BOB's Bar

by Michael Anderle

  “No idea, Bethany Anne,” Terry Henry answered, indicating those around them with his stein of Guinness. “We have Bob the Bartender, that is not known for its ability to decipher more obtuse sayings as evidenced by poor Cal here with the green blob who looks like he’s just lost his ability to stand.”

  He pointed to another. “The blonde is Tanis, the short redhead is Amanda, the Marine-looking guy is actually a Marine named Ryck, and none of us have a clue where the hell we are.”

  “Or why,” Ryck added.

  “The drinks are bang-on, though,” Amanda said.

  “Huh,” Bethany Anne murmured and slid a bit sideways to stare around Terry Henry. “Open bar?” she asked no one in particular.

  “Good question,” Cal answered, trying to breathe again. “Hope so!”

  BOB nodded. “Yes, the bar is open for you to peruse.”

  Bethany Anne shook her head. “No, I mean ‘open’ as in ‘free drinks,’” she clarified, and turned to Terry Henry. “How the fuck did you get here, and I see what you mean,” she said as she jerked a thumb at BOB. “Not a clue.”

  “War Axe, throwing some iron around, then poof . . . here. So, nope,” Terry Henry agreed, but kept his mouth shut on the first question.

  She turned to everyone else and smiled. “Bethany Anne, lately of the Fuck-all-I-haven’t-a-clue System because we had just gated and I was heading to the ship’s bridge to ask a question or two. The hatch I strode through deposited me here.” She pursed her lips and looked around. “It’s going to piss John Grimes off when he can’t find me . . . again.” She sighed and muttered to herself, “And this time it isn’t even my fault.”

  She pointed to the disheveled guy with the green blob. “Cal?” she asked and he grinned, so she turned back to the bartender. “I’ll take one of whatever he had.”

  “Not the best of ideas,” Terry Henry warned her.

  Bethany Anne nodded to BOB and grabbed the offered drink, downing it and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before yelling, “WOOP!” with her hand and glass in the air. She smiled, then wiped a tear from her eye before placing the glass reverently back on the bar. “Oh my god, that felt good!”

  She banged the bar twice, shut her eyes again, and shook her head before opening her eyes. She looked at BOB and wheezed as she put up two fingers, “Give me two more, please!”

  Those around watched as BOB poured two more.

  Bethany Anne accepted the first drink and looked at everyone. “What?” She sipped the blue liquid this time. “I’ve got so much alien technology coursing through my body that almost no alcohol affects me.” She lifted the glass. “But this does!” She smiled in triumph, swirling the liquid, and asked BOB, “Can I get a bottle of this to go?” She thought a moment, “Or a case? And what’s the name of the liquor?” she finally asked, looking at the strange markings on the bottle itself in BOB’s hand.

  “I believe it would translate as ‘Swine Sweat’ in your language,” BOB answered, cataloging the humans’ reactions.

  Bethany Anne took a long look at her drink and stuck her tongue out. “Ewww!” she said, and shrugged. “It works.” She took another sip.

  Her eyes flitted from woman to woman. “Anyone here like shoes?”

  Tanis only shrugged. “They keep my feet clean on a floor like this, so yeah, I guess I like them.”

  Amanda smirked at Tanis’ response and looked at Bethany Anne. “Hi, I see you have the whole pale-and-interesting thing going on. It’s a good look. So, are those Louboutins I see?”

  ***

  A man in a bespoke suit stepped through the door. His salt-and-pepper hair was immaculately cut in a style that some in a powerful Earth country would call “presidential.” He stopped suddenly, arms thrust out to the side like he had almost slipped, then touched his palms to his sleeves, cupped the side of his face, and stomped the floor with leather shoes that looked like they cost more than a car. He smiled at BOB.

  BOB slid over to the last empty space and draped a bar towel over one arm. The new arrival took a few tentative steps, then sauntered over and took the stool.

  “Greetings, Mr. Ibarra,” BOB said. “What’ll it be?”

  “Is this . . . Is this something Jimmy’s cooked up for me?” Marc Ibarra asked.

  “I’m afraid not, sir. What can I get for you? The rest are finishing up their first round, and I’d hate to have you falling to the back of the line.”

  “I am a bit thirsty. Ha! Haven’t had that problem for a while. Wonder how much tolerance I’ve got right now . . . but let’s shoot for the moon. Macallan 64?”

  “Coming right up.” BOB reached under the bar.

  “And put it in a Norlan—” Ibarra’s brows shot up as a double-walled shot glass was set down in front of him. “Not bad. Not bad at all. I don’t recognize your model. Do I own this place?”

  “No, sir.” BOB lifted an intricately-carved frosted-glass whisky bottle onto the bar and poured a shot. “You most definitely do not.”

  Ibarra swirled the drink just under his nose and closed his eyes, downed the drink and a smile spread across his face.

  “Now that’s . . . that’s special. Been awhile.” He set his empty glass down and ran his fingertips across the bar, savoring the sensation. “If I don’t own this place, then I guess I’m running a tab.”

  “Drinks are on the house.” BOB reached for the whisky bottle, but Ibarra clutched it to himself before the android could retrieve it.

  “Well, then.” Ibarra plucked the stopper off. “Guess I’ve some quality time on my hands. Last time I ever heard of a Macallan was when some entrepreneurial looter made off with the last stash on Earth. Tremendous business acumen, that one. I wasn’t even mad that he stole it.”

  “As you like, Mr. Ibarra.”

  ***

  With Ibarra’s arrival, the entire group for this first human session was present. Each of them seemed to be at ease, but there was an undercurrent of tension running through the group. The bar setting had been meant to relax them and open them to relating their stories, and the Collector only gathered the most impressive specimens possible, alphas within their species.

  It would be no different with the humans, BOB knew. They had been drawn from their dimensions to the collection point. No matter what had been done to their minds, each knew something was off, something was not right. Their warrior mentalities would be screaming for an explanation.

  And this was what BOB had been created to handle.

  In other gathering expeditions, sometimes the patrons had avoided each other, and other times they had banded together for mutual protection from a threat. The humans, however, seemed to congregate by choice, and not for mutual support. They were socializing. Despite the incongruence of the situation, they seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

  BOB’s primary duties entailed ensuring calm and prodding the patrons to start producing. BOB ran through its decision trees, and it surmised that the humans would only need a nudge to begin producing. They might begin as they stood around the bar, but its programming indicated they would produce a better product if they were focused on the task.

  It was time for it to be proactive. Not all of the humans had finished their drinks, but it prepared another round for each of them, then placed the drinks on the large round table nearest the bar, one in front of each seat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your drinks,” BOB said one hand in a sweeping gesture to indicate the table.

  This was a nexus point in its programming. If the humans objected, that would result in BOB taking any one of a hundred different actions. If they acquiesced, then that would open up only seven more action branches.

  Amanda and Tanis furrowed their brows and BOB picked up a rise in their tension levels, but the rest readily moved to the table and a moment later the two women joined them.

  BOB did not know if it could actually feel relief, but the thrumming through its circuits was an approximation, at least. The Collector would be pleased.
Soon, the collection could begin as the humans had a chance to settle down.

  BOB scanned the group. Amanda retained her slightly higher exotic energy levels, while Bethany Anne’s remained constant. The rest relaxed into an easy calm as they spoke. None seemed to realize that the construct was not normal; that they had been yanked out of their existence and brought here at the Collector’s whim.

  After a few more minutes it was time for another intervention. This could derail the collection process, but BOB assigned a high probability that even if it did, other actions would bring it back in line.

  BOB noted which drinks were low. It poured glasses of the grenache, Guinness, and Swine Sweat, as well as making Tanis another cup of coffee.

  “Here are your drinks,” the robot told Tanis, Amanda, and Cal after it had brought them to the table.

  It reached across Ryck to hand Tanis her coffee and made sure to bump his half-empty cider, knocking it over. Ryck and Tanis jumped back, and Terry shouted, “Alcohol abuse!” BOB made a show of cleaning up the small spill, noting that the focus was on it for the moment, not on whatever conversations had been going on a moment before.

  BOB had selected the target for its intervention. General Lysander had already proven to be willing to accept its cues, but Amanda, Tanis, and to an extent Bethany Anne seemed to have erected barriers.

  “Let me get you another drink, General Lysander. I’m so sorry to have interrupted your story,” it said.

  “My story?” Ryck said.

  “Yes, I believe you were about to start what you call a ‘sea story.’ I interrupted you. Please, continue.”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I was,” Ryck said, his eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to clear the cobwebs out. “OK, where was I?”

  “Hang on, what’s a ‘sea story?’” Amanda asked Ryck.

  BOB froze. It didn’t want any interruptions to the production process. This was a critical juncture.

  “A sea story? Well, it’s kind of like a regular story,” Ryck said, looking at Terry first, then Tanis, “but maybe a little more outlandish. More unusual.”

  “You mean bullshit?” Bethany Anne said.

  Ryck shrugged, then said, “Maybe. Usually. But it should have at least a basis in truth.”

  “And you know what they say about the difference between a fairytale and a sea story . . . ” Terry started.

  “A fairy tale starts with, ‘Once upon a time,’ and a sea story starts with ‘This is a no-shitter,’” the Marines said in unison, to general laughter around the table.

  BOB walked back to the bar to get more drinks, but it was focused on Ryck as he started his story. Pulses tickled its circuits in pseudo-pleasure.

  The Accidental War

  by Jonathan Brazee

  Six sets of eyes were locked on Ryck, waiting for him to start talking. The problem was that he’d lost his train of thought. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what sea story he’d been telling.

  Just retreat a step and start again. They probably won’t even notice.

  He racked his mind. As the leader of the Evolution that had brought down the corrupt government, Ryck had changed the course of the Federation—hell, all of human space—just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had more stories than he could shake a stick at, but he wasn’t sure how interested some of the others would be in them. Then, as if dredged up by a search program in his brain, he knew what story to tell.

  “Have you ever started a war?” he asked.

  Colonel Walton looked down, the humor gone from his face. “A worldwide war. It had to be fought, and we had to win it.” The man tipped his imported beer—but they were all imports this far out. He finished it and slammed the empty stein on the table.

  “A few,” Tanis replied. “Depends on how you tally them.”

  “No, I mean as a snuffie, as a junior grunt,” Ryck said.

  Ryck wasn’t even sure why he was bringing it up. Only six people knew what had really happened and three were guarding heaven’s gates now. Something about the six people sitting around the table, though, something about this bar in the who-knows-where, seemed to make him want to talk.

  Or maybe it was the cider.

  “I was never a ‘grunt,’ but I can’t say I’ve ever started a war either, so no,” Amanda answered, sipping her drink.

  “Well, I have.”

  Ryck looked around. This was stupid. He knew all about the statute of limitations, but he was still General Ryck Lysander, with all the politics that came along with him being him. His life had been well documented—both the facts and the myths—but this was one thing he'd managed to have kept hidden.

  Am I about to undo that now? he wondered.

  “I was a lance coolie back with Fox 2/9. I’d already seen combat on Atacama and I’d gotten fucked up taking the Robin back from the SOG pirates, so I thought I could handle about anything the bad guys could throw at me. You know how it is—I was a certified combat grunt and figured I had the universe by the balls.”

  Three of the others at the table nodded. They knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “So anyway, the battalion’s on Saint Hollis, this Class-1 world only certified for about ten years at the time. The Sea of Kansas Corporation did the terraforming and they’re out the big credits for it. Only some of the settlers, they don’t think they need to pay Sea of Kansas back. They form up, calling themselves the League of Justice, and they essentially tell Sea of Kansas to go pound sand, they aren’t going to pay.

  “Now I don’t know how it is in your-all’s neck of the woods, but the big corporations, they’ve got the government in their power. My own United Federation of States isn’t any grubbing different, especially back then. So, Sea of Kansas complains to the Council and the Council says, ‘Send in the Marines.’”

  Ryck had said “back then,” but he had to admit it was still the case. He just didn’t like being a hired gun for those in power, even if the League of Justice had been trying to pull a fast one in this case. “Fuck them all” had been the Marines’ motto on missions like this.

  “The problem is that with everyone’s eyes on the planet, the Federation doesn’t want to look like the bad guys, so we’re just there as a show of force. Even with just a battalion, we could go in there to the League’s so-called capital and show them the error of their ways. The problem is that our ROE is pretty tight. We can fire only if we’re fired upon first, and the League isn’t grubbing stupid. They had maybe a thousand in their militia. Heck, even a fuckdick company could have crushed them.”

  “Fuckdick? You’re a general now—not supposed to talk like that. Me, I’m just a colonel. I can say ‘nut-licking monkey ass’ and no one calls me out. So, what is a ‘fuckdick company?’” Terry didn’t look up from his beer. He studied it as if it held the secret to the universe.

  “I rather like both ‘fuckdick company’ and ‘nut-licking monkey ass.’” Bethany Anne smirked, raising her glass of Swine Sweat. “Both are a unique variation on cussing.”

  “A fonkdonche?” Cal cut in.

  They all turned to him, and he pointed to a spot behind his right ear. “You guys have these translator chips, right? The ones that censor swear words?”

  A few looks were exchanged, and there was a general consensus that no, no one else had one of those.

  “Shizz. Just me, then,” Cal muttered. “Sorry. Continue.”

  “What the bleedin’ hell’s a ‘fuckdick’ anyway?” Amanda asked.

  “Oh, sorry. The FCDC—the Federal Civil Development Corps. They’re like an army, doing public works and controlling civil disturbances. They should have been given the mission, but even the civilians think they’re worthless, so we got sent in. Like I said, it’s supposed to be just for show.

  “The thing is, this was a Second Ministry show. The Marines and the Navy are under the First Ministry, but the diplomats and the like are under the Second, and the Second Ministry won’t let us just do our jobs. So, we’re sitting
on our collective asses, bored out of our gourds.”

  Ryck understood now that a strong diplomatic corps was a Marine’s best friend, but he had been young and full of cum at the time, and he hadn’t had much time for diplomatic pukes.

  “Bored Marines. Well, that’s an ‘Oh shit’ waiting to happen.” Bethany Anne smiled. “Sorry, please continue.”

  Ryck knew she was screwing with him and no disrespect had been intended, so he continued.

  “Still, we’re Marines, and we aren’t going to let even a limp-dick militia get the jump on us should they be suicidal, so we patrol the crap out of the area surrounding the league’s claimed territory. And that’s what we were doing the day we started the war.

  “My fire team—that’s Sams, T-Rex, Corporal Sparta, and me are in a fuckdick Mayfly. That’s a little three-fan carrier that can seat four pax and the pilot. They’re barely armed, but they can fly forever and have decent sensors. We didn’t have them in the Corps—we used drones for that kind of thing. But drones don’t carry pax, so it was good to get out as extra eyes on the Mayfly. It kept us sharper, at least more combat-ready.

  “So, we’re flying the border, just being seen, number one, but also to spot anything. These guys aren’t the SOG pirates, who think suicide is a sure route to heaven, but you never know when someone might get a hair up their butt.

  “We’re flying along the border about sixty klicks from our base camp when Sams yells, ‘Hey, there’s a Venus!’

  “Wait! Sorry, I was only half-listening,” said Cal. “Did you just say, ‘Hey, there’s a penis’?”

  Everyone chose to ignore him.

  “We called the Justice League flag a ‘Venus.’ Their militia might have been a joke, but they must have had some great artists. The blue flag was bordered in gold, and in the middle was an image of a Greek-goddess-looking woman, left hand holding a set of scales, right hand a sword, and the left breast exposed—and to our gutter minds she was smoking hot. I had looked up ‘Lady Justice’ on the net and her real Greek name is ‘Themis,’ but with us Marines ‘Venus’ stuck and she became an object of collective lust. If we do invade, laws about trophy-taking are going to be roundly ignored.”