Blues Brothers

[Mickey Mouse]

Clink, clink, clink.

A stray gold doubloon bounced down a meters-high pile of treasures before landing squarely at Viz’s feet. The lizard cyborg’s mechanical implements whizzed and whirred as they knelt down and scooped the little piece of cash into their claw. For a moment, they observed it with great interest before pocketing it as the sounds of coins splashing nearby reached their reptile ears. My fee, they decreed silently.

“Monsssssssieur McDuck,” they called out, to no avail. Another splash of coins rang out throughout Scrooge McDuck’s treasure trove, and Viz’s face contorted into a slight scowl. Their employer certainly did not make this… ssssssimple.

They tucked their tablet underneath one arm and lifted two sharp-nailed fingers to their mouth, sucking in a deep breath before letting out the highest-pitched whistle anyone could’ve ever imagined. No doubt enhanced by their mechanically-improved lung capacity. The tone bounced across the walls of the treasure chamber and within seconds, a swimsuit-clad Scrooge McDuck burst out of a pile of gold, hugging a particularly shiny statue of some tennis player.

“What, Viz?!” Scrooge bellowed, pushing himself completely out of the sea of money he’d made a habit of swimming in. As his webbed feet clambered out of the hole, he plopped down on a nearby stack of money, countenance betraying his intense consternation over his morning laps being so rudely interrupted.

“Ssssssssssssssir,” Viz hissed, whipping out the tablet again and tapping it a few times in rapid succession, “the mousssssssssse… isssssss here.”

Scrooge perked up, sliding his glasses to the end of his nose and leaning forward to see the screen Viz flashed at him. Indeed, he watched intently as the Mickey Mouse popped out of a teleporter in an establishment that, judging by the brightly-colored, incessantly mural’d walls, no doubt belonged to a Nos’talgia spaceport. His beak curled into a grin that could only be described as sinister.

“Bring ‘im ‘ere,” the duck said in his thick, Scottish accent. “I’ve got bus’ness to discuss with ‘im. And don’t interrupt me swim again till you’ve found him, Viz.”

“Yessssss, ssssssir,” the robotic reptilian nodded as Scrooge dove back into the treasures.

Come to usssssssss, Mickey Mousssssssse.

***

“Listen, fellas, I don’t want any trouble.”

Unfortunately, as it turned out, trouble had already found Mickey Mouse. A solid five minutes had passed -- maybe -- since he’d whipped out of the teleporter inside the Nos’talgia spaceport before some weirdly-shaped goons had jumped him and cornered him inside an alleyway.

These dudes were pretty big, at least to Mickey. They stood about as tall as he did, just huge, vaguely cone-shaped brown blobs with eyes and sharp canines poking out of their perpetually-scowling mouths. They didn’t have arms (a sensation Mickey himself was all too familiar with, now) but plodded around on stubby little feet attached to what seemed to be a… single leg? The mouse king watched as their bodies all were surrounded by blinking red lines as the confrontation grew progressively more hostile.

“Yous is that guy from tha tee-vee,” the thug at the front scoffed in an accent Mickey pinpointed as Bostonian, despite not really knowing what a ‘Boston’ was, “Mowse.”

“Hoho, yup,” the little hero squeaked, his back literally against the wall, “that’s me! Good ol’ Mickey Mouse.”

Another one of the gang, near the back of the clump, called out in a much higher-pitched, but similarly-accented, voice. “He’s prob’ly got a lotta dough, boss!”

The Boss squinted his eyes. “You gotta lotta dough, Mick?”

“Dough?” Mickey quirked his brow. “Like… for baking?”

“No, not fah bakin’!” the Boss shouted, flailing a little in frustration. Mickey imagined that if he’d had arms, they’d have been throw dramatically up in the air. “Dough like money, mowse. Cash. Coin. You geddit.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Mickey nodded. “Yeah, fella, I get it. You’re tryin’ to rob little ol’ me?”

“That’s the idea,” another one of the thugs piped in.

Mickey clicked his tongue worriedly. “That’s not a very good idea, pal.”

The Boss harrumphed a little bit, his two-feet-but-one-leg (a weird appendage, even to a giant, talking mouse) bouncing ever-so-slightly off the concrete. “Notta good idea, psh,” he rolled his eyes. “Yous clearly don’t know who yous is messin’ with, rat.”

Mickey’s nostrils flared. Nobody was allowed to call him that.

“Actually,” he held a gloved hand out to his side, “‘yous’ don’t know who you’re messin’ with, ya bunch of goombas.”

“Boss, how did he know we’re Goombas?!”

“HI-YA!”

Before the Boss could react, he’d been smacked by the full force of the Star Seeker, freshly materialized in Mickey Mouse’s fingers. The lead Goomba sailed into the nearby wall, crashing with a splat into the unusually-vibrant crimson brick. The eyes of the others in his gang went wide, and Mickey’s mousey mouth curled into a cocky smirk. These guys had really thought they were gonna mug the mouse that’d scored seventh place in an insane, highly televised death tournament? He chuckled. He’d give ‘em something: they had chutzpah.

Another Goomba lurched forward, launching a headbutt toward Mickey. The mouse swerved out of the way, plopping him in the back of the… well, ‘head’ with his Keyblade and sending him careening towards the floor just as another decided to try his luck. The second assailant managed to clip Mickey in the shoulder, sending him stumbling back into one of the walls of the alleyway.

A coalition of the strangely-anatomied creatures converged on him. They had him surrounded, to be sure, and to the untrained eye, there was no easy way out of this little pickle. But Mickey had a couple of new tricks up his sleeve.

He moved the Keyblade directly in front of his face, wrapping both hands around the hilt before pulling hard. Against all sense, the weapon glowed a bright white light and split apart, its molecules literally reforming and collecting around Mickey’s hands, wrists, and forearms until finally they settled into their new form: two blue-and-silver metallic gauntlets, with actual claws on the end.

The Goombas blinked as Mickey turned and sunk one of the claws into the wall behind him and began to clamber up.

“Hey, he’s gettin’ away!” the high-pitched one from earlier shouted.

“Not a chance, fella!” Mickey assured his attackers, placing a boot against the wall and launching himself into a backflip. He tumbled through the air, closing the distance between him and the group, and then one, two, three, four, five, six swipes later, the entire contingency of Goombas fell backwards onto their backs, fully knocked out by the speed and force of Mickey’s Agile Claws.

The Boss lumbered out of the wall he’d crashed into and Mickey could see the fury starting to rise on his face.

“Toldja that wasn’t a good idea, bud,” Mickey shrugged, lifting up one of his claws and blowing some brick dust off it.

The Head-Goomba-In-Charge scowled deeper. “BOYS! WE NEEDJA!”

Mickey’s brow furrowed as the plip-plop sounds of more of these thugs’ disconcerting neck-feet reached his ears. He looked up, and saw a whole bunch of the dudes lining up on the roofs of the buildings surrounding them. They all let out an exceedingly weird battle cry and began to launch themselves off the building, soaring down toward Mickey until he found himself altogether overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

Within seconds, he felt like he was drowning beneath them. Goomba after Goomba joined the pile, filling the alleyway to the brim and burying Mickey Mouse beneath the sheer volume of their veritable army. He let out some Mickey curses -- an ‘oh gosh’ here, a ‘gee whiz’ there -- as long as he could before even the sounds of his own voice got muffled up beneath the pile of Goomba gangbangers. As he was suffocated into silence, he wracked his brain for a plan. Certainly one of the tools in his toolbox could subdue this deluge of misshapen hoodlums…

He blinked as he heard a new voice shouting from outside the mountain of Goombas. A bright, white light began to seep through the cracks between the little bullies before, finally, the entire pile exploded outwards. Goombas went flying, this way and that, smashing into the walls of the alleyway and knocking the dudes out cold.

Mickey himself flew backwards into the furthest wall, slamming against the crimson wall and sliding to a seat on the ground. He let his eyes slowly flicker open, and at the end of the alleyway, he saw a blurry, pink-ish red figure lower what looked to be a sizable blaster cannon attached to its arm. The entity reached up and adjusted its sunglasses, and as the mouse’s vision began to return to him, he caught the silhouette of a yellow scarf flapping in the Nos’talgia wind.

Holy. Heck.

 

[Mickey Mouse]

“AHHHHHH, OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS!”

Mere seconds elapsed before Mickey Mouse’s arms were practically strangling Proto Man they’d wrapped so tight around his neck. The preteen machine fell quite willingly into the arms of his miniature mouse best friend, looping his own arms around Mickey’s back and letting a smile dance onto his face.

“I… I can’t believe it,” Mickey exhaled, tears welling in his eyes and then, very quickly, starting to stream down his face. “I knew you were here, but pal, I wasn’t sure if I would ever find you!”

The mouse released Blues from his grasp, stepping backwards and really taking a moment to breathe his best friend in. There he stood, in pristine condition, as if nothing at all had changed since they’d launched themselves headlong out of the Dante Verse -- and into the Crossroads -- all those weeks ago. Mickey Mouse could hardly comprehend it: after so much time searching, so much hope lost and gained and lost again, he finally was standing in the same air space as his best freakin’ friend, goshdarnit.

“I figured you could use some help with those guys,” Blues shrugged with a smirk. Mickey giggled -- hearing the sound of his bestie’s voice might’ve been even better than actually seeing him. “Nice claws, tho.”

Mickey looked down at the gauntlets wrapped around his wrist. “Yeah, I’ve been playin’ around with some stuff while you were gone.”

Blues smiled a big, happy smile, reaching down and pulling Mickey Mouse in for another hug. The little hero welcomed the affection, burying his nose in Blues’ chestplate and trying his best not to wet the preteen machine’s armor with his tears. He sank into the android’s embrace, letting out a deep, relieved sigh as once again, Mickey Mouse and Proto Man were a twosome, no longer flailing waywardly in the wind far away from each other, but back where they frickin’ belonged.

And after the relief, came the fury.

A gloved fist slammed into Blues’ chest. “Where were you?!” Mickey screeched, undoubtedly waking up some unconscious Goombas. “Don’t you know I’ve been lookin’ everywhere, pal?!”

“Mostly,” Blues replied with a cock of his head, “in a box.”

Mickey looked quizzically at his best friend. “A box?”

Proto nodded. “A box.”

The mouse squinted. “Okay… I’ll bite. How’d you get out of this ‘box’?”

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” the preteen machine started, beginning to weave a tale of many clunky journeys inside this ‘box.’ Barely-conscious Goomba thugs called out idle threats as the best friends linked pinkies and left the alleyway. As they walked sort of aimlessly, the preteen machine recounted his experiences traveling from, he and his mouse friend surmised, Kraw, to the Syntech facility, and then finally to Nos’talgia.

“Speakin’ of Syntech,” Mickey interjected, “I went looking for ya there, too. You know Karl Jak somehow wormed his way into that wormhole?”

“Figures,” Blues scowled.

“Yeah,” Mickey glanced away briefly. “Gilgamesh too.”

“Tch.”

“Nah, he’s nice now!” the mouse stopped, breaking the pinky-link and looking very seriously at the boy robot. “I mean… he helped me out. On the island. We’re sorta… I dunno… pals, now?”

Blues narrowed his eyes. “Huh,” he said, face wrinkling a little bit, “if you insist.”

Mickey drooped a little bit. He knew asking Blues to trust the former (?) tyrant was probably a bit too much to ask, especially since it seemed like this was his best friend’s first, like, real day in the Crossroads. He’d spent some time with Gilgamesh in the Abyss, seen sides of him he hadn’t even imagined existed, and he supposed without that frame of reference it’d be hard to convince the preteen machine to even consider any true friendship with the King of Heroes.

That was the thing about Blues. Sure, he was happy-go-lucky like Mickey; they had fun together, went on crazy, wild adventures full of laughs and smiles and silly stuff. Yet, at his core, the android was the much more pragmatic of the pair. He certainly existed with a distinct optimistic bent, but when it came to evildoers, Blues had always been more sure, more certain, of how to deal with them than the mouse king had. For so long, Mickey had sorta just… relied on that. He’d partnered up with his pal and just followed his lead on how to go about hero-ing, back in their old universe. For the most part, it had worked out. They’d saved Teucer. They’d defeated New Babylon. They’d rescued all those secondaries from the collapsing preshow facility.

That idyllic surface had its cracks, though. Mickey would never forget watching Gilgamesh transform into that awful, ugly demon version of himself. He’d never forget watching the gilded king flail that poor boy -- his battle partner -- around, any sense of honor and remorse disintegrated by the demons slinking around inside him. Demons that they had inflicted on him.

So when he’d seen Gilgamesh on the island, well… he’d taken him with more of a grain of salt than perhaps Blues was capable of doing. He’d let optimism and hope lead the way. That wasn’t to say that Blues couldn’t do that -- but the bot certainly let his decisions be guided more by logic and evidence where Mickey let emotion and instinct lead the way, and given the laundry list of bad shiitake mushrooms Gilgamesh had plucked up over the years, Mickey could see where his best friend might be a tad wary.

A low humming sound, notes vaguely fitting together in the form of a soft tune, started emanating from the knapsack he’d snatched from the preshow facility to carry his stuff around in.

He reached inside and pulled out his magic mirror, another one of Karl Jak’s small goodies, and smiled when, as if on cue, Gilgamesh’s face materialized there.

“Speak of the --” he started, but paused before completing the phrase.

Too soon.

“Hm,” Blues mused, sliding behind Mickey and watching the king’s wavy blonde hair and red eyes pop up on the ‘screen’ of the mirror. Mickey waved, but it seemed like the monarch couldn’t see them, and soon it became clear that this was just some wizardry meant to deliver the contents of an e-mail to him. Gilgamesh droned on, expressing his gladness that Mickey was, indeed, alive -- something which noticeably took Proto Man aback -- and inviting him anytime to…

“Uruk?” Blues asked. “What happened to Nippur?”

“Dunno,” Mickey shrugged. “But I think I like the name ‘Uruk’ better. Maybe we should go say hi?” He turned to his friend, making the best puppy dog eyes that a mouse could muster. Blues giggled.

“I’m not sure he wants to see me, Mick,” the preteen machine smiled broadly, referencing the, uh… ‘ban’ that Gilgamesh had laid down in the email. “And besides -- it’s on a whole ‘nother planet. How would we even get there?”

A devious grin spread across almost the entirety of Mickey’s face.

“Oh, do I have some news for you, pal!”

 

[Mickey Mouse]

The garage in 8-Bitain where Kevin had the mouse’s spaceship prize delivered wasn’t far away from Goomba Ambush Alley. However, neither Mickey Mouse nor Proto Man were familiar at all with their surroundings; directions had never really been one of Mickey’s strong suits, so with him leading the way, it took altogether much longer for the pair to find the place than it should have.

Eventually, though, they stumbled upon the red-and-black dome that matched the address the redheaded wonder-intern had scribbled down for the mouse king. It rose above them, bright red piping streaking the black structure in hexagonal shapes. What looked like flame decals meant for race-cars rose up from just about every inch of the dome’s bottom, giving it a particularly edgy feel for something on this mostly-silly planet. Of course, to be fair, if it was edgy, it certainly was a silly version of edgy. Just above the door, it read ‘Arrdyn’s Gar(age)den.’ Mickey and Blues gave each other a puzzled look and walked inside.

“Yo, yo, yo!” came the cry upon their entrance. A tiny, pitch-black skinned creature slid out from behind the front desk on a skateboard, throwing a lazy salute at the pair of customers that had just entered. Its hands and feet were pink, and it had a pink, spiky ball floating just above its zig-zag, pointed head.

“How’re you guyz doin’?” the creepy little demon thing shouted, hopping off the skateboard and extending a perfectly rounded hand towards the mouse. “You must be the mouse of the hour, eh?” he smirked devilishly and slowly, Mickey reached out and wrapped his four fingers around… the tiny creature’s none. “The name’s Arrdyn, and welcome to my GAR-age and GAR-den combo. Y’here for your ship, or maybe ya wanna try one of my delicious smoothies first?”

“I, uh…”

“What species are you?” Blues asked the question on both of their minds.

“Heh,” the thing chuckled, flashing his spiky teeth, “I’m a Chao. But I ain’t cute like all those other little bishes. I’m a badass Chao, the Arrdyn, owner of the hippest garage and the healthiest smoothies in all of 8-Bitain. ”

Mickey blinked. He was a freakin’ talking mouse, but this planet was still giving him a run for his dang money.

“I’m also Karl Jak’s personal fave ship engineer,” Arrdyn continued, puffing out his chest. “Well… I mean, he probably wouldn’t say that, but I know it’s the truth. I mean, like I said, I give him the most delicious smoothies a little guy can make whenever he or one of his cronies visits! Sometimes I even make ‘em a little boozy, y’know what I mean?”

“Nice to meet ya, Arrdyn,” Mickey brushed past the fear and awkwardness. “I wouldn’t mind a smoothie, pal!”

“Nice, killer,” Arrdyn nodded. “Boozy?”

“No booze, please,” Mickey smiled shyly.

“Eh, your loss,” the Chao replied, then looked up at Blues, who waved a hand and shook his head.

“I don’t eat or drink, so no thank you.”

“Suit yaself, bro,” Arrdyn shrugged, back-flipping onto the skateboard and -- somehow -- guiding it back behind the counter. The demonic-looking Chao was much shorter than his front desk, so he disappeared behind it completely, but Mickey and Blues could hear the whirrings and technobabble of a blender and other smoothie-making accoutrements just a-goin’ as Arrdyn fashioned the mixed drink for Mickey.

After less than a minute of prep time, he rolled back out, fully tossing the plastic cup filled with a chunky pink liquid at the mouse king. “Strawberry,” he smiled, weirdly, “try it out!”

Mickey sucked on the straw and, sure enough, it was --

“This is the best smoothie ever,” he screamed involuntarily, immediately wrapping his lips around the straw and huffing down some more. Arrdyn nodded in satisfaction, dusting off his hands. Another smoothie well sold.

“So I’m guessin’ ya wanna see your ship while ya suck on that beauty, eh?” Ardynn sleazed. He whipped his arrowheaded devil tail towards the deeper reaches of the garage. “She’s that-a-way, let’s go!”

Mickey watched carefully as the Chao led the way. Of course this devil dude was exactly the type of proprietor Karl Jak would associate with; the very design of his body seemed to suggest some sort of compact with evildoers. As Arrdyn skateboarded his way through the garage, Mickey found himself silently judging him, no matter how good his smoothie was. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was going on in his brain, but… well, there was something about just the way this guy looked that suggested to the mouse that he was bad, bad news.

If looks could telegraph the future, though, the sight of his spaceboat told an epic, happy story. Arrdyn led them through a gaping doorway into a huge hangar bay, and there she was, in all her glory: the Steamboat Willie, albeit with a few added thrusters and space-faring weapons just to sweeten the deal.

The Spaceboat Willie, then.

Nice.

“Mick,” Proto Man gushed, “this is… incredible.”

“Ain’t it, pal?” Mickey’s eyes grew wide and he slurped up more smoothie, gazing up at the ginormous spaceship. Well, it wasn’t the largest spaceship he’d ever heard of, but it certainly would do the trick for a little mouse and his preteen best friend. It seemed to be about the size of your average semi truck, just… with boat proportions.

“Yeah, she’s a beaut alright,” Arrdyn sighed, beaming with pride. “Head on up inside. She’s got a buncha features that Mr. Jak and good ol’ Kevin thought would be right up your alley, Mick.”

Mickey grimaced slightly at Arrdyn calling him by a nickname but let it slide, simply handing off the finished smoothie to the raven-colored Chao and skipping up the deck ramp to the inside of his brand-spankin’-new spaceship. The interior, of course, was just as magnificent as the exterior; painted in the same grayscale color scheme to elicit fond memories of his good ol’ days on the river, Mickey and Blues’ bright color schemes popped against the monotone floors, walls, and ceilings. Many different rooms split off from the main hallways into interesting features the mouse king would have to be sure to try out later, but for now, he had to get to the bridge.

It didn’t disappoint. There were gadgets and gizmos a-plenty filling his sight, whoosits and whatsits galore. There were, probably, twenty thing-a-mabobs for him to pull on and press, and he didn’t even know where to start. Suddenly, it struck the mouse that while he’d steered many a steamboat in his younger days, he had no freakin’ clue how to pilot a goshdarn spaceship.

As if responding to that thought, several of the lights on the bridge lit up a bright pink, and a voice began to ring out from… nowhere? Yet everywhere?

”Subject identified: Micheal Theodore Mouse.”

Mickey scowled, and Blues chuckled. “Michael?!”

“Pipe down, pal,” Mickey shot a glare his best friend’s direction. “Uh, call me Mickey, whoever you are.”

“Command acknowledged; affirmative. I shall call you ‘Mickey.’”

“And who exactly do I have the pleasure of speakin’ to?” Mickey questioned.

“I am the Piloting and Launching Utilities and Tactical Assistant,” the strangely-calm female voice droned. Blues seemed enraptured by the sound. “But you may simply refer to me by my colloquial designation: PLUTA.”

Mickey blinked. ‘PLUTA’? As in ‘Pluto,’ his old dog?

“My purpose is to assist you in your travels throughout the Crossroads and, if necessary, other universes,” PLUTA continued, “although I must admit, my records outside of our current solar system are extremely limited.”

“To assist me, eh?” Mickey mused suspiciously. “I s’pose Karl Jak had you installed then? To spy on me, robot lady?”

“I am not a robot,” PLUTA quickly corrected. “I am an artificial intelligence, and searching through my records and doing a quick diagnostic, I can assure you ‘espionage’ is not a part of my programming or protocol.”

“Yeah, no, Karl didn’t include her,” Arrdyn’s voice came from the doorway to the bridge, “she’s a personal design of mine. I looked through your files and saw ya didn’t have too much space travel experience, so I figured an AI like PLUTA -- which I named after your dog, again after reading through your files -- might be of some use in your travels.” Mickey eyed Arrdyn carefully as he stepped further into your room. “You’re lookin’ to be some sorta hero, right? Well, I might be dark and broody and badass…” he started, tossing his head as if to flip hair that wasn’t there, “...but I’m always down to help someone make the Crossroads a better place.”

The mouse king’s eyes narrowed just a bit. Why?

“After all,” Arrdyn shrugged, as if to answer that mental question, “it’s my home.”

Mickey found himself… a tad taken aback by that. This Chao seemed like the embodiment of everything he thought was wrong with the world, but perhaps, just like with Gilgamesh, he’d been wrong. Perhaps he’d misjudged the fella, because when he said those three words, he seemed as genuine as Mickey had ever seen anybody. The words hit the mouse in a certain spot, too, because he’d been dwelling on what exactly the Crossroads were to him, as well.

He glanced over at Blues, who met his gaze. He’d found his best friend. There seemed to be no way out of this predicament, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he’d made in the last place. He’d been missing from the Disney Realms for five years now, bouncing from one multiverse to another, and in his last universe, he’d spent a huge chunk of that time not leaning into his new predicament. He’d been obsessed with trying to get home, when, in reality, he didn’t even know if there was a way back… or if there was even a home to go back to. So what did that mean for him here, now, in the third multiverse he’d inhabited in less than a decade?

Did that mean this could be his home, too?

“Mickey,” PLUTA’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “you have a message. Subject Line: A Meeting.”

The trio of diminutive folks looked up at the ceiling, ostensibly where they’d all decided PLUTA was, and then at each other varyingly. “Well, I don’t wanna eavesdrop on too much of your personal business, bro,” Arrdyn threw up his hands. “I’ll be at the front desk -- make sure ya come and see me if ya ever need any tinkerin’ done on this ship, alright? She’s my baby.”

Mickey nodded, and waved goodbye to the Chao as he left. He frowned at his own prejudices; the little guy may have looked like bad news, but he seemed to have good intentions; he seemed to have their best interests at heart, and Mickey couldn’t believe he’d judged him so quickly. “Play message.”

On the front ‘windshield’ of the Spaceboat Willie’s bridge, a video that seemed be replicating the style of an old-timey projector started to play. It crackled and popped as a strange… lizard-robot dude popped up on the screen.

“Good day, Mr. Moussssse,” the creature started, and Mickey Mouse once again cursed why anyone would refer to him as that.

“My name is Vizzzzzz,” the creature hissed, their reptilian tongue waggling at the ‘z’ sound, “and I work for a generousssssss benefactor of… humanitarian interestssssss. We were asssssstounded by your performance in the Abyssssss, and he has assssssked me to meet with you to perhapssssss procure your ssssservices for a tassssssk in the interessssst of all Nossssss’talgians.”

Mickey quirked his brow. What did people think he was now, a no-good merc? He wasn’t Deadpool.

“I’ve deposssssited an addressssss in your ssssship’s filesssss,” Viz continued, “perhapssssss you’ll meet me there later tonight, and we can disssscussssss further?”

With that, the recording cut out, and Mickey blinked curiously.

He met Blues’ eyes, who seemed to share his concerns about Viz’s message. The lizard-bot hadn’t been very specific about their intentions, or who exactly they were working for. ‘A generous benefactor of humanitarian interest.’ So some pretty rich fella, Mickey supposed.

The mouse found himself suddenly deep in thought. What, exactly could someone on this weirdo planet want with him so soon after he’d arrived? He hadn’t even been here more than an hour or two. And how, exactly, had this Viz fella known what ship was his, and where to find it, before Mickey himself had managed to seek it out? None of this mess added up… or if it did, it added up to something incredibly concerning. So what was he supposed to do with that? Creepy people looking to get something out of him? He’d been down that road before, and it had only led to trouble. Nevertheless, his curiosity was peaking.

“PLUTA,” Mickey piped up. “Gimme that address.”