Major Karnage (41 page)
You won’t do it to yourself! You can’t!
The Intelligence started to
panic.
You won’t let yourself die like this! You’re a fighter! A warrior! It’s
not your way. YOU CAN’T!
Karnage heard his Sanity Patch hit Strawberry Shortcake. He
grabbed control of his face and forced his mouth into a manic grin.
“Wanna bet, monkeyfucker?”
NO!
Karnage’s head burst, and everything went black.
Karnage’s vision cleared, and he found himself kneeling on the floor,
panting for breath. The squiggles had disappeared. The presence in
his head was gone.
He looked over at the Nucleus resting on its lone tendril. It
throbbed with green energy. The Intelligence had returned to it. But
something was wrong. He could hear it screaming in his head.
“THE
WARRR! THE WARRR!”
Karnage winced, ready for his lizard brain to launch into fury.
But it didn’t.
He could still remember The War, but the rage he had long associated with those memories was gone. It was as if it had been
ripped from his brain when the Intelligence had pulled out of his
mind.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
Karnage could still remember being the Intelligence. He knew
that his lizard brain wouldn’t preoccupy the Intelligence for long. It
would be like a cold, or a chill. Eventually the squiggles would figure
out how to route around the damage, and the Intelligence would
return stronger than before.
He had to act fast.
Karnage tugged the glowing Nucleus from its holder, the
Intelligence still screaming in his head.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He grabbed the discarded rocket. He picked up his goober gun and aimed it at the floor. He fired.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He dipped the tip of the rocket into the expanding ball of goober and pulled out a gooey glob. He slapped the Nucleus into the goober
before it solidified.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
With a final crackle, the goober hardened, gluing the Nucleus to
the tip of the rocket. Karnage reloaded the rocket into the launcher.
He locked the helmet back onto his suit, then slung both the goober
rifle and rocket launcher firmly over each shoulder.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He grabbed the energy spear, and with the last of the Intelligence’s
memories, fired it at one of the translucent hatches. The energy ball
vaporized the grey translucent film.
Then the vortex of space sucked him out of the ship.
Karnage spun through the black. He let go of the spear, and
pulled the goober rifle from his shoulder. He pointed the rifle in the
opposite direction of his spin, and fired several rounds. He slowed
down to a gentle twirl. He dropped the goober rifle, and pulled the
rocket launcher off his other shoulder. He brought the sight up to
his visor.
He waited until his slow spin put the flashing red cross-hair over
the glowing orb of the sun, then fired.
He flew backward as the rocket shot forward, carrying the
frenetically glowing Nucleus towards the sun. Some vestige of the
Intelligence’s psyche reminded him about gravity wells and fusion
and only being able to convert energy rather than destroying it. But
at this point, so much of the Intelligence was gone from his psyche
that it all just sounded like bullshit to him.
Karnage aimed a middle finger in the direction of the
disappearing rocket.
“Burn in hell, monkeyfucker,” he said.
Karnage drifted through the pitch black of space. Tiny stars glittered
in the distance.
He closed his eyes.
Whatever happened from here on in, he couldn’t give a shit. To
hell with the Sanity Patch. To hell with the Dabney Corporation, the
Nagasaki Treaties, and the whole goddamn planet.
He’d saved his friends.
Victory was finally his.
There was nothing left to do but drift through space until he was
dead.
And that was all right by Major Karnage.
A voice crackled across the intercom. “Major? Are you awake?”
Karnage opened his eyes. The infinite black stared down at him,
blinking with a thousand pin-sized eyes of light. One of the lights
grew bigger. It winked at him. “Cookie? Is that you?”
“It is, Major.”
The light in the distance grew bigger. “Am I dead?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” Cookie said.
“Where are you?”
“Same place I was before. Except now I’m in space, coming for
you.”
The glittering light grew brighter, and slowly resolved into
multiple smaller lights. Karnage could make out the faint outline
of a massive saucer-shaped ship. He watched it grow larger as it
approached.
“I thought I was gonna die out here,” Karnage said. “I figured it
was inevitable.”
“Nothing’s really inevitable.”
“I guess.” The lights grew closer. Karnage took a deep breath,
then let it out. “Cookie?”
“Yes, Major?”
“I think we won.”
“I think you’re right,” Cookie said.
The ship’s dark outline grew larger, overtaking Karnage’s vision.
The only stars he could see now were the artificial ones flickering
and pulsing across the ship. They were all white.
“What the hell am I gonna do with myself now?” Karnage said.
The lights coalesced together into a single spot of light. It flooded
Karnage’s vision, bathing him in soft white.
“You’ll think of something,” Cookie said. “You always do.”
Special thanks to Sandra and Brett. I would never have found the
courage to commit this story to paper without them.
Thanks also to Maxwell Atoms for Spragmos Industries, hoverballs,
shark fin hair, and teaching me everything I could ever want to
know about trepanation.
GORD ZAJAC
Most of Gord’s previous writing experience has been in television,
but please don’t hold that against him. He has written for
The Grim
Adventures of Billy and Mandy
and
Evil Con Carne
. He is the prolific
author of one short story, one half of a novella, and this book. He
lives in Halton Hills with his wife, Alicia Land.
www.gordzajac.com
