All eyes fell on that baton. Al Zander's. The humanoid's. The robot's. And Ventura's. Ventura leapt to her feet first. While the robot squabbled on the wet floor.

Al Zander squealed when he realized Ventura would grab the baton before anyone else could; he knew she would try to fling that spear straight through his skull. So he shouted to the robot, "Stop her!" While the humanoid jumped to her own feet and ran to Zander saying he should get out now. Playing protector, the humanoid grabbed Al Zander by the arm and led him out to the exit. Al Zander looked over his shoulder and spotted Ventura reach the electric spear and pull at it until finally ripping it out of the wall. Gritting her teeth, Ventura turned her blood shot eyes to the CEO, and pulled back her arm to thrust it like a rocket through his cowardly face.

"She's got the baton, sir!" said the humanoid. "Duck!"

But before the robot could get to his feet and stop Ventura, and before Zander could even try to bow his head to elude the oncoming spear, Ventura shot the electric baton like an Olympic medalist and it flew across the pool in an instant.

It cut straight through Zander's chest and he screamed before his lungs gave out. He almost tumbled to the wet concrete before the humanoid caught him and with despair, pulled him speedily through the door. "Don't worry, sir," said the humanoid, unconvincingly. "I'll get you to the shuttle and we'll get to Earth as fast as possible."

But bleeding and foaming at the mouth like a wounded dog with a severe case of rabies, the CEO moaned, "Blow this goddam place up!" And with that command, the humanoid made sure after lugging the CEO through the lobby, then to the main entrance, that she stopped at the keypad by the entrance gate, and plugged in a one-hundred-digit code. At that moment, a red alarm went off and a digital red message sped across the keypad which read: INTRUDER ALERT. EMERGENCY SELF-DESTRUCT.

"Hurry, sir," shouted the humanoid. Yet the CEO was not in command of his own body. The humanoid dragged him by the waist across the bridge. His legs scraping the metal. Finally, they reached the company ship and entered inside. The CEO was pale white and blood was gorging out his chest. The spear was still inside him, and the humanoid sighed because she could not lay him down.

But the CEO had no self-pity. There was only fury in his eyes. "Make sure the escape pods blow the fuck up, too, goddammit!"

"As you wish, sir," said the humanoid, getting ready to run back to the entrance key pad. But before she could leave, the CEO grabbed her arm and she looked back like a cold ghost had passed through her.

The CEO said, in a slight, but serious whisper:

"Niagra..."

"Yes, sir?" Said the humanoid.

"Niagra, my dear..." the CEO tried to breathe through his nose but the air which passed through his esophagus jumped back up and he spit a mound of blood. "Tell Francisco..." the CEO managed to say, "...I'm promoting him."

"To what, sir?" Niagra asked, tears forming in her big, black eyes.

"CEO," said Al Zander. "Francisco runs the company now."

The humanoid nodded and ran to punch in the code to destroy the escape pods. After she came back, their shuttle blasted away to Earth, and Al Zander said his prayers.

Meanwhile, back in the poolroom...

right after Ventura had speared Al Zander in the heart, the robot had finally jumped to his feet and lunged at Ventura. She fell flat on her back. The robot tackling her on top.

If she had been any further from the pool, she would have died under the weight and strength of the robot as the robot tried to press it's metal arms into her throat. However, her leg was dangling over the edge of the pool, and with all the strength in her calf muscle, she pulled her body, with the robot ontop of her, over the concrete, and slid both herself and the robot into the crystalline water!

The two of them plunged into the pool. But while Ventura had thought this would have been enough, simply to drown her foe by the likes of which the other robot who had sunk to the bottom of the pool had died, she had not realized that the robot would have clung to her as it had. The robot's arms and legs wrapped around her body, and she failed to escape his embrace as he sank like an anchor and drew her down the nine-foot deep end. Her ears felt like they would explode from the water pressure.

Ventura wiggled and kicked, but the robot managed to pull her straight to the concrete bottom. Air escaped her lungs and it was only until she nearly passed out that she managed break free from the robot's embrace. Although doing so ended in her tearing the ligament in her leg and she screeched in pain before reaching the surface by sheer arm waving. A high-volume alarm system slammed her eardrums and Ventura opened her eyes to a flashing red. She knew what this meant. This was the station self-destruct feature. The CEO had implemented it in the off chance that rebellion would lead to the Martian hotel station's takeover.

She hauled herself over the edge of the pool and in a pierceing cry began army crawling her way across the pavement through the door to the lobby. She head butted the heavy door and managed to skid across the floor to the bridge. She crawled her arm up and lifted herself to punch the door key so the bridge would open up. Then she dropped back down to her stomach and slithered in agony like a biblical snake who had only just lost its legs.

She cursed the whole way across the long bridge. And finally she came to the pod/shuttle station. Her vision giving way underneath her thumping temples, she could not tell which gates led to the one-way pod and which gates led to the shuttle. She wanted to take a shuttle to Mars so she could find me and take me back to Earth if I so wanted to go. If she took a pod, then we would have no choice but to stay on Mars.

But all of a sudden the alarm broke out into a full orchestral finale and the racing beat fell into an all-out drum core. The station, the bridge, and the pod/shuttle pad would erupt into an exploding mushroom which would instantly shrivel back into itself while space vaccuums it up.

Her eyes closed, her ears bursting, she crawled to the closest escape gate. Not knowing whether it was one-way pod or two-way shuttle, she went inside a vehicle and the door slammed shut. She slapped her arm tactlessly all over the wall until it hit the launch button. Immediately the vehicle sling-shotted through space and she regretted not having a seatbelt because the space station exploded like a sonic boom and the vehicle spun like a top and so did her body. She would suffer this terrible spinning sensation for minutes before she completely passed out. Before she would throw up her intestines. Before she would enter Mars' atmosphere.

And before John Clow would look up in the sky, and see her come.

Meanwhile, back at the company space station...

Francisco and his son who had both taken a cab to the airport and then a shuttle to the company arrived on the landing bridge and were escorted quietly across the bridge by two female humanoids who looked identical to Niagra. Both bearing piercing black eyes as wide as black holes.

Francisco was pulling the arm of his slouching son who took no notice to anything besides the ground. He would much rather be back in the fantasy world of virtual reality. Nothing compared to that. Not even the gorgeous asses of the two bridge escorts leading them to the companyspacestation entrance. Virtual reality porn was even better to him than real-life replicas. He was truly spoiled by virtual fantasy. And so the rich life that was given to him was ruined. Stolen from ingratitude and comparison.

"Come on," growled his father as Francisco noticed his son was too busy moping to pick up the pace. "Get a move on."

"Why?" Said his son as they passed through the entrance and the Niagra-look-alikes paid them two head nods and two sexually charged smiles (in their programming while greeting company figureheads like Francisco).

But Francisco shot his son a fierce smack in the back of the head and said, "Pick your goddam attitude up and pay me some respect. We're late to a fucking meeting." He lugged his son behind him while staff people far below Francisco's status merely looked on, ignoring the fatherly abuse.

Growling with pain from his dad's grip and also stomping as he tried to keep pace with his father, Francisco's son said, "Ooh, wow, a fucking meeting. You curse like you're trying too hard to be cool dad. And you're nuts if you think I'm going to enjoy bring your son to work day."

Francisco slapped his son in the back of the head again and they entered an elevator where Francisco had enough anger to shoo the elevator boy out before the doors closed. Inside were only Francisco and his son so they could kill each other without anybody noticing.

"Hit me all you want dad," said the son, "it's no way to reform me."

"Boo-hoo, you have life so bad," mocked his father, "I wish my dad was VP of the biggest company in the fucking universe. You ingrate."

"Yeah," sneered his son, "how great it is to not even know you pops. Why don't you just live here at the company and never come home. You probably have three mistresses and ten bastards for all I know. I don't even know who you are dad!"

Francisco's eyes went wild enough for his son to recoil in alarm.

"You have no clue how fucking good you have it son," said Francisco, shoving a heavy finger in his son's face. "You have the power to never worry about finances. You have the cushion to make whatever you want of yourself. To do whatever you want to this world. You want to waste away in a world that isn't real? Well I won't let you."

His son snapped. "Why not then! If I have the freedom to make whatever I want of myself, why are you such a hypocrite so as to stop me from living a better life in a place sculpted by today's best digital artists?"

Francisco shook his head. "Because to live in a fake world is no life at all. I don't want you to end up like that small Japanese college community where all the gamers gave up their material possessions to live a virtual existence."

His son paused. He had considered joining a virtual monastery where they insert feeding tubes into people's arms and let them basically dream their whole lives in a colorful, adventurous fantasy. "What happened to them? What are you talking about, dad?"

Francisco shook his head at his ignorant son. But then he stopped himself and sighed a deep meditative breath. "The virtual program died for a couple of hours before they could get the virtual world running again. The gamers had been under for so long that when they awoke depression and existential agony overcame them. They murdered themselves."

His son paused. A horrified expression swept over his face. But then his son shook his head and waved his hand, dismissing his father's concern. "Get real dad. That would never happen to me."

"You're addicted to another world, son," said Francisco. His eyes set on his son with sincere love which his son could only take seriously because he'd never seen such a look before from his career-oriented father. "I won't lose you to another world. I need you here. I need you to learn how to find happiness in the real world. Because if you can't find it here, then you can't find it anywhere. Trust me son. The world is a beautiful place when you have money. And trust me, I work my ass off for you. I never spend a dime on myself. So please, just stay in this world with me. So I can watch my hard work pay off. So it can help you be happy."

But his son was over his father's lame pep talk and was rolling his eyes. "When I move out I'm joining a virtual monastery. Nothing you can do about it dad. I'm sorry."

Francisco's face went blood red. But all of a sudden the elevators burst open, and they turned their heads to a giant conference theater. A man was presenting the latest technology the company had to sell. And that technology sent cheers and cries rushing throughout the audience. Onstage and on the overhead screens, the new lineup of products flashed like TV advertisements. Both Francisco and his son went white, for what they saw shocked them. The new lineup of products consisted of the following and much, much more:

In vitro fertilization humanoid mothers who will bear future children so women never need to impregnate themselves, never need to stretch out their bodies, never need to sacrifice sleep.

Robot animals, not for pets, but for sexual intercourse to solve the crime, disease and taboo of bestiality.

And last but not least, humanoid children, much for the same purpose, to solve the crime, taboo, and abuse of pedophilia and child rape. However, whether humanoid child sex slaves will feel the same pain, will be an avoided topic at this convention, and will never be looked into as long as the company keeps its money floating in politics, law enforcement, journalism and the press.

Father and son looked at each other in the eyes, the son's mouth gaping, and all of a sudden, Francisco could understand his son's escapism. Just why his son would like to join a virtual monastery.