Good Cop Bad Cop: Chapter One

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One week. Asher has to be mean, Kay has to be nice. Whoever gives up first has to write a story for the winner. Should be... interesting.

Ethan snorted. "Wow, you really don't want to waltz. Childhood trauma?" To Esk he added, "Of course there's a spaceship. They have to remind us we're not in the year nineteen hundred somehow."

Matt shrugged. "I'm a fast learner. "

"Why isn't the ship just firing on them? They're in cars, it's a space ship. Just shoot the shit outta them." Esk shook his head, this movie was dumb.

Kay smiled. [It won't open fire till they have somewhere to pull in to shelter, like an underpass or a multistory garage or something.] He was starting to understand this movie's logic, and he wasn't sure that was something to be proud of. oops. Oh well it was fun.
Stupid, but fun.

"Besides, haven't you seen how the villains aim in this movie? They can't hit the broad side of a truck. And I mean that literally," James said, nodding at Kay.

"Maybe they should just land the ship on the cars then?" Ethan said.

The ship caught a car in a tractor beam at this point, and lifted it into the air, much to the horror of the other drivers! They talked rapidly, and after a bit, the driver decided to ignore all advice and just climb on top of the car and jump to grab onto the spaceship, scrambling his way up the hull. The people below shouted frantically.

"Dominic, noooo," James groaned, "You'll die!"

Matt laughed. "Go punch the pilot Dominic!"

[Spaceships don't work that way!] Kay protested.

"rule of cool!" Matt told him.

Esk facepalmed. "These villains are so useless, they deserve to die embarrassingly."

Dominic climbed up to the windscreen of the ship, and amazingly, punched his way in!

"He got a cybernetic arm a few films ago," Asher explained, "So this is one hundred percent scientifically accurate."

Now he was fighting five people in the cockpit of the speeding ship. One after another he threw them out, until he was alone and took the controls. The others cheered, and the screen faded, indicating that the excitement was over and all that was left was a few more morals about family, and some foreshadowing for the next movie.

"Yay! He lived!" James cheered.

Shane laughed and clapped a little, shaking his head "Someday we will have to start from the first one and just watch our way through them."

"I hope those who survived that fall die of humiliation." Esk remarked flatly. "That's just pitiful."

"shh they're monologing!" Matt told him.

"Blah blah blah morals, blah blah Family. Blah blah cars. There, I summed it up for you." Esk shrugged.

"They said it better than you did," James huffed, sticking out his tongue at Esk.

Asher laughed, "They say this stuff a lot. They've had plenty of practice to get it right." To Shane he said, "There are several hundred of these, it'd take a long time to get through them all."

[Seems a good way to kill time though.]

"and brain cells." Esk remarked, narrowing his eyes slightly at James.

"Braincells are overrated." Matt waved a hand dismissively.

Shane laughed and shook his head "It's just entertainment, but it's fun to see. Besides, hundreds of movies would make the lead character long dead if he wasn't some species besides Terran."

"I don't have brain cells," James said.

"That explains so much!" Asher said delightedly, then burst into quiet laughter.

Ethan glared at both of them. He didn't want to be part of their jokes about brain cells, thank you very much.

"But yeah, it's a good way to spend time," James said cheerfully. "We can so watch the first few movies sometime. Especially Tokyo Drift! That one rocks!"

Asher facepalmed. He looked at Shane, "The original actors are all long dead. These are computer generated replicas we just saw." He grinned.

Shane nodded and looked to Asher "Yeah, but they are CGI of humans, specific humans, right? Even in a series, time moves forward."

"Oh, I see what you mean." Asher laughed. "Well maybe it was just a very busy year for these characters."

"not if you don't want it to. There's animated series that lasted like 50 years and the characters stayed 10" Matt shrugged. "super busy year man."

[The laws of realism and any logic don't seem to apply to media.]

Esk smirked at James' brain cell remark. he didn't need to say anything.

Shane laughed at that ans shook his head "Extremely busy" He agreed

"Animated never age" Dawn said and looked over to James "I know terrans had some that lasted 100 years or more and they still never aged "

The credits rolled. There was a loud song with a heavy synth beat, and shiny cars driving across the screen.

"Logic is overrated," James said.

Asher smiled at Kay, "And now you know why we grew up so weird. Too much Fast and Furious."

James nodded wisely in agreement.

Kay smiled. [You're not that weird.]

"Man, I wish we'd had movies growing up." Matt grinned.

[We didn't even have a tv Matt.]

"I know, radio plays are all fine and dandy and all but we missed out on explosions and cars and stuff!"

"im not sure that's such a great loss." Esk remarked dryly.

"If you say so," Asher said, amused.

James laughed, "Yeah, you guys missed out not having a TV. There's some quality entertainment on there, you know!" He looked amused, "Nothing like reality shows and action movies to raise you right."

Matt laughed. "I dunno, Imperium tv is pretty awful."

"It's not as bad as the mirror universe's musicals." Esk remarked.

"true... those were pretty demented." Matt agreed.

[Mostly Imperium tv is just news, propaganda and adventure serials which are just more propaganda in action entertainment form] Kay explained.

"So are the radio plays." Matt nodded.

Kay nodded. [A lot of space adventures, and war stories. ]

"and soap operas, we can't forget the soap operas." Matt laughed.

Kay made a face. [My coworkers on the station were obsessed with those, they'd be on every time I took a break, a load of nurses sitting around sipping tea and listening intently to the latest melodrama of whatever that farming family are called. ]

"Bogenschutz" Esk told them.

Matt stared at him. "how do you even know that?"

Esk shrugged. "it's fucking boring in prison okay?"

Kay looked amused. [Either way, seemed to me that every other week someone else had drowned in a slurry pit or been run down by a tractor.]

Esk snickered.

"That sounds terrible," James said with a laugh. "Propaganda, soap operas, and more propaganda? Dang, too bad you didn't grow up in the Terran Empire, where we have REAL entertainment!"

Ethan snorted.

"Well at least you guys can make up for lost time now," James said. "What sort of crap did you grow up watching, Ethan?"

"Art films," Ethan looked disgusted, "With surreal imagery and vague conversations that were supposed to open your mind to the universe. One of my owners loved subjecting people to those." He added as an afterthought, "And Terran propaganda movies, although I didn't see many of those. They were stupid too."

[Propaganda's usually very stupid. ] Kay agreed.

"then why do you keep giving me Imperium contraceptive pamphlets!" Matt protested. "those things are insane! Have sex, you will die. Look at a member of the opposite sex, your penis will explode. I mean, it's nuts!"

[You're making stuff up now. ] Kay smirked at him.

"No no, listen, I have one somewhere.. where the hell is it?" Matt dug through his pockets. "ah, here. Okay, so this one has a little comic in it where the girl forgets to have a new IUD inserted and the guy refuses to wear a condom and they both die from super crabs! they get eaten by giant alien crabs, what the fuck?"

Kay started laughing silently.

Esk reached over "give me that?" He took the pamphlet from Matt and snickered. "this is actually real?"

"That or he made up a bunch of them to screw with me!" Matt said. "he has so many!"

[No, they're real. and they are hilarious. ] Kay admitted. [You want to risk the super space crabs?]

Matt threw his hands up. "there's no such thing as super space crabs!"

[Are you sure you want to take that risk?] Kay looked amused.

"Where the hell did you get this?" Esk asked, tossing the thing back at Matt.

[For some reason Frontier station had a load of them. I'm not certain why they felt nagging people about contraception was necessary in intensive care but that's the Empire for you. ]

"yes, it's all very sad both your legs got blown off, but have you considered contraception?" Matt scoffed. "priorities?"

[I initially assumed it was a mistake and we got them from some sort of admin error, but then more came so goodness knows.]

"So you decided to take a suitcase full of the damn things." Matt groaned.

Kay shrugged. [I'd have thought you'd approve of stealing things from work.]

"useful things! not comics about space crabs!"

Kay shoulders shook with laughter.

James looked at the comic Matt had found, amazed. "Okay, that's just weird. Don't they want new baby soldiers or something? And man, if straight sex is so hazardous, why would anyone try it?"

Ethan got up to look at the pamphlet too. "I like the metaphorical space crabs and their obvious deeper symbolism. You can see that the artist really wanted to provoke thought with this artwork." His face remained dour, but his eyes sparked with humor.

"Are can people major in Art in the Imperium?" James asked, "I wanna see the sad art major who had to draw this."

Kay shrugged [Well the idea is you're supposed to get married and settle down before you start spitting out baby soldiers. ]

"yeah, women are all equal and great until they meet a guy, then they're supposed to stop wanting to play soldier, get off contraceptives and become baby factories. It's dumb." Esk shrugged.

[it's extremely hypocritical. Of course, nobody will dare say anything to a woman who chooses career over family, but they will tut behind her back and judge her privately. ]

"are there gay sex pamphlets?" Matt asked.

[Yes, but they're awful and offensive. ] Kay frowned.

"Oh?" Matt looked curious.

[All about unnatural urges and repressing them and so on. Less space crabs though, more... depraved alien orgies.]

"omg that sounds amazing!" Matt laughed.

Kay rolled his eyes and looked to James. [And yes, we have artists. though usually they have a day job as well. ]

"like Esk." Matt grinned.

Esk scowled.

"Eew." James wrinkled his nose, looking disgusted, "Good to know feminism is alive and well over there, huh?" Eww, the idea of Luka settling down and having a million babies was strange. She was one of his best friends, or family, or something! Nobody that close was supposed to change. Nope.

"Depraved alien orgies, huh? Sounds fun," Ethan rolled his eyes.

Kay shrugged. [Yes, apparently being attracted to the same sex makes you a sex crazed lunatic who'll sleep with literally anything. Then again, this is a culture who teach kids there are giant space crabs and space herpes, so it's not that much of a stretch to teach them homosexuality results in alien orgies.] He rolled his eyes.

"do they all die?" matt asked.

[Probably, their comics usually end with someone dying. ]

Esk snorted.

"Did you not get ridiculous pamphlets to read in the army?" Matt asked him.

Esk shrugged. "sure, doesn't mean I read them. What were they gonna do? stand over me and force me to read their shit? Besides, it's not like i'm gonna go out sleeping with random women now is it?"

"True... but man, you missed out." Matt laughed.

"Had I known they were such astounding works of fiction... " Esk sounded unimpressed.

Ethan looked amused. "So either you're attracted to the opposite gender, or you're attracted to literally everything that moves. Makes sense."

"And then you die from giant space crabs," James reminded him.

"Right. Can't forget the space crabs," Ethan said in agreement.

"To be fair, there are a lot of people who are attracted to everything. Maybe the writers just got their ideas confused," Asher said charitably.