"The Anti-X Encounter"
Part 3
Standing before the Blonde Plutoz was something so shiny it was throwing out reflections like the afternoon sun on a river. The dazzle felt hot on the girls' faces. They shielded their eyes.
"My goodness!" Zana exclaimed. "Somebody switch off the brightness already!"
The thing spoke with its spooky chorus of voices.
"I beg your pardon. Is my brilliance too much for you, pretty little carbonites? Do you need glare protection? Can I offer you a visor for your delicate eyes? Our droids have them-"
"That's okay," Zana said, reaching into her pocket. "We got our own. Thanks."
Her movement triggered a reaction in the troop of gunheads. Their aims sharpened. One false move away from firing. With slow and deliberate movements the girls pulled out not weapons, but cool sun shades.
"Splendid! You come equipped to see me," said the big bright object in apparent amusement.
"They come in handy offstage," Rivqua said. "For example on business meetings."
"Or on interviews with brainless members of the press," Zana added.
The ultra-shiny creature laughed. The Blonde Plutoz slipped on their rock star shades.
They gasped.
Now they could finally see what the object was. A huge spider. A giant robot arachnid. All metal and coated in flawless chrome-plating right down to the tips of its eight feet. Having approached the girls, it now stood on only three feet and the other five were busy polishing itself.
"Commander Cordyte, I presume," Rivqua said.
"Oh please, call me Miss," said the robot spider, bowing its head. "At your service. No, wrong. Old habit. It is you who are at my service now."
The six bulbous lenses that were Cordyte's eyes seemed to glint with self-satisfaction. "But more on that later. Do come in!"
Zana whispered, "She's- it's- a female!"
"Can't believe I didn't see that," Rivqua whispered back.
All eight legs were back on the floor now as the metal monster turned and clattered off. The gunheads gave the stunned girls a hard shove and they stumbled out of the elevator.
The Blonde Plutoz found themselves in an enormous office. Such as a big robot spider might call an office. All around were tall windows that flooded the place with light from the quadrant's two suns. There was no furniture. In the center of the room several large screen projections floated in mid-air.
Within a few minutes Rivqua and Zana sat on the floor, leaning against a window, cups of freshly boiled water in their hands. Commander Cordyte turned from doing something over by the screens.
"Where was I?" she said, clattering closer again. "Oh yes, the Federation. After the Federation closed this place down and everyone of your kind left, we resurrected it."
Cordyte was reflecting herself in the mirror-like chrome of one leg, and dusting the lens of one of her eyes with another. She was still polishing her backside with three other legs and had three on the floor.
Zana was impressed.
"Who's we?" Rivqua asked, blowing on the hot water.
"The technology that runs this place, that's who!"
"You mean, you're running the facility yourselves now? All you robots and droids?"
"Don't be derogatory, child," said Miss Cordyte, shifting legs. "We do a far better job than your kind ever did."
"Well that's possible, I suppose," Rivqua sort of agreed. "But why? What is it you do here now?"
"Isn't it obvious? Don't tell me Smart Nook left no lasting impression!"
"Yeah he did," said Zana. "He needs a major charm school upgrade. A bit more intelligence wouldn't hurt either."
The big gleaming spider chuckled. "Yes, but isn't he a darling though."
Rivqua dared a small sip of the hot water. "You were saying?"
"We were shut down! No need for us anymore! So they said, the fools. But beautifully clever as I am, I saw a need!"
"Automated activity for automated activity's sake?" Rivqua suggested.
"Oh you little dears, such callous lack of imagination."
Miss Cordyte's metal jaws had been moving sideways all the while she was speaking, but not in time with her words. The effect was like watching a poorly dubbed alien movie.
Now the movement stopped. The girls watched in amazement as she began to apply lip gloss to the sides of her sharp mouth. An outrageous silver-sparkly kind, that would sit well on a drum kit in any of the dives back in Megatopia City.
"Nothing of the sort!" the big spider blasted on, her choir of voices unchanged. "I saw a galaxy in upheaval! Nothing but destructive drama, everywhere! Every single quadrant has conflicts and wars within it! I tell you darlings, there's not a planetary system in the galaxy not enjoying a feisty battle or two! The destruction is positively entertaining!" Cordyte let out a little giggle and hunched her shoulders, a bunch of them.
"And by the way," added the chrome-plated spider lady, fixing her six eyes square on the girls and pointing with the oversized lipstick pen, "all that is entirely the fault of your kind..."
Stay tuned for Part 4 of "The Anti-X Encounter"!
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