The rousing score of the Raposa films echoed through the now empty corridor of the research ship. Rocky sat back in the pilot seat, reclining at a leisurely angle, resting his chin on his fist, while the newest scenario he had generated through AI was playing on the ship’s main windshield viewer. The black-clad swashbuckling hero swung across a ravine, with a beautiful Foxen damsel clutching tightly around his neck, lest she fall into the chasm below. Behind them, a sizable number of vampire apes slid to a halt at the edge of the ravine, shaking their fists angily at the escaping hero.
A sudden gasp of fright, not coming from the cockpit’s speakers which were handling the action scene on the viewscreen, drew Rocky’s attention away from the scene and towards the gasp behind him. It was Reegan, and she held her hands over her mouth as she watched the AI generated movie in terror.
“It’s just a vid!” Rocky worked his Net-comm display and scrolled through to find the pause button, pausing the scene just as Raposa and the beautiful damsel touched down safely on the other side.
“I’m sorry.” Reegan responded sheepishly, embarrassed she had been taken by surprise by the fantasy. “It’s just those monstrous creatures took me by surprise.”
Rocky looked back towards the screen, confused for a moment. He consumed AI generated vids so much that his brain was essentially desensitized to these types of scenes by now.
“The vampire apes?” He finally questioned after briefly rationalizing through the scene. “They’re not real.”
“Yeah, I know vampires aren’t real.” Reegan leaned against the opened archway leading to the cockpit. “The apes are frightening. It may sound silly, I saw some at a zoo when I was just a little pup. There’s just something about them…all that skin and no fur…hairless nightmares. They just give me the creeps.”
“You know, I saw a documentary once that talked about how intelligent the apes are. How they can communicate and form little primitive civilizations and tribes. It suggested that if we had not all but wiped them all out thousands of years ago, they might have evolved into some type of intelligent monstrosity. Then we probably would have had to go to war with them over the fate of the planet or something.”
Reegan giggled, seeming to be more at ease.
“It’s fine y’know. If you want to watch vids about creepy apes it’s fine…”
“Creepy vampire apes.”
“Yeah, that too.” The prairie dog female laughed.
“I thought you were asleep. I can turn it down or off it this is keeping you awake.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I was just for some reason worried about the others.”
“Yeah. I get it. For some reason trouble just seems to follow us, it’s mental. I can do a communications sweep and try to see what’s going on if you want me to.”
“I feel a little silly. Like a worry-wart.”
“It’s no problem love.” Rocky pushed a button on the console to minimize the Raposa Vid and immediately, the view of a darkened abyss surrounded them, the scene which was in real time the other side of the central windshield viewport screen. He pushed another button to scan their private communication channel.
A surge of chaotic noise filled the cockpit. Gunshots, screaming, explosions, it sounded like instead of opening their private channel, he had instead opened a war vid. He thought this over for a split second because he had never been a fan of war vids, that was something Rocco liked, in the few instances that he would actually sit still for more than fifteen minutes at a time and watch a vid. No, he decided, this was real time action going on.
“What’s happening?” Reegan asked, the worry in her voice causing it to break in pitch slightly.
“I dunno love. Sounds like trouble. I swear, can’t these mates go one bloomin’ night without getting into some sort of fight?” Rocky clicked the transmission button to broadcast his voice on the channel. “Hello hello. What’s going on out there. Ricky, do you need help?”
No answer came through, just a spot of static and then silence.
“Guys? Can you hear me? Rick, tell me what to do, wanker. Should I stay put?”
“We’re relatively safe here under the water unless they get the idea to specifically look for us here. And this ship is unarmed.”
“Yeah right.” Rocky stroked his chin nervously. He honestly wasn’t sure what he should do.
* * * *
The crowd inside the museum were curious about the racket that was going on outside. A large gathering of Titans began moving towards the front entrance and windows to gawk at the scene outside. The street was alive with security robots, some performing scans, but a large majority of them were going door to door as if they were searching for something.
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While the crowd moved towards the entrance, Ricky was walking past them and deeper inside the building. Ricky tried to remain nonchalant, but with his ratty old vest and boots, he honestly looked like he didn’t belong in regular society, let alone a fancy upscale, well-lit place like this. He began looking around, trying to come up with a plan to escape his pursuers, who would no doubt be coming through the doors shortly. He found himself in a large, open, high-ceilinged room filled with strange exhibits from around the world. Huge rectangular chandelier lights hung down from the ceiling, bathing the room in bright, ample lighting.
He took a brief moment to revel in the strange situation he found himself in, standing inside a real museum. He had thought that places such as this, where the public could go and learn about actual history and not just the propaganda that Zenith Corp. wanted the world to believe had long ago been banished by the company. It seemed strange that such a bastion of education would be still standing in Furwood, the entertainment capital of Titan.
Ricky ducked through several exhibit walls before realizing with disgust why this place was allowed to exist. Upon getting closer to one of the exhibits, he realized that this was no historical artifact or treasure, this was some simplistic art exhibit, and looked as if some cub had found some paint, and then splattered it haphazardly across the canvas and called it art. And then the pretentious owners of the gallery shined a bunch of lights on it like it was some great wonder to behold.
Yeah, now it made sense. Zenith would never allow the public to know the actual truth of history, how it had supposedly wormed its way into every world government and through lobbying and cronyism bought up everything and everyone, how it had suppressed human rights on a planetary level and brought the standard of living down for billions of Titans while the rich elite of society built literal palaces for themselves. But allowing the public to busy themselves with trivial and useless pursuits, like AI holo-vids and endless streams of 3 second “Gongblast” videos. And art.
Nowhere else on Titan were Titans so useless than the art world. They congratulated themselves and propped each other up on cloud pedestals all for being intelligent enough to fashion some abstract shape and call it a sculpture, or splatter some paint on a canvas and call it a painting. It was a useless popularity contest that achieved little more than occupying and filling time for the conceited elite of society. The rich could congratulate each other for all of the “accomplishments” they hold. Keep the public busy with their own useless pursuits, keep them glued to entertainment and they were easier to control.
Before he realized what he was doing, Ricky was acting, letting his body take the first steps and hopefully his mind would catch up and make sense of it at a later time. He had taken a pack of matches from the inside pocket of his vest and lit a tobacco stick. He didn’t shake the match out though, instead, he held it to the painting and watched as the flammable chemicals went up in a blaze.
Ricky hadn’t smoked tobacco sticks much since leaving Gunrock, where it had practically been the national pastime. It was largely a useless waste of time and credits, but to Ricky’s thinking, an acceptable one. He quickly moved to the next flammable exhibit, struck another match, and watched it go up in flames as well.
Since the majority of the patrons of this exhibit were now gathered towards the front of the building, none noticed the spreading flames before it was too late to contain. For some reason, there didn’t seem to be any automated fire suppressant systems in place inside the building. Ricky continued moving towards the rear of the building. He wasn’t sure if he had started the fire in order to cause a distraction, or if it was just satisfying to watch the stupid place burn.
Ricky quickly searched the back wall when he reached it, looking for some type of rear exit. He began pulling down boxes that were stacked up and found nothing. It seemed as though whatever plan he was coming up with on the fly, causing a distraction and escaping through the back door was not going according to plan. He came face to face suddenly with either a janitor or curator, some type of worker for this building. He looked like he was noticing the flames further towards the middle of the room.
“Hey!” Ricky called out, trying to draw his attention. The worker seemed scared of the dirty, wild looking Procyon, and recoiled as he approached.
“Leave me alone!” Came the reply. “I don’t consent to this interaction, thug!”
Ricky stopped in his tracks, puzzled by the male’s reaction. Apparently, he had not taken his frantic appearance into consideration. These city-types were easily frightened.
“Wait, I’m not hostile!” Ricky took a drag from the tobacco stick and held his hands out at his side innocently. “I just need help finding the back door.”
“There is no back door.” The worker seemed to relax slightly when Ricky stopped moving towards him, but still seemed skeptical and alert. “This building is set against the building behind it. There is no alley or anything, just the next building.”
“Crap.” Ricky exhaled deeply. Now whatever stupid, half-baked plans he had been brewing were certainly done.
Across the building, the front door came open, and Ricky could just make out over the crowd, the sight of several security drones pouring in. Time was running out, the robots were closing in.
“There has to be another way out of here.” Ricky pleaded with the tall, skinny cat worker.
The worker looked back towards the front, saw the security robots, and then looked back to Ricky with a look of understanding.
“What’s in it for me?”
“What?” Ricky blinked, growing frustrated.
“If those Zenith troops are after you…you’re asking me to help you get away from them, right? That’s a big risk on my part, what do you have for me if I help you get away?”
Ricky pulled out his pistol from inside his vest with his right hand. While the worker was staring at that hand now with wide eyes, Ricky slapped him hard across the face with his left.
“How about if I go down, I’m taking you with me?” Ricky retorted. “In fact, maybe I should just take as many down with me as I can…”
The dry calmness behind his voice was enough to thoroughly unnerve the young urban Titan. At the same time the Procyon displayed a slight maniacal edge to his eyes, as if he were really a Titan at the end of his rope, ready to begin mass murdering at any time now. Regardless of the truth of the situation, the urban Titan decided not to test the Procyon.
“Well…” The cat Titan began walking towards the corner. “There is one way out. You probably won’t like it…”
Ricky saw what the Catus was referring to as he stopped before a grate in the floor and gestured towards it.
“Ah shit.” Ricky said.
“Right.” The other Titan laughed.
Ricky bent down and lifted the grate, within moments, he was crawling as fast as he could towards the sewer access.