bloodyrosemccoy | The Geography of Main Street: Centrifugal Force

Index and prologue!

Previous chapter!

It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!

Here we are! The end of the eternal spinning! I'd like to thank the Academy, and especially the MPA, for historical nonsense that gave me so much material to work with! WTF, guys. I'd also like to thank Joel Hodgson and everyone who worked on Mystery Science Theater 3000 for shaping my sense of humor so thoroughly. And thanks go to my buddies Josh and Liz for circulating the tapes.

Also, I should probably thank my dad, who if he ever reads this is going to be very confused. Sorry, Dad. You're confusing.

The Feral Cannibal franchise is experiencing diminishing returns from its sequels, which are by and large said to be pale imitations with none of the thematic, uh, meat of the first one. However, the fourth installment, Feral Cannibal Botanical Garden, directed by an arhod, was hailed as a return to form and a fascinating deconstruction of the feralsploitation subgenre.

I'm thinking I should put this together in epub form For Your Edification, but this is good for now.

The roll call of the Deus crew right at the end is not going to be on the test. They're basically cameos. But if I ever publish Blood and Stardust, you'll have a few characters to work with!

I'm inordinately proud that the safety videos paid off. It's a bit of a comfort to me to know that if disaster ever strikes, I'll at least know the Official Things To Do.

---

"Hi," I said to Giro, stepping into his cell.

He hauled himself upright. His brain may have been sluggish lately because of the busted implant, but he was still observant enough to put together what had happened.

"So you're using your powers for good," he surmised. He would have found this delightful if he weren't on mute right now, I thought. I had to get him somewhere he could recuperate.

"Well, technically," I said, standing in the doorway and gesturing him through, "I'm pretty sure Admin's gonna say I'm using it for delinquency. What with the crimes."

"Yeah, well, your timing isn't great," he said. "You couldn't have waited for me to recharge my batteries a little, could you?"

"I figured you'd enjoy recharging better on a feral cruise than climbing around in the mines."

I expected him to say something like, "No cannibals? I'm disappointed," but all he did was nod tiredly and look around. "Which way?"

I considered. "If they're smart, they have a guard at the door."

"Security? Smart?"

"It's better to assume that than get caught." I looked around the hall, wondering if there would be, like, a bio bin we could smuggle ourselves out in—gross—or a secret door to the sublevels or something.

My eyes fell on a blue box on the wall. Without stopping to consider it, I strode forward and pulled the switch.

A klaxon rang out. I winced.

"Really?" Giro asked. "The fire alarm?"

"Yeah." I looked at the floor, where a series of blue arrows had lit up. "Come on, let's get to the fire door before they realize it's fake."

The fire door was not guarded. That seemed like an oversight. There were some security officers in the hall, though, and they saw us. I could hear shouts of confusion behind us as the door slammed.

"You up for a run?" I asked Giro.

"Okay?" he said, looking lost. "Where?"

"Pod bay," I said, already scanning around for the guidelines.

"How do you know that?"

"Good grief," I said, starting to follow the arrows. "Doesn't anyone pay any attention to the freaking safety vids?"

We found a pod bay, scrambled through the hatch, and yanked it shut. I started toward the pod chutes. "Come on."

But Giro swerved toward the wall, where a safety poster covered an old interface terminal. He didn't even bother reading the instructions on the poster before he pulled it down, tossed it aside, and started pushing buttons.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

He didn't answer me.

The terminal beep-booped.

"Guys," Giro said to it. "Did you make it out?"

"We're here," Dexer's voice module came back. "No thanks to you."

"Hey, I made your bug-out mode. It's all thanks to me, dude."

"You didn't tell us we'd be actual bugs," Dexer complained.

"What?" I asked, baffled.

"I put their core processors in a couple of junked Buddy Bug Bots," Giro explained. Seeing my confusion, he added, "Toys from the Tech Era. I figured if we were caught, they could, you know, bug out and get away before they're taken for evidence. I got the idea when I was putting Ronf's security package together."

"They took our bodies," Dexer lamented. "My not-plasma-cannon is in the slammer."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Also, how are you in the walls?"

"We're not," Ronf answered. "We're plugged into a terminal under the university."

"This station's still got a big AI network," Giro shrugged. "And a lot of public buildings have terminals. They didn't bother ripping it out when they decommissioned the tech."

"You did enough of that," Ronf said.

"Yeah." Giro did not look sheepish. "You took a lot of special parts."

"You did good, Giro," Dexer proclaimed, which was rich for a little robot to decide. "In return, we shall grant you a wish."

"Robots don't grant wishes," Giro protested.

"I'm my own being, and I wanna grant a wish."

A wish. I'd had the bits of one floating in my head since Dad had left my cell—that was why we were in the pod bay now—and now they coalesced into a solid plan.

"Toast," I said.

Giro's ears twitched. "I mean, don't get me wrong, toast is warm and crispy, but …"

"No, my sixcat," I said. "I need to get her. Because we're bugging out, of this station. I'm sorry."

Giro's ears actually swung toward me. "We are?"

"We are," I told him. "The Deus ex Machina is here to pick us up. They're a professional rescue ship. But we'd have to get around Security—wait. Hey, Dexer, can you find the section seal codes in there?"

"Sure," Dexer said. "They're right next to Reivon Brank's extensive technoporn collection."

"They are not," I said, scandalized.

"Well, not in the file storage paths, but …"

"Okay," I said. "We're gonna trigger a lockdown, and then can you guys open the section locks when we get to them?"

"Can do!" Dexer said.

"If we're leaving, we gotta come get you, too," Giro said to his robots.

"Nah," Ronf said. "I'm staying here."

"What?" we all chorused.

"You've given me a purpose!" Ronf declared. "The People cry out for content! The oppressed masses must see Feral Cannibal Bus! Lone Light forever!"

"Ugh, okay, I guess we can lurk here and be a movie black market," Dexer conceded.

Giro looked a little overwrought at that. Misty, even.

"I am so proud of you guys," he said.

"Wait, there's a sequel?" I said.

"… You will be able to help us run this operation?" Ronf asked.

Giro looked at me.

"What, from the Greater Galaxy?" I asked. "I mean, yeah, the Deus ex Machina's got superdata. Does Bright Beacon?"

"Let me check," Dexer said. "Yup, looks like it. And hey, here's the address for the Deus ex Machina! I know how to find you now!"

"Then yeah," Giro assured them. "Lone Light Distribution will live on!"

"Assuming we do," I said. "We've got to go."

"Okay, Dexer said. "You know where the section locks are?"

"No," said Giro.

"Of course," I said at the same time.

Giro blinked at me.

"Safety vids," I said, pointedly.

"Just boop the hand panels when you come to them," Dexer said. "We'll hack 'em open for you."

"Farewell, friends!" Giro said to the terminal. "I'll talk to you soon! I guess I'm leaving."

"We'll miss you!" Dexer said.

"Take care of the stray sixcats!" I added, already scanning the little antechamber. I found the lockdown switch—like the one Thoren (or Jod, most likely) must have thrown a few weeks ago.

I threw it, and now klaxons shrieked through the entire station. A moment later, the floor rattled with the BOOM of the slamming section panels.

"Maybe that'll slow them down," I said.

We climbed out of the hatch, expecting Security to pounce on us as we scuttled into the shadow of a topiary. I could hear them shouting; the lockdown had indeed caused some trepidation.

"The pod bays!" an officer realized in horror, and there was a scramble toward the hatch we had just come out of.

It was creepy, not having a vanishing line. I couldn't see my house up-ring; there was a great big wall in the way. But I'd seen the videos and knew where the seal locks were located in the walls, so I could lead Giro right to one. This was surprisingly easy, I thought as we picked our way through the lockdown chaos.

I tried to burn images of the station into my mind as we ran: the trees at regular intervals on Main Street, the smell of soda at Plim's General, the way the sky panels darkened as night approached. I wondered if I'd actually remember it—I was buzzing with enough manic energy that I felt like my senses were heightened, so maybe. But also, this station had worn its way into my life, and I had the feeling the grooves would take a while to smooth out even if I left forever.

One more seal, and we were in my neighborhood. I pounded up the porch and burst in—

—and found Thoren.

#

He was sitting on the couch in the front room, staring aimlessly at our inert A/V unit, but he started up when Giro and I appeared. Autistic people were supposed to be bad at parsing expressions, I knew, but this was Thoren. I could see the sequence of emotions that passed through him: guilt, shock, confusion, and, finally, delight.

"You got out!" he said, throwing his arms around me. I stiffened slightly, unsure how to react. I could feel that something had broken in Thoren.

"Grandma said she would—" he started, then halted and swallowed, pulling back hesitantly.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "Nielli and Jod thought we could—when we followed you—I didn't know they'd—"

"We're clones," I blurted.

He backed up, brow furrowing. "We're … ?"

"Dad cloned himself for an experiment," I went on. "You're the variable. You got his treatment for autism. I guess it's going great for you? I couldn't say. I'm the control."

Thoren had reverted to confusion. "Did he—"

"I don't know if he's gonna tell you, so I thought I should," I interrupted. "If it scrambles his experiment, so be it, I guess. But I gotta go. Where's Toast?"

He stared at me, utterly flummoxed.

"I'll write," I promised.

The autism treatment seemed to have worked out for him in one way: I watched him process this news in real time, accept it, and adapt to it.

"She's snoring in the utility room," he said. "I can get a carrier from the shed."

"Yeah, thanks," I said. "I'm gonna go pack a bag."

Giro followed me upstairs. My backpack had been confiscated as evidence, but I had a little bookbag here that I could fit a few necessities in. I stuffed in some underwear and a couple books, then looked around blankly, trying to tally up what I'd need if I was leaving forever.

All I could think of was the money jar on my nightstand. I wasn't sure if I could exchange station scrip for Galactic credit, but it couldn't hurt to try.

"So, where are we going?" Giro asked.

"We are going," I said, "to a feral ship—the one I've been telling you about. They go where they like, so I'm not sure beyond that, but the Greater Galaxy is our playground now. We're going to ride the spokelift—oh, krag."

I had been telling myself that the lockdown would keep Security in their section and leave us free, but I hadn't thought about the fact that lockdown meant the whole station. And, as I met Giro's alarmed eyes with the shocked realization of my own, I heard a Security siren.

Obviously there are Security personnel in this section too, stupid, I told myself wildly.

"Dude!" Thoren's voice floated up the stairs. "Come here and get your stupid sixcat! She's gonna claw my face off if I try to put her in this thing!"

We hurried down the stairs, and I managed to wrestle Toast into the carrier. I was still thinking; waiting for the siren to fade.

But it wasn't fading.

It cut off abruptly in the vicinity of our front yard.

"Change of plan," I hissed to Giro. "We're leaving via escape pod."

And then, Vilda's shrill voice: "Oh, thank goodness you're here. He's in his room in the back."

"Tattletale," Thoren grumbled without a trace of irony.

He looked startled when I barked a laugh, and then his eyes went sad.

"Hey," he said. "Don't forget to write."

"Bye?" I said, unsure if I was reading him correctly this time.

He nodded, a glint of mischief stealing into his expression. "You know, I've always wanted to do this."

And he started toward the front room, shouting, "Vilda! I surrender! Tell them not to shoot me!"

"Are you Dreedo Grewell?" one of the officers shouted back.

"I am! Please, nobody be mad at me! I just wanted to be home."

"I don't sound like that, do I?" I asked, fluffing a little.

Giro snickered.

It occurred to me that I was waiting to see if they'd believe Thoren before I made my next move, and that was not what Drack or Jayzee would do. So I grabbed a handful of Giro's jumpsuit sleeve with one hand, and Toast's carrier with the other, and we darted out the back door.

The problem was that the closest pod bay hatch took us right in view of my front yard. I just had to hope we'd be fast enough as we edged around the house.

"See the arrows?" I asked, pointing to the extremely obvious, bright-blue arrows on the street. "Follow those."

"Okay!" he started forward; I grabbed him.

"Wait!" I hissed. "Dude!"

"Oh, right!" He nodded.

Because now I could hear another voice, and it made me shiver a bit. What was Dad doing here?—I mean, obviously, he lived here, but I hadn't really thought about what he would do after he left me at Security. I guess I'd assumed he have to stay there and do … do some bureaucracy? I didn't know the rules for what to do if your son (clone) is busted for piracy.

Then I heard Grandma's voice, indignantly shouting, and I realized he might have gone to confer with her.

As I inched around to see, I counted five Security officers on the lawn, with Dad standing behind them. Grandma had cut a swathe through them to the porch, and was loudly castigating Thoren—well, me, I guessed. They were all watching the commotion with rapt attention.

"Okay, this is probably good," I whispered to Giro. "I think we've got a distraction ready made for us. We can—"

Dad turned to look at me.

For a second, I froze.

But his eyes swept right over me. His face stayed stony, but that tic in his cheek twitched slightly, and he very deliberately turned his back on me to start forward through the knot of Security.

That was it.

I took a mental beat to sigh, but we were in a pretty precarious situation, and we had to act fast.

"Now," I hissed to Giro.

I don't know what tipped them off—was it Giro's clumsy running, Toast's indignant screech as I jarred the carrier, or my own feet slapping on the pavement? Or had Grandma figured out that she was shouting at the Good Twin?—but somebody noticed us, and we pounded down the street to the escape hatch. Giro hauled it open and we threw ourselves in. I heard a couple of airgun pellets spang onto the hatch as I dragged it shut and felt a little sick that they'd tried to shoot a citizen.

I decided not to wait for people with guns to follow us. I dragged Giro to a pod chute and crowded in behind him, ignoring the safety poster that showed a big X through hapless people sliding in together, instead of one at a time, and squashing each other flat. We thunked onto the cushions and did up the webbing—I secured Toast's carrier—and, with the memory of Dad's stony face looking past me—I slammed my hand down on the big blue pod release button.

There was a swooping sensation as the pod fell toward the outer hull and we shot into space.

And I was off of Bright Beacon.

#

Captain Rreishka Beijomp of the Deus ex Machina was a feral arhod. An alien. A feral alien. The kind that people onplanet made weird cannibal exploitation movies about. A swaggering, bejeweled predator with four arms crossed in a complicated pattern over her calico-furred chest as the hatch to our escape pod swung open in her cargo bay.

So I was a little starstruck.

The rest of the crew was there with her, a whole host of diverse aliens. As I scanned them, I could pick out people that Zarla had mentioned: the orange-crested mystery biped was probably Hobbie the wooslet; the stocky korano (like me!) in the lab coat was likely Hraffli, the ship's doctor; the grey, tabby-patterned male arhod was Otsim, one of Rreish's husbands; the tiny, sparkly little biped clinging to Otsim's leg was probably Kizaan, whom Zarla complained about like the species-unknown foundling was an obnoxious younger sibling.

Belatedly, it occurred to me that I probably ought to be self-conscious that they were all looking at me. Did they think I was a delinquent? Or, like, an opportunistic hitchhiker? Or a murderous hitchhiker, like the one in Feral Cannibal Cruise?

I was starting to spiral, but then a small ball of energy and noise darted around Rreish and approached us, already talking a mile a minute.

"—should hear some of the stuff Bright Beacon is saying about you, like, wow. I swear they were gonna turn their weapons on us for being associated with you! Wait, does Bright Beacon have weapons? That would suck."

Not enough railguns to get rid of an asteroid, I thought automatically, but the paquo was still jabbering.

"Anyway, hi!" Her voice was high-pitched and excited as she skidded to a halt at the entrance to our pod. "Dreedo! I'm Zarla! Rreish, this is Dreedo! He's the guy I've told you about—"

I waved uncertainly.

"—and Giro, who needed rescuing. I mean, before they both needed rescuing. Hey, what was that about, anyway?"

I listened to her with mild fascination. I had been making up her voice in my head when we communicated over the messenger app, and it was a bit of a surprise to hear not one spelling error in her real speech patterns.

After a moment, the silence hanging over the bay dragged me back to myself. I shook myself, then undid my crash webbing.

"Hey, Zarla," I said. I'd been rehearsing what to say over the time we'd spent watching the stars whirl in our escape pod, between the frenzied attempts to get the radio going. I was trying for something suave and deadpan, like Drack would say. "So, there have been some developments since last we spoke."

"Yeah, apparently," she agreed. Then, to my surprise, she met me halfway through the hatch, crashing into me with a big hug, squashing her nose into my chest. "Welcome to the Deus!"

"Indeed!" Rreish boomed. I was glad to see Giro jump at her volume; I wasn't the only one she'd startled, then. "We're hearing a lot about you, young man. What in the bloody blue blazes is going on in that torus of yours?"

"Well," I began.

"They're demanding that we return you as a 'disabled minor,'" Rreish went on. "We're being charged with kidnapping."

I went cold.

"They want me to come back just so they can try to change me!" I rushed to explain. "Or maybe they just need another farmhand or miner! I'm not going to do either of those things!"

"Are you being disruptive?" Rreish asked, amused.

"Well—yeah," I said, mind racing. "If you follow their concept of 'disruptive.' I mean, I swear I don't want to be disruptive—I'll try not to be here—but I just wanted to share some good movies with everyone. I'm sorry about the kidnapping charge!" I gestured toward the pod. "I have station scrip to pay our passage, and if that doesn't work, I could totally do—I don't know, ship stuff?—to earn it, but—"

"Are you disabled?" the arhod I'd tentatively identified as Otsim asked gently.

"Uh—I'm autistic," I blurted, the new information dying to get out. "And Giro's—well, uh, I guess I shouldn't say that he's …" I trailed off, the etiquette I had learned from the Greater Database stopping me cold.

"Dead inside," Giro supplied.

"… yeah, that." Was one allowed to add context if it could probably help one's dead-inside friend? I decided to go for it. "He's got a busted ADHD implant."

"Indeed," Otsim said thoughtfully. "Are there laws about the competency of neurodivergent people on your station?"

"Well, uh—" I blinked. "I have no idea."

"Not that it matters," Rreish said, waving a couple of hands. "If they're unjust, we're going to ignore them. They can do without their Kalkurru groceries if it comes to that." She nodded, as if agreeing with herself. "We needn't worry about payment just yet, then, young man. We'll get your passage and future sorted eventually. For now, let's get you settled."

I exchanged a glance with Giro. I had no idea how well I was going to "settle" onto this feral ship, away from my extremely settled life on Bright Beacon. And my future was a big blank space.

Then I caught up. "You—what? You'll take us aboard? Even if we're a couple of delinquents?"

"Son," Rreish said, with that matter-of-fact manner Giro had given me when I'd fretted about rules and regulations, "this is a feral ship. Technically, we're all criminals."

"Oh." I wondered if I'd ever fit in here then. Despite what recent events might suggest, I didn't think I had a particularly criminal temperament.

"But yes, welcome aboard," Rreish went on. "Zarla's been telling us about how your friend needed rescue from a repressive, restrictive regime, and I was wondering why you weren't asking for passage, too."

I blinked down at Zarla. She pulled back and beamed at me.

"I talked you up," she said. "Hraffli's ready to take you on as an apprentice, too, if you want to stay aboard."

"Uh," I said. That was a lot to think about today.

"Anyway, we'll get to all that," Zarla said. "Come on! I'll show you to your quarters!"

"And, fellas," Hraffli said, "let us know if you need any sort of accommodation. This place can be a bit overwhelming. But if there's anything we can do to make things easier on you, we'll do it. Just don't forget to tell us." He had a drawling accent. I liked him immediately.

"Do you serve stewed red courgettes?" I asked.

"If you'd like us to," he said mildly.

"No." It came out with a force that startled me.

"Well, you don't need to eat them, then," Hraffli shrugged.

I almost threw my arms around him and howled with gratitude.

"Ooh!" Zarla had darted behind us into the escape pod. "Is this Toast? You brought her!"

"Yeah, she wasn't feeling the conformist ideals of Bright Beacon, either," I said.

"Come on," she said, clutching the carrier. "I know just the place for her!"

I followed her down the hall, trying to listen as she pointed out places on the ship and talked about expectations and things to do here.

"Do you really have rules?" I asked, curious.

Zarla snickered. "You've been watching the movies talking about the 'feral code,' right?"

I fluffed. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. Was that wrong?"

She kept giggling. "Yeah, they get a little bit—what's Rreish call it?—hyperbolic about that, but yeah, we have some rules. But only, you know, sensible ones. You know, like 'don't breach the hull, because breach hull; all die.'"

"Oh, thank goodness," I burst.

"You like rules?" Zarla asked, curious in turn.

"Yeah, when they're sensible," I admitted. "I think it comes with the autism."

The rules in the Civic Hygiene vids had been sensible, too. But the Bright Beacon rules were of a different sort; they weren't about safety or keeping everyone happy. In fact, the rules I had run up against had seemed bent on making things worse for some people. Take that one about kidnapping. Don't kidnap people seemed like a pretty good rule, but when you were using it to try to regain power over people who were being rescued from you, it was something else.

Bright Beacon had bad rules. And I couldn't stay somewhere that made bad rules.

Dad had followed the rules, and tried to change them to be better, and he was staying. I hoped the rules weren't going to make things completely worse for him. Or Thoren.

I hoped Dad and Thoren would be able to make things better for Bright Beacon.

"How the heck did you figure out you were autistic, anyway?" Zarla asked, swinging Toast's carrier cheerfully. If my sixcat barfed, I was going to make sure she did it on Zarla.

"Oh, you know," I said, feeling a grin. "In retrospect, it's kind of obvious, isn't it?"

#

EXP: IP262
DATE: 02.15.90

Study compromised; subjects learned of it.

E0 response surprising. Feedback on treatment is negative; E0 reports feelings of rejection upon learning of it. Expresses dissatisfaction with environment. Behavior may become disruptive.

As expected, C0 would have likely benefited from early behavioral intervention. Exhibited noncompliant behavior before discovery; disruptive and incompatible with station standards. C0 verbally rejected station standards. Elopement caused loss of subject.

Grewell treatment not recommended for koranos showing the Stroen-Bolskep gene cluster. Further studies suspended.