Page 33 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“Well, yes,” Enix said. “She’s very independent. You can’t take that away from her. If she likes something, she’ll let you do it. Baxter might like that, just notright now.You can’t sulk or make her feel bad or I’ll hit you.”
Huh. Some Enix were programmed with all fighting styles. Torrek had been teaching ours to fight, but he didn’t like it much. The only being on our planet who could probably match a Saki in a fight was an Enix who hadn’t been programmed to feel pain. Torrek knew that. He also knew Enix was right.
“No need. This is all just new to me. It’s intense. She’s more chaotic than a Sileat. One minute, she’s terrified we aren’t going to be able to save her and the next, she’s sure she’s going to find her killer and punch him in the dick. I was nervous about traveling to a new planet in a new galaxy. She’s not scared at all. She can’t wait to leave this one behind.”
And we all wanted to take her. I could get her a place, but I still didn’t know what to do with her. If she was just Baxter Holmes, the human we fancied enough to take back with us, she’d be fine. She would only be in danger if someone connected her to the Devouring Mother.
But I couldn’t focus on fixing the future of my planet until I figured out the present on this one. And we needed to start with finding my brother. Baxter came out from her shower and as much as Torrek wastryingto hide it, he was still pouting she wouldn’t let him wash her and she noticed right away and knew.
“If you washed me, I was going to get horny. We were going to have shower sex instead of finding Valtens and we’re on a time crunch. But yes to all the shower sex if I don’t die.”
There was an answer. Some version of us had already done this and no version of me would have let that happen to Baxter or Torrek. I needed to save her, but I needed to knowwhento come back and save her. I was missing something.
“Big Daddy programmed the coordinates to Valtens’s machine into my chip before I walked over. I know how to get there.”
“Quick question, am I going to get arrested for treason on your planet when we get there if I punch him in the dick when we find him?”
“Yes. He’s that kind of man. And I don’t think we’ll find him in the time machine. If he’s figured out the exchange rate between Nova Credits and money on this planet, he will have bought himself what passed for a palace in this city.”
“This is a fishing town. There aren’t palaces here.”
“Whatever is close. If he’s going to be stuck here for fifteen years, he’s going to get himself set up comfortably and try to find people to adore him.”
“Which no one is going to do if they don’t know he’s a prince,” Omi pointed out.
“How far is it? I’ve got a car, but it’s ancient and a hatchback, so it’s not going to fit all of you. We could probably squeeze it in, but my soulmate is massive,” she said, pinching Torrek’s ass. “I can call a rideshare if no one gets weird. Weirder than me, that is.”
“It’s slightly over ten clicks,” Omi said.
“America won’t even use the metric system, so I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s seven miles,” Enix said.
“Rideshare. I’m not walking that, and we should only use Big Daddy when we need to go back in time or people might notice.”
Which was a good idea. I was faster than everyone here, but I couldn’t carry them with me if I ran it. I didn’t want to approach Valtens if he was around without the others. He might have left his Enix to defend it.
It was time to face my brother.
This was a weird little town, but I loved it for the most part. I mean, I was going to leave it behind for an entirely new planet without looking in my rear-view mirror, but it served its purpose when I needed it.
It was a fishing town, but it had a decent music scene for such a small population. Kevin was a raging, pretentious asshole who refused to carry books he didn’t considerart,but his shop was still popular.
So, like, when I dumped a bunch of aliens in the back of this rideshare driver’s minivan and hopped in the front seat, he didn’t even suspect they were from another galaxy, and we were on our way for me to dick punch another alien because he was probably going to murder me.
In hindsight, humans were probably much weirder than aliens. Maybe that’s why there were all these rumors they kept probing us. Clearly, our heads were up our asses.
I hopped out and immediately knew what Valten’s time machine was. It was another bus stop. The first two books of my series took place on Earth and the rest were on another planet. When I wrote them, I didn’t have a car yet, and I also didn’t know how to drive. My parents refused to teach me.
There were a lot of bus stops in the first two books and Kuka was smart enough to use my descriptions to build an outer replica that would blend here. I knew this wasn’t a regular bus stop because of the slight differences to the other bus stops around town.
Torrek grabbed me when I went to march through the door.
“Not yet. Kuka has a Saki protecting him. All of Valtens’s bodyguards quit, so their parents eventually purchased an Enix for him. This Enix is not like your Enix. This one has been programmed to kill and follow orders.”
“So, this Enix might be the one who kills me. How do you punch a cyborg in the dick?”
“You don’t,” Enix said. “If he’s been programmed to kill, it will be efficiently and without emotion. He wouldn’t strangleandstab someone. If it was Valtens, he probably got rid of the evidence so there was nothing non-human at the scene.”
