Author's note: Here is a preview of the novel I'm working on. I wasn't sure where to post it for some feedback so I just posted it here. Hopefully I don't get into trouble for this.
The Diyu Express
Chapter 1: Monday
"Is it just me or is Hollywood rewarding people that aren't good or funny anymore? When everything is safe and controlled there can be no humour, no creativity, no interesting stories, or ideas. How can you create new art if you're always painting within the lines? The lack of self reflection, and self awareness in current day Hollywood has reached a DarksydePhil level. But at least with DarksydePhil, he's locked away in his home. With Hollywood they're able to destroy everything we love with complete and utter impunity and if you dare speak out, if you dare make a stand, you're immediately labelled an istaphobe, a monster, a problem and frankly criticism isn't bigoted. Because in the eyes of criticism, we are all equally shit."
-Quote attributed to It'sAGundam, Youtube commentator
=I=
"Wake up you bitch ass nigga! Wake up you bitch ass nigga! Wake up you bitch ass nigga! Wake up you bitch ass nigga! Wake up you bitch ass nigga!"
Browning Brigadier was suddenly and abruptly jolted awake by the loud blaring of her alarm clock. She immediately bolted upright, and attempted to scramble out of her emperor sized bed, only for her to get tangled up in the sheets and fall face first to the floor with a loud thud. For the next few moments she simply lay there as her head throbbed with pain and her foggy thoughts slowly started to become clearer, all while the alarm clock continued to shout obscenities. Then, once she was fully awake, or at least awake enough to think clearly, she slowly began to untangle herself, got back up and tossed the sheets and blanket back onto her bed. With that done she walked over to the night stand and hit the snooze button on the alarm clock, causing the awful shouting to finally stop.
Now that her ears weren't being assaulted by all that noise, Browning reached over and switched on a nearby lamp that instantly bathed the entire room in a bright white light. She was momentarily blinded, but her eyes soon adjusted and she could take stock of the situation.
From the look of things her room was in exactly the same condition it had been in when she had gone to sleep. There was her bed, a nightstand with the alarm clock on it, a dresser, a closet, a digital calendar on the wall and the lamp she had just switched on. There were no decorations to speak of. Not even the supercrete walls were painted. The floor was carpeted, though Browning was sure that the last occupant had been the one to put it in.
Seeing that everything was in order and nothing unusual had happened while she was asleep, Browning began her morning stretch routine. She started with her legs by doing hamstring stretches, quadricep stretches and finishing with calf stretches. She then moved onto her back with cat-cow back stretches, prone bridging back stretches and lastly with sublime butt lift back stretches. She finished with her arms by doing scissor stretches, forward swinging stretches and finally overhead dynamic tricep stretches. Once she was done, her body no longer felt stiff as a board and she could move without any visible strain.
Browning wiped the gound from her eyes and looked over at the digital calendar and saw that it was indeed Monday morning. A wave of excitement rose up in her. Today was her first day of her new job and the beginning of her new life on this planet. She rushed over to her closet and swung the doors open. There wasn't much inside, just some normal clothing on hangers, a few extra pairs of outdoor shoes, some cleaning supplies and a few pairs of her working uniform. The uniform itself was nothing to write home about. It consisted of a brown t-shirt with her rank insignia on the sleeve, a simple pair of brown pants, a brown hat with a camera attached to it, a tactical vest and a belt with a pistol holster. She grabbed one of everything and headed off to her bathroom.
Browning's home was a simple one room apartment. It had a basic kitchen, a living room with a couch, a dining area, a bathroom, a couple of closets and the bedroom she was just in. There were no decorations in the rest of her apartment either, just pure Mekonian brutalism. Even the living room window to the outside was a five inch thick slab of transparent hypersteel protected by slat armour. But it didn't end there. The ventilation system featured full Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) protection and the building itself was reinforced enough to survive nearly point blank blasts in the low kiloton range. Yes, this was indeed a building designed by Mekonian architects, which was why she had chosen to live here. Only a person of Mekonian descent would want to live in a bunker designed to survive nuclear war.
After walking into the bathroom, Browning switched on the lights, tossed her uniform off to the side and opened the mirror cabinet. She grabbed a stick of Stank-B-Gone deodorant, a pink Chocking Hazard Incorporated toothbrush, a tube of Cocainodine toothpaste, a small box of Garrote Series dental floss and a bottle of Bear Grills urine flavoured mouthwash. She began the process of hygiene by liberally applying the deodorant to her arm pits. She then squeezed the toothpaste onto the toothbrush and scrubbed her teeth until they shone like mirrors in the sun. She finished by flossing in between each of her teeth multiple times over and rinsing out her mouth with the disgusting tasting mouthwash to get rid of any lingering plaque.
With all that out of the way, Browning inspected herself in the mirror once more and saw that her hair was a tangled mess. She grabbed a hair brush from nearby and straightened out her hair until it flowed down her shoulders like water in a river.
Now that her hygiene and looks were taken care of, Browning grabbed her uniform from off the floor and began putting it on, starting with the pants, then the shirt, followed by the belt with the holster, the tactical vest and finally the hat with the camera. Now fully dressed, she gave herself one last look in the mirror to make sure everything was in order. The woman staring back at her was this towering, amazonian built supermodel with long blonde hair, blue eyes, pale peach skin, an almond shaped face and a smile that could shatter diamond. Her features were so completely flawless and unblemished that she could easily be seen on the cover of beauty magazines were it not for one single imperfection: Her eyes were looking in contradictory directions.
Browning's smile briefly disappeared as she remembered the events that had forced her to come to this planet in the first place and leave her home behind, along with everyone she knew. Then, just as quickly as her smile had vanished, it returned and she quickly put everything back in the mirror cabinet and left the bathroom while also making sure to switch the lights off on her way out.
Walking back into her bedroom, Browning opened the drawer in her nightstand and pulled out a Slav Arms KPV-557 ETC pistol along with several clips of ammunition.
Unlike the Celara Sphere Unified Nation, which had access to most of the resources of the known galaxy, border regions like the Lawless Expanse were forced to make due with far more limited resources along with less developed infrastructure. This necessitated the use of weapons and equipment considered obsolete by the Unified Nation such as electrothermal chemical (ETC) weapons which were both much easier to produce and cheaper to maintain when compared to more advanced weapons like a high powered rail gun or a laser cannon. Not that more modern weapons weren't used. They were just relegated to anti-material roles against high priority targets.
In broad strokes ETC weapons worked much like ancient firearms, except these weapons were smooth bore and fired Hyper Velocity Armour Piercing Gyro Stabilized bullets (HVAPGS) at three thousand to four thousand meters per second, depending on the model. But the main key difference was that they used a plasma igniter to ignite and control the propellant. The use of a plasma igniter increased the predictability and rate of expansion of the propellants inside the barrel, allowing for more advanced, higher density propellants to be used. The end result of this was improved accuracy, reduced heat and massively increased killing power.
The particular ETC pistol Browning had was seventeen inches long, weighed roughly five kilograms, had a seventeen round double stacked magazine and fired 15.7x55mm rounds at three thousand meters per second with the power source for the plasma igniter literally glued to the bottom of the ammo clip. She had also customized it by installing a holographic sight, a bulky suppressor, which added another three inches to the barrel and given it a black finish. It may not have had the same killing power as something like an ETC rifle, but it could still reliably punch through bullet proof vests. Though it would struggle against proper body armour designed specifically to deflect high powered rifle rounds.
After a quick check to make sure the safety was on, Browning holstered the pistol and stuffed the spare clips into her tactical vest. Once she was sure everything was secure, she switched off the lamp and exited the room.
Walking into the kitchen area that had a table with a bunch of gun magazines stacked on it, Browning grabbed her wallet, a key chain and a fist full of one ounce silver coins from off the table. Despite being over an inch in diameter the coins still looked laughably small in her massive six digit hand. She stuffed everything into her pockets and headed over to the apartment door where her work boots were. She bent over, put the size thirty seven double A steel toed work boots on her feet and quickly tied the laces. She then made a quick mental check to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything before opening the reinforced hypersteel door, walking into the hallway and closing it behind her. She locked the door which prevented entry by unknown individuals with criminal intentions, but more importantly, also armed the massive shaped charge that was attached to the other side. Just in case some random intruder thought he or she could force their way in without resistance.
Browning headed down the winding hallways of the apartment complex until she reached the elevator doors. She pressed the button to call the elevator up and fairly soon the doors slid open revealing an empty elevator cab. She stepped inside and hit the button for the main floor. The doors then closed, there was a slight lurch and the elevator cab began its descent downwards.
Since her apartment was on the top floor, Browning was expecting to have to wait for a good long while before she reached the main floor. So she was slightly surprised when the elevator came to a halt a few seconds later. She was considerably more surprised when the doors opened and instead of being greeted by a regular person, two heavily armed men dressed as clowns stepped in and took up positions on either side of her.
The two clowns were almost stereotypical in their appearance. They were dressed in brightly coloured striped shirts, along with those oversized novelty pants with the stretchy suspenders. They also wore the oversized clown shoes that they were famous for, complete with brightly coloured wigs and they even had the bright red clown noses that most likely honked when you squeezed them. The only things they seemed to be missing was the makeup. But other than that, they were pretty much how someone would describe what a clown going to a child's birthday party looked like. Though Browning had her doubts that either of them had ever gone to a children's birthday party before.
As for weaponry, the clown on Browning's right was armed with a large and bulky looking Blasty Tech IWG-550 .50 calibre ETC Light Machine Gun (LMG) with a four hundred round ammunition backpack. The other clown to her left war armed with a Blue Moon .60 calibre DMR-635 ETC bull pup style marksman rifle with a high end looking scope and had a bunch fourteen round magazines stuffed into his pants equally oversized pockets. But those were just their primary armaments. Between the two of them they also had several of those cool looking Aryan Arms Stielhandgranate-240 ETC stick grenades, a matching pair of Compensation Arms PNS-420 23mm bore ETC pistols and a pair of sheathed combat knives that were most likely mono edged.
Then there were the men themselves. Even with the baggy clothing they were wearing, Browning could still tell that both men were heavily muscled weightlifters without any visible trace of body fat on either of the two. Their faces, while not covered in makeup, did have very noticeable stubble on them, and while they were both smiling, it wasn't the kinds of smiles that put one at ease. Finally there was their eyes. Despite their cheerful looking smiles, both men had stone cold glares that seemed entirely capable of boring holes through solid stone and wouldn't look out of place on a soldier who had just come out of a particularly violent war.
The clown on Browning's right pressed the button to close the doors with the noise snapping her out of her thoughts as the elevator cab began moving downwards once more.
For the next few moments the three of them stood there in silence with Browning looking to her left and right with her smile becoming more nervous by the second. Soon the silence became too much, and she decided to strike up a conversation.
"Hello there." Browning said in a cheerful tone to the clown on her right, hoping not to provoke him into doing anything violent. "Who might you two be?"
The clown turned to Browning and she tensed slightly, as if she were about to be struck. But instead of hitting her or doing anything hostile the clown began speaking in a high pitched, happy sounding voice that seemed completely out of place on such a grizzled looking individual.
"Greetings misses, my name is Sprinkles the Heavy." The clown, Sprinkles, began and then pointed to the other clown. "And that over there is Love Tap the Sniper. We are members of the Gang Banging Clown Posse."
Browning looked over to Love Tap, who gave her a nod of acknowledgement, before turning her attention back to Sprinkles.
"My name is Browning, and I recently got a job at the Diyu Postal Service, and I was just wondering..." Browning hesitated for a moment but quickly continued "... What's with all of the firepower?"
"We're gonna pop some punk ass mimes." Sprinkles replied in a casual sounding tone, as if what he said was the most normal thing imaginable. Then he honked his clown nose twice for good measure.
Browning was confused "So you're going to get them some soda pop?"
"It means we're gonna pop some caps in their asses." Sprinkles tried to clarify.
Browning just got even more confused "What do pop rockets have to do with anything?"
"For fucks sake!" Love Tap suddenly, and loudly exclaimed in an exasperated and completely normal sounding voice "We're going to kill them! We're going to shoot the shit out of them! And then we're gonna rape their bodies!"
"Oh, so that's what you meant." Browning smiled sheepishly while rubbing the back of her head. "Wow, these city accents sure are hard to understand."
"Yeah, I figured you were new to the city." Sprinkles commented "Word of advice: Learn to speak Street, otherwise you're going to be spending each and every conversion trying to understand what the fuck the other guy is saying."
Browning was about to say something in response when the elevator cab suddenly came to a stop and the doors opened, revealing a long hallway and the front entrance at the end.
"Well, good luck popping some punk ass mimes." Browning said as the three of them stepped out into the hallway.
Sprinkles chuckled darkly "We don't need no luck to smoke those punk ass faggots."
With that the three of them parted ways with Sprinkles and Love Tap turning down into another hallway, presumably to exit out the side entrance while Browning continued straight ahead towards the front. She soon reached the front entrance and pushed her way through the heavy duty hypersteel door, but instead of emerging outside, she found herself in a small unremarkable looking room. The room in question was fairly small, maybe large enough to accommodate half a dozen people before getting crowded. It had windows to the outside all around, a few security cameras hanging from the ceiling, a suspiciously large number of air vents and a door to the actual outside in front of her.
Browning knew why the entrances had been set up this way. The rooms were designed to act as a sort of airlock to minimize the chances of an intruder getting in by following a tenant and slipping in at the last moment before the outer door closed and locked itself. It wasn't a perfect system because now the tenant was stuck in the same room as a potentially dangerous individual and that individual could always open the outer door to let all of his friends in. But if things got really out of hand, the security officer watching the whole affair could just gas everyone in the room and sort things out afterwords. It was still a fairly effective system as far as security measures went.
Browning briefly looked out the windows to make sure nobody was nearby to sneak in and then stepped through the door into the outside world. Her eyes were immediately assaulted by the harsh glare of the red dwarf star that this planet was tidally locked with. She had been here for two weeks now and she was still adjusting to the fact that there were no day and night cycles, or the fact that the sky was red instead of blue. The sounds being picked up by her ears were another thing she found herself struggling to deal with. Because unlike her hometown, which was fairly quiet and peaceful, here her ears were constantly bombarded by an unholy cacophony of roaring engines, blaring music, loud shouting, explosions and unending gunfire.
Not wanting to get stressed, or angry at something she had no control over, Browning took in a deep breath to calm her nerves.
The stench of the city hit her like a sledge hammer and she nearly gagged. The smell of pollution, cigarette smoke, bodily waste, rotting garbage and death all mixed together to produce this unholy miasma that seemed to seep into to anything and everything it touched, nothing was safe. But she was largely used to it by now and quickly recovered. She then headed into the parking lot where her car was parked.
Despite both fusion, and hydrogen powered vehicles being a thing for thousands of years, the highest percentage of civilian owned vehicles were still powered by fossil fuels such as gasoline because, in all due honesty, nothing really beat the roar of a supercharged combustion engine.
Browning's car was a heavily modified Druick Grand National GNX 2R. It had originally been a typical sports car with a one thousand six hundred and fifty horsepower turbocharged V14 engine with dual exhaust, a basic rear wheel drive configuration, a boxy body shape with a hood scoop and low ground clearance. It was as about as basic as a car could get with the only noteworthy feature being the engine. But such vehicles were for the lesser cultures and she had quickly gotten to work on it by first giving it a new chassis with an all wheel drive configuration, much better ground clearance for dealing with rough terrain and large bulletproof off road tires, because not all of this cities roads were paved or in good condition. After that had been done she upgraded it with a better armour package, including thicker transparent hypersteel windows so it could deflect shots from most forms of small arms instead of just low calibre pistols. Then she added a Nitrous Oxide System (Nitros) to provide momentary but substantial boosts to engine performance and modified the Tesla Anti Intruder Security System to subject any would be carjacker to a lethal dose of electricity instead of just tasering them. For the finishing touches, she had painted the whole thing bright red in hopes that it would go even faster.
Browning hit the unlock button on the electronic remote hanging from her key chain, causing the car to let out a series of clicks and a single beep to signal that it was unlocked. She opened the door, climbed inside, fastened her seat belt and put the key into the ignition. The car instantly roared to life with barely restrained power and she sat there for the next few seconds as the car vibrated from the sheer power of its engine. It was such a satisfying feeling that she felt she could sit there for hours, but she had work today and couldn't. She then put it into reverse and reversed out of her parking space before driving through the parking lot and taking a turn onto the streets and into the city proper.
During her first week on this planet, browning had quickly learned that driving through the big city was a whole different experience than going down the streets of her hometown. The city was absolutely massive and seemed to stretch on into infinity. She was also constantly surrounded by these massive monolithic buildings that were covered in flashing lights and/or holograms that would have probably given her seizures if she were epileptic. Then there were the people packing the sidewalks. Unlike the Unified Nation which had a single ethnic group per planet policy, this place seemed to house every single race, culture and creed that currently existed. Granted, this wasn't the best idea ever and was undoubtedly causing a lot of tension to rise. She was more or less proven correct in her assumption as she watched several gun fights break out between the various groups as she drove down the streets.
Browning was shaken from her thoughts by her stomach rumbling. Of right, she hadn't had breakfast yet and had left early in order to eat out. She wondered if breakfast even existed on this planet. She decided to ask about it later as she switched on her Global Positioning System (GPS) and began sifting through its extensive menu of nearby restaurants until she found one that caught her eye; Harambe Fried Gorilla. That sounded like an interesting place so she selected it and began following the directions to its location.
As Browning drove towards her destination, she passed by more crowds of people as well as several dead bodies, one of which had been blown into several pieces with what was left being eaten by carrion birds. She slowed her car down in order to get a closer look at the exploded remains to try and figure out just what had happened. The Nephilim body wasn't exactly what one would call fragile and had all kinds of genetic advantages such as a reinforced skeleton and joints, muscles with the density of stone, an absolutely crazy healing factor, advanced clotting abilities, super strength and the ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue just to name a few. So for a body to be completely blown apart like this would have required a ludicrous amount of force. It almost looked like the individual had been shot with a large bore cannon, only for the shell to explode while still inside the victims torso and subsequently blown him apart. The remains also looked like they'd been there for at least a week now, given how badly decomposed they looked which, while not making her frown, did caused her to shake her head in disapproval. This wasn't how things were like back home. If someone turned up dead in the streets of her home town, it got cleaned up immediately.
After inspecting the exploded corpse, Browning sped back up and continued on her course to Harambe Fried Gorilla. She eventually reached her destination and was greeted with what looked like a fairly large fast food restaurant that was painted in a mix of reds and blacks, complete with a giant sign of a gorilla head with googly eyes. It was absolutely hideous to look at, but she was here now and pulled into the parking lot. She quickly found a vacant parking space, parked her car and got out. She hit the lock button on her key chain remote and headed to the entrance which had an armed guard standing next to it. In fact there seemed to be a large number a guards on the premise which was very unusual for such a small business. After a moment of thought she simply shrugged her shoulders and headed on inside.
The inside of Harambe Fried Gorilla turned out to be just as ugly as the outside with the exact same eyesore colour scheme and also had pictures of that googly eyed gorilla plastered all over the place. Browning walked over to a cashier who wasn't occupied by another customer and looked at the menus hanging from the ceiling, trying to determine what might be the tastiest thing to order.
The cashier in front of Browning was a bored looking woman with fair skin and green curled hair that didn't look like it was dyed. She was wearing a really tacky looking uniform that was red and black like the rest of the store, complete with a ridiculous hat that had that same goofy looking gorilla on it.
"Welcome to Harambe Fried Gorilla, may I take your order." The woman said in a bored tone that matched her expression.
Browning studied the menus for a few more moments before making her decision "I will have a large helping of the deep fried Gorilla Kebabs with Juicy Goodness seasoning, a box of deep fried Gorilla Nuggets with some Flaming Homosexual extra spicy hot sauce and a Mega Gulp size Sugar Overdose Soda to wash it all down."
The green haired woman hit several buttons on her cash register and there were a series of loud beeps. "That will be $11.25"
Browning raised an eyebrow at the price but still pulled out two of the silver coins in her pocket and handed them over to the cashier which she took and quickly handed back her change. After that the other employees in the back got to work preparing her meal.
"Why is your food so expensive?" Browning asked while waiting for her food to arrive.
"All of our gorillas are raised free range in perfect simulations of their natural environment and fed wholly organic foods. They are also humanely put down to avoid any unnecessary suffering on their part. As you can imagine, this gets rather costly."
Browning nodded her head and smiled happily in understanding. Then her smile faded slightly as she fully comprehended what she just heard "Wait what?"
The woman promptly doubled over laughing like she had just told the funniest joke ever "I'm just messing with you about all that shit! We actually just keep them in cages and bash their fucking heads in with sledgehammers! Names Gert by the way."
Browning gave an awkward grin in order to hide the fact she was completely horrified by what she just heard and introduced herself "My name is Browning, I'm new here."
Gert tilted her head to the side and scrutinized her more intensely "Yeah, I kind of figured you were new here, judging by your overwhelmed expression and the fact that you didn't know we served actual gorillas at this establishment."
"Speaking of this establishment." Browning began as she rubbed her chin in thought "What's with all the extra security?"
"Oh that." Gert waved her hand in dismissal "We get a lot of celebrity visitors and they all have their fair share of creepy stalkers. The additional security guards are just there to keep them outside where they can't cause any trouble."
Browning was about to respond when another employee suddenly came up to the two of them with a tray of her now ready to be eaten food. She quickly grabbed the tray, held it close and inhaled the aroma that was wafting off of it. As much as she hated to admit it, the food actually smelled pretty good. She quickly excused herself and headed into an unoccupied section of the restaurant. She sat down at a nearby table, picked up one of the Gorilla Kebabs and took a bite. Her mouth was immediately assailed by an explosion of delicious flavours and she began greedily scarfing down the Gorilla Kebabs as fast as she could.
As Browning ate, she became vaguely aware of another customer entering the restaurant accompanied by a slight tremor in the ground. But after a handful of seconds the tremors ceased and her attention was once more focused solely on her meal. Things continued on normally for the next few minutes as she turned her attention to the deep fried Gorilla Nuggets. She grabbed one, dunked it in the Flaming Homosexual extra spicy hot sauce and took a bite. To her absolute delight it tasted amazing, but also made her mouth hot and she took a sip of her Mega Gulp sized soda. But then the tremors started again and rapidly increased in severity until her drink started to slide off the table from the vibrations.
Becoming slightly alarmed by what she thought was the beginnings of an earthquake, Browning looked up from her meal and her eyes went wide as the thing responsible for the tremors stepped into view.
It was a dark skinned, overweight looking man who must have been somewhere between thirteen and fifteen feet tall. He had to have been around eight feet wide as well with limbs as thick as tree trunks, a massive barrel chest and a great rotund belly. Yet even with his apparent corpulence, massive boulder like muscles were still visible underneath all of the flab and his entire body seemed to radiate primal strength. Browning was twelve feet and ten inches tall, which was well above average by Nephilim standards, yet this man made her seem tiny and weedy in comparison. The man was dressed in a pristine white suit that was undoubtedly tailor made just for him with thick golden chains hanging off his neck, jewel studded rings on all of his fingers and a golden crown atop his bald head to complete the image.
Browning was only just beginning to comprehend what she was looking at when two equally massive individuals with similarly dark skin stepped into view. The first was a man in a black suit with equally black hair that was cut short and he had an oversized pistol holstered at his side. The other was a woman or at least was roughly shaped like one. She was also dressed in a black suit but this one was specifically made for women. Her black hair was done in an Afro that went out to her shoulders and she had a similarly large pistol holstered at her side. Both individuals were just as heavily muscled as the first man, but unlike him, there was no trace of fat on either of their bodies.
As Browning continued to stare, the three towering hulks made their way over to the table that was facing hers and sat down with the white suited man in the middle and his apparent bodyguards taking up position on either side of him. The metal chairs made some worryingly loud groans as they seated themselves but thankfully nothing broke. Not a minute after they had taken their seats, nearly a dozen of the restaurants employees came up to them with trays that had been piled high with food and began placing them on the three hulks table until it was completely covered. Once they were done, they gave respectful bows like the three were royalty and left.
The second the restaurant employees turned and left, the three hulks began to consume the massive selection of food at a rate that would leave even an industrial strength wood chipper in the dust all while Browning stared transfixed at the spectacle in front of her.
Soon however, the one with the crown realized someone was watching him, looked up and glared murderously at Browning with such intensity that she actually flinched back sightly.
"Dah Fuck you lookin at?" The giant man growled with a deep rumbling voice that sounded an awful lot like a rock slide.
This snapped Browning out of her trance and she began apologizing profusely. "I'm so sorry, it's just that I've never seen a Caelandian in person before. I didn't know you guys were so big and scary."
The three giant piles of muscles on muscles stared coldly and hardly at Browning in complete silence for an uncomfortably long time before one of them finally decided to speak.
"Dah fuck did this bitch just say?" The giant black suited male bodyguard asked incredulously.
"I think this bitch just dissed us!" The giant black suited female added as she glared at Browning.
The two bodyguards reached for their pistols and Browning, out of pure muscle memory, did likewise and reached for hers as well. But just as things looked like they were about to get very violent very quickly, the giant white suited man burst into laughter. She was initially spooked by the sudden outburst, but to her immense relief she recognized that it wasn't the laughter of someone about to commit a murder or a man deriving sadistic joy from another's discomfort, but true genuine humour at the situation.
"You must be new to the Lawless Expanse if you ain't ever seen a Juggernaut before." The white suited man said once he recomposed himself.
"Yeah, I've been getting a lot of that lately." Browning replied wearily, then added "I'm Browning, nice to meet you."
"The names Miggie Balls, I'm the biggest thing in the rap industry since Six Pack and the two folks with me are my bodyguards Big Nigga and Crazy Bitch."
The two bodyguards, Big Nigga and Crazy Bitch, gave brief waves before they put their weapons away and resumed consuming their meals.
"So..." Browning began while drumming her fingers nervously "What exactly is a juggernaut? Are you some kind of evolutionary subspecies?"
"We're first generation super soldiers created by our resident mad scientist Dr Crepusculum who is also the head of the Parasol Pharmaceuticals Corporation, which in case you don't know, deals in things such as medicine, genetic engineering, cloning and of course super soldiers. They're pretty much second only to the Blue Moon Corporation in terms of how much money they're making and the territory they hold."
After Miggie had given his explanation, he spent the next few moments scarfing down food while Browning did likewise.
"So tell me." Miggie began once he had swallowed the remains of a deep fried Gorilla Strip. "How much do you really know about this planet?"
Browning thought about it for a moment "Well this planet is called Sheol and is located in a border region known as the Lawless Expanse. It is tidally locked with a red dwarf star so there are no day and night cycles and all of the plant life is black in order to absorb the infrared light. There is only one large continent called Giath that is shaped a bit like a torus with a bite taken out of it and the placement of the inner ocean in relation to the sun has led to some pretty crazy thunder storms. The only major settlement on the planet is the City of Diyu which has a population somewhere between seventy and eighty million people."
With her rundown given, Browning scarfed down some more Gorilla Nuggets and took a sip from her Mega Gulp before continuing "I'm also aware that all of the major corporations, mercenary groups and criminal organizations of the Lawless Expanse are headquartered in this city. Most likely to escape the outright criminal tax laws of the other planets out here."
Miggie pursed his fingers together and nodded sagely "So you don't know shit. Well lucky for you, Miggie Balls is here to give you a free sampling of survival lessons. So prepare your ears for some straight facts."
Upon hearing this, Browning leaned forward in her seat slightly and listened intently, her meal all but forgotten.
Miggie looked directly at Browning, held up his hand and raised his first ring studded finger "Lesson number one; Always keep your hand on your gun when dealing with random people. That way they'll see that you're ready for a fight and will be less inclined to start some shit."
Browning nodded her head in understanding while keeping quiet.
Miggie raised his second finger "Lesson number two; Try to avoid going alone as much as possible and have someone at your side as often as you can. The old adage of survival in numbers is very much true in this city and you'll be much less likely to be jumped if you have backup."
Browning nodded once more and eagerly awaited Miggie's next lesson.
Miggie raised his third finger "And finally, lesson number three; Don't start shit with someone you don't know. I don't care if this motherfucker just blew up an orphanage and started jackin it to the burning kids, you do not pick a fight with him unless you know exactly who he is and what the consequences are."
With his lessons now delivered, Miggie relaxed and lowered his hand "That concludes your free sampling of lessons. If you want more survival advice there are plenty of other people who'd be willing to help for a small fee. Just ask around and watch out for potential scammers."
Miggie then went back to inhaling his food while Browning did likewise. It wasn't long before both parties finished off their respective meals and got up from their seats.
"It was nice meeting you Mr Balls and thanks for the free lessons." Browning said as she got out from behind her table.
"For a fine ass hoochie mamma like yourself it was no problem." Miggie replied while he and his bodyguards did the same.
Once again Browning found herself wishing she could understand the local slang.
The four of them made their way to the front entrance with Miggie and his body guards lining up at the cashiers, apparently to order seconds, while Browning went out the front door and into the parking lot. She headed over to where her car was parked and quickly noticed something peculiar when she got closer.
There was a smoking corpse lying on the ground next to the drivers door.
Browning walked up to the body and inspected it more closely. It was an olive skinned man of unknown ethnicity. He was dressed in workers overalls and had a tool belt around his waist. He also had a wrench and screwdriver clutched in each hand respectively, both tools were now being held firmly in a death grip. She looked at the door and saw scratch marks around the lock. She quickly pieced together what had happened and let out a weary sigh. She had only gotten this car a week ago and there had already been over a dozen attempts made to steal it.
Bending over and grabbing onto the ankles of the mans body, Browning dragged it away from her car and into another vacant parking space. She walked back over to her car, unlocked it and climbed inside. After quickly fastening her seat belt, she started up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot and into the streets once again.
The remainder of Browning's drive to work was uneventful. Well mostly uneventful. There was that one group of bandits who tried to carjack her when she stopped at a red light. But the Tesla security system took care of them.
Browning eventually reached her destination and arrived at the main base of the Diyu Postal Service; The Summerfell Military Fortress.
The Summerfell Military Fortress was a massive military complex consisting of barracks, warehouses, motor pools, armouries, supply depots, workshops, logistics centres and a single large administrative building to govern the whole place. This place was easily the size of a small town. The base also apparently had its own spaceport because Browning saw a drop ship take off from from behind the walls, its fusion torch engines producing a blinding light and deafening roar as it rose up into the sky. Speaking of walls, the entire base was surrounded by thirty foot tall reinforced supercrete walls topped with mono edged razor wire, pillboxes, wide spectrum sensor nodes, multi spectral cameras and weapon emplacements.
If Browning had to guess, there must have been at least ten thousand people working at this place. It was just that big.
Forcing down her rising excitement, Browning drove up to the massive hypersteel gates and stopped when her window was aligned with a nearby kiosk that had a fully armoured man inside it. She rolled down her window and pulled out her identification card. The man pulled out a scanner and scanned the card. He then pulled out a different scanner and scanned both of her eyes. After a few moments of checking his computer to make sure it was actually her and not an imposter, the man opened the gates and she drove inside.
Finding a parking space proved to be far more difficult than it was at Harambe Fried Gorilla and Browning wound up having to drive for a literal mile before finding one. But she eventually did, parked her car and got out. After locking it she had the unenviable task of walking all the way to the administrative building in the blazing hot sun. But she made the trek regardless and by the time she reached the main doors of the administrative building she was roasting alive and starting to sweat profusely.
For the next few moments Browning simply stood in front of the main doors. Then she took a deep breath, steeled herself for whatever the day had in store for her and stepped inside.
Thus began Browning's first day at work.