For A Few Pellets More
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“Belvedere!”
Brimming with glee, Miles pushed the Monteleone Hotel’s gates so hard, they smashed against the wainscotting and immediately turned around. Domotics slowed them down halfway through, thus avoiding breaking the nose of the homecoming star pilot and his friend.
Behind his wooden desk, a spark igniting one of his swimming Brussels sprouts betrayed the usually inhibited robotic concierge’s surprise. “Here I am, prone to hallucinations,” he muttered. “I reckon it’s time for me to retire after thirty years of service.”
Miles strode across the lobby, high-and-mighty, with Fate on his heels. When he reached the counter, he couldn’t help but ring the little bell, which earned him a familiar disapproving grumble from the jar-headed android. “Your vacations on Byblos Gates are gonna wait ‘til next year, l’ami. Why don’t you send a telegram to the Alliance for me instead? Tell them to get the good ol’ Forlorn Hope ready, as soon as possible. I heard some Technos are scouting the region. Dont’want to linger.”
“Long time no see. Didn’t you land at the astroport, Monsieur?” Belvedere inquired, taking hold of the bright orange telephone receiver which started ringing.
“Nope. The League would have snooped around my FID and I’d be good for the firing squad. I touched down near the Mount Olivet cemetery. People weren’t happy—the living one, I mean. The other kind didn’t mind much.”
“Undoubtedly…”
Miles chuckled. “Anyway, full tank of Blue, a sovereign supply of nutrigel cans—and no more cracks on that damn windshield! Also, my dear passenger and I will stay here tonight. Get a second small room ready—for me. Please.”
Done with another client on the phone, Belvedere inclined his head and the boisterous sprouts twirled. “Right away, Monsieur Villanueva,” he said, while gracefully pivoting to grab a set of heavy keys, which he danced around his three white-gloved fingers. Turning back to Fate, he uttered: “If Madame could follow me.” With a swift hand gesture, he pointed to the lavish stairs.
They both left the hall, and Miles found himself alone with a little android in charge of room service. Tucking a dust-cloth under its armpit, the latter candidly invited its new patron to the bar.
The restaurant appeared to be almost empty; the only customer being a rickshaw driver apparently waiting for someone. He greeted Miles with a polite nod before nervously focusing on his wrist computer.
But after several days straying on a stolen ship, Miles would rather turn around to enjoy the fresh air before sailing back the day after. As he passed through the hotel doors again, the city’s halogen lights flickered faintly before giving off a more orange glow meant to mimic a late afternoon. Bells rang in the surrounding neighborhood, signaling the end of the day shift for robots and humans who had not joined the rebel ranks. The streets filled up and then emptied as all shuffled to the nearest bars to forget about their alienating hard work with much recourse to Jack Daniel’s and Havoline.
Stroking the forged columns holding up the upper floor balconies, Miles pulled a beef jerky from the back pocket of his jeans. As he brought the stick to his mouth to tear open the plastic package, he heard something metallic and familiar bounce off the cobblestones: the pachinko ball.
The salty meat at the corner of his lips, Miles decided it was time to get rid of the cursed Enceladean trinket once and for all. Raising his eyes to the sky in which, beyond the artificial atmosphere, millions of garbage bags were still orbiting, he swore to himself that the pachinko ball would remain in the dust. Never again would he be the plaything of fate or any nefarious iron orb.
He gave the trash a kick, trying to cover it with oily sand and beer caps. Rolling among the gutter, the pink marble slowly made its way to the edge of a cylindrical Holosex booth.
Seeing it as a quiet place to wait for Fate to settle, Miles decided to take refuge there. With an elbow, he forced the dented door to slide off its track. It jammed, but the opening became big enough for him to squeeze through.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Can’t believe those horny booths managed to make their route to Mimas during these trying times…” he said.
The cracked white foam seat greeted him with a squeak. Judging by the tag-covered control panel and the colorful bubble gum crippling the keys, the sex cabin must have been awaiting her first maintenance for months. The holographic projectors had either been stolen or were lying among the trash on the floor. The disinfectant liquid from the automatic cleaning system had dried on the pinkish walls in endless, bluish pours.
Miles swallowed the last carcinogenic bite of his stick and put his feet on the large keyboard studded with cigarette ash. In the reflection of the screen—where a long time ago some drunken and horny roughneck might have ogled the girl, man or whatever his kink was, for 15 minutes of holo-wanking—Miles caught his reflection. His features were tired, and he had never been so thin. But in his eyes burned a determination that he thought was long gone.
The monitor suddenly lit up, spreading a bluish light throughout the cabin. The program had rebooted by accident. When Miles straightened up to glance at the painfully loading home screen, a jingle croaked via the single speaker on the right side of the headrest.
“Hello, error—consumer,” an AI with a gauchely languid voice greeted him. “How may I satisfy your wishes today, error—consumer? Would you, as usual, like an error—error-or, how about an error—error?”
Holosex kiosks scanned FIDs to record the customer’s banking information, while learning their history to improve the quality of service with a lot of personalization. His makeshift FID incorporated by Tatiana on his robotic fingers didn’t seem to be the taste of the booth’s integrated reader. Or maybe this one was too grimy or damaged to acquire anything.
Miles smiled. “You’re giving me an idea… Let’s see your options… you kinda look like the ones I tried on Titan before the war…” began Miles as he tapped on the dashboard. His fingers landed on barely dry fluids. Grossed out, he asked for voice control.
The CPU fans began to fill the booth with a strong smell of burned components before the computer spoke again: “Male? Female? One hundred percent organic? Cyborg? Robot? Freak? Any registered fantasy? Special request—error,” the program listed examples of naked holo-products dancing across the screen.
“It will be a lady. Clothes on, please. Colonial style,” Miles ordered, thinking of Kat. With a flick of his sleeve, he roughly cleaned the buggy monitor that occasionally jumped to a black and white rendering.
The program sometimes froze, and after half an hour of computation, Miles could reconstruct Kat’s face: her straight nose and broad cheekbones; her full lips and azure eyes; her red curls and freckles on her forehead. He could even get her long green overall. However, the woman who appeared on the screen was far from matching Kat’s burning energy.
Miles grinned blissfully at herself. The same contented smile was returned to him when the computer finally gave up the ghost, leaving him nothing but his own reflection.
Worry then rose in him. Could Tatyana and Edith really help him get his heart back? And then. What will happen? Will the war find him and Kat again? Will they have to flee to Ceres, or Mars? Or will they have to take the opposite path and run to the Kuiper Territory? Residing on the new worlds with the pirates, colonists and navy explorers sailing to Planet Nine? Will they ever return to the Rings?
Miles smiled, for the very fact that he was asking so many questions implied hope. A few months ago, he would have been shot dead by border ruffians in New Dodge and wouldn’t have bat an eye. On this day, dreams and doubts made him feel alive. And not the absence of it, like on the Chickamauga.
The Church of Darwin’s bells rang at seven o’clock. Miles’ stomach lurched, and it was time to head back to the hotel, where Belvedere and Fate must have been wondering where he had gone.
Bent for almost two hours in a most uncomfortable position in a Holosex cabin of questionable cleanliness, Miles’ legs failed him. Unbalanced, he slumped forward against the computer and then fell back against the sliding door. The clumsy pilot chuckled, pulled his hand out of a moldy beignet, and stepped outside.
The cocking of a gun welcomed his new lease of life.
Swearing, Miles stumbled backwards into the booth. A large-caliber bullet exploded the cobblestones beneath him. Pellets, pebbles and debris flew into the air. With his back against the floor among the cigarette butts, he saw another bullet pierce the cabin through and through.
Deafened, Miles tried to close the sliding door with his feet, but unsuccessfully. Something was blocking the railing. It was the pachinko ball.
A third volley destroyed the screen, and a shower of sparks burned Miles’ hair locks. Then, without giving him a break, his assailant fired three more times. After such a deluge, just being alive appeared to be a miracle.
Bent metal crushed the pilot, leaving him almost no room to maneuver. The smell of hot steel and dust scorched his throat and eyes. But he held back from coughing as the sound of boots on pavement came closer.
Standing in front of the Holosex cabin’s twisted opening, an android of broad stature and wearing a large sombrero obscured the soft glow of Bourbon Avenue’s neon lights.
Miles squinted, feigning death. But when the muzzle of a tri-cannon rifle passed through the narrow gap the cursed marble allowed, Miles knew that, after all, he couldn’t escape fate.