* * *
“Sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to leave. We don’t serve your kind here,” the portly bartender said, his thick unibrow bending down over his little eyes.
“You bet your pork chops you don’t,” Ilrica said, grabbing a stein off his tray and sniffing it with her muzzle. “Why, I wouldn’t drink this swamp water if you paid me. Look.”
She turned the stein over and dumped the contents on top of Gerald’s head.
“What was that for?” Gerald complained, now sopping wet.
“You see? Your turajino is watered down. If it was of proper strength his hair would be dissolving right now.”
“My what?”
Ilrica grabbed Gerald by the wrist and led him out of the bar. Despite his distraction, he could not help but notice the hateful way the other patrons were looking at her. He knew that look well.
“You know, I’m kind of surprised,” Gerald said when they reached the street, toweling himself off with the hem of his cassock. “I figured the Alliance would have anti-discrimination laws in place.”
Ilrica skipped up and walked sideways along the storefront. “Ah, no one pays attention to those. Besides, I’m used to it. They’re probably just sore because a Bertulf ate their uncle or something.”
“Yeah, I just don’t like seeing you mistreated like that.”
Ilrica stopped and turned back, staring at him as she stood there, horizontally. “Why should you care?”
Gerald furrowed his brow. “Because you’re my friend.”
Her ears fell down. “Really?”
“Well, yeah, sure.”
Ilrica was astounded. “Wow.”
“You seem surprised.”
“Well, yeah.”
Gerald flicked the liquid off of his sleeves. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Yes, I should. You have very poor taste.”
They both chuckled.
Ilrica stared at him intently.
“What?”
“Shake.”
“Like this?” he asked, jumping up and down.
“No, shake,” she commanded, putting out her hand.
He pursed his lips. “I’m not a dog.”
“Ah, you’re no fun.”
“Besides, you look more like a dog than I do.”
“Nobody’s perfect. Maybe in your next life you’ll have more fur.”
* * *
“I can’t believe you’ve never been in one of these before,” Ilrica laughed, dragging him inside of the arcade. “They have these all over Central.”
“But don’t you need a link to Central in order to play these?”
“Not all of them,” she said as she pulled him past rows and rows of flashing shiny machines of every shape and description. Some were spheres of energy with a player floating within. Others were circular couches where several people would sit with their backs facing one another, the hardware plugged into their necks. Still others took place in large rooms like a racquetball court, but filled with water. Players swam and dodged about, playing something that looked to Gerald like a cross between underwater polo and the Danger Room from X-Men.
The booth Ilrica brought him to was a small, featureless room. She snapped her fingers and a podium grew up from the floor. She cycled through a few dozen options before finding the one she was looking for.
“Oh, I knew I remembered seeing this. This one has some human games on it.”
“Really?” he asked, brightening up.
Ilrica tapped the glowing rune and the podium reformed itself into a table with a short net running across the center. A paddle appeared in each of their hands.
“Ping Pong?” Gerald said, a little disappointed.
Suddenly, the floor and walls dropped away around them, and they found themselves standing at the center of an enormous rocky valley. Natural stone columns rose up from the canyon floor like a checkerboard, while the table sat on a raised mesa. Platforms of rock floated lazily about, occasionally colliding into one another.
“Looks like the game designers took a few liberties,” Ilrica said as she crouched down, spinning the paddle in her hand. “You get first serve.”
A chime went off and a small glowing ball fell down from the sky above. It didn’t seem at all like they were in a room. The cool breeze, the warm sunlight. It really felt like they were back on Earth. An Earth crossed with Super Mario Bros, but for Gerald that was close enough.
Gerald tossed up the ball and swung at it, but it disappeared the second it touched his paddle. A buzzer indicated a foul.
“What did I do wrong?” Gerald wondered, looking around.
Ilrica snickered and pointed to the rules hovering in the air written in standard. “You can only hit the ball after touching a glowing rock.”
Gerald looked over and realized that the rock platforms and columns would flash randomly. Currently the only one illuminated was far away from him.
He looked back at her, deflated.
Ilrica patted her knees and whistled at him. “Come on, boy, you can do it!’
“Stop treating me like a pet,” he shouted as he ran and jumped, barely catching the edge of a platform with his fingertips. The strong muscles in his arms and back flexed as he effortlessly hefted himself up, then jumped again, catching the glowing rock as it floated away.
“Hey, not bad. At this rate we’ll be done by next week.” she teased.
A new ball fell down into his hand. He double-checked to make sure his rock was still glowing, and served the ball. It bounced off the table and the rocks on her side switched position. She waited until the last possible second, then vanished. She reappeared on top of the glowing column in one corner of the valley, then shifted again, appearing right in front of the ball and whacking it with such force that it scratched the paint as it hit the table.
Gerald’s rocks shifted, and a column below him began to glow. He jumped down to a lower platform, and then another, but by the time he reached the glowing pillar, the buzzer had already gone off as the ball fell down to the canyon floor below.
“You realize I can’t bend time or fly like you can?”
She spun her paddle as a new ball fell into her grip. “So what? I’m supposed to stand in a hole just because you don’t like me looking down at you?”
She stood sideways against a glowing pillar, then jumped up and horizontally across her side of the valley, serving the ball with a spinning curve. Gerald ran and leapt, tapping a glowing rock above him with his hand, then landed on a column and sprinted with all his might, but the ball was still a dozen yards away when it passed him.
Ilrica threw up her arms. “Woo hoo! One to zero. Faolan takes the lead!”
Ilrica touched a platform, then disappeared. He found her again just as she served from the far end of the valley. Gerald dashed from column to column, trying to keep his balance, and swung his paddle. The ball disappeared as it made contact, and a buzzer went off. Gerald stood up and saw that the only glowing platform had been three stories above him.
“Two to zero. I like this game,” she praised.
“This isn’t a game,” he said, catching his breath. “Real games have a level playing field. This is just you kicking my teeth in.”
She laughed as she leapt down and balanced on top of a glowing column with one foot. “A level playing field?”
“Yes, it means that...”
“I know what it means, I just don’t understand why you humans are so caught up in it. I mean, think about it. Where do you find a level playing field in nature anywhere?”
Before he could answer, she leapt high in the air and served the ball. It bounced off the table and sailed past him long before he could get to his platform two stories beneath.
“Three to zero.” Ilrica tapped her translator and a window of a hawk appeared in front of her. “When a Drazon drives down at 400 clicks to snatch up a field-nauss off the prairie, is that a level playing field? You humans have this concept of fairness and it just doesn’t exist.
It never has.”
She served the ball again. This time, Gerald made it to a glowing column in time, but the ball sailed past him at the far end of the valley. “Four to zero,” she cheered.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “Life is not fair, but it is also not fun. That is why we make games. They are supposed to be fun.”
She grinned, showing off her ivory fangs. “It’s fun for the hunter.”
She fell upwards and flipped upside down, touching the bottom of a glowing rock, then served the ball. Gerald ran with all his might, touching a glowing column, and threw his paddle up at the ball as it sailed over him. Amazingly, the paddle hit the ball, but only managed to knock it away, never even coming close to the table.
“Hey, nice one,” she praised as the buzzer went off. “I like how you keep trying.”
Gerald ran over and recovered his paddle. “I never give up.”
“That’s the spirit!” she praised, leaping sideways, and hitting the ball so hard it looked like it would shatter.
As they played, a crowd began to gather on the observation deck high above them. Partly for the novelty of watching a monk scamper about in his robes. Partly for the oddity of watching Ilrica taunt and tease an opponent who clearly stood no real chance at this game.
“Eleven to zero,” Ilrica cheered, hanging like a bat from one platform with her toes.
Gerald fought to catch his breath as he leaned against a stone pillar. Sweat dripping from the tip of his squared chin.
She inverted her hand and caught the ball as it fell down, then vanished. Gerald didn’t even look for her. He took off running for the nearest glowing column. He jumped onto a platform, then slid down the far side of it, tapping it with his shoe.
He looked up and saw her serving from high above him. He scooted back up the platform and leapt into the air, catching a rock with one hand and hanging just in the right spot. The ball came sailing towards him and he returned. He watched it with satisfaction as it hit her end of the table. A couple people applauded, but Ilrica was already on top of it, smacking the ball to the far end of his side of the valley before he could even drop to his feet.
The buzzer sounded game-over as he picked himself up.
“Good boy,” she said, as she appeared alongside him and patting him on the head. “You actually hit it back that time.”
“Quit it!” he said, swatting her hand away.
Ilrica held up her paddle to the people watching. “Thank you everybody. I hope you had as much fun watching the human get beaten as I did beating him!”
The crowd looked at each other distastefully.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the owner said, coming forward.
“Why?” Gerald asked suspiciously.
“The Bertulf is being too hard on the equipment,” he stated, crossing his tentacles.
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Come on,” Ilrica bade. “Let’s go scare some babies.”
She grabbed his wrist and they were off again.
* * *
A young mother turned a corner in the park, her stroller hovering in front of her while she gossiped to the person in the window above her.
Then she saw fangs tearing into flesh, and blood dripping down a chin.
The young mother screamed, falling backwards into the mud. She nearly knocked over her stroller as she scampered to her feet, terrified.
Ilrica laughed to herself, licking the blood from her chops.
“Filthy animal,” the woman complained once she realized that Ilrica was doing nothing more than sitting on a park bench eating her dinner. She gathered up her muddy things and walked away, opening a window to call the police.
“That never gets old,” Ilrica chucked as she took another bite of the brakka leg they had bought. “Prey species are such babies.”
Gerald peeled his lemon and took a bite. “It’s getting pretty late in the day. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be off.”
Ilrica took another bite and shook her head. “Date’s not over yet.”
“This is a date?”
“Well, sure it is. I dumped turajino on your head, humiliated you at ping-pong, and forced you to buy me dinner.”
“Yes, remind me what I get out of this again?”
She gave him a knowing wink. “Your reward comes at the end. That’s the best part.”
“I’m not sure I’ll like what that means.”
“Am I giving you a choice?” she asked, slurping down her food.
“No, and the fact that you can bend time means I can’t run away from you.”
She patted him on the head. “I’m glad you understand.”
Gerald discreetly reached up to tap his communicator and call for Trahzi, but when his finger reached it, he realized that he was now wearing a different brand.
“What the?”
Ilrica held up his old translator in her hand.
“But when did you? Oh, right.”
She smiled and tucked it away into her uniform pocket.
“I guess I should have figured that you’d be harder to ditch than Zurra.”
Ilrica threw her head back and laughed. “I’ve hunted Rixigliss over the glass plains of Pleemin. Those things can aetherically hide their very existence. If they can’t lose me, you don’t stand a chance.”
She moved to throw away the rest of the leg.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She sucked her teeth. “I’m done.”
“Yes, but you don’t throw it away.” He delicately took the leg away and looked around. “Here, follow me.”
He led her across the park into an alleyway. As soon as they entered it, they moved from the polished clean streets into a dingy, shadow world of grime.
“What are we doing in here?”
Gerald sniffed the air. “If you just take a minute to look around...”
They rounded a corner and found a trio of homeless people huddled around a heat lamp.
“...you find someone who needs it more than you.”
Gerald greeted them in standard and placed the leg on the heat lamp. Within a couple of minutes it had cooked up nicely, and he divided the meat up amongst them.
“Thank you sonny,” the woman with wood-like skin said, gobbling the meat down.
Gerald held out some to the filthiest one, his long brown beard poking out from beneath his True-Life helmet. The man pushed it away.
“Does he not want any?”
“Oh, he’s just sore right now because his virtual girlfriend broke up with him,” the scaly-skinned man said.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbled from beneath his helmet.
Gerald scratched his neck. “How can your virtual girlfriend break up with you? She is programmed to be completely loyal to you.”
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Ilrica picked a piece of cartilage from her teeth. “But saying you don’t want to talk about it is talking about it. Ipso facto, you are talking about it.”
“Wow, you were paying attention in Ms. Stubbs’ class,” Gerald praised.
“Nah, I just heard it in a movie once.”
The man tipped up his helmet and accepted the piece of meat.
“Holy trab!” Ilrica said. “He’s a human.”
“Well, of course I am,” he said, chewing with his rotten brown teeth.
She sniffed him just to make sure. “But you have fur on your face.”
“It’s called a beard.”
Ilrica was impressed. “Oh, wow. Gerald, you should grow a beard like him. It would make you look so much more manly.”
“He’s pretty manly already,” the woman said, looking over Gerald’s sculpted physique.
Ilrica’s tail flicked around. “How can he be manly without fur?”
* * *
“Wait, THIS is what you meant by the best part?” Gerald yelled as Ilrica dragged him into the lobby of a seedy love-motel.
“
Aw, you’re being all shy, that’s so cute.”
The hotel clerk had trouble hiding her disdain as she watched Ilrica approach.
“Hello, I’d like a room, please,” Ilrica said, tossing Gerald down beneath the counter like he was some piece of luggage, then placed her shoe on top of him to keep him from squirming away.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any rooms available,” the clerk explained, without looking up. “The hotel is currently full for the festival.”
Ilrica raised an eyebrow. “But I made a reservation. It’s under Ilrica Faolan.”
“You were planning this?” Gerald grunted. She silenced him with a gentle kick to the ribs.
The receptionist clicked her mandibles together and clacked away at her controls. While she did, another couple staggered in, stinking of wine and spice.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see any reservation under that name,” the clerk explained.
Ilrica leaned on her elbow. “I confirmed it like five times.”
“Well, is it possible you made the reservation under another name?”
Ilrica blinked. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, it’s just something I’m supposed to ask.”
“Is that something you normally allow? People to make reservations under a false name.”
Her antennae twitched. “No, I suppose we don’t.”
“So, why did you ask? Are you trying to get me to admit to illegal activity?” Ilrica looked around ominously. “Is this like a police sting or something?”
“No, of course not.”
Ilrica leaned over the counter to get a better look. “What have you got back there behind those doors? Are there cops back there waiting to come out?”
The mention of police made the drunken couple nervous. They whispered to each other uneasily and began gathering up their things.
The clerk noticed their agitation and tried to calm them. “No, ma’am. Please, we do everything to protect the privacy of our customers. Um, sir, ma’am, please don’t leave! I’ll finish up with these two then get to you.”
Gerald managed to twist onto his side beneath her shoe. “What are you doing?”
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