Adventures in Parodyverse - Saving the Future Part 18.1.3

    Two police officers stepped outside the station, watching with curiosity, when a city bus pulled up to the curb directly in front.  Its air brakes hissed as it parked idle, and then the doors flipped open.

    Out stepped the Psychic Samurai, and she looked a little tired.  She greeted the two officers with a polite bow.  “I brought you a few criminals.”  she said.  She handed one of them a clipboard.

    The two officers walked past her and stepped aboard the bus.  The driver was just a regular city bus driver - but the passengers aboard looked like they were suffering from badly bruised egos...and some, badly bruised bodies as well.

    Commissioner Graham stepped outside to watch the spectacle.  He glanced at the clipboard - it listed all forty passengers and their crimes complete with a seating chart.  The people on board the bus were wearing tags around their necks as well.

    “I need rest.”  Chiaki told the Commissioner.  “Please take possession of these suspects so I may go home.”

    “Looks like she did the paperwork too.”  one of the officers joked.

    Graham looked at the clipboard and frowned.  That prompted the two officers to retreat into bus to start unloading the passengers.

    “You can’t just commandeer a bus like that.”  he warned Chiaki Bushido.

    “He paid their fares, sir.”  the bus driver interjected.

    “Oh.”  Graham looked like he may have had more to say, but then he looked into the Asian woman’s tired eyes and took pity on her.  “Look, just go home for now.  If we need a statement from you we’ll call.”

    “Thank you.”  Chiaki replied with a polite bow.

    “Oh, and Chiaki?”  Graham added as she was about to leave.  “When you’re rested up...we need to talk.”

    “I look forward to it.”  Chiaki said quickly with another bow.  She walked a short distance away and hailed a cab to go home.

---

    Lara felt uncomfortable at first when she put on the environmental suit given to her by Captain Shen Rae.  It looked like a dark metallic suit of armor standing vertically in a closet.  The Captain asked her to turn around and step backwards into it.

    As she did, the suit flattened and made room for her to enter...and then it activated, and wrapped itself around her body, hugging it as tightly as her super-hero costume.  Once it was sealed around her, she felt a cooling sensation as the suit balanced her body temperature.  It felt lighter and more comfortable than the lightest and most comfortable fabric on Earth, though it was obviously made of metal.

    Shen Rae explained that the suit assisted movement to offset its weight and inflexibility.  It also provided heating and cooling if necessary, and also absorbed and discarded sweat.  She asked Lara to demonstrate that a wave of the hand upward or downward across the face retracted or expanded a hidden protective helmet.  It was also made of metal, but transparent from the inside so it allowed visibility all around.

    “If you take a defensive stance and raise both arms, it will provide a shield of energy to protect you.”  Shen Rae added last.

    Meanwhile, next to Lara, Sharon took to her suit immediately.  She was outside of the closet where it was formerly stored, playing with the suit’s movement.  “May I have a rifle?”  Sharon asked politely.

    “I will supply you both with emergency weapons.  Just in case.”  Shen Rae confirmed.

    “I won’t need one.”  Lara pointed out.  “The suit is made of metal, and I have special electrical abilities.”

    “Very well.”  the Captain nodded.  “I will be a hundred feet up in this Glider, cloaked, and I’ll stay in communication with you.  It’s standard procedure, in case you’re ambushed.”

    “Wonderful.”  Sharon commented as she took a six inch long rifle from Shen Rae.  The Captain showed her how to attach it to her suit - it seemed to stick to her back magnetically.

    Then a semi-circular shining transparent curtain looking like it was made of fluid appeared just in front of the exit door, and it popped out and upward.  Being the braver of the two, Sharon raised her helmet and stepped through the curtain, and it flowed around her like a vertical pool of water.  Lara did the same and followed...and the two were outside on Shee-Yar.

    Lara turned around and watched the Glider rise and disappear into the sky, cloaked.  Her tension was eased by the fact that she sensed it was still up there.

    “Come on then, Lara, we have work to do.”  Sharon seemed excited by the prospect of being on a foreign planet full of the dead.  Lara instead was more cautious.

    After a few minutes walking, the two began to encounter mutilated bodies by what looked like the side of a rural road, with strange-looking residences all around.  Lara shuddered as she caught sight of a Shee-Yar male lying face first halfway down the ramp from his home, a trail of dried blood making it the rest of the way.

      “It’s quite spooky.”  Sharon commented in a British accented whisper.

    “Yeah.”  Lara agreed pitifully.  She was a little surprised that her voice didn’t echo behind the transparent screen of the helmet.

    Sharon drew her rifle and used it to prod one of the bodies, and then flip it over.  It had begun decaying, and was swarming with insects and larvae.  Both the women were glad they couldn’t smell it.

    “Neatly sliced torso to sternum.”  Sharon commented quietly.  “By a very sharp knife.”

    “So?”  Lara asked.  She was as much not a stranger to death as Sharon, so she wasn’t really nauseated by the scene.

    The dark-haired Brit turned to face her friend.  “So, the killer didn’t use a laser, a disruptor, or even bullets.  He used a knife...an incredibly inefficient knife, and either it was one person worked really, really fast, or a whole lot of people.  Either way we’re talking about a real psycho.  Someone who did this because he loves the hunt.”

    “A hunter?”  That word brought images to Lara’s memory, of the room at the Carnifex’ tower, decorated like a hunting lodge complete with stuffed animal heads.

    “Know someone like that?”  Sharon asked suspiciously.

    “Yeah.”  Lara whispered.  “And I’m a little freaked out about it.  The guy I’m thinking of...he has a real creepy vibe.  But he’s only one person...how could he kill so many?  Is he working with others?”

    The blonde thought about that for a moment.  There’s no way the Carnifex could kill that many in such a short time.  Even so, “If this happened because of Earth though...that could be bad.  Really bad.”

    “Intergalactic war, eh?”  Sharon commented coldly.  She then tried to calm Lara by noting, “It’s only circumstantial evidence, Lara.  I’m sure the Lair Legion knows of several bloodthirsty knife wielding psychos in the galaxy.”

    “Yeah, probably.”  Lara replied.  She didn’t sound like she believed it.  But her mind did change about something else.  “Though if it was him...the Shee-Yar were really fixated about destroying or dominating other planets...especially Earth.  I guess they could have been destroyed another way but...it had to happen, Sharon.  If it wasn’t the Carnifex it would have been our new friends, probably.”

    “Yeah.”  Sharon agreed.  “I thought about that, too, Lara.  That’s why Shen Rae wants to talk to Sir Mumphrey, I bet.  He would understand that perhaps it’s better kept secret.”  Her attention was then caught by something.  “What’s this?”  she asked.

    “Hmm?”  Lara was lost in the conversation and didn’t know where she was looking at first.  When she did, she was baffled as well.  

    They walked to an empty hole in the ground, which looked a bit like a sinkhole, except that wind was rushing into it constantly.

    “That is weird.”  Lara agreed.

    “We should go in.”  Sharon suggested.  Before Lara could object, she began climbing down.

TO BE CONTINUED?

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2008 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 

--    reprinted without permission.  

-- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow

--  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin

--  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin