Page 17 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“If that gets you drunk, I want some, too. I’m really good at fighting, but I don’t understand half the shit Kuka says when he’s being brilliant,” Torrek said.
“Me, too,” Omi said. “I understood all of that and it’s so fucked-up.”
“There’s a good chance it was us that brought the texts to our planet seven thousand years ago. Some version, anyway. We either knew we couldn’t add the last text because then the texts would never happen, or we failed and couldn’t save Baxter,” Enix said.
Enix would tell you he wasn’t programmed to have feelings, but he’d always felt them. It was why his owner kept having him factory reset. Enix had a lot of feelings. Like, right now, he looked utterly devastated at the idea of losing Baxter. I think we all were. She wasnothinglike we were expecting. She wasn’t remotely a prophet, but I liked her better this way.
Just then, her primitive communication device went off. She was currently handling her coffee addiction in the kitchen. Omi was closest to her phone and picked it up.
“It saysturd faceis calling.”
“That’s my boss. He’s an ass. I meant to call him and tell him I wasn’t feeling well. Can you answer and tell him that I have Norovirus or something and graphically describe me puking and shitting everywhere? I’m not ready to quit yet, but I also don’t want to go in.”
“Do it,” I said. “It’s going to change things. In the original police documents, she didn’t show up and didn’t call, which is why her coworker asked the police to check on her. We need to change as much as we can about what we know about her last few days.”
“Hello?” Omi said. “Wow, you are wholly unpleasant. Do you talk to all women this way? Stop yelling. Baxter is sick. She caught something nasty and if she came into work, she’d be puking and shitting everywhere. It would probably offend your customers and I’m almost certain it’s contagious, so you’d probably be shitting and puking after being around her. Do you still want her to come in? Excellent. Have awonderfulday.”
Baxter fell out laughing.
“I love it.”
“I get this is an entirely different planet, but that man doesn’t have the people skills to work in a statue factory by himself, much less a bookstore where he has to talk to people.”
“He really doesn’t. And he’s a pretentious asshole, so if someone comes in wanting a book from an author he doesn’t like, he yells at them instead of offering to order the book. I don’t even know how he’s still open.”
“Do you not have a choice where you work like the Enix?”
“Yes, and no. Sometimes, you’re stuck with who will hire you if you’re broke enough and there aren’t a lot of businesses where you live. It’s not all bad. He only works three days a week and usually spends two of them in the back office. I don’t have to deal with him much. Though, when I do get up the nerve to quit, I’m going to enjoy it.”
“So, we changed something,” I said. “Everyone at Baxter’s work thinks she is severely ill, so if she doesn’t show up for the next few days, her coworker has no reason to call for a welfare check.”
“I’m shocked Kevin even let Tangilique call. Kevin doesn’t like it when his employees talk about their personal life on the clock. There’s a lot of shit about my past I don’t want to talk about, but I also don’t like being told what to do. Especially when that rule is arbitrary and stupid. I’d happily break it and talk about television shows, but my coworkers don’t.”
I had a feeling Baxter had more people who cared about her than she knew. She just didn’t really know what that looked like because of her past. I wanted to show her. I think we all did. She wasn’t some mystical prophet, she was something better.
We just needed to save her life first.
Isuppose any time you left your house, you could get murdered. Someone could want your shit or some asshole with a gun could decide to commit a mass shooting literally anywhere.Knowingit was going to happen was something else.
I didn’t know who did it any more than the future cops did. I had no problem standing up to bullies. The majority of times I ended up on a seventy-two-hour hold or thrown into another hospital, it was because one of my bullies got physical with me and I fought back. No one believed me and kept saying I was being violent for no reason. Which was another reason I left.
I didn’t do that anymore because I didn’t want any attention brought to me. My parents had been trying to put me under a conservatorship as soon as I turned eighteen. I’d never be free. They’d control my entire life. I didn’t want them knowing where I was, so I didn’t draw attention to myself.
It went against my nature, but if someone started yelling at me, I let them instead of yelling back. The time traveling spacebastards were different. There was no way in fuck I could have held any of that back.
The only people I pissed off were the men I ghosted and sometimes Kevin. The men I ghosted didn’t know I lived in an entirely different city and they had no way of finding out my address. Kevin was angry all the time, but he was a marshmallow. If I was drunk enough, I could probably take him.
And if they saved my life, then what? I write their book, and they leave me here knowing everything I knew? I didn’t exactly adjust very well after meeting them for ten minutes the first time.
“I think I’m having a crisis,” Enix announced.
“Girl, me, too. What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My stomach is gurgling and there is a lot of pressure.”
“If you were built to be able to digest food, then it also has to come out. I think you need to shit, Enix,” Omi said.
Oh, my god, there was a cyborg on my couch who needed to make a doody for the first time and it should have been weird, but it was kind of adorable.
