I pored over the documents while recovering in my tanning bed. I’m a professional I’ll have you know. The tanning bed as I call it is probably the only reason I have survived so long out here. Apparently our physiology is so simple that this medical device that is used as healing assistance to aliens makes me practically immortal. After a few hours, more than enough time to memorize the contents of the packet and when the hangover would normally occur, I was right as Plutonian pudding rain.
I may have also fallen asleep with the sheets spread across my chest and an empty cocktail glass next to my head.
Professional.
That bed was the best money I ever spent. There is nothing worse than a hangover, after all. The headaches and nausea, ick.
One time I slept way too long with the settings way too high. I looked like Rip Van Winkle when I awoke. Hungriest I have ever been. At first I thought I slept for forty years. Turned out to just be accelerated growth. It was concerning enough that I consulted some medical professionals to make sure it wasn’t going to have any adverse affects. The one doc gave me supplements to meet the demand of cell regeneration until they slowed down. If they decelerated too quickly, it could have been bad. My prescription was a nasty tasting nutrient rich yogurts which I tried my hardest to ignore the ingredients list and to basically consume whatever cravings I had. Didn’t need to tell me twice.
They weren’t all that expensive normally, but the regulations are ridiculous on them. Obtaining one that was unregistered and untraceable through Wade was easy enough, but costly. A lot of greasy palms out there. Greed and bureaucracy, apparently, are the constants of the universe.
There were supposedly more rock monsters waiting in the parking lot at Sneezey’s. The valiant Zalud and his merry shadows thwarted them before any more of them could come in and tear the place to pieces. I knew the con but I didn’t say anything. Threaten the establishment, wring ‘em for protection money. And for the amount of money I stood to gain, I was confident I could squeeze my way out of whatever plebian games he wanted to ensnare me in.
It was like a child had written the script of this terrible heist movie I was about to be a part of.
Zalud’s princess was being held in the highest tower of the Gelderglarb sector, as I call it. A precious for a precious. They were demanding certain portion of control over certain facets in their part of the universe they felt they were entitled to, with the princess as a bargaining chip they also claimed to have rightfully acquired. Therefore it technically was not a hostage situation, but an everyday business proposal. Shrugs in Wall Street.
The only thing more powerful than money is reputation. Reputation is power. Zalud intended to save face in response to the events, hence me being necessary. He had no intentions of bartering with what he considered to be the greedy little dwarves of the galaxy. Giving an ounce of power to anyone was weakness. In a way I respected that about him. But I was not about to let that get in the way of my plans.
I was to “go along with the plan,” according to the ransom. Since it was a negotiation, however, Z-man able to get the process proxied by, not one, but two agents of his empire to affirm the notion, handing over an extraordinary amount of power to a bunch of bureaucrats.
Okay the more I talk about this now, the more I question if I stiffed the wrong party.
Anyway.
The only thing I was to actually affirm was my foot up their asses in the name of the Zedmeister. Ergo, reasserting dominance. And somehow it was kosher to the whole how they do business out here.
Whatever.