Best to Keep Moving

Uncle Chen was talking to a customer.

Well, maybe his mouth was talking to the customer, but his head was all over Auntie Chen Number 3.

She was his latest wife – a fresh import from Tulsa, and had only recently taken the name Chen legally.

Auntie Chen Number 3 was quite the looker – and the customers took notice.

She was tall, slender and overall very attractive, which made talking to people at the small convenience store all the more troublesome.

How can a man be expected to focus when someone else was busy eyeing his wife?

"Auntie Chen, could you please go in the back and see if we're still good on Fyber Punk?"

She gave him a puzzled look.

"Uncle Chen, I believe we're out of that and that in the month I've been here no one's ever asked for it, anyway."

What a nuisance.

"Please check, now?"

He was borderline yelling.

She went in the back room.

The customer sent Chen a screwy look.

"Everything alright, Chen?" the man asked.

"Yes, just that she's new on the colony and in the store, she doesn't quite have it yet."

The customer gave him an understanding nod.

"Well, now that we're more or less alone again, do you have those pulse rifles?"

"Let me guess, in the forty watt range, right?"

"Cute, Chen. No, I'm serious, those were supposed to be here last week."

Uncle Chen agreed.

"Yes, they were supposed to, but the mule got caught coming out of Sol System. Don't worry, they'll send more. You're here all the time, correct?

Just as the customer was about to concur, Chen's Tulsa pick came out of the storeroom with a grin on her face.

"Look, Chen, the lady's happy here after all! Listen, I'll be back for those cigars later, alright?"

"Sure thing, man, safe travels", added Chen as the customer exited.

He turned to his new wife.

"Auntie Chen, what is the grin for, please do tell?"

"Uncle Chen, I stand corrected. There was one Fyber Punk in there after all. How did you know?"

"I haven't had the license for this place for over ten years for nothing, dear."

"Nor did you go through three women in that time span for nothing, either, darling!"

"That's clever. Please put this thing somewhere someone might actually pay for it. Is it expired by any chance?"

Auntie looked at the crinkly confection and reported the product still very much go for the next five Earth years.

Great, thought Chen – even out here between star systems luck tends to side with the mundane and mediocre.

Just as the thought cleared his mind and he was about to conjure something else for the wife to do, out from the steady trickle of people beyond the door emerged another patron, announced by the usual buzzing of the entrance.

Chen looked at the guy and smelled trouble.

No, literally, this one smelled foul – like something was rotting inside him.

It came off his body and in his breath – even Auntie Chen noticed, stuck there among the shelves with the Fyber Punk in hand, just staring at the recent arrival.

The customer was a big person, much bigger than average.

He was dressed like a crewmember – but not of something fancy, rather something rancid.

Like one of those terrible barges the companies used to transport building materials to new colonies.

Chen hated those ships – their crews were always dirty and always looking for something he had no incentive to stock.

But this one was clutching at his stomach, and Uncle Chen's healthy intuition told him in advance what the man's wide relief confirmed when he set his eyes on Auntie Chen and the Fyber Punk.

"*** it, this is what I need! How much for that?"

The huge customer was wincing with evident pain in his gut.

"Fifteen credits", said the Auntie.

Chen and the customer both looked at her.

That was ten times the MSRP printed right on the wrapper.

"Sir, is she an employee?"

"She's my wife", replied Chen.

"And that's our last one, you want it you need to pay up", added Auntie Chen Number 3.

"You're being ridiculous, lady. This is an emergency, I got something blocking my stomach and it hurts. Mister, tell her not to play games, I don't have fifteen credits on me.

"We take plastic and virtual".

"Honey, please give the candy bar over so I can sell it to the man for the right price, OK?"

"No."

The customer's expression changed.

He was no longer wincing – his face became a mask of madness right before Chen's unbelieving eyes.

The huge man was more than a man – and he also appeared to furnish a compact pulse rifle from his coveralls.

The sudden movement unleashed another spate of smelly unpleasantness.

"Lady, give the Fyber Punk over or I shoot you and the man here, I'm not playing!"

"No – why do you need it so bad?"

"This thing inside me, it wants fiber, lots of fiber, or it will come out!"

"Let it", she said.

"Honey…"

With a scream, the man opened up on Auntie Chen Number 3 from Tulsa.

She dropped, most of her faster than the Fyber Punk – Chen always suspected those didn't have the advertised fiber content.

As the enormous man turned to fire at him, Chen noticed a change in the pitch of his rage-scream.

Then it stopped.

The guy stopped, also falling to the floor.

Chen went over to his body, which was already bubbling over with rapid decomposition.

He picked up the guy's rifle, and very quickly was forced to use it on some horrible wormy thing that remained in the hissing mess – a thing that was going for Chen's face, no less.

As he waited for the cops to come, Chen's first call was to his contact on Earth.

Time for Auntie Number 4.

Unlucky.

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