Le Femme BEM

EJ grins and reaches for something in real-space, his hand de-rezzing into a cloud of pixels before he brings it back into the range of his avatar projection program. He's holding a cortical jack big enough to wear as a hat. "So, Tizona." EJ clips the cortical jack onto his forehead like a safety helmet. "Wanna cyber?"

Epilogue

I was right about the Master Chief. The clever bastard left a radio-silent rearguard of Gold team marines on the jumpship's gun deck, armed to the gills and ready to gazerbeam their ship's own umbilical if they were so ordered. Well, I know how to take care of clever bastards.

"Tizona to Master Chief, over."

"This is Master Chief. Go ahead, Tizona, over."

"I am showing a sensor error on hull hatch 23A, gazerbeam maintenance port. The sensor registers the hatch as open but the security logs show its last status as closed. Diagnostics indicate a 97% probability of sensor failure, but protocol requires me to report any such irregularities to the biological commanding officer, over."

"Zomg. Master Chief to Gold team, over."

"This is Gold-1, Master Chief. Over."

"Gold-1, take your team out for a stroll and do a heat-and-beat search of the hull skin. Shoot anything that moves, over."

"Roger that, Master Chief. Please be advised that the radiation from a core breach—"

"I am well aware of the limitations of your armor, Gold-1. I've already ordered Blue-1 to disrupt the self-destruct. We'll resume as soon as your search is complete, over."

"Of course, Chief. My apologies. Gold-1 out."

A minute later Tizona pirouettes and bows. Her face fills the holoblock projection hovering above my wrist-top. "Tah-dah!" she crows, eyes shining with swirling code. "Told you I could keep a straight face, Xixa."

I adjust the piloting couch of the jumpship for my girlish figure and snuggle in. I tap the couch's armrest and Tizona's canary-eating grin leaps from my wrist's little holoblock to fill the air in front of me. "Only because EJ logged off first, 'Zona," I protest, "so the bet's off."

Tizona affects a luscious moue as I call up the astro-navigational holographic interface and punch in a few coordinates. "Where are we going, Xixa?"

"First," I say, hitting enter and feeding Tizona the last known location of Pink's ship, "we're picking up an old friend."

Tizona's boggles, giggling. "Ooh, another one! Really?"

I shake my head, one of the few expressions my dumb exoskeleton allows me. "This one's for me, not you." I leer but my chitin faceplate pinches. I've got to get out of this exoskeleton sooner than my next molt. Mm, I wonder if Pink can fuxxor it off. "As soon as Gold team is clear, 'Zona, can you cut the cord and take us to him? After that," I add, and thunk the headless Cthulhu statuette onto the couch's armrest. All the holographic displays and interfaces surrounding the pilot couch fuzz and dance. "We're going where no BEM has gone before."

"Sounds like fun." Tizona glances off into the imaginary distance. "A full heat-and-beat search requires a minimum distance of sixty meters from the hull. Gold team's in the clear already, so I can..." She startles. "Um, Xi—Xixa? Do you mind taking the he—helm for this one?"

I bob my head since I can't shrug. "Sure. What's wrong, 'Zona?" She starts to chew her bottom lip and cross her eyes. "Heh. EJ's back, huh?"

Her perfectly rendered haircut falls over her face, one lock sticking to a virtual sweaty cheek. "Ye—yes. I've really got to go—go—Oh!"

I wave her off. She smiles a silent thank you at me then turns to gaze down hungrily at something off camera. "Ooh," she coos, "lo—lo—look at you, hacker..."

I don't need to see that again. Watching Nth dimensional cybersexxor makes me dizzy, so I de-rez the central computer interface and call up manual navigation.

All the bubbly interweb Z3.0 interfaces dissolve into digital mist. I am surrounded by hard-light replicas of gleaming chrome piping, black and white analog gauges, and blipping diodes. I gaze out through thick, transparent aluminum into the infinite possibilities of cold space. Lost Carcosa is waiting for me out there, somewhere. My birth-parents, maybe, too. Fortune and glory, certainly. But first, I've got a date with the sweetest, smartest, pinkest guy in the three Arms, who comes equipped with the strongest, longest, and most flexible tentacles in the fuxxoring galaxy.

I wrap two hands around the joystick poking out of the floor between my legs. The hard-light interface provides the thrumming feedback of a jet engine. I flick a knob on the stick's top. The umbilical jettisons with a simulated whir and thump. I open the common radio channel at full volume.

"Xixa to Master Chief." I bear down on the joystick and ramjet engines rumble and scream to life all around me. I am purring with the simple pleasure and thrill of a wild ride. "I am in your cockpit, stealing your jumpship."

(The names and likenesses of characters Xixa and ink Tentacle Monster (c) Edward Artinian 2007)