Chapter 16

 

The top of the tower was barely observable from its base. “How is that a good idea?” I said.

“It’s not. But the manual flash jack is all the way at the top of the Tower. If we make it, we can jam that sucker in there and it’ll be forced to play the first MP3 it finds.”

I tossed the flash drive back to him. “You do it.”

“Great idea! I’m more used to this kind of stuff anyway. You just stay here and talk to your new friend!”

“My what?”

He pointed behind me and I looked to see the alien I was dancing with before pushing past a couple of dancers to get up to us. “Hey, hey you!” He shouted through a gruff and growly voice.

I snatched the flash drive away from Lucas, “I’ll do it.”

I started for the banister and did my best to get my leg up and around it. The dog creature reached out for me, “hey woah am I that big of a turn off, huh? Do I-” he sniffed his armpit, “okay so I smell when I dance, but so does everybody! It’s sweat!”

Lucas tried to stop me, but before he could I was over the banister. I fell into the pit. My arm hit something sticky, so I did my best to wipe it off into my shirt. That didn’t help, I could still feel it through the fabric. But at the moment I didn’t care. A sticky dance pit with empty beer cans and vomit stains was better than awkward small talk. The DJ Tower spun around and the eye pulled out to meet me on the floor, “You have breached the dancer prohibition device. I urge you to return to the dance floor within THIRTY seconds.”

Its voice modulated with the optional number. I groaned, “can’t you go to sleep pal?”

I followed the arm’s length to the spot it pulled from and noticed a small wire that wrapped into the panel and traveled downward. It didn’t take much to crawl on the floor around the base to find a panel that seemed to be where it was getting power.

“Sleeping is not funkadelic. You now have TWENTY seconds to leave before disciplinary action is taken.”

“Or what, you’ll stop me from dancing?”

“Yes.” Another arm reached out from one of its panels. The end of it sparked as it gently thrust toward me, “with this taser.”

“Oh.”

I scrambled over to the panel and got my fingers beneath it. I struggled to get it open, lacking any type of tools to help me. That was when Lucas plopped down next to me and offered me a hairpin. “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

“Fine. Thank you.” I took the pin from him and used it to jimmy my way under the panel. In a second it popped open, revealing a tiny electric board with several wires feeding into it.

“You have TEN seconds, dancer. Please, go lose yourself to dance.”

“What are you gonna do?” He said, “some sort of crazy hacker thing where you manipulate the hardware to work for you and overtake the-”

I tore the board out and the arms around us went limp. Lucas smacked his lips, “or that.”

I gave him back the pin and stood up. The great spinning tower was still before us. I saw the flirty alien from the corner of my eye staring curiously at me. He crossed his broad arms and smiled. He was really confident. I liked it. I hated it. So I grabbed onto the tower and started my slow ascent. There were enough strange pieces of hardware jutting out of this thing it was practically a rock climbing wall. I pulled myself up carefully into the first leg of the tower, but it soon shifted in its usual spin and nearly knocked me right off. I held on until I was sure the rotation had stopped and tried again. It was clear that I needed to time my climb with the spins. No easy task, especially since Lucas was climbing up on the other side and talking to me.

“Are you seriously doing this just to avoid talking to that guy?” Lucas said. The tower spun and I had to hold on before answering.

“Please, just let me do this.” I said.

“Look, I get it, people can be scary but he seemed pretty nice.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be laying low?”

Lucas gestured to the crowd where more than a few people had taken notice of us, “Pretty sure this is the exact opposite of that.”

Looking down, I realized that even Krazmundo didn’t get a view like this and snapped my head up. I raised myself up and set my foot down on a lever. It gave under my weight and I felt my grip loosen on the rung above me. The tower spun again and the lights changed to a chaotic green as another track with a more hyper energy kicked in. I braced against the tower, waiting for the spin to end. Lucas shouted along and even climbed a bit higher in the chaos. Once it stopped, I started trying to get as high as I could.

“So do you have a plan for getting down?” I said.

“Eh, the crowd’ll catch us, especially if the song slaps.”

“I could slap you! We can’t rely on a crowd to catch us!”

“Sure we could, they’ll just think it’s part of the show!”

“Not everything is a show, Lucas! Things don’t just work out like that!”

“Just treat it like a Saturday night. Sure, there’s work tomorrow but you don’t care.”

“Yeah well I can’t wait for my boss to hear this one. ‘Why haven’t you been at work, Matt? Oh, it’s because I was climbing into the DJ booth at a nightclub HUNDREDS OF LIGHTYEARS AWAY!’”

Lucs seemed to consider it seriously, “...You think he’ll buy that?”

The tower spun again, interrupting both of us.  By now we were so high I dared not look down. I heard some patrons scream for help, and the word “security” definitely passed by at some point, but I couldn’t stop now. We were almost there.

Lucas poked his head around to me, “you know you were doing pretty great back there. The only reason you stopped was because you got afraid of a little gay.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m just saying, who out here is going to judge you? Spread your wings a little man, that’s part of why you’re here right?”

I picked up my pace and got ahead of him, deciding it best to hurry this up before I got really mad. We were so close, I could see the input jack much clearer than before. I just needed to make one more big climb. I reached out and grabbed onto the nearest module I could. My eyes widened when it pressed in.

At once, a siren rang out across the club and the sounds of a maddened crowd echoed upwards. Nozzles drained out from the ceiling and a spray of pink foam spewed out of them. It rained like cotton candy and came with the scent of bubblegum soap. Much of it got on the tower and the surface became slick. I closed my eyes as a glob fell onto me. It slid down my shoulders and stained my shirt. I couldn’t brush it, I dared not move much at all for fear that I might let go and rain down with the rest of the foam.

Then, because of course it did, the tower spun again. I held tight despite the slippery suds at my fingers. My legs kicked out from under me, and I screamed as I realized I was at the mercy of pink foam. The tower came to a halt and my legs went horizontal. I kicked for some footing and managed to get one on a console beneath me, while the other dangled freely next to it. My heart was well within my throat by now, and I thought that maybe giving my number to a shirtless furry alien was a fate better than being the reason the sign out front would change to a big red “0”.

“Matt! Keep going!” Lucas shouted from beneath me. He was hanging on about as tightly as I was. I could see the jack from there, still just out of reach. Taking a breath, I hoisted myself up and managed to get just underneath it. We were way too high, so much I could see the scaffolds of the ceiling which housed different electronics and lights for the whole club. I couldn’t understand what kind of bizarre system this ran on, and I frankly didn’t care. All that mattered was getting this over with. I tightened the grip of my left hand and reassured myself of my footing. I was certain that despite the slick foam I could stay in this spot. Then, I carefully took my right hand and reached down into my pocket for the flash drive. It was slow, each second punctuated by my shaking breath, and as I curled my fingers around the drive and brought it out from my pocket a loud noise came from beside me.

I immediately held tight to the tower, thinking it was going to spin again. But no, instead I saw two paths extending out from the darkness of the club walls. I couldn’t believe it.

“There was ANOTHER WAY UP?!” I called down to Lucas, who seemed just as confused.

“Guess they added those,” he said. From either side two imposing aliens in dark suits stepped out. Large spikes ripped through holes in their outfits, and their fingers seemed to be nothing but claws.

“Oh hey! It’s Mel and Vish! They’re from security!” Lucas shouted. She laughed, “hey guys!”

“Dammit Lucas! Will you stop?!” I redoubled my efforts and reached up for the jack with the drive. I pushed it forward, and nearly dropped when it didn’t fit.

“Fuck! It doesn’t fit!”

“Turn it around!”

Oh yeah. I flipped the drive around and slammed it into the jack, desperate for this to be over. As soon as I did the entire club was plunged into darkness. The music stopped. The air got cold. And the shouts of confusion from the crowd below turned into a wail of anger I couldn’t stand. I gripped the tower, and felt as though I was holding onto my last bit of sanity as the void consumed me whole. I whispered to myself, “Three things I can feel… the tower… the foam…”

A hand was on mine, the only hand that was keeping me from falling to my death. It was gloved. It was warm. ”Lucas.” The name left my lips like a venom.

He spoke, “So, enjoying your first night out?”

Dammit. How was he being so calm, even like this? I hated it. He should have been just as paranoid, if not more, but no. This was just another show for him, because it always was. Why was all of this so fucking easy for him?

At once the lights blasted us, a deep dark red that washed over us like blood. I looked up, the two guards were hunched over and reaching out. One lashed at the air, the other seemed genuinely worried. He reached again and I almost took it, until a noise erupted from the speakers that startled them both and caused them to fall over the platforms. The crowd gasped as the guards nearly fell the whole way. They managed to grab onto the tower, scraping just a few feet beneath us. After taking a second to get their bearings, they started to climb.

“Go! Now!” Lucas shrieked, and I was in auto pilot. The music kept on, a strange pounding beat that seemed to hit each time I took a step. Finally, when I made it to the top, I scrambled over the edge and laid out flat on my back at the top of the tower. Lucas cried out for my help, and I got to my feet to hoist him up beside me.

That’s when the lyrics kicked in.

A strange language that sounded cobbled together by various different voices leaked from the speakers. It drizzled onto the audience, and caused several of them to look directly up at us. There we were, caught in the attention of every single creature in that club. And as the music crescendoed, several hundred of the dancers did something I couldn’t believe.

They bowed. Hundreds of different creatures all joined in the single motion. They stayed there, each head pointed toward the center tower. Toward us.

“What the Hell?” Lucas said.

“It’s the song.” I said, “What’s it saying?”

He took a moment to listen, “No idea. This isn’t any language I’ve ever learned. I can’t even tell what it is. It’s just some weird prog-rock post industrial nonsense.”

I looked down at the tower, the two guards were well on their way. “Let’s get out of here.” I said, “We’ve already caused enough trouble.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kraz already gave our contact the Sphere.”

We both turned and followed one of the platforms into the scaffolding. It was a winding maze of wires, servers, and lights. We took a right, then a left, then two rights and another left, but the exit was nowhere. Instead we found ourselves in front of a large vat with a lid. It sat in the center of four branching paths. Several pipes fed into it, and I could see through a glass window that more pink foam was being stirred up within. Next to it was a simple console with a couple of buttons and a timer counting steadily down.

“Ugh, more foam?” I said, “come on, let’s keep going.”

We pushed forward. We made to round another corner when a large shape emerged from the redness and turned into us. “Cass! Look out!”

Lucas whipped out his gun, ready to fire, when the shape raised his hands. All four of them.

“Hon! It’s me!” Krazmundo shouted.

“Kraz!” Lucas said, “Jesus, babe you scared me half to death! Why are you up here?”

“Why am I up- you guys were climbing a hundred foot tall tower!”

“Well how else were we supposed to get to the input jack?”

“I don’t know, stairs maybe?! Like the ones I just walked up?! Two minutes, babe!”

“Well we didn’t know there were stairs!”

“Wait a minute!” I said, and pointed at the sphere still dangling form his belt. “You didn’t give that to the contact?”

“I never saw them.” Krazmundo said.
A snarling voice from behind us cut us off. We turned in time to see one of the guards barreling for us. Krazmundo immediately pushed both of us behind him and raised his fists ready to fight. The guard crawled up the wall and leapt out for Krazmundo’s face. He was able to block with his arms, but the guard stayed latched on and started scratching out flakes of Krazmundo’s exoskeleton. Lucas took a shot and the guard fell back, but it was clear he was already rousing for another round.

“Wait, let’s roll back.” Lucas said as he cooled his gun, “what did you call me a second ago?”

Fuck. I did my best to try and ignore the question.

“You called me Cass.”

“I called you Cass?”

“You called me Cass.”

Before I could answer, something snatched the back of my shirt and I was lifted into the ceiling. I screamed up into the gnashing teeth of the other guard. He must have used the confusion to creep behind us somehow. I kicked and pleaded to be put down but the guard’s grip was firm. I dangled helplessly as he reeled back into the labyrinthian scaffolds. Another corner and we were out of sight. I was pulling at his claws, desperate to get free. He didn’t seem to care, he had more than enough control of his legs to easily get around regardless of what I was doing. He chittered in a deep voice and used his free hand to fish a pair of handcuffs from his waist.

“I don’t know my space rights!” I said, “This isn’t fair!”

Suddenly he cried out in pain and my shirt was torn out of his grasp. Falling into the cold hard grate didn’t exactly feel good and his body piled on top of me, smashing the air from my lungs. I scrambled to get out from under him and took a moment to cough the air back into me. I looked to him to try and understand what had just happened. He was holding onto one of his legs, blood splattered around his hand. It was flowing from a wound at what might have been his calf. What was more, steam was rising from it. As though it had just been burned. I gazed up at the ceiling to see a thick ooze begin to filter from the wires and pipes. It steadily merged onto a single point before that too began to drizzle onto the guard below. The flashing lights played with its color, creating a strange image of chocolate turning to blood and orange juice. Any way it drizzled, the result was the screams of the guard beneath it. I shook myself out of my daze and grabbed for his hand.

His bony claws wrapped around my fleshy fingers, and I struggled to pull him free. Being fast wasn’t an option, he was just too heavy, but dammit I wasn’t going to just let him melt like that. He kicked to try and help, and howled out as the slime spread past his torso and dripped into the open wound. It sizzled as it seared it, only to create more in the process. Finally, I was able to scrape him just out of the pool. The scaffolds shook as we fell back, flat on my ass with the guard on top of me. A single ball clattered from the ceiling and topped the blob before us. The eye opened, and a vertical slit formed from its right.

“Well well.” Bedaup said, “things have changed, huh bud?”

He seemed smaller than before. Still, to someone with zero experience with blob monsters he was just as much of a threat. “You said you weren’t after me.” I said.

“I wasn’t.” He said, steadily forming up, “then that song made everything click. You’re worth a hell of a lot more than you think, Earth boy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was the language of Those Who See, and they’re gunning right for you.” He moved forward, and I pulled the guard back as best I could. A tendril slapped out from his shape, which I had to roll to avoid. Unfortunately that got the guards leg stuck beneath him, making him howl in pain. Bedaup chuckled, “Wasn’t expecting my dinner to be live today, but hey what can ya do?”

A hot bright beam splurged through his top. The goop splattered onto my face and I screamed. I let go of the guard and used my sleeve to try and wipe it off, my skin tingled and stung. The goo seemed to leap off of the fabric. It fell to the ground and slowly began to creep back to its source.

Bedaup’s eye spun around to see Lucas. He fired again and another piece of Bedaup splattered the ceiling. The substance already started to drip. I put all the strength I could in yanking the guard out of the way and started trying to help him to his feet. He seemed to understand, and together we stood and stepped back from Bedaup.

“Hey asshole!” Lucas cried, “yer s’posed to ask someone before melting them, you know that right?”

It was easier now to see that Bedaup was indeed shorter, by about three feet. As the splattered goo collected he grew slightly taller, but it wasn’t much. He lengthened up.

“Oh please.” Bedaup said, “you’ve got the lottery on your hands and you don’t even know it! If you’re not gonna turn him in, I will!”
“The one eye look isn’t good for you! Where’re the other two?” Lucas said.

“Where’s your four armed boytoy?”

“He’s busy.”

“So am I.”

Bedaup came toward us again which was answered by another high shot from Lucas. The goo splattered away from us but the laser shot right past my head and impacted a light fixture far behind us. The crowd below cried out as the fixture fell, crashing onto the dispersing scene.

“Careful!” I called. “We’re still back here!”

“Then move!” Lucas shouted.

I looked to the guard who nodded in agreement and we both hiked it out of there just as Bedaup fired a tendril at us. I heard another shot from Lucas and sparks flew behind us. Where he hit I didn’t care, I just hobbled as fast as I could. The guard did his best to help, but his legs were stripped so bare of their flesh, he was practically useless.

My heart was leaping out of my chest. I could barely hold my head up as I tried to breathe through the weight. The guard pointed out a turn and I followed, figuring he was trying to get me out of there too. Everything was going well until a grate catapulted from the floor before us, allowing another blobby goo to crawl out from the scaffold. The eyeball that balanced on top glared up at me. Another Bedaup.

I didn’t have time to figure out how, I just needed to run. I did a one-eighty, but the Bedaup goo flowed up and around the ceiling to try and get the drop on us. I lurched outward and leapt ahead of him, barely nicking my shoe on the encroaching slime.

The guard pointed me in another direction and we came to a three way intersection with a path ahead and another to our right. All at once Krazmundo came charging down the right path and slammed the other guard into the wall. Pipes busted out above them in the impact, and it got noticeably darker around us.

“Holy shit!” I said, more surprised than anything.

“Get going! I have him distracted and Cass- what the hell is going on?” Krazmundo said, realizing who I was carrying, and no doubt noticing the trail of viscera that was coming from him.

The second guard was gasping under Krazmundo’s chokehold as the first one cried out in its language.

“He’s right! I think.” I said, “we have bigger problems to worry about now. Bedaup is up here and he’s fighting Lucas!”

“Bedaup?” Krazmundo said. “Where is he?”

A guttural groaning answered him. The sound of sizzling sludge wasn’t enough to warn us as it began to spill out from the pipes above. Krazmundo quickly leapt away, and as the second guard gasped for air Bedaup spilled into his mouth instead. He cried out, an agonizing scream that splashed about in acidic pain. The guard I was holding wrenched out from my grasp and pulled the other out of the way, only to fall into it, his last breaths were indistinguishable from the sizzling. Krazmundo hoisted the drowning guard up and out, but the way his skin peeled away from his face told me this was futile. He bent him over and slapped his back. The guard vomited immediately, a spray that splashed the walls and floor. Then he jerked forward and grabbed at his own throat.

“Shit! He’s choking!” Krazmundo pressed the guard against the wall and held up his head. He reeled his lower arms back and slammed the guards gut as hard as he could. At the exact moment of impact the third eye of Bedaup spewed out of his mouth as his body split open to the floor. Pieces of skin sloughed out until the mass of flesh became still. The slime, now unclear where vomit ended and Bedaup began,, caught the eye like a baseball and swirled into a twister. A mouth, rigid and grinning, floated on top of the mass. His malicious laughter was barely enough to cover the slick schlorping noise of the bodies he was consuming, “delicious.”

I was frozen. Krazmundo wasn’t. He picked me up and the scaffolds rattled as he bounded away. By now the music had become a sort of techno dirge, though it was playing to an empty dance hall. I couldn’t tell what way we were going, and Krazmundo was having as much trouble. We came to a stop and he tried to get his bearings.

“Why do they make these places so damn confusing?” He muttered, “I swear I came this way…”

“Three things I can feel…” I said, holding my breath against my anxiety.

“Frustration, anger, rage.” Krazmundo responded. The plastic smack sound of goo hitting metal signaled Bedaup’s approach, but we couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

“No I-I’m trying to calm down.” I said, “Two things I can s-see…”

“A way out? A plan?”

“You’re REALLY not helping right now!”

“Well it would be easier to think without this stupid music!”

He swung around and went for a random direction, but it just led to a set of speakers pumping the music so loud I could hear nothing else. I could feel his body shaking, the rage was really hitting the boiling point. He lashed out, swinging me around as the speakers exploded in his strike. One of them fell, while another hung on a precarious wire. The music, at least, had gone quieter. And Krazmundo’s breathing took its place.

“One thing… I can hear…” I said and closed my eyes. All I could hear was him. His breathing was deep, raspy, laced with grumbles, but it was consistent. Good. That was all I needed. Something to focus on, something to ground me so I could try and think. I let the breathing carry me out of the moment. It isolated me into a dark cocoon, just tight enough to be comfortable. In. Out. Hitch. In. Out. Grumble. In. Out. Voice.

“Come on, flan man, you can do better than that!”

Lucas. My brain came out of the dark and I opened my eyes. Suddenly it was like I could understand the flow of the scaffolds, all I had to do was focus on where that voice had come from. I pointed out, “There! Lucas is over there!”

Bedaup fell in my line of sight. He howled in laughter, “where do ya think you’re going, huh?!”

Krazmundo backed up, he used his free hands to take his rifle out and fire, but the shots just rippled through Bedaup like he was swiss cheese. Krazmundo cursed, “Welp. Time for a stupid plan.” He said. “You’re certain she’s that way?”

“Yeah, he’s right over-”

“Cool.” With a massive swing I was catapulted into the air. I flailed in panic as Bedaup reached up to catch me, missing by a thread. I fell to the ground, My elbow scraped on the scaffolds. Krazmundo shouted, “Get going! I’ll catch up!”

Bedaup ignored him and started for me, which gave Krazmundo the opportunity to plunge his arm right into the hot ooze. He roared against the pain that carved burns into his exoskeleton and wrapped his fingers around Bedaup’s eye and yanked the sucker right out, causing the blob to break open and follow the eye. Krazmundo ran the other way, leading the screeching yellow pus behind him. I took the chance to book it.

I followed where I had heard Lucas and came back around to the foam vat. There, Lucas was fighting off Bedaup. He fired more shots into him, breaking him apart at each angle. The eyeball zoomed around Bedaup’s brothy body and he laughed deeply, “you need to work on your aim, pal!” 

I ran over, “Lucas!”

“Oh hey!” He said and fired another missed shot, “back on that name, huh?”

I grabbed his arm, “we need to go! Now!”

Before I could take him, another Bedaup fell out from the ceiling. I grabbed his hand and led him around to another path, but the third emerged just as we did and shot a tendril right for us. We ducked out of the way and came to the fourth path. We didn’t even get to the middle before another one sprung up from the floor and shouted out, “surprise!!!”

“Son of a bitch!” Lucas shot at him and we backed away, but the eye was doing good to keep itself out of range. Soon, we were standing at the feet of the foam vat, trapped by four slithering yellow Bedaups.

“Krazmundo was distracting one.” I said, “how can there be more?” 

“I thought you said you lost your fourth.” Lucas said.

“I lied.” Bedaup chortled in unison with himself, “Now I have five.”