FB | Ch. 12 - Boys Band
Added 2025-07-25 13:59:28 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
With the release of Handyman 3 and Card Slinger 1, I haven't had much time to write Farming Beetle. Anyway, I had some extra time and ended up writing two more chapters. Enjoy!
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Now that I think about it, in Earth stories—books, movies, whatever—there’s always some kind of epic journey. You know the drill: the hero sets off from point A to get to point B, and in between, there’s the full disaster buffet. Bandits. Starvation. Storms. Wild animals. Sometimes all at once.
Our journey wasn’t like that. I mean, yes, we were technically traveling from point A to point B, but the perils were mostly absent. No bandits. No wild animals. And that’s despite the fact that the trip was at least twice as long as the distance from my spawning location to the nearest tree.
The road gave us time to talk. I’ll skip the debates about our favorite TV shows (spoiler: we both agreed the ending of Lost was a crime against humanity) and jump to one conversation that becomes important later on.
“So, Carlos, do you have a family?” I asked.
“I don’t.”
“Really? No wife? No kids?”
He shook his head. “What about you?”
“Same! I’m an orphan. Don’t know anyone in my family. I’ve always kept to myself.”
Carlos blinked. “Huh. Same here.”
“What about friends?” I asked. “You must’ve had a partner on the force, right?”
“I work better alone,” he said.
“Me too! That’s why I’m a terminator. Well. Used to be.”
“Whoa. What are the odds of us being this similar?”
It turns out that the odds were technically possible, but also highly suspicious. At the time, though, we were too busy high-fiving over our emotional baggage to notice.
The reason for our smooth, relaxed, chat-filled passage was Carlos, of course. With his fancy mechanoreception, he sidestepped danger like he had a built-in GPS—the kind that says, “Monster ahead. Rerouting.”
By then, he’d cloned himself three times—four Carloses total, marching in a diamond formation. I was a little jealous. For one, Carlos could start a boy band all by himself. Secondly, his radar was just too good.
“Is it really that easy to avoid predators?” I asked. “Just one point into mechanoreception and boom—you’re basically immortal?”
“Try two points,” Carlos said. “But this won’t work forever.”
“What do you mean?”
“This only works for the moment because everything’s ground-based. What if predators grow wings? Or start wearing the alien equivalent of wool socks to sneak up on us?”
Spoken like someone in law enforcement. Always five steps ahead, even when those steps might be muffled by woolen socks.
That’s the thing with skill point allocation. No matter how clever you think your build is, there's always some horrible creature out there with a build labeled “Perfectly Designed to Ruin Your Day.”
And just like that, we met one of those builds in the flesh.
Irony of ironies, we were literally praising Carlos’ radar abilities seconds before they failed spectacularly.
Someone sprang at us.
Imagine a bus barreling toward you and every cell in your body agrees: yep, you’re toast.
Later, we’d learn the bus had a name—Rajni. And that the only reason we survived was because she let us. Carlos might’ve pulled through, thanks to his clone-squad tactics. Me? I would have been 100% dead meat. Rajni’s lunch meat.
She came from the front, but I had no idea where she’d sprung from. One moment, nothing. Next moment, death hands hovering inches from our hearts. They looked ordinary—no claws, no sparkly superpowers—but somehow felt… unsheathed.
At that moment, her limbs only looked a little longer. Compared to what she’d eventually become, it was downright quaint.
“Ugh. Humans too?” she muttered, retracting her hands like we were spoiled leftovers.
I was still paralyzed. Not because she was pretty. I swear. Her big eyes, flawless caramel skin, and flowing ebony hair had nothing to do with it. I was just processing the fact that I’d come face-to-face with death and lived to tell the tale.
Carlos, used to brushes with death, recovered faster. “Why didn’t you kill us?” he asked.
“I have to draw the line somewhere,” she said, shrugging.
I swallowed. “I-I guess you picked a carnivorous i-i-insect?”
“Yes,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Which one?” I asked, curious. And maybe also stalling for time.
She wagged a finger. “Ah ah ah. No free info.” She glanced around and made a wide gesture. “We just got here. There’s a lot we don’t know...” Her voice trailed off, then perked up like she’d just remembered something delightful. “I have a proposition.”
Carlos and I exchanged a look. I shrugged. “Let’s hear it,” I said.
“I’m a carnivore. You’re clearly not. I know things that’ll help you survive. You know things that’ll help me hunt better. Let’s share. Help each other out.”
“Like an informant?” I asked.
Carlos didn’t flinch. He considered it without hesitation. He was probably used to working with informants, even if the idea felt a little immoral to me.
She kills. We enable it. Morally gray party, table for three. I wasn’t sure if we were the diners, the menu, or the cutlery.
