by Jake Bible
One being he could spot, and so could the entire Gas Chamber, was Yellow Eyes.
The being was gyrating and shaking every millimeter of his body before several highly entertained tables. Every few seconds, Yellow Eyes would blur and appear to be gone, but in a blink the blur would return and there he'd be, gyrating and shaking once again as if he'd always been there.
Roak really hoped the guy was trying to figure out which storeroom the chits were in. They were going to need to get things moving along a lot faster than they'd planned.
"What's happening?" Nimm asked. "Someone give me an update."
"Roak is being trotted out like a prize terpig," Meshara said. "If I have interpreted his intentions, he wants me to watch the kid instead of saving him."
"Roak can handle himself," Nimm said. "Focus on the job."
Roak barely nodded.
"So, I will watch the kid," Meshara snapped. "Even though I need to be watching the waitstaff and security since Klib is nowhere to be seen."
"I'm outside the Gas Chamber," Klib said. "I'm trying to find where they took Kalaka."
"Leave the crooked cop," Meshara said. "We will take care of this on our own."
"I've been watching the storeroom doors," Jagul said. "Yellow Eyes keeps going in and out of the center door. I think he thinks that's the right storeroom."
"Focus on distracting the bartenders," Meshara said.
It was killing Roak that he couldn't chime in.
"What do you say, beings?" Chella shouted. "Kill Roak now! During intermission? Or after the main event?"
Chella grinned at Roak. Roak tried to look as uninterested as he could.
The crowd was screaming and shouting several different answers to the three execution options. Chella laughed and patted Roak on his back.
"They really have some opinions on this," Chella said, his voice no longer amplified, meant only for Roak. "Can you tell what their preference is?"
"Can you tell I don't give ten terpigshits what they think?" Roak responded. "You should really let me go, Chella. This isn't going to be your night if you keep this up."
"Is that so?" Chella said and moved in closer to Roak. "It's always my night, Roak."
"One day I'll meet someone that isn't a total idiot once they get a little power," Roak said. "I look forward to that day."
"Roak, Roak, Roak," Chella said. "Oh, ye of little faith. There is no such thing as a little power. You either have it or you don't. Having a little bit while someone else has a lot means you have none. The greater power trumps the smaller power, rendering it impotent."
Roak froze.
Chella grinned.
Roak studied the man's eyes. They looked normal.
No, wait… There was just the hint of something behind the eyes. Something familiar.
"You sound different," Roak said. "Rendering it impotent? Fancy words for an MC for some gutter fights."
"Maybe I'm trying to better myself," Chella said. "Rise above my station as MC of these gutter fights, as you put it."
"Eight Million Gods dammit," Roak swore. "Your eyes aren't red. How are you in there and the eyes aren't red?"
"I have no clue what you are talking about, Roak," Chella said. "How is who in where?"
"New plan," Roak said, his voice going out over the comm. "Father is here. We need to up the timeline."
"Who are you talking to, Roak?" Chella asked. "I'd really like to be part of the conversation. Any chance you might open up the channel to those special comm implants you and your team have installed?"
"Not a team," Roak said. "And how are you controlling Chella without his eyes turning red?"
"Despite what beings believe, technology is quite organic," Chella said. "It adapts, it improves, it evolves."
"Roak? Is that really Father?" Nimm asked.
"Yes," Roak replied. "Jagul? Make some noise. Meshara? You watch Jagul and make sure the kid doesn't get too hurt."
"Too hurt? You mean not hurt at all," Jagul protested. "Right, Roak? Not hurt at all?"
"You heard me," Roak said.
"Let me see," Chella said and looked out over the crowd. A crowd that was growing more and more impatient by the second. "Let's see if we can find your friends."
"I need to tell Yellow Eyes what to do before I go protect the kid," Meshara said. "The freak is still dancing at those tables."
"Do that," Roak said. "Tell him to find the chits now. I'll take care of Father."
"Chits?" Chella asked. "Oh, yes, I had heard there might be some illicit chits tucked away down here. You know how I love chits. I thought I'd come have a look and see what I could find. What a coincidence that you're here too."
"You came for the chits?" Roak laughed. A few beings close to the stage recoiled in horror. "Don't you have enough chits?"
"Can one ever have enough chits in this galaxy?" Chella mused. "The cost of being is so expensive these days."
Roak glared. "You don't need the chits. You're only here to make sure I don't get them."
"Am I?" Chella chuckled. "Perhaps I am. I have to keep myself occupied somehow now that my plans are almost complete."
"Almost? What do you have left to do? Pick out the right outfit for when I come kick your ass?"
"Oh, son, I do enjoy our chats. You never cease to entertain me."
"Good for me. Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Tell you what?"
"What you have left to do before your plan is complete."
"Why would I tell you that?"
"If you're so confident you'll win then there's no reason not to tell me. You are confident you'll win, right? Or are you stalling by coming after me? Maybe you're doing this to buy yourself a little time. Yes. That's it. You are almost done with your plans but the last step is tricky and you need more time in order to complete it."
Chella remained quiet.
"Your silence is all the answer I need," Roak said. "Meshara? What's our status?"
"I can't find Yellow Eyes!" Meshara snarled. "The freak is gone!"
"Hey," Yellow Eyes said, standing right next to Roak. He held up four compression pouches. "Guess what I found?"
"You," Chella snarled.
Yellow Eyes cocked his head at Chella in confusion. "Have we met?" Then his eyes went wide. "Oh, it's you!" He leaned in extremely close to Chella's face then drew back. "Wait a minute!" He looked at Roak. "No red eyes!"
"No red eyes," Roak said.
"That's different," Yellow Eyes said.
"It is," Roak agreed. "I assume those are the chits."
"What? These things?" Yellow Eyes shook the pouches. "They better be the chits. They're all I could find in any of the storerooms. Or the only pouches I could find. Man, there are a lot of corpses hidden behind the walls of this place. I thought about checking the corpses to see if the chits were in any of them, but yuck, no thanks."
"I'll take those," Chella said, his hand out to Yellow Eyes. "Now."
Roak reached for his Flott, but he'd been relieved of it by N.
"Looking for this?" Yellow Eyes asked, producing Roak's Flott in one of his free nubs.
He handed Roak the Flott and before Chella, who was Father, could flee or protest, Roak blew his head off.
"Yep," Yellow Eyes said. "Had a feeling you'd want to do that so I went looking. Took it off an Urvein out in the corridor. Looks like he's really working Kalaka over. Want me to go stop that?"
"Not really," Roak said. "Let's focus on getting out of here. If the GVD's still alive then we'll grab him on the way."
A roar from the main entrance pierced through the chaos that had erupted when Chella's head was turned to mist before everyone's eyes.
"ROAK!" N bellowed. "This ends now!"
"I don't think that's actually the Urvein shouting that," Yellow Eyes said.
"No, it's not." Roak frowned. "How many walls did you open?"
Every being in the Gas Chamber froze, shook, then slowly quieted down.
"Uh oh," Yellow Eye
s said. "Father has new children."
"Answer the question," Roak snapped.
"What question?"
"How many walls did you open?"
"All of them."
"All of them?"
"I was being thorough."
"How many fire ant nests were there?"
"At least six before I found the pouches." Yellow Eyes ticked off some numbers on one of his free hand nubs. "Then about a dozen more behind the other walls."
"Yellow Eyes?"
"Yes, Roak?"
"Why did you keep opening walls after finding the chits?"
"I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any pouches. You mad?"
"For once, no. You did good."
Roak turned in a slow circle. They were surrounded on all sides by Father's implant zombies. The lack of red eyes meant Roak didn't know which were controlled and which were just being assholes. Roak decided in a split second that he would have to kill anyone in his way even if they weren't taken over. He was cool with that.
The beings rushed towards the stage.
Roak raised his Flott.
Then the Gas Chamber was suddenly filled with screams of surprise then screams of fear then screams of terror.
Then screams of pure agony.
"Right on time," Roak said with a grin. "Let's do this!"
He jumped from the stage, his Flott firing at full power in all directions.
16.
Roak hadn't had a good full out riot fight in a long while. It felt nice to shoot anything and everything that his Flott focused on without any guilt, remorse, or even giving a shit.
"Watch it!" Meshara yelled from Roak's side.
"Stay out of my way!" Roak shouted as he obliterated a pair of Lipians and a Spilfleck that charged him. "Where's Jagul?"
"I'm hiding behind the bar!" Jagul cried over the comm. "Someone come get me! This isn't fun anymore! I want to go home!"
"Meshara! Go save the kid!" Roak ordered. "I can handle myself!"
"Why must I save the Dornopheous child?" Meshara argued.
She slashed the faces of two Shiv'ernas, a lithe race with elephantine proboscises, then withdrew her claws, pulled her KL09, and shot the screaming, bloody beings point blank between the eyes.
"Because you're the professional guard in this group and I need the kid guarded! Otherwise we don't get the Borgon back when we return to Zuus!"
"Roak, we still have a problem," Nimm interrupted over the comm.
"Not now, Nimm!" Roak shouted.
A massive Gwreq rushed him, but Roak dropped the being with a well placed shot to the groin. The Gwreq roared in pain so Roak, being the kind guy he was, put the being out of its misery with a mercy shot to the head. Stone skin and brain matter splattered a Slinghasp waitress that was busy beating anyone and everyone to death with her drink tray.
Roak started to shoot the woman, but hesitated. She was helping him more than hurting him.
Then she turned, saw Roak, and came at him, swinging the drink tray with all her strength.
Roak shot the drink tray out of her hands then put two blasts in her chest.
"I do not think she was taken over!" Meshara shouted.
"Too bad!" Roak replied. "And why are you still here? Go get the kid!"
Meshara let loose with a litany of curses before she leapt into the fray and slashed, kicked, shot, and bit her way through the rioting crowd towards the bar.
"Alright, so not good news," Yellow Eyes said, suddenly by Roak's side again. "Main entrance is blocked."
"Blocked? How?" Roak asked. He shot down a nasty looking gang of Fergs with one trigger squeeze of the Flott. "Yellow Eyes! How is it blocked?"
"Oh, there are a lot of beings trying to get in here," Yellow Eyes said. "And a lot of beings trying to get out. See?"
Roak slammed an armored fist right through the head of a Lipian. He shook off the gore and tried to peer past the riot to the main entrance. All he saw was a sea of fighting, thrashing, bloody bodies.
"I'll take your word for it!" Roak replied.
A being sprinted by, its entire body engulfed in flame that looked like it was coming from the being's insides. The being screamed and thrashed then fell to its knees. Its skin was a scorched mess and sloughed off in flaming sheets, revealing a mass of wriggling and writhing fire ants just under the surface.
"Fire ants have joined the fight," Yellow Eyes said.
"Really?" Roak shouted. He could have helped put that being out of its misery too, but he used the shot for another Gwreq that was tossing beings this way and that way to get at him. The stone-skinned attacker fell to its knees and Roak fired again, turning the being's chest into a mass of scorched and oozing flesh.
Flesh that was exactly what a mass of Felturean fire ants were looking for. The creatures were each about the size of a small rat, and there were dozens of them, yet they figured out how to fit themselves deep inside the Gwreq corpse.
"Oh, that's gross," Yellow Eyes said.
The Gwreq's body burst into flame which wasn't an easy task due to the stone nature of its skin.
Fire ants from the being that had sprinted past Roak and fell to its knees all bailed from the collapsing, melting body and rushed to the fiery Gwreq. They bit hard and tore open holes in the dead Gwreq's arms and legs then slid inside.
The Gwreq corpse shivered, wobbled, then stood up. It took a step towards Roak then another, a burning flesh-puppet for the fire ants.
"Did you know they could do that?" Yellow Eyes asked.
"No," Roak said.
"That's kind of not good," Yellow Eyes said.
"Yeah," Roak replied. He obliterated the flaming Gwreq with his Flott then fired into the crowd over and over, creating a brief buffer between himself and the insanity. "Meshara?"
"I have the child," Meshara said. "But he is injured and unconscious."
"Can you carry him?" Roak asked.
"It will be difficult," Meshara said. "He is dead weight and made of putty."
"Yellow Eyes, go help Meshara with Jagul," Roak ordered. "They're behind the bar."
"Then what?" Yellow Eyes asked.
"Get out of here. I'll be close behind," Roak said.
"Yeah, about that. Remember the whole main entrance being blocked thing?" Yellow Eyes said. A massive explosion ripped open the wall the main entrance was set in. "Alright, not so much blocked as destroyed."
"Jafla Base Police Department!" a voice echoed everywhere. "Put down your weapons and stop fighting!"
"Roak!" Kalaka's voice cried over the comm. "You still breathing?"
"Yes," Roak said. "I thought you were dead."
"Almost," Kalaka responded. "N was about to snap my neck then he just let go and turned all weird. I called for some backup because shit just got way bigger than our little job."
"Yellow Eyes has the-"
"Hey now! Open channel. Let's keep things on the down low, alright?"
Roak watched dozens of Jafla PD troopers stream in through the destroyed main entrance. Then he watched dozens of Jafla PD troopers begin to scream as the entire crowd turned on them as one. They opened fire, but there were too many targets and in seconds they were overwhelmed by Father's children.
"What in all the Hells?" Kalaka shouted over the comm. "What the Hells? What the Hells? WHAT THE HELLS?"
"Got him," Yellow Eyes said. A blur and then he was back with a bloody and bruised Kalaka. "I'll go help Meshara now."
He was gone, leaving a very confused Kalaka next to Roak.
"I have no idea what is going on," Kalaka said. "Except the fire ants. I know those little fuckers."
Several flaming beings wobbled and weaved their way towards Roak and Kalaka. Roak put them down then looked over his shoulder at the far wall.
"We need to go while the crowd is distracted by the cops," Roak said. He looked back to Kalaka. "Where's Klib?"
"How would I know?"
"She said she was looking for you then she dropped off the comm."
/> "Maybe she decided this was too much." Kalaka shrugged. "Do you really care?"
"No," Roak said. "Meshara? Do you see the barrels piled up in the far corner?"
"Hold on!" Meshara replied. "Busy!"
"We're going that way," Roak said and cocked his head towards the barrels.
"You know something I don't?" Kalaka asked.
"Yeah," Roak said and took off running.
"Hey!" Kalaka cried behind him. "Wait up!"
Roak fired and fired. He blew open a path around the stage, killing every living and/or flaming being in his path. Finally empty of charge, his Flott powered down and he holstered it, switching out the weapon for the Kepler knife strapped to his thigh. Roak activated the energy blade.
"That will not help you, Roak," N said, suddenly blocking Roak's way. "I have coddled you enough. Time for you to leave the story."
"Fuck you," Roak said and slashed at the controlled Urvein. "It's my story, not yours."
"Do you think that little sticker of yours will stop this body?" N that was Father laughed. "That ego of yours, Roak. If I could harness it then I wouldn't need to…"
Roak slashed twice more, keeping the Urvein at bay.
"Wouldn't need to what?" Roak asked. "What do you need a massive amount of power for?"
"None of your concern, Roak," N that was Father said. The being reared up to its full height and glared down at Roak. "Goodbye, Roak."
"Goodbye, asshole," Roak said and took a couple of steps back.
The Urvein looked confused at Roak's retreat. "Not like you to run from a- AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
The Urvein's body was quickly covered in fire ants. They tore and ripped into the being's flesh, disappearing beneath the Urvein's loose skin.
"Let me," Kalaka said and fired his Blorta, putting a laser blast between N that was Father's eyes.
The Urvein fell onto its face as the fire ants took it over.
"Huh," Kalaka said. "I didn't know they could do that. Did you?"
"No," Roak snapped. "Meshara?"
"We're by the barrels!" Meshara replied.
"We're coming your way," Roak said.
He growled low in his throat at the sight between he and Kalaka and the wall with the barrels. It was nothing but flaming, shambling, fire ant-controlled corpses. Roak assumed they were corpses. Sucked for the beings if they weren't dead yet.