Despair. The feeling of
utter hopelessness and failure, and the knowledge that you have no power to
stop what you fear most from occurring. Yes, I know that feeling well. One could
almost say it was I was best friends with the dreaded thing, since it keeps
coming around and I never seem to be able to escape it.
I was feeling this
particular, loathsome emotion as I sat in my soft plushy swivel chair. My
nonstop spinning had whipped up a powerful gale, and sent my beloved card house
toppling to the ground, scattering it as if it had been hit by a hurricane.
“Blast it all! I was
almost at three hundred cards! Why, God? WHY?” I screamed, causing a nosy
attendant opened my door and peeked inside.
“Is
everything all right in here?” He asked.
I
gave him a heart stopping glare. “Everything is most definitely NOT alright. My
card house was just destroyed in a more heart rending event than when I hit an
annoying attendant in the head with my favorite paperweight.”
He
frowned, and pushed his glasses up. “Sir, I do not recall any occasions when
you threw a paperweight at one of the attendants. The Pisces Accords also have
no record of this. Do you require medical assistance?”
I
mentally added ‘Nobody has a sense of humor’ to my reasons why I hated working
as a scientist for the Pisces Empire. And don’t even get me started on that
list. If I wrote it all down, Satan would start handing out lollipops to little
kids before you finished it.
I
lifted my cute little Grim Reaper paperweight and looked at it sadly.
“Farewell, my wonderful friend. I’ll never forget your service to me.” I
whispered reverently.
The
attendant tapped his glasses, and I could faintly hear the sound of a phone
ringing. “Hello, medical team? I need immediate assistance in room 7A. It’s
occupant appears to-”
I
hurled the Grim Reaper paperweight at him, and it bounced off his forehead with
a heavy thud. It smashed into a million tiny pieces on the floor, and I shook
my head sadly. “What a waste.”
The
attendant rubbed his head. “I will be updating the Pisces accords on this
matter, Mr. Jinx.”
“The
horror of it all.” I grumbled.
The
attendant spun, and strode angrily out of my room. I heard him smack into
someone else, probably the medical team he had called, and then muffled sounds
of complaints. The attendant snapped something, and they both left. I grinned,
and turned back to my flickering monitor. Just as I was about to start working
again, the door opened again.
I
groaned. “Buzz off, I was actually about to start working.”
“Mr.
Jinx, we all know what your idea of working is. You do something mildly useful
for about five minutes, and then try to beat your high score in card houses.
Your current score is 603 cards high and 214 wide. It was a vague replica of a
fort from an older planet our empire conquered a few hundred years ago.”
The
cold metallic voice washed over me like a powerful wave, and a shiver ran down
my spine.
“What
do you want, Rusty?” I asked.
“Look
at me when you speak.” The voice growled.
Sighing,
I spun my chair around with as much distain as one possibly could, and came
face to mostly-face-part-metal-face. The cyborg eyed me darkly with mismatched
eyes. “You continue to refuse to obey the Pisces Empire. We cannot allow you to
continue disrupting the peace, you wannabe Hephaestus.”
I
snarled at him, preparing to dive from my plushy chair if he attacked me. Yes,
there is a story behind that, and no, I will not be telling it to you today.
The cyborg reached a clawed hand out and lifted me easily from my chair. “Listen
here, little man. You’ve annoyed the council one too many times. They’ve issued
a summons for you, and I’m here to make sure you don’t squirrel out of this
one.”
Oh
goody. Almost everyone the council summoned went missing. Everyone who didn’t
go missing ended up floating face down in a river somewhere.
“Can
I pack my things first?” I asked, and attempted vainly to wiggle out of his
mighty grip.
The
cyborg glared at me. “No.”
He
begun dragging me towards the door, so I reached out and grabbed the first
thing I could see- a truly deadly weapon indeed. My hands wrapped around its
hilt just as I was dragged out of the door, and I looked upon my weapon. Within
my hands laid a half-eaten sausage. I sighed. Why did I ever put the sausage
next to where I kept my prototype energy swords?
Rusty
lifted me above his head with the metal arm. He shook me around a little for
good measure, and threw me on the ground. “Will you walk on your own, or do I
have to carry you there like a baby?” He snarled.
In
response, I hurled the sausage at him. It smacked into his human eye, and he
yelled out. I scrambled away from him and sprinted down the hallway. I would
have returned to my room to get a weapon or two, but he was standing in the
way. I ran down the halls blindly, my eyes half closed and expecting to see the
cyborg’s claws suddenly wrap around me and crush the life out of me.
I
took a sudden right and burst through a pair of large, wooden, double doors.
Screeching comically to a stop, I found myself staring into the eyes of twelve
council members. The one directly across from me grinned, and gestured for me
to sit down. “I know we summoned you here, but I didn’t expect you to be so
prompt or eager to meet with us.”
I
scratched my head, trying vainly to find a way to escape the council room
without getting chopped into little bite sized pieces and being sold as
Drake-Nuggets.Hesitantly, I lowered
myself into the offered chair, and looked bleakly at the council.
Rusty
suddenly burst through the doors, rage marring his features. (Or the human
features anyways.) “Council, I apologize! I allowed Drake Jinx to…” He trailed
off as he noticed me sitting in the middle of the room.
A
council member raised her eyebrow. “To…?”
Rusty
shook his head. “My apologies, Council. I have delivered Mr. Jinx as requested
of me.”
I
frowned at him. “That’s a pile of crap and we all know it. Don’t make me pork
you in the eye again.”
“Pork
him in the eye?” An amused council member asked.
I
grinned. “Y’know. Like poke, but I stuck him in the eye with a pork sausage.”
There
was a general silence, and I sighed. “You guys have no sense of humor.”
“We
have things that must be done, Drake. There is no point wasting time with
useless jibber-jabber. The reason we have called you here today is because,
unfortunately, we need you. You are one of our smartest scientists, and I
believe you are currently looking into advancing our knowledge of how to use
the Leaps in Quantized Time, correct?”
I
nodded slowly. Quantized Time was an extremely intriguing thing. A few years
ago, a scientist discovered a way to ‘step’ out of the very flow of time. He
found that he could travel between worlds and times by using this ability, and
even bring things with him. Not too much was known about this particular topic,
making it the most interesting thing in the last few hundred years. The theory
the scientist finally developed was that time isn’t continuous,but actually in packets. However, there was a
catch. The scientist discovered that he could only travel a certain amount of
times; in his case, 10. It is different for anyone who attempts to learn the
ability, and nobody knows how many times they can Leap before losing the
ability.
The
council member coughed. “Drake! Are you listening to me?”
I
shook my head. “Nope.”
He
glared at me. “I said, we are willing to give the power of Leaping to you.”
I
choked my saliva, and doubled over, gasping for breath. After a few minutes of
uncontrollable coughing, I managed to straighten up in my chair. If I had that
power, there wouldn’t be anything I couldn’t do! I grinned. “And what do I have
to do to gain this power?” I asked.
The
council member grimaced. “You see, we need you to do something for us. The
Pisces Empire is under attack.”
I
shrugged. “So? That’s no biggie, we’ve got the strongest military force in the
universe! Our army is second to none, and we have conquered hundreds of other
worlds using the Leap! What do you need me for? Not that I’m complaining of
course, but…”
“It’s
simple. This foe is different from the others. He is slaughtering us. Our army
falls before his like dominoes.”
I
stared at him in surprise. Ever since the Pisces Empire had risen, no foe had
ever managed to beat it because of the power of Leaping. We had have to
technology trillions of years into the future. How could anybody ever threaten the Pisces
Empire, much less defeat them!?
The
Councilman glared at me. “Yes, yes. You can gloat later. We need you to use
Leaping and get us an army. An Army so powerful that not even this new foe can
stand up against us.”
I
grinned. “So what you’re saying is that I get to become the Commander of what
we hope to be the strongest army the universes have ever seen? What’s the
catch?”
“You’re
expendable. If you die, or can only get a puny army, nobody could care less.
Hell, they might even be happy. So frankly, we don’t care if you get killed
while doing this. You’ll probably die.” He grinned.
“And
if I refuse…?”
Rusty’s
claws screeched hungrily. I gulped. “I accept.”
The
female council member clapped her hands. “Peeeerfect. This way please.” She
drawled, and pointed to a door at the back of the chamber.
I
walked shakily towards the door, my emotions swirling madly around in my head.
I could finally get my hands on the one thing I could have never before, and
through it, everything I could ever want. And the best part was that nobody
could leash me! I was a free man again. The Pisces Empire had conquered my home
world ten or so years ago, and this would be the first time I could ever escape
from their rule.
I
wrapped my hands around the handle of the door and twisted. There was a snap,
and the handle popped off. I shrugged, too happy to care, and tossed it over my
shoulder. There was a metallic ping as it bounced off of Rusty’s head, and I
quickly reached through the hole in the door and pulled it open.
I
stepped inside the room behind, and slammed it shut. The first thing I noticed
about the new room was that it was pitch black. I looked around in confusion,
but I couldn’t see anything. A dull flicker of light far off in the distance
drew my attention, and I made my way towards it. I soon stood over it, and
stared down at the little flame seemingly floating in the sky. Instinctively, I
wrapped my hands around it. There was a searing pain in my right arm, and I was
hurled across the room. The darkness faded away and the face of the female
council member slowly swam into view. “Congratulations.” She whispered, and I
knew nothing more.
Points: 2935
Reviews: 103
Donate