by J M Thomas
Blade gave a slow nod.
“I make things, illegal, high-value things. I don’t sell them for profit, only as favors. This means most of the time, I’ll be silent as a mouse, tinkering away in my room and not bothering you at all. But there will probably come a time…”
He paused, seeming to search for phrasing. “When somebody’ll come in here looking for trouble, and that trouble will be me.”
“You’re the locket-maker.” I said, eyes widening as I pulled the one off my wrist and dangled it in front of his face.
“Ahh, yes, the heart. Cuts through the heart of the system—the machine.” Heydin fingered it for a moment before returning it.
“And the star is…?” I asked.
Heydin winced. “The one she stole…”
Blade clapped him on the shoulder with his massive hand. “You’ll be happy to know it’s in excellent Ehksmian hands. Defending the resistance.”
“Yes, good.” Heydin brightened as he nodded. “And they’re the stars of it all. I made that one for them.”
An idea lodged itself in my cranium. I knew a shining star, one who had sacrificed too much for her cause. “So, for rent, how long would it take you to rebuild a damaged download file for transfer into a synth unit?”
“Human or Ehksmian?” Heydin asked before Blade could cut in with some jibe about how I’d never be fixable.
“Ehksmian.” I swallowed hard, imagining the look on Marsha’s face when I showed her the result.
Heydin looked puzzled. “A few months as a hobby; a few weeks if it was urgent. I could do it for the first cycle’s rent.”
“Done. Oh, one more thing. What payment would you require for another one of those trinket thingies? Maybe a proximity sensor that could be grafted into a useless spinal implant?”
Heydin’s grin turned positively wicked. “You’d need to blow some shit up.”
Blade groaned, rocking his chair back on two legs. “Oh, you two are gonna get along just fine. I’m gonna be outnumbered up in here, the only voice of reason between two knuckleheads.”
“You’ve got the room,” I said, reaching over the table to shake Heydin’s hand. “And I’m about to figure out how to make a fireball over the SynthCorp HQ.”
As the young man bounded upstairs to check out the spare room, Blade turned to me and grinned.
“What?” I asked.
“Ya know, Heydin here is a true dystopian hero. Taking down the establishment one enabling device at a time. Lila’s his archenemy—that makes us the comic relief sidekicks.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I said through my grin.
The bar stayed moderately full the whole evening, and I was downright tuckered out by the time the door closed behind the last buzzed patron. Unfortunately, Blade’s mind was still a steel trap, and he hadn’t forgotten to take me sightseeing to tell me how wrong I was.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, disembarking from the levcar and stretching my arms above my head.
“First, a couple ground rules.” Blade put up his index finger and opened his mouth to enumerate.
“What is this, a special schooling field trip just for Jet?” I inhaled a deep breath of river water scent, stagnant and likely growing lots of green slimy things next to the path we’d taken.
“Shh.” Blade flicked at my cheek to shush me. “One, what you see does not get repeated or even hinted to anyone for any reason, do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as mud.” I squinted at him, barely able to make out much more than his outline in the dark and fog as we walked.
“Second, hold your breath. You’ll need it this time.” With that, he pushed me into the river.
Despite an almost overwhelming desire to open my mouth and protest him gumming up my new implant, I held my breath as I hit the brackish water. A school of tiny, silvery fish dodged out of the way, one brushing my fingertips as I scooped the water to pull myself forward.
The riverbed seemed to drop out beneath us. Blade caught up easily, swimming slightly ahead of me to show the way. It wasn’t necessary; I could see just fine what he’d elected to finally show me.
An entire underwater city, bigger than the one I’d just left, with networks and causeways, all of Ehksmian bubble tech and construction. The network looked like ten thousand glowing eggs, each one with tiny Ehksmians swimming in and out. As far as my eyes could see, all the way out to the ocean and beyond, the Ehksmians engaged in trade, worked, grew, and lived their lives.
I wanted to stay down there, gazing at that magnificent sight, but my servos eventually grew sluggish from the lack of power replenishment and we had to kick our way back to the shore.
“You see?” Blade asked as if I could have not seen. “As soon as they got wind of what was going on, most of the Ehksmians just declared the land to be off-limits. A few clutches, the ruling families looking to atone for their grave error, sacrificed themselves to watch over the ones who’d been assimilated already. The resistance slowly dwindled to the SynthCorp initiative.
“Our little gesture may not have brought down the whole conglomerate, but it convinced them to leave the rest of this place alone. Marsh and Marsha will come up with a way to return their brethren.” Blade’s gaze met mine full on and he grinned. “But there are a lot more loose ends on Ehksmis Prime than you thought, waiting just beneath the waters.”
Relief washed over me so hard I had to laugh, or I’d cry. “I’m gonna have to source more beer.”
“Damned straight you are. And these bastards like kelp in their beer. It’s gonna stink to high heaven.”
For once, I couldn’t be happier to hear it.
Epilogue
It’s damn hard to find vacation time, especially since these bodies take actual repair every six weeks to keep them performing at the kind of parameters that get you yelled at by mechanics. We’ve made it a contest, and so far I’m ahead of Blade by three instances of obscene language and one look of horror at the sight of the damage I’ve incurred to my body.
My secret? Telling the front desk that I’m fine with the super green resident mechanics using me as a learning experience. Last time I went in, one even developed an eye twitch when he saw how far down I’d ground my brand-new ball joints. Not those, the actual socket ones, like my hips and shoulders. In a few months, I’ll have the place pre-ordering my rotator cuffs before I even show up.
Believe me when I say that, by the time we managed to scrape together a few days to find someplace quiet to visit, it’d been a hot minute.
The very idea of going on a vacation to Andromeda was enough to get Blade’s man panties in a bind. He’d packed the trunk of the levcar to the gills and was sitting on the lid trying to get it to close when I tossed my duffel bag in the back seat then took my place in the driver’s chair.
He was in fine form for sure. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t planning to sleep back there. Can’t recline your seat worth shit with a bag up your ass.”
“If you’d left me room in the trunk, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the back end of the car, which I was almost certain was bulging outward in an attempt to accommodate Blade’s ridiculous packing.
Blade grinned, clearly proud of himself. “I applied what you might call excessive force to get the damned thing closed.”
“Well, when you’re done crowing about it, we’ll get going.”
“A man has to take pride in his work, Jet. This was a game of Tetris in three dimensions. I fit eight cubic feet of bare necessities into six cubic feet of space.”
“I don’t think that’s physically possible.” I laughed, thrilled that he’d managed to do the unit conversion into our old way of thinking. It was a nice touch, and he’d probably done it for my sake.
Blade took his seat with a huff and input the destination coordinates before shutting his door. “It’s possible if you’re determined enough.”
“Bring your toothbrush?”
A
look of horror crossed his face as I laughed and pressed the launch button. “Too late now.”
We rocketed toward the actual rocket, waiting far too long in the queue before the dock manager finally waved us ahead to attach the car to the slender, metallic body. I was sure there was a sex joke in there somewhere, but I decided to let Blade make it. He was more inclined.
Blade had already broken into the snacks and was fastidiously collecting every crumb when the force of the launch drove his doughnut packet into his chest and showered us with vitamin-enriched powdered sugar topping.
“You seem mighty quiet.” Blade commented through the powder cloud.
“Just savin’ up for when we get there.” I forced a smile. “Border patrol’s gonna have our asses.”
Blade seemed to be debating whether to take the bait or not. “And why is that?”
“Cause you’ve gone and opened a bag of crack all over the car.” I snickered.
“I got buddies on Andromeda intake. We’ll be just fine, don’t you worry. They know the near side of a doughnut when they see one.”
True to his word, we did indeed hit Andromeda with no troubles at all. Navigating palm-lined sandy roads and miles of terraformed beaches, we wound our way toward our destination. The sunset was splashing reds and oranges all over the damned place by the time we disembarked and stretched our legs.
The little beach villa wasn’t much to speak of, but it really didn’t have to be. There weren’t hurricanes here, buses stopped by several times a day, and the touristy environment meant easy commodities and restaurant strips were a few minutes’ ride away. Outside, one occupied hammock swung gently in the breeze.
“Get off my lawn!” a gravelly, tough old voice called from the confines of the hammock. “You whippersnappers better mind me, now!”
“Can’t. You done raised us wrong!” I called out, a smile spreading across my face.
There was a general kerfuffle of hammock folds as the fellow struggled to a seated position, his head poking up out of the fabric nest, revealing a baseball cap still pulled low over his eyes to block out the sun.
“Well, I’ll be! Blade, the two-point-ohs finally decided to come pay their grandpappies a visit! Damn if you two ain’t lookin’ fine. Come on in!” He shuffled with a considerable hitch in his step, but managed to get his sandals on and show us the ten meters down the path to the weathered front door.
When he reached it, Old Jet banged his fist on the wood with a derisive sniff. “Old codger’s deaf on the left and hard of hearing on the right. It’s on account of never shutting up, ya see. Gotta sleep outside to get some peace and quiet around here.” He shook his finger at my Blade as if he was somehow at fault.
The door swung open with a creak, and Original Blade’s dark, deeply-lined face crinkled into a toothy grin. “Well, if it ain’t the younguns! Come on in and get a taste of some real fine pineapple and beer!”
Old Jet let out a harumph. “And you over here glistening like a mirrored-glaze chocolate truffle cake.”
“Don’t you be that way.” Elder Blade swatted at him with a swing of his long arm. “I swear to God, Jet, you gon’ make me drool all over myself.”
The crinkly Blade tossed a stack of magazines in the corner, then gently moved a few thick tomes of inter-galactic philosophy to their places on the shelf above the ornamental fireplace. The place looked every bit like you’d expect a pair of retired old bachelors to keep it—dusty, mismatched, and well-worn.
A flamingo lamp with a hula skirt had a prominent place in one corner of the room. The windowsills were strewn with a haphazard arrangement of sea glass and driftwood. A pair of facing wicker couches both had slightly different shapes of sag in the pillows.
It was perfect.
Old Jet wasted no time putting four bottles of ice cold beer on the worn bamboo table and a large bowl of cut fruit. Blade and I didn’t even have to say anything for the first twenty minutes as the two old codgers bitched and laughed as they carried on.
Finally, Old Blade took the chance of a lull in conversation to clap me on the back with a still-strong hand. “We thought we were goners. Last thing I remembered was loading myself into that synth mainframe, then I woke up here. Ol’ Jet remembers stuff in between, but nothing past making your Testament file. How’d you guys swing this sweet deal?”
“Twasn’t us!” I piped up, smacking my lips at the strong hops. “We just cashed in your pension and bought the cheapest piece of shit Andromeda had to offer, and here we are!”
I received a well-rounded and well-deserved smack to the back of my head for my sass. I didn’t even bother to see which Blade it’d come from. It didn’t really matter.
“And how the hell am I alive?” Old Jet leaned across the table. “I’m not exactly complainin’, but the last thing I remembered was a mean ol’ case of the seizures coming on. Then I wake up right as rain in the kind of hospital that serves cocktail shrimp poolside.”
Blade Two-Point-Oh raised both eyebrows. “I could tell you that, but then I’d have to kill ya.”
“Nah.” I made a swatting motion with one hand and managed to connect with a buzzing fly by sheer luck. “Easy enough. We’re kinda loaded now, actually. Turns out the pecuniary system on Ehksmis Prime is completely broken. Apparently, when you’ve got enough spare change, such things as ‘no detox for this drug’ and ‘potentially lethal seizure activity’ is just a speed bump.”
Old Jet nodded his understanding. “Well, thank you, boys. I can’t say it eno…”
A knock on the door interrupted our little conversation. Swearing under his breath, Old Blade got up to open the door a crack. He whispered a few words, which Blade Two-Point-Oh apparently caught with his enhanced hearing. All I caught was “...back… other time.”
The younger Blade jumped up from his bar stool and swung the door open wide. “Nonsense! We were just heading out for the evening, weren’t we? It was nice to see you, Pops!” He shook his progenitor’s hand firmly, that twinkle in his eye telling me something was up.
Following his lead, I bid my good-evenings and slipped out behind Blade. When we’d made it back to the car, I swiveled my head to ask him, “What was that?”
“Take a wild guess,” he replied, laughing as he strapped himself in.
The beer decided to kick in at that point, nullifying my last remaining brain cell. “It wasn’t ladies…”
“No, you idiot. Customers. They’re taking consulting clients, the clever old bastards.”
“But that’s our shtick!” I faked indignation but couldn’t contain my own raucous guffaw. “Those copycatting old knuckleheads.”
Blade shrugged. “Who knows—maybe we got it from them. Nature is a strong force in psychosocial development…”
“Shut up, Blade,” I said with a grin.
He grinned back. “You know that’s never gonna happen.”
Dear Reader:
Thank you for spending time with Jet and Blade in Loose Ends. I get the feeling their story is just beginning, and that there is so much more in this universe to be discovered!
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I’ve written all sorts of whimsy in sci-fi and fantasy and published some of them. So, if you’re interested in more of my crazy, genre-bending stories, visit my author page here.
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Thanks for joining me for this wild ride!
J. M. Thomas