Snow White and the Red Queen

Snow White emerged from her sleep and let out a big yawn. A bluebird fluttered onto her shoulder.

"Hello, little one," she said, before quickly crushing it with her fist and walking over to the cauldron where her new friends the dwarves were boiling shoe leather.

"Ah! We'll be a feastin' ta' day, laddies," said the silver-bearded and bespectacled Doc upon seeing Snow with the bird.

"Aye. And some more o' that entertainment ta' night, I spect," the stocky, swarthy-skinned Lusty replied, giving her a slap on the butt. She yelped.

"Haven't eaten this good since 'fore the queen took all the harvest!" shouted Haughty. He was the youngest of the dwarves, with a small, neatly groomed black beard. "I heard tell she burned the better half of it. Said it was good for us!"

"Wicked bitch will get hers one day, I swear it by the nine moons!" cried the red-bearded Angry.

"Shh!" Doc pleaded, "Someone might hear." He looked around nervously. There was nothing but trees and more woodland animals.

They were joined for breakfast by the other dwarves, and after the feast they went to the mines.

Snow White joined them as she had every morning since first meeting them, when they sang, "Hi, ho! Hi, ho! It's off to work we go! Sweat in the sun--Then have some fun!"

All eight of them worked hard in the mines, pounding away at the rock and dragging out precious gems for the fatherland.

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"Mirror, mirror, on the door," intoned the Red Queen, "who holds positions like the Moor?

"Snow White," the Mirror replied, a gleaming white smile like that of the Cheshire Cat twisted upon its face.

"She lives?" the queen ignored his impudence.

"Of course. Would you like to see where?"

"Yes! Show me."

"Very well." The light upon the mirror's surface twisted and contorted further--until it seemed to swallow itself up with its own smile. Then an image suddenly appeared. There was a high tower with a lone window. On the grass below was a handsome man sitting upon a horse. Sound emanated off the mirror, at first a squeaking, then a vibrating hum which gradually lowered in pitch. Soon human voices were audible.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!" cried the handsome man.

"I can't!" she shouted in reply.

"Why not?" he appeared perplexed.

"I cut it!" she answered.

"What? Why? What were you thinking?"

"It's the new fashion! All the rage in Frankfurt, I'm told."

"But it looks ugly!"

Suddenly the sounds and imagery vanished. The only thing still reflected in the mirror was the sharp-jawed emerald-eyed queen holding a heavy, red velvet backed chair over her head as she prepared to smash the mirror.

"My queen!" cried the mirror, "You don't need any more bad luck... and frankly, neither do I."

"Then tell me where Snow White is," the queen seethed, setting down the chair momentarily.

"Fine. But be warned... actually, there's nothing to warn you about; I've just always wanted to say that. She's working in a gem mine at 48 degrees latitude north, 37 degrees longitude east. Now pass the Windex, if you please. I think someone popped a zit on me while I was sleeping."

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"Would you like an apple, dearie?" the old hag asked the plump young dwarf.

"Very much miss; please be givin' it ta' me."

"Not so fast. First you must do something for me."

"I'll do anythin' ya want, darlin'. Just ask."

"Alright, dearie, but it won't be easy..."

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Gluttony the dwarf stood over the corpse of Snow White; he had strangled her to death. The other dwarves wouldn't be happy about this... but at least he would have his apple.

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"Mirror, mirror, on the door," intoned the queen, "did he finally kill the whore?"

"Who?" asked the mirror.

"Snow White," the queen said angrily.

"Ah! Yes. She's dead as a doornail. Speaking of nails and doors, my back is killing me. Would you mind..."

"Mirror, mirror, on the door," intoned the queen.

"Stop that! You don't have to say a little rhyme every time, you know. Now what do you want to know?"

"Who holds positions like..."

"...the Moor. Yes, yes, it's the same every time. And every time I tell you it's not you, you get upset and threaten to break something in a temper tantrum. Usually me. Although in the end you'll just break some heads."

"And whose head shall I break?"

"The head of whomever you want."

She picked up the chair.

"...Or if you want a name..."

"I want a name."

"Doc."

"Who is 'Doc'?"

"A dwarf. Snow White taught him everything she knew about theory in the past few weeks. He learned very quickly... for a dwarf. Ugly little people. Disgusting." The mirror seemed lost in thought for a moment, then it said, "Listen, I've already passed the relevant information on to the head of the KB Toys, or whatever you call them, ask him for it. I've got some work to do forgetting the dance moves someone was trying in front of me earlier. Do you have any idea how many ugly people think they look good naked? Maybe it would be better if you just shattered me. Then again, there is the occasional attractive person..."

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The bespectacled silver-bearded dwarf opened the cottage door and peered out at the tall old hag. "Yes?" he asked.

She did not answer at first, but merely held up a fresh piece of produce.

"Looks mighty tasty," said the dwarf. "I don't suppose I could have a bite?"

Still, she did not answer. She brought the food--a carrot--to her mouth, taking a large bite, and then as she crunched away, said, "What's up, Doc?"

Doc never saw his long-time friend, Haughty, behind him. Nor did he see the pick-axe.

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Returning from killing the last dwarf, for each dwarf had taught theory to another, and she had needed to make many trips because the mirror had not informed her there was another each time until she returned. Finally she simply had all ten thousand dwarves in the region killed. No dwarf, no problem.

"Are there any other threats I should know about?" she asked the mirror, more than a little irate.

"Not really..." he paused, then added, "...well, there is one, but it will be a couple years before you have to worry about that. And of course there is the inevitable collapse of this corrupt and economically incoherent system that is wicked in the eyes of the Lord, and your inexorable descent into hell. But other than that..."

She gave him the chair.

Don't Metal With Rock Folk: Or "Usher III"

Captain Jean-Luc Picard walked across the dance floor, dodging the dancing dullards attending the damnable concert. "Disconcert" was more apt for such dissonant drivel. On his ship no less. None of it was real, of course, but it still maddened him to see it; the only sound truly produced was the constant, calculated rhythm of his footsteps on the holodeck floor. He maintained a cold, outward dispassion as he prepared to confront the stowaway.

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It wasn't so long ago that Orpheus was enjoying life on the underground music scene. That was before the Suits invaded. Federation thugs had graced their hush-hush production community with a visit; they who worked the factories in the underbelly of an empire that denied their very existence. They kept the empire running on good, clean energy by toiling in the grease and muck to produce the illusion of prosperity. All they asked in return was to keep the anti-rock raids to a minimum. They were denied even this.

Orpheus, who worked in an electronics factory by day, was by night a rocker nostalgic for the earth that was--before they ruined it with a splash of Lysol and coat of paint, that is--trying to make some extra ration stamps from the crowd. He had the misfortune of being on stage when the Feds burst in. A girl yelled, "You can't stop us. We're going to rock around the--"

The Suit commander yelled, "Set phasers to kiiiill!" and his men shot her down. The crowd was unable to appreciate the irony that her father worked in a phaser production factory. As the commander turned his eyes toward the stage, Orpheus' band, perhaps realizing there was no way out, began to play music as Orpheus sang that they weren't going to take it.

After the next phaser shot the audience ran. The guitarist was sizzling on the floor and Orpheus dove backstage. Before anyone could catch him he had already slipped out the back door of the club and was on his through the narrow alley behind it on his way home. That is when he ran, literally, into the Suit commander. While his men finished the rest of the band it appears he had slipped back out the door.

Both men fell to the ground. Orpheus tried to get back up and continue running, but the commander had his shirt. "Let go!" he screamed. Then, turning around, he fought back. He kicked and hit and bit and wrestled the phaser out of the commander's hand, which went skidding across the pavement. So instead Orpheus pounded the commander's head into the wet ground until his grip finally loosened. But then he kept pounding. For what seemed several minutes, but was probably significantly less than one. When he stood up the commander was dead. And so was any hope of going home again. Ever. The DNA he had left behind; skin, sweat, and--although then he could feel no cuts--surely blood as well. He would have to keep running.

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The stowaway and saboteur, Orpheus was what he called himself, had requested the interrogation in the holodeck: the very place he'd sabotaged. It was a risk to grant the request, but none of their interrogation techniques had worked thus far, and Orpheus promised to cooperate fully if he was given the proper tool to explain his grand plan. This made it a calculated risk as far as Captain Picard was concerned.

"Now," he began, "What are you doing on my ship?"

"Sabotaging it."

It was honest enough. So far he appeared to be, true to his word, coming clean. Not very useful, but honest. Picard thought he would see how long that would last.

"And why is that?" he studied carefully the captured Orpheus, bound to a holodeck-formed chair.

"Revenge."

Again, he seemed honest. Very well. Captain Picard would put this to the ultimate test.

"And, other than this dreadful nonsense that took us hours to stop from looping on the holodeck, what kind of sabotage?"

"Ah. Now this is the fun part," the bound Orpheus began. "I may not belong in this pretty, shiny world of yours, but your world doesn't deserve to exist in my universe."

"So you're going to destroy it?" Picard was wondering if letting him into the holodeck had been a bad idea.

"Yes."

"Don't you think that's a tad immature?"

"At least I don't think I can create a perfect world."

"But you wish to destroy one?"

"This," Orpheus looked around the room, "is hardly perfect. It's not the end of the world, just the end of your world. I wish there was some other way, I really do. But we can't rewind, we've gone too far," he looked at the rock scene he'd looped, still playing silently off to the side. "This tape will self-destruct in five minutes, give or take. But first I want you to know why. Freedom." With that last word his hardened holographic bonds and chair dissolved.

"Clever, but I still have this," Picard pulled out his phaser.

"The ship will blow if my heart stops beating."

"There's always a way out," said Picard.

"Propaganda. You, a hero of the Federation, never did half of what you claim."

"Maybe so. But I still don't see what I've done to harm you," Picard circled cautiously toward the panel where he could rip out the holodeck wiring.

"You're no different from the Borg. All you Suits and your shiny ships want is to assimilate everyone to your way of thinking. Your way of dressing. Your way of living. Your way of being."

"I hate to let you in on a little secret," said Picard, "But the Borg don't exist; that is propaganda as well."

"And I love to let you in on a little secret; this conversation is being broadcast to the entire earth."

Picard jolted. "I don't believe you," he said finally after more inching toward the panel.

"I don't need you to, O Captain, my Captain..." Orpheus gave a crisp salute and an explosion from the holodeck burst outward, causing the entire Enterprise to spread silently out into space as so much shrapnel.



Epilogue: The Conversation on the Edge of Forever

Picard entered--no, strode into the room with such confidence. He had an imperceptible swagger about him. Like a genteel condescension, he did not deign to parade his arrogance about like the common man, but merely carried it. This only made the cold, follically-challenged bastard seem even more conceited.

"Well, well; you're back. I never thought I'd see you again."

"And you seem your old self," Orpheus replied. "Just like in the propaganda. Confident. Charming to some. Cruel to others."

"Propaganda?" Picard laughed jovially for the first time Orpheus ever saw. "I told you there is always a way out, didn't I?"

"Out?" Orpheus laughed in turn. "We're finally in."

"What do you mean?" Picard's sharp eyes pierced his own questioningly.

"Well," Orpheus explained, "This holodeck has no limitations."

"I assure you it does. Propaganda, remember." Picard seemed no longer worried that anything would be broadcast to anyone.

"Tell me..." Orpheus paused.

"Yes? What?" it was a friendly inquiry.

"Tell me something... anything... something that I might not know."

"The number of things you don't know could be written on the stars, my young friend."

"Tell me more."

"Alright. Now this one's going to sound strange to you, but..." he began to laugh. Orpheus assumed it must have been pretty funny, for Picard laughed so hard that he had tears in his eyes before he could say, "I just want you to know that video did not, in fact, kill the radio star."

Orpheus gave the matter some thought. He wanted to say 'I know, but it's the principle,' but that wasn't right. Finally he understood, however, and could earnestly say, "You know a lot more about the past then you let on, Captain Beatty."

Picard smiled wanly, knowingly, and answered, "It hurt me."

"Weren't good enough?" Orpheus retorted.

"Maybe. But you know as much as I about hurting that which you love."

"I don't love you."

"You loved me once. Believed the propaganda. And now we'll spend Forever together."

"Nietzsche?"

"I am interesting, aren't I?"

"Perhaps," Orpheus admitted, "But this..." he glanced into the abyss--a gaping black hole swallowing the holodeck--and said, "...This is where we part."

"Goodbye," said Picard, unafraid, as he watched Orpheus exit the holodeck--that door opening and closing itself one last time. Disappointment was all the old Captain betrayed, and this only by a hollow look in his eyes that reverberated around him as he fidgeted slightly, as if trekking for a purpose. If purpose wasn't between the stars, maybe it was in them. Picard leapt into the expanding maw of the pit and hurtled down toward the blinding fire at its center.

Nuke'em

PZZT. An Expander blast singed the left side of his blond crew cut, and nearly damaged his dark sunglasses as well. He pivoted around--BLAM!--firing off a shot into the creature's brain. The pink, many-tentacled monstrosity fell unceremoniously to the ground.

"That's one," said the red vest, blue jeans and boot-clad soldier. He had survived the crash. Which wasn't a surprise to him. It took more than a little heat to take down--

Another Expander blast. He returned fire.

"Two."

The hard-bitten gun-toting warrior made his way along the spiderweb lay out of the concrete-tunneled base, walking briskly despite the weight of the ammo, several guns, and his personal luggage, which he carried over one shoulder in a small-but-hefty black bag.

The eastern corridors, at least that's the direction his map gave them, had already been demolished by the Kalmari. Their mistake. He smirked. They had cut their points of entry by a third, and if he could make it back to the center of the web...

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The Kalmari had destroyed the rockets and communications equipment before he arrived, leaving him stranded. So naturally, he had salvaged the short-range communication equipment off the lagging Kalmari fighter that had welcomed him and sent out a distress signal to the nearby Kalmari fleet. It read: Help. Earth sends destroyers. Battleship. To retrieve weap-- it fizzled out. Suspecting a trap, the Kalmari proceeded with caution, and he used that time to prepare.

He hadn't expected the difficulty. It turned out that the Kalmari attack on the base had caused an--ironically--automatic reversion to manual controls. This made it impossible to open the sealed titanium doors to the base weapons' cache, because the control for the door was behind tons of rubble, and therefore he wouldn't have access to high-powered explosives. Unless, he had realized, he could get some rocket fuel. And there was no fuel left at the CHICK (Cuisine Haute Inter-Cosmic Kitchen) Base.

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Mission accomplished. Kalmari fighters were equipped with personal DNA encryption, so flying away after the fleet landed was never an option. On the other hand, he knew how to siphon a tank. Waiting outside the base in hiding as the fleet landed, he managed to carry away one hundred kilograms of rocket fuel from one of their fighters on a wheelbarrow. Of course by then several dozen Kalmari troops were already inside the base and he had to fight his way toward his goal. Which is where he found himself now, with two--no, make that three--of the enemy down, and who knows how many to go. Not to mention the thousands preparing to enter the base.

"Four," he said, pausing to wipe the sweat off his brow. He opened the door to a supply closet and took one canister of fuel, about fifteen kg, and wired it to the detonator he had prepared earlier. That would lighten his load a little.

He continued along the corridor and into the next, he wired another canister in another supply closet and repeated the process again and again until all but one was gone. He dropped the wheelbarrow, and several more Kalmari, and hurriedly carried the remaining canister toward the center of the base.

At the center lie the reactor core. The Nuclear reactor core. The video monitor showed hundreds of Kalmari flooding the corridors. He clicked the red button of his detonator. The camera went dead.

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Now there was only one tunnel leading to the reactor core. They would all have to come through it. Several hundred were dead already, but there were at least two thousand left. How many of those their leaders were willing to throw at him remained to be seen. He lit the corridor up with his chain gun. The rounds shredded the approaching Kalmari and little bits of pink flesh plastered the walls. Only a few dozen had died when he ran out of chain gun ammo. He pulled out his rocket propelled grenade launcher and cleared out the remaining two dozen and prepared for the second wave. By the third wave he was out of rockets and switched to his shotgun, and was throwing pipe bombs. He had run out of shotgun rounds by the fifth wave, and after taking out the sixth wave with his dual sub machine guns only had one pipe bomb and a single round left in his pistol. That round he would save for the last. For now he backed into the reactor room and shut the blast door. But first he called out the challenge, “Come and get some, you bunch of pink pussies!”

After a little while a drilling sound came from just outside the door; they knew better than to try to use explosives here. He ignored their attempts for the time being and opened the black bag containing the few personal belongings he had brought with him to the base. Inside the bag was another gun, as well as a box of cigars. He lit one up.

Looking at the door, he said, “What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

Just then an air vent above him blew off and a Kalmari marine landed right behind him, grasping his throat and arms with its many tentacles. His cigar fell to the ground. He fought back. Pulling a tentacle away from his throat so he could breathe, he said, “What are you? Some bottom-feeding, scum-sucking, algae-eater?” He brandished only his pistol and a Bowie Knife; the other gun was still in his bag. Cutting one tentacle, he plied himself free and threw the Kalmari marine into the reactor room controls.

The creature quickly regained its tentacling. He stared at him intensely with its one large eye, and said, “Surrender, human.”

“That all you got?” he barked.

“There are thousands of us and only one of you,” the Kalmari marine pointed out.

“Not in here there ain’t. It's down to you and me, you one-eyed freak!” he lunged.

The creature deftly sprung aside, but he was even quicker; he had feinted, and now he about-faced, knocking the butt of his knife into the Kalmari soldier’s giant rubbery head. The soldier fell down and he kicked it several times before quickly tying its tentacles together in knots. Then he grabbed a piece of paper off the reactor console.

“Now,” he said to his dizzied foe, “We’re going to compose a letter.”

To the office of the President of the United States:

In the unlikely event that I don’t survive, he began, dipping a pen he had found into the Kalmari marine’s ink.

“You will never survive!

He jabbed it in the eye with the butt of his knife and then continued, I want you to make sure these bastards never cause us any trouble again. Make them all fry.

Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride!

He folded up the note and hid it in a small heat-proof safe in the reactor room. “Time to turn up the heat,” he said, just as the blast door began to give way. A flood of Kalmari was about to descend upon him. Nevertheless, he maintained his cool. Removing the gun from his black bag—it was bulky and yellow—he then walked to the reactor console and typed a series of numbers into the control panel and an alarm went off. He fired the gun this way and that, a cool blue lightening issuing forth from its tip, until the whole room was surrounded in ice. “Freeze-ray, never leave home without it,” he remarked.

He proceeded from the walls to the floor; blanketing the room, and stepping back further and further toward the center of the room until only he and the Kalmari marine were not frozen over. “Want me to put you on ice?” he asked, pulling out his detonator. He clicked the red button, blowing the final canister of rocket fuel—the explosion could just be heard half way across the base.

“What did you just do??!!” the marine asked.

“I blew the water reservoir. It’s going to mix with the overheated reactor core and bring this whole base to a boil.”

“But we’re in the reactor core!” the marine protested.

“Again…” he ignored the marine’s fear, “…Want me to put you on ice?”

“Y-yes,” the Kalmari warrior decided it would be for the best after all. “But it won’t work! It can’t work.”

“Which part?” he said as he froze the marine. “Nevermind,” he wiped the sweat off his brow. “Damn. It’s getting hot in here.” He froze himself as well, throwing his last pipe bomb at the blast door and detonating it just as he was enveloped by the cool, blue ice. The reservoir water and hundreds of Kalmari troops flooded in and shortly began to boil.

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He shattered the thin layer of ice surrounding him that hadn't melted yet when the reactor core performed the shutdown he had pre-programmed. "Told you it would work," he said to the stirring Kalmari marine. It found that he was right and also, to its horror, that its dead, boiled brothers were floating in the now knee-deep receding reservoir waters. Its tentacles were still tied together as well.

He left the room. He didn't come back for several minutes, and when he did he carried a six pack of beers and a big tub of butter in his arms. He sat down next to the marine and began to eat one of its brethren. "If only they were so tough when they were alive," he remarked. He added a generous portion of butter with his Bowie Knife. "Mmm. That's better." He looked over at the living Kalmari, "You want some of this?"

The marine quavered with a mixture of fear and disgust.

He ignored it and opened a beer. "So long before they send more men in, do you figure?"

Suppressing his desire to regurgitate with some difficulty, the marine answered, "You and your entire species will die soon."

"Not the way I figure it. They probably think I'm dead already. Won't come back in this base. On the other hand, I suspect I have enough DNA samples here to fly one of those fighters back to earth. Not to mention to keep my stomach satisfied as well." He opened another beer, belching and throwing the empty first bottle crashing against the reactor console. "Did you know the only part of your people that isn't edible is the beak?"

"Are you going to eat me too?"

"Hell no. Have plenty of cooked Kalmari already. Just thought I'd keep you around to pass the time. But you aren't much of a conversationalist. Then again, neither am I..." he chuckled and stood up. Swallowing the last of a Kalmari arm, he retrieved and lit a new cigar from the box on the other side of the room and, returning, pulled out his pistol. Cocking it, he stared the Kalmari marine in the eye, and said, "Nobody steals our CHICKs... and lives." An ink blot splattered across the still-frozen floor.

~Now for some much-deserved R&R


Dedicated to 3D Realms. Now get your asses in gear.