Chương 53: KK2 - #12 THE HANGED MEN CARNIVAL (1/4)

#12 THE HANGED MEN CARNIVAL T he Outer System's fringes had attracted like a magnet a wide proportion of Solaris' outcasts, ambitious ice prospectors seeking for fortune and indebted families fleeing the Inner Worlds and Jupiter for a better life.

Called the "Rings", these thriving colonies on the natural satellites of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune enjoyed a certain autonomy from the technocratic central power; a glimpse of freedom that couldn't last long in the neo-feudal age of megacorporate raiding and oligarchic capitalism. The celestial road leaving Jupiter ended before the dangerous Kuiper Belt Territories and the "New Worlds". It was the latest, wildest and longest part of the space highway.

But the path through the Rings was also the most active in the system right after the section between Mars and the main belt. The recent secession of certain moons and the ensuing war resulted in a massive influx of Marine troops around Saturn. Conversely, convoys of the Galactic Trade Company brought back rare minerals and essential gasses to titanic Jovian hubs like Piper Alpha, on Valetudo. Thus, besides slingshot hubs and other floating malls welcoming exhausted travelers stood up the strange fly-in facilities.

Unlike cruise spacecrafts, such as the Danaë, the main attraction of these nomadic recreation centers providing entertainment, debauchery and STDs appeared to be the surprise of their random encounter. The old and weary Gandahar, with her Tiffany Blue hull shaped like a manta ray, belonged to this strange category. And if you are wondering which new low could human sadness reach, imagine a drive-in version of your rural strip club.

However, Dame Airelle, the vessel's tenant, appeared to be a charming soul—like all the crew. They had greeted us with open arms after we got rid of a few tenacious dips threatening their difficult business. Since then, we've been sailing together towards the trajectory of a G. T. C. caravan.

"Steel wheel!" Viktor, a retired Gypsy knife thrower with broad Kevlar shoulders, exclaimed while tossing his beer-stained cards on the green carpet. The table remained silent. Through the pink shisha smoke, all the players looked at Ali with a steady gaze. The latter had built around her the Great Wall of China out of dollar-credit bills, firearms and other glittering trinkets with chrome-plating. Only her sweaty freckled forehead poked out of her evening gains.

"Four same babes," she candidly said, messily throwing her four queens over her XXXXL cup of soda, her fortress' dungeon, before the whole room let out a loud gasp.

"What? Are you fucking kidding me?" My partner's cards crushed in his hand, the saber-toothed cyborg enraged before turning to his friends who shrugged while muttering inaudible excuses.

"This rakli is toying with me, right?" Another player—named Tibo Three-Eyes, sighed after scratching the micro-monitor's green screen covering his orbits.

"That's inconceivable!" he squealed as his pixelated iris shaped like a question mark flickered.

"Not an hour ago she was in boxer shorts—ready to pawn her taxing Teddy Bear!" Sitting next to him, on the crinkled clothes bet by my human when the chips became scarce, I gathered the cards folded by the frustrated mechanics of the Gandahar, then handed them to the dealer, a placid one-armed headbanger with greasy red hair partially hiding her face.

"You were born under a lucky star, Goldilocks!" Viktor grunted as he left the table before slamming the chair against the rusted metal edge. The impact echoed against the walls covered with pin-up girls' calendars and lustful starship posters turned yellow by oriental pipes overconsumption. My sapiens knew exactly what she was doing and I suspected her to blatantly cheat. She, however, played with fire as Victor was at a loss away to devour her on the spot.

"Come on! One last round before we leave, guys?" she asked, collecting her jackpot under her dirty underwear's elastic band. But the disillusioned crew had already taken off after wishing us farewell. Dame Airelle, eating some rainbow-colored Turkish Delights on a divan, was the last to remain with us. That night, the ageless tenant had accompanied her artificially bluish skin with a beautiful periwinkle attire.

"I am very sad to see you leave," she suavely said with a hint of Ukrainian accent while coming over to the table.

"You would have brought the house down." Dressing up, Ali again refused the daily disguised proposal, putting forward her meager talents in customer relations. Even as a security guard, my partner remained far too violent and unpredictable.

"It is true that biting our libidinous customers does not make a good press," Dame Airelle went on as two neko-dancers entered the room.

"Deservedly so."

"If you need some help in the future, do not hesitate to reach us! We work for free!" Ali bragged. Her boxer was so full of cash that it looked like a diaper.

"Do not listen to my partner," I intervened as Ali was already parting.

"But we could surely be of some assistance on our way back." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Dame Airelle let out an elegant chuckle.

"Don't you worry about us," the old carnie said before grabbing a hose on the closest hookah. She huffed on it and the charcoal glowed red. A thick smoke came out of her nose. Only her luminous cyan eyes could be seen through the pink curls.

"Take care of you. Especially if you keep flying with that old UN ship…"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The coral paint may be flaky and her machine guns rusty but there's nothing to worry about. Because I am in command!" Sitting at the table, Dame Airelle smiled before reaching my cheek for a caress.

"Without a doubt, little lion." Not without some regrets, the Swallow had set sail in the cosmos. Two months later, tired of the cold emptiness that never ends, I had left Ali alone in the cockpit to recharge her wrist computer and decided to work on the Baltimore which needed some emergency maintenance.

"Lee?" I heard a couple of minutes later through the music blasted by the agonizing speakers.

"Did you touch something on the reactor? We're turning back to Jupiter." I sighed while floating back to the cockpit. An out-of-date Lunchable between the fangs, I left behind my cat-size toolbox. Generally speaking, my copilot's clumsiness in the cockpit meant inadvertently operating the machine guns or dazzling repair-droids with the searchlights. But that day, she apparently set a new record. As she turned down Michael Bolton's hollers, I could hear the hull shriek under an unexpected effort.

"Computer, what is our trajectory?" I asked through the recent speech-recognition module I had set up during our stay on the Gandahar. Luminous lines were drawn on the central monitor before coordinates were displayed: Ali had deflected the Kitty on an orbit perpendicular to the highway towards Saturn.

"Excellent!" I grunted, grabbing the handle and turning on the thrusters.

"Drifting a week away from the next gas station as we're running out of nutrigel! Well done, Ali!" This Neanderthal's cousin defended herself from any blunder but the bucket of Chick-O-Stick jamming the dashboard's mechanical keys was unequivocal. I turned to my partner to scold her as this part of the system counted some of the most dangerous areas. But as usual, Ali wouldn't listen to me.

Her right hand back in the greasy bucket and her gaze fixed on the stars, she made my head rotate so I could have a look at what had caught her three seconds attention span: a space station with a glass dome.

"Abandoned," I concluded as I could perceive rides and rollercoasters behind the old station's protective cupola. It did not emit on any frequency and its thermal signature appeared to be too low for it to be inhabited.

"It must have drifted too far from the space highway after its engines died."

"It's an amusement park," Ali also noticed, biting her bottom lip with excitement.

"I know. But we can't board it. It's too dangerous as it could take us even farther away. Or collapsed on us."

"Rad. Shall we go?"

"No."

"Excellent! Thank you so much!" Living in an alternate reality where she can do whatever she wants, this unkempt had already taken control of the handle. The Swallow hastily headed straight towards the donut-shaped fairground complex which looked more and more bleak. Wild vegetation, torn tents, twisted vertical loops. The ruined park no longer shone with its thousand colors of yesteryear. It could have been a movie set for the next Funhouse, which made Ali even more thrilled.

It was a miracle that the rusted garage's door remained functional as drifting pebbles and cosmic radiation had severely damaged the exterior of the station. Once the ship parked vertically, we ventured into the main lobby where the atmosphere—charged with CO 2 but breathable—was rancid and moist.

"This park has been closed for more than two decades—at least since the beginning of the Deep Rings Rush," I said, looking at a pile of garbage near a smashed open ATM.

"How can you be so sure?"

"There's a brick of milk without sinister missing child's notice on it," I answered while pointing to the faded cardboard container under a giant plush tiger emptied of its polystyrene foam.

"Also, an ad for the Muppet Movie is stapled on the wooden panel near the souvenir shop."

"This is the most fantabulous place in the system!" shouted Ali as she crossed the entrance's gripped turnstiles under the vacant eye of a creepy animatronic. I did not share her enthusiasm. Despite the sorry aspect of the park, we were not the only ones recently roaming around. On the covered dusty ground, tiny footprints were clearly visible. The newest ones belonged to a pack of small automatons. And one of them soon crossed our path.

"Isn't it cute, Lee? It reminds me of F. A. B. but shaped like a Wonder Ball." I grunted. The ridiculous robot was the opposite of endearing. It was a modest iron ball roughly painted in red with thin skeletal limbs. All around the ventral joint circling this mini-sphere, someone had drawn sharp teeth with a permanent marker after adding three stupid googly eyes.

"We're bringing him back!" Ali pursued, brushing her new pet.

"Imma find another one for you."

"You better put it down," I coughed as she was rummaging through the dust and a pile of moldy folded maps.

"It could already belong to someone." My human pouted and wanted to rest the bot on a mailbox yet the little machine had clamped its small metal limbs around her fingers. Trying to free herself, Ali shook it like a broken Magic 8 Ball but without further success.

"The fuck you doing?" Ali cursed before wincing in pain.

"Stop it! You're hurting me you little—" The robot suddenly opened in two and a long elastic tongue concluded by a threatening hypodermic syringe slowly unfolded before dancing in the air as a cobra would have done to the sound of his master's flute.

"Oh shit! Lee! Help m—ouch!" Helpless, Ali got stung between the eyes and fell backwards.

"I told you so—" Taken by surprise, I ended up slammed to the ground by three other bots. These little punks had just appeared from a candy shop. Not without fighting back, I sadly suffered the same fate. And I could only blame my ludicrous partner!