Chapter 15

Lucas and I never went to parties.

I don’t think we were ever invited, but it wasn’t like we would want to go anyway. The things that made us happy, I thought, were best done between us. Playing video games, watching movies together, those endless nights stargazing, all perfect nights together. We didn’t need to be a part of the in-crowd to feel happy, we had each other. Parties? Dance floors? The music was too loud. The other kids were too rowdy. It was something I never once cared to experience even after high school, and I thought he felt the same way. Which is why I was so surprised that he was more than happy to be in front of the imposing nightclub venue before us.

The entrance seemed to protrude from the wall of the station like a bad growth, a throbbing hulk of metal grafted on at the last minute by a welder too worried about getting home to do a good job. Instead of paint, there were more ads, because of course there were, each for a different alien creature. If I had to guess I’d say these were DJ’s or dancers who were either slated to be there, or had been there before. They served as the club’s decor, a resume of fun that was promised within. And if that didn’t catch your attention, the thumping music was sure to. It filtered out of a large pink door that clashed with the grease and oil of Critwell. Above it was a large dot matrix sign that had the number 378 displayed on it next to a column of different languages announcing the name. At the very bottom I could read in plain English,  days since last…. Accident

Lucas was using a nearby shop window as a mirror to double check his hair. He even took some lipstick from his belt and applied a fresh coat of purple. Krazmundo and I were watching different creatures walk in and out of the club. I was half-paying attention, as my mind was more focused on how I acted back at Eli’s.

“Why was I so weird back there?” I said.

“Pheromones.” Krazmundo said, “Pagonics can secrete them from their bodies to cause calming effects. Eli likes to keep his cranked up to eleven.”

“Is that why you covered your nose?” I said, “to keep yourself from being too easy on him?”

“No. That shit smells awful,. I told you. I can’t stand it.”

“No it didn’t.”

“To you maybe.”

“Well why would it smell different to me?”

“Because-” Lucas chimed in as he walked up between us, “it only works on people who would find him attractive.”

“That- no- I didn’t find him attractive. Maybe it was Jendrak.” I said, “Yeah yeah Jendrak was there too she might have been doing that pheromone thing.”

“Oh hon.” Lucas said, and put a hand on my shoulder. I pushed him off.

“That’s what was happening! Jendrak was trying to calm me down after the Drex incident, she just was so close to Eli we thought it was him.”

“Okay sure I’ll believe you,” he said, “but we’ll see how calm you are after seeing your first mesh top on a chisled chest.” He put his lipstick away, “you sure you don’t want to grab some proper club clothes?”

Like I had a choice? All I had to wear out here was my plain black work shirt and a black pair of jeans. I was representing Movie Country even in space.

“We’re not here to dance, Lucas.” I said. “Besides, I hate these things.”

“Aw come on, we’re here! We might as well party a little bit.”

I pointed at the timer on my wrist, “We don’t have a little bit! We need to get in, trade that sphere, and get out. Right Krazmundo?”

“Since when am I on your side?” Krazmundo said. He had the Sphere fastened to the belt across his chest, “if babe wants to dance, babe dances.”

I scowled, “I figured you’d want to get this over with the most.”

“Yeah but-” Krazmundo pointed at the door, “That’s a phat beat if I ever heard one.”

I knew he was messing with me, but there wasn’t anything I could do. “Fine. Then you do it.” I put the flash drive that held our signal in Lucas’s hand, “since you two are so eager to dance.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be a lot more fun with you there.” Lucas said.

“No no no. I’m putting this on you. If you waste too much time dancing and our planet explodes, well that’s just your fault isn’t it?”

“You stubborn little monkey.” Lucas said. “You’re telling me you’d risk the safety of Earth just because you’re afraid of a dancefloor?”

“I’m not afraid of a dancefloor!” I said, “I just-”

“Woah! Cassie?! Is that you?!”

Lucas’s spine seemed to tingle as the words echoed down the street. We all looked behind him to see a strange globulous form seep out from the crowd. Its body rippled like gelatin, a yellow blob with three eyes that seemed to float irrespective of the direction it was moving. Lucas stepped back as the creature neared. One of the eyes rose and brought the body up to meet him at eye-level. In that opaque stretch I could see pieces of some type of food still being digested at its center. The two eyeballs seemed to be absorbing pieces of its nutrients between them, while a thin stretch of it followed the eye currently looking at Lucas.

Lucas squealed, “Hey! Bedaup! What are you doing here, you  crazy S.O.B.?”

“What am I doing here?! What are you doing here?!” The creature said in a giggly bass voice. When he spoke, I saw a mouth form at different spots in his body. Once it was near the top, and then near his bottom, like it couldn’t make up its mind where it wanted to be. “Last time I saw you it ended in a back alley game of 4D chess and a missing hand!” As the sentence finished, the mouth sank back into the blob, leaving traces of itself in its bubbling body. For a second I could see it following a flow before it disappeared

 “Well hey how the hell are ya?!” Lucas reached out his hand which was met with a sticky one from Bedaup’s stomach, or at least what might have been his stomach. They shook and as Lucas pulled away, bits of Bedaup that would have stuck to him seemed to get up and move back, jumping into the blobs form and melding with it once more.

“Oh you know, can’t complain. A little kill here, a stab there, oh I got held up in a planet’s water cycle the other day.”

“Oh, I bet that was fun.” Lucas said.

“I was forcibly split into hundreds of little droplets until I was finally able to reform on the ground after a powerful slap on several sharp rocks.”

“...oh.”

“It was great! Ha ha!”

“Is that where you lost your fourth eye?”

When he said that, two of Bedaup’s eyes seemed to shudder. A hand formed inside his body and pat one lovingly, “oh there there. Sorry Cassie, 2 and 4 aren’t over 3’s loss yet.”

“I understand. Grief can be pretty heavy.” Lucas said.

“No you don’t.” I said.

One of Bedaup’s eyes drifted over to me, “Oh who’s this?! Another human?!” The eye pulled out into a stalk of slime that wrapped around my back and got up to my face. I could feel my skin crawl as I watched the rest of the body slither around to catch up.

“I’m not a sideshow, you know.” I said.

“You are! Another human! I can’t believe it! Hey, what do you do?”

“I get mad.”

Bedaup just laughed and placed what might be called a hand on my shoulder. “I like this one! Are all humans as fiery as you two?”

“Knock it off, dripstain.” Krazmundo said, and Bedaup’s attention was drawn to him. He spiraled up and around to Krazmundo’s face.

“Kraz! Buddy! Almost didn’t see you there! How are-”

“You owe me two hundred credits.”

Bedaup recoiled without another word and slipped across the ground back to Lucas. One of his eyes rolled on the ground for a second before it was scooped up by the slime once more. “You know, not to be ‘that blob’ but I swear I saw the new guy over there on the lists earlier. Isn’t he, like, the most wanted thing in the Five Galaxies?”

I hunkered down, “I uh think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“Easy pal, I’m not after you.”

“You aren’t?” Lucas said.

“No! No! Of course not, why would I go after one of my best friends best friends? That sort of thing is bad for business, you know.”

Lucas pulled some hair from his eyes, “Then who’s the mark?”

“Mark? What mark?”

“Come on. You’re for someone right?”

“Oh nobody!” Bedaup said, “I’m on vacation right now baby! Why else would I be on Critwell? Hey!”

He pulled around and spread himself behind us, doing his best to clasp me and Lucas into one semi-hug. “Why don’t we go to the Club and kick back some drinks, huh? They still talk about that time you did three Mudballs in ten seconds.”

I spoke up, “Actually we’re looking for-”

“Supplies.” Lucas said, stepping on my sentence, “We’re gonna be taking a detour or two before we turn him in.”

That made Bedaup get off, “Woah, you’re actually turning him in? Do humans just stab each other in the back like that all the time?”

“Yeah basically.” He said, “but since he’s never been off planet we thought we’d give him a little tour before booting him to the Tangerians.” He looked over to me and raised his brow. I realized what he was getting at.

“Yeah yup. That’s me, I’m a threat. Lucas even tried to cuff me earlier but I broke out.”

“Wow really?” Bedaup said with a lopsided grin. “Wh- Who’s Lucas?”

“Oh he didn’t tell you?” I said, “I knew Lucas before-”

Lucas jumped in front of me, “Hey how about the club huh? Matt’s been saying so much about how he wanted to go dancing before he was locked up in the slammer. He’s been dying to get out on the floor.”

He served the sentence with a death glare, “Ain’t that right, buddy?”

I bit my lip. Shit.

“Yeah… sure have. Can’t wait to hit that groove.”

Spoken with all the excitement of taking a math test. Bedaup didn’t seem to notice, he just grabbed our hands before hollering, “Woo! Party time baby! Let’s gooooo!!!!!”

His grip was burning. The skin on my hand was hot where he was wrapped around it. I pulled myself out and stumbled back to bump into Krazmundo who just pushed me forward, “Get moving party boy.”

“I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you?” I said.

“Only a little.”

I looked up to Lucas. His gloves made it so whatever Bedaup was made from didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, nothing seemed to be bothering him. He was chatting it up with Bedaup like nothing had just happened. What had I done? Called him by his right name, that’s all. I would have started something, but my thoughts were already being overpowered by the music that pulled us into the club doorway. As we entered, an imposing looking creature, the bouncer I guessed, stopped us and chattered to Lucas in an alien tongue. He just responded back and crushed a wad of cash into its hand. The bouncer chittered and stepped aside, allowing us through. One by one, we sunk into the darkness. As I passed the bouncer, I did my best not to look into its bug-like eyes,but it was daring for mine. I hurried up next to Krazmundo, he grunted, clearly annoyed.

The passageway turned, and my senses were immediately overtaken by a barrage of insane lights. We were dwarfed by a large tower that was the centerpiece of a dancefloor that felt like it went on forever. Dancers and drinkers alike moved in a wave of motion, their bodies casting shadows against us. Platforms floated above us carrying other dancers that were lost in the music I could only describe as undiscovered. They were drifting around the tower, which itself was rotating as arms poked from its silhouette, tapping buttons on itself and exchanging discs in different slots. I followed the madness upwards where it seemed an entire second level was just waiting to be explored. It made me dizzy, so I directed my attention to the others. Lucas was already swaying his hips to the beat. Bedaup made a move to dance with him, which he sidestepped in favor of Krazmundo. He wasn’t exactly into the beat as much as Lucas was, but he nodded his head and bounced along enough to make Lucas giggle.

It made me sick.

“Okay!” I shouted, my voice barely more than a whisper in this noise, “We know what we need to do, right?”

“Of course!” Lucas said, “dance until we die, baby! Bedaup! Why don’t you go get some of those mudballs we talked about? Extra for Matt!”

Bedaup shouted back right as the music swelled, “You think he can handle it?!”

“You kidding? This guy drinks all the time!”

“You don’t have to tell him that!”

“Ten mudballs coming up!”

Bedaup slipped into the crowd. Well, more like he squeezed, I guess, causing more than a couple of the other dancers to shout out at him.

Lucas roped his arm around me and pulled me into a huddle with Krazmundo. “Alright, we’ve got maybe ten minutes.” He said, “we need to get across this dance floor and make it to the DJ Tower at the center.”

“I can make it there no problem, if you don’t mind a few busted heads.” Krazmundo said.

“That would draw too much attention, I think. Besides, I really don’t want to get kicked out of here again.”

“Why can’t we just go around the crowd?” I said, “just like prom.”

“You went to prom?” Lucas shouted.

“Mom made me go to try and get my mind off of you. I mostly stood by the snack table. But I had to get around the dance floor for the bathroom sometimes.”

“Well it’s hard to walk around something when the target is the center.” Lucas said, “We’re just gonna have to dance through.”

“And what about Bedaup?” Krazmundo said, “If he comes back here and we’re gone he’ll start looking for us.”

“I thought he said he wasn’t after me.” I said.

“And you trust that?” Krazmundo said, “Matt, he’s a bounty hunter. You can’t trust any of us.”

“Except for me.” Lucas beamed, “He’ll look for you first, Kraz. You stick out. Stake out an area far away from Matt and I, that’ll buy us some time.”

“Got it.” he nodded. They looked to me for any rebuttal, but I had no real choice but to follow the plan. I nodded and we separated to our posts. Krazmundo started marching deeper into the side bars. Even in the dim light, I could always see his faint shape no matter how far he got. That was good, at least, gave us some bearings. Lucas led me by the hand and we were standing at the edge of the dance floor. It was like looking at an ocean, and every dancer was another wave. Lucas stepped into it and began dancing with the rhythm of the song. He held out his hand, “come on Matt! Let your hair down!”

I tried to dip my toe in, but the sight of all those dancers made my stomach sink. The flashing lights hit me in time with the bizarre music, dizzying me more. I stepped back and closed my eyes, doing my best to just focus in on the darkness.

“No, go ahead!” I said, “I-I’ll just find Krazmundo. Even if Bedaup shows up, I should be safe!”

I felt his hand at my shoulder and opened my eyes. “You just need to dance, you can dance right?”

“No!” I said.

“Great, neither can anyone else!” He pushed me forward. My feet skidded toward the edge of the dance floor. Once again he took the first dip, only this time he held out his hand for me to follow. Shaking, I took it and slowly stepped down with him. My breath was shaking, my spine tingling. I could feel an attack on the rise, but when I tried to articulate it all that came out was a nervous “d-dance uh-”

He said something in response, but it was drowned out by the crowd around us. My eyes darted around the room. Lights flashing, mirrors sparkling, drinks being drunk and kisses planted. The darkened colors began to swirl and my breath became more and more shallow. This was supposed to be fun? It was more like a torture. Every inch of this place seemed designed to destroy one of my senses. The sight of the deafening lights, the smell of the bitter liquors, the sound of the blinding music, all of it was just too much. Too much. I needed to leave, I needed to run out and never look back I-

“Hey, Matt.”

Lucas. He was close enough I could hear him again, and he was looking at me with the calmest eyes. He held on to me, “Just look at me, okay?” He was dancing, a light bop in the middle of this crowd. And I found myself following his orders and staring at him, only at him. He nodded, “That’s the way. Now come on, we just gotta dance a little. You can do that, right? Just follow me.”

I tried to imagine his old body in place of this new one dancing with me, but the pieces weren’t meshing right. I wanted to place my hand on his flat chest, or graze the stubble of an unshaven cheek, but I knew it wouldn’t feel like any of that at all. That should have been just fine, I knew it should have, but my brain was fighting me. I always wanted to dance with Lucas, but the way it was turning out was wrong. All wrong. I tried to control my breathing and just dance like he was, slowly, methodically.

A light step here, a little jump there. We were dancing and carefully advancing deeper and deeper into the crowd. I think I bumped into someone, and they did to me, but it didn’t really matter. Out here everyone was kind of bumping into everyone, and besides I knew who I was with. He smiled and started to move around a little more. I responded in kind with a couple free movements of my own, and before I knew it he had let go of me. I was dancing, actually dancing. I did a little twirl and a smile dared to creep into my cheeks. Lucas laughed and did a slightly more technical twirl in response.

Suddenly the music began to make sense to me, and the lights followed after. It was like everything was vibrating on the same frequency, and now I too was a part of the wave. Was I having fun? Was this what that felt like? A particularly groovy melody played and I actually took a second to let my body just feel through it. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t really care. I looked to Lucas who was cheering me on, and I realized that a couple different dancers had taken notice of my little break down. I almost stopped, feeling warm from embarrassment, but a few of them cried out, egging me on.

What could I do? I kept dancing, letting their cheers feed me. Soon enough one of the creatures jumped out to join me. He was covered in brown and white fur, almost dog-like in his shape. He was shirtless, and I couldn’t help but notice how in shape he was. His moves almost matched mine, though neither of us were very choreographed. I did my best to match his energy, but he was clearly on another level. He had a toothy grin, and scowled at me with yellow eyes. I felt my face get hot and looked to Lucas for help, but he was just enjoying the dance.

Was- was this flirting? With some strange creature? No, it- I mean- I wanted to flirt I think but I didn’t understand why. My brain felt split. I was supposed to be dancing like this with Lucas, in his own body with his own voice. But he was only beside me, wearing all the wrong skin. And this thing I was with, wether or not it was human it was clearly male. Right? That was how I needed-

In a flash of a second I could see the face of my father staring at me from across the room. His body was gulped up by the crowd, but those burning eyes remained.

No son of mine is going to be a fag.

I looked back to the alien dancer, who by now was rocking his hips in time with the song. He reached out a clawed hand, seemingly asking for mine. I felt my body harden, and whatever joy I was feeling suddenly stopped. My breath clogged my throat. What the Hell was I doing?! I fell back into the crowd and pushed my way through scores of other dancers, with nothing more on my mind then getting away. I could hear Lucas calling out behind me, but I didn’t care. I suddenly needed to get out before it was too late. What exactly was it? I knew but didn’t want to know. I pushed back against the wave, gasping for air, uncaring who I pushed into or how they yelled at me. I kept on until I was forced to stop by the blue-green glow of the DJ Tower.I took a moment, in the light of the massive spinning construct, overcome by the brightness as it pulsed with every beat. It was so much taller than it had seemed before, I felt two inches tall in comparison. And yet, the oppressive glow was warm. I leaned over the banister that was set up around it and was able to catch my breath if only for a moment.

Lucas leapt out from the crowd behind me. He got beside me and caught his breath, “Jesus… what the hell was that about?”

“N-nothing.” I said, “I just uh… noticed we were close.”

“I’ll say. Dude was really into you.” Cass said. “Didn’t know you had it in ya.”

“No! I mean, the- the DJ Tower we were close to the DJ Tower.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I said, “So, how do we play the song?”

“Hang on, you liked that guy didn’t you?”

“Lucas. Stop.”

“Lemme go back and get his number.”

“Will you stop joking around?” I said, “This is serious!”

“I am being serious! Maybe after all this is over we could set up a double date!” 

I almost responded, when a single eye on the end of a pneumatic arm pushed out from the Tower. It was accompanied by a monotone electronic voice, “all dancers must remain dancing approximately five feet away from the Tower. Please step away and get down with your bad selves.”

“Actually we had a question.” I said, pointing to Lucas, “we have a song we need to play, it’s on this flash drive.” He got out the drive and held it up to the eye.

“Yeah and make it quick, there’s a guy he wants to talk to.” He said. I ignored it.
“We do not take requests for music.” The eye said, “our automated system is designed so that each dancer's needs is accounted for across a wide arrange of genres, subgeneres, and the occasional niche indie band. To play a request would offset the algorithm.”

I took the flash drive from Lucas and shoved it in the eye’s- er- eye. “ Listen disco dud, we’ve been out here for far too long as it is. Just play this one song and forget about it, that’s all we’re asking.”

“What is the song?”

“It’s- uh- um.-”

“If you do not even know the song which you are playing this DJ can only assume it is the most basic trash you can think of and we will not be subjecting our dancers to anything they will not like.”

A harsh beat boxed my eardrums,“Well you’re too late for that.” I said.

“Go back to the dance floor. Scrub.” The eye retracted and the DJ Tower continued spinning, a flurry of arms and flipping discs.

I groaned, “great. Now how are we supposed to get this to play?”

Lucas stroked his chin, “well… there is another way. But you’re not gonna like it.”

“What?”

“I managed to do it once, but I was considerably more drunk that time and only remember like three seconds of it.”

“Lucas, tell me.”

He pointed up at the tower, “we climb.”