#u-sci-fi

365 - "A Day in the Life"

(An original fiction) [Prompt: Let me remind you]

“Um, Stevie…Why do we have this, again?”

Brian was looking in a fridge, into its freezer. It held some alien tentacle monster. Stevie walked over… with an annoyed expression on his face.

“You forgot?”

Brian was mesmerized by this… thing. It was a very pink creature with a lot of tentacles. Like, maybe this’d be something you’d find in… some considerably unsavory places.

It was a mass, but at the center the “body” was one amber eye. Actually, now that he looked at it, some of the other tentacles held eyes.

“Uh, Brian?”

“Yes?”

The thing started to crawl out from the back of the freezer. It seemed to get bigger as it came out.

“Can you remember why we have it?”

“No?”

“We’re supposed to be taking care of this guy for a client. He’s out of town for the week and… wait…”

Stevie looked down at a pad as the creature made its way out the fridge.

“Oh no… I forgot about that.”

Suddenly the pink creature launched out of the freezer, growing to a considerable size! Stevie ducked out the room

“Brian! Take this!”

Stevie tossed over some pellets to Brian.

“What’s this!?”

“FOOD!”

The monster lunged at Brain, as he tossed the pellets across the room. The creature suddenly stopped, and in a fluid action, pushed itself to the food. It shrunk and turned blue.

“I totally forgot…”

“Forgot what?”

“If it gets agitated, it can wipe memories. Usually, it wipes the short-term memory so its prey forgets about its existence so it can pounce eat it.”

(An original fiction) [Prompt: No, I'm not okay]

Kathlene was getting worried. Sillco had been getting more invasive recently with their… privacy policies. The app she’d used for her security cameras now needed to have a login with Sillco’s servers and on top of that, they’d started to ask about her number…

Was any of this safe?

She jumped as she heard a knock on the door.

“Hello?”

With caution, she walked over to the door and opened it a bit.

It was Brian, thank goodness.

“Uh, may I come in?”

“Uh… sure!”

Kathlene felt lucky to have found Brian. He was very much not who she would expect to bump into, and she didn’t necessarily jive with what he did. Bounty hunting?

Well, maybe in this economy.

He entered.

“How’ve you been doing?”

“Good.”

He surveyed the place. It was very much a technological wonderland compared to his place. There were smart devices everywhere. Smart TV’s, Smart Washers, Smart Shelves… Meanwhile, Brian lived in a hangar with just a fridge and another room with his lizard roommate. Kathlene sat on the couch while Brian checked the security cameras she’d bought a while ago.

“Uh… How… How have you been doing?”

“I’ve been fine. I think I found a job that won’t require us to get money from Stevie’s uncle. That’ll be good.”

“Okay?”

Brian looked over to her.

“Are you doing fine?”

Kathlene looked very much afraid, if not anxious.

“I’m… fine…”

Kathlene looked up to Brian.

"Well, no I'm not that fine, I could be... better? I don't know..."

She sighed. Should she tell him about what she was anxious about? She'd only knew him for about a week.

Brian smiled.

“Hey, if you don’t feel safe, you can come to be and Stevie, alright?”

“A… Alright…”

Brian moved to the door.

“Everything seems fine. If you need anything else, call me… Actually, did I give you my number?”

Kathlene went to check her phone.

“Yes… you did…”

Brian smiled and closed the door behind him. She looked to all the smart devices she had.

(An original fiction based in the U-Sci-Fi Universe) [Prompt: no, we're not doing that"]

“Okay, so here’s a job on the board… 50 credits?”

Brian and Stevie had been sitting in their hanger for a while, figuring out what exactly to do next. Stevie had suggested to look over the Kudos board to see if there were any bounties to be had.

“So… that’s about what we need for the next month...”

The lizard looked up to this partner-in-sometimes-crime as he paced about the room.

“You should really look into budgeting lessons, Brian…”

Stevie was the most responsible of the duo, doing a lot of the budgeting for whatever escapades they went on. While Brian had his head in the clouds most of the time, Stevie was very practical in what needed to be done.

They needed a job, and no-one had contacted them in a while.

Stevie looked back to the tablet in his hands.

“They want the target dead, though...”

A large sigh came out of Brian. He came to a stop to look at Stevie

“Is there another job on the board...?”

“No... not right now.”

“Drat...”

Brian moved over to a large box and sat on it.

“I don't want to do any kind of killing...”

“You could just get a job. We don't HAVE to be bounty hunters all the time.”

Brian had heard that before, and it felt like he’d hear it again… Brian laid out his case.

“Yes... but where's the fun in a regular kind of job? I'm all about the bouncing about the galaxy and exploring places.”

Brian very much had his father in him, and that’s who he somewhat saw himself as. Though, he could never back up the idea with any clarity since Brian had never seen him. Only fragmentary images before he reportedly fell into some black hole or wormhole (there was never any much agreement as to what happened that day).

“... But we do NEED money to live.”

“That's why I stole the ship and became a bounty hunter, man... for the freedom of it all...”

Brian stared out into space. If only he could find… SOMETHING about his old man… something… Any story he heard about him painted him as some freedom fighter…

“I would rather try to save a life over taking it...”

It took a bit for Brian to come back to reality.

“... So no to the job?”

“... Yeeeeaahhh...”

Stevie sighed as he swiped about on his tablet.

486 - "Suspense"

(An original fiction) [Prompt: You were the first]

Brain walked into the hangar and found Stevie at the Copper ‘Keet… with someone else there.

“Who’s that guy?”

Stevie quickly turned over to him.

“Ah, this is my cousin, Issy”

The large crocodile leaned over and waved a hand.

“Hey.”

The thing that really got Brian was how… tall he was next to Stevie.

“Uh, Stevie… why is he here?”

“Troubleshooting.”

“So, Stevie called me about a thing you’ve been having”, the purple lizardman said, “You’ve been having troubles with your ship leaning a little starboard?”

“Uh… yeah. I thought that was more a mechanical thing though?”

“Yeah, I’ve checked that, but everything seemed to be in shape there... so it must’ve been something software-wise with the navigation systems.”

Brian walked over as he talked, “I thought you were good with software…?”

“Ah, that’s the thing. I’m good with software in small doses. I can do some smaller troubleshooting here and there, but it gets a muddled when the whole system needs an update. He’s the first person I go to when I bump into these things.”

“And I think we got most of this figured out… We’re doing some final calibration now.”

Stevie exited the ship and started to mess around with the landing gear. Brian was still stunned by the size of Issy. He was maybe about twice the size of Stevie…

And this was his cousin?

Brian had never really asked Stevie about his immediate family before, and he’d never been compelled to. All he really knew was that his uncle had a good amount of money. In fact, that was half the reason they had the ship, and they were bounty hunters in the first place.

But he’d never seen Stevie’s uncle…

“Aaaand there we go!”

Brian heard a confirmation sound as Issy and Stevie exited the ship.

“That should be it!”

“Thank you, Issy.”

“Hey, if you ever need me again.”

(An original fiction) [Prompt: We've done worse]

“What do we say, Brian?”

“The best kind of collateral damage-”

“-Is no damage at all”.

It’d been a trying day for Brian. Goonsquad had rolled into town. Now, that wouldn’t have been too bad, but with Goonsquad came Christopher.

Oh, that Christopher. How Brian hated him.

There’d been a bet between Brian and Christopher over who could race the fastest in the city. Now, Stevie had told Brian not to go overboard.

But then Brian went overboard.

He’d decided to use his bazooka to try and gain some kind of speed. Little did he know that Christopher had deliberately chosen an unstable part of town that had been condemned.

Next thing Brian knew, he was 50 feet up in the air, and quickly whipped out his hoverboard to try and soften the fall.

His knees didn’t like what happened, but he was fine.

Brian had tried to discreetly enter the hangar without noticing, but…

The whole incident was over the news.

“… I don’t think it’s that bad…?”

“Brian… you know we try to keep a low profile; at least Itry to.”

“I mean… we’ve done worse things…”

Brian tried to put on a smile. Stevie facepalmed.

“Yes, and those were for the greater good. Those were done with some amount of secrecy and trust that it wouldn’t get out. This?”

The lizard pointed to the screen.

“The shenaniganary? Over what; speed?”

A silence permeated the room. Stevie broke it by sighing.

“Look, I know you want to go have your own fun adventures in space, but you got to be realistic. You got to have standards if we want to advertise ourselves as ‘Professional Bounty Hunters’, whatever that means.”