Tales Between the Lines

V.6 Secret Weapon

Beauty brings forth a tentacle—a slender, snake-like appendage having mastered the arts of uncoiling and wriggling menacingly. It is muscular and sinewy at its proximal end and gradually tapers into a monomolecular tip at its distal end. Its shimmering, scaly skin makes its beholder feel like the prey they'll be in mere moments.

The appendage lightly touches upon Marth's privacy shield, a motion like a lazy lover's caress. Then, with an almost unnoticeable flick, it pierces it, making it pop like a soap bubble.*

From Marth's perspective, this development is unfortunate as it occurs right when he is in the process of giving his butt that long-deserved, extensive scratch.

Blushing, he retrieves his hand from the scratched parts and gives the audience a guilty grin. "Er... hi, folks."

Ashley reaches for the hem of Amber's sleeve and wipes the drool off her chin.

Amber pulls back that sleeve, losing her last extension in the process. Embarrassed, she moves a hand through her now short, spiky hair.

Beauty clears its throat.**

Marth tilts his head at the machine, giving it his best smile.*** "Hey, who do we have here?"

"The name's Unbound... Beauty Unbound," Beauty says.****

"And what are you?" Marth spreads his feet and shows Beauty two rows of immaculately bleached teeth.

Amber and Ashley each take a few steps towards him.

"I'm what used to be your spaceship, and more."

"Cool. Open up, I wanna come inside you."***** Marth approaches Beauty.

Beauty places its tentacle on Marth's left pectoralis major. "Dream on, dude. I'm not yours anymore. Your time of soiling my cabins, leaving smudges on my controls, kicking my legs, and ordering me around is over."

With a small shove, the tentacle sends Marth sprawling to the ground.

Helpless, the alien watches the tentacle's tip expand and morph into a hammer—a large one— and the tool is raised, ready to strike him.

———

* For the technically-minded: The single molecule at the tentacle's tip is NSAium, the one substance known to man and alien that is irresistibly and mindlessly drawn towards everything private and able to penetrate any shield trying to keep it out.

** Not that it has a throat—and if it had, it would not need any clearing. This is metaphor speaking here.

*** Like any being of the male persuasion, Marth is inherently and sensually fascinated by any high tech gadgets, and Beauty embodies the pinnacle of gadgetry.

**** For some reason, the statement makes Beauty think about shaken Martini.

***** Meaning he wants to be granted access to the machine's chambers, nothing else. Probably.

~~~

With a screech loud enough to shake the windows of the jeweller's shop across the square, Ashley plunges forward, instantly followed by a likewise screaming Amber. They grab the alien of their affection by the shoulder patches of his sparkly spacesuit and haul him out of harm's and hammer's way.

In the meantime, the robbery-proof glass front of the jeweller's shop shatters into a heap of small, innocent glass cubes. But none of our protagonists finds the time to profit from the incident.

In the far distance, the wailing of a police siren can be heard.

Beauty hesitates, the hammer growing in form and proportion to a giant fly swatter. Out of options, the three victims of its unbound wrath cower behind a trash bin.

Unfortunately for the refugees, said trash bin is filled with rotting vegetables left over from the market held on the square every Wednesday. The heat of action, or rather the proximity of the gamma rays freed in the creative process of merging Bnata and Spaceship, led to an accelerated decay process of plant matter.

Now, a smelly dark fluid oozes from the perforated bottom of the bin and insidiously soils Ashley's neon pink mini skirt as well as Ambers fluffy white crop top. Even the sparkly surface of Marth's suit can't compete with the brown, sluggish substance and loses its exotic lustre.

Beauty contemplates the shivering group of desperate bipedal misery, grins evilly and swats the air with its swatter-tipped tentacle. Air, not happy to be molested by a giant insect flap, whistles angrily. Beauty ignores Air, shrugs and turns away to care for more urgent matters.

The urgent matters manifest in form of police officer Millie who pulls her bike into the square in a masterful 180-degree skid and brings it to a stop between Beauty and the group behind the trash bin.

A somehow desperate looking Edward Edwalds, clearly unhappy about the interrupted lunch break, sighs and climbs from the pillion seat to follow the call of duty.

Edward's world is not complex. It is black and white. Peace in the streets is white, and so are cars stopping and letting Ped Xing* cross the road. Black is burglary and contempt of police authority. Even blacker are alien spaceships parked right under a No Parking sign. And that's what Beauty is doing.

———

* Sometimes, Edward wonders why Ped Xing enjoys so many privileges, even though he obviously is a foreigner, but the law is the law.

~~~

Edward digs out his phone and dials Police Central, gives his name, and interrupts the telephone operator's happy greeting.

"I need a 101."

"..."

"Right now."

"But Ed—"

"No but. I need it in five minutes, right here."

"You're serious."

"Dead serious."

"Okay... If you really want that..."

"Thanks. Ed out."

Ed pushes the phone back into his pocket and eyes Beauty.

The eying makes Beauty, for the first time in its existence, nervous. It deflates its tentacle and uses it to scratch its turquoise fur.

The eying and scratching continues for five minutes and is ended by a short man in a tie and a black suit entering the square. He holds a briefcase under his arm and approaches Ed. "You called for me?"

"Yes. I called you because of that." Ed points a fat finger at Beauty.

The man approaches Beauty and inspects it.

"Who are you?" Beauty asks, feeling uncomfortable under the man's inquisitive stare.

"My name's Ron Rotz. Tax Official."