Ali coughed. “Like, sorry for what?”

  The MK violently applied his soldering iron against Ali’s throat, who howled in silence through her muted microphone. The layers of molten thermoplastic mingled with the burned flesh to seal the leak. The suffering must have been immeasurable. Yet my human held on. I saw her face again once her visor had been cleaned. The light in her eyes was duller than usual. She had not passed very far from death.

  “By the 79 moons of Jupiter, MarKus! It was cl—”

  But the robot hushed me up because the killer had hacked his way through our communication channel: “Tell mah, MarKus? Did the babe’s head take off from the rest of her bod’? Aah think Aah’m seein’ somethin’ floatin’ near your shoulder.” Plague Cassidy was convinced of having shot my organic partner. “You ain’t gonna hide behind this rock forever, y’know. This crater is highly magnetic. You’ll end up losin’ the bytes of your hard drive one by one… Goin’ cuckoo before goin’ dark ain’t funny, amigo.”

  “Negative. It is fine where It is,” MarKus replied. “And It doesn’t need oxygen as you do, cracking-up bad egg.”

  Cassidy snickered. “Look where you are, flannel mouth,” he then gibed. “You ain’t gonna light a shuck from there!”

  We were in the middle of a mineral clearing. The only possible cover was the one we already had. We had nowhere to run.

  After the canal sizzled anew, we heard the cyborg rearm his rifle before the android encrypted the comms to drive out the vile visitor. “What a despicable character,” MarKus said, eventually using words I could understand without an Oregon Trail translator before his Ganymedean accent caught him up again: “It wonders what the hoosegow will do with it.”

  “Don’t tell me you still don’t want to shoot him down?”

  “He doesn’t kill, Lee. Leave him alone.”

  My human’s voice was weak, and the robot asked her to remain silent until further notice. He then drew his pistol for the first time: a .50 caliber Desert Eagle. Like Ali’s—but with five barrels!

  “Are you kidding me? And with that customized… monstrosity, you refuse to kill?” I protested. “How is that even possible? A single salvo would turn a whole elephant into ground meat!”

  First silent, the android inserted a bullet with bluish heavy static charge casings—special ammunition for cyborgs—into each of the chambers. As a precaution, he also loaded Ali’s caliber with those before placing it on her chest. “Let’s try to get out,” he ultimately said, cocking the hammer with both thumbs.

  Unfortunately, every attempt to make our exit had been met with a deadly barrage of uranium-tipped lead, the projectiles effortlessly darting through the vacuum with a lethal precision that left no room for error. Half a revolution later, the uncertainty gnawed at us, the ticking of time only amplifying the mounting pressure.

  “I won’t have enough oxygen left for the return,” announced Ali, whose neck wound had turned into a swollen pink star.

  “The options are dwindling,” MarKus pointed out. The MK had sustained significant damage to his armor during its last exit. The shoulder suspensions were hit and our partner’s right arm immobilized. His heart had also suffered dangerous impacts. When he touched the partly exposed core to extract a fragment of uranium, the processor sizzled. “Talk about a hair in the butter!”

  Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. A chilling alert from Ali’s wrist computer followed a soft beep. Radiation levels were climbing at an alarming rate—Ganymede was about to face the full fury of a solar storm. The skies above, once endless and void, shimmered with an unnatural brilliance. Rainbow-colored auroras painted the black firmament, their flickering hues a haunting prelude to the storm’s onslaught. The air crackled with an unsettling energy.

  “Impossible! We are protected by Jupiter!” I shouted from my spotter position.

  “This one’s pretty rough,” explained Ali, while watching the weather report flashing in red. “How are you holding up, Markus?”

  His eye wandering beyond the mountain range, the android was lost in his calculations. Or maybe he was admiring the cosmos for the last time. Because his decision was made: “It’s gonna get him out. Be ready to retaliate.”

  The robot then tried to stand up, but my partner stopped him immediately. “You fucking nut? He will blow your heart out!”

  The automaton gently removed Ali’s hand from his metal thigh before tapping with his fingertips the needle indicating the suit’s oxygen level on the graduated dial. “Affirmative. But Plague will only approach once he’s 100% sure that It will be out to steal your air. Y’all will be able to take him by surprise and arrest him for good.”

  “Don’t do that!” I pleaded. “We can try something else! Ali’s getting better! And I have some air to spare in my tiny tank!”

  “Negative. It is badly hurt too. The probability of the three of us being killed is too great,” MarKus explained. “And It can’t risk being turned off by the solar storm. If It doesn’t act now, your partner’s gonna die of asphyxiation.” Ali protested, but MarKus was already leaping out of our cover. “Farewell, Kitty. Y’all were decent people and very nice to It.”

  This obstinate robot! As insufferable as my partner, if not more so! I roared: “No! Don’t you—”

  The head of the MK tilted back. The single eye that had once gleamed with purpose shattered, broken by a special static charge, its light extinguished forever. His sternum, once illuminated by the glow of machinery, no longer shone. The lifeless body of the metallic bounty hunter crumpled to the ground, its form dissipating into a swirling black and white cloud. Above us, the sky shimmered briefly with a soft mauve glow. But soon, the solar winds swept through, transforming the firmament into a frenzied veil of rust.

  “Fuck!” Ali cursed, gradually straightening against the stalagmite despite her face being as white as snow. “Fucking fuck! I had enough! Where is Cassidy?”

  “Understandable profanities, partner,” I said as she slowly got back on her feet after snatching MarKus’s thermal glasses. “There’s movement near a ridge at 0100. Check it out.”

  My copilot remained very weak from the drugs and the blood lost and could barely lean against the rocky formation. Breathing heavily, she spotted Plague who had just left his last hiding place. Apparently, he was skidding on a white sulfate slide before disappearing into the dust as his arrival caused an avalanche. Suspecting a low blow, the cyborg then advanced with the rifle pointed at our ultimate bastion.

  Ali took cover. “We can only afford a single shot,” she stuttered while recovering her caliber from the tip of her right foot.

  “Let’s not miss it.”

  “Did—did I ever?” she coughed, spitting blood all over her visor before she collapsed to the ground.

  “Ali!”

  “I—I’m fine,” she faltered. “I can’t stay put. Just—just be a rad FO—and tell when—and where to shoot.”

  Hidden under a thick cloak of mineral sediment, I watched the coming of the murderer. I relayed Plague’s every step, posture and progression. He was soon at a decent range, and we could attempt something—or die trying. “You won’t be able to aim for the head,” I advised Ali. “He’s protected by his rifle scope.”

  “Gotta shoot the sternum then.”

  “Plague’s a cyborg, he must have a heavy plate to preserve his rotten heart.” It was preferable to provide a lethal shot. However, I felt that my human yearned to grant MarKus his last wish by taking Cassidy alive. I just hoped the special bullets bequeathed by the latter—even stopped by stainless steel—would put the cyborg down. “Target at 21 meters sharp and 3,072 rad from your position,” I announced. “His sternum is 1.61 meters from the ground.”

  Ali swore. As she sprang to her feet, olive dust swirled around her like a storm. In the same breath, Plague fired instinctively, but the shot veered off, disappearing over the horizon. Before he could react, the thunderous crack of a Desert Eagle split the air. The bullet tore through his torso, and he crashed roughly ten meters away.

  I ran towards Cassidy as my partner hobbled behind me, the gun still pointed at the cyborg. The latter tried to get up but another shot in the right knee, which bent backwards on impact, nailed him to the ground. Once close to him, Ali opened the communication channel before putting her foot on the first leak she had created in the madman’s space suit. The convict grunted and struggled in vain to grab a knife from his belt.

  “Just don’t…” Ali said, holding him at gunpoint with both her gun and MarKus’. “I don’t want to break your other leg and carry you all the way back to Ganyville. Plus, if I dig another hole in your suit, you won’t have enough oxygen to begin with…”

  Plague burst out laughing. “Mah body hardly needs oxygen, meat bag! Only mah head, spinal cord and mah ass are organic!”

  I saw my human raise an eyebrow. “Thanks for the tip, moron.”

  “Whaddya mean, rawheel?” Cassidy asked.

  I knew which twisted plan had taken seed in Ali’s mind. She always showed mucho imagination when it involved pain. “Just tell us if it hurts so we can take our time,” I concluded.

  Under MarKus’ wishes, the cyborg was not executed. Instead, his remaining trunk and head were displayed, floating like a balloon, at Ganyville’s entrance. Sheriff Park promised to keep him alive as long as she could find out-of-date nutrigel drips.

  The MK-III had died near the Caverns of Laplace. His core, hit during the shoot-out, was beyond repair. Bullet impacts had damaged the sockets, fusing them into their delicate frame and making it impossible for the inexperienced Ganymedean engineers to reintegrate the hardware into another body.

  “It would have taken a miracle to get it back on his feet again,” Sheriff Park had told us. She was more affected by the android’s loss than by the demise of her own deputies.

  The cyborg’s bounty covered MarKus’ burial. The MK was promoted to local hero after a spotless vigilante career. To this day he must have been one of the few auxiliaries to be honored. And the only robot to have a statue in the whole solar system.

  But this dark tomb dug in the gray dust of Ganymede did not suit the insatiable Ali…

  “This is a silly idea! We will get caught!” I complained before positioning the Kitty on a 96th generation Voyager probe’s trajectory.

  “It’s not a big deal. The geeks from the Solarian Space Agency won’t notice. They are too busy with Planet Nine anyway,” grunted my partner behind me. “Stop caterwauling!”

  I turned back to look daggers at her. “What did we agree on? No cowboy slang outside Ganymede and the Rings!”

  “Oki Doki, you wobblin’ jaw!” she pouted.

  “Ali!”

  The probe in sight, I managed to catch it. The Swallow’s reactor had reached its limits, and the operation appeared to be highly delicate. The last generation Voyager probes were draped with extremely fragile solar sails of several kilometers which could be damaged by our ship’s electronic equipment and artillery. And this Australopithecus wanted to jump in!

  The Kitty’s magnetic hooks clamped one of the probe’s photopolarimeters. The airlock telltale turned green, and my human dived into the void.

  “Are you ok?” I asked through the radio. “The veil is bending, and I fear the worst! Time’s running out—what you’re trying to accomplish is impossible!”

  “Nothing’s impossible when you’re stupid-dumb enough to do it anyway,” she answered through the static.

  “That—that doesn’t make any sense!”

  However, the operation was a success. We could quickly release the probe before it took off for distant exoplanets.

  “How’s your wound?” I asked with a look at my partner’s sutures when she came back to the cockpit. The new scar of her neck was added to the one inherited on Mayflower. Their merging resembled a five-pointed star.

  “A miracle to be above snakes after such an experience…”

  Ignoring her innovative attempt to irk me with her slangs, I carried on: “So? Tell me! When you connected the core with my special upgrade to one of the probe inputs—did the purple diodes turn on?”

  Sitting in the copilot’s seat, Ali watched the luminous spot disappearing among the stars. She then turned on the Blaupunkt, and we stepped upon Rhinestone Cowboy. “Yeah… weakly. I overclocked your whole work around like they taught us back at Beverly High. The sockets could miraculously pump enough juice,” she replied. “Do you think it worked? Is MarKus going to see some stars?”

  I smiled. “Trust me, up there, our friend’s gonna have a hog-killin’ time.”

  Back to business!

  仕事に戻ろう!

  #15 RADIO FREAK I: Strange Things are Afoot in Windy City

  第15話 ラジオフリーク I - 風の街で奇妙なことが起きている

  Roof of the Palmer House Hotel in Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - Present day

  The smell of grease and sweat hung in the air. A regular morning for the Kitty crew. Yet, lazing around under a feather comforter watching Samurai Pizza Cats while eating a bowl of cereal would have been way more pleasant, don’t you think?

  Sitting cross-legged inside the water tower where we were hiding, my bounty hunting partner calmly cleaned the magazine of her iridescent Desert Eagle behind me. After laying the oil-soaked rag on her lap, she blew down the dismantled barrel to remove a dust bunny from the muzzle. “They’re makin’ us twiddle our thumbs in the most awful places,” she complained.

  Balancing on my hind legs, I peered through a rusty crack at the bustle on the neighboring roof when the ball of fluff brushed over my whiskers. “The Techno-feds are civil servants, Ali. Good-for-nothing lazy pinkoes…” I replied, brushing it away with my puffy cat tail.

  “Ain’t you a little harsh?”

  I chuckled. “Martian public service is an inefficient totalitarian socialist drift and deserves no mercy. On top of that, it’s corrupted to the core.”

  Ali huffed as she tucked her dirty rag into her pink jacket pocket. “Hunger always transmutes you into Ronald Reagan, old mop.”

  “Reagan? Don’t start me on him—do you have any biscuits left?” I turned my head as my partner glanced at the shredded cookies box.

  “Nope.” Both our stomachs gurgled at the same time. “Want me to order, like, a morning burrito or something?”

  “What are you going to say to the delivery guy? That we’re trespassing to hide in a free-standing water tank on top of the Palmer House Hotel?”

  “We’re on Callisto! Windy City!” she explained, frantically typing on the keyboard of her wrist-computer inlaid in her flesh. “They employ kite drones for—” Her implant beeped. “Fuck me! The wireless network is jumpy. I gotta run for the booths downstairs, or use the—”

  “No! Forget about ordering breakfast,” I yelled. “A drone makes a lot of buzzes! It could expose us!”

  She shuffled a pile of garbage at her feet. “You’re the one makin’ lots of noise, howling tetchy cat… and I’m starvin’!”

  I groaned loudly, almost covering the squeak of the round hatch opening by itself. My partner gasped, quickly assembling her weapon before brandishing it.

  From the gap appeared a head. “Am I interrupting a meeting of some sort, fellas?” the inconvenient guest asked from the top of the steel ladder. Although held at gunpoint, he didn’t bat an eye.

  “You look vaguely like Bill Murray…” my associate reacted.

  “I heard worse…” the man retorted while crawling inside.

  Sheathing her weapon, Ali contorted herself to make room for him. Our guest tore his velvet bathrobe on a steel rivet but managed to lazily slouch between the two of us. A shy sunray coming through the punctured roof lit his face up, and I officially recognized him.

  “You’re definitely Bill Murray,” I said, bringing my snout within inches of his round pockmarked nose.

  “And you’re definitely a talking cat. That’s a bigger deal—even for a Techno-moon. May I ask why you’re hiding in my hotel’s water tower?”

  “What about you?” Ali interjected. “Whatchu doing on the roof?”

  “Nothing.” The guest wiped some white powder off his fuzzy collar. “Well, actually, I wanted to hang glide to the waterfront. But John Candy chickened out at the last minute. You guys’d like some frosted donuts?” he asked as he pulled a bumpy Krispy Kreme box from under his wet bathrobe. “But you shall tell me what’s going on here.”

  Bribed with her daily dose of diabetes, my partner drooled profusely. Using both her hands, she stuffed half content of the box down her throat.

  “Glutton…” I complained, back at my spotter’s post with a chocolate glazed cake between my fangs. “Ali, instead of pigging out, explain to Mr. Murray why we’re squatting in this awful place.”

  Ali agreed through the pastries filling her mouth. “Lee came out with this stupid plan because of a dude.”

  “Stupid? There’s an army of mercs camping in that old disused bookstore,” I replied. “We can’t just storm it! We must await the green light first!”

  “Here’s the issue, Bill…” she commented, another donut in the mouth. “Lee’s plan involves waiting!”

  “I see,” our sugar dealer resumed, picking a joint and a Zippo in his panther underwear. “Who’s this dude anyway? What’s your story?”

  “Well…” My partner reached for her last brick of lukewarm soda, which she pulled from beneath old magazines. After unscrewing the cap with her teeth, she teased the actor: “Fasten your kimono, Bill! ’cause we have monsters and stuff! Like Tales From the Crypt!”

  “Party on…” he reacted, puffing on his wide reefer.

  Grant Park StarMart in South Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV) - A month ago