course I do!” Heckubus said, insulted. “I listened in on every conversation you had with the Princess.”
“You were spying on us?” asked Jack, shocked.
“I was trapped with you insufferable jackanapes for a month,” replied Heckubus. “What was I going to do? Not spy?”
“Well, then… you know that it’s possible to save all the planets the Deathlords destroyed!”
“I know you seem to think that,” Heckubus muttered. “Even if it were possible – which it is not – I have no interest in saving anything.”
“How can you say that?”
Heckubus sighed. “What part of ‘evil’ do you not comprehend, Earthman? Allow me to define it for you – it means profoundly immoral and malevolent. Ergo, I do not give two twiddles about anything that could actually help others.”
“I don’t believe that,” replied Jack. “If you really didn’t care, you’d have never helped us with the Deathlords.”
“I only helped you because it was in my best interest to do so.”
“Really?” asked Jack. “Or did you do it because somewhere, deep down, you know you’re actually a good person?”
Heckubus laughed. “My, my, you certainly are a twit, do you know that?” the robot said. “I am not a person. I do not have depth. And I’m certainly not good. The very fact that you’d think such a thing simply proves how foolish and naïve you truly are.”
Heckubus’s words upset Jack for some reason. “You know, I may not be as smart as you,” he finally replied. “But I can see you’re not just some malfunctioning robot. You’re alive, Heckubus. You think for yourself and not just based off your programming, or whatever. I’ve seen what other robots are like, and you’re nothing like them. You have good in you, I know you do, because everything that is alive has the potential for goodness in it. I truly believe that. But I also believe in you. Join me.
Help me! Together, we could save the universe!”
“Pah,” said Heckubus quietly as he tinkered with his machine. “As much as I appreciate your rather thinly veiled attempts to appeal to my non-existent good side, I am afraid I am far too busy plotting to conquer the universe to be bothered with saving it. Come find me after I’ve subjugated all of Omnicron to my villainous rule. Perhaps then I will be in a better mood to receive your humorous attempts to find the ‘good’ in me.”
Jack sighed and looked at the robot sadly. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised at Heckubus’s rejection, but just like he’d been with Scallywag, he was disappointed nonetheless. There being nothing more to say, Jack turned and began to make his way out of the generator level. But before he got far, Heckubus called to him. “Oh, and Earthman…” the robot said. Jack stopped and turned toward him. “Be on the lookout for the motion-activated flamethrowers I attached to some of the generators as you leave,” he said. “They tend to melt flesh.”
Jack smiled. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Whatever,” the robot muttered. “This doesn’t mean I care about your safety.”
“Noted,” said Jack. “Good luck on your evil scheme.”
“Pah! One does not need luck when one is as brilliant as I.”
“No, but I’m sure it helps,” Jack said before taking his leave.
Heckubus glanced behind him after Jack had left to ensure the Earthman had gone. The robot shook his head and went back to building his nefarious invention. “Good? In me?” scoffed Heckubus to himself. “As if that could ever happen.”
Chapter 17
Scallywag’s eyes fluttered open. His head ached in only the way a bender of Gorthan tequila could cause, his mouth tasted like something had died in it, and he had the sneaking suspicion his cheek was stuck to the floor.
Scallywag gingerly peeled his face off the ground and pushed himself up to a sitting position, looking around. He was in a bathroom with an overflowing bathtub. He was nestled against the toilet, which he guessed he’d stumbled to in order to be sick, based on the mess that was around it from his missing his target. He chuckled and took a deep breath. He might have felt bad, but it made him feel alive!
“Oy! Female!” he yelled, to no response. He pulled himself to his feet and shuffled into the master bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it had been trashed from his revelry. He looked around, scratching himself and noticed a note on his pillow with a lipstick mark on it. He picked up the note and gave it a quick read.
Had a blast! It’s been real. Take care.
Scallywag smiled and crumpled up the note. “Well, that was fun while it lasted,” he muttered to himself. Scallywag sighed. He had lost all sense of time since he’d started his celebration. How long had he been going at it? Days? Weeks? A month? He couldn’t tell. But he did know one thing…
It was high time he got his ship back.
The first thing Scallywag did was get on the vidphone and call in the Royal Tower’s maid service. The robo-servants and maintenance-bots arrived and immediately began cleaning up everything he’d so fervently sullied. Then, he started calling his dead drops.
Living life as an outlaw wasn’t the easiest way to spend one’s time. If it weren’t the authorities that were after him, it was bounty hunters, or even other outlaws (depending on whomever he’d managed to upset the most). He’d set up a system that he and his crew could use to contact each other should the need ever arise. Scallywag called these “dead drops,” because one could drop a line to someplace nobody would think to be looking.
Most of the dead drops he’d established were in remote places. Pirate bases, outposts, space stations, and some uninhabited moons. He’d told his crew that if anything should go wrong in his attempt to rescue Faruuz, they should continue to monitor the dead drops. Well, sure enough, something had gone wrong.
After cleaning himself up so he didn’t look like a complete heathen, Scallywag went to work contacting the dead drops one by one. After contacting them all, it was just a matter of waiting for his crew to reply.
But a reply never came.
Scallywag tried contacting the dead drops again, and again there was no reply. It had been days since he’d sent out his first round of messages. He should have heard something by this point. The longer he waited, the more concerned he became.
Maybe I shoulda spent more time tryin’ ta track down me crew than partyin’ so much, he thought as he nursed a bottle of Claxagaar rum while he tried his dead drops for a third time. Scallywag sat in front of the apartment’s vidphone, his frustration growing by the hour as he kept making calls. Finally, someone answered. Scallywag sat up, excited, until the sight of the ugliest Harvshodd female he’d ever seen caused him to recoil slightly. “Whaddaya want?” the troll-like Harvshodd growled.
“Oy, is Two Nose there?” asked Scallywag.
“Who?”
“What about Kapplan?”
“Who?”
“Reemar? Yayo? Wessel? Anyone who might resemble a pirate o’ some sort?”
The Harvshodd scratched her hairy chin. “We got us a bloke named Tarkrane passed out in the corner. He looks a might bit piratey.”
“Yes!” said Scallywag. “Tell Tark Scallywag wants ta speak wit’ him.”
“Hold on…” the Harvshodd said as she waddled off-screen. Scallywag could hear her yell at Tarkrane and give him a swift kick, before the alien stumbled over to the receiver. His brown skin was even more cracked and dry than usual, and he was wearing an eyepatch instead of his usual cybernetic implant, but sure enough, it was the same Tarkrane Scallywag had always known. “Who dis?” Tarkrane mumbled, obviously nursing a bad hangover.
“Open yer one good eye, ya sot,” said Scallywag with a smile.
Tarkrane rubbed his eye and looked at the screen. He gasped when he focused on Scallywag’s image. “Scally?” he said. “You’re alive?”
“Aren’t I usually?” replied Scallywag.
“Great Gods o’ Gravity!” exclaimed the brute with a smile. “I didn’t think I’d ever see ya again!”
“Well, here I be, in livin’ color, albeit the red kind,” said Scallywag. “Now, maybe ya can tell me why no one has been answerin’ tha bloody dead drops?”
Tarkrane blinked. “Oh, right,” he muttered. “Probably because we all split up.”
“Split up?” replied Scallywag, not liking the sound of that one bit. “Tark… where’s me ship?”
“Yeah, about that…” the alien said sheepishly. “There was a… slight mutiny.”
“A mutiny???”
“A slight mutiny.”
“Stop saying slight!” growled Scallywag. “Ya mean ta tell me Two Nose made off with the Reaver?”
“Oh, no, Two Nose stuck to the plan ya made,” Tarkrane said, “’till Pinkbottom killed him and assumed command.”
Scally’s eyes went wide. “Two Nose is dead?”
“What part of ‘slight mutiny’ was unclear?”
Scallywag gritted his teeth. Two Nose had been a smart and loyal first mate. He didn’t like hearing this news. “Where did Pinkie get tha stones to pull this off?” he asked.
Tarkrane shrugged. “We waited to ambush yer prison transport just as planned so we could spring ya and Faruuz,” he said. “When ya never showed up, everyone figured somethin’ happened. Pinkbottom was just tha first ta do somethin’ about it.”
Scallywag sighed and rubbed his head. “Do ya have any idea where Pinkie is now?”
“Last I heard, he got nicked making a kibble run ta Omnicron.”
Scallywag raised his eyebrows. “He’s here on Omnicron???”
“That’s what I heard.”
Well, that makes things slightly easier, thought Scallywag. “Kibble run, you say?” he muttered. “Who in their right mind makes a kibble run ta the capitol?”
Tarkrane shrugged. “Wasn’t a popular decision,” he said. “Most o’ us left when we heard what he was plannin’. So, boss… if you’re a
live, does that mean Faruuz made it out, too?”
Scallywag frowned. “’Fraid the ol’ brute got cut down by a Deathlord,” he replied.
Tarkrane nodded. “Deathlord, eh? What a way ta go. Well, at least ya tried. Few Captains woulda gone as far as you did.”
Few Captains woulda put the browner in that position in the first place, thought Scallywag as he tried to push away the small pangs of guilt Faruuz’s name had brought up.
“Does this mean we’re back in business, now that you’re alive again?” asked Tarkrane.
“Ain’t no business without no ship,” replied Scallywag. “Keep checkin’ tha dead drops. Tell any o’ the old crew yer in contact with ta do the same. I’ll be in touch once I track down Pinkie and find out what happened to the Reaver.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” responded Tarkrane, before Scallywag cut off the call.
Scallywag knew that if Pinkbottom had been arrested, there was only one place he could be – the Peacekeeper Tower. It was the central station for all law-enforcement forces in the Capitol. Though not as tall as most supertowers, it was big enough to house all manner of personnel, vehicles, and androids to police the massive city. It was also where all the major jails were located.
Scallywag wasted no time in making his way over to it. Though he had to admit, it felt strange walking into a Peacekeeper station of his own free will. It felt even stranger knowing that he’d be able to walk out again once he’d completed his business.
The main lobby of the tower was bustling. Uniformed Peacekeepers and official security-bots were all around, going about their duties. Near the entrances to the tower’s teleportation station, a Sergeant of the Watch sat at a large, semi-circular desk, with the massive Peacekeeper’s golden crest sporting their signature winged eagle mounted on the wall behind him. The Sergeant eyed Scallywag as he approached. “Are you here to turn yourself in?” the Sergeant asked.
“Oy, why would I be here fer that?” asked Scallywag.
“You’re a red, aren’t you?” the Sergeant replied. “You must have done something worth turning yourself in over.”
Earthman Jack vs. The Secret Army (Earthman Jack Space Saga Book 2) Page 21