Chapter 7
One thing you couldn’t say about the Iropolice was that they weren’t kind. John met me at the edge of the dome, and gave a knowing nod at the disappointed look on my face.
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Jinx. The Leader says that it will last a week, but it will probably be more like two or three days. You should have your answer soon. Until then, would you like a tour of the city?”
That snapped me out of my funk quick. What self-respecting scientist turns down the offer to check out cool new technology?
He led me into a glass tube and down through several other buildings before we stopped at one with a large blue sign hovering above the door.
“Spluckraprkt?” I tried.
John chuckled. “Not even close. Why don’t you just refer to it as a Suspender shop for now?”
“Suspender?”
“That’s what we call the gravity machines.”
I charged into the shop without waiting for anything more, and looked around eagerly. There were little boxes lined across all the shelves, with more illegible labels under them. John followed in after me, laughing. “Take a look at any one you want. I’ll pay for one of your choice. It's the least I can offer, after you’ve done so much for our kind already.”
I didn’t stop to think what he meant, and picked up the nearest little box. I rotated it around in my hands slowly, and found a little switch at the back. I flicked it, and a red dot pointed out of the top.
“Activation in 1 second.”
I opened my mouth to ask John what it meant, but I was suddenly yanked towards the wall by an incredible force.
I slammed into it with a crunch, and bounced back onto the floor.
“Ouch.”
I looked around, and found the innocent looking box lying next to me on the floor. I glared at it.
“Jerk.”
John chuckled and pulled me to my feet. “You shouldn’t have flipped the switch all the way up inside a building. That box sets a point of gravity in the direction of where the laser points. You can use it to fly around the city pretty quickly. They can be quite convenient, if you manage to avoid crashing into a wall for more than half a second.”
I glared at him, and picked my box off the floor. The switch had returned to the off position, so I slightly nudged it upwards.
“Activation in one second.”
I pointed it at the wall, and felt myself slowly begin to slide towards the wall. I moved the box so that the laser was pointing at the ceiling, and rose slightly into the air. I whistled.
“This is really amazing! You’re going to have to show me how to build one of these someday.”
John shrugged, and placed a silver coin on the countertop of the store, where a metal hand appeared and snatched it up.
“Follow me. There is more to see in this city other than our Suspenders.”
He took me back into the see through tubes, and led me to a smaller shop near the edge of the city. He looked slightly troubled when the door appeared.
“What shop is this?” I asked him.
John sighed. “This is an armory.”
“Didn’t you say that you were peaceful and stuff? I’m pretty sure peaceful people don’t keep armories.”
John shrugged. “Don’t tell me your people don’t hunt as a sport? I’ll get you one thing from here as well; just try not to blow anything up in here. Oh, you’re going to owe me a few favors, got that?”
I nodded eagerly. I’d get him a bottle of cheap beer some time. Everybody likes cheap beer. The inside of the shop was much like the Suspender shop, but there were guns and swords lining the shelves instead.
I looked around the room carefully, taking in everything I could. The weapons ranged from pistols to snipers, and there was a bazooka or two mixed in.
“What do these shoot?”
“It depends. Most of them are solar powered, but a few run off of body heat. That’s great for the Iropolice people since our average body temperature is about two Celsius. It's great for shooting small game. The sun is weak here as well, so the solar weapons don’t do too much damage. However, a heat weapon with a human…” John shuddered slightly.
That just made me grin even more. Drake plus a Big Gun equals a Big Boom. Drake likes big booms. However, I didn’t want to offend my host TOO much, so I decided to go with one of the smaller guns. I looked around, and my eyes landed on a small tube near a corner. I wandered over to it, and picked it up.
There didn’t seem to be any holes on it, and there was no trigger. I turned it over in my hand, and squinted at it. John saw me inspecting the tube, and smiled.
“Oh, that looks like a newer model. You have to squeeze it to turn it on.”
I squeezed the tube slightly, and the ends lit up with a faint red light. It expanded around my hand, and shifted into the form of a small pistol with a U-shaped piece of silver metal instead of a barrel.
“Not the best choice, human. The weapon you’re holding now isn’t one of my make. It just came in this week, and I have no idea how reliable it is. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet. I was going to try it out at a shooting range in a few hours, so it should have been in its box until then. My idiot apprentice must have put it on the shelves by accident. I’m sure you can find a nicer weapon than that one. For example, this one here-”
“Are you this shop’s owner?” I interrupted.
The Iropolician man frowned at me, but nodded.
“Can I take this to that shooting range you were talking about and try it out?”
He frowned. “I suppose it saves me the trouble of doing so myself. John, would you tell me how it goes?”
John nodded, and passed the man a few silver coins.
“Come this way, Mr. Jinx. The shooting range is close to us.”
The so called shooting range was a huge grass field with roughly a hundred animals milling about. Strangely, they all seemed evenly spaced from each other and stopped at the same time.
“Robots?” I guessed.
John nodded. “If my memory serves, doesn’t the Pisces Empire have working automations as well?”
I grunted. “They have a few lumps of metal on wheels, but that’s about it as long as we don’t count the moving death machines. Definitely nothing like this.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you this, Mr. Jinx. Although you are part of the Pisces Empire, you don’t seem to like them very much. In fact, your tone when talking about them is often filled with contempt. Why is this?”
I glanced up into the dark sky. The stars were much more numerous than those in the Pisces Empire.
“It’s because I wasn’t always part of the Pisces Empire. They took over my world about ten years ago. It wasn’t a peaceful shift of power either, and pretty much all of my friends were killed in the fight. I don’t think the Pisces Empire even lost one soldier. I’m only running errands for them to save my own hide.”
John nodded slowly. “With your power, you could easily escape them. Why do you stay?”
I sighed. These questions were getting pretty deep. That particular topic was one that I had thought over thoroughly many times.
“I don’t run away from them because I feel like that would be a betrayal to all the people that the Pisces Empire has ever wronged or killed. I know it seems pretty stupid, but I can’t just run away and leave everyone to rot under the rule of the Pisces Empire! But mostly because Lilly would shoot me.”
John smiled. “You have the heart of a true leader. Many would have fled the moment they could have, but you stayed for the sake of other people who couldn’t escape on their own.”
I shrugged, and pointed the gun at one of the animal robots.
“Do I just shoot the thing?”
John nodded, and I pulled the trigger. A ball of dark energy spun into existence in the center of the U-shape, and a bolt of dark lightning launched out of the weapon. It slammed into the robotic cow I was aiming at, and a wave of darkness spread out across the robot. A plume of smoke r
ose from the robot’s head, and it collapsed onto its side.
“Ok, that is the coolest laser gun I have ever seen! Ah, how do I turn this thing off?” I asked.
I tried pressing the trigger again, and the ball began spinning. I let go of the trigger, and it stopped. I held the trigger, and the ball started spinning again.
“What’s this do?” I asked John.
I handed the gun to him, and heard a heavy thud. I looked back to the cow, and saw it hovering in the air, suspended by the beam of dark energy. The second John took hold of the weapon, the beam dulled to a dark gray and shortened, pulling the cow towards us.
John whistled. “I haven’t seen one of these babies in a while. This looks like a custom energy gun. I’m not sure where it came from, these are usually quite expensive. It is a few thousand years ahead of the standard technology the Pisces Empire controls.”
He pressed on the lower part of the trigger, and the beam disappeared. He handed it back to me and glanced up at the sky.
“It’s getting late; we should find Ms. Swift and get some sleep for the rest of the night.”
I sighed. “Lilly doesn’t want to be found right now. We should just let her brood. Besides, if we try to go get her when she’s angry, I’m sure we’ll find ourselves leaking some vital red fluid.”
John shrugged. “I suppose so. Either way, we should try to sleep a little. My house is a ways away, so we had best start moving now. We can take an express transport since you don’t know how to use your Suspender yet. C’mon.”
As we walked, something occurred to me.
“John, how did you know that I would be coming?”
“I know what you’re asking, and the answer is no. The people of Iropolice have no way to predict the future. Someone told us that you would be coming. That person helped us greatly, and told us to repay all the kindness he had given us to you.”
“And here I was thinking you were all selfless.”
John’s eyes narrowed. “Remember, Mr. Jinx. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. We do help everyone that passes through here, but don’t think that just anyone can quickly get an audience with The Leader. Oh look, there’s an express transport over there. Come quickly so we don’t miss it!”