Galactic High

“What are you up to, Nika?” Jack asked the Kizun quietly as he gave up his seat on the sofa to get himself a drink and stretch his legs. He was still exhausted from not sleeping the previous day, but he resolved to hold on and go to sleep when everybody else did. He was surprised to see the pink-furred kangaroo cat-girl hanging back, still watching the film, which was apparently some kind of romantic musical the mostly female audience voted on. “Not too salty about the game?”

“Hah! Not at all!” The Kizun grinned, sliding a cold beer over to him across the kitchen counter and getting herself one. “Razing your own territory was a brilliant move I didn’t see coming! It denied me the ability to raid it myself and my upkeep was starting to bite me. I had plans to go after Chiyo anyway since I figured she was near her win-condition, but you were the greater threat.”

“It’s a batshit insane game but I’m glad we made it work!” Jack grinned. “And I used to think playing Monopoly with my chickenshit aunts and uncles at Christmas was crazy! At least this was the good kind of insanity!”

“Sephy’ll be happy to hear you say that.” The Kizun nodded with a small smile. “But to answer your question, I’m just…thinking.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed with a sigh after a long pause. “Last night?”

“Partly.” Nika nodded again. “What scares me the most is that we did almost everything right and we still nearly died out there. If Sephy was right about the Trickster being present at the ambush itself, and I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be, then it’s clear the Cult of the Destroyer sought revenge and brought in some of their more powerful assets to do it, which is highly unusual.”

“Why?” Jack asked, taking a sip of his beer. “I would have thought that wanting revenge against a group that took out their leadership at the Pallid Pit was standard for death cultists.”

“Not that,” Nika pointed out. “You saw at the Pit, those Cultists of the Destroyer were normally pretty weak and pathetic, but these guys were highly trained and had the kit to almost kill us. Had it not been for the potions and us going all out we would have died there. We’ve pissed off something big!”

“Malakiel?” Jack asked. “It would explain the robotics and cyber-shit.”

“Possibly,” Nika noted. “Though Devil’s Daughter said their relay was taken out and they wouldn’t be able to operate here for now. At least we didn’t get the ‘assuming manual avatar control’ crap this time…”

“I think for me, the most disturbing thing was who sent us there in the first place,” Jack whispered after taking another deep sip. “We were fully convinced and played for fools by someone looking exactly like that poor man. It was deliberate, and that’s terrifying.”

“Yeah.” The Kizun nodded in agreement, a look of worry to match Jack’s. “I asked around, none of the others here knows what we could have encountered. The only thing we can hope for is that Chiyo can detect them using that goo we recovered, but that’s a long shot.”

“Well at least the rest of the night went well…” Jack replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Fucking corps,” Nika agreed with a snort. “Like we told you before, most are benign, but a foul few are not. All they need to do is stir the pot and the city goes to shit while they jostle for power. Had they not been fucking around we wouldn’t have had to dip through the shit parts of town just to get home, and now that nutjob The Redeemer is after you.”

“He was after me anyway, all that’s changed is he’s more pissed off than he was before. At least I got a scenic tour of the city!” Jack quipped with a cheeky smile, causing Nika to lighten up and chuckle slightly. “And a joyride on a murder-truck!”

“Maybe we should get you a few lessons before you try that again!” The Kizun grinned, playfully poking him in the side.

“Yeah…” Jack sighed, as a particularly cheery, happy-clappy song came on and killed the mood.

“Gods that sounds cringe, let’s take this outside.” Nika indicated the kitchen door, and grabbed a few more beers from the fridge with her tail, noting they were running low.

“You know, it’s funny,” Jack said after a few moments of sitting on the grass. “I’m pretty sure both of us promised Alora to try and not talk about this kind of stuff.

“Hah, yeah,” Nika agreed with a laugh. “You can trust Alora to be the team mother…”

That reminded Jack of something, and he was happy to try and steer the conversation elsewhere. “Speaking of…” he began. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned how you ended up living here, it’s hard to believe we’ve only actually known each other for a few weeks!”

“I know what you mean,” Nika nodded with a grin. “That day when you and Alora walked in on me and Sephy having a pillow fight feels like a lifetime ago! But don’t forget that we’ve been through a lot together despite the time, and that fire forges deep friendships pretty quickly. It’s kind of how we all originally came together to be honest. Sephy and I became friends trying to survive in the city until a couple of years ago when Alora brought us all together for a job.”

“Something dangerous? Why am I not surprised?” Jack snorted in amusement.

“Hah! Sephy and I were definitely surprised back then when the seemingly prim and proper class representative wanted us to help her and Chiyo rob one of the Megacorps!” Nika grinned, shaking with excitement at being the one to tell Jack the story. “We were classmates then too but we didn’t know each other that well, but when the job went really well and we all saw how well we worked together, Alora had already invited us to live with them and we became true friends since! Sephy still thinks it was also partly because both of us were handy at fixing things, but neither of us complained and we moved straight in!”

“Why did Alora even want to rob them?” Jack asked curiously. “Isn’t Sephy normally the one to propose jobs?”

“Sephy likes the excitement and riches from getting up to this kind of stuff, but all of us have our reasons.” Nika shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Alora wanted access to some historical records concerning her family, but the archivist in charge tried to coerce sexual favours from her and refused her access unless she went with it. Needless to say that didn’t happen and they ended up getting heavily punished for it when we robbed them clean.”

“As for me though, sure I have kin on the Ring, but they’re remote and I haven’t spoken to them in years.” Nika shrugged. “There’s nothing there for me. As far as I’m concerned, my family’s here.”

Jack could see in her body language that it was a sore subject for the Kizun, so he didn’t pry any further. He knew that Alora was an exile and Sephy was an orphan, so the lack of parents or guardians should have tipped him off. Was this normal on the Ring?

“Oh, stop looking so awkward!” Nika playfully pushed him. “You were bound to ask me some personal questions at some point, right? Best to be direct with these kinds of things!”

“Hey, it’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it…”

“My clan ran a ranch in a very rural part of the ring. I grew up there as part of a big family and while some of the adults tried, my older siblings and cousins were often recruited into parenting us.” Nika sighed, staring ahead into the night sky. “One day I saw the opportunity to hitch a ride on a shuttle to the city to live a better life and took it. Ghosted the lot of them and never looked back, haven’t heard anything since, and I’m cool with it.”

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear you had to put up with that,” Jack replied sympathetically, not really knowing what else he could say to that.

“It’s all good.” The Kizun shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s in the past and it led me on the path to learn to fight and get an education. As far as I’m concerned, I became the best version of myself by leaving. Besides! Someone has to keep you lot alive!”

She grinned as she playfully poked him in the side, only for Jack to playfully poke back, tickling her. “Oh, it’s on now!” the Kizun exclaimed as she dove at Jack, knocking him over with a laugh as she tried to pin him.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jack grinned back as he managed to get two fingers under the Kizun’s armpit, causing her to squirm away, allowing him to reverse the pin with him on top, though with a yelp felt Nika’s tail wrap around his legs, holding them together as the tip went to work on his stomach.

“No!” Jack laughed as the Kizun wrapped her legs around his waist, making it difficult for him to dislodge himself as Nika tried in vain to hold his arms, rolling them both along the grass as they both jockeyed for dominance. “You’re not winning!”

“Yes!” Nika gasped as they finally stopped, with the Kizun on top. “Yes I am!” She looked down to Jack, excitement plastered on her face, until she saw his head turned with a look of horror.

“Oh? Don’t mind us!” Sephy grinned, taking a video with her commlink as a few other pairs of eyes looked on. “The film’s over! Want to pick another or shall we all join you instead? It looks like you’re having fun!”

*****.

Everyone did both, as it turned out. One of the residents had gotten the idea to stay outside and show the next movie, some kind of adventure film that reminded Jack of the Indiana Jones trilogy, on a projector against one of the district walls, with a set of portable speakers Sephy brought from her ‘loot room’. Everybody had clustered into various groups, sitting or lying down on the grass as they watched. Jack, Nika, Sephy, Alora and Chiyo were sat next to the projector, far enough away from the others to not be overheard, while Dante happily padded between the various groups, revelling in the attention everyone gave him.

“Doesn’t look like we’ve received any proper job requests, but if we get bored we can always check them out. Some of these just look like basic good deeds.” Sephy shrugged. “At least our DataNet page is gaining some traction, I suppose!”

“What kind of jobs?” Jack asked, curiously.

“Latest updates haven’t come through. We had a few troll messages and some idiots thinking we were customer support but…” Sephy began, thumbing through the messages. “One man wants us to deliver flowers to a waitress at a pizza shop, a woman wants us to remove graffiti from a wall near her shop…”

“Crap jobs no self-respecting group of our ability would want to take,” Nika pointed out. “Nowhere near worth the time and resources needed to do them.”

“Yeah, those sound boring, but at least they sound safer than going into the shitty parts of the city.” Jack shrugged. “Maybe some of the others will do them? Every little bit helps, right? And if they can give us five-star reviews or whatever it could lead to better jobs?”

That’s not a bad idea, Jack, Chiyo pointed out. But I wouldn’t recommend it in the current hostile climate. I suspect we will have more luck contacting the people we know to see if they have anything suited for our group.

“There is no rush,” Alora cautioned. “We are sitting here, enjoying a movie, and I have no intention of changing that in the slightest. We still need to properly rest from last night!”

“Yeah,” Sephy agreed. “Another one we got about an hour ago is an old lady who needs help moving a fridge. I almost feel bad about that one. At least most of these look ‘cut-and-pasted’ so there’s probably some more local groups that can help her. Or just ask a neighbour for help.”

Well, if the jobs won’t come to us we can always make plans of our own, Chiyo reasoned. The current conflicts create opportunity…

“You want us to go on a Run, Chiyo?” Sephy asked with an excited grin. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

That is not what I said, Sephy! Chiyo gave the Skritta a mock-unamused look. A potential heist at most. Maybe, but only if we don’t get any jobs or if the opportunity is too good to ignore. If there’s a warehouse or set of offices that have either been abandoned or changed hands due to a takeover, there may be a window of opportunity for us.

“Keep an eye on the news then,” Alora nodded in agreement with Chiyo. “Though I’d prefer a job where we don’t have to do as much legwork.”

“Speaking of, we’ve just had one new one come through with the latest update,” Sephy told them as she read the message. “Good evening, my wife and I are an older couple that read in the local news about a young, heroic Outsider that fought well against the Klowns during their recent attack and we wish to meet him! I would like to watch with your beautiful companions over a few drinks while the Outsider and my wife… what?… eww… EWWWWWWW!”

“By the gods, Sephy!” Alora gasped on catching a glimpse. “Can you please add a filter so we don’t get any more requests like THAT?”

“Let’s not turn it down out of hand!” Nika laughed, holding back tears as she took a look. “How much are the frisky couple offering?”

“I’m suddenly much more open to the idea of a ‘Shadowrun’ or any other similarly dangerous tasks,” Jack quipped on seeing the picture the elderly couple of multi-tentacled squid-like beings had sent them. “I don’t think I’d make a very good prostitute.”

Perhaps Sephy can have a few DataNet scans running overnight? Chiyo suggested, to which Sephy nodded as she immediately began typing.

“Sure, just let me know what keywords you want to add and I’ll take a look.” Sephy shrugged. “But apart from that, what are we doing tomorrow?”

“I’m gonna set up a Deathball game in one of the nearby fields and invite any of our friends that want to come.” Nika grinned. “Since you, Chiyo and Alora have all come up with things for us to do, it’s up to me and Jack to step up!”

Sports, Nika? Chiyo asked, unamused.

“Why not?” Jack asked. “You were happy to do Alora’s yoga thingy!”

“Yoga? You mean the Ri’Gael?” Alora asked Jack, who nodded to confirm upon being reminded, remembering from when they did it that it was a cultural thing for the Eladrie people.

“Relax!” Nika told them all. “I’m gonna tone it down for the wimps! It’s not like we’re gonna run our own version of Hell Ring!”

“Hell Ring?” Jack asked, unamused with his eyebrows raised. “Really? Deathball is one thing but you also have a sport called…Hell Ring? Why am I not surprised!?”

“Let’s not get into that right now.” Alora gave a pained smile, turning to Jack. “Sorry Jack, but you’re going to have to trust me here. Hell Ring isn’t exactly a sport in the way Deathball is, and believe me when I say it really isn’t a pleasant subject.”

“Sorry Alora, you’re right.” Nika nodded apologetically. “Maybe instead you can show us a few of your human sports, Jack? There might be some overlap in how to play them, but it could be fun!”

“Sure!” Jack grinned, though at the back of his mind only got more curious about ‘Hell Ring’. Probably some kind of bloodsport, and a bad one considering even the locals seemed to find it abhorrent. “Football is easy enough to grasp since it’s just moving a ball using only your feet, though I never really supported a team back home and I don’t know anything about the ‘offside’ rule. It’s probably the safest one I can think of, the rest involve bats, sticks or charging into each other like maniacs!”

“Ooooh! I like the sound of those!” Nika perked up. “Tell us about the ones with bats!”

“It’s not what you think!” Jack chuckled. “There’s a few ones that involve having a ball thrown at you at speed, and you use the bat to hit the ball as far away as you can. What happens next depends on the game but it usually involves a lot of running. The team that bats has to run a distance, the team that throws has to stop them somehow.”

That sounds quite anticlimactic, Chiyo pointed out, trying not to sound too interested in the human sports, and failing. Do they not use the bats in combat at all?

“Afraid not.” Jack grinned, before remembering something. “Oh, you’ll like ice hockey! We didn’t really have it in my country but I’m pretty sure they got into a lot of fights!”

“Why ice?” Sephy asked, having been prompted by the talk of ice hockey to grab another ice-cold soda out of the cooler they had brought with them. The Skritta was looking as confused as the rest of the girls, wondering what the ‘ice’ aspect of the sport could be.

“So normal hockey has two teams with sticks that have to use them to whack a ball into the opponent’s goal,” Jack explained as simply as he could. “Now replace the floor with slippery ice, give the players shoes with blades on the bottom they use to slide across said ice, and encourage the players to get into fights with the other team whenever possible, and you basically have ice hockey.”

“Cool!” Nika exclaimed, eyes wide. “I have so got to try that shit!”

“We have some other violent games as well, however they’re not exactly mainstream or considered traditional ‘sports’, but they are part of the history of my country and I’ve always wanted to try them ever since I first heard of them!” Jack smiled on seeing Nika’s enthusiasm, and was eager to tell her. “The Atherstone Ball Game’s been going on for centuries, and is basically an all-out melee, fighting for a ball where there aren’t any rules except for not being allowed to kill anyone, and then there’s a really insane one called ‘Cheese-Rolling’....”

I’m sorry, did you say ‘Cheese-Rolling’? Chiyo asked curiously, unsure if she heard Jack correctly.

“Now you’re just joking!” Alora scoffed, but Jack shook his head emphatically.

“Nope! It’s a real thing!” he cackled, more than happy to give the girls a taste of craziness from Earth after everything he’d seen here. “A bunch of people get to the top of a really steep hill, then a big wheel of cheese is rolled down, and everyone races downhill to either catch it or be the first one to cross the finishing line at the bottom of the hill.”

He held out his hand to the girls at a steep angle to represent the hill he saw on TV, and burst out laughing when he saw their shocked faces.

That’s dangerous! Chiyo proclaimed. All for a wheel of cheese!? How many people died?

“I’m pretty sure nobody died at either of them from what I recall.” Jack smirked. “Though you get a lot of injuries and you have a bunch of medics on standby! I think I saw on the news that a woman won one of the races while she was unconscious and only found out when she woke up in hospital!”

“I’m surprised she woke up at all…” Alora gasped.

“Well, there are volunteers to catch anyone struggling.” Jack shrugged. “And that’s just my country! There are others as well, like the ‘Bull Run’ in Spain where a bunch of angry bulls are let loose to chase people through city streets!

What’s a Bull? Chiyo asked.

“Um…” Jack thought for a moment, then pointed at Dante. “Imagine an animal several times the size of Dante, but much more muscular and with two sharp horns. You weren’t with us when we went to feed some of the animals at the Animal Sanctuary but they were about the size of the biggest ones there.

“Oh crap!” Sephy gasped with amusement. “I’m guessing that’s a recipe for disaster…”

“Yup!” Jack nodded. “I’m pretty sure people have actually died during this one, usually getting gored by the horns…”

“And to think you were acting like a fish out of water!” Nika grinned, borrowing an expression Jack had used a few times before. “Deep down you humans are just like us!”

“Hah, maybe,” Jack admitted with a nod. “I guess that’s partly why I finally just went with the whole ‘Deathball’ thing. It’s dangerous, but it gave me a hell of a rush when we did it!”

Are you sure it’s not because you ended up getting handsy with Luvia? Chiyo teased all of them with a mischievous smile, as several awkward looks were exchanged.

“Hey, I didn’t realise we’d be facing Luvia when I signed up!” Jack snorted in amusement.

“Yeah, if you’re so worried about Jack getting manhandled, maybe you should join the team and cover his ass!” Nika smirked.

No way! I’m not joining your team! Chiyo shook her head vehemently.

Suddenly, Sephy’s commlink started chirping, and she checked the name of the caller with a confused look. Quickly, the Skritta excused herself to slip back into the house in order to answer it without being overheard by everyone else.

Five minutes later, Sephy came back, with a conflicted look on her face.

“What’s up?” Nika asked, as the Skritta sat down.

“We’ve got a possible job, with a time limit of a few days…” Sephy didn’t look too happy about that for some reason, which set them all on edge

“Okay.” Alora nodded, unsure what was wrong. “What’s the catch?”

“That’s the thing.” Sephy sighed. “It was Tagrilla that called me.”

That was the slicer that sold us out to House Mal’Kar during the Pallid Pit Run, right? Chiyo asked to confirm, and Sephy nodded.

“Fuck that!” Jack exclaimed, and Nika nodded her head in agreement. “The timing of this…”

“I know, I know!” Sephy held up her hands placatingly. “And normally I’d tell him to fuck off...”

What did he tell you? Chiyo asked, curiously.

“He says he knows we’ve been looking for leads on fabricators, and he knows the location of three Lesser ones. He gave me enough evidence to prove he’s not lying.”

“What!?” Nika gasped. “Shit, I’d normally say no to working with this guy ever again, but the opportunity to get ourselves a fabricator is too good to ignore!”

“This sounds like another trap in the making,” Jack warned. “He’s betrayed us before, and after last night?!”

“What is he asking in return for the information, Sephy?” Alora asked slowly, holding a hand out to calm everyone down.

“He wants at least one fabricator for himself, and is willing to directly work with us to a mutually beneficial goal,” Sephy replied. “However he wants us to run another job first to ‘build trust’ and ‘perform a public service’. Time limit of a few days.”

“Is he just saying that to get us to do the first job for him?” Nika asked. “Then he can just ghost us, right?”

“Even if he does, I think this might be worth it, even though we know you dislike wetwork, Alora,” Sephy retorted. “He wants us to raid another slicer that’s been running a scamming operation, apparently they’ve been targeting elderly victims that have family members involved in the latest conflicts. Most of these families are probably alive and well realistically, but in the heat of the moment the victims don’t know that. The main slicer confirmed to be part of the operation has got a bounty on him, wanted dead. The Church of Tyrus in particular wants their scamming records and is willing to pay a bonus for that, so even if Tagrilla is just using us we can still get a payday. Don’t forget that I have a lot of dirt on Tagrilla, and I think this time he may be giving it to us straight. However, obviously I’ve been wrong before, so…”

“I trust you,” Jack spoke up, “Even if I don’t trust this asshole.”

“Agreed,” Alora added. “We will need to work out the details, but I don’t want to do that right now.”

“Yeah…” Jack grinned, “The night is still young!”