UNCLE J.J. JAY!, THOMAS WEST, GERALD GRAYSON, & MICHELLE von HORROWITZ
are
CTHULHU’S NEPHEWS
in
”[UNTITLED FALLOUT 016 PROJECT]”
PROLOGUE.
TEAM MEETING.
Miami, Florida.
Tuesday 7th June, 2022.
"I can't believe she's gone! One moment, she was here at my side, preaching caution and good road safety, generally doing her best to do good in her own, meager way. And the next she's gone! Engulfed in a ball of flame, her paint melting right off her! Leaving us nothing but charred and useless remains! I mean, can you imagine?! Take you people, my new friends. One day, you sit here and you eat your breakfast, and you make super-interesting new friends with COSMIC HORRORs and world champions and wizards and the like, and you think: 'my life is rather good'. Then, the next? Poof! Engulfed in a ball of flame! You never know, Nephews, which of these breakfasts will be your last. Enjoy that bacon! Savor it!"
Uncle shook his head and returned to his knife and fork, delicately slicing into a sausage before placing it between his lips. He'd removed his mask to eat and placed it on the table in front of him. Immediately around him, occupying the same table as your beloved COSMIC HORROR, were three complete unknowns. They were Miami locals who just happened to choose this diner to break their fast, and - due to the lack of tables available in the place and the large number of Nephews who'd descended upon it - had since been joined by Uncle J.J. JAY!. The oldest of the three was a man with a bald head and a pockmarked face, who held an abandoned rasher on the end of his fork whilst he stared, blankly and mouth agape, at his new friend. His wife was more preoccupied with inspecting the tentacles of JAY!'s mask.
"Uncle!" shouted Harry, who was seated at a round table with Quiet, in-between a young couple who'd been happily enjoying their morning before the Nephews' arrival. "We're all here and ready. You want me to do a role-call?"
Uncle scanned the room. Amongst the regular diners were the aforementioned Harry and Quiet, along with Michelle and Gerald (who'd managed to get a table on their own thanks to some prolonged glaring from Dreamer), Alphonse (seated next to a young parent with her child in a pram, who was transfixed by the Swiss Sherpa), Thomas West and Eric Bana (at opposite ends of the long counter with four other coffee-drinkers between them), Maid of Death and ь-I (who couldn't find a seat at all and were lingering next to the door), and the Leviathans. Meg was the last to take his seat, busy as he was with collecting his extra-extra-large breakfast with extra everything, and did so in-between Gator Guy and a blind woman, whose guide dog growled at the shark accusingly.
"No, no need, thank you Harry," Uncle started, whilst standing from his seat. The strangers who'd been conversing with him (or, more accurately, were being conversed at by him) continued to watch the bizarre being, hypnotized by his charisma, as he took center stage. "Nephews, I'm glad that you've all come. I understand that the last two months have been a… strange time. A strange time for all of us, and our fortunes in this period have varied drastically."
Here, Uncle allowed himself a pause. His eyes, which had up until now been transfixed upon Thomas West, moved from the podcast host to the Connection. Michelle found that his gaze was not unkind but shuffled uncomfortably beneath the weight of it anyway.
"But we must remember that we are Nephews, Nephews! Our commonalities far outnumber our differences, which are glorious and vast themselves. We must remember, friends, that there are many underneath the Big Tent who will strive to tear us apart. We have helped many. Millions. But more see what we've done for them… and they fear us or they envy us. They don't greet their Uncle and his Nephews with the love and respect that I deserve."
This observation seems to almost pain Uncle, and he winces under the strain of uttering it.
"They will see these divisions, divisions that have been caused by nothing but our own successes, and they will seek to make the most of them. To bring about our demise and exploit the gap that's opened up. It has already begun: the anti-Nephew conspirators have shown their hands, for this city of Miami will be the venue for what will perhaps be our biggest challenge to date. They have built a supergroup of anti-Nephew combatants…"
"... of jobbers!" interjected Harry from his table in the back.
"Of jobbers indeed! And our biggest hope in this war to come lies in the fact that our enemies are more divided than even we are, but they will come for us on Fallout Zero-One-Six. So, Nephews, I have gathered you --"
Whilst Uncle continued to build through his crescendo, Michelle and Gerald watched passively from their table. Until now, they had remained silent, but the impatient countenances on their faces would suggest to an observant onlooker that the elongated soliloquy was not having its intended effect on them.
"He's going to suggest we go on an adventure," Gerald said, quietly, to the woman next to him.
"Of course he is," she replied.
"Which is why, Nephews," Uncle went on, triumphantly. "I think now is the perfect time for an adventure."
There was a smattering of applause for the announcement, but it was mostly from the people who dined independently from the Nephews. Uncle was quite the orator, and these strangers were swept up in his speech, but most of the Nephews gave each other nervous, mistrustful looks.
"Are you sure that now is really the time?" Meg asked.
"We only just did SPLICE!," the Maid pointed out. "You can oversaturate these things."
"And there's the other stuff," Harry said, anxiously.
".... ….. …..?" asked Quiet.
"You know," Harry started. "Michelle beating Gerald and then Thomas beating Michelle."
Dreamer shot the young wizard a glare, but was tempered by his recoil. She concluded he'd only wanted to be helpful and informative.
"We shouldn't get hung up on such… trivialities," advised Uncle, attempting to win his real audience back to his side. "You know, Dreamer beats me every year, and do you see me holding a grudge?! No! Because we are a team. That is why we are having a team meeting. How could we possibly have a team meeting if we weren't a team? And teams go on adventures!"
A moment of silence, punctured by a sigh from Michelle.
"I really don't think an adventure would help anything," she declared.
"We should use this time to discuss strategy for 016," Gerald said.
"No!" Uncle interrupted. "I know your game! We're not doing anything dull or conventional. If it makes you feel better, we can stay in this universe. We'll be home in plenty of time for the match."
"Under no circumstances, Uncle, are Gerald and I going on any kind of adventure between now and Fallout 016."
CHAPTER ONE.
ARRIVAL ON WHEREVER.
Caribou X-450 Refueling Station.
Tuesday 7th June, 2022.
"Maybe I should get her waxed, whilst we're here," Uncle said. The serf-bots were just concluding the refueling process, and JAY! stood with Thomas, Michelle, and Gerald (his hand-picked team for the Octopi #1) to inspect his craft.
"Um, I don't think it needs it," Thomas pointed out. He was quite right: the ship was gleaming. "Eric takes pretty good care of it."
"It looks clean, sure," Uncle conceded. "But I'm certain he takes shortcuts. Always best to hire a professional, whenever you can. But you're right, Thomas. No time to waste! The people of Wherever need us!"
"Wherever?" Gerald asked, as he followed with the rest of the team towards the front of the vehicle. In the distance they could make out Harry and the Leviathans coming into view, the Octopi #2 docked in the adjacent bay to its slightly older but identical sister.
"Yes, the Planet Wherever," Uncle affirmed. "Though I guess you shouldn't call them people. There's two intelligent species on the surface, as far as my reconnaissance work can tell, and - as far as comparisons to people go - one of them is a little less and the other a little more. But they're down there, Nephews. They're down there and they're in need of our help."
"Along with tonnes of untapped phosphorium, rublevium, and chiral crystals, of course," Thomas pointed out.
"You think this is a reason not to help the grunts?" Uncle asked.
"The grunts?!" Gerald exclaimed. "I don't think you should call them that. That doesn't sound politically correct."
"That is what they are called, Gerald," Uncle argued, but this stream of dialogue was cut off by them arriving in front of Harry, Gator, and Meg. "Big day, Harry! Your first in command of an Octopi! What an honor! Are you all ready?"
"Coordinates are set," Harry started, with his chest puffed out. "The course will take us into a hovering position above the north pole, ready for resource acquisition. What is it we're looking for again?"
Uncle paused and glanced sidewards at Thomas. He leant in towards the young wizard and continued in a whisper.
"Phosphorium, rublevium, and chiral crystals," Uncle said. Thomas let out a chortle, shook his head, and returned to the craft. After a message of good luck to Harry on his maiden voyage in command of the Octopi #2, Uncle and the Connection followed.
When they arrived at the bridge, Thomas was already seated in the pilot's chair. Uncle took his position at the command center, leaving Michelle and Gerald at the communications hub.
"Take her up, Thomas," Uncle commanded. The world champion obliged by pressing a series of buttons before pulling down on a lever. The ship roared into action, its engines beginning their faint whirring and propelling the craft away from Caribou X-450. In front of them was the dense blackness of space. Specifically, they were gliding into a portion of the abyss that Uncle called the Uncharted Minor Segment of the Second Quadrant past the Crease. This meant nothing to Michelle or Gerald. Instead of dwelling on it, they strapped themselves in and held the arms of their chairs anxiously as the ship jumped to hyperspeed and made short work of the lightyears between here and Wherever.
"So," Uncle began, when he was content that they were following the correct trajectory. "Where was I? Before Harry interrupted me?"
"You were telling us about the 'grunts'," Gerald reminded him. He was careful with his delivery of the word, as if still unsure that it was okay for him to use it.
"Ah, yes! Excellent memory, GiGi!" Uncle said, whilst flashing Grayson a thumbs up. "You'll know exactly why they refer to themselves as grunts as soon as we arrive, I don't doubt. They are almost like worker ants, only bigger. Still have six limbs, though, and smaller than humans. Harry's height, perhaps. But they are a hardy people, Nephews. Not war-like, certainly, but they have built up a commendable level of sturdiness and resilience through generations of hard toil. And that's all they do, really. It's like that Rihanna song goes: work, work, work, work, work."
"Haven't heard it," Michelle interjected.
"Good, it's trash," Uncle offered, before erasing the tangent and continuing on his main thread. "But yes, the grunts are the workers. The hands of this planet. And the minds are the Conquisti. They are taller, fairer, and - supposedly, though I'm yet to see the evidence - wiser. They have a sort of angelic vibe to them, Nephews. But you shouldn't let that fool you. Usually, when there's such an obvious division in a society, it was unjustly earned. That should do for background. The Conquisti set the work quotas, and the grunts fulfill them. That is how life on this planet works."
"All well and good," Gerald said, with deadpan delivery. "But that doesn't really explain why we are going there."
"Phosphorium, rublevium, and chiral crystals," Thomas suggested, as he skilfully navigated his way through a cluster of meteors. The planet Wherever came into view in the distance beyond them. The ship began to slow to below the speed of light.
"No, not at all," Uncle said, whilst shaking his head. "That is only a side concern of a side adventure. We are here to right injustice and inequality, for that is what Nephews do."
A stony silence lingered in the bridge. Nobody rushed to agree with Uncle.
"And you've met them?" Michelle asked, puncturing the pause. "The grunts and… and the other ones?"
"The Conquisti, Michelle," Uncle replied, whilst inspecting one of the navigation screens in front of him. "Better learn their names if you want to overthrow them. And yes is the answer. I've met many of the grunts. Some were more amenable than others. The majority seemed perfectly happy with their serfdom, if I'm honest. Living up to their names again. As for the Conquisti, I met two of them. But there are only four to begin with."
"Here we go," Thomas said, with a roll of his eyes.
"What?" Uncle asked, as though butter wouldn't melt.
"They're stand-ins, aren't they?" Thomas said. "For our four opponents."
"I would think that you of all people, Thomas, would understand the significance of fate and coincidence, given what happened in SPLICE!..."
"You mean where he was the bad guy?" Michelle said.
"This won't do!" Uncle exclaimed. "No petty bickering!"
"Okay, so tell us about the two you've met," Thomas instructed. As he did, the screen in front of him flashed up a message informing them that they'd entered their desired hovering pattern above the planet. West smiled to himself, pleased at his skilful piloting. He handed the controls over to SS9000 and began preparing to leave the bridge.
"Initially I dealt only with Vitatius," Uncle started, whilst leading the way to the pods. "He was very popular with the grunts back then. Not so much now, but they still have a certain amount of respect for him. As far as I can see, he was handed over control of quite a large portion of Wherever by one of his peers, and has since cultivated his own stock and influence as a priority. Quite narcissistic, if you ask me. I thought we were friends at first, but that turned out to be somewhat one-sided. He stopped toying with me as soon as it became clear I wasn't really going to help him, and since then I've dealt with Seductus. He's older and should, in theory, have seniority by now, but that is not the case. Probably because he's never around. I can't tell you how many of our meetings he's no-showed."
"Oh, please," Thomas said, as he opened the doors of one of the Octo-pods to allow Michelle inside. Gerald was to ride with Uncle in the other one. "Does Vitatius dance and Seductus smoke?"
"I don't know what you are implying, Thomas," Uncle returned. He closed his Octo-pod's door but opened up a communication channel between the two of them. "Drinking and smoking are quite alien concepts to these beings. I don't suppose either of them have ever heard of those words. Which reminds me: Babel fish."
The four of them reached into the pockets of their tracksuit jackets (purple for Gerald, Thomas, and Uncle, green for Michelle) and each pulled out a jar, inside of which was a small, yellow fish. The three men quickly placed theirs in their ears without much of a second thought.
"I'm not sure I really agree with this exploitation of animals," Michelle said.
"It's okay," came the fish's reply. It had swum to the side of its jar and was smiling pleasantly at the young woman. "I enjoy it, really. That's why I volunteered."
"Is everything going to be a Douglas Adams reference?" she asked.
"The hands-mind societal dynamic was more Fritz Lang, I thought," added the fish. Michelle agreed, and then placed the fish - which would allow her to understand and communicate with those on the planet's surface - into her ear.
"Open the pod doors, SS," Uncle said. The ship's system silently obliged, the doors in front of them sliding open to reveal the green-pink planet below them. As the Octo-pods thrusted out into open space they were surrounded by the bluish-purple haze that constituted the planet's atmosphere. West was a skilled flier, Michelle knew, and was able to put her misgivings about the man as a whole to the back of her mind whilst he deftly navigated their way down to the surface. They landed on a thin tract of land next to a white sand beach, the pink sea beyond giving off a faint fog that almost seemed to hiss at them. The beach was empty. Michelle could see no sign of life regardless of how far she looked in any direction.
"Where are they all?" she asked.
"Probably in the fields," Uncle suggested, whilst leading the way from the pods and the sea. "Grunts have no time for beaches when there is work to do. And there's always work to do."
But he was wrong. The fields lay deserted, too, though here there were signs of the society that Uncle had described in the ship. Farming tools were strewn around the vast complex of fields that paved the way between the beach and a large, domed building in the distance. Small, wooden huts lined either side of the road, and had the appearance of domesticated buildings used for housing. All of these were empty, too.
"Do you think something happened?" Gerald asked, whilst picking up a shovel that was driven into the earth along the path.
"No," Uncle said, confidently. "They were here recently. You can tell from the mud. It's fresh. There's nothing like the smell of fresh mud, GiGi!"
"Then where are they?" Gerald asked again.
"In there, I imagine," Uncle said, pointing to the dome. Michelle wondered why they couldn't have parked closer. "It must be Harvest."
Uncle was correct with his second guess, and after a short time they arrived at the domed building in question. There were a couple of guards on the main door, but they seemed to recognise JAY! and let him and his Nephews in after a brief and congenial conversation. Inside, thousands of grunts were sitting in neat rows, all facing a raised stage where a few more of their number (those that were senior, Michelle thought) were busy exchanging inaudible but frantic words in hushed tones. They were as Uncle described them: short and with six legs, and with a hard, beetle-like shell on their stooped backs. A few of them turned towards JAY! as the group entered and found seats of their own at the back, but only one of them was moved enough by his appearance to approach the group.
"Uncle!" he said, whilst clutching the COSMIC HORROR's hand in four of his own. "You came back! And just in time for Harvest, too."
"Have I missed the opening statement?" Uncle enquired. Michelle and Gerald both found themselves very confused. Thomas too, but he was more adapted to going with it.
"No," the grunt said, almost ruefully. "If I'm honest, you'd have missed the whole ceremony, if Seductus had shown up on time. But what do you expect?"
The two shared a brief, knowing laugh. They would've continued in their private conversation if Thomas hadn't cleared his throat suggestively.
"Oh, excuse me," Uncle said, remembering his manners. "Nephews, meet KK_42863. He has hosted me on more than a few occasions during my visits to Wherever. KK_42863, this is Michelle, Gerald, and Thomas."
"Pleased to meet any friend of Uncle's," came KK_42863's response, which was accompanied by a fresh round of handshakes. "Where are you all staying? I'm sure that room can be made in my hut."
"We'll be on the ship," Uncle answered, quickly and to Gerald's relief. The ship seemed much more spacious and well-equipped for human inhabitation.
"Then you'll have to come for lunch tomorrow," he insisted, before pointing off towards another grunt that had been watching them converse this whole time. Apparently it was a female, though there was very little difference to the untrained eye. "That's my wife, over there. She makes a mean yeoman's stew. GM_88263, she's called. Such a beautiful name."
"We'd be honored," Uncle said, before Michelle could inquire as to the ingredients of a yeoman's stew. She never got the chance, as activity on the stage prompted a quick hush amongst those assembled. Before long, a particularly old and particularly stooped grunt waddled up to the pulpit and leaned towards a microphone.
"Brothers and sisters," he said, though his voice was strained and weak. "I believe we are about to begin.”
"I'll see you tomorrow then, Uncle," KK_42863 said, with two left hands on JAY!'s shoulder. "You know where my hut is. My break is at midday."
With that, KK_42863 shuffled back to his wife, taking his seat and giving the grunt on stage his undivided attention. A few moments later, the room - which until now had been drab and rather lifeless, despite the sea of grunts that were garrisoned beneath its lofty dome - was filled with a brilliant and somewhat implacable white light. The grunts let out a synchronized and content sigh as, from almost within this light that was in no one place, a tall, fair being emerged. Michelle understood what Uncle had meant when he described the Conquisti as a little more than human.
"Seductus cannot come tonight," the being said, to noone and everyone at the same time. "But I am here to inspect the work. Is the Harvest ready?"
"Yes, Novi," the old grunt on the stage said. He was bowing so low that Michelle thought his nose might touch the ground. "It is ready for you to inspect."
"Show me," the Conquisti, Novi, said. At his command, the whole wall behind the stage began to lower like a huge garage door, and behind it was revealed a colossal warehouse. Upon its numerous, vast shelves was food of all manner and descriptions: fruit and vegetables that were alien to Michelle but bright and alluring nonetheless, tonnes of grains and beans and nuts in uncountable sacks, barrels filled with strange and nameless alcohols, salted meats and preserved fish. Beyond the food was stone from the quarries, timber from the lumberyards, coal from the mines. After a short perusal, the Conquisti was satisfied. "It is as it should be. Begin with the loading."
With that, both the being and the white light disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
CHAPTER TWO.
DESERTERS AND DISSIDENTS.
The Octopi #1. Command Bridge.
Tuesday 7th June, 2022.
"Yeah, we're in position above the icefields," Harry was saying over the ship's communication system. The young wizard's first command had hit a few snags on the way into the planet's atmosphere, but it seemed as if Harry had acted admirably in the face of adversity. Uncle beamed with pride. Michelle read a book. Thomas played paddle-ball. Gerald flossed. "You should see them, Uncle. Quite beautiful. The extraction of phosphorium began just over forty minutes ago. We should be deep enough to start on the rublevium tomorrow morning. No sign of chiral crystals, though. Maybe only in the northern hemisphere."
"Perhaps we'll have to wait, then," Uncle said, disappointedly.
"Wait for what?" Thomas asked after halting his paddle-ball. The podcast reasoned that JAY! was planning at best exploitation and at worst genocide.
"Don't interrupt whilst I'm talking to Harry," Uncle said, elusively. "Okay. Great work, Harry. Keep looking, maybe you'll detect some chirality closer to the equator. Get Gator and Meg out in Octo-pods, if you need to."
"Gator and Meg are busy," Harry replied. "We came across a small society of innuit grunts whilst setting up our surface camp. It seems they are deserters and dissidents from your city in the north. I sent Gator and Meg to make contact and ingratiate us, if possible."
"Interesting," Uncle said, whilst emulating The Thinker. "I must have overlooked them entirely on my reconnaissance. Rash and lazy. Very uncharacteristic. But still, maybe it can work out to our advantage. Deserters and dissidents might prove useful, if we are to stage a revolution. Very good, Harry! Send the Maid and ь-I to the equator. Or Alphonse. It's up to you. You're in command, after all! Sleep tight, Harry!"
"You too, Uncle!" he answered
"SS, hang up the call," Uncle instructed, before swiveling towards the Connection in his chair with a wide smile on his face. "How about a game of Tag Team 5D Go? You and Gerald against Thomas and I."
"I don't know the rules," Michelle replied, whilst setting down her book. "And it's too late to learn. We have a big lunch date tomorrow. I'm going to go to bed."
"Suit yourself," Uncle said, dismissively. "Gerald? Triple Threat 5D Go?"
Gerald decided that it was time for him to retire as well, and a short time later the pair found themselves tucked up in their beds.
"Is this the same room that we had before Lights Out?" Michelle asked, from her bottom bunk.
"I wasn't here before Lights Out," Gerald answered.
"Oh," Michelle said, remembering. "I remember."
A short but thoroughly uncomfortable silence lingered between the pair. Both became acutely aware of the fact that - although they had recently partially buried the hatchet and re-united behind the common goal (or, in Michelle’s case, a promise) of becoming FWA World Tag Team Champions - an awkwardness and a distance still existed between them.
“Are you not scared?” Gerald suddenly asked from his top bunk.
“What?” Michelle retorted, peeking upwards from her bottom bunk.
“Of all of this? We’re on the other side of the freaking galaxy. I’m surprised I’ve been this chill so far. I feel like I might have a mental breakdown any minute,” Gerald said, as silence again filled the air.
“You’re being dramatic,” Michelle started. “This is just child’s play. Last time we adventured with Uncle, we mastered time itself. Time is the great enemy, Gerald, and she’s fickle. Sometimes, it works in our favor. Other times… well, I guess you know.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” the Daredevil said, solemnly. “Every time I’m in the moment, doing something that a normal-minded person might deem extreme, I never want it to end. But the moment passes and I have to look for the next high.
“Time allowed this team to work, Michelle. I knew next to nothing about you when we first partnered up - and the more we teamed up, the more I heard the negatives. But you know what? Time showed me that no matter what happens, we always pull through. We always figure it out even if it takes a while.”
Gerald sounded more and more positive with each word.
“When you were drafted to Meltdown and I was drafted to Fallout, I always had a feeling we’d partner up again. And I won’t lie, holding onto that thought kept me going during the times I wanted to stop.”
“Dramatic, again,” Michelle said, causing a chuckle from Gerald. She laid back down. “Even through all the nonsense with Diamond?”
“You know,” Grayson started, affecting a more thoughtful tone. “I know that we’re facing him this week, and he’s sort of been lumped in amongst this anti-Nephew supergroup that Uncle spoke about. But it almost wasn’t even him. If Golden had been given a week off before The Grand March instead of being randomly booked against your Snowmantashi, Nova wouldn’t have cashed in and Devin would have the gripe instead. Which, apparently, he does anyway, considering he’s in the anti-Nephew supergroup, too…”
“What’s your point?” Michelle asked. Fatigue was beginning to overwhelm her, and her partner's meandering monologue wasn't helping.
“My point is that the Grand March wasn’t the story of Nova Diamond. It was the story of Gerald Grayson and Michelle von Horrowitz. His supporting role could’ve been played by just about anyone on the roster.”
“I guess you’re right,” Dreamer conceded.
“I usually am,” said Gerald. “Devin and Nova… heck, even Peacock and Danny… they are interchangeable. Dispensable. They are incapable of bringing about the end of the Nephews, as Uncle fears. The only people capable of doing that are…”
“The Nephews themselves,” Michelle finished for him. She was already half-asleep.
“You agree?” Gerald asked.
“Sure,” she answered. “Go to sleep, Gerald.”
And he did. At just around the same moment that Grayson lost his grip on consciousness, Uncle stroked his chin and placed down the thousand page doorstopper manual of 5D Go.
"And that, my dear, Thomas, is why Boogey Baby and the Chessmaster are too simple minded to ever wrap their heads around the game of 5D Go like you and I. We think far too many steps ahead. That dynamite on Fallout 015 had not an ounce of forethought? There's a reason Toner keeps his shit down to earth and zero gimmick all fist, and there's a reason Boogey Baby thought ripping off me would turn his career around. They're simple minded nephews. I mean, it's why I love them, but let's not lie to ourselves."
"And that's my turn," Thomas says, as dozens of the green pieces across the horizontal, vertical, and three diagonals of the board turned pink.
"How did you-?"
"Gonna take another couple of hours for your turn? Think I'll nap for a bit, Unc. You wake me up when you're done."
CHAPTER THREE.
ZEROES AND ONES.
North-Central Farms. Planet Wherever.
Wednesday 8th June, 2022.
Gerald dipped his large, silver spoon into the thick brown yeoman’s stew, which was hearty and filling and something close to tasty. Dreamer had enquired about the dish’s ingredients before it was served out, the large chunks of grayish-red meat revealed to be from a bovinesque creature that their host referred to as a plynux. KK_42863 had offered to pick the meat out of her bowel, but instead Michelle sat at the opposite end of the table from Uncle with a piece of dry bread in her hand and a vaguely dissatisfied look on her face.
“It’s good, right?” KK_42863 was saying as he devoured his own stew. His wife, GM_88263, was equally as messy in the consumption of hers. “Locally sourced plynux. That’s the secret. We rear a couple ourselves. ‘We’ being the local collective. That way, we get an occasional treat for ourselves instead of having to give the entire harvest to the Conquisti. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
“You raise the plynux yourself?” Dreamer asked, whilst cocking an eyebrow.
“Yes. We have two right now. Polly and Molly are still young, though,” KK_42863 answered, casually. “You can pet them if you’d like? I can tell you’re an animal lover.”
“I’m okay,” Michelle said. She narrowed her eyes and bit into the heel of her bread.
“How much of the harvest goes to the Conquisti?” Uncle asked, whilst happily munching through his own bowl of stew.
“Almost all of it,” KK_42863 clarified, airily. “But it comes back to us eventually. The Conquisti provide our food, water, housing… all of the luxuries that we enjoy when we are not in the fields. The harvest is a token of our gratitude.”
“And what do they do with it?” Uncle questioned, unwilling to accept the grunt's nonchalant attitude towards this grossly unjust redistribution of wealth. The grunt just offered a shrug in return.
"Not for us to question," KK_42863 said, before returning his attention to his stew. Uncle stared at him blankly and somewhat flabbergasted. Thomas was invested in his own food.
"It's really quite good," he offered, in the direction of GM_88263. "My compliments to the chef."
Dreamer noted the podcast host fluttering his eyelids in the female's direction. Fucking a grunt would be a new low. That's our world champion, she thought.
"Excuse me," Gerald interrupted, whilst standing from his chair. "Can you direct me to the bathroom?"
"Oh, of course," KK_42863 replied. "Up the stairs, second door on the right. Yeoman's stew can go right through you, if your intestines aren't used to it."
Gerald smiled and nodded and then followed the directions given, the voices of the grunt couple and his fellow Nephews drifting away as he disappeared up the stairs. After his visit to the bathroom (which was surprisingly advanced considering the society, although it did take him longer than he'd have liked to figure out the flush), he found that one of the other doors along the upstairs corridor was ajar. Drawing him towards the opening were a variety of distinct, but equally strange, noises: a low, persistent buzz, a slow and eerie tick, a distant whir that oddly resembled the engines of the Octopi. All of them conspired to form a mechanical orchestra that beckoned him further through the door. Inside was a multitude of bizzare machines, varying from pocket sized to taller than the Daredevil, each performing unfathomable functions but undoubtedly operational. On a nearby workbench were piles of notebooks, each filled with complex mathematical calculations and arrays of zeroes and ones. Gerald flicked through them, a quizzical and curious expression on his face, until he'd seen enough to know their contents were well beyond his understanding.
“Meg would love this," Uncle was saying of the braised and stewed plynux as Gerald took his seat at the table again. "We should take some back to the ship for him.”
"Of course," KK_42863 obliged with a wave of three of his hands. "GM_88263 will pack you some up, when you leave. Though I hope that won't be for a while?"
"We intend to stick around for a few days," Uncle said lightly. "We have some business to attend to on-planet."
"Anything I can help with?" the grunt asked, subserviently.
"Perhaps," Uncle suggested. Thomas felt his stomach lurch. He worried that JAY! was about to suggest revolution right here at the dinner table. He kicked his shins underneath it to ward off anything so direct. "Ouch! Fuck, that hurt, Thomas! Try to be less clumsy. But yes, KK_42863, perhaps you can help me. You have satisfied my appetite. Now let me gauge yours."
"My appetite?" KK_42863 asked with a puzzled expression. “I can assure you I’m quite content. The Conquisti provide the food, and my wife prepares it. What more could a grunt ask for?”
“The Conquisti provide the food,” Uncle repeated, broaching the subject but with a more strategic and delicate approach than Thomas anticipated. “But you yourselves pick the fruit, and process the grain, and rear the plynux. Yet, you see only a small portion of it return to your plates.”
“I do not work the quarries, or cut down the trees, or cast my net into the sea,” KK_42863 countered. “But if I need stone or wood or fish, the Conquisti provide that, also. It is give and take. If I understand your meaning.”
“So you are content with your masters?” Uncle asked, becoming a tad irate. “Content as serfs?”
“Our masters?” KK_42863 asked. “The Conquisti are our friends, and we chose them ourselves. We serve them, and they serve us. This is how it’s always been.”
“No reason to keep doing it!” Uncle exclaimed, whilst throwing his arms into the air in exasperation. “I don’t know! You offer a grunt the opportunity to fight for a better life, to overthrow his oppressors and even out his society, and this is the response? Denial. Denial and a lack of gratitude?”
“‘Otherthrow my oppressors’?!” the grunt retorted, whilst setting down his spoon and screwing his face up to express his discontent. “Uncle, if I’d known that this is what you meant when you offered us your help, I would never have asked you to our dinner table!”
“Don’t worry, KK_42863,” Uncle shot back as he stood up from his chair, which was knocked backwards and onto its side in the process. “We were just leaving. Nephews!”
He stormed out. Thomas and Michelle followed at a more leisurely pace.
“It really was very delicious,” Gerald said to the grunts, who stared back at him in stony silence. The Daredevil hurriedly followed his comrades out into the street.
“Some people!” Uncle muttered as he paced back and forth.
“They’re not people,” Thomas pointed out, unhelpfully.
“Very helpful, Thomas,” JAY! responded. At that exact moment, he seemed to make up his mind as to what he intended to do and began to march back towards the Octo-pods. “You just can’t give people liberation anymore. Well, Nephews, if they won’t help me free them, I’ll just have to force it on them.”
“Um, Uncle, I’m not sure that’s exactly the best idea,” Thomas said, whilst struggling to keep up with the COSMIC HORROR.
“I don’t feel great about it, but I think I agree with the bad guy,” Dreamer put in.
“I agree that they seem strange,” Gerald began, thoughtfully. “But I don’t know if we should be forcing them to do anything.”
“Strange?” Thomas returned. “They seemed pretty normal to me. You know, as far as aliens go.”
“Check this out,” Gerald said. He reached into his pocket and produced a page full of binary. “This was in one of the upstairs rooms of their hut. There’s whole notebooks filled with stuff like this, and machines that wouldn’t look out of place on the Octopi. Pretty advanced for a farmer.”
“You see, even Gerald’s rattled!” Uncle declared, as if this was meant to be conclusive proof that action must be taken. “No! Apathy and lethargy are no options. We are Cthulhu’s Nephews, remember! We are the heroes! The good guys -- even Thomas! And when we encounter injustice and inequality on this sort of scale, where four beings can raise themselves above the rest of the population based entirely upon their own inflated opinions of themselves and of each other, we must confront it! For that, Nephews… that is what heroes do.”
“He still thinks he’s a hero,” Thomas said, with a shake of his head.
“Uncle, I think we should maybe pass on this one,” Dreamer offered. “Sit it out. Let the grunts work things out for themselves.”
“I agree with Thomas and Michelle,” Gerald chimed in. “I think… maybe we should go home and concentrate on our match.”
“No,” Uncle said, plainly. “We are the good guys. I’ll show you. These grunts will have a revolution, whether they like it or not.”
With that, they reached the Octo-pods, and returned to the ship.
CHAPTER FOUR.
CENTRAL INTERFACE.
Citadel Plaza. Planet Wherever.
Wednesday 8th June, 2022.
The Octopi #1 Command Bridge.
Wednesday 8th June, 2022.
The pair hid behind a bush to scope out the area. Gerald took out his binoculars from his bag to get a better look at the resistance they’d be facing should things turn ugly. Which things usually did, when Uncle was involved.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Gerald asked, holding onto the comms device in his ear.
“Affirmative,” came Dreamer’s response through his headset. “There should be guards scattered all over your location. In fact, one is right in front of you”
Uncle and GG immediately hid behind the bushes whilst the towering grunt guard patrolled directly in front of them. Towering, that is, for a grunt. He was still perhaps a head shorter than Gerald.
Their task here was simple: to gain access to the Citadel, the most heavily guarded building on the whole of the Planet Wherever, in order to find out more about the Conquisti, their history, and their purpose. ‘Simple’ was a relative concept, Gerald had discovered since meeting Uncle.
The guard looked around as if he heard something. Just then, a bee started to fly around GG. With the guard still nearby, GG tried to remain calm, swatting at the insect as it buzzed right back at him. Uncle looked at GG with confusion, motioning for him to be quiet. Finally, the guard moved away from them, prompting GG to run as fast as he could into the dark of the night. Into the woods, essentially, which Uncle didn’t think was a very wise idea. Here, Grayson let out a sneeze audible to Uncle but hopefully not to the guards.
“I hate bees. There’s gotta be some pollen nearby because my allergies are flaring up,” GG said, adjusting his nose as best he could and returning to Uncle's side. Just as the Daredevil managed to successfully stifle his sneeze, an external call for Uncle displayed on his wristwatch, which let out a high pitched whistle. His eyes scanned the name on the screen before he diverted the call.
“Get it together, Gerald,” Michelle said over his headset.
“I get it, though,” Thomas said, from the seat next to her on the Command Bridge of the Octopi #1. “Hayfever’s no joke.”
Michelle reclined in her chair and did her best to zone out the commentary of the man next to her. They were still aboard the ship, offering Gerald and JAY! tactical support and assistance from their orbit. In truth, Thomas was doing all the work, seeing as he was the only one of the pair who understood the complex interface in front of them. Michelle simply parrotted his findings to the ground crew so that Gerald could hear the instructions in a voice he was used to taking orders from.
“Tell him the pollen count is 340% of Earth’s reading at the height of summer,” the world champion instructed whilst inspecting a report on the planet’s flora. “Some flower called the hanging goddess, apparently.”
“Pollen count’s bad, Gerald,” Michelle offered over the comms system.
“Tell him about the flower.”
“He doesn’t need to know about the flower.”
“No one told me there would be pollen, alright? Had I known, I would’ve been prepared,” Gerald snapped back into the transmitter on his wrist as he took his place next to Uncle.
“Here, drink this,” Uncle said, handing a water bottle of dark liquid to Gerald. The hesitance on the Daredevil’s face was obvious as he pushed the bottle back to Uncle. Again, his wristwatch began to whistle to herald an incoming call, with JAY! once more rejecting it immediately. “It’s Harry with his evening progress report. He’ll have to wait. Well? Are you going to drink it or not?”
“I don’t know, Uncle,” Gerald replied.
“Trust me,” Uncle said, becoming characteristically more insistent as Gerald’s hesitation grew.
Gerald pinched his nose and took a gulp of whatever concoction - undoubtedly of his own making - Uncle had in that water bottle. His face shrunk, his body making the involuntary movements it felt it needed to get the taste out of his mouth.
“Good, right?” Uncle asked. “Hardly yeoman’s stew, I’ll admit. But not bad at all.”
Gerald glared at him, causing Uncle to take a step back. However, the Daredevil soon realized that his nasal passages were suddenly clear, his allergies retreating before Uncle’s medicine.
“See. All that was in it was --” Gerald put his hand up, not wanting to know the contents of the bottle.
“You sure?” Uncle asked.
“I’m sure,” Gerald immediately retorted. He fixed the contents of his backpack before finding a bottle of water, intending to wash the taste out of his mouth. “But thanks, I appreciate it. Stuff like this makes me confident you’ll have my back in our upcoming match.”
“Was there ever any doubt, GiGi?” Uncle questioned.
“Sort of. You are Uncle after all,” Gerald said casually.
Uncle turned his head sideways, seemingly squinting his eyes through his patented octopus mask.
“Explain,” he implored.
“You’re a wildcard is all. When I team with Michelle, I usually know what I’m getting out of her. West, I’m sure won’t want to screw this up. But you? I never know with you, Uncle - and that’s okay,” Gerald said, taking a big gulp of water followed swiftly by a second.
“Do you not worry about our opponents?” Uncle asked, clearly offended by Gerald’s words thus far.
“They’re our opponents, Uncle. I expect them to go at us with all they’ve got because if they don’t, they’ll be looking up at the lights for the 1-2-3,” Gerald said.
“Fair point,” Uncle paused. “I appreciate your honesty, GiGi.”
“Gerald,” Michelle interrupted the pair through his earpiece. “We’re detecting some life forms approaching. Probably a grunt patrol squad. Stay where you are and we’ll patch through their fields of motion.”
“Gotcha,” Gerald said, as he and Uncle crouched behind a stone wall.
“You want me to show you how to patch that through?” Thomas asked Michelle as the data presented itself to him on the Bridge.
“You just go ahead and do it,” Michelle instructed, dismissively. She was in no mood for a lesson from Thomas and doubted she would be any time soon.
“Are you annoyed because I beat you at bowling?” Thomas asked, with a grin that Michelle found insubordinate and repulsive.
“No,” she said, honestly. “Of course not.”
“Are you annoyed because I beat you at wrestling?” he asked next. She didn’t reply straight away. Perhaps that was enough of an answer for West. But she didn’t give a response immediately because she didn’t really have one to give. The question was more complicated than the manner in which it was asked seemed to indicate.
The silence went on, but Thomas’ grin was deafening.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if you rigged the pins to fall over,” Michelle offered, weakly.
“Because I’m the bad guy,” Thomas stated. Michelle affirmed with a nod. “In seriousness, though, it’s the wrestling thing. If you want me to guess, and your stubborn silence suggests you do, I’d say you think I stole your main event.”
Michelle let out a derisive snort.
“Close to the mark?” Thomas asked. “I’d say so. I think the idea of Michelle von Horrowitz versus Danny Toner, the night after you break Kennedy’s streak, was more important to you than you are letting on. And you blame me for taking it from you.”
“Close to the mark,” she returned. “But it’s not me you’ve stolen this ‘idea’ from.”
“The fans?” West exclaimed, with a laugh. “The FWA Cosmos? Or are you talking about Russnow and Watkins? Or maybe the handsome man himself? I’m sure you could make compelling arguments for all of them. But, ultimately? What they want is unimportant. I beat you. I won and you lost. Me versus Danny in reality is much more important than you versus Danny in fiction.”
The podcast host started smirking again.
“Are you ready to patch through that data?” she asked.
“I did ninety seconds ago,” Thomas answered.
“I’m seeing three to the left just standing still while the far left has two guards standing atop a tower. If we move quickly, we can bypass them easily enough,” Gerald said, looking at Uncle.
“Or we can cause a distraction and move in from there,” Uncle suggested. He put his backpack down, opened it, and retrieved some dynamite from its recesses. He almost dropped it as his wristwatch whistled once again. The COSMIC HORROR shook his head at his clumsiness whilst diverting Harry to voicemail for a third time. Then, he returned his attention to the dynamite.
“What are you doing?! No, no, no. You’ll alert the entirety of the Citadel's defenses, and then there’s no way we can find out more about the Conquisti,” Gerald said, waving his arms in disagreement. His body language was bold and loud, whilst he spoke in little more than a whisper. Uncle found the contrast quite amusing, but pondered Gerald’s argument for a bit before putting away his dynamite. “Thank you.”
“GiGi, my boy, it’s not often we get paired to do things. I shall respect your wishes and do things your way,” Uncle said innocently. Gerald let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Oh thank goodness, I was beginning to think --”
Gerald paused. One by one, the guards on duty fell to the floor. Gerald’s eyes grew in diameter as Uncle continued to blow precision sleep darts towards each of the grunt patrols in turn. Gerald looked at Uncle, having previously thought they'd come to an agreement.
“What? You didn’t really think we’d go the dull, safe route, did you?! Every mission needs a dose of Uncle,” JAY! said, gesticulating with his hands as if he were pizzazing things up.
“I guess I should’ve known better,” Gerald said with his face in his hands.
“C’mon GiGi! Off we go to the Citadel!” Uncle exclaimed, deeming there no more need for caution and continuing as loudly as his unpredictable whims desired. Gerald took a deep breath to calm himself before following right behind Uncle towards the stone tower in front of them. They reached a door at its base, to the side of which was a large keypad that featured forty different and unfamiliar characters as well as a retinal scanner. "Ah… we might need a little help with the security system."
"You hear that, Michelle?" Gerald said, with his finger against his headset.
"On it," she replied, whilst watching Thomas fiddle with the code for the Citadel's defenses. "The sooner they're in, the sooner they're back."
"And the sooner you don't have to be alone with me?" Thomas said, whilst still tapping away at his keyboard. "You're not good with grudges, are you?"
"Not the best," Michelle admitted, her mind racing through the kaiju, her Bell, the Prodigy, and Kennedy. Each had, for a time, monopolized her thought and focus. She didn't want to let Thomas occupy the same space in her mind, but her pettiness was driving her towards it.
"You know, you could argue that I did you a favor," West went on. He was leaning forwards in his chair and inspecting a particularly tricky sequence of code. "Shame the Maid isn't here."
"Why?" Michelle asked.
"She's a master hacker," Thomas answered.
"No," Michelle started. "The other thing."
"Oh, about the favor?" Thomas said, as a few more clicks broke through the first set of the Citadel's defenses. "Well, you and Toner are quite close, right? Or were. I'm not really sure where you're at with that. But if you'd have faced him at Back in Business, and if - God forbid - you'd have lost? Well, that would be the end of that. Obsession would have followed. Some stalking too, most likely. Like you're doing now with Kennedy. No. Probably for the best that you never face him."
Michelle thought about the podcast host's words. Perhaps he was right. He was surprisingly astute, she'd found, even with his propensity for playing both sides and being the bad guy. There were already elements of mania in her thoughts on the handsome man. More removed and distant than with Bell and her husband, of course, but Danny Toner had been lingering on the edges of her subconscious for months. Circling her, almost, from a safe and happy distance. His perpetual rising and falling was a dance that she couldn't take her eyes off. And she knew that one day they would dance together.
"I wouldn't have lost," she muttered, as West finished up with his work.
"They should be through the doors," he said, redirecting the conversational thread. He tapped a few buttons that opened up a direct channel to both Uncle and Gerald. "I'm picking up a group of life forms on the lower levels of the tower. To the west of their position. Eight grunts and something else that SS9000's processors can't identify. A Conquistus, maybe?"
"Almost definitely," came Uncle's response over the ship’s speakers. "Send through their fields of motion, Nephew."
"Nine of them?" Gerald asked, with a gulp.
"Don't worry," Uncle said, as they crouched behind a statue of a wild, horned plynux in the middle of the large, ground-level room in which they'd emerged. "We're relying on stealth. And the grunts aren't much when it comes to fighting. The Conquisti either, really."
"But they have guns," he returned, as the group Thomas warned them of emerged through an arched doorway. A bright light emanated from the tallest and fairest amongst them.
“So do we,” Uncle reminded Grayson, pulling out his own photon gun. Gerald did the same, and the pair stared across the room at the conversing guards.
“They’ve been spotted in the city,” the Conquistus was saying to the group of grunt guards gathered around him. “Two of them. The cephalopod and one of his friends. Find them, my little neurons.”
With that, the being and his bright light withdrew, leaving the grunts to emerge into the room in formation. They broke off into pairs to carry out the patrol.
“How do you feel about this neuron thing?” one of them said to his partner as they approached the plynux statue in the middle of the room.
“I’m not crazy about it,” the other replied. “But that’s what he’s doing now. I’m not about to start questioning Stari.”
The other nodded, and completed his circuit of the statue, finding no sign of Uncle or Gerald on any side of it. Nearby, our beloved heroes were scaling a ladder that ran up the inside of the tower's west-facing wall.
“This leads to the Central Interface?” Gerald asked from a few rungs below Uncle. Before JAY! could answer, though, his wristwatch began to whistle. He paused his climb, sighed, and diverted it yet again.
“As far as I know,” JAY! replied. “I wasn’t idle during my visits. I know a fair bit about the layout of the city, and what you found in KK_42863’s house only confirmed my suspicions. The grunts are far more technologically advanced than they let on, and I feel certain that the Central Interface will tell us more about them and their masters.”
“What will it tell us?” Gerald asked. He didn’t seem quite as confident.
“If I knew that, GiGi, we wouldn’t be climbing this ladder,” Uncle returned. At that moment they reached the very top of it, and JAY! Opened a trapdoor that was within arm’s reach of the uppermost rung. He had a smile on his face as he pushed himself up through the resulting hole, and almost kicked Gerald in the face with his dangling legs as they fought against gravity to help his ascent. Grayson’s own transition from the ladder through the trapdoor was more elegant and assured. He stood up and brushed himself down before taking in his new surroundings.
There was a series of machines lining the walls, each of which buzzing, ticking, whirring, or flashing with activity in the same manner that KK_42863’s appliances had in his workroom. Gerald found himself puzzled again, but Uncle seemed to know exactly what he was looking for. Set in a line at one end of the room were four particularly large and particularly complex machines, which JAY! approached in a forthright fashion.
“What are they?” Gerald asked.
“Come and look,” Uncle said, waving Grayson on. He looked over JAY!’s shoulder at the interface of one of the machines, a small screen on which displayed an anatomical diagram of the Conquistus that led the guard patrol at the foot of the ladder. “It’s Stari.”
Below the diagram was another series of screens, each of which was filled with constantly altering computer code, mathematical computations, and shifting zeroes and ones. Gerald found that he couldn’t stare at it for too long before he became dizzy.
“What is Stari?” Gerald asked, struggling to follow Uncle’s meaning. At the very top of the machine was a plaque that read GLD069 in small, gold lettering. He looked at the others: TNR420, NVA420, PCK03.5.
“This machine, Gerald!” Uncle answered. He seemed almost pleased with his discovery, but - at least in Gerald’s mind - not quick enough in sharing it. “And that’s Seductus, Novi, and Vitatius…”
“They’re…” Gerald started, his mouth agape. Once more, Uncle’s wristwatch began to whistle.
“Yes, Harry, what is it?” Uncle said, finally answering the call. “We’re sort of in the middle of something here.”
“Sorry, Uncle,” came the wizard’s voice through the communication device. “I know that you said if you don’t answer on the first five tries, I shouldn’t call a sixth, but… I think you'll want to hear what I have to say.”
“Well, what is it?” Uncle asked.
“Meg and Gator returned tonight with a progress report from the innuit grunt settlement,” Harry explained. “And what they found out is… mind-blowing, Uncle. The Conquisti aren’t… well, they’re not really living things at all. They’re…”
“Machines that run on an extremely complex and advanced computer code with its processing unit housed in the Citadel’s Central Interface?” Uncle asked. “Yeah, we’re sort of arriving at that realization up here in the north, too.”
“Not just that,” Harry went on. “The innuit leaders told Gator and Meg that these machines… they were coded by the grunts themselves.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Uncle answered. “But it still upsets me. People’s willingness to live as abject serfs… their dismissiveness of the dream of a fair and just society… their manufacturing of legends like Golden, Nova, Toner, and Boogie Baby, when this mythos will only serve to keep them in their chains --"
“What do they have to do with this?” Gerald asked. Uncle didn’t have a chance to answer, though, as just then the first blast from a photon ray gun shot past the Daredevil’s ear.
“We’ve got to go, Harry,” Uncle said. “Little bit of trouble.”
He hung up the call and whipped out his own gun, the Nephews earning direct hits on the first three grunts that emerged into the room. Gerald’s second and third shots deflected off the shell of a particularly large (but still short, remember) guard who waddled towards them to get a better shot with his own weapon. JAY! grabbed Gerald’s arm and pulled him towards the ladder, leaping through the trapdoor and struggling to plant a boot on one of the rungs. He managed it, but had dropped perhaps five meters down the hole, and just then realized that he’d lost hold of Gerald’s hand.
Uncle stared up through the trapdoor. He saw Gerald’s anxious face, and the two smiling visages of grunts either side of him. They each had four hands on one of the Daredevil’s shoulders.
The trapdoor slammed shut. But not before a projectile was thrown down the shaft.
Uncle watched the grenade fall past him.
“Oh fu --"
“What was that?” Michelle asked Thomas in the Command Bridge of the Octopi #1. A light had begun to flash on one of his screens. “Gerald? Are you there? Uncle?”
“Looks like an explosion,” Thomas said. “Uncle still has his dynamite wrapped up in its safety pack in his rucksack. It can’t be that. Must be the grunts’ work.”
“They’re not responding,” Michelle said, becoming panicked. “Where are they?”
“SS9000, activate the Octo-Pod’s auto-recovery system,” Thomas instructed.
“There’s a problem, Thomas,” SS responded. “Gerald has left the Octo-Pod’s field of operation. I can recover Uncle only. How do you wish to proceed?”
“Recover Uncle,” Thomas said.
“What?!” Michelle exclaimed.
“One is better than none,” Thomas said.
CHAPTER Five.
You Are Tired.
The Octopi Dormitory Quarters.
Thursday 9th June, 2022.
The Nephews stand in the distance with a clear view of the entrance of the ballroom. Uncle’s eyes widen, recognizing the octogon-shaped mask of the figure standing at the door. He reaches out desperately, but he’s too far away to do or say anything. And even if he were not, the flames engulf the figure before his hand is a quarter-way up, so it stops short there.
Uncle blinks in disbelief, and stares down at the pod containing the remains of Stop Sign #2. The Nephews surround them, even the ones who weren’t there, are there this time around. Thomas presses the button, and Stop Sign #2’s pod zips out of the Octopi through an air hole. Soon enough, it’s out of sight. Still, he reaches out for it, knowing he’ll never see it again.
And he blinks once more, still reaching out, this time for Gerald. Countless hands hold Gerald back, dragging him into the darkness, while a door keeps them apart. A grenade falls past him before the door shuts closed, and Uncle has but a moment to curse his fate-
Before he wakes up in his dormitory within Octopi #1. COSMIC HORROR tossed aside his weighted blanket and stood to his feet, his feet snug in a pair of pink slippers. He grabs a pink night robe, tightening it around his waist, though leaving a greater part of his torso naked.
“SS, tell the Nephews to meet me in the conference room. Immediately.”
Uncle marches down the halls of the Octopi #1, taking note of Octopi #2 in the near distance. Uncle arrives in the conference room to find only Thomas and Michelle there. He noted Dreamer’s investment increasing with Gerald’s life at stake, though pocketed the ethical debate on using the lives of other Nephews as drama fodder in the future. Given recent events, he may not even have to force it.
“Nephews, I’m all for a good, dramatic death, and a sudden one. But one must have variety. Two off-screen deaths back to back? This isn’t who we are. I won’t accept another Nephew dying in no less than glorious fashion. After all, every time a Nephew dies, I get nightmares. And cutaway deaths make for poor nightmares. You know what would make for a good death? Being riddled with arrows to save a comrade you once considered betraying. Or attempting to violate the laws of the high ground despite your mentor-turned-enemy’s warnings and getting your legs severed. Or-or-or, having a recently melted pot gold poured over your cranium. Deaths should be flashy and spectacular!”
“YOU ARE TIRED”
Uncle frowns. “I am tired, SS, but we’ve bigger issues to deal with than my exhaustion.”
“YOU ARE TIRED”
“That’s enough. I understand you care about my well being, but I’m not the one in mortal danger, am I.”
“AREN’T YOU TIRED?”
Michelle frowns, a vague sense of deja vu, though without the vaguest idea from what. Thomas too, wonders at the behavior of the ship’s A.I., but Uncle sees nothing wrong with it.
“Of course, I’m tired. But every second I sleep, is another second GiGi is at risk. Who knows what they might do to him? Blow him up? Mutilate him? Break his knees? Make him-”
“YOU MUST BE TIRED”
“Enough, SS. I don’t need you worrying about me.” Uncle turns towards the two Nephews. “Thomas, Dreamer. We’re not leaving without GiGi. And we’re not leaving without pulling the plug on the Conquisti. Here’s the plan-”
“THIS promo IS VERY LONG”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, SS. You’re overstepping. You’re no promo expert, I’ll be the judge of what is and isn’t too long. Now, I hate to do this, but I think you need a time out. Mute yourself.”
“THIS promo IS TOO LONG.?.”
“Hmm. Well, this is new,” Uncle remarks.
“What’s new?” Dreamer asks.
“SS9000 doesn’t ignore Uncle’s orders. Something’s wrong.” Thomas remarks.
The trio watch as the Octopi #2 which had been trailing the Octopi #1 begins to turn away.
“STOP READING THIS promo”
“Shut up, SS! We’ve still got a whole Saving Nephew Gerald sequence to go through, don’t remind them how long they’ve been reading this for.”
“Is this all a dream? Is Gerald safe?”
“No, it’s not one of your dreams, Dreamer. It might be one of mine. I’m pretty sure it isn’t though.” Uncle glances at Thomas, uncertain. Thomas shrugs.
“YOU ARE TIRED?”
“Alright, just ignore it. We can just ignore it. That’s what people used to have to do when something annoyed the shit out of them. Just ignore it. Dreamer. Thomas. We’re not losing GiGi. The truth is, I let GiGi down once upon a time. I let him get his lights knocked out by Golden. Thomas, you traumatized GiGi with your diary shit. And Michelle, you know you let GiGi down often. I don’t need to remind you. But we all have let GiGi down, and we’ve gotta make it up to him, but we can’t make it up to him if we leave him behind here.”
“He forgot he was telling us a plan and he’s giving us a pep talk instead.” Thomas whispers to Michelle, shaking his head in disappointment.
“What about the plan, Uncle?” Though Dreamer is less enthused by the distraction considering the stakes.
“you have been reading this PROMO for too long”
“SS, FUCK O- no. Ignore it. The plan? The plan! The plan! Right, the plan. SS, play my recording of the plan.”
…
“Shit. Sorry, Nephews. I’m afraid we’ll have to come up with a new plan.”
“Stop reading this PROMO.”
Uncle pulls out his photon gun and shoots at a speaker blowing it up. Dreamer ducks at the rampant firing.
“Uncle, we’re closing in on the Citadel. Let’s focus on the plan?” Thomas suggest. He glances at Dreamer. “He’s just going to waste time until we have no choice but to improvise.”
“We can’t improvise,” Michelle found herself getting bothered by Uncle’s behavior, more than the COSMIC HORROR’s antics usually made her feel. The stakes, after all.
Thomas noticed her worry, try as she might to hide it. “Uncle, at this point Gerald’s going to end up like SS #2.”
“YOU ARE TIRED”
Uncle aims the photon gun at another speaker, but gazes at Michelle, takes a deep breath, and holsters the gun once again.
“The Conquisti know we’ll come back for Gerald. We were going to use Octopi #2 as a distraction team. Harry had a great speech. Quiet wrote it for him. He writes all my speeches. I read some of it. Great slogan in it. About how they were going to hold the line.”
Thomas checks his watch.
“Do you have another plan?” Michelle asks.
“Well, if SS wasn’t broken, we could use some droids, but I guess we’ll have to use clones instead.”
“YOU ARE TIRED”
“Clones are more expendable too. Means we don’t have to spend much time destabilizing their defenses to keep the B team from getting hurt. We can let them vaporize the B team, instead. If they survive, we’ll have to put them down ourselves, and SS is write, promo’s gone on too long to do that.”
The trio look outside to witness one of the Octopi’s wings exploding in tongues of flames.
“Looks like we’ll have to improvise after all,” Thomas says. “Don’t worry I’m good at improvising. You got a gun?”
“DANNY TONER… YOU’RE THE BEST IN THE WORLD.”
“Okay, that I can’t ignore.” Uncle rushes to the cockpit of the Octopi #1, his hands quickly tracking across the screen. “Ah. This isn’t good.”
Michelle seemed suddenly reminded of her fear of flights. She seemed to want to ask what wasn’t good, but she felt on the verge of puking her guts out and thought better.
“Conquisti take over SS?” Thomas queried.
“It’s going to be a rough landing,” Uncle admitted.
“I’M THE BOOGIE MAN… AND I’M GONNA GET YOU”
“An advanced artificial intelligence capable of ensuring a well-functioning society free of war and suffering being able to overcome a knock-off starship A.I.? Eh, not that surprising.”
“Knock off? We used your man!”
“You get what you pay for, Uncle. Shouldn't have haggled on prices.”
“YOU WILL DROWN IN YOUR SHARED DELUSIONS”
Explosions occur haphazardly across the starship. The bridge combusts, revealing the fast moving clouds beyond. Thomas has suited up with a backpack, a belt of tools, and two straps going across his chest filled with capsules. As the air sucks him out, the backpack extends into four metal arms, catching themselves on more stable parts of the ship.
Michelle isn’t so fortunate, having to use her own limbs to gain some purchase right on the edge of the starship. Uncle is in much the same situation, but having been in the cockpit, had enough time to grab a more stable hand hold. He reaches out for Michelle, but he’s far too short of breadth to grab her hand. She reaches out with one hand, but it shakes the hold she has. She gives COSMIC HORROR one last fleeting look, before letting go and vanishing.
“DREAMER!”
“THE DREAM WILL NEVER DIE. SIEMPRE!”
“Mixed up two characters there, SS9000,” Thomas observes.
The Octopi #1 crashes at least, drifting through countless kilometers of sand as it slid to a stop.
“SI. Em. PREeeeeeeeeeeee…”
The SS drifts off, and the many lights of the starship turn off one by one, barring whatever remnants of energy are left in the emergency lights.
Uncle sends a door flying away and dusts himself off. Thomas removes himself from a cocoon that wrapped around him courtesy of his backpack. COSMIC HORROR looks around the lengthy stretch of the beach, and his eyes narrow on the corpse of a blonde woman in the distance. He gazes at the Citadel towering over them and then at Michelle, and then at the Octopi #1.
“Looks like the Octopi’s going to blow,” Thomas observes, stepping away from it in no hurry. “So what are we doing, Unc? Octopi, GiGi, Michelle? Probably just got time for two of those?” He glances at Michelle in the distance. “Although, I don’t know. Dreamer’s tough, but she’s probably not that tough. Might be too late already.”
“I’m not going to say Dreamer, or Gigi are more important SS9000 just because they’re not artificial… but we’ve got a match on Fallout and it’s the first time me and Dreamer were going to team. Plus, we can always just order an SS10000.”
“Or, better yet, pay for some quality.”
“SS9000’s barely got one foot in the grave and you’re disparaging it’s good name. Have you no sense of decency, Thomas? Enough. I’m going to save Dreamer, you go save GiGi.”
“No plan?”
“Improvise, Thomas.”
“You got it, Unc,” he says, clearly enjoying himself despite the circumstances.
Thomas pulls out a headset from his backpack and places it on his ears, music blasting into his head. He pulls out two photon guns from his holsters and with calculated precision begins blind firing in the distance. A few pairs of grunts fall out from the forest bordering the beach, dead with holes through their skulls. But dozens more file out of the forest. Unintimidated, Thomas West’s backpack’s extra four hands pull out more photon guns and the shots ring out, catching countless more grunts in the process.
Uncle stops in front of Michelle lying face down on the ground. He rolls her onto her back, and uses his watch to render a diagnostic of the Dreamer’s condition, the lifeline that emerges is a pitiful showing.
“Dreamer, generally I’m against the ethics of this process and would have preferred getting your permission beforehand, but I wagered you and Gigi might pass on adventures if you realized the genuine possibility you may die. Or, for all I know you’d be much more content dead, given your own propensity for outright disregarding your own life, but we have a team-up on the horizon, and if you’re going to die, better it be your own doing than mine. I’m a good guy after all, if I start being responsible for one too many Nephews dying, I’ll have no choice but to have some gritty edge lord phase. And that’s not a good look on me, I’m sure you’d agree. So, my apologies ahead of time.”
Uncle pulls out a dagger from his trunks and cuts open one of the tentacles from his mask, a pink ooze emerging from the stump, though the tentacle quickly regenerates. He forces Dreamer’s mouth open, and lets the squirming end of the tentacle be swallowed by Michelle. Uncle falls over onto his back next to her, his breathing becoming ragged, while Michelle’s own breathing is no longer so faint.
Thomas kicks open a door and in a flash, leaves seven of the grunts in the room dead on the floor with holes in their foreheads.
“That’s sixty-one through sixty-eight.” He aims the last one at the remaining grunt. “Care to be number sixty-nine?”
The grunt hesitates, then reaches for an emergency button, but is shot well before he can hit it.
“Nice!” Thomas approaches an intercom, “Gerald? Can you hear me, it’s Thomas. I’m going to need you to step away from the door.”
Although there are cameras depicting dozens of rooms in the prison, nearly all of the rooms are empty, but for Gerald’s, which is actually a quite comfortable setup, even better than the hut’s they’d eaten at, all things considered. Gerald obliged, taking a few steps back away from the door. Thomas pressed a button on his watch and the door fell forward. Gerald gazed at a tiny spherical ball staring up at him. “Follow the bot. It’ll get you out. Try to keep your head down.”
Thomas exited the room and made his way down the hall. Every corner he took seemed to be the opposite direction of a flurry of grunts charging at him. The limbs from his backpack replaced the photon gun’s fuel chamber with capsules from his hip, and occasionally pulling out grenades, mines, pocket dimension portals to deal with the many grunts chasing after him. With each fallen many-limbed grunt, a counter on Thomas’s watch went up.
He approaches a door with a numerical keypad on it, and turns around to face the one hallway leading to this solitary door. More grunts begin pouring down the hall, and he pulls out a bigger firearm that seems fueled straight from his backpack. Flames poor out from it, burning whichever ones make it close enough to not be shot down by the backpack’s three shooting arms. Meanwhile, a fourth arm spreads out into countless tendrils attempting an endless array of combinations to get into the room the door blocks, before eventually landing on the right sequence of numbers.
“Don’t need much security when the entire planet’s subservient.” Thomas strolled up to the complex machinery that was the Conquisti. He pulls out an EMP sticky grenade and tosses them half-heartedly about the room.
“NEW RECORD!”
Thomas glances at his watch a second after his hand nails one last grunt where the number has exceeded 334.
“Oh yeah! Wait till Quiet hears about this.”
The Octopi Medical Bay.
Friday 10th June, 2022.
Michelle woke up from a dream, expecting to be in Miami but finding herself in the familiar environs of the Octopi #2. Memories of her last moments in the Octopi #1 came flooding in, and though she expected her body to feel like she’d just fallen off a starship and crash landed on a beach, she felt particularly energized. In all honesty, more energized than she had ever felt before.
She looks up to see Thomas West reading a hologram on 5D Go strategies, though he shuts it off once he notices Dreamer awake.
“How are you feeling?”
“Alright, I think. Did we…” win, she wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure if this was a win or lose situation. She settled on “Save Gerald?”
“Of course. Honestly, they’ve got an incredible prison system down there. They weren’t gonna touch a hair on his head. We really had nothing worry about. And in case you’re wondering, all the Conquisti were terminated too. I mean, they’ll be working on programming new ones, and probably beefing up their security. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they were a bit more xenophobic after this whole affair. But still, it was a positive outcome. Shame about Octopi #1, but we needed to have at least one defining loss in this story. Can’t tease too many fake deaths and not deliver on one of them, you know. Thankfully we got a second Octopi like I said we should when we recruited you. All Conquisti gone. About forty-eight thousand grunts dead. We've fucked up a lot worse.”
"And Uncle?"
"Ah. Bit exhausted. But he'll get better after some rest. Are you tired?"
"Not really."
"Hmm. Well, get some rest anyway. I have a feeling you'll need it." Once you get Uncle out of your system, Thomas thought, but kept that to himself. |
