Kendra’s sweet, soft hand slid over Gunther’s.
Her thumb on his. His thumb on the red button.
She smiled like a saint.
Gunther felt at peace. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
Together they pushed.
White light took them apart.
•••
The effects were felt immediately throughout the Infi-Net.
All who watched—which was damn near everyone—held their breath at the same time.
What had been shiny and new cracked in a hairline right down the middle.
This gem had a flaw.
•••
R.T. cracked a monitor with her fist in frustration.
Why was nothing working?
Why couldn’t she surface?
What the hell was going on?
A white light flashed across the monitors in front of her.
A wave of nausea overtook her again. Just like when everything went to hell in the first place.
As the white flash receded each monitor held the same message: CARRIER LOST.
Command and Control began dissipating. Unraveling back into ones and zeroes. R.T. tried to run, but it was too late. One step her foot hit unyielding white floor, the next hit empty space and kept on going.
As she fell into the bottomless expanse below her, she had only one thought: Fuck!
She also thought about Grebok, but she didn’t want you to know that.
•••
Grebok looked up at all those spaceships and couldn’t help but think of R.T.
“You’re all homo dork sexwads who do it with Jamaicans and Lichtensteinians,” Gunther shouted at the sky (oh, and his lower jaw and tongue were replaced with metal and wires).
Grebok took a second to appreciate how much more battle savvy the man-child’s warcries were becoming.
“What’s the plan?” Chuckles shielded his eyes with his new hand. He tried counting the ships above and lost count around four (shut up, they kept moving and stuff).
Grebok looked over at the Avatar with deep concern.
“I’m just fucking with you,” his knightly friend waved him off. “Fuck plans, am I right?”
Grebok nodded resolutely. “Yeah. Yeah, shit, you had me worried for a second.”
The ships above opened up. Whole squadrons of air to ground sub-atmospheric personal hover-landers ejaculated into the sky.
“That’ll be our ride,” Grebok pointed with his chin and his laser eye went off sending one of the vehicles spinning into another. “Shit, whoops.”
Just then a booming cry came from a mob rushing up the mountain path, holding guns, pitchforks, and laptops: “Vive la Revolución!”
•••
The Revolution swarmed out of their bunkers and hidey holes.
They overtook Auctionfist, iBay, Friendmonger, AdultKittyFinder, Pornotorium, and so on across the Infi-Net.
They were not everywhere, but they were damn close.
•••
Tay Sondetre took the stage previously inhabited by Kendra Shields, a white panther, and Gunther.
The crowd panicked. They were literally tearing themselves and each other to pieces in riotous grief and confusion.
He picked up the microphone and stunned the already shocked crowd with a stirring rendition of “Vanilla Hurricane,” his only song.
The crowd’s undirected rage now had a direction.
His demise would be remembered for as long as the Revolution drew breath.
•••
The Lord of the Lemmings smiled as he looked down at the cracker of order, laid thick with the chive and onion spread of chaos.
It was even cooler than he thought it would be.
•••
Kyle locked himself in Kendra’s dressing room.
He was crying and wasn’t sure why. Something had changed out there. He suddenly missed his body very much.
He could hear the crowd tearing down the stage outside. How long before they made their way down here? He knew he should make a break for it, but the illusion of security was too great, even if it was temporary.
A body hit the door from the other side.
Little flecks of glitter fell to the ground.
Kyle backed away from the door. His ass bumped the small vanity where the teen idol had been sitting not fifteen minutes ago. Before she… before she was gone.
Another heavy smash against the door; more glitter shook loose.
Kyle turned around and faced the forest of flowers and well-wishes. He didn’t know where to go or what to do.
His thumb thumbed a small black box left behind on the vanity top.
He picked it up.
It had a small LED light on top, and a small black button inset into the plastic.
Another loud thump hit the door.
•••
Brin picked himself off the floor.
Putting his hand to his head, his fingers came away bloody.
He shouldn’t be bleeding. He should be cruising the infinity of his own creation on angel wings, all naked and haloed and shit. He designed the avatar himself.
So why wasn’t he in the Infi-Net?
Why, was he still in his shitty, machinery cluttered basement of the GoogolSoft crystal-tree headquarters?
The monitors all around him blinked with the same two words: NO CARRIER.
He grabbed the nearest interface and typed in a query.
A readout followed.
PORTLAND CONVERSION INCOMPLETE. CARRIER LOST. TRY AGAIN LATER [ERROR CODE 64779].
WAS THIS INFORMATION HELPFUL TO YOU?
Brin very much lost his cool.
•••
“Sunovabitch!” Bastard Sun slammed fists made of tongues of flame onto the now-useless keyboard. “I was this close to breaking my record,” he cursed the dead screen in front of him.
Skarpo looked up from his interrupted stint on LeatherBears-dot-com. He quickly shuffled his tutu over his turgid ursine member. “Er, what happened?” Skarpo shrugged as best as he could while trying to keep his hands over his unfulfilled priapism. “Who printed out all this she-bear porn?” He preemptively added to their conspiracy of misfortunes.
A throat cleared, which all but sent them out of their swivel chairs.
Honey Moon looked severely disappointed.
•••
Grebok took hold of an oncoming pitchfork and used it to deflect a saber aimed at his ear. He kicked the faceless peasant off the yard tool and swung the wooden end around into the saber-wielder’s solar plexus.
Chuckles rolled out of the way of two strafing laser blasts and came up onto his feet to put his new hand in a portly pirate’s midsection. The man growled with a mouth full of rotted teeth and aimed a small pistol at the Avatar’s eye. SHING—SHLURP! A metal against metal sound ended wetly. The blade from Chuckles’s forearm erupted from the man’s back.
Sparky piston kicked some jaunty pirate wench’s head off. It went pinballing into a now-demoralized group of incoming Revolutionaries.
“Your mom fucks his mom in the moldy cooch with her crab lice.” Gunther’s invectives washed over the crowd of would-be attackers. They fell over in the throes of pain. “Medal of Valor is way better than Gears of Battle!” A young bearded man begged for mercy.
Even with their superior training, the heroes eventually found themselves corralled back to back.
“I don’t think this is our fight!” Sparky shouted over his shoulder to his fellows.
“Just thinking that,” Grebok agreed, tripping a Revolutionary into the path of Lord Chuckles’s upswinging sword. “We gotta get up to those ships!” He shouted over the increasing din of pirate and freedom fighter.
“You wanna go up?” Sparky retorted. “Shit, Miradorian, that’s all you had to say.”
The Wonder Weasel grabbed his two heroic companions and launched them all into the air on his new robo-legs.
“Awesome!” Grebok shouted as they gained air.
The Avatar frowned. “You will have to go back and get Gunther you know?”
“Bah! Fine!” Sparky spat, and threw his armload further into the stratosphere as the cyber-mustela returned to the mountaintop below in a plummet.
•••
Brin stalked away from the smoking, broken monitor behind him. If Kendra Shields wasn’t already dead, he would see to it that she was soon.
He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d done it. He really didn’t care.
She’d pulled the rug out from under his little coup.
Or so she thought.
You couldn’t keep the Ports down. He might have cultivated this charming hippie façade, but you don’t plan to undermine and overthrow the universe without a Plan B.
He just needed a little patience while they rebuilt their burnt-out connection with the Infi-Net.
Until then, those poor suckers were on their own.
•••
R.T. eyes fluttered open.
Screams, gunfire, and panicked voices were all around.
Someone stepped on her fingers as they rushed passed.
She pushed herself up off the ground to see a giant arena concert-style stage in flames, and people running every which way.
It took her a second before her mind caught up.
She was in the Infi-Net.
Shit.
