- Soonmot
- Dec 19, 2002
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Entrapta fucking loves robots
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Grimey Drawer
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CHAPTER 13
“DON'T EVER STAND ON MY FACE AGAIN.”
Yago sat in the high-backed leather chair and allowed himself a grin. Those Secret Service guys in the hall had addressed him as Mr. President. Yeah, that title sat real well with him. Yago remembered that his mother's Secret Service people had called him an arrogant little boy. Yago burned when he thought of those smug idiots, Agents Horvath and Jackson, who'd let Jobs and 2Face and Mo'Steel get in his face back at Cape Canaveral, just before the Mayflower liftoff.
"That was then," Yago reminded himself. "This is now." And this was definitely an improvement. This was the command center of the most important person on the face of the earth.
No more Earth, buddy. Okay, but the pathetic remnants of the human race still needed a leader, and Yago had always known he'd make it to the top.
Except he'd never figured on Mother being part of the equation. Yago's mood dropped as low as it had soared high. He owed Mother. He'd like to forget that but he couldn't. It kept coming back to him like greasy burps after a chili dinner. It kept coming back every time he thought of See-Through Man.
Maybe, Yago thought, maybe Mother will cut me some slack, let me settle in a bit, relax, recoup some of my energy. Before she sends me off to do what I promised to do for her. Get rid of the Children. Yago had no idea at all how he was going to do that.
Whatever he decided to do, Yago knew he was being watched.
Mother could be anywhere. Or everywhere. Making sure he kept his promise.
Maybe that idiot Mo'Steel was right after all. About making a deal with the devil.
There was a knock on the door. Yago was about to yell "Come in," but caught himself. What was the protocol? Okay, this might be only a fantasy, even a nightmare, but it was all he had at the moment. And he was pretty sure the President of the U. S. of A. did not get up to open his own office door. And if anyone had the guts to walk right in without being told …
*
*
*
Mo'Steel wasn't like Jobs, a thinker. But he wasn't stupid. Something was weird, he could feel it, and it wasn't Billy or Kubrick or even poor old Alberto.
"Guys, check this out," he said. He paced while he talked. Had to keep moving. "It's a big coincidence, too big. The Blue Meanies are in exile for a seriously long time. Then right after we're captured they suddenly show up?"
"Stuff just happens sometimes," Kubrick said. He sounded angry."You don't ask for it to happen, but it does."
Mo'Steel nodded, excited. "Yeah, okay. So the Meanies have been trying to get back into the ship for years and just couldn't do it. Maybe the damage caused by Mother's taking the Mayflower into the ship finally made it doable. Accident, sort of."
"Mother unwittingly allowed herself to be vulnerable. Or ... " Billy mused.
"Or?" Kubrick pressed.
"Or," Mo'Steel said, "there's another player in this game. Someone, or a whole group of someones, who arranged for us and the Meanies to arrive simultaneously. Someone wanting just a good time or something bigger down the line. I don't know."
"The Shipwrights," Billy said.
Mo'Steel shrugged. "Could be. Immediate and pretty woolly question, 'migos, is how to get back up to the surface with Jobs and all. I mean for real."
A look of exhaustion crept over Billy's face. Kubrick showed nothing. Alberto's mouth was working crazily but nothing was coming out except the occasional grunt and a lot of drool. Mo'Steel suddenly felt exhausted, too. Was this going to be up to him? He wasn't a leader type. And who did he have to lead, anyway?
Alberto, who was just gone in the head. Kubrick, on the edge with grief and self-revulsion and a big, free-floating anger. Billy was okay in some ways, but unreliable, too. Mo'Steel knew Billy was powerful. But did Billy know how to work his own controls?
The worst part, Mo'Steel realized, was that figuring out how to get back to the surface meant a heck of a lot more than scaling a righteous mountain. It meant going up against a computer a thousand times more advanced than any computer Mo'Steel had known back on Earth. Wasn't his thing, technology.
"Can't we, I don't know, mess up the circuitry somehow? Do something down here to ... "
Kubrick looked around, green eyes narrowed. "The wires or something?"
Mo'Steel laughed. "You're more hopeless than I am."
"Maybe it's really simple," Kubrick said. "Maybe there's one central plug."
"Uh, thanks for the suggestion,” Mo'Steel said. "You see a big ole plug, you let me know.”
"I'm getting sick of this whole place!" Kubrick shouted. Mo'Steel knew Kubrick wanted to hit something. He wondered if it was going to be him again.
"Why didn't Mother mess you up like she did to my father?" Kubrick demanded, glaring at Billy.
"I think it's because my visions of reality are fluid," Billy said. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor. His tone was musing. "A normal mind, like your father's, is like - an eggshell. It's fairly rigid, so it's easily breakable. My mind has changed during those five hundred years when I was awake and alone, but the real difference was there from the beginning. My mind bends now.”
"It's not fair," Kubrick growled. "None of it is fair."
Billy went on as if Kubrick hadn't spoken. "Your father,” he said, "is an engineer. His mind was full of rules and measurements and standards. He wasn't prepared for Mother's sense of reality. He couldn't handle her seeing and knowing everything at once, inside and out, from all possible perspectives, past, present, and future." Billy smiled ruefully."Me, I lived a nightmare for five centuries. If you could call it living. Mother's madness can't shake me. I didn't know that at first, but I do now."
Something came to Mo'Steel. Being down in this crazy basement was turning him into a philosopher or something. "Listen, Billy,” he said. "I wonder if your being, uh, you know, different ... "
"Mo'Steel, by most conventional standards I'm delusional.” Billy laughed. "If we were back on Earth I'd be on medication.”
Mo'Steel conceded the point. "Okay, maybe that was true. Before. But you don't seem so crazy right now. After your whole thing with Mother, the diner, and all. I mean, if a guy knows he's crazy, is he really crazy?"
"Good question,” Billy admitted.
Mo'Steel shrugged. "You might have been the woolliest ride of her life, Billy. We don't know anything about the Shipwrights, right? Maybe craziness is not something they do. That and all the art stuff Mother downloaded, the creatures, the skewed perspectives. Maybe Mother can't handle human lunacy. She was a little messed up, then, wham, she swallowed us, talked to you, and went right over the edge."
"And made me better? I don't know."
"Look, maybe we could try it with my dad," Kubrick said, excited. "Expose him to Mother again. Maybe it'll bring him back, right? Shock him into reality. Dragging him around is getting old."
"Whoa." Mo'Steel put up his hands. He had no desire to go experimental on Alberto. It just didn't seem right.
The door swung open and in strode a man in a Union officer's uniform.
What, Yago thought, temper flaring, was this guy doing barging into the President's office in a Civil War costume?
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The guy came to a military halt right in the center of the presidential seal woven into the carpet - a seal that boasted an image of Yago's own face - and saluted.
The salute threw Yago. He'd never saluted. Even when his mother's staff told him he had to for some stupid military occasion, he'd refused.
"Who are you?" Yago repeated.
"General Philip Sheridan, sir. Reporting that my troops will soon be ready to ride for Manassas."
Yago tried to digest this bit of news.
This scrawny, bowlegged guy was the general of President Yago's armed forces? Vainly, Yago tried to recall any specifics about General Sheridan. Frankly, he was surprised he'd recognized the name.
Yago made a guess. General Philip Sheridan was not important in a practical way to a twenty-first-century teenager, but for Yago to have stored away his name meant that at some point in time Sheridan had been important to someone.
To the winning side in the War Between the States. The war that had ended slavery, at least on the books. Yago had a personal interest in that subject.
Okay. So he'd listen to what the guy had to say. Just because he was as shrimpy as a ten- year-old didn't necessarily mean he wasn't a good tactician. And though he wasn't ready to admit it, Yago needed all the help he could get.
"What's at Manassas?" he said.
"Sir, the enemy is concentrated there."
"The enemy? What enemy?"
"Why, the Rebels, Mr. President."
"Who told you this? Where do you get your intelligence?" Yago liked the way this sounded.
"My mother told me, sir," the general said. "She told me the Rebels are massed at Manassas." Yago sneered. A grown man who let his mother tell him ... and then it hit him. Of course. His mother, Mother. Mother was using this projection of a famous Union general who fought the Rebels, the Confederacy, as a way of bringing Yago to battle against the Children.
The Blue Meanies. They were the ones who had rebelled against Mother.
Okay. That much made sense. But as Yago looked at the battle-worn officer before him he realized that he, President Yago, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, was just not ready to give the order.
Besides, he shouldn't have to go with the troops into battle. The Presidents back on Earth didn't have to associate with the rabble. They had important matters to discuss, big decisions to make.
No, Yago was just not in the mood.
Before Yago could speak, the general said, "Mother says you must accompany the cavalry into battle against the Children. Sir."
Yago blanched. The guy had read his mind! He was the President, he wasn't just someone to be bossed around, by Mother or projection or mutated human.
"Forget it!" he spat. "I'm not going, definitely not now. I just got here. I want to rest, take a bath, watch some TV, grab a bite to eat. Maybe get my hair done. Mother can just … He was ... he was ... an animal moan started deep in Yago's chest and by the time it reached his mouth and tongue and lips it erupted as a bellow of panic. He had been buried alive, he was in a casket, laid out between layers of white, perfumed satin. He gagged, felt the tears pouring from the corners of his eyes, tasted the bile. His worst nightmare, the terrible closeness, no air, can't breathe.
Another bellow, he couldn't help it, mind gone now, all alone, only panicpanicpanic …
His fingers clutched the edge of the shiny wood desk ... What? Yago stared at his fingers, pale at the knuckles, then slowly, unbelievingly, raised his eyes, lifted his head. No casket.
Not buried alive.
He was in the Oval Office. He was working for Mother. And he was in very deep trouble. Because he knew that if he resisted Mother again, she would punish him again.
Mother had tramped through his subconscious and churned up all of Yago's deepest fears and anxieties and psychological quirks and knew exactly what buttons to push to make him squirm in the most exquisite pain.
"I'm her servant," Yago told himself fiercely. "I'm trapped. I have no power. I have nothing."
Mother had it all.
Yago pushed past General Sheridan.
"Sir? Your orders?"
Yago stopped at the door. Without turning around, he said in his best neutral yet brooking- no-argument voice, "Proceed with your preparations. And don't ever stand on my face again."
Yeah, you hosed up, kid.
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CHAPTER 14
"WHAT HAPPENS TO US IF SHE CRASHES COMPLETELY?"
Billy wasn't surprised Mo'Steel didn't like the idea. He himself was still considering it.
"Even if another interface with Mother doesn't do Alberto much good," Billy said, "it might speed up Mother's deterioration."
Or, he added silently, another encounter might destroy Alberto totally.
"But is that a good thing?" Mo'Steel argued. "What happens to us if she crashes completely? The roller coaster breaks down and we're tossed into space like a handful of jelly beans."
Billy thought about that. And other things. He felt bad about conspiring to destroy Mother. He understood her as no one else did.
But he'd seen what she'd done to Kubrick. And he knew she was determined to destroy the Blue Meanies. As for using Alberto as a sacrifice, well, it was unlikely he'd ever recover. He wasn't even speaking anymore, just making meaningless sounds.
The fact was that Mother was dangerous.
The answer seemed clear to Billy. At the same time, the answer disturbed him deep down. You could know what you had to do and still choose not to do it, right?
But I'm the crazy one, he thought. So what do I know?
Yago stood in the hallway outside the Oval Office. General Sheridan had gone outside to his troops. What did "outside" really mean here? Eventually, he'd have to venture into the distortions and find out.
Yago rubbed his temples. The others were all pretty much idiots and losers, but right now, for the first time since coming out of hibernation, Yago felt lonely for the presence of another human being. Not a projection like Sheridan, but another flesh and blood …
Yago's hands dropped. Voices? Yes. Coming from …
Yago whirled. Where the door to the Oval Office had been there was a different door. And the voices, angry, confused, were coming from …
He strode to the door and yanked it open. It was the Cabinet room, he recognized it. And inside, clustered like scared sheep, were some of the other survivors of the Mayflower. D-Caf, the little worm. But useful in some ways, an aspiring toady. Junior sycophant. Then, the bizarro world's madonna and child, Sergeant Tamara Hoyle and the baby. Olga Gonzalez, Monkey Boy's mother. Burroway, the astrophysicist with an ego the size of the Grand Canyon and the pampered whine of a serious weenie. T.R.A shrink.
The other kids, Roger Dodger and Tate and that brute, Anamull. The Dodger kid seemed harmless enough. The girl, Tate, had gone against the idea of sacrificing one of them to the baby, back at the tower. She'd called them all cowards. Better watch her, Yago thought.
Anamull, yeah, he could come in handy. Guy seemed okay with taking orders. Mother was keeping her part of the bargain, Yago thought angrily. He didn't even need to open his mouth to get what he wanted. If what he wanted met with Mother's approval. A pizza with pepperoni? No doubt he could ask for that and it would be on the table before him, steaming hot and fresh from the oven. A ticket out of this stifling bargain with the devil? He'd be back in the coffin.
For a moment Yago stood staring at the group, wondering if he would be better off asking Mother to send them back to wherever they'd come from. But no. He was the President and a pitiful staff was better than no staff.
Besides, Tamara and the baby were some kind of outrageously powerful fighting machine. Yago had to keep that unit at least, but he didn't necessarily want to be alone with the freakish duo. There was relative safety in numbers.
"What happened?" Burroway demanded, breaking the sudden silence that Yago's appearance had caused. Yago had to restrain himself from laughing out loud. With his balding head and hawklike nose, Burroway looked like a big pathetic bird.
Yago said coolly, "Where should I begin?"
"One minute we're on the Constitution," Burroway raged on, "the next minute we're being shot at by soldiers ... "
"It was a varied landscape." T.R.'s normally lilting voice was comically high with anxiety. "I believe it was an American city... ."
"Austin," Olga said. "Texas. I think."
Yago noted her relative calm. She was a rational sort. Unlike her son. "Then everything just disappeared,” Tate said. "It was like ... a void. Except for one far-off point of light."
Roger Dodger nodded. "Yeah, it was coming from a restaurant, I think. Got anything to eat in this place?"
Yago ignored the kid's question. "It was a diner, actually,” he said. "Booths, a counter, bad coffee, the usual. Waiter didn't deserve a tip but I'm a generous sort of guy."
Burroway gave him a look of outrage. T.R. seemed confused. The guys had no sense of humor.
"You haven't seen my son?" Olga asked now.
"He's fine,” Yago said. "At least he was last time I saw him. In the diner."
Olga nodded. "Romeo can take care of himself."
Olga's obvious pride in her son infuriated Yago.
"This is what's going on,” he said abruptly. He told them what he knew, leaving out, of course, the more embarrassing parts, like his own doubt about the wisdom of the decision he'd made to assist Mother.
"Bottom line,” he finished, "this is the White House and I am the President. General Philip Sheridan is preparing to ride against the Blue Meanies at Manassas. We're going with him," he said, looking pointedly at Tamara. "Any questions?"
There were none. There was only stunned silence.
And then, the baby let out its horrible, high-pitched giggle.
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