violently.
D_Light, dragging his injured leg and clutching his knife, then fell on top of the seeker and joined Lily in the grisly task of butchering the downed hunter.
Love_Monkey bent her knees slightly to absorb the shock as she landed on the stage. She looked down at the emitter’s clearly lit readout display. It was targeting the D-bots in Treva that carried the pharma MaxiDrive™. This drug was often used as a well-being pharma, but it was also a very effective pep. No doubt the seeker carried MaxiDrive™ in her bloodstream for those times when she needed an extra kick of adrenaline. Love_Monkey had set the emitter to an infinite loop, which meant that it sent the release signal over and over very rapidly. This emptied all of the MaxiDrive™ available into the seeker’s bloodstream over a fraction of a second. Her pulmonary and circulatory systems were overloaded, or at least that was what it was supposed to do. Love_Monkey was unsure if her emitter had killed the seeker, or if it had merely incapacitated her while the other two stabbed her to death. Either way, her objective had been met.
“My Soul, it’s like the murder of Julius Caesar down there,” Djoser said as their party watched the show from their pillbox. Lyra’s mouth hung agape, and speaking to no one in particular, she muttered, “We are all going to be reformatted for this.” Sweet_Ting said nothing, her lips pursed tightly and her eyes bulging more than usual.
Lily and D_Light, as though waking from a trance, ceased their butchery. The great hall was nearly silent. With expressionless stares, they looked up at each other and then out into the audience. Suddenly, the hall erupted in deafening cheers. The point reader above the stage shot up as the audience ratings began streaming in. By now, several guards had taken positions along a railing overlooking the scene, their crossbows leveled down, uncertain where to point as hundreds of rabid groksters rushed the stage to embrace the talented “performers.”
CHAPTER 26
“My father does not take appointments and rarely keeps the ones he makes,” Love_Monkey stated coldly to Lyra. If the child-framed daughter of Dr. Monsa was intimidated by Mother Lyra, the tall and beautiful noblewoman, she did not show it.
Lyra smiled pleasantly down at the girl. “It is imperative that we speak to him. Certainly you can grant us an audience with your bio-father.”
Love_Monkey smiled sweetly. “Perhaps I should do this as payment for the live entertainment members of your party gave us-you know, the performance that left two unrecognizable corpses up on stage in the middle of my groksta?”
Lyra’s lips turned into a thin line.
“No matter,” the girl continued. “I’m not even going to ask why there was a rabid seeker chasing after your friends or how you might have run afoul of the Authority.”
“The seeker was a rogue product,” chimed in Djoser smugly. “They are no more than predators. Surely one is bound to snap. It is we who should be upset. Mother Lyra just lost a good man, an exceptionally talented and dedicated guard. It will be expensive to commission and train a new one. Perhaps we should upload a formal complaint.” Djoser made the threat in a casual tone, but his smirk was instantly wiped away when he saw the expression on Love_Monkey’s face.
The girl glared back at him with her small, pale hands clamped into fists. Her watery blue eyes then darted over to one of her guards who stood at attention nearby, loaded crossbow at the ready. “I suggest that you not speak again,” she snarled, malice dripping from every word.
D_Light sat on the soft dro-vine floor, paying no attention to the conversation. He had stripped off his skinsuit, wearing only his undershorts. A medic with product tats knelt down on one side of him, rubbing some chemi into D_Light’s leg while a medical bot scurried around, instruments extending in and out of its metal body as it ran its routine diagnostic protocol.
D_Light’s mind was still reeling. Having left the groksta and its overwhelming sensory overload, he now felt numb, deaf, and mute. Fortunately, the LoveGas™ had not yet begun to wear off, so he felt fine despite the pain in his leg.
Lily stood nearby, leaning back against a wall. She too appeared to have stepped out of a chainsaw massacre. D_Light lay back, flat on the floor, and reached up to stroke the back of her calf. The snakeskin texture of the microlenses hissed softly with his strokes. Her large blue eyes shot open at his touch. She watched him. Her expression was neutral, an unreadable mask, and she did not move her body. D_Light just stared back and smiled for what felt like a pleasant eternity.
Katria watched over and over in shock as her rented seeker was butchered on stage in front of thousands. It was as though she could hear her god laughing at her. First, against all expectations, the demons escaped the spanker ghetto. Next, their path was wiped clean by a cleaning crew. Then their trail was obliterated again in the lake, and now this? This grisly public spectacle? Could it be that the OverSoul was conspiring against her? My Soul, are you testing me? she wondered.
That seeker flew off the leash! Rhemus pinged.
It’s not supposed…it’s just not supposed to do that, was all Katria could send back. She felt as though her life had drained from her.
Yeah, where the hell is the subtlety? I mean, damn! The… Rhemus tripped over his thoughts. I mean, first the Tool gets knocked out, and now our seeker gets fragged? Are we insured for this? Rhemus’s blink thread was somewhat garbled.
Katria did not respond.
Rhemus broke the silence. What now? I can get another seeker-that is, if anyone is willing to lease one to us. Actually, I think we should go with a human seeker this time.
No, Katria said at last. I’m not risking any more points chasing them. They’re in the inner sanctum. If they come out we’ll know it, and we can deal with it then.
Yeah, Rhemus replied, the key word here is “if.” Maybe the doctor’s little infamous Darwinian gauntlet will solve the problem for us.
Eventually, the MetaGame team was ushered through the multiple airtight portals that guarded the entrance to the inner sanctum and were left there. Love_Monkey, the watcher and high hostess of the lounge, had given them permission to enter the inner sanctum, but only because she wanted them out of her sight, or so she said.
This arrangement was not what Lyra and Djoser had hoped for. From what they could tell, Dr. Monsa was not expecting them. “So we’re just going to what? Tell him we were in the neighborhood and thought we would drop by?”
Djoser spoke, but his voice seemed to get swallowed up by the alien vegetation around them. It was extremely dark, which was no surprise to the party since the elevator they had used to get there seemed to travel downward for ages. According to their familiars, they were now under the bottom of the lake.
All was quiet, except for the sniffles and soft crying emanating from D_Light and Lily. Still bloodied, they hung onto one another, belatedly mourning the loss of Brian.
“He rescued us!” Lily sobbed. “He was a rescuer. And that thing…”
“He was like a lion, fierce and with no thought for his own life,” D_Light blubbered. “Oh, the horror! He was my brother!”
Lyra looked back at the two mourners, contempt clouding her face. “My Soul, when will that damned drug wear off?”
Djoser said nothing, only smiled. Moocher, his familiar, was facing back toward D_Light and Lily, its oversized eyes fixed on them. Ah yes, record it all, Djoser thought. This will be worth a good laugh later.
“Notice, Lyra, that whenever one of your entourage dies, your new friend D_Light is somehow involved?”
