Chapter 7: Blastoff!

Four things happened simultaneously in the spaceport that day: Ennings bashed in the door, Gizmo patched a cable into the correct outlet, someone tried breaking into the Circe, and everyone in a three-mile radius had an orgasm.

Now, with most coincidences, you can usually explain them away using little more than half-remembered statistical quirks. A butterfly beating its wings on the shores of Olympus certainly isn't responsible for the tidal wave that destroyed a Mennonite village on the far side of the moon. Friction can attest to that. Thinking of someone before they call can usually be explained with the law of averages. Palmistry and such associated silliness is usually equal parts pop psychology and cold reading, with a dash of showmanship thrown in for taste. Tarot cards were, at one point, a highly powerful tool used in ritual magic. However, centuries before the development of the starship, a massive ritual was undertaken by a sex-crazed syphilitic lunatic in a monastery in Venice which rendered every Tarot card in existence inert, save one, which was then promptly lost to history. Everyone associated with this project then promptly denied ever knowing the man and years later he died, only to have his traditions exploited and watered-down by posers and the sorts of wastrel hangers-on that tend to flock to eccentric personality cults near their decline.

However, none of that was evident to anyone involved when the damn thing went down. Sarah Slaughter, one of the most feared Doomsquad in the area, and her deadly squad of Doombots were engaged with a furiously one-sided gun battle with the Circe, who sat quiet and austere within the dusty confines of Hangar 18.

"Keep firing!" she shouted, ducking behind a barrel loaded with something about as flammable as teenage romance. She loaded an EMP charge into her bazooka, took careful aim, and fired. It slammed into the side of the ship like a vengeful stoat, then clattered to the ground, totally inert. Sarah grimaced and made a mental note to put the screws to the backhanded Merchant who sold her the defective ordinance.

Never being one to shy away from spectacle, she leaped atop of a nearby crate to rally her troops. "Doombots! Forward!" She leaped again and rolled, zigzagging to the back of the ship, where she somersaulted to the door set into the cargo hatch. She did a quick survey of the room, bazooka in hand, before she set about cracking the keycode on the door's control panel. The Doombots formed a protective circle around her and continued firing with their rifles. The ship continued to not give a shit, reflecting every round fired at it.

The resounding echo of the fist-sized projectile slamming into the ship was utterly drowned out in the screaming chaos of the ship's interior. Gizmo, completely underestimating how infuriatingly complex Gellar ships were, had begun to disassemble one of the computer banks near his seat. Parson, after successfully engaging the fusion reactor and then accomplishing nothing else, was hell-bent on figuring out how to bring the weapon systems online, or at least send out some sort of emergency signal on the Valet, which had been running diagnostics ever since Jen had resorted to the "Push every god damned button you see" method of piloting. Thankfully her reach was mercifully short due to the fact that she was both strapped into the sort of chair used most frequently in torture-porn films and the fact that the Tiara's drain on her mental faculties was now so intense that she began to blame every societal ill on the Liberal party.

"Welfare!" She shouted crazily, picking at a few blinking lights recessed into the armrests on her chair. "Wealth distribution! Public education!"

"She's getting worse!" Parson shouted. "God dammit, Gizmo, do something!" He punched a few more buttons and the cockpit's viewscreen turned orange and displayed an external view of the ship, Henchbots and all. A deep humming spread through the ship.

"Kay!" Gizmo shouted from beneath a mess of wires and disassembled parts. "I think I patched the fusion core through to the primary controls!" He pulled his head out from behind the mess he had created. "Or was that not something?" He asked sarcastically.

Unseen to both of them, a white button lit up on Jen's armrest. She hammered it gleefully. Something significant then exploded, but we'll get to that in a moment.

While all that was happening, Ennings was leaning nonchalantly against the car, Warcrime slung manfully over his shoulder, trying very hard to ignore the tearful farewell occurring behind him.

"You're unlike anyone I've ever met." The unnamed man confessed. "I've never connected with anyone like I have with you." He ran a hand through his short black hair. "Will I ever see you again?"

"No." Philo said. "Given the duration and scope of my current mission, the probability of my returning to this system during your lifetime are insignificant, rendering any long-term emotional investment fallacious at best." Philo paused for a moment. "Also, there is a slight chance that, at some point during my mission, I may explode." He shrugged.

The man wiped the tears from his face. "Wh-what are you trying to say?"

Philo paused, then, as emotionlessly as possible, said; "What we had is special. Let's enjoy the time we shared together and move on with our lives." Thankfully, being a robot, Philo felt neither remorse for using the man nor shame for how utterly ridiculous his words were, so the emotionless part came easily. The man nodded, wiped his face once more, climbed into his car, and drove off.

"How charmingly poignant." Ennings declared. "Now, if you don't mind, we've got a big damn hero moment to walk in on. Care to join me?"

"You didn't have to wait." Philo said, walking to the hangar door. "The lock's been blown clear off." He readied himself against one side of the door, shaking out his artificial muscles. Philo was the sort of fellow who, instead of using weapons, would much rather bludgeon his opponent into submission with his bare hands.

"I knew that." Ennings retorted defensively, noting the tell-tale scorch marks of the Doorchime charges. "I'm not foolhardy enough to go into combat without someone watching my back, is all."

"Yes, you are." Philo corrected.

"Yeah, you're right. I totally am." Ennings ran full tilt at the door, knocking it off it
's hinges with a single mighty kick at the exact same moment that Sarah began her attempted ingress of the cargo hatch, which was the exact same moment that Jenny pushed that significant little button.

And now, for a history lesson: During the early years of the 21st century, a therapy called "transcranial direct current stimulation" developed wherein a nine-volt battery would be attached to portions of the brain. Depending on where the electrodes were placed, there could be any number of results ranging from a decrease in migraine frequency and intensity, an improvement in memory or hand-eye coordination, or relief from the symptoms of neurological disorders. Of course the most common side-effect was a marked propensity for these practitioners to up and die, due to the fact that they went ahead and wired a battery into their brains.

However, that was due more to the absolute crudity with which 21st century regarded the brain than any fault with the therapy. Once doctors and scientists REALLY realized how blastedly complicated a system the brain was, they were able to more effectively electrocute precise areas, leading to a number of jaw-dropping developments. The most shocking of which was the effects an Esper could have on the space-time continuum when given sufficient power.

Given how vastly superior an Esper's mind is compared to ours, imagine the sort of things it could do when attached directly to a fusion generator. In this case, a whole fuck of a lot.

As soon as Jenny pushed that fateful button, she could feel her consciousness expand faster than waistlines at an all-you-can-eat ham buffet. She became instantly aware of everything happening around her, she could feel Sarah Slaughter's burning hatred, could feel Parson's panicked urgency, she instantly knew that the bum digging through the dumpster three hundred feet to the south was the greatest mathematician born in fifty years. She could tell that, beyond the shopping plaza where Ennings left the Hovertruck, there was a boy sitting in a cafe who will grow up and develop a novel use for reactor waste because a girl rejects him two years from tomorrow.

Every thought, sensation, realization, insight, every possible nuance of everyone within a three-mile radius was hers. For one shocking moment she was gloriously united with these people, the fundamental gap between personalities became nothing more than a stitch in reality she traipsed over with all the effort of stepping across a seam in the sidewalk. She reached out a hand and in a single sweeping moment became one with an entire city block, instantly understanding each and every one of their dreams and motivations.

Just as swiftly as it happened, she came back into herself, utterly shocked at what had just taken place. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and she fell blissfully asleep. Gizmo, after recollecting his wits, unplugged the cable, and went about reconstructing the bank of computers. Parson, after falling to the ground as his knees gave out underneath him, sat panting, trying to figure out exactly which way was up.

Outside the ship, Ennings leaned heavily against Philo, who bore a most distressed expression.

"I didn't know I could do that." he said, dragging Ennings over the ring of blissfully smoking Doombot rubble.

"Add that to a growing list of things I had no desire of ever learning about you." Ennings quipped, waiting for control of his lower half to return.

"There are wonderful secrets hidden within everyone." Philo gently chided. "Just because my skin is artificial, does not make me any less nuanced than you. My brain was once alive too, you know." Philo set Ennings next to the ship's hatch, gently carrying Sarah a safe distance from the formidable engines.

"We'll be leaving soon, so you probably ought to be leaving soon, yes?" The soon-to-be-demoted commander nodded mutely, temporarily having lost her voice during a religious experience. She stumbled off into the street, wincing at the sudden intensity of the light.

"Gizmo!" Ennings called, hammering against the door. "Let us in! I have had quite enough of this damned shark-invested ball of filth!" Ennings tried to stand, teetered a bit, and sat back down. "Philo, help me stand. I intend to shoot the door apart." Gizmo shook his head, picked Ennings up like an ornery sack of murder-potatoes, and gently stroked the keypad.

"A ship is like a woman-" He said to Ennings "-In more ways than one." The doors shuddered, then slowly slid open.

"You used your brain radio to call Gizmo, didn't you?"

"You suck the romance out of everything."

The door slid shut behind them. Moments later, the ship lifted off the ground, burst through the hangar sideways, and soared off into space.

Moments after that, they fell back to ground with all the grace of a cement kite, loaded the cargo from the Hovertruck, and took back off again.