UNDER BYZANTIUM.
“Giant ants up ahead. Formians. Them. They’re blocking the tunnel to power station one.” Eurytion drew his 44 Magnum as the deer-sized insects charged, mandibles clacking. The ant-like formians had two thoraxes, with two arms on the front thorax and four legs on the back thorax.
“Finally, a simple opponent,” said Non, whacking the first to reach him with his staff and kicking his hoof through another. He smacked one off the wall, then held his staff across the hallway at thorax level. A stay command on a horizontal Icosian chokepointed the giant ants as he punched through one chitin chest and ripped the head off another. He stomped ants squeezing under and decapitated those that went over the immovable bar. Non reared up and gave a release command before staff-slamming the swarm back ten meters. After crushing the confused tangle of bugs, he paused to slake mandibles off his staff.
║ MESSY. THEY DIDN’T EVEN SCRATCH ME.
Ñ̰ TUNGSTEN CARBIDE HAS A HARDNESS OF 9.
“Do these spit acid?” asked Non. ‘Dammit. I asked a question.’
Eurytion stared at Non, aiming his gun nervously. “Do you hate ants?”
“Who doesn’t hate ants?”
“Can you see the main entrance for power station One up ahead?”
Ᵽ I’M NOT SURE WHERE TO HIDE. HOW MUCH DO YOU TRUST EURYTION?
Ñ̰ ZERO. HE’S AN ARMED PSYCHOPATH. A POTENTIALLY USEFUL ONE, BUT STILL A PSYCHOPATH.
Non crunched over the swarm to kill more cautious formians as the centaur meekly followed, reaching down to fetch a sodden paper diagram off of one.
“What’s that you’ve found?”
“Do you know what a turboencabulator is?” asked Eurytion, showing the diagram, then pointing to another formian with the same diagram.
‘That’s bad. That’s really bad. They’re converting a star portal turbogenerator into a nonsense device.’
║ WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME.
“The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite,” said Non, quoting John Quick. “A point to you. That looks like the entrance. I’m going in.”
“Yes, here’s the amulite and a waneshaft. Wait!” said Eurytion.
Ᵽ PEOPLE ARE HIDING IN FRONT OF YOU. AN EEL AND A PLATYPUS. AND THE RIFLEBIRD SNIPER.
“We need to save lives right now,” said Non, walking through the door, his staff over his shoulder.
“So that’s how you do it? Just walk down the middle of the street?” asked Eurytion.
Non: “Is there any other way to stop Mayhem’s hunky-dory honkadori crematory?”
Eurytion: “Is wordplay needed in the question game?”
Non: “Do you think they know Mayhem sent them here to die?”
The light and crackle of electricity from behind drew Non’s attention to an anthropomorphic eel sporting a bandolier loaded with throwing knives. When it asked, “Who are you?” the words were warped and distorted by the sea-dweller’s double jaw. Sparks rained off a cable as it dragged a knife along it.
“Would you believe I’m Non Sequitur?” He stepped into the huge rocky domed turbogenerator room.
A duck-billed platypus with an electrician’s garb stepped out of another hallway. “Eurytion, why aren’t you in the safe zone?”
“Haven’t you learned Jeeves lied about the size of the impactor?” asked Eurytion.
“Who told you that?” asked a very black bird in a shadow, its rifle aimed at Non.
“Who else but me?” asked Non.
An anthro fox femme fatale flaunting a flamethrower gestured to the operations table. “Can we get Dr. Mayhem on the line?”
“Why do you smell of death?” asked a large formian in the room.
║ UPDATED YOUR MAP. YOU NEED THE DOOR AT THE TOP OF THOSE STAIRS. AN ICOSAHEDRON OF TWELVE TURBOGENERATORS SURROUNDS THE HOT WORMHOLE CONTAINMENT ROOM.
Black boots clacked as a giant bee in body armor deftly stepped in front of the ant-taur queen. “Do you still have enough workers to finish moving the cables?”
A giant moa ran up to Non and glared down at him. “Why are you ruining our operation?”
‘If those are Dancer and Dasher, where’s Comet? Oh. That’s the joke.’
The platypus put a device on a table which the knife wielding electric eel sparked to life, showing a stitched patchwork face in a shimmery field. The left side of Mayhem’s face had a diseased, sagging pallor, especially around the eye, now covered with a patch.
“Why are you here?” demanded the holographic Dr. Mayhem.
“Sir, did you know that Jeeves lied about the impactor size?” said Eurytion.
“Do the seven reindeer know that Comet will kill them?” asked Non.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“How much have you told them?” Dr. Mayhem asked Non.
“Are you having a bad reaction to hydra blood, Hercules?” asked Non.
“Can you escape with a portal?” asked Dr. Mayhem, seeming worried.
“Doesn’t the turboencabulator provide portal control?” asked the bee.
“Do you want us to capture him, sir?” asked the eel.
“What’s wrong with your face, Mayhem?” asked the riflebird.
Non hung up on the hologram. “Can you connect to this?” he asked his staff.
║ DOES THIS CONNECTION WORK?
“Why didn’t you let him answer?” asked the moa, moving closer.
The hologram showed Auguste Dupin. “Agent Ñ̰, what’s going on?”
“Who can help me stabilize power station one?” Non asked, dropping the device in his feedbag.
“Do you work for the Emperor?” asked the riflebird.
“Why did you kill my children?” asked the formian.
“Get him!” said the giant bee.
‘Dancer loses.’ Non hurled his badge at the bee as he rolled over the table, then flung his staff at the vixen. The giant moa vaulted the table, kicking his upper chest hard. The riflebird with rifle and knifefish with knives lined up for shots as he blocked a moa peck with Icosian. When a wired knife thunked into his flank, Here. Absorb. As painful electricity surged mostly into his staff, he knocked the knife out, blocked lines of sight with screens and backed away, a tenth of a planck richer.
“Dupin, Mayhem sabotaged the sensors for the hot portal here,” yelled Non.
“Noted,” said the device in his feedbag. “I’ll inform the remote control room.”
Ᵽ I’M NEAR A ROOM AT THE TOP OF A STAIR.
Ñ̰ YES! I’LL–
The giant moa kicked Non again. A stay on his staff blocked the moa, allowing him to focus on the ant-taur blocking his way to a landing for stairs along one wall.
“You killed my babies!” yelled the formian, before it spit acid, which he dodged.
The firefox came up on his left, aiming her flamethrower. He tossed his badge through a hose at the top of her tank. She growled and started stripping as jellied gasoline showered over her.
The moa stepped over Icosian. Here. Spin. As the whirling black propeller brought the moa down, Non gripped the ant-taur’s mandibles and spun to lift her up on his back for a moment to block a shot by the magnificent riflebird, then hurled the queen at the bee. On the landing for the stairs, he whistled.
“Mayhem set you up to be killed by the asteroid! You’ve destabilized the wormhole!” Non rushed up the stairs to the top of the wall hoping to dash away from them all.
On the other side of the door, Eurytion aimed his gun, as Non did his best to calculate his aim. Block. A bullet pinged off his badge as he rushed forward into the centaur, pushing him back. Other bullets zinged through the area he’d left.
Non slammed the steel door shut. Here. He pressed his staff to it. Stay.
“I thought you were one of them,” said Eurytion.
Room alarms activated as the moa kicked the steel door.
“I need to handle that alarm or we die. Make them stand down.” He patted Eurytion’s shirt before taking a hallway to a lead-lined flight of stairs. At the top, Picoid waited at a locked lead door. Screens for cameras over the door showed the inside and outside, along with the room on Green status. The video was on some sort of loop since he didn’t appear in it.
Ᵽ USE YOUR BADGE TO UNLOCK AND OPEN SLOWLY. YOU’LL NEED POLARITY SCREENS.
After setting up layers of polarized screens, Non cracked the door to extreme luminosity. More layers, then he moved inside to let his screens cover a 10 meter thick prism of leaded glass on one side of the leaded room. Picoid rode on his back into the bright room. He added more polarized screens until the light stopped being painful.
Non compared portal containment blueprints to the hot portal itself. His feedbag dinged. He put the hologram device on the nearby control table.
“Non, this is Hertha Ayrton. Dupin transferred you to me. I’m told our sensors are sabotaged. The hot wormhole should be at the center of the containment sphere. Is it?”
“About ten meters off center towards the maintenance room’s glass.”
“Next, the wormhole should have a diameter of one meter. Can you ascertain the size?”
“About double that.”
“The wormhole should get brighter or dimmer. Tell me when, and how much. Ready?”
The room brightened significantly. “Brighter! A lot brighter! The lumens through my screens tripled.”
The room dimmed significantly. “And dimmer, it went back. How dim should it be?”
“Let’s just say the light shouldn’t hurt from behind the dark glass. Now we’ll move it,” said Hertha.
For five minutes, Non spoke to Hertha about brightness, radius and position, gradually dropping screens. Around him, the floor rumbled as twelve giant turbogenerators got pushed to extremes. Then metal cleaved metal as an ax hacked into the solid lead door.
“The wormhole is centered with proper size. I’ll have company soon.” WHACK.
“The impactor team will bring up the big portals in five, four, three,” WHACK, “one, now.”
The whole area surged with power.
Ᵽ TWO MINUTES TO IMPACT. YLEM. DON’T YOU LOVE THE PRICKLE OF RADIOACTIVITY?
Ñ̰ WILL YOU BE OKAY?
Ᵽ I WAS MORE CONCERNED ABOUT YOU.
Ñ̰ I’M JUST AN OLD HORSE WITH LIMITED LIFE EXPERIENCES.
Ᵽ YOU’LL NEED MORE THEN, PARTNER. FOR RICHER OR POORER, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE.
Ñ̰ THAT PHRASE HAS EIGHT WORDS ENDING IN R IN A ROW.
Ᵽ SO IT DOES.
“The big portal is up and seems properly positioned. How’s the hot wormhole?”
WHACK. The blade of the ax poked through the door.
“Away from me half a meter, two o’clock 20 centimeters. Drifting to–” WHACK! “–repeat three o’clock.”
Ñ̰ FLOAT TO THIS DOOR AND GUARD. AND TELL ME WHAT’S OUT THERE.
║ ON MY WAY.
WHACK. The head of the ax sliced through the thick lead door.
“One minute. Update?”
║ EURYTION WITH ELECTRICAL TAPE AND WIRES ON HIS HEAD, SWINGING AN AX.
Clatter and clangs outside. “Ten o’clock 10 cents. Drifting back. Two cents.”
Ᵽ I’VE REALLY ENJOYED KNOWING YOU.
Ñ̰ SAME HERE. WE’RE NOT DOOMED, ARE WE?
Ᵽ I HOPE NOT.
“Fast drift in three, two, one.”
Non felt an electromagnetic tingle as the hot wormhole drifted.
“Four o’clock, two meters and a half meter towards me. Moving back.”
“We’re alive! It’s through! Success! I’m shutting that wormhole down, it’s critically dangerous. Give me a minute. An agent wants to talk to you.”
The hologram device showed a familiar COBOL-D.
“This is Grace Hopper. Thanks for the help. Listen carefully. Central Character Control handles personality match-ups and actualizations. While controlling me, Mayhem accessed the restricted CCC gaming interface code. Mayhem once made a notoriety bet on nonce. When you changed your name from Nonce to Ñonce to Non, that triggered a bug, giving Mayhem system invisibility.”
“What happens now?”
“I wrote a bug assessment. It only affects you, Dr. Usher Mayhem and minions. Expect a patch in about an hour. This gaming code doesn’t directly affect the world, it’s mostly assessment and tracking. But Mayhem won’t be able to hide anymore,” said Agent Hopper.
Ᵽ I COUNT AS A MINION AND I’M ENTANGLED WITH ANDROMEDA TRAVELER.
“That might affect Picoid and Andromeda Traveler,” Non responded.
Equitaur watches radiation [https://i.imgur.com/UMyvBoJ.png]
The wormhole faded. All went silent as the power station shut off. Darkness except for Cherenkov radiation and aequorin. The connection to Agent Hopper vanished.
Ᵽ THERE IT IS. YLEM.