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- Spoiler:
- I woke up in a tube.
It wasn't a tube like a pipe, it was more like a cryogenic chamber that I had heard about in those comic books. The air smelled like preserved meat. I looked to my right and notice I was surrounded I a red gel. When I touched it, it burned like sticking your finger in an electric socket. However, the pain felt more.. real. It singed my fur and left a red mark. I recoiled instantly. But there was something else that caught my attention. Beyond the gel, I saw more monkeys. Some were wearing red ninja outfits. Other were wearing capes with the Boxford logo on them. I realized the biggest shocker of my life. I was wearing a Boxford white avatar suit. It was taking my movements and using them. Right then, the platform below me opened wide. I could hear Boxford sentries firing machine guns as I plummeted. This place seemed to have a lot of elements that the world I was used to had. But it seemed more.. something. There was something I couldn't put my finger on. I could see left and right, and up and down, and.. the space in between. I had never experienced that before. Even though this room full of unconscious monkeys seemed alien at first, it now seemed even more real than the world I was used to before. Unfortunately, the last thing I remember was falling into a portal and a giant explosion.
- Spoiler:
- There was a monkey with dark fur and thick glasses standing over me. “You arrived too? Too pooped out to take on a couple measly ceramics? Well, welcome to the club.” He said in a gruff voice, full of years.
“Well, sir,” I stammered. “I’d like to know rightly where I am.”
“Okay. It’s a fairly long story, so don’t drift into the Altiverse.” He chuckled, and then began.
“It all started about 25 years after the 5th generation of bloon attacks. The monkeys were tired of being ambushed with limited supplies. But, they could not surrender, as rubber, clay, and steel sold high on the monkey market. The monkeys eventually gave in and farmed bananas, but after global warming those vanished. Boxford, the dart manufacturers, still held a high reign on our society, so they forced us to battle, maimed , crippled, young, drunk, or female. Eventually we held a revolt. It was gruesome. All of us were knocked out with a dose of Monkey Anthrax, and were forced to attack subconsciously. We were fed our own body fat and all the money went to Grandalx, the selfish monkey king. He spends it on jewels, and select monkey women.” He scowled, then resumed.
“About nine months ago, there was a malfunction, and my pod opened. Naturally, Boxford had planted a couple cameras and sentries. I escaped luckily, with just one repercussion”. He pointed to his tail, which had been severed.
“Then, after escaping, I found a derelict Boxford aircraft carrier that had been beached. I sanitized it, then found that there was still a access uplink to the Boxford HQ. I messed with the system, and programmed some bots to install a portal. All had been completed. More and more woke up. Currently, there are 23 of us, and we all have bad battle stories. And there’s time for that later. Why don’t you have some canned pineapple rations, then you can tell your story.”
I was glad I had escaped from the battlegrounds, but I thought of the other four million monkeys who were out there risking life and limb to pop some air-filled rubber.
- Spoiler:
- I ate some old chewy pineapple, then said my story.
“I was a dartling gunner. I had fired so many darts and busted so many bones from the recoil I only thought it was about time when the upgraded me to a Ray of Doom. I wish I had taken the rockets instead. The radiation was still horrible, even with a mask. I had many health problems, and was expected to die soon. I wanted to resign my position. But Boxford said that our fathers had signed a pact saying we would destroy bloons anyway we could. I thought that was as outrageous as it was strict. But I couldn’t be exterminated for research in The Field. That was never a valid option for me.
“We had gotten better, after realizing the bloon force was always the same for the first 85 waves. That was before the challenges came in. I was deployed rarely, but suffered much. I cursed the 63rd wave and 76th one as much as I prayed to the monkey god. Then, one day, on the 76th wave by the castle, The bloons rushed in and defeated us. I don’t know how they did it. They demoted us to lackeys, only shoving mortar shells in barrels, and painting tack shooters. Then one day, they really got mad. I decided to paint my tack shooter a more conventional color, red. My supervisor whipped me raw that day, and I was dying in the streets. Apparently pink was the only color that wasn’t being used anywhere else. Then, when bleeding to death, I suddenly blacked out. I flickered back, then blacked out. Then I woke up here and realized I had no scars and no darts and...”
“It gets very confusing,” he replied with empathy. “I was a sniper monkey, and was given the malfunctioning snipers.” I had many burns from malfunction explosion. Then I flickered away like you did and escaped. They got me then, blew my tail off with a customized sentry. Good thing I had looked up medical information and programming in my youth, otherwise none of us would be here...”
“Oh, and on that note, meet the rest of our crew. A bunch of monkeys came out.
“This is Jorge,” he said. “A once-pirate.” “And the rest of these are dart monkeys- Finn, Nikolai, Valerie, Thomas, Lucia, and Chris.”
“And you, uh- sir?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he grinned. “Call me Tyler. Tyler Moore.”
- Spoiler:
The real world is a strange thing. I thought that monkey rulers at least had one shred of decency, but I guess not. Tyler called me right then, and led m to a room before I could think of the cruelty any more.
"I never really found out your name- what is it?" He looked at me with troubling eyes.
"My name? Henry. Henry Rosenberg." I replied, finally with confidence.
"A Rosenberg, eh? I had heard of your relatives. Best Darticians of their time. I even heard one of them became a supermonkey. Is that true?
"Well," I chuckled. I don't know about the best Darticians, and nobody became a supermonkey, although a couple of my aunts and uncles lived in Specialty Houses. We didn't feel like the best, the way we were treated.
"Hey, Henry, none of us did. Anyway, do you want to know the real reason you are here?
"I'd like to know, yes." I looked around. It appeared like a hair salon, except there were wires.
"Henry, touch the back of your neck." I did as asked, and instead of feeling my rough fur, felt an output jack. I instantly jerked my hand away.
"We all have them, Henry. It's how we were used to pop bloons. Anyway, we're going to be taking a trip back to the Altiverse. Though between the few of us, we call it the Monktrix. An inside joke." Tyler released a rusty laugh. Though now was not the time for laughing. Tyler plugged in a wire to the back of my neck. I felt code rush through me, and finally engulf me. I appeared in a Military Base. Either Roswell or Lanhurst. A nuke dropped, and the vapor incinerated every single bloon in the blink of an eye. I passed out.
I wrote this story in the ninjakiwi forums.
