Pop!
Leigh paused a moment to admire the bomb. Allred Mignola-Miller de Beauvoir von Groening was an insufferable man-child who thought that the two of them would eventually, to borrow a phrase from Popbot, "get it on," but the idiot could design a bomb. (Maybe she was the slightest bit flattered—maybe—but the revolution and their resistance group, the Liberal Media, came first.) In the past two weeks that they had been working together, designing gadgetry was all he showed he was good for and while she had snuck into the Western supply plant of Organic Chemical Rendering (or, OChRe) to install the device, she had him acting as a lookout. Unfortunately, all he looked out for were girls, so the operation could only be at night. Just last week, their assignment took them next door to a Catholic girl's school. Leigh shook her head at the memory of that debacle. But on the bright side, this night raid gave her the opportunity to try out his new infrared goggles that allowed her to work in total darkness.
Leigh crouched on the floor between two of the giant cylindrical vats that "cooked" the dead animal matter (which —according to some of the more outraged critics of the Shrubco Administration cabal—included hobos and death row prisoners) into a hydrocarbon fuel that powered the tanks and hummers of Shrubco's military arm. Touted as an environmentally clean fuel (OChRe even went so far as painting the vats a soothing forest green), the rendering process itself produced rancid and toxic byproducts, and also released cyanide into the atmosphere.
She was careful to not even touch the exterior steel shell of the vats. Not because they would be hot with rotting flesh inside—layers of aluminum alloy interior shells dissipated the heat, and with a cooling fluid circulating between, the vats were actually cool to the touch—in fact they barely glowed in infrared. Through five feet of metal, she was afraid of contaminating her principles solely by contact. It was bad enough that she'd have to crawl under one of these pressure cookers to plant the bomb on the underside, but the thought of the possible presence of an engineered (if the rumors were true) neurobacteria that fermented the animal matter, not to mention the possibility of the neurobacteria's escaping and infecting a living person, making its host more docile and susceptible to vaguely fundamentalist doctrines, and then the least believable but therefore most probable stories that it could also spark a hunger for fresh human meat…
She shuddered, and looked again at the bomb's guts, colored a bloody red thanks to the goggles. It reminded her of those old watches that her father had shown her when she was a child: tiny cogs and screws that meant tears and bloodied feet if she spilled them out across the floor, but with one inserted just so and the other screwed in like that, a tiny robotic heart started beating in her hand.
The cold air of the night, drifting in from the door they had jimmied open, brought her back to the mission.
Double-checking that the nail-spread was properly aligned (there would be a micro-explosion before the main blast in order to spread shrapnel around in a 10 foot radius, a circle as a calling card—another of Allred's ideas), she replaced the cover and hailed Popbot on the short wave radio. "I'm about to load the bomb, Robot."
"Get Ur Freak On," Popbot replied.
(Why does he always have to say that? she thought to herself. That song was seriously overplayed. She'd have to upload a new song onto him, which, she realized, actually would be another way of sticking it to the proverbial Man.)
She was about to connect the bomb's main leads when the end of a flashlight beam bounced up and down next to her on the floor, with Allred running in behind it.
"I thought I told you—"
"Leigh," he panted. "Car… outside." Allred bent over, arms propped on his knees. His face showed almost white on her goggles.
"Shrubco SUV?"
He shook his head no. "Ugly… Euro… import."
She glanced once more at the bomb. "But Robot's only just accessed OChRe's communication database." She reached for her radio again. "Robot, we have to abort. Stay where you are and download as much as you can, we'll come get you."
A sudden rush of air, and two feet landing on the concrete floor, then a throat clearing behind them. Both Leigh and Allred turned towards the sound, which he trained his flashlight on.
To Allred's delight, it was a chick. As his light traveled slowly from the ground up, he saw a pair of jeans, then a pink baby tee with a cartoon donkey snuggled between two petite tits, and the face… Oh, the face! Framed by boyishly short brown hair, cheeks rounded out by a soft smirk, and eyes framed within—get this—thick-rimmed glasses. An indie rock girl.
"Hey," he said.
"You're a dead pair of fuckers," the girl replied, cracking her knuckles and grinning crookedly.
Leigh looked down at her. The girl was so small and skinny, she couldn't possibly pose a threat, especially since she gave up the element of surprise… but Leigh's hand instinctively grabbed Allred and pulled him into a run towards the back exit.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" he said. "I could've scored!"
"No you couldn't."
They reached the exit and opened the door. Outside, the bespectacled girl was walking towards them.
Leigh caught Allred's collar and ran back into the factory but the four legs between the two of them entangled and they crashed to the concrete. The girl sauntered over. With one hand holding Leigh's and Allred's in the other, the girl dragged them into an office on the first floor, then closed the door with a sneakered foot.
Dumping them in the corner farthest from the entrance, the girl kicked the office chair away and hopped up (for she really was a short girl) to take a seat on the desk.
She spoke in a light and pleasing voice. "You two have quite a nice bounty on your pretty little heads." Her gaze from behind her glasses lingered a second on Allred, then she scooted off the desk, and he lay mesmerized as a tongue glided her lips. "One stone, two birds. Three if I just take a drop," she mumbled. In one smooth motion, she picked him up by his throat and pinned his chest to the wall with her forearm and using her other hand snapped his head to the side, exposing his neck. With his faced squashed against the wall like an overripe orange ready to burst within the clutches of a slim yet mighty hand, the corners of Allred's mouth curled upwards, his eyes rolling ecstatically back into his head.
Leigh tried a leg sweep from the ground but the girl caught it with her own foot and stepped on Leigh's ankle. She was small but she put her whole weight and some of Allred's onto the ankle and the bones in Leigh's foot bulging, on the verge of exploding.
A loud crash from the ceiling, and from the dust of busted mortar boards Popbot leapt forward, announcing, "Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuttin ta fuck wit," and whipped a telescoping arm across the back of the girl's head. She crumpled to the ground and didn't move. Allred fell onto his ass, gasping for air. The only other sound was the reverberating metal of Popbot's arm, the other arm holding Leigh and Allred's bicycles, which Popbot then leaned against the office wall. Popbot stood over all of them, its headless, rectangular torso (no more than half a foot thick, front to back), catching the stray moonlight.
Leigh winced, "My ankle."
Popbot lifted Leigh up in both arms. "Ice, ice baby."
"When we get back to the safe house. Allred, can you walk?"
He wheezed, "Oh I'm very good."
"We have to get out fast. Robot, you'll have to pedal." Leigh hobbled onto the handlebars while Popbot took position on the bicycle seat. Allred struggled onto his bicycle, but once he had caught his breath, they sped towards the rear exit.
"Wait, we have to go back!" Allred said, his brakes squealing.
"You're right," Leigh said. They all slowed to a stop.
"We have to see if she's ok. You don't know how short hair kills me."
"It almost did. She showed up black on my goggles, Allred."
"Oh," he replied. "So she's hella cool."
"You idiot, she's not human. My guess is she's an android."
"And so what if she is?"
"We're going back to arm the bomb," she said.
"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times."
Allred growled, "You stupid robot!"
"Watch it you two," Leigh warned.
They made it back to the vats, where the bomb lay undisturbed. Leigh limped down, and with nimble fingers she finished wiring the bomb. "Here, Robot," handing it the device. Its arms telescoped out and under the vat, then retracted into its body.
While Leigh wasn't looking, Allred's eyes snuck glances at the office where he almost bought it. He searched for an outline of the hottest indie girl he'd ever seen, but the office was a thick soup of black. He finally dared to shine his flashlight into the room when Popbot was planting the bomb. "She's gone."
"Who?" Leigh said as Popbot helped her back onto the handles again.
"The girl!"
That was bad news. Either her body had already been collected which meant someone was already inside, or she really was a robot and had recovered and was already hunting for them. Which one didn't matter, they were underprepared for any confrontation.
They proceeded to the exit and made their way to a wooded grove just outside the factory. Their hovercopter was right where they parked it under the cover of trees. Popbot piled them in and got on board. Leigh buckled herself into the pilot seat, next to Allred in the co-pilot's. She activated the controls and waited for the steam engine to kick in. They all listened to it cough, gurgle and wheeze to life as the stored solar batteries released its thermals. The hovercopter lifted off the ground, and inched forward into a clearing before rising into the sky.
"Robot, I don't care if you saved our lives back there, I don't want to hear you swearing," Leigh said. "How much time did you set for the bomb?" She eased the vehicle into drive and punched in their destination into the autopilot.
The grey, backlit LCD display that occupied the upper half of Popbot's body flashed on, counting down, "0:07… 0:06… 0:05… 0:04…"
"Robot!" She throttled the thrusters into turbo, slamming her and Allred into their seats and sending Popbot tumbling to the back. They heard an explosion receding in the background but the shockwave caught up with them, rattling their ship to the sound of chattering teeth.
"Hold on to your butts," Popbot said from the cargo hold.
The tremors subsided. Checking over the gauges, Leigh frowned. "That turbo boost drained half our batteries. We'll have to put down someplace for the night." She turned her head back to glare at Popbot.
"Sorry Dave," Popbot cooed.
Allred gazed out the side-window. He exhaled against the glass. From his swelling eyes a single tear tumbled forth rolling down his face, but before it leapt off his chin he brushed it off with a finger. He whispered, "I liked your glasses."
The three of them walked into a diner across the street from the motel they found last night. The hovercopter was parked in the motel lot, charging its stores.
They sat down at a booth and studied the breakfast menu. Allred said, "Going to the bathroom."
"You know what you want?"
Allred was about to say that what he wanted was probably dead now and that, no, he didn't swing that way. Instead, he just said, "Popbot can order for me," and left.
The waitress arrived at the booth. "Hey there, what can I get you, ma'am."
"I'll have coffee and scrambled eggs and bacon and a bran muffin and a glass of milk," Leigh said.
"A Royale with cheese," Popbot piped up, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."
"Oh I'm sorry sug," the waitress said to Leigh. "We don't serve those," throwing her bulbous chin at Popbot, "human food. God knows why they even want it, next thing they'll try is marrying us."
Spit boiled in Leigh's mouth. She managed to keep it in. "It's… not for him. My… nephew… is in the bathroom."
The waitress said, "Well, we don't serve burgers til noon anyhow," examining her fingernails painted red, white and blue.
"Pancakes and the tea. Can you do that? Oh, he's coming right now."
He reentered the booth, and the waitress asked him what he wanted.
"A cheeseburger and…"
"Sorry hon, we don't have that til noon."
"Pancakes then. And you got any Earl Grey?"
As the waitress brought them their food, Allred said, "So when are we going to go over our—"
"Our itinerary?" Leigh cast a covert eye at the waitress. "Never on an empty stomach."
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about, but I'm not really that hungry," he said, looking distastefully at his pancakes.
Leigh dug in. "It's eat up or beat up, young man."
"What?" he exclaimed. "It's not like you're the boss of me! Well, you sort of are, I guess…"
When the waitress left (though not without clicking her tongue at these out-of-town folks), Leigh leaned in and said in a low tone, "Never in a public place. The company might have agents looking for us."
"Oh. Then why're we in a diner?"
"Nobody is going to make me or any of us skip breakfast." She looked at his untouched plate. "You're definitely finishing that," she said, punctuating every syllable by thrusting her knife towards his eyes.
"Eep."
They ate in silence. Except for Popbot, which neither ate nor was silent, instead singing,
'O Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?'
'Arragh, hold your gob,' said Paddy McGhee!
Whack fol the darn O, dance to your partner
Whirl the floor, your trotters shake;
Wasn't it the truth I told you
Lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!
Back in the motel, Leigh sat in front of Popbot, staring intently into its LCD display and listening to the work playlist she had saved on it, and tapped away on the USB keyboard hooked into Popbot between its legs. It was to his onboard computer that Popbot had downloaded and stored the information about OChRe. (Popbot also included wireless internet access.)
Leigh pored over the data they managed to liberate, and Allred worked half-heartedly on his gadgets. There were quite a few personal communiqués from OChRe's CEO Harry Burton explaining a leave of absence due to the sudden onset of Herbert's disease in his daughter, Hallie. (Herbert's disease caused the blood vessels to expand when eating so that blood pressure drops, leading to intermittent blackouts and the frequent threat of choking on the food.) With a camera crew documenting his journeys as part of a reality TV program, Easy Street Can Be Pretty Hard, Too!, he'd gone all over the North American incorporated and unincorporated territories in search of a treatment, to the breakaway People's Republic of Berkeley, to the United Nirvana of Tibet, to neo-hippie witchdoctors of the acid rain forests in South America, to the Nation of Domination (where after an inexplicable reign of 50 years, Hulkamania no longer ruled), to the roving State of Neverland. He even managed to visit the Dreamcity of Springfield, where legend had it that its inhabitants had but four fingers on each hand, bright yellow skin and horrible overbites. None of these places held a cure for Hallie, but he managed to take comfort in the ratings for Easy Street. The final item Leigh read indicated that Burton was taking his daughter to the last independent Canadian province, Quebec, or more precisely, Québec, to seek out rogue stem cell experts who'd been hunted nearly to extinction by Moral Militia, Ltd., a division of Shrubco.
Blinking away the surprising wetness in her eyes she felt for the daughter, Leigh resumed searching the documents for intelligence on either OChRe or Shrubco. Almost immediately, a memorandum from OChRe's liaison to Shrubco popped up, dated two months after Burton went to Québec and just a week ago, outlining Shrubco's abrupt termination of their contract with OChRe citing the declining code of moral standards that its CEO was exhibiting in defiance of Shrubco dogma. The memo also warned of direct reprisal from a freelance mercenary.
"Allred, Robot, listen to this. OChRe isn't working for Shrubco anymore. That was probably why we broke in so easily. The plant's guards were Shrubco employees, and when they cut ties, we must've caught OChRe in the lurch without security. And that's also why no Shrubco Company cars showed up."
"What, we shouldn't have blown it up?" he said distractedly without looking up from the new set of infrared goggles he was working on, which, incidentally, were shaped like thick-rimmed glasses.
"That was ok. Business as usual for them," she said, scrutinizing OChRe's new business plan. "Looks like they were shopping themselves to other incorporated nations."
"Clean consciences, all around."
"Exactly. And there's also a separate note, something about a Shrubco-hired goon that OChRe was supposed to watch out for. And… Allred, it's that girl who almost killed us. She's working for Shrubco."
Allred placed his tools down onto the table. "She is working?"
Leigh scanned the note. "Says here that she's a Code Upsilon threat, almost invulnerable, so a bomb blast plus a building falling on top of her wouldn't keep her down for long."
Anticipation sparked in his eyes. On top of hearing that she was alive, Allred realized now that it was the girl's job to come after him. He managed to suppress a smile—no way he'd give Leigh another opportunity to tell him to stop thinking about her like that on account of her whole trying-to-kill-them thing. His hand absently felt at his throat, which still bore a faint handprint from the night before. It was glowing now, he swore he could feel it.
Leigh read aloud, "Her name is Belle Sebastian."
"Belle?" He bit down on his lip but the smile broke out. His thumb rapidly began tracing the outline of the handprint, and he closed his eyes. "She's French!"
"Worse. She's a vampire."
"You best protect ya neck," Popbot said.
Allred's hand fell from his throat, and he opened his eyes soberly.
"Our problem," he mused at the ceiling, "just got a whole lot sexier."
To be continued…
Otium
