Rain Harlow
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Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2025-03-20 17:14:47 +0000 UTC
Jack rushed through his morning like a bat out of hell and was forced to skip breakfast. It was pure disaster, he knew — tragedy. He always had breakfast. Suddenly breaking a solemn routine? There would be consequences.
“It’s going to be a shit day.” So Jack, The Prophet of Jack’s Life, decreed to the apartment building’s empty elevator on the way down. No breakfast because he absolutely was not going to be late two days in a row. There was no justification for it, either. None. He’d stayed up late for no reason scrolling on his phone. Digitally-wired willfulness.
And just when he was rushing outside into the groundside parking lot to get to his car, his eyes took in the sight of a family of four filing into a squat vehicle. A middle-aged man carrying a youngster in his arms caught Jack’s eye — pivoting the child to one hip, he smiled and waved jovially at Jack, calling, “Happy Chromey Day!”
Jack froze in sheer horror, confronted with the awful reality that he’d already been proven right. His hand came up weakly to wave, though his mouth couldn’t bear to say the words. It hung open. The kid’s shirt burned into Jack’s retinas as if he’d zoomed in on it like an eagle. It was colorfully emblazoned with the proof of his day’s damnation: The legendary Chrome Giant, deceased Champion of Humanity, one of the first and most iconic heroes of New Babylon.
The garish image of the shirt mimicked a famous photo: the giant posing with a thumb’s up, wearing a ‘bearded’ metal grin, while an entire classroom of gleeful Mulberry Heights third-graders sat on his arms and shoulders. That same scene had become a statue in his honor upon his death. To further commemorate his life in service, a holiday was instituted for all of New Babylon. Chromey Day.
The family disappeared into their vehicle, and Jack did a slow facepalm. Chromey Day. Hell day, endless clientele. Great. Just great.
Jack shook it all off and hurried into his car, reaching over to the vidscreen in the center of his dash to tap the ‘Available!’ button on the SuperRide Taxi Agency login screen. It flashed a ‘Success!’ message, and a slightly robotic, cheery feminine voice resounded, “You are two minutes late from the target start time. One pickup is awaiting approval! Due to the holiday and clientele volume, automatic response and pickup is requested by the agency. Accept?”
Jack leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. Automatic chain pickups. He could refuse and go at his own pace, but his supervisor, Pat, would be ‘disappointed’ for him not helping out. He’d been down that road — a little turnoff called Guilt Trip Alley.
Dismissing the idea, he straightened, buckled up, and declared, “Frag it! Let’s get it done cause that’s what we do. We don’t cry about shit. Right? Right. Accept it, Alice.” The name of his car. “Time to make some scratch. I could always use an extra benny or fifty.”
“Agreed and acknowledged, Jack,” Alice answered supportively. “Would you like to activate priority custom requests as well?”
Jack blinked. “I thought it wasn’t allowed with automatic pickups?”
“Your supervisor cleared you two weeks ago for perpetual priority access, regardless of clientele volume. It hasn’t been relevant until today.”
Jack smiled for the first time all morning. Priority requests, often to distant locales, broke up the routine and could be big money. “I’ll be damned. He loves me! Do it, Alice!”
“It is now activated. Take note that priority goes to pilots closer to their dropoff.” The vidscreen switched to a route map displaying the first pickup.
Luck-based, eh? Here’s hoping.
Disengaging the Anchor power effect with the shift of a lever, Jack took the wheel of his vehicle and eased his way up into the air. He flipped several dials and pressed his boot on the pedal to accelerate the MALPP drive — Memoria-Allotted Levitation Power Protocol. Without it, without Memoria’s blessing, essentially, Alice was just a frame of reinforced aluminum and some batteries for the electronics. A metal brick.
It was the same for all of the Babs, aka New Babylon, a tower and a city in the sky, built to shelter mankind for the last stand against the monsters and horrors out in the ruined, warped Earth beyond. Humanity’s goddess-like ‘Archon,’ Memoria, forged and maintained the entire system, but she couldn’t do it alone, not with the booming population she’d spawned.
Her time, focus, and the processing power of her prodigious mind were precious. Others had to play their part, sometimes by borrowing a little sliver of her great power, to varying degrees of reverence.
So Jack played his, a pilot to take people wherever they wanted to go quicker than sin. Some days were slow, but a holiday was a madhouse keeping up with a population that had more than doubled in twenty years to four million.
Soon enough, Jack was in his groove transporting clients. He zipped all across the primary platform that was New Babylon Proper, twenty-five kilometers in every direction from the tower core. He took people Downtown, to the smaller, higher Origin Platform, and various shindigs in other districts. Some ended up late to ‘important’ events — like some speech from the Prime Minister — and did they blame themselves? Of course not!
“Yeah, screw you to Sunday, buddy!” Jack yelled out of the window at a departing client who’d muttered something rude about being one minute late. “Go cry to Momma Mem. You’re going on my block list, by the way!”
And now sacrilege. Sorry, Memoria! Hangry, I’m officially hangry. At least I didn’t curse. It’s ‘against agency policy.’ Psh! I need food.
He was just in a bad mood. No breakfast. And even his snack reserves betrayed him — he rummaged around furiously, but they were just gone, and who could’ve possibly taken them?! He knew there was half a bag of pecan halves and an unopened bag of Healthy Tarts bean chips left in the middle alcove!
But by some absurd mysterious conspiracy, they were nowhere to be found. It was just spooky.
Did someone steal my snacks? Who would do such a thing? Did birds get in here?
Regardless, the heroic needs of the day precluded him from taking a break to get food. He should’ve had breakfast — he knew he should have!
Worst of all, he couldn’t get a priority request to land at the right time to save his life. He checked logs to see there were quite a few but they went to other pilots while he was too early in a given transportation job.
Frag my luck. Cut me a break, Momma Mem! The day isn’t over yet.
By the time he finally got a break from the maddening back and forth of the long morning, he’d lost his appetite completely. When the auto-routing finally switched off, he flew over to Downtown’s Tower N’ Go and got a Black-As-Night Super Caffed tea, deciding that he was fasting. A caffeinated tea fast? Maybe he was on to something.
Bah. Like I need it! I might not be as fit as my service days, but I’m fine. Got a solid medium build.
His smartphone vibrated, so he pulled it out for seemingly the first time all day. His boss, Pat, had just sent him a text. <Thanks for helping out, Jack! I think you set a personal record for clients transported. And 77 bennies in tips! You’re a real Champion. Just remember: don’t rush.>
Jack rolled his eyes and sent back <no prob, roger that> as he sipped his tea, wishing it was coffee. That wasn’t in the cards for Joe Schmoe Public. Too expensive. In the military, it was even encouraged for long-distance pilots. He missed that heavenly liquid, but knew the servicemen out there more than deserved the priority allocation for all the shit they had to deal with.
All too well.
While he was trying to relax yet caffeinate in the hovering car, a priority custom request blipped on his screen. <Client says: “just need a transport out from Proper, private details to be discussed, 50 bens bonus and 2x km tip” — Accept?>
“Accept!” Jack called immediately, before some other authorized agent took it…
Boom! He got it!
“Yes! Hell yeah, baby! How about that, Alice?”
“It appears very promising, Jack!” Alice replied cheerily.
Not everyone could take a transport beyond the city limits ‘out from Proper’ into open sky, where smaller communities had their own levitating platforms at varying distances. But 70, 80, maybe even over 100 bennies as a tip was insane. He could make more than he had all morning in one go.
Assuming these ‘private details’ work out. Guess we’ll see.
The route map directed him to Chen Zero Station, the core tower train station at the base of the platform where innumerable lifts within the massive structure took citizens, equipment, and products up and down. Individual citizens getting off could take the subway, the old novelty of the above-ground train, or get a levitaxi.
He flew Alice over to the open-air vehicle levipad platform, where numerous other levicars could be seen touching down near their waiting clientele. Some vehicles were the old standard issue ‘Dragonfly’ taxi chassis, classy if boring constructs painted white with one fat yellow stripe wrapping diagonally around.
Newer arrangements were less particular. Alice was a custom-built chassis inspired by the old world 1956-57 Chevrolet Bel Air Nomad, a stylish ‘station wagon,’ albeit without wheels. Her color was a light silver with the required yellow on the back and flaring on the ‘wings’ to either side.
People loved her — men smiled, and children pointed as she flew over. They loved to fly with her, too. She was a moneymaker, a one-of-a-kind smoker of the competition. Those lame ass Dragonflies ate her dust.
Jack caught sight of his potential client from above and waved from the window. The man waved back. He was in a drab shirt, pants, and a cargo vest with a large backpack on his back. He was in his mid-to-late thirties, Jack guessed.
Alice touched down in a safe zone, a rectangular parking spot divided by rows of yellow caution panels that would light up brightly and chime when stepped on.
As Alice came to a stop hovering in place, the backpacked man walked over, a smile on his face from around a herbal cigarette and a chin that needed a shave. “She’s a beauty! Didn’t know I’d be flying in style today.” He took a small metal case out from a pocket, flipping it open to reveal rows of cigarette tops. He gestured to Jack. “Ciggy?”
Jack returned the smile. “No thanks, trying to quit.” His automated response, though he’d quit for three years. Better for the clientele, for one. “Assuming these arrangements work out, you’ll ride like an Old World king. Where you headed?”
The man was taking a last puff as Jack replied, and then he smothered it in the waiting metal tube of the pack. He leaned on the open second door window of Alice to inspect the interior, blowing smoke out to the side and away.
In addition to the herbal smells, Jack got a whiff of mechanical grease. From that and a few other subtle cues, it was probable that the man was from Southtower, the very bottom part of New Babylon. It didn’t have any prominent platforms, just inner works, and the majority of it was industrial or related to transportation and processing from groundside. Nonetheless, people lived there, and that scent tended to stick.
“Overflow Three,” the man replied, nodding approvingly to what he saw within the car. His eyes came up to regard Jack. “Got something sensitive to deliver to my boss. I was supposed to get a direct pickup, but shit happens, I guess, and this can’t wait. Rush-rush, hence the bens. You’re a lucky guy. Want to split it with me? I got four kids.”
Jack chuckled and shook his head. “Fraggin Chromey Day, eh?”
“Fft.” The man exhaled and shook his head along with Jack. “Yeah, and here we are working our asses off, eh little brother? Bunch of bullshit.”
‘Little brother.’ Definitely from Southtower. Noticing something else with a trained eye, Jack nodded his head at the man’s thick vest and asked, “You’re packing a weapon?”
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Good eye.” He pulled the vest to the side to reveal a small, orangish handle showing from an inner pocket, a buttoned strap holding it in place. “Electric stunner, is all.”
Jack nodded, verifying the claim with a glance. The sleek orange material was distinctive for the most popular brand, Polylectric. Not cheap. “Okay, so… Overflow Three, that’s like sixty kilos from the edge and self-governed. You didn’t put that into your request. Do you realize not everyone who can go off Proper is authorized to enter self-governed territory? Or would want to?”
The man scratched the back of his neck. “I didn’t… not exactly. But the thing is, the boss wants this off-logs, no recorded crap. Hush hush.”
Jack looked away, letting out a long ‘tsh’ sound. Off-logs. This is some shady shit.
“Heeey,” the man started, “look — what’s your name, again?”
“Jack.”
“Tanner. Look, Jack, I know what you’re thinking, but this shit is no big deal, man! I can show you the part. My boss is just a paranoid old bastard who thinks Big Sister watches his every move. He’s building a prototype machine. For a mechanical harvester or something? Even I don’t know what the part does.”
Jack met Tanner’s eyes. “Mechanical harvester? For what?”
“Hell if I know, little brother. Farm stuff, I think. He’s into primitech, though.”
Jack frowned and looked away again. ‘Primitech’ generally meant technology designed to function without Memoria, which she and the government she operated fully supported, even in the core territories. Ostensibly for independence, possible integration beyond the borders of her influence, and hypothetical survival without her.
She gives people superpowers, levitates a practical mountain of metal, provides and directs armies of puppet drones, and enforces her will over the land and weather. Pretty sure we’re screwed without her. But everybody needs a hobby, right?
Tanner was already pulling his backpack off and unzipping it to flash the item within. It was a big hunk of metal with numerous bolts and a few cylindrical openings.
“Looks like a generic transmission,” Jack said.
“Does it?” Tanner spoke without real interest as he looked from the part up to Jack and back again. Then he shrugged and zipped it back up. “So are we doing this, Jack, or do I find somebody else? Sorry. Rush rush, you know?”
Jack deliberated. He wasn’t at all sure it wasn’t still shady, but just how shady would someone get using a taxi service? On a popular holiday, normal operations going haywire was more than plausible. An impatient, wealthy boss man? Extra plausible.
All for some stupid gearbox.
Pulling out his phone, Jack replied, “Send a hundred and fifty bennies to my account right now, the same when we arrive, and you got yourself a deal.” He set his phone to beam for funds reception through an app and held it out to Tanner. “Off books, no official record.”
Wincing and looking off, Tanner nonetheless pulled out his phone, typed briefly, then held it toward Jack’s own. Within moments, both phones made a ‘Kaching!’ noise and the credit was transferred. “No sympathy for my kids, I see. You’re a damn pirate, Jack.” Despite his words, Tanner grinned good-naturedly.
Jack chuckled as he reached over to the central vidscreen and canceled the official pickup, then logged entirely out of the job system. “Memoria will take care of her children. I need to fund my vacay from this shit.”
🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕
With his client in the backseat, the backpack stowed in the rear compartment, Jack took off for the airways above The Babs. They first circled around the central tower before taking a northeastern bend over the tree-peppered cityscape.
Overflow Three was perpendicular to the central platform, so it was a straight shot. It was mostly made of storage and distribution warehouses for numerous self-governing communities with surplus goods bound for elsewhere. It was also out of the perception and control of Memoria. Independently-piloted levitation was about the only power of hers allowed by default, according to contract. He’d read a little of it.
Tanner was initially quiet, texting at length on his phone. Jack flicked on the radio, guessing his client might prefer it. More nasty weather from the west, storms likely in a few days. It was bad for the West but not a major concern for New Babylon directly. In the service, transports west were hated by the majority of pilots. Jack had taken them often. Someone had to do it, after all. Rain or shine, packages and people needed delivery.
“Well, the boss seems content,” Tanner said suddenly, catching Jack’s eyes in the rearview. “As close as he gets, anyway.”
Jack nodded politely as he reduced the volume on the radio. “That’s good.”
“Good enough.” Tanner looked out the window. By then, they were past the central platform’s edge, in open sky peppered with other floating platforms, most of them bowl-shaped. Far below, forested mountains and valleys could be seen on the surface of the Earth. “You from off-plat, Jack? Got a bit of an accent.”
“Kinda. Spent some time on a farm, but you’re probably just hearing the tongue of the well-traveled. I was a long-haul transport pilot right out of military school. Been to the outer ring. All over.”
“Holy shit! I’m being ferried by a damned professional! Guess I’m safe and sound. Saw some shit out there?”
“You could say that. But if I told you the details, I’d have to kill you.” The canned response to such questions.
Tanner laughed. “Guess I’ll pass, then. Just taking it easy, now, huh?”
“You bet.”
“Don’t blame you. I put in the minimum and got out. To The Mems' relief, no doubt. Not cut out for it. Good thing I didn’t end up one of the Nons. I’d be a real frag off among frag offs.”
Jack shifted uncomfortably. ‘Nons’ was short for the Agents Nonpareil, a special military title separated from the greater Agents Exemplar, for the contracted superpowered — the Champions. The true Children of Memoria and wielders of the System. Shrouded in mystery but for special famous exceptions, Jack knew a little more than most. Knew a few of them, even, during his time. All classified.
The most incredible thing, though, was that Memoria talked to them. “Mother is always here with us, Jack,” the wounded Non had said. But he pushed away that particular memory. It was a bad one on multiple levels.
“They’d be stuck with us, then,” Jack said instead, trying to project his customary levity. “Who needs that kind of trouble?” He was entirely full of shit — who wouldn’t want fraggin superpowers? — but whatever.
“That’s what I say. Anyway, Momma Mem’s got more than she can handle coming down the pipes. The Nons boomed just like all the other babies.”
“That’s probably the idea, yeah.” A larger population seemed to correspondingly have a higher number of the worthy to pick out from among them. Memoria had also encouraged big families many generations back. “Our ancestors did their part banging and breeding.”
Tanner snickered. “Me too, little brother. Me too. What about you?”
“No kids. Wasn’t inclined with the dangerous job.”
“Okay, but now you’re a taxi man. No time like the present!”
“Ehhh. Don’t hold your breath.”
“Ha! You’re twenty-something, right?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Plenty of time, then.”
Earth’s sun was out, rolling its way down the horizon teasing at setting. It would do so in the evening but there wouldn’t be full darkness for another two weeks, just gradients of twilight. In the Old World, Antarctica was supposedly totally frozen over, even the mountains buried in ice. Sunken. That was a tough pill to swallow for Jack. While New Babylon got plenty of snow, he’d only ever seen the Earth’s surface green and temperate.
What was done to the world centuries ago wasn’t ‘natural’ — nor was any Archon’s ongoing influence of a region to suit its species. That included Homo Sapien, who in their final hours had finally unraveled the alien tech to birth their own reality-altering savior. Memoria’s will kept the madness of the invaders out of their territory. Mostly. She was hardly omnipotent, and on the outskirts, she relied a great deal on her Champions and soldiers.
Overflow Three loomed as Alice approached. It was a large mass of land sitting on an iron-alloy levitation frame in the shape of something like a fat funnel.
The dashboard made a triple beep as the vidscreen displayed <Entering Independent Space — Overflow Three. You are authorized and logged as crossing. Please remember you are subject to the community’s established laws. All contact with Memoria or Central Processing is impossible while within, except through limited official channels through the local government.>
Tanner let out a sigh. “Finally.”
“Spent a long time below, did you?”
“Longer than I wanted, anyway.” He nodded his head to indicate ‘over there.’ “Head straight for the green-striped silos and fly over them. Tons of warehouses. We’re close to the fire station.”
They made their way over the silos as Tanner directed him. Jack landed and Anchored Alice in an open, all-concrete back area for loading and unloading. He noticed a few rare, primitech ground-bound forklifts. In every direction, there was nothing but warehouses, offices, pallets, and crates.
Jack’s client sent the bennies with his phone before he even stood up out of the vehicle. Kaching! Smiling as he opened the door, Tanner said, “S’been a pleasure, Jack. Don’t spend all the money in one place.”
“No promises. Take it easy, yeah? Don’t forget your bag in the back.”
As Tanner was stretching and yawning outside the vehicle, he nodded and gave a thumbs up.
Directly ahead, a door burst open rather violently from the warehouse, and a bizarre figure came through. She was small and blue… some kind of modded-out human, was Jack’s first bewildered thought. Her face had soft, feminine features peppered with darker spotting, her eyes were quite large, and instead of hair, there was a mass of squid-like tentacles curling down. She was wearing an oversized white t-shirt.
What the…?
Jack was completely stunned by this development, as she easily hopped over some steel safety handrails from a concrete walkway platform down to the lower ground level.
Tanner was not so unreactive. “Hey!” he shouted in alarm at the figure. “What the frag are you doing?! Stop!”
Terrified, widened eyes flashed to him briefly in response, before the girl started running directly down the length of the building. Sadly, she tripped immediately and tumbled to the concrete, also revealing a tail in the mix of her oddities. She began scrambling back up onto her bare, webbed feet.
Tanner took a couple of steps forward down the length of the vehicle and pulled out his stunner from his vest pocket, his expression transforming into a harsh grimace. The jovial, easygoing persona vanished.
“Tanner!” Jack called loudly to be heard through a closed window. “What the hell is going on?!”
The man muttered something like, “Stay out of it, taxi boy,” as he brought his weapon up and began training it on the strange girl. Meanwhile, she was just getting up and trying to resume her frantic escape.
Jack could not stay out of it. He reacted on adrenaline and military training bubbling up — reacted by his nature to help someone in distress. With Tanner immediately by the driver side door, still training his stunner at an angle over the hood at the girl, Jack opened his door and slammed it hard into the man.
The door hit Tanner before he could fire, and he pitched and buckled from the impact. His finger pulled the trigger a split second after — a point-blank lightning bolt went off — such was the angle it hit the metal car door in contact with him.
Jack initially turned away from the flash. He was never in danger of electrocution — levicars were always made with non-conducting interior compartments and essentially designed to be safely struck by lightning. When Jack looked again, Tanner was twitching on the concrete spread-eagled, otherwise incapacitated. He’d not taken the zap well.
Shit! What did I just do? What the frag did I just do?!
When he got over his momentary shock and looked up, the squid girl was nowhere to be seen, likely behind the cover of any number of pallet piles, crates, or building contours.
That’s my cue to get the hell out of here, too! Jack closed the door and un-Anchored, shooting straight up and away with the levitation drive.
No sooner than he’d cleared the rooftops, numerous men began spilling from the door the squid girl had come from. They looked frazzled and angry, and all but one carried orange-handled firearms. One of them instead had a rifle with a wide barrel, perhaps a dart gun.
Either they were incurious or deprioritized the man unconscious on the ground, because they ignored him and began moving out in all directions, obviously just as frantic to find the squid girl as she was to escape.
Great. Well, good luck, blue person. Southern Lights Above, what kind of shit are these independants doing out here?! A fraggin squid girl? I don’t wanna know, and I don’t want anything to do with… this…
He suddenly remembered the backpack still sitting in the back compartment of the vehicle.
“Shit, shit, shit… shit!” He smacked his fist into the car door frame and then ran a hand hard through his hair, deliberating.
How important is this stupid ass gearbox, anyway? Assuming Tanner didn’t have a heart attack, he knows me. Will they come after me? Maybe I should drop it somewhere and get a message to them where to pick it up… promise I saw nothing and won’t be a narc… but this shit is suspicious as hell… Ah, frag me! Why me?! It’s because I skipped breakfast, isn’t it?!
Shaking his head, Jack took the wheel to begin taking off at speed, not knowing fully where he’d go or what he’d do… but he still hesitated. What about the girl?
She’ll make it. She’s just got to run straight long enough. Plenty of places to hide. Easy. But there’s no true nightfall for weeks. Gah! Why do I even care? I don’t. Let’s just go. It’s her problem, whoever she is. But really, a squid girl?
He’d seen some people with blue skin, purple skin, and more, along with other mods like cat eyes or horns, all as rare personal expression done by a few specialists, but she was something else. Advanced. And was it personal expression at all? Was she some weird… aquatic modification experiment? It seemed ridiculous.
The terror in the girl’s eyes as she fled came back to him. Like she was looking at Death coming for her.
Muttering balefully under his breath, Jack engaged the vidscreen menu and activated his bottom-facing camera, surveying the scene below under physical and digital magnification and rather blurry for it. But he wanted to stay high enough to avoid notice.
The men pursuing were swarming, and worse, a couple of observation drones were flying just over the rooftops. He didn’t immediately catch sight of the girl, which was definitely a good thing. As he flew over the area and swept his camera from block to block, he began to feel like she’d gotten away, after all…
And then he zoomed back out and saw one drone hovering stationary near a fence — two men in security uniforms looked puzzled as they eyed a fallen figure a few meters from the fence. Blue-gray skin, white t-shirt. Meanwhile, several of the searching men that had been nearby were rushing down the street to get there.
Grayer skin — camouflage? Damn. She’s been had, though. I wonder what dropped her. The security guards didn’t have any weapons trained. Did she just pass out?
Jack watched as two men got there, stowing their weapons before approaching the fence. They conversed with the security guards briefly before climbing over, apparently to the protest of the guards. On the other side, the ‘invaders’ pulled out their electro-stunners and zapped the two guards, which dropped them immediately. Then they were zapped again on the ground.
These boys don’t play around. Shit! Now what? Jack didn’t have a weapon. ‘Against policy.’ He could report it to the Farmers Alliance Bureau governing the Overflow, but it wouldn’t amount to much. The security guards weren’t killed, so it was already going to be an incident between groups. She was worth it, apparently.
The two men began laboring to get the girl over the fence, who remained unresponsive. Jack wasn’t sure, but she might’ve been fatigued or weak. She’d stumbled over her own feet before, so perhaps she’d simply fainted.
A third man arrived to help the first two get the girl over, and they finally succeeded. They soon rushed away, one of them carrying her in his arms.
With a sudden jerk, the girl awoke and almost immediately jerked even harder, making her carrier lose his balance and pitch down to the street in a tumble.
A struggle ensued as they grappled with her and she fought desperately to get free. Despite appearing weak, she was… not — not entirely — because three grown, beefy men were having a hell of a time with her.
When Jack checked, the other searchers were still a ways out from getting there. Screw it! I’m going in. Jack put his drive in reverse and began dropping Alice rapidly to the street.
The drone was overhead in observation, but below Alice. Jack took a sharp angle to bump it and knock it clear of the struggle. It never saw him coming, and he slammed Alice into it hard enough to smash the frame and ruin multiple rotors. It crashed into a building and broke into multiple pieces.
Ha! One down.
One of the men finally had the squid girl locked from behind as another had her legs, and it seemed she had finally been subdued. But then, some sort of barely registerable pulse resonated from her, and everyone dropped. Whatever it was, it briefly caused Jack’s indoor electronics to flicker.
Holy unholy hell…
Jack un-reversed his MALPP drive and Anchored with a very careful gradient to prevent his own sudden and painful stop. As such, he pulled off his quickest ‘landing’ ever in Alice, on a no-name street near a no-name intersection between drab, gray buildings.
Jack hurried out of the vehicle to the girl’s incapacitated form. Her eyes were closed, but her eyelids fluttered, and she seemed to writhe and twitch like she wanted desperately to awaken. Her fingers and toes were twisted up unnaturally.
“Look, I’m taking you away from them,” Jack offered as he knelt to pick her up. “So don’t, ah, do whatever you did again, eh? I’m friendly, okay? Friendly.”
She did not seem to hear him, instead twisting sideways as if to roll. In contrast to everything else, the tentacles on her head moved around with a will of their own. It looked as if they were trying to grip the ground and move her — to no avail.
This is so damned weird. Is she a Non? No way. Memoria wouldn’t tolerate this shit, even out here. Right?
Muttering to himself, Jack scooped her up. She was small and slight but somewhat heavier than she appeared. She did not immediately respond well to touch, writhing agitatedly in his arms, but he managed to stumble up to his feet with a grunt. Meanwhile, her tentacles were flaring around, the bottom most latching onto his forearm under her, and her tail… started slapping his leg.
Her body jerked once violently on the way to the vehicle — like a giant, flopping fish. It was a force that almost sent him and her to the pavement like the other guy, but fortunately, he was moving slower and was more prepared for it.
“Easy, easy! I’m helping — helping!” Jack called desperately as he nearly threw himself at the frame of the Anchored levicar for balance. “Friendly!” Three tentacles extended out toward his face and wriggled as if trying to grab it. Oh, hell no! The smaller ones closer to her face suddenly changed shape and texture, becoming a pantomime of luscious, purple hair in many shades. What the-...? “Alice, open the rear driver side!” It clicked open, and he used his foot to pry it outward.
Suddenly, the squid girl shot awake with a gasp, and before Jack could say anything, she pitched forward and locked eyes with him. Her long-fingered, webbed hand snapped around and effectively slapped him in the face, but the hand held there afterward and gripped.
Then she pulled herself and him so close they were eye-to-eye. Hers were rectangular black bars framed in a vibrant blue and green spectrum. Perhaps more octopus than squid. Octogirl, then? With an intense expression, she cried frantically, “Pah'kley o'mas eka tezley?! Kalabei oss?!”
Jack was stunned for a half a moment, wide-eyed with a stinging cheek. He certainly had no idea what she said. “You’re free! I’m Jack! Jack Laker? A friend!”
She seemed to stare in confusion briefly, then her eyelids drooped woozily — shortly thereafter, both her head and her hand did, too, as she passed out once more. Unfortunately, her tentacles did not pass out, and they had latched onto and around his head from the closeness. The ‘hair lure’ act, meanwhile, was entirely abandoned.
Ahhhh, they’re fraggin moist!
Somehow, he managed to fall his way into the backseat, unfortunately pulled along by the powerful grip of the squid girl’s many head tentacles. Once she was laid down on the fabric, some of them unlatched to peruse the new texture. Others still held to his head and jaw, while a couple busied themselves exploring his face.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Jack offered, trying to gently pry them off with his hands. “Th-that’s my face! I need it! I’m your pilot — we gotta get out of here!” He made spitting sounds as one tried to snake into his open mouth. “Ptah-ptah!” This made the tentacle jerk away in offense.
Finally he managed to pull completely away, sheer leverage against half of them enough to conquer their willfulness — that or they finally bored of him. He wasted no time, immediately ducking out and shutting the door to hop into the driver’s seat.
Wiping his ‘overly-moisturized’ face on a sleeve, Jack shut the door and engaged the MALPP drive. Ahead, he could just see two men in the distance, one pointing at the vehicle.
Jack scowled. “Too late, shitstains.” He flew up and away on a high-speed tear.
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