We don’t know if that’s true, but it probably is.
It takes hours and hours for all the boys to be loaded and no one comes to talk to us and let us know what’s happening. Meals appear in an autocook every once in a while. We eat. Luck plays some poker with the girls for a while. The little one, who we have learned is called Canis, sleeps most of the time. And Delphi and I just sit on an auto-mold couch with our arms around each other.
It’s not a fun time. Because all I can think about is… what happens next? And will we ever get back to Harem? Clearly our imprisonment is about more than Dicker blowing her way out an airlock and not paying a fee, or Delphi accidentally stealing that rewards bot.
It’s about me. It’s about Earth. It’s about this stupid name I’ve never heard of.
But no one comes to fill me in. A doctor appears though. Like a real one. He seals my shoulder closed, shoots me up with an antibiotic, checks the kid—tries to check Luck, but he waves him off—and then leaves as suddenly as he came.
Eventually we are ordered to prepare for departure and then hours later we dock at Mighty Minions.
I watch nervously on the screen to make sure Dicker is OK after being towed through the gates. They have a good tractor beam and it holds both her and Lady Luck in a tight configuration, but you never know. Towing ships through gates is iffy at best and I would be really sad if she had to go through another rebuild twice in the span of half a year.
But they are both fine. There are seventeen AIs running this place, after all. What can’t a collective of seventeen AIs do?
It has to be illegal. Has to be.
But it’s not. There’s millions of guests on Mighty Minions at any one time. No Prime Navy warships come to shut it down. No one seems to care that the most powerful force in the known universe runs a creepy-as-fuck family resort based on a demon theme.
I have since learned that Mighty Minions is the longest-running, number-one screen show in the galaxy. I mean, I kinda knew that, but only marginally. And it’s more than that. There’s comic books, and real books, and cartoons, and blockbuster movies, and a clothing line.
Bizarre. So fucking bizarre.
The door to our pod finally dings, then opens, and a smiling girl dressed up like your typical Mighty Minions ambassador steps through, with who behind her? You guessed it, my Rewards Bot. Kinda dinged up and a few scorch marks on his little spherical body, but chirping a happy greeting at me just as the ambassador says, “Mr. Yates? Princess Delphi, here are your family passes. They’re good for another seventy-two hours. We had a meeting and decided not to penalize you for leaving the park and returning. So… enjoy.”
Delphi and I take the passes she’s thrusting at us like dumb idiots. Because what else do you do in this situation?
Luck says, “What?”
The ambassador beams a well-practiced smile at him and says, “I’m sorry, but you and your friends aren’t guests here. So you’ll have to go to the holding cells.”
“What?” Luck says again. Only this time he growls it.
“Mr. Yates is a Palladium Rewards Member and we cannot in good conscience put him anywhere but his penthouse.”
Delphi and I look at each other. Then smile.
“You have a penthouse here?” Luck says.
“I guess I do.” I laugh.
“What about our kid?” Delphi says, pulling Canis in front of her and shoving him forward like an offering. “He can come with us too, right?”
“Kid?” I say. “No. No, fuck that. This is our room. We finally get some fucking time alone. No damn kids!”
“You’re not going to some penthouse while the girls and I get locked up in a holding cell!” Luck says again.
“All the kids have been given complimentary passes for the park and have been assigned bots to monitor them.”
“Fuck, yeah!” Canis erupts. “I wanna ride the boat across Demon Lake first! Can I?” he asks the ambassador.
She snaps her fingers and produces a wristband, then taps the screen until Rewards Bot lights up, acknowledging his new charge.
“Well,” I say, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Things are looking up.”
“Jimmy!” Luck says, just as Mighty Minions soldiers come in and take him and the girls by the arms. “You’re not gonna leave us like this!”
I take Delphi’s hand, then look at him over my shoulder. “Brother, I love you. But trust me, their lockup is way too nice for me to feel guilty about this. I’m taking my princess back to our room and—” I shrug. Like… You fill in the blank.
We walk past the ambassador, but just as we pass she reaches out and plucks Flicka off Delphi’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But this one was banned permanently. You can pick her up from the bot lockup on your way out.” Then she smiles and says, “Enjoy your stay,” and turns on her heel, buzzing dragonbee bot in her fingertips, and leaves.