“Hey, Brainiac,” Mul’sha’kal said as they were packing up their gear.

“Yeah, Vibes?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. How did an upper caste college boy like you fall in with us killers?”

“That’s a kind of fucked up story,” Bal’sur’kala said as he was packing up his glassware, “and one that I don’t really like to talk about.”

“C’mon,” she said, “Spill.”

“Ok,” Bal’sur’kala said as he sealed a box, “I was attending T’kalbrx Academy and-”

“Ooh! Fancy! You really were top-caste weren’t you.”

“Yeah, big house, gardens, got a grav-car for my graduation and everything… The whole crawl… Doesn’t even feel real these days, y’know.”

“Damn, you really did fall from grace didn’t you?” Jak’kul’sha said as he was carefully cleaning a submachine gun before packing it up.

“I consider it more like I rose to grace,” Bal’sur’kala said as he poured himself a cup of tea, “I was one-hundred percent part of the problem, entitled, prejudiced, spoiled, completely blind to what was really going on in our society. I was every bit what we despise. I was fucking awful,”

He clicked his mandibles in discomfort.

“Gods, I was such a little shit.”

“I always pegged you for one of those bleeding-hearts on campus. You didn’t participate in dressing up like us lower caste dregs and ‘occupying’ the campus gardens and shit like that?” Mul’sha’kal asked with a laugh.

“No, Vibes, I didn’t. I was a complete clean-clawed golden-boy. I considered you dissidents as nothing but inferior dirt-crawlers who didn’t know their place,” he said with a rueful laugh.

“So what changed? What sent a soft-shelled upper crustie over to our side?”

Bal’sur’kala sighed and slumped a little.

“Ralsha… Ralsha happened.”

“Ralsha? It was a girl?”

“Yeah…” Bal’sur’kala said looking downward. “It was a girl. Not just any girl. Ralsha was special. She worked in the Academy’s canteen… Creators, she was so beautiful...”

“Oh?” Mul’sha’kal said with a click of disdain, “Went slumming did we? Took those little claspers for a little drag through the mud?”

Bal’sur’kala hissed and buzzed with such anger that Mul’sha’kal backed away. When an altered made those sounds you took it seriously.

“No!” he hissed, “It wasn’t like that! I loved her!” he spat then he took a deep breath. “Sorry… Sorry… I know what it looks like but that wasn’t it at all. She was bright and funny and smart… oh she was so fucking smart… She was smarter than any of those inbred glittershells that I went to class with. Hell, she was smarter than I was.”

“Smarter than you? That’s hard to believe. Sure that’s not your claspers talking?”

“Absolutely. She was without a doubt absolutely brilliant. That’s why she got a job at the Academy. She just wanted access. Even a bottom-tier like her could get a library card if they wanted. She couldn’t set foot in the actual building, of course, but she could access anything available online. She read everything and I mean everything. I think she knew more than a lot of the professors,” he said with a far-away look in his eyes. “That’s how we met. I saw what was on her tablet one day as I was ogling her. It was some of the same stuff I was studying. I struck up a conversation only to find out she was way ahead of me,” he laughed. “One conversation led to two and two led to a dozen and before I knew it I was done. I fell hard… Fuck,” he said. “If only I hadn’t looked at that fucking tablet… If only I had kept just trying to peek around her apron… What I wouldn’t give to go back and change that day.”

“Why?”

“Because of how everything turned out,” Bal’sur’kala said as he looked into the distance, “I should have never gotten involved with her. I was a stupid selfish kid who never considered for a moment that there would be real consequences for anything I did… and there were consequences.”

“What happened?” Mul’sha’kal asked.

“A golden-tiered boy from one of the best families in the system falling in love with ‘dirt’? I am a Kala. Yeah, one of those Kalas,” he hissed, “Of course we got caught. We tried to be careful but you can’t avoid every single eye. We have a lot of them you know. One of her co-workers ratted her out and the academy promptly called my parents,” he said with an evil buzz. “Creator… I should have just played it off as a dirt-drag. That’s what I should have done but no. I told my parents that we were in love and that I was going to marry her.”

“Oh… shit...”

“Yeah, oh shit,” Bal’sur’kala said with a shake of his head. “Oh fucking shit. My parents completely lost their minds. I just caught some static and suffered the unimaginable fate of getting my grav-car taken away and my allowance cut… At the time I thought the fucking world had ended. My selfish ignorant ass never bothered to think about what would happen to Ralsha...”

“Oh man, what did they do to her?” Mul’sha’kal quietly asked in horror.

“They arrested her.”

“What?”

“The insurgency had started in the outer system and the powers that be were coming down hard on anything they considered remotely seditious,” he snarled. “Before the shooting started she had been a little vocal concerning worker’s rights and had marched in a demonstration or two. Once things shifted from a demonstration to an actual insurgency she, like a whole bunch of other z’uush, wisely stopped doing anything that could be construed as supporting the rebellion, at least publicly.”

“At least publicly?”

“Yeah, privately she still supported the cause but kept it to herself. She was the one who really opened my eyes to what was actually going on especially in the outer system where you guys were. I honestly didn’t know what we were doing. Again, being stupid I actually made an ‘anonymous’ donation or two. Huge mistake,” Bal’sur’kala said quietly as he started to box up electronic components, “Of course I wasn’t the only one who made mistakes. She was just as much in love as I was and wasn’t as secretive as she could have been either. Neither of us knew exactly how dangerous of a game we were playing. Anyway, she got arrested on charges of sedition and supporting the insurgency. The trial was a joke and was almost more about how she ‘seduced and took advantage’ of me and ‘conned me into giving financial support to the rebels’ as it was anything else. People that she thought were her friends came forward and happily betrayed her. Half of their testimony was complete flyshit. It didn’t matter though. She was convicted and sentenced to re-education.”

“Fuck, dude… I’m sorry,” Mul’sha’kal said as she laid an appendage on Bal’sur’kala’s shell.

He shrugged it off and turned away.

“Of course… of course none of this happened until I said that I was going to marry her. Stupid… So fucking stupid… I should have just taken her and run. I had the cash. We could have gone to the capital, or to the Republic… We even talked about it but I… I couldn’t stand the thought of actually having to work for a living. I wanted to finish my degree… Why didn’t we just run the second we were caught? We could have made it… Fuck.”

“Is that what did it. Did that make you turn?”

“No. Not right away. After they were done with the re-education they brought her right back to the Academy and put her back in her job, completely brain-burned. I heard that it was so that she could serve as an example to remind the other laborers to mind their place or something,” He buzzed quietly. “I got to see her every day when I went to eat. I got to see what was left of her anyway… every single fucking day...”

“Creators...” Mul’sha’kal said quietly.

“I tried to approach her but she would just flinch and back away in complete terror,” he said with a quiet hiss, “They must have said something about me while they were… fuck. It was my fault.” Bal’sur’kala said completely without emotion.

“You ok? You aren’t going to gray-out on us are you?” Jak’kul’sha said with concern.

“Nah,” Bal’sur’kala said in a monotone, “I’m good. Of course, everybody fucking knew. I would get hissed at by the other workers, the higher-caste employees would be cold and nasty and the professors, Creators, I even had one of them assign my class a paper on caste relations and proper behavior while grinning right at me. I started getting the headaches within a month. The body pain started shortly thereafter. At first I didn’t know what was going on. I almost went to the doctor. Thank the Creators that I didn’t. Then, the anger started to set in…”

“Fuck, and you were alone,” Mul’sha’kal said, “You were absolutely alone when it happened weren’t you?”

“Yeah, completely on my own. There was nobody to guide me through it. At least I suffered that much,” he said with an emotionless voice and a shrug, “It was less than I deserved but at least it was something. Anyway, a few days later I aced a test. That’s when I knew.”

“You acing a test was what let the great Brainiac know you were altering?”

“Yeah,” Bal’sur’kala laughed. At the sound of his laughter the rest of his crew breathed a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t the great and powerful Brainiac back then. I barely held onto a B average. I suddenly was acing everything. Studies that were agonizing suddenly became boring. The change doesn’t just make us meaner and stronger. It makes us smarter. I have a few theories concerning alteration one of which is that our brains become very plastic again, like when we were kids, and whatever we are doing when it kicks in is what we become good at. In my case it was science and engineering. I started studying everything and everything started clicking. The only problem was the rage. You guys remember. The rage… You remember what it was like at first.”

“And there wasn’t a guide, nobody to stun you and lock you in a room or dope you up… " Mul’sha’kal gasped in horror, "Creators, how many Z’uush did you kill?”

“Three,” Bal’sur’kala said with a shrug. “The first one was a campus security guard. He always had lusted after Ralsha. After the… re-education… he saw his chance and took it... and her. One night I couldn’t sleep so I was walking around campus in the middle of the night and he walked by. It would have been ok but he just had to run his fucking mouth. He turned to me and said, ‘I can see what you saw in her. She is a great clasp.’ That was it. I saw gray. I ripped up one of the concrete pavers and smashed his fucking head in.”

“And, you were off.”

“Yep, at a full sprint. It felt great! You remember your first kill... It was like all the pain and rage were gone and I felt normal again. I was sitting on the hill next to the library watching all of the flashing lights around the scene when I realized that I needed to get gone. I was fully altered and even my precious last name wouldn’t save me now. It was pretty clear where I needed to go and what I needed to do.”

“So what happened next?”

“Well, my family had a launch, of course,” he laughed, “It wasn’t FTL but it had a decent life support system and good acceleration so my next move was to head home...”

“Oh… shit...” she gasped.

“Yeah, you know where this is going... One down and two to go,” he laughed ruefully. "I called a cab. It was around sunrise when I finally got home. My parents were in the kitchen having breakfast when I walked in. As soon as I laid eyes on them I knew that they had a lot more to do with what happened to Ralsha than I thought. I don’t know how I knew but suddenly it just clicked. I just croaked out her name and started towards my father. He actually was stupid enough to say, ‘It was for your own good’. Next thing I know I was smashing his head into the kitchen table over and over and over…” Bal’sur’kala said calmly, “And my mother, she just wouldn’t stop screaming… right in my ears… screaming… she just wouldn’t stop screaming...”

“Oh... fuck,” Mul’sha’kal said in horror.

“And she became number three,” Bal’sur’kala said completely without emotion, “I threw her against a wall, grabbed a kitchen knife and just kept stabbing her until she finally stopped with the fucking screaming. Thank the creators my sister had started college that semester or she would have probably wound up dead too. Anyway I then took a shower, packed, loaded up some food and water, disabled the launch’s transceiver and remote kill switch, and blazed a trail for the outer system. At full acceleration it took less than a week. I had a good four days head start before someone finally called the police to check on my parents so by the time they found me I was home free. The rest is history. The old me was gone and Brainiac was ready to set up shop.”

“So what happened to Ralsha?” Mul’sha’kal asked.

“Oh, she is doing ok. Well about as best as she can be doing,” Bal’sur’kala said with a shrug, “She has met a nice guy who treats her well and I arranged for both of them to move here to the capital. She will never again be the Ralsha that I knew but she’s comfortable, safe, and at peace. About the best that I can hope for.”

“And what about you?”

“Me?” he asked with a chuckle, “I’m exactly where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do. This is me now. As long as the credits keep flowing and the bodies keep falling I’m good.”

Morgana Farstan walked in and looked around in confusion.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“We are pulling up stakes,” Jak’kul’sha replied. “We got a better offer.”

“You can’t do this, we have a deal.”

“No, we had a deal. We had a deal and now that deal is over. You paid us by the job and we did the jobs you paid for. Now, we are doing another job. It’s how the world works.”

“You are going to regret crossing me, skittles,” Morgana said angrily.

“Really?” Mul’sha’kal asked as she idly pointed her jackhammer Morgana’s way. “You sure ‘bout that?”

Morgana just fell silent and stormed off.

“We should probably kill her.” Bal’sur’kala said after she left.

“Nah, walking out on a client is one thing. Killing them is another,” Jak’kul’sha said as he boxed up the last of their stuff, “Let Sheila or the Red-Teeth take care of her. Crazy as she is she ain’t gonna last long and the mess she kicks up will cover our tracks nicely. We let Sheila know what was what. That’s all we have to do. The rest will work itself out without us having to twitch a pincer.”

“Yeah,” Salz’rash said as he was carrying his computer gear to the van, “And we got this sweet gig out of the deal as well!”

“We’ll see how exactly how sweet this job is once the shooting stops. She ain’t dropping that many creds just for ratting out some bitch.” Jak’kul’sha said as he sealed the last box, “Ok, Z’uush, let’s get this show on the road.”

***

“Cyrus, baby, you need to calm down. You are going to give yourself a stroke,” Sheila said to the holo-screen in front of her.

“Some bitch shoots up my men!? Fucks with my business and you want me to calm down!?”

“Cyrus, sweetheart,” Sheila said as she opened a beer, “we aren’t in the hugs and cuddles business. Things are going to get a bit bloody every now and then. Try to keep some perspective here. You got hit. These things happen.”

“They don’t happen to the fucking Red-Teeth!”

“Well apparently they do. So exactly why are you bugging me about this shit? I thought you assholes could take care of yourselves.”

“Because she wants you, not us.”

“Yeah, so you’ve said. Still don’t see how it’s my problem though.”

“It’s going to be your fucking problem if you don’t make this right, bitch!”

“You need to remember who the fuck you are talking to, Cyrus. Do you really want to go there with me?” Sheila said as she sipped her beer and smiled malevolently.

“...”

“Thought so. Listen, dude, I like you. Unlike a lot of porkie trash you are honest about what you are and we’ve done a lot of business together. It would be a bit inconvenient to replace you so I’m going to do you a solid. I know who this bitch is and I know who she hired. Her name is Morgana Farstan and I’ve already hired her kill squad out from under her. I’m sending you all the info I have. She is Fed Intel but from the looks of things she probably isn’t working for them anymore… probably. Oh, and just in case you are thinking about taking things out on the Z’uush in the capital, don’t. You have only dealt with five of them so far. Run around and act stupid and you will be dealing with five thousand not to mention that I am considering introducing a few of them to you as potential new suppliers. Don’t go throwing away millions because you are having a tantrum.”

“This still don’t make it right. You owe me.”

“I’m not your mommy, Cyrus. Don’t come crying like a little bitch when someone bloodies your nose. You have a problem with her. You deal with her. If you can’t then there are plenty of other scumbags that I can set up with those new suppliers I was talking about. Jesus, Cyrus, I am really disappointed in you. Put yourself in my shoes. What would you think if I called you pissing myself and crying because somebody took a few shots at me and begged you to come running to bail my sorry ass out?”

“...”

“Yeah, think about that,” Sheila said with a smirk, “As a professional courtesy I will keep this moment of weakness to myself but damn, Cyrus, get your shit together.”

“...That bitch is dead!”

“That’s the spirit! Go get her, tiger!”

And with that Sheila terminated the call and shook her head.

“Someone needs some testosterone pills or something...” she said to her amused crew as she polished off her beer. She then turned to T’sunk’al. “These guys we just hired away from that Morgana bitch? They as good as they say that they are?”

“They’re better. I either know them or know of them. All of them are exactly what we are looking for,” he said as he grabbed a cup of instant noodles from the pantry.

“Excellent. We are almost ready then,” She said with a smile.