He had to act fast.
Karnage tugged the glowing Nucleus from its holder, the Intelligence still screaming in his head.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He grabbed the discarded rocket. He picked up his goober gun and aimed it at the floor. He fired.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He dipped the tip of the rocket into the expanding ball of goober and pulled out a gooey glob. He slapped the Nucleus into the goober before it solidified.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
With a final crackle, the goober hardened, gluing the Nucleus to the tip of the rocket. Karnage reloaded the rocket into the launcher. He locked the helmet back onto his suit, then slung both the goober rifle and rocket launcher firmly over each shoulder.
“THE WARRR! THE WARRR!”
He grabbed the energy spear, and with the last of the Intelligence’s memories, fired it at one of the translucent hatches. The energy ball vaporized the grey translucent film.
Then the vortex of space sucked him out of the ship.
Karnage spun through the black. He let go of the spear, and pulled the goober rifle from his shoulder. He pointed the rifle in the opposite direction of his spin, and fired several rounds. He slowed down to a gentle twirl. He dropped the goober rifle, and pulled the rocket launcher off his other shoulder. He brought the sight up to his visor.
He waited until his slow spin put the flashing red cross-hair over the glowing orb of the sun, then fired.
He flew backward as the rocket shot forward, carrying the frenetically glowing Nucleus towards the sun. Some vestige of the Intelligence’s psyche reminded him about gravity wells and fusion and only being able to convert energy rather than destroying it. But at this point, so much of the Intelligence was gone from his psyche that it all just sounded like bullshit to him.
Karnage aimed a middle finger in the direction of the disappearing rocket.
“Burn in hell, monkeyfucker,” he said.
CHAPTER TEN
Karnage drifted through the pitch black of space. Tiny stars glittered in the distance.
He closed his eyes.
Whatever happened from here on in, he couldn’t give a shit. To hell with the Sanity Patch. To hell with the Dabney Corporation, the Nagasaki Treaties, and the whole goddamn planet.
He’d saved his friends.
Victory was finally his.
There was nothing left to do but drift through space until he was dead.
And that was all right by Major Karnage.
EPILOGUE
A voice crackled across the intercom. “Major? Are you awake?” Karnage opened his eyes. The infinite black stared down at him, blinking with a thousand pin-sized eyes of light. One of the lights grew bigger. It winked at him. “Cookie? Is that you?”
“It is, Major.”
The light in the distance grew bigger. “Am I dead?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” Cookie said.
“Where are you?”
“Same place I was before. Except now I’m in space, coming for you.”
The glittering light grew brighter, and slowly resolved into multiple smaller lights. Karnage could make out the faint outline of a massive saucer-shaped ship. He watched it grow larger as it approached.
“I thought I was gonna die out here,” Karnage said. “I figured it was inevitable.”
“Nothing’s really inevitable.”
“I guess.” The lights grew closer. Karnage took a deep breath, then let it out. “Cookie?”
“Yes, Major?”
“I think we won.”
“I think you’re right,” Cookie said.
The ship’s dark outline grew larger, overtaking Karnage’s vision. The only stars he could see now were the artificial ones flickering and pulsing across the ship. They were all white.
“What the hell am I gonna do with myself now?” Karnage said. The lights coalesced together into a single spot of light. It flooded Karnage’s vision, bathing him in soft white.
“You’ll think of something,” Cookie said. “You always do.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Sandra and Brett. I would never have found the courage to commit this story to paper without them.
Thanks also to Maxwell Atoms for Spragmos Industries, hoverballs, shark fin hair, and teaching me everything I could ever want to know about trepanation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Most of Gord’s previous writing experience has been in television, but please don’t hold that against him. He has written for The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne. He is the prolific author of one short story, one half of a novella, and this book. He lives in Halton Hills with his wife, Alicia Land.
Copyright
ChiZine Publications
FIRST EDITION
Major Karnage © 2010 by Gord Zajac
Cover artwork © 2010 Erik Mohr
Cover design © 2010 Corey Lewis
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Major Karnage / Gord Zajac.
ISBN 978-0-9813746-6-6
I. Title.
PS8649.A39M35 2010 C813’.6 C2010-902883-X
CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
Toronto, Canada
Edited by Helen Marshall
Copyedited and proofread by Brett Alexander Savory
MK numbers 1-4 originally published by Kelp Queen Press