And God Belched

by Rob Rosen

  Eventually, he blinked. “But how did you get here?” He whispered this last part. I hoped it was enough, that they weren’t recording us, listening in. I mean, they were monitoring my face, so why not my voice? In any case, there were no guards, just a bunch of cells, half of them empty. I tended to think guards would be overkill, just like the bar-beams themselves. I mean, there’s dying and then there’s being sliced like a Christmas ham dying. Even standing that close to them gave me the heebie-jeebies, made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

  I held my finger to my lips. I hoped he got the suggestion. “Later,” I said.

  “Later,” he said wistfully. “I hope we get a later.”

  “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked.

  He nodded. He shook his head. “To a degree. Though only mostly that I broke the law.”

  I frowned. “And your punishment?”

  His nod turned shrug. “They won’t answer me when I ask. I take it by the surroundings that it won’t be good.”

  “And me? I stole this snazzy jumpsuit. What’s the punishment for bad taste?”

  He pointed to my security card. “I think that’s your problem, Randy.”

  I gulped. “That bad?”

  He nodded. “That bad. You don’t fuck with the government. They take care of us, but demand total obedience in return. Crime, any crime, is a no-no. Which means, I can’t even begin to imagine what they have in store for us.”

  “So, we need to escape then.”

  He pointed to the bars. “How?”

  I pointed to Tag. I smiled. “Secret weapon.”

  “Tag? Tag’s no secret. He was a birthday present from my parents.”

  “Shh,” I shushed him. “He’s got feelings, too.”

  Milo shot me a you’ve got to be kidding me look. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” See!

  “No, really. He does,” I said. “He has feelings, just like you and me.”

  “He’s a program.”

  I shook my head. “A program with feelings.” I thought about a better word for it. I came up with two. “Self-preservation.” Or is that one word? “Self-preservation.” Yes, I think it’s hyphenated. Does that make it one word or two? Anyway, I said, “He’d prefer it if we didn’t destroy him.”

  Milo sighed. Even that was stunning. “Because he’s expensive.”

  “No, because he…well, just take my word for it. Anyway, he’ll get us out of this.”

  Tag blinked. That is to say, Tag pulsed on my arm. “Maybe,” he said.

  I stared down at my wrist. Milo did the same. “Maybe?” we both said in unison. “It was a yes or no type of question, Tag,” I added. “Can you help us escape or can’t you?”

  Again, he blinked. “Maybe.”

  “That’s annoying,” I said.

  “Yep,” agreed Milo. “He does that sometimes.”

  I wagged my finger Milo’s way and managed a wry smile. “Sounds more like a person than a program.”

  He sighed, yet again, and lifted his hands as if to say I give. Seems that was universal as well. “In any case, Tag,” I said, again looking down at my wrist, “why only maybe?”

  “Because I’ll either free you or kill you. If I kill you, then it’s a moot point if you’re free at the time. Hence, maybe.”

  “Hence?” said Milo.

  “Better than ergo,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” I looked at my wrist again. “Probabilities here, Tag?”

  “Approximately thirty/seventy, Randy,” he replied. “The odds being in your favor.”

  Again, Milo and I locked eyes, a thousand butterflies instantly swarming in my belly. I came to rescue him; I still meant to do just that. Besides, I was a dead man either way, or whatever these people had in mind for me.

  “I’m game,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  Tag pulsed on my arm. “That was easy.”

  Again, Milo shrugged. “What choice did we have?” He gazed down at my wrist. “So, what’s the plan?”

  I felt my wrist suddenly vibrate. The watch was shaking, trembling. “What are you doing, Tag?” I asked.

  “Disassociating,” he replied.

  “Disassociating what?” I replied. At that, the glass surface of him popped off and landed with a clink on the floor. “Oh.” I bent down and retrieved it. “Now what?”

  “The glass,” said Milo. “It’s scratchproof, shatterproof, virtually indestructible.”

  Instantly, I understood the plan. “Laser-proof?”

  To which Tag replied. “No, not exactly.”

  “Explain,” said Milo.

  “The bars that surround you are generated by a powerful laser emitter. The beams can cut through most objects, the glass in Randy’s hand included. Still, the glass will reflect the beams, perhaps for a few seconds, before it shatters.”

  I nodded. “And a few seconds is all we need.”

  Milo joined my nod with one of his own. “So, where does the probability of death figure in to all this?”

  “Randy will hold the glass,” Tag replied, my eyed wide at the prospect of holding such a small object up close to the beams. I needed my fingers, after all. I liked them, in fact. They came in, you know, handy. “But I won’t know the exact angle the glass is held at, so I can’t calculate the trajectory. Or, as will most certainly be the case, trajectories, plural.”

  My hands, like the watch previously, began to tremble. “The glass will act as a prism, not a mirror,” I said.

  “That is correct, Randy.”

  “And, since we’re in these cells, we’ll be in the path of said trajectories,” I lamented. “In which case, how is it that we only have a thirty percent chance of dying?” Oh, that word. Not a nice word. Not when you’re in a cell, surrounded by laser beams, on a strange planet that feeds you nothing but paste.

  “The glass,” said Tag, “is coated with a strong metal on the bottom, which protects my inner workings. The beam will, therefore, only be diverted upward, once you inject the glass through it. You, at the time, will be crouching downward. The resulting light show should then be above your head.”

  To which Milo asked, “So, apart from being both potentially pretty and/or deadly, how will we be able to escape, post-glass-insertion?”

  “The beams are projected downward from the ceiling, Milo. Each cell is on its own circuit, which means that you can switch each of them on and off separately. Still, all the cells are on the same system. Take out the system, and all the cells will be switched off.”

  I smiled at the ingenuity, forgetting, however temporarily, that I could soon be dead, that we could all, in fact, be gruesomely dead. “And one, if not all the refracted beams, will, hopefully, take out the system.”

  Tag’s lights flashed. “Exactly.”

  To which Milo then asked, “Then why is the probability still so high that we might die?” I cringed at the word. The die part.

  “Numerous reasons,” replied Tag. “The two most likely are: the ceiling, or part of it, could collapse on top of you; or there could be a security system installed that will react to our plan in a way that results in your demise. The latter seems the most probable. Though you could potentially also die from smoke inhalation or fire, should you be trapped in this room after the plan is completed.”

  I looked at Milo. “His program clearly doesn’t include sugarcoating.”

  Milo shrugged. “If you say so.” And then he smiled my way, apparently trying to reassure me. I wasn’t reassured, but I smiled back, just the same—and okay, sprang a bit of a boner. Because I might’ve been near death, but I was still barely in my twenties and, as always, the little head ruled the big one.

  “Ready?” Milo asked as he crouched as low to the ground as he could get.

  “Nope,” I replied, also crouching. “But let’s do it.”

  Milo leaned his face up and shouted something in his own language. He then turned to me and said, “I told the other pris
oners to duck or risk certain painful death and/or dismemberment.”

  “More and, than or.” I peeked above his head. The other prisoners, which looked like five in total, were all now similarly crouching. I then held the glass, metal down, near one of the beams. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Milo.”

  He smiled. My dick throbbed. “Save the pleasure for later, Randy. After we get the hell out of here.”

  I nodded, sweat forming on my forehead before trickling down. I inched the glass forward, my heartrate tripling in an instant. Closer it went, closer still, edging it and us closer to our destinies. And then, there it was, the glass slicing the beam from below, refracting from above, sending out shafts of brilliant orange in all directions.

  “Pretty,” I made note.

  FYI, it was indeed pretty, for all of about two seconds. Then nuh-uh, not even close. Thankfully—and trust me, that word doesn’t even almost fit what befell us after those two pretty seconds—in any case, thankfully, the ceiling did not cave in on us. It smoked, sure, and fizzled, yep, and crumpled a little, hell to the yeah, but, then again, so did everything else in that room.

  First off, after the beams scattered, they did in fact hit some sort of main system. I know this because all the laser bars in the room promptly flickered and died. Cheers went up from the other inmates. Cheers went up from me and Milo, too, as we crouched there, praying we wouldn’t cave in, or smoke and fizzle, or crumple like the rest of the room was doing all around us, which was loudly and with a great many sparks, mainly owing to the fact that the building was built entirely of metal. FYI, in case you didn’t know it, metal stinks something awful when its bombarded with insanely strong laser beams. Holes in the ceiling formed. Holes in the walls followed suit. Like I said, the ceiling didn’t collapse, but it did begin to melt, molten metal dripping down in giant globs of orange as the room quickly filled with smoke and stink and the grating sound of alarms, which also seemed to be universal. In other words, Planet Six alarms were no more pleasant to the ears than Earth ones.

  I coughed. Milo did the same. Tag, of course, did not. “Run!” my watch shouted. “And grab some weapons! They’re by the front door, hanging from the wall!”

  I ran. It seemed to be a good suggestion. Milo grabbed my hand. I turned to look at him, locking in on his eyes of blue as sparks sparked at the periphery and smoke clouded my sight. I coughed again, even as I smiled. All in all, if you had to die, what an awesome way to go.

  We found the weapons. I grabbed a handful and shoved them in my jumpsuit pockets. They were small, though I was guessing powerful. Milo grabbed a couple of them, too. The other prisoners followed suit, amassing behind us. I walked to the wall. The door slid open. Chaos was reigning supreme in the hallway, men and women running to and fro, the smoke even denser out there, the alarms jarringly loud.

  I sped ahead, a weapon in one hand, Milo’s hand in the other. I was panting from fear all the while. I hadn’t a clue how to fire the thing, the weapon, that is. Heck, it looked like a cell phone. Maybe I could blast a hole in the front of the building and call home at the same time.

  I was hacking from the smoke now, tears streaming down my face, heart pounding in my ears even louder than the alarms. And still I gripped the weapon and Milo as if my life depended on it. Which it, you know, did. Like, duh.

  We ran to the end of the hall. By then, it was too smoky to make us out, for the guards to be able to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad ones. We ran and kept on running as the front wall parted and out we flew, a plume of black rising above us before wafting to the sky.

  I pointed ahead with the weapon. “There!” I shouted. “Craig is waiting for us!”

  “You brought your little brother with you?!”

  I grinned even as the tears stung my eyes. “Actually, he brought me.” I turned to him as I winked away the salt. “Long story.”

  We found him a few minutes later. He was sitting against the building we’d left him at, picking his cuticles. He was around the corner. He couldn’t see the inferno we’d left behind, plus the wind was blowing the smoke in the opposite direction. In other words, he hadn’t a clue how heroic I’d been. Damn.

  He looked up and smiled. “That was quick. Must’ve been easy.” He stood. He shook Milo’s hand. I wasn’t too happy about that, mainly because Milo had to let go of my hand to return the shake. “Prison life treat you well? You look, um, sooty.” He suddenly stared around us, beyond us. “And you brought me a girl. Thanks, but I didn’t get you anything.”

  Our heads whipped around. There was indeed a girl standing behind us. She must’ve been a fellow prisoner, though she looked no older than seventeen, eighteen, maybe. I wondered what she could’ve done to land herself in such an awful place.

  Milo talked to her as we watched. And speaking of watched, Tag again appeared by our side, looking far better than Milo or I did. I thought to hug him, but, well, you know. I looked at the device on my wrist. “You need a new piece of glass.”

  He nodded. “Just don’t spill water on me until then.”

  I smiled. “Deal.” I turned to Milo. He was still talking to the girl. “Come on,” I said, again grabbing his hand. It gave me peace. It gave me comfort. It gave me a woody. “We should go; they’ll be looking for us all too soon.”

  Tag lifted his holographic finger. “I infiltrated their database while the lightshow was going on. I altered your face in their systems. They can no longer find you that way.”

  We started moving again. “You think of everything,” I said.

  Milo chuckled. “He better; he cost enough.”

  Tag ran along with us. It was an odd sight to see, a hologram running and glowing. “You’re welcome,” he said to Milo.

  Again, Milo laughed, the sound magical to my ears. “Okay, okay. Thanks. And good to see you, old friend.”

  We rounded a bend. The alarms that had been going off inside the government building were now blaring in the streets. They were indeed after us, I figured. I pointed to a building. “In there,” I said. “They can’t spot us if they can’t see us.”

  I still had my ID card attached to my jumpsuit. The building welcomed us with open arms. In we ran, the wall silently sliding shut. The four of us stood in the entryway. Introductions were officially made.

  The girl was named Britney. Actually, the girl wasn’t named Britney, but she looked like Ms. Spears in her younger years, and her actual name was as difficult to pronounce as Milo’s, and so Britney it was. Britney was arrested for hacking into the government’s databases. She’d discovered Earth-Watch. She’d been arrested a week before Milo.

  “Her parents must be worried sick,” I said.

  Milo frowned. And still he looked glorious. “No parents. Orphaned. Girls aren’t treasured on our planet. Boys are the key to our survival.”

  “Awful,” I said. “And where does she live then?”

  “Government housing.” His frown sagged farther. “Many girls find themselves there. Apparently, they have excellent ‘computer equipment,’ as you would call it. It would seem that the girls are allowed free rein on it.” He pointed at Britney. “Case in point.”

  She smiled coyly. She was beautiful, just like the rest of her species. She was also eyeing my brother like a coyote would a chicken. Not surprisingly, Craig was thrilled at the attention—very unlike a chicken, which would generally cluck and run away; Craig, suffice it to say, did neither.

  “I need to rest a bit,” I said.

  “Same,” said Milo.

  Craig shrugged. “I’m good.”

  I sighed as we found an elevator and quickly rose to the top floor. Tag found us two empty apartments. It wasn’t difficult; they were all empty. I handed Craig the watch. “Keep an eye on them, Tag,” I said.

  Tag tilted his glowing head. “Sounds painful. If, that is, I had a real eye.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, whatever.”

  Milo and I disappeared into our apartment before the conversation could continu
e. The wall closed behind us. I turned. Milo turned. Our lips were pressed together before I could inhale. Instead, I exhaled into his lungs as my soul was set aflame, as fireworks burst from behind my eyelids, as every nerve ending in my body was simultaneously set off.

  This being my first kiss, I had nothing to compare it to, but still I’d wager that it was, as kisses went, incomparable. Perfect, in fact. Heavenly. Though I was glad we’d missed the trip there, if just by a hair—to heaven, that is to say. Because then I’d miss out on that kiss, and the one to follow, and the one to follow that, the kisses melding and meshing—not to mention mashing—into one fabulously long lip-lock that, for all I cared, could’ve lasted until the end of time.

  “Hi,” he eventually said as we at last came up for air, as he stroked my cheek, smiling brightly all the while.

  I stared into all that sparkling blue, very much mesmerized. “Hi,” I echoed as my heart thumped madly away. “You look better on this side of the mirror.”

  “To quote your kind, ditto.”

  I was engulfed within his warm embrace. Milo did great embrace. “Speaking of my kind,” I said. “Yours means to somehow utilize our genetic makeup, to help solve your Y/Z chromosome problem. You made contact with me. You potentially could’ve ruined this plan of theirs. You were jailed as a result.”

  He sighed. “Bad me.” The sigh was followed by yet another brightening smile, the kind that toothpaste commercials are made of. “But what is their plan?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me.”

  He squinted his eyes. “Beat you? You enjoy pain, Randy?”

  I laughed. It felt good to laugh. Surreal, given the circumstances, but still. “It’s an Earth expression. It means: I don’t have a clue.”

  “And what are your plans?”

  My shrug saw my previous shrug and raised it a wink. “Beats me.”

  “Sounds sexual, if you ask me.”

  My wink promptly folded. “Um, really?” I squeaked out.

  He looked around. “Well, we do have the apartment to ourselves.”

  Hell, we had practically the entire city to ourselves. In any case, I moved to a couch. It was grey. It was Earth-couch-like. It was functional, but without beauty. “I, um, yeah…”