Again and again, the blade whispered near my partner’s skin, catching the light like a phantom. The two women weaved in and out, their tense bodies nearly vanishing among the dancers. Every passing second heightened the danger, until finally, Ali was disarmed.

  “Mr. Lee!” Charline cried from behind. “I powered on the mic!”

  I twitched a whisker. What could a microphone do against Soviet Carrie—wait! “Take control of the biggest spotlight!” I ordered. She nodded. The mic made a soft pop as I leaned in: “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for gracing us with your presence at this year’s Beverly Hills High prom!” A loud cheer erupted below. “It’s now time for the highlight of the evening—and possibly the most significant moment of the year, aside from our team’s glorious Belt Championship win!” I turned to Charline. “Did we actually win something with any team?”

  She shrugged. “We came like, second… with the glee club.”

  “Nobody gives a snout about the glee club, Charline! That’s for extroverted losers!” Laughter rose from the hall. The mic was still on. Confusion and indignation were written plainly across the nun’s countenance. “You handed me the mic, girl, now live with the consequences! But I digress, folks. Without further ado, we have the distinct honor of crowning our Prom Queen. And this year… dudes, it’s a total doozy—like, straight-up next level excellent!” My heart was hammering. Is that how teenagers usually talk? Where’s Ali when you need her? “Please give a thunderous round of applause to… Carrie Shalter, captain of the Beverly High cheer squad!”

  Charline lit up the redheaded killer with the strongest spotlight, exposing her to everyone. Immediately, the crowd surged towards the prom queen, and a swarm of robotic Christian Slater started carrying her to the stage in a reverse crowd surf. An impeccable timing for me to retract the gymnasium floor and unveil the pool for a wonderful midnight dip!

  Chaos erupted, giving Ali a chance to escape.

  “Brilliant move with the prom queen trick and the pool thing!” Charline gasped, out of breath as we left the building.

  Ali rejoined us in the parking lot, where we were all safe. She was catching hers too, bent double from a side stitch. Her face and arms were crisscrossed with shallow cuts.

  “I would’ve preferred not to piss off the KGB,” I muttered, “if only Ali had told me earlier that you were the nun.”

  “Are you kidding me?” snapped my bloodstained partner. “I kept trying to tell you! You never listened!”

  “Utter nonsense.”

  Charline interjected, “Well… it’s true you were kind of in your own world the whole year, Mr. Lee…”

  Really? I hadn’t noticed. Maybe I’d gotten a little carried away with this infiltration business. I took note. “Sorry.”

  Frustrated, Ali threw up her hands. “See? You—Oh. That’s a first.”

  I stuck out my tongue. “Right… So, what’s next? Regarding the nun.”

  Charline exchanged a glance with Ali. One of those glances that will cost us a hundred grand in bounty money. Predictable. “Great. Now we’ve got the KGB and the Crypto-Moirai after us.”

  “Ain’t gonna lock up a bestie, Lee…”

  Charline smiled. “Thanks Ali.”

  They exchanged a fist bump.

  “Do you need a ride to Jupiter, Charline?” I asked, stoic.

  The young nun declined. “Mars has a great fashion scene. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m sure there’s a place for me.”

  I gave her a measured glance, half-dazed—half-afflicted—by her ensemble of such inscrutable taste. “Good luck, then.”

  “Don’t mind the old mop,” Ali intervened. “He doesn’t know shit about fashion.”

  Charline chuckled. “Thank you for everything, Ali.”

  “No sweat! You kinda helped me fill my gaps in… well, basically every class. Learning stuff wasn’t a core alongside you.”

  “You caught up scarily fast…” Charline concluded, apprehending the car keys my partner threw at her. After another fist bump, she was gone on the hot spring night. And our Alliance mission officially turned into a paradoxical success.

  “What now?” I asked, puffing on my smoke. “Should we pay your college tuition with our big, beautiful karma?”

  Ali breathed, hands on her hips. “We go to bed. Graduation is scheduled for tomorrow. And I’ve got a speech to make.”

  I twitched another whisker. “What speech?”

  “My valedictorian address, stupid. Charline and I crushed it on our final project!”

  “Oh—which was about? Monsutā and the Limits of Corporate Self-Regulation?”

  “The legacy of Wernher von Braun.”

  Uh. This girl would never cease to surprise me.

  Back to business!

  仕事に戻ろう!

  #10 A GALILEAN TALE

  第10話 ガリラヤ物

  Humans have both always repelled and intrigued me. They are a paradoxical heterogeneous species, capable of forging the horror of the atomic bomb and the absurdity of Manimal in the same breath. Yet one of the most recent chapters of their saga saw an apex of senseless devastation. A crescendo of death and destruction so profound that it nearly reduced Earth, yet resilient enough to survive an asteroid impact 65 million years prior, into a perpetual Dust Bowl. Bravo, humanity—what an achievement!

  From my experience, most humans turned out to be no more than psychotic bipolar bullies. As I told you before, Ali and I were better off on our own. Carrying the Auxiliary badge kept us on the safe end of the barrel—most of the time.

  “Auxiliary of Justice #TI-2-20XX-777 requesting assistance! Follow the beacon! Come on!” An S.O.S. in space is as useful as shouting from the bottom of an ocean. Beyond the belt, the signals seemed to get even more lost in the nothingness. “This is a distress call! Come on! E.T. home phone!”

  A violent impact almost cut off the tip of my tongue. The upswing ricochet of a projectile between the steel plates of the Kitty’s armor immediately followed. The cockpit plunged into darkness. Only the dashboard flashed before a new roaring alarm rang out. The secondary pump had also been punched.

  “We will soon run out of oxygen, dear!” I yelled.

  Ali manned the gunnery station, holding off our attackers with unrelenting determination. She unleashed another relentless barrage on our pursuers, pushing the railgun to its limit. Overheating warnings blared, but she pressed on, willing to sacrifice the weapon entirely if it meant buying us even a moment’s reprieve. A tangible reminder of the strain on our systems, the acrid stench of burned rubber permeated the hold and the cabin.

  Sacrebleu! The Falcon Interceptor was faster and far better armed. I didn’t know where those crooked Jovian Commonwealth Customs officers had managed to score such a top-tier ship, but my rage burned brighter for the fanatical overseer who had clearly spared no expense on their ammunition stockpile. For nearly two days, their artillery had been hammering us nonstop, and I was beyond sick of it.

  “Lee! How can we still fly after this shower-rain fire?” my partner shouted back.

  She burst into the cockpit, her face smeared with steaming oil and blood dripping from her hands. Ignoring the dizzying speed of the ship, she rummaged frantically for our tools. The magnetic gun had finally failed, spewing molten steel that seared her right shoulder down to the bone.

  “How’s your bod?” I asked.

  “Fine. Smells like an overcooked T-bone on a Sunday mornin’. Reminds me of my early’s. Better days.”

  “You had steak for breakfast as a child?”

  “Yeah. Why not? It’s like, antibio-proteins!” she replied. Like our father, she remained blissfully ignorant of the food-drug pyramid. “How’s the armor, though? A fuckin’ piece of shrapnel almost took off my head earlier.”

  “Holding. The drive’s signature’s too weak. We’re invisible!” I reacted as rocks brushed past the left stabilizers, wrecking the communication box in the process. “Thanks Darwin, they’re shooting blind. But the situation remains critical.”

  A few seconds later, fire broke out in the cargo bay, activating another audible alarm. My Swallow has never been in such a bad state since our candlelit dinner with Vanity.

  Ali abandoned the tools to grab the old carbonic extinguisher. “Only pirates would dare to save us from those Jo-dogs!”

  She was right, but another solution had to be found. “We’re I have pre-Gossamer clusters in visual,” I shouted over the sirens’ shrill concert. “I’ll try to hide there for a while. But it’s dense.”

  “Hold on, Buck Danny! You can fly through that?” Ali asked, growing more worried at the sight of the ferrous debris coming our way at supra-high speed.

  “Absolutely… not. Why don’t we roll out the red carpet and invite them aboard? We can all enjoy a delightful little chat over some fresh sorbet churned out by your oh-so-precious Snoopy Cone Machine!”

  Ali gasped, right hand on her chest. “That was the best random purchase on the intraweb ever! And you cannot tell me otherwise.”

  A new impact pressed me against the seat and ejected my partner against the cabin back wall, only missing the gap leading to the hold by ten inches. A shell had passed through the armor just below the cockpit, causing an air leak under my feet.

  “Buckle up, young lady! I don’t want to scrape what’s left of you off the walls!”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Ali jolted in her seat, her eyes wide with alarm. I’d lost all control of the ship mere meters from the asteroid cloud and the skeletal remains of shattered vessels. Thankfully, the ship’s computer kicked in, deploying the braking system and emergency parachutes. Behind us, the relentless assault from the Interceptor ceased abruptly; even the most seasoned military pilots feared navigating the unpredictable chaos of celestial matter.

  But the danger was far from over. Fresh fragments of debris scraped violently against the Kitty, ripping away the last flaps crucial for deceleration. Without the front machine guns clearing the path, we came perilously close to slamming into an ancient kryptoner.

  And just when it seemed we might survive, fate decided to raise the stakes. A massive half-asteroid, a hundred times the size of anything we’d encountered so far, loomed ahead, cutting across our trajectory like a cosmic guillotine.

  On my right, my copilot perfectly summarized our situation: “Well… fuck.”

  My face stared back at me from the dark glass of the central monitor, a ghostly reflection etched with exhaustion and defeat. The crimson glow of the warning telltales washed over my features, a stark reminder of how utterly powerless I had become. We were spiraling towards the surface, doomed to either shatter upon impact or vanish into the gaping maw of one of the endless craters below. “To Hell with this universe!” I meowed as our final tomb drew me closer and closer. “I wanted to return to the Rings.” Despite Ali’s reluctance, I really hoped to see Saturn again. Plasticland, Cola Beach, Babel…

  Yet, no explosion misted our frozen remains in the cosmos. No impact against a rocky ground or an iron deposit shattered the Kitty. For we had once again foiled the Great Masterplan and safely flew across an improbable atmosphere that slowed our fall.

  “Wow! This is like, Heaven?” Ali asked, her nose glued to the windshield. “That weird misogynist book didn’t spin a yarn?”

  Heaven, I don’t know… but picture a serene pastel painting: a vast azure sky stretches endlessly, its soft hues evoking a tranquil paradise. An expanse of warm orange desert spreads outward, encircling a lake so perfectly spherical it feels otherworldly. On the distant shoreline, a quaint town with red rooftops nestles against the landscape, its charm heightened by surrounding meadows painted in delicate shades of pink, their gentle tones blending seamlessly into the horizon.

  “That’s a nice place, I reckon. Brace for impact,” I said.

  “Wait. We can die in Heaven?”

  “Let’s find out…”

  The long-awaited impact hit me with brutal force, jolting through every vertebra, from my shoulders to the very tip of my tail. I felt something snap in my lower back, a searing pain that left my limbs numb and useless. My vision blurred, and a relentless ringing in my ears drowned out all thought. The world around me faded to nothing as darkness consumed everything.

  A jet of water coming from a crack in the front window brought me back to reality. I shouted; desperately hoping for an answer from Ali. A firm hand reached me. I got out of the Kitty, apparently through one of the cockpit’s broken windows.

  “You good?” my associate coughed.

  “Alive. But if I set my paw on that molasses, you won’t find me again, partner…” I joked as I watched her sink into the scarlet swamp surrounding us.

  My savior said nothing more. The blood and oil covering her pink jacket were mixed with the mud. A gaping wound on her neck flowed like a river. A piece of shrapnel had remained deep in her throat, and she could barely breathe.

  “Oh dear… oh no! Ali!”

  I stole a quick glance back. Our poor Kitty had fared no better. Our father would be furious—his legacy destroyed once again. The wings were half-submerged in a tangled mess of silt, dirt, and the remains of shell impacts, sinking slowly into the bluish water. It wasn’t beyond hope—everything could still be salvaged, but only if we acted fast.

  The question was rather the time our pursuers would allow us. On this point, an answer was immediately given to us: “Hands up!”

  Exhausted, Ali fell backwards.

  “Words fail to express how brilliant this device is,” I said after Yaan-ze finished explaining the functioning of the atmospheric dome, the tremendous camouflage we went through a day earlier.

  The teenager with the mane of fire made the holographic plans of the electromagnetic coil disappear with a snap of fingers. She continued her presentation: “According to my brother, the only drawback remains the energy consumption. It’s so immeasurable that it requires the presence of a nuclear reactor. Fortunately, the one installed by the people who lived here before us is still running. It was made in Kansas City, Missouri. In the United States of America. On Earth. I think it comes from one of the oldest stranded ships above.”

  She alluded to the tankers, drifting in the middle of the asteroid pieces; planetoids from which tiny metal debris decorated the room of her small colonial house, reproducing the most famous constellations.

  As Yaan-ze began to explain in detail how the reactor’s cooling system worked, Ali joined us. She no longer wore her black jumpsuit but a white rockabilly dress with red dots. It took her less than a day to get back on her feet after the crash. My human was undoubtedly unusual. Her DNA combined steel, toffee and luck.

  Grimacing with effort, my partner leaned in beside me. She handed me a piece of peanut butter sandwich—one that Beek-sun, Yaan-ze’s older brother, had made for her earlier. The redhead with the broken nose had spent the entire night by Ali’s bedside, looking after her. He had a thing for her, though he’d never admit it.

  “How do you feel?” asked the talkative Yaan-ze.

  Although a simple engineering enthusiast, Yaan-ze was mostly an expert in emergency medical care. Already, the little nurse was scrupulously inspecting each of the bandages and stitches, especially the ones on Ali’s neck.

  “Breathing air through regular holes. Thanks to you,” my copilot said, while tightening the old, weighted boots she borrowed. “Nice to meet you, by the way…”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Ali,” the girl answered. “I’m Yaanka-zeszhira. But you can call me Yaan-ze.”

  My human scratched me between my ears before continuing towards the chin. My purring betrayed my feelings. I wanted to stretch my legs, but I still had a hard time unfolding them. This had one advantage: an extra piece of a sandwich.

  Yaan-ze withdrew, opting to leave us in peace after administering an anti-radiation shot to Ali, a necessary precaution due to the recent reactor leaks. It was finally my chance to talk to my partner, who quickly asked about our situation. But in lieu of diving into the details, I decided to comment on her new outfit instead: “On your way to a local Grease audition, Sandy?”

  “You’re wearing a bow tie, fucking dweeb.”

  “Yes, indeed. And that’s a present!” I respond, adjusting my marvelous dickey. “Where did you get that dusty lamp cover?”

  “In the dressing room. Someone put my suit and jacket to dry in the backyard. Even used a softener. Weird to the max.”

  “Probably Yaan-ze. Just after you fainted, these exiles pulled us out of the swamp around the lake protecting their reactor. Few meters further on and we’d be finished. Gone forever.” I then took the time to reassure Ali about the Kitty. Beek-sun and his friends were repairing her in the village’s communal barn.

  “A very strange tribe,” said my human.

  I smiled. The companions of Yaan-ze and her brother were indeed most enigmatic. Dressed only in a layer of dry mud and war paint, they fled from a factory and took refuge in this old and abandoned American colony on the verge of the Jovian Commonwealth. They were mutant-serfs who ended up in this off-axis cluster thanks to providence. They called the place Mayflower.

  “What’s her deal?” Ali asked, pointing to a picture of Yaan-ze hanging above the straw mattress as she got up off the bed. Our host had one photo for each of the village’s young people. She had positioned them around an old sixty-star Stars and Stripes.

  “Didn’t you notice the tumors covering her back? Repeated bone cancers she cures it as well as she can,” I replied.

  “Poor fuckers sacrificed on the atomic altar of Sol Price, eh? For sure, they managed to do something with their twelve fingers!”

  “That’s not a nice thing to say.”

  “Sorry.” Reaching the round window, she glanced outside. “Impressive infrastructure.” She was talking about the hexagonal meshes forming the electromagnetic dome.