Then she carried Patches back to the hangar.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
Celina, Fuzzlow, and Donny gathered around Mags. They stood at Fuzzlow’s workbench in the shop.
“I sure as hell hope this works,” he said.
Mags stood quietly, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“If Mags is right,” offered Donny, “it can’t hurt to try. If Patches can’t be injured, then she’s just been, like, shut down, you know?”
Fuzzlow agreed. “A massive disruption of the electrical signals in her brain, and to her muscles and organs. But if her organs are physically indestructible, then there’s a chance we just need to turn the juice back on. Are you sure you want to do this, Mags?”
She placed a hand on Patches’ inert body. Where normally she felt purring, Mags now felt nothing. “My baby kitten.” To one of Patches’ forepaws, Fuzzlow had lightly clamped a cable. A second cable affixed to her opposite hind paw. “All wired up like a bloody car battery.” Mags sniffed.
“We don’t have to do this,” Celina said. “We could just—”
“Just what? Give up?” Mags set her face in a mask of resolution. “Patches would never give up. Let’s fucking do this.”
“Alright. Stand back,” said Donny. “Mags?”
“I heard you.” She joined her friends in stepping away from the bench.
“Okay,” said Donny. “We’ve calibrated the power to that of a human defibrillator, about three hundred joules, and then stepped it back down according to Patches’ weight.” He placed his hand on a lever. “Here goes nothing.”
The lever clicked into place. A stream of electricity poured through Patches’ body. Her hair stood on end.
Suddenly, her eyes slammed open. Her pupils widened, contracted, and widened again. “Mrrrooowwwlll!” Patches sprung to her feet and thrashed wildly, tugging at the cables.
“Donny!” Mags shouted. “Turn it off!”
Donny shoved the lever back to the off position. Patches furiously tore at the cables.
“It’s okay, kitten!” Mags rushed to her calico cat. She reached for the cable on Patches’ forepaw to unclamp it.
Patches hissed and clawed the air.
“Chill, sweetie! Relax!”
Patches looked around and saw her friends. The last thing she knew, she had been fighting for her life. But now, she was surrounded with love. She held up her paw to Mags, who gently removed the cable. Patches shook it off. Then she rolled back on her hindquarters to bite at the cable on her back paw.
Celina laughed. “Feisty as ever!”
“That’s my girl,” said Mags, removing the second cable. She scooped up Patches in her arms. Walking over to Fuzzlow and Donny, she said, “You guys are the best. Thank you.” She kissed each of them on the cheek.
Patches meowed loudly.
Mags laughed and scruffed Patches’ hair, rubbing her ear. “Fine, dear! We’ll get you some beef jerky, pronto.” She kissed Patches on the top of her head. “You deserve it.”
“Donny,” said Fuzzlow, “good work, my man.”
Donny slapped his hand in a hearty high-five. “Shit, man. It was nothing. If you need your heavy equipment jump-started, just call a space miner!”
“Ex-space miner,” Fuzzlow said. “You’re stuck playing sax with us for the rest of your goddamn life.”
Donny grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Mags watched her mates celebrate. “All’s well that ends well, as my adorable nephew likes to say.” Then a cold grimace fell across her face. “But there’s one more thing we need to do. Celina? Would you come with me, please?”
She stormed out the door.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
Patches happily chomped on bits of dehydrated beef and kibble at her bowl in Mags’ room. Quite satisfied, she licked her chops. She ran a paw over her face, licking the side of it and running it over her face again from ear to cheek.
“I can’t even imagine how horrible it must have been,” said Celina. “I mean, that cyborg was practically your baby.”
“That fucking monster wasn’t any baby of mine. Let’s finish this job. Cover me.”
Celina stood to one side of the black case on the floor. She held Mags’ Benelli shotgun, loaded with three-inch slugs. “Careful, wagtail.”
“Not a word in my vocabulary, dear.” She brought the back of an axe head down on the lock panel Celina had shorted out earlier. The broken electronics fell to the floor. Mags adjusted her grip on the axe handle and kicked open the case.
As if sensing her presence, the eels’ eyes glowed red.
“Fucking bastards!” Mags swung the axe down, chopping an eel in half. “I loved you!” She hacked open the second eel. “I trusted you!” The mangled pieces of the eels writhed and sparked. “And this is how you fucking repay me?” She swung the axe again and again with all her might.
At some point, Celina lowered the shotgun. She could tell it would not be necessary. She watched as Mags chopped the eels into tiny chunks, smashing them, obliterating them in a barrage of hatred.
Eventually, they stopped sparking. But Celina knew better than to tell Mags to stop. She let her friend take as long as she needed.
When her rage was sated, Mags turned away, with her back to Celina.
“Mags?”
“I’m fine.”
But by the shaking of her shoulders, Celina knew Mags wept. She could not have known what transpired between Mags and her eels in the darkness. But she had known Mags a long time. She knew Mags’ secret loneliness. And perhaps these evil cybernetic weapons, in their own way, had meant something special to her unique and wonderful friend.
At last Mags turned to face her. Without speaking a word, she knew her best friend understood. “Thank you, Celina.” Mags sniffed, then brushed her white bangs back from her forehead. “Now help me wheel this case to the bloody incinerator.”
And that was the last of the eels.
★ ○•♥•○ ★
That night, Celina and Fuzzlow sat next to each other on the bed in her room. Tesla had happily returned to napping on her padded chair. His paws kneaded the fabric.
Fuzzlow strummed power chords on an acoustic guitar. “It’s in F sharp minor,” he said, “but Mags will probably want to sing it in a different key.”
“Sing it for me,” said Celina. “What’s it called?”
“The End of Love.”
“What a cheerful little title.”
“Yeah, but—just listen.”
She had dimmed the lights and set out candles. Shadows and flames flickered on the walls. Fuzzlow closed his eyes and sang, picking the guitar with incessant, driving eighth notes.
Let them burn their bridges
Let them run inside
They can never touch this love of mine
Let them hide in shadow boxes
Hanging from a rope
They can never desecrate our hope
Don’t believe them when they say
This is the end, this is the end of love today
Celina stared into the candle’s shimmering light. She had known Mags longer than anyone alive. She knew her resilient friend would be okay, eventually. But Fuzzlow’s song captured something few people understood about her friend: that sense of infinite love, yet always tinged with so many loves lost. Celina placed her hand on Fuzzlow’s leg. He sang the next verse.
Make me a promise lover
Make it one you mean
Will you come and watch me while I dream
We are safe together
In our eternal place
We can disappear without a trace
Don’t believe them when they say
Don’t believe them, baby
Don’t believe them when they say
This is the end
This is the end of love today
Fuzzlow stretched out the last line. He ended it by slowly arpeggiating the F sharp minor chord. He let it linger in the candle
light. The vibrations from his guitar soaked into the night and faded away. “So,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I think the next Psycho 78s album is going to be the greatest fucking thing ever recorded.”
“Better than all the Electric Moon albums put together?”
Celina stood up from the bed. “A million times better.” She unbuttoned her blouse and threw it to the floor. “Now. Sing it to me one more time, lover.”
EPILOGUE: BANNED AND BEAUTIFUL
Kaufman hated calling Earth. He drummed his fingers on his desk. He slapped it with his palm. He stood up to pace back and forth.
The distance between Mars and Earth led to pauses in any real-time conversation as the signals traveled back and forth. Depending on where the planets were in their orbits, a brief conversation could take all afternoon. Kaufman would have preferred to simply exchange data files and go about his business. But even as head of the Port Authority for the Martian Warehousing Zone, he had superiors who demanded his compliance on certain formalities.
The files on his tablet were perfectly clear. Meteor Mags had been moved to the top of the list of known criminals in the System. An amendment to the Musical Freedoms Act had effectively banned her from all locations in the Belt and the Martian Warehousing Zone. The amendment criminalized possession of any images or recordings of her, and it authorized the termination of all violators of this ban. Finally, all citizens had been granted provisional authority to terminate her under any circumstances, with a sizeable reward at stake.
Earth had declared open season on Meteor Mags.
At last, the response came. “Good, Kaufman. So you have read the orders on file and understood them. We need full cooperation from the MWZ on this, and you may need to redirect your resources appropriately. This is priority number one now. Vesta 4 is simply too large a mining opportunity to let it go to waste due to the interference of a known felon. We will no longer tolerate piracy within the Belt. This operation will send a clear message that Earth is willing to fully commit to eradicating such interference. We will be sending a team from the MFA to assist you in all organizational aspects of these orders. Please give the team all due courtesy. Understood?”
A series of beeps signaled the end of the transmission.
Off-camera, Kaufman rolled his eyes. They certainly did like to talk, he thought. Then he sat down at his desk and opened the transmission channel. “Understood, sir. We look forward to having such distinguished guests. The Port Authority is at your disposal. Kaufman out.” He pressed send before returning to his pacing.
Kaufman no longer had any doubts his corrupt superiors were in league with the dragons. The Belt was littered with countless asteroids known to have far more profitable mining potential than Vesta 4. And though acts of piracy, such as the ones his covert tips had helped Meteor Mags carry out these past few years, did place a financial burden on the Martian Warehousing Zone, the cost paled in comparison to that of carrying out a major military strike within the Belt. That left only one good reason for these new orders.
“Very good, Kaufman,” came the response. “Transmission complete.”
He shut off his transmitter. Commander Cragg had not threatened him and his son in months, but the dragons’ activities in the Outer Planets continued unabated. Kaufman’s intelligence network had informed him of several raids the dragons had carried out on Earth, and their buildup of force showed no signs of slowing down. Where then, he wondered, was Cragg? Had the awful beast died in one of the conflicts rumored to have taken place beyond the Belt? Were he and his son finally free of the reptile’s interference in their lives?
Kaufman rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and fingers. Closing his eyes, he thought of the last time he had seen Meteor Mags. She had danced so incredibly. He had woken up more than once dreaming of her star-covered body. She had spoken to him in trust, as a friend, and then single-handedly taken out an entire bar of degenerate space miners. Well, he thought, not single-handedly. She also had that adorable calico cat she traveled with now. And the boy she called her nephew.
Kaufman made his decision. He had to see her again. He had to warn Meteor Mags of the impending attack. But first, he needed to get his son to safety.
11
The Ryderium Caper
What new element before us, unborn in nature?
Is there a new thing under the Sun?
—Allen Ginsberg; Plutonian Ode, 1978.
March 2029: Below the Belt Strip Club.
Slim popped the tops off two bottles of beer and set them in front of the couple. “Would you like a more intimate room in the back of the club?”
Meteor Mags snatched up a bottle. “That would be perfect, dear.”
“Right this way,” said Slim. “Sir?”
The man across from Mags picked up his bottle and slid out of the booth. “A private session with the ‘solar system’s number one dancer’. Be still, my beatin’ heart.” At age fifty-five, his grey hairs outnumbered the darker ones. Though he lacked the rough hands of an asteroid miner, the scars on his knuckles and a hard look in his eyes said he was not afraid to fight.
Slim knew who the man was, but he also knew discretion. The jovial criminal led them into a dimly lit hallway that ran behind the stage. Doors lined the corridor. “This will do,” he said, opening one. “You won’t be disturbed. Take as long as you like. Mags—come see me before you go?”
“I’ll even bring you a treat.” She shared a smile with him before the door shut.
“I can’t believe you’re still stripping,” said her companion. “At your age?”
Mags laughed. “Sit the fuck down, Ryder. We don’t put my age on the flyers.”
“Hug me first, you scurvy pirate.”
Mags squeezed him close for a second then let him go. “Look who’s talking.” She took a seat on the L-shaped couch.
Flanked by two end tables, the couch sat in the corner of a room which only Slim, Mags, and a handful of their closest associates had ever entered. Unlike the private rooms available to the rest of the club’s dancers and clientele, this one belonged exclusively to Meteor Mags.
She furnished it with a writing desk and a round table at which a quartet could play poker as comfortably as it could plan a caper. Mags had shown up one day with her power tools, cut a hole in the wall, and built a mini-bar into it. She added three generously padded barstools and the Belt’s finest selection of rum.
Slim had installed a security system that blocked all communication signals and made the room one of the most private in the System. The pair of criminals had also “liberated” two original Jackson Pollack paintings which now took up most of two walls. Surround-sound speakers mounted in the room’s corners complemented the art with a steady stream of punk rock and post-bop.
Ryder pointed to the mini-bar. “You mind?”
“Help yourself. Get me one, too.”
He poured one neat and one on the rocks. “Did our little scam work out on Rebbeck 13?”
Mags took the glass he offered and swished the ice cubes. “You better believe it. Those superconductors are just what I needed. Plus, I made a new friend.”
Ryder held out his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers, mate. Cutest little calico cat, too. Goddess knows what she was doing in that spaceport. What did you bring me?”
“Tell me what you wanted the superconductors for.”
Mags chuckled. “You know what your problem is, Ryder?”
“I’m out of cigarettes?”
“No, you idiot. You’re too curious about everything. They’re behind the bar, by the way.”
“I could stop being curious about supply runs from Earth.” He paused in awe of the packs he discovered.
“Like that’ll ever bloody happen.”
“Okay, I’m taking a carton for myself, thank you very much.”
“Enjoy, thief. They’re real Turkish. Not that blended crap from the States.”
He lit one up an
d handed it to her.
“Such a gentleman. Now tell me what you got.”
“You’re gonna love this. Better than the job we pulled on Yeltsin 17.”
“Wading through barbed wire covered in dingo shit would be better than the Yeltsin job.”
He sat beside her. “You’re only saying that because you were the one in prison.”
“That might have something to do with it.”
“But did we make bank or not?”
“Oh, sure. About 800 bodies later, and I was richer than a Rockefeller. If you forget I almost died twice, it was awesome.”
“This is even awesomer. Check it out.” He pulled three sheets of paper from his pocket. They were folded neatly into quarters, but the wrinkles showed they had been crumpled up like rubbish and flattened out again.
Mags snatched them from his hand. She set her cigarette in the ash tray and unfolded the papers. She studied them for a moment. A vicious smile formed on her lips, and her eyes met Ryder’s.
“I told you it was good.”
“Darling, I think this calls for another round. Maybe you should bring the bottle over.”
Ryder stood. “People will talk, you know. You and me being alone back here for so long.” He grabbed a bottle of Kraken rum, twisted off the cap, and took a swig.
“People always talk. Did you see the new anime where I bang a cow with six tits?”
Ryder spat his rum into the air. “What?!”
“Yeah. With a strap-on.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You should do your own publishing, Mags. The Belt is littered with these penny dreadfuls of you, and you don’t make a goddamn credit off any of it.” He refilled her glass.
“Listen. If the fans wanna make fan fic, I’m not gonna stop ’em.”
“It’ll bite you in the ass someday.” He sat back down. “You can’t be famous and be a criminal. It doesn’t add up.”
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