Okay, here:
Chapter 69
As I converted to my glukkon form, I sighed in relief as I felt the glukkon clothes take shape around me.
But no time to celebrate this little miracle. I returned through the sub-zulag entrance and back to the zulag hub. I had to remind myself that I had no shrykull power ready, so I would have to form another plan.
Four more doors to check out in the zulag. Each marked with a letter: A, B, C, D.
So let’s start with A. A good a place as any. I approached the door and some sensor must’ve detected me, because it clanged open on its own when I got close.
And there I was. It was a fair sized room. Size of a smallish gymnasium, perhaps. The room could probably house forty sligs comfortably, considering they slept in sacks.
And speaking of sleeping, most of the sligs in here
were asleep. Only one was awake and armed. As for mudokons, there were five, lined up against the wall. They looked to be on one of their two daily five minute breaks.
The armed slig looked up when I entered. “Hi, boss,” he said absently. No big deal, I guess, as he didn’t recognize me. But he started at the look of disgust I had adopted. Part of a plan. “Something wrong, boss?”
I growled. “Why are all these sligs asleep?” And, raising my voice, “Don’t they know what
happens to sligs that get caught
asleep on the
job?”
This woke them up. There was a ruckus as the surprised sligs fell out of their sacks and began to crawl towards the pants machine.
I turned to the sligs who was awake. “Kill ‘em!”
The slig didn’t hesitate. He turned and raised his gun, and unleashed a long and brutal barrage on the defenseless sligs.
I watched his work with the air of someone watching a fascinating sport. When the job was done (the mess was considerable), I called to the slig again.
“Hey! Come here!”
The slig buzzed and hustled to my side.
“We’re going to explore the other Suites and see who is asleep.”
The slig shrugged. “Okay, boss.”
I led the slig back into the hub and into suite B. This room was identical to suite A, but no slig was awake.
I instructed the slig to clean up shop. He did … and we moved on to find the same situation in suite C.
So when we reached suite D, imagine my surprise at finding a loud party of armed sligs.
They all appeared to be gathered around in a group, maybe watching some sport. No time to ponder it.
“Hey! Stay here.”
The slig buzzed and hurried over to watch whatever was going on.
I returned to the main hub and moved through suites C and B, commanding the mudokons to come with me. I led the group into suite A. Now, with fifteen mudokons gathered in one place, I reverted to my mudokon body and began to chant.
Once the muds were free, I felt the now familiar surge of energy that meant I had obtained a shrykull morph.
Now, to take care of the last batch of sligs. I returned once more to the hub and was halfway across the hub to suite D when the door clanged open and some sligs came marching out. They were mid-chat, something about that unfamiliar glukkon, when they saw me.
I didn’t give them time to react. I leapt forward, feeling my face stretch forward and the extra limbs unfolding from me as I transformed into Shrykull.
The lightning cleared all the sligs within several seconds.
With the zulag free of sligs (not to mention the factory’s reserve of stock soldiers), I went into suite D and realized what the sligs had been watching.
Five brutal, beaten mudokons wielding clubs and knives lay bruised and battered on the floor, breathing heavily. I realized that the sligs, bored, had forced the mudokons to fight each other. Likely, the sligs meant for the muds to fight to the death, but they wouldn’t want bad quarma, I guess, so none of the muds fought very hard.
I moaned, feeling quite bad. Two of the muds had a reddish glow - definitely angry - but the others were giving off a definite blue vibe.
I hurried over. “All o ya!”
Some angry grunts interspersed with moans of pain.
“Aww … sorry.”
The mudokons seemed to realize that things would work out. Or something. In any case, they came around. A quiet chorus of
okays greeted my ears.
I grinned and pressed my hands together, chanting yet again.
Marvelous. In a half hours time I had rescued a fifth of the workers here. So far, so good.
After a brief chat with Druna, I returned to the ball car that would take me, as a glukkon, back to Tastee Treets’ main hub.
