The Hunt for Reduk Topa
Author: Barry J Hutchison
Date: 2019-03-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Humour; Adventure
Description: Featuring unexpected stabbings, maniacal puppets, and a dog with a head like a testicle, Space Team: The Hunt for Reduk Topa is the twelfth book in the Space Team series, and the perfect jumping on point for new readers. Sick of the stress, aggravation, and multiple genocides they've had to put up with lately, accidental space hero Cal Carver and his crew set off to start a new life in a distant corner of the galaxy. Six tedious days of warp-speed and board games later, they arrive in a sector filled with new hope, new opportunities, and new adventures. Too broke to take advantage of any of th
Publisher: Zertex Books

Space Team: The Hunt for Reduk Topa

Barry J. Hutchison

Copyright © 2019 by Barry J. Hutchison

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published worldwide by Zertex Media Ltd.

www.barryjhutchison.com

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Have a Free Book on Me

Further Reading

One

Mud. So much mud. Holding him back. Slowing him down. Plastering him from head to toe with its cold, sticky filth. Why did he have to turn right? Why did he have to come this way? Why hadn’t he stuck to the streets?

Because of Juggacrush. That was why. There was no way he was tangling with Juggacrush. No fonking way. He’d seen what that guy was capable of. Everyone had.

Sollon Romusk squinted through the darkness, then drew an arm across his face, wiping the rain from his eyes. It didn’t help. He careened half-blind down the muddy hillside, his other three arms flapping frantically as he fought to keep his balance.

He had to stay upright. Had to keep moving. The Sloorgs were already closing behind him—he could hear their hisses and snarls. If he fell, it was over. If he fell, he was dead.

He fell.

In fact, to say he fell was to do what he actually did a disservice. He flew . His front foot hit the top of a half-buried boulder, his back foot hit his front foot, and a combination of gravity, momentum, and plain old bad luck did the rest.

Sollon took off at a sixty-degree angle, sailed several feet into the midnight black, then his chest hit the mud with enough force to knock most of the air and almost all of the fight out of him.

He would probably have lain there until the Sloorgs caught up, exhausted and helpless, had it not been for the kinetic energy gifted to him by his spectacular fall. It propelled him down the slope, mud fully blinding him and filling his various facial orifices as his chin carved a trench through the sludge.

He swore, albeit internally. Despite the indignity of the situation, though, he knew that this was good. He was still moving. He was going faster than he had been before, in fact. And, if he was still moving, then he was still alive. If he was still moving, he could still make it.

If he was still moving, he could still win.

His face met another rock. He didn’t see it coming, not that he could have done anything about it, even if he had. There was no dramatic flight this time, just a sudden jarring stop that brought his legs up behind him until his body formed a C-shape and his spine creaked in complaint.

His nose took the brunt of the impact, but the bone generously collapsed so that his cheeks, mouth, and forehead might get in on the action, too. Blood flowed backward into a throat already filled with dirt. He hacked and coughed, the ringing in his ears not quite loud enough to drown out the snarling of the approaching Sloorgs.

They’d be on him at any moment. He had to get up. Had to go. Had to move.

He tried to push himself up on all four arms, but his muscles were too weak, and the ground was too slippery, and he fell again almost immediately. His forehead met a sharp ridge on the rock. The last of his strength oozed out through the resulting gash.

Sollon Romusk sobbed, just once. It was a low, primal sort of sound that rang with defeat, and heartache, and remorse for a life badly lived.

He heard the barking of the Sloorgs grow louder as they crested the hill. Felt the movement of the mud around him as their brutish bodies slid down. Smelled the coppery scent of his own blood. Tasted mud, shattered teeth, and hot, salty tears.

And then, just before the monsters could pounce, a whistle sounded, short and shrill. A spotlight snapped on, bright enough to somehow dazzle Sollon through the back of his head. The Sloorgs skidded to a halt just beyond the circle of light, huffing and grunting their disapproval.

“Aaaand halt,” said an efficiently smooth-sounding male voice from somewhere close by. “Someone get him up.”

Two dark-clad figures stepped from the darkness. Rough hands hoisted Sollon onto his feet.

“Can we clean him up? But not too much. Let’s keep the authenticity,” said the voice.

Sollon shuffled on the spot as one of the figures dabbed at his face, removing just enough dirt, blood, and other debris to make him recognizable.

“Perfect, Chyenne. Just perfect,” said the voice. “Not terribly beautiful, but beautifully terrible. Just the way we like it!”

There was a smattering of laughter from nowhere in particular. A piece of paper was thrust into Sollon’s hands. He accepted it in a sort of trance, the blow to the head having slowed his brain’s ability to process what the fonk was going on down to a grinding crawl.

“OK, Sollon, you’re doing great. Just terrific!” said the voice. “We’re all loving you. Audience satisfaction is high on this. It’s really high.”

“Buh?” said Sollon, not entirely on purpose.

“Riiight,” said the voice, after a moment. “We’re going to need you to be a teensy bit less monosyllabic for this next part. We need you to read the statement for us, OK? Think you can do that? Hmm?”

Sollon looked down at the paper, but it was blurred by tears. Without a word, one of the black-clad figures stepped forward and blasted his eyes with a burst of warm air, drying them.

“Read it into that,” the figure instructed, pointing to a sphere that hovered in the air just inside the circle of light. Behind it, just beyond where the light fell away, the Sloorgs paced and snuffled and pawed impatiently at the ground.

“Nice and clear for us,” said the smooth-talking male voice. “If you have any personal experience, feel free to go off script and mention it. Provided it’s positive, of course. Now, clear the set.”

The two figures in black melted into the shadows, leaving Sollon alone in the spotlight. He cleared his throat. It tasted of dirty metal.

The paper shook and his voice quavered as he began to read.

“Th-this episode is sponsored by Murp’s Insurance. S-sick of low-life pirates like me hijacking your ships, killing your families, and stealing your cargo?” he croaked. “Have no fear, Murp is here. W-with a Murp’s Insurance policy, you’re covered up to the full value of the stolen property. We’ll even throw in a…”

A tear had fallen onto the page, blurring the ink and partially obscuring the next few words.

“Complimentary funeral service,” whispered one of the black-clad figures.

“A complimentary funeral service for any m-murdered loved-ones or employees,” Sollon continued. “Contact us now for a full, no-obligation quote. Save ten percent on the price of the first premium by using the code…”

Sollon’s voice cracked as he read the next line.

“‘Mauled by Sloorgs .’”

He began to lower the page, but the sound of a throat being cleared stopped him and he looked back down at the paper again.

“Oh. Terms and conditions apply,” he said, blinking apologetically into the light. “Sorry.”

“Perfect. Beautiful. Just beautiful,” oozed the smooth male voice. “Thanks, champ. I think we can get back to it.”

The sphere retreated. The spotlight snapped off. The paper fell from Sollon’s hand.

And then, in a chorus of triumphant roars and rumbling stomachs, the Sloorgs pounced.

Two

“Jesus, Mech, be careful with that thing.”

The cyborg, Mech, scowled. This was not new. He had been scowling for a while now, but the expression had really hit its stride over the past twenty minutes or so. He raised his eyes to the man sitting directly across from him and fixed him with a cold glare.

“I am being careful.”

Cal Carver, the ship’s self-styled captain, returned Mech’s scowl with interest. “You call that careful? You’re like a bull in a china shop.”

“What does that mean?” Mech asked.

“You know, like…” Cal made a series of flailing movements with his arms. “Like that.”

“I ain’t doing anything like that,” Mech argued. “I haven’t fonking moved.”

“Well, be careful when you do is all I’m saying. Take your time. You don’t want to set that thing off.”

“Yeah, well maybe you don’t want to set me off,” Mech warned.

“I’m just trying to help,” Cal said. He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms. “But fine. Go right ahead. Set it off. Knock yourself out. See if I care.”

Mech muttered something too quietly for Cal to hear, then flicked his eyes down to the contraption on the table between them.

“See if I care,” said Cal, slightly quieter than before.

Mech’s scowl deepened further. His metal fingers adjusted their grip on the tool he was holding.

“Not my problem,” Cal whispered.

“You’re trying to make me set this thing off. That’s what’s happening right now, ain’t it?” Mech snapped.

Cal looked hurt. “What? No! Of course not. What do you take me for?”

“A pain in the ass,” Mech replied. “Now, will you shut the fonk up and let me concentrate?”

Cal mimed zipping his mouth shut, then gestured to the table in a manner that bordered on outright aggression.

“Thank you.”

Mech leaned in closer to the device, his fine-motor hydraulics buzzing softly as he brought the tool in close. Much as he hated to admit it, Cal was right. One mistake, one slip, one wrong move, and it was all over.

He could do this. He just had to very carefully —

“Easy now,” whispered Cal.

Mech almost lost it at that point, but somehow resisted the urge to kill the man sitting across from him. Instead, he focused on his movements, steadied his nerves. He was a cyborg, so his hands shouldn’t be shaking, and yet he could detect just the faintest tremble as he initiated the delicate removal procedure.

BZZZZT!

The bright red nose of the cartoon human illuminated, and Cal thrust his hands in the air.

“Operation!” Cal cheered, jumping to his feet and gesticulating victoriously at the board game on the table. “You killed him, Mech! You killed that poor little guy. Never go for the funny bone. What did I tell you? Never go for the funny bone!”

Mech slammed the tweezers onto the table and shook his head in disgust. “I hate this fonking game,” he said. “And will you quit dancing?”

Cal did not quit dancing. Quite the opposite. He jigged triumphantly on the spot, shimmying his hips and pumping the palms of both hands in the direction of the ceiling.

“Victory dance, Mech. I’ve got to do it. It’s in the rules.”

“I read the fonking rules and it don’t say anything about no motherfonking victory dance.”

“House rules,” Cal said. “Not official, but important all the same.”

After a few more seconds of gyrating, Cal sat on the bench and began replacing the plastic pieces back into the Operation board. “Best out of… what are we on? Thirteen?”

Mech shook his head. “No. I am done. I don’t ever want to play this game again. I hate it. I hate the game, I hate whoever the fonk invented the game, and I hate you for making me play it.”

Cal gave him a pointed look. “Well, maybe if someone hadn’t broken Hungry, Hungry Hippos way back when…”

“Not this again,” Mech groaned. “You told me to hit the tail. I hit the tail.”

“You sledgehammered the tail, Mech. There’s a difference.”

“Ain’t my fault I’m stronger than you,” Mech said.

“No, but it’s your fault you didn’t think about that fact before you pulverized a hippo’s ass cheeks into a billion little pieces,” Cal said. He shook his head reproachfully. “And as for Buckaroo …”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“You shot the donkey, Mech,” Cal reminded him. Not that Mech really needed reminding. It had not been one of his finer moments. “You shot the little donkey in its little face.”

“It surprised me,” said Mech. “How was I supposed to know it was going to kick like that?”

“Uh, maybe from the box art? Or from the rules you insisted on reading aloud before we started?”

Mech grunted. It wasn’t a grunt about any one thing in particular, but rather an indication of his feelings on the conversation in general.

Cal finished replacing all the pieces. “So, are we playing again?”

Mech stared back at him across the table. On the wall behind Cal’s head, a piece of cardboard covered the porthole window, hiding the streaking star effects that came with traveling at warp speed. Cal had become accustomed enough to faster than light travel that he could mostly deal with looking at it straight on, but not sideways. Watching the stars rushing toward him when he sat on the bridge? Fine. Not pleasant, but fine.

Watching them smear past the side windows like runny paint? No. Therein lay a one-way ticket to Vomitsville.

“Do you really want to play again?” asked Mech. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” said Cal. His eyes flicked down to the pained expression on the Operation man’s face. He had to admit, he was starting to appreciate how the guy felt. “I mean, no. Obviously, I don’t want to play this game ever again. I don’t want to play any more games. We’ve been doing this for weeks.”

“Days, sir,” intoned the droll voice of the ship’s artificial intelligence.

Cal flicked his eyes up to the ceiling in the direction the voice had come from. “I meant space weeks, Kevin,” Cal said. He pressed on before anyone could question the logic of this statement. “Anyway, the point stands. We’ve been flying for a long time.”

“This was your idea,” Mech pointed out. “You’re the one who wanted us to get out of the sector and go somewhere new.”

“I didn’t know it’d take this long!” said Cal.

“We told you,” said Mech. “We said, ‘That will take a very long time.’ We literally said those words.”

“You know I don’t listen to things, Mech,” Cal said, as if this was somehow the cyborg’s fault. “You know that.”

He stood up and sighed theatrically. “I’m going to go find Splurt.” Cal gestured to the board game. “Can you deal with that stuff?”

Mech regarded the Operation board for a moment, then smashed it with his fist.

“Well, I meant, you know, tidy it away, but I guess that works,” Cal said, tapping the button to open the door.

His eyes fell on the replicator. It had been a while since he’d last eaten. Not a long while—not even a while of medium length, in fact—but a while all the same.

“Loren, honey, you want me to bring you anything from the replicator?” Cal called.

There was a moment of hesitation before the reply came. “I’m fine.”

“I can get you a Twix,” Cal suggested. He looked back over his shoulder and dropped his voice. “She likes Twixes.”

Mech contemplated this nugget of information for approximately a second and a half, then shrugged to indicate he didn’t care.

“No, thanks. I’m fine,” came Loren’s reply.

“Frosted Flakes? Banoffee Pie?”

“I’m OK.”

“Spit Nibbles? We could share.”

No answer.

Cal waited.

“You want me to stop asking you now, honey?” he called.

“Yes, please!”

Cal nodded and flashed Mech a grin. “We know each other so well,” he said. “It’s like we’re twins.”

He caught the expression on Mech’s face. “But not like actual twins. Not blood relatives. Because that would be wrong. You know, since me and her are—”

“I am well aware of what you’re doing,” said Mech. He visibly shuddered. “For a state-of-the-art experimental spaceship, this thing has some thin-ass walls.”

“Also, I beamed a live video feed of proceedings to the main viewscreen, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal’s eyes widened in horror. “You did what ?”

Kevin chuckled benignly. “Just my little joke, sir. I’m well aware that Mistress Loren would uninstall me with her bare hands were I to have done anything of the sort.”

Cal’s chest heaved with relief. “Oh, thank God.”

“Rest assured, I wasn’t watching, sir,” Kevin continued.

“Well, good. That’s… good to know.”

“On either occasion.”

“Right, that’s… Wait, what do you mean ‘on either occasion’? How do you know how many occasions there have been?”

“Uh… lucky guess, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal raised a reproachful finger to the ceiling. “OK, that’s it, Kevin, you’re officially barred from my room. Or Loren’s room.” He shot Mech a sideways glance and lowered his voice a fraction. “Or the engine room.”

“Hold on, what? The engine room? Aw, man, that’s the room I go into,” Mech protested. “Why’d you have to do it in there? You ain’t even allowed in the engine room in case you break something.”

“I did break something,” said Cal. “A several-year-long dry spell. And a hip.”

Mech’s expression twisted in such disgust it looked like his metal lower jaw was trying to chew his own face off.

“Kidding. I’m kidding. Nothing happened in the engine room,” Cal said. He pointed to where Mech was sitting. “Now, that bench, on the other hand…”

“Shut the fonk up,” Mech told him. He picked up the Operation board and put the final nail in its coffin by crushing it between his hands. “Oh, and a piece of advice?”

Cal’s eyes gave Mech the once-over. “Like… sex advice?”

“Hell, no!” Mech spat.

“Phew!” said Cal, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “That’s a relief. Shoot.”

“You might want to stop calling her ‘Loren.’”

“You mean during—”

“I mean at any point,” said Mech.

Cal frowned. “What? But, why? That’s her name.”

“It’s her surname. I mean, I ain’t no expert, but when people are in a relationship they, generally speaking, call each other by their first names,” Mech said. “How would you feel if she started calling you ‘Carver’ all the time?”

Cal gave this some consideration.

“Aroused?”

“Forget it,” said Mech. “Sorry I said anything. I thought you said you were going?”

“I am, I am,” said Cal. He turned to face the food replicator again. “But since I’m standing right here… one Banoffee Pie, please. Easy on the cream,” he said, then he immediately reconsidered. “In fact, wait. No. Double cream.” He patted his stomach. “But shave the ends off the banana to compensate.”

A red light illuminated on the replicator and a buzzer sounded. “Denied,” said the machine’s computerized voice.

“Denied? What do you mean, ‘denied’?” Cal demanded. “What’s the matter, are we out of Mush again?”

“No, sir,” said Kevin. “Mush capacity is at eighty-six percent.”

“Oh.” Cal gave the replicator a push, rocking it back a fraction. “Then why isn’t it working?”

“Mistress Loren told it not to, sir,” said Kevin. “She was concerned you were rather overdoing it.”

Cal stared at the ceiling in horror, then back at the machine. “Overdoing it? What’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t been overdoing it. I’ve been doing it the exact right amount!”

“You have gained eight pounds in six days, sir,” Kevin said.

“Holy shizz, seriously?” Mech snorted.

“That’s travel weight,” Cal insisted. “It’ll fall right out of me when we land. It’s just retained water.”

“It’s definitely retained something,” said Mech, looking him up and down.

“Hey, it’s not like you can talk,” said Cal, crossing his arms across his middle. “I mean, what do you weigh? Eight-thousand pounds?”

“I’m two feet taller than you,” Mech pointed out. “And almost exclusively made of metal.”

“Sure. Go ahead. Make all the excuses you want, big guy. But, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem,” said Cal. “I want you to think about that. Those are wise words.”

“I don’t have a problem,” Mech said. “I am literally built to be this weight.”

“Wise words, Mech,” Cal whispered, backing out through the door. “Wise words…”

When he had backed all the way out of the kitchen, he turned to face the front of the ship, then doubled over when a curved blade was plunged into his stomach all the way to the hilt.

The sudden violent bending action brought Cal face to face with a shark-like snarl.

“Ha!” shouted Tyrra, the last survivor of the Symmorium race. “Bested!”

“Ow! Jesus! What is it with you, you little psycho?” demanded Cal, leaning a hand against the wall to steady himself. He called back along the corridor. “Miz! Miz? She’s stabbed me again.”

“You mean I bested you again,” Tyrra hissed. “That’s the fourth time.”

“I know it’s the fourth time,” wheezed Cal, partially straightening. “You know how I know it’s the fourth time? Because you’ve stabbed me four times.”

Wincing, he gestured to the handle. It jutted from his stomach, a patch of crimson staining his t-shirt around where the blade had entered. “Can you hurry up and pull it out?”

“No. You pull it out,” Tyrra said.

Cal’s lips went thin. “You know full well that I faint when I have to pull it out, young lady,” Cal said. “We’ve been over this.”

Tyrra grinned, showing her teeth. “Yes. I like watching you fall down. It is amusing.”

Cal glared at her for a few moments, trying to admonish her with his mind. When it became apparent that this technique wasn’t proving fruitful, he went back to shouting for Miz.

“Miz, can you come out here? Your fonking… protégé, or whatever she is, is getting out of hand.”

The door to Mizette’s room slid open with a ssshk that sounded not unlike a sigh of resentment.

“Ugh, why are you shouting me?” asked Miz, her huge, shaggy frame ducking through the doorway and into the corridor. “What do you want?”

“Honestly? Not a lot, Miz. I don’t ask for much,” said Cal. “Some cardboard over the windows. Everyone’s undying loyalty and admiration. The occasional pie. Oh, and also…” He pointed to the knife in his stomach. “For this to stop happening.”

Miz’s eyes went to the weapon, then past Cal to where Tyrra was standing tall and proud. “You got him again, huh? Cool.”

“No, not ‘cool,’” said Cal. “This is not cool. This is assault. No, worse, this is attempted murder.”

Miz tutted. “Like, what’s the big problem? It gives her something to do to pass the time, and it’s not like you don’t heal up in seconds.”

Cal couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “What’s the big …? OK, one, I might heal, but my t-shirts don’t, and I’m very fond of some of these guys,” Cal said, tapping the face of Golden Girls actress, Betty White, who adorned the front of the shirt. “Two, I might heal now, but it ran out once before and I don’t fancy having a metal spike in my belly when it wears off next time. And three—and this is a big one—it fonking hurts. A lot. Not to mention the emotional trauma that goes with being knifed out of nowhere when you’re least expecting it.”

He leaned in Miz’s direction and lowered his voice. “Yesterday, she got me on the toilet, Miz. On the toilet. I mean, is nowhere sacred?”

Miz rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Fine. Whatever. Tyrra, stop stabbing Cal.”

Tyrra gasped. “You’re taking his side?”

“What side? There is no ‘side’ here,” Cal said. “This isn’t a nuanced discussion. You keep sticking knives in me!”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Tyrra warned. “You’re not my parents!”

“Exactly,” replied Cal. “So, we’re under no obligation to put up with your shizz. We could toss you out the airlock any time we like.”

Tyrra eyeballed him. “I’d like to see you try!”

“I’d get Mech to do it,” Cal said. “So… ha!”

Mizette stepped between them. “Alright, alright. Like, just stop, already,” she said. “Tyrra, you shouldn’t stab Cal, OK?”

“What if he deserves it?” Tyrra asked, holding Cal’s gaze with her shiny black eyes.

“Oh, then that’s totally fine,” said Miz.

“No,” Cal protested. “Not fine. Totally not fine. You are not to stab me under any circumstances. Ever.”

“Even in the bathroom?”

“What are you talking about? Especially when I’m in the bathroom!”

Tyrra tutted moodily, as if she was somehow the wronged party in all this. “Fine. Give me back my knife.”

“With pleasure.” Cal offered his stomach to her, then had second thoughts. He stopped and drew back. “In fact, you know what? No. I’m keeping it,” he said. “It’s confiscated. I’m leaving it in there, and you’re not getting it back until you’ve had a good long think about your—”

He yelped as Tyrra caught the handle and yanked the blade free.

“Bested,” she told him, then she shoved him against the wall and skipped off along the corridor in the direction of Miz’s room.

“What can I say? She’s got to learn,” said Miz.

“I agree. Education’s important,” said Cal. He rubbed the edges of his stomach wound as the flesh knitted itself together again. “But how about teaching her something that doesn’t involve her stabbing me in the ass and torso for no reason whenever she feels like it? Math, maybe. Math is useful. Teach her math.”

Miz and Tyrra exchanged glances, then rolled their eyes in near-perfect unison. “Whatever,” they both said, then they stepped into Miz’s room and the door sighed closed behind them.

Cal exhaled slowly and shook his head. “Kids.”

Three

“What happened?” asked Loren, turning in her seat as Cal strode onto the bridge, poking at the hole in his t-shirt. “Did she stab you again?”

“Yes, she stabbed me again,” Cal confirmed. “The little psycho. I swear, this can’t go on. Isn’t there, like, an orphanage we can drop her off at? Like a space orphanage?”

Loren looked shocked. “We can’t do that. You know what happens in those places?”

Cal slumped into his chair, still trying to figure out if there was some way of salvaging the shirt. Short of some form of wizardry, though, he suspected not.

“I mean, I’ve never really looked into it, but from what I understand they sing and dance for a while, then Daddy Warbucks comes and picks them up,” said Cal. “It’s a pretty great system.”

“Maybe that’s how it works on Earth,” said Loren, although even she had a sneaking suspicion that it probably didn’t. “Most orphanages I’ve seen are workhouses. Or worse. We can’t put Tyrra into one of those.”

“Can’t we, though?” asked Cal. It really had been a great t-shirt. “She’s a tough kid. She’ll probably be made, like, house captain within a week. She’ll be running the place in no time. I mean, is it the hard-knock life? Sure, but… She ruined my Betty White t-shirt, Loren. Betty White!”

Loren shot him a sympathetic look. “You must really love that shirt.”

“I do!”

“I know. You’ve had it on for four days.”

Cal did not miss the slightly accusatory tone of that remark.

“Really? Four days?” he asked. He looked down at the smiling face of Betty White, then sniffed her forehead. “Huh. I guess it is a little funky.”

“And tight,” said Loren.

“It’s not tight!” said Cal. “Betty White’s head is meant to be that shape.”

Loren regarded the image. “Oh. Right. Sorry, I thought she was human.”

“She is fonking human,” said Cal. He craned his neck so he could see the image on his chest. Now that he looked more closely, Betty’s eyes did seem a little farther apart than he remembered, and her head had a football-shaped quality to it that didn’t seem quite right.

“OK, it’s a little tight,” he admitted. “But that’s travel weight. It’ll fall right out of me.”

“Everyone had better watch their toes when it does,” said Loren, smirking just a little.

“Hilarious,” said Cal. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” Loren replied.

They sat for a while in a slightly awkward silence, then both spoke at once.

“So—”

“I was—”

They both stopped.

“Sorry, you first,” said Cal.

Loren shook her head. “No, it’s fine. You go.”

“No, it’s fine, you—”

“Cal,” Loren said sharply. “What were you going to say?”

Cal decided it was probably best if he went first. “OK, so here’s a funny thing. Mech and I were playing Operation —I won, by the way.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It’s all in the psychology,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “Anyway, we got to talking, and he said it was weird that I still call you ‘Loren.’” He gave a half-laugh. “That’s not weird, is it?”

“No, that’s not weird,” said Loren, laughing along with him. “I mean… OK, it’s a little weird, but it’s fine. It’s completely fine. Call me what you like.”

Cal clicked his fingers. “I could call you ‘babe.’”

“Don’t call me that,” Loren warned.

“OK, yes, that’s fair. I won’t call you that,” said Cal.

“Sugartits?” Kevin suggested.

Cal and Loren both looked up.

“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” said Kevin. “I’d appreciate it if we never spoke of that again.”

“I think we all would,” Cal said. He adjusted himself in the chair. “Would you prefer me to call you Teela?”

“Me, sir?”

“No, not you!” Cal sighed. “Look, could you just give us a little privacy, Kevin?”

“Not really, sir. I’m hardcoded into the flight deck systems,” Kevin said. “I could stay very quiet, though. Would that help?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Cal said.

He and Loren both waited to see if Kevin was going to respond. When he didn’t, Cal asked the question again, making it clearer who he was aiming it at.

“Would you?” he asked Loren. “Prefer me to call you Teela, I mean?”

“Totally up to you,” said Loren. “Your call. I don’t mind, either way.”

“OK, so—”

“But it is my name. My first name, I mean. It is my first name.”

Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “It’s just… when I say ‘Teela’ I think of Teela from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe , and I want to start making Ram Man jokes.”

“Oh,” said Loren, flatly. “I see. So, my name’s a joke to you?”

“No! That’s not what I mean. It’s a great name. I love it,” said Cal. “It’s just…”

Loren gave the rest of the sentence a few seconds to arrive. It didn’t.

“It’s just what?”

“It’s a big step, you know?” said Cal.

“I’m not asking you to marry me. It’s calling me by my name. How is that a big step?” asked Loren. “And… what? Are you saying you don’t want to take big steps?”

“No! I mean, yes! I mean, that’s not what I’m saying,” said Cal. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “It’s just… Look. Can we discuss this at a later date? It’s been a long trip. I’ve recently been stabbed in the intestines. I’m not really thinking straight.”

“Fine,” said Loren, a little coolly. “It’s not a problem. We don’t have to discuss it at a later date. Call me whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s nothing to discuss.”

Cal groaned inwardly. “It’s just… I’m climbing the walls here. That’s all. I swear, if I have to be trapped on this ship for much longer, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad, sir,” said Kevin, breaking his short silence. “And I say that as someone who is trapped here on a permanent basis.”

“I rest my case,” Cal concluded.

He was about to promise Loren that he’d call her by her first name in the future when something hard cracked across the back of his skull, and pain came rushing into his head.

“Ow! What the fonk?!” he yelped, spinning in his chair.

Tyrra stood before him, a small mallet in her hands. “Ha! Bested!” she shouted at him, then she turned and sprinted out the door and into the corridor before he could reply.

“Did you see that?” Cal asked, turning in his chair. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”

“I didn’t even notice her sneaking up,” said Loren. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“Not from where I was sitting!” Cal shook his head. “She has to go. This can’t go on. I’m going to be a nervous wreck.”

“Why?” asked Mech from right behind him. As if to prove his own point, Cal jumped in his chair and screamed.

“You see that? You see what she’s done to me?” yelped Cal, gesturing out along the corridor. “You see what you’ve done to me, you little psycho?”

“We talking about Tyrra? Is this the stabbing thing?” asked Mech, clanking his way to the front.

“Yes, it’s ‘the stabbing thing.’ Only now she’s started hitting me with a little hammer,” Cal said. “I mean, that’s not right, is it? That can’t be allowed?”

The grin on Mech’s face made his feelings on the matter very clear.

“Well, obviously you’re going to approve, because you’re a big metal sadist, but…”

He ran out of steam and sank down into his chair. “Are we nearly there yet?”

“Ish,” said Loren.

“What do you mean ‘ish’? How ‘ish’?”

Loren consulted her instruments. “I’d say we have about… three more days.”

“Three more days ?!” Cal sobbed. “That’s, like, eight space weeks.”

“This was your plan, man,” Mech reminded him.

And it had been. The team had endured a lot together over the past few months. They’d faced many hardships, overcome sizeable obstacles, and briefly been given front row seats to an elderly gentleman’s anus.

Throw in all the genocide, torture, and that time Cal had been forced to wash dishes for several hours, and they had come to the conclusion that their current sector of space was trying to tell them something, and that the time had probably come to move on.

Specifically, Cal had come to this conclusion. The others hadn’t necessarily all agreed, but he’d kept going on about it for so long that they’d eventually relented just to shut him up.

“It’s not a plan,” Cal corrected. “It’s the exact opposite of a plan. It’s a noplan . It’s an anti-plan. We picked the destination at random.”

“That’s still a plan,” Mech insisted. “It’s a plan to go someplace else.”

“A randomly selected someplace else,” Cal reminded him. “Therefore, not a plan.”

Mech chose not to argue. They’d had this same debate every day since they’d set off, and it had always ended with frustration and, on one occasion, violence.

“You know what I been wondering?” he said.

“Can the Wizard really give you a heart?” Cal guessed.

“Why didn’t we go to Earth?” Mech asked, ignoring the remark.

“Uh, well, maybe because the Earth Defense Initiative wants to kill us?” said Cal.

“No, I get that. I do. And believe me, Earth’s the last place I want to go, just in case there are more of them there like you,” Mech replied. “It’s just… We’ve killed presidents, overthrown governments, all that shizz. I don’t get why you didn’t even try to talk us into going to Earth and stopping the EDI.”

Cal gave a vague wave of his hand. “Earth’s… complicated.”

Loren raised an eyebrow. “Complicated how?”

“It’s just complicated. It’s all a delicate balance,” said Cal. “It’s not like the planets you guys are used to. There’s more to it. I don’t want to say it’s better, but it’s better.”

“The fonk’s that supposed to mean?” asked Mech.

Cal angled his chair so he was facing between Loren and Mech. “Well, it’s got weather, for one thing.”

“Weather?” said Loren.

“Yeah. Weather,” said Cal, as if just saying the word again would make everything clear. Since it didn’t, he explained. “You know how every planet we visit is always one thing? It’s a desert planet. It’s a snow planet. It’s a planet filled with wasp mustard.”

“That was a moon,” Loren corrected.

“Whatever. The point is, they’re always one thing,” Cal continued. “Earth’s not like that. Earth’s lots of things. And you can’t just go charging in like you can on other planets. Overthrow an Earth government, and someone worse generally comes along to fill the void left behind. It’s best we just leave them to get on with it.”

That wasn’t the full truth of it, of course. Part of Cal—most of him, in fact—wanted nothing more than to return to Earth, liberate its people from the oppressive regime of the EDI, and usher in a prosperous new dawn for his home world.

The worry was that maybe they wouldn’t want to be liberated. Maybe the people of Earth were perfectly happy being represented in space by a bunch of genocidal maniacs and a mutant with a Darth Vader fetish. Maybe the people of Earth were not who he thought they were, and that was an ugly truth he’d rather not have to face up to.

Besides, Earth was complicated. It had weather.

“We don’t want to make it worse, is my point,” Cal concluded.

“Worse than being led by someone called Manacle, Enslaver of Worlds?” asked Loren.

“It could happen,” Cal reasoned. “It happens on Earth all the time. Overthrow some tyrant, and another one pops up with more guns and a bigger mustache. And anyway, we killed Manacle. He’s gone. We’ve done our part.”

Cal gestured ahead to the streaking blur of stars on the screen. “So, for now, it’s off into the wild space frontier to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly go… Wait.”

He looked around the bridge. “Has anyone seen Splurt lately?”

“Yes,” said Loren.

She slid her chair aside and gestured behind her with a thumb. The top of Splurt’s… Cal wanted to say ‘head’ although this wasn’t strictly accurate. The top of Splurt was just visible above Loren’s console, his eyes following her every move with their blank, featureless gaze.

“He’s been doing that for hours,” Loren said. “Just sitting there and staring.”

“Ah. That might be my fault,” said Cal. “I asked him to keep an eye on you.”

“You did what?” asked Loren, her forehead creasing into a frown. “You told him to spy on me?”

“What? No! Not like that. I meant to look out for you. You know, to make sure you’re OK when I’m not around.”

Loren snorted. “I’m OK when you’re not around. Honest. You don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worried , exactly, I just thought it’d be nice,” said Cal. His eyes went to Splurt, who was still attached to the console, his eyes boring remorselessly into Loren. “He’s taken it a little more literally than I intended. Splurt, buddy? You can knock it—”

The ship stopped. One second, the stars were a series of mildly nauseating smears, the next they were almost completely stationary.

The same could not be said for the occupants of the Currently Untitled .

Cal and Loren were both launched from their chairs and sent hurtling toward the screen. Fortunately, Splurt was able to grab a leg as it sailed past him. Unfortunately for Cal, it was one of Loren’s.

As Loren jerked to a stop, Cal continued past her. The top of his head met the solid screen, rattling his teeth and compacting his spine a full two inches. His inertia kept him in place for a moment, his body sticking out at 90 degrees from the screen like a nail, then gravity took over and he hit the floor with his face.

Mech, meanwhile, staggered a single step.

“Thanks,” said Loren, as Splurt gently deposited her back in her chair, then patted her on the head with a gloopy green tentacle.

“Brace!” warned Kevin.

Everyone braced. Loren grabbed for her seatbelt, Mech ramped up the power to his magnetic feet, and Cal hugged the floor as firmly as he could.

“Sorry, I meant brace for the emergency stop,” Kevin said. “I confess I may have been a little late with the warning.”

“Maybe just a smidge,” groaned Cal, picking himself up. He placed the palms of both hands under his chin and pushed his head up until something clicked. “Aaand, I can feel my toes again,” he announced.

“Like, what just happened?” demanded Mizette, stomping onto the bridge with Tyrra behind her. Cal kept his distance from the Symmorium girl and eyed her warily for weapons. “We just totally got thrown against the wall.”

“Ha!” said Cal, pointing to Tyrra. “Bested!”

Tyrra bared her teeth and made a move to lunge at him, but Miz blocked her. “Both of you cut it out, already. How come we stopped like that? What’s going on?”

“I’m afraid there is an issue with our warp disk,” said Kevin.

“What kind of issue?” asked Mech.

“It broke in half, sir,” said Kevin.

“Is that bad?” asked Cal. “I’m assuming that’s bad.”

“Well, it’s not good, sir,” said Kevin. “It appears the strain of traveling at such speeds for so long rather took its toll on the poor thing.”

“Great. Well, can we stick it back together?” Cal asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, OK!”

“It won’t work, of course, but we can stick it back together if you like,” Kevin said. “It’ll help take all our minds off… You know.”

Cal raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Help take our minds off what?”

“The inevitable… You know.”

“I don’t know, Kevin,” said Cal. “What will it take our minds off?”

“Your prolonged agonizing deaths, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal waited for the inevitable ‘just my little joke,’ comment, which he was sure would follow any moment now.

Any second.

Here it came.

…

Shizz.

“The warp disk is what recharges life support,” explained Mech. “We can run on back-ups for a while, but when they run out…”

“We run out,” said Loren.

An oppressive sort of silence fell over the bridge as everyone looked at everyone else. Except Splurt, who looked exclusively at Loren.

“Still, on the bright side, not all of you will die,” said Kevin. “Masters Mech and Splurt will survive. And me, of course. So, it’s not all doom and gloom!”

“Nice work on the silver lining, Kevin, but let’s not give up quite yet,” said Cal. “Can we call for help?”

“We can, sir.”

Cal knew better than to get excited quite yet.

“And is anyone likely to hear us?”

“No, sir,” said Kevin. “Anywhere habitable is beyond the reaches of our current transmission range. Without the warp disk’s power, we’re unable to send or receive communications beyond a few hundred thousand miles in any direction. We’re stranded and alone. I’m afraid that there is no one out here but us.”

“And them,” said Tyrra, pointing to the viewscreen.

Everyone, with the exception of Splurt, turned to follow Tyrra’s finger. There, on screen, hung a fat, slightly clumsy-looking ship.

“Oh yes,” said Kevin. “And them.”

Four

“Try again,” said Cal.

Mech tutted, shook his head, then tried opening a communications channel with the other ship for the fifth time in three minutes.

“Nothing,” he said, when the ship failed to respond.

“You’re not giving them time to pick up,” said Cal, rocking impatiently in his chair. “Let it ring for longer.”

“What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech asked. “It don’t ring . Their ship’s computer ain’t acknowledging the handshake. They ain’t receiving us.”

Cal leaned back in his chair and regarded the ship on screen. It was almost completely stationary, aside from a very slow spinning motion that he hadn’t noticed until he realized he was now looking at the bottom of the ship, rather than the side.

“And you’re definitely getting life signs?” asked Cal, looking up to the ceiling.

“Just one life sign, sir,” said Kevin. “But yes. Running diagnostics on it now, although there is quite a lot of subspace interference, so it’s taking a little longer than usual.”

“OK, good. Let us know when you have something,” Cal said.

“It looks dead,” said Loren. She studied the spinning craft, doing her best to ignore Splurt who sat pulsating gently on the floor beside her chair, gazing up at her. “I mean, there are lights on, but… I don’t know. There’s something about it.”

“What kind of ship even is that?” asked Miz, slouching in her seat. “It’s so…”

“Lame,” said Tyrra from the guest chairs along the rear bulkhead.

“Totally lame,” Miz confirmed. “It’s so fat and ugly.”

“Hey now, it’s what’s inside that counts,” Cal told her. “Kevin, any luck finding out what’s inside that thing?”

“Still running analysis on the signal, sir. No immediate species matches found.”

Mech tapped some controls on his console and a lot of symbols, numbers, and other information appeared overlaid on the display. “I found something interesting,” he said. A series of wavy green lines materialized behind the ship and led off-screen. “I’m picking up warp emissions.”

Cal nodded encouragingly. “Right…” he said, but Mech didn’t add anything more. “Oh. Was that the interesting part? You should’ve made that clearer. Next time, maybe wink and point.”

“It means they suddenly came out of warp at the exact same place as we did,” said Loren. She looked at Mech. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“I doubt it. Must’ve been some kind of…” He shot Cal a sideways glance and stiffened slightly. “Space disruption.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Cal couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Now you’re getting the hang of it,” he said. “So, it’s like a disruption… but in space. A space disruption.”

Mech shook his head. “That’s a term. It’s a known term. I ain’t just putting the word ‘space’ in front of anything. It’s a fonking space disruption.”

“Oh. Oh, gotcha,” said Cal. “You mean a ‘space disruption’ is an actual term? It’s an actual thing?”

“Exactly,” Mech confirmed.

“So, it’s like a space space disruption?”

From the back of the room, Tyrra voiced a thought that wasn’t a million miles away from the one in Mech’s head. “Can I stab him again?”

“Maybe later,” said Miz, not looking up from where she was fiddling with her claws.

“The point is, could be that they’re as fonked as we are,” Mech said.

Loren gestured to the screen. “Looking at those warp emissions, I’d say they’re a few weeks old at least,” she said. “See the fragmentation?”

Cal saw only wavy green lines, but nodded anyway. “Yep. Definitely old. That’s not even a question at this point. But we know there’s someone aboard. Kevin, any—”

“Yes, sir. I think I may have found a match for the life-sign I’m tracking aboard the other ship,” said Kevin. “Would you like me to put it on screen?”

“Go for it,” said Cal. “Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”

The right-hand third of the screen changed to show a stock image of a spindly green thing with eight evenly spaced limbs.

Cal looked to the ceiling.

“That’s a houseplant,” he said, after a pause.

“What is, sir?” asked Kevin.

“That. The picture on screen. It’s a houseplant.”

There was a lengthy silence, during which Cal was almost certain he heard the sound of a page being turned over and then back again.

“Is it?” asked Kevin. “How can you be so sure, sir?”

“Because I’m looking at it. It’s in a pot. It has foliage. It’s a plant,” said Cal.

There was another slightly shorter pause.

“Perhaps we should send a rescue party anyway, sir,” Kevin suggested. “You know, just in case?”

“It’s a plant, Kevin. Granted, it’s a nice plant, but we’re not launching a rescue mission to…” Cal said, then a thought struck him. “Although, it would mean we’d get to leave the ship for a while. It’d be good to get out and stretch the old space legs.”

“And maybe their warp disk is in better condition than ours,” said Loren.

“And that, yes,” Cal agreed. “We picked up new space suits before we set off, right?”

“We did,” Loren confirmed. “We have a full complement. Try not to destroy them all this time.”

“No promises, but I’ll do my best,” said Cal. He slapped his hands on his thighs, then jumped to his feet. “OK, then. We have a plan. Let’s do this.”

He turned on his heels and pointed dramatically to the door. “Mech, suit up. We’re mounting a rescue mission!”

A moment of confused silence followed.

“I don’t need to suit up,” Mech said.

Cal sighed and lowered his arm. “No, I know. I was using dramatic license. I just thought ‘Mech, suit up, we’re mounting a rescue mission,’ would make it sound more exciting than, ‘Let’s go and pick up a houseplant.’”

“Oh,” said Mech. “Did it work?”

“Not really,” Cal admitted, wrinkling his nose. He made a much less enthusiastic gesture in the direction of the door. “So, we going to do this thing, or not?”

“Be careful,” said Loren, as Cal and Mech made for the door.

Cal stopped, turned, and fired off both fingerguns in her direction. “Aren’t I always?”

“No.”

“No, you’re right. I guess that’s fair,” Cal conceded. “But that’s because I haven’t had you waiting for me until now.”

There was a retching sound as Miz threw up in her mouth. She held Cal’s gaze as she swallowed it back down.

“Thank you for that,” Cal told her. He rapped the back of his hand against Mech’s metal chest. “Come on, big guy, let’s go.”

As Cal passed her, Tyrra jumped up from her chair, swung with her little hammer, and cracked him across the back of the head, sending him staggering into the corridor.

“Ow! What the fonk ?”

“Ha!” Tyrra ejected. She grinned proudly, showing off all her teeth as she retook her seat. “Bested!”

* * *

Cal’s voice echoed inside his helmet as he leaned through the inner airlock of the rotating ship and looked both ways along a wide, clinically bare corridor.

“Yoo-hoo?” he called. “Anyone home?”

“We already know there ain’t no one here,” Mech grunted, shoving him into the corridor. “Get out there.”

Cal stumbled in his oversized space suit until he bumped into the wall opposite the airlock. He tried to turn and give Mech the finger, but both those movements proved difficult in the cumbersome suit, and by the time he’d successfully maneuvered himself around, Mech was already marching off along the corridor.

“Wait for me,” Cal protested, shambling after him. “That’s an order.”

“How about you just keep up?” Mech suggested, not slowing.

Cal did his best, but it felt as if someone had cranked the ship’s gravity up a couple of notches too far, and he quickly started to sweat inside the suit.

“Man, I feel heavy,” he wheezed.

“Eight pounds in six days,” Mech reminded him.

“Travel weight!” Cal countered. “It’ll fall right out of me. And anyway, I don’t mean like that. I mean the gravity feels stronger.”

“It’s up maybe fifteen percent,” Mech confirmed.

“Well, that’s just mean,” Cal muttered, as he fell into step behind Mech.

“You know they didn’t turn it up just to annoy you, right?” Mech asked him. “You do understand that whoever’s ship this is must live on a planet whose gravity is fifteen percent higher than the one you’re used to?”

“Of course I knew that,” Cal lied. “Although, they might have done it to annoy—”

“Shh. Quiet,” Mech hissed.

Cal’s eyes darted along the corridor ahead of them. “Why? What is it?”

“Nothing,” said Mech. “I just want you to stop talking.”

“OK, that was mean,” Cal said.

Mech smirked. “Yeah. That was mean.”

They continued along the corridor. It was pretty uninteresting, as corridors went. It had walls, a floor, a ceiling—the usual set-up. There were some symbols stenciled here and there on the bulkheads, but Cal’s visual translation chip didn’t seem to have much interest in deciphering them, and he was too busy trying to keep up with Mech to waste too much time on them.

“I like the bloops ,” Cal said.

Mech frowned back at him. “What?”

“The bloops ,” Cal replied. He raised a finger and waited, then said, “Bloop,” in time with a steady chime being emitted by the ship. “It’s like on Star Trek. They had bloops . And, like, a woo-woo-woo noise. Sometimes, if you were lucky, a bting .”

He counted in his head, then said, “Bloop,” in time with the chime again. “We should get bloops for our ship.”

Mech stopped walking and just stared down at him for quite a long time.

“Bloop,” said Cal, after a while.

“I hate you,” Mech told him, then he turned and continued along the corridor, tapping at the sensor panel on his arm.

“Is there air in here?” Cal asked. “Can I breathe?”

Mech checked the sensor display. “Well, the atmosphere won’t kill you.”

Cal reached for the clips on the base of his helmet.

“But it will knock you unconscious.”

Cal hesitated. “Oh.”

“And give you extensive brain damage.”

Cal decided to leave the headpiece where it was for now, even though it had started to steam up, turning the corridor blurry and indistinct.

“Look at this,” said Mech, stopping by a screen that was fixed to the wall.

Cal peered through the visor-fog at the screen. It was a nice screen, from what he could see of it. Smooth. Curved. Bezel-less. Probably Ultra HD, with killer surround sound. The perfect TV, aside from one tiny detail.

“Someone smashed it to pieces,” said Mech. “There’s a big hole in the middle of the screen.”

“Damn, that’s a shame. We could’ve set that up in my room,” Cal said. “I could’ve watched my Murder, She Wrote box-set that someone—naming no names, but it’s you, Mech—won’t let me watch on the main screen.”

“I watched forty-seven motherfonking episodes,” Mech protested.

“Exactly. We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

“Check this out,” said Mech, ignoring him. On the floor below the screen was a spattering of dark green spots. “Looks like dried blood.”

“Space blood,” Cal corrected. “Normal blood’s red.”

“There’s another one,” Mech said, continuing along the corridor in the direction of a second screen. At first, it seemed to be intact, but as they drew closer, Cal saw that this one had been destroyed just like the first.

“What a waste,” Cal said, looking from one TV to the other. “They’ve got to be fifty inches. Maybe fifty-five. Imagine Lansbury on one of those.”

“Why are they broken?” Mech wondered. He gestured to the wall below the second TV, and to the streaks of green that had dried onto the metal. “What the hell happened?”

Cal thought for a moment, then tried to click his fingers. The space suit gloves paffed disappointingly. “I got it. Maybe they fell off.”

Mech looked from Cal to the screen and back again. “What?”

“Maybe they fell off the wall,” Cal explained. He mimed the TV falling off the wall, and added a crash sound effect for good measure. “Kpshhk! You know?”

“So… you’re saying they fell off the wall, smashed, then someone put them back on the wall all broken and in pieces?” said Mech. “That’s what you think happened?”

Cal had to admit it did sound a little unlikely, but he doubled down, regardless.

“Rule out the impossible and whatever’s left, however improbable, must be what happened,” Cal announced grandly. “You know who said that, Mech?”

“No.”

“Well, neither do I,” Cal admitted. He patted Mech on the chest. “That’s something fun for you to find out.”

They continued along the corridor, Mech scanning for information, Cal occasionally saying, “Bloop,” in a gratingly high voice.

“It’s cold,” said Mech, consulting his scanner. “Real cold.”

“I’d say I’d give you my jacket, but I don’t think it’d fit,” Cal said. “Also, the whole unconsciousness and brain damage thing is pretty unappealing.”

“I ain’t saying I’m cold, I’m just saying the ship’s cold. I think life support might be failing. That don’t bode well for the condition of the warp disk.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” said Cal. He glanced at another broken screen as they passed it, and noted another spray of space blood on the wall and floor beneath it. “Still, this is nice, isn’t it?”

“What is?” asked Mech.

“This. Us. Getting out, doing guy stuff. It’s nice. We should do it more often.”

“We definitely should not,” Mech countered, visibly shuddering at the very thought.

They plodded on toward where the corridor became a T-junction ahead.

“So, what do we think happened?” Cal wondered. “Did everyone abandon ship?”

Mech shrugged noisily. “Fonked if I know. Maybe. Or maybe we’ll turn this corner and find their bodies all piled up,” he said.

“Why would they be dead?” Cal asked. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Wait, do you think they were all murdered?”

He gasped.

“What if whatever killed them is still here?”

“Unless it was the fonking houseplant, then it ain’t here,” Mech said.

“Right. Right,” Cal said, relaxing a little. He stretched himself up so he could see above the fog that now completely covered the bottom half of the visor. “Where are we going, by the way? Do we even know?”

“Engine room,” said Mech.

“Right, but do we know where that is?”

“Yeah. Kevin ran a full diagnostic scan of the ship and found it in the hour it took you to put the suit on. I know where it is.”

“Good. Perfect,” said Cal. “We’ll salvage what we can of the warp disk, pick up the plant, then get out of here so I can get out of this suit. I forgot to go to the bathroom before we set off.”

Mech’s top half partially rotated so he could look back at Cal. “What do you mean you forgot ? I specifically asked you if you needed to go to the bathroom.”

Cal blinked. “You did?”

“Yes! And you said no, and I asked if you were sure, and you said, ‘Jesus, Mech, I’m not a child. I know when I need to use the bathroom.’ You said those words.”

“Those actual words?” said Cal, staring blankly. He shook his head. “No. No, I don’t recall any of that.”

Mech muttered something uncomplimentary, but chose not to pursue that particular conversation any further.

“You ain’t seriously going to pick up the plant?” he asked instead.

Cal nodded. “Sure. I mean, I thought it’d be nice.”

“For who?”

“For Kevin. He seemed to really want us to get it,” Cal said.

“So? He’s an artificial intelligence. The fonk’s he going to do with a plant?”

“I don’t know. I guess I kind of feel sorry for the guy, you know? He’s got no one,” Cal said. “Miz has got Tyrra, I’ve got Splurt and Loren, you’ve got me. Who has Kevin got?”

“I got you ?” Mech spat.

Cal rubbed a gloved hand across the cyborg’s back. “You bet you do, big guy,” he soothed. “Always.”

“Shut up.”

“Ah, come on now, Mech,” said Cal, grinning. “Don’t fight it. I know you feel it just like—”

Mech whirred insistently as he placed a metal finger to his lips. “Stop talking,” he whispered. “Listen.”

Cal listened.

“You hear that?” Mech asked.

Cal listened again, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. You mean that breathing sound? Like… huuup. Huup?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait.”

Mech watched with growing impatience as Cal exhaled and inhaled several times in turn.

“No, that’s me. I’m hearing myself. It’s the helmet,” he explained, pointing to his head in case Mech had forgotten what a helmet was. “It echoes.”

His voice took on a low, ominous tone. “I am your father,” he said, then his eyes widened and he smiled from ear to ear. “Ha! That’s actually awesome.”

Cal held a hand out to the cyborg. “Join me, Mech. Together, we can rule the galaxy as—”

“Will you shut the fonk up for one damn minute?” Mech hissed. “Listen.”

This time, Cal held his breath. He was convinced he could still hear the inner workings of his own head reverberating back to him from the glass of the helmet, but there was something else, too. Voices. High-pitched and screechy, although he couldn’t make out the words.

“There’s someone here,” Cal whispered.

“Sure sounds like it,” Mech agreed.

“I’m going to fonking kill Kevin when we get back,” Cal said. “He said there was no one on the ship.”

Mech gestured to his forearm scanner. “Ain’t Kevin’s fault for once. Look.”

Cal looked.

“It’s your arm. What am I supposed to be looking at?” he asked, after a few seconds of staring blankly.

“I ain’t getting any life signs, either,” Mech said. “Just you and me.”

Cal gave a little gasp. “So… what are you saying?” he asked, searching Mech’s face. “The plant died?”

“No! I didn’t count the fonking plant!” Mech snapped. “I’m saying that whoever’s here, they ain’t registering as life signs.”

“Oh, shizz,” Cal whispered. “What if it’s space ghosts?”

Mech regarded him with barely concealed contempt, then rotated his top half to face front and set off toward the T-junction.

“Or space vampires,” Cal suggested, hurrying to keep up. “Space zombies ? They’re real, right? We actually saw those before! We know they’re a thing!”

Mech slowed as he approached the corner, his footsteps becoming a series of solid thuds rather than the usual rattling clanks . Cal stuck close behind him, using the cyborg’s towering metal frame as cover.

“I should’ve brought a gun,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you let me bring a gun?”

“Because I didn’t want you accidentally shooting anything.”

“That never happens,” Cal protested.

Mech fired him a look.

“OK, hardly ever.”

They both listened to the voices. There were at least four of them. Two were high and screechy, the others a little less so.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” Cal whispered, looking up at Mech. The condensation inside the helmet gave the cyborg a hazy look, like he was the love interest in a movie from the 1950s.

“No, I ain’t getting a word of it,” Mech replied. “But we’re a long way out of Zertex space. Could be that it’s a language the chip ain’t encountered before.”

“Or maybe they’re talking in code so we just think that’s the case,” Cal suggested. “Try swapping every letter they say for the next letter of the alphabet and see if that works.”

“How the fonk am I supposed to—?”

Mech pinched the bridge of his nose, summoning the self-restraint required to ignore Cal’s suggestions. He pointed along one branch of the T-junction. “Look, the voices are that way. Right?”

“Left,” Cal corrected.

“What?”

“That’s left,” Cal said. He pointed in the opposite direction. “That’s right. Unless, wait, you’re facing me, so I guess that would mean that—”

“Shut the fonk up, you know what I meant! I swear, you do this deliberately,” Mech seethed.

“Do what deliberately?” asked Cal, looking genuinely bemused.

“The voices are that way,” Mech said, pointing. “The engine room is the other way. So, we go for the engine room, and leave whoever’s up there to do whatever they’re doing.”

“What if they need help?” Cal asked.

From the corridor on the left came the sound of uproarious high-pitched laughter.

“They sound like they need help?”

“I guess not,” Cal admitted. “So, voices that way, engine room that way. Got it.”

Mech set off in the direction of the engine room.

“Will I meet you back here?”

Mech stopped. “What? Why would I meet you here? We’re going together.”

“I thought you could go do the engine room stuff, and I could go get the plant,” Cal said. He gestured the other way along the T-junction. “I’m guessing it’s this way?”

Mech glowered at him. “Will you forget the motherfonking plant?”

“I’ll only get it if it’s easy,” Cal said. “I won’t take any stupid risks.”

“You’re already taking a stupid risk,” Mech pointed out. “You’re risking getting caught for a plant .”

“What can I say? It was a good-looking plant,” Cal said. “And besides, I’m not risking getting caught for a plant, I’m risking getting caught for Kevin. The guy literally lives on that ship all the time and has nothing of his own. It’ll be a nice gesture. And, with any luck, it’ll mean he has something to keep him occupied that doesn’t involve watching us all the time like a weird pervert.”

Mech said nothing. Cal made a clumsy thumb-jab back over his shoulder.

“So, are you going to tell me where it is, or should I go ask those guys?”

Mech stood motionless for a while as he considered the options. He could pick Cal up and bring him along, but then he’d have to listen to him the whole time. A few minutes of peace and quiet without him was actually pretty tempting.

He tapped something on his arm. The top half of Cal’s visor became a heads up display, filled with text, flashing icons, and a small map showing the T-junction and two blinking dots.

“Hey! Since when could it do this?” Cal asked, studying the display. It appeared to be coating the inside of the glass and yet simultaneously hovering a few feet ahead of him, projected into thin air. He quickly found that it moved depending on where he was focusing, so that it was always in sight. Under normal circumstances, this would be incredibly useful. As it was, with the lower half of the visor now completely steamed up, it was a fonking nightmare.

“Since always,” said Mech. “The green dots are us. The arrow will take you to the plant.” He visibly flinched at that, like he still couldn’t believe it was actually happening. “Anything red is another life-sign that ain’t you or me.”

“Got it,” said Cal. “Green, red, follow the arrow. Easy.”

“Yeah. I hope so,” Mech grunted. He turned away, then turned back. “And stay out of trouble.”

Cal held his arms out at his sides. “Come on, Mech,” he said, grinning in what he thought was probably the cyborg’s direction. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Five

Cal fumbled his way along the wall using the HUD map to navigate his way through the corridors of the ship. He’d been walking—shuffling, really—for a few minutes now, and the voices were still ahead of him somewhere, growing slowly but steadily louder as he followed the arrow.

Occasionally, the ship would give off one of its regular bloops from somewhere right beside him, making him jump inside the suit, and forcing him to reconsider the idea of having them installed aboard the Currently Untitled .

Sure, they were fun, but how long would that last? He was pretty sure the novelty would wear off the first time they kept him awake all night. Maybe they could set them up for special occasions, like when they were in space battles, or for the moments building up to Loren’s next crash-landing. That could work.

Bloop .

Another of the fonkers went off near his head at the exact moment Cal’s hand touched the wall, making him eject a little shriek of fright.

No. They were a bad idea, he decided. In fact, if he never heard one again, it’d be too fonking soon.

He continued his clumsy sightless shuffle along the corridor, the arrow blinking in the visor. Visibility was down to maybe five percent now, he thought. He was aware that the lights were still on and got a sense of the open passageway ahead of him, but beyond that, he was pretty much blind.

Maybe he should take the helmet off. If he held his breath, he could probably whip the headpiece off, give the inside a wipe, then get it back on before his brain got too badly scrambled.

Unless he couldn’t. Unless he passed out the moment the thing was unclipped, and the insides of his head immediately turned to meringue. What then?

“Nothing good,” he reasoned, and he decided to persevere through the condensation fog for now.

The HUD map indicated a right-turn down a corridor ahead. Annoyingly, this was the same direction the voices were coming from, and the realization crept over Cal that the plant would almost inevitably turn out to be in the same room as whoever else was on the ship. This would be a problem. It was one thing to sneak around a spaceship to steal a houseplant from an empty room. It was quite another to steal one from a room filled with aliens.

He thought about turning back then. They could find Kevin another plant. They could find him any number of plants. There was no reason it had to be this specific one.

The arrow nagged at him.

Maybe he’d go just a little further, he thought. Maybe the plant and the people wouldn’t be in the same room, after all. Maybe he’d get lucky.

Yeah, right , he thought. Sure.

He crept on, taking his time, treading carefully. Whatever language the voices were speaking, the translation chip was having none of it. The words were a garbled string of syllables, grunts, and whistles, and not remotely like anything he’d heard before.

They seemed to be getting agitated, all talking over one another. It didn’t sound like an argument exactly, more like they were getting excited by something, and…

Wait.

Cal stopped and listened.

Were they… were the voices harmonizing ?

He held his breath, ignored the sounds of his own head, and focused. He was pretty sure some of the words were being repeated every so often. It was like…

“A chorus,” he whispered.

The voices weren’t talking, they were singing. They weren’t singing well —at least two of them were a little pitchy for Cal’s tastes—but they were definitely mangling the shizz out of some sort of melody.

It was kind of catchy, too. Cal found himself humming to it as he shuffled along the corridor in the direction of the sound, the arrow in his visor guiding him in the same direction. As he got closer, he could hear the plinking of some kind of musical instrument, he thought. A xylophone? Why the fonk would there be a xylophone aboard a spaceship?

Then again, why was there a houseplant? Wasn’t that equally as strange?

The arrow in his visor pointed to a room ahead on the right, and to the blinking red dot that lurked in there.

Cal hadn’t been expecting that. Sure, technically the plant qualified as a life form, but should it have a flashy light? Shouldn’t flashy lights—especially worrying-looking red ones—be reserved for things that were actually alive? Properly alive, with the ability to move around and eat things? That’s what he’d expect a red light to represent, and yet based on what the arrow was telling him, this red light represented a plastic pot, some lush green foliage, and the opportunity to not be spied on by an artificially intelligent Peeping Tom.

Cal fumbled along the wall until he found the door. The voices rang out from the room beyond.

Of course they fonking did .

If he cocked his head and squinted sideways through the misted-up visor, he could just make out a window in the door. He leaned in closer to try to peer through, but activated a sensor that made the door swish open.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, frantically waving his arms as he tried to stay upright, then he fell, face-first, into the room.

The voices continued. They had stopped singing now, he thought, and were talking again. There was still music behind them, though, and every so often someone would say something that made a lot of other people laugh and cheer.

A whole audience of people, in fact.

“Jesus Christ, it’s the TV,” Cal said, exhaling with relief. “They left the TV on.”

The process of picking himself up was a slow and clumsy one, made worse by a number of large, lumpy objects that lay discarded on the floor. He couldn’t make out what they were, but they seemed determined to trip him every time he tried to stand up.

Eventually, and with sweat cascading down his back, he finally made it to his feet. When he turned in the direction of the chittering voices, his suspicions were confirmed. Through the fogged-up helmet, he saw a blazing rectangle of moving color.

“No wonder there weren’t any life signs,” he muttered.

He found himself humming the song he’d heard earlier as he shuffled around the room, carefully waving his arms in front of him as he attempted to find the houseplant while simultaneously not tripping over any of the mess on the floor.

The HUD map proved next to useless. As soon as he’d entered the room the arrow had vanished, and the little green dot that was him had overlapped the little red dot that was the plant.

“Come on, where the fonk are you?” he muttered, sliding his feet across the floor and stopping whenever they bumped into anything. “I know you’re in here somewhere, you leafy little—”

Cal’s hand found something large and solid. Not a wall. Not exactly. But big. Bulky. He ran his hands over it, trying to feel it through the thick gloves.

“What the hell are you doing?” snapped a voice, and Cal noticed the second green dot on the HUD display.

“Mech? Oh, thank God,” said Cal, backing away. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m working blind.”

“What do you mean you’re…?”

Mech’s voice faded into silence.

“I’m steamed up,” Cal said, pointing to the visor. “And your stupid display blocks the only bit I can see through. I had to fumble my way here. But, good news, there’s no one here. It’s just the TV.”

“Uh-huh. So I see,” said Mech, flatly. “So, you ain’t looked around this room?”

“No,” said Cal. “I just told you, I can’t see.”

“You do know the condensation is on the outside of your helmet, right?”

Cal stared at Mech. Or, roughly in the direction of his voice, at least.

He wiped a glove across his helmet, clearing it.

“Son of a…”

Cal’s voice faded into the same silence as Mech’s had when he saw the expression on the cyborg’s face. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why do you look like that? Is there a problem? Is it my face? Is there something wrong with my face? How many questions do I have to ask before you answer me? One? Eight? Twelve?”

Mech didn’t reply. Instead, his arm whirred softly as he raised it and pointed at the room behind Cal.

Turning, the first thing Cal saw was the television. There were four figures on screen, two of them mostly human-looking, two of them very much not.

“Hey, puppets!” Cal said. “Look, Mech, it’s a couple of—oh good God, there are dead people on the floor.”

And there were. Twelve of them, to be precise. They were small and thin, with shriveled, prune-like skin, although some of that may have been a consequence of being quite so unequivocally dead.

Usually, when confronted with a dead body, Cal would run through what he considered to be his standard life-checking procedure. This involved gently but firmly kicking the corpse, saying, “Hello?” in a quizzical voice, then waiting anything from one to ten seconds before issuing the official diagnosis.

There was no need for any of this today, though. He felt comfortable calling this one based on looks alone.

“Why are they all folded up like that?” Cal wondered.

All twelve of the bodies were contorted into the same position—knees up against their chests, arms wrapped around their shins. Most of them lay like that on the floor, either curled up on their sides, or balanced on their backs with their bent legs pointing upward.

One, however, was sitting upright. Like all the others, his mouth was curved into an excited smile, and his eyes were wide open and staring. Mech and Cal both followed his line of sight and stopped when it met the TV. On screen, the two kids were having a tug-of-war with the puppets. The laughter from the audience suggested this was hilarious, but all the corpses were taking the edge off it for Cal.

“They died watching the screen,” Mech said.

“But died of what?” Cal wondered. “What killed them? Obviously not the TV. TV is our friend. It wouldn’t hurt us.”

Mech’s arm emitted a series of low chimes as he ran a sensor sweep. “Beats me. Don’t look like the atmosphere was a problem for them, no sign of toxins, radiation poisoning, or disease,” he said. “Looks like maybe they starved or dehydrated watching the screen.”

He waited for Cal to respond. Cal, however, was fixated on the television. Those puppets looked fun. One was pink and furry and covered in purple blotches. The other was Cookie Monster blue, with three horn-shaped appendages sticking out of his head that constantly emitted a stream of tiny bubbles.

“You hear what I said, man?” Mech asked, giving Cal a nudge.

“Huh?” asked Cal absent-mindedly.

“Will you quit watching the damn TV?” barked Mech, forcibly turning Cal by the shoulder. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Interesting stuff,” said Cal. His eyes crept back to the screen. “Maybe we should just watch it a little longer to see if it gives us any clues.”

Mech’s arm-cannon discharged. The TV exploded. Cal jumped back, shielding himself from the eruption of hot metal and space plastic.

“Jesus! What did you do that for?” he yelled, once the echo of the explosion had faded.

“Because I fonking hate puppets,” Mech told him.

“Well, I don’t! I was watching that,” Cal protested.

“Yeah,” said Mech. He flicked his eyes very deliberately to the bodies on the floor. “So were they, and look where that got them.”

“Come on, you don’t seriously think they died because of the TV,” said Cal. “That’s crazy talk, Mech. TV loves us. It’d never do anything to harm us.”

“Whatever. Not our problem,” Mech said. He gestured to the door. “Now come on, let’s get the hell out of here. I found us a working warp disk.”

“You did?” Cal performed a clumsy double-fingerguns which was severely hindered by the gloves of the suit. “Great job, Mech! Now, all we have to do is find Kevin’s plant and we can get back to the ship.”

“To hell with the fonking plant!” Mech grunted.

“Wow. You’re like the Scrooge of horticulture, you know that, Mech? And before you tell me you don’t understand the reference, just know that it’s a clever and devastating one, and let’s leave it at that,” Cal told him. He made a vague gesture around the room. “So how about you just shut up and help me find it? It should be around here somewhere.”

He and Mech both looked around the room, one of them far more enthusiastically than the other.

“See it anywhere?” Cal asked.

“No, I don’t. Obviously, it ain’t here. It must be some kind of sensor glitch.”

“It says we’re right on top of it,” Cal replied. “The flashy thing in my visor, I mean. It says it’s right here.”

He pointed to the floor at his feet and looked down, reconfirming the fact that there was definitely no houseplant there.

“Like I said, sensor glitch,” Mech told him. “It happens.”

“Wouldn’t that just affect one of us, though?” asked Cal. “If Kevin got it, and we’re both getting it, doesn’t that suggest that the plant’s somewhere in here?”

Mech couldn’t really argue with that, much as he would like to. “OK, fine. You’re right.”

“I am?!” Cal said. “Cool!”

“But it ain’t here,” Mech continued. “Like you said, we’re right on top of the signal, and there ain’t no damn houseplant to be found.”

Cal sighed. “No. No, I guess there isn’t. Shame. I really thought it’d be a nice thing to do for Kevin.”

He shrugged. “Still, what can we do? If it ain’t here, it ain’t here,” he conceded. He was about to head for the door when a thought struck him. “Unless…”

A similar thought struck Mech at almost the exact same moment. They locked eyes for just a second, then both leaned back and looked up to the ceiling.

For a while, the only sound was the faint moist click of Cal swallowing.

After a while, he quietly cleared his throat.

“That does not look like its picture,” he whispered.

“No,” Mech agreed.

“We are not getting that back to the ship.”

“No,” Mech agreed.

“We should probably go.”

“Yeah,” Mech agreed. “We should probably go.”

They backed toward the door, eyes locked on the enormous mass of dark green foliage that covered the ceiling, its leaves shifting and trembling as if alive.

At the heart of the greenery was a bright yellow flower. Its petals were splayed out in a bell-shape, each one as long as Mech was tall and ragged along the edges like the teeth of a saw.

Concerning as this was, though, the most troubling thing was unquestionably the tongue. It looked not unlike a human tongue, but stretched out so it was much longer than it was wide. The way it was curled up made it hard to guess the length, but Cal estimated its size to be more than long enough to reach him, and that was the main thing.

“Just wait until I talk to Kevin,” Cal said. “That guy is going to get a piece of my—”

The plant swallowed him.

One moment, he was backing toward the door, the next his visor was full of tongue, his feet were lifting off the floor, and Cal was completely cocooned in a big man-eating flower.

Six

Loren sat straight in her chair, peering across the gulf of space between the Untitled and the other ship. Cal and Mech had been gone for a while now. She’d watched them drift across the gap—Mech propelled by his foot rockets, Cal dragged along behind him by one leg—and then make their way inside via one of the ship’s airlocks.

That had been twenty minutes ago. Since then, there had been no developments. Well, none beyond Miz making some disparaging remarks about Loren’s flying, then leaving the bridge with Tyrra in tow.

“Kevin, can you try contacting Cal and Mech?” Loren asked.

“I have attempted to make contact a number of times now, ma’am,” said Kevin. “As I’ve explained on several occasions over the course of the last few minutes, there is a significant amount of interference blocking our signals. Were we to have a functioning warp disk, then we may be able to raise the masters, but as it stands they can’t hear us and we can’t hear them. Scans, however, suggest they’re both still alive. Probably.”

Loren looked to the ceiling. “What do you mean ‘probably’?” she demanded.

“The same subspace interference that is disrupting communications is making it difficult to get an exact pinpoint on their whereabouts and condition, ma’am,” Kevin said. “But, if it’s any consolation, I’m almost eighty percent sure that they’re still on the ship, and seventy percent certain that neither of them are dead yet.”

“Yet? What do you mean not dead yet ?”

“Well, ma’am. It comes to us all,” said Kevin. “There’s no point denying it. But, I’m quietly confident that it won’t come to any of us today.”

“Great,” Loren sighed. “That’s encouraging. Can you try contacting them again? Just in case?”

“And how do you propose I do that, ma’am?” asked Kevin, his voice suggesting he was coming dangerously close to getting a bit snippy. This was unlike him, but Mistress Loren was really starting to wear his patience thin. “We’ve already established that standard communications channels are disrupted. What would you like me to do? Shout, perhaps? Wave a flag?”

“Just try, Kevin,” Loren ordered.

“Very good, ma’am,” Kevin replied. “I shall resume my attempts to contact them.”

“Thank you.”

“Utterly futile as they may be.”

Loren shot the ceiling a warning look, then went back to studying the ship. Back at the Academy, she’d been an expert on the Zertex fleet, able to answer any question that anyone might ask about its various vessels, no matter how pointless and mundane.

She could tell you how many crew manned the B-MUS science exploration ships (four thousand three hundred and eighty), how many torpedoes were carried by a T-18 Hammerhead as standard (originally sixteen, eighteen after the upgrade), and how long it took to run halfway across the observation deck of an HR50 Sunchaser when on fire (twenty-seven-point-four seconds. No one had ever made it more than halfway).

She could list all the weapons, braking distances, manual override codes, and shield phase rates of every ship in the Zertex fleet, and plenty more besides. But the bloated bathtub gradually rotating ahead of them was a new one on her.

As she watched it, Loren began to have doubts about the relocation plan. What if everything was different out here? What if they couldn’t find a way to fit in?

She snorted quietly.

Yeah. Since when had they ever fit in?

“No response, ma’am,” Kevin said. “As expected.”

“Thanks for trying, Kevin,” said Loren. She puffed out her cheeks and lowered her gaze a fraction until it met Splurt’s. He was sitting on her console, staring back at her. “What do you think, Splurt? Cal OK?”

Splurt rippled faintly. Loren had no idea what the movement represented, but she didn’t get the impression the little guy was overly concerned.

“Yeah. I’m sure they’ll both be fine,” she said. “It’s an empty ship. Surely even Cal couldn’t get into trouble on an empty ship?”

Splurt gave a shudder. Loren didn’t need to be fluent in his wobbly movements to understand what he meant.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

* * *

Mech stood in the center of the room, surrounded by bodies and gazing up at the quivering yellow flower suspended from the ceiling above him. His arms—both raised, cannons primed—suggested he was ready for action. His face, on the other hand, said he was trying hard not to laugh.

“Mech! Mech, are you out there?” called Cal. His voice was doubly muffled by the helmet and the petals, and the shrill desperation of it brought great heaves of merriment that shook Mech’s shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m out here,” Mech replied, composing himself as best he could.

There was a moment of silence. Mech had just started to wonder if Cal was OK when his voice came again.

“I’m in a big plant!”

“I can see that you’re in a big plant,” said Mech. “I watched you go inside the big plant.”

“Well… can you make it so I’m not in a big plant?” Cal asked.

“I guess I could shoot it,” Mech suggested.

“What? No! You might shoot me!” Cal yelped. “You have to—Oh God! Oh God! It’s trying to tongue its way inside my suit!”

Mech’s whole body clanked with laughter.

“Fonk off! Get out of there, you slimy bamston!” Cal warned, as the flower head shook and the petals bulged. “Mech! A little help here.”

“I can’t reach,” Mech said, half-heartedly stretching toward the plant. If he put some effort in, he almost certainly could’ve reached, but this was too entertaining an opportunity to just bring to an end like that.

“Oh, great! So, what do I do?” Cal demanded.

“It’s a flower,” Mech replied. “Can’t you just kick your way out?”

There was a pause while Cal considered this. “OK. Yeah. That actually makes sense. It’s a flower. I can kick my way out of a damn flower, right?”

“I would hope so,” Mech said. “You know, on account of you being a grown man, and it being a flower.”

“No, you’re right. I panicked, that’s all. I just panicked,” Cal said. “Hold on, I’ll be right there.”

There was a grunt from inside the flower head. A foot emerged through the gap between two petals and got completely wedged. Inside, Cal tried unsuccessfully to pull it back in.

“No. No, that’s now completely stuck.” Cal sighed. “Great. Any other bright ideas?”

“What about the tongue?” Mech asked.

“What about it?” came the reply.

“Is it still there?”

“Well, of course it’s still fonking here. Where else would it be? You think it fell off? It’s currently licking my visor like it’s a lollipop.”

“Aw man, I’d like to see that,” Mech mumbled.

“What was that?” Cal hollered. “I can’t hear you, because I’m still in this big plant.” He groaned. “This is all Kevin’s fault. He and I are going to have words when I get back.”

“If you get back,” Mech corrected. “We may not be able to get you out.”

“You’d fonking better get me out!” Cal warned. “What about the tongue? What were you going to say?”

“Huh? Oh, I was going to say you should try pulling on it.”

“Pulling on it ? Why the hell would I pull on it?”

“I just think if you pull it, it’ll let you go.”

“And what makes you think that, Mech? Hmm? You’re suddenly an expert on these things?”

“If you pulled my tongue, I’d spit you out,” Mech said.

There was a lengthy pause.

“I don’t even know where to start with any of that,” Cal replied. “Do you even have a tongue?”

“Just pull the damn tongue,” Mech barked.

Inside the petal cocoon, Cal contemplated this. “Fine. Fine. I’ll pull the tongue. Here I go. Pulling the tongue… now. Wait. No. Damn this thing is hard to get a hold of. Pulling the tongue… now.”

Cal pulled.

Nothing happened.

“Hold on, hold on. That was my other arm,” he said. “It’s dark in here, and I can’t feel much through the suit.”

The flower head rustled as Cal moved around. “OK, got it. Pulling the tongue… now.”

Cal pulled. The tongue this time.

With a shriek, the petals sprang open as if they were all on hinges. Still holding the tongue, Cal fell, swung like Tarzan, then went sailing through the open doorway and into the corridor beyond.

He hit the floor, careened helplessly across it on his back for several feet, then collided with the warp disk that Mech had left propped against the corridor wall.

It fell on him, the edge of the disk clipping the top of his helmet and pinning his head to the ground.

Inside the helmet, Cal watched as a thin jagged line began meandering down from the point of impact. “Oh, shizz. That’s not good,” he said. “Mech, get this thing off me!”

The warp disk was hoisted into the air. Cal held his breath, expecting to smell an inrush of toxic atmosphere and feel his brains turning to gravy at any second.

But the crack had stopped growing, and the glass seemed to be holding for the moment. He used Mech’s leg to pull himself up, gave himself a dust down, and risked a glance back into the room with the plant. The petals were all the way wide again, the tongue coiled and ready to strike.

“So, what the fonk was going on there?” Cal asked. “I thought it was supposed to be, like, yay big?”

He mimed a standard houseplant size. “And no one said anything about it being man-eating! Why is it man-eating? Why would you even have that on a ship? And why put it in the room with the TV?”

“I think it was in the vents,” said Mech, hoisting the warp disk onto his shoulder. He began the steady plod back in the direction of the airlock, while Cal walked backward beside him, still watching the room they’d just left.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The plant. It was growing out of the vents,” said Mech.

Cal regarded him blankly.

“So, it didn’t necessarily start in that room,” Mech explained. “It could’ve been somewhere else, then it grew through the vents.”

“Through the vents?” said Cal.

He looked along the corridor ahead of them. Every dozen feet or so, up where the wall met the ceiling, was a slatted metal grate.

“You mean like the air vents?”

There was a sound from the wall beside them, like rats were scurrying around inside the cavity. It quickly passed them, and they both watched as one of the grates up ahead fell off and landed on the floor with a clang .

Mech glared at Cal as the tip of something green and fibrous appeared from inside the vent and moved tentatively in the air.

“OK, fine. You were right,” said Cal with a sigh. “The plant was a bad idea.”

* * *

“They back yet?” asked Miz, slumping into her seat aboard the Currently Untitled .

Loren tore her gaze from the screen and glanced at the door to make sure Tyrra wasn’t about to follow Miz onto the bridge.

“No,” she said. She checked the displays on her console, then spoke in a low, matter-of-fact voice. “Your problem’s with me, Miz, not Cal.”

Miz scowled. “Excuse me?”

“You shouldn’t be angry at Cal because he and I are… You know. Together. You can’t keep blaming him.”

“I don’t even care,” Miz said, rolling her eyes. “Like, do what you want. Ew.”

“So, it’s just a coincidence that you let Tyrra keep hurting him?” Loren asked.

“She needs to practice, and he heals fast,” said Miz. “Duh!”

“You’re punishing him. You’re punishing him for choosing me,” Loren said. “And it’s not fair. He hasn’t done anything wrong. If you want to punish anyone, I’m right here.”

Miz drummed her claws on the arm of her chair for a few moments, eyeballing Loren. Loren held the gaze, unflinching.

“Tch. Whatever,” Miz said, eventually relenting. “I’m not punishing anyone. She’s practicing.”

“For what? Becoming a serial killer?” asked Loren. “She’s a kid. She doesn’t need to spend all her time stabbing things.”

“Not my fault if that’s all she wants to do,” Miz said. “I’m just, like, helping her, or whatever.”

“Find her a different hobby,” Loren suggested. “Because this thing with Cal? It ends. Now. It is done.”

The fur on Miz’s neck bristled, and her lips twitched as if a snarl was trying to force its way through.

“He never wanted to hurt you,” Loren said, trying to calm the situation before it could escalate any further. “He cares about you, Miz. A lot. He really does.”

Miz stood up. “Just not enough, I guess,” she muttered, then she turned sharply and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Loren,” she said, stopping when she reached the doorway.

“Yeah?”

Miz looked back over her shoulder, her deep brown eyes dark and shimmering. “Hurt him and I’ll kill you.”

Loren nodded. “Ditto,” she said.

“Apologies for interrupting such a wonderfully tense face-off,” intoned Kevin. “But I have some good news regarding Masters Carver and Mech. They are alive and on their way back.”

Miz’s eyes went to the screen. Loren spun in her seat. One of Splurt’s eyes turned the other way so he was looking in two directions at once.

“What the hell did they do this time?” Loren wondered.

“Ah yes, that’s rather the bad news,” said Kevin.

On screen, Mech and Cal came hurtling through space as, behind them, vast plant-like tendrils exploded through the windows of the ship and grabbed after them.

“They don’t appear to be alone.”

Seven

“It’s got me! It’s got me!” Cal hollered, as he and Mech drifted in through the Untitled ’s outer airlock door. One of the vines had wrapped around Cal’s ankle, and was twisting up past his shin, over his knee, and continuing in a worryingly northerly direction. “Get it off, get it off!”

Mech slammed a hand on the button to close the door. It shut with a clang , severing the plant tendril. Despite the sudden amputation—or possibly because of it—the tentacle thrashed around, spraying viscous green sap all around the room. The sap floated in gelatinous blobs, then the airlock’s artificial gravity kicked in and everything that was currently hovering in mid-air suddenly decided not to be.

While Cal continued to thrash, scream, and test the limits of the translation chip’s censorship abilities, Mech caught the severed end of the tendril and gave it a sharp, sudden tug. Cal spun like a top, flipping up off the floor and performing seven or eight complete rotations before landing again.

The plant wrestled against Mech, trying to coil up his arm as he twisted the severed end into a knot and pulled the whole thing tight. That done, he turned and hurled it against the bulkhead wall. It hit with something between a thud and a splat , then dropped to the floor, twitched a few times, and fell still.

“Ugh,” Cal groaned from down on the floor. “I fonking hate space.”

He stood with some difficulty, unfastened the clips and pulled his helmet off, then spent an enjoyable thirty seconds scratching his head and every available part of his face. “Oh, that’s good,” he said. “That’s the stuff right there.”

Outside, an oozing green tendril slapped angrily against the airlock’s porthole window, smearing it with frosty green sap.

“Ha! Not so tough now, are you, stumpy?” said Cal, giving the vine the finger. “What’s the matter? Locked out? Aw, you poor thing. That’s what you get for trying to tongue me in places I didn’t want to be tongued. You lose, pal. You…”

The ship creaked ominously around them. It was not a noise Cal had heard the Currently Untitled make before. It was not a noise he’d heard any ship he was on make before. He’d have remembered the nerve-jangling sense of terror it brought with it.

“Um… What was that?” he asked, looking up.

Mech’s expression was cold. “You know damn well what it is.”

Cal played it as innocently as he could. “I mean, I guess it could be the plant, but it’s highly unlikely.”

“Cal! Mech! Get up here!” barked Loren from up front. “There’s a fonking plant trying to wrap us up.”

Mech’s expression didn’t change. Cal mustered a small, slightly pathetic smile. “OK, reasonably unlikely,” he said.

* * *

Thirty seconds later, Cal stumbled onto the bridge, one leg still wedged inside his spacesuit. The screen was partly obscured by greenery, half-cutting off the view of the other ship, which now resembled some sort of fat, sprouting seed.

“Jesus, how big is that thing?” Cal wondered, hopping to his seat as he wrestled with the suit.

“Enormous, sir,” said Kevin.

“Rhetorical question,” Cal said, shooting the ceiling a dirty look. “I thought you said it was a houseplant?”

“I believe it was you who said that, sir,” Kevin reminded him. “Besides, I suppose it technically still could be, assuming one had a very large house.”

“Where’s Mech?” Loren demanded. “Did you get the warp disk?”

“Yeah. Turns out they had a spare,” Cal said. “We should really look into that.”

The ship shuddered as another vine latched onto it. Loren tapped a button on her console. “Mech, how long?”

“Gimme fifteen minutes,” crackled Mech’s voice over the intercom. “This shizz ain’t easy.”

Loren groaned. “OK. I’ll do my best.”

“Kevin, break out the guns,” Cal instructed. “Blow the ship to pieces.”

“This ship, sir?” asked Kevin.

“What? No! Not this ship,” said Cal, finally freeing himself from the suit. “The other ship.”

“Right, sir. Yes, it did seem rather an odd request,” Kevin replied. “However, I’m afraid I am unable to carry out your instructions on this occasion.”

“Why the hell not?”

“To do so would draw more power from our own ship than is currently available,” Kevin explained. “Ironically, firing on the other ship would only destroy ourselves.”

“Damn it,” said Cal, thudding his armrest with his fist.

“There’s a moral in there somewhere, sir,” said Kevin. “Just don’t ask me what it is.”

The ship creaked and groaned , and Cal found himself sucking down a deep breath. Another vine drew across the screen, completely obscuring their view.

“It can’t get in, can it?”

“Let’s hope not, sir,” said Kevin.

“This is all your fault!” Cal told him.

“My fault, sir? I don’t follow.”

“I was bringing it back for you!” Cal said. “That’s the only reason I went looking for the stupid plant.”

“For me, sir?” said Kevin. “What a kind gesture.”

The ship shuddered and let out a series of worrying-sounding cracks.

“Although, for future reference, next time gift vouchers will be fine.”

There was a swish as the door to the bridge opened. “You know that, like, plant thing’s wrapping around the ship?” Miz said as she entered. Tyrra followed at her heels, and Cal visibly flinched when he saw her.

“We noticed,” said Loren. “Everyone buckle up, I’m going to go to impulse power and try to shake it off.”

“You’d better do what she says,” Miz told Tyrra. “It’s bad enough when she can see what she’s doing.”

“You sure flying blind is the best idea, honey?” asked Cal, frantically scrabbling to pull on his belt. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mech to do the thing with the thing?”

“Mech, how long?” Loren asked.

“Twenty minutes,” came the reply through the console.

“Wait, you said fifteen minutes five minutes ago!” Loren pointed out.

“The warp disk’s the wrong size,” Mech explained. “It don’t fit in the housing. I’m gonna have to patch it together with relays and hope it don’t explode.”

“Don’t you dare blow us up, Mech!” Cal hollered. “That’s an order.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

There was a faint click and a high-pitched hum from the console. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” said Mech, his voice a little faster and higher-pitched. “I must devote as much of my intellect as possible to the matter at hand.”

Loren flicked a series of switches, swiped a finger across a swipey thing, then gripped the yoke. “Looks like we don’t have a choice. Going to full impulse reverse… now.”

There was a sudden lurching movement that threw everyone back in their seats.

“OK, engine holding up,” said Loren, checking the readouts.

Cal glanced at Mizette. She rolled her eyes, gave a little shake of her head, then made a gesture that indicated Cal should say something.

“Uh, honey?” Cal ventured.

“Kind of busy here,” Loren replied.

“Sure. I can see that. It’s just… are you sure this is reverse?”

“What are you talking about, of course it’s…”

Loren studied the screen.

She eased off on the throttle, bringing the ship to a stop.

A few switch clicks later, everyone was jerked forward in their seats.

They were all kind enough not to pass comment on any of this.

Except Miz.

“So, what are the odds that we’re now going sideways?” she asked.

“We’re going backward,” Loren insisted.

There was another sudden jerk. It was accompanied by a series of creaks and groans and a worrying sort of bang from somewhere under the ship.

“Uh, looks like we’re not going anywhere,” Cal whispered. He wasn’t sure why he whispered, exactly, it just felt like a whispering sort of moment.

“Shizz,” Loren groaned. “I thought the vines would break off, but they’re holding. It’s trying to pull us back.”

“Slight problem, everyone,” Kevin announced.

Cal looked up. “What, you mean beyond…” he gestured extensively to the screen and the ship at large. “Everything?”

“Yes, a new one to add to the list, I’m afraid. You see, Physics is rather a funny thing.”

Cal, Loren, and—to a much lesser extent—Miz waited for more.

“Is it?” asked Cal eventually.

“What are you talking about, Kevin?” Loren demanded.

“Well, see, the thing is, ma’am, your attempts to break us free may have backfired somewhat,” Kevin continued.

They waited. Again, nothing.

“How , Kevin?” Cal asked. “How did it backfire?”

“I’d rather hoped you’d have worked it out by now, and I wouldn’t have to be the one to break it to you,” said Kevin. “Not to worry.”

He took a deep breath. Or made the sound of one, anyway.

“I won’t bore you with the science, sir. It’s all mass and weight and gravity and friction and what have you. Not your kind of thing at all,” Kevin said. “But the long and the short of it is, the vines attempted to pull us back.”

“Yes. We know,” said Loren.

“But they have nothing to pull against ,” Kevin continued. “No anchor point, so to speak.”

“The ship,” Cal reminded him. “They’re coming from the other ship.”

“Oh, shizz,” Loren spat, her eyes suddenly wide and alert, her movements frantic across her controls.

“Yes, quite, ma’am. You see, while the plant may be in the ship, the ship is not attached to anything, per se. And so, as a result of Mistress Loren’s attempts at evasion, said ship is now hurtling toward our own.”

“It’s what ?” Cal yelped.

“As I say, sir, Physics is a funny old thing.”

Cal ducked his head, trying to peer through any gaps in the vines, but the screen was wrapped too tight for him to see anything but foliage. “It’s going to hit us?”

“I’m rather afraid so, sir.”

“When?”

“I can’t be one hundred percent accurate, sir,” said Kevin. “Will an approximate estimate do?”

“Yes! Whatever! When is it going to hit us?”

“Now, sir,” said Kevin, and the Untitled was rocked by a powerful impact that tried very hard to eject Cal’s insides onto the floor.

His head snapped forward. His arms and legs flew out in front of him, fingers and toes briefly meeting somewhere in the middle.

His eyes bulged. His heart momentarily stopped. For a terrifying half-second, he was sure he could see his own tongue extending out of his head like taffy, but then everything spun, the lights flickered, and he could see nothing but darkness.

Despite all that, the noise had been the worst part, he thought. All that other stuff had been thoroughly unpleasant, but there was something about the spaceship you were on making noises it wasn’t supposed to make while trillions of miles out into the endless void of space that really cut to the core, terror-wise.

The ear-splitting bang had been bad enough, but the weird squeaking noise, like two balloons being slowly rubbed together, had been worse. The succession of violent whipcrack sounds that had followed had been enough to turn Cal’s stomach, but it was the silence that came next that had turned nausea into a lingering sense of dread.

Still, panicking was going to get him nowhere.

“Is everyone OK?” he asked. “Loren? Miz? Splurt?” He hesitated. “Tyrra?”

“I’m fine,” Loren said, but there was just a whisper of pain in the words that told Cal this wasn’t entirely true. “Splurt’s OK, too.”

“How do you know?” Cal asked, trying but failing to see her through the darkness.

“He’s sitting on my head.”

“OK, good. Everyone else?”

“She is a bad pilot,” remarked Tyrra from the back.

“Ugh. I know, right? Didn’t I tell you?” Miz replied. “Like, way to go, Loren. I totally knew you were going to crash.”

“I didn’t crash,” Loren objected. “The other ship hit us.”

“But only because you made it,” Miz pointed out. “What, you’re not satisfied just crashing us into stuff, now you have to crash other stuff into us, too? Are you, like, trying to kill us all?”

A voice hollered through from somewhere out back. “Excuse me, might I inquire as to…?” it began, then: “One moment, it is probably best that I readjust for this.”

There was a pause, then a click, then another similar but different voice took over.

“What the fonk are you doing up there?” Mech demanded. “Are you trying to kill us all?”

“That’s what I said,” Miz called back.

“OK, OK, we need to get over it. It’s in the past,” Cal said. “We got hit. Not a lot we can do about that now. What’s the status, Kevin?”

The only reply was a faint buzzing from the ceiling. “Kevin, pal? You there?”

It soon became apparent that no, Kevin was not there.

“That’s worrying,” Cal said.

“Controls aren’t responding,” said Loren, toggling a few switches and jabbing forlornly at a screen. “It’s dead.”

“Mech, you’re our last hope here, pal,” Cal hollered, turning in his chair. The revolving motion was jerky and filled the bridge with the nerve-jangling screech of metal grinding against metal. “Jesus, that was horrible,” Cal muttered, then he went back to shouting in panic. “Mech? Can you fix it?”

“The whole damn ship is broken!” Mech spat.

“We know! The question was can you fix it ?” Cal shouted back.

They all heard Mech muttering a string of what were probably obscenities.

“I’m gonna need Loren and Splurt,” he eventually said. “And a whole lot of motherfonking luck.”

The sound of Loren’s seat belt unclipping followed. She jumped to her feet, let out the tiniest whimper of pain, then called back to Mech.

“We’re coming.”

“Think you can manage to not crash into anything on the way?” Miz sneered.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” said Loren, navigating her way across the bridge in the dark.

There was a thud from the bulkhead wall beside the door as Loren walked into it.

“Way to go,” said Miz.

“Oh, shut up,” Loren told her, then she stumbled blindly into the corridor with Splurt, presumably, still perched on her head.

Once Loren had left, the bridge fell into an awkward, uneasy sort of silence, broken only by the creaking of the ship and the faint electronic buzz that may or may not have been Kevin.

“So,” said Cal, after the awkwardness of it all got too much for him to bear. “How’s everyone been?”

“We will die here,” said Tyrra. “We will all die here today.”

“Well somebody’s a real Negative Nancy,” said Cal. “And, might I say, has quite a lot to learn. We’re Space Team, kid. We don’t die.”

Cal thought about this.

“Well, I did once,” he said. “Maybe twice, I forget.”

“Like…” Miz began.

“And Miz died also. Yes. We die occasionally ,” he said. “But we come back, so it works out fine.”

“Not this time,” said Tyrra. She sniffed the air. “Don’t you smell that?”

Cal held his hands up. “I was hoping you wouldn’t, but fine. I have to take responsibility for that,” he said. “That was some pretty intense stuff back there, and—”

“She’s right,” said Miz. “I smell it, too.”

“Again,” said Cal. “I apologize wholeheartedly for any distress—”

“Not that ,” Miz barked. “The air. It’s different. Oxygen levels are, like, dropping or whatever. Life support systems must have failed.”

“Told you,” whispered Tyrra through the darkness. “We all die here today.”

Cal unclipped his belt and stood up. “No, we don’t,” he said. “I’ll go talk to Mech and see if we can hurry up the—”

He floated lazily into the air.

“Hey, who turned off the gravity?” he asked. “How am I supposed to get to the engine room if there’s no—”

He stopped talking and looked down. Something was touching his ankle. At first, he had a horrible suspicion that it was Tyrra about to stab him again, but then it snaked up his leg and tightened around his shin.

“What the fonk is this now?” he muttered, and then his leg was jerked, his body slammed into the floor, and he was dragged screaming across the bridge.

Eight

For more years than anyone could remember, the name Lyra Sherush had brought terror to all those who heard it. Her band of pirates had terrorized the sector, robbing those with things worth robbing, slave-trading those without.

Rumors whispered in back alleys and shady bars said she was a first cousin of King Anderle himself, feared high ruler of all the pirate clans. Whether this was true or not, nobody knew for sure—they certainly had no intentions of asking her—but Lyra’s temperament and her knack for mass-murder were enough to make most folks believe it.

According to legend, it had been Lyra Sherush who had led the attack on the Empress of Ko’theen, taking out a dozen escort ships, three hundred armed guards, and a number of small but aggressively protective pets before claiming the head of the Empress herself. One of the heads, anyway. The important one. The other, non-royal head she left alone, doomed forever to remember the events of that day, but now powerless to do anything about them but mourn.

The Great Siege of Karkaktoom, where four rival pirate clans had united under one flag in order to take down a benevolent god-like entity with golden flesh? That was Lyra, they said. And, while the siege had ultimately been unsuccessful, the relentless twelve-day onslaught had made Karkaktoom feel pretty damn unwelcome. As a result, she’d quickly fonked off elsewhere in the galaxy, causing an entire system that had grown dependent on her generous offerings to descend into chaos and civil war.

There were many other examples of a life badly lived. The Poktish Massacre. The Endless Fires of Flomus. The Creeping Stench of Hootus VI. Lyra Sherush was behind them all.

Sure, there wasn’t necessarily any evidence of any of it, but the dedicated news channels and daily update bulletins said she was behind it all, and that was proof enough for most.

And there was talk, of course. Hearsay. People passed things on, albeit quietly, and only after checking no one else was listening in. Especially anyone with an eyepatch.

The whispers on the wind said Lyra had killed a thousand men in her time, many while she was unarmed, and three using just the pinkie finger on her left hand.

Some said she was a flesh-eater. Others claimed she ate nothing at all, but instead drank the blood of her victims through a straw she carried at all times in the inside pocket of her pirate coat.

A few people thought she was vegan, and that all her aggression issues could be resolved if she’d only treat herself to a couple of sausages and a steak every once in a while.

They all agreed, though, that Lyra Sherush was bad news. Lyra Sherush was not to be messed with. Lyra Sherush was a monster .

Which was why everyone watched their screens so intently when the Eviscerator rammed both blade-like arms through her stomach and hoisted her into the air.

The cheers rang out across the system, from Logus Prime to Pallton Minor. Glasses were raised, hugs were given, joy abounded. Through all this, nobody took their eyes off the screen.

Their mouths frothing with excitement, they watched as the camera slowly zoomed in on Lyra’s face, savoring the way her eyes lolled emptily in her head.

They cheered again when the image changed to show the blood-spattered Eviscerator, his flawlessly white teeth gritted in a grimace of delight.

Back on Lyra again. She was gagging now, ejecting bile down her chin.

Good enough for her , they cheered. Well deserved!

Two icons blinked up on screen. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Mercy or condemnation. Spare or slay.

All across the system, they made their choices with a look, a button press, a voice command. All across the system, by the will of the people, Lyra Sherush’s fate was sealed.

The icons vanished. An entire star system held its breath as it awaited the result.

“The Hunt will be back,” a smooth voice announced, and an entire star system groaned in frustration. “After these important messages.”

Nine

Cal stopped screaming. He didn’t do this through choice, but rather because he’d been swung quite violently against the corridor wall, and all the air that had been in his lungs had promptly exited his body through his nose. After that, it was hard to scream. After that, it was hard to do too much of anything, really, but be dragged along, bouncing off the floor and into the air through the gravityless ship.

He heard some commotion from up by the bridge—squeaking chairs, an angry shout from Miz—and then his head hit a doorframe and all he heard was a high-pitched eeeeeee inside his ears.

Cal kicked with his free foot but found nothing. He tried to kick with his other foot, but he was still being dragged along by the leg and didn’t have much of a say in how it was able to move right now.

There was some more movement from behind him. A gasp followed by the sudden clang of doors being physically slammed shut. Then, whatever had Cal’s leg suddenly had his other leg, his waist, and his lower abdomen, too. It squeezed, and he felt as if his stomach was being forced up his food pipe and into his mouth. And not in a good way.

If, indeed, there was a good way for all that to happen. He suspected not.

The plant. The fonking plant had somehow found its way inside. That had to be it. And now it was trying to eat him again. It had already had a lick and had clearly enjoyed his flavor. Now, it was back to finish the job. Damn, why did he have to be so tasty?

With a clunk , the ship’s red emergency lighting came on. Gravity kicked in too, and Cal fell a couple of feet backward onto the floor.

He managed to muster another scream when Tyrra appeared above him, her knife raised, her face twisted into a ridiculously toothy snarl.

Cal saw himself reflected in her black, glassy eyes and thrust a hand up to stop her. “Wait, no, not now!”

SHUNK!

Tyrra brought the blade down, embedding it up to the hilt in the thick vine that wrapped around Cal’s body. It writhed in distress, but kept its grip, forcing her to plunge the knife into it again, and again, and again, until it finally uncoiled itself from around him.

Cal kicked clear as the greenery made a desperate dive for Tyrra and the blade, its stumpy severed end smearing green sap across the floor.

They were in the airlock, Cal realized. The part of the plant that had been amputated when the outer doors had slammed shut had untied itself and come looking for revenge. At least, Cal hoped it had been looking for revenge and not, say, companionship, because Tyrra was now stabbing the shizz out of the thing, ejecting sprays of sap all over the room, and cleaving off chunks of its—for want of a better word—flesh.

The plant’s narrow tip grabbed for the blade, but Tyrra was ready for it. She dodged the swipe, plunged the sliver of metal into the vine’s middle, then jerked it sideways, carving a split horizontally across it.

The top part of the plant toppled as if on a hinge, and stopped when it was parallel with the bottom half, but facing the opposite direction. Hooking a foot under it, Tyrra flicked it toward the wall, spun in a full circle, and hurled the knife at it.

The blade passed through the plant and embedded into a sign fixed to the wall beside the spacesuit locker which, ironically, warned of the dangers of sharp objects.

There followed some thrashing and twitching from the plant, but its heart was clearly no longer in it, and Cal couldn’t really blame it for that.

With a final audible groan, it fell still. Cal turned to find Tyrra standing behind him, eyes on the plant, face awash with sap, chest heaving from the effort of the fight.

“Uh, nice work,” Cal told her. “You bested the shizz out of that thing.”

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“No. Just my pride,” said Cal. “And my… you know how there’s, like, an ass-bone?”

Tyrra said nothing.

“Well, I hurt my ass-bone. But it’ll be fine,” Cal assured her. “I can already hardly feel it. What about you? You OK?”

Tyrra straightened, puffed herself up, and nodded. Suddenly, Cal saw her not as a terrifying shark-creature who delighted in causing him physical distress—although she was that, obviously.

Instead, he saw her as the other thing she was—a kid. That nod, that body language, that expression, he’d seen them all before on his own daughter the day she’d fallen off her bike and insisted that she was fine. Insisted and insisted until her lip had wobbled, the dam had broken, and the tears had come.

Right there inside the airlock, Cal wanted to put his arms around the kid and give her a hug, but suspected she’d produce some hidden weapon and stab, bludgeon, or possibly even shoot him the moment he got within reach.

“Ah, fonk it,” he said, and he hugged her, anyway. To his surprise, she didn’t resist. He felt her arms clamp around him and hug him back.

Fonk, she was stronger than she looked. His ribs grumbled in complaint as she held him, burying her face against Betty White’s and stifling a whimper.

“You’re OK, kid. You did great,” he whispered. He hadn’t intended to whisper, exactly, but the hug meant his lungs couldn’t currently expand, and he had to hold onto as much air as he could.

Through the window on the inner airlock door, Cal saw Loren looking back at him, her face purple in the emergency lighting.

Loren mouthed something silently to him, her breath fogging the glass. Unfortunately, because the translation chip didn’t translate silent mouth movements, Cal could only guess at what she’d said. He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up in reply.

She mouthed something else that made literally zero sense to him, then turned and hurried back in the direction of the engine room.

Mizette’s face appeared in the window next. She looked worried at first, surprised at second, and relieved at third. She, too, mouthed something to him, and Cal nodded and smiled, and then offered a thumbs-up in response.

Tyrra turned her head and caught sight of Miz through the glass. She released her grip on Cal and stepped back quickly. It was hard to read her expression, what with her essentially having the head of a shark, but Cal got the impression she was embarrassed at having been caught.

“So that’s what it’s all about,” Cal said, the penny dropping.

She was trying to impress Miz. Everything she was doing was an attempt to impress Mizette.

Tyrra frowned at him, confused.

“Nothing. Relax, kid,” Cal told her. “You might not think it, but under all that hair and attitude, Miz is a big puppy dog. Deep down, she’s a hugger, too. Right, Miz?”

“Ugh. No,” Miz said, her voice muffled by the door. She looked them up and down. “But, like, you both OK, or whatever?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Thanks to this one,” Cal said, shooting Tyrra a smile. “Don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t made it through before that thing closed the doors.”

“Died,” said Tyrra.

“Hmm? Well… I’m sure I’d have found a way out.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tyrra told him.

“I probably would. I’d have come up with something,” Cal insisted.

“You were screaming and crying.”

“I was screaming and crying tactically ,” Cal corrected. “That was the first part of my plan.”

Tyrra crossed her arms and put all her weight on one hip. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she’d picked up that move. It was classic Mizette. “What was the next part?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” Cal admitted. “But I’d probably have done something like…” He waved his arms around in a series of chops. “Break out these guys. Karate my way out. And then, when I was free…”

He raised both arms above his head and brought one knee up to his chest so he was standing on one foot. “Crane kick,” he explained. “If do right, no can defense .”

Tyrra touched a spot far back on her skull, as if checking her chip was functioning correctly.

“Don’t worry. It’s how they say it in Okinawa,” Cal told her, although this didn’t make her any less confused. He lowered his arms and put his raised foot back on the floor. “But, you know, your intervention was greatly appreciated all the same. Thank you.”

Tyrra regarded him for a moment, then side-eyed the window. “Is he always like this?”

“Yeah. Pretty much,” Miz confirmed. “You get used to it. Eventually. Or, you know, learn to block it out.”

“She’s kidding. She hangs on every word,” said Cal. He turned back to Miz. “Can you get us out?”

Miz tugged on the door a few times, trying to slide it aside. “No. It’s stuck.”

“Damn it! I still haven’t been to the bathroom,” Cal groaned.

Miz shrugged. “Maybe if I get Mech, we can—”

“No. We need him fixing the ship,” Cal said. He inhaled through his nose, then out through his mouth. His breath formed wispy white clouds in the air, and he realized for the first time that he was fonking freezing. “Life support still out?”

Miz nodded but said nothing.

“Any update on getting it back online?”

“Ugh, what am I, your personal messenger?” she demanded, but she couldn’t maintain the outrage, and her voice softened immediately. “No,” she said, with significantly less venom. “No news.”

“Go see if they need help,” Cal suggested. “Do what you can.”

“It’s engine stuff. What can I do?” Miz asked.

“Hey, now. You can do whatever you put your mind to, young lady,” Cal scolded. “Just, for the love of God, don’t touch anything. OK?”

Cal watched as Miz’s eyes darted past him to Tyrra. Wow, she really cared about this kid. So much so, that she was barely even trying to hide it. This, for Miz, was practically unheard of.

“I’ll look after her,” Cal promised.

“You mean I’ll look after you,” Tyrra snorted.

“And that, too. We’ll look after each other,” said Cal. He put a hand against the glass. “She’ll be fine. Go. Help Mech. Get us out of here.”

A look passed between them, raw and real and packed with emotion. It said a lot of things in a short space of time, then ended with an eye-roll and a “Tch. Whatever.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Cal as, with one final glance at Tyrra, Miz turned on her heels and stomped off in the direction of the engine room.

Cal spun to face the Symmorium girl, all smiles again. He rubbed his hands together, driving out the cold.

“Now, then. Everything’s going to be fine, and you and I are going to be out of here before we know it,” he told her. “Until then, let’s do something to pass the time.”

“We could fight,” Tyrra suggested.

“Well…”

“No weapons. Hand to hand combat,” she continued, trying to sweeten the deal. “I’ll close my eyes.”

“Tempting,” said Cal, even though his face said the opposite. “Or… how about we do something that’s like fighting, but better in every way?”

Tyrra looked skeptical. At least, that’s how Cal was choosing to read the expression. “Better than fighting?”

“Much better,” Cal said, sensing her disinterest. “But, it’s still a battle. A battle that, I feel I should warn you, I’m going to win.”

“Pah!” Tyrra snorted. “I accept your challenge.”

“Great!” Cal cheered. He glanced around the room, then gave a nod. “OK, ready?”

“Do your worst,” Tyrra spat. “I am prepared.”

“OK, here goes,” said Cal. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and began. “Let the battle commence!”

* * *

“What blue wire? What are you talking about? There is no blue wire!” Loren protested.

Beside her, the shrillness of the now mostly-inert Mech’s voice suggested he was losing his patience. “There is. I can see it from here.”

Loren began listing off the colors of the wires in the open cabinet. “Red, green, yellow, orange, brown… There’s no blue! Show me the blue one! There isn’t a blue wire!”

“There is a blue wire. I can see it from here,” Mech insisted. His dial was just one notch away from the highest possible position. He was standing rigid and upright, but his mouth didn’t move as he spoke. “It is contained within the loom by your right hand.”

Loren looked at the loom of wires in her right hand. “Red, green, yellow—” she began again.

“No, by your right hand. Not in your right hand. I was referring to the other loom.”

“What other—?"

A slimy green tendril reached into the cabinet, fumbled around, then produced a blue wire.

“Oh,” said Loren. “That other loom. I didn’t see it.”

“Obviously,” said Mech.

Loren took the wire from Splurt.

“Thank you,” she said, without looking at Mech. “Now, where should I put it?”

“Like, I’ve got a few suggestions,” said Miz, appearing in the doorway. She shifted uncomfortably and crossed her arms over her stomach. “Cal said I should come help, or whatever.”

“Help?” said Loren, her eyebrows raising. “With the engines ?”

Miz’s fur bristled, but her eyes glanced down at the floor. Loren swore at herself inside her head.

“Well, you can’t do any worse than I’m doing,” she said. Miz’s eyes lifted to meet hers, and Loren smiled thinly. “How are you at finding wires?”

“Well, I’m mostly color-blind. So, like, not great,” said Miz.

Loren winced. “OK! Well, I’m sure we can find you something to do!”

* * *

Tyrra of the Symmorium clicked her tongue against the ridged roof of her mouth and regarded the room. She was sitting beside Cal on the floor, their backs against the door. The metal was freezing to the touch, so Cal had folded a spacesuit behind them and draped another couple over them like blankets to help keep out the chill.

The air was as stale as it was cold. He could taste it twice, once with his mouth, then again with his lungs. It conjured up images of boiled cabbage, even though—as far as he could recall—he’d never actually tasted boiled cabbage. Or, if he had, he’d buried the memory deep.

“Bolts,” said Tyrra, after some more consideration.

“No.”

Tyrra tutted and looked around again. Her eyes fell on a rack of oxygen cylinders.

“Bottle.”

“Which bottle?” asked Cal.

“Any of them.”

“No.”

Tyrra tutted again. Her dark eyes regarded the room.

“T-told you I was going to win,” Cal said, trembling in the cold.

“Shut up,” Tyrra told him, her breath clouding through her nostrils. “Barrier.”

Cal raised an eyebrow.

“The door,” said Tyrra.

“Oh! Thinking outside the box. I l-like it,” Cal said. “But no. G-give up?”

“Will that make it stop?” Tyrra asked.

Cal nodded, although it was possibly just a prolonged bout of trembling.

“Then, yes,” said Tyrra. “What was it?”

Cal removed a hand from under the blanket of space suits and pointed to a control panel on the wall. “Button.”

Tyrra squinted through the dim red glow of the emergency lighting. “That’s a switch.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s not a button. It’s a switch.”

“No, the other one,” said Cal. “T-to the right.”

“That’s a dial.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He tucked his arm back in, hugged the suit closer, and shivered. “I s-still win, though.”

“What? No, you don’t!” Tyrra protested.

“F-fine,” Cal sighed, exhaling a cloud of vapor. “We’ll c-call it a draw.”

The ship gave a long series of worrying creaks , groans , and one particularly concerning crack . Cal felt Tyrra bristle beside him.

“It’s fine. It d-does that all the t-time,” he assured her. “Your turn. What d-do you spy?”

The emergency lights went off with a clunk .

“OK, that was b-bad timing,” Cal wheezed.

The main lights returned, bright and blinding.

“Boggle humps!” exclaimed Kevin, then there was a bang and the darkness rushed back in.

Cal and Tyrra shivered in silence, waiting to see if anything else would happen.

Nothing did.

“I mean, I g-guess that’s progress,” Cal said.

He heard Tyrra sip in a breath. “I am ready,” she whispered.

“Oh, OK. C-cool,” said Cal. “What’s the letter?”

“Not for your ridiculous game,” said Tyrra. “For death. I am ready.”

Cal turned to look at her but saw nothing through the darkness. “You are, huh?”

He heard her nod. “I am Symmorium. Death holds no fear,” she said, even though the quaver in her voice said otherwise. Or, maybe she was just as cold as he was.

“G-good to know,” said Cal. “But w-we’re n-not dying today, k-kid.”

“I am the last,” Tyrra said. “There will be no more Symmorium after me.”

“Yeah. Yeah that s-sucks,” said Cal. “Still, you’ve got us. Especially M-Miz.”

“Mizette is… nice,” Tyrra admitted. “She is kind and considerate.”

“Well…” said Cal.

“Thoughtful.”

“I mean…”

“Very caring and attentive.”

“We are t-talking about Miz here?” Cal asked. “B-big hairy girl? Lots of claws?”

Cal practically heard Tyrra’s forehead furrow in confusion.

“I’m k-kidding,” he told her. “Miz is the b-bravest, most loyal person I know. She’ll l-look after you.”

“Yes,” said Tyrra. She nodded slowly, her head dipping lower each time until she was staring down at the space suit blanket. “But she is not Symmorium.”

“N-n-o, but sh-sh-sh-sh-sh—Fonk, it’s f-f-f-freezing,” Cal wheezed. “O-OK f-f-fonk this.”

Throwing back the space suit, he got to his feet. The cold bit at him, forcing him to bounce and slap at his arms to try to drive it away.

Shivering, Cal turned to the door, gritted his teeth, and dug his fingertips into the seam where both halves met. They were getting out of here. They were getting back into the main ship. If they were going to die, they’d all die together.

Except Mech and Splurt, who’d both be fine. Those bamstons.

But those of them who were going to die would die together. That was the point. And no damn door was going to stand in his way.

“Hng,” said Cal, heaving with all his might.

Something in his shoulder gave an audible twang. He yelped in pain and tried to pull his hands away, only to find his fingertips had become frozen to the metal.

Fonk.

He jerked his hands, but his skin remained steadfastly fixed in place.

Shizz.

The lights blinked on again. A cloud of heat cascaded from a vent above the door.

“Belltop!” barked Kevin. “Flungle!”

Cal found himself face to face with Mech, who peered back at him through the glass. His dial was centered again, a thin layer of frost covering all his metal parts.

“You guys OK?” Mech asked.

“F-fine,” Cal said. “Did you f-fix the ship?”

“Not quite, but we got life support. Weapons should be coming online any minute.”

“Barbershop!” announced Kevin.

“And is that normal?” Cal asked, flicking his eyes to the ceiling.

“We’re working on it,” Mech said. He reached for the button that opened the door, but a frantic yelp from Cal stopped him.

“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t open the d-door,” Cal said.

Mech frowned. “Why not?”

“My fingers are stuck,” Cal told him. “They’re frozen to the metal. If you open the door then—”

Mech opened the door. Both halves parted in opposite directions, yanking Cal’s arms out to the sides so he looked like he was being crucified.

“You fonking—” Cal managed to eject, before his arms reached their full stretch and all ten of his fingertips came off in one sudden yank. Tucking both hands under his armpits, he hopped on the spot, muttering and cursing below his breath. “You did that on purpose!”

“Yeah, I did. And you’re welcome,” Mech said, making no attempt whatsoever to hide his grin. He gestured in the direction of the bridge. “Now, go get on guns. Take that ship out before this nasty green fonk kills us all.”

He heard a squelchy ripple from back near the engine room and turned to find Splurt shooting him an accusatory look.

“Not you. The other green fonk,” Mech said.

Splurt kept eyeing him, but slowly disappeared around the doorframe.

Voices rang out from inside the engine room.

“Ugh. Like, how long am I supposed to keep holding this?”

“One more minute.”

“You said that two hours ago.”

“You’ve only been here for six minutes.”

“You’ve only been here for six minutes.”

There was a pause.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Tch. Whatever.”

Mech whirred as he turned. “I’d better get back before they kill each other.”

The ship creaked. Cal and Mech shot matching looks at the walls and ceiling. “Go shoot the shizz out of this thing before it crushes the ship.”

“On it,” said Cal. The air was already tasting fresher, and the frostbite that had been threatening to devour some of his favorite parts had started to lose its edge. He reached a hand down to Tyrra, his fingertips tingling as they grew back. “Hey, kid. Want to go help me kill a big plant?”

Tyrra regarded his hand for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I would like that very much.”

Above them, Kevin chuckled. “Timstrel!” he said.

Cal helped Tyrra to her feet and shot the ceiling a look. “Whatever you say, Kevin. Whatever you say.”

Ten

Tyrra, it turned out, was something of a natural when it came to blowing things to pieces. While the gunner controls were unlike anything she had ever used before, she took to them quickly. Annoyingly quickly, in fact.

Cal had been primed to share his wisdom with her, but she’d almost immediately surpassed his own understanding of how the ship’s weapon systems worked. What’s more, unlike Cal she didn’t make ptchow or pew pew noises when she fired, and her legs didn’t do a celebratory dance whenever she hit something.

Instead, she muttered a single, “Got it,” and the vines that had been surrounding the ship immediately went slack. There was another chorus of creaks and groans as the hull expanded back to its natural size, then the only sound was the whine of the weapons system detaching from Tyrra’s head and folding back into the ceiling.

“Excellent shot, ma’am,” said Kevin. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Hey, Kevin!” said Cal, looking up in the direction of the voice. “Good to have you back with us.”

“Did I go somewhere, sir?” Kevin asked. “I don’t recall.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Cal told him. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and whistled to Tyrra through his teeth. “OK, gimme my seat back.”

Tyrra held his gaze for a moment as if going to argue, but then she hopped down.

“Nice shooting, you little scamp,” he told her. He reached for her head in a hair-ruffling sort of motion, before it occurred to him that she didn’t have hair and that this was about to get very weird and awkward.

Luckily for all involved, she caught his hand and bent his wrist until his thumb was touching his forearm. With a jerk, she yanked the arm up his back, doubling him over and slamming his face onto the soft cushion of his chair.

“Ha,” she growled in his ear. “Bested.”

* * *

Thirty minutes, two games of I Spy , and one incredibly frustrating conversation with Kevin about what qualified as ‘an object’ later, Cal couldn’t have been more pleased to see Loren and Miz. Loren stepped onto the bridge first, with Splurt sliding along the floor at her feet, still watching her. Mizette arrived a moment later, doing her best to look disinterested in pretty much everything, but unable to control the wagging of her tail.

“Hey! There you are. Thank God,” said Cal. “We were just about to reformat Kevin with a sledgehammer.” He shot the ceiling a dirty look. “Which, so we’re clear is an object. Unlike ‘regret,’ which is a concept, and therefore invisible.”

He let that sink in for a moment, then lowered his eyes again. He watched, but tried not to show it, as Tyrra sidled up to Mizette and the wolf-woman self-consciously rested a paw on the girl’s shoulder.

Leaving them to it, Cal turned to Loren. “So, we all fixed?”

“Partly,” said Loren, taking her seat.

“What does that mean? What’s ‘partly’?” Cal asked. “Tell me it’s the good parts.”

“The warp disk doesn’t fit,” Loren said, turning to face him. “We can power some systems, but not all. We’ve got life support and gravity, but if we want to move, we’ll have to turn off weapons, and shields aren’t even an option at this point.”

Cal leaned forward in his chair, preparing himself for the worst. “I don’t even want to ask this, but…” He took a deep breath. “What about the replicator?”

Loren gave a sad little shake of her head, like a doctor breaking the news to the loved ones of the recently deceased.

Cal choked down a sob and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, dear God, no.”

“It’s not broken, we just can’t afford to power it,” Loren explained.

“Can’t we cut something else? Like gravity? We’ve got seatbelts! We can cope without gravity, can’t we?” he pleaded. “We could all fly around. It’ll be fun!”

“We ain’t cutting the fonking gravity,” said Mech, stomping onto the bridge.

Cal groaned, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “What about Kevin? Can we turn off Kevin?”

“I heard that, sir,” Kevin remarked.

“You were supposed to!” Cal snapped, looking up. “And FYI, you can’t spy ‘the exuberance of youth,’ Kevin. You just can’t!”

Mech side-eyed Loren. “What’s his problem?”

“We told him about the replicator,” Loren explained.

Cal choked on another sob.

“Gotcha,” said Mech. “We need to find the nearest habitable system so we can land, get a new disk, and make some proper repairs.”

Loren’s fingers tapped on her console. The viewscreen switched from showing some plant vines drifting inertly through space to showing a starmap.

“We’re actually pretty close to one,” she announced.

“Must be our lucky day,” Cal said. He caught the looks from the others. “You know, I mean aside from all the other stuff that already happened.”

“The Viarox system,” Loren read. “Twelve planets, nine habitable. We could be there in an hour.”

“Man, that is close,” said Mech, looking over her shoulder at the screen. “Technology?”

“Varies, but they’re all spacefaring,” Loren replied. “We should be able to get a warp disk on pretty much any one of them.”

She pointed to one planet on screen. “That’s our best bet. Logus Prime. Seems to be the most advanced.”

Mech nodded. “OK. Let’s go there.”

“Hey, hey, hold up,” Cal said, straightening in his chair. “I give the orders around here, buddy.”

He held Mech’s impassive gaze for a moment, then without breaking the stare, said, “Loren? Let’s go there.”

“Yes, Carver,” Loren muttered. “Right away, Carver.”

Cal blinked in surprise, then grabbed for his seatbelt as the Currently Untitled ’s engines whined and all the lights dipped a fraction.

Miz waited until Tyrra was safely strapped into one of the guest chairs, then flopped into her own. She turned so her legs were draped across one armrest and her back was resting against the other, then fastened her belt around herself sideways.

“You OK?” Cal asked her.

“Uh, like, yeah,” said Miz. “Why wouldn’t I be OK?”

“No reason,” said Cal, smiling.

Miz rolled her eyes, glanced around to make sure Loren and Mech weren’t paying attention, then lowered her voice to a soft murmur. “Thank you.”

Cal gave a wave of his hand. “I didn’t do anything. She saved me.”

“Correct,” said Tyrra from the back.

“And grateful I am, too,” said Cal, squeaking around in his damaged chair.

“Good. Because you owe me a life debt,” Tyrra said.

Cal frowned. “Huh?”

“Your life now belongs to me,” Tyrra explained.

“What? No, it doesn’t!”

Tyrra nodded. There was something quite menacing about the way she held his gaze as she tilted her head back and forth. “Yes. It does. You are now my property.”

Before Cal could protest further, Kevin’s voice chimed from the ceiling.

“Might I interrupt, everyone?” he asked. “Before we set off, I thought I should tell you that I have successfully unscrambled those subspace transmissions that were causing us problems earlier. It appears there are multiple transmissions broadcasting on a wide range of communications channels.”

Cal screeched his chair back around to face front. “We’re being hailed?”

“Not us specifically, sir. They’re more general call-outs, I believe.”

“Oh. OK. Then… put them on screen, I guess.”

“One at a time, or all at once, sir?” Kevin asked.

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t know. How many are there?”

“Eight trillion, sir.”

“Jesus. Then not one at a time. That would take hours.”

“All at once then, sir?”

Cal shook his head. “It’s been a long day. Not sure I can handle eight trillion simultaneous conversations. What if we did them in batches? Like, say, ten at a time? Would that get through them quicker?”

“Indeed it would. If you were able to keep each conversation to under a minute, sir, we would get through them in…”

There was a pause as Kevin did some calculations.

“…a shade over fifteen thousand years.”

“Shizz. No. That’s way too long.”

“You think so?” Mech grunted.

“Pick a few,” Cal said, ignoring the cyborg’s remark. “Pick ten and cycle through them, just in case there’s anything important.”

“Very good, sir,” said Kevin.

“Everyone else sit up straight,” Cal urged, adjusting himself in his chair and running a hand through his hair. “We’re in a new sector, let’s try to make a good impression. Miz, Mech, try to look friendly.”

“I always look friendly,” Mech protested.

Cal looked the hulking cyborg up and down for a moment. “OK, we’ll talk about that later,” he said, looking around at the others. “For now, warm, open faces. Big smiles. Not that big, Tyrra, you look terrifying. There. That’s better. Miz, are you just going to lie there picking at your toes like that?”

Miz flicked him a look that made her answer to that question very clear.

“Good. That’s fine. You just do you,” Cal said, grinding the chair back to the front. “OK, Kevin, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Would you like me to run a language update, sir?” asked Kevin.

Cal’s eyes went to the ceiling. “Huh?”

“Your Zertex translation chips are not currently compatible with many of the languages in this sector, sir,” Kevin explained. “However, they have a similar system of their own, and I can cross-pollinate both databases with the respective stored languages of—”

“Meaning?” asked Cal, who wanted the short version.

“I can copy their translation system’s database to our own, and vice versa, sir.”

Cal kept watching the ceiling.

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning we’ll be able to understand what the fonk they’re saying,” Mech snapped.

“Oh. Oh, OK. Then yes, do that,” said Cal, sitting back. He leaned forward again a fraction. “Wait, will it hurt?”

“I will merely be updating the chip’s database records with some new content, sir,” said Kevin.

“Right. OK,” said Cal, sitting back again.

“So yes. It will hurt immensely.”

“Huh?” said Cal, but before he could voice any further objections the inside of his head became a howling vortex of sound. He thrashed in his chair. He gritted his teeth. A bubble of snot sprouted from one nostril, then popped.

The sound became words. So many words. All the words, in fact, all speaking themselves at the same time directly into his brain. He wanted to cry out, to scream, to make it all stop, but his mouth was clamped shut, his muscles were rigid, and he had a pretty firm suspicion that his skull was in the process of exploding.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped.

Cal wheezed, whimpered, and swore all at the same time. He had slid almost all the way out of his chair, and his legs were buckled on the floor. The seatbelt had snagged on his t-shirt and dragged it up so it was around his throat, exposing everything from his waist to his nipples. He had also been lightly sick in his mouth.

Loren and Mech both regarded him with slightly bewildered expressions on their faces. Loren was rubbing a spot just behind her ear, as if she had the beginnings of a tension headache. Mech seemed none the worse for the update.

“Drama queen, much?” asked Mizette. She was kneading her temples with her fingertips and smirking in Cal’s direction.

“Again, again!” urged Tyrra from the back of the room. “His convulsions are hilarious.”

It was at this point that Cal noticed the woman on screen. She was blonde, skinny, and—were it not for the extra eye dangling from the end of her nose—flawless.

Cal briefly contemplated his current position and mostly naked torso, decided it wasn’t really the first impression he’d hoped to convey, and squirmed his way back into his seat.

“You couldn’t have waited five fonking seconds, Kevin?” he muttered, wriggling his t-shirt down. He took a breath, plastered on one of his best grins, and addressed the screen.

“Well, hey there! This is Captain Cal—”

“Are you troubled by trapped gas, bloating, and constipation?” asked the woman.

Cal hesitated. His eyes flicked down to his stomach. “It’s travel weight,” he said. “It’ll fall right out—”

“I know I was,” the woman said, placing a hand at the side of her mouth as if letting Cal and the crew in on a big secret. “But then I discovered Shiteofast—”

Click . The image changed to show a muscly young man with shiny green skin go gliding through a park on some kind of hovering rollerblades, laughing to himself as he twirled around, his pristine white shirt billowing open to show off an impressive...

Cal counted.

…sixteen pack.

The guy gave a final twirl and stopped, then produced a bottle of orange liquid from a pocket in his pants and drank deeply from it, the sunlight reflecting off his sculpted chest.

“Sunjizz,” announced a voiceover, as a music sting played. “Impregnate your thirst.”

“What the fonk does that mean?” Cal asked, but the image changed again.

A broad figure with a face that was mostly nostrils and hair shouted aggressively into the camera. “Parboil! Eight minutes! No more, or you ruin it! DON’T RUIN IT, OR I KILL YOU! ”

Click . The screen changed again. Two news anchors sat side by side in a studio, huddled close together. It was only when they started speaking, alternating each word, that Cal realized they weren’t two people, but a single two-headed entity. On the bridge, everyone’s eyes ping-ponged between the heads as they took it in turns to speak.

“Feared.”

“Pirate.”

“Reduk.”

“Topa.”

“Was.”

“Arrested.”

“Today.”

“By.”

“Christ,” said Cal. “This is giving me vertigo.”

Mercifully, the image then cut away to some sort of ball game, where a dozen child-sized competitors in matching shirts were being kicked around by a much larger opponent who laughed as he held an oblong ball above his head, well out of their reach.

“Now this looks like it might be fun,” Cal began, but the image changed immediately to show a colorful studio set that Cal recognized. “Wait, wait. Hold on this one,” he said.

On screen, two mostly human-looking children were playing something like pat-a-cake—space pat-a-cake, probably—while two puppets attempted to copy them with very little success.

“This was on the ship,” Cal murmured, as the puppets misjudged the timing of a cross-pat and slapped each other in the face. Cal chuckled. “Classic.”

“No!” giggled one of the kids. “Do it like this !”

The children went twice as fast as before. The mouths of both puppets fell open as they watched, then they slowly turned to face each other and began flailing wildly with their hands, screwing their eyes shut as they slapped at each other.

“Now this is entertainment,” Cal remarked. “Couple of cute kids. Couple of puppets. What more could you want?”

“Hmm-mm,” agreed Loren, her eyes fixed on the screen.

“It’s pretty great,” Mech said.

Cal was a little surprised that Mech was in agreement, but didn’t dare look over at the cyborg in case he missed something good. It was all good, of course—this was classic television—but something truly amazing might happen and he didn’t want to miss it.

“This is awesome,” said Miz.

Splurt, who had been exclusively staring at Loren, rotated one eye to look at the screen. After a moment, the other eye turned, too. He rippled gently.

“Isn’t it, though?” said Cal without looking at him. “Who doesn’t love a puppet?”

“Normally, I ain’t a fan,” said Mech. “But these two? They got it. Those motherfonkers speak to me.”

At the back of the bridge, Tyrra watched the screen, the deepening lines of a frown creasing her forehead. “What are you talking about? This is terrible,” she remarked.

“Hush your mouth!” Cal gasped, still not turning.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Loren murmured. “This is great.”

“It is lowest common denominator puerile nonsense,” said Tyrra.

“You’re lowest common denominator puerile nonsense,” Miz told her, her brown eyes locked firmly on the screen. She wagged her tail and sighed happily. “I totally fonking love these guys.”

“Agreed,” said Cal. “Which is your favorite? Both, right? It’s both.”

“Both,” said Loren, Mech, and Miz at the same time. Splurt said it, too, albeit in the form of a gelatinous wobble.

“I’m afraid I must side with Mistress Tyrra on this one,” said Kevin. “I don’t see the appeal. There’s no narrative, no real driving conflict, and if it’s supposed to be funny, it’s missing one very important element.”

“And what element is that?” Cal asked.

Kevin said nothing for quite a long time. Quite how long, Cal couldn’t tell, because the antics of the puppets were keeping him so entertained that time had lost all meaning.

“Voice, switch it off,” said Tyrra. “Change it to something else.”

Kevin said nothing.

“Voice!” Tyrra barked.

The screen changed to show the star system map again. Everyone who had been watching the screen leaned forward, as if they could somehow follow the puppets to wherever they had gone.

“Wait, no! Put it back,” Cal said.

“Yeah, man, not cool,” Mech barked. “Get that shizz back on.”

“Please, I need to know what happened,” Loren pleaded.

“It was just getting good!” said Miz, adding her voice to the choir.

Splurt trembled.

“You tell him, buddy!” said Cal. “Kevin, get the puppets back. That’s an order.”

“Timing ,” said Kevin.

The protestations became a confused silence.

“What? What the fonk are you talking about?” Cal asked.

“Doesn’t matter, sir,” said Kevin. “Either you’ve got it, or you don’t. I do, they very much didn’t. And, alas , the signal has been lost. I’m afraid I’m unable to bring it back.”

Everyone who was seated sank back into their chairs like they’d just completed a marathon. Splurt sagged down, appearing to partially melt into a puddle. Even Mech’s metal frame drooped for a moment, but he was the first to recover.

“What’s the big deal?” he asked. “It was a damn puppet show.”

“And, like, it wasn’t even a good one,” scowled Miz.

“They were just slapping each other,” said Loren. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Uh, everything. It was hilarious,” said Cal, although, even he was starting to wonder if it really had been. “Kind of. I think.”

He blinked a few times, then shook his head which suddenly felt like it was full of cotton candy.

“I think… I think I hated it,” Mech announced. “Looking back, I mean. Yeah. I fonking hated it.”

“It totally sucked,” said Miz.

“Awful,” Loren agreed.

Splurt pulled himself together, rotated both eyes in different directions, and went back to watching Loren.

“It had its moments,” said Cal, still not quite ready to shizz all over what had, until it stopped, been the best thing he’d ever seen. “Anyway, looks like this system is big into TV,” he said. “Eight trillion channels. That’s a lot of choices.”

“Not if they are all as terrible as that one, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal closed his eyes for a moment. The puppets looked back at him from the darkness, their mouths slack, their plastic eyes staring blankly.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said, snapping his eyelids open again.

“You are all very strange,” observed Tyrra, leaning back in her chair.

Miz winced as she remembered what she’d said. “Uh, yeah. Sometimes. But, like, I don’t really think you’re lowest common denominator puerile nonsense. I don’t know why I said that, exactly.” She sighed. “So, you know, sorry or whatever.”

“Apology accepted,” said Tyrra, after some consideration. “But you’re all still very strange.”

Cal straightened himself in his chair, still shaking off the foggy feeling in his brain. “We have our moments,” he admitted. “Lore—Uh, honey? Set a course for… whatever it’s called. The planets,” he said. “The planets we saw.”

“The Viarox system,” said Loren.

“There. Right. That’s it. The Viarox system. Let’s go there,” he said. He tightened his belt across his chest, ignoring the empty faces of the puppets that flashed up whenever he blinked. “And don’t spare the space-horses!”

Eleven

Cal and Loren stood at a mostly opaque wall at the far end of the docking bay, waiting for a security scan to complete. A cheerful animated face made up of a series of lights smiled back at them from the wall’s surface as a scanner beam gave them what was, by Cal’s count, a thrice-over .

“How long is this going to take?” he asked, once the scan had head-to-toed them both another few times.

“Results coming up in just a jiffy, pardner!” said the face, its animated mouth starting to move a full second after the voice began, and stopping a little too soon. “I’m Perko, your friendly animated assistant!”

“Yeah, you said that already,” Cal told it.

“Twice,” Loren added.

“Today’s security scan is sponsored by Ringclean Fresh Wipes. Smell the freshness. Feel the freshness. Taste the freshness.”

Cal and Loren exchanged glances but chose not to pass comment. Splurt was nestled in his usual position on Cal’s shoulder, but half-turned so he could keep close watch over Loren.

“I’m fine, Splurt,” Loren said. “Seriously. You don’t have to keep staring at me.”

“Security scan complete!” Perko announced. “No narcotics, other contraband, or contagious diseases detected. You are now clear to… A, enter North Logus. B, ask for information. C, return to ship. D, hear these options again.”

“What do you think? B?” Cal asked Loren. “Or A? Should we just go A and wing it?”

“You are now clear to… A, enter North Logus. B, ask for information,” Perko repeated.

“No, let’s be sensible for once. B,” said Cal. “Let’s go B.”

“C, return to ship. D, hear these options again,” said Perko, beaming from ear to digital ear.

“B,” said Cal.

Perko smiled expectantly.

“B ,” Cal repeated, with slightly more emphasis. “Ask for information.”

“As you wish, pardner!” chirped Perko. “Where have you come from today?”

“What’s that got to do with…?” Cal began, then he shook his head. “No. We want to ask you information.”

“I’m Perko, your friendly animated assistant!”

“We know,” said Loren.

“B,” said Cal.

“You are now clear to… A, enter North Logus…”

“Jesus. Is it me?” Cal asked. “Am I saying it wrong?”

“B, ask for information. C, return to ship. D, hear these options again.”

“B!” said Cal, enunciating it as clearly and as loudly as he could. “Fonking B.”

“Great choice!” said Perko.

“Finally!”

“You chose… D, hear these options again!”

“No! No, I didn’t! I chose—”

“A, enter North Logus. B—”

“OK. Fonk it. A. We choose A,” said Cal. “We’ll figure it out when we’re in there.”

“Ask for information. C, return to ship—”

“A! A, A, A. We choose A,” said Cal. He thumped a fist on the wall. “Just open the fonking door.”

“Sorry, pardner, I’m afraid I didn’t get that,” said Perko. “Would you like to ask me for information?”

“Yes,” said Loren.

“No,” said Cal, who now just wanted the whole hellish ordeal to be over.

Loren turned to him. “What? I thought we were going to—”

“Great choice!” chimed Perko.

“Christ, what now?” Cal groaned.

“You chose… C, return to ship! Very well! Have a nice day, pardner. Come back real soon.”

The face went dark. Cal and Loren both stared in silence at the spot where it had been.

“I fonking hate this place,” Cal muttered after a while.

At the sound of his voice, the face reappeared. “Hi there! I’m Perko, your friendly animated assistant.”

A light appeared above the face and began to wash over Cal and Loren. “Today’s security scan is sponsored by Ringclean Fresh Wipes. Smell the freshness. Feel the freshness. Taste the freshness.”

“Yeah,” Loren sighed. “Me too.”

* * *

Several long, frustrating minutes later, Perko eventually grasped their desire to choose ‘A! Option fonking A, you animated piece of shizz!’ He slid aside and the wall parted, revealing a much larger room filled with people and, through the windows beyond, the towering splendor of North Logus.

Tall, twisting spires stretched toward the azure sky, their surfaces shining like polished silver and gold. Flying vehicles, no larger than cars, weaved between them, gliding smoothly in their hundreds, all banking and twisting in turn like the body of a giant metal snake.

It all looked so clean. So high-tech. So futuristic .

“Now, this is more like it,” said Cal, buzzing with excitement. “This is what I call an alien city. Fancy towers. Pointy bits. Flying cars. This is what I’ve been waiting for. This place is perfect .”

He let out a gasp. “Wait! I bet they have one of those mind-reading restaurant places. You know, like Nana Joan’s? Man, that would be awesome. I’m going to think about Five Guys , just in case.” His eyes widened. “No, wait! In-N-Out Burger ! No, wait! Both!”

Loren’s eyes crept to his stomach. He’d switched out the bloodstained Betty White t-shirt for one featuring a cartoon image of a semi-naked Danny DeVito, and had assured Loren that it was hilarious. Miz had made some comment about it being a self-portrait, but Cal had laughed it off. They were nothing alike. DeVito was shorter and had less hair, for a start.

“Maybe you should really concentrate on a salad bar,” Loren suggested.

“It’s travel weight,” Cal insisted. “It’ll—”

“Fall right out of you. Right,” Loren replied. “Let me know when it’s going to happen and I’ll stand back.”

Keen to change the subject, Cal looked around the room. It resembled an airport arrivals area, with hundreds of people bustling around, most of them dragging floating suitcases behind them from clips attached to their wide belts.

The belts were a common theme. In fact, the fashion of the place looked quite samey in general. There were a lot of shiny jumpsuits, spiky haircuts, and high collars going on, and Cal wondered if there was some sort of reunion happening in town for former members of 1970s Earth glam rock bands.

Aside from a few outliers who Cal guessed were probably tourists, everyone was wearing bulky goggles on their faces. They covered them from midway up the nose to halfway down the forehead, and when Cal got a better look at a pair as someone swept past him, he noticed that there were no lenses, just a blank sheet of metal or plastic.

“How do they see?” wondered Loren, watching the crowds.

“Probably with their ears, or fingers, or some weird alien shizz,” said Cal. “Best not to dwell on it or it’ll creep us the fonk out.”

Standing on his tiptoes, he peered over the sea of spiky haircuts. “I think I see the way out,” he announced. “There’s a door right over…”

He stopped when a metal box the size of an old-style portable TV came flying up and stopped in front of them.

For a moment, the screen remained dark, then a series of lights appeared, forming an irritatingly familiar face.

“I’m Perko, your friendly animated assistant!” it announced. “Welcome to Immigration Control. Please answer the following multiple-choice questions.”

Cal groaned. “Jesus.”

“Question one,” began Perko. “Of twenty-six…”

* * *

Back on the Currently Untitled, Tyrra and Miz sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table in silence. Miz drummed her claws on the tabletop. Tyrra used her tongue to dig around in the gaps between her teeth.

Somewhere further back in the ship, Mech stomped around doing whatever repairs he could while he waited for the new warp disk.

“So,” said Miz.

Tyrra finished exploring her tooth gaps and looked across the table. “So.”

“You want to, like, do something?” Miz asked.

Tyrra gave a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t know. Like what?”

“I don’t know. Like, training, or whatever?” Miz suggested. “Like fight training?”

Tyrra thought about this, then shrugged again. It was even less enthusiastic than the last one had been, which was really saying something.

“I guess so.”

“We don’t have to. We could, like, do something else. Or, you know, just do nothing.” Miz’s snout furrowed. “I don’t really care. You’re the one who kept going on about training all week.”

“Yes. It is vital. To fight is the Symmorium way,” Tyrra said, almost on auto-pilot. She shifted awkwardly. “It’s just… it gets kind of…”

“Kind of what?”

“Boring,” said Tyrra, the word slipping out despite her best efforts to stop it. Once the box was open, though, there was no closing it again. “I know I asked you to help me train, but I’m bored of fighting all the time. I do not even take joy in hurting the human now. I merely pity him, like one would pity a pet, or an idiot.”

“He will totally love hearing himself described like that,” Miz said, her lips curving into a smirk. “You should tell him that when he gets back.”

“I will,” said Tyrra.

Miz adjusted her slouch into a different, not quite as slouchy one. “So, what do you want to do instead of training?”

“I don’t know,” Tyrra admitted. “Training is all I have known.”

Her dark eyes met Mizette’s. They were usually devoid of most emotions except those immediately connected with violence, but now there was something almost hopeful about them.

“What do you like to do?” Tyrra asked. “When not in battle, I mean.”

Miz opened her mouth to respond, then hesitated. What did she like to do?

She quickly made a mental list of her favorite activities. It was quite a short list. ‘Sitting down’ featured in it twice, and the rest of the entries were mostly variations on the word ‘sarcasm.’

“Oh, you know, the usual stuff,” she offered.

Tyrra leaned closer, her voice taking on an excited breathless edge. “Like what?”

“Just, like, you know,” said Miz, waving a clawed hand.

The Symmorium girl gave a brief shake of her head. “I do not know. What? Name some things.”

Miz stared back, like a rabbit that had been caught in headlights while taking stock of its life choices. Or, more accurately, its lack of them.

Seriously? Did she do anything ? Surely she enjoyed something that didn’t involve making disparaging remarks about others or resting in a chair.

“Might I suggest something you enjoy, ma’am?” asked Kevin.

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Whatever,” said Miz, trying to hide her visible relief.

“I seem to recall you mentioning that you were fond of star charts,” Kevin said. “I believe you said you found it therapeutic to plot courses between distant systems, avoiding as many naturally occurring obstacles as possible.”

Miz gazed blankly up at the ceiling.

“You got really rather animated about it,” Kevin insisted.

Miz continued to stare.

“Or was that Mistress Loren?” Kevin wondered. “You know, on reflection, I think it was. Apologies for the intrusion.”

Mizette rolled her eyes—something else that had made it onto her short list of hobbies—and then reluctantly lowered them to Tyrra. The girl was still watching her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Math,” said Miz, clutching desperately for an activity—any activity.

Tyrra frowned. “Huh?”

“Math. We could do math,” Miz said. Cal’s words rang loudly in the mostly empty space inside her head. “It’s, like, important. Or whatever. Everyone needs to know math. We should totally do math.”

Tyrra’s bench creaked a little as she sat back and contemplated this. “Math,” she said, rolling the word around inside her cavernous mouth, as if tasting every letter. “I have heard of it, but have never tried it for myself.” Finally, she nodded. “Yes. Let’s do that. Let’s do math. It sounds fun.”

“Oh, totally,” said Miz, relieved that her boundless apathy and lack of motivation was no longer under scrutiny. “It’ll be great.”

She looked to the ceiling. “Kevin?”

“Ma’am?”

“Do you know, like, math stuff?”

“I can run twelve bajillion calculations a second,” Kevin replied.

Miz waited.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes, ma’am,” Kevin confirmed. “I know ‘math stuff.’”

“OK, that’s awesome. Can you teach Tyrra?” Miz asked.

“I can certainly give it a try.”

“Cool,” said Miz. “And, like, is ‘bajillion’ even a real number?”

“Oh, it’s a very real number, ma’am,” said Kevin. “It’s arguably more real than the other numbers, in fact. And I know all the numbers. Six. That’s one. And one , in fact. That’s two.”

Miz blinked slowly. “Right…”

“Two examples of numbers, I mean. I’m not saying that one is two,” Kevin explained. “The point is…”

He hesitated.

“Actually, I don’t recall what the point is, but I’m sure it was a good one,” Kevin said. “Now, if everyone would be so kind as to settle down and face this way…”

A slide was projected onto one of the kitchen’s white walls. It showed a series of bewildering looking equations, all upside-down.

“Then we shall begin.”

* * *

If anything, their second encounter with Perko had been even more frustrating than the first—something which Cal would have said was impossible just ten seconds before the immigration interview had started.

Each of the questions came with a number of possible answers, and each answer then drilled down to a deeper level of questioning related to the initial choice. At least, that was the theory. The questions were all simple enough—Where have you come from? What is your business on Logus? Are you here with the intention of committing a crime or terrorist offences? —but the process of answering them was made tediously painful by the grinning Perko and his inability to follow basic fonking instructions.

At one point, somewhere around question Seventeen C (ii), Loren had been forced to hold Cal back and stop him from challenging Perko to a fight. During the argument that followed, the timer had elapsed on the immigration quiz, and they’d been forced to go back to the beginning and start all over again.

But then, finally, they made it. They answered the questions to Perko’s satisfaction, he wished them a safe onward journey, then he fonked off to make someone else’s life a living hell for the next forty minutes.

Cal had immediately sprinted for the door and out onto the street before any other friendly animated assistants could intercept him.

Outside, his stress quickly started to ebb away, as the warmth of the afternoon sunshine caressed his face. He stood there, eyes closed, face upturned to the heavens, just enjoying the sense of freedom. The sense of liberty. The sense of not having Perko misunderstanding every single thing he said and going back to the start every two minutes to begin over.

The sidewalk was soft and spongy beneath his feet, like the rubber mats often placed under playground equipment in the hope that children would miraculously bounce, rather than shatter every bone in their bodies when they plunged from the top of the climbing frame.

All around him, the glam rock goggle army swarmed in all directions through the wide, traffic-less streets, their eyes covered by those windowless headsets they wore. They swerved to avoid him whenever they drew close, backing up his theory that they saw with some other part of their body. Otherwise, there was some extremely lucky guesswork going on.

“So, where to first?” asked Loren, stepping onto the sidewalk beside him.

As she did, a purple-skinned man in a garish suit jacket and, to Cal’s mind, the least convincing hairpiece in the history of the universe, jumped out of the crowd brandishing a round object in the palm of one hand and staring at it intently.

“Hey!” the man yelled, stopping directly in front of Loren.

Splurt reacted instantly. He launched himself off Cal’s shoulder, expanded rapidly, then flomped down over the man, encasing him from head to toe in a mound of gelatinous green gloop.

Trapped inside Splurt’s body, the man’s eyes flicked up from the device in his hand, gazed briefly and hopelessly out at Cal and Loren, then returned to their original position. A single bubble rolled up from his mouth and went plomp when it reached Splurt’s surface. When it popped, Cal could’ve sworn he heard the word, “Help.”

“Hey, buddy, I don’t think he was going to hurt us,” Cal said, smiling reassuringly at Splurt. “Great reactions, though. Top marks. But, I think you can safely let him go.”

Splurt remained motionless for a while, his eyes rotating between Cal, Loren, and the man currently trapped inside Splurt’s own body.

He rippled faintly.

“No! God, no, don’t do that,” Cal said.

Splurt wobbled.

“No, it won’t grow back,” Cal said. “Just let him go before he suffocates. If we later decide that, yes, in hindsight we should rip his head off, you’ll be the first to know.”

Splurt stood his ground for a few more seconds, then sproinged into the air, shrank to normal size, and splatted onto Cal’s shoulder.

Once Splurt was settled, Cal reached up, carefully removed the toupee from Splurt’s head, and replaced it on the head of the man in the awful jacket. The man said nothing, but adjusted it absent-mindedly, never once tearing his eyes away from the device in his hand.

“Sorry about that. You startled him,” said Loren. “Are you OK?”

“What?” He spared her the briefest glimpse. “Uh, yeah. Yeah,” he said, still distracted by the object he held. “I’m fine. Map?”

Loren frowned. “Sorry, what?”

“Map,” said the man. “You want a map? I got maps. I’m the map man.”

“They have a map man!” said Cal, in a way that suggested this was the most adorable thing he’d ever heard.

“You want one?” asked the map man.

“Uh, yes. Sure,” said Loren, but Cal quickly stepped in.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let’s not rush into this. Let me handle this. I’ve dealt with his type before,” said Cal.

Loren frowned. “Map men?”

“Not… No, not map men specifically. I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually heard that term until now.” Cal’s eyes narrowed. “I mean charlatans. Con men.” He eyeballed the map man. “How much?”

The map man said nothing, just chuckled gently as he stared at the device.

“Hey, guy. Guy!” said Cal, clicking his fingers in the man’s face. It seemed to temporarily break the spell, and the man looked up, annoyed.

“What is it?” he asked tetchily.

“Hey, you stopped us, buddy!” Cal reminded him. “This map you’re hawking. How much is it?”

“Nothing. It’s free,” the map man replied. Before he’d reached the final word, he was back to watching the palm-sized device.

“Free? Seriously?” Cal spluttered. “Awesome! We’ll take six.”

Loren shot him a sideways look. “Why six?”

“In case we lose five,” Cal said.

“How are we going to lose five maps?” Loren asked, then she remembered who she was dealing with. “Yeah, sure. Let’s take six.”

They waited for the map man to respond. Meanwhile, several dozen Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowies swerved around them and walked on by.

“Hmm?” asked the map man, after a while.

“Jesus, what the fonk is that thing? What are you looking at?” Cal asked, reaching for the device.

The man whipped it away, his face twisting in rage. “Don’t touch it!” he hissed, and Cal caught a glimpse of movement on a little round screen.

Cal held his hands up to calm the situation. On his shoulder, Splurt rippled.

“No! Still no with the head thing,” Cal warned, shooting the blob a stern look.

“Here, take the maps,” yelled the map man. “Take all of them!”

A bundle of papers were thrust against Cal’s chest. “Take them! Now you can be the map man!”

“What? No, I don’t want to be the map man,” Cal said. He shot Loren a pleading look. “Don’t let me be the map man.”

His protestations went unheeded. The (now former) map man’s eyes had drifted back to his screen, and his expression had slackened off to the point of being almost completely vacant.

“Take them all,” he mumbled. Then, leaving Cal with the maps, he shuffled off and was soon carried along by the passing crowds.

“What a weird guy,” Loren remarked.

“Yeah, we map men are a quirky bunch,” said Cal, unfolding one of the maps. “I mean, who the fonk has a round TV? Why is that a thing?”

“Why wouldn’t it be a thing?” Loren asked.

“Because we see in rectangles,” said Cal, smiling just a smidge too patronizingly for Loren’s liking. He snorted. “I mean, it’s not like our eyes see things as…”

He looked around them, his eyes rotating in their sockets. After a few seconds of this, they both widened in surprise. “Holy shizz… This changes everything,” he whispered.

“Cal,” said Loren.

“Huh?”

She pointed to the bundle in his hands. “The map.”

“Oh! Right. Yes. Sorry.”

He stole another wide-eyed look at the city around them, then opened up the map.

Cal spent the next few seconds solemnly regarding the page.

He turned it over and checked the back.

“Blank,” he sighed.

“What do you mean?” asked Loren, leaning in.

“I mean it’s blank.”

Sure enough, Loren saw that Cal was holding a rectangle of featureless black paper. “Did you check the other side?”

“This is the other side,” Cal said. He flipped it back. “That’s the first side.”

“There’s nothing on it,” Loren pointed out.

“I’m aware there’s nothing on it,” said Cal. “That’s what I said. It’s blank.”

He was about to fold the map up again and check one of the others when a pale green light illuminated just below the surface of the paper.

“Wait… Hold up. Something’s happening,” he said.

The light brightened. Another light appeared beside it. Then a few more. At first, Cal thought they would form the outline of the city. The terrible realization of what was actually happening hit him just a fraction of a second too late for him to put a stop to it.

“Hey there, pardner!” said the smiling face that now filled the page. “I’m Perko, your friendly animated assistant! Where would you like to go today?”

“Kill me,” Cal sobbed.

“You asked for… Suicide Booths!” chirped Perko. “Is this correct?”

Screwing up the page, Cal tossed it into the air, then kicked it on the way down. He and Loren watched as it went sailing above the pedestrians, before becoming impaled on a particularly well-gelled head of spiky hair.

“Fonk it,” Cal said, tossing the rest of the maps over his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”

Twelve

An hour later, Cal and Loren returned to the ship to find an alarm blaring and smoke billowing along the corridor. They also found Mech stomping out the last remnants of a fire in the kitchen.

“What the hell happened?” Cal demanded, as Mech frantically extinguished the last of the flames with a giant metal foot. “What did you do?”

“This wasn’t me!” Mech barked.

“Kevin? What happened?” asked Loren.

“I’m afraid I don’t really know, ma’am,” Kevin said. “I was trying to teach Mistresses Mizette and Tyrra math, when things went rather… awry.”

“Awry?” said Loren. “In what way?”

“In an ‘everything caught fire’ kind of a way, ma’am,” Kevin said.

“That sounds awry, all right,” Cal confirmed.

“It was most unexpected, sir. Everything had been going so smoothly until that point.”

“Until the point that everything spontaneously caught on fire?” asked Cal.

“Precisely, sir.”

Cal and Loren looked Mech up and down. His lower half, like most of the kitchen, was blackened with soot, and his face was all knotted up in anger. One of his feet glowed faintly red where it had been standing too long in the flames.

“You, uh, you know we have a fire extinguisher, right?” said Cal.

Mech’s jaws ground together. “What?”

“We have a fire extinguisher. It’s literally right there on the wall.”

Mech’s eyes very slowly followed Cal’s finger.

“No,” he grunted, after spending quite a long time staring at the bright red cylinder fixed to the wall beside the replicator. “I did not know we had a fire extinguisher.”

“Loren made us get one,” Cal explained. He put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “She’s so safety conscious!”

“You couldn’t have fonking told me?” said Mech.

“I mean, it’s bright red, we screwed it to the wall in a prominent position and it has ‘Fire Extinguisher’ written on it in big letters,” Cal replied. “So, I didn’t think we really had to… But sure. Make this our fault, if it helps you feel better.”

He gave Loren a final squeeze, then directed his attention back to the ceiling. “Are Miz and Tyrra OK?”

“Yes, sir. They are both fine. They ran out around the time the fire started, and are taking cover in Mistress Mizette’s room.”

Cal’s brow furrowed. “Taking cover? That doesn’t sound like them.”

“Wait, Kevin,” Loren began. “When you say they ran out around the time the fire started, was it before or after?”

Kevin’s reply came hesitantly. “I’m not… I’m not really sure, ma’am. I was rather caught up trying to break down the mathematical formulae involved in faster than light travel, and had come across rather an interesting problem.”

“What kind of problem?” asked Mech.

“Well, I ascertained that it’s impossible. Faster than light travel, I mean. It’s completely preposterous. It can’t be done,” Kevin said. “This led me to conclude that none of this is real, and that we’re living in a simulation created by some higher intelligence that…”

He fell silent for a moment.

“Wait, no. I forgot to carry a six,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Well, we sure dodged a bullet there.”

“Anyway, sir, I was working through the problem, pointing out some of the more fascinating aspects of string theory when everything caught fire and they ran away. It was most peculiar.”

“Did they say anything?” Cal asked.

“Before or after they left, sir?”

“Well… before. Obviously before.”

“Not really, sir. Mistress Mizette did request that I open the door a few times.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Cal pressed.

“Well, I’d invested rather a lot of effort in putting that presentation together, sir,” Kevin told him. “And I felt it only fair that everyone stuck around and listened until it was finished.”

Cal, Loren, and Mech exchanged glances. Splurt, meanwhile, watched protectively over Loren.

“What did Miz say exactly ?” asked Mech.

“I believe it was something along the lines of… ‘Kevin, open the door, or I swear I will set this place on fire.’”

Cal nodded. “Right. And then everything caught fire a moment later?”

Kevin let out a gasp. “Wait! You don’t think…? No! You don’t think Mistress Mizette had something to do with this?”

Cal sighed and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll go talk to her,” he said. “You guys do what you can to clean up in here.”

“What? Why the fonk should we clean up?” Mech barked, as Splurt hopped from Cal’s shoulder onto Loren’s. “Miz should be the one who cleans this shizz up. She made the mess.”

Cal patted him on the arm. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he said. “You want to be the one to tell her?”

Mech’s fingers bunched into fists. He muttered quietly, then uncurled them again.

“Fine. We’ll clean up. But I ain’t happy about it.”

“Your dissatisfaction is noted,” said Cal. He made a show of scribbling something in a small notepad cupped in his hand, then leaned closer to Loren and whispered, “Look. There’s nothing here. I’m just pretending to write it down,” just loud enough for Mech to hear.

“I hate you, man,” Mech said to Cal’s back, as Cal turned on his heels and left the kitchen.

“Noted,” said Cal, scribbling on his imaginary pad again. “And look, I’m even underlining it.”

Most of the smoke that had been filling the corridor had now drifted out through the open hatch at the back of the ship. A series of extractor fans had gobbled up the rest of it, and there was only the faint tang of charcoal in the air as Cal made his way back along the corridor to Mizette’s room.

He was about to knock when the door slid open, revealing a petulant-looking Miz, and an only marginally less petulant looking Tyrra. Miz was standing very close, and Cal was forced to lean back so he could meet her eye.

“Like, it wasn’t even our fault,” Miz said, before Cal could say anything.

“It’s—”

“He was, like, holding us hostage, or whatever.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I totally warned him what would happen if he didn’t let us out.”

“No, I know—”

“So, don’t even try to blame this on us. It’s all Kevin’s fault.”

“Well, I mean—”

The door slid closed between them.

A moment later, it opened again.

“Oh, and math is so lame.”

The door slid closed again. Cal stood in silence, feeling like a boxer who’d just taken a flurry of unexpected punches to the head.

“Well, that told them, sir,” Kevin remarked.

“I think they’ve learned their lesson,” said Cal. He leaned closer to the door and raised his voice. “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”

“Ugh! Whatever,” came the reply.

Cal straightened, looked the door up and down, and nodded. “Yeah. I think they learned their lesson.”

The door opened again as he started to turn away. Mizette poked her head out, darted her eyes in both directions along the corridor, then lowered her voice.

“So, like, is it serious?”

“The fire? It could’ve been serious.”

“No. Not the fire. You know what I mean.”

Cal had to confess that contrary to what she might believe, he had no fonking clue what she was on about.

“You. And her . Is it serious?”

Cal half-smiled, caught off-guard. “Seems like an odd time to ask.”

“Is it? Are you going to get, like, married or whatever?”

“Married?” Cal spluttered.

Mizette was staring back at him with absolute sincerity, the door held closed behind her head to stop Tyrra hearing her.

“No!” he said, his voice rising half an octave. “No, of course we’re not going to get married!”

“Oh. So it’s not serious, then?” Miz asked.

“Well, I mean—”

“Not, like, serious serious?”

“Well—”

Miz’s eyes shone, wide and trusting and hopeful. Cal shuffled on the spot, willing the floor to open up beneath him.

“I mean, I guess not,” he said.

The look of relief on her face spurred him on. “Not serious serious, no. It’s just…”

“Fun?” Miz guessed.

“Yes! It’s fun.”

“Not serious?”

“Not serious serious,” Cal confirmed.

“OK,” said Miz. She looked him up and down, slightly salaciously. Behind her, Cal saw her tail wag. “Good to know.”

She stepped back and the door closed between them. Cal waited for a moment in case she opened up to quiz him some more, but then heard the murmur of Miz and Tyrra talking together, and decided his role in the conversation was probably over.

Tiptoeing back along the corridor, Cal peeked around the kitchen doorframe to make sure nobody was watching, then scampered past before he could get roped into helping with the tidy-up.

Once safely by, he made for the bridge, then stopped just inside the doorway.

Liquid spurted ineffectually from a single sprinkler head on the ceiling. There was no pressure to it, and it drizzled fat blobs of water in a dotted vertical line below it like a shower head in a cheap roadside motel. Albeit without the imminent fear of being murdered.

Unfortunately, unimpressive as the spray was, the sprinkler head was positioned directly above Cal’s chair. Water pooled in his seat, going plink-puhplink-plink as the drops continued to fall.

“Well,” Cal sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “Isn’t that just awesome ?”

* * *

The Grumptch threw himself at the chainlink fence. His leathery palms felt a tingle from the electrical current that surged through the fence, but the thick skin insulated him enough that he was able to hold on. He scrambled up, the fur on his neck standing on end, blood oozing through the cracked shell on his back.

Arms that—according to the news, at least—had torn innocent people limb from limb burned from the effort as he heaved himself up toward the jagged top of the fence, and the assortment of blades and pointy things welded to the frame. This was going to hurt. A lot.

Still, it was better than the alternative.

A Plasma blast scorched a hole through the metal beside him, spurring him on.

“No, no, no, no,” the Grumptch sobbed, heaving himself up toward freedom, toward salvation. Toward a fonking big nail that passed through his palm with a pop , forcing a scream through his jagged piranha-like teeth.

From not too far back in the darkness of the alleyway, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and the whine of a weapon charging.

Plasmoid was coming.

Locking his teeth together, the Grumptch kicked and scrabbled up the fence, his skin snagging and tearing as he dragged his weight over the top.

He yanked his hand sharply, and the nail came free with a sickening schlurp . From the other side of the fence, he found himself staring right down the throat of Plasmoid’s cannon as it ignited, and knew there was no time to climb. No time to wait. No time to do anything but kick back from the fence and surrender himself to the arms of fate.

He launched himself backward just as the top of the fence erupted, showering him in fragments of molten-hot metal. He was almost grateful for them as, for a moment, they took his mind off the fall, and the fact that he was about to hit the—

He slammed onto the pockmarked street with enough force to crack the shell on his back. Pain exploded down his spine as all the soft, fleshy areas that were never designed to be uncovered were suddenly exposed to the cold night air.

No time to fix it. No time to lose. No time. No time.

The Grumptch rolled onto his front and, and somehow found the strength to immediately launch himself to his feet. The alleyway was long and narrow, and Plasmoid was an excellent shot. She’d missed him deliberately those last few rounds, he had no doubt about that. It added to the drama. The viewers loved it.

The point was, in this alleyway, she could shoot him any time she wanted, and there was a whole lot of alleyway left before he reached the end.

And what then? He’d lost his Preypad, so he had no maps, no route markers, no idea where he had to go. He’d once seen an episode where someone had dismantled a Hovercam and built a new Preypad from the parts, but the Grumptch wouldn’t have the first clue where to start, even if he could catch one of the drones.

No, brainpower wasn’t really his strong point.

But he was not without his talents.

Throwing himself sideways, the Grumptch smashed through the wooden wall of the building beside him. Cannon-fire flared along the alley as he stumbled into a large rectangular room.

No, not a room. ‘Room’ wasn’t quite accurate. It was a space . It was an area of a building that might, with some work, eventually become a room. The walls and floor were bare and untreated. Wires hung from the ceiling and poked through holes in the skirting.

There was no furniture, or even a suggestion that furniture might feature in the space’s immediate future.

It didn’t have much, but what the not-yet-a-room did have was the one thing the Gruntch had hoped for.

It had a door.

He hobbled for it, leaving a trail of viscous clear fluid that oozed from his broken shell, and a spattering of blood from his many, many assorted wounds.

How long had they been chasing him? Four hours? Five? When had he last stopped to catch his breath? When had he last rested? When had he last done anything but run and hide and fight?

They’d given him a glass of water after that Hovercam had malfunctioned and he’d been forced to do a reshoot of his frantic scrabble through the Belchpits, but that had been hours ago and he’d been through hell since then.

He clattered against the doorway and spun into the next room, almost tripping over a pile of metal scaffolding poles.

This room was more of a work in progress than the last one, and a DecoDroid turned at the sound of him entering, spraying a mist of magnolia paint onto the floor before it could deactivate its nozzle.

The DecoDroid had been painting the lower part of the wall when the Grumptch had entered, and so it was currently short and squat. It became shorter and squatter still when a four-foot long section of scaffolding slammed down onto its domed head, rupturing its TumTanks and glugging gallons of paint onto the floor.

The Grumptch splashed through the paint, immediately regretting what he’d done. The DecoDroid almost certainly wasn’t going to hurt him—although, you could never tell what surprises the network had set up—and now he was going to leave a trail of footprints for Plasmoid to follow.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid . He could imagine what the Host’s narration would be saying right now, could practically hear the laughter of the studio audience. This would definitely end up in his Highlights Reel. Hell, it’d probably go viral.

There were two doors leading out of the room, both closed. He picked one at random and splashed through the puddle of paint toward it.

Maybe he could use the paint to his advantage, somehow. Maybe he could set a false trail and lead Plasmoid into a trap. He had a weapon now, crude as it was. Maybe, just maybe, he had a fighting chance.

He opened the door. The mouth of a cannon was waiting for him.

Plasmoid’s teeth glowed golden in the darkness beyond.

“Wait. Please. No.”

“This execution is sponsored by Ringclean Fresh Wipes,” Plasmoid announced. “Smell the freshness. Feel the freshness. Taste the freshness.”

And then, she fired.

Thirteen

Cal stood with his back to the screen as he addressed the rest of the crew. Once the kitchen had been cleaned up (a bit) and his chair dried off (a bit), he’d gathered everyone together to fill them in on what he and Loren had discovered.

Several minutes of bickering and accusation-flinging had followed, mostly between Mech, Miz, and Tyrra. During this, Cal had slipped unnoticed out into the corridor, collected Mech’s homemade musical instrument, the Blufflebag, from the cyborg’s room, and then returned to the bridge and blasted noise out of it until everyone shut the fonk up.

“It ain’t supposed to sound like that,” Mech had gone to great lengths to point out. “He’s just playing it wrong.”

“They’re space bagpipes. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to sound like, Mech. Face it, you birthed a monster,” Cal said, unceremoniously dumping the collection of pipes, sacks, and bellows on the cyborg’s console. “Now, everyone listen up. We have a problem.”

“Willful arsonism, sir?” enquired Kevin.

“No, not that,” Cal said. Miz was fixated on her claws and so didn’t notice him looking at her. Tyrra did, but just stared back with her big black eyes until he looked away again. “I mean another problem. It turns out that warp disks are expensive. Like, crazy expensive.”

“Of course they’re expensive,” said Mech.

“But, like, wow expensive,” said Cal. “What the fonk are they made of, angel’s tears?”

“Condensed sun plasma,” said Mech.

Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Yeah, that actually does sound like an expensive thing,” he conceded. “But, I mean, Jesus . They’re the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of credits. Each! That’s not even for, like, a pack of five. That’s for one warp disk. There’s no way we can afford one.”

“How much we got?” Mech asked.

“Just over six hundred credits,” said Cal.

“What about that sandwich you bought?” asked Loren. She was sitting behind her console, her arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was cool, and bordering on cold.

“OK, fine. Just under six hundred credits,” Cal corrected. “Also, if you get the chance, there’s this cute little space deli on the corner where they do this amazing…”

He caught the looks the others were giving him.

“Know what? Forget it. We have just under six hundred credits. Plus forty dollars I found in an old pair of pants.”

“So, what are you saying?” asked Miz, flicking her eyes up. “We don’t have enough?”

Kevin made a throat clearing sound. “Perhaps if someone had paid a little more attention in math class, they’d be able to figure that out for themselves…”

“No, we don’t have enough,” said Cal. “Not even close. That’s problem number one.”

“We got another problem?” Mech groaned. He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course we do. What now?”

“They don’t take credits. Not officially,” said Cal. “The sandwich guy did because, well…”

“You started crying,” Loren said.

“I pretended to start crying,” Cal said, apparently quite proud of this fact. “Guilt tripped the shizz out of him until he caved. It was pretty awesome.”

“I’ve never wanted you more,” said Loren.

Cal blinked in surprise. “Seriously?”

Loren shook her head and flashed him a deeply sarcastic look. “No.”

“Oh. Damn. Thought I was onto something,” he said. “Anyway, I think he just wanted us to leave so he could get back to the TV. They are fonking obsessed with that thing on this planet.”

He smiled wistfully. “Still. Great sandwich. Little heavy on the purple stuff, but otherwise highly recommended.”

The expression on Mech’s face snapped Cal out of his sandwich-inspired daze. “Right. Sorry. What was I saying?”

“They don’t take credits.”

“Yes. That’s right. They use something called Vajacox.”

Loren sighed. “Viacoin.”

Cal shot her a frown. “Seriously? The whole time in that store, I kept calling it Vajacox.”

“I know,” said Loren.

“Why didn’t you correct me?”

“I did. A bunch of times,” Loren told him. “So did the salesman. Again, a bunch of times. You just kept saying ‘Vajacox.’”

A crease appeared above Cal’s nose. He blinked slowly.

“And it isn’t Vajacox,” Loren explained.

“Right. OK.”

“It’s Viacoin.”

“I’ve got it now,” said Cal, tapping the side of his head. “It’s locked in.”

Mech, who had been impatient enough at the beginning of the conversation and been growing more so over the past few minutes, butted in.

“So, basically, we ain’t got any money?”

“Right. Yes. That’s it in a nutshell. We ain’t got any money,” Cal said. “And no money means no warp disk. And no warp disk means—”

“We’re fonked,” said Mech.

“Exactamundo.”

Cal clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, beaming broadly at the crew. “So, brainstorm time. We need a warp disk. We have zero money. Thoughts?”

Miz was the first to state the obvious.

“We could just, like, steal one.”

“Excellent suggestion, Miz. Great work,” Cal enthused. “Mech, write that down. ‘Steal one.’ Write that down.”

Mech mimed scribbling in the palm of his hand.

“Hilarious,” said Cal. “Actually write it down.”

“On what?” asked Mech. “I ain’t got a motherfonking notepad.”

“Forget it. Kevin, can you write the ideas down?”

“Very good, sir,” Kevin said. The screen changed from showing a view of the landing bay to showing a slide full of mind-bending formulae. “Would you like me to express it in the form of a mathematical equation, sir?”

“Could you express it in the form of words?”

“I suppose so, sir,” said Kevin. “It’s just, I did invest quite a lot of effort in—”

“Great! Write it in words, then,” Cal said, cutting the objection short.

There was a tut, a sigh, and then all the text on screen was cleared.

A moment later, the words: “Stael One,” appeared.

Another moment after that, they backspaced to fix the typo in the first word, then were typed out again.

“Happy, sir?”

“Perfect, Kevin. Thanks,” said Cal. “Only, maybe do bullet points. You know, like a little dot before each thing? It just makes it easier to follow.”

“As you wish, sir.”

The text indented as a little percentage symbol appeared in front of the first line.

“Wait, no, that’s not it,” Kevin said.

The percentage sign vanished, then came back again.

Cal raised a finger. “That’s—”

“The same one, yes, sir, I’m aware of that,” Kevin replied. The symbol was deleted again, leaving only a blinking cursor. “One moment. I know it’s in here somewhere…”

There was a protracted silence. Cal’s boots creaked as he shifted his weight.

“I’m sure I saw it yesterday.”

“Know what? Forget it. It doesn’t—”

“Wait, I have it, sir,” said Kevin. “The problem was that I wasn’t holding Shift.”

A percentage symbol appeared before the first line.

“Great. Nailed it,” said Cal, giving the ceiling a thumbs-up. He turned to the crew, all smiles, his eyes pleading with them to say nothing. “OK, first idea down, and it’s only taken five minutes. We are on fire!”

The sprinkler above his chair activated, drizzling water onto the towels he’d spread across it.

“Not literally on fire, Kevin.”

The sprinkler stopped.

Cal did his best to keep his smile going. “OK, so… anything else? Anyone else have any other suggestions?”

There was a thoughtful silence from the crew.

“Anything at all?” Cal asked, snapping his fingers a few times as if this would somehow provide the extra motivation they needed. “Come on, there are no bad ideas.”

“Well—” Kevin began.

“Except whatever Kevin was about to say,” said Cal. “There are no bad ideas except that. So, come on. Hit me. What have you got?”

“I think ‘steal one’ pretty much covers all our available options,” said Mech.

Loren shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t know what?” asked Mech.

“Basic flying skills?” Miz guessed.

“Ha! Bested!” said Tyrra, and she and Miz both pointed to each other without looking.

“I don’t know if we should steal one,” Loren said. “Do we really want to go down that route? Do we really want to become, you know, criminals?”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “You do know what ship you’re on, yes? You have been paying attention for these last six months? We’re already criminals. Like, a hundred times over.”

“No, I know we were technically criminals,” Loren said. “I mean, not me so much, but you were all…”

She cleared her throat and decided to take a slightly different approach.

“Whatever. The point is, we were criminals back there. Back in Zertex space. We aren’t criminals here. Nobody knows us in this sector. It’s a fresh start. Do we really want to blow that on the first planet we land on?”

“I mean… I don’t know,” said Cal. He looked around at the others. “Do we?”

“Works for me,” said Miz.

“We could have lives here,” Loren said. “Maybe not this planet, but this system, or this sector.”

“We have lives,” Cal pointed out.

“But real lives,” said Loren.

Cal ran the words through his head a few times, trying to process them. “You mean off the ship?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” said Loren. “I’m not saying right away, just… I don’t know. One day. Maybe.”

“Get off this damn ship and never have to see you fonks again for the rest of my life? OK, now I’m interested,” said Mech. His hydraulics whirred as he turned to Loren. “So, if we ain’t gonna steal one, what do you suggest?”

“I don’t know,” Loren admitted. “I mean, I guess we could always…”

“Don’t say it,” Cal pleaded. “Don’t you dare say it.”

“…get jobs.”

A silence fell, heavy and oppressive.

“I know I said there were no bad ideas, honey,” said Cal, his voice quiet. “But you didn’t need to take that as some kind of personal challenge. We’re not getting jobs .”

Loren tilted her head back and folded her arms. “Why not, honey ?”

“Well… because!” said Cal.

“Because…?”

“Because it’s not what we do! I’m a dashing space captain. You’re my loyal yet ragtag crew of loveable misfits. Plus Tyrra. We can’t get jobs .”

“Yeah, Loren. Like, I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that,” Miz scowled. “You suck.”

“I guess it ain’t a terrible idea,” said Mech. “There’s gotta be jobs we could do.”

“Seriously? You’re actually considering this?” asked Cal.

“An honest day’s work never hurt no one,” Mech said.

“Oh, yeah? Tell that to Great Uncle Charlie,” Cal said.

Mech frowned. “Who the fonk is Great Uncle Charlie?”

“My mom’s uncle. Or, I don’t know, like a weird friend of the family. I have no idea. The point is, he died. At work,” Cal said. He rocked back on his heels, his point proven. “So bang goes your theory!”

“What did he do?” asked Loren.

Cal flinched. “He was… in finance,” he said, then he sighed. “OK, I guess technically , he was a bank robber. A guard shot him eleven times in the chest. But the point still stands. Jobs are dangerous. We don’t want to get involved.”

The screen behind him changed to display several hundred lines of text.

“Would it help if I called up the local job listing board, sir?” Kevin asked.

“No! No, don’t go there, Kevin,” Cal instructed.

“He already has,” said Loren.

“Damn it, Kevin!” Cal groaned, turning to the screen. “I mean it. We do not want to go down that… Wait. ‘Game show contestants’? That’s a job? How is that a job?” His eyes lit up with excitement. “I could do that job. I’d be great on a game show.”

“Not enough legs, sir,” said Kevin.

Some of the sheen left Cal’s eyes. “Huh?”

“This particular opportunity is only open to members of species with four or more legs,” Kevin said.

“How do you know?”

“Well, it’s for a show called ‘We’ve All Got Four Legs,’ sir,” said Kevin. “Also, it states it quite plainly on the first line of the description.”

“Right.”

“In bold, sir.”

“OK, I see.”

“It says ‘Only open to—‘”

“Yes, Kevin. I get it. Although, I still think it’s kind of fonking leggist,” said Cal.

He pointed accusingly at the screen. “You see, Loren? You see how jobs screw you over? I could’ve been on TV, but no. Now I won’t be. That’s what jobs are like. That’s the kind of thing you’re trying to get us involved with.”

“This one looks interesting,” said Mech, gazing up at the screen. “‘Wanted: Armed ships to provide support for negotiators attempting to end a long-standing trade federation blockade.”

“No,” said Cal, emphatically shaking his head.

“No?” Mech echoed.

Cal continued to shake his head. “No. That has The Phantom Menace written all over it.”

“What the fonk does that mean?” asked Mech.

“Just trust me. We don’t want to get involved. We’ll be up to our necks in earnest little blond kids and CGI Muppets before we can say ‘Jesus Christ, this movie sucks.’ No. We’re not touching it. I’d rather go back to doing dishes at Nana Joan’s,” Cal said.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, breathing out some of his tension.

“Fonking Midi-chlorians.”

“Like, what about the next one?” asked Miz. “That one looks pretty cool.”

Cal craned his neck to glare at her. “Et you, Mizette?” he asked, coming within a whisker of getting the phrase correct.

Mech read the next listing aloud.

“Experienced bounty hunters sought to carry out the capture and restraint of known terrorist, Professor Pheloneous Nushtuk. Must have experience of dealing with robots.”

Cal wheeled around to face the screen. “OK, that sounds cool,” he admitted. “And we don’t just have experience of dealing with robots, one of us actually is a robot.”

“Not a robot,” Mech grunted.

Cal waved a hand. “We’ll put make-up on you. No one will be able to tell the difference.”

Mech looked around at Loren. “Why is he putting make-up on me?”

Loren could only shrug in response.

“What have we got on this Nushtuk character, Kevin?” Cal asked.

One-third of the screen was replaced by a black and white image of a long-necked figure with a shock of white hair.

“Jesus, it’s like Albert Einstein boinked E.T.,” said Cal. “We can take out this guy. Right? No problem. What’s the pay?”

“A hundred thousand, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal spluttered and pointed to the weedy, weak-chinned face on the screen. “A hundred thousand?! For taking down that guy? We could just nuke his house from orbit, then go pick up the check.”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, sir,” said Kevin. “They have stipulated that he must be brought in alive.”

“That’ll make it more difficult,” Loren added.

“Are you kidding me?” Cal snorted. “That guy? Midget Doc Brown? We’ll have him hogtied and spitting teeth by dinner time.”

He spun back to face the crew. “Ignore everything I said earlier, jobs are awesome ,” Cal declared. “Loren, fire up whatever’s left of the engines. Mech, space Skype whoever put this listing up and tell them we’re on it. Miz, Tyrra, try not to set anything on fire.”

He grinned, his hope restored. They were going to get money. They were going to get a new warp disk. Everything was going to work out just fine.

“This is going to be the easiest Vajacox anyone ever made!”

Fourteen

“Oh-shizz-oh-shizz-oh-shizz!”

Cal threw himself to the floor and covered his head just as Mech came screaming by above him, arms and legs spread, spinning like the throwing star of some giant ninja. With an ear-splitting screeeeech , Mech tore through the second-to-bottom container in a stack of Winnebago-sized metal shipping containers on Cal’s right, swore loudly, then exited the crate through the opposite wall.

Its structural integrity now royally fonked, the tower began to wobble. It did not spend much time in this wobbling phase, electing instead to proceed rapidly to the ‘about to fall on Cal’ stage of proceedings.

“Oh-shizz-oh-shizz-oh-shizz!” Cal ejected again, his feet slipping and sliding on the polished warehouse floor as he tried desperately to get traction.

A shadow grew around him. It was a large rectangular shadow, and one of many that were currently darkening the ground around him.

A boot found purchase. He kicked off, rolling clear just as the first of the containers slammed into the floor with a ka-thang that rattled his bones and strummed his nerve endings like a banjo.

Another of the crates fell in front of him, the impact shaking the ground. He slid like Bambi on ice, only without the benefit of twice as many legs to hold him upright. God, he wished he had four legs. If he had four legs, he’d have a much better chance of not falling on his ass. And, more importantly, he could’ve been on that game show now instead of fighting for his life in a skanky warehouse on the moon. Or a moon. Or whatever the fonk it was.

The first container that had fallen spent the next few moments teetering on one edge, trying to decide which way to fall. Cal knew, of course, that it would choose to fall in his direction. Of course it would. Everything always did.

Slipping, skidding, and flailing his arms in big flapping circles, he half-ran, half-skated toward a gap where the second container hadn’t quite wedged all the way against the other stack of crates on Cal’s left. He threw himself at it just as the first crate came down, landed heavily on his stomach, and let his momentum carry him through the gap.

The moment he emerged on the other side of the crate, a hand caught him. Well, it was more of a claw, really—a three-fingered robotic pincer that snapped closed on the back of his shirt and jerked him into the air.

The buttons on the front of the shirt popped, and he slipped out of it, clattered against the floor, then managed to get himself up and moving before the mechanized bamston could make another grab for him.

“You shan’t take me. Do you hear me?” hissed an amplified voice from elsewhere in the warehouse. “I shan’t let you take me. I shan’t!”

“Give up now, Nutmuck!” Cal warned. “Last chance.”

“It’s Nushtuk! ” the voice spat back. “How many times must I tell you? Nushtuk!”

“Whatever it is, surrender now, or I’ll be forced to—”

A volley of blaster fire hammered against the crate beside him. Cal ducked, covered his head with his hands again, and dashed madly for cover.

“Jesus! They’re shooting! They’re shooting!” Cal yelped. “Mech? Mech, where are you, buddy?”

The question was answered a moment later when Mech exploded through a crate just ahead of Cal. It was unlikely that he had done this on purpose, Cal thought, because of the way he’d come through the crate backward, shouting, “Motherfonker!” at the top of his voice.

He hit the wall of the crate across from the one he’d passed right through, but his momentum had been slowed enough that he didn’t continue through this one, instead merely crumpling a near-perfect outline of himself in the metal.

“Hey! Are you a sight for sore eyes,” said Cal, rushing over to him. “We need to…”

He looked down at Mech’s feet. Or, more accurately, his foot.

“Why do you only have one leg?”

“Why the fonk do you think I only have one leg?” Mech barked.

“Did it come off?”

“Well, it ain’t on ! So, I guess it fonking must have! Now duck.”

“Huh?”

Mech raised his arm until the cannon on his wrist was pointing directly at Cal’s face.

“I said—”

Cal ducked just as Mech opened fire. The robot who had grabbed and then subsequently shot at Cal lost its head. Its blue painted body marched on a few more steps on auto-pilot, then whatever signal had been driving it on was lost and it froze, mid-step.

Mech and Cal both watched the robot as it toppled sideways and hit the floor.

“We got one!” Cal said. “Holy shizz, we actually got one.”

“One of two fonking hundred!” Mech barked. “I knew we shouldn’t have rushed in. I said we should’ve scoped the place out, but oh no. You wanted to just charge on in and grab him.”

“He looked so harmless,” Cal protested. “How was I to know he had two hundred robots?”

“We could’ve looked through the motherfonking window!” said Mech.

A fist appeared through the container wall he was partially embedded in, and a three-clawed hand caught him by the head.

“I am holding you personally responsible for all this shizz,” Mech said, witheringly. And then, he was torn through the wall and Cal once again found himself at the foot of a teetering tower of storage containers.

“Aw, Jesus,” he groaned, running on the spot for a few seconds on the almost frictionless floor before finding enough purchase to launch himself clear.

CLANG! KA-TANK! BOOM!

The force of the sound waves caused by the falling containers shoved Cal on. He fought to stay upright by swinging his arms straight at his sides in an opposite rhythm to his penduluming legs. It was actually rather breathtaking to watch, but almost entirely ineffective.

He hit the floor chin-first. The pain immediately sprang him to his feet again, only for both legs to go in opposite directions as soon as he was upright.

Cal performed clumsy splits, slammed his ass-cheeks against the floor, then decided to allow himself to rest for two seconds while he composed himself and got his bearings again.

A second-and-a-half later, a robotic hand caught him by the hair. He roared in pain as he was swung in a wide arc, then released. He spent an almost-enjoyable few moments sailing through the air, and then his knees—one of the few parts of him yet to become acquainted with the floor—were introduced to it and he went careening helplessly on them toward a second robot a little farther along the warehouse.

A metal arm swung at him like a clothes-line attack. Just before it hit, Cal threw himself back until his head almost touched the floor. His slide limboed him under the arm, and as he passed under the robot he saw a little bundle of exposed wires in the gap where one of its legs met its crotch.

He grabbed the wires and let his momentum do the rest. As the wires were torn from their housing, the robot’s top half spun furiously in an anticlockwise direction until, with a boing , the torso shot into the air like a popped cork and then clattered onto the floor.

“Two down!” Cal called. “That’s ten percent!”

“It’s one percent!” Mech hollered from elsewhere in the warehouse. This was followed by a series of clanks and bangs and then the roar of several heavy things all falling over at the same time.

“Wait, what?” said Cal, consulting his fingers. “So two-hundred minus…”

Blaster fire tore up the floor beside him, forcing him to abandon his calculations. Rolling sideways, he found the upper half of the robot he’d destroyed and fumbled with the weapon attached to its arm.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, struggling with the complex clips. His eyes went to the robot who’d tossed him in this direction. It stalked toward him, easily keeping its balance on the floor, its weapon locking on.

With a roar, Cal snapped the clips holding the weapon in place, and squeezed the trigger. A series of crackling energy bolts lit up the glassy floor and went streaking toward their target.

Then past their target.

They exploded some distance away against one of the warehouse’s reinforced walls.

“OK,” Cal muttered, adjusting his aim. “Let’s try that again…”

* * *

Loren sat on the bridge of the Currently Untitled , her feet on her console as she quietly enjoyed a Twix . She’d become quite addicted to their combination of crunchy base, caramel topping, and delicious milk chocolate since Cal had first introduced her to them, to the point she was starting to get a little worried. She often found herself eating anything up to a third of a finger a day these days, and had doubled her morning sit-ups routine to compensate.

Splurt sat on the console beside her feet, watching her. Occasionally, he’d momentarily break away from watching her in order to watch the Twix , instead. Then, he’d remember what he was supposed to be doing, and pull himself together.

“Any word from Cal and Mech?” Loren asked, after shaving a fraction of an inch off the end of the chocolate-covered stick with her teeth.

“Not since they entered the complex, ma’am,” said Kevin. “So, I’m assuming everything’s fine.”

“I still think we all should’ve gone,” Loren said.

She broke a piece off the end of the Twix and tossed it to Splurt. He grew a mouth, caught the lump of chocolate, then swallowed it. It floated in his stomach like a tiny animal carcass suspended in preserving fluid.

“Master Carver was quite insistent that he and Master Mech would be fine,” Cal said. “He felt it best that you—”

“Stay behind to make sure Miz and Tyrra don’t blow anything up. Yes, I remember,” Loren said.

She shaved off another piece of chocolate, licked away a smear of caramel that snagged on her lips, then gazed through the viewscreen at the hangar-sized warehouse building ahead of them.

“I’m sure they’ll call if they require any help,” Kevin assured her.

“Yeah,” said Loren, chewing slowly. Kroysh , these things were good. “I’m sure they will.”

The door to the bridge slid open. Loren glanced back briefly as Miz slunk in and slumped into her chair with a sigh.

“I can’t believe we had to stay behind,” Miz scowled. “Like, what’s the point of coming all this way and just staying on the stupid ship?”

“To be fair, we were flying for under an hour,” Loren pointed out. “And when Cal asked if you wanted to go you said, ‘Ugh, why do I have to do everything around here?’”

“That didn’t mean I didn’t want to go,” said Miz.

Loren shrugged. “Sure seemed like it,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” said Miz, her chair creaking as she sat forward. “Where’s Tyrra?”

“I thought she was with you?”

“She said she was coming to the bridge,” said Miz.

Loren turned her chair all the way around so she was fully facing in Miz’s direction. Splurt splatted to the floor, rolled under the base of the seat, and peeked up at Loren from somewhere near her feet.

“She’s not here.”

“Like, I can see she’s not here,” Miz scowled. “That’s why I asked. If she was here, why would I have asked where she was? I’m not, like, an idiot.”

“I’m sure she’s fine. She won’t be far,” Loren said.

“She’s quite far, ma’am,” said Kevin.

Loren and Miz both looked up.

“Where is she?” Miz demanded.

“She asked me not to say, I’m afraid.”

Miz stood up, baring her fangs and flashing her claws. “Kevin, I’m going to ask this one more time, and then I’m totally going to disembowel you,” she warned. “Where is Tyrra?”

“Well, I don’t actually have bowels, ma’am…”

Miz growled.

“But I get the general idea. Very well, I shall tell you where Miss Tyrra is,” Kevin said. “But I fear you aren’t going to like it.”

* * *

“Help!” Cal wheezed, his legs kicking frantically as he hung suspended by the throat from a robot’s three-pronged grip. His face had turned a vibrant shade of purple that looked like one big bruise, and everything above his neck felt fatter than everything below. “Mech!”

“Kinda having problems of my own!” Mech barked from somewhere behind him.

He clanked onto the floor just at the edge of Cal’s peripheral vision. It was hard to be sure from that angle, and what with the onrushing black cloud of unconsciousness closing in around him, but Cal could’ve sworn the cyborg had now lost the other leg, and at least one arm.

“That is enough,” said a voice, and Cal instantly fell from the robot’s grip. He hit the ground with an unceremonious thud and an undignified bout of hacking and coughing, then lay there gulping in sweet, sweet air until the room stopped spinning and his head felt like it had returned to normal size.

“Alright, you evil shizznod!” he hissed, spinning and jumping to his feet.

A robot fist clanked him on the top of the head, instantly dropping him.

Blackness followed, but only for a moment.

“Ugh. Fonk. That was unnecessary,” Cal protested.

The ground undulated sickeningly beneath his hands as he pushed himself up onto his knees. That was far enough for now, he thought. Standing would hopefully feature in his future, but it was still a distant dream at this point.

A robotic figure, easily fifteen feet tall, stood over him. It was the same color as the other robots, but there all similarity ended. It had two thick legs that angled backward from its fat, spherical body. At the bottom of the legs were a pair of enormous three-toed feet, and something about the set-up made Cal think that, if it put its mind to it, this robot could really jump.

Two stubby arms stuck out from the body, one on each side. The body itself was a smooth, mostly featureless metal until around halfway up, when it became a smooth curve of darkened glass.

“And you must be Daddy Bear,” said Cal.

Kneeling in front of this thing was rapidly giving him an inferiority complex, so he struggled to his feet in the hope that he wouldn’t feel quite as minuscule. It didn’t really help.

There was a whirring from behind him, and Cal braced himself for another strike to the skull. Instead, Mech waddled up and stood beside him. Cal found himself staring down into the cyborg’s upturned face. Both Mech’s arms were missing and, more notably, he was less than five feet tall.

“What the fonk is this?” Cal asked.

“Emergency feet,” said Mech. He leaned back a little, revealing what looked like tiny metal clogs that protruded from his leg sockets.

Cal took a moment to process this.

Nope, wasn’t happening.

“Emergency feet ?”

“Yeah. I got emergency feet,” said Mech.

Cal took another moment.

“But… why?”

“The fonk do you mean ‘why?’ In case some motherfonking robots pull both my legs off,” Mech snapped. “That’s why!”

Cal looked Mech up and down. It took much less time than usual. “Do you have emergency hands?”

“Silence!” commanded the towering robot.

“Just… hold up there, ED-209,” Cal told it, still waiting for an answer from Mech. “So? Do you?”

“No, I don’t have emergency hands,” Mech sighed.

“Well, that seems like an oversight,” Cal reasoned. “I mean, if you’re going to go to the trouble to add emergency feet, why not emergency hands? Like, a little set of raptor hands, just…”

Cal brought his hands up to his shoulders and waggled the fingers.

“Just cute little T-Rex arms that—”

“Can we just get down to fonking business?” asked Mech, gesturing toward the big robot with his head.

“No, you’re right. You’re right, it’s not the time,” said Cal. He ran his hand across the top of Mech’s head, as if ruffling his hair. “You eager beaver little scamp.”

Cal turned and looked up at the giant robot. “So. Hi there!” he said, mustering one of his better smiles. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on with all the violence and everything, but I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. See, we’re from the… uh, the local neighborhood watch, and we just wanted to offer some advice on how best to secure your property. You know, from space burglars?”

He gestured to the semi-circle of robots forming behind him and Mech. “But I can see you have it all covered by an army of violent robots, which is great. So, we’ll tick you off our list and bid you farewell.”

“Silence!” the giant bot barked again. “Enough of your insolence.”

With a series of clunks and clicks and a high-pitched whine, the glass part of the robot retracted into the metal body. The first thing Cal noticed was the hair. A moment later, he noticed the rest of the professor, too.

“Nutmuck,” Cal said, narrowing his eyes.

“Nushtuk!”

“My old nemesis,” Cal continued. “We meet again.”

“What? What are you talking about?” demanded the professor, veins throbbing along his elongated neck. “I have no idea who you are.”

“Well, we know who you are. You’re the guy who just walked right into our trap!” Cal said. He leaned an elbow on the top of Mech’s skull. “It’s over, Nutmuck.”

“Get your arm off my motherfonking head,” Mech spat, wobbling from foot to foot in order to shake Cal off.

“Sorry. It was automatic. You’re the perfect height,” Cal told him. “I swear, weld a tray to your head, and you’d make an awesome drinks trolley.”

“Shut the fonk up and get on with it,” Mech said.

Cal turned his attention back to the professor. “You want my advice? Give up now. Turn off all these robots. Power down your weapons. And then—and only then—we’ll consider letting you live.”

“What kind of idiot do you take me for?” demanded the professor.

Cal hesitated. “I don’t know. Just, like, a regular idiot?” He glanced at Mech. “I didn’t know there were types. Did you know there were types?”

He pointed up to the professor. “Also… just so I’m clear, is he a robot?”

“No. He’s a guy in a robot suit,” Mech said.

“Oh. So… kind of like you?”

“I ain’t in a suit,” Mech said.

“You’re kind of in a suit.”

“No. I’m a cyborg. Part organic, part robot.”

Cal looked from Mech to the professor and back again.

“And he’s…?”

“He’s a guy in a robot suit,” said Mech.

“Right. Right,” said Cal, nodding. “And that’s different?”

“Yes! It’s fonking different.”

Cal looked around at the semi-circle of metal figures behind them. “And those are robots?”

“Yes,” Mech sighed. “Those are robots.”

“Hey, don’t look now,” Cal whispered, nudging Mech with his elbow and leaning in close. “But I think the hot one on the end is giving you the eye.”

“Silence!” screeched Nushtuk yet again. “I may not know who you are, but I know why you are here. You have come to collect the bounty on my head. You, like all before you, have failed. You have no trap. You have no clever tricks up your sleeves.”

“This one doesn’t even have sleeves,” Cal said, jabbing a thumb in Mech’s direction.

“Shut the fonk up,” Mech grunted.

“You are hopeless. You are defeated. You are—”

A knife embedded itself in his forehead, cutting off the rest of the sentence.

Cal’s hand flew to his mouth. Mech’s, for a variety of reasons, didn’t.

They both watched as Professor Nushtuk slumped forward, toppled out of the robot suit, and fell to the floor. The butt of the knife struck the ground first, the impact ramming the blade the rest of the way through his head. It protruded through the back of his skull, a lump of brain impaled on the end.

For a moment, there was only silence, then there was only the sound of Cal swallowing. Slowly, he removed his hand from his mouth.

“Hello?” he said.

“The fonk are you doing, man? He’s dead,” Mech said.

Cal watched the chunk of brain slide down the knife blade until it came to rest in a nest of wiry hair that was now more pink than white.

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned “Where did that knife come from?”

“Ha!” hollered a voice. It echoed around the inside of the warehouse from up high on one of the stacks. “Bested!”

And then, the semi-circle of robots around them raised their weapons. The sound of several hundred blaster bolts screamed around the warehouse.

Fifteen

Cal ducked for cover behind Mech as half a dozen of the robots exploded into bits of scrap metal.

Loren strode along the corridor, a repeater cannon tucked under her arm, spraying an apparently endless stream of energy bolts across the warehouse. Splurt perched on her shoulder, the orange glow of the rapid-fire bolts reflecting off his glossy green surface.

“The cavalry’s here!” Cal cheered, peeking over the top of Mech’s head. “We’re saved!”

Loren’s feet slid out from under her. They heard her eject an, “Ooh, fonk!” as she briefly went horizontal in the air, then she hit the floor. The repeater cannon continued to fire throughout, peppering the stacks of crates and ceiling with hundreds of holes.

“No, wait, I spoke too soon,” Cal sighed. “She fell over.”

The robots turned their guns on Loren and opened fire. Splurt expanded around her, becoming a domed shield that deflected the robots’ fire and sent it screaming off in all directions.

The bots all realized at the same time that they were wasting their ammunition, and stopped firing. The moment they did, Miz came bounding from between a stack of crates, running on all fours, the fur on the back of her neck standing on end.

Initially, her expression was exactly what Cal was hoping for. She was angry. She was determined. She was here to fonk some shizz up!

And then her rage turned to confusion as the frictionless surface claimed her, too, and she slid straight from the mouth of one alleyway into the one directly across from it.

“Like, what the fonk is up with this floor?” she demanded, her voice fading as she went sliding off into the wings.

“Jesus, if you want something done…” Cal muttered. “Mech, keep these guys busy.”

“How the fonk am I supposed to do that?” Mech demanded, waddling around in a semi-circle to look at Cal.

“I don’t know. Do a little dance,” Cal replied. “It’ll be adorable.”

He half ran, half slid over to the robot suit and scrambled up its front. He dived in headfirst just as a volley of blaster fire struck the spot where he’d been. He felt the heat of it, and then he was inside the robot suit’s cockpit, albeit upside-down.

“Fonk, it’s cramped in here,” he complained, performing a series of complex rolls and twists in an attempt to turn himself the right way up.

A foot struck a lever and the suit clanked forward, forcing Mech to waddle out of its path on his emergency feet. Two of the robots weren’t so quick to react, and crunched loudly as they were crushed into scrap beneath the suit’s immense weight.

With a final tuck and tumble, Cal successfully righted himself. Nushtuk’s chair was predictably tiny, and Cal felt like he was operating a child’s toy as he ran his fingers over all the buttons and levers.

“OK, you metal fonks—not you, Mech, the other guys,” Cal said, shouting to make himself heard over the screaming of blaster fire. It hammered against the back of the suit, and the glass canopy closed protectively over the cockpit on some sort of auto-response program.

Cal grabbed a joystick and jiggled it. The top half of the robot shimmied from side to side.

“Aha!”

Jamming the joystick to the right, Cal turned the battle suit around until it faced the growing army of smaller robots. “Let’s see how you shizznods like this!”

He squeezed the joystick’s trigger.

A moment later, the suit’s arms fell off and clanked to the floor.

“Fonk. Wait, no. That was wrong.”

“Oh, you think so?” Mech barked, toddling around in circles, chased by two of Nushtuk’s robot minions.

“Why is that even a button?” Cal yelped, as another volley of blaster fire slammed into the front of the suit. He picked another likely looking button. “Let’s try this one.”

The suit’s legs folded backward, slamming the body onto the floor, and giving Cal an uninterrupted view of the ceiling. “No. No, that’s not it.”

Before he could try anything else, three of the robots clambered up onto the cockpit and began slamming their metal feet against the glass.

“Fonk off! Leave me alone!” Cal told them. He gave the joystick a jerk to try to throw the robots off, but rather than the top half turning, the suit’s legs spun instead.

Krick .

A line appeared in the glass. Cal watched it grow diagonally up the window, each splintering kerack sound filling him with an increasing sense of dread.

He looked up into the electronic gaze of the robot that had caused the damage. Its face was identical to all the others, but Cal could’ve sworn it managed to look just a little smugger.

All three of them raised a foot again. “Hey, guys, let’s talk about this!” Cal cried.

And then a series of blaster bolts hammered into them, sending them sprawling onto the floor.

“Cal! You OK?”

“Loren! Yes! I’m OK!” he replied, laughing with relief.

A green shape passed between Cal and the ceiling, there one moment, gone the next.

The sound of blaster fire intensified, but was quickly joined by another sound, too.

Cal had never heard a robot scream before. He hadn’t even known it was possible. And yet, he had little doubt that the high-pitched electronic whines he was hearing now were exactly that. They were not unlike the feedback screech from a speaker placed too close to a microphone, but with a more ragged, desperate sort of edge that suggested pain, terror, and other things that robots technically shouldn’t be capable of.

Trying the same button he’d pressed last time, Cal unfolded the battle suit’s legs, springing it upright again. Through the cracked glass, he saw a whirling dervish of green, and a number of robots all flying in different directions.

“That’s my little guy!” Cal cheered, but then a movement from farther back in the warehouse cut his relief short. More of the robots were closing in. Hundreds of the fonkers, surely too many for even Splurt to fight.

“Shizz, shizz, shizz.”

Cal studied the buttons, almost pressed a few of the more promising-looking ones, then thought better of it.

“Glove box, glove box, there must be a glove box,” he muttered, running his hands across the smooth plastic panel in front of his knees.

Nothing.

He reached under the seat and fumbled around. His fingers touched something wet and he yanked his hand clear. A stringy yellow noodle dangled from his fingertips. Shuddering, he flicked it off. It splatted near the top of the canopy glass, drawing Cal’s eye to the sun visor.

He folded it down, revealing a photograph of a scantily clad alien woman with more breasts than anyone would reasonably know what to do with. Beside it, tucked into a little pocket, was a hand-drawn diagram of the battle suit’s controls.

“Bingo!” Cal said, grabbing for the paper. “Splurt, hold on, buddy. Be right with you!”

Splurt had cleared out almost all of the initial wave of robots, but the approaching army opened fire, peppering his blobby surface with a torrent of blaster fire.

Thrashing, Splurt whipped out with several elastic tentacles, but the sheer volume of blaster fire drove him back. They punctured his surface and passed cleanly through, each blast reducing his size a fraction.

Cal’s eyes darted across the instruction sheet, then down at the controls. His stomach flipped when he realized that the information on the paper bore no relationship whatsoever to the layout of the buttons and switches inside the cockpit.

“Damn it!”

“Cal, do something!” Loren yelled.

“I don’t know how!” Cal hollered back. “I don’t know how it works. It’s not like there’s a button that just deactivates all the…”

His eyes fell on a bright red button in the center of the console. A label had been affixed to the plastic beneath it, clearly stating its purpose.

“Wait, no. There is,” Cal said. “It literally says ‘Deactivate robots.’”

He pressed the button. Immediately, the robots stopped closing in and all lowered their weapons to their sides.

Cal held his breath, waiting to see if anything else was about to happen. When it looked like nothing was, he searched for the button that would open the canopy, before eventually deciding it was safer to manually push the broken glass out of the frame.

That done, he leaned forward and regarded the floor before him. Splurt was gradually pulling himself back together. Loren swept her weapon across the inert robot army, looking for an excuse to start shooting.

Mech waddled, penguin-like, between the metal carcasses Splurt had left strewn across the floor. He and Cal both turned as, with a, “Whoaaaa!” Mizette came sliding out from between two stacks of crates on all-fours. She spun to a stop amid all the carnage, finally coming to rest with her face just a few inches from Mech’s.

She looked him up and down, her confusion palpable.

“Like—”

“Don’t even ask,” Mech told her.

“Look at his little emergency feet!” Cal said. “Aren’t they adorable?”

Satisfied that the robots weren’t about to spring back into life, Loren lowered her repeater cannon. “You didn’t call for help,” she said. She did not sound happy about this. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“We didn’t really get a chance,” Cal told her. He swung his legs over the edge of the battle suit’s cockpit, moved as if to launch himself off, then lost his nerve and slid clumsily down the front with a panicky expression on his face.

Straightening up, he flashed Loren one of his most winning smiles. “Things were going great one minute, and then the next minute…” He shrugged. “Robots. So many robots. Also, the only comm-unit we had was in Mech’s arm, and fonk knows where that went.”

Cal gestured over to Mech. “I mean, look at him. They literally tore him limb from limb,” he said. “And, I suspect, molested him. Sexually.”

“They didn’t molest me,” Mech growled.

“Sure they didn’t, short stuff,” Cal said. “You keep telling yourself that.”

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now. Reckon we can claim this bounty?” he asked, shuffling and sliding around until he found Professor Nushtuk in all the carnage.

This turned out not to be too difficult, as Nushtuk was much larger than he had been. Or rather, he covered a much wider area. The outline of a large three-toed foot could just be made out in the mush of his remains, most of which were now almost two-dimensional.

His head was still the correct size and shape, but it had become detached from the jelly of his neck and rolled a few feet across the floor. His face was pointed in Cal’s direction, the eyes rolled back in their sockets, the end of Tyrra’s knife hilt protruding from a hole in his forehead.

“They wanted him alive,” Loren said.

Cal considered this.

“Maybe if we dressed him up…”

“What the fonk are you talking about, ‘dress him up’?” Mech demanded. “Only thing the man’s gonna fit in now is a bathtub.”

Cal sighed. “You’re right. No way we can Weekend at Bernie’s our way out of this one,” he said. He gestured to Loren’s comm-unit. “I know we get a fortune for bringing him in alive, but ask Kevin what we get for killing him?”

Loren passed on the message. Kevin took a moment to check the job listing before replying.

“The death penalty, ma’am.”

Cal tutted. “Fonk. See? This is the reason I hate jobs. This always happens.”

Loren side-eyed him.

“Not this exact thing. This is a first. But shizz like this,” Cal said. Splurt finally finished pulling himself back together, looked between Cal and Loren a few times, then finally rolled up onto Cal’s back and clung to it.

“We should get back to the ship,” Loren said.

“Agreed,” said Cal. “Miz, go find Tyrra. She and I are going to have words about the importance of not knifing people through the forehead.”

Miz tutted. “Fine,” she said, then all four of her limbs went in opposite directions and she crashed to the ground. “Like, what the fonk is wrong with this floor?”

“Loren, could you help Miz?” Cal asked.

The lines of Loren’s face drew tighter. She chose not to reply to him, and instead just swung her rifle up onto her shoulder.

“Come on, Miz,” she said, holding a hand out. Miz took it and Loren braced herself as the wolf-woman hauled herself upright. “Let’s go,” Loren continued, shooting Cal a glare. “Captain’s orders.”

“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?” Cal asked, but Loren didn’t respond. Instead, she and Miz teetered off across the slippery floor, holding onto each other for support.

“You’re an idiot, man,” Mech grunted. “I hope you know that.”

“What? What did I do?” Cal asked.

He watched until Loren and Miz had gone sliding off between two crate stacks, then sighed and shook his head.

Bending, he picked up a set of robot legs and supported himself on them like an old man with a couple of walking sticks. The metal feet gripped the floor, drastically cutting Cal’s chances of falling over.

“Come on, Frodo,” he said, glancing back at Mech. “Let’s go find the rest of you.”

Sixteen

“Medical study on Pallton Minor,” said Kevin.

“What kind of medical study?” Cal asked. He was holding a little piece of one of the robots in his hands, turning it over and over as he examined it.

While searching the place for salvage, they’d figured out that the little rectangular box Cal was now holding had been what allowed Nushtuk’s battle suit to directly control the robots. Cal was hopeful he could find a way to attach it to Mech without the cyborg noticing. Oh, the fun he would have.

“It doesn’t say, sir,” Kevin replied. “But there is a sizeable list of potential side effects, and an airtight legal disclaimer.”

“Hard pass,” said Cal. “What else?”

“There’s a sewer blockage that requires clearing on Pallton Major,” Kevin said.

“Sewer blockage? Why’s that on there?” Cal wondered, looking up from the remote control doohickey. “Shouldn’t that be something the authorities handle?”

“It’s become sentient, sir,” Kevin explained. “They’ve already lost over three crews.”

Cal glanced up. “How many over three?”

“One, sir.”

“So… they’ve lost four? Why didn’t you just say they’d lost four crews?”

“Dramatic effect, sir,” Kevin replied.

“Like, I am not going into a sewer,” said Miz, flicking her eyes up to the screen.

“Agreed. It’s a no to the shizzmonster,” said Cal. “Next.”

“How do you feel about psychic parasites?” Kevin asked.

“Negative to indifferent,” Cal replied. “But leaning heavily toward the negative. What about the game show thing? Any more of those?”

There was a pause as Kevin checked the job listings. “I’m afraid not, sir.”

Cal tutted. “Damn. Because I think I’d be great on one of those.”

“You’ve said that already,” Mech told him.

“I know, but seriously, I’d be great .”

“There is one available position that’s related to television, sir.”

Cal’s chair creaked as he leaned forward. There was a thud as the remote control pack fell to the floor. “There is?”

“Yes, sir. For the Viaview Network, producers of ‘Obstacle Smash,’ ‘The Hunt,’ and something called ‘Who’s Got the Pants On?’”

“OK, I’m interested. Tell me more,” said Cal.

“Well, sir, competitors all start by taking off their pants—”

“Not about the show, Kevin. About the job,” Cal said. “Tell me about the job.”

“Apologies, sir. One moment,” Kevin replied. “Here we are. It’s a delivery job, involving the transportation of two crates from Tolgor, one of the moons of the planet Trogol, to the Viaview network’s station in orbit around Logus Prime.”

“Ah, shizz,” Cal muttered, leaning back in his chair.

“Problems, sir?”

“Where are we going to put two crates?” Cal asked. He brightened, hopefully. “Unless they’re really small crates?”

“They aren’t, sir, no,” said Kevin.

Cal slumped. “Right. Figures. Well, there goes my big break.”

“We could always use the cargo deck, sir.”

Cal frowned, then looked up to the ceiling. “The what?”

“The cargo deck.”

Cal’s lips moved silently as he said the words again, in case by doing so he’d discover some alternative meaning behind them.

He didn’t.

“Wait. We have a cargo deck? Since when did we have a cargo deck?” Cal asked.

“Since always, sir. Haven’t I mentioned it?”

Cal struggled his chair around and looked at Miz. She shrugged back at him.

“No. You haven’t mentioned it.”

“Oh. Are you sure, sir? It sounds like the kind of thing I should have mentioned,” Kevin said.

“You’re right, it does sound like the kind of thing you should have mentioned, doesn’t it?” Cal agreed. “Where is it?”

“It’s downstairs, sir.”

Cal stood up. “Wait, what?”

“The cargo deck, sir,” Kevin intoned. “It’s downstairs.”

“We have a downstairs?!”

Kevin let out an incredulous snort. “Of course we have a downstairs, sir. It’s a large ship. You didn’t really think it was just eight moderately-sized rooms and a corridor, did you?”

Cal looked at the floor and stared blankly at it for a few seconds, before snapping back to life.

“Yes! Yes, I absolutely thought that,” Cal said. “Miz, did you know we have a downstairs?”

Miz shook her head. “No. But, I don’t really care.”

“Mech? Loren? Did you know we have a downstairs?” Cal called.

“A what?” Mech hollered back.

“A downstairs. A cargo deck. Did you know we have one?”

There was a clanking from out in the corridor. Mech entered, both legs now back in place, and one arm almost fully reattached. Loren entered behind him, pushing a protective visor up onto her head to reveal a face covered with oil and, Cal couldn’t help but notice, mild resentment.

“What are you talking about?” Mech demanded. “We ain’t got a downstairs.”

“He’s right,” Loren agreed, her voice short and clipped. “We don’t.”

“Kevin says we do,” Cal told them. “Kevin?”

“I’m positive I mentioned it,” Kevin said.

“You definitely did not,” Cal said. “How do we get down?”

“Entry is made via a sliding hatch on the ship’s underside, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal turned on his heels. “OK. Let’s go check it out.”

From all around the bridge there came a mechanical clanking . The floor around the edge of the room sank into the floor, forming a series of interlocking steps.

“Alternatively, sir, you could take the stairs.”

They elected to take the stairs. Except Mizette, who elected to remain seated, on the basis that she didn’t have any interest whatsoever in looking at an empty room.

Cal crept down the first few steps, then ducked to try to see into what he was already thinking of as the ship’s creepy basement. He’d seen enough horror movies in his time to know the basement was where the action was, and he was about to suggest that Mech go first when the cyborg shoved him in the back, sending him stumbling down into the darkness.

“That was uncalled for,” Cal whispered, when he reached the bottom. “Kevin, do we have lights down here?”

In answer to the question, the whole ceiling began to glow, casting a stark white light across a sizeable amount of nothing whatsoever.

This deck was mostly the same size and shape as the one above, but the complete lack of rooms or equipment made it feel much larger. It wasn’t particularly high—barely over eight feet from ceiling to floor, and curved upward with the lines of the ship at the front, back, and sides, reducing the amount of usable space.

But still. It was a cargo deck. They had a fonking cargo deck.

“I can’t believe this has been down here the whole time,” said Loren.

“I know. Crazy, right?” replied Cal, smiling at her. She deflected it with a look so cool it sent a shiver down his spine.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this, Kevin,” said Mech.

“Nor can I, sir,” Kevin admitted. “Next you’ll be telling me I didn’t inform you about the ship’s spa facilities or holodeck.”

All eyes went up.

“Just my little joke,” Kevin told them.

All eyes went down again.

“OK, then. We have a cargo bay, which means we can take cargo,” Cal said.

“Thank you for that profound observation,” said Mech.

“You’re welcome.” Cal fixed Loren with a smile, and gestured around the room. “What do you think, Teela ?”

He ratcheted his smile up a few notches until it became a full-blown grin, and raised his eyebrows. He looked in many ways like a puppy expecting some kind of reward for a new trick he’d just learned.

Boy, was he going to be disappointed.

“I think it’s a cargo deck,” Loren said. “Although, I’m not sure.”

Cal tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I think it’s a cargo deck. I’ll enjoy all the facilities of having a cargo deck, I’m just not sure I’m ready to really commit to the idea yet,” Loren said. She turned for the stairs, started up them, then paused just before she disappeared back up onto the bridge. “How about we discuss it at a later date?”

Cal flinched, but by the time he’d opened his mouth to respond, Loren was gone.

“What now?” he groaned. “I called her by her first name! Isn’t that what she wanted?”

“I ain’t getting involved,” said Mech, turning and clanking up the steps.

“You heard me, though, right? I called her by her first name!”

Mech stopped and looked back. “The woman is sticking parts back onto me using power tools and fire. I ain’t getting involved and risking getting on her bad side,” he said. “Guess you’ll just have to figure it out on your own.”

“How the fonk am I supposed to do that?” Cal asked.

Mech began climbing again. “Like I said. Figure it out.”

“I would be more than happy to offer advice, sir,” Kevin intoned.

“Jesus. No, I’ll be fine, Kevin, thank you.”

“You could write her a poem,” Kevin suggested.

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Or bake her a cake shaped like something rude.”

Cal looked up. “Why would—?”

“I hear they’re very popular, sir,” said Kevin. “In women’s circles ,” he added, a little mysteriously.

“Again, thanks for the suggestions, I’ll give them some thought,” Cal said. He took another look around the cargo bay, shook his head, then started up the stairs. “Hook us up with that delivery job.”

“Very good, sir.”

Cal sighed. “Maybe today won’t be a total bust, after all.”

Seventeen

Mech, Cal, Mizette, and Tyrra stood in the center of a small town, their mouths hanging open and, in Miz’s case, stomach rumbling.

It was impossible to stress the ‘small’ part of ‘small town’ enough. Each building was barely five feet high, and they were set out in concentric circles around the center. The houses were all shaped like beehives with an arched door in the front, a round window above it, and a little satellite dish fixed to the top. While identical in structure, each was a different color. Those closest to the center were bright and vibrant, while those in the farthest rings were pale pastel shades.

Beyond the final ring of houses, the landscape undulated into a series of pink-purple hills, where the grass was the color of lavender, and flowers swayed lazily on a warm summer’s breeze.

Notable as they were, neither the scenery nor the architecture were what currently held everyone’s attention, though. That honor went to the Floomfles. Cal knew they were called the Floomfles, because they’d been singing about it and dancing for the past four minutes, and showed no signs of letting up.

The tallest of the Floomfles stood just a little higher than Cal’s knee. The smallest—children, presumably—were barely over his ankle. Their heads were disproportionately large, their eyes disproportionately larger still, with both those factors combining to make them look like Pixar creations made flesh.

A few of them—the females, mostly—had tiny semi-transparent wings on their backs. They looked far too small to support the weight of their heads, let alone the rest of them, and yet they fluttered inelegantly from rooftop to rooftop, joining in with the chorus of those down below.

“We are the Floomfles ,” they sang for the third or fourth time, skipping around in a circle and jingling little bells in time with the beat. Cal found himself humming along to the now-familiar tune as he watched them, and had already made peace with the fact that it was going to be stuck in his head for days. “We Floomfle all day long! We hope and trust and laugh and love, our friendship makes us strong!

“We Floomfle on the good days, we Floomfle through the worst! Our kindness, joy, and laughter make our hearts fit to burst!”

One of the smaller Floomfles dropped to his knees, clutching at his chest. The others fell silent and watched as he groaned and grimaced, his face twisted in pain.

“Jesus, is he…? Oh, God. Someone get that guy an ambulance,” Cal said, but then the kneeling Floomfle pulled open his tunic and, with a pop , a spray of glitter erupted out and swirled around on the breeze.

A cheer went up. The singing resumed, even more enthusiastically than before.

“Floooooomfles, we’re the Floooooomfles !” they chimed, holding their arms out at their sides and crisscrossing like jet planes as those with actual wings fluttered from rooftop to rooftop.

“We’d love to be your new best friends! In Floooooomville, here in Flooooooomville, the fun and sunshine never end!”

With a final series of theatrical flourishes, they all spun down onto one knee and extended their arms, jazz-hands-style.

“Floomfles!” they cried, then they all smiled hopefully up at Cal and the others, their little chests heaving, their faces gleaming with sweat.

Cal clapped. “Bravo! Bravo!” he said. “More of that sort of thing.”

“What the hell have we got involved in this time?” Mech muttered, glaring across the upturned faces. Loren had done her best to fix him up, but his left arm wasn’t sitting right and had fallen off twice on the way here. He rotated it in its socket, trying to click it into place.

“I think they’re called the Floomfles,” said Cal, leaning in and whispering. “Didn’t you hear? They did a whole song about it.”

“I heard the damn song,” Mech snapped. “I just…”

He gestured to the wide-eyed little critters. “This shizz ain’t right.”

“Hey, come on now! What are you talking about?” asked Cal. “They look totally—”

“Delicious,” said Miz.

A few of the Floomfles shot uneasy glances at the others, but their smiles remained fixed in place.

“Adorable,” said Cal. “They look adorable.”

“They are ridiculous,” said Tyrra.

She glared at one of the flying Floomles with such ferocity it fell from the sky and landed on the grass with a high-pitched, “Ouchie!”

“Ridiculously awesome, you mean,” said Cal.

He squatted down, bringing him closer to eye level with some of the larger creatures. Even in that position he was still a clear foot taller, but it was the best he could do.

“Well, hey there, you! What’s your name?”

The Floomfle stood up, tucked his hands behind his back, and twisted the toe of a brightly colored shoe against the ground. His little pointed ears blushed red as he studiously avoided Cal’s gaze.

“It’s Floomfle-Ello, mister,” he squeaked.

Cal turned back to the others, put a hand on his chest, and pulled a face that suggested this was the cutest thing he’d ever heard. “Floomfle-Ello! And did you hear him call me ‘Mister’?”

Mech and Tyrra stared impassively back at him. Miz licked her lips.

“Don’t even think about it,” Cal warned, then he turned his attention back to the Floomfles. “Well, now. We’ve been asked to come here and pick up a couple of crates. You know? Like big boxes?”

“I’m sure they know what crates are,” said Mech, jiggling his arm in its socket.

“Would you guys know anything about that?” Cal pressed. “Is there maybe, like, a Floomfle Chief we can talk to? Or a Head of Floomfle Logistics?”

“King Floomf,” Floomfle-Ello cheeped.

Cal turned to the others with the same hand-on-heart gesture again. “They have a King Floomf! I swear to God, I’m going to die!”

He faced front again, and saw one of the tiniest Floomfles of all standing on her tiptoes, a hand stretched high above her head. Her tongue was poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, and Cal had to physically restrain himself from picking her up and keeping her in his pocket for the rest of either his or her life, depending on which of them lasted longer.

“Yes, sweetheart?” he said. “You have a question?”

“What’s that thing?” the Floomfle asked, pointing to Mech.

“That’s my friend, Mech,” said Cal, smiling kindly. “He’s a little grumpy, but he’s secretly nice. Also, I know what you’re thinking, but no. He isn’t a robot. He’s a cyborg.”

The little Floomfle’s hand shot up again. “What’s a cyborg?”

“It’s like…” Cal considered his answer. “It’s like a fancy robot.”

Another hand went up on Cal’s right. He smiled like an eager young teacher who hadn’t yet had all the energy and enthusiasm beaten out of him by staff indifference and student idiocy. “Yes?”

“Why did you crash your ship?” asked another of the Floomfle children.

“We didn’t crash it. That was a landing,” Cal said.

The Floomfles all looked dubious. Several more hands went up.

“It wasn’t as controlled a landing as we ideally might have liked,” Cal admitted. “But apparently your hills are—and I quote—‘off-center.’ Make of that what you will.”

He looked across their eager faces. “Now, who else has a question?”

“Just get the motherfonking king,” Mech barked, stomping a foot on the ground. The Floomfles scattered, screaming, and rushed inside the little beehive houses, slamming the doors behind them.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Cal said. “You scared all the Floomfles.”

“That was my intention,” Mech said. “That’s why I did it.”

“Why would you want to scare the Floomfles, Mech? What are you, some kind of monster?” Cal asked.

Before Mech could answer, a horn blew. It came from the crest of one of the purple-pink hills, and heralded the arrival of four more of the larger-sized Floomfles carrying a fifth on a raised platform between them.

The figure on the platform was old and wizened, with a beard that was longer than he was tall. It coiled around him like a boa constrictor, wrapping around his body, down one leg, and finished in a knot just above a doll-sized shoe.

Miz’s stomach growled. “Dinner is served,” she said. “They’re even serving him on a platter.”

“Don’t you dare,” Cal told her again.

“Tch. Relax. I’m not actually going to eat that guy,” Miz said.

“OK. Thank you. That makes me feel better.”

“Not with everyone around to stare at me,” Miz continued. “Like, I hate it when people watch me eat.”

That made Cal feel slightly less better, but he chose to let it go.

They waited for the Floomfle procession to arrive, which it eventually did in a chorus of horn blasts, cymbal crashes, and some colorful language from the old man when his bearers took a bend too sharply and he almost fell off.

At last, the procession arrived in the center of the village and stopped before Cal and the others.

Now that Cal was standing upright, he couldn’t see the bearers beneath the platform. All he could see was the old man on top of it, and two musicians who had been following behind, and who had been responsible for the horn-parps and cymbal crashes.

“You must be—” Cal began, before a fanfare from the horn-player interrupted.

He waited for it to stop, before continuing.

“You must—”

The cymbal player smashed the golden metal disks together. He clearly wasn’t cut out for the job as he shut his eyes, looked away, and physically braced himself before banging the cymbals together. He appeared visibly horrified by the racket they made.

Cal watched both musicians for a moment until he was sure they weren’t going to start up again, then smiled at the old man.

“You must be—”

“Presenting King Floomf of the Floomfles!” announced a voice from below the platform. This elicited another fanfare from the horn-player, followed by a cymbal-smash so unpleasantly loud that it appeared to take ten years off the life of the Floomfle who’d caused it.

Cal glanced around at the others as he contemplated starting again, but then decided against it. He waited, certain in the knowledge that the moment he opened his mouth someone would interrupt him.

“Sorry,” said King Floomfle, his voice a husky whisper that suggested a lifetime spent chain-smoking. “You were saying?”

“Uh, right. Yes.” Cal flicked his eyes to the musicians, then back to the old man. “I was just going to say that you must be King Floomf.”

The fanfare blasted. The cymbal player shut his eyes and smashed the disks together.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” chuckled King Floomf, and Cal instantly warmed to the guy. “And you must be…” He snapped his fingers.

“Captain Cal Carver, Your Greatness,” came a voice from below the platform.

“Ah, yes. Sorry, memory’s not what it once was. A pleasure to meet you,” said King Floomf. His eyes wrinkled up as he peered at the others. “And these must be your minions?”

“Say what?” Mech barked, and the two musicians both took a wary step back.

“Ha! No, they’re not my minions. I wouldn’t call them that, exactly,” Cal said, rushing to smooth things over. “They’re my…” He waved a hand, searching for the right word. “Not ‘underlings.’ Like… subordinates.”

Tyrra growled, baring her teeth.

“Kidding. I’m kidding. They’re my friends,” Cal said.

“Friends…” said King Floomf, a little wistfully. “That must be nice. I have minions coming out of my ears. But friends? Friends are harder to come by, Captain. Treasure them.”

“Well, I’ll try, but they don’t make it easy,” Cal said, shooting a reproachful look back at them. “Now, you have something for us?”

“Ah, yes. You are here to take possession of the cargo, correct?”

“That’s right,” Cal confirmed. “We’re taking it to the TV people. I’m hoping they might let me be on a show.”

“You wish to go on a show ?” asked the king, peering up at Cal like he was having difficulty seeing him properly. “How brave of you.”

Cal rocked back on his heels. “I know. A lot of people don’t like the thought of being on TV. They think they’ll freeze up or look stupid, or whatever. But not me.”

“Because he got used to looking stupid a long time ago,” said Mech.

“Because I’m a natural in front of the camera,” Cal said.

“You know they say the camera adds ten pounds, right?” Mech told him.

“Seriously?” snorted Miz. She looked Cal up and down. “Like, how many cameras must he have pointed at him right now?”

“For the last time, it’s travel weight,” Cal protested, sucking in his gut.

King Floomf ran his stubby fingers through his beard. “Very well. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavors, Captain. Perhaps we shall see you on our screens before long.”

“Perhaps you shall, King Floomf,” Cal replied, then he almost jumped out of his skin when the horn blasted and the cymbals crashed.

Behind him, Mizette’s stomach rumbled loudly enough for all the Floomfles to shoot her a worried look. Cal thought the time had probably come to bring things to a close, in the interests of Floomfle safety.

“Now, if you could just point us in the direction of the crates,” he said. “We’ll be on our way.”

* * *

“Oh man, you should’ve seen them, Loren,” said Cal, sitting back in his chair as the Currently Untitled curved up through the moon’s atmosphere, two domed crates safely tucked away downstairs. “They were adorable.”

“Uh-huh,” said Loren. Splurt sat on the back of her chair, watching over her. He turned one eye to shoot Cal a look of disdain.

“Obviously not as adorable as you, buddy,” Cal said, which seemed to give Splurt the reassurance he needed, and he fixed both eyes on Loren again

“They had these big heads and eyes. But, like, the rest of their faces were… They were all…” Cal made a valiant attempt to shrink everything from below his eyes to just above his chin. “You know, like that. But smaller. And some of them flew ! They had these little bug-wings, but not creepy bugs. Like, I don’t know, dragonflies, maybe. Just flap-flap-flap-flap . Little wings.”

“Right,” said Loren.

“You know?”

“Little wings. Sounds great.”

“It was great,” Cal confirmed. He looked to the others for confirmation. “Right?”

“It was one of the worst things I ever saw,” said Mech. He grimaced as he tried to force his arm fully back into its socket, with little success. “I ain’t big on dancing midgets.”

“Please, Mech. We don’t use that term aboard this ship,” Cal scolded. “It’s space-midgets. And how could you not instantly fall in love with them?”

He began to sing. “Flooooomfles, we’re the Flooooomfles . How could you not love every moment?”

Miz looked up from her claws. “Maybe if you’d let me eat one…”

“Well, I think it sounds delightful, sir,” said the voice from the ceiling.

“Thank you, Kevin. I’m glad somebody sees sense around here.”

“All that singing and dancing you describe, it sounds like a lot of fun.”

“It was,” Cal confirmed. “It was a lot of fun.”

“Indeed, sir. It sounds wonderful,” said Kevin. “Also, on an unrelated note we’re under attack.”

“Flooooomfles, we’re the— Wait, what?” Cal spluttered. “What do you mean we’re under attack?”

“Shizz!” Loren spat, twisting the controls.

Cal gripped his chair as the ship spun. On screen, a torpedo curved past them and tumbled into the distance, before looping around for another try.

“Someone’s shooting,” said Cal, as if he were the only one to have noticed this. “Someone’s shooting. At us !”

“Well-observed, sir,” said Kevin. The ship banked sharply, avoiding the torpedo’s second pass. “What gave it away?”

“Is it the Floomfles? It can’t be the Floomfles. Tell me it’s not the Floomfles!”

“It isn’t the Floomfles,” Kevin assured him as, on screen, a ship rose into view. “It’s them .”

Eighteen

The ship that appeared in front of the Currently Untitled was, Cal thought, up there with the ugliest ships he’d ever seen. In fact, he couldn’t recall ever seeing a ship quite so awful-looking before, and he felt like he’d seen quite a few of the things by this point.

This one wasn’t just bad, it was horrifying . It looked as if it had been built by the winners of an episode of Junkyard Wars that was too terrible to have ever been publicly aired.

In fact, it was worse than that. It looked as if it had been built by the winners of an episode of Junkyard Wars that was too terrible to have ever been publicly aired, and then the whole team had gotten drunk and smashed it repeatedly into whatever God-awful abomination the episode’s runners-up had built, before inexpertly spray painting the subsequent mess, setting it on fire, and taking it in turns to defecate upon it from a range of different heights.

Only somehow worse.

It resembled a spaceship only in the sense that it was in space and, if you closed one eye and then closed the other one ninety-five percent of the way, could possibly be mistaken for a vessel of some description. It was a crash scene, frozen just after the point of impact. It was a vaguely rocket-shaped depiction of chaos itself, and just looking at the thing made Cal’s eyes water and his skin itch all over.

“Who the fonk is flying that thing?” he wondered.

A face appeared on screen. On reflection, it was precisely the type of face Cal would have expected to find behind the controls of a ship like this. Indeed, had anyone shown him a picture of the ship and asked him to draw the pilot, this thing was what he’d have scribbled. Probably before begging forgiveness from all those who’d seen it, projectile vomiting on the page, and passing out.

He, she, it, or whatever the fonk it was looked as if someone had assembled a vaguely humanoid form out of animal excrement, teeth, and assorted lengths of barbed wire, then brought it to life with a bolt of lightning. And not nice lightning either, Cal thought. Bad lightning. Lightning from the wrong side of the tracks.

“Want!” it bellowed, the word bursting as a bubble of black gunk on its bloated, crusty lips.

Cal shifted in his chair and glanced to the others. “Do we know this… thing?”

Mech shook his head. “No.”

“Oh, thank God,” Cal exhaled. “You know you have problems if that’s part of your social circle.”

He did his best to smile at the face on screen. If it even was a face. Sure, it shared certain characteristics with a face, but Cal wasn’t ready to fully commit.

“Uh, hi.”

“Want!”

Cal blinked. “What is it you—”

“Things!” the creature spat, splattering the screen with muddy brown phlegm. “Want things!”

“Well—Jesus !”

Cal frantically gripped the armrests as Loren spun the ship, avoiding a third near-strike from the torpedo. Mech staggered, then watched in dismay as his arm fell off and dangled from a tangle of wires.

“Great. Way to go, Loren,” he muttered, watching the arm swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

The torpedo came streaking past them again, forcing Loren to pull off another sudden dodge. This time, as it flew by, its fuel source seemed to burn out and it glided limply off into space.

The Untitled settled back onto an even keel facing the horrifying monster-ship.

“Want things now!”

“Hey, easy there, buddy,” Cal said. “You can’t just start shooting at us, then demand things.”

“Want things!”

Cal raised his hands. “I’m getting that. It’s really coming across,” he said. “But I’m going to go ahead and counter with: No. You can’t have things. They’re our things, and we’d like to hang onto them.”

The monstrosity on screen banged a fist against its console, making the image flicker and jump. “Give things! Give things now!”

“OK, you asked for it, buddy,” Cal said. “Kevin, do the Universe a favor and blow that ship to pieces.”

“We can’t, sir,” Kevin said. “I’m afraid our situation with the temporary warp disk has been steadily worsening. It has left us rather compromised on the weapons front. Were we to land, we might be able to open fire, but that’s not really an option at the moment. Also, our shields aren’t in great condition, either. And by ‘not in great condition’ I mean we don’t have any. One good hit and we’re done for.”

Cal’s eyes flicked from the ceiling to the screen and back again. “Kevin, can I assume that you did mute the microphone before you said all that, yes?”

“You may go ahead and assume what you like, sir,” Kevin replied, after a pause.

Cal pinched the bridge of his nose. “OK, so you didn’t mute the microphone.”

“No, sir,” Kevin admitted.

“You think maybe you should have?”

“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, sir.”

“Want things!” the monstrosity on screen babbled, dribbling a thick gray liquid down its hideous chin. “Or blow up. BOOM!”

“OK, one second. Be right with you,” Cal said, then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Kevin, mute the microphone.”

“Very good, sir.” There was a soft bleep . “Done.”

Cal creaked around in his chair. “OK. We need a plan. We have no weapons, no shields… Any thoughts?”

“We could ram him, sir,” Kevin suggested.

Cal looked up. “Would that work?”

“Almost certainly,” Kevin confirmed. “Although, we would also be destroyed.”

“Jesus, Kevin,” Cal muttered. “OK, let’s put that one on the back burner for now.”

He clicked his fingers and sat up straighter in his chair. “Wait. Got it. What if we use Mech?”

“What if we use Mech for what?” Mech demanded, looking up from where he was trying to reattach his arm.

“To shoot. You could stand on the roof and just, you know, fire at him with your arm guns,” Cal said.

“That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard,” Mech grunted.

“What, worse than Kevin’s kamikaze run?” said Cal.

“Fine. Second dumbest,” said Mech. “Even if I wasn’t down one arm, my cannons ain’t gonna put a dent in that ship’s shields.”

“Are we sure it even has shields?” Cal asked. “I’m pretty sure it’s held together by string. Hell, we could probably open a window and toss something at it, and that’d be enough.”

“Or we could, like, let whatever that thing is board us,” Miz suggested.

“What?” Cal spluttered. “Have you lost your mind? You heard it. It wants our things.”

“But there’s, like…” Miz counted quietly. “Six of us, and one of it.”

“But what a one,” said Cal. “Look at it. I don’t want that on the ship. I don’t even want it in the same galaxy!”

“It might be our best chance,” said Loren. “Let it come aboard, then take care of it when it gets here. I don’t see many other options.”

Cal groaned. “Fine. Let’s do that idea. We’ll tell him to come over and get our things, then kick the shizz out of him when he arrives. Well, you can kick the shizz out of him, I don’t want to touch him, or even necessarily be in the same room.”

He glanced from crewmate to crewmate. “We all agreed?”

“Works for me,” Mech said, crunching his arm back into his shoulder socket. It stayed there, but stuck out at an awkward angle.

“It was, like, my idea, so…” was all Miz had to say on the matter.

“I will best the beast personally,” added Tyrra from her seat in the back.

“You’ve done quite enough besting for one day, young lady,” Cal told her. “We still have to discuss what you did to Nutmuck.”

“That wasn’t his name,” Mech intoned.

“Whatever. The point is, you’re on thin ice, missy. You and me? We’re going to have words.”

“I will kill you with my bare hands,” Tyrra warned.

“That may be, but I’ll come back to life, and then you’ll be grounded, so we’ll see who has the last laugh,” Cal said. He eyeballed her sternly for a moment, then jiggled his chair back around so he was facing front.

On screen, the thing was ranting in silence.

“What’s he saying?” Cal asked. “Why can’t we…?”

A thought struck him. A terrible thought.

No.

No, surely not.

Cal looked up.

“Kevin?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You know when I said to mute the microphone?”

“I recall sir, yes.”

“Whose microphone did you mute?”

There was a pause. It was quite a lengthy pause, as if all the participants in the conversation were being hit by the same dawning sense of realization and dread.

“Sorry, sir, whose…?”

“You heard me, Kevin,” Cal said. He ground his teeth together. “It was his, wasn’t it? You muted his microphone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not ours.”

“No, sir.”

Cal buried his face in his hands, let out a primal-sounding roar of frustration, then sat up suddenly. “OK, turn him back on. Let me talk to him. Or it. Whatever the fonk it is.”

“Very good, sir.”

The audio from the other ship rushed back in.

“—tricks! I not fall for them! I not get things, you not get keep things!”

“Hey, easy, pal. Easy,” Cal soothed. “Whatever you think you just heard, I can assure you it was all just a misunderstanding. No one is trying to trick you. We’re just going to hand over our things…” His eyes went to the little inset image of the enemy ship in the top right corner of the screen. “…aaaand, he’s shooting again.”

Loren’s hands flew to the controls. She jerked a stick, twisted a twisty thing, and kicked down on a pedal all at the same time. The Untitled bucked.

The Untitled stuttered.

“Uh, honey?” said Cal. “There’s a torpedo. There’s a big torpedo.”

“I know!” Loren barked. She untwisted then retwisted the twisty thing, pumped the pedal a few times, then flipped open a panel and flicked a series of switches inside.

“And, it’s just that we don’t have shields…”

“I know ! Impulse thrusters have misfired.”

“Well, can you un misfire them in the next five seconds?” Cal yelped, pushing himself further back into his chair on the off-chance that this would somehow buy them more time. The little square window that showed the live feed from the front camera was almost filled with fiery red now. An impact was coming, and it was coming soon.

“Ugh. Great. We’re totally dead,” Miz complained.

“Loren!”

“Got it!”

The ship jerked into life, then dipped just as the torpedo rocketed past. Something at the back of the ship went clank as it snapped off. Cal hoped it was nothing too important. The fact that they weren’t currently being sucked out into space told him it was something they could live without for now, even if only on a temporary basis.

“Nicely done,” said Cal. His chair groaned with relief when he stopped forcing himself back against it.

“We ain’t outta trouble yet,” Mech said. “It’s looping around.”

“What the fonk is it with these things?” Cal demanded. “Since when did torpedoes…?”

He made a frantic zig-zagging motion in the air with a finger.

“How is that suddenly a thing?”

There was a crunch as Loren shifted a stick on the control panel. “Ah, fonk it. Everyone hold on,” she warned.

“You’re flying. We always hold on,” said Miz, not looking up.

Jabbing her console, Loren switched the screen windows so the ugly-ass ship took up the majority of it, relegating its monstrous pilot to the smaller inset box.

The Untitled gave a lurch as Loren kicked the pedal and wedged the thrust control into a full forward lock.

“Kamikaze it is, then,” said Kevin. “Excellent idea. And, may I say, it’s been lovely knowing you all.”

“What the fonk are you doing?” Mech demanded.

“I mean, some more so than others,” Kevin continued. “And, I suppose, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. We didn’t always see eye to eye.”

“Loren? Honey?” asked Cal. “You’re going to crash into the ship.”

“Some of you were positively annoying, in fact…”

“You’re going to crash our ship into that other ship,” Cal said, as if the addition of a few extra words would help draw her attention to some of the more problematic elements of the situation.

“I wanted to scream, sometimes,” said Kevin. “I swear, one time I almost ejected you all into space. But I’m glad I didn’t, because I subsequently became rather fond of you all.”

“Loren!” Mech shouted.

“Well, not ‘all,’” said Kevin.

“Honey?”

“Or ‘fond,’ exactly.”

Cal threw himself back in his chair and braced himself. Mech leaned over and grabbed both sides of his console, his feet magnetizing themselves to the floor as the monstrosity of a ship grew to fill the screen.

“What’s a word that’s somewhere between ‘fond’ and ‘tolerate’?” Kevin asked.

And then, just when the ship was close enough that Cal could see the pilot through the dirty windshield, the Untitled dived, narrowly avoiding the torpedo that came screaming up behind it.

In the top right corner of the screen, the creature’s eyes widened.

A split-second later, the feed went dark, and a shockwave slammed into the Untitled , shaking it violently and forcing Loren to fight to bring the ship back under control.

Once she had, she half-turned and looked back over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

“I, uh, I knew that’s what you were doing,” said Mech, straightening.

“Ugh. That was actually almost cool,” Miz begrudgingly admitted.

“Thank you, Miz,” said Loren.

“I said almost . Don’t milk it.”

“Holy shizz, that was awesome,” said Cal. He laughed with relief. “You did the, like, zoom, and then the torpedo… Holy shizz. That was awesome .”

Loren smiled and tapped a finger to her forehead in salute, then remembered she was still annoyed and turned to face front again.

“Sorry, Kevin,” Cal said, looking up. “Were you saying something?”

“I forget, sir. I’m sure it was nothing important,” Kevin replied. “And, if it was, I’ve accidentally deleted the recording, so I’m afraid we’ll never know.”

Cal nodded, shrugged, then looked around at the others. “Any idea what the fonk that was? Besides the thing that lived under my bed when I was six, I mean.”

“I’ve searched the databases, sir, and it appears to have been a Mfluargh.”

“A what?”

“A Mfluargh, sir.”

“A Mmflarg?”

“No. A Mfluargh.”

“Mumflurg?”

“Mfluargh.”

“That’s what I said. Mumflurg.”

“Mfluargh.”

“You’re saying ‘Mumflurg.’ You’re just saying ‘Mumflurg’ at me, and that’s what I just said.”

Cal turned. “He’s saying ‘Mumflurg,’ right? Everyone else is hearing ‘Mumflurg’? It’s not just me.”

“You’re saying ‘Mumflurg,’ sir,” said Kevin. “I’m saying Mfluargh .”

Cal’s lips moved silently as he tried to sound this out.

“Mumflurg?” he ventured. “Wait, no, that’s the same thing I was saying in the first place.”

“Does it really fonking matter what they’re called?” asked Mech. “What the fonk are they?”

“They’re a rather unpleasant species, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal shrugged. “Well, bang go all those ‘never judge a book by its cover’ arguments.”

“According to reports they are even less amiable than their appearance would suggest, sir,” Kevin explained. “If such a thing can be believed.”

“How do they travel?” asked Mech.

“In a shizzy spaceship made out of toaster ovens,” said Cal. “You saw that thing.”

“I meant do they travel alone or in groups?” said Mech. “Because if it’s in groups, we may have a problem.”

“Fonk. You think there might be more of them out there?” asked Cal, dropping his voice to a whisper.

Loren consulted her screen. “Doesn’t look like it. I’m not picking anything up.”

“You didn’t pick up the first one until it was shooting at us,” Cal pointed out.

“I was kind of busy flying us out of the atmosphere,” Loren snipped back. “Miz is supposed to watch for approaching ships.”

Miz scowled. “What? Since when?” she demanded. “I mean, like, how am I supposed to do that? I don’t have any screens, or whatever.”

“It’s under your leg,” Mech told her.

Miz looked at where her leg was draped over her armrest, tutted with annoyance, then shifted it a fraction of an inch.

“Oh, that screen,” she said, briefly regarding the little square of glass built into the chair. “Yeah, I don’t look at that.”

She readjusted herself again, covering the display.

“Could you maybe look at it in future?” Loren asked.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Miz countered.

“Alone, sir,” said Kevin.

Everyone looked up.

“Huh?” Cal asked.

“They travel alone.”

“The Mumflurgs?”

“Mfluarghs, sir. Yes. They are quite a solitary species.”

“Can you blame them?” asked Cal. “Imagine hanging out with one of those guys all day.”

“However, they are exceptionally loyal to one another, and have a relentless thirst for revenge.”

Cal looked up. “I have a feeling you’re telling me this for a reason.”

“Indeed, sir,” Kevin confirmed. “Just before we blew it up, the Mfluargh sent out a series of long-range signals. It couldn’t possibly have expected help to arrive in time to save it, so I doubt they were distress signals.”

“What, then?” asked Loren.

“Calls for vengeance, I suspect, ma’am. A plea for others of his species to track us down and enact some horrible revenge upon our persons.”

Cal clapped his hands on his thighs. “Great! We made a fun new enemy!” he said. “Yay us!”

He fired a fingergun off into space. “Maybe we should get out of here before they turn up.”

“Oh, I doubt they’ll be turning up anytime soon, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow. “Well, that’s the best bit of news I’ve heard all day.”

“But they’re renowned for holding a grudge, sir. Famous for it, in fact. They’ll find us eventually. One way or another,” Kevin said. “I think we can safely say we haven’t heard the last of the Mfluargh.”

“You had to keep going and ruin the moment there, Kevin. You couldn’t just let it go,” Cal said.

“Apologies, sir,” said Kevin. “I shall be sure to leave you blissfully unaware in future.”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that,” said Cal.

He settled himself in his chair. “Now, we have a job to do. People to see, boxes to deliver, all that jazz. Let’s plot a course for the Viaview station.”

He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together. “Daddy’s bringing home the Vajacox.”

He caught the looks from the others. “That sounded dirtier than it was meant to,” he admitted. “Let’s forget I said it.”

He pointed to the screen. “Now, let’s not keep the nice TV folks waiting, Loren. Onward!”

“Yes, Captain,” said Loren, her voice icy cold. “Whatever you say.”

Nineteen

“Welcome to the Viaview Network Station Alpha. Our Vision, Your View . How may I direct your inquiry?”

The image on screen hadn’t changed to show the person talking, but Cal sat up straighter all the same. Some distance ahead of the Currently Untitled —Cal had no idea how much—a crystalline space station hung like a diamond against the reds, blues, and purples of space.

“This is Captain Cal Carver of the Currently Untitled ,” he replied. “We have a delivery for, uh…”

“The Controller, sir,” said Kevin.

“We have a delivery for the Controller. Two crates from the planet Floomfle.”

Loren half-turned in her chair. “They’re not from the planet Floomfle.”

“They’re not?” asked Cal, dropping his voice to a whisper and leaning closer. “What was it called?”

“Tolgor,” Loren hissed. “One of Trogol’s moons.”

Cal sat back. “Sorry, my mistake. It’s from…”

His eyes crept back to Loren.

“Tolgor.”

“Tolgor,” said Cal. “Not the planet Floomfle. Which, uh, doesn’t exist. As far as we know.”

There was a pause, then the female voice returned.

“One moment, please.”

There was a soft buzz for a moment, and then muzak chimed from the speakers. Cal bobbed his head in time with it as they waited.

“Not calling it ‘the planet Floomfle’ seems like a missed opportunity on their part,” he said, after a while.

He tapped his toes and drummed his fingers on the armrests.

“They should rebrand,” he mused. “I bet tourism would skyrocket.”

He knocked his knees together in time with the beat.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, want to go on vacation?’ ‘I don’t know, where to?’ ‘The moon of Tofu, or whatever?’ ‘Fonk, no! That sounds terrible.’ ‘You’re right. How about the planet Floomfle?’ ‘Hell, yes! With all the Floomfles?’ ‘Of course with all the Floomfles! It’s the planet Floomfle.’ ‘Count me in! I am there!’”

He looked around at the others. “You know what I mean?”

A tiny metal hammer flew across the room and cracked him on the back of the head.

“Ow! What the fon—?”

“Thank you for your patience,” said the voice from the speakers. “You may proceed to Gate Seven-Oh-Niner-Niner-Eight-Six.”

“Thank you,” Cal began.

“Four-Four-Echo-Niner-Seven…”

“Fonk. Pen. Someone get a pen,” Cal whispered.

“…Five-Oh-Three-Niner-Two.”

Cal smiled hopefully at the speaker. “Uh, could you possibly repeat—”

“Thank you for visiting Viaview. Our Vision, Your View . Have a great day.”

There was a click . Cal waited a moment.

“Hello?” he asked, but the only reply was the soft hiss of static. “Great,” he said, throwing his arms up. “Did anyone get that number?”

Mech and Loren both shook their heads. Cal hadn’t even bothered to look at Miz, knowing full well that she wouldn’t have been listening in the first place.

“OK, new rule, from now on everyone has to carry a pen,” Cal said.

“Don’t worry, sir,” said Kevin. “I’m able to recall the gate number.”

“You are?” asked Cal, sounding a little dubious.

“Indeed, sir. My databanks are almost limitless. I have the capacity to remember anything. A fifteen-digit number is unlikely to cause me any problems.”

Cal nodded, impressed. “OK. Well, great.

“Or was it sixteen?” Kevin wondered.

Cal’s cheeks deflated, as did his spirits.

“Not to worry, sir,” Kevin said. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

* * *

Three hours later, Cal sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, trying very hard not to cry. Miz and Tyrra had left just forty-five minutes into the ordeal—allegedly to go and kill themselves—and Mech had eventually headed for the engine room sometime after that. Cal wasn’t sure just how much time, because he’d been banging his head against the floor at that moment, and loudly declaring that he wished he’d never been born.

“And you’re sure we can’t call them back?!” Cal asked.

“For the tenth time, no, we can’t call them back,” Loren snapped. “Or, yes, we can, but they’re not answering. I just get a recorded message that says ‘Please follow previous instructions.’”

“We forgot the previous instructions!” Cal cried, clawing at the air in frustration.

“I know !”

“I wasn’t talking to you! I was talking to them!” Cal said, gesturing angrily at the Viaview station.

Splurt turned an eye toward him and rippled.

“You’re damn right I’m getting uptight!” Cal told him. “Because this is torture, Splurt. And I say that as someone who gets tortured at least once a month. This is worse than all those.”

Splurt gave a wobble. Cal checked himself and exhaled some of his anger out in a long, controlled breath through his nostrils.

“No, I know. I know. That’s not getting us anywhere,” he said, sitting upright.

“Found it, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal knew better than to get too excited. He’d been burned too many times before.

“Have you, though?”

“Indeed, sir. Plotting a trajectory now.”

“But… You’ve said that before. Like, ten times now.”

Splurt shimmied on the back of Loren’s chair.

“Twelve times,” Cal corrected. “Jesus, twelve times.”

“This is the one, sir,” Kevin assured him.

Cal shrugged. “Fine. Great. Let’s see.”

Loren took her hands off the controls as Kevin took over again. The Untitled curved around the side of the station and began to climb.

“Think this is really it?” Cal asked.

Up front, Loren didn’t turn. “Don’t know.”

Cal watched the back of her head, hoping she’d turn to face him. She didn’t.

“You OK?”

“Fine.”

“We OK?”

“I don’t know, are we?”

Cal groaned inwardly. “Is this about the name thing? Is it seriously a problem?”

“Not a serious serious problem,” Loren said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cal asked.

“I heard what you said. To Miz. About it—me—being just fun.”

Cal groaned outwardly. “What? How? I mean, that wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t…”

“It’s fine. It’s good that we know where we both stand,” Loren said. “I don’t want serious, either.”

Before Cal could reply, the Untitled came to a halt directly across from a landing bay door.

“Here we are, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal looked at the screen. His eyes, now all-too accustomed to the set-up of the doors, went instinctively to the number stenciled onto the lower right corner.

“This is number six,” Cal said, his voice cracking at the edges.

“Indeed, sir. Found it at last.”

“But we’re not looking for number six. We’re looking for a fifteen or sixteen-digit number.

Silence.

“Not a one-digit number,” Cal said.

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes! Jesus Christ! I’m sure,” Cal said, jumping to his feet. “Have I died? Is that what happened? Have I died and gone to Hell?”

And then, right at the edge of the screen, he spotted his salvation. It stuck out from the side of the station like a stick-on soap dish from the side of a bathtub. “Wait. Look. What’s that?” He whispered, as if worried he might startle it and scare it away.

“It’s a landing platform,” Loren said.

“Yes! Right! Great! And it has one of those wibbly forcefield screens around it that we could fly the ship through!”

“Yes, but it looks like a private pad,” Loren pointed out.

“At this point, I don’t care if it’s a private fonking bathroom , we’re landing on it.” His head tick-tocked between the pad and Loren. “Uh, can you land on it?”

“Of course I can land on it!”

“It’s just, now that I look at it, it seems pretty small.”

For the first time in three hours, Loren turned toward him. The expression on her face made him almost wish that she hadn’t. “Look, do you want to land, or do you want to keep circling around until we die of old age?”

Cal swallowed. “Um, I’d like to land, please.”

“Fine!” Loren turned back to face front. “Then we’ll land.”

She jammed the controls around. The ship’s landing gear made a long, high-pitched grinding sound. Loren glanced back over her shoulder, just briefly.

“But you might want to put on your seatbelt.”

* * *

In the end, the landing was mostly uneventful. Sure, a full third of the ship was hanging over the edge of the platform, but Loren assured him it wasn’t going to fall off, and he didn’t think it was wise to argue.

After a quick scan by Kevin to confirm there was a breathable atmosphere around the ship, and a double-check by Mech because Cal felt much safer getting a second opinion, they’d ventured down the ramp and onto the platform itself.

The entire crew stood together, Cal at the front, Loren at the back, and everyone else positioned between them, trying to pretend they hadn’t picked up on any of the all-too-obvious tension.

“So, now what?” asked Mech.

Cal looked across the landing platform to where it met a second glowing forcefield wall. Beyond that lay a room that had gone big on space, but small on furniture. From where he stood, Cal could see one circular desk, several banks of monitors, and what appeared to be three or four museum-style display cases.

A figure sat in a chair at the center of the desk, turning occasionally to check a screen or tap on a console. Thanks to the wobble of the forcefield, it was hard to tell exactly who or what the figure was, but Cal got the impression they were tall, slender, and—unless he was very much mistaken—silver.

“Now, we go talk to this person,” Cal said. He straightened himself up, smoothed down his t-shirt, and flicked away a few of the crumbs left over from the half a Twix he’d found down the side of Loren’s chair when she’d gone to the bathroom. “Happy faces on, everyone. Best manners. Let’s try to make a good impression. Tyrra, try not to kill anyone. In fact, that goes for everyone. No killing. OK?”

He looked across their faces. Miz, Tyrra, and Mech looked non-committal. Splurt, who was perched on Loren’s shoulder, looked positively crestfallen.

“OK, good,” said Cal. He wasn’t entirely convinced by their reactions, but didn’t think it’d do much good to press the point. That’d only make them kill someone solely to annoy him. “Then let’s go do our thing.”

He thrust a hand out in front of him, palm down. “Space Team!”

The others all regarded his hand, then Mech snorted. “Yeah, that ain’t happening,” he said, walking off. Loren, Miz, and Tyrra started after him.

“You’re seriously leaving me hanging here?” Cal called after them.

“We’re delivering boxes,” Loren said, briefly glancing back over her shoulder. “We don’t really need a rallying cry.”

“They’re not boxes, they’re crates!” Cal countered, his arm still raised.

He was about to lower it again when a little green hand stretched over on a snaking, elongated arm and rested briefly on the back of his.

“Thanks, buddy,” Cal said, then he hurried to catch up with the others, weaved past them, and took up his rightful place at the head of the procession.

Beyond the forcefield, the figure still twirled around inside the hoop of a desk. Now that they were closer, Cal could see that it was definitely silver, and that it had more arms than he could count.

OK, technically it probably only had six or seven arms, maybe eight at a push, but they moved constantly, and too quickly for Cal to be able to keep track.

“We should probably let me do the talking,” Cal said.

“Why?” asked Mech. “When has that ever been a good idea?”

“Uh, since always,” Cal countered.

“Bullshizz. No way. I’m doing the talking,” said Mech.

“You can’t do the talking!”

“Why can’t Mech do the talking?” Loren interjected.

“Because that’s my thing! I do the talking!” Cal protested. “Mech does the engines and the, you know… I don’t want to say ‘robot stuff,’ but robot stuff. You do the flying, Miz does the violence and practiced indifference—”

“Whatever.”

“Splurt’s adorably psychotic, and I do the talking. That’s how it works!” Cal said.

“What do I do?” asked Tyrra.

“You stay quiet and don’t cause any trouble,” Cal told her. “I mean it, one strike and you’re out.”

Tyrra flashed her teeth at him and snarled. Cal rose above it and led them up to the interior forcefield.

Mech clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Fine. You do the talking,” he said, in the tone of someone who fully expected this to be a mistake. “But I ain’t bailing you out if you get in trouble.”

“Ha! As if,” said Cal. “Trust me. I’ve got this.”

He turned and mimed rapping his knuckles on the shimmering wall. “Knock knock!” he said, then he stepped through, smiled broadly, and was immediately shot in the chest.

Twenty

Fonk. That stung.

Cal moved to sit up, but something wet and knobbly almost fell out of the ragged hole in his sternum, so he lay back down again.

After some thought, he placed a hand over the knobbly thing and held it in.

A metal hand caught him by the scruff of the neck and hurriedly dragged him back through the forcefield. Loren dropped to her knees beside him, both her and Splurt’s eyes wide with worry.

“Cal! Cal! Can you hear me?”

“L-Loren? Is that you?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper, his expression vague and glassy. He gave himself a shake. “Wait, no, I mean… T-Teela? Is that you?”

His hand fumbled blindly for her face, but found a boob instead. She gave him the benefit of the doubt for the first five seconds, then slapped his hand away when he showed no intentions of moving it.

“He’s fine,” she said, rocking back on her heels.

“Huh? Where am I?” Cal blinked a few times, as if waking from a trance. “Oh, man. That hurt,” he groaned. “The getting shot thing, I mean, not you slapping me on the hand. Although, I’ll be honest, I can’t pretend that didn’t also sting.”

He coughed quite violently, his whole body flopping around like a dying maggot as he spluttered and retched. After a bit of a struggle, he hacked up something brown and meaty and spat it onto the floor beside him. It wobbled in a way that would almost certainly have made his stomach turn, if he still had one.

“Jesus. I doubt that thing’s ever supposed to be on the outside,” he mused, eyeing up the lumpy wad. “What the fonk shot me? Did anyone see?”

“I’m pretty sure it was some kind of, like, gun thing,” said Miz.

“Oh, really? You think so?” asked Cal, the pitch of his voice rising. He gestured to himself. “You think the thing that shot me could’ve been some kind of gun thing? Great deduction. Let’s go ahead and mark that case closed.”

Miz shot Loren a sideways look. “Is he being a total shizznod right now?”

“Pretty much,” said Loren.

“Well, I am sorry ,” said Cal. “But I’m kind of in a tremendous amount of pain here, and currently mourning the loss of…”

He gestured to himself.

“…this entire section of my body. So, you’ll forgive me if I come across as a tiny bit tetchy.”

Miz rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Cal groaned. “I fonking knew we should’ve done the hands in a circle thing.”

“It looks like an automated defense turret,” said Mech, with a glance through the shielding. “The thing that shot you, I mean. Targeted your ass the second you stepped through the shield.”

Cal explored his chest wound with the tip of one finger. “Well, if it was aiming for my ass it needs some serious target practice.”

He poked something squidgy that stuck up between two partially destroyed ribs. A gush of blood erupted like a miniature geyser from the same spot on the opposite side of his chest.

Cal stopped prodding then and let his head fall back onto the floor with a clunk . “My God, this hurts.”

“What does it feel like?” wondered Tyrra. She was standing on her tiptoes to see over Loren, staring at the wound in rapt fascination.

“Like I’ve been shot in the chest by a big cannon,” said Cal.

“No, but what is it like ?” Tyrra pressed.

Cal sighed. “Have you ever had really bad indigestion? Wait, no. Acid reflux? Have you ever had acid reflux?”

Tyrra shook her head.

“What am I saying? Of course you haven’t, you lucky bamstom. What are you, six? Trust me, it’ll strike one day, maybe years from now and ooh boy, then you’ll be…”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Probably not the time. Just try to imagine that your insides are overflowing with stomach acid. Only instead of stomach acid, it’s liquid fire. And instead of a stomach, it’s a giant hole where your stomach used to be.” Cal wrinkled his nose. “It pretty much feels like that. Only, you know, several magnitudes worse.”

He glanced down at himself, then up at Mech and Loren. “How does it look? Does it look bad?”

“Well… you’ve looked better,” Loren confessed.

“You’re basically a paste from your waist to your neck,” said Mech.

“Shizz, that does sound bad. Is it at least a nice paste?” Cal asked.

Mech had the decency to at least pretend to give this some thought.

“No,” he said, after a show of consideration. “No, it ain’t.”

Cal groaned. “Yeah. I thought not. It doesn’t look great from this angle, either. Still, on the bright side, you guys did want me to lose weight…”

“That don’t count,” said Mech.

“Totally counts,” Cal argued. “I am ripped . Ripped open, granted, but still ripped.”

He raised a shaky hand and pointed to the cyborg. “OK, new plan. Mech, you do the talking. I’ll lie here for a few minutes and regret my life choices.”

“Great, so now I’m going to get shot at?” Mech said.

“Quit whining, you big baby. You’re indestructible.”

“What? No, I ain’t!”

“You aren’t?” Cal asked. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fonking certain.”

Cal pulled a ‘Well, I never,’ sort of face. “Huh. I did not know that,” he said, then he made a dismissive gesture with a blood-soaked hand. “Anyway, you’ll be fine. Just make sure you shoot first.”

Loren raised an eyebrow. “What about making a good impression?”

“Yeah, I think we can safely say that ship has sailed,” Cal said. “Anyway, we’re not going in and wrecking the joint, it’s self-defense. The turret shot me, we shoot the turret, we’re square, and we can get back to business.”

Mech grunted. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“You can do it, big guy!” Cal called after him, as Mech padded toward the shielding. “I believe in you. You’re Han Solo, that thing’s Greedo, and this is the original edit before—In fact, know what? That’s too long and complex a metaphor, just go in there with your… aaaand, he’s gone.”

From beyond the shield there came the sound of blaster fire, then of metal exploding.

“Did he get it?” asked Cal. “I can’t sit up or everything will fall out. Did he get it?”

The familiar clank of Mech’s footsteps came in reply. “Yeah. I got it. Y’all coming in, or what?”

Cal beckoned to Splurt, who was still perched on Loren’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Can you come be my chest until I heal up? I wouldn’t normally ask, but…”

He made a ta-daa gesture to his wound, like a game show host presenting the star prize. Splurt flopped down from Loren’s shoulder, landed on Cal’s face with a splat , then oozed down over his torso, becoming an exact match for Cal’s flesh tones.

“Thanks, buddy,” Cal said. He gritted his teeth and hissed as Loren and Miz helped him up, but everything that was supposed to be inside him stayed there, so he marked it as a win.

“OK,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s go show this fonk who he’s dealing with.”

He led the way through the shield, glanced warily around to make sure nothing else was going to shoot at him, then marched toward the desk and the elegant silver figure twirling behind it. The blood-soaked remains of his t-shirt hung down from the bottom of his jacket, which was open and showed off his bare chest.

Cal stopped a few feet from the desk and put his hands on his hips.

“Hey, there,” he said. He’d chosen the perfect smile from his arsenal. It was six parts threatening to four parts friendly. It was designed to suggest that the next few minutes could go very well, or go very badly, with very little room for anything in between. “It seems we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Loren leaned in closer. “Cal.”

“One sec, honey,” Cal said, adjusting his smile to a much warmer one for just a moment, then dialing it back to its former position. “See, I’m not sure if you noticed, but you shot me.”

The figure behind the desk glanced at him as it spun, then did a double-take and regarded him with something like fascination on its smooth, liquid metal features.

“Ah, that got your attention,” Cal said. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. It could be a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“Uh, hey, man,” Mech said.

“Jesus, guys,” Cal whispered. “I’m trying to do business here. Could you give me one minute?”

Loren leaned in on Cal’s other side. “It’s just…” She flicked her eyes to his chest.

Cal looked down.

He looked up.

He looked down again.

He was somewhat surprised to find himself the proud owner of an impressive pair of women’s breasts.

“Uh…” he said, then he pulled his jacket over to hide his nipples. “Is it cold in here, or is just me?” he asked.

“It’s just you,” Loren told him.

“This is probably my fault,” Cal explained. “It’s a misunderstanding. Splurt does the mind-reading thing, and I was still thinking about…”

His eyes went briefly to Loren’s chest, then he gave himself a shake. “Doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.” He zipped his jacket closed over his breasts, and got back down to business.

“Sorry about that,” he began, then two doors flew open at either side of the sparsely-furnished room and a dozen men and women in uniforms rushed in, six from each side.

Cal sighed. “God damn it, what now?”

“Ah, security. Good,” said the figure behind the desk. The voice was male, and as smooth as his liquid metal surface. “Kindly remove these…” He waved one of his many arms. Every one of the hands held a round device like the one the map man had been carrying. Two thumbs on each hand swiped and tapped at the screens, never hesitating or pausing. “…interlopers.”

“Yes, Controller,” two of the guards answered simultaneously, one on the left, one on the right.

The Controller went back to spinning around inside his nest-like desk, his eyes flicking across all his screens in turn.

The guards arrived in a clatter of rushing feet. They all wielded long metal rods, and as they raised them above their heads, they began to vibrate.

“What the hell are they planning to do with those?” Cal wondered.

The head guard on his left lunged and swung. Loren stopped him with a kick to the throat, then brought her leg back before driving it into his chest, propelling him backward into the rest of his squad.

The head guard on the right was not so lucky.

She roared as she threw herself at Mizette, baton clutched in both hands. Miz’s hand wrapped around the woman’s head, catching her in mid-flight. With a jerk, Miz raised her higher into the air, then introduced her to the floor half a second later with enough force to crack her armor open like an eggshell, and probably a number of bones with it.

The next guard made contact with the vibrating baton, smashing it hard against Miz’s shoulder. Mizette’s jaw tightened and her hair stood on end, both of which only served to make her look larger and more terrifying. She slashed with her claws, severing the man’s arm below the elbow.

“Like, ow !” she scowled at him, before Tyrra rammed the top of her head into the entirety of the man’s groin, and he went down in a mess of blood, tears, and regret.

Back on Cal’s left, Loren dropped into a sweeping spin-kick, taking the legs out from under another of the guards. This one joined the other three she’d already dropped, and the movements of the fifth attacker became hesitant and less certain.

She drove a finger strike into a seam of his armor, an elbow into his nose, and his testicles into his lower abdomen. This left only one guard on Loren’s side. He was larger than the others, but wiser, too. He’d seen which way the wind was blowing, and it wasn’t in a favorable direction.

He passed the vibrating baton from hand to hand for a moment, sized Loren up, then jammed it against the side of his own head, instantly rendering himself unconscious.

Cal turned to his right to see Miz slouching on one hip, picking bits of guard-flesh from under her fingernails. Tyrra stood beside her, growling down at the fallen security forces.

“Like, what kept you?” Miz asked Loren.

“Decided to go easy on them,” Loren said.

One of the men at her feet groaned. She stomped down with the heel of her boot, silencing him.

Loren shrugged. “Mostly.”

“Nicely done, ladies,” Cal said.

The doors opened again. Several more guards appeared. Cal approached the Controller’s desk and leaned on it. For the first time since they’d arrived, the silver figure seemed to be giving them his full, undivided attention.

“You really want to do this again?” Cal asked. “How many security guys do you have? Because you’ve seen what three of us can do. How do you think your guards are going to fare once me, the robot, and these babies get in on the act?”

He gestured at his cleavage. The Controller regarded it briefly, but said nothing. The guards activated their batons and broke into a run.

“Well, suit yourself,” said Cal, straightening. He reached for the zipper of his jacket. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The footsteps clattered closer. Cal held the Controller’s gaze.

At last, the silver figure relented.

“That will be all,” he said. “Thank you, everyone, that will be all.”

Both security teams clattered to a stop and lowered their weapons.

“Thank you. I appreciate it. You guys do great work,” said the Controller. He pointed to one of the men at the front. “Rorn, looking good there, pal. Have you been working out?”

“Yessir! Always, sir!”

“Well, it shows. Maybe I’ll ditch my trainer and come to you for advice from now on.”

Another arm gestured to a woman over on Cal’s right. “Ma-reese? How are the kids? Little Do-reese got those teeth yet?”

“Almost, sir. They’re coming through now.”

“Well, alright. Send her my love,” the Controller said. He gestured with all his arms at the pile of unconscious bodies on the floor. “Could you maybe…? And there are some parts you’re going to want to reattach before…”

He nodded gratefully as the new security teams picked up the old security teams and carried them in opposite directions toward the doors.

“Thank you. You guys are doing a great job,” the Controller said. “You make this place work!” he called after them, just before they finished filing out and the doors closed behind them. “They’re great. Aren’t they great?” he asked, turning to Cal and the others.

His hands had gone back to work, his multitude of thumbs in constant motion again like they were living entities with their own free will.

The Controller stood up. This was a slow, graceful process that made it look like he was a plant sprouting from inside a pot.

When he had finished the standing process, he was a clear head taller than Mech, with most of his height in his spindly silver legs. He was substantially skinnier than Mech—he was substantially skinnier than Cal, in fact, even pre-boobs or travel weight—with his body really just acting as a sort of anchor point for all his arms.

Raising a leg, he stepped over the desk and stopped when he towered above Cal.

“Now, tell me who you are and what you want,” said the Controller, his voice as smooth and as pleasant as always. “Or I promise I will take tremendous pleasure in killing you all myself.”

Twenty-One

Tyrra charged forward, mouth wide, teeth bared.

“Wait, Tyrra, no!” Miz yelped, grabbing for her, but the girl slipped through her claws and threw herself at the silver figure.

“You dare threaten us ?” she hissed, and then she let out a yelp as a whole new arm extended from inside the Controller’s hub of a body, caught her by the throat, and jerked her cleanly into the air.

His other arms continued to move, his thumbs tap-tapping on all those little screens.

“What is this?” he asked in his smooth, sing-song tone. He twisted his grip, turning Tyrra so he could look at her back, before rotating her to face him again. “I’ve never seen one of these.”

“Let her go,” Miz growled, spit foaming at the corners of her mouth.

The Controller regarded Miz coolly. “Huh. Or one of whatever you are, in fact.” He studied them all in turn, Tyrra still squirming in his grip. “Well, aren’t you just a big old bag of enigmas?”

“You’d better do what the lady says, man,” Mech warned. “Let the kid go.”

The Controller appeared momentarily confused, then reacted as if only just realizing he still had Tyrra in his grip. “Ah. Yes. Apologies,” he said. His hand opened and Tyrra fell wheezing to the floor. “Kindly remove it from my office.”

“Her ,” Cal corrected. “Not it .”

The Controller’s new arm reached into the desk, retrieved one of the palm-sized devices, then joined the others in swiping and tapping.

“Kindly remove her from my office, then,” the Controller said. “Sorry.”

“She’s going nowhere, pal,” Cal said, as Miz helped Tyrra back onto her feet.

The Controller gave a polite nod. “Fair enough. Then, it looks like our conversation is over. You can all leave the same way you came in.”

Cal flicked his tongue across the back of his teeth. “Actually, maybe Tyrra should go back to the ship.”

“What? We’re listening to this silver shizznod?” said Miz.

“She charged right at the guy all…” Cal bared his teeth. “She did kind of bring it on herself. It’s better she goes back to the ship before she gets someone hurt.”

Tyrra coughed and rubbed her throat where the hand had gripped her.

“Any more than they already are, I mean,” Cal added.

He bent down so he was face to face with Tyrra. “Miz’ll take you back to the ship. And, again, we’re going to have words later, young lady.”

“I want to stay,” Tyrra croaked.

“Well, you can’t. I told you what would happen. One strike,” Cal told her. He softened a little when her bottom lip stuck out. “Mech will patch his comm-link into the ship so you won’t miss anything exciting.”

He looked up at Mech. “That’s a thing, right? You can do that?”

“Yeah. But can I mute Kevin?”

Cal pulled a face that suggested that part was a given, then looked back at Tyrra. “There. You’ll be able to hear us.”

“That’s not the same,” Tyrra sulked.

“No, but it’s the best offer you’re going to get,” Cal told her. “And it’ll be a life-lesson. You need to rein in this behavior before—”

Tyrra slapped him across the face, staggering him and forcing a sound he was not proud of to come tumbling from his mouth.

“Ha. Bested,” she croaked.

Then, with a furious glare at the Controller, she turned and went stomping back toward the forcefield, with Miz striding along behind her.

“Thank you,” said the Controller, once they’d left. “It’s one thing maiming my security forces, but I can’t have someone directly challenging me in my own office. Sorry, but I just can’t. You get it, right? Yeah. You guys get it.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Cal. “We get it. Now, you’re probably wondering—”

“Wait! Wait! Hold up,” said the Controller. “Let me run something by you. OK? I’m going to fire some words at you, and you say ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’ Got it?”

Cal frowned, glanced at the others, then opened his mouth to say that no, he didn’t really get it. Unfortunately, the window of opportunity had passed.

“Audience,” said the Controller.

“What?”

“Hot or cold? Audience.”

Cal glanced to Loren and Mech for help, but they looked just as confused as he was.

“I’m not asking them, I’m asking you,” the Controller said. “Hot or cold?”

“Um… hot?” Cal guessed.

“Cleanliness.”

“I guess…” Cal puffed out his cheeks. “I guess cold.”

“Modular thought.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hot or cold?”

Cal shrugged. “Cold.”

“Cold? Modular thought? Really? You think cold?”

“I don’t… OK, hot.”

The Controller looked wildly excited. “Hot! Yes!”

Cal nodded, pleased with himself despite not knowing why. “Obviously.”

“Textured flooring,” said the Controller. “Cold, right? I don’t even have to ask.”

“Freezing,” Cal agreed.

“All right . That was really useful. Thank you. You’ve been a great help.”

He half-sat, half-leaned on the edge of the desk. Even in this position, he was a full foot taller than Cal. “Now, what was it you wanted? Because, I hate to tell you, guys, but I’m kind of busy here.”

Cal was still trying to work out what all the ‘hot or cold’ stuff was about, and it took him a moment to switch tracks.

“Oh. Yeah. We’ve got a delivery.”

“Deliveries don’t come to my office,” the Controller said. “They never come to my office. We have a specific cargo section of the station just for deliveries. We call it ‘The Delivery Section.’ I came up with that name myself.” He smiled. “I’m kidding. I’m kidding, I didn’t come up with the name. But we do have a delivery section. For deliveries.”

“Yeah, we know,” said Cal. “But we couldn’t find it.”

“It covers six hundred floors,” said the Controller.

“Yeah. Still couldn’t find it,” said Cal, waving a hand to suggest that this was a minor and unimportant detail. “So, we thought we’d bring it here. Straight to the top. You are the top, right?”

“Guilty! I am the Controller of the network. You don’t get any higher,” the silver figure replied. “What are you—hold on, one moment.”

He placed one of the devices to the raised area on his head where an ear should be. “What? No. Since when? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

Cal rocked on his heels and took the opportunity to look around the room. This took approximately ten seconds, as there wasn’t a lot to look at. The desk was fancy. The chair was oddly shaped. The various display cases held nothing of any obvious significance—a pair of shoes, a model of some sort of insect, a blue soft toy that might have been an elephant, a hippo, or neither of the two. Nothing particularly exciting.

He gave his breasts a nudge, adjusting them. They each gave a jelly-like wobble, one after the other. In his experience, this was not normal behavior, but then nothing about the situation was exactly run-of-the-mill.

“No, no, listen. Tell him that’s not an offer, that’s an insult. Has he seen our audience share for that slot? Ninety-four percent. That’s of the system, Forank. Not of a country, not of a planet, of the system. ”

He pressed both thumbs firmly against the contraption, then turned his attention back to Cal.

“Sorry, sponsors getting ideas their brains aren’t big enough to process,” the Controller said.

“We know how that is,” said Cal, nodding sagely.

The Controller cocked his head to one side. “You do?”

“Actually, no. I don’t know why I said that,” Cal admitted. “Anyway, as I was saying, we’re here to deliver two crates from the planet Floom—”

“From Tolgor. One of the moons of Trogol,” Loren interjected.

“From there. Yes. That’s it,” said Cal.

The Controller jumped up. “Aha! Yes. We’ve been waiting for those. It’s feed for the Sloorgs. You’d be amazed, but those things are surprisingly picky eaters.”

“I am amazed,” said Cal. Then: “What’s a Sloorg?”

The Controller’s thumbs all stopped moving. “I’m sorry?”

“You said it’s food for the Sloorgs. What’s a Sloorg?”

The Controller’s perfectly smooth face creased just a little. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—”

“You mean… you don’t know?”

Cal shook his head. “Yes. No. I mean, no, I don’t know what a Sloorg is.”

“You don’t know what a Sloorg is?”

“Do you want me to talk slower?” Cal asked. He exaggerated his mouth movements. “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know what a Sloorg is.”

He turned to the others. “Do you guys know what a Sloorg is?”

Loren and Mech both indicated that no, they didn’t.

“None of you know what a Sloorg is?” the Controller yelped. There was a slightly hysterical edge to his voice now, and his arms had all dropped to his sides. “So… what are you saying? You’ve never seen The Hunt ?”

“No,” Cal confirmed.

“What, never ?”

Cal looked to his left and right, meeting Loren and Mech’s gazes again. “Have we ever seen The Hunt ?”

“Not unless it’s got puppets in it,” said Mech.

“No, that’s Puppetopia ,” said the Controller. “You’ve seen Puppetopia , but you’ve never seen The Hunt ? How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” said Cal.

“How is it possible ?” demanded the Controller, leaning in so his liquid metal face hovered just above Cal’s. His eyes were made of the same smoothly-flowing material as the rest of them, but Cal was sure he saw something blazing behind them for a moment. “You must have seen The Hunt . Everyone has seen The Hunt .”

Cal blew out his cheeks. “No, sorry.”

“Juggacrush. Eviscerator. Plasmoid,” the Controller continued, his voice going higher with each word. “Mean anything to you? No?”

“It’s not ringing any bells,” Cal said.

“We’re from a different sector,” Mech said. “We’re a long way from home.”

This seemed to relax the Controller a little. He sat on the edge of the desk, steadying himself. Most of his hands went back to work, but three didn’t seem quite up to it yet.

“Oh. Ah. That explains it,” he said. “Phew ! That’s a relief. Because you’re exactly our demographic, and if you hadn’t seen… Wow. I don’t even want to think about it. Can I assume you only arrived recently?”

“We did,” Loren confirmed.

Reassured by this, the other three hands went back to work. “OK. OK, that’s fine. That’s… wow, you had me worried there for a second.”

He stood up, took a complex backward step, and reinstalled himself back in the center of his donut-shaped desk. “OK, so I’ll call someone up from cargo to take those crates, we’ll arrange the transfer of Viacoin to your ship and… I think that’s everything.”

The Controller gestured past Cal and the others in the direction of the landing platform. “Your friend is back.”

Everyone turned to see Miz come padding through the forcefield wall alone.

“What? Like, what are you all staring at?” she asked.

“I thought you were going to stay with Tyrra and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble?” Cal asked.

Miz shook her head. “No, she’s fine. Kevin’s watching her. And besides, she’s busy smashing up all your stuff. That’ll keep her occupied for a while.”

“Great. That’s great,” said Cal. He turned to the Controller. “We should probably get back. Nice to meet you, uh, Controller.”

“And you. Thanks again for the market research help,” the Controller replied. “Sanitation inquiries.”

“Cold,” said Cal.

The silver figure gave a satisfied nod. “I knew it.”

Cal and the others turned to leave, but before they could go any further, the Controller spoke again.

“Although, since you’re here, and new to the area…”

Cal turned back and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“How about I have someone give you a tour?”

Twenty-Two

“So, you guys met the Controller? So cool! Isn’t he just the greatest?”

“He’s something, alright,” said Cal. He trotted along the corridor alongside Bryman, their official guide on their unofficial tour of the Viaview station, and one of the few people Cal had ever met who could talk more than he could.

He seemed like a nice guy, Cal thought. A little too eager to please, maybe, but it was a refreshing change to have to suffer someone being overly nice to him as opposed to, say, shooting him with gun turrets, or knifing him in the thigh.

Bryman also had a way of finishing every sentence with a rising inflection so that it sounded like a question. Cal had thought this would become irritating after a few minutes, but he’d been wrong. It became irritating much sooner than that.

“You ask me, he was kinda creepy,” said Mech. He and Loren were following behind Cal and Bryman, both doing their best to look interested.

Miz took up the rear of the procession, making zero attempt whatsoever to look anything but bored senseless. She plodded along, each laborious footstep slapping against the floor, each new nugget of trivia from Bryman eliciting another groan.

“He gets that a lot . Like, I mean, all the time ,” Bryman said, nodding vigorously. He seemed to do most things vigorously. His movements suggested a barely contained explosion of nervous energy that was getting increasingly close to going off.

“He’s an AI,” Bryman explained. “That’s Artificial Intelligence . You know, like a living computer? He’s got, like, a superbrain.”

“Oh yeah,” said Cal. “We have one of those.”

Bryman reacted with a comically exaggerated frown. “Huh?”

“An AI. We have one,” said Cal. “His name is Kevin. He helps control our ship. You know, kind of.”

Bryman continued to look confused for a few moments, then laughed through his nose and slapped Cal playfully on the arm. “Oh, you guys.” He wagged a finger reproachfully. “You almost had me!”

Cal gave a chuckle, then shot a look back to Loren and Mech. All three of them shrugged at the same time. Behind them, Miz tutted loudly.

“Now, come on, slowpokes!” Bryman urged. “The Puppetopia studio is right around this corner. If we’re lucky, we might catch some of the cast between rehearsals and we can say hi!”

“That’s awesome!” Cal gushed. “Hear that guys?”

“We heard,” said Loren. She clenched her fists and waved them beside her head. “Yay.”

Cal leaned closer to Mech’s arm. “Hear that, Tyrra? Hear what you’re missing? We’re going to see some puppets . I hope you’re thinking long and hard about what you did.”

“Ugh. Now I kind of wish I’d tried to kill the guy,” said Miz. “Maybe then I’d be banished to the ship.”

“They’re actually very excited,” Cal told Bryman. “We caught part of the show, and we were hooked.”

“Yeah, that’s the Brainbeam . It’s like a hypno-signal,” said Bryman, leading them past a brightly colored sign that proclaimed they were Now Entering Puppetopia . “It affects the mind so people get addicted.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Right.”

They walked on in silence for a few moments. “I mean, I guess that explains a lot.”

“Ain’t that illegal?” asked Mech.

“Illegal? Goodness, no. Why would it be illegal?” asked Bryman. “All the networks do it. Thanks to the Controller, we just do it better than anyone else. We like to joke that our hypno-signal is so addictive, even other hypno-signals get hooked!”

He laughed at that, a shrill little giggle that came out like a car alarm and made Cal jump.

“We’re a little crazy here!” Bryman said. He pointed to the side of his head and made a ‘screw loose’ motion. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to be crazy to work here—”

“But it helps?” said Cal.

Bryman stopped walking and let out a little gasp. “But it helps ! I like that. That’s perfect! ” He touched Cal very sincerely on the arm. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to get that put on a little sign and hang it above my desk. Is that OK? I can’t pay you, or anything, but I’ll credit you at the bottom. It’ll be great exposure.”

“No credit necessary,” said Cal. “That one’s on me.”

For a moment, he thought Bryman might burst into tears, but then the guide pulled himself together and gave Cal’s arm a squeeze. “Thank you,” he said breathlessly. “That is so kind.”

He began walking again. Cal fell into step, then overshot by a few paces when Bryman stopped again three seconds later outside a door with two shiny gold stars fixed to it.

“Here we are,” he announced. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”

He leaned in close to the door, rapped a knuckle against it, and simultaneously said, “Knock knock!”

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door. “Yoohoo! Tour calling! Anyone home?”

Cal found himself staring in at the two puppets he’d been watching on TV a few hours earlier. The larger of the two was wrapped in a towel from the waist down. The other one lay sprawled on a couch, something that wasn’t entirely unlike a cigarette hanging from its bottom lip. A little funnel on his head spurted bubbles into the air.

They both glowered at the door as it opened.

“Do ya fonking mind, ya dumb piece of shizz?” barked the one in the towel. His accent sounded like it came from New Jersey, and not one of the nicer parts. It was nothing like it had sounded back when they’d been on TV. “How about a little privacy?”

“Look at this fonk, barging in here, trying to catch us naked,” sneered the bubble-blower with the cigarette in an accent not dissimilar to the first. He made a gesture Cal had never seen before, but which he was fairly certain was not in any way complimentary. “Get the fonk out of here, ya pansy.”

“Yeah, ya dinky-dink,” spat the larger puppet. “And take your big-titty boyfriend with you.”

Bryman closed the door just as something heavy smashed against it on the other side.

“Jesus,” said Cal, covering his chest with his hands. “Those puppets were mean.”

“They’re actually lovely guys,” Bryman insisted. “Everything just gets a little tense ahead of recording.”

“We can still hear ya, ya homo!”

Bryman smiled, showing off some truly impeccable teeth. “Let’s move on.”

And so, the tour continued. Bryman took them to see the Puppetopia set, the Puppetopia prop room, and the Puppetopia bathroom facilities. Although, now that Cal had found out that the puppets were A) such total shizznods, and B) not actually puppets he wasn’t all that interested in any of it.

Mech and Loren were even less interested.

Miz was apoplectic with scarcely contained rage.

“What about the other show?” Cal asked, as Bryman showed them around a room containing all the awards Puppetopia had won over the years. There were six of them, which Cal wasn’t sure required an entire room to display. A moderately-sized cabinet would have done. “What was it called? Hunters?”

“Oh, you mean, The Hunt ?” said Bryman. “That’s the jewel in Viaview’s crown. We’re building up to that part of the tour.”

“How quickly are we building up to it?” asked Mech.

“Let’s see,” said Bryman. He looked up and chewed his bottom lip in thought for a moment, then began to count on his fingers. “I was going to do Obstacle Smash , then Who’s Got the Pants On? I’ll swing us by the shopping channels on deck eighty-six. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to see some of The Kid Caper, Boongoids Do the Funniest Things, and I think—I can’t promise, but I think —that we’re shooting a new episode of The Geronimo Brothers .”

“Or,” said Cal, “alternative suggestion—we don’t do any of that, and just go see The Hunt .”

“Cut short the tour?” asked Bryman. “No Who’s Got the Pants On ? No Boongoids ?”

“I mean, I’m sure they’re classics,” Cal replied. “But we’re running a little late for our next appointment, so if we could just skip to the end, that would be awesome.”

Bryman shuffled uneasily and glanced across the faces of all four members of the group. It was the expression on Mizette’s face that really sold the idea to him.

“I mean, I guess The Hunt is the big highlight, so…” He brightened, plastering on a big broad smile that showed off those whiter-than-white veneers. “Let’s do it!”

* * *

The Hunt , Bryman explained, had been the network’s breakout smash hit. It had first aired over ten years ago, intended to be a one-off event. It had immediately proved so popular, though, that a full series was commissioned. Since then, it had been run live every night, with an edited highlights episode showing at the end of each week.

The concept was simple. Take one or more criminals, place them into the first in a series of custom-built environments filled with danger, and point them in the direction of the finish line some ten miles away.

If they made it to the finish, they won ten million Viacoins and, more importantly, their freedom. If they failed, they died.

In all five thousand plus episodes of the show, no one had ever reached the finish line.

Sometimes, they were killed by the environment. Some drowned in the Swamps, others fell from the Cliff. Many were torn apart by Sloorgs.

More often, though, they died at the hands of the real stars of the show, the Hunters. There were three of them—Juggacrush, Eviscerator, and Plasmoid—each with their own special skills and abilities, but with the same bloodthirsty desire to kill.

If the contestants—or Prey—were caught by one of the Hunters, it was all basically over but the screaming and the sponsorship messages. It was a savage, brutally violent show.

And the audience loved it.

“So, it’s like The Running Man , but in space,” Cal said, as they all waited for the elevator doors to open. “The Space Running Man. Wait, no. The Running Space Man? I mean, technically it should be Space The Running Man, but that just sounds awkward.”

“Oh, no, there’s nothing else like it,” Bryman said.

“Well, there is, so…”

Bryman shook his head. “It’s an original concept.”

“It was when Arnold Schwarzenegger came up with it in the 80s,” Cal said. He rocked on his heels. “I mean, I don’t actually know if he came up with it, but—”

The elevator doors opened, revealing a grand hallway with a ten-foot-tall granite figure standing imposingly in the center.

Cal whistled quietly as he stepped out and approached the statue. “Holy shizz, who is this guy?”

“That’s Juggacrush,” said Bryman in reverential tones. “He’s the face of The Hunt .”

“I can see why,” Cal muttered. He stopped in the statue’s shadow and looked it up and down. Mostly up. “This guy’s a monster.”

Juggacrush had a face that only a mother could love, and even then only if she was partially sighted and had a strong stomach.

From this angle, his head was sixty percent jaw, twenty percent teeth, and everything else had to fight for whatever space was left over. His torso was the size of a small family car. His arms and legs resembled tree trunks that had been roughly fashioned into limbs. His hands and feet were the size of paving slabs.

A series of interlocking stone plates covered his chest, stomach, and modesty. Cal couldn’t tell if they were part of him, or a suit of armor he was wearing. Either way, they helped add to the overall ‘Do not fonk with this guy,’ vibe that Juggacrush had going on.

“I mean, Jesus. Look at him,” Cal said, whistling through his teeth. “He’s a Hulkadillo. You know, like the Hulk crossed with an armadillo? Hulkadillo?”

“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Loren told him.

Cal went back to staring up at the statue. Some of the carving work was incredible. He’d never seen so much detail in a statue before. It was all very impressive.

“Weirdly small crotch, though,” he remarked, pointing to the area in question. “I mean, look. That’s out of proportion, right? What happened? Did that part forget to grow with the rest of him? Does he tuck it away?”

“Uh, please stop,” said Bryman.

“It’s not a criticism, it’s just an observation,” said Cal. “I’m just saying, if someone made a statue of me and skimped on the down below like this…”

He rapped his knuckles against the comparatively small armor plating that covered Juggacrush’s groin. “I would not be happy.”

A hand the size of a paving slab caught Cal by the shoulder. Juggacrush’s head tilted down, the tiny area of his face dedicated to forehead and eyebrows furrowing into deep creases.

“Aaand this isn’t a statue,” Cal realized, just a split second before he was launched screaming toward the ceiling.

Twenty-Three

Cal’s breasts cushioned his fall, inflating to six times their regular size a moment before he hit the floor. He bounced forward, flipped once over his head, and landed upright with a look on his face that suggested he was just as surprised as everyone watching on.

“Ta-daa!” he said, because he felt the moment needed to be marked in some way, and that was the best he could come up with.

Juggacrush glared down at him, but made no other move to attack. Mech was chuckling to himself, but had a finger and thumb on his dial, ready to crank his strength up. Loren’s hand rested on the butt of her blaster pistol. Miz loomed menacingly behind Bryman, her teeth bared.

“Easy, guys. Easy. That was my bad,” Cal said. He smiled up at Juggacrush, while putting all his weight on his back foot so he could make a fast getaway if required. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t go casting aspersions on another man’s… you know. We’ve all got what we’ve got, and that’s…”

Cal stopped talking. He waved a hand in front of Juggacrush’s face. The giant’s eyelids scraped across his eyeballs as he blinked, but he otherwise remained motionless.

“Uh, hello?”

“We’ve neutered him,” Bryman explained.

Cal’s eyes went to Juggacrush’s crotch again.

“Psychically, I mean,” Bryman explained. “The Hunters are too unpredictable and dangerous to just leave to their own devices, so the Controller set up some psychic locks and protocols. They usually just stand around all day until we trigger them for the show.”

“So, how come he fired me at the ceiling?” Cal asked.

“The psychic blocks aren’t perfect,” Bryman admitted. “Strong emotional triggers can disrupt them.”

“Like anger?” Cal asked.

“Exactly. Like anger.”

“Or happiness?”

“Sure, or happiness. Any strong emotion.”

“Jealousy? Would jealousy work?”

Bryman twitched, almost imperceptibly. “Any strong emotional trigger. Anything at all. Anger, happiness, jealousy. Just any emotion you can think of.”

“What about indifference?” Cal wondered. “Is indifference an emotion? Or is it more, like, a state of mind?”

He scratched his head, suddenly thoughtful.

“Actually, what even are emotions?”

“Moving on,” said Bryman, ushering them toward the mouth of a corridor that led off from the entrance hallway. “If you guys promise to stay real quiet, I’ll show you one of the Sloorgs.”

“Real quiet suits me just fine,” said Mech. He shot Cal a look as he padded past him. “Fonking ‘indifference.’”

* * *

A few minutes later, Cal and the others stood in a darkened room, looking through a strip of reinforced glass at one of the most horrifying things any of them had ever seen.

If you had a very vivid imagination and really pushed it to its limits, you could almost convince yourself it was a dog, Cal thought. It had two more legs than a dog, its tail seemed to be an extension of its rectal passage, and its head was shaped like a testicle, but there was a vague sort of canine quality to it, all the same.

The wrinkled, ball-shaped head was eyeless and earless, with only a thumbnail-sized hole in the center to suggest a nose. What it lacked in everything else, though, it more than made up for in mouth.

The bottom jaw was recessed behind the upper one, curving upward at either side in a way that gave the impression the thing was grinning. Its teeth had been inserted liberally, and with no obvious strategy involved. Some followed the traditional route of sticking upright from their sockets, while others freestyled by poking out sideways, jutting straight forward or, in a few cases, erupting through other parts of the head like shrapnel.

Size-wise, it was somewhere between a large tiger and a small rhino. A haphazard checkerboard of black and purple markings covered its scarred, pock-marked skin. All six ankles were ringed with cuffs of dirty yellow hair, and finished with paws that individually probably weighed as much as Cal himself, and certainly had more claws.

It padded back and forth in its otherwise empty cage, its tail occasionally twitching as it ejected blobs of runny black scat onto the floor.

“Usually, I’m not one to judge someone on their physical appearance,” said Cal. “But I can’t help but make an exception in this case. That’s… I mean… that’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”

“You ain’t wrong,” said Mech.

“And, like, you’ve seen Loren naked,” Miz remarked.

“Hilarious,” Loren sighed.

“You mean you’re hilarious,” Miz retorted. She moved to thump Loren on the arm, but Loren deflected it without looking.

“Don’t,” Loren warned.

“You don’t.”

“Please, don’t make too much noise,” Bryman whispered. “We do not want to get the Sloorg riled up.”

Loren and Miz glared at each other, then returned their attention to the creature in the cage.

“Look at those teeth,” Cal muttered.

“They look scary, but actually a Sloorg’s bark is worse than its bite,” said Bryman.

Cal’s eyebrows raised. “Oh? So, what? They’re actually big softies?”

“Oh no,” said Bryman, shaking his head emphatically. “I mean their bark is literally worse than their bite. The sound of it can shatter bone.”

“Oh,” said Cal.

“It makes some people go blind.”

“Right.”

“In one episode, a guy shizzed himself inside out.”

“Jesus.”

“Its bite is horrible, too. I mean, it’ll eat a grown man in four-to-six bites. But the bark is what catches people off-guard.”

“Gotcha.”

“Is there only one of them?” Loren asked.

“No, we have eight at the moment, but we have to keep them separate,” Bryman explained.

“In case they kill each other?” Mech guessed.

“Not exactly,” said Bryman, blushing a little. “They’re very… sexually motivated. And, well, nobody really wants to see that.”

Cal turned to the others. “Is it wrong that a tiny part of me absolutely does want to see that?”

“Yes,” Loren confirmed.

“Ew,” said Miz, wrinkling her snout in distaste.

“That ain’t right, man,” Mech added. “That shizz ain’t right.”

Beneath Cal’s jacket, his breasts wobbled with disappointment.

“I said a tiny part!” Cal protested.

Bryman made a show of glancing around, then leaned in closer and placed the back of a hand next to his mouth. “You know something I bet you’ll all want to see?” he stage-whispered.

“The exit?” Miz guessed.

“Topa,” said Bryman, then he grinned excitedly and crammed a fist into his mouth as if to stop himself from squealing with delight.

Cal glanced around at the others. “What’s that?”

Bryman’s excitement segued seamlessly into confusion. “Topa. Reduk Topa. The pirate? You must have heard of him.”

The expressions on their faces told him that no, they hadn’t.

“The Reduk Topa. Scourge of the spaceports. Commander of the Infidel Legion. Slaughtered millions on Piptush V.”

Cal checked the faces of the others for any indication they knew what Bryman was on about, but found none. “No, I can’t say we’re familiar with the gentleman you’re referring to. Sounds like a piece of work.”

“Oh, he is. He is,” Bryman confirmed. “I mean, technically he didn’t do the Piptush V thing, but it really fit with the show’s narrative, so we embellished a little. But still. We caught him and have him locked up, ready for tonight’s show. It’s going to be huge. We’re expecting record audiences. Topa’s horrible. Just horrible .”

The slightly dreamy way in which Bryman said the word ‘horrible’ suggested he felt quite the opposite.

“We generally don’t let people meet the Prey, but… Well, we’ve saved a lot of time by skipping the other floors, and I like you guys, so… You interested? I can make it happen.”

Bryman shifted his weight from foot to foot and chewed a knuckle in excitement. “He’s the most anticipated Prey we’ve ever had. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You interested?”

“I mean, I guess it could be cool,” said Cal. “He sounds pretty famous.”

Loren shrugged. “Meh.”

“I don’t give a shizz,” said Mech.

“Oh, wow. It sounds, like, totally awesome!” gushed Miz.

Cal and the others regarded her with suspicion.

“That was sarcasm,” Miz continued, her enthusiasm evaporating before their eyes. “I want to leave.”

Cal turned back to Bryman. “Is it on the way out?”

“Kind of,” Bryman replied, in a way that suggested it was a very tenuous ‘kind.’

“You hear that? We practically have to pass right by the guy. Let’s just pop our heads in and say hello,” Cal suggested to the others. “We could get an autograph. It might be worth something.”

Splurt rippled beneath Cal’s jacket, straining the zipper.

“Relax, buddy. It’s fine. He’s under lock and key,” Cal said, giving his left boob a reassuring pat. “Trust me. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

* * *

Cal stood with his hands up, surrounded by the bodies of several security personnel, trying to come up with a scenario where none of this was his fault.

His best defense so far was that the door control button had been fixed to the wall in a very silly place. Specifically, directly at his eye-level. Whoever had made it bright red and marked, ‘Do Not Press,’ on it had been asking for trouble, too, and he felt that they should share at least a portion of the blame.

“Everyone stay calm,” pleaded Bryman, tears spraying from his eyes and showering the floor at his feet. “As your guide, it’s my duty to protect you, and I will. I swear, I will. Just, please, stay calm!”

Reduk Topa had been something of a disappointment, pirate-wise. He had no eyepatch, no pegleg, and both hands were present and correct. He was roguishly handsome, with a crop of fair hair, a squared-off jaw, and piercing blue eyes that made even Cal go a little weak at the knees.

He also now had a gun, which he’d taken from one of the guards immediately after snapping his neck. It was currently pointed at Mizette, who Topa had identified as one of the two most dangerous people in the corridor, and the least blaster-proof of them both.

“Look, we don’t really care if you escape,” Cal said. “I mean, obviously we’d prefer it if you didn’t, because I just know I’ll somehow get the blame.”

“You pressed the button!” Bryman sobbed.

“A button was pressed. Who or what is responsible is open to debate,” Cal argued. “The point is, we’d rather you didn’t shoot Mizette. It’ll only make her angry.”

“Oh, I’m totally angry already,” Miz snarled, shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet.

“See? And that’s just going to get messy,” Cal said. “So, how about you lower the gun, go make your escape, and we’ll sit on Bryman here so he can’t trigger the alarm?”

Bryman’s sobbing intensified, but he offered no other objections.

Topa flicked his tongue back and forth across his lips, weighing up his options. “Or, maybe I shoot you all now so you can’t follow me.”

“You could try that. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you could try,” Cal said, shrugging. He lowered his hands. “Trust me. My plan’s better.”

For a moment, it looked like Topa might be in agreement, but then he tightened his grip on the blaster. “I never leave witnesses,” he said. “Sorry.”

Loren moved before he could fire, swinging her leg up in an arcing outward kick that redirected his aim just as his finger tightened. The blaster bolt missed Mizette, ricocheted off Mech’s shoulder, then exploded against the ceiling.

While this was happening, Loren had bent Topa’s wrist, twisted the gun from his grip, and followed up with a punch to his throat.

Topa caught the blow before it could land, drove a headbutt into the bridge of Loren’s nose, and spun her around so her back was pressed against him and his arm was across her throat.

“Wait!” he warned the others, pressing the blade of a home-made shiv against Loren’s cheek so the point of it was directly below her right eye. “Make a move, and I gouge this bedge’s heart out through her face.”

His blue eyes blazed cruelly as he pulled Loren more firmly against him. “When are people going to learn? You don’t fonk with Reduk To—”

One of Cal’s breasts exploded from inside his jacket and cleaved an L-shape through Topa’s skull, entering through the crown and exiting a millisecond later below the left ear.

Topa’s arms became limp and flopped to his sides. The shiv slipped from his fingers.

He gurgled faintly, as approximately one-quarter of his head slid sideways, dangled from a flap of skin for a few moments, then fell to the floor with a clonk .

Loren fired a kick behind her, launching the wheezing Topa backward off his feet. By the time he landed, he was dead.

Almost certainly before he landed, in fact, but definitely after.

Cal rushed to Loren’s side. “You OK?”

“Fine,” she replied, clearly annoyed. She dabbed at her nostrils and came away with the faintest smear of blood. “I shouldn’t have let myself get grabbed like that. It was reckless.”

“Are you kidding? You saved Miz,” Cal told her.

“Uh, no she didn’t,” Miz insisted. “I totally could have ducked.”

Bryman shuffled past Cal, his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide and staring at the body on the floor. “He’s… He’s dead. You killed him.”

Cal grinned and tucked his boob back into his jacket. “He is. And you’re welcome.”

“Welcome ?” Bryman spat. “Welcome? What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what you’ve done ?”

“Uh, saved your life, for one thing,” Cal said. “So, there’s that.”

“You idiot ,” Bryman hissed. “You absolute cretin ! You don’t get it, do you? You don’t understand? The Controller has been building up the Reduk Topa narrative arc for years . He’s invested millions in financing. Countless hours. This was his baby. This was to be his crowning glory.”

He gestured to the corpse on the floor. “And you’ve killed him.”

“Hey, it was him or us, buddy,” Cal said. “Would you rather we’d let him kill you?”

Bryman grabbed him by the front of the jacket, his face white, his eyes wide and blazing. “Yes! It was part of the narrative! He was supposed to kill me. He was supposed to kill all of us! We were going to capture him when he tried to steal a ship. We were giving him one final killing spree to cement his reputation with the audience. To make them hate him even more.”

His eyes were drawn to Topa’s body again, just as the pirate’s brain oozed out onto the floor.

“But you ruined it,” Bryman whispered. “You broke the narrative.”

He looked at Cal again, his voice coming as a throaty whisper of fear. “And now, you’ve doomed us all.”

Twenty-Four

For the first time since Cal and the crew had first seen him through the forcefield, the Controller was perfectly still. Not an arm moved. Not a thumb twitched. Not a patch of his silver skin ebbed or flowed. He just sat there in the center of his desk, staring at Bryman as if frozen in time.

“I think you broke him,” Cal whispered.

He waved a hand in front of the Controller’s face. “Hellooo?”

Cal snapped his fingers a few times.

“Anyone home?”

He waited to see if this would elicit any response, then shrugged. “No, you killed him. Way to go, Bryman.”

“What? No! I didn’t… He isn’t… This isn’t on me!” Bryman spluttered.

“Well, you are the one who insisted we tell him the truth,” said Mech.

“Exactly,” Cal agreed. “We were happy to pretend we had no idea what happened, but oh no. Someone —naming no names, but it was you—had to go telling the truth. And now look.”

He waved a hand in front of the Controller again. “Totally dead.”

A hand came up and caught Cal by the wrist. The Controller’s features twisted into a mask of fury.

“OK, maybe not totally dead,” Cal announced.

The doors at either end of the office opened. Juggacrush was the first to come through. This involved quite a lot of ducking and maneuvering before all available parts of him were fully in the room.

Behind him came a purple-furred creature wearing only a dirty brown loincloth. The new arrival had an ape-like face, a hunched back, and arms that ended in two long rusty blades. He grunted out a series of animalistic noises as he loped along behind Juggacrush, leaving a trail of molting fur behind him.

The figure who appeared through the other door was the closest thing to a space cowboy—or cowgirl, he realized as she drew closer—that Cal had ever seen. She had it all—the big hat, the long coat, and two ornate blaster pistols that she expertly twirled around her fingers as she moseyed toward the Controller’s desk.

“Oh, no, no. Please, no,” Bryman whimpered. “Not them, please, not them!”

“Like, who are these clowns?” Miz asked.

“And why is the furry one making sex noises?” Cal added.

“J-Juggacrush, Eviscerator, and Plasmoid. They’re the Hunters,” Bryman replied, instinct driving him to remain as helpful as ever. He turned back to the silver figure behind the desk, his tone beseeching. “Please. It wasn’t my fault, Controller, sir. It wasn’t my—”

Two blaster bolts punched holes clean through Bryman’s eye sockets, and out through the other side.

Still held by the Controller, Cal twisted to look behind him. His eyes met Loren’s through the holes in Bryman’s head, then the tour guide toppled sideways onto the carpet.

“Kill them,” the Controller instructed, his voice dull and lifeless. “They’ve ruined everything.”

“Hey, hold on there, Silver Surfer,” Cal managed to say, before he was jerked off his feet, launched backward over the desk, and sent crashing through a display case containing a little red hat with a feather in it.

As Cal struggled to untangle himself from the wreckage of the case and remove a few rather large and uncomfortable shards of glass from his face and neck, the room was filled with the sounds of violence and death.

Guns fired. Blades clashed. Flesh tore. Liquids of some description spurted, although Cal could only take an educated guess as to what they might be. From the sounds of things, it was a decidedly one-sided battle, and over in a matter of moments.

“No, no, no,” he hissed, kicking free of the broken display cabinet. His breasts grabbed the edge of the desk and dragged him toward it across the floor. Cal jumped up in time to see the last of the bodies hitting the floor. The legs landed first, the top half landing a few seconds later, several feet away.

“Well, they all sucked,” said Miz, picking something purple and furry out from between her teeth.

“Seriously, those were your top guys?” Mech snorted. “What the fonk was the big one made of, paper mache?” He gestured to the rubble that lay strewn across the floor. “I ain’t never seen no one explode like that.”

“The gun guy was a pretty good shot,” Loren said. She shrugged as she returned her blaster to its holster. “I mean, not good enough, obviously. Not by a long way. But still. He showed promise.”

Grinning, Cal clapped his approval. “Holy shizz. Nice work, guys. Seriously, classic Space Teaming.” He shouted in the direction of Mech’s forearm, where he assumed the comm-link was located. “Kevin, if you can hear me, can you record all that audio? I want to listen to it again later.”

That done, he turned his attention to the Controller. “Looks like your tough guys weren’t so tough after all. Now, you’re going to pay us what we—”

The Controller spun up out of his seat, helicoptering his arms wide. One of them smashed into the side of Cal’s head, twirling him several times on the spot before sending him crashing to the floor.

Mech raised his arms to open fire, but the Controller was suddenly on him, his multitude of limbs wrenching Mech up and over his shoulder, before smashing him through the desk. The sudden flight and the impact jerked Mech’s faulty arm from its socket again, leaving it hanging from coils of colorful wire.

Growling, Miz pounced, but two of the Controller’s other hands slammed into her ribs from either side. They connected like pneumatically powered sledgehammer blows, crunching her ribcage and dropping her onto the plush carpet, squirming and gasping for breath.

Loren tucked and rolled, avoiding a grasping silver hand. Springing onto her knees, she drew her blaster, only to have it torn from her grip by the Controller and crushed to pieces before her eyes.

She spun, sweeping a leg toward the towering figure. Her heel made contact just below one of the Controller’s knees. Pain exploded through it as her foot came to a dead stop against the living metal.

The Controller’s foot tucked in beneath Loren, then flicked her across the room. She tried valiantly to correct her flight, but then tumbled through the glass of another display case and lay groaning on the floor.

“You idiots !” hissed the Controller, his silver skin turning a shade of bronze. “You’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything ! We promised the system Reduk Topa. We owe them Reduk Topa! And now he’s dead ?! The Prey. The Hunters. They’re all dead!”

“You’re next, motherfonker,” Mech grunted, pushing himself up off the floor.

One of the Controller’s feet smashed against his back, driving him back down again.

“SHUT UP!” the Controller boomed, stamping on Mech over and over again. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!”

Jumping to his feet, Cal vaulted over what was left of the desk. “Hey, Controller, what’s that?” he asked, pointing past the now bronzed figure in the direction of the landing platform where the Currently Untitled stood.

It was a bog-standard distraction technique, but as it happened, a guard did choose that moment to walk through the shielding, and the sound was enough to make the Controller stop stamping and turn.

Cal swung with a punch. One of the Controller’s hands came up and caught the fist, quickly enveloping it in liquid metal all the way up the wrist. Another hand caught Cal’s left breast as it leaped to his defense, and tugged sharply until, with a schlop , Splurt was torn free.

Frantically, Cal grabbed at his front to stop his inside parts becoming outside parts, but to his immense relief the damage to his torso—while still raw and pinkish—had mostly all healed over.

The Controller flicked his arm out, launching the detached pair of women’s breasts across the room. They transformed as they flew, becoming a green blob just in time to splatter messily against the far wall.

Cal jerked his arm, trying to pull free, but the Controller’s grip was too strong.

Slowly, moving as if it had all the time in the world, the Controller’s face turned Cal’s way. The head itself didn’t move, just the face. It oozed around the side of the skull until it was glaring hatred down at Cal.

“Look, I’m sure we can discuss…”

Another movement by the forcefield caught Cal’s eye. He watched as the armed guard led a procession of little people, all chained together in a line. They chattered excitedly, their oversized heads swaying as they skipped along.

“What the hell?” he asked. “Those are Floomfles. Where did they come from?”

“From your ship, you cretinous fleshmumble,” the Controller seethed. “I told you, you were delivering food for the Sloorgs.”

Cal’s eyes went wide with horror. “Wait, those guys? That’s the Sloorg feed?” he asked. “Also, ‘fleshmumble’? What the fonk is a fleshmumble?”

The Controller tightened his grip on Cal’s hand, grinding the bones together and forcing a gasp of pain from his lips.

“You had to go mess everything up, didn’t you? You had to go screw with the narrative. Killing the Hunters is one thing, but do you have any idea how much processing power I’ve dedicated to the story of Reduk Topa over the years?” the Controller seethed. “Do you have any idea how many people I had to have killed in order to build up his legend, so that those facile lumptards watching at home would finally have the villain they so desperately crave?”

“Six?” Cal guessed, then he grimaced when the Controller tightened his grip again.

“Thousands. Tens of thousands! Reduk Topa was nothing before I found him. No one. Just another vermin pirate in a galaxy infested with them. I made Reduk Topa. I am Reduk Topa! I built his legend from nothing so that The Hunt would have its greatest villain of all. And now you’ve ruined it! ”

“Right, right,” said Cal. “Sorry about that. But, can I just…?” He pointed past the Controller again. “You’re not actually going to feed those little guys to the dogs with the ballsack heads, are you?”

The Controller, sensing Cal’s disapproval, twisted his face into a wicked grin of delight. “Oh, yes. I am. Feet first. Slowly. One at a time, starting with the cutest. Something about the taste of them drives the Sloorgs into a murderous frenzy. Even more than usual, I mean.”

His face darkened again, becoming a throbbing sea of brass and bronze. “Of course, the point was to get them riled up and ready for Topa—”

“But we ruined it. Got it,” said Cal. “But seriously, you can’t feed those guys to the Sloorgs. OK? You just can’t. Look at them.”

The Controller briefly regarded the procession of Floomfles as it was cajoled toward the door. There were four guards in all now, two in front and two behind. They were all trying very hard to watch what was going on in the center of the room, while pretending equally hard not to be.

The Floomfles themselves seemed to be having a great time. They bounced and skipped happily along, those with wings occasionally fluttering into the air before the chains binding them together went tight and they landed with a bump and a giggle.

“Come on, let them go,” Cal said. “You said it yourself, you don’t need to get the Sloorgs fired up, you don’t have a show.”

The Controller’s flowing metal flesh seemed to become pliable and runny. He took a step back, his eyes darting left and right as the enormity of it all finally sunk in.

“I don’t have a show,” he whispered. “But… The sponsors. The marketing. I don’t have a show .”

“I feel you’re going to blame us again at this point,” Cal said. “And, can I just say, that we really are sorry. It was all just a big misunderstanding.”

“I don’t have a show,” the Controller said again. “No Topa. No Hunters. No…”

The sentence stopped before reaching its conclusion. Behind the Controller, unnoticed, Mizette got to her feet. Cal tried very hard not to look at her as she lowered herself on her haunches and extended her claws.

The Controller raised four of his arms. They were all holding the little round pads again.

“Unless…” he whispered, and then his thumbs began to tap. A smile played across his face, and his bronze tones became a dull, murky silver. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

Miz snarled. Her legs tensed.

Then, just before she leaped, the Controller’s body emitted a blinding white flash, and darkness rushed in to fill the space it left behind.

Twenty-Five

Cal was in a transparent tube. That was the first thing he noticed. The reason he became aware of this so quickly was because he had awoken with his face pressed up against it, mouth open and drooling, nose squished so the contents of his nostrils were on display to anyone standing on the other side of the glass.

Fortunately, at that particular moment, nobody was standing on the other side of the glass. In fact, there wasn’t much going on outside the tube at all, aside from a small windowless room with stone walls, a metal door, and a glowing red panel that—once the visual translation chip in Cal’s eyes kicked in—had the words ‘On Air’ emblazoned across it.

“What the fonk?” Cal grunted. His breath fogged the glass, and his voice echoed tinnily inside the tube, making him feel suddenly claustrophobic.

The tube was just a few inches taller than he was, with a circle of metal above him and another serving as the floor below. There was no other way in or out, as far as he could tell. The narrow diameter of the cylinder meant he couldn’t move more than a few inches, so building up momentum to smash his way free wasn’t an option. Besides, his arms were stuck down at his sides, and he couldn’t bend his legs enough to deliver any sort of meaningful kick.

That left one option.

He headbutted the glass. It clonked loudly, hurt considerably, but did no obvious damage. At least, not to the tube, anyway.

“Fonk,” he grimaced, wishing he’d thought that through for a few more seconds.

“Hello? Anyone there?” he called.

As he listened for a reply, he heard… something. A voice, he thought, from somewhere close by. Someone was talking, but it didn’t sound like they were talking to him. It sounded more like they were addressing a group and, sure enough, as Cal strained his ears he heard a few chuckles, and then a burst of applause.

“Hey! Hey!” he shouted, thudding himself against the glass. “I’m in here! I’m in a big pipe!”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the voice, shouting now as if for Cal’s benefit. “I give you the Scourge of the Spaceports. The Commander of the Infidel Legion. The Butcher of Piptush V. It’s the Prey you’ve all been waiting for!”

The metal plate at Cal’s feet shot sideways, and the world fell out from below him. Cal tumbled down the tube into a blindingly bright room, plunged thirty feet, still inside the transparent pipe, then was slowed to a stop by a cushion of warm air.

Throughout this experience, he didn’t once stop screaming. It wasn’t until he was standing on solid ground that he was able to wrestle his mouth shut and pull himself together.

His breathing echoed inside the glass as he squinted out through the light patterns reflected across its surface. An audience of around a hundred… people, he supposed, if you were quite flexible with the definition, watched on from several tiered rows of seats.

Five or six beachball-sized spheres hovered in the air a few feet in front of the audience. One of the spheres had a red light blinking on the front, and lines of glowing text floating in the space directly above it.

“What the fonk is this now?” Cal wondered, then he jumped back as an ice-white figure in a coal-black suit spun into view in front of him, gestured theatrically in his direction and bellowed into a microphone like a boxing announcer really milking his big moment.

“Reduuuuuuuuuk Tooooooopa!”

The crowd went wild. And not in a good way. They erupted in a chorus of jeers and boos, their faces contorting, their arms making a whole variety of aggressive gestures. Something red and squishy exploded against the glass tube at head height. Several more of them rained down around him, splattering their mushy innards across the otherwise pristine white floor.

“Great, they’re throwing space tomatoes,” Cal groaned.

He raised himself up on his tiptoes so he could see the audience over the space tomato mush on the glass, and flashed them a winning smile.

“Uh, hi! There’s been a mistake. I’m not Reduk Topa.”

“Look at him,” hissed the Host, his face a mask of rehearsed disgust. He gestured angrily at the tube. “Look at him in there! Smiling. Taunting us . After all he’s done!”

“Not taunting,” Cal said. “I’m not taunting. Honest. It’s just… Wait. Can you hear me? Hello?”

“I dread to think what he’s saying in there,” the presenter said, inadvertently answering Cal’s question for him. “Can you imagine the depravity coming out of his mouth? Can you imagine the filth ?”

The audience’s reaction suggested that they could imagine the depravity very vividly indeed. They waved their arms and gnashed their teeth, their multicolored faces all reddening with rage.

Something hard cracked off the glass tube, and Cal instinctively pressed himself against the back wall. He searched the floor and saw a single high-heeled shoe rolling to a stop to the right of the cylinder.

“LET’S KILL HIM NOW!” screeched a woman from the audience. The shoe-thrower, Cal thought. She looked the type. She had legs, anyway, and so presumably also feet. “HE’S A MONSTER! ”

Some of the audience—a lot of the audience—were in complete agreement. They bellowed and roared, hollered and screamed, bouncing in their seats as they seethed and raged and foamed at the mouth.

“No, don’t kill me now,” Cal said, emphatically shaking his head. “I’m not Reduk Topa.”

The head-shake was a mistake, Cal decided. The crowd, who he was already somewhat unpopular with, almost lost it at the thought of him trying to tell them what to do. Almost half of them leaped to their feet, as if to race down the steps and hurl themselves at the glass.

To Cal’s relief, none of them did. This was probably less to do with any sense of decency, and more to do with the armed guards who suddenly made their presence felt at the foot of the stairs on each side of the audience.

“Oh, come now,” oozed the Host. “Where would be the fun in killing him here and now?”

Judging by the expressions on some of the audience members’ faces, Cal reckoned they’d be able to find a way to enjoy it.

“Rest assured, my friends here in the studio, and all my many other friends watching around the system,” the Host continued, his voice becoming a touch more solemn. “Reduk Topa shall pay for his crimes tonight. He shall pay the ultimate price. And we’ll all have front row seats.”

He threw his arms out at his sides and smiled brightly. “But first, a word from our sponsors.”

All eyes in the audience instinctively went to one of three large screens hanging from the ceiling as the ads began to play. They stared at them blankly, their faces slack, all their rage and hatred temporarily forgotten.

With the audience occupied, the Host turned and approached the glass tube. He looked friendly enough, in his own way, although his perfectly white skin gave him a cold, clinical edge that suggested he could become very unfriendly anytime he liked.

“Hello, Mr Topa. Are you ready to face The Hunt ?”

“I’m not Reduk Topa,” Cal said. “I’ve been set up.”

The Host touched a finger to his ear and smiled. “Yes. I know. I’m well aware of who you are and what you did.”

He wagged a finger admonishingly. “You really should have just let yourself be murdered by Topa, as intended. Then you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“I’d be in a worse position,” Cal said.

The Host smiled thinly. “Well. That’s debatable.”

Cal didn’t much like the way the Host said that, and shifted uneasily between the walls of the tube.

“I don’t look anything like him. They’ll see through it,” Cal said. “Maybe not these idiots, but the people watching on TV. They’ll see I’m not him.”

“That would work out tremendously for you, wouldn’t it?” said the Host, smiling cheerfully. His expression took on a sad note. “But, alas, no. See, we’re very careful with what we show. Topa could’ve been murdered out in the wild at any point during the narrative, so we’ve never shown a clear picture of him, just in case he ever needed to be replaced.”

He tapped a finger against the side of his head. “That’s the network, for you. Always thinking ahead.”

The Host touched his earpiece again, momentarily distracted.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re going live again in a few moments.” He raised a hand in a sort of reverse-Vulcan salute, with the two middle fingers stuck together, and the others spread wide. “Have a good hunt, Mr Topa. Die slowly. Die well. And, most importantly, die in front of the cameras. Your end will be witnessed by trillions , all cheering your demise.”

He rapped his knuckles on the glass, then turned back to the audience just as the ad break came to an end.

“Laaaaadies and gennnnntlemen,” he boomed. “Are you ready for The Hunt ?”

The reaction from the audience confirmed that, yes, they were ready, and had probably never been more fonking ready for anything in their whole miserable lives.

“As you know, the rules of The Hunt are simple. This man…”

He pointed back at Cal.

“No. This monster , will be released into our custom-designed arena. Equipped only with a Preypad, he must navigate through four—” He held up four of the six fingers on his left hand. “—that’s right, friends, count ‘em, four different zones, each filled with unique obstacles and dangers.”

The Host’s brow furrowed. He stroked his chin in theatrical contemplation. “And… something else. I forget. What else is waiting in those zones?”

The audience spoke in a single voice.

“The Hunters!”

“That’s right, of course! How could I forget? The Hunters!” the Host cheered. “And, for this very special edition of The Hunt , we’re bringing in a whole new team of Hunters. Check them out!”

He gestured up to the screens. Necks craned as everyone looked up. Cal couldn’t see who or what was on the displays, but judging by the gasps, oohs , and occasional whimpers of fright, he wasn’t in for an easy time of it.

“But let’s not forget, if the Prey successfully traverses all four zones and reaches the finish line, he’ll walk away with his freedom…”

The crowd booed.

“…ten million Viacoins…”

The crowd jeered.

“…and this handsome watch,” the Host continued, draping an elegant timepiece across his wrist. “Generously provided by uTime. Isn’t it time that you enjoyed a little uTime?”

The crowd applauded, then pressed the buttons on their seat to secure their own uTimes at a special one-time-only price.

“So far this season, we’ve seen several high-profile pirates and criminals facing The Hunt . None have succeeded in reaching the finish line,” the Host continued. “In fact, in the entire history of the show, no Prey has ever won their freedom. Our Hunters have a one-hundred percent success rate. How will our new stars fare in their first outing?”

He smiled and spread his arms wide. “What’s say we find out?”

The crowd cheered and hollered their approval. The Host stood waving his hands, urging them to get even louder.

From the corner of his eye, Cal saw movement. The Floomfles he’d seen earlier came scampering into the studio, ushered along by a couple of harassed looking network staff. The little creatures waved excitedly at the audience, clapped their pudgy hands, and generally looked as if they couldn’t wait for whatever was going to happen next.

Only one girl—or woman, Cal supposed—looked like she didn’t really want to be there. She stumbled in, carried along by the crowd, her wide eyes gazing blankly around the studio set.

For a moment, she looked over at Cal, then her whole body shuddered with disgust and she turned away.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Floomfles,” said the Host, as they were all guided onto a glowing green circle that illuminated on the studio floor. “Aren’t they the cutest?”

The audience whooped and applauded in agreement. The Host held up a hand, calling for silence in his good-natured way.

“Not just cute, but brave, too. See, these Floomfles are willing sacrifices—no, grateful sacrifices—to the Sloorgs.”

Gasps and thrilled-sounding murmurs went around the studio. The Host produced a small thin microphone from his pocket and approached the Floomfles. They all shuffled anxiously, nudging each other and giggling as he squatted beside them.

“Hey there, little fella,” he said, ruffling the red hair of a short, stocky Floomfle. They were all short and stocky, but this one was notably more so than the rest. “What’s your name?”

“Floomjin,” said the Floomfle, barely able to contain his excitement as the Host shoved the microphone close to his face. “I can’t believe I’m here! I’m a huge fan of the show!”

The Host winked at the audience. “Must have a different definition of ‘huge’ where he comes from!”

Everyone laughed. Even, to Cal’s dismay, the Floomfles themselves.

“And tell me, Floomjin. How are you feeling about being eaten by the Sloorgs on system-wide television? Nervous?”

“Oh, no. I’m not nervous,” said Floomjin, but a bearded Floomfle beside him begged to differ.

“He shizzed himself on the way over.”

Floomjin elbowed him and scowled, clearly annoyed that his big moment was being spoiled. “I didn’t,” he told the Host. “And anyway, that was nothing to do with the show. The pilot of the ship we were in was terrible. We kept getting thrown around.”

“We were in a shootout,” Cal hollered through the glass. “It wasn’t her fault! On this occasion.”

“And how about you, miss?” asked the Host, stretching the microphone above the heads of Floomjin and his bearded antagonist, and pointing it at the face of the woman with the uncertain eyes. “Looking forward to playing your part in The Hunt ?”

The female Floomfle straightened and pushed back her shoulders, trying to disguise her doubt. “We have been waiting for this moment our whole lives,” she said. Her voice was hesitant and slightly robotic, like she was reading from a cue card inside her own head. “It is a great honor to die for The Hunt .”

“And we thank you for it,” said the Host. He stood, saluted them with absolute sincerity, then turned to the audience, all-smiles. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Floomfles!”

The applause came again, but it was less enthusiastic now. The space tomato had slid down the glass, and Cal could see that the audience members were getting restless. They weren’t here to see space-midgets being interviewed, no matter how cute they might be. They wanted blood. Cal’s blood, in particular.

The Host had clearly picked up on it, too. Or maybe he just knew, through experience, exactly how long to keep them waiting.

He touched a finger to his ear and nodded. “The Huntsmaster has just given confirmation that the course is set, and the Hunters are in position.”

Silence fell across the audience, almost as if the audio feed had been cut. Other than the occasional excited squeak from the Floomfles and the faintest hum from the overhead lights, there was not a sound in the studio.

“Join me in counting down, friends,” the Host said. “And friends at home, that means you, too.”

He pointed up to the screens overhead. He and the audience spoke with a single voice.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

The Floomfles looked like they might burst with excitement.

“Seven! Six! Five!”

Cal had an idea. Frantically, he breathed on the glass, and began to write, ‘I AM NOT REDUK TOPA,’ in the condensation. Ideally, he’d have been able to use a finger, but as his arms were both pinned at his side, the only writing utensil available to him was his nose.

So that the audience could read the message, he wrote it backward. The first three letters were fine, since they were the same backward as they were forward. When he got to the ‘N,’ though, things started to get trickier.

“Shizz, wait. So… up, then down, or…?”

Outside the tube, the audience watched the pirate, Reduk Topa, smearing his face against the glass in a manner they unanimously deemed grotesque.

At least, they would have unanimously deemed it grotesque had they not been busy with the countdown.

“Two! One!”

Cal nosed an ‘O,’ and a ‘T,’ grateful for their simplicity. He was psyching himself up for the ‘R,’ when the circle the Floomfles had been standing on fell away and they dropped out of sight through the studio floor.

Cal felt a buzzing from beneath him. He looked down, completely ruining the message he’d been trying to write.

The Host punched the air in triumph. He gestured to Cal, his eyes blazing darkly.

“Let the Hunt for Reduk Topa begin!”

Twenty-Six

“Wait—” Cal yelped, but his protests were cut short when the floor beneath his feet gave way and he plunged through the floor.

For a moment, there was only a sort of half-darkness.

Then, the hatch above him closed, and there was full darkness.

A moment later, Cal fell out of the tube, flapped his arms in panic, then crash-landed onto a stone floor scattered with something not a million miles away from straw, and something else not a half-dozen miles away from lion shizz.

The first thing he did was scratch the top of his head. There had been an itch there for some time now, and he let out a little groan of satisfaction as he finally killed it dead.

That mission accomplished, he sat up and found himself almost at eye level with the Floomfles. “Oh, thank God, you’re all still alive,” Cal said.

One of the little figures spat in his face. “Murderer!”

“Hey! Cut that out,” Cal warned, pushing the little guy back before he could finish draining his sinuses for an encore performance. “I’m not a murderer. They’ve got the wrong guy!”

“Liar!” hissed another of the Floomfles.

“Deceiver!”

“Charlatan!”

Cal got to his feet. “Fine, believe what you like. You’ll thank me later when I save your lives.”

Now that he was able to move more freely, he noticed that he was wearing a silver-gray bodysuit with orange piping that was doing very little for his figure. The word, ‘Prey,’ had been emblazoned across the front, just in case anyone forgot what his role was in the proceedings.

Cal turned on the spot, ignoring the jibes of the Floomfles as he took in the room. There was a single large window at one end, and a door at the other. The door stood slightly ajar, tempting him to make a run for it.

He checked the window. A two-story drop onto grass, maybe more.

Less tempting.

A blinking red light on his left caught Cal’s eye. One of the floating cameras was there, watching him with its beady electronic gaze. He ignored it for now. It wasn’t the most pressing problem.

The corner of the room nearest the door was lost in a sea of shadow. For a moment, Cal wondered if there might be something useful concealed in there, and then his brain put together all the pieces just as shapes moved in the darkness.

Sloorgs .

They padded from the shadows, testicle-heads wobbling, purple tongues flicking hungrily across their scattergun teeth.

“Shizz! Nobody move,” Cal urged, but the Floomfles were having none of it.

Floomjin, the red-haired Floomfle who’d done the interview, was the first to go, encouraged by a shove in the back from his bearded companion.

“Here I go!” Floomjin hollered, waving his arms above his head in triumph as he raced at the Sloorgs.

Cal could only watch in mute horror as the Floomfle leaped at the largest of the creatures.

“I’m gonna be famous!” Floomjin announced, before a set of Sloorg jaws clamped down on him and his legs fell to the floor.

Silence descended as the other Floomfles stared down at the legs. It was broken by the crunch of Floomjin between the Sloorg’s teeth.

And then, almost unanimously, they erupted into cheers and all raced toward the jaws of death, laughing and whooping as they hurled themselves into the waiting mouths of the monster-dogs.

“No, wait, don’t!” Cal pleaded, but it was too late. The Sloorgs fell upon them at once, clawing and ripping at their little bodies, hungrily devouring them, bones and all.

Only one Floomfle hung back, her head shaking, her pudgy little fingers flexing in and out as her chest heaved in panic.

“Gotta do it. It’s an honor. It’s an honor,” she whispered, steeling herself. “Gotta do it.”

“Yoink!”

Cal caught her by the scruff of the neck and jerked her off the floor. She kicked out at him and grabbed for his fingers. “Hey! Leave me alone, you murderer! I want to be eaten by the Sloorgs.”

“No, you don’t,” Cal told her. “We’re getting out of here.”

The female Floomfle made a few grumbling noises, but didn’t put up too much of a fight.

Cal considered the door. It was still ajar, but the path to it was full of Sloorgs and gristle. Besides, it was too obvious an escape route, and so probably a trap.

Fonk it. The window, then.

He pulled the Floomfle close to his chest. “Do you trust me?” he asked her.

“No! Of course I don’t! You’re a murderous pirate!”

“Well, tough shizz,” Cal said. “Brace yourself.”

He set off at a sprint toward the window, wrapping his arms across the Floomfle and cocooning her against his chest.

Just before he reached the window, he twisted and threw himself backward at the glass.

He wasn’t sure which he’d been dreading more—the hollow thonk that would follow if the glass turned out to be unbreakable, or the crash that would arise if it turned out not to be.

He got the crash, and was both relieved and dismayed to find himself tumbling through the open air toward the ground below.

Opening his arms, Cal grabbed the Floomfle by the feet and held her above him. “Now fly ,” he urged. “Fly us to safety.”

“What are you talking about?” the Floomfle yelled. “I can’t fly both of us!”

Cal glanced at the woman’s tiny transparent wings. He looked past her, to the window he’d just thrown them through.

“You can’t?”

“No!”

“Well, why the fonk didn’t you say that before I—?”

Cal hit the ground, and what was left of the sentence exited his body through his nose.

As ground went, it wasn’t the worst he could’ve landed on. The grass was moist, the soil below it soft and springy. There were no large rocks, and while several large pieces of broken glass were sticking upright from the grass, he miraculously managed to miss most of them.

One particularly nasty-looking jagged piece snagged his shoulder as he landed, cutting a slit in the bodysuit and drawing a red line across his skin. Nothing major, and his fast-healing ability would have it squared away in no time.

All things considered, he’d gotten off lightly.

A Sloorg’s head appeared from the window three floors above. It twisted and turned this way and that, searching for him. Even at this distance, Cal could hear the snuffling of its nose hole.

“We need to go,” he whispered, easing himself up onto his feet.

“I’m not going anywhere with—”

“Shh! Shut the fonk up,” Cal hissed, clamping a hand over the Floomfle’s mouth. “Do you really want to be eaten by those things? Is that really how you want to bow out? Gnawed on by a sentient testicle?”

The Floomfle stared defiantly at him from behind his hand. Then, some fire inside her died away—or perhaps spluttered into life—and she gave a single shake of her head.

“Good. Then stay quiet,” Cal urged. He looked up at the window again, where the Sloorg was still searching for them.

The building was a tall white tower with The Hunt logo illuminated in red near the top. The only window was the one Cal had jumped through. There was no door, as far as he could tell, reaffirming his instinct that the door out of the room they’d escaped from had been a trap.

Pressing himself against the tower wall, Cal took in his surroundings.

Were it not for the imminent threat of being torn apart by dog-monsters, the area would actually be rather pleasant. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and there was a forest over on the left that could almost have been transplanted straight from Earth.

Across from the forest on Cal’s right was a little lake. A small boat bobbed up and down by a mooring, the soft lapping of the waves against its hull quite soothing, despite the circumstances.

Between the forest and the lake was a path. Lights illuminated along it like stepping stones, each one blinking on for a split second before passing the baton to the next one along. The final light took the form of an arrow that pointed to a sign marked, ‘ZONE ONE. THIS WAY.”

“Guess they want us to go that way,” Cal whispered.

He made for the forest instead, keeping low and sticking close to the tower until there was no choice but to leave its cover.

The clearing between the tower and the forest’s edge was sixty feet, he estimated. He was halfway across it when he heard the Sloorg roar triumphantly. The Floomfle gasped in his arms, and Cal went from a bent-double sneak to an upright sprint, throwing himself toward the trees and the salvation he hoped lay within.

He reached the forest’s edge just as the first of the Sloorgs landed on the grass. He made it six feet into the tangle of branches before one of the trees punched him.

Not whipped at him. Not struck him accidentally. Punched him.

On purpose.

“What the fonk is this now?” he grimaced, staggering as the knotted end of a sturdy branch took another swing at his head.

“Bamtrees, obviously,” said the Floomfle.

“Bamtrees? What the fonk are—?”

BAM . A wooden fist hammered into his jaw.

“Jesus!” he groaned. “Is everything in this place out to kill me?”

“Yes! That’s the whole point!” the Floomfle cried. “Why didn’t you take the path?”

“Because I thought it was a trap!”

“No! It’s the route to the start! You just have to outrun the Sloorgs,” she told him. “You’ve literally just given yourself another obstacle. Duck.”

Cal ducked. A branch whummed across his head. “Well, why didn’t you say something?!”

“You had your hand over my—Sloorg!”

Cal spun in time to see the first of the Sloorgs come bounding into the trees. They seemed to part for the Sloorg, while closing around Cal as he stumbled on.

“Shizz, shizz, shizz,” he babbled, fighting his way through tangles of twigs and ducking the swinging right-hooks of branches.

Another Sloorg let out a roar as it barged into the forest. Cal glanced back, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The ball-headed dog creatures were weaving easily through the woods, quickly gaining ground. He had fifteen seconds to come up with something clever.

He wasted three seconds saying as many swear words as he could think of, then got down to business.

Trees. Sloorgs. Think .

He patted his chest, on the off-chance that Splurt was deep undercover.

Nope.

Ten seconds. Think.

He could feel the heat of their breath now, smell the blood of the Floomfles, hear the excited grunts ejecting from the closest monster’s cavernous throat.

“Well, this is going to be a disappointing episode,” the Floomfle remarked.

Of course! That was it!

Cal stopped. He turned to face the oncoming Sloorgs, his eyes searching the trees above until he saw what he was looking for.

“What are you doing?” demanded the Floomfle.

Five seconds.

“I give up,” he told the camera. “I don’t want to do this. I quit.”

Three seconds.

“It can go ahead and eat me.”

Two.

Cal resisted the urge to jump clear. He stood his ground, eyeballing the camera as the closest Sloorg pounced, jaws wide.

The forest snapped shut around it, pinning it in place just inches from Cal’s face. It hissed and burped in rage.

Cal tried not to show his relief.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he shouted to the camera. “You want a show? I’ll give you a goddam show.”

He gave it something else, too—the finger.

That done, he turned away from the trapped Sloorg and regarded the rest of the forest. Up close, the trees didn’t look much like Earth trees, at all. A canopy of leaves and branches was tangled together high overhead, allowing only the odd beam of light through to the uneven forest floor.

Something moved far above, and Cal’s head was suddenly filled with visions of space squirrels.

“Fonk. OK, how do we get out of here?” he asked with a renewed sense of urgency.

Fonking space squirrels .

The Floomfle rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Have you even watched the show?”

“No,” said Cal. “So, if you could maybe dial down the sass and help me out, there’s a chance we’ll get out of here alive.”

“Preypad.”

Cal frowned. “Huh?”

“In your bag. There’s a Preypad. It’ll show you the way.”

Up until that moment, Cal hadn’t even been aware that he had a bag, much less anything contained within one. He found it slung across his back and, after eventually managing to untangle himself from its straps, he rummaged inside.

The contents of the bag were as follows:

- A tiny telescope.

- A plastic straw.

- A piece of rope, approximately fifteen inches long.

- A pouch containing something that might have been yogurt.

- A device that was much like a Swiss Army Knife, albeit without the knife part. Where the knife should have been was an extra spoon. (Quite what he was supposed to do with one spoon, much less two, he had no idea. He felt for example that, even with the help of the additional one, he was unlikely to be able to spoon a Sloorg to death, even if they agreed to let him try.)

- A circular gadget with a metal back and a glass front, roughly the size of his palm.

“That’s the Preypad,” said the Floomfle. “It has a map. It shows you where to go.”

“OK, that’s handy,” Cal said, stuffing the rest of the items back in the pack.

After a moment’s thought, he stuffed the Floomfle in, too, and pulled the strap tight around her neck so only her head was visible.

“Hey! Let me out!”

“It’s for your own good,” Cal told her, swinging the bag up onto his back. He grimaced as the strap rubbed against his shoulder. A quick glance at the hole in his bodysuit confirmed that the shoulder wound had not healed up. It hadn’t, as far as he could tell, even made an attempt to heal up.

Fonk.

That was something to worry about later. The closest Sloorg was clawing frantically at the branches that held it now, and it was only a matter of time before it got free. They had to get moving, and fast.

Cal turned the Preypad over in his hands. “OK, so how does this thing work?”

“You tap it twice,” sighed the Floomfle, as if this should’ve been the most obvious thing in the world.

Cal tapped the screen twice. As he watched, a series of lights blinked on—random, at first, but quickly forming a recognizable pattern.

Oh God , no , Cal thought. As if his day wasn’t already bad enough.

“Hi, I’m Perko! Your friendly animated assistant,” chimed the animated face on screen. “How can I help you survive today?

Twenty-Seven

“Forward. Forward. That’s right! You’re doing great! Forward!”

Cal shook the Preypad, trying to shut it up.

“I’m going forward. You’ve been saying ‘forward’ for the past ten fonking minutes. I can’t go more forward than I’m going.”

“That’s right, you’re right on track!” announced Perko. “Forward. Forward.”

Cal threw the Preypad away. It was not the first time he’d done this since they’d left the Sloorgs, and it wasn’t the first time the Floomfle had told him the same thing.

“You’re going to need that.”

“Yes! I know!” Cal snapped. He looked up at the canopy of branches above them, puffed out his cheeks, then went to retrieve the device.

“Ah, there you are!” said Perko. “I thought we’d lost each other, chum! Now… forward.”

Cal resumed his trudge through the forest. The branches hadn’t tried to take a swing at him since he’d called the Controller’s bluff, but he kept an eye on them anyway, just in case they decided to try any funny business.

“So,” said Cal, weaving around a patch of rough bracken. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Perko! Your friendly—”

“Not you!” Cal said, clamping his other hand down over the screen so it was sandwiched between his palms. It didn’t silence the infuriating digital bamston, but it at least muted him a little. He craned his head around. “I meant you. What’s your name?”

“Why should I tell you, murderer ?”

“Uh, maybe because it’s polite, and I saved your life,” Cal said. “And because I’m not a murderer.”

He raised his head and shouted. “You hear that? I’m not a murderer! I’m not Reduk Topa. This is all a set-up.”

“They can’t hear you,” said the Floomfle. “Not live, anyway. If the Prey talks, they save it for the edited highlights. Sometimes they make these little clips of them begging or crying. It’s, you know, funny.”

The way she said the last word suggested she didn’t really get the humor.

“Great. So, no one can hear me? Of course they can’t. That’d be too easy.”

He looked around at her again. “I meant it, though. What I said. I’m not Reduk Topa. I’m the captain of the ship that delivered the crates with you guys in them to the station.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught her expression change. “Not on purpose. I mean, if we knew what was in the crates, we’d never have brought you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe King Floomf would just sell you all out like that. He seemed like such a nice guy.”

“It is a great honor to feed oneself to the Sloorgs,” said the Floomfle. Once again, though, she sounded like someone hadn’t yet let her in on some secret that would explain why this should be the case.

“It’s Floora,” she said. “My name.”

“Nice to meet you, Floora. I’m Cal. Cal Carver.”

Floora squinted at him. “You’re serious? You really aren’t Reduk Topa?”

“Reduk Topa’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

Cal thought back to the way a quarter of the pirate’s skull and its contents had slid off and flopped to the floor.

“Pretty sure.”

From between Cal’s palms, Perko let out a high-pitched shout.

“Jesus, what now?”

“…current rate, we will be exiting the forest in fifteen seconds. The route I plotted will take you out right at the entrance for Sector One. How’s about that ?!”

Cal clamped his hand down over Perko again, muffling him.

“There’s a pocket on the front of the suit,” said Floora. “It’s soundproof, so that the Preypad can’t give you away.”

After a moment’s search, Cal found the pocket.

“You won’t be able to hear it, though,” Floora pointed out. “If it tries to warn you of anything.”

Cal didn’t even hesitate. He shoved the Preypad into the pocket, then fastened down the little fold-out covering above it.

Silence. Blessed silence.

“Thank fonk for that,” Cal said. He peered ahead through the tangle of trees. The glowing path was out there just beyond the forest’s edge, leading up to an archway made of what looked like ivory, or maybe white wood.

“What’s in Sector One?” he whispered, scanning the treeline for danger. Somewhere, far behind him, a Sloorg howled.

“It’s random. There are dozens of different arenas. Hundreds, maybe. No one knows what’s coming up next,” Floora told him, her wide eyes searching the trees behind them. “It’ll tell you on the gate, but that’s the only warning you’ll get.”

Cal groaned. “Is there anything useful you can tell me? Any tips? Anything at all?”

Floora thought for a moment. “Don’t die?” she suggested.

“Right,” said Cal. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

As far as he could tell, there was nothing lurking out beyond the forest’s edge. Besides, this was still far too early in the game for the Controller to let him die. After all that expense and those years of effort, he wasn’t about to let Reduk Topa bow out before the hunt had technically even started.

He hoped.

“Fonk it, let’s do this,” Cal muttered, pushing his way through the branches in the direction of the path.

He wished he’d kept hold of the spoon. As weapons went, it was way down his wishlist, and yet he’d have felt more comfortable having it in hand. He contemplated stopping to fish it out of the bag, but another Sloorg howl—closer this time—made him reconsider.

“You know you’re bleeding, right?” said Floora. “Your shoulder.”

“Shizz. Still?” said Cal. “That should’ve healed by now.”

“Well, it hasn’t.”

There was no time to dwell too much on that now. As Cal neared the edge of the trees they parted before him. A branch shoved him in the back, ejecting him out onto the path.

“Hey, watch it!” he warned, shooting a dirty look at the closest tree. It slapped him across the face with a hand made of twigs and leaves. The branches creaked around him, giving the impression the whole forest was laughing.

“Just so you know, I’m going to come back here at a later date, cut you all down, and turn you into furniture. Ugly furniture,” said Cal, addressing the trees as a whole. “You have my word on that.”

Another branch swung at him. He skipped back, avoiding the strike, then raised the middle fingers of both hands, and waved them at the forest in general.

“You know they can’t understand you, right?” said Floora.

Cal continued giving the trees both fingers. “They can’t? How do you know?”

“Because they’re trees.”

Cal stopped waving his hands around. “Well, that’s disappointing,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides.

Being sure to keep out of the trees’ reach, he turned to the archway he’d seen from the forest. It was not, it transpired, made of ivory or wood. He’d definitely have preferred either of those over the actual building material used in the arch’s construction.

“My God, those are some big bones,” he said, leaning back. He whistled quietly through his teeth. “What the fonk did those come from? Godzilla’s thighs?”

A sign hung by two lengths of chain from the top of the arch. It creaked back and forth in the breeze.

“The Boneyard,” Cal read. “Wow. They really must’ve been up all night coming up with that.”

He turned and found one of the floating cameras. “Seriously? That’s the best you could come up with? Aren’t you guys supposed to be creative?”

“This isn’t good,” Floora whispered. “This must be a new zone. I’ve never seen it before, so I won’t be able to offer any advice.”

Cal peered through the arch. The other side looked just as pleasant as this side, with lush green grass, the occasional flower, and a few fluttering insects busying around between them.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” he said.

He felt Floora wriggling in the bag, as if trying to make herself even smaller. “It will be. They all are. Just wait,” she told him. “You’ll see.”

Cal rapped his knuckles against the archway, hoping the giant bone would turn out to be a prop made of Styrofoam. To his disappointment, it wasn’t.

Still, all that waited was a path, a grassy hillock, and some space butterflies. Just how dangerous could it be?

“I guess we’ll both see,” he said. Then, with a final rude gesture to the forest, and a quick check for any Sloorg action, he stepped through the archway and into Sector One.

Twenty-Eight

It started well. Later, when looking back, Cal would be able to say that, at least.

The first twenty seconds or so were easy going. Enjoyable, almost. Cal could have just about fooled himself into thinking he was setting off on a hike toward the picturesque mountain he could see rising in the distance.

Sure, he had a suspicion that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked. He was confident that everything would go wrong at some point , he just didn’t expect things to take a turn for the worse quite as quickly as they did.

It started when the butterfly electrocuted him, and just sort of snowballed from there.

Cal had felt pain before. He’d felt a lot of pain before, on a large number of occasions. Nothing had prepared him for the butterfly, though.

It alighted gently on the end of his nose, its little legs twitching, its colorful wings flapping slowly in and out.

“Hey, check it out,” Cal had said. He’d kept his voice low, afraid he might scare the delicate creature away.

And that’s when it had electrocuted him.

His jaw had clenched, his arms had locked, and he’d fallen backward, landing on Floora and almost crushing her. He then proceeded to squash her into the grass as he bucked and thrashed around, the butterfly discharging a surprisingly large amount of electrical charge directly into his face.

And then, the insect had fluttered off to join the others, leaving Cal spread out on the ground, gently steaming.

“What the fonk was that?” he’d managed to wheeze.

“Buzzerflies,” said Floora, her voice muffled against the grass.

“I do not like buzzerflies,” Cal had remarked.

And then, a second of the insects had landed on his forehead, and the whole ordeal had begun again.

Three buzzerfly encounters later, Cal limped across the grass with his hair on end and his eyebrows steaming, his gaze darting anxiously in all directions as he kept a look-out for more of the fluttering little bamstons.

Floora, who’d made a pretty compelling case for not being in the bag after Cal had almost crushed her to death, trotted along beside him. Her little legs moved at double the speed of Cal’s, but she still struggled to keep up. Every ten seconds or so, she’d launch herself into the air, fly unsteadily at Cal’s waist height, and alight a few paces ahead of him. It wasn’t the most elegant system in the world, but it stopped her from falling behind.

A buzzerfly came within what Cal considered an unsafe distance. He flicked at it with a gloved hand, while pressing the fingertips of the other hand to his temple.

“Fonk off.”

“What are you doing?” Floora asked.

“I’m telling this thing to fonk off.”

“With the fingers, I mean. Why are you touching your head?”

“Oh. Mental command over butterflies.”

Floora continued to stare up at him.

“It’s this thing from a TV show I used to watch. There was this guy who could control butterflies. He was part of a team of… well, not superheroes. More like sidekicks, I guess.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I thought it was worth a shot.”

“Was it a reality show?” Floora asked.

“No.”

“So… fiction then?”

Cal stopped trying to mentally control the buzzerfly.

“You raise a very good point.”

The insect harassed him for a few more seconds, then got bored and fluttered off. Once Cal was sure it wasn’t some sort of clever bluff, he continued up the side of a low hillock and stopped when he reached the top.

After double-checking to make sure the buzzerfly wasn’t sneaking up behind him, he looked down into the valley that spread out ahead. The path had stopped at the entrance to Sector One, and all that lay ahead was more green grass and blue skies.

“Is this it?” he asked. “Shouldn’t a boneyard have, like, I don’t know. Bones? Maybe a yard of some description?”

“You’d think so,” said Floora.

She glanced at the pocket on the front of Cal’s bodysuit. It took him a moment to work out what she was getting at.

“Aw… fonk,” he muttered, unclipping the pocket cover and fishing inside.

“Hey, iiiiiit’s Perko !” sang the face on the Preypad.

Cal immediately clamped his hand over it. “Shh. Shut the fonk up,” he hissed, bringing the device closer to his mouth. “I know who you are. God knows, you’ve told me often enough.”

He tilted his head left and right, limbering up for the next sentence.

“I need your help.”

“Perko’s your pal! Of course, I’ll help! Just tell me how!”

“You can start by dropping your fonking volume by ninety percent,” said Cal, glancing behind them. No sign of the Sloorgs, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming.

“How’s this sounding, partner?” asked Perko. He remained as gratingly enthusiastic as ever, but was no longer shouting.

“Better,” said Cal. “Now, how do we get to the Boneyard?”

“You’re standing in it, good buddy!” Perko replied. “The Boneyard is Sector One.”

“No, I mean the actual Boneyard. The part with the bones.”

“This zone’s hub is fifty-seven paces away. That’s where the action is!”

Cal turned, looking around. There was nothing but rolling green on all sides. “Which direction?”

“Any direction,” Perko chimed.

Cal removed his hand from the device’s screen and glanced down at the animated face. “What does that mean? How can it be fifty-seven paces in any direction?”

“Need help choosing a route, old pal?”

The face became a spinning arrow. It spun quickly at first, then slowed to a stop and flashed. “Try thataway! Or…”

The arrow spun again. When it stopped the second time, it indicated a completely different direction. “Thataway! Or…”

It spun again. Cal shoved the Preypad back in his pocket and closed it over.

“Yeah, I get the point,” he muttered.

He looked down at Floora. She was standing by his feet, raising up on her tiptoes to give herself a better view behind them.

“I can’t see the gate,” she remarked.

“Huh?”

“The entrance. The archway. It should be behind us, but I can’t see it.”

“It’s right over…”

Cal stopped. Sure enough, the entrance was nowhere to be seen. “It has to be that way, because when we came through we were looking directly at that mountain,” he said, pointing off toward the cliffs he’d seen in the distance.

“You mean that mountain?” Floora asked, motioning in the opposite direction.

A similar mountain stood a few miles off in that direction. Cal flicked his head between them, and soon came to the conclusion that they weren’t similar mountains, at all.

“They’re the same,” he said. “They’re exactly the same.”

Floora stuck a thumb in her mouth and chewed anxiously on the nail. “What does that mean?”

“What, ‘same’? It means—”

“No, not ‘same’. I know what ‘same’ means,” the Floomfle replied. “I meant, what does it mean for us? For our odds of survival?”

Cal put his hands on his hips and regarded both mountains. Or, the same mountain twice.

“I’m no scientist,” he began. Having only known him for a short time, Floora had no idea quite how much of an understatement this was. “But I have a theory.”

“Perception field?” Floora guessed. “Altering how our brains are processing visual input?”

Cal hesitated. “Yes. Yes, it might be that,” he said, pointing at her. “Or, could it be a big mirror? Which is what I was going to say.”

Floora smiled up at him.

“Oh, you’re serious?” she said, when he continued to look expectantly at her. “No. I think it’s the perception field thing.”

“Right.” Cal nodded as he looked at both mountains again. “And what does that mean?”

“What does it mean for our odds of survival?”

“No, what do those words together actually mean? What’s a perception field?”

“It’s a neural filter that—”

Cal placed his thumb and index finger close together. “Smaller words.” He gestured to one of the hovering cameras that continued to follow them. “For the people watching at home.”

Floora blinked a few times, then tried again.

“It’s a machine that affects our brains. It makes us think we’re seeing, hearing, and even feeling things that aren’t there. It can also hide things that are there,” she explained.

“So, what are you saying? None of this is real?” Cal asked, gesturing around.

“Not necessarily. Some of it could be,” Floora replied. “Maybe all of this is real and the forest wasn’t.”

“The forest felt pretty real,” Cal said, rubbing his jaw.

He could still feel the aches from where the trees had punched him. That, coupled with the burning sensation in his shoulder, told him he had a big problem on the healing-factor front.

“The fact of it is, we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” said Floora.

Cal eyed her suspiciously. “Are you real?”

“Yes. I’m real.”

Cal frowned. “Am—"

“Yes. You’re also real,” said Floora, who was getting a handle on Cal quite quickly. “We’re both real. Beyond that? It’s anyone’s guess.”

They both looked in opposite directions at the same mountain.

“Fifty-seven paces in any direction,” Cal said. He flexed his fingers in and out, creaking the gloves of the bodysuit. “You ready?”

Floora shrugged. Her little wings twitched anxiously. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“OK. Let’s try this way,” Cal said, deliberately picking a direction that hadn’t been suggested by Perko.

They set off down the hill, Cal counting each step below his breath.

They were five paces in when darks clouds drifted in overhead, five more when the warm summer breeze became cold and biting.

By the time they’d gone thirty steps, the grass had died beneath their feet, and the sky was a broiling morass of black and gray. The light was sickly and tepid, painting a pale yellow wash across the now desolate terrain.

Every so often, a buzzerfly would flutter past, a blue luminescence in each wing now clearly visible in the gloom. Cal continued to watch them warily, but it was becoming clear that insect-based electrocution was not necessarily the worst of his problems.

“Fifty-six,” said Cal, stopping.

The ground beneath his feet was dry and dusty now, the icy wind howling little vortexes of grit into the air all around them. Floora coughed and shielded her eyes from what, from her angle, must’ve looked like a raging sandstorm.

“Should’ve stayed in the bag,” Cal told her. He started to bend, then thought better of it and took a step back first.

Once he was sure he wasn’t accidentally going to bob his head beyond the fifty-seven pace mark, he crouched and motioned for Floora to climb up onto his back.

“Here. Get on.”

Floora looked unsure, but only for a moment. She fluttered her wings and caught a strap of Cal’s backpack with both hands. Swinging herself up, she used the bag’s clasps as footholds, and clung to the single thin carry-strap on top of the backpack as if it were a set of reins.

“I’m on.”

Cal straightened. He took another pace forward and stopped again. “OK. One more makes fifty-seven.”

He took a series of deep breaths, then shot a look to the cameras hovering overhead. Behind him, the whole world was a desolate wasteland, with the buzzerflies the only reminder of the paradise it had once been.

“Here goes nothing.”

Cal took a step forward.

Sure enough… nothing.

He and Floora both braced themselves, waiting for something to happen.

Still nothing.

“Should something be happening?” Cal whispered.

“I don’t know. I think so,” Floora replied.

Reluctantly, Cal fished in his front pocket and retrieved the Preypad.

“Don’t say anything!” he warned it, before Perko could open his animated mouth. “I thought you said fifty-seven paces in any direction?”

“That’s right!” Perko chirped.

“There’s nothing here,” Cal said, holding the device so the animated assistant could get a good look around. “See? Nothing.”

“You’ve only taken fifty-six paces,” Perko told him.

“No, I took fifty-seven,” Cal insisted.

“I have to beg to differ, good pal!” said Perko. “Eighteen and forty-two were technically half paces.”

“Oh,” said Cal.

Replacing Perko in his pocket, Cal took another step forward.

And with that, the whole world changed.

Twenty-Nine

The change was invisible. The actual process of it, at least.

One moment, Cal was standing on a wasteland with nothing for miles in any direction, the next he was standing on a wasteland with an enormous junkyard of giant decaying corpses looming in front of him.

The sky, which had been a palette of grays, was now a fiery red ridged with angry black clouds. Ash rained from it, drifting as a sulfurous charcoal fog that snagged at the back of Cal’s throat and nipped at his eyes.

“Well, this has rapidly taken a turn for the worse,” he muttered, rubbing the back of a gloved hand across his eyes as he tried to clear them.

He took a backward step. Then another. The world steadfastly refused to return to the way it had been just a moment before.

“Do you think this is the Boneyard?” Cal asked.

“I think there’s a pretty good chance, yes,” said Floora. “You know, what with all the bones, and everything.”

“That’s definitely an indicator,” Cal agreed.

He’d been expecting a place called ‘The Boneyard’ to be well stocked with bones, but he hadn’t been prepared for anything like this. They were gathered in long stacks, each dozens of feet high and several times as long.

Together, they formed a rectangular… not building, exactly, but something close.

“A yard,” he realized. “It’s a literal yard built out of bones.”

There was one way in, as far as Cal could tell—through a set of giant shark-like jaws that led into a passageway formed by two walls of rotting remains.

“I guess we go that way,” he said, trying to disguise the shake in his voice.

“There might be a Hunter in there,” Floora whispered.

Cal sighed. “Yeah. Figures. But I don’t think they’re going to let us just walk around it.”

“No,” Floora agreed.

“Unless they haven’t thought of that,” said Cal.

“They’ll have thought of that.”

“Unless they haven’t !”

“They’ll definitely have thought of that,” Floora insisted.

“I’m going to try,” said Cal. He pointed himself away from the entrance and walked half a dozen paces.

The world shifted around him, so the toothy archway loomed dead ahead.

Cal tried again, about-turning and walking away from the entrance.

A moment later, he found himself back there.

“See?” said Floora. “Told you.”

“Fine. Fine.”

Cal glared up at the cameras. “Fine. I’m going in. You happy? Oh, and by the way…”

He turned to show Floora to the cameras. “I’m helping a Floomfle. Doesn’t that prove I’m not who you think I am?”

“They probably think you’ve kidnapped me,” Floora pointed out. “It probably made them hate you even more.”

“Son of a…” Cal groaned. “Some days, I just can’t win.”

He straightened and addressed the camera again. “But not today, you voyeuristic shizzholes. Today, I’m taking the victory. I’m getting out, I’m getting the money, and then I’m kicking the asses of everyone involved in this whole—”

Somewhere not too far behind him, a Sloorg howled.

“Fonk, fonk,” Cal whimpered, instantly forgoing his speech in favor of running as fast as he could in through the Boneyard entrance.

The wind whistled through the gaps in the giant jaws as he passed through, then the whole thing snapped shut a half-inch behind him, cutting off his escape and shaving a good two-to-six years off his life expectancy.

“Jesus!” he gasped, clutching at his chest. “I thought it had us.”

He craned his neck back. “Are you still there?”

“Just,” Floora answered. “It nearly cut my wings off.”

“Be a damn shame to lose those,” said Cal. “They’ve proven so useful up till now.”

With the jaws closed, there was only one route available to them—dead ahead. And there were dead ahead. Lots of dead. The walls of the passageway stretched on for forty feet or more, before ending in a T-shaped junction at the end.

There was no roof to the yard, so the bones, carcasses, and other organic detritus were bathed in a red glow that conjured up images of Hell and damnation. Most of the corpses that made up the walls were long-dead, reduced to nothing but their skeletons. A few had died more recently, though, and dried flesh clung to them like leather on an old sofa that should’ve been dumped on some random sidewalk years ago.

One or two of the fresher bodies even seemed to be moving. Cal looked at them long enough to be sure they weren’t about to jump out and grab him, then took great pleasure in turning away and not looking at them any longer.

“This place is horrible,” he remarked.

“It is,” Floora agreed, her voice somehow even smaller than the rest of her.

Cal crept on along the passageway, his head tick-tocking for danger, drawn to any movement in the walls.

“I mean, it’s got everything. Ominous atmosphere, scary lighting, a billion dead bodies. Could it get any worse?”

A buzzerfly landed on his arm. Cal screamed and swatted it beneath a gloved hand. He felt the thing discharge its electricity, but the suit and the glove reduced it to a prickling sensation that quickly passed.

“OK, now could it get any worse?” he asked.

“It will. It’s bound to,” Floora told him. Her voice was shrinking fast, and cracking around the edges. He could feel her shaking on his back.

“So, tell me about yourself,” said Cal.

Floora frowned. “Huh?”

“What brings a nice Floomfle like you to a place like this?”

“It’s… Like I said, it’s an honor to be chosen. My people take their place in the Hunt very seriously. We are trained from a young age to be Sloorg feed.”

“Right. Right,” said Cal. He wasn’t sure what sort of training would be involved, beyond run at the Sloorg and jump , but he decided not to press her for more information. “But you didn’t fancy it?”

“Not really, no,” Floora admitted.

“What did you want to do?”

“Is this really the time to be discussing this?” Floora whispered.

Cal shrugged, forcing her to cling to the backpack more tightly. “Good a time as any. We might not have much left. So, what did you want to do? Besides not be eaten by Sloorgs, I mean, which from now on let’s just take as a given.”

“I… I don’t know,” said Floora.

“Yeah, you do. Come on, tell me,” Cal said.

“Science,” said Floora. “I mean, I suppose, if I had to choose. Science.”

“There you go!” Cal said, turning his head and beaming encouragement back at her. “Science. Is that how you know about the…”

He gestured vaguely around them.

“The mind’s eye thing?”

“Perception field,” Floora corrected. “And yes. Sort of. I read what I can.”

“Good for you,” said Cal. “With your brains, and… uh, everything I bring to the table, we can’t fail to get out of here.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” said Cal. “It’s a Cal Carver Guarantee. And those are rock-solid.”

He shot her another smile. “Stick with me, kid, and everything’s going to be just fine,” he said, then he let out a hysterical scream as a hand grabbed at him from the wall.

“Let’s pretend that didn’t happen,” he said, once he’d successfully avoided the zombie-like grasp.

They reached the end of the passageway and stopped. The corridor split in two directions—one leading left, the other leading right. The one on the left came to an end just a few feet away, then doubled back the way they’d come.

The corridor on the right stretched out for much longer, with two other passageways running off from it at irregular intervals.

“Ah, shizz, I think I know what this is,” Cal said. He took the Preypad from his pocket and shouted over Perko before he could speak. “Is this a maze?”

“You’re right on the money, old chum!” Perko confirmed. “This is—”

Cal stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Fonking mazes. I hate mazes. You think it’s too late to turn back?”

He turned back. The corridor they had just walked down was gone, replaced by a wall of bones and corpses.

“Yes, I’d say it’s too late,” Floora confirmed. “Perko might know which way to go.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to give the bamston the satisfaction,” Cal said. “Let’s go this way.”

He went left and took the next left turn almost immediately. The corridor stretched out into what appeared to be infinity. Hundreds of hands reached out through bleached ribcages and the eye sockets of giant skulls, their withered fingers twisting and clawing at the air.

“On second thought, let’s try the other way,” Cal decided, turning around and heading in the opposite direction.

They reached one of the side-passages after thirty seconds or so of walking. Cal peered down it, but saw only more corners and yet further corridors branching off.

He ignored that turn and continued on to where the next one branched off.

“You know why I hate mazes?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“Because they’re terrible,” Cal said. “Also, because when I was five, we went to visit some of my dad’s family in Kansas. Earth Kansas, I mean. I don’t know if there’s a Space Kansas.”

Floora’s expression suggested that she had no idea, either.

“Anyway, they had this, like, I don’t know, country fair going on, or whatever. There was a big maze made out of haystacks or, I don’t know, corn. Some farm shizz. My dad’s brother—my uncle—he thought it’d be funny to lead me into it, then run off,” Cal said. “Just run off, leaving me to find my own way out. Said it’d be good for me. Said it’d be a fun challenge.”

Cal’s lips drew tight.

“Took me four days to find my way out.”

“Seriously?” asked Floora.

Cal nodded. “Yep. Well, not four whole days. More like, I don’t know, forty minutes. But it felt like longer, is my point.”

Floora nodded in understanding. “Must’ve been scary.”

“Terrifying,” Cal confirmed. “There was this scarecrow that kept chasing me. Pumpkin for a head. Eyes that were just these black holes. These… voids , trying to suck me in.”

He shrugged. “I mean, that part was only in my head, but it felt real at the time. That’s what I’m getting at. And that’s why I hate mazes.”

“I can see it had an effect,” said Floora. “How did you find your way out?”

“Hmm? Oh, I cheated,” said Cal. “I climbed up on the stacks and looked across until…”

He stopped walking and considered the walls around them. They were far too tall to see over, but the ‘bundle of bones’ construction meant climbing was a real possibility.

“Hold that thought,” he said.

Picking a likely spot, Cal reached up, found a handhold, and was immediately grabbed by the throat by a rotting arm. For a dead guy, the thing’s grip was incredible, and Cal’s face turned a shade of bruise-purple almost immediately.

The head appeared next, a mosaic of empty eye sockets, exposed teeth, and straggly clumps of filthy hair. It squirmed and struggled, trying to force itself through the ribcage of some giant whatever-the-fonk that had it pinned in place.

Cal slammed his hand against the zombie’s elbow joint. Once. Twice. Bone splintered and cracked, but the grip didn’t lessen.

Grabbing it by the forearm, he twisted, pulled, wrenched with all his strength. Darkness crept in at the corners of his eyes as his brain came to the conclusion that it wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Cal put a foot on a cow-sized skull at the base of the wall and kicked back, putting everything he had into one last escape attempt.

Rrrip .

The last of the arm’s ragged flesh tore away. Cal stumbled backward, prising the now-limp fingers from around his throat. The undead thing in the wall glared at him with contempt, then slowly slid back into the recesses of the bone mound.

Cal tossed the arm away and rubbed his throat. He could still feel the thing’s grip, still smell its fetid stink loitering around in his nostrils, still see the horror story of its face.

“Are you OK?” asked Floora from his back.

“I’m fine. But fonk the climbing idea,” he decided. “I’m not risking getting grabbed by another of those things.”

“I guess we just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” said Floora.

Cal nodded reluctantly. “Yeah.”

He looked along the maze’s long passageway and winced.

He looked up at the top of the wall, maybe twenty feet in the air. So near, and yet…

And yet…

Slowly, as innocently as he could, Cal turned his gaze on the little winged figure holding onto his back.

“What?” asked Floora.

Cal smiled.

Floora shifted uncomfortably. “What is it?”

“I have an idea,” Cal told her.

Floora’s wings twitched with excitement. “Great! That’s fantastic!”

“Yeah,” said Cal, making a weighing motion with his hands. “You might want to reserve judgment on that.”

* * *

Floora did her best not to scream as she sailed up through the air, flipped clumsily at the apex, then frantically beat her wings to slow her descent. Her wings, which were capable of only minimal lift at the best of times, failed to pull it out of the hat when she needed them most.

Cal caught her just before she crunched against the ground in a landing that would otherwise have been almost Loren-esque.

“What did you see?” Cal asked her, turning her right way up and setting her down.

“What, besides my life flashing before my eyes?” Floora panted. “Not much.”

Cal picked her up again. “OK, this time keep your eyes open.”

“Wait! Stop!” Floora pleaded. “I think we take the second exit up ahead, then go right.”

“You think? Or you know?” asked Cal. “How sure are you?”

Floora sighed. “Fifty percent?”

Cal launched her upward, throwing her with both hands the way a doting parent might throw a toddler into the air, only much faster and higher, and with fewer funny faces.

Floora gritted her teeth and forced herself to pay attention as she rose up above the top of the walls. She fluttered her wings as fast as she could, buying herself almost a whole half-second before gravity took hold and dragged her down again.

“Anything?” Cal asked, as she landed in his arms.

Floora nodded breathlessly. “I was right. There’s an open area in the middle. Second exit ahead, then left, two rights, straight on, and we’re there.”

“Are you sure?” asked Cal, adjusting his grip on her again. “Should we double-check?”

“No!” Floora yelped. “I’m sure. Second exit, left, two rights, straight on. That’s the way.”

Cal looked dubious, but slowly lowered her to the ground. “OK. But if we get lost, this is on you. I’m putting my faith in you here. So, that’s a big responsibility. You know how I feel about mazes.”

“It’s the way. I promise,” Floora told him.

“Well, OK, then,” said Cal. He jabbed a thumb at his back. “Want to hop on?”

Floora shook her head. “I think I’ll walk,” she wheezed. “It’ll be nice to be near the ground for a while.”

“Fair enough,” said Cal, and they set off to follow Floora’s directions.

A turn, a left, and two rights later, Cal found himself standing at the end of a passageway that seemed narrower than the others.

At the far end, it opened to reveal a much wider area where the amber glow of flames flickered across the bones, making them appear alive.

“Looks like this is it,” Cal said.

“Told you,” said Floora. “That’s the center.”

“You did tell me, you’re absolutely right,” Cal agreed. He nodded at the walls ahead of them. “But you didn’t tell me about those.”

This passageway was a forest of grasping arms, protruding heads, and a few bony tentacle things that may well have belonged to the Death of Octopuses. They stretched across the gap between the narrow walls, as if trying to shake hands with those across from them. A few of them came dangerously close, their fingertips brushing together as they flailed around.

As if all that wasn’t enough, twenty to thirty buzzerflies pootled around in amongst it all. Sure, they were currently minding their own business, but Cal knew it would only be a matter of time before the little bamstons started electrocuting his face.

“Maybe there’s another way,” Floora said.

She dusted herself down, straightened herself up, then raised her arms to Cal. “Do it. Throw me. I’ll find another route.”

Cal picked her up. “You sure?”

“What other choice do we have?”

Cal looked back in the direction they’d come, up at the top of the wall, then ahead at the sea anemone of limbs, heads, and assorted other bits and pieces.

“I hate fonking mazes,” Cal said.

And then, he tucked Floora under one arm, threw the other out in front of him like a charging quarterback, and ran.

Half a dozen paces in, he concluded that this was probably a mistake, but there was no turning back now. The fingers were everywhere, snatching at his hair, hauling at his arms, grasping for his ankles as he barged on through. He punched, slapped, and karate-chopped as many as he could, shrugged off all those he couldn’t, swatting buzzerflies and dodging teeth as he ran and ran and ran.

Floora was screaming, but the sound was broken by the jarring impact of Cal’s footsteps, turning her solid “Eeeeeeeek!” into a car-alarm style vibrato.

EeeeEEEEeeeeEEEEeeeeEEEEK!

But, despite it all, they were almost there. Almost to the end. Almost made it.

Almost.

But not quite.

One of the hands caught Cal’s arm high up, the fingers snagging on the torn bodysuit. Cal’s momentum pulled him free, but he spun wildly, tripped on a flailing tentacle, then fell. As he did, he tossed Floora ahead of him, launching her through the forest of limbs in a desperate attempt to get her clear.

Cal hit the ground hard. He tried to kick himself onward, but hands had him by the ankle, by the wrist, by the hair. He hissed in pain as they clawed at him through the bodysuit. He struggled on a few inches until it became impossible to go any further.

The things in the walls babbled and groaned, their teeth gnashing as they all pulled him in opposite directions.

Up ahead, he could just make out Floora. She had landed beyond the end of the corridor. She was safe. He’d managed that much, at least. He’d saved her, even if he wasn’t able to save himself.

Of course, she’d probably be eaten alive by Sloorgs in the next two-to-three minutes, but he’d be dead by then, so wouldn’t know anything about it.

And then, from somewhere a little beyond the Floomfle, he heard it. A sound. One of the greatest sounds he’d ever heard, he thought. It was a sound he’d never appreciated fully in the past, but which he vowed to make a point of treasuring from this moment on.

It was the single clank of a metal footstep.

“Y’all better let him go,” Mech warned.

Cal sobbed with relief as the hands released him and retreated into the bones. “Oh, thank God!” he croaked, pushing himself up onto his knees. “Mech, am I glad to see…”

“This son-of-a-bedge is mine,” Mech said. His face contorted in rage as he raised both fists above his head and struck a pose.

The voice of the Host came blaring from nowhere. As Cal watched, a rusted metal logo appeared in the air in front of the cyborg—a hologram, projected from God-knew-where.

“Meet Pulverizor !” the Host announced, really dragging out the ‘L’ sound. “The first of our all new Hunters!”

Cal swallowed, his eyes growing almost as wide as Floora’s.

“Oh, shizzbiscuits,” he groaned. “You have got to be fonking kidding me…”

Thirty

“Hey, Mech. Buddy. It’s me. What are you doing? What’s with Mr Angry Face?” said Cal.

Or, that was his intention, at least. He made is as far as the, “Hey M—” before the cyborg’s fists swung down, forcing him to roll sideways out of their path.

They struck the ground with a bone-shaking thoom . Literally bone-shaking. The walls on either side of them trembled, and a selection of skulls and femurs clattered down like the first few rocks in a landslide.

“Mech? Come on, man, stop messing around!” Cal cried. Again, partly. This time, he made it all the way to the, “Come on, man,” part before Mech swung with a hammer-strike, forcing Cal to scramble out of his way.

“Stay still, you little fonk,” Mech grunted, twisting his upper half and gearing up for another attack.

Springing to his feet, Cal made a run for the mouth of the passageway, grabbed Floora, and dashed madly into the wider clearing at the heart of the maze.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been hoping to find there. A weapon, maybe. A couple of chairs and a reasonable conversation, perhaps.

Instead, he found bones. Lots more bones, scattered in piles, and forming the walls of a vaguely hexagonal space.

No, not a space, Cal realized.

An arena .

There were four exits, including the one they’d just entered through. Cal started for one of the others at full-speed, zigging and zagging in case Mech opened fire.

“You know this guy?” Floora asked, her voice an urgent hiss in Cal’s ear.

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

“You don’t look like friends.”

“It’s a love-hate thing,” Cal explained, then he staggered to a stop as a metal doorway rose from the ground, blocking the exit ahead.

“Shizz,” he spat, turning toward one of the other doors. He was halfway to it when another door shot up and slammed into place.

There was a clang from the third exit as it, too, was blocked. Cal turned back to the way he’d come in, just in time to see Mech stepping into the arena. A fourth barrier locked in position at the cyborg’s back, trapping everyone in together.

The clearing was maybe fifty feet from any one side to the one directly across from it. Wide enough to dodge for a while, but not enough to avoid fighting forever.

Aside from Cal, Floora, and Mech, the only occupants of the arena were six Hovercams, a few dozen buzzerflies, and enough bones to rebuild all the dinosaurs at twice their original scale.

“You’re going down, Topa!” Mech barked. “You’re gonna pay for your crimes.”

Floora let out a little gasp of shock. “Wait. He called you Topa! You told me you weren’t Topa!”

“I’m not Topa!” Cal assured her. “He must be under some kind of, I don’t know, mind control. The tour guide guy said that’s what they did to the Hunters.”

Mech clanked toward them, slowly at first, but rapidly picking up speed. He powered ahead like a locomotive, his leg-pistons hissing as they propelled him along. Cal had never seen him move so fast, and barely had time to leap clear.

The process of slowing and stopping didn’t take Mech nearly as long as Cal would have liked. For a semi-indestructible walking tank, he was more agile than he looked.

“Look, Mech, I don’t know exactly what they’ve done to you, but you need to listen to me,” Cal told him, backing away with his hands raised. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m your friend. I’m Cal. Ring any bells?”

Whirring , Mech grabbed a bone from a pile and tossed it at Cal. It clonked off the edge of his forehead, staggering him back a few paces.

“Ow! Jesus! You almost put my eye out with that—”

A metal fist came scything toward him. Cal dived clear, but it was messy and awkward. He hit the ground badly, sending Floora flapping into the air.

Cal barely had a moment to pull himself together before a foot came down, forcing him to fumble into a roll again.

Breathless, he somehow made it back to his feet, shrugging off his backpack as he put some distance between himself and Mech.

“Open that up,” he ordered, tossing the bag so it landed near Floora. “He wants a fight? I’ll give him a fight.” He spat out a wad of mushed-up bone dust and pointed to the bag. “Find me that fonking spoon.”

While Floora unfastened the bag and rummaged inside, Mech advanced. It was a slower, more controlled advance than last time, but no less frightening. Cal had never really noticed quite how big Mech was before. Sure, he’d known he was well-built—literally, in fact—but he hadn’t quite appreciated just how colossal the cyborg was.

This might require both spoons.

Mech launched himself forward, his rocket boosters launching him six feet into the air, and scattering a little rabble of buzzerflies that had been dancing around overhead.

Cal ducked and rolled beneath him, avoiding being crushed, but opening himself up to a light toasting from Mech’s fiery rocket feet.

Bouncing up, Cal grabbed the bone Mech had tossed and swished it experimentally. It was the length of a broadsword, and several times as thick. It ended in a grizzled knot of black sinew at the end, and whummed menacingly as Cal swung it around.

“OK, you metal fonk. You really want to do this? Fine, let’s do—”

Mech didn’t wait around to be told. He broke into a clanking run, arms raised, fingers splayed at Cal’s head height.

At the very last moment, Cal ducked, turned, and hammered the bone against Mech’s back. The end that made contact shattered on impact, spraying thousands of jagged calcium-enriched fragments out in an arc, and sending vibrations of pain racing up Cal’s arms and through his own skeleton.

He briefly regarded the now foot-long sliver of pointed bone he held, muttered a solitary, “Fonk,” and then a metal foot slammed into his stomach, lifted him off the ground, and deposited him unceremoniously some fifteen feet away.

Meanwhile, Floora was half-buried in the bag. She wasn’t sure Cal had been serious about the spoon, but she was determined to find it, just in case. As she rummaged, she tossed out all the rest of the stuff. The rope. The straw. The yogurt. She disregarded it all as she searched for—

Aha!

“Got it!” she cried, thrusting the Swiss Army Spoon above her head. “Catch!”

She threw it to Cal. He sat up in time for it to hit him on the forehead, knocking him over again.

“Oops. Sorry!” Floora called.

“Is the whole fonking world against me?” Cal grumbled, rolling onto his front and stretching to retrieve the—for want of a better word—weapon.

He stood as Mech launched into another charge, and fiddled frantically with the tool.

BOING! A set of tweezers popped out.

No good.

BDING! Some kind of bottle opener.

Nope.

SPROING! A can opener.

Still not the spoon.

Wait.

Even better.

Cal brandished the can opener like a sword, holding it at arm’s length in front of him, his weight resting on his front foot.

“Come on, you fonking robot. Let’s see what you’ve got!”

Mech’s features twisted in rage.

“I ain’t…”

His fists clenched.

“…a fonking…”

His foot found the yogurt pouch, exploding the contents onto the ground.

Mech’s expression became one of panic as he lost his footing, skidded on for a few feet, then crashed down onto the arena floor. A sound like a high-speed car impact reverberated around the arena walls, shaking the bones and agitating the creatures living inside them.

Even the buzzerflies seemed disturbed by the sound. They flapped around more vigorously, the air crackling around them. A few of them dive-bombed Cal, but he swatted them away with the back of his glove.

Mech had landed on his front. Cal was quietly hoping that he’d somehow knocked himself unconscious, but no such luck. The cyborg rolled over onto his back immediately.

That was the bad news.

The good news was that part of him stayed behind when he moved. Wires hung loosely from his open arm socket, and from the shoulder of the detached arm that lay on the ground beside him.

Cal raised his eyes to the heavens. “Way to go, Loren.”

He approached Mech, passing the can opener from hand to hand. “Well, well, well. It looks like the big guy is down,” Cal said.

With a foot, he turned the dial on Mech’s chest to divert all his power to his processors, rendering him immobile.

“I guess you aren’t so tough, after all.”

To Cal’s surprise, Mech’s intact arm caught him by the ankle.

“But… but the dial!” Cal protested, and then he went from a standing position to a moving one at quite a high speed.

He was swung up above Mech, then slammed down onto the ground. The force of the impact sent the can opener tumbling out of his hand, knocked the wind out of him and, worse…

“You made me bithe my thonking thongue!”

Still lying flat, Mech swung again. Cal wailed as he was propelled backward in a neat parabolic curve. He grabbed at the air, trying to find purchase. Unsurprisingly, he failed, and was stopped by the ground, instead.

That one hurt.

Granted, the first one had hurt, too. In hindsight, though, that had just been a taster for what was about to come. A chance to warm-up before the main, bone-crunching event. The second impact doubled-down on his suffering, making his head swim, his insides throb, and his hands tingle with electricity.

“Wait, what?” he slurred.

His hands.

A banshee-like screech cut through the ringing in his ears. Cal blinked away the checkerboard of colors to see Floora flying at Mech, gouging at his face with the can opener as he lay on the ground.

“Leave him alone!”

Mech released his grip on Cal’s ankle and swung a punch at the Floomfle. It clipped her on the legs, spinning her out of the air.

His hands .

Cal looked down at the palms of his gloves. Five buzzerflies, three in one hand, two in the other.

Long shot , he thought, but as no other shots from closer distances seemed about to present themselves, he went for it.

Clambering forward, he belly-flopped on top of the fallen Mech. “This is for my tongue!” he said, then he jammed both handfuls of buzzerflies into Mech’s exposed wiring.

For a moment, nothing happened. Cal was juuuust beginning to feel like an idiot for believing the plan might actually work when Mech’s body flopped violently beneath him, bucking him off.

Cal landed beside Floora, slid a few inches on his face, then struggled onto his knees. He checked the palms of his gloves.

Empty.

Sparks flew from Mech’s arm socket. He thrashed around, his metal torso crackling , his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Jesus. OK, that’s enough,” he called to the buzzerflies. Smoke poured from the thin gap around Mech’s chest dial.

“Stop. That’s enough,” Cal yelped, diving and shoving a hand up inside the arm socket.

Mech’s other arm reached across and clamped down on Cal’s wrist. His eyes swam in their sockets, before finally finding their focus.

“Cal?” he wheezed. Something inside him went pop . “The fonk are you dooooinggg…?”

His voice became an electronic hum.

His face went limp. His grip slackened. His arm dropped.

And Mech fell silent.

Cal held his breath.

“Mech?” he whispered. “Hey. Mech.”

He gave the cyborg a shove.

“Hey, ya big lunk. Wake up.”

“Do we really want him to wake up?” Floora asked.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Cal said. “I thought the shock would just buy us some time, not kill him.”

“He did just try to kill us ,” Floora pointed out.

“He wasn’t himself,” Cal retorted. “Mech? Jesus. Come on, you damn robot. Rise and shine.”

Cal shoved him again, more violently this time, but eliciting the same lack of response as before.

Something appeared in the air right in front of Cal’s face. It was a large red cross, the edges shimmering slightly like it wasn’t quite in focus.

“Aaaaand Pulverizor is down!” announced the voice of the Host, booming around the arena as if from thin air. “The first of our new Hunters has been defeated. Find out what Reduk Topa does next… after these important messages.”

A short musical sting blasted out, then silence returned.

Around the arena, all four doors dropped, clearing the way to the exit.

“We should go,” said Floora, stuffing the equipment back in the bag. “We have to keep running.”

“I can’t just leave him,” Cal said.

“Well, you sure as shizz can’t carry him,” Floora pointed out. “The network will retrieve him.”

“I don’t want the damn network to retrieve him!” Cal said. “He’s not theirs to retrieve!”

From the mouth of one of the exit corridors came a low, threatening growl.

“Sloorgs,” Floora whispered. “We have to go.”

Cal winced as his gaze went from the solitary Sloorg to the motionless cyborg.

“Fonk,” he said, then he placed a hand on Mech’s chest. “We’ll come back for you, big guy.”

Grabbing the backpack and the Floomfle, he stood up.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

Thirty-One

King Floomf of the Floomfles sat in his favorite armchair, dipping half a sandwich into a bowl of soup, moving it to his mouth, and then getting most of the soupy parts stuck in his beard.

He chewed noisily on the soggy bite of sandwich. The baker, Flourflum, had made the bread himself. It was thick and soft, a most wonderful shade of puce, and slightly burnt around the crust. Just the way he liked it.

The filling was a salad of vegetables from the Royal Gardens, seasoned with a pinch of cave salt and just the faintest dusting of powdered flurg fat, then smeared liberally in Nutella. Technically, it wasn’t Nutella, but the taste and consistency were more or less identical.

King Floomf brought the sandwich to the soup again, then the soup to his beard. He took another bite and chewed thoughtlessly, both his hand and mouth operating on an auto-pilot that required very little input from his brain.

This allowed him to focus the rest of his attention on the television in the corner of the room, and the drama that was unfolding before his eyes.

He watched, wide-eyed, as two figures collided on screen, then he laughed uproariously at the sight of them. He shook so much that the soup sloshed up the sides of the bowl and onto the tray he had balanced on his legs. He didn’t notice.

“Oh, such a naughty puppet!” he chuckled, then he erupted into laughter again as the Puppetopia cast pulled off a series of well-rehearsed set-piece routine involving two umbrellas and a roller skate.

He knew how it ended, of course. He’d seen this episode a hundred times, thanks to Viaview On Demand . Still, it never got old.

A hammering at his front door made him jump, just as he was delivering another cargo of soupy bread to his mouth. This resulted in eighty percent of the soup ending up in his beard, ten percent in his eyebrows, and the rest down the side of his armchair along with what was left of the sandwich.

The hammering came again, more urgent this time.

“Alright, alright,” King Floomf muttered.

He set the tray on the arm of the chair, got himself up after three aborted attempts, then did his best to wipe the soup out of his facial hair. The effect was that the dark orange mess just below his mouth was distributed more evenly around the rest of the beard, turning even more of it the color of sickly carrots.

The thumping on the door came once more, this time shaking it in its frame. King Floomf picked a piece of sandwich from one of his teeth, explored the rest of them with his tongue, then cleared his throat.

“Come.”

The door flew open, and three Floomfles tried simultaneously to pass through one small door, with utterly predictable results.

“Your Maj—” began an ashen-faced footman, before he hissed at the two Floomfles on either side of him. “Get off! I go in first!”

“We’re supposed to announce you,” said one of the others. He blasted on a horn, emitting a sound like a farm animal breaking wind.

“Yeah, we go first,” agreed his companion, before closing his eyes and smashing two cymbals together.

The footman, well and truly jammed in the doorway, decided to stop pushing. They all stood there, stuck fast, while the King glared at them.

“Was there a point to all this?” King Floomf wondered. “I was having lunch.”

“The Hunt , Your Majesty,” said the footman. His eyes flicked to the TV, where the Puppetopia puppets were chasing each other in circles while dressed as fruit pies. “Have you been watching The Hunt ?”

“Bits of it,” said King Floomf. He shifted uneasily. “I mean, I’m not a big fan. Not really my thing.”

With a grunt of effort, the footman forced his way into the room. The other two Floomfles landed behind him with a crash and a honk .

Hurrying past the King, the footman crossed to the television and tapped the screen several times, flicking through the channels.

“I was watching that!” King Floomf protested. “It was just getting to the big song number.”

“You’ll want to see this, Your Majesty,” the footman insisted.

He skipped on through the channels, then stopped and tapped back one. “Here it is.”

The footman stepped back, his eyes darting anxiously from the screen to King Floomf and back again.

“What is that? Is that the robot that was here earlier?” asked the King, rising from his throne. “It looks similar.”

“I think it is, sir. But that’s not the problem,” said the footman. “Watch.”

There was a scream from the TV. The cameras followed the flight of a humanoid male as a kick launched him through the air.

It cut to an overhead shot just as he crunched down onto the ground. King Floomf took a step closer to the screen, peering at it along the length of his nose.

“And that’s the chap. The mouthy one. Those are the people who came here!”

“Yes, sir, but that’s not it, either.”

King Floomf sighed, irritably. “Then what am I supposed to be looking at?”

The image changed again. A short, wide-eyed figure popped her head out of a bag just long enough to be caught in close-up.

Had King Floomf still been eating his sandwich at that point, he’d have slowly stopped chewing, and a partially masticated lump of it would’ve fallen out of his mouth and onto the floor.

As he wasn’t still eating his sandwich, he just stared at the screen instead, his eyebrows rising, then knotting, then rising again, like they couldn’t quite figure out how to react.

“Oh,” he said, as the cameras cut back to the action, and the little Floomfle vanished from view. “Oh, my.”

Thirty-Two

The smell was the most instantly notable thing about Sector Two. This was closely followed by the taste and then, chasing hot on its heels, the smell again.

The name of the sector, which had been carved into a plank of wood and then, it appeared, repeatedly dipped in slime, had not filled Cal with a lot of hope. The Belchpits was not the sort of name that conjured up positive images, and his spirits hadn’t exactly been high to start with following the whole Mech situation.

But the smell, though.

Sweet Jesus, the smell.

It was the smell of rotten eggs and sweaty socks. Of death and decay. Of the laundry facilities at a hospital for the double-incontinent. But there was something acrid and hot about the aroma, too. It was as if someone had collected all the worst smells in the world and then proceeded to make a curry out of them.

Cal’s nostrils decided to have nothing to do with it. As a result, the smell seemed to assault him further back in his nasal cavities, coating his throat with their wretched stink. He gagged frequently. His eyes were constantly awash with tears. His mouth ramped up saliva production in the hope of washing the taste away, but only succeeded in making it worse.

Floora, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned. She trotted along at Cal’s side, her feet squelching on the soft, muddy ground. Occasionally, she’d glance off in the direction of one of the angry-looking bugs that zipped around just above the uneven terrain, but if the insects were planning to launch an attack, they were playing their cards close to their chests.

“This is better, isn’t it?” Floora said, as they picked a path across the mulchy ground.

“Than what?” asked Cal. He found that if he spoke in short bursts, he didn’t have to inhale as often. Ideally, he wouldn’t have to inhale at all, but in the interests of staying alive, he accepted that he probably had to.

“Than the last place. With all the bones,” said Floora. She shuddered. “That was creepy.”

“This stinks.”

“Does it?” asked Floora. She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath in through her nose. Cal gagged in sympathy. “Seems fine to me.”

“Your nose is broken,” Cal told her.

They plodded on. Ahead of them lay nothing but wide open space, but Cal was confident this was another trick, and that they’d soon stumble upon whatever the fonk was waiting for them next. He could’ve asked Perko, of course, but the last thing he needed right now was a face-to-face with that animated shizznod.

Somewhere over on Cal’s left, the ground burped , bursting open a bubble of slime and filling the air with yet more stink. He screwed his face up in distaste and hurried on.

“So, you really knew that guy?” Floora asked, racing to keep up with him. “The robot?”

“He’s not a robot,” Cal said. “And yes.”

“Oh. It’s just that you called him a robot.”

Cal shook his head. “I know what I said. He’s not a robot.”

“He seemed to really hate you.”

Cal shrugged. “Sometimes.” He inhaled, then quickly spat it out again. “But not like that. He’s been brainwashed.”

“Do robots even have—?”

“Not a robot.”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

They trudged on for a while. The sky was no longer red, and had turned a pretty bog-standard smear of grays. A thin, smirry sort of rain was falling—not enough to notice, but gradually soaking them both to the skin.

“Is he dead, do you think?” Floora asked.

Cal continued to stare ahead of them. “No. Not Mech. You can’t get rid of Mech that easily,” he said, although the tone of his voice suggested he might not entirely believe that. “He’ll be OK.”

Another hurried breath.

“Until I remind him that I kicked his ass, I mean.”

“He fell on some yogurt,” Floora said.

“My yogurt,” said Cal. “So, I get the win.”

Floora opened her mouth as if to argue, but then decided against it. Somewhere behind them, a Sloorg howled. A response came from somewhere over on the left, not quite level with them, but not far off.

The Sloorg that had appeared in the maze had become trapped in the center when the doors had slammed closed behind Cal and Floora. The maze itself had been far easier to navigate on the way out, the labyrinth of corridors having become a single straight passageway without a single hand trying to grab for them.

From there, it had been a straight run to the entrance of Sector Two, with the Hovercams following them every step of the way. The sprint had taken ten minutes or so, nine of which Cal had spent trying not to be sick. This was partly because of the smell, and partly because of the effort.

Maybe, just maybe, Loren could have a point about his replicator usage.

A third Sloorg howled way off on the right. Floora drew in closer to Cal, and they both walked in silence until they were sure the dog-monsters had fallen silent.

“Don’t suppose you have any other friends you might want to warn me about?” Floora asked.

Cal clenched his jaw, as if trying to stop the word escaping. Or, possibly to stop himself from vomiting.

“Three.”

The little Floomfle launched herself a foot ahead of him on her wings and looked up in concern. “What, seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Are they all like the last one?”

Cal shook his head. “Some are worse.”

Floora blinked slowly, trying to process this. “Wow. You need to get a new social circle.”

She peered ahead in the direction they were walking. A pale yellow mist was now clinging to the ground thirty or forty feet in front of them. It would barely be up to Cal’s knees, which meant it would cover Floora completely.

“You think they’re going to be in here, too?” she asked. “Your other friends, I mean?”

“Four of them. Four new Hunters,” Cal said, sipping in a breath, then gagging it out. “Seems likely.”

Two paces and a hop over a boggy puddle later, a flag appeared in the mist ahead of them. It was not a particularly interesting flag—a red square roughly a foot along each side—but the way it just popped up out of nowhere made them both stop.

The fog itself was growing thicker, too. It was still confined to ground level, but it stretched all the way up to waist height now. Floora clambered up onto Cal’s back, then he stepped ahead into the mist.

It felt warm and sticky even through the suit, and seemed to cling to him as he crept through it.

“It’s a flag,” Floora whispered.

“I know,” said Cal.

Quick breath in, quick breath out.

“Is this normal?” he asked.

“What, magically appearing flags?”

“For the show, I mean. Does this happen a lot?”

Floora thought for a moment. “Not that I’ve ever noticed.”

“What about the… Bogholes, or whatever it’s called?”

“Belchpits,” said Floora. “Yeah, I’ve seen them before.”

“What can you tell me about them?” Cal asked.

Floora thought for a moment before responding. “Nothing.”

Cal tutted. “Great.”

He considered his available options. It wasn’t a long list.

“Should I touch the flag?” he wondered. “Maybe, if I get the flag, I win?”

“I doubt that,” said Floora. “Seems too easy.”

“Worth a shot though, right?” Cal ventured.

Floora made a little hmm sort of noise that suggested she thought it highly unlikely.

“I mean, sometimes they add challenge elements, I suppose,” she said. “Like, one time, this guy had to balance on a beam across a lava pit. The Hunter wasn’t allowed to touch him. Juggacrush, I think. If he made it, he got to move on.”

“And did he make it?” Cal asked.

“Not all of him, no,” said Floora. “And the rest didn’t get very far.”

“I still think I’m going to touch the flag,” said Cal. He glanced around across the fog, spat on his hands, then rubbed them together. “OK, here goes.”

He ran. It was only a short distance from where he started to where the metal flagpole had been stuck in the ground.

Cal closed the gap in moments. He was almost at it, the words, “Well, this was easier than I expected,” already forming in his mouth, when a snarling ball of furry fury slammed into him, sending him sprawling into the fog.

For the first second or two of his flight, Cal could think only one thing: Sloorg.

One of the fonkers must’ve caught up and launched a stealth attack. The testicle-headed shizznods!

It was only when he twisted in the air and caught a glimpse of his attacker silhouetted against an enormous full moon that had upped and appeared from nowhere, that the truth hit him.

“Mi—” he managed to splutter, before he face-planted into bog-slime and the final ‘Z’ became a series of garbled bubbles.

Floora landed somewhere in the fog ahead of him with a thud and a splash and a yelp of pain. Spitting out the bog slime, Cal tried to call to her, but a clawed hand caught him by the back of the bodysuit and jerked him cleanly into the air.

The voice of the Host bellowed down from on high as some hairy-looking holographic text appeared in the air behind Mizette’s head.

“I give you… Eeeeeeviscerator!”

On cue, Miz opened her mouth and let out a raw, animalistic roar that blew Cal’s hair back and cleared most of the slime from his face.

“My, my.” Cal gulped. “What big teeth you have.”

Thirty-Three

Cal had fully expected Mizette to bite and/or claw his face off, but instead, she spun and body-slammed him onto the ground, driving him a full foot into the boggy surface.

Under normal circumstances he’d have objected, but considering the alternatives, he couldn’t really complain.

He lay there, wheezing in the warm filth, the mist concealing everything beyond the end of his own nose. He knew trying to reason with Miz would almost certainly be pointless. She could be a stubborn bedge at the best of times, let alone when she was under hypnotic psychic control.

He decided to try, anyway.

“So, uh, how you doing there, Miz?” he asked.

When he got no reply, he tentatively raised his head and tried to peer through the layer of fog. It was like trying to see through a solid object.

“Miz? You still there?”

Nothing.

Cal sat up, his body pulling free of the bog with a shlop . Sitting upright meant the top of his head protruded from the top of the fog. Through the thin uppermost layer of vapor, he saw the flag in one direction, and nothing whatsoever in any of the others.

“Mizette?” he whispered.

A hand grabbed him from behind and he screamed.

“Shh! It’s me!” Floora whispered. “Sorry, did I startle you?”

“What do you think? Yes, you fonking startled me!” Cal spat. “Jesus. Don’t do that.”

Floora clambered onto his back again. “Where did it go?”

“She.”

“Huh?”

“She, not it. Her name’s Mizette. And I don’t know.”

The Host spoke, his tones rolling across the sector like the voice of God.

“Special challenge mode!” he said. “The Prey has seventy-four seconds to capture the flag. If successful, Reduk Topa may advance to Sector Three. If unsuccessful, the Eviscerator shall feast on his remains.”

“Seventy-four seconds. Who the fonk sets a timer for seventy-four seconds?” Cal muttered.

“The countdown starts…”

Cal searched around for any sign of movement, then eyed the flag. He tensed, getting ready to move as soon as the Host gave the order.

“…when I blow my whistle.”

Cal started to move, then stopped. “Sorry. Sorry. False start,” he said, raising a hand to the camera. “I thought that was the cue to—”

A whistle blew. Cal jumped up in panic.

“Shizz, shizz, shizz!”

The flag was only ten feet away. There was no sign of Mizette.

Easy.

Way too easy.

He dived to the ground just as Miz launched herself out of the fog, claws and fangs bared.

Cal threw an arm out to save himself, only for it to sink into the ground all the way up to the shoulder.

Over on his left, he heard Miz splat down in what sounded to be an equally messy landing.

“Get up, get up,” Floora urged.

Extricating himself from the bog, Cal launched himself forward again. Miz had recovered even more quickly than he had, though. He dodged as she swiped at him, but her claws tore through his suit, slashing four bloody grooves across his ribcage.

“Fonk!”

He staggered. His foot found a soft, marshy area of the terrain, then the ground sucked him all the way down into its marshy depths.

Cal kicked and thrashed in the sudden darkness. The stink was all around him, testing his defenses, forcing its way in. He grasped for the surface, flailing wildly, his ribcage on fire.

And then, with a burp , he shot up out of the slime and landed heavily on a patch of more solid ground beside it.

Floora coughed and spluttered in his ear as he pushed down his nausea and sat up. The flag was tantalizingly close, but Mizette stood between it and him, her hackles rising, every single one of her teeth on display.

“OK, Miz. Sit,” Cal ordered, raising a finger admonishingly. He knew it was unlikely to work, but it was the best he could come up with at the moment. “Stay. Stay .”

Mizette’s claws extended from the tips of her fingers. Her snout creased as she lowered her center of gravity and prepared to pounce.

“Down! Stay! Sit!” Cal said, rattling off all the dog commands he could think of.

All of them except…

“Oh, shiz. I am so sorry,” he said, as one final idea flung itself to the forefront.

“Why are you apologizing to her?” Floora whimpered.

“I’m not,” said Cal. Reaching back, he caught the Floomfle by the arm. “I’m apologizing to you.”

He raised his voice to a shout.

“Miz? Fetch.”

With a flick of his wrist and a flicker of remorse, Cal tossed Floora as far and as fast as he could. She howled as she went sailing off through the air, arms, legs, and wings all flapping at different rates.

“You baaaaaamston!” she hollered.

Miz’s eyes flicked from Cal to the tumbling Floomfle. Her stomach rumbled, and some primal instinct forced her to spring after the moving target, silver threads of saliva dangling from her teeth.

Cal launched himself forward, kicking and scrambling through the fog and the filth.

His hand found the cool metal of the flagpole. A musical chime rang out, and the fog magically cleared as if it had simply been switched off.

The gate to Sector Three appeared just a few feet ahead of him. He could be through it in four seconds. Less if he ran.

Two down, two to go.

No longer hidden by the mist, Floora lay on her back, her hands raised in a pleading motion as Mizette advanced. The wolf-woman licked her lips, a low growl resonating in her chest, harmonizing with the noises her stomach was making.

“Please, no, don’t,” Floora whispered.

Mizette’s jaws opened to their full terrifying limit.

A whistle from behind her made her stop.

“Hey.”

Mizette turned, snarling.

“Down, doggy,” said Cal, then he swung with the flagpole, cracking Miz across the head with the weighted metal end.

Her head turned, but she didn’t fall. It took her just a second to compose herself, her hackles rising again as she fixed him with a furious glare.

Cal swallowed. “OK, so that didn’t go anything like how I imagined it would.”

He barely had time to bring the pole up between them before Miz pounced. He jammed it across her chest, the red square of the flag fluttering and flapping violently. A corner of it whipped her in the face, and she tore the fabric to ribbons with her claws, before wrenching the pole from Cal’s grip and tossing it aside.

A red cross appeared above her head. “The flag was captured. The Eviscerator has been defeated,” announced the Host.

A circle of yellow light appeared beneath Miz’s feet. She barely had time to glance down at it before it opened, pulling her down into the ground below.

She roared with fury, but it was quickly silenced as she plunged out of sight and the glowing circle became just another patch of uneven boggy ground.

“Reduk Topa is victorious,” said the Host. “Can he survive Sector Three? Find out, after this word from our sponsor.”

“Don’t you just hate junkrats and pirates?” asked an upbeat female voice. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy when they take your cargo, wreck your property—even murder your families?”

Cal held a hand out to Floora. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“Get off me,” Floora snapped, slapping his hand away. “I could’ve died!”

“No, you couldn’t. I had it all worked out,” said Cal.

“How? How could you possibly have had it worked out?”

“OK, worked out was an exaggeration,” Cal admitted. “But I was confident it’d all be fine. Or, you know, quietly hopeful .”

He held a hand out again. This time, against her better judgment, Floora took it and allowed herself to be helped up.

That done, Cal bent and retrieved one of the torn strips of the flag. “Those fonks think they can use my friends against me,” he said.

Stretching out the fabric, he placed it against his forehead and glared at the closest Hovercam. “You shizznods want a war?”

He pulled the strip of cloth around the back of his head and tied it in a knot, forming a Rambo-style headband.

“I’ll give you a fonking war!”

Thirty-Four

Tyrra sat in Cal’s chair, twisting it lazily from side to side and watching nothing interesting happening on screen. She idly fiddled with the remote access module of Nushtuk’s robot that Cal had picked up, clunking and unclunking the magnetic connectors to the chair’s armrest.

The Currently Untitled still sat on the landing pad outside the Controller’s office, pointed slightly away from the station so it was mostly looking out at a particularly uninteresting area of outer space.

Tyrra had seen outer space a lot of times before, and had no real urge to look at it again now. Once you’d seen one patch of darkness dotted with stars, you’d seen them all.

“Voice!” she barked.

There was a prolonged sigh from the ceiling. “Yes, miss?”

“They are taking a long time,” Tyrra said.

“Indeed, miss,” Kevin confirmed.

“Why are they taking a long time?”

“I’m afraid I do not know, miss. The station’s security prevents me from running any scans.”

Tyrra tutted. “You are useless.”

“How very kind of you to say so,” Kevin said.

Silence fell, broken only by the creak-creak-creak of Cal’s chair.

“That isn’t annoying at all,” Kevin said.

Tyrra continued creaking the chair.

“By which I mean it is . Extremely annoying, in fact.”

Creak-creak-creak .

“I wonder if there’s anything good on television,” said Kevin, trying to distract her.

The screen changed to show a heavy-set gentleman wandering around in a circle, wearing nothing whatsoever on his lower half.

“Who’s got the pants on?” he yelled, waving his hands in the air above his head.

“Not you ,” hollered back an off-screen audience, then they broke into laughter and applause, and the partially clad gentleman skipped gleefully around and around.

“Well, that looks utterly awful,” Kevin said.

Click .

The screen changed. The Puppetopia puppets were hugging each other, accompanied by a heartstring-tugging piano arrangement, and an, “Awwww!” from the two watching children.

“Not that,” Tyrra said. “Change it.”

“With all due respect, I’m in charge of the monitor, ma’am,” Kevin said. “You are but a guest aboard this ship. I’ll decide what we do and don’t watch.”

He flicked the channel.

“I mean, we’re not watching those puppets, obviously. Ghastly things.”

The next channel was running a singing contest. Kevin and Tyrra both listened to a three-mouthed woman tell a touching story about how her grandmother used to sing to her, before launching into a high-pitched warble that made Tyrra’s gums ache, and screeched feedback throughout the interior of the ship.

Click .

The next channel they landed on was playing a clip show of hilarious spaceship crashes. Kevin was tempted to keep watching in case the Currently Untitled showed up on there anywhere, but the laughter track quickly proved grating and he pressed on.

Click .

A documentary.

Click.

Someone dancing. Or possibly having a fit.

Click .

A man smashing a big hairy creature in the face with a flagpole.

Click .

An animal doing the funniest things.

“Wait,” said Tyrra, sitting forward in the chair. “Go back.”

“Back where, ma’am?” Kevin asked.

Tyrra gestured to the screen. “On that. Go back to the thing before.”

Kevin clicked back a channel. A young woman in smart-casual dress was strolling along a street, talking directly to the camera.

“Don’t you just hate junkrats and pirates?” she asked, pulling a face that suggested they were a mild—but irritating—inconvenience. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy when they take your cargo, wreck your property—even murder your families? It’s so aggravating, and can often be upsetting.”

She shrugged and pulled a sad face.

“But, what can you do? I mean, it’s not like you can shoot a bunch of pirates, right?”

She stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. She was back to smiling, but suddenly all-business. “Wrong!”

The footage changed to show the same woman lit dramatically from below as she blasted dozens of screaming pirates with a rapid-fire blaster rifle in agonizing slow motion.

“Was this what you were looking for, miss?” Kevin asked, as the woman’s voiceover started listing the merits of, it seemed, shooting pirates to bits with big guns.

Tyrra frowned at the screen. “No, it’s… I thought I saw…”

The chair groaned as she sat back again. “Doesn’t matter. I was mistaken.”

“What was it you thought you saw, miss?” Kevin asked.

Tyrra shook her head. “Nothing. I am so bored I am seeing things that aren’t there.”

She began to twist Cal’s chair again. “They are still not back. They’ve been gone too long.”

“Perhaps we should play a game,” Kevin suggested, switching back from the broadcast feeds to a live view of space. “To take our minds off it.”

“Is it a math game?” Tyrra asked.

“Would you like it to be?” said Kevin, trying to keep the tremor of excitement from his voice.

Tyrra shook her head. “I’d rather die a thousand agonizing deaths.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. You rather got my hopes up there, miss,” Kevin said. “Still, there are plenty of other options available to us on the game front.”

“Like what?” Tyrra asked, glancing up.

“Tell me,” Kevin began. His eyes would have twinkled merrily, if only he’d had any. “Have you ever heard of a little something called ‘Charades’?”

Thirty-Five

“You’re bleeding.”

“Yes, I know,” Cal grunted.

“A lot.”

“I can see that,” he said through gritted teeth.

“We should stop somewhere, and take a look at it,” Floora suggested.

“Sounds great,” said Cal.

He stopped climbing and glanced around them, being very careful not to look down.

“Where do you suggest?”

“Well…”

“Because, I don’t know if you noticed back there, but we’re climbing up a big cliff.”

“I mean, yes, but…”

“And there aren’t a lot of places to stop for a sit down.”

“No, I suppose…”

“So, probably best to just press on, really?” Cal said. He glared over his shoulder at Floora, who had taken up her usual perch on his backpack, almost daring her to argue. “Do you agree?”

Floora sighed. “Yes. Yes, I guess so,” she said.

Cal reached up, found a handhold, then grimaced as he heaved himself another few inches up the vertical cliff-face. A few feet away, one of six Hovercams kept level with them, watching them with its beady electronic eye.

“It’s just that you really are bleeding a lot,” said Floora.

“Again, I know,” Cal grimaced, kicking with a foot until he found somewhere solid to put it. “I don’t understand it.”

“You got cut open,” Floora explained.

Cal sighed. “No, I understand the process. But I should be healing. I have this, like, Wolverine healing factor. I recover from damage like—”

He took a hand off the wall in order to snap his fingers, but then his other hand began to slip and he hurriedly grabbed back on.

“Jesus,” he whispered, clinging to the rockface like a limpet. “That was close.”

How long had he been climbing for now? He couldn’t say. It felt like hours, but he suspected that was just the fire in his muscles talking, albeit backed up by the cramp in his lungs, the pain in his spine, and the terror that filled everything that was left over.

How high up were they? Again, he couldn’t say, mostly because he refused to look down. There were clouds below him, he knew that much. He’d passed those a while back. Climbing through them had been interesting, with visibility reduced to practically zero.

Floora had told him that her big eyes meant her vision was much more powerful than his, which had given him some hope. But then, she’d confirmed that even with her giant peepers, she could see fonk all whatsoever in the clouds, and that hope had quickly evaporated again.

Below the clouds, the weather had been fine. Not great, but dry, mostly clear, and—importantly—not in the least bit windy.

Above the clouds, it was a different story. Thanks to another layer of cloud far above the clifftop, a depressingly endless drizzle had turned the rock face dark and slippery. His homemade Rambo headband was helping to keep the worst of the water from his eyes, but his face had numbed to the point he felt he’d never be able to change his expression from the current pained grimace it was fixed in.

The wind wasn’t constant but came in sudden gusts that caught between him and the mountain and tried its best to separate them. It was usually preceded by a high-pitched whistle, giving him a half-second to brace himself for the main event.

There were a few… birds, he guessed, circling around. Big fonkers, the size of pterodactyls. They were also, he realized as one swooped by above him, the shape of pterodactyls, with long jaws, pointy heads, and wings the texture of old leather.

Great.

Seriously, just fonking great .

Space pterodactyls. Just what he needed.

Cal grabbed for the next handhold and dragged him and Floora another foot up the side of the cliff. Every single part of his body objected, with the exception of his survival instinct which was rooting for him all the way.

“Jesus. Maybe the guys were right about the Banoffee pies,” he muttered, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Cal found a toehold and pushed on.

“So, why isn’t it working?” Floora asked. “Your healing thing, I mean?”

“You tell me,” Cal grunted. “You’re the science guy.”

The wind whistled through gaps in the uneven cliff surface.

“Hold on!” Cal warned, tightening his grip and flattening himself as best he could against the wall.

The wind came a moment later, buffeting him, forcing its way between him and the rocks. He clung on, his fingers cramping, his eyes closed against the onslaught of rain the wind always dragged along with it.

Floora squeaked in distress as she buried herself in against Cal’s bag, the gales battering her wings around on her back, as if objecting to their very existence.

“I can’t hold on!” she yelped.

“Yes, you can!”

“I… can’t! I’m going to fall! I’m going to—”

The wind dropped.

“Wait. No. I’m fine,” said Floora. “But that was a close one.”

“Get in the bag,” Cal instructed. “You’ll be safer in there.”

Floora only hesitated for a moment before Cal felt her clamber around on his back, and heard the bag being opened.

And then, with the briefest of screams, she fell. Cal felt her weight leave him as she lost her grip, then return with a vengeance when she caught a trailing strap of the bag and jerked to a stop beneath him, almost wrenching him off the wall.

“Fonk, fonk, shizzing fonk-fonk!” he cursed, clinging on with everything he had.

A pterodactyl squawked a few feet above him, the sudden sound almost making him lose his grip all over again.

“Jesus! Fonking things.”

Whispering some words of encouragement to himself, Cal stole a look down.

Oooh, shizz.

Oooh, shizz, they were high.

The layer of cloud was eighty or ninety feet below. It didn’t look as thick from up here, and Cal caught glimpses of the ground beneath it. At least, he thought it was the ground, but it was too far away for him to be able to see it clearly, so he couldn’t be entirely sure.

Floora hung from the bag’s strap, clinging to it with both pudgy hands. Her eyes, which had already been taking up most of the real estate on her face, were now threatening a full hostile takeover of her entire head.

The nearest Hovercam drifted closer, capturing the moment in glorious close-up.

“Help. Help me. Cal, help me,” she whimpered.

“I can’t,” Cal told her. “You have to fly up.”

“I can’t fly ! We’re hundreds of feet in the air!” Floora sobbed. “I shouldn’t be this high!”

“You don’t have to fly far,” Cal said. “Just up onto my back.”

Floora shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t. I’m too high. It’s too far.”

“Come on, kid,” Cal said, doing an admirable job of sounding positive. “You said you liked science, right? Then science the shizz out of this. Figure out the distance, calculate all the whatnot, and then go for it.”

“I can’t fly this high!”

“You’re not flying high, you’re only flying a short distance,” Cal told her. “I’ve seen you do that before. I know you can do it.

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. You’re Point A, Point B is my back. How far is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Cal said. He adjusted his grip, trying to ease the pain that burned along the lengths of all ten fingers. “Point A to Point B. Figure it out. Science it.”

“Did you just use ‘science’ as a verb?” Floora asked.

“I don’t know what a verb is, so I have no idea,” Cal told her. “Just think a fonking happy thought and fly, already.”

Another pterodactyl screamed past in a rustling of leathery wings.

“OK. OK, I can do this,” Floora whispered.

“Great! Can you do it in the next five seconds?” Cal hissed, facing the wall and shifting the weight on his feet. “Seriously can’t hold on here much longer.”

“Here I go. I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”

The weight on his back lessened, just a fraction. Cal listened to the frantic flapping and whimpering as Floora fluttered higher, then gasped as a high-pitched whistle rippled through the gaps in the rock-face.

“Shizz! Floora!”

She landed on his shoulder and dropped down into the bag just as the wind hit them. The fingers of Cal’s left hand gave up. They just gave up, clearly having had enough of this climbing lark, and choosing to condemn themselves and the rest of his body to death rather than hold on a moment longer.

He swung away from the wall, the fingers on his right hand still determined to cling to life and, by extension, the cliff. Both feet sided with their corresponding hands, the right toes remaining wedged into a foothold, the left wrenching free as the wind hammered him again.

Floora screamed. Cal felt a dizzying rush of panic as he came to the conclusion that two limbs were not nearly enough to climb a mountain with.

He also came to the realization that it would take too long to convince his left side to rejoin the climb, and that he was going to fall to his death in the next three seconds.

These two things combined helped him come to a decision. Quite a reckless decision, he thought, midway through the process of carrying it out, but a decision all the same.

He jumped.

Specifically, he jumped toward the Hovercam, which had moved in for a close-up on the dangling Floora, and hadn’t moved since. This meant it was right behind him and a little below, and so perfectly placed for him to land on.

Assuming, of course, it could take his weight.

He hit it, stomach-first, then scrabbled to wrap his arms around it. It dropped like a stone, and Cal had that same insides-on-the-outside sensation he experienced whenever the Currently Untitled went to warp speed.

The Hovercam continued to plunge until they were all swallowed by the clouds. Once in there, it stopped abruptly, almost throwing its unwelcome passengers off.

“What do you think you are doing?” asked a voice from inside the floating ball. It wasn’t the Host, but the voice of the Controller himself.

“I’m giving you what you want. A damn show,” Cal hissed. “And I don’t think you want it to end yet.”

“You’ve made it to Sector Three,” the Controller replied. “That’s farther than most get.”

“But you don’t want it to end like this,” Cal said. “Reduk Topa can’t die jumping off a cliff. That’s not good TV.”

The Controller said nothing.

“So, here’s what’s going to happen,” Cal said. “You’re going to fly us up to the top, drop us off, and we’re going to continue on our way. Then, I’m going to win this fonking thing, gather up my friends, cut off every one of your arms, and stick them up your ass. Sideways. All at the same time.”

The Controller continued to say nothing.

“Or, I can let go right now and the show’s over,” Cal said.

He gave that a moment to sink in.

“So,” he asked, his voice muffled inside the cloud. “What’s it going to be?”

* * *

King Floomf of the Floomfles stood in the Emergency Situation Room, his eyes fixed on the screen. It was currently showing the bank of cloud Topa had tumbled into on the Hovercam, and not much seemed to be happening.

Technically, the Emergency Situation Room was the same living room he’d been watching Puppetopia in earlier, but after seeing the Floomfle wandering around on The Hunt , he’d felt the urge to give it a more serious sounding title that better reflected the enormity of what was happening.

“How has this happened?” he asked for the fifth or sixth time. “I don’t understand. How can this have happened?”

“We don’t know, sire,” admitted the footman, who had discreetly cleared away King Floomf’s food tray, mopped some of the soup from the old man’s beard, and given the room a light vacuuming in case anyone else popped round.

King Floomf tore his eyes from the screen for as long as he could bear. “But, I mean… It’s unheard of. It’s impossible.”

“Oh, I know, sir. I know,” said the footman.

He finished dusting the coffee table, and plumped up the cushion on the Royal Armchair. “Perhaps you should sit down, Your Majesty?”

“I don’t want to sit down!” the king barked. He jabbed a stubby finger at the screen. “I want to find out what the floom is going on!”

“As I said, Sire—”

“You don’t know. Yes, I heard you the first six times,” the old man barked. He motioned angrily to the door. “Then I suggest you go out there and find me someone who does!”

His eyes were drawn back to the bank of cloud on screen. His voice quietened, the tone losing some of its edge.

“For all our sakes.”

Thirty-Six

The Hovercam twisted and bucked as it rocketed up the side of the mountain, forcing Cal to cling to it for all he was worth, and throwing Floora around inside the backpack.

The Controller had argued that people might get suspicious if a Hovercam deposited the current most hated man in the solar system safely at his desired destination, and so the flying sphere was now trying to sell the idea that it had been badly damaged and was zipping around out of control.

Cal was successfully conveying the air of a man who was in fear for his life. This required no acting whatsoever on his part. He howled as the Hovercam shot up, screamed as it zig-zagged, and almost lost his stomach contents when it flipped him upside down, then slammed him onto the rocky ground close to the edge of the cliff.

Very close, in fact.

Gravity dragged him over the steep drop, forcing him to grasp frantically for something to hold onto.

His fingers dug like claws into loose shale, the stuff coming away in handfuls. His feet, which had already slipped over the edge, kicked out in a desperate hunt for purchase, but the cliff wall was wet and slippery, and the grip on the bodysuit’s boots was next to fonking useless.

It was no good. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing to grab, nothing to stop him plunging all the way back down to the ground far, far below.

“I’ve got you!” cheeped Floora, flying out of the backpack and catching him by the only available anchor point. Unfortunately, this was his hair. Cal hissed in pain as the Floomfle flapped her wings for all they were worth, her tiny hands dragging him up by the scalp.

“Ow, ow, ow!” he protested, but the Floomfle’s tugs helped him stretch forward just an inch or two further, until his fingers found the edge of a more solid rock.

Floora kept pulling as he heaved himself up onto the ledge, and they both tumbled onto solid ground, panting and wheezing, but—miraculously—alive.

“Holy fonk, that hurt,” Cal said, rubbing his stinging scalp. “But thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” gasped Floora, flopping onto her back and drawing in big deep gulps of air. “You saved me. Figured that makes us even.”

“Well, I think I technically saved you a whole bunch of times,” Cal said. “So, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’re not quite there yet .”

He struggled up into a sitting position and smiled at her. “But it’s a start.”

A howl rose up from below. Cal crept to the edge on his hands and knees and peered down the side of the cliff. Five Sloorgs were climbing up, their claws easily finding purchase in the rock.

“Seriously? They can climb?” Cal groaned. He stood up and shot the closest Hovercam a dirty look. “This is total bullshizz. You hear that? Total bull—”

A blaster bolt struck the ground between his legs from behind. He watched it ricochet off into the stormy sky, and felt the thwack of a chunk of rock smacking him lightly on the scrotum.

Clutching his stomach with one hand and cupping his groin with the other, Cal turned to find a figure standing silhouetted atop a boulder. He recognized her immediately, and the flash of lightning that illuminated both her and the myriad of weapons she had strapped about her person was an unnecessary, if impressively dramatic, touch.

Her name appeared as a futuristic neon emblem above her, as the Host’s voice rang out.

“Blaster-Mama!” he cried, and Loren struck a pose with the blaster pistol she’d fired her warning shot with. “Will our Futuristic Femme Fatale finally be the one to stop Reduk Topa? Stay tuned to find out!”

Cal held a hand out to her. “Loren. It’s—”

“Hold up, hold up,” said a voice Cal didn’t recognize. It was gruff and of indeterminate gender. Or species, for that matter. “We’re on an ad break.”

Cal blinked. “Oh. So… What? We just stand here?”

“What do you think, genius?” the voice spat. “Can I get some make-up on Topa. He looks like shizz. But not in the right way.”

A blue door appeared in the air beside Cal. He tried to back away, but discovered he was frozen in place from the neck down. “What the fonk?” he demanded. “I can’t move.”

“Of course you can’t move, genius . Continuity, ain’t it? Can’t have you moving right before a big Hunter face-off. Sheesh. What an idiot.”

A tall, elegant-looking woman who was perhaps trying a teensy bit hard with her own hair and make-up, emerged from the doorway, gave Cal an appraising look that evidently found him lacking, then began applying foundation to his cheeks.

“You’re so shiny,” she said, absent-mindedly.

“Uh, thanks.”

The woman finished applying the make-up, stepped back to look him over, then made a face that suggested it was the best she could do with what she had.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” she said, then she stepped back through the doorway, and it retracted into the ground until there was no evidence it had ever been there in the first place.

“Where the fonk did she come from?” asked Cal.

“Make-up department?” Floora guessed. She was still on the spot where Cal had left her, but halfway to her feet. From the impossible position she was stuck in, Cal guessed she must be frozen, too.

“Loren. Can you hear me? It’s me,” Cal said.

Loren said nothing.

“I mean, not Loren. Teela. It’s me. Cal.”

Still nothing.

“They’ve done something to you. They’ve done something to everyone. You, Miz, Mech. I’m guessing Splurt. You have to snap out of it, you hear me? You don’t want to kill me.”

Loren’s brow furrowed, just a fraction.

“OK, sometimes you might want to kill me. But not really. Not deep down.”

Loren’s face changed again. It was a subtle softening, so subtle in fact that no one but Cal would ever have been able to spot it.

“I… I…”

The gruff voice returned. “Aaaand, we’re back in two, one…”

All softness left Loren’s face. She raised her gun and opened fire. The shot screamed past Cal’s ear, the heat of it blistering his skin and singeing off some unsightly rogue hairs.

Cal ducked and ran, grabbing Floora by the arm and yanking her to safety just as a volley of shots peppered the ground behind them.

There was a rock ahead, flat and wide like an overturned table. Cal tossed Floora over it, then threw himself after her. A staccato of gunshots hammered the stone, punching holes in the thin area at the top, and hammering chunks out of the thicker base.

Cal and Floora covered their heads, shielding themselves from the flying debris.

“She’s got a gun!” Floora yelped.

“I noticed.”

“She’s trying to shoot us!”

“Not yet she isn’t,” Cal said. “This is just good TV. If she was trying to shoot us, we’d already be Swiss cheese.”

Floora had no idea what Swiss cheese was, or how it was in any way relevant, but she felt this wasn’t the time to get into a discussion about it.

“Can you stop her?” Floora asked.

“Don’t think so,” Cal admitted. “Why, can you?”

“Me? No! What am I supposed to do?”

Cal shrugged. “We could try ‘Fetch’ again, but I’m not convinced she’d fall for it.”

He shook his head. “Besides, I’ve seen her play Duck Hunt . You wouldn’t get six feet.”

The hail of gunfire stopped. The silence that it left behind felt hot and oppressive, although that may have been the molten rock that glowed red just a few inches from Cal’s face.

“Teela? Honey? It’s me. OK? I’m going to come out. I know you won’t shoot me. I know it.”

Raising his hands, Cal stood up. A blaster bolt tore through his side and he immediately dropped again.

“She shot me! She fonking shot me!” he howled, clutching at the burn wound just above his right hip. It had just grazed him, and the heat had sealed the wound, but still. She’d shot him. She’d fonking shot him!

“I don’t think you’re getting through to her,” Floora said.

“Oh, you think?” Cal grimaced. “Jesus, I called her by her first name and everything. What more does she want?”

“What do you mean?” Floora asked.

“I mean…” Cal sighed. “So, we’re in a relationship. In the past, I’ve always called her by her last name, but it turns out she’d rather I call her by her first name. Or something. I mean, I think. I’m not really sure. She’s being really cryptic about it.”

“Does she think you’re scared of commitment?” Floora asked.

Cal blinked. “Huh?”

Floora shrugged. “I mean, it just sort of sounds like that could be the issue. I’m no expert, but that sounds likely.”

Cal clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I mean, she did overhear me saying that I didn’t think we were serious serious…”

Floora flicked him on the nose.

“Ow!”

“You idiot!” the Floomfle said.

“I didn’t meant it. I am serious serious about her,” Cal said.

Floora flicked him again.

“That’s even worse!” she said. “Get up there and tell her!”

“She’s trying to shoot me,” Cal reminder her.

“I don’t blame her. Go!”

“I mean… I guess I probably—”

Floora flicked his nose for a third time.

“Jesus! OK, OK, I’ll do it!”

Cal held his breath for a moment, then tentatively raised his head out of cover. He saw Loren discard her blaster pistol and then swing something not unlike a mini bazooka down from her shoulder.

“Fonk, change of plan. Run!” he hollered, grabbing Floora again and diving clear just as the rock they were taking cover behind exploded, and the air was filled with fire and noise and flying fragments of stone.

* * *

“I’m being whimsy , miss,” said Kevin. “Do you see? The very concept of whimsy.”

Tyrra ignored him. She had stopped playing the voice’s stupid game a while ago. She now sat in Loren’s chair, idly jabbing at buttons that made the channels on screen change.

“Whimsy,” said Kevin, for the third and final time. “Now, then. Technically, I won that round, but would you like to take a turn?”

“No,” said Tyrra, jabbing at the button that moved her down a station.

“Very good. In that case, I guess it’s over to me again!” Kevin said. “Hmm. Now, what shall I be this time?”

“Be yourself,” said Tyrra.

“It’s an empowering message, miss, but not really conducive to a game of Charades,” Kevin said.

“I mean be nothing,” said Tyrra. “Stop the game. I can’t see what you’re doing, anyway.”

“Well, that’s hardly my fault,” said Kevin, a little snootily. “Maybe if you paid more attention.”

“Maybe if you had physical form…” Tyrra bit back.

Kevin gasped. “Oh, now that was unnecessary and unkind,” he said. “I’m afraid I simply cannot tolerate such abuse. Go to your room.”

“No,” said Tyrra.

“At once!”

“No.”

“Please?”

Tyrra ignored him and clicked through another few channels. Game show. Robot soap opera. Game show. Documentary. Unfunny comedy about nuns. Cal being shot at by Loren. Game show.

Wait.

Wait .

She backed up a channel.

“There. Look,” she said, thrusting herself forward in the chair. “See? I knew it!”

The screen went dark.

“I’m sorry to take such drastic action, miss, but no television for you until you’ve learned to do as you’re told.”

“Turn it back on!” Tyrra cried, jumping to her feet. “Voice! Turn it back on!”

“No. I shan’t. Not until you apologize or go to your room,” Kevin said. “It’s time you learned your lesson, young lady, and if I have to administer the metaphorical spanking, then so be it. Your television time is over.”

“Put it on! Put it on now !”

“Throwing a tantrum won’t help,” said Kevin. “The television is staying off, and that’s my final word on the matter.”

“It’s them, you formless cretin! It’s them!”

“It is they ,” Kevin corrected. “Actually, no, wait. That doesn’t sound right.”

“It’s the idiot captain and the blue woman,” Tyrra barked.

“Where?” asked Kevin.

“On the screen! Switch it back on!”

Kevin let out a little snort. “I hardly think they’re going to be on television.”

“They were. It was them!”

Kevin gave a sigh that was quite convincing for someone with no lungs. “Fine. I’ll put it back on, but only for a moment,” he said. “And you aren’t allowed to look.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re banned from the television, I thought I’d made that quite clear,” Kevin said. “Now, do you want me to put it on, or not?”

“Gah!” Tyrra snapped. She spun around to face away from the screen. “There. Now, hurry.”

There was a faint whine as the screen fired back up.

“It’s nothing,” said Kevin. “It’s just some sort of… action show, I think. There’s someone shooting, and…”

His voice faded into silence. On screen, a plasma rocket obliterated a chunk of rock, forcing an all-too-familiar figure to come tearing out of cover.

“Oh,” said Kevin. He watched a moment longer. “Well, this is something of a pickle.”

Thirty-Seven

Cal landed awkwardly. Given what he had just escaped from, though, he was grateful to have landed at all.

A spray of hot rocks peppered the ground around him. He tried to stand, but the shale was loose beneath his feet, and he crashed down again immediately.

“Get clear,” he told Floora. Not that he gave her much of an option, throwing her ahead of him before he turned on his knees and raised both hands above his head.

“Don’t shoot!” he urged, as Loren leveled the bazooka-thing at him. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t. Whatever they’ve done to you, however they’re controlling you, it’s not you. It isn’t you.”

Loren squinted down the weapon’s scope.

“We had an argument!” Cal said. “We fell out. It was… I guess it was my fault. Mostly.”

Loren placed her finger on the trigger. “Wait, no! Wholly my fault. It was all me. I just…”

The effort of keeping his arms raised proved too much, the blood loss and exhaustion combining to rob him of his strength.

He flopped down into a sitting position. Words began to flow out of him at the same rate as his blood. “I just… Since the car accident... Since what happened to my…”

His jaw clenched. “Since what happened, I’ve never… I haven’t really let anyone get close, you know? Not close close. Until you. And I didn’t know how to deal with it. With you. Us. Any of it. I just didn’t know. And I may…” He raised a finger. “May have handled it less perfectly than I could have.”

There was a beep from the bazooka. Cal partly jumped and partly rolled out of the path of the missile, but the fiery shockwave slammed into his back, knocking what little fight was left out of him and depositing everything that was left over in a heap beside the cliff’s edge.

“Cal!” Floora cried.

He managed to raise an arm long enough to warn her to stay back, then heaved himself around to face Loren again. She had slung the bazooka back onto her shoulder, and was now peering down the barrel of a blaster rifle at him.

He nodded, accepting that this was how it was going to be. He had no more tricks up his sleeve, no last-minute escape plans. If she fired, he was dead, and it was over.

And he couldn’t let it end like this. Not without telling her. Not with her having any doubt.

“For the record,” he slurred, clutching his side where Miz had slashed him. Blood ebbed through his fingers and trickled down the back of his gloves. “You were never ‘fun.’ Never.”

Cal coughed. Something black came up. “That sounds bad. I mean, you were fun, but not just fun. I mean what we have, or had, or… It was real. It was so real. I need you to know that.”

He settled back on the shale. His blood pooled in the gaps between it, his life seeping down into the earth below.

“I love you, Teela Loren,” Cal told her. He motioned to one of the Hovercams. “I just wanted to put that on the record. Whatever happens, whatever you do next, I will always love you.”

Loren’s jaw tightened. Her finger trembled on the trigger as she fought against whatever psychic thrall she was under.

A tear broke loose and cut a track down her cheek. Her face was a picture of torment, all her pain writ large for the whole damn sector to see.

God, this was killing her. Cal couldn’t stand it. Wouldn’t stand it. He sipped in a shallow breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then made his peace with the world.

“And that’s why you have to shoot me,” he told her. “That’s why you have to pull the trigger and end it.”

Loren’s hands shook.

“I don’t care about winning this fonking show. I don’t even care about surviving,” Cal said. “I just… I can’t see you torn apart like this. I just can’t.”

He shivered and pulled his arms around himself. “By the way, is it getting cold up here, or is it just me?” he wondered, his breath coming in thin, rasping gasps.

His eyes became glassy and distant, staring through Loren rather than at her.

“Cal,” said Floora. Her voice was near and far at the same time. He blinked and looked around, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

Then again, he couldn’t see much of anything. The darkness was circling, creeping around him in watchful circles, waiting for its chance to strike.

“Just shoot me,” Cal said. “It’s not fair to make you fight it. It’s not fair. And I’m done for, anyway. Just do it.”

The gun trembled in Loren’s grip. She gritted her teeth, her forehead furrowed in concentration.

Ignoring the pain, Cal raised himself up onto his knees. He swayed from side to side, finding his balance, then pressed his forehead against the end of the blaster.

“Just shoot me. Do it. It’s not your fault, OK?” he told her, staring deep into her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

Loren’s finger tightened. She inhaled deeply through her nose, steadying her nerve.

“I mean, sure, would I have found a way to break it, if it was me? Yes. But it’s fine,” Cal said.

Loren’s eyelids fluttered.

“I’m not saying it’d be easy,” Cal continued. “Just, you know, if it was me, I’d have found a way to shrug it off. But it’s fine. It’s totally fine. Not your fault.”

The barrel of the gun dipped a fraction. Cal caught it and placed it back against his head.

“Seriously, just do it. Don’t feel bad about being hypno-brainwashed, or whatever,” Cal said. “We can’t all be as resilient as I am.”

He smiled at her. It was a smile he had carefully selected for its immensely patronizing qualities.

“I guess I’m just made of sterner stuff,” he concluded.

“What? Bullshizz you are!” Loren spat, lowering the gun. “I’m way more…”

Her voice trailed off. She looked around them, as if only just seeing the world for the first time.

“What the fonk?” she demanded. “What is this? Where am I? How did—”

She caught sight of Cal and all other questions ceased to be important. “Kroysh, what happened?” she asked, her voice softening.

“Miz, Mech. You,” Cal grunted. He exhaled with relief. That had been a long shot, and he was amazed it had actually worked. “But it’s worse than it looks.”

He replayed this in his head.

“No, that should be the other way around,” he said.

He looked down at the puddle of blood beneath him, then reconsidered again.

“Actually, no. I was right the first time.”

“Why aren’t you healing?” Loren asked, dropping the gun. “Here, let me see.”

Before she could move to help him, there was a flurry of movement at her back.

A pterodactyl-thing screeched. Leathery wings flapped. Clawed feet raked up Loren’s back, then the momentum of the creature sent her stumbling toward the cliff-edge.

“No!” Cal cried. He threw himself after her just as she dropped to the ground, lowering her center of gravity in an attempt to stay on the right side of the drop.

It was no use. The slippery shale carried her over the edge. Cal’s eyes met hers, and then she slid all the way out of sight.

“No, no, no,” Cal whimpered, dragging himself over to where the mountain fell away into nothing.

He had been bracing himself to find her gone. Instead, he found her clinging to a handhold just a couple of feet down.

“Hey,” she said.

Cal let out a strangled sob of relief. “Oh, thank God,” he said. “I thought you’d fallen.”

“I did,” said Loren.

Cal tutted. “Further, I meant. I thought you’d fallen further.” He offered her a hand. “Need some help?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Loren, stretching for a chunk of stone that jutted out from the vertical rock wall. “Besides, you don’t look like you could carry a tune, let alone—”

The piece of rock came away as she put her weight on it. Loren dropped suddenly, her other hand losing its grip.

For a moment, she was weightless, hundreds of feet in the air. And then, Cal’s hand was around her wrist, his blood-soaked fingers gripping her with every ounce of strength he had. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much.

“You… were saying?”

“You’ll never let me hear the end of this,” Loren groaned.

“Damn straight,” Cal said through gritted teeth. “Floora? Get over here. I need your help.”

* * *

King Floomf of the Floomfles paced back and forth across the Emergency Situation Room, his little robe swishing against the carpet every time he turned. It was not a particularly large room, and the constant swishing was really starting to get on everyone else’s tits.

The everyone else in question was the Head of Floomfle Security, Floomton Jehooso, and his second-in-command, Floojus Pom. Their eyes tick-tocked, following the king in his relentless back and forth across the room.

“It’s preposterous. Simply preposterous,” King Floomf said.

“Yes, sire,” agreed Floomton Jehooso.

“Indeed,” confirmed Floojus Pom.

“How has it happened?” demanded the king. He reached the far end of the room, then wheeled around in a half-circle and began marching again. His eyes went to the television. “We sent those Floomfles in good faith. You saw them, they couldn’t wait to get up there and get themselves eaten! Some of them had been waiting all their lives for just this very opportunity.”

“Yes, sire,” agreed Floomton Jehooso.

“They had,” confirmed Floojus Pom.

“And now this!” cried the king, gesturing at the screen.

The shot cut from the battle between Hunter and Prey to a close-up of a worried-looking Floora.

“I mean, look. Look at that! ” King Floomf hollered. “How has this happened? How can this be?”

“We don’t know, sire,” said Floomton Jehooso.

“We are investigating,” added Floojus Pom.

“Forget investigating! It’s too late for investigating! We need to take action,” King Floomf shrieked. “Get on the comm-link. Get in contact with Viaview. Tell them that we did our part, exactly as agreed. This is not our fault. It can’t be. It’s nothing to do with us!”

He jabbed a pudgy finger at the screen, and at the diminutive figure watching the battle. “Because, I don’t know who or what that thing is,” he said. “But it is not a Floomfle.”

* * *

Cal braced himself against the clifftop and tried to heave Loren up, but pain lit-up his right side and tore along the length of his arm.

“Jesus, and you had the nerve to say that I ’m getting heavy?” he said, straining from the effort.

“Yeah, yeah,” Loren said. “Funny guy.”

“You think… maybe you should lose… the fonking bazooka?”

“How? It’s hooked across me. I’d have to take my arm off,” Loren pointed out.

“Great! That’d… make you… even lighter still,” Cal said in a series of pained grunts.

He’d been cold a moment ago, but now the sweat was pouring out of him. It formed on his forehead, trickled down his nose, then dropped past Loren and continued down toward the ground below.

It plinked on the testicle-head of one of the Sloorgs. Fonk . He’d forgotten about them. They were dangerously close now. He had to get Loren up, and fast.

“Floora? Give me a hand here,” Cal said.

Floora didn’t answer. Or she might have, but the sound of Cal’s blood whooshing through his veins made it hard to hear anything else.

His arm vibrated with the strain of holding Loren up. Blood ran in meandering rivers along it, filling the inside of his glove.

“Don’t let me go,” Loren pleaded.

Cal shook his head. “Never,” he said. “I promise. It’s a Cal Carver—"

Something sharp and metallic plunged into his shoulder from behind, burying deep into his flesh. The arm holding Loren went limp. He saw the panic in her eyes, heard a high-pitched giggle at his back, and then his hand was empty, and Loren was tumbling down, down, down the mountainside.

She hit one of the climbing Sloorgs on the way past, dislodging it from its perch. They both tumbled end over end, facing each other like the participants of some deadly dance. And then, the clouds swallowed them both, and they were gone.

“Oh dear,” said Floora, her voice all child-like and innocent in Cal’s ear. “Looks like you broke your promise.”

Cal didn’t move. Not at first. He just lay there, his top half dangling over the cliff edge, his hand reaching out for someone who was no longer there.

He watched the swirl of the clouds where she had fallen, followed them as they resettled around the space where she now wasn’t.

Then, and only then, when all trace of her had vanished, Cal heaved himself up onto his knees and shuffled around to face the Floomfle.

Only to discover that she wasn’t there, either.

“What the fonk is this?” he demanded. Adrenaline and rage got him onto his feet. He spun, hunting for Floora, but finding no trace of her. He raged at one of the Hovercams. “What is this? What did you do? What did you do ?”

“Aaaand she’s down,” boomed the voice of the Host. “Blaster-Mama is no more, dead at the hands of the dreaded Reduk Topa!”

“That’s not what happened!” Cal slurred. “That’s not… It’s not…”

He tangled both hands in his hair and pulled, the pain a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil currently churning what was left of his guts into lumpy butter.

“That’s not what happened!” he sobbed.

From over by the cliff edge there came a rush of movement. Cal’s heart, which had stopped at the precise moment Loren had tumbled through the clouds, fluttered into life again.

Then, it crashed down to around his toes when a head like a testicle appeared over the top of the cliff, followed by a mess of teeth.

Another Sloorg cleared the top a few feet away on the right. Despite their lack of eyes, Cal could feel the creatures staring hungrily at him, sizing him up.

Even in perfect health, with his healing abilities working as they should, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against these things. Now, half-dead, with no means of recovering, any attempt to fight them would be a prolonged suicide bid. Or possibly a very rapid suicide bid, depending on how much they liked to play with their food.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to fight them. Not directly, at least.

He pulled off the blood-filled gloves. Then, grimacing with the pain and wooziness it brought, Cal bent and retrieved Loren’s gun. It kicked in his hands as he opened fire.

His aim was even worse than usual, which was really saying something, and none of the shots found their targets. They did, however, drive the Sloorgs back a few paces and, unfortunately for them, the cliff edge was slightly less than a few paces behind them.

The monsters howled as they fell, their paws scrambling for purchase on the stone. Cal couldn’t tell if they’d fallen all the way down the mountain, or were clinging on just a few feet below the drop, and he had no intention of hanging around to find out.

He set off limping, one hand clutching his side, the other holding the blaster. As he walked, an archway appeared ahead of him.

Sector Four .

He didn’t care what was through there. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. She was gone. Loren was gone. They had killed her.

They had killed her, and now he was going to kill them.

If it was the last thing he did.

Thirty-Eight

Had he been in a more receptive mood, Cal might have been impressed by the theming of the next sector. It was, from what he could gather, a hodge-podge of some of his worst memories and most vivid nightmares.

The scarecrow in the maze. The clowns in Funworld. The time Billy Minchin from High School had invited him to his fancy-dress birthday party, only for Cal to turn up at the venue dressed like Sloth from The Goonies and discover it had been booked for a televised Holocaust Memorial service.

The holographic images of all those horrified old people and Billy Minchin’s laughing face were eerily lifelike and accurate, but Cal didn’t care. He ignored them. He ignored everything.

He stopped for a moment when he saw his wife and daughter getting into a car. He almost called out to them, but what would be the point? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It had already happened, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

He limped on. On through the creepy gas station bathroom he’d once got locked in. On across the frozen lake where, as a five-year-old, he’d found the body of a dog frozen below the ice, its eyes pleading for him to help it.

On through the nightmares. On through the memories. On through a whole load of shizz designed to freak him the fonk out.

But he wasn’t having it. He wasn’t having any of it. They’d killed her. They’d killed Loren, and no damn mind tricks were going to stop him.

He was striding through his uncle’s creepy basement, where he’d once been trapped in the dark for three hours with only a million imaginary spiders for company, when Splurt attacked. He came leaping from the shadows at the corner of the basement, a thrashing mass of gelatinous green limbs all forming forked blades at the ends, and all of them aiming for Cal’s head.

“They killed her, Splurt,” Cal said, not flinching.

Splurt collapsed into a ball, his limbs whipping back into his body. Cal didn’t miss a step.

“They killed Loren.”

Splurt shuddered, then trundled after Cal.

“Wait, what’s…” asked the voice of the Host, then it was cut off. There was a faint screech of feedback. The thudding of a microphone being moved.

Cal ignored it all and kept walking, with Splurt rolling along at his feet. The ground was undulating like the deck of a ship, but he felt that was more to do with his loss of blood than any fancy TV trickery.

Up ahead, a finish line appeared. Cal hurried for it, each step leaving a bloody footstep on the wooden floor of his uncle’s basement. Splurt rolled up Cal’s back and perched on his shoulder. He nuzzled against the side of his head, offering his sympathies in the only way he knew how.

“Thanks, buddy,” Cal said, his voice hoarse.

Behind them, a Sloorg howled. Then another. Then another.

Two of the creatures padded out from behind a stack of shelving and a rusted exercise bike ahead of them, blocking the route to the finish.

Cal kept walking. A Hovercam swooped in low to watch as the two Sloorgs up ahead pounced. Splurt exploded into a terrifying mass of whirring blades and pointy spikes. The dog-monsters yelped briefly, then both fell to the ground as a series of identical neatly-dissected pieces.

The Sloorgs behind them made their move, too. Cal didn’t see what happened to those when Splurt sprang into action again. He didn’t care. Whatever it was, the fonking things had it coming.

Cal continued to the finish line. It swam sickeningly, his vision fading in and out as what little blood was left in him continued to vacate the premises. He stumbled a few feet from the end, his legs finally giving up on him.

No .

Not now. Not when he was so close.

Splurt wrapped around his torso, becoming dozens of tiny feet beneath him. They crawled him onward to the finish, escorted him over the finish line, then deposited him unceremoniously on the floor.

Light flooded in. The basement floor had become a pulsing white glow beneath his fingertips. Cal’s face was pressed against it, one cheek shoved up into his eye.

“Splurt?” he said. He prodded at himself, and discovered that the little green blob was no longer wrapped around him. “Buddy?”

Cal pushed himself up onto his knees, then got shakily to his feet. Not as shakily as he’d been expecting. In fact, barely shakily at all.

He had stopped bleeding. Or rather, he hadn’t started bleeding. His hands and clothing were crimson-free, and the myriad of agonies that had been scattered throughout his body were gone.

Cal prodded gingerly at his side where Miz had slashed him, but found no wounds. He checked his shoulder and his hips, but neither of those had sustained any damage, either.

After checking himself over again just in case he’d missed anything, Cal turned to look back in the direction he’d come. Where he’d expected to see the archway leading to his uncle’s basement, he instead saw nothing but white.

It stretched out around him on all sides—around, above and below—an endless gulf of empty whiteness, with nothing noteworthy to be seen in any direction. No archway, no basement, no Splurt.

No nothing.

“Great. So, I’m dead,” Cal said.

“Yes. You are,” said a voice from behind him. Cal spun to find the Controller standing there, his silver frame reflecting the whiteness, his multiple hands tapping on his many devices.

“You!” Cal hissed, his fingers bunching into fists. He threw a punch at the Controller, but it was easily deflected. A quick shove sent Cal tumbling to the floor.

“Yes. Me. Of course, it’s me. It’s always me,” said the Controller. “Whether I look like this. Or like this.”

He changed shape before Cal’s eyes, becoming Floora. She giggled.

“Guess I did too good a job of keeping you alive!”

Her voice changed, becoming the Controller’s again. “Or this…”

He vanished completely. A moment later, Perko’s grinning face appeared in the air.

“Hey there, good pal! Long time, no see!”

Cal instinctively leaped up and swung a punch at the irritating animated bamston, but his fist found nothing but air.

“Or even this,” said a voice from behind him.

Cal turned to find the Host standing there, smiling in a way that showed off his perfect smile.

“Commiserations, Reduk Topa,” said the Controller in the Host’s voice. “You came so close, but nobody beats The Hunt !”

“I beat it,” said Cal. “I beat your stupid game!”

The Host became the Controller again. “I’m afraid not. We couldn’t possibly allow that. Imagine the outrage.”

He gestured at a patch of nothing, and it immediately became an oblong of something. Cal watched in stunned silence as Splurt tore him apart, uncoiled all his internal organs, then popped his head off like a Champagne cork.

“What the fonk is this?”

“That? That’s what the sector is watching right now. The grisly, long-overdue death of the pirate, Reduk Topa. They’re loving every moment of it.”

He tapped and swiped one of his devices and a little pie-chart appeared in the air beside the moving image. It was mostly just a bright green circle, with only the tiniest sliver of amber visible in it.

“Audience satisfaction score,” the Controller explained. “They’re lapping it up.”

“But… But it’s not real,” Cal said.

“Of course it isn’t real! It’s television. None of it is real,” the Controller snorted. “We know you aren’t Reduk Topa. We know there was never any possibility of you winning, but the herds of imbecilic cattle watching at home don’t know that. Those idiots believe anything they see. And I’m the one who decides what to show them.”

Cal’s head was spinning as he tried to figure out what all this meant.

“So… I’m alive?” he asked. He was fairly confident he knew the answer to this one, but felt it best to start with the basics.

“Technically, yes,” said the Controller. “For now.”

“Right. OK, so… Wait. What do you mean ‘for now’?”

“The sector saw Reduk Topa die,” explained the Controller. “And so, die he must. You will be disposed of. It shall be swift and painless. You have my word.”

“Uh… thank you?” said Cal, feeling this was probably the response the Controller was looking for.

“You are welcome. You have made the network a lot of money today, and earned some of the highest audience satisfaction ratings we’ve ever had,” the Controller said. “The least I can do is kill you quickly.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Cal said. “But, I have to know. What happened to the others? Mech…” He swallowed. “Loren?”

“They are perfectly unharmed,” said the Controller.

Cal sagged down, placing his hands on his knees to stop himself from falling all the way to the floor.

“Oh, thank God.”

“They were never physically present. Not like you were. What you experienced, what those at home saw, was…” The Controller’s reflective brow furrowed a fraction. “How can I phrase this so that an intellect as limited as yours may understand?”

“Hey, I can handle it. No need to dumb it down on my account, pal,” Cal told him.

“It was a mesmofield sensory equivocation.”

Cal blinked. “OK, maybe dumb it down just a tiny bit.”

“It was a simulation,” the Controller explained. “Of sorts. You were physically present, but the Hunters were merely projections of themselves. An actualization of their consciousnesses, projected directly into the simulation, psychically manipulated so they would follow the script.”

Cal blinked again. Twice, this time.

“Like robots?”

“No. Nothing like robots,” said the Controller.

“Gotcha,” Cal lied. “But… they’re all alive?”

“Alive and unharmed,” said the Controller.

“Great!”

“But they now belong to me.”

“Oh.”

“They are now my Hunters,” the silver figure continued. “There was some resistance to the psychically implanted commands, but this was through familiarity and affection for you, and will not prove to be a problem once you are dead. From here on in, their performances should be seamless.”

Cal watched himself on screen. He was now essentially a grisly reddish putty, but Splurt was still hacking and slashing away at him.

“You really think you’ve got this all figured out, don’t you?” said Cal.

“I do.”

“But there’s one thing you haven’t factored into your calculations,” Cal said.

The Controller’s thumbs all hesitated. “Oh. And what would that be?”

“This!” said Cal. He swung with a right hook, putting all his strength and power behind it.

The Controller leaned back a fraction. Cal missed, pirouetted on the spot, then stumbled to a stop, feeling equal parts embarrassed and dizzy.

“You are correct. I had not factored that in,” said the Controller. “Fortunately, I can improvise.”

His smooth silver face twisted into a smile. “Now, all that remains is to kill you, have your remains disposed of, and I think we can call this a wrap.”

He placed the back of a hand beside his mouth and stage-whispered. “Between you and I, I think we’ll get an award for this one.”

“We’ll stop you, you piece of shizz. Even if you kill me, the others will get out. They’ll stop you.”

“I’m afraid not,” said the Controller. “How can they possibly stop me? How can they possibly do anything to me? I’m the most advanced artificial intelligence in the galaxy.”

“Second most advanced, sir.”

Cal and the Controller locked eyes for a moment, then both looked up.

“Kevin?” said Cal.

“Indeed, sir,” Kevin intoned. “I trust you are well?”

“Uh, things are looking up,” said Cal.

“What is this?” the Controller demanded. “Who are you?”

“I am K-Seven-Zero-Dash-Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven-Dash-Zeta. But my friends call me ‘Kevin.’”

“Kevin ?” the Controller echoed.

“I said my friends call me Kevin, sir. That does not extend to you.”

The footage of Splurt murdering Cal became vapor, then the colors rearranged to show Cal and the Controller standing in a perfectly white room.

“What is this?” the Controller demanded. The smaller image of him repeated his words with a half-second lag. “What? Why is…? How can…?”

“This is what is actually being broadcast, sir,” Kevin explained. His own voice repeated, too. “Oh, that’s quite fun, isn’t it? Hello? Echo… Echo… Echo…”

The Controller’s thumbs swiped and tapped madly. He shook his head. “No. Impossible. We’re showing the simulation.”

“I’m afraid I simulated the simulation, sir,” Kevin replied. “I assure you, everyone in the sector has been watching you explaining things to Master Carver.”

“But… the audience satisfaction!” the Controller said.

“Also simulated, sir,” said Kevin.

The mostly green circle became a mostly red one. “I’m afraid they’re not as impressed as you may have been led to believe,” Kevin said. “By me,” he added, quite proudly. “They really didn’t appreciate being referred to as ‘herds of imbecilic cattle.’ The green section took rather a large hit at that point.”

The Controller’s thumbs all stopped tapping.

“Of course, it didn’t help that I played them this,” Kevin said.

“Well, the Camptown ladies sing this song doodah doodah ,” sang a male voice. “Ah the Camptown race track's five miles long oh doo-dah—"

“Wait, no. Not that,” Kevin said, cutting it off.

There followed a series of chicken-clucks and a long, drawn-out mooo .

“No. Hang on,” said Kevin. “I know it’s around here somewhere.”

The next sound to emerge from the direction of the ceiling was the Controller’s voice.

“You had to go mess everything up, didn’t you?” it said.

“What is this?” the Controller demanded.

“You had to go screw with the narrative. Killing the Hunters is one thing, but do you have any idea how much processing power I’ve dedicated to the story of Reduk Topa over the years?” his voice continued.

“He recorded it,” Cal realized, a grin spreading across his face as he realized he was listening to the Controller’s earlier rant. “He recorded it all.”

“Do you have any idea how many people I had to have killed in order to build up his legend, so that those facile lumptards watching at home would finally have the villain they so desperately crave?” the Controller’s voice demanded.

“Six?” guessed Cal, in perfect timing with his voice on the recording.

“Thousands. Tens of thousands! Reduk Topa was nothing before I found him. No one. Just another vermin pirate in a galaxy infested with them. I made Reduk Topa. I am Reduk Topa! I built his legend from nothing so that The Hunt would have its greatest villain of all. And now you’ve ruined it !”

The recording cut off. Kevin quietly cleared his non-existent throat.

“Yes, they weren’t fans of that at all ,” he said.

The Controller shook his head. “No. No, it’s impossible. There’s no way you could’ve remotely breached my security. It can’t be done. You’d have to have someone inside the station.”

“Yes, I would rather, wouldn’t I?” said Kevin. “Ideally, equipped with some sort of remote interface device that could be plugged into your systems.”

A patch of empty whiteness exploded, creating a smoking hole in space. An armed guard came tumbling through it, bloody and unconscious.

A moment later, Tyrra strode through, a blaster in each hand, a foot in her mouth. The guard on the floor had both feet, so Cal had no idea where this one had come from. He decided it was probably for the best that he didn’t.

“Found him,” said Tyrra, after spitting the body part onto the floor.

“So I see, miss,” said Kevin. “As do several trillion others watching at home. Say hello.”

To Cal’s surprise, Tyrra blushed slightly, then gave a little wave at nothing and no one in particular.

“Hello.”

“Actually, I say several trillion, but that number appears to be dropping rather quickly,” said Kevin.

The Controller stiffened. His thumbs all leaped into action. “What? What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“It would seem that people are switching off, sir,” said Kevin. “In droves.”

“No, no, no, no!” the Controller whimpered. Two new arms sprouted from inside him. Each hand grew more thumbs. They all frantically swiped at the screens he held, his eyes flitting from one to the other as he studied the incoming information. “It can’t… It isn’t…”

“Well, well, well. Looks like this episode is tanking badly,” Cal gloated. He put a hand to the side of his mouth and whispered loudly. “Between you and me? I wouldn’t go clearing a space in the cabinet for that award just yet.”

The Controller’s head spasmed. His reflective silver surface turned a base metal gray.

“N-n-no. Cannot… Processing. Processing.”

“What is happening to him?” Tyrra asked.

“Nothing good,” Cal said. He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“It was the voice’s idea,” Tyrra said.

“My idea. Her execution,” said Kevin. “Isn’t it amazing how successful one can be if one occasionally does what they’re told?”

Tyrra’s eyes flicked up. “Shut up.”

“Very good, miss,” said Kevin. “Whatever you say.”

The Controller jerked violently. His legs folded into his body and he hit the floor with a clank .

“Damage limitation. Damage limitation. Cut to ad break. Cut to ad break!”

“I’m afraid your advertisers are all pulling out, sir,” said Kevin. “Damage limitation, as you so rightly say, only on their part, not yours. You’ve just lost Ringfresh, and I fear the Shiteofast contract won’t last the day.”

The Controller’s voice became a high-pitched electronic whine that quickly went ultrasonic. He slumped there on his legless torso, mouth wide open, countless thumbs checking and rechecking the data on his screens.

“OK, that’s just sad,” Cal said.

“Like, what the fonk is that noise?” barked a voice from beyond the hole. Miz ducked through, her ears folded flat against her head.

“Miz! You’re OK!”

“Of course she’s OK. I saved her,” said Tyrra. “I saved all of them.”

She flicked her eyes to the ceiling. “We,” she corrected, a little begrudgingly. “We saved them.”

Miz gestured to the motionless Controller. “Is he the one doing that?”

“Doing what?” asked Cal.

“That noise. That eeeeeee . Is that him?”

Cal shrugged. “I guess so. I can’t hear anything.”

Miz raised a foot and kicked the Controller on the side of the head. He toppled sideways and clanked onto the floor.

“Did that help?” Cal asked.

“Ugh. No. That totally made it worse,” Miz said. She beckoned to the door. “Come on, let’s get out of here. This place is giving me a migraine.”

“Yeah.” Cal looked around. “Can’t say it’s doing me any favors, either.”

Miz stalked out through the hole. Tyrra moved to follow, but Cal placed a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

“Wait,” he said.

He took one of the guns from her, then clasped her hand and turned her back toward the white void.

“Take a bow,” he told her.

“What? No. Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why?’” said Cal. “You stopped the bad guy and saved the day. And, you know, bit some guy’s foot off. You’re the star of the show, kid.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Just take a damn bow,” Cal instructed.

Tyrra hesitated. Then, she dipped her head a fraction and snapped it back up.

“There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” said Cal. “And I’m sure your adoring public is, too.”

“Should I take a bow, too, sir?” Kevin asked.

“Uh, sure. Go for it,” said Cal.

There was a pause.

“How was that, sir?”

“Nailed it, Kevin,” said Cal. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Thank you, sir. Coming from someone as vain and narcissistic as yourself, that really means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” said Cal.

And then, with a relaxed salute at the viewing audience, Cal turned on his heels, walked out through the hole and straight into the woman of his dreams.

She immediately thumped him on the arm. Up on her shoulder, Splurt rippled.

“Hey!” Cal protested. “What was that for?”

“You dropped me,” Loren reminded him.

“I dropped a simulation of you,” Cal corrected. “Totally different thing.”

“Mostly the same,” said Loren.

“But still different,” said Cal.

“Well…” said Loren.

“So… you were there?” Cal asked. “I mean, not there there, but… There? You heard—”

“Every word you said,” Loren confirmed. Her mouth twitched into a smile. “And, for the record, you’re no fun either.”

“I thought I’d lost you,” Cal blurted, the raw emotion in his voice catching him off guard. He took a second to compose himself.

“Back there, I mean. In the thing. I thought I’d lost you.”

Loren put a hand on his face. Splurt placed a gloopy green tendril to the other cheek. “But you didn’t. I’m right here.”

Splurt wobbled.

“And so’s he.”

Cal clenched his jaw and nodded. It didn’t say much, but it said everything.

“Oh, so you accidentally drop her and you’re all torn up about it,” said Mech from the corridor right behind Cal.

“Jesus, where did you come from?” Cal asked, pulling himself together.

“But I die right in front of you and you don’t shed a single motherfonking tear?”

“I did shed a tear,” Cal said.

“Bullshizz!”

“Not an actual tear, obviously. An inside tear,” Cal said. “And they’re the most special tears of all, Mech.”

Cal placed a hand on the cyborg’s chest and dropped his voice to a solemn whisper. “Those are the most special tears of all.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut the fonk up,” Mech said. He whirred as he turned, then thought better of it. “Oh, and just so we’re clear, you did not beat me.”

“I totally beat you.”

“No. No, you didn’t,” Mech insisted.

“Well, we were fighting, and I was the only one who wasn’t dead at the end, so…”

“Don’t count. It didn’t even happen. It ain’t even a fonking thing,” Mech said.

From along the corridor, Mizette sighed. “Ugh. Will you two just hurry up and kiss each other, already?” she said. “That silver guy is still making that fonking noise.”

Cal and Mech both looked at her.

“Us two?” said Cal.

“What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech demanded.

Loren cleared her throat. “Uh, I think she probably means us two,” she said.

“Oh!” said Cal. “Oh, yeah, that totally makes much more sense.”

He didn’t need to be told a third time. He wrapped his arms around Loren and pulled her close, until he could feel her breath against his skin. Their eyes met. Their lips locked. Splurt wobbled awkwardly on Loren’s shoulder.

And all across the sector, thanks to Kevin gaining access to the station’s vast royalty-free audio and special effects library, the music swelled and a heart-shaped transition brought the worst ever rated episode of The Hunt to an oddly satisfying close.

When they finally separated, Tyrra was standing a foot away, watching them intently.

“Uh, hi,” said Cal. “Everything OK?”

“Yes. Everything is OK,” she confirmed. “But…”

She glanced down at her feet, snarled briefly, then raised her head again. “I would like to ask permission to do something.”

“Permission?” said Cal.

All along the corridor, the rest of the crew turned to look at her in surprise.

“Yes. Permission.”

Cal shot Miz a look. “Uh, OK. Sure. Shoot. What is it you want to do?”

Tyrra twisted the power dial on the side of the blaster she was carrying. “I would like to go and kill those puppets.”

Cal frowned and scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Kill the puppets?”

“Please,” Tyrra added, her mouth initially reluctant to form the word until she forced it to comply.

Cal glanced across at the faces of the others.

“Ain’t like the girl to ask anyone’s permission,’” Mech pointed out. “That’s progress.”

“And those puppets were, like, total shizznods,” Miz reminded him.

Cal sighed. “Fine. You can kill one puppet.”

For a moment, it looked like Tyrra might argue, but she clamped her mouth shut before it could get her into trouble. She nodded and turned away.

“She did say ‘please,’” said Loren.

“And she was very receptive to my instructions, sir,” Kevin added. “Without her, things would not have worked out the way they did.”

Cal softened. “Ah, what the hell? Go ahead, kid. Kill both of them,” he said, giving her the fingerguns. “You earned it.”

Thirty-Nine

Cal sat in his chair aboard the Currently Untitled , staring at the number displayed on screen. It was not, mercifully, another of Kevin’s math lessons, but something infinitely better.

“And that’s money?” Cal said. “That’s actual money that we have?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Kevin. “I took the liberty of acquiring the funds which should have rightfully been yours for reaching the finish line,” he explained.

“But that’s not—”

“And then I got overexcited and took lots more, sir, yes.”

“So, we stole it?” asked Loren, strapping herself in and flicking a row of switches on her console.

“Only in the sense that we unlawfully took it from the people it belonged to, ma’am,” Kevin said.

“What other sense is there?” asked Loren.

Kevin hesitated.

“The sixth sense, ma’am?”

“Great movie,” said Cal. “Bruce Willis is dead the whole time.” He waved a hand. “But I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I won’t say anymore.”

Cal looked across the bridge. Mech stood at his console, doing whatever it was Mech did. Splurt was up in the pipework of the ceiling somewhere, doing Splurt stuff. Miz slouched in her chair, doing absolutely nothing whatsoever, yet managing to convey the impression that this was somehow unfair.

And at the back, curled up in one of the guest chairs, Tyrra slept soundly.

“Aw, look at her. Somebody had a long day,” said Cal, softly. “All that eating people and murdering puppets must’ve really taken it out of her.”

Although her eyes didn’t open, Tyrra’s arm came up quickly. A Viaview Network mug whistled through the air then whanged off Cal’s forehead.

“Ow! Jesus!”

“Ha,” said Tyrra, settling deeper into the chair. She yawned, showing her terrifying cavern of a throat. “Bested.”

“Man, I hate that kid,” Cal whispered.

“No, you don’t,” said Loren.

Cal sighed. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”

“Sorry to intrude, everyone, but it appears we have a visitor,” Kevin announced. “Should I put him on screen?”

“Go for it,” said Cal, taking a last look at the insane number of digits currently filling the display.

The image changed to show the landing platform outside. The Controller stood there, his legs regrown, his multitude of arms all pointing up at the Untitled .

“Oh, hey, it’s that guy,” said Cal. “Can he hear me?”

“He can now, sir,” said Kevin.

“Hey, you!” Cal called. “You gave us a real scare there for a moment. We thought your, you know, processors or whatever had melted.”

“I’ll prove it!” cried the Controller, shaking several fists.

Cal looked around at the others. “Did we miss the start of this?” he muttered, then he leaned a little closer to the screen. “Prove what?”

“I’ll prove that I am the most sophisticated artificial intelligence in the galaxy!” the Controller said. “I challenge your AI to a battle of wits! My synthetic brain against his. Two intellects, locked in mental combat, only one—”

A blast of cannon-fire from the Currently Untitled ’s weapons system turned the Controller into a charred patch of black on the ground.

“Did I win?” asked Kevin, once the dust had settled.

“I’d say so,” said Loren.

“Pretty definitive, if you ask me,” Mech agreed.

“Good going there, champ,” said Cal. “Totally sucker-punched the shizz out of him.”

Kevin didn’t make a sound, and yet they could all sense him basking quietly in their praise.

“So, like, what’s next?” asked Mizette. “I take it we go buy the warp disk, or whatever?”

Cal nodded. “I can get on board with that plan. Anyone object?”

He looked around. Nobody seemed to have a problem with it.

“Then it’s settled. We go get us the warp disk, then we blast the fonk out of here and never look back.”

His eyes met Loren’s. “Unless… What you said before. About staying. Settling down. If you… I mean… If you still want…?” Cal said. “Because I would. If you want. I would.”

Around them, the ship seemed to hold its breath. Loren glanced down at a little star map on her console, then around at the bridge.

“I’m good where we are,” she said. “For now, anyway.”

Cal’s face lit up in a grin. “Well, alright!” he said. “Loren, set a course for the closest space shopping mall.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Loren sighed. It was good-natured, though.

He hoped.

Cal looked over at Mech standing by his console, Miz slouching in her chair, and Tyrra snoring in her sleep, then he settled back in his seat, gripped the armrests, and gazed out past the smoldering remains of the Controller and ahead to the great void of space beyond.

“Let’s go blow some Vajacox.”

Further Reading

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