The swamp donkey, p.1
The Swamp Donkey, page 1
THE SWAMP DONKEY
Gooch sat in the back room of The Swamp Donkey, slowly counting out Copernican Credits on his tired, shabby old desk. People thought he was crazy, dealing in Copernican Credits when everybody else was using Ions. But Gooch didn’t give a flying fuck what the rest of them thought. And besides, CCs were much harder to trace, and the higher denominations had moving holograms of naked ladies on them, which was always a bonus.
He shifted in his seat with a grunt. His tri-cobalt prostate was on the fritz again; he could feel its off-kilter whirring deep inside his guts. He knew he should get it fixed at some point, but his doctor was a droid with long, cold fingers, and he didn’t fancy having them up in his works again anytime soon.
Gooch sighed deeply as he tossed a meager pile of credits into an old cigar box and dragged the next small pile of them toward him. He looked up at the battered old holographic poster behind his office door. All the color had drained out of it, and the remaining black-and-white images looked like shit. WELCOME TO THE SWAMP DONKEY the once-flashing headline read. Then below that, QUANTUM CITY’S #1 SPEAKEASY. Gooch smiled a sad little smile. When the poster had been bright and new, he’d still had his original prostate and he’d been able to advertise his business freely. Now they were deep underground, protected by secret passwords and a blast door.
And he’d gotten so fat.
A knock at the office door brought him out of his reverie.
“What?” he growled.
The door swung open and in popped the head of Sifliss, his right-hand man. Well, right-hand man-snake hybrid. His head was human-shaped, but covered with green and black scales, and his tongue was forked. He wore an immaculate white three-piece suit, especially cut to accommodate his serpentine hood.
“Ssssorry to disssturb you, bossss,” Sifliss hissed.
“What is it, Syphilis?” Gooch groused.
“It’ssss BackJack, ssssir,” Sifliss said. “He’ssss gone missssing again.”
“Fuck me with a banjo,” Gooch grumbled, hoisting his considerable weight out of his chair. “Did you check behind the recharging station?”
“Yesss.”
“What about the tanktrack stall in the men’s room?”
“Yesss.”
“Goddammit,” Gooch said. “Where’s that dumb cunt got off to now?”
Gooch stepped out into the hallway and looked both ways. He turned to his right, an idea coming to him, and strode purposefully toward the last door on the left, his prodigious love handles brushing both walls of the hallway, Sifliss sliding sycophantically behind him.
Without bothering to knock, Gooch threw the door open. Seated on an upside-down bucket in the janitor’s closet, pants around his ankles, was The Swamp Donkey’s bartender, BackJack. On its knees in front of him, eagerly slurping his cock, was the house prostitute droid, a beat-up, clanking old model with rusted tits and oil leaking out its ass. Its vocal processor was shot, so it simply repeated the word “Oh” in a frizzy monotone that sounded nothing like a human voice, and even less like something experiencing pleasure.
“BackJack, you worthless pile of parrot shit!” Gooch shouted, and BackJack scrambled to pull the prostitute droid off his manhood. He shoved it to the far wall of the closet, where it continued to drone “Oh oh oh oh oh” to no one in particular. BackJack yanked up his pants and zipped his fly, and then turned to face Gooch.
“Howdy, boss,” he said lazily. “I wuz just—”
“Shut your dumb hick mouth!” Gooch roared, striking BackJack on the ear with a cupped hand. BackJack staggered sideways. “Get your sorry ass back behind that bar or she’ll be sucking your dick with you not attached to it!”
BackJack ran past Gooch and back up the hallway without another word. Gooch approached the prostitute droid. He threw a swift kick at its face, and it toppled sideways.
“Everything in this place is junk,” Gooch snarled, kicking the droid’s head again. It put its arms up feebly to protect itself, but Gooch kept kicking it, swifter and harder each time.
“Junk!” he cried, still kicking. “Junk! Junk! Worthless junk!”
At last he stepped away from the droid. He had managed to split its head open, and the components of its mechanical brain flashed weakly. As it pushed itself up from the floor, one of its eyes fell out, dangling by its cord.
Gooch turned to Sifliss.
“Deactivate that piece of shit,” he said, pointing at the prostitute droid.
“Yessss, bosss,” Sifliss said.
Back in his office, Gooch dug through one of his desk drawers and found a yellowed box of cigars. He pulled one out, sniffed it, recoiled in horror, and stuck it in his mouth anyway. He lit it with the mini fusion reactor on his desk blotter.
There was another knock at the door.
“What?!” shouted Gooch. This was the most he’d been disturbed in ten years.
It was Sifliss again.
“Ssssorry—” he began.
“To disturb you boss,” Gooch cut across him. “Yeah, yeah. What is it now?”
“It’sss the Shine-O-Bot 3000,” Sifliss said.
“The what?” Gooch asked, genuinely mystified.
“You remember,” Sifliss said. “We got it at that essstate sssale lassst year. It’sss the shoeshine bot with the two brushesss where the assss cheeks should be? So you ssstick your shoe in itsss asss for a shine?”
“Oh yeah,” Gooch said, smiling. “That’s some funny shit. God, I forgot all about that thing. What’s the problem?”
“Ssssomeone inssstalled a pleasure button in it,” Sifliss said. “Now anytime anyone sssticksss their shoe in, the Shine-O-Bot 3000 ssssinksss in deep and doesssn’t let go.”
“Syphilis,” Gooch said angrily, “I pay you to take care of this shit so I don’t have to. So go take care of it!”
“Yesss sssir,” Sifliss said. “I do live to ssserve. Only the Shine-O-Bot 3000 hasss mutilated the very expensssive shoe of Police Commissioner Gorton.”
The color drained out of Gooch’s flabby face and his cigar sagged in the corner of his mouth. “The Police Commissioner? Is here?”
“Yesss sssir,” Sifliss said. “I assssumed you’d want to handle thisss persssssonally.”
Gooch swallowed hard. “Fuck. Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.”
“Very good, sssir,” Sifliss said and closed the door.
Gooch sighed heavily and grabbed the credits he’d just finished counting out and stuffed them in his pockets. This was gonna cost him.
Five minutes later, Gooch moved his considerable bulk through the holographic batwing doors and into The Swamp Donkey proper.
To his left, the bar snaked its way along the inside wall, almost to the massive cadmium-infused rolling steel door that allowed the dregs of the universe entrance. Across the room was the now-unoccupied stage, rising over the lazily drifting multicolored vapors suspended between the dance floor and the ceiling.
On either side of the dance floor were small booths where patrons could conduct their business in relative privacy, and that’s where Police Commissioner Gorton sat, his expression thunderous.
As Gooch crossed to meet the Commissioner, an argument between two small furry aliens at the bar escalated into a brawl. They snarled and bit, throwing sharp punches at one another and cursing at one another in a high-pitched, jabbering tongue.
Gooch paused, grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks, and slammed their heads together so hard that both their skulls caved in with a sickening crack. He tossed both limp bodies behind the bar and wiped their blood on his pants. No one at the bar moved or said a word. Gooch continued on his way.
“Commissioner Gorton!” Gooch exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. He hated sucking up. Hated it. The only thing worse than sucking up was sucking up while all the barflies and his staff watched him do it. But it couldn’t be helped.
“Gooch,” the commissioner nodded curtly. He hoisted his right leg up onto the table. The front half of his very expensive-looking shoe had been shorn away so that only his stocking foot remained sticking out of the heel.
“Oh dear,” Gooch said, hating himself. “How in the world did that happen?”
Gorton unfolded his crossed arms and pointed to the other side of the dance floor. The Shine-O-Bot 3000 had found an empty Snubly’s Pale Ale bottle on the floor and was aggressively polishing it, the expression on its robotic face somewhere between agony and ecstasy.
“Well, that isn’t right,” Gooch simpered. He snapped his fingers and Sifliss magically appeared at his side.
“Yessss ssssir?” Sifliss asked.
“Deactivate that bot immediately,” Gooch commanded.
“I’m afraid that particular bot hasss no deactivation protocolssss. Ssssir,” Sifliss said.
Gooch maintained his genial smile by thinking of all the different ways he was going to murder Sifliss.
“Well then,” Gooch said, pleasantly but with the tiniest hint of menace, “could you please ask Unit 8a11bu5t3r to take care of it?”
“Of coursssse,” Sifliss said, bowing. He crossed the room to the massive cyborg guarding the door and spoke to him. Unit 8a11bu5t3r rose, walked over to the Shine-O-Bot 3000, raised his giant metal hand, and with one downward swing smashed it into a million pieces.
Sifliss returned. “Ballbuster … er, Unit 8a11bu5t3r hasss taken care of the sssituation, sssir.”
“Thank you,” Gooch said. “Now would you please fetch a subcutaneous shot for Commissioner Gorton? Rear Gasket with a Hennessey ch
The commissioner nodded. Sifliss bowed again and headed for the bar as Gooch pulled out a fistful of credits and dumped them on the table. “And let’s make things right regarding your shoe.”
Gooch spent the next hour schmoozing and kissing ass as Commissioner Gorton got more and more tranked, and by the time he escorted his guest to the door, Gorton was far too gakked up to know whether or not he had ever even owned shoes.
“See you again soon, Commissioner!” Gooch said brightly, waving so enthusiastically that the flab on the underside of his arm slapped him in the face. Ballbuster rolled the heavy door closed with a resounding CHUNK!
Everyone braced for the storm.
Cold fury was etched on every line of Gooch’s bloated face. He reached down and undid his belt, pulling it off with some difficulty, and pressed a button on the buckle. The belt immediately lit up with bright white crackling electricity. Gooch raised the electric whip over his head.
“Get! Back! To! Work!” he bellowed, lashing out with the whip after each word. “You! Lazy! Miserable! Good! For! Nothing! Fucking! Twats!”
The various bots, aliens, and cyborgs at the bar grabbed their drinks and ducked and ran for cover. The whip caught BackJack behind the bar. He stiffened, shuddered as though every nerve end had suddenly lit up at once, and collapsed. Sifliss took several hits stoically, standing his ground and hissing only softly as the energy coursed through him.
Gooch tired himself out quickly, heaving and panting as he powered down his belt. He slid it back through its loops, cinched up his pants, and looked around.
“It appears,” he shouted stridently, “that you cocksuckers can’t be trusted to run this place properly without my direct involvement. So guess what? From now on I’m gonna stay out front here with you, to make sure we don’t have any more incidents. Won’t that be fun?”
The employees’ expressions indicated that they didn’t think it would be much fun at all.
Later that night, Gooch sat at the end of the bar, on a stool groaning under his mass, watching things carefully. Everyone appeared to be on their best behavior and snapping to, which was just as Gooch wanted it.
There came a familiar tap-taptap-tap-taptaptap on the door. Ballbuster put down his holo-pamphlet about Cyborg Reassignment Therapy and slid open the eyehole.
“Passwoid?” Ballbuster asked.
“Fuck your blind aunt, you half-titanium cunt,” came the voice from the other side.
Ballbuster was silent for a few moments and then said, “Correct.”
He slid the door open and in rolled a jovial-looking fellow who was human from his head to his waist, and then clanking mechanical tank tracks where his legs might have been. As he entered, all eyes turned toward him.
“Xanthasmoidea!” everyone shouted at once, raising their glasses to him. He smiled and waved back as he approached a space near Gooch where the barstool had been removed to accommodate his unusual physiology.
“Hey there, Xanthasmoidea,” BackJack said, approaching him from the other side of the bar. “Heard any good ones lately?”
“Well, entropy isn’t what it used to be!” Xanthasmoidea said, grinning. His joke met with silence from the rest of the joint, so he pressed a red button on his lower half and an old-fashioned laugh track issued forth.
“Get ya somethin’?” BackJack asked.
“The usual,” Xanthasmoidea said. He looked to his left and spotted Gooch sitting nearby.
“Gooch!” he shouted. “I haven’t seen you since my last upgrade! What in the universe brings you out of that rat hole in the back?”
“Apparently fuck-all gets done around here if I’m not out here to supervise,” Gooch groused.
“You’re just now realizing that?” Xanthasmoidea said, grabbing his drink. “You should have started coming out here ten years ago.” He pressed the laugh track button again.
“Hilarious,” Gooch muttered.
As the week wore on, Gooch hated hanging out in the speakeasy more and more. At least in the confines of his office, he didn’t have to interact with anyone, except occasionally with Sifliss. Now all the regulars wanted to glad-hand him and talk his ear off about everything from how big the cops’ Canine Droid Units were up close to some goddamn celebrity they saw on The Quantum City Report to whether or not they should dabble in Cynapse Crystals. It all bored him to tears, and he longed for the solitude and quiet of the back room.
Worst of all was having to watch BackJack tend bar. If there was a worse bartender in the galaxy, Gooch would eat his own ear wax. He constantly got drink orders wrong, called familiar patrons by the wrong names, forgot specific rituals when dealing with certain races, and insisted on juggling bottles of very expensive and experimental liquors. Which would not have been an issue, if the halfwit knew how to juggle.
Gooch did his best to motivate him.
“BackJack, if your brain was on strike, you couldn’t even picket your fucking nose.”
“BackJack, you couldn’t pour water out of a fucking boot with instructions on the heel.”
“Backjack, you’re as bright as a fucking black hole. And twice as dense.”
But nothing seemed to work.
Saturday night rolled around, and The Swamp Donkey was more crowded than usual. Word had gotten around that Gooch had hired a new band, and folks seemed eager to check them out. While the new band rumor was true, Gooch had mostly done it so that people would pay attention to something else and leave him alone.
The rhythmic tapping came from the other side of the door. Ballbuster slid the eyehole open. “Passwoid?”
“Kiss my arse, you fuckin’ knob,” came a gravelly voice from the other side.
“Correct,” Ballbuster replied, and the door slid aside. Standing there was the band: a giant metronome bot carrying a teetering pile of drum cases; a one-eyed ape with a glowing cerebral disk on his head and a guitar case in his leathery hand; and a holographic bass player and lead singer who looked like a bad programming attempt at a bunch of different British heavy metalists.
Ballbuster pointed the trio toward the end of the bar, and they made their way over to Gooch.
“You the boss?” the holographic lead singer growled.
“Yeah,” Gooch said.
The singer nodded toward his bandmates. “We’re The Moist Towelettes,” he said.
“You’re late,” Gooch said.
The singer shrugged. “Better late than pregnant.”
Gooch smiled, unable to help himself. “You’re on in half an hour,” he said, and pointed toward the stage. The group wandered off through the crowd already gathered on the dance floor. A few moments later, there came a resounding CRASH! from behind the bar.
“BackJack, you micro-dicked puke stain cum rag!” Gooch bellowed, leaping off his stool and running behind the bar to punch any part of BackJack he could get hold of. The bartender cowered in a corner, covering up his face with his arms and quivering.
“I swear, if I knew I could find another fucking bartender who knew how to make a decent Coconut Comet—!” Gooch shouted, but at that very moment, there was tapping on the outer door. Ballbuster slid the eyehole cover aside.
“Passwoid?”
The eyehole was suddenly filled with two of the biggest tits in the history of The Swamp Donkey. All conversation stopped—even the band paused in setting up their gear and Gooch forgot he was beating BackJack—to stare at the fleshy globes peeking through the door.
“Correct,” Ballbuster said, and rolled the door aside.
Standing in the doorway was a stunner, an absolute knockout. She was six feet tall if she was an inch, most of it legs. Her long black hair trailed down her back, and her lipstick was a highly reflective silver. She had stuffed her knockers back into her slinky black dress, but they were precariously concealed and bounced of their own accord as she crossed the threshold, looking around at the blank stares she was getting from everyone in the joint.
She approached the bar, where Gooch was still frozen over a cowering BackJack. She batted her eyelashes. “I hear you’re looking for a bartender,” she purred.
Gooch’s cigar fell out of the corner of his mouth. BackJack took advantage of the distraction and ran away, but Gooch didn’t even notice.
