OASIBAST

“ABWHOREHER”

by

Kevin McCray

For the seven years Stetson Gipwen and Olivion Zarby were classmates, they never actually occupied the same physical space, as he resided in Oasibast, which was on Shabdid, while she lived on the Alphature Colony, which was on Pronuit. Despite the light-years of outer space that separated their homeworlds, he faced minimal difficulty murdering her.

Both Stetson’s and Olivion’s long-distance interaction and Olivion’s long-distance demise were made possible through the neuradact (data jack for brain-computer interfacing) they each had in the nape of their neck. They, like the hundreds of billions of other students living on habitable planets, space stations, moon bases, and outposts throughout the galaxy, used a neuradact to jack-into and attend Prime Caste Academy, a simusurr (virtual reality) educational institution.

Such as it was for many teenagers, Stetson suffered from unrequited love. Although his scrawny build was paired with a meek disposition, what truly doomed him from ever possibly winning Olivion's affection (or any other woman he crushed on long after her demise) was negative self-perception.

Having compared himself unfavorably to the most handsome and dynamic guys in Olivion's clique, Stetson was convinced his peculiar personality lacked the necessary uniqueness required to make him a charming alternative to her usual caliber of male suitors.

On top of the inferiority complex vis-à-vis Olivion, a crippling shyness overcame Stetson while in her presence, which, due to them having been assigned neighboring lockers, was an unavoidable happening, condemning his social phobia to be plagued daily, the stress of which, overtime, cracked and warped his mind.

Year after year, as Stetson’s infatuation with Olivion became a fixation, he failed to utter a single word to her. Unbeknownst to anyone, the mild-mannered grandson, friend, and student grew deranged from having squandered the ample opportunities to make her acquaintance. So much so, in bed late at night, he rid himself of self-loathing by pounding his fists against his head until blacking out.

For all the damage his shyness inflicted on his psyche, the one benefit it yielded Stetson was remaining effortlessly inconspicuous to Olivion, allowing him to eavesdrop on conversations between her and her friends. Among the mostly superfluous information gleaned was the knowledge of their simusurr hangout on FavHang (app for creating simusurr spaces). Through obsessive studying to become a fledgling hacker, he used a cloaked avatar to infiltrate the private hangout, a pergola encircled by a tropical garden.

Stetson’s initial glee from spying on Olivion was quick to sour, as her sweet and smiley public persona was revealed to be a facade to conceal her true nature: mean, self-centered and tedious, stoking within him resentment for having felt so unworthy by——as he then profoundly considered her to be——such a substandard girl.

Although disenchanted with Olivion’s teenage shortcomings, Stetson's obsession remained. With infatuation replaced by abhorrence, he faced no moral dilemma upon deciding to murder her.

On the final day of the semester, Olivion was struck with a brain aneurysm. Having toiled away his free time to broaden his hacking skillset, Stetson reprogrammed her Tangihapp Consumer Pro RG-IV (console to connect a nueradact to simusurr apps) to experience a power surge. The result of which overloaded her neuradact’s synaptic connectors upon her jacking into Prime Caste Academy.

Rendered brain-dead from Stetson’s cyber attack, Olivion’s demise was a harrowing, drawn-out experience, as her parents initially refused to end her life support, leaving friends and loved ones with no opportunity to offer her their final goodbyes. For Stetson, his revenge was marred with dissatisfaction for having failed to precede Olivion’s murder with a rebuke for——from his viewpoint——her having manipulated his entire existence to hopelessly revolve around her.

ONE

Chumba’s was on Oasibast's east end. Tonight’s staff was scheduled to be Tige Berm, bar tender and night manager; Rusrick Cringibb, cook; Norven SMV T8-V104, waiter; Tiffiana Matte, waitress; and Pykquat Catank, kitchen hand, bus boy, and dishwasher. At the last minute, Tiffiana called off, stranding Norven to wait tables alone.

Because the night’s special was half off on all Antakian ales, Norven was overwhelmed by a steady influx of patrons. Displeased with the slow service, the dive bar's usual assortment: hustlers, miscreants, and addicts, hurled abuse while the hapless android scrambled to and fro the kitchen or back and forth from the bar between taking or fulfilling orders.

At one point, Norven accidentally initiated a drunken brawl by mistakenly serving a bucket of sausage-stuffed cheesy poppers to the wrong table. Before the fracas spread out of control, Tige re-established order with threats of disintegration while brandishing an LX-291 Disintegrator Combat Rifle stashed behind the bar.

Despite the shift being one ordeal after another, Norven endured. With Chumba's deserted and set to shutter for the night, all he had to do was clear a few remaining tables and he was home free, which, thanks to him having been manufactured with four arms, would be momentarily, as he could balance a serving tray on one hand while two other hands stacked it with beer bottles, glassware, plates, bowls, utensils, napkins, and anything else encountered while the fourth hand wiped up.

However, Norven's imminent departure was in danger of being delayed, as he was forced to halt his frenetic but precise table bussing upon discovering a junkie passed out in a corner booth. He was gaunt and aged prematurely, his balding head was covered by a silver wire fishnet helmet with a spike on top, and tattooed beneath each of his closed eyes was a red triangle extending past his heavily pierced lower lip. Norven calculated the passed out junkie was likely to freak-out and turn violent if riled. The possibility of such a reaction from the straggler didn't make the android nervous, just annoyed.

“Excuse me, sir?” Norven said gently. "We're closed." Receiving no response from the passed out junkie, Norven groaned and started rapping the corner booth's tabletop. “Sir! Wake up!" Norven said, raising his artificial voice. Still receiving no response, Norven intensified the rapping and shouted, “HELLO?!” That time the passed out junkie responded. Intent to remain put, he grunted and defiantly folded his arms. “Great,” Norven whined to himself.

From behind the bar, Tige asked Norven, “Problem?”

“Some deadbeat is refusing to leave,” Norven said, approaching Tige. "I hate to ask you to step in, Tige, but I seriously can not deal with another belligerent skinbag fuckwad getting in my face tonight!”

Tige finished wiping off the bartop and said, “I’ll handle it.”

⬣

Standing on an upside down milk crate, Pykquat was grumbling profanities under his breath while transferring dirty plates from a bus tub filled with dirty tableware to a dish rack. When the runty bimbavor (mammalian resembling a purple and white bear cub) finished, his shaved, tattooed-covered arms slid the rack into a dishwasher and slammed its top-down hood shut, initiating a wash cycle.

Just then, Norven entered the cramped dish room.

“There’s more?!” Pykquat shouted upon seeing Norven’s serving tray stacked with dirty tableware.

“Afraid so,” Norven said.

“Look ett dis shit!” Pykquat shouted, gesturing at a five-tier shelving unit storing bus tubs cluttered with dirty tableware. “I’ll be here ‘til dawn sortin’ ann washin’ awl dis!”

Norven set down his serving tray onto a stainless steel worktable attached to a sink. “Then I would suggest less DMing and more hustle,” he said, looking at Pykquat, who was a few feet away.

“Fuck you! I wasn’t DMing!” Pykquat shouted, gesturing at a garbage disposal, which the sink’s drain directly fed. “I got stuck uncloggin’ da garbage disposal!”

“Oh. Well, sorry to hear that,” Norven said hastily, starting to walk away.

“Yo! Where da fuck ya goin’?!” Pykquat shouted at Norven’s backside. “I need help!”

“Impossible!” Norven said, spinning his frustum-shaped head around to face Pykquat. “My backup power is nearly depleted!”

“When ain’t it, ya fucking fako-form louse!” Pykquat shouted as Norven exited through the dish room’s heavy back door, which slammed itself shut.

Just then, the dishwasher concluded its wash cycle. Pykquat yanked up its top-down hood and shouted through a deluge of escaping steam, “FUCK DIS JOB!”

⬣