Chapter 10: Of Fashion and Flatworms

The drawback to Brainframe Clusters is, obviously, that they need brains. Lots of them, and of a specific type.Get them too young and they haven't yet plasticized correctly, so they don't sufficiently retain information. Get them too old or damaged and they're prone to processing errors and a shortened lifespan. The preferred brains came from healthy eighteen to thirty-four year-olds that had died peaceful deaths, preferably unrelated to drug use or cranial trauma.. To facilitate the growth of this new technology, the Galactic Average had set up Brain Trusts to purchase brains from various sources to fill the brain needs of both new and extant Clusters. In theory, most of the brains were to come from corporate accounts, such as the Galactic Average Hospitals and Coroner Services, but in practice the Brain Trusts were constantly visited by citizenry wishing to sell the brains of friends and family, so Galactic Average opened Brain Trusts as storefronts, and discovered it's a lot more profitable to not be too concerned from where a brain comes from.

Captain Christopher Ennings, nee Captain Trade Freewind, stood at Circe's airlock with a cryopack under his arm, as he had been for a good five minutes. What passed for his patience was wearing thin.
“No,” he repeated.

Jenny stood firm. “Look, we're both pragmatic people here. Everything I own is back in my shitty little apartment back in Sikking City. Meanwhile, I'm a wanted felon and you. . .” She paused for a moment, making the sort of face that ignorant buffoons the world round recognize as indicating the use of psychic powers. “. . . Well, I haven't exactly figured out what you are yet, but either way, something less conspicuous and flouncy would be a strategic investment.” Enning's face remained stoically impassive, like apathy chiseled from solid granite.

“No. It's too risky, and we're too poor.” He hoisted the cryopack and displayed every intention of leaving. “I'm sure Gizmo has a spare jumpsuit you can borrow.” he added.

“There's no way in Hell it would fit!” she shouted, desperate for an edge.

“Philo can tailor it, I'm sure.” he looked over Jenny's shoulder. “Isn't that right, Philo?”

“Yes, sir!” Philo was his usual perky self. “Miss Jenny, you'll be pleased to know that I am fluent in over sixty-three thousand distinct forms of seamsmanship! I have also taught myself how to identify all known species of flatworm by sight, smell, or taste, and I will be happy to assist you with any such needs that may arise!”

Jenny knew her forced smiles were quite unconvincing. “That's great, Philo, I am sure you, um, worked quite hard at figuring all that out about flatworms. Ah, and sewing.”
Philo seemed oblivious to Jenny's discomfort. “The secret is to hold them between the cheek and gum!”

“You know, Gizmo was just telling me that he had some flatworms that he just couldn't figure out.” Jenny found Parson's calm voice a welcome change from Ennings' sarcasm and Philo's not-quite-right inflections.

“Oh dear!” Philo attempted a frown. “I shall go assist him with due haste! I do hope he doesn't make the amateur mistake of putting them under his tongue.” Philo squeezed past Parson and headed for Gizmo's makeshift lab in the cargo bay. He then popped his head back around the corner and whistled a jaunty tune. “Remember that song. In the event that the flatworms develop some sort of group intelligence and overpower us, our kinetic weapons will be no good against their magic.” He left a room full of puzzled faces.

Parson shook his head at the vanished android. “I swear, I haven't seen so much awkward and uncomfortable since we were hired to chase that troupe of Cyborg Space Clowns out of the children's hospital on Phoenix II.” He turned to face Jenny. “What's all the shouting about?”

“John, maybe you can talk some sense into Ensin Knumbskull. I can't keep walking around looking like Pinky the Space Kitten!”

“I assume you mean Ennings, and I hate to tell you this but he's out the airlock and apparently sprinting across the hangar.” Parson peered over Jenny and through the airlock's windows. “I haven't seen him run like that since we first saw that troupe of Cyborg Space Clowns at the children's hospital on Phoenix II.” He paused. “I wonder if the hospital ever got rid of them.”

“You seem unusually fixated on them today.” Jenny observed.

“The nightmares. . .” Parson continued staring out the window, mouth slightly agape as if he was going to explain himself. He shrugged and looked at her.

Jenny began to vent her spleen upon the airlock. “I swear as soon as I can get this door open I am just going to. . .” She paused, trying to harness the might of the TIARA and either open or vaporize the door. “. . . Reduce him to nanoparticles. Yeah. With my bare hands.”

“Calm down, Jenny. Gizmo had to fix the airlock door and he doesn't know how to patch it into the Circe's control systems yet. You have to open it manually and it still has a tendency to stick.”

“That is going to delay my murdering Ennings and I am really not at all okay with that.” She pouted.

“Just forget Ennings for now. While he's taking care of business, I've got some clean creds that I'm about to go use to buy some supplies for the ship. I'm sure I can slip in a change of clothes or two. Hell, it's been so long since I've gone shopping for a lady, you probably ought to come with me. Stretch your legs out and what-not, take in the system's best recycled atmosphere.”

“John, I'd hug you but every second I am in this getup is like full body Bad Touch.”

“Don't sweat it. Now let's go, and don't be too surprised if people start tossing money at you.”


The Doomsquad had gone, and Conrad Eriksen ran his fingers through his graying hair as he surveyed the ruins of Hangar 18. The building had been blasted, scorched, burned, battered, and shattered even before the old corvette had clusterfuckled its way out of it, but there was still information to be had here. The short, thin man opened his scanner as he slowly walked through the wreckage. He was shortly rewarded with a beep. He knelt and vaporized the rubble, only to find...

“A synthetic thumbnail.” He smiled slightly as he held his prize in front of him. She'd used those before, as covers for the datachip implanted in her thumb. He didn't need to look at the scanner to see that the genetic material was a match. Eriksen stood and turned to his companion on the other side of the debris.

“Stinson!”

“Yeah, boss?”

“We're done here. Call the ship and have them get ready for takeoff. And have Bonesaw get his lab ready for another sample.”

“Will do, boss.” Eriksen heard his subordinate conversing with whomever had coordinator duty today. He closed his fist over the thumbnail. His patience was wearing out. He enjoyed a good chase as much as the next Hunter, but this had gone on for much too long. She was starting to make a fool of him. Even his own crew was beginning to talk. Eriksen needed to find her soon, both to maintain his reputation and so he could use her to show his crew that he was not to be trifled with. After all the bounty said “Alive,” not “Intact.” Or “Sane”. Psychos or ESPers or whatever they're called, they break same as any other person. Nothing said she had to be delivered right away, someone like her could be a mighty good bloodhound, if'n you knew how to maker her pliable.

Her screams will have show them all.

They're warming up the ship, boss.” Stinson had walked up behind him during his reverie. “McNeely said there was a bounty you'd be interested in.”

Eriksen turned to face Stinson. “We're already on a bounty.”

Stinson took a step back. “I- I know boss, but this one is for Ennings.”
There was a name Eriksen hadn't heard in awhile. “He's dead. Blew his entire damn ship up to kill Clockwerx, I heard.”

Stinson shrugged. “The security system on one of those labs outside of town, the ones they grew the Dirtsharks in, earlier today the cameras caught Ennings and one of his old buddies breaking in and stealing a hovertruck. I'm willing to bet there's more, but the Millitary has totally blackboxed bulletin updates.”

“Probably to re-establish control in the area.” Eriksen mused. “They don't want private contractors muddling up stings or what-have-you, they want everyone to see their big shiny Marines busting in and taking out the bad guys.” He threw Stinson a sly smile. “Knights in shining armor the lot of them, ain't that right?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Stinson's muscled frame didn't betray a hint of sarcasm, but anyone who knew him would have found that hilarious.

“Stinson, you didn't read the Doomsquad report on what happened here, did you?”

“No sir, reading is for those too cowardly to act.”

“Right, I forgot you were an officer in the Galactic Military. No matter. Call the Damocles again. Tell then to accept the Ennings bounty and that he and Parwing are traveling together now.”

“Ennings and Parwing? But how-”

“Do you want to talk, Stinson, or do you want to act?” Eriksen's glare alone would have been enough to silence Stinson.

“As for how, Stinson, this is how.” Eriksen held up the thumbnail. “She finally slipped up. And
Bonesaw will tell me all I need to know from it.” He cackled.

Stinson tittered nervously in response.

Eriksen let loose with a long, maniacal belly laugh, and soon Stinson had joined in, both men laughing uncontrollably.

Eriksen straightened suddenly. “STINSON!”

Stinson jerked upright, moth open in surprise as tears of mirth still streaked his face.

“Stinson, why are you laughing? Did I say something funny? Are you mocking me, Stinson?”

“N-No sir! I- ah, I was just-”

“SILENCE YOUR FLALING MANDIBLE YOU WASTE OF A GENETIC HELIX! NOW GET BACK TO THE SHIP ON THE DOUBLE AND MAKE SURE BONESAW IS READY YOU CENTAURIAN FUCK LARVA!” Eriksen's bellow reverberated off of the empty hangars around them.
Stinson screamed and ran.

Eriksen laughed to himself as we watched Stinson run. Sometimes it was good to be the boss.
Then Stinson jumped into their hovercar and took off.

Eriksen watched the hovercar shrink from sight, then slowly sealed the thumbnail in one of his belt pouches and fished his communicator out from another.

“Eriksen to Damocles.”

“This is Damocles. McNeely here.”

“McNeely, When Stinson gets back there with my hovercar, please have Symons pistol-whip him and then fly back out here to pick me up.”

“Aye, sir. You know, you really should stop antagonizing Stinson. You know how jumpy your murder-eye makes him.”

“Well just imagine what it's like having to live with it.”

“I'd prefer not, if it's all the same to you, sir.”

“You're wise, McNeely. Eriksen out.”

Eriksen sat down on the rubble, and retrieved the thumbnail fron his belt pouch. He stared at it, turning it over and over between his fingers. “Soon,” he muttered.
Soon.