Andrew Mackay - Pink Symphony

“There, you’re all set.”

Bonnie looked down in time for Tripp to smile at her from between her legs, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“While you’re down there?” Bonnie chuckled at her own joke.

“Very funny,” Tripp pushed himself upright and held out his palm, “Test it out?”

She grabbed his hand in hers, standing to her feet. She looked down her midriff and swiveled her new right knee left and right, ensuring the device worked. “Feels great.”

Tripp smiled obliquely. Something was bothering him.

“What’s up?”

“I’m sorry, Bonnie.”

“What for?”

“Just, you know… the whole Androgyne thing . USARIC has a lot to answer for.”

“Oh, that?” Bonnie hopped back to the chair and rammed the calf on the armrest. She arched her back down and grabbed her knees, squinting at her new toe. “I’ve decided I don’t care any longer.”

The end of her boot unraveled to the tune of mechanical switches. A barrel formed at the end.

“You don’t?”

“Why should I?” Bonnie whacked the side of her hand on a lever on the side of her leg, arming the device. “I’m as human as you or anyone else when you think about it. One thing I don’t understand, though?”

“What’s that?”

“If I’m really a series three unit, why do I need the N-Vigorate chamber? Can’t I recharge during power down?”

Tripp walked over to the door and pulled out a blast sheet from the hinge, “Your battery took some damage, Bonnie. Once we’re up and running fully, we’ll need to take a look inside and see if we can fix it.”

Bonnie nodded at the sheet, “Can you set up the target?”

“Sure.”

Tripp clamped the free end to the wall. The image resembled the common dart board, complete with a bullseye. The USARIC logo stood proudly across the top.

“This okay for you?”

“That’s great, step away,” Bonnie pressed her elbow to the adjacent arm rest and took hold of her thigh, “I may be synthetic. But my organs are real. My brain is real. I remember everything I need to.”

“That’s very true,” Tripp was relieved that Bonnie had become accustomed to her existence. “You’re more human than human, in some respects.”

The bullseye focused into view at the end of her brand new limb, “You know it.”

Tripp offered her some sympathy, “Sometimes I wish every time I went to sleep I could forget.”

Bonnie held out her tongue, taking careful aim at the bullseye on the sheet.

“Be careful what you wish for, Healy.”

Bonnie fired off a blast at the sheet. Tripp jumped back as the bullet burst against the bulletproof sheet and vaporized into a thousand pieces.

“Direct hit,” Bonnie smiled and stomped her new foot to the ground.

“Wow. That new leg of yours really kicks ass,” Tripp calm his breathing down and approached the sheet. “Umm…”

“What?”

A bullet hole spat out smoke right in the middle of the USARIC logo – her intended target, and a statement well and truly made.

“Angry much?”

“As I said. Direct hit .”

Tripp’s forearm buzzed. The three tattooed lines swirled around to form a name: “Wool ar-Ban.”

“Who is it?” Bonnie asked.

“It’s Wool. Must be an update on Jelly,” he ran his fingers across the ink on his forearm, “Wool?

“Tripp, please?” Wool’s strained cries shot out of his wrist.

“Yes, Wool. I read you.”

“She’s sick, Tripp. Really sick…”

“Where are you?” Tripp’s waved Bonnie over toward him.

“Outside Medix,” Wool’s voice croaked over the transmission, “It’s over for her. I need you come here.”

“What do you mean she’s sick?” Tripp shot Bonnie a look of urgency, “She’s crying,” he mouthed.

Bonnie raised her eyebrows with suspicion, “Crying?”

“She’s all over the p-place, Tripp. I…”

“—Wool, stay right where you are. Don’t do anything.”

“She’s in s-so much pain, I need to—”

“Wool. No. For God’s sake, don’t do anything hasty. Stay where you are.”

Tripp brushed the palm of his hand across his forearm, cutting off the call. “We need to get to Medix. Right now.”

“Is she okay?”

“You heard everything I did.”

Tripp pulled the door open and stormed into the walkway with Bonnie.

It was only a two minute walk across the level three gantry from N-Vigorate to Medix. In this very moment, it felt at least three times longer than usual.

Despite the earlier otherworldly happenings, the ship was once again intact. It was as if the cracks and damage had never occurred. A long, distant virus-fueled nightmare.

No creaking, no weird sounds. By all accounts, everything seemed just fine. The ship’s engine was alive – the vibrations that rocked the Opera Beta’s interiors provided a welcome and familiar comfort.

That was all Tripp and Bonnie were able to enjoy as they hightailed it across the metal grills on the ground. Plumes of steam shot out around their boots as they snaked around the corner. They prepared themselves for whatever was happening to Wool.

Bonnie eyed around the pipes on the walls, remembering what she’d heard about the ship falling apart. “I don’t get it, Tripp.”

“What don’t you get?”

“Botanix leads out into that weird, pink place. The one with the creature things. Why is everything back to normal?”

“I don’t know, Bonnie.”

“For our assumed captain you sure don’t know very much.”

Tripp couldn’t take Bonnie’s inadvertent rudeness any longer and stopped on the spot, “Bonnie.”

Tripp ran his knuckle across his freshly-formed five o’clock shadow. His finger inadvertently brushed against his earlobe – just in time for Bonnie to catch the black text behind it, tucked out-of-sight above his jawline.

A familiar company by the name of Manning/Synapse.

“Tripp?” she smiled at him.

“Don’t play the dummy android with me, Bonnie. You made be more advanced than the rest of us—”

“— Au contraire ,” she said with side order of snark.

“What’s that meant to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“No, seriously. What did you mean by that?”

“Drop it, Healy,” she nodded up at the far end of the walkway, “Enough pillow talk. Let’s get to Wool before she does something stupid.”

In any ordinary situation Baldron would have to use the primary airlock to exit the spacecraft. Harnessing the weightlessness of space, he’d use the outer-suit thrusters to “fly” along the exterior of the ship to the fat end to attend to the ship’s thrusters. But this was no ordinary situation. Being grounded on Pink Symphony proved to be a much quicker prospect for fixing them.

Engine & Payload, much like the other chambers on the ship, could be reached by using Opera Beta’s lone elevator. Room enough for ten passengers.

The metal cage whizzed down the circular tube.

Jaycee and Baldron each carried a large nuclear canister in their arms. Being close to seven feet in height and built like a tornado fused with a bull, Jaycee barely registered the weight of his nuke.

Baldron, on the other hand, felt the need to place the end of his canister to the floor and rest the tip against the wall of the elevator.

“How many times have you done this before?” Jaycee asked, turning his head away from the whizzing of the panel lights sprawling up and down across his helmet’s visor.

“At least a dozen. Delicacy is key, here.”

“Like dropping the end on the ground like a big fairy, you mean?” Jaycee chuckled through his internal radio microphone.