A Toaster on Mars by Darrell Pitt Read Free Book Online Page B

edible. Being a cyborg, she didn’t need to eat a lot, but she did need to eat. It was a shame her tastebuds didn’t work all the time. For some strange reason, cucumbers tasted like fish, and eggs tasted like beef. Obviously whoever had designed her had done an incredible job—but not a perfect one.
    This was a rundown corner of town. Undoubtedly, Blake could look after himself, but surely there were better places for a quiet drink.
    Why is he here?
    A group of teenagers with headbands, piercings and matching motion tattoos watched her from a doorway. Nicki photographed each of them using her iris cam.
    ‘My car better be in one piece when I come back,’ she said. ‘Or you’ll be sorry.’
    ‘You’re a robot,’ one of them jeered. ‘You can’t kill anyone.’
    ‘I’m a cyborg,’ Nicki replied. ‘And I won’t kill you, but I will hurt you. Big-time.’
    A homeless man wandered past, saw her golden skin, drank something deep purple from a bottle and kept walking. She was used to people staring at her.
    Sally had been parked in front of one of the bars. Surprisingly, she was undamaged. A flickering sign shaped like a moon hung over the front door.
    Nicki found the gloomy interior filled with people either drinking, yelling or sleeping. The place was decorated in Tudor style, which would have been fineexcept it was a thousand years too late. The exposed timber beams were made of plastic, and something had gone seriously wrong with the fireplace: instead of providing comfort, light and heat, it flashed red, as if building to detonation. A tapestry on one wall looked like a doormat, which was probably what it had once been. Nicki could vaguely make out the word Welcome . The tables and chairs were imitation timber too, apart from three booths, which were clad in fraying brown leather upholstery. To completely ruin any sense of consistency, album covers decorated the other walls: The Greatest Hits of Acker Bilk , Tijuana Brass Live in Alaska and Oscar Todd’s Harmonica Tribute to the Beatles . A few had fallen off over the decades, leaving behind square patches of herringbone wallpaper.
    ‘Johnny B. Goode’, sung by Chuck Berry, played on the jukebox at half speed. Maybe it had been purposely slowed down for the only couple on the dance floor—a drunk dancing cheek to cheek with a one-armed robot.
    Everything went silent as Nicki slammed the front door behind her. Even the jukebox wound down. Two dozen faces peered over drinks at her. Blake wasn’t among them.
    She crossed over to the barman. ‘Harry?’
    Zeeb says:
    For reasons that have never been fully understood, there is a Harry working in every bar in the universe. There are short Harrys, tall Harrys, fat Harrys and thin Harrys. There are Harrys of all different creeds, colours and religions, and they all seem to be perpetually carrying towels and wiping down bars between serving drinks.
    There is no adequate theory explaining the Harry phenomenon.
    The universe is just made that way.
    This Harry was tall and balding with a droopy moustache. He looked at Nicki as if she was something he had stepped in.
    ‘Who wants to know?’
    ‘Don’t worry about who wants to know,’ Nicki replied, her eyes roaming the sea of hostile faces. ‘I’m looking for Blake Carter.’
    ‘Don’t know him.’
    There was an odd smell in the bar. Nicki determined it was a combination of beer, sweat and the rather odd delicacy advertised on the front of the building— Harry’s Famous Clam Chowder .
    Can’t be that famous , she thought. I’ve never heard of it.
    Blake wasn’t here. Unless the clam chowder had killed him and Harry had tossed his body out the back with the other unfortunate victims of the house special.
    ‘What’s your most popular drink?’ she asked.
    ‘The Einstein Converter.’
    ‘I’ll have one of those.’
    Harry placed his hands on the edge of the bar and gave her a steely look.
    ‘We don’t serve your kind here,’ he said.
    ‘And what kind