Revenge of the Sequel by John Cusick

Author:John Cusick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

18

IT TOOK LOLA THREE hypergate jumps to reach the edge of the galaxy. Here, the star systems were spread farther apart, the Wi-Fi was less reliable, and the transportation options were limited. A friendly group of teenagers on spring break had let the Wagon ride through the hypergate in their hold, and when they parted ways, offered to bring Lola along to something called the Blasted Reach, where they were going to do something called Flare Wailing, which was either an extreme sport, or something equally dangerous that required lots of special equipment. They were a carefree bunch, off to have a dangerously good time not worrying about anything, and Lola envied them.

“Good luck with your space witch or whatever!” they said before rocketing off to their destination.

The rest of the ride Lola spent steeped in ShadowMancer lore. Thanks to the Wagon’s Ethernet connection, Lola had streamed the original ShadowMancer movie (which looked terrible but wasn’t bad), the 500th Anniversary Special Edition with the previously deleted dance-fight sequence (why would they delete something so incredibly awesome?), the 2717 remake (which looked amazing but was terrible), and finally the ill-conceived ShadowMancer Christmas Special, in which Santa Claus resurrects Skylar Powerstance with a Lazarus Pit, and the ShadowMancer tries to steal Plutonian Christmas, all of which Lola found disturbing, theologically confusing, and in plain bad taste.

There was something else, too. Something that kicked at the back of Lola’s brain like a toddler on an airplane.

“She never blew up any planets,” Lola said as the Wagon crossed into Krastle Bracken space.

“Beg yer pardon, miss?” said Bucky, whose only complaint about the ShadowMancer movies was that there weren’t enough cowboys in them.

“She erases people with her wand, yeah?” said Lola, double-checking the short-lived comic book spin-off ShadowMancer Nights. “And it seems like she can just blip around the galaxy at will. But she doesn’t blow up planets. So why did she blow up Venus Beta?”

Lola fell into a furrowed silence until an hour later when Bucky’s proximity gauge went ping!

“Sorry to interrupt your wagon train of thought, miss,” said Bucky. “But we are now approaching Krastle Bracken Six, which a knowledge-thirsty rustler such as yourself might be interested to know is the planet farthest from the galactic core! Covered almost entirely by the Mindless Sea, it is home to one structure of note, the hypermax-secure facility called the Slab! It is here that the legendary ShadowMancer’s wand is held for safekeeping.”

“For a remote prison world,” said Lola, “it sure is popular.”

The small slate-gray planet of Krastle Bracken 6 was surrounded. Ships of all shapes and sizes had gathered in low orbit. There were news tanks and gossip gliders, tourist buses, and civilian ships that’d come to Krastle Bracken 6 just to see what the radio chatter was all about. Photographers were busy unfolding their three-story lens arrays, and scattered throughout the atmosphere, helpful onlookers had thrown up their own feed screens so those near the back could see what was going on down on the planet’s surface.

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