Manuel lowered himself to everyone’s head height and pulled the projection back between his pages. He turned to Jelly to see her crossed legged by the wall, playing with her claws.
She looked up, “What?”
“Whatever Pink Symphony did to her, we need to make sure she’s protected,” Manuel said.
“Protected?” Jaycee booted Baldron’s head off the bed. It hit the floor and rolled nose-over-skull to a halt in the middle of the room, “Protected from what? Certain death? Are you out of your crazy, Spanish mind?”
“Don’t start that again,” Tor ducked his head and whimpered to himself.
Manuel tried to calm the giant down and relax everyone’s nerves. An unlikely endeavor given the circumstances, “You’ve heard of the two Fs when it comes to conflict, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, fight or flight,” Jaycee twisted his new hand around and wiggled the thumb.
“Did you know that there is a third F?”
“No.”
“Well, there is,” Manuel spun around to the others, “It’s the worst F of all.”
Bonnie shrugged her shoulders, “French?”
Manuel spun around with despair, “Uh, no? How can you French your way in a situation?”
“Come here and I’ll show you, you useless tome-stone.”
“I’ll ignore that,” Manuel shrugged off the offense, “No, the third F stands for Freeze.”
Tripp scrunched his face, “I’m sorry, Manuel. Maybe I hit my head a little too hard when we crash-landed her, but… what the hell has this got to do with anything?”
“Ugh, you androids,” Manuel spat. “You’re so particular, aren’t you? What it means, captain, is that you can freeze on the spot in the face of adversity. If you do that, you’ll get killed.”
“You’re a bad liar, you know that?” Tripp spat.
Manuel slammed his covers together, “Oh, I’m not lying, I can assure you. If you were to run, well, you can’t run. Unless you want to fall off the edge of the universe. Are you getting my point, yet?”
“No.”
“We’ve established that you can neither fly nor freeze. Both will get you killed. So, which F does that leave?” Manuel asked.
“Fight,” Jaycee said.
“Exactly. Your only available course of action. Are you all ready for war? Or do you want to fall on your knees and beg for mercy?” Manuel shifted to the window and aligned his pages to the sandy ground, “Because I can assure you, those Shanta things out there haven’t shown very much of that so far.”
Jaycee clamped the buckles on his exo-suit together, “He’s right, you know.”
Tripp kept his eyes fixed on Manuel, “So we fight?”
“Damn right we fight,” Manuel realized something peculiar about what he’d just said, “Hmm, that rhymes. I must remember that.”
“Miew,” Jelly snuggled up to Wool. The pink glow from inside her belly sluiced around her infinity claws.
Tripp approached the bed and made eye contact with Wool. She seemed upset and very protective of the half-cat child resting against her bosom.
“We need to protect whatever is inside Jelly.”
Bonnie kicked herself away from the wall. Tor stood up straight and brushed himself down. Jaycee collected Baldron’s head from the floor and dislocated the jawbone.
The three of them stood together in solidarity.
“What do you want us to do, Tripp?” Bonnie asked.
“Taking no chances, and certainly no prisoners. We’re all war ready,” he pointed to Jelly, “But our little war mage, here, is not. We have about twelve hours to make sure she is.”
Jaycee and Bonnie fist-bumped each other.
“Leave it with us,” Jaycee ‘fist-bumped’ Tor’s face a bit harder than necessary.
“Oww.”
“We’ll toughen her up.”
“Good,” Tripp looked at Baldron’s body before making his way out of Medix, “Bring what’s left of the dead Russian with you. I think I’ll—”
“—Which one?” Jaycee joked as he looked from Baldron to Tor.
“Hey," Tor protested.
Tripp tapped his destroyed cheek bone, “I’ll take you up on that face transplant offer. I can’t walk around looking like a comic book villain for much longer. It’ll scare our guests.”
“You got it.”
Jaycee thwacked Tor on the back and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, “Come with me, nitwit. We’ll make use out of you, yet.”
“Gerrof me.”
He booted Tor out of Medix and turned to Jelly, “See you in a while, Anderson.”
“Meow,” she giggled and dug her claws into Wool’s sleeve.
Bonnie held her hand out at Jelly, “Wanna kick some ass, sweetie?”
“Meow.”
Kick or lick - it was all the same to this gnarly half-cat…
3’5”
The Fit Room
Bonnie moved through the dozen speed cycles and treadmills and headed for a crash mat at the end of the room.
“We’ll make a killer out of you, yet. Follow me.”
Jelly sprinted after her, fascinated by the way her new jeans rode up her thighs, “What are these called?”
“I told you already, they’re called jeans,” Bonnie turned around and looked at her, “They belong to my son. It’s the closest fit we had.”
“Why did you take your son’s jeans into space?”
“It reminds me of him. I like to hold them every now and again. Please look after them,” Bonnie dug her heel onto a red spot at the edge of the dark blue mat. The ceiling slid apart and dropped a rugged punching bag which swung back and forth over the mat.
Bonnie grabbed it and gave it a hug, “You like this?”
“Miew,” Jelly sniffed the scent on her new denim and looked up at the bundle of horsehair hanging in front of her. She clapped eyes on the USARIC logo plastered over its surface and revealed her fangs, “Let’s kill it.”
“You know Jitsaku, huh?”
“They made me do it at the Star Cat Trials,” Jelly socked the punch bag with her fist, “They made me kill Bisoubisou.”
Jelly recoiled in pain which made Bonnie chuckle with affection, “Aww. Not quite ready to punch, huh?”
“Miew.”
Bonnie rolled up her sleeve up her forearm and thumbed her Individimedia ink. It swashed around her synthetic skin and formed a giant play button at her wrist.
“I find it helps to train with music,” Bonnie spoke into her arm, “Start play-list. Fight Music.”
Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog played through the pinpricks in her wrist, “There, that’s more like it. Now we’ll see who’s the sonofabitch.”
“Son… of… a… bitch,” Jelly mouthed, banking the phrase in her mind.
“Okay, in Jitsaku terminology, this known as taking out the trash,” Bonnie rolled her shoulders and held up her fists.
“Taking out the trash,” Jelly repeated, somewhat confused.
Bonnie trained her eyes on the bag and prepared to deliver a vicious blow, “Okay, girl. Watch me very carefully…”
Over in Medix, Tripp, Tor, and Jaycee observed a bloodied, severed talon from the dead Shanta laying on a bed.
Manuel threw his beam across its shiny surface and projected the results onto a three-dimensional image via the E-MRI scan.
He floated over to the crew, “Just finalizing the data to check for things I consider to be abnormal.”
Jaycee turned to Tor and smirked, “He doesn’t mean you.”
“What?” Tor asked, failing to get the joke.
Tripp found the remark hilarious. He covered his mouth in a futile attempt to stop himself laughing.
“What are you laughing at?” Tor asked.
“I’m not, I’m sorry,” Tor cleared his throat, but simply couldn’t stop from laughing, “I don’t—Shut up,” He nudged Jaycee on the shoulder. The big fellow turned away and tried to suppress his laughter.
So, too, did M
anuel, “Ahem, I’m sorry.”
“Even the damn computer is laughing at me,” Tor complained, “Right, that’s enough, I’m going to Pure Genius to get ready. Where I’m welcome.”
Jaycee shouted after him through his sudden fit of laughter, “Hey, remember. Put your Decapidisc on. I’ll be coming up to check soon.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Tor slammed the door shut behind him.
Manuel and the two men burst out laughing, “Oh, my. That was funny.”
“I can’t breathe,” Tripp gasped through his chuckles.
Manuel cleared his throat and straightened his covers, “Okay. Can we concentrate, now, on the task at hand?”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” Tripp swallowed his churlish giggles and pointed at the Shanta talon on the holograph, “Benign bacteria?”
“Probably a coincidence,” Manuel said. “A Dodecahydrate, of sorts. Shares a lot of properties with chrome.”
“Chrome?” Tripp struggled to comprehend the data.
Manuel pointed his back cover at the results, “Yes. Some of the elements closely resemble potassium sulfate. As far as comparable elements go, that’s where it ends. It’s absolutely unique, otherwise.”
Jaycee thumped the sword-like talon’s surface and failed to produce so much as a dent in it.
“Impenetrable, too,” Manuel pointed out the obvious.
Tripp pointed to the second image on the E-MRI. A cluster of colored digital blobs, “What about the pink stuff?”
“The blood?” Manuel shook his body around, “Don’t even get me started on that. The make-up is entirely alien. A thorough Ames test recorded high levels of carcinogens.”
The chart displayed an array of red values and numbers.
“So Pink Symphony is cancer?”
“In its current form, it’s far worse. Way more aggressive,” Manuel said. “The cell counts dial down. It’s more like an immune deficiency. Some evolutionary mix-up.”
“Great,” Jaycee kicked the bed, “And we’ve all got it?”
Manuel protested, “It’s not my fault, nor the bed’s. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Symphonium,” Tripp stood stepped away from the talon. “If it needs a name and we have to report back to USARIC, we’re not calling it Pink Symphony.”
“Why not?” Manuel asked. “That’s its own interpretation of itself. Besides, it hasn’t affected any of you Series Three units. Yet.”
Manuel’s flippant remark caused Tripp to burst with anger.
“I realize that, you dolt. But I refuse to call my illness Pink Symphony, okay?”
Jaycee went to hold him back, “Tripp, don’t get mad—”
“—I can’t go back home and tell my wife the reason I’m wearing a mask and can never breathe the same air as her again is because I’m infected with something called Pink Symphony,” Tripp threw Jaycee back and stormed out of the room, “It’s called Symphonium. Manuel, record that name—”
“—But, Captain, I—”
“—Shut the hell up and do it,” Tripp felt behind his ear and exited the room in a huff.
Jaycee looked at the floor in bewilderment, “Pfft, dude. Have a cow, much?”
THWACK!
Bonnie jumped in the air and scissor-kicked the punch bag against the ceiling.
“Wow,” Jelly marveled at her friend’s strength. The bag swung back into Bonnie’s arms.
“Okay, Anderson. You ready to tear it up?”
“Meow,” she flapped her tail and made her way onto the mat, “Me wanna kill it—”
In Pure Genius, Tor circled around Jelly, who sat crossed-legged in the middle of the cube. He slid his fingertips over the surface of his Decapidisc.
“What’s that around your neck?” she asked.
“Never mind that. Jaycee put it on me while I train you. I’m the communications officer and you have to do what I say—”
“—Ohh, I know what it is. It cuts your head off.”
“Look, I’m in charge, here,” Tor fumed. “Now, try that again. It’s not me wanna kill it, as you said. Incorrectly. It’s I want to kill it. Use the correct first person singular pronoun, please.”
“I … want to kill?”
“Very good,” Tor clapped his hands together. Twenty panels on the adjacent wall lit up. All but one displayed a variety of adjectives.
Big - Small - Drunk - Sad - Fast - Mage - Elated - Drown
Jelly licked her lips and pressed her claws against the tile underneath her legs. She began to read them aloud, “Big… Small—”
“—No, no. I don’t want you to read them. I want you to tell me which one is the noun.”
“Noun,” Jelly repeated. “Like a thing word?”
“That’s right, like a thing word. Take a look.”
She scanned each of the words and landed on the sixth one. She turned to him and tried her luck, “Mage?”
“Well done, yes.”
“That’s me,” Jelly clapped her hand-paws together. The ends of her infinity claws clinked together, reminding Tor of just how screwed he was if he ever got into a fight with her. He cleared his throat and snapped his fingers at the tile.
The word Mage expanded, followed by a blank box.
“Can you give me the definitive definition of the word mage, please?”
“It is a girl God. Girl good with magic.”
“I guess that’s accurate enough. Good work.”
“Ha ha,” Jelly swished her tail in triumph.
“Right, let’s try something a little more advanced…”
4’2”
The Fit Room
Four hours later
“This is quite advanced,” Bonnie walked around the punch bag and traced her gloved fingers around the canvas, “Jitsaku is all about harnessing your oppressor’s anger and using it against them. You think you can do that?”
“I don’t care about my oppressor,” Jelly swiped at the bag and flung her infinity claws out, “I care about me. What does oppressor mean?”
“It means the bad guy, sweetie.”
“Not liking bad guys.”
“You don’t like the bad guys, you mean,” Bonnie said. “Didn’t Tor teach you anything?”
“Tor is a bad guy. He tried to kill us. Not wanting.”
JAB-JAB-SWUNCH!
Jelly smashed the bag with all her might. It flew past Bonnie’s face, lifting the ends of her hair over her neck, “Whoa!”
“Sonofabitch,” Jelly muttered and thwacked the bag once again, this time with her right foot, “Come and get it.”
Bonnie gasped. “Jelly! Where did you hear that word?”
“It?”
“No! The S-word.”
“Sonofabitch?” Jelly said with a cute nonchalance.
“Don’t repeat it, Jelly!”
“You said it earlier when we started.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Bonnie failed to recollect the incident. She shrugged and allowed her authority to remain intact, “Well, whatever. Just do as I do, not as I say.”
“Huh?”
“No, wait—” Bonnie corrected herself and thought over the phrase, “Do as I say, and as I do.”
“Me confused.”
Bonnie exhaled and closed her eyes, “Just don’t say that word again, okay? No swears, please.”
“Jaycee and Tripp say rude words. One time, I heard Jaycee call someone a mother—”
“—Right,” Tor held his Decapidisc in anger, “Let’s get this straight once and for all. Where and when to use cuss words.”
A variety of colorful curse words appeared on the panels inside Pure Genius.
“Okay,” Jelly leaned back on her elbows and started up at the bank of tiles. She clapped eyes on an eight-letter word she’d not seen before, “Tor?”
“Yes, Jelly?”
“What does dick… head mean?”
The tile containing the offending word flashed as soon as the utterance left her mouth.
“Like a bad guy?” Jelly added with stern curiosity. Tor breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he didn’t have to explain why boys and girls were different.
“Yes, yes, exactly. Like a bad guy.”
A cheeky grin crept along her face. She eyed him with salacious menace and pointed her infinity claw at his face, “Dickhead.”
“What?”
“You’re a dickhead,” she said. “A bad guy. And I know what a dick is.”
“That’s not funny,” Tor pointed to a four letter word beginning with "F’ on the next tile, “Okay, smart-ass. If you’re so clever, do you know what that word means?”
She turned to it and took a deep breath, “I know how to say it but Bonnie and mommy said I shouldn’t.”
“Good, I’m glad mommy said that.”
“Also, she said that’s what you can do to yourself if you go anywhere near her again.”
Tor punched the wall in anger, “God damn it.”
“Umm, you swore, Tor,” she laughed at his anguish, “I’m going to tell.”
“Please don’t—”
4’7”
Medix
Two hours later
“—Please don’t knock the cups off, honey,” Wool watched Jelly press her chin against the surface of the table, “I mean it. Try to resist.”
Jelly looked at the five empty cups perched in a row. Her paws twitched, wanting to strike each one.
Wool tested the cat’s obedience, “Do not touch those cups. Remember what you did during the Star Cat Trials—”
“Miew,” the very thought of the needlessly violent competition made her thrash the first cup off the edge and onto the floor.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to hold that in,” Wool said. “But you need to learn to obey orders, honey.”
“I wanna knock ‘em all off.”
“Think of them as fingers,” Wool said. “If that was me hanging off the side of the building, I like to think you’d help me back up.”
“Mmm, no. My instinct wants me to knock them off. Make them fall.”
Star Cat: The First Trilogy (Infinity Claws, Pink Symphony, War Mage) Page 51