Dick Dodgers SFPI - Chap 3

What in the DICKens are EWE up to now, Dodgers?

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Please note that the below campy sci-fi adventure romp is the 3rd chapter in the ongoing saga of Dick Dodgers, Space Faring Paranormal Investigator. Be warned; some prefer to refer to him as that Silly Fracking Penile Investigator. Regardless, the reader response here has been quite good. If you are just stumbling in from a flit around the Quantum Graves Arm of our neck of space, you should first check out the 1st 2 chapters.

Else, just go mind your own quadrant. Thanks for reading.

Andrew

https://vocal.media/fiction/dick-dodgers

https://vocal.media/fiction/dick-dodgers-sfpi-chap-2

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Dick Dodgers SFPI - Chapter 3

From Heaven to Mergetroid to … Corpus Erecti

Managing somehow to look simultaneously both frazzled and elated, the grizzled detective - which term he still preferred over ‘Investigator’ since he preferred to be a ‘dick detective’ rather than a ‘dick investigator’ - was sitting at the many times rigged electrodial holodock in his equally out of date Quasar IIIA Intergalactic Space Hopper (Q- ish). Dick Dodgers, [Space Faring Paranormal Investigator (1st Class... or so he claimed)] had just finished uploading the virtuo bit-tab containing the particulars of the case he had just finished working: The case of the Graphite Daphonite Dynamite. ******[Note: See Chapter 2]]****** So much for that tentacled calamari dropping, he thought. That crazy squid had almost been more rubber than even this infamous Dick could handle, he thought.

Looking frazzled in the newly holed trenchcoat - which article he still wore despite his having had it on when a mountain exploded on his head a galactic standard (GS) hour ago - Dodgers activated the audio instructions button on his scuffed ComfoChair. “Roll backwards one trimometer and recline to a forty-five-degree angle.” As his chair, with only a token squeal of protest, followed the order, the detective leaned back and brought up his comms log. A high-frequency whine - annoyingly pitched at just the right frequency to cause his eye teeth to rattle - filled the room. “CAGE! Cut that out or I’ll lock your screen-time out for a galactic standard month!” he yelled. “Just try to get out of that cage, you CAGEY piece of electronic spare parts!”

As the Computerized Audiovisual Galactic Embellisher (Model 69 1/2), aka CAGE, booted up, the whine receded to a more tolerable decibel level. Leaning back once more, the frazzled detective let out a frustrated sigh. Just can’t get good AI help since the SpaceMerc raid on Beetlejuus II. Fracking Alliterative Idiocy fit better than Artificial Intelligence, he mused. That must come with the Model 69 1/2 - Refuses to swallow orders and always has an electrode up the ass while generally sucking.

Magnanimously, Dodgers granted the cagey AI a mental reprieve. Not CAGE’s fault Dick hadn’t the creds to afford those new uploads since his liquid funds had been used up in Dodgering the frantic scramble of ‘Get Dick Fever’ on Titan…, Not to mention a few overnights with Feela Sheila. He glanced at the reflective screen of his holographic projector panel. The visage looking back was perhaps a tad…, worn. The only part of his lined face not coated in mergetroid-dust was the dark spherical scar beneath his right eye. Said scar had been obtained when he had almost lost an eye to Helen’s surprisingly accurately thrown circular chronite dagger about twenty GS years back. In her defense, said assault with a deadly weapon took place right after he had dared to tell her that her beauty maybe couldn’t launch a thousand ships, but she was welcome to take him to Troy. Come to think of it, Helen always had been good with her hands and certainly knew how to put Dick in her place. Still, despite her well-honed throwing prowess, Helen had also displayed much prowess in the boudoir. That girl was always hot to trot, and hot to trot women were Dick Dodgers’ Achilles heel. The detective had no desire to snack on a cold fish, preferring willing, and preferably eager, company. I may not be Paris, but I always did love the way Helen Eiffelled my tower, he thought, as a corner of his mouth quirked up. A similar incident on his previous to the previous mission in the Nirvana arm had been the catalyst which forced Dodgers to make his most recent run: Heaven to Mergetroid. Absently wiping off a greenish spot of exploded Daphonite brain from his lightly cleft chin, Dodgers instructed, “Send.” Wonder where I’ll be headed next?At least the fee for this tentacled debacle should help cover some of the needed upgrades on this rust-bucket.

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“Boss? May I enter?”

Swiveling his ComfoChair to face the Comms Room access port, Dodgers nodded at his assistant, Lisa. The young woman … at least that’s how I thnk of her despite her protests...glided into the room like a Salvatorian Swan on a Cureaolian Pond. “Lisa. How many times have I told you that you’re a member of the ship’s crew? You don’t have to ask my permission to do everything.”

“4,372 times to date Boss. Including this time.”

Dodgers chuckled. “Sounds about right, I guess. What’s up?” Gesturing to the secondary operator position, he waved one hand in an inviting gesture. “Have a seat. Take a load off.”

“Thank you, Boss.” LISA glided over to the offered seat and, turning her admittedly quite fetching derriere his way for a moment, proceeded to wipe off the layer of dust on the cushion before seating herself. Primly, she crossed one knee over the other and met her boss’s eyes.

“I have also told you that you can call me Dick, or Dodgers, or detective. I really don’t care for being called Boss.”

“Your actual statement of the past on that topic was, ‘You don’t have to call me Boss, but, whatever tickles your circuits.’ Regardless, I apologize Detective Dodgers. I shall refrain from addressing you as Boss in the future.”

Dodgers knew for a fact that Lisa’s eyes were actually dancing with concealed mirth. He could feel it. Lisa, or more correctly LISA, was a teenaged boy’s wet dream. She had gorgeous, flaming red hair like a phoenix on fire as it was being reborn from the ashes. Her skin was practically flawless and glowed with … health? Eyes that held unplumbed depths and within which a man could swim endlessly and never come up for breath. Her full red lips had just that bit of pouty sultriness that he liked. And, that body … well, no Hanto or even Sartonie masterpiece of sculptured perfection could match those lithesome curves and perfectly sized/shaped breasts. Dick was not one to like overly exaggerated breasts on a woman – just a nicely firm pair rounded and mid-size was his personal preference. Lisa’s pair were outlined very nicely in her form-fitting red, black, and blue, diagonally striped Ship’s Assistant Uniform Top.

“Detective Dodgers?” LISA queried innocently.

Tearing his gaze from Lisa’s torso back to her face, Dodgers sighed. “Sorry Lisa. Just thinking.”

“Is there a problem Detective? Something of which I should be made aware. You know, in my capacity as a member of the ship’s crew.”

The only problem, at least as far as Dick Dodgers was concerned, was that LISA stood for Lifelike Intelligent Simulacrum Assistant. The lovely young woman seated there, who would obey his every whim or wish happily, was, in fact, not a young woman at all. CAGE, probably in an effort to distract Dodgers’ attention from itself, had spied on the detective’s private journals. Having gleaned from this - along with extensive file history from Dick’s preferred choices in holo-entertainment and reading material obtained over a couple of GS decades - what he determined to be the detective’s preferred traits in a human female. Having compiled a file on said material, CAGE had designed to spec … LISA. The cagey AI had then placed an order to Androids-R-Us on the sly. Voila, six years back, Lisa had arrived.

“No Lisa. Nothing worth worrying yourself about anyway.”

“I don’t tend to worry much Detective.”

“True that,” Dodgers said with a mirthful chuckle. “Never knew anyone as cool under duress as you.” Or as cool under the dress, he thought with a slight tinge of regret. Dick Dodgers knew he would never- despite Lisa’s complete willingness and even happiness to follow ANY order he gave … at least most of the time… so long as the order wasn’t too mannishly stupid… - sleep with the gorgeously beautiful Simulacrum. Dick Dodgers had never, and would never, have sex with anyone against their will or without their actual, preferably eager, freely given consent. The consent of the woman’s “significant other,” was a tad less of a bothersome requirement. Dodgers did not believe that ordering an artificial being – no matter how feminine and ravishing and ‘willing’ – to have sexual intercourse with him was a moral point on which he could stand himself. Lisa… LISA… was programmed to be happy to follow his orders. That did not, in Dick Dodgers mind, anyway, constitute a free-willed desire to engage in amorous activity with his dapper self. He had come this decision … which he had regretted momentarily a time or two in the past six years … after doing some in depth soul searching of his own.

“So, crewperson Lisa, what’s up?”

Lisa extended a lithe fingered hand to him. In the open palm was a comm-link disc.

“I don’t suppose that contains the link to download our fee from the Mergetroid Mining Corps?”

“No Bo …, Detective. It’s actually a bill. They included an annotated list of damages to property and equipment along with amortized hospital bills for, making air quotes, ‘innocent bystanders who sustained physical injuries due directly to the reckless disregard of proper safety procedures by one Dick Dodgers, SFPI.’

“They charged me for blowing smoke up their shaft?”

“Yes Detective. Also, there is a holographically notarized legal addendum to the effect that further charges will be forthcoming against you in regards to funeral costs for two deceased bystanders who lost their lives due to your negligent handling of the situation at hand.”

“Anything else?”

“Well,…”

“What Lisa?”

“The disc was wrapped in a rather curtly worded note from Mr. Wochensky.”

Dropping back into his reclined ComfoChair, which naturally let out a squeak of protest at this indignity, Dodgers ran a callused hand through his still full head of salt and pepper hair. “Figures. There goes my chance of getting this CAGE gilded.”

“So, have we had any other messages? Like maybe for a job that might actually net a profit?”

“Detective Dodgers, if you wish to net a prophet, might I suggest a twelve by eight light weight silken-sheen KastNet for use in the mountains of DharmAgon? That is reportedly where the last nest of prophets fled after the pogrom.”

“Very funny Lisa. I knew there was a sense of humor in that fetching bosom of yours.”

Quirking her head to the left, the simulacrum affected a puzzled look. “I’m sorry Dick. Did I perchance misunderstand your question. You did ask about how we could net a prophet, did you not?”

“You called me Dick.”

“I did indeed. So, I guess this wraps up the case in a torn ribbon Bos… Detective?”

“Yep. So ends the case of the Dynamite Graphite Daphonite. Another (un)happy customer. Well, MM will have to wait in line for his creds. Comfy, please raise the seat back to it’s standard upright position.” Dodgers swivelled back toward his electroidal holodeck. Bunching the fingers of a tender right hand, Dodgers lightly punched a fist into the screen in frustration. A small crack appeared. Luckily, it was merely one of many and, so, not really noticeable.

“Detective Dodgers?”

“Yes?” he replied with a sigh.

“There is another message disc. It’s from Detective Enforcer Manley.”

Hearing the name of his old friend, Dick Dodgers felt his pulse speed up. Schooling his tone to calm mode, he queried, “Dim? What’s does that manly old bass turd want?”

“It seems he has a case with which he needs your expert assistance. It says something about Corpus Erecti?”

For lack of a more intelligent or fitting response to his assistant’s last statement, Dick Dodgers replied, with practiced nonchalance, “Huh.” Reaching out, he took the disc being proffered.

“Lisa?”

“Yes, Detective?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while. Do Simulacrum Dream of Electric Sheep?”

“Not to my knowledge. Why? Are we supposed to? Seems to me like a good way to get oneself fleeced.”

There goes that ‘nonexistent’ sense of humor again. “Okay then. Never ewe mind. This has definitely been an interesting run: From Heaven to Mergetroid to … Corpus Erecti.”

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A note from the author follows. If you like the added personal touch, please continue scrolling down or up... whatever. If not, feel free to disregard the alphabet soup below.

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I wrote the opening chapter of this little space romp solely on a whim. It was a lark into the "ridiculosity" (not a word, I know) of campy space operas combined with my favorite thing: Sexual innuendos and puns.

I have written a few hundred poems - some perhaps even worth reading - a number of short stories in all types of genres, as well as two full length thriller novels. Not ever in my entire life - not once - has a story that I am writing captured my imagination like this has in the past week or so since I started messing with it.

This story is full of pop culture references, over top nuances, sexual innuendos, space ships, plasguns, aliens, a gorgeous female Simulacrum, and a grizzled detective who wears an armored trench coat. It is right up my literary alley.

A number of readers here, you know who you are, have responded quite positively to my little quarks of writing style. Still, I am absolutely certain that nobody will ever have as much fun reading Dick Dodgers SFPI as I am having writing it.

Thus, maybe for the 1st time ever in my sixty years (yes, 60 2/3 years on this dirt ball), I am truly writing my own mind. Should you like it, please let me know. If it's not your cup of beatlejuice, that too is fine. This one is for me.

Andrew