“Okay, I’ll disregard that passive jab. What's the plan for dinner tonight, I'm looking forward to some steak.”
“Steak? Ewww, Quantum.”
“What the hell is wrong with steak? Aside from the fact that it doesn't come with pancakes, or at least it usually doesn't, steak has been a source of protein for thousands of years.”
She continues to make the ew face. “'We're not having steak for dinner, seriously, just think of the triglycerides.”
“They never think of me!”
“Maybe I’ll make you something. Or we can order in, and then I can cook it.”
“I never understood this ‘order in and then we have to cook it’ bologna.”
“You know, there are these great humandroid chefs now that they just introduced to Baltimore. I mean, it started in New York and, you know, kind of went up to New England a little bit, but it's come down just a little bit and it's in Baltimore now. You pay them to come over and cook for you. Five-star restaurant-style meals.”
“A stranger in our house?” I ask with a grin, knowing full well that I’m pulling her chain. “You ever heard the phrase ‘stranger danger’?”
“Our house?”
“What? I thought we had some type of communal living going on, you know, I sleep on the couch, you sleep on the bed, sometimes we switch. I got squatter's rights, you know.”
“No, you don’t, and no, we never switch.”
“Well, I know it isn't winter yet, hell, it ain't even fall, but it was downright cold last night. I could have used a warm body to lay next to is what I'm saying.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes narrowing on me.
“All right, all right, we're here, we're here.” Doc's voice booms out of the speakers in the corners of the room. The holoscreen on the wall flashes, static steadying into place as his image takes shape, the video taken by his bee drone.
“Doc, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, ol’ stick-in-the-mud, how goes it?”
Doc gives me a look that is neither happy nor unhappy to see me. “It goes.”
“Well howdy, Quantum!” Arnie waves at me. Doc’s humandroid is in an apron that reads Barbeque the Chef.
“What's he cooking up?” I ask.
“Steak and waffles, what do you think?”
“See, Frances, I told you it was a thing.”
“That sounds terrible for you.”
“The best things in life are,” I remind her.
Doc pivots, and I see a metal table with Evan lying on it.
Sophia is next to him in her lab coat, hooking a few more cables to the back of his neck. The droid seems relaxed, totally cool with what is going on. His hands are on his chest, his fingers clasped together, moving ever so slightly.
“How long until Morning Assassin is with us?” I ask. “And how long will it take me to get to Colorado, so I can join, and we can go hit the bar scene and kick some ass?”
“Kick some ass, huh? You know the plans: we need you in Tritania.”
“Not fair, Doc,” I say under my breath, much to Frances' laughter.
“Can we mute him somehow?” Sophia asks as she finishes her Dr Frankenwitch routine. She pats Evan on the chest, letting him know that his body will soon belong to someone else.
Talk about a “someone else” to put into his body.
I would trade Evan for Morning Assassin any day of the week, and I'm not going to lie, I’m disappointed that I won’t be in Colorado with him, kicking ass, taking names, getting drunk, eating pancakes, and doing all the things that make Bromance flicks such huge hits.
I’ll have to think of a way to invite myself…
Cue some lightning, flicker the lights, add some sound effects, and boom, Aiden appears.
It's an amazing appearance too.
Evan suddenly moves his hands to his sides and sits up like the goddamn Undertaker. All business and gearing to go. His face even contorts into Aiden's wolfish grin.
“Bravo!” I say, clapping my hands at the screen. “Bravo!”
“What's up, Doc?” are the first words out of Morning Assassin’s lips.
“How are you feeling, buddy?” Doc asks.
“Stop moving around so much,” Sophia grumbles. “I’m still trying to make sure you're adequately plugged in.”
“No need to keep me plugged in, Dr. Wang, I'm feeling like a million bucks over here, maybe two million. Say, you don’t have any of that candy that doctors usually give patients. I’m looking for a sucker, and I’m not talking about Quantum.”
I snort. Damn, I love seeing Morning Assassin screw around with the good doctor.
“That was a terrible joke,” Frances says.
“He’s getting used to his new body, babe, give him some time.”
“Babe? That’s not cool, Quantum.”
“Sorry, old habits die hard. You know me. Just caught up in the moment.”
“So, are we ready to go?” Aiden asks. “Because I'm ready to go.”
“Hold your horses, Aiden, you know this is just a test run,” says Doc, his voice clipped. “You'll be hanging out for a while though, the big operation doesn't happen until…”
Aiden nods. “Yeah, I know how this is supposed to go. Mum’s the word. But it's going to be you and me, right?”
“That's right,” Doc tells him. “I got a place right next to you.”
I can’t see Doc's metal bed completely, but I can see the corner of it. It was going to be one hell of an assault, that was for sure. Doc in Arnie's body, and Aiden in Evan’s body? Fuhgeddaboudit.
“We have a lot to do,” Sophia tells Aiden. “We're going to disconnect the feed now.”
I hate the way she says this. It's like everything she says is somehow targeted at me. She even looked at the camera when she said it. I knew exactly who she was aiming at.
“Well, I can see when I'm not wanted.”
“She didn't say anything like that,” Frances tells me.
“Certainly feels like it. But what can you do? That’s the problem with being here: we should be in Colorado with our homies.”
“Homies?”
“I’m trying it out.”
“Don’t.”
“Let's skedaddle. We got an early morning ahead of us.”
~*~
It was Frances’ idea.
I wasn't entirely sold, but having a humandroid cook for us sounded better than having to cook for ourselves. And I didn't feel like going to a restaurant, especially because my damn back was hurting, and the fact that I’d have to clean up if we were going to go out.
Who says I can’t wear a black shirt, loose black jeans, and a pair of Boba Fetts to a sit-down restaurant? Frances, that’s who.
But the gremlins living in my skull know the real reason I don’t want to go out – my vertebral column.
Not to say I don’t have relatively decent healthcare through the FCG, I’m just not ready to take that leap yet, get my ass aligned proper. I don't have a paycheck yet, but I have healthcare. What the hell kind of world am I living in where that makes sense? I don't know exactly how that works, and I should probably talk to HR, if we had an HR. Maybe I should talk to the lawyer, Solon.
“Someone needs to pay my ass.”
“You sure got quiet over there,” Frances says as she lowers her aeros into an assigned parking spot.
I see her rat-faced superintendent smoking a cigarette on the stoop and glaring at us. I can't smell him from here, and if we were in the Loop, I’d put him down for the good of the general public.
“Thinking about my paycheck?”
She laughs. “What paycheck? I know, it’s not funny, we just don’t have any money until the next fiscal year starts. You can still write stuff off, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just wondering how I’m supposed to wine and dine you without a dime to my name.”
“I’ve told you before, don’t worry about that.”
“I’d just like to have the option to take you out, you know, someplace nice.
I’m talking Golden Corral here.”
“A buffet?” Frances shakes her head.
“What? You get what you want, I get what I want? Why is everyone always judging buffets?”
“Let’s get inside,” she says, ignoring the angry stares from her building’s super. “We’ll have something nice tonight, trust me.”
“Yeah, I trust you.”
It only takes about fifteen minutes for the humandroid chef to appear. Damn, you’d think these things came out of pods in the sky. “Nope, I was already in the neighborhood,” the droid says, as if he can read my mind. He’s a bigger guy with red hair parted down the middle. Kind of reminds of the grown-up version of that chubby kid from Sandlot.
Pretty sure that kid’s name was Ham.
After a brief greeting, and some time to assess our flavor palates, the droid gets to cooking something French, while Frances and I enjoy a fine wine, at least it's fine enough for me.
“Am I doing this right?” I asked as I swirl the wine in the glass.
“No, you're not mixing Kool-Aid.” Frances snickers. “It’s a good wine.”
“Anything better than Boone's Farm is fine enough for me. And let me be the first to tell you, Frances, you would have loved Kool-Aid back in my day, in the 2020s. That was before they replaced it with all sorts of healthy crap, fruit shavings, non-fructose corn syrup, and what not. Stevia?”
“Is that what you think is in Kool-Aid?” she asks, setting her wine glass on the table.
“No idea.”
“You do have iNet, you know.”
“You're the one that forced me to have this damn eyelid-based internet. I was happy with my desktop computer.”
“Your calculator too? How about your flip phone?” She laughs, her cheeks slightly flushed from the wine.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”
One good thing I can say about these humandroid chefs is that they're fast. Ham isn't there more than thirty minutes before we're enjoying some hoity toity appetizer that I can barely pronounce.
More food comes, some duck wrapped in chicken or chicken with duck. Maybe it’s rabbit. Point is, Frances and I eat, talk about a variety of things, and it's when we get onto our early morning assault that I get real excited, my foot practically thumping against the floor.
Talk about morning wood, killing me some Reapers at the ass crack of dawn is what I was put on this earth to do. “Those mama's boys will be sleeping off a late-night video game sesh when we show up, cutting through their lines. Can’t wait, Frances,” I say, the wine loosening my lips.
“I can tell you’re excited.”
“Nope, not going to go with a Michael-Scott joke this time. That’s beneath me.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, but good,” says Frances, “you’re behaving.”
“A special croque-auvergnat prepared using a ham hock from northern Massachusetts.”
“Now we’re talking,” I say, as the chef places the pressed sandwich smothered in blue cheese on the table. “It’s like a breakfast sandwich gone right!”
“I am glad you like it, sir.” The humandroid turns back to the kitchen, a thin smile on his face.
“Keep ‘em coming, and some macaroons too.”
An URGENT HIGH IMPORTANCE incoming message from Rocket tells me that Ray Steampunk and our very own wizkid have secured permission for air support.
Good to know, but I still plan to keep things fantasy with a sassy flying terror lizard. Not that I don't want to fly in on a griffin. That would be cool too, but Dragon vs Griffin? Dragon.
More meat comes.
Meat, meat, and a little more meat, and I’m starting to feel like that bloated blueberry kid in Willy Wonka.
I can't believe Frances is letting us eat this much meat; I can just feel myself getting stronger with each bite, growing smarter, faster, all the superlatives Daft Punk used in that song that Kanye West’s crazy ass remade.
It's a lean meat, but I'm fine with that, and I don't even ask what kind of meat it is, hoping that it's something exotic, like horse, or wombat. I just feel like being exotic tonight, doing something out of the ordinary.
Says the guy who's sleeping on the couch, I remind myself.
More courses, more meat, happy Quantum. I sit out the sixth course, because I'm not willing to eat some escargot, and it's going to be a cold day at the Mondegreen Hotel before I start stuffing snails in my kisser.
Seventh course is some type of after dinner soup. Eighth course is dessert, which is a delicate French pastry that tastes like a dream covered in whipped cream. Ninth course is some macaroons and French press coffee.
By the end of the meal I'm drumming my fingers on my belly, happier than I’ve been in weeks.
I'd smoke a cigarette if I smoked, so instead, I polish off the bottle of wine while Our Lady of the Guadaloop cracks open another.
I still end up on the couch later that night, but as they say in France, c'est la vie.
Chapter Five
“That's not the type of Airship I was expecting,” I say as my avatar takes shape.
We’re in an unknown location, unknown mostly because I don't feel like looking at my map to try to figure out where in Hyperborea we currently stand.
Dammit if Frances didn't get my ass up at three in the morning and bring me to the Dream Team headquarters.
And damn if Rocket didn't have a nice cup of Joe ready for me right when I arrived. No pancakes, but Frances did offer me some gerbil food, which I reluctantly ate, even though I told Rocket specifically to try to get me some tacos.
Apparently, they don't serve tacos at three in the morning at most Mexican restaurants and/or food trucks, at least in Baltimore. I’d put good money that I could get them down south at that time.
Hunger pangs quickly leave my mind as I stare up at the floating steamboat.
“I think it's kind of cool,” Rocket finally says.
Sure enough, Ray Steampunk has gone for a vessel that would twist the ends of Mark Twain's mustache.
Now, I'm not a big ship expert, starboard and other terms, but I will say this: Steampunk’s floating steamboat has a pretty nice deck, pretty good-looking wheelhouse, and it definitely has a little flare seeing as how it’s painted gold. The name on the marquee? Ray Steampunk’s Steamboat.
“Should we go up there?” asks Frances.
“Why do I have this feeling we don't have a choice?”
“You’re fine where you are,” says Steampunk, who now stands behind us.
“Watch it with that magician shit, Ray,” I say as I lower my inventory finger and turn around. He’s lucky I’m not as quick on the draw as Morning Assassin.
Speak of the devil, Aiden's avatar steps out of thin air, good ol’ MA in his Snake Eyes get-up with just a bit of chainmail under his arms.
“Sophia sent me back,” he says, before I can ask.
“She'll bust your balls like that.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look, everyone, if we're going to all spawn at the same time, let's not spawn behind one another because that’s how someone gets shot, sheesh. Hello, Dr. Wang,” I say to the Mind Mage, who now stands behind me. She takes a few steps forward, her elven features on display, and with each step she takes, she floats just a little higher into the air, until she can finally reach her passive-aggressive plane of existence.
“You have a magnificent steamboat, Mr. Steampunk,” Sophia tells Ray, her eyes going from ‘not happy to see Quantum’ to genuinely impressed. “I am honored to witness such a marvel.”
“Suck up,” I say under my breath as I check my three and nine. “Where's Doc?” I ask. “Everyone else is here.”
“Doc's not coming,” says Doc, his faun avatar forming, in front of me for once.
“See, everyone? That’s how you do it. Make a pithy statement as you spawn where someone can see you.”
Morning Assassin laughs, his wolfish grin stretching the front of his mask.
“See? He gets
me.”
Ray Steampunk lifts into the air, the ends of his red cape beating in the wind. “Please call your vessels so that we may proceed with the attack.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I mumble, as I take out my mirrored necklace.
I hold it in the air like I’m auditioning for DisNike’s The Gender Non-Conforming Lion Throne Holder on Ice, and just as Sophia starts to tell me that won’t work, Mirror appears in the night’s sky, twinkling stars reflecting off her glistening body.
“Now that’s a sexy dragon. Who's coming with me?” I ask my version of the Suicide Squad.
“Frances?”
She shrugs.
“Really? You’d rather ride with Ray on his hopped-up steamboat?”
“Fine, I'll come with you.”
“I thought someone said something about griffins…” says Aiden.
“You don’t want to ride on a dragon?” I ask as Mirror circles in the sky overhead.
“I do, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve never taken a crack at a griffin.”
I give Aiden a squinty-eyed look. “I know there’s a bestiality joke in here somewhere, but I’m not making it.”
“Gross,” says Doctor Wang-a-Lang. “I’m going with Steampunk, obviously.”
“The griffins should be here any moment,” says the King of Steam himself.
Last and definitely not least, Rocket’s avatar spawns in his Edward Scissorhands armor. “What did I miss?”
“We’re ponying up for the early morning assault,” I tell him. “You going with me, Ray, or by griffin?”
“Griffin, definitely.”
I sigh in disbelief. “You too?”
“Doc?”
“Well…” A cancer stick appears between Doc’s lips just as the mirrored dragon lands. She huffs, possibly farts, bounces from leg to leg, and flaps her wings.
“Interrupting my beauty rest?” she asks. “This better be good.”
“Well what, Doc? Plenty of room on the dragon,” I tell our CWO.
Mirror snorts at my comment and starts to turn to me, clearly offended by what I’ve said.
“Hey, girl, it’s not like that. That was not supposed to be any sort of fat-shaming comment, believe you me.”
Apotheosis Boom (The Feedback Loop Book 8) Page 5
