Rowdy Dead Productions

>>New image incoming… uh eventually. ty,DD<<

By David C. Daoust

Colin was strong. It came with the upgrades that saved his life. He was strong and he was fast, and yet he appeared as a normal man. People did not expect this from him, not anymore, not since he stopped putting on his tough guy routine- not since he stopped broadcasting who he was wherever he went… which could, possibly, be why he suddenly found himself in the middle of a barroom brawl within an Organization owned space station.

He ducked to the right as a shot glass flew past his head. His eyes were wide and his mind alert as he dodged the rather burly, glassy-eyed gentleman that came barreling in his direction. The man had been diverted from the middle of the fray as the sheer chaos guided the drunk’s momentum clear of his intended target and towards Colin. The barreling man found out just how solid that carved wooden bar, that followed the length of the room, really was- though Colin doubted he would truly appreciate the knowledge, until the following day.

Gordon Hitch stood in the middle of it all, a crazed half smile on his face. He held a glass of whiskey in one hand as the fighting men swirled around him. Gordon was a tall, wiry man with blond hair streaked with white at his temples. He wore golden chains and a silk shirt under a flashy dark suit, all of which was finely made, and expensive as hell. He looked like he was having fun.

This was about what Colin had expected of the man, though what started the brawl was a bit of a mystery; One minute Colin was talking to the man, the next, Gordon was on the other side of the room and the fight broke out. A fight that seemed to ignite the entire pub into action.

Colin found yet another drunken combatant coming his way, having witnessed his friend’s head driven into the solid wood bar, Colin doubted it was going to register in the man’s mind that all Colin did was dodge out of the way. So Colin instead registered his fist upside the man’s cranium. Again, Colin Vice was strong, he was strong and he was fast- and another man was out cold on the floor.

Gordon Hitch was a solid light engineer, so the shimmering force field that suddenly appeared once someone got a bit too close to him, was no surprise to Colin- though in truth he suspected Gordon was more interested in protecting his latest glass of whiskey.

“So, you’re saying, Theobald Gray,” the clearly buzzed engineer yelled over the din to Colin, “Built a brigade of Battle Drones?”

“That’s what I’m saying…” Colin said simply, perfectly content on continuing their previous conversation despite the change in atmosphere.

“They were spiders weren’t they?” the man said knowingly.

“Indeed.”

“I knew it…” Gordon turned back towards the bar as he tossed the last gulp of alcohol down his throat, after an outward breath of air and a quick shake of his head he explained, “The old boy was obsessed with spiders! There was not a single University project, with his name on it, that did not integrate some form of their physiology…” Gordon was suddenly interrupted as a man hilariously bounced off the solid light shell that surrounded him. Gordon’s laugh that followed was completely over the top. He then turned and laughed just as obnoxiously with Colin, and continued to, despite Colin’s straight face. The man was clearly far drunker than he appeared.

Gordon brought his glass safely back to the bar, though was suddenly soured when he did not find a bartender there for his refill. He turned and boosted himself into a sitting position on the bar, lifting his legs, he spun about, and dropped himself down on the other side.

“I mean, okay -I can see him building the machines- but the AI?” he questioned before he started sorting through what bottles remained intact on the wall, when he came to a bottle that garnered a sneer, he quickly checked to see if anyone was watching, before he cast it to the floor to join the rest of the damaged merchandise below. Finally he found a bottle he liked and brought it to the bar in front of Colin. He pulled a pair of squat clean glasses from below.

Colin had the distinct impression the man had lost his train of thought, and prodded, “But the AI?”

“Right!” with a bit of a wobble that ended in a suddenly sharply bent knee, he sloshed whiskey into the pair of glasses, after he slid the first to Colin, Gordon meandered through some drunken thoughts before he picked up where he left off, “You know, droids only react like how you described, if there’s an Ark Law violation- so you can rule out Bots right there, that means Drones… which is what you said, huh? Foreign AI… No way Theobald designed an AI like that- any AI really… I mean he can do some amazing things, it’s simply not within his realm of abilities…” He took a long pull directly from the bottle, “Unless he found some sort of workaround…”

“Hitch!” a fiery woman suddenly yelled angrily at the engineer as she rushed from the back room. “You said you’d watch the place!”

“And I am, I did,” Gordon Hitch answered innocently as he drunkenly turned towards the woman, “I watched it suddenly erupt into chaos…”

They were in a small dive, frequented more by the locals that actually lived on Half-hull, than the shady visitors that wandered from the docks looking for a place to spend their questionably earned Coin. And since the name of the place was ‘Bruen’s Pub’, a pub which held an iconic image of a tough redheaded woman flexing on the sign out front, and this fiery tough woman looked like she could rip someone clean in half on a whim, Colin figured this was probably Bruen.

Bruen’s gaze burning into the drunken engineer, told Colin that whim may be imminent.

“I can hardly be blamed for old Marty being such a horrid cheat! I mean, I saw that trick dart from across the room…” he snickered into his glass as he turned back to Colin, with a mischievous gleam in his eye he muttered, “What was I supposed to do, just hold my tongue?”

The obnoxious drunken laugh that followed was directed directly in Colin’s straight face.

“Get ‘em out Hitch, or so help me…!” The woman brandished the threat like a deadly weapon and Colin was not surprised at all to see the man straighten up in agreement.

The solid light engineer pulled a pair of devices from within his coat, Colin recognized them immediately as Holomechs, these were slightly different in design than what he was used to seeing, and Colin could see the dataspheres firmly embedded within.

When Gordon Hitch tossed them into the air, and yelled, ‘Sick!’ a pair of shadowy hounds erupted into being. They each landed on four solid paws, snapping and snarling, ready for action.

Colin knew they were solid light forms, just like the form he used to hide the truth on his missions. These lattices, while smaller than his, were impressively oversized for hounds. And while his were controlled by his jacked-in mind, these were clearly controlled by medium grade bots; bots with intelligence no higher than domesticated dogs. The differences did not end there. While Colin’s form was meant to be as realistic as possible, these were more abstract. The hounds were completely black, they seemed to swallow all light, like a void, with flaming purple eyes, and where one might detect fur along the contour of a real hound, instead, there were wisps of black flame.

On command, the pair of hounds tore into the mass of fighting men, pushing them back, and snapping at them from their drunken brawls, more and more of the men ran from the barroom completely as the nightmare hounds herded the drunken brawlers towards the door.

Once the barroom was empty of all but the few patrons that were still out cold, Gordon ordered the two hounds to calm down. Leaving only Colin, the drunken engineer, and the proprietor, to witness as the two shadow hounds began to playfully battle each other in the middle of the empty room.

The drunken engineer smiled at the angry woman as though she should be pleased.

“Yeah great,” Bruen was livid as she studied her wrecked bar, “who’s going to pay for all this?”

“Awe, c’mon Bruen, ya got insurance don’t ya?!” Gordon announced drunkenly before he knocked back another glass of whisky.