Star Cat: Pink Symphony

by Andrew Mackay

  Strands of her hair feathered into the air from the blast as Tripp pushed her to the ground.

  Bonnie looked up from underneath him to see a tall man in an exo-suit looking down at the pair. He adjusted the titanium glove on his right hand. "Bonnie? What’s gotten into you?"

  She screamed at the top of her lungs. "Help! Help!"

  Tripp turned over and saw Jaycee smiling at him.

  "Hey, Tripp."

  "Jaycee," Tripp stumbled to his feet and patted the giant on the back. "You’re here."

  "Of course I’m here," he said, looking down at Bonnie. "She was about to blow her brains out."

  "I know."

  "What did you do to her?"

  "I didn’t do anything," Tripp collected Bonnie’s Rez-9 from the floor and pointed it at her. "She’s out of her mind."

  "Probably blew a fuse when we entered Enceladus," Jaycee took out his K-SPARK shotgun and cocked it. "We better get her regenerated. Or whatever it is we do to them."

  Bonnie remained on the floor, completely overwhelmed by her assailants. She pushed her top half up by her elbows and kicked her feet against the ground.

  "Hey, Bonnie," Jaycee said. "Seems you’re suffering from a touch of amnesia, there."

  “Brain damage, more like,’ Tripp said.

  "P-Please, h-help me," she cried, wiping a pink tear from her cheek. "I just want to go home."

  "Still crying pink?" Jaycee asked, close to blasting her to smithereens. "You’re hysterical. Get on your feet, Doctor."

  Bonnie obeyed and staggered to her feet. She caught sight of her right leg as she adjusted her pants. The limb was made of metal with wires twisting around the joints.

  "My leg. What did you do to me?"

  "We didn’t do anything to you," Jaycee turned to Tripp and whispered. "We need to get her to N-Vigorate."

  "I know," Tripp addressed the distraught woman as carefully as possible. "Bonnie? We need to get you some help."

  "What?"

  "Something has happened to you. We need to shut you off for a while and let you rejuvenate."

  "No!" Bonnie took a step back, afraid for her life. Two men she didn’t know held their weapons at her. For all she knew, she’d been abducted by aliens. Perhaps they’d perform a probe or vivisection on her. "Stay away from me."

  "Where are you gonna go?" Jaycee smirked through the sight on his shotgun and stepped towards her. "You don’t know where you are."

  "Leave me alone."

  "She doesn’t wanna come, Tripp," Jaycee turned over his shoulder. "You want me to persuade her?"

  Tripp hung his head and nodded. He knew all about Jaycee’s ways of persuasion.

  "Stay away from me, you big hunk of slime," Bonnie held out her arms, threatening to attack him.

  Jaycee clenched his fist and gained on Bonnie as she walked backwards. "Come here, Bonnie. It’s for your own good."

  "Be gentle with her," Tripp called out to Jaycee and scooped Jelly into his arms. "Don’t watch."

  "I said stay away from me—"

  THWUMP.

  Jaycee thumped the back of her head, knocking her out. Tripp trained his eyes on the unconscious woman falling into the giant’s arms.

  “Damn, Jaycee. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  “Had to be done. At least when she wakes up she’ll forget she’s a damn Androgyne,” he said, dragging her backwards under her arms. “The equivalent of switching them off and back on again.”

  N-Vigorate Chamber

  Space Opera Beat - Level Three

  Jelly pressed her claws to the panel on the wall, opening the door. Tripp and Jaycee carried the unconscious Bonnie into the cylindrical chamber.

  "God, she’s heavy," Tripp struggled with the weight of her lower-half.

  "That’ll be her leg," Jaycee said, carrying her under her arms.

  "You should have taken her legs."

  "Why?"

  "You’re stronger than me," Tripp nodded at the electric chair at the far end of the room. "Set her down there. We’ll get her plugged in."

  "Okay."

  Jelly ran ahead of them and jumped onto the electric chair’s seat, making herself comfortable.

  "Oh no, Jelly," Tripp frowned as he and Jaycee carried Bonnie toward the device. "Not there, pet."

  "Meow."

  "Move."

  Jelly just stared at the pair as they approached her.

  "I said move," Tripp tried to shoo her away with his boot. "Go on, get off."

  Jelly climbed down and circled around the men’s feet.

  "Still her usual self, then?" Jaycee chuckled as he negotiated his footing around Jelly’s playful insistence. “A bit surplus to requirement now, though, isn’t she?”

  "She saved us. Remember that," Tripp dropped Bonnie’s legs onto the seat as Jaycee pushed her against the backrest. "If it wasn’t for Anderson, we’d be sitting ducks. Sitting, suffocating ducks."

  "Hang on a second," Jaycee looked at Jelly and squinted. "Did Anderson just open the N-Vigorate door for us?"

  Tripp looked at the passed-out Bonnie, somewhat amused by Jaycee’s surprise. "Yeah, I think she did."

  "But, how—"

  "—As I said, she’s the only one who could have engaged the thrusters. We think we went through the pink wormhole thing on Enceladus."

  Jaycee nodded at Jelly. “She did that?”

  “Yeah.”

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Well, we must have gone through Enceladus," Tripp tightened the strap on Bonnie’s lap, "We’re not in our solar system anymore. We must be somewhere else."

  "Meow," Jelly held up her right paw and yawned.

  Tripp winked at Jelly and held his right hand up at her, enacting a cute high-five, “Manuel hasn’t the first clue where we are,”

  “Manuel is an idiot,” Jaycee crouched and held his hands out to Jelly. "Who’s a good girl, then?"

  She ran into the giant’s arms and purred. He picked her up and watched Tripp grab a fistful of Bonnie’s her hair. He held it up to reveal a small tattoo-like text behind her ear that read: Manning/Synapse.

  He sighed, quietly, and shook his head. "I’m sorry, Bonnie."

  "What’s up?" Jaycee asked, allowing Jelly to purr away in his arms. "Everything okay?"

  Tripp took the end of a chunky cable from the console and lifted the cap away, "I just feel sorry for her, that’s all."

  "Why?"

  Tripp slid the back of her neck open and plugged the cable in.

  "We all know the Series Three is relatively new technology. But for a while, there, I forgot she wasn’t human."

  "You can’t let those Androgyne things get to you, my friend. She’s a droid. She’ll be fine."

  "I know that," Tripp locked the cable and released her hair around her neck, "But you’d have thought USARIC would have been more sensitive to its needs."

  "Sensitive? USARIC?” Jaycee let out a sarcastic smirk, “Since when did a corporation care about anything other than its bottom line?"

  “It’d be funny if it weren’t true,” Tripp yanked the lever on the console. It fired to life, along with the rejuvenation cable. Bonnie’s eyelids lifted up, revealing two pink retinas. "At least N-Vigorate is working."

  Tripp peered into Bonnie’s lifeless face and eyes. Lifeless, of course, to a point. Everyone except her knew she wasn’t a real human being but, damn it, her visage was extremely convincing.

  "Okay, that’s her taken care of. She’ll be fine in a few hours."

  "Tripp?" Jaycee ran his gloved fingers over Jelly’s head. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Are you ever going to tell Bonnie?"

  "Tell her what?" Tripp asked, knowing full well what his colleague was referring to.

  "That’s she’s not human."

  "God, no. No, we can never tell her. You know what happens when an Androgyne finds out it’s not human."

  "But she’s a series three model. That doesn’t apply to them,
does it?"

  "Hey, you saw how she behaved a few minutes ago. Not exactly a shining endorsement of mental well-being, is it?"

  "No, but—"

  "—It’s not worth the risk, Jaycee," Tripp insisted. "We need to find out what’s happened, and the last thing we need is Bonnie, of all people—"

  "—So to speak," Jaycee interrupted jovially.

  "—Very funny," Tripp tried not to smile. "The last thing we need is for her to do run rampant and causing more problems for us. Besides, she’s human to us. And that’s all that matters.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Jaycee nodded. “But if I chose to argue with it, I’d win, because I’d just kick your ass all around this room.”

  Tripp shook his head and smiled. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘if you resort to violence then you’ve lost the argument’, at all?”

  Jaycee thumped his fists together so hard that it shook the ground, “Uh, no.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Tripp gave up his attempt to educate Jaycee. Instead, he offered Jelly his hand. She swiped at it, playfully.

  “Did you see Wool, or our two Russian friends, on your travels?"

  "No. I woke up and found you and Bonnie. I’ve seen no one, yet. Other than you, Bonnie, and Jelly, here. The two Russkies should be in N-Carcerate where we left them."

  Tripp rubbed Jelly’s head and turned to the door, “They’d better be. Let’s go and find them.”

  "Did Manuel run a sit-rep?"

  Tripp walked toward the door in haste. "Manuel is, uh, experiencing some technical difficulties."

  "Technical difficulties?"

  "Yeah. I shut him down till we figure out what’s going on." Tripp pressed his palm to the panel on the wall. "How are you feeling, Jaycee? You look okay, but it’d be remiss of me not to ask."

  Jaycee bounced Jelly in his arms and kissed her on the head. "I’ve never felt better."

  "Is that pink stuff still coming from your eyes?"

  "Yes, but it doesn’t hurt. In fact, all my usual aches and pains are gone. How about you?"

  "I’m fine."

  The door slid open. Tripp took one final glance at Bonnie in the chair. The poor woman - something of a prisoner in her own mind. A product, or victim, of the Manning/Synapse company - feelings be damned. Destined to be confused for the rest of her existence.

  "It’s just not right, you know," Tripp whispered a bit too loudly for comfort.

  "What’s not right?"

  "What they’ve done to her."

  "Bonnie?" Jaycee smiled and tried to console his colleague. "Don’t worry about her. She’s a fighter. She’ll be fine."

  "I guess," Tripp walked through the door. "Promise me one thing, though, Jaycee."

  "What’s that?"

  "If I die, make sure they don’t turn me into one of those things."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Medix

  Space Opera Beta - Level three

  Wool ar-Ban lay unconscious across Jelly’s medical bed. Fast asleep, her breathing extremely slow. Her radio sat on the desk beside her under a picture of Jamie stuck to the wall.

  A pink patch of liquid fell from her closed eyelids and bleached into the fabric of the mattress.

  Three beds away from her lay Haloo Ess. She’d died before Opera Beta had ventured into the wormhole on Enceladus. Jaycee had attempted to revive her.

  The issue wasn’t so much the revival but what had caused it. Like everyone else, Haloo had caught the bug brought back onto the ship. Her reaction was unlike the others. She’d developed an allergic reaction and fell into a cardiac arrest.

  The heart rate monitor continued to emit the sound of a flat line. The wires from the unit were still attached to her breastplate.

  Haloo wasn’t breathing, her face gaunt and pale. The stench was undeniable - not quite enough of a pungent aroma to bring Wool out of her slumber, but certainly strong enough to hit Jaycee and Tripp as they entered the chamber.

  "My God," Tripp clocked Haloo immediately and ran over to her. "What happened to her?"

  Jaycee released Jelly onto the floor, offering her the chance to run around and make a bee line for Wool. "She didn’t make it, Tripp."

  "So you just left her here?"

  "What was I supposed to do? Stuff her in the incinerator?"

  "No, but—" Tripp took a long, hard look at Haloo’s sunken, gangrenous face. "What the hell happened to her?"

  Jaycee switched the heart monitor off. "That pink stuff. Whatever it is, it finished her off."

  Tripp swallowed his emotion down to his gut. Jaycee and Jelly may have been the only members of the crew to see his reaction. Nevertheless, he kept his composure and pulled the blanket over Haloo’s face.

  Peace, in the end.

  "I don’t understand?" Tripp took a step back as the room fell to silence. A reminder that her heart had long since stopped. "Why her?"

  "Why her?"

  "What’s so special about her? Why didn’t the pink stuff kill all of us, too?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine—"

  A loud scratching and fuss from Wool’s feet caught Jaycee’s attention. Jelly clawed at her feet, encouraging her to wake up.

  "Meoooowww… W-Wooool…"

  "What are you doing, girl?" Tripp walked over to her and immediately spotted that Wool was breathing. Effectively sleeping. "Wool?"

  Her eyelids fluttered and her breathing quickened.

  "Wool? Are you okay?"

  "W-Wool…" Jelly coughed up a pink fur ball to the floor.

  "Hang on a second," Jaycee joined Tripp, entertaining his surprise. "Jelly?"

  The cat looked up at the man standing over her. She shifted her head as if to say “Who, me?”

  "Yes, you," Jaycee said. "Did you just… speak?"

  Jelly looked to Tripp for the get-out he couldn’t offer her.

  "You’re talking lessense, Jaycee. Of course she didn’t speak."

  Tripp shook his head and turned his attention back to the sleeping Wool. "Hey, are you okay?"

  Jelly jumped up onto Wool’s lap and nosed around her inner-suit. She ran the side of her face along the contours of her stomach, forcing her out from her slumber.

  "Ugh," Wool squeezed her eyes shut and lifted her head, licking at her lips, trying to assuage the morning mouth effect. "What h-happened?"

  She looked at her lap to find Jelly staring up at her, longingly. "Meow."

  "Oh, hey, girl."

  Wool moved her elbow forward, knocking the radio off the desk. It hit the floor in time for Jelly to have a nose around.

  "How are you feeling, Wool?" Tripp asked.

  She stretched her arms out and let out a huge yawn. "I feel great, actually."

  "Good."

  Wool cracked out the knots that had formed in her neck from her sleep. "What happened?"

  "What do you remember?" Tripp asked.

  Jelly hopped onto her bed and demanded Wool’s attention by rubbing herself over the woman’s arms.

  "Umm, I remember… Opera Alpha disappearing. You came back…" As Wool recollected the events, she gasped as the memory of a fight flooded into her memory. "Oh my, the Russians?"

  Jelly looked at the picture of Jamie and purred. She tried to run her face along it, but it was too high up. “‘Jay…” she croaked, blinking at the picture.

  "Yes. Tor and Baldron," Tripp said. "You remember that, too?"

  "Yes, I remember everything." She rose to her feet and lifted Jelly from the desk.

  “Mwah,” she clawed at the picture of her former owner and rolled across the length of Wool’s arms.

  "What happened? Are we waiting for rescue? Did you hear from USARIC? Where are we?"

  Tripp held out his hands and nodded at the cat in her arms. "Calm down, we’re okay. Jelly put us through Enceladus."

  "She did?"

  "Yes. It was either that or stay and run out of oxygen."

  "Wow," Wool smiled at Jelly and felt like crying. "You saved our
lives, huh?"

  Jelly lifted her chin proudly, wanting a reward from her new mommy, "Meow."

  "Who’s a good girl?" Wool rubbed her face against Jelly’s and breathed in her scent.

  Tripp and Jaycee smiled at the bond between the two girls.

  "Are you telling me that Jelly was able to launch the thrusters? All on her own?" Wool lifted Jelly’s right paw up and inspected her infinity paw. "The infinity claws worked?"

  "They work fine," Tripp said.

  Wool sniffed around, puzzled by the stench that drifted under her nostrils. "What’s that smell?"

  "Wool, listen, we need to tell you something…" Jaycee stepped back, enabling Wool to spot Haloo’s covered corpse a few beds away. "Ess didn’t make it."

  Wool’s mood soured as the revelation sank in. She instinctively dropped Jelly to her bed and walked, slowly, to Haloo’s bed. "Is that her?"

  "Yes, it is."

  Wool stood still, wondering whether or not she should take a look. "I, uh…"

  "It’s okay," Jaycee stepped behind her and massaged her shoulder, "We’ll remove the body once we’re sure everything is fine."

  Wool got upset. A blob of pink liquid ran down her face. "What’s happening to us?"

  "We don’t know," Tripp braved the situation and jumped into captain mode. "But we’re going to find out."

  "What’s Manuel saying? Sure he knows where we are, right?"

  "Manuel’s on shutdown. He’s not in proper operating order. Something happened to him when we went through the wormhole. At least, we think it was a wormhole."

  Wool turned to Tripp and stared him out. "You don’t know very much, do you?"

  Tripp could have returned with a nasty retort, but chose not to. "No, we don’t. But we know you’re okay. We need to get Manuel and Pure Genius up and running, and in proper working order. Until we do we’re open to all sorts of trouble."

  Wool folded her arms for protection. "Haloo and Katz. Both dead?"

  "Yes."

  "How do you propose we get the system up and running? None of us know how to operate Manuel. "

  "Very true," Tripp unclipped his Rez-9 firearm from his belt, "But we know a man who can."

  He waved Jelly and Jaycee over to the door with him.

  "You can’t be serious?" Wool ran after Tripp, allowing the door to slide behind them. "Those two?"