We're On A Video Raid

A girl, probably prettier than the girl next door, considered taking a shower when she heard the thumping from the ducts. She walked to the source of the noise, a access panel attached to the ducting near her small apartment's bathroom.

Bob took another hit from his ice-cold can of Heroin Dry. Systems were nominal, all displays were cyan, engines on-line, life support idling at two percent capacity, autopilot on course and locked onto the East Pole starport's synchronous orbital beacon, buzz at the back of his head and rising steadily.

The girl moved to remove the panel and find out what was causing the commotion when she was stopped suddenly by a voice behind her.

"Ma'am? I'm a fully qualified engineer. Stand back from the ducting."

It was a super hero, a member of Honor Guard. His codename was Arsenal.

He was tall, like most superheroes are, with white fur and yellow-green eyes, dressed in a simplified version of a dark-gray police uniform. He had been on the show for a few years, but had not yet received a personalized costume.

He released the latches holding the access panel, reached inside, and pulled out a small brown rodent.

"Oh! It's adorable! Can I eat him?"

"I wouldn't, ma'am. Wild meat is the leading cause of internal parasites."

The young woman took a deep breath; she began to realize that she may still be in danger.

"I need a drink." The woman walked over to her refrigerator.

"Ma'am? Be careful. Your apartment's unsealed -- there may be something else here."

Arsenal, still holding the duct vole, walked over to the refrigerator, stopped, and seemed to go into a trance for a few seconds. He motioned to the woman to step away from the line of fire.

"When I say 'now', open the refrigerator door and run for your life."

The woman carefully reached for the door handle.

"NOW!"

The beam of laser light was invisible, well into the ultraviolet with a wavelength of 337.1 nanometers, produced by exciting diatomic nitrogen. Unlike a real nitrogen laser, the beam did not pulse; the cloud of excited, ionized gas before Arsenal spat out a continuous beam, producing several kilojoules of energy in the second the dazzling gas cloud existed.

In post-production, the next fraction of a second was slowed down and desaturated to the viewers could see what happened next. A formless bluish blob shot out dark, semi-metallic tentacles to seize whoever opened the door. They arced and sparked as the ultraviolet beam focused on the amorphous body of the fungoid horror lurking inside the refrigerator. In an instant, the monster's body, covered with the remains of shredded packages of convenience foods, burned, shriveled, and then exploded into a cloud of carbon dioxide and water vapor.

"Wha- what was that?"

"A worker drone. It came to collect organic material for its master."

"Arsenal, report!" The belt-mounted hands-free speaker of his communicator buzzed angrily.

Arsenal pressed a spot beneath his ear with his right index finger.

"Yes sir. A civilian had something nasty in her fridge. It looks like the mushroom cultists are at it again."

Bob finished his can of ice-cold fizzy narcotic. The Honor Guard drinking game specified one swallow for Arsenal breaking away from the rest of the team, one swallow for every scene where an extra is placed in mortal peril for no immediately obvious reason, and finish the can if the bad guys are the damned mushroom cultists again.

Bob pressed pause and belched mightily. Five minutes into the first episode, and he'd already finished his first can. It was going to be a long shift.