16 - PPP

Light was the first thing Maya saw. After that it was sound. She stopped after that. Her senses clogged up and she stared at what lay before her.

What could generously be called house music was being blasted. Even at two hundred feet away, Maya felt the bass as it thumped and pulsed. Neon lasers and lights flashed and danced to the music, leaving behind afterimages of figures.

“What the fuck,” Maya said. She knew she had been saying that a lot since she had arrived to this world. As some would say, over using a phrase tends to dilute its effectiveness, but at that moment Maya used it in its distilled form. What the fuck.

The only term Maya thought that applied to the structure before her was, dance club. It was a metallic cylinder that rose up about thirty feet and was nearly a hundred feet wide. Thick plating cover the exterior of the building, making it look almost fortified.

There was a large visible door and around it swirled lights and dancing figures of light. She couldn’t read the writing that seemed to flash and move around the door. But she assumed it probably said “Happy hour” or “ladies night”.

Maya considered herself a sociable person, but she drew the line at dance clubs. Over priced booze, too hot, and pretty disgusting when you came down and looked at it. She could only sloppy dance with so many drunk guys trying to cop a feel in the dark before it lost its appeal.

The music thumped and the lights flashed.

“Well, when in Rome,” Maya said.

Maya exited the truck and took a look at the surrounding area. The club, it seemed, had appeared on a trash pile, but with gravity and its size; it had slid down the pile and ended up at its base. Through luck or whatever, the building didn’t seem to have been damaged or toppled over.

She wondered what it was made out of. Buildings didn’t normally survive sliding down a hill. The club seemed to be solidly built, which seemed odd in itself. Perhaps with everyone having levels and enhanced strength everything had to be built tougher.

Caution was still the word of the day, Maya mused. She had too many run ins with odd things lately to take this whole pulsing dance club for what it was. What horrors might lay within its walls?

Of course, she didn’t have much in the way to prepare for potential threats. So far her entire repertoire was to smash it until it was dead. Still, she’d be cautious until shit hit the fan and she had to smash.

“Better not have a cover charge,” Maya muttered as she approached the door. It reminded Maya of the airlocks she’d seen on the Hangy, heavy plate with writing on it. Was this a space ship? Was it a space dance club? “Oh, man. It might have a dress code.”

The airlock door slid open as she approached. She paused and took a breath. She felt lightheaded as she stood there and blinked as the strange letters and writing began to change shape and become legible.

“Oh, shit. There is a ladies night,” Maya said, reading the signage.

“Get in or get out!” a voice yelled.

Maya gaped at the voice. Not the words it spoke or its tone, but just from the voice alone. It was a voice. It wasn’t her voice. It wasn’t the voice in her head. It wasn’t Nanaseto’s voice that was beginning to sound a lot like her own. It was another person’s voice.

Throwing caution to the wind, Maya raced into the building. She entered a dark room, it was about eight feet wide and deep, and a figure stood behind a metal table. Maya skidded to a halt as she saw the figure.

It wasn’t human. But then a part of Maya already knew that she’d never run into anything alive in this place. The odds of biological beings surviving was pretty low. What she saw was a machine, a large and hulking machine, behind a desk.

“Holy crap, It’s B.P. Richfield,” Maya said. She eased back toward the exit.

“What are you blathering about, biped?” the machine said. Its glowing green eyes landed on her and looked her up and down. “You have a weapon to announce? No one goes in armed.”

“Weapon?”

“Are you stupid or something? Brain damage? Too much Red Dust?” the machine said.

“Huh?”

“Weapon. Do. You. Have. One.”

“Uh, no?”

“You gonna cause trouble?” the machine asked.

“No?”

“Welcome to Plaxar’s Pleasure Pub. Newcomers get ten percent off their first drink. Five percent off their first duster.” The machine said and then looked away.

“What?” Maya asked.

“Go inside or leave. No loitering. No begging. You need to sell stuff, go see the Tender.”

Maya saw a door into the main room and looked at the hulking machine behind the desk. She noted something else, a rack of weapons. The universal shape of a rifle was easy to spot and she spotted a whole lot of them. There were other cubbies that held what appeared to be pistols, swords, and other weapons. What kind of dance club was this?

“Those weapons,” Maya said.

“You declaring a weapon?” the machine demanded.

“Uh, no.”

“Then get lost.”

Maya stared at the machine for a moment and then turned toward the door. The music was muted in the room and as she pushed open the door it blasted her in the face. The music wasn’t the only thing to hit her hard, there was also the smell. Maya entered the room and staggered. She gagged and then vomited.

***

Maya tried to breath, but the stench in the room made her gag again. She had nothing in her stomach, but it clenched tightly and wanted to expel her soul.

She looked into the room, with its pulsing laser and signage, and saw the bodies. Dozens of them.

“What the fuck,” Maya said.

A figure walked up to her. It was tall and thin and completely naked. It wasn’t Richfield in the other room, instead this creature was more humanoid with humanoid bits. Very female humanoid bits. Maya looked away.

“Need anything, hon?”the naked woman asked. “Been hitting the sauce a bit? No worries, here at Plaxar’s we don’t toss you if you toss it.” The woman laughed and tossed back green dreads.

“I- uh…” Maya said, trying to look the woman in the eye. It was hard. The woman wasn’t human beautiful, Maya saw. The face was too wide and the eyes too small, and there were double rows of needle like teeth in her mouth. Maya wanted to shudder, but she kept her cool. “What’s with…” Maya gestured toward the dead occupants.

The woman shrugged her blue shoulders and glanced at the bodies. Many were on the ‘dance floor’ and many more were in booths, tables, or crumpled in the midst of walking. Maya noted they weren’t the same species as the woman or the dinosaur looking machine in the front room.

In fact, they were all different kinds of species. Some were tall and thin, others were stout and muscular, others seemed insectoid or reptilian. There were no two that were alike.

“A hive of scum and villainy,” Maya muttered, breathing through her mouth.

“What’s that, hon?” the naked woman asked. “The local investigators are not responding to hails. In fact, none of the comm channels seem to be working,” the woman said, shrugging. She looked at Maya. “Can I get you anything? First timers get ten percent off their first drink.”

Maya stared at the woman. She was a machine like the other. Although her flesh looked real and everything moved in a ‘real’ fashion. She was just another machine. An AI, but fleshy, not holographic or murderous.

“I’ve got no money,” Maya said.

The woman’s smile faltered for a second. “If you have trade goods, Tender will see to it. We give competitive prices for creature parts,” the woman said.

“Creature parts?” Maya asked.

“What else is there to do on this world? Haltor’s World is the premier place to level, hunt, and,” the woman leaned in close to Maya, “enjoy oneself. Plaxar’s Pleasure Pub offers all amenities for the discerning Adventurer. ”

“Hard to enjoy oneself when it smells horrid in here,” Maya said.

The woman blinked and looked around at the dead bodies. “Oh, well, yes. I would imagine the dead would cause some olfactory distress.” She paused and then clapped her hands. The music muted and the sound of fans began.

It took a moment, but Maya began to smell incense in the air and the fetid stench of death was slowly removed. It wasn’t entirely gone, but it was bearable.

“What about the bodies?” Maya asked.

“Until an investigator frees them for transport, we cannot touch them. Or until Tommoth tells us.”

“Who’s Tommoth?” Maya asked.

“The Manager, of course.” The woman giggled and shook her bits at Maya.

“Uh, yeah…” Maya shuddered. “I’ll go see Tender, then.”

Maya looked at the dead and wondered what she was going to do. Leaving the dead here was unacceptable. She didn’t know them and did not owe them anything, but they had been living breathing people. It wasn’t their fault that they were caught in the dimensional instability, but laying them to rest was on her shoulders now.

Shouldn’t I be feeling horror? Maya thought as she made her way across the dance floor. There were bodies upon it, multiple species dancing to the music, it seemed. She felt she should be shocked, horrified, and disgusted by all she saw. But she felt none of that. She looked toward a long counter that another machine stood behind and was eager to see what Tender offered.

She didn’t plan on stealing from the dead and she wasn’t going to disturb their corpses. She had promised to respect the dead. Yet, as she looked around at the lights and signage, Maya knew she would have to figure out a way to claim ownership of the Pub. It was a functioning piece of technology and power, two things she desperately needed.

What she assumed to be Tender was another large creature. It had four long arms and a mottled yellow and white skin. Large lavender eyes watched as she made her way across the dance floor and toward it. Behind the creature was a typical bar set up. Bottles of liquor or drinks lined upon a shelf and backlit by soft lights. The bar itself was metal like everything in the dance club.

“Haven’t seen your kind before,” the AI said.

“I’m new,” Maya replied. She looked up to a sign that lit up above the creature. Buy, sell, trade, drink, snort, smoke. “What is this place?”

“Plaxar’s Pleasure Pub,” the answer came.

“Yeah, but what does that mean? Where are you all from?”

“Haltor’s World,” the AI said.

“Have you been outside?” Maya asked.

“I cannot leave the premises.”

“So, no. Well, what about the dead bodies?”

“Unfortunate. I haven’t sold anything in three days. The deceased seem to be making it difficult to continue business. Tommoth must be busy elsewhere, otherwise he would have taken care of this.” The AI did the most bartender thing Maya could imagine and began to clean a glass with a rag.

“So all of you are just waiting for the dead to be cleaned up and to resume business?” Maya asked.

“That’s our programming,” the AI replied.

Maya huffed and looked at the dead. “What can I do?”

“Are you an investigator with Haltor’s Public Services Division?”

“No.”

“Then please wait until the investigators arrive to figure out what has occurred.”

“They’re not coming.”

“Has trouble befallen Haltor’s World? It’s only a Tier 1 hunting resort. Tammoth and his investors will be displeased if the world is overrun by mana mutations.”

Maya sat down. They were AIs and they didn’t seem to be bothered by all the dead in the room. They didn’t seem to be bothered by anything. They had the same lack of emotion she got from Nanaseto. Maybe it was an AI thing.

“This whole place got transported by a dimensional instability from wherever Haltor’s World is to this place. I call it the Rainbow Sky Hellscape,” Maya said.

“Relocation wasn’t supposed to occur for another sixty universal standard days,”the AI replied.

“Wait, relocation? You were planning on coming here?”

“You misunderstand. This is a Redenno Deployable Structure. It’s designed to be fast deployed into low infrastructure Open Worlds. Its a self contained structure, in this case a pleasure pub,” the AI explained. “We have a universal standard year contract on Haltor’s World.”

A smile formed on Maya’s face. “Self contained? As in its own power, water, and whatnot?”

“Yes.”

“System! I wish to claim salvage rights upon this structure!”

Nothing happened.

“What are you doing?” Tender asked.

“Salvage rights?”

“You cannot claim salvage rights upon something that had yet to pass the universal standard year of being considered abandoned or derelict,” the AI said. It resumed its glass cleaning.

Maya remembered back to her abilities. “Oh, yeah. Three sixty or so,” she sighed. She didn’t have three hundred and sixty days.

“Can I get some water?”

“You have credits?” the AI eyed her outfit. Maya felt self-conscious.

“You buy things, right?” Maya pulled out the blast plates she had taken from the rogue AI. “How much?”

“Tanamanium alloy blast plates,” the AI mused, handling the plate. “This is rogue AI components. I don’t deal with that stuff.”

“You can tell by just the metal piece?” Maya asked.

“Rogue AIs are to be destroyed wherever they are found. They are the terrors of low tiered worlds.” The AI replied. “The Sword of the Universe has decreed all rogue AIs to be completely vaporized, components and all.”

“So you’re not going to buy this?” Maya asked. Most of what the AI was saying meant nothing to her. Sword of the Universe? Sounded like some religious craziness.

“I didn’t say that…” the AI said after a while. A conspiratorial look appeared upon its alien face. “Not everyone thinks the Sword is right on this. There are,” the AI looked around, “some who would pay good money for rogue AI components.”

Maya nodded, not feeling the caution that the AI displayed. What did it matter to her if what she was doing was considered illegal in more civilized places. She looted the dead and was wearing a skirt made from aprons.

“How much then?” Maya asked.

“You’re going to have to talk with Tammoth,” the AI replied.

“Of course.”

“We haven’t seen him in days. About the same time these patrons unfortunately died.”

If Tammoth was in the pub when it got transported. He was dead. If he’d been outside of it. He’d probably be fine. Or got dragged along on a different bolt of ebony lightning and was also dead.

Maya sighed.

“I need a drink.”

“What’s that, hon?” the naked AI asked.