Page 11 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“Sorry. I am very drunk,” I said.
I wasn’t. I was eventually going to have to try getting drunk if I could get up the courage to try food.
“Well, I’ve never been threatened by a drunk cyborg before, so I guess I have an interesting story. Enjoy your food.”
He handed Baxter the bags and left. I was a little surprised. She said no one believed her and bullied her over it.
“He believed you about me?”
“Oh, no. Unless you get like, super racist, homophobic, or transphobic, you can say whatever you want when you’re drunk and everyone just assumes it’s because you’re fucked up. Like, I could tell him that bus stop was really a time machine called Big Daddy, and he’d just nod and smile because he’s going to assume I won’t remember when I sober up. He just thinks you’re an asshole when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not programmed to be an asshole. You have to pay extra for that or get it done on the black market.”
“Assuming I was on my period was an asshole move, bro. Have you ever considered you are more than your programming? You’re pretty sentient. Just because someone didn’t stick a USB up your ass and tell you how to be doesn’t mean you can’tlearnit. Aren’t you a super computer?”
“My port is behind my ear, not in my rectum. But point noted.”
It was a good point. The Enix were designed off of her books. She wrote her books off the Enix she met. Me. That was probably just as weird for all of us as it was for her to find out why we called her the Devouring Mother.
Some of us had been beaten down and told we weren’t capable of anything other than what we’d been programmed to do. I was learning I was more than that with Torrek and Kuka.
I know she wasn’t intending to, but she was the architect responsible for my being. Ifshesaid I could eat, drink, or be an asshole, I probably could.
I mean, I didn’t want to be an asshole, but I was ready to try food for the first time.
Food was universal and was my only friend during high school. It just gave the assholes something else to bully me about and my mom acted like the weight I gained landed on her ass and not mine. Didn’t stop me from eating. That shit tasted good, and I needed it to stay alive.
They were already inside with trays of food when I came in with the donuts. I wanted them to try the donuts, but donuts were dessert so those came last. They didn’t seem weirded out by that when I explained it. They seemed just as excited for me to try their food.
“This is proper street food. You can get it in the neighborhood I grew up in. Torrek had diarrhea for a week after eating palace food,” Omi said.
“If I could put you on a rocket and shoot you back home, I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You love me and you can’t beat up any men I sleep with when you’re a million light years away.”
“If you sleep with a human, I’m telling Mom.”
“Ew. They don’t even have stripes. No offense, Baxter.”
“None taken. Some of these guys dry rub your left labia tip for six minutes and ask if you came, anyway. And you have to get naked before you find that out.”
“I’m programmed in all manner of pleasing women and men,” Enix said.
“Are you offering, big guy?”
Was that flirting? I guess he was learning. I was going to have so much fun corrupting him. He just stammered.
“So, if you’re based on my books and I based my books off of you, then I have you being able to eat and drink with the capability to learn. That was all shit I made up after our brief encounter at my pool, but if they based their design off of it and thought I was a prophet, then you are capable of more than what they told you.”
“They never let us read the holy text. I only ever got a chance after Torrek and Kuka rescued me. But yes, I do think I want to try food.”
“Together? I don’t even know what animal this kebab came from and I’m about to put it in my mouth.”
Torrek let out a little growl.
“I love watching an adventurous woman eat.”
Well, shit. He was already pretty high on the bangability scale, but when he looked at me like that when I was shoving questionable meat in my face, he just went higher.
