Portal

Adam's Story (One Night at The Pub Part 5)

Adam and Lois' story 

This story starts in a particularly classic way, 'A man walks into a bar...  

A man walks into a bar with a cat sitting on his shoulder. 

"Excuse me sir," asks the barman. "Do you know you have a cat on your shoulder?" 

The cat looks up and grins. "Haha. Good one, android. Do you have somewhere I can park my ride?"' 

Lois now has a regular place on top of the drinks cabinet, with a scarlet cushion which sets off her black and white fur nicely. From there, she can sip her favourite Kahlua and milk in dignified peace. She likes to keep an eye on everything from a safe distance where she is unlikely to be trodden on, or or even worse, patted by a random stranger. Mind you no-one makes that mistake twice. 

Lois comes from the planet Bast and is far more intelligent than pretty much anyone else who enters the Pub. Far from being an insurmountable barrier, not having an opposable thumb turned out to be an evolutionary benefit for her species, which developed a rather neat line in levitation instead. When you can use your mind to lift and carry and manipulate small objects, it leaves your paws free for what they were made for. Climbing, digging, defence and attack. As she is fond of saying, claws are far more useful than hands when it comes to making a point! 

Adam sits quietly at his favourite spot in the corner more or less doing his own thing, but always keeping an eye out in case Lois wants him for something. If you offer to buy him a drink, he'll tell you how he came to belong to Lois. 

It all began when Adam was down on the medieval planet of Avalon. 

Hang on! I hear you about to say. Avalon is an interdicted planet, no-one is allowed to go there or leave, for that matter. Its people have chosen to live in a medieval culture with no technology, they even make their own clothes and grow their own food.  

But this visit was made under very special circumstances. At that time, Avalon was the victim of a zombie plague and had called on the outside world for the first time in centuries for assistance. Now Adam had always had rather a thing for zombies, so he had volunteered to go down and help fight them until the antidote to the virus was discovered. 

Nevertheless, despite all the warnings, he got a big shock when he came out of the Arrivals' Hall and was presented with a large heavy crossbow, instead of the sonic rifle or rocket launcher he had been expecting. "We don't call this a medieval planet for nothing, lad," he was told by a grizzled man-at arms. His fashionable yellow-synthsilk flared trousers with matching waistcoat were packed away until he departed and he was issued with homespun wool leggings and a leather jerkin, all rather uncomfortable. 

A little dazed, he found himself marching along a dusty unpaved road to what looked like a holovid castle, except it was real. It had four turrets and a moat, complete with a drawbridge. 

"We use that castle for training," the armsman told him. "Before we send you newcomers out into the fray." 

"How to use the bow?" asked Adam, feeling a touch relieved. He had never seen or held a bow before, let alone fired one. 

"Yes, that too. But everything is different on Avalon, you won't have any of the technology you rely on up there," he nodded towards the sky. "You'll have to learn basic skills to survive here, things like how to cook a meal on a fire, send a message by pigeon, use the privy." He grinned. "The first few volunteers we had were worse than new born babies, didn't even have the sense to come inside when it got dark. Expected the lights to come on, haha." 

Adam smiled back a little nervously. He didn't know what any of that meant, but he was going to find out. He was determined he was going to be an asset, not a hindrance. He worked hard at his training and eventually was allowed to leave the castle with a small band of armsmen to fight his first zombie. 

It almost killed him. The zombie was an old lady, white haired and bent over with age so that she was almost upon them before Adam got a good look at her face and saw the jaw half rotted away and white eyes. Her mouth gaped in a travesty of a smile when she saw the men before her. Her hand reached out for Adam, the nails filled with dirt where she had clawed her way out of the grave.  

Adam froze in horror. Seeing one in the flesh so to speak, was so much worse than his imagination. He just had time to bring his bow up and let fly before she touched him. The grizzled man-at-arms who was leading them, stepped forward and brought his mallet smashing down on her head before Adam had time to take a shaky breath. 

"Got you!" he exclaimed in satisfaction. He turned to the men. "See, that's what you have to do if you don't want them coming back. Destroy the brain. If your arrow doesn't do the job, then carry something that will." Adam looked down at the bloody mess on the road and threw up. He couldn't help it. The armsman didn't sneer but smiled sadly, "You get used to it lad." 

It was about a month later that he met Lois. By then he had destroyed his fair share of zombies and was feeling pretty confident. Always a mistake when you're dealing with zombies. Adam was inside a deserted castle, helping his team sweep through the empty rooms, checking they had cleared the whole building when he stumbled upon a nest of rats. Literally. "Shit!" he thought, jumping backwards. 

He managed to stamp on the first two but they were still coming out of the hole. He panicked, this was it, he was going to die here on this godforsaken planet, turning into a fucking zombie for god's sake. He turned the bow round in his hands trying to use it as a weapon. Suddenly a black and white cat appeared. For one horrible minute he thought it had been infected too, but luckily before he acted, he saw the cat sit back on her haunches and wave her paws. Instantly, the remaining rats flew into the air and were smashed against the castle wall.  

"That should fix them!" she said. The cat turned to him, the tip of her tail still twitching in excitement. "How do you do? I'm Lois, from the planet Bast." 

"Er, Adam, from Orion," he replied a little dazedly. He had never seen a talking cat before. "You're here to fight zombies too?" 

Lois looked a trifle embarrassed. "Actually, I'm after the rats. Cats, rats you know, we sort of have a history." 

"Well whatever the reason, thank you! You saved my life!"  

He continued, even as Lois raised a frantic paw to stop the next few words. "How can I repay you? I'm yours to command." 

Lois sighed. Too late, she had a new slave, bound to her by those careless words as effectively as if he had used the full ritual. People these days had no idea that the ancient words of power were still as effective in modern times as they had been in ancient Egypt. 

A slightly goofy smile of adoration was already coming over Adam's face. "How may I serve you?" he asked. 

Lois sighed again. "I think I've had enough of this planet. Let's go somewhere where we can get a decent drink!"