SG: Rad #98 (3/3): Served Canapes

[Gary W. Olson]

(continued from part two, preceding...)

                                 ***

     "Hey!" Eivandt Seconds shouted.  "What's going on in there?"
     The inside of the laboratory, from which the huge surge of
electrically-supercharged bronze-gold light had emerged, remained
quiet for a few seconds more.  Then, Rumi heard the voice of her
mother, Glum.
     "Eivandt?  That you?"
     "Eep... I mean, yep!" Eivandt replied.  "Other folks, too.  I...
um... I... how're you?"
     Rumiko Moroboshi peered around the corner and squinted.  The
light crackled and fizzed and popped, bronze-gold at the low ebb of
its fluctuations and harsh white at its peaks.  Within its center
stood a woman, discernible only in silhouette.  Chains were attached
to her wrists and ankles, though what those chains had in turn been
attached to was not in evidence--and, likely, existence.  Rumi thought
she could make out an expression on the woman's face, one that could
qualify as very angry, highly jittery, or possibly both.
     "I'll be fine," said Glum, her voice much calmer than her
expression.  "As soon as I make some eyeballs explode."
     Rumi looked at Eivandt, Alice, Miguel, Tom, and The Programmer.
None seemed eager to enter the room.
     "Dana Wader's, I mean," added Glum.  "And Erasmus Fancy's.  Look,
I am in serious need of letting some of this out of me, and it doesn't
want to go to ground or back into the pile, so... Rumi, is that you?"
     Rumi blinked, considered pulling back, then realized she could
not.  She walked into the room, shading her eyes with her right hand.
     "Hi, mom," Rumi said.  She was aware that her being here, miles
underground in a secret lair being run by villains and overrun by
demon monkeys, was at the very least a technical violation of the
house rules her parents had set down during the journey from planet
California to planet Earth.  In spirit, certainly, if not in letter--
after all, they had not said anything *specifically* about teleporting
demon monkeys as persons to be avoided.  It occurred to her that there
had been a provision about not feeding stray monkeys, but she did not
see how it could apply here.
     "You weren't on the bus that brought Eivandt, Miguel, Alice, and
I here," said Glum.  "Did you--?"
     "Long story," said Cendra, as she slithered into the room, arms
still crossed over her chest.  "Probably not the best time for it---"
     "She and my younger brother were teleported in by Shadebeam,"
said Miguel.  The werewolf moved cautiously but smoothly into the
room, hindered in his elegance only by the way The Programmer stumbled
and whined as Miguel dragged him along.  "I am told it was not
intended that they would remain here very long, only so long as it
took for Shadebeam to locate us.  But something went wrong, and
neither Shadebeam nor Esteban are here."  He paused, taking in Cendra
and Rumi's glares.  "What?" he asked.
     The Programmer was looking rather crossly at her and her mother,
but Rumi could spare him no more than a glance as Miguel roughly set
him down.
     "Young lady," Glum said, her crackling and sizzling gaze fixed on
Rumi.  "You know you're not old enough to be invading villainous lairs
on your own---"
     "I wasn't alone!" Rumi protested.  "I had adult supervision!  You
said---"
     "Um, I don't think this is the time..." said Alice.
     "Look at me!" Glum exclaimed.  "They could have done this to
you!"
     "But they didn't!" Rumi snapped back.  She knew she should be
quiet, that her mother would move on once finished with upbraiding her,
but she had been holding her tongue in a lot of situations during the
day, and could somehow not find the will to do it yet again.  "It's not
like I *asked* to be brought to this planet!  But I'm here, and I'm
not just going to say 'oh, well, there goes mom, and I can't reach
dad, so I'm going home, especially since I was in Malaga, and---"
     "How'd you get to Malaga?" Miguel asked.  To Rumi, he sounded
surprised, but in a way that suggested he suspected and disliked what
he thought the answer might be.
     "Look, guys," Tom said.  "We really need to be working together
right---"
     "Well, if you want," said Glum, "I'll call the star yacht back
from its Jupiter orbit and we'll just send you right back to planet
Cal---"
     "Hey, Electra Milf and Dyna Bait!" yelled The Programmer, still
being held in place by Miguel's clawed hands.  "Shut your pie holes
and get me out of here!"
     This had what Rumi guessed to be at least part of its intended
effect.  She, her mother, and everyone else in the room stopped
talking and regarded him with expressions mixing incredulity,
annoyance, and intent to commit bodily harm.  The Programmer noticed
this, particularly the 'intent to commit bodily harm' aspect, and gave
a weak smile.
     "Um," he said, "in your own time, yes?"
     "Right, look," said Eivandt.  "These are tense times for all of
us.  It's been a long time since some of us were in it like this, and
the first time for the rest."
     Rumi glanced from Eivandt to Glum.  Sparks were flying from her
mother's teeth, and Rumi was fairly sure she was holding back some
fairly serious vitriol that had more to do with those who had
supercharged her than her wayward daughter.
     "Now, first," Eivandt went on.  "What did they do to you, Glum?"
     "Dana and the big ape hooked me up to this nectarisite pile,"
said Glum, standing aside so they could see the misshapen, five-foot-
high heap of metal scrap behind her.  Most of the pieces seemed fused
to the other pieces, though it had clearly not started out as one
lump.  "I think they thought it would draw bioelectricity out of me,
and use it to supercharge their chip-controlled army on the surface.
It did draw my energy out, but it changed it somehow as it did, and
then it fed it back into me."
     "They must not have liked that," Miguel said.
     "The table went up pretty quickly," Glum replied.  "I probably
have burns on my back, but I can't tell right now.  Everything's
crackly.  If my dress wasn't engineered to withstand massive voltage,
it would've burned away, too.  I tried zapping Dana and Fancy, but
they got out the doors too fast, and locked it behind them.  I've been
bouncing off the walls here until you guys... look out!"
     The warning came too late.  Demon monkeys appeared in droves
throughout the laboratory, many of them carrying guns of some kind.
Miguel snarled and swung his clawed hands out, but the two he struck
were only distractions that set up the following twelve with an easy
target.  They moved as one, clinging to his fur and letting out the
howler monkey equivalent of a war whoop before teleporting Miguel
away.  The Programmer, left behind, cringed and dropped to the floor.
     "Miguel!" Cendra yelled.  Numerous monkeys appeared atop her,
apparently determined to repeat their teleportational feat, but they
found that nagas--the snake halves of nagas, at least--were harder to
gain a firm grip upon than helpfully furry werewolves.  Cendra
squirmed free of their initial rush, swatted four away with a swing of
her massive tail, and slithered headlong into a rush of bronze-gold
electrical energy.
     "Oops!" Glum exclaimed as the light died away.  "I was aiming
for... Cendra?"
     Cendra staggered a bit, but stayed on her feet.  She looked down,
as if to confirm it was feet she was barely staying on, rather than a
snake body, then checked the rest of her to confirm that her cargo
shorts, tennis shoes, and plain red t-shirt had reappeared.  Then she
looked up at Glum.
     "I don't know what you did," she said.  "But... I'm not even
hungry anymore.  I feel like... I...."  She turned to look at The
Programmer, who was nearly at the doorway and gaining speed.  "He's
going for the underground highway!"
     "What underground highway?" Rumi asked, as she deflected three
demon monkeys with a psychokinetic pulse.
     If Cendra ever answered, Rumi did not hear.  The howls and
screeches of the demon monkeys filled the lab as dozens more moved in.
Tom and Alice quickly had their rifles taken away, and Eivandt only
managed a couple whacks with his broken banjo before he, too, was
captured.  Glum yelled something incomprehensible as Eivandt, Tom, and
Alice were teleported away.
     A new burst of bronze-gold energy flooded the room.  It blazed
against Rumi's shields, forcing her to fortify them until she thought
her head would burst.
     When it subsided, only she, her mother, and Cendra were in the
room.  Glum's eyes were wide, and she was looking at her crackling
hands as if she had never seen them before.  The hissing and snapping
light that surrounded her was, Rumi thought, noticeably dimmer, and
she wondered if that meant the supercharge was finite, dissipating
with each use until Glum returned to her normal bioelectrical levels.
     Rumi realized The Programmer was missing, and was unsure as to if
he had been teleported away, or if he scampered on his own.  Before
she could ask, the demon monkeys returned.  As Miguel had been able to
sense their attacks, so had they apparently been able to sense Glum's,
and had simply teleported away split-seconds before they would have
been fried.  But not all of them were back, just a few---
     "Hey!" Rumi yelled, as four of them latched onto her--two on her
thighs, two on her arms.  The world twisted and shivered and became a
darkened corridor.  Rumi tried to psychokinetically push the demon
monkeys away, but only the ones on her arms were dislodged--and this,
with far less force than she had intended.
     Before the demon monkeys could reattach themselves, Rumi took to
the air and flew down the corridor, hoping she would not hit a wall or
any debris.  The demon monkeys clinging to her legs had clearly not
been prepared for a target that could fly, and made that clear with
their alarmed screeches and ooks.
     One fell off, bouncing off of walls before sliding to the floor.
Rumi rounded a corner, trying to catch the single remaining monkey on
the edge but missing.  The monkey attempted to climb up her leg to her
abdomen, digging its claws into her skin.  She cried out, spun, and
hit the wall.
     This succeeded in knocking off the demon monkey, but it
recovered in mid-air and teleported to her, landing on her shoulders.
Mercilessly, it went for her eyes, and only her panic allowed her to
psychokinetically push its paws away.  She felt she ought to be able
to just blast this one back, but she felt woozy from being teleported
and the adrenaline rush of the attack and the chase made it hard to
concentrate.
     Then she flew under a low-hanging beam, and the problem was
sorted out, as the beam struck the monkey and peeled him off her back.
Its howls of monkey fury and monkey vengeance echoed behind her, but
were soon lost as she flew on.
     Rumi took random turns through the darkened corridors and
junctions to ensure the monkey could not keep her in sight long
enough to teleport back onto her.  Much of what she flew through was
dimly lit with emergency lighting; the rest was not lit at all.  And
she saw nobody.
     She landed in a corridor, and felt herself wobble as soon as she
let gravity have its way with her.  Though she managed to keep her
balance, she felt off, somehow.  Probably a lingering side-effect of
being teleported by demon monkeys, she thought, though why being taken
a short distance by them was more off-putting than being taken a long
distance by magic, she could not say.
     She thought about her mother, and how they had argued.
Nominally, she thought, it had been about not staying out of danger
like she was supposed to, but it was really a continuation of the
fights over Rumi coming to Earth for a year, just because mom and dad
could not stand to stay away any longer.  And though it was possibly
because of having all that strange bronze-gold electrical energy
bouncing around her head, her mother had given in and said she could
go back to Planet California.  She had gotten what she wanted.
     Only... was it still what she wanted?
     It had been a strange and trying day, one that was not yet at its
close.  Strange and trying... but certainly not dull.  She recalled
her father telling her about his adventures, and thought about how
they must have felt while they were happening.  How alive he must have
been.  She thought now she understood why he wanted to come back.
     She took a step, stumbled, then took to the air before she could
fall on her face.  If this was what feeling alive felt like, she
thought, there was something to be said for being bor---
     Rumi stopped.  Listened.
     She heard it again.
     "Esteban," someone had said.  The someone said something else,
but Rumi could not make it out.  Someone else replied, a stream of
indistinct soft words.  Rumi wobbled in mid-air, then headed where she
thought the voices were coming from.  Not wanting to draw demon
monkeys to her, she stayed silent as she flew.
     "You're hurt," said the owner of one of the voices.  "God, you're
bleeding..."
     More indistinct words.  Rumi flew through a dimly-lit junction,
then into a corridor with grates for flooring.  There was more than
one level to this underground hideout, she realized.
     Now the voices were closer.  The next words she heard were clear
enough for her to recognize their owners.
     "It's my fault," said Esteban Veracruz.  He sounded tense, in
danger of panicking.  "You're hurt and it's my---"
     "No," Lemon Rydell interrupted.  "Listen, Este, it's not your
fault."
     "But---"
     "But nothing.  I barged in where I shouldn't have.  I got
translocated here instead of Shadebeam.  It's my fault I'm even here
in the first place."
     Rumi slowed.  The voices were near, though she could not see the
people who owned them.
     "I was aiming for the monkeys," said Esteban.  "I ended up
hurting you..."
     "It was a scratch," Lemon said, giving his voice a reassuring
edge.  The same edge it had held before, back in Malaga, when Esteban
had expressed anxiety over his ability to be a superguy with only half
a suit of powered armor.  "And the bleeding's mostly stopped.  See?"
     Silence.  Rumi slowed further, sure they were close.
     "Yeah," said Esteban.  "I see.  But..."
     "Esteban," Lemon interrupted.  "Este.  Look at me."
     Silence.
     "You kept the monkeys from taking me away.  You drove them off.
They didn't come back."
     They were below her, she realized.  Two forms barely visible
through the floor grating, lit only by the emergency lighting from the
level she was in.
     "You're a superguy," said Lemon.
     Rumi hovered closer to the floor, until she rested atop the
grate.  She peered through.
     "My superguy."
     She had just enough light to identify who was who.  Lemon's
'Wile E. Coyote' t-shirt was off and wrapped around his upper left
arm, which was streaked with blood.  Esteban was the one in the black
'Gorillaz' shirt and the enormous bronze-gold metallic pants known as
Los Pantalones.  Their faces were quiet and close, so close they could
have been...
     Not could have been.  Were.
     It was then that something slammed into the grating, very close
to her ear.  The grating collapsed, and Rumi tumbled down, recovering
enough to shield her from receiving a concussion on hitting the floor.
She rolled and looked up.
     Lemon and Esteban now stood apart.  Lemon looked surprised, and
perhaps a bit amused.  Esteban, meanwhile...
     Esteban looked terrified.
     Rumi had no time to process this revelation, much less figure out
what it meant for her.  Something large came down from the opening in
the ceiling grate and landed next to her, the impact of its feet
thundering in her ears.  It was followed by a less-large something
which made a more graceful landing.
     "Interesting," rumbled Erasmus Fancy, as he looked from Rumi to
Lemon to Esteban.  "Aim for one, catch three."  He hefted what looked
like a large and unnecessarily vicious-looking laser rifle and aimed
it at Rumi.  "And the owner of Los Pantalones, no less.  Here I
thought it would be so much more difficult to bring you in."
     "What're you waiting for?" asked the other invader--a woman in
the black suit, white shirt, and black tie.  Dana Wader, Rumi guessed,
though she had changed her look somewhat from her father's old rogues
gallery.  The thoroughly evil and borderline-batshit-crazy grin was
unchanged.  "Grab her and let's go."
     "We have additional hostages now," said Erasmus.  "Ones useful
against more than just Glum.  Observe, neither of them dare move, so
long as I threaten her."
     Lemon and Esteban said nothing.  Esteban's eyes went from her to
Fancy to Dana and back to her, and Rumi thought he looked as if his
head was about to explode.  She wished her head did not feel the same
way.

                                 ***

     On the bridge of the _Subtler Than Light,_ Rad watched--and
enjoyed delicious canapes--as Capella spat orders at her demon
monkeys, telling them to raise things and adjust the vibratory
magneto-whatsit to that and so on.  Though it all sounded terribly
important, she shouted at her crew as if they were amateurs, and Rad
could tell from their disgruntled monkey expressions that they were
not used to it.  Nonetheless, they obeyed.
     "Charge up the electro-vortex cannon!" Capella exclaimed.  "Move
our ship into position over the elevator shaft, and do not allow the
_Vander Harkness_ anywhere near!"
     "Like, um..." Rad began.
     Capella glared at him, before softening her expression.
     "I'm sorry," she said, "but the reward I earlier promised will
have to wait.  I'm afraid you've been downgraded from ambassador to
hostage.  Ringbob!"
     The canape-serving demon monkey, whose name was apparently
Ringbob, saluted with his right paw, his left still holding the canape
tray.
     "Hostages," Capella said, anger in her tone, "are not... to be
served... *canapes!*"
     "Like, well, then," said Rad, as he willed his psychokinetic
power to cover him in a protective shield.  "I guess, like, I'm going
to, y'know, upgrade myself from, like, hostage to, like, dude who's
gonna, like, bring you down, y'know?"
     "What?" Capella asked.  "I didn't follow any of that."
     Rad grinned.  Even in the modest light from the recessed lamps,
the glow made Capella and Ringbob squint.
     "I never, like, thought I'd, like, be happy to hear that,
y'know?"
     He kicked the canape tray out of Ringbob's hands, sending the
canapes flying.  Catching the tray, he threw it at the nearest
chandelier with full psychokinetic force.  It sliced through the
chain, sending it crashing to the ground atop several demon monkeys
who had been too surprised to teleport away.  Rad fired a
psychokinetic bolt that severed the chain of the second chandelier,
causing that one to fall atop the command chair.  The monkey noises
from that direction told Rad that Chochim was particularly vexed about
this.
     Six demon monkeys vanished from different places on the bridge,
only to appear well inside his personal space.  A half-second after
that, he knocked them back with a hard psychokinetic pulse.  Before he
could wreak further havoc, hot bronze-gold light exploded across his
chest, sending him hurtling behind the bar.  The bartender, who had
managed to teleport away in time, reappeared and made anguished howls
and screeches about all the bottles that had been knocked to the
floor.
     Rad could still feel the sting on his skin.  Though his shields
had protected him from the worst of it, part of the bolt had gotten
through.  He flew up and saw Capella, bronze-gold light drifting as
smoke from her outstretched arms.  Her grin was sharp and mirthless.
     "That... felt... *good,*" she said--Rad guessed as much to
herself as to him.  She lowered her left arm, but kept her right
squarely pointed at him.  He kept his right arm aimed at her.
     "Like, what was that, babe?" he asked.
     "It's been a long time since I've been able to do that," Capella
replied.  "Even discounting when I was in slow temporological
aether... ten years for me, over a century for your world.  In the
aether, my mind could not access the power.  But in your dimension,
with its rules... different story."
     "You're, like, not going to---"
     "They were forced upon me when I was last in your dimension,"
Capella went on.  "1898.  I'd been captured by Erasmus Fancy, taken to
his hideout.  His ally then was a mage who called himself the High
Technocrus, though he said that was just his accreditation, or some
such nonsense.  Tall, pale-skinned, bald, wore a rich brown cloak and
black-lensed goggles, that's all I saw of him."
     Rad, realizing that Capella was likely to go on like this for a
while, looked at the demon monkey bartender, then gestured to the
bottle of mojito mix on the far end.  The bartender ceased his cleanup
efforts, and started to mix the drink.
     "So they experimented," said Capella.  "I have no idea what they
hoped to accomplish, or if they suspected what would happen.  Had the
Dweller in the Shades not disrupted their work, I'm sure I would have
been disposed with afterward.  There was a fight... it's all in one of
Richard Cartier's journals, if you want the details."
     The bartender handed Rad his mojito.  Rad took a sip, and gave
the bartender a thumbs up.
     "It wasn't until later that I found I had this... this energy...
inside me," Capella went on.  "They left some nectarisite embedded in
me, and the color of what I project derives from this.  But when I was
forced to flee, to return to my home dimension, my powers shut down as
well and what am I *doing?*"
     Rad, sensing a change, finished his drink and handed the
bartender his glass.  The bartender took the glass.  He was already
holding several unshattered bottles.
     "Damnation!" Capella exclaimed, a snarl transforming her
features.  "I always exposit too much in this dimension!  As soon as
my brain gets in it, I just have to ramble on and on about this or
that and hey, did that bartender give you a mojito?"
     She did not wait for an answer, instead sending another bolt
toward the bartending demon monkey.  The bartender vanished with his
rescued bottles.
     "No mojitos for hostages, either!" Capella yelled.
     Rad fired a psychokinetic blast at his distracted foe.  It caught
her shoulder and sent her spinning into the wall.  Not waiting for her
to recover, he tried the door he had come in, only to find it would
not open no matter how he tried to imitate the hand-wave she had
earlier done to open it up.
     "Doors... are probably disabled," said Capella, as she extracted
herself from the wall.  She clutched her right shoulder, though
otherwise she appeared unhurt.  Rad was impressed, and wondered if she
had armor on beneath her uniform.  "Being in your dimension... doesn't
agree with the programming, so much.  Problems... when there's no
syntactical aether to run in.  Fortunately, our magnagravitic-vortex
engines were designed to be dimension-independent..."
     She unclutched her shoulder and shot a bronze-gold beam at him.
He tried to deflect it with his shields, but it struck his arm and
knocked him back.  The wash of pain told him a patch of his skin was
burned.
     He was about to fire back, when a host of agitated monkey noises
from the front of the bridge caught both his and Capella's attention.
     "Chochim!" Capella called.  "Chochim!  What's going on!"
     Chochim screeched and ooked, pointing to the front viewscreen.
The scene depicted was not of the approach of the _Vander Harkness, or
battle outside Dodger Stadium, or even the nectarisite lake inside
Dodger Stadium.  It was of the clear night sky.  Only the stars were
visible, the glow of Los Angeles at night... and MeltDown, barely
noticeable until someone, presumably Chochim, caused the screen to
focus on her.
     A moment later, a purple-orange-and-midnight-blue blur obscured
the screen.
     A moment after that, a huge impact rocked the bridge.  Everyone,
including Rad, was knocked from their feet.  Several workstations
exploded in sparks.  Canapes flew everywhere.
     "What... was that?" Capella asked, as she struggled to stand.
Her task was made more difficult by the way the _Subtler Than Light_
began to tilt toward its starboard side.
     "Like, just a guess, babe," said Rad, as he wobbled to his feet,
"but I'm guessing, like, we now know, like, where Mighty Guy and
MeltDown, like, go to, y'know?"
     "They brought down our shields so they could bring down our
ship," Capella said.  "Chochim, where are you on reestablishing the
aether?"
     Chochim ooked and eeked his reply.
     "I don't *care* what's going on in the parking lot!" Capella
angrily replied.  "No matter who's showed up now, our forces should be
able to keep control of the elevator shaft.  Tell me about the
aether!"
     Rad saw that Mighty Guy's broadside had, indirectly, opened up
part of the wall between the bridge and the corridor outside.  He
looked back at the front of the bridge.  More demon monkeys were
appearing, most of them wearing black uniforms and carrying sleek
guns.  Between Capella and the arriving security, Rad saw his chances
of overwhelming the bridge crew rapidly dwindle.  He looked back at
the jagged opening between the door and the wall.  A psychokinetic
blast opened it further, and he was through before Capella saw his
move.
     He dodged several blasts as he soared down the corridor, hoping
he could remember the way to the ship's deck.  The metal was extremely
tough, and he doubted he could simply blast his way through just
anywhere.
     A moment later, he found the hole Mighty Guy had made in the
ship.  He had hit on an oblique angle, punching up from the side and
coming out---
     A bronze-gold ray blast shot past him, singing his hair.  After
patting the singed spot down to be sure it had not caught on fire, Rad
took off up the newly-created tunnel, deciding the best way to find
out where it ended was to go there.
     He was nearly at the top when his power faded.
     "Whaaa--!" he exclaimed, as his momentum ran out and he fell.  He
caught a jagged protrusion with his left arm, and grimaced as pain
shot through him.
     "Damnation!" Capella called from somewhere further down.  He saw
her on a lower ledge, being pulled to safety by a couple demon monkeys
on that level.  She was looking up at him, enraged as ever.
     "Lucky for all of us your allies don't yet have specs for this
ship," Capella said, loud enough for her voice to reach him.
"Otherwise we might have lost the magnagravitic vortex engines, and
that would have been catastrophic!"
     Rad could have told her that use of Mighty Guy for pinpoint
target destruction was an iffy proposition, even with MeltDown along
to correct his more glaring course deviations, but doubted that would
mean much to her.  Instead, he asked something else.
     "You can fly, too?"
     This caused her scowl to become, briefly, a tight smile.
     "I'm not feeling exposit-y at the moment," she said.  "Guess."
Capella then looked down at the demon monkeys who had helped her to
safety.  "Get him!" she ordered, pointing at Rad.
     The monkeys looked up at Rad, then looked at one another and
shrugged.  They did not wear full uniforms, Rad saw, only collars and
toolbelts.  Not security, though Capella did not seem to mind ordering
them about as if they were.  They disappeared, and reappeared almost
instantly atop the protrusion to which he clung.  They withdrew tools
from his belt and gestured at him in a manner at once threatening and
sullen.  He guessed they were not about to help him up as they helped
Capella.
     They did not have to.  Abruptly, he felt the psychokinetic power
inside him surge, and he let go of the protrusion.  Again he could
fly, which meant---
     The beam caught his arm, breaking through shields and burning
him.  Despite the pain, he directed a return blast at her, missing but
forcing her back.
     The _Vander Harkness_ had re-established its beam suppressing the
aetheric field of the _Subtler Than Light,_ but it was clear that the
_Subtler Than Light_ had, for a moment, found a way to block it.  Rad
decided he had to at least get to the deck of the ship before they
blocked it again.
     Fortunately, it was not far.  Rad burst through the opening and
into the night air.  Around him, demon monkeys howled.  A number
appeared in the air before him, only to be knocked away by a pulse
from his psychokinetics.  He looked back, in time to see Capella soar
through the opening, her entire black-clad body trailing bronze-gold
light.
     "Rad!" a voice crackled in his head.  "Rad, are you there?"
     It was not Elizabeth's voice, nor did it seem telepathic.  He
remembered he had left the implant in his head set to receive radio on
a pre-set frequency, and realized whose voice he was hearing.
     "Like, yah, Chalandra," said Rad, as he dodged a beam from
Capella that scorched the deck behind him.  "Like, what's up, like,
y'know?"
     "The _Subtler Than Light_ is adjusting to our attempts to
suppress their aetheric fields," said Chalandra.  "You've got to get
off the ship before they entirely block us."
     "Like, working on it, babe, y'know?" Rad replied.  He swooped
between two turrets, and caught sight of the _Vander Harkness_.  The
blocky, H-shaped ship was right in line with the electric projector on
the nose of the _Subtler Than Light,_ which Rad realized must be the
'electro-vortex cannon' Capella had earlier ordered charged.  The
_Vander Harkness_ was keeping its distance, but it was clearly not
capable of outmaneuvering the _Subtler Than Light,_ or keeping away
from its main gun.
     "We're lining up Mighty Guy for another shot," Dr. Gigawatt said
over the radio link.  "Is that you flying around the deck the--look
out!"
     Rad looked out, in time to see Capella rise to his left and aim
her hand.  She had him dead to rights.
     She looked at her hand, then shook it, as if it were jammed.
Then she looked panicked as she started to fall.  Rad tried to fly to
rescue her, but found he could not, as he was also occupied with
falling.
     He caught the curve at the base of the nearest turret and roll
onto the deck.  At the same time, he glimpsed a number of demon
monkeys catch Capella.  He tried to scramble to his feet, but his
entire body felt bruised and sore, so he settled for a nimble stagger.
     "I think... Chochim's got it now," said Capella.  "You won't be
escaping.  Even if you go over the side... we can pull you back in."
     "That blows," Rad succinctly opined.
     *Rad,* said Elizabeth, in his mind.  *There's something going on
below.  New combatants entered Dodger Stadium five minutes ago, and
fighting's broken out again.*
     *I can't help,* Rad answered, remembering Capella shouting at
Chochim earlier about new combatants showing up.  *They've got me
pinned down here.*  Indeed, he was now surrounded by surly-looking
armed demon monkeys.  Capella, now on her feet, had her arms crossed
and a pleased and haughty expression on her face.
     "Take him below," said Capella.  "Put him in one of the cells,
assuming we still have some.  If not, just find someplace secure.  And
find a second place for Fancy, once we have him."
     *Rad!* Elizabeth's telepathic voice exclaimed in his head.
*You've got incoming from the parking lot.  Several surface-to-air...
um... what?*
     A few demon monkeys saluted Capella and disappeared.  Others
latched on to Rad's arms and started herding him toward a door set
into the nearest turret.
     *Surface-to-air what, Liz?* Rad asked.
     The assault was a blur.  Several magnificent mountain goats,
their white, grey, and black fur billowing, shot over the side of the
_Subtler Than Light_ and landed on the deck.  Their hooves scrabbled
against the smooth bronze-gold surface, but they appeared ready for
their difficulties, and stayed upright.
     They wore belts around their midsections.  Several painted tubes
were on each belt.  Rad had seen such belts before, on such goats
before, and remembered them as being only cheap movie props.  But that
did not explain how the goats that Criticalman had been keeping in his
Van Nuys studio had gotten to Dodger Stadium, or how they made it
thousands of feet into the air---
     Light flashed from several of the goats' guntubes.  Some of the
demon monkeys disappeared as this happened, only to reappear seconds
later.  The monkeys fell to the deck, with darts sticking out of
various vulnerable parts.  The other demon monkeys looked at the goats
with considerable alarm.  Capella seemed no less shocked.
     "I am Captain Silas, of Sector Nine High Command," the black-
furred lead goat announced, in clear defiance of its own jaw structure
and general common sense.  "Lady Capella Sandoval Ookanaptra, by order
of the Hidden Empire, you and your crew are now under arrest."

HAS IT REALLY COME TO THIS?
OUR HERO, SAVED BY GOATS?
GOATS THAT ARE APPARENTLY SECRET AGENTS FOR A FOREIGN POWER, NO LESS?
WILL HE REGAIN HIS POWERS AND ESCAPE?
WILL HE STICK AROUND JUST TO SEE WHO OR WHAT THE HELL ELSE SHOWS UP?
WILL RUMI SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO FIGURE OUT LIFE ON EARTH?
WILL SHE MAKE SENSE OF ESTEBAN AND LEMON?
WILL THE PROGRAMMER REACH THE UNDERGROUND HIGHWAY?
WILL HE FIND OUT WHO OR WHAT GAVE HIM HIS NEW POWERS?
WILL HE FIND OUT WHO OR WHAT BROUGHT THE BANJO?
WILL HIS DREAMS OF CONQUEST BE JUST AS UNREALISTIC AND INEFFECTUAL
    IN TERRA SUBTERRENE?
HOW WAS BHOSSI'S STREEP?

On second thought, forget those questions.  Let's talk about Mitchell.
--
Elizabeth Tirkoff appears with permission of Eric A. Burns-White.
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson.  All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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