There’s something to be said about being on a bus half full with teenage school children right after you got done recreating your life as an Interrogator. Being drunk brought it to a surreal level. I was playing over in my mind what I did to the sonji. It was what I loved even more than drinking alcohol. The level of reality it brought me to was transcendent.

I sat on the front seat with two human boys no older than sixteen across the row from me with a large smile on my face. It was a little odd they stared at me and whispered amongst themselves. I wondered if they had an inkling of what I did and wanted to ask me about it.

"You ask him." I heard one of the boys say.

"Ask me what?" I was chomping at the bit to tell them of my experience.

The two boys looked at each other then back at me.

"Are you really with Timber Racing?"

I had forgotten all about the shirt. I looked down at the red, black and white shirt and up at the boys. Of course I nodded yes. I may have some emotional issues that need sorting out but I’m not an idiot. Where I was came back into focus, though being drunk kept the surrealism of the moment. I nodded yes thinking on what I would do first while in Marland.

"So fucking awesome!" They said in unison. "What car?"

"XR Haslan." Bevisste said. Thank God too; I had no clue which one of the drivers that was.

I repeated the name to the boys much to their excitement. They bugged me for autographs, asked me a hundred questions I had no idea of the answer to, simply repeating what Bevisste said.

Waving bye to the two at their stop I said the name of Haslan as if an image of the racer would pop up in my mind.

"What does Haslan look like?" I was curious now and had another ten minutes to my stop.

"Do you want me to analyze the vid for clues or wait until you’re sober and we’ll both do it?"

"Wait. Did you hear my question?"

I wanted to pull the half empty bottle of liquor from my pocket and finish it off. It was burning a hole in my pocket like bits on payday to a shopaholic.

"I’ll delete duplicate images so we don’t waste time." Bevisste replied.

I was getting angry now. It was not entirely her fault. Seeing the dead kleen was going to take days to get past. Days spent drinking as much beer and hard liquor as possible.

"Show me Bevisste." I was not ready to order her to obey me, which EEs must do; I was damn near it though.

She put up an image of a kleen. He was kind of ugly but a kleen. The anger I felt bubbling below the surface erupted like a volcano. I saw a sonji in the side of the road and slapped the stop button for people who realized they missed their stop.

"Tom. This is a very bad idea. You are inebriated and armed. You know what will happen."

"Yeah, I’ll make one less sonji. No one will miss him. They’re terrible people. The whole lot of them."

"What about Abe. He’s your friend."

"He poisoned me. See. The whole lot of them."

"Laetitia is at your home with Lucky, she had a bad day and I would wager would love to have a person to talk to instead of a dog."

Fucking Bevisste had to keep bringing my crush in where she didn’t belong. I stared at the sonji entering one of their strange smelling cafés. I felt the wind the bus created as it left the stop. The hand grip of my Luxor felt very nice in my hand.

"I fucking hate you sometimes Bevisste." She was right though I would not give her the satisfaction of telling her so. There is more than one reason why I keep my gun locked in a safe that’s hard to open; it has a lot to deal with what Bevisste was referring too.

"Just walk home Tom. After a night of talking to Laetitia you should be in a better frame of mind to make decisions."

She was right. I wanted to murder ever sonji I saw simply because they resembled the monster at Cleo’s Manor. Finishing the bottle of liquor, which was quite strong, good pick on my part, did not exactly put me a genial mood. It wasn’t my fault though; the lure of it was just strong. That’s what I tell myself and what I told myself as I waited on the bus to arrive.

Staunchly ignoring everyone on the bus as I got on I did my best not to look at anyone less I have another alcohol fueled outburst and actually managed to ride the bus the entire way to my stop. Why I hesitated for several seconds was I had to pass by The Extra IPA. An establishment owned by a man who attempted to poison me or had knowingly let me be poisoned.

"Holy shit Bevisste." I was still standing on the sidewalk where I had stepped off the bus when the epiphany hit me. Who says you can’t think when you drink?

"What is it Tom?"

"Abe had me poisoned immediately upon entering the bar. A bar where I have never seen  One-eye, a sonji who follows me home where, aside from beating the snot out of me, I distinctly remember the bottom of a large boot ready to see if my face was soft enough to create indentations. While he is ready to stomp my face in he tells me the cat died of natural causes."

"Oh my Tom. How did we both miss this?" Bevisste said like she wanted to slap herself on the head.

"What was that you said about misdirection?" I was half serious about that being a serious question. I was still drunk even if a functioning drunk.

"It is right here Tom." Bevisste said after a minute. The pause was her reviewing every qubit of information Cleo had data dumped to me the one and only time I saw her. "I had wondered about the biography then I passed it off as something the one percent do. They are so out of touch with the real world maybe Cleo thought you would want the authorized biography of her. It’s not her authorized biography Tom."

I damn near stumbled. Yes I was walking, I wasn’t going to hang out on that piece of pavement all day long. I also felt the urge to pee coming up quickly.

"I just bought the authorized biography, you’re out forty five—I hoped she meant fractions of a bit, and compared the two for inconsistencies. The inconsistencies in the autobiography she sent you adds up to basically an entire section that is not in the one anyone can buy."

"What part of her life is it about?"

"It’s not part of her biography."

"Show it to me." I needed to see it for myself. Call me old fashioned if you will but I needed to see evidence with my own two eyes to believe it, or maybe that means I have trust issues. "Whoa, that’s a lot of words."

"Tom this is a family dispute between the top two wealthiest people alive. I think you should just do the story about the cat and call it a day."

"They killed two kleens, possibly more." I reminded her as I read very slowly through all the words. Goddamn were there a lot of them.

I grinned as a thought hit me as I neared my apartment and finished reading. "I’ll bet I get to see Cleo in something less than a robe if this turns out how I expect it too."

"Tom, stop making everything a joke. This is serious, Timber will pay to make it illegal for you to still be living if he finds you there."

"And Cleo will send enough sonji to finally kill me dead if I don’t. You saw what is there in black and white, and one of the two are employing people that kill kleens. Even without this damn big clue we would still be heading to Marland to exact justice. Think about it Bevisste. Think of the excitement. Do you really want to sit here and watch paint dry for all the excitement my job brings every day?"

"You have a point."

"Damn straight I do."

Riding on cloud nine from being vindicated as a great reporter I pushed open the door to my apartment and fell flat on my face in my rush to get to Laetitia. The only saving grace was Lucky being so goddamn large that her hind quarters broke my fall allowing for only a glancing blow off the floor. It still fucking hurt though.

"Tom! Are you okay? What happened?" Laetitia said as she rushed over to me to help me up. I was more than okay now even with giggling in my ear.

"I could ask the same of you. You were just balling your eyes out a moment ago." I looked her up and down, quite slowly; alcohol and all.

She blushed which has to be the cutest thing I have ever seen on a person.

"It was just a sad holo. I’ve been watching them all day. Where’s food?" She asked.

I looked at her as if she asked me how to solve the problems incurred in a free election with no limits on wealthy donors.

"I asked you to buy food for me and Lucky. We’re kind of hungry." She said with a pouty face. I felt like I had just had sex with her best friend in front of her on our wedding night. I did not feel good. I think the alcohol may have turned sour.

"I am such a jerk. Bevisste get Jaques to send over two plates of something, baguette bread, merlot and a bag of bos feed." I winced as I said the last. "I’ll double the tip if here in five minutes."

"Thank you. You’re so good to us." She pecked me on my cheek, having to hold onto my arm to do so. "Why do you talk out loud to your EEs?"

I scratched my head as I thought the question over. I thought it over walking to the couch, petting Lucky the entire way over. The dog acted like we had been inseparable friends for the last decade. I watched blissfully as I sat, forced to the far side by Lucky’s enormous body taking up three quarters of the couch, while Laetitia sat on the ground to take the air bootie off my foot and work on the cast with the surgical air blade.

"I suppose it us because I think it is a little crazy to talk inside your head all day long." I fished out the remaining bottle of alcohol from my pants and took a long drink from it. I’m positive Laetitia made a face. "What?"

"Nothing. Ankle looks great. Thanks for keeping off of it so much." She shooed Lucky off the couch and took a seat on the opposite end. Her back against the arm rest with her feet pulled up under that squeezable bubbly ass.

"You made a face. Do you have a problem with me drinking?" My inebriated state made it come out much harsher than I had intended. I was going to be slurring my words before half done with the bottle.

"I don’t have a problem with it Tom. We’re not dating; even if we were I don’t judge."

The food made it less than five minutes I noticed as I saw my funds get depleted even more. The delivery drone entered silently setting the bags on the table, which was a first; normally it’s completely covered with random junk, and left out the delivery door just as silently. Laetitia got off the couch to get the food at the behest of Lucky whining pathetically at the smell.

"Seventeen years ago I got my first chance at a proper war, two years after I had first enlisted in the Marine Corps." I didn’t want to tell her why I felt the need to drink all the time. I needed to tell her. "I don’t remember the name of it. I’ve been in that many of them, though I can recall this war perfectly. I was literally jumping up and down with excitement when the orders came across my lenses. It’s funny, at that time I didn’t talk to Bevisste like I do now. Well my battalion and I get suited up, armed to the teeth, all that jazz and head out to proclaim—forcefully and violently—the greatness of The United Planets democracy. I was a Gunner in the Corps. Do you know what they do?"

She shook her head placing the bags of our food on the table. She even brought of two wine glasses. God bless her, she really didn’t judge.

"They carry around really big guns that get the point across of a capitalistic democracy being better than any of form of government in a very compelling manner."

"I thought the military had robots that carry around the big guns."

"That’s the Army sweetie. The Corps thinks it builds character if people carry around really heavy guns, that and my Colonel was an incredibly cheap bastard that liked spending the budget money on himself. No chance he was going to pay for a robot when a person could carry around the gun.

"So as a Gunner I was on the front lines right behind the wave of cyborgs. Which are quite freaky to tell the truth. You see skin in random places over machinery. It’s disconcerting and most likely the reason they never leave warzones. My squad fell onto an entire platoon of msungs that had somehow survived the cyborgs. They really do look similar to Lucky over there, though she is much prettier." Since most civilians have never seen an image or vid of msungs, better not to put a face to the endless war so it can be forgotten more easily, I knew I had to explain it to her. "They seem to be around the same height as humans." I looked at Lucky and laughed. "Those sons of bitches really do look a lot like Lucky, just lengthen her front legs and replace her paws with opposable thumbs. Their face is much more square though. Their fur is pretty spot on for Lucky’s color, not much variation that I saw."

"We fell onto the squad of mangy bastards when I felt my first taste of true mayhem. I thought it had been tense before we met the fuckers. I was in a warzone, people were coming back to the base missing limbs or new robot limbs in the place of their original body parts. Most people had scars, first time I had ever seen a scar, we keep them as tokens. Well the tense excited feeling I had felt previous to the engagement was nothing. Suddenly the world was loud and clearer than ever. People screamed, explosions rang out, bullets whizzed, my brain went from the jumble of thoughts it normally is to the definition of focus. I saw, I was looking right at him, a friend of two years have the top half of his body disintegrate right in front of me. That was the first time I snapped. I was focused but I saw red around my vision, I really did, Bevisste said it is from my eyes receiving an increase in blood flow in response to stimuli. I killed seven msungs that day."

I took a long drink of the liquor and grabbed a hunk of the baguette bread as the reason why I drank so much played through my head. From Laetitia’s look she must have thought my first war was the reason why.

"The next war was much like the first one. I made new friends after seeing the man I thought of as my best friend die next to me. You have to good at rolling with the punches or you go insane. This war was ridiculous. TUP wanted an outpost that SR didn’t want them to have. The fucking thing was the size of Oazan’s moon but apparently there was a lot of precious metal and colium under the surface so naval ships could not be used to sterilize the surface, ground troops were needed so as not to damage the precious colium seams. I actually fought in that war off and on for the next three years. Finally SR gave up, signed a peace treaty with TUP giving them the planet. They expended close to twenty thousand lives for no fucking reason Laetitia; twenty thousand fucking lives because some energy company paid the politicians to go in there and get that precious mineral." I wanted to hit something.

"That’s horrible." Laetitia said quietly completely enraptured by my story.

"Seven years after I was first sent to that rock I was sent to Carthage for Operation Freedom Carths. I had been in eleven different wars up to that time. It was exciting so I kept raising my hand at every new one that came across the wire."

"What did Bevisste think of that?" She could tell Bevisste and I were much closer than normal lens-wearer duos.

"I had not yet begun to talk to her like I do now. I still pretty much thought of her as a computer that responded to my queries and gave me feedback that I would want to hear. We were on Carthage at the time. I had been in so many wars that I was now running with cyborgs and Special Forces. I liked having a personal life when possible so I wasn’t technically in Marine Special Ground Force; they had just had a need for Gunners that had a talent for staying alive and I liked the excitement. I still remember it as if it just happened a few minutes ago.

"We were taking a sand crawler from Babbat to Nozelim. They are large troop transport vehicles, can fit around three hundred fully armored and ammoed troops. Kleens designed them using the Earth worm from Earth as inspiration. They are kind of gross when thought about since the sand crawler is basically an organic worm wrapped around the metal troops transport." I smiled at her shudder.

"I was in the middle, that part is important. We had just got loaded into the crawler, not yet suited up since it gets hot in the crawler wearing the armor and were heading out, we had moved for maybe ten minutes when the crawler stopped. Ppings had put something in the sand that killed the organic part of the crawler faster than I can kill a bottle of beer. The lights went out leaving us in the dark, it was no thing for the cyborgs, bastards are the ultimate killing machines can see in the dark better than an owl, and for that reason we were given about half of a second of warning. Ppings came at us from almost every side of the crawler, even underneath it through the sand. All I heard was the sound of rubber bands snapping, that’s the sound their 13R rifles makes. I watched four human friends of mine ignite into flame, their limbs slowing expanding in size until they exploded. Sonji looked as if someone were chopping at them with swords that turned flesh into melting wax. Two lopes next to me went into insane seizures, flaying around so violently their odd appendages literally ripped off of their body with their blood boiling out from the wounds. The cyborgs seemed unfazed as they fought back against the influx of ppings, though I later found out after a few hits from a 13R a cyborg needs to be destroyed since the rounds of the rifle pervert their programming.

"I got lucky if you want to call it that. When the ppings and cyborgs were fighting it out a large section of the crawler fell down pinning me underneath. The flesh and blood from all my squad mates covered me so thoroughly even I thought I was grievously wounded. The ppings are like normal soldiers they don’t just fire willy-nilly at dead things, so the blood and body parts covering me saved me. I was pinned between Johnny, he was missing part of his face and most of the rest of his body and a two ton piece of metal and sand for about eight hours until the heavy lifters got to my location."

Laetitia had stopped eating sometime during my retelling. Lucky had her head on my lap responding to my whirlwind of emotions.

"I can still see Johnny. He’s right there, four inches from my face. My right arm was pulled out of the socket and broken at the elbow while my left was pinned under my ROC14. For eight hours I was forced to look at the after-effects of a 13R on a human’s body. It was during that time I began to speak to Bevisste. We both endured something that day no one should ever have to endure."

I finished off my glass of wine and poured myself another glass. The images on the wall of my apartment reminded me of that day but not in a crappy sorrowful way. Since Laetitia seemed to be short of words and the silence was killing me I decided to explain that to her.

"Shortly after that attack I was picked as Interrogator. Some of the happiest years of my life, so as bad as that day seemed, and it was supremely awful, it was parlayed into a fantastic part of my life. At least I tell myself that to ease what comes after I fall asleep on a nightly basis. They were good years and I would not change what happened for anything."

"Do you hate the military for what happened?" Laetitia asked. I had a feeling she was done eating for the night even if the plate on her lap was half full.

"No. I signed up for the Corps voluntarily. I can’t hate the military for acting out their sole purpose of enforcing peace through violence, nor can I hate the politicians who think they should kill their citizens to teach a rival group a lesson. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up; however I do have a problem with how I and my fellow veterans are treated after our tour of service. I fought in eleven wars, killed an ungodly amount of people in service to the holy democracy of The United Planets and was forced to endure what happened on the sand crawler, all to be told to wait in a line and take a number when I try to get help. I know you said you don’t judge and don’t have a problem with my drinking but I felt I needed to tell you. So you can understand the reasons behind it."

By now she was openly crying. God bless the gorgeous woman, she has to be the sweetest kindest soul to ever have lived. Lucky looked at me with those eyes that conveyed a level of empathy no other species could ever feel. Right then and there I decided I would never get rid of that dog.

I smiled a half smile at Laetitia and patted her knee. I wanted to continue rubbing her knee working my way slowly up her body. So I grabbed my wine glass with both hands.

"Sorry for completely ruining your day. I’m drunk. You want to hear about Cleo’s? It’s not much better."

She simply nodded her head yes. A trooper that one.

"I really shouldn’t. You seem a little…what’s the word?" I tapped my head and shrugged. "Freaked out I guess is good enough."

"No I’m not. I’m just. Oh my God that is so intense and sad and horrible and fucked up. I don’t know what to say Tom."

I’m such a pig. I barely heard what she said; I was just staring at her hands on her chest wishing those were my hands. I said I barely hear her, which means I did hear her. "I’m not looking for you to say anything actually. I think if I was not drunk I wouldn’t have unloaded this all on you so fast. If we knew each other long enough you would have learned it all but." I shrugged. "Well it is what it is."

"Tell me about what happened at Cleo’s. My mind is reeling right now so there is possible way I can fall asleep."

I filled up both of our glasses with the merlot and set the nearly empty bottle on the coffee table.

"I found out there’s something in Marland I need to go see for myself and some sonji and lopes and possible other people I need to hunt down. I saw two kleens dead at Cleo’s house. I found one of the sonji that had killed them and put my skills as an Interrogator to use. Oh yeah." I snapped my fingers. "I was also kidnapped by a lope gang. Nice fellas to tell the truth."

The entirety of what I told her finally crashed home in her mind. My gorgeous neighbor waved from side to side like a reed in wind. She put her hands to her face and held her head. I quickly took her plate before she spilled it and scooped her up in my arms.

"Take my bed. I’m sorry for unloading on you, I sometimes forget just about every person I will ever meet has never gone through anything close to what I have been through. I forget how it affects them. I’ll sleep on the couch."

She nodded with her head on my shoulder. I never wanted the feeling to end. After tucking her in I had my hand on the doorknob when she spoke up.

"Hey. I’m sorry you had to endure such an atrocity. I want you to let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out. Don’t toss aside the offer."

I smiled at her. "Thank you and I won’t toss it out. Good night my gorgeous neighbor." The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I needed another drink.

Next Chapter: Lucky is more than just a dog