Aetheral Space

Chapter 44:3.7: A Night On The Town

Ruth Blaine wasn’t one for drinking, really. Alcohol tasted bad and made you stupid, which weren’t really the best selling points for her. If you drank water instead, you could stay smart and not get thirsty. It wasn’t even a choice.

What she did like, though, was a bar. A place where people could come together and throw away the anxieties and responsibilities that plagued them. It was where humanity was able to take a break from being human - the all-hours job that didn’t pay for shit.

And what she liked even more than a bar, was a bar fight.

Her fist found its mark on the jaw of a burly Pugnant, and he went flying backwards into the wall, sending splinters of wood flying in every direction. One of his companions, a wiry-looking man with a thin moustache, snarled wildly and swung a bat towards Ruth’s head.

Years ago, that bat would have seemed like a threat to her, most likely. Something that could cause her pain, at least. Now, though, after all she had been through?

Now it just seemed slow.

Ruth ducked, dropping to the ground in less than a second, and the bat sailed over her head. Then - just to punctuate her point - she jumped back to her feet with such speed that her skull met the wooden bat from below and shattered it, leaving the wiry man holding its wrecked handle. He looked at it, gaping in disbelief.

She simply grinned, showing her fangs, and motioned for him to try again with her hand.

They weren’t fighting about anything in particular, no bullshit ideology or anything like that. The wiry man’s Pugnant friend had been annoying her, so she’d started fighting them. There wasn’t anything complicated to get in the way: no hidden pasts, no politics, no secrets. Just them trying to hit her and her trying to hit them.

This kind of simple fight - this was what life was all about, the way Ruth saw it.

The Pugnant - a burly, red-haired man - pulled himself free from the wall with a roar, leaving a noticeable impression in its surface. He grabbed the nearest table - its occupants shifting their chairs out of the way - and charged at Ruth, lifting the furniture over his head as a weapon.

Her grin widened. This was more like it.

Until now, she hadn’t been using her Aether - her fighting buddies didn’t seem to have it, and it seemed unfair to give herself such an overwhelming advantage. But if they were going to start swinging tables at her…

Just a little bit.

Ruth took a deep breath, and a few subtle sparks of red Aether began collecting around her fists, barely perceptible. Her hair, too, brightened just a shade or two - not enough to be noticed unless you took a good look. Her Aether tic made real stealth a tall order, but stealth had never been her style.

She preferred to solve her problems with a fast-moving knuckle.

Her arms lashed out like a pair of snakes, striking the surface of the table just before it hit her, and they went right through - impaling the table on her arms and bringing the object to a sudden stop. She heard a gasp of surprise from the big man on the other side of the weapon, and she adjusted her positioning, securing her arms in the table like hooks going into a fish’s mouth.

She had him. Now to finish the job.

Ruth brought her head back as far as she could, channeling her Aether into it and infusing it until it was harder than brick. Then, with a grunt of exertion, she brought it forwards towards the table, her vision a blur from the sheer speed.

"Dude, move!" shouted the wiry man to his Pugnant friend, but it was too late.

Ruth’s head split the table in two with its impact, and then kept going - striking the Pugnant right in the chest. Right before connecting, Ruth lessened her Aether - she didn’t want to kill the poor guy, after all - but that was still enough to send him down to the ground with ease. He rolled and moaned, nursing the spot where she’d hit him.

She wiped the sweat from her brow. "And stay down!" she laughed, enjoying the limber feeling a few minutes of fighting gave her.

The wiry man glared at her, looked for a moment like he was going to spit some other insult or throw another punch, but he relented and marched out of the bar, his thin arms crossed - and a moment later, his Pugnant friend crawled after him.

A murmur of disappointment rang out from the bar’s other occupants - they’d clearly been enjoying the show. Well, Ruth wasn’t here to entertain them. She sat herself down at a stool on the bar and looked at the automatic bartender.

"Input order," it said in a drawling artificial accent, multiple limbs mixing and serving drinks even as it’s glowing-green eye was focused on Ruth’s face.

"Glass of water," Ruth said, catching her breath. Without the reinforcement Aether offered, fighting like she usually did really was tiring. How had she ever managed without it?

"Glaza Tar," said the automatic, in that same calm tone. "Confirm order?"

Ruth rolled her eyes. Whoever owned this place had clearly got the bartender for cheap. "Glass of water," she repeated, making sure to enunciate clearly.

"Invalid response," bleated the automatic. "To revise order, state ’please revise order’."

"Please revise order," Ruth growled, glaring at the machine. She wondered how much force it would take to tear the damn thing in two, and how much she would have to pay the owner afterwards.

"Restarting order," the automatic said. "What can I get you?"

"Glass of water."

"Glaza Tar, coming right up!"

Ruth’s fist hit the bar, shining with crimson Aether, leaving a deep indentation where it came down. Again, the other barflies gave her nervous glances, but none dared speak up against her.

The only one who took no notice was the automatic bartender, who placed a glass of viscous black liquid in front of her. "Please enjoy," it said. "This beverage will automatically be charged against your UAP credit account."

Ruth looked down at the glass of opaque liquid, feeling her teeth grind against each other. Skipper’s lies, their current situation, this whole stinking damn fucking city - it all seemed to be contained in that glass. She really wasn’t in the mood for this.

"Listen," she hissed, as calmly as she could. "I really -"

The automatic giggled.

Ruth looked up, brow furrowing. Automatics didn’t laugh - and if they did, it didn’t sound natural. It didn’t sound like that. What Ruth had heard there was the laughter of a human being.

The automatic had stopped, multiple arms frozen mid-motion, one hand just allowing the bottle it was holding to spill onto the floor. Ruth glanced behind her - nobody else seemed to have noticed. They were much too busy trying not to look directly at her.

She looked back towards the automatic. "Uh," she said, if you could consider that speech.

"You’re funny," said the automatic, in a voice that was very subtly different. This wasn’t the automatic speaking anymore - someone was speaking through the automatic, modulation masking their voice. Still, even through that static, Ruth could tell that the person talking was a girl - and a young one, at that.

"Wasn’t trying to be," muttered Ruth, hunched over against the bar, eyes looking this way and that.

"But you’re not stupid," the automatic went on, limbs still frozen in mid-air. "The way you’re looking around - you’re trying to find me right now, aren’t you?"

It was true. Ruth had been watching the other occupants of the bar, trying to spot if anyone’s mouth was moving in time with the automatic. More than that, though, she was trying to figure out what was going on. Was this a trap? Was she in danger? The girl’s voice was friendly, but something about it made Ruth’s stomach drop.

"Where are you?" Ruth mumbled, doing her best to prevent the other customers from hearing.

"Sorry," the automatic said, followed by another modulated giggle. "No matter how hard you look, you won’t find me. My Digital Complex lets me control simple machines like this from a long way away."

Digital Complex. Ruth wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but the way the girl had said it demanded the capitalization. Some kind of Aether ability, then.

"What d’you want?" said Ruth. As she spoke, she brought her glass up to her lips, only to slam it back down when she got a good whiff of the contents. Whatever the hell Glaza Tar was, it wasn’t entering her body any time soon.

The automatics camera rotated slightly, clearly zooming in on Ruth. "One of my drones saw you fighting," the girl said sweetly. "You looked strong, so I wanted to meet you."

Ruth glared. "You still haven’t met me, though. You’re looking at me on a computer monitor, right?"

"Well, it’s a script screen, but I get your point. You’re mad because I’m being sneaky, huh? Are you the kind of person who doesn’t like being sneaky? Do you think it’s cowardly or something?"

Ruth shrugged noncommittally, glancing towards the door. If she just got up and left, would this girl try to stop her? Could she?

"I think," said the girl, still happily having a conversation with herself. "That it’s very easy to call other people cowards when you’re able to take a bat to the head no problem. I mean, if you’ve no reason to be afraid of that, what is there for you to be afraid of? Sure, I’m a coward. I’m scared of a lot of things. How about you, fighting girl? What are you afraid of?"

Ruth’s gaze returned to the automatic, memories bubbling up to the surface. A lashed corpse, strapped to a metal post. A skeleton, sizzling with plasmafire on the floor of a Supremacy warship. She wasn’t scared of pain, or being attacked, or anything like that. What she feared was losing what she had.

"That’s a tough one, huh?" the automatic prompted when it got no response. "I get it. It’s a little personal. How about another question?"

Ruth narrowed her eyes. Until she knew exactly what kind of situation she was in right now, it was probably best to play along.

She nodded.

"What do you hate?"

Ruth furrowed her brow. That wasn’t the kind of question she’d been expecting. "What?" she said.

"People say that when you hate something, it’s really because you fear it. That sounds pretty good to me. I mean, it’s like how some people hate bugs, right? They hate them because they’re afraid of them. They’re scared of being webbed up and eaten, having their insides turned to soup and drank through a straw. I mean, I’d hate that too. Wouldn’t you?"

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"I guess," Ruth said.

"So what do you hate? I already told you I’m afraid of everything, so I guess I must hate everything. I hate this city. I hate this planet. I hate this whole entire galaxy, really, now that I think about it."

Ruth stared, befuddled. She didn’t quite understand the philosophy this girl was ranting about. "Because you’re afraid of it? Why?"

The automatic didn’t move, but Ruth could almost see the girl’s grin through the tone of her voice. "Because I’m afraid of it eating me. I’m afraid of becoming part of it, of accepting my own meaninglessness. This whole world is trash, and so are all the people who live in it. You agree with me, right?"

Ruth pushed her stool back, put distance between herself and the automatic. How the hell could this girl think she’d agree with her?

The girl seemed to take Ruth’s silence for an answer. "You think you don’t agree?" she muttered, voice slippery and cold. "Disgusting. You’re not even lying to me, you know? You’re lying to yourself. You’re so afraid, you won’t even let yourself know it."

Ruth growled deep, her hand holding onto the bar tightening with a squeal of metal. "I’m not afraid of anything," she said, deathly serious.

The girl laughed mirthlessly. "Liar, liar, pants on fire," she said, with none of the childishness the rhyme required. "Everyone’s afraid. You’re scared of someone coming up behind you and killing you, right? Don’t you think that’d be a scary thing to happen? Everyone’s scared of that. That’s because they know it can always happen. That’s because everyone hates everyone, deep down. Without exception. Because they understand the shape of this world."

Ruth slammed her fist down on the bar, encased in a glove of red Aether that quickly solidified into the claws of her Skeletal Set, the recorded armour reflecting the lights above. The customers, who had withstood a great deal over the last few minutes, finally decided now was the time to leave.

"Are you mad?" the girl giggled. "You’re mad, right? Because you know I’m telling the truth. That’s so weird!"

The girl went to say something else through her automatic puppet, but was interrupted by the fact that Ruth’s claws sliced the thing to pieces in less than a second. Her laughter trailed off into a distorted screech as the pieces of the machine rained down upon the ground.

She felt her teeth grinding together. She’d come to this place to calm down, but it seemed she’d done anything but.

-

As she walked out of the seedy bar - nestled as it was in an alleyway - Ruth stuck her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, angling her head down to avoid having the occasional dripping of water from above splash into her eyes.

"There you are," said a voice. It wasn’t the girl; Ruth looked up towards the mouth of the alley.

It was Dragan, stood there in a coat that was a little too big for him, looking severely unimpressed. His arms were crossed, and one of his eyebrows was raised to such a degree that it looked like it might just escape his face entirely.

Ruth shrugged, smiling wearily. "Here I am," she said, feeling like a child about to be scolded by an adult. "You here for a drink?"

Dragan wrinkled his nose. "That stuff’s not for me. What the hell are you doing?"

She chuckled. "You know, just, uh, just hanging out."

His eyes drifted down towards an unconscious drunk, crumpled on the ground towards the side of the alley. With his dark coat and bushy beard, Ruth had almost missed his presence.

"Just hanging out?" said Dragan, hand on his hip.

"Woah, woah," Ruth waved her hands in a placating gesture. "That one wasn’t me!"

Dragan glanced towards the bar behind Ruth, where the ’open’ sign was still flickering on the door. "That one?" he said, sighing.

Again, Ruth shrugged. She really wasn’t in the mood to deal with this kind of thing right now. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," she said. "What do you want? You’re not the kind of guy to come down here just to hang out."

"What the hell are you doing?" Dragan snapped.

Ruth furrowed her brow. "Excuse me?"

"You hear some news you don’t like, and you go storming off to wreck a bar? You’ve been gone for hours without a word. What would we do if you just didn’t come back? It would be annoying having to

She swung around, claws already manifesting on her hands, ready to defend herself - but the girl was already gone, the only sign of her presence being a gentle breeze that swayed the ragged banner. Ruth stood stock-still for almost a minute, poised for combat, before she finally allowed herself to relax.

Ruth clicked her tongue. She really hated this city.