by Jake Bible
“Can I call him Baron von Flip-Flop?”
“No!”
“Duke Thong?”
“Thong?” Bill asked. “Like underwear?”
“Nah, some folks call flip-flop sandals thongs,” Rage said. “You ever been to California?”
“Nope,” Bill said. “But if they wear underwear on their feet, then maybe I should visit.”
“Maybe you should,” Rage said and returned his attention to Scutter. “Prince Birkenstock?”
“They’ll never find your body, Max,” Scutter said.
“Fair enough,” Rage replied. “But you still haven’t answered my question? Who’s watching him now?”
“He’s occupied,” Scutter replied.
“Occupied? How?” Rage asked.
“He’s getting autographs,” Scutter said.
“What does this guy do that makes him so famous that people want his autograph?” Rage asked. “And who’s watching his ass?”
“No, he is collecting autographs,” Scutter said. “From the Scorchers.”
“Really? Why?” Rage asked.
“It’s his thing, dude,” Rasco said.
“Come on,” Scutter said. “We’re taking over from the Earth Corp guards in an hour. We should hurry.”
“Hurry? We have an hour,” Rage said.
“Have you ever tried to navigate the boulevard on Mars, dude?” Rasco asked. “It’s hell during Scorching Dude’s off-season. Now? With the troupes here? We’ll be lucky if we get there in time.”
“Then I should grab another of these,” Rage said and snagged a second dual plasma, laser-guided hot rocket launching, never-empty Axis combat rifle.
“How will that get us there faster?” Rasco asked.
“It won’t,” Rage said. “I just want two.”
“Oh my God, this is so awesome!” Choosper exclaimed. “Someone pinch me!”
“No!” Scutter snapped at Rage as he was about to slam a fist into the Kalanip’s face. “She said pinch, not punch.”
“Easy mistake,” Rage said and shrugged.
Nine
Once upon a time, on a planet much like Earth…
Okay, it was Earth.
Anyhoo, once upon a time, a bunch of folks decided to set up camp in the middle of the desert, in the state of Nevada.
The folks had a great time at camp and wanted to do it again the next year. Flash forward several decades and some of those same folks, now joined by a lot more folks, turned glow stick bikinis and the barter system into high art.
They also burned a big wooden man at the end of the festival. Scratch that. At the end of the event.
There was considerably more to it, including a lot of casual sex and various hallucinogens, but in the end, the event became so big that it needed its own planet.
How could it get its own planet?
In stepped Earth Corp. They wanted to buy the event and fully fund it.
But it could not be sold since it was not owned.
Being a highly successful, galactic corporation with zero soul and no taste whatsoever, Earth Corp decided to copy the event.
Scorching Dude was born.
Then Scorching Dude died because no one from the original event wanted to attend an event on a whole other fucking planet that was corporately owned. Screw that shit, right?
So, about to lose a few trillion credits, Earth Corp slyly removed their name from all documents, wiped their hands of the entire planet-wide event, and walked away. Then they nuked the desert where the original event was held and forced all those nice folks to find a new venue.
How nice of them…
It sure was lucky that a new venue existed, even though it was on a whole other planet, and that venue had just been abandoned by Earth Corp, right? RIGHT?
Folks felt like they were sticking it to the Man. Power to the people…
Of course, as soon as Scorching Dude became a massive hit amongst the culturally intelligent beings of the galaxies, and the event was so far along, not to mention now all year long, Earth Corp popped its snake head up out of the sand and shouted, “Surprise! We still own this! Aren’t we cool?”
No one thought they were cool, but no one was willing to admit they had been duped, so everyone played along like they had always known and were only ironically enjoying Scorching Dude. Which, to be honest, wasn’t any different than before because, let’s face it, there’re only like six or seven beings that really, truly enjoy Scorching Dude and the rest are all fronting.
Rage could smell the fronting, as well as the various bodily fluids that were just randomly sprayed and scattered everywhere, as soon as he set foot on the boulevard.
“Jesus Christ,” Rage said and jammed two fingers inside his nostrils. “That spunk has gone off. Can someone call a fucking janitor and clean this shit up?”
“There are no janitors!”
“Janitors are the new CEOs!”
“Clean it up yourself!”
“Look out! Fresh load comin’ at ya!”
“Ha! Fresh load!”
“The pun was comin’, man!”
“Not yet! Wait a second!”
Scutter snatched the rifle out of Rage’s hands before he could fire on the jabbering crowd. She snatched the second rifle just as quickly.
“No shooting the Scorchers,” Scutter said. “Unless you can justify… Unless you can legally, without a doubt, justify the shooting, then let the beings party and enjoy themselves no matter how annoyed you get.”
“You realize what you’re asking?” Rage replied.
“You realize you don’t have a choice?” Scutter snapped.
“I always have a choice,” Rage said.
“Max…”
“Fine. All killings must be legally, without a doubt, justified,” Rage said with an exaggerated pout. “Happy?”
“If I hand you your weapons, are you going to just ignore what I said and start shooting?”
“No…?”
“Max!”
“Fine! No! I will not start shooting. Fucking A…”
Scutter handed Rage one of his rifles. He waited patiently until she handed him the second one. Then he slammed the butts of both into the closest, most annoying Scorchers he could reach. They dropped like sacks of wet cement.
“Didn’t shoot them,” Rage snapped before Scutter could yell at him.
The crowd around Rage and the others booed for a few seconds, but moved on quickly. There was just too much to do at Scorching Dude and no one wanted to miss out on any of it.
“Max?” Scutter asked.
“What?” Rage replied, glaring at Scutter, daring her to go for him.
“You know that guy?” Scutter asked and pointed down the boulevard.
A Clickelack was jumping up and down and waving excitedly at Rage.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Rage mumbled, not in the mood for Grup’s crap.
Then a stabbing pain ripped through Rage’s neck.
“Ow! What the fuck?” Rage whipped about and Scutter stood there with an injector gun in her hand and a very satisfied smile on her face. “You did not just plant an inhibitor in my neck. No you fucking didn’t.”
“This is Earth Corp property,” Scutter said, gesturing to everything in sight. “Even some of these beings are owned and planted by Earth Corp in order to make this the best, most profitable experience, possible. If you fuck this up, then Earth Corp will end my contract. Do you know what happens to resurrected beings when their contracts are ended?”
“They get a puppy?” Rage asked.
“Oh, what kind of puppy?” Choosper asked from up high, her voice a chirpy bit of good cheer over the comms.
“Dead fucking puppy,” Rage replied.
“Oh,” Choosper said, the cheer gone. “They aren’t fun to play with at all.”
Rage paused and glanced up at the alien. Something about her tone made him wonder if she had first-hand knowledge about playing with dead puppies. Then his eyes went wide. Choosper was nowhere
to be seen.
“They return the resurrected beings to dust,” Scutter continued. She hefted the injector and waved it at Rage. “And if I die, you’re coming with me. Pulse locked.”
“Where’s the horse?” Rage asked, scanning the air above the boulevard.
“Did you hear me, Max?” Scutter snapped. “That’s not an inhibitor in your neck, that’s a detonator. Even your ability to heal instantly won’t save you when your head is blown off.”
“Seriously,” Rage said, turning in circles, his eyes hunting for the Kalanip. “Where the hell is the one-armed freak?”
“Sometimes I think you mean to be hurtful,” Choosper replied over the comms.
“MAX!” Scutter roared.
“Whoa!”
“Harshing the vibes, lady!”
“Shrill much!”
“Who’s Max? Does he have any drugs? I’m out of drugs. I’m sad.”
“What?” Rage asked, returning his attention to Scutter.
“Did you hear anything I said?” Scutter asked.
“Yeah. My head blows up if you die. So don’t die,” Rage replied then went back to looking up. “Is she wearing a cloaking suit?”
“Kalanips can become invisible,” Bill said. “It’s the scales. Basically same as cloaking tech on ships, but biological.”
“You think Kalanips would have survived this long as a race otherwise?” Rasco asked. “You’ve met Choosper. They’re all like that.”
“Huh. Interesting,” Rage said. “Good skill for overwatch. I’m not impressed, but I want to kill her less now.”
“Oh. My. God,” Choosper said. “My heart…”
“Well, that’s enough of that shit,” Rage said and slung one rifle while gripping the other tight in both hands. “Talk to me about this shithole place. What is going on?”
“How do you know so little about Scorching Dude?” Rasco asked. “It’s taken over an entire planet.”
“I was busy wiping out alien races and conquering planets,” Rage said. “Didn’t get much vacation time.”
“We need to hustle,” Bill said. “I’ll clear a path. Rasco, you inform Rage about the scene. That cool, Scutter?”
“That’s cool. Move out,” Scutter replied. “Everyone watch their gear. This place breeds pickpockets and petty thieves.”
“Pickpocket is racist!”
“Who you calling thieves?”
“Earth Corp is the real thief!”
“Hey! Someone stole my dick!”
“Patience?” Rage announced. “Thin. Very thin.”
“Walk and talk, people! Walk and talk!” Scutter ordered.
They moved out through the crowd.
“Everything works on the barter system here,” Rasco explained as the team followed in Bill’s wake.
And he made quite a wake. The boulevard was always jam-packed with beings moving shoulder to shoulder in all directions. But Bill cut a path that kept a nice half-meter margin around the team. Rage admired the way the Jamba worked. Efficient at all times and brutal when needed.
An unlucky Snorpa did not move in time and went sailing through the air to crash land on a shop’s awning. Rage smiled.
“Barter system?” Rage asked Rasco. “I’m seeing credits change hands everywhere.”
“Yeah. Because Earth Corp had the definition of barter changed officially in the dictionary to include the use of currency,” Rasco said.
“That’s just called capitalism,” Rage said.
“Pretty much, dude,” Rasco said. “That’s Earth Corp for ya.”
There were a few hisses from the crowd at the mention of the mega-conglomerate.
“So, fake barter system. Got it,” Rage said. “What’s with all the…glitter? I bounce at a bar and I never see this much glitter. Or booty shorts. Or goggles.” Rage glanced down at his trademark black t-shirt and jeans. “Is there a dress code I don’t know about?”
“It’s tradition carried over from the late 20th century/early 21st century,” Rasco explained.
“Jesus, why would anyone want to carry anything over from then?” Rage asked.
“At least it’s not from the mid-21st century,” Rasco responded.
“Thank God for small fucking miracles,” Rage said. He pointed his chin at a group of especially goggled Scorchers. “Velpoohians wear goggles like that. This a space pirate den too?”
“RACIST!”
“How dare you, sir?”
“Velpoohians? Never, uh, heard of them…”
Rage whipped his rifle around to try to find the being that uttered the last phrase, but it was a useless movement. The crowd was just too thick and too chaotic. Rage realized that his skills maybe weren’t overkill for the job. The place was an assassin’s dream.
“Velpoohians enjoy Scorching Dude as much as everyone else,” Rasco said. “Everyone needs some R&R, dude.”
“But those fucking goggles,” Rage complained. “Always with the goggles.”
“That’s Velpoohians,” Rasco said.
“What else?” Rage asked.
“You ready to go deep?”
“Might as well. Can’t move any faster than we are now. Got plenty of time to kill,” Rage said.
“Time has rights too, asshole!”
“Time killer!”
“Hey! That dick stole my watch!”
“That watch stole my dick!”
“Okay, get started and distract me from wanting to shoot every last moron here,” Rage growled.
Ten
Scorching Dude is planet-wide. Try to picture that, if you can.
Spanning the equator of Mars, is the boulevard. No capital B because Scorchers don’t go for pretension, even though everything about them is the absolute height of pretension, dude.
Follow? Good.
So, off the boulevard are the plazas. They’re every five kilometers. Each plaza is about one-kilometer square. And every plaza has its own personality.
You have Orgy Plaza, Beer Plaza, Wine Plaza, Zima Plaza, White Drugs Plaza, Black Tar Plaza, Rehab Plaza, Sober Plaza, Back In Rehab Plaza, Poetry Plaza, Body Paint Plaza, Improv Plaza, A Cappella Mime Troupe Plaza, 2nd Orgy Plaza, Asexual Orgy Plaza, Startorian Syphilis Plaza, Pomeranian Plaza (best not to ask), LARP Plaza, Punching Faces Plaza (you’d love that one, dude), Dating Plaza, Social Media Plaza, Anti-Social Media Plaza, Goat Plaza, GOAT (all caps) Plaza, Laser Lawn Dart Plaza, Funniest Home Holograms Plaza, Knitting Plaza, and so on and so on.
All told, I believe there are like four thousand plazas, dude. You’ll never visit all of them in your lifetime. Some try, all fail. It’s sad watching the lifers push themselves knowing they don’t stand a chance.
In between the plazas are these stalls and tents and carved out-caves in the natural rock. People that don’t fit in the plazas or are offering services for the Scorchers moving from plaza to plaza.
Like that guy there. See him? No, the armadillo-looking dude. Right. The Donkerpils. He’s selling extra oxygen for those that need it. Nice service since even with the planetary shielding installed, the air can get thin for those that need their oxygen. You can survive for a while in a vacuum, I looked it up, so you’re good. But most don’t have a genetically engineered body.
Except for me. I do. The perk of being a Starsch, dude.
To continue. Boulevard. Plazas. Tents and stalls. Now come the living areas. Every few meters you’ll see spaces between the stalls and tents. Slip through there and you’re on a living area path. Follow the path and you’ll come to the tent cities and apartment containers. Nothing is over three stories and each area has a population cap. Otherwise, the toilets get really gross. Like really gross.
Now, everything I’ve described is open to the public. All Scorchers are free to roam without being hassled or stopped by authorities. But, as we all know, the elite class hates rubbing elbows, tentacles, boobs, and butts, with the plebes. That means some of these stalls are fronts for hidden entrances to areas that only the rich, super rich, mega ric
h, God rich, and the Bezos, can access. Two clicks up is our stall. That’s how we get to Lord Sahndle.
From there, we escort him to the A Cappella Mime Troupe Plaza. Simple enough if we had vehicles.
Oh, why don’t we have vehicles? Why haven’t we seen a single hover car or ship pass by overhead? You can thank the early days of Scorching Dude for that. Long ago, when this was a strictly Earth-based event, decking out one’s vehicle with the most elaborate and insane decorations was considered a goal to hit. Day and night, it was a parade of artistry meets mechanics.
But those were rollers. Vehicles with wheels. If someone was too high, and it happens, dude, but if they were, worst-case scenario was they slammed into a few tents and killed maybe two or three people. Now? A ship or hover car falls from the sky and depending on how well their engines are maintained, they take out two, three, twenty dozen Scorchers.
Safety worries killed the vehicle parade.
Except, this is now an Earth Corp-owned enterprise. Take a look up. Go ahead. Notice anything about the sky? Yeah, you see it, dude. Parts don’t quite fit, do they? That’s because you’re looking at the undersides of retrofitted grav tugs that have been turned into party barges. The hulls mimic the sky, so the wide openness aesthetic isn’t broken.
If you have enough credits, and few do, you can buy your way onto a party barge and get your Scorch on high above the dirty masses. Or, if you don’t want to live the party barge life, you can buy a temp ticket and use them to get you across the planet.
We will not be using one of those. Can’t trust them. Party barges disappear all the time. It used to be only barges that traveled over danger zones like the Meridian Bay Circle or the Lockyer Land Quadrangle disappeared. But now the party barges have been disappearing randomly all over the place. Earth Corp has no comment and denies any disappearances happen, but we know that’s bullshit.
Lesson is that you stay off the party barges, dude.
Okay, what else? Oh, right.
Infrastructure.
All administrative offices, utilities, and waste facilities exist below ground. The topside terrain is too valuable to waste on bureaucrats and water filtration systems. So, subterranean complexes are everywhere. Again, fake stalls are the access points. If you ever go down there, you better know where you’re going or you will be lost forever. Tens of thousands have gotten lost and only a couple hundred are ever found alive. Go below, have a map, dude.