“So how are we supposed to defend ourselves against these things?” Mike had confronted the Elder, the leader of the Puppeteers, with that question. The Elder, who looked like a 30 foot blob of mercury, shifted about nervously.
“Yeah, about that...I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!”
“Is there an echo in here?”
“How can you not know?!”
“Well, actually, it’s very simple, I just plain don’t know.”
“But your people know all about dimensional travel!”
“Well I wouldn’t put it quite that way. What do you think, Gideon?”
“I’m not talking to you.”
The Elder confided in them. “I think he’s still upset because Tom blew up his socks and underwear.”
“Because you blew up all my socks and underwear!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Shut up, the both of you! Now Elder, are you saying there’s no way to jam their dimensional travel or something.”
“You can’t jam dimensional travel. It’s more complex than that. You see, there are an infinite number of subspace domains and...”
“A simple ‘no’ will suffice.”
“Ah, well then, no.”
“How come they’re invading now?”
“I wouldn’t call it invading so much as dropping by unannounced for dinner.”
“Whatever!”
“Well, you see, it comes back to subspace domains...”
“Are you trying to say that you don’t know?”
“He’s more avoiding the question.” put in Gideon.
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“You’re just upset because you lost at Trivial Pursuit.”
“How can I be upset over that when you won’t play?”
“Will you two just cut it out? I mean, people are being eaten as we sit here and argue over Trivial Pursuit!” Mike interjected.
“It’s all because of the dimensional travel.”
“What? Because of the Leet?” Mike asked.
“That’s about the size of it.”
“W3@k,” Rex complained.
“You see, there are an infinite number of subspace domains...” The Elder started.
“Spare me your lecture! If the Leet stop traveling to our dimension, will the Spydhars stop as well?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, you see there are an infinite number of subspace domains...”
“No, now that they’ve found us they can travel to this dimension as much as they want.” Gideon translated.
“Damn. So is there nothing we can do?”
“Well it’s not so bad, I mean they’re focusing on criminals for the time being.”
“True enough, though I don’t consider littering to be a capital offense!”
“Perhaps you can make a list of people that you wouldn’t mind them eating.”
“Do you qualify?”
“Nah, the Spydhars don’t like Puppeteers.”
“Nuts.”
* * *
“So what’s the scoop?” asked Colonel Sterling.
“Well, there are an infinite number of subspace domains...” Mike started.
“Cut the bullshit,” snapped Sterling.
“We’re screwed.” supplied Alice.
“Dammit.”
* * *
“That could have gone better,” observed Mike as they walked down a hallway away from Sterling’s office.
Coming around a corner they were confronted by a Spydhar with a red hourglass sigil on her back.
“Are you Tom?” she said breathlessly.
“No, I’m Mike, but I can talk with you about whatever...”
“How about you? Are you Tom?”
“N0t m3.”
“And you?”
“I’m Alice, Tom is the creep hiding behind me.”
“I must see Tom,” she said, trying to get around Alice, but Tom kept interposing her between the two of them.
“Cut it out!” Alice said snapped pushing Tom in front of the Spydhar.
“Ma’am?” Tom said nervously, eyeing possible exits.
“Are you Tom, the secret agent?” the Spydhar said breathlessly. “I need to talk to you...privately.”
* * *
“I said privately!” the Spydhar complained.
“Well, this is private...ish.” Tom responded from behind his desk. The Spydhar was perched on the chair in front of him.
“So, Ms...”
“Blunc-hee.”
“Do all Spiders have a name ending in ‘ee?’”
“It’s Spydhar – you need to pronounce the har!”
“Yeah, well...”
“It’s very common, like ‘Smith’ is a common surname among you huge-glands.”
“It’s humans.”
“Who-nans?”
“Humans!”
“Whatever.”
“So, Ms. Blunc-hee, you have information for us?”
“Well, for you mostly. Are you sure there isn’t someplace a bit more...private that we could talk?” Blunc-ee slid off the chair and was coming around the desk. Tom made a “yikes” sort of noise and tried to keep the desk between them.
“Aren’t I the wrong species for, well, you know?”
“I think all males are attractive.”
“Don’t you mean appetizing?”
“Same thing.”
“So what was it you wanted to say?!”
“Oh, right. You see the thing about the whole invasion is that the Spydhar high command...”
“You have some sort of command structure?!” Mike called out incredulously.
“It doesn’t translate to your language well. His official title is ‘Hander-out of Dinner Passes.’”
“Figures.” Mike said crossly.
“Well, at any rate, he had announced the raffle...”
“There’s a raffle to see who gets to come to our dimension?”
“dude! i7's th3 saMe W@y F0r u5!” Cut in Rex.
“But with the Leet, it’s just to see who gets to play foosball.”
“At any rate,” Blunc-hee went on “they announced the raffle before we first made contact with your people! I think you’re in terrible danger.”
“Of getting eaten by someone else beside you!” Alice cut in.
“Well, that’s a very crude way of putting it...”
“But accurate!” Tom said, hiding behind a chair.
“You’re so mean! You make it sound like I don’t want to get to know you as a person!”
“So now that you do know a little bit more about me?”
“Let’s go back to my kitchen.”
“See!”
“You really need to relax and trust people.”
“It’s hard to relax around people drool when they look at you!”
“Details, details...”
“So how does this help to stop the Spiders?” Mike looked over at Alice and Rex as Tom and Blunc-hee chased each other around the office.
“It tells us that they knew about us before they started their invasion.”
“We only want peace with you who-nans!”
“At least until dinner time.”
“Well, some peace is better that no peace!”
“That depends on who’s dining and who’s the main course!”
“How do you travel so easily between dimensions, tell us that.” Alice cut in.
“That’s no secret, we use these.” Blunc-hee produced a glassy tetrahedron from somewhere.
“Hey!” Mike said looking at the thing. “That looks an awful lot like the ones the Leet used!”
Well, how about it? Mike queried his Puppeteer.
Obviously a case of convergent thinking. The blob shot back.
“Did you get this from the Puppeteers?” Mike asked suspiciously.
“No way!” Blunc-hee stood up straighter on her legs. “This is totally an example of home-web Spydhar tech!”
“Where do you keep that thing, I mean, you don’t have any pockets?” Alice, ever curious, asked.
“Mind your own business, who-nan!”
“That’s it!” Mike exulted.
“No, it’s not.” Tom complained, still trying to get a desk between him and Blunc-hee.
“Stop trying to edge around that desk, Tom-hee, we Spydhars have eyes on the backs of our heads!” she said, looking at Rex (at least with some of her eyes). “That’s just another example of how we are superior to dees endo-skellington creeeturs.”
Rex sniffed disdainfully at that.
“Eureka!” Mike yelled and ran out of the office. Alice rolled her eyes and followed him. Rex shrugged and scampered after them.
“Don’t leave me here with her!” Tom wailed desperately.
* * *
“I’ve found it!” Mike yelled running down the sidewalk and flapping his arms like he was trying to take off. People turned to watch him.
Unbeknownst to Mike, an eight-lens nightscope was tracking him.
A spider web shot out and hit the person behind him.
“Damn!”
Another shot and the wrong person was hit again.
“It’s so hard to figure out which scope is the right one!” A large, tarantula-like Spydhar exclaimed.
Just then, Alice and Rex rounded the corner and surveyed the webbed bystanders.
“dud3! oVer th3re!” Rex said pointing at the Spydhar. The Raptor took out his huge, Gatling-style lasers.
“Rex, don’t!” Alice tried vainly to stop him.
But the lizard fired shot after shot with his gun. Fortunately, the famed lack of marksmanship of his race saved the sniper from injury, though everything around him was devastated.
“And I thought I was a bad shot!”
Alice raised her forearm and fired her octogun (another example of the Puppeteer's biotech, the Guided agents each got one of these semi-sentient weapons) at the Spydhar, hitting him smack in the thorax with a stun bolt.
“It $ucks tHa7 I D0n'7 ge7 on3 0f tho$e.”
“Where did you find space to keep that thing?” She said gesturing at the lizard’s rifle like weapon.
“ju5t 0n3 of MY leet 53cr3t agen7 @bili7i3s.”
Mike was now standing in one spot, though he was jumping up and down and yelling “Eureka.”
Alice looked at him with disgust and then walked over to the fallen tarantula, on his back with all eight legs in the air.
Rounding the corner was Tom, with Blunc-hee scuttling after him.
“C’mon, just a little taste!”
“Get away from me!”
“duDe! wha7's YoUr 8iG iDe@?”
“All we have to do is jam all their dimensional travel widgets and the Spydhars...”
“See? He’s got the right pronunciation!”
“...won’t be able to get to our dimension!”
“I thought we couldn’t jam dimensional travel,” put in Tom, who was trying to use Mike as a shield against Blunc-hee.
“We don’t have to jam dimensional travel, just these widgets of theirs!”
“dUde! how aRe w3 G0inG t0 do th@t?”
Mike looked crestfallen.
“I thought that was the easy part.”
“If you who-nans weren’t so tasty, you’d be a waste of space,” observed Blunc-hee.
“Hey! It was his idea, not mine!” Tom objected.
“In that case, he’s the waste of space.”
“Have any of you got some more handcuffs?” Alice called. “And what is this thing?” she said gesturing at a strange looking gun with an eight eye-piece sight.
“Oh that’s a Jumper and Hop 345SX Web shooter!” said Blunc-hee promptly. “It’s used by amateurs!”
“Screw you, Blunc-hee!” The tarantula lifted one his (uncuffed) forelimbs to make a gesture that is considered rude in Spydhar culture.
“Webster!” Blunc-hee gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“When I heard you had found someone new I just couldn’t control myself!”
“But you know that you are the only one I want to eat!”
“Then why are you running around with this huge-gland?”
“No, Human.” Tom put in helpfully
“Who-fan!”
“Closer, but it’s Hu-man.”
“Shut up, you two!” interrupted Alice. “Why were you shooting at Mike?”
“I thought it was Tom.”
“So you guys eat each other too?” asked Tom.
“Yeah, but when it’s between two spydhars it means something.” Blunc-hee explained.
“Well personally I think the two of you make a great couple and that Blunc-hee should come back and eat you instead of me.”
“Thanks,” said Webster.
“But how could I leave someone as tasty as you!”
“Don’t you see?” said Tom grabbing one of Blunc-hee’s 4 sets of shoulders, “it would never work – I’m human, you’re spider, I would have given you indigestion.”
“It’s Spydhar, not spider!”
“Even so.”
“Well, I have to admit that Webster has been putting on weight, just for me...”
Blunc-hee stared into Webster’s eyes, at least with the forward-looking ones. What she saw was luuuv. Luuuv as pure as the sting of a wasp looking to lay her eggs.
“Forget it, lady, he’s going to jail!” Alice announced, shattering the moment. Alice dragged the struggling Spydhar away.
“Diet for me!” cried Webster.
“I won’t be complete until I’ve fed your corpse to our young!” said Blunc-hee.
“dUd3! it's s0 5@d!” Rex put his head on Mike’s shoulder. Mike patted his snout.
As soon as Webster was out of sight, however, she said “Well, them’s the breaks!” Turning back to Tom: “Have I told you I really like that music you who-nans like?”
“But what about Webster?”
“He’ll keep. Gotta look out for my next meal, sweetie.”
Tom ran away crying out like a little girl. He ran like one too.
Blunc-hee pursued him, scuttling on the wings of true luuuv, or at least a healthy appetite.
Still stinging from the defeat of his crappy idea, Mike turned to Rex: “So what’s our next move?”
“dud3! y0u'r3 askiNg me?”
“Well, I’m fresh out of ideas...”
“0k, I 7hiNk 0Ur n3X7 5t3p is 7o...”
Chapter 2 Chapter 4
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