It was a lovely, lazy Saturday morning. The blue sky made the bedroom window glow as I reclined with my calico, her tail wandering and tickling me. I was already dressed in my weekend uniform of shorts and T-shirt, lazily thinking about making breakfast. Or not – maybe I’d just have some of last night’s dinner, or maybe I’d have a sandwich delivered. The calico yawned and stretched, exposing needle sharp claws and fangs and an inexpressably floofy belly.
There was a sharp rapping at the door. My heart jolted into high gear. Who in the world could that be? I thought.
I jumped up, my calico dove under the desk. I padded out into the front room. I listened hard, checked through the peephole. There were two men, both with black pants, white shirts, and little name badges with a subdued snake on them. They had bundles of paper in their hands. One raised his fist to knock again.
My mind overclocked itself as my heart continued to pound. Missionaries, damn it! How should I deal with them this time? Strip off all my clothes, daub on some ketchup, and act like I was in the middle of some barbaric ritual? Start reading from a physics text book, and ask them if they’d heard the Holy Word of Newton? I was feeling truly ornery. These people didn’t have any business being at my apartment complex, either, since soliciting was forbidden. The blow landed, the knock shook the door.
I whipped it open. “All right, I know what you want, and I’m having none of it,” I began. “You’ve been told that you’re not allowed on this property. Now get out of here or I’m calling management and having you thrown out.”
The missionaries showed no reaction on their smooth, too-handsome faces. Then the one who had knocked spoke. “Kneel before your god.” His voice sounded like it came from the bottom of his shoes, and it echoed oddly.
“Say what?”
“Kneel before your god!” He said it again, louder this time, and it sounded like thunder.
“No way in hell!”
Their eyes flashed silver. He raised a hand that was wrapped in silver ribbon.
Shit, I thought, now that’s the last thing I need. The Goa’uld are going around proseletyzing now? Of its own accord, my right hand roached out, snatched my ma’tok staff. I gripped it with both hands, readied it.
They said something in their native language, and I knew it meant something nasty like “Die, Traitor.” There was only one way to respond, as I raised my weapon.
“Shel kek nem ron!”
Mindflight 