Pync (short story)

 

Pync

                The bell above the bookshop door rung, somewhat hurriedly, the hinges squealing louder than usual and a cold and hard wind intruded for a brief moment, then the door slammed shut with a loud bang.

                Arthur hadn’t expected his first customer of the week to be a wanted criminal… or to be that attractive.  The wanted posters hadn’t done the strange wizard, who now leant against the door as if he were holding back a storm, any justice.  And he was certainly hot.  And certainly strange.

                Though strange was an understatement.

                Arthur only wore a plain brown suit, glasses, kept his hair in a neat and tidy side-parting; he was drab and boring, unnoticeable by design.  The intruder was the complete opposite.  He didn’t wear wizard robes (they were illegal anyway), but a short-sleeved denim jacket, open on a bare chest.  He wore ripped jeans.  His hair was a mess of blue spikes.  And he was covered with illicit magical artifacts.  Magic rings in his ears.  A gem on his eyebrow.  His jacket was plastered with talismans, badges, arranged with no apparent thought or pattern.  His jeans were patched with pages from ancient tomes.  The man was haphazardly cobbled together with an eclectic assortment of different enchantments.

                “Do you have a back passage?” said the wizard, leaning back against the door, panicked.  He was out of breath, but smiled awkwardly.  “I need a way out.”  He peered through the door’s window.

                “Uh…” Arthur didn’t know what to say.  Wizards and magic were banned by the Corporation (they were the only ones allowed to use magic), and if he was seen anywhere near this criminal, he’d draw the ire of the local Inquisitor.  He didn’t need that attention, not when he was late with his fees.  And not least because…

                “Well?” The colourful wizard raised his eyebrows expectantly.  “Are you going to stop staring and answer me?”  He stepped forward, waving his tattooed arms in the air; there were sigils, lines and circles etched along his skin, moving along his forearms, reaching up his biceps and meeting in the centre of his bare chest.  It was a really nice chest.  “Hello?”

                “Uhm… yeah,” said Arthur, suddenly remembering that the man had a face.  A handsome face, with piercings and eyeliner.  He felt himself sigh like a lovestruck teenager.  “I do.”

                “What?”

                Arthur mumbled some words; even he didn’t know what he said, but his cheeks flushed hot, and he wanted nothing more than to hide behind his shop counter.  Maybe he’d find some actual words there; this was a bookstore after all.

                “You’re gonna need to speak up if we’re having a conversation,” added the stranger.  “What’s your name?”

                “Arthur,” he mumbled under his breath.

                “Huh?  Did you say ‘Thor?’”

                He cleared his throat.  “Arth-UR.”

                “Arth-UR.”  The wizard grinned; his smile was beautiful, mischievous.  “Do you mind if I call you ‘Thor’ instead?  A nickname for my new friend.”

                You can call me whatever you want, thought Arthur.  “I… er… guess so,” he said from behind the counter.

                “I’m Pync, by the way.”  The man’s name hadn’t been mentioned on any of the wanted posters.  Pync stepped closer to the counter.  “I’m in a little bit of trouble,” he said, levity in his voice, almost as if he was enjoying himself.  “The Corporation doesn’t like me very much.”

                Arthur didn’t say anything.  He would be crazy to speak out against the Corporation; they were everywhere, pretty much running the state.  He didn’t want their fiery eye cast his way.

                “You’re not scared of them, are you?” teased Pync.  He placed his hands on the counter and leant toward Arthur, almost close enough to kiss.  He smelled of bubble-gum.  The man whispered, “they say the Corporation is just one big squid monster.  They’ve got their tentacles in everything.”

“I don’t work for them,” spluttered Arthur, just in case Pync got the wrong impression.  “They don’t have anything to do with my shop.”

“I guessed that; they hate people like…”  Pync kept eye contact just a little too long.  “…us.”

Arthur stayed quiet, a pit forming in his stomach, fear of being outed and his true magical self being revealed.

“Wizards.”  The man took a step back.  “They hate wizards.”  He gestured to the shelves of books in the small store, and then twirled through them, the talismans on his jacket jingling as he spun.  “Do you sell magic books?”  He stopped near the end of the aisle and looked back.  “Any sorcerous tomes?  Enchanted artifacts?”

“They’re illegal.”

Pync laughed.  “A very political answer, Thor.”  He approached the counter again.  “That wasn’t a ‘no.’”

“No,” said Arthur.

“I see, I see.”  He leant in close once more.  “They haven’t given you much choice, have they?  I mean, are you happy with this life they’ve forced on you?  Hiding away in this dinky little shop?  Hiding who you are.  Paying them massive fees to just exist!  Surviving, but not thriving.”  Pync frowned.  “Are you just going to roll over and take it?  Live like this?  Where’s your fight?  Your anger?”

“I… I… don’t know.”  Arthur didn’t know what else to say; he was scared.  He wanted nothing more than to hide behind the counter right now, but Pync was too close to him; he could feel the man’s breath on his face; he was sure Pync could feel his breath too.  “This is all I’ve known.”

Pync jumped back.  “I saw it,” he said.  “There’s something there.”

“What?”

The wizard laughed.  “Oh, nothing; I’m sure you’ll figure it out on your own.”  He looked over to the door and back again.  “I need to get going,” he said.  “Before they figure out where I went.  Now, about that back passage…”        

 

***

 

                It was a couple of days later when the authorities, representatives of the Corporation, turned up to question him about his unexpected visitor.

                Arthur had been worrying about this since he’d shown Pync his escape, and as someone who always kept his head down, he felt exposed.  He’d barely slept.

                He was pacing behind the counter when the bell rang, and he thought for a moment it would be his second customer of the week and relished the slight elation that brought, but that feeling suddenly turned to dread as a tall, broad, black-robed man ducked in through the doorway.

                “Arthur Thistleton,” commanded the tall and imposing Inquisitor, freezing Arthur in place.  The man bore the standard purple tentacled echinoderm on the right side of this face that all Inquisitors adopted, a sign of their obedience to the Corporation.  “Mr Thistleton, I’m here to ask you a few questions.”  The man was flanked by two zombie sentinels, both dolls in comparison to the large Inquisitor.  “My name is Major Payne.”  The green living corpses lurched forward with every step the big man took as he approached.

                Arthur swallowed his fear, gulped it down into the void in his stomach, and hoped it went unheard.  He faced the new arrivals.  “W… would you like a coffee?” he stumbled.  “Or t… tea?  I might have some tinned brains in the back for your… er…”

                “No, Mr Thistleton.”  He loomed towards the counter, then loomed over Arthur.  “This won’t take long.”  The tentaculiform he bore pulsed with each word.

                “My fees are up to date,” he lied.

                “That’s not why we’re here.”  He reached into his black robes with a gloved hand and pulled out a piece of paper.  He held it up to show Arthur.  “Do you recognise this man?”

                “I… er…”  The wanted poster still didn’t do any justice; Pync was much better looking in real life, though it had his hair and clothing correct.  The wizard was very distinctive.  “I’m not sure,” said Arthur.

                “Really.”  Major Payne frowned, his eyes narrowing.  “Why don’t you take a closer look?”  He gestured to his escort and the two zombies staggered closer.  “Study the whole picture.”

                Arthur squinted at the drawing.  “Oh yes, now I see,” he said.  “I think this is the gentleman who came and browsed my books the other day.”  He could feel himself sweating through his shirt.  “He didn’t buy anything.”  The Corporation was in his shop and if he said the wrong thing they’d...  “I must need new glasses.”

                “I see,” intoned the Inquisitor.

                “I didn’t.”  Arthur giggled nervously.  “See, that is… because of the glasses.  Haha.”

                “Do you think this is funny, Mr Thistleton?”

                “Of course not!”  His mouth was dry; he needed a drink of water, but if he tried to leave to get some, he worried the Inquisitor would do something horrible to him.  He was glued to the spot.  “I’m sorry, I… I…” he tried to build up some saliva in his mouth, lube up his words, “I just wasn’t thinking.”

                “Evidently.”  Payne folded his arms across his spectacularly broad chest.  He frowned.  “You weren’t thinking when you let a wanted criminal, a deviant, into your shop either.”

                “But I…”  The store seemed to shrink around him, bookcases drawing in closer.  The black hole churned in his torso.

                “You also didn’t report him to the Corporation.”  Payne’s looming presence increased, filling the space, sucking away the sunlight from outside.

                “I didn’t know who he was!”  Arthur shrank back.  He became the smallest thing in the store.

                “This criminal encourages a dangerous and seditious ideology,” boomed the Inquisitor.  The man’s face hardened like stone as the tentacled creature on his head pulsated.  “His very nature is perverse and corrupting.  I believe you have fallen under his influence.”

                “Influence?!”  Arthur felt sick; his fingers tingled with magic, and he shoved them behind his back.  Not now!  “No, I…”

                “You have lied to me and laughed about it.”  Major Payne’s face cracked, parasite engorging as he spoke.  “That is tantamount to lying to the Corporation.”  He slammed his fist on the counter.  “Not to mention your constant disrespect and speaking back to me, out of turn.  You’ve very clearly been influenced by” he held up the wanted poster in a gripped gloved hand “an aberrant criminal dogma.”

                Arthur stayed silent; his voice had been dragged into the empty hole that was expanding in his stomach.  He was sweating, his chest tight.  He thought back to what Pync had said, about his fight, his anger… he didn’t have any of that.

                “Tell me, Mr Thistleton,” said Payne.  “Are you a deviant?”

                He shook his head, his tongue dried to a husk in his mouth.

                Major Payne snapped his fingers at his green escort, and the two stepped forward in an instant.  “Search the shop,” ordered the Inquisitor.  His gaze didn’t move from Arthur’s face the whole time; it was as if he were looking for any slight twitch of an eye or a bead of sweat on his brow, something that would betray the man’s guilt.  “Look everywhere.  I’m convinced this… suspect… is hiding illicit material.”  The plum echinoderm on the side of the man’s head throbbed angrily.  “I think I know why you aided and abetted a known felon, Mr Thistleton.  You’re just as much a degenerate as he is.”

                Arthur wanted nothing more than to run; he knew what they’d find.  But he couldn’t move; his body was frozen in place behind the counter, an empty pit in his stomach, his voice lost, his heart pounding, and electricity dancing on the hands he’d hidden behind his back.

                “I think,” grinned Payne, “that it would be best if you came in for questioning, Mr Thistleton.”  He held out his hand and muttered an incantation.

                The last thing Arthur saw was a bright red glow, and everything went dark.  He didn’t even feel his body hit the floor.

 

***

 

Arthur didn’t know how long he’d been kept there; it’d felt like a bad dream.  He’d known something bad was going to happen as soon as he’d seen the Inquisitor walk into the shop.  No.  He’d known since Pync had arrived.  There was no way the universe was going to drop a hot guy on his lap without consequences.  He tried to breath, but the air was stuffy and damp.  There was a constant pressure around his neck.  And it was dark.  Suffocating emptiness.  The smell of raw flesh.  His head was warm, but his body felt cold.  There was a feeling of weightlessness, like he was hanging in the air.  Alone.

And then he heard voices, distant, getting closer.  Muffled.

He didn’t know what they were saying.

                The pressure on his neck loosened, and he sucked cold air into his lungs like it was his first time breathing.  Desperate gasps.  Hands caught him as he dropped, gravity returning, and he was lowered onto the hard ground, then leant against a wall.

                “Thor,” called a familiar voice.

                Light crept in through the corners of his eyes.

                “Leave him,” growled another voice.

                “Get bent.”  The familiar voice again.  “Breathe.  You’re okay.”

                A mess of blue, surrounding a known and pretty face, unblurred as his eyes creaked open.

                “Pync?” mumbled Arthur.  There were other people behind the man, shadowy figures he couldn’t quite make out.  Blobs of colour in a grey room.  He heard faint noises, far off, but he couldn’t make them out yet; voices shouting, alarms.

                “Here, drink this.”

                A viscous liquid breached his dry lips, bitter, but he swallowed it anyway.  It warmed his chest, the warmth spreading from his torso and outwards, up and down his arms, waking every cell in his body.  Memories snuck up, dreams of wet and purple tentacles smothering him, squeezing.  Nightmares of hanging.

                His world suddenly lucidified.  Whatever had been in that drink had kicked his consciousness into focus.  Pync, his handsome saviour, had saved him from some… thing.

                Arthur looked up.  A meaty mass of loose tentacles hung flaccid and limp from a hole in the ceiling of the small grey room.  His hand instinctively went to his neck.  Had he been…?

                “I stunned it,” said Pync.  “You were the last one; everyone else has already escaped.  They didn’t want to come with us.”

                “Huh?”

                “The Corporation took you,” he continued.  “To steal your knowledge, your magic.  We set the others free, then we found you.”  He smiled awkwardly.  “I guess I owed you one; it’s sorta my fault you’re here.”

                “What is it?”  Arthur pointed above his head; he hadn’t really understood what Pync had been talking about.

                “The CEO of the Corporation.  Or part of it.”  The wizard held out a hand, a bare arm, to help Arthur to his feet.  “It was squeezing you dry.  Like a lemon.  Didn’t I tell you it was a tentacle monster?”

                “I thought you were being metaphorical!  Facetious!”  Arthur wobbled on his toes, a little unsteady.  “I can’t believe…”

                “Believe it.”  Pync grinned, a roguish glint in his eyes.  “I’m going to take it down, the Corporation, everything.  Like I told you before, I don’t just want to survive; I want to thrive!”  His grin grew and Arthur was even more attracted to the man than before.  “Everyone deserves to thrive, right?  To live free.  Do you want to live, Thor?”

                Arthur nodded meekly.

                Pync leaned a little closer, then jabbed Arthur in his chest.  “Then where’s your fire?” he demanded.  “After what they’ve done to you.  After everything.  Are you going to just let the Corporation stomp all over you for the rest of your days?  Hide away?”  He threw his arms in the air.  “The whole freaking system is a scam!  Where’s your anger?”

                “I… I… don’t know.”

                The wizard stood back, the talismans on his denim jacket chiming, his expression loosened.  “It’s up to you what you do now.”

                Arthur didn’t know, he really didn’t know.  Pync was right about his fire; he wanted to get angry, knew he should be angry, but there was just nothing there except a vacuous gulf in his gut.  And what could he do about anything anyway?  He wasn’t like Pync.  He’d never had any fight in him.  He’d just accepted things as they were and kept his head down.

                “Oi!”  Arthur had forgotten about the other people he’d seen when he’d come to.  “I said leave him,” called another man dressed similarly to Pync, though he had an orange mohawk instead of blue spikes.  He was stood in the doorway of the small drab room.  “We don’t need a normie coming with us.”  There were four others just outside in the hall, a rainbow of hairstyles and clothes, a haphazard mix of differences, but this somehow brought them together; they were like the amulets and charms on Pync’s jacket, all different but together anyway.  “He’s only going to slow us down.”

                “Shut it, Pigyn!”

                “But you said you’d only be quick and…”

                “Give me a minute,” growled Pync at the interrupter.  Was that his boyfriend?  Husband?  They bickered like a couple.  The wizard turned back to Arthur.  “Thor,” he said.  “This is the Corporation headquarters.  I said it’s your choice, but you could help us.”  He frowned.  “Or you can leave.”

                “What good am I?” muttered Arthur.

                Suddenly, Pync grabbed him by the shoulders.  “What good are you?!  Fight back!  Fight with us.  Find your rage.  Your wrath!  Do you want to stay oppressed?  Subjugated.  Do you want to continue lying to yourself about who you are?”

                “It… it is what is.”

                Pync sighed and took a step back.  “Stay or go.”  He shrugged.  “Your choice.  But this is your fight too, even if you don’t know it.  We fight for us.”  He gestured to the small group of mismatched wizards as he walked backwards to the doorway.  “And for you.  For everyone, even if they don’t know it.”  He tapped his nose and pointed at him.  “It’s up to you what you do now.”

                “I don’t know,” said Arthur.  He couldn’t move, though his hands were shaking, his heart vibrating.  “I really don’t know what I should do.”  The empty well in his stomach pulled at him.  “Stay or go with you.”

                “That’s all I can offer.”  Pync said as he continued to the door.  Was he about to lose his crush forever?  “Take it or leave it.  Stay or go.”

                “Yeah, stay,” laughed the wizard, Pigyn, who’d spoken up earlier.  He was holding a baseball bat carved with runes, and he swung it in the air playfully.  “You’ll only slow us down.”

                “They’re coming,” said another of the wizards.  “We gotta move.”

                Arthur fell back against the wall; the reality of it against his spine felt safe.

                “Thor,” said Pync, “I can’t wait for you to make up your mind; there’s too much at stake.”  He smiled as he reached his companions, though there was a sadness behind his eyes.  “Take the first right out of the door to leave.  And take care, look after yourself, okay?”

                And they left.

He left.

                Arthur was alone with only the dead tentacles hanging over his head for company.  He could hear fighting in the distance, shouting, the fizz and bang of magic.  Manic laughter, as if the strange wizards were taking joy in what they were doing.  Arthur didn’t feel anything, except the feeling of the grey walls closing in, dragged by the black hole inside his body.  His emotions were lost to him.

                His heart was buzzing in his ears, though it felt as though the organ had become stuck in his throat, the contents of his empty stomach pushing up against it.  He wanted to vomit.  He wanted to run.  His head was hot, hands cold.  He could barely breathe.

                Arthur threw up, retched out air, spat bile.

                He wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.  It was as if every feeling had been sucked into the void that was growing bigger and bigger within his torso.

                He tried to slow his breathing, slow his heart; he sucked in the rank air through his nose, whistled it out between his lips.  Again, and again.  The scent of the dead tentacle mingled with the perfume of his vomit.  He had to calm down, shrink the hole within his gut.  He kept breathing.

                The ruckus continued outside, though it grew fainter.

                Arthur really was alone.

                He looked up at the purple appendages above him; the limp limbs swayed slightly, ominously.

                Perhaps Pync was right to fight it, fight the Corporation, the system.

                He’d been freed from the tentacle monster, but was he really free?

Had he ever been?

                He wished he could get angry.  He didn’t want to be alone.

                Arthur took a deep breath and ran out into the hall.

                To his right, was the exit.  Escape.  The route back to his old life, or something like it was.  He couldn’t go back to the shop.

                To his left… uncertainty.  But Pync was there.  Light flashed through a doorway at the end of the hall; they were still fighting whatever was beyond, taking on the Corporation.  He could hear them.

                Arthur looked over to the exit once more, swallowed down his heart, and ran to the left, ignoring the pit in his belly.

 

***

 

                “Thor!”  Pync greeted him with a big grin.  “I knew you’d come through!”  He, along with three others, were lobbing fireballs at some zombie sentinels who were blocking a stairway.  The undead burned away like paper, but for every defeated, another took its place almost immediately.  Pync turned his attention back to the fight, and Arthur felt a little inadequate.  Maybe he’d made a mistake.

                “Hey, don’t just stand there.”  This new voice was Pigyn; he was at the opposite end of the hall with another wizard.  He sighed when Arthur didn’t reply.  “Useless.”  The pair were reinforcing a doorway using thick layers of ice; Arthur assumed that sentinels lay on the other side.  “Just what are you good for?”

                Arthur wondered the same thing.  He stood there looking up and down the corridor; there were other doors, open and gloomy, where he imagined other people like him had been held.  Why hadn’t they stayed to fight?  Was it just him and these wizards?

                “I asked you a question, buddy,” shouted Pigyn.  “Just what are you good for?”

                “I’m… er… a wizard,” he said.  It felt good to say it out loud.  “I’m a wizard,” he repeated, but this time with newfound pride.  He glared at the man.  “Lightning is my speciality.”  Arthur cricked his fingers, then began to clench his fists in and out; he was building up a charge.  Sparks danced over his hands.  Maybe he could do this, maybe he could fight.  He shuffled toward Pync, aware of Pigyn’s eyes boring a hole into his back, aware of the fear still gripping his stomach, but moving anyway.  Maybe Arthur wasn’t so useless after all.  Maybe he’d find his fire, his anger, just by fighting back.  Maybe.   Power crackled on his fingertips, his skin tingled, and he felt the energy reach a tipping point, ready to go.  “Hey Pync,” he muttered.  And then louder.  “Hey Pync!  Stand aside.”

                Arthur threw his hands up… and nothing happened.

                Nothing happened.

                All the lightning, the electricity, the magic, had been sucked up by the void in his belly.  He was empty.  He’d failed.

                He heard Pigyn laugh behind him.  “I told you!  Just what are you good for?”

                He could feel all eyes on him, the group of haphazard wizards peering into his soul and judging him.  He’d let Pync down.  He shouldn’t have come here.  He should’ve run.  He felt that deep hole within him consume his pride.  He wasn’t like them, the wizards.  He was useless.  He didn’t have their courage, their fight.  He couldn’t even use his magic.  What could he do?

                And then, Pync smiled at him with his beautiful smile, exuding a trust in Arthur that Arthur didn’t have in himself, and mouthed the word, “Fight,” before turning his attention back to the zombie sentinels.

                Fight?

                Fight.

                Something ignited in the pit of his torso; it was small, at first, but started to grow.  It filled Arthur, bubbling through his chest and along his limbs.  His magic sparked back within his grasp, charging every cell in his body, building, growing.  The emptiness inside him was getting hot.  Was that anger he felt?  The anger he’d been missing?  Maybe.  He was still scared, his heart was still pounding hard, his breath short, but a little voice at the back of his mind told him he didn’t care.  He just wanted to…

                And then everything went wrong.

                An explosion of ice and wood slammed into his back.  He heard someone scream over the whoosh and bang of the eruption, maybe Pigyn, and Arthur was flung to the floor.  His body ricocheted along the hard ground, new bruises and cuts crying out.  His ears rung, a high pitch getting higher and higher until he heard nothing at all.  And then there was only silence and pain.  The air reeked of charcoal and magic.  Arthur’s head rested on its side, and he could see Pigyn sprawled unconscious against the far wall surrounded by shards of ice and splinters of wood.  He didn’t know where the other wizard was, but he suspected she was in a similar state to Pigyn.

                Whatever creature or creatures the pair had been holding back with their wall of ice, had now breached the hall.  Arthur heard a pair of heavy footsteps crunch and thump.

                “Mr Thistleton,” said a familiar voice.  He could almost hear the purple parasite pulsating as the man spoke.  “I should’ve known you’d be behind this deviancy.”

                Arthur lifted himself up, his back blood-wet and hurting, his bones aching, and he stood to face the Inquisitor.

                “All this time,” said Major Payne, “I was convinced that you’d been influenced by the criminals, but…”  The broad man shrugged as he approached.  “You’re the real influence.  It was you all along.”

                “No, I…”  Arthur took stock of the situation.  Pigyn and the other wizard, who he could now see was nursing a broken arm behind the Inquisitor, were both out of action.  Pync was busy, along with the three other wizards, fighting off the sentinels on the stairs.  Arthur was alone.  “So what if I am?” he snapped; his mouth had run away from him, despite the void in his stomach, the fear.  “Does it really matter?”

                “No.”  Payne, in a sudden rush of magical speed, rushed forward and grabbed Arthur by the throat with his gloved fists.  “You’re all perverts, degenerates.  A plague.”

                He couldn’t reply, choked harder as he was lifted from the floor.  He could barely breathe.  His body flailed.  He was alone against this large monster, and he was losing.  Had lost.  He was sweating, though he was cold with fear.  He tried to reach for his magic; it was still distant and depleted, lost deep within him, along with the fire that had ignited for a brief moment before the explosion.

                Major Payne grinned, and the tentaculiform on his face engorged and throbbed.

                Arthur’s vision started to black out around the edges, the world growing dark and blurry.  Payne’s smirk was soon all he could see.  The iron grip on his neck tightened and his body fell limp.

                It was over.  This was the end.

                For moment he thought he heard Pync’s voice.  It was strained and stifled.  Quiet.  The voice spoke again.  One breathless word.  But it wasn’t Pync that spoke; it was his own voice.  His.

                “Fight.”

                Arthur thrust deep into the dark pit of fear within his gut, reaching deeper and deeper, further and further into his soul.  He was going to fight.  There was a spark, a small fire, right at its centre.  He seized it.  Held it tight.  He was sick of being meek.  Apathetic.  Letting things just… happen.  He didn’t want to hide who he was anymore.  He’d been so caught up in pretending it was all okay, he’d convinced himself it was.  It wasn’t!  Arthur had drifted through life, letting things go over his head.  Plodded along.  Survived.  He’d let the Corporation squeeze his life into nothing but a mediocre grey.  He’d accepted it.  He was part of the system.  No longer.  Pync had shown him another world, something outside of the system, and they were fighting for something better.  They weren’t meek or apathetic.  They thrived.  Arthur wanted to thrive.  He wanted to fight.  The fire burst within him, spreading, growing.  He was angry!  Pync and his friends were fighting back.  And while they’d been fighting, what had he been doing?  Hiding in that shop?  He’d given up before he’d even tried.  Pync was right, and Arthur had found it now, his fire.  He couldn’t lose what he’d found, or the people who’d found him.  He couldn’t lose Pync.

                Rage saturated his body, electricity crackled along his skin.  He felt powerful for the first time in his life.

                He realised he was grinning at the Inquisitor.

                And he let him have it.  All his pent-up anger.  His wrath.  It surged up from the emptiness in his stomach, massaged his thrumming heart, filled his lungs.  Fed his magic.  Lightning discharged from every pore.  Payne’s grip loosened, and Arthur could breathe again!  It energized him.  He burned with righteous power.  Arthur kicked out.  Kicked again, trying to shake himself loose with a body that was no longer choked out, no longer limp and useless.  Electricity zapped out from his body to his captor’s, and the Inquisitor gritted his teeth, fighting against the onslaught.  Arthur pummelled a storm into the man, threw bolt after bolt into the large fleshy bulk.  Payne flinched, then screamed.

                And Arthur was released.  He dropped down from the man’s grip, catching his balance on his feet, just as the Inquisitor collapsed to the ground, singed and unconscious.  The parasite on the man’s face stretched out a limb as if reaching for something, then slid from its place and flopped onto the floor.  Its five tentacles spread wide before curling and shrivelling like the legs of a dead spider.

                But it wasn’t over yet.

                Arthur turned his wrath to the zombie sentinels.  “Pync, move!”  He threw his hands up and forward, directing the powerful lightning into the horde, just as Pync and his two companions ducked out of the way.  Electricity coursed through the air, spitting plasma.  It sparked and hooked, riding zigzags through the army of zombies on the stairs, hitting and burning up every sentinel into dust, taking them all out in a surge of screeching bolts.

                The air stank of sulphur and ozone, sweet and pungent, mixed with the meaty stench of burnt flesh.

                Only wizards and silence remained.

                Arthur dropped to his hands and knees, magic depleted, but still filled with wrath.

                “Thor!  I’m impressed!”  Pync laughed as he rushed forward and helped Arthur from the floor, holding him steady with his arm wrapped around his waist.  “You found it, then?  That fire,” he said.  “I knew you would; I saw it in you when we first met.”

                Arthur nodded.  He could feel Pync’s warmth against his body as he carried him to the steps to sit down; it felt nice.  He felt nice.  Really nice.  It quelled his anger a little as they sat, and he allowed the wrath to dip below the surface ready to return at any moment.  He watched as the other three wizards attended to Pigyn and his companion, and Arthur wondered why Pync had come straight to him and not Pigyn.  He suddenly realised the other man was still holding him.  He didn’t want him to let go, but he needed to know the answer to something.  “Pync,” enquired Arthur, “you don’t seem too worried about your husband.”

                “Husband?”

                “Boyfriend, then?”  He gestured to the injured man; he was still out cold, but magic was being applied to his wounds.  “Or is he your partner?”

                Pync guffawed.  “Pigyn?!  No chance!”  He dropped his blue head against Arthur’s shoulder.  “Besides he’s married to a wonderful bearish man who knows how to handle his snark.  I’ve got no patience for it.”

                Arthur’s shoulders relaxed.  He wanted to sit here with Pync all day, but he knew his wrath would not be sated quite yet, not until he thrived, until everyone could thrive.  “What next?” he asked.

                “We’re going to take down the CEO,” said Pync.

                “And then?”

                “We’ll smash the whole damn system, Thor.”  He looked up at Arthur with a mischievous smirk.  “Are you with me?  With us?”

                Arthur grinned.  “I want to smash the whole damn system.”    

The End.

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The Washing Machine has Frozen! (short story)

  

The Washing Machine has Frozen!

(Random 2-word prompt- laundry, frozen)

 

                Flower turned the dial to the correct program and hit ‘start.’

                The ancient and decaying washing machine clunked into life, its archaic pump chugged and rattled, and water whooshed from inside as it filled.

                Flower sighed and collapsed into a sweaty heap on the communal seating in the centre of the laundrette; he’d spent the last hour running loads for the big guy, his boss.  This was the last one, underwear, and it was urgently needed by tomorrow.  Everything seemed to be urgent with the big guy, though Flower didn’t understand the reason this time; the big guy had demanded that every piece of clothing had to be clean and ready for a nudist retreat in the forest.  A nudist retreat.  Flower rolled his eyes at the thought, and wondered if nudism required constant undressing, then wrapped his jacket tighter around himself.  It was getting cold in the laundrette.

                He was alone.  It was the middle of the night.  It was quiet, except for the swishing and chugging from the device in front of him.  He hadn’t realised how much work it would be, moving around laundry between baskets, washing machines, tumble dryers, and baskets again.  He was cold and exhausted, but at least he was getting paid.  Still, this wasn’t how most people spent their Saturday nights.  He was sat watching an antiquated contraption struggle with its most basic functions instead of going out.  Not that he had anywhere to go.  Or anyone to go with.  And he needed the money.

                Flower shivered.  It was strange to be this cold on a summer’s night, even this late.  He got to his feet and walked over to the thermostat.  The air con was off, but the temperature was dropping drastically.  It plummeted toward zero.  Flower had never experienced weather like this in the middle of the warmest season.  Was it a freak storm?  A sudden cold front?  The weatherperson hadn’t predicted anything like this, though when did they get anything right?  It was so cold!  And so quickly!  Within the short distance from the bench to the thermostat, it’d gone from cool to frozen.  He could see his breath.  He squinted at the controls and tapped some buttons to try and get the heating running.  It didn’t work; the gadget failed.  Cheap old rubbish.  It would probably be the death of him.

                Frozen to death in a crummy laundrette with someone else’s washing.

                Not the worst way to die, but not the best either.

                He wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed his chest.  His jacket was thin, not made for winter weather, and he only wore shorts and a t-shirt otherwise.  He jumped up and down on the spot, trying to get his blood pumping, and watched as the windows turned white with frost.

                A grinding, screeching discordant symphony filled the air in a sudden instant, and the room fell silent.  The washing machine had stopped, frozen by the cold.  Icy leaves and tendrils crept along the floor and up and over the rows of machines; cold vines embraced the baskets of clean washing he’d left stacked on top.

“No,” he whispered into the wispy atmosphere.  The big guy would be mad.  Flower could do nothing but stare as his evening of work, and his pay, was undone by the cold.

The bell rung as the door to the laundrette opened.

A great, hulking, hairy beast ducked itself in through the doorway, grazing and shuddering the wooden jambs with icy white-blue fur, and filled the room with its presence.  It brought the cold with it.  It was a massive hirsute abomination made of brawny muscle and ice, with a chest almost as wide as the creature was tall, and thighs wider and rounder than Flower.  Its arms were long and ape-like; pendulous giant hands swung from thick wrists.  It carried something.  A basket?

“Sorry,” boomed the Yeti with a voice as deep as the valleys of the tallest mountains.  “I’ll be in and out as quickly as I can.”

Flower just stood there, shivering, mouth agape.

The hairy creature ambled to one of the washing machines that’d finished its cycle long before Flower had arrived at the launderette.  The Yeti flashed Flower an awkward smile, then used one of it big hands to delicately open the machine.  It retrieved its clothing, a cylindrical chunk of ice filled with fabrics, and placed the block into the basket it’d brought with it.

“I hate when that happens,” said the monster as it closed the machine door.  It glanced over to Flower’s frozen laundry.  “Don’t worry, it’ll unfreeze once I’m gone.”

Flower couldn’t help wondering why the naked Yeti needed clothes, just like his boss and the nudist retreat.  The creature didn’t leave much to the imagination, and its white-blue hair clearly didn’t cover everything.  Flower realised he was staring at its prominent popsicle.  He looked away.

“Have a good evening,” rumbled the Yeti, offence in its tone, and it squeezed its vast shaggy mass through the exit and out into the night.  The bell rung as the door slammed shut.

As promised, the cold retreated and the warmth returned.  The ice melted and evaporated.  A winter night restored to summer.  The ancient and decaying washing machine clunked back into life and swished and chugged once more.  The final load continued.

Flower threw himself onto the bench, glad of the heat’s advance and that his work was almost done, despite the interruption.  His boss, the big guy, Bigfoot, would be very upset if his underwear wasn’t clean.  Especially his socks.

The End.

Next Flower story

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Captain Glaber and the Rhamphiod Menace (short story)

 

Captain Glaber and the Rhamphiod Menace

                 He withdrew the uranium extractor just in time, moved his spaceship out of the way just in time, just as the missile hit the asteroid.  The explosion only caused minimal damage to his shield, but he was still in danger.  Inertia from the blast spun the ship backwards, dangerously backwards, and a cohort of large asteroids expanded in the cockpit window with alarming speed.  He struggled to right himself.  Rock scraped the wing, and he tried not to panic.  He pulled back on the wheel, taking a chance at a risky counter spin manoeuvre, slammed down the accelerator and pushed the thrusters to max, then braked.  He brought the ship steady into a more open area, and sighed relief.

                Captain Glaber didn’t have a second to consider who’d fired at him before he needed to push down on the controls and dodge a second missile streaking through the void towards his spaceship.  And a third.  Dodged.  He needed to get away, clear of the ordinance being fired at him.  He spun around and dived deeper into the asteroid field where the biggest asteroids and planetoids gathered.  He sped through the rocks and rounded mountains, wary of further missiles or, more likely, pursuit by his attacker.  He traced an orbit of the largest celestial body and dipped the ship deep into the dark shadow of a crater, a cave, out of sight of the local sun, out of sight of the stars, and out of sight from pursuit.  An internal void.  Darkness was a friend for his poor eyesight, his other senses more than made up for it, not to mention the spaceship’s scanners.  But hiding was another risk, an easy target staying in one place, but he reasoned that his attacker didn’t want him dead; he was being played with.  And he could guess by who.  This was the tactics of the enemy, of the Rhamphiod of the Neidr, to disable his ship with missiles, and to goad him into making mistakes.

                As if on cue, the comms buzzed.

                Glaber clicked open the channel and the screen blinked to life on a grinning familiar face.

                “You’re trespassing Commander Rufus,” said the captain.  He’d had dealings with her before, but never this close.  She’d killed many of his colony.  She was ruthless.  “This is Naked Mole Rat space.”

                “No, it isssn’t anymore,” replied his hunter, a hungry look in her large, black-rimmed eyes.  “Your Queen Tywod ssseceded this quadrant to the Neidr.”  The lights in her cockpit reflected against her yellow scales as she spoke, green and red pinpoints distorted and diffused.  “Did ssshe not inform you, sssand puppy?”

                He winced at the slur.  “You’re lying; her majesty would do no such thing.”  He spat the words.  Glaber knew it wasn’t true; Rufus wanted nothing more than to find out where his colony was; the Rhamphiod of the Neidr were predators, the Mole Rats prey.  And, though she might make a meal of him, a solitary Mole Rat wasn’t enough to sate the hunger of the Neidr.  And he was useful to her alive.  “I’ve called in some back up; they’re on their way.”

                The Rhamphiod laughed.  “Now who’sss lying, Glaber?”  Her forked tongue flickered between her teeth as her grin spread and distorted the markings on her face.  “I’ve blocked your communications.”  Another laugh slithered out.  “Though you may leave if you wisssh; I’ve had my fun.”

                The captain raised a wrinkled eyebrow in response, and then said, “I can wait.”  And he really could, if needed; he could turn down the oxygen and the heat in the cabin, lower his metabolism much lower than it already was.  His species could thrive in extremes.  “You won’t find the colony because of me.”

                “Maybe we should find out who can wait longer,” said Commander Rufus.  “I know what you were doing here, Glaber.  I know you were here for the uranium.  I bet that can’t wait asss long as you.”

                He looked out into the darkness, then back at the screen.  “We shall see,” he stated.  He switched off the comms and the serpentine woman vanished.  She was right; the colony needed that uranium for its power, and Glaber, as one of the smaller workers, was tasked with gathering.  The larger Mole Rats were the fighters, not him; he didn’t stand a chance against any predator, nevermind a Rhamphiod of the Neidr.

                He needed to make a run for it.

                “Computer?” asked Captain Glaber, and a rising three-note tone indicated it was receptive to his instructions.  “Plot a course home, but don’t wait until we’re clear of the asteroid field to ascend to hyperspace.”  He thought about Commander Rufus’s missiles; she’d try to disable the ship as soon as he exposed himself.  “I need to get out of here, and fast.”

                “Calculating,” chimed the computer in its friendly voice.  “Calculating.”  Two low tones.  “Warning, hyperspace ascension within one hundred rels of multiple celestial objects in clustered distribution may cause serious harm.  Danger to ship integrity leading to loss of life reads at forty-seven percent probability, and…”

                “Computer,” said Glaber, “ignore safety warnings.  I want to be in hyperspace as soon as I can see the stars.”

                The three-note tone chimed.  “Route established.”

                Glaber flicked the autopilot switch, and the spaceship lurched forward and crept out from the darkness of the hollow shelter.  He only had a second’s worth of stars and asteroids in his sights before his vision warped as the spacetime around him did, he thought he’d spotted another ship, her ship, and then reality collapsed into a searing rainbow tunnel, and he ascended to hyperspace.

                He ran a quick scan.  He’d never trusted his eyes, and the computer came back inconclusive for what he’d thought he’d seen.  Captain Glaber sighed.  That was the best he could hope for, with some small comfort that the ship hadn’t disintegrated into an asteroid on the way out of the crater.  Ha, his computer had given a forty-seven percent chance!  Now, he was safely, and wholly, heading for home

                He hadn’t managed to get as much uranium as he’d planned, but it would be enough.  Queen Tywod, who worked harder than anyone else, would undoubtedly push him to come back out to the asteroid field, with a shove of motivation.  He’d need to convince her of the threat from the Neidr in that sector.  He’d need to convince her to allow some of the fighters to join him.

                Colours flashed through the cockpit window; it was somewhat comforting, and he wondered what it would be like to live in the tunnels of hyperspace, instead of the tunnels of his home.

                Still, he missed the colony; it would be good to return even if only for a short time.  He wanted to spend some time with the pups.  The Queen, with the assistance of one of her three husbands, had recently birthed a litter of twelve pups about a month ago and they’d be out in the colony for cooperative care by the time he got back.  He hadn’t had the honour of nesting with the newborns, sharing his warmth, in quite some time.

                He looked over to his right, then his left, at the photos of his family, his colony, that he kept around the cockpit.  All three hundred and twenty-two of them.  This is why he was here  ; he’d do anything for them, just as he knew they’d do anything for him.  It was all for the good of the colony, for the good of everyone.

                The computer chirped, and Glaber’s attention turned to his scanners.

                A ship was following him.  Gaining on him.  It was faster than his little spaceship.  He, of course, knew who it was.

                Captain Glaber had no choice.  Home was no longer an option.  He couldn’t continue on this route; he couldn’t lead Commander Rufus to the colony.  He couldn’t put them in danger.

                Not all was lost.  Even though he wasn’t a fighter, even though he was small and weak, even though she was fast and agile, predatory, he still had some advantages over his enemy given the right circumstances.

                He needed to take another risk, and a plan was forming to create those circumstances.

                “Computer,” he said, then waited for the three-tone response, and continued, “reroute to sector three-eight-apple-six-green.  Then, disable deceleration descent and drop out of hyperspace without safeties engaged.”

                “Calculating,” said the ship.  “Calculating.”  The two familiar low tones buzzed.  “Warning…”

                “No warning,” he interrupted.  “Just do it.”

                The computer chimed its response, and he could’ve sworn the melody was somewhat obscene and defiant to his commands.  “Rerouting,” said the computer its usual friendly voice.  “Reroute complete.”

The cockpit, the whole ship, shuddered as it took a sharp left and thrusted into a new hyperspace tunnel.  The spectrum of light surrounding him swirled indifferently; it was almost impossible to see the exits and entrances to the various passages even with good eyesight, but it was possible for a Mole Rat to sense them, though the ship’s computer took that burden from him.

Glaber checked the scanner.  Good.  She’d followed him into the new route.  And she was still catching up; he prayed to the Queen that he’d have enough time to prepare his trap.

The computer beeped another tune and said, “Warning, please prepare for sudden deceleration in,” and he braced himself into the seat, “three, two, one…”

The immediate jolt didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected, despite his high pain tolerance, though his loose and wrinkled skin vibrated with aftershocks.  It only took a few seconds for echoes of flashing colours to dissipate from his vision.  He felt a little sick.  A little dizzy.  But there was no time to focus on recovery; his destination was ahead, waiting, floating in the dark void.

Sector three-eight-apple-six-green.

Some said that the structure he approached was cursed.  Haunted by the ancient humans that had long since died out.  Occasionally, the Mole Rats would visit here, carry out some research, glean some technology that would advance their species, and leave.  Sometimes it was a good place to stop for repairs or rest.  But it was no place to live.  It was an uninviting tomb of unnatural metal and plastic.  It had no heart.  It didn’t matter if it was haunted or not.

Even the Rhamphiod of the Neidr avoided this place, much more wary of the curse than any other species.

Captain Glaber approached the abandoned space station at speed and docked into a landing bay within the inner ring.  The place was deserted, as expected, empty but clean.  The station ran on automatic, tending to its ghosts, and the area he’d come to illuminated at his presence.

He checked his scanners again.  Commander Rufus had descended from hyperspace shortly after him and was approaching the station with a cautious speed.  There was no way that firing missiles at the eerie structure would cross her superstitious mind, and Glaber was grateful for the extra time it gave him.

The captain instructed his computer to interface with the station’s, laid out his instructions ready for his plan, then popped open his cockpit and climbed down into the docking bay.  The artificial gravity had kicked in upon his landing, and it was nice to feel some semblance of normality, some weight in his step, after a week of mining asteroids for uranium.

He stood by as the floor of the bay opened, his spaceship descended into the storage below, and the floor reappeared.  He didn’t want to make it easy for her, but then again, his plan relied on Rufus finding him.  At least now, she wouldn’t be able to easily disable his ship and prevent his escape from this space station.

Glaber didn’t intend for her to be able to follow him out.

He strolled through a door into the foyer beyond, trying to stay calm and not let his panicked heartbeat dictate his actions.  The Rhamphiod commander would be here soon, if she wasn’t already.  He’d know if the risk was worth it once she found him.  And he would rather die than reveal the location of his colony.

He walked along the sterile corridors, knowing that his ship’s computer and that of the station were tracking him as he travelled.

“Captain Glaber.”  The voice, dripping with malice and mischief, startled him.  Commander Rufus stepped out from a doorway, holding a stun gun, a weapon of choice for the Rhamphiod species as it disabled their prey for a much more physical, personal kill.  “It’sss ssso good to sssee you.”

“Rufus,” he replied with a nod.  He didn’t have a weapon of his own; he wasn’t a fighter, only a gatherer, and had no taste for violence.  However, that didn’t mean he was defenceless.  He smiled, plan coming to fruition, and started to say, “Comp…”

The hunter fired her gun.

Glaber fell to the floor, heartrate rocketing.  He clutched his chest to calm his centre, as if the closeness of his hand would somehow calm his rapid pulse.  He was dizzy.  He wanted to puke.  The well-lit corridor dimmed, and he watched helplessly as the blurred figure of Commander Rufus stepped toward him.  His energy had drained away, lost from his muscles; he couldn’t fight back even if he wanted to.

The Rhamphiod kicked him in the stomach.  It didn’t hurt, pain was a stranger to him, but it winded him.  She was laughing; it was a distant and fading laugh, diminishing along with his consciousness.  His world was slipping away from him.  He knew he would wake to torture, to truth-telling drugs, and then his life, and his colony’s, would be at an end.

He’d lost.

No.

No, it wasn’t to end here.  He couldn’t let her win.

With his last ounce of strength he whispered and hoped the ship’s computer would hear him, “Computer, now.”

And everything went blank; his senses failed.

 

#

 

                Captain Glaber awoke to a weight resting on top of his body.  He couldn’t move it, not yet; he had no strength.  He lay there, groggy, waiting for the feeling to come back into his limbs, for the pins and needles to dissipate.  He waited for his sight, what little he had, to return.  He heard the familiar thrum of the space station, his own breathing, his heart beating in his ears with its regular rhythm.

                He was alive, but he didn’t know if his hope had won out.

                He pushed on the weight, trying to dislodge it from atop him, and his brain hadn’t fully come to yet, so he didn’t know what it was.  He squeaked several choice swear words in the ancient tongue of his ancestors.  He pushed.  He shoved.  And as he forced it from his body, the realisation what had fallen on him, who had fallen on him, came into focus.

                Commander Rufus was dead.

                His plan had worked.

                Before leaving the docking bay, he’d instructed his computer to track him, and upon his command drain the atmosphere of oxygen, turn off the heat, and irradiate his location.  Naked Mole Rats could survive, at least for a short time, with zero oxygen, and as a thermoconforming ectotherm, the cold was of very little concern.  The species was also resistant to ionising radiation, making them the perfect astronauts; it was also advantageous for collecting uranium.

                Zero oxygen, freezing cold, radiation; all deadly to the Rhamphiod of the Neidr.

                “Computer,” he uttered, as he clambered to his feet.  He was a little unsteady.  “Restore environment… slowly.”  He disarmed Rufus and then checked her life signs to ensure she was dead, just in case he’d been wrong in his plans.  He’d throw her gun into space at the earliest opportunity.

                He headed back to the docking bay, to his spaceship, limping through the corridor as his energy returned.  He took one final look at the Rhamphiod hunter, her yellow scales more pallid than ever in the sanitised light of the space station.  He’d survived.  He’d won.  It was over.

                Captain Glaber had never been a fighter, but today, he was.

                It was time to go home.

The End.

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