The black pool spread, sparkling faintly.
It was beautiful.
Like a sea of stars.
R.T. missed space.
•••
R.T. was sick and tired of space.
She sat in the ladies room stall and wondered if this was what crying felt like.
Her face hurt in no explicable way; it just ached randomly. Beyond that, her chest felt tight as if she were restrained. She could breathe just fine, but it was it was like… like someone punched her in the heart.
She didn’t like it at all.
She could turn off emotions just as easily as she could turn into a Routine-class starcraft. She left them on because she was increasingly interested in the fleshy, hominid side of herself. But if unattributable heart-hurt was all they had to offer outside of the anger milieu, then she wasn’t sure if she’d would bother from now on.
She’d been shot; stabbed; kicked; punched in the “area;” missed an entry window and literally bounced off of an atmosphere; crashed into five moons, an asteroid, and two planets; been plugged into no less than three machines designed to destroy the Shadowstories; and pulled a satellite out of orbit onto her own head.
This felt worse than all of that combined.
•••
It might seem redundant, but Rotworld smelled like rot.
The whole planet had the piquant smell of life gone far out the other side. So R.T. mused as she stumbled numbly through the fetid underbrush.
She had been drugged with a sort of weird powder in a reed shoot arrow after her first attempt to rescue her fellow Shadowstories. The stuff was still working through her veins and circuitry. She couldn’t think straight, walk straight, or change form.
Grebok helped her stumble over a fallen log. “Come on, girly,” he said to keep talking, to keep her focused.
She yelped loudly as her foot came down onto the crumbling forest floor and kept going another three feet. Everything was coming apart on this damn planet. “Thum ewo,” she spoke around a mouthful of moss and frayed timber.
The Miradorian hefted her back up. “Say again?” He checked left and right for sign of pursuit. So far, so good.
“Some hero,” she snorted and tried to sort out where her body ended and the world began. “How do you do it, Grebok?” she giggled and almost tripped over her own foot.
Screw this, the Son of Drogmar thought and scooped his companion and eventual ride into his arms. “Just hold on,” he instructed and trudged his way across the difficult landscape. They needed to meet up with the rest of the Shadowstories and get off of this rock. Lord Chuckles and he had agreed they’d split the handicap, Grebok would take the drugged up spaceship, and Chuckles would take Gunther. Lemming Lord and Sparky formed the third team.
“Chhheriously? How do you do it?” the sometimes spaceship slurred.
“Huh? What? Do what?” He took his eyes off where he was going to see her focusing on him. He looked away uncomfortably.
“Be a hero all the time,” she explained. “Kicking down babies, punching out maidens, saving doors, rescuing badguys. I mean, don’t you ever get tired?”
“Dunno. Don’t think about it. Just do it.” The clearing was up ahead. Just a little further and they could get off this piss-fuck little shitworld.
“You’re awesome,” R.T. announced drunkenly.
He shot her a dubious look. “You’re high.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she conceded, “but it’s true. You’re awesome.” Her speech was exaggerated, her arms flew all over the place as she apparently attempted to communicate his awesomeness in a series of wild gesticulations.
“Just be still for a minute longer,” he instructed.
Contrary to his advice, she grabbed him and kissed him.
•••
“Good evening, Ms. Astromobile. You’re a hard lady to get a hold of.” The stoner on her TransComm’s signal was apparently from GoogolSoft. Brin Port, CEO and Boss-Dog, it said. She’d seen their ads around, but never thought much of them. Who needed GoogolSoft, when HappyCo. already ran everything? “You’re also unique, and special. Totally worth the effort.” R.T. didn’t like his smile. It was wolfish. Like he would eat you if you sat still long enough.
“A friend gave me your name. I have an opportunity for you,” he continued, “a chance to make a difference. I know you’ve got this whole shadow hero business you’re into, but what’s that doing? Do you really want to spend the rest of your days sticking your fingers in the leaky dams of the Storyverse? Or do you want to change the whole damn place all at once?” Her bemused look wore away. Maybe she could stand to listen a little longer.
“I hope I have your attention now, Ms. Astromobile.” He got her name right more than once. “Because I have a place set aside at my right hand for you. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if you turn me down.” He smiled again, and this time she found herself smiling too.
•••
R.T. was done refueling and walked over to where the other Shadowstories were stretching their legs. They spread throughout the rest area, taking the opportunity to not be cooped up, breathing each other’s recycled stink. Instead, they were able to walk around in the recycled stink of thousands of other transients.
Grebok sat off by himself at a picnic table, worrying over a crumpled piece of paper. She hesitated. She wasn’t sure what to do around him. Not since Rotworld.
She put a hand to her cheek — was her face getting hotter? Internal scanners confirmed an increased flow of fluid to her head. That was weird.
He looked up from his piece of paper and caught her looking.
They both looked away.
Gods, she worried, he must totally hate her. Like some drunk floozy, she had totally ruined their working relationship. His long silences, and conspicuous absences from the cockpit made it clear he wasn’t interested in… anything like that. She wanted to tell him that was fine, that is was nothing, but couldn’t make words work around him.
Gah, she felt like such a human. She considered turning her emotions off. They were utter bullshit at best.
Still, she’d better get out in front of this thing. They would have to work together moving forward. No point in letting it stew. She approached the picnic bench. As if he felt her coming, Grebok stashed the piece of paper in his jacket pocket just before she arrived.
“Hey,” she said.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah, hey. Nothing. Why wouldn’t I be fine? It’s great,” he answered. “Just great.”
Wow, he was really pissed, she surmised, he couldn’t even speak. Well, she had to make this right somehow. “Grebok, listen, I—” she started.
“Fucking robot stole my quarter.” Lord Chuckles walked up in a huff and thumbed over his shoulder. The soda machine was obviously on the losing side of their confrontation. It sported several ragged slashes and bled cola and cherry-flavored soda out onto the macadam around the beverage station. He looked between his audience of two. “Who peed in your oatmeal?”
“Nobody. Nothing. Everything is fine. Good. Great, even. Pfah muh blehble,” Grebok spewed out, less and less intelligibly.
The Avatar sucked some errant cola off of the back of his fist. “Mmand you?” He mumbled around the meat of his hand, looking at R.T.
“Yeah, nothing. Nobody. Nothing.”
“Whatever.” Chuckles lost interest and changed the subject. “Hey, Grebok, some fine looking wench honeys just went into the arcade. We should totally go over there and save their village, if you know what I mean.”
Grebok didn’t, but presumed it circled the concept of having sex with them. He looked up at R.T. who looked away. He looked back to the Avatar who waited expectantly. “I… I love me some wenches, yessir.” He nodded deliberately. “I mean, yeah. Yes. We should totally, um, plunder their hoard,” Grebok stammered. “Um, and slay their dragons… with our meaty man sabers.” He got lost in the corn maze of his own metaphors.
That’s when the strange and compelling nausea started burning in R.T.’s chest.
“Dude, sick.” The Avatar made a face, but didn’t necessarily object. “You dog.”
“Yup. That’s me, um, G-Dog. I’m a total hound. A… pussy… hound?” The Miradorian’s face scrunched up as he seemed to wrestle with language itself. “I um, can’t get enough of that stuff. Cat-dog, they call me. Because of all the pussy. Mm-mmm.”
The burning ache made its way up to her face, like someone was trying to punch their way out from the inside. R.T. suddenly needed very badly to be somewhere else. She looked around for somewhere to go. Somewhere no one could follow. The ladies room!
She walked off without another word.
“What’s wrong with Rootie Tootie?” Chuckles frowned.
•••
A knock on the stall door interrupted her train of thought. “Would madam care for a watercress sandwich?”
“Fuck off,” she called out. She had to get out of here.
Her TransComm buzzed.
Incoming call from GoogolSoft?
•••
R.T. blinked, her eyelashes splashed in the sparkling, black ichor.
The pain in her gut subsided.
The world stopped shaking.
What just happened?
