“Now you’re talking.” Ian rushed forward to touch everything and make sure it was real and that she wasn’t just teasing him with see-through alcohol and glasses. That would be very uncool. The shot glasses felt real enough in his hand, and the bourbon he found went down quickly.
“I know you and I are not on the best of terms right now, Aquila,” he said, “but thank you.”
“You’re welcome, darling.”
She went back to snarling at the soldier. Ian wondered what beef she had with the poor guy, but if he was going to have to watch the soldier go through the “digitization” process first, he was going to do it good and drunk.
Aquila looked up at the cameras and cleared her throat. “What about you people in our studio audience? Who’s ready to see what it looks like to get digitized? To walk out of the physical realm and into the realm of the exquisite?”
The comments popped in fast and furious. The audience was all over it. Ian continued to sweat bullets and hope that they were only enjoying this horror show because they thought it was fake.
Over the last half an hour, Ian had developed a nervous routine of glancing at the doomsday clock, then to his watch, and then to the screen in the back of the room, hoping at any point in the process to be pulled out of this ‘reality’ and back to the normal one that included hanging out with his girlfriend and having control over his own show.
Clock, watch, screen. Clock, watch, screen. After all, he had nothing better to do, so why not? Clock, watch, screen. Clock, watch, and as fate would have it, the exact same moment that he glanced behind him at the screen before finishing his drink and starting the whole process again, the feed went out.
Ian frowned and turned his head toward the clock over Aquila’s head. It was still counting down. Bummer. So, the electricity was on, but the feed was out. Was there a wonky satellite nearby? Or was it the internet? Ian checked his phone to see if he still had access to the internet.
“What has happened?” Aquila roared. “Somebody will pay for this.” She went to her throne and pushed a communication button. “You were supposed to protect the internet connection. Idiot. Now your right-hand man will be digitized. And then you will be next.”
“What are you talking about?” the voice on the intercom squeaked.
Ian couldn’t help but notice that the voice on the other end of the conversation sounded rattled. “You can’t digitize him without the internet. He’ll have nowhere to go. He’ll be a-“
“A ghost,” Aquila answered. “And not one of my living minions either, he’ll be a haunted, disembodied spirit. And I’ll let you hear the whole thing.”
“Wait!” Jarvis yelled. “Give me a chance. What do you want me to do?”
“Triple the guard on the power substation. And bring me Lyra’s head.”
“Hey!” Ian interjected. “What does Lyra have to do with all of this?”
“Ok,” Jarvis said. “I’ll do it. Just let me live, in this dimension or the other.”
Both of them ignored Ian.
“I’m not promising anything. We’ll see how you do,” Aquila said and pushed the communication button again. She crossed from her throne back to the soldier, who was squirming frantically now.
“And you,” she said, brushing a hand against his cheek. “I don’t remember anybody fighting for you. I’m afraid your leadership lacks certain qualities. And it’s too bad, really. Somebody has to pay, though, audience or no audience.”
She circled the soldier several times, like a shark. Then she came to a stop in front of him and knelt down, closing her eyes.
Everything was quiet and still for a minute, and then without warning, Aquila pulled her right hand back. She made a knife with her fingers, and then threw her hand forward. She plunged it into the soldier’s center of mass.
He screamed as her hand went through his body and emerged bloody out the other side. Ian was looking at the situation from behind the soldier, and he had to fight to keep his lunch down.
The soldier kept screaming, only it got smaller in volume and higher in pitch until it was barely a squeak and then the sound disappeared altogether.
His body twitched and lurched forward onto the ground. Without a word, Aquila stood up, crossed the room, and sat on her throne.
“Okay,” she said out loud. “This means war.”
Ian wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to the others in the room. In the end it didn’t matter who she was talking to, it was bad. He just hoped that somebody would do something before it was his turn to be digitized.
What was Lyra thinking, turning off the internet if it meant that when Aquila killed him he was double doomed?
15
Jarvis hung up the walkie talkie he was using to communicate with Aquila and started pacing. His headquarters was a conference room that they had commandeered, and he had a half dozen advisors at the table with him. He considered what Aquila had said and it pissed him off.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. This was supposed to be an in and out. Protect the utilities, keep the locals out of the way, and wait for extraction. Let them know if the research subject did anything unexpected. That was the mission.
He thought about that last part. He was pretty sure that this was unexpected. All along he had that nagging feeling that this mission was too good to be true.
The money was too good, the weapons were high quality, and the mission itself was breathtakingly easy. Bullying locals. A trained monkey with a blaster could have done it. Why had he ignored his instincts? For the money, that’s why. Only this time, it was likely to get him killed by a science experiment.
Yes, he decided. This turn of events was, in fact, out of the ordinary. He’d call it in. Ask for evac right now. Even if he had to return the money. They could have it.
He picked up the mobile intercom. “Jarvis to Base, come in.”
“Yes, Jarvis?”
“The subject is exhibiting erratic behavior.”
“How so?”
“She’s taken a member of my crew hostage and is going to execute him. Badly. In short, you weren’t straight with me. Your little science experiment has gone violently off the rails, the locals are causing problems, and everything is going sideways here. I’m requesting an immediate evacuation for me and my remaining crew.”
Around him, heads nodded in agreement.
“That’s a negatory,” Base said, “I double-checked and your orders are still to finish the mission first, deal with the locals, and then give us a call.”
“Liars! You promised us an evac!” Jarvis screamed, spitting into the intercom.
“You were promised an evac after the mission was completed. Base out.”
In the ensuing silence, Jarvis pounded on the desk for a few minutes. Now he had no choice. He had to take orders from the science experiment. Or she was going to kill him. He sighed.
“You heard her, get more men over to the electrical cutoff.”
The others stared at him, and their faces had gone white.
“Don’t just sit there,” he said, “if she comes after me, I’m sure you guys will be next.”
With the rest of the advisors gone, he was left alone with his thoughts, which consisted mainly of the idea that this whole thing was a setup.
Grayson and Gorb perched behind an information desk with a good view of the electrical generator room. They watched the crowd guarding the electrical cutoff double and then triple.
“I don’t see how that really helps,” Grayson said. “It’s just people with high powered weapons tripping over each other. They’re not even paying attention, half of them are on their phones anyway.”
Grayson and Gorb’s phones each gave off a small beep. It was a message from Lyra. Grayson read it and chuckled. “Oh, here we go, Lyra’s about to turn off the internet. Then what are those guys going to do for entertainment, talk to each other?”
Right on cue, the soldiers all look flummoxed and began restarting their electronics.<
br />
“It’s not going to work, boys,” Gorb said, “the party’s over.”
The shockwave of no internet made its way through the crowd.
“Now?” Gorb asked.
“No, not now. We have to wait for the signal, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me. What’s the signal again?”
“We don’t know yet, they haven’t told us,” Grayson answered.
“How will we know, then?” Gorb persisted.
“They’re going to text us, remember?”
“How are they going to text us if the internet is gone?”
“Oh yeah,” said Grayson. “That’s why they told us to install those new programs on our phones. To go to manual mode or something. What was the name of that program again?”
“Manual mania?” Gorb asked.
“That’s the one,” Grayson answered. “You installed it, right? On your phone?”
“No, I forgot. I was really drunk, remember? Probably still am. You?”
Grayson checked his apps. “Oh bugger. Me neither. Remind me, next time we have a giant emergency and we’re all about to die, not to get drunk and forget the details of the plan.”
“Boo to that,” Gorb said. “Doesn’t sound like any fun at all.”
“Yeah,” Grayson said, sighing, “I guess you have a point. We’re just going to have to wait for the signal the old fashioned way, then. Let’s stay sharp.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Gorb said, waving a tendril around.
“Ouch,” Grayson said, “watch what you’re doing with those things.”
Lyra and Macro ran as fast as they could back toward Aquila’s throne room.
As they rounded the corner, Lyra was very surprised to see that, just as their drunken plan had suggested, all of the guards had left and now the door just stood there unguarded.
Lyra was elated and then suspicious. “I don’t like it, Macro.”
“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” a voice behind her said. It was Callista’s.
Lyra turned to her. “Callista! I thought you were helping with the evacuation.” Lyra was very happy to see her right now. She’d take all of the help she could get against that crazy megalomaniac ghost.
“The evacuation is going just fine. Once I gave the transportation managers the proper codes and jammed the signal, there really wasn’t much more for me to do. I figured I could get in much more trouble here.” She smiled. It was warm and genuine and was quickly becoming one of Lyra’s favorite sights. “Oh yeah,” Callista added, “I told them to save us a ship.”
“Smart,” Lyra said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself.” Lyra was done wasting time now, though. She had Callista here to help and Ian was still in trouble.”
“Okay,” Lyra said, grasping the door handle, “new plan, you distract Aquila with your electricity cyborg powers and I’ll grab Ian. Let’s do this.”
“Boop Beep.”
“Macro, you stay here and don’t let anybody else in to kill us, we’re going to have plenty of unfriendlies inside once we get in there, we don’t need anybody else joining the party or getting in the way.”
Lyra opened the door into the neon dimension of Aquila. She heard a happy and surprised shout from Ian from the back of the room.
“Fool,” Aquila said, rising from her throne. “I was expecting you,” she said pointing at Lyra. “But not you.” Her gaze went to Callista. “Announce yourself.”
Announce yourself? Lyra wondered. What does that even mean?
“I am Lady Callista Veritas. I hail from the house of Castor and the planet of Oorinth.”
There was a familiar formality that Callista used in her voice. She was full of surprises, and if Lyra survived the next hour or so, she was going to have some questions for her.
Lyra and Callista both continued moving forward into the room toward the throne and Aquila and Ian.
She and Ian met in the middle and embraced. Lyra looked around to see if they were going to get attacked, but the ghosts seemed okay just looking on for now. It couldn’t possibly be this easy, Lyra thought.
She and Ian sprinted toward the door she had just come through.
“Get them,” Aquila said. Dozens of ghosts suddenly blocked their path to the door. “Come on, Lyra, you didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? That’s not how the game is played.”
Lyra and Ian backed up from the horde of suddenly armed ghosts. “Callista? A little help?”
Callista let loose with a lightning blast across the room. It struck Aquila in the chest.
Aquila froze, twitched for a second, and then recovered. She snapped her fingers and the next thing that happened was that Callista was surrounded by ghosts as well.
Crap, thought Lyra.
“I announced myself,” Callista yelled, “and now I demand to know whose presence I’m in.”
Lyra thought she saw uncertainty flash across Aquila’s face. Callista had rattled her somehow. She looked from Aquila to the countdown clock above. Shit.
“I am Aquila, queen of information, and goddess of-“
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lyra cut in, “she’s Aquila, government science experiment run amuck from the house of who gives a crap, with the title of a made-up throne…”
Both Aquila and Callista turned stunned faces toward her. Ian looked like he was going to pass out. Aquila’s face turned beet red.
“Lyra, no!” Ian screamed.
“Insubordination,” Aquila roared. She pointed a finger at Lyra. Out of nowhere, a glowing rope wrapped around Lyra and dropped her to her knees.
Ian ran to her. “No! Aquila, don’t do this.”
“It’s the truth, Ian. She was created in a lab, became self-aware, and went tooling around in the digital realm digging up the secrets of the rich and powerful. They couldn’t kill her without getting exposed, so they banished her to Celestica and gave her the entire surrounding system of planets for her playground.”
“That can’t be true,” Ian said.
“Oh, but it is,” Lyra continued. “They’ll sacrifice all of us gladly. Out of sight, out of mind.”
Ian looked to Aquila for answers.
Aquila appeared to calm down a little and cleared her throat. “What can I say? Pedigree or no, I was born to rule. And nobody is going to stop me, least of all a snarky, low-class, tattooed doctor and her,” she looked at Callista- “what are you again?”
“I was royalty from a different universe.”
“And what are you now?” Aquila asked.
“I’m glad you asked,” Callista said. She held out her hand and zapped Lyra from across the room with a light blue colored stream.
Lyra was thrown forward and onto her face, but her hands were now free of the glowing rope. She got up on her hands and knees and then tried to get back up.
Aquila pointed again, and Lyra was re-tied. Then she pointed her hand at Callista. Callista flew across the room and landed with a thud near the front door.
Damn, Lyra thought. So much for our drunken plan.
“I could do this all day,” said Callista, groggily.
“Me too,” said Aquila.
Lyra looked around. “What’s the point of all of this, Aquila? There’s no more live feed.”
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll restore the internet eventually, after you’re dead,” Aquila sneered in reply. “I know you, Lyra. I’ve researched you extensively, I know everything that you love. And after you die, I’m going to kill everyone on this station. Except Ian. Ian’s going to be mine forever. We’re going to be doing Fear Zone Universe for millennia after you’re gone and forgotten.”
“You need to get a life,” Lyra said.
“What are you doing, Lyra?” Ian asked. “Stop antagonizing her. She’s going to kill you.”
Lyra glanced at Ian and then up at the countdown clock. It was on triple zeroes. “I had to. Time’s up, Ian.”
Aquila turned and looked at the countdown clock. �
�So it is. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Lyra.”
She crossed the room to stand in front of Lyra and then circled her a few times.
“Don’t do this, Aquila,” Ian pleaded.
Then Aquila knelt down in front of her.
“You’re not going to hit on me, are you?” Lyra asked.
Ian yelled. “Lyra, you’d better have something up your sleeve here, you don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“You can close your eyes if you’re scared,” Aquila said. She was close enough now that Lyra could see her otherworldly green eyes with the red pupils in the middle.
Lyra took a deep breath. She was scared, but she wasn’t about to give Aquila the satisfaction of closing her eyes. “Never!”
“Okay, then,” Aquila said and pulled her hand back in preparation to strike the death blow.
16
Grayson and Gorb continued to sit there waiting for the signal. Grayson had to keep himself from nodding off, or rather he kept nodding off and Gorb kept shocking him.
“Stop that!” Grayson said grumpily.
“No,” Gorb replied. “I’m not going to wait for the signal all by myself. Besides, your snoring is literally loud enough to get their attention. You should have that looked at.”
“Shut up,” Grayson said.
Gorb heard a noise behind him and jumped. He turned and prepared to sting.
“It’s just me, Gorb,” Nancy said. “At ease.”
“Nancy!” Gorb said. “Thank goodness you’re here. Grayson’s a mean drunk.”
“Am not,” Grayson answered. “He keeps stinging me!”
“Boys,” Nancy said, holding a hand up to them, “let’s focus. You didn’t answer any of Ben’s messages, so he sent me to tell you the signal.”
“Thank goodness,” Grayson said. “We forgot to install the program.”
“We figured. And I got bored sitting around with Ben.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t have a job?”
“You drunken idiots forgot to include me in the plan.” She looked at them seriously. “Idiots.”
Digital Ghosts: Book 2 of the Space Station At The Edge Of The Black Hole Series Page 13