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Post by Kaez on May 10, 2015 21:45:27 GMT -5
It was a dangerous feeling, having a gun in her hand. It made her feel alive, made her feel powerful. When she was holding Gungnir, she felt near invincible.
Janet looked to both sides, nodding at the boys standing there. Michael and Zack nodded back, motioning with their weapons for her to go forward when she was ready. The metal of the bulkhead felt cool against her back as she pressed up against it. Small beads of sweat rolled down her brow. Three heartbeats passed by. It was time for action.
She sprang out of the dimly lit corner of the hall and nearly came face to face with the Darton patrols. Their reptile faces flashed surprise, eyes lighting up at the site of the small human girl. Before they could react, Gungnir sprang to life in her hands. She fired off two quick rounds and watched the lizard-men drop. Acrid smoke rose off of their corpses, steaming out of the gaping wounds the gun had opened. She took a quick stock of the rest of the hall, checking to be sure no more of the Darton would be surprising them, and motioned for her group to follow.
Her friends quickly streamed out of the corner and into the hallway. Janet fell into point, with Michael and Zack just behind her, while Jess and Chris took the rear. Zack rolled over one of the Darton corpses, his face turning into a grimace as he looked at the wound. “God damn. Remind me not to piss you off when you're holding that beast.”
“Zack, watch the swears,” Janet said, looking at him intently. The boy laughed heartily, his light blue eyes lighting up.
“Only you, Janet,” he said as he caught his breath between chuckles. “Only you would be concerned about taking the Lord's name in vain when we're hunting space pirates.”
She looked over at Michael, who was failing spectacularly at hiding his grin. He tried his best, but couldn't help but let a few giggles slip out. “If we're all done alerting every Darton on this ship to our presence,” Chris said, annoyance clear in his voice, “we should probably get moving. We need to reach the bridge before word can spread back to Gamma.” That killed their laughter pretty quickly. He was right, of course. Things could turn disastrous fast if word spread as to what they were doing.
Janet shouldered Gungir and led the group down the hallway. She had memorized the layout of this ship in preparation for the mission, noting the nooks and crannies they could hide in and the easiest path to the bridge. Still, it was worth checking the map to make sure they had stayed on the right track. Zack had nearly gotten them lost earlier, and they had to sneak their way around a heavily guarded armory.
The map flashed open, and Janet moved it to one side of her view, out of her direct line of sight. She didn't need anything distracting her from the danger. They had only gotten lucky with surprises so far; a direct encounter with the Darton could turn sour for their small group pretty quickly if even one of them was caught off guard.
The bridge was close by. They lined up against the wall, Janet holding out a mirror to look down the hallway to their right. It was supposed to be dead ahead through here. She could see the door, but she could also see the guards outside of it.
“Three dinosaurs,” she whispered, “looks like they're heavily armored. Michael and I should go in here.” Michael nodded, flashing Mjolnir, the counterpart to her own weapon. They had won Gungnir and Mjlonir from a splinter faction of the human empire known who called themselves the Pantheon. They had fashioned themselves after the ancient Vikings, raiding far off settlements and pillaging everything in sight. When Janet and her friends had been called in to bring them down, they lost nearly everything to the power of these two weapons alone. Nearly.
“Everyone else wait here,” Michael said quietly. “Let us clear them out and we'll take the bridge together.” She waited for the affirmative from everyone before the two of them sprang into action.
Michael easily caught one of the Darton guards with a round from Mjolnir, sending him slamming back into the door to the bridge. The other two leaped to either side, jumping out of the way large, firey bullets. The one on the left popped back up, shooting instantly and catching Janet in the shoulder. The impact knocked the breath out of her, but her armor took the damage. She returned fire, putting a round into the lizard's skull and killing him instantly. She looked to the right only to see that Michael had already put his other enemy down.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly as he did so. He put his hand on the shoulder that had taken fire. “You've got a hole here.”
“Fudge,” Janet whispered under her breath. A hole in her armor was a weak point, and a well-aimed shot could, at the very least, make her useless to the group while they took on the bridge. Her left arm would be unusable, and she wasn't a very good shot with her side-arm. They motioned the rest of the group over. “Does anyone have a repair kit?” They all shook their heads. “Fine," she said. "I'll just have to not get shot. Jess?”
Jess nodded. She never really talked much, and Janet thought it was because she still felt out of place with this group. At 17, she was a little bit older than the rest of them, but she and Chris had only started dating a few weeks ago. She was still new to this, but she had filled in the role of demolition expert quite nicely. It was the only thing their little squad had been missing.
Jess walked up to the bridge door, sizing it up before pulling a brick-sized object from her bag. “This should do the trick,” Janet heard her say to herself. “Should be just enough to blow the doors open. No more holes in the side of the ship.” The last two statements were more for everyone else's benefit than her own, Janet suspected.
“Everyone stand back,” Janet ordered. The five of them retreated back a few steps, and Jess triggered the remote detonation.
It was surprisingly unimpressive for an explosion that could rip open a Darton bridge door. There were very little fireworks, and not much fanfare either. Whatever it was that Jess had used just did the job, exploding with enough of a shockwave to blow the doors open, and not much else. The three boys frowned.
Tracer rounds started to fly out of the door immediately, burying themselves into the wall of the ship next to the five of them. Zack cursed loudly before running into the fray, Michael and Chris right behind him. Janet hung back for a few moments. She didn't need the group being weakened by the hole in her armor. “When we go in, I need you to cover me,” she said to Jess. The older girl nodded again, and Janet motioned them forwards.
She could hear Zack roar over the sound of gunfire as the two girls ran into the room. He was up close and personal with a Darton officer, locked in a hand-to-hand combat with the lizard. Michael and Chris were playing things safer, wreaking havoc on the small army the dinosaurs had managed to assemble in the bridge. Mjolnir carved up a group of three, sending them to their creator. She and Jess found an alcove that they could do the same from, and got to work quickly.
It was pure carnage, as lizard-men blood spilled across the bridge. Janet fired round after round into the cluster, creating just as much death as Michael was on the other side of the room. This raid was turning out to be easier than they had expected. In a few minutes, it would all be over, and they could get out before Gamma found their location.
A tracer round found Janet and lodged itself into the small hole in her armor. She could feel the impact, and her left arm dropped to her side immediately. “Dang it!” she yelled. Jess glanced over at her while Janet reached for her side-arm, hoping she could still be of some use.
The next tracer round found her head.
Janet ripped the mask off of her head, her view changing from the inside of a heavily guarded Darton warship to the plain view of her bedroom. Suddenly, instead of thick metal walls in front of her, there were walls made of boring white plaster. Gone from her grip was Gungnir, replaced with a simple controller with a few buttons. Perhaps worse than anything else, her friends were no longer right next to her helping her protect the human empire. She was alone again in her room, surrounded by a tremendous boredom, the distant sound of someone in the kitchen and a bird outside.
She sighed slowly, sucking in a breath and not wanting to let it go. The dry night air filled her lungs, it's crispness cooling her body and her emotions. Despite her protests, the breath found its way out, slipping away from her. “I'll see you guys tomorrow,” she said sadly into her microphone. It was time for her to get some sleep anyways; she'd need it to face another day in this place.
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The sky was still mostly dark when Janet woke up, small streaks of red and orange the only indication that the sun was on its way soon. The stars were shining just as brightly as they did in the middle of the night. She saw them so often, sometimes she wondered if they knew when it was time for them to disappear. If the sun never rose again, would they just keep on shining away, blissfully unaware that there was ever any cycle to begin with?
It was a silly thought, and she knew it. Of course the stars would keep shining. They were suns for other systems far away from here. What happened in Greenbow, Nebraska didn't matter to them. Still, it was something to wonder about. She had been having silly thoughts more and more often recently.
She stretched with a big yawn and threw herself up and out of her bed. If she wasted any more time wondering about stars and their ability to think, she'd get yelled at by her dad again.
The morning chores needed doing, and she was the only one around to help her dad with them. She had no brothers, something that both she and her father found disappointment in. She didn't have any sisters either. It was just her, and running the farm was too much for one person to handle.
“Mornin' Jan,” her dad said as she came down the stairs, still shaking the last bit of sleep out of her body. She grunted something not entirely dissimilar to “good morning” and walked out the front door. The less she'd have to interact with him the better.
Every day, it was the same routine. Janet would get up with her dad bright and early. The two of them would share some awkward morning chat, and she would head out to work while he finished off a cup of coffee before joining her. She'd help milk the cows and collect eggs from the chickens, while he'd tend to the goats and other animals. He would shovel out some manure into their compost pile, she'd do a sweep of the farm for reeds, and both of them would check out the pens.
It was riveting work.
“Now Jan,” her dad said in his thick Texan drawl, “your ma and I are a bit worried about how much time you're spending on that game of yours.” Janet set her jaw. She was used to this discussion. “You disappear into your room after dinner every night, and we don't see you 'til you come down for work. Your ma wants to see you more.”
“I'll try my best dad,” she said with a small smile, hoping that he would drop the issue there. He just looked at her. She hated how she couldn't tell what he was thinking when he did that. “I need to go get ready for school.” He nodded and sent her along.
It always took a little while to shower off the dirt and dust, and by the time she finally was ready to leave the sky was a bright orange, set on fire with the rays of sunrise. Gone were the twinkling stars, and with them the magic of night. She grabbed all of her school stuff, throwing it haphazardly into her backpack, and ran down the stairs.
“...traumatize them at best!” Janet paused as she heard her mom, a few steps from the bottom of the stairway. “I'm not on board with this, Jonathan!” Her dad hushed her, and Janet heard no more than whispers. She wanted to try and hear more, but there was no where to hide. Traumatize who?
Her dad came over to the bottom of the stairs. “Hey Jan, ready for school?”
The school day passed her by in a blur, like it always did. A boring test in Algebra 2, a boring class in US History, an especially boring Chemistry class. It was difficult enough for her to stay awake through all of them, let alone pay attention to anything being taught. She thought she heard something about covalent bonds and something called the Dust Bowl? She would have to ask Chris for his notes later tonight. He always took good ones.
As always, her thoughts were on what adventures awaited her and her friends tonight. Dragonblade Studios, the studio that produced had produced the Videre, promised a patch to Galactic Empires would launch today. It was going to open up a new galaxy to explore and, more importantly, new ships to explore it in. Janet couldn't wait to get her hands on an official Empirical Battlecruiser. She had been saving up coins for it for weeks. Now that it was finally in her grasp...
Michael distracted her from her thoughts, tapping her on the shoulder. “Hey daydreamer,” he said half-jokingly, flashing that kind smile of his, “were you planning to go to lunch, or?”
Right, lunch. She got so lost in her thoughts sometimes she wouldn't notice the drone of the bell and the bustling of the other students as they left the classroom.
Michael walked with her down to the lunch room, where they were serving some kind of mystery meat, bland mashed potatoes, and a soggy cookie that, without fail, would get gravy or meat-juice all over it. Pretty typical of Greenbow High School. When you only had a student population just above fifty, there wasn't much cause for impressive funding.
“Oh my god Janet,” Zack said with his usual vigor as she sat down across from him at the small table, “you missed an epic raid on the bridge last night.”
“I was there!” she said defensively, frowning a bit.
“No, no, after you got shot! I soloed one of their officers! He had like thirty thousand health, but I got him with my knife enough times to make him drop. Their captain ended up surrendering to us!” Zack laughed as Chris and Jess joined them at the table. “Well hello, lovebirds!" Zack chirped. "I was just getting to the part where you accepted the captain's surrender!”
Chris smiled widely. “Yeah? Did you tell Janet about how Jess had to rescue you from that officer?” Janet chuckled as Zack's face dropped. “No?”
“Yeah, come on Zack!” Jess said with a pointed finger but humor in her eyes. “Don't leave out the best part!” She turned to Janet, who found herself drifting away from the conversation. Jess was always really talkative at these lunch times. Of course, Janet expected that. She was a senior and they were sophomores. But it was odd given how quiet she was in Empires. Janet couldn't figure out if she was just still adapting to the group or just uncomfortable in the game, but either way she wished she would speak up more. She was the closest thing to a girl friend Janet had around here.
When Chris and Jess had first started dating, none of the other three were sure what to make of it. Jess was a senior. A pretty one, even. How Chris had managed to convince her to go out with him was a mystery to all of them. But over these past few weeks they had started to see it. The two of them both had a really good sense of humor about themselves. It was something that a lot of people at Greenbow High lacked, even Janet herself. The two of them really did seem like a good match.
“You going to stare at me all day?” Michael asked quietly, poking her in the arm as she drifted back into reality. She blushed a bright red and giggled, realizing that she had been staring at him as she daydreamed. Oops.
The rest of the day went by just as boringly as the first half had, leaving Janet to dream more about the adventures awaiting her when she got home. The final bell of the day rang loudly, and Janet hurried to get up and out. Before she could get to the door, her English teacher called her over.
“Ms. Cliff, we need to talk.” Janet gulped. She knew she was doing poorly in Mr. Brown's class, but she hadn't thought that it had been poor enough to deserve this. The older man looked a little sad. “I'm afraid I've got some news earlier today, Ms. Cliff. Your parents wanted me to deliver it to you.”
Her parents? That was unexpected. Why couldn't it have waited into she got home? “There's been an accident. From what I could gather, your father has been hurt, though the note I received was actually rather vague. It said that Mr. Ashman's parents would be by to pick you up after school.”
A wave of incredible anxiety rushed over her. An accident? Dad's hurt? Why on earth didn't they say what it was? She didn't want to interact with her dad most of the time, but that didn't mean she wanted him to get hurt! “I... I don't understand,” she said, confused. “Was that all the note said?”
Mr. Brown nodded. “I'm afraid so, Ms. Cliff. I hope everything's alright. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
Michael's parents were waiting for her just outside the school. The two of them looked just as nervous as she was. Michael was already in the backseat when Janet joined them. “We heard about your father. We're not entirely sure what's happening, unfortunately. Your mother has been so quiet about it.” Janet thanked them for picking her up, and the car started quickly.
“You okay?” Michael asked.
Janet shook her head. She wasn't okay with her dad being hurt. She didn't even know if he was in the hospital or at home or if he was even okay right now. None of this made any sense at all! Why wouldn't her mom tell someone, anyone, about what had happened to him? Mr. Brown didn't know, Michael's parents didn't know, she didn't know, she knew Michael didn't know. This was crazy.
As if he could sense that she was freaking out, Michael moved closer to her and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned in to him, trying to catch her breath more, barely aware of what was happening.
Control came back to her slowly, but it did return. By the time her parents' farm was in sight, she had enough sense back to clearly see the black smoke coming from the direction the old shed was in. Michael's parents pulled to a stop, and Janet nearly sprinted out of the car, Michael close behind.
It wasn't long before they could see the blaze, flames eating away at the almost ancient shed. There was no one around, and the fire was burning uncontrollably. Janet was thankful that the structure was far enough away from her house that it wouldn't spread to it. There was practically no danger here. All they needed to do was call the fire department, though letting it burn out...
Where was her family? Why were neither of her parents around to see this? They couldn't have missed the smoke rising up in the fields. Janet turned for her house, running there and through the front door.
“Mom? Dad?” She called out, listening for any response. There was quiet. “Hello?”
Michael came in the door behind her. “Are they here?” The same question must have been on his mind. Janet shook her head. “It's alright, Janet. Maybe they're at the hospital, or on their way there.”
“No, no,” she said, choking back a few nervous sobs, “both of their cars are here.”
“Maybe they called an ambulance?” Michael offered. She hadn't thought of that.
The two of them walked back outside and over to Michael's parent's car. Michael stopped, noticing it before she did. “...what?”
“Where are my parents?” Michael asked.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ashman were in the car. “I swear to God, they were just. Weren't they just here? Janet?” Michael asked.
Janet almost corrected him on his use of "God", but decided to let this one slip past.
“Mom! Dad!” He shouted into the fields and got no response.
Michael's eyes narrowed as he scrunched up his forehead, lost in thought. “Janet, something weird is going on."
Janet nodded. There was something strange happening. She watched the billows of smoke float away from the shed, reaching up into the dusky evening sky and forming dark shadows that danced with the clouds in the evening sky. The way they twisted and warped in the air, playing with the few pinpricks of sunset-light fighting through the clouds... Janet swore it almost looked like the light was moving itself.
“Come on,” Michael said, his voice stern. Janet turned and saw shivers running up and down his body. Now it was her turn to help him, and she hugged him close, feeling his chest rise and fall with deep breaths. He backed away with a blush on his face, and motioned to the car. “We need to go.”
Michael sat down in the driver's seat while Janet took the passenger. “Your shed...” he said quietly.
“Don't worry about it.” Janet looked back at the smoke. It really did look like that light was moving on its own. It had only been a pinprick before. Now, it look bigger. It was growing. “The shed's old, there's nothing important inside it. It won't burn anything else.” Michael nodded, and started down the road.
They drove slowly, looking down the street for any sign of Michael's parents. “I don't understand how they just disappered,” he muttered under his breath. "There's no way. They have to be around here somewhere.”
That strange light was definitely getting closer. Janet could see it in the rear-view mirror now. It was slowly growing, dancing in the sky as it came. There was no mistaking it anymore, not now that it was about to cross through the smoke. “Michael,” she said, her voice dripping with anxiety, uncertain if she should mention it. “Do you see that?”
“See what?” he asked, his eyes focused through the windshield before sparing a glance at her.
She placed a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the mirror. “That,” she practically yelped. His eyes traced up to the mirror, and the car lurched forward as he jumped with surprise.
“What the hell is that?” he shouted.
“I don't know,” Janet shouted back on the verge of tears.
The car took a second lurch forward as Michael's foot hit the gas with a renewed sense of urgency. The long stretch of farm road in front of them was empty, and Janet thanked their lucky stars. Whatever that light was sped along over her house, briefly illuminating the roof. It was fast, but didn't seem to be gaining any ground on them. Another blessing.
“We've got to get to town.” His voice was surprisingly stoic, but she could see the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, betraying his anxiety. He pulled off of the dirt road and onto the main way to town, still driving maniacally. The light remained at the outskirts of her farm, floating with a menacing presence, but not following.
“What is that thing?” she asked quietly. Michael shook his head, not knowing the question wasn't for him. She took a mental note of it. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't tiny either. It looked like it was shaped like a circle, but she wasn't entirely sure. Most of the light was pointed to the ground. It couldn't be, could it?
“Is that actually a UFO?” Michael asked quietly. It was a ridiculous question. UFOs? Flying saucers? They had debunked those years ago, hadn't they? Besides, it looked smaller than he'd thought they ought to be. Still, it was the same question on Janet's mind. If it wasn't a UFO, then what could it possibly be? And where were their parents? Abducted by aliens?
“This is crazy.” The voice was Michael's again. “Why would a UFO appear over Greenbow of all places? They'd want to go talk to the President or NASA or something. Not a cow farm town in the middle of nowhere.”
It made sense. It really did. But there was unarguably a unidentified flying object hovering over the Cliff family's farm, and anything that made sense in Janet's world was suddenly flipped upside down.
Town came up on them fast. It was a small downtown area, a few shops and dying real-estate businesses trying to sell what was left of the farmland to sell. Usually it looked like a decent place to live, if a little boring.
Now, it looked trashed.
Windows were shattered, their glass shards littering the streets and reflecting the light that flickered off of the streetlights. That same black smoke from the shed fire was rising out of a few of the buildings, filling the air with a terrible smell. On top of everything, there were more of those lights, hovering in the sky above the place.
Janet heard a scream. It took her a minute to realize that it was her own voice doing the screaming.
Michael slammed the car to a stop as a group of people ran out in front of the road. Janet recognized them immediately and hopped out of the passenger door. “What's happening?"
Mr. Brown came to a screeching halt, staring back at her. Behind him, Zack, Chris, and Jess followed suit. “We need to hide,” Mr. Brown cried to her, his voice full of concern. “We need to get out of sight right now!” She heard Michael's door slam as one of the lights swooped by overhead. Too low to the ground for comfort. “This way!”
Zack turned the car off and followed the group as they ran into one of the nearby shops, Mr. Brown holding the door open for all of them. “Tell me what you know,” he said looking at Janet.
She did her best to fill him in on what had happened at the farm, trying not to notice the pattern of the lights sweeping up and down the street outside of the store. He nodded a lot, his eyes fixed with concern, particularly when she described the fire at her shed. When she was finished, he wiped at his eyes and sighed heavily. “What's happening, Mr. Brown?” she pleaded.
“I got your friends out of the school as soon as I could after I heard the reports,” Mr. Brown said. “They came in too fast to make sense of. At first it was just that there were strange lights appearing over downtown. It spread from there. Figures that no one could exactly give more than a vague description of. Gunfire. Buildings being set on fire, shops being broken into.” He shook his head in disgust. “Now everything's... like this. I knew someone needed to keep the kids safe, but these three were the only ones left in the building.”
A group of shadowy silhouettes marched by in the shop window. Janet couldn't see them very well, but they looked small. Small and distinctly and uncomfortably inhuman, with odd bumps where their hair should be and too-broad shoulders. The streetlights flickered enough to keep them obscured in the darkness.
That panic she fought off so hard at her farm came flooding back to her. If only she had Gungnir, she could be more than useless! She could do something to stop this! Hadn't that game been a form of training, in a way? She had heard rumors that the military put their people through it, that they even managed to project simulations over real-world environments, training their men in every form of combat safely. So why couldn't she do the same now? They could all do something, right? Just like in the movies.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Zack yelled loudly. “We're in the middle of a goddamn warzone, and you're still off in la-la land!”
Janet snapped out of it, realizing that he was shouting at her.
“Back off Zack!” Michael snapped back. “She's just as scared as the rest of us.”
“Oh, right, just as scared. We need to figure out a gameplan, Captain Friendzone! We don't have time to have anyone drifting off. This is serious!”
An awkward silence filled the air. Janet noticed that both Zack and Michael's fists had curled up into balls. Someone needed to say something before they completely snapped at each other.
“What I don't understand,” Chris said, his smooth voice cutting through the silence, “is why this is happening in Greenbow?” He looked around at everyone, but his eyes focused on Mr. Brown. “I mean, if this is what it looks like, why here? We're too small a town for this kind of thing. It's like something from a movie, right?” Janet remembered wondering the same thing herself. “And why, if this place is really burning to the ground, haven't we seen anyone? You guys saw Michael's parents and they vanished. Other than that, nobody. Where is everyone?"
“In any case, Zack is right that this is serious,” Mr. Brown said, clearing his throat. “We need to be focused on getting out of this alive.”
“No no no,” Jess said, jumping in. “Chris is the one who's right here. Something's off about this. Where is everyone? There should be pandemonium, shouldn't there? An alien invasion in Greenbow?” She got in Mr. Brown's face. “What's really going on here? Do you know something?
“Are you guys completely nuts?” Zack asked. “You're wasting our time! And we may not have a whole lot of it left!”
The couple wheeled around on Zack. “Really? Does none of this seem at all strange to you?”
Before he could answer, a gunshot rang through the air and the remaining glass on the store windows shattered in front of them. Mr. Brown hit the floor, bleeding profusely from a hole in his chest. Janet screamed again, and a part deep inside of her noted that it felt like it was for the fifteenth time today.
“What the fuck man?!” It was Zack's voice, trailing away as he ducked under one of the shelves. A few more shots and the sound of glass breaking rang out, but no one else was hit.
“Is everyone okay?” Michael called out amidst the chaos.
“What the fuck is going on?” That was Zack.
“I don't... I don't understand.” Chris stood up slowly, shaking violently.
Janet finally stopped screaming.
“I thought... I thought it was just...” His voice broke, and Chris broke down in tears. Jess moved quickly to comfort him.
“God, this is all sorts of fucked up! We are so fucked!” Zack began to claw at his head. Michael stood silently, clearly shaken from the event.
“Zack, shut the hell up,” Janet yelled at him. Everyone stopped what they were doing, turning to face her. Her breath was heavy, her heart was pounding away in her chest, and her face was covered with tears. “Just shut the hell up!”
Silence overtook all of them. Michael was the first one to laugh, with Zack and Jess close behind. It was a hearty laugh, contagious, and before long even Janet found herself joining in. “I never thought,” Zack said in between breaths, “I'd hear you swear.”
“First time for everything,” Janet said quietly. “That's what my mom always tells me. Look, come on, we need to move. Now.” The group nodded. She finally felt more in control of herself. It wasn't Empires; it was something far more real now. Her group needed her.
The figures returned at the shattered window, and Janet finally got a clear look at them now. They were ugly, with small horns and bumps all over their heads and scaly skin. They looked vaguely like her last enemies in Empires, she noted. Not enough for her to actually call them Darton, but close enough. In their hands though, were guns, pointed clearly at the five of them.
She looked around. No immediate exits.
They were going to die.
“Michael!”
He spun around, looking at her, eyes searching, hoping she had found something.
She pushed herself closer to him. Her lips found his.
It was half a second, but she could feel him smile.
“...far enough! Stop before you traumatize them anymore!” A voice. It sounded like her mother's.
She broke away from Michael, and the panic hit her.
~~~~~~~~~
“How you feeling?” Michael asked, sitting down next to her on the couch. She shivered a little bit under the blanket they had given her. Something mentioned about shock. She didn't really know, or care, anymore.
Someone had tried to explain it to her. Something about a simulation purchased from the nearby training ground and a lot of projection magic. Greenbow was fine, Mr. Brown was fine, and everyone was so sorry. There was even something about her parents being involved, and apologizing, a lot. Most of it was lost on her. Whatever state she was in, she didn't hear it.
“Good,” she said with a small smile. Her thoughts drifted off as he smiled back. It was a cute smile, and the way his white teeth seemed to highlight his bright blue eyes only made it better. She wanted to reach up and brush a strand of his sandy hair out of his face, if only just to feel his skin again. She wanted to kiss him again too, she realized, blushing. Did he think that was cute? She hoped he didn't think it was repulsive.
He rested his hand on hers, and she brought herself back, for once enjoying the peace and quiet of the real world. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on May 11, 2015 1:42:46 GMT -5
As Jo’s car flew down the highway leading into Greenbow, Nebraska, she noticed that the 80 was, for the most part, abandoned. Turning off into State Highway 10, she looked briefly to the left, the only things moving around being the cows that seemed to be the most numerous being around, a near mirror of that view on her right as she pulled over to the side of the road. The sun was almost to the horizon, she really didn’t have all that much time left to get to town before she missed the party. Shaking her head and readjusting her GPS, she pulled back onto the road and continued down the highway for three more miles before exiting at the Main Street exit for Greenbow.
As she neared the town, she began to slow down, trying to not enter town too quickly, lest the gatekeeper, so to speak, Officer Nigel, gave her another ticket. He always stationed himself at the entrance to the town, the only real road in and out, and waited for visiting relatives, who generally lived in big cities, to not notice the change in road types as they entered the town.
Pulling into town slowly, Jo had to slam onto her brakes as a gate seemed to arise out of nowhere where the road normally just thinned. Stopping at the gate, she stopped as someone dressed in an all-black security uniform stepped out, wearing a familiar mustache.
“Officer Nigel?” Jo asked, seeing the oddly shaped officer in a completely different odd shape than she last remembered him being.
“Jo? Well, tartar my biscuits and claim its steak, I wasn’t expecting to see you any time soon. How are you enjoying college life?” Nigel asked imperiously.
“Its fine, Officer Nigel. You’ve been working out?” Jo asked, trying to keep the small talk positive.
“You could say that. Thought it’d look better if this town’s only sheriff looked like a law man, Jo” he said, hoisting his belt somewhat as he held onto the buckle.
“Right, well, can I enter town? Asides this gate bein’ in the way, its Janet’s birthday. Sort of late” she said, Nigel’s eyes seeming to narrow on her as they scanned her form.
“Alright Jo. Just be careful. Town’s been quiet lately, but you know how the criminal types are” he said, opening up the gate with a press of a button.
“By the way, where’s Officer Stevens? Didn’t this town have two officers?” she asked, slowly pulling through.
“He, uh, transferred to Omaha. They needed him more there, or something” he said, murmuring something that sounded similar to “traitor” as Jo entered Greenbow proper.
As she passed through town, Jo made sure she was nice and slow, following the laws of the place as she approached the part of the road, oddly abandoned of people save for a tall man walking down the road apparently watching her as she drove through town, that led to Janet’s house. “Almost there, hope I’m not too late” she muttered, pulling into the driveway of the farm house.
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The dust of the day settled as another sunset descended on the town of Greenbow. The sky loomed high, as the day descended further into darkness. The house of one Janet Cliff laid in the distance as she walked, the sun slowly meandering across the darkening vista above. The house was like most of the other ones in the area, made of good Pennsylvania Cherry, painted a dark auburn to match the sunsets that frequented the skies every day. The white fence delineating it from the next property over wasn’t all that close to the house, but each time Janet returned home from school, just in time for her chores, the white fence marked the barrier between her and the freedom she craved outside of the farm. Normally she'd be home before sunset, but this evening found her in the student library with her friends and a computer until nearly dusk. Still, the fact she had gone home at all so soon after playing meant that she was in for an argument, but one that would’ve been more one sided if she’d stayed longer.
She already knew what to expect when she got home. A heated discussion about how she spent her afternoon cooped up indoors. She'd had the discussion so many times she didn't care anymore. It was her free time, she'd spend it however she chose. It wasn’t as if it was fair for them to lord over her when it didn’t matter, right? What she did was her business and as long as she got all of her other work done, why did it matter?
As she approached the barrier of her family’s vast farm, she cringed, slipping through the gate to a cacophony of barking. Spartacus was barking again, the old hound, the moment she slipped through. The old hound was blind in one eye, had a lame paw, and couldn’t tell shit from regular food, but he sure had sharp hearing. The moment anyone entered the fence-line, good old Spartacus would start a-barking. That was what gave her away, and almost immediately he could hear movement from inside the house. Who would it be this time, Nana? Dad? Ma? Well, whoever it was, Janet Beatrice Cliff knew that she was about to get a scolding that would skald her face with the piping hot spittle that would land on her face once she came in the door. Raising herself up somewhat, sucking in her breath, Janet trudged carefully through the walkway that led to the house and opened the door to a small group of people.
“Surprise!” they scream at once, streamers and balloons flooding the room in some pre-planned blitz. Everyone was there, Nana, her parents, even Cousin Jo from Florida, who looked far more tired than she should be like usual. Looking up at them in slight surprise, she realized that it must be her birthday.
“Oh. I’m 17 now, ain’t I?” Janet said, yawning a little as she pushed right past them and stood at the end of the table where the birthday cake lay.
Scrunching her eyebrows, Nana walked over to Janet and patted her shoulder, “Dear, I may be getting on in age, but I’m pretty darn sure that normally a birthday girl acts a little happier than that when she’s surprised by folks she weren’t expectin’ to be surprised by” she said, blinking as she pushed her glasses closer to the top of her nose, “Something the matter, dear?”
“Was expectin’ to be yelled at again, Nana. Just relieved” Janet said, looking to the stairs and back to the seat in front of her. Cake. Game. Cake. Game. Which was she going to do? Taking a single step towards the stairs, she felt the eyes of her Pa narrowed onto her and turned around, “Forgive me for my demeanor, Daddy, just kind of winded after walkin’ all the way from school. Feels like fifteen miles back and forth every day”
“Honey, you drove to school today” Pa said, his voice draining of some of its mirth from a few seconds ago, “You forgot to drive the car back again? It’s the only reliable car we have in the lot! Guess we have to drive the Oldsmobile over first thing tomorrow” he said, with a restrained and careful wording, “It’s your birthday honey, so don’t feel down about it. Accidents. They happen to us all, especially when we get older” he added, gulping loudly as he immediately turned around and walked out of the house into the yard.
“And there goes your father to yell at the cow again” Janet’s mother sighed out, shaking her head, “Do you want me to get you some cider, sweetie? We bought a load of that Grape Cider you always used to guzzle during holidays” she said, her smile wide and sweet, but with lines of stress that didn’t seem to be there normally. Ma tended to get in a bad way during times of stress and this was no exception. Beside her, Cousin Jo stepped up, frowning as she approached her cousin.
“What the hell is the matter with you, Janet? It may be your birthday, but I didn’t come all the way from Florida to say happy birthday to an air-deprived zombie. Where have you been that’s making you this late?” she asked, fuming as Janet made no physical response.
“Party? Sheesh, the only party I need is a group of my closest friends taking down the alien scum from Olympus. Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t need to be lectured by a former meth head” Janet sniped, stomping up to her room while Nana, Ma, and Cousin Jo stood there, mouths agape at what Janet had just said.
------------------------------------
“That, wait, Janet!” Nana yelped, trying to catch Janet as slinked out of the room far more quickly than she could be caught. Trembling a little, Nana shook her head and slunk back to the living room, walking out of the line of sight of the others
“This is getting ridiculous, Auntie” Jo said, “First she gets addicted to that dumb game, then she starts forgetting everything that has anything to do with sense, and now she mistakes me for my brother Jimmy. I get why you asked me to come, but I’m not sure what exactly you expect me to do. I’ve never seen someone so out of sorts, and as I’ve stated my brother used to have fits of nonsensical braindead times before”
“Well, Jo” Auntie said, looking to the stairs, “You two used to be really close. Before you went off to college, you and she were like two mice in a hole in the wall. Can’t you talk some sense into her?”
“It ain’t that simple Auntie and you know it” Jo said, “things at college have taken a toll on my spirit, so to speak, and I can hardly remember the good times I had with Janet anymore. She ain’t herself and I think we both know it. Uncle Robert’s outside yelling at old Heffie and he ain’t going to be in any mood to talk proper sense into Janet anytime soon. Besides, I’ve noticed something weird since I came to town. No one’s about, not even the adults who normally go to the bars to shoot the shit. No cars, no nothing. It ain’t parade season, nor does it seem like there’s a tornado comin’. Seems to me like something’s static, if that makes sense.”
“What do you mean? Sure, our neighbors in town have been less active lately, but that’s mostly out of worry for our young folk” said Auntie, looking over to Jo.
“Can’t just be that. I feel like something’s off. Can’t put my finger on what, but something doesn’t’ feel right” Jo said, narrowing her eyes as she sighed.
“Dear, you are just worrying yourself ragged. You’ve always been quick to point out a problem that ain’t there, honey, and you know that” Auntie countered back, patting Jo’s back, “besides, you haven’t been around lately, even when you come home for the holidays. Blumenfeld was your home, not here, even if you did visit often” she added, looking with concern into Jo’s eyes.
“I know, I just feeling that” Jo said, huffing, as she took off her striped sweater, “that something’s off. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about town feels decisively different. Heck, you’ve not offered me a drink once since I arrived and you used to always do that”
“I’ve” Auntie said, stumbling, “I’ve been busy. Thinking about Janet. You know how frittered I get when I’m thinking about Janet, Jo”
“Still, something’s up. Not just with you, but with everyone else. The sheriff greeted me on the way to town this morning. You know. Nigel. The Fattest Sheriff in Nebraska, Nigel. Except he wasn’t fat no more. He was big, but far leaner and muscular than I remember. In fact, I think everyone I remember being a lardass ain’t one anymore”
“That’s silly talk, Jo. You must be remembering things wrong. Gotta be in tip-top shape around here. You know what your uncle says about being in tip-top shape, right?”
“Tip-top until it can’t stop, or something like that, right?” Jo said, shaking her head again, “Look, I’m going to check up on Janet. If she’s on that game, maybe I can bond with her again and check up on her. Make sure she’s alright. I mean, it is her birthday”
With that, Jo turned and started to walk upstairs, passing through the corridor as she left her aunt behind and entered Janet’s room.
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“Parents always hoverin’ over me, I swear to god” Janet murmured, sitting down at her desk as her computer lit up. Booting up, the Microsoft Symbol emerged out of the soft light of the screen. As it did, Windows 10 flashed on the screen next as the computer made harsh, yanking noises, going through processes as the screen came up. Slapping the side of it, Janet blew off the dust that had settled on it from the open window and waited patiently for the excruciating two minute wait for the computer to boot. Selecting herself as the user, she scrolled down her eyes to the keyboard, watching herself type in the password.
“Whacha doin’ shitface?” a voice called out from the hallway, entering the room.
“Jo, not now. I’m seriously done with your attitude and trifling, I want my privacy. Happy birthday to me, now get!” she shouted, turning around to her cousin.
“Look, I am sorry about what I said earlier. I’m just, fuck, I just want what’s best for you. ‘sides, I got you something for your game” Jo said, strolling forward, her polka-dotted sweater shifting with her as she reached inside and handed Janet something.
“What is-holy shit, how did you get this?” Janet asked, seizing the box as she brushed off the package, “Ain’t supposed to be new Power Upgrades available til June. How’d you know that I wanted it?”
“I’d remember what my favorite ungrateful cousin wanted in regards to her favorite game, now, wouldn’t I?” Jo smiled, pulling up a chair beside her and sitting, “Somnos’ Quest is important to you and I heard enough from them to know to buy it. Sorry about my ‘tude earlier, cousin”
“I-Jo, I’m sorry for my bad mood, too. They’ve been on me so harshly lately and been so flat with me that I didn’t know what to do. It’s nice to know that I can count on you” she said, hugging her cousin as the Somnos’ Quest launcher finally popped up, the latest patch being downloaded as soon as it did. “Tarn-freaking-nation, I expected another patch, but not yet. At least it gives me time to upload this” she said, inputting the code for the upgrades into her Account Information and gaining the points, directly depositing them into her account.
As soon as she did that, the patch finished downloading, implemented in lightning speed as she pressed the play and the opening cinematic played through. Showing the current spread of the Human Empire’s dominance over the globe had spread over the alien planet of Thanatos, blotches over The Holy Lands, Orientalis, and The Great Maple-bound North lit up, a change since she’d last played, “Damn, I wanted to kick the teeth in of those Canuckards, looks like the Hadeans managed to burn those frozen assholes to the ground. All’s left is the Maple Peninsula, and we’re nowhere near that place” she pouted, going to the character selection screen.
Going down the roster of the few characters she did have, given her focus on her Main, she rested on her Hero, Melpomene of the Elysian Coalition, and smirked, “Looks like the points have already come into effect or something. She looks shinier and happier than I remember” she said, slapping the side of the machine as the image temporarily flared between the screen and an odd assortment of numbers, “Shit. Okay, note to self, slapping the computer around when it does something good ain’t right” she said, pressing enter over the character and entering the game.
“What in Davey Crockett’s Coonskin Cap is going on here?” a voice said, barging into the room as she spotted the pair at the computer.
“You’ve got to be kidding me” said the Jo in the polka-dotted sweater, standing up suddenly.
“Who in god’s creation are you?” said the Jo formerly in the striped sweater
“I’m Jo, who’re you?”
“To hell with that, I’m Jo” said the barging in Jo.
“What is going on?” panicked Janet, looking between both of them as she backed away from the computer, “I don’t remember you being a twin, so one of ya’ll isn’t my cousin. Wait a yarn-picken minute” she started to say as the Jo that barged in approached the one who had entered earlier.
Blinking a few times, she continued to back up until she backed herself into the corner, the polka-dotted Jo backing up before her defensively as Janet’s mind began to piece together what was happening. As she looked between the two, she realized why she had questioned both Jo’s all of a sudden, “Wait, that sweater, wasn’t it striped earlier?”
The Jo that entered the room first, still wearing her polka dotted sweater, grabbed Janet and held a knife that hadn’t been visible before to Janet’s neck. Wrapping her arm around Janet’s neck she spoke in a different voice, “Clever little girl. You’d think that a computer addled mind wouldn’t notice the small things, but I suppose your detail oriented knowledge helped you get where you were” the fake Jo said, turning her attention to the possibly real one, “You shouldn’t be here, outsider. Things were fine until you up and ruined everything.”
“Ruined? The hell are you-?” Jo said, as the fake Jo slowly shifted into a less familiar form, that of one of the men she’d seen on the way in from town, “What are-wait, I remember you. You were one of the guys by the side of the road that were outside the-oh dear god I’m in” she said, blinking rapidly as she took in her surroundings.
“Should’ve known that you’d cause trouble Jo. The Emperor knows that you are here and you will be found and dealt with shortly. If you don’t surrender know I’ll-” the man started to say before Janet shoved the heel of her boots directly into the toes of the man, causing him to drop the knife and let Janet go for a moment.
“No one puts a hand on me or my kin you shape-shifting asshole. Nobody!” Janet shouts, kicking at the man’s shins as he recovered from his short bout of incompetency.
Gritting his teeth the man seized Janet by the throat and lifted her up, just as Jo approached her again, “This one’s disposable, Agent. Not to you, though, huh?” he sneered, holding the teenager by the throat as she struggled fruitlessly, the grip around her neck ironclad.
“Let her go, I’ll go quietly if you do” Jo offered, visibly shaking as she kneeled onto the ground, “I’ll do whatever you want, just let my cousin go, please” she begged, bowing her head.
Grinning the man lifted his boot up and began to kick Jo in the head a few times, making sure she wasn’t trying anything, “That’s what I thought. Poor, poor Jo, assigned to infiltrate our systems but can’t even manage five minutes before losing everything. What was the Task Force thinking, sending such an em-PATHETIC agent like you against us? The Human Empire isn’t going to fall just because the UN got its act together, you-” he started to rant, before Janet, in her struggling, managed to get a good swing of her leg and kick the man between the legs, causing him to stumble back in shock.
Just as he did so, Jo grabbed the knife from off the ground and leaped forward, stabbing the shape-shifter once in the gut, and a second time between the ribs, causing him to gasp for air as his lungs denied him of precious oxygen. Collapsing to the ground as he clutched his chest, the knife remained embedded as he clawed at his shirt, his eyes fogging up as the world around him stopped being clear enough for him to see.
“There” Jo said, breathing hard as blood trickled from the top of her head down her face, “Bastard. You okay, Janet?” she asked, slowly rising as Janet stood there, white as a sheet.
“Cousin Jo, you just k-killed him!” she yelped, covering her mouth as she collapsed back into her chair, “What was he? What Task Force? What’s going on?” she said, breathing harder and harder, tears flooding her face in giant globs as she scratched against her cheeks.
“Look, Janet, I- god I didn’t think I’d actually get this far, I’m forgetting everything that I was supposed to tell you” Jo said, looking back and forth across the room, darting out the hall as Janet seemed to claw at her to get her to come back. Returning briefly after she left, Jo plodded down the hall, arriving at Janet’s side as she scratched the side of her arm. “Okay, looks like Auntie, or whatever program she is being at the moment, didn’t hear anything. She’s putting away the cake, or something, I can’t really tell” she said, her eyes drifting back to Janet.
“Program? This ain’t making anything any easier. Why the hell was he threatening to kill me? Why did you kill him? I have no idea what is going on and all of what you are saying ain’t making it any easier to decipher” Janet countered, as if disputing what Jo was trying to say.
“Look, I AM your cousin Jo, even if that thing shape-shifted me and god I am getting ahead of myself” Jo said, Janet staring at her as the younger girl interjected.
“I ain’t accusing you of being someone else, since you obviously cared enough to dribble on the dead not-you’s shoes to free me, but get your shit together and exposit. I-I want to know what’s going on” Janet choked out, tears still dripping, albeit slower, down her cheeks as she failed to calm down completely.
“Okay. Right. Calm. My name is Agent Jo Cliff, I’m a member of the UN Task Force R.H.O., which stands for, um, classified. Shouldn’t have told you the acronym, I’m sure you’ll figure it out later. Wait, where’s my rif-” she started, before being interrupted.
“As- as much as I’d like to hear you REALLY exposit, I meant in the short cutting to the chase thing, Jo” Janet said, the tears started to be less apparent on her face.
“Oh, well, I’m here to rescue you and take down the Emperor. Of course, I can’t REALLY do that, given that I failed to register as a player in the system. Somehow I got tagged as an NPC for the “Real World” and, well, here I am. Given that it doesn’t look like the Admin dead on the floor is going to be able to be warning his boss given that he was giving himself a congratulatory speech, I need you to do exactly what I ask, okay?” Jo said, finally breathing evenly as she turned Janet’s computer around to face the computer again, at the idle screen given how long it had taken for the situation to resolve.
Twitching her mouse a bit shakily, Janet turned her head and nodded, nearly jumping as a loud knocking caused both of them to jump and turn towards the stairs.
“Yes?” a voice called out, obviously Auntie’s as it approached the door, “Oh, Officer Nigel, what a surprise. Are you here for Janet’s birthday party?”
“N-well, yes, I do believe I am, Missus Cliff” said the voice a certain slickness to it audible even from this distance.
“Well, show what you brought and I’ll let you in. Just because you are a police officer Nigel, doesn’t mean that I’m just going to let you in without a present” Auntie said with a smile, turning her head to the back where a loud yelling could still be heard, along with the sound of a faint mooing in response. “Plus, Robert’s yelling at the cow again. Can’t just let you in without Robert to make you your favorite mixer, right?”
With a slight muttering of agreement, Nigel could be heard shuffling outside, waiting impatiently as he did so.
“Shit” Jo said, turning to Janet, “Just get your hero-heroine thing to the Emperor’s Palace. You are high ranked enough that it shouldn’t be a bother to get into that instance, right? I do believe that the only way out of this and also save the world is to assassinate the Emperor. I’m sure a few have tried, but it seems like this is the only way out”
“Are you f’real? I have to kill the Emperor to get out of this? He’s several levels above me, I’ve done shit like that before, but not with the possibility of alarms goin’ off and summoning the guards. That’s how I retook Atlantis- oh” she said, realizing that she had, indeed, seen the Coca-Cola plant explode after she had destroyed, in actuality, the town of Atlanta. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t just remember that. So figure out how to shut off the alarms and kill the Emperor, got it. I’m going to trust you, Jo. Don’t make this a big lie” Janet said worriedly, turning back to the computer and using a fast travel system to go to the capital.
“That’s it” a voice called out downstairs, the click of the door handle opening as Auntie held it back, “I’m coming in Miss Cliff. I don’t have a present, but I NEED to talk to Janet” the voice yelled, the wood of the door shattering as gunfire erupted through it. Falling down, Miss Cliff, seemed to grasp the air weakly, collapsing onto her back as the gunfire petered out.
“R-Robert” Auntie called out, her head turned to the back again as the loud yelling stopped.
“Beatrice!?” a voice called out from the backyard, storming through the house as Nigel strode in through the now destroyed front door and its frame.
Upstairs, Jo stood over Janet’s shoulder as the younger Cliff entered the Royal Chambers, where Emperor Nemo stood at his throne, contemplating something as he typed on the keyboard. Pressing the same button over and over once Melpomene entered the room, he glared down at the heroine, “I see that you have come to face me at last, Melpomene. Disabling my alarms might’ve bought you time, but traitors to my Empire, to all of humanity, cannot and will not be tolerated. Prepare, prepare to die!” he screamed, launching himself as Melpomene as Janet maneuvered the character out of the launched attack.
“Janet, keep him busy, I’ll make sure that Nigel doesn’t get up here to you” Jo said, kneeling down and then yanking the knife out of the dead goon. Standing up and giving Janet a short pat on the shoulder, she looked down the hallway worriedly, shivering a little as her heart started to race. Exiting the room, she looked back one more time to make sure that Janet could handle things on her own before leaving. As she slowly made her way down the hallway, she began to once more hear gunfire, this time between the two “Real” people, Robert Cliff and Officer Nigel. Peeking down the stairs, Jo noticed a stark similarity between Nigel and the Emperor, looking back to the screen and back down to Nigel. “Shit” she whispered, rushing back and peeking back into Janet’s room, “I’m closing the door okay. I know you can do this” she said, shutting the door before Janet could protest.
“Wait!” Janet shouted, distracted for a moment as Melpomene was knocked into a wall, barely dodging the Emperor as he lunged straight at her again. Turning her head back to the game, she began to whittle down the Emperor’s health, strafing across the room while she pot-shot at him with each and every turn. Occasionally looking back to the door, she heard a “real” gunshot fire out and a body fall as she, for a moment, shivered and gripped the mouse a little too hard, her sweat shooting the mouse away from her. Scrambling the grab the mouse, she got hit by a small barrage of missiles from the Emperor’s power armor as she finally moved, lucky that it had only been that.
Back downstairs, Nigel stood over the corpse of Robert Cliff, kicking the gun out of his hands as he sighed, the bullets that had lodged into his chest rolling off of him as he did so, “I swear, you’d think that creatures I created would realize that their weapons can’t hurt me” he said, looking up the stairs. “Oh Jo~ I do believe that I told you to be careful, but it looks like you’ve been quite careless. Making me come all the way down here just to deal with you. Look at this mess, I mean I wasn’t expecting the programs to work this well and stall me” he laughed, kicking the face of the deceased Cliff as he stepped over to the stairs.
Up the stairs, Jo looked at her knife and then the stairs, hiding in a cubby she could fit in while she waited for the officer, nee Emperor, to come up to take care of her, if not Janet. “I can’t let him win” she murmured to herself, over and over, as the footsteps began to sound more pronounced as Nigel walked upwards. Holding the knife with both hands, sweat began to pour down her neck, the blood from earlier mixing with it. Combining, a much smaller trickle of sweat and dried blood seeped down her face, over her left eye as she sat, hidden, unmoving as the steps grew louder.
Back in Janet’s bedroom, the battle continued as half of the Emperor’s health had been whittled down while Melpomene remained at 75% of her total HP. Darting across the room, she attempted to slash across the Emperor’s chest, the move bouncing off as Janet mentally slapped herself for forgetting that the Emperor was immune to physical attacks that weren’t ranged. “Shit, shit, shit” she muttered, working to dash away, but foolishly backed directly backwards, the Emperor lunging and impaling Melpomene and tossing her across the hallway, removing a full half of her HP, leaving her with just 25% left.
“What to do, what to do” Janet murmured, looking across the entire room as she strafed away from the Emperor, eyes scanning the entire room hopefully as the steps outside grew louder.
Outside of the room, Nigel walked to the door, knocking three times as he coughed, “Janet, my dear, I believe it’s time to end that resistance of yours. I’m not sure where you are hiding the Agent, but I do know she’s here somewhere. Be a good girl and open the door and allow me to kill Melpomene. If you do, I’ll let Jo go and maybe, just maybe, I’ll allow you to stay alive long enough for my conquest of the Earth to be complete” he said, his grip on the door handle tightening as the metal began to slowly disintegrate under his hand’s strength.
A soft breath seeped out of Jo’s mouth as she stepped into the hallway, lunging forwards with the knife as she embedded the metal object deep into Officer Nigel’s back, penetrating exactly where Nigel’s heart should be. Holding it in place as hard as she could, Jo attempted to shove Nigel forward to no avail, Nigel standing exactly where he was as his head turned back halfway around to look at Jo.
“Oh, my Jo. Were you not listening about the whole ‘weapons I created cannot hurt me’ that I muttered loudly downstairs? It’s almost as if you are a failure as an Agent, you little tramp!” he said, his upper torso turning to match his head in a quick motion, knocking Jo back towards the stairs as the knife tumbled out of his body, bloodless.
“You, f-fucking, you fucking monster” Jo accused, coughing out blood as she looked at him weakly, “You ain’t even human, are you? Just a machine playing a human being”
“Jo, that’s quite the loaded accusation. I would say the reverse is truer than what you are stating. I formerly WAS human, but now I’m just a little more than that. You see, I-” he exposited, turning his head quickly as a blaring sound erupted from Janet’s room. “NO!” he shouted, the simulation starting to waver for a moment as the room shimmered with light.
In the room, Janet began to feel numb, as Melpomene at the Emperor’s console hacked into the mainframe, activating the throne room’s defenses as they began to keep the Emperor distracted. Whittling down the health bar of the Human-Machine hybrid, it hovered around zero, but didn’t budge further as the leader of the Human Empire wavered, just as she inputted the codes to give Jo what she’d brought into the simulation, but had lost.
Appearing in Jo’s hand, a plasma rifle, model UN-47, fit perfectly into the grasp of the Agent as Janet’s voice rang through her head. “NOW!” it demanded, Jo’s rifle slowly being guided to the head of the false Emperor.
Firing, the rifle’s ricochet bashed Jo’s head back as the shot went wild, the first shot missing horribly, while the second and third shot through the Officer’s head and Torso cleanly. Dropping the weapon, Jo, slowly raised her head, blood seeping out her ears as Officer Nigel, the Emperor of the Human Empire, whoever he had been before, fell to the ground, dead.
As the body fell, two holes became visible through the door of Janet’s room, causing Jo’s heart to drop as the simulation started to slowly descend into geometric shapes. Using the rifle to prop herself up, she slowly hobbled through the derezzing hallway, shakily crossing the threshold of the door as it simply vanished, revealing the full view of the room as she stumbled in. The computer where Janet had sat at moments before was toast, the plasma rifle having pierced right through the screen. The chair where Janet had sat at was simply a rotating disc now, the spin from an earlier movement continuing as the friction of the object deactivated.
Janet lay on the floor, her limbs splayed out, broken like a doll’s as Jo approached, tears welling in the agent’s eyes. Dropping the rifle, Jo strode towards the broken body of her cousin, cautiously sweeping her up, one arm under her knees, the other holding her head as she turned around. The simulation around them began to evaporate, as, for a moment, the eyes of the corpse seemed to roll to look into Jo’s, before that too began to fade, starting from the eyes and illuminating the body as Jo walked through the door, walking up steps as the real world took over from the imagined real one.
Stepping out of the bunker, ablaze with the smell of burning computer parts, the grey, ashy earth before Jo stretched out for miles as she continued to carry her cousin’s body, the lifeless vessel hanging in her arms. Above her a helicopter flew above and circled, Jo finally looking away from Janet’s body as she noticed the chopper. Landing a minute or two later, out of the helicopter marched out several blue-helmeted individuals, the UN logo emblazoned on their helms and power armor as they approached Jo.
“You’ve succeeded Agent Cliff! The Emperor’s forces have collapsed and all of his devices have deactivated. You’ve saved the world!” one of them said excitedly, a tired, yet bright smile showing across the face as they suddenly looked worried. “What is that?” they asked, eyeing what was in Jo’s hands, “Is that-“
“My cousin” Jo cut off, slowly putting down the shriveled grey shell of a robotic corpse, Melpomene limply laying where Janet’s façade had been only moments before, “My cousin died so we could live. Even though she didn’t know why, she died for us.”
“Agent Cliff, I’m so sorry” they said, patting her shoulder as they looked back to the corpse, “I heard that she was why you risked coming here in the first place. God, how long were you in there?”
“A day, at most” Jo replied, somber as she looked down at the corpse, the sun setting on another day on the planet Earth beyond the group, “Happy birthday, Janet Cliff”
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