by Logan Jacobs
The Skalle Furia leader’s head was hanging to the side, his eyes closed, his body slumping off the chair we’d tied him to.
PoLarr approached him cautiously and put two fingers on his throat. “No pulse,” she reported. “He must have had some kind of self-destruction mechanism.”
“Like a cyanide capsule in the teeth?” I asked.
“Or any one of the hundreds of neurotoxins used throughout the universe that are more painless and more efficient,” Olivia said as she stared at the corpse of the Skalle leader.
“Why you gotta bust Earth’s chops, Olivia?” I asked.
“I’ve seen a lot of poisoning cases cross my desk in my years on the force,” Olivia explained. “It’s a very popular way to kill people. And some of those poisons have other adverse effects on the corpse...” Her eyes widened, and she barked, “Everybody out, NOW!”
We all sprang into action. Olivia had already reached out to yank PoLarr away from the body and shoved her right into the hallway. Nova hustled Tempest and Aurora out the door right after, protecting them by putting her dense body between the girls and whatever Olivia might have spotted. I stuck Chaz under my arm like a sack of potatoes and ran for the door. Chaz squeaked, but I slid into the hallway safely just before a muffled explosion rocked the corridor.
I looked back to assess the situation. Thomas was pressed against the door, holding it back with all his might as it rattled in its frame with the force of the explosion. He gritted his teeth, and I could see the strain in his face as he held it back.
We’d all ducked and covered, but Olivia was the first to lift her head. “The explosive phase has stopped,” she said, “but don’t go back in. The corpse is going to start to emit a gas that will do the same thing to any carbon-based lifeform who breathes it in.”
“Why don’t we get away from the room with the universe’s most dangerous corpse? That sound good to anyone?” Tempest stood up and gave the door the stink-eye.
“Thomas is right, Los Angeles is a big city,” I said as we left the room with the Skalle’s corpse behind. “Chaz, you think he was talking about the whole area or just the city proper? They might have ended up in Compton or something.” I tried to imagine the Skalle Furia trading fire with Caine and O-Dog from Menace II Society. “I’ll be a big-ass movie star, shit.”
“We have four hours to save your Earth’s princess,” Nova chided me, “you won’t have time to break into moving pictures.”
“Olivia, how could you tell that corpse was going to explode?” I asked.
“Drustam poisoning attacks the brain first to kill painlessly, then it creates a sac of internal pressure inside the head as the fluid turns to a gas,” Olivia explained. “You can see it leak out through the soft tissues near the brain--cheeks, eyelids, and neck. It’ll swell and twitch. When it hits air and oxidizes, it creates a chemical reaction that turns to flame.”
“Thanks, Bill Nye.” I tried not to imagine my head exploding from the inside out. The universe had some nasty substances in it. Olivia had been able to save our lives just by noticing a few twitches in a dead body, and that was badass.
“Now that’s a spicy meatball,” PoLarr muttered. “Commercials, Marc? Really?”
“Look, they’re forms of art on Earth, and especially in America. We have this event every year called the Super Bowl where everyone gathers around the television set as a nation to watch the most innovative and expensive ad campaigns of the year make their debut.”
The chorus of Warrant’s “She’s My Cherry Pie” started playing from my pocket. That was Artemis calling me on my ansible phone. It wasn’t that different from Earth cell phones, except that it had universe-wide range with no dropped calls and the equivalent of several million gigs of memory yet was somehow still incapable of running Angry Birds no matter how much I fiddled with the settings.
“Artie baby!” I answered the phone. “We’re on our way to Los Angeles. Everything okay over there?”
“No, everything is very not Old Kinderhook.” Artemis sounded frazzled, and I could hear the capital letters in her voice.
“Uh, oh,” I sighed. “What—”
“Marc, the next match begins in six hours. Your presence is absolutely required. You can’t miss the match.”
“Honestly, what happens if we don’t show up? Is there a penalty?”
“They will consider you to have dropped out of the competition, no matter what the circumstances are. All of your victories will be forfeit, even the first one. They’ll make sure that every sentient being on your planet is sold into the harshest slavery possible, even the children. You can’t miss the match,” she repeated. “Please, Marc, come back.”
My stomach dropped into my shoes. I’d hoped it would be something as simple as having to give up an upgrade. I could probably make it through the rest of the games without being able to swim like Michael Phelps, for example, but of course the Crucible would never make things so easy.
I shouldered the phone so we could talk as we walked. “What about the Bio-Droids? I mean, can we just send Marc II and the Stepford Babes into the arena? They have my mental signature.”
Artemis gasped. “Marc...that’s cheating. Real, real cheating, not just giving yourself an advantage.”
“What’re they going to do, send me to the principal’s office?” Even as I made the joke, I knew the penalty for cheating, for getting caught cheating, anyway, would have to be really dire.
“Your... your entire Alliance...” Artie took a breath and continued in a deliberate monotone that didn’t quite hide the tears in her voice. “Your entire Alliance and their home planets will be processed for nutritional supplements meant for institutional and agricultural use.”
“In other words, we’ll be mulch. Mulch and Soylent Green.”
“It’s people,” PoLarr confirmed from behind me.
The sound of crashing glass came over the speaker. “Tempest! PoLarr! Highball glasses are not hardened-mud doves for shooting skeet,” Artie scolded. “That’s the other reason we can’t send your bio-droids into the Crucible, Marc. It’s been too long. They’re not acting right, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep this place intact.”
“JENGA!” I heard myself bellow through the speaker. “Art-art-Artie, check it out, I just kicked Nova’s buh-buh-butt.”
“Is that what I sound like?” I asked. “It’s whinier than I thought.”
“Very good, Marc, you made a Jenga.” Artie sounded really frazzled. “They’re playing some toppling game with your DVDs and when I try to stop them they just start making the tower again. At least Aurora’s just making a mess with bubble bath. Your voice is not whiny at all, by the way.”
“That’s a load off my mind. Look, let them smash a few glasses if they really want. Just make sure they don’t hurt you or burn the place down while they’re in their weird android death throes. We’ll be back in time.” I swallowed down a lump in my throat. I would get back to Artemis and save the Earth again, or I would die trying. “I promise.”
“I’m gripping you to that,” she murmured wearily. “I’m going to consume a benzodiazepine and some soothing Earth media where nothing really bad happens. Any suggestions?”
I skimmed through my mental collection of media for something soothing. “Try My Neighbor Totoro.” I’d watched it over and over when my mom had been in the hospital the first time. It had given me hope that she would pull through and come back home to us, just like the mom in the movie.
“I’ll see if I can get it away from the Jenga players.” She paused. “I know the breeding heir of a nation is important...but if it’s between you and her, I know who I want back more.”
I decided not to try to explain America’s electoral system at that moment. “I love you, Artie. Go take care of yourself.”
“I’ve got an address,” Olivia said suddenly. “An informant.”
“Got to go save a life, baby,” I said to Artemis.
“I heard,” she sniffled. “I
love you, Marc.” The ansible beeped. She’d hung up. I hoped she was actually going to relax like she’d told me, but Artie wasn’t in the habit of lying to make me feel better.
Olivia held up the text message on her ansible phone for everyone to see. “He wants to meet us in an address in Los Angeles on Hollywood Boulevard.”
“It could be an ambush,” Nova pointed out.
“Then we’ll show up prepared for an informant, but ready for an ambush,” I decided. “We don’t have time not to follow leads.”
The first thing I saw when Chaz bamfed us into Hollywood was a sign announcing that we were standing in Raymond Chandler Square.
“This seems like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in,” I said. The staid stone buildings that lined the street had been decorated with chrome and neon additions that could have been the new technology, or it could have just been Googie architecture gone crazy. Sunlight gleamed off the cars that hovered above us, barely moving. Even flying cars couldn’t do much for the traffic in Los Angeles.
“We can’t all be heroes,” Thomas said. “Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.” It wasn’t the kind of thing I expected to hear from a Black Ops veteran. I must have looked confused, because he pointed to the pink star under his feet. “I’m standing on Will Rogers.”
“Well, apologize to whoever you landed on and let’s get inside.” Olivia led us all into the little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop right in front of where we’d landed.
Inside, the coffee shop was all concrete floors and brushed chrome furniture, blonde and black wood and abstract art on the walls. Succulents in weird angular planters sat in every nook and cranny, and I wondered if they were alien plants or just particularly colorful cacti. The cafe looked more industrial than cozy, especially with the masses of tangled glass tubes and bulbs that took up most of the wall behind the counter. I grinned as I recognized Oingo Boingo’s manic version of “California Girls” playing over the sound system. Maybe Danny Elfman would finally get to find out how many legs girls from Neptune really have.
A barista with emo bangs, an “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” T-shirt, and glasses like Rivers Cuomo finally getting to Beverly Hills waved to us as we walked in. “Hi, guys. What can I get started for you today? We have a really incredible Kopi Luwak that I can do as a pour-over.”
“Is that some kind of new high-tech coffee?” Thomas asked suspiciously.
“It actually comes from an island in Indonesia. The coffee beans are fermented in the digestive tract of an Asian civet cat, collected from its leavings, and then brewed to perfection for you. It’s one of the most exclusive non-alcoholic drinks in the world, and I’m proud to work with it every day.” The barista beamed as though he hadn’t just offered us cups of cat poop.
“Sugar,” Aurora asked slowly from behind me, “what exactly is wrong with this planet?”
“Beats me,” I answered her. “I always thought a Pumpkin Spice Latte was as fancy as it got, coffee-wise.”
Thomas stepped up to the counter and took out his wallet with a sigh. “Look, do you folks have any regular coffee that doesn’t come from a litter box?”
“We have a Sulawesi Full City with notes of maple and boysenberry that’s great as an Americano. It’s never even seen a funny picture of a cat.”
Thomas nodded. “A round of whatever that is for everyone.”
“I’ll just have water,” PoLarr said.
“We have sparkling, mineral, alkalized--”
“As long as it has a ratio of two hydrogen atoms to one oxygen atom, I really don’t care.”
I leaned against the counter and scanned the venue while our coffee meandered through miles of glass piping. PoLarr and Nova pushed tables together in the back so we could sit. None of the other customers looked like they were likely to be our informant; everyone was tapping away at a laptop or tablet, except for one guy who had brought an entire old-fashioned typewriter. That was weird enough to make me wonder if he was our man, but he looked way too absorbed in whatever he was writing. I hoped whoever it was would find us soon. Four hours wasn’t a lot of time to save the President’s daughter from certain death.
“So this is where the movies come from,” Tempest remarked. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the room, looking for danger and finding only writers.
“This town, anyway,” I said. “Maybe not this particular coffee shop, but you never know. Humans come here from all over the planet with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams, hoping they’ll get famous. Except for the ones who just came to make cat poop coffee.”
“Uh, I actually have two million followers on Instagram, which does make me kind of famous.” Our coffee expert set a tray full of cups on the counter and glowered at me. “Hashtag Love that Luwak.”
“Hey, good for you.” It was a tiny fraction of the billions of fans I apparently had as Earth’s Champion, but I was still trying to wrap my head around those kinds of numbers. Having a dream that could be fulfilled by working at a coffee shop and handling cat poop seemed like a decent kind of life. Heck, I’d convinced myself I was content with being a trucker for life less than a year ago.
We all took our drinks and went to wait for our informant at the hastily assembled long table in the back of the coffee shop. I didn’t mind being squished between Aurora and Olivia at all. We had all chosen seats with our backs to the wall, and I realized it must have looked like the Last Supper. The Last Coffee, perhaps.
The brilliant Los Angeles sun shone through the window on my left, and I raised my hand to shade it from my eyes. It was nice to have Earth’s sun on my skin again, but there was altogether too much of it in Los Angeles.
I tried my coffee. It didn’t taste like boysenberry at all, but there was a bit of something sweet that could have been maple. It was definitely nothing on Woodhouse’s coffee, and I did not want this cup to be the last I ever tasted. I chugged it as quickly as I could. The more caffeine I could put in my system right now, the more I could function over what was sure to be a grueling next few hours. Too bad whoever it was hadn’t wanted to meet at a diner.
“Hi, guys. How are your coffees?” The barista sat down in front of us. He had added a black Joy Division hoodie, and I wondered if he knew that our astronomers thought that the pulsar waves illustrated on his clothing had been of alien origin, or if he just really liked Ian Curtis. Maybe Ian Curtis had been an alien too.
“Fine,” I answered.
He nodded to PoLarr. “How’s the water?”
“It’s...hydrating.” PoLarr seemed nonplussed.
“Excuse me,” Nova said, “but we’re actually waiting for someone. Would you mind giving us a little room?”
The barista’s eyes darted back and forth from Nova on the far right to PoLarr, then Aurora, me, Olivia, Thomas, and Tempest. “You guys tourists?” he asked. “Have you been to Fox Plaza yet? Super cool. You should check out the very top floor of Fox Plaza, it’s totally amazing.” He lowered his voice an octave. “Hail Skalle,” he whispered, “if you hadn’t figured that out by now.”
I stared in disbelief in the disguised Skalle in front of us. He’d just told us exactly where they were holding the President’s daughter, and it was in the coolest location possible to foil a terrorist attack. “All right, gang!” I exclaimed. “We’re going to Nakatomi Plaza.”
“Oh no,” PoLarr groaned, “no, no, this is going to be awful.”
“It’s not that hard! I have the entire layout in my head. I can lead us through just like John McClane.” I slapped the table in excitement. “Man oh man oh man, this is going to be the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Aurora patted me on the shoulder. “Sugar pie sweetie darling, I don’t think you’ve quite realized what PoLarr, and the rest of us, are really dreading. It’s having to listen to you quote whatever movie it is you’re referencing for the next four hours.”
“I’ll do you all a favor and stick to the first movie.” I turned back to the ba
rista. “I’m assuming that slinging overpriced espresso isn’t your real retirement plan? Or did you Face/Off the real barista? No judgment as long as you didn’t kill him, good guys don’t murder innocent retail workers even if they’re a little snobby about coffee.”
The renegade Skalle shook his head. “No killing. Zschayden is just sleeping off a molly hangover at our AirBnB and didn’t want to go in to work today anyway. I’ve been pulling shots for four hours.” He flipped up his hood. “Look, it’s not like I disagree with the Skalle. I’m all for an independent galaxy, I’m just tired of the violence, you know? I don’t want anything except protective custody.”
I was about to assure him that we’d do everything in our power to protect him when his head exploded.
A too-familiar stylized alien skull grinned at me through the gore of our barista informant’s head, but all I could see was the barrel of his smoking gun. I didn’t even need my Ar’Gwyn kicking in to pull my Glock and make a corresponding mess of the assassin Skalle’s face.
His body fell to the concrete floor, splattering fuschia gore like Day-Glo paint. Screams rang out. Most of the coffee sippers were quick enough to get under the tables, but a few booked it for the door. One pale gent who’d been sweating through the California dry heat in a black turtleneck tripped over the trapezoidal planter next to the door and faceplanted into a cactus.
My team had all jumped up, weapons at the ready. I caught my breath. There weren’t any signs of other Skalle yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t just biding their time. Between the black coffee and the adrenaline, time was already starting to crawl.
Soft sobs filled the air. “Please, please don’t kill us. Please, I have a child. I’ll do whatever you say.” One woman was huddled under the table, her abandoned latte dripping onto her sputtering laptop and onto the floor. It made a sugary puddle that was rapidly spreading towards her purse. She rummaged through it and placed her wallet on the floor, her hands shaking.
