The Space Whiskey Death Chronicles

by Vitka, William

  Jack said, “Mark sighted.”

  There was a hushed whisper as the Ripper left the barrel of Jack’s gun.

  It announced itself and Caleb could hear all of it:

  “Hello! I am a bullet! In a moment, part of me will separate into three sections. Each section will be a spinning blade. The other part of me will lodge itself in you and then explode. Isn’t that neat? Jack had the forethought to aim for your brain. You’ll be dead real soon. Hooray!”

  The thing posing as a human outside the bar exploded from the neck up. Its tight pants stood for a moment, soaked in blood and matter. The lower half of it tried to walk. Took a step. Then fell.

  Screams.

  In a flash the soul shitter was gone, and in another, back – loaded with Litostian juice.

  “Test run was good?” Jack asked. “The Cthulittle did … whatever?”

  Caleb stared, somewhat astounded. “Yeah, good quick job.”

  The little squid thing in front of him chirped. An automated containment bin rolled toward it. The creature hiked up its hindquarters and crapped energy into it.

  It started to purr, and then burped as Caleb hoisted it in his arms. He tickled what he thought might be its chin. “Did you half digest a soul or what?” Caleb asked as the Cthulittle stretched, exhausted.

  On Caleb’s communications console, the hologram of a slender insect figure appeared. A Collector. A space bee, yellow and black. Its head had two banks of eyes with a hundred ocular orbs in each. Its mandibles clicked. It announced that it was the Collector union leader. It preached of grave consequences for the firing of all those workers and for the use of the squids in their place.

  “You will suffer,” the image shrieked.

  But Caleb had already walked away.

  The hologram disintegrated, cursing in its native tongue.

  The Cthulittle wouldn’t leave him be. Like a forlorn lover, it followed Caleb everywhere.

  “It likes you,” Griffin said. “Which is fine. We don’t mind. Plenty more, doing their job.”

  “Imind,” Caleb said. “I have things to do. And it keeps burping.”

  “Yeah, that’s in the R&D report. Just a bug. We’ll fix it in the next generation. Relax.”

  “I don’t need to relax and I don’t need a goddamn pet.”

  The Cthulittle wrapped a little tentacle around Caleb’s leg and purred.

  “Not sure you have a choice in the matter,” the supervisor said, his beaks somehow grinning.

  So Caleb kept it.

  “I dub thee, Viktor – after my father,” Caleb said to the little biomechanoid in his apartment. It watched his movements with saucer eyes. “Better than a cat, I guess. No litter.”

  As he slept, it curled up with him.

  Sometimes it warmed the bed near his feet. Other times, it threw its tiny bulk against Caleb’s naked back and rested there. But on most occasions it would wait until Caleb was sound asleep then crawl right next to his head and burp.

  Caleb would shoot awake and smack the thing away.

  It never remembered these smacks – or chose to ignore them.

  And was doomed to repeat them.

  Until one night.

  The squid burped. Caleb smacked it away.

  And was then shot in the face by a tiny lightning bolt.

  “The fffu–” Caleb jumped up in bed. He rubbed his cheek and looked around for the Cthulittle. It cowered at the end of the bed.

  “Did you?” Caleb pointed at it.

  Its little lips quivered, and its eyes glanced to the side.

  There, on Caleb’s night stand, stood the diminutive figure of Zeus – a Litostian whom Caleb was sure he’d killed.

  “Yes! It is I, human scum! Zeus!” the itty-bitty, white-robed figure screeched in a tiny, tinny voice. “Thought you’d gotten rid of me, eh?” He hefted another lighting spark. It popped against Caleb’s bare side with a flash of light. The attack was more annoying than painful.

  “Would you quit it?” Caleb grabbed for the little god.

  “Ahhh!” Zeus shrieked, struggling in vain as Caleb gripped him. The Greek ‘deity’ bit Caleb’s hand.

  Whichdidhurt.

  Caleb hurled the miniscule fraud against the wall. It impacted hard and then fell to the floor in a lump. Still.

  “Son of a bitch.” Caleb watched the spot of blood on his hand grow.

  To the Cthulittle: “It’s all right. I’m not mad at you.”

  The squid chirped, crawled up the sheets, and planted itself in Caleb’s lap.

  He petted it until it purred and drifted off to sleep.

  “God … damn,” Jack said as he tapped the glass of mini-Zeus’s electromagnetically sealed enclosure. “The burps, you think? Lettin kill energy out?”

  Caleb adjusted the bandage on his hand. “Maybe. Maybe the memories are surviving death, somehow. Well, no, consciousness doesn’t survive death. Not even in Litostians. And since we know that, he–” Caleb pointed to the muttering, cursing doll-sized deity “–shouldn’t be quite as pissed at me as he is. Plus, why does he have a body if it’s just energy leaking out?”

  Griffin walked in, heads staring in different directions, pondering.

  “I mean, he shouldn’t know where he is. Who The Collective is. Who I am. And he certainly shouldn’t know that I was the one who killed him,” Caleb said.

  “Well, he does.” Jack stuck his tongue out at the former god. “Maybe it sapped a persona from your head?”

  Caleb shrugged.

  “Unlikely, at best,” Griffin said. “Turns out, the burpsarereleasing small amounts of energy from containment. But, if this was the remnants of energy collected during the Zeus kill, then how did it get there? Jack’s op in New York was the first time the Cthulittles have ever been used. Caleb took Zeus out years ago. Longer than that, in fact, considering we had to send himback in fuckin time. So, no, I think that’s out.

  “His energy signature matches what we have on file. And the DNA is the same as the Litosian that called itself Zeus but… well, look at him. He’s tiny.”

  Viktor the Cthulittle cooed at Caleb’s feet.

  “Any reports of abnormalities among the others?” Caleb asked.

  “Excluding the burping, no.” Griffin said. He turned his heads to watch the angry god.

  Zeus was now sneering, and frantically masturbating.

  They were in the station’s bar, THE THING – which both brothers thought was a hoot. It reminded them of their favorite movie growing up.

  The place was dirty. Liquid puddled on the floor. A few extraterrestrials were making out in the dark. Other aliens glared at each other, trying to tell who was looking for a fight. A multisexual creature made a pass at Jack, boasting that it could form holes at will. Jack pointed to the ring on his finger and politely declined, saying that he had a sweet human girl.

  “I can do better than a human girl,” it said.

  Jack smirked. “I don’t think so. She’s on-mission. Saving an entire planet.”

  It shrugged him off, as if to say,Whatever. I’ll go fill my holes somewhere else.

  Viktor burped in Caleb’s lap.

  The brothers looked at each other and laughed.

  “Makes me think I should say something along the lines of, ‘Like old times,’” Caleb said.

  “Yeah, except that’d be a lie,” Jack said.

  Which was true. They’d both opted to leave Brooklyn, and Earth, before either one had had the chance to hit a bar. At the time, they’d simply decided there was no point in staying. That they were probably too young tomakesuch a decision never came up. Now, there was the inescapable pain of having missed something.

  “To Dad,” Jack said, reaching over to pat Viktor.

  “And Mom,” Caleb said.

  They clinked their bottles and drank.

  “It’s not so bad, dude. Shit, we’re gunslingers. Elite.” Jack said. “Enjoy it.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Caleb retorted. “Your girl came with
you.”

  They were quiet then. No revelry. No chumming around.

  Caleb hefted Viktor onto the bar top, then he slouched forward, focusing on his beer.

  Jack stayed quiet.

  Someone bumped into Caleb.

  Jack did the barking. “Watch it, dipshit.”

  The thing that had thumped Caleb turned to say something. It was tall and slender. But any distinguishing features were hidden under a large, hooded trench coat.

  Something jittered on its face, under the hood – mandibles gripping and releasing. Its hundred black eyes blazed when it caught a glimpse of Viktor.

  Caleb felt ice form in his chest. And Jack saw Red.

  It was a Collector.

  Viktor chirped.

  “You goddamn little thing,” the insect stranger raised a curled talon. “Stole my job. Piece of shit!”

  But Caleb was on his feet, and so was Jack.

  Caleb grabbed the stranger’s outstretched claw and twisted, protecting Viktor – who had sense enough to scramble down from the counter and seek cover. Jack jumped the alien from the side, pinning it, and clocking it in one bank of eyes.

  The thing howled.

  Bar patrons screamed and fled.

  “It’s OK,” Jack shouted. “I’m licensed.” He patted the big-barreled Colt in his holster. “At least I haven’t pulled that out, huh?”

  Caleb snatched a monster mandible in each hand, pulling them apart.

  “Man, are you barking up the wrong tree,” Jack said.

  Caleb leaned in close. Smelled the weird ozone it gave off. “What do you have against my pet?”

  The stranger on the floor grunted and spat.

  The insect stiffened, “My kids can’t eat, you fuck! You’re lucky the boss isn’t here. He’d make you pay. Hewillmake you pay.”

  Caleb let go. The thing’s mandibles snapped into position.

  “Fuck.Fuck!” Caleb punched the floor, the Engine in his head putting disparate pieces together. “I get it now. I get it.” He looked to his brother. “Up, off him.”

  Jack hesitated, but obeyed.

  Caleb grabbed Viktor and put the squid on his shoulder. He waved the bartender over. “Any Collectors come here, they eat and drink on my tab. By which I mean: for free.” He glared. “I hear otherwise, I’ll do to you what I did to God.”

  The bartender nodded.

  Caleb put a hand on Jack’s chest. “We need to see Griffin.”

  Caleb paced in his supervisor’s office. Jack lit a cigarette. Griffin was mid-shrug.

  “You didn’t think they’d be, I dunno, pissed off?” Caleb said. “You lay off hundreds of Collectors – a race you basically condemned because they can’t do anythingbutcollect – you give them nothing to fall back on, and you didn’t think they’d be pissed? Didn’t think they’d act on that anger? Did you at least offer them some kind of compensation?”

  Griffin finished his shrug. “Didn’t think it necessary at the time. Cost-cutting measures. That was the whole reason those stupid squids were created in the first place.Cost-cutting.Gimme a break.Ididn’t sign the papers. Someone above my pay grade did.”

  “So, what you’re saying is,” Jack exhaled, “We’re looking at a massive, apocalyptic energy containment breach because you didn’t want to deal with the union of a race you’ve been basically keeping as slaves?”

  “I didn’t do it!”

  Griffin hadn’t signed the papers, no, but he was complacent. Complicit.The Collective hadn’t wanted to negotiate. They solved their dollar dilemma by firing everyone and replacing them. And Griffin said nothing.

  The result was a whole race that had no qualms about siphoning Litostian energy from The Collective’s containment unit and pumping it into the very things that replaced them. Sabotage. Overloading the squids until they leaked.

  “Fuck you,” Jack said, grimacing. “I always side with the workers in a class war.”

  “Little Viktor here–” Caleb pointed to the squid on his shoulder “–isn’t the only one puking up Litostian energy.”

  Griffin started to talk, but Caleb interrupted. “All them are doing it. And now, what? That Litostian energy. It’s out. And it’s backinLitostians. Or maybe just Litostian clones. The union’s cracked-out revenge plot wouldn’t work without vessels to put the juice into. Zeus was just a little one. There could be a thousand pissed off things running around out there. Things that feed off the juice in our heads. Things that think they’re gods.”

  A scream erupted outside. Then more from down the corridor and in the market chamber. They began as masculine and feminine, but ended in gurgles.

  Griffin waved a wing over his desk and a video screen shimmered into existence. Security feeds from the market down the corridor – and at the center of the station – came up.

  Chaos.

  Diminutive deities rampaged over kiosks, slaughtering everyone in sight. A two-foot tall Anubis rammed his staff through the chest of a snake-headed vendor and was tearing into the merchant’s scales with sharp canine teeth. The Aztec Chalchiuhtlicue used a hand axe to hack away at an innocent creature that resembled a jellyfish, which popped after the third strike.

  On top of a pile of corpses, the slender, action-figure-sized form of Baal duked it out with the bald, bearded, hooker-having Yahweh.

  They were settling an old score.

  A hologram sputtered to life on Griffin’s desk, interrupting the live feed.

  It was the Collector union leader.

  “I think I have your attention now, yes?”

  Griffin groaned and rolled the eyes in both heads. “What do you want?”

  “I want to negotiate the terms of the union’s reinstatement, of course. You should be feeling the effects of our unjust firing by now.”

  Caleb looked toward the hologram. “So you admit it?”

  “Admit it? Hell, I’m proud of it, boy,” the space bee said. “We’ve been feeding those little squid bastards enough Litostian goo from containment to make em pop! Once it was out, we guided it into waiting clone bodies. We managed to put the energy into clones of their old bodies – since you helpfully keep all that on file. Gave em life, as it were. Let em know we were friends, on the same side, told them the situation and pointed them in the right direction for vengeance. Theirs and ours. No small feat.”

  Caleb threw up his hands. “Welp, that answers more than a few questions.”

  The union leader continued, “The squids were never going to be as good at the job as we were. You made us what we are. Now admit it. You need us.”

  “No. We don’t,” Griffin said. “You have to realize that unless we can get what’s out there back in the box, we are utterly, catastrophically fucked. There won’t be a union. There won’t even be a station.”

  The space bee looked perplexed. Its mandibles twitched.

  Griffin snapped his beaks and ran a hand across the brow on his left head. “The Litostian junkies aren’t a peaceful bunch, as you’re damn well aware. We saved your fuckin species from them, after all. They probably only let you live because they’re more pissed at us. Those micro-deities are tearing the place apart. Check the security feeds.”

  Jack leaned out the door, looking down the corridor toward the market. “They’re little. We can take em.”

  A small version of Loki came pinwheeling down the passage and stabbed Jack in the calf with a curved knife. It shrieked something. It tittered.

  Jack jumped backwards. Blood dripped from his wounded leg and stained his jeans. He pulled the Colt in a blur and fired.

  Loki exploded, becoming a red smear in a small crater.

  Viktor chirped, scrambled past Jack, and stretched its tentacles over the pieces. The suckers on its cephalopod arms shivered. It began to purr, changing colors.

  “Bitch in a basket. Never watched him do that before,” Jack said. “Pretty cool.”

  Viktor finished and then scrambled back to Caleb.

  “Don’t burp,” Caleb said, petting the squid
’s bloated belly.

  The solution was clear.

  “This is insane,” Griffin said to the hologram. “Not only are you still unemployed, but I’m sending these two to kill you when they’re done setting things right.”

  The union leader tried to explain himself.

  Griffin hit the comm button and the space bee dissolved.

  “Are you two ready?” He clasped his hands together.

  Caleb looked to Jack. Jack put his hands up, shrugging.

  “Uh … yeah,” Caleb said. “Sure.”

  “This’ll do the trick?” Jack asked.

  “Not a 100% fuckin certain,” Caleb said.

  “Just like old times.”

  They were downstairs, in the containment area. The plan was simple enough: Do their jobs. Again. Knock the Litostians hard. Slap the squids on to siphon energy away. Then have the squids flash down to deposit the energy directly into the containment grid.

  Caleb held Viktor up and planted the little squid’s butt against the containment grid’s square red energy transfer port. The big machine looked like an air conditioner affixed to a school bus-sized fuel tank.

  Viktor blinked. Squished his face like he was constipated. Wrinkled what might have passed for a stubby nose. A second later, the containment grid hummed and the red lights flashed green.

  “Awesome,” Caleb said. “Awesome in the face.”

  Jack smiled. “Round em up.”

  Caleb did, with a strange sense of glee.

  He roused all of the squids from their holding pen. There might have been fifty, waking up slowly. They had fallen asleep on top of one another. Caleb couldn’t help but be reminded of puppies or kittens in a pound. They yawned and blinked their huge eyes. They uncoiled their tentacles from around one another.

  Fuckin. Adorable.Caleb thought.

  Viktor barked and mewled, twirling around Jack and Caleb’s feet like a dog happy to spend time with the pack.

  When Caleb finally settled Viktor on his shoulder, Jack asked, “Shall we?”

  Caleb patted the hammer hanging on his belt – the same hammer that had ended God in New Jersey. “Let’s do it.”

  Viktor chirped.

  “That thing where I said we could take em? Itake that back.” Jack fired into the shambling form of Jehovah. “Why won’t you fuckin die? Is this some trinity bullshit?”