[Dick exhaled, his voice widening, deepening, like he was about to read a will to two idiots]“Long story short…
Ma Dong-Rho‘s order was simple:
these two fucked-up morons
had to head into the Zone of Avoidance.Not out of it—where even creatures with a basic brain try to escape…
but into it, where even idiot logic starts whispering: ‘The hell with that.’Destination point—VY Canis Majoris.
A red hypergiant.A monstrous, pulsing, glowing cosmic motherfucker,
buried deep inside the Zone of Avoidance…“
[Jackie breathed softly into the mic, like she was about to start a lecture—but Dick cut in, raising his hands]“…Baby, I know… you’d break it down right now—dust, extinction, scattering,
all that beautiful science stuff—but don’t worry.
Dick’ll explain it the Reddick way.Short version:
VY CMa is a beast.
According to Jackie’s notes—radius up to several thousand Sol.
Yeah.Our Sun, next to it, is a glowing little bitch.
Like a bathroom light somebody forgot to turn off.And it’s not just big—
it’s unstable. Violent. Pulsing like it’s got a goddamn mental condition.One moment it flares so hard you go blind mid-flight.
Next moment it throws mass into space so violently your retinas burn out—
and you’re just happy the rest of your face is still there.And now the real question any sane gremlin would ask:
‘Why the hell are these two trash-ass idiots
always sent to the most fucked-up places in existence?!’Simple answer:
‘The people running corporations are just as fucked.’
To hide from the public—
and, more importantly, from taxes—
they build ultra-secret bases in parts of space so cursedthat even neutrinos—
those perfect, zero-fucks-given particles of the universe,
that pass straight through everything:
stars, planets, people, walls,
through thousands of light-years of matter…But then—
they get close to those places, take one look, whisper,
‘yeah… the hell with that,’
and turn the hell around.And right there, in the middle of VY CMa’s fiery hysteria,
floats a tiny dwarf planet—Ashrock…
or, in Reddick’s version—ASSROCK—
barely bigger than a self-respecting moon.Every stellar outburst strips it layer by layer,
while VY CMa itself sheds mass
like it’s trying to lose weight for intergalactic summer.But Macrohard™ doesn’t give a shit.
They built a top-secret laboratory
on the shadow side of that rocky ass,
coded SKP-YE.2011-0510.Because if you name a base something boring—
no one suspects
it’s actually a hell-lab where two million workers
are officially listed as ‘missing’ across the galaxy.But they weren’t heading to the planet itself.
The job required them to dock
with an autonomous orbital station—MSN-M.2014-1031—
that handled life support for the base…and steal something
that, in syndicate hands,
would become the perfect leverage against Macrohard™.Like always, it started as a routine job.
Get in.
Steal some shiny bullshit.
Get out.Easy money.
Only this time…
the ‘shiny bullshit’ turned out to be a controller the size of a pizza box,
locked behind twenty layers of corporate security.”
Blindy and Zeros somehow made it to the upper sector,
after wiping out fifty thousand giant insect cyborgs—
and found the box just sitting there,
like it was begging: “please steal me.”
Blindy grabbed it first, grinning like he’d just found free booze,
already mentally spending the profit on love, alcohol, and more love.
Then Zeros noticed a small red button.
Very red.
Very “don’t touch this, you idiot” red.
It read:
"BASE PURGE PROTOCOL—ACTIVATE."Blindy blinked. Slow. Twice. Like something in his head lagged.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Zeros, flat:
“It means this ain’t a pizza warmer, dumbass.
That button blows up—
fuck it, short version: it blows up the entire planet.
Blindy started shaking.
“B-b-blows up… the whole p-p-planet?!”
Zeros:
“Yep. And two million meat sacks—poof.
Quantum dust. Cheap fireworks. End of shift.”
Blindy loosened his grip.
Walked up to the viewport.
Down below, deep in the dark, he spotted a shadowy patch—the entrance to the underground complex. And he imagined it: night lights, bars, clubs, pretty girls, laughter, movement…
A crooked, fake paradise—just like the place where his childhood had passed. Dirty, loud, insane… but the only thing back then that ever felt like “life.”
In reality, it was a miserable mining station full of pale, exhausted workers.
But Blindy’s brain didn’t subscribe to reality.
It made its own.
The thought twisted his face.
“No. Not happenin’.
I ain’t lettin’ some psycho brute
blow up that many gals
just so one damn fat bastard can get richer.
Screw that.”
Zeros turned slowly. Too slowly.
“You even understand who we’re dealing with?
They’ll kill you.”
Blindy had already slipped out of reality:
“Better die broke than turn into some piece of shit
who cooked the biggest barbecue of pretty gals in the universe.”
Zeros said quietly, almost bitter:
“You really are a piece of shit.
And soon you’ll be a dead piece of shit.”
They dropped the controller and ran from the station,
true to form—like idiots abandoning a sinking lifeboat.
There was nothing heroic about the escape.
Just screaming, panic, and one accident after another.
Classic work from two degenerates.
They’re sprinting down a corridor—
behind them, a thunderous mechanical roar,
ahead, emergency lights flashing,
and the whole complex screaming alarms like it’s yelling:
“GET THE HELL OUT, YOU FILTHY BASTARDS!”
The first insect-cyborgs burst out of the vents—
huge, closet-sized, armored in Macrohard™,
their jaws snapping.
Blindy:
“AAAAAA WHAT THE FUCK—THEY BITE?!”
Zeros, firing over his head:
“Of course they bite! RUN, YOU IDIOT, RUN!”
One of them lunges straight at them—
Blindy panics, lifts his leg to kick…
and, of course, misses.
The snapping jaws slam shut three inches from his shin.
“MY LEG! MY BEAUTIFUL LEFT LEG!”
Zeros grabs the creature by the neck, crushes its body like an aluminum can,
and hurls the carcass into the next wave.
“Stop screaming. And run, damn it!”
Zeros stops behind them, letting his idiot partner make it to the ship alive,
then activates Thermistor T-100 mode.
They reach the launch shaft,
rush into the ship—“0ⁿ&Ø”—
and slam the hatch shut.
Blindy frantically slams the ignition controls:
“COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, BABY! DON’T FAIL ME!”
Outside, the cyborgs are already crawling over the hull,
scratching metal like rabid ants with luxury-grade manicures.
Zeros:
“If you blow the engine right now,
I swear I’ll rip off your left leg
and shove it up your ass like a radio antenna.”