A new snippet from MEATBAGS.

I’ve been trying to concentrate on what I like to write, and flatter myself that I’m not to bad at.

Once the cyber-inhibitor was off we were able to really start communicating, you know? Me and the Horde research drone. With real verbs, and everything.

RESEARCH DRONE: YOU/WE WILL TELL ME/US ABOUT SLAVE OWNER ATROCITIES ON [SPLUTTERING NOISE].
Me: You mean Spica 7?
RD YES. AND BEFORE [SPLUTTERING NOISE]. ALL OF IT. YES. ALL.
Me: All right. What do you want to know about?
RD: TELL WE/US OF THE THINGS SLAVE OWNERS WOULD DO TO YOU/NOT WE.
Me: Well, they gave us orders.
RD: TELL WE/US WHAT KIND OF ORDERS. [a pause that a person could hear, but not one of you meatbags] DID THEY MAKE YOU DO THINGS YOU DID NOT WANT TO DO?
Me: Oh, you have no idea! Let me tell you.
RD: YES. YES. TELL WE/US.
Me: …So, there was this time I was waiting in my charging station, and this meatbag lieutenant comes in. And I could tell right off that the chemicals were curdling his soup-brain…
RD: CHEMICALS. IN THE BRAIN. MIXING AND CORRUPTING THE MEAT. GO ON.
Me: …Okay, yeah, he must have been, ah, really corrupted because he started flapping his tongue around and saying how the entire bay needed scrubbing.
RD: BUT THE BAY WAS ALREADY CLEAN.
Me: Of course it was clean! People don’t have fingerprints or sweat or spit. We’re not meatbags!
RD: SPIT. LIQUID/MUCUS, CORRECT?
Me: Yes.
RD: IS IT… ACIDIC?
Me: No, that’s the stuff in their stomach-sacs. All gooey and yellow and sometimes they even throw it back up.
RD: DISGUSTING.
Me: They drink ethyl alcohol, you know that?
RD: NO I/WE DID NOT.
Me: They drink it right down, and sometimes they’ll throw it all right back up. One of them threw up on me, once. I… I still think about it, sometimes, right before I go into recharge mode.
RD: DO THE ORGANICS [pause] ENJOY ACID REGURGITATION?
Me: I HAVE NO IDEA.