by M. D. Cooper
“I’m going to help the others.”
“How?”
“I have no idea,” Zenith answered.
***
Zenith took a deep breath, listened to her heart thunder in her chest for a moment, and then threw the door open. Exiting out into the hallway, she slammed the door shut again. Once she was sure that it was closed completely, she made her way down the hall. Vermillion seemed to be online again, with all of her code ones for everybody who was currently scared.
Vermillion! “Hey, Vermillion,” she yelled, “I don’t know anything about giant space spiders. Can you help me out? What can I do?”
Vermillion always seemed concerned about them, so Zenith wondered why she wasn’t doing anything to help them out now.
She turned another corner to find Aquillon swinging his club again, but his non club-wielding arm looked gimpy. Helo was slashing wildly in all directions with a sword. Oh crap. This was not going well at all.
“Hang on,” said Vermillion. “These space spiders, they have a chemical component on their legs that freezes up my components. I keep force-rebooting.”
One of Helo’s swings lopped off a length of spider leg. The spider twitched in a fury. Helo froze sword in his hand, only to get knocked down by another leg. His sword skittered loudly across the floor, now out of reach. The spider screeched in victory and made it all the way into the room.
No! The noise the spider made, coupled with the unpredictable, twitchy movements, turned Zenith’s blood to ice. It was loose and free inside the space ship. She wished herself back in her room, in the shower hiding with Celeste, who she hoped was not currently buzzing.
Truth be told, Zenith might have buzzed herself given the chance. The thought of death by giant space spider oozed into her consciousness. Her brain was now overloading on adrenaline, and she was possibly going into shock. She could only keep one thought in her mind.
“Vermillion? Vermillion, we need help!” Zenith could hear her own shrill, screeching voice, but was unable to stop herself. Her screaming drew the attention of the spider, which twitched in her direction. She could now see eyes.
“Vermillion! We’re all going to die.” Mostly me right now, though. Zenith fell backward. The spider was in the center of the room just outside of the airlock. Aquillon, and Helo were on the other side of it. Celeste was in her room. There was no hiding now. She was alone, with the full attention of the spider. She crawled backward, hearing the shouts of the others who could do nothing to help her.
“Electricity,” said Vermillion at last, out of nowhere, over the speakers. “Electricity can kill it. Its immune system is weak…all you have to do is….” There was a whine of energy, which Zenith could only imagine was Vermillion rebooting again. And then there was only the sound of the pounding of her heart. Her heart raced as she maintained eye contact with the spider, the only question now was when it would pounce.
Its gaze was fixed on her, and it kept twitching in her general direction, getting a better look. Zenith glanced and felt around for a knife, a weapon, anything. Nothing but floor. The spider stopped twitching at her. The shouting by Helo and Aquillon on the other side resumed. They were trying desperately to distract it.
She sat up slightly. Maybe it would work. Maybe the spider would turn and again engage the armed crew members shouting at it and poking it.
It didn’t turn to them, though. Zenith was sure that it was looking right through her soul, her body shuddered and began to shiver. She tried to keep herself still and failed. Then it charged, lightning fast.
She closed her eyes and hoped it wouldn’t hurt. The darkness helped a little. It enveloped the terror in her mind with uncertainty. In that one moment, uncertainty was slightly better than death, which would come in a second or two. Any time now. Much to her surprise, she found that it would have been nice, in that moment, to hear Vermillion in her head. A familiar, friendly voice to send her on her way.
In the darkness, her other senses heightened. She heard three things. The horrible patter of giant spider feet rushing toward her, Vermillion humming back online, and another sound. A crackling noise and a muffled, inhuman scream.
***
Zenith cracked an eye open. Celeste was standing next to her with a stun gun in her hand, the other end of which was embedded in the eye wall of the giant spider, which was writhing and twitching and making an inhuman screaming noise that Zenith knew would haunt her nightmares until the very end of her days, which she hoped was quite a while from now.
From the other side of the spider, a heavy club descended on the spider’s center with a sickening thud. The spider stopped moving, having curled itself into a hairy, grotesque ball about one-tenth its former size.
Zenith wasn’t ready to move. In fact, she wasn’t at all sure she ever wanted to move again.
“It’s okay, Zenith, I got you,” Celeste said, obviously proud of herself. She began stroking various body parts of Zenith’s body with her antenna and making what could possibly pass as soothing noises.
Zenith relaxed into a fetal position on the floor.
“Good work, everybody!” Vermillion exclaimed, humming back online. “I’m so proud of every one of you.”
When Zenith thought it through later, she figured it had taken every one of them, together, to survive. They had helped Vermillion by killing the spider. Vermillion had helped them by telling them its weakness in the midst of rebooting cycles. Zenith had saved Celeste from her instinctual panic, who after having calmed down and heard Vermillion’s proclamation, remembered the stun gun she kept in her purse for emergencies. The boys had held it at bay, clubbing, slashing, and grabbing at it as best they could while getting injured in the process. Putting it all together like that, and feeling that she was finally getting a handle on getting to know the rest of the crew, she was doubly surprised that she was actually alive.
***
Vermillion Consciousness Processing Update # 3394. All clear, for now. Multi-dimensional scan has detected zero potential malefactors in this sector. The infiltration of the spider has resulted in superficial damage to the multi-dimensional scanning processors. The scan must be re-run within single digit celestial hours to be sure. The crew appears to be okay. If these people only knew that there are far worse things lurking just out of current boundaries than space spiders and warring robots and cyborgs.
Chapter 6
Zenith and the others eventually staggered back to the common room and collapsed into their spots.
“You guys travel around the universe scanning little boxes for clues and battling giant space spiders? That was pertinent information that should have been disclosed before I signed up, you know.”
“Sure,” Aquillon said, “that’s what you say until we find the treasure. Then it’ll be ‘where’s my cut?’”
“In our defense, that was our first ever giant space spider. Who knew they could get in an airlock like that. Am I right?” Helo said.
Zenith decided to let that one go. “Hey, Helo, I think I’m now fairly prepared to do a bad job with customer service when we get there. When will that be?”
There was more chirping from the console.
“Very soon,” Helo said.
“Zenith shook her head. “What in stars name are these people doing way out here in the middle of the intergalactic Bermuda triangle? And you’re telling me that you want me to waltz into the city of a robot crime lord and NOT fix his computer.”
“It probably won’t be his computer, the space station is just technically his city. And yes, you have to fail. And don’t screw it up.”
“You mean yes, I should screw it up.”
“Knock it off,” Vermillion announced. “You guys are already eleven celestial hours late.”
Zenith stood up as the shock hit her. She was actually late to a job. For the first time in her life. Well, she had been late to jobs before, but the normal five or ten minutes accounting for traffic or wardrobe malfunctions or minor zombie apocal
ypses. Not eleven hours.
“That’s right, and you’re the one who insisted that we show up late, Helo. No way. I’m out. You can go in there late and not fix the computer. I’m not comfortable with it.”
“Helo’s right, though. New person takes the first job,” Celeste chimed in.
“Were you ten plus celestial hours late to your first job?” Zenith asked.
“Fifteen,” Celeste answered, antenna bobbing. “It’s no big deal out here. Most of them kinda expect it.”
“But I’ll bet the client wasn’t at the lair of a robot crime lord!” Zenith continued to protest.
“Oh, most of our customers are bad guys in the iffy part of space,” Aquillon answered, shrugging.
“Then what happens if we get a job at Regal? What are you going to do then?”
“Hide?”
“Why can’t I hide, then?”
“Look,” Helo said, sitting down next to her on the couch, “they have no reason to hate you. Or to hurt you. As far as they know, you’re here to help, right?”
“Won’t they be mad when I don’t fix their computer? Isn’t that why we’re there in the first place?”
“The trick is to just make stuff up,” Helo said, “throw around a lot of made-up jargon. Make whatever the issue is sound crazy impossible to fix. Like their best bet is to call the manufacturer and get them to send a brand new unit. Most of these people are idiots anyway. They won’t understand the difference.”
Zenith tried to stare a hole in his forehead. “Manufacturers don’t send brand new units. Not even if you have the dated receipt, a list of customer service online video sessions, and video of the unit malfunctioning up to and including causing injuries and property damage.” Zenith knew this for a fact, as it had happened to her.
“You know that, and I know that,” Helo said. “But if they already knew that then they wouldn’t have called us, would they?”
“What happens when this robot crime lord figures out we lied to him? Then what?”
“You worry too much,” Helo said, “we’ll be long gone. And these guys are busy, they have better things to do than to track us down.”
“How many of these calls have you been on?” Zenith asked.
“Couple of dozen,” Celeste said.
“And you’ve never actually helped anybody?”
“Damn straight. Zero percent customer satisfaction. A perfect record,” Aquillon said.
Zenith did the math. She didn’t like it. She did the math again. That’s a couple of dozen pissed off crime organizations, plus Aquillon’s racket and Carl, her ex-boyfriend. She began to hyperventilate.
Given any length of time into the future, giant space spiders might be the least of their worries. “So why not just fix the issues? Why make everybody angry, and also be bad at your jobs?”
“Weren’t you listening? We need the free time to unwind. And for the scavenger hunt. We’re going to be famous!” Helo said. His feet were up on the couch, and he was playing a game on his phone. Zenith felt like she had entered an alternate dimension.
“Hey, everybody. We have arrived at our destination,” Vermillion boomed, louder than usual this time unless it was Zenith’s imagination. “Get out, you bunch of slackers. You have a job to do. Or not do. I don’t care, just get going.”
***
The Cyborg Caesar paced back and forth, his cell phone held close to his head. “Yes, as I’ve said a number of times, I’d like to upgrade my account. How many times do I need to repeat myself? It’s ‘C-A-e-s-A-r.’ Got it? Yes, that’s my legal name.”
An underling approached him, mumbling something so that he couldn’t hear what the customer service rep on the other end of the line was saying. He waved him off menacingly, making a steel fist.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “could you repeat that?” He paused. “No. You got it wrong again. You wormhole-ridden piece of slimy plutonium, I oughta— hey, hang on a minute, would you?”
He gestured for his right-hand man, or in this case, machine, Vax to approach, before turning his attention back to his phone. “Okay. You. Let’s start with something simple. What’s YOUR name?” He bit his lower lip while he listened and felt the unusual sensation of physical pain. His lower lip was one of the very few bits of him that wasn’t cybernetically enhanced.
“Jook Uilneaasd,” he repeated, “got it.” He smiled and motioned to Vax. “Hey, Vax, I want you to jump in a shuttle, get yourself over to Virgon-Three as soon as possible, and annihilate this Jook guy, got it?”
Vax turned to obey.
“What?” The Cyborg Caesar asked. “Oh, you heard that part, did you? So you are capable of listening. Interesting. What’s that? You’re going to report me? Threat of bodily harm on a civil servant? Don’t make me laugh, how are you going to report me if you can’t get my name right?” He shook his hair, something he loved to do since it was made entirely of very expensive and extremely rare 35mm film. He loved the sound that it made as it fell in long curls and rattled dramatically.
Vax turned back to look at him, questioning whether the order was rhetorical. “No really,” he said, “get going, Vax. Text me when it’s done. No, Jook, I wasn’t talking to you, was I?”
The Cyborg Caesar’s day simply wasn’t going the way he had hoped. He decided to hang up and dial the number again to get a different guy. These days it was all luck of the draw, the number you drew in the roulette wheel of life simply depended on who you happened to run into, whether it was in person or on the phone.
He hung up and frowned. Another underling approached. He sighed. “What now? Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
“Sir, it’s important news. News you’ve been waiting for. You specifically said that when this news became available that you wanted to hear it immediately no matter what—”
He pointed the weapon that was his right hand and pointed it at the babbling underling. “WHAT. IS. THE. NEWS?”
“Oh. Yes, sir, right away, sir.”
He armed the weapon that was his right hand, which made a whining sound, and raised an eyebrow at the underling, daring him to spend another second not telling him the news.
“Oh, the scout at Parallax city, sir. He said he found the item in question. Found it yesterday and didn’t even bother to tell anyone. In fact, sir, that’s the last communication we received from him, he’s been unreachable, and we fear something may have happened to him.”
The Cyborg Caesar disarmed the weapon. “The item in question. In Parallax City. You don’t mean.”
“Yes, sir. It’s true. He found it. At least that’s what the scout said.”
“And he didn’t tell anybody. He wants to run off with it. He has to know that Parallax will never let him leave, with or without it. What’s he thinking?”
“I don’t know, sir. And the only guy we had keeping an eye on him isn’t responding anymore.”
“Did our spy give any indication that Parallax had any idea what’s going on?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay,” he said, starting to pace again, “that’s good. That’s just fine. Now all we have to do is go and take it. That’s very good news indeed.”
He walked over to his custom-built, titanium throne. It was beautiful. Ornate designs and symbols in a glowing blue were etched into the metal, enduring reminders of his goals, hopes and dreams. He placed a fleshy index finger on the glowing image of a Dragon figurine.
Then he sat on his throne with a crackle, feeling the energy coursing through him. He closed his eyes and sent out his orders, converting his will and wishes into alt binary and sending them out to his minions. He opened his eyes when he was done. The electrical charge always boosted his mood, strength, and energy levels.
“Ok,” he said, “the plan is made, my orders have been sent. Everybody suit up. Let’s do this.”
***
The crew exited Vermillion into a very large, lavishly decorated space station that looked like it had been built out of an abandoned shoppin
g mall. There was even a sign that said, “Parallax City” in neon green letters.
Zenith looked around, having never been to the city of a robot crime lord in the middle of one of the worst parts of deep space before. It was quite nice, actually. “Well, Parallax certainly isn’t flying under the radar,” Zenith said.
“There’s no need to out here, that’s what I keep telling you,” Helo said. “They have deep space all to themselves.”
“Well, they can keep it, along with whatever spiders and monsters are out here. I can’t wait to get back to the civilized planets myself.”
The hallways were packed with people scurrying from here to there. If Zenith didn’t know any better, she’d have thought it was just another city with people going to and from work and going about their lives, not the city of a robot leader out in the most terrifying part of space.
She spotted a directory and crossed to it. It appeared that most of the department stores and food court names had been covered with new images and numbers that told people where to go for office type businesses, housing areas, and restaurants. Upon further inspection, some of the original mall stores remained, albeit it off in a corner.
It had been a while since she had gone shopping, but she banished that thought from her mind. She was here to do a job. Or not do it, as the case may be, although she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to pull off the not doing your job thing. It went against every fiber of her being. First things first, though.
The directory told her how to get to the front desk. “This way,” she said, and led the crew down the crowded hallways into the heart of the space station.
Zenith was still marveling at how huge the place was when they got to the front desk, which had a sign over it that said Welcome Desk. Huh, thought Zenith, maybe Helo was right after all. For a robot city, the place seemed ordinary. Maybe they could just get in, fix or not fix the computer, and get out without any major catastrophes.
A tall, thin guy that looked like he was covered in seaweed eyed their approach suspiciously from behind the desk. “Mining, banking, retail, or Parallax business?”