Kilroy Owns the Night: Day 20 (Exuberant)
Vrex lunged at Max. Gorpl lunged at me. This struck me as an equitable distribution of violence, although I would have preferred none. I ducked beneath Gorpl’s talons and introduced his face to a dangling frying pan. It made a satisfying bong.
“Unhand my cookware!” he shrieked.
Max fired his blaster. The bolt missed Vrex, vaporized a cupboard, and released approximately six hundred packets of cream of celery soup. The soup packets burst underfoot, coating the floor in beige ick that smelled like a nursing home cafeteria on Tuesday. Vrex let out an exuberant war cry and tackled him into a pile of laundry. I assumed it was laundry. Something in the pile waved at me. I reached for my Multiblaster.
“Everybody freeze!”
Nobody froze.
Then somebody behind us said, “I wouldn't bother asking nicely.”
Mercury Quasar stood in the hatchway, chewing gum and holding a blaster in each hand. I had never seen anything more beautiful, including the time I watched Dennis DeYoung hit a high note on television.
“Mercury!” I said. “Perfect timing.”
“Looks like terrible timing.”
“Okay, it’s not great timing.”
She aimed at the Herpezoids. “Vrex. Gorpl. You're coming with me.”
Gorpl stopped trying to eat my shoulder.
“Who hired you?” Vrex demanded.
“Somebody with money.”
Max emerged from the laundry, his weapon trained on Mercury.
“Put those down.”
She blew a bubble. “Make me.”
Four blasters. Two Herpezoids. One Encyclopedia. And me, standing between everybody with a frying pan. Oh yeah, now it was a party.
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