Kitty kitty, p.32
KITTY KITTY, page 32
Blue lights flashed from the corner of the nearest avenue. A second later, police cars skidded at full speed into the lesser gravity before parking on the sidewalk, honking the first rubberneckers into the puddles surrounding the road work.
The traffic was cut off by holographic yellow cords. We rolled towards the convenience store instead. The latter faced the mall. While a fine acidic mist fell from the angry skies, we put our asses under the flap, among the cigarette butts and scratch cards sailing in the gutter.
I sneezed. Over the foul stream floated a silver slick smelling like hairspray. It leaked from the giant dumpsters of the adjacent five-story barber shop.
“Do you need a new t-shirt? Yours seems covered in purple blood,” asked my cyber-savior.
I grumbled in response, as I brushed my platinum badge. I had made sure to keep it in the front pocket of my overalls, but mutant meat managed to stain it anyway.
An unmarked dark Lincoln with tinted windows accompanying another CPD convoy squealed its brake pads near the out-of-service gas pump. From the doors, two square-jawed, broad-shouldered men wearing impeccable black suits with wide short ties immediately emerged.
“The FBI…” reacted Zéphyr. “Not good.”
“The FBI? Wasn’t it disbanded during the Hard Reset?” I asked as G-Men Tweedledee and Tweedledum slammed their doors. Like androids, they mechanically inspected the area.
“Those guys are from the Freak Bureau of Investigation—the Martian Techno-Federal entity. I will let you handle them. I’m allergic.”
“The mutant police?” I told myself. For Zéphyr had disappeared into the empty aisles of the store, I let my frustration boil over: “Nice of you to leave me alone with the sinister pigs!”
When I turned around, the two grumpy-looking agents were already on my ass. “Bounty hunter?” one of them asked, judging me from his seven-foot height.
I stood up, rubbing my sore backside because of the pebbles spelled over the acid-ridden asphalt. “Oink! By the way, I love your alien poachers look!”
Both men silently glared at me from behind their dark glasses. They were no Freaks. A bit strange when you serve the government department dedicated to half-human, half-animal citizens.
“Agent De Mornay. Freak Bureau of Investigation,” the same man introduced himself, flashing his badge a few millimeters from my nose. As he slammed his wallet shut, it smelled like Drakkar Noir cologne, fake leather and divorce. “And this is Agent Gross.”
“For real?” I chuckled, turning to the second guy.
“Was that you at the StarMart?” continued De Mornay’s carbon copy. Readjusting his jacket, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket.
“Yes,” I replied, rolling my Alliance badge between my fingers. “This moon has a rodent problem.”
Gross glared at his colleague before pointing to the Circle K with his big, manly chin. “What about her? Is she an auxiliary too?” Behind the dirty glass, Zéphyr was candidly trying on new pairs of sunglasses near a slushie machine. I smiled as she readjusted the mirror to her height, and Agent Gross had to repeat his question: “Is your fashionista sister a sworn official?”
“No,” I replied, turning back to him.
Next to Gross, De Mornay also lit a cigarette. “May I ask what the hell you’re doing on this moon-city, Ali? Isn’t your damn cat with you tonight?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did we meet before?”
After vacuuming his nicotine deep into his lungs, the FBI agent exhaled a long asphyxiating breath. “You zeroed a Freak hitman over Costcoland and your insolent smile was all over the royal news networks for a week,” he continued. “So yes, the Bureau knows you.”
“I’m a celebrity in the retail kingdom, so what? You want an autograph? A wasabi handjob?”
At my question, De Mornay choked. It took several pats on the back from his partner—and another cigarette—to bring him to his senses. “No,” he coldly answered.
“Your loss.”
“Don’t be too much of a caustic show-off,” Gross interjected. “Otherwise, you’ll probably regret it, girl.”
He then looked at his watch, which blinked. Impassively, the G-man drew from it a small steel wire with his fingertips. I thought he would strangle me like in those espionage thrillers Lee sometimes read, but instead, he plugged it into his black glasses’ side frame. On the lenses danced lines of data I was unable to interpret properly. When these disappeared, he put away the cord.
“You’re now grounded until further notice. Your Auxiliary badge is deactivated on this moon,” he explained, tossing his cigarette butt a few centimeters away from the silver liquid stagnating around a manhole, causing a shy sparkle.
“What?” I exploded. I almost lost my balance on my rollerblades. “Why? ’cause I fragged a kid-eatin’ radioactive coral-turtle? That ain’t fair!”
“Your blunder may be costly, indeed,” Gross interjected. “Techno-President Bush doesn’t want to rock the boat with the mutant community, and now you’re killing one in an arcade!”
“This one was a fuckin’ Pet Monster on cocaine!”
“Possibly…” De Mornay snarled. “Yet, you can’t shoot them on sight! You’re not a Techno-cop.”
I was speechless.
“Miss. Ali…” Gross went on. “Please, enjoy your birthday with your… sister, instead.”
“Girlfriend,” I grumbled.
“Whatever. Leave us the mutants.”
“Mutants?” I reacted. “Are there more?”
Gross bit his cheek. “We’ll reactivate your badge once the case is closed. Goodbye,” he concluded before they both turned their backs on me and headed to the mall.
“Strange things are afoot at the Circle K,” Zéphyr quoted as she joined me. Her skateboard tucked under her arm, she handed me a new crop top. “What did the feds want?”
“There you are! You quitter!” I growled before skating away with my new T on, my overalls’ sleeves knotted around my waist.
Zéphyr slid her board across the uneven ground to follow me. “I had no choice, Ali-love. Closer, that kind of guy could have detected my holosuit—the lenses, you see? Can you tell me what’s going on?”
I managed to detail my discussion with Gross and De Mornay as we reached the bike path leading to the stormy shores of Lake Callisto.
My cheeky cyborg laughed. “Grounding you? No way.”
“Yes way…”
“Isn’t it the fastest way to get you involved?”
I turned around, slipping into the wind to stare at her. “No one’s stealing that badge from me. It’s my father’s. Those posers promised to reactivate it when the case’s over. But if it takes forever, my bad-tempered pilot of a cat will power-nuke my butt!”
Dashing forward, my girlfriend passed me to run a red light. “We’ll solve this mutants’ story for them, then!” she said over the horn of a taxicab.
“You bet!”
Zéphyr stopped, her back against a newspaper dispenser used as a needle dump by junkies. “But we got to enjoy your birthday first, right? What time is it?”
“Do you have a plan for the afternoon?” I asked, slamming the button to traverse the avenue leading to the Marine Pier.
“We’re on Callisto. There’s always a bodacious plan!”
With all the power of her cybernetic body, Zéphyr dashed throughout the crosswalk as the light turned green. I followed her with difficulty along the Lakefront Trail, zigzagging between onlookers and joggers in miniskirts for about fifteen minutes. She spun around a few times, then smiled broadly and started strolling again whistling that old tune called Downtown.
When I thought I’d lost sight of her at the marina, Zéphyr reappeared behind me. “This way!” she uttered, taking my arm before veering after a bus stop at the last moment. With her finger, she pointed to the other side of a vertical-lift bridge. There, a crowd of web-punks and space cowboys were smoking under the sizzling dragon-like ensign of a dance bar. “Limahl is rehearsing there this afternoon. Before his concert tonight!”
“Cool beans, Z!”
My cyber-girlfriend and I crossed the river of stagnant water. Making our way to the doors of the bar, among the regulars in leather jackets and colorful mohawks, we sat in a booth to the right of the counter.
The foam of the benches was damp and the table sticky. Through the cigarette smog, we could barely see the face of the robotic waiter wearing a stained Stenson who came to take our order. Although he was a machine, he was also smoking.
“Whoa, he didn’t even card us… I definitely look 21…” I whined once he left us. “Z… I’m old. This is the end. One year from now, I’ll knit mittens by the fire and watch Golden Girls.”
My cyber-girlfriend remained silent.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re being followed,” she told me as her eyes flashed through the smoke. She had changed her holo-clothes for a black rocker boy’s jacket, and red hair tied in a ponytail with a sparkling scrunchy.
“Followed? By who? The two Martian dufus?” I asked.
“No—” Zéphyr took my cocktail from the returning waiter who didn’t recognize her. “—by the first person who will walk through that door.”
Roof of the Palmer House Hotel in Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - Present day
“Ali.” With his sauce-stained index, Bill Murray pointed to the small piece of chicken my partner had just grabbed from the bottom of her bucket. “I’m sorry to interrupt you after such a hectic cliffhanger, but your nugget looks way too much like Danny De Vito!”
“Psych!” my associate uttered as a drop of fat dripped down the scratches on her chin. “Yours’ so massive it’s like Arnie!”
Our host scraped some spicy sauce with his tender. “You guys seen Twins?”
“Obviously!” I interjected, a wing between the fangs.
“We’re, like, movies—to the max,” Ali commented.
Bill Murray raised his eyebrow. “Obviously. And what did you think of Ghostbuster II?”
There was an awkward silence. As I resumed my monitoring, Ali lost herself in contemplating the crumbs at the bottom of her empty bucket.
The actor cleared his throat. “Let’s get back to your story, shall we?”
Wise Dragon’s Bar near the Techno-Marine Pier Marina (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - A month ago
My cyber-girlfriend and I waited for someone to come through the door. Alas, the cigarette smog had thickened since the concert began, and it became near impossible to discern anything from the booth.
“What does our stalker-creep look like?” I asked over the first bass notes.
“We need to get closer,” she proposed instead, pulling herself up from the bench. “Let’s bust a groove while being alert. If we’re acting suspiciously, he might run away.”
Dragged by the hand, I walked around a big burly guy in a Marine uniform gallivanting his silver-haired girlfriend, before slowly pushing my way through the bustling mosh pit. Her perm’s hairspray tickled my nose.
Zéphyr danced next to me. She kept watching the comings and goings. And by the end of the third song, she kissed me on the neck before whispering: “I’ve got a visual, Ali-love.”
I turned, miming glancing at the glass I had left on our table. With a nod, my cyber-spy designed the surprise guest: a yellow jumpsuit wearing a motorcycle helmet. Our mysterious party crasher walked along the crowded bar before quietly making his way downstairs. To the bathroom.
“Time to bounce,” Zéphyr ordered, slapping my buttocks to push me forward.
Once out of the human tide, on top of the stairs, I saw the biker entering the women’s restroom. “Maybe he’s just a creep,” I hypothesized. “I gather sewer-smelling Bigfoots and FBI spooks could give birth to crazy theories I know Lee and you are fond of, but… ain’t you kidding yourself?”
Too late. Cyber-stubborn was already storming downward.
I sighed. Clearing a cocktail left at the corner of the bar between the olive jar and the dusty landline booth stamped with sex chat ads, I joined her below.
“Z?” In the quiet toilets, the cyborg was alone. “Where did she go?” I asked with my lips this time. I rested the empty glass on a hand-free towel dispenser before picking the last squared olive.
Zéphyr nodded at the stall door near the back wall covered with graffiti. Her holographic suit sizzled as she stepped into the puddle of smelling water surrounding the adjacent sinks. Lifting her left foot, she prepared to kick the green door in.
The latter flew in the opposite direction intended, right into her hardened steel face. The party crasher burst out as violently as unexpectedly.
Swearing, I wanted to take my Desert Eagle out of my chest pocket. Sadly, the top of my overalls being folded, the long barrel got caught in a strap. The weapon tumbled from my hand before ricocheting heavily on the tiled floor.
The pervert in the yellow suit immediately jumped on it. But I had the reflex to slide it away with a heel strike. Destabilized, he slipped. My lap painfully welcomed him.
As I fell backwards in the puddle, Zéphyr got up. She grabbed our attacker as I pushed him back with a kick to the chin. She lifted him into the air with the incredible sexy strength of her bionic body. The assailant’s head went through the ceiling plates. A second later, he collapsed in the water, stunned. His cracked helmet remained up there.
“What a surprise…” Zéphyr smiled.
Coughing asbestos, our stalker appeared to be a strange woman: a Freak with a house mouse’s features.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” I shouted as I straightened.
The mutant didn’t comply and leaped for the exit. Zéphyr immediately tripped her, and she landed on my feet. Furious, I clutched her arms to keep her from getting up, noticing Z grabbing a composite board from the broken stall door to knock her down once and for all.
“Let me go! I’m a journalist!” suddenly uttered the struggling Freak.
Zéphyr cautiously approached her. Panting, she stopped moving.
With a fingertip, my girlfriend slid the zipper of the Freak’s yellow jumpsuit down. She grabbed a notebook alongside a press pass. “Only if Miss—” she glanced at the plastic holo-card. “—Miss June Roger, from Callisto 6 News, promises to behave and be rather talkative.”
“You’re a bunch of thugs!” she grumbled as she straightened after I released her. “All Martians are brutes! They act like all Jupiter belongs to them!” Her blue eyes were glittering.
“Here’s Ali. You can call me Z,” Zéphyr stated. Meanwhile, I went to retrieve my gun from under the ransacked condom dispenser. “We’re not government goons.”
“Oh yeah?” She then tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her pierced mouse ear. Her muzzle wiggled. “And why on Solaris were you happily chatting with the two agents by the convenience store?”
I interjected, my back against the main door to prevent another intrusion: “We ran into one of your mutant buddies in the mall. I’m the Auxiliary who took it down.” Someone knocked. “Busy—beat it!”
“I see…” the Freak resumed. “Specializing in monster hunting?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “But when a dude tries to munch my freckled face. I tend to unload a whole magazine or two. Seems fair to me.”
“I’m sure glad you didn’t empty one into my face. As ghastly as it is.”
“Ghastly? There’s nothing horrible about your face,” Zéphyr responded, hands on her hips. “I saw Ali with a nutri-avocado mask. Now that’s something scary!”
I pouted. “Bite me.”
My cyborg winked. “Why the helmet, Miss Roger?” she continued. “You weren’t following us on a motorcycle. But on rollerblades.”
“Techno-moons aren’t famous for their open-mindedness and benevolence towards genetic diversity,” the reporter replied, picking up the shattered visor lying on the ceramic tiles. “This monster story won’t help. Although the people responsible aren’t Freaks.”
“For real?” I asked. “We saw a giant plate-head turtle wreckin’ bloody havoc in a Chuck-E-Cheese.”
“These abominations popping up since the late summer are something else—but based on the same genetic alteration process. And they’re endogenous to Callisto.”
“You’re fairly well informed,” Zéphyr remarked.
The giant mouse smiled. “I’m a fairly good reporter.”
“This story rings a bell,” I intervened. “About cloning rejects bred in a lab on Ceres. In a disused Techno-Marine laboratory to be exact.”
Zéphyr nodded. “Callisto hosts the headquarters of the Outer System’s fleet.”
Lady Fievel first dismissed our guesswork: “This moon-city also hides a crime syndicate expert in bioweapons, megacorps specializing in genetics, post-nuclear treatment centers… The whole satellite could give birth to monsters.” She then reached for her pass and her electronic notebook Zéphyr handed her. “Once I know exactly where they came from, I will expose whoever is responsible. And clear the Freak community!”
“Do you need assistance?” I asked.
She hesitated, rubbing her jaw. “I work alone.”
“Let’s work alone together,” I insisted.
“Perhaps you could be useful with your gun…” She turned to Zéphyr. “I’ve also accumulated hundreds of megabytes that could help us, but I suck at computers.”
“Kinda funny for a mouse,” Zéphyr joked.
She resumed, ignoring her: “Do you know your share regarding data processing?”
My cyborg grinded. Her data-thief’s cyber-blood boiled from excitement.
Roof of the Palmer House Hotel in Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - Present day
“Wow! What a team! What happened next?” Bill Murray asked, completely absorbed by the story since the wet t-shirt and drunk female wrestling.
“Zéphyr and I enjoyed the afternoon concert because it was still my fuckin’ birthday, remember?” my partner replied. “Then, we went back to our crib.”
“And June gave you the data, right?” the actor inquired. “That woman trusted you blindly…”
The traffic was cut off by holographic yellow cords. We rolled towards the convenience store instead. The latter faced the mall. While a fine acidic mist fell from the angry skies, we put our asses under the flap, among the cigarette butts and scratch cards sailing in the gutter.
I sneezed. Over the foul stream floated a silver slick smelling like hairspray. It leaked from the giant dumpsters of the adjacent five-story barber shop.
“Do you need a new t-shirt? Yours seems covered in purple blood,” asked my cyber-savior.
I grumbled in response, as I brushed my platinum badge. I had made sure to keep it in the front pocket of my overalls, but mutant meat managed to stain it anyway.
An unmarked dark Lincoln with tinted windows accompanying another CPD convoy squealed its brake pads near the out-of-service gas pump. From the doors, two square-jawed, broad-shouldered men wearing impeccable black suits with wide short ties immediately emerged.
“The FBI…” reacted Zéphyr. “Not good.”
“The FBI? Wasn’t it disbanded during the Hard Reset?” I asked as G-Men Tweedledee and Tweedledum slammed their doors. Like androids, they mechanically inspected the area.
“Those guys are from the Freak Bureau of Investigation—the Martian Techno-Federal entity. I will let you handle them. I’m allergic.”
“The mutant police?” I told myself. For Zéphyr had disappeared into the empty aisles of the store, I let my frustration boil over: “Nice of you to leave me alone with the sinister pigs!”
When I turned around, the two grumpy-looking agents were already on my ass. “Bounty hunter?” one of them asked, judging me from his seven-foot height.
I stood up, rubbing my sore backside because of the pebbles spelled over the acid-ridden asphalt. “Oink! By the way, I love your alien poachers look!”
Both men silently glared at me from behind their dark glasses. They were no Freaks. A bit strange when you serve the government department dedicated to half-human, half-animal citizens.
“Agent De Mornay. Freak Bureau of Investigation,” the same man introduced himself, flashing his badge a few millimeters from my nose. As he slammed his wallet shut, it smelled like Drakkar Noir cologne, fake leather and divorce. “And this is Agent Gross.”
“For real?” I chuckled, turning to the second guy.
“Was that you at the StarMart?” continued De Mornay’s carbon copy. Readjusting his jacket, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket.
“Yes,” I replied, rolling my Alliance badge between my fingers. “This moon has a rodent problem.”
Gross glared at his colleague before pointing to the Circle K with his big, manly chin. “What about her? Is she an auxiliary too?” Behind the dirty glass, Zéphyr was candidly trying on new pairs of sunglasses near a slushie machine. I smiled as she readjusted the mirror to her height, and Agent Gross had to repeat his question: “Is your fashionista sister a sworn official?”
“No,” I replied, turning back to him.
Next to Gross, De Mornay also lit a cigarette. “May I ask what the hell you’re doing on this moon-city, Ali? Isn’t your damn cat with you tonight?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did we meet before?”
After vacuuming his nicotine deep into his lungs, the FBI agent exhaled a long asphyxiating breath. “You zeroed a Freak hitman over Costcoland and your insolent smile was all over the royal news networks for a week,” he continued. “So yes, the Bureau knows you.”
“I’m a celebrity in the retail kingdom, so what? You want an autograph? A wasabi handjob?”
At my question, De Mornay choked. It took several pats on the back from his partner—and another cigarette—to bring him to his senses. “No,” he coldly answered.
“Your loss.”
“Don’t be too much of a caustic show-off,” Gross interjected. “Otherwise, you’ll probably regret it, girl.”
He then looked at his watch, which blinked. Impassively, the G-man drew from it a small steel wire with his fingertips. I thought he would strangle me like in those espionage thrillers Lee sometimes read, but instead, he plugged it into his black glasses’ side frame. On the lenses danced lines of data I was unable to interpret properly. When these disappeared, he put away the cord.
“You’re now grounded until further notice. Your Auxiliary badge is deactivated on this moon,” he explained, tossing his cigarette butt a few centimeters away from the silver liquid stagnating around a manhole, causing a shy sparkle.
“What?” I exploded. I almost lost my balance on my rollerblades. “Why? ’cause I fragged a kid-eatin’ radioactive coral-turtle? That ain’t fair!”
“Your blunder may be costly, indeed,” Gross interjected. “Techno-President Bush doesn’t want to rock the boat with the mutant community, and now you’re killing one in an arcade!”
“This one was a fuckin’ Pet Monster on cocaine!”
“Possibly…” De Mornay snarled. “Yet, you can’t shoot them on sight! You’re not a Techno-cop.”
I was speechless.
“Miss. Ali…” Gross went on. “Please, enjoy your birthday with your… sister, instead.”
“Girlfriend,” I grumbled.
“Whatever. Leave us the mutants.”
“Mutants?” I reacted. “Are there more?”
Gross bit his cheek. “We’ll reactivate your badge once the case is closed. Goodbye,” he concluded before they both turned their backs on me and headed to the mall.
“Strange things are afoot at the Circle K,” Zéphyr quoted as she joined me. Her skateboard tucked under her arm, she handed me a new crop top. “What did the feds want?”
“There you are! You quitter!” I growled before skating away with my new T on, my overalls’ sleeves knotted around my waist.
Zéphyr slid her board across the uneven ground to follow me. “I had no choice, Ali-love. Closer, that kind of guy could have detected my holosuit—the lenses, you see? Can you tell me what’s going on?”
I managed to detail my discussion with Gross and De Mornay as we reached the bike path leading to the stormy shores of Lake Callisto.
My cheeky cyborg laughed. “Grounding you? No way.”
“Yes way…”
“Isn’t it the fastest way to get you involved?”
I turned around, slipping into the wind to stare at her. “No one’s stealing that badge from me. It’s my father’s. Those posers promised to reactivate it when the case’s over. But if it takes forever, my bad-tempered pilot of a cat will power-nuke my butt!”
Dashing forward, my girlfriend passed me to run a red light. “We’ll solve this mutants’ story for them, then!” she said over the horn of a taxicab.
“You bet!”
Zéphyr stopped, her back against a newspaper dispenser used as a needle dump by junkies. “But we got to enjoy your birthday first, right? What time is it?”
“Do you have a plan for the afternoon?” I asked, slamming the button to traverse the avenue leading to the Marine Pier.
“We’re on Callisto. There’s always a bodacious plan!”
With all the power of her cybernetic body, Zéphyr dashed throughout the crosswalk as the light turned green. I followed her with difficulty along the Lakefront Trail, zigzagging between onlookers and joggers in miniskirts for about fifteen minutes. She spun around a few times, then smiled broadly and started strolling again whistling that old tune called Downtown.
When I thought I’d lost sight of her at the marina, Zéphyr reappeared behind me. “This way!” she uttered, taking my arm before veering after a bus stop at the last moment. With her finger, she pointed to the other side of a vertical-lift bridge. There, a crowd of web-punks and space cowboys were smoking under the sizzling dragon-like ensign of a dance bar. “Limahl is rehearsing there this afternoon. Before his concert tonight!”
“Cool beans, Z!”
My cyber-girlfriend and I crossed the river of stagnant water. Making our way to the doors of the bar, among the regulars in leather jackets and colorful mohawks, we sat in a booth to the right of the counter.
The foam of the benches was damp and the table sticky. Through the cigarette smog, we could barely see the face of the robotic waiter wearing a stained Stenson who came to take our order. Although he was a machine, he was also smoking.
“Whoa, he didn’t even card us… I definitely look 21…” I whined once he left us. “Z… I’m old. This is the end. One year from now, I’ll knit mittens by the fire and watch Golden Girls.”
My cyber-girlfriend remained silent.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re being followed,” she told me as her eyes flashed through the smoke. She had changed her holo-clothes for a black rocker boy’s jacket, and red hair tied in a ponytail with a sparkling scrunchy.
“Followed? By who? The two Martian dufus?” I asked.
“No—” Zéphyr took my cocktail from the returning waiter who didn’t recognize her. “—by the first person who will walk through that door.”
Roof of the Palmer House Hotel in Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - Present day
“Ali.” With his sauce-stained index, Bill Murray pointed to the small piece of chicken my partner had just grabbed from the bottom of her bucket. “I’m sorry to interrupt you after such a hectic cliffhanger, but your nugget looks way too much like Danny De Vito!”
“Psych!” my associate uttered as a drop of fat dripped down the scratches on her chin. “Yours’ so massive it’s like Arnie!”
Our host scraped some spicy sauce with his tender. “You guys seen Twins?”
“Obviously!” I interjected, a wing between the fangs.
“We’re, like, movies—to the max,” Ali commented.
Bill Murray raised his eyebrow. “Obviously. And what did you think of Ghostbuster II?”
There was an awkward silence. As I resumed my monitoring, Ali lost herself in contemplating the crumbs at the bottom of her empty bucket.
The actor cleared his throat. “Let’s get back to your story, shall we?”
Wise Dragon’s Bar near the Techno-Marine Pier Marina (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - A month ago
My cyber-girlfriend and I waited for someone to come through the door. Alas, the cigarette smog had thickened since the concert began, and it became near impossible to discern anything from the booth.
“What does our stalker-creep look like?” I asked over the first bass notes.
“We need to get closer,” she proposed instead, pulling herself up from the bench. “Let’s bust a groove while being alert. If we’re acting suspiciously, he might run away.”
Dragged by the hand, I walked around a big burly guy in a Marine uniform gallivanting his silver-haired girlfriend, before slowly pushing my way through the bustling mosh pit. Her perm’s hairspray tickled my nose.
Zéphyr danced next to me. She kept watching the comings and goings. And by the end of the third song, she kissed me on the neck before whispering: “I’ve got a visual, Ali-love.”
I turned, miming glancing at the glass I had left on our table. With a nod, my cyber-spy designed the surprise guest: a yellow jumpsuit wearing a motorcycle helmet. Our mysterious party crasher walked along the crowded bar before quietly making his way downstairs. To the bathroom.
“Time to bounce,” Zéphyr ordered, slapping my buttocks to push me forward.
Once out of the human tide, on top of the stairs, I saw the biker entering the women’s restroom. “Maybe he’s just a creep,” I hypothesized. “I gather sewer-smelling Bigfoots and FBI spooks could give birth to crazy theories I know Lee and you are fond of, but… ain’t you kidding yourself?”
Too late. Cyber-stubborn was already storming downward.
I sighed. Clearing a cocktail left at the corner of the bar between the olive jar and the dusty landline booth stamped with sex chat ads, I joined her below.
“Z?” In the quiet toilets, the cyborg was alone. “Where did she go?” I asked with my lips this time. I rested the empty glass on a hand-free towel dispenser before picking the last squared olive.
Zéphyr nodded at the stall door near the back wall covered with graffiti. Her holographic suit sizzled as she stepped into the puddle of smelling water surrounding the adjacent sinks. Lifting her left foot, she prepared to kick the green door in.
The latter flew in the opposite direction intended, right into her hardened steel face. The party crasher burst out as violently as unexpectedly.
Swearing, I wanted to take my Desert Eagle out of my chest pocket. Sadly, the top of my overalls being folded, the long barrel got caught in a strap. The weapon tumbled from my hand before ricocheting heavily on the tiled floor.
The pervert in the yellow suit immediately jumped on it. But I had the reflex to slide it away with a heel strike. Destabilized, he slipped. My lap painfully welcomed him.
As I fell backwards in the puddle, Zéphyr got up. She grabbed our attacker as I pushed him back with a kick to the chin. She lifted him into the air with the incredible sexy strength of her bionic body. The assailant’s head went through the ceiling plates. A second later, he collapsed in the water, stunned. His cracked helmet remained up there.
“What a surprise…” Zéphyr smiled.
Coughing asbestos, our stalker appeared to be a strange woman: a Freak with a house mouse’s features.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” I shouted as I straightened.
The mutant didn’t comply and leaped for the exit. Zéphyr immediately tripped her, and she landed on my feet. Furious, I clutched her arms to keep her from getting up, noticing Z grabbing a composite board from the broken stall door to knock her down once and for all.
“Let me go! I’m a journalist!” suddenly uttered the struggling Freak.
Zéphyr cautiously approached her. Panting, she stopped moving.
With a fingertip, my girlfriend slid the zipper of the Freak’s yellow jumpsuit down. She grabbed a notebook alongside a press pass. “Only if Miss—” she glanced at the plastic holo-card. “—Miss June Roger, from Callisto 6 News, promises to behave and be rather talkative.”
“You’re a bunch of thugs!” she grumbled as she straightened after I released her. “All Martians are brutes! They act like all Jupiter belongs to them!” Her blue eyes were glittering.
“Here’s Ali. You can call me Z,” Zéphyr stated. Meanwhile, I went to retrieve my gun from under the ransacked condom dispenser. “We’re not government goons.”
“Oh yeah?” She then tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her pierced mouse ear. Her muzzle wiggled. “And why on Solaris were you happily chatting with the two agents by the convenience store?”
I interjected, my back against the main door to prevent another intrusion: “We ran into one of your mutant buddies in the mall. I’m the Auxiliary who took it down.” Someone knocked. “Busy—beat it!”
“I see…” the Freak resumed. “Specializing in monster hunting?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “But when a dude tries to munch my freckled face. I tend to unload a whole magazine or two. Seems fair to me.”
“I’m sure glad you didn’t empty one into my face. As ghastly as it is.”
“Ghastly? There’s nothing horrible about your face,” Zéphyr responded, hands on her hips. “I saw Ali with a nutri-avocado mask. Now that’s something scary!”
I pouted. “Bite me.”
My cyborg winked. “Why the helmet, Miss Roger?” she continued. “You weren’t following us on a motorcycle. But on rollerblades.”
“Techno-moons aren’t famous for their open-mindedness and benevolence towards genetic diversity,” the reporter replied, picking up the shattered visor lying on the ceramic tiles. “This monster story won’t help. Although the people responsible aren’t Freaks.”
“For real?” I asked. “We saw a giant plate-head turtle wreckin’ bloody havoc in a Chuck-E-Cheese.”
“These abominations popping up since the late summer are something else—but based on the same genetic alteration process. And they’re endogenous to Callisto.”
“You’re fairly well informed,” Zéphyr remarked.
The giant mouse smiled. “I’m a fairly good reporter.”
“This story rings a bell,” I intervened. “About cloning rejects bred in a lab on Ceres. In a disused Techno-Marine laboratory to be exact.”
Zéphyr nodded. “Callisto hosts the headquarters of the Outer System’s fleet.”
Lady Fievel first dismissed our guesswork: “This moon-city also hides a crime syndicate expert in bioweapons, megacorps specializing in genetics, post-nuclear treatment centers… The whole satellite could give birth to monsters.” She then reached for her pass and her electronic notebook Zéphyr handed her. “Once I know exactly where they came from, I will expose whoever is responsible. And clear the Freak community!”
“Do you need assistance?” I asked.
She hesitated, rubbing her jaw. “I work alone.”
“Let’s work alone together,” I insisted.
“Perhaps you could be useful with your gun…” She turned to Zéphyr. “I’ve also accumulated hundreds of megabytes that could help us, but I suck at computers.”
“Kinda funny for a mouse,” Zéphyr joked.
She resumed, ignoring her: “Do you know your share regarding data processing?”
My cyborg grinded. Her data-thief’s cyber-blood boiled from excitement.
Roof of the Palmer House Hotel in Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - Present day
“Wow! What a team! What happened next?” Bill Murray asked, completely absorbed by the story since the wet t-shirt and drunk female wrestling.
“Zéphyr and I enjoyed the afternoon concert because it was still my fuckin’ birthday, remember?” my partner replied. “Then, we went back to our crib.”
“And June gave you the data, right?” the actor inquired. “That woman trusted you blindly…”
