Cherry Bomb: Bubbles in Space, #5

By S.C. Jensen

When in doubt, blow it up!

Bubbles Marlowe is used to charging into problems head first, consequences be damned.

As a cyborg detective, her lone-wolf attitude worked just fine. But with her enemy dead and a group of rebel soldiers crying for her to lead them into battle, she has to change her strategy. And fast. Because Nathanial Price left them a gift before he died, and it's a killer…

A secret technology from the distant past threatens to destroy everything she has fought to protect, and two warring factions vie for control of the mysterious device. Bubbles must explore the remains of an ancient city, discover hidden truths about her allies, and rally the opposing forces to work together.

If she can't, there won't be anything left to fight for…


Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up detective who might be the only one crazy enough to take them on.

Bubbles Marlowe IS BACK in the exciting finale to the cyber-noir technothriller series, Bubbles in Space. Delve into the secrets of this gritty future world, and buckle up for an adventure full of unusual characters, dark humour, and non-stop action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.C. Jensen
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215302125

Book preview

This book is dedicated to every reader who has taken the time to leave a review for a book they’ve loved.

Thank you from all authors everywhere!

Introduction

You made it! Thank you for picking up a copy of Bubbles in Space #5: Cherry Bomb!

This is the fifth and final story in the Bubbles in Space series. We’ve seen Bubbles Marlowe’s journey from HoloCity detective to inter-Trade Zone woman of mystery and Bubbles has some loose ends to tie up before she’s off on her next adventure. It’s been a wild ride, and things are about to get even wilder. Cherry Bomb will see Bubbles challenged in new ways as she has to apply everything she’s learned about herself and her friends to an unexpected threat. She finally gets some closure on her past. But the past might not be ready to let her get away . . .

As you probably remember, this series began as my personal homage to the American pulp noir writers of the early 20th century, with a neo-cyberpunk twist. Stylistically, the series has eased up on the direct noir references, but you’ll still find hints of its influence scattered throughout the story. You’ll find examples of some of the slang I’ve used in the Glossary at the back of the book.

Bubbles in Space has become a lot more to me as a writer, as it represents a major milestone for me. Bubbles Marlowe is my first ever sober character, and she embodies my own struggles with alcohol abuse and recovery from addiction. In this final book Bubbles is leaving her past behind and discovering a new path forward. It’s about recovery growth and overcoming trauma. It might not be obvious as you read it, but these are the things I was thinking about as I wrote. If this is a subject close to your heart, I’d love to hear how you think I’ve done!

If you’d like to read more about Bubbles’ adventures, join my VIP Readers Group to get a free copy of my novella Dames for Hire, which tells the story of her very first case as a HoloCity P.I.

Enjoy!

P.S. This novel has been written in Canadian English. This means it includes an infuriating blend of American vocabulary with British grammar and spellings.

So, sorry about that, eh? We’re a little weird up here.

Chapter One

I gripped the metal beam above my head with my new upgrade and tensed my muscles, letting my body hang without pulling myself all the way up. My flesh arm hung at my side, clenched into a fist so that I wasn’t tempted to reach up and take the pressure off the cybernetic limb.

With my old prosthetic, the weight of my body would have been tearing at the sensors in my shoulder. I winced, expecting pain, but I only felt tension in my metal fingers and a faint electric signal that told my brain the beam was cool and metallic.

Still nothing? Rae rolled her wheelchair around in front of my dangling legs and squinted suspiciously up at me. Dark curls spiralled around her face and she pushed her thick, black-framed glasses up on her nose. She said, Don’t lie to me. If you don’t tell me, I can’t fix it.

Her voice echoed strangely in the triangular room at the top of the Echelon Ridge pyramid. Beams criss-crossed above my head, some strung with pale-blue lights that twinkled like stars. The rest of the room was bare except for a rack of training weapons and various bags and dummies to unleash frustrations on.

Only a few days ago, this bare attic space had been home to a rebellion. Since the Ridgean servants had overthrown their oppressors and taken over the rest of the pyramid, the former servants’ quarters had become a training space for me and Rae and anyone else who cared to use it.

Nothing. I shook my head and my feet swayed beneath me. Every time I shift, I expect it to hurt, but it’s not even straining.

Good. She clapped her hands and grinned at me with a mouthful of perfectly white teeth. Now, I want you to lift yourself slowly. Contract the fibres like you’re doing a one-armed chin-up.

I don’t know how to do a chin-up, I said. Even with both arms.

Luckily your upgrade doesn’t know that. She winked. Just try. I need to see how the weight transfers into the breastplate. That piece of Enforcer tech your mother gave me is definitely strong enough, but I did something different with the joints.

Feels strong, I said. I manoeuvred my body so that my weight was centred beneath the upgrade and I flexed the artificial muscle fibres and tendons in the same way I imagined it would feel to do with my flesh arm.

Strong is easy, she said. But keeping it strong while also being smooth, light, and easy to wear incognito is another thing entirely.

The prosthetic twitched and jerked, and my feet swung out sideways. I gritted my teeth and said, Incognito’s not really my style.

Rae ducked to avoid getting clobbered by my boots, but she stayed close, her eyes glued to her creation.

You’re thinking too much, she said. It works best when the motion is natural, intuitive.

Why’d you pick chin-ups then? I said. They aren’t exactly second nature.

She pursed her lips at me in mock disappointment, good-humour dancing in her eyes. She said, They would be if you came to the gym with me more often.

Then she sat back in her chair as if I’d kicked her in the chest. Her gaze fell to her lap, her legs covered by a blanket. The nerves in Rae’s legs had been damaged when she’d been contaminated by invasive nanoids. Her gym days now involved intensive physiotherapy rather than racetracks and squat racks. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

What if I imagine there’s a doughnut up there, I said, hoping I could annoy her into focussing on something else. Maybe then—

You know what I think about your pastry addiction. Rae crossed her arms and smiled, cocking her head to one side. But if you can do five one-armed chin-ups with that prosthetic, I’ll get Sal to make you a whole tray of doughnuts.

I narrowed my eyes and glared down at her. You’d better deliver.

Rae scoffed.

I squeezed my ankles together and tried to make my body into a straight line, then I slowly contracted the artificial bicep. Distracted by the thought of doughnuts, instead of trying so hard to deconstruct the motion itself, the arm did exactly what I wanted it to. I pulled myself up and touched my nose to the beam. One.

You’ve got to be kidding me, she said. That worked?

I stuck out my tongue at her. Two.

Rae keyed something into her tattler and rolled back in her chair, watching carefully as I completed the last three reps. Her eyes glittered behind her glasses. She said, How does that feel?

I let go of the beam and dropped to a crouch in front of her, panting. The arm had done all the work, but it took a surprising amount of concentration to adapt to the new prosthetic.

Like I could eat a tray of doughnuts, I said. I laughed and rolled the upgrade around in its socket, checking for any rough patches. But it was perfect. This is your best work yet, Rae. I don’t know how you do it.

Rae smiled up at me a little wistfully. She said, It’s the least I can do when you’re out there risking your actual life. I wish I could do more.

I pulled a shirt over the partial exoskeleton Rae had built to support the upgrade. It anchored to the plate in my side, made of a kind of synthetic chain mail that allowed me to move naturally. It and my missing arm were the mementoes I had for surviving an exploding plasma rifle incident.

I dragged my flesh hand through my hair and cleared my throat. Staring at the ground between my boot and Rae’s feet on the step of the wheelchair, I said, All that Enforcer tech you’ve got access to . . . Any of it going to help you?

I’m working on it. Her voice trembled slightly, and she backed her chair up and rolled herself toward the service elevator next to the staircase. She said, It’s not the solution I’d hoped for, but if healing has stalled, it might be my only option.

I grinned and wiggled my pink metallic fingers at her. You going to join club cyborg?

Rae leaned forward and punched the call button, then dropped her hands to her lap. She rubbed a long black thumb over the knuckles of her other hand in a slow, circular motion. The cuticles around her smooth, oval fingernails were pink and ragged. A tear left a shiny trail across her flawless cheek that caught the pale-blue light of the artificial stars above us.

I squeezed her shoulder with my flesh hand, remembering how I’d felt when I lost my arm. There are some things words aren’t adequate for. She covered my hand with hers and I swallowed the ache in my throat.

I hope you told Sal about those doughnuts, I said. I’m starving.

Rae sniffed and choked on something that might have been a laugh. The elevator doors opened, and we got into the lift. Rae hit the button for subbasement one, where the kitchens were located.

You know what? she said, with a tinge of bitterness in her voice. Maybe I’ll have one too.

My scalp prickled as the elevator doors closed.

For the first time, I considered that there might be something seriously wrong with my friend.

Chapter Two

I had shaken off the feeling by the time we got off the elevator and made our way through the service corridors toward the massive industrial kitchens beneath Echelon Ridge. Despite the fact that the Ridge’s highbinder class had been knocked down a notch or two, the number of people in the Ridge—from emancipated servants and humbled elites to the units of Enforcer soldiers—necessitated all-day and all-night food service. The difference was, now the people who worked the kitchens were the ones who wanted to.

My old comrade Sal Shuzo, missing the restaurant in HoloCity he’d had to abandon to join us on this mission, had been one of the first to volunteer. After weeks of eating green protein bars and drinking hydration gel packets, I had been thrilled to hear Sal had taken up the greasy apron again. Even if it meant finding curly black arm hairs in my noodle bowls on occasion.

I bumped the swinging door into the kitchens open with my hip and held it while Rae rolled through, wondering what kind of health-food monstrosity my friend was going to try to trick me into eating instead of my promised doughnuts.

Rae Adesina was known for a lot of things: her brilliant mind, her keen fashion sense, her inhuman dedication to things like green smoothies and meditation . . . but lenience toward delicious greasy, sugar laden delicacies was not on the list.

So when Sal greeted us with a tray of fluffy, pink-iced, cream-filled, sprinkle covered mana-from-heaven, I nearly fell to my knees and cried out in pious ecstasy.

But when Rae rolled forward and plucked one of the coveted confections off the tray and took a big, glorious bite, the heavens came crashing down around my ears.

Doughnuts? I said, wrapping my mouth around the word as if it were something strange and possibly poisonous.

The rest of my motley crew sat on hard white barstools along a stainless-steel countertop like a high-tech parody of some vintage soda shoppe poster. Dickie, Tom, and Cosmo sat on one side. Marion—my mother, though it felt strange to call her that after so many years—Keenan, and Gore sat on the other side. They all had doughnuts in front of them too.

Made fresh. Sal grinned toothlessly at me. He said, My treat.

Did she put you up to this? I pointed a metallic pink finger at Rae and narrowed my eyes at them suspiciously. What’s the big idea? They filled with vitamin goo or something?

For as long as I could remember, Rae had maintained an almost religious fervour regarding her health. She tried repeatedly to induct me into this cult of well-being and I had tried equally hard to tempt her into betraying her nutritious ideals. To this day, neither of us had been converted.

Now, Rae’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she licked a dollop of pink frosting from her lips.

So good. She moaned with delight. Where have these been all my life?

I smacked the doughnut out of her hand, and it landed on the inexplicably spotless kitchen floor with a wet plop. Rae looked up at me with her wide, black eyes and blinked. She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

Rae, I said, grabbing her by the shoulders. Are you okay?

I was. She shook her head in disbelief and her curls bounced around her face like a HoloPop advert for gravity defying hair products. She pressed her lips together and then slowly, as if I might not understand her otherwise, said, Until you threw my doughnut on the ground.

You don’t eat doughnuts. I shook her slightly. I eat doughnuts.

Easy there, Marlowe, Gore called out from his bar stool. He grinned at me with his stupid albino gorilla face. Even you can’t eat three dozen pastries in one sitting.

A scrubber bot zipped between our feet and sucked up the mess into a transparent domed canister on top of its sleek silver body. Pink icing and white cream filling smeared the inside of the glass. The bot polished the spot on the floor until I could see my reflection in it, then it zipped back into its hole in the wall. That explained the state of the floors anyway.

Rae grabbed my hands with hers and pushed me backward. She said, I ordered them for us.

Sal furrowed his brow and the single thick, hairy eyebrow in the middle of his face scrunched into a V-shape. He crossed his black-furred forearms over his chest and said, I make lots, you know? No need for this greedy, greedy.

Don’t you see what’s going on here? I tugged on my hair like I was trying to give myself a back-alley face-lift. I crouched down next to my friend and stared into her eyes. Her expression hardened. I said, Rae, are you sure you’re feeling all right? What if there are still nanoids interfering with your—

She’s clean, Marion said. The bright white overhead lights glinted off her Enforcer armour and the jewel-toned circuits covering her shaved head glittered like gems. I did the scans myself. There’s nothing wrong with Rae . . . besides the nerve damage.

Rae rolled her chair backward and said, I’m fine.

The others around the table stared at me and Rae nervously. Mostly at me, like I was the one behaving strangely.

No, I said. You’re not. The Rae I know would rather die than put that poison in her body.

Sal’s bottom lip stuck out in a frown. You always like my doughnuts.

I do! I threw my hands into the air and stared at the ceiling for help. She doesn’t.

Rae smiled thinly and spoke the way you do to your server when you’re on a date from hell and you’re trying to signal an SOS, Sal, can I get mine to go, please. I think I need to lie down.

Sure thing, Ms. Rae, Sal said, and he snapped his fingers. One of the other kitchen workers appeared behind him with a container that Sal lovingly filled with four of the fattest, pinkest doughnuts on the tray. He placed a fine cloth napkin, in Rae’s favourite cerulean blue, on top of the container and passed it reverently to her.

Rae nodded her thanks, placed the doughnuts in her lap, and rolled herself toward the door.

Rae, wait. I started after her. Wouldn’t you rather have a salad? Or a weird green smoothie? I bet Sal could whip up something healthy for you, you don’t have to—

That’s exactly it. She whipped her head around at me, and her eyes burned angrily. I don’t have to. I’ve spent my entire life taking care of this body and where has it gotten me? Stuck in a damned chair. So what’s the point?

Rae clutched the little container of pastries in trembling fingers, like it contained some answer she’d been seeking all her life. Tears stung my eyes.

Your body didn’t fail you, I said, my voice shaking. Those nanoids might have killed you if you hadn’t been so fit. Don’t punish yourself for being human.

Don’t you dare tell me how to feel right now, Bubbles. Rae’s words came out cold and calm, like she’d been thinking this for a long time. You cannot possibly understand. Not when I’ve spent the last twenty years watching you abuse your body in every conceivable way and you somehow still come out on top.

Like a bad egg, Gore muttered behind me. I glared over my shoulder at him as he took a bite of his doughnut. He shrugged. What? They float.

When I thought I was going to get better, Rae said, I could handle it. You recovered, and so could I. That rates, right?

Sure it does, I said.

That’s what I thought. Rae swallowed and the tendons on the side of her neck stood out against her collarbones. But guess what? I can’t even use the prosthetics I design because my nerves are so damaged they won’t respond to sensors. Silky, huh? Good thing I spent all those hours in the gym and ate all those microgreens. Too bad it doesn’t make a damned difference when it counts.

You’ll come up with something, I said, but my mouth had gone dry. I’m sure there are other options.

If I want to walk again, my only options are amputation and full cybernetic replacements, or some kind of mech suit like the Enforcers wear, she said, and her voice cracked. So excuse me if I’d like to eat some junk food while I contemplate whether or not I should have my legs cut off.

Rae rolled herself out of the kitchen. I heard a stifled sob from the other side of the door. Everyone was silent. The huge double doors swung closed behind her, not even having the decency to squeak on their hinges. The blood pounded in my ears as I stared at the doors until they stopped swinging.

Then I whirled on the rest of my friends. Did you know about this?

Tom rubbed his face with his hands, his fingers still splinted from when he’d had his fingers broken by Nathanial Price. Keenan and Dickie stared at the table in front of them like the thought of doughnuts had suddenly made them sick. Cosmo wiped a tear from his glittery lashes and shook his head slowly.

Gore licked his fingers and grabbed another doughnut. I grabbed a fork from the drawer next to me and threw it at him.

What? he said. I don’t see what the big deal is. She’d make a cute cyborg. She’s probably still upset about that boyfriend of hers on the asteroid who sold us out to Price.

We don’t know that, I said. My voice was strung as tight as a catgut violin string. You’re speculating because he’s not here, but Jimi wouldn’t—

Come with me, Betty, Marion said, using her mom-voice. Even after decades of disuse, it still snapped me to attention as if I was still a ten-year-old kid. She slid off her stool and hit the floor with a heavy metallic clunk. Her Enforcer armour had a blue-tinged swirl across the breastplate. She wrapped a metal arm around my shoulder. We should talk about this somewhere else.

Sal snapped his fingers for his assistant. I send some doughnuts up to your room, yeah?

I don’t think I can eat a doughnut right now, I said. Can you send me a . . . a salad or something?

Sal cocked his head backward and blinked at me.

Maybe Rae’s right, I said. Maybe it’s time I start taking care of myself. My body is a temple and all that.

Gore snorted. Yeah, a temple of debauchery and sin.

What do you know about it? Tom punched Gore in the arm.

You girls go chat. Cosmo leaned forward to block Gore and Tom from view and batted his long, mascaraed eyelashes at us. Everything’s under control here.

Sal’s kitchen minions brought out plates and bowls teeming with more food than most Grit District skids could expect to see in a lifetime, and my mouth began to water. There were even enough fruits and vegetables to make Rae happy.

Come, Marion said to me. Then she looked over her shoulder at Sal. Send up a tray of whatever’s left over. And save a couple doughnuts.

My stomach churned. What was wrong with me?

I’m serious, I said, shaking my head. I don’t think I can eat one.

Good. I didn’t want to share, Marion said. She pushed the door open with a closed fist, gently so she didn’t dent the door with the powerful Enforcer suit. The corners of her eyes wrinkled. If I had known there was somewhere in HoloCity I could get baked goods like that, I might have reconsidered moving back to the Barrens.

I rolled out from under her arm and glared at her. What, you’d stay for doughnuts but not for your daughter?

I stormed through the doors and into the corridor.

It was a joke, Betty, she said. You know I left to protect you. As evil as Price was, even he couldn’t find a way to torture a pastry.

I stomped my way through the service passages until I came to a lift that would take us to the living quarters.

I know. I mashed the button with my thumb and tapped my foot impatiently. But every time I’m reminded that you were here all along when I thought you were dead, or that you’d abandoned me . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never think it’s something to joke about.

That’s fair, she said, coming up behind me. I’m sorry.

I huffed and mashed the button again. No, I’m sorry. I have been so agitated lately. I won’t be able to relax until we have Yin, and we know for sure we’re safe from whatever Price got into.

Look. Marion cleared her throat. She gripped my pink metal arm in her silver fingers and squeezed. She said, About that. There’s been a change of plans.

My shoulders stiffened. I hate it when people say that.

I didn’t want to bring it up in front of everyone else, she said. But we need to get Yin back from WhiteTech as soon as possible. It turns out Price uncovered something more dangerous than I had originally thought.

Chapter Three

I mashed the button again as if that would somehow make the lift arrive faster.

Why is it that problems are always worse than we thought? I said through clenched teeth. Why doesn’t anybody ever say, ‘Hey, great news, everyone. Everything is going to be A-OK!’

I think you know the answer to that question, Marion said.

Because Price was a bloody lunatic? I said. I thought killing the guy might suffice.

She patted my back in an awkward attempt at maternal support and said, You did us all an incredible service.

That rates, I muttered. First props I get from my mother in a couple decades and it’s for murdering someone.

I rubbed my flesh hand on the back of my pants as if I could wash away the feeling of Price’s throat collapsing beneath my fingers. His final words still echoed in my ears. You think you’ve saved them. But you’ve doomed them all . . . It was like he’d tapped into my worst nightmare and brought it to life with his dying breath.

And I couldn’t even escape his memory in my room. All of Echelon Ridge reeked of the decadence and greed I despised about him, especially the apartments and suites that had belonged to Councillor Leonard and his cronies which had been divvied up between the survivors.

Irrationally, I wanted to lash out at my mother. It was like I had pent up teenage angst to unleash, and she was the safest person to do it to. If it hadn’t been for Marion and her secret ability to control Price’s army of Enforcers, we never would have survived. I had been forced to kill Price to save my friends but couldn’t really be angry with her. Still, it was impossible not to feel resentful of the years I’d spent believing the worst about her.

The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. Her expression was subdued as she turned to face me. She said, I’m very proud of you, you know.

I followed her in and slumped against the walls of the little white box, wincing at the brightness of the overhead lights. I haven’t done anything but stumble from one mistake to another since you left.

The implication in my words, and it’s your fault, made me cringe.

The doors closed and the lift shifted violently sideways on its tracks. I stumbled and crashed into my mother. Marion wrapped her cold metal arms around me and set me back on my feet.

You’re still here, she said. And you’re still on top.

Like a rotten egg. I scoffed and twisted out of her grasp. You heard Gore. I just float around and end up where I end up.

Gore is a SecurIntel goon, Marion said. "Emotional intelligence isn’t high on their data set. They’re designed to shoot first, ask questions afterward,