The bar Three Tits smelled like burnt engine grease, spilled cheap drinks, and some kind of collective regret.
A sickly neon flickered above tables cluttered with metal mugs full of liquids no sane person dared to name.
The air hung thick—sweat, rust, and bad decisions.
The bar never slept.
It just… blinked.
Neon crawled along the walls like tired insects, smearing red and blue streaks across spilled booze and dried blood.
Somewhere in the back, a broken speaker crackled—the bass stuck, droning and stubborn like a bad habit.
At the center stood the counter.
And behind it—Doce “Karr-Vell” Manos.
Six arms moved at once with the calm efficiency of a machine that had learned manners.
- One wiped glasses in slow circular motions.
- Another poured drinks with surgical precision.
- A third counted c-bucks—thick fingers clicking metal softly.
- A fourth slid a plate of “something fried” down the bar.
- A fifth hovered over the shotgun beneath the register—not touching, but never far from it.
- And the sixth rested on the counter—relaxed but ready—and sometimes, whenever the room grew quiet enough for philosophy, that hand scratched his ass or his chin as required.
His skin was the color of baked clay rubbed with oil—tough, cracked, marked with scars older than the bar itself.
Folks called him Doce Manos—Twelve Hands.
Nobody agreed on why.
Some said he’d been born with twelve and lost half before opening the bar.
Some claimed the other six were ghosts.
Most just knew that trying to count his hands during trouble was a fine way to die confused.
Three eyes watched the room. The top one didn’t blink. Ever. It recorded everything like a pissed-off security camera.
A fight was brewing near the arcade machines—two alien mercs chest-to-chest, alcohol and overconfidence turning them into loud idiots.
The first—a chortul, greenish, with two long damp tentacles instead of arms, six feet each—shoved the second.
The second—a dremlyux—had a head bigger than his torso and eyes sticking out on the sides where humans had ears.
And he apparently used those eyes to see all seven-hundred-twenty degrees at once.
Fucking hell!
Why would anyone need that?
Hell if I know. He sees—good for him.
Hold up… Jackie’s saying something.
What is it, sweetie? Repeat that.
Right, so my pain-in-the-ass DJ claims her ex-boyfriend was a dremlyux.
What was his name…? Jean-Paul?
And according to Jean-Paul, their eyes spin in a full circle.
Then spin AGAIN.
Just to be sure.
[awkward pause]“Thank you, Jackie.
Exactly the information I was missing in my life.
So glad I get to live with that now.”
[off mic, muttering]“Wonderful.
Fantastic.
Just incredible.
Truly don’t know why I wake up in the mornings.”
[short sigh, gentle tap on the microphone]“Alright, enough freak biology.
Let’s get back to the story of other freaks.”
[toggles switch—soft cosmo-jazz bumper fades in]— FWOOOOBL–KRASHH–ZZRRRT–TUDUM!—Because tonight’s episode isn’t a lecture on the anatomy of alien idiots—
it’s the story of two beings who are…
well…
basically designed to ruin each other’s lives.
And no, Jackie, it’s not about us.
Though thank you for thinking of me.
Really warms my cold, dead heart.
Anyway… a chair scraped. Someone laughed.
Doce didn’t even lift his head.
He finished pouring a drink, slid it to the customer, took the payment, and only then said:
“Amigo.”
The green one—way too green even for a chortul—either didn’t hear him or pretended his six-foot circus-grade tentacles had more important things to do.
Six FUCKING feet.
Two of them.
Why?
Hell if I know. Ask whatever gods thought that was funny.
Doce ‘s top eye turned.
A very—VERY—bad sign.
“AMIGO,” he repeated calmly. “You’re becoming a problem.”
The tentacled bastard spun around, baring teeth:
“Shut up, freak. This ain’t yo—”
The chair flew. WHOOSH!
Ah—so that’s what the tentacles are for.
Throwing whatever crap they can reach.
Doce caught the chair with one hand.
Didn’t even look.
Clean. Easy. Professional.
The bar went silent.
With another hand he set a drink in front of a woman
who didn’t look up from her wrist holo-screen.
With a third, he returned someone’s change.
With a fourth, he gently placed the chair back on the floor.
Then, stepping out from behind the counter, Doce lifted both mercs at once—
three arms hauling them like wet sacks of dirty laundry.
“Nada de fists.
Nada de knives.
Nada de blasters.
Nada de religious crap.”
And with a fourth hand still polishing a glass,
Doce marched them both toward the door.
“¡FUERA!”
They didn’t argue.
When Doce said “Amigo,” anyone who valued their life did NOT argue.
They never argued.
The door slammed.
The rain swallowed their cursing.
The music continued.
[A very ancient space-blues track—JUKEBOX #9—crackled to life, sounding retro even to beings older than starlight]