Chapter Three
The Quest for the Databush
Well, for once, I guess I should start nearer to the beginning. Alright?
I know! I'll tell you about the Menagerie! That's my name for my pets. I have two. One I got from my mother, a runt-of-the-litter wotsit called Midi. She's a tiny little thing. Mostly hides in my bag. But the other onewell, she was an adventure to get. I'll tell you the story.
The system was called Dumass. Of course, no one pronounced it right, so it wasn't a very good name. It was warm, and very very big. I kept to the lower levels. By now, I had figured out that most systems had an extreme fear of polymorphs. So it was a survival mechanism. Didn't wanna get thrown out of this one like the previous three.
Don't ask me how I got through customs, though.
The lower levels hosted a bazaar of curiosities. Shops selling pickled datatree roots and blackened netgull cozied up next to antiques vendors with relics of the old days, like a piece of code from a Windows 3.1 OS and DOS commands. And a mallet vendor. I zoomed up to it and bought one right off, with a nice weight and color and good swing. So I stuffed in into my bag straight off, although exactly how I did that I have no idea.
And then I came across a very curious One binome with stacks of cages about her.
Her hair was frizzy and red, and she wore a bedraggled dress. She had a bunch of energy-rich shards in a basket next to her, and the cages were meduim-sized and covered with the same fabric as her dress. She wasn't afraid of me in the slightest. Intriguing.
"What're you selling?"
"What'm I sellin'? Ah, a poly. Ye look like a good'un, one t' be appreciatin' me wares." Her accent was strange. "I'll show ye what I'm sellin'." She pulled the drapes down. "Meet Emsfa, Pix, Dibix, Stfe, Piqe, and the cute 'un."
Nulls.
Six caged nulls. Five of them gave an ear-piercing squeal and slithered to the side of the cage away from me. But one slithered up to me. I watched it, giggly, as it raised its front end up as if to stare at me, then cooed.
"Aye, they do that all th' time. 'Cept that 'un.
"What do you call this one?"
"Oh, that'un? That's Wave. She's a curious'un. See, the others I sell t' people wi' a taste fer nullcakes. There's quite a few of those kind about here, and no virals either. But that 'un, I can't sell 'er fer that! She's fit to be a pet. She's a runt, don't eat much an' much rather suck yer finger than bite ye. An' she coos. That's why she's special."
"Can I get her??" I was esctatic. Normal people don't get excited to get nulls, butwhen since had I qualified as a normal person?
The One frowned. "Can't just give 'er to any'un. Ye've got t'prove yerself worthy of 'er. Ye'll have t' do somethin' special t' get 'er."
"What?"
"Ye'll have t' get" She paused to think, then grinned. "a databush. Get me a databush, an' ye can 'ave 'er."
"What's a databush?"
"Oh, fer cryin' out loud, ye dun know what a databush is? It looks like the crown of a datatree, an' it's all trimmed an' all. It's pretty."
"And you want one."
"Aye. A nice one," she said. "But not too expensive," she added.
I nodded. "Just one thing. Is there a databush salesman 'round here?
"Aye, in sector 45."
I nodded and ran to find him.
It seems that databush salesmen were not very easy to find.
After I arrived in sector 45, I went to look immediately.
Howeverwhenever I mentioned the world "databush" people screamed and ran in fear. It wasn't me they yelled at, it was the word. I was stumped.
I went to a lady across the street. "Excuse me, ma'am?" I asked politely.
"Yah?"
"I'm looking for a gardener specializing in dat—ahem, miniature datatrees. Would you be able to point him out?"
The old sprite squinted at me. "What's that?" she asked.
I sighed. "A databush."
She shrieked. "No! Never!!" Her hood went over her head, and she tried to hobble away. Incredibly peeved at this, I got hold of her arm.
"I'm not leaving until you tell me where to buy a databush, damnit!"
"Never in my life, " the crone moaned, "I'd never speak of that filthy thing!"
???
"Databushes are filthy?" I asked.
She screamed at the word.
o_O
"LADY!" I shook her. "What's wrong? Are they cursed or something? What?"
"The demon"
"Demon? Pieces of greenery are demons?"
She got enough of her self-control and hissed at me, "The seller, not the wares! Demon!" She tried to tear herself out of my grip. Finally, I pulled a bag of credits out of my pocket.
"Lady, d'you think these might settle you enough to give me the location of this'demon?'"
Her greedy eyes fixed to the bag.
"Thrid alley off the next street left, you'll find it there" She snatched the bag and hobbled off.
Oy. I was out half my resources to buy the bloody databush, and I was being warned of a demon. For a few moments I paused, trying to think whether I should do this.
Then I put my courage in it's place and went forward.
Third alley.
I gripped my bag frightened. Remember, I had only been on the road a few months, I was barely thirteen, and demons aren't exactly my forte. But I strode on bravely.
Sure, bravely. And Daemon was just trying to be friends when she infected the entire Supercomputer and Guardian Collective.
The alley led me to a shack. Nulls and worse slithered in the shadows. The shack was of thin wooden boards with many cracks. Someone was in there.
My legs felt like slippery energy. I wanted to cut 'n' past outta there.
Instead, I knocked.
Thein there moved to the door. A normal, alto, undeterminable voice answered, "Who's there?"
Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun
"A customer, please?" I whispered, hoping for the best.
There was a noise of surprise. Then the door opened to darkness. "Come in, I'll turn the lights on."
I stepped in. The door closed. The lights went on. I spun around.
A wide-eyed worm stared at me.
You know what a worm is, right? Grow to enormous lengths, travel through systems without infecting anything, but often messing up system's defences. They have no gender, replicating by splitting in two. This one was twelve feet long about, two feet wide, bone-thin weak arms, a dragon-like face. Barely out of childhood. It seemed as frightened of me as I was of it.
It slowly slithered to the back of the hut, keeping the top five feet straight above the floor like a cobra. "I've never seen a polymorph before," it murmured.
"I've never seen a worm before," I returned.
There was a mutual pause as we sized each other up.
"Why do you travel?" it asked.
"I have no master. Why don't you?"
It looked sad, then lifted it's tail. It dangled limply three feet from the end. "You're crippled?" I asked, heartbroken for it. It nodded. "By who?"
"By my sibling. One wanted to be greater, so one smashed the bone and left me to be killed here." I sweatdropped – properly, the pronoun "one" is proper for asexual beings. I had forgotten. "I hid away from the sprites in the upper levels, came here. Built this house with these useless arms." Worms use their tails to great effect, normally. "And make databush arrangements." The worm placed his delicate hands on the table. "What are you looking for, polih?"
"A databush?"
"AhhhAnd you were treated to the "Demon" tales, were you not?" I nodded. "I know. They are afraid of me. I steal food every so often, and sully their reputation by my mere existence. Only one person in this system was civil to me."
"One binome, red hair?"
"Yes. The null seller. She makes me nullcakes."
I shook my head. "This was all a trick thenSo will you make me a databush, then?"
"I will make you one for food. But I must make it, first." He brought up supplies. "Tell me stories of other systems. I yearn for it. Please?" one begged.
I smiled. "Sure. I'm Java," I said, offering my hand.
"Roger," he replied, taking my hand in his wiry one.
I walked back to the null-seller with the miniature databush in my arms. She was truly impressed with my success. "Ye were successful, I see."
"You set me up," I accused. "You knew they'd tell me horror stories."
"Aye, it was a trick. But ye did meet Roger?
"Yeah. He's sweet!"
"Aye, an' ye are too, an' brave as well. Wave's yours." She opened the null's cage, picked it's wiggling body up, and plopped it into my cupped hands.
It was the size of my forearm. When it touched me, instead of "biting" me by draining my energy suddenly, it touched one of it's ends to a thumb and did a very light drain on it. Then it crawled up my arm and into my bag, I guess to sleep.
"Oh, it likes ye. Have a good time in Dumass," she said, and, picking up her databush, walked away to bring it home. And I left the bazaar for another adventure.
Toodles.