BOB's Bar (Tales From The Multiverse Book 2) Page 16

  “No Coke?” Bethany Anne asked. She sighed when he shook his head.

  “What did ye drink first?” Artur asked. “Personally, I’d have tanned the lot o’ them and woken up four days later on another feckin’ planet.”

  “And dip into future profits? Are you mad?” Standish wagged a finger at him. “First thing was an inventory. I was noting the vintage of the top-shelf absinthe when things went pear-shaped. You all know the sound of a Xaros drone, right?”

  The people around the table shook their collective heads.

  “Lucky punks. There’s this...thrum. You feel it in your bones. Gets down into your soul. I heard it from outside the shop. Felt it. We thought all the drones were gone…wiped when we took Ceres. I’m standing there with a bottle of Green Fairy in my hand when the shadow of a drone goes past the door…that I’d left open like a moron. Oval body the size of a small car, articulated stalks. God, I hate those things, even now that they’re all gone.”

  “These Xaros left a guard on a liquor store?” Kelsey asked.

  “No! I mean, I would have, but my guess is it detected the fire when I drove off the maneaters and came to investigate. Put me in a real pickle. Do I open fire and finish it off? That’ll get attention. Maybe it would’ve just left me alone and wandered off.”

  “The drones wiped out Earth and you were going to just let it go?” Kelsey asked.

  “We could handle one drone. Hell, we had Armor and close air support on standby just in case this happened, but I wasn’t going to hit the panic button just yet. The cavalry would know about my find.”

  “You put your life in danger for alcohol,” Kelsey said evenly.

  Standish pointed at the drink her hand.

  “Hypocrite! This was the last bastion of potent potables, and I wasn’t going to put it at risk just to scratch one more drone. At least, that was my plan. The drone had others. Thing’s stalks pierced the front wall and hooked around. Ripped a hole right through. I saw it through all the dust, shell covered with moving fractals, stalk tips glowing with disintegration beams about to turn me into ash. Or worse, damage the product all around me.

  “I was not about to let humanity’s last chance for a stiff drink die right then and there. I grabbed a bottle of Midori and—” Standish swiped the green liquor off the table before BOB could stop him and held it behind his head. He swung it forward…and kept a firm grip on the bottle’s neck.

  “Sacrificed the last drop of Japan’s best green stuff. It burst against the drone’s shell. I gave it a quick burst from my flamethrower, and the whole drone went up like a torch. It pulled back to the parking lot—got lucky there—stalks going every which way as it tried to put itself out. I ran after it and popped my Ka-Bar bayonet out of my gauntlet housing.”

  Standish mimed a haymaker punch.

  “And stabbed that flaming son of a bitch. Cracked the armor clean open. One twist and a tug later, and the front end came off. Pyrite-looking innards spilling out all over the place, then it ashed like they always do when destroyed. No evidence it ever existed…which was fine by me.”

  “You killed this drone with a bottle of Midori and a knife?” Amanda asked. “Either they’re not that tough, or you’re really good.”

  “A Pyrrhic victory.” Standish clutched the liquor bottle to his chest and gave it a gentle pat. “I can still smell the smoke. You have no idea how many requests my black market got for Midori, and it was gone for good. Extinct.”

  “So you claimed that store as salvage and reopened it?” Floribeth asked.

  “No. I loaded the expensive stuff into a delivery truck out back, used my armor’s batteries to juice it up, and drove it to a hidden ammo bunker near Piestewa Peak. Made trips all night until the shelves were bare.”

  “No one noticed you were gone?” Rika asked.

  “The butter bar in charge of the sweep left his manning roster unsecured while he was eating and somehow my name got erased. I was back by dawn, with none the wiser. Then I went to a computer tech with some off-the-books skills, gave him a shot bottle of Jamieson whiskey to open up the records archives, and erased the ammo bunker with my stash from digital existence. Then…I waited.”

  “What? You didn’t cash in right then and there?” Rika asked.

  “The market was in flux. Everyone in the fleet working like mad to get Phoenix livable for the civvies, then I got dragged off to that mess on Anthalas and every other crisis from then to the end of the Ember War. I couldn’t start an empire in the middle of all that. Had to concentrate on beating the Xaros. If we lost that fight, it wouldn’t matter how big my nest egg was. Besides, along the way I found the leverage to make,” he cleared his throat, “Standish Liquors a reality.”

  “You managed to afford that ridiculous timepiece and a gold threaded shirt that makes me want to barf on one stash of alcohol?” Charline asked.

  “Who would’ve known we’d pick up Omnium tech during the war that would allow us to make molecule-perfect copies of items? Just how I got the patent for every bottle of high-end liquor in existence was a mystery for many years. Now you know.” Standish plopped down on his chair and set the bottle of Midori on the table. He was about to twist the cap open when he frowned and pushed it back to BOB.

  Interlude

  BOB felt a tickle of pleasure as Standish pushed the Midori back. It would have laughed if it could have.

  BOB was not capable of experiencing humor—although it knew humor existed and had long wished it could. It seemed so...enjoyable. The Collector needed a tool that could adjust and adapt in order to maximize each mission, hence BOB’s self-awareness and basic reprogramming capabilities.

  BOB might not have been created with a sense of humor, but it self-programmed an approximation of it. If questioned by the Collector, BOB would respond that the ability helped it relate to the subjects better, which in turn allowed it to collect more and better data. And that wasn’t a lie. It was, as the humans called it, “shading the truth.”

  Lying and humor. Are these humans infecting me?

  “Good to see that the spirit of capitalism is alive and well even when the human race is all but wiped out,” Amanda commented with a smile.

  “I’d like to say it would be different on my world,” Ridge chimed in, “but I suspect alcohol would be highly valuable there too if nonhuman creatures took over the world. I’ve never met an alien, but dragons are a concern. I can’t say that lighting a dragon on fire would do anything, though. They’d enjoy it, like a cat in a sunbeam.”

  “Sure as stars makes me glad we don’t have aliens where I’m from.” Rika shook her head as she loaded up another nacho. “Us humans are bad enough as it is.” She was about to bite down on the chip but paused, glancing at Amanda. “You’ve not gone yet. I bet you have a tale or two.”

  Dragon Race

  By Andrew Dobell

  “Sure I do. All right, I’ve got a fun one for you,” Amanda answered, looking around the table.

  Returning here had been unexpected, that was for sure, but things were different this time. This time when the energy that had pulled her into the bar the last time flared again, she’d recognized it and was ready for it.

  She could have fought it off, resisted the pull of the bar, but honestly, she was curious. Why was she being pulled in again, and who would she meet this time? Meeting Tanis, Cal, and the others had opened her eyes to a wider Multiverse once she’d broken through the mental block the bar had placed on those memories.

  They’d felt like a dream for a while, like some crazy imagined experience... but not. Now she knew they were real, and when the bar had reached out for her this time, she’d been honestly curious to see who she’d meet.

  But she had no intentions of letting the fog that had clouded her mind and hidden the memories of it do the same again. Her Aegis—her Magical shield, which was always protecting her—fought off the effects of the bar, resisting the subtle mind control that permeated the place, controlled by the automaton, BOB.
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  But she’d been here before. She knew it was basically safe, so she went along with it, knowing what was expected of her. She’d wondered if it would be the same group of people she’d met last time, but apart from Bethany Anne and BOB, of course, everyone else was new.

  From the moment she’d entered the bar, she’d used her Magic to split her mind, fragmenting it into many parts, creating a hive mind—each a mind of its own, but working as a whole for the greater good. One of these minds controlled her body and spoke with the other guests, while her other minds focused on the environment and the people who’d been pulled into the bar with her. Using several sets of Magical senses, she observed, analyzed, and assessed everything.

  Her Magical Aetheric Sight showed her so much more of the world around her. She could see the molecular structure of the table, the floor, the walls—the entire construct that surrounded them. She could see the bodily structure of BOB and the guests, looking both through and into them. It was interesting to observe these other guests of the bar and see who they really were. Last time, the effects of the bar had addled her mind; made her accept it all and not question it, which was of course what BOB wanted. She could see that energy now, that subtle mind control that BOB controlled, and watched it seep into the minds of those around her, pushing and molding them. Making them relax and open up so their minds would tell BOB what he wanted to hear.

  She enjoyed assessing the other guests, looking into them and making sure they were not a threat to her. Kelsey, for instance, was enhanced with strengthened muscles and bones, a pharmacological implant with drugs to enhance her further, and some kind of neural net threaded through her brain as well. Blackhawk was similar. A genetically-enhanced human bred for killing. Rika was mostly artificial, with very little flesh and blood left within her at all.

  What Rika did have, like some of the others including Blackhawk and Bethany Anne, was another intelligence within her. An AI who spoke into their minds. Amanda could see the AI embedded in Rika’s brain as a lattice of glowing energy, interwoven with and connected to Rika’s mind and body.

  Listening to the thoughts of these people and their AIs was fascinating and gave her an insight into who they were. None of them had any kind of mental shield like Amanda’s Aegis, which wasn’t surprising since they weren’t Magi, meaning their thoughts were just there, waiting to be read by anyone. Reading the thoughts of an AI was not much different to reading those of a human. After all, what were thoughts and emotions? They were nothing but electrical signals interpreted by their brains. AIs’ were little different. The brain might not be flesh and blood, but the signals were the same.

  She wasn’t the only one in here capable of telepathic communication, though, and it was with more than a little interest that she looked into the minds of Brutus the telepathic cat and Ridge’s sword, which turned out to be intelligent and kept talking to him throughout their time here.

  Her assessment of the other guests led her to the conclusion that, although they were interesting and fascinating people, none of them were much of a threat to her. Some of them had powers, such as Bethany Anne’s link to some extra-dimensional energy, and she was unsure what the sword on Ridge’s belt could do, but ultimately, none of them would be a threat to her should things turn violent. That was unlikely though, mainly because of the mind control BOB exerted over them.

  It was in BOB, however, that she was most interested, and she took a great deal of pleasure in looking into its mind and trying to figure out what the purpose of these gatherings might be. It was gathering data for someone called the Collector, as it turned out, although details about this Collector were scarce in BOB’s mind. It was a go-between, a tool this Collector used, and it was certainly good at its job. She noticed that BOB could detect her Magic and the Essentia she used to make it work, but other than measuring the spike of energy that originated from her, it was clear it had no idea what she was doing, or that its techniques of mind control were not affecting her. She was keen to keep it that way, too, so she played along, laughing and joking and being a little lascivious as she continued her tall tale.

  “I mean, those are some good stories, but are they ‘Riding a dragon in space’ good?”

  “I’ve ridden a dragon before,” Ridge replied.

  “I’ve seen dragon mechs,” Rika answered. “Ridden them in space too, which is a bit terrifying.”

  “I wish I had a dragon,” Kelsey sighed. “A little one that could still breathe fire but would fit in my quarters.”

  “How do they fly in space?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “Dragons in space, me arse,” Artur commented.

  Amanda sighed. “Right, well, good to know, Artur.”

  “Dragons? In space?” Floribeth asked, the look on her face incredulous.

  “Yep. That was my reaction when I saw one for the first time. It doesn’t register at first. You think you’re going crazy, but, at least in my universe, dragons exist, and they can fly through space. They’re also pretty fecking scary when there’s fifty of them attacking your city and burning it to the ground.”

  “I can sympathize,” Ridge answered, a haunted look in his eyes.

  “The ones in my world are huge. Over fifty meters in length, at least, and I’m sure there are much bigger ones out there. Just be glad they’re only in my universe… Most of the time…”

  “Most of the time?” Rika asked.

  “Yeah, well, let’s just say that visiting BOB’s Bar isn’t the only trip across the Multiverse I’ve taken.”

  “Getting to be an old hand at this shit?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “Kinda. I paid a visit to Cal and Splurt after tracking one of these Dragons to their universe, and I recently visited Tanis as well.”

  “Fucking hell,” Bethany Anne grimaced.

  “Cal and Splurt? Holy shoite,” Artur exclaimed.

  “You know them?” Amanda replied, looking between Artur and Rika.

  “Unfortunately, I do,” Artur said.

  “Damn,” Rika pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “I figured you’d just met Tanis here, not that you’d come into our...universe...to visit.”

  “Originally, yes, I did meet Tanis and the others here, but it opened up some strange possibilities afterwards. It’s interesting that BOB pulled you, a friend of Tanis, here this time. Makes me wonder what this is all about,” Amanda said, gesturing around the bar. “Oh, BOB, before I forget, I meant to tell you Void said to say hi,” she said to BOB with a smile.

  BOB merely inclined its head, but didn’t reply. Amanda eyed it curiously for a second. Void, her friend and fellow Multiverse-traversing Magus, had mentioned to her that she had met BOB before, so she was curious to see what its reaction would be. To be honest, Amanda had expected something more telling but she guessed it was not to be, and she returned her attention back to Rika.

  “So, how do you know Tanis?”

  “I helped her out of a tight situation recently,” Rika explained.

  “Awesome.”

  “So, Dragons… in space,” Cain cut in.

  “Sorry, getting a little off topic there. Yes. Okay, so recently, I’ve found that the general direction of my life has moved away from Earth and I’m traveling around in space a lot more these days following an attack on Earth by some Void Dragons. That’s a long story, so I won’t get into that here.”

  “Why not? Sounds interesting,” Ridge said.

  “I guess,” Amanda replied, shrugging, “but that’s not the story I want to tell. Anyway, so Earth in my universe is in the twenty-first century, so, you know, smartphones, global warming, an orange dude in the Whitehouse.”

  “What does some white house have to do with anything?” Rika asked.

  “Is he Artur’s cousin?” Ridge asked.

  Bethany Anne snickered.

  “I’m blue, not feckin’ orange,” Artur replied.

  “I love a lot of the entertainment vids from that period,” Kelsey remarked. “So retro. And the superhero movi
es are amazing.”

  “Yeah, they’re great. I need to figure out how to do some of those Doctor Strange hand movements,” Amanda agreed. “So, the people of Earth think they’re alone in the universe, and we, the Magi, work hard to keep it that way until humanity is ready to take to the stars in their own time. But with the possibilities that Magic brings, the Magi have moved into space. In fact, they moved into space over ten thousand years ago, and have been expanding their empire and fighting against the forces of darkness out there ever since.”

  “Magic?” Floribeth asked.

  “Oh, right, I have to prove that to you all again, don’t I?”

  “Kinda,” Rika answered. “That’s a big pill to swallow.”

  “Deadman always says there’s no such thing as magic,” Artur replied. “Or… wait. No. Maybe he says there is such a thing as magic.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t really listen.”

  “Are you going to change into Splurt again?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “Heh. No, not this time. Look, what I call Magic is basically just tapping into a fundamental energy of the Multiverse and bending it to my will. Kind of like what being ascended might be like, if that makes it easier?”

  “Aaaah, yes,” Rika answered.

  “Means I can do stuff like this,” Amanda continued and Ported across the room with a whip-snap of air. One moment she was sat at the table, the next she was across the room, then she Ported again and appeared on the bar. Then she appeared hovering in mid-air elsewhere, and then Ported back into her seat.

  There were a few gasps around the table as she worked her Magic.

  Kelsey stared at Amanda, her mouth open. “That. Was. AWESOME! Where exactly can someone go to learn how to do that?”

  “Well Kelsey, in my universe, it’s something you’re born with.” Amanda shrugged. “I can also conjure things,” she said, and a selection of nibbles, including peanuts, wasabi shells, potato chips, and Bombay mix appeared in bowls on the table as Amanda pulled on the veil of Essentia—Magical energy—to work her Magic.