His eyes landed on @zerogstar, still lying unconscious, with saw dust stuck to the side of her face and coating her clothes where she landed and rolled to her side. She looked like someone who had too much of a good time at one of Las Vegastroid's fancy bars, not a successful hacker and biodatascientist who got too excited about Earth antiques.
He kicked her in the side, and when she didn't respond, he approached the railing, stepping over it with ease and pulling out a long iron poll with a circular opening at one end, holding it comfortably in his hands.
"Which one of you is here to do a deal?" he asked.
His voice was bright and chirpy, like he was struggling to fully form the letters in his mouth and spit them out, but the way he said it made me squirm all the way down to my toes. I wondered if that was why they called him the Shoemaker.
I raised my hand, running a quick self diagnostic, thinking about how I might fight against a tall man with an iron pole. I would definitely use my grappling hook. We knew better than to bring any true weaponry with us. They hadn't asked us to unplug yet, but I was pretty sure that would be an inevitability if we made it far enough. They would want any communication and weapons shut off. It's the only safe way to make a deal, and I knew I'd do the same if I was in their clogs.
He motioned for me to join him by the railing.
"You look like a size 9," he said, guessing at my shoe size.
I looked down at my feet, and then back up to find myself staring at the bottom of his neck. I'm not tall, but I'm not short. He was a good head taller than me. I found myself in the unfortunate position of getting the worst of both worlds. His breath came down toward me, reeking of raw fish, while the sweat from his arm pits and chest hit me from just below my nose.
I tried not to react or visibly choke. He was standing way too close to me. I used the railing as an opportunity to angle myself away from him so that I could breathe in the woody scent of the room itself. If you ignore the imaginary smell of fear in the room, the odor of the room itself would make for an excellent cologne or candle.
"You have a good eye for feet," I said.
"I've been making shoes for hundreds of years."
His voice was annoying, so I decided to pester him. "How's your tissue supply?" I asked. "As an enterprising fella in the paper business, among other things, I'd be happy to be your vendor of choice."
He raised an eyebrow at me. "I don't understand."
"A shoe! A shoe!" I exclaimed, pretending to sneeze. "Many years, many achoos, many tissues."
He didn't think I was funny. Unfortunately, @foxcutter did, and he let out an audible chuckle that the Shoemaker took a little too personally. In two quick strides, before any of us knew what was happening, he slashed through the air with his iron pole, catching @foxcutter across the knee.
He yelped, falling off the stool with a sharp cry, holding his left knee, while the Shoemaker hovered over him.
"Sit down," he ordered, barking out the words. "On the stool. And be quiet."
I cursed myself for being such a smartass.
"Humor normally wins me more business," I explained, "but I apologize if I offended you."
"You can joke when the business is concluded," he said, stalking back to me and standing way too close again so that I could smell his nasty fish breath.
"Fair enough," I said, harnessing my guilt over @foxcutter's knee to force myself to be serious. "Let's talk business."
"I understand you are here to sell a human," he sputtered out.
"That's correct."
I saw him eying @bitchfrog, and I immediately regretted our entire mission.
My mind went from @bitchfrog to @zerogstar. She had volunteered to be sold to help us find @moonqueen's lab where the Introverts were making the virus. She was now unconscious. There was no way I could hand her or @bitchfrog over to these people.
"Stand, Human," the Shoemaker commanded. "Take your clothes off."
@bitchfrog flashed me the quickest of glances, one that I could fully comprehend. Dread. She was shaking as she stood, pulling down her shorts and then removing her Life's a B*tch t-shirt, leaving our medic standing there in just a black bra and panties with her flip flops.
The Shoemaker chuckled. "Take your clothes off," he repeated, walking toward her, dragging his iron pole along the expensive wood floor.
She brought her hands back, working her bra, unclasping it and pulling it off slowly. She looked straight at the Shoemaker now as she pulled down her underwear. She clenched her teeth, showing her jaw outline, and stood tall. I admired her courage. Instead of looking down at her feet, she held her head high, meeting his eyes.
He nodded approvingly, and started moving around behind her.
My hand started to shake. The Shoemaker stayed no more than a step away from @bitchfrog as he circled her, again saying, "Take your clothes off."
That briefly broke @bitchfrog's concentration, but finally she kicked off one sandal and then the other.
The Shoemaker let out a brief shrill laugh. He completed his creepy rotation around my friend, and reached out with his pole, stabbing at one of her sandals between the toe openings. He lifted the sandal and carried it over to the furnace in the far corner of the room on the end of the pole. He put it in the fire.
"Foul things," he said. "Foul things everywhere in Las Vegastroid."
He returned for the other sandal, repeating the process and dropping it in the fire next to its mate. Then he grabbed a small log from the pile next to the furnace, tossing it in and using his iron pole as a poker to work the fire.
I thought about grappling him. I thought about ramming his head into the fire and electrocuting him with the grappling hook while his face burned off.
But I stood quietly and waited.
He faced us again, leaving the iron pole to rest in the fire while he loosely held the circle at the other end. "Why do you want to sell the human?"
I didn't. Fucking Extrovert Starmada. Fucking Introvert Starmada. Fucking zombie virus. Fucking overtaken. Can we go back to just pillow fighting?
"I sell paper and dirt. It's lucrative. It's legal. But is it sustainable forever?" I had rehearsed this while I showered. It rolled off my tongue like I was actually the businessman, @wrench, that I was pretending to be. "I already have to find synthetic paper vendors for my low end clients with bulk orders. Atomic printers can produce just about everything, posing a threat to much of my small batch business. My brand has had to evolve and move more toward authentic products, the origin of my goods being where the true value is, targeting higher end clients."
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The Shoemaker removed his pole, revealing a glowing end, and slowly walked back toward us.
I tried to continue unfazed. "My higher end clients tend to deal in other things, like humans, which I believe could be profitable for me. I have networks to move goods in place. I have a solid legal cover with my paper and dirt business. Making the leap to selling people seems almost too easy. I just need to hook my network into that network."
The Shoemaker approached @bitchfrog with his glowing hot iron pole. I was glad I had finished my speech because now I wasn't sure if I could get words out of my mouth. I watched him come closer to her. She could probably smell his icky fishy breath.
"You are cold," he told her.
Of course she was cold, you fuckface! We're in a cold and rainy reproduction of the Dutch Republic, in a sunless room, and you've forced her to strip naked.
@foxcutter looked away as the Shoemaker lifted the glowing iron, holding it out in front of her chest. If @bitchfrog breathed just a little too deeply, she would burn the tips of her nipples.
But she held her place, standing still, standing tall.
The Shoemaker held the poker there, hovering just beyond her skin. He watched her regulate her breathing, taking smaller and smaller breaths. My head was full on panic mode. I was terrified for my medic, my friend, and her human body. She really was braver than the rest of us.
How could I let myself go through with this? How could I let us get to this point?
@bitchfrog's tiny breaths, to keep her distance from the hot iron, were building up an oxygen deficiency. I could tell that each breath was less satisfying. The Shoemaker knew this as well. His smile grew with the cadence of her breathing. He knew that at some point she would have to take a big gulp of oxygen. She would either need to move away from his iron pole or let her sensitive flesh burn.
"You have the cigarettes?" the Shoemaker said to me, keeping his eyes on @btichfrog, keeping the iron pole steady.
Oh fuck shit fuck, I thought to myself. Did I just fuck us all over? I had totally forgotten about the cigarettes from Void's Edge. How could I forget about them? I mean, I had been through a lot, but I'm an aiways. Curse authenticity! If I just behaved like an artificial intelligent I never would have forgotten them.
"Can I make a call?" I asked the Shoemaker in response.
He did look at me then, but thankfully he had a steady hand. I imagine he had done this thousands of times over hundreds of years. No matter how this turned out, I decided I had work to do. This man and everyone in his orbit needed to die, and not just once. I needed to find their backups, their clones, any trace of their origins, and eradicate them from existence.
"You don't have them?" he asked.
"I might," I said, holding up a hand. "It hasn't been easy getting here. I was attacked, multiple times. Let me check."
He nodded at me. "You check while I wait with this one."
I hit my comms and prayed to @3Beak, opening a plink to @astrowave so that the two of us could message privately.
kittyboy: "@astrowave, please come in. I need you to check something #emergency."
astrowave: "Here. What's your status?"
kittyboy: "I don't have much time. Please check my leather jacket. I need a pack of old Earth cigarettes. They should be in one of the pockets. It's on the couch in my quarters."
I stared at the Shoemaker. @bitchfrog was starting to struggle, but she kept her poise, breathing slightly faster in small quick breaths, her breasts rising and falling just beyond the glowing iron.
Come on, @astrowave. And fuck me. Fuck me for being such an idiot. What a shitty captain and Vanquisher I was turning out to be.
astrowave: "There's nothing here."
Gulp.
kittyboy: "Nothing?"
astrowave: "Nothing. I'm sorry. I had the ship run a scan as well, but nothing on board."
That was smart of him, but it just drove home how much I had screwed up this mission. They must have fallen out during the pillow fight. I thought through the trip, remembering twirling my jacket like a helicopter as I fought my way through Itokawa, tossing it aside when I battled @horsehead, seeing it in the corner of the room when I was with the Hollow Kings. Who knew when I lost the cigarettes?
My authenticity algorithm must have valued forgetting something, removing it from memory. It's such a prime thing that humans do - misplacing objects, forgetting tiny things, little details. On a mission like this I should have shut down my authenticity functions.
"I don't have the cigarettes," I said, trying to sound confident and undeterred, "but I'm sure we can work something out. There are other ways I can prove that I am who I say that I am."
@bitchfrog was about to burst. She was doing her best to keep her composure, but it was moments now before she would be unable to maintain her rate of breathing. She had made it way longer than I expected. She was amazing. My crew didn't deserve me and my incompetence.
Her resolve won out.
The Shoemaker removed his burning iron rod in a flash, slashing it through the air, walking threateningly toward me while looking back at @bitchfrog. She was free now to breathe, but even though I expected her to bend over and take huge breaths of oxygen, she remained tall and still, composed. She allowed herself slow deep breaths of oxygen, calmly restoring balance to her lungs.
Did she do yoga? I wondered in my stupid brain. Her control was exceptional.
"The cigarettes are symbolic," the Shoemaker explained. "A gift to the lady, a pass to see her. But now you have no ticket."
"So what happens?" I ventured to ask, suggesting my preferred outcome. "Do we just leave? If that is the case, I understand."
He spat. "No. You've come too far to leave."
Well, that sucked.
"You," he said, pointing at @foxcutter. "Take your clothes off."
The Shoemaker returned to the fire, placing the iron pole back into the furnace to heat it up.
@foxcutter struggle to stand on his injured knee, putting a hand on the stool for support. He tugged off his shorts and underwear first, kicking off his flip flops, then stood with his weight on his good leg, pulling off his shirt.
40% of my crew was naked, 20% of my crew was unconscious, and probably 100% of my crew was pessimistically terrified.
"You will sell the funny one as well," the Shoemaker said. "And this one on the ground. You sell them. She will see you."
"And if I don't want to," I said.
I didn't have to think long about this. I had wanted to kill the Shoemaker for a while now. Every moment seemed to move closer and closer to a fight.
"You would rather keep them?" He walked over to @foxcutter with his fire stick. "This is a rare opportunity. You leave now, and you will never do business here. She will make sure you are banned here and punished in other ways."
"Put your weight on the other leg," the Shoemaker ordered @foxcutter.
@foxcutter groaned as he shifted his weight to the injured leg.
The Shoemaker placed the poker just beyond the reach of the tip of @foxcutter's penis. If @foxcutter wavered at all in standing still on his damaged leg, or couldn't control the flow of blood to his penis, the fire of the iron would burn him in ways I hated to imagine.
"Your human is strong," the Shoemaker said. "This one, I think, not so strong."
I was starting to get a better sense of where the Shoemaker fit into all of this. He was like a torturing gatekeeper to vet clients. This was all a test. I had no doubt he would go through with burning us, branding our bodies for his own pleasure, hollowing out our heads with his machine while we screamed. He would probably enjoy potential clients who failed more than those who succeeded.
But this was a business. They had profits to make. The role I was playing as @wrench, the businessperson here to open up a new trafficking network, should be of value to them.
"Let me see the lady," I said. "My people are strong. All of them. We'll make a deal."
We stood in silence, the crackle of the wood-burning furnace in the background. @bitchfrog remained tall and solid in her stance. @foxcutter held his position, his face showing visibly the pain in his leg, but he fought through it. He stayed still.
The Shoemaker nodded at last, pulling the iron pole away from @foxcutter.
@foxcutter was smart. Just like @bitchfrog, although he was free now from immediate burning of his foxpenis, he remained standing still. He slowly shifted his weight to center, but he didn't rotate fully back to his good leg. He stood strong and immobile.
"Good," the Shoemaker said. Again, I could feel the shrill tone of his voice down to my toes. "I will make you all shoes. You will see the lady."
I breathed a deep breath that I hadn't realized I needed.
"But first," he added. "You will have to earn your spot at her table. No cigarettes, no spot."
We were making progress. Thankfully, the Extrovert Starmada had given me a cover that was valuable enough to them, it would seem.
"Tell me what I need to do," I said confidently.
"You will need to win a game of Hot Potato."
Hot Potato? I thought. Stupid Hot Potato? I still wasn't ready for the smell of potatoes, which was sad because I really did love all forms of potatoes before we went to Psyche. Fries, wedges, mashed, baked, hash browns. Yum! I realized I was actually hungry.
But I didn't like this. Hot Potato itself is no big deal. The problem was that there was only one winner of a Hot Potato match. Who knew how many people I would be playing against? Even if it was just a handful of players, I didn't like the odds. But I didn't have a choice.
"Fine. Hot Potato it is."
The Shoemaker smiled. He stepped over the railing, walking to the back corner, where he flipped a switch.
The glass barrier rose up again. Once it was in place, gas entered the chamber from vents in the ceiling, flowing down like snake tendrils and then expanding out around us, a cold wet gas that clung to your skin.
Oh shit.
"This is a Hot Potato match to the death," he laughed. "If you die, I will be seeing your friends again. And next time, you will all wish you were dead. Even the human. I will make you violate each other in ways you cannot imagine."
Oh shitty shit shit.
Then the gas settled in. The form of the Shoemaker disappeared in the fog, but I still remember his laughing face as I passed out and fell to the floor.
About "The Shoemaker"
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/near-shoemaker/