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Area 3.1415927…

Chapter One:
The Shuttle

A hunk of metal with oddly disproportional edges the size of a moon slowly revolved in its circular trajectory around Alpha Centauri, its origin above top secret knowledge to very few, unknown to most. A terrarium came out from one of its misshapen sides. The terrarium was immense, only slightly smaller than a forest, and very moist, dense with tropical plant growth and fungi that would be unidentifiable by all Earthly botanists, for the simply reason that they were very unearthly. The room was a miracle unto itself, simply for existing. So many plants, from a giant vine choked tree in the center of the room whose leafy branches reached along the roof of the outer space green house and gradually metamorphosed into trailing tendrils that dripped lazily along the walls like melted crayons to the insanely varied amounts of fungi that sprung up in bunches.
They made their home at the base of the much larger vegetation, or sometimes in the middles of clearings, which were amazingly scarce. There was on fungal growth in the bottom left corner of the room that is know as the Jagoolian Fortress Mushroom (Jagoolia being it’s home planet), that was quite amazing. It did remarkably resemble a fortress, one giant mushroom spreading its dark black top like a huge umbrella over the formation, which stood at about twenty feet. Several large mushrooms bent their stems over in front, using their caps to form a large wall that surrounded the colony. Several other medium (to us, oddly large) sized mushrooms jutted out from the fungal wall, this time with pointed caps, so that they resembled turrets. Inside there were many waist-height and fattish mushrooms arranged in tight rows along the floor of the 60 square foot interior. All Jagoolian Fortress Mushrooms are home to a highly civilized type of worm, called the Jagoolian Carver Worm, after the fact that a colony of worms will carve out the large Fortress Mushrooms to use as shelter and defense. The caps of the Jagoolian Fortress Mushrooms are highly poisonous, but the Carver Worms have developed immunity to the rare toxin. These plants and fungi, among others, thrived and swelled as they were drenched in the light of the star, reveling in the nourishing rays that bathed the room.
Also bathing in the light was a dark skinned man in a bright yellow suit and mirrored aviator sunglasses. The glasses obscured his eyes completely, not giving a clue what lay beneath them. They seemed to be there not as shields from what was on the outside, but to contain what was on the inside. And his suit was quite alarmingly bright, more yellow than the healthiest of lemons. It was loose, allowing for freer movement. The man’s white, silk dress shirt had matching yellow buttons and its wrists extended slightly farther than the coat’s sleeves. It seemed to radiate good feeling from every fine thread. An afro lay atop his head, and a small, black moustache adorned his upper lip. His brown skin seemed to be absorbing the life granting glow of the magnificent, drinking as deep as the plant life that surrounded him on all four sides.
He was humming an odd yet jubilant tune and slowly sipping a misty, fuchsia, semi-translucent beverage from a martini glass, all the while reclining on a large mint tinted mushroom. A large pad of cherry colored fern like plants sprung from the ground next to it. Lying on top of this leaf bed lay a bright yellow hand-gun, with the sharp tip of a dart tinted the same color as the weapon protruding slightly from the barrel.
The man always carried this fire arm with him, just like all of the others on the space craft, loaded with ten or so darts, packed in for maximum portability. Also like all the others on the ship, he had many collections of these darts hidden all over his person, specifically in the lining of his suit. In their line of work, you could never be too heavily armed.
A small noise similar to that of a sliding door echoed throughout the room. The sound of the footsteps was dampened by the rotting leaves that lay strewn across the floor. Large insects of many types, some fat and buzzing, others spindly and irritable, flew away as a woman’s form draped in a blue as deep and dark as the abyss stalked forward. A long, pained sigh emitted from her lips. Her long, smooth hair framed her dark toned, Middle Eastern face. Her features were worn, her brow sharp and her nose was slightly beaky. The woman’s lips were large and luscious; however they were turned down in an expression of hopelessness. Her eyes were cold, dark, and unforgiving, but if you looked closely enough, you could see into a soul so pained and distressed it would make one shudder.
“Ah, Agent Sorrow, what brings you here to this wonderful haven?” the man said serenely.
Sorrow sighed once more, sitting dejectedly on the leaf strewn dirt floor. “Must you lay it on so thick, Agent Bliss? Not all of us are as delusional as you are blessed enough to be.”
“It’s all in how you look at things, babe,” Bliss returned, then went back to humming.
“We have an assignment,” Sorrow heaved out, with a tone that suggested it was a great burden to utter language.
Bliss’s humming halted and a heavy quiet dropped onto the room like an anvil.
“Rage needs to see us. All of us,” Sorrow continued in the same manner as before, this time louder, as if it took an effort to pierce through the muffled atmosphere.
Bliss eased himself from his vegetable lounge chair and he picked up his gun. “Wow, right off the bat, eh?” he mused to himself as he followed the slouched Sorrow out of the solarium, tucking his side arm into a pocket inside his jacket. “Been here two weeks and there are already some people need saving. This ought to be fun.”
The odd pair moved slowly through the carpeted halls of the shuttle, their footsteps dampened by the maroon shag flooring. Every now and then they passed doors, which also were, for some odd reason, carpeted. In fact, the whole hall way was carpeted in maroon shag from top to bottom.
“We need to tell the others, unfortunately,” moaned Sorrow.
Bliss halted, his eyes lighting up, if that was possible considering they were gleaming twenty-four seven. “You told me first? Oh, I’m flattered,” he said, embracing a reluctant Sorrow.
“Hey,” a Hispanic, very smooth and suave-sounding voice drifted after them, “that’s my job, Bliss.”
Bliss turned his head to see a tall Spanish man with a ponytail and deep purple suit approaching them. He had a very strong and athletic build, somewhat like that of a soccer player. He actually had been pretty good at the sport in his younger days, being the captain of his high school soccer team, which was one of the best in his region. Still somewhat on the thinner side, he had a very pronounced chin and his brown eyes had a comforting sheen to them.
“Yo, Agent Passion, how’ve you been occupying yourself these days?” asked Bliss happily. He held out his hand. Passion smiled back and slapped the hand hard, and the two friends proceeded to bop elbows punch each others knuckles, bonk heads, and many other odd actions.
Sorrow shook her head as her two coworkers continued their insanely complex hand shake. Finally, they clapped each other on the ears and laughed.
Bliss beamed, his mouth stretching pretty much from ear to ear.
“We still got it.”
“Of course, we’ve had it since we were three.”
“Really? I thought we were four and a half, but nobody’s counting.”
“They are such fools,” mumbled Sorrow to herself, rolling her eyes and letting an exasperated breath of air that seemed to hurl itself from her lips with desperation.
Passion turned to a frowning Sorrow. “Yes, I’m a fool, babe, foolish for you,” He whispered, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Three seconds later he was lying prone on the floor with his cheek brandishing four red streak marks.
“Keep your filthy mitts off me, Agent Sleaze, while you still have them,” Sorrow hissed.
Passion peeled himself up off the carpeted floor, cracked his jaw, and shook himself off. “What are we doing here anyway?” he asked.
“It’s seems the big cheese has a mission for us,” Bliss explained.
“Oh. ‘Bout time, I was starting to get bored.”
Passion turned a corner, and in two seconds he was once again down on the floor, this time face up with a big grin on his face.
A pale girl was sitting perkily on his chest and laughing somewhat maniacally. She had bright pink cornrows and was wearing a dress and wedge sandals of the same color. Her teeth were as white as pearls and her grin was quite different than Agent Bliss’s; his was a more calm, soothing smile, while this girl’s was so big and ebullient it made your face hurt just looking at her.
“Wassup?” the girl said energetically.
“Agent Excitement,” Passion choked, “I can’t breath.”
“Whoopsie me, maybe someone needs CPR,” she said teasingly.
“Please just get off me.”
Excitement leapt up energetically. “So what’s happening?”
she asked eagerly.
“Rage has a job for us,” Sorrow blurted out, always trying to be the bearer of what she thought was bad news.
“Oooo, that sounds fun!”
“No surprise there. I thought it was all rather pointless.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining, baby,” Bliss interjected.
“Not often, I seem to find. And don’t call me baby,” Sorrow retorted. “It sickens me how men use such terms loosely. No woman deserves to be called baby.”
Passion turned to Excitement. “She’s right, you don’t deserve to be called baby, honey bunny.”
Excitement giggled playfully, brushing noses with Passion.
Bliss and Sorrow looked at their two co-agents. They looked at each other.
They both said simultaneously, “Let’s go find Fear.”
With that, Bliss and Sorrow left the two to find their last co-worker who needed to be alerted, the neurotic Agent Fear.
The two strode down the hallway a ways; an odd blanket of silence seemed to cover them. They both fingered their firearms in their pockets. Fear had been left on his own for two weeks. They could only guess what he had spent his time doing. All of sudden they came to a carpeted dead end. Sorrow rolled her eyes and Bliss laughed lightly to himself.
“Good ol’, Fear, he never changes, does he?” He said, shaking his head.
“You say it like it’s a good thing.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Not particularly.”
“I thought as much.”
All of a sudden a clunk sounded from behind the two.
They whipped around to see a carpeted wall. They rolled there eyes. That was the thing with Fear. He may have been the most cowardly person on the planet, but barely anyone enjoyed inspiring terror more than him. His life was an endless paradox, and the rest of the people on the shuttle felt rather sorry for him. Fear was a recluse in the most extreme sense of the word; he would hide alone in some remote corner for days or weeks on end, then sometimes he’d stick to your side like glue and never let you out of his sight. It was all kind of eerie.
But Bliss and Sorrow refused to give in. They knew it was all just a trick meant to frighten them. A noise sounded from above them. They peered up. A dark hole had appeared. Bliss motioned for Sorrow to wait. Leaping up, he grabbed the edge of the ceiling manhole, heaving himself up until just his legs hung, scrambling for something in the back of his jacket. Pulling out a lemon yellow grenade, he bit off the clip and hurled it through the blackened room. Leaping down, he rolled out of the way as a bang resounded from the dark hole. Peering up through it, Sorrow saw the walls were now peppered with fluorescent needles, illuminating the room with a soft glow. She hoisted herself through the hole, followed by Agent Bliss.
The entire room was planked with wood, with rusty nails (no doubt put there on purpose) popping up from the creaky floor boards. The room was coated in a thick layer of dust, with cobwebs draped over every thing like a giant, sinewy veil. Large chests and boxes ware strewn about the room, some tipped over with there contents spilling out, which were, unsurprisingly, kitchen knife sets, coils of rope, a hatchet, along with innumerable others.
“Where in god’s name does he find all this?” mused Sorrow to herself in a slightly disgusted tone as she picked up an old rusty hacksaw as if it were a disease ridden rat.
There were several rocking chairs arranged in a semi circle, each splattered with ominous red stains, witch, with a sniff from Bliss, was determined to be Koolade. To complete the effect, the flower print cushions were torn up, white fluffy stuffing that was also Koolade stained was pouring out of large gashes. All of this and more was illuminated dimly by the glow of the phosphorescent syringe-like needles.
At the far end of this ominous room were six doors, plain as can be. It was to these that Bliss and Sorrow picked there way across to, being careful not to step in any number of the ghastly things that littered the creaking, wooden floor. When the two reached the other side of the sea of probably every possible grisly murder weapon on Earth, they both stared at the doors with the same vacant expressions.
Sorrow spoke first. “Which do we open first?”
“Hmmmm…” was all Bliss offered in response.
They sat in silence. Once again Sorrow broke the eerie, airy quiet. “I am a busy woman, and Rage doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” she said, clearly aggravated at this ‘House of Horror’. She pointed to Bliss forcefully. “You open the doors, I’ll shoot,” she commanded.
Bliss shrugged and walked to the first door. Sorrow drew a pistol from a hidden shoulder holster, pointing the barrel squarely at the plain wooden door. Bliss reached over to the rusty brass handle and turned. The creaking hinges swung ajar. Two shots were fired. Agent Sorrow’s cynical and hollow laugh echoed through the shuttle. Behind the door was… nothing. Just more wood.
“Of course there’s nothing. To raise suspense. I can’t believe I’m wasting my time doing this.”
Agent Bliss stepped up to the second door. More hinges creaked, more shots echoed through the shuttle. Still nothing.
They came now to the third door. In the worst condition of all six doors, its maroon paint was peeling and the handle was coated with rust. Bliss noticed that the light of the darts that still peppered the walls were dimming.
“Let’s hurry,” he said worriedly, or at least as worriedly as an eternally happy person can be.
“Couldn’t agree more,” added Sorrow with a drab tone.
Bliss reached over and heaved open the wooden slab that really wasn’t quite worthy to be called a door. This time, something emerged from the darkness. The glint of polished steel, tainted by a red hue, pierced through the all-swallowing darkness. Sorrow’s eye flinched as the knife drew closer to her stomach. Her finger pressed mercilessly on the trigger of her firearm. Again, and again, and again she fired, her face hard and cold. Finally, her ammunition was exhausted, and the knife clattered to the floor. Its holder, a stuffed headless dummy on a string, was laying face first, peppered with darts. Sorrow bent down and picked up the knife.
“A cleaver, eh?” Sorrow said to herself in annoyance. She walked straight to the last door, flung it open herself and hurled the cleaver square through the opening.
It stuck clinging to the wall, wavering and ringing lightly, above a small, cowering Filipino man in a black suit. His mouth didn’t seem to know which expression to put it self in, so it ended up in an uneasy grimace. His jet black hair was spiked up, as if to save it the trouble of standing on end and he had a tiny smidgen of a goatee. His eyes were the strangest part; they didn’t look odd, but it seemed to be that each eye was conveying a different expression. One of them had a wily, almost malicious glint while the other suggested he was in such a state of panic and terror that he was likely just to pass out on the spot. All of this added to the fact that he was shaking so terribly that it looked like his body molecules were doing the shimmy made for a very strange appearance.
“Fear, get your a** out here before I haul it out for you,” Sorrow snarled threateningly.
Agent Fear, still trembling like a leaf in a maelstrom, finally managed to decide what facial expression he should be wearing. His mouth twisted into a devilish grin. A hatch in the roof flung open and out dropped a giant, fake tarantula with quite real razor sharp fangs. It was made out of black felt with what looked liked barb wire for legs and rhinestones for eyes. Bliss blew its head off before the phony killer spider even reached the full length of its fishing line suspension cord, and long before it swung its razor sharp fangs towards Agent Sorrow’s dark form.
The spider’s head went flying into the wall with a clunk, speared squarely with a dart that was embedded half way into what revealed itself to be Styrofoam. The agent walked up to the door so that he gazed, beaming at the shivering Agent Fear.
“Nice try, man.” Bliss said with a nod of his head. “But honestly, did you think a helpless, beautiful woman like Sorrow would come here without a strong man like me to protect her?”
Agent Sorrow turned to frown at her yellow clad friend before turning back to the still cowering Fear. “Rage wants us at his office, pronto,” she commanded, frowning. “He hates to be kept waiting, and who knows what else will hold us up.”
The strain become too much for Agent Fear. He got up and bolted, making a beeline for Rage’s office. At least there he could be away from the hellish ‘room of terror’ he had created. He never looked back, or in front, for that matter. He just sprinted blindly, and this usually worked out for him. This time was no different. After roughly 15 minutes he approached the office of their head Agent, Rage. Fear took some pride in himself for getting here in 15 minutes without encountering any difficulty whatsoever. He knew that he should of encountered obstacles that would take his teammates quite some time to work through. After all, he had put them there. Or should we say, he released them there. However, Fear didn’t think of the things that could have hindered, him, they scared him too much. So he simply rushed to the nearest corner and cowered.
With a soft thump, Agent Sorrow and Agent Bliss plopped back out of the manhole. Looking around they saw a swinging door, perfectly camouflaged into the walls, swinging ajar.
“The little baby’s escape route,” Sorrow growled, still annoyed that Fear had bolted like that.
Bliss considered the door quietly, beaming as if nothing in the world could be better than to be standing in a carpeted hallway on a giant space shuttle orbiting a star thousand and thousands of miles from Earth. Still silent, he strolled over to the wall through which they had to go back to find their two other co-agents, and pushed lightly on a certain spot.
Another door gave way to reveal the passage they had just come through.
“That’s the thing with Fear. He may be a pain in the a**, but at least he’s predictable,” griped Sorrow.
“You’re always so negative, Sorrow,” said Bliss, shaking his head.
“No duh. Let’s get a move on.”
“You’re always in such a hurry. Don’t you ever take time to enjoy the moment?”
“No.”
“Well, I find it to make my life a lot better if-”
“Shut up and move!”
So he finally did. They walked most of the trip in silence until they got to the corner they had met up with Excitement and Passion. Just around the bend they hear rustling and Excitement’s giggling, along with Passion’s deep Hispanic voice saying something in a whisper. Sorrow cleared her thought with such an ‘ahem!’ that it was a wonder she didn’t cause herself pain. Immediately the noises stopped.
Bliss and Sorrow could hear Agent Excitement’s high pitched, girlish voice say “They’re back!” in an half panicked half delighted tone. She popped out a few minutes later looking as perky as always, tugging a flustered, bedraggled looking Passion by his hand.
Passion face was flushed, his hair was a mess, the first couple buttons of his shirt were undone and he only had one arm in his suit coat. “Where’s Fear?” he asked when he had eventually gotten his bearings and was fixing his long hair.
“He took off when we managed to find him. You should’ve seen the set he had goin’! There were headless guys with cleavers, fake spiders, rusty hacksaws, and everything!” Bliss described joyfully.
“He really outdid himself, huh?” Passion said thoughtfully. “Where did he take off to?”
“We got lucky. He went straight for Rage’s office. Saves us the trouble of holding his hand the whole way,” Bliss explained.
“We’ve got to go through that zoo that got put in this place to get to the office, right?” asked Excitement curiously, cocking her head.
“Yeah,” moaned Sorrow, “Let’s hope that idiot to cause any trouble in there.”
Passion paused for a moment, cocking his head slightly to the right. He bit his bottom lip, as if trying to figure something out. Finally, with a confused look about him, he asked, “We have a zoo?”
The only thing that answered him was silence.
Passion was not satisfied. “Who in their right mind puts a zoo in outer space?”
The three others just went on staring at him.
“Whatever. Let’s just go,” he said in exasperation, throwing his arms up. “A zoo!?” he murmured as he stalked off down the somewhat bizarre hallways coated in maroon shag.
_____________________________________________________

“Yes! We have a zoo!” shouted Sorrow furiously at Passion after about the fourth time he asked that same question. “What can you not grasp about that?!”
“I’m sorry,” said Passion, not very apologetically. “I was just wondering why there would be a-”, however, Passion was cut off by quite a loud chorus of: “We know!”
Passion just hung his head and went on trudging, grumbling to himself. “Why does everything have to be so frickin’ weird around here?” he muttered before finally falling silent.
They traveled the main length of the halls in uncomfortable silence, considering Bliss was going at more of a stroll, smiling and humming softly, Excitement was imagining what their first mission was going to be (preferably something with bright colors and explosions), Passion was in a sour mood and Sorrow was as gloomy as always. Little did they know, as is common with people in these kinds of situations, what awaited them was quite amazing indeed.
They turned a corner and a vast expanse opened up before them and a plethora of sounds drifted towards their ears, along with countless colors and sights that seemed to pose before them.
“Holy crap. We do have a zoo.”

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