by N M Tatum
“It moved,” he said, agitated. “Something moved. There’s definitely something in there. Please tell me you knew there was something in there, and this is not some alien parasite situation? I will puke all over everyone right now if that’s a parasite.”
Joel grunted as he forced his way out of the bridge. “Just let. Me. Out.” As the last word left his mouth, he shot forward, finally free of the tight quarters of the bridge.
Surprised by his sudden freedom, he fell forward, then quickly rolled onto his back and frantically stretched out the collar of his shirt so he could look inside.
“Oh no, don’t be dead,” Joel said.
“I knew it,” Reggie said. “What are you hiding?”
Reggie reached for Joel’s open shirt, but he swatted him away. “All right, all right, slow your roll. Don’t get so handsy.” Joel stuck his hand up his shirt and pulled out a small ball of fuzz that, until it wiggled and squeaked, no one would have recognized as a living creature. “Here. This is what I’ve been hiding. General Pepper. Peppy.”
Cody leaned over Joel and narrowed his eyes like he was looking through a telescope. “What is it?”
Joel shrugged. “Besides fucking adorbs? No clue.”
“You brought a weird alien creature onboard and didn’t tell anyone?” Cody asked.
“You’re a weird alien creature,” Joel said. “No one seems to mind you hanging around.”
Cody continued to examine the creature. “This is serious, dude. We have no idea what this thing is. We don’t know what it’s capable of. We don’t know what it eats. We don’t know if it generates its own personal bioelectric field that will interfere with Sonic’s nav systems.”
“Is that a thing?” Sam asked, but no one answered.
“My point is,” Cody continued. “This adorable creature could eat all our faces as we sleep.”
“Or it could be one of those chimichangas,” Reggie added, garnering a round of confused looks. “That animal that I wanted to get at Mother Lode.”
Cody nodded. “Chinchutakes. Exactly, it could be like one of those. Multiply like bunnies, then eat the ship from the inside out.”
Joel finally stood, cradling the creature in his arms, as gentle a gesture as the guys had ever seen him make. “Listen, I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t do anything to endanger us. Just do me a favor and look at him.” He held the creature by the sides and pointed it at each of the Notches. They each stared at it. The creature looked like one of those Himalayan cats with the smooshed faces got it on with an Ewok. Its features were barely visible under the mane of fuzz.
Sam was glad to have had her mask on to hide the ridiculous face she must have been making. It also muffled the moan that jumped from her mouth. She played it off like she’d maintained a straight face and was unimpressed.
Reggie, however, had no such luck. He immediately went wide-eyed, like a kid walking by a window full of puppies at a pet store.
Joel held Peppy in Cody’s face for an extra-long time. “Look at this face,” he said to him. “Let the cuteness move you.”
Cody clenched his jaw. He narrowed his eyes. He tried to distract himself by trying to figure out why Reggie’s parents hated him. He did everything he could to resist the power of the puff ball, but, in the end, he could not.
“Goddammit. Yes, it’s cute.”
“Which means I can keep it, right?” Joel asked, snuggling the creature next to his face.
Cody was the expert on animals. If anyone was going to object to Peppy, it would be him. “Yeah, fine, keep the thing. But if it eats a single face, I am definitely going to say ‘I told you so’. Unless it’s your face. Then I’ll just chuckle.”
Joel clutched Peppy tightly and smooshed his face deeper into its ball of fur.
Cody marched away down the hall, yelling to Joel over his shoulder, “And I’ll let you figure out the whole animal-pooping-on-a-spaceship thing.”
Joel looked from Reggie to Sam, who both creased their brows, having not thought about those particular repercussions. “I’ll put down some papers or something. It’ll be fine.” Joel squeezed Peppy again as he walked toward the cargo hold. “Let’s go build you a bed.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Joystick Gaming Bar
Joystick was one of the best gamer bars in the galaxy. It was so great, that the Notches had never been able to afford to go there. But things had changed. They were successful alien-roach killers now. They had cash to spend and a desire to spend it. And for cheeseburgers. Good god, they wanted cheeseburgers. Ones dripping with melted cheese and bathed in thousand-island-dressing. Cody had been dreaming about a burger with crispy onion rings and bacon, whereas Reggie was more of a traditionalist; he only wanted lettuce, tomato and pickles. Joel, however, was more adventurous. He wanted a burger with jalapenos, a fried egg and a dollop of extra spicy horseradish sauce. It was called a “BurgerTime.” That was just his appetizer.
“Then I’m going to get a Donkey Kong,” Joel said. “That’s four beef patties with fried bananas. After that, I’m going to get an M. Bison burger. I looked up their menu… I’ve been planning my approach all day.”
“I want to eat my weight in French fries,” Sam said. “Maybe even Reggie’s weight in French fries.”
They stopped at the entrance to Joystick and looked up at the sign hanging over the door. It was a classic neon sign that evoked the arcades of old. Quarters. Button mashing. The stink of adolescent body odor. Heaven.
Sam didn’t understand the reverence. “Are we going to go in? Because if I don’t eat soon, I might kill someone, and it’s probably going to be one of you. Just saying.”
The guys shook from their stupor.
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “Let’s feast.”
They strode in like they owned the place: chests puffed out, boss walk, confidence oozing off them. But as soon as they caught the glow of the games, they became unapologetic nerds.
“They have a retro Street Fighter 2!” Cody yelled. He ran off without waiting for a response.
“The updated Return to Order!” Reggie yelled.
“Cheeseburgers!” Joel yelled.
Sam suddenly found herself standing alone, and couldn’t help but smile. She rarely witnessed that kind of unfettered joy. That sort of glee in the merc business usually meant said happy party was a psychopath, so this genuine display of childish joy was refreshing. It washed the blood from Sam better than any shower ever could. Even though she was not a direct part of their joy, she enjoyed watching it, basking in it as a tertiary recipient.
She walked through Joystick, unable to shut off the part of her brain that had kept her alive for so many years, the part that detected threats and formulated how to eliminate them. Without intending to, she had mentally mapped the interior of the bar, identified the exits, performed a risk assessment and a course found ways for deterring threats, should those hypothetical risks become real. All on the walk from the entrance to her table.
She wished she could shut that part of her brain off, if just for a little while. It would be nice to have a night full of fun without killing being at the forefront of her mind. Even the waiter didn’t escape her mental prowess. Sam immediately catalogued his face and ran him through a mental database to see if she knew him; if he was an operative for a dozen parties that might want her dead. He checked out. Just some greasy twenty-something trying to make a buck.
“Bring a couple plates of fries,” she told the waiter. “Three cheeseburgers. One with onion rings and bacon and two without. Then we need a BurgerTime and something called a Donkey Kong, and an M. Bison burger. And beer. We’ll need lots of beer.” She couldn’t be part of the guys’ joy, but she could help protect it for them, help make it happen.
The guys found her twenty minutes later. They were wide-eyed and sweaty and buzzing with energy, lobbing words back and forth that she didn’t understand. Sam enjoyed their energy, but there was a small part of her that wished she could experience it for her own.
An empty pitcher of beer sat in the middle of the table, and an empty glass sat in front of Sam. A second pitcher had collected condensation on its outside that was running down in little streams to collect in small puddles on the table. Each of the guys poured themselves a beer.
“We need to get the waiter over here before I pass out,” Joel said. “Should have ordered first. Rookie mistake. I got too excited.”
The waiter appeared as if he’d heard the request, carrying two trays. Joel was about to start listing off his order when he noticed the waiter was setting the trays down in front of their table. This was their food. The man transferred the three cheeseburgers and plates of fries to their table. Joel nodded as he surveyed it all, but looked disappointed.
“You ordered?” he asked Sam.
The waiter turned back for the tray and set first one, then a second and then a third burger in front of Joel. The aromas of the BurgerTime, Donkey Kong and M. Bison burgers wafted up to Joel’s nose, and his face lit up like a pinball machine.
“I did,” Sam said, a smile in her voice.
Reggie poured a little of his beer into Sam’s glass then raised his own. “To us, one heck of a team.”
The guys threw back their beers and slammed the empty glasses on the table. Joel looked at the still full glass in Sam’s hand, then the respirator covering her mouth, then to the empty pitcher. He fumbled with the words to ask what he wanted to know in a way that didn’t get him killed. “So, Sam, how do you, uh, like…” He mimed drinking with his glass. “And, you know, with the fries?” He pointed to the mound of French fries sitting in front of her.
To answer his question, she pressed a small button on the side of her respirator. A barely noticeable opening appeared toward the underside of her mask. She demonstrated by eating a fry.
“But how do you drink?” Cody asked.
She stuck a straw in her beer and sipped.
Joel slapped his forehead and reeled back in his chair. “Oh, my god, you drink beer with a straw? Listen, I say this as your friend; whatever reason you have for wearing that thing, it can’t be worse than drinking beer with a straw. I mean, you’re in public.”
She could have gotten angry. At any other time, she probably would have. But at that moment, in that place, with the guys having as much fun as they were, all she could focus on was that he had called her his friend. She had a lot of business contacts—and some of those had grown into amicable relationships, as long as they stayed mutually beneficial—but she didn’t have any friends.
And she was surprisingly delighted when the others joined Joel.
“It’s worse than eating pizza with a fork,” Cody agreed. Sam cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, my god,” Cody said. “You eat pizza with a fork, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t fit through the mask otherwise,” Sam said in a jovial tone. Not defensive. Not angry. Open and vulnerable.
If she let herself think about it, then her face would get hot and her heart would race. She shut that thought down and forced herself to just be there in the moment.
Sam put the straw to her lips and said through a smile, “You guys can look away if you want.”
“I will,” Reggie said, his eyes falling on the feast in front of Joel. “No way you’re going to eat all that.”
“Dude,” Joel said, picking up the quadruple cheeseburger with fried bananas that was the Donkey Kong. “You’ve known me since we were five. Of course, I’m going to eat all this.” He unhinged his jaw like an anaconda and took a massive bite.
“Banana on your burger, though?” Cody said, making a face like he might puke.
“Hell yeah,” Joel said through a mouthful of Donkey Kong. “And later, I’m ordering a pizza with pineapple on it.”
“Now that’s embarrassing,” Sam said.
They finished their food with a hefty side of laughter and joking and lovingly tearing into each other. And then they ordered more food. It was a Herculean feat, but they did not shy away. Boneless buffalo wings doused in the hottest sauce this side of the Big Dipper. Mozzarella sticks fried to perfection and dipped in a sweet and tangy marinara. Potato skins sprinkled generously with apple smoked bacon and a dollop of sour cream. They shoveled it all down unapologetically, even Joel’s pineapple pizza.
“This is horrifying,” Cody said, feeling a little tipsy from his one beer. He watched Sam lift her fork to the opening in her respirator. “You’re eating pineapple pizza with a fork. I think that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse.”
The Notches sat back in their chairs, their bellies protruding like they were posing with a dead animal after a trophy hunt.
“We’ve cleared two space stations of massive infestations of the worst bug in the galaxy,” Reggie said, surveying the battlefield of empty plates on the table. “But this is the most impressive thing we’ve ever done.”
Joel pushed back from the table. “I need to walk around, or I think I will fall into a deep food coma.” He stood and rubbed his hands soothingly on his belly. “Easy, big fella, it’ll be okay.” He walked toward the bar.
Reggie and Cody both stood. “We’re going to hit up the games,” Reggie said to Sam. “You want to join?”
Sam honestly considered it. She’d never had an interest in video games; never had an interest in any games, really. She had not lived a life, even in childhood, that afforded the leisure of games. But she decided she had exposed herself enough for one night.
“Sorry, boys. Not my thing,” she admitted.
They nodded, not offended, realizing it had been a long shot to begin with, and walked off toward the games.
Sam finished the last half-glass of beer left in the pitcher. She was full of a cornucopia of greasy bar food, but there was always room for more beer. She made her way through the crowd toward the bar, most people giving her a wide berth. On places like Torex, it would be because her reputation preceded her. But in places like this, it was for wholly different reasons. Some may have been intimidated by her, recognizing the swagger of a fighter… She liked to believe that was the reason, but she knew it wasn’t, most of the time. It was her mask. It was the fact that people would see something they didn’t understand and immediately treat it with hostility.
She passed through a group of women about her age, four of them standing in a circle, stirring their drinks and talking about nothing. They took up more room than they should have been allowed. A sense of entitlement hung on them like rose perfume.
Sam could have gone around, but she disdained people like them, with their smug attitude. They always clutched their pearls and judged her, which was why she took pleasure in making her disdain known.
One of the women, a tall brunette with flashy jewelry, scoffed when Sam knocked into her. “Excuse you.”
Sam turned to face the woman, getting close enough to smell the well vodka on her breath, catching the woman by surprise. “No.”
The woman was flustered. “What?”
“Don’t ‘excuse’ me,” Sam said. “I didn’t ask to be excused, Debbie.”
She leaned in close to the woman and breathed in deep, letting the rasp of her mask slap the woman in the face. The woman squirmed, as if the air coming out of Sam’s mask, out of her mouth, was dirty.
“My name isn’t Debbie,” the woman said.
“Yes, it is,” Sam said.
One of the other Debbies wanted to grab Sam’s shoulder and pull her away, but only had courage enough to tap her. “Okay, freak, we get it. You’re scary.”
That was what Sam wanted to hear. It’s what she knew; the reason people gave her a wide berth no matter where she was, whether they knew her reputation or not. She scared them.
She walked away from the circle of Debbies without paying them another second’s attention or acknowledgment. They didn’t exist to her anymore… The worst possible punishment for people who think they own the world.
Joel was leaning on the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention. “I’m trying to give you
money, man. Why are you making it so hard?”
The bar was crowded, a wave of customers several people deep waiting for drinks. Sam had had enough of crowds, so she was hanging toward the back, waiting for Joel. She saw the crowd part like a prophet had struck his staff, allowing a woman to pass through.
The head Debbie.
She walked through them like they didn’t exist, moving all the way to the bar, right next to Joel.
Even from where she stood, Sam could see his face turn a deep shade of red. He shifted from foot to foot, like a runner taking his mark before the gun is fired. Against her every desire, Sam waded into the crowd, which again parted for her for entirely different reasons.
“Can I get you a drink?” Joel asked the Debbie.
The woman eyed Joel like he was a peasant who had dared speak to a queen. “It doesn’t look like you can even get you a drink.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t been trying,” Joel said. “I’ve just been waiting here for someone like you to come along and give me a reason to order one. I don’t like to drink alone.”
She offered him a snicker, a half-hearted attempt at being half-polite. Then she turned forward to get the bartender’s attention.
Joel continued, not seeming to notice her dismissal, “Now that you’re here, you can help me celebrate. My partners and I just completed a big contract. The kind of deal that’ll really open up doors for us.” She didn’t look at him. He had stopped existing to her, he just didn’t know it yet. “We’re business owners. Entrepreneurs.” He stepped in closer to her, put on his smooth voice. “So, how about it? Want to celebrate with me?”
She couldn’t pretend he didn’t exist anymore. The woman turned to Joel, her eyes cold, but her temper hot. “How about this, y—”
“I’ll celebrate with you,” Sam said, cutting Debbie off, as she appeared through the crowd staring daggers into Debbie’s icicle eyes. “I’d love to take a shot.”
Debbie tried to step back, but the crowd prevented her. She swallowed hard then opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. Instead, she stayed silent, opting to leave without her drink.
