The thunderous, rhythmic thuds grew louder with each one that sounded. As though a giant fist were smashing into the side of the building, then drawing back for another punch, then ramming into it again, then drawing back again . . . And repeat. Gadget looked around for the source, and then went to the ledge of the roof and looked down, as did the others. What he saw there would stick with him for the rest of his life.

  “Uh oh,” he said. “Uh, Mystikite? I think I just met Orogrü-Nathr?k. And he looks pissed.”

  There, scaling the side of the building, was a creature unlike any he had ever laid eyes upon. Huge, monstrous, and evil-looking, it grappled the stone of the building in tentacle-wrapped pincers that lay at the ends of its large, powerful arms. It was bipedal, or at least appeared to be. It was eighty feet all, at least, and about fifteen feet wide, or thereabouts. Its musculature suggested a somewhat simian origin, or something like one, but the rest of its physiology suggested it had some cephalopod in it, as well as some insect — and some flying rodent, as well. Its general mishmash of evolutionary ingredients suggested that its species had long ago left behind natural selection and had grafted onto themselves whatever features they desired from other species. It had claws protruding from its enormous two-pronged feet, which dug into the stone of the building as it climbed. Its back arched forward in a curve, sharp spines protruding from either shoulder-blade and erupting into a flowering neck-brace made of hardened bone, from out of the center of which the head erupted like the bulb of an eggplant inflated and ready to burst open. Its reflective, horizontally-oriented, teardrop-shaped eyes stretched out to either side of its rounded, metallic-looking skull, the base of which bloomed out to either side, its mouth a voracious maw of teeth and dangling, squid-like tentacles . . . of which it had about ten more erupting from out of its backside that writhed in their air behind it, flowing out of it like a cape or a cloak made of trembling, undulating fleshy tendrils. To either side of those, nature — or whatever forces had fashioned it — had placed enormous bat-like wings that stretched for a good forty feet in either direction when fully unfurled, the huge thoracic bone in front making its chest look misshapen and disgorged. Why it hadn’t simply chosen to fly to the rooftop was anyone’s guess; perhaps it simply wasn’t strong enough yet. Perhaps it needed to build up its strength. It had just awoken from thousands of years of slumber, after all. Its skin had a grey, dusty shine to it colored a slightly-bluish hue, and those metallic-surfaced, reflective eyes shined up at them with all the malice in the universe contained within them. The beast opened its maw and roared at them, a powerful, ululating cry of archangelic fury that carried up the side of the building like the wail of an electrified banshee.

  Gadget had just enough time to think: What he wouldn’t give for his alter-ego Gadgorak’s proton pack right about now! Then, swiftly, almost before he realized what had hit them, the attack came. He saw the glowing energy build-up occur in Orogrü-Nathr?k’s eyes just in time to throw-up a forcefield in time to protect him and the others, right before the blast came rocketing up the side of the building and knocked them all off their feet — it impacted the forcefield and sent them all flying up and backward and onto their backs — just as the creature roared yet again and drew another thunderous, clawing step closer to the rooftop.

  “Ugh,” said Misto, getting up off the gravel and rubbing his head. “That does it. I have officially been knocked on my ass too many times today.”

  “Jeez . . . Did anybody get the number of that star-freighter?” said Darmok as she got to her feet and dusted herself off.

  “Everybody okay?” asked Gadget, getting up. “Anyone seriously hurt?”

  “Only my enormous penis,” said Mystikite as he recovered and stood up.

  “What was that?” asked Buffy. “Some kind of . . . directed energy weapon? That thing has an energy weapon in its face? Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  “It’s getting closer to the rooftop,” observed Giova, looking over the side of the building again. “I think it knows we’re here.”

  “That’s it. We’re dead,” said Vivacia. “We’re all dead.”

  “Shut up!” said Ripley. “We’re not dead yet. We can still get out of this.”

  Bryce had finally recovered from his injuries and had gotten to his feet. He joined them at the edge of the rooftop, and looked down at the climbing creature. “Jesus. What the hell is that?”

  “It’s Orogrü-Nathr?k,” said Viktor, his voice hollow. The creature roared again. Buffy covered her ears and winced. “The Elder God. One of the Eidolon. Just one of the creatures whose entire race Ravenkroft plans on ushering into our world! We have to stop him. He should be our paramount concern right now. This is all just a distraction. That’s why he ensnared us into this confrontation with this Vampire and his minions here. So we would be busy with them while he prepared the way for the Eidolon to come forth! Don’t you see? This was all a part of his plan. Weatherspark was all he wanted all along.”

  “Dizzy!” said Gadget. He grabbed Misto by the lapels. “Misto, we’ve got to get her back!”

  “And we will,” said Misto, grabbing him by the shoulders. “We will. But first — ”

  “First we have to deal with this,” said Darmok. “This thing will destroy the city if we don’t deal with it first.”

  “And we can’t have that on our conscience,” said Buffy. “At least, I can’t.”

  Behind them, Vynovich stood up, still laughing. Buffy and Mystikite turned to face him. “I told you,” he said, grinning at them and shaking his head. “You’ve lost. I’ve won! Orogrü-Nathr?k will destroy the Human world, and will usher in a New World Order of Vampire rule on Earth! When he’s done with your pathetic world, there won’t be shit left standing. All we’ll have to do is walk into your cities and take whoever we want, whatever we want, and will be free to do whatever we want. It’ll be glorious. The curtain of the Dark Ages will fall once more, and you Humans will learn to fear us . . . all over again.” He chuckled. “It’ll be a Vampire’s paradise, all over the globe.”

  “You know what?” said Mystikite. “Fuck it. I am so sick of this guy. Buffy, grease this asshole like the awesome Vampire Slayer your ‘nym used to say you were.”

  “With pleasure,” she said. The blue, flickering sheath of flame once more enveloped her, and the twin tentacles of fire shot out from her chest and raced through the air. They wrapped themselves around Vynovich, and he screamed, throwing his head back, embracing his fate, clenching his fists as he howled in pain. Blazing cracks appeared in his flesh as the flames cooked him. He writhed, emblazoned and aglow with the fire for a moment before becoming a burning mannequin, and dropped to his knees, still screaming, his flesh disintegrating, then his bones, as he turned to hot coals and then firefly-like embers, then to ashes, finally crumbling into powder and then blowing away on the wind. Buffy smirked. “Damn good riddance to really bad rubbish.”

  The creature roared another banshee-like cry to the stars. It was three-quarters of the way up the building now, almost to the top. Below on the streets, chaos reigned. Fires had broken out and crowds of people were, if not rioting, at least clashing violently as they tried to go in every direction at once to escape the horror that had come from deep beneath their streets.

  “So does anyone have a plan?” said Mystikite.

  “Darmok’s ship,” said Gadget, as he turned to look at it. It occurred to him that he and Darmok were the only ones who could see it. “Darmok — your ship — does it have weapons?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said, blinking. “Of course it does. Not very powerful ones — the Angel is an experimental exploratory ship, mostly — but she does have some basic pulse-cannons and some explosive quantum torpedos mounted on her. We could use those, I guess, though I don’t know how effective they would be.”

  “We have to try,” he said. “Quick. Deactivate the cloaking device, and let’s all get onboard. We’ll deal with this thing, and then we’ll get Dizzy back, come hell or Mundanity.”

  “Cool ship,” said Mystikite as they stepped onto the bridge of the Renegade Angel. Darmok sat down at the Helm controls.

  “I’ve rerouted the ship’s controls so they all work through here,” she said. “I’m changing that as of now. Misto. Sit down at the Navigation console.”

  “But I don’t know how any of it works!” said Misto. “Besides, all the labels are written in Shyphtorilaen! How can I understand any of it?”

  “Like this,” said Darmok. She reached up onto the Helm console and tapped in a code onto the touch-sensitive surface. A moment later there came a hissing noise from the overhead ventilation ducts.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Buffy, seeing the thin clouds of vaporous gas pouring through the vents and onto the bridge, and noticing the pungent odor. “What the hell are you doing — gassing us?”

  “Relax,” said Darmok. “It’s a harmless gaseous compound that contains neuronanonic nanobot probes.”

  “Excuse me?” said Gadget. “We’re breathing little robots?”

  “Uh . . .” said Vivacia. “Say what?”

  “Fascinating!” said Viktor, and he sucked in a huge breath and let it out. “Quite pleasant, actually.”

  “They’re translator bots,” said Darmok. “Otherwise harmless. They’ll infiltrate the synapses of your brain and reprogram your language centers so they can instantly understand any written or spoken language. It’s a shortcut system we use to help us translate other races’ languages. How else do you think I can understand you so well, and how I came to speak English as well as I do? The bots did it. Just relax. It should start to take effect any minute now.”

  Gadget blinked a few times, his vision blurring slightly, then righting iself. He staggerd, then caught himself on a nearby chair and steadied himself. And sure enough, a few seconds later, he found he could clearly read the text on a nearby control panel. COMM STATION, it read. Wow, where had this tech been when he’d been struggling to learn German his first year of college! He gathered himself up, and sat down at the console labeled ENGINEERING STATION. It seemed like the placed he naturally belonged. The smooth contour of the seat fit him perfectly and it adjusted to his form automatically, the cushions inflating and separating just a bit as he sat on them. The controls lit up as he rested his hands on them. It all looked pretty straightforward, actually. The whole thing was one big touchpad that could reconfigure itself on-demand. Currently it displayed a keyboard and a whole host of buttons whose functions seemed fairly obvious, if a bit arcane. They said things like ENGAGE PRIMARY ENGINE CORE and TAKE STANDBY POWER OFF/ONLINE. In the center of the screen there appeared a skeumorphic graphic representation of a rack of equipment with varioius plugs and sockets with various wires and cables connected to between them. He found that if he held his finger on one of the connectors, he could drag the cables and wires around and reconnect them to other connectors, rerouting the flow of information from one device to the next. The devices were labeled, saying things like FORWARD SENSOR ARRAY and SYSTEM COMPUTER CORE. Okay, so that was how that worked.

  “Whoa,” said Misto, sitting down at the Navigation console. “So what do I do here?”

  “You help fly the ship, of course,” said Darmok. “As for you, Gadget,” said Darmok, “Well, Dizzy’s not here. So you’re in charge, for now. This is your show. Run it.”

  “Who, what, me?” said Gadget, pointing to himself. He had to have misheard that. There was no way she had just said what he thought she had.

  “Yes, you,” said Darmok. She turned to him. “Take the con.” She gestured to the seat positioned in the center of the bridge, the Captain’s Chair. It had rows of touchpad buttons to either side of the armrests.

  “Er, shouldn’t you be in charge?” said Gadget. “It is your ship, after all.”

  “I’m going to be too busy flying her and telling everyone else how to fly her to also be making command decisions, as well,” said Darmok. “Someone else has to step up and hold us together as a team. That’s gonna be your job. Besides, I saw you out there on the rooftop. You can do this.”

  “I can?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Well . . . I . . . I just don’t know . . .” He had serious reservations about this. Him? In charge of things? Actually responsible? For other people’s lives? He wasn’t sure. Then again, they didn’t have a whole lot of time, here. Orogrü-Nathr?k would arrive at the roof of the building in less than a couple of minutes. This was it, then. Time to stop being afraid, he thought. Time to stop being afraid of people, and time to start leading them, I guess. So be it. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.” He got up from the engineering station and walked over to the Captain’s Chair, the place on the Enterprise he’d dreamed of sitting ever since he’d been a child, watching Star Trek reruns on Sunday mornings.

  “Now then,” said Darmok. “Gadget. Captain. Tell your crew what to do.”

  Gadget licked his lips, straightened his shoulders, and cleared his throat. “Okay. Mystikite, man the Weapons Console. Do we have a weapons console?” Darmok nodded, and pointed. “Okay. Over there, to the left side of the bridge, opposite side from where I was just sitting. Buffy . . . You man the Engineering Console, where I just was. Viktor, you take the Sciences Console — right, right, over there — and monitor that thing’s lifesigns and vitals. Misto, you’re Navigation, like Darmok just said. Help her fly. You — Giova, is it? I want you on the Comm Station. Uh, right, over there. If that thing tries to talk to us, I want to hear its voice and I want whatever it says translated . . . and monitor all transmissions from the police and emergency responders. I want to know what’s going on in the city. As for you, Bryce, Ripley, and Vivacia . . . Well . . . I guess just hang loose. And grab onto something. Okay. Darmok — lift us off. Upwards, one-quarter impulse power . . . Or something.”

  Darmok touched the controls on the Helm station, and the ship rumbled. The forward viewscreen showed the rooftop of the hotel, facing the ledge they knew that Orogrü-Nathr?k would soon appear over. The scene shifted somewhat as the ship rose up from the rooftop, its thrusters whining, its engines roaring.

  And then, the monster appeared from over the edge of the roof, pounding its giant pincers onto the ledge and lifting itself up and over and onto the rooftop. It roared at them and reached for the ship.

  Darmok moved her hands on the console, and the ship lurched backward and away from the monster, narrowly escaping its grasp.

  “Mystikite! Forward weapons, now!” cried Gadget.

  “Roger that!” said Mystikite. The viewscreen lit up as the front of the ship came to life with a bright green light, the forward weapons array blasting at the creature. The weapons’ fire collided with the bony crest situated around its chest area, cracking the bone and blasting bits off of it, but not destroying it nor doing it much damage beyond that. The creature roared mightily and was taken aback, but did not release its grip on the rooftop. Instead it climbed all the way onto it, and stood up. Darmok flew the ship further upward to rise to its astoundingly-high level — it stood up to its full height, the rooftop cracking beneath it, caving in on the top two floors of the hotel — and it spread its arms and roared yet again, throwing its head back, craning its head to the sky, its arms out to either side of it. A gesture of power and dominance. Darmok kept the ship’s forward guns aimed at the monster. It turned its head toward them and glared at them with its silvery eyes, and Gadget saw the energy building up in them again.

  “Darmok!” he said. “Does this thing have forcefields?”

  “You bet it does!” she said.

  “Mystikite!” he cried. “Activate our shields!”

  “Damned straight!” replied Mystikite.

  The attack came swiftly. The energy blast washed over the ship, colliding with the forcefield, the shockwave from it translating through it and coursing through the ship. Sparks flew from the various consoles on the bridge as the ship quaked and rumbled. The sound of twisting metal came from all around, the sound of groaning support struts and straining girders, electric discharges as Darmok cried out, the console in front of her sparking, smoke rising from the controls. Behind him, Vivacia screamed as she was thrown from her feet by the force of the blast. “Fuck!” she cried. Bryce and Ripley both grabbed onto the bulkheads for support.

  “Damn!” said Mystikite. “Forcefields down to seventy percent, dude! We took a major hit!”

  As the noise and the smoke cleared, Gadget swiveled in his seat and turned to Buffy.

  “Damage report!” he yelled.

  “Doesn’t look good,” she said. “Computer says that decks ten, twelve, and fourteen have major damage . . . The ‘transdimensional conduit’ has taken minor damage to the gravitational containment field . . . whatever that means. The ship’s power matrix is . . . overloaded, and it says we’re on backup power until the auto-repair systems can kick in and fix the power relays in the matrix’s core. Should be about . . . five minutes before we’re back at full power. And since we’re on backups, we won’t be able to fire our forward weapons again for another . . . uh . . . looks like two minutes, at least.”

  “Shit!” said Gadget.

  “I told you,” said Darmok, shaking her head. “She’s not really built for a fight!”

  “Well, we’re in one now,” said Gadget. “So she has to fight. I’v got an idea that’ll maybe buy us a couple of minutes. Darmok . . . see if you can get that thing to chase us for a minute or two. Make it want us.”

  “What — are you crazy?” she said, turning to him. “You want it to come after us?”

  “Yeah,” said Gadget. “I do. If we can just out-maneuver it for a few minutes, we can buy ourselves enough time to recharge our weapons.”

  Darmok sighed. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Misto — you have the nav-stick with me. Help me guide us.”

  “I’m tryin’,” said Misto. “I guess this is a bad time to mention that I suck at video games, right?”

  The ship drew back from Orogrü-Nathr?k, her course unsteady but mostly straight through the air. Sure enough, the monster roared and grabbed at it with its tentacle-like pincers and took a step forward on the rooftop, crushing even more of it beneath its enormous, clawed, two-pronged feet. Gadget saw the energy begin to build-up in its eyes again and luckily, Darmok saw it too — she engaged in evasive maneuvers just as the energy-flash came blasting toward the ship again and narrowly avoided it by lobbing the ship to the left suddenly. Everyone onboard lurched to one side along with it, the g-forces palpable and strong. Darmok continued to reverse course, and Orogrü-Nathr?k followed. She backed the ship up until they hovered over one skyscraper across from the Renaissance Regency Hotel, and Orogrü-Nathr?k then leapt across from one building to the next, flying through the air, unfurling its enormous, forty-foot batwings to glide across the distance. The wind caught its wings and it settled to the roof of the next building with a mighty thud, collapsing that roof as well, and it roared at them again and once more reached for the ship. Darmok quickly caused the ship to rocket to the right, yanking her crew along with it, narrowly escaping the creature’s clutches.

  “Whew! That was a close one!” cried Viktor.

  “Okay, Mystikite — how are we on weapons?” asked Gadget.

  Mystikite pressed a few buttons on the console. “Uh, okay, according to this, it looks like they’re at full power again.”

  “Well then lower the shields and fire those motherfuckers then!” said Gadget.

  “I don’t think — ” began Darmok.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice!” said Mystikite. “Firing!” He stabbed a button on the console, and the forward view-screen lit up with green light again as the forward weapons array came to life and blasted at Orogrü-Nathr?k. The creature roared as the bolts of energy impacted with its head and chest. Sparks, bone, and gallons of blood flew from the burning wounds they opened up in its skull and shoulder-plating, but the monster remained undaunted. It roared again, now angrier than ever. It bore deep, smoldering burn-wounds on its head, chest, and shoulders now, though, signs that they had dealt it severe damage. Smoke rose from the places on its body where they had hit it, and it appeared weakened. It grasped at the wounds on its shoulder with its left pincer and turned to look at them, then turned back to them and narrowed its metallic eyes at them, all the anger in the cosmos burning in them. The energy build-up came quickly — too quickly — and it unleashed another attack upon them.

  The blast wave hit the ship before Gadget could tell Mystikite to re-raise the shields. The entire ship vibrated, then shook, the sounds of twisting, groaning metal coming from everywhere at once as every console on the bridge all shorted out at once, sparking and vomiting electrical arcs of lightning. Buffy cried out as a bolt of lightning arced from her console to her, throwing her out of her seat and onto the floor of the bridge. Misto cussed loudly as an arc of electricity leapt out of his console and burned his hands and face; Darmok winced and turned away as sparks flew from her console as well. Vivacia, Ripley, and Bryce all tried to hold on for dear life to the bulkheads near the rear of the bridge as the power conduits near them ruptured and started spewing coolant vapor out into the room. Ripley cursed as she lost her grip and hit the wall next to her. Viktor fell out of his chair with an “Oof!” and hit his head. The floor of the bridge ruptured, cracking in two, fire breaking through the split in the seams of the material as it exploded upward, uprooting the Command Chair and tossing Gadget to one side. He lay sprawled on the floor, and saw stars as he hit his head on the base of a nearby console-chair. As he rubbed his head and got to his feet amidst all the shouting, sparks, electrical arcs, coolant leaks, and flames, he heard Darmok shout —

  “We’re going down! Everyone — brace for impact!”

  He saw on the view-screen that they were headed for the rooftop of a nearby building, and that Orogrü-Nathr?k was in the air, presently leaping from the building he had lit upon to the building they were headed toward. Darmok worked the controls of her console — whichever parts of it still functioned, that was — to bring the ship in safely, but they headed in fast, and the force of impact tossed Gadget up into the air and then back down again — hard on his ass — when they finally crashed down onto the rooftop below. He managed to get to his feet — luckily, the ship had not exploded and everyone else was still alive, somehow — but the Renegade Angel would probably never fly again.

  He opened his eyes — he had shut them without realizing it — and saw that Darmok stood over him and now offered him her furry hand.

  “Come on, get up! We have to get out of here!” she said over the noise of the exploding, sparking bridge consoles and the licking flames everywhere. “Come on, all of you!” she cried to the others as she helped Gadget to his feet. God, did his head ever hurt. It didn’t help that he still wore the Mind-Weirding Helm. “She was a good ship,” she said, her voice sad and frustrated as she took one last look around and they headed toward the elevator doors. She grabbed a sharp, fallen piece of bulkhead and pried the doors open. “Hopefully the transdimensional conduit is still functioning. If not, we’re stuck in here forever until I can get it working. The good news is we’d be safe that way. The bad news is we’d eventually starve to death. Good times, eh?”

  “You have a weird definition of ‘good,’” said Gadget. “Now what’ll we do, though? How can we ever beat that thing? It’s unstoppable! Unkillable!”

  “Nothing is unkillable,” said Darmok. “We just have to find its weak spot. Everything has one. Everything. The question is — what’s its? Now come on — let’s get everyone out of here before the Angel goes belly-up and takes us with her!”

  They made it out of the Renegade Angel’s transdimensional conduit alive — the elevator system had broken down halfway down, and they had had to drop down out of an emergency hatch; thankfully the the ship had flooded the conduit with atmosphere first — and stumbled out of the ship one by one and onto the rooftop of the Bank of America building. Orogrü-Nathr?k awaited them there, looming eighty feet tall and roaring. A moment later it stepped on the ship, crushing it with the weight of his titantic, two-pronged foot as he roared at them from behind his tentacle-strewn maw of teeth. The exit to the stairwell of the building — the top floor of which was presently on fire in places, from where it had partially caved in where Orogrü-Nathr?k had stepped on it in places — stood only twenty feet away.

  “Come on, let’s move!” cried Darmok.

  “Come on guys, you heard the lady!” said Gadget. “Let’s go!”

  Hurriedly, they all ran for the door. Misto ripped it off its hinges and tossed the twisted hunk of metal aside and in they all went — first Buffy, then Darmok, then Vivacia, Ripley, and Giova; then Bryce, Mystikite, Misto, and Viktor, then finally Gadget, who took one wary look back at Orogrü-Nathr?k as it wreaked havoc on the rooftop. They all hurried down the stairwell, down into the building, and didn’t stop until they were three landings down.

  “Okay, everybody stop,” said Gadget. “Stop. Where the hell are we going? We need a plan. And I think I’ve got one.”

  “Well, what is it dude?” said Mystikite. “We’re all ears.”

  “Yeah,” said Darmok. “Just what did you have in mind, Gadget?”

  “Well,” said Gadget, “first we need to get airborn again. Then, I’ve been thinking . . . Maybe we need to fight fire with fire. This thing is interdimensional, right? It comes from another dimension. So maybe we need to fight interdimensionality with interdimensionality. Dizzy’s car. The Fangirl. It can cross over into the Eighth Dimension. If we could use the Fangirl to travel through Orogrü-Nathr?k at just the right moment, and somehow use the effect of Dizzy’s ‘oscillation overthruster’ gizmo to destabilize its subatomic structure . . . We could destroy it!”

  “That’s . . . That’s Brilliant!” said Viktor. “I never would’ve thought of that. Kudos to you, dear boy.”

  Even coming from Viktor, the compliment made Gadget feel better. He had never been a leader before. In all the jobs he had worked, he had never been considered for a management position because, he had always been told, he lacked what it took. “What it took” had always remained undefined. Well, if only the regional manager at Radio Shack could see him now! He was scared, though. Instinct told him, however, not to let the others know just how scared he was. He had a feeling that Dizzy, despite her unflappable and sarcastic demeanor, also probably spent a good deal of her time being frightened. This must’ve been how it felt to be in charge. A scary, on-the-edge feeling. At once thrilling . . . And terrifying.

  “Damn good plan, kiddo,” said Misto, clapping him on the shoulder. “Best thing I’ve heard all day. Now then. If only we had a way back to the Fangirl. It’s still on the roof of the Renaissance Regency. Only thirty flights of stairs in this building, about four city blocks, a bunch of panicked crowds and total chaos on the streets outside, along with a bunch of emergency vehicles and crews, plus thirty flights of stairs in that building — plus all the death and destruction that thing has caused — between us and it. What do we do about all that?”

  “Well,” said Gadget, “I’ve been thinking about that, too. I’ll get to that in a minute, though. Darmok, these Twizion particles. How powerful are they? You say that can impart the property of reality to things, the way the Higgs boson imparts the property of mass. Is there any upper limit to that? Or does it really mean that for a few minutes, anything is truly possible? Like, magic is possible? And how many shots at using them do I get? And couldn’t I just use them to just wish Orogrü-Nathr?k didn’t exist? Or to wish that the Renegade Angel was fixed and not broken?”

  “Well . . .” began Darmok. “No, not really, you couldn’t, no. For one thing, they only work in a positive context. They can only change reality and physics; they can’t break them. They can’t create or destroy matter or energy . . . and they can’t ‘undo’ entropy or rewrite history . . . Or erase history’s mistakes from existence. They can only really make things happen now, not unmake things or prevent things from happening earlier.”

  “Great,” said Gadget. “So if I wanted the power to defeat Orogrü-Nathr?k, I could use them to just do that, couldn’t I? Or couldn’t I just use them to change the laws of physics enough to set up a situation where he could be defeated easily?”

  “Not really,” she said. “The Twizion particles work in proportion to the mass of the objects involved. It’s easier to change the laws of physics — for a short time — for smaller objects than it is for really massive objects like Orogrü-Nathr?k out there.” In the distance, up on the rooftop — as though to puncutate her sentence — Orogrü-Nathr?k roared again. She continued, “For things our size, it’s easier. You can bend the laws of physics all day long for things our size, and pretty much get away with it. Just don’t bend them too far, or else you’re in trouble.”

  “Ah ha, then!” said Gadget, snapping his fingers and pounding his fist on the concrete wall of the stairwell. “I’ve got it! Here’s how we get to the Fangirl! We — well, I — will open a Portal!”

  “A Portal?” said Mystikite. “Like the video game?”

  “Yep, a Portal, just like the video game,” said Gadget. “Like the kind Dr. Strange opens with his sling-ring all the time. Using the Twizion particles. We open a Portal back to the Fangirl on the roof of the Renaissance Regency, and we . . . just go there. Easy, right? Here, everybody stand back. Okay. Darmok. How do I release my first shot of Twizion particles?”

  “Uh,” she said, “you press the red button I mounted on the right side of your Helm . . . Right there on the bottom rim. No . . . Move your hand up . . . There. Right there. You might want to prepare yourself, though. If you’ve never encountered Twizion before, it can be . . . quite a shock to the system.”

  “Nah . . . I’ll be fine.” Gadget felt for the button, and found it. He took a deep breath. Then another. Darmok was right. He had no idea of what to expect once the Twizion particles hit him, once they were injected into his brain. He took one more deep breath, closed his eyes, and hit the button. He felt the needle go into his skin, and then a tingling in his scalp.

  Then, he gasped as the whole universe exploded before his eyes.

  He was adrift in a sea of exploding stars, far out of his body, far from the reality he called home. His feet had long-since left the ground. Wait, what feet? He floated, disembodied, amongst nebulae and gas-giants, stranded in the cosmos like a castaway floating in the seawater off the shores of an uncharted island. He felt ever-so-slightly anxious, but relatively calm for all that; a serenity he had rarely known in this life had settled over him, and he clung to it, fearing it would depart at any second. A moment before, he had been standing in the stairwell, with the others . . . But now, he drifted here, among the stars, waiting . . . But for what? He felt as though he anticipated something, though he wasn’t sure of what it could be.

  He vaguely remembered that he was supposed to do something . . . but he had forgotten what it was. If only he could remember! But remembering involved the past, and the past, present, and future were all one unified whole here, in this transcendent realm that time could not touch. This was a place of dimensionless existence, a world of pure consciousness where the mind roamed free. “Time” as a construct did not exist here; he knew that intuitively. Here, all moments were but an ebb and flow, a vortex whirling around him, with its abundance of events a swirl of meaninglessness. Time was spirit-voltage here, but nothing more. Memory was experience, and experience was but the sum of all memories, and his were all happening at once, here. Mind was all there was in this place, where reality was plastic, as malleable as thought itself. Pulsating orbs of wonder whirled about his head, spherical angels made up of infinitely complex geometric topologies . . . the shapes of souls transforming, becoming. They were much like tiny elves, these orbs; they giggled and laughed, like children at play, their jungle-gym the whole of space and time. They danced all around him, casting their swirling lights upon the eddies and whirlpools of existence, majestic in their glowing, rainbow-colored infinitude, baby universes exploding with stars.

  From out of one of these orbs, a vaguely human shape began to emerge and come toward him, gradually gaining feature and distinction until it consumed his field of vision. He could no longer feel his body — had he left it behind? He wasn’t sure — and had no sense of proximity — and knew only that this creature was mammoth in complexity, a being of pure mind-light. It beckoned to him, wearing what his mind conjured to be a 1940’s three-piece suit and fedora, its head and face a snowstorm of white mist, with flashing synaptic fireflies trapped within its endless folds . . . the geometry of mind, laid bare. For a moment, it regarded him with what seemed silent curiosity . . . Watching, as it were.

  “Be welcome!” it said, its voice a symphony of intertwining harmonies. “And know peace! You have nothing to fear here, Tiny One. At least, not from me.”

  “Uh . . . Tiny One?” was all Gadget could say. His voice was its own echo, here. It sounded the way it did in his head.

  “Ah, forgiveness,” said the light-creature. “That is what we call you. The Tiny Ones. For your lives are so short and you are gone from the ‘verse so quickly.”

  “Who . . .” he asked, and licked his lips — for they were dry, and suddenly real again, as though that mattered — “. . . who are you?”

  “Some call us the Aletheiaeon.”

  “The Aletheiaeon?”

  The light-creature inclined its head. “Yes. I wish we had more time. Time is always moving forward in your world, moments so fleeting! We do not understand. But we know why you are here. To deal with one whom the Eidolon have touched. Sad business, that. But, there is little time. He is almost upon us.”

  “Who’s almost upon us?” asked Gadget.

  The creature reached out and . . . touched him, somehow, putting a vague hand on him. It felt like a cold mist penetrating his lungs. Which became real again, briefly. “You are of the Special.”

  “Huh? ‘The Special?’”

  “Those of the high-mind, those who see far, dream far . . . we know you and your mind-kin best, for of all the stars in the galaxy of humankind, you and your mind-kin shine the brightest.”

  “You don’t say. C’mon already . . . Who’s almost upon us?”

  “One whose kind the Eidolon have touched. The Eidolon are our opposite, number, their home another m-brane the intersects ours. Jealous of your world and fleshy form, the Eidolon would do . . . anything to once more possess it. They set worlds to warring, hoping one to discover the means by which they can either become like us, or become flesh again. We have no such desire. To be more specific, we prefer to Watch.”

  “‘One whose kind . . .’ You mean Ravenkroft, right? But what about the Eidolon who’s lose on the city? Orogrü-Nathr?k?”

  “He will be here soon . . . The Eidolon you speak of. He grows closer as we speak. Closer, now. Closer. Go now. Know that we Watch over you, and that we are not neutral in your fight. We are with you. Be at peace. Go. Now.”

  Gadget stumbled backward, blinking his eyes to clear away the splotches of color and the remaining dazzlement of stars.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  “Whoa is right!” said Mystikite, catching him from falling down the stairs. “I gotcha, dude. Watch it. You okay?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Gadget, righting himself and steadying himself on his feet, and blinking away the last of the vision. “Yeah, I think so.” Well, that had certainly been weird. “Uh, thanks.” The others were all looking at him funny. He cleared his throat. He felt strange. His whole body felt electric, as though his nerves were all on fire with lightning . . . As though he had just chugged about ten high-powered energy drinks and a whole pot of coffee, along with several caffiene pills. His head sang, zinging, as though he were flying high and in a fever-pitched manic state. That worried him. But, he did not shake. His hands were steady, and his skin, though it felt like it crackled with raw power, did not feel like it crawled with insects. His heartbeat wasn’t accelerated and pounding, and he could breathe normally. How odd. It was just like having a panic attack . . . only without the panic. A feeling of power, and what was more, a feeling of controlled power. He could get used to this. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Uh right, folks. Okay. One portal, coming up.”

  He planted his feet firmly on the floor of the concrete stairwell, and held out his right arm in front of him, two fingers pronged in the air, and began moving his left hand near it in a circular motion in the air, in imitation of comic book hero Dr. Stephen Strange. Sure enough, there before him there appeared, hovering in the air, a circle of whirling orange sparks that began to expand from a central point, growing larger as he whirled his hand, eventually growing to over six feet in diameter. And there, contained within the circle, was a doorway that led to somewhere else . . . A dimensional portal, a tear in the fabric of space and time. And there, on the other side of the gateway he had opened, sunlight streamed though, and they could see the rooftop of the Renaissance Regency Hotel and Convention Center. And right there, sitting where Dizzy had parked it, stood the Fangirl. A cool breeze blew through the Portal and caused Gadget’s coat and slacks to billow slightly.

  “Alright, Gadget, my man!” said Mystikite, and laughed.

  “Yes! You did it!” said Buffy.

  “Fine work, dear boy,” said Misto.

  “Indeed,” remarked Viktor.

  “Damn,” whispered Vivacia, and laughed. “Now I have truly seen shit that will turn you white.” Mystikite and Gadget exchanged a look and a smile.

  “Let’s move,” said Darmok. “The gateway will only hold for as long as the Twizion particles remain stable in his brain. Which won’t be for long. Come on.” She headed through the Portal, and the others followed. Gadget headed for it last, hesitating only a moment.

  “Wait — it won’t close on me when I come through?” he said.

  “Nope, it shouldn’t,” said Darmok, reaching out a hand to him. “Not if you did it right. Now come on. Let’s get to that car.”

  “Right,” said Gadget. He took a breath, and stepped through, closing his eyes only briefly. When he opened them again, he stood upon the roof of the Renaissance Regency. The Portal stood open behind him. A few seconds later he suddenly felt all the wild, snap-crackling energy drain out of his body — he briefly grew dizzy, and stumbled a bit; it felt like all of a sudden, his stomach had been sucked out through his shoes — and the Portal snapped closed, dissipating in a shower of fading orange sparks. He staggered back and then caught himself and straightened out. “Whoa,” he said. “That did not feel good. I feel like I’ve just been whammied.”

  “It takes a minute to get used to,” said Darmok. “It’ll pass.” She reached out and grabbed him by the arm to steady him. “Happened to me my first time using Twizion, too. You’re doing better than I did, though. I threw up.”

  “That’s in the cards,” he said, and put a hand to his nauseated stomach. Now that she’d mentioned puking, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “Fight the urge,” she said. “Once you start wretching, you won’t want to stop.”

  “That’s . . . Ugh. That’s good to know. I think. Just don’t mention it again.”

  “What, vomiting? Wretching?”

  “UGHN. Yeah.” He gagged, but choked it back.

  “Okay, I wont. Mention hoarking, I mean.”

  “Ugh.” He bent over and vomited up the cocktail shrimp he’d eaten in the con-suite earlier that night. He spat out the last tendrils of it and then glared at Darmok and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Come on, dude!” cried Mystikite. He and the rest of the gang had made it to the Fangirl. It was obvious that not everyone was going — the Fangirl could comfortably seat maybe six people, but there were ten of them, so at least four were going to have to remain behind. He already knew who it was going to be. The Vampires, most likely, except for Mystikite. He would stick it out.

  Gadget hitched up his suspenders and hauled himself over to where the others stood next to Dizzy’s souped-up Cord 812, with its twin thrusters in the rear and its weird, exposed, overengineered engine-block. Luckily, she had left it unlocked. It didn’t look to have been damaged much during all the fighting, though blood and Biomech guts painted it in places, and it had several scorch marks on the rear hull-plating in a few spots.

  “Right,” said Misto. “She won’t fit all of us. So who’s staying behind?”

  “We will,” said Giova, gesturing to herself, Ripley, Vivacia, and Bryce. “Someone has to rebuild the Vampire Nation after what has transpired here. Our world is in tatters after this. Basil was . . . He was our only hope . . . Our only way forward. He was our light at the end of the tunnel. Now he’s gone. Trazeal, Dana, they were the Leaders of their Covens. Now they’re gone, too. The Vampire world is a place of hopelessness and despair now. The only thing that could bring them any semblance of hope right now is . . . Well . . . You, Mystikite.”

  “Me?” he replied. “Why me?”

  “Because you are the Champion,” said Giova. “You’re the one Made by the Chosen One, the one Basil believed in. The one Vincent Telluré staked his life on finding when this . . . This horrible Civil War began. If anyone can unit the Covens, bring peace to our people — not to mention take over as the new Leader of Coven Simulacyrica now that Basil is gone — it’s you.”

  “Hmm,” said Mystikite. “The new Coven Leader, huh? And the one to unite the whole Vampire world? Me? I dunno. That’s a lot of responsibility to put on somebody.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Ripley, “the responsibility is yours, and yours alone. We often do not get to choose our own destiny. And besides. Someone — something — has to heal the fractures. And as it stands, the Vampire world will tear itself to pieces if they aren’t healed soon.” She paused. “I suppose an imperfect Vampire world is better than no Vampire world at all.”

  “Alright,” he said, nodding. “I’ll do it.”

  “Mystikite — ” began Buffy. “Are you sure — ”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he said, turning to her. “I have to do this, Zoe. I don’t know why, but I do. I think it’s what’s led me to this moment. Call it fate, destiny, or karma, or whatever you want, but I think this is the reason that I became a Vampire in the first place. This is why time and space put me in the right place, at the right time, and I became what I became when I did. So that I could lead these people. Our people, now. I can make a real difference, here. Not just in terms of who they — we — are, as people, but what we are, too. Don’t you see? I can make it so that Vampires and Humans can better coexist in his world. So that we don’t have to dwell in such darkness all the time. Basil’s Daywalker serum is a part of that, but only the literal part; the philosophical part of that is yet to come. So that we don’t take the metaphor of ‘cursedness’ too far with us on the road to immortality.” Gadget saw Giova and Ripley exchange a meaningful glance as Mystikite said this. He continued, taking Buffy by the shoulders: “I can help this situation, Zoe. I can heal them, us, as a people. By making it so that they — we — start to see ourselves as actual people again, and not just as creatures.” He took her by the hand. “Help me. Guide me. Like you always have.”

  Buffy sighed, and shook her head. “Of course I will, babe. Of course.” Four city blocks away, atop the Bank of America building, Orogrü-Nathr?k let loose another animalistic roar of fury as it picked up part of the smoldering remains of Darmok’s ship and tossed them into the air, sending them hurtling down into the streets below, trailing a plume of black smoke behind them. She turned to look, then turned back to Mystikite. “But first let’s get rid of the eighty-foot Elder God who’s currently rampaging through downtown Cambridge, ‘kay?”

  “Right,” he said. He turned back to face Giova, Ripley, and the others. “I guess this is goodbye, for now. Basil gave me directions to the Chapterhouse for Coven Simulacyrica. Wait for me there. I’ll meet you there when all this is over, Giova, once we’ve gotten our friend Dizzy back. Here’s my cell phone number. You’ll need it.”

  “It’s a date,” said Giova, and smiled at him, taking the slip of paper from him.

  “You can count on it,” said Bryce. “You fought well, Mystikite. My Coven will know of both yours and Basil’s bravery in the face of insurmountable odds.”

  “And you can count on having my Coven’s support too,” said Ripley. Something in her face told Gadget that there was the slightest hint of guilt about her. Maybe it was just his imagination, but she looked as though she had been caught red-handed in a lie or in the midst of some grand deception, and had been publicly shamed for it, somehow. “I’ll go back and get them behind you. It’s . . . it’s the least I can do.”

  Now what did that mean, Gadget wondered? Vampires. They could be inscrutable, sometimes.

  “Me too,” said Vivacia. “I’ll do the same. You can count on Coven Anamotika having your back, Mystikite McKraken, no matter what goes down from here on out. We’ll spread the word far and wide. Balthazar was our Leader after Vincent Telluré died, and he would want us to rally to your cause.”

  Orogrü-Nathr?k roared again and spread its bat-wings wide, and then leaped over to the next skyscraper, smashing its roof beneath its gigantic feet. It fired its eye-beam weapons at a nearby billboard, which went up in flames.

  “Er, guys — we really should get going,” said Misto. “That thing is wreaking eleven kinds of havoc on the city. And Dizzy’s not getting any less abducted while we stand her jabber-jawing.”

  “He’s right,” said Gadget. “Come on, guys. Into the flying car.”

  “Indubitably,” said Viktor. He opened the passenger door of the Fangirl and got into the back seat. Buffy followed him in, as did Darmok.

  “Going to be a tight fit,” observed Mystikite, as he got in after her. All four of them crammed into the tight space of the back seat, as Misto got into the front driver’s side and Gadget climbed into the front passenger seat. Misto flipped on the power switches and activated the engine. A powerful whining noise cycled up and the thrusters came online, the Repulsivators beneath the car coming online as well. The engine powered up and began to glow, its interlocking wheels and gimbals beginning to spin and cycle, its electrodes sparking and churning. The car hoisted itself into the air and levitated just off the ground. Gadget’s stomach lurched a little, but remained settled for the most part. The subtle whine and hum of the engines formed a sheath of background noise.

  “Everybody comfortable?” asked Gadget.

  “Ugh, not really,” said Viktor.

  “Good to know,” said Gadget. He adjusted the various dials on the Buckaroo Banzai overthruster device that sat in the stereotactic brace between him and Misto. It beeped at him. He surveyed the controls on the dashboard related to it and guessed at their functions; he pressed what he hoped were the right ones and the overthruster beeped at him approvingly. Well that sounded good. He positioned his fingers above what he hoped were the firing controls for the laser mounted on the roof of the Cord 812. They would need those when they got within range of Orogrü-Nathr?k. “Okay, Misto,” he said. “Take us to the monster. Let’s play some Donkey Kong.”

  Misto worked the controls and the Fangirl lifted up off the roof of the Renaissance Regency, and floated into the air. He flew them up, and over the city streets, toward where Orogrü-Nathr?k stood atop the twenty-six story Aetna building, stomping around. The military had dispatched jet-fighters to deal with the beast, which only added to the fun — and made their job more difficult. The fighters flew in low and arrived just about the same time as they did. Misto narrowly avoided being sideswiped by an F-15 Tomcat. Static crackled over the radio and Gadget heard the pilot of the Tomcat come through loud and clear as he shouted: “Holy fuck! Red Eagle — what the fuck was that?”

  “Say again, blue Eagle? Over,” came the voice of another pilot — the other of the two fighters, which Gadget could see also flying low, about a quarter of a mile away.

  “Red Eagle, I repeat, we have a bogie up here, over,” came the voice of the first pilot again. “Looks — looks like a fucking car. Check your three o’clock. Over.”

  “Blue Eagle, you said a bogie? I don’t see any — well holy shit.” A pause. Then, the radio crackled static again and let out a loud whistle, and then a harsh sqwuak of feedback noise. “Attention, unidentified aircraft. This is a restricted area. Land your craft immediately and do not attempt to interfere in this operation. Do not approach or engage the creature. I repeat, do not approach or engage the creature or the United States aircraft operarting in this airspace.”

  “You think they don’t like us?” asked Misto.

  “I think they don’t know what we are,” said Gadget, and grinned. “Does this thing have forcefields?”

  “Nope, not really. It’s not designed for combat.”

  “Oh, well that’s reassuring.”

  “I’m a helper.”

  “That you are,” said Gadget. “Okay. Here’s what we do. Dizzy said we need lots of speed in order to cross over into the Eighth Dimension. Right?”

  “Right,” said Misto. “In excess of seven hundred miles per hour. We don’t have enough space here to accelerate to that.”

  “Oh Jeeze,” said Buffy, rolling her eyes, “we’re going back to that place? Once was enough, wasn’t it?”

  “I found it exciting and fascinating,” said Viktor. “But perhaps that’s just a commentary on me.”

  “So we backtrack,” said Gadget. “Get us a few miles away, and then we accelerate. It’ll make the military think we’re backing off, too. We back up a few miles, and then we punch the accelerator . . . We ramp to about seven-fifty on the m.p.h. scale, and then we plow straight into that thing with the laser and the overthruster . . . and enter the Eighth Dimension. And then we do something . . . Say, we intentionally knock the overthruster offline while we’re still in there and also knock the laser into overdrive. That should totally destabilize Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure, and poof! No more Orogrü-Nathr?k! At least in theory, right?”

  “Yeah. And also ‘in theory,’ it could also trap us forever inside the Eighth Dimension,” said Misto.

  “Well, yeah, I guess there is that possibility, too,” said Gadget. “I hadn’t really thought of that.”

  “Gee, yeah, just a little bit of risk there,” said Mystikite. “You really wanna roll that one-d-twenty, dude?”

  “Well it’s really the only way we’re going to defeat that thing,” said Gadget. “If anyone else has a better plan, I’d love to hear it. Anybody?” Everyone else fell silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Misto, take us ten miles out, and then punch that shit!”

  Misto sighed. “Aye-aye, cap’n. Here we go.” He turned the Fangirl around just as the two jet-fighters circled back around in the air around Orogrü-Nathr?k and engaged the creature with machine-guns blazing. Orogrü-Nathr?k hit one of the planes with its energy-weapon eye-beams. The plane exploded in the air in a ball of fire and metal shrapnel. Gadget winced as they zoomed past the explosion. “Ouch. Coulda told ‘em that was gonna happen.”

  “Yep,” said Misto. They rocketed over the city and out past the edges of it, and out over the countryside. The whole trip only took about ten minutes. Misto then suddenly swung the pilot’s wheel to the left and everybody cried out at once as they all lurched to one side — as did Gadget’s stomach — as the car pirouetted in the air and zoomed in a spiral, and then circled and came to rest, hovering in the now-opposite direction. “Okay,” he said. “Here we are. Ready to accelerate. Are you sure about this? Once I lock the system on target and hit the cruise-control via Siri . . . we’re pretty much committed.”

  “I’d just like to take this opportunity,” said Mystikite, “to remind you all of what a stunningly bad idea I think this is.”

  Gadget swallowed a lump of fear that had accumulated in his throat. It was this or nothing, and Buffy was right — they couldn’t let this thing go rampaging through the city. Not when they had the power to stop it. Peter Parker had once said, in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War, “When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.” And that was as true now as it had been in that movie. They had a duty to perform. Dizzy had been right: They really were the Technowizard Guardians of the Infinite Worlds of Fandom, and not just the Guardians of those worlds, but of the whole world, in general. It was up to them to stop the bad things from happening, because dammit, only they had the power to do so. They had the tech, they had the smarts, and most of all, they had the hearts. The guts to do what was right.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Okay Misto,” he said. He licked his lips. “Let’s do this.”

  “Roger that,” said Misto. He intoned, “Hey Siri. Plot a course back to the city. Head straight for the monster on the roof of the Aetna building, and accelerate the seven hundred and fifty miles per hour. Engage the helium-neon laser system when we are point-five miles from the target and engage the oscillation overthruster when we are point-two-five miles from it.”

  “OKAY, I’VE GOT IT,” said the car’s computer. The car immediately began rushing forward, and they were all thrown back in their seats, plastered to the cushions. Gadget heard Buffy let loose a gasp as the speed and g-forces hit them hard.

  In the forty-eight seconds it took them to travel the ten miles back to the city, Gadget briefly had time to think. What was his life going to be like after all of this? Different, to say the least. He remembered back to just three days previous . . . He had been sitting in the kitchen of his, Mystikite’s, and Buffy’s apartment, ready to commit suicide because he couldn’t cope with being mentally ill anymore. How things had changed since then. For whatever reason — by whatever strange twist of fate — he had rediscovered what it was like to truly live again, not just despite being mentally ill, but in spite of it instead, in defiance of it. He had discovered that he had potential way beyond what he thought he had, way beyond what he had ever thought possible. And he had discovered that he was a lot less alone than he had ever thought. Dizzy proved that with her very existence. And, she proved it was possible to be mentally ill and — unlike him — to succeed even without treatment, and to actually make a difference in the world regardless of her various disabilities. In a weird way — even though he disagreed with the fact that she refused to take medication; he was not giving up his meds, thank you very much — she was a kind of role model, a person to look up to. She would never be his girlfriend; he knew that; but she would make an excellent ally in the fight to stay sane and come out on top of things.

  Orogrü-Nathr?k quickly came into view, looming larger than life before them and growing larger. The laser on the roof of the car fired, the beam shooting directly into the creature. The overthruster device beeped and blooped excitedly. One of the jet-fighters fell in behind them, matching their speed.

  “Everybody brace for impact!” cried Misto. He shut his eyes tight. So did Gadget, who put his hands on the dashboard ahead of him and lowered his head. And then . . .

  They plunged into the Eighth Dimension. Whips made of lightning cracked all around them as they penetrated the dimension barrier and flew into the unseen space between worlds, the deep purple space around them aglow with eldritch power, crystalline shoots of strange matter erupting all around them. They sailed over a planet-like body of rock with writhing, worm-like creatures covering its surface — they turned their large, insect-like heads to see the passing car as it flew overhead — and whisked past a cloud of gas that had lightning cooking inside it and that spewed caustic acid-rain in every direction. They rocketed through a field of crystal debris that pecked and rattled off the car’s forward windshield.

  Gadget leaned forward and examined the touchscreen control panel in front of him — an Apple iPad that Dizzy had wired into the dashboard — as Misto avoided a large asteroid that careened past them, tumbling through space. The controls for the overthruster were plainly labeled, but they had esoteric names. If he just started pushing them randomly, who knew what could happen. Misto was right — they could very well be trapped here forever if they screwed this up. Then, right there, on the touchscreen, he saw it: A small digital counter readout that said, “INTERMEDIATE VECTOR BOSON COUNT.” It had a “plus” and “minus” sign out to either side of it. Hmm. That had possibilities.

  He understood how the overthruster worked: The atoms of Orogrü-Nathr?k — or anything, really — were held together by the exchange of virtual photons between the nuclei and the electron shells of atoms. If those virtual photons — which, normally, possessed no mass — were suddenly granted mass — then they would fail to travel the necessary distance, this emptying the space between the electrons and the nuclei. The intermediate vector bosons — the carries of the “weak” nuclear force — which the overthruster injected into the laser beam were what did the mass-granting; they were what gave the virtual photons the necessary mass. So perhaps if he increased the amount of intermediate vector bosons flowing into Orogrü-Nathr?k, thus increasing the mass of the virtual photons within its atomic structure, he could cause that atomic structure to collapse entirely. Doing so also posed little risk to them, as far as he could see; after all, if Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure collapsed, the worst thing that would happen to them was that they would simply be ejected from the Eighth Dimension, as they would no longer be “inside” it anymore. Then again . . . If Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure collapsed in the wrong way, it could also collapse the spatial, interdimensional structures that they currently flew through, and destroy them entirely, winking them out of existence as surely as it did Orogrü-Nathr?k.

  Well. Dammit, he had to do something. And hadn’t he just the other day been contemplating suicide anyway? Well yes, he had, dammit. So why the fuck not. It was worth a freaking shot, at least. And if it saved the entire world, or even just the city of Cambridge, then so be it; their lives were worth all the lives they’d be saving. His only regret — and it went pretty deep — was that he would be unable to save Dizzy from Ravenkroft. But then again, Dizzy knew the inherent risks. Unlike him, she was a born hero, someone who understood these kinds of things intuitively. She would forgive him, he supposed.

  Gadget began tapping the “plus” sign next to the digital counter on the screen, and watched as the number increased, and watched as the green-glowing laser beam extending from the roof of the car grew brighter, and brighter still. The car began to vibrate and he could feel the heat baking in from the ceiling. He turned and took one last look around at the others. Viktor. Buffy. Darmok. Mystikite. His friends, new and old alike. Mystikite nodded to him and took Buffy’s hand in his. They both knew what was up, that it all came down to this, this one moment, this one decision.

  “Just so you know,” he said, and swallowed, “you two are the best friends any guy could have ever had.”

  “And just so you know . . .” said Mystikite, “my penis is really fucking enormous.”

  “Nice workin’ with you kids,” said Misto.

  “Same here,” said Darmok. “You Earthlings aren’t half bad. And just so you know. Misto. You’re alright, you know that? We could’ve made it work. You and me.”

  “Yeah. We could have. Species barries be damned. And hey. Viktor.”

  “Yes, Michaelson?”

  “You’re alright, too, you know that? In the end, you turned out okay.”

  “Why . . . Why thank you, Michaelson. Joseph. I mean . . . Er, Misto, that is.”

  Buffy smiled, and put her head on Mystikite’s shoulder and clasped his hand in hers. “Goodbye, my love. If this is goodbye.”

  “Catch you guys on the flip-side, then.” Gadget grinned, turned back around, and jabbed his finger down onto the “plus” button again. The numbers climbed even higher, and the laser brightened into a blinding glare.

  “Watch out, or we’re going to overheat the damned thing,” warned Misto.

  Gadget’s eyes went to the digital readout on the screen that read LASER TEMPERATURE. The numbers had turned red and were climbing into the thousands of degress. Uh oh. That couldn’t be good.

  Just then, there came the sound — from outside the car, and from some distance away — of a mighty screeching roar . . . But not Orogrü-Nathr?k this time. Something else.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Viktor. “What could it be?”

  “I have a feeling we’re not going to enjoy finding out,” said Darmok.

  Gadget turned to his right and looked out the passenger-side window. And there, off to the right and some ways away from them, upon the surface of an enormous planet made of green rock that they were currently streaking past, he saw it: A huge, worm-like creature was stirring from its slumber on the dusty surface beneath a thin layer of atmosphre. It looked very much like a giant caterpillar, with a hundred armored segments to its body, each of its hundred, spindly legs ending in sharp red, metallic spikes, its giant bat-like wings spreading out above it to either side and flapping it into the air, its giant, glowing red eyes hanging over a maw of spiked, churning teeth that dribbled what looked like acid as it uncurled and writhed into the space above the planet. It was headed right for them even as they rocketed past the huge planet like a comet trailing fire.

  “Nope,” he said. “We sure aren’t. Ladies and gentlemen, not that it’ll do much good, but you might wanna brace yourselves. We’ve got incoming.”

  “Oh just fucking great,” said Mystikite, peering out the window. “That’s all we need. Another monster.”

  “That thing must be traveling at over seven hundred miles per hour as well!” said Viktor. “Matching our speed! Incredible that a biological lifeform could do so! Fascinating!”

  “Not so incredible when you realize we’re not in regular four-dimensional space anymore,” said Misto. “The regular laws of speed and time don’t apply here. Nothing is the same.”

  “Let’s see if we can outrun it,” said Gadget. “Misto, once again — punch that shit.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice!” said Misto. He shoved the control wheel and pushed on the thrust control lever, and the car accelerated forward with another burst of speed, knocking everyone back into their seats again. Gadget turned and looked behind them. Shit. The damn thing was keeping pace with them — and was actually gaining on them, its huge wings flapping as it propelled itself through the space behind them. This was so not good. There must’ve been some kind of atmosphere here that enabled it to do that, he thought. It was the only explanation. So this wasn’t just empty space they were flying though. Curioser and curioser. Would the wonders of the Eighth Dimension never cease? The monster crept up behind them, roaring and screaming as it came, bellowing a primeavel cry of furious rage, its crimson eyes burning with wild hatred and menacing hunger as it closed the distance to the car, and then, all at once, it was upon them. Buffy, Darmok, Mystikite, and Viktor all turned around to look as the thing lurched up into the space just above the car. Then everyone — including Gadget and Misto — cried out in surprise and fear as four giant, metallic spines came thrusting down into the car’s cabin at the corners, tearing through the metal and upholstery with horrible tearing and metal-rending noises.

  “Jesus!” — Misto. “Fuck!” — Gadget. “Shit!” — Mystikite.

  Misto briefly lost control of the car, the laser on top going all wonky and shining in every direction. “Fuck!” he cried out, grabbing at the wheel again and trying to marshal it back under control, but the car bucked and swayed as the creature on top of it held it fast in its embrace, roaring and screeching as it gripped it in its pincers. “Great! Just fucking great!” he yelled “Now what’ll we do?”

  “I’ve . . . I’ve got an idea,” said Gadget over the roar of the fierce wind now pouring through the cabin. It stank; a rotten, sewagy smell, like weeks-old garbage left to rot. “At least, I think I do. Try to hold her steady, Misto. I’m goin’ EVA.” He looked down at the door handle, found the power-window controls, and rolled down the passenger-side window. More stinking, fierce wind came pouring trough. Well at least it was an breathable atmosphere, even if it did stink to high-heavens. They had gotten lucky in that regard, he supposed. He gagged at the smell, took a deep breath even though he didn’t really want to, and hauled himself up and out of the window and sat his butt on the window-sill to get a better look at the creature. The wind blew through his hair, the heat from the laser was almost unbearable — and he had to shield his eyes from the light of the thing — but if he didn’t look directly at the laser, and instead looked away from it, he found he could behold the monster in all its awesome, terrifying glory.

  It was a quarter-mile long, at least, and at least an eighth of that in diameter. Its spiny, curved legs were only about six inches in diameter at their sharp, pointy tips — the parts that had pierced the cabin of the car — but they widened and elongated to up to four feet in diameter as they traveled upward and became and joined its large, fleshy, grey-colored segmented body, and then disappeared into the joints that connected to its armor-plated outer shell. The car was minuscule in comparison to it, a toy that it had caught and intended to play with . . . or consume as a midnight snack. What the hell could they do against this thing? The laser wasn’t an option. It wasn’t moveable, or targetable; it only faced forward, one direction, and that was that. And they couldn’t shake it loose; it had them captive, not the other way around.

  Then, he remembered: Duh! He was wearing the Mind-Weirding Helm! And now, it came armed with a secret weapon, one that could reshape the fabric of reality itself, if only for a few moments. He had a total of three shots of Twizion particles. So they had to be used sparingly. But he wondered — what effect would they have on reality in the Eighth fucking Dimension? He could ask Darmok, of course. She might know the answer. Then again, that would involve going back inside the car and taking the time to ask — and, she might not know, either; she wasn’t omniscient, after all — which would add further delay to their trip and give this monsterous thing a chance to either kill them or devour them . . . Not to mention give the laser more of a chance to overheat and kill them all, as well. Or burn out the overthruster and trap them all here in the Eighth Dimension forever. No, he had to risk it on his own. It was now or never.

  He reached up to the side of the Helm, and hesitated only a moment. Then he closed his eyes, pressed the button, and a brilliant white light flooded his mind’s eye.

  The vision lasted only a moment, but within that moment, time seemed to stretch on for an infinity. In the vision, he found himself standing in a wide, open field that smelled of mown grass. He was dressed from head-to-toe in armor. He could feel its weight on his body, could feel the cool breeze wafting through the faceplate, the tightness of his boots, the weight of the sword in his hands. Could smell the horse dung, could hear the clink of armor, and the hushed voices of the other soldiers. He knew why he was here. The gods had commanded it. The gods were all that mattered, their honor and their glory . . . and the Others had dishonored the gods, offended his faith. They had to die, every last one of them. As he thought this, they came charging over the hill, a throng of armored soldiers, swords waving. The pikemen out front lowered their pikes with a rattle and rustle of armor and wood. The other group of soldiers, those from over the hill, came at them, belting operatic cries of fury and bloodlust. Gadget’s ears roared with the noises of war — the thunder of horses, the clatter of moving armor, the clank and clang of weapons crossing, the screams of the dying. A primal yell of fury issued from his throat as he raised his sword to strike at the soldier heading right for him. He could feel sweat on his face and felt the jolt through his sword as the blade went slicing through his armor — it was Dràchynthyr, after all, here with him — cleaving into his skull, splashing warm blood all over him. He pulled the sword free, heart pounding. He turned and gazed into the eyes of another of the enemy, tried to embrace the battle-calm, the essence of a warrior’s focus under pressure, but failed; its serenity slipped from his fingers and floated away in seconds. He mouthed a quick prayer and saw his own death there in the other soldier’s cold, determined eyes. Why had the gods not protected him? Where had they gone? His faith shriveled, the gods retreating to abstractions. He froze, and felt his bladder give, adding embarrassment to terror as warm wetness trickled down his thighs. He felt his fingers lose their grip on Dràchynthyr, and heard it thump to the ground, as a sharp pain exploded in his abdomen. He doubled over, looked down, and saw the enemy soldier’s sword buried hilt-deep in his gut. It became hard to breath and a deep, aching, throbbing pain came from his stomach. His heart drummed an odd rhythm as blood gushed around his fingers, and he stumbled, a hooked fish being gutted as the solider pulled the blade out and he screamed in the purest of agonies. He felt blood gurgle in his throat, choking as it dribbled down his cheek, and then in one terrifying second, one aching black eternity, his sight went dark and he felt his heart stop beating, his last breath escaping; dizziness spun in his head and —

  Gadget popped opened his eyes when he heard the giant caterpillar-creature let out a mighty roar and screech of protest. Sweat covered his body and his heart beat wildly. What had he just seen? What had happened? He blinked his eyes to clear away the last of the vision. Or more like nightmare! What had that been all about? Then he looked down at the roof of the car; wherever he touched it, bright, blue arcs of electric lightning coursed through the metal, out from his hands and all along the car’s metal frame . . . And right up into the creature’s spines, its spindly legs, and up into its armored body, the arcs crackling and zapping. The car itself now glowed with an effulgent white aura, and the laser had turned a bright white, as well; no longer green, it shined now with a blinding white irradiance as it stretched off into the distance, wildly veering one direction and then another as Misto grappled with the steering wheel of the car, trying to wrest control away from the creature as it bucked and danced thanks to Gadget’s sudden application of electrical current. Gadget struggled to hold onto his perch on the window-sill, grabbing onto the “oh-shit handle” just inside the car. The others looked seasick, but that couldn’t be helped. Sometimes you had to rock the boat.

  The creature let loose one more horrid screech, and then its enormous head promptly exploded in a geiser of green blood, acid, bone, and fleshy tendrils that scattered through the air like wet shrapnel made of viscera. Its pincers all withdrew from the now-wrecked upholstery of the car, all letting loose at once as its legs flew out in every direction and its body rolled sideways in the air, plummeting and drifting to one side. Its last screech echoed through the cavernous space around them.

  “Dude!” cried Mystikite from inside the car. “That was amazing!”

  “Thanks!” yelled Gadget from outside, and gave him a thumbs-up. “Now for my next trick!”

  He stretched out his hand toward the laser, closed his eyes, and concentrated on what he wanted to happen. Specifically, he concentrated on the idea of the Eighth Dimension, and of Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure, and of the giant monster somehow collapsing in on itself at the level of quantum spacetime curvature . . . The idea of Orogrü-Nathr?k literally being sucked back into the dimension he had originally come from, Ravenkrofts ago. He felt the process draining him, felt it tugging at his guts, at his stomach. Felt the energy of the Twizion particles pulling at the fabric of his mind, stretching him thin, pulling him in two . . . But thanks to growing up with bipolar disorder and massive anxiety, Gadget was used to being pulled in two. He weathered it. Not easily . . . but he endured anyway. He felt the immense tension building inside him, felt the tremendous forces he now dealt with trying to tear him limb from limb, rip him in two, blast him to pieces. It felt as though his insides were being yanked apart, a pair of sports-cars hauling his intestines and his ribcage in two opposite directions. He gritted his teeth, and strained, the muscles in his arms tightening as he furrowed his brow and concentrated harder. The titanic forces of gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, all there at his command, all coursed through him, the Twizion particles burning through his brain like wildfire, interfacing with reality and refashioning it around him. The laser grew brighter, more and more heat baking off of it. Lightning bolts shot out of it and surrounded the white-glowing beam, writhing around it and encircling it, joining with it as it shined out into the distance.

  And with that, Gadget felt something go snap in his head, and there came a distant rumbling noise . . . A loud crack of thunder, as though a storm were suddenly breaking loose. It came again — closer this time — and he knew intuitively that he had done it; he had pushed Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure to the breaking point. He also intuitively knew that they now needed to get the hell out of here, and fast.

  He climbed back in the window and collapsed into the passenger seat of the car, and hit the button to roll up the window. The sewer smell faded a little bit as he did. Already, the Twizion storm was leaving his brain, leaving him feeling drained, depleted, and tired. Exhausted, and woozy in the stomach. The laser on the roof had returned to its normal level of brightness, as well as its usual green color, though now it flickered worryingly. “Okay, Misto,” he said, as he panted for breath. “Let’s blow this joint.”

  “Roger that!” said Misto. “Just hit the button for disengaging the overthruster!”

  “I’m on it,” said Gadget. He hunted through the touchscreen controls, found the button, and pushed it. Nothing happened. They continued to rocket forward through the Eighth Dimension. “Uh, okay . . .”

  “Damn!” said Misto. “That should’ve worked! Hit it again!”

  Gadget did so, and again, nothing happened. They continued to speed ahead through the dimensional void. The cracks of thunder grew louder all around them, the rumbling now a roar. The planets and crystalline meteorites around them began to crack apart as gigantic lightning bolts leapt and blasted between them.

  “Now what?” asked Gadget.

  “It’s gotta be the laser,” said Misto. “We must’ve damaged it earlier. Which means we may be stuck here. Permanently. Or at least until the eight-dimensional space inside Orogrü-Nathr?k’s atomic structure collapses on us and maybe kills us.”

  “So what’ll we do?” asked Gadget. “Let the space collapse around us and just hope we get tossed back into regular reality instead of us collapsing with it?”

  “Basically, yeah,” said Misto. “Unless we can somehow fix the laser.”

  Gadget sighed a heavy sigh, and then he remembered something. “Oh . . . Yeah! Okay. Right.” His hand went to his jacket pocket. “Okay, confession time. I keep a small screwdriver toolkit in my jacket pocket, here. I keep it there for emergencies, in case I’m out somewhere and the Helm needs working on.”

  “You wear that thing out places?” asked Darmok. “And people don’t make fun of you?”

  “They snicker sometimes, okay?” said Gadget, feeling a tad defensive. But he let it slide. Of all the things that were important right now, that wasn’t one of them. “I can climb back out, I suppose, and see what I can see. Maybe there’s just a loose wire, or something.”

  “Here,” said Misto. He unholstered one of the Decimator pistols Darmok had given him. “In case the natives get restless again.”

  “Uh, thanks,” said Gadget. He took the pistol and shoved it in his pants pocket. It didn’t fit very well.

  “You’re very brave,” observed Darmok.

  “Hey,” said Mystikite, “of course he’s brave. He’s my best friend. What, you think I hang with cowards or something, lady?”

  “Good luck, Terry,” said Buffy, and smiled at him.

  “Yes, good luck boy,” said Viktor.

  “Thanks,” said Gadget. He rolled down the window again, and hoisted himself back out of it, and sat his butt on the windowsill again, once more nearly gagging at the smell of the atmosphere outside. He looked at the laser and squinted; it was hard to see the assembly properly, because of the blinding green glow of the beam. But he could see enough of it. And sure enough, right there on the side of it where the segmented, metal power cables snaked into it and disgorged a tangle of heavy-duty power-wires bolted with a set of copper screws, he saw the culprit: One of the wiring screws had come loose, and the frayed wire of the cable hung loose, its frayed ends brushing against the screw every so often, causing a volley of sparks to shoot out, right in time with the flickering of the laser beam. That was the problem: He had to somehow securely re-attach that wire to that screw and tighten it down so that the power flow would would remain constant, and thus so would the beam. The other problem: He had no means of insulting himself against the phenomenal amount of electrical current that was presently coursing through that wire . . . So he had to be extremely careful, unless he wanted to fry himself.

  He licked his lips and flexed his fingers. He steadied himself on the windowsill, and gently let go of his hold on the car’s metal frame, freeing both hands. He had to watch his balance, or else he’d fall right off his perch. Misto must’ve realized this, because he felt the other man grab onto his shin from inside the car — which meant he was now flying one-handed. Gadget reached toward the laser and took out his toolkit and opened it, selecting a flat-head screwdriver. He put the toolkit down gently on the car’s roof, hoping it wouldn’t fly away or be vibrated off. He reached forward, his hand shaking — due to the movement of the car in space — and the first time he tried to get the head of the screw under the screwdriver, he failed.

  Careful! He scolded himself. Do not get it caught in the circuitry to the left or right of the screw, or you’ll cook yourself!

  He didn’t get it on the second or third try either. And the fourth try, he brushed the circuitry, and his heart almost exploded from beating too fast. He swallowed a lump of raw nerves, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Okay. I can do this. He opened his eyes, and tried again.

  Got it!

  Gadget loosened the screw, gradually pulling it back out of its connector just a few turns. Great. Now for the wire. He put the screwdriver back in the toolkit and went for his forceps. He got them out, and held onto the toolkit with his left hand, while with his right he reached forward and tried to nab the offending wire by the plastic sheath just below the frayed end. Again, he had difficulty aiming because the car beneath him kept bobbing and swaying in space. Finally, on the fifth try, he got it, and snatched it in the forceps. Thankfully! Careful to avoid bringing the wire anywhere near the circuitry — who knew what would happen if he did that! — he gently guided it toward the loosened screw. Careful, oh so careful, he thought. He could feel sweat beading on his brow. He used his left sleeve to wipe it off. God , this was intense. He tried to breathe deeply, the way his therapist had shown him; in through the nose, all the way into his belly, inflating like a balloon . . . Then all the way out, deflating, out through the mouth. Then in . . . And out again. It helped. He guided the wire right beneath the screw’s head, and held it there, pressing it against the body of the screw. Then with his left hand, he shook the screwdriver loose from the toolkit — the toolkit promptly rattled free of the car’s roof and fell off, falling into the infinity of the Eighth Dimension — goddamn it! That thing had cost fifty bucks! — and tried to once more aim the flathead at the head of the screw without it going astray and winding up embedded in the circuitry to either the left or the right of it. He missed twice.

  On the third try — success! He began turning the screw. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, he had to remind himself, his mind in overdrive from the stress, his thoughts racing with anxiety despite the deep breathing. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

  Then the screw got suck.

  “Oh come on!” he cried through gritted teeth.

  He removed the screwdriver from the screw and closed his eyes, trying the deep breathing thing again. It helped — but only a little. He opened his eyes again, swallowed, wiped the sweat from his brow with his left arm — he still held the wire in place with his right arm and the forceps, and it was beginning to ache from being held in such an awkward and rigid position for over five minutes now — and tried again. He missed the screw on the first three tries. All around him, the Eight Dimension continued to self-destruct. The space around them was growing darker, the glow of the planets becoming brighter in the increasingly gloomy surroundings, the lightning bolts they threw off illumining the space even more so, the thunderclaps growing closer and louder.

  He made it on try number four. He tried tightening the screw again. It didn’t want to move. So he applied more force. It still didn’t want to move. So he applied even more force. That time, it turned. He continued applying as much force as he could, forcing the thing to turn, and it did so — but slowly. The laser continued its steady — or mostly steady, now — glow as he did so, the power flow now restored so long as the wire’s contact with the screw was solid, but his right arm was now in serious pain, and he couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Thankfully, the wire was now secure once more.

  All finished here. Just one more half-turn ought to make absolutely sure, he thought . . .

  Suddenly, from inside the car, he heard Viktor scream, “Michaelson, look out!”

  Gadget looked up, and saw a small meteor headed right for them. He had just enough time to gasp and think, Oh shit! Then the meteorite sideswiped the car’s driver side, and Misto engaged in evasive maneuvers. Gadget lost his grip on both the screwdriver and the car’s metal frame, and went pitching backward and screamed. He felt Misto’s grip clamp down on his ankle, even tighter than before, so he didn’t fall out of the car completely — but he did go flipping backwards with a surprised and fearful yelp, his heart-rate shooting through the roof and adrenaline flooding his veins as he suddenly saw the world turn almost upside down. He now hung out of the car window from the backs of his knees on down, while Misto struggled to hold onto the rest of his legs inside the cabin. Someone had leaned forward from out of the backseat and had grabbed onto his belt, trying to help.

  “Don’t worry dude! We’ve got you!” came Mystikite’s voice.

  “Oh, what, me worry?” Gadget yelled back.

  Jesus! That had been close! He’d almost been killed! His heart beat wildly and his mouth had gone dry. No amount of deep breathing is gonna help with this, he thought. But, he tried it anyway. Force of habit. And wonder of wonders — he found it did help, if only just a little, if only to calm him down just a smidgeon. Now just how the hell was he gonna get out of this one?

  And then, he saw them: In the distance, up ahead, screeching and cawing, a whole pack of them, and closing fast. They looked like small pterodactyls — or perhaps very thin velociraptors, only with large, papery wings — and their skin was a bright purple. They were headed right for the Fangirl, too, wheeling and gliding at them as they pitched and yawed in the air.

  “Ah shit,” said Gadget. “Just what I needed.” He got the Decimator pistol out of his pocket and readied it. He hoped its version of a “safety” was off. Because he had no idea how to turn it off if it was on.

  Within a minute, the Fangirl met the pterodactyls head-on, and Gadget started blasting at them before they could injure him with their claws and bony protrusions. He fired off at least a dozen shots but only a few of them hit home at the screaming creatures. He blasted a flaming hole in one of one’s wings, and dealt a fatal blow to another’s third eye; another one that got to close to him, he blew off its left leg. He cried out and covered his head with his arm as one of them flew too close to him and scraped the back of his neck with the bony horn that protruded from his head and another grazed his legs, and yet another swooped right beneath him, stirring the air with the swoosh of its gigantic wings. He continued blasting at them, though, despite the fact that they moved too fast and he missed a lot. There must have been at least twenty of the goddamn things! They came in waves. Misto kept bucking and swaying the car, engaging in evasive maneuvers, trying to avoid them. One of them crashed into the front of the Fangirl, head on, plastered to its front long-nose grill, its body making a sickening splattering and cracking noise as it landed there, its wings flapping uselessly out to either side of the car, its neck broken, its head lolling to one side stupidly. Gadget tried blasting at it with his Decimator pistol, but it was no use. The damned thing was stuck there, it seemed.

  Then, there was a blinding flash of light that came from all around them, and one final clap of thunder; Gadget felt a sudden rush of heat from every direction, and —

  They shot back out into normal reality again — thankfully! — and spun out and around in space just in time to turn and see Orogrü-Nathr?k scream out one final mighty roar — this time, a roar of pain, Gadget thought, as he stared at the scene from upside down — and then light up at the edges, a bluish electric aura forming around the giant creature, and then . . . It disappeared. The terrifying Elder God, in all its menacing glory, simply . . . vanished without a trace, into thin air, the sound of its cries dissipating into mere echoes.

  “Hot-damn, we did it!” he heard Misto yell from inside the car. “We actually did it!”

  “Huzzah for our side,” said Gadget. The blood had run to his head, and he now had a headache as well as a sore left arm. “Can we land the car now so I can get down?”

  “Yeah I’m hurtin’ here too,” came Mystikite’s voice. “He is not light.”

  “Sure thing man!” cried Misto from inside. “Hang on!”

  He got a little nervous as the Fangirl quickly once more approached the rooftop of the Renaissance Regency at high speed. The Vampires were gone. Gadget sincerely hoped he did not get squished. The car abruptly stopped and hovered about three feet above the rooftop, and then settled another two feet, until it hovered only a foot above the gravel. Gadget closed his eyes in relief. Thank the gods. He stowed the Decimator pistol in his pocket and took off the Mind-Weirding Helm, and set it aside on the rooftop, and then put his hands down on the gravel to either side of him.

  “Okay, Misto, go ahead and let me go,” he said. He felt Misto do so, and he let himself fall on his hands and did a sloppy somersault onto the rooftop. Back on terra firma, at long last. His heart raced, his nerves jittery. His stomach filed a protest. But other than that, he felt fine. His head was currently covered in sweat, his shirt and jacket soaked at the armpits. He probably smelled terrible. Nonetheless, he grabbed the Mind-Weirding Helm and put it back on. As much as he didn’t want to, he forced himself to get back in the car. They had the larger mission to accomplish, after all. He had not forgotten. “Right,” he said. “We have to go save Dizzy.”

  “A-yup,” said Misto. “That we do. You ready for this?”

  “Do not underestimate Ravenkroft,” said Viktor. “He is a madman in the purest sense, and he is extremely dangerous, boy. He will do everything in his power to destroy you . . . To destroy all of us. He will stop at nothing to achieve his end-game, his dastardly goal of turning Ms. Weatherspark into one of what he turned my Alicia into. Into what the creature we just destroyed was. And apparently, he will stop at nothing to bring the other alien beings — those Zarctureans you spoke of — here as well. Be warned. Once we commit to the course of facing him, there can be no turning back.”

  “Well you know what I say to that?” said Mystikite.

  “No, what?” asked Viktor.

  “I say, ‘Well, I say, ‘Just remember what ol' Mystikite McKraken does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Mystikite McKraken just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says — ”

  Mystikite, Gadget, Misto and Buffy all finished the movie quote together: “‘Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.’”

  Gadget laughed. “There’s your answer, Vic. Now, then. Misto. If you please. Full speed ahead to Viktor’s parents’ summer-home. Not that she can’t handle herself on her own, but we have a hot mad scientist to try and go rescue.”

  Dizzy awoke still wearing her Evangeliojaeger but unable to move, magnetized to a metal table. “Ugh, my head,” were her first words. Her next words were, as she struggled to move but found she couldn’t: “Oh you frakking bastard.”

  Above her, Ravenkroft hovered, checking over the dials and wiring on his hybrid of his Time Machine and the Physion Bio-Printer, otherwise known as his Psychotronic Transcendimensional Transmogrificator. She looked, and saw that her Electro-Mesmeric Guitar sat against the far wall of the room. Ravenkroft snickered at her. “Ah, you’re awake. I was wondering when you’d come-to. Not good, though. It would make the procedure . . . Easier if you were unconscious. So be it. I’ll give you drugs. But for now, let us talk.” He sat down in the chair next to the metal table that held her, folded his hands in his lap, and smiled at her.

  “Ugh. I’d rather not.” She let her head roll back. Her motorcycle helmet clicked against the metal. “Just give me the frakkin’ drugs already. Besides, doesn’t really matter. My friends will be here, soon. And when they get here . . . Whoo-boy. Ravenkroft my man, you’re gonna be in some serious frakkin’ trouble.”

  He snickered again. “I highly doubt that. This place is . . . Fortified against intruders. The security system here is artificially intelligent. And heavily armed. And that artificial intelligence has recently received, shall we say . . . An upgrade. In the form of . . . me. My consciousness now dwells within the NeuroScape, a perfect copy of my brilliant mind, living there, forever breathing in silicon and positrons. You’ll be meeting him soon, as soon as I connect your mind to the NeuroScape. He now functions as the Gatekeeper between our world and the world of the Elder Gods, the Eidolon. It is he who will guide your Transformation.”

  “Yay, great, just great,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Just what the world needed. Two of you. Can’t wait to meet Jackass Two-Point-Oh. Color me ‘enthused.’”

  “You seem awfully flip for someone in your situation. I would think that maybe begging for your life would be more appropriate than quipping at me.”

  “You’re not too familiar with my work, are you.”

  “You know, that reminds me,” he said. “ All this time, and we’ve never really gotten to know each other, Weatherspark. Never really become intimately familiar with one another’s internal clockwork.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “Oh? How come.”

  “Because you’re batshit insane, and an amoral murderer, and I’m not? You’ll stop at nothing in pursuit of your ‘science,’ and I actually have a conscience?”

  “Oh, I think we both know that that’s a little bit of a lie, don’t you?” He chuckled. He lowered his voice, and his words took on a more sinister, grim tone. “You’re just as much the pure scientist I am, Weatherspark.” A dark note of bitterness entered his voice. “You’re every bit as reckless and wantonly destructive as I am. And you’re every bit as casual with lives and consequences as I’ve ever been. You don’t let things like the safety of the populace stop you from carrying out an experiment. And neither does your father. Why, just look at the company he runs. Mjolnir Propulsion Systems. A defense contractor, a weapons manufacturer. What do you think they do? Hmm? And worse than me, they — and you — profit handsomely from mass destruction, from the killing fields they help engineer, from the terrible wars they help perpetuate. Amoral murderer? Ha! I am but an amateur compared to you and your father. An amateur, do you hear me?”

  “Oh I hear you,” she said. “You’re just not making any sense. At least the science we do at Mjolnir serves a clear purpose. The science you do only serves some nebulous goal that you decided on, that you thought up in your demented brain . . . And that you think is somehow noble, even though it’s really not, and is actually meaningless, because hey, newsflash, evolution is always served anyway, in everything that happens to us. Your whole mission is redundant. It’s unnecessary. Humanity is always pushed — and pushing — forward regardless of what you or anyone else does to ‘serve’ it. You’re a madman. Just another cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs lunatic, screaming at the moon because you think it’s making a face at you that only you can see. And now it’s cost you. For one thing, it’s cost you your autonomy. You’ve got that thing inside you — that alien — controlling you. Even if you don’t realize it’s doing it, it’s doing it. Exerting control. Influence. Stealing your brilliance. It’s using you. And for another thing . . . It’s cost you Alicia. Your big goal — bringing her back — has now turned to ashes on you. So how’s this whole thing actually working out for you, Ravenkroft? Huh? How’s it really playing out? Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

  “Shut up!” he screamed, and stood up, balling his fists at his sides. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Sweat stood out on his forehead as he yelled at her, his eyes crazed.

  Good, she had made a dent. She smiled slightly. She wondered if it would be enough. Probably not. “I’m just sayin’,” she said in a small, quiet voice.

  He stood there fuming for a moment, breathing heavily as he gazed down at her with wild, psychotic fire in his eyes. When he spoke, it was in a spookily calm voice. “I need to put the NeuroBand Headset on you, now, and enter the NeuroScape myself . . . In order to begin the procedure.”

  She sighed. No, it hadn’t been enough. “Do what you feel you have to do, Ravenkroft.”

  He turned and scurried away for the moment. She had to think. Her Evangeliojaeger was magnetized to the table. Even if she freed herself from it, she was paralyzed from the waist down, so she couldn’t run for it. The best she could do was crawl away; so there would be no fighting him off. And if all he had to do was catch her and inject her with drugs, then there would be no fight at all. She would be right back on the table before she could get to the door. And even if she made it that far, what then? The Evangeliojaeger would still be magnetized to the table. Ah — what if the engaged the suit’s own magnetic field? She mentally tried to engage the magnets. She felt the psychic tingle that told her they were engaged. She tried to move the suit — it wiggled a bit — but did not come free. Damn! The magnets in the table were too powerful! She tried to engage the suit’s repulsivators. Disabled. She glanced down, trying to take a look at what could be wrong. She had a feeling she knew; the bastard had probably disconnected the power cables that ran from the Evangeliojaeger’s spinal column down into the repulsivator boots, sabotaging the Evangeliojaeger’s power-flow. Damn him! He had most likely done the same to the cables that ran to the gauntlets. Once more — this was the problem with having all the parts exposed. She swore then and there that if she got out of this alive, she was going to go totally Iron Man with the Evangeliojaeger’s next iteration, and enclose everything in a locked, metallic outer shell. But for now — how to get out of this?

  Ravenkroft returned a moment later with a NeuroBand Headset unit, augmented with a series of electrodes. He set it down on the table beside her, and removed her motorcycle helmet, disconnecting the cables that connected it to the rest of the Evangeliojaeger, setting it right next to her head. She made a note of how far away he had placed it, and what it would take for her to grab it if she got free. How heavy the Evangeliojaeger’s arms would be to lift in order for her to reach for it without being able to command them to, since she wouldn’t be wearing it at the time. How long that would take her. Thirty seconds, maybe? Yes, probably thirty seconds.

  He forced her to hold her head still, grabbing her skull with his right Evangeliojaeger gauntlet despite her struggles.

  “Goddamn it! Stop it!” she cried, trying to thrash her head around. “That hurts, you rancid asshole!”

  He shoved the NeuroBand Headset onto her head and face and bolted it in place, fastened the chin-strap, then positioned the electrodes near and around her head.

  “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Just peachy,” she replied.

  “Good,” he said. “Now I’m afraid I have to give you the drugs that I mentioned. They will unfortunately render you unconscious from this point forward. At least, unconscious in this world. You should awake in the world of the NeuroScape. You will not be the same when you reawaken in this world. Neither will you be fully Human anymore, either. No, you will be . . . More. But I’ve . . . enjoyed our little talk here. Even if you were somewhat . . . Disagreeable.”

  “I think you mean ‘truthful.’”

  “Ah, Weatherspark. Defiant to the end, I see. As always.”

  “That’s me.”

  She felt a pinprick in her neck, and soon after that the world grew fuzzy and hazy before her eyes. Panic set in briefly as her vision blurred — dear gods, he’s won, and I’ve lost; they’re not going to get here in time, and I’ve lost, he’s won, finally, at last; I’ve really lost, and he’s really won — and then the world went dark on her. True to Ravenkroft’s word, she indeed awoke in another world, one far more frightening for what it was and how real it all seemed.

  Dizzy’s eyes popped open and in an instant, she knew she was no longer in the realm known as reality. No, this was the NeuroScape. The first thing that clued her in was that she could feel her legs; there they were beneat her, as though they had never left. It felt good to have them again. Likewise, the ability to use them was there in her brain as though it had never left her, as though she had just done it moments ago. But she could not do so very much; her legs were bound at the ankles by a pair of steel handcuffs, as were her wrists, fastened above her head. She lay fastened to a metal lab table in the center of a laboratory of some kind, with two concentric tables wrapping around the two central metal tables, the other of which lay to the side of her, a monstrous thing pulsating there upon it, a being for which there were no words other than “hideous” and “madness,” a mass of tentacles and spider-legs, a brain at its center and a flesh sac that pulsed in a rhythm not unlike a heartbeat or breathing, a pair of bat-wings folded around it. It glowed with an eldritch energy, and someone had attached various wires and cables to its flesh. The wires and cables snaked down from its body, down onto the floor and then up again onto the table that held her, and then onto her, attached to her head and face and arms. She was not wearing the Evangeliojaeger. It was gone from this place. No, here, she found herself dressed in a leather miniskirt, black halter top, and black sneakers. Well, at least he had dressed her Avatar in a nice, sporty outfit. That was something, at least.

  All along the walls, various machines of arcane purpose stood sparking, zapping, and whirring. The walls slowly rotated around the room. And there, hovering near the machines, she saw Ravenkroft — or at least his NeuroScape Avatar. The “other” version of him that the real Ravenkroft had mentioned back in the real world. He checked over the machinery, his back currently turned toward her. Hurriedly, Dizzy looked left and right. There had to be something she could do. This was the NeuroScape. Anything was possible here, wasn’t it?

  “Don’t bother trying to find a way out,” he intoned without turning to look at her. “The Metaphors of the simulation are all locked down. No Magic or Effect-hacks will work here, I’m afraid. At least, none that an inexperienced user such as yourself could pull-off.” He snickered. “No, I’m afraid that all you can do is surrender to this, Weatherspark. All you can do is surrender. Now, then. I’m going to take you one level deeper ino the simulation. A dream within a dream, as it were. The transferral will begin shortly thereafter. Just . . . let it happen, Weatherspark. The more you struggle, the more painful it will be. Now, are you ready?”

  “Bite me, Ravenkroft,” she said. She swallowed a lump of fear. For the first time in a long time, she had begun to truly be afraid. What if this was it? What if her life was truly about to end? She had never really prepared for that possibility. All her life, she had lived as though she were invincible, as though nothing could touch her. She could see that, now. And now, she was going to die, magnetized to an operating table in Viktor Arkenvalen’s parents’ summerhome out in the countryside of Massachusetts, far from her father and friends, a NeuroBand Headset strapped to her head, the subject of a fellow mad scientist’s experiments. It would’ve been poetic irony if it hadn’t been so terrifying. Still, she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid. That simply would not do. No . . . if she was going down, she was determined that he would never know he’d gotten to her. Never. So, she steeled herself, clenched her virtual fists, and straightened her virtual shoulders.

  Okay, fine. Let the bastard do his worst. She could take it. She was Desirée Amelia Weatherspark, and she was brave, by gods. And if she was brave enough to face-off against Ravenkroft in battle on the streets of Cambridge, then she was brave enough to handle this shit. She glanced over to the table next to her, at the disgusting creature that sat there, pulsating and dripping slime, its spider-legs jittering, its tentacles curling and uncurling slowly as it breathed, its sac inflating and deflating. So be it. Let this “Elder God” thing come for her essence. She’d punch it right in the goddamn face — well, if it had a face, that was — handcuffs or no handcuffs. Mentally, that was. She would mentally punch it in the face, at least.

  “Deepening the simulation,” said Avatar-Ravenkroft, putting his hand on a lever of one of the machines, “in three . . . two . . . one.”

  The world around her blurred before her eyes and she felt a sharp electric shock buzz through her body, jarring her and causing her teeth to rattle. When her vision cleared and she blinked away the splotches of color, she found herself elsewhere . . . and in a far more frightening situation.

  Dizzy lay nude upon a raised stone altar in the center of some ancient Satanic cathedral; upside-down crosses and pentagrams adorned the walls, the orange flames of torches flickering in sconces along them. Shadows leapt and capered; evil shadows, spirits and shades of dark intentions. Great spiders spun webs in the far-lofty corners of this place, their black eyeballs piercing her with their stare, gazing at her hungrily, their mandibles drooling and chittering. Upon the vaulted stone ceiling, far above, giant bats hung in the arches, their leathery wings folded over their bodies, restless, hungry for the night and the blood of the kill. A great bell tolled somewhere in the upper echelons of the Cathedral. The howling music of baying wolves filled the night outside the great, arched windows, which looked out onto a sky filled with alien constellations. She lay bound upon the altar, the stale air here cool upon her hard, erect nipples; it blew across her sweaty legs, into the recesses of her crotch, and she felt something touch her there, the gentlest brush of fingers . . . and she shuddered — foremost out of fear, and secondly out of a visceral pleasure that frightened her, all the more because it was unbidden. Invisible hands made of silken shadows softly caressed her naked skin and she moaned, her body fighting to submit to whatever forces were at work here.

  She dared to look, and saw it: The Goat-Demon. It stood seven feet tall, with the well-muscled body of a weight-lifter and the head of a ram, naked, as she was. Fear filled her; fear of the Goat-Demon, fear of what she knew it wanted to do with her. Fear of giving it what it wanted despite the vomit and revulsion churning in her stomach, fear of the sudden desire that burned in her, the darkness of the shadows closing in on her, touching her in dark places. Belted around the creature’s waist was a great sword of blackened steel that shimmered darkly in the torchlight; as it moved, the tip of the sword scraped the stone, a terrible sound, like fingernails working their way down a chalkboard.

  Let me in, the Goat-Demon whispered in the darkest recesses of her mind. Let me into you and all will be well . . . a paradise awaits you if you will but eat of the black fruit that I offer . . .

  She tried to scream, but only a squeak issued from her. Wide-eyed with terror at the sight of this beast, and at the whispering voices in her skull urging her to give into it, Dizzy shuddered again, trembling, her mouth moving but making no sounds, the terror drilling so deep into her that it became one with her bones, freezing them. She could feel her blood curdling as her heart thumped and thumped, panic and desperation filling her. And desire . . . again unbidden, unwelcome. Sickening, revolting. Yet there, all the same . . . desire for this thing. Some deep, corroded corner of her soul actually wanted this thing, ached to have it nestled inside her, spilling its hot seed into her . . . No! She shook it off, or tried to.

  Shh, whispered the Goat-Demon, reaching forth and caressing her naked stomach, running a black-clawed finger through the slick of sweat that lay there. I will make it better . . . if only you let me in. Let me become one with you, let me inside you, and all will be well . . .

  Then, in a sudden, dim flash of vague insight, She re-realized: Wait a minute. This isn’t real. This is just the NeuroScape. It’s fake. It’s virtual reality. This this . . . all these thoughts . . . all of it . . . it’s not real. Whatever kind of doorway the machine was opening, this creature was her mind’s way of imagining that which lay beyond it. Whatever lay there, beyond that creaking-open doorway, this was not its true form, though a shadow of that lay in its black, roving goat-eyes: A gigantic ethereal spider, like the ones in the corners of this place, only infinitely large and fat, its segmented eyes crawling with the ephemeral ghost-light of the dead. And even that was not its true form; something lay beyond that still, lurking deeper, a vast and terrible force, the inky outline of some tentacled monstrosity that extended into countless, unhallowed dimensions of madness. She forced herself to close her eyes, before she went mad herself, lost in the Goat-Demon’s terrible gaze. Steeling herself for the sight, she reopened them, just as the monstrous thing leaned down to kiss her, its tongue lolling out of its goat’s mouth.

  What happened next, she could scarcely credit . . . but if this was all in her mind, then why not? From deep within the caverns of her childhood, there suddenly bubbled forth an image of a woman who, were she ever in a similar situation, would definitely not take this shit lying down: Xena: Warrior Princess . . . her favorite show growing up as a little girl, a guilty-pleasure she had enjoyed well into her teenage years and had never told anyone about — especially not her science-y father! — a part of herself and her imagination that had heretofore remained buried deep within her psyche, waiting for just the right time to burst forth. She had enjoyed it late at night, when no one else had been up in the house, when it had been in reruns on Oxygen Television. But now, it lay buried no more. The image of Xena, conjured bright and clear in her mind and dressed all in studded leather and her famous ribbed corset, a bright, ethereally-glowing sword in hand . . . and thus, here in the NeuroScape, where anything was possible, it all became real, an Effect-hack given life via Magic: She felt the sword materialize in her hands, felt the corset constrict her breathing for just a moment before growing somewhat used to it, felt the skirt brush her thighs. She felt her imagination kick into high gear, and felt power flowing though her. Felt adrenaline kick in, felt the rush of it fill her. Felt clear-headedness return. For a brief moment, the computer-code that made up the Goat-Demon and the Cathedral flashed in front of her eyes, and she could see it all clearly for exactly what it was — software. Malicious code, infecting her brain.

  “Frak you, you ugly piece of filth.” Dizzy smiled viciously, and her bonds vanished. She was free. She leapt up from the altar, startling the Goat-Demon. It stumbled backward, and looked at her with something like astonishment, and then drew its greatsword.

  Dizzy stood before the Goat-Demon and its insane, murderous gaze, silvery sword in hand and dressed to kill if not exactly for battle; who showed this much skin during a real fight? Really, it was ridiculous . . . but it was also ridiculously cool! She was Xena; she could feel the blood of Ares pumping through her even now; with this much power, one could conquer whole worlds! The Goat-Demon came at her, then, swinging its sword up over its head, meaning to cleave her in two. She dodged the blow by ducking and rolling over, landing back on her feet in a crouch. Funny; it all seemed so real; even the hot, wet smell of the air, the solidness of the stones beneath her, all of it. Especially the Goat-Demon. Its sword clanged to the ground; the thing was strong, but slow, and wielding that sword kept both of its hands busy. Now if only the damned thing would put on a pair of frigging pants!

  The Goat-Demon attacked again; this time, it swung its sword to the side and slashed at her. She danced out of the way and actually felt herself laugh as the heavy blade cut nothing but the air where she’d been. He had missed — but only just barely. A small bloody cut had appeared on her side. Ouch; she hadn’t even felt it, at fist. The damned thing must’ve been sharp! The Goat-Demon roared and attacked again, this time slashing the other way; she couldn’t get out of the way in time — the thing obviously hadn’t been using its full strength, before, for now the sword swung quickly — and so she blocked as best she could with her own sword. Steel met steel, the sound ringing out high and clear. She pushed against the Goat-Demon’s sword-blow with all her might, throwing her entire weight into fending it off. It withdrew, then advanced and swung again, this time slashing at her diagonally. She put her sword up and steeled her muscles against the blow, which came swiftly. With all her strength, she forced the Goat-Demon’s blade back, and back, until finally it withdrew. It regarded her for a moment.

  You should not be able to do such as you are, came silken, slithery whisper inside her skull. Your resistance to us is impressive. But it is of no consequence. I will have you. I will enter you. I will become you, human.

  “Not bloody likely!” she exclaimed, and attacked with a primal yell of fury. The thing put up its great-sword to defend, but she feinted at the last second and brought her blade up and around its defenses, slamming it into the Goat-Demon’s side. Metal cut flesh, and the creature roared in pain and protest as it went stumbling to the side. So, the thing was mortal after all! She rejoiced quietly. It could be wounded; thus, it could be killed. She pulled her blade free of its flesh — black ichorous blood bubbled out of the wound, splashing on the stones below; whatever it touched blackened and decayed, burnt to a crisp. She cringed.

  Mental note, she thought. Do not let that stuff touch you.

  The Goat-Demon came at her again, this time thrusting its sword at her like a javelin. She tried to move out of the way, but the blade caught her in the upper thigh, cutting deep into the muscle. She cried out and fell, catching herself on the Satanic altar just in time. Seeing her wounded, weakened, the monster attacked again; it swung back its sword for a finishing blow, but summoning a strength she had scarcely thought she possessed — the blood of Ares must’ve been burning in her veins today! — she raised her sword, one handed, and swung it one handed; her parry deflected the force of the Goat-Demon’s blow just enough. Heaving for breath, her leg singing hymns of agony and fury, she hopped on one foot and lunged at the Goat-Demon, her sword pointed toward its gut. It backed out of the way quickly and easily; Dizzy lost her balance, and fell to the ground, blood covering her leg, skirt, hands, and corset. She was growing lightheaded. If she did not do something soon, she would die from loss of blood.

  “Asclepius, son of Apollo! Hygieia, Iaso, Panacea, hear now my plea!” she cried out, the words suddenly finding themselves on her tongue. “Hear me O gods, for your servant has need of you!”

  In the distance, a peel of thunder rumbled; the Goat-Demon snarled and looked about itself, as though smelling the approach of something foul. Suddenly, a blindingly-bright, dazzling ball of shimmery white light exploded through the Cathedral doors, hovering above the floor. It flew past the Goat-Demon, and hit Dizzy square in the chest, passing through her like ethereal gossamer electrified by the heavens. She felt a sudden zing filling her, and was dizzy-headed, if only briefly, with a sudden, overpowering feeling of ecstasy and pleasure; it felt as though a honeycomb had melted inside of her, flooding her veins with the nectar of the gods. Bright arcs of lightning leapt to and fro across her body, her muscles, her sword, dancing upon the metal studs in her corset. Her eyes saw sharper; the noise of the chittering spiders and bats up above grew noisier; but her sword suddenly felt lighter in her hand, and her leg . . . her leg was completely healed! The Gods had done it! They had sent down this glowing Messenger, answering her prayers! Renewed courage and strength swelled within her, and she attacked, striking out at the hideous beast for all that she was worth.

  She brought her sword swinging around in a wide arc, forcing the creature to defend itself. It backed up as it deflected her blow with its great-sword. She leapt closer to it — her reflexes wildly fast now — and kicked the Goat-Demon in the stomach just as it readied its sword for yet another attack. It stumbled back further. Good. Intuition told her that if she could just force the thing outside the Cathedral, then it would dissipate, going back to wherever hell-dimension it had been summoned from. She swung her sword again, once more forcing the Goat-Demon to defend; it quickly checked the space between itself and the now-destroyed doors of the Cathedral, and bleated angrily. In a flurry of motion, it attacked, its movements so fast that they blurred across the canvas of time. Yet Dizzy was fast, too — at least, now she was — and she easily dodged the blow, deflecting its force with a swing of her own sword, held two-handed, for balance and for power. She executed a quick spin-kick, the metal toe of her boot landing squarely in the thing’s other side, cracking a few of its ribs with a satisfying crunch. The Goat-Demon stumbled to the side, dropping its sword in the bargain; it went clattering to the stone floor of the Cathedral as the Goat-Demon recovered and came at her again — this time with a dagger that she had seen hidden in its belt earlier.

  She whirled around, using the charging beast’s momentum against it; she quickly sheathed her sword and drew her own dagger. They circled one another, each feinting briefly, each trying to fake the other out. Finally, the Goat-Demon charged her, tossed its dagger in the air, caught it, flipped it around, and brought it screaming through the air straight at her heart, and all just barely before she could move a foot to the left and dodge the blow, right in the nick of time. Another cut opened, this time on her arm. As the creature brought its arm down to stab her and she whirled out of the way, she grabbed hold of its head and locked her arm around its neck, then brought her knee up sharply, smashing the thing’s goat-snouted face squarely into the bone there. It hurt like all seven hells, but at least she had the satisfaction of seeing the damned thing bleed some more. Goat-Demons healed rapidly, apparently . . . already, the chunk she had taken out of its side with her sword earlier was halfway closed, the blood there clotting. She would have to do a lot more damage before this thing could be laid low.

  Dizzy decided to rush the monster, and did so. She went charging forward with a yell, swinging her dagger before her in bright, quick arcs, wielding it like it was a miniature sword, or perhaps an artisan’s cutting tool. The Goat-Demon backed up further, gradually headed toward the entrance to the Cathedral, fending off her attacks with its own dagger, its reflexes matching her speed almost blow for blow; those these did land cut it on the stomach and shoulder; black blood oozed forth from the wounds. She withdrew and attacked again, this time feinting and then cutting it on the arm; then, she pulled back again, only to lunge at it once more; this time she feinted and the creature fell for it, and she stabbed it squarely on the other shoulder — the one belonging to the arm holding the dagger — her blade sinking all the way into its flesh. The Goat-Demon roared in protest as more of its black blood came bubbling out. Dizzy was careful not to let any touch her, and yanked back on her blade, freeing it. The monster shifted its dagger to the other hand, its left arm now hanging there useless. It bellowed an angry bleat at her. She moved to attack again, successfully faked the creature out: Just as she appeared ready to lunge, she dropped to the ground and swept her legs under the beast, knocking its feet out from under it. The Goat-Demon came crashing to the stone floor; she got up just as it was trying to right itself, and kicked it in the snout. Its head whipped to the side and it stabbed at her, its blade going all the way into her side. She cried out in pain, and stumbled back as the creature rose to its feet. Clutching her side with her free hand, she blocked its next attack by throwing up her arm and holding it there. Panicked, she swiftly brought her knee up and into its exposed groin and the distended testicles and serpent-penis that hung there. The Goat-Demon roared in agony as her knee slammed into its junk, doubling over, and Dizzy moved in for the attack. She dropped to her knees, reached in, and stabbed her dagger at the thing’s genitals; her blade sunk all the way into its left testicle with a sickening sound, like rotten fruit being sliced with a dull knife.

  Black, acidic blood exploded outward in freshets — a few drops of it landed on her hand and she screamed in agony as it ate through her flesh — and the creature dropped to its knees, goat-screaming in pain. She leapt to her feet and kicked it in the chin, and its overlarge goat’s-head went lolling back on its neck. It dropped its dagger and flopped over onto its side, clutching its genitals. Dizzy stood over it, gazing down at it as it lay there, twitching, bleating. She picked up her dagger, lifted it high, and slammed it down into the thing’s neck. More of its black, poisonous blood poured out, and she backed up quickly. The Goat-Demon lay dead, coated in its own acidic blood — she noted, curiously, that its blood did not eat through its flesh once freed from its veins — and Dizzy stood above it, panting for breath and clutching her bleeding side.

  She looked, then, and realized she was no longer alone: There, standing by the altar, dressed in a suit of leather armor featuring many buckles and straps, was a young girl with frizzed-out blond hair and too much makeup over her eyes, making her look something like a feisty, demented raccoon.

  “Hi,” said the girl, waving to her. She glanced at the dead — or at least dying — Goat-Demon, its ichorous blood pooling all around it. The girl took a step back as it spread. “Nice job on the evil goat-thingie . . . Xena.”

  “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, miss,” said Dizzy.

  “My name’s Pris,” replied the girl. “Remember the glowing ball of light that saved you, just a few minutes ago?”

  “Er, yes?”

  “Well, that was me,” she said.

  “You were the Messenger the Gods sent just now? That was you?” Dizzy stifled a grin, despite the pain she was in. She was really enjoying getting into character. Where had this girl come from? Who was she? What the hell was she? She decided to just ask. “Just who the Seven Hells are you, anyway, my strange little friend? You’ll pardon me if I seem rude. Slowly bleeding to death, here.”

  “My name is Pris,” the girl replied. “I know who you are. You’re Desirée Amelia Weatherspark. Pleased to meet you. I was . . . I am . . . Viktor Arkenvalen’s daughter.”

  That knocked Dizzy back out of character. She felt her jaw fall open a little. She closed it. “W — wow. I . . . I didn’t know Viktor had any children.”

  “Er — surprise?” said Pris, and waved at her, smiling a half-smile. “Though he doesn’t, biologically. I’m a virtual lifeform. I live in the NeuroScape. He created me. Programmed me. Here. Let me help you with that wound.” She leaned her head back and her eyes glazed over. She lit up with a bright blue aura of light, and her body dissolved into a scintillating orb of blue light that shot forward through space and collided with Dizzy’s body.

  Dizzy stumbled backward a pace or two and felt a tingling sensation all over, but the pain was suddenly gone . . . and then a moment later, Pris reappeared in front of her in a flash of white light, the orb disappearing and her body reintegrating.

  “Whoa,” said Dizzy. The wound in her side was gone. Only the virtual blood remained.

  “Better?” asked Pris.

  “Uh, yeah, thanks,” said Dizzy, breathing heavily, unable to believe the girl’s power. She ran her hand over the spot where the wound had been. Nothing of it remained. “So Viktor created you. And you’re actually alive? Like — thinking, feeling? Sapient? Amazing feat of engineering, that.”

  “I am indeed,” said Pris, and smiled again. “I saw you needed help, and so I came.”

  “How can I . . . Jeeze, I feel like I owe you now. How can I repay you for this? I could’ve died just now. Or could’ve been goat-raped and then died. Either way, it wouldn’t have been pretty.”

  “Seriously? Well for starters, you can kill Ravenkroft. Both versions of him. You can help me kill the Avatar version . . . and then you can kill the real one in the ‘real’ world. Bring down fire and retribution on him in a way that I can’t from in here.”

  “Believe me, I have zero problem with that plan,” said Dizzy, nodding. “But part two of that plan will have to wait until my friends arrive. He’s got the real me magnetized to an operating table in his laboratory back in the real world. And the real me is paralyzed from the waist down, so the real me is no match for the real him one-on-one without my Evangeliojaeger in play. So sorry . . . we have to wait for them to show up, first. But tackling the Avatar version of him here? In the NeuroScape? That we can form a plan of attack for. Right now he’s got . . . well, me, or my Avatar . . . one level up, I guess . . . Yeah, one level up in the simulation, cuffed to a lab table. This is . . . what did he call it . . . a ‘dream within a dream.’ Yeah. Does that make sense to you?”

  Pris nodded. “Yes, but it’s misleading. The way he wanted things to go, you were supposed to succumb to that demon you just killed, not kill it. He’ll know something is wrong soon. When he detects that the download protocol isn’t working, he’ll try the download procedure again . . . which will restart the goat-demon simulation you just broke out of, only with scrambled security protocols so you won’t be able to do what you just did a second time. So we have to hurry. I think I can trick him into thinking it’s working. I can redirect his download of that creature so that it goes to a null port somewhere — that’ll buy us time — and can cross-connect us back to the other level of the simulation so that we can confront Ravenkroft on our terms, not his. Don’t worry, this’ll all make sense. C’mon. Follow me. Let’s get out of this place, and to somewhere where he can’t track your mind-waves.”