Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  Samantha Knowles had sat silently the entire meeting, like most. Her benevolent nature was bruised. She had cried shyly the whole time. “I think we should address the nation when seventy percent of the ships are in flight. Any sooner and the people of Quazar will make it difficult to get the remaining ships safely away. We have a news presenter named Helena Reeves here at the space station. Mr. President, I think you should address the planet from here with her.”

  He nodded as Samantha sat down. He stood. “Okay people, listen. We are among the last of our race. We carry our future with us. When the events begin unfolding, we must stay strong. The pain I feel runs deep for our people, but I can’t do this without your support, your help. The ultimate sacrifice is giving your life for another. Billions of good people are about to die, but many can be saved. I have met many a hero in my time, people who have done extraordinary things, but none will come close to you if the target is hit and ten million are saved. Let’s save lives.”

  Chapter 22

  G Force

  Leon sat and listened for a half-hour to the events that had taken place.

  Lecodia watched the disbelief form in his eyes. He couldn’t believe that Dylan, his best friend, was being framed for narcotics and murder. He didn’t know what to do. The story was heavy.

  Lecodia realised how heavy after hearing it out loud. She still found it hard to believe that this was happening. At least Dylan had protected her so far.

  “Man, this is bad. Dylan you’re a God damned criminal, and the Authoritarians are here, right now chasing you,” Leon said, stunned. His cool composure faded into dismay.

  Dylan said, “I know it sounds crazy, but you have to help. All you got to do is go to the Authoritarians, tell them we came to you, and tell them what we said. The truth. Give them the names we gave you.”

  “Now hold on, Dylan. I could get in trouble.”

  “You won’t get in any trouble, but don’t tell them you know where we are. Just say we disappeared. Come on, buddy, help us out.”

  “He’s telling the truth, Leon. Please help us.”

  Dylan looked at her in hope while Leon rubbed his head. The nightmare had been shared. Leon knew he had to help, but he also knew the Authoritarians could drag him into the crime as an accomplice should they fail to uncover the truth.

  “Okay, I’ll help. I’ll do what you said. How do I contact you when I’ve told them?”

  “I’ll contact you. I can’t turn my communicator on again or they’ll track us. We’ve been clicked. In four hours, I’ll contact you. Do you have any food or drink?”

  “Not my fucking stash, man,” Leon whined. “In my locker. It’s open. The one that’s open.”

  Lecodia moved to her left, revealing Leon’s locker.

  From inside Dylan pulled out a chocolate snack and water container. He handed the drink to her and she drank like she’d walked a desert. The water soothed her dry throat. Both chomped on the snack bar as they thanked Leon.

  “What if the nut jobs come for me, Dylan?”

  “Tell the Authoritarians to watch you. They know they are dangerous,” he replied.

  Suddenly a quiet beep aired the room. Lecodia didn’t mean to do it. All she did was drop her arms. She stood too close to the wall lockers behind.

  Both guys spun to her, as she realised she’d clicked a locker door by accident with her chip.

  She defended herself with hands raised. “I didn’t mean to do that. Come on, guys.”

  “Lecodia that’s the second time, fuck.” Dylan said. He looked at her with horror.

  “Quick, come with me,” Leon said, rising. “Right now, the ride will take you into World of Pain. I’ll barter here for you, try to explain. Lecodia, they’ll know your name. They’ll have contacted your parents,” he said as he opened a door that led to the ride.

  Her parents—Lecodia thought about them. They would be worried that she’d not contacted them for over twenty-four hours. They would be thinking that something terrible was happening to her. They had no idea.

  The three entered the ride’s platform, where they passed a glass computer booth that was operated by Travis.

  Lecodia eyed the geeky, ginger, shaggy-haired man.

  Right of them the coaster’s queue zig-zagged downward to the archway entrance. Overhead the ride’s disk carriages dangled in a neat row like enlarged circus rings acrobats swung from. They moved along to the start point like a factory production line. There, silver hydraulic, mechanical grips reached diagonally from the ground, which locked onto the front ring and telescopically lowered a disk at a time to the starting position. Once lowered, other horizontal hydraulic bars locked onto the disk and slid it forward to a gaping black hole in the ground, where the brave thrill seekers que awaited at its side.

  “Ella, wait,” Leon shouted, as he jogged towards her. The short young woman, in a park uniform with the Vipers emblem, almost called the next riders to position from the blocking queue rails. She stopped and looked to Leon.

  “Lecodia Ale, put your hands up, we are coming in,” said the guards from behind where they’d left.

  They did know her name.

  “Leon, quick,” Dylan said.

  “Ella, these two are next. Go take a look at the people trying to get into the break cabin, will you? Tell them fuck off.”

  “They sounded like Authoritarians, Leon,” Ella replied. “What’s going on?”

  “Just do it, Ella, before I drag your ass into the park’s hierarchy. Mush-mush, woman. Now.”

  “This is your last chance to give yourselves up. In five we’re coming in,” the guards shouted through their speakers.

  Ella rushed towards the shack, confused. Her long black hair bounced behind her.

  “You two, quick, stand in here, both feet in the foot lock.”

  Lecodia and Dylan placed their feet inside two ankle-high boot locks, that held them to the inner disk. The ankle locks tightened and mechanically locked their feet in position with sturdy metallic traps. Their legs were part.

  “Is this safe?” Lecodia asked, as she stared at a hole in the ground. She began to suspect that was the direction they were about to travel. “What’s that hole in the ground for, Dylan?”

  He didn’t reply. Leon spoke fast while pulling her arms up and to the handle grips.

  “Lecodia, we have what’s called a three-fail system, so if one system fails or malfunctions, another will override and kick in, and if that one fails, then another will kick in. So, don’t worry cause your safe.”

  Lecodia turned her head and watched Dylan standing beside her with smug expectancy. Panic filled her body. “I don’t like this. The hole—what’s the hole for?” she asked again, but Dylan was not answering.

  A gamma blast echoed from the shack with shouts, and a scuffling ruckus ensued. Poor Ella.

  “And what if the rails break?” Lecodia asked as the chest and back locking mechanism eased over her body and pressed together like ice hockey pads.

  The chest mechanism was connected to the inner disk above her standing position. It locked together and squeezed them tight, holding them with secure safety. It released pressure with a whistle as it sandwiched, then bleeped ready. Centre chest a red light turned to green on the locking mechanism.

  “Well,” Leon replied as he stepped away, “you have to hope the engineers checked every bolt this morning. Dylan, I’ll do what I can. Contact me in four hours.”

  Leon ran towards the operating both as the blue outer disk began rotating around Dylan and the whimpering Lecodia.

  “Dylan, when we get off this, I’m going to kill you. Especially if we are going into that hole.”

  The frame shuddered as the outer disk revolved faster and faster. Lecodia hated fast rides. They made her nervous and she felt unsafe. The uncertainty always terrified her.

  “Please don’t be going in there,” Lecodia said. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t help it.

  The support bars hydraulically pivoted the ride do
wnward, via gears either side of the rings, and faced them towards the hole. Lecodia craned her neck to Dylan, where guilt stared back at her. Her hair dropped forward, and she closed her eyes as her body shivered with fear.

  “Lecodia, I’ve been on this a thousand times. Trust me, it awesome,” he said above the disks whining spin.

  She peeked, and the hole looked at her like a threatening snake that eyed her up and readied to strike. Right then she swore to kill Dylan after it was over.

  The disk’s inner frame slipped onto four track bars that poked out from the darkness, and the outer disk continued its rapid revolving. She’d never felt so insecure. The disk hung the air on the brake system as the hydraulic bars pulled away.

  Lecodia stood akimbo like a star in the disk. Arms above holding on, and feet and chest harnessed in. She felt vulnerable. So did Dylan beside.

  The Authoritarians shouted from behind them, “Stop that ride! You stop it now!”

  Without warning the revolving concentric disk frames unlocked and descended into the drop point. The hole of darkness pulled them in.

  The air hit with pressure, the G-force built, and the feeling of weightlessness took hold of her body. She screamed as her stomach churned like a million creatures were alive inside.

  The black darkness cloaked the path as the decent continued. The unknown turns and spills were about to arrive. It felt like she travelled at a million miles an hour before a hard right tugged at her body, pushing it to three G’s.

  “Jesus Christ!” she screamed.

  The disk straightened and faced a distant light. It neared quickly and opened into a tight futuristic tunnel that lay no bigger than the frame she stood in. The walls were constructed from thousands of blinking LED computer components, and it wormed ahead coiling upward, downward, left, and right.

  It was faster than the eye could take. Everything blurred by. The echoed sound of the coaster was deafening as it flew onward through the worming tunnel. Her body was dragged hard in every direction, like an invisible force was puling at her soul at every turn.

  Suddenly the coaster exited the tight tunnel and aimed upward in a large, open, cavernous room. It was somewhere not of this world.

  Dripping wet stalactites protruded from the sludgy damp rocky roof. The coaster tipped sideways and angled downward, two hundred feet downward, and Lecodia screamed again.

  Below, a battle commenced between insect creatures. They scurried and climbed around fifty-foot stalagmites that shot from the uneven rocky wet ground like a bed of pins. It was a harsh alien landscape. The creatures blasted at each other, lobbed glimmering bombs at each other, and the coaster descended rapidly towards where a frenzy of lasers, explosions, and flying debris scattered.

  “I love this part,” Dylan shouted over the thunder of the coaster.

  Lecodia screamed.

  The coaster sped to ground level then pulled up and shot forward. It coiled, twisted, rolled, and corkscrewed through and around the enormous stalagmites, which were tipped with lime scale and looked like min-mountains that were snowy at the peak.

  Lasers flew past their eyes, and chunks of rock hurtled past in a blur as creatures leapt and ran around them fighting. One creature moved with nimble motion, crawling around a stalagmite, its green body like that of a stick insect. Its long creepy front legs poked at them as they flew by. It nearly touched as it arched its back and swayed with a mantis-like reach.

  Lecodia was thrilled beyond fear. It took her breath away.

  In the distance one creature sprang upward and floated in the air. It turned its stick-like body to face them. Its legs and arms fanned outward and Lecodia and Dylan neared it with pace. Its evil grin revealed a collection of knife-like teeth, its small head out of proportion with its long, bony body, and it latched to the coaster disk.

  Lecodia screamed harder than ever as she stared at its scaly, hairy stomach, which crawled with a hundred little slimy arms that reached at her. The creature’s thick chunky fingers brushed her nose. She wanted to die. Then it let go and dropped off as an explosion banged in front of her.

  Lecodia was amazed by the thrill of the coaster, although she’d still kill Dylan upon completion. She felt her little heart straining.

  Suddenly her body was hurled in a lengthy spiral, rolling through the flames and twisting around another stalagmite. The G’s pushed harder and harder when the coaster dragged her upward and away from the insect war. They headed towards the cavernous roof.

  For a split second Lecodia thought it was over. She sighed with relief.

  But then a giant insect, spider-like in appearance, revealed itself from the cavern’s roof. It exited the shadow it hid in, a large cave in the rocky, dripping ceiling. Two menacing arachnid legs pulled its cephalothorax into the light, followed by the gravid abdomen that puffed plump and swollen. Its head was massive, and it looked at her like she was its prey.

  It hissed at her through sharp, deadly fangs from the chelicera region of the beast’s mouthparts. The dagger-like jaws were opening and closing sideways, and a hundred black eyes reflected them as they sped towards its ever-gaping mouth where crab-like pincers snapped at them from inside.

  Sensory fur and fuzz creepily covered its body. The coxa, trochanter, femur, patella, tibia, metatarsus and tarsus segments of the arachnid’s legs moved in unison with fluid terror, fluttering the ceiling and crawling the skin.

  Its mouth shaped, and it aggressively spat balls of poison from its fang glands. Each missed the coaster left and right, then a wet splurge slapped Lecodia’s face and body.

  Lecodia screamed again.

  “It’s only water! It’s only water!” Dylan laughed.

  The mouth of menace approached and Lecodia looked down its pink, fleshy throat that congealed with phlegm.

  The coaster banked left, avoiding the monster as it reared on its hind legs and spread its front legs in a defensive flair. Its body was wide, like a hairy hand was about to grab them, and they passed inches from the beast. The coaster tilted hard upward, towards a hole in the rocky ceiling.

  The coaster slipped into the cave. It petrified her with claustrophobic enclosure. Lecodia murmured like death was upon her. Around her, glistening minerals reflected the passing coasters light from the rugged walls, like it was dusted by sugar.

  The cave whizzed by with jolting turns left and right, and then they neared a solid rock wall. “I’m dead,” Lecodia shouted, before the coaster dropped so fast that her heart jumped out of her mouth. Jagged rocks whiskered by at an insane sped, and at each turn Lecodia screamed as if it was her last.

  Suddenly the caster stopped its bombardment of body-battering turns and levelled straight. The rocky surroundings slipped smoothly by.

  “Please tell me this is over,” she whimpered.

  “Not on your life,” replied Dylan, to which she replied with an echoed grumble.

  Something stirred ahead from a deep, dark hole.

  Grey creatures, bat-like in flight, burst from a gap to the left. They flocked and flew frontal with red, glowing eyes, igniting the dim cave atmosphere. Their ultrasonic echolocation squeaked with frequency. Then the creatures flew upward and out of sight, fleeing from a giant slimy worm that darted from the facing dark hole. It sped towards the disk in a head-on collision. Its intention, dinner. It had no eyes, just a slimy, wormy head that squeezed the cave with its squidgy, pink, blobby skin.

  Lecodia felt sick as it wriggled hard at pace. The cave shook, which rustled dust and lime drops into the air.

  The worm opened its sickly saliva mouth, where a ring of deadly spikes served as teeth. It roared a horrendous screech, like a shocked elephant would, and the air pressure shifted. Its breath, musty and humid, wafted through the cave.

  She screamed, “I’m going to die!”

  The coaster banked left, inches before the slimy, drooling mouth could chomp her for diner. Her body rolled and twisted through the claustrophobic enclosure, skimming the walls with dangerous flirt. Then every
thing silenced as the coaster exited the cave.

  The coaster entered star-speckled space which surrounded with infinity, like they’d literally entered its void. Quietly the coaster sped on.

  “Oh, this is beautiful,” she said with short breaths. She looked at the surrounding nothingness.

  The unmistakable sound of star-fighters grew louder and louder from behind. Two ships were engaged in a galactic dog fight. Their lasers blasted thick and fast with a pew, pew.

  The first small fighter, a white bodied stealth-like craft, rocketed over with Doppler Effect. Its design was a slick, curved arrow-like body, where its angles were rounded and smooth. A seamless white shell dressed its curvy body, and a small cockpit was positioned at the ship’s nose. It banked, leaned, and dodged an attack of thick red laser blasts.

  The second ship, a smaller, nimbler black craft shaped like the letter x, fired an arsenal of blasts from each corner of its design. It too sped overhead with Doppler Effect, its rear thrusts ejecting afterburn as it dipped left and right. A bubble, centre of its x shape, positioned as its cockpit, and its coal-black shell was a collection of reflective tiles. It was a glossy little fighter.

  Its lasers obliterated the running stealth-shaped star-fighter, which exploded in a shower of debris. The debris hurled towards the speeding coaster, which bobbed and weaved with a violent jerk. Chunks of flaming, spinning destruction skimmed past Lecodia's eyes.

  Lecodia wanted to shield her hands in front of her face, but they were locked above her. Her akimbo position in the ride made it twice as scary, as she felt exposed and vulnerable to the passing dangers.

  The x fighter banked to the left, out of sight, while the coaster turned right, pointing Lecodia and Dylan at an opera of space war.

  In the distance, nearing fast, a galactic, triangular, grey-platted star-ship dominated space. Its body was covered with a million windows and cannons that waved laser blasts in all directions like tracer bullets from a crude war. It was huge, like a floating city, and canyons of technology imprinted its body like it had veins.