“You have six Martian hours so that only one survivor remains. If not, the complex will be thrown out of the belt for a long journey to our bright star where you’ll burn like those patties at the barbecue after the Service! Good luck, chums!”
A wave of protest immediately arose, showing a growing concern. “It’s a scandal!” Sheik shouted. “We must warn the All—”
A bullet suddenly went through his throat. No sooner had he given his last gurgling, while still standing straight due to the low gravity, that the situation turned into a general carnage. The groups with their weapons nearby opened fire on their neighbors, sometimes with a red cup or a PB&J sandwich still in hand.
“That’s the Wild West spirit I am looking for!” I exclaimed, frightened yet thrilled.
One second later, MiKron, the three-eyed killer robot, almost torched us with napalm, lighting my cigarette, before we fled through the adjacent service corridor.
“It’s fucking nuts!” shouted Ali as I jumped on the floor.
Running as fast as we could despite my partner’s magnetic boots, we quickly made our way down the metal stairs to the logistic galleries to reach the cold storage. But once behind the steel door, we were instantly caught off guard.
“Freeze, kiddo!” someone croaked in the dark. A man who introduced himself as Dan the Crow came out of the shadow, his sawed-off cannon aimed at my sapien’s face. Dan wore a terrifying raven mask made of silver and a large purple hood.
“Dan?” Another figure in a monk’s robe with a curious implant in the shape of an inverted pyramid on his bald forehead immediately joined him. “Take them down, Dan!” continued his companion as his implant turned vermilion after he turned on the old halogen ceiling lights. “Overpopulation menaces our refuge!”
But, lucky for us, Birdman didn’t agree with him: “We have to reach the mine. And we won’t be too many. We might need this kid’s extra help.”
The cyborg stared at us before examining my sapiens from head to toe. His front plate turned orange, and he disappeared behind our back to close the entrance of the cold room.
“Did you mention the mine?” I asked, somewhat offended to have been left out.
Dan took a pipe out of his satchel at the waist and lit it with the end of my cigarette. Then, while his partner was electronically sealing the door, he explained the plan he had imagined.
Behind him, a round porthole opened onto the void. On the opposite side of the croissant shaped asteroid, beyond the vacuum, stood an auxiliary entrance to the mines and a potential escape. To get there, the group had to cross about ten meters outside the station until attaining the airlock. Once outside, it would be possible to unlock it with a well-placed shot. “With the depressurization and no suits, it’s unthinkable to take turns,” said Dan. “We all have to rush into the opened airlock together at the same time. Immediately after, I’ll reach the closing crank.” But when Ali implied that this operation didn’t require three humans and a cat, Dan smiled. “Ramses is a speed-hacker specialized in ‘borgs hunting, not particularly useful in this situation,” he justified. “As for me, my bullets are devoid of oxygen—can’t fire in space. Hence the interest in the .50 caliber you’re hiding under this lovely vest, kid.” He then puffed some pink smoke smelling of sweet jasmine before putting away his pipe.
“I spotted a menace. Ready?” asked the improved man when his implant turned red again. He had detected in advance, the furious maniacs who banged on the doors a few seconds later.
“Hold on by the belt. Close your eyes,” Dan said, now closer to the armored glass. “Except you, kid. Aim well.”
“I ain’t no kid,” Ali replied.
“Sure thing.”
Dan opened the porthole. It felt like a hand of ice grabbing me by the throat before tearing me off the ground. We were sucked into the void and floated for a brief moment.
Ali shot. I could tell by the vibration that shook her right shoulder. But nothing happened. Hell! She had missed and time was running out! Ebullism was no joke. We had less than fifteen seconds before passing out.
“Come on, Ali!” I shouted even if no sound could come out of my mouth. Big mistake! My tongue almost froze on the spot.
Ali shot again. Twice. Thereafter, something snatched us and I hit a metal wall. The decompression perforated my eardrums before it was only silence. Well, not quite. I could hear Dan’s voice and the cries of another person. When I opened my senses, the tinnitus disappeared and I could perceive that nauseous hum again. It was more intense than ever.
“Is everything all right, young lady?” Dan repeated, spinning in the weightlessness.
My sapiens rubbed her eyes. Ice beads had formed at the junction of her eyelids. “I’m blind, yet alive,” she replied. “Sorry it took me so long…”
“You did well! We—Ramses?”
The man with the implant was injured. A small amount of blood was trickling from his left arm. Ruby bubbles were now floating around us. “Over there! The menace is on the other side of the station!” he shouted, pointing to a shadow between the relay antennas coming out of the rock.
A spider-web impact grew on the porthole of the airlock. A gunner in a spacesuit was targeting us.
“Military velospeed bullets? That’s gotta be Dicklan Hemingwest! Gotta move fast!” Dan said.
We obeyed promptly and slipped into the mines.
Surviving on Yoyodyne84 got even more complicated. After three Martian hour of walking, Ali’s sight had still not returned. Blood was now oozing from her eyelids on which the Crow had applied greenish anti-decompression bandages from his satchel. Perched again on her shoulders, I was her guide for the time to come.
“Lee? Can you hear it?” my human suddenly asked me. She stopped before pressing her hand on the shiny rocky wall. “The asteroid. It’s singing.”
She was right. But it had nothing to do with the usual buzzing. The sound was now much purer. It was a beautiful melody. The hum was definitely not a figment of my imagination nor an error in my measuring equipment. “I knew I wasn’t crazy.”
“Watch it from here,” Dan said.
“About what?” I asked.
“Glance at your partner’s palm.”
Under the dim lights of the emergency LEDs, Ali’s palm was covered with silvery glitter. “Rhodium,” I whispered. “Bad for the lungs.”
A moment later, poisoned air aside, the old mine finally proved to be even less safe than expected. At a junction, a very unpleasant scene became apparent in the darkness. Beverly Bones and her undead crew had repainted the walls with their guts. A metallic screeching, accompanying each of our half-floating steps, could be heard. Beneath our feet could be found a real carpet made of levitating copper casings.
“With such firepower, they couldn’t miss them,” said the shady Ramses as he grabbed an assault rifle spinning high above. “It took at least that much to flatline that sorceress of Bones and her rotten puppets.”
We continued our journey as quiet as possible until we reached new arteries. Rhodium glowed in the darkness and silver-white glitter danced around us, like a cloud of fireflies. The singing was louder than ever and finally hit its climax when we entered a vast underground quarry.
Suddenly, shots rang out, peeling off more of the metallic snow from the walls. They echoed back and no one could accurately assess where they came from. The mines appeared to be a true labyrinth.
“This is ominous…” an anxious Ramses said while his implant turned red.
“Where are they?” Dan whispered before asking us to lie low.
We eventually had our answer behind the huge argent columns that Yoyodyne’s robots hadn’t had time to collect. Hanging from the ceiling, a cyborg wearing a black poncho and a wide-brimmed hat was threatening half a dozen semi-animals armed to the teeth with only two Lügers. Among them stood Knives, with his red bristling hair and drool on his lips.
“Oh, oh! We now have company, haven’t we?” said the acrobat in a nasty synthesized voice. “Bienvenido!” A third spider-like limb came out from his serape and took aim at us.
“Si—Six Guns Dynamo? And Knives?” Dan stuttered.
The cyborg didn’t give us a single glance, preferring to ignore the small fry. Because on the floor, the Freaks were just waiting for a second of inattention to jump on this deadly piñata.
“This good ol’ Dan…” said the alpha of the pack as he lifted his lime cyclops glasses, specially adapted to his muzzle. “How’s life since Amalthea?”
Mumbling inaudibly, Dan took off his mask revealing a face covered with suppurating scars. But this wasn’t the most shocking part. Between the furrows of pink flesh, Dan the Crow had a dull ink-black plumage. He was a real raven!
“Amalthea is a true zoo!” I added.
With his sawed-off cannon pointed at Knives, the Freak-raven apparently had a score to settle with the big bad wolf.
“I knew that Dan was a strange bird,” Ali joked after I told her.
Behind us, Ramses squealed: “This is really no time to laugh!” While half of the gang’s guns were aimed at the cyborg, the other half now targeted us. The situation had quickly degenerated into a Mexican standoff.
“Oh, oh! This setting would delight our querido Dungeon Master, wouldn’t it?” Dynamo joked, cracking the metal joints of his three newly deployed reinforced arms.
“Your attention please…” shouted the loudspeakers after spitting radium dust.
“Speaking of the devil…” the Freak-wolf growled.
The AI continued after a small, yet very misplaced, melodious jingle: “Fast announcement, everyone! We’d like to point out the station has several elements which aren’t listed on the Alliance registry. However, they’re included in our famous tournament as wildcards! Who cares anyway? Good luck!”
Knives let out a guttural laugh, quickly joined by the members of his gang. “This tin can of Dungeon Master is talking about you, Dynamo. That creepy Bones was goddamn right. You got expelled after your messy trip to Charon!”
“Oh, oh! That humanitarian convoy was on my way, wasn’t it?” the cyborg giggled before making his fingers dance on his triggers.
“It’s now the perfect moment to tell me you have your sight back…” I murmured in Ali’s ear. By the time, she had delicately drawn her weapon.
My partner laughed sardonically. “Not enough to differentiate the Big Bad Knives from the Little Red Riding Hood!” Fortunately, the thug was in the meantime engaged in some verbal jousting with Dynamo.
“Leave now! Behind those piles of rhodium is a corridor,” Dan whispered to us. “Float down there and never look back!”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked.
“I’m settling my score with Knives today,” explained Dan, feeling the pink keloid under his right eye. “Now listen to me. At the footbridge, follow the green lights. They’ll lead you to a refinement platform. There, you’ll stumble upon a monopod to leave the station forever.”
“But—”
“Trust him, we worked here for a very long time ago,” Ramses added, putting his hand on Ali’s shoulder. “Now, let’s take advantage of their dispute to flee. Dan has chosen his fate.”
We left as the Crow quietly seized a grenade out of his satchel that seemed to have no bottom. After removing the grenade’s pin with his beak, he threw the projectile against a stack of collapsed metal crates. It exploded seconds later and a cloud of toxic glitter invaded the room, creating the perfect cover. Behind us, Knives’s roars were lost in the ensuing chaos.
“See you around, Dan…” I heard Ali whisper.
