Chapter Five- My Sacrifice

Galileo Figaro ran outside his room to see that the Bohemians who had been in their rooms had begun to scurry toward the blockade in the back of the tunnel. He pushed his way through, closely followed by Scaramouche. They got back to the main corridor and pushed into the more common area.

"Wha' is goin' on?" Scaramouche asked one of the Bohemians who wasn't running. Charlotte Friggin' Church, if he remembered.

There was no answer at first, but then her eyes widened. "Oh, no," she whispered.

Galileo followed her eyes up toward the door above the sign.

Several of the Globalsoft Secret Police had broken through up above, and soon after, the man in the gray suit emerged.

"Galileo, run!" Meat screamed from across the room.

"Finally," the commander proclaimed from atop the sign, "I'm checking in to the Heartbreak Hotel. And so, Mr. McCartney—"

"Tha's Sir McCartney!" Big Macca called up.

"—I say 'hello', you say 'goodbye'!"

"No!"

Galileo turned to see Brit, emerging from the back. He yelled up toward Khashoggi. "You'll never take the Dreamer while I'm alive!"

"Run, hen!" Meat called. "The future of Rock lies with you now!"

He grabbed Scaramouche's arm, and pulled her along with him.

"The way we came in is probably safe," he said, running faster.

"Wai', Gazza!" she said, stopping. "We can't jus' leave them behind!"

Galileo dragged her along. "Meat," he began, panting, "said to go. S-so, we're going!"

Scaramouche pulled away from him. "No, I'm helping them ou'!"

"No!"

She ran back, Galileo right behind. As the walls widened, he ran into her back.

"Why'd you stop?" he asked.

"Oh, my--"

"What is it?" He looked up and heard a scream. A figure collapsed to the ground.

Scaramouche turned around and buried her face in his chest. "I can't look! Who is i', Gazza?"

"It's Britney," Galieo whispered

A tall, dark figure emerged from the manhole.

"Come on!" he called down. "Hurry!"

Scaramouche grabbed his hand and he pulled her up. She crawled through, panting and grasping her side. Looking over toward the boy, she saw that he was in the same state. They had ended up back where they'd first met the Bohemians. The van stood nearby.

"How did Khashoggi find the Heartbreak Hotel?" Gazza gasped.

Scaramouche thought for a moment. "They mus' have... some way... of tracking us!"

There was a silence while the two pondered this. What could Globalsoft have done? They hadn't been in their custody for that long... Okay, she was brought in... tortured... and then...

Gaz had gotten to it sooner. His voice got progressively faster as he talked. "The hospital! When they operated on our--"

"Heads! Oh!" She looked through his hair, his hands soon buried in hers.

"Ah! I think I found something!" he said, parting her hair near the nape of her neck.

"Well, cu' it ou'!" She squealed, grabbing a piece of glass from the window

He paused for a moment. "What?"

She grabbed his arm. "Gazza, if there are bugs in our heads, they'll track us down in hours! Cu' it ou'." She handed him the glass.

He hesitated for a moment, then slowly cut across her neck. She squealed as he pulled out a small metal object.

"Argh! He's had us from the start!" Gaz exclaimed, handing it to her.

She grabbed it and held it up to her mouth. "'Ello! Perver'! I's a shor' sentence. The second word is 'off'."

Gaz looked confused. "Um... what's the first word?"

"You are hopeless, Gazza..."

"All right. Now me," he said, kneeling in front of her. Plucking the shard from his hand, she poised herself above the implant and...

"Ahh!" he screamed, clutching the back of his head.

She raised an eyebrow. Bloody idiot... "Gaz, I haven't started to cut yet."

He stared at her for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh. Right."

Once more she raised the glass above his neck, and, in one swift movement, removed the bug. The boy shuddered, and she looked at the bugs intently. They were small, metal implants with little antennas coming out the bottoms. Microtrancievers. Good ones, too, to be still functioning after being inside human bodies for a few days.

"Quick," Gazza gasped. "Crush them!"

"Wha'? A couple of state-of-the-ar' microtrancievers?" She asked, incredulously. "No way! I'll just activate the maximum negativity spectrum."

"What?"

Hadn't he ever paid attention to their basic electronics class? She rolled her eyes. "Turn them off."

She broke off a piece of metal boning from her corset and used it to deactivate the small bugs. Sighing, she set the two on the dashboard of the van.

"We're... all that's left, Scaramouche," she heard from behind her. Scaramouche turned to see Gaz walking toward her. He leaned against a nearby lamppost. "The Bohemians are finished, the Heartbreak Hotel destroyed!"

The vision of Britney's corpse filled her thoughts. "Britney Spears died to save us," she whispered. "To save you."

"We're part of the underworld, Scaramouche," he said, sitting down inside the van. "Cast adrift."

Smirking, she commented, "I never belonged anyway." After a silence, she sat next to him and asked, "Did you notice? You've los' your stutter."

He smiled, a boyish smile that made him look young, like when they'd first met. It seemed like it had been forever since that day. "Well, I feel different!" He half-squeaked.

"We're both different," Scaramouche agreed. And she truly felt as though she really had changed. No longer did she feel like she was the only one out there who wasn't a GaGa. It was as if she couldn't see before, and she suddenly was no longer blind. Her purpose was clear. "For the first time in my life, I don't hate myself."

Gaz's face suddenly lost its boyish charm. "And... I don't wanna die. I've got something to live for!"

"The Dream?"

He shook his head. "You," he said, looking the most serious he had ever looked, with his eyes pleading, seeming to ask if she did, would, could share his feelings.

It shocked her. They had gotten close over the past two days. But still, she hadn't seen them as much more than friends. She sort-of saw him as a little brother. Was it really that hard to believe that he'd fallen for her?

He appeared to notice her silence. "But, uh, we will be caught in the end. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah," she replied, shaken out of her thoughts. "I know. And probably killed."

Slowly, cautiously, his eyes on the ground, Gazza whispered, "I... I love you, Scaramouche."

A pause. Then, just as slowly and cautiously, she said, "I love you, too... Gaz."

He turned toward her. "Do you think, perhaps, just once you could use my whole name?"

Their eyes locked. "I love you, too," she affirmed, "Gazza Fizza."

He laughed. "And, if I have your love, dying... doesn't matter much at all. Does it?"

It took a moment for her to register what he had said. He didn't mind being hunted down and killed, so long as they were together?

When the boy attempted to grab her hand, she stood up, turning away. "I-I can't do this."

"Can't do what?" He asked. She could almost hear his face returning to the usually confused look she knew. Pressure on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and took a few steps away.

She couldn't stay. Not like this. For a moment, she had something that she could live with. And then, that pig took it away from her once more. So now Gaz expected her to love him? Well, she supposed that's what she said. But it didn't matter. They had met one person that could have made all the difference, which could have helped them out. And he had died so that they could live. She couldn't stay.

But, if she couldn't stay, then, where would she go? Would she let his death be in vain? No. She couldn't.

Turning back, she looked into his eyes, tears welling up but not falling. He shook his head, and she could almost see the hints of tears in his eyes as well. It was okay for her to cry; she was a traumatized girl. Not that she'd ever been anything close to a stereotypical anything. But he couldn't cry; he was the strongest person she knew, aside from the fact that he was completely bonkers.

And, in that moment, she knew that she truly loved him. She couldn't bear to see him break down. She couldn't bear to see him fail. And she especially couldn't bear to be without him, she realized.

The gap was soon closed between them as she buried her face in his chest. For the first time in her life, she felt arms wrap around her, holding her close, and his head, resting on hers.

They stood there for what seemed like hours, until Gaz slowly and silently lifted her chin up, leaning down and gently placing a kiss on her lips. They pulled away, and sat on the edge of the van as, this time, Scaramouche placed her arms around his neck, leaning forward and giving in to a part of her heart that she never knew existed.

Meat woke up, head aching. An eerie, green light filtered everything she saw. She sat, handcuffed to a chair, a strange, floating device nearing her. She followed it with her gaze as it buzzed past, to a second chair on her right that Big Macca occupied. It turned around and a lens-like eye narrowed, then the probe turned and flew away. Looking to her other side, four other chairs holding four other Bohemians were neatly lined up next to her.

What had happened?

Oh, right. She remembered a scream, and hitting her head…

And Brit. Dear God, Brit was dead. All for some kid they didn't even know. She wasn't even sure Galileo was the Dreamer.

No, she couldn't think like that. The boy had to be. Otherwise all they'd done would be in vain. So he just had to be.

"Meat," she heard Bob call from several seats down. "You're awake. Are you okay?"

"Take a look at where we ahr, Bob. None 'a us is okay," she replied.

The Artist Formerly Known as Prince looked at her. She saw that his face was bruised; a trail of dried blood ran down his cheek. "You look terrible," he smiled.

"Yeh too."

A familiar voice reached her ears, gaining volume as it spoke. "Mr. McCartney, you're awake, I see. Tell me, what do you know of the phrase 'living rock'? Where is the place of champions?"

She turned and saw the commander, looking smugger than usual, hovering toward them on some sort of ship. He smirked, waiting for an answer.

"They're freedom words, pig! We dunno wha' they mean. An' tha's 'Sir' McCartney to you," Macca hissed.

Khashoggi nodded to someone out of her visual range.

"He's telling the truth, Commander. I've applied a search program to his brain functions," another voice said. Meat then noticed small wires dangling from his head, and soon discovered there were several attached to her, as well. "I've found no evidence of deceit," the man commented.

"Pity. Hurt him anyway."

Big Macca jerked in his seat and winced.

"Oh, and I'd rather you not call me 'pig'," he commented, floating by her.

"Pig's too good for you!" Aretha called out from the end chair.

The commander chuckled. "Hurt her too."

A shriek came from where the girl sat as the man continued. "In fact, hurt them all!"

At first it was a buzz, and very quickly it became a jolt, then a shock that ran through her body. It felt as if her whole body was on fire, burning up. Then, just as quickly as it had come, it left her still stinging.

"'Urt us all yeh wan'," she growled quietly. "We'll never tell yeh anythin'!"

"For what it's worth, your 'Dreamer' knows no more about the place of living rock than you or I do," the commander explained gleefully, his wicked, twisted smile growing larger. "He's just a poor idiot, parroting phrases he does not understand. Still, he led me to you, and for that I am grateful."

"If you're going to kill us," Bob called out, wincing slightly as he spoke, "just do it quickly."

"Please, Mr. Builder, Globalsoft is not some medieval inquisition! We're merely going to kill your souls— and empty your brains of such absurd notions as real music and individual thought."

"You're sending us to Euro Disney?" Prince asked hopefully.

"No! I was thinking the Seven Seas of Rhye," Khashoggi said, motioning to the people that were clearly behind them.

She felt something slide over her head as she jerked away. An orange helmet fell into her lap and she flailed, trying to keep the minion away from it. She would not go like this. Not like this. As she elbowed the man in the face, she yelled out, "Dreamer! Whereva yeh be, 'ear us! Follow us! Bohemians! Sen' 'im yer power! Make yer las' though's the Dream!"

The helmet was soon recovered by the commander, who activated it. She went limp, and her eyes blurred.

"I do like to be beside the seaside," she said in sing-song.