The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (4 page)

Studying to be a Zygan catascope was hard
work, but it beat spending four years at Earth’s military
academies; I was done with the classroom in only six months. I’m
not going to bore you with all the details of our education. I
mean, everybody has to go to school, right? Then, we moved on to
our internships where we could focus on the fun stuff, learning to
drive, fly, fight, and work our Ergals.

What’s an Ergal? It’s an instrument, a tool,
that does, frankly, almost anything you could wish for, kind of
like a Zygint version of a Swiss Army knife. An Ergal allows a
catascope to transport from one location to another, change his or
her appearance, levitate (lev), shape-shift matter (anamorph),
become invisible, and, of course, travel in time. Sweet, huh? Our
scientists say it works through a process called CANDI, Cascading
Auxiliary Neurosynaptic Discharge Interaction, that sends wireless
signals directly to the brain. Gary calls it magic, but then
his
generation is notoriously uncomfortable with new
technology. My brother’s antique watch, I discovered to my
amazement, was an Ergal, anamorphed to resemble a timepiece.
Anamorphed to look like a cell phone, his Ergal would be mine as
soon as I graduated. Sweet.

But, as always, there is a catch. Ergals are
only provided to certain Zygan citizens, like Sentinels, and
catascopes. And, using them without authorization is a crime. There
were several thousand megabytes of policies and procedures that
guided and limited the use of Ergals, all vetted personally by the
Omega Archon, which we had to upload into our brains before our
Ergals were assigned to us and activated.

For example, they didn’t want us using Ergals
to turn the school bully into a pig or to go back and buy up all
the stock in Microsoft in 1986. Darn! Unfortunately, we weren’t
allowed to use Ergals to change history either. Time travel was
only allowed with specific authorization for a specific assignment,
along with strict instructions to only “observe and preserve” while
in the past. As much as you might be tempted to assist the
Resistance in assassinating Hitler or to warn President Kennedy’s
driver to avoid the grassy knoll, such unauthorized actions would
land you a visit to the Omega Archon and an extended sentence in
Hell, flames and all. And, even worse, if you survived our King’s
Hades, you could be exiled from Zygfed forever. So, we get these
wonderful tools with all these options, but the rules for using
them are super-strict and the consequences of violations dire. I
think that’s called “free will”.

Or in my case, “a challenge”.

Chapter 3

Terror Time

Hollywood—present day

“We’re done for! There’s no escape!” cried
Spud. His T-shirt was in tatters and rivulets of sweat trickled
down his muscular biceps as he sprinted ahead of the pack of
rapacious paparazzi. He leaped into my Zoom Cruiser through the
open right gull-wing door and, pulling it closed, rolled into the
passenger seat of what, to casual observers, resembled a late model
DeLorean car.

“I’ve got it,” I said as I locked the doors
and ordered, “Windows opaque.” Our side and back windscreens became
darkened and impenetrable. I activated navigation and scanning
holos and observed that the advancing paparazzi were bearing down
on us. Gunning the engine of the Zoom cruiser, I streaked off down
Cahuenga Boulevard, barely missing a camera-laden aggressor who had
leaped in front of our car.

As we sped away, the hungry pack of
photographers dispersed to their vans and SUVs, intent on motorized
pursuit. Their driving skills were no match for my razor-sharp
reflexes and the Zoom’s touchpad ‘fly-by-Ergal’ steering, but, with
the heavy Friday afternoon traffic making the streets an
action-film obstacle course, I wasn’t able to lose the paparazzi as
quickly as I’d hoped.

Playing a futuristic space agent on TV gives
you a great cover if you get caught working as a futuristic space
agent on a real assignment. You can pretend the spaceship, the
weapons, and the special effects are all a publicity stunt. On the
other hand, being on TV does have its drawbacks. And they were
gaining on us as we zoomed towards Burbank.

As we neared the studio, I steered a sudden
hard right turn through a bolted aluminum fence into an empty
construction site. Fortunately, the Zoom Cruiser’s titanium body
trumped the chicken wire, and we were inside the lot without a
scratch. The starcruiser’s tires bounced roughly over the packed
rocks and dirt and then lurched forward and down with a sickening
drop into a multi-storey well that had been dug out waiting for a
future skyscraper’s foundation—and additional building funds. I
could hear the screeching of paparazzi brakes as they tried to
follow my moonshiner’s turn into the site. I could also hear Spud’s
cry as we fell into the pit, “Lev!”

“I’ve got it!” I said confidently as, once
below the lip of the pit, I invisible-ized my cruiser and activated
levitation. Mere inches from the bottom of the abyss, the cruiser
began to rise and, its wheels quietly retracting, invisibly glided
up past the rows of paparazzi vehicles that were skidding to a stop
at the rim of the excavated hollow. Hovering, I giggled as I
watched the pushy photographers jump out of their cars and struggle
to explain how our car had disappeared, avoiding a crash landing
that would have provided the bottom-feeding lens hounds with weeks
of lucrative photo sales.

As we glided off towards Universal City, even
Spud cracked a smile. “Someday,” he vowed, wiping the beads of
sweat off his face and chest with the remnants of his T-shirt. “I
shall earnestly seek a more incognitious and solitary
existence.”

“My brother Blair told me there was a bee
farm for sale in Sussex,” I joked, as I touched down under a
deserted freeway overpass near the rear studio gate and made my
“car” re-visible and road-worthy.

“Ha,” was Spud’s only response. He continued
scowling until we were waved through the entrance to the studio and
heading for my designated parking space.

* * *

It was early evening, and I was praying it
was the last take for
Bulwark’s
Touareg prison scene. I so
desperately wanted to scratch my skin. To appear convincing as
captives tortured by the evil Mordmort’s guards, Spud and I had had
to spend much of the afternoon with the FX make-up specialists
getting tortured. After dressing in ragged versions of our Phaeton
Alliance spacesuits, we had been imprisoned by the special effects
artists as they’d slathered us with silicone wounds, fake blood,
and painted gashes. Chell’s delicate artwork was no match for the
industrial efforts of the FX team. We soon looked as traumatized as
Chell would be if he saw us in this condition. And, unfortunately,
their make-up really itched!

“Okay, kids,” Jerry shouted--to my relief--as
the soundstage lights came up. “That one worked.” He waved at us,
signaling our freedom, and, running his fingers through his
thinning hair, turned to talk to the gaffer about his next shot,
which was blessedly without us. I started peeling off the silicone
even before I had stepped off the set. Spud and I were done for the
week. I could now scratch away to my heart’s content.

As I’d predicted, Chell gasped when he saw
us. “My God, what have they done to you? You need Dr. Chell’s
first-aid!”

“Thanks, but a warm shower will do just
fine,” I returned with a friendly smile, as John’s--
my
Ergal
started to vibrate in a pocket inside my costume. Strange, we were
off Zygan duty today. I pulled out the Ergal, now a late-model cell
phone, and, holding it up, added, “I’ll take this in my
trailer.”

Spud’s own cell phone Ergal vibrated a second
or two later. He reached for it in his back pocket under his
cigarettes and chimed in, “I, too, shall take this in her
trailer.”

Our eyes met, and I knew Spud had also
received the outwardly silent CANDI signal that this alert was an
emergency. We set off for my dressing room at top speed. The sudden
appearance on our soundstage of a holographic Zygan aggellaphor
messenger would be very hard to explain to Chell, Jerry, and the
crew.

* * *

Safely in my trailer, I flipped open my phone
and hit the activator button on the Ergal’s keypad. The aggellaphor
messenger hologram M-fanned—appeared--before us and sat stiffly on
the rim of my beanbag chair, looking quite irritated at our delay.
“Zygint Central has received intelligence that Benedict’s Andarts
may be attacking Zygfed territories and vulnerable protectorates in
this quadrant within the next solar week. You are needed to stop
one of these temporal aggressions.”

“Contact metrics?” asked Spud.

“Temporal aggressions?” I interjected. Could
Benedict now be planning new guerilla attacks not only in the
present, but in the future or the past?

Our questions were succinctly answered.
“Eight Av 3778, 24-3, mark six, Sidon. You’ll be briefed further at
Earth Core. Status: Condition One.”

The aggellaphor X-fanned—disappeared--before
we could get any more details. Aggellaphors are like that; not much
for conversation really. In any case, the message was loud and
clear. Condition One was of the highest urgency. We’d better get a
move on. And fast.

* * *

Still in our costumes, we immediately
M-fanned to the warehouse on Hill and Alameda. Well, more
precisely, to the giant green garbage bin in the alley behind the
rundown building near Chinatown. Even more precisely,
inside
the foul-smelling garbage bin, where rats scurried from pile to
pile of malodorous, worm-ridden trash.

I greeted the rats with a warm hello.
Chidurians are normally a gigantic crab-like species, from the
Zygfed planet Chiduri in the constellation of Orion. Their
universe-renowned fighting skills make them very desirable soldiers
and guards. When assigned to work Zygint Security on primitive
non-Zygfed planets and protectorates like Earth, however, they
often take the visible form of rodents of some sort to blend into
the environment and keep a lower profile. Fortunately, the spoken
Zygan language does sound something like a rat squealing, so any
intoxicated human staggering down the alley near the bin would
probably interpret their squeaky greetings as a rodent infestation
rather than a welcome.

And, the worms? No, they’re just worms.

We felt the warm light of the
WHO
^iv
scan bathe us for a few
seconds before the metal wall of the bin facing the warehouse slid
open to reveal a dark corridor that automatically lit up as soon as
our feet stepped over the threshold. About thirty feet ahead of us
was a titanium door that whooshed open after we’d passed a second
WHO scan. We stepped into a small room and faced yet another
titanium door. The school of hard knocks, and the resultant
bruises, had taught us to grab the platinum railings that lined
this chamber before the door behind us had fully closed. We kept
our balance as the elevator started its death-defying drop with its
usual sickening rush (no relation). After six months of navigating
this gauntlet for Earth Core entry, I do so wish the impenetrable
shields that surrounded Zygint’s Core Station would allow us to use
our Ergals to transport in instead.

A minute or three later, the front door slid
open to reveal the plasterboard walls and linoleum floors of the
main entrance. Once we were out of the lift, a more intensive NDNA
scan
^v
cleared us quickly, and
triggered the drab industrial decor to transition into the
welcoming oak paneling and thick plush carpet of the Earth Core
Reception Area.

Fydra, our Scyllian greeter, put down her
fur-brush and, with her canine floppy ears flapping behind her,
bounded up out of her chair when she saw our grisly appearance.
“Rrrough assignment?” she barked with concern, as she wagged her
tail and smelled our costumes with her moist snout.

Spud and I looked at each other and laughed.
Scylla, the largest planet orbiting Sirius in Canis Major, requires
olfactory education for all its citizens from childhood. Scyllians
can smell a rat at fifty paces, which is why the Chidurians prefer
to man their guardposts on the surface above. It took only a moment
for Fydra to discover that our blood and wounds were synthetic,
and, embarrassed, she stepped back and pointed one of her manicured
paws at the red portal. “They’re all in Briefing Three,” she
sniffed.

“Grrreat,” I responded, and added a
conciliatory, “Thank you.” Scyllians are not known for their sense
of humor. They take their responsibilities as the advance team—and
themselves—very seriously.

We stopped cold beyond the portal to Earth
Core Control, awestruck. The entire center looked like a Christmas
department store exhibition. All the giant holos that filled the
cavernous room were dotted with flashing red lights. Perspiring
profusely, portly Station Manager Everett Weaver was anxiously
running from one holo to another, jerkily jotting down data on an
electronic tablet, and looking to all the world like he desperately
needed a rest room. Condition one, no kidding.

We hurried to Briefing Room Three to find
that our Chief Gary had just begun his presentation. I nodded to
Wart--Ward Burton, Earth Core’s Assistant Chief--and to our fellow
catascopes, the Drexel twins, Dieter and Derek, who, looking up at
us from their seats, echoed Fydra’s alarm at our bloody condition.
With apologies to Gary for the interruption, I reassured my
colleagues that we were merely decked in impressively horrifying
costumes for our TV show covers. Spud and I each grabbed
a—washable, I hope—plastic chair and tried not to rest our stained
arms on the polished cherrywood surface of the conference
table.