THE AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, MIND-BOGGLING ADVENTURES OF TABLE-HEADED SERVICE DRONE BOB!
Part Five: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (Trademark)
And then...
And then...
And then...
And...ah, to hell with it.
Bob woke up. It wasn't the slow, hazy kind of waking up that usually happens, it was a sudden rush of consciousness that almost stings when you open your eyes. Bob woke up with a scream, panting and sweating, to find that he was sleeping in a bed. Not the most comfortable of beds, but when you spend your nights sleeping on the floor ANY kind of mattress feels like the height of luxury. Though I'm not sure a soft, wooden bench can be called in all honesty a 'mattress'.
"About fucking time, you lazy little shit," announced a voice next to him. It sounded hoarse and cynical, and that it came from a person who sucked the enjoyment out of people's lives for no other reason than money. A quick, paranoid glance to the left confirmed this suspicion, as Bob found himself face to face with an Irken. This Irken was tired and haggard, and had obviously enough of life, but life kept trundling on in his direction. He was tall-ish and slim-ish, with red eyes and a cloak instead of a uniform, though it still looked something like a uniform (old fashions die hard).
"WHO ARE YOU!?" yelled Bob, after the last few days he was not in the mood for quiet introductions, "I LIKE MY ORGANS WHERE THEY ARE!"
"Uhh...yeah, right. Everyone else calls me Slig, but YOU can call me 'master'," Slig made clear that this wasn't a request, "I don't know how you ended up in the middle of the desert, and I don't care. All you need to know is that YOU are now MY fucking property, YOU will do whatever I fucking well tell you to do!" This barrage of claiming and curse-words finally managed to instil some sort of sensibility into Bob.
"Why does everyone always seem to think I'm a commodity?" whinged Bob, climbing down from his bench, "I'm just passing through, and though I would just LOVE to be someone's eternal whipping-boy, I AM a free-thinking Irken-being, so while it's been nice to meet up with you, why don't you show me the doo...AAAGH!" Not exactly expecting the violent spasming in his neck, Bob crumpled over in pain.
"Control collar," said Slig, holding up a pad with many different pain settings, "not exactly original but, shit, everyone uses 'em. Now get up, you scrawny sack of shit!" Bob managed to recover enough to stand fully upright, but he was still wincing.
"My name's Bob! Not 'shit', BOB! And what's the whole slavery thing for?" Bob queried, somehow expecting another shock. It never came, but there's no shame in being prepared.
"You're a service drone, right?" asked Slig, but Bob's head stayed still as a rock, "I could tell from your size. How you got out here is a bit of a fucking mystery, but oddly enough I don't give a shit! On Sirius Minor, you can't be a successful businessman without slaves, since no fucker is going to do hard labour for anyone else here willingly. If you can't afford any robots, then slaves are the next best thing. It's a shitty deal, but I have to say it's YOUR fucking fault for crashing here in the first place."
"Sirius Minor?" Bob remembered. He hadn't thought of his destination that much (most of his energy was spent getting AWAY from things) but now he had some time to seriously mull it over...Sirius Minor was a smuggler's haven, mainly because it was too worthless to be officially considered as a legitimate planet of the Irken Empire, and there weren't that much in the way of tourist oppurtunities on a spinning pile of dust (some people have TRIED, but their tours primarily consisted of: "If you look to the right, you'll see sand, sand, sand, yep more sand, some slightly different coloured sand, some bloodthirsty smugglers about to slit our throats for our wallets, sand..."). It did have a thriving side-industry though as a legitimate "Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy", which people would probably consider a tourist industry, since it has it's own pamphlet and everything. On the WHSV index however, it only scored about 87, due to the palmed green beaches and tropical islands to the south, which sort of detracted from the effect.
Only having 87 on the WHSV index didn't detract from the fact, however, that this was a ridiculously easy place to get killed in.
"Now, your first job," Slig inserted into Bob's train of thought, "is to haul all that fucking scrap you landed with to the central market, as there's no way in hell that I'm going to carry all that shit myself."
Bob took a deep sigh, as well as a trolley from a rack on the other side of the hut, and started lugging...
TO BE CONTINUED...
Part Five: A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (Trademark)
And then...
And then...
And then...
And...ah, to hell with it.
Bob woke up. It wasn't the slow, hazy kind of waking up that usually happens, it was a sudden rush of consciousness that almost stings when you open your eyes. Bob woke up with a scream, panting and sweating, to find that he was sleeping in a bed. Not the most comfortable of beds, but when you spend your nights sleeping on the floor ANY kind of mattress feels like the height of luxury. Though I'm not sure a soft, wooden bench can be called in all honesty a 'mattress'.
"About fucking time, you lazy little shit," announced a voice next to him. It sounded hoarse and cynical, and that it came from a person who sucked the enjoyment out of people's lives for no other reason than money. A quick, paranoid glance to the left confirmed this suspicion, as Bob found himself face to face with an Irken. This Irken was tired and haggard, and had obviously enough of life, but life kept trundling on in his direction. He was tall-ish and slim-ish, with red eyes and a cloak instead of a uniform, though it still looked something like a uniform (old fashions die hard).
"WHO ARE YOU!?" yelled Bob, after the last few days he was not in the mood for quiet introductions, "I LIKE MY ORGANS WHERE THEY ARE!"
"Uhh...yeah, right. Everyone else calls me Slig, but YOU can call me 'master'," Slig made clear that this wasn't a request, "I don't know how you ended up in the middle of the desert, and I don't care. All you need to know is that YOU are now MY fucking property, YOU will do whatever I fucking well tell you to do!" This barrage of claiming and curse-words finally managed to instil some sort of sensibility into Bob.
"Why does everyone always seem to think I'm a commodity?" whinged Bob, climbing down from his bench, "I'm just passing through, and though I would just LOVE to be someone's eternal whipping-boy, I AM a free-thinking Irken-being, so while it's been nice to meet up with you, why don't you show me the doo...AAAGH!" Not exactly expecting the violent spasming in his neck, Bob crumpled over in pain.
"Control collar," said Slig, holding up a pad with many different pain settings, "not exactly original but, shit, everyone uses 'em. Now get up, you scrawny sack of shit!" Bob managed to recover enough to stand fully upright, but he was still wincing.
"My name's Bob! Not 'shit', BOB! And what's the whole slavery thing for?" Bob queried, somehow expecting another shock. It never came, but there's no shame in being prepared.
"You're a service drone, right?" asked Slig, but Bob's head stayed still as a rock, "I could tell from your size. How you got out here is a bit of a fucking mystery, but oddly enough I don't give a shit! On Sirius Minor, you can't be a successful businessman without slaves, since no fucker is going to do hard labour for anyone else here willingly. If you can't afford any robots, then slaves are the next best thing. It's a shitty deal, but I have to say it's YOUR fucking fault for crashing here in the first place."
"Sirius Minor?" Bob remembered. He hadn't thought of his destination that much (most of his energy was spent getting AWAY from things) but now he had some time to seriously mull it over...Sirius Minor was a smuggler's haven, mainly because it was too worthless to be officially considered as a legitimate planet of the Irken Empire, and there weren't that much in the way of tourist oppurtunities on a spinning pile of dust (some people have TRIED, but their tours primarily consisted of: "If you look to the right, you'll see sand, sand, sand, yep more sand, some slightly different coloured sand, some bloodthirsty smugglers about to slit our throats for our wallets, sand..."). It did have a thriving side-industry though as a legitimate "Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy", which people would probably consider a tourist industry, since it has it's own pamphlet and everything. On the WHSV index however, it only scored about 87, due to the palmed green beaches and tropical islands to the south, which sort of detracted from the effect.
Only having 87 on the WHSV index didn't detract from the fact, however, that this was a ridiculously easy place to get killed in.
"Now, your first job," Slig inserted into Bob's train of thought, "is to haul all that fucking scrap you landed with to the central market, as there's no way in hell that I'm going to carry all that shit myself."
Bob took a deep sigh, as well as a trolley from a rack on the other side of the hut, and started lugging...
TO BE CONTINUED...