by E. M. Foner
“Not this evening.”
“Is there some kind of civil war going on?” Samuel asked.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly,” the Stryx hedged.
“Come on, Jeeves. What’s the deal then?”
“The four of you are employed by an establishment known as the Gold Vault.”
“So we’re bank guards,” Jorb concluded. “That’s cool, as long as somebody actually tries to rob us.”
“Your boss is Razel, a Frunge woman who inherited the business from her father. The mission is to keep the Gold Vault peaceful for two hours without killing anybody.”
“WHAT!” the Drazen exploded in disbelief.
“If there are no further questions,” Jeeves said, and without waiting for a response, engaged the holographic virtual reality system of the studio space.
The four students found themselves standing on the curved deck of a standard spinning habitat of the sort towed into position for medium-term mining or space construction activities. Looking at each other, they found that their features had been partially obscured with overlays, rendering the four of them as Vergallians. For Samuel and Vivian, the main difference was they had aged ten or fifteen years, though they also sported military hairstyles and higher cheekbones. Jorb was missing his tentacle and extra thumbs, and Marilla looked like a rebel princess in a Vergallian drama.
“We better find this vault place,” Samuel said, knowing that arguing with the invisible Stryx would only result in lost points for breaking character. “Does anybody read Frunge?”
“I can manage the basic stuff,” Marilla told him, stepping aside to avoid a drunken miner lurching out of the noisy bar in front of them. “Oh, no!”
“What?” Jorb demanded.
“It’s here. This bar is named the Gold Vault.”
“We’re bouncers?”
“Look sharp,” Vivian warned them. “I think our boss is waving at us and she doesn’t look happy.”
“Get your lazy Vergallian butts over here,” a middle-aged Frunge woman shouted at them. “The mercenary guild must have fallen on hard times if you’re the best they can send me on Seedling Day.”
“We’re bouncing for the Frunge miners on Seedling Day?” Jorb said in dismay. “They’re all going to be loaded!”
“I’ll assume you know how to use those weapons, but everybody here is a customer, so you stick with bare hands unless they can’t pay the bill,” the alien proprietress barked. She shook her head at the students, who looked more like models than crowd-control specialists. “You ladies handle credit checks at the entrance and the seating, and don’t accept any guff about friends coming later. These scanners read the credit balance and nobody gets in with less than twenty unless they have cash to make up the difference.” Razel handed each of the girls what looked like a secret decoder ring from a box of breakfast cereal.
“So we show the new customers to an empty table?” Vivian asked.
“Haven’t you ever worked bar detail before? We save the empty tables for large groups. Your job is to seat the newcomers wherever they fit, and start filling the tables nearest to the bar first because it’s a shorter trip for the waitresses.”
“We seat them with strangers?”
“If they were friends, I wouldn’t have to pay you to make them sit together, now would I?” the owner replied sarcastically. “You males,” she continued with a sneer that showed what she thought of pretty-boy Vergallians, “are going to be my sorry excuse for a flying squad. If anybody starts fighting, you get there and turf them out before they start putting dents in the furniture. But make sure you don’t interrupt a drinking game by mistake or you’ll be the ones going home early. Got it?”
“Drinking game?” Samuel asked.
“I’ll explain,” Jorb volunteered. “Thank you for hiring us.”
The Frunge woman gave them all a final disgusted look and then stalked back through the maze of tables to resume her place behind the bar. The four students took a minute to survey the interior of the Gold Vault, which was furnished with hundreds of black-painted metal chairs and perhaps forty tables of various sizes and shapes.
“A couple of Frunge who work out at the dojo invited me to a Seedling Day party last time it came around,” Jorb told the others. “They aren’t bad drunks, like Dollnicks or Humans, but once they get started on these awful drinking songs that go in rounds, you’ll wish they were brawlers. And they play this game where they punch each other in the shoulder and whoever flinches first has to drink. Frunge are wiry, but they’re tough.”
“I can’t believe we’re supposed to seat people with strangers,” the shy Horten girl said. “What if they refuse?”
“Here’s your chance to find out,” Samuel told her as a couple of miners sauntered up to the entrance.
“Uh, credit check,” Vivian said, stepping in front of the two Frunge. Neither of them showed any surprise at the request, and one who was faster at opening his belt pouch extended some sort of payment chit. Unsure what to do, she reached to take it, and the ring she had slipped onto her finger lit up with a three-digit number. At the same time, the miner jerked his hand back.
“Were you about to touch my chit?” he demanded incredulously.
“Sorry, it’s my first time,” Vivian apologized.
Next to her, Marilla hastily shoved her ring onto a finger and carefully extended it over the chit presented by the other miner. The tiny screen again lit up with a three-figure sum. “He’s all set,” she said.
“Great,” Vivian said. “If you gentlemen would come with me.”
“Gentlemen,” one of the miners repeated to the other with comic politeness, and instead of a nudge, threw a hard punch at his friend’s shoulder. The Frunge on the receiving end didn’t even turn his head at the impact and followed the girl into the bar.
Vivian cringed as she led them past a number of empty tables and up to a round table with four chairs, two of which were already occupied by a pair of older aliens who had obviously been drinking for some time. Unsure what to say, she indicated the empty seats with an open hand.
“Thanks, but we’ll just take one of the open tables we passed back there,” one of the miners said.
“I’m sorry, but all of our tables seat a minimum of four,” Vivian said as firmly as she could. “You know the rules.”
“Rules?” the miner drawled, winking at his friend. “We don’t need no stinking rules.”
“Oh, shut up and plant it,” one of the seated Frunge said. “You’re buying the next round for making us listen to that immature backtalk. You’d think they never worked on a habitat before,” he concluded, though it was unclear to Vivian whether he was addressing her or his companion.
“That didn’t look so bad,” Samuel said when the girl returned to the entrance.
“One of them started to say something but the older guys shut him down.”
“Is the habitat failing?” Marilla asked, as loud creaking sounds suddenly began.
“They’re singing, ‘My Green Forest’ already,” Jorb groaned. “It has like a hundred verses, and the only saving grace is that they pause for a couple minutes between each round to symbolize growth.”
“Are those guys playing or fighting?” Samuel asked the Drazen, pointing to a pair of Frunge in the corner of the bar who appeared to be trading blows.
“We’re on,” Jorb replied, and dashed off in the direction of the combatants. It only took the student bouncers a moment to separate the battling miners, much to the disappointment of the Frunge seated nearby. Samuel couldn’t help marveling over how real it all felt, even though he knew that he was restraining a robot wrapped in a hologram.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked the construct, which continued trying to slip by him to get to the other miner.
“I was next in line for the bathroom and that rotten stump tried to sneak past me.”
“You can’t fight in here. The owner doesn’t want the furniture getting banged up.”
“I wasn’t hurting the furniture,” the miner complained. “And save the lecture, I still have to water the grass.”
A commotion broke out near the door, and Samuel looked over to see Vivian and Marilla arguing with a pair of Frunge females who sported towering trellis work.
“Don’t make me come over here again,” he warned the miner, and sprinted back towards the entrance. Jorb delayed a minute, allowing the miner Samuel had released to enter the restroom and latch the door before setting his own catch free with a similar admonition. By the time he made it to the entrance, the owner was there shouting at the two girls while Samuel tried to restrain her.
“How many females do you see in the bar?” Razel demanded, and then proceeded to answer her own question. “There’s me, my three waitresses, and the four ore graders sitting together who haven’t spent a cred on drinks all night. Why haven’t they bought any drinks? Because the miners keep sending them my best wines, that’s why. And you tried to run a credit check on two single girls from station administration who took the trouble to put up their hair vines before coming out?”
“But you said there was a twenty-cred minimum,” Vivian protested weakly.
“Use your brains, Vergallian,” the Frunge proprietress practically howled. “It’s a bar. If these miners just wanted to sit around and drink, they could do it in their quarters for a fraction of the cost.”
“No credit checks for females,” Marilla said, doing her best to suppress her own anger over being yelled at. “Got it, boss.”
Razel snorted and turned her attention to Samuel. “And why didn’t I see you hauling those brawlers out the door?”
“They were just arguing over the bathroom, they didn’t seem that drunk.”
“Mine was carrying a couple hundred in cash,” Jorb added.
“All right, then,” the Frunge said, sounding slightly mollified. “At least somebody has their head screwed on straight. One of you grab a mop out of the utility closet behind the bar and clean up over near the waitress station where somebody spilled a drink.”
“I’ll do it,” Samuel volunteered, and followed Razel back to the bar.
“This isn’t what I was thinking about when Jeeves promised us an action LARP,” Jorb complained to the girls.
“Ten-point penalty for going out of character,” the Stryx’s voice came out of thin air.
“Timeout,” Vivian requested, and the noise from the bar halted as if somebody had hit a mute button. “Is there really a point to this exercise or are you just showing off the technology? I’m not even old enough to be in a place like this.”
“All the more reason you should see what they’re like now before you get into the habit,” the disembodied voice replied. “And let me remind you that patience is a virtue. Timeout over.”
“What do you think he—” Jorb began, but swallowed whatever he was going to ask about Jeeves when he remembered the ten-point penalty, and instead improvised, “—is going to use to squeeze out the mop?”
“It’s the sponge type,” Marilla said, looking over as Samuel pulled that tool from the utility closet. “I guess he’ll just wring it out over the slop sink.”
“Credit check,” Vivian announced to a new trio of miners who had just arrived. As they reached for their chits, another round of “My Green Forest” started up, and the three new arrivals creaked along with the others at the top of their lungs.
“I’ll seat this batch,” Marilla offered, and led the customers into the bar. Jorb stood like a sentry at the entrance, studying the customers inside while Vivian watched for new arrivals. It wasn’t long before an artificial Sharf appeared, his non-biological status made obvious by the lack of a covering on his robotic right arm, which had obviously been damaged in some kind of mining accident.
“Credit check,” Vivian told the ragged artificial person, though she felt terrible about asking.
The Sharf produced a pay chit without a word, and the girl’s scanner ring showed that he had just eighteen creds, assuming that was currency displayed.
“I’m sorry, there’s a twenty-credit minimum tonight,” she said. “It’s Seedling Day.”
“My power pack is dead,” the artificial person told her. “I really need some alcohol for my backup turbine or I’m going to collapse somewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Do you have any cash to round up?”
“Cash?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Since my hand got skinned in a crusher feed the Frunge won’t hire me. I’m just trying to stay on my feet until the next supply ship comes in so I can beg them to take me on as an indentured worker.”
Vivian felt for her purse, but something seemed to push her hand away and guide it towards the belt pouch of her holographic uniform. She opened the flap and saw a few coins gleaming inside. “Here,” she said, offering the artificial Sharf a five cred piece. “Now you’ve got twenty-three and you can go in.”
“I’ll return this,” he said, his voice choked with feeling. But two steps into the bar, several drunken Frunge lunged up from their table to block his path.
“Who let the robot in here?” the biggest one demanded, poking the artificial person in the chest. “We don’t need your kind on this habitat.”
“Take it easy,” Jorb growled, pushing between them. “He just wants to have a drink, the same as everybody.”
“Robots steal our jobs,” another Frunge said in an ugly tone, and a few more miners rose from their tables when they figured out what was happening.
“Don’t call me a robot,” the Sharf retorted, his head turning in the direction of the new accusation. “I’m an artificial person, and my people were building faster-than-light ships back when you were—”
“Throw him out!” Razel ordered, pushing through the growing mob and glaring daggers at Jorb. “The four of you must be the stupidest Vergallians in history. You want to turn away single females and then you invite in broken-down robot trash?”
“That’s not right,” Jorb began, but the Frunge proprietress didn’t give him a chance to continue.
“MOVE!” she thundered, shoving the Drazen so hard that he stumbled into the artificial person. “Are both of you brain dead?” Razel hissed as she continued shoving them back towards the corridor. “They’ll tear him apart in there!”
Several of the miners seemed inclined to follow the Sharf out of the bar, but a waitress suddenly appeared in their path, handing out complimentary shots. Then another round of “My Green Forest” started up, and the Frunge were distracted by the demands of remembering the lyrics.
To the surprise of the role-playing students, the owner followed the artificial person out into the corridor, still berating him loudly, and then produced a bottle of grain alcohol from under her apron and surreptitiously passed it over before yelling, “And don’t come back!” for the benefit of a newly arriving group of miners. The Sharf ducked into a side passage, and Razel stood scowling while Vivian and Marilla credit-checked the new customers and then took them inside to be seated with strangers.
“That was very Drazen of you,” Jorb said, bestowing his highest compliment on the proprietress.
“What did you call me?” Razel demanded, jabbing him in the chest with a stiff finger. “I swear by my ancestors that you Vergallians are even dumber than that poor robot. Artificial intelligence,” she scoffed. “Doesn’t even have the sense to keep his ragged metal butt out of a Frunge bar on Seedling Day.”
Samuel dodged out of the way of the irate Frunge woman as she headed back inside. “What was that all about?” he asked the others.
“An artificial Sharf down on his luck came to buy a drink for his micro-turbine,” Vivian explained. “He didn’t have enough to get in, but I couldn’t help remembering Chance’s story about running out of power on an alien orbital, and I felt I had to do something.”
The Frunge in the bar launched into another round of the interminable song, but the sound suddenly cut off like somebody had draped an acousti
c suppression field across the entrance. It was replaced by a familiar hollow sound which terminated when the rolling five-cred coin bounced off of Vivian’s foot and fell flat. As she bent to pick it up, a cartoon bubble popped into existence in front of them, reading, “Congratulations. You have completed the quest ‘Save an artificial person’s self-esteem.’ Receive 10 experience points and level up.”
“Does this mean we’re done?” Marilla asked.
“That depends,” Jeeves replied, popping into existence to replace the dialogue. “Was that enough action for you?”
“YES!” the students chorused.
The scene of the Horten habitat disintegrated, and all that remained of the Gold Vault bar was a collection of mechanicals that had given physical presence to NPCs.
“I can’t believe you made us play mercenary Vergallian bouncers,” Jorb complained.
“Was that a scene out of history like the other LARPs we’ve done?” Vivian asked.
“Something like it has occurred countless times around the universe, but I adopted the particular scenario from a Sharf role-playing game that’s popular with artificial people on the Chintoo orbital who do the manufacturing for SBJ Fashions,” Jeeves replied. “Before you complain, I don’t choose the subjects for these university LARPs. I’m just the orchestrator.”
“So what’s the post-game summary?” Marilla asked. “Does the artificial person make it back to Sharf space and get his body repaired?”
“Analyzing your actions and taking a gazillion factors into account, I can tell you that Razel fires the Vergallian bouncers before the end of their shift, and the miners drink too much and get sore throats from singing. After talking about far away families and loved ones, they become so maudlin that they take up a collection for the artificial person. But when they try to find him, he thinks they’re a lynch mob and remains hidden.”
Fifteen
Kevin climbed down from the temporary scaffolding bolted to the face of the large Dollnick cargo container and flipped up his welding mask. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t there be more space between the cutouts?”