“Can’t you just use divine magic or
something to make me less anxious?” I asked, with both arms wrapped around my
torso, checking for spiders. We’d just gone down into the basement and the only
light coming in was from the open trapdoor to upstairs. The light only went so
far and the chain to turn the one light bulb on was swinging almost
imperceptibly just beyond where the light reached. I just knew there were
spiders there. That’s where they live, in the darkness wherever your hand needs
to go.
“It doesn’t really work like that.
Remember the whole non-interference thing?” said my angelic companion, only a
few steps behind me.
“Ok, you need to explain this to me
right now: you can give me weapons, but can’t give me the equivalent of a holy
aspirin. Yet there are demons here, what about them?”
“One demon, and it’s similar to a
non-aggression pact on Earth. This demon is breaking it. And the ways in which
I’m allowed to assist you are complicated; difficult for a mortal to
understand,” Mr. Greaser replied, adding a: “No offense,” after a pause. “If
you want I can create light around that drawstring,” he added, a halo of golden
light appearing around the drawstring and light bulb.
“But you can’t just turn the light
on, or make enough light for the entire room?” I said, my brow furrowing.
“Again, that would be going too
far.”
With an exasperated sigh I pulled
the spider-free string and the rest of the basement was illuminated. It wasn’t
that big of a place. Part of me couldn’t believe I’d been afraid this long, but
still I felt the need to investigate every corner for things that crawled
around. So far, nothing, and the box that should have contained all my old
D&D things and campaign materials was empty. The cardboard box marked
creatively “Porn” by my friends was in the upper left corner of the room,
devoid of anything save for some dice. I felt that maybe some of what the angel
had said about alternative methods of killing a demon might require something
like this. After all, this was how anything was killed in a table top RPG. So I
stashed them in my pocket and looked around.
“What now? I don’t see any demons.”
“This is not the extent of its
lair,” explained Greased Lightning, and pointed to a smooth metal slab on the
east wall of the room. As I walked toward it I realized it was an outer hatch
to the USP Star Phoenix, the intrepid
vessel of a band of space adventurers whose campaign I had penned. The logo was
there just as I’d drawn it, gilded phoenix surrounded by engraved stars. I
couldn’t help but smile as I touched the surface, it felt so…validating. Like
one of my dumb stories had been made into a movie.
But as soon as my fingertips brushed
the surface a small black screen on the left side of the hatch read: “CAPT.
JOHNSON, STEVEN. ENTRY ADMITTED,” and the whole slab slid upward, revealing the
interior of the Star Phoenix. I stood
there on the other side grinning like an idiot until the angel said: “You do
remember that there is a-“
“SYSTEMS MALFUNCTION,” cried the
ship’s computer, Ellen, as not only the metal of the doorway and the ship
beyond lurched violently, but the entire basement behind too, as if it were all
one interconnected vessel in outer space. I was thrown to the floor inside of
the ship by the shaking and when I looked back the hatch had closed behind me,
with the angel standing inside as if the entire place weren’t convulsing like
an amusement park ride.
“Ellen, what’s happening?!” I yelled
over the din of sirens and what sounded like enemy fire.
“PERIMETER DEFENSE DRONES ARE MALFUNCTIONING
AND READING THE SHIP AS AN ENEMY TARGET,” she replied curtly. Now I remembered.
This was the part where Tighdarians hacked the drones and set them against us,
I think George’s character had had space-sex with one of the king’s
space-daughters.
“Sir?! What are you doing still
aboard? The others have jettisoned in the escape pods, and what happened to
your power suit?” screeched a humanoid, bipedal robot as he tumbled around the
corner.
“JORDI!” I yelped with more 10-year-old
enthusiasm. He stayed behind to go down with the ship and make sure the pods
got away safely, one of my more tragic storylines.
“Sir, we must get you to the final
escape pod before it’s too late!” the automaton intoned, lifting me to my feet
and proceeding down the hall. I began to follow him when I remembered the angel
behind me.
“Aren’t you coming?” I said,
motioning towards the escape pod.
“No, it seems you’ve found a new
companion. He can show you the way,” he said, combing his pompadour and staring
at his reflection in the steel wall. “You will see me again, Steven. Until
then, good luck,” the angel said, smiling. He turned toward the hatch but
before he pressed the button to open it I remembered something.
“Hey! You never told me your name.”
“It’s Michael,” he told me, opened
the hatch, and stepped into what was now outer space. The hallway was suddenly
filled with suction into the vacuum beyond the hatch in the seconds it remained
open, and fortunately there was a railing protruding from the wall to hold
onto.
“Jackass,” I muttered under my
breath before starting towards the only remaining escape pod. JORDI stood next
to it interfacing with the terminal, programming the pod’s flight path.
“You’d better come with me, JORDI,”
I shouted over the sirens, pulling at his metallic arm as I stepped into the
small, yet roomy vessel.
“But the ship, she might be saved,”
suggested the android.
“That doesn’t matter wherever I’m
going. I need you.”
“Very well sir,” JORDI consented.
And drifting through outer space, I got to see my own creation, the starship
USP Star Phoenix get demolished with
my own eyes, plasma glinting in streaks from the drones that surrounded it like
a swarm.
This was one of the pretty-cool
things that happened to me.
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