#chyla

'Kim, I know we've had our differences, I know you've disapproved of my methods, but are you and your friends really going to cause the deaths - the annihilation - of an entire dimension of innocent lifeforms you're preparing to abandon anyway; out of some sense of ... of tidiness?'

'You're in no position to moralise when you were planning to thermobaric bomb Moonlight Falls at dawn today, weren't you? We received warning from Boolprop what you were up to an hour ago.

'Tygercat I'll bet - damn her! Anyway it was also Sunset Valley, Riverview, Twinbrook and Bridgeport, so her intelligence wasn't up to much if you only discovered hours after it would have gone ahead had I not been persuaded at the last minute not to.'

'Aarin, how could you!'

'Oh do be quiet Zhivan - you were quiet enough when you were at my side for long enough!'

'Yeah, and hey, by the way Zhivan, thanks for not listening to me about the Rackets plotting against you with the result their scheming with Chyla brought us all to this date with disaster down the line!'

'Silence, insect! Don't interrupt when I'm snarking!'

'Boolprop?'

'Yeah, Sansa, Taffers - this bonkers esoteric international cult which started somewhere north of here and Hidden Springs, convinced they're keepers of mystical knowledge, in particular something about the secret of the Glitches or something. Another lot obsessed with the Winterbottom code as well as a result!'

'The what?'

'Never mind!'

'Hidden Springs? So there are other towns besides this?'

'Well DUH! We knew a girl called Velcroshoes from that part of the world once, the north of SimNation, and we thought Reesaroo was one though she always denied it. There's another called MadameLee - sheesh, she's a whole other story - more's the pity none of us are going to live long enough to tell you it. We thought it was their obsession with Kraft Dinner and Maple syrup washed down with milk drunk from bags that made them all mad. Mind you, Twallan came from those parts, so they're not all round the bend...'

'Is this your idea of helping?'

'Well said, Clara, we may find a place for you and the Doctor in our new dimension yet.'

'I'm sorry...'

'Apology accepted.'

'Don't interrupt, insect! I'm sorry, but I appear to be suffering from compassion constipation - because I don't care a shit what the Doctor's latest fuckrag has to say; or him; or the rest of you. The clock is ticking. Your brains - as ever - aren't.'

'Perhaps we should cut to the chase and spill what's left of your brain all over these tiles.'

'You're under the illusion when this world implodes Rodiek and Nardone have room for you in the Simguru clown car to drive off to this fourth dimension. So tell me Kent, Hipp, O'Dourke, the other one - when were you digitised for it? 'Cos you've only got a few hours left to skedaddle over to it before this one goes Tits McGee up!'

'Nice try Aarin - but it's not going to work.'

'What's not going to work? Come on, spit it out.'

'Your attempt to divide us.'

'Oh, so you are admitting you've not been digitised yourself? After all, you would only consider my question an attempt to split you if you hadn't and you were worried at the possibility they had - feeling one's expendability are we? You ought to - how many of their little helpers from the second dimension arrived here? Certain Simmie families of wealth and influence, yes, but not common or garden variety lab rats like you.'

'You've not thought this through at all, have you? What was the plan? Threaten to kill us the way you killed Gordon Freeman and at the last moment "generously" offer to spare us if I did what you said, which was - let me guess - fixing the digitiser in the basement so you lot could escape in time? No deal, hooker boots bitch - we die, you're going down with us! No escape, no get out of fail free, no continue where you left off if you insert coin and press fire in ten seconds. We lose. You lose - losers!'

'By the time we've finished with you, you'll be begging for the chance to help us.'

'To think Sansa and Shireen we thought negotiation skills were poor in Westeros!'

'Shireen can't hear you, Jon, I think she's gone into shock.'

'You think you hold all four aces. All you hold is four fingers on four triggers of four laser pistols. But in one hour - assuming our dimension hasn't popped like bubblewrap beforehand -  Elphaba Thropp, who you idiots thought you'd killed, and her gang of Teenage Mutant Ninja Mangas will come crashing in here with a crowd of pissed off teachers and brats from Hogwarts - with wands, in the town with the highest magical index in the world. Whatever you will have done to us will be five minutes on the naughty step compared to what they're going to do to those who set up the technological system which spewed them here in the first place. Get out of my sight while the going's good - for it's the only chance of survival you're getting from me today.'

'I'm warning you, Aarin...'

'Do your worst - you'll never get away with this!'

'Oh Aarin - REALLY!'

'What?'

'"You'll never get away with this". SERIOUSLY? There you were, delivering a scathing and concise denouement of the logic of their thought presses, and you ruin it with that piece of Nancy Drew crap - "you'll never get away with this!" I almost feel embarrassed for you.'

'Tsh! Nothing wrong with that phrase, beetle brows. And that was not a denouement, that was a denouncement, oyaji licker!'

'Was it? And hey, who are you calling an oyaji licker, at least I don't look like a goth cottonbud!''

'Yes! ***FACEPALM!*** A denouement is the end sequence of a story where all the plotlines and threads are tied together.'

'As opposed to Nancy Drew where it's the end of the story where she's untied.'

'Oh, you noticed that too? Like almost every - single - f**king story!'

'And don't start me on the Hardy Boys - two middle class WASP twinks going around looking for big tough men from the other side of the tracks to rough them up all the time. What do all three do away from this - spend quality time with their friends in scenarios with transparently homoerotic undertones. Agetha Christie for kids my arse - more like baby's first fetish fuel!'

'Jeez Louise, why don't they find themselves a leather club or a munch to go to and work through their sexuality issues instead of sublimating it by doing their best to get themselves killed? It's not like they even get paid for solving any of the non-mysteries they solve. Like, come on - American teens expect ten bucks just for handing you the  mail delivered to their house accidentally!'

'This is what happened when queer-curious teens from middle class repressive backgrounds aren't sent to private boarding schools so they can kink f**k out of themselves out of the moralising sight of their families and suburban society.'

'Oh come on - what about Hogwarts? The most risque they get is French kissing - and that's from a Dementor! They don't even go to the bathroom. Not ever.'

'Neither do Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys.'

'Aha! Is River Heights a suburb of Skyrim where no one poops or pisses either?

'Maybe they just have the Steel Bladder lifetime reward? Hey they do go to the bathroom in Hogwarts, but only to mix potions and let Moaning Myrtle perv over them when they're trying to wash.'

'ENOUGH ALREADY! If you think we're going to let you two vaudervillains wind down the clock you've got another thought coming. Now, you Aarin are going to go down to the basement and power up the digitiser so we can all join this new world - Piper, Liam, Lia and I first, of course! - otherwise you and all your friends are all going to die, very, very slowly...'

'Okay, Insect, any more bright ideas?'

'Um, nope. Fresh out of inspiration and perspiration. We're doomed. May as well take a deep breath and...'

'Ooo! Ooo! Switchy knows! Switchy has an idea.'

'What now, monkey face?'

'It's so simple ... why didn't I think of it before?'

'That's what I was afraid of hearing...'

'Oh you're going to love this ... it's so evil you'd wish I'd been one of your Founding Fifteen.'

'Oh joy ... why do I get the impression though I'm going to be left wishing you'd allowed us all instead to die with some measure of our respective dignities left intact?'

'Oh Kim dear - SWEETIE PIE! - can I have a quick word?'

'Okay, you win, Aarin will get you digitised and we'll do anything else you want us to do, but before she does this, can I ask you one small little minor itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot favour?'

'You're seeing sense at last. Very well, go on.'

'Shoot me!'

'What?'

'What?'

'What?'

'WHAT?'

'I don't understand what she's up to?'

'Oh, isn't it obvious? She's taking the easy way out. A clean death compared with what may follow. Remember what father said farmers around the Long Lake used to do in harsh winters if it froze over so they couldn't fish, cutting their own throats and their children's.'

'Quiet, eye candies! She's rolling.'

'It will be my pleasure. But don't expect me to kill you first time. I'm going to make this a long, protracted, and ultimately painful process...'

'Then do it! Guns are for firing, aren't they? You're very quick to point them, but we all know you can't afford even to try using them again. I've just figured something out - wanna hear it? Or as The Great Knit put it, do you want to run away now while you still can?'

'If Piper doesn't, I will. You've been a lot of trouble to us, and I'd be happy to pop one in that big mouth of yours.'

'You? Minnie Mouse? What a laugh! You scream if there's a spider in the room and you expect us to be scared of you pointing a gun? You were a drip when you were an intern at Landgraab Industries and all these years later you're merely a drip a little higher up the food chain!'

'Aarin, there's a time for bravado, and this isn't one of them!'

'Silence, Chyla. I'm not letting that Switch brat out-bravado me!'

'Oh I get it before you start - how noble! You would rather die than betray your friends and the Simming world rather than help us. You're so obvious with your little time wasting routines. Well, let me show you another way you can be persuaded - Liam, if they don't agree to do as we tell them, Mayor Karst dies!'

'Thanks a lot you two, it's really been a pleasure knowing you both, one barrel of laughs after another - now ending down the barrel of a gun!'

'Oh not immediately Mayor Karst. Liam will do it slowly. I want to watch them suffer as you suffer. Our laser pistols have all sorts of setting to make the business as long and protracted as we decide. Your kneecaps first, then your arms, then your legs...'

'There we have it, ladies and gentlefolk - the lackeys of the Simgurus exposed for what they truly are, prepared to torture and murder the democratically elected mayor of one of SimNation's major cities. I'd be shocked and appalled if I didn't think they were bluffing. You see ... I don't think they're confident about those laser weapons they're packing at all.'

'Shut up!'

'I don't think they're confident they could kill all of us before the survivors killed them.'

'I said shut up!'

'Four guns. You Zhivan saw two of them fired earlier, Zhivan  - but what makes you think they can fire again? I've not heard about any working laser guns in our world before. Have you Aarin? You're the advanced weapons expert around here! Oh sure ... there was those Daleks out there, but how do you know their guns were firing laser death rays, and aren't in fact merely wands in our world, acting overpowered but non-lethal as Jessamine's did over on Niua Simoa earlier? Nothing else that's come out of those LLAMA boxes has turned out quite as planned, has it?'

'ONE MORE WORD AND I'LL KILL YOU!'

'Which makes Kim and her buddies' laser pistols experimental prototypes at best, in an area with a high magical field which causes mass malfunctions of technological equipment. They'll probably take considerable time to recharge between shots, making them as useful as muskets - once you've shot four of us, that leaves the other five to rip you to pieces - Jon's got a very nice sword, Sansa and Shireen have daggers, and heaven knows what Chyla's packing... so go right ahead - shoot!'

'But I think we've come to the end now of our little game, Kim Kent. The magic of all our science may shine brighter than a thousand suns, but it has blinded morality until such enlightenment has put us on the edge of a new, eternal Dark Age. You four think you're made of Teflon - but you are about to come unstuck...'

Without warning, and without mercy, did the World Explorers fall upon their enemy - for concealed behind the receptionist's desk and hearing all, now they knew whom their true enemy be.

Distaining fortune with their brandished Tri-Play Stainless, forged in cerastone, their knuckles white upon the silicone hilts, the copper bottoms rained down upon their foes and smote their ruin upon the ceramic tile floor.

'I'm not sure right now whether to feel relieved or more apprehensive than before.'

'Right now Doctor, with these four so skilled in the culinary martial arts, looking relieved is by far the healthier of the two options!'