Chapter 2
“Our love of life shows in mysterious ways,” the purple nixnix bug had wisely told Ledderik at the beginning of the negotiation.
The deal was now done. A weight had lifted from him. A weight arrived.
Conflicted and homicidal cyborg – that was he.
Centuries of life, with the last hundred being under Lord Zarblu’s careful mentorship and yet now he was masterless. Also angry, annoyed, and ready to kill someone. Zarblu would be disappointed but he felt terribly adrift.
Zarblu had left but gifted him with Tiana to torment, a sxsynthflesh cock, and a talking sword. The exchange was a poor one.
What person with any respect for themselves would regard a cock as a reason for life?
Okay, a few, a few would be dancing on tables and fucking everything in sight, just not him.
He’d never thought he’d be the type to go with Last-of-Life, but life felt weary and dismal. Hundreds of years weighed on a cyborg.
Before his sxsynthcock was attached he’d have happily sexually tortured her, thrilled at it. Now? It seemed too menial, too obedient for a cyborg thrown away by his master.
Here, dog, have a bone. Have a dick. Pat the head of the hound then walk away.
Once upon a time he had dreamed of being able to have sex. From the time he was made as a soldier, three hundred years ago in the Third Dynasty War of the Mouse, he’d dreamed, but he hadn’t been assigned that role.
Now he had a cock, and it was a bitter gift.
Ledderik collected Smorg, the far-too-talkative sword, and departed through the front double entrance of this desert mansion. He waited for the aircab he’d summoned, with his feet shoulder-width apart and the cloak billowing in the hot breeze.
From what had just happened, the nixnix had Tiana well in hand...make that well in tentacle and claw.
The nixnix treasured humans, liked to breed from them if they could get consent, left them hanging in their reproductive caverns while they stimulated them to orgasm repeatedly, before implanting their pre-fertilized eggs. How they got consent to this baffled him.
If he hadn’t felt so disengaged from his almost existential dick – he might’ve asked if he could join the orgasmic festivities at the table.
Was it the whole parting gift idea?
Or that he was three centuries old and a little late to the sex game?
Maybe he was just tired of life.
Some might say he just needed the right female to get him going.
Once he joined Last-of-Life none of this would matter.
In return for her and payment, the nixnix would do as contracted – donate his possessions and money to the mech planet charity, arrange the deal with the Last-of-Life merchant on planet BART. He’d take Smorg with him. He’d not decided what to do with it; after all it was an AI, and he would never dispose of such a creature randomly. Smorg was sentient, as well as a pain in the ass.
“So, you’re really doing it then,” the sword muttered from where he held it by his side, inside the sheath.
“I am.”
“Lame.”
“You know you can retinal text me. I let you into my comm-link.” He’d rather hear Smorg that way than out-loud. It was prone to interjecting with comments at the wrong time – which was how most of the owners of these poorly designed swords were killed.
Though lately Smorg had been quiet.
“I prefer to talk. Texting? Lame.”
Led rummaged and allowed audio. “You can talk mind to mind now.”
Was Smorg truly a mind? How Gnersh Corp had jammed so much AI into a short sword was beyond him. Most of those swords had malfunctioned terminally, decades ago. Smorg might even be the last of its kind.
*Lame this way too.*
Ledderik sighed.
* * * * *
The take-off from the planet’s surface, the short intersystem burn to get to the hyperspace wormhole to get to planet BART, and the wormhole travel, these barely registered. He kept to himself, to his cabin, departed with the others, and because he didn’t pause to marvel at anything on landing, he was processed and out of the spaceport, fast.
There were advantages to being pissed off at everything.
The Last-of-Life center was a street away from an open-front bar called Grax’s Galactic Drinking Hole. It seemed ridiculous not to give his body a send-off before he gave it away, so he slid onto a barstool and ordered several shots of the most potent local liquor.
A row of skinny, nose-high glasses were delivered to him and the ellurian bartender grinned over the glasses, showing off his gleaming fence of triangular teeth. The burnt-orange sludge in the glasses, crackled. Ledderik frowned.
Almost as orange and nasty-looking as the bartender.
He chugged down one dose, felt it scorch its way down to his gullet. If he wore out his stomach lining, Tewel, the owner of LoL on this planet might cut his time in the virtual world.
“Virtworlds suck,” he declared, and was surprised to get an answer from the ellurian.
“Going to LoL?”
“Yes.”
“Sure that’s the answer?”
“No.” He drank another dose, sucked on his clamped teeth while processing the pain. He slid the emptied glass to the alien then twisted to assess the crowd sitting between him and the daylight-toasted street.
Everyone in here was an alien, technically, except him, if you assumed he was classed as human. Tentacles waved, antennae twitched, scaly legs were thrust out almost tripping the waiters. Not that most humans thought cyborgs, with their machine parts, were the same as them. He’d been stuck in no-human’s land for centuries.
Not human, not alien,” he muttered. “Going to finally forget it all.”
He’d bought three thousand perceived years in the LoL virtual-world where every dream could be imagined. Die a million times in there and rebirth was guaranteed – until your years ran out.
They said the real time in a virtworld varied, that some clients were thrown off the program and perma-dead within a year.
They said it was foolish, a waste, to give up your real body in exchange for nothing but electrons exchanged in a program, for ones and zeroes.
“Lame,” grumbled Smorg from where it was propped against the bar beside his feet.
“Talking again?” First time it’d spoken since he’d left Tiana with the nixnix. Was his pessimism infectious to swords?
Smorg blew a raspberry.
“I get ’em all in here,” the bartender volunteered while drying a glass with a dish cloth. Surely the creature had a dishwasher? “The sad, the mad, those who think real life is as crazy as living in a virtworld. You one of the sad ones?”
Ledderik was surprised at how the question caused a growl to build in his throat.
“Fuck no. I’m the angry one.” He tossed down another dose, killed a few more stomach and throat cells. Was he right?
Sad and angry, maybe.
He made his cyborg hand crunch into a fist, watching the gold-toned metal relays glint and shunt. Before this, he’d covered it up, worn synthskin over it or hidden his hand inside a coat sleeve. It scared people less but mostly he’d done it to be secretive.
He swiveled and set his back to the bar.
The bartender kept talking. “How many –”
His words never did get said.
From the street, a girl walked into the bar crowd, stalked through in thigh-length red coat and mostly white uniform, trailing a what-the-fuck attitude and what Ledderik could only assume were nuclear pheromones. Her hair was white, short, and sculpted, but he’d swear he could see tendrils of it unfurling, waving outward in a gravity-impossible fashion.
The fabric used in her uniform must be way thin as he could distinctly see the pop of her nipple buds, areolae and all. His sxsynthcock stood up and waved hello in his pants for the first time ever. The air around her seemed to froth and shimmy, rendering those in her background into slightly unfocused figures, as if seen at the bottom of a glass.
And that tail of hers lashing from under the coat’s edge. Something about it...about the idea of grabbing it and hauling her to him...he almost swallowed his tongue.
Ledderik scowled and glanced into the glass he held. No, wasn’t that. He knew how alcohol affected him. So the cock worked? He’d considered a complaint to the cybermonk manufacturers until he learned of their deaths. His warranty was shafted.
Maybe before it had just been him and his shitty attitude?
Of all the women in the universe it had to be this one – a s’kar, star-faring, star-trading harrier. The s’kars of the harrier type had their morals and ethics so far up their asses one would need a probe and a mountaineer to reach them. Sex was not a priority with the females and always, always, they did it with their own kind.
“Down, dick-thing,” he whispered. Maybe the on-off switch was stuck? That ass was rapidly vanishing into the morass of aliens.
Tentacles and eyes on stalks were swiveling her way.
Weapons were pinging on, being quietly drawn from holsters, as audible as a shout to his cyborg-enhanced ears.
He’d swear he could also hear dicks erecting and the bump of male hearts as their pulse amplitude rose to bounding, lustful heights. They were watching her as if she was a delicacy on a stick.
Had she been drenched in some arousal drug?
“Sic ’em, cy-boy,” Smorg piped up, gleefully.
“Shush.” He rose to his feet, joints humming then stooped to collect the sword and slide the belt over his shoulder and head. Was a wonder Smorg hadn’t commented on him being essentially unarmed.
Not that he was going to chase her.
This situation made him want to twitch, truthfully. He no longer owned projectile, laser, or blaster weapons and felt naked without them. No knives or needles, garroting nanowire, poisons, grenades, or any other various lethal bits and pieces.
He’d sold everything – everything bar the clothes and the sword.
“Bad timing,” he whispered.
At least five males were tracking her, following her path. Two were tentacled molloks, two were rock-tall andurians, one was a lumbering mountain-shouldered, ugly-faced dalk.
“I should indeed have thought a little deeper, longer,” he said to the puzzled bartender, as he leaned back to wave his wrist over the payment portal on the bar.
Then he sidled through the nearby patrons. Just looking.
Shooting virtual dragons was easier than fending off real-world bad guys – assuming her trackers were bad and she was good...which really was a big assumption.
“Gonna help her?”
“Naaa.” Keeping Smorg in the know was not a priority.
If he did, what if she was the naughty one?
Her, naughty? He liked that idea. Really liked it.
His cock whirred and grew harder.
“Walk faster, asshole. She’s getting away.”
He should’ve taped over its speakers.
“I’m only curious, and what if she’s bad, little sword?”
*Like she’s luring them all after her so she can kill them, or something? Bad can be good. Look at you for example.*
The noise at the bar had intensified, which must be why it’d chosen to speak directly to his mind.
Ledderik snorted.
Her white hair bobbed into view less and less. Males of various species were sitting down on the nearest chairs and looking confused. She was moving fast, and as she became distant, her pheromonal wake, or whatever it was, subsided.
He thought he could smell it – tangy and fragrant, like those blossoming night lilies on Dispora that attracted eels and paralyzed them when they swam too close to the flower.
Hopefully this one couldn’t do that to men.
He might kill just to see her again and that was bizarre. Not the killing, the seeing. As he squeezed between drunk patrons, he turned this over in his mind.
“Yes, yes, yes!” said Smorg. “Go, Mister Hero! Go help the damsel.”
“She’s s’kar, not a damsel, and I’m no hero.”
“Anti-hero then.”
“Not that either.” He stopped moving, grimaced. This wasn’t his deal.
“Okay, fine, you’re a Not-hero. You gotta admit this excites you? Killing. Maiming. Fucking a girl you got the hots for. Run. Use those little legs.”
“Ignoring you, sword.” He did want to follow her, see her, and this was a girl who truly made his dick hard.
“It’s Smooorg.”
Already he had a deeper relationship with this s’kar female than he’d had with any other female.
High above the heads of the street-goers, he spotted a tentacle waving a blaster – a ribbed row of red lights glowed on the weapon like gills on sea life. Amateurs. A gun that lit up was advertising.
Still... His nostrils widened.
*Wheee! Gun-play! If you don’t chase her, I will never speak to you again.*
“Promises, promises.”
Shit. He was going to do this. Getting himself blaster-creamed by a mollok would be a better death than his fake ashes being thrown on a cemetery heap after his LoL time ran out.
A last-minute fling of violence was in his forthcoming future. His heart sang at the prospect of impending death. He scooped up a few knives and forks in passing, pressed the buckle of the sword belt against his chest to keep it in place, and began to jog.
He’d missed the fun of killing, and with no Zarblu, there was no one to stop him.
People who saw him coming stepped aside with shocked expressions frozen on their faces.
He guessed he must look fearsome. He was tall, wearing his black ensemble, with hooded cloak, big boots, a sword that babbled. Yeah, he was retaking badass.
Skipping would look bad for a cyborg’s reputation so he only grinned and sped up.
She was outnumbered...so maybe he could rescue her and ask for a reward. Like burying this artificial dick between her legs, like Smorg was keen on?
Was that a thing? A viable request?
Why was she seemingly oblivious to what she’d stirred up?
Ahhh. Of course.
It was the day of naming for the s’kar, and she’d been sent on one of those hazing missions, to trace a path to base, collect xyz useless things – no doubt she was busy checking her retinal map instead of scanning bars for leering males brandishing guns.
If she had no idea what was chasing her, she was really in trouble.
Why were they following her though, and with drawn weapons? To kill, steal, capture? Why did she seem so attractive to males?
He messaged Smorg. *Know anything of s’kar sexuality? Is this normal?*
“Yes, I do. Bi-annual cycles. No, it isn’t...I think. Insufficient data to figure out reasons.*
“Okay.”
He hurried faster, stomping on toes and elbowing to get people to move aside. The knives and forks jangled in his cloak pocket.
*That’s it! Faster, faster! If we catch her, I’ll cheer you on and count the thrusts.*
“We?” Ledderik grunted. The sword had worse morals than he did.