Blackjack Villain (48 page)

“This should do,” he said. “And we shouldn’t even need the flux.”

As the plasma cooled, it would replicate the binding action of the flux, soldering the two pieces of copper together.

“Nice,” I said. “Very nice. Now what about a riveter?”

He made one with his left hand, a multi-purpose riveter that could both open the hole and place a rivet at the same time.

And that’s how we made the machine. I read out the parts list, and he produced them within an internal forge (and glass blower for the coil parts), and once the parts were done, he put the whole thing together, per my instructions, faster than a dozen Teslas or Retcons.

Other than the few times Haha had to harvest more materials, we worked unabated to build the particle accelerator. I supervised, but was more like the assistant, holding the parts while Haha riveted or soldered them together with incredible speed and precision. During the main construction, I actually slowed him down so he waved me off and produced a pair of vestigial arms that held the parts to the frame faster and more efficiently than I could.

While he did that, I took my quiver and emptied it out on the floor. Haha’s abilities were farther than anything I could have imagined, and the speed he worked at simply amazing, but there were some components I had premade, in some of my arrows, and it would save time to use them instead of making new ones.

Parts-wise, my arrow heads had almost nothing to offer. My impact explosive arrows, the sonic boom, and a few others were simple and functioned on a mechanical basis. Those I tossed back into my arrow bag. Others, like the sticky foam and the heat seeking arrows had valuable components that I had already spent a lot of time constructing and could harvest. In any case, I could easily build more arrows if we made it back. I screwed off the arrow heads from the aluminum shafts and replaced the heads with simple broad heads. Those I tossed into the bag as well.

There was one arrow left on the floor. The Nuke. I picked it up and studied the large arrow head, aerodynamic, but bulbous and fat nonetheless. I doubted I would have a practical use for this arrow. If I was desperate enough to fire the Nuke, it meant I didn’t care that I was about to die. It was a heavy arrowhead, and fly like a pig tied to an arrow. I wasn’t sure I could fire it farther than the explosive radius.

“Hell with it,” I said, and disengaged the arrow head, screwing it off the shaft and tossing it my pocket. I placed the head-less arrow shaft into my bag and looked over at Haha, who was done building the frame, and was waiting for my next instruction.

“Ok, let’s do this.”

* * *

It took us about an hour to put the finishing touches on the frame, but that was mostly my fault because I was having problems remembering the lower parts of the device. It was the actual hard framing, what held the device up, but sometimes I get weird about things being right. The good thing about having a robot without emotions as my assistant, was not having to hear him complain at my perfectionism.

By the time we had the basic frame and the two Tesla coils completed, Haha needed a break to go get more materials. Even at this pace, it was going to take forever.

I figured I’d stretch my legs and walk with Haha, maybe think through some of the more difficult calculations, and found myself having the strangest conversation of my life.

“Pheromones, Blackjack,” he said suddenly. It was like the header to his dissertation, and our conversation was probably pre-outlined already. I kept silent, hoping he’d get to the point, but as the silence wore on, it was clear he required a question from me to continue.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They explain her attraction to you,” he said, kneeling to scoop a handful of dirt which he stuffed into his chest cavity.

“And here I thought it was the whole tall, dark and handsome thing I have going for me,” I joked, not knowing what he had planned for discussion.

“That’s part, for certain,” he continued, matter-of-factly. “There are certain traits, primary and secondary sexual characteristics that you possess that she is apparently predisposed to. You have traditionally masculine traits with a wide jaw, broad cheekbones and heavy eyebrows, which are associated with increased testosterone. You are tall and have broad shoulders and muscular legs and buttocks. These are indicator of good health and dominance, and particularly attracting to a heterosexual ovulating woman, like Apogee, or homosexual men.”

“Good stuff,” I said, hoping he’d switch subjects.

“You must be curious as to why she’s so interested, no? The actual bio-evolutionary arousal responses when she is in your presence. You must wonder why her nipples and labia engorge, why her vulva and vagina become lubricated, and several internal changes to her cervix, uterus and vaginal walls occur. Her pupillary response, and change in breathing and heart beat patterns alone should give you plenty of indication. ”

I laughed. “Haha, you don’t ask why, you thank the gods that they do.”

He knelt for more materials, regarding me curiously.

“It’s much more complicated than that. Pheromones dictate a great deal of things in the interactions between men and women. For example, females can detect the antibodies of a potential mate from pheromones alone. Subconsciously, of course, but they do this unwittingly, and decide on a mate, in part, according to this paradigm. Females of the human species choose males whose antibodies best correspond to their own, in particular during ovulation.”

“And she’s ovulating now?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“We don’t work that way, Haha. It’s not automatic.”

He laughed, though at what I couldn’t tell. “Of course not, this all operates subconsciously. But it’s my estimation that if you’re aware of the process, you might be more inclined to exert some sense of control over the matter.”

“As I’m clearly not?”

“You’re like a school child with a crush on his teacher, Blackjack.”

I shook my head, “She’s attractive, sure-“

“She is at the prime of fecundity, with neotenic and youthful-appearing features. Her breasts are high and firm, and optimally sized, which is a good indicator of fertility. Her hair is lustrous, and her lips red, an obvious secondary characteristic evolutionarily designed to resemble her vagina.”

“Haha-“ I started but he continued.

“Her height ratio to yours is within standard deviation, and her facial features bear a prototypical physical shape that is generally judged to be attractive. If you don’t believe me, I can show you multiple polls I’ve made available on my forums, Facebook, and blog where 95% of respondents would prefer to see Apogee and you come together than-“

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, grabbing the robot and turning him to face me. “Have you been putting that stuff online?”

I had gotten so used to Haha’s buzzing secondary droids like satellites rotating around their planet that I had forgotten what he told us when we first met him.

“Of course not,” he said, unthreatened by my hand restraining him. “Since we’ve come to this world, I’m offline. They don’t have good Wi-Fi here, Blackjack,” Haha laughed.

“And before?”

He shrugged and I let him go. By now we were almost finishing up our long rounded arc around the edge of the village that was quickly bringing us back to where we had originally started.

“I don’t answer to Influx, or Dr. Retcon, or anyone else. Nor do I pass judgment. I merely watch and record.”

Haha and I walked back to our working area and his midsection lit up, forging the last piece I had asked for when he had run out of materials.

“No wonder we have so much heat on us, Haha. God damn it! You were supposed to work with us on that.”

He cocked his head, spitting out some support cross beams from his chest.

“I’m sure things were more complicated,” he admitted. “But part of our mission is to draw attention away from Retcon, and I am merely doing my part.”

“If Cool Hand finds out, he’s going to be pissed.”

Mr. Haha rotated his hands, showing me the plasma weapon that had torn my midsection apart. “I have nothing to fear as long as I have this,” he said, confident that the plasma weapon would protect him from Cool’s temporal powers. I searched his mannequin eyes for some implied threat, but found none. Haha didn’t work like that. He weighed options and took the one that seemed most logical at the moment. I would’ve preferred the posturing; it would’ve meant there was something human in there.

“Shall we continue with our work?”

* * *

We were hard at work on the machine, maybe close to being half done, when a commotion drew our attention to the village.

Throngs of assorted aliens ran/floated/flew past me as I ran towards the source of their fear. I was bigger than about everything in the village, save a few large insect-things that flew above, but the onrushing crowd slowed my progress. I was frankly afraid of accidentally killing some of the more delicate creatures. Whatever was scaring the villagers was across the whole complex, and I foolishly went right through the middle of it. After a few moments, the crowd thinned out, now having run for the safety of the larger buildings in the center of the village. I ran to the far edge of the town, and saw Cool Hand Luke and Dr. Zundergrub hiding behind a large boulder.

“What’s going on?” I asked, coming to them.

“I don’t know,” Cool Hand admitted. “I don’t speak pig Latin. They all started freaking and running away.”

“Apogee is out there scouting,” Zundergrub added.

I looked over the rock and saw nothing, but a wide open plain of tall reeds, and a thick wood ringing a tall mountain range several miles beyond.

“I’ll be right back,” I said and ran forward.

Reaching the heavy reed foliage, I was soon lost in a sea of plants taller than I was, obscuring my view in every direction. The breeze kept the reeds swaying to and fro, making it almost impossible to hear anything as I crept forward.

The ground below was rich black-purple dirt and my feet dug deeply, leaving easily identifiable tracks. But that meant anyone else around here would be leaving tracks as well.

Instead of trying to spot an enemy, or hear them, I decided to crouch low and track for enemy foot prints or marks. I turned sideways, parallel to the village edge, moving as silently as I could, and soon I found some tracks. They lead away from the village, and were the size and shape of a human.

A minute or so later, I came upon a figure, at the farthest edge of my vision, through a waving field of reeds. It was crouched, like me, but the sound of the breeze was enough to conceal my noise. I was also approaching downwind -- so if it was a scent-tracker, it would have no idea I was there.

But as I got closer, I could recognize a red sash, the shapely form. It was Apogee.

“Madelyne,” I whispered, startling her.

“Hey.”

“What’s out there?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But I saw at least two of them.”

“Scouts?”

Apogee shrugged.

“Let’s get closer then,” I said, inching forward, but our movement gave us away, and an arrow zipped past us, a few inches overhead.

“I want that bow,” I told her.

There was a sudden explosion of air around me and a parting of the reeds as she rushed off and left me alone. Less than a second later, Apogee returned, holding out an alien bow.

I took it, noticing its strange design, made from the shell of some insect, with four equal sized carapaces as the curved elastic limbs, tied to a central core which had a huge hand guard. It looked like a metallic boxing glove with a huge spike sticking out the front. The whole thing was an eerie bluish-clear color, semi-transparent, and as I wielded it, terribly light. It felt like I would break it the first pull.

Studying it further would have to wait, as its alien owner came running at us with a huge spear at the ready. He was one of the pig-grilla monsters from our earlier fight, dressed in lighter armor, much like the banded pieces of a samurai.

I took a standard arrow from my arrow bag and fired, hitting him squarely in the head. The bow felt light, effortless, yet the arrow flew with such speed and power that the massive alien was thrown back with the force of the arrow’s impact. He dropped to the ground with a loud squeal, dead, and his companions made themselves known. Though I couldn’t see or hear them, I saw arrows coming at us from their hiding points.

Apogee took cover behind me, and I batted away the few arrows that came close with the bow’s heavy fist enclosure. Though I couldn’t see our opponents, I could reverse the track of the arrows and estimate where they were. I strung the alien bow and fired three times in a split second. Deep inside the reed field an alien howled in pain.

Apogee raced forward and I ran after, tearing through the reeds. When I reached her, she stood over the dying body of one of the big aliens. The arrow had stuck deep into his chest, near his heart, if the creature had one.

“The others?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Who are you?”

The alien grinned and repeated what I said in what sounded more like a guttural growl.