Chapter Eleven: Tony Gets To Work
Lacey thought over their plan. She hooked up a mind control device to the transceiver that monitored the transponder signals coming from Tony and Phillip. The keyboard hooked up to the device was opened and activated, and Lacey began typing.
"What are you doing?" Caitlin asked.
"I'm giving Tony some inspiration!" Lacey replied. "I'm going to take an idea Tony has already been thinking about, and I'm going to splice some of my own original concepts that violate the laws of this society. Mind scan shows that he still isn't completely aware of the difference between the laws of this version of Earth, and the world he originated from.
"I thought it was the same on any version of Earth," said Caitlin.
"No, there are hundreds of thousands of different alternate quantum realities, and each one is different from the others. On one Earth, you could have something like major historical wars turning out differently, or it could be something as subtle as a person survived in one world, where they died in another. Those little differences add up!"
"How are we going to use this to our advantage?" Caitlin asked.
"The laws on this version of Earth are really strict, compared to the world Tony and Phillip are from," said Lacey. "On this world, the first amendment doesn't give you as much freedom of speech as Tony is accustomed to. If he inadvertently creates a comic book story that contains illegal content, and publishes it online, then he can be brought up on charges."
"But if he gets arrested, it'll be that much more difficult to acquire him!" said Caitlin.
"I'm counting on him being driven back to Dakadania," said Lacey. "Temporal recon didn't say we would successfully capture them, it said we would successfully drive them back to our world!"
Caitlin rubbed her palms together with glee. "I hope this plan works!"
Bobby and Phillip arrived back at Bobby's place with the beer, and the men began celebrating their temporary freedom. Bobby was on the Internet when he found something that he thought would interest Tony.
"I found a drafting table on Craigslist!" said Bobby. "It's in like new condition."
"How much does he want for it?" Tony asked.
"Three hundred, and he adds twenty bucks if he delivers it." Bobby answered.
"Get it!" said Bobby. I have some money my boss gave me for a new drafting table. I can get to work on a new comic!"
Within an hour, the drafting table was delivered, and Bobby helped Tony set up an area where he could work without being bothered by anyone else in the house. Tony already had some supplies he had brought with him from the comic studio, so he got to work. Several hours passed, and Tony presented the first three or four pages to Phillip and Bobby.
"These are pretty good!" said Bobby.
"The lettering will and coloring will all be done digitally after the pages have been scanned," said Tony. "But you can kind of see where the story is going. The main character is a female Flash Gordon who travels to a weird alternate world after passing through a dimensional portal in a Mayan cave. I'm calling her Regan Dare!"
"How many pages do you plan on doing tonight?" Bobby asked. "You've got work tomorrow, you know."
"As many as I can," said Tony. "I really want to impress my boss. In fact, I plan on going in a couple of hours before work starts and using their scanner and software to finish up these pages."
"So you're pulling another all-nighter?" Phillip asked.
"Yep!" said Tony.
"He used to do this back on our home world," Phillip said to Bobby. "When he gets that creative spark, he's in the zone, and nothing, not even sleeping, can hold him back!"
By 5:00 a.m. the next morning, everyone in the house was asleep except Tony. He had gotten about eight pages done, and the ink had dried, so he collected the pages and put them in his portfolio and woke Bobby up, who was asleep on the couch.
"I need a ride to the comic studio!" said Tony. Bobby fished his car keys out of his pocket and followed Tony to his vehicle, and got in and drove Tony to work. Bobby dropped Tony off, and drove home.
Tony had a key to get into the studio, so he used it and went to the scanner and scanned all the pages he had done the night before. He saved them to a flash drive he had on him, then went to his computer station, which was set up next to his drafting table. He began working on the pages, first doing the lettering with Adobe Illustrator, then coloring with Adobe Photoshop. When people started coming in to work around 9:00 a.m. Tony got back to work on the normal stuff he had been working on during business hours, and put his personal project on hold.
When he got off work, he caught the bus home to Bobby's place and got to work on his Regan Dare comic. By 11:00 p.m. he was done with the first chapter, showing how Regan got to the planet Zeptar along with her boyfriend Dash Wheeler.
"I'm calling it a night!" said Tony, as Bobby and Phillip looked over the pages he had drawn. Bobby was unaware of the laws concerning comic stories, so he was unaware that Tony was violating several different laws with his comic. Tony went to bed, completely unaware of the firestorm that would occur at work the next day when Tony tried to post the comic onto the comic studio website.
While Tony was crashed out on the air mattress he had been using each night, Bobby and Phillip stayed up drinking beer for the second night in a row. Tony was too tired to party because he had pulled an all-nighter the night before.
"He was a real legend back on our world," Phillip told Bobby concerning Tony. "He won a Hugo award for best graphic novel just before we ended up on Dakadania." Phillip went on to explain how he and Tony had arrived on Dakadania.
"You mean you two chose to journey to Dakadania? The rest of us had no choice in the matter. We would've died either way, but that's not the point. If you could travel to a world Tony created as a comic book artist, why not travel to a different world?"
"The other graphic novels are even worse," said Phillip, " as far as actually traveling there. In Planet of the Titans they make humans from Earth play gladiatorial games and they gamble with the lives of the humans, and the losers get swallowed alive!"
"So both of you would've disappeared if that time traveler hadn't have showed up?" Bobby asked.
"That's what she told us," said Phillip. "But who really knows?"
"What software does Tony need to finish his comics on my computer?" Bobby asked.
"Photoshop to color the comics," Phillip replied, "and Adobe Illustrator to do the lettering. Really expensive software."
"I think I can find someone online who can sell me bootleg copies of that software!" said Bobby.
Meanwhile, during that same day, Lacey and Caitlin were out hunting for captives. When they caught their first captive that morning, Lacey said: "When we each have a total of five captives each, we can play a game that's really popular on Dakadania!"
"What's the game called?" Caitlin asked.
"Pentathanatos!" Lacey replied. "It's similar to chess, but simplified so there isn't a need for as many chess pieces. each captive represents a different chess piece on the game board!"
"Well, I've got two and you've got one," said Caitlin. "How about after you catch up to me, we take turns keeping the next captive, until we each have five?"
"Sounds good to me!" said Lacey. "According to our scanner, our next victim is just a few blocks from here."
The hunt went according to plan throughout the day, and the girls caught a significant number of captives by lunch time, but still short of five captives each. After eating lunch back at their vehicle that was parked near the motel, they got back to work, and by nightfall, they each had five captives. When they got off the bus near the motel, Lacey went into their RV-like vehicle and used the replicator to make a game board for Pentathanatos, the game Lacey had told Caitlin about. The girls sat at the table in the motel room and dumped out their captives onto the gameboard.
"Welcome to your new life!" said Lacey to the tiny, two-inch tall captives. "I am mistress Lacey, and to my right, on the opposite side of the table, is mistress Caitlin! If you obey the commands of your mistress, you may live a somewhat long life. However, all of you will end up within the belly of your mistress sooner or later! The faster you obey, the longer you shall live! Do we have an understanding?"
"If you understand," said Caitlin to the captives, "bow to Lacey right now!"
Nine of the captives bowed to Lacey, but one of them refused.
"We have a rebel!" said Lacey. "Slave, why do you refuse to surrender to the commands of your mistress?"
"We haven't been fed all day!" said the rebellious captive. "I was one of the first to be captured some time this morning, and I want to eat before I obey anybody!"
"You will all be fed after we play a game called Pentathanatos!" said Lacey. "Each of you will be assigned a piece, and you must move when summoned to, according to the abilities of the chess piece you represent."
Caitlin slammed her right fist down on the table. "So do you agree to obey us, slave?"
The captive bowed down lower than the others had done when they bowed earlier. Lacey commanded the captives to stand in the square assigned to them, and told them what piece they were supposed to be, and how they were to move across the board. The board was set up like two diamonds, with squares composing each diamond where the game pieces were either currently stationed at their starting positions, or they could move to spaces that were available in the squares where the two diamonds converged.
The game began, and Lacey allowed Caitlin to go first. Lacey took her turn, then Caitlin went again, and Caitlin had Lacey's king checkmated in just a few moves.
"How did you do that?" Lacey asked.
"My Aunt Cindy taught me some good chess moves when I was a kid, so I just applied it to this game," said Caitlin. "She said chess skills would come in handy on Dakadania, but of course I never believed her when she told me about that place."
"Why didn't you believe her?" Lacey asked. "If I had a relative who had been on Dakadania, I would've hung on their every word every time they spoke of it!"
"It just seemed like a made-up place," said Caitlin. "A sanctuary world for runaways? If so many people have been there, why is it such a secret? Why haven't there been politicians or business leaders who have been there as kids who talk about it?"
"We are pledged to keep it a secret when we leave here," said Lacey. "We can tell our families about it, but we can't publicly admit we were ever there."
"Do I swallow your king now that I beat you?" Caitlin asked.
"Then we couldn't play any more," said Lacey. "How about we keep playing, and we keep track of the pieces who got eliminated first, and the winner swallows the losing pieces!"
"Okay!" said Caitlin, rubbing her hands together with excitement. "I can't wait to show this game to Audrey when we get back to Dakadania!"
"She probably already knows," said Lacey. "Most Dakadanian girls try to accumulate five captives. so they can play Pentathanatos with other girls who have five captives."
Later that night, back at Bobby's house, Bobby answered his door and paid someone for two CD-ROMs. He went to his computer and installed the software, then woke Tony up.
"Look!" said Bobby. "I've got bootleg copies of Photoshop and Illustrator so you can complete your comic!"
"Thanks!" said Tony. "Now I can pull another all-nighter! I can have the first chapter online before I start work tomorrow morning!"
Giantess World
