PeeDee3, Intergalactic, Insectiod Assassin in:
Chase Seen Seven (Int. Arsenal Outlet) Take One
season one, episode seven
RyFT
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to
persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
Copyright 2011
Cover Painting by:
Lisa Marie Raezer
Chase Seen Seven (Int. Arsenal Outlet) Take One
RyFT
I’ve always hated chase scenes on the vid vision. They’re redundant, and contrite, and beyond ridiculous; like each vid-play feels it needs to out ‘big scene’ the previous one. They’ve gotten so absurd it’s become impossible to suspend disbelief, even for a guy without a brain like me. But worst of all, over the course of an eternity existing as an incorporeal consciousness suspended in some unknowable, infinite limbo, I’ve actually started to miss chase scenes.
Maybe this is hell.
I’m PeeDee3, intergalactic, insectiod assassin; at least I was in life. And as such, I’d gained a pretty good grip on what a real life chase scene looked like and they’re hardly ridiculous at all.
Take this rerun from my nefarious life for example. I was in the arsenal outlet on the planet, Dollarworld, browsing the vaporizer, atom splitter, and marmoset aisle, when some-being tapped me on the shoulder. I’m seven foot seven inches tall, as broad as a refrigerator and, even from the back, the two long antennae sticking through my fedora are hard to miss. There aren’t a lot of us Kacekans around, and no one worth knowing would dare offer ‘ol PeeDee3, the galaxy’s least liked insectoid assassin, a friendly tap on the shoulder, so I opened my ocellus, the simple eye in the back of my head. Just as I did the jerk sprayed some kind of dense polymer on me, blinding the eye.
Big mistake.
I simultaneously jammed all four claws on the weapons waiting in my quadra-holster and turned my head a few centimeters, bringing said jerk into range of my complex eyes. But that jerk was no jerk at all; it was a remote programmed oscillating ten spindled machining robot with multi-plane articulation, a decadriod. Normally these things were kept by factories to work heavy production lines. But this was no factory and instead of tools in each of its spindles, this one had been armed—armed for extermination it looked to me, only I wouldn’t exterminate easily.
As I spun around, drawing weapons, I switched the tuba blaster for an iheartbigassexplotions grenade from my bandoleer. Now I’m fast, faster than most as long as the temperature’s above Q-17, but those production bots were even faster. As soon as I’d started moving it opened fire with fire—three multi-nozzle flame projectors spat, engulfing me in blue-hot flames.
I managed to squeeze off a round from my Oric 3000 Whispersonic Bowling Ball Cannon and tossed the grenade. Hit or miss? I had no idea as I was busy trying not to explode.
Now my exoskeleton is tough, and fully flame resistant, but my bandoleer was loaded with explosives of assorted flavors. I even had a couple of chilli pepper bombs I’d lifted from the produce department in the pocket of my quada-sleeved trench coat. I didn’t much care for pepper bombs, they’re a chick weapon in my opinion, but I couldn’t resist the easy take, especially since I’d eaten the Melbalien security guard earlier.
My clothes were on fire, the temperature was rising, and the killer robot was behind me.
Keeping my antennae low, I spun around the endcap full of scorching acid pellets and hit the release on the bandoleer buckle. Nothing happened. Damn, fused…again. No time. Craning my neck, I snipped the Kevlar strap with my razor-sharp mandibles, let the belt fall away and hightailed it down the aisle. I felt like I was leaving a beloved child behind, or I guessed that’s what it might feel like if I was capable of beloving. That’s when the iheartbigassexplotions grenade went off in the next aisle. I dropped to the floor and covered my head with all four arms. I heard bits of vaporizers and atom splitters raining down and heard marmosets squealing.
As soon as the hardware rain ended, I leapt to my claw-feet and took off. The flames from my long coat fanned out behind me and I could smell the pepper bombs beginning to cook. I wasn’t green enough to assume the grenade had done in the production robot, so I put off calling the warranty center and searched harder for a cure to exploding.
As I ran, claws clicking on the faux tiled floor, I tore off the remnants of the coat and reluctantly tossed it and my fedora into the display of oily rags. I figured the wet rags would snuff the flames.
But my battle tunic was now ablaze and I couldn’t remove it without first removing my holsters and I was not about to give them up. I was getting hotter—too hot; the fire must have spread to the tunic’s Sterno-jell core padding.
Running was only fanning the flames, so I stopped and looked harder for something I could use. When I did a small bolt with an armor piercing tip stuck through my left, upper arm. “Ahhh!”
The bolt’s shaft divided thrice and, like a metal flower, bloomed open. With a whirring of tiny servos and a clicking of gears the bolt extended a small, metal hand with a pointing finger that began to repeatedly poke me in the thorax.
I heard the twang of a taunt cord and a second bolt shot past me, stuck in a wall, and began to poke the articulated Ronald McDavenport figure advertising the outlet’s Fragg’n McNaggels restaurant.
I leapt aside just as a third bolt whooshed by. Down on the floor, I listened for the approach of the robot, but, except for the annoying tapping against my exoskeleton, things were quiet and I won’t be so cliché as to tell you they were far too quiet.
The normally crowded outlet appeared empty except for me and the robot. I’d been set up—dooped like a little larva. I should have known that, buy one nasal passage brain extractor, get a bottle of Uncle Nezcriptzt’s spicy brain sauce free offer was too good to be true. Even if it wasn’t, the coupon I’d clipped was now turning to ash in the pocket of my trench coat.
I looked down at the poking appendage. Damn robot had been armed with a sibling annoyance simulating crossbow, a weapon designed to keep an enemy distracted, off their guard, and, eventually, driven out of their mind. Being equipped with only my three primary nerve complexes, I didn’t have a brain to be driven out of. I could, however, be annoyed to distraction—not surprising considering that I’d had several thousand four-armed siblings. But any attempt to remove or destroy the bolt would set off an explosion and I still needed that arm. My only hope was to get my claws on the bolt-key and that robot probably had it.
My Hashwalla toad sticker began to beep. I glanced at the little screen. It was getting too hot. I had to douse this fire or I was going to loose more than an arm and four of my favorite weapons.
I rolled shoulders over shoulders until I was in the next aisle and then came to a stop up on one knee with the Oric at the ready. There was still no sight or sound of the robot. What was this thing’s problem, anyway? I’d already lost half of my personal arsenal, I was on fire, and was more than a little distracted by the incessant prodding against my side. It had me at a severe disadvantage, why wasn’t it striking?
Then, one by one, all thousand of my retinas filled with the sight of a bright red cylinder. Ha-cha, just what I needed!
I raised the multi-port nozzle of the proton blaster I’d lifted from a half-dead, two headed turtle I’d half hit once and, running for the extinguisher, began to fire in the robot’s general direction—more for cover but
I wouldn’t have resented a solid hit.
Adrenal-acid coursed through my system and things started moving slow. I was running, antennae low, firing off proton charges. The gun’s multi-port disc rotated each time I pulled the trigger, lining up a ready-charged cartridge. Blue, sub-freezing vapor rose off the end of the nozzle. Bolts from the robot’s crossbow flew past me, sticking in walls, breaking fine china, and cutting a slice off a custom decorated, three tiered wedding cake. One, coming at an obtuse angle, even deflected off my forehead with an unsettling thwack.
The robot was shooting random and wild, but then so was I. I didn’t care just then, I had another goal in mind.
The barrage of bolts ceased, the crossbow more than likely out of ammo, but my proton blaster was out of charges. As I reached the extinguisher, I raised the toad sicker in my upper, left