The Squad, composed by one person, with Samari accounting for 73.4% of that figure and Jagger for a respectable 25%, was hiding behind a tree so thick and dark the virgins with a kink for goths would soon begin crowding around it and asking said tree to become their big-nutty-goth-girlfriend. Revealing only half of his face and considerably more than half of his body, Kalon peered at the ominous sight in front of them. The old building, with a tall log fence over which vapors rose, betraying the true nature of the place, lay in front of them, a neon sign he couldn’t read —But presented no trouble to Samari, Jagger, or even Brunhilda— hung over the fern-wreathed entrance.

  “I think we are dealing with a genius here. Hiding a drug-making operation behind a neon sign that says ‘DRUGS: THE STORE.’” Jagger commented, no tramadol running through his veins, and thus rendering him a whiny sarcastic bitch.

  “We will be fine as long as they don’t notice us” The cultivator tried to calm his weapon down.

  “Kalon, this may be hard to digest…” Samari began.

  Kalon’s head whipped around, a wide smile plastered on his face as he extended his non-Rottweiler hand. “Candy? I love candy. Gimme one. The crunchy exterior is bad on the stomach but.” He concluded his sentence there. Sometimes, his brain just hit the token limit.

  “Crunchy exterior?” Samari looked quizzically at Jagger.

  “The plastic envelope,” Jagger let out a defeated sigh.

  “Ah.” Samari said, her hands caressing the black fur of the tree. “My point was that trees made out of dogs that appear overnight are not… a common sight, Kalon.”

  Kalon kept his hand extended, wiggled his fingers demanding candy.

  “I have no candy, Kalon.”

  The veil of betrayal descended over the poor boy of humble origins, upbringing, and academic future.

  “Okay, here’s the plan: We enter, and we destroy everything,” Samari surprised everyone with a bold stratagem.

  “That’s a Kalon’s, not a Samari’s. Where’s the chessmaster?” Jagger complained, looking up at her with tired eyes.

  “I have the liquid puppy nuclear bomb and I want to use it, Jagger. Before a strategist, I am... Ten?” She realized she had missed her own birthday, and her smug smile turned to a frown. “I missed out on getting free tokens at the arcade of the archives!”

  “Brunhilda, gift Samari the item 162,” Jagger ordered.

  “Burr?” Brunhilda ruthlessly inquired.

  “Yes, gift-wrapped and ready for use.”

  Some kvetching sounds later, a point in the air vomited out (vomiting in is an art few have mastered) an elongate and used-up placenta, veins and their dendritic patterns populating its surface. Where Brunhilda had gotten it and how she preserved it despite her bodily temperature was a mystery nobody was willing to dive into.

  Samari’s goblin fingers broke through the plancenta without much enthusiasm, and when she stood back up she was holding a rope, thick and wet, with the end curled into a readily-available noose.

  “Thanks, Jagger. But I kinda like life.”

  Jagger gasped so loud the gods in heaven heard him and cursed out loud, for the dog interrupted their beauty sleep. Collective.

  “Aberrant. That aside, I had a better idea: Get in as unsuspecting clients and check for powerhouses and other possible obstacles before unleashing the Kalonism,” the puppy proposed, and Samari Shrugged.

  “Sure, why not.” Then she whirled around to face Kalon. “Dispel the puppy tree.”

  Kalon blinked, devoid of understanding.

  “Undo the puppy tree,” Samari reworded, full of hope that her friend would understand.

  Kalon blinked, the obese hamster inside his head refusing to run on the wheel. Then his mind sort of BSODed and he let the tree melt back into a mound of pups, that immediately after dispersed into vital energy, poofing out of existence.

  Without any preparations they walked through the twin doors, Samari pushing them open as she lead the way. A lounge of brown, rough tiles greeted them, and at its end, beyond the modern seats standing as sentinels and custodian of a marble desk, the receptionist read a novel. They sneaked forward, unnoticed, for the woman was too immersed in the drama of her novel. Samari tried to make sense of the cover when she gopt closer: A bare chested, well-muscled man embraced a dishwashing machine from behind. The title read “Our love empire of silverware,” And, Samari being Smari and the receptionist being not Samari, Samari climbed over the desk to take a peek of the book’s content’s, the Receptionist oblivious to the ten-years-old practically breathing in her ear.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  And Samari may have been a prodigy, but she struggled to process the words on the page:

  “I hear him coming through the door, the evidence of my crime still spread over the rug. The soap stains and the ceramic fragments of what once was our cherished future scattered all over the fine fabric, I have no time nor energy to pick them up, nd I am scared or what he could say.

  ‘I am sorry’ I mutter, my digital panel finding his confused hazel eyes as he rushes towards me, as his millionaire mind processes what occurred.

  ‘Philipa, you… miscarried?’ His chiseled jaw hangs, leaving his perfectly pearly white teeth exposed as the airs of anguish escape his throat. ‘ Our baby! This is…’ He says, a shaking hand picking up a little white, fractured ceramic leg that eh inspects with incredulity.

  My door trembles as I speak, ‘I am sorry, I was tired of living my life in eco mode, and accidentally switched to heavy.’

  He reaches for me, his strong, manly hands caressing my flat sides before finding my control panel and setting me into quiet mode. ‘Accidents happen love, accidents happen. Don’t chastise yourself.’

  I want to tell him about my pain, but my settings make my words stick to my ample rack. Plate rack, that is.

  ‘Don’t worry, this can happen to any woman, be them human, or household appliances. But you know what both humans and dishwashing machines can always do?’ He says, staring me straight in the digital timer. ‘Try again.’ The tone of acceptance is condenser-wrenching. Our child is dead, and the only thing we can do is carry on and try to make another. ‘And the next baby we have won’t be of ceramic. He will be of the finest china, love, I assure you.’

  His words send me back into Eco Mode, and then, after a short embrace, I automatically switch to Ero Mode.”

  Samari felt her brain draining through her nose, and sniffled it back in. The receptionist had not yet noticed the brat clinging to her chair to read her book. Kalon spoke out his mind, creating an unnatural silence that settled all over the room, and the woman still failed to notice.

  “You know, that must be the first time someone managed a mute argument that totally encompassed the contents of their psyche. You are something else, Kalon.”

  Kalon blinked slowly, the Avatar communicated with Jagger. “He’s failing the Cogito and the Ergo parts of the equation.”

  Jagger cleared his dog throat. “Kalon, two plus two?”

  Kalon raised a finger, ready to amaze everyone present with his intellect. “I know this one: a train. Chuchu!”

  “Look at that: he also fails the Sum part.” Jagger mentally said to the Avatar.

  Another woman pranced into the room. Standing about two meters tall, she emanated haughtiness. Her thighs seemed chiseled from the kind of ham taken from a pig that does hit the gym regularly and has a Bullfango poster on their room that they stare at while doing one-hoofed push-ups. The sort of porcine that never skips leg day, and who befriends serial killers to keep the protein intake high. She wore a thin, silky robe the color of milk. “What are a bunch of children and their dog doing here?” The woman with a face that had curves as delicate as the rest of her body spoke in a melodious, yet full of scorn, voice.

  “We are a child and teen, not a bunch of Children!” Samari jumped from the dest And snapped her fingers high up, putting on her bad little bitch fa?ade.

  But the woman wouldn’t relent, taking her hands to her well-shaped hips,, smiling derisively. “Minors aren’t allowed in the bath.”

  “We don’t intend to mine the baths.” Kalon boldly declared, unaware of the sheer idiocy behind his statement.

  Samari could almost hear the record scratch inside the Bouncer lady’s head. “Excuse me?”

  “He is from Valelike Vale,” she repeated as if she were a recorder.

  “Ah.” She simply mouthed, and straightened his back, crossing her arms. “Are you little girl trying to herd him towards somewhere else?”

  A door opened, and a hirsute man stepped out of the doorframe underneath a sign that read “baths”. A towel hung from his shoulder. The towel consisted of seven ferrets arranged in a rectangle, all meditating deeply as the construct curled around the waist of the wiry individual. He has twirling the hairs of his goatee, and crossed eyes with Samari immediately. “What’s the meaning of this. I come to relax a bit surrounded by some pretty girls and you are here making a ruckus, Aunara. Also you… became smaller.”

  “My name is Samari Stradeajo. My mother sort of made a little version of herself, and that’s moi. You are the one?” Samarís face was more smile than reason, her eyes frowning due to the way the mouth distorted every other feature.

  “The one and only,” Faren said. “I was your mom’s teach for a spell.”

  “You are a peddling wizard? “ Kalon misfigured out.

  “I do have a Bachelor’s in Street peddling. Do you want me to listen my qualifications?”

  “Yes!” Samari exploded. It felt like her whole life she had waited for this moment. But there was something missing. She bit the tip of her finger and began drinking the almost-espresso. Now, there was nothing missing. “Go ahead, Mr. Heit.”

  For the few people reading this: Brace yourselves, buckos.

  Faren smiled softly, and then cleared his throat. “I am doctor of astronomy, a doctor of Non-Veterinary Medicine, a doctor of arcagnosis, a doctor of crochet, a doctor of law, a doctor of gnome genocide, a doctor of semivertebrate paleoecology, and a doctor of Veterinary medicine. I studied physics, chemistry, biology, math, literature, visual arts, blind arts, political sciences, economy, and in all of them I have a PhD. I have masters in skydiving, business administration, spreadsheet gaming, feeding ducks, grooming ducks, molotov fabrication, grooming dogs, agronomy, agroecology, Mate drinking…”

  Samari was pulled out of her reverie by that statement. “You need a Master’s for that?”

  “Girl, you never met a gaucho scorned. It takes more than a Master’s degree to match the master’s angle and temperature when pouring. You will have them surrounded by capybaras, munching on a perfectly seared piece of steak, and thinking about stabbing big black men, and they will be judging you for how you pour mates. It’s no joke, that drink.”

  “But it has caffeine, right?”

  “That it does.” Faren dedicated a finger pistol to Samari, making her heart revive just to flutter a bit.

  “Excuse me sir, do you know these people?” The bulky woman asked.

  “Yeah, you and your girls can beat them after I finish my presentation, if it isn’t much of a bother.”

  “Understood.” The woman stepped back and hid her hands behind herself. The receptionist keep reading her romance novel, oblivious to everything.

  “Now, where was I? I have variegated degrees in the following fields, besides the twenty-eight I already listed: Social studies, Dog walking, seven different degrees in engineering, psychology, psychiatry, dendrochronology, cliffhangers…”