Page 39 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
M an, Valtens. I probably shouldn’t hate someone I’d never met and hadn’t done anything to me, but I hated him. And he’d only not done anything to me yet because he needed a ride home. Plus, everything I’d heard about him was just that he was an entitled dick.
“So, after you’ve had your coffee and preferably before any more sex and bonding happens, I need you in Big Daddy to get some of your blood,” Omi said.
“That’s kind of intimate. You didn’t even buy me dinner first.”
“I’ll buy you the best street food my planet has to offer when we get there, but you smelled like sex and my brother for an entire day, which is a little gross, so you owe me.”
“Good point. How much blood do you need?”
“I know what it is on my planet, but not what the units would be on yours.”
“A pint,” Enix said.
“Thanks, brother. If you’re all bonded to my brother’s Zovea, then you all have to deal with me being your sister,” Omi said.
“Good. I’ve got two of them to help me beat the shit out of stupid males now,” Torrek said.
“No, wait! I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Run off and do your doctor thing,” Torrek said happily.
“I’m going to find the most awful thing on this planet and use it to get revenge, brother.”
“Let’s go take some of my blood,” I said.
Omi and I snuck off to Big Daddy. I was a lot more aware of my surroundings now that I knew Valtens was close and may have been watching me this entire time. Omi and Torrek had pretty intense senses of smell. She could just smell him, right? I’ll bet he didn’t wash his ass, so maybe I could smell him, too.
Still, this town wasn’t very big. I kept to myself, but I knew most of the faces. I’d made eye contact with all of them, even if we never spoke and I didn’t know their names. I would have recognized the snake eyes and known he was like Kuka. Something wasn’t adding up.
I’d think about that later. Omi led me back to a part of Big Daddy I’d only briefly seen before. I couldn’t say for sure, but a lot of the tech in this room looked like it could eradicate plenty of diseases here on Earth.
“Kuka planned for everything. This med bay has most everything for any situation. He would have put one of these in his designs Valtens stole, but Kuka has enough training that he’d make a passable doctor in an emergency. He’s just not as good as me. Valtens didn’t want to risk bringing anyone who would rat him out if he failed, so he’s got a pretty amazing med bay and no doctor. I’m guessing he had that programming added to Ghol because he thought Ghol would always be loyal. All done.”
“What the fuck? I didn’t even feel it. Most of the time, they warn you so you can prepare for the stick.”
“You can do that, or you can distract the patient by talking and it hurts less.”
“Brilliant. So, if I’m going to your planet, I’m going to need to speak your language. I’m not one of those folks that only speaks one language and expects everyone to know it, even if I’m in their country. I don’t suppose I can get one of those chips you all have?”
“I mean, yeah, it’s simple surgery and I have almost everything I need. It’s going to depend on if Kuka brought any of the chips with him. I wouldn’t say this unless it was true, but Kuka is smarter than I am and he’s pretty considerate for a royal. If anyone was going to bring a spare chip when they travel, it’s going to be him. Help me look.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“The chip itself is tiny. You wouldn’t even be able to feel it under your skin. They are kept in long white tubes to keep them sterile. You won’t be able to read the label without the chip, but look for the tube.”
“So, what is this chip like? Am I going to have subtitles in my brain?”
“It’s like a filter, but it should work with you once Enix gets ahold of it. When someone is speaking, you’re going to hear your native language instead of theirs. It’ll kick in when you go to respond, and you’ll be speaking their language back. Does that change your mind?”
“Fuck no. If I’d gotten to go to college, I wanted to double major in some kind of science and languages. Being able to communicate in all languages would be badass. Wait, is this actual brain surgery?”
“Um, kind of? Once the chip is implanted, I’d have to activate it. You won’t feel it, but tendrils will come out of the chip to fully integrate with your body to do its job. I realize you don’t have this kind of thing on your planet, so you can totally say no. We can teach you the language.”
“Oh, fuck,” I moaned. “I just realized that if I’m Kuka’s Velne, does that make me royalty? That’s a mind fuck, but I have to be able to speak languages on your planet with a perfect accent because all eyes are going to be on me.”
“No offense, but they’d be looking at you anyway because you’re human and from an entirely different galaxy. You’re going to be considered exotic. People would be both fawning and critical of you even if you weren’t with Kuka. And you don’t strike me as the type who gives a shit what other people think.”
“I don’t, but my inner child was heavily bullied and sometimes she does. It’s not just that. I don’t want to be locked inside or joined at the hip with anyone. If I want to go out and buy something or just take a walk to clear my head, I want to be able to do that and properly communicate with people around me.”
“That’s my girl. Look what I found,” Omi said, waving a white tube.
“Sweet! What’s a little brain surgery between sisters?”
“Not brain surgery. Just a little poke,” she said, drawing out a giant needle.
“Shit, this is like that dog I saw getting microchipped, isn’t it?”
“No idea what that means. Lie on the table and sweep your hair off your neck.”
“Intruder! Get the fuck out!” Big Daddy yelled.
Motherfucker.