Chương 33: RF - #01 TALES FROM THE WATER TANK

#01 TALES FROM THE WATER TANK Roof of the Palmer House Hotel Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) Present day A smell of grease and sweat hung in the air. A regular morning for the Kitty crew. But, lazing around under a feather comforter watching Samurai Pizza Cats with a bowl of cereal would have been way more pleasant.

"They're making us twiddle our thumbs in the most awful places," Ali complained. Sitting cross-legged inside the water tower where we were hiding, my bounty hunting partner calmly cleaned the magazine of her iridescent Desert Eagle. Laying the oil-soaked rag on her lap, she blew down the dismantled barrel to remove a dust bunny settling in the muzzle. Using my rear legs to stand, I watched the coming and going on the neighboring building's roof through a rusty crack when the ball of fluff looped over my whiskers.

"The feds are civil servants, Ali. Good-for-nothing lazy bums…" I replied, brushing it away with my puffy cat tail.

"Ain't you a little harsh, Lee?" I chuckled.

"Solarian public service is an inefficient totalitarian socialist drift and deserves no mercy. And on top of that, it's corrupted to the core." Ali huffed as she tucked her dirty rag into the pocket of her pink jacket.

"Hunger always transmutes you into Ronald Reagan, old mop."

"You know me so well—do you have any biscuits left?" I turned my head as my partner glanced at the shredded cookies box.

"Nope," she declared. Both our stomachs gurgled at the same time. She resumed: "Want me to order a morning burrito or something?"

"What are you going to say to the delivery guy? That we're secretly hiding in a free-standing water tank on top of the Palmer House hotel?"

"We're on Callisto!" she explained, frantically typing on the keyboard of her wrist-computer inlaid in her flesh.

"They employ drones for—" The implant beeped.

"Fuck me! The wireless network is jumpy. I gotta run for the phone booths inside, or use the—""No! Forget about ordering breakfast. A drone makes a lot of buzzes!" I yelled as she shuffled a pile of garbage at her feet.

"It could expose us!"

"You're the one making a lot of noises howling, stupid cat… and I'm starving!" I groaned loudly, almost covering the squeak of the round hatch opening by itself. My partner gasped, quickly assembling her weapon before brandishing it. As from the gap appeared a bald head.

"Am I interrupting a meeting of some sort, fellas?" the inconvenient guest asked from the top of the steel ladder. Although he was being held at gunpoint, he didn't bat an eye.

"You look vaguely like Bill Murray…" my associate reacted.

"That's not very nice for Bill Murray…" the man retorted while crawling inside. Sheathing her weapon, Ali contorted herself to make room for him. Our guest tore his velvet bathrobe on a steel rivet but managed to lazily slouch between the two of us. A shy sunray coming through the holed roof lit his face up, and I officially recognized him.

"You're definitely Bill Murray," I said, bringing my snout within inches of his round pockmarked nose.

"And you're definitely a talking cat. That's a bigger deal—even for Callisto City. May I ask why you're hiding in my hotel's water tower?"

"What about you?" Ali interjected.

"What are you doing on the roof?"

"Nothing." The guest wiped some white powder off his fuzzy collar.

"I wanted to hang glide to the waterfront. But John Candy chickened out at the last minute."

"Aren't you done martyring this poor man?" I added.

"No. Would you like some donuts?" he asked as he pulled a bumpy Krispy Kreme box from under his wet bathrobe.

"But you shall tell me what's going on here." Bribed with her daily dose of diabetes, my partner drooled profusely. With both hands, she stuffed half the box down her throat.

"Glutton…" I complained, back at my spotter post with a non-chocolate glazed cake between my fangs.

"Ali, instead of pigging out, explain to Mr. Murray why we're squatting in this awful place." Ali agreed through the pastries filling her mouth.

"Lee came out with this stupid plan because of a dude."

"Stupid? There's an army of mercs in that old disused sweatshop," I replied.

"We can't just storm it! We have to await the green light first!"

"Here's the issue, Bill…" she commented, another donut in mouth. Bill Murray looked up while rolling a joint.

"How come?"

"Lee's plan involves waiting!" Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"I see," our sugar dealer resumed, picking a Zippo in his panther underwear.

"Who's this 'dude' anyway? What's your story?"

"Well…" My partner reached for her last brick of lukewarm soda, which she pulled from beneath old magazines. After unscrewing the cap with her teeth, she teased the actor: "Fasten your kimono, Bill!

'cause we have monsters and stuff! Like Tales From the Crypt!"

"Party on…" he reacted, puffing on his wide reefer. Grant Park StarMart South Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) A month ago"I ain't sure between the rosy, the bluish and the first one with the chrome plating—and the purple one too," I whined, grabbing one by one the price tags jiggling at the end of their red string.

"The leather suspenders don't fit well with my clothes. Nor my new sneakers." Lying on a bench with her hands over her face, Zéphyr the awesome data-thief/girlfriend let out a deep sigh. Thanks to her holosuit, she had taken on the features of Wynona Ryder—with a few modifications, like a luminescent apple green hair color, clashing with her red shirt and shorts. But also, even bigger boobies.

"Tell me again why you need my opinion on these things?" she asked, bored to death.

"Because style matters, duh!" I replied, showing off my pink denim overall. Unlike her, I couldn't cheat by programming a fancy digital disguise to cover a metal envelope. Bounty on my head or not. I heard her straighten as her heavy concealed cybernetic body made the furniture's legs creak.

"Ali-love, you quibble over a flamethrower." Pouting, I rested the large weapon in front of the flickering cathode-ray screen displaying the available options.

"Z. If I needed a killjoy, I would have stayed with Lee!" Zéphyr leaped to her feet and strolled towards the shopkeeper, a small man with no neck and long yellow teeth.

"Why would you need it?" she asked. Hands deep in my pockets, I started walking out, shuffling my feet.

"It would have been useful on Europa—for instance…" The data thief didn't laugh.

"And where would you have hidden it?" I gave her a lecherous look. She continued as she stepped in front of me by the Plexiglas door, opening it with her buttocks: "Unless you're hunting Cylons in the Plastic Fields, this is overkill…" she sighed.

"This is my special day!" Zéphyr smiled.

"True. Want an ice cream instead? I guess there's a Baskin Robbins nearby…" Her brown pupils flashed. Her mind was browsing the intraweb through her wireless connection; a luxury only full-cyborgs from the Data Brokers Guild could afford. Mortals like me needed wires. After a few seconds lost inside the invisible sea of information, Zéphyr came back to the fleshy and boring reality: "First floor. Right next to the naff arcade." I poked her nose through her glimmering holographic disguise.

"Tag! You pay."

"Of course I do. It's your birthday after all." Passing the various military surplus stores and Guns'R'Us, we walked down the spiral staircase to the ground level and the main lobby of the South Side StarMart. On either side of the welcoming fountain, the food court and the giant arcade-restaurant were crammed on this weekend afternoon following Halloween.

"Pick your flavor," Zéphyr proposed as we made our way to the clerk, a decommissioned Technocratic Marine battle android with a stupid calotte. I cleared my throat. Taking her eyes off the screens over the counter, my cyber-girlfriend corrected herself: "Pick your flavors."

"Better," I concluded as the robot beckoned us forward to the automated ice cream makers on the wall. Later, I sat down in one of the huge armchairs facing the Chuck-E-Cheese with a dark chocolate-white chocolate-milk chocolate-chocolate fleur de sel-orange chocolate-double chocolate ice cream—extra toppings. Roof of the Palmer House Hotel Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) Present day"Is your story all about shopping and overpriced ice cream?"

Bill Murray cut her off, forsaking his joint for a jam-filled donut.

"Where are the monsters you promised?" I put in my two cents: "Scrooge's right. Get to the point!" Ali pilfered a cake with a skewer lying among the trash and immediately stored it in her left cheek like a hamster. Another one in her right cheek, she resumed, spraying icing all over our guest. Grant Park StarMart South Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) A month ago"What did you pick?" I asked Zéphyr, who joined me a minute later.

The heat released by her holographic costume had already melted half of her giant ice cream. Annoyed, she was using a straw to enjoy her room-temperature sugar soup.

"Something people won't bother about if you ever tell this story in the future…" the cyborg replied.

"But I picked an option featuring a reduced probability of ending up with food smeared all over my face—unlike you." With a flick of her thumb, she wiped a bead at the corner of my mouth.

"Oh yeah?" I said before biting my scoop. As I sensed an icy drop on my chin, I raised my eyebrows in defiance. Zéphyr stepped forward and kissed me. First where the ice had dripped, then on the lips. And finally, on the neck. I didn't feel like eating sorbet anymore. And neither did she.

"Could we order a taxicab?" I asked, looking around for a phone booth. There was one at the entrance to the arcade, where kids cutting class were crowding in on this late morning. Zéphyr agreed. As I dropped my ice cream into the fountain, she took my hand. Alas, no sooner had we reached the kiosks, screams shook the arcade. Customers were streaming back into the lobby, leaving school backpacks and XXXL bags of candies behind.

Standing on my toes, I tried to see what caused such a wave of panic in the back of the room.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Would you want to check?" Zéphyr queried as teenagers and children knocked over an aged carousel before the turnstiles.

"Yeah! Maybe an animatronic turned mad is on a rampage."

"Ali-love… your imagination is only matched by your stomach," laughed my cyber-partner, grabbing a twelve-year-old by the strap of his bag.

"Easy there, boy! Why are you all running around like that?" Lifted two feet in the air, the child hiccupped. It took him a few seconds to articulate something sensible; he almost swallowed his orthodontic headgear doing so.

"What does the nerd say, Z?" I insisted, one hand raised to shield my eyes from the blinding neon sign featuring a giant mouse.

"An animatronic!" The teenager burst out, glancing behind with terror.

"An animatronic attacked people near the virtual reality booths!" Releasing him, Zéphyr turned to the darkened arcade, then to me.

"For real?" My hair stood on end… I was so amped!