“The God’s Essence the Barash gave you contained a parasite. Lots of them, actually. Their effect on people varies. For the doctor and me, they just stimulated our taste buds in different ways. For you, they were poisonous.”
Glitch instinctively held his stomach.
“Don’t worry,” said the doctor. “You’re in the clear now. They’ve filtered every last one of them out of your blood.”
Glitch looked at the worm writhing in the liquid and shuddered. “Who are ‘they’?”
“The government,” said Anderson. “You’re in a military medical facility near San Francisco. The Air Force picked up the shuttle on radar when it hit the atmosphere, tracked where it landed, and came to get us.”
“You’re lucky they did,” said Doctor Zheng. “We don’t know how much longer you’d have lasted.”
“What about Kalith and the shuttle?”
Anderson shrugged. “Both gone. Apparently the shuttle sank before the Air Force could secure it. There was no sign of Kalith. Our guess is she had a way to get home.”
“And the planet, has NASA found it yet?”
“Yes and no,” said Anderson. “It appeared for a while and caused all sorts of excitement. The doctor was right. It affected tides, the weather, everything. And of course the entire planet went Mystero crazy. Every professor and crackpot in the world had a theory about where it came from and what it meant for Earth. There’re at least seventeen Churches of Mystero, and those are just the ones we know of.”
“Mystero?”
Doctor Zheng grimaced. “It was never officially named.”
“There was an Internet poll,” said Anderson. “Mystero won.”
“So what happened to… Mystero?”
“It vanished again,” said Zheng.
“It collapsed?”
“Maybe, but if it did, there’s no trace of it. Not that anyone’s given up looking.”
“Has anyone tried going back through the gateway?”
“The gateway we used has been dead since Smith blew it up,” said Anderson. “As far as we know, there aren’t any others.”
Glitch lay back on the bed, suddenly weary. “At least we stopped Smith. And Kurtz.”
“Yes,” said Anderson. “Now you get some rest. There’re a few people who will want to talk to you, just to get your side of the story. Then, as long as you promise not to talk to anyone about what happened, you can go home.”
Glitch nodded and let his eyes drift closed. Home. That sounded like a very good idea. As sleep settled over him, he let out a deep breath and promised himself he wouldn’t enter any more competitions. In the future, he’d leave the intergalactic adventures to Buster Crabbe.
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About the Author
Philip Harris is a speculative fiction author and video game developer. Originally born near Oxford, England, he now lives on the West Coast of Canada where he spends his days developing video games and his nights writing speculative fiction - anything from horror to science fiction to fantasy.
His first publication, Letter From a Victim, appeared in the award winning magazine, Peeping Tom, in 1995. Since then he has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies including Garbled Transmissions, So Long, and Thanks for All The Brains and James Ward Kirk's Best of Horror 2013.
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Also by Philip Harris
Novellas
The Girl in the City
Short Stories
Curfew
Saviour
Only Friends
Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet
by Philip Harris
Copyright © 2015 by Philip Harris
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9938887-0-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design by M.S. Corley
Editing provided by:
Red Adept Editing Services
Clio Editing Services
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Table of Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE Gateway to the Stars
CHAPTER TWO Returned from Death
CHAPTER THREE Chasm of Catastrophe
CHAPTER FOUR Claws of Fear
CHAPTER FIVE Lake Terror
CHAPTER SIX The Cage of Doom
CHAPTER EIGHT Sentenced to Death
CHAPTER NINE The Beast from the Wall
CHAPTER TEN Steamed Glitch
CHAPTER ELEVEN Visions of Earth
CHAPTER TWELVE The Blue Death
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Acid Onslaught
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Sandfall
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Prisoners in Peril
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Trial in the Treetops
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN A Deadly Drink
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Human Prey
CHAPTER NINETEEN Countdown to Disaster
CHAPTER TWENTY One Last Hope
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Betrayal
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Collision Course
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE A Watery Grave
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Awakening
About the Author
Also by Philip Harris