013_appartition.jpgThe superstructure and stress points are all at nominal levels, the crew is happy, and the ship power is fully operational.  Even the Kittee Patrol is at full health.  At the back of my primary cell awareness, though, something is brewing and it smells like trouble.  My brain sensors have been getting a lot of random readings in the local systems.  The subconscious radio is picking up increased activity as well.

I feel guilty and out of sorts, because being a secret party pooper is no fun.  The last thing I need right now is a mood, but then perhaps I’m getting a message that I haven’t quite figured out yet.  Something heavy hangs in the air I’m breathing, as if some gigantic catastrophe were about to erupt from the depths and rip the heads off anyone who isn’t bowing low enough.

An image enters my mind of a selfish mindset as large as the world, wearing a dirty sheet over its shrunken head as it plays recklessly with forces beyond mortal command.  This psychic infection is completely disassociated from the external world, and uninterested in any internal world not based on a fearful, immature image of life.  Any moment this childish thinking will cause a disaster and take everyone it can with it.

Just what I need, a nameless dread giving me the shivers.  I tell the starship crew to hyperport me to the nearest sensor reading that matches the stats we have for the nameless dread.  I’m going to have to take a direct astral reading at point blank range to make anything of this new development.

Zap.  Switching to uncensored habitat mode.

Picking up mass mockery of decent people.  Dirty tricks being performed on valuable prophets.  Mass migration of sanity to folly with imminent beat down masked by phony baloney.  Trusted guardians bearing false seal of approval showing true colors as they maim and loot.  Increase in victim threshold rising to off the scope whir beep.  Massive buyout of worthless junk on unimaginable scale as shutdown systems of life support continue, warning, warning, fuel for fake bribery burnout at critical levels.  All systems on alert for least size resistoids at any cost must destroy.  Reality override, going eegah oh no whoop whoop, have a bite of collapsoid stone age mind spoilage eeyew brrrrrr. Doom alert, doom alert, drinking down mosquito disease cocktail made with hot sauce.  Static, static, shutdown, change channel.

Hello and welcome to the fake friend show…click.  Next channel.

Emergency transmission begins now.  Get off the planet immediately.  All bioplastoids are guaranteed a transfer station at the non-time coordinates listed on your drinking bracelet.  If you are cobalt based, you will need an extraction procedure before liftoff.  Absorb all relevant recordings for procedure at your nearest pyroclastic stability.  All other motility existences must evacuate immediately.  Transmission for non-temporal beings begins now.  Beerrrpabrpbeeprprpbeep…click.  No channel.

Random Gooberz:  “Hey, what are you doing here?”

Me:  “I live here!”

CANNED LAUGHTER

Random Gooberz:  “You’re supposed to be in scene seventy-nine.”

Me:  “I thought sixty nine was a better scene to be in.”

CANNED LAUGHTER

Random Gooberz:  “I’ve heard of choose your own adventure, but this is ridiculous.”

CANNED LAUGHTER

Me:  “Just wait until the juicy parts.”

HOLDS UP COVER OF BOOK SO AUDIENCE CAN SEE

Random Goober:  “There are no juicy parts in that one.  You bought the wrong volume, you idiot!”

Me:  “Boy is my face red.”

CANNED LAUGHTER

…click.  More channels.  Click click click.  Switching to dial mode…clack.

Finally, someone with half a brain.  Don’t stand there like you need to adjust.  All of us down here in Hekate Headquarters know your quirks.  Here’s the deal.  We need a living person to do some stuff for us down here, or there’s going to be no Charlie Brown Xmas.  Get ready, we’re going to beam you.

END TRANSMISSION OTHER

The scene here is absolutely unbelievable, average news anchor.  People coming out of the woodwork and firing shots, throwing toilet paper, shouting invectives.  Whatever they can at the 400 foot tall apparition smashing downtown wherever.  I don’t need to tell you the authorities are helpless before this monstrosity, and yet here we have a spontaneous reaction from the public, doing serious hit point damage to what must be the most colossal blunder people have ever made.

Number nine, number nine, number nine.

“Get back to where you once belonged.”

Zid.  Closing uncensored habitat mode.

Hey, I got Hek-mail.