Tales of Brave UlyessesTales of Brave Ulyesses(an excerpt) by
Miles O'Neal
The directors of Roadkills-R-Us were having their usual annual meeting, in a secret cave somewhere on Maui, well after midnight. As usual.
The five went urgently about their business, their fingers flying over the keys, CRTs glowing softly, as each worked furiously to produce a result that would prove to the others that they, and they alone, were qualified to haul RRU bleating and whining into the future.
A visitor would have wondered at the sparseness of the room. Heat and light were provided by cracks in the walls, which let in not only the fiery red incandescence, but even, on occasion, small flows of lava. These were basically ignored. When they came to close to the directors, however, a gaggle of cave newts would attack the offending flow, and wrestle it onto a never-ending supply of lamps, which they sold to the tourists at a tidy profit.
As the night waned, the directors seemed to come more and more alive. miles was consuming vast quantities of boiling chocolate syrup with burnt castor bean oil, and alternately humming Stryper and BOC tunes. Spass was dancing as he worked, and was nearly covered with leis that fell from apparently empty space above him. Stevelee hung by his suspenders from the cave roof, and worked with his feet, flailing at his Strat in time to whatever miles was humming at the moment.
Suddenly Stevelee nearly dropped his guitar.
"Hey! The other two!"
miles and Spass,
hardly looking up,
noted that gypsy and meesh were missing.
With a ferocious growl,
Spass jumped straight up
in the air and put both feet through the glass of the CRT.
"I HATE it when it does that!"
"Hey,
chill out,
dude.
What happened?"
"A random quark.
A green one.
The saucer controls froze for a moment,
the autopilot froke,
and I slammed into a comet."
"Ha.
That's nothing! I rebuilt the autopilot,
made it intelligent,
and it eloped with the copilot.
I've been stranded on Demos for a half hour!
Guess miles wins
another year at the helm.
Oh,
well."
"Oh,
well,
my newt! That means *I* have to answer the
stupid DEA allegations before Congress!"
"I forgot all about that.
What was your score,
anyway?"
"I got trashed by a black hole popping into existence
in my cabin right after you screamed."
"Bummer.
But what was your SCORE?"
"How should I know?
He pointed at where the arcade
game had been until a moment ago.
Now there was just
a faint point of light hanging in midair."
"Oops.
A real one.
Pesky,
those things."
Stevelee whistled.
A couple of the larger newts,
wearing white uniforms,
sauntered in with a magnetic klein bottle
and disposed of the hole.
"So,
like where did the others go?"
"I dunno.
They didn't do an NMI,and the others were all
masked."
"Too bad.
Well,
now that business is over,
maybe we
can have some fun.
Spass,
this is your turf; what's
to do?"
Before Spass could answer,
the lights went out.
The room
almost immediately began to cool.
In seconds,
each of the
remaining directors was shivering.
"Uh oh.
I think we have a problem,
guys..."
Silence pressed in on each one.
Nobody could move,
and
their thoughts seemed sluggish.
Stevelee willed tokens
down his bus,
but someone else had it locked.
Spass began
to glow with a faint island light.
miles simply thought,
as furiously as his rapidly gelatinizing brain would allow.
Soon,
the room was quiet but for the scurrying of the cave
newts,
who carried their own warmth deep in their bodies.
As Bob and mr.
x approached the x industries PacBase,
mr.
x
began to fidget.
"Yeah,
I feel it,
too.
Something's wrong."
"Hmmm.
Carasso's still falafelled in the box,
according
to the computer.
What else could it..."
Both of them saw it at the same time.
A wall of noise,
so
intense as to be visible,
surrounded their destination.
A
most depressing gray,
it was shot through with streaks of
malevolent-looking red,
which writhed furiously like rabid
cobras straining to be free.
"Targeting east central power node.
All systems charged.
Full power on 1 and 2."
"Locked on.
Just a few more seconds,
so we get full
effect."
At their current speed,
they covered 100 kilometers in those
few seconds.
As certain console lights winked from yellow to
green,
the plane flipped upside down and threw itself into a
tight vertical turn.
As its belly faced the wall,
two thin
streams of evil-looking violet suddenly connected the plane
with the wall.
The wall began to shrink.
The writhing of the red streaks
tripled in speed,
and a huge cloud of green fog appeared
where the violet energy met the wall.
With a tremendous
explosion,
the wall disappeared.
The plane tumbled end over end for a few heartbeats.
Finally
BoB wrested control back,
and they headed back towards PacBase.
The formerly unsullied blue of the sky in front of them was
full of green,
slimy-looking gas.
Fortunately,
the wind was
dissipating it away from the island.
"Better notify that fleet we saw.
Probably take the
paint right off the ships.
Nevermind the linings in
their lungs and eyeballs."
"Any ideas about that cloud?"
"Yeah,
but I'd rather not say just yet."
mr. x looked distinctly perturbed.
A moment later,
they touched down.
BoB coasted to a stop over
near a large boulder on the beach.
He stared at the boulder,
and after a few seconds the plane began to sink into the sand.
Moments later,
far below the surface,
the two left the plane
in the hands of the capable newt technicians,
and headed
towards the main doors.
Inside,
they stopped for a moment.
All over the walls,
red lights glared at them,
needles were
pegged,
and CRTs blinked furiously,
all clammoring for
immediate attention.
"x! The pyramid!"
"What about the pyramid? Is it more important than the
fact that this whole complex has been compromised,
and is currently so hot that anyone normal would be
dead of radiation poisoning inside of five minutes?"
BoB stared quietly at x,
but only for a few seconds.
"You tell me.
The pyramid's been evacuated.
All the
monitors refuse to answer the radio queries.
All of them
have disappeared completely.
And DoD wants us at Cheyenne
two hours ago,
or we're to be shot on sight.
President's
orders,
but it doesn't say what they think we're
responsible for."
mr.
x went made no response,
and both worked furiously for a
few moments.
"There.
Radiation's down,
air's better,
and the temp is
back up in the main conference room.
Wonder what that
was abo..."
They stared at each other.
BoB actually looked worried.
The RRU board meeting!
They hit the elevator together,
and rode up in silent fury,
each lost in thought.
As the doors began to open,
they
jumped out together,
bending the doors in the process.
"Heh.
Have to fix those doors before we use that again."
They stopped in silent wonder as they enetered the main
conference room.
Only four Vectrex consoles against the wall.
Spass,
miles and Stevelee were slumped on the floor,
blue,
the marks of a scuffle between the everpresent newts and some
ice worms scattered about at random.
Neither mr. x nor BoB now had any soubts as
to what they had faced outside.
Stevelee was the worst.
Horrible red,
gaping pucker wounds
covered his body,
which had been stripped.
From head to toes,
he looked like ground chuck.
The Cray interface cable had
been ripped from his head,
and lay several feet away.
mr.
x
and BoB each dropped to the floor beside Stevelee and began
checking for life signs.
"Well,
he said he lived to be ravished by her kisses.
Now
if he only lives THROUGH it..."
"The fool.
He had no idea what he was saying.
But he
lives! Check miles - I'll check Spass."
They all lived.
Barely.
"Heart rate 5.
Alpha waves nearly undetectable.
Breathing
shallow at 2 per minute...
wait...
this thing is,
no,
it's
calibrated correctly.
But..."
"What?"
"No white cells.
miles has no white cells in his blood.
None.
Zip.
Can you stop their breathing until we get them
into the isolators?"
"No problem.
But better than that,
spass has no RED
cells..."
BoB looked meaningfully at nothing in particular.
Steam rose
from the back of his neck.
"This means war."