15The Intergalactic Soap Opera
Episode One: A Woman Walks Into A Bar…
Samiyokipolliwollidoodli- or Sami, as everyone, except this very old teacher at her grade school called her- walked purposely down a dingy alley- the worst alley, in fact on the worst planet- Penhasink- to the worst bar on the planet. She was meeting Ryan the Smuggler for a business transaction. Good business deals never, ever ever happened on nice planets or just decent ones. They always happened on mean, rough-and-tough planets. That wasn't to say, however, Sami thought as she continued strolling down the alley filled with starving children, future felons, ex felons, and felons, that Penhasink was a bad planet, per say; no, she reflected; just a misunderstood one. She kicked the starving and whimpering child off her foot and went inside the bar. The Malignant Tumor, it was called. It was a good name for a bar in the twenty-eighth century.
She went inside, looking around for the table she was to meet Ryan the Smuggler at. He had said to meet him at the squarish circular green orange table with five wads of supagum on the bottom. Sami groaned. There were four squarish circular green orange tables. She would have to check all of them for the five wads of supagum herself. Sami ordered herself a beer. "Excuse me," she said to the inhabitants of the nearest such table. She crawled under.
Four table-checks later, Sami sat contentedly at the correct table, a wide smile on her face. The look on her face was probably due to all the alcohol she had consumed before and after every table check. She never knew you could find dirty graffiti on the bottom of tables. Well, you learn something new everyday, she reflected, blowing the foam off her (twelfth) beer and leaning back in her chair, waiting for Ryan the Smuggler to show up.
A tall man in a green jumpsuit appeared in front of her table. She popped up, thinking that this must be Ryan the Smuggler.
"Hello, nice to meet you!" she said, at the same exact time the man said the same exact thing.
"Are you Ryan the Smuggler?" they both continued simultaneously, smiling widely.
"No, I'm here for the business deal!" they both finished weakly. Shoot, a competitor, they both thought, and sank together onto the bench of the table that Sami was at, though, thankfully, not at the same location.
Sami ordered another beer. "What's your name, stranger?" she asked the man, fiddling glumly with her green hair.
"Khaki Pedantic Smith," the stranger answered. "Don't laugh. My parents had a very… odd sense of humor."
"Yeah," Sami said, in agreement. "That's a really odd name," she commented, forgetting entirely about her own name."
"What's your name?" Khaki wanted to know.
"Samiyokipolliwollidoodli," Sami said. "But everybody calls me Sami."
It took some time for Khaki to stop laughing. By the time he had stopped, a mysterious, smuggler looking man had entered the bar and been shot. Sami dashed over, hoping to 'help' by picking the man's pockets. (It was the 28th century, but people still used pockets, instead of forcefield purses or some such. Go figure. People also still picked them, making this time undeniably like the eighteenth century, only with larger guns, more freak mutations, and the ability to conquer not only countries, but entire planets.) She withdrew only a few credcoins, the man's id badge, and glumly stuffed it all in her own pocket without looking at it. She went back to Khaki, who was still laughing.
"What'd you get?" he questioned, wiping tears out of his eyes and calming down.
"Just this," Sami answered, and pulled out the few credcoins and the id badge, which read:
RYAN THE SMUGGLER
"Shoot!" they both said, again, simultaneously.
"There goes the awesome business deal," Sami said glumly, ordering yet another beer. People in the 28th century had a remarkable stomach for these things.
"Not unless…" trailed away Khaki, with an interested look at the id badge, as he pocked the credcoins.
"What?" Sami asked, to interested herself to really care where the credcoins had gone to.
"Unless…"
A/N: Thanks all for reading, and reviewing, of course. I am thanking you in advance.
Any favorite science fiction stereotypes you want to see refried and served up here? Review with that stereotype.