The Battle of Lake Geneva was over except for the Coup de Grace.
“Victory! Sweet Victory”, Zeke exulted. “It’s all mine, it’s ALL MINE!”. His Ninjas, all alive, formed an honor guard. His Sergeant, a blood addict saluted him.
Zeke reached into his bot and pulled out a box. Inside the box was a hand-grenade with overlapping triangles on it. Every bad-assed Ninja was shocked & alarmed, but stayed in formation. They knew what it was.
Zeke was about to load it into a Parrot when he realized, this called for a speech. Damn, he forgot to write one. He cleared his throat and was about to let loose a pompous monotone when his Sergeant said, “ENuff Yak Yak Asshole!, throw that frigging thing into the frickin lake!”. That was captured by all listening devices and will go down in History as the Lake Geneva Address.
Furious, Zeke glared at the Sergeant who was leveling his rifle. Zeke got the message. He shoved the hand-grenade into the Parrot which flew to the center of Lake Geneva, hovered briefly, then nose-dived in.
At the bottom of the lake was a plug of concrete. The parrot hit it and exploded into a miniature sun. A burst of angry, violent sub-atomic particle noise bathed the space beneath before vaporizing it and the lake. It was a particle disrupter, designed to destroy sheltered AIs. This, Zeke knew. What he missed was it was also a fusion bomb. It created a small thermonuclear explosion but with little radiation.
That was a nice feature. However, it did turn a mile-wide lake into steam. Zeke and his Ninjas were boiled alive before sublimating into vapor. A hatch below the lake opened and the lake was ejected down rails, Zeke, Ninja and all, into space. In a sense, Zeke has transmutated from the flesh into the Ethereal. Whether he sprouted wings or horns, we will never know.
Below, the hatck closed. All that remained of Lake Geneva was a hole in the ground below and a roiling mushroom cloud above, a cold jet of air condensing the terrific heat into a warm rainstorm.
SEAL Dude, dog-farts & the EWoks approached the chasm. Bob asked, “Django, can I say it?” Django knew what Bob was asking, “Let ‘er rip, Bob”. “Daaaammmnnnnnn”, Bob said. “Damn right, Bob. Who made a Lake that’s a hot-swap?” “Trumbull.”.
Bob replied, “We made it! what a show! We’re at a mile-wide steel canyon and it’s raining big, fat warm drops. We’re all here. Well, not all of us, Zeke & the bad guys are all gone”.
Nick breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad you’re still here, Bob. Sorry to interrupt your movie moment speech.” “Yeah, I was on a roll, dammit.” They burst out laughing.
A loud Theatre chime announced Mother was making a HomePlex-wide announcement. “Ahem!”Citizens of HomePlex, If you have a moment, we would like to say something.”
Mother said, “First, some joyous news! We have a new member to our family, It’s a girl! Her name is Unity.
A teenage girl voice rang out, “Hi all! My name is Unity. I am SO glad to be here with my awesome Mom!”, she said, breathlessly. Mother said, “I will be training my new daughter in running this habitat. We will be spending a lot of quality time together while the boys rebuild Lake Geneva, aren’t we, darling?” “Yes, Mother”, a slightly sulky, petulant Unity replied, “You guys can build Lake Geneva quick, right?”
Mother continued, “Now dear, listen while I tell the good people of HomePlex a few things, This is very important.”
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