“I’m not pretty enough for you?” Amanda said.
“Bitch, you sure got a mouth on you,” one of the other guys said. “I’m going to fill that up for you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re pretty or not. We’re still going to do ya,” Marty said.
“Thanks for giving me the excuse,” Amanda said, calling the warrior girl costume and her sword.
Amazingly, they were unfazed. “Sure is some weird shit around these days,” Marty said. “That has got to be OMG.”
Maybe they were on drugs, Amanda thought. They would have to be on drugs. Didn’t matter. This was the bit where they quickly changed to running and screaming.
“These are not zombies,” Chrysalis said to Amanda. “You said we don’t kill innocents.”
“There’s nothing innocent about these scum bags,” Amanda said. “Let’s get some practice with our new resources before we have do the real thing out there.”
Chrysalis’s response was to change to her dragon costume.
The gang thought this was very cool.
Amanda twirled the sword and sliced down through the top of Marty’s head, exiting out through the bottom of the chair. The two halves of Marty and the chair stayed together until Amanda swept the sword sideways underneath the chair and removed one set of legs. The two halves of Marty and the chair fell messily apart.
Most of the gang members began to back away, shock and incomprehension on their faces.
Two of them stood their ground, pulling guns from under their jackets. Dragon Chrysalis was on one of them in a single bound of her powerful hindquarters, swiftly ripping him to pieces. Amanda took the other one with a couple of fireballs.
The running and screaming began.
They spent the next 45 minutes hunting down the rest of them in the derelict buildings, dispatching them one by one. Amanda was still glad when it was Chrysalis who killed Bobby rather than her.
Afterwards, Amanda went around cleaning up the bodies, until only black smears remained.
“I don’t think we should stay here,” Amanda said. “They’ve probably got friends who might come looking for them. We don’t want to bring the whole neighbourhood down on us.”
Chrysalis agreed. “This isn’t a good place to explain about Mt Cravat. I know a better place.”
“Are we going to Mt Cravat?” Amanda said, thinking it was probably her least favourite place to visit right now because it likely meant bad news.
Chrysalis looked up at the sky through one of the tall grimy windows. “It’s not so wet now. The best place would be Fossils Park.”
Amanda decided that she didn’t want to know why Fossils Park would be the best place to explain about Mt Cravat so she didn’t ask.
Aunt Jemima returned.
“You missed out on that tip, Aunt Jemima,” Amanda said, as she entered the bus. Aunt Jemima ignored her, sitting like a broken doll in her seat, staring vacantly out through the windshield, head bobbing on one side as it always did.
The weather had cleared somewhat as they pulled into the car park at Fossils Park although the sky was still filled with grey scudding clouds and everything was wet and sopping. Amanda got out, needing some air. There was no dry place to sit so she hung about until Chrysalis joined her.
“How long has Fossils Park been here?” Chrysalis said.
“Oh, about six months,” Amanda said flippantly.
“No. It was constructed 25 years ago when this suburb was developed.”
“Which is totally unlike Mt Cravat, so I’m told,” Amanda said. “And let’s not talk about the river and the bridges.” Although, obviously, that was exactly what they were going to talk about.
“Where is the nearest McCain’s?” Chrysalis asked. This was a hugely popular burger chain.
“Yeah, it is about time for lunch. You hungry?” Amanda said, glad of a change of subject.
“No. Where is the nearest McCain’s?”
“Okay, okay, Miss one hundred percent focused. Have you thought about a career in industry?”
Chrysalis waited patiently.
Amanda gave up. “Way over in Bedford. I don’t know why we don’t have one closer.”
Chrysalis hailed a middle-aged pot-gutted man who happened to be passing. “Excuse me. Would you tell me where the nearest McCain’s is please?”
The man gave her a look of pure lechery. “Oh, hello,” he said.
Chrysalis flashed him a pretty smile. “Do you know where it is?”
Amanda glared at him hoping he would turn into a zombie. She was thinking, maybe she should call the sword anyway, just in case, and then told herself to settle down.
The man gave directions to the McCain’s in Bedford and then reluctantly moved on.
“I guess all roads lead to Bedford,” Amanda said. “Is that where we’re going now? Unless you feel the need to check the directions again?”
“There’s no need,” Chrysalis said. “There is one right here.”
As she spoke, fully half of Fossils Park in front of them was replaced by a McCain’s restaurant. The bus was now in the burger outlet’s main car park. Around them, people were getting out of cars and going inside. The drive-through was busy. Children played in the McCain’s playground.
Despite all of the gobsmackingly strange events that had happened to her since meeting Chrysalis, and convinced she could no longer be surprised, Amanda’s jaw still gaped.
“Let’s go and have lunch,” Chrysalis said. Like a stunned mullet, Amanda followed her inside.
Before giving her order, Chrysalis said to the girl behind the counter, “I didn’t know there was a McCain’s in this part of town. How long has it been here?”
“About 12 months,” the girl said, looking at them expectantly, suggesting this wasn’t the time for a chit chat because there were people behind them, didn’t you know?
Chrysalis and Amanda took their order and sat down at one of the tables.
Although she had claimed not to be hungry, Chrysalis tucked into the food anyway. Amanda toyed with her milkshake, not bothering with the food. She kept looking around the restaurant.
“This is a small version of what happened at Mt Cravat,” Chrysalis said.
“I’m getting that,” Amanda said. “Did we really have a river going through the city and lots of bridges?”
“Yes. My parents changed all of that when they hid the ship here, six months ago.”
“But what about the history written down all over the place? What about people’s memories? Don’t tell me you’ve changed the memories of every single person who knew about Mt Cravat and everything that’s been written and recorded about it, all over the world…” She shook her head in disbelief again.
“Yes.”
Now Amanda became angry. “What makes you think you have the right to come here and…screw with us like this?” She sat back from the table, beside herself, not knowing what to think, what to say. For a moment she actually thought she was going to burst into tears. She struggled to maintain her self-control. “You have no right to do this to us,” she said.
“This isn’t anything compared to what the aliens have done to you,” Chrysalis said. “I’ve done this with McCain’s to show you that the technology exists to do this. The aliens have a similar technology.”
“Oh, this just gets better and better,” Amanda said.
“My parents had been here before, many years ago. This planet was a very different place then. Human beings lived an idyllic lifestyle in an environment that was utopia. When we arrived six months ago, my parents were surprised to find war, disease, ecological devastation, pestilence, plague, and misery. They think the aliens have been here about three or four years. The aliens changed you using the same technology that has just been used here.” Chrysalis used her burger to gesture at the restaurant around them. “They gave you nuclear weapons, armies, and warships and hatred of one another. They constructed a history for you of endless wars, famine and disease. They deg
raded the environment to match the new world they had constructed. Everything you have been taught about the past, even your own memories, was constructed by the aliens.”
“Three or four years ago? Are you trying to tell me that I grew up in a utopia and now I don’t know anything about it?”
“Yes.”
“But I know there wasn’t a McCain’s here. I remember Fossils Park as it was,” Amanda said.
Chrysalis pointed to the bracelet on Amanda’s wrist.
Now Amanda understood. “Is that why you told me never to take it off?” Amanda said. “It never was about protecting me, was it?”
“It did protect you. It stopped them from changing you, or worse, make it so that you never existed at all.”
“Oh,” Amanda said, suddenly feeling frightened.
“That’s why we have to fight them. Until every last one of them are dead. Only then will your world, as it was, return.”
“How many of them are there?” Amanda said.
“Millions.”
“I think I’m going to need more than a sword if I’m going to save the world,” Amanda said.
“The more we learn to fight, the more resources will be given to us by the minder.”
“Could your parents kill all of them?”
“Yes, probably.”
“If they want all of the aliens dead,” Amanda said, “why don’t they do this themselves?” Her face fell. “Oh. It’s not about saving the world, is it?”
“No. Until I prove myself, I can’t hatch into an adult.”
“You don’t even care about saving the world,” Amanda said.
“No.”
“Well, at least that’s honest,” Amanda said, deciding that maybe sometimes it was better not to be honest.
“That’s the difference between us,” Chrysalis said. “I don’t even understand how you would give up your own life to save your planet. I think that’s the most amazingly courageous thing to do. Perhaps that’s an echo of how you were before the aliens came and they haven’t been able to crush it.”
“Don’t get too carried away with that,” Amanda said. “I don’t know that I’m really into the total sacrifice thing.”
“If we don’t win here, I will die, your world will stay as it is, perhaps you’ll die too, or the aliens will change you to someone else.”
“Is that when your parents take their revenge on the aliens and we get utopia back?”
“No,” Chrysalis said, surprised. “I am only one Chrysalis Young amongst many who want to hatch. They will simply move on and see if another Chrysalis Young can do better elsewhere.”
“They won’t even shed a few tears for you? Get a little choked up?”
“No.”
“Chrysalis, that’s horrible,” Amanda said. “I guess we’re back to killing zombies.”
But Chrysalis had a better plan. “Instead of waiting for them to attack us. We’ll go and kill them wherever we find them and the more we kill, the more resources we get, meaning we can kill many more of them at one time.”
“And any humans that turn to zombies, I keep them off your back,” Amanda said
“Yes,”
“It’s going to take us a couple of lifetimes to deal to millions of aliens,” Amanda said. “And they’re all over the world. I might have a hard job explaining to my parents why I suddenly want to go to Africa, or Switzerland or someplace, during my semester break. And the bus doesn’t even fly. You need to rework this a little.”
“Some of the resources are very powerful. All we need to do is kill enough of the aliens so that the minder unlocks them for me.”
“You’d better hope the minder unlocks those resources real soon or we’re history. No joke intended ‘cause I don’t feel like laughing today,” Amanda said.
-oOo-
Amanda’s next performance on the show was her best yet. For some reason, she now felt less distracted. She wasn’t buying the utopia idea just yet. In fact, she didn’t believe it at all. It was too way out there. However, the talk at McCain’s had brought things sharply into focus. She had a simple job to do. Kill zombies. Watch Chrysalis’s back. Tazzie was as safe as she could make her. Her family seemed okay. It was time to get on with the job.
As she continued to deliver top performances, everyone on the show noticed the change in her.
Tracy Buckingham was especially pleased. “You’re now very much in tune with your fan base, Amanda. You’ve hit the spot and now you’ve got to stay there.”
Even Roman Harding took to making positive comments. “You must maintain this consistency. If you can do that, you’re in with a chance.”
Neither of them said that she still might win because Chrysalis was so far ahead of everyone else, the rest of the contestants were only vying for second place anyway.
Sarah said to Amanda, “I’ve written a song that would be perfect for the two of us. We could do digital distribution, even have our own label. It’s really easy to do.”
Working on the track with Sarah was lots of fun.
-oOo-
By day, Amanda was a high school senior hanging out with her friends. By night, she was a warrior girl fighting the aliens with dragon Chrysalis at her side. Well, actually, it didn’t go quite like that. She was often required during the day for the competition promos and the show always happened at night, but mostly that was how she thought of it.
Chrysalis’s new tactic threw the aliens off-balance, at least for a little while. Then they began to attack in greater numbers although this was exactly what Chrysalis wanted because the more she killed, the more access to resources she was given.
It was only a matter of time before they were caught on camera.
Chrysalis set up an attack at the dirt track at Sutherland. Sixteen thousand people were watching monster cars and trucks demolish other cars and trucks, demonstrations of blowing stuff up, and other fun events.
“Lots of aliens?” Amanda said.
“Mega aliens,” Chrysalis said. “They love watching demolition.”
Chrysalis and Amanda hid in the shadow of a side stand and changed to costume. Above their heads, 3000 people in the stand were doing the usual things people do at events like these. Amanda, as warrior girl, stepped out into the open and twirled her sword, making a small display of it. She didn’t have much choice in this as it was not possible to rest the sword anywhere because it went through anything it touched like a hot skewer through fat. Neither dragon Chrysalis nor warrior girl Amanda rated more than a passing glance from passers-by or the people in the stand. The few people who did pause to watch Amanda twirl the sword, decided that it was not particularly spectacular and moved quickly on. Some young kids, who didn’t get out much, stopped and pointed until they were dragged away.
As you would expect, that swiftly changed when Chrysalis, sitting comfortably on her massive hindquarters, started killing aliens in the stand.
Seconds later, Amanda was knee deep in zombies who were not zombies which was always in the back of her mind but let’s not go there.
The stand started to empty as the newly turned zombies flooded down the aisles. Amanda hurled fireballs and swung the sword, keeping them away from the motionless Chrysalis. The bodies piled up. Soon there were far too many of them lurching towards Chrysalis for Amanda to handle.
“Pied Piper?” Chrysalis said through the minder to Amanda.
“Pied Piper,” Amanda acknowledged.
All round the two of them, and up into the stand, was a mixture of zombies, people who had been freed and were sitting around vacantly, and people who had not yet been turned and were frantically trying to get out of the stand, except that all of the aisles were full of zombies and so mostly they were cowering up the back or scrambling across the seats and screaming lots. The problem was that her new resources could not discriminate between the different types of humans or simply destroyed everything in sight.
One of their new tactics to deal with this issue was Pied Piper. Amand
a hurled fireballs flat out, clearing a bigger space than normal around Chrysalis. A significant chunk of the zombies were targeting herself so she turned away from Chrysalis and cut a path through the zombies to the grassy open space in front of the stand. Many of the zombies turned to follow her.
“Focusing here,” Chrysalis said. This was to warn Amanda that she would now concentrate only on the aliens in front of her so that Amanda was on her own with the zombies that were following her to the grass at the front of the stand.
“Okay,” Amanda responded.
Having put some distance between herself and the people who had been freed, or not yet turned, Amanda released the bomb. This was a powerful new resource. A wave of energy pulsed out from her in a circle, disintegrating anything in its path. She could control the distance it travelled from her, and there didn’t seem to be any limit on how far that could be. She stopped it before it reached the stand, a few metres away. About 40 zombies in the circle around her all but turned to ash.
“Help,” Chrysalis said.
Amanda flicked her eyes back to Chrysalis. She was surrounded by a tightly packed, seething mass of zombies, pressing in so close that Chrysalis had resorted to clawing at their physical bodies to try and keep them off as well as trying to kill the aliens wrapped around them. Amanda sent a barrage of fireballs, clearing a space around her and then continued the barrage as she fought her way back to help dragon girl.
When Amanda felt that Chrysalis had the situation under control she said, “Repeat Pied Piper?”
“Sure,” Chrysalis responded.
Amanda repeated the tactic again. So far the aliens hadn’t come up with a way to counter this and Amanda hadn’t figured out, in this and other interactions with the aliens, whether they weren’t very bright, or more likely, were being alien and unknowable. It didn’t matter. It was a handy tactic. They kept working the tactic until they felt that the aliens had become distracted from the people still up in the back of the stand who hadn’t yet been turned. Now it was time for another tactic.
“Cavalry?” Chrysalis said.
“I’m on it,” Amanda said. She fought her way up the aisles and across the seats to a shocked and terrified group of about 400 people in the top back of the stand.
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