Chapter Nine - Flower Power

"The Villainous Monologue is an unfairly maligned trope. It is often accused of being used to pad a scene, a three-part tool in the service of a lazy writer to fill in plot holes, make a villain seem more clever than he really is and give the hero plenty of time to find a way to escape before making use of all of the critical information just dumped on him. The villain should know the hero is liable to escape, it is argued, and should keep his secret plans close to his chest. Nearly every villain to ever deliver a monologue promptly loses soon after, and all because he didn't just kill the hero outright and carry on with his plan.

Far from being a ridiculous display of plot contrivance, the Monologue may actually be the most realistic thing in all of fiction. First, think of the conditions when it occurs. It happens when the villain is, objectively, just about to win. The hero is captured, maybe even strapped to a table with some death tool bearing down on him. Maybe in a cage dangling over a pit of acid so wide he couldn't hope to jump even if he got it open. Maybe he's just restrained by twenty men ready to fill him full of lead the moment he twitches wrong.

These aren't positions anyone can reasonably be expected to escape from, not even the hero. The whole point is that they are, in fact, at that moment, at the complete mercy of the villain, who has none to spare. Even in asking the question, 'Why doesn't the villain just kill him,' the critic admits that all of the power in that moment is in the hands of the villain. So that's half the premise of the criticism dead right there. The villain shouldn't know the hero is liable to escape because the very situation removes any clear means of egress.

Now, consider the type of person it takes to be an evil supervillain in the first place ..."

--Anonymous, online forum argument over Indie spy film 'Longbow: Golden Arrow'

***

"Is it just me, or are these things greener than usual?" I asked as I tried not to peer too closely to any of the monsters that made up our hallway.

"These models appear to have been modified to individually conduct photosynthesis," Myalis provided. "The lights above us may also be a new model."

I looked up at that, at the long strip lights in the ceiling of the tunnel. I hadn't actually paid them any attention, but now that I did, they clearly weren't the normal kind of fluorescent lights that should have been there. The light they created was cleaner, warmer, if tinged a bit green. Each one had too-thick wires burrowed into cracks in the ceiling. "... Are those LEDs?"

"No, they are bio-luminescent," my AI replied. "Every one of them is actually an Antithesis, or possibly sub units or hive structures or even part of some larger single model. More study will be necessary."

Apex was looking up, too. "... That's UV lighting, isn't it? They're grow lights."

"I believe you are correct," Myalis confirmed. "They appear to be tapping into the electrical grid within the walls and converting the current into light the photosynthetic components of the hive can process."

I took an embarrassingly long time to turn all of that gibberish over in my head. "So ... that's ... bad, right?"

"This entire hive will need to be completely eradicated by any means necessary," the AI answered in a tone that was deathly serious. "The intelligent design Forgah is introducing cannot be allowed to propagate."

Ahead, the tunnel opened up into a concourse entrance into the belly of one of the largest buildings in the city, a convention center, museum and office complex near the heart of New Montreal. The tram had its own platform for picking up and dropping people off, and the wide cavern of glass and steel had stopping zones along both sides for vehicles to do the same before taking off and making room for the next. Every year as far back as I could remember, SamuraiCon used this very passage to unload a thousand sweaty neckbeards and scantily clad booth girls every hour.

But that was what it had looked like this morning. Now, it was an unrecognizable glade under a brilliant sun. But this was New Montreal, the fucking sun didn't come here, so I was pretty sure it was a whole bunch of those grow lights, or maybe one really massive one.

The glade, itself, was beautiful at first glance, but became worse the longer you looked at it, like one of those gothic horror paintings that look like a portrait of some lovely family until you realize the baby's crib is made of bones and the mother's hand is actually a hanging tree. The longer I looked at the "trees" around the edge, the more I could see the twisting tendrils they were made of, and realized they weren't trees at all, but the hive vines that had climbed up over the concourse so thickly that they were clinging to themselves. The pleasant little humps that broke up the terrain pulsed and quivered, probably egg sacks for new models. And the green grass, swaying in a nonexistent wind, was almost surely tiny little tentacle fronds feeling the air.

Just the thought made me squeamish at the idea of walking on it.

Beside me, Apex briefly cleared her throat. "Huh, the air in here is kinda thick."

Was it? I didn't notice. But of course I didn't, duh. I had my helmet on, which was--

... Which was filtering the air!

My eyes went wide as I wheeled to the girl I realized hadn't had a mask on in the entire time I'd seen her, and here we were deep in an Antithesis hive that was even more alien than usual.

"Myalis, hazard mask, forget the box!"

Ash balked when I practically mauled the face mask over her, half reflexively fighting me off before she realized what I was doing. The struggle was brief, but holy shit, she nearly threw me across the room there. If my grip had been any worse ...

"She's gonna need a cleanse, too."

She was already breathing deeply from the mask like she'd forgotten what it was like to have air when I shanked her in the arm with the medipen, and it was over by the time she jumped away from me.

"What the fuck, Cat?!"

"You're fucking welcome," I bit back. "How did you not notice the air in here is fucking toxic?"

She settled at that for a moment, then shrugged. "Nobody said anything, so I dealt with it."

"Dealt with it. Fuck me." I shook my head. "Come to think of it, you were fighting a Model Four when I found you. How the fuck weren't you tripping balls then, too?"

I watched her mull that over, too. "Oh, yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember feeling off."

"Off?" I repeated, feeling angrier than I should have been. "How fucking off?!"

But I was answered with another shrug. "Doesn't matter. I figured it couldn't be real, so I ignored it."

I was openly staring at her now, or would have been without the helmet. "You ... just ignored paranoia? Your very interpretations of reality warping around you, ignored like a bad stench?" Her shoulders started going up again. "And stop shrugging!"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She sighed instead. "Look, I don't know what to tell you, it's not my first dose of funky fumes. It doesn't happen often, but there's lots of things that can mess with your senses when you're exposed to them. You usually don't get forewarning, either." Damn it, she shrugged again. I was going to bolt her shoulders to her ribs. "So, you get through it or you die. I find ignoring the parts that can't be true works for me."

"I would be fascinated to see your brain scan during a controlled experiment, time permitting," Myalis interrupted. "In the meantime, I feel compelled to remind you both that we are on a mission."

"Right," Ash apologized to the drone. "Sorry. Back on track."

A figure came around the corner then. At first, I thought it was a person, but its arms were too long and other features were off. The body was shapely, and the leaf skirt and bikini was a look it definitely pulled off, but the fingers looked more like claws and its forehead was at a backwards angle, giving its skull a slightly too long look.

Oh, and it was green and had no fucking face.

"What the fuck is that?!" I half-choked out.

"That's a female Atellian," Apex answered seriously. "Or more accurately, it's a veggie sex doll in the shape of one would be my guess."

"That's what their women look like?!" I demanded. That thing looked like something out of Silent Hill.

"No, of course not," she provided. "Their women have faces and their skin is earthy tan." I stared at her, but she ignored me. "It looks like she wants us to follow her."

When I looked back, sure enough, it had turned sideways and motioned past itself with those long arms with the grace of a marionette. As soundless as any Antithesis. Fucking creepy.

I couldn't wait to burn this place to the fucking ground. I was going to have nightmares for a month.

"Alright, sure, let's follow the death marionette sex doll," I muttered. "There's no way that could possibly go wrong."

"It is quite amazing how much power he is already able to exert over the hive," Myalis commented as the four of us started walking. "When Apex told us that Atellians could control plants well enough to hunt with them, I expected simple snares and brambles, and for that to translate to basic commands over individual Antithesis. But this ..."

"Just so you remember he's got us surrounded," I reminded her, and the drone glared at me.

"I assure you, I am more aware of that than you are."

The marionette led us toward the middle of the glade where a single tree formed out of tightly twisted vines bloomed directly underneath the bio-luminescent sun. At its base was what could only be described as a throne of black, twisted roots, with a second marionette standing to one side of it.

The man that sat on that throne, however, was no king. He sat like a barbarian intruder, slouched forward even in his seat of power as if he might have to lunge suddenly. His features were enough like the dolls that it was easy to guess that this was Forgah.

His marionettes, I realized as our guide moved to stand beside the throne in a perfect mirror image of her sister, may have been horrific alien monstrosities twisted from horrific alien monstrosities, but they were things of beauty next to his ugly mug. Maybe he even knew it, too.

He eyed us as we approached, but his attention was mostly for Apex, and there was a glint in his eyes that was just a little too intelligent for my liking.

He began making sounds, but they weren't anything I understood. Fortunately, Myalis was on the ball.

Translating from Union language database.

The first few things he said were sped up as the translation caught up with the conversation, but he spoke in a slow, rough drawl, so I wasn't too far behind.

"Hunterrrr," he greeted my new partner in particular. "You made iiit. This planet, is it not wonderfuuul?"

"It is," Apex answered, and I noticed she was still speaking English, "but I imagine you and I have very different reasons for thinking so."

"We shouldn't!" he replied quickly. "This world is full of preeey, and they all look like yooou! You wouldn't believe the faces I've eaten today, streeetched in expressions I wish to see on yooou!"

Forgah made a hacking, coughing sound Myalis translated as laughter. I didn't like it.

"Can we just kill him now and get this over with?" I asked, my finger rubbing the trigger guard on my Trench Maker in my hands. It was loaded with incendiary bullets.

He shifted in his throne and turned to face me as if noticing me for the first time. "Aaah, this one models herself after the four-legged ooones. Tell me, Hunterrrr, is she Preeey?"

Okay, that was it. I brought my gun around, flipped the safety off and pointed it square at his head. "I'm a fucking predator, you son of a bitch. You wanna be on fucking fire?!"

But he just laughed again in that morbid death rattle sound. "Aaah, you brought a yoooungling with you, Hunterrrrr. Unproven still. Did you need a guiiide? No matter. I haven't mentioned the beeest part, but I think you already know."

He motioned with one hand, and the marionette on that side came over and perched itself on the arm of the throne like a pin-up model. These plaaants, these ... Incuuursions ... They are the most incredible thing I have ever seeeen. With them, Hunterrrr, I will turn this planet into an Atellian wonderlaaand, and then I will eat my fill of every huuuman on it." His face twisted up into a grin as the huffing of that laugh started up again. "Thaaat's what they aaare, aren't they, Hunterrrr? We're on your home world."

"It doesn't matter if we are or not, Forgah," Apex answered and stepped toward him, massive shotgun raised. "That's never going to happen. Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

I was distracted from the homicidal alien and glanced over at the one I brought with me. She fucking didn't ...

But the Atellian just laughed, and this time, the coughing ramped up into the most disturbing, manic thing I've ever been told translated into a giggle. "Dead! Deeeaaad!" He laughed some more. I got the impression he didn't really care that wasn't the option you were supposed to pick. "I was hoooping you'd offer!"

A shadow flickered across the light from above and I shoved the space cop with everything I was worth just before a massive Model Thirteen crashed into the ground where we had been standing and went right for her, ignoring me entirely.

Maybe the space cop was into BDSM after all, because this clearly wasn't her first time with whips. She rolled to the side as the first one tried to slam into her on the ground, got to her feet, then had to duck under another sideways one before she could raise her shotgun.

I raised my Trench Maker to distract it for her, but a jade foot came flashing past my face and knocked the gun out of my hands. I rolled back with a lot less grace than Apex had to avoid a second marionette kick.

"I wish you hadn't puuurged the spores from her system, yoooungling," Forgah addressed me from behind his marionettes that had both moved to engage me. "I was looking fooorward to making her daaance for me as one of my huuuntmaidens."

Was that what the marionettes were supposed to be? Some kind of bodyguard harem? Actually, yeah, that probably should have been self-evident. One of them forced me backwards with powerful swipes from those claws, a few swings coming close enough to trigger my coat's carbon wafer defenses, only for the other to circle around and attempt to drop an ax kick on my shoulder.

Their faces and arms were creepy, but damn, I hated to admit they had really nice legs.

Every single time, Cat ... They are literally trying to kill you!

"Myalis!" I ducked under a swing from one and shoved her away from me, only to avoid the half-moon from the other. "You're back in my head?!"

I am always in your head, Cat. I am your AI and you are my Vanguard. But no, I am no longer piloting the scout drone. It was crushed when the Model Thirteen landed on it.

"Oh. Sorry about that."

Don't be, you protected the right one of us. Assuming your strategy of ogling your opponents doesn't pay off, do you have a Plan B?

"Uh, I dunno," I thought quickly as I sidestepped another swing. "Don't suppose you know kung fu?"

There are thirty-two different close quarters combat arts you could be trained in that would be beneficial here, but it is an hours-long process to implant training directly into your brain, and I certainly wouldn't suggest starting the process in the middle of combat.

"Fine, any other ideas?!"

The legs are slower than the arms and are not tipped with razor blades. You could disable one of your opponents by trading a blow to your torso to catch the limb. Your hydras could take it from there.

I trusted my partner, so that was exactly what I did, stepping into the next kick when I saw the bitch winding up. It about knocked the air out of me, and really made me second guess my armor, but I clamped my prosthetic arm down over her leg and held on for dear life.

"Fire, Myalis!"

Immediately, the railgun and plasma caster on my shoulders went live and buried munitions into her face as her body kicked and rocked against me from the impacts.

I let her body drop as the other one came at me again. With only one after me, as soon as her swing missed, I dove for my Trench Maker, rolled onto my back and sprayed an entire magazine of incendiary ammo into her chest.

The second marionette thrashed and flailed as if in literally burning agony as the fires spread across her form until she collapsed to the ground.

I kept my gaze and my gun on Forgah as I got back to my feet, and then only when I was back on them did I turn toward the sound of cannon blasts coming from across the concourse.

Yeah, I had to say I gave great advice on ammunition. The shell went off in the Thirteen's last face, and an instant later, the micro-bombs exploded out the back, leaving nothing but a smoking crater on its neck.

Apex, too, got back to her feet and made her way back to the Atellian. "You chose wrong, Forgah," she said, and jerked her head toward me. "The Antithesis can't even take out human younglings. Hell, they have an entire system for getting toys for killing the fucking weeds."

I was kind of insulted she called me a youngling playing around for toys, but figured it was trash talk meant for the cannibal, not for me.

"You got impressed by a children's game, Forgah," she continued, "and you lost. Last chance, come along peacefully, or come along in pieces."

Far from being scared at our display, Forgah just started giggling again. "Beautiful, Hunterrr. You really are a death world predatooor. Venom and starvation to aaany that say nooo."

I scowled, he was ignoring me again to praise Apex. I was the one that fought his two pole dancers. She only fought one Thirteen. Number of heads and limbs notwithstanding, I was a badass, too!

Of course, since he was ignoring me, he kept talking, oblivious to my offense. "Piiity you didn't take longer to find me. I had some wooonderful designs in mind, but the fruit takes time to ripen. But I diiid get one ready ..."

His giggling began rising in pitch again, making the hairs on my neck heckle. Apex brought her shotgun firm against her shoulder, preparing to shoot him dead then and there, but a massive vine the size of a tree whipped down from the green tower behind his throne and crashed between us and Forgah. The ground shook and the air filled with dirt and stone that forced us to stagger back.

By the time it cleared, many smaller vines had lashed around the Atellian and began lifting him up out of the throne as his giggles gave way to manic laughter. For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, because he didn't look like he was getting any closer to the top of the tree.

"Oh shit," I half-shouted as I turned around back toward the entrance tunnel we came through. "Turn around, Blue, turn around, he's taking the ceiling out!"