CHAPTER THIRTY
King Glok nodded his head. “Interesting…I never knew the Vykkers had so much technology.”
Beside him, the spindly form of Humphrey III nodded vigorously. “Yes, my lord. My grandfather, Humphrey the First, and his partner Irwin, made a host of achievements that could greatly advance the Glukkon bid for total power.”
The Glukkon considered all that he had heard. “The Babychow and Butt-Flo I don’t have any use for…but the Chill Pill sounds interesting. You say if it is magnified, it can be used as a cryo grenade?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s good…we need more efficient ways to make powerful grenades,” the Glukkon sighed.
It wasn’t as if they had a war on their hands, but if Fragg decided to use that Slig army and turn against Fragg and the rest of the empire, there very well could be a great civil war. Glok had many more BigBro Sligs on his side, but Fragg seemed to have a great confidence and a knack for strategy, and it could prove to be a problem when Fragg killed Abe.
Glok knew Fragg would kill Abe; with so many Sligs at his command, there was no way Abe could survive. No, it was Fragg he was much more worried about, if it was possible for an emperor to be worried.
“What else had they invented?” he asked.
Humphrey folded two of his arms behind his back, while the other two cracked their knuckles noisily. “Ah, let me see, then…oh, yes. The Snoozer was one of our greatest achievements.”
Glok frowned. “Snoozer?”
“The name is not, ah, to take first impressions from,” the Vykker advised.
“Oh, that’s better.” The king nodded. “Explain yourself.”
Humphrey cleared his throat noisily. “The Snoozer was originally designed to be a sort of anesthesia-administering device for some of the more volatile test subjects at Vykkers’ Labs. It was a robot twelve feet tall, three-legged, with a stun gun on the bottom that could quickly knock out an unarmored being. But…”
Glok nodded. “Go on; explain.”
“But it turned into something of a huge weapon,” the Vykker explained. “It was not only huge, but it was also fitted with a small laser rifle on top, and that made for more destructive use. Then they encased it in armor that could stand up to an eight-rifle barrage for a full minute.”
“And I take it that armor could be reinforced to make a much stronger enforcer,” the Glukkon said.
“Yes, my lord.”
The Glukkon narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Do you have diagrams for this…Snoozer?”
Humphrey smiled, revealing his repulsive needle teeth. “Not at this very moment, my lord, but if I am granted access to your computer systems, I could dig up some charts.”
Glok smiled in what he hoped was a patronizing fashion. “You have my permission to find these diagrams, and bring them to me.”
The Vykker turned to leave. “Thank you, my lord! I will –”
“You will also have a Donner Packer rifle at your head the whole time, to make sure you don’t dig too deep into my records,” the Glukkon king said, in a voice that he didn’t attempt to disguise his utter disgust for the Vykker minion. “Now go.”
Going very pale, Humphrey staggered out of the room, with a BigBro Slig forcing him out at gunpoint.
Glok smiled as minion and soldier exited the throne room. Humphrey was not subtle enough in his attempts to get into the Glukkon secrets; in order to do so, he had revealed many of his grandfather’s secrets from Vykkers’ Labs, and now was getting nothing in return.
It was almost amusing, being supreme ruler of Glukksonia and master of the industrial world, having an active hand in everyone else’s destinies, and making everyone miserable.
Once he had the plans for the Snoozer, he would suddenly have a far more formidable army to face the traitor Fragg. Even if the ambitious businessman didn’t openly make war against Glok, the king decided he was not going to let Fragg back into Mantin City without a couple laser holes through his traitorous body.
And now to business…
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