Weary Traveler

“There’s the man of the hour,” Vincent said as Mitch and Nova mounted the short staircase at the back of the main stage.

Vincent shook Mitch’s hand, turned towards Nova.

“Hello, Vincent,” she said.

“Hello, my dear,” Vincent said, planting a quick peck on Nova’s cheek.

“I want to thank you again for that lovely dinner last night,” Nova said.

“It was my pleasure, enjoying a meal with Rotech’s most important couple,” Vincent said. He turned to Mitch, clipped a small microphone on his lapel, and then gave him a few strong smacks on his shoulder. “The microphone’s signal will activate when you step onstage. Are you ready?”

“I’ve gone over the speech in front of Nova about a dozen times, but there are more people to impress here,” Mitch said, peeking through a small slit in the black curtain. Tens of thousands of corpos were pushing and shoving, jockeying for a better position closer to the stage.

“These people have short attention spans,” Vincent said, “so try not to ramble on for too long. Just jump into the demonstrations as quickly as possible.”

“That’s fine with me,” Mitch said, inhaling and exhaling slowly to calm his breath and steady the thoughts racing through his wild mind. His botched mercenary mission... The stolen tech straight from the Crawler’s compound... Their wicked fortress of terror... That sick, false Paradise.

“Each of the five items we acquired are underneath large swathes of cloth at the back of the stage, just beyond this curtain,” Vincent said. “You will find the name of each item on a placard stuck to the floor. When you are ready, just pull the cloth off, describe the tech, demonstrate, and move to the next. You have up to thirty minutes before CorpoMax takes the stage for their presentation.”

The fluorescent lights hanging from the rafters dimmed. The entire facility was now illuminated by the neon glow from the weapons stations at the center of the floor and the booths that lined the walls.

A soft stream of electro-rock squirmed out from enormous speakers draped around the sides of the stage and hanging from the ceiling like a collection of advanced, sonic, tech-boulders. The decibels increased in strength and intensity until the bass rumbled the metallic beams, vibrated through the air like bombs of wind were dropped from above. The anxious crowd’s excited chatter elevated to compete with the thumping rhythm and beats.

A rainbow mix of lasers shot through the air, pierced thick plumes of fog spewing from machines hidden underneath the stage. It gave the atmosphere a dark, ominous feeling, as if the corpos celebrated an approaching plague of death. Bathing in it... basking in its evil... dwelling in its suffocating clutches...

And then, the electro-rock cut off and a static crackle scratched through the speakers, quieting the crowd’s voices.

“Ladies and gentlemen.... corpo boys and corpo girls…” a booming voice announced, altering the direction of the lasers as if the separate attractions were interlinked by some synchronistic force. “We welcome you to the 44th Annual Corpo Convention, right here in the Pearl District at the heart of Rosenfell… Now!” he shouted, copies of his voice echoing through the building. “I only ask that you focus your minds, calm your hearts, clear out those ears, and point your eyes to the stage and give your greatest corpo applause to our first presenter... he is one of Rosenfell’s own... Rotech’s Chief Tech Officer... the wise and powerful... Mitchhhh Hendersonnnn!”

A thunderstorm of applause, whoops, and hollers rumbled through the convention center, echoed off of the walls, shook the solid ground. The cacophonous noise rattled through Mitch’s ears, swelled in his brain like a storm cloud whistled through his body.

Nova wrapped her arms around Mitch, soothed the slight tremble wriggling through him.

“Go get ’em, Cowboy,” she whispered into his ear.

Mitch kissed her on the lips, turned, marched towards the long spilt that separated the backstage curtain. He stopped and closed his eyes. All sight and sound drowned out of him as if an invisible barrier had built up around his frozen body. His mind filled with a blank, black image of an empty void. A darkness that dropped off into the pit of eternity.

He peered into the abyss. Body and mind at the point of no return... prepared for the leap of faith... never to come back to the only life and reality he knew. Consciousness ready to tumble down the synthetic rabbit hole into whatever mysterious world existed on the other side.

He nodded. More to himself than anyone else. A gesture of reassurance for the decision he had made to reach the pinnacle. An addicted bum to a corpo player. The full circle of life in Rosenfell. From the powerless to the omnipotent... from addiction to prestige... from nothing to Nova...

And then, he opened his eyes, entering back into external reality after the short sojourn into the depths of his soul. A white-toothed smile shined across his face as his right hand lifted and pulled the curtain aside, stepping through the portal that separated worlds.

Floodlights shined down upon him, ignited him within a blanket of white fire. Strobe lights flashed, lasers swung across the shadowy crowd’s darkened faces. Their arms were stretched above their heads, swinging back and forth, punching the air in an effort to reach out and touch one of the most powerful corpos on the planet. Their new demigod. The bum.

The electro-rock died down and the crowd began to settle. Mitch’s retinas adjusted to the bright lights as he gazed out over the horde. He looked within, searched his mind for the speech he recited so many time before. But the words fled from his conscious awareness. Disappeared like they had never even been there. He cleared his throat as if to clear a blockage of mucus that prevented his speech from bubbling up and out of his brain. Yet nothing appeared.

“Ah, fuck it,” he whispered under his breath.

“Yeah, fuck it! Woo!” someone screamed.

Tens of thousands of corpos whipped themselves into a frenzy. Another round of applause and whoops echoed, calmed Mitch’s nerves and brought a smile back to his anxious face.

“Alright,” Mitch said, chuckling. “Welcome to the 44th Annual, Corpo Convention! My name is Mitch Henderson, CTO of Rotech,” he said, pausing to look out over the crowd. “It’s been a wild year for me, moving up the corpo ranks to find myself at the top of the greatest company on the planet. Many of you might be wondering how I managed to reach this position so quickly. I hope that by the end of this presentation I will have convinced you of my contribution to the company and the importance of the tech that-”

“Show us!” a woman screamed.

Mitch smiled, nodded.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Here we go.”

He marched towards the first piece of tech on the far left, stepped up, and gripped a handful of the black cloth, reading the gold placard on the ground.

“Ladies and gentlemen… I bring to you, Rotech’s first ever… Neon Blade!” Mitch said, yanking the cloth away to reveal a six foot, steel mannequin with the lightsaber strapped to its waist.

The crowd was silent. Faces, unimpressed by the unveiling of an inanimate chunk of metal.

“Oops,” Mitch said, “one moment, please.”

He wrapped his hands around the handle and pulled it from its holster. Then flicked open the protective cover and pressed the activation button, igniting the blade with a beam of scalding blue light.

A collective oohh hummed from the crowd as their jaws dropped, eyelids stretched wide to absorb the energy gripped in Mitch’s hands.

He stepped in front of the mannequin, widened his base, and sliced through the steel from the figure’s right shoulder down to its left hip. For a moment, the top half of the severed torso remained in its place like nothing had happened. And then, slowly, as if creeping around a dangerous predator, Mitch stepped to the left side to give the audience a clear view. He lifted his right leg and front kicked the mannequin. The top, metal slab slid off the lower half, thumped onto the wood so hard that the surrounding area dented, splintered.

The roar from the crowd was deafening, like a tornado tore the roof off of the building. A buzz of static electricity burst from the friction of their voices and echoed off of the high ceiling.

Mitch pressed the button on the blade, sucked the beam back into the handle, and shoved the weapon into the holster wrapped around the lower half of the sliced mannequin.

The crowd’s whoops and applause carried Mitch to the next display. He glanced at the placard and grabbed a handful of the fabric.

“Next up! Rotech is proud to bring you… Invisible Armor!” Mitch said, pulling the cloth away to reveal an empty pedestal.

A lingering silence trailed through the air. Only the mechanical hum from machines at the stations and booths in the back and the electrical buzz of the neon lights remained.

And then, a chorus of boos echoed.

“There’s nothing there!”

Mitch reached out into the empty space, fumbled for the disk he wore during his escape from the Crawler’s Paradise. He gripped it and then pressed it against his chest, vanished before their eyes.

The crowd gasped, chatted with one another.

“What happened?”

“Where did he go?”

Mitch stared out at the stunned faces from behind the cloak, scurried over to the front edge on the left side of the stage. He squared his feet to the crowd and then pulled the disk off of his chest, burst back into visibility beneath the stage’s floodlights.

A united whoa… sounded from the tens of thousands as they gazed upon the magical act.

Again, Mitch pressed the disk against his chest, disappeared. He hustled across the stage and stopped at the front right edge, removed the disk, unveiling himself and his gaping smile.

A ferocious round of applause exploded from the hands of almost every corpo in the convention center. Adoring eyes gazed upon his wondrous trick. They worshiped his mystical skill and talent for the extraordinary. Nearly every corpo in the building loved him, celebrated him. All except for the scowling faces of the few Crawlers standing at the only CorpoMax station behind the crowd. Their arms were folded over their chests. Their sharp eyes flickered in the flashing light of the red siren spinning atop a flag pole above their meager booth.

Mitch gulped a glob of sticky spit down his throat, walked over to the third piece of tech sitting at center stage. His legs moved forward, but his eyes were focused upon the six Crawlers. Their eyes followed Mitch. And then, each one of them began tapping the top of their wrists and shaking their heads.

Mitch stepped on the left side of the third item. He turned, looked out into the faces of the crowd, prodded his mind for the mouth noises necessary to form coherent sentences. He pulled down on his shirt collar, cleared his gritty throat.

“Umm… this next item, or, rather, piece of tech, I mean,” Mitch said, coughing to clear his throat. “This tech item… is straight from Rotech. Uhh…”

He glanced at the Crawlers. Their scowls still burned through the air, but now they raised their hands and waved. Each one mouthed the word GOODBYE. Over and over, as if they were a malfunctioning piece of ancient technology stuck on repeat.

Mitch was silent. His eyelids narrowed as he leaned in to glare across the long distance, focusing on the wicked, mischievous grins that had crept over the Crawlers’ faces.

“Hurry up!” someone screamed.

Their voice rang hollow in Mitch’s empty head. External stimulus heightened. Mind focused on the CorpoMax station as if he and it were the only things left standing in the entire city after an atomic blast evaporated everything else.

And then, something shifted underneath the ground, like a cascade of falling rocks tumbled down the side of a mountain. Chaotic commotion spread out from the center of the convention floor as thousands of pairs of eyes turned towards the noise.

Mitch hustled to the front of the stage.

“Get away from there!” he screamed. But the fearful dagger of danger seeped into the air, seized control of the peoples’ minds, interrupted their ability for rational thought.

Mitch blinked, opened his eyes just as the ground in the middle of the convention center collapsed, sucked up dozens of corpos in a mushroom cloud of dust and rubble. Their shrill voices shouted, arms reached and clawed for something to grasp in the empty air as they disappeared beneath the surface.

A flash of light burst from the depths of the hole, followed by a Crawler in a cream-colored tunic. He floated about thirty feet in the air, fiberglass rifle gripped in his hands, firing red beams of fiery energy that sliced through the fleeing corpos’ soft flesh.

Mitch made a motion towards the GravGun and Chrono-Suit, but his body was seized by familiar images burned into his brain. Thoughts. Memories. Past. Future. All worlds collided in that moment of uncertainty. Alternate realities threatened to swallow his consciousness and suck him through a wormhole that punctured space beyond time.

He shook the mental fog from his head, stretched his eyelids as far as they would open, and glared at the Crawler hovering above the hole in the ground. He was now joined by nine others. All firing beams from their light rifles into the frantic mob.

And then, a narrow bolt of yellow launched from one of the booths along the wall on the left. And another. Both punctured the bodies of two of the hovering Crawlers. They had just enough time to glance at the beam of electricity before their bodies exploded, spread chunks of fiery metal onto the ground like a Helo had burst into flames mid-flight.

Mitch looked left and found Elektra standing atop one of the booths, firing off beams of electricity from her fountain pen turned crossbow.

The remaining eight Crawlers turned and aimed, focused their light rifles on the booth where Elektra mounted her attack.

Mitch reached into his pocket, fumbled for the fountain pen resting next to the Bio-Battery. He yanked them both out, plugged the battery into his tech. A bolt of electric energy coursed through his body, seized his jittery vision beneath a flash of brilliant light, wavering like neural waves oscillated outwards from his brain.

Synaptic overload.

His external reality slowed as his senses heightened, nerves flowed with a fiery intensity. It was like he tore a hole through the fabric of reality and launched through dimensions atop a beam of hypersonic photons at light speed.

He looked down at the glowing pen in his hand, pressed its tail, transforming it. Then pulled back on the crossbow’s cable, captured a bolt of electricity, and held the pulley taut as he homed in on the Crawler closest to him. He swallowed his breath, steadied his shaking hands, and fired.

The bolt tore through the air and punctured the Crawler at the center of the pack beneath his armpit, just as he was aiming down upon Elektra’s position. The rumbling vibration from the creep’s exploding body pushed a shockwave of burning metal parts against the seven remaining Crawlers, disorienting them. They looped in wild formations to escape from flames that clung to their bodies.

Mitch aimed, pulled back on the cable twice, fired off two, rapid-fire bolts. The first whipped over the heads of the swarm; the second wedged into the shoulder of the Crawler furthest on the right. His hand immediately reached for the bolt, tried to grip it, but the electric charge shocked his palm, caused his arm to whip in a wide arch and clatter against his body.

He propelled himself high into the air, away from the remaining Crawlers. Climbed all the way up to the rafters before he burst into a ball of fire and hot metal body parts. The explosion severed metallic fixtures and floodlights from the ceiling, rained debris upon the floor and down into the Crawlers’ tunnel.

The final six Crawlers dusted themselves off midair, turned towards Mitch, aimed their light rifles at him like they were all operating under the same program to KILL ALL BUMS. A command sent from their demonic Paradise to rid themselves of the mistake that had subverted their psychopathic, cult society.

Mitch tripped over his feet, toppled into a bear crawl that stretched into a four-legged sprint across the wooden stage. Limbs burning like fire coursed through his veins. A hailstorm of beams peppered the stage, followed him as he dove behind the fourth piece of tech still tucked underneath the cloth.

His back was flush against the display, arms and legs tucked close to his body. He leaned his head just beyond the black cover, peeked over his right shoulder towards the convention floor. The Crawlers were still hovering over their hole in the ground, picking off the slow, gluttonous corpos that had failed to hide within a booth or behind a weapons station.

Mitch inhaled through his nostrils, exhaled out of his mouth, steadied his nerves. Preparing himself to leap out from behind the tech when a storm of electricity ripped through the air from the booth where Elektra hid. Maybe a dozen bolts total. They sliced the Crawlers’ formation, punctured three of their bodies.

Each of the victims veered off in a different direction, away from the pack, and burst into flames. Three individual explosions morphed into one simultaneous detonation with a single shockwave that broke every slab of glass in the building. Sharp shards glittered down like crystallized rain fell from the sky, glinted off of the mad lasers and remaining neon lights still functioning like some kind of sick funhouse.

Mitch peeked from behind his tech-bunker. Three Crawlers left. They had their backs together, bodies rotating midair over their tunnel. Their light rifles aimed outwards, sweeping. Emotionless eyes scanning the facility for any movement. Any breaths of human, biological life to exterminate for the injustice of invading their holy Paradise.

Mitch worked his hands underneath the fabric, gripped and adjusted the angle of the GravGun so it pointed up at the Crawlers, still rotating and hovering like they were idling on autopilot. Waiting for a human to make a characteristic mistake.

He kept his left hand on the weapon’s handle, reached out with his right hand and yanked the fabric off of the gun. The sudden movement alerted the Crawlers. They spread out, shoulder-to-shoulder, and fired upon his position as he ducked behind the steel pedestal.

And then, he squeezed the trigger, fired off four shots in rapid succession, creating a sound like four canons had been launched by a conquering pirate ship, throwing invisible cannonballs through the air. Within the span of a blink of an eye, the three Crawlers vanished like an act of quantum magic. Swallowed by the invisible force exerted by whatever advanced physics squeezed out of the GravGun. That strange, warped dimension of time and distorted space that erased their bodies from existence.

Mitch’s lungs started to burn like an energy beam from the light rifle ignited in his throat. He exhaled a gust of hot air that he didn’t realize he had been holding in. Breathed rapidly to draw oxygen into his dizzy head.

“They’re getting away!” someone screamed. Their voice echoed through the convention center, struck Mitch’s ringing eardrums like an eerie psychosis created voices that haunted his soul.

He grabbed his crossbow, pulled back on its cable, and leapt from behind the pedestal. He swept left, right, scanned for movement. The scout Crawlers that had occupied the lone, CorpoMax booth slithered from behind cover and charged across the floor towards the tunnel.

“Stop!” Mitch yelled, jumping off of the stage and onto solid ground. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

The Crawlers continued forward, undeterred, reaching the halfway point to their escape hole.

Mitch dropped to a knee, aimed, fired a single, enormous bolt straight into the sternum of the Crawler at the head of the pack. The energy from the supercharged electricity exploded on impact, launched the other Crawlers through the air like they had stepped on a landmine. Their bodies spiraled and dropped back towards the floor, scraping and grating across the ground before sliding to a stop in front of their CorpoMax station.

Mitch jumped to his feet, sprinted the rest of the way to the final five Crawlers struggling to peel themselves off of the ground.

“Don’t fucking move!” Mitch yelled, crossbow aimed. “You’re under arrest!”

The least mangled Crawler on the right cackled an animatronic laugh that sounded like he gurgled water through his voice box. He sat up and glared up at Mitch from behind artificial eyes, flickering red like a flashing siren. Then he smiled with sharp, metallic teeth after the explosion knocked off the artificial enamel that had covered them.

“For what, you rotten bum?” the Crawler asked, spitting a glob of black goop. “Trying to take back the tech you stole from us?”

“That’s right, bum,” another Crawler said. “Did you really think we wouldn’t remember you?”

“Been experiencing strange visions, have you? The GravGun will do that to a person,” a third said in an even thicker, animatronic voice.

Mitch scanned the lifeless bodies for the voice, but they were all face down, unmoving. It was like the voice of guilt bubbled straight out of his own mind. Mocking him. Taunting him.

“But getting sucked into the force of the GravGun while wearing the Chrono-Suit? Tsk, tsk, tsk,” the Crawler on the right said, shaking his broken, metallic head, “not even Angels know the dimension jumping ramifications of that.”

“What are you?” Mitch demanded, jabbing the crossbow closer.

“Why don’t you ask whoever made that crossbow?”

“Do your colleagues at Rotech know who you really are, bum?”

“I bet they wouldn’t appreciate getting bamboozled by a bum.”

“Maybe we will pass on a nice message to your boss,” the Crawler on the right said.

“Vincent Walker, isn’t it?” they all chimed in robotic unison.

Mitch clenched his jaw.

“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

“Ohhh Vincent! Come out, come out, where-”

Mitch fired at the Crawler on the right. Half of the lightning bolt disappeared into its mouth from the force of the shot at point blank range, silencing it before uttering another dangerous word.

Then he dove behind a pile of scrap metal that had fallen from the ceiling.

“Your secret won’t die with us, bum!” the Crawlers screamed together as if uttered by one mind. Their voices echoed through the battleground until they were drowned out by a chain reaction of fiery eruptions.

The pressure from the explosions popped Mitch’s eardrums like a bell in a tower had been pelted with a shotgun blast. He flexed his jaw, tried to blink away the fluid that sloshed against his brain. Then climbed onto his wobbly feet, tried to steady his torso and gather a sense of equilibrium back into his concussed mind.

An infernal hellscape surrounded him. Dozens of fires spewed black smoke that escaped out of the shattered windows lining the top of the building. Small explosions continued to burst from the remaining stations and booths that still stood.

Bloody and bruised corpos in filthy, shredded, elegant attire wandered out from their hiding places and gathered in packs across the crumbled convention floor. A mix of expressionless shock and frantic terror spread over their faces as their hysterical voices chattered.

Mitch clicked on the crossbow’s tail, transformed it into a pen, and tucked it into his pocket.

“Nice shooting, Cowboy,” a quiet voice eked.

Mitch spun around, found Nova standing a few feet behind him amid the wreckage. She sobbed great tears that squeezed out of her lime green eyes, rolled down her smoky cheeks, and gave her face a glistening shadow that flashed in the remaining light fixtures flickering above.

“Just doin’ ma job, ma’am,” Mitch said, tipping his imaginary hat.

They sprinted towards each, long-toothed smiles reflecting off of their faces as they embraced with a force that spun them in a circle. Nova’s legs lifted into a twirl, slicing over scrap metal and rubble.

“It was terrifying…” Nova said, face buried into the top of Mitch’s shoulder, “having to watch those Crawlers attack you.”

Mitch slowed and set Nova back on the ground, took a small step backwards to stare into her eyes. His thumb raised and swiped a tear that dangled from the corner of her eye.

“I never thought CorpoMax would stoop so low and commit such horrific acts,” Nova said. “Just for a fucking corpo convention. It’s horrific!”

Mitch’s eyes flicked away from hers, whipped back like they were connected with a taut elastic band. He gulped, squeezed her palms.

“I’m sure they had their reasons.”

“To murder innocent civilians attending a meaningless convention? What reasons could they possibly have for that?”

“It’s alright. We aren’t injured and-”

“They came here to kill you! CTO of Rotech. And probably the other members of the board,” Nova said. “Will you forgive them for that?”

“Of course not. It’s just that…” Mitch said, looking away, “I survived the attack, thanks to Elektra.” He turned back to Nova’s eyes. “Who would have thought that a fucking fountain pen could defend against a Crawler invasion?”

Mitch raised his head to look for Elektra on top of the booth against the wall, but the mass of corpos flooding towards him from every direction obscured his vision. They encircled him. Lurking like cockroaches venturing from their bunkers when the lights go out. They stepped around flaming piles of Crawler body parts; climbed over crumbled metal pipes and grates, wires and light fixtures that had fallen from the ceiling. Thousands of them corralled Mitch and Nova as they nestled together with their arms wrapped around each other’s backs. Slowly, they turned in almost a full circle. Stopped when Mitch locked eyes with Vincent standing at the front of the horde.

The CEO raised his hands and brought them together for a single booming clap. And another. Another. Until more people joined in. More. Half of the crowd. The entire convention center. Tens of thousands of people clapping, cheering, swinging their arms in the air. Whooping and hollering. Stomping their feet with such force that the foundation rumbled, sent vibrations through the earth that would rock the Crawlers’ Paradise.

Mitch raised his right hand and waved, folded his lips inwards for a humble smile. He nodded his appreciation towards the people while Vincent stepped into their circle with both hands over his head, gathering everyone’s attention. The crowd slowed their applause and hushed their voices, raging sounds of the dying battlefield lingering like writhing death in the background.

“Now that is what I call a heroic act conducted by a true hero. Ladies and gentlemen…” Vincent said, swinging his arm out from his chest like he was an opera singer, “Mitch Henderson!”

The crowd erupted into another round of applause, much louder but shorter than the first.

“Tell us, Mitch,” Vincent said, “how does it feel to save the world from those creepy Crawlers of CorpoMax?”

Mitch tried to maintain a blank face and a stoic posture, but his mind pulsed with the memory of Raphael informing him of his mortal duty, his task as the chosen one to save the world. Banishing the Crawlers back into the depths of their underground realm. Returning peace to the disparate people of Rosenfell.

“I think…” Mitch said, scanning the corpos’ faces, predicting their reactions with each possible scenario racing through his head, “it’s the least I could do after Rotech has done so much for me. If it wasn’t for the greatest corporation on the planet Earth, then I wouldn’t have been in that position to… save the world, I guess. As you say, Vincent.”

“You know…” Vincent said, projecting his voice to address the thousands that stood watch like a rabid mob that encircles a street fight and watches with primal fascination on their faces, “it’s not often in our miserable lives that we come across a corpo as special as Mitch here. It is as if he were sent from above by God Himself. Placed here to cleanse each of us of our mortal sins so that we may bathe in the same light of consciousness in Heaven… If you believe in all of that garbage,” Vincent said, flicking the air in front of him with the back of his right hand. “Regardless, I am announcing, right here and now, that Rotech’s Ball be dedicated to Mitch Henderson and his lady… Nova Zion!”