The lobster-looking bastard started laughing.
Loud. Genuine. Happy.
Zhu’Rokken shrieked:
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?!
YOU ENJOY WATCHING ME GET HIT, HUH?!
No more whiskey for you!MOVE YOUR ASS—SMACK THE ROBOT!”
Zeros raised his hand—
and it shifted, transforming into a flamethrower.
The bar went quiet.
Very quiet.
Three regulars stopped breathing.
One of them even experienced a brief clinical death.
The Nivrix froze, flailing its tiny arms:
“Hey—HEY, calm down, xiǎo tàiyáng!
I’m not the one who hit your boyfriend!These things happen!
This pàng gǒu dōngxi just does that!
It’s a muscle reflex, you get it?
NO BRAIN—NO BRAKES!
Relax…
Xíngle, zánmen shuō zhòngdiǎn ba!”
Blindy lowered his blaster, still wincing in pain.
“…You serious?
And we’re not boyfriends.”
Zeros turned to him slowly.
Very slowly.
Like a predator who just heard
its prey suggest a date.
“Don’t push your luck.”
Zhu’Rokken cleared his throat, adjusted a disgusting fold of skin,
and began explaining the job.
Seventy-eight percent of what he said made absolutely no sense
even to a sober person—
which meant Blindy understood exactly nothing.
But from the remaining twenty-two percent
that managed to leak into his broken brain,
one thing became clear:
They’d been screwed over. Bad.
In case you forgot, dear listener—
Mold’ponie has nine gangs,
each with a name that sounds like it was cooked up by a first-grade marketer
in the middle of a sugar overdose:
- Yellow Mashers
- Pink Mashers
- Brown Mashers
- Azure Mashers
- Purple Mashers
- Magenta Mashers
- Orange Mashers
- Lime Mashers
…and of course, Mashers Mashers—an easy winner for Worst Name at the Public Eye Awards.
Right now, we’re dealing with the most obnoxious of them—
Lime Mashers.
And their boss, known as…
Lime Feather.
Yes. Exactly.
No, I’m not kidding.
Yes, they absolutely need to fire their marketing director into a black hole.
That name sounds like a drink from Spacebucks™
that nobody orders.
Zhu’Rokken continued:
“Alright, you liǎng gè lājī.
You’re gonna lure this Feather out of his hole,
grab him,hǎohao zòu tā yī dùn,
tie him up, shut him up,
and bring him back here—ALIVE.
Or dead if he dies on the way—lǎozi cái búguǎn ne.
He and I have history.”
The parasite puffed itself up proudly,
as much as its twitching skin allowed:
“Three million if he’s alive.
One and a half if he’s dead.You in—gǔn dàn.
We’ll talk when you get back with the cargo.”
Blindy, still pissed and limping from the claw hit,
walked up and smacked the Nivrix on the back of the head.
Zhu’Rokken shut down for a couple of seconds,
let out a short reboot chirp, then snapped back to life, screeching:
“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!
SIX MILLION FOR ALIVE,
THREE FOR DEAD!That’s tā mā de enough, yeah?!
Oh—and one more thing, shǎbī.
You already have the… tool.
That round… whatever-the-hell-it-is.It’ll help you lure Feather out.
It’s on your rusty piece of crap
you call a ship.
The one you dumbasses call—The Penis.”
He waved dismissively, like shooing away a fly:
“Now get the hell out of here.”
Zhu’Rokken jabbed an elbow into Garr-Tuun’s shell and squeaked:
“Gǎn jǐn gǔn, wúyòng de lóngxiā!”
The lobster moved off miserably,
its claws clanking with every step—
like each one was a personal tragedy.