Read The Adventures of Crimson Overcoat: Crimson Overcoat Versus the Yeti King of Leng Page 6
he thought.
The control station was supposedly six levels above the farm floor. Alexander started to scale the vertical walls at an alarming speed. He was thankful for the Hyperborean love of covering everything in relief images, as it made for convenient climbing handholds when raiding their temples. He crawled upside down along the ceiling clinging to gaps in stones and hanging wiring.
Brash bellows belonging to Yetis echoed through the hallway far above the factory farm floor. Their zoo smell and boozy breath preceded them by some distance. Alexander waited, clinging to the ceiling over one hundred yards over the farm below. The smell and sound of the Yetis passed, and he clambered into the hallway above.
This section of the temple was in a state of purposeful disrepair. Holes had been made in walls to run power and data lines. Pipes carrying fresh water had been hastily installed to provide a running water supply. More effort had been put into preventing accidental electrocutions than in the lower levels. He darted down the hallway following the map to what he believed would be the control center.
Alexander tracked the distinct order of overloaded computer servers (they smelled like ozone and fear) to a set of ornate double doors at the end of a grand hallway. Liquor bottles, beer cans, and all manner of junk food containers filled the hallway outside. It looked like a fraternity house kitchen on the weekend after pledge week. The sensors in his goggles were picking up massive electrical usage in a nearby room. The data corroborated with his sense of smell. His goggles were also detecting seven distinct human heartbeats, the hum of a new kegerator, and the shrill warbling of K-pop.
Rather than risk a confrontation with unknown adversaries with terrible taste in music, he tucked himself into a corner and prepared to do science to their computer network. He pulled out a pair of spare alligator clips, his multitool, and the busted remnants of his cell phone and got to work.
Several tense minutes and a couple of bent laws of physics later, Alexander hacked his way into their network. He released his expert system slash sentient virus slash AI, Virtual Overcoat, into the computers. It made short work of their network in seconds. Liberated data now flowed through his goggle’s telepathic interface. It was organized into a cogent narrative by the mystical computer program. The story the data told painted a most curious picture.
A small cabal of wealthy Chinese grad students with familial ties to the Triads had come across an artifact that allowed them to conjure the dreadful Yeti King. They made a bargain in the form of a business contract to provide advanced technology, magical education, and slaves in return for occasional work as muscle for the syndicate. No binding mystic contracts or bizarre deals were struck.
Only three of the twentysomethings were magicians. The rest were in various technical fields or business majors. They kept detailed records of all kinds. Their accounting books were a thing of beauty. With the help of the Yetis they had carved out a tiny empire away from the watchful eyes of their Triad family. They still paid lip service to their gangster masters and paid a percentage, keeping them free to pursue their own goals. From the books, it appeared their goals were focused on a constant party. It was no wonder they got on with the Yetis so well.
The data tap filled in all the missing information on the partial map of the temple. He forwarded the information to Sir Waldron and the three submariners.
“You getting this, Sir Waldron?” asked Alexander through the telepathic radio link.
“Yes sir, I am. We will be changing course to the ammo dump they so clearly marked on the map. We will be able to do far more damage that way,” said Sir Waldron.
“Keep me informed,” ordered Alexander.
He accessed the transdimensional portal protocols using the cellphone towers the wannabe gangsters set up and created a microscopic opening that would allow his call to get through to the real world. Then Alexander made a long distance call.
“911, what is your emergency,” said a female dispatcher on the other end of the line.
“This is Alexander Valtam. I am just about to return the men and women who were kidnapped from Wal-Mart several days ago, along with others who have been taken from other places. You’re going to need a major emergency response set up. Most are suffering from exposure and malnutrition, and they will all have some psychological trauma,” he said.
“We were informed that you were among the missing,” said the dispatcher. “Can you give us a time and location where they will be returning,” she asked. The background noise in the police station was growing as news of the odd phone call spread.
“The soccer fields just north of Kalberer road. I can’t get you an exact time-I’m sort of calling from another dimension where time flows differently, so bear with me. There will be approximately 157 refugees. They will be arriving very soon, so scramble the first responders now and send out the word for the rest of the crews that will be needed. I helped write the DHS protocols for this sort of thing” said Alexander.
“I’ve sent information to available units and the fire and rescue personnel,” said the dispatcher. She maintained a cool head despite the nature of the call.
“Tell them to be ready. I have to go,” said Alexander as he ended the phone call.
Alexander reached out for the webs of the mind control spell that radiated through the temple. While he gathered the threads, Virtual Overcoat reprogrammed the portal to open at the soccer fields where emergency services would be waiting in the real world.
In an instant Alexander used the connective threads of the spell to reach all of the captives in the mind control network. He bound the web to the cellphone signal with a minor adjustment to the basic mind control spell. He typed a complex magical formula into the text field of the phone and hit send.
A visible burst of electric blue light filled the temple. All of the captives vanished at once as Alexander texted them back to the real world. The energy of the mind control spell was used as the catalyst to send them home through the clever bit of Technomancy that Alexander had just preformed.
“Sir Waldron, make sure you get the explosives set. I’m going to create a distraction,” said Alexander.
“Will do, Sir,” said the robot.
Creating an effective distraction in the face of large scale opposition took two things. The first was the element of surprise. No one would expect a single person to assault an extradimensional Yeti stronghold that had been augmented with human technology and magic. So surprise was easy to come by. The second element, often times the most crucial, was an appropriate theme song.
He sent a telepathic command to Virtual Overcoat to take control of every audiovisual system in the entire complex. Everything from cellphones to clock radios were accessed, overridden and cued up. In a few seconds the dulcet tones of Freddie Mercury echoed through the ancient stone of the Hyperborean temple.
Tonight, I’m going to have myself a real good time.
The song blasted itself from every available speaker large and small. Confused yelling came from the other side of the stone door that Alexander was standing in front of. He monitored the room from their own equipment. It looked like a champagne room at some high end strip club combined with a Bond villain lair decorated by a sixteen year old boy band millionaire.
One of the young gangster wannabes tapped furiously at the computer. The only thing he was able to pull up was footage from Live Aid-Queen didn’t play this particular song there, but it was a great performance anyway. Alexander grinned as he cracked his oversized knuckles. It was time to relieve some tension.
I feel alive
And the world is turning inside out Yeah!
Yetis in the Great Hall screamed ancient obscenities and hurled empty tankards at their flat screen covered walls which now only displayed mustachioed Mercury clad in a white tank top. The Yeti King himself raised his massive iron club and smashed it on the ground in a white hot fury. No one would interrupt his Scrubs marathon and live to tell the tale.
And floating around in ecstasy
,
So don’t stop me now.
Don’t stop me
Lieutenant Young listened to the music mixed with the war cries of the Yetis as he and his men carried a ridiculous amount of heavy ordinance to the lower levels of the temple. They stopped and set the charges where the robot Sir Waldron directed. The materials they collected were far more potent than the homemade explosives they intended to use.
“Our crimson clad companion is mad, but you knew that already I take it,” asked Lieutenant Young to Sir Waldron.
“He is mildly eccentric. But as we have not yet run into any rampaging ape monsters, I would say his madness has a definite use. Come, we have more charges to set,” said Sir Waldron, leading the men deeper into the superstructure of the ancient temple.
Cause I’m having a good time having a good time
Alexander kicked in the massive stone door. Gigantic chunks of door tumbled across the room in front of him. The gangster kids inside were caught off guard as he made his entrance. They moved in slow motion compared to Alexander. Several dove over a gigantic sleeper sofa to avoid stone shrapnel. Others sat stunned unable to process the intrusion fast enough to react.
He didn’t hold back. The pile of discarded slave corpses had upgraded the psuedogangster college kids from the “detain and bring to justice” category firmly onto the “burn your corpses