Chapter Twenty - Yes Ma'am, That Is A Nuke In My Pants

"Investigate and take corrective action as required..."  NRCan Safety Manual

“...full o’stars.  My God; it’s full o’bloody assed stars,” MacGuinness whispered, hushed for the first time in his life.

The scintillating disk swirled before them, slowly rotating over a vast pit ripped from the earth by a titan’s hand.  A full football field in diameter, it dwarfed their catwalk, slowly circling in the air.  Inside, the blackness sparkled with a hundred thousand points of light, swirling and shimmering.  Galaxies hung the length of a good kickoff from their noses....  Far below they could dimly make our a floor to the huge cavern, dotted with tiny points of electronic light.  High above a complex array of dishes and cables hung, directing power into the terrible, shining night sky before them. 

A faint clatter from across the catwalk drew their attention.

“Get down!” screamed Frieda, and a shining magenta beam ate a long groove in the door behind them.  Paddy cursed viciously, sounding like nothing more than a gargling toilet.  Ah, Gaelic, thought Hargrove.  MacGuinness tore the heavy bullpup Barrett Light Fifty from his shoulder and tossed it to the midget as Frieda stood and opened fire with the heat seeking microjets.  Three figures charging around to their side of the catwalk went down; a Serapion and two Delgados (or was it Santiagos?).  Then the Barrett thundered, and the last man catapulted off the walkway, impaled on over five foot-tons of force.  Hargrove whooped, but not for joy; the bolt of the gun, recoiling backwards at NASCAR speeds, had caught him at a level of the back of Paddy’s head; his cry of agony grew strangely distorted with a bizarre doppler shift.

“We have to get down to the ground floor,” screamed Paddy, picking himself up.  “I only have one load of grenades, and it’s a damn huge room!  MacGuiness, take the damn rifle!”

Oh, the humanity of it, thought Hargrove, clutching himself and hobbling after his group.  I hope the swelling goes down in time for my post-mission celebration with Frieda...just like that time in Osaka...  He took one look at the ladder the others were descending and groaned.  Marx’s hairy cheeks, not a ladder.  Not now...not climbing.  Nothing to it but to follow.

He slid the last few rungs to the floor; it was a painful impact, but Hargrove had always been a “pull the bandage off in one swift agonising instant” sort of man; it came with the territory.  A cool mist filled the air this far underground, and the Marxist Detective shivered.  Machines were strewn everywhere: high tech computers squatting malevolently on their workstations; spectrophotometers, Gas and High Pressure Liquid Chromatographers fighting for space with Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Mass Spectrometers around the edges of the gargantuan room, the janitor’s vacuum cleaner left running and unattended between two desks.  As Frieda moved to his side and the others began to fan out Hargrove peered through the hazy air nervously.  Hmmm....a set-up just stinking of -

“That’s far enough.”

Trap.

They rose from behind the stations, each face a leering parody of a former enemy: Trotskov, Serapion, and Delgado/Santiago.  Unlike the Trotskov’s he had faced earlier, Hargrove could detect no emotions or even rational thoughts in the eyes of these adversaries, only a cold willingness to kill.  And every hand was tipped with shiny metal.  This again?

“Drop your weapons.  You’re caught like rats in...um...a barrel.” 

Paulina’s hand swept in an arc before her, a cyan beam lancing from the Neutrino Accelerator.  She managed 32^o of arc (obliterating a Trotskov and a Serapion, taking up nearly 25 degrees all by himself) before she was struck by no less than 12 thin verdant rays.  There wasn’t even a dying scream.

It was an effective demonstration.

When the pile of weapons had finished growing before them, the remaining team of four took a step back, Hargrove limping slightly.  Frieda was urgently pointing and poking him in the ribs, producing winces of agony, but he ignored her for the time being.  There, on the other side of the room...was it possible?  A long glass cylinder, standing on end, backlit and filled with a shimmering liquid and an irregular object.   If he strained his vision, he might just be able to -

Clap.  Clap.  Clap.

The languid applause broke his concentration, and he turned to face the apparition moving slowly through the mist.  Aha.  The mysterious villain at last.  It had to be.  Mysterious villains couldn’t help but show themselves to the hero to gloat, one final time.  Hargrove’s eyes travelled up the brocade bathrobe, past the cigarette dangling from one long-fingered, delicate hand, up to the carefully coiffured and oiled locks over the pale visage.  A faint odour came to the detective then, bringing to mind Berlin and the scar on his left gluteus maximus...French cigarettes, hair gel, cologne, talcum powder....No.  It can’t be!  Beside him, his love nodded sadly. 

“Oh, well done, you fantastic pack of intrepid adventurers.  Better late than never, I always say.”  Largent simpered at the Trotskov who slapped the divan down behind him, enabling reclining.

Hargrove’s mouth fell open in shock.  Frieda continued to nod her head.  MacGuiness took to cursing.  Paddy just stared in confusion.  “Who’s the poufter?” he inquired.

“Largent, entertainment director and head of TICKS, at your service my vertically challenged friend.”  A Serapion stepped forward with a hookah; the effeminate mastermind took a long pull on the stem and blew sickly sweet smoke rings at the ceiling.

“But how-“ began Hargrove, but an image (carefully called up from file by his subconscious) flashed before his eyes.  The fallen saucer.  The arm.  The PCP.  “Of course.  The phenylcyclidine.”

“Yes,” sniffed the wastrel.  “With the resistance to pain and the berserk rage afforded to me by the angel dust, I managed to tear my way free.  It was the work of a moment for my alien allies, already in the area as you know, to spirit me away and fix my body, including my severly damaged palate.”  This last was direct at Frieda, accompanied by a dark look.  He shook his wrist in disgust; despite all urging, it remained remarkably straight.  “Perhaps a trifle too well,” Largent conceded. 

“Tobermorry...”

“Yes, Hargrove, yes.  Tobermorry knew of my presence aboard the ship as the leader of the opposite side.  In order to successfully carry out his mission, he needed a distraction.  So he placed you on the ship in the hopes of capturing some of my attention so that I would not discover his presence.  A pity; as entertainment director, I already knew of Brashnikov’s presence.”

“Then Brashnikov...”

“How cunning you are!  Yes, you have seen through my scheming.  We did need the General, with his knowledge of the inner workings of the now-defunct soviet union and his contacts and known presence, in order to take over.  Fortunately we no longer need his physical body, since you lot managed to destroy that quite handily.  With the knowledge the aliens have given us we have cloned him into a more....amenable version.  Now we only need his mind, and that we have.”

“With the...”

“Ah, this time you are incorrect!  See there, a triumph of the fusion of alien technology and our own!”  With a flourish, Largent indicated the cylinder at the other end of the room.  Within it, the lumpy object bobbed and turned to face them.  Frieda screamed in horror, and Hargrove felt the blood drain from his face.  Brashnikov’s head, broken from his body when it shattered....  The eyes blinked, the mouth worked, but nothing came forth save electrical impulses from the leads connected to his bare scalp.  And I was actually GOING to point that out this time....

“You fiends!”  Hargrove snarled, rage building at the insult and the terrible atrocity performed on the head of the Armenian.  This, this was the worst sort of slavery.  “And you call yourself communists.”

“Actually, you hit it on the head, Hargrove.  We CALL ourselves communists.  What better way to drum up enthusiastic support from idiots like yourself?”  When Hargrove began to shake his head, Largent’s smile grew wider, a diamond in one tooth glittering in the odd light from the revolving disk far overhead.  He waved a small slip of paper.  “Tax receipt - I thought I’d give it to you myself.  100 dollars to support TICKs - received last week.  Thank you for the donation.”

Hargrove shrugged helplessly as the others turned to him, eyebrows raised.  “It was in the Internationale Broadsheet.  They offered a free talking Marx doll if you sent in a donation - that’s how I knew about them earlier.”  He rounded fiercely on Largent.  “I never got the doll.” 

“Well, I could give it to you now,” mused the mastermind, tapping one perfectly manicured fingernail on a front tooth.  “But that might be a bit of a waste, seeing as we have to kill you.”

The small group of heroes grew even smaller as they shuffled together in a vain attempt to take cover behind the detective.  “One question - what the devil’s that thing up there?” O’Lan inquired from the back of Hargrove’s knee.

“It’s a subdimensional portal, capable of instantaneous deep space translation,” muttered Hargrove.  Largent snapped his mouth closed and glared.  Tough luck, gloat boy, muttered the subconscious in a last, desperate act of defiance.

“Yes,” the leader of TICKS confirmed.  “From there the aliens will launch their invasion of earth.  It’s been coming for a while.  Without TICKS involvement, it might have been another ten years, but they still would have conquered.  And I vastly prefer to be on the winning side, thank you very much.”

“Ye’ll be face down on the ground, with yer alien masters rogering ye fer the rest o’yer days, yeh spittle encrused blob of cheesy tripe[1]!” roared MacGuinness in frustration, meaty fists clenching spasmodically.

“Do you really think so?” Largent asked brightly.

Mmmm, tripe, thought Paddy.

“MASTER!” came the cry from above.  Serapion;  Hargrove’s burst eardrum protested bitterly.  “THE HEATHEN IGA NINJA ATTACKED, BUT WERE REPULSED.  THEIR LEADER HAS BEEN CRITICALLY WOUNDED, BUT STILL LIVES.  DO YOU WISH TO QUESTION HIM?”

“Oh, yes,” called Largent.  “Bring him down, quickly.  I wish to see who has replaced Lloyd.”

Hargrove considered his options.  Surrounded, unarmed, before an alien interdimensional gateway, with multiple high energy beam weapons pointed at him, and now his allies terminated...he was hard pressed to think of a worse place to be.  Well, there was that time in Algiers, with the penguins....

The black clad body was lowered on a rope, dripping blood from a huge gash in its abdomen.  Two Trotskovs caught it, and laid it none to gently on the granite floor.  Fred, beyond a doubt.  I recognise those eyes, and the Ninja Gear^TM belt as well.  So it’s over then.  The Iga were our last hope.

“He was carrying this,” one of the clones said, holding out a Katana to the entertainment director.  “Beyond that, he’s bleeding like a...doornail....”

“The clan sword.”  Largent held the blade up, staring at it in glaze-eyed amusement.  Another puff on the hookah occupied him for several seconds, then he returned his attention back to the ninja.  “Well, the bleeding seems to be slowing down,” he commented, staring into the Shadow Warrior^TM’s eyes. 

“It should be,” rasped Fred, hands flicking out and tearing away the blade, “Foxes don’t have that much blood.”  The blade blurred through a figure eight for an instant; though Largent leaped back with a frightening grace, the two clones fell, hitting the ground with a series of successive thuds.  Hargrove and the others stared for an instant in shock, then exploded into action.  Figuratively speaking, of course.

Varicolored beams split the air, trilling and whining, but none could touch Fred, who swept through the ranks with the skill of a Masterninja^TM.  A Delgado managed to draw a bead on him for an instant; Frieda blew him back with a storm of microjet rounds from her recovered augmented derringer, then went back to assembling the TOW missile attachment.  Paddy overturned a table and scrambled on top of a stool to send round after round from the anti-armor rifle into the fray.  MacGuinness wreaked havoc with the Mace of Mordor, roaring in a hangover inspired fury.  And Hargrove?

One clone fell to his thundering pistol, and then he was out of the circle, pursuing the frantically fleeing fop.

            *            *            *

The broken body hit the wall and fell face first, leaving a bloody smear on the plaster.  “NOBODY EVEN DIES RIGHT ANYMORE.  IN MY DAY THEY SLID SLOWLY TO THE GROUND.”  Disgusted, the Nazgul turned away, searching for more prey.  “YOO-HOO....ANYONE HOME?”  None ventured forth.  IT SEEMS THE VERMIN HAVE LEARNED THEIR LESSON.  PITY.   It stepped carefully through the pile of desiccated, exploded, imploded, eviscerated, decapitated, flayed, emasculated, incinerated, and dismembered bodies.  Blood leaves odd stains on black cloaks.  New Yorkers, viewing the heaps of black and white clothed Special Forces, would be ecstatic.  SO MUCH FOR PROPHECY.

It sniffed the air, scenting out magic, hyperscience, and other anomalies in the fabric of reality.  YAVANNA’S BLESSED BOSOMS....THAT’S AN INTERDIMENSIONAL GATEWAY!  Feeling a hot rush of excitement for the first time in centuries (the last had been when his Fell Beast had ‘dropped a load’ during takeoff on the Mouth of Sauron; he’d always hated that trumped up mortal).  Perhaps...perhaps it was a way home?  From what he’d heard his former employer had lost the battle, but all of his enemies had left for sunnier places.  Perhaps the last Ringwraith could set himself up as a lord somewhere, just comfortably enough to rest for eternity and not dangerous enough to attract the attention of the Valar or pesky heroes with repaired swords....

Moving like a shadow at sunrise, It blurred down the hall, a cloaked demon of destruction, a dark avenging angel.  The door loomed before him, and with a word of power It shattered the obstruction from its hinges.  Now, now was the time of the Nazgul!

Its preternaturally acute senses picked up the small cylinder flying in Its direction as he entered the cavern.  Small, red banded, travelling at about 80 meters per second....

GIVE ME A BREAK! It had time to think before the grenade struck home.  SOMEONE, it vowed in dull, tired annoyance as it flew back through the shattered doorway, IS GONNA GET A STICKIN’ WITH A MORGUL KNIFE.

            *            *            *           

A brilliant beam sliced through MacGuiness’s left arm, searing it away.  Screaming, the Glaswegian pulverised another Trotskov, then dropped the mace and crumpled.  Frieda’s derringer spoke once, and Santiago fell.  Again.  “There’s too many of them,” she cried, rolling along the ground and driving a cybernetically enhanced kick into the ample buttocks of a Serapion, hurtling the corpulent clone through the air into a control panel.  Apparently the designers had taken inspiration from the Star Trek series and neglected fuses; the false bishop fried in a shower of sparks.

Above them all the portal rotated serenely, as it had for the duration of the battle.  But now ominous streaks began to corrupt its perfect, night-sky facade.  “The portal is opening!” shouted Ninja^TM Fred, whipping out a wakazashi, evidently from the same place Frieda kept her derringer, and executing a perfect ‘waterwheel’ cut with both swords on a Trotskov.  “We have to destroy it, now!”  Above them, the portal cleared, revealing a cracked and barren landscape, teeming with dozens of the tiny robots Delgado’s brain had occupied; each, no doubt, fully loaded with an air conditioned alien brain and eager to take command of a human in a position of power.  Among them were scattered massive, razor edged and beweaponed machines of destruction, for the more ‘physical’ methods of takeover.

“Duck and cover!” screamed the Special Forces midget, leaping into the air in a John Woo-esque spin; Frieda joined MacGuiness on the ground, and Fred simply disappeared, calling on the power of the Kobudera.  The massive revolving grenade launcher, cradled in the Irishman’s pudgy fists, began to spit fire.

The huge cavern turned into a hellish inferno, 40mm High Explosive mixed liberally with White Phosphorous.  Machinery erupted in pyrotechnic displays, the gantry sagged alarmingly, and the portal began to die.  Through it all Frieda lay on the ground, taking careful aim.  One single shot and the bullet from her weapon passed through the cylinder holding the head of Brashnikov, denying the enemy his knowledge forever.

Ears ringing, Frieda exchanged pained looks with the crippled Scot.  The flames began to die, except the three areas of the cavern burning with the fitful grey chemical fires.  Fred phased back into existence, almond eyes wide in disbelief.  Paddy stood up somewhat shakily.  “Hooooo! How’s that, baby!”  He moonwalked across the floor briefly as the others stared.  “Eleven rounds!  Suck it in, ye alien bastards!  Me dad would be proud.”

The door to his left exploded inwards.  Keyed to a hair - trigger, O’Lan spun and fired his final grenade straight into the black cloaked figure framed in the archway.

There was a terrific explosion.  “Shit,” the agent spat.  “I just blew up one of yours, Fred.”

“Not one of mine,” muttered the Ninja^TM, backing away.

The figure staggered back into the room, long knife unsheathing from under Its ragged robes and sending baleful gleams into everyone’s pained eyes.  “WHO DARES?”  The Nazgul’s eyes fell on Paddy, and It leapt backwards, panicking.  “ISILDUR”S BANE!  A HOBBIT?”  Its hood turned to Paddy’s feet, one shoe torn off during the battle.  “NO HAIR...”   It breathed a sigh of relief, which promptly turned into a despairing moan.  “THE GATEWAY...” It mourned.

“Ye bunch o’petty bureaucrats!  Why are ye standin’ around flapping ye holes when the villain is out runnin’ away from the biggest idiot savant in the pus-crusted world?”  MacGuinness, exhausted and crippled, levered himself to his feet.

“They went that way,” cried Frieda, pointing to the open door on the left side of the chamber.  A vast creaking from above drew their eyes up to the gantry and the portal projection equipment.  “And it might be best if we followed,” she finished hastily, sprinting for the exit.

Seconds later the burning cavern began to collapse in on itself.

            *            *            *

Hargrove pursued the fleeing Largent doggedly, though running, as noted before, was hardly his strong suit.  Apparently the emaciated fop was another who had never completed the mile in under 8 minutes - too much reclining on couches and languid waving, the detective supposed.

Nevertheless, the bathrobed one managed to leap onto a massive conveyer belt, leading down a wide tunnel sliced razor straight underneath the city.  In a flash he disappeared, his speed increasing in a full order of magnitude.  Hargrove, staggering in his wake, managed to tumble onto the walkway and was instantly snatched after him, flipping completely off his feet and dealing himself a savage crack on the back of his head.  When his vision stabilized, he made out the figure of Largent, shiny in his robe under the emergency lighting, far ahead, crouching and preparing to leap.  The detective got off one shot; he supposed he missed, for the evil mastermind leapt straight up, catching on a ladder hanging down into the tunnel.  It dropped like an emergency fire escape, and Hargrove received it in the stomach an instant later.  It took all of his mighty will and sheer stubbornness to persevere.

With the manhole cover torn away above, it was far easier to simply crawl out and lie gasping on the ground than leap and roll for cover.  The detective hoped that Largent wasn’t waiting in ambush - light, pixielike footsteps satisfied that wish.  He rolled over, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness...Darkness? What about the streetlights?  Doesn’t this area of town have them?  One look at the shattered pavement gave the answer.  They were here; they just were non-functional. 

Above him loomed the broken mass of the HMS Hoobe - Entwhistle.  Some enterprising police officer had evidently commandeered the entire stock of emergency tape, and probably sent to nearby towns for more.  Hargrove ignored the Armenian warnings and slipped under the yellow and black barrier.  So this is where it began, and this is where it will end.  He could see Largent struggling up the makeshift gangplank used to remove the passengers not hours before.  A broken body lying at its base testified to the lone guard’s inability to stop him.  Why don’t they have more guards? he wondered.  The answer came swiftly from somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain.

Who’s going to steal it, moron?

Shrugging off the annoying thought, he threw himself at the gangplank.

C                                             *            *           

“Are you sure this is where they went?”  Frieda poked her head up, leading with the now-massive derringer barrel. 

“THOUGH MY SIGHT IS POOR, MY SENSE OF SMELL TELLS ME THEY HAVE COME TO THIS PLACE FOR THEIR FINAL CONFRONTATION.”  The Ringwraith, materializing from the shadows, sniffed the air again.  UGH, FRENCH CIGARETTES,  it thought.

“Besides,” muttered Paddy O’Lan, turning to help the injured but game MacGuinness from the sewer, “I found your boyfriends’ blood all over the ladder.   Easy to spot, that; it’s redder than most.”

Fred flew from the hole as if fired from a cannon, landing lightly on the balls of his feet.  “Additionally,” he noted, orienting a small beeping box on the ship, “the homing device we placed in Hargrove’s stomach confirms it.  He is there - probably....in the bow,” he finished, pointing far along the bulk of the very grounded vessel to the prow, well over a hundred feet from the ground.

Frieda squinted, then snapped an eyepiece out and slipped it over her head.  The vision magnified, but the distance was great, and she could barely make them out.  Two figures, struggling at the very railing of the ship...

C                                             *            *

Largent stared into the night sky as he felt about the anchor, his hip back bouncing against his robed thigh.  Yes, so close, only to be defeated by that...conglomeration of boorish imbeciles.  The gate was destroyed, the invasion stopped, and Brashnikov’s brain no doubt destroyed by now.  No matter.  There would be other opportunities.  Now he simply had to secure his escape.  It was here, somewhere, the transmitter to summon his alien friends to pick him up.  He would disappear, wait, and plot revenge elsewhere.  And someday, the world would be his.  I might get to relax then, he pondered; megalomania is such a demanding disorder....

“Far enough, decadent worm.”  The voice came from his left.

Largent froze, then let his right hand slip down into his pack.  “Hargrove.  Why not just die or something?” he complained bitterly, waving a hand vaguely in Hargrove’s direction.  The fool looked about dead on his feet, as a matter of fact.  Burned, bruised, slashed, dressed in rags and sporting a shoulder dip that spoke of at least two broken ribs.  He’s worse than a hare krishna, or that bloody pink bunny.  Just doesn’t know when to stop.  He slipped the needle out and slid it dextrously into the vein of his wrist, one handed.  It took practice - fortunately he had a great deal of that.

The detective staggered closer, now using both hands to hold up his artillery piece.  “Move away from the anchor.”

Unearthly strength surged through the fop’s emaciated frame; he paused, then chuckled as the chemical cocktail struck his brain.  “You look a bit tired, detective....why don’t you LIE DOWN?”  A .455 round spannged off the anchor as he rolled into his enemy’s legs, knocking the Marxist cleanly from his feet.  The heavy pistol flew through the air and fell from the prow of the ship, Hargrove’s wail of loss chasing it.  “Oh, don’t worry,” Largent laughed, rising to grip his prey by the neck.  “You’ll be following it soon.”  With a wrench he yanked the poor fool from his supine position, dangling him off the ground with one hand.  “Are you surprised, detective?  Astounded?” he lisped.  “Better living through chemicals.  They might dull the brain, but the right mixture of PCP and cocaine really gets the heart pumping.  You didn’t seriously think I kept my figure with some Oprah diet, did you?”

Hargrove gagged in his grip, thrashing wildly and pointing.

“Oh, don’t think I’m going to fall for that one,” Largent chuckled.  “You filthy brute.  Ruining my plans like that.  Brining unwashed idiots into my base.  BLEEDING on my dressing gown.” 

Hargrove pointed frantically.

“Silly fool.  There’s no one to save you.”

Hargrove shook his head, pupils dilating.

Not behind him, or at anything around him at all, Largent realized.  At his hand.  At the little red dot, sitting happily on his wiry wrist....

C                                             *            *

“Hargrove!” screamed Frieda, desperately clicking attachments onto her derringer.  A longer barrel, surrounded by curious rings.  A thick, heavy laser sight.  A wire cable.

“We’ll never make it in time,” muttered Paddy, trying to sight the Barrett.  At that range, without a proper mechanism, he might as well be shooting spitballs, Frieda thought.  MacGuinness sagged to the ground, on arm on the mace to keep himself on his feet.  The Nazgul stared at the ship in amazement. 

"WHERE IN THE NAME OF THE SECRET FIRE DID THAT COME FROM?!”

Fred was frantically running his fingers through the secret techniques of the Kuji-kuri - evidently none of them had been designed for this kind of work, and he gave up before his hands became tangled.  “Ah, well,” he muttered, “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to use this.”  Again he brought out the tiny box.

“Why?” asked O’Lan suspiciously.  “What else did you put in yon communist idiot?”

“A miniature battlefield nuke.  Only about 0.1 kiloton yield.”  The Ninja^TM extended the antenna.  “Perfectly safe unless armed.  It should be enough to take both of them out, and we’ll probably just suffer an increased risk of cancer.”  MacGuinness cursed and fell over trying to brain the black clad Shadow Warrior^TM with the mace.

“NO!”

Frieda tore a flap of skin from her arm, slipping the other end of the cable into the plug.  A tiny LED crosshair lit in the same eye under the telescopic eyepiece, and the laser sight snapped to life, reading data back from the smartgun to her brain.  Windage, distances, and angles whispered in her mind.  The heavy gun rose, all two and a half meters in length, and the rings around the barrel glowed into life. 

92% power, the readout flickered in her iris.  95%.  99%

100%.

She pulled the railgun’s trigger.

Magnetic coils snatched the tiny BB in the chamber, accelerating it along the barrel to a velocity of greater than mach 72.  It formed a crimson streak in the air, superheating nearly into plasma, and blasting air molecules into light-emitting ions from the energy of its passage.