Shatnerquake Read Free

stock, erase the media from reality.   No one remembers the entertainment.   There are no records of the entertainment.   It completely disappears.   They were illegal, but certain terrorist sects and unscrupulous networks were still known to use them.  
               
    Natalie rushed to the room’s door.   She turned back and addressed the convention guards, “Sodomize him with his hand until he tells you how many other Campbellians are here.   If he doesn’t talk in two minutes, kill him.”
     
    * * *
     
    Shatner signed and signed while Bob talked and talked.
     
    * * *
     
    “It’s a Fiction Bomb!” yelled Michael from over the walkie-talkie.
     
    “What?” said Rick.
               
    “I just got off with Natalie,” replied Michael, “It’s a Fiction Bomb!   Turn it off!”
     
    Rick dropped the walkie-talkie and rushed toward the Fiction Bomb.   He grabbed it and began tearing wires from the side.   He picked up the device and smashed it against the floor.   Both light bulbs shattered into glass shards that pierced his hands in a dozen places.
               
    Rick picked up the black box with bleeding fingers and looked at the display.
               
    2…1…
                
    If the blast had not immediately liquefied Rick and splattered him onto the screens in a billion droplets, he could have taken comfort in the fact that he had fucked up the Fiction Bomb enough so it did not work properly.  
               
    Those in the theaters heard a loud blast and saw the screens become red-tinted as Rick hit them.   Then the blast hit them, reducing all those in the theaters and projection booths to piles of gray ash.  
               
    The theaters and the screens, however, remained unharmed.   The films showing flickered and then the images disappeared.   They glowed a bright, vivid dark blue and moved erratically in and out—as if alive and struggling to take a breath.   In the blue, shapes began to move.   They took form and grew limbs and heads.  
               
    These blue figures danced around the screens and then began to smoothly step out of the picture.   They began to move about the now-empty theaters and become more defined figures.
               
    One figure formed a brown suit and a briefcase.
               
    One twirled its microphone about by the cord.
               
    One flipped open his communicator.   “Captain to ship.   Captain to ship.”   No one answered.
               
    More and more figures emerged from the screens.
               
    At first they were without feeling but, as they became whole, this new world filled their senses.
               
    First came the feeling that they didn’t belong—some fundamental urge that this world was not for them.   That they were pale shadows of something else already here.
               
    Then the anger.
               
    Then the desire to do something about it.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Dealer’s Room:   The room quaked and shook when the Fiction Bomb went off.   An unnatural hush swept over the crowd as everyone waited to see what would happen next.
    A voice came over the room’s PA system:   “We have just received notice that a generator blew out on one of the lower levels.   We apologize for the inconvenience but there is nothing to worry about.   Thank you.”
     
    Larry and Jay stood in the center of the room listening to the announcement.  
     
    “Do you think anything’s wrong?” asked Jay.
     
    “Nah, they just said it was a generator blowing out,” replied Larry who was had already lost interest in the blast as he noticed the rare Star Trek: Dinosaur Planet with matching seven-inch record on a nearby table.  
     
    Most of the crowd was now back absorbed in the merchandise for sale.   A few still milled about, unsure of what to do and if the announcement