She Was Only A Clown Chapter 41

SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a special serialized novella presented in weekly installments every Saturday. Click here to read chapter 1, click here to read chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3, click here to read chapter 4, click here to read chapter 5, click here to read chapters 6 an 7, click here to read chapters 8 and 9, click here to read chapters 10 and 11, click here to read chapters 12 thru 14, click here to read chapters 15 and 16, click here to read chapters 17 and 18, click here to read chapters 19 thru 21, click here to read chapters 22 and 23, click here to read chapters 24 and 25, click here to read chapters 26 and 27, click here to read chapters 28 and 29, click here to read chapters 30 thru 32, click here to read chapters 33 and 34, click hereto read chapter 35, click here to read chapter 36, click here to read chapter 37, click here to read chapter 38, click here to read chapter 39, and click here to read chapter 40.


Chapter 41

Alpha-Prime-470421A had been a lush, green planet when it was discovered by a deep space mining rig hundreds of years before. In fact, its first settlers had nicknamed it Eden Prime for its vast fertile valleys and enormous blue oceans. It was a habitable planet ten times the size of Earth.

It was paradise.

Elwood knew this instantly, as though he’d always known it. He accessed Alpha-Prime’s history as easily as he could his own memories. If he’d wanted to, he could live the lives of each of the settlers, their children and grandchildren. He could drill down as far into the minutia of the planet as he desired.

Which of course meant the entity had eaten this planet and the genetic memory of every living thing on it.

But Elwood was standing on a world with no organic life. What happened to Eden Prime? Elwood had to know. Somehow this planet’s memory stored deep inside the entity’s mind was the key to the alien’s destruction. Elwood aimed to find out how.

For hundreds of years, Eden Prime flourished as one of the main arteries of intergalactic trade. Its vast resources were cultivated and shipped off-world creating huge profits for its leaders and industry giants.

In fact, it wasn’t industry or over-production, pollution or depletion that spelled the ultimate end to organic life on Eden Prime. After centuries worth of resource harvesting, the industrial community was able to create innovative and never before seen means with which to cultivate renewable resources.

Eden Prime was poised to become the very center of the galactic empire when Daron Bon Halfact, the ruler of sector 847916 where Eden Prime was positioned declared the planet one of seven worlds he was considering making his new permanent residence.

The entire galactic senate would have been moved to Eden Prime had those plans come to fruition. Unfortunately for Daron Bon Halfact, a space pirate marauder ship had managed to enter Eden Prime orbit undetected, boarded the royal star ship and assassinated the galactic ruler while he slept, taking control of the planet and its nearly unlimited network of resources.

The pirate commander, Thalos Rictorian, now with near infinite funds at his disposal, set in motion a galactic civil war which lasted nearly ten thousand years.

With each passing millennia, Thalos and his army relied more and more on cybernetic life extension technology to remain both alive and in power far longer than any ruling body the galaxy had ever witnessed.

Seven millennia into his rule Thalos, now half mad with digital brain functions infecting his organic parts, halted all production on Eden Prime that did not serve his enormous and unstoppable cyborg army.

He murdered the farming population in a single season for what he called crimes against technology after he had successfully removed stomachs from his cyborg soldiers, eleminating their need for organic food.

Billions died in famines that swept Eden Prime as Thalos culled the population further, replacing all human workers with androids and cyborgs in his titanic war factories. As the soil and oceans on the planet withered and died, Thalos had the surface of the planet replaced with solar panels which harvested the energy of Eden Prime’s sun into energy for his hell machines.

It was in his 9th millennia as emperor of sector 847916 that Thalos had the final vestigaes of organic flesh removed from his body and the bodies of his now entirely robotic army.

It was in the year 10,467 of his reign that he outlawed all organic material from the planet, and re-named it Thalos Prime in his own image.

The date of Elwood’s ethereal visit to Thalos Prime was 11,501. Elwood knew this because the entity knew this. Even as he accessed the history of Eden Prime, he kept a close eye on the events unfolding in front of him. After all, he was being show this particular space and time on Thalos Prime for a reason.

The robot 417 hurried with its many mechanical legs over to the shelf housing the ancient books. It cursed and worried the entire way, but did as it was told.

No I don’t know what’s inside these books, actually!” 417 said to the small spider bot, seeming to communicate with it telepathically. “Well, what do you expect me to do about THAT? HE’S the king of the Metal Battalion! If I disobey a direct command The High Order will have my servos served for breakfast!”

The spider-bot seemed to relent, allowing 417 to concentrate on selecting the correct tome from the massive shelf.

After a short time, 417 returned to the operating table with an enormous book, the face of which was covered with raised metallic runes.

What science has always gotten wrong about dark matter,” 917, the red-faced robot on treads said as it unlatched the book and opened it to its table of contents. “Is that it is not merely a mysterious force holding the universe together. No matter that they learned to harness its energies and use it for intergalactic travel. What they failed to realize,” the robot located the section of the book he was looking for, turned to the page and plugged into the book a series of wires with suction cups on the ends from one of its many hands. “is the true purpose of that matter. It is sentience. It is the divine spirit engine that drives all of us living beings, both organic and fabricated.”

A low chanting piped in from a set of speakers on 917’s back. The wires moved across the pages, the suction cups somehow lifting the words from the pages, translating them and speaking them through the robot’s body.

But the ancients knew. The flesh-bodies. The meat-machines. They understood the power of the dark matter. They knew how to open gateways and let its pure form in to the material realm.”

The spider-bot on 417’s shoulder began to shake and pace back and forth along the larger robot’s frame. “I know,” 417 said under its breath. “He’s gone mad. His obsession with organic life will be the death of us all.”

91765 gently set the mound of pulsing flesh on the steel table. More wires and tubes snaked out from its robotic limbs. These wires were tipped with long needles which penetrated the flesh, causing it to pulse more frequently.

Elwood watched with apprehension as a combination of 917’s chanting, electricity flowing from the needles and weird fluids pumped in from the tubes caused the meat mound to grow. Each pulse saw it gain significant mass until it was no longer small enough to fit in the robot’s hand.

After another moment it was larger than 917’s head. Another, it was almost as wide as the steel table on which it lay.

The whipping tendrils that Elwood had become all too accustom to slithered out of the sides of the meat, slapping at the table in frantic rhythm.

YES!” 917 cackled even as the chanting from his speakers continued. “After all these many centuries! My work! My destiny! My LEGACY is realized!”

The spider-bot on 417’s shoulder sprang to action. It dove for the table. Pincer-like claws emerged from its head like long teeth. It scrambled across the old book, snipping the wires reading the incantation, cutting off the chanting mid sentence.

What are you doing!?” 417 screamed, grabbing the cable connected to the smaller robot’s abdomen, yanking at the spider-bot in an effort to dislodge it from the table.

But a small flamethrower replaced the pincers in its mouth. Hot fire belched from its face, setting the book on fire as the spider-bot clamped its razor-sharp legs into the book’s pages to keep itself from being pulled away.

917 only laughed as the book burned. “It’s too late! Fate has chosen this world’s new master! The rein of cold steel is ended! Long live hot flesh!”

417 struggled to pull the spider-bot away as it leaped through the flames at 917’s face. The royal robot snatched it out of the air. As its knife-like legs slashed wildly in the air, the battle-damaged robot lowered the spider toward the whipping black flesh on the table.

Witness the power of flesh,” 917 said softly as the tendrils took hold of the spider bot, drawing it closer to the main body.

917 pulled his hand away before the flesh could grab it as well. The spider-bot’s glowing abdomen began to lose its brightness and the tendrils sank through the metal as though it were nothing more than thick liquid.

A moment later and the spider-bot’s husk broke in half, drained of all of its internal parts. Its legs shuddered and went still. The connecting cable broke free, sizzling at the end like it had been burned away. The glowing fluid inside spewed as 417 howled in pain, pulling the cable toward himself, cradling his dismembered part.

The flesh pile doubled in size again as it absorbed the remaining useless outer shell of the spider-bot. But it was far from finished. It’s lasso-like tendrils whipped about, snatching 417’s flailing, spewing cable out of the air and began to drag the damaged robot toward the table, adding new tendrils to its grasp with each passing second.

417 begged his royal master to save his life as 917 laughed maniacally, backing away from the table. Nearly half of 417’s large robotic frame was covered in tendrils thick as the cable attached to the helpless robot’s back when the bolted doors behind them exploded.

And Thalos himself stormed into the room.

***

Check back next week for chapter 42!

She Was Only A Clown Chapter 40

SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a special serialized novella presented in weekly installments every Saturday. Click here to read chapter 1, click here to read chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3, click here to read chapter 4, click here to read chapter 5, click here to read chapters 6 an 7, click here to read chapters 8 and 9, click here to read chapters 10 and 11, click here to read chapters 12 thru 14, click here to read chapters 15 and 16, click here to read chapters 17 and 18, click here to read chapters 19 thru 21, click here to read chapters 22 and 23, click here to read chapters 24 and 25, click here to read chapters 26 and 27, click here to read chapters 28 and 29, click here to read chapters 30 thru 32, click here to read chapters 33 and 34, click hereto read chapter 35, click here to read chapter 36, click here to read chapter 37, click here to read chapter 38 and click here to read chapter 39.


Chapter 40

Elwood slammed his scythe arms into the creatures many mouths, but each time he chopped off a limb, three more grew back in its place until Elwood was complete immobilized by the creature’s slimy tendrils.

The two tumbled through the chaos of the alien entity’s mind as the creature shoved more and more of Elwood’s body into its largest mouth. He was now devoured all the way to his chest.

As a last ditch effort to save himself, Elwood willed himself to catch fire.

The tentacle monster howled in pain and rage as its skin boiled. The flames took on a soft, emerald hue as it burned. But the spots on its flesh that blistered simply turned into new new eyeballs or fangs, not slowing down its consumption of Elwood’s body for even a moment.

After a short time, both of Elwood’s long, sharp arms had been devoured. All that remained of his psychic body was his head and it too was being slowly pushed into the creature’s hideous wet mouth.

Die now, little man. And stay dead forever,” the mouths of the tendrils said as they pushed his head further into its gullet.

Elwood’s thoughts turned to Kiana as his face was pulverized by squishy tongues and razor fangs. She had to make it to the brain if his plan had any chance of working.

A moment later and his consciousness met oblivion as the starfish-shaped beast swallowed the last of his mushed up brain.

***

But when he woke, Elwood was not inside the entity’s mental nexus as he’d planned. He was in a brightly lit room. Sterile. Lined front to back with shelving. Bottles and beakers and canisters and boxes cluttered the shelves, all except one which housed nothing but ancient, crumbling texts. The pages of these books were yellowed and crumbling. Some were held together with rope and other bindings.

And in the center of the room lay several medical tables. They were stainless steel as were the walls, the floor and the ceilings. Everything in the room was made of metal.

Even the bodies on the tables.

Robots. The things on the tables were robots.

Their bodies lay in various states of disrepair. Each of them was a different size and shape with vastly different forms, albeit they were all more or less humanoid in construction.

One lacked a head, its neck wires and cables laying down across its chest. Another was missing arms and legs with jagged, charred pieces of metal jutting out from where its multiple appendages should have been. And so on down the line.

These robots looked as though they’d been damaged in some kind of violent conflict. Elwood admittedly had not ever ventured out of Hopp’s county but even on the internet he’d never seen human-like robots this sophisticated outside of science fiction movies. Was he in some sort of secret military lab? Why had he woken up here and not inside the entity’s brain as he’d intended?

The answer burst through the lab’s double doors.

Lock it! Lock it now! Do not let them inside!”

Two robots rushed inside. The lead robot clutched a large rectangular container to its chest and rushed over to one of the empty medical tables while the other spun around and entered a code into a small numerical panel on the wall, causing a hissing sound as gas escaped from two huge columns of steel which extended from the floor and ceiling, meeting at the middle of the door, presumably sealing it off from whoever the two robots were running from.

The first robot had a head shaped like a hammer. Where its face would have been was large, round and flat. A red light emanated from this circle, subtly changing color when it spoke from speakers in the sides of its head. That head tapered down in the back into a point, giving the head its hammer shape. This robot didn’t have legs. Instead it gained ambulation through a set of two treads, like a tank. Four arms jutted off from its flank, all various different sizes with a multitude of tiny gadgets extending off the end of its limbs where hands would have been on a person, all bound together in a chaotic knot of tubes, wires and cables.

It’s body was draped in ornate robes, but they were tarnished, ripped and covered in oils and fluids of various colors. The robes indicated some kind of royalty or high position in society.

It set the container on the table and manipulated another numerical panel. The panel beeped, causing the robot to curse. It used one of its hand-like instruments to pop the panel loose and zap the circuit board inside, causing the panel to smoke and the locks on either side of the container to release.

What are you doing, 91765! You can’t open that box! Are you insane?!”

The second robot had an entirely different design. This one was round like a barrel and had six pneumatic legs, three on each side which moved it along. It only possessed two arms ending in claws with four grabbing tips on each hand. Its head was wide, egg shaped and flat on top. It had two yellow glowing eyes in the front of its face which gave it a perpetually surprised look, seemingly matching its personality as it flailed around screaming at the first robot for opening the container.

A long tube filled with some kind of glowing fluid extended from its back and attached to a much smaller robot the size of a small dog. This small robot had 8 legs like a spider and four large stalks on the front of its egg shaped body that glowed the same color green at their tips, indicating eyes of some kind.

This spider-bot rode atop the second bot’s wide shoulders, always scuttling, never sitting still.

Relax 41789, by the time they get in here, I’ll be finished,” the first robot, the one named 91765 said. “They can do what they want with me. My creation will be free.” It said this last part in a whisper, reverence heavy in its cadence.

Do what they want with you? I’m in here with you! You never said anything about opening the box! Oh no, oh no, oh no! You fucked me, 917! You fucked me!”

A loud bang rang out as something large smashed into the doors from the outside of the room, accentuating the strange robot’s frantic cries.

41789 scampered over to a set of monitors along the wall to the right of where Elwood stood. Monitors Elwood hadn’t yet noticed in the room. On one screen a mob of robots smashed, scratched and banged against the doors. Elwood was surprised to hear so little of the commotion considering how many robots stood directly outside the laboratory. The walls must have been extremely thick inside. In fact, the bang that had reverberated inside the room had come from a gigantic robot running down the hallway, smashing its enormous bulk into the doors, an act which it performed again as Elwood and 41789 watched the screen.

They’ll be inside any moment! The penalty for possessing organic material on Alpha-Prime-470421A is DEATH!”

If Elwood hadn’t already figured out he was inside another of the entity’s visions by the existence of the ridiculously technologically advanced robots, or that they utterly ignored him as they went about their business, the fact that Elwood did not truly exist in the same space and time as the peculiar robots was solidified when he looked at the second monitor on the wall.

The camera was obviously stationed away from the compound they sat in now, pointed away from its front doors at any who might approach. A megalopolis loomed on the screen. A titanic city, all made of steel, all the denizens zooming around were self-propelled robots.

Not a tree, a patch of grass or even dirt existed from the gate at the front of the compound to the horizon in the distance. Even the moons hanging in the sky, which were many, were made of metal.

Alpha-Prime-470421A was a metal planet. Elwood knew now, of course, because the entity knew. The knowledge of the planet and the beings inhabiting its surface came to Elwood just as effortlessly as everything else he’d learned about the alien being since his consciousness had been sucked up into its body.

But why was he here? Why now? In the next moments, the answers to those questions played out in front of his eyes in all their brutal and violent glory.

Stop your whining and get me the book off the shelf, 417! We don’t have time to waste! If I do this right, we won’t have to worry about those backward thinking bots outside!” 917 turned to his accomplice, his face plate glowing bright. In his hands he held a mound of flesh, slowly pulsing.

Its color, black as night. Every beat emanating a soft green glow.

And then Elwood knew exactly why he was there. Why this moment was so important for him to see. This was its beginning. This was the birth of the entity.

***

Check back next week for chapter 41!

She Was Only A Clown Chapter 39

SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a special serialized novella presented in weekly installments every Saturday. Click here to read chapter 1, click here to read chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3, click here to read chapter 4, click here to read chapter 5, click here to read chapters 6 an 7, click here to read chapters 8 and 9, click here to read chapters 10 and 11, click here to read chapters 12 thru 14, click here to read chapters 15 and 16, click here to read chapters 17 and 18, click here to read chapters 19 thru 21, click here to read chapters 22 and 23, click here to read chapters 24 and 25, click here to read chapters 26 and 27, click here to read chapters 28 and 29, click here to read chapters 30 thru 32, click here to read chapters 33 and 34, click hereto read chapter 35, click here to read chapter 36, click here to read chapter 37 and click here to read chapter 38.


Chapter 39

Elwood sped through the chaos of the entity’s mind. His grip on Kiana’s severed head was tenuous.

The doorway to Kiana’s nightmare exploded behind them as the wormy bits of Mandee’s body, all full of mouths and teeth and eyes, congealed back together into one knot of ropey gesticulating awfulness and raced out into the mind-storm after them.

ELWOOOOOOOOOD!”

A cacophony of bright colors, sounds and visual images surged around them, nearly obliterating every sense they possessed. Elwood used his free hand to grab hold of a glowing thread that stood out in the chaos. The thread lead up and around, seeming to continue forever until it disappeared against the blinding insanity infinitely far away.

What is that?” Kiana’s head asked as Elwood flew along the glowing thread’s path.

I laid a guide through the creature’s mind so I could find my way.”

Your way to what?” Kiana’s head pleaded, her eyes wide, clearly overwhelmed by the sensory overload. “Where are we going? Where are we AT?”

We only exist as thoughts inside of this being’s mind!” Elwood shouted. “Our physical bodies are dead, but this thing keeps its victims consciousness locked in its brain. To feed off of our torment. That’s where we are now except outside of the prisons it made for us.”

What?!” Kiana’s head panicked. She hyperventilated in his arms, breathing quickly as though she still had lungs to breathe with and wasn’t just a severed head.

Elwood ignored her panic attack as he continued to race along the glowing thread. “At the same time I was freeing you from your thought-prison, I was out here. Searching. And I found what I was looking for. I located the physical nerve center of the creature’s brain. I found out where we’re actually stored in its flesh! And I laid a thread of my own memory so I could find it again once I’d freed you.”

I don’t understand a fucking word you’re saying, Elwood!” Kiana screamed. “How do you know how to do any of this?”

Elwood struggled to maintain his one-handed grip on the memory thread as a gust of cosmic mind-wind blew across them. He glanced down at the knotted jumble of tendril-mouths climbing up the thread faster and faster, gobbling up their escape route as it climbed.

Worried, but still zooming along his path, Elwood spoke. “I can’t explain it. It’s almost like, the more the alien peers inside my soul, the more I peer back inside of it. I just know.” He even felt different. In life Elwood was such a meek and fragile person. He could have never performed these kind of heroics. But now? He was changed. Changing? Yes. Becoming something else.

Before Kiana could respond, the tentacle-thing lashed out a ropey limb, finally close enough to catch Elwood by the ankle, dragging him down the memory thread.

Elwood’s grip nearly gave out.

I-I can’t hold on!” Elwood screamed. His voice barely carried over the infinite howling of the celestial winds, the malevolent thoughts and the solar interference of the core mind of the entity seeming to sense Elwood’s panic, doing its best to drown him out entirely. “You have to keep climbing! Do not lose sight of this thread or you will be lost forever in madness!”

Kiana cried out as Elwood’s hand slipped further down the memory thread, allowing the horrible many-limbed creature to slip its tendril up Elwood’s calf. “I can’t climb! I’m only a head!”

No!” Elwood said, lifting Kiana’s head up above his own as the tendril that was wrapped around his leg grew mouths and sank them into his flesh. He yelped in pain, but kept speaking. “You’re not even that! You aren’t here, remember?”

Kiana’s head rolled in Elwood’s hand to face him, her features awash with worry.

The creature pulled Elwood’s leg into its largest mouth, crushing the limb to a messy pulp in seconds with its grinding, pulsating teeth.

Elwood screamed. Wincing, he pleaded with the head in his hands. “Make a body! Get out of here! I’ll keep this thing busy. You must find the brain. It’s the only way to put an end to this! It’s how we save the Earth!”

I can’t just make a body! Are you insane?”

Look,” Elwood said patiently even though the coils of mouths and suckers continued to eat up his limb. “You find me in the brain, and maybe I’ll let you kill me. Deal?”

Kiana smiled at the twisted joke, in spite of the overwhelming situation.

Deal.” She wasted no more time arguing. The creature had already consumed Elwood’s leg up past his knee. Its tendrils wrapped around his waist and dug into his flesh.

She hopped out of Elwood’s hand, grabbing the thread with her teeth. It was warm to the touch and tasted faintly sweet. Concentrating, she imagined herself gripping the thread with her hands.

Nothing happened.

Below her, Elwood’s grip nearly gave as the whole trunk of the starfish-shaped tentacle monster ripped through his other leg. Smiling, he looked up at Kiana’s head and said, “see ya soon, psycho!”

With that, he let go of the thread and tumbled into the chaos. With both hands now free, he turned them into long, scythe-like blades and Ginsu-chopped at the terrible monster’s limbs, spraying brackish green fluid into the winds.

In only a moment he was the size of a pinhead, then gone, lost in the solar storm of rage and hatred. Maybe forever if Kiana wasn’t able to get her shit together and fast.

Alone out there, swaying in the chaos, just a head, the entity’s mind seemed to grow louder and the winds seemed to blow more intensely.

Without Elwood’s and the monster’s added weight, the memory thread danced freely in the solar weather. Within moments, Kiana felt her teeth begin to slip off the thread. But no matter how hard she concentrated, she remained just a head with a bit of spine and a few tendons sticking out of her severed neck.

Terrified, she chanced a look down. That was a mistake. There was no end to the kalidescope of colors and sounds and smells blasting at her at light speed, all conspiring to knock her off the memory thread and into oblivion, lost forever amongst the chaos.

Fear overtook her. She opened her mouth and she let out a scream. “No! Nononononono!” she stammered as she fell away from the memory thread.

She clamped her eyes shut so as not to see the awful mental storm around her and she instinctively reached out, scrambling to grab hold of the thread.

And she did.

She opened her eyes, astonished. Her head hung there, as if suspended by some invisible anchor. But it wasn’t an anchor. It was her hand. She could feel the thread between her fingers. Only there were no fingers in front of her. And then, slowly, there were.

First tiny veins appeared, then bone, tendon and muscle. It raced away from the thread as it created the shape of a hand, then a wrist, a forearm, an elbow and then an upper arm.

The same thing happened on the other side of her body. In moments, Kiana had two transparent limbs, glowing and shimmering against the chaos.

Closing her eyes again, Kiana imagined wrapping her feet around the thread. Again, she felt the psychic rope, this time tickling her toes. Opening her eyes, she saw the glowing veins appear. She laughed out loud as they created and defined the shape of her legs.

After a time, her entire endocrine and vascular systems had been mapped out in stunning shining beauty right before her eyes.

A thin skin then sheathed the entire spectacle and she was whole once again. Naked and glowing, Kiana began to climb the thread. But slinking hand over fist, then boosting her lower body up after her was a slow going affair. She looked up after what seemed like hours of climbing, only to see that the thread still disappeared far, far away into the chaotic psychic storm.

Fuck this shit,” she said, closing her eyes again, trying to recreate that effortless feeling of grabbing hold of the thread when she thought she was falling into oblivion.

She opened her eyes again as three new arms on each side of her shimmering naked body took shape and grabbed hold of the thread.

She smiled, spider-crawling toward the entity’s brain at a lightning pace with her fresh appendages.

Then, as an afterthought, she concentrated again, making her tits and ass a bit bigger to boot.

***

Check back next Saturday for chapter 40!