Gack crossed the street before traffic provided a lull. He almost always did this when he wished to cross. He rotated pan dimensionally on his right heel, tucking his left leg locked, in behind his right knee. Elbows notched, hands ready but loose, chin tucked. A soft, half-reverse, pirouette drop-in from the curb. Then that drunkard waltz, dodging and stumbling as if being shoved by unseen hands. His eyes most often were closed or appeared so. Horns honked. Tyres cried rubber tears of smoke for his passage over the river that killed so many froggers in the past. Slowly he pressed his path. His loping walk swinging ear to the asphalt, that one might think he coming in for a soft landing and a snooze. Then he arrives, safely on the opposite side and is waving and shouting for you to follow.
“Fucking Gack pulling that shit. Jeezus christ he’s gonna get himself fucking pancaked some time and It’ll be me explaining it to him mum. Fuck fuck fuck.” Fists in pocket, head hot under hoodie, stamping to the crosswalk. Gack’s beautific, punchable face beaming smugly from the corner as he waits.
“Jeezus fuck, it’s dark in here.” Timbot flipped the light switch on, off, on , off, on. Nothing. “What the shantytown flaggrant?”
“I think that pizza-bitch ratted us out to the Grups.” Offered Answer-bot “Or maybe they just shifted the scramble frequency again.”
“Can you get us the updated crack?” Blue butane flame flared for a moment, illuminating Tang as he lit his mod-accurette. The lights came back on.
“Done.” Answer-bot was already back in the kitchen where he had been attempting to reanimate a dried up old housefly he’d found on the drapes.
“Have you guys heard from Doc today?” Timbot seemed a bit agitated, more than usual.
“Shit no. He’s on emerge duties until Thursday.”
“What day is today?” Days of the week lose their meaning except in dealing with the rest of humanity.
“Today is Tuesday.” Answer-bot poked his head into the room between the beaded curtain. He was gone just as quickly leaving nothing but a wake of beaded tinkling.
Quadcore practically fell into the captain’s lap after bursting, all slippery slap, into his quarters.
“Cappin Wunnup,” Lots of bobbing adamsapple and gulping from Quadcore, “It’s Burt, sir. He’s gone and sawn the ship in half!” His voice rocketed into registers unfrequently discerned by human apparati. The Captain stood, pushing Quadcore to the planks of the floor.
“Not on my ship he don’t.” Captain Assplank Quiffley Wunnup III growled forcefully as he ascended to the forecastle, bounding like mythically large lumberjack might bound over hill and dale. Combo, the ships assmop, watched him pass as he was just finishing up his service to first mate Fingerlicken. It looked to him as though the Captain was flying.
When Wunnup reached the fo’c's’le he sidestepped to the poopdeck, slid aft and then took up his station on the peckerhead. He could see that the entire crew had assembled on deck. This was good, saved him the bother of calling Fingerlicken up here to blow the ship-conference trombone.
“Where’s Burt?” Wunnup spat. Hhhhockptoo. There was something wrong. The crew were all gesticulating wildly. They looked somehow farther away than they had seemed at first.
“Right here, sir.” Burt stepped into the Captain’s view from behind a large, conveniently located barrel. A handsaw, wet with ship blood, dangled at his right. “Something amiss?”
“Oh Burt!” Wunnup cried with visibly moist relief “Thank spasmodic chambermaids you are here. That Quadcore said ye’d gone and sawn the chip in ha-” He stopped just then.
“What is it, sir?” Burt picked a bit of lint off a pickle he’d been carrying in his breast pocket and bit into it, crunching with great enthusiasm.
Captain Wunnup exhaled suddenly and then smiled, “I had one of those weird pains again. You know in my foot? I get them sometimes. It’s completely strange. Feels like a square centimeter of the top of my left foot is on fire. Quite unsettling.”
“Oh yes, sir. Quite unsettling. My marm used to get them, bless her sainted left pinkie toe.” Burt smiled with splendid asskissitude.
“Right then. Peckerhead’s yours Burt.” Captain sailed a limp salute as he melted into the belowdecks. “As you were.” He felt it was important to impart a bit of the rough treatment to these boys. Build their mental such and so.
It wasn’t until sometime later, when standing knee deep in seawater, that the Captain understood that something was up. He’d gone for his after-nap gourmet pickle break to discover that his stash of contraband, rehydrated cuban hand-brined dills had been stolen. His memory flashed back to Burt picking lint off of something vaguely pickle-shaped.
“Maybe Burt knows who stole my pickles.” The captain suggested to himself. Burt was a good guy.
Burt was halfway back to port in one of the life-boats when the Captain’s half of the ship slipped silently below the waves. The crew half, having been overloaded with polystyrene-bead filled beanbag chairs, remained unnavigable but quite afloat. The crewmen had already resorted to loafing, cribbage and buggery by the time rescue craft found them.
