RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 HEADS WILL ROLL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 - HEADS WILL ROLL

By Steven Novak

Scattered around you are the bodies of the Martians you’ve just dispatched, their normally gray fresh singed and burnt from the blasts of your laser pistol. The room smells like a barbeque. It smells like day old fried chicken.

It smells oddly delicious.

In ten seconds the Janitor King or the reinforcements for the corpses sprawled at your feet, or possibly both, will undoubtedly come rushing through the door. Your first thought is to use the light transporter that brought you here in the first place to get the hell out. It’s a perfectly reasonable plan. It makes complete sense. Plus it would be easy. It’s also the best chance you have for survival. It’s exactly the kind of plan you would have jumped at fifteen minutes ago.

Too bad this isn’t fifteen minutes ago.

Things have changed dramatically since the former “King” of Mars asked you to come with him and allowed you to log into his data cube. You aren’t the same person that woke up buried beneath Malloy’s underpants just twenty-four hours ago. You aren’t the same confused and fearful schmuck just trying to survive.

Sure, you still don’t fully understand what’s going on, but you think you might have the answers tucked safely into the pouch around your waist. You’re done running and you’re through being scared. If the bodies of the chicken-smelling Martian corpses at your feet prove anything at all, it’s that whoever is about to burst into the room should be scared of you, not the other way around.

Kneeling down, you snag a second pistol from one of the Martian corpses, and then a third from another. You grab a nearby rifle and toss it over your shoulder as well as a few percussion grenades, and a laser-knife – which you slide into the loop on your belt. After arming two of the still smoking pistols you point them at the still-closed door. Let them come and get you. Let them try. It’s about time you stopped searching for answers like an idiot and started trying to make some instead.

It’s time you grew a pair.

What comes next is mostly a blur. A group of Martian reinforcements blasts their way into the room and starts firing. Your body moves even before your mind has time to formulate anything remotely resembling a plan or a maneuver. This is muscle memory at its finest and most dangerous.

In no time at all the room has become a mass of laser beams, wild debris and billowing clouds of grayish black smoke. You’re sliding, and firing, and spinning, all while shooting holes in the chests of the attacking Martians at an astounding rate. One of the Martian guards manages to get close enough to take a swing at you with a four foot long laser-sword. You dodge the wild strike by dropping low and blast a hole in his stomach with one of your pistols.

Your other pistol takes off his head.

You’re moving too fast for the Martians to handle – your shots are too precise. Behind you something explodes. A severed Martian arm smacks you in the back of the head. A fiery torso slides across the bloody floor beside you, spinning like a top and spraying blood in every direction like a sprinkler. You ignore it.

As the Martians begin retreating into the hallway outside the room, you instinctively follow. They aren’t getting off that easily. No one is getting off so easily – not with you – not ever again.

Hoisting the corpse of one of your attackers into the air, you use the Martian’s body as a makeshift shield and continue to press forward. With your free hand you start firing into the crowd of reinforcements crammed into the tight quarters of the hallway. Though it’s difficult to get an accurate count through the smoke and the noise and the explosions, you think there might be thirty of them.

A Martin head explodes like a balloon inflated just a bit too far. A chunk of Martian brain bounces off the side of your ear like a NERF ball soaked in cottage cheese.

Better make that twenty-nine.

It takes you less than ten minutes to dispatch the remaining twenty-nine Martian guards, and the fifteen or so that swarm in afterward. A half an hour after that and you find yourself holed up in a modestly sized room in one of the Martian slums on the outskirts of the colony. You rented the place under a false name and used some Zircons you stole from the uniform of one of the corpses during your firefight.

You’re nibbling on some dinner you purchased on the way over – it's chicken. The gunfight left you very hungry for chicken. Go figure.

With a bit of creative tinkering you manage to connect the data cube the Janitor King gave you to the room’s rather crummy and remarkably simplistic Martian Television set built into the wall. The thing is so old it doesn’t even offer a brain interface – so old you’re surprised it even turned on. There’s absolutely no reason these two things should ever work in conjunction with one another, but making them do exactly that seems almost laughably simple to you all of a sudden.

You chuckle audibly; a lot of things seem simpler these days.

In no way prepared for the sudden jolt of information, the viewing screen of the ancient television begins to hum as the contents of the cube pop onto the monitor. The interface of cube and this antiquated bit of Martian technology isn’t likely to last long, and when the circuits are fried both contraptions will likely be useless.

You only need a few minutes though – five at the most – five measly minutes and you’ll have your answers.

Moments before the firefight you were smart enough to transfer the contents of the NOSSA surveillance cameras to the data cube. You need to finish watching the video you started earlier.

You chuckle to yourself again. In a weird way the Janitor King was right – turns out it does hold the answers to all your questions.

Quickly coding the transmission to the night in question you watch the screen carefully and notice the all too familiar forms of Saleen and Malloy entering quietly into your quarters back on Earth. With a wild static-buzz the camera shifts to the room's interior and follows the pair as they make their way past your couch, into the kitchen, and then through the door leading to your sleeping quarters.

The screen turns to static once again.

The television you’ve interfaced with is starting to overheat. The information is far too large for it to handle. It’s falling apart quicker than you imagined.

It won’t last much longer.

The static on the screen morphs into a twisty distorted image that stretches dramatically, leaving the feet of Saleen and Malloy on one end of the screen and their heads on the other.

With one hand you smack the side of the Television with your palm, “Come on you piece of junk. Hold together for a minute more!” Instantly the image clears.

You can hardly believe what you’re seeing.

Saleen and Malloy look to be standing alongside your bed. Not only that, but you’re standing right beside them – at least the you that’s dressed in black with dark make-up smeared across your face.

Even weirder than that is the fact that there seems to be another you lying sound asleep beneath the covers.

Like shaking a Frisbee loose from a tree, or the act of smacking that last bit of ketchup from the bottom of the jar, the bizarre image knocks loose the confused memories hidden previously within the folds of your brain. Immediately everything comes flooding back.

You’re not you.

You were never you.

Before the television screen overheats and fizzles out with a puff of smoke, you watch as Malloy fires a laser pistol at the you that’s snuggled under the covers with a stupid grin on your face. The blast opens a hole in your chest so large there’s barely a chest remaining when it’s over.

You were the secret weapon all along.

It all makes sense now. It’s all so clear. That’s why Big Boob Bob seemed to feel such a kinship with you. That’s why he was always winking at you and smiling knowingly. That’s why Malloy was so pissed and confused when you escaped. That’s why your memories have felt so disjointed, and uneven, and distant - they aren't even your memories.

You’re not an accountant. You were never an accountant.

They used the likeness of the accountant to get you into NOSSA and onto the transport to Mars.

Lifting your hand to your face you watch as it begins to morph into a shimmering, slimy blob of gelatinous goo. A moment later it transforms yet again into something more closely resembling a Martian hand, and then again into its original form.

You’re not you.

You’re nobody.

You’re a machine that’s gone haywire – an overheated television that’s burnt out.

The plan was for you to assassinate president Womack with the help of Bob, and then the pair of you – and a few others like you – would replace the Martian presidential cabinet and take over rule of the planet.

The plan failed.

They tried to use you. They tried to turn you into something you apparently had no interest in becoming.

No, you’re not you. You’re everybody. You’re anybody you want to be. And you’re going to make them pay.

Less than a week later, back on Earth, Tan’s body washes up in the sewage system underneath NOSSA headquarters. A day afterward Richardson’s laser blast-riddled corpse is discovered in stretched out in his bedroom. Only fourteen hours after that Saleen’s Amazonian-esque body is found stuffed into her modest locker in the NOSSA training center. Quite a few bones were broken and rearranged in order to get her in there, and it takes a day and a half and a laser-cutter to get her out. Only a day afterward, the NOSSA headquarters are burned to the ground. An investigation brings to light the fact that the company was neck deep into illegal experiments with Mutagenic Cell Alteration – which in layman’s terms means you.

A month later Malloy’s body is discovered in seedy hotel down south. He knew you were after him and had been on the run for some time.

While staring down at the corpse the investigating officer pulls the bed sheets covering him away from his body and is taken aback for a minute by what he sees.

He calls over the first officer onto the scene, “Was he like this when you found him?”

“Yep, exactly.”

“What the hell happened to his junk?”

“Dunno…guess someone cut it off.”

THE END.

RETURN TO CHAPTER 1

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

By M.J. Heiser

You realize in a startling moment of clarity that none of the crap that’s happened to you since you woke up in Malloy’s locker is any of your business. What is your business is the stuff that happened on the ship. You have to get back to the NOSSA vessel, ASAP, get to the bottom of these shenanigans.

President Womack is just going to have to deal with your reluctance to play hero today.

You march with purpose to the wall that somehow conceals the transporter the Janitor King used to bring you both to this weird office on Mars. You show no hesitation in manipulating the control panel – after all, you’ve just proven to be a whiz at hacking through interplanetary computer defense programs. You smile to yourself as the wall of white light and energy appears in front of you, and with a single-minded determination, you move into the light.

Unfortunately, Whiz Kid, you maybe should have taken an extra minute at the control panel. After all, the last person to manipulate it was the Janitor King, and he had it set to transport one Earthling and one Martian. You overlooked that one control, and it’s leading your body through unfortunate contortions through space and time.

You never make it back to the NOSSA vessel. Instead, for the next several months leading to your gruesome death, you’re going to have to deal with being stretched, pushed, pulled, and contorted like so much organic-material taffy – and you’ll spend every day of that time wishing you’d just played the hero.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 10

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 PISTOLS BLAZING

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - PISTOLS BLAZING
By Tomara Armstrong

Smoke rises off the bodies on the floor, and the room is ripe with the smell of singed hair and skin. Your pistol begins to beep and you toss it to the floor--the battery is low.
Scavenging the fallen, you acquire new Martian pistols, a little larger than your NOSSA issue – you can’t help but smile at how light they are. You come across several small baubles each marked with a luminous green spade. Gas or grenade, you think as you stuff them into your pocket.

Either way, I win.

You hear the shuffling of feet outside the office. Crawling across the floor on your stomach you approach the door and crack it open.

The “King” is standing back as a small Martian army closes in on the door. From your crouched position, you have a clear shot of his royal highness. You think on it for a moment, and decide you have nothing to lose. You’re probably not going to make it out of here alive, so you might as well go all out.

Steady, aim, and fire…

You hit!

The King’s head explodes into the air and his body convulses. He doesn’t collapse. His arms flop erratically as his Martian innards gush skywards like a geyser back home.

You jump up from the floor and pump your guns in the air in victory. Maybe he was just a janitor, but who cares? That was cool as hell!

Your move has confused the Martian army, so you use this to your advantage. “I am an assassin!” You yell as you push open the office door, firing your pistols intermittently.

Ducking behind the Mars-A-Bon stand, you do a quick count between fires and are happily surprised that you’ve bagged a good eight to ten Martian toughs. Not too bad for flunking Firearms at Academy.

The sticky cinnamon buns are trying to break your focus, but you are on a winning streak. You slide the data cube across the concrete plaza. It sings as it soars to a stop fifty feet from you. You aim both pistols and fire.

They hit! You are on a roll, Assassin!

The shots ricochet and multiply--thanks to the prismatic components of the cube--and unleash sheer mayhem on the Martians. Body parts are disintegrating left and right as foreign-tongued screams of agony fill the air. You laugh hysterically, firing on the wounded to finish off the job.
Wearing the marks of war--Martian splatter on your boots and across your face-- you continue to fire at what is left of the Martian toughs. They are all down, but a few attempt to pull themselves behind garbage bins or try to shield themselves with their fallen comrades.

You are firing at everything, including the mannequins in shops outside of the hotel. You have accidentally maimed a few players from Team Earth in your killing spree, but you don’t care. You’re an animal. A weapon. A killing machine.

Bad Ass.

Silence.

A timer dings at the Mars-A-Bon signaling a fresh batch of yummy goodness. You drop you pistols and make your way to the stand, wiping your hands on your pants. A celebratory Mars-A-Bon is in order. The only thing that would make this moment better is a frosted mug of 2 % milk.
A moan makes you jump and reach into your pockets. The baubles are cold to the touch. You crouch down and scan the area. The only movement is a bloody mess a few feet away. You realize that this is not a threat and walk casually over to examine it thoroughly.

The Martian is missing both legs and has a massive wound to its middle. What can only be its Martian guts writhed out of the hole that sneaks a peak at the pavement below.

“Sucks to be you.” You laugh, accidentally dropping the baubles you were holding in your hand.

“Uh oh…” You jump back, but your foot is tangled in Martian guts, and you fall to the ground.

A green liquid leaks from the broken bauble and snakes toward you on the ground. “Shit!”

You vaguely remember something about that spade symbol. “What is it? What is it?”
You try to pull away from the mangled Martian, but the more you tug the more you become entangled.

The liquid slides closer as if it senses your presence. “What is it?” you shout.

It reaches your foot and slides up over your boot, into your sock and up your pants. A burning sensation overcomes you and you begin to convulse. It’s coming to you now. The spade… the spade… Martian testicles!. Harmless to Martians, Martian semen is capable of altering the physical state of the human form... breaking down human DNA and rebuilding a Martian-human hybrid.

Another REALLY helpful Academy class, and you slept right through it. Way to go, dumbass!
Covered in spunk, you lose consciousness, melting and folding in on yourself. Your NOSSA uniform flattens as you slip out of your collar and form an undulating green blob. Your eyes roll to the surface and patches of hair move across the new you.

Way to go Freakshow.

Congrats on the makeover.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 10

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 HACKING OFF ALONE

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - HACKING OFF ALONE

By M.J. Heiser

Possibilities swirl through your mind. You can't help yourself from a fleeting desire to know exactly what it was that led to this -- specifically, how in the hell did you end up in Malloy's locker, anyway? The only memory you have from just before that moment was a normal one, of slipping under the sheets in your quarters, glancing at the TID (time information device), and taking a deep drink out of a bottle of water next to your bed . . .

"I really need an answer if the plan is going to work," the Janitor King says, a tone of strained patience in his voice.

"You say this thing has all the answers," you say to him, lifting the datacube slightly in your left hand. A beam of white light catches a corner of the crystal-like material, and the light splinters into a prism.

"It has all the answers a human would need," the Martian answers politically.

"You didn't answer my question. Does it have everything?"

"What are you getting at?"

"You're asking me to take part in yet another conspiracy. I don't like conspiracies. I like the thought that by agreeing, I could save both of our worlds, but what if I'm being played for a sucker? That's been happening to me a lot lately. I don't want to be involved in a murder, no matter how deserving the target is, if I'm being lied to."

The Janitor King smiles at you. "Quite understandable, and a quality anyone would desire in their leader."

You roll your eyes. "Save the political bullshit, okay? I just want to know that I'm getting the real deal out of this." Once again you heft the datacube. "I want to see what's on this."

"Very well," the Martian says, rising from his desk and offering you his seat. "Use my terminal."

You sit down. The chair is obviously designed for the unusual ergonomic needs of a Martian body, but you hope you don't have to use it for long. Naturally, you're familiar with the terminal setup, and you slide the datacube into a notch right above your lap. A holographic screen appears in front of you. Electrons swarm into a recognizable graphic interface, and you're offered an option to view the contents of the datacube in either Martian or Human English.

You turn back to the Janitor King, annoyed that he's standing over you. "Do you mind?"

He looks startled. "What?"

"I want to be alone with this."

"Why?"

You sigh. "Because you may be hiding some tricks up your sleeve. Maybe you've preprogrammed the terminal to show me some really impressive stuff that isn't on the datacube. Maybe you have a dagger and you'll stab me if I look at the wrong thing. It doesn't matter. I want to see what's really on the cube, and I don't want you here."

He's obviously disappointed, and you wonder if you don't sense a bit of outrage coming off of him -- but he nods. He can't do otherwise. Your logic is sound. "Very well, but how do I know you won't make a copy of the information and abandon my proposal?"

He has a point, damn it. He seems prepared to concede your condition, so you know you have to be willing to concede his. "What if I promised you that if what I'm looking for is on this cube, I will gladly go along with your plan?"

A smile spreads on his strange, but noble, face. He nods. "Will 20 Earth-minutes be sufficient?"

"Yes."

"I will return shortly," he says. He may have been surprised and a bit shocked by your desire to see this thing alone, but he's leaving. There's a chance there's good stuff on the datacube after all.

You reach out and touch the electron surface of the screen and choose to view the contents of the cube in English. A directory opens in front of you, listing options for Agriculture, Space Travel and Exploration, Mathematical Theory, Physics, and Women. Your eyes grow wide at the potential knowledge spread in front of you, but you have time only for a cursory glance through the subdirectories in the Agriculture and Women sections (topics include "Growing a field of wheat on a cup of water" and "How to answer the question Do I Look Fat in This?") before you abandon the cube altogether and head instead for a root menu in the terminal.

After all, the one question you want answered right now can't be answered by the datacube containing the Martian equivalent of the Book of Life. You want to know what happened to you.

You hack into the Martian Overworld databank and cross your fingers. If the Martians were as smart as they claim, then they would have hacked into NOSSA's systems for some interplanetary spying. You hit paydirt in less than a minute. You hold your breath and route an encrypted tether from the Overworld systems into the NOSSA surveillance camera files. You're sloppy, but it doesn't matter. You'll be done in less than 15 minutes. You code the transmission back to the night you remember, falling asleep in your own bed, and you switch on the feed from the camera positioned in the hall outside your quarters. You fast forward through the speedy commerce of neighbors heading to bed and rising for work and sneaking bed partners into their rooms. You take special note of the time you would normally be leaving your room to head to work yourself.

There is no activity from your door. You watch anxiously until all of your accountant neighbors have headed off to the great desk farm, and just when you think you must have fast-forwarded past something important, you notice something very strange.

You see yourself, and the image before you makes your blood run cold. It's you, undeniably so, but you're wearing something you've never seen before, a black mercenary's smock and a face of black paint. Your movements are quick and graceful, but there's no mistaking the fear in your eyes as you look around you and access your quarters.

You rewind a few times, watching this other You move like a scared cat and go inside the room. You're just getting used to the idea that either you have a twin or you've been up to some really strange shenanigans when you notice two more figures approaching your room. They're beyond suspicious -- they're familiar. Saleen and Malloy are making sure they're alone in the hall before accessing your quarters and slipping inside.

A loud noise startles you out of your focus, and with a few deft gestures, you log off of the terminal and yank the datacube from the slot. The door to the Janitor King's office flies open, and a squadron of at least a dozen armed Martian toughs enters the room. To your distress, you realize their weapons are drawn and their faces are shielded behind gas masks.

"Step away from the terminal," warns one of the toughs, gesturing at you with his raised laser rifle.

"Yeah, sure, of course," you say, and you step sideways and out from behind the desk. You shoot an accusing look at the terminal, and too late, you realize the Janitor King must have activated a remote-monitoring system. Stupid, stupid, stupid! you think to yourself.

"You are under arrest for accessing confidential Martian Overworld systems," the armored tough-guy intones gravely.

"Great," you reply. "Just half an hour ago I was going to rule the world."

"You will be executed 30 Earth minutes from now."

"What?" Your breathing has stopped. Maybe your heart has too.

"You are not on Earth. You are on Mars. Our systems of justice are a little different. All the evidence we need has been recorded and will be transmitted to your embassy after your execution."

He's smug, and you're terrified. The thing is, you've been terrified for nearly a solid 24 hours now, and you can't bear any more. It feels like a fabric inside you has been growing thinner and thinner, and it finally gives way and releases the animal lurking just below the surface.

"I don't think so," you say, your voice coming out in a silky purr.

The Martian tough guy freezes. "I beg your pardon?"

"You should," you say. "My name is Wallace, and I'm a trained assassin."

The Martian is quick, but you're quicker. He blasts a shot of laser energy at you, and you lift the data cube and let the shot hit the angled corner of the storage device. You know from your training what will happen next, and you're deeply gratified to see the laser split into multiple rays. The prismatic components of the laser are unstable, and they're capable of piercing Martian armor, which they do. Martians fall all around you, including the leader. Only five remain, and you make quick work of the stupidly surprised survivors with your own laser pistol, catching each of them at the joint of the armor between neck and shoulder.

You blow a theatrical breath over the barrel of the laser gun and tuck it away, then stow the datacube with its intact contents into a pouch at your waist. You have maybe 10 seconds to consider your options before either the Janitor King or the Martian guards' reinforcements arrive.

Will You...

A. Run out of the office with twin laser pistols blazing?

B. Use the light transporter to return to either carry out or prevent an assassination?

C. Use the light transporter to return to the NOSSA vessel to track down answers?

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 RETURN TO THE SPACEPORT

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 - RETURN TO THE SPACEPORT

By RaShelle Workman

“Well King . . . Janitor, this is all really, really amazing, but I’m just the accountant.”

He nods and you watch the disappointment creep over his face. For a moment you feel a spasm of guilt at letting him down, but it passes. He steeples his many fingers above the desk in front of him and his disappointment changes into a sad smile.

“You are one tough pzange to crack.”

“Pzange?”

“It’s similar to a chicken egg on your planet.”

“Oh,” you laugh. “Wait, why do you say that?” you ask, confused.

“There are many reasons Wallace. Are you sure you won’t change your mind? I think ruling our planet would suit you.”

“Yeah . . . no can do, your Janitorship,” you say, setting the Rubik's-cube-looking-thing on his desk and standing. “Would you just take me back out to the lobby? I should probably look for the basketball players. Charles Barclay is married to the president’s daughter, you know?”

Momentarily you worry that you might’ve said too much.

“But of course. Why do you think Team Earth is staying in this hotel?”

“Oh,” you say again and wonder how he thinks you could make a good leader.

“No worries young Wallace. I can get you a room right next to the players, if you’d like. Come here. I’d like to show you something first.” He stands and walks over to a wall.

Relieved, you walk over. “Sure. Thanks.”

He quickly presses his fingers on the wall, making music with an invisible device. When his fingers stop moving a part of the wall slides away, revealing a room. In the room is your fondest dream.

There is a beach, the white sand lined against a Caribbean blue ocean for as far as you can see, the Earth’s sun setting on the horizon. A wave rolls toward the shore and crashes a few feet in front of you. Some of the water hits your face. With a hand, you reach up and touch the wetness then press the finger to your tongue. It tastes of salt. The smell of the ocean air enters your nose and the sound of seagulls in the distance reaches your ears.

You take a step forward, ready to run into the surf, but remember where you are and look back. “How . . .?” you ask.

“I can make anything possible,” he says, smiling, but with a note of seriousness in his tone.

You know your face is filled with wonder. --And that you should be getting back. But just a few minutes on the beach won’t hurt, you think.

“Why don’t you go? In ten minutes I’ll bring you back.” He waves you forward, encouraging you.

Knowing you may never get this chance again, you say, “Okay.”

As soon as you step across the threshold, the wall slides closed, but you don’t care. You run to the water’s edge, removing shoes and socks as you go.

From behind there is a clicking sound, but you’re paying it no mind. You are so close to the water—the ocean you’ve dreamed of. Excitedly, you stick your feet into the water, ready for the crisp coolness you’ve always heard about.

It’s strange though. It seems slimier than you expected . . .but you smile at fulfilling your dream and say, “The ocean.”

“The ocean.” You hear hundreds of whispers from behind, copying your words over and over.

Surprised, you turn around and the room goes black.

Except for hundreds of blood red eyes.

“What’s going on? King?”

You feel tiny pin pricks all over your body.

“King.” Hundreds of whispers parrot the word from every direction. And the eyes are dancing everywhere. You smell something too: putrefied flesh.

“Please,” you beg, wishing you’d decided to be king or had chosen to join the marine biologists on planet Zarthus --but you can’t do anything about it. You suddenly fall backward to the ground and can’t get up.

You’re paralyzed.

The blood red eyes swarm you. You can feel jagged little claws and hairy bodies scurrying all over your body, hear the ripping and tearing away of your clothing, and all the while they are whispering secrets -- about Malloy, about the president, about your family, about Earth, and about what really happened the night you hit your head. They know everything.

And then the clicking sound starts again. You have no idea what is making it, but the whispering has stopped. The furry bodies have frozen where they stand.

They seem to be waiting for something, and finally it comes: a voice so beautiful, it sends hot tears to yours eyes. “Feed, my children.”

When the first one takes a bite, it’s from your arm. It stings, but of course you can’t scream. By the hundredth bite, you would have thought you’d be numb. Not so. You feel it all. The flesh tearing. The muscles ripping from the bone. The tendons and sinews breaking and snapping. It’s as though something has been done to keep you awake—to keep you conscious—to allow you to experience every ounce of pain and drop of blood that leaves your body.

They keep you alive for what seems like a long time. Could be hours, or maybe days.

When they finally allow you to die, they say as one, “Good-bye, Wallace.”

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 9

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 KILL THE KING

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 - KILL THE KING

By John Elrod II

As tantalizing as the king's offer is -- and tantalize mightily it does -- you simply cannot be party to his plans. How on Earth are you to convince him to let you leave -- well, how on Mars are you to convince him? He's told you things nobody is supposed to know. He obviously finds you expendable. On top of that, where are you? I mean, where are you exactly? Anyone with brain-one would realize this is not a situation where refusal to cooperate is an option. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have a brain at all.

"Have you ever heard of a Chinese finger trap?" There's an ever-expanding smirk of coy glee slinking its way across your face.

"A what?" His face is mangled with confusion.

"Never mind. You know, King, you turned this wall over here," you motion in the same general direction as he had before, "into a window, right?"

Befuddled, he responds, "Yes... Listen, I'm really going to need an ans--"

"Yeah, in a minute." A tiny monkey maniacally bangs two cymbals against one another in your head; you've clearly devised your master plan. "First, what does the adjoining wall behind you do?"

Forgetting for a moment the urgency of the situation, the king's interest has been piqued. Though the Martians have far surpassed humans in technological advancement, disease eradication, and general civility, humans still hold a monopoly in an area Martians cannot invent, discover, or unravel: cognitive dissonance.

"You know," he wobbles as he inspects the wall as if seeing it for the first time, "I've never really thought about it." His face no doubt recalls the one you wore only a few moments ago.

Coming to the realization that he doesn't particularly care what the wall does, he turns to confront you.

"HAAAAH!" You let loose a joyous grunt for the ages as you hurl the once innocuous data cube with all the might you can muster. Before the king can even know what hit him, the deceptively deadly crystal cube meets his spongy face. He falls to the floor with the cube snugly lodged in his brain as a pungent, viscous goo pools and quickly congeals on the floor.

"Looks like this pawn just knocked off the king," you gloat in your best action hero mannerism.

Little do you know that concealed in your victory is the checkmate of defeat. Your master plan failed to take into consideration the lack of doors this optical illusion of a room affords. That lapse in judgment notwithstanding, you should really take another look at his royal corpse.

His body appears to be ballooning. "Are you bigger than you were? Why are you bigger than you were?!"

You grab everything not bolted down and begin launching the items one-by-one into each successive wall. It's no use; nothing you can throw is having any effect on these walls-from-hell. You grab for his desk but are repelled by the sight of his bloody expanse having coagulated into the back of it.

"It's eating through shit!? What the hell are these things?!" You charge the opposing wall, pounding your fists. Over and over, you inflict absolutely no damage whatsoever to the wall, but your hands quickly become nothing more than sandbags of fractured bone. The pain is immense, but the panic has overtaken you. As the gelatinous mass nears, you're suddenly calm. You pivot to face your doombringer. This acceptance of finality is coupled only with a rueful disdain for your lack of forethought as you're unceremoniously devoured.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 9

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 THE PROOF

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.9 - THE PROOF

By J.A. Souders

You decide that since the janitor/king was the one to order the assassination you’d better follow. Maybe you can talk some sense into the guy.

He leads you into his “office,” which you realize is nothing more than a tiny little broom closet. You stifle a laugh. Of course it’s a broom closet. After all, he’s just a lowly janitor now.

The door shuts behind you and the Martian turns. You can tell by the tiny smile on his strange face that he finds you amusing. However, before you can ask what’s so funny, he pulls on a broom handle on the opposite wall. Another door opens revealing a bright white light, like the kind they’re always talking about in old science fiction movies.

He continues walking, leaving you no choice but to follow. He leads you into another, much larger room resembling what you always assumed the office of a CEO would look like.

He goes to sit behind the glass desk and gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. You do so and patiently wait for his so-called “proof.”

He only continues to stare at you until you say, “Well, spill it already. Where’s this proof?”

He spreads his hands out in front of him. “All around you.”

You look all around you, but see nothing that proves anything. You arch a brow at the Martian. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The Martian chuckles. “Such a silly Earthling. Do you really see nothing?” You only continue to stare at him. He sighs. “Very well. Here.” He tosses you what looks like a crystal cube. It’s about the size of a Rubik’s cube you had as a child.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a data crystal. All of our technologies are on this cube. If you help me, I’ll give you every secret of our people. What you see in this room is only the beginning of the secrets we’ve hidden from you.”

“It looks normal to me.”

“This room is not part of the space port. It is actually in what was once my palace. The light we passed through was our transportation device.”

“Prove it.”

He gestures toward one wall, which shimmers and then turns clear as glass to reveal the lush landscape that could only be the southern hemisphere of the Martian territory -- and on the complete opposite side of the planet than where you thought you were.

“H-how do I know that’s not a trick?” you ask.

“Step outside.” He gestures again, and a door appears in the glass wall. A breathing device appears in your lap. “I’d give you a pill that will help you breathe in our atmosphere, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t take it.”

You shake your head, then slip on the equipment and step outside. You’ve never been to this part of the planet, but you know instantly that this is the real thing. You return to the room and the door shuts behind you. The wall becomes the silk wallpaper, as before.

“Okay. I believe you. You mentioned you’d give it to me if I’d help you. Help you with what? The murder of the president?”

“In essence, yes.”

“No. No way.” You stand up. “There are no secrets you have that could make me help you.”

“What about peace between your world and ours --would you help me then?”

“I don’t understand,” you say. “By killing the president you won’t have peace. It will only start a war.”

“It will if they think I had anything to do with it, but if they find out that the assassination was carried out by their own general, and that you, with my help, tried to prevent it? Now that, that is cause for peace. Don’t you think?”

“Okay, so now I’m really confused. You’re trying to kill the president, yet you want to help me prevent it?”

“Well, yes. Because once the president is dead, the truth comes out, and you’ll be a hero. My people will push for you to be the next president. Your people will join in the nomination, and you will hesitantly and humbly accept. Then you’ll push for our world to return to the way it was before your people came and turned it to -- this. Your payment will be all our secrets. All you have to do is agree to follow my orders and lead my people and yours the way I would.”

“So you’re saying that you want to make me president, and that will bring peace to our worlds?”

“Yes. Your people would never accept a Martian ruler, but they will accept you. And they will love you because you will be a hero. My people will accept you because you will treat them as I did -- with respect, for them and their heritage. What do you say?”

“What happens if I don’t choose to help you?” you ask.

“I’ll return you to the space port and you can continue whatever it was that you were going to do.”

Do you...

A. Accept his offer to bring peace to both your worlds?

B. Make him return you to the spaceport to look for the ball players again?

C. Kill him by hitting him with a data cube and run? (You have all his secrets anyway.)

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 GET YOURSELF A MARS-A-BON

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 - GET YOURSELF A MARS-A-BON

By MJ Heiser

Sure, you could follow King Krackpot into his office. You just met the guy, and despite all outward appearances of custodial cleanliness, he could have been king. He sure knows a lot about Martian politics.

Then again, you could be an assassin, but you’re pretty sure you’re not. You haven’t detangled all the details of what happened to you that led to waking up in Malloy’s foul locker, but you will, and when that happens, you’ll realize –

What? That you’re more important than you seem? Please.

The one thing you’re sure of is that you can’t go into the office with that regal janitor. You’ve walked into one too many ambushes already, thanks, and you’re sure this will be more of the same.

You think about following the team, but – well, there’s something dangerous about those guys. You can almost sense a need to party coming off of them. They may be all friendly and cheerful and generous, but sports guys party harder than anyone at your novice level of partying could handle (you still think “Pin the Tails on the Grosnark” would be a fun drinking game). It would be better to hang back, surely, and wait. Maybe President Womack will show up and make this easy on you.

Yup, it’s just better to hang out here, in the hotel lobby, and while you’re doing that, you can satisfy your appetite for one of those ooey-gooey Mars-A-Bons.

You wander over to the kiosk. The sweet cinnamon smell is like a siren’s song. You look over the offerings. They have the ever-popular standard, called the Earth-A-Bon, which is obviously dripping with butter, cinnamon, and frosting. However, they’re also offering the trademarked Mars-A-Bon, which is suspiciously like the Earth-A-Bon, but filled with Kerraberry filling.

You don’t like Kerraberries. You remember watching a Mars nature program when you were in school that demonstrated that when Kerraberries are harvested, they scream. You can’t get that image out of your head. It doesn’t help that the filling looks like human blood.

“One Earth-A-Bon, please,” you say, fishing some enloms out of your pocket.

The creature behind the register smirks at you. This is obviously a third-gender Martian. “Don’t have the stones to try a real Martian treat, eh?”

You pause. For some reason, you feel like you’ve just become the representative for the whole human race, and you know full well humans aren’t pansies. Even so – taunted into eating Kerraberry filling? “I don’t like Kerraberries,” you explain, feeling a bit like the 90 pound weakling on the beach who’s staring down the big hunky body-builder and waiting for the sand to be kicked in his face.

“And why not?” The Martian is checking its fingernails in a very feminine fashion. The biceps in its arms are flexing conspicuously.

“I just –“

“Because they scream?” There’s a teasing quality in the creature’s voice.

You think about this for a moment. You have to admit that you’ve never actually tasted a Kerraberry. Your prejudices against the fruit-like organism are based solely on those screaming sounds you heard when you watched the film, and the twitching of the Kerraberry’s death throes as it was harvested from the vine and thrown in a metal basket to die in darkness . . .

“Fine. One Mars-A-Bon,” you say, and put an enlom on the counter. You feel wretched. You’re reasonably certain whatever it is you taste when you bite into this thing, you’ll get physically sick from it.

Doesn’t matter. You’re eating now for the pride of your home planet. In a way, you’ve been raised to the level of Team Earth, and that gives you some small bit of courage.

The Martian gives you a lipstick-over-beard-stubble smile and hands you a warmed-up Mars-A-Bon. You decide to only see the comforting similarities to the Earth-A-Bon as you bring the confection to your mouth. The smell of cinnamon assaults your nose, but right behind it is an almost gamey odor, something you’ve smelled when meat is going bad.

Never mind that, you think to yourself. You take a bite.

The warm creamy frosting and buttery taste is the first thing you notice, but the normal bliss doesn’t last long. Your mouth is flooded with an organic, almost metallic taste. Since it’s warm, it tastes like what it looks like: Blood.

You feel your gorge rise, and you turned a stunned, nauseated eye on the Martian. It’s watching you intently – waiting for you to fail. You refuse to do that. You choke down the first bite and taste the rush of sickly sweetness, apparently the Martian attempt to make this disgusting “fruit” more palatable to humans.

“How do you like it?” the Martian purrs.

“It’s – fine,” you stammer. You know you want to preserve your sanity and endure this by thinking positive thoughts, but you can’t help but gaze into the heart of the thing you’re eating. The filling is blood-red, and it’s mixing with the frosting, which looks more and more like infected pus.

As gross as this is, something is happening to you. Suddenly, you find yourself ravenous. This bloody, pus-covered mess in your hand is just the thing to take care of this primal carnivorous urge, and you take another huge bite. Frosting and Kerraberry filling coat your cheeks, chin, and nose, but you don’t care. You have to get this whole thing into your belly, and NOW.

You barely notice the noises coming from the Martian behind the counter. You’re lost to this weird compulsion for blood, and the closest thing you’ve ever tasted is the filling in this Mars-A-Bon. All too soon, you find yourself without any more Mars-A-Bon to consume, and you lick hungrily at your mess-covered fingers.

Then, with new eyes, you notice the creature behind the counter. Before, it was just a third-gender Martian, one who taunted you into doing something you really didn’t want to do. Now, however, it’s something completely different: It’s filled with blood, and it’s that blood you want, desperately.

“You’re allergic,” it whimpers as you leap over the counter. “You’re having a reaction. Let me get my needle . . .”

You don’t give it the time to do anything of the sort. You remember vaguely what the film said about Kerraberry allergies, but the information seems to be coming from another life. Your nails, once neat, clean, and tidy, are now long and razor-sharp, and you rip open the Martian’s throat and take a deep, satisfying draught of blood straight from its neck.

Whatever the hell you are now, you don’t care anymore about President Womack or saving your reputation or even getting back to Earth. All you care about is killing and drinking.

This is hella better than being in NOSSA, you decide, then turn your eyes back to the janitor’s office . . .

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 8

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 FOLLOW THE PLAYERS AS PLANNED

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 - FOLLOW THE PLAYERS AS PLANNED

By Steven Novak

Taking a second to consider everything the former “king” of Mars has just told you, very quickly you come to the realization that he’s either a liar or an idiot. Maybe both. He’s a janitor, not a king. The idea that he could have gone from ruling an entire planet to wiping poop stains from the jet toilets in the bathroom outside the Mars-A-Bon seems so idiotic you can scarcely believe you even took the time to listen to him babble.

You need to focus on the task at hand –the assassination of President Womack and how you can prevent it. This is all that matters. Milling around in the crapper with a lowly janitor isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Off in the distance you watch as members of Team Earth step into a spacious Transporavator, lean forward and press the button for the sixty-third floor.

Your body moves before your brain can even complete the thought, and suddenly you’re running full speed in their direction, “Waitaminute! Hold that door!”

Charles Barclay wedges his rather sizable body between the slowly closing doors, keeping them open just long enough for you to slide inside. A bit out of breath, you thank Charles and move toward Michael Jardin and Patrick Pewing near the rear of the glass enclosure.

“No problemo.” Barclay answers back before stepping inside and allowing the doors to close. “What floor?”

“Ummm…sixty-third?”

“Hey no kiddin'? Guess that makes us neighbors. Hope we don’t keep you up too late tonight.”

Leaning back, Charles playfully elbows the comically large afro of Julius “Dr. P” Perving and chuckles heartily, “I know it’s turrible but we party as hard as we play, and Julius here didn’t get his nickname just because his last name is Perving…if you know what I mean.”

Julius sends a confusing wink in your direction. Immediately you try to pretend it never happened.

A moment later the crystalline glass surrounding you begins to glow. A thousand colors emerge from the nothingness, swirling, twisting, and slowly moving from the panes containing them and into the crowd of players. You look down and watch as an orange band of light whips around your leg like the tail of a cat before quickly spreading upward. Within a matter of seconds the glowing shapes have engulfed you completely. A second after that you no longer exist. All that remains of you now are a series of microscopic particles traveling sixty-three stories upward at the speed of light. It’s an admittedly odd sensation that you don’t particularly enjoy.

Stupid Transportavators – you’ve always hated them.

When the particles arrive at their intended destination the Transportavator pieces you together once again, and the mass of swirling lights retreat into the surrounding glass. The moment the doors in front of you open, you leap through, lean against a nearby wall and begin to gag.

Stupid Transportavators – such a dumb invention.

“Hey, you gonna be okay?” Barclay asks while patting you stiffly in the center of the back and chuckling just a bit at your reaction to what is essentially a rather common piece of technology.

While wiping hot bile from your lips, you manage to nod in his direction.

“Hey, when you’re feeling better why don’t you join us at the party tonight? We’re in room 6012…Penthouse suite…real swank and stuff…real classy. It’s got one of them new holographic hot tubs. Them things are great when your back is feelin' turrible after a hard game…” He nudges you in the ribs playfully and adds, “…among other things.”

Looking up you notice that Barclay is winking at you the same way Julius did moments ago. You aren’t sure what to make of it, and not sure you want to make anything of it.

He could lead you to Womack though, and it’s because of this fact that you agree.

You need to save Womack. The life of Womack is all that matters.

Plus you’ve always wanted to see a holographic hot tub.

Thanks to the copious amounts of highly illegal Martian Ale the team makes available to you, the rest of the night is sort of a blur. At some point Martian prostitutes of all three Martian sexes become involved. You don’t think you did anything with them, but you’re one-hundred percent positive Barclay didn’t share your reservations. You think there might have been an alligator involved somehow – even though that doesn’t seem plausible. At one point you can clearly recall a drunken “Dr. P” shaving his afro, gluing the mass of hair to his groin, and asking you to comb it for him.

When Barclay said they liked to party hard, he wasn’t kidding.

When you finally wake up the room is a disheveled mess of liquor stains, overturned tables, and unconscious prostitutes. Even the holographic water in the holographic hot tub has managed to spill onto the tile – which makes no sense.

There’s a Telescreen on the opposite end of the room that was left on, and a newscaster is reporting about the assassination of President Womack at the Earth Vs. Mars game earlier in the day.

Apparently a war has broken out as a result.

Outside you hear an explosion, which is followed almost instantly by a terrifying set of screams.

Nice job, dipshit.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 8