Josh
September 26th, 2007. 5:00 p.m. I’ve parked in the parking lot of a real crappy looking motel. I mean real crappy. This place looks like it has syphilis. I’m shuffling through my phone to check the time.
“Yo. Joshy boy.” A chibi pixelated Angela appears on my screen. “What’re you doing here?”
“That’s none of your business. I’m just going to leave you here and I’ll be back in ten minutes, okay?”
“Uh huh.” Pixel Angela makes a smug face. “Well judging by your texts and notes, you’re here to cause some trouble.”
“I… How the hell did you know that?”
“I have access to eeeeeeeverything on your phone while I’m in here.”
“...” My stomach feels gross. “Even… those?”
“Especially those.” Pixel Angela laughs. “So lemme help.”
“Why do you want to help so badly? You want in on the money too?”
“I mean the money’s nice, but I want to help because you’re my friend. That’s what friends do.”
“I see… Hmmm…” I rub my chin. “Can you see and hear things while you’re in a device?”
“I can only see outside of a device that has a screen and only hear outside of a device that has a speaker.”
“Hmm… Hey, think I can send you in through a power outlet outside? Just to do some recon work. I wouldn’t ask you to hurt anyone.”
“Sure. I can do that no problemo.” Pixel Angela winks. “Just show me to an outlet and I’ll scout out the room real good for you.”
“Thank you, Angie.” I scout out the parking lot. Empty. I get out and begin checking the perimeter. Nobody’s around, but there’s an outlet right underneath the AC unit of the main office. I kneel down and put my phone right next to it. “Here ya go.”
“Thank ya, Joshy.” Angela zaps into the outlet. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
I sit by the outlet, pull out a smoke, and relax. My legs won’t shut up. My arms won’t quit bitching. Stay still you bastards… I hear some people screaming and crying in the distance. I look up at the sky and see some 10 foot snake monster floating in the air. That looks bothersome. I’ll worry about that later.
Angela
September 26th, 2007. 5:02 p.m. Inside a crusty power outlet. It smells like ass in here. I don’t want to know what’s been in here. Like, ever. Zip zip zoom I think I’m in the room. Let’s see here… uh… left wire. Dead end. I think I’m in an air freshener. Oooh lilac. Zip zap. left again. Okay I’m spinning. Weeeeeeee. Definitely in a fan. Out the outlet and into yet another wire. Rectangular circuits, big juicy screen. Definitely in a tv. I peek out from the corner of the screen and take a look at what kind of degenerates I’m dealing with. Let’s see here… A dude’s lying on the floor with a plastic bag over his head. Kinky. Small kitchen in the back with a fridge, sink, and stove. Buncha people huddled around a table with two thick briefcases stacked with bills. Oooh… I could buy… so… many imports with that… Not now, focus. Focus. Looks like there’s about nine of them. Lot of them are scrawny dudes who look fresh out of juvy.
I hear a toilet flush and see a small trail of blood flow from the corner of the room. A woman clad in only jeans, white running shoes, and a mangy lookin’ bra that looks like it was bought in a bargain bin in ‘94. She’s shaved bald and has three rows of petite stud earrings in each ear. Bright blue eyes. Long, silver acrylic nails. Got a big scar going across her cheek and forehead. I can’t tell what color her skin is because everything from the neck down is completely tatted up with intricate, badass tattoos. This bitch be looking like the ceiling of the sistine chapel if it were painted on a rotting corpse. She looks like she weighs no more than 90 pounds. I can see her ribs waaay more than I should be able to and her entire body looks like it’s held together by sheer spite. Yet despite looking half-dead, she doesn’t move like it. Her body moves with the finesse of a dancer and with all the strength of a shotgun.
“Aight.” She steals a cigar from an associate and burns through half of it in one breath. The associate just looks down and says nothing. Not that I could blame him. I’d do the same if Ms. Bad Bitch did that to me. “So we’re good here? Everything looks neat? Everyone’s playing real nice?”
Her voice sounds so… normal. I expected some kinda heavy metal demonic voice to come out of her, but no. She sounds like some kinda flat ass bureaucrat.
“Yes, Faust.” another woman bows. “Everything is accounted for. Everyone is here.”
“Then lemme see it.” Faust pointed at a locked up, pristine briefcase.
“Y-yes, Faust.” The woman clumsily opens the case to reveal bags upon bags upon bags of white powder.
“Gimme.” Faust reached into a bag and… just… ate the whole thing. “Uuuuurp… Oohoho… Yeah… that’s the good stuff.” she shakes her head. “Aight, everyone. Pack up. Let’s go.”
Okay. They’re selling fentanyl or cocaine. Don’t care what it is. Into the stove I go. Just gonna pump all the gas this building has into the room real quick. Come on you stupid stove! Pump more! Faster! Faster! Faster! Let’s see if it igni-
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
BUH-BOOOOOOM!
The stoves rumble and heat up like they just got hit by a bomb. I guess that means the room blew up and; hopefully, burned all the bastards left inside. Gotta zap back to Josh asap.
Josh
September 26th, 2007. 5:06 p.m. Managed to snag a newspaper from the lobby real quick. Oh, come on… They’re putting more taxes on smokes? That’s not going to stop people from smoking. Anyone with half a brain just buys them in bulk across state lines. Friggin idiots… I see a big swarm of miscellaneous insects fly out of the room above me and out into the city. “That’s… new-”
BUH-BOOOOM!
The room above me blows up and the upper half of the motel bursts into flames.
“That’s… not… great…”
Before I can finish my thought, I can see Angela zap out of the outlet and into my phone.
“Angela! What the hell happened?!” I launch myself off the ground and begin hauling ass over to the Aegis car.
“I-I don’t know! The building just did that!”
“Did someone’s Tech do that?!” I slam the door shut, adjust the seat, and try desperately to crank the ignition on.
“I don’t know! Maybe it was just a gas leak?”
“Eh, maybe. Place looked pretty crappy. Did you see a woman with a bunch of tat-” I begin backing up and see Faust walking out of a room on the second floor with a cigar in her mouth. Her icy eyes pierce through the flames and lock onto me. She’s on fire, but she doesn’t care. “Never mind.” I skid out of the parking lot and nearly get sideswiped by crossing traffic.
“You know her?” Angela asks as she zaps out of the phone and sits shotgun.
“Unfortunately!” I see Faust wave her arm in the rearview mirror and send her cigar flying clean through the back of the car, through the rearview mirror, and through the windshield. Damn near blew my ear off. It even cut clean through one of Angela’s braids.
“Jesus Christ!” I make a hard right turn just to get out of dodge and put a building between us and Faust. That doesn’t stop her. Nothing does. Before I know it, blood-stained bits and pieces of the motel sign come flying through the building and plunge themselves into the back of the car. The pieces miss us, but they manage to take out both of the shoulder mirrors. “Hah!” I turn around and yell, “You couldn’t kill me when I was drunk off my ass! What makes you think you can kill me now?!”
“Josh, focus on the road.” Angela holds onto the little handle above the car door. “Where are we going by the way?”
“Back to the prison cell. There’s no way she’d be able to take me on there.”
Umbrella begins blaring from my pocket. “Jesus Christ! What now?!” I pull it out and answer while running a red light. “What is it?!”
Janelle’s voice rings from the other line. “Hey… Count… Glitch.” She sounds nervous. “Are you two okay? The grocery run’s taking a little while.”
“Oh yeah!” I swerve out of the way of an old man crossing the street. “Doin’ juuuuust peachy.” Damn near hit a stop sign while turning a corner. Everyone’s running in the street for some reason. It’s making it very difficult to drive. “Some asshole with like fifty items cut ahead of us. We’re almost done.”
“Yeah… about that… Petra escaped. Enigma got banged up pretty bad. We’re actually on our way back to Aegis via helicopter right now.”
“She WHAT?!” As I turn the corner, I bump into a humanoid mass of hair, muscle, scales, and limbs eating a child alive. I hit it from behind and knock it face first ass up onto the ground.
“What was that…?” Janelle sounds ready to cry.
“Uh… I think I just hit Petra with the car…”
Petra twitches and roars before getting back up.
“AND SHE’S WAKING UP! AAAAAAAAH!” I begin backing up and driving as fast as I can to try and find an entrance to the 5 North.
“DON’T LOOK AT HER!” Janelle cries.
“YEAH! I’M TRYING REAL HARD!”
“COUNT!” Angela ducks her head. “GET DOWN!”
“DAMN IT ALL!” I do as Angela says and feel something large and wooden scrape up against the back of my head. After it passes, I look up and find that the motel sign had torn off the top half of the car and plunged itself right into the side of a nearby bank.
“GODDAMNIT CRAP OH MY GOD HOLY HELL!” Angela begins crying and begins clutching at her braids.
It isn’t long before I begin swearing along with her. “JESUS TITTYFREAKING CHRIST ON A POGOSTICK! WHY?!”
Somehow the car still manages to work just fine. If I can just get on the North, everything will be alright. I can hear Petra slobbering and slithering ever closer to me.
Babum babum
Concrete shatters beneath her. I can see some poor people getting petrified on the side of the road as I speed through the streets. Some cars begin going wayward as a few drivers turn to stone, leaving their cars to roam wildly and crash wherever fate may take them.
Babum babum
Just as I begin to feel her breath creep along my neck, I see a flaming motel room flying through the sky. If my math is right, it looks on course to hit the onramp. I should be able to make it just in time. My foot crushes the gas pedal into the floor. Wind nearly cuts my skin wide open. Angela’s freaking out and decides to just retreat inside my phone.
Babum babum
I can see the onramp…
Babum babum
The motel room’s getting closer.
Babum babum
The heat from the room is getting the car real toasty.
Babum babum
Petra’s tongue teases the back of my neck.
Babum babum
I glance up and see the room about to crush us. Almost… there…
BOOM
I force my eyes to stay open and my hands to stay clutched to the wheel. My whole body is ready to explode at any second… but it doesn’t. The noise of Petra’s footsteps ceases. Her breath and tongue are nowhere to be found. The heat from the burning motel room slowly fades into the distance. I am on the freeway. Against my better judgment, I look back only for a second and see Petra’s tail twitching underneath the burning rubble.
Just as I’m about to relax, the rubble begins to shift and quake. I turn back around to face the road and resume hauling ass back to Aegis as fast as I can. Petra’s out, Faust is still alive, and I still don’t have my stash back… but we’re still alive, so I like to think I won this exchange.