Milliways Field Reports

Agent K nearly makes it. He's almost in Milliways with the Door shut firmly behind him when his phone goes off. The ringtone is a perfectly bizarre acapella number from Regent Prime that sounds like a dump truck getting pulled through a trash compactor. The sound makes K cringe every time, just like he does when he gets another Rollerball question from:

"What is it, M?"

"Uh, hi, K. We're still having problems with the specs for that final turn."

K rolls his eyes. "Not the damn oil jets again?"

"Uh, no--."

"The magnetic land mines?"

“No, it's the strobe lights now. They're giving people grand mal seizures."

"I thought that was the point?"

"Well, yeah. But it's only supposed to be one out of five players. You know, there's that suspense thing every time one of them goes by—-is this guy gonna be the one to totally lose it?"

K sighs. "And?"

"Well, I was talking to one of the Annelid worms—-I think his name was Neeble--he got us this deal—-"

"You talked to Neeble?"

"Yeah.""

"You ordered strobe lights through Neeble."

"Yeah."

"You. Trusted. Neeble."

"Uh. Yeah."

K squeezes the bridge of his nose. Good thing he was getting used to these daily headaches.

"OK, so you're calling to tell me the strobes are rejects but the Annelids won’t give us a refund."

"Uh. No. That’s not it."

"Well, WHAT then?"

"OK, see, it's like this: So we had the strobes all set up and ready to go for the drill..."

"Yeah?" K hates where this is going already.

"And then we started getting the people with seizures."

"Yeah...?"

"Which, you know, big problem. So we didn't actually get a chance to see where the strobes were pointing."

"Yeah...?"

"Turns out they were facing the cellblock. And, you see, we had the strobes plugged into the central CPU so we'd have environmental controls right there when we needed 'em. So, uh, you know how part of the cellblock is set aside for the neuralyzed prisoners?"

"The extremely dangerous neuralyzed prisoners, yeah."

"Yeah, those are the ones. Well, there was this coding error--."

"Really?" That wasn't actually a question.

"—Yeah. So we were trying to shift the strobe pattern to stop all the seizures, and that's when we accidentally brought up one of the de-neuralyzer patterns...."

"...What?"

"Yeah, you know, oops. So about ten seconds later, all the neuralyzed prisoners have their memories back and we've got a major riot--."

"And now we're in lockdown," K sighed. Twice in one year. Zed must be fingering the Planetary Self-Destruct button about now.

"Uh, actually, no."

"No? Do not tell me there's a system malfunction with the lockdown. What're the prisoners--?"

"All detained and re-neuralyzed again. See, you know that new unipod worm, Stu?"

"...Yeah?"

"Well, he was passing by...."

"Passing. By."

"Yeah. So we told the prisoners that if they didn't rein it the fuck in, we'd have Stu eat every last one of 'em. Which, you know, he wouldn't, but they didn't know that. So we’re good on that."

K feels an intense desire to reach through the wireless connection and strangle M until he is dead.

"M!  WHAT. IS. THE. GODDAMN. PROBLEM!?!"

"Uh, well... Turns out Stu's a she. I mean, who knew, right? And in all the excitement--."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding--."

"...She's sorta gone into labor. Right in the middle of the Rollerball arena."

K groans.

"...So, uh, Zed said you’d know just what to do."

Click.

"..."

Where the hell was J when you needed him?