Frenzy & Torch

Chapter 17: The One Percent and Chupacabras

Elizabeth walked down the corridor of the ship in search of Annabelle. She took a quick glance at the clock and saw it was already close to midnight. The trip to Los Angeles-91 was surprisingly long. She came across the "recreational room", which consisted of a couple tables, a small television mounted in the wall, shelves stocked with books, and a little speaker with a vast array of music selections. The sorceress was sitting with her legs extended in front of her, ankles crossed on the table. The muffled music became clear once the blonde stepped inside; it was unlike anything she heard back home. The instruments were unrecognizable, save for the percussion.

"This is what they call music out here?" she asked.

Annabelle turned down the music a notch. "Yes, or at least this is what they listened to in the late twentieth century. The little file Robert showed me on Xitanker states that he uses some random lyrics or melodies from these songs as entrances to his most important facilities. I thought this would be a good use of the downtime."

"Interesting." She grabbed a seat and sat next to her. "Now, why are you really in here? The music's good and all, but I can tell something else is on your mind."

" ... Back home, we never really took a look at the messes we left behind. We would go in, kick butt, and then trot off with smiles on our faces for a job well done. Now I see those Peacekeepers on TV scraping people off the ground .... "

"Hey, that's what happens in our line of work," Elizabeth said. "It's not pretty, but it gets the job done."

"I just can't help but wonder what my mom would think ... and my sister. She was always telling me what kind of example I had to set for her. They would be so ashamed of me if they knew what I was doing. I remember when I graduated from basic training, she was so happy to see me but she didn't want me to lose sight of who I was. She didn't want it to get to my head."

"Our moms should get together and go to the market sometime. Mine said the exact same thing." Looks like she was right, huh, Headhunter? She scowled at that inner voice. That was her nickname back home. She had a habit of leaving bodies without their heads attached and it became part of the legend revolving around her. It was no wonder she didn't have friends. She spoke up again, wanting to talk some sense into Annabelle and take the attention off herself. "We're already neck-deep in this shit. The time to back out was a long time ago, if we even had the chance to begin with."

"Yeah. We have to prove that we're doing the right thing, I know that. I've never committed myself to anything I didn't believe in, not on my own terms, anyway. I don't know, I guess I'm a little shaken up by what I saw."

Jeff came through on the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I'm pretty damn tired and I wanna get some sleep somewhere I know nothing will happen to the ship while we're in it."

Elizabeth pressed the push-to-talk button. "I don't think we have any tents."

"No, we are not sleeping in some random forest like a bunch of cave people. I'll take a seedy motel. I don't know how the logistics will work, I'm hoping you might beat somebody up or Annabelle might make us invisible or whatever. I'll find a place to land this thing."

It was the next morning, the early hours of the day after Christmas. Queen Violet and the rabble of advisors and council-members were staying at a luxurious hotel aboard Central Galactic Station Firebug. Robot assistants had gotten them quickly acquainted with modern technology and how a bathroom worked before they retired to their rooms the night before. Violet was in her room on the sixth floor watching television after having sent a cosmic message to her regent asking how things were going back home. She was perplexed at the colorful display of information on the mirror that wasn't really a mirror. Next thing she knew, she was watching uncensored camera footage of the obliterated Fort Drumstick. There was a carpet of mangled men and machines as far as the eye could see. The cleanup crews were washing out brains and guts from the inside of tanks and scraping meat chunks that used to be people into buckets.