Tenek, the Roper could be quite persuasive when he wanted to be.
“You seeeee, mademoiselle, I can’st be quite persuasive when’st I wish.” he sneered, allowing the words to drawl off his tongue in a rush of victory.
His prey… I’m sorry… date was Veronica, a thirty-three year old waitress from the less-bougie side of New Brunswick. The town that Tenek was pointing a LAZZER [1] at.
The lass had played hard to get when Tenek had first propositioned her in a dark alley behind her place of employment. But the way her hips swayed back and forth when she fled had given Tenek the faintest impression that the situation could be salvaged yet. Call him a hopeless romantic. So he’d casually sprinted after her, only to find that the poor thing had passed out from heat exhaustion, the way a gazelle does after a long distance chase by an endurance predator. Such as an archaehuman.
The thought certainly did occur to Tenek that he could carry her home (her address was written on her driver’s license) and win her affection with a refreshing glass of water. Archaehumans are famously addicted to water, able to survive only one week without it before succumbing to fatal withdrawal symptoms. However, Tenek wanted to earn a woman’s love through sheer force of personality, not by drugging her into compliance.
He decided to tie her up while he devised his plan, just in case she misunderstood the situation when she woke up.
“AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
Welp, too late for that.
Tenek straightened up, adjusted an imaginary tie, and turned to face her, wearing his most charmingful smile.
“Lo! Thine eyes shineth avec passion for life! Captivating!”
“P-please let me go, mister… I don’t want to die!” Veronica sobbed.
“Je ne say what?” le Roper ordained. “Nobody wilt beith of the dying today. I beseech thee to bless me with thine attention whilst I wax poetic aboutst a little future involving you and me.”
“No! Stop!”
No
A word heard all too often. But this time, things were different.
“Yes.” Tenek insisted.
“NO!”
“Yes?”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
Sensing that derivatives one through five were less than zero, Tenek adjusted course. The art of persuasion is not to badger the person into agreeing with you, but to present the facts in such a way that they will naturally come to the conclusion you desire.
“My pretty, pretty, pretty…” Tenek gushed. Chicks love compliments. “Dost the good folk who sired ye still reside in these parts?”
“What the- M-my p-p-parents? Yes.” Veronica quavered uncertainly.
“Behold! In mine hands I possess a remote that shalt lead to the destruction of their home lest it be pressed by demonic hands!”
“No! Stop!” Veronica bawled. Tenek must have looked an absolute mess, because Veronica needed no convincing of the validity of his bomb threat.
“But Lo!”
Tenek smashed the controller against the ground.
“The foe is slain! Never more to be used for such basic and evil designs! I hath saved the day!”
Heroes always get the girl.
Ten miles away, 1096 Sycamore Dr. burst into flames, instantly killing the couple that resided there.
“T-thank you.”
“-my hero.” Tenek wisely amended.
“M-my hero.”
“Now that we have been quite memorably acquainted… would’st thou profess desire to become my blushing bride?”
It was a little forward, but being called a hero had gone straight to Tenek’s head.
“C-can we just be friends first? I’d like to get to know you before…” Veronica trailed off.
“Say ‘yes’ and it shall be done.” Tenek said, gazing intently into her panicked eyes.
“Ye-yes.”
“You seeeee, mademoiselle, I can’st be quite persuasive when’st I wish.” he sneered, allowing the words to drawl off his tongue in a rush of victory. “One more time, if you would.”
“Yes.”
Having drunk his fill of her bold, naked lust, Tenek hopped into a portal, keen to celebrate this forward progress back at the ship.
Today, a ‘yes’... tomorrow, the world!
----------------------------------------
I… really killed them?
How can I live with myself?
Maybe I should die.
Tenek always found haikus to be a therapeutic way of dealing with negative emotions. Problem was, these particular negative thoughts had a pretty acutely rational basis. When a tiger is chasing you, coloring books can only go so far in alleviating stress.
“That’s a lovely abstract, sire. It would complete the entryway of my humble adobe, should I receive the honor.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The voice belonged to Mike, who stood over the captain, watching him color in between the lines.
Tenek nibbled at the tip of forest green while he decided where to concentrate the warmer shades.
“The chancellor of the Milky Way called.” the avatar of despair continued. “He would like an explanation for why you firebombed the residence of a protected species.”
“I’m really not feeling it today, Mike. Send the chancellor my regards, and box of contraband children.”
Mike’s nasal cavities twitched. “I was not aware we were in the trade.”
“We aren’t, but they always end up in here!” Tenek snapped. “It’s the damn prisoners! They smuggle them in and trade them around like funko pops! We’re full of them! Largest ship in the universe - filled with the dregs of society! A garbage dump for sentient trash! I can’t do anything about it! I’d pawn them all off to crooked weirdos if I could - anywhere’s better than here. But I can’t do a god damn thing…”
“When is your contract up for renegotiation?” Mike asked, out of the blue.
“Soon. You might even be alive for it.”
“What will happen then?”
Tenek hadn’t known until now.
“I’m tearing this godforsaken hellhole apart with my own two hands - and I’m taking all these shitheads with me.”
“There are one or two innocent people aboard - them too?”
The population of The Inferno was estimated to be between one and ten quadrillion.
“If they are so ‘innocent’ then why are they here?”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I needed to be punished. Must not have worked. But those poor Arrolingians sure did try their little hearts out.”
Arrolingians don’t have blood.
“Arrolingians don’t have blood.”
“You know what I mean.”
“What do you want?”
…
After a long while, Tenek noticed that the entire pack of crayons had gone missing, save for one half-eaten dark brown in his hand.
Disgusting…
He ate it anyway… but his hand suddenly seemed crushingly lonely without a companion to hold.
Just one more pack. Then I’ll quit for good.
Tenek stood and walked out of the bridge. Mike was gone. So was Lhathorpharaos. On his way to the arts and crafts department, Tenek made an unplanned detour.
Tartarus… the highest security prison ever. The nucleus of The Inferno. The heart of the fortress they built to contain me.
----------------------------------------
“No, murdering a girl’s parents does not qualify as a pick-up line.” said the man in the maroon pool.
Tenek’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t think so.”
“I didn’t think the smartest man in the universe would need to be told so.”
“What made you think I’m him?”
“I’ve been to floor 133-B.”
“How in the Inferno has a resident of Tartarus been there?! That place has a hundred thousand guards!”
“You only need to bribe one.”
“With what!? Chlorinated pool water?”
Tantalus stood, confused. Everything was coming crashing down. The ferrocompounds were deactivated. Tenek took a handful and splashed it in the convict’s face.
“Your sentence is long over. Leave.”
“No.”
A certain, twisted piece of advice came floating back. Tenek picked it up and started poking at it.
“Yes.”
“Make me.”
“I’ll send Lathra over to play with Zyzzyphus. You can watch from the next cell over.”
“Kinky. It’ll be a nice change of pace.”
Tenek had nothing, was nothing.
“You know…” Tantalus began hesitantly. “I think I’ve figured out what you want. I can get you there. But you need to allocate more brainpower to the task.”
“But the risk…”
“Why are you so afraid of death? Think you’ll go to hell?” he sneered.
“When you’re immortal, your life expectancy becomes the probability that you will die due to sheer misfortune.”
“You’d rather live in hell than die and face the unknown.”
“It could be worse here. There’s crayons. I’m not being eternally tortured.”
“Eternal torture is just weakness leaving the body.”
“Dumbass.” Tenek cracked a smile. What a fucking idiot. There was nothing true about that statement whatsoever. And yet, the confidence with which that line had been delivered, by a man who had spent a minor eternity grasping at titties, made it seem irrefutable.
“You have any other zingy bits of advice for dealing with archaewomen?”
“Yeah, I do. Eternal torture is just weakness leaving the body.”
----------------------------------------
Veronica’s parents pulled into the driveway, only to be greeted by a smoking crater. A lone tuft of black flame still wiggled around in the driveway, attending to one last bit of fire business before snuffing itself out.
“Dearest, did you leave the gas on again?” said the man through gritted teeth.
“No! The only thing I’ve eaten today is ice cream!”
“I can tell.”
The passion in their relationship had long since petered out. The only thing keeping them together at this point was the fear of being lonely. The man could have been more caring. The woman could have kept her figure. But they didn’t, because they didn’t give enough of a fuck about being happy to care about anything.
The woman’s cell phone rang. She answered.
“Oh hello, sweetie… Kidnapped! Oh my god! Where are- … the police station? You… … … said he was going to blow up our house?! … … … Well, yes it has. Your father blamed me, of … yes, Your father blamed .. … … Your father blamed me, of course. Unbelievable. The police station on 3rd street? We’ll be right there, honey.”
*click*
The woman shot a venomous look at the man.
“We’re going to the police station, asshole. You drive.”
“I just drove us to the doctor’s office to pick up your damn pills, it’s your turn to drive.”
“You didn’t have to come, but you wanted to pick up your movie at the store, I don’t see how that should count as your turn. And I haven’t even gotten out of the passenger’s seat, so we should really just get going.”
The man got out of the car.
“Well, I just got out of my seat, because I needed to stretch, so now we might as well just switch places.”
“You are so hard-headed! Our daughter just got kidnapped and you don’t even care!”
“I didn’t even know that until you said it just now!”
“Your heard us on the phone! I know you knew what we were talking about!”
“I’m not a phone-mind-reader for chrissake! You think I’m a fuckin’ psychic?!”
“I know you’re not - if you were you’d know that I didn’t leave the oven on! It was the kidnapper who burned our house down, not me.”
“Oh, keep your hands out of my face you fucking bitch or I’ll slap the shit out of you! Mess with a bull and you get the fuckin’ knuckle sandwich.”
“Why don’t you try it, Mr. Big Man! I can just leave you at the police station, and you can spend some time in adult time-out thinking about how to - aigh!”
*slap*
“That’s what I fucking thought! Get out of the fucking car now!”
“That was my earring! You hit my earring! I think you tore my ear! You’d better hope -”
“You aren’t bleeding, bitch - you got nothing. Probably hired the fucking kidnapper yourself.”
“Oh you did not… ”
Et cetera, et cetera… ad infinitum. Rumor has it, they’re still fighting to this day. Next time you’re in bed, about to fall asleep, try listening really hard for a second, and you just might hear him call her a bitch.
Sitting in the center of the crater were the scorched bodies of a couple of dead mice that had, until very recently, dwelt beneath the floorboards. They were holding hands.