I was sitting at the bar, quietly sipping my drink when I saw them walk in.

Tall, lanky, boisterous, all the usual. They stood a head taller than most of the patrons, and a few eyed them uneasily, but most just went back to whatever they were doing.

Humans were an oddity, especially out here in the rim, but they weren't unheard of.

"The fuck are those things," the young Nit sitting next to me said.

The bartender glanced across the room. "Ah fuck. Humans. They're gonna drink me dry." He started rummaging through various cabinets. "Where's that flammable shit..."

"Humans? Pfft. Thought they would look tougher than that. So they got some reach on 'em, so what." He flexed. "I could take 'em."

"Oh no doubt," I laughed into my drink, swilling the ice around for the last few drops. Something told me it should be my last drink.

"Yeah, you think?" He turned and flexed again. Nits were short, stocky, silicate based, four armed creatures. I wasn't lying, he could more than likely take a human in a fight. For a little while, at least. If the human was very slow and very stupid. Or, in this case, very drunk.

The bartender glared at me. "Don't you dare be saying stupid shit like that." He shook a finger at the Nit. "Don't ever pick a fight with a human. They don't know how to stay down. You wanna beat one, you've gotta kill it. And if you kill it, you kill yourself and everyone around you."

The Nit leered at the bartender. "You calling me a pussy?"

The bartender shook his head and glared at me, running a rag around a glass. "You put the idea in his head. You fix it, Blarsk."

I tsked.

"I'm gonna go see how tough they really are! Brand new to the Federation but swaggering in like they own the place."

I reached out a hand and firmly pressed down on the Nit's shoulder as he attempted to stand. "The bartender is right. Could you take a human? Maybe. But humans don't fight fair. While your flesh might hurt a human to punch, those humans will use everything at their disposal to destroy you. They will use chairs, glasses, bottles, the floor, the ceiling... They might even pick up a few other patrons and hit you with them. "Beat a mother fucker with another mother fucker," I've heard them say."

The Nit turned to look at me. "So? I'm tough. This is our turf."

"And they will turn it into a smoking crater if you happen to win that battle."

"They can't do that! This is a civilian place, they can't just slag it."

"They can and they will," the bartender piped up. "And I will personally send the cartels after your family to pay me back."

The Nit stiffened and picked up his glass. The cartel wasn't invoked lightly. "And who gave them the authority to slag a civilian establishment."

"God," I replied. I waved at the bartender for another glass. Fuck it. He poured me another shot of Sibilliam Syrup. I was going to hate myself in the morning. No serotonin left in my entire body. But if I was gonna die here tonight, might as well go out happy.

The Nit snorted. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Well," I took my shot and gasped at the burn, waving for another. "A few centuries ago, the humans were just at the beginning of playing with their own genome. DNA and RNA splicing, retroviral therapies, mrna vaccines, gene therapy, that sort of thing. Like many other species, humans suffer from cancer. And like many other early species, they set out to find a way to cure it."

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"On the house," the bartender said, sliding me a glass full of Torvian sweat. I shot him a look. Seriously? He chuckled. "I didn't know the backstory to all this."

I sipped the sweat and grimaced. "Go on," the Nit said.

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there. So, As with many early species, humans started looking for a way to cure their cancers. And as with many other species, they found a cure in the DNA of species from their homeworld that didn't suffer from cancer. Bonus, the species they extracted the cancer fighting genome from was long lived, regenerative and resilient. They call it a "starfish." No idea what it is, don't ask."

"Okay, so?"

"So... They ran tests. Trials. Their experimental vaccine worked like a miracle. It could cure individuals knocking on death's door. No side effects. Well, some. They could regrow limbs and take more of a beating than they could before. But nothing negative. Or so they thought. Pretty soon, within weeks, they had the entire populace inoculated. Which is where the problems started."

I took another sip. The Nit waved at the bartender and asked for a Torvian as well.

"The humans quickly discovered that they hadn't just cured cancer. They'd cured death altogether."

"Ha!" The Nit snorted. "Impossible."

"Oh no," I said. "Quite possible, I assure you."

"So why haven't they shared this with the rest of the Galaxy?"

"Because apparently curing death comes with a rather disturbing side effect. They cured the death of the body, but not the mind. Shortly after any human experiences total brain death - about two hours of complete neural shutdown - they reanimated. Brain turns back on, wounds heal, heart starts pumping. But the neural circuitry is too far gone by that point. Whatever else the process can heal, brain tissue is too specialized. They have no memories and no higher thought processes."

"Like a baby?"

"Like an angry, vicious baby, sure. They are driven by their base instincts. Which for humans, are far less than civilized. They lash out at anything and everything. They are territorial and hungry, and everything looks like food. While a human has arms and legs to fight with, it's well advisable to avoid their teeth. They have some of the highest recorded bite forces of any known sapient species. They will eat a considerable amount of your body before you die of shock."

The Nit squirmed in his seat, spines raising off his back.

"They quickly had a massive problem on their hands. Reanimated humans were popping up left and right, causing absolute chaos. And the more they killed, the more reanimated. With their ability to regrow limbs, the humans soon found out that destroying the brain was the only way to put the risen back into the dirt."

The bartender raised a hand. "That sounds like an absolute shit show. How did they survive? Did the risen ever start to... I don't know, get better?"

"Oh yes. After a few years, they started to learn. Could be reintegrated into society even. But it took a lot of expense and effort, and they became a completely different person from who they were before they 'died.' So, not cost effective and a huge drain on resources. They soon implemented a thirty minute cremation rule. Any dead body was to be cremated within thirty minutes of death. This helped stem the problem but didn't completely solve it."

I took another drink of the Torvian. Whew. I was getting woozy.

"After years of attempts at removing the inserted genes, the humans finally settled on a failsafe measure. See their scarves?" I pointed. "Those cover a small collar. All humans are fitted with one at birth and are required to have them worked on every three to four of their months. The collar is a simple device, with exactly three functions. First, it monitors brain activity. Secondly, it records time. Thirdly, it has a detonator."

I finished my glass and flipped it over. The Nit scowled at me, offended that I had finished my drink first. This guy had a fucking complex.

"If the collar detects that a human has experienced brain death, a count down timer begins, and an alarm sounds. If brain function is not restored within twenty minutes, the timer ends, and the collar explodes. It is generally advisable to not come within ten yards of a dead human unless you want to join them in death. Aaand, should you ever, ever, hear the words "We've got a Patrick," quietly and quickly move towards an exit."

I stood, thanking the bartender and counting out coins for my payment.

I clapped a hand on the Nit's shoulder. "Be smart."

I needed to go before I went. I wandered to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, uneasy. As I voided my bowels, I heard a peculiar, repetitive noise. I vaguely recognized it, but couldn't place it, my mind too hazy from the bartender's generous helpings. After finishing, I flushed and then made myself vomit a few times. Once every orifice was empty, I stood, washed my hands, and wandered out of the bathroom and towards the side door. As I stepped out into the clean night air, there was a whoomph and a small explosion behind me.

I sighed and lit a cigarette. "I tried. Dammit. I really liked this bar."