So, the sequel to my first book will be available on the 30th. You can pre-order it here. I figure since I’m supposed to be drumming up hype for it, I’ll include a scene. This is a smaller scene that doesn’t give too much away. Jimmy, Kat, and a new character, Brontes are killing time while on a long mission.
Brontes, for those who want to picture her, is just a hair shorter than Jimmy, but a hobbyist weight-lifter with at least 20 kilos of muscle on our skinny lil MC. She’s blond, has jet black eyes (a fashion choice) and gets along a little too well with both Kat and Jimmy.
I sat alone with my thoughts for a bit. I didn’t like it.
The Berserker’s manta ran through my mind, over and over. I am the flame, burning all that stands in my path. I am the rock, standing against the waves, unyielding. I am the wind, rising and dying at my own whims. I am the tide, sweeping from the shore to the deep. It was accompanied by gurgling screams, a basso rumbling voice begging me to stop and the wet splatter of blood and intestines on concrete. I smelled shit and blood. I tasted blood, too. I felt flesh and tissue, wet with that same blood and streaks of pleasure shooting through my body; pleasure caused by the dying agony of others.
And it wasn’t just the older memories, either. I saw three-fifths of Ramirez’s armored form cartwheeling away while her leg and arm and the armor connecting them went another. I heard Brontes’ plaintive call for her sister in the night. I heard my own voice, during the planning for the raid, say with a shrug. “It worked fine the last time.”
I really wished I had a drink.
When Kat appeared at the cockpit door, the relief was so palpable that I didn’t even register the limp she was moving with. She made her way into the copilot’s seat and sat with a sigh of relief.
“Hey babe,” I said.
“Hey yourself. How’s the watch?”
“Boring. And entirely too quiet.”
“Bad memories?” she asked, clocking the look on my face. I nodded.
“Ask me why I’m walking funny, then,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You said you were having bad memories, so ask me why I’m walking funny.” I rewound footage of her this morning in my BCI. Moving a little slowly, but fine. I was about to ask for more explanation, then I quickly reviewed her entrance. There it was.
“Why are you walking funny?” I asked. She turned her head slowly to me and grinned. Oh, last night. I grinned back. Even with all that stuff still floating around in my head, and even with her grin being as shit-eating as grins get, her smile was still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t maintain a funk in the face of it if I wanted to. I grinned wider as I recalled her sitting on my lap this morning, and finally knew why. I may be skinny, but my lap is not nearly as hard and uncomfortable as those chairs.
“Well, I’m sorry I hurt you. But you literally asked for it.”
“No regrets,” she replied, holding out a hand for a high five. I felt like an idiot, but I high-fived her right back, because it was Kat.
“I feel like an idiot, high-fiving over sex,” I told her.
“What?” She said, “Sex is fucking awesome.”
Inspiration struck and I dug up a song from the distant past I’d found at one point and saved to my BCI. Pre-Two-Century war stuff. I streamed it to the cockpit speakers with instructions to cut it off if any alerts came through. Kat frowned in confusion at me as the music started. It wasn’t the sort of music either of us normally listened to, and its incredible age was apparent. But after the vocals started, she threw her head back and roared with laughter. I streamed her the lyrics, and by the end of the first verse, we were both singing along.
“I just had sex, and it felt so good! A woman let me put my penis inside of her! I wanna tell the world!”
Harper stuck her head in after a moment. “What the fuck are you listening to?”
We both collapsed into laughter. After a few seconds, Harper left, shaking her head in confusion. When the song was over, I put on something much newer and not as comedic. Instead of synths and a dance beat, this one had electric guitars and rapid, machine-gun-like drums.
“I like this one, who is this?”
I shrugged. I’d never been able to find out who recorded it. “Dunno. I came across it in a shared folder at the lodge. I asked around about it, but nobody knew anything. It’s called ‘Witch’s Knight’, and that’s all I got.”
“Hmm. It’s good.”
Kat kicked her feet up on the control panel. I quickly leaned over and shut off her controls so she wouldn’t accidentally drop us out of warp or something. “Worry wort,” she chided me.
“Loose cannon,” I responded. She flashed me a deeply offended look and clutched her chest. “What?” I asked.
“You called me loose,” she sniffled back fake tears and I chuckled.
“Aww, babe. I didn’t mean it,” I said.
“Besides, if I’m loose, it’s all your fault. You and your giant, forty centimeter cervix hammer.” I blushed and decided to take a stand.
“Okay, first; you know as well as I do that it doesn’t work like that. You’re made of flesh, not clay. And second; It’s not forty centimeters. Gods, your inflated estimate is only getting bigger as time goes on.”
She shrugged. “Feels like forty to me.”
“Do I need to get Emily in here to settle this?”
“Go ahead, if you think it’ll win you the argument.”
“Emily!” I called out loud, startling Kat. I guess she didn’t expect me to call her bluff. A few seconds later, Brontes appeared in the doorway. “Go ahead and ask her,” I said to Kat.
“Yes,” Brontes said before Kat could speak. It wasn’t a question, it sounded like an answer.
“What?” Kat and I said in unison.
“I said, yes. Sounds like a plan.” Kat seemed to figure it out then, but I was still lost.
“What?” My confusion was evident. Brontes looked me dead in the eyes, smirked, then turned to Kat. “Was that not what you were going to ask?”
“No, actually it wasn’t. I wasn’t going to ask anything, Jimmy was just making a point.”
“What point?”
I sighed. Fine. I’d ask her myself. “Emily, how big am I?”
“One point eight three meters.”
“No, not how tall am I, how big am I?”
She eyed me up and down, mischief in her eyes. “I dunno, ‘bout seventy, seventy-five kilos.” I was over eighty kilos, actually, but without all my cybernetics, she’d be right.
I sighed. “Emily, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, but I wanna hear you say it.” She flashed me a fake sweet smile. I gave her the stink eye, then turned it on Kat. This seemed a little too familiar.
Kat favored me with a ‘go ahead’ motion and a look of exaggerated innocence. They had to be chatting via BCI right now. It’s not something I’d normally miss, but peer-to-peer transmissions can be hard to suss out from the background noise in a ship like this, with thousands of wireless signals spiking all over the place, all the time.
“How big am I… Down there.” I said.
“Down where?”
“My… Member,” I said.
“I remember lots of things, you’ll have to be more specific.” Brontes was grinning now, clearly enjoying this as much as Kat was.
“My cock, damnit. How big is my fucking cock?” I finally asked.
“Umm,” she put a hand to her chin and pondered. I groaned and rubbed my forehead, regretting taking this course.
“Forty-five centimeters.” She delivered the statement with sudden certainly. They both erupted into laughter at my cry of dismay.
I threw my hands up and favored them both with the stinkiest eye I could muster. “This is why men used to treat women like property.” I told them, which only made them laugh harder.
“Most men,” Brontes said, wiping away tears, “Would appreciate a woman adding a little something extra when she estimates the size of it.”
“Most men are insecure about it,” I fired back.
Kat gave me a level look. “Are you trying to suggest that you’re not insecure?”
Okay, that was a fair point. But still. “Not about that,” I said.
“Well, yeah,” Brontes added, “With forty-five centimeters, who would be?”
“Is it too late to get back to sitting here alone feeling sorry for myself?” I wondered out loud.
“He really does turn as red as a fire engine! I thought you were exaggerating,” Brontes told Kat.
“I know! Isn’t it adorable?”
Brontes reached out and pinched my cheek, “It’s pretty cute, yeah.” I swatted her hand away. “Don’t you have a dirty fucking gun to police up?” I snapped.
“Yeah yeah, have fun babysitting the autopilot.” She left, flashing me a wink and clapping Kat companionably on the shoulder on her way out.
After that, Kat was gracious enough to drop the subject. But one thing was bothering me.
“What was it that Brontes thought you were going to ask her?” I queried after a few minutes.
“Something we talked about yesterday while we were working.”
“Care to share?”
“Nope,” she gave me a sweet smile.
“You’re infuriating,” I told her.
“I know.”