“Hey Slaughter Man, you okay?” asked Razz.
The Sticker opened his eyes. They felt thick and greasy. The sides of his face stung. His nose wasn’t much better. Probably broken in twenty places, or at least it felt that way. He couldn’t breathe through it, so he had to suck in a big breath through his mouth. The slight whistling between his missing front tooth sent a reminder to him of that Joxle beast, how it had picked him up by the neck and slammed him to the floor like some exotic pro-wrestler from beyond the stars. The Sticker had got him good in the end. The creature was smart, but he got it to fall into a hatch for a service tunnel. He bled it out right there. Joxles bled red, just like cows. That was a bit of a nostalgic moment for the Sticker, though it was hard to enjoy after having his ass kicked by something roughly twice the size of a sumo.
“You can just rest there. Timothy and I got this one today.”
“Nah,” said the Sticker. He pushed up on his arm and it felt bruised from shoulder to knuckles. Bruised to the bone.
Razz’s broad African features could hardly be seen in the room. The cabin lights had not powered up yet. “You gotta know something…”
The Sticker lied back down. “Yeah?”
“We were given new orders last night.”
“Don’t tell me it’s the Friars again. If it is… shit, I might have to sit this one out after all. Let you younger guys handle it.”
Razz let go a trembling breath and shook his head. “You got cut up pretty bad yesterday.”
“Thing had sharp claws. Maybe worse than a Friar. Hell, it was just so goddamn strong.”
For a moment Razz didn’t say anything, just sat there, looking numb and featureless.
“What was the order?” the Sticker prompted.
“You bled all over that thing. The Princess got a taste for you…”
The Sticker pushed all the way up in bed now and edged himself painfully against the freezing metal wall. “Grossed her out, eh?”
Razz sadly snorted.
“So, okay, I get it. Now what? You guys gonna fall in line?”
“I don’t know… my contract for this job ends in a year. I hear that some people end up working for Limbus itself. Recruiters, scouts, that stuff. They might even promote me when I get back. I was banking on my luck to bring me there.”
It was a joke they’d both said to each other before. Razz and the Sticker played backgammon every evening and shared the same self-deprecating nature. Neither was that competitive; no shit talking ever came about. They just liked playing games. Timothy wasn’t much for games and chose to read instead, and for that, the Sticker was closer to Razz, which was likely why he was the one to bring this bad news.
They had arrived at a point where neither could take a move.
“You know…” Razz took a while to form the words. “It’s not just the job. You know Tim and I wouldn’t… not for that.”
“Nice to hear.”
“One of the guys before Harper, his crew’s first day of work was getting rid of the last crew. If we refuse her anything, the Princess will demand new people. They’ll take us all out then.”
“Yeah.” The Sticker cleared his throat and swallowed a bad taste in his mouth. “So when does she want you guys to deliver me to her?”
“After you’re completely healed,” Razz replied.
“Makes sense.”
Razz stood and grunted. “No, it fucking doesn’t. But that’s where we are.”
“Why did Limbus send you here anyway?”
“Screwed up my Army job. Too much to go into. Let’s just say Saigon will never be the same.”
“Really? We still have forces over there?”
“Sure do. Don’t believe everything you read. But what about you? Why’d Limbus send you here?”
“Same friggin thing. Screwed up my last job.”
Razz laughed and then trailed off, eyes hazy. “I don’t know what to do, man. I just… don’t.”
The lights in the room came on then, illuminating them both.
“Now do you?” asked the Sticker.
Razz’s mouth peeled back into a grin. “You asshole.”
“Go on now. I need to think about this.”
“We could keep beating the shit out of you, I guess.”
Now the Sticker laughed. “As much as that sounds really fun, I think the Princess will take notice.”
Razz’s face went grim. “She would at that.”
“You’ve seen her then?”
“Just been outside the audience chamber, to deliver a pallet of her digestive enzymes. Heard her eating… smells like a boneyard in there.”
“I know that smell.”
“Not like this, man.” Razz went to the door, all his good humor drained from him. “Take it easy, and Tim and I will come here for our break.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Oh,” Razz added. “Don’t put on your jumpsuit. It’ll heal you faster.”
“Good to know.”
The robots came by every morning to check the Sticker’s injuries. By the fourth day his cuts had crusted over and his bruises had shrunk from purple clouds to jaundice strata. He was getting better and the robot’s vital scanners were taking note.
Every night the Princess’s hungry screech rattled the walls of the ship. Dying for food. More. It hurt his insides to even listen to the sound. He’d gone back to using his computer and tracked down some classical music by composers he’d never heard of, enjoying both the brooding kind Annette had taught him to like and the more energetic symphonies that lifted his spirits despite everything else.
Razz and Timothy visited him several times a day, but never had much to say. It was becoming obvious that Razz had resigned himself to the worst outcome, while Timothy still held out hope they would think of something.
Around that fourth day, they did think of something, although the plan didn’t summon much excitement from the Sticker.
Robots were in and out of the medical supply cache throughout the day to deliver various digestive supplements to the Princess, including those enzymes she required to process some of the different alien tissues she consumed. But there weren’t only gastrological medications in the cache. In a few instances in the past, the Princess experienced a form of pain that only cybernetic organisms could acquire; steel-shock was the layman’s term, and as the Sticker understood it, this kind of pain involved the inflammation of organic nerves, while the blood took on a high metal content; essentially the whole body experienced something akin to being struck by lightning, continually, for hours. Therefore, in the medical cache, copious drums of a preferred anesthesia called Lethardohl 90/30 could be found. The drug worked successfully on a wide spectrum of life forms, humans included.
Razz’s plan would be to sneak in during the day and hide behind the garbage compactor in the back of the medical cache. The delivery robots had tunnel vision and never did any security sweeps of the room. He would hole up in there for a few hours after they stopped coming for supplies, since they still did a patrol of the halls until all lights went out. It was risky, but worth it for the Sticker. After they had the Lethardohl, he only needed to take a teaspoon orally of the syrup. He would fall into a stupor and he would not feel their knives, nor would he know his final moment.
Brain-dead… and then they’ll cut my throat. How nostalgic.
The Sticker agreed to the plan more for his friends’ sake than his own. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted to cause them pain either, or see the look in their eyes as he slashed through their jugular.
But you wouldn’t take their way out; you’d fight for them. Right? The Sticker shook his head. Not if Annette was waiting for me. I would do what I had to, to get back to her.