Dale Mettam

by The Pub at the Center of the Universe (retail) (epub)

  “He can have a hangover as well?”

  “You’ll probably have the hangover. Nanoprobes again I’m afraid. By their calibrations, you should have a hangover after being as drunk as you also should be, but you aren’t so they’ll over compensate again I’m afraid. Forced feedback relay loop, or something.”

  “Tha’ssit,” said Casio. “Run and get lizard lips to fight y’ battles.”

  “Sarge,” snapped Lu, all appearance of amusement had now left her. “Recalibrate Kirk’s F.R.B. now.”

  “Very well, ma’am,” replied her F.R.B.

  “OOW!” shouted Kirk as the mother of all headaches flooded his head. “Did you have to...”

  He’d gone a distinctly grayish green color.

  “I think...” he said. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Lu pointed towards the back of the restaurant and Kirk stumbled towards it, a hand held firmly over his mouth. As Lu sat and waited for Kirk to return, she paid the bill and then looked down at Sarge. “I want you to send a private message to Casio, Sarge,” she said.

  “Am I to assume that you do not wish Mr. Deighton to hear the message?”

  “You are.”

  “Very well. Linking now. Begin transmission.”

  “Casio,” she said in a frosty tone. “If you ever slip like that again, I will personally remove every component that makes up your F.R.B. unit, and will also go to the collective and delete your entire core program. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” came the timid response via her own F.R.B.

  The walk back to the apartment was diminished slightly by the hangover Kirk was now unjustly saddled with. However, as he looked up at the leafy canopy above he momentarily forgot his woes and was lost in the radiant beauty of what he now viewed.

  “Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” Lu said.

  Kirk looked at her in mild surprise.

  “Just because I know how to bang heads together doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate beauty. Remember what I told you about not judging?”

  Kirk looked back up at the leaves and let out a long sigh. They now shone silver and cast a pale glow down towards them.

  “The same way that the leaves filter and process light downwards during the day, they also do now, at night. It only looks this good when we have a full moon, and Sevres is in the right position. But even on other nights it’s still awe inspiring,” Lu said.

  “I didn’t see a moon when we came in,” Kirk said.

  “It was on the other side of the planet, but Sevres and Sevres Prime actually share a moon. It kinda figure eights between the two planets, so an actual full moon is something that you don’t get as often here. Well, not as often as you’re probably used to.”

  “It’s the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” said Kirk still watching the leaves.

  “It is one of those things that I don’t think you can ever get tired of seeing. And believe me, I have seen some things.”

  They had stopped now, and were both transfixed by the gently swaying waves that ran through the silvery leaves.

  “If I died tomorrow, I think I could do so knowing I had seen the most beautiful thing imaginable,”

  Kirk said.

  “Well let us help you with that wish then,” a gruff voice snarled.

  “He said, let us help you with that wish then,” a more helpful, yet equally rough voice said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The street was almost deserted, but Toast and Plaach were taking no chances. Since arriving on Sevres Prime, they had waited several days at the Hyper Luminal Arrival lounge before deciding to cover the docks watching for Kirk and Lu.

  Plaach was bored. Were he not so frightened that suggesting they forget about the little woman who kicked their butts would unleash a violent outburst from Toast, he would have headed for new pastures several days ago.

  He was dozing in the shade of a large waste container when Toast leveled a mean kick at his ribs.

  “What?” asked Plaach, rubbing his side.

  “They’re here.”

  Plaach jumped up and peered around his orange-haired partner. Sure enough, across the street were the same two they ran into, painfully, at Titan space port.

  “You want to take them now?” asked Plaach, eager to be done with this trip and back to something that if no more profitable, would be more pleasant. While he was admittedly a card-carrying member of the scum of the universe, he still appreciated his creature comforts, which included, amongst other things, a real bed to sleep in. He also appreciated at least twelve hearty meals a day, plus snacks, and while Toast was happy to let Plaach go fetch the food so he could keep watching, the options here were limited and costly this close to the arrival and departure hub of the planet. Also there seemed to be a complete absence of Kenturkee Fried Chicken franchises here, much to Plaach’s annoyance.

  “So what’s the plan, Toast?”

  “We follow ‘em. As soon as they stop somewhere convenient, we introduce them to Mr. Pickles,” Toast answered, drawing the menacing knife from his belt and gently stroking the blade.

  Plaach smiled. It wasn’t so much a ‘crying on the inside’ kind of smile, as it was a ‘desperately thinking of a way to get as far away from the trouble that was inevitably following’ kind of smile.

  As Kirk and Lu set off down the street, Plaach and Toast peeled away from the shadows and set off, at a safe distance, along the same path. The rest of the day was both frustrating and frightening to Plaach. They followed Kirk and Lu to an apartment complex, where they had split up. Toast had been ready to go straight for Lu, but in a rare moment of clarity, saw the wisdom in Plaach’s advice that they take care of the guy first. They had seen on Titan that he had nothing they could fear, so it made sense to take him first. Of course, Plaach gave a brief amount of consideration that this alien did indeed have some kind of defense mechanism they’d been quick enough to avoid the first time, but if they worked quick, they could hit him just as quick this time.

  The thing frustrating Plaach was that while their intended quarry had indeed split up, Kirk was never alone long enough to give them a chance to move in on him. They entered the courtyard of the Shady Boughs complex as soon as they were certain Lu was gone. Moving swiftly, they went up to the second floor and broke into an apartment looking down on Kirk’s new home.

  What really frightened Plaach was the increasing frustration Toast exhibited. It would not be too long before his colleague turned on him and questioned the wisdom of going for Kirk instead of Lu. Plaach knew from past experience that these were the kind of questions asked with fists and feet rather than lips.

  As dusk settled over the courtyard, Lu returned which seemed to both annoy and delight Toast in equal measures. He was set to charge down into the courtyard attacking straight away, and had it not been for the unlucky owner of the apartment, returning at just that moment, Plaach was sure Toast would have followed through. Unluckily for the apartment owner, though luckily for Plaach, this interruption delayed them long enough for Lu and Kirk to make it out to the street and relieve some of the built up tension in Toast as he beat up the person he now deemed to be standing between him and his prey.

  But by the time they made it to the street, Lu and Kirk were well ahead of them and they had to run to catch up. The streets were too busy for an obvious attack, so Toast, grudgingly conceded to hold back and wait for a better chance. Plaach knew this was probably the last time he could talk his partner out of some immediate action, and began considering new career avenues.

  The wait outside the restaurant was agony for Plaach. Not only had Toast begun to talk to his knife in a way that made Plaach wish he could be a thousand light-years away from him at this moment, but the delicious smells wafting across the street, reminded him that he was at least seven meals behind today.
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  When Lu and Kirk left the restaurant, the street was much quieter and almost deserted. For a brief moment, Plaach glanced up and wondered in silent awe at how pretty the leaves looked. Then Toast hit him on the arm and they were off to seek a revenge which, while starting as an act of their combined vengeance, had slowly slipped away from Plaach and almost entirely consumed Toast.

  When their intended victims paused to look up at the leafy canopy of silver, they seized their chance and moved in.

  “If I died tomorrow, I think I could do so knowing I had seen the most beautiful thing imaginable,” Kirk said.

  “Well let us help you with that wish then,” Toast snarled.

  “He said, let us help you with that wish then,” Plaach needlessly translated.

  After their last encounter, where Lu had taken care of these thugs with relative ease, Kirk was both surprised and frightened at the efficient way in which Toast and Plaach disarmed them and muscled them down a gloomy alleyway.

  “Remember us?” said Toast leering and brandishing the knife.

  “He said...”

  “If you want to walk out of here in one piece, I suggest you shut up now,” snapped Lu to Plaach, though her eyes never left the blade as it danced between Toast’s massive hands.

  Both Plaach and Toast looked like they were about to say something, but the look in Lu’s eyes caught the words in their throats. When Kirk glanced around at her, he wished he hadn’t.

  He was both shocked and scared when they’d been ambushed, even more worried when he recognized who was attacking them, but the set of Lu’s face was the most frightening thing of all. One look into her terribly hard stare told everyone here that she was not going to go down quietly, and anyone with a shred of self-preservation would be well advised to walk away now.

  Both Kirk and Plaach took a small step back, but Toast was lost, immersed in his own need for revenge and the hate he felt for Lu.

  “I am an agent of the Universal Securitat,” Lu said, her voice both as cold and hard as ice. “I will give you the chance to walk away once. After that, I will take you down. Hard.”

  Kirk and Plaach inched a step further away.

  Then, as Kirk watched, time seemed to slow down. He wasn’t sure if it was just that he was caught in a situation that was both horrifying and exhilarating, or if time did actually slow for a few brief moments.

  If things had been running at their normal speed, he was certain he would have thought that things happened all at once, but in this heightened awareness he felt immersed in, he could see that there was a distinct chain of events.

  First was Casio chiming in, alarm evident in the F.R.B.’s voice.

  “Oh, no. Here we go again,” Casio cried.

  Then the sensation hit Kirk and he knew exactly what his F.R.B. was worried about, and it wasn’t a giant orange furry alien with a knife.

  “Optical sensors distorting,” wailed Casio pitifully.

  “Disorientation, excessive saliva production and increase stomach juice activity!”

  The last of the four pints of real ale and the delicious curry came back up. Kirk briefly considered trying to cover his mouth, but the prospect of that turned his stomach even more violently, and before he could decide on any further course of action he was sharing his dinner with Toast.

  Plaach leapt back in terror as his worst fears were confirmed. The strange alien did indeed launch a defense mechanism assault at them. Toast was distracted by both the warm chunky shower he was sprayed with and the fact that behind him a strange, rhythmic, pulsing sound was growing louder and louder. Torn now between a desire to clean his fur of the madras-scented attack, seeing what new thing was approaching from what he thought was a dead-end, and keeping a close eye on Lu, it all proved too much for him to deal with. Vanity proved to be his downfall.

  “What the f...” he began, sweeping a giant hand down his now matted and congealing fur.

  This was enough for Lu.

  With lightning speed, and from a distance that seemed too far away to make contact with Toast, she swung and connected with a powerful punch to his head.

  Toast’s head snapped around and he staggered backwards, bouncing hard off what appeared to be a portable toilet that had not been there moments earlier.

  As Toast staggered forward again, Lu was in the air and lunging both feet at Toast’s chest. Rather than sending him flailing backwards again, the smashing feet seemed to both knock all the air out of Toast and drop him where he stood.

  Plaach had still not moved and was eyeing Kirk fearfully, worried that he might be the next victim of what was obviously a dangerous defensive reaction.

  Lu landed gracefully, swept up both of their P.R.P.s and was aiming her gun at Toast when time seemed to pick up speed and return to normal. Lu fired and the unconscious Toast popped into a translucent sphere for the second time in front of Kirk.

  Satisfied that Toast was taken care of, she swung her

  P.R.P. around and aimed at Plaach.

  “I surrender,” he said weakly, raising his hands.

  Then, as far as Kirk was concerned, the strangest event of the evening occurred. The portable toilet door opened and out stepped the man he had seen in the field just as he had crashed his car.

  The Professor surveyed the scene.

  “Not disturbing anything, are we, Special Agent Pillah?” He asked.

  “Not at all, Professor.”

  A young man in an orange jump suit pushed past the Professor and stepped out into the alleyway, eager to see what was going on. While Kirk was not by nature a violent person, he was filled with an overwhelming desire to punch the young man.

  He had that kind of a face.

  “I know you,” said Kirk.

  “Er, no, we haven’t met before,” said the Professor.

  “Yes we have,” protested Kirk. “In a field, back on Earth. I crashed my car near you.”

  “Not yet,” said the Professor, beaming.

  “But you had a woman with you there. She was wearing...”

  “Stop, stop, stop!” shouted the Professor clamping his hands over his ears in a wildly exaggerated manner. “That has not happened yet.”

  “Of course it has,” said Kirk. “How could I remember it if it hadn’t happened yet?”

  “For me, dear boy. For me,” said the Professor as if talking to a small child. “I’m afraid I can speak with you no longer. You could contaminate the entire flow of time. Ripples would spread throughout the universe causing all kinds of unforeseen tragedy. I was mildly concerned that you might be here, but I suspected that you had already left for Prio by now.”

  “What?” asked Lu.

  “If we haven’t met yet, and you don’t know anything about our meeting, nor do you want to because it will cause problems, how do you know where we’re going?” Kirk said.

  The Professor opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Professor,” Lu said.

  “Yes, Special Agent Pillah,” said the Professor turning to Lu, but sending the occasional worried look over to Kirk.

  “We need to get going to...” She left the sentence hanging and watched the Professor intently but he seemed aware she was trying to trip him up and simply smiled benignly at her.

  “We don’t have time to deal with these boys,” she waved her P.R.P. at Plaach and the Toast sphere.

  “Would you be so kind as to watch them until back-up arrives? I’ve sent a signal via my F.R.B. so you should only have to wait a few moments.”

  “Certainly, my dear,” replied the Professor warmly.

  Lu turned to Plaach.” You won’t be any trouble will you?” She said, pointing her P.R.P. at him.

  Plaach gave her his most trustworthy s
mile, then shot a nervous look at Kirk, who, still feeling the after effects of the forced hangover, let out a small burp and grimaced at the taste in his mouth. Plaach almost fainted and turned to Lu.

  “Shoot me if you want,” he pleaded, “Just don’t let him spray me!”

  Lu looked at Kirk, then back at Plaach, a slow, menacing smile spread across her face. “I think if you behave I can keep him under control. Why don’t you sit down and wait quietly for the patrol to arrive.”

  Plaach almost collapsed on the spot, a look of intense relief on his face.

  “Come on,” Lu said to Kirk. “We have more important things to worry about.”

  As they started back out of the alley, Kirk gave a suspicious look back at the Professor.

  “Wait a minute?” He said. “If I can’t ask him anything because it might mess up time, how can you ask him to watch those two? Isn’t that even worse?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lu said, then turned to the Professor, who was still watching Kirk with an expression of worried suspicion. “The patrol will be here shortly, Professor. Thanks.”

  As they walked out into the street, Kirk could hear the Professor speaking to the young man he was with.

  “Irdak! Don’t touch that,” he chastised. “It might look like a ball, but it is not, now put it down. No, put it down carefully... no, not like... oh... oh dear...”

  There was a loud crack, then a hiss, as if some compressed gas were escaping from its container.

  “Quickly, Irdak,” urged the Professor. “Put your finger over the hole. Oh deary me. Now look what you have done, Irdak. You’ve broken it. I do apologize, was he a friend?”

  “We’d been growing apart recently,” came Plaach’s reply.

  As they set off down the street, and the first patrol vehicles headed their way, Lu handed Kirk his P.R.P. and placed her own in its holster. “I guess we won’t have to worry about our friend following us anymore,” she said.

  Kirk gave a questioning look.

  “If the bubble breaks, the atoms will dissipate. Even a small crack in the sphere’s surface can be enough to make it impossible to recombine the atoms with water and bring the prisoner back.”