by Jay Allan
The silence around the table deepened.
“Yup.” BA sighed, running her hand across her forehead, eyes closed. “I did need that drink… or five.”
“So, I install meself right up there, and I can hear the bastard start thrashin’ about, lashin’ out, throwin’ stuff around and what have ye. Meanwhile, I’ve found somethin’ big an’ lumpy, and I’m layin’ boots into it. Just goin’ at it, drivin’ the big bastard crazy.”
Artur sucked in his bottom lip. “But there was one thing I hadn’t counted on,” he said. “Sphincter control. This monster thing, whatever it was, had some of the finest sphincter control I’ve ever witnessed. Everythin’ around me just went tight. Rigid-like. Suddenly me arms are pinned to me sides an’ it’s like I’m being suffocated.”
“Shite,” said Amanda.
“I wish it would’ve!” Artur replied. “That would’ve made life a lot easier.”
“So what did you do?” asked Rika, giggling again.
“As luck would have it, in all the thing’s thrashin’ around it had knocked Deadman’s chair over, and the great ugly eejit had managed to get himself free. He must’ve found his gun somewhere because next thing I hear is his voice. Muffled, like, because I’m still stuck up the thing’s arse, but clear enough.
“‘Mindy,’ he says. ‘Brown Noise.’”
Artur’s grin returned. “And I know then that I’m going to be all right. In the long run, I mean. I’m aware that the immediate future isn’t goin’ to be a barrel o’ feckin’ laughs, but in the long run, I’m goin’ to be fine.
“Ye see, Deadman’s gun can do all kinds of fancy tricks. Slowdown rounds slow folks down. Stun rounds stun ‘em.”
“What does Brown Noise do?” asked Cain.
“Oh gods, no…” Amanda muttered.
“Perhaps another drink,” BA looked at her empty glass wistfully.
Ridge waved BOB over and pointed to his empty mug rather urgently.
“Makes them explosively shoite themselves,” Artur explained. “Like, just a volcanic eruption. Like a fountain o’ shoite that just won’t stop coming. Fleeeeeeeeeeeuuuuurrrrbbbblllb. Just a hot, bubbling geyser o’—”
Rika burst out laughing, chest heaving as she gasped for air between each guffaw as tears streamed her face. “Oh, stars shitting in the black, this is the best thing ever. You’re like a tiny version of Barne!”
He waved a hand dismissively as he peered at Rika. “Ye get the idea. So out I comes, ridin’ a wave of the stuff like I’m a feckin’ surfer. I go flyin’ across the room and hit the wall, then sort o’ slide slowly down it, leavin’ this brown streak all the way to the floor like a slug-trail o’ shoite.
Amanda looked down at her drink, pulled a face that suggested she’d gone off the idea, and nudged the glass away while Rika scooped up a nacho chip loaded with chili, motioning for Artur to carry on.
“Yer woman. The monster. Whatever it was, it wasn’t happy,” Artur continued. “I mean, I can’t exactly blame it. If someone turned my nether regions into a hot jet-blast, I’d be less than impressed, too.
“She comes flyin’ at Deadman, tentacles whippin’, faces all screamin’, arse sprayin’ like a feckin’ jetpack behind her. Sure, the force of it lifted her clean off the ground at one point.
“An’ Deadman, cool as ye like, says, ‘Mindy, Explosive Rounds,’ and just blows the bastard to pieces. One shot, that’s all it took. One shot and she becomes just this kind of reddish-brown mist hangin’ there in the air, slowly driftin’ to the floor.”
“She was dead?” asked Rika, appearing dismayed that the story was over.
“Sure, I just told ye she was a mist. I don’t know how she could’ve gotten much deader.” Artur chuckled. “That was a fun night, all right.” He looked around at the others. “Ye know what the moral o’ this story is?”
“No,” Kelsey admitted. “I think I got lost somewhere around the place her face fell off.”
Cain looked catatonic, as if he’d been hit by a stun bolt or seven.
“Ah, that’s a shame,” said Artur. “I was hopin’ ye might be able to tell me. The best I’ve been able to come up wi’ is, ‘Don’t let little fellas get up yer arse,’ but it feels a bit too specific to be much use.”
“How about ‘shit happens?’” Charline asked, and Rika snorted, nodding vigorously.
“Don’t fuck with tiny transvestite leprechauns?” BA proposed.
Artur shrugged. “Sure, one o’ them’ll have to do,” he said, then he snapped his fingers. “Can I get me a drink over here?” he demanded, then gestured vaguely at the group in general. “Now, which o’ you gobshoites is next?”
Interlude
BOB picked up Artur’s empty glass, replacing it with another Slurgian Thrungmasher and pink lemonade. This was his third, and each serving massed about the same as the little human’s body. Add his own entire plate of Nachos, and BOB wasn’t sure how Artur was consuming it all. The thought hit him that Artur’s stomach might be a gate of its own into the Multiverse. If so, that would be a first from all of BOB’s missions, and it would certainly please the Collector.
If it crossed-connected the Interobio scan with the Klip-S interface and run that through the Tau lens, then maybe it could . . .
Whatever BOB was contemplating, its thoughts were cut short by the response to Artur’s challenge. Three hands shot up, but Rika beat the other two to the punch.
Rika Reposed
By M.D. Cooper
“OK, so I think my story kinda follows Artur’s in spirit,” Rika said while looking around the table at the curious faces. “It’s a good one, and hopefully it makes sense to everyone.”
“How strange can it be?” Amanda asked.
Kelsey squinted at the other woman. “Have you been listening to these stories?”
Amanda smiled.
“Before I start…” Rika turned to face the bar. “BOB, can you get me another growler, or do I need to get up and grab it myself?”
Amanda giggled, holding back a laugh that suddenly burst forth in a snort.
Rika glanced at her. “What, you don’t laugh at the shite rocket, but that’s funny? You OK?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m fine, it’s just... BOB’s grabbing your what?” Amanda asked.
“My growler. I’m thirsty. I’m a bit like Kelsey there—takes a lot to satisfy me. A full growler really quenches that thirst.”
Amanda laughed out loud this time, breaking down in uncontrollable chuckles with tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I am, really.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rika asked as BOB passed her a brown jug of beer and she hooked a finger in the handle. “It’s just a drink. Surely you’ve had a growler or two in your time?”
Amanda, who had taken a sip of wine to steady herself, smirked again, spraying wine over Artur. “Well, I suppose so, yes,” she giggled.
“Feck me, it’s raining wine!” Artur exclaimed.
“Right, that’s it. What the hell am I saying that’s so funny?” Rika demanded.
Amanda placed her glass on the table and composed herself. “In certain places on my Earth, the UK specifically, ‘growler’ is slang for a vagina,” she explained with a smile.
Rika’s lips parted, forming an ‘O’ of surprise, then she barked a laugh. “That’s amazing. I’m calling it that from now on. Kinda fits with us mechs, anyway.”
“Glad I was able to help,” Amanda said, composing herself for the most part once more.
“Right.” Rika nodded, looking around the table at the group. “So, I work for a merc outfit called the Marauders. About half a year ago, I got bumped up to captain and put in charge of a whole company of mechs…. People like me, that is.”
“I think a company of cyborg women is cool,” Kelsey said enthusiastically. “Where do I sign up?”
Rika chuckled. “Don’t get too excited—or maybe do. There aren’t that many SMI-2 models—that’s what I am. Most of them are FRs and AMs, which
means big, bulky guys. Anyway, before becoming captain of M Company, I ran a spec-ops team called Basilisk.
“There were four of us in Basilisk: Chase, Leslie, Barne, and me, obviously. This was a bit of a weird transition time. We were getting ready to head out to a planet called Iapetus, where we were going to train a group of mechs we’d liberated from a raging asshole named Stavros.”
Rika stopped and shuddered. “He was the biggest motherfucking piece of scum you’ve ever seen in your life. Like…raping-women-in-front-of-his-daughter kind of scum.”
“Shit…” Charline growled. “I sure hope you killed him.”
“Stars belchin’ in the black, we did. Well, Barne did. Blew the asshole’s brains out. We freed his little tin-pot empire, too. A lot of folks were pretty grateful, but some were right pissed at us for raining on their depravity parade.”
Rika paused and took a swig of the brown ale from her growler before continuing.
“So, Leslie and I decided that we needed to go out on the town and have a good time, and when the guys heard about it, they decided to come along. Granted, the ‘town’ was a thousand-kilometer-long arc called the Isthmus—used to be Stavros’s center of government—and was in orbit of a planet called Sparta.
“We had just returned to the Isthmus after kicking ass in a few places around the system and debated going downworld, but things were still a bit unsettled down there, so we decided to stay on the station for our night out.
“Now.” Rika looked around at the assembled group. “Chase is pretty much straight up vanilla, as is Barne—well, he has a prosthetic arm, but it looks normal, so you can’t tell. I look pretty regular—for a mech—but Leslie is a bit unusual. She’s got a big thing for stealth, sniping, and the like, so she’s taken on sort of a cat look. Normally, it’s just her jet-black skin and yellow eyes, but for the job taking down Stavros she went full kitty: cute little ears, tail, some soft fur running down the back of her neck. Honestly, it’s driving Barne wild, but I can’t tell if he likes it or is annoyed by it—which is typical Barne.
“Anyway, Leslie finds this sleek black dress that pretty much dances across her body when she walks, and I’m feeling a bit underdressed, so I find a long coat to wear so I at least don’t look like I’m a walking tank. Chase shows up in a smart looking outfit with the tight jacket and loose pants that are the style out in that neck of the woods. He’s got…uhhh…a rather well-defined chest, so I’m in favor of him showing it off.”
“Nice,” Amanda muttered.
Rika winked at Amanda. “I sure thought so. Then Barne shows up in light tactical armor, and we all shrug it off because…well…no one’s ever gotten Barne to do something he doesn’t want to do.
“‘So, where’re we going tonight, then?’ Chase asked us. ‘Since Barne and I are crashing and all, we’ll go wherever you ladies are headed.’
“Leslie shot Chase one of her measuring looks—she has them in spades—and asked, ‘You game for the Golden Banana? I hear that if you buy three lap dances, you get a free drink.’”
Rika laughed at the memory. “I’ll always remember the look Chase gave me. It was a combination of ‘Dear stars, no,’ and ‘You were going to a strip club?’ with maaaaabye a bit of ‘let’s go!’ Luckily, he didn’t have to say anything, because you could always count on Barne to chime in when there was opportunity for something inappropriate.
“‘How many free drinks you think I’ll get after I lop off some bananas?’ he asked.
“‘Just like always, Barne,’ Leslie told him, shaking her head while we walked through the ship’s passages to the airlock. ‘Jealous of all the other bananas; don’t you ever have anything nice to say?’
“‘Seriously?’ he’d asked. ‘I thought of seven things way worse than that before I settled on that. I figured it was something your tender ears could handle.’
Rika took a swig of her beer and glanced around at her audience. “Now, Leslie was still getting used to her tail. Normally she just swished it around all soft and sensuous—which matched the cover she’d gotten it for—but she’d also been working on using it as a weapon. In this case, she whipped it at the back of Barne’s head, giving it a good snap.”
“At least she didn’t crawl up someone’s butt, thank the makers.” Cain looked contemplative for a moment as if assessing the possible military application of such a maneuver before he shook his head, apparently dismissing it out of hand. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and listened intently.
“OK, so after Barne was done complaining about how Leslie’s tail had hurt—which stopped when I asked if he wanted me to kiss his tender noggin better—we’d reached the ship’s airlock and passed the Marauders on guard duty, heading out onto the station.
“The ship was docked with one of the station’s main passenger terminals…. Not the sort of place a military cruiser usually snugs up to, but it put us close to the Isthmus’s command decks, and we had a lot of decent options up there.”
“‘Let’s go somewhere we haven’t been before,’ Leslie’d suggested, and Chase seconded it with an ‘Oo-Rah.’ Barne, however, gave us all a measuring look at that.
“‘I know just the place.’ I remember how warily Barne said that—it should have been a sign. ‘I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve heard some of the other Marauders talk about it.”
Rika paused once more and surveyed her audience, a grin settling on her lips.
“OK, so I know this doesn’t seem like too much is going on, but trust me, we’re going to take a left turn real fast. Next, Chase asks Barne, ‘Sooo…is this the wrestling place?’
“Barne nodded vigorously, and I remember sharing a worried look with Leslie before he replied, ‘Yeah. From what I hear, it’s amazing. It was all underground when Stavros ran the joint, but now that he’s dead, it’s public again. I guess when this whole area was known as the Kendo Empire, this…sport was pretty common.’”
“I feel like I should add,” Niki spoke via the audible systems on Rika’s armor, “that I knew all about this place, and I may have been egging Barne on over the Link because I wanted to see what would happen when we went there.”
“Seriously?” Rika asked, mouth agape. “You never told me that before! Someone could have died.”
“Yeah…well…I bet none of that would have happened if you’d gotten in the ring to help,” Niki shot back. “Honestly, you’re too fastidious, Rika. Get dirty every now and then.”
Rika rolled her eyes. “Says the AI who has never had to carefully pick bits of dirt and rock out of her joints.”
“I’m sure you make it out to be worse than it is.”
“Oooh, you’ve got an AI, Rika. Hello, care to introduce yourself?” Amanda asked.
“Sorry, I’m Niki. I didn’t mean to lurk, just never know how people feel about AIs,” Niki said. “I share headspace with Rika here.”
“What’s an AI?” Ridge asked.
“Artificial Intelligence, like a machine mind,” Niki clarified, “though technically we prefer the term ‘Non-organic intelligence,’ since there’s nothing artificial about us.”
Ridge frowned thoughtfully and touched the hilt of the sword he carried with him. “Sounds a bit like my wife’s soulblade.” His eyes widened, and he yanked his hand back from the hilt. “Never mind. Jaxi also objects to being called ‘artificial.’ She prefers sublime.”
“Sublime!” Niki said with a laugh. “Now that, I like. Rika, I am now a sublime intelligence.”
“OK, Niki. You keep telling yourself that.” Rika shook her head. “Anyway, where was I?”
“AI not understanding the peculiarities of dirt, rocks, and joints along with wrestling,” BA replied.
“Right, right. So Leslie and I weren’t too keen on wrestling. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’m a young, red-blooded woman—mostly. Watching a bunch of sweaty guys grapple each other doesn’t hurt my eyes or anything, but it’s not really at the top of my list for a fun time. Problem was, Barne and Chase kept g
iggling like five-year-olds that had just stuck a ‘Kick Me’ sign on their sister’s back, which meant that Leslie and I were fully expecting to see a bunch of naked women in the ring.”
Rika took another swig of her beer before continuing. “So, with our curiosity piqued, we decided to go along for the ride—which is kinda funny, since it was initially just going to be us going out. The boys have a way of taking over our outings.
“The place ended up being waaaay down in the Isthmus’s bowels, over four hundred decks down. When we finally get there, we’re in the part of the station that everyone likes to pretend doesn’t exist, and I’m starting to get worried that this wrestling match is going to take place in the middle of a waste processing plant.
BA’s eyebrow rose as she whispered toward Artur, “Another story of shite?”
“Beats the feck out o’ me,” he replied.
“The only thing that kept Leslie and me down there was the fact that there were a number of other people all headed in the same direction, and most of them were dressed well enough—some even respectable looking.
“We finally get to this big set of doors with two massive guys on either side, and they just give us a once-over and nod us through. There’s a sizable crowd around us at this point, and Leslie caught my eye and gave a ‘let’s see it through’ shrug. One thing we’d both decided was that there was no way any sort of regular wrestling was taking place down there—nor was it likely to be naked women in jelly.
“The doors opened into a long corridor, and there was another hulk directing us to take a right through another set of doors. Above those doors there’s some old paint that says something like ‘Aux Maintenance Bay,’ and we step through into an old docking bay. I guess it must have been used once upon a time for direct access for maintaining some of the equipment in the station’s bowels, but given that bleachers were built up across the exterior doors, it was safe to assume it hadn’t seen any sort of legitimate use in some time.
