Pew! Pew! - The Quest for More Pew!

by M. D. Cooper

  “You want us to start a crew.”

  “Of course I do, but you can make your own choices.”

  “Zanda!” Tithi shouted. They both jerked their heads in the direction of her voice, and found her climbing over a tall man’s shoulders. The black circle of the pistol muzzle wavered their direction. She fell backward, apparently losing her grip with the other hand, and the pistol went off in a series of rapid bursts.

  The sound of the pistol came just as the characters on the platform had rolled away from each other, creating a lull. As a result, everyone in the Hangar heard the gunfire. First, the crowd froze, people looking around as they tried to figure out if the shots had been real, or part of the show.

  Then another set of shots went off at the back of the Hangar near the main doors. Automatic weapons fire answered.

  “Holy shit,” Starl said. “That must be Fug and the bookies.”

  The crowd broke as people started to run. Starl caught sight of Tithi fighting to move in their direction, but everyone was running away from them, pushing her back toward the outer perimeter.

  “Come on,” he told Zanda. Turning, he ran toward the platform, and jumped up to grab the lip of the concrete structure. His right hand slid but his left held. Zanda moved up behind him to push his legs up. Starl pulled himself onto the platform, and then lay on his stomach to reach down for his friend. It was just like the thousand other times, when they’d climbed through ventilation shafts to burglarize storage lockers.

  Standing on the stage, they had a full view of the Hangar and the pandemonium happening in the crowd. Down near the player’s pit, Slarva’s red cape moved in a swirl of bodies. Starl barely made out the blue hair surfacing and then it got lost again. The two players were huddling under the cage that protected the antique console, but a series of looters were trying to pull the cage off the wall of its enclosure.

  More gunfire cracked around the space, quieting the crowd for a second before the shouting and scuffling filled the Hangar again. Starl couldn’t see the guards that had been present at the entrances anymore. He glanced up at the over-bright projector in the ceiling, squinting into the light, and realized they must be standing among the still visible avatars.

  “I think Rack Thirteen must be running all the Crash books,” Zanda said, staring out at the crowd.

  Starl glanced at him, heartened by the sober quality in his voice. “Just Rack Thirteen?”

  Zanda shrugged. “I think Fug chose the wrong system to hack. If there were more crews involved, no one would care if one of the others took losses. Here, it’s all going back to one syndicate.” He motioned at the crowd. “Look at all this.”

  “You would have done the same thing, if you could.”

  “Sure.” He bit his lip. “Tithi didn’t say anything about being in a family, Ngoba. You have to believe me.”

  “We’re not done with this yet, brother.” Starl pointed at him and grinned. “Plus, I saw the way you were looking at that woman. You’re not free, yet.”

  Zanda smiled sheepishly. “I’m fucked,” he admitted.

  A bullet screamed past Starl’s head and he hit the deck, his heart pounding in his ears. Zanda followed him.

  “They know we’re up here, I guess,” Starl said.

  “Maybe it was a stray shot.”

  Concrete chipped and exploded around them as more bullets followed.

  “Sure,” Starl said.

  “Are we going to die?”

  Starl lifted his head for a second to scan the perimeter; the main doors were blocked by bodies trying to get through. He saw several thugs bashing faces with the butts of their rifles, or back into the Hangar. He couldn’t see Slarva’s blue hair or red cape anywhere. Thinking of Slarva, he checked the door to the corridor that led to the briki club. There was a clot of people near the door, but no guards that Starl could see.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to set a parrot free. And save our asses. I hope.”

  11

  There was a gap in the crowd next to the platform. Starl hit the Hangar floor and stumbled sideways. Zanda apparently didn’t look before he jumped, and hit Starl in the shoulder. They fell together.

  “Zanda!” Starl shouted. “What the hell?”

  “There were more shots. I had to jump. Do you know which way we’re going?”

  “Yes, I know.” Starl rolled away, pushing himself to his knees. When he looked up, he found himself staring at Fug. She was still wearing her green visor.

  Her eyes went wide, and she tried to slide back into the crowd. Starl shot forward and grabbed her arm.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Let go of me.”

  “I thought you had already made your way to the bookies,” Starl said.

  “Obviously not. I can’t get out that way. I’m trying to keep out of sight.”

  Starl flicked her eye-shade with his free hand. “You keep wearing that thing, and everybody will know who you are.”

  She twisted her arm in his grasp but he held tight. “Let go!”

  “Now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting go. You reckon you can pick a lock?”

  “Of course I can pick a lock. You got a way out of here?”

  “I think I do.”

  Starl checked that Zanda had stumbled up beside them. Fug shot Zanda a dirty look and grinned at her. Adjusting his grip on Fug’s thin forearm, Starl directed his attention to pushing through to the corridor door.

  Most of the fighting seemed concentrated near the main doors. Here, people were milling around asking each other what was going on, and ducking whenever a new round of gunfire burst out. Once they were away from the platform, Starl could easily make out the two avatars waiting to fight. One looked like a giant Corgi dog, standing upright and wearing a short vest with blue goggles perched in front of its pointed ears, while the second was a dolphin suspended in a mech-suit. Their wait-animations had them shrugging, scratching, and occasionally making obscene gestures at the crowd. Both avatars were too adorable to look dangerous, despite the missiles hanging from the dolphin’s mechanized cage, and the blazing electric sword slung across the Corgi’s fluffy back.

  The trio reached the door. Starl tried the lock, hoping it might be open, but was unsurprised when the control panel denied him access.

  “Get out of the way,” Fug said. She adjusted her eye-shade, smoothing her hair behind her ears, and accessed the panel’s admin menus. Starl turned his back to the door to keep an eye on the crowd, but had barely turned around when she announced, “Done.”

  A plasma beam struck the door just above Fug’s head, tearing a burning hole in the metal. Starl grabbed her and hit the floor. People screamed and ran in every direction.

  “Plasma!” he gasped. “What the hell is wrong with these people?”

  “I guess they want you dead.”

  “What did I do to deserve being made dead?”

  “You stole a million credits by manipulating a major cash-laundering operation Rack Thirteen was completing during the first match.”

  Starl stared at her. Fug’s green visor sat askew, covering one eye. She couldn’t hide her mischievous grin.

  “Zanda!” came Tithi’s shout. “I see you, baby!”

  Glancing back at Zanda, Starl found him biting his lip, looking confused on how he should respond.

  “Don’t answer her,” Starl growled. He scrambled away from Fug, and ripped the door open. It left a smell of burned metal and plas as it swung.

  “Come on,” Starl shouted. He grabbed Fug’s arm again, and pulled her through the opening, immediately flattening against the wall once they were inside. When Zanda was in, he pulled the door closed, and pushed Fug toward the control panel. “Lock it,” he ordered.

  “You don’t get to–”

  “Lock it!” he roared.

  Fug shot him a venomous look and tapped the panel. In ten seconds she was done.

  Starl glanced through the hole in the door t
o see two Rack Thirteen thugs standing in a gap in the crowd, looking around with rifles at the ready.

  “Maybe those boys didn’t mean to hit the door,” he said.

  “Then I guess we should run, huh?” Fug asked. “Where does this go, anyway?”

  “It ends up at Slarva’s briki club.”

  Strangely, Fug perked up. “Really?” she said, glancing down the tunnel. “This is where you followed him?”

  “That’s right,” Starl said. He checked the hole in the door again. “We should go that way.”

  “I think Fug here has a crush on Slarva,” Zanda said.

  Starl pushed between them to start walking fast down the corridor. It looked much the same as before. “I don’t care who she likes,” he said. “Although, if you got us involved in all this for some crush, I’m going to be very disappointed in you, Fug.”

  They followed him, Fug pumping her arms to keep up. “You were the one dumb enough to do what I asked you.”

  “You paid, didn’t you?” Starl said.

  “And then she set us up as the stooges in her little betting scheme,” Zanda said. He shoulder-checked Fug, and she stumbled.

  Starl stopped to catch Fug as she fell into him. “Which wouldn’t have had any credence if you hadn’t lied to Tithi about your hacking abilities, Riggs. You need to rein yourself in, brother.”

  “She’s setting us up with killers, and you’re going to defend her?” Zanda demanded. “Let me at least smash her stupid little hat.”

  Fug squeaked and grabbed at her visor.

  “Look,” Starl said, facing both of them. “We’re all from the TSS Squat. We know the deal. We can’t get pissed at each other for stumbling into each other’s score. Fug had a process underway, and we walked into it. I take ownership of that. She can’t help it if you happened to shore up her cover with your dick and big mouth.”

  “She saw us and couldn’t wait to dump all of Rack Thirteen on our heads,” Zanda said. “That’s not walking in on someone else’s score, Ngoba. That’s selling out your own for a terrible death. Do you want to get suffocated in Harav’s closet? I sure as hell don’t. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.” He crossed his arms. “You’re trying to act like a crew leader, here, shoring up one party against the other for the common good, and I get that. But in this case, you need to show some respect to both sides. She deserves the fate she would have handed us. I say we space her.”

  Fug gave him a look that said she was about to scratch his eyes out. Zanda fell back into a ready stance, hands up.

  The door behind them exploded. A concussive wave rolled down the corridor, knocking Starl down onto his side as hot air blew over his face. His ears vibrated with high-pitched ringing.

  He barely heard someone shouting, “We clear?” from where the door had been.

  “Clear!”

  Like tiny people moving in the distance, the voices called to each other, invisible forms lost in the smoke.

  Starl rolled over and pushed himself to his knees, coughing violently. He sucked in his breath, but couldn’t stop the coughs wracking his chest. He squinted through the black-tinged smoke, and made out Fug’s arm nearby. He grabbed it and pulled her toward him. She was as light and limp as a rag doll.

  “Zanda!” Tithi shouted, sounding as small as the rest of them. “Are you in there?” She paused, and then she was yelling at someone else. “Why is there so much smoke? The ceiling fell down, you idiots.”

  “We’re moving it, Miss Tithi,” a military sounding voice answered.

  Unable to see anything in the smoke, Starl cast around for Zanda. His hand landed on what felt like his friend’s face. He squeezed Zanda’s nose and felt his forehead. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing.

  Stumbling to his feet, Starl grabbed each of his companions by the forearm, and heaved forward, the smoke burning his lungs. There was heat from the direction of the door—he felt it even with his eyes squeezed closed. So he heaved in the opposite direction, pulling Fug and Zanda after him. He tried to map out the maintenance hatches he remembered seeing in the tunnel, but couldn’t tell how far they were from the main door. He remembered he had walked for about five minutes.

  Starl grunted and pushed himself into a faster walk. Fug was easy enough to drag, but Zanda’s big feet kept smacking the old bulkhead ribs along the wall.

  As he left the smoke, the dim ceiling lights grew brighter and his vision eventually cleared. Banging sounds and shouts followed from the end of the corridor where the ceiling had collapsed. He supposed it wouldn’t take them long to either clear the mess of metal and plumbing, or get someone to cut through it. They had the plasma guns, too, although he didn’t like the thought of someone being crazy enough to use a plasma gun on the station. This was Rack Thirteen, and at least one of them had already used plasma, so he couldn’t put it past them.

  Without realizing how far he’d come, he turned the slight curve that ended at the door to the briki club. Starl blinked. He’d intended to pry open one of the maintenance hatches and drop down into a service crawlspace. He sighed, and let Fug’s and Zanda’s arms drop. Neither stirred, still out cold. Zanda had a bit of blood running from his nose, and Starl noticed that Fug’s visor had cracked, and no longer glowed green. Without the ghoul-color on her face, she looked like any other teenage girl. Cute even, Starl thought. Her hair was gray with dust.

  Starl took in the door and activated the sealing mechanism. Like before, it wasn’t locked. There was a sigh of air as the lock released and the door opened slightly. Starl pulled the door toward him then stuck his head through the opening.

  He found the same red curtain. He waited, listening. The club sounded deserted, and it was dark. He took a step into the door and whispered, “Crash, you here?”

  Crash the parrot gave an excited squawk, and the cage rattled as it moved. “Ngo-ba!” he said. “Ngo-ba!”

  “I’m glad to see you too, brother,” Starl said. He pushed the door the rest of the way open, and turned to drag first Fug and then Zanda through the opening, setting them against the portion of the club wall hidden by the curtain. Starl pulled the door closed and tried to engage the lock, but he couldn’t be sure he’d been successful. The panel kept flashing a low battery indicator.

  Just to be sure, Starl found the edge of the curtain, and peeked into the club. Low lighting from the ceiling showed the place was deserted.

  “All right, Crash,” Starl said, facing the gray parrot. He felt around the cage for a door or opening of some kind. “I meant to drop my friends off and come find you—because it’s been bothering me that you’re stuck here in this cage—but events haven’t quite worked out that way. I’m going to let you out, but there are people coming after us who might inadvertently cause you some harm.”

  “Rack Thir– teen!” Crash said, bobbing his head. He worked at a bar with his horny black beak. His yellow eye glowed in the dark.

  “That’s them,” Starl said. “Now how would you know that?”

  Crash bobbed his head again, squawking in a way that sounded like laughter.

  “Fine, be that way,” Starl said. “Now, how the hell do I open this cage?”

  He found what he thought might be a sliding door, but it appeared to have some kind of biometric scanner that didn’t respond when he slid his finger over it.

  “Locked, huh?” Starl said. “Well, then.” He lifted the cage off its stand, and found that it wasn’t too heavy, but it was very ungainly. He needed two hands to carry it.

  “Zanda!” Starl shouted, which made Crash squawk. “Zanda, wake up!”

  Riggs didn’t stir.

  “So I guess this is a quandary,” Starl said.

  Booms from the other side of the door set his heart pounding. Starl left the cage to grab Fug and throw her over his shoulder. When her cheek hit the middle of his back, Fug’s visor fell off her head and rolled between Starl’s feet. Starl adjusted her weight on his shoulder, which felt like less than a bag of stiff filament, and
studied the broken visor. He had never seen her without it, even in the early days. Grunting, Starl knelt and picked it up. Realizing he wouldn’t have any free hands, he slid the visor on and settled the band down on his forehead. As he expected, its HUD was completely dead.

  Starl turned and pulled up Zanda’s shirt to find his belt, and dragged him toward the cage, then used the arm holding Fug’s legs in place to grab Crash’s cage by several bars.

  “You’re probably not going to like this,” he said. “I think you prefer being upright.”

  Starl lifted the cage off its stand and pulled it close against Fug’s legs and his chest. The cage didn’t shift as badly as he thought it would, but the parrot squawked anyway, and hopped from one side to the other, flapping his wings. Starl struggled to keep his grip as the bird shifted the weight of the cage.

  “Come on, brother. Just for a little while, until I can get out of this current situation.”

  Starl stepped around the edge of the velvet curtain, jerking Zanda as his head caught in its heavy hem. He went down a short series of steps into the main dining areas, where the tables were arranged with the chairs stacked upside down on top of them. In the middle of each table, the briki flowers sat closed, the purple petals oily and shimmering under the low light.

  Catching sight of the closest flower, Starl stopped short. He had forgotten about them. While the flowers rested, they hoarded more pollen until it was time to open again, usually triggered by the light that approximated Sol. On the “first crack,” as the briki-heads called it, the flowers puffed out a cloud of pollen that hung in the air, waiting to be inhaled. After that, you had to rub your face in the stamens. He inched away from the nearest table, knowing that if he bumped it and woke the flower, he would just as well sit down and enjoy the ride until Tithi blew his head off.

  “Careful,” the parrot crooned.

  “You see that, too, little brother?” Starl said. “I’ll take it easy.”

  Starl had nearly worked his way across the room, jerking Zanda as he balanced Fug and the bird cage, when hammering rose from behind the velvet curtain.