Forced To Kill The Prince

by Hollie Hutchins

  He rubbed his chin. “There was a number, like an ideal, where we were at for ten thousand years till the Industrial Revolution…but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “We are not going to get this chance again. Go too low and you plunge the earth into an ice age.”

  “But don’t go low enough and these bastards stay. Fuck…” He bit his lip and said, “Reduce the global CO2 parts per million by…fifty per…”

  Stella snapped, “No! one hundred parts per million!”

  “Reducing…”

  Which brought them down to 200 ppm, well below the average for the past fifteen thousand years.

  Erickson said, “I was going to say fifty percent.”

  “You are a reckless animal.”

  “Three hundred is still very high.”

  “I have a bad feeling. Computer, open the door please, and put the lights on.”

  There was a clunk a hiss and a buzz. The lights came on and the door opened.

  They stepped out and heard feet approaching. Erickson pulled his automatic from his waistband and said, “Two people. A man and a woman. Could be Thorvall and Alvarez…”

  It wasn’t. Around the side of the cube Bernie appeared, with Gal Gadot on his arm, gazing up at him and stroking his face. Stella said, “Wonder Woman?”

  Erickson said, “What the fuck…?”

  “It’s the GFART, it can do two hundred and fifty thousand different operations, and one of them, get this, one of them is tactile holograms. It’s insane. I know! I know you’ll say I am insane! But I am in love with a hologram! And why not, Erickson? You get me, right, Stella? Why not? I mean where is it written that love must be for a sentient, organic being…? Where?”

  Erickson said, “You used the GFART? How much did you reduce it by?”

  Bernie was not hearing him. He was saying, “In a way it’s like being in love with a Light Being. Am I wrong? Can you tell me I am wrong?”

  Ertickson rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard more fuckin’ sense talked at chucking out time at the Hereford Arms. We have to get out of here. We need to get Alvarez back and go.”

  Alvarez lay flat out staring at the ceiling. Thorvall lay next to her. He said, “I am sore and raw.”

  “Dude, we have to do the CO2 thing. That’s the deal. Then we can go.”

  “OK…” he closed his eyes and began softly to snore. She smacked him hard. “Thorvall! Do it! Now!”

  “OK, ok… Computer.”

  “Yes, Thorvall. You both look very cozy there. Would you like me to join you? I have just made a very nice Gal Gadot…”

  “No, perhaps some other time…”

  Alvarez glared at him, “Excuse me?”

  “What? Come on! Gal Gadot…and she’s not real! It’s just a tactile hologram.”

  Alvarez raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, she is pretty hot…” Then she smacked his head. “Come on! Focus!”

  “Computer, GFART interface. Parts per million of CO2 in Earths atmosphere. Reduce by, let me think, we are at just over four hundred, so bring it down to two eighty, so reduce by one hundred and twenty parts.”

  “Reducing…”

  So the CO2 ppm of the Earth’s atmosphere was now down to a very chilly 80 parts per million, where it hadn’t been since it was practically a ball of ice.

  Far below Clay lay staring at the immense disk that hovered over the city he loved. His city. He looked at it and thought of all the pretty girls and all the beautiful women who had been stolen and enslaved by the immense army of aliens who lived aboard that immense ship. And as he watched, black clouds began to accumulate on the horizon, gradually obscuring the stars in the east. He shivered with the growing cold, and as he grew colder, so his anger grew hotter; and as the clouds boiled toward a storm, so his anger boiled towards bloody rage.

  After five joints he was not at his most rational, but his emotions and his sense of cosmic justice were flowing freely and he knew, suddenly, exactly what he needed to do. He climbed to his feet, settled himself in the seat of the laser cannon, pointed it in the general direction of the immense ship and, hollering at the top of his voice, opened fire.

  To clay, his target looked vast – three miles across, in fact. The reality of course was that of those three miles, only a sphere one hundred and fifty feet across was actual target. His laser shots hit the holographic matrix and the whole ship erupted into an aurora borealis of wild and wonderful lights, among which billions of spaceships were projected all across the sky and the city. Clay’s eyes went like saucers, he whooped and shouted and opened up some more, sending thousands of blasts of laser light up at the gigantic holograph, making it explode into the wildest light show the world had ever seen.

  In his room the computer said to Thorvall, “The ship is under attack from a laser cannon in Central Park, Thorvall.”

  Alvarez said, “Clay…!”

  Thorvall said, “Son of a bitch! What happened to the blessed kleine tod? Can’t a man enjoy his post coital rest? Shields up!”

  He climbed out of bed and walked naked to his sitting room, where he gazed out of his vast, panoramic window. He smiled, “Wow, Alvarez, come and look at this.”

  The light display was stunning. The entire stratosphere from Canada to Mexico was alive with explosions of every conceivable color, and billions of reproductions of the ship spreading into infinity.

  Thorvall took her in his arms and kissed her. “This,” he said, “is a good omen. Computer, take us clean across the galaxy. But first…”

  Alvarez grinned and leaned into him. She said, “Oh man, I love when you talk dirty…”

  Bernie was engaged at that moment in jumping up and down and pulling savagely at his own hair. Gal Gadot kept flickering in and out of existence and all the computer would say to him was, “Incongruent data. The ship is under attack. Shields are up. Incongruent data. The ship is under attack. Shields are up.”

  Erickson said, “Who the fuck is attacking the ship? Computer, shut up and tell me who is attacking the ship!”

  “Incongruent data…”

  Stella said, “We just have to search the docking bays till we come to a shuttle…”

  “You know how to fly one? Cause I don’t.”

  “Shit! We have to find…”

  She closed her mouth. They all turned as they heard feet approaching at a run. The docking bay doors were open and Alvarez came flying in, staggered to a halt and shouted, “Next docking bay! Escape pod! Now!”

  She ran and they scrambled after her. They followed her down a passage, round a bend and down another passage. She skidded to a halt and put her hand on a panel. The door opened. Erickson barked, “How can you do that?”

  “Not now, Boss! We have to get out of here now! This baby is about to blow!”

  They were in. There was a ship, thirty foot long, similar to the shuttles but more streamlined. Alvarez barked, “Pod! Open hatches!” And four hatches hissed open. They scrambled in and she said, “Close hatches. Auto pilot engage. Lock on to Clay, Jeep, Central Park Meadow. Go!”

  And the next moment they were erupting from the ship amid a wild blaze of colors that seemed to fill the entire sky. They all gasped and invoked the sacred nature of excrement and next thing they were plummeting down towards New York.

  Erickson, struggling to keep a grip on his mind said, “Alvarez, how? Why…?”

  He was silenced by the fact that she had started crackling, much as Gal Gadot had done in the cube.

  He said, “She’s a fucking hologram…”

  She winked out of existence and Bernie said, “What the hell, man…?”

  Stella echoed him, “What the hell has happened to the weather?”

  Beneath them the extraordinary light display was beginning to reflect of mountains of boiling cloud. And as the clouds accumulated, so the laser cannon could no longer penetrate them to reach its target. A few moments later the display stopped and they were hurtling down through dense, black, boiling vapor.

  The ne
xt moment they had emerged into a transformed world. A stygian darkness had enfolded the city. A howling wind was tearing at the Atlantic beneath them, hurling columns of spume as high as the skyscrapers. Thundering waves curled and crashed against Manhattan and Long island, coiling and twisting up the Hudson and the Bronx. And out of the black air, snow fell in twisting, writing squalls, like a billion white banshee let loose from the splintering gates of hell.

  They hurtled down towards the park, and as they fell the dark oblong was transformed into white luminescence. The billions of lights that illuminated the Big Apple, borough by borough, began to wink out. With each borough, the darkness grew deeper and blacker.

  As they slowed to land, they saw the headlamps of the Jeep, and in the glow they could make out the giant form of Clay running around, jumping up and down and waving his fists in the air.

  They clambered out into the freezing air and, despite the cold, they were struck by the clean intensity of the smells that came to them on the wind. Clay was whooping and shouting, “Did you see that? Man! Did you see what I did? Woohoo! Wow! I just… I aimed and I… Man!”

  Erickson put his arm around him and guided him toward the shuttle. “You did this, Clay?”

  “I did this! Man, I just aimed and, whoop!”

  “OK, mate, we have to get out of he. We have to head south…”

  By a combination of common sense and freakish good luck they managed to get the shuttle back up in the air and turned south toward Arizona and New Mexico. As they traveled, everywhere they saw powerful beams of light breaking through the clouds, penetrating the most populous areas. They did not know what it meant, but when they finally arrived in Tucson, they found it was deserted. Not a human soul was left in the place. The same was true of Phoenix, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

  The cold was bitter, and as it drove them farther south, slowly they began to encounter people, though precious few. They never did work out that between them they had reduced the CO2 to a mere 80 ppm, and in the end it became easier just to blame Clay, who became know in legend as the Snow Man, or Clay the Snow Bringer.

  Many legends would grow up around the small band of friends: about Erick and Stella in the Garden of Centralpark, and how she had lured him into the Gfart of Knowledge, to the perdition of mankind. How Erickson and Stella’s disobedience had led the God Thorvall to turn his back on humanity in anger, but how eventually the couple led the chosen tribe the promised land in De Careebeean.

  Thorval and Alvarez stayed together for the rest of their lives and, after a few thousand years, become emperors of the universe. They never did return to Earth, though.

  As to Bernie, well, he never lost hope of one day finding the love of his life and, by one of those bizarre coincidences that seem to happen in certain people’s lives, strolling along the beach one day in the Gulf of Mexico, he happened to bump into Gal Gadot, who just happened to be there. And it was. It was love at first sight.

  And Olaf Olafsen, well, he built a ship, and sailed east…

  Her Darkest Fantasies: The Dragon’s Heart

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance

  The imperious and beautiful Lady Emma Danby of Chidester is in her early twenties, but she has spent her entire adult life blinding herself to love, pursuing instead, since her father’s death, her fascination with Norse myth, magic and dragons - never suspecting for one moment that there might be any truth in these ancient legends.

  For the past seven years, Lord Richard Pastern has loved her, and for seven years she has ignored him, thinking him agreeable but weak. Secretly, in her darkest fantasies and dreams, she has longed for something altogether more powerful, more bestial…

  And then professor Sigurd Dreki walks into her life, bringing with him fantasies more wild than she has ever dreamt possible – fantasies, and the terrible secret of the soul held prisoner for a thousand years, and she – only she, has the key to his freedom!

  * * *

  One

  Lady Emma Daneby of Chidester contemplated her visitor with interest. It was rare to find such insolence and impertinence coupled with such ingratiating servility. And both were expressed quite shamelessly. The man wrung his hat and exposed blackened teeth in a smile which made his eyes all but vanish within the folds of his face.

  “May I, then, M’Lady, inform my master that you will honour him with your attendance at his talk this evening?”

  Miss Drake blinked, and managed to convey with this simple gesture, utter outrage. The man’s smile sagged a little.

  “You may tell him no such thing. I am not accustomed, Mr…”

  “Wormslip, M’Lady, simply Wormslip.”

  “Wormslip, to being summonsed to public gatherings, particularly at a mere seven hours’ notice. You may inform you master that in future, if he wishes to issue me with an invitation, he might observe the usual formalities.”

  As far as she was aware she had dismissed him. Yet he did not leave, but stood there turning his hat in his hands as though it were a set of rosary beads. She raised an eyebrow that had been know to make dukes blanch. The man was resilient. He exposed the tombstones of his teeth in the graveyard of his mouth and made a face of pathos.

  “Was there something else, Wormslip?”

  “Well, Miss, Ma’am, M’Lady, It’s just…” He was causing grievous damage to his hat now. “I may have…”

  “Speak, man! What is it?”

  “I may have, accidentally, M’Lady, misrepresented, quite unintentionally, my master’s intention.”

  She frowned. “How so?”

  “You see, M’Lady, he is, if I may express it thus, much taken with Your Ladyship on account of your Ladyship’s published works on the subject of ancient Norse mythology, and in particular, if I may make so bold, Nidhoggr, Jormungand and Fafnir.” He took half a step forward, as though to speak confidentially, and fearful that someone might overhear his confidence. “He is a great, and vocal, admirer of M’Lady’s work and was much excited at the prospect of conversing with M’Lady on the subject of Norse mythology.” He gazed down at the floor and screwed his hat into a small ball. “Sadly, M’Lady, we were until yesterday in the far north of Norway conducting research, and arrived by ship only twenty for hours ago. It has been impossible to send Your Ladyship an invitation until this very moment, though he has talked of little else for the last two weeks. I know he hopes fervently to discuss his finds with you. I shall no doubt be severely reprimanded and chastised, perhaps even beaten to within an inch of my miserable existence, for having failed in my task…”

  “Oh for goodness sake! Do stop snivelling, Wormslip! And stop destroying your hat! I could not possibly have your chastisement on my conscience. Heaven knows you are blighted enough! Inform your master I shall attend his talk.”

  Wormslip’s face lit up into an image of grotesque glee and his pale blue eyes sparkled over the warts on his disfigured nose.

  “Oh,” he breathed, raising his twisted hat to chest height, “Oh, M’Lady, he will be pleased. Thank you so much, M’Lady…”

  “Stop effusing!” she snapped. “Now, be gone! Before you completely mangle that bonnet.”

  She watched the man make off, with the remains of his hat upon his head, at a quick scamper through the carriages, in the general direction of Hyde Park and Knightsbridge. When he was gone from view she penned a quick note and slipped it into an envelope which she addressed with the words: Lord Pastern, Wormholt Square, Mayfair. Then she pulled on the bell cord that alerted the staff bellow stairs. Presently there was a soft tap at the door and Smythe, her butler, entered.

  “You rang, M’Lady.”

  “Smythe, have this note sent round to Lord pastern. I shall require an immediate reply, so have the boy wait.”

  * * *

  Lord Pastern called for her in his carriage at five. As he handed her in, he said, “I hope you realize, Emma, I had to upset Papa for you.” He walked around and climbed in the other side. When h
e had settled next to her we went on. “He has invited lady Umbridge and her daughter Prudence to dine. He wants me to take an interest in Prudence.”

  The carriage gave a small jerk and they began a leisurely trot towards South Kensington. He was a handsome young man, only a year or two older than herself. But close inspection showed he had a sensitive mouth. She had decided some years earlier, during her coming out, when she had first met him, that if she ever married she would marry him. Though he was too sensitive, he was of good Viking stock. She thought of his father, Lord Ranulf of Norwich, as a magnificent brute. Though this was a thought that she kept to herself.

  “Then you can be grateful to me on three counts, Richard,” she said.

  He smiled but didn’t look at her. “Three no less.”

  “I have spared you from the ghastly concoctions your father’s cook produces in the place of food…”

  “Come! They are not that bad.”

  “Don’t interrupt, Richard. I have spared you the intellectual lobotomy of a conversation with Lady Umbridge…”

  “My dear Emma!”

  “And – I told you not to interrupt – I have saved you from the embarrassment of having to tell prudence Umbridge to go and swing. You know perfectly well that you are to remain single on the off chance that I may decide to marry. In which case I shall marry you and only you.”

  “You are quite unspeakable. You know I am devoted to you, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  Something like wistfulness flitted across his face. He glanced at her sidelong and asked, “Do you realize it has been two months since you last spoke to me?”

  She looked haughty which he knew meant she felt guilty. As well she might, he thought.

  “Has it?” she said. “I didn’t know. You’ve been busy, and so have I.”

  “How do you know I’ve been busy? You take no interest in what I do.”