Angry Jasper: Forty

Kate should have known her world was about to take a decided turn for the horrible when Thomas’ guards sealed off either end of the dark tunnel. Not that mny dared this way, but it was obvious that what he wished to show her wasn’t something he wished many others to know. She could feel the oppressive heat and humidity coming off the heavy iron door. It looked like some sort of prop from a schlocky Twentieth Century Medieval movie. It was set deep in ragged bedrock. The entrance was low and arched. Moss grew long and heavy from the stones, but with a sickly quality, as if it was afflicted by whatever Thomas held or had hidden inside.

A shiver ran through her. Thomas went to the door and ran his long spindly fingers across it in an oddly and creepily sexual way. His expression was fluid. He looked t her and seemed about to burst. The only question was, thought Kate, was what might jump out of that zombie-like body.

“So why bring me here?” she asked.

“Something you must see.”

“I can only guess,” she said.

His voice was low and seedy. “Never in a million years, my dear..”

The lock look primitive enough, but obviously there was much more to it. Thomas pressed his hand to a smooth place hidden deep in shadow beside the door. The rock lit up and scanned the full length and breadth of Thomas’ hand. It was obviously some sort of bio-metric mechanism, but of a sort and sophistication Kate had never seen before. The latch on the door opened with an audible clang and the door swung heavily back. Not much enough to see, especially for the dull yellow-green light within, but enough that she was instantly hit by the stale must of putrefied bodies.

“Dear god!” Kate raised a hand to cover her nose and mouth.

“God?” Thomas laughed mockingly. “There is no god, Kate. God resides,” he began, drawing her to the door, “in the eternal competition for each species’ survival.”

Thomas pushed open the door and shoved he into the chamber. Kate stumbled forward, skidding and slipping on the slick and slimy floor. The light was low and hazy. It took her eyes a moment to adjust. It took her brain a few seconds longer.

She swooned and felt dizzy as her mind swam and spun fighting to accept, or not to accept, what her eyes beheld. She blinked once and turned abruptly to Thomas and the door, gauging her chances of escape. The look in his deadly black eyes-an insects soulless eyes- had the futility of any attempt abundantly clear. Kate turned back to the horror before her, doing her damnedest to stifle a scream.

It wasn’t a chamber, at least not in the sense someone had carved it from the bedrock. Rather it was a natural formation, though what it had become now was anything but natural. Kate was standing between the open legs of a desiccated corpse that she could only assume was a woman. Hundreds of bodies were strewn or piled across the floor where, for the most part they had been stripped to bone and sinew. The mass of them formed a huge pile at the center of the room, where it appeared they had been tossed like old chicken bones after being devoured.

There were other, fresher corpses, all women, cocooned in grayish orange webbing to the rocky walls. Their distended bellies had been ripped open. Horrifying like hybrids, part human child and part spider were hungrily devouring their hosts. One woman, Kate noticed was still alive. She thrust her arms out from those rgged trappings and screamed as one of those disgusting spider-children ripped itself from the poor woman’s belly.

“Tell me again why I never had a kid?”

“You’ll bear my children.” Said Thomas.

Kate’s sly and ready smile, there in the worst of circumstances failed her completely now. “Interested in a loveless marriage?”

He laughed loudly. It thundered in the chamber, startling the insect-child hybrids, who squealed and scurried away into the shadows, or slithered back inside their long dead hosts. It was a belly laugh that went on a little too long. Kate choked back bile noting the darkly yellow urine stain spread across the front of Thomas’ gown.

“Now I’m turned on,” she said with ample disgust under her breath.

“Dear, this isn’t your fate,” he said. “This will form the vanguard of our army, but you and I, we will create a new royal class, a species all our own. It will be the next phase in the evolution of both our species, which will rise beyond this little system to create and empire across this corner of the galaxy. You and I, my dear will be Adam and Eve to a new civilization.”

Kate couldn’t look at him. She was trapped in the horror of the chamber, and of the terrible vision Thomas’ voice evoked and predicted.

“And if I say no?” she said.

Thomas moved behind her. His cold, calloused slithering fingers held her throat. His slimy tongue circled and explored her ear. He bit down upon the lobe, enough to draw blood. His breath carried the fresh scent of decomposition. Kate felt faint, but sadly unconsciousness never rescued her.

“Dearest,” he said, lapping at the trickle of blood at her neck, “that was not a question nor a choice.”

Angry Jasper: Thirty-Nine

He would have been better off in that cell, Jazz thought. His arms were handcuffed around an old steel beam. Skull Boy was on the floor nearby enjoying the last few bites of a chocolate bar. Jazz eyed the bar hungrily and would have given a nut for just one bite. He had not eaten since leaving Madame ’s the day before and could feel the ache of hunger in his bones. Skull Boy gobbled down the last of the chocolate, filling his cheeks and knowing full well how much he was torturing Jasper..

Worse than hunger, Jazz needed to take a mean piss. He beat his forehead against the beam, hoping the pain would stem the pressure. Jazz sworn under his breath. Banging his head did little to alleviate his burgeoning bladder, and gave him one hell of a headache to boot!

“Had enough to eat?” jazz asked, loathsome.

“Couldn’t eat another bite!” the boy rubbed his full belly, that gruesomely deformed face smeared with chocolate.

They were alone. The others had gone off, leaving them in some kind of storage chamber. By the looks of the boxes and crates this is where the conspirators stockpiled weapons for the coming coup. The rebel conspirators had hidden jazz and the boy just as Thomas’ freaks arrived. They wound up here, which Jazz still wondered if it was preferable to having his throat cut or submitting to whatever cruel fate Thomas’ men had in store for him. He sighed and pressed his cheek against the beam.

“This worked out pretty good for you, kid.”
Skull Boy didn’t answer. Jazz still couldn’t get use to looking for too long at the kid. Hell, he could even find a sort of odd beauty in the simpleness and efficiency of a cockroach, even some odd attraction to a fat horny old toad. But the kid…a lion would need a blindfold to keep from gagging on this one.

“Thought you could see the future?” he asked. “How come you didn’t see this?”

The kid looked off across the chamber, his eyes wide, as though transfixed on something. “I can see it. Don’t mean I have to talk about it.”

“News flash, kid,” Jazz snapped. “I’m the one who’s supposed to save you.”

“So?”
“Maybe you could help me little!”

“Why? I don’t like you.”

“How am I supposed to get us out of here shackled to this post, huh?”

“Relax,” said the boy. “Everything is going as it should.”

“Maybe you could clue me in a little?”

“Better this way,” he said.

“How do you figure?”

“Well for one, you can’t screw anything up this way.”

“That don’t make no dam sense!”

The kid turned. Those creepy dark eyes blinked once and then twice as they fixed upon Jazz. “Gets boring seeing the future all the time. So what? I see stuff happen and then it happens. Where’s the fun in that? Like watching a movie and every couple of minutes someone comes in and says, okay this is what will happen now. More fun to play with the future a little bit. Maybe I screw up and it goes another way. Now that’s fun!”

“You’re an odd critter.”

The door opened and Jazz looked up. A stepped inside and tossed an old tin plate at his feet. A fair amount of the gray-green slop at the bottom splashed onto the floor. It stunk to high heaven. Jazz wasn’t at all certain someone hadn’t already barfed his meal back up.

“What the hell is that?” he grumbled as the guard led Skull boy from the cell.

“Lunch,” replied the guard with a detestable grin.

“Flush the toilet for seconds?” Jazz words were lost as the door slammed shut. he looked at the plate and thought he saw something moved there. Just the thought of eating it made his stomach squirm, but beggars can’t be choosers, he thought. Besides, if he was going to get out of there and off the planet he would need every once of strength he could muster.

He studied the top of the beam where it met the stony ceiling. There was a little gap around beam, enough that he could wiggle it back and forth a bit. Not a lot, but enough that Jazz figured with a couple good tugs it might come loose enough for him to get his arms over the top. Looking back at the door once more, Jazz pushed away the plate with his left foot and got into a good strong stance. Holding tight to the shackles he rocked up and back several times for a little momentum. Jazz could hear the ancient concrete cracking and crumbling above him. He counted to three, checked one last time to be sure no one was near the door and yanked as hard as he could.

“Holy crap!” he groaned in pain, and falling back against the pole. Damn right something would give with a few more tugs. If Jazz didn’t bring the whole damn ceiling down on his head he was bound to dislocate both shoulders!
That was a waste, he told himself. Jazz slid to the floor onto his butt and eyed the gruel on the plate. This time he was sure something moved in the slop. He shook his head, and with a frown kind of tipped sideways. Jazz strained and stretched to get closer. The stink rose up to meet him fully, assailing his nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes and choking him.

It smelled like something a dead body would crap out. The stuff was vile, and worse the closer he came. Jazz fought the urge to gag and pushed his face into the lumpy lukewarm liquid. Something slithered into his nose, then retreated just as uickly. It helped to groan for some reason, as if that made the substance slithering down his throat easier to bear. He had eaten some nasty things over the years, but this just beat all.

A few good swallows was about all he could handle. Jazz sat up trying to spit the worst tasting chunks from his mouth. The stuff covered his face, dripped in to his eyes and leaked from his hair down the inside of his shirt. It felt alive there, slithering like creepy-crawlies down his body. Something caught in the back of his throat. Jazz hacked it up and spit it across the room, where it recovered and scurried away into the darkness.

Angry Jasper: Thirty-Eight

There were voices up ahead. They were the low voices of conspiracy. .It would have been nothing to double back and go around, but a boyish curiosity got the better of Jazz. He looked at skull boy for some indication this would lead to trouble. Then again, it was difficult to imagine that things could get any worse. He motioned for the kid to stay as he crept closer to the voices.

There were three men in a lower chamber, rebel soldiers. They were huddled together. They were discussing an attack of some sort. It was simple math for Jazz to figure out they intended to off Thomas. With Kate at Thomas’ side, she would be fair game, and no matter how much of a bitch she was Jazz just couldn't let that happen.

They all looked distraught and deeply conflicted. Their little conspiracy, and the secrets they kept tp one another and about Thomas had taken a terrible physical tool on eat man. Their eyes were dark and withdraw. Jazz knew the look well from years of battling space pirates. These were men fully resigned to their cause and to death.

“I’ll act alone if I have to,” said the first man.

“As long as we all agree this is probably a suicide mission,” said another, “undoubtedly for our families as well.”

“But if we succeed,” said the third. By his demeanor Jazz took him to be in charge.

The second man laughed miserably and spit into the shadows. “Succeed? This will split the rebellion.”

“If the people knew the truth.”

“They will if the plan succeeds.”

“And if it don’t?” the second wasn’t convinced.

“Then god help humanity.”

Just then Jazz felt the muzzle of an ARP at his temple. To call what happened in his gut a sinking feeling would have been an understatement. He just about shi…he groaned.

“Tell me that’s you, kid?” he said loud enough that the men in the chamber drew weapons and turned suddenly. He glanced from the corner of his eye. Skull boy stood a short distance away with a dumb smirk on his face.

“You couldn’t have warned me?” Jazz sneered.

“Don’t worry,” the kid said, indifferent.

Jazz was shoved to his knees as the others rushed up the stairs. He so wanted to make a smart ass remark, but these guys weren’t like that forlorn gaggle of Corporation guys back in that first cell. The wrong word here was certain to get him killed. Then again, Jazz would have found it hard to believe they’d let him live after what he had just overheard.

Someone pulled a knife. A hand wrapped around Jazz’ forehead and yanked it back, exposing his neck. The cold sharp blade of a hunting knife pressed against his windpipe. All the while Skull boy stood passively, almost gleefully, as though this was some odd sort of street theater.

“Cut his throat,” said the first man.

“What about the kid?” said another.

“No witnesses,” said the leader.

“Don’t makes us any better than Thomas and his lot,” said the second man. “I won’t lose no sleep over this guy, but the kid?”

“If you don’t have the stomach?” the first man snarled.

“I don’t have the stomach for it either,” Jazz offered.

The leader thought a moment. His eyes avoided Jazz. “We can’t take any chances. Sorry, kid.”
Jazz felt the knife blade pressed into his flesh. His mind spun madly for anything that might spare him, if only to die in a less painful and gruesome way. “Wait! The kid, he’s psychic, or clairvoyant, or something.”

The kid gasped. “Are you crazy?

“Suck it, kid,” said Jazz. “I’m trying to save our asses here.” the knife cut into jazz’ flesh. Glistening droplets of crimson blood appeared. The warm fever of regret ran through Jazz. Suck it kid. Those were to be his last poignant words?

“You won’t cut his throat,” skull boy blurted. “I mean you could. I would, but you won’t.”

“Watch me,” said the man with the knife. Jazz tightened his body, clenched his teeth. He was determined not to scream, not to give this bloke the slightest satisfaction. He clenched his butt cheeks too. He didn’t want to die with a pant load of crap either.

“Wait!” the commander raised a hand. The blade still pressed at Jazz’ throat. Blood trickled in rivulets under his collar and into his shirt, running down his body. “Tell me, kid. Why are you so sure we would dispose of both of you?”

“It is true,” the boy replied, “I can see the future, and in about fifteen seconds you’ll hear Thomas guards coming. They’re coming for me and Angry Jasper. You’ll make the decision that we have some value.”

The guy almost bought it and started to laugh. “Careful where you step, boys, the bullshi…”
Suddenly footsteps thundered in the passageway. The men looked at one another as if to ask if that had been fifteen seconds, just as the kid predicted. The leader shoved the barrel of his ARP under Jazz’ chin and leaned close.

“You and the kid now share a second birthday and a second chance at life. Mess up and I’ll put both of you down without hesitation.”

Angry Jasper: Thirty-seven

Even more mysterious were the men who appeared, seemingly from nowhere. Their allegiance to Thomas began from the moment they first appeared among his so-called royal guard. They were men with no history and no past, and as dangerous if crossed as their leader. Perhaps more so, since their duty was blind, and not at all diverted or confused by their leader's politicking, nor any of the burdensome guilt humans laid the foundations of morality and ethics upon. Stranger still was the way the usually paranoid Thomas accepted them without question to his inner circle, while men of long reputation were purged or disappeared almost immediately.

The clock was ticking for Buzz and Kate. Really, it was ticking inside Buzz’ head. It sounded like a hollow tonk, tonk, tonk, like someone tapping a ladle against brass pot. Buzz ignored it the best he could. He just had to run the results on Thomas’ DNA once more.

He’d finished the first test about an hour before Kate left to marry Thomas. The results just seemed so absurd she wouldn’t have believed him anyway. She would have just told him to run the test again, so this was sort of like cutting out the middle man.

Buzz' methodology was, in both tests, beyond meticulous. IN FACT, IT WAS FLAWLESS! When the final test was complete Buzz sat on the edge of the bed staring at them, dumbfounded. He shook his head back and forth for the longest damn time, and wished he'd been programmed for laughter. Instead that need grew as a certain tension in his core.

“Well, I’ll be a son of a piston engine,” he remarked. Buzz forced himself to sort of hiccup, in an odd rattling sort of way. Tension sometimes heated his core and made him a bit gassy. It smelled a little like WD-40 and ozone, reminding him that barely sixty or so generations separated him from a Twenty-first century riding lawnmower.

Buzz was more than surprised by the results. These weren’t simply a cross-section of Thomas’ DNA. Buzz was looking at history. More than that, he was looking at perhaps the greatest discovery of mankind. Of that there could be no mistake.

Most of the genetic markers were consistent with hybrid DNA. It wasn’t altogether different from Human DNA, except some of the pieces were arranged just a little differently. After all, the difference between Humans and other so-called lower animals was essentially nothing. A matter of percentages that could be counted on one hand

Not that being a hybrid, or even part hybrid would be enough to exclude Thomas’ claims to royalty. Might well have been that a his mother, or an aunt or a grandparent had been a hybrid. Of course there was a time when a schoolyard taunt about one’s mother being a hybrid would have been enough to get a smart-ass busted in the chops. Not anymore, though, lots of decent folks had buffalo, mule, elephant, baboon or leopard in their blood.

At a glance Buzz might have guessed human/alligator hybrid. It was hard to tell for sure since those creatures had been extinct for the better part of two centuries. From what little Buzz knew for sure about genetics Human/Reptile hybrids had gone out of fashion decades ago. All too often offspring came out scaly, cold-blooded and unable to adapt well. A number of times mothers had nearly died giving birth to large eggs forming in the womb. It was the last three markers that Buzz found the most shocking. Two bore similarities to, ancient crustaceans, the forbearers of crabs and the like. The last was the marker of an arachnid; a spider, for crying out loud!

Buzz’ computer clicked loudly as he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. Alligator was bad enough, but these markers seemed to indicate that he was part crab and part spider. If anyone had tried such a ghastly experiment it was unknown to Buzz. What he was seeing was, well, it was flippin’ impossible!

Buzz paced the room. The answer was more than he was ready to admit. There had to be another explanation, but he’d run the test twice and the results had been the same every damn time!

“E.T. phone home!” he said aloud.

So Thomas was an alien. It made perfect sense, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell quickly into place for Buzz. The rebellion was the only safe place he could slip into the solar system undetected. But for a hand full of isolated and forgettable Corporation run colonies, like Pluto’s Charon, or some rough and tumble outpost among Neptune’s rings, or Cygnus Prime, it would have been far too difficult to infiltrate the Corporation genetic security systems.

Kate had said he intended to sue for peace with Govenor Maury and come to terms. No doubt it was a ploy to surrender the planet in exchange for some position with in the Corporation council. That done he could bring in billions of his kind across the frontier.It was an invasion, that much Buzz was certain of, and Thomas was just the beginning. Buzz started for the door. He would have to find a way to warn Kate.

Jangry Jasper: Thirty-six

Buzz tapped his forehead in frustration as thousands of files and articles downloaded from the Worm-net, which was very much akin to the ancient internet, but used wormholes to circumnavigate trillions of miles of solar system in seconds. To his great disappointment there simply wasn't much known about Thomas. There was little in the way of any sort of revelation. Buzz had even managed to hack a couple of secret Corporation files, but it was obvious they were as much in the dark about him as everyone else.

Thomas Claimed to be ancestor of the great profit from Branson, Yakov Smirnoff. For years everyone believed the fuzzy bearded Russian émigré was simply a fool, a two-bit jokester with a fully accent who made a career telling the same stale Cold War jokes about his Mother Russia:

“In Soviet Russia, the government controls corporations. In America corporations controls the government!”

Little did anyone suspect that Yakov was as gifted a thinker as Descartes or Foucault or Socrates. He was an oracle and a prophet to the coming doom about to befall the planet. For centuries devout followers of Yakov Smirnoff would recite is jokes, mimicking the accent, some of them sporting the signature beard and a hand-me-down suit and marvel at the brilliance.

One detail was certain. Thomas was the lone survivor of a mysterious blast that destroyed the rebel stronghold at Branson. The place had been under direct attack for many months. But one night, during a lull in the battle something large descended like a meteor from space. It struck the stronghold full force, with a resulting blast heard half way around the world. There seemed little doubt that the Corporation was responsible for the calamity, though they vehemently denied any responsibility for the act. Six days later Thomas stumbled into a rebel patrol searching for survivors.

Buzzed searched his archives and discovered a copy of the patrol’s report:

ACTION REPORT: January, 30, 2517
The Unit reached Springfield at the edge of the blast zone. The city is all but obliterated. The patrol encountered small bands of survivors fleeing towards enclaves along the old Mississippi basin. Constant threats from Corporation ships forced our unit to take refuge in the city before proceeding towards Branson. Expectations were low for encountering any further survivors. The ground here is devastated, as though an asteroid struck. On the sixth night a lone figure stumbled into our perimeter from the direction of the blast zone. Despite several warning shots the obviously disoriented male continued before collapsing. Subject held in isolation and refused, or was unable to speak despite repeated interrogation. When he could speak once more it was rudimentary, like an infant learning to speak.
Subject claimed ancestry to the Smirnoff lineage. No way to verify claim any longer due to complete destruction of region. Reached Branson on the tenth day, but the area was blasted clear to the bed rock. Came under Corporation attack soon after reaching area. Withdrew without locating any more survivors. Subject, named Thomas, handed over to command at base.

Of course, the news that Thomas was related to the great Yakov was met with great skepticism. In battle he proved himself as brave and ruthless as that short and swarthy lot he claimed heritage. In the right light he might have even passed as a descendent. The image of a valient Yakov had been honed through the centuries into a heroic and virtuous figure and Thomas seemed intent on recreating that legacy. Little else remained of the man, though some small bits of his brilliant oratory skills remained, mere glimpses into his more whimsical and human side. They were traits apparently not passed on to this ancestor.

Thomas' exploits in battle certainly were enough to get him recognized, and even praised, but Thomas’ career might well have ended there. He might have run out his days as a zealous commander, but for one powerful attribute: Ruthless ambition.
Indeed, there were many who would have, quietly to themselves, characterized it as murderous ambition. There were not a few who took offense when he described himself as prince, whose destiny was to rise as king over the rebellion, and thus taking his ancestor’s rightful place. Rivals met with mysterious demise, fell in suspicious Corporation ambushes, as though someone had tipped the enemy, or succumbed to some ailment or other-usually resulting in a fiery crash that erased all possible evidence. Critics and enemies met even harsher fates. Branded as traitors, often with transparently forged evidence, the poor souls who ran afoul of Thomas were summarily executed or simply disappeared.