May as well post that Celling story I've been hyping for a while now.
Jacob Eldin steps off the boat first, descending off a metal ramp onto the white sandy beach. Armen DeMarco follows suit soon enough.
Wenton Celling approaches from the path cut into the neighboring woods, emerging from the underbrush as he rounds a turn. He holds his hands up to show that he is unarmed.
“Who the hell are you?” shouts Jacob.
“My name’s Lieutenant Wenton Celling. I declined to fire on your stolen vessel when I had the chance. If not for me, you and all the hostages would be dead.”
“So you’re here to bargain them out, I assume,” Eldin scoffed.
“That’s right. I get that you don’t like the Southern Republic - to be frank, I don’t care much for that festival of fools myself. But those sailors are innocent, Eldin. They didn’t sign up for this.”
Eldin laughed. “They signed up with the Republic.”
“They signed up to take an aging ship carrying a high-priority cargo across the Drake Passage. They didn’t sign up to be gagged and threatened and dragged on a week-long boat trip with a traitor and a rebel. They had no part in getting you captured.”
Armen was getting bored with all this, so she looked around. For some reason she kept focusing on the dunes. Something’s not right… she felt. An odd chill ran down her spine.
It was at that moment that Erin Quill stepped out from behind a dune, wielding a crossbow. Before there was time to react he raised it up to his shoulder, put his finger on the trigger, and-
Captain Celling’s ship, two hours prior. Conversation with Erin Quill over the radio.
“We have limited but workable knowledge about forces that seem to permeate every event in our universe and that appear to knowingly hold sway over the very essence of the reality that we experience. We thus focus on a particular possible turn of events and manipulate it to our ends.”
Erin Quill delivered this long spiel through the radio to Wenton Celling while he was cruising towards the estimated landing site of Jacob Eldin. Celling summarized it in a more succinct way.
“We’re going to use a weaponized cliche.”
“Exactly,” Quill answered. “A particular possible event. A main character is about to be shot and a supporting character leaps in front of the projectile. Events in this universe will tend to include this event if we properly manipulate the ones before and after it.”
Armen DeMarco hit the ground with a thud, a red splotch of blood forming on her shirt. She cried out in pain, the shaft of the arrow sticking up out from her chest.
Jacob Eldin saw Quill’s bolt drive toward its mark, saw Armen realize it and push him down, watched as she took the arrow that was meant for him. Watched as it hit her squarely in the heart, watched as she fell motionless onto the sand.
Eldin jumped up, screamed, and knelt down toward her face. “Please don’t die, please don’t-” Her jaw was already slack, her features distorted with pain.
Jacob suddenly whirled as if possessed toward Celling, shakily aiming his pistol at his head.
“Notice. She needs to notice. She needs to realize something’s not right. What do you remember about Ensign DeMarco?”
Celling thought for a moment. “Argentinien? I knew her when I was little.”
Erin Quill paused thoughtfully. “Your relationship in your younger days?”
Celling considered his options for a moment before answering, “We dated.”
Quill sat bolt upright at this. “And you parted in what way?”
“She left me at the end of high school. We went to different universities. Never saw her again until the Eldin mission.”
“Yes, yes, that would be… predictable. Did you part on amicable terms by any chance?”
“No. No, sir.”
“Alright then. So what doesn’t she like?”
“Being ignored,” Celling answered immediately. “She wants her opinion known.”
“Ah. And what will she happen to look at, if she feels slighted by, say, you totally not mentioning her during your conversation?”
Celling thought about this too. “She grew up near the beach. She’ll look at the sand dunes. But how can you be sure she’ll look just as you stand up?”
“Don’t worry!” Erin Quill answered. “A plot always works.”
“You did this,” Jacob snarled. “You lying, sniveling-”
“Calm down, Jacob, he had nothing to do with it. It was me,” boomed Erin Quill’s voice from across the dune. He was out of cover now, striding rapidly toward the fugitive, cloak flapping in the wind. Jacob twitched spasmodically, jerking his head to face Quill before swiveling around to point the gun at him.
“You killed her.”
“Yes, I did,” Quill answered, his voice maddening in its evenness.
Behind Jacob, Armen choked and took her last breath before everything went dark.
“Please be assured, she won’t actually die,” Quill reassured Eldin.
“Uhh, alright,” he answered. “So why are we going to all this trouble in order to make her look dead?”
“The entire object of this was to capture Armen. We have to set everything up in a way that makes it look like she should be dead. Trick the plot into doing what we want.”
Celling considered that. “And just what are you going to use to get this done?”
“Chemistry,” came the answer. “For a couple of years now I've been studying the toxic creatures of Brazil. We'll combine a bee sting extract with, say, a paralytic dart frog neurotoxin..”
“OK, wait, what?” said Celling, eager to get to the good part.
“We shoot her with a tranquilizer dart, only it hurts like hell too,” Quill concluded. “The head will be hollow and have an explosive charge inside to both drive the dart in and destroy the head, spraying red liquid everywhere. It’ll be pointed enough to make an actual wound, so there will be believable blood. She thinks she’s dead, Jacob Eldin thinks she’s dead, she’s not dead.”
“You killed her,” Eldin repeated again. “You had this guy -” he once again jerked his hand around to aim at Eldin - “You had him distract me so you could shoot me.” His face contorted into a savage, insane smile. “And who cares who got in the way, eh?”
“Drop your weapon!” came several voices from the top of the nearest hill. Several policemen came running down the hill. “We have you surrounded. Come with your hands up and nobody needs to get hurt.”
Eldin glanced up at the men charging at him, then sprung away from Celling and Quill and ran back to the boat. As he escaped, Quill walked briskly up to Armen’s side and took her pulse. He whispered, “Still alive,” to Celling before jumping up and waving his arms at Jacob’s rapidly receding boat.
“I win!” he shouted. He proceeded to turn and duck as a bullet inevitably soared over his head. He leaped up as soon as it passed. “Stop wasting ammo!” he shouted at Jacob as he left. Jacob fired another shot, but was long out of range at this point.
Several of the soldiers dragged Armen away on a stretcher. “And the hostages?” Quill asked of the police commander.
“We got them off safely. As you suspected, they left the back door to the boat unguarded. They’re unharmed.”
“So. See, Celling? I win.”
Celling tapped his foot. “Eldin is still out there.”
Erin Quill replied, “I told you, the plot armor won’t allow us to capture or even harm him right now. He’s too important to be lost halfway through the rising action. What we can do is to make the plot pay for every second he lives.” He caught sight of Celling’s worried expression and said, “He’s not that dangerous anymore. He’s friendless and alone - we caught the grandfather and the kid as well. Come on, let’s get all these people back to base.”
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Topic: (SG) SPAMOVERLORD: Epilogue: Guest Week (Read 287834 times)