“I thought we might speak again soon,” Eschaton says. “You are no doubt angry, but listen to me a while and I think you will change your mind about all of this.”
“I want her back. Now.”
Eschaton ignores my words. They leave my lips and slide off his greasy skin, leaving him beaming with a dangerous grin. Dangerous for him, that is. I am a king. My greatest aptitude is that of possessing and ruling, and he just took away my very last possession, not to mention the love of my life. I have never been as dangerous to anyone as I am to him right now.
“Walk with me, Rex. Let’s talk. I have a proposal I think you’ll agree to.”
I think I’m going to kill him in the most satisfying way possible.
He leads me out onto the catwalks which run the length and breadth of the Dinodome. On open days, thousands of aliens wander these same pathways, looking down at the false world below, the one that was my prison, and Kristine’s personal hell. I feel a certain sense of nostalgia as I look down and see the tops of the canopy so many miles below. It’s like flying, but you’re walking. I can see how this view alone would give a weak ego delusions of grandeur.
Eschaton is rich, and insulated from the consequences of most of his actions. But not this one.
“Her contract clearly stated that if she failed to provide adequate advertising revenue, she would be returned to the simulation and forced to survive against greater and greater odds. It was all laid out very clearly.
“She never signed or agreed to any contract.”
“Of course not. It was a sub clause of your contract. I told you to make certain she was good and entertaining, but you decided to allow her the luxury of disobedience one time too many.”
He’s trying to blame me for this. I was supposed to break her will, destroy her spirit, and turn her into a revenue tool for him. He still believes that I work for him. He thinks everybody and everything works for him.
“That is unfortunate,” I say.
Eschaton turns to me with the biggest, smarmiest smile on his face. He is a creature who has come to believe that the natural laws of consequence do not apply to him. He has run this corrupt and cruel company, far larger than any historical or contemporary kingdom, for longer than he has any right to. Now he believes he is untouchable, even when within arm’s reach.
He has lost his fear, and that is the last thing anybody, anywhere, can afford to do. He stands on these catwalks, surveying the Dinodome as a cruel god might, believing himself to be immune from all the forces of nature. Including gravity. And me.
Twelve
Kristine
ARRRGGGHHH! ARRRHHHHHHGGHHGHGHH! EEERRRRRGHHHH!
The sound starts like a thin whine and grows to a slightly louder cry. It draws my attention, mostly because it comes from above me. I look up to see that something is falling from the sky. Something that seems small at first, a little dark dot.
Ever since the whole thing where a massive dinosaur god tried to crush us with meteors raining from the heavens, I’ve gotten used to watching the sky for falling debris, so I make sure to get the hell away from it as much as I can. It’s actually really hard to tell if something is overhead or not when you’re running from it and it’s still pretty high up.
I don’t have to wait very long to find out what it is. Terminal velocity is unforgiving, but it comes with super quick delivery.
FWOMP!
That is the sound of a body hitting sand. It’s a heavy, wet, gross, splitting sound. I do not recommend it.
I almost don’t want to look, but I have to, in case it is someone I care about. The only one I care about.
Oh, thank god. It’s not anybody I care about. It’s someone I the opposite of care about.
It’s Eschaton.
He is very dead.
This is unexpectedly satisfying. And I think I just got my protein ration for months on end if I carve him up into little…
GREEAWWWRRR!
A small raptor swoops in right in front of me and grabs the body. It is followed by another half dozen little raptors who turn Eschaton into their own personal protein rations. Easy come, easy go. By leaping atop Tyche, I am able to avoid becoming dessert. Dinosaurs don’t actually see you as an easy meat source when you’re perched atop a different dinosaur.
“See ya, Eschaton.”
I wonder what this means. Eschaton was the one running this entire show. If someone has killed him, am I about to be set free? Has Rex saved me from the torture of solitary existence in a world where everything wants to use my bones as toothpicks? I don’t want to get my hopes up, but they’re very much erect right now.