Girl, You're Tripping

Part 1 of Significantly Advanced Tech

By Jeffrey Von Hauger

Sometimes a girl needs to take a gap year. One where she steps way outside her comfort zone and preferably gets into a bit of trouble. She'll come back a changed person, ready to step into the next big stage of her life.

Pippalotti Francesca Ritz was dancing her ass off. The modularized tribal beats reverberated through her entire body. The flashing lights penetrated her skin and seemed to illuminate her cells. She was feeling floaty for the longest time but the floor became real again as her feet began to hurt. Her face was sore from the non-stop smiling. Overall, she felt really great. Almost too good.

She promised her friends and the family that if she went to the Jersy Jakz Disco Inferno she would use one of the house provided chaperones. She smiled at Crystal Blue Persuasion and watched her dance. Crystal was a Zorr in the prime of her life. Which meant she was big, blue, and beautiful. Two meters of physical perfection sporting long braided hair that flew around her head with a mind of its own. She moved her voluptuous body in ways that turned everyone on, regardless of any preconceived orientation.

Zorrs were athletic, intelligent, intuitive, and charming people. Pippa could never figure out why some species looked down on them, let alone try to enslave them. She had already transferred a huge tip in Grandor credits to her account. She couldn't have asked for a better guide.

"I gotta take a break!" shouted Pippa over the pulsating musical thunder.

"Ok!, want me to come with?" Crystal took her hands in hers and danced slower. "Are you alright? You look like you're tripping pretty hard."

Crystal's eyes were a deep blue ocean.

"I'm OK! I think I'm in a calm phase and need to change atmospheres. You stay here and dance, I'll ping you if I need anything!"

"Alright, baby, I'm here for you." She swirled away in a singular body motion that started at her wrist, moved up to her eyebrows, then darted down to her ringed toes.

Pippalottti made a beeline for the nearest exit.

After a couple hours here, she realized it wasn't as dangerous a place as people led on. Though she had to admit it was hard to keep it together with Jakz Juice pumping through her system. She opened the door out of the dance floor and left the spinning lights behind. The adjacent lounge had a completely different vibe.

Mellow crooner music in a language it didn't matter if you understood swooned her over to the bar. The six armed android bartender was on it. At least she hoped it had six arms; there was no way to know for sure with the visual side effects of the drug.

"Water, kind sir."

"Affirmative."

The robot filled a tall slender glass and handed it to her. It was cool and refreshing with a hint of mint. She sipped and enjoyed the feeling of the liquid sliding down her throat.

"Oh, man, I gotta tell you, you should have one of these, it helps," said a very nondescript yet wasted looking man easily twice her age.

He opened a crinkled tin paper package and took out a thin hand rolled joint and offered it to her.

"It's tobacco. Terrible for you but I discovered by accident that it takes the edge off Jakz Juice. I can tell you're new to the experience."

He seemed harmless. She accepted the little white gift. He took another out, lit the end on fire, and exhaled a large purple plume of smoke that hung in the air over the bar. It smelled pretty bad.

"I'm Greg, Greg Petix. Rhymes with buttocks." He laughed to himself, though his butt joke had its simple charm.

"Hi, Greg. What species are you?"

"Oh, I'm human."

"You're pretty pale for a human."

Greg coughed and adjusted his shirt. It had a crude drawing of a goat with two heads on it.

"Well, I'm American, Northern European I guess, ancestrally. Technically, I'm 50,000 Grandor cycles old. You see I'm actually from Earth. But Anyway, I'm looking for this woman named X. She has a green Mohawk and..."

"Wait, are you saying you're not from the drifter colonies?"

"No, they found me in cryo-sleep and thawed me out on Grandor Prime. I'm friends with Onzaga Oblast. I recognize you but we've never officially met." He put out his hand.

Pippalottti put out her hand in the same way and held it there. Then he grabbed it, shook it a bit, and let go. She put the cigarette in her mouth and he lit it for her. She took a hit, held it a minute, then coughed it out.

"Whoa!" Almost instantly the Jakz Juice blur cut in half, giving her a real moment of mental clarity. "Oh, now I know who you are, you're Grandmama's dog walker."

They both nodded their heads knowingly.

"Right, that's me. So anyway have you seen this woman, well she's a synthetic woman, but you can't miss her, she's wearing no clothes and has tattoos over her entire body and like I said a big green mohawk and..."

"Greg, it's really nice talking to you but I gotta go. It's Pippalottti by the way, I hope my adopted grandmother didn't send you here to spy on me?"

"Right, Pippalotti. She calls you Pippa. No, though she did buy my ticket. Such a great lady, a true friend. Anyway, talk to you later." And off he went in search of the punk rock girl.

Pippa leaned against the bar smoking and drinking water. That's when she saw him; the most beautiful intriguing fantastical being she'd ever laid eyes on. He had long bleached blond hair and large white feathery wings. He had a humanoid body with a flush golden flesh tone that could've been from Grandor 7, but that didn't account for the wings. And his eyes, they were as radiant as fire.

She hoped it wasn't the drugs.

He was sitting in a large circular corner booth with an ancient looking old man with snow-white hair tied up on the top of his head in a messy bun and a long spindly Fu Manchu mustache. Maybe it was his grandfather? They were both smoking a water pipe.

She was feeling more in control, thanks to Greg's disgusting cigarette. She wanted to meet him, to talk to him. She felt it was more than the drugs telling her to do so.

Maybe?

She took one more puff, dropped the cig to the floor, ground it out with her boot, and exhaled as she started across the room. She caught her reflection in one of the many mirrored columns of the wacky throwback lounge.

Pippalottti was tall for a Grandorian, nearly two meters, 25 Grandor cycles old with a new pair of tan leather spacer pants and short fitted flight jacket; her boots were what the human's running the fashion shop called Gogo. She had light grayish skin with thick lush brown hair. She had some heavy waves going and her golden teeth sparkled pleasantly. Her pupils, however, were dilated worse than Greg's.

She walked up to the booth and was faced with the decision of sliding in next to the old guy or the thing of utter beauty. She chickened out and spoke first.

"Hi. I'm Pippalottti Ritz. You two look pretty chill. Mind if I join you?" She made to sit down next to the living swan song.

The old man scooched over in his seat. "Please sit here, you don't want to sit next to him, he's pure evil. I mean, you shouldn't touch him."

In her spaced-out state, she stagged a bit and then sat next to the old man. They both moved over and the three sat evenly spaced around the circular table. She looked across into a perfect face.

She'd once read of an orchid that was so perfect it evolved to look like the face of a monkey and all the monkeys wanted to do was stick their face in the flower. And by those means the orchid pollinated itself. She didn't know if she was the flower or the monkey or if she was just a gal and the birdman was a flower or maybe a monkey? Or was it the drugs?

The old man sat in the center between them.

"I'm Melock and this is my dear friend the Prince of Darkness, Ruler of the Underworld, Lord of the Abyss, Diabolus Luciferdo, of the Morning Star." He gestured to the beautiful man.

"Please allow me to introduce myself..." His voice was deep and authoritative. "...I'm Abaddon St. Baal."

Pippa smiled a shit eating grin. "Nice to meet you, Abaddon. I assumed he was your grandfather?"

"No, we've only just met. But I've followed the life of Melock the Wise, greatest of all Wizards for some time now."

"So a Prince and a Wizard?" Maybe it was the drugs. "Where are you two from?"

"I'm human, not exactly like the ones here, a more ancient variant," said the wizard.

The club was predominantly populated by drifter colony humans, Zorrs, and Jakz. The small meter tall tree frog Jakz loved to party and had found a new friend in humans, one with glorious new music and fashion to indulge in. The Jakz advertised the club as 60's-70's style, whatever that meant?

A group of confused #71EEB8 clones were observing the activities from the next booth over. Jakz Juice was outlawed in #71 space, so they were either separated from the collective or they were ambassadors doing research. The table of bald silver skinned middle-aged men were all dressed in matching seafoam green flight suits. Their posture was perfect and they didn't touch the drinks in front of them.

"So were all ancient humans pale like you then? You're the second I've met tonight."

Melock ran his hand the length of his beard and pointed across the room to Greg who was talking to a naked galaxy model Zero-G pilot commando. She was covered head to toe in tattoos and sporting a forest green mohawk.

Pippalottti shook her head. "Yeah, him." Every other human in the joint had darker skin; the result of colony life around a blue giant star.

"Oh, I'm much older than he. He's a 21st-century man I would say, wouldn't you?"

"Indeed." Abaddon nodded in agreement.

"Ok, so Melock is some super ancient mystic of sorts and you're from someplace called the Morning Star, where I'm guessing flying is important?"

"I am eternal. My realm is called Hades."

"I used to think it was near Pluto, but it's not. We're orbiting it right now, it's in Inferno's interior." Melock took a puff off his water pipe and gurgled sparkling smoke into the air.

"You're talking about the interior of the gas giant. Nothing can survive down there, the temperature, let along the pressure, would kill you instantly. Shit, how fucked up are you guys?" She laughed, Melock laughed, and Abaddon smiled.

"Very." Melock snickered. "But we possess means of travel far beyond your understanding."

"Sure you do." She could almost feel the ears of the #71 clones perking up.

"I'd be glad to take you there." His angel eyes sure were dreamy, but the offer to take her inside a gas giant sent up red flags.

She felt like playing along.

"Wait, is Inferno's Interior a code name for another part of the club?" It was after all a huge complex with some quarter million customers in attendance.

"It is where you say it is at the center of Inferno." Abaddon really played the mystery card well.

"I want to go." Melock took another big hit and blew glitter smoke into the air. "I'm ready!"

"I don't know. I'm with a chaperone and I think my family wants to keep on eye on me and maybe not have me incinerated in liquid hydrogen." She was deep in a stoned conversation now, that was for sure.

"If it would make you more comfortable, we could travel with the #71EEB8s. I'm sure they would be glad to join us and be more than honorable enough to ensure your safety. You're welcome to invite your chaperone."

The 71s in the next booth all started whispering to each other. One stood up and walked over to the table.

"As Ambassadors to the Deep Space Guild, with a vested interest in the fuel production facilities here, we'd be extremely interested in the planet's interior and would be glad to offer our protective services and the use of our spacecraft. We do honor our agreements with Grandor and would certainly protect one of their citizens with our lives. Please excuse our overhearing your conversation, we have excellent hearing." He bowed and returned to his table to await a reply.

Time fell into a kind of drag and reality bent and slurred a bit. Everyone in the whole place seemed affected. Pippa assumed it was the mind-altering factors of Jakz Juice. She was thoroughly warned to expect visual, auditory, and temporal hallucinations.

Whacked out Jakz tree frogs in bell bottoms hopped about, azure blue-skinned Zorrs with outrageous hairdos mingled, the occasional Grandorian slunk by in a haze, and humans bombed out of their minds did their best to blend in; most of them taking a long weekend from work at the fuel refinery. A hulk of a Gastraddar sat in a booth on the opposite side of the room with his big green wasted arms draped over the shoulders of two off worlders who didn't know what they were getting themselves into.

Everything snapped back again after ten long seconds that felt like an hour. Jakz Juice really zoned a person out.

Pippalotti thought it over and the #71s probably knew she'd been a ward of the Grandor royal family, she'd want to ditch them as soon as possible. And probably the old man as well.

"Melock, I don't want you to feel like a third wheel?"

Just then a curious young girl walked up to the table as if Pippa's words caused her to materialize out of thin air.

"Do you mind if I sit next to Melock?" Her voice was as stern as her appearance.

She was a teenager, twenty at most, another of Melock's ancient humans with creamy skin and short cropped reddish hair. She was maybe a meter and a half tall and wearing platinum Zero-G combat fatigues. She gave Abaddon a look of disapproval as Pippalotti allowed her to slide into the booth.

"Sister John Murphy."

"Pippalotti Ritz."

"I'm with Melock."

"That's great! I assume he isn't your grandfather either then?" Pippa sat on the other side of the booth next to Abaddon.

The old wizard chuckled to himself. "Now, that we're all here and it's a nice even group, four and four." He nodded to the four clones at the next both. "I say we jump in the fire."

Pippa looked up at Abaddon. He was even more gorgeous up close. His pristine feathered wings had a slight halo glow. His slender hand reached under the table and touched her knee. Then the angelic bird-person smiled kindly at her.

"It'll be a trip to remember."

She really hoped it wasn't the drugs.

"Well, I'm convinced. I'll ping my guide and let her know I'm heading down to the planet to take the gas giant tour." She made air quotes with her hands around the last three words.

She'd read that the gargantuan gas storms were a spectacle to behold and utterly visually enhanced if you happened to be revved up on Jakz Juice. It was a cheesy thing to do, but if you're going to be a tourist.

As they got up to leave, Greg was startled from the bar across the room.

"Holy shit, look at that fucking demon spawn from hell over there walking with Pippi."

He rubbed his eyes and crossed himself; seeing a nine-foot-tall red-skinned devil with horns, hooves, and a pointed tail was unusual even when doing drugs in outer space. He turned to the naked woman with a mohawk for help. The demonic Motörhead tattoo on her arm didn't help his state of mind.

"Her name's Pippa, Pipp-A-lotti. And he looks more like a synthetic monster bot to me. She just checked in with her guide and said the clones were taking her on a gas giant tour. She'll be fine. We, on the other hand, my fine 20th-century friend, are clearly peaking. Let's order some more drinks to take the edge off."

It was definitely the drugs?