“Hey,” Tor protested.
Tripp tapped his destroyed cheek bone, “I’ll take you up on that face transplant offer. I can’t walk around looking like a comic book villain for much longer. It’ll scare our guests.”
“You got it.”
Jaycee thwacked Tor on the back and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, “Come with me, nitwit. We’ll make use out of you, yet.”
“Gerrof me.”
He booted Tor out of Medix and turned to Jelly, “See you in a while, Anderson.”
“Meow,” she giggled and dug her claws into Wool’s sleeve.
Bonnie held her hand out at Jelly, “Wanna kick some ass, sweetie?”
“Meow.”
Kick or lick – it was all the same to this gnarly half-cat…
Bonnie moved through the dozen speed cycles and treadmills and headed for a crash mat at the end of the room.
“We’ll make a killer out of you, yet. Follow me.”
Jelly sprinted after her, fascinated by the way her new jeans rode up her thighs, “What are these called?”
“I told you already, they’re called jeans,” Bonnie turned around and looked at her, “They belong to my son. It’s the closest fit we had.”
“Why did you take your son’s jeans into space?”
“It reminds me of him. I like to hold them every now and again. Please look after them,” Bonnie dug her heel onto a red spot at the edge of the dark blue mat. The ceiling slid apart and dropped a rugged punching bag which swung back and forth over the mat.
Bonnie grabbed it and gave it a hug, “You like this?”
“Miew,” Jelly sniffed the scent on her new denim and looked up at the bundle of horsehair hanging in front of her. She clapped eyes on the USARIC logo plastered over its surface and revealed her fangs, “Let’s kill it.”
“You know Jitsaku, huh?”
“They made me do it at the Star Cat Trials,” Jelly socked the punch bag with her fist, “They made me kill Bisoubisou.”
Jelly recoiled in pain which made Bonnie chuckle with affection, “Aww. Not quite ready to punch, huh?”
“Miew.”
Bonnie rolled up her sleeve up her forearm and thumbed her Individimedia ink. It swashed around her synthetic skin and formed a giant play button at her wrist.
“I find it helps to train with music,” Bonnie spoke into her arm, “Start play-list. Fight Music.”
Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog played through the pinpricks in her wrist, “There, that’s more like it. Now we’ll see who’s the sonofabitch.”
“Son… of… a… bitch,” Jelly mouthed, banking the phrase in her mind.
“Okay, in Jitsaku terminology, this known as taking out the trash,” Bonnie rolled her shoulders and held up her fists.
“Taking out the trash,” Jelly repeated, somewhat confused.
Bonnie trained her eyes on the bag and prepared to deliver a vicious blow, “Okay, girl. Watch me very carefully…”
Over in Medix, Tripp, Tor, and Jaycee observed a bloodied, severed talon from the dead Shanta laying on a bed.
Manuel threw his beam across its shiny surface and projected the results onto a three-dimensional image via the E-MRI scan.
He floated over to the crew, “Just finalizing the data to check for things I consider to be abnormal.”
Jaycee turned to Tor and smirked, “He doesn’t mean you.”
“What?” Tor asked, failing to get the joke.
Tripp found the remark hilarious. He covered his mouth in a futile attempt to stop himself laughing.
“What are you laughing at?” Tor asked.
“I’m not, I’m sorry,” Tor cleared his throat, but simply couldn’t stop from laughing, “I don’t—Shut up,” He nudged Jaycee on the shoulder. The big fellow turned away and tried to suppress his laughter.
So, too, did Manuel, “Ahem, I’m sorry.”
“Even the damn computer is laughing at me,” Tor complained, “Right, that’s enough, I’m going to Pure Genius to get ready. Where I’m welcome.”
Jaycee shouted after him through his sudden fit of laughter, “Hey, remember. Put your Decapidisc on. I’ll be coming up to check soon.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Tor slammed the door shut behind him.
Manuel and the two men burst out laughing, “Oh, my. That was funny.”
“I can’t breathe,” Tripp gasped through his chuckles.
Manuel cleared his throat and straightened his covers, “Okay. Can we concentrate, now, on the task at hand?”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” Tripp swallowed his churlish giggles and pointed at the Shanta talon on the holograph, “Benign bacteria?”
“Probably a coincidence,” Manuel said. “A Dodecahydrate, of sorts. Shares a lot of properties with chrome.”
“Chrome?” Tripp struggled to comprehend the data.
Manuel pointed his back cover at the results, “Yes. Some of the elements closely resemble potassium sulfate. As far as comparable elements go, that’s where it ends. It’s absolutely unique, otherwise.”
Jaycee thumped the sword-like talon’s surface and failed to produce so much as a dent in it.
“Impenetrable, too,” Manuel pointed out the obvious.
Tripp pointed to the second image on the E-MRI. A cluster of colored digital blobs, “What about the pink stuff?”
“The blood?” Manuel shook his body around, “Don’t even get me started on that. The make-up is entirely alien. A thorough Ames test recorded high levels of carcinogens.”
The chart displayed an array of red values and numbers.
“So Pink Symphony is cancer?”
“In its current form, it’s far worse. Way more aggressive,” Manuel said. “The cell counts dial down. It’s more like an immune deficiency. Some evolutionary mix-up.”
“Great,” Jaycee kicked the bed, “And we’ve all got it?”
Manuel protested, “It’s not my fault, nor the bed’s. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Symphonium,” Tripp stood stepped away from the talon. “If it needs a name and we have to report back to USARIC, we’re not calling it Pink Symphony.”
“Why not?” Manuel asked. “That’s its own interpretation of itself. Besides, it hasn’t affected any of you Series Three units. Yet.”
Manuel’s flippant remark caused Tripp to burst with anger.
“I realize that, you dolt. But I refuse to call my illness Pink Symphony, okay?”
Jaycee went to hold him back, “Tripp, don’t get mad—”
“—I can’t go back home and tell my wife the reason I’m wearing a mask and can never breathe the same air as her again is because I’m infected with something called Pink Symphony,” Tripp threw Jaycee back and stormed out of the room, “It’s called Symphonium. Manuel, record that name—”
“—But, Captain, I—”
“—Shut the hell up and do it,” Tripp felt behind his ear and exited the room in a huff.
Jaycee looked at the floor in bewilderment, “Pfft, dude. Have a cow, much?”
THWACK!
Bonnie jumped in the air and scissor-kicked the punch bag against the ceiling.
“Wow,” Jelly marveled at her friend’s strength. The bag swung back into Bonnie’s arms.
“Okay, Anderson. You ready to tear it up?”
“Meow,” she flapped her tail and made her way onto the mat, “Me wanna kill it—”