This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Man With Three First Names.

The missile went true, and straight, and long. It armed, and clicked, and whistled and turned and honed in on its target.

The creature looked up and all it could see was the red point of the missile coming at it. All it could hear was the roar of the missile as it approached, closing the gap.

It impacted with the rubbery body of the creature, which exploded in a giant fireball, expelling thousands (millions?) of gelatinous chunks in all directions.

The lower half of its body sat there quivering, and Michael and Simon stood up from it, with several of their new friends around them, other meals of the rubber monster. It stood there, hunched on its tail, and didn’t fall for several seconds until it rolled forward and spilled them out all over the mountain.

Fred and Moxie flew over in Michael’s car and watched as the little blobs around them of warbling rubber monster began to reform into tiny dinosaurs, and do a little rampaging of their own.

“It’s not over yet,” said Moxie. Fred pulled the flying car around, trying to get a larger picture of what was going on.

Jen and Walter pulled the restaurant into the park and held position over the scene.

“Can you see them?” asked Walter.

“Yep.”

Three of the mini monsters jumped up on the front window of the restaurant and started scratching and clawing.

“Walter!”

He wrenched the controls, and one of them fell off, but the others were still coming.

“What the hell,” he said, and wrenched the controls the other way, and another one fell off.

The third butted its head through the glass and started to come in just to find itself face to face with the business end of Jen’s blaster.

She pulled the trigger, and a blast of hot green energy flew forth and melted the creature on the spot, and took out part of the front plate glass with it.

The wind blew through the restaurant sending plates and cups and glasses everywhere.

“Aaaaah!” yelled Jen, and she pulled a switch behind the counter, and the window began to auto repair itself.

Walter pulled the ship into a dive, and pushed it back to the city, between the buildings. They were clipping trees down the street. He pulled up, and they could see them again, a huge number of creatures, little acid yellow rubber T-Rexes running all over the place. One of them was trying to eat a police officer whole but had only gotten him halfway down when he ran out of room. The man stood there, his legs flailing, and inside he was stretching the creature to the breaking point where it exploded, leaving behind a rubbery residue over everything around it.

Another pack of them was chasing dogs in a nearby park. They were gobbling the dogs one by one, but only able to keep one dog in their bellies at any given time, they were starting to be eaten from the inside out.

One of the little rubber dinosaurs was running down the street with the legs of a Doberman pincher hanging out of its mouth while the dog was barking from the inside, and causing the creature to expand like a bubble. Another one had eaten a chihuahua but was now running without ahead, as the little dog had eaten it and was now sitting on top of the creature like a little prince.

Michael and Simon rubbed the slime from their clothes in huge handfuls and slung them to the ground in big wet slops.

They looked around them at the creatures and up into the sky, where Fred and Moxie were currently pulling down in his car. “Need a lift?”

“Move over.” Michael took over, pushing Fred to the side. Moxie piled into the back, and Simon jumped in with her.

He pulled up. “Where’s Walter and Jen?”

“They’re just up there.” Fred pointed to the restaurant hanging in the sky.

“All right then,” said Michael. He lifted the car up and headed for the restaurant.

He pulled alongside it and called Walter.

The phone rang in the restaurant. Walter Picked it up. “Burgers and such, I don’t think we’re open at the moment though.”

“Walter, it’s me.”

Walter looked outside the restaurant at the flying car beside them. “You made it!”

“Yeah, look, I’ve got an idea about how to make all this go away, but I’m going to need your help, and I’m really, really sorry.”

Walter looked for a moment at Michael, and they exchanged a nod.

Jen looked up at Walter. “Whatever he needs Walter, you know that.”

“Man,” Walter sighed. “Whatever you need pal. We’re on board.”

“Good, now I’m going to fly ahead of you, I need you to get into place, and then follow us from there.”

“We’re right behind you.”

They flew the ship into position over a large cluster of power lines. The engines had always given them trouble around here, too much interference.

“Put it into park.”

“What, here?”

“Do it.”

Walter put it into park. The ship stayed there. It didn’t want to, but it did. It sort of fluttered, holding its position.

“Okay,” said Michael, “now overload it.”

Walter didn’t want to pull the lever, but he knew that he must. He pushed the lever down and engaged the engines. The trees and the ground started to warp and bend around them in sickening ways.

“Michael, I don’t think this thing can hold it much longer.”

“I know, I’m counting on it. Get out of there. You still have an old escape pod?”

“You know I do, it’s in the handicap stall in the men’s room.”

“Good, go use it. I’ll track you and come pick you up in just a second if I don’t have to send Fred here.”

“Okay, We’re on our way.”

The line went dead.

Michael threw his phone aside.

“Simon, you still have your whip?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good, stand up and get it out. I’m going to use Walter’s warp engine to pop open a new portal.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course. How do you think space travel is possible? Come on now. Fred, are you ready?”

“Yeah, what do you need me to do?”

“As soon as we open the portal, we’re going to get sucked through it, I need you to go and pick up Walter and Jen for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Moxie”

“Yes?”

“Give me your wrist band.”

“She handed it over, without a second thought.”

Michael put it on and then stood up in the car.

Moxie jumped over to take over.

Simon also stood up. They got out their transdimensional whips.

“Into the center warp point?”

“Yes, said Michael. You can see it, it’s like a circle of bent air, a bubble there, just below the ship.”

They pulled back their whips, which started to crackle in the air and popped them into the heart of the air warped by Jen and Walter’s warp engine above them.

The effect was instantaneous. The ship was gone, pulled through the void in a half a second.  The clouds were gone, blue skies above them. The whips were gone, and with them Michael and Simon, both pulled through the void just a second later, pulled and stretched and twirled around like they were going down some great celestial drain.

Then the creatures started to fly.

Moxie pulled the car through the air and down towards where Jen and Walter had dropped and were now watching the fireworks.

“Well there it goes,” said Walter.

She hugged the old man, he was all she had left now and all she ever wanted anyway.

Stragglers, strange creatures from the other dimensions, still hanging around were flying up to the hole in the sky. The memory of anyone not involved started to fly up as well, slicing through the sky, a purple haze of memory. They would remember only a vague sensation that the last week just hadn’t gone that well for them. People all around them started hitting the deck, falling asleep in their cereal bowls, and doing face plants in their spaghetti, only to snooze the next few days away and wake up vaguely bemused at what a day it turned out to be, and slightly annoyed with their new laundry needs.

Soon it was little splats of goo that started to slide up into the sky, and then it was larger creatures, more than the spent remains of exploded monsters, the little mini T-Rexes, then it was the giant lower torso of the big one, flying up into the sky, just about the moment that the portal closed, the tail got stuck, then sucked through like wet pasta, and the portal closed.

All the remaining goo, which was little more than street slag now fell to the earth, and it was over.

Fred pulled up next to Walter and Jen. “Hop in.”

They got in the back, Fred, and Moxie in the front.

“You think they made it?”

“I hope so,” said Moxie.

“He must have made it,” said Fred. “They must have.”

They drove off without a real direction. The city was renewing itself, waking from its nightmare.

They drove to Michael’s office and found that they couldn’t get inside. The locks seemed to be melted together by magic, so they drove off to where the burger joint had once been and parked there. They looked up into the darkening sky and laid out in the parking lot looking up at the sky. The stars were coming out, and they watched as airplanes started flying over again, and listened and watched as cars started to fill the road again.

Familiar sounds.

“What will we do now?” asked Walter.

“What do you want to do,” said Jen.

“I want another restaurant.”

“What, right here?”

“Why not?”

“It won’t be like before.”

“No, it’ll be better.”

“Can we do that?”

“Why not, we’ve got plenty in savings, it doesn’t cost that much to run the place.”

Moxie and Fred stood up and brushed themselves off. “We’ll help.”

Walter and Jen looked over at them. “You want to?”

“At least for a while. Without Moxie’s wrist band we can’t travel, and I’m not leaving her behind. At least until we can catch a lift off-world.”

“Okay then,” said Jen, “You’re hired.”

Walter watched the sky. “I wonder where they are.”

“No telling,” said Jen.

Moxie looked worried.

Fred looked grim.

They laid there all night, watching the sky, waiting, hoping, praying, and nothing happened. They brushed themselves off, wiped the dew from their eyes and ambled off to find a place they could score some breakfast, and find some news.

They looked around, and found a little breakfast place, and stumbled into it. They had no idea how they looked, like refugees from a freak tornado, which is how pretty much everyone else looked.

Upon the television screen, a reporter was covering a big story out in the field, standing with a microphone in hand and the van somewhere in the shot, right outside of the building they were in.

They doubled back to look out at the van and could see the buildings all around them were either decimated or torn apart. They looked up at the screen with one eye to the window to see if the reporter was packing up yet.

On the screen, the reporter looked up with grim eyes and a solemn expression.

“It seems that Atlanta has been the hardest hit by this series of tornadoes. Businesses are destroyed, and lives have been ruined, but one thing is sure, the people of Atlanta have prevailed. Of all the damage we’ve found, and the countless items of property that have been destroyed, there have been no fatalities, and as far as we can tell no one is missing. A  local scientific lab has been leveled by the recent tornadoes, but it’s mostly businesses that have suffered. This is Robin Parker, in Atlanta.”

The news switched over to a couple of pundits arguing over the next presidential election. People lost interest, and the television was switched to cartoons instead.

Simon and Michael sat up in the alien dimension, blue grasses, and hills all around them. Had they been screaming? Michael couldn’t tell.

“We’re here again, aren’t we?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Michael. He pushed himself up and looked around. The scarred, pock-marked sky was gone. It was starting to get a little lighter.

He jumped upon a rock and looked around. The beasts were off in the distance, working their way through the fields, eating the strange grasses and lumbering on their way. Even further off in the distance, several of the sky grazers were loping along, snaking their long schnozzes down to the surface to feed on various kinds of flowers.

The sun was rising.

Michael realized he was standing near the same portal projector he had been near the last time, but a long time seemed to have passed here, like years. It was possible that barring the ivy that had started to crawl through it that this was just like any other rock in the field. A moment or two longer and in the light it looked even more like a rock, in fact, with the sun shining on it, the ivy seemed to have disappeared and what was standing before them was nothing more than a rock. He looked off to the creatures, they still looked the same to him, but somehow distant or in another way broken from their rampages on Earth.

“Probably because they were projections into our universe, some kind of worst-case scenario machine that injected the strange and unusual into our world, they probably didn’t remember their escapades there. Probably not the same creatures entirely anyway,” said Michael.

“Probably.”

“Shut up.”

Upon the hill, standing there as if nothing had happened, was their leader. He stood tall, and in no way struck by his desire to cross over into our dimension. Simon noticed him too, and they walked up the hill to meet him. When they arrived, they stood no higher than the great warrior’s knees.

“You are welcome here, Michael David Christopher, the man with three first names.”

“Thank you, sir. All’s well then?”

“Indeed. I see you’ve been by the rock.”

“Yes, I have. It’s just a rock then now, is it?”

“Yes, just a rock. As long as it remains daytime.”

“What happens to it at night?”

“It brings terrible things into our world. It haunts us, it also enchants us, and bends us to its will from time to time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We stay here to defend it. Occasionally I think we cross the line, though we can sometimes barely remember it, and sometimes it takes a few of us with it. I suspect that has happened again tonight, yes?”

“It has.”

“Is all well?”

“It is. Except… He looked over at Simon. My friend here seems to have been affected by the last cross over.”

“Is this true?” He turned to face Simon.

“Yes, sir. The blast, the one that connected our worlds. It changed me.”

“I believe it has. It’s shown you a part of your inner self, has it not?”

“I think so. I can transform.” He did so, into the tall, green-gray skinned creature with the wild hair. “I feel like some kind of troll or something. I can heal fast, regenerate if you will, and I have amazing strength and senses.”

“Has it helped you?”

“I think it has, I’m just not sure what to do with myself.”

“We cannot take it away, you know that. You are changed for life.”

“I figured as much.”

“And you do not wish to change? To return to your normal state for good?”

“No. I’ve seen what’s inside of me, and I think I could benefit the world.”

“Then you should go and use your gifts in this way. And what about you, a man with three first names, what do you desire?”

“I think all I’m interested in now is a good drink, a cheeseburger in my favorite burger joint, and an evening relaxing with my friends.”

“I don’t think you can quite achieve all those goals.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“How do you intend to return home?”

Michael held up Moxie’s wrist band. “This.”

The tall warrior looked at the little device.

“Walter rigged these things years ago to only return to Earth. I suppose it was a cheap way to keep her coming back all the time.”

“You think it’s about time to reverse that?”

“I think so, just after using it one last time to return myself.”

“I see.”

“What about him?” The warrior gestured to Simon. “He may not return with that. It only carries one, correct?”

“That’s true. I was planning on giving it to him anyway.”

Michael pulled off the cuff and held it out to Simon.

“No, Michael, you use that.”

Michael held it out again, but Simon refused.

“There is another way, said the tall warrior. We walk between dimensions frequently, and he his now part of us after the blast. We could teach him.”

“You could? There’s more to this than speed and strength?”

“Far more. We can teach you to walk between the dimensions, and you may one day make it back to Earth if you search, but you’ll have to take the long way around. Are you interested?”

Simon didn’t even think to look back.

He assumed his troll-like form and stepped forward.

“Michael?”

“Mike.”

They shook hands. Michael nodded to both of them, adjusted his hat, and touched the button on the wristband, and faded away with a wave.

On Earth Walter, Jen, Fred, and Moxie were sitting in a booth in a small Mexican restaurant. They had ordered enchiladas and tacos and were dipping into a pool of salsa and another of queso dip with their chips. Above them, a television blared with local news.

“Can you believe this?” said Walter, “They’re calling it a load of tornadoes. Useless.”

“What else did you think they were going to say,” said Jen. “You think they’re going to go for the whole rubber monster theory?”

“I know, it’s just silly though.”

“What are you going to do,” asked Moxie?

“You know what we’re going to do, we’re going to build another restaurant. I captained ships all across the galaxy. There’s nothing I like better than flipping burgers and dipping french fries. Its stupid, and I don’t care.”

“No it’s not,” said Jen. “It’s what you love.”

“Gonna miss my old ship though. Always thought of expanding it someday, all it would take is a little programming to change the walls and add some more seats. Suppose I’d have to do that sometime during the night.”

“I suppose.”

“Gone, cleanly gone, sucked into the vortex. Oh, I know. I want my ship back, it was a great little ship.”

“I know, I loved it,” said Jen. She turned to Fred and Moxie. “Are you two going to help us?”

“Yeah, we’re staying on,” said Fred.

“As long as we can,” said Moxie.

They watched the news coverage knowing they were the only ones alive who could remember that it wasn’t just a line of tornadoes, and ate their chips, waiting for their tacos.

“Walter, have you ever thought about getting off-world again, maybe starting up a burger joint in space?” Moxie twirled the straw in her soda.

“You know Moxie, I’ve thought about that so many times, and yeah, I might eventually think about getting off-world again, but I think it would just be for a vacation. For all it’s dullness, all the action takes place on Earth. Everybody comes here. It’s got to be the blindest planet, and the most popular one to visit. It’s like living in the Aspen, Colorado of the universe. On Earth, you have it all. There are beaches, and snow, there’s entertainment and music of all kinds, undead walk and terrorize the planet while aliens visit for the weekend, and the movies are beyond comparison. Where would you rather live? Out in space, slogging it up and down the system? Romantic, yes, but no, this is where it is.”

“Now Walter.”

“What?”

“We were just like them once, you know.”

“Yeah, I remember. I won’t say it’s all bad,” said Walter. “There are ups and downs though, and after you’ve been traveling up and down the space-ways for a couple or ten years you start to like the idea of sticking somewhere for a while. Then again, you are still pretty young.”

Michael arrived in the bathroom of the little Mexican restaurant and pulled the wristband from his wrist. He stepped out and saw them, but they didn’t see him. He slipped into the booth next to them and listened for a while. Soon a waiter came by with a basket of chips for his table. He accepted them with a thank you, and hung out for a moment, listening.

“I just love the space travel though. Fred and I, we love getting out there and seeing the galaxy. I know you are ready to stay on Earth, but we’re not. We’ll stay but we are always going to want to get out there again.”

“Well, you can’t get out there without this then, can you?”

Michael stepped up and pulled a chair up to the end of the booth, and set Moxie’s wristband down in front of her.

She grabbed his neck and hugged him hard.

“Here give me that.”

He snatched up the wrist band again. “And yours too Fred. It’s about time I fixed these.”

He touched their screens and slid his fingers across them. They made little beeping sounds. “Here you go. I took the loop off for good.”

They put them back on.

“Loop?” asked Moxie.

“Hey, you kept my blood so you could track me, right?”

She agreed, “Yes…”

“Well, I looped your wristbands years ago to keep you coming back to Earth once in a while. I think Walter tried to show you how to turn it off, but I hid another one in there. Forgive me? ”

“I will.”

Fred shook his head.

“Now I’m buying dinner.”

The waiter was over a moment later, and Michael added a heaping plate of fajitas to the order and another round of drinks for everyone.

When they were done, they went out into the parking lot, and Fred and Moxie raised their wrist bands up and synchronized them together.

“We’re off.”

Michael gave them both hugs.

They hit the button and were sucked backward through a random wormhole in space.

“Where have they gone?” asked Walter.

“There’s no telling.”

“Will they be back?” asked Jen.

“Oh yeah. Maybe not right away like before, but they’ve got the bug. They’ll be around.”

Michael saw his car in the lot.

“Hey, I thought I’d lost this in the fight.”

“Yeah, we kept it for you, thought you’d want it back.”

“Yeah,” he opened the door and was about to slip in. “I saw the restaurant, on the other side.”

“What happened to it?”

“Destroyed. Torn to pieces like you would not believe. There was glass everywhere. I think the land on the other side must have liked it though because it started to pull it under the grass right away.”

Walter hung his head. Jen took him by the arm. “Come on, big guy, let’s get out of here.”

“I could help though,” said Michael.

“What?” Jen turned to face him.

“I think we might have another one, maybe not the same model or anything, but possible, another ship from your world might be at the facility in New Mexico. Would you like to take a look? I’m sure the President will sign the order for me to give you one if it’s out there in the impound.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

They got into the flying car, and Michael put the top down. He cranked the engine and soared into the sky, headed for the setting sun.

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Man With Three First Names.

The monster stomped through the city. It used the buildings for support, holding onto them as it continued to grow. Never meant to be in this world, its body kept trying to adjust and change, to auto-evolve until it matched what it needed to live here. Its skin had almost become opaque. The shadows of Simon and Michael were dim, along with the other people who were still alive inside of it. It stomped along, destroying cars and other property on its way.

As it looked around, it could see less and less of its native world, not that it would fit in its present form on that side either. It plowed through a little business district and climbed the buildings so that it could see.

Police helicopters buzzed around it like angry moths, and it knocked them away just as such. They called out to it with loudspeakers but it didn’t understand the language. Most of that part of its brain had already been eaten away, and there was nothing much left but the scream of terror and delight in destruction. It was an abomination, that it also knew. All it had left was to find somewhere that it could relax. Rampaging around the city was making it frustrated and upset, and the cars stung its feet.

It looked around for the bluegrasses of its homeworld, for the grazers with their long tusks, for the swoopers with their long nostrils from the sky, but it could see none of them, only the gray of the city, and the mist of destroyed water mains, and the rubble that it was leaving behind. It began to run. This broke up the ground a little more than it liked. Its feet were strong, but fundamentally they were pretty soft, and they seemed to splat and spread out more than was comfortable as it gathered up speed. It jumped from a building where it could see a nearby lake and made for it.

It stomped down the highway, and out into the countryside, glad for the softer earth and the ability to push through the trees and to put its feet on dirt and mud, and made for the lake.

The mist was just clearing here, people were out on their boats, and when the creature came up through the fog there was a panic. Boats went every which way. People jumped out of them and attempted to swim away, people lost fish and threw their poles into the water, and others just stood there and watched as the creature came up.

It jumped into the lake, splashing water in all directions and causing a small wave to smack a nearby bait shop, destroying its facade. It ducked into the water, up to its neck, and trudged along. It snorted water through its nose and relaxed for the first time since it had arrived. Finally, it was somewhere that it made sense to be. It reached forward and swam, taking joy in scaring the locals who were getting the hell out of the water as fast as they could now.

It took to the water, submerging, and swam through the dark lake, generating its own glow as it went. It thrust through the water, and took in a bunch of fish, swallowing them down, and then came into a more shallow area of the lake, and popped its head up, right next to a boat full of people drinking beer and eating hot dogs. Those people went over the side in a hurry as the creature crushed the boat in its teeth, then released it to sink into the water on its own. It watched as the terrified people scrambled away from it, half swimming, half flailing, and splashing. He pushed passed them, letting the people go. He thought of eating one of them but decided he didn’t care enough.

He climbed out of the water. It poured off him. A beach full of bathers were screaming for their lives and jumped up to stand on top of a little shrimp and fries shack that rented floats, flippers and masks. The shack buckled beneath them, cracked and fell apart as the creature ran by, and onto a small playground, where it was surrounded by children who simultaneously pointed up into the sky and said “Monster!”

They were not afraid of it. They were, in fact, compelled to attack, and they jumped up on the beast and began to climb up it, stuffing their hands through its jelly-like body, and taking big chunks from its flesh and just eating it like it was so much lemon-lime Jell-o.

They climbed up, and the creature began to writhe and bellow. It could feel its legs being destroyed by the children. They were tearing him apart, but they were getting full, and sleepy, and sliding off the creature and back into the playground or climbing to his head and jumping out for the lake like he was a gigantic, living, rubber diving board.

It could feel one of its legs was almost chewed through, and it kind of limped from the playground in a rage. As they fell, the children grabbed huge chunks of the creature’s flesh and used them to bounce when they hit the ground. No one told them to do this or that it would work, but they did it anyway, and it worked for them.

The creature staggered off, and looked before it at the towering rock of Stone Mountain near Atlanta, and made for it. It rampaged down the road in search of the rock, drawn to it by its sheer size. It bounded through the parking lot, cars screeching and getting out of the way. It bounded over a large fancy palisade, and down through the grass toward the mountain, and jumped up the side, where it began to slither up, crawling up beyond the great civil war carving and pulled its way to the top.

On the other side of the country, in a bunker beneath the desert, someone said: “Okay, Janson, bring him on in, we’re on a time limit here.”

“Is it time Darren?”

“Yep, now, bring him in.”

Janson walked into the little room. It was darkish but was reminiscent of an operating theatre. Janson pulled down a box from the left-hand side of the room and began to rummage through it. He brought out a left leg, a vaguely presidential left leg at that, and put it on the table. Darren began at once to work on the limb, bringing out a small electrical tool with which he started to activate the leg.

From the box, Janson pulled out another leg, and then hauled out the torso. Everything was already covered in clothing, the President’s favorite suit, and shoes.

Darren continued to work the circuits and to hook everything together. The legs started to work, moving around just a little bit.

Janson brought out the arms, and Darren hooked them together while a robotic arm came down from the ceiling and started to sew his clothes together as they continued their work.

“Give me the head, come on now,” said Darren.

Janson looked through the box and pulled out the head. It was a perfect replica of the original President, who had been prone to the assassination, but who had otherwise served well over the years, and placed it on the table.

Janson activated the servos and hooked the neck to the head, and touched a switch behind its ear.

The eyes opened in a flash, and the President sat up in a single jerk of motion, his eyes glazed over, peering into nothing. It looked like his eyes were little monitors in the dark, glowing with a fierce green, and you could tell that he was rebooting.

The President said “Presidential six-point-oh point three speaking. Downloading the latest software patch.” A little progress bar in his eyes filled from one side to the other.

“I always hate this part,” said Darren.  “I always wonder if he’s going to have enough hard disk space the next time we activate one.”

“Darren, why don’t we go ahead and put the next one together so we can just turn him on next time?”

“Don’t ask so many questions.”

They watched as the robotic leader of the free world continued to twitch his head and download new upgrades one after the other. In a moment, his eyes cleared, and he looked up.

“Last thing I remember we were attacking a large monster. What happened?”

“We’re not prepared to debrief you, sir, we’ll get you to a conference room where you can plug in and get the last few memories. They should have bounced off the satellite by now.”

They took him into another room and handed him what looked like a small red audio player. He placed the earphones in his ears, turned it on and laid back on a small reclining chair to soak in the last few minutes of his ship going down.

He sat up.

Gentlemen, get me to the command center. “I may have to call a full air strike on Atlanta, not that it’ll do any good. I want to see where the creature is now.”

He walked down the hall with them, and into a small war room staffed with techs capable of keeping the equipment running, and looked down at the map, it was much like the table in his command ship.

“Where is it now?”

One of the screens tracked it down to Stone Mountain on the map and focused it down to show the creature, who looked pretty battered by now, sitting on top of the giant rock.

“Call my ship.”

“Sir, your ship went down in the fight.”

“My other ship.”

They all stood back from him. They didn’t like that one.

“But that one hasn’t been fully tested.”

“Do you have a better idea of how to get me back to the other side of the country?”

“Sir, it’s not that. It’s just that the radiation sir.”

“I can take the radiation, don’t you worry about that.”

“But what about the pilots?”

“Easy,” said the President with a grin, activate two more of me, and download the piloting program into them.

“What?”

“Do it, I need to get back out to Atlanta as quick as I can.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two more presidents were assembled while the current version went into the hangar to his craft. It was a large saucer-shaped ship, recently discovered in a crater somewhere in Brazil. The President looked out at it and smiled. He’d wanted a chance to pilot this thing for a while. With three of him, he just might manage it.

A door slid open and two more of him, dressed this time in flight jumpsuits, stepped forward.

They smiled at each other and said in unison. “You about ready to get this baby in the air? Yep. Let’s go.” It was like listening to himself in stereo.

Darren shook his head. They hadn’t had more than one of them active for a while and it always creeped him out to hear them talk in unison like that.

They climbed aboard the ship, and everyone cleared the flight deck.

The ship began to spin, and in just a moment it was through the roof and on out into the night sky, zooming for Atlanta.

It zoomed through Texas, skidded through Oklahoma, dived through Louisiana, and then went on through Mississippi and Alabama. They could see the creature on the sensors in the distance jumping up and down on the peak of Stone Mountain.

When they’d landed outside of Jen and Walter’s dinner, they were upside down, lying on their backs, with their arms pointing into the air at the building above them, surrounded in fog, with an alien moon behind it. They were in the parking lot, and they knew what that might mean.

Fred and Moxie jumped up, and they could see it, the restaurant was just a few hundred feet away from them, but the parking lot was full of great tusked creatures, swinging their heads around and bumping into them.

Fred climbed the tusks of one of the creatures, and then pulled his way onto its head by grasping big handfuls of dark fur and hoisting himself up.

Moxie yelled, but it wasn’t a damsel in distress sort of thing. Ruffled by one of the creatures, she yelled back at it. Her cry was more of an assertive tone with the beast in question. She could almost hear herself saying “Bad Dog!”

She called one of them out, shaking a finger at it, and then climbed up on its back without a further question. She had no idea how she was managing to do this but didn’t question it.

“How’d you do that?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Come on!”

They dug in with their fists, full of fur and kneed the beasts until they moved over near the door. With everything swimming flying and exploding around them, they hopped off and made for the door, rolling through it, and into the diner.

“Moxie, Fred, you guys are back,” said Walter.

“Where’s Michael and Simon?” asked Jen.

“They’re in trouble, we’ve got to help them.”

“Where are they?”

“We’re not sure anymore, but Moxie’s got a tracer on Michael.”

“Oh have you now,” said Jen.

“Will you drop it, Fred?”

Fred laughed at her and kissed her. “Well, you do.”

“Come on then,” said Walter. “Fred, I’m going to need your help up top to get this old bucket running. Moxie, can you help Jen there with the navigator?”

Both of them nodded.

“Come on Fred,” said Walter. They walked back through the swinging door from the kitchen area behind the bar and into the hold of a working freighter.

“I didn’t know you had all this back here.”

“Well, that’s why we don’t let a lot of people back here, right? This way.”

They went down a little corridor and stepped onto a circular plate that lifted them up through a sliding hatchway in the ceiling and out onto the roof.

“What are we up here for?”

Fred was looking around. It looked like a normal roof, there was an air conditioner and various vents and things. It looked like a normal roof.

“Two things,” said Walter. “One, we’re disconnecting the cable, and two, we’ve got to fire up the engines.” He pointed over to the air conditioning unit.

“What this old AC unit?”

“Look again.”

Walter went to the edge of the roof, where a single cable connected the building to the outside world, and cut it off with a huge pair of limb loppers he’d brought with him while Fred went over to look at the AC unit. When he got close to it, he heard a beep beep, and it opened up. Little panels slid backward and forwards and disappeared into the roof. Before him was a working hyperdrive, and hover lift unit, starting to spin to life for the first time in about five years.

He turned to see Walter with a little key fob. He’d just hit the switch to open it all up.

“Cool.”

They opened the side of the engine and began to work. It all looked like it was in working order, there was just a lot of prep work to do to get her flying again. They stopped thinking about it and dived right in. Fred took every direction from Walter and followed his instructions as best he could. When you work for a year and a half at a space station pumping gas and doing minor fixes in the star garage, you can do anything like this. He was only a little bit rusty.

Below them, Jen and Moxie were hard at work.

“You’ve got a tracer on Michael do you?”

“Yes.” She handed it over, it was a little transceiver with a small dot on it, blinking on a map.

“Looks like he’s on Stone Mountain. Interesting.”

Jen took the tracer and dropped it down into a crack between the waffle irons and the griddle, and the griddle turned over to reveal a tracing program and screen. The lights dimmed for a second and every surface in the whole place turned over to reveal some kind of instrument panel.

In the back, an old man, still sipping on a cup of coffee, cold bacon was forgotten before he opened his eyes and started to look around. The whole place seemed to be alive.

“Oh Shit, Cal,” said Jen.

She went to him.

“Cal honey, come on, we’re closing for the night.”

“But you never close,” he said. He’d been spiking his coffee long enough now he wasn’t sure if anyone else could see all the instrument panels and lights but him.

“Come on now, gotta go.”

He got up and allowed Jen to walk him to the door.

“Just trying to finish my coffee.”

“Here, I’ll get you a to-go cup dear.”

She handed him a full cup of coffee in a plastic cup, made just the way he liked it.

“Who are you?” he said.

“You know my dear, I’m Jen. You’ve been buying coffee from me for four years now. Come on, get out, we’re closing up for the night.”

He toddled out into the parking lot and saw the light stream up from the rooftop and Fred and Walter lowering back into the restaurant, and the spinning blaze of lights now on the top of the place where the air conditioner had been.

“Wait,” said Fred, “What about Michael’s car? Have you got a garage back here?”

“Oh yeah,” said Walter.

“I’ll go out and get it.”

Cal watched, dumbfounded as Fred came out of the building, and waved, “Hi,” and got into the flying car and revved it up, tucked the wheels into the car in the floating position, and drove it around the building to the back where he brought it inside the restaurant and parked it.

Cal sat down on the hood of another car and then watched as the whole building broke from the ground and flew into the sky, two slender wings now protruding from the sides.

Cal looked next to him, at the tusked creature chewing up the ground, and downed his entire cup of coffee in one, and then proceeded to walk off home, ignoring all the animals and interesting creatures he saw along the way. Above him, his favorite restaurant had just floated away. He would never drink again. He threw the cup away.

In the belly of the beast, sat Simon and Michael. “Any matches?” asked Michael.

Simon laughed. “No, don’t smoke.”

The people around them had tired of trying to hack their way out of the creature’s belly. It wasn’t suffocating in there, but to claw your way out, the gelatin belly of the beast would just grow back stronger as you struggled.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Simon.

Michael was sitting, as comfortably as he could. He still had his hat on, which kept getting covered in goo, but his coat was off now.

“I’m thinking about our rescue.”

“What?”

“I’m imagining it, our rescue. I’m imagining how we get rescued. Somehow we’ve got to rely on Fred and Moxie, they’re all we have left.”

“What about Jen and Walter?”

“I suppose that’s a possibility. They might be involved.”

“So what happens?”

“I’m not sure but it needs to be something bloody big. We’ve got to get out of this guy as fast as we can. Going to be major.”

“Like what?”

“I’m hoping that either they bring the restaurant, or Fred brings my car.”

“The Restaurant?”

“Oh yeah, it’s a total space ship, you know that right?”

“Hey, I’m still getting used to being able to change into a ravening troll creature, remember?”

“That’s right. I’ve forgotten how little time has passed. It’s only been a couple of days, right?”

“Something like that.”

They sat there in the goo, thinking about life while Jen and Walter sped their way to Stone Mountain with Moxie and Fred plastered to the front windows of the diner as they flew across the city.

They passed Midtown, and downtown, and off to the East, towards the giant granite rock.

“So, said Simon, do you think we’ll make it?”

Outside, the creature writhed and danced at the top of the mountain, destroying the entrance to the gondola, and the front of a small arcade and gift shop.

Someone who had been running up the mountain saw the creature and turned right back around again. Another group who saw it arrive didn’t know whether to run or just gape at the sight of it.

It climbed to the top of the gift shop and bellowed, screaming at the sky, and brought its fists down destroying the roof. The creature fell in and then began to wade through the debris of ceiling tiles and insulation.

Inside the monster’s belly, they held on for dear life. It was a lot like being in a child’s playground at a fast-food chain restaurant, lost in the big pool of colored plastic balls, even the others trapped in there with them were starting to find the humor in bouncing around and off the walls. They’d all thrown up at one point or another by now, and there was nothing left to do but laugh.

The creature jumped out of the remains of the gift shop, covered in t-shirts and coffee mugs hanging from its teeth, and those inside took a tumble as it bounded for the arcade and bashed it’s way into it, sending teens and forty-somethings on the Pac-Man machines through the doors and out onto the surface of the mountain.

Walter sat in a captain’s chair that had come up out of the restaurant floor. Jen sat in a similar one. They were more like the kind of easy chairs you see on a motor home than anything else.

“There he is,” said Walter.

Before them they could see it, jumping up and down on the surface of the Granite dome.

“Moxie, Fred, you know what to do, right?”

They nodded and headed for the back. Moxie got behind the wheel of Michael’s car, and as soon as they were buckled in, the floor dropped out below them and they flew out of the back of the little diner, flying through the sky and zoomed off, looking for a lower angle of approach.

“Jen,” said Walter, “you know what we need to do now?”

“Yep. We’ve got to get them out of there.”

“Good, then let’s drop it.”

She flicked the switch and a missile lowered from the bottom of the little flying diner.

She flipped another switch to arm it.

Red lights blinked on the missile.

She flicked another switch and it cut loose from the bottom and zoomed off ahead of them towards the big rubber monster.

“I hope they hold on tight,” said Jen.

The missile sped out, targeting the monster. They were still a good ways off, mere moments from impact.

Inside the monster, Michael opened his eyes. “They’re here.”

Simon looked around and transformed in anticipation.

“Almost…”

“Duck         !”

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, The Man With Three First Names.

There was a bellow from below them, the creature was beginning to grow. Its skin was already a sickening shade of yellow, and Simon could swear it was glowing beneath them. They watched out of the side of the ship as they passed over while the creature took a chunk out of the building it was climbing on. Electricity shocked through its body, and it began to convulse.

“Will he ever be the same?” asked Simon.

“No,” said Michael.

Fred and Moxie pulled on their goggles and watched the battle screen. They gathered around the console. They looked at the video image of the creature on the ground.

The President reached out his hand and moved his fingers across the table, moving in troops and air battle groups. They could see themselves. The President selected all the air units and then selected the creature itself. They could feel the ship they were in turn as he did it.

“What’s happening?” asked Simon.

Michael already knew.

“We’re surrounding it. I’ve just given the order.”

On the screen, the battleships converged on the monster, and keeping a safe-ish distance, began to circle around it.

The creature writhed and pounded its claws into the building it was on, busting out the side where a firm of lawyers was going over their latest case. Still around them, the thickness of the brown mists and bluegrasses pushed into the world. Great spiraling trees worked their way into the buildings, lifting some of them from the ground.

“The portal is still active,” said Michael.

Simon looked up. We saw it destroyed. How can that be?

“I don’t know.”

The President was quiet.

“What?” said Michael.

The President nodded over folded hands. He covered his face with them.

“Talk.”

“The connection hasn’t finished settling.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“If I’m right we’re working our way into a downward spiral.”

“What like a low-pressure system?” asked Simon.

Michael slapped the President’s hands down. “Talk! This isn’t a weather report.”

There were immediately fifteen guns trained on him.

“We are not playing here Mr. Christopher. We’ve got to ride this out. If the experiments we’ve been doing so far are any sign, then this is going to blow over in a few hours, and we’ll just have a little cleanup to go through after the worlds settle themselves out.”

Michael took a step back.

“It’s okay gentlemen.”

The President straightened his tie, and the men laid off, lowering their guns.

“Now let’s look at this again.”

They gathered around the console again, but this time Michael kept his distance a little bit. He listened, but he was already working on his own agenda.

The great dinosaur-like creature bellowed below them and put its hand into a building, past a group of designers and web developers, then pulled out a large pile of disused hard drives and ate them. It burped and belched fire all over another building that was just standing there minding its own business, thank you very much.

The creature, now starting to turn more of a green shade than he was before jumped down and landed in the middle of a busy street half-covered in cars and half great wooly creatures looking for succulent bluegrasses. It found the only asphalt instead. It grabbed a bus and started emptying people out of it into it’s gaping maw like they were potato chips at the bottom of the bag. When all the tasty morsels were gone, it tried to bite the bus, didn’t like the taste of it, and threw it into a local movie theatre, after which patrons began to run screaming from it, partially because of the impact of the bus, but also because they were in the process of running out already from the throng of little blue warriors that had taken refuge in the theatre.

“We can’t waste any more time.”

“Then you’re back on board Michael?”

“Yes.”

“Everybody else?”

Simon nodded.

Fred and Moxie nodded. They did their best serious looks.

“Okay then.”

The President waved his hand over the screen and began moving in troops.

“You’re ordering them with this right?”

“Yep, they are on the move, here.” The President brushed his finger on the screen, then selected a commander.

Michael watched them move into position. It looked like a leader was getting the orders in his helmet and then getting his troops in line. Chain of command.

“We’ve got to stop him.”

“All I can do is slow him down, I’m afraid.”

“It’s all up to Simon here.”

“What?”

“I think you’re the only hope in this situation. You were the closest to the blast and survived it when the barrier exploded between our worlds. Somehow you’re the link that’s going to send this guy home.”

“He’s pretty intelligent on his side of the fence,” said Michael.

“It’s sad,” said Simon. “Their world is poisoned.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I’ve got a country to run and a city to save here. Somehow it all comes down to you. I’m not sure how it’s just a hunch.”

“You’re right,” said Michael. 

“Mike?”

“He’s an ass,” said Michael, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense at this point.”

Simon found his nerve and straightened up. “When can I get down there then?”

The President smiled.

“Moxie? Do you have them?”

“You bet.”

Fred and Moxie pulled them from their gadget-laden backpacks what looked like little metal tubes. They held them forward and pressed a button with each thumb.

“What are those things?” asked Michael.

“They’re our ticket.” The bars expanded, and compartments opened and slid out until an entire hoverbike floated beneath both of them.

“Hop on guys.”

Simon ran forward and sat behind Moxie.

Michael took a deep breath and sat down behind Fred.

“What’s the plan then?” asked Michael.

“Oh the usual,” said the President. “Wing it.”

“Great.”

“Wing it. That’s all he’s got.”

“Wing it.”

“Nice.”

Michael shook his head. “Get us out of here guys.”

Fred and Moxie revved them up and took off. When they got to the edge of the flight deck, they turned to wave at the President, who waved back, then they dived off the edge, heading for the ground. It rushed up at them rather quicker than Michael would have liked.

They hurled to the ground, this time with engines spurring them on, towards mad creatures that wanted to kill them, but somehow Michael was at ease with it all. He sat there, on the hover-cycle, holding his hat and screaming at the top of his lungs like he was on a great carnival ride. He let it all out of himself, closing his eyes and imagined all the strange things he’d seen in his lifetime. The Lochness monster, bigfoot, aliens, zombies, and who knew what else. What better fate for him than to be dashed to death on the ground before a giant rubber monster that was terrorizing the city? If it was the way he was going to go out, it at least suited him just fine.

They flattened out, and started zinging through the streets, and in and out between the buildings.

There was a roar above them. Michael looked up and watched as the head of the monster seemed to bob between the buildings.

Moxie fired up her lasers.

Fred did the same.

They started firing on the creature as they approached.

“No!” yelled Michael

They didn’t hear him and kept on firing.

The creature swung out a fist and missed Moxie as they went by.

Simon leaped off of Moxie’s bike and flew through the air towards the monster, who batted at him and sent him tumbling into nearby thick grass.

“Simon!”

Michael too jumped, leaping for the creature’s neck. He latched on and held there for dear life. He reached into his pockets, and pulled out a squirt gun, and aiming it into the creature’s eye, blasted it with a mixture of lemon juice and battery acid. “That was handy.”

The creature writhed in pain and shook Michael off. He plummeted to the ground while the creature rubbed its eyes, more out of an annoyance, but it gave Fred and Moxie a chance to come around from the other side and hit the creature again.

Simon jumped and caught Michael on the way down and set him down.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Simon, as he launched himself up into the air again at the creature. He latched onto the creature’s nose and began to punch him, but it was like hitting a towering stack of gelatin molds. His hand stuck through the creature, and he had to pull it out with a sickening sucking noise each time.

Fred and Moxie came around for another pass, and Michael could tell from the corner of his eyes that the President was bringing his ships in, moving in for a kill, or a melt-down or whatever this creature’s fate would be.

Fred and Moxie let loose, and Michael watched as their laser blasts hit the creature, entered its dinosaur-gelatin body, seemed to build for a moment, and then passed through to the other side with a spurt of slime and marshmallow goo.

The creature burped a cloud of sweet-smelling steam and shook it off.

“Cut the lasers!” cried Michael, but he was wrong. It was a signal to Fred and Moxie to up the ante and let the creature have it.

They tore into it and filled him full of as much energy as they could muster. It filled the creature up and bloated the inside of him. As they passed the rubber monstrosity, the energy came out its other side and flew straight at them. They had just reached out for a high-five, and it turned into a handclasp as the energy from their own blasts came out and smacked them from behind. They were blown off their bikes, which crashed into the outside of a nearby building, and they were flying through the air.

Michael’s got a lot of luck. Simon’s nigh-invulnerable. Fred and Moxie are cute and have cool toys, but they are mortal, so they searched their bodies for anything they could find, and without their regular backpacks there was little they could do before they too hit the outside of a building to be cut to ribbons on the glass.

They clutched their hands together, and just before they hit the wall they hit the emergency teleport button on their wristbands.

No time to program it.

In a whiff of sparks, they were gone.

“Oh crap,” said Michael.

He looked back up to where Simon was punching the creature in the face and getting his hands stuck deeper and deeper in it.

Simon yelled and flung his fists at the creature, who seemed annoyed but not much else. It reared back its head and shaking its neck toppled Simon onto it’s bubbling green tongue, and swallowed him whole.

The creature walked up to Michael, who could see Simon struggling inside the beast through its translucent skin, and lowered its head to sniff Michael’s scent.

He blew Michael’s hat off. It rolled to a corner of the street that was already covered in shards of glass.

“That’s enough.”

The creature opened its eyes a little wider and regarded Michael a little differently. It cocked its head.

“I asked you not to come here.”

He stepped forward just a little bit.

“I told you you wouldn’t make it through the portal without causing more damage than good.”

He stepped forward again, and this time the creature stepped back a little.

“I’ve had enough, and now it’s time to send you back home.”

Michael plucked up his hat and put it back on, straightening it.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but you are finished, my friend.”

He held up a small phone to his ear.

“Mr. President, nuke the portal please.”

On his command ship, the President pressed a red button on his console, and then selected the remains of the Sublight group.

It wasn’t an actual nuke, but the three missiles that fell from his ship and headed out toward the facility were plenty good enough to do the job.

They landed one after the other, one, two, three, into the crater. Fire and dust exploded from the site, including a fearsome blast of light.

The portal was no more.

Cut off from his world, the creature began to scream and hold its head in pain for a moment, and then it righted itself, and almost seemed to regain and redouble its strength. Its skin became a more solid shade of green. Simon was still visible, but just barely, and he was moving less and less.

“Hmm. That’s not what I expected.”

The creature bellowed and stomped one of its great clawed feet down, pinning Michael to the ground. It was like being pinned to the ground by a candy bar.

“Okay,” said Michael from between the claws of the beast, now you’ve really ticked me off. He wrenched his body this way and that. His hat came off again, and he put it back on, giving the creature a glare when it happened.

The creature bellowed above him and reached out to knock an electric street sign down, which exploded and landed next to Michael in a shower of sparks.

Michael used the time to look through his pockets.

He pulled out a small voodoo doll, not much help there. He tossed it aside.

Policemen ran up, brandishing rifles, took aim and started shooting the creature. The rubbery nature of its skin wasn’t much help as the bullets just bounced around, or lodged in the skin and stuck there.

Michael searched another pocket and came up with his pistol, alien in origin, he wasn’t even sure what it was called. He fired it, and a beam of green energy flew to the creature’s torso, but it didn’t make much difference. For just a second, the creature forgot about Michael and started to walk off, carrying Michael with him still stuck at the foot, but the laser blast was enough to get its attention again, and it crouched down, pinning Michael flat He squeezed Michael’s arm against the side of the curb. Michael let go of the pistol.

“Crap.” It clattered to the ground.

What else did he have left?

He reached around and found a dagger there in the side of the street. It was one of those the little guys were always carrying. He took it and stabbed the creature, slicing off a rubbery toe.

It stepped off of him, and Michael popped up. He dodged a swing by the creature, and he could see in there, inside its body where Simon was now curled into a ball.

The creature kicked out and lashed its tail at Michael, but instead of hitting him with it, Michael jumped and landed on top of the tail, grasping it in his hands. He climbed up the creature’s back, using the spikes on the creature’s back for support. They were a little harder than the rest of its body.

The creature turned around, trying to sling him off, but Michael didn’t budge. Instead, he held on tight and didn’t move, and continued to scale the beast. There was occasional fire from the President’s men, but they were afraid to hit Michael, so they held off.

Michael grasped onto the creature’s neck and gathered his strength. The creature was starting to make it’s way through town, scraping buildings and breaking glass in its wake, stepping on a car here and there. Things were starting to stick to it, a light pole here, a small dog there.

Michael got up on the creature’s head, and he stomped on it.

The creature stopped.

Michael put his hands on his hips and looked down on the creature. “This is the end of the line for you. I asked you not to come here. To shut off your portal and leave it alone, but did you listen to me? You did not.”

Below him, deep in the creature’s belly, Simon’s eyes opened, and he transformed.

“Now it’s a little too late for you isn’t it?”

The creature looked up at Michael, not comprehending.

“That’s the worst part, isn’t it. You don’t even know you’re causing all this trouble, do you?”

The creature groaned a reply, but there was little feeling or coherence in it.

It rolled its eyes, trying to get a better look at him, then it shook its head, and just like Simon before him, the creature opened its maw and sucked down Michael and swallowed him whole. Then it burped and began climbing a nearby building.

It lurched up the side of the building, tearing out power cords and making a general mess of the place. It just wanted to see a little bit better. Being down in the buildings was as good as being in a cave to it. When it popped it’s head out above them, the President aboard his ship said “Fire.”

All the floating ships started at once, firing red pulses of light towards the creature, and it started to burn, and sizzle and pop.

It roared, and whipped around, smacking down on one of the President’s ships, which roared to the earth and exploded in a giant fireball.

They continued to fire. The President’s ship was standing back a bit now, and the creature whipped out its tale and took another one down, it spinning off into another building, and exploding. Only three left, the creature tracked them like they were gnats hovering just out of view of its left eye.

It jumped from the building and knocked the third one of the President’s crafts out of the sky like it was knocking the football from an opposing player’s arms. The craft lurched and hit the ground, plowing through a street lined with abandoned cars. There it carved a groove in the ground and sent dirt and debris up into the air, splattering all the buildings, and knocked the cars that were in the way into the storefronts of nearby businesses.

The President dropped his arms, and stood there, looking at the destruction all around him. He peered out at the orange sky and waited for it to all be over.

“Sir, what are your orders?”

He looked around lazily.

“What?”

“Sir, your next order sir?”

He let out a great breath and looked around him at the men who were in his service. He didn’t even know their names.

He turned back to the battle map in front of him.

“Ram it.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me, arm the nukes, and ram it.”

The officer relayed the message into his headset with a solemn face.

There was general nodding around. They had to hope to get smacked and nuke the creature. After the others went down there was little hope for victory that way, and they couldn’t just leave. The country would be in total ruins forever.

They armed nuclear weapons.

They fired up the engines and sped toward the monster at top speed.

Right before the weapons finished arming and booting up, the creature whipped out its tail and knocked the President’s ship down. It sailed in a spiral towards the Earth and exploded in a ball of flame half a mile high.

The creature roared and bellowed with rage, and with satisfaction as it continued to tear through the city.

In the belly of the beast sat Simon and Michael. They lay there unconscious and somehow preserved inside the jelly stomach. It stomped along and took them with it. Other people were around them in various states of consciousness. Some of them were curled into balls, some were whimpering, but others, some of which found themselves turned into snack food for the beast via being on the wrong bus at the wrong time were cutting and slicing their way through the beast’s flesh with plastic knives and sporks, and several were using just their hands, or paper coffee cups to do the digging with.

“Should we wake them up?”

“It’s no use. They’ll wake up in time.”

“I hope it’s on time.”

“I do too.”

“They kept digging, almost swimming through the creature.”

Outside the creature knew no different. To it, there wasn’t a rebellion going on under its skin. It just knew it was free, and that this world was there for the taking, not that it knew what that meant either. It was free, and wild in a strange land, and it was alone.

In the wreckage of the President’s ship lay the torn and scattered remains of the President. His body lay broken and torn apart, there were wires everywhere, and part of his plastic face had melted off. His suit smoked, charbroiled and burned and the screws holding his limbs on had all given away and were strewn across the field of battle.

One of his commanders, next to dead himself, pushed up from the wreckage, noticed the disaster and watched as the creature continued to lurch away. He held his earpiece to what remained of his ear and said, “Delta Bravo One, do you read?”

He heard a response.

“The man’s down, repeat, he’s down. Start operation starfish. Repeat operation starfish.”

“Copy that, Delta Bravo One out, Operation Starfish is in motion.”

There was a click, and he knew he’d signed his own death warrant. The remains of the ship exploded and took him with it. There was no evidence now, no pieces of the dead President’s robotic body strewn around.

The commander welcomed it. He closed his eyes and succumbed to the magnetic fireball, and knew no more.

Millions of miles away, Fred and Moxie came hurtling out of a purple wormhole and onto the deck of a popular space station. They got up and brushed themselves off. They didn’t have their backpacks, and they didn’t have anything but each other and their wristbands, which were blinking. “Recharge light…” By then it might be too late. They picked themselves up. There was a throng of people who were now avoiding them and walking away from them. They had arrived in a busy walking area.

They staggered to a coffee shop on the side of the walkway and looked up at the starry sky above the mega station. They ordered two cups of synth coffee, and sat back, unaware of how the battle was going without them, feeling guilty that they couldn’t return immediately.

“What do we do?”

“We wait it out, what else is there to do?”

They watched through the glass and force fields in the ceiling and looked out as the station came back around to the dayside of the planet.

It was Earth.

“Fred.” She said it as she grasped his wrist.

There it was, definitely Earth.

“Oh shit.”

Below them, the Earth turned. They had traveled in time as well as space. It’s always odd when you have to hit the emergency escape.

They took another sip of their coffees and watched their wristbands, to see how long it would take them to recharge.

By the time they had finished their fifth cups of coffee, now wired up and ready for anything, their wrist bands beeped and they were ready to go.

They stood up, the bill for coffee unpaid, and zapped out of there. It wouldn’t matter where they programmed it for, their wristbands were still stuck on Earth. They flung around through time and space, on their way back. They held hands as they traversed the psychedelic passages of space and time to come out the other side screaming, hot and flustered, and landing just several feet from Jen and Walter’s restaurant again.

“Hungry?”