Space DogS

“This is the place” the burly man said, his middle-aged features scrunched up in vague concentration as he stared at the navigational guide displayed on his arm-mounted comms device. He had a balding head and sported an ill-fitting goatee on his chin, that sidestepped a vertical scar running downwards from his lower lip. Over his round body, a dark mud-brown coat was draped. “Are you sure?” asked a second man, his voice reedy as his eyes darted furtively back and forth. He was thinner than his companion with a dark black coat that barely clung to his form. Under the coat, he fingered his gun nervously.

As the pair talked, a teenage girl came around the corner. She was an odd sight, with bright purple hair and a small backpack in which a teddy bear was visible. The bear seemed too big for the pack, as its head was sticking out, resting on the girl’s shoulder. “Hey mister, you lost?” she asked, removing the lollipop she was sucking from out of her mouth, before smiling at both of the men. She was not as tall as either man, however she could look to almost their eye-level thanks to the extra height afforded to her by a pair of fashionable high-heeled boots that she wore.

“Get out of here, kid” the skinny man said, in as low a voice as he could manage, “We are meeting someone, and it would be better if you were not around when they arrive” he added, trying to sound frightening. The girl pouted, “That’s not a very nice thing to say to a lady” she replied harshly, before putting on a more sickly-sweet voice. “Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help find them for you?” she asked. As she spoke, the girl twiddled the lollipop around between her finger and thumb. The skinny man frowned, “Look I have told you…” he started, before being interrupted by his partner.

“Wait, maybe she can help” he shorter man stated, looking to the girl intently. “We are looking for Pete. Heard of him?” The girl paused for a moment, before smiling.

“You mean Uncle Pete?” she asked, in an almost rhetorical tone of voice, “He asked me to keep an eye out for you. He’s a little late” she replied.

“This is ridiculous” the skinny man exclaimed, before jabbing a finger in the shorter girl’s direction, “Do you know how long it has taken us to get here?”

“Cool it, Frank” the burly man barked, putting a hand on his partner’s shoulder. Frank didn’t move to resist, so the burly man looked back towards the girl. “How long will he be?” he asked her. The girl didn’t speak for a moment, as she cocked her head to look at her teddy bear. She then whispered something that the men couldn’t make out. After a brief exchange, the girl finally looked back to the men, and smiled. “Just a moment” she said, before stepping back a few paces and pulling the teddy bear out of her backpack, placing it on the floor in front of the men. Both Frank and his partner looked at it suspiciously, before their eyes widened in surprise, as the bear stood up, its eyes glowing a pale blue. Before either of the men could ask what was going on, the bear spoke. “Greetings to you, Frank and Si” it said, in a voice that was clearly male, “Sorry for my tardiness, but you know how unexpected things can come up.”

“You for real?” Frank chided, before looking to the man beside him, “We are talking to a bear?!” he barked in a tone that was an odd mixture of confusion, surprise, and a little anger.

“The bear’s called Stupendous” the girl interjected, “My uncle is only borrowing the voice.”

Si nodded understandingly, before looking down to the bear directly. “Okay. We were given your name from a contact at the Bonded Woman’s Bar” he said.

“Yes, I frequent the place regularly” the bear responded.

“It does a nice cream soda” the girl added, to the surprise of the men. That bar was not the sort of place any teenager should be, regardless of whom their Uncle may be. Deciding to shrug the comment aside, Si continued. “Okay. Well, we have a nice venture that we thought you may be able to help us with. It should be very lucrative” he said to the bear.

A small laugh sounded out from the teddy, before Pete’s voice replied. “Tell me Boys, is this ‘venture’ of yours any more lucrative than handing your mate, Pete, in for the bounty on his head?”

At this comment, the two men gave looks of slight panic. “Look, Pete, I do not know what you’ve heard,” Si said hurriedly, “But we need you for a little help, that’s all.” Frank nodded emphatically beside his partner. Pete’s laugh came from the bear once more.

“To think we’d betray you” Frank stated, “Where did you get that idea from?”

“Well, a friend of mine said that you two had just been arrested by the EPA last week, and have been going around asking questions about me ever since” Pete replied, “Now, I don’t know about you two, but to me, or anyone else really, two people being let off by the EPA seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” Pete gave a small chuckle, “In fact, it might even seem like some ‘deal’ had been struck, hmm?” Pete’s voice took on a very knowing tone as he said this.

Si shook his head a little too quickly as the bear said this. “No Pete, you have us all wrong. We want your help” he pleaded with the bear in as innocent a tone as he could muster.

“Still sticking to the script, I see” the bear replied, before moving forward to start pacing back and forth in the space between the men and the younger girl. Frank frowned, before looking to his partner. “Look, let’s go” he stated, “This was a waste of time. So much for the fabled ‘Pete the Pirate’. We can always take our business to some other group” he spoke in a tone that was much more reasonable than Si’s, but still edged with caution.

Si was not convinced and looked back to the bear. “Look, last chance, Pete. I do not want today to be a complete waste of time, for either of us. Are you in?” he asked, a hopeful expression on his face. The bear toddled towards the men. “Let’s get a good look at you. Maybe I have been a bit hasty” Pete said in a more level-headed tone of voice. Si almost looked relieved, however Frank was cautious; whilst the bear approached the pair, the teenager vanished into the shadows. The bear moved a few more steps towards the pair until it was looking up their noses. “Ok” it said, “I have my answer”.

Before either man could do anything, the bear exploded in a hail of metal and other shrapnel, that sent each man sprawling to the ground. Si, who was closer to the blast by only a few centimeters, was covered in cuts and other injuries, blood beginning to soak into his, now tattered, brown coat. Frank was knocked unconscious, his body unmoving a few feet from Si. The girl reappeared from around the corner in which she had hid herself, safe from the explosive teddy bear. As Si watched her, she smiled, sickly sweet, and stalked her way over to where Frank lay. She pricked the thin man’s finger with some machine and looked at the screen from the result. It pinged. “DNA Confirmed” she voiced aloud, looking intently at Si, “These are the ex-pirates now working for the EPA. If there is one thing a pirate hates, it’s squealers” she spoke in a tone that was sweet, but with a hidden threat that was not lost on Si.

Sensing the danger, Si pulled his gun from within his coat, aiming the barrel at the young girl. He pulled the trigger, and smiled, for at least a split second.

Nothing happened.

The girl smiled as she moved to stand directly over Si’s slumped body. “Now that wasn’t very nice” she said, before opening her backpack to reveal another machine, “I have an EMP thumper that blocks electronic weapons” she explained. Si groaned, tossing the gun aside.

“You bitch” he grumbled. The girl giggled, before delivering a vicious kick to the man’s chest, “By the way, my name is Scandal” she said, looming over the man, “You should not have tried to find Uncle Pete.” As she spoke, Scandal clicked her heels and a blade came out of the front of her boot. She kicked the already injured man again, this time with the blade unsheathed. It stabbed him in his side. She withdrew her foot, and delivered another kick, then another in quick succession. Si grunted in pain at the first few stabs, however after a few more he went silent. “That’s for trying to find my Uncle” Scandal said, in between kicks, “That’s for telling me to go away” she kicked again, “That’s for wrecking my teddy bear” she kicked again, harder this time, causing more blood to pour from the man’s chest. “That’s for meeting in this shit-hole” she kicked him in the face, cutting an even deeper wound to match the scar Si already had marring his lip. “And that is for pulling a gun on me” she delivered a final kick to the man’s groin.

After finishing her gruesome attack, Scandal removed the lollipop from her mouth. “It’s lost its taste” she frowned disgustedly, throwing the sweet at the body of the burly man she had just defaced. As Scandal fetched another lollipop, she pulled a comm device from her coat. “Now what shall I do with the other one?” she asked the comm. Scandal listened to the instructions as they were given to her by the machine, before making a move to act. Taking a lipstick-sized tube from her bag, she moved over to where Frank lay unconscious. A small light emanated from the tubular device, which she used to laser-cut the words EPA SQUEALER onto the man’s forehead.

Once that was done, Scandal replaced the tube back in her bag, then took out her phone. She took a few pictures of the two men, before sending them to Pete, to enjoy at his leisure. With that done, her job was over, and Scandal skipped off home.