Great Falls, on the Potomac

Things left Unsaid

Episode Nine.
Start at the beginning HERE

Our vacation had taken quite a turn, and being stuck in a one horse town downwind of the Grand Canyon wasn’t exactly the high point. It turns out Billy is a mean drunk, and there wasn’t much else to do but drink. I didn’t care much for Billy after that. Billy’s a dick. We parted ways, but I met Samantha at the Rotisserie, and we hit it off. Sam has a few alterations, but when the tech came back online, we went all out. Optic upgrades, interactive tattoos (I learned some moves I didn’t even know existed!), and now my Jag has limited flight capability. Earth is fun again.

 Of course, we still have Cleveland showing us around. Northern California is spectacular. We did almost three-hundred over the salt flats. Scary fast, what a rush. And Yosemite was out of this world. Samantha got me some Ultra boots and gloves. I love extreme hiking! 

 The big news was, of course, the Battle over New York, where Skyland Resort was caught up in a great big controversy. The news was slow in coming, possibly leaked out from resistance fighters who infiltrated the Resort. The photos, if they’re real, showed some pretty hideous creatures up there. Apparently they were eating tourists? Billy and I had applied for the chance to go up when we were in the area, but we were denied. The official letter somehow blamed our enhancements, which I thought was bullshit, since all of that came from the overlords to begin with. Now I’m happy we didn’t go up. The pictures of Mr. Atrocious, if you haven’t seen them, are atrocious.

 I’ve been trying to keep up on current events, and Cleveland helps out. He shuffles the headlines and keeps me informed. Here’s the gist: There is a new head overlord; he’s a stern looking gent, looks a bit nervous to me, sort of on edge. Though the man in charge is not an alien, but a local. Which is to say, he’s an earthling named Patrick. Sources swear up and down he isn’t a flesh eating alien from another world, even if one half of him is pretty damned ugly. His left side is bloated and three times too big, and there are squidish things wiggling out of him. He tries to hide most of the bad half behind screens and large potted ferns, but I swear I saw a second mouth coming out of the side of his neck, and it seemed to be repeating every word he said out of the right side of his face-mouth. Sam and I were in a bar getting drunk on tainted mocha creams the first week after the takeover above, and a table at the back of the joint was filled with a gang of unruly locals. They were a bunch from the resistance that backed our man in the sky. Said his name was Scutum, and he was one of ‘em. The Astrologers, big news, and their leader was there too, Leo. He wasn’t bouncing up and down like the rest, just sat still with a mug in one hand and a dink on his lip, coloring the air over his head. He had a melancholy look, and a tawny cloud.  Still, he took a good many slaps on the back, and smiled once or twice.

 The overlord guy goes by the name of Mr. Face. He always stands behind Patrick, sometimes off screen. He’s got us back on track; there’ve been more upgrades than shutdowns. News comes slow, when it comes at all, but I see an upturn. He wants to cede more power to the Regions of Earth, but we have to play nice. Mr. Face is fair, but I imagine he has a heavy hand. He lets Patrick do most of talking, but we all know who is really in charge.

 Cleveland wants to take us into some caverns next, but I don’t like the idea. I’m a bit claustrophobic; I would just as soon stay above the earth. And Sam doesn’t like spiders. She wants to head out east and see if we can get to the Skyland Retreat when it opens back up. Won’t that be fun!

The Very End!

Ten Little Indians

Episode Eight.

He remembered the humanoids from boyhood days spent in front of the wall screen. There would be cartoons, when his folks allowed, but his most vivid memory was when the spaceship arrived, and the aliens came down to Earth.

 This was a time of hysteria, tempered by a dystopian backdrop and the wonder of life beyond the stars. Earth, the planet and all of its embattled cultures, was falling into an irreparable spin of self-destruction. The environment was a pissed-on cesspool and the good parts were doomed, under the thrall of vile businessmen and their heavy thumb of patriotic enterprise. The Overlords came just in time.

 They were scary, but in an older uncle, distant sort of way. Patrick would back away from the screen when the Overlords broadcasted their special announcements.  Their words were unimportant at that time, he preferred shows about dinosaurs and talking dogs, but he would always remember the faces of the aliens. They stood in a triangular formation, with the leader, he supposed, at its peak, and his lieutenants fanned out behind. They had human faces, mostly, but they were queer, and unsettling. The leader was stout, with a hardened look and golden cheeks. Patrick and the world knew him as the Prime Overlord, who was ever present at the broadcasts. He was firm, but benevolent. The lesser folk of earth came to love him.

 The others were a blur, but for one whom always stood to the back of the triangle, a sharp point in the geometry of the group. He was unnamed, but had a face Patrick could never forget. His eye always drifted to that one. Patrick took to calling him Mr. Face. He was lean and tall. And his face, though unimpressive, reminded Patrick of the screaming mien in Munch’s iconic masterpiece. The face haunted his dreams and left him sweat soaked and trembling in the wee hours of the night.

 The years slowly passed, and the world became a more hospitable place. It was like a garden under the supervision of the Overlords, but there was unrest too. The people had comfort, but creativity waned and life for many was stagnant. They aliens gave, but they repressed as well. And later, well into the occupation, people began to disappear. Some people revolted, and they were quelled without comment. That was when the resistance movements began, and the more secretive they were, the longer they lasted, and harder they hit. Patrick was older now; Patrick was a vital follower of the Astrologers, maybe the last hope of a free race of earthlings.

 He was in the boardroom of the beast, a newly ordained general of the beast, naked among his peers in the hook of Thee Most Atrocious. The ten squirmed like oily maggots on the body of the beast, held by wriggling tethers, in an orgy of galactic depravity. Thee Atrocious gathered his new generals, naming them as filthy apostles to his flesh, and together they pounded, caressed, and tugged on his fat, grotesque body and pulsating appendages. Green sweat oozed out and covered the generals. Patrick had squirmed sideways around the fatty arm of the beast, and hung suspended near its back. He was grasping at its bony plates, trying to avoid most of the mucus and throbbing members as they whipped and groped the humans. The more they struggled, the further excited Thee Atrocious became. In this state it moaned and occasionally pulled the head or a limb off of an unlucky general, then chewed it absent mindedly.  

 The ordeal was reaching its crescendo, and the rigid shafts began to pulsate, the beast stiffened, and sticks of pinkish bone prickled out from its corpulent, gummy body, impaling some of the generals, and ending their misery. A bony shaft pierced Patrick’s shoulder, and he shrieked, and then fell off of Thee Atrocious when the protrusion retracted and cut the leathery tether that held him.  He was loose in the fluid soaked platter when the thrusting members spewed sticky seed onto the beast’s belly and covered the writhing generals, as they screamed and clutched at the beast. A whipping appendage discharged toward Patrick, and the semen splattered across the left side of his face and body. It burned, and filaments of spaghetti skin formed on his slick skin, winding out like worms, or leaky veins. Patrick had escaped the worst of it.

 The other generals, the ones with heads attached, caught the bulk of the ejectant, and were screaming and cursing. Their bodies pulsated and morphed rapidly in time with the thrashing monster that bound them.  Patrick felt sick and he vomited. He began to crawl away, trying to put distance between him and hellish orgy. “Scutum,” he heard the soft, gasping plea. “Scutum,” she cried out, but her face was puss covered and into the lesions her face and lips disappeared.

 “Oh my god, Minerva. Minerva.” Patrick knew it was too late for Tina, probably for him as well. Operation Bowstring had come undone. “Minerva,” he gasped. “We are lost.” The generals were becoming little monsters themselves, as the creature’s seed seeped into their dilated pores. Where the sticky fluid had once infected its hosts and germinated on a hope and a prayer inside unsuspecting guts, this airborne sploof corrupted the flesh and mixed with the epidermis, bone, and cartilage, creating miniature and atrocious beasts. They turned on the master, falling onto its flesh, and consuming. One general with serrated bones exuding out of places that once owned a head and legs began sawing into the wailing, atrocious monster. "Thumuffa bitch," it shrieked in distress. 

 Patrick backed away, trailing green ooze and blood, and came to an impasse along the back wall. There he slumped weakly and waited for the end that must be coming. He heard a metallic screech, and beside him a once invisible ventilation grate wheezed off its screws and plunked onto the ground.  A head poked out, one Patrick could never forget.

 The Face that screamed, but now it was calm. This wasn't a dream. “Come with me, if you want to live,” said the Overlord. He stretched out a thin hand.

Episode 9

the King's Advisors

Episode Seven.

“Oh, Denral Zang, und Deneral Zuce, wook at you two, how nize to zee yuse.” The generals entered, ushered in by two heavily armored spiders.  Thee Atrocious, self-proclaimed ultimate and eternal

Atrocious, squatted in the enlarged chamber on a purple mat in front of a big metallic platter. “How long now has I allowed yuse to liff, mebee toosday wid be da day? Mebee?” Thee Atrocious had an on and off speech impediment, complicated by multiple fangs and tusks sprouting from its oral cavities.

 The generals bowed, a new honorific for the horrific new Atrocious. The former had submitted meekly at first sight of this succeeding one, and was summarily disemboweled then dined on with fresh blood turnips, an otherworldly delicacy.  “We are grateful for this chance to live, Thee Largest and Most Awful Atrocious. Forgive us, and let us do your bidding again, just for this day, if it pleases his Most Atrocious,” submitted General Xious to the beast. He had become gray, and noticeably thinner.

 “I too,” said the other general, Xiang. She prostrated herself to the great thing, and her words were garbled under her flattened face against the floor. “You, Thee Utmost and Never-to-be Defeated, Biggest and Baddest of All and Ever, Thee Shamer of All the Universe, Big, Bad Atrocious Monstrous and Planetary Thing. We are humbled to orbit your Atrocious, Hoary Body.”

 Thee Atrocious seemed to blush as these new compliments spewed forth. “More, more. Thish ith ekseelent!” It rose red faced and clapped some flippers, sending bits of flesh and bone into the platter, where they rattled, then settled to the bottom of the concavity.  “No, no. Neversmide, we has bithness to dikscuss. Cummon, sit.”

 They approached and sat cross-legged on the opposite side of the immense platter. “How can we be of service, Thee Atrocious, thee Foulest and…”

 “Enuph, enuphhh,” it spit and dribbled. Things had changed, plainly. The new administration, Thee Atrocious, had firmly planted itself in the boardroom for the foreseeable future, halting any new egg growth, thus thwarting any chance of being unseated. It had also stopped the influx of new technology to the earthlings, and even criminalized use of the previous granted gifts. These new policies were protested by the cabinet of humanoids, brought along from beyond this galaxy, but they were set on by Thee Atrocious’ loyal Space Spiders, and held as hostage to outlying factions, or packaged for later consumption. The former Atrocious was vile, by every stretch of the imagination, but it had at least upheld the program’s directive: To serve and protect the Earth civilization by educating and policing, and firmly limiting their dangerous potential to the universe, as a whole. This new Atrocious had upended all tradition to become a bloody dictator. It was on the verge of destroying an entire civilization.

 “I hath brut up thum new yoomins from under, ash we haff lost summa da olduns,” it referred to the overseer humanoids which were no more. “Summa dem can be new denerals, like yoo. Summa ken be fleshy toys or jus wigglies, or fud. Wat yoo say?”

 “Excellent, Thee Atrocious,” said General Xiang. “As ever, your ideas are the best, and most awesome.”

 Thee Atrocious waved at its spiders, “Brig dem in, then.” Its stomach rumbled both loudly and visually, and a steady stream of drool flowed from its rictus, green face. As the spiders turned, the generals both sprang up and jumped to their retreating backs. From the armored flanks, they fluidly drew the spider’s scimitars, and then rolled back toward the platter to face the big, appalling monster. Thee Atrocious clapped and grinned so frightfully that its face nearly split, stretching apart and held only by tense, reddening sinews. “Ah, sooo,” it breathed. “Ah, sooo.”

 With their swords, the generals attacked from both sides. Xiang was first, her curved blade feinted at the monster’s face, but when it made to block the attack with a tusk, she ducked below and the scimitar bit deep into its torso. Thee Atrocious never made a sound, but took the blow, sucking the sword deeper, until it and her hands sank into its blubber. She let go and pushed her feet into the beast, forcefully pulling her hands free. Xiang back flipped to the ground, dodging as its barbed tail whipped around to pinch her.

 As she danced free, General Xious planted his sword point first into its ear, twisting as he dug in. Thee Atrocious moaned, and greenish pus spurted into the general’s face, forcing him to cough and lose his grip. The discharge was slimy, and Xious lost his footing, and the sword. At the door, the spiders turned, while the earthlings beyond looked in, horrified at the melee, and the beast within.

 “Look athis, yoomins, look thee vut I can doo!” Before the generals could regroup, its tail fanned out, spikes splitting forth from its rim, and raked the attackers, chopping and carving them into unfortunate, imminent corpses.  Xious and Xiang lay, fragmented, bloody, and Thee Atrocious gathered them up and sluiced them into the platter, where they slid down and coalesced as one indistinguishable heap. Only the eyeballs looked out, dismayed for a moment in time, then lifeless.

 Thee Atrocious squirmed and rubbed at its ear. “Piddle paddle, piddle paddoo. Go ahead, spiderz. Brig dem in. We needsum noo denerals, we doo. Wee du.”

Episode 8

A Thing Well Done

Episode Six.

Look, the children grow with haste. The spider had come down into the girder web from above, just off duty at her sentry position. She clung with apparent ease while removing armor with a few unoccupied legs, and combed her eyelids out with a palp. Now off duty she relaxed and watched the egg brood play, which consisted mainly of squirming. See the red one, it needs to dominate; not so loathsome as before, are they?

 The female’s mate blinked a couple lazy eyes in agreement. It had been a long morning with the brood. They were unruly and needed constant watching. Several times he had unraveled one or more from the sticky webbing stretched about for their safety. It would not do to lose any from a fall.

She looked up from the playing maggots. I will watch, I require nutrition now. The male blinked now more rapidly, and the female blinked back, once, with all her eyes. Chided, the male departed. Again, the female eased, and watched the egg brood with interest. She kept her biggest eye on the slightly larger red one to see what it might do next. There was prestige in raising a specimen of great ability.  The Atrocious One would be pleased. Well pleased, squeaked the spider as her mouth coxae fiddled eagerly.

 The male, smaller than the fearsome female warrior, came up from below carrying a webbed limb in her palps, and stuck it to a girder. The female pulled it off and with her pedipalps proceeded to feed. Delicious, it is still the pieces of the sneaky bastards found above?

 It is. I have saved the best and meatiest pieces for you, mate.

 I am pleased. She sucked at the limb with vigor, and then discarded the desiccated leftovers into the void below the girders. Look there, the red one has an adversary. At last… In a corner, by the webbing, a greenish maggot was squirming and shedding its skin. It emerged larger, and with bright yellow fangs. Small, pointy things scratched at the platform beneath its segments, and a horn poked up between its squishy knob eyebulbs. The red maggot bellowed, seeing the challenge, and threw its weight forward, charging.

 The male spider bounded forward, looking to separate the two, but the female warrior jumped to her mate’s side and put a staying leg on his abdomen. No, this is the way of things. They have this great hatred, it is innate. It is just.

 The male stepped away, though with a sadness only seen from the smaller, weaker of its species. It is just, I agree. His duty to the brood was over now, no matter how the struggle concluded.

 As the red maggot gamboled at its sibling, the slime of its infancy sloughed away and it came out scaled in rotating spikery, a slithering maw round with fangs. The brothers (or sisters?) collided and became a frenzy of blood and whipping tails. In their metamorphic phase they altered to the situation, and if one became embroiled in a pinched hold, it sprouted boney pikes that lacerated the enfolding limbs, and so pieces of the wrestling maggots flew about the platform and into the abyss.

 The warrior spider was so engrossed with the battle it forgot its duty, but her mate gathered up the armor and fitted her ably as the bout ensued. Finally, the red one slithered weakly around its foe, trying in vain to choke it, but the enemy’s serrated teeth were in the penultimate stage of ripping off its head. At the end the green maggot emerged the victor, and consumed what was left of its red brother, thus exiting its larval stage. It was now an adult, though still of an adolescent size.

 Bravo, and well done, look at this atrocious specimen! The green monster squatted tiredly on the platform, and then rolled over toward its pupae siblings, who were quivering with dread before it gobbled them up.  

 The warrior looked at her mate, as longingly as was possible for the ferocious Space Spider. She took the helmet from his offering claws and donned it. Mate, I will speak of you to the Atrocious One, who will be well pleased with your fostering efforts. This is a thing well done, loved one.

 Mate, then I am well pleased, and he jumped forward into the waiting arms of the pulsating green thing as it split from its skin, bloated from all the feeding.

Episode 7

Prestidigitation in the Lion's Den

Episode Five.

There were some who opted for limited enhancement. Tina Luisa hadn’t been in for a regular checkup for years, certainly not since the overlords made healthcare free to the masses. Going under the knife was a terrifying prospect for the Astrologers, but Leo – only a select few ever met the resistance’s leader – advocated a few improvement gifts from the overlords. A single enhanced eye was an accepted risk, if one could learn the important things not to look at with both eyes open. Tina was getting pretty good at it. Her position with the Astrologers was climbing and news was Leo’s Spearmen were assigning her to a new zip code. They were meeting in the park.

 He was there waiting when she arrived early. A jogger with his golden retriever ran by her bench for the second time, then stopped twenty paces beyond and leaned on his knees. He dropped the leash, and the dog turned and loped back to Tina. She seemed friendly, and Tina patted her neck. “What’s her name?”

 “Diana,” said the sweaty man. He wiped his face with a towel. “And you are?”

 “Minerva,” answered Tina.

 “Nice to meet you, I’m Apollo,” he said, and leaned down to pick up the leash. Apollo dropped something on the bench, on the side of Tina’s original eye. “Put that on, but not until you start back down the walk. I’ll catch up.

 There was a path into the woods, and Apollo led her into it. After a few twists and turns they came to a small clearing, well inside the trees. Tina had a patch over her enhanced eye, so she had to swivel her head to see everyone gathered there. A thin man with a thick head of hair put a finger to his lips, smiling at Tina, and he nodded to the jogger. Apollo picked up a stick and beat it three times on a hollow log. After a second a bird was heard, the distinctive call of a cardinal. Then two thumps and finally a keening howl. “Ha,” laughed the thin man. I never tire of Scutum. You will meet him soon, Minerva. In fact, I mean to send him with you, into the lion’s den."

 Tina stitched a knit into her brow. “The lion’s den? That sounds a bit ominous.”

 “It’s not a cake walk, no. I’d love to go, but that would be one lion too many, and you know how that would turn out,” said the thin man. He pushed his long fingers though his thick mane.

 “Why, you’re…”

 “That’s right. It’s nice to meet you, too. Now, Tina, and for now on you only answer to Minerva when one of the Astrologers gives you the sign, now you will learn your true mission. But only if you agree here and now to accept, for the information we’ve just stolen from the skies above was paid for dearly. Any and all involved from here out are standing on the razor’s edge. On all sides there is danger, and the worst is just under your feet.”

 She accepted, of course. The thin man, Leo, turned the meeting over to his second, the runner, Apollo.

 Operation Boomerang had every chance of failing. Surprisingly, only a handful of resistance had been lost to the lion’s den. Of the dozen who went up, nine returned. “Pyxis lost his wife, another member came back down after suffering the worst stomach ailment she could imagine,” said Apollo. “The rest were well rested and had nothing much to report, until they examined all the facts.” They all took the tour, and all noticed the similar and mechanical seeming dignitaries. The food and drink was quite good, especially the first sugary shake-like beverage they were all served. There was recreation they could all participate in, including swimming and boating. Sports, like volleyball and shuffleboard were prevalent, depending on how active you wished to be. In the evening people could enjoy comedy shows, or concerts. Members of the Astrologers were careful not to associate, but they tried to get out and around as much as possible, while other vacationers would just relax at the beach, sipping on cocktails, or staying in their rooms.

 “So far, nothing sounds too sinister. Surely something major stood out,” remarked Tina.

 “Nothing obvious, at first,” he said. “General consensus was there was something in that first drink that affected some people more than others. Most of Operation Boomerang had experienced a slight bout of flulike symptoms.” Of the nine who returned, none knew for sure what happened to the three lost, but the man who lost his wife said she had become lethargic and had gotten a bit more of a stomach. They were both a tad heavy to start. Comparing notes, they all remembered seeing a few people with abnormally big belly bumps. They couldn’t all be pregnant, or have dubious beer bellies.

 “It was clear there was something going on, because not everybody who went up came back down,” Apollo continued. “It was all hush hush, proving some sort of collusion. Boomerang was a success, but it begged more answers.” They sent up a second mission, Operation Mudpack.

 “Mudpack was designed to get a mole into the pleasure dome, but we didn’t want to risk any of our own to what we started to call The Drink. All of the return Boomerangs went through extensive medical testing, but we found nothing conclusive, other than some intestinal scarring.”

 “Ouch,” said Tina, grimacing.

 “Yea,” said Apollo. “The worst cases were repaired. We have some pretty good surgeons on board. We keep them under wraps.”

 “The mudders are our finest bunch,” said Leo from atop his hollow log. He was smoking a cigarette. “I hope they’re still up there, but we don’t know for sure. They knew from the beginning it might be a one way trip.”

 Tina gaped. Apollo went on, “Well, they had the option of going through the dome if they felt their mission was concluded, but I don’t think any of them wanted to risk The Drink. Anyway, they couldn’t go back the way they got in.”

 “What was their mission?” she asked.

 “They were to go as far as the preceding domes, then wait for an opportunity to bug one, or hopefully several, of the vacationers.”

 Leo interjected, “We called them victims, which is quite callus I know, but it’s not like we could have saved them.”

 “So you may as well use them?” said Tina. It seemed more like deplorable than simply callus.

 “Everyone entering Skyland Retreat is thoroughly scanned, they don’t even like letting any enhanced get in. It’s almost like the unenhanced are expendable goods,” said Apollo. By a little sleight of hand, they were able to smuggle in the pieces, bit by bit, until the needed devices could be assembled.

 “What happened?”

 Leo crossed his arms, leaving the half spent cig to dangle on his lip. “They got one victim through, he was properly bugged, and he got in.”

 “Yeah,” said Apollo, “and then he really got bugged, rather buggered.” The device that the man named Ted was applied to, gave his whereabouts, what he ate and drank, and his medical status. “Every indication is, whatever he drank initially got into his intestines and grew there, then ripped his guts apart getting out. Not too fresh.”

“Geez,” said Tina.

 “Naw, bad way to go,” said Leo. “So, we hear they’re looking for earth candidates up there. We feel you have the qualifications to go. Are you up to the next mission, our third to hell above, into the lion’s den?”

 “Operation Bowstring,” said Apollo, taking her by the arm. “Here, let me catch you up.”

Episode 6

Tripping

Episode Four.

“Oh, stop your complaining, Ted. You’re always so-ooo negative.” Shirl was excited. She repeatedly put on and took off her sunglasses while they were waiting to board the shuttle tube. The air here, at the launch site, was hazy from the dust being flung up as the shuttles rocketed skyward. Her glasses clarified the scene, and magnified the heavenly view of the Skyland Retreat. “So lovely, we’re going there!”

 Ted was a chubby, anxious podiatrist. He was more frightened than impressed of the spectacular transit station as well as their destination. He couldn’t help saying so. “Well, this is a bad idea. You know I don’t hold with all this futuristic mumbo jumbo. You don’t know what’s up there. And these capsules getting flung up into space, that doesn’t seem safe. Not at all.”

 But Shirl was hanging onto the arm of an elderly man behind in the line, gushing over the prospects. Ted glowered, looking pasty in the loud Hawaiian shirt his wife had laid out for him in the morning.  There was a wan woman looking back at him from further up the line. She appeared grief stricken. Ted scowled and slumped into a pose, glaring down at the dust that swirled around his new, white sneakers.

The line moved ahead slowly, but in a timely manner. People disappeared in ones and twos into the pneumatic tube shuttles and after a brief intermission whooshed up a hundred feet encased in a plastic tube, then over the top and into an arc, in their egg, riding on a string all the way to the Retreat. The egg capsules were small and quickly disappeared from view of the watcher’s un-enhanced eyes. Shirl looked up though, craning, and saw a glint jumping off one shuttle as it approached Skyland. “Ooh,” she exclaimed.

 Skyland was a hastily constructed mesh of Klantien and plastic beams. Domes, above and below, filled out the assembly, filled with forests and towering habitats. The shuttle capsules had but one windowed opening, and it spun slowly showing views, after erupting out the tube’s summit, of the retreating transit station – then the earth – up to the approach of Skyland Retreat. In procession the capsules climbed up the line and entered the center of the floating world. They hooked onto a rail and smoothly rode through the girded interior, and finally emerged into a brightly lit conversion dome.

“Welcome, welcome to the Skyland Retreat,” said a uniformed woman as she ushered the visitors from their seats. The passengers emerged gingerly from the eggs onto a white platform and onto a moving walkway. Then as their heads swiveled on their necks to take in the views, they traveled on the conveyor out of the welcome dome and into another.

 “Welcome, Welcome…” she said. Shirl took the woman’s hand and stepped out, sliding her sunglasses into her pocket. Ted followed, unconvinced. The woman put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to the walkway. He thought he could hear a whirring coming from her. Her movements seemed uncanny, even mechanical.

 “Is there an exit around here, somewhere?” But the woman was already waiting for the next egg, and Ted rode away, straggling behind Shirl as she held her Flix aloft, filming the dome and scanning the surroundings.  

Aloft, in the sunside domes, the workings of Skyland remained a mystery to the lucky vacationers, as they rode through on the conveyor belt going from one spectacle to another. Ted scrunched into himself, examining the walkway and the structures and fauna as they moved along. A planting of cactus passed, and as Ted took a step back to get a better look, the belt hit a snag and lurched. They were just about to pass into a connector tube, and Ted hooked one of his sneakers behind the heel of the other, and he stumbled, and then fell off, tumbling into the dirt beside the conveyance. Shirl was too enthralled and didn’t miss the ever moaning Ted, as she rode into the next dome.

 “Welcome, welcome,” said the uniformed woman who looked more or less like the first welcoming woman. Shirl didn’t notice. Suddenly she was lost in a crowd of dozens of Earthers, all pointing and whispering. This dome was the biggest and buildings towered around the edges. In the center was a deep lake set inside a circle of white sand beach. The water was the bluest Shirl had ever seen, and it percolated in the center, sending gentle, rolling waves in concentric circles to lap at the beaches. “Welcome to heavenly Skyland Beach. Here you can relax and play, and the Skyland attendants will see to your every wish.”  Several welcoming women now pushed a bottle into the hands of the vacationers and guided them back onto the walkway, where they traveled around the beach and palm tree groves toward the high rise hotels. Occasionally a fork would appear, and a rider would shift to another track, while the rest traveled on.

 Finally Shirl found herself diverted and she wondered silently where Ted had gotten to. A low, beige hotel sprawled before her and Shirl took a sip from her bottle. The juice inside was thick and sweet, and she immediately took a longer swallow. Delicious! she thought. Ted would probably hate it, but Shirl wanted more. Another woman waited for her at the hotel, and Shirl stepped off where the track curled off, turning back toward the main walkway. “Welcome, welcome,” she said. “Welcome to your room. There are refreshments and everything you need is inside. Welcome to Casa la Playa.”

 The room was furnished much like any hotel suite she and Ted had been to with dressers and a bed and side tables. There was a glass desk and a minifridge. The bathroom was tucked behind a wall and Shirl peeked around to see the loo and a big walk in shower. Big enough for two, but when was Ted going to find his way? On the king sized bed was swimwear and towels. Shirl changed into a one piece suit and took a fruity drink onto the porch where there were two chairs and a pair of binoculars. She sipped at the bottle, which was good, but not like the first, better drink, and peered through the binoculars onto the crowded beach.

 A man and woman reclined under an umbrella on beach chairs, sipping their drinks. They were satisfied. They were listless. The first day they arrived, after slurping up their thick beverages, the couple walked in to the beach and played on the sand, then dove into the warm water, letting the waves wash over their bodies as they rolled together in the surf. Under the dome, they were young and energetic and happy. Five days in, they laid unmoving at the water’s edge, or in their beds, sated, with their bellies full and round. The two barely acknowledged each other, quaffing fruity drinks and moaning. “Oh look, there go Lucy and Renaldo.”

 Lucy and Renaldo were wrapping up their vacation. They had put on a few pounds and now wore bathrobes over tight fitting swimsuits. “Thank you for staying, come back again!” said a uniformed woman. They stepped onto the moving walkway outside their room that faced the beach. All the rooms faced the beach.

 “Well, that was nice,” said Renaldo. He laid a hand on his distended stomach and belched. “I don’t feel so good.”

 “You ate too much,” said Lucy. “You let me eat too much. You haven’t touched me for a week.”

 Renaldo huffed. “You just lay there and moan, and fart. Then you complain. It is past time we get back.”

 “Whatever.” The rolling walkway unexpectedly descended below the sand, and the couple dove into darkness. “The hell?” Lucy grasped Renaldo’s arm.

 In the dark they heard a skittering noise, and were lightly touched here and there about their bodies by cold, pokey things. The darkness transitioned to mere greyness, they still couldn’t see well, and shadowy shapes moved around them, touching and sometimes separating them. Dreamlike, they slumped and were enfolded into the welcoming grasp of Galactic Spiders. Lucy and Renaldo were now inconsequential.

 Inside, in the guts, small sugary grains had washed down the gullet and took a turn in the stomach, enduring the harsh acidy hell that heaved about. For a day the grains sunk and rose in the slurry of chunks and fluids that rained down from above. They expanded and shrunk dangerously, until they were flushed out into a contorted tunnel of slime. One by one the cooked grains attached themselves by hooked tentacles onto the channel walls, gripping tightly as the fetid slush pushed by.  Most couldn’t hold, and were expelled with a multitude of muck out a sphincter, eventually into a furnace that burned the waste into an ash that was released and floated on the winds across the face of the earth.

 But the persistent grains grew. They filled the tunnels and stopped up the guts, until finally the brittle hooks snapped and the stony grains, pocked like cratered meteors, descended methodically through the undulating river of flesh. The guts would quiver and shake, as the host organism wailed demonically, singing a song made for the devil’s ear.

 One at the time, the choir’s number would drop, as a thrashing body would still and the slime coated eggs dribbled out into a pan, to be collected by chitinous appendages.

 Between the surfaces, in a jungle of Klantien braces and high strength plastic netting, dwelled the colony of Galactic Spiders. They scurried through the underbelly web of their world, seeing neither the heavens nor the earth. And they were content. Unknown to the people of earth, the spiders made up ninety-nine percent of the overlord’s population. The immensely fat and segmented scorpion queens made up the remainder, and the face of their regime was handpicked humanoids, augmented to appear mostly earth-like, with pleasing faces and silky voices.

Episode 5