Page 26 of Time Traveling Space Bastards

I was pretty sheltered as a child. My parents tried to prepare us to rule areas they wouldn’t let us go because it was dangerous. This was one of those areas on this planet. If they knew I was a prince, they would try to kidnap me and ransom me to my parents.

But I wasn’t a prince here. I was a random male on the street with his friends, wearing a strange garment that said Sperm Bomb on it. I could basically do whatever I wanted within reason. I didn’t particularly want to be king. I wanted to time travel and have adventures. I just knew Valtens would be terrible for our planet.

This street had garbage everywhere, and I was fairly sure people were urinating in public. We weren’t alone for very long. I could make out a crowd further down the road and a few people were walking towards us. They were on some primitive travel device that seemed to have no motor and could only move by kicking at the ground.

It didn’t seem very stable and there was no protection. It was just a tiny flat thing with wheels that they stood on. It hit a piece of garbage and his whole body pitched at Omi. She might have been considered scrawny for our planet, but she was still a Saki. She easily caught him and set him on his feet. He looked up at her like he was seeing the stars for the first time.

“I think I’m in love,” he sighed.

Yeah, Omi tended to have that effect on men, which drove Torrek insane. I guess human males weren’t immune either. And Baxter was right. They didn’t think we were from another planet. They thought Omi paid a lot of money to look like this. Torrek let out a little growl, but he didn’t throw this male through a wall. We needed to figure out where Owen was, and Omi would just turn around and send Torrek flying after him.

“Where you headed, stranger?” she purred.

“Oh, my god, I love your accent. Are you British?”

“What’s a British?” Omi asked.

“Hey, what’s that big crowd doing down there?” Baxter asked.

“Ugh. It’s the rich kids. They bring their fancy cars to our neighborhood so they can use the main drag for street racing. They don’t give a shit about the people who live here. We can’t call the cops because they have someone with a scanner so they can scatter if they hear the cops are coming. When the cops get here and they’re gone, they swear they smell weed and start searching our apartments.”

I got the basic concept of that. My brother did something similar with much more advanced methods of travel. So, Owen didn’t give his alibi the night Baxter was murdered because he didn’t want his criminal activities to stop.

But if they could have ruled Owen out, they would have had no reason to compromise the case to protect him. I could spend my time worrying about how I was going to save her and still know to come back and save her.

“I’m actually okay with Torrek killing Owen,” I said.

“Ugh. He’s the one that brought all this to my hood. He’s running the entire show, and he’s making a ton of money off of it. There’s an entry fee to join and an entry fee to watch. The winner gets a prize and bragging rights, but Owen keeps most of the money. And does he ever invest it in bettering the neighborhood he’s racing in? No. I don’t know what he’s doing with the money, but it’s not helping the people whose lives and properties his putting in danger!”

Enix started laughing. He didn’t laugh like that ever. I knew that laugh very well. I did it when I figured something out. Baxter did it, too, when she came up with a plan. Was Enix…plotting?

“So, it would be very messy to murder Owen in front of all of these witnesses and he’s an asshole, but he’s not a murderer. That said, he should be punished for his crimes, so I scanned the data until I located where he was keeping his money. I liberated him of those funds and set up a nonprofit to help this community. Congratulations, human. You’re in charge of it unless you want to pass that along to someone else.”

“I’m not even old enough to buy alcohol,” he gulped.

“How old are you?” Omi demanded.

“I just turned eighteen.”

“And you can’t drink? How primitive.”

“We could always bend the rules and walk over to the bar on the corner, you order them, and I pay for them,” he said, hopefully.

“I’d break you in half.”

“I’m happy with dying like that.”

“You’re cute. Do you realize you’ve just been given a lot of money to improve things here?”

“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 over how it 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.