by M. D. Cooper
What kind of hoax is this? Zenith wondered what caused them all to be so caught up in this object, anyway. She had studied it for months. For Carl. They had studied every piece of literature and history ever written about it. Zenith had concluded that it was a fairy tale, but Carl had become obsessed. It’s what brought them together in the first place and ultimately what broke them up.
Was it possible that the object Darby found was the figurine that people had spent eons searching for? And the only reason they could be this excited was if they thought that the fairy tales were true. Untold power to any being that was within seven percentage points of the exact necessary ratio of human to machine. Magic. Power. Reality. Was it all fluid in the right, or wrong hands of the Galaxy Dragon? Zenith didn’t believe in it herself, but she was starting to believe in the sort of violence and destruction that its discovery would bring. And the only thing she knew for certain was that she and the rest of the crew had better get out of there and soon.
She glanced at Aquillon who just stood there bleeding. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better,” he answered, “but I’m okay for now.”
“If we get the chance, do you think you could run?”
“Oh yeah,” said Aquillon, “just watch me.”
The message Darby had sent asked the Cyborg Caesar to attack immediately. If they weren’t out of time already, they would be very soon. That rat Darby expected to escape from both Parallax and the Cyborg Caesar in the chaos. She suspected that Moss was planning on doing the same thing. All in all, it wasn’t a bad plan. In fact, it might be the crew’s only hope. She whispered it to Celeste, who passed it on as they stood in the crowd under armed guard in the middle of the large room.
Darby’s door flew open. An injured Moss came screaming out of there, weapon firing in all directions. The crowd they were in scattered as the guards trained their weapons and attention on Moss.
“Let’s go,” Zenith said, and they sprinted down the hallway trying to make their way toward Vermillion.
“If we can get within range, Vermillion can help us,” Helo said.
“How?” Zenith asked. “By bursting their eardrums?”
“She has technology that can disrupt and disable cyborgs and robots, but it’s a very close-range weapon, we’d have to be well within the sound of her voice.”
“Wow, you weren’t kidding about her being ex-military?”
“No, I wasn’t kidding. She has a lot of hidden capabilities. Let’s just say there isn’t another ship like her in this universe.”
“How come you know all of this?”
“It’s a secret. And not in an I’d love to tell you kind of way, in a she will literally kill me if I tell you kind of way.”
They rounded the corner at full speed and ran smack into a different batch of armed people. Cyborgs. One tripped Helo, and he went skidding forward onto the linoleum floor, all the way to a bare, steel foot.
“Helo!” Zenith froze and put up her hands when she saw the new armed combatants, but she couldn’t help but watch Helo go flying across the floor. When she saw him stop, her shoulders slumped, and her heart raced. She knew that steel foot.
“Hey, babe,” Carl said, “what is this, some kind of foreplay you got going on here with squishy man?” He inspected and then dismissed Helo. “I have to say, Zenith, he looks like a serious downgrade compared to me.”
Zenith could barely hear what was going on over the sound of her heart pounding. She thought of her apartment complex, the threats, and Joyce.
“Shut up, Carl. It’s not like that. And besides, it doesn’t matter, you’re too late, Parallax already has the Galaxy Dragon. I saw it with my own eyes.” She was scared and bluffing, but If he was distracted by that stupid figurine like everyone else, then maybe they could get away.
Carl crossed toward her. She tried to back up, but a guard stopped her.
“Your own eyes, eh?” Carl asked. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You see nothing. You should have taken me up on my offer to replace those weak eyes with some seriously powerful vision. Beyond anything you could imagine.”
“I don’t want anything beyond my imagination, Carl.” She shook herself free, if only temporarily. “I want reality. Normal, boring, reality. Not magical figurines or cybernetically enhanced everything. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”
“I’m not a downgrade,” Helo butted in. “I’d also like to say that at least I don’t have stupid, fake hair.”
Weapons were instantly re-aimed at his head. He crossed his arms. “Just saying.”
Carl looked around for a moment. “Bring them,” he said and strode down the hallway back toward Parallax and his crew.
There goes the plan. Zenith got an idea and darted in the opposite direction toward Vermillion. Maybe Carl would chase her. Maybe Vermillion could take him out.
She only got ten steps before one of his lackeys tackled her. As he roughly got her back on her feet, she glanced over to see that not only had Carl not chased her, he hadn’t even turned around.
“Zenith! Code One.” It was Vermillion inside of her head.
“Vermillion! Help!” Zenith shouted it even though she didn’t mean to. She was excited to hear her voice. “Can you help?”
“Shut up and get moving,” the cyborg guard said, shoving her away from Vermillion and down the hallway. He jabbed a sharp instrument into her back, forcing her forward.
“You’re too far away. You have to lure them in closer. I’ll do what I can on my end.” Vermillion’s voice in her head faded away, replaced with silence, as she moved away against her will.
“Hey, Vermillion,” Zenith shouted, still struggling and being pushed in the opposite direction, “Please tell me you have a plan-B.”
Chapter 8
Before Zenith and her guard even rounded the corner to join the others, a fire-fight between Parallax and Carl’s minions broke out. It was deafeningly loud. Zenith crouched down and covered her ears. She looked for the others or for a chance to dart away, but even in a war zone, her guard took his job seriously. Figures.
It was clear to Zenith by looking at the sheer number of Cyborg invaders who was going to win. And that was very bad news for her.
Zenith spotted the crew and drifted over there with her hands still up. Luckily, they were on the periphery of the war zone, but Aquillon was still bleeding.
There were shouts across the room, something was happening. The weapon blasts died down to a trickle and then stopped altogether. Zenith could see that Carl had Parallax on his knees and a weapon aimed at his head.
“Game over,” Carl announced.
Parallax’s men threw down their weapons, which did nothing to help Zenith and the crew’s current situation.
“Bring Zenith and her people here,” Carl said, “I want her to see this.”
Zenith winced, having no idea what Carl had in mind as they made their way forward through the crowd until they were just a few feet away from Carl and half a dozen very heavily armed cyborg guards.
Helo shot her an angry look. Zenith felt bad. “I’m so sorry, guys,” she said, “I never thought you’d get caught up in all of this. I never thought I would either, at least not immediately. I mean what are the odds that the first job would lead us here?”
“Pretty good,” Carl said. “Civil Customer Service is a snap to hack.”
Zenith heard Celeste gasp.
So, this is it, Zenith thought, I never even had a chance, and neither did the crew. I doomed them the minute I stepped onto the ship.
“You could have been queen of all of this,” Carl boasted. “But now you’re going to die along with squishy man.”
“Stop calling me that,” Helo spat.
“Hey, I’d like to point out that you’re the one who broke up with me, after using me to get the information you needed about that stupid Galaxy Dragon. You don’t really believe in magic, do you, Carl?”
Carl laughed. “That’s the problem with you, Zenith.
You never believe. And the reason you don’t believe is you only have, what, five senses?”
“Yes, Carl, five senses,” Zenith confirmed, rolling her eyes. She knew where he was going with this.
“I have thirty,” Carl said. He stomped on the hand Parallax was holding the Dragon with, and it clattered to the floor in front of him. “I’ve researched for years,” he continued, “found the exact parameters that would work, retooled my body to be the ultimate wielder of this force.” He glanced at Zenith, and she could see the madness in his eyes, along with the cold, fierce electricity.
“I can see that you’re still not a believer,” he said. “Well, let’s find out, shall we?”
Zenith got to one knee, the fight or flight told her to run as fast as she could and as far as she could, but the guard held her in place. She got back down.
Carl grabbed the Galaxy Dragon and held it up dramatically. Zenith held her breath.
***
“Cyborgs unite!” Carl was screaming. “With this Dragon, we will rule the universe.”
“Stars no, not politics,” Zenith groaned, trying to make eye contact with her guard, “will somebody please just shoot me now?”
Zenith felt the change before she saw it. There was a weird, moody feeling that washed over her and spread throughout the room. The mood was accompanied by an entirely different and spreading reality. The walls darkened, and the floor turned to cold, gray stone underneath her knees.
She looked up, no longer believing what she was seeing. Carl had gotten taller, his clothes had turned black, and he had sprouted giant black wings. Other people in the room had changed colors and forms.
Zenith looked down at her hands. She had transformed into a partial cyborg. A mostly naked partial cyborg at that. She looked up, searching for any sign that this was a bad dream. Carl’s cackle proved that theory to be fake. Zenith no longer knew what to believe. She glanced over at Helo, who looked to be turning into some statue creature. His face wore a pained expression.
This can’t be happening. Zenith had to do something. She had read all about this Galaxy Dragon thing too, she just hadn’t believed it at the time. According to the legends, it had the power to transform reality, up to and including an entire planet. If Carl kept the Dragon, he could make the lives of untold trillions of people a living hell.
She looked at Helo and mouthed, “I need your help.” It seemed a monumental effort for him to nod slightly in reply. She inclined her heard toward the guard standing over her and mimed a punch at him in Helo’s direction. He blinked at her in a way that she interpreted as understanding. She only hoped it was enough.
She closed her eyes and focused, hoping beyond hope that when she opened them, it would just be a normal robot/cyborg war and not some weird alternate reality nightmare. She opened them. If anything, reality was getting worse.
“Now,” she told Helo.
Helo jumped up like he was running in cement and tried to make his way over to Zenith. He wasn’t moving fast, but he had certainly attracted the attention of the person guarding Zenith. She took advantage of the guard’s head being turned to shove him out of the way and made a run at Carl, who stood like a supervillain, surveying with glee all of the chaos he was creating.
Zenith had to admit the whole thing was impressive. And she had been wrong. Wrong about the power of the Galaxy Dragon, wrong about how innocuous it could be to fix a message on an outdated computer, and wrong to think she could just run away from him after he burned down her apartment complex.
Luckily, the guards surrounding Carl were unconcerned with Zenith darting up toward him. They were looking around and marveling at the power of the Dragon. That’s when Zenith realized that she didn’t, in fact, have a plan. She’d have to improvise. He was mostly metal, there were almost no weak spots to him at all, even when he wasn’t both magically and cybernetically enhanced.
She reached out and tried to take away the Dragon. It was a dumb move, she was never a match for his strength, and when her fingers brushed against it she could feel its power, it was like a magnetic pull for her, and she wasn’t even a cyborg. He kicked her backward and then threw his head back and laughed at her.
She hit the ground hard. She looked around at all of the horrors around her and couldn’t reconcile that with this laughing psychopath. She thought of everything he had put her through and everything he was going to do to these people. She thought about Joyce. That’s when she snapped. It didn’t matter that her plan was probably doomed to fail, she acted on instinct, rushed straight at him, swung her leg, and kicked him full force in the balls. The Dragon fell out of Carl’s hand and clattered to the floor.
“I happen to know that those are not in any way cybernetically enhanced!” Zenith announced, pointing, after watching him crumple. She threw herself on the floor and grabbed the Galaxy Dragon.
Carl recovered himself. A steel hand came crashing down on her arm. Her arm made a snapping noise, and the pain caused her to lose her grip. She screamed.
Celeste flew across the room and landed on Carl’s face, scratching and biting. He screamed in fury and then threw her to the side.
Reality was beginning to change back.
She could see Helo moving fast now, he no longer appeared to be made of stone. He grabbed the Dragon she had dropped when Carl snapped her arm, and he helped her up.
The walls and the floors were also transforming back. Carl’s minions started to break free of their trance.
They crew ran away from the mass of people gathered in the large open area of section D. Parallax recovered himself and had rejoined the fight for his life and his space station. Carl was distracted, so maybe they could just get away.
“Get them!” Carl screamed at his minions while grappling for control over a weapon near Parallax. “Don’t let them get away! I want them kneeling before me!”
Zenith couldn’t help but sneak a peek behind her, and there were at least three dozen cyborgs giving chase, and they only had a few seconds head start. They knew the way, though, having been halfway there earlier before being turned around by Carl and his guards.
They flew through the hallways now. Zenith had to escape. She had to keep the Dragon from him. Carl can’t win. She had no idea before today what was even at stake.
The cyborg guards behind her started firing. Zenith was already hurt, and so was Aquillon. They were limping along as fast as they could but were no match for a bunch of cyborgs. Zenith looked back, and they were closing fast. Too fast. There was only one way.
“Throw it, Helo!” Zenith screamed.
“What?” he asked, partially turning his head toward her.
“We’re never going to make it. Throw it. The Dragon. To Vermillion.”
“Oh,” he said, “that’s brilliant.”
A cyborg tackled Zenith. Now the cyborgs were almost to Helo.
“Now, Helo!” she screamed.
He slid the figurine forward across the linoleum floor. It slid almost all the way to her hatch.
Zenith shuddered in pain from her arm and from being pinned against the hard floor. That’s when she heard it. Vermillion’s voice again, in her head. “Very clever, Zenith.”
“How do you figure?” Zenith answered her. “At least you can protect the Dragon and the rest of the universe, but we’re still sitting ducks right here. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it back, Vermillion. For the record, you’re a great ship and I honestly like hearing your voice in my head.”
“Right back at you,” the voice said, “but there’s something about the Dragon you don’t know. Zenith: code one, Helo: code one, Celeste: code one, Aquillon: code one.”
“No kidding, Vermillion? Aquillon too?” That’s when Zenith knew she was screwed.
The cyborg that had his foot on Zenith’s back suddenly began crackling and crumpled to the ground, making whirring and whimpering noises.
“The Galaxy Dragon does not give me any magical power to transform reality since I have no organic livi
ng material. It does, however, boost my power and range.”
The cyborgs all crumpled, crackled and twitched. The crew got up off of the ground and began limping once again toward Vermillion.
“You can’t win!” a voice boomed down the hall.
Zenith turned to Carl. “I can today. And there’s nothing you can do about it.” He had obviously seen what had happened to the other cyborgs and was unwilling to venture any closer.
“It’s mine!” he screamed at her.
She watched him arm his right hand and point it at her. Crap. Forgot about that.
“Your friends made it onto their ship, but you die here. If you turn around, I will shoot you in the back. I win.”
“I can’t help you,” Vermillion screamed frantically in her head, “I can’t reach him, Zenith! He’s still out of range.”
“Shoot me in the back? How romantic,” Zenith said, “I have no idea what I ever saw in a coward like you.” Then she remembered something and reached into her pocket, her fingers wrapped around the smooth stone. “You know what you need? A little magic.”
“You don’t believe in magic,” he snorted.
“But you do,” she answered. She pulled out the stone and threw it at him. “Fire in the hole, Carl!” The rock flew at his face and attached itself magnetically. Carl dove for cover down the hallway, clawing at his face. There was a small popping noise as the toy exploded.
Zenith turned and darted into Vermillion.
“You will regret this when I find you. And I will find you.” Carl’s words echoed in her ears as the door closed behind her.
“Thank goodness,” Vermillion said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hey,” asked Zenith, still worried, “what’s going to stop them from just following us?”
“Me,” Vermillion replied. “I’ve disabled all of their navigation and communications. Trust me, they’re going to sit there for quite a while and think about what they’ve done.”
Chapter 9
After stopping at an infirmary planet just inside civilized space, Zenith and the rest of the crew took their regular spots in the common room and settled into some serious down time, hopefully for a while. They each read their devices or books quietly for a little while, but then, when they looked up, they all happened to make eye contact.