Page 28 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“But how? You don’t even have a phone!”
Omi put her finger over his lips.
“Shh, precious. Don’t question it. Go forth and do amazing things. It can’t be traced back to you.”
“Wow, thanks. I gotta go plan and find someone to help me.”
He puttered off on his primitive travel device and Omi turned to Baxter.
“I don’t know what a British is. Was that an insult?”
“It’s just a human that lives in another part of the planet. And you don’t even remotely sound British. I’m guessing he doesn’t watch a lot of television shows that aren’t made in this country.”
“Oh, so it’s just an accent. We have those all over my planet, too. Kuka speaks all posh.”
“So, do you want to watch a street race, or do you want to go to my favorite bar to listen to some live music while we regroup since Owen definitely didn’t kill me?” Baxter asked.
Torrek let out a little whine.
“I’d still very much like to kill Owen.”
“Yeah, but if you kill him, he’s just dead. Enix stole his money. He’s going to suffer much longer that way.”
“You devious little shit. Good job!” Torrek said, clapping Enix on the back.
I still didn’t know what Owen looked like, but I knew men like him. Valtens reminded me of Owen. If you responded with violence, they’d heal and you’d suffer more than they did. If you took something important from them, it drove them crazy. It wasn’t just that their shit was missing. They tended to keep it protected and hard to get to. They’d agonize overhowit was stolen and get a little paranoid. Even if it wasn’t super important to them before, now that it was taken from them, it became so.
I liked this side of Enix.
Ididn’t think Owen did it. We dated a long time ago when I was a little angrier at my parents. He was pissed at his, so our relationship was mostly ranting, mosh pits, and sex. I needed that at the time. I didn’t want Owen to be my killer, but at the same time, there was a little part of me that wanted him to be because it would make things a lot easier.
My life had never been easy, and I tried to make the best of it. Yeah, someone was going to murder me soon and there were aliens in my tiny apartment, but you could solve literally anything with cheap whiskey and live music. I came here with my laptop to write sometimes.
“What is that noise?” Kuka asked when we got outside.
“Pretty sure that’s the music regular folks who don’t attend balls listen to on this planet,” Omi said.
“I hate those balls.”
“Did you know that when I was twelve, I wanted to learn to play the theremin and they thought it meant I’d got psychotic? I was a weird kid, and I didn’t want to learn the tuba.”
“We don’t have those on our planet. Why is the theremin worse than a tuba?” Kuka asked.
“Okay, so the theremin is pretty cool. It’s the only instrument you play without touching it at all. My parents thought it was abnormal that I didn’t want to play something in the marching band at my school, but I actually hate sports and want nothing to do with them.”
“What instrument is in there making that noise?”
“An electric guitar, a keyboard, a bass, and drums.”
“I like it,” Torrek declared.
“I didn’t get to listen to a lot of music before. I like it, too.”
“Come inside. We can take my usual table.”
No one ever sat at the table right by the restrooms because it kind of smelled like piss and sometimes people didn’t make it when they tried to run to a toilet to puke. You just needed to have catlike reflexes if you saw someone making a run for it.
There were some wrinkled noses when I led them to my usual table, but honestly, if you sat there for about twenty minutes, you got nose blind to the piss smell unless someone got dramatic with the door to the men’s room.
