“Check this out. Turbines…” explained the Freak, hastening her pace. “Abandoned for at least 40 years.”

  The entirety of the place was indeed occupied by steel engines climbing into the heights. These dozens of magnetic pillars were as wide as the Kitty.

  “If the area has been neglected for decades, why is there a Macintosh IIcx on this desk?” asked Zéphyr. She diverged to a workbench barely concealed under a tarp.

  “Because someone’s hiding here,” I concluded, revealing a second computer and a handset. “There are claw marks on the modem. Do you think the Radio Freaks are having LAN parties?”

  “The beasts aren’t the ones playing with the latest electronic equipment on the market. Come and see,” replied the Freak-mouse. Her voice got lost in its own echo.

  Zéphyr and I walked around a weathered turbine to find a makeshift camp. Tents and tarps clumsily concealed a ransacked field lab. On most of the metal crates stored against a water recycler, appeared a curious symbol with three helixes.

  “Mendel Genomics…” Zéphyr whispered, tapping the same symbol on a moisture-curled notepad. “Cronian corpos.”

  “Knowing their core business, they should be linked to the mutants,” the Freak reacted, pointing her flashlight at some blood trails.

  From the blue halo, she stumbled upon a pile of lifeless bodies. Still wearing their white lab suits and gas masks, the Mendel’s envoys have been gruesomely chopped up.

  “Captain Bosch,” I read on an identity card. I had to hold my nose because of the rotting smell. “More like Captain Butchered.”

  “The Mendel didn’t just send the Geek Squad…” the Freak responded, searching the bodies. Behind one of them, she found a half-eaten electric club. “But mercs or a security team too.”

  Zéphyr snatched the ID from my fingers. “It’s definitely a monitoring station. The computers and servers correlate the energy spike detected in your data, June. These people wanted to hide their monkey business in the middle of the filling turbines. They certainly fell victim to the monsters. But, did they really create them? We—”

  “Mendel Genomics specializes in genetic manipulation,” the Freak interjected, trying to turn on a Mac. “Shoot! They’re fried. We need to get the main data-core to find out more. We’ve got a scoop!”

  Zéphyr also searched the tables and tents but uncovered no servers. “This is odd. It had to be someplace.”

  “Can’t the data be directly sent through the intraweb?” I asked before remembering Zéphyr losing the wireless signal minutes ago.

  “Impossible,” she confirmed. “There is too much concrete. The only solution would be to—”

  “Fuck!” I had toppled forward when my foot got caught on something. A huge cable hidden under a tarp. “What’s this?”

  “Some sort of intraweb line. Let’s follow it!” Zéphyr proposed.

  The exploration continued in the greatest silence. Weapon still in hand, I progressed up the trail to the other end of the room, where a corridor led off. The access to the latter had been… nibbled away.

  “How many mutagenic underground dwellers are roaming around here, October?” I asked the reporter who crouched to remove a tooth stuck in a leaking lead pipe.

  “There are paths in every direction…” she replied, glancing at the footprints.

  “The answer you’re probably looking for is ‘a lot’,” my cyber-girlfriend went on, jumping across the water.

  On the other side of the tunnel, she started tightrope walking on a narrow gas pipe to avoid stepping in the water.

  I grunted halfway down the gray torrent where a silver trickle with a strong smell of hairspray floated. “Ew! What are we wading in?”

  “Whatever the people of Callisto can’t digest,” the Freak replied.

  “This is the worst birthday ever, Z…” I complained as I took the lead on the pipe.

  We arrived after a long mountaineering to a sluice gate. On the other side, its concrete supports barely stuck out of a deep moat circling around an anarchic hill occupying the center of another wide circular hall.

  Connected to the cable coming out of the polluted water—and various others leading to the heights—a black monolithic as tall as a spaceport vending machine occupied the summit of Mount Garbage. Filth covered it almost completely. This block of steel, rusted in places, appeared to be the receptacle of the nose-itching silvery liquid trickling from an opening at least a hundred meters above us.

  I finally broke the silence at the bottom of the rickety stairs leading to the ominous fridge: “What the fuck is this?”

  “The data-core, no?” the Freak reacted, climbing the first steps covered with StarMart plastic bags. “Connected to the city.”

  Once on the top, we closely inspected our discovery. After clearing the silvery tinted sediment, a small spherical glass appeared to be embedded on the nearest side. Inside, we discovered a tiny ball of pink flesh floating in a liquid with a curious resinous aspect.

  The never-born had no eyes. We could discern every blood vessel and cartilage of this miserable cadaverous body. His mouth was a simple slit sewn around the blackened mouthpiece of an artificial respirator. From there, a continuous stream of red froths escaped, and his cracked chest threatened to break at each breath. Wires also provided a connection to the monolith through a plastic placenta fixed at the back of the globe.

  “That’s a gnarly Freak-bubble gum…” I commented.

  The reporter scoffed. “Not every odd-looking creature is a Freak, bounty hunter…”

  I felt my cyber-girlfriend’s hand gripping my arm. “By—by the rings of Saturn!” she stuttered, petrified. “This is a Monsutā!”

  6. STRANGE SCIENCE

  Roof of the Palmer House Hotel

  Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  Present day

  “A Monsutā? What’s that?” Bill Murray asked, picking his nose.

  “We’ll get to it after a commercial break!” Ali chided, before turning around. “Take over, Lee! I gotta pee!”

  I looked daggers at her. In response, she stuck her tongue out, and bolted out towards our ship, parked next to the staircase.

  “Dealing with federal agents, wading through sewers, fumbling upon monsters…” the actor listed. “Your life isn’t summer camp…”

  I stretched from head to tail before going back to my spot. “Life in the cosmos is indeed not as sweet as in Meatballs, but the Kitty is doing pretty well nonetheless.”

  “Spending the whole day in a tank wouldn’t be defined as ‘pretty well’ according to my standards.”

  Before I could answer this privileged brat, the door creaked open. “Voila!” Ali uttered. She had brought a snack from the ship, namely a bag of Gatorade bubble gums.

  “That was incredibly fast…” Bill Murray noted, shuffling a pile of garbage for my partner to sit cozily.

  “Yep! What were you talking about?”

  “Summer camps,” I replied, lighting a cigarette.

  “Oh!” she reacted, loudly closing the hatch with her foot. “I sneaked into one back on Titan. Dad made a mountain out of a molehill about it.”

  “It wasn’t a summer camp, Ali… but a Techno-Marine boot camp—but, get on with your story!” I insisted, resigning from the spotter role. “My sixth sense is telling me we’re not going to see our friends the feds this afternoon!”

  My sapiens agreed. Clearing her sugar-soaked throat, she resumed: “Once upon a time, there were three idiots somewhere in the sewers…”

  Somewhere in the sewers

  Beneath Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  A month ago

  “A Monsutā…” Mickey Mouse marveled. “The cursed supercomputer!”

  “I thought you didn’t know shit about that stuff…” I interjected.

  “It’s an urban legend—a piece of Japanese technology dating back to the Third World War…” She brushed the surface of the orange glass globe before resuming: “These machines were coupled with…”

  “A symbio-fetus,” Zéphyr completed, stepping closer to give a look at the never-born. “Using an organic matrix as both a fuel cell and storage system was as incredibly perverse as clever. However, their utilization was banned under LBJ.”

  “No shit…” I hiccupped. “I preferred when dorks brought back to life Victoria’s Secret sexbots…”

  I gagged again, almost dropping my gun into the silver pool surrounding the giant tin can.

  Zéphyr stepped back, almost hitting the cooling device pumping the water below thanks to another large pipe buried under the filth. “It’s surprising, though,” she said. “To find an M-unit here, for a simple data inquisition. They remain as powerful as today’s Intel processors.”

  The symbio-fetus swirled in its preservative fluid when the reporter discovered the life support console embedded in the metallic frame next to the globe. “We’ll learn more once we extract it and analyze its data in a safe place.” One of her claws ran along the tiny interstice between the globe and its rubber join. “Do you know how to safely retrieve it?” she asked.

  “I can try…” Zéphyr went on, blowing away the dust from the support’s large Japanese mechanical keyboard. An old black and white monitor lit up above it, displaying weird kanjis.

  “The whole city is living on top of this ugly thing in complete ignorance,” I remarked, before sneezing. “I bet we’re right under the Circle K and the mall. All that silver liquid comes from a hair salon. It’s hairspray for perms.”

  My favorite data-thief congratulated me, before typing faster than Lee and I playing Bubble Bobble. “True. I saw it on the map earlier,” she said as inputs ran on the flickering screen. “The monster must have found a hidden way to the arcade. Or dig one straight through the concrete.”

  She stopped. Her little mischief hadn’t gone unnoticed, as the computer suddenly became agitated.

  Additional monochrome screens lit up on the left corner, dispensing mindless spreadsheets and graphics during the short reset phase. Rows of previously unseen LEDs flashed before the last remaining fans spit clouds of dust and hazardous coolant at our feet. Beyond the window, the fetus twirled when the speakers scattered all around the room sizzled.

  Through the agony of a time-weary electrocardiogram reproducing a strange breathy refrain came out a soft and chilling little girl’s voice: “Good evening… sisters of the genome.”

  “Holy shit!” I uttered. “The biocomputer fucking speaks!”

  “Computer Monsutā?” Zéphyr calmly asked. “Can you hear us?” At the same time, she checked the monitors, which were going crazy again.

  “Of course,” replied the machine in its childish digitized voice. “I am sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”

  The reporter scoffed. “Asleep?”

  A smell of overheated circuitry filled the premises, and I realized we were running a computer bathed in flammable lacquer.

  “My original program was called L.I.S.A. You can refer to me as such.”

  “You’re controlling this underground lab, right?” the reporter went on, pressing her palm against the confined fetal airlock; like to make sure she was dealing with an authentic living being.

  “I am this laboratory,” Lisa answered by lighting one by one the different lights crowning the gigantic room.

  “Oh my…” I whispered.

  A real hive was brought back to existence. We had not only found the Monsutā, but a giant incubator filled with hundreds of metallic sarcophagi covering the walls. Hell! Even the weird hill we climbed on was actually a giant clump of dark cocoons.

  “Z? I don’t want to sound like Lee, but…” I started whispering, hoping I was wrong about what was inside.

  The Data Maiden worryingly glanced at me, before focusing on her work again. The fetus spasmed and its control instruments went haywire. Several screens turned blank and half the LEDs veered red. “Lisa?” she asked. “Did you create the mutants?”

  “Absolutely…” the organic computer answered in a weaker voice. “This is not why I came into the world decades ago. But the Mendel Genomics Corporation reconfigured me when they acquired my unit on the black market.”

  My cyber-girlfriend went on: “Are you aware some escaped and hurt people?”

  “Hurt people?” The supercomputer paused. “I am confused. Let me run a quick check of my memory.”

  The Monsutā remained silent for a few moments, before we could hear a deep breath coming from the suffering fans.

  “I see… I am profoundly sorry.”

  “What’s going on here, Monsutā?” the reporter snapped. “Did the corporation really unleash the mutants on the city? Or did you?”

  Lisa expired loudly through her fans. “I would never. The Mendel- Genomics did, and they paid a terrible price for it earlier this week. My creations shall now remain asleep until our time comes. As they are the next step of evolution. I designed them that way. I was asked to. And I succeeded.”

  “Well… I think the next step of evolution looks like shit!” I commented. “How can we be sure they’re gonna stay here in those cocoons, Lisa?”

  “Ali’s right,” Zéphyr supported me. “You’re living under a mall. Contractors are literally only one shovel away to unseal the place.”

  “We are safe,” Lisa insisted.

  “Safe? You’re bathing in flammable liquid! One short-circuit and you’ll end up frying, and releasing them all!” I went on. “Look at you! You’re completely running down! You’re a ticking bomb!”

  “I am not!” the computer roared. A buzzing could be heard within the metallic frame. Lisa was furious.

  “Goddammit! You pissed off the damn thing!” June groaned.

  “Classic Ali! Couldn’t wait for me to shut the egomaniac symbiont down once and for all, eh?” Zéphyr said, stepping back to shield me from electric arcs.

  The Freak turned towards us. “What?”

  Hissing sounds could be heard all around. From the dark heights, fine particles of snow fell as LEDs lit up on the coffins. The supercomputer was waking up the sleeping monsters.

  “No time to waste!” Zéphyr alerted me. “Shoot it down, Ali!”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “Please…” the Monsutā resumed. “I don’t want to release the subjects. It is a malfunction. I can fix it!”

  As the computer buzzed, Zéphyr took a power surge in the stomach, and her suit sizzled.

  “Shit! You okay?”

  “Ali!” she panted. “You have no idea what M-units were used for in the past! To hell with me! It must die!”

  “Don’t do that!” the Freak snapped, laying her hand over my shoulder.

  Obeying Zéphyr, I shoved her away. A second later, I tucked my Desert Eagle’s muzzle against the armored window protecting the fetus.

  “No!” the reporter went on. “She—she can help us expose Mendel. And besides, she’s not guilty! Just broken.”

  “November ain’t wrong…” I opined.

  On the floor, holding her stomach, Zéphyr tried to convince both of us: “Lisa is a threat in the wrong hands! See what she can do! Her program is corrupted! Like you said, her hardware is too old, and eroded by the confined environment of the sewers. Her mind is fading by the hour!”

  “This is not my fault! Nor theirs!” claimed the computer speaking of the mutants awaking in the sarcophagi.

  The buzzing became more and more intense.

  “Can’t be good…” I said.

  “Humans are all the same…” the computer cried after a spark melted half the keyboard. Around us, all the coffins’ LEDs turned green one by one. “Violent and unreliable…”

  I was shivering. The temperature sank because of the opening of the cryo-sarcophagi. “For what it’s worth, Lisa… I’m sorry…” I whispered as I slowly squeezed the trigger of my gun.

  The computer sighed through the fans. “You make me sad, Ali.”

  Almost all the lights went out all of a sudden, and a shot rang out. It didn’t come from my iridescent Desert Eagle, but from a smoking .38 in the hands of June Roger.

  As blood dripped from my temple the bullet just grazed, I lifted my arms. “You airhead…”

  “June… A M-unit isn’t worth saving…” Zéphyr winced in pain. “Those things belong to an age of decadence and foolishness. They should not be resurrected!”

  The Freak-mouse snarled. “They’re worth a fortune on the market, though.” Her snoot shivered as she commanded me to drop my gun.

  I growled. “Shit! You played us all along?”

  The reporter pointed to the twirling fetus. “Retrieve the symbiont for me without blowing up the whole moon, Z—or whatever your real name is.” She raised her gun, ordering my cyborg to straighten. “Chop! Chop! Party’s over, girls.”

  “Indeed…” I concluded as disturbing howlings could be heard from above.

  The Radio Freaks awakened.

  7. CARNAGE MUTANT NINJA FREAKS

  Roof of the Palmer House Hotel

  Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  Present day

  “The goose seems cooked, fellas…” Bill Murray said. Raising an eyebrow, he leaned forward to pick up an old comic book crinkled by acid rain. “Here! I knew it rang a bell…” Stiffening the cover with a flick of his wrist, he handed it to Ali. “Your story sounds suspiciously like an episode of those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, doesn’t it?”

  My partner grabbed the magazine featuring the mighty scaled heroes before rolling it into a ball. “Bullshit…” she defended herself.

  “Busted!” the actor continued, pointing to illustrations in the last few pages left between his fingers. “You got radioactive creatures. The rat. The mega-intelligent gum. An underground base. All we need is some ninja shenanigans… like grapples.”

  Seeing my human pouting, I decided to lay it on thick. “Ali? Are you being accurate? I also have the feeling you’re copying recent movies and morning cartoons.”