NaNo Ridiculousness Chapter 6
Hey there,
Here's Chapter 6 of "I Prefer the Mind Control." I'm trying to make actual chapters now. Enjoy the ridiculousness!
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5(ish)
---------
Things were really fucked up, too. I mean, keeping a guy in the basement? Really? That was a thing these people did? How did they expect that not to get out? Maybe if they had had better security, but all it took was knocking into one weird sculpture and whoops, secret discovered. You would think they would watch their secret portals better because I got out of there by discovering what amounted to a Deus Ex Machina in the fucking refrigerator. I didn't think my little exploration there would work, but it did.
It probably wouldn't be so easy now that they realized people could get in and out with negligible effort. Myd had mentioned invisible bodyguards, who must have overheard us. Shit, what was going to happen with that? I mean, fucking seriously, I don't think I was expected to exit. Double shit, I hoped nobody would decide my being alive was too much trouble. I rather liked being alive.
Xan's parents probably liked being alive, too. And, yeah, that wasn't going to work out, was it? Just fucking shit. So much fucking shit that I had no idea how to help with. It seemed like hours as I stood there with my arms around Xan, letting him cry into my shoulder.
Hours until we were fucking surrounded.
From out of fucking nowhere, silvery shapes appeared, maybe eight of them or so. Fucking not-so-invisible ninja cyborg bodyguards. Crap, I did not feel like being assassinated.
One of the shapes announced, “You need to come with us. Do not attack. We mean you no harm, but you need to come with us. Or we will attack with lethal force.”
Four more shapes appeared, closer to us. What the fucking hell? The outer shapes solidified into actual visible cyborg ninjas, all wearing some kind of silver uniform with a black logo over their silver-streaked bodies. Every last one of them stared at us with hard silvery eyes. All were armed with scary somethings. Zimaran guns, I assumed while my heart hammered. The cyborgs looked rather disconcertingly like me.
Xan hugged me even tighter. “What's going on?” he demanded.
“You are in violation of the Secrecy Code; both of you must be dealt with,” the cyborg said.
The closer shapes I assumed to be Xan's own bodyguards, who said nothing but remained around us in a protective circle. They too carried gun whatsits. The tension almost-visibly shook the the air. I couldn't fucking breathe. Dammit, this not what I fucking meant to do. I felt it were my fault somehow for discovering King Myd hiding in his freaky basement apartment. If I hadn't discovered that, maybe we wouldn't have been about to be arrested. But Xan deserved to know, so yeah. Just fucking shit.
Could you even arrest royalty? Apparently so.
I could feel Xan tense in my arms. Trying to stay calm, I took deep breaths and avoided the harsh silver eyes of the guards who were arresting us. This couldn't be happening, only it was. Fuck, we should not be under arrest for discovering something Xan had a right to know! Fuck fuck fuckity fuuuuuuuuck.
Xan said, “Fine, we will come with you.” He sounded both angry and resigned and almost like he were trying to keep his voice even and his feelings out of it. I wouldn't want to antagonize the guards, either.
“Follow us,” the guy I assumed was the lead guard ordered.
We followed them, with Xan's personal guards making sure to protect us from the arresting officers. It was a cybernetic clusterfuck. Xan never let go of me, and I was fucking glad of it because suddenly visible invisible cyborg ninja guards? Scary as fuck. Deep breathing didn't help much, either. How could extra oxygen fight the law, anyway? It couldn't.
My brain decided to be stupid and think about how Zimara had human-compatible atmosphere. Strangely enough, this hadn't occurred to me until I was surrounded by guys who could probably kill me with the tips of their pinkie fingers. Guys who seemed like they would kill me should I make the slightest of wrong moves. Fuck. Also, fuck. Did I mention fuck?
I wanted to say something to Xan, offer some kind of comfort, but I was scared out of my mind. Instead, I settled for squeezing him slightly, to try and let him know I was there for him. He returned the gesture, and I felt just the tiniest bit better. Only a tiny bit though because we were being arrested after all. Fucking arrested.I didn't know much about Zimaran jail, but I imagined jail anywhere would suck, no matter your planet.
As we walked, I noticed the hallways got ever more utilitarian. I guess Zimarans didn't think the criminal element of Palace life needed weird alien sculptures of doom. Granted, I didn't think the non-criminal element needed them, either. Still, the change in surroundings freaked me out, with the plain floors and plain walls, still in a black-and-silver motif with some white. It was colder down here, too, which really kind of sucked when you wore as little as I did.
After a long trek through the honestly more dungeon-like parts of the Palace, we arrived at a big scary metal door not unlike the one Xan had at his apartment back on Earth. The lead guard typed something onto the keypad and pressed his finger to what had to be some kind of fingerprint scanner. The door swung open to reveal fucking darkness.
He ordered, “You two are to enter this room until the proper authorities for this situation arrive. Make the slightest inclination towards trouble, and we won't hesitate to attack, royalty or no.
Scary guard dude gestured and his minions split apart. Xan's own guards followed suit, though at a much more hesitant pace. I felt Xan bristle beneath me; being treated this way obviously angered him. If I were him, it would fucking anger me, too. Being a peasant until not so long ago, though, “scared” was my primary emotion, complete with shortness of breath and hammering heart. I gave him another hopefully encouraging squeeze. We slowly approached the darkened room. Xan gently pushed me ahead of him, so I entered first. He followed, tension rolling off him in nearly tangible waves.
Once we were inside the room, the door slammed shut with a clattering metallic thud. It sounded fucking final, like we would fucking die in here. I drew some comfort from the fact that at least I would die with Xan, but I would much rather stay fucking alive.
“This is - this is an outrage!” Xan hissed.
I looked around the room. No fucking light anywhere, except for the narrowest sliver coming from the crack between the floor and the door. After several tense moment, my eyes kind of adjusted, enough to see the outline of a metal table as well as three metal chairs surrounding it. I squinted upwards, thinking I saw a light bulb of sorts, but I couldn't even be sure about that.
“This kind of really reminds me of Earthling interrogation rooms,” I said. “What's with the inexplicable cultural ties?”
My brain decided to focus on stupid minutiae rather than the fact that we were in a fucking interrogation room under fucking arrest. Perhaps the minutiae would keep me from panicking?
“This is wrong!” Xan spat. “First they hide my father from me and now this? I deserve more respect.”
“You do. This sucks.” It did suck, though “suck” was an awfully mild word for the situation at hand.
“They - they shouldn't have!” Even in the dim as fuck light, I could see how tense Xan was, how taut his muscles became, how much he shook.
Not sure what to do, I put my arms around him and said, “I'm here, for what that's worth.”
That seemed to calm him down. At least, he shook less. “It's worth a lot. Thank you. Dylan, you don't deserve this, either.”
Neither of us deserved to be shoved into a darkened interrogation room for discovering a secret that shouldn't have been kept from Xan in the first place. It wasn't the least bit fucking fair, but that was life. Shitty unfair life. Really fucking shitty unfair life. As I stood there, holding Xan, I wondered about the Zimaran Palace court and its attendant dangers. What would it hold for us? If they were willing to lock one of their Princes in a fucking interrogation chamber, what else were they capable of doing? Did I even want to fucking know? Did asking that question mean I would somehow unleash extra horror upon myself? That sometimes happens, doesn't it? That asking questions about scary things leads to those scary things actually fucking happening. Fuck.
Would someone even come to check on us? Would we be given water or anything like that? I didn't know Zimaran law or custom or much of anything, really. Ignorance was certainly not fucking bliss when it meant waiting nervously in a dark as fuck chamber for who knew what to happen. The not knowing might have killed me. It could seriously have fucking killed me with the way my chest hurt from the anxiety. The only thing prevented imminent death by panic? Xan. He kept me sane.
Somehow, this felt almost worse than when I almost died. At least I had been unconscious for most of that ugly event. Here? Fully fucking conscious for whatever was going to go down. Hopefully what went down wouldn't end my life, but I just didn't fucking know. I squeezed Xan tighter, using him to steady my own erratic heart and mind. “Steady” wasn't a word I would quite use to describe either of us, though. “Unsteady” wouldn't be a good word either, as it didn't capture the “holy fuck under arrest” vibe I wanted.
Why, dear author, did you have to have me arrested? That's not cool. I would rather not be arrested, you know. Would you be so kind as to provide another Deus Ex Machina? But there aren't any convenient refrigerators around here, are there? Dammit. Fucking dammit. Also, dammit. Super-dammit. Okay, that's not a word. See? Having me arrested is fucking with my vocabulary.
Xan whispered, “Do you think anyone's going to come soon, Dylan?”
“I don't honestly know, Xan. I have no fucking idea. I would say you're more of an expert at these things since this is your planet, but they don't make a habit of arresting Princes, do they?”
“No, they don't. This - this is serious. This is not right,” Xan said.
“Nothing's right.” This truly felt all wrong.
“I know that my father's being sick would cause everything to happen as it is, but it just doesn't feel right.” Xan squeezed me even tighter.
Again, I wondered what the fucking hell was going to happen to us. Mystery didn't become me. Neither did this stupid darkness.
I nearly smacked my forehead with my palm when I remembered I was a fucking cyborg. Did my new and improved brain come with night vision. After looking around the icons and such in my brain, I found a whole fucking sub-menu of various, often confusing, options. Including night vision. I turned on said night vision, and everything got a whole lot more clearer. I let go of Xan.
“I can see!” I said.
Xan looked at me confusedly.
“My cybernetic modifications come with night vision.” With my improved sight, I saw that there was indeed a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but it looked less Earth-like than I had previous suspected. The bulb was shaped funny, with angles I wouldn't expect from lighting, not that I really took much time to expect anything from the lighting.
He sighed. “You don't see a way out of here, do you?”
“I wouldn't take it even if I did see one. Those guards meant business, and I would rather not be murdered. I've had enough attempts on my life to last a hopefully-long lifetime.”
With the way things were going, though, how long would my lifetime be?
Here's Chapter 6 of "I Prefer the Mind Control." I'm trying to make actual chapters now. Enjoy the ridiculousness!
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5(ish)
---------
Things were really fucked up, too. I mean, keeping a guy in the basement? Really? That was a thing these people did? How did they expect that not to get out? Maybe if they had had better security, but all it took was knocking into one weird sculpture and whoops, secret discovered. You would think they would watch their secret portals better because I got out of there by discovering what amounted to a Deus Ex Machina in the fucking refrigerator. I didn't think my little exploration there would work, but it did.
It probably wouldn't be so easy now that they realized people could get in and out with negligible effort. Myd had mentioned invisible bodyguards, who must have overheard us. Shit, what was going to happen with that? I mean, fucking seriously, I don't think I was expected to exit. Double shit, I hoped nobody would decide my being alive was too much trouble. I rather liked being alive.
Xan's parents probably liked being alive, too. And, yeah, that wasn't going to work out, was it? Just fucking shit. So much fucking shit that I had no idea how to help with. It seemed like hours as I stood there with my arms around Xan, letting him cry into my shoulder.
Hours until we were fucking surrounded.
From out of fucking nowhere, silvery shapes appeared, maybe eight of them or so. Fucking not-so-invisible ninja cyborg bodyguards. Crap, I did not feel like being assassinated.
One of the shapes announced, “You need to come with us. Do not attack. We mean you no harm, but you need to come with us. Or we will attack with lethal force.”
Four more shapes appeared, closer to us. What the fucking hell? The outer shapes solidified into actual visible cyborg ninjas, all wearing some kind of silver uniform with a black logo over their silver-streaked bodies. Every last one of them stared at us with hard silvery eyes. All were armed with scary somethings. Zimaran guns, I assumed while my heart hammered. The cyborgs looked rather disconcertingly like me.
Xan hugged me even tighter. “What's going on?” he demanded.
“You are in violation of the Secrecy Code; both of you must be dealt with,” the cyborg said.
The closer shapes I assumed to be Xan's own bodyguards, who said nothing but remained around us in a protective circle. They too carried gun whatsits. The tension almost-visibly shook the the air. I couldn't fucking breathe. Dammit, this not what I fucking meant to do. I felt it were my fault somehow for discovering King Myd hiding in his freaky basement apartment. If I hadn't discovered that, maybe we wouldn't have been about to be arrested. But Xan deserved to know, so yeah. Just fucking shit.
Could you even arrest royalty? Apparently so.
I could feel Xan tense in my arms. Trying to stay calm, I took deep breaths and avoided the harsh silver eyes of the guards who were arresting us. This couldn't be happening, only it was. Fuck, we should not be under arrest for discovering something Xan had a right to know! Fuck fuck fuckity fuuuuuuuuck.
Xan said, “Fine, we will come with you.” He sounded both angry and resigned and almost like he were trying to keep his voice even and his feelings out of it. I wouldn't want to antagonize the guards, either.
“Follow us,” the guy I assumed was the lead guard ordered.
We followed them, with Xan's personal guards making sure to protect us from the arresting officers. It was a cybernetic clusterfuck. Xan never let go of me, and I was fucking glad of it because suddenly visible invisible cyborg ninja guards? Scary as fuck. Deep breathing didn't help much, either. How could extra oxygen fight the law, anyway? It couldn't.
My brain decided to be stupid and think about how Zimara had human-compatible atmosphere. Strangely enough, this hadn't occurred to me until I was surrounded by guys who could probably kill me with the tips of their pinkie fingers. Guys who seemed like they would kill me should I make the slightest of wrong moves. Fuck. Also, fuck. Did I mention fuck?
I wanted to say something to Xan, offer some kind of comfort, but I was scared out of my mind. Instead, I settled for squeezing him slightly, to try and let him know I was there for him. He returned the gesture, and I felt just the tiniest bit better. Only a tiny bit though because we were being arrested after all. Fucking arrested.I didn't know much about Zimaran jail, but I imagined jail anywhere would suck, no matter your planet.
As we walked, I noticed the hallways got ever more utilitarian. I guess Zimarans didn't think the criminal element of Palace life needed weird alien sculptures of doom. Granted, I didn't think the non-criminal element needed them, either. Still, the change in surroundings freaked me out, with the plain floors and plain walls, still in a black-and-silver motif with some white. It was colder down here, too, which really kind of sucked when you wore as little as I did.
After a long trek through the honestly more dungeon-like parts of the Palace, we arrived at a big scary metal door not unlike the one Xan had at his apartment back on Earth. The lead guard typed something onto the keypad and pressed his finger to what had to be some kind of fingerprint scanner. The door swung open to reveal fucking darkness.
He ordered, “You two are to enter this room until the proper authorities for this situation arrive. Make the slightest inclination towards trouble, and we won't hesitate to attack, royalty or no.
Scary guard dude gestured and his minions split apart. Xan's own guards followed suit, though at a much more hesitant pace. I felt Xan bristle beneath me; being treated this way obviously angered him. If I were him, it would fucking anger me, too. Being a peasant until not so long ago, though, “scared” was my primary emotion, complete with shortness of breath and hammering heart. I gave him another hopefully encouraging squeeze. We slowly approached the darkened room. Xan gently pushed me ahead of him, so I entered first. He followed, tension rolling off him in nearly tangible waves.
Once we were inside the room, the door slammed shut with a clattering metallic thud. It sounded fucking final, like we would fucking die in here. I drew some comfort from the fact that at least I would die with Xan, but I would much rather stay fucking alive.
“This is - this is an outrage!” Xan hissed.
I looked around the room. No fucking light anywhere, except for the narrowest sliver coming from the crack between the floor and the door. After several tense moment, my eyes kind of adjusted, enough to see the outline of a metal table as well as three metal chairs surrounding it. I squinted upwards, thinking I saw a light bulb of sorts, but I couldn't even be sure about that.
“This kind of really reminds me of Earthling interrogation rooms,” I said. “What's with the inexplicable cultural ties?”
My brain decided to focus on stupid minutiae rather than the fact that we were in a fucking interrogation room under fucking arrest. Perhaps the minutiae would keep me from panicking?
“This is wrong!” Xan spat. “First they hide my father from me and now this? I deserve more respect.”
“You do. This sucks.” It did suck, though “suck” was an awfully mild word for the situation at hand.
“They - they shouldn't have!” Even in the dim as fuck light, I could see how tense Xan was, how taut his muscles became, how much he shook.
Not sure what to do, I put my arms around him and said, “I'm here, for what that's worth.”
That seemed to calm him down. At least, he shook less. “It's worth a lot. Thank you. Dylan, you don't deserve this, either.”
Neither of us deserved to be shoved into a darkened interrogation room for discovering a secret that shouldn't have been kept from Xan in the first place. It wasn't the least bit fucking fair, but that was life. Shitty unfair life. Really fucking shitty unfair life. As I stood there, holding Xan, I wondered about the Zimaran Palace court and its attendant dangers. What would it hold for us? If they were willing to lock one of their Princes in a fucking interrogation chamber, what else were they capable of doing? Did I even want to fucking know? Did asking that question mean I would somehow unleash extra horror upon myself? That sometimes happens, doesn't it? That asking questions about scary things leads to those scary things actually fucking happening. Fuck.
Would someone even come to check on us? Would we be given water or anything like that? I didn't know Zimaran law or custom or much of anything, really. Ignorance was certainly not fucking bliss when it meant waiting nervously in a dark as fuck chamber for who knew what to happen. The not knowing might have killed me. It could seriously have fucking killed me with the way my chest hurt from the anxiety. The only thing prevented imminent death by panic? Xan. He kept me sane.
Somehow, this felt almost worse than when I almost died. At least I had been unconscious for most of that ugly event. Here? Fully fucking conscious for whatever was going to go down. Hopefully what went down wouldn't end my life, but I just didn't fucking know. I squeezed Xan tighter, using him to steady my own erratic heart and mind. “Steady” wasn't a word I would quite use to describe either of us, though. “Unsteady” wouldn't be a good word either, as it didn't capture the “holy fuck under arrest” vibe I wanted.
Why, dear author, did you have to have me arrested? That's not cool. I would rather not be arrested, you know. Would you be so kind as to provide another Deus Ex Machina? But there aren't any convenient refrigerators around here, are there? Dammit. Fucking dammit. Also, dammit. Super-dammit. Okay, that's not a word. See? Having me arrested is fucking with my vocabulary.
Xan whispered, “Do you think anyone's going to come soon, Dylan?”
“I don't honestly know, Xan. I have no fucking idea. I would say you're more of an expert at these things since this is your planet, but they don't make a habit of arresting Princes, do they?”
“No, they don't. This - this is serious. This is not right,” Xan said.
“Nothing's right.” This truly felt all wrong.
“I know that my father's being sick would cause everything to happen as it is, but it just doesn't feel right.” Xan squeezed me even tighter.
Again, I wondered what the fucking hell was going to happen to us. Mystery didn't become me. Neither did this stupid darkness.
I nearly smacked my forehead with my palm when I remembered I was a fucking cyborg. Did my new and improved brain come with night vision. After looking around the icons and such in my brain, I found a whole fucking sub-menu of various, often confusing, options. Including night vision. I turned on said night vision, and everything got a whole lot more clearer. I let go of Xan.
“I can see!” I said.
Xan looked at me confusedly.
“My cybernetic modifications come with night vision.” With my improved sight, I saw that there was indeed a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but it looked less Earth-like than I had previous suspected. The bulb was shaped funny, with angles I wouldn't expect from lighting, not that I really took much time to expect anything from the lighting.
He sighed. “You don't see a way out of here, do you?”
“I wouldn't take it even if I did see one. Those guards meant business, and I would rather not be murdered. I've had enough attempts on my life to last a hopefully-long lifetime.”
With the way things were going, though, how long would my lifetime be?