Deirdre Chen: Saviour of the Multiverse

Chapter 6

Deirdre

Deirdre had those few blissful seconds we all get when we wake up, when everything is hazy and you remember nothing of the day before. When Deirdre saw the walls of her cell, her memories and shame came rushing back. The walls were finely polished, almost as if it had been done as part of the punishment, so that an inmate could see how frightened and vulnerable they were. Deirdre looked like her big brother did, the morning after her Dad had told him off for going on to the park and drinking cider. She sat up and vomited on the floor.
  “Eeh that’s mingin’ that!” She turned around to where the sound was coming from. The thin grey alien looked at her through a wall of plasma that shimmered in the door frame of the cell. “Ya goin’ give that a good wahsh I’ll tell ya nah.”
  Pythonia announced her presence with the blowing of a harmonica, playing her little ditty.
  “Th’earache, s’all that’s good foor.”
  “Just as well your shift’s over, goo on, shut ya gob n’ geet summat t’ate.” The Grey Alien stood up.
  “Good I’m Clempt me, gonna have some phoenix foie gras, asithi.” The grey alien started walking away.
  “Sithi in a bit,” Pythonia replied. Now my fellow humans, I am informed that Phoenix Foie Gras is a deliciously cruel dish, in which a Phoenix is force fed rice until its stomach ruptures. This death triggers it’s bursting into flame as a poor slave burns their hands cutting semi - digested rice out of its gut. The end result is crispy on the outside, and gooey on the inside. Moreish, if you switch your conscience off.
  The grey alien was not going to get a taste however, because as Pythonia took a good look at Deirdre, he ripped a blade out of his long sleeve, waist twisting like Satan’s ragdoll. Deirdre tried to scream, but terror took the sound before she could make it. Pythonia read her expression and caught him by the wrist, wrenching his arm behind his back. Deirdre closed her eyes before Pythonia slammed her would-be killer’s head into the plasma wall. When Deirdre opened her eyes, Pythonia was rubbing her forehead and sighing.
  “OF COURSE, I weren’t the only wan Lenga’s been avin a chinwag wi’.” She pressed a button on the wall and the plasma evaporated. “Let’s av a trek rahnd ship.”
  Pythonia was holding Deirdre by the back of her collar, her tiptoes dancing across the deck.
  “Let’s start wit changing rooms,” she said, dragging Deirdre to the lockers. 

#

  “Hark at them spacesuits theer,” Pythonia said. They were decent threads too; one was made out of gold feathers and another looked like a human waterfall, with sapphire blue gently trickling down its body.
  “Snazzy int they? Pick one.”
  “They’re too big.”
  “Tha get what tha given.” Pythonia picked one at random, and threw it at her. Deirdre thought it was best not to argue with her and put it on. The helmet of this thing was designed to look like a piranha head. Bloody thing nearly took Deirdre’s head off when it snapped shut! Thankfully, it didn’t take anything more than a few hairs off her head.
  Pythonia opened her locker and became so distracted by a poster of her favourite Black Hole House DJ, Tulzar the Titanic Tenor, who uses his eights arms to mix numerous tracks into a beat that causes jets of flames to fire out of your ears if you aren’t wearing the correct plugs, that she didn’t notice the Rhino Man lying in wait. For an absolute unit like this Rhino Man was, sneaking into a locker was an achievement. He had to stand there sideways, lying in wait, ignoring the urge to wee.
  When Pythonia opened the door, he got to stretch his limbs, by wrapping his fingers around Pythonia’s throat. As the Rhino emerged, he lifted her feet off the deck. Pythonia let off a round from her blaster but the Rhino Man knocked it out of her hand. There was a chorus of clanging as the laser bounced around the room.
  Deirdre came to Pythonia’s defence with a highly choreographed panic attack, that she executed by falling against the wall and sliding down it.
  She thought that if she just sat still, the Rhino would forget she was there, after he had turned Pythonia into a nice pair of boots.
  It wasn’t until Pythonia had her hands under Deirdre’s armpits, lifting her up like a baby that she snapped out of it. Pythonia struggled to get her suit on, her hands shaking from the adrenaline.
  “Ricochet got the better of him.” Pythonia nodded to Rhino Man, who was lying down on his stomach, smoke rising from where his right eye used to be.
  They continued their escape, getting as far as the cleaning cupboard. A circular door with the words ‘Escape pods’ written above it was in their sights. A pole ran down, to the left of the door. Requia slid down, impacting on the deck and blocking the door.
  “Where you gerrin to?” Requia asked. In sequence, the beefed-up hamster and the gorilla hedgehog came down. Requia looked giddy at the prospect of giving Pythonia a good old fashioned tolchocking. Pythonia just seemed irritated; Deirdre hoped she’d get there one day, so big and hard that she would look in the face of danger and be vexed that it was in her way.
  “Tha knows where I’m gerrin to. Gi o wit gasbagging and let’s get down t’ scrappin.”
Requia opened fire; Pythonia grabbed Deirdre by her baggy space suit and pulled her into the cleaning cupboard. Pythonia had to squeeze Deirdre into whatever corner she would cause the least obstruction by being in. She grabbed a plastic jug and dumped a handful of white powder into it, followed by borax, then baking soda.
  “Cawn’t forget the toilet cake.” The toilet cake went in, topped off with a blast of venom from her mouth. Pythonia started stirring it with the stick of a plunger.
  “Nah then lass, when I goo in swedgin’ yon men, you just peg it after me. Reet?”
  “Reet,” Deirdre said, not having understood a single word.
  Pythonia booted the door open and tossed the jug at Requia and Co.
  It slid under their feet; the chemicals mixed at the right time and blue flame carpeted the floor, making them dance in a fiery ho down.
With a superhuman leap, Pythonia buried her knee into Requias’ face. The beefed-up hamster charged at Pythonia, who used the creature’s weight against them, flipping them into the back of the hedgehog gorilla.
  “No hard feelings,” Pythonia said, slamming her palm against the red button that opened the door. As Deirdre ran past, she saw the tips of the hedgehog gorilla’s spikes sticking out of the hamster’s torso. She moved faster to get away from the sound of the crunching.

#

In the escape pod, Deirdre felt the need to ask Pythonia,
  “How do you sleep at night!?”
  “W’ th’eyes ohpun, I’ve nay geet any lids.”
The pod descended into the orbit of a dark and scary planet…