“Talk with a badger’s butt,” I say.
“Since when did you become an expert on badger butts?”
“Oh I don’t know, probably around the same time you became an expert on talking bears.”
The robot harrumphs and I notice her shiny chrome tail has raised up some and is twitching around. She is definitely miffed, and judging by her body language she’s just a couple tail shakes away from making a full-on Threat Display.
“OK, Mr. Lover Fiend,” snarls Fribby, her voice laden with sarcasm. “Tell me this. So when Runcita came to visit you in your dream last night?”
“Yeah?”
“What was she wearing?”
“Nothing,” I say. “She was naked. Her nipples were real perky and hard—”
“Stop! Forget I asked!”
Then Fribby mimes sticking a silver claw down her throat and gagging.
The spaceship screeches to a halt in the parking spot.
[ 6 ]
DR. TERRIBLE’S FIENDISH POETRY & HIS TOWERING GENIUS
“Sir, Runcita is just about to step on the Zap Pad,” says ATHENOS II. “I’m afraid if you don’t get a move on, you might miss your opportunity!”
This is typical ATHENOS II, always looking out for me. ATHENOS II is another one of Dr. Terrible’s fiendish and glorious inventions. My grandpa built ATHENOS II by using a hybrid of reactive memory-based carbon nanotubes and amorphous fiber. Living tissue had been fused in all sorts of new and innovative ways. And part of the technical wizardry of ATHENOS II is that on the outside she looks like a regular spaceship, but once you’re inside you find that she has several floors and an array of seemingly endless rooms.
Now when ATHENOS II speaks to us, there in the cockpit a giant panel of multicolored lights pulses with her deep voice.
But on the other end of the spaceship, down in the hideous Dungeon Room, ATHENOS II has an actual mouth. Her mouth is about five feet wide and it’s embedded in one of the Dungeon walls. It is seriously demented and fiendish-looking, and the ship’s massive mouth in the wall has fangs and a long forked tongue which she’ll shoot out at you and try to grab you with if you happen to make her angry. Once a week, I have to throw some alien critter down there in the Dungeon Room, to feed her.
And if you want to know the truth, it’s kind of insanely creepy to go there and stare at a giant mouth with fangs, speaking to you from a wall. So I really don’t go down there that much. Pretty much never, actually. Except when it’s time to feed ATHENOS II.
Anyway, she is technically 72% living dragon organism, 28% other. And on most days, 100% right. But the downside of ATHENOS II’s cutting-edge nanostitch biotech is that she has a full-fledged psychological profile.
Now my grandpa Dr. Terrible gave me ATHENOS II as a gift a couple months back, citing the spaceship as an example of a machine designed to serve dragons and enhance our lives. Unlike Fribby and the other robot cadets enrolled here at WarWings, who aren’t programmed to serve. But to conquer.
And for the most part over the last couple months, ATHENOS II has proven to be a mega asset. Like today.
So now I look at Fribby squatting there in the cockpit.
“ATHENOS is right,” I say. “I better bolt. This might be my only chance. Do you mind if I go on ahead?”
“Of course I’m right!” says ATHENOS II. “Even the time you’re wasting standing here right now might be the difference between you going to EggHarvest or not. Your Queen is out there! And yet you continue to stay in here and talk with this robot!”
Fribby glares at ATHENOS II’s Control Display and snarls: “Watch your mouth, you bucket of bolts.”
This is the downside of ATHENOS II. For a spaceship, she has no sense of boundaries.
Fribby looks at me and flaps her wings. “Don’t worry about me,” she growls, as if she’s insulted I would even ask her such a stupid question. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Then a green muscular tentacle shoots out of the spaceship’s wall and zooms thirty feet over to where I’m standing. And the fleshy tentacle is clutching my red cape.
“Here, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Let me put this on you first. Runcita won’t be able to resist you when you’re wearing your cape!”
Then I squat in front of the full-length Talking Mirror and give myself a quick once-over. I can’t help but admire myself, squatting there in front of the mirror with this red cape on. I snort firebolts of joy out my nostrils and bare my fangs. I look seriously fiendish and demented. And I don’t know what it is exactly, but the red cape always makes my horns look bigger. The red cape also makes me feel more ruthless and deranged, less prone to fainting.
I squirt blacksmoke out my nostrils, and say:
“Mirror, Mirror, tell me how am I looking?
Am I hideous enough to get things cooking?”
Then the mouth appears in the Talking Mirror, and says:
“Sir, I’m sorry but I must confess,
when you offer your crown
there’s no way Runcita will say yes!
Because your cape is a stinkin’ filthy mess!”
Ms. Cyber Scales comes up behind me and starts tugging on my cape, trying to brush something off it. “The mirror’s right,” she snorts. “Your cape is a stinking filthy mess. You’ve got dried bloodstains all over it. There’s hornet wings and fur all over this thing. Tell me something, Weak Sauce. Is this your cape? Or is this your freaking dinner napkin?”
“Well clean it up, will ya? I can’t go offer my crown to Runcita with a raggedy-looking cape. She’ll laugh in my face.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Fribby tugs at the cape, and then rubs one spot real hard like she’s trying to get a stain out. “But I’m telling you, this thing is putrid.”
Now I’m seriously desperate and I start sweating like a bastard. And for us dragons, sweating is a huge no-no. It’s like wetting your nest, something you’re supposed to outgrow by the time you can spit fire. A dragon’s olfactory senses are specially attuned to detect even the tiniest bit of perspiration in our environment, so that on a dark night we can locate hidden prey. It also lets us know the creature we’re about to attack is terrified of us. Which is the same reason dragons never sweat. Because it’s essential that at all times we give off the odor of No Fear.
Anyway, I’m starting to sweat like crazy. I glance at my powerstaff and see my MATING MAGNETISM score has actually dropped to FatChance, and I know this is because my red cape’s so raggedy-looking. With my cape situation in disarray, my BIOCON LEVS are plummeting fast. My cape is surely one of my best features. If not the best. It’s got a big T embroidered in the middle of it, which stands for my last name, Terrible.
The cape was a gift from Dr. Terrible, and it helps offset my puny horns. Makes me look more rotten and depraved. And I know that without my cape I basically have no shot at scoring Runcita.