Mission Pack 2: Missions 5-8 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  “Holy—!”

  “Not real!” Carl shouted. He clapped his hands in front of Rhiannon’s eyes to make her blink. When she next saw him, he was dressed in marine combat gear—black body armor, integrated power source, and tactical helm with the visor up. “I’m not Superman, or Starcrusher, or even a real marine. And I’m sure as hell not a wizard—but Lloyd is. He used you to get to us.”

  Rhiannon took a step back, blinking hard several times and rubbing at her forehead. “I’m… this must be a bad trip.”

  “No, it’s worse than that,” Carl said. “It’s actually happening.”

  She shook her head, continuing her slow retreat. “Lloyd can’t be…”

  “He is. Think of this, Rhiannon. You’ve had what, ten boyfriends since you left Mom and Dad? Asshole after asshole. You’re cursed. What’s more likely, that Lloyd loves you more than I do, or that he’s the next in a long line of losers who looked too good to be true? I’m risking Mort’s life to get you out of here.”

  Rhiannon snorted with a hint of a smile. “Mort’s? Not your own?”

  “We’re already up to our necks in life-risking. The rest of us are on Lloyd’s gallows waiting to get our brains snuffed out. You’re risking being his little mind-controlled love pet, or whatever he’s got in mind once this is done.”

  He gave her a moment to let it sink in. The relentless assault of truth—an unfamiliar weapon in Carl’s arsenal—wasn’t breaking down the walls. Carl needed her to think it through and come to the right conclusion. Rhiannon slowly scanned the club, stopping a long few seconds to stare at the back of the curtain. On the far side, the sounds of the disgruntled audience continued. Could she hear the repetitive complaints? Did she notice that the audience never grew bored or let their impatience swell? They stayed a constant level of pissed off about the show’s interruption.

  “It’s a scam,” Carl said softly. “Trust me; I’m an expert. If you ever want to be sure whether you’re living in the real world or Lloyd’s fucked-up fantasies, you’ve got to come with me.”

  Rhiannon shrank down and hugged her arms to her chest. “This is waaay out. I never noticed how phony it all looks up close. Where the hell are we?”

  “Our bodies are on the Mobius. Our minds are trapped inside Lloyd’s.”

  “So you didn’t kick Lloyd and me off the ship and make us take a public transport?”

  “Nope.”

  “And we didn’t have a huge fight where you told me to never speak to you again?”

  “Fuck no! You’re my little sister. You could kill Mom and Dad and I’d still speak to you.”

  Rhiannon cracked a tentative smile. “Yeah, but you never considered the silent treatment to be a punishment.”

  “There are people who’d pay good money for me never to talk to them again.”

  With a shuddering breath, Rhiannon nodded. “All right. Let’s get out of here. Worst case, I’m dreaming, right? Or you’ve really picked up Starcrusher’s super strength.”

  “I wish,” Carl said. “But yeah, worst case it’s all a dream.” Whatever made her feel better. So long as she was coming, that was enough. He opened the supply closet door and stepped into the vast labyrinth of blank white corridors beyond, towing his sister by the hand.

  # # #

  The endless nest of interlinked corridors showed no sign of relenting. Carl careened along with the crew of the Mobius, his sister, and several fractured aspects of his own personality in tow. He took a left, a right, five lefts in succession, and bypassed several side passages to continue straight along. They were all identical, plain, and unmarked by signage of any sort.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Esper shouted from the middle of the pack.

  “Out,” the nearest Carl replied.

  “Yes, but—”

  “No, I don’t,” the lead Carl snapped. “I’m taking us out by intending to go there. I don’t know the way. Maybe if some of you tried believing a little harder in this escape, we might get somewhere.”

  “This is crazy,” Tanny muttered.

  Ladies Man Carl put a hand on her back. “We’ll, crazy is just today’s challenge. We’ve been through worse.”

  The lead Carl clapped his hands overhead. “Focus, people. We need to keep moving, and moving without a purpose is just jogging in place. Kubu… can you track Mort from here?”

  Cocking his head, Kubu sniffed the air. “Kubu does not smell Mort.”

  “Why can we understand him?” Mriy asked with a snarl. “No one understands my Jiara.”

  “Kubu learned people words from Not-Mommy.”

  “Your English wasn’t this good yesterday,” Esper said.

  “Can we focus here? For the love of God,” Carl said. “You think too hard about what’s up in here and you’ll fry your synapses. Kubu’s probably imagining he’s speaking better English than he really is.”

  “Huh?” Rhiannon asked.

  “I’ll second that,” Tanny agreed.

  “Ask Mort if you want real answers,” Carl said, backing down the corridor as he addressed the group. “For now, can we please get the fuck out of here?”

  Carl continued onward and with fewer interruptions. His charges were disgruntled, but continued to follow as he chose turn after turn by instinct and guesswork. If he wasn’t mistaken, the actual choices were irrelevant. What mattered was that at each opportunity, he picked a direction with his destination in mind. That all assumed, of course, that Lloyd had been bluffing and didn’t know exactly what they were up to.

  Heavy footsteps sounded from the corridors ahead, tromping in unison. It seemed that any respite they might have enjoyed from Lloyd’s attention was at an end. The crew jumbled to a halt as the first of the stone soldiers rounded a corner up ahead. Before Carl could reorganize them to backtrack, a second group of rock men appeared behind them.

  “Wonderful plan,” Tanny shouted. “You’ve walked us into a trap.”

  “Not yet I haven’t,” Carl said. He reached for the wall and pushed. A door showed itself, giving way to the pressure of Carl’s hand. “Through here. Quick!” He grabbed the nearest crewman, who happened to be Esper, and shoved her through the door. This started a flood as everyone rushed to escape the oncoming forces of Lloyd’s private army.

  “Where does it go?” Rhiannon asked as she followed the herd.

  “Who cares?” Roddy replied, weaving through a forest of legs to make headway through the crowd.

  Carl manned the door and slammed it shut before the first of the stone men arrived. As soon as it was fully closed, all signs that there had been a door at all vanished.

  “Where are we?” Rhiannon asked in a voice quiet with awe.

  They stood upon a barren landscape beneath an overcast sky. The air lay flat and dusty, a chore to breathe. The wall into which their door had disappeared belonged to a boxy concrete structure as vast as it was featureless. In the distance, a shimmering translucent wall rose beyond sight, separating the wasteland from a cloud-dotted blue sky and waves of green grasses.

  Carl grinned. “We made it! Beyond that wall is Mortania—Mort’s brain.”

  “Um, Carl,” Tanny said, backing toward the concrete wall. “I’d like to go back to my nice, safe cell.”

  In the intervening space between the crew and the safety of Mort’s realm lay the vast horde of Lloyd’s army. Orderly rows of stone soldiers, catapults, trebuchets, and battering rams all stood ready to bear down on Mort’s defenses. With a singularity of thought, countless thousands of those troops turned in unison toward where the Mobius crew stood gaping.

  “There’s no going back,” Carl said. “We have to fight our way through?”

  “Fight them?” Roddy asked. “That’s our brilliant plan? How about sending up a flare and letting Sourpuss the Gruff and his magic tree branch bail us out?”

  “Mort’s got his hands full,” Carl said. “He’ll do what he can when he can. For now, we’re on our own. Come on. We’re not as weak as you might thin
k.”

  “Not as weak…?” Tanny asked, a manic note creeping into her voice. “We’re unarmed, outnumbered, and I don’t know that those things are even killable.”

  “That’s not the spirit,” Carl replied. “We’re as strong as we think we are. We’re armed with our imaginations. We’ve got Lloyd outnumbered seven minds to one. Watch…”

  As the noose closed and Lloyd’s stone soldiers drew within striking distance, Carl charged. Though barehanded upon his first step, by the time his wordless battle cry ended, he was armed with an axe fit for felling redwoods in a single chop. The ludicrous weapon hewed down stone soldiers like training dummies, hacking them in two and sending bloodless limbs and torsos flying in every direction.

  Swallowing back her fear, Esper dove into the fray unarmed, dodging stone-fisted swings like an acrobat and shattering the rock-like flesh of her opponents with each blow. One stone hand managed to grab her by the arm and lift her from her feet, but a strike from her free hand snapped the stone man’s limb, and she dropped to the ground. A few shakes were enough to fling the death grip of the severed hand free of her.

  The other Carls met the enemy as well, conjuring imaginary swords and shields, a spiked hammer, and even a chainsaw to combat the faceless horde. They took no heed of tactics or caution, and more than once they looked poised to do grave injury to one another in close quarters. But some unspoken understanding existed among them, a commonality of thinking that allowed them to act in an awkward unison.

  Not to be left out, Mriy joined the fray, her claws tearing into stone rather than becoming dulled or cracking. The stone men lacked instinct. They committed to attacks too early and paid no heed to their own defense. Strong though they might have been, once she stood against them, she could match their power.

  “Kubu, come on,” one of the Carls shouted. “This can be fun. You’re a big boy, built for this sort of thing.”

  “Kubu isn’t supposed to hurt people,” Kubu said.

  “They’re not people. They’re things.”

  “Kubu isn’t supposed to eat rocks.”

  “Then imagine they’re made of steak, or bacon,” Carl suggested. “Playing pretend works here. You can make them taste like anything you want.”

  “Even bunnies?”

  “Especially bunnies,” Carl replied. “If I were in the mood for bunny right now, I’d be eating the hell out of these things.”

  That was all Kubu needed to hear. He bounded into the fray, knocking stone soldiers around with his bulk, batting them to the ground with his paws, and tearing limbs off in his jaws. Occasionally he stopped to chew and swallow, but he seemed to grasp that the fight was more important than the snacking just then.

  “I hope you’re not expecting me to go out there,” Rhiannon muttered to Roddy.

  Roddy chuckled. “Hey, you’re the predator species.” He closed his eyes and opened them to find a can of Earth’s Preferred in his hand. “Me, I’m waitin’ this business out.” With a crack, he popped the tab and started chugging down the contents.

  “Far out. Got one for me?” Rhiannon asked.

  With a shrug, Roddy handed her a second conjured can.

  “Seriously? Earth’s Preferred?” she asked. “My dad kept us from drinking as teenagers by stocking nothing but this rat piss on the Radiocity. How about something with at least a hint of self-respect?”

  “Spoiled brat,” Roddy mumbled. He took the can back and handed her a bottle with one foot.

  Rhiannon turned the bottle to read the label. “Chateau de Really-Old. Classy…” Ignoring Roddy’s chuckle, she popped the cork and drank straight from the bottle.

  # # #

  “It’s all for naught, you know,” Lloyd said, staring back at the carnage that the Mobius crew was inflicting on his army. “I could snuff out their minds with a snap of my fingers, leaving them as mindless husks. For now, they’re having their fun. But it’s time to decide, Mordecai The Brown.”

  Mort fumed, pacing his side of the barrier. “Or what? You kill them, and we resume our stalemate? I could break contact and kill you in the flesh.”

  “And never figure out how to fly the Mobius back to a habitable world,” Lloyd replied. “But I don’t have to kill them en masse. Maybe I pick one or two to start with, and see if you change your mind.”

  “Some hero,” Carl said under his breath.

  “What was that?” Lloyd asked.

  Carl shrugged. “Aren’t you claiming to be Mr. Law-and-Goodness here? Bring the mean old book-stealing wizard to justice? Murder doesn’t sound too heroic to me.”

  “Accomplices,” Lloyd snapped. “I’ve been generous in bargaining them back at all. Best decide quickly. I won’t allow them to reach your realm unharmed.” He met Carl’s glare head on. There was a signal there. If Carl was going to carry out his end of the bargain, now was the time.

  “Just you see here, Lloyd,” Mort said, raising a pedantic finger. “Those fine men and women out there haven’t—”

  “Sorry,” Carl mumbled and put a shoulder into the wizard’s back. Mort stumbled forward, passing through his own magical barrier without a hint of resistance. He now stood in the barren wasteland of Lloydsville.

  Mort whirled, but his attempt to reenter his realm was stopped with a thrum of energy from the barrier. “What have you done?” he wailed.

  “He saved his friends and bought his sister’s affections away from me,” Lloyd said, sauntering up to the stranded wizard. He grabbed Mort by the throat. “You’re in my realm, now. Mordecai The Brown, I hereby place you in judicial custody per—”

  “Might want to check those borders, Lloyd the Screwed,” Mort said slowly, drawing himself up to his full height and grinning down at Lloyd.

  There was split second of confusion. Lloyd’s brow furrowed slightly, and he twitched to look over his shoulder, but composed himself before falling for the oldest trick in the book. “Sorry. No heroism from the villains. Justice wins the day.”

  Mort cleared his throat and looked down. Despite himself, Lloyd followed his glance. The two wizards stood on soft grass. When Lloyd gasped and released his grip on Mort’s neck, his hasty retreat was blocked by a translucent blue barrier that was now inexplicably behind him.

  “How—?” Lloyd’s mouth kept working, but nothing came out except increasingly quickened breath. He stared at Mort in horror.

  “Subtlety,” Mort said. “It applies to more than just keeping the universe from overreacting to magical requests. It’s also the art of moving something so slowly that an opponent doesn’t notice. I’ve been making the border of my realm appear as a parcel of yours since our minds first met.”

  Desperate eyes sought out Carl. “But you… but we had a bargain… I was watching your every move!”

  “Yeah, you caught Con Man Carl—best liar I’ve got. Half the stuff you saw through him wasn’t happening,” Carl said. “He was our inside man. Mort turned him loose on your side after we worked a few things out, me and him. We planned most of this out in advance.”

  “The rescues, the tunnel, the…” Lloyd seemed to deflate. The futility was setting in already. It didn’t matter anymore how. The fact was, he had been outmaneuvered.

  # # #

  Mort opened his eyes—his real, physical eyes—for the first time since engaging Lloyd in mental combat. He still held a grip on the mentalist wizard’s shirt collar and forced his stiffened fingers to release. Lloyd stood catatonic, still trapped in Mortania.

  The common room was louder than Mort had expected, filled with petrol-burner engines and gunfire. The holovid was on and watching it was a very much awake Carl Ramsey. He sat with a can of beer in one hand and a revolver pistol in the other. The sword that he had never gotten around to learning how to use was unsheathed and splayed across his legs. In some half-considered plan to thwart Lloyd’s mental magics, he had shielded his eyes with dark glasses; apparently he had brightened the holo-projector to compensate—the glare was blinding.

  “You hun
gry?” Carl asked, setting down the revolver and offering Mort a half-eaten bowl of popcorn. “You’ve earned it.”

  “Maybe later,” Mort said. “Could you do me a favor and go check on the airlock?”

  “You… gonna be needing it?”

  “I’m thinking so,” Mort said. He patted the comatose Lloyd on the cheek. “But first I need a few words with Lloyd. Alone.”

  Carl set aside his sword, but took the beer with him. “Who am I to argue with a guy who owns a dragon?” Mort got the impression that there was a wink following that comment, but the glasses kept him from being sure. Now that he thought of it, those things might have protected him from meeting Lloyd’s gaze after all—if Lloyd had been the one wearing them.

  Mort gave a count of twenty-two after Carl shut the door to the cargo bay behind him. One second for each of the rotten bastards that he’d been forced to kill over the bounty on his head. It was time for his words with Lloyd, but they weren’t meant as any form of conversation.

  Lloyd stood loose and unresisting as Mort took his head between both hands. Four fingers rested lightly on each side of the skull, the thumbs kept out of the way. He chanted. The words came from the pages of the Tome of Bleeding Thoughts. Lights flickered and went out, until all that illuminated the common room was the wash of weird astral light through the domed ceiling and a soft violet glow from Mort’s fingertips.

  A faint hiss issued from the sides of Lloyd’s head as Mort’s finger sank in, two knuckles deep, until the palms of Mort’s hand pressed over Lloyd’s ears. Thoughts, memories, and personality drained through those eight conduits and into the deep reaches of Mort’s mind.

  When it was finished, Lloyd’s jaw hung limp and loose, the muscles all gone slack throughout his body. There was no blood. Mort withdrew his fingers, rearranging his grip until he held Lloyd by the skull like a bowling ball. With a touch of magic to lighten the load, he dragged Lloyd’s empty husk down into the cargo hold. It thumped along every step, his shoes clanging on the grated metal.