“He was, like, holding us hostage, or whatever.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I totally warned him what would happen if he didn’t let us out.”
“No, I know—”
“So, don’t even try to blame this on us. It’s all Kevin’s fault.”
“Well, I mean—”
The door slid closed between them.
A moment later, it opened again.
“Oh, and math is so lame.”
The door slid closed again. Cal stood in silence, feeling like a boxer who’d just taken a flurry of unexpected punches to the head.
“Well, that told them, sir,” Kevin remarked.
“I think they’ve learned their lesson,” said Cal. He leaned closer to the door and raised his voice. “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”
“Ugh! Whatever,” came the reply.
Cal straightened, looked the door up and down, and nodded. “Yeah. I think they learned their lesson.”
The door opened again as he started to turn away. Mizette poked her head out, darted her eyes in both directions along the corridor, then lowered her voice.
“So, like, is it serious?”
“The fire? It could’ve been serious.”
“No. Not the fire. You know what I mean.”
Cal had to confess that contrary to what she might believe, he had no fonking clue what she was on about.
“You. And her. Is it serious?”
Cal half-smiled, caught off-guard. “Seems like an odd time to ask.”
“Is it? Are you going to get, like, married or whatever?”
“Married?” Cal spluttered.
Mizette was staring back at him with absolute sincerity, the door held closed behind her head to stop Tyrra hearing her.
“No!” he said, his voice rising half an octave. “No, of course we’re not going to get married!”
“Oh. So it’s not serious, then?” Miz asked.
“Well, I mean—”
“Not, like, serious serious?”
“Well—”
Miz’s eyes shone, wide and trusting and hopeful. Cal shuffled on the spot, willing the floor to open up beneath him.
“I mean, I guess not,” he said.
The look of relief on her face spurred him on. “Not serious serious, no. It’s just…”
“Fun?” Miz guessed.
“Yes! It’s fun.”
“Not serious?”
“Not serious serious,” Cal confirmed.
“OK,” said Miz. She looked him up and down, slightly salaciously. Behind her, Cal saw her tail wag. “Good to know.”
She stepped back and the door closed between them. Cal waited for a moment in case she opened up to quiz him some more, but then heard the murmur of Miz and Tyrra talking together, and decided his role in the conversation was probably over.
Tiptoeing back along the corridor, Cal peeked around the kitchen doorframe to make sure nobody was watching, then scampered past before he could get roped into helping with the tidy-up.
Once safely by, he made for the bridge, then stopped just inside the doorway.
Liquid spurted ineffectually from a single sprinkler head on the ceiling. There was no pressure to it, and it drizzled fat blobs of water in a dotted vertical line below it like a shower head in a cheap roadside motel. Albeit without the imminent fear of being murdered.
Unfortunately, unimpressive as the spray was, the sprinkler head was positioned directly above Cal’s chair. Water pooled in his seat, going plink-puhplink-plink as the drops continued to fall.
“Well,” Cal sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “Isn’t that just awesome?”
The Grumptch threw himself at the link metal fence. His leathery palms felt a tingle from the electrical current that surged through the fence, but the thick skin insulated him enough that he was able to hold on. He scrambled up, the fur on his neck standing on end, blood oozing through the cracked shell on his back.
Arms that—according to the news, at least—had torn innocent people limb from limb burned from the effort as he heaved himself up toward the jagged top of the fence, and the assortment of blades and pointy things welded to the frame. This was going to hurt. A lot.
Still, it was better than the alternative.
A Plasma blast scorched a hole through the metal beside him, spurring him on.
“No, no, no, no,” the Grumptch sobbed, heaving himself up toward freedom, toward salvation. Toward a fonking big nail that passed through his palm with a pop, forcing a scream through his jagged piranha-like teeth.
From not too far back in the darkness of the alleyway, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and the whine of a weapon charging.
Plasmoid was coming.
Locking his teeth together, the Grumptch kicked and scrabbled up the fence, his skin snagging and tearing as he dragged his weight over the top.
He yanked his hand sharply, and the nail came free with a sickening schlurp. From the other side of the fence, he found himself staring right down the throat of Plasmoid’s cannon as it ignited, and knew there was no time to climb. No time to wait. No time to do anything but kick back from the fence and surrender himself to the arms of fate.
He launched himself backward just as the top of the fence erupted, showering him in fragments of molten-hot metal. He was almost grateful for them as, for a moment, they took his mind off the fall, and the fact that he was about to hit the—
He slammed onto the pockmarked street with enough force to crack the shell on his back. Pain exploded down his spine as all the soft, fleshy areas that were never designed to be uncovered were suddenly exposed to the cold night air.
No time to fix it. No time to lose. No time. No time.
The Grumptch rolled onto his front and, with superhuman effort, launched himself to his feet. The alleyway was long and narrow, and Plasmoid was an excellent shot. She’d missed him deliberately those last few rounds, he had no doubt about that. It added to the drama. The viewers loved it.
The point was, in this alleyway, she could shoot him any time she wanted, and there was a whole lot of alleyway left before he reached the end.
And what then? He’d lost his Preypad, so he had no maps, no route markers, no idea where he had to go. He’d once seen an episode where someone had dismantled a Hovercam and built a new Preypad from the parts, but the Grumptch wouldn’t have the first clue where to start, even if he could catch one of the drones.
No, brainpower wasn’t really his strong point.
But he was not without his talent.
Throwing himself sideways, the Grumptch smashed through the wooden wall of the building beside him. Cannon-fire flared along the alley as he stumbled into a large rectangular room.
No, not a room. ‘Room’ wasn’t quite accurate. It was a space. It was an area of a building that might, with some work, eventually become a room. The walls and floor were bare and untreated. Wires hung from the ceiling and poked through holes in the skirting.
There was no furniture, or even a suggestion that furniture might feature in the space’s immediate future.
It didn’t have much, but what the not-yet-a-room did have was the one thing the Gruntch had hoped for.
It had a door.
He hobbled for it, leaving a trail of viscous clear fluid that oozed from his broken shell, and a spattering of blood from his many, many assorted wounds.
How long had they been chasing him for now? Four hours? Five? When had he last stopped to catch his breath? When had he last rested? When had he last done anything but run and hide and fight?
They’d given him a glass of water after that Hovercam had malfunctioned and he’d been forced to do a reshoot of his frantic scrabble through the Belchpits, but that had been hours ago and he’d been through Hell since then.
He clattered against the doorway and spun into the next room, almost tripping over a pile of metal scaffolding poles.
This room was more of a work in progress than
the last one, and a DecoDroid turned at the sound of him entering, spraying a mist of magnolia paint onto the floor before it could deactivate its nozzle.
The DecoDroid had been painting the lower part of the wall when the Grumptch had entered, and so it was currently short and squat. It became shorter and squatter still when a four foot long section of scaffolding pole slammed down onto its domed head, rupturing its TumTanks and glugging gallons of paint onto the floor.
The Grumptch splashed through the paint, immediately regretting what he’d done. The DecoDroid almost certainly wasn’t going to hurt him—although, you could never tell what surprises the network had set up—and now he was going to leave a trail of footprints for Plasmoid to follow.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He could imagine what the Host’s narration would be saying right now, could practically hear the laughter of the studio audience. This would definitely end up in his Highlights Reel. Hell, it’d probably go viral.
There were two doors leading out of the room, both closed. He picked one at random and splashed through the puddle of paint toward it.
Maybe he could use the paint to his advantage, somehow. Maybe he could set a false trail and lead Plasmoid into a trap. He had a weapon now, crude as it was. Maybe, just maybe, he had a fighting chance.
He opened the door. The mouth of a cannon was waiting for him.
Plasmoid’s teeth glowed golden in the darkness beyond.
“Wait. Please. No.”
“This execution is sponsored by Ringclean Fresh Wipes,” Plasmoid announced. “Smell the freshness. Feel the freshness. Taste the freshness.”
And then, she fired.
Thirteen
Cal stood with his back to the screen as he addressed the rest of the crew. Once the kitchen had been cleaned up (a bit) and his chair dried off (a bit), he’d gathered everyone together to fill them in on what he and Loren had discovered.
Several minutes of bickering and accusation-flinging had followed, mostly between Mech, Miz, and Tyrra. During this, Cal had slipped unnoticed out into the corridor, collected Mech’s homemade musical instrument, the Blufflebag, from the cyborg’s room, and then returned to the bridge and blasted noise out of it until everyone shut the fonk up.
“It ain’t supposed to sound like that,” Mech had gone to great lengths to point out. “He’s just playing it wrong.”
“They’re space bagpipes. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to sound like, Mech. Face it, you birthed a monster,” Cal said, unceremoniously dumping the collection of pipes, sacks, and bellows on the cyborg’s console. “Now, everyone listen up. We have a problem.”
“Willful arsonism, sir?” enquired Kevin.
“No, not that,” Cal said. Miz was fixated on her claws and so didn’t notice him looking at her. Tyrra did, but just stared back with her big black eyes until he looked away again. “I mean another problem. It turns out that warp disks are expensive. Like, crazy expensive.”
“Of course they’re expensive,” said Mech.
“But, like, wow expensive,” said Cal. “What the fonk are they made of, angel’s tears?”
“Condensed sun plasma,” said Mech.
Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Yeah, that actually does sound like an expensive thing,” he conceded. “But, I mean, Jesus. They’re the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of credits. Each! That’s not even for, like, a pack of five. That’s for one warp disk. There’s no way we can afford one.”
“How much we got?” Mech asked.
“Just over six hundred credits,” said Cal.
“What about that sandwich you bought?” asked Loren. She was sitting behind her console, her arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was cool, and bordering on cold.
“OK, fine. Just under six hundred credits,” Cal corrected. “Also, if you get the chance, there’s this cute little space deli on the corner where they do this amazing…”
He caught the looks the others were giving him.
“Know what? Forget it. We have just under six hundred credits. Plus forty dollars I found in an old pair of pants.”
“So, what are you saying?” asked Miz, flicking her eyes up. “We don’t have enough?”
Kevin made a throat clearing sound. “Perhaps if someone had paid a little more attention in math class, they’d be able to figure that out for themselves…”
“No, we don’t have enough,” said Cal. “Not even close. That’s problem number one.”
“We got another problem?” Mech groaned. He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course we do. What now?”
“They don’t take credits. Not officially,” said Cal. “The sandwich guy did because, well…”
“You started crying,” Loren said.
“I pretended to start crying,” Cal said, apparently quite proud of this fact. “Guilt tripped the shizz out of him until he caved. It was pretty awesome.”
“I’ve never wanted you more,” said Loren.
Cal blinked in surprise. “Seriously?”
Loren shook her head and flashed him a deeply sarcastic look. “No.”
“Oh. Damn. Thought I was onto something,” he said. “Anyway, I think he just wanted us to leave so he could get back to the TV. They are fonking obsessed with that thing on this planet.”
He smiled wistfully. “Still. Great sandwich. Little heavy on the purple stuff, but otherwise highly recommended.”
The expression on Mech’s face snapped Cal out of his sandwich-inspired daze. “Right. Sorry. What was I saying?”
“They don’t take credits.”
“Yes. That’s right. They use something called Vajacox.”
Loren sighed. “Viacoin.”
Cal shot her a frown. “Seriously? The whole time in that store, I kept calling it Vajacox.”
“I know,” said Loren.
“Why didn’t you correct me?”
“I did. A bunch of times,” Loren told him. “So did the salesman. Again, a bunch of times. You just kept saying ‘Vajacox.’”
A crease appeared above Cal’s nose. He blinked slowly.
“And it isn’t Vajacox,” Loren explained.
“Right. OK.”
“It’s Viacoin.”
“I’ve got it now,” said Cal, tapping the side of his head. “It’s locked in.”
Mech, who had been impatient enough at the beginning of the conversation and been growing more so over the past few minutes, butted in.
“So, basically, we ain’t got any money?”
“Right. Yes. That’s it in a nutshell. We ain’t got any money,” Cal said. “And no money means no warp disk. And no warp disk means—”
“We’re fonked,” said Mech.
“Exactamundo.”
Cal clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, beaming broadly at the crew. “So, brainstorm time. We need a warp disk. We have zero money. Thoughts?”
Miz was the first to state the obvious.
“We could just, like, steal one.”
“Excellent suggestion, Miz. Great work,” Cal enthused. “Mech, write that down. ‘Steal one.’ Write that down.”
Mech mimed scribbling in the palm of his hand.
“Hilarious,” said Cal. “Actually write it down.”
“On what?” asked Mech. “I ain’t got a motherfonking notepad.”
“Forget it. Kevin, can you write the ideas down?”
“Very good, sir,” Kevin said. The screen changed from showing a view of the landing bay to showing a slide full of mind-bending formulae. “Would you like me to express it in the form of a mathematical equation, sir?”
“Could you express it in the form of words?”
“I suppose so, sir,” said Kevin. “It’s just, I did invest quite a lot of effort in—”
“Great! Write it in words, then,” Cal said, cutting the objection short.
There was a tut, a sigh, and then all the text on screen was cleared.
A moment later, the words: “Sta
el One,” appeared.
Another moment after that, they backspaced to fix the typo in the first word, then were typed out again.
“Happy, sir?”
“Perfect, Kevin. Thanks,” said Cal. “Only, maybe do bullet points. You know, like a little dot before each thing? It just makes it easier to follow.”
“As you wish, sir.”
The text indented as a little percentage symbol appeared in front of the first line.
“Wait, no, that’s not it,” Kevin said.
The percentage sign vanished, then came back again.
Cal raised a finger. “That’s—”
“The same one, yes, sir, I’m aware of that,” Kevin replied. The symbol was deleted again, leaving only a blinking cursor. “One moment. I know it’s in here somewhere…”
There was a protracted silence. Cal’s boots creaked as he shifted his weight.
“I’m sure I saw it yesterday.”
“Know what? Forget it. It doesn’t—”
“Wait, I have it, sir,” said Kevin. “The problem was that I wasn’t holding Shift.”
A percentage symbol appeared before the first line.
“Great. Nailed it,” said Cal, giving the ceiling a thumbs-up. He turned to the crew, all smiles, his eyes pleading with them to say nothing. “OK, first idea down, and it’s only taken five minutes. We are on fire!”
The sprinkler above his chair activated, drizzling water onto the towels he’d spread across it.
“Not literally on fire, Kevin.”
The sprinkler stopped.
Cal did his best to keep his smile going. “OK, so… anything else? Anyone else have any other suggestions?”
There was a thoughtful silence from the crew.
“Anything at all?” Cal asked, snapping his fingers a few times as if this would somehow provide the extra motivation they needed. “Come on, there are no bad ideas.”
“Well—” Kevin began.
“Except whatever Kevin was about to say,” said Cal. “There are no bad ideas except that. So, come on. Hit me. What have you got?”
“I think ‘steal one’ pretty much covers all our available options,” said Mech.
Loren shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know what?” asked Mech.
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