Happy Shack: part 7

 The next installment! If you need to read them all, click the Happy Shack label at the bottom of the post.
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We picked our way back through the dreck and rivulets of decomp juice, me stealing glances, her strangely quiet. I’d been hoping to kiss her goodbye at the Happy Shack, but now it didn’t seem right.


“Hey,” I was helping her over a ripped solar sail and onto a twisted pile of what looked like bedsprings. Her hand, small but strong, gripping mine for some reason reminded me of a sparrow. “So what was with all that stuff you said? About the spider lady weaving webs. And how she–”

“I don’t know. I think you have more data on this than I.”

“Data.” We ducked into a ventilation culvert. “ I don’t know about data, but it sounded like a creepfest.”

“Creepfest? I don’t know this word.” Her voice echoed in the dark tunnel. Movement up front. Probably a glitcher.

“I dunno. Creepfest. Scary. Doom and gloom. Monster and–”

“So...bad.”

“Well yeah, I guess. Sorta.”

I could see her lips trying out the word silently, committing it to muscle memory. Shit, I could just picture the next few days at Happy Shack.

“I wanna a new double with cheese,” says crusty old skimmer to newly educated server.

“I’m sorry, sir. Is it creepfest?” Insert concerned yet friendly smile.

“Spider ladies and weeping cities sounds pretty bad to me.” I told her quietly.

“Not bad. Not good. Just is.”

Six, maybe more sharks circled the Net 11 Happy Shack, their transports parked askew, doors agape, lights blinking. A doughy man, red-faced, in a shirt and tie waved his hands around like he was swatting a bee.

“That’s your boss? Branch Manager?”

“No. Higher up. District.”

We had tucked inside the chewed out carcass of a labor transport, wind rattling and whining through its clean bones.

“This date was enjoyable. Thank you.” She leaned in and placed her lips on mine, but it was more like she was smelling my nostril. Her lips cool and dry from a day out in the wind. Her scent of cooking oil and industrial soap. And me just sitting there. Caught unaware, wishing I had a chip in my brain to record and hang onto every fraction of every second of that not-quite-a-kiss.

“Where are you going?”

Erin was up and out of the transport before I had time to stop her. She marched toward Happy Shack while tying on her stained apron. When I finally caught up to her, I had to pull her down on top on me, right in a puddle of decomp juice.

“No sex. Just a kiss.” She said pushing up off me.

“What? No!” I stammered. “Sex? No!”

“I have to work. I’m late.” She rose again.

“Get down! Erin, you can’t go back in there.”

“I’m programmed to.”

“If you were programmed to have tea in a dreck bailer would you?”

Her processors clicked on, whirring quietly.

“You can’t go back. Not now. They’ll erase you memory for sure.”

Erin’s processor still hummed quietly, and I studied her face, ready to fight back that inevitable, cold feeling of desolation we all get down here.

“I need to recharge.”