The rocky walls we followed quickly gave way to a concrete coating as the shots’ echoes finally died down. A winding corridor led us to the tubular skywalk previously mentioned by the friendly bounty hunter. It was so dark that even my cat’s eyes were powerless. The only source of light was from the orange glow coming from Ramses’s implant.

The moment Ali grabbed one of the wire ropes, the whole structure started to creak and, all of a sudden, the obscurity lit up. The timid rhodium veins in the galleries were now gigantic pinacoidal crystals combining the color of emerald and shiny gold. They scintillated as if a furious fire was burning from inside. But above all, they sang. It was a soft melody that echoed in this immense spherical cavity. I had just found the origin of the hum.

“It’s beautiful,” Ali said, leaning on the closest rope.

“Sound or sight?” I asked. Capturing our voices, the crystals lit up and whistled even more gorgeously.

“Both.”

“You regained your vision?” Rameses inquired.

“Meh…” Ali replied. “It’s still very fuzzy and—”

“Good news nonetheless,” Rameses cut her off. This scoundrel was pointing his rifle at us. “Nothing personal. The old Yoyodyne refinery has only one monopod dedicated to the service engineer. I’m hurt. My chances of survival are just too low if I have to carry a blind kid and her pet in a tight emergency capsule.”

“Don’t be a dick, Ramses,” Ali grunted, raising her hands. “We will find a way.”

“Sorry. You’re cute and all, but… not fuckable enough to take the risk of drifting to infinity and beyond while lacking oxygen!”

As the betrayer fell silent, the brightness began to drop. Then, Ramses’s implant turned red almost immediately. For a second, it remained the only glow around us apart from the green LEDs on the cables.

It was before a voice came out of nowhere, breaking again the quietness of the cavern: “Drifting with her forever would be a fine ending!”

Surprised, our traitorous companion swiveled but his arms remained firmly anchored to the rifle that slid into the chasm. A strange samurai had sliced them cleanly right at the elbow. The tortured man shouted until his lungs gave out before the assassin shortened his suffering by driving a sword through his exploding skull. The blade was fused with a .44 Magnum.

As the body of Ramses drifted away, the shadowy samurai slowly walked towards us, cleaning his sword.

“Greetings!” said a squeaking voice. It came from a small Poppery II-shaped drone flying over his shoulder. “Ramses Tatalopulos. Auxiliary n°C12-1-21XX-982 and—”

His face masked by his straw hat, the samurai ordered it to remain silent: “Hush! This juushoku does not matter.”

“That’s no way to talk to your companion,” Ali interjected, gun in hand.

“Not mine,” replied the warrior while sheathing his gun-blade. “He has not stopped stalking me since I killed his master at the entrance of the quarries. This clown did not have the prescience to avoid shooting me with his heavy mortars…”

“You’re not going to execute us,” I noted. “Aren’t you participating in this Purge?”

The samurai let out a discreet laugh before inviting us to follow him. My partner, who had regained a part of her eyesight, cautiously tailed him along the cables on which our savior walked like a funambulist.

“No. No. I was passing through the region on a very interesting contract for an Oomi of Lunapolis. I had not planned this little… corporate barbecue.” My human and I enjoyed the crystal cave one last time before we all proceeded to what a sign indicated as the access hatch to the refinement center. “Purges!” the samurai continued. “A massacre organized by our beloved Alliance when the number of bounty hunters becomes too consequent. With too many auxiliaries, the rewards are worth less.”

“Economy 101,” I said.

“They orchestrate these gruesome events from time to time in a different corner of the system. But I do not have much patience for these masquerades anymore.”

“You seem upset. And you kept working for them?” I asked as the airlock let us go through and a magnetic pavement was to be found again. “I mean… the Alliance.”

“Purges are not as evil as producing fake contracts on innocent people to supply the market during periods of scarcity,” he laughed.

“Offer and Demand mixed with the privatization of Justice,” I said. “A very toxic cocktail.”

“Indeed. But to answer your question: a man has got to eat.”

He had a point. As the whole system already despised us, even our own corporation could no longer be trusted anymore. Ali and I were definitely alone in this brutal universe.

“But I am being rude. Allow me to introduce myself.” The samurai smiled at us before removing his hat. He was an elderly man covered with deep red scars, each with a story to tell. “My name is Raï. And this robot is F.A.B. From what I understood earlier.”

“Greetings! Finger IDentification Aerial Bot, design F(ID)AB-28, 2 years old, built on Venus and—” started the little robot before the samurai asked it to fly back to the leaky airlock we just left.

“I’m Ali and this is Lee,” my human answered for both of us.

“Yes, I am aware,” Raï said. “I saw your arrival earlier. Your spacecraft looked familiar. I was curious to know who was now piloting this rusty UN vessel.”

“I won’t allow you to insult my ship, ronin!” I hurled.

The samurai apologized. He continued the conversation as we walked through the empty silos of the refinement center. We had to climb mountains of abandoned androids and excavation machines.

At the end of our journey, the FID-reader robot came back to us and made a few loops. The flying can squealed as it was having a panic attack: “Greetings! Jay-Jay Cleaver alias ‘Knives’, Auxiliary #AM-3-23XX-088, slight changes following—”

Footsteps resounded behind us. The pack of Freaks had emerged victorious from the mine shoot-out and was heading towards our retreat. That means that they had taken care of Dynamo… and Dan.

“We have to leave. Now!” Raï ordered, smashing the glass door that separated us from the checkpoint with his augmented fist.

The study was composed of a single locker and a desk once owned by the human engineer responsible for this concession. The entrance to the emergency monopod was hidden under a pile of After Dark magazines. It appeared to be dusty and stuffed with used tissues cemented to the mattress. I had to demonstrate twice the talent to get this flying coffin running again. After securing the access door with Ali, Raï and F.A.B. jumped inside to help me with the last electronic connections.

Sadly, the reinforced gate was no match. The Freak-wolf violently emerged beyond the shattered Plexiglas panel. His body was studded with gunshot wounds already healing beneath the rhodium covering him. With the look of a lunatic, this Frankenstein’s monster aimed at my partner with an improvised harpoon from a drill bit.

“Ali-chan! Come quickly!” alerted the samurai. “You are wasting your time! Knives can regenerate itself!”

“Can he?” said my sapiens, as arrogant as usual.

The alpha wolf threw his weapon which ended up just beside the young woman’s right thigh. A few drops of blood escaped from a superficial wound. She hadn’t flinched and concluded with a shot. The bullet passed through the wolf man’s jaw, pulverizing his fangs.

“Way to go, girl!” I shouted, head out of the monopod to appreciate my human betting up this canis lupus full of fleas.

The Freak howled. But against all odds, the mutant gruesomely tore his mandible off with his own hands. He immediately limped towards our pod after having picked up his cyclops glasses.

“Very well,” sighed my sapiens while rolling up the sleeves of her pink jacket. “Let’s get physical!”

“Ali! Come quickly! I’m afraid that this fellow isn’t in the mood right now!” I shouted.

“I warned you,” the samurai crooned, my rear paws on his forehead.

Once my human on her way back, I huddled between Raï and his flying pet to give her enough room. Ali dived inside, head first, just in time for the warrior to close the steel lid on Knives’s claws.

The monopod immediately dropped into its expulsion chute and ignited its weak reactors. It spun around and didn’t stop before being ejected into space like a torpedo. This would have been the worst place and time in the history of humankind to regurgitate my lunch. Ali, on the verge of nausea, also wavered between white and green. Only Raï seemed to enjoy this moment, his face deeply lost in my partner’s chest.

“Lee? What is he speaking of?” my associate asked me, while the samurai was babbling about something.

“We are safe, now!” cried Raï in a hiccup, struggling to catch his breath.

“Ali?” I said. “Can you request the Kitty to come and pick us up? Now out of the station, you should be able to reach the control computer if we’re within range.”

My copilot nodded, trying to free her left arm trapped between the first aid drawer and the samurai’s body. “Wait… I’m doing what I can,” she grunted. “Sorry Raï, my hand’s stuck under the handle of your sword.”

“Do not worry about it…” Raï apologized, while blushing.

“Are you done with your naughty mischiefs?” I said, kicking the pervert in the nose.

A few minutes later, there was a thud and our monopod was shaken around. Ali then warned us we landed in the Swallow’s airlock.

“Finally, some fresh air!” I sighed as I ran out of this coffin of doom.

“Well done, my friends! Now, it is time to set sail!” shouted the samurai. “Escaping is unfortunately not part of the Purge’s rules.”

“Do you think the Alliance’s monitoring the station? I mean more seriously than just this rude Dungeon Master cursing over the speakerphone?”

As the Kitty stealthily distanced herself, our savior invited me on his shoulder as he walked towards the cockpit. Behind the protective windows slid into the void the asteroid Yoyodyne84 and its sinister mining complex. The immense rock was pulled out of its orbit by two gigantic Hangmen Stellar Destroyers at least a thousand times bigger than a Swallow. On their armor was drawn the coat of arms and the bellicose motto of the Alliance: Crime Does Pay.

“Damn corporations! Bunch of white-collar criminals themselves!” I cursed before sighing under Raï’s sad gaze. “Anyway… farewell to my work on the Cosmic Hum, I guess…”

“The Hum?” the samurai said. “That is why you were ecstatic in front of these singing stones?”

“To begin with, please leave the underwear where you found it,” I replied, biting his hand roaming over the control panel. “Now, to give you a complete answer, we’re trying to understand the origin and this bloody buzzing’s mode of transmission.”

“Oh? A few people know the secret of the Mellifluous Caverns. These rest within hidden asteroids,” Raï specified to us. “They do not produce sounds, but strange electromagnetic waves amplified by the rhodium. In the vacuum, the hulls of the ships transform it into an unbearable roar that is clearly perceptible when the systems are on pause.”

“Perfect!” I grumbled. “All I have to do now is winch all these giant pebbles straight towards the sun and I’ll be able to sleep in peace!”

Shortly afterwards, the samurai led us to his spacecraft, subtly hidden in the crater of a meteorite a few minutes’ flight from Yoyodyne84. His ship was an Oda-97, an antique even older than the Kitty; a Japanese-built starfighter, from a time when the former United Nations was in charge of the Medium System—just after the Last War. As incredible as it may seem, he certified that he had reached the station without a suit nor his vessel.

Ali had joined us mid-conversation with a towel around her waist after taking a quick shower. Raï then heavily insisted on having dinner with us.

“I see that you created your own setup,” our guest said after meticulously inspecting the cockpit. “I can understand how a tomcat could fly a Swallow.”

I jumped back on my seat, happy to give him a tour. “Satori, a friend, helped me out on Titan,” I answered while skimming the dashboard’s keys. “This ship is the legacy of Ali’s father, Félix. She was all rusted and a lot of work needed to be done as she spent decades collecting dust in a barn. Yet, we were able to save her!”

“You did a great job. This spacecraft has a long history—a long and sad history.”

I frowned at him. “How can you tell?”

Raï smiled while carefully brushing the top edge of the lateral CRT. “Memories. Emotions. Blood. It is all around us. Can’t you feel it?”

Alright. That was spooky. And this Toshiro Mifune was unquestionably crazy. “I had my share with the Hum,” I said. “I don’t want to feel any other emotions, blood or whatever you’re talking about.”

“Fair enough. Rehashing the past is never a good thing.”

Behind us, Ali surprised us by violently opening up a beer, splashing foam all over my seat. “Look at these depressing fucks!” she yelled. “We survived the Purge! Cheers, guys!”

“Indeed!” Raï agreed. “Kanpai!”

 

After a long night of stories, dirty jokes and an abysmally bad karaoke session, the samurai had finally disappeared into the cosmos. Our companion of misfortune had left us a trinket as a souvenir: one of the ivory pearl bracelets he wore on his wrist.

“There’s only one nutjob in this system to fly an Oda. And without a control computer,” Ali said, wrapped in the bed cover like a burrito. “This Kumo Raïda was a rad grandpa.”

She startled me.

“Kumo Raïda? The Kumo Raïda? The former #4 of the Alliance? How did you recognize him?” I asked as I abruptly emerged from the floating pile of empty sake bricks and squashed bags of nutrigel shrimp chips. “I’m so stupid!”

It was true that I hadn’t had the reflex to check the full identity of this sicko on the Alliance’s register. But it would have been useless as the top hunters didn’t figure on it.

“The flying popcorn machine snitched on him last night while you were butchering ABBA’s and Kim Wan-sun’s repertoire,” my sapiens confided to me.

“Greetings!” cried the annoying F.A.B. as it escaped from a cereal box.

 

Back to business!