Timothy assumed that the bright light that he saw was his life flashing before his eyes, he had read that this happened to people sometimes before they died. He’d thought that it had meant that he would see a replay of his actions, a sort of highlight reel of his most memorable deeds. Instead, there was a literal flash, which was unexpected but made some type of sense. Perhaps I don’t have any memorable deeds? The sad thought occurred to him; it would explain its brevity. However, much to the boy’s delight, he was not dead but just in a different place. Of course, the place could have been heaven, but Timothy doubted that heaven looked anything like the Ring.
The currently being strangled boy stood on a metal plate, a different disk from the one that he had been standing on a moment before, His fingers struggled to reach his collar, grasping at the back of his neck like a scarecrow grasping at straws. “Sir?” He choked out, barely hearable over the sound of footsteps and the chatter of a crowd. “Could you… ack… please… hrgg… help?”
The man whose large, spiked shoulder armor had hooked onto Timothy’s collar didn’t seem to hear his pleas, which wasn’t his fault really. You see the man was a Cclaxion, whose large round balloon-like head did not come equipped with a set of ears. There was no way the poor boy could have known that his strangler's preferred method of communication was via smell, and even if he did, he’d have no way of producing the correct smell to alert him of the problem.
Timothy felt his neck bend back as the Cclaxion took off into a deep sprint- he’d wonder if he was running from something if he couldn’t see directly behind him. If you’ve ever been on a rollercoaster that was going just a bit too fast you’d probably know the sensation that the boy felt, although he had the added challenge of trying not to trip as his legs practically dangled under his own weight. He tried to reach down and unbutton his shirt, but it was too tight to make any release. Things started to get blurry, his face was already a sickly shade of purple that would make eggplants uneasy.
The oblivious Cclaxion came to a stop and Timothy watched as the rest of the group that he had traveled with quickly piled up in line. The lady in a spiraling helmet- a thing that gave her head the impression of a hamster cage- stood in front of him, but their attention was nowhere towards him. She was shifting to her sides and standing on the tips of her boots trying to get a better view of whatever was in front of her. Timothy realized that he too would like to see whatever it was she was looking at, and more importantly, he would like to live to do so. Like a jack-in-a-box he popped his arms out and waved as emphatically as he could- it took way longer than it should have to get her attention.
“Ay, what are you doing there?” The woman asked, putting her hands on her hips.
Timothy did not respond; he was busy choking.
“Have I seen you someplace before?” The woman scratched her chin, trying to place the boy's purple face in her mind.
Again, Timothy was too busy choking to respond.
“Well, you’d better get off of there before ol’ Pimm notices ya hanging onto his good armor.” The woman, finally, reached over and pulled Timothy’s collar off of the spike.
To thank his savior, Timothy dropped to his knees and started gasping. The color rushed back to his face, and it became a whole lot easier to see, which he was very thankful for. “Thanks.” He said weakly, like his voice was coming from the bottom of a well. “That would have been a terrible way to die.”
The woman shrugged and waved him off, “don’t mention it, kid.” Her mind was on something else, her body quickly returning to trying to get a better view of something.
Timothy, now free, turned around to see what all the fuss was about. Before him stood a line of people, some clad in rough armor while others seemed to be wearing more casual attire. In front of them stood a building that blindingly stood out from the rest of the drab and weary buildings that surrounded it. It was taller too, about twice the size of everything around it and to make it stand out even more it was noticeably cleaner as well.
“What’s that?” Timothy asked, returning to his feet.
“You don’t know? Didn’t ya see the announcement?” The woman gawked. “That’s the Extemorst Casino! I ain’t ever liked the look of it, to be frank! The owner is a real scraper if you ask me, he’s got one of ‘em faces you can target practice with ya know? But we you hear that 40-fucking-million credit’s is waiting inside, well, this place looks a whole lot prettier!”
The line of people started to move; Timothy found himself pushed forward with the rest of the crowd. “Oh, maybe I should leave, I don’t…”
“Hello one and all!” Boomed a robotic voice. “Welcome to the Extemorst Casino, the Ring’s shiniest finger!”
The crowd moaned, clearly, the tagline wasn’t something anyone was proud of. Timothy leaned over, barely getting a view beyond the Cclaxion. The casino’s two large doors were wide open, and a red carpet had been rolled out into the street to greet the guests- the end of it had already turned grey from the sheer amount of grime. People were filling in at a consent pace, the boy could see guests already leaving clutching something small and shining in their hands. Timothy was too distracted to notice himself suddenly standing on the red carpet, in the next moment he was already inside surrounded by lights and blackjack tables. The casino looked like a fancy and totally-not-elitist club, everything was furnished with the smoothest of evory from Tatone Forests of Shaar and silverware showed no sign of chipping. The walls were lined with the heads of what Timothy hoped was the equivalent of alien animals, but it was hard for him to tell. There was a section full of machines decked out in colorful and alluring lights and another where an octopus-looking thing was dealing out cards to eight different people at once.
The red carpet led right through all of this to where a large counter stood in the back. Timothy thought it looked almost like a mailroom, will numerous small holes in the far wall that seemed to house something important. In front of this counter stood a robot, the boy recognized him as the one from the announcement video. “Hello, fortune-seekers!” Its glowing eyes shifting into two downwards curves to resemble a cheerful expression. “Come to find your luck at the annual lottery?”
The robot had a skinny frame, its torso only the width of a hand, but it was still slightly taller than the boy was. Its arms stretched out like wires from its frame, like cords being wrapped around a charging dock. The body was held up by one small but dependable wheel that rolled around back and forth in order to balance. Its frisbee-like head bobbed as a result, almost as if it was caught in a windstorm. As he got closer Timothy noticed another screen attached to where its chest would be displaying the words ‘ARI-45-Z.’
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“Of fucking course, I am, you tin-can!” A spindly looking creature called. “What else would I be here for?”
The robot didn’t lose its plastered smile. “If you’ve got the credit, we’ve got the ticket!” Its voice rang out enthusiastically.
The creature slid a hand- wait no, it was a paw- onto the counter. “Here, should be enough.”
The metal teller needed only a glance at the credit chip to have all its information into its software. Quickly it made its transaction, sliding the chip back along with another small glowing thing as well. “Transaction complete! Good luck, fortune-seeker!”
“Yeah, right.” The pawed creature snatched up the items and stormed out back down the line.
Timothy tucked his head in as he went by, he didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t seem like the sort of person you’d want to mess with. The line moved forward quickly; the boy noticed that he had somehow made it to the front of the line behind the Cclaxion. How’d I end up here? He wondered. I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, haven’t I?
“If you’ve got the credit, we’ve got the ticket!” The teller declared.
The balloon-like head of the Cclaxion started to jitter as if someone had grabbed hold of its sides and started squeezing. Timothy caught a whiff of something, his face wrinkled as he identified the smell of dust and leather. The robot took a moment to compute what was happening before raising a finger. “Pardon me a moment, good sir/ma’am/other!” It said as it reached over and grabbed a machine that strangely looked like a small metal nose. After a second of holding the device in the air, the robot’s eyes clicked on and off for a moment before returning to their usual welcoming stare. “Of course, a lottery ticket costs exactly 35 credits, or 7690 marleks if you’re from the Bannerman Sector!”
The creature known as Pimm slapped the side of the metal nose, obviously in irritation. “Oh, apologies, fortune-seeker!” The teller remembered itself and pushed a button on the machine, a smell came out that Timothy couldn’t quite decipher- the closest thing he could compare it to would be the scent of rust but also… vaguely nail-polishy. The response seemed to anger Pimm, who started to rock back and forth on his haunches. Another exchange of smells occurred, the fragrance of a glass of brandy was replied to with the odor of burning wood.
Timothy couldn’t help but jump as he watched the Cclaxion pull out a gun, he didn’t even have time to do anything before the creature unloaded it onto the unexpecting robot. The blast sent the machine into fluttering pieces, scattering like mice after spotting a cat. The boy stiffened up and waited to see what happened next. He was, admittedly, slightly surprised when the only thing Pimm did after the destruction was turn on his heel and leave- Timothy was quick to make sure that his collar would not suffer the same fate again and ducked out of the way.
“Oh dear…” said the boy who now found himself first in line to a dead machine. He walked over to the counter and peeked over; the robot bore the look of a nihilistic Picasso painting. The light of its eyes had rearranged into two x’s as if to hammer home how dead it was. “I hope that wasn’t painful.”
Click, clack, click!
Timothy’s grey eyes widened as they watched the pieces on the floor quickly and methodically start to clamp back together. In no time the robot was back in one piece, its wheel spinning around and creating a skid mark on the ground as it flung itself back up into a standing position. “Sorry for the delay!”
“Oh wow!” Timothy found himself wearing a big stupid grin on his face, feeling like a little kid inside. “Did you just repair yourself? That’s amazing! Everyone has always told me that you can’t fix stuff when it shatters like that, but I never thought that was right! How’d you do it?”
“I am an ARI system!” The machine replied. “Auto Repairing Intelligence, made from your friends at IBT, at your service!”
The boy remembered himself. “Oh, sorry, I’m being rude!” He reached out his hand. “I’m Timothy, what’s your name.”
This took the robot some time to comprehend, but after a moment a pincher-like hand stretched forward and accepted the shake. “I am called ARI, or ARI-46-Z.”
“46?” Timothy looked down and saw that indeed the screen on the machine’s chest had changed. “Why did the number go up?”
Almost instantly the robot responded. “Your friends at IBT would like to show you how many bots you would’ve needed to replace if you didn’t have an ARI!” The voice sounded different from normal, almost strained.
The boy’s face dropped into a frown. “Isn’t that kind of mean? Wait… does that mean that some’s killed you 46 times?”
“Incorrect, if that were true then my name would be ARI-46-A, not Z!”
Despite not understanding the implications Timothy nodded. “Oh my, that mustn’t be nice, I would hate to be…”
“Oy, stop holding up the line you little grub!” The woman with the helmet called from behind him, getting instant grunts of agreement from the line behind her. “I ain’t got all day.”
“Oh, um…”
“Would you like to try your luck, fortune-seeker?” Asked ARI.
“Ahh, I don’t…” It was then that he remembered that he had gotten a credit chip from WaldAcker. “Sure?” He said hesitantly as his hand slid the glass-like panel from his pocket.
With a quick glance, the robot scanned the card. “Here’s your ticket, good luck!”
Timothy reached out and grabbed a small glowing yellow card from ARI’s extended hand. It felt heavy to hold in his hand, which made it feel important somehow. Quickly the line behind him pushed the boy aside, he stumbled and barely caught himself before he fell. Not sure what to do he quickly made his way back outside.
SRRRRRSH
A spaceship flew over Timothy’s head, kicking the dust off the dungy street. Looking up his heart skipped a beat as he saw a whole cavalcade of spaceships coming in from the depths of the void. There would have to be a least a thousand of them, all headed to one place. “Wow…” He couldn’t help but mutter to himself. “I guess 40 million credits must be a whole lot.”
“Yep, it sure is, boy.”
A chill went down his spine as he turned to face the sound. “Oh, hello again.” Timothy said, seeing the faces of Corpus Rex and Short-Barrel John-John hovering right next to him. “I, uh, should be going…”
John-John was quick to grab hold of him, squeezing his arm like he was trying to juice it. “You ain’t getting away from us this time, blondie!”
“Ain’t got Jenny here to save you anymore, do ya?” Corpus chuckled.
“Oh, it would seem I haven’t.” Timothy looked every which way, trying to find something or someone to help him.
“Ya got our friend killed, you and ya stupid ratpack!” John-John spat, shifting side to side.
“Yeah, and I’m thinkin’ someone’s got to pay for that!” Corpus reached out and grabbed Timothy by the hair, pulling him closer. “Now, what do you think we can do with him, JJ?”
“Oh, I dunno, maybe we can sell ‘em to that mlint?” The alien suggested. “They’re always looking for a good host to hollow out!”
“Hmm, maybe…” Corpus gritted his teeth.
Personally, Timothy didn’t like that option. “I’d rather you not sell me to anyone if you don’t mind. Look, I’m sorry about what happened to your poor friend, I couldn’t imagine losing one of my friends like that! But we really didn’t do anything you know; he was the one that wanted that duel!”
Corpus shook him violently. “But you’re the ones that provoked us!”
“Yeah!” John-John bellowed.
The ticket in Timothy’s hand dropped to the ground with a small thud, the two alien pirates found their eyes pulled towards it. “Now where’d you get that?”
“Oh, I bought it from the casino, I don’t really know why… I suppose it was just out of pressure?”
Corpus and John-John, for a split second, forgot themselves as they both bent down to grab the ticket. Timothy felt their grip loosen, and he remained still waiting for it to tighten again. Oh, wait, I should probably try to get away now, shouldn’t I? He thought right before booking it.
“Wait, grab him you sod!” Corpus shouted as he grabbed the ticket.
“I thought you had him!”
“Obviously I didn’t have ‘em!”
“Then you go get ‘em, my feet hurt!”
“For fucks sake, he’s getting away!”
With his brief head start, Timothy ran to the only place he knew, which was back to the round metal plates he had got here with. Quickly he tried to figure out how to make the machine go, he was in such a rush that he couldn’t hear the sound of the machine recharging. Corpus and John-John were fast behind him, they’d be there in seconds. Thankfully, seconds were all the plates needed to finish recharging and Timothy disappeared once again in a blinding flash of lights.