Chapter 7

Sugar and Spice is a Lie

R.C.

"Dude, this is sweet! Command was so that I got the blue flag; they gave me my own color armor."

Grif and Simmons exchanged and looked at each other before looking at me. I didn't even bother to give a response.

It was pink… his armor was straight up pink.

I had and quietly successfully, yes, I am bragging; saved Donut, and he was… let's just go with fine. For some reason, command thinks it's better to send armor than a fucking doctor. Even so, Donut still didn't get the better end either way. I just didn't bother saying anything.

"Uh… hey Donut?" finally Grif spoke, finally figuring out what to say.

"What?" Donut asked.

Grif looked at me, which Donut noticed, at looked at me too. "We need to talk…." I started. "About your armor…."

"What about it?"

"Well," I started. "Fuck it; I'm not doing this." I immediately thought. I looked to Simmons. "Simmons, you wanna take this?"

Simmons sighed exasperatedly as Donut was now looking at him. "How do I put this..." he stammered. "Your armor is, um... It's a little, um..." Simmons looked to Grif. "Grif, uh, you wanna help me out here?"

Grif finally ended the cycle. "It's pink. Your armor is fricking pink!"

"Yeah, that's it. Pink."

"Pink Floyd: atom heart mother, pink."

Donut looked at himself and then back at us. "Pink, my armor's not pink."

"Pink," Grif said, stressing the word.

"Yeah, definitely pink." Simmons agreed.

"Think pink, pink."

Donut shook his head; in denial or stupid… I'm going with the latter. "You guys are color-blind. Why would they give me pink armor?" Donut protested and questioned.

Grif chuckled. "Hey, don't ask, don't tell."

Grif laughed as I snickered, trying my best to save some of Donut's dignity, which was not much left.

"Heh, that's not funny," Simmons said, failing miserably not to laugh.

"It's a little funny," I snickered.

However, Donut still protested. "Look at it; it's not pink. It's like, uh… a "lightish red." Donut then turned to me. "Right, buddy."

I soooo wanted to facepalm as Grif and Simmons slowly turned to me. "Huh," Simmons simply said.

Grif soon started talking. "So, you want—"

"Shut it," I immediately stopped him from continuing. "It's called Opposite Florence Nightingale Syndrome, and I am the unfortunate victim. For the idiots with no knowledge of that, it means I am Donut's friend in Donut's mind ONLY, and this is just mild." I turned back to Donut. "And second, there is no such thing as lightish red."

"Yeah," Grif continued. "Guess what? They already have a color for lightish red. You know what it's called? Pink."

Donut looked at me. I just shook my head. He sighed and lowered his head. "I hate you guys."

Before we could even continue more of this nonsense, Sarge came running up the ramp with Lopez in tow. "Well," Sarge started as he reached us. "Well, hello, dirtbags." Sarge stopped as he finally got a good look at Donut. "And a fine hello to you, madam."

Donut turned to Sarge. "It's LIGHT red," Donut countered, annoyed at this point of defending himself… good for him.

"Don't get your panties in a wad there, Barbie," Sarge countered back. "Do you have a package for me?"

Donut shook it off and held out a device to Sarge. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent." Sarge immediately took the device as Lopez suddenly came up. God only knows where he came from, and I didn't necessarily care; it wasn't a hard guess.

"They said this speech unit should work with Lopez," Donut confirmed.

"Speech unit?" Grif questioned.

Sarge began setting up the device to load the speech unit into Lopez. "Affirmative. Command was fresh out of speech modules when I started building Lopez, but once I get this baby installed, I'll finally have someone intelligent to talk to. ...No offense, Simmons."

"Oh, don't worry, I know who you meant, sir," Simmons said proudly.

I didn't; Look, I didn't like being called stupid, but I didn't care to have this idiotic conversation, I would forever remember, so on the one hand, that was fine with me.

"Wait a second... Lopez is a robot?" Grif finally said.

We all turned to Grif as if he was stupid… and he was surprised he didn't know.

"Of course, he is. You didn't notice that he never talks?" Simmons chastised.

"I just thought he was a really quiet guy."

Okay, I mean, that was a fair point.

"And the fact that he sleeps standing up and drinks motor oil didn't get your attention?" Sarge equally chastised.

…Again, I have seen weirder guys in prison do weirder.

"Well, I-I did think the motor oil thing was a bit odd... Uh, I just thought he was trying to impress me."

Okay, that would be bullshit. Look, Donut doesn't even want to impress Grif… that is saying something.

Sarge was getting ready to load up Lopez with the new upgrade but wasn't readying himself quite right. I wasn't the only one that noticed.

"Hey, sir. You really should ground yourself before handling that card," Simmons commented.

"How come?" Sarge questioned but strongly doubted he would do anything even after the effect.

"Because static could damage the card."

Sarge scoffed as he was readying the device. "Come on. That's an urban legend they use to sell those stupid bracelets."

Grif, Simmons, and I exchanged looks with each other before looking back at Sarge. Yeah, that's not how urban legends work or even connected with the issue here.

"And I suppose Pop Rocks and soda's gonna make my stomach blow up."

NOW, that was an urban legend, but again not connected to the issue.

However, I didn't say, and Sarge soon inserted the card into Lopez. Then, low and behold, Sarge got an electricity charge shocking him enough for us to see and Sarge to jump back. "YOW!" Sarge yelled as he jerked back and dropped the crisp fried device.

"Sir. I won't say I told you so, sir," Simmons commented, in military fashion… if you can even count this place as military action.

Sarge slowly turned Simmons, recovering from the shock while collecting the device. "Good. I'd hate to make Strawberry Shortcake here my new favorite Private."

Again, I should be hurt, but I didn't want to be Sarge's favorite.

Donut was pissed. "It's not pink; it's lightish red!" He was mad. It echoed through the canyon. However, acceptance is the first step… he was still in denial.

Sarge took Lopez down to the base to ensure Lopez's speech unit was loading properly. Grif, Simmons, Donut, and I were… not really doing anything.

"So, what happened to me anyway? I recall something about a spider on my head?" Donut finally asked.

"Right. That was a grenade," Grif said a bit drily.

"And the last thing I remember... is a loud bang... and then Simmons fainting..."

"HA!" Grif and I both stated, causing Simmons to look and possibly glaring at us.

"Told you so!" Grif added.

"I did not faint," Simmons practically growled.

Before we could continue, Sarge came up with Lopez behind him. "Done and done. Lopez." He got our attention as we all turned to see the results. "Activate speech unit!" Sarge ordered Lopez.

There were a couple of electronic noises before Lopez spoke…

"Buenos días. Y gracias da por activar mi función del discurso. Soy el número de modelo cero uno cero uno uno tres cuatro ocho ocho dos tres." (Good morning. And thank you for activating my speech function. I am the model number zero one zero one one three four eight eight two three.)

I finally looked to Sarge. "Am I the only one not understanding any of this?"

"Me llamo López." (My name is Lopez).

"Lopez," Griff said excitedly. "He just said, Lopez! I understood that. I can speak Spanish!"

I looked at Grif. "You and every other 5-year-old who watches Dora the Explorer."

Sarge ignored us as he turned back to Lopez. "Lopez, speak English!" he ordered.

"Mi procesador de inglés ha funcionado habla solamente español." (My English processor has malfunctioned. I speak only Spanish.)

"Well, that helped," I said sarcastically.

"Huh," Simmons said as he started thinking out loud. "I think you shorted out his speech unit with that static, sir."

Sarge seemed to ignore it as he turned to Donut. "Maybe Princess Peach here picked up the wrong model."

Donut turned back to Sarge. "Seriously, dude. For the last time: Not pink." Still in denial.

Sarge ignored it as he turned back to Lopez. "Lopez. I order you to speak a language we understand."

"Negative." (Negative.)

Sarge groaned. "Well, this is just dandy. Lopez, HOW - DO - WE - FIX - YOUR - SPEECH - U-NIT?"

I raised my eyebrow though no one could see it. That wasn't going to help. But Grif helped express my thoughts…

"Why are you talking so slow? He understands us just fine. Maybe you should try listening slower."

Sarge was quiet for a minute as he was most likely glaring at Grif. He then turned back to Lopez. "Lopez, would you like to shoot Grif?"

Lopez immediately raised and loaded his gun. "Sí señor. Gracias."

Grif raised his hands in surrender. "No, stop! Uh, alto, alto!"

"Alto means tall, you dumbass," Simmons stated.

"Then why do they put it on stop signs?"

… I had no response to that… It was not worth it.

Cate

After all the craziness and scrapping off the black, not racist, we finally got to speak to infamous badass Tex and the annoyed and pissed-off ghost Church having… best way to call it lovers' quarrel.

"Look," Tex started, and it was weird hearing her real voice and calling Tex a 'her.' "As far as I'm concerned, I'm square with you."

Caboose, Tucker, and I simultaneously turned to Church. His response…

"I saved you from a life of imprisonment. How the hell are you square with me?"

And… we all simultaneously turned to Church. And his response… this lover vocal tennis match.

"Because I didn't kill you back at Sidewinder."

AND back to Tex…

"You know, I don't see how not killing somebody is the same thing as doing them a favor."

Back to Church, and my head was dizzy…

"Well, if you don't appreciate it, I could just kill you right now," Tex threatened.

Church scoffed. "No, you can't! I'm already dead, bitch! I guess the joke's on you!"

I mean, he wasn't wrong. It was an empty threat. Granted, she could kill us, AND we needed her.

Caboose suddenly to between the two. "Stop it! Stop fighting," he shouted almost like a panicking kid, "Can't you see that you're tearing us apart? WHAT ABOUT US?"

Tex turned to Caboose… actually not going to kill him, "What about you?" she asked, generally confused.

"We helped you too. And what do we get? Nothing!" Caboose yelled.

He… actually had a really good point. Look even, Tex realized it.

"Well yeah, but..." Tex trailed off, trying to think of a good excuse.

"Yeah, but nothin'," Church cut in. "He's got a point."

Tex quickly recovered. "I did help them get the flag back."

I shook my head. "Uh, uh, no way. You were paid to do that. We rescued you as a favor," I added as I folded my arms.

"We could have just let you rot in the Red Army prison; it wouldn't have made any difference to us," Tucker also added.

Tex was silent for a minute, but you can better believe she was stuck.

She finally sighed, annoyed. "Fine," she finally said. "I'll stay here as long as it takes to help you guys win this thing. As soon as I have, I'm outta here. What do you need me to do?"

"I have no idea. If you knew how to fix a tank—"

"Hold up," I stopped him. "For the last time, I can fix the god damn tank, just not the guns, and not it's not on its right side!"

"If you knew how to fix a tank," Tucker said, not changing a damn thing, "I would have you do that."

"… okay," Tex said pretty casually.

"Wait, you-you know how to fix Sheila?" Caboose said excitedly and went up to Tex. "...I love you," he said… really weirdly.

Though my mechanical work, job, and stress release, was being taken… at least we had something to deal with it.

R.C.

Lopez had not ended his talk… at all. Now that he had a voice chip. He told us everything… and had NO signs of stopping.

"Entonces le decía "tu no pesas más, yo peso más." Entonces pusimos nuestros cuerpos sobre la escala y determinamos quién tenía el peso más grande. Después de eso me llamé a mi mismo Lopez La Pesado.: (Then I would say "you don't weigh more, I weigh more." So, we put our bodies on the scale and determined who had the greatest weight. After that I called myself Lopez the Heavy.)

Grif groaned as he, Simmons, Donut, and I just watched the robot as Sarge tried to get parts for Lopez's lack of English. We babysat him; that wasn't hard; it was… boringly useless.

"Man. First, he doesn't talk at all, and now we can't get him to shut up. What's he saying?" Grif asked as he slightly turned to Simmons.

Simmons swiftly turned, though I couldn't tell his face; he seemed annoyed. "What're you asking me for?"

"Well, you know, because you're off, uh, a Latino persuasion."

I looked at it with confusion, honestly, half dumbfounded. "What part of Simmons, dumbass."

Simmons thought the same. "I'm Dutch-Irish!"

Grif was silent for a minute, searching Simmons for a minute. "But I thought—"

"What?!"

Grif groaned. "Eh, never mind!" He then quickly turned to me, oh boy. "R.C, can't you do it?"

"I. don't. Speak. SPANISH!" I emphasized.

"Can you just memorize and repeat it later?" Simmons questioned.

"Great, for a fucking parrot!" I shouted. "I still won't know what it means! Besides, I already know three languages, and Spanish will not be added!"

Grif and Simmons exchanged looks before looking back. "Dear God," Grif mumbled. "How do you know three languages?"

"Well," I started. "I can memorize things, which guys surprisingly have not forgotten. "I speak English, and I speak German and Russian."

"Why do you speak German and Russian?" Simmons asked… actually kind of nervous.

"I'm American-Russian-German."

"WHAT?!" Simmons shouted, now terrified.

"So," Grif stated, equally freaked out but actually calmer. "Command sent us a spy/Nazi, photographic memory, pyromaniac, who has been to jail five times as a weapon specialist!" Grif shouted.

I sighed; dear God, this is not the first time. "First, off MINOR pyromaniac. Second, I was born in America, mother fucker. My mom's Russian and my dad's German… they do carry guns… in vault… with pictures…."

Grif placed his faceplate in his hand, and Simmons, most likely looking shocked, looked at Grif. "You know what, Command isn't trying to kill us. They want a FUCKING HUMAN SACRIFICE!"

It was silent for a minute as Grif, and Simmons seemed to be facing my reality and me… really starting to wonder if those photos were in my family's volt.

"… I'm from Iowa."

"NOBODY CARES!"

Granted, that was probably the most sobering thought of the day… and the one making the most sense.

Cate

After we finally got things… semi-explained, we gather near the still sideways tank as Church began to explain his plan and added details.

"Okay, take it, easy guys," Church started, "when I was over at the Red Base, I saw that they've already got their jeep fixed. So, whatever you do, don't let 'em see us before we get Sheila back online."

"Okay, okay" I started. "Even if we get Sheila fixed, how are we going to turn her over? I mean it's not as if we could just lift—"

Crash!

The four of us turned to see Tex next to the now turned-over tank beside her.

And all I could say was, "huh."

Caboose turned back to Church. "She is a very strong lady."

"I'm the one that's the least visible, so I'm gonna head up here to higher ground. I'll keep an eye on the Red Base. If I see anything, I'll let you know," Church said as finished explaining his plan.

Caboose nodded as Tucker, and I turned back to Church. "Great, I'll come with you!"

"That kinda defeats the purpose, Caboose," Church said a bit annoyed.

"Okay. What if I'm really…" Caboose got closer and quieter, "really…" Caboose was in Church's face, "quiet?"

Church, at this point, as well as myself, saw no real intelligence or point in this conversation. "Do you even understand what the term "visibility" means?"

Caboose… chuckled… if I can call it that. "Ah hah hah, uhh... good one, Church."

It was silent before Church finally spoke in a deadpan voice, "Seriously. You don't know what it means, do you?"

"Uh, no..."

Church sighed annoyed, "Caboose, just stay here, man, and try not to swallow your tongue or anything like that."

Church quickly ran away before vanishing.

"AAAnd on the note," I started getting Tucker and Caboose's attention. "I'm going to work on the tank."

"We got Tex for—"

I quickly became face to face with Tucker, he did not see the daggers in my eyes, but he would feel it. "I will work on the god damn tank because if I don't someone will be replacing your balls with a—"

"Whoa!" Tucker yelled cutting me off. "Just fix the tank! Jesus!"

I smirked and took out my wrench and went to the tank and work on the tank's engine. Treats always help things move faster.

Tucker finally turned to Caboose a bit impatient. "Just watch the Red Base and tell us if you see any movement."

I was working under the tank as Tex was working on top… Yes, I know, shut up. Tucker came over to talk to Tex.

"So," Tucker started awkwardly, which is weird for him, but she's also a killer mercenary, so understandable. "I suppose if you're helping us, you're not as mean as I thought."

I heard Tex stop and I crawled out from under the tank to watch. Tex shrugged. "I wouldn't say I'm mean; I just get hired to do mean things."

"Yeah, but you like it."

"Well, I think it's important to enjoy what you do."

Tucker and I exchanged looks before Tucker looked back to Tex and then gestured to Caboose, who was still looking out. "So, let's say I paid you to kill Caboose. You would still do it, right? Even though you're supposed to be helping us?"

There was a long awkward pause as Tex didn't answer but she finally did. "Is this a hypothetical discussion, or should we start talking numbers?"

I quickly stood up and went to the other side as Tucker turned away and muttered, "Yeah, I don't wanna talk about this anymore."

Before I could get back under and avoid the woman killer that might kill me for a dollar, there was a voice… annoying angry ghostly voice.

"Hey, Tucker! Cate!"

Tex, Tucker, and I turned and looked up the cliff to see Church looking down at us. "What?!" Tucker yelled back.

"What the hell is my body still doing up here?"

I scratched the back of my head. "You are aware, you are dead? Your body doesn't really move around much anymore. I do have a small study on tarot cards if—"

"Alright, morons, let me rephrase that," Church said losing his patience… which is normal for being here after 3 hours. "Why in the hell haven't you buried my body yet?"

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Granted, we had a better reason than last time… Also granted I didn't care.

"Buried?" Tucker asked confused and slightly annoyed. "With what? All we have are pistols and rifles. What do you want me to do, shoot you a grave?"

"Well, then how about shipping me back home? You know, let the loved ones, pay a little respect."

Leaned over to Tucker, "He has loved ones?"

Tucker just ignored and continued yelling at Church. "Well Church, here's your girlfriend," he then turned to Tex. "Tex, as one of Church's loved ones, would you like to pay your respects?"

Tex simply turned around and went back to working on the tank. I snorted as turned back to Church if only he could see my shit-eating smirk.

"That was a stirring eulogy. Rest in peace, ghostly asshole!"