Arturis Central Kigh Nightly News
Reporter: Vi Brooks
V: With me I have Anders Hotcarlson from Cocodochi Laser Balloon Comedy and News Sexplosion, ansible's only source for sense-color news. Anders, how are you?
A: Fantastic. It's weird to be on this side of the interview.
V: It's weird to actually hear your voice. Now, the question on everyone's lips is: Truckee Dumpstar.
A: Yes, it is crazy how a little interview about a race can turn into a last-known so quickly.
V: Exactly, but more so-
A: The hack.
V: Yes. You were hacked, let me remind my audience, Anders was interviewing Truckee probably sixteen hours before he was placed on the wanted list for stealing the Jewel of the Ancients from T-Net. Anders was speaking to Truckee about the race, and everything seemed fine, until-
A: Until I went back to edit the footage, and there is a gap. A three minute gap in my memory core, during the interview.
V: Looking back, was Truckee aware of the intrusion.
A: Yes, I'd say, looking at it again, that his reaction when the interview left that period of blankness. Yes, he seemed off somehow. I get that a lot with my format, but this was different. He was different.
V: Shaken?
A: Yes. That's exactly it.
The Orii system is about six jumps into the Sprawl, so deep-deep in then. Federali control is hazy in the Sprawl in general, but once you get to five-in you are talking vague alliances based on LaGranges and supplies (Orii trades fuel for ansible access and technologies from the Central7, but that is about the grand total of its legal ties). There is a sixteen man precinct at the LaGrange station orbiting Orii IV’s largest moon, but they are there just to send advance warning if something in Orii might affect somewhere that anyone actually cares about. That said, the Orii system is pretty much lawless in the traditional sense. However, like with any lawless area left that way for too long, some other sort of power takes charge. Here it is the Lords of Orii, numbering six (one for each planet, despite only Orii IV’s moons, Orii III and the station at Orii Chi Chi being inhabited), they are the law of the system.
Orii Chi Chi (Pronounced: Or-ee k-aye k-aye) orbits Orii V, the (wild guess?) gas giant of the system. People go to where the fuel is, apparently. The station is actually made up of the leftover husk of Orii V’s twentieth moon (as well as chunks of moon’s seventeen and eighteen, but not nineteen for weird political reasons that probably don’t need to be explained), which if you are up on your ancient numerals would make that XX, or.. yeah, so the architects weren’t particularly creative in naming it. The colony is about half rocks and half giant metal structures built on in and on other giant metal structures. It looks like a mess of scrap with good lighting. There are small orbiting substations monitoring traffic, the mining that is going on in lower orbits, and holding weaponry to keep the peace. While Dub-X, as it is referred to colloquially, is technically under the control of Lord V (presently Blam Machinist, leader of the Guild), it is more of a neutral location for trade or what have you.
“Where are you going to land us? This place looks like it got smashed into something before we got here.”
“Each ruler of the Lords adds a little to the station here as part of his time as leader. That tends to make a building look a little… sketch, after a while.”
“So is there a docking bay, or…”
“Each gang has their own docking area.”
“But we aren’t WITH a gang.”
“That’s valid. We’ll be using the merchant entrance.” Epic pushes the ship into a neutral trajectory and allows the AI pilot to pull them in the rest of the way. Airtraffic isn’t as advanced as a typical colony’s, but it’ll take you in if you get close enough.
The ship manages to dock without too much of a hassle, barring the major one that arises when they deplane with a government agent android baby person, a major celebrity and a Hunter.
“We are here on business.” Epic states firmly, his hands held over his head. Truckee and Big are acting similar, Truckee standing behind Epic and Big sitting on Epic’s shoulder. Surrender routines are pretty universal across the known universe.
“Business with who exactly?” Says one of several men holding guns at them.
“Well, that is a bit complex.”
“I believe that you can spell it out for me.”
“For us.” Another says.
“Look, all of you know that something of extremely high importance was stolen from me.” Truckee steps up to speak, the guns follow him.
“Jewel, right.”
“Right. We need to know who is fencing it. I’m on a job, so none of you are at risk.”
“None of us are at risk either way, far as I can see.” The first man says, wiggling his gun with a grin.
“Look. Just give us a meet with Mr. Machinist, put us under whatever surveillance you want, we just want information and off we’ll go.”
“Hmph.” The leader of the goons grunts, closing his eyes. Someone is eSing him. His eyes open, and he puts his gun in a holster at his belt. He waves the rest of the men away, and back to their jobs. “Mach is interested in you. Apparently he wants to speak. Go hang out in the bizarre and he’ll send a guy.”
A door opens, and the boys enter into a large rambling marketplace. Stalls setup as far as the eye can see, selling every kind of illegal object, download or what have you. Hundreds of people wander seemingly randomly, but all with way too many weapons for Big to possibly point at.
“This is… insane.” Truckee murmurs.
“You have no idea how many yellows I have here. Like everyone here but you, for instance.” He scans the room, mostly small fries, but…
“What? Do I have something in my hair?” Truckee fiddles with his wig.
“There is a hit on you too.”
“What?!”
“Let me check.” Epic closes his eyes. Truckee takes this moment to scan the area. Scary people all over, most needing a heavy shower session. The stall they are standing in front of is much like the rest, a roof with small stone supports. Filled with things on a table. The things on this table are parts of various semi-sentient to sentient species.
“Are those genitals?”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that Miss or Mister?” A particularly ‘interesting’ fellow barks. A human wearing about half a fur coat, three separate see-thru jerseys and a pair of double waisted jeans. His blond hair hanging in a thick pony stuck through the back of his filthy vintage baseball cap.
“I don’t talk to ape men.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Nevermind. Epic, the news?”
“Seems that they are accusing you of stealing your own gem.”
“Fantastic, so what am I going for?”
“Chump change. Seventeen thousand rico.”
“Fuck, I can’t even get this Tellurian uterus for that much.”
“Dude, Tellurians are asexual.”
“You just can’t buy good sexual organs these days. Is there somewhere I can get a drink in this piece?”
“Good question. Big, are you getting anything on GPS, because my eButler isn’t giving me any internal stuff on this place…”
“No-thing! This place is shielded from our fizz isles!!” Big says from Epic’s shoulder. Epic swears under his breath while Truckee goes to the next booth to ask for directions. Never ask a genital salesman for advice on food or drink, as his answers will either be genital related (‘the tip of this here penis’) or disgusting (‘the tip of this here penis’) or both (see previous).
Sixteen stalls straight ahead, three slightly left along the side of a giant metal pillar of some sort, and you get to a large sprawling bar. Two floors filled with cutthroats, thieves, molesters, arms dealers, arm stealers, and the like. Truckee walks behind Epic, who nods at a few people he recognizes on th
e way in. The bar is open walled to the bizarre; a metal building made to look like an old fashioned wooden bar, all gashed and pocked pillars, and plastic ‘wooden’ tables and chairs. The bar is very high, with tall stools, backed with a huge mirror with random news feeds scrawling in small squares here and there. The boys decide to sit by the edge so they can be found should whoever is meeting them come to meet them.
“So are we going to be waiting here forever?”
“It kind of seems that way, doesn’t it?”
“Well, whatever, at least this place serves regular food.” Truckee points at something when the waiter comes by, Epic orders beers and a steak, and Big just asks for water.
“Do androids eat?” Truckee asks Epic for some reason, then they both look at Big.
“We get miz-ost of our enArrgy from our inside batteries and so-lar cells in our skin! Bizzut, some energy kan come from huu-man fizzy! I requizzire liquidz to work!”
“Is there some reason he talks like that?”
“Big, can you talk regular?” Epic asks nicely, perhaps the vaguely offensive stereotype is only an accent program and not his main personality. Adding additional crimes to the owner of that fucking shoe store.
“I guess!” Big laughs. Truckee raises one eyebrow slightly, was the child fucking with them this whole time?
“How did you become a lance?” Truckee decides to ask the newly understandable toddler.
“About six years ago, I was involved in an armed robbery at one of our stores in Lowers! I managed to get the man, mostly because he thought I was a holograph.”
“Oh. So you were approached then?” Epic mentions between bites.
“Yes. I was asked if I would. A couple of my product line were tapped after that, which is when we built that base under our flagship store.”
“Does Big Big Baby actually exist?”
“He’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Oh.” Truckee mutters, not sure whether or not this line of questioning veered into bad taste.
“Is it okay for you to be gone this long?” Epic continues.
“Official business!”
“Right right. Finish yourself off, I mean your dinner. Finish your dinner.” Truckee stumbles, Epic just grins and digs into his steak.
Dinner goes without event, and a man introduces himself on the way out. He’s about Epic’s size, so quite tall, but thinner. A spacer, a man bred for space travel and long term zero gee movement. They walk around the bizarre for a bit, taking a route that only seems logical to their guide. Eventually they end up at the front door of the big metal pillar. Several men with guns guard the door, a giant metal sheet with hundreds of mounted lasers welded to it, making the guards somewhat superfluous.
“What’re they expecting the android apocalypse here or something?” Truckee mutters under his breath as they walk in.
“No one ever expects the android apocalypse!” Big says from Epic’s shoulder. Apparently screaming constantly is part of his primary programming. Epic seems to be enjoying himself, greeting the various thugs as they pass by, Truckee is somewhat more nervous. Each doorway they travel through is a doorway that could be locked to keep them from travelling back out again. A stairway greets them as they exit another door, that would be number ten for trannies counting, and there are trannies counting. Their guide is taking the stairs two at a time, which is at least keeping Truckee away from focusing too much on his impending death.
“This house has entirely too many foyers.”
“I’d have to agree. Buddy, we close?” Epic says as they reach a landing, the stairs look to go up at least ten more floors. Truckee is breathing hard, and Epic is tired of having a baby as a shoulder pad. The guy doesn’t even turn around, just hopping up the steps.
“I’ll take that as a ‘fuck you’, then.” Truckee mutters, glad he wore flats.
They continue thusly until they reach the very top floor. By then Truckee is wheezing and Epic has switched Big to the other shoulder. At the last landing is a giant gilded door engraved with the image of a lion biting the head off of a dragon. It’s quite beautiful if one is into graphic violence portrayed in gold on one’s door. Truckee even finds it a bit garish; this is a military instillation of some sort if he isn’t mistaken.
Inside is another hallway lined with pillars, between each is a long drapery depicting a skirmish. Each panel portraying another step forward in the battle, a story told in forty foot long tapestry. Epic whistles. The floor is a complex white marble, the ceiling vaulted very high and either showing or actually being, the outside of the city. The gas giant filling the entirety of the sky.
The door ahead is already opened, a double door leading into a brightly lit chamber. Books are lined on every wall, two floors of books. In the center of the room is a long wooden table, impossibly dark and veined with extremely light patterns. An ancient geneered variety of tree, native to the Sprawl. Truckee knows enough about organics to know that this particular slab of wood is worth several Tellurian uteri. At the end of the table is a smartly dressed man, a navy blue tunic with silver buttons, who looks none too pleased to be bothered.
“Come in. Please sit. Ace, can you get us some water and hit the field on your way out.” Blam Machinist speaks in a very low timber, rolling out of his mouth like ancient runes. Almost indecipherably low in timber, appearing on seismograph readings.
Water arrives and Ace leaves them, hitting a switch as he exits. Big taps his forehead, inferring their sever from the World. Epic drinks his water politely, Truckee crosses his arms.
“What do you want to speak to me about?” Mach looks Epic dead in the eyes. Mach is a big man, not particularly tall, but of imposing size horizontally. He got to where he is by force, not by blood like some of the Lords. The Guild, one of the oldest galactic crime syndicates, is made of Hunters who broke away from the Hunt proper. Braking rules gets you thrown out of the Hunt, but once a hired gun always a hired gun, and so the Guild was born. Originally it was centered out of Mars, but as rules and politics became what they were, the Guild pulled its main operation out to Dub-X (a colony it had cofounded with the rest of the Lords). This was about four hundred years ago, so a few Lords have been in and out since then.
“We’re involved in some deep shit. You catch the news?”
“Jewel stolen. You think I did it?”
“No, sir. There are things that aren’t adding right, and I think you might know who’s jinxing my math.” Epic puts his cup down, placing both hands on the table. Mach leans his head slightly to one side.
“What’s off? Some no name stole your shit, is going to probably try an fence it, and will then get caught by the Federalis. I don’t know what you want me to do for you.”
“Who do you know that could hack the net long enough for a sale to go through?”
“Each of us has probably like ten guys who could do that. But the funds would still be there. There would have to be some way to hide the money from the Federalis long enough that they don’t see the connection. Hacking the system for more than an instant would leave a wave of lag too big for anyone to hide. What you got is an impossible crime.”
“But someone is trying it, and I don’t think that they are stupid enough to not be planning success.”
“Look. I’ve got nothing for you. I recommend you check your security tapes and find whoever did this the old fashioned way. Now get out of my sight before I take your little girlfriend’s bounty just for being a nuisance.”
“Sir.” Truckee mutters, and rises to leave.
As they leave, “If you find someone who can do all you say, you send him straight to me. Guy’d make me the richest man in the fucking Universe.” Epic waves, not looking back, and they exit how they came. About halfway down the stairs, Truckee starts cursing.
“What’s up?” Epic says nonchalantly, almost too content to walk back down.
“We came here fo
r what now?”
“What we got.”
“We got nothing! He said that he didn’t do it, and that he didn’t know who even could.”
“Right. That cuts a lot of options down.”
“And what the fuck are we supposed to do with that?”
“Less options mean less correct answers. Finding the Jewel isn’t just about finding it, it’s about finding where it isn’t.”
“What are you Buddhist? At this rate, are we going to go to every possible person and just ask them if they did it?”
“No. The Lords are out. I have a pretty good idea where we should go next.”
“What?”
“Why are there no security cameras in your building?”
“T-Net has… the outage.”
“Right. You told me the Net cut out right before it happened.”
“Someone hacked the footage.”
“Correct. Someone who has access to your cameras, your building, your office. We are both completely aware that you did not commit this crime, yet the GovNet thinks you did. That means there is no footage of a crime happening in a motherfucking footage factory. If T-Net doesn’t have internal cameras pointing in every direction, during a motherfucking press conference no less, then I would be surprised to the point of mental decay.”
“So whoever did this?”
“Wants you on ice, bad enough to spend some serious talent making sure it looks like you did it yourself.”
“That’s why they think it was me…” Truckee stops walking as they hit the bottom floor, half from exhaustion, half from confusion. Who could possibly hope to get the Jewel? Are they going to use it, knowing the cost? Epic looks ahead, and then at Truckee.
“Pull it together. We need to get out of here, hospitality is limited with pirates.”
“One would think.”
Sunshine is brought into the station through the merchant entrance, her kidnapper pulling her by a chain attached to her wrists. He has some sort of badge that allows him by the checkpoint with little hassle, even with a woman in tow. Sunshine assumes that the lawless situation in Orii makes this sort of thing probably pretty normal.
He sort of pushes her through the bizarre, booths everywhere holding things even Sunshine hasn’t seen before. Parts of this and that, guns of various sizes and legal situations, brews and vials of drugs or whatever. She hasn’t seen the kidnapped supermodel sex-slave booth yet, so her new home is probably on the other side of “that tallest building in the colony”, which appears to be the large metal monolith looming ahead.
“Are they going to kill me?”
“Doubt it. Otherwise they would have told me to do it.”
“But Stardust…” Stardust was trying to… Was she hired by the same people?
A tall man and a transvestite appear in her peripheral vision. They only catch her eye in the crowd because she can swear she recognizes the man in the dress, and the other one has a baby smoking a cigar on his shoulder. That and they are both staring at her. Her eyes plead, ‘Help me.’
The tall man curses under his breath, looks at the woman, and gives him the child. His hand goes to his belt, and Sunshine instinctively goes limp. She falls backward, pulling the chain with her, and her kidnapper staggers long enough to get a bolt in the back of the neck. Blood splatters everywhere, and the crowd barely walks around him. They seem more worried that the blood might stain their clothing, despite that train having already left the station in most cases.
The tall man grabs her chain and tugs her along, holding a finger to his mouth as they walk. He looks left and right quickly, and pulls the chain tight. He starts to run, pushing people out of the way. The transvestite flanks them from the right and begins running with them, holding the baby under one arm like a football. Stardust does her best to run, but people keep bumping into her and they aren’t making great time. Stardust can see the people closing in on them now, standing between the booths holding various weapons.
“What’re we going to do now?” The tranny mutters under his breath, and Sunshine recognizes him.
“Truckee?”
“Miss Apocalypse.”
“What the fuck?”
“Exactly what I’ve been thinking for the last couple of days.”
“Can you both kindly shut the fuck up and run, there are people with weapons.” The tall man says over his shoulder, pulling on Sunshine to emphasize his point.
A shot rings off of one of the posts of a booth, someone is closing from behind, but the crowd is getting thicker. The loading area is ahead and there are entirely too many men with guns there. The tall man hesitates as the crowd thickens towards the docking area. He fingers his belt.
“When it happens. Run straight ahead, don’t look back. We’re dock two three eight, straight ahead second on the left.” The tall man says very quickly, letting go of the chain and palming something. Truckee tenses, Sunshine pulls her chain into her hands, and the baby gets passed to the tall man’s shoulder again. The baby pulls two plastic pistols out of his diaper.
“Close your eyes for three seconds, exactly.”
The tall man shoots two people following them, and the kid shoots three ahead of them. The tall man throws something over his head.
“One.” She closes her eyes right when a flash goes off. Even with her eyes shut she almost feels like the center of the sun is directly in front of her.
Two. Guns shooting and people screaming. Someone’s hand pulls at hers, and she starts walking forward.
Three. Guns shooting and people screaming. The hand pulls a lot harder, and she tries to run with her eyes shut. Luckily she is wearing boots.
Her eyes open and there are corpses all around them, and people are running everywhere. The massive doors to the dock are slowly closing, presumably automatic. Almost all of the gunmen are shooting arbitrarily, blinded temporarily by the flash grenade the tall man threw. All of the non-gunmen, who are all criminals so they are just inactive gunmen, are definitely blind and a lot of them are shooting or stabbing wildly as well. Truckee and Sunshine run as fast as they can, and hit the dock with no particular incident. No one was stationed that far back, and the people who were back there originally are all hiding behind chairs or what have you on account of all the bullets.
“Can you open this thing?”
“Yeah. Epic LT’d me the code. Let me see. Oh god, we’re going to like explosively decompress or something and I just know that my dead body will end up in the tabs. Fuck shit fuck shit fuck--” Truckee is literally vibrating with nerves, making typing somewhat problematic. He gets it on his second try and the dock door irises open.
“Is he coming? I can’t fly this ship, can you?” Sunshine is breathing hard, only mostly from running. The ship is all lights and buttons, much more like she would expect from a space ship, but also entirely more intimidating.
“I can turn it on, and AI can undock us and take us to the LaGrange… but...”
“So we need him back.”
“Him or the kid. Preferably both.”
“What kind of child is that?”
“Android or something.” Truckee says as they strap in. The ship they have is much smaller than the one she came in on, so it actually has a bridge. It is more of a trader, or a scavenger or something. Very little living space, lots of storage space. Truckee bands himself in and Sunshine does the same, figuring that if they can’t make it out like this they are probably just as well getting shot in a chair. The room is long and elliptical in nature, with video screens where windows would logically be. All the virtual stuff in the last ship is actual in this ship, although they can all be operated in the World like before.
Someone bounds into the back loudly and the doors hiss shut. The noises get louder and Sunshine just closes her eyes expecting her death. A person straps in, it seems to take forever. The rip and grip of velcro and buckles, and then someone stomps forward, tapping her shoulde
r lightly. He chuckles as he passes, and Truckee laughs only sort of hysterically.
“Epic Death. Pleased to meet you.” He says as he straps in, waiting for Sunshine to open her eyes and accept that her demise has yet to arrive.
“Sunshine Apocalypse. You get me out of this I will pay you whatever money I haven’t already promised to the first guy.”
“Fantastic, I love good motivation.” Epic grins and finishes strapping himself in. The outside of the ship is getting pounded on by something, but it stops as Epic starts spooling up the fusion drive.
“Big, can you hard-jack into the ship for me? I need your processing power for this to work.”
“Can do!”
“Okay, everyone hold your breath and hope that this doesn’t kill us all.”
“What are you going to do?!” Truckee screams, a lot of lights are blinking and the white lights are on again. Something bad. Sunshine feels like she is going to hyperventilate. They uncouple from the dock and pull forward entirely too fast, nearly ramming a transport vessel.
It would be good to note that there is a very specific set of differences between a LaGrange station like Selba Station and an orbital colony like Torch or Dub-X. That difference is on how they maintain artificial gravity. The exact explanation of gravlift technology is both complex and tedious, but like any other function there are outputs. Those outputs are shunted out of the bottom of the colony at a very particular angle to the planet below for reasons only the architects of the things probably have any idea how to explain correctly. The important part is that unlike Selba Station, there is a no-fly zone below the colony. As in no fly so your fusion drive doesn’t go wacko and explode sort of zone. Only someone with a deathwish or a serious case of the mentally unstable would ever go within two hundred miles of the base of a colony.
“I’m going to jump the LaGrange under the station’s artificial gravity well.”
“What?!” Truckee screams, the engines are very loud. The artificial low has to go somewhere, the repulsion area would shoot them directly into the gas giant, and possibly punch a hole through the ship in the process. That is avoiding the whole ‘boom’ scenario.
“Is that even possible?” Sunshine joins in the yelling, it seems to be keeping Truckee sane.
“Um…” Epic squints, pushing a lot of buttons very quickly. His eyes are moving very fast, his tongue pinched between his teeth. The ship’s AI would never fly this way, which is why the lights are blinking, so Big is forcing it to while simultaneously giving his processing power to the… process. The ship is diving very fast, dodging several more logically inclined ships. One of the asteroids with the guns is spinning on its orbit.
“Truckee, log into the external cameras. I need you to-“
“Dodge left!!” Truckee screams hysterically, and the ship pulls hard away. Sunshine logs into the cameras as well, and instantly regrets it. A huge missile barely misses them to the side and takes out the front half of a long segmented barge. Boxes of junk spinning violently from the explosion. Epic sucks in very quick, and they start spiraling. Sunshine is about a hundred percent sure she is going to vomit. Gravity this close to the planet is still above zero, particularly this close to the gravity well created by the station, worsening the effect is the rotation and strange combination of gravimetric forces one feels while hurtling between two opposing gravities.
“Above!”
“I saw that.” Epic guns it, and they get hit somewhere in the back. Their spinning turns into an all out gyroscopic nightmare, going end over end and around. The ship’s cameras are a blur of barely missing ships, boxes colliding with this and that instrument. All the while the ship is plowing towards the bottom of the station.
“Just. Got. To. Stable.” Epic grunts, pulling on the steering wheel as hard as he can. The ship shutters and the lateral spinning stops as the ship starts speeding up, ahead a cruiser is sitting in wait. As their craft somersaults it appears again and again in Sunshine’s vision. The specter of death sitting coolly, obscured by other ships that have noticed the ruckus and debris and are attempting to flee to other areas.
“Fuck!” Truckee screams, clenching his eyes shut. Epic screams incoherently. The lights are blinking and that horn is going off. What the hell does that horn mean? A missile hits them somewhere on the right part of the ship. Sunshine is positive the horn also meant ninja assassin has killed the crew in deep space. So the horn isn’t really very descriptive. If anything it is only making matters worse. Freaking someone out who is already being attacked by either missiles or space ninjas is just cruel, and denotes a lack of horn planning on the part of the manufacturer.
The ship won’t follow them below the rim of the colony, Sunshine is sure of it. No one is paid enough to do that. If they can get past it, there is nothing there but the shredding death of gravity. Epic must have done this before, right? Like riding a bike into a volcano, it gets easier every time you do it. Right? Besides being shredded to death can’t be that bad, it’s probably real fast like getting hit by an asteroid or run over by a sling. Practically painless, except for the searing, mind melting pain. The lights go red, and the horns are deafening. Truckee screams. Sunshine screams. Epic sort of grunts loudly.
And then nothing. Silence.
Sunshine opens her eyes, and sees that they aren’t dead.
“We aren’t dead.”
“Seems that way.” Epic coughs, unplugging himself from his chair. The video screens are showing random space.
“Where are we going now?” Truckee says, rubbing his eyes with his hands. Running SO many downer programs.
“That depends. Why were you being dragged into Blam Machinist’s place?” Epic says, turning to Sunshine.
“I don’t know. There is a hit on me, and I got attacked by some guy in a bad fitting suit in a candy store. I was just picking up my check and then…” Sunshine starts going hysterical, Epic grabs her shoulders.
“I know you had the hit on you. A big fucking bounty, I might add-“ Epic says, but Sunshine is getting worse, change of subject?
“Where were you working?” Truckee half says to himself.
“T-Net tower.” She says. Epic looks at Truckee, then back at Sunshine.
“There is a hit on you.”
“They think I stole a gem.”
“My gem.”
“Your gem?”
“His gem.”
“I know… I mean, I guess it couldn’t be this serious unless it was that. So I didn’t know, but now I get it. I had… I had a guy helping me. Oh god, what if they got Pepper too?”
“No. Fucking...” Epic mutters. Truckee is un-entertained by another dead end, she doesn’t have it either. He goes and busies himself with something in the cargo-hold. He only remembered her name because Epic said it out loud when he read the bounty listing. Models are only temporarily acceptable wastes of money, and should be disposed of immediately after use. Like a condom, or a college education. But as she is in the newest advertisement for the Race, it would be bad business to let her die or become a sex-slave or something.
“Do you know who attacked you in the building?”
“Guy in an ill-fitted gray suit… not really. One of his bodyguards?” She mutters, her head tipping in Truckee’s direction. Truckee clangs something very loudly in the back.
“No. But you had seen him around the building before?”
“I think so. I’m not sure. I thought I’d seen them talking before, but Truckee and I have never seen each other in person before. I mean I’ve seen him, we’ve been in the same room, but not together or whatever. He doesn’t like to talk to the talent.”
“Hmm… So then you just end up in Peppermint White Ninja’s lap?”
“Generally speaking, yes. Then we get attacked by Baby Doll Judah Stardust at this rape factory, and I get dragged to the Redlights to buy a sex-robot, and then I end up in the Low Tech Zone, and our bar
ge gets highjacked by ninjas. Well, ninja singular. Then you were with me for the rest.”
“Fuck!” Epic grabs his nose with two fingers. Apparently bad news is his only weakness. The pieces in play in this chess game are fucking dangerous as hell, like if the pawns were all knights, and the knights are all on fire, and like carrying giant explosive axes laced with poison or something. Truckee comes back to the bridge with a smile on his face. Epic needs to think this over, but planning has never been his bag. Pepper was always the planner, he was the finesse man. Luckily, Pepper seems to be on his side on this one, and because they are both on the same side of the Hunt they can team up. Assuming he isn’t dead.
“I got good news and great news. The good news is that the explosive decompression from the missile attack has been held back to the back four sections.” Epic starts laughing, Sunshine looks at him harshly, and he attempts to stop.
“Well that does sound fantastic.” Sunshine is more sarcastic than she has ever been before, her eyes almost rolling out of her skull.
“Who doesn’t love explosive decompression?” Epic is definitely developing a migraine.
“Okay, I’m on a lot of drugs.” That’s when everyone notices that Truckee came back holding two bottles of mystery fluid.
“That does explain the whole ‘dead behind the eye’ effek you are giving.” Sunshine says sort of looking through Truckee, giving the same look herself, more out of being shell-shocked than anything else.
“What’s the other thing?” Epic interjects.
“The forward four sections are filled with space ship parts and booze.”
“Okay, we fix the ship before we get drunk, Truckee.” Epic half scolds him, and starts for the back. Epic waves for Big to follow him, and the toddler floats obediently behind him. The ship is artificially generating about half a gee, so at least movement isn’t too awkward.
“And what use would I be in doing that?” Truckee slurs.
“True enough. Well, at least share some with the model. She looks like she is going to park-out at any second.”
“Can do.” Truckee grins and puts a bottle directly in Sunshine’s face, and she can’t help but smile back. Maybe things are going to be okay, or at the very least she can die a horrible death completely and belligerently wasted. Like her foremothers would have wanted.