“You like me see my evil?”

The filthy beggar’s comment caught me off guard, but I ignored him as always – he was there outside my building every day, quietly sitting in the gutter, staring at me. I shrugged it off and climbed the stairs… there was a girl waiting at the door of my office, not unusual in my line of work. I invited her in as she told me her problems - something to do with a carnival that had just hit town. Sounded like just another job. I typed the standard Load “Case”,8,1 into my holo-computer and sat back to let the machine do the rest. She asked me why my suit was covered with oil and chunks of metal. “Had some rogue bots to take down in robo-hood. It’s all in a day’s qork I MEAN WORK.” She smirked and walked out the door, slinking like a cat. The girl was saucy.

I headed out to the carnival; that was my first mistake. The place was ripe with alien stink - this was a happy fun clue if I ever saw one. I checked one of the tents and, plain as day, as if it was left just for me, there was message scrawled onto one of the poles: “The Mysterious Multi-Mouth say hellos.” I felt the blood drain from my face. The most ridiculously evil presence in the universe, here on Earth? I held up a fist to the sky and screamed “NO!” in dramatic defiance, but no one noticed.

My yellow notepad was filled up that night as I pored over ancient tomes in search of information about the hideous alien presence. When I finally lifted my head, it was morning. I knocked back a drink and headed for Dr. Robobot’s Botique - the crazy scientist always had some reluctant information to be extracted. He babbled on about someone I needed to see in robo-hood, but damned if I was going back there so soon.

I decided to head back to the carnival to see what else I could find. Some crazy clown immediately caught my eye, kept calling himself Clown Nein and going on about Hitler while showing off at the test of strength in front of a bunch of kids. As soon as I approached, he let out some kind of alien shriek and took off running with an extra pair of legs that suddenly sprouted from his abdomen. That was all the evidence I needed - Multi-Mouth’s presence was all over this place. I took off after him, chased him for what seemed like hours, and when I finally cornered him in a back alley, he turned around, held out what looked like a neapolitan ice cream cone, and exploded.

Everything after that has been some kind of dream, like I should have died in that alley. I must have been out for hours, even months. The moon was out when I woke up, multi-colored clown chunks scattered everywhere. I tried to brush the stench off and headed out to the street; of course, that maniac had led me straight into robo-hood. There was some connection between Multi-Mouth and the robots, and Robobot had known it. Heading down the street, it wasn’t long before the obligatory drive-by, but nothing can beat my saving throw vs. robo-hood: the tin can didn’t know what hit him. The other robots dropped their lasers in awe; I get that a lot. Always helps to have a few of them on your side.

It wasn’t long before I walked straight into a 100% chance of isolated brainstorm; all the clues and patterns pointed toward a robot army amassing under the Mysterious Multi-Mouth. The enormity of it hit me like a ton of rotten fruit. I whipped out my holo-computer and hit Opt-Hovercar-Esc; the display showed an empty speeder just around the corner, easy enough to jumphack. I headed back to the office, lost in thought.

Didn’t take long to get back. I left the hovercar curbside and stepped over to the mailbox, and to my surprise there was a message inside, an “encased germ type” as the anagram-obsessed joes at the station call it. I opened it up, but it was just a bunch of symbols and gibberish that I couldn’t make out. After a while, I finally realized it was a robo-hood dialect I’d seen before; the robots at the drive-by must have sent it. My holo-computer didn’t have much trouble deciphering the code after that, and the message led me back to the hovercar for a trip downtown.

On the way, I stopped at the carnival for the last time. It was a pathetic scene - Multi-Mouth’s madness had infected everyone in sight. It had become an absolute cirque du suqé... people were walking around eating each other’s flesh, shoving robotic attachments into their skin to emulate their new masters. I sighed; there was nothing I could do, other than vow violent bloody vengeance on the alien menace behind it all.

When I finally arrived at the club, there was a show going on, some heavy metal band playing a hit from last millennium called Mosh Macabre - I recognized it from the muzak version I’d heard somewhere. The message from my robotic informants said I’d meet some kind of doctor here - he’d lead me to a Multi-Mouth emissary, and if I could get past him I’d be on the way to Multi-Mouth himself. I was looking around the club when suddenly the sound system ground to a halt and the musicians dropped their farce, pulling out massive lasers blasters. Robots! I dove for cover as they opened fire on the audience - the screams were deafening as I scrambled behind the bar, but I couldn’t escape. They hit me hard. I managed to take them out once I found some cover, but felt myself fading quick. I could see a couple of survivors once the dust settled, one with enormous dreadlocks who came running my way. When he reached me, I finally noticed his blood-stained white coat and nametag reading “Rastanefarious, M.D.” The doctor...

The room where I woke up was incredibly bright, with fluorescent lights gleaming on white walls and a voice chanting some Jamaican mantra as Rastanefarious stepped into view. His dark dreads and white teeth filled my vision as pain shot through me, and I realized he wasn’t patching me up - a bloody knife flashed before my eyes as he started cutting at me like a crazed demon. I screamed and tried to roll off the operating table but he just grinned, chanted and cut some more. He acted like he was doing me a favor. My head swam as he began to inject something into my arm, shoving a brown paper bag in my hands and pushing me out the door. It all happened so fast - I was in a stupor, from the pain and from the drugs beginning to infiltrate my system, leaving an entrail trail behind me as I stumbled down the street in any direction, so long as it was away from the doctor. I could hear a distant siren, but didn’t get far before my legs gave out and I hit the pavement, the contents of the paper bag rolling out in front of my eyes. A chalupa. I would have laughed at the randomness of it if I hadn’t passed out.

And that’s the first time I passed into the other dimension. The chalupa blurred and expanded, shimmering... light surrounded a vortex opening up in the center, and I felt myself pass through, with all the echoes and events of the past floating around me. I was travelling, unconscious but cosmically aware, until I woke with a start on a dais in an inky void. My wounds were completely healed, and I was surrounded by 50 or so alien/robot mutations, all clamoring for my flesh. My gun was missing, and I was dressed in some type of intricately decorative ceremonial robe, but I instantly knew what to do: completely kick ass and take serial numbers.

It didn’t take long. When the last mutation fell with a wet thud onto the shimmering floor, I felt the entire dais begin to rumble as a monstrous entity appeared over the far edge, whispering some hideous intergalactic language. This was Multi-Mouth’s emissary, I knew it then. The doctor had provided me access after all. I detached a robotic arm from one of the fallen mutations and screamed at the top of my lungs, launching myself into the air with powers I never knew existed, and swung the sharp piece of metal down onto the monstrous being, which raised up its own metallic extension in defense. There was the titanic explosion of a violently unhandled exception, a blinding flash, and I felt myself knocked away and off the dais, falling into the black void…

…and landing onto a filthy downtown pavement. I laid there for a minute, watching a plane pass far overhead. This was where I’d passed out coming from Rastanefarious’ place. The chalupa sat next to me, as insignificant as it should have been. I got up, brushed myself off, and started walking. Everything seemed normal. My wounds were still healed, the sun was shining, birds were chirping; it must have all been a bad, bad dream. When had it even started? It didn’t matter, as long as Multi-Mouth was far away from here.

As I walked, however, something kept tugging at the back of my mind, half-forgotten memories: a ring, a spider, running from dark riders… things I had never remembered before. A feeling of dread fell over me as the sky began to dim, like quickly-falling night, and I looked behind me only to see the monstrous emissary towering above the buildings around me, swinging its arm down, shattering all my hopes that this whole case had been a fantasy. I felt Multi-Mouth’s presence shaking the earth around me, laughing, laughing…

The next thing I knew, I was trapped in a slowly-filling vat of acid and/or blood, drowning in the burning heat, screaming for help, the bulbous head of Multi-Mouth’s emissary peering over the edge…