Defiance

by Bear Ross

  She called back through the door at the retreating Myoshan.

  “Vervor, make sure this octorat stays away from my mech, and tell Prath I'm getting a beer,” Kramer said. “Oh, your peashooter's little snap is undone, by the way, Desecrator. Careful with that. Someone might get hurt.” She put one defiant hand on her hip, the other on her rib cage next to her own bulky revolver's grip.

  Masamune re-engaged the catch on his pistol with a scowl. She turned, a saccharin smile on her face. She made an obscene gesture in the air, holding it over her head as she limped in the direction of the corner bar.

  Kyuzo watched her go, surprised by the anger she brought out in him with mere words. She is a vicious one, no doubt about that, he thought.

  He remembered the cockpit recordings of her exchange with the Wardancer, how she unhinged the disciplined android warrior into making a reckless charge. He would have to guard against that.

  Masamune focused, tamping down his anger to conduct himself in a more business-like manner. He entered Vervor's to discuss refurbishing his old battle claw, shaking his head as Kramer’s words soaked in.

  Good Gates, I hope my children don't turn out like her if I get killed in the arena, he thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SIXTH GATE ZONE

  SERAPH’S ALC-SOAK BAR AND GRILL

  She had only been in the bar twenty minutes, but Jessica Kramer was already on her fifth beer. A lilting cacophony of a song played on the bar's speakers, something in the Redfolk language, with its offset rhythms and shrieking strings, but at least the volume was low. The bartender here at Seraph’s was a flesh-and-blood humanoid, not a bot, who kept himself busy slinging drinks to the mixed clientele of the working-class Sixth Gate Zone neighborhood. Prath took a seat on the barstool next to her with a sigh.

  “Masamune's business at the shop is concluded,” Prath said. “Have you calmed down, yet?”

  She stiffened at the words ‘calmed down,’ then forced herself to relax. There were fewer words in the Universal language that she hated to hear more. It’s Prath, damn it. Hear what he has to say, she had to tell herself.

  “We're ready for you back at the test bench,” the Ascended continued. “We need your bio-code to access the Arkathan software and memory nodes of the Judah control module, and I've given Kitos my personal assurance that you'll behave. Best to avoid Master Vervor, though.”

  He looked at the four empty glasses in front of her, and the full beverage in her hand.

  “How many have you had, little human, including that one?” The Ascended asked.

  “Still on my second one, ape, honest,” Jessica said, lying as she buried her nose in the beer’s head of foam. “Those other glasses were here already. It's not the cleanest of ethyl-alc joints. It almost makes Jev's place in Maro Point look respectable.”

  After a deep drink, she put the half-empty vessel on the bar top. Prath brushed the bubbles off her face with a long brown finger. She grinned at the gesture. He didn’t.

  “That Kierra woman nearly killed you,” Prath said, his eyes sad and serious. “You know that, right?”

  “Just because they’re shaped like women, ape, doesn’t make it so,” Jessica said.

  “I’m not here to debate the finer points of android physiology with you, little human,” the Ascended said. “This is about your performance at Berva Proxima. We almost lost you. I almost lost you.”

  “You really think I was sloppy, ape? Honestly?”

  “Yes, but it wasn't incompetence,” Prath said. “I'm sorry for saying that, back in the shop. However, I think you have a lot to learn. Lesson number one: don't let Wardancers in close.” He smiled with pulled-back lips.

  “Lesson learned, trust me,” Jessica said, knocking her knuckles on the side of the printed leg cast.

  “Oh, you've got an abundance of lessons in front of you, love,” Prath said. “Unfortunately, we don't have an abundance of time for you to learn them. These Gatekeepers aren't going to just wait for you to play catch-up. That's why we need to stay on top of our game.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her tone flat as she contemplated her beer.

  They sat in silence for a few moments, then she murmured something in a pained voice. The Redfolk music masked her words.

  “What’s that? I didn’t quite hear you,” Prath said.

  “I said ‘I’m sorry, ape,’” Jessica said in a low, resigned voice.

  Prath pulled her against him. She felt him start to groom her hair, and she smiled. She stayed in his huge, firm embrace for a few moments, then tapped him to let her go. She downed the remainder of the beer in front of her, then ordered another.

  “I've only been back in your life two gate-weeks, Jessica,” Prath said, shaking his head slowly, “and I've seen you engage in more self-destructive behavior in the space of sixteen days than I did in sixteen years of watching you grow up.”

  “Yeah, well, I'm not a little girl, anymore, ape,” she said. “I had to get by on my own while you were gone, and Junctionworld's an ugly place. Plus, I was a screw-up when I was a kid. Everyone was just too busy to notice.”

  “Little human, please, we're getting along well, here. Let's not—”

  “No, no, hear me out, Prath,” Jessica said, her buzz loosening her tongue. “I promise, I really do. I promise that I’ll try and do better. I know what you’re saying, I just... I just get so gate-damned angry, sometimes.”

  “Well, you’ve been through a lot, like you told me,” Prath said, putting a large hand on her shoulder in consolation.

  “Maybe it’s this place,” she said, motioning around. “Not just the bar, though. What I mean is, J-World’s a hundred-mile-wide den of filth, surrounded by the all-devouring void, pierced by eight gates that allow all sorts of evil to crawl in and out. It's a... a... 'an infernal, blood-soaked void-hole, ruled by egomaniacal little bastards.' That's what Dad called this place, in that book of his.”

  “Solomon did have a way with words,” Prath said, a wry grin on his face as he remembered his old friend and team leader. “His autobiography still sells quite well. I’m surprised the Gatekeepers still allow it to be published.”

  “Who knows, but all the mech-jockeys still eat that stuff up. That’s probably the money I’m drinking with, right now,” she said, her words slurring. “And he and mom raised me, and my brother, and my sister, right in the venting middle of it. And then, ‘poof,’ they were all dead or gone, and I was alone in the middle of this ugly little dimensional crossroads. I think, all things considered, I'm doing okay.”

  She was pleased with her sudden alc-induced epiphany, and started to speak louder.

  “And the Sixth Gate Zone, let me tell ya,” Jessica said, raising her glass to Prath, “I thought the Fourth Gate Zone where I grew up was bad. This whole dung-pit is just a junk pile. It's where all of Junctionworld’s reprocessing and recycling is done, stuff that's barely good enough to not be pushed off into the void. I mean, look at this grip of lunkheads in here. Refugees. Scrappers. Trash pickers. And their local arena, Berva Proxima, isn't even second-tier—”

  Her words carried over the music, turning several sets of ears to them.

  “Jessica, love, it's best you tone down the rhetoric,” Prath said, scanning the multiple angry glances now being cast in their direction. “We're not at Maro Point, and these beings may not know you're joking.”

  “Who's joking, ape? This place is garbage,” she said, gulping down more beer. “Just... pure garbage. Hey, you wanna hear a joke? I got a joke for ya. There was this saying, carved in one of Jev's bathroom stalls back in Maro Point. You wanna know what it was? 'Flush twice, it's a long way to the Sixth Gate.' Oh, man, that's a good one.” She slapped the weathered plating of the bar top. She picked up the beer, downing most of it.

  “Barkeep, another, please,” Jessica said, holding her finger up to simulate a digitpress.

  “It's on me, Morz,” a voice said over her shoulder.

  Jessica finished the l
ast of her drink, and turned to see the voice's owner. He was a standard human, tall, well-built, with nice eyes and straight teeth. A little dirty, but this was an industrial sector after all. The shift must be ending at some local factory, from the look of all the similar working uniforms in the place.

  He was cute enough, though, and the beers had her feeling good. Something... something about him reminded her of Tevren. That cocky smile. Her humorous mood went away at the memory of the tech who once worked for her father. She thought of her former infatuation trapped behind the Eighth Gate with her conniving sister, of what they might be up to, and she went cold.

  “Whoa, what’s that look for?” the young man said.

  “Pass. I buy my own drinks. Vent off,” Jessica said, her tone now serious.

  “C'mon, we're laughing, having fun, right?” the young man said. “It's just a drink, you know, just between us humans? Hey, my name's Jeremy. Jeremy Collins. I don't bite.”

  Prath pulled back and leaned his elbow on the bar, amused at the scene.

  “I mean no disrespect with the 'humans' stuff, Master Ascended,” the young male added.

  “None taken, Collins,” Prath said, motioning to Jessica. “Watch yourself, though. This one does bite.”

  “'Just between us humans,' huh?” Jessica said, bristling. “What, you think you can buy me a brew or two? Maybe get a little friendly later? Maybe help propagate the species? Get out of my face, Collins.” She turned her back on him and accepted the fresh beer from the bartender. Her other hand reached down for one of her knives. Her hands brushed only spiderwebbed cast. Damn, wrong boot.

  “C'mon, don't be that way. I'm just trying to have a conversation with a pretty girl, here,” Collins said. “It’s not often a guy gets to see such a beauti—”

  “Like I said before, vent off,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m not interested in some grease-plug in dirty coveralls who's just looking to dump some pressure.”

  The young man's expression flushed red, his initial advance left burning in flames. Laughter erupted from his coworkers at a nearby table. Looking over to them, his posture shifted. He looked her up and down, a sneer on his face as he searched for a retort.

  “What's the matter,” Collins said, “Too good for us ‘scrappers and trash pickers?’ You got some fancy, uptown slick, somewhere? Huh? Some pretty-boy with soft hands?”

  “Go away, Collins,” she said. “I’m trying to come up with a reason not to kill you.”

  “You talk big, I’ll give you that,” Collins said, pressing his verbal attack. “Hey, what about a sister? Got one of those, you little breed-tease? Maybe she'd be a little more friendly.”

  “Oh, dear,” Prath said, slapping his hand over his brow.

  Jessica continued to look straight ahead. She cocked her head to the side, popped her jaw, and considered denting the bar top with Collins’ forehead. The impulse was strong. Instead, she pulled out her revolver, placing it next to her new beer with a heavy thunk.

  “What’d you say?” Jessica said, scowling as she looked him in the eye.

  The Redfolk tune on the bar’s sound system cut out, and a racking shotgun resounded through the establishment. Morz, the bartender, pointed his weapon's gaping muzzle at a sign on the wall. It read in seven common languages, “Keep it holstered.”

  She flicked her jaw in acknowledgment to the armed bartender, then turned to the young, human male, who was now backing up, his hands in the air. The look on his face conveyed he was no longer interested in the prospect of getting to know her better.

  “You listen to me, Collins,” Jessica said, her voice full of measured menace, “you greasy little... no, never-mind. We’ll do this instead: You ever speak to me again, you even say 'hello,' and I’ll forget all about how I just promised my friend Prath, here, that I’m trying to do better. You understand me?”

  The human nodded, eager to end his encounter with Jessica, his eyes shifting between the revolver on the counter and the shotgun in the bartender’s hands.

  “Good,” she said, putting the large pistol away. “I'm outta here. Enjoy the beer, Collins. You bought it, after all.”

  She wobbled towards the silent bar’s front door on her wounded leg, heading back to Master Vervor's shop. The barkeep put his exotic scatter-gun away, and rang up a thin, paper-like plastic receipt from a glowing cash register. Morz handed the bill to the Ascended crew chief as he stood up to follow her.

  The music and conversation resumed. Jeremy Collins, his pride wounded, returned to his table of workmates. They clapped him on the back and laughed with him, exchanging their own stories of similar encounters in the past.

  Prath’s brow wrinkled as he read the tally of her drinking streak.

  “Six? Six beers? You were here for just... Gates bless it, Jessica,” the orange ape said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  SIXTH GATE ZONE

  SERAPH’S ALC-SOAK BAR AND GRILL

  “Mammals,” Skreeb said, watching the semi-dramatic silliness unfold in front of him at the bar. The Shasarr cyborg watched the human female limp out of the bar, followed by her orange primate companion. At the table next to him and his partner, Velsh, a raucous party of factory workers laughed and crowed as one of their number returned to them, embarrassed and forlorn.

  Skreeb didn’t see what the problem was. Shasarr courtships often utilized weaponry and death threats. Such simple creatures, he thought.

  At the table the two beings shared, his Skevvian partner contemplated the slow-rising bubbles in a bottle of purple fluid in front of him. Skreeb Fourth-Hatched, the Shasarr cyborg, took a deep puff off of the vaporizer embedded in his arm, blowing the cloud of chemical exhaust up into intakes in the ceiling.

  “Ready to do this thing, Velsh?” the enhanced reptilian asked his tentacled table mate.

  “One more shot, Skreeb, then we'll do it,” the Skevvian answered, his tone flat and sullen. “I still gotta pull the aircar around, and I keep thinking the Headhunter's going to pop out of nowhere and add us to his wall. I'm tellin' ya, I don't like this part of town one bit.”

  “Cheer up, Velshie,” Skreeb said. “We've been in this place for hours, and the Headhunter ain't shown his big red self, yet, him or his Niner boys. Finish your drink, and we'll snatch up the boss’s little Niff.”

  The Skevvian wrapped one set of tentacles around the bottle and its purple contents, pouring the carbonated syrup into a smaller glass. He tilted the shot back, letting it flow into his open beak. He shivered as the poisons hit his nervous system, then slammed the glass back on to the table.

  “Okay, Skreeb. Let's do it,” the being said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  SIXTH GATE ZONE

  VERVOR’S FABRICATION WORKS

  Vervor had just settled in, his Myoshan-sized office door closed and the staff instructed not to bother him. The bothersome human pilot, Kramer, and her ape were gone. To where, he hadn’t the slightest care.

  He kicked his small, clawed feet up on the desk, taking care not to press any buttons or touchpads built into the desktop. He closed both sets of eyes, and began to indulge.

  Then the front door’s bell rang. Again. And again. He sighed, remembering that he had the only remote for the security system. The buzzing alarm from the main entrance ruined Master Vervor's favorite activity: his mid-afternoon nap.

  “Crumbling gates, hold on, I'm coming, I'm coming,” the scaled Myoshan said, his momentary bliss now gone. He opened his office to see who was at the front door, his security remote clutched like a weapon in his claws. He clenched his fangs, hoping it was not that thrice-damned renegade pilot returning.

  Damnation. It was her. Her, and her coddling, enabling, emotion-blinded Ascended crew chief, Prath. Hard to believe she's the spawn of Solomon Kramer, he thought. Greatness must have skipped a generation.

  They were arguing on the sidewalk outside his shop. Of course, they were always arguing. This time, though, their words did not carry through the thick pl
astic of the windows and walls. Master Vervor enjoyed the moment, trying to make the silence stretch as long as he could before letting them back in.

  The smaller human vocalized in an angry manner at the tall, orange ape, her body bobbing and swaying as she heaped muted abuse on him. It could be the damaged limb altering her balance. It was more likely the ethyl-alc concoctions from the bar down the street. He asked his ancestor spirits for patience, and lifted the remote. As he pressed the access button to the security system, the door's magnetic lock popped with a loud buzz.

  “C’mon, Prath! I told you I was going to do better. You told me to go the bar and drink a couple beers—”, Jessica Kramer said, pulling the door open.

  “Six, Jessica,” Prath said, holding his fingers up. “I told you to go cool off, not drink the bar dry, and mislead me about it.”

  “Fine, six beers, of which, I only got to drink five, by the way,” Kramer said. “So, I hurt some guy’s feelings. I didn’t pull my gun on him, I just pulled it out. He got the message. You heard the nasty things he said to me. Any other day of the week, and I would have broken his neck.”

  “He was trying to court you,” Prath said. “The conversation didn't turn abusive until you initiated hostilities. 'Dirty grease-plug,' I believe was the phrase you used. And stop avoiding the fact you lied to me. You promised you were going to try and do better.”

  “Ah, gates, Prath, I didn’t kill him,” Kramer said, feigning exasperation. “So, I have that going for me, at least, right? Besides, you didn't even step in to defend me!”

  “I have every faith and confidence,” Prath said, reaching into his pocket, “in your ability to handle one unarmed male of your fragile species. Your behavior under the influence of your chosen toxins is the matter at hand. Alas, I knew it would come to this. Look here, please.”