Upset, my partner crossed her arms. “I may use some artistic freedom… but whatever! I’ll stop right here! No more story!”

  “Quit sulking!” I scolded her.

  She resumed, rambling: “Alright. Alright! So this is how my awesome exploits in the sewers came to an end. Inspired by real events.”

  Baby Krang’s lair

  Beneath Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  A month ago

  With her weapon, June Roger forced my sex sidekick to extract the symbio-fetus capsule from the black monolith. Keeping me at a distance, she watched the Maiden’s every move.

  “Hurry up!” the Freak muttered, glancing over her shoulder in fear. “I can hear some of those mutants already climbing that dismal hill.”

  “How many green bills is the Mendel Genomics printing to get their biological storage unit back?” Zéphyr asked, struggling with the half-melted keys.

  “None of your business…” she grunted, waving her gun.

  Quickly done with the program, Zéphyr cautiously unscrewed the rusty nuts holding the organic symbiont’s globe to the frame. She then pulled the glass aquarium out of the computer before slicing two large pipes with her teeth. An orange-brown liquid spilled out at our feet into the silver puddle. Lisa still remained linked to the monolith by an electric cable of red color.

  “Wasn’t so hard, after all. I could have figured it out myself,” June joked.

  Zéphyr tore apart the last connection cord, and the room sank completely into darkness and silence. All that persisted was a halo of light and gray water falling on the computer from a sewer opening on the surface.

  “You got what you wanted, right?” my cyber-girlfriend asked. Her holosuit went off at the same moment, revealing her black coating and a strand of white hair sticking out of her mirrored-sewed balaclava.

  “A holosuit? Who the fuck are you?” June said, before something roared meters behind her. “Shit…”

  I too heard grunting and clawing on metal. Pairs of yellowy eyes danced in the darkness. Around us, the monsters were getting closer.

  “You only have a few minutes left before Lisa expires for good…” Zéphyr warned the Freak. “She’ll be worthless—and your employer will be incredibly pissed.”

  June ordered her to be quiet, then opened her jumpsuit with the tip of her gun before pulling out the grappling hook folded over her belt buckle.

  “I’m so sorry, Ali-love…” apologized Zéphyr, withdrawing her hood.

  Her long silver hair fell on her shoulder. Without the holographic disguise, I saw that the electric arc she shielded me from dug a hole in her chest. Creamy cyber-blood ran over her stomach and laps.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Not really…” She brushed the fluid from her suit. It was already dry. “I ruined your birthday.”

  “Yes, indeed…”

  “I’ll make it up to you…”

  Facing us, the fake reporter cocked her grapple’s ejection system. After she pressed a button on a suspender, the reel shrieked, and the hook flew toward the heights.

  “Oh yeah? How?” I asked, looking up, trying to find the pipe it hooked up to.

  “Goodbye, lovers!” June taunted us, pressing the button below her shoulder again. The rope tightened, and she armed a jump. “I’ll send you a holo-card from Byblos Gate!”

  “You wish!” Zéphyr shouted.

  Diving her hand into her punctured chest, my partner pulled out a crackling wire she plunged into the pool of liquid at our feet. The polluted slick suddenly ignited, and huge ethereal flames surrounded the metal case of the supercomputer.

  “What the hell?” the Freak shouted as she propelled herself over the rampart of flames. Protecting her face from the deflagration, she dropped her gun.

  Snakes of fire swept down the hill to the graves, zigzagging between the various revealed monsters. Purple sparks then crackled along the walls to the surface, causing explosions and screams within the hive.

  I congratulated Zéphyr as I grabbed my Desert Eagle from the heart of the inferno. I burned my fingers in the process—but nothing serious. With the weapon back, I aimed for the wire of the grappling iron.

  “And you haven’t seen anything yet!” Zéphyr angrily declared, still holding her synthetic guts.

  Her eyes shone in red, before a dull roar was heard. Upon us, something exploded, showering us with shards, dust and… traffic cones. Zéphyr’s ship, the Kisugi, burst through the vault and dived towards us.

  Swinging above us, the Freak screamed, her legs inches above the turbines of the swirling ship. The intense heat ignited her lacquer-soaked boots. With the cylinder of her grappling hook stuck, she struggled to extinguish the meager flames eating away her knees.

  “Stop moving, bitch!” I grunted.

  With two shots, I severed the wire. She fell on the Monsutā’s metallic frame where both Zéphyr and I immediately jumped to avoid roasting in the incandescent pool.

  “Did you just blow up a street in downtown Callisto City?” I asked as Zéphyr prepared to hoist me onto her ship.

  “Gas leaks happen,” she answered, as I climbed the wing.

  “Is the Freak still alive?”

  “She lost consciousness…” my girlfriend went on below, moving aside with her foot the Freak’s arm to glance at Lisa’s module.

  I quickly reached the previously opened canopy. At the fighter’s controls, I immediately deactivated the Baltimore reactor cycle. A few blows with the stabilizers would be enough to reach the surface.

  A shock at the front of the ship slammed me against my seat. A Radio Freak similar to the worst Monsters & Mazes’ abominations had jumped from the heights. Opening its wide mouth of teeth and tongue and even more teeth, he planned to chew my head off.

  “Kill that thing!” shouted Zéphyr as she clutched the aileron the best she could.

  I span the ship around. The monstrosity slid off, clawing at the machinegun’s cooling fins. Bad call. That’s all it took for me to violently send it flying—alongside its viscera—into the barbecue party below.

  Meanwhile, Zéphyr sat on my lap to reach for the dashboard. I felt all the weight of her augmented body as she plugged her temple-wire to a little outlet below the beeping radar. “Is that the handle or are you happy to see me?”

  “That’s the kind of joke I’ll do.”

  “I know. You rub huff on me.”

  “And you’re lovin’ it.”

  Something shook the ship as the conversation was taking a weird turn.

  “Keep going! Here’s some more!” Zéphyr warned me.

  “Shit! They’re falling from above!” I cried as two more mutants landed on the left spoilers, destabilizing the ship.

  Smoke began to fill the area. “Close that airlock, Ali! I will be out for a couple of seconds!”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Help!” screamed the Freak below.

  Still alive, June Roger waved at us from the top of the monolith. A bunch of monsters were trying to eat her magneto-boots through the flames.

  “Wait! I’m coming out first!” I retorted as I slid out of the cockpit. “Z, can you—crap!” She was already browsing the web.

  From the wing, I shot the throat of a new beast a little too enterprising. The humpbacked nonsense spat purple blood, and slipped on the flaps. He broke his back against the dark monolith, causing a frightening indigo pyrolysis. The fiery blast nearly toppled our precarious ship.

  I yelled, looking down despite the nausea: “December?”

  I saw her, her hands firmly anchored to the Kisugi’s landing gear. She was severely burned. Her hair was black as carbon. Wide bloody scratches ran across her yellow jumpsuit.

  “By the rings of Saturn!” she pleaded, Lisa still under her elbow. “Don’t let me die here!”

  I stretched out along the wing, the feet tucked in a maneuvering thruster, to approach the traitorous Freak. “Throw me the big bubble gum!” I ordered. I had to repeat myself because of the commotion caused by the fire.

  “Catch!” she coughed. Blood was running on her chin.

  Not without hesitation, she tossed the life pod and its precious—if ignominious—merchandise to me. Slowly raising, I went back to the cockpit and tucked the M-unit between my still unconscious cyborg’s legs.

  I came back to June the quicker I could, dodging sprays of molten plastic grazing my face. The mercenary was nowhere to be found. “Where are you?” I yelled, probing the tumultuous smoke because of the ship’s blowing thrusters. “Fuck!”

  The Kisugi realized a sudden lurch, and I turned around. The Freak was done climbing thanks to the front machine guns. On her hands and knees, crawling to the open cockpit, she was looking for Lisa.

  Finding my balance, I yelled, and Zéphyr’s eyes stopped glimmering. She was back with us. Surprising the Freak so close, my cyber-thief immediately swirled the ship after closing the canopy.

  Ejected, I caught the last torpedo’s red nose plate from the tips of my fingers. From there, I could witness June’s fall. Not in the fire, but in the sea of agonizing monsters climbing on the monolith.

  I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Despite the sweat invading my eyes, I saw her almost being torn to pieces by panic-stricken creatures.

  “Holy shit…” I whispered.

  My hands hurt. The toxic smoke liquified my lungs. Exhausted, I was about to let go when Zéphyr appeared.

  “Do you need a hand?” she asked, still wired to the ship.

  I cursed at her. Horrified, I glanced at the monsters forming a pyramid below. They were feet away to grasp my charred sneakers.

  My cyber-girlfriend smiled, reaching for my arm. “Don’t panic! I sorted things out!” Her eyes turned purple as she lifted me on the wing.

  All around, the surviving speakers spat dust. Very loud chords could be heard from the heights, before giving way to lyrics and music.

  I never meant to cause you any sorrow

  I never meant to cause you any pain

  I only wanted to one time to see you laughing

  “What the hell is that?” I coughed, figuring Prince’s voice out while I sat down on the wing against the cockpit. I was shaking.

  Meanwhile, the vessel steadily hovered to the top, far from the inferno and the mutants. Temperature remained hot, but became tolerable again.

  Zéphyr slowly slumped on the edge, opening for me an ice-cold brick of Mr. Pibb from her ship’s reserve. “Happy birthday, Ali-love…”.

  Below, the Radio Freaks started howling in pain. Their screams grew in intensity until their heads suddenly burst out—first one by one, then by entire batches.

  Purple rain, purple rain

  Purple rain, purple rain

  Violet mists silently scattered across the whole vault, also causing the flames to turn purple. In a blink of an eye, the entire blazing hill resembled a breathing lavender storm cloud. It was beautiful.

  Purple rain, purple rain

  I only wanted to see you

  Bathing in the purple rain

  I smiled, resting my tired head on her metal shoulder.

  8. A MOUSE CALLED JUNE

  Roof of the Palmer House Hotel

  Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  Present day

  “What happened to the Monsutā once you guys got back to the surface?” Bill Murray asked.

  Ali spit her bubble gum. A colored trickle drooled on her chin. “Zéphyr disappeared with it the next day, when I went home to the Kitty and met Lee,” she said, wiping her lips with the back of her sleeve before sticking her candy on a rusted rivet.

  “And the fire? That was you? The barbershop exploded on live TV. That was awesome!”

  “That’s the problem with us,” I sighed, trying to light up one of my cigarettes I was saving. “We rarely go unnoticed.”

  “What about the FBI? Did you get your bounty hunter’s license back?”

  “We received an unexpected visit from the two agents, Mr. De Mornay and Mr. Gross, shortly after…” I interjected, beating the dust off my tail out of frustration as I couldn’t properly light my cigarette. “While I had my head in the nuclear reactor!”

  Ali laughed. “Lee bit their ass. We didn’t hear more from them until yesterday.”

  “What do you mean?” Bill Murray asked, helping me with his Zippo.

  “The unfamous June Roger is alive,” I explained, puffing. “And according to Mr. Gross, she’s holed up in this building with mercenaries of the Thanatos data-cartel.” Ali pointed to the 50-story sweatshops we were watching with her thumb. “Ready to be exfiltrated off-world despite the Jovian arrest warrant.”

  Bill Murray raised an eyebrow. “So the feds were good guys?”

  “Not really…” I grumbled. “Let’s just say they were short of competent agents in the area.”

  The trash heap in front of Ali beeped. Lost amid the old Quisp Cereal boxes and other household garbage, a bulky walkie-talkie loudly alerted us of an incoming communication.

  Bill Murray grabbed the device and turned up the volume. We could hear Agent Gross’s deep voice: “Kitty? Are you still there?”

  “For ages, indeed…” I whined as the actor spun the walkie-talkie in my direction so I could rant more easily.

  “We have a visual on our friend the Freak-mouse! The cartel’s helicopter was damaged over the slums, meaning she won’t be escaping through the roof as planned—God Darwin! Watch that taxicab asshole!” Screeching tires and honking horns drowned his last curses.

  “Are you kidding me?” bellowed Ali, grabbing Bill Murray’s tiring wrist. “We’re starving here for nothing!”

  Agent Gross shouted orders to his partner at the wheel, before coming back to us: “We also lost quite a bit of time in a TV van, stuck in an alleyway reeking of garbage!”

  “This isn’t a contest!” I interjected. “Where’s Mighty Mouse? Where’s our luscious contract?”

  “She’s gonna break through the east side!” De Mornay exclaimed, realizing a skid destroying—from the noise—someone’s newsstand. “According to our team stationed a few floors below you, she’s about to jump on a subway train!”

  “I’ll get her!” Ali immediately replied, springing towards the hatch while stepping over the silent Bill Murray.

  “What?” I reacted. “Wait!”

  Too late, my partner was already outside and running to the edge of the roof. Below, the subway tracks snaked towards the bay’s spaceport.

  I too leaped outdoors through a hole big enough to accommodate my stomach, before turning back to the actor who poked his nose through my former surveillance post: “Goodbye, Mr. Murray! It was a pleasure meeting you!”

  “Alas, Nothing lasts forever, fellas!” smiled the sapiens, waving his hand through another gap. “Goodbye, Ali!”

  “See you around, Bill!” shouted the latter before throwing herself head first into the void.

  I ran to the edge. Below me, my partner drifted away, helped by the hot wind. Thanks to her genetically modified body, she could almost gracefully land on the Blue line subway train and not almost gracefully crash head on onto it.

  “By the 79 moons of Jupiter!” I swore.

  I turned around. Hidden under an orange tarp, the Kitty was just waiting for my pads to join the mad chase.

  Blue Line subway streetcar

  Downtown Callisto City (Callisto/Jupiter IV)

  Same time

  I landed on the train, bending the shiny metal roof. My clone body absorbed the biggest part of the impact. My head, the other. With my nose shattered and slightly dazed, I straightened. A monumental mistake.

  The wind coupled with the speed ejected me backwards, and I caught the red handle of a safety hatch at the last second. Once back on track, I progressed slowly while remaining crouched, elbow in front of my eyes to protect myself.

  “Lee? Do you read me?” I tried, bringing my implant as close to my lips as possible.

  The train’s frantic race took me through the tall black towers of downtown Callisto City, slaloming between the bright and giant advertisement holograms. Window-cleaning robots, fat insurance brokers and other curious white-collar workers passionately followed the live events.

  “I’m in the ship, a little further back behind the unmarked FBI truck!” Lee answered. “But I need to stall because the line is about to dive underground after the next block!”

  “Do you have a visual on June?”

  A stained flier brushed my cheek. I used it to clean my bloody nose, before the whistle of a bullet grazing my tight startled me. In the distance, June Roger and his Thanatos mercenaries didn’t want to share their little bumpy ride, and started shooting at me.

  “I’d throw a lovely rocket, but…” Lee snapped as I saw the Kitty pass by on my left in the busy air traffic.

  “Don’t worry, partner. I’ll take care of this! Ali style.”

  The subway slowed as it approached a curve, and I could leap forward, gun in hand. As I made my way to the front, I gradually got rid of the escort that accompanied the Freak mercenary. The subway racing towards the ground, I gained the high spot.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Easy Peasy.

  A fourth and last body crashed into the parking lot below just before we entered the underground passage. Almost deafened by the screech of the brakes and an alarm triggered by the passengers, I jumped to the text cars burning my lungs. Meanwhile, June Roger reached the conductor car, dodging the few traffic lights sparsely lit on the rocky ceiling.

  “Gotcha, bitch.”

  I aimed at her. But she disappeared into the blinding light of a huge advertising screen after the tunnel exit. I lost sight of my contract because of a goddamn teaser for the new season of Cyber Macho.

  I swore, and Lee invited himself back into the chat channel as the subway rocketed up to city heights and the polluted skies: “Ali! June jumped again!”

  “What? She’s a mouse, not a fucking wallaby! Where is she?”