Disclaimer: Again, really? See Chapter One.
8
"If you make more noise, you'll wake the Scare Crows."
"Feh! I nearly have it now…hush!"
Zaglis and Ziglis-Z&Z as their species of game mutant was known-also wanted food. It was beyond their control-the human/marsupial hybrid had two heads, two stomachs, and a metabolism that burned so that the creature was in a perpetual state of hunger. Naturally, when they picked the "V"-shaped flying weapon off a passing Gula Muncher, their first thought was how to use the Atomic Wedge for the purposes of gathering food for their endless appetite.
Ganga fruit was irresistible, the most delectable of delicacies…and the hardest to obtain, as it grew at the top of trees three stories high, higher than a Z&Z could jump with its powerful legs, but not so high that an Atomic Wedge couldn't knock the fruit from the branches. So, with their new toy, the Z&Z bounded straight to the Ganga orchard that had appeared in a place the humans once called the 'strip mall'.
Zigils only wished that Zaglis had better aim. The need for the fruit only marginally outpaced the need for expediency collecting it. Ziglis kept a wary eye on the trees around them. It would not do for the guardians of the orchard to find Z&Z stealing their crops.
"Almost go it? It doesn't look like it from here," Ziglis scolded as the wedge arched wide of the branches, succeeding only in bringing down a few large leafs.
Zaglis hissed. "From there? Two inches away? Hush and let me work!"
"Don't shush me, you one-eared clump!" Having control over the left-half of their shared body, Ziglis reached up with their left arm and pulled Zaglis's long, pointed ear. Both heads yelped at the shared, resultant pain.
In return, Zaglis thrashed their long, kangaroo-tail and soundly thumped Ziglis' head. They both staggered, dazed by the blow. With mutual growls of rage, they tumbled into a ball of flying fists, fur, and teeth, the fruit forgotten in the tussle.
It was during their distraction that someone snatched the wedge from Zaglis' hand and pitched the weapon into the treetops. The Atomic Wedge sliced off a thick branch, heavy with Ganga fruit. Z&Z dove for the delicacy as soon as it hit the ground.
"Mine!" Zaglis cried.
"Not if I get it first!" Ziglis disagreed.
Half-crazed with hunger, it wasn't until their bellies and mouths were full that it occurred to them to wonder who had cut down the branch to provide their dinner. When they turned their heads to greet the newcomer, the Z&Z nearly choked on their meal. They screamed in unison: "Human!"
Their shriek echoed across the grove, carrying to the guardians of the orchard. They were called the Scare Crows simply because it was their origin-a mutant half straw man and half crow, with beaks large and strong enough to bite a cement mixer in two. They knew only one thing: Protect their trees, protect their crops. When the piercing cry disturbed their slumber, they cared nothing whether it was a cry for help, a cry of fear, or of rage. They knew only that something had invaded their orchard. Whether it was of human or game origin was of no consequence. They took to the sky, the beat of their wings like thunder in the sky, seeking out the intruder. Whoever violated their domain would know their wrath.
The Z&Z was-quite literally-beside itself in fright. Zaglis and Ziglis wrestled, each wanting to hide his head inside their only stomach pouch. They ended up smacking each other across the head and shoulder. When Angie tried to break up the squabble, they recoiled in terror at her touch.
Angie hid a wince as they bumped against her burned arm when they shrank away from her. She sucked her breath through her teeth with a hiss, waiting out the pain. The damn thing was infected and she knew it. She hugged it against herself, protecting the injury from further jostling by the frightened avatar.
"Please, don't hurt us! We won't tell anyone that we saw you human-" Ziglis promised, trying to turn their body so that Zaglis stood nearer to the girl.
Zaglis immediately spun so that Ziglis was closer. "Except that we'll probably tell the Tenrecs, since they'll pay a big reward for humans-" In retaliation, Ziglis thumped Zaglis with their shared tail.
"Wait! Have you seen other humans?" Angie asked.
Zaglis glared at Ziglis. "I can't control the Truth Curse!"
"You could simply say nothing!"
Zaglis hadn't thought of that. "That might work…"
Angie tried again to get their attention. "Truth Curse?"
"Never tell a fib to gypsy…particularly if you've just picked her pocket," Zaglis cautioned.
"Have you seen other humans in the city?" Angie asked again.
Ziglis answered quickly, "No."
Zaglis added just as quickly, "Many."
Angie grabbed them by the loose skin of their neck. "Where can I find them?"
On this, both heads agreed: "We don't know!"
She supposed they had to be telling the truth, since both heads had the same answer. Angie tried not to be disappointed. They had seen other humans, that meant others had survived. There was every chance they were still alive. She held on to that hope. If they were alive, they needed a way to fight.
She held up the Atomic wedge. "What about weapons? Game weapons like these? Can you get more?"
Ziglis' eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets for shock. "Impossible!"
Ever-helpful thanks to the curse, Zaglis supplied: "Maldark has all the weapons in his castle. Only the Tenrecs are armed…and the Grinders."
There was not one part of that sentence that Angie understood. She remembered from science that a Tenrec was something like a porcupine, but as for the rest… "What's a 'Grinder'?"
Some kind of supernaturally loud bird cry split the quiet of the glade…and many more answered. Angie covered her ears as the powerful din shook leafs from the trees and sent computer-generated forest creatures scurrying for safety. The Z&Z looked to the sky and whimpered. Zaglis successfully hid his head into their pouch this time. Ziglis pulled at him, trying to trade places.
Angie glanced up in time to see dark shadows against the purple sky. Her fingers tightened around the V-shaped weapon. "Okay…forget the Grinders, what was that?"
The Z&Z shrieked in harmony: "Scare Crows! This is their orchard!"
"What's a Scare-?"
She got her answer before she'd finished the question when hands caught her beneath her arms and a giant mutant scarecrow lifted her into the air. Seeing this, the Z&Z ran away screaming, using their tail and feet to bat away the Scare Crows as the mutants swooped down at them with shrieks of anger.
"The human ate your fruit! The human ate your fruit!" Ziglis tried to wave them off.
Zaglis corrected, "No, we did, but we're very sorry for it!"
Hopping like a rabbit and moving even faster than a rabbit, they disappeared into the undergrowth and were gone.
The Scare Crow lugging Angie banked low, smashing the girl against one of the trees. Angie shielded her head with her arms, squirming so her shoulder took the brunt of the hit. The Scare Crow lined her up with another tree, intent upon stunning the human before devouring her. She knew she couldn't survive too many impacts.
Instinctively, she used the wedge to slice off its foot.
The bird man screamed in agony, but dropped her. The branches smacked her in the face as she fell, but slowed her so that she was able to tuck and roll and she landed, springing unsteadily back to her feet.
Two more crow men dove at her. She threw the wedge, hoping she knew what she was doing. The weapon arched gracefully, clipping their wings. They shrieked and feathers flew. When they tried to dodge the wedge's return arc, they collided with each other and fell from the sky.
Angie ran in the same direction as Z&Z, using the trees as cover…until another crow flew beneath the limbs and came at her head on. She threw the wedge, but the trees blocked her shot. The weapon didn't return this time. She chased it, finding where it had half-buried itself in a tree trunk.
However, just as she pulled it out of the trunk, the pursuing Scare Crow scooped her up. Before she had a second to react, it slammed her into the trunk. The fight went out of her. Her vision swam, stars dancing before her eyes. Blackness threatened at the edge of consciousness.
Groggy, she felt the Scare Crow lift her into the sky. Angie looked down, idly wondering if the fall would kill her before the impact with the earth.
She saw other avatars move into the orchard below…only these monsters were riding floating skateboards, wore bandana-like masks over their faces, and dressed like they just stepped out of 'The Matrix'. They carried tube-shaped weapons and could almost pass for human if Angie didn't know they weren't human. They stared up at the Scare Crow and its prisoner like jackals waiting to steal a share of a lion's kill.
Her last lucid thought was that she was going to die and computer-generated vultures were already fighting over her remains.
The Scare Crow dropped her, but she was almost unconscious anyway. She hoped she landed on a few of the masked monsters when she hit the ground. As the blackness finally overtook her, Angie saw one of the human-like avatars aim its stick weapon at her. There was a flash of light like the play of lightning. She felt a tingle like static through her body, and then nothingness…
She woke to voices, distorted and muffled. Her sluggish mind, pushing its way back to consciousness, had trouble making out the words. Angie's eyes slowly open. A blurry face stared down at her, and she tried to blink it into focus. A portly man was kneeling beside her, hovering with a look of concern etched into his features.
He was a game leak, she realized, dressed as if his corner of the game had been based in colonial times. He had a soft accent to match the attire. She saw the man's mouth moving-was he talking to her?-but it took all her concentration to kick-start her brain to focus on what he was saying.
She realized the man was talking to someone else. Who else was there? she wondered, unable yet to get her aching head to turn so she could look around. Angie could tell she was in some kind of tunnel lit by flickering torches. The walls had a metallic sheen to them, or perhaps that was an illusion created by the poor lighting. It was damp, she was laying on something lumpy and uncomfortable, and…what the hell was that smell?
"It's a little rough, but the Chameleomole skin seems to have done the trick. None too soon, I'd say. Those burns were infected." Still detached, Angie watched as the strange man adjusted his spectacles to better examine her injured arm…
…or rather, the arm that had been injured. Dimly, she saw that there was now smooth flesh where the burns had been and the limb no longer ached.
Angie heard another voice answer: "It was a good idea, Guy."
She squinted at her miraculously healed arm. It had some strange artificial skin grafted there. The new flesh was human colored, but rough and distinctly inhuman to the touch. She let out a whimper of revulsion, alerting "Guy" that his patient had regained consciousness and was staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.
Guy gave her a smile meant to be reassuring. "Well, you're awake. Splendid! Welcome to our humble home…you'll be safe, well, as safe as a human can be, at least."
Angie got her head to move. The uncomfortable lump underneath her was a pile of burned up mattresses. The mysterious tunnel resembled an earthworm tunnel…only it was the size of a subway tunnel. It hadn't been her imagination-the tunnel walls were coated with some sort of hardened goo that looked like metal but sparkled like diamonds. Painfully, she pulled her arm away from Guy and pushed herself up onto her elbows, as far as she could go before she had to wait out a wave of dizziness.
Guy saw her studying the odd burrow. "These tunnels were dug by the Chameleomole's. This is the only place in the city that Maldark's magic and the Mesmer's psychic powers cannot find us-thanks to this." He knocked on the hard metal lining of the walls. "It's secreted by the Chameleomole when they move. Useful creatures-their skin has unique properties. It can restore damaged human skin, which is how I was able to heal your burns. You'll hardly know the wounds were there."
Angie wrinkled her nose, not wanting to be reminded there was whatsit-mole skin permanently grafted onto her body, whether it had saved her life or not.
Gently, Guy helped Angie into a sitting position on the uneven mattresses. He produced a canteen and offered it to the girl, who greedily gulped down the water. "You'll have to stay here, but why would you want to leave, considering what's out there?"
The other one interjected, still addressing Guy: "Tell the others she didn't survive. We can't take a chance on the Mesmers putting a truth whammy on them."
Still woozy, Angie peered into the dimly lit cavern, searching for the other speaker. She thought she saw a human shape in the shadows a few feet away. With the flickering torches distorting the shadows, it was difficult to tell.
Guy nodded to his unseen friend. "Indeed. Not everyone shares your special immunity to their powers."
Angie cleared her throat. "What…immunity…?"
"Mesmers are very logical creatures. They sometimes have difficulty asserting their will on creatures who are less logical," Guy answered.
"What he means is they can't use their super-special mind control on crazy people like me," the other one translated. This time, Angie was certain she saw a human form move not far from them.
"And I'm not…staying," Angie added.
She heard a snort from the person in the shadows. "Terrific. Glad I bothered saving your butt, then."
Saved her? She wracked her brain. The last thing she remembered was the Scare Crow dropping her and the group of avatars in the overcoats and masks running into the clearing. One of them had shot her with some kind of stick weapon.
Angie squinted, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She spied a familiar coat and stick. "You-you were at the orchard-I was falling—how—how did you save me-?"
Obligingly, he raised the stick weapon and fired it at her. Angie felt the familiar tingle in every nerve of her body. The next thing she knew, she was standing face-to-face with the boy in the shadows. He was definitely the dark-haired boy from the orchard (and, she noticed with a cringe, definitely the source of at least some of the odor in the tunnel). He had the same long, tattered coat and mask. She also noticed a small, rounded shard of metal in neck that made her wonder for a moment if he really was a game leak.
Guy jumped to his feet, shouting at the boy: "Dante!"
Dante turned away from Angie to give Guy a look of innocence. "What? She asked."
"She is recovering from a concussion and infected burns! Don't zap her around like that! You could hurt her worse," the older man scolded.
Dante shook his head. "So? She's going to be monster chum as soon as she leaves here anyway." He gave Angie a wave over his shoulder. "Nice to meet you, whoever you were."
"Angie," she answered.
"Yeah, whatever." Dante walked away from her, starting to head deeper into the tunnel.
Guy apologized to the girl, "I beg your pardon, my lady. My friend is somewhat lacking in impulse control…and manners."
Angie stormed Dante, irked at his abrupt dismissal of her. "I thought you were trying to kill me-in the orchard."
Guy trotted along behind the teenagers. "After they ran away, the Z&Z alerted the Mesmers that there was a human in the field. The Mesmers sent for my friend to—oh, dear—dispatch you, to put it delicately. We were fortunate that Maldark armed us with Hail Razors. The taser sticks can be modified to non-lethal settings…in fact, we discovered that a bit of reprogramming turns the electrical stream into a-what did you call it, Dante?"
"Teleporter."
"Yes, a 'teleporter'. If you aren't aware of the modification, it's almost impossible to discern the lethal blast from the teleporter stream…which made it possible to fake your 'execution' and save you from that rather nasty plunge," Guy explained. To Dante, he added, "It was very quick-thinking."
Dante grinned at Guy, unable to resist bragging just a bit. "Who's got the skills?"
Angie was beginning to understand. It was a brilliant scam they were pulling on Maldark-fake the executions of humans with their Hail Razors and then hide the humans in the only place in the city where the warlock couldn't find them. Maybe she was being too quick to judge the scruffy boy and his odd guardian. "How many people have you rescued?"
Dante gave her a baffled look. "Just you, but I'm starting to have second thoughts-" Dante was an expert on spotting trouble, and this girl, with her non-stop questions and stubbornness, was going to be trouble.
Sure enough, she exploded. "What?! No one…but, there were like ten of you in that orchard! Why haven't-what are you doing then-?"
Dante stopped so abruptly that she nearly plowed into him. "Where have you been for the last three weeks? You really don't know who we are?"
She studied the two of them for a few seconds. "He's a Leak," Angie said of Guy. She pursed her lips at Dante. "And you're…what? A displaced Keanu Reeves fanatic?"
"What?" He realized she was talking about the costume Maldark's magic had forced on him. Any time Dante changed clothes, whatever he was wearing transformed into this black ensemble. It did have a rather Matrix-like look. "I didn't pick the outfit-I mean, no…weren't you leaving?" he reminded her in exasperation.
She wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. He tried walking away again, but she simply marched right after him. "You have the weapons and this tunnel. Do you know how many lives you could save? How many people you could hide down here?"
"Probably about none before Maldark kills me for double-crossing him," he answered. "I'm a Grinder. My job is to execute whoever Maldark tells me to, not rescue them."
With a small surge of horror, Angie understood the purpose of the metal thing embedded in his neck. "You've killed people?!" She didn't believe it. There was something about him, beneath the bluster and bravado, that told her he wasn't capable of it. Why else would he have bothered to find a way to modify his weapon to have non-lethal settings?
"Well, no…" the boy muttered. In fact, until that day, Dante had been playing a really incompetent henchman, just managing to let his targets slip through his fingers and returning to Maldark with every excuse he could think of for his failure. Maldark was getting seriously torked about his screw ups.
She smirked at him. "I didn't think so. So, why don't you do something to help? I'm talking about saving the city…our city. Don't you care?"
Dante was suddenly nose-to-nose with her, anger in his eyes. "My city? My city locked me in a cage for something I didn't do. Guess how I survived Maldark's invasion? I was in juvy. I'm a bad guy! Why do you think he picked me to do his dirty work? So, no, I don't care about saving my city." This time, when he walked to the opposite side of the tunnel, the girl did not follow.
Angie processed that. He meant to shock her, to scare her away, and she knew it. She wasn't going to let him get away with it. She shook her head in answer. "You were supposed to kill me in that orchard, but you saved my life. You're not a bad guy."
"If you only knew me well, you'd realize how well you don't know me."
She crossed her arms. For lack of a better strategy, she tried using logic on him. "You're can't hold off Maldark forever. He's going to figure out you're not a killer, and then what are you going to do? I could help you. We could fake a lot of executions, make Maldark happy, and save lives doing it."
Guy gently interjected, "You must admit, the lady's idea may be the answer you were hoping for."
Dante shot the avatar a look of irritation, mostly because the avatar was right.
At least, the boy had stopped arguing for a few seconds. He was faltering, so she pressed: "What about your family? Do you care about them? I want to see my parents again. Don't you want your family back?"
The emotional appeal did not quite have the effect she'd hoped for. Angie saw Guy making 'shush' motions at her from behind Dante's back, but had no idea what she'd said that would panic the avatar…until Dante's face lost all expression. She imagined that the temperature in the tunnel actually dropped from the power of the frosty stare he gave her.
"Yeah. I do," was all he said.
Without another word, he turned and disappeared down the tunnel, leaving her standing there dumbly.
"Okay, I said something wrong, didn't I?" she asked.
Guy disagreed. "Something right, I rather think."
"I don't need his help. I can do it on my own. I can put on a bandana and a trench coat and pretend to be a villain." Angie was discouraged, but still determined. She began to scrounge around the tunnel, scavenging the ragged coverings of the "mattress" she'd been sleeping on and finding the boomerang-weapon she'd taken from the Z&Z. It was a start.
Guy watched her with a frown. "I believe you could…but, even if we can find where Maldark has taken your people, I cannot let you leave. Dante is correct. If the Mesmers or the Tenrecs learn that you're alive, they'll know that Dante deceived them…and if Maldark learns he's been betrayed, he will kill Dante and the other boys. I'm not going to allow that."
Angie raised an eyebrow. "You can't stop me from going."
To prove it, she attempted to set off in search of some sort of exit from the tunnels. Guy stepped in front of her, physically blocking her attempts to go around him. "Let me assure you, my lady—I can."
Something in his eyes and tone told her she'd better believe him. Frustrated, she sat back down on the mattress and glared up at him. "Aren't you supposed to be the enemy? Hate all humans, that kind of thing? Why are you helping him?"
Since she was obeying his instructions, the man's demeanor was kinder. "There are leaks who do not agree with the genocide of humanity. Maldark is our conqueror as well as yours…the conqueror of all worlds. Besides, I'm rather fond of these boys. They're like sons to me. I don't want anything to happen to them."
"Where is everyone? Dante's the first human I've talked to since the invasion...if we use the term 'human' loosely…"
Guy was genuinely sorry to have to tell the girl: "Dead. Enslaved. Hiding."
Angie had already guessed as much. At least 'enslaved' and 'hiding' meant alive. "And how did you end up hiding with the humans?"
Now, the leak actually chuckled. "It was a rather amusing happenstance. The boys were sent to—well, never mind what they were sent to do. Suffice that they led General Saast on a rather wild false pursuit in the Stenchwater Swamps. By the time they'd convinced him that the humans they were chasing had escaped, the boys had gotten themselves completely lost. I was out collecting frogs when I found them wandering in circles in the Red Glades. I'm sure they'd still be lost there if I hadn't led them back to the city…after they'd assisted me in gathering my frogs, of course."
Now, the humor left his tone and his smile faded. He had seen their implants-it upset and offended him greatly. In his concern for these children whom Maldark was torturing, Guy brought by some food supplies as a 'thank you for the help' gift. This became a regular thing until, eventually, Dante trusted him with the truth about their efforts to avoid becoming executioners for Maldark by playing the roles of the buffoonish hunters. "Of course, when I learned of their predicament, their intended place in Maldark's schemes, it was unthinkable to abandon them to that warlock's mistreatment. I do what I can to keep them alive."
She smiled at him. "You're a good guy, Guy."
He rolled his eyes, but still blushed slightly at the praise.
"I was there when Maldark destroyed the server station. He made Max Ross destroy the game. Is there any way to stop him now? To send him back?"
Guy sighed. "I wish I knew, my lady."
"We can start by pissing him off as often as possible…saving as many lives as we can." Dante's voice behind her startled Angie to her feet again. He had returned, carrying an armful of filthy, tattered clothing and masks with him. "But, you're going to need to play avatar if this plan of yours is going to work."
With that, he shoved the first of many avatar disguises that she would wear into her hands.
"Angie Prietto was executed in that orchard. She doesn't work with anyone. Mahtava does-or did…now I'm Kutisha." Angie finished her story.
Wyatt had been ashen-faced for most of the story-particularly when she delicately informed him how his counterpart had perished-but, at that last bit, Angie thought she saw him smirking. "Okay, what?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. Did you pick those names?"
Angie glared at Dante and pushed away from him. "I knew it! What do they mean? 'Pig fart'? 'Moose butt'? I'm going to kick your ass…"
Wyatt jumped in before she carried out her threats. "No, relax. They don't mean 'pig fart' or 'moose butt'. So, let's see if I've got this straight-you dress up like a renegade human, try to rescue human slaves, and then the Grinders show up and 'execute' everyone?"
"And we hide them down to the tunnels," Angie said.
Wyatt knew, "This was Angie's idea, right?"
Dante nodded. "Yeah, but it does play to my strengths-skateboarding, making awesome avatar costumes, video gaming…"
Angie added to the list. "….annoying people."
Wyatt grinned now, feeling his faith had been justified. "I knew there was no way you would work for Maldark in any timeline…can you get me into Maldark's palace?"
Before Dante could answer, Angie shoved Wyatt against the wall and put the Atomic Wedge to his neck. He protested, "Ow! Again? Really?!"
Angie warned him, "You aren't going near the castle. You aren't going to poke your nose out of these tunnels! You see that thing in Dante's neck? Maldark can use that to kill him the minute he even suspects Dante's tricking him. Once you're 'executed' you don't leave the tunnels. That's the rule if you want to live."
That was definitely going to be a crimp in Wyatt's plans. "Is there a way to remove that implant?"
"We tried," Dante said. From the looks he and Angie exchanged, Wyatt figured their attempt had ended badly. They didn't elaborate. "Magic put it there, magic's the only thing that can get it out. Maldark doesn't trust us off his leash."
"Maldark's going to find out what you're doing sooner or later…or the city's going to run out of food being cut off from the rest of the world by that force field. If I can get to that Doubleback, I can fix history. I can fix all of this," Wyatt promised.
"Not without my help, you can't," Dante said.
Wyatt fell silent. He was right.
Dante made the same face he did whenever he tried to do long division in his head. That meant he was at least giving Wyatt's words serious consideration. After a minute, he asked, "You said you met my mom in the other timeline? So-she was still alive?"
"Yes."
That was all Dante had to hear. "Okay."
"Okay?" Slowly, it dawned on Wyatt what his friend was saying. "Wait, 'okay' as in 'okay, you'll help me get into Maldark's castle'?"
"That's right."