Business in Bou Rai

The purple light of the high-noon-sun suffused through the urban sprawl of Mikuler. The trees of the park wove a thick forest canopy that seeped into the vegetation of the concrete paths. The streets, themselves,  threaded between buildings that reached into the low-drifting clouds. On the ground floor, Rainese pedestrians flooded the walk ways of the city, bordering on spilling into the light traffic of the asphalt streets.

Rising Street South, Mikuler City, Aldaed Republic, the continent of West Sharr, Planet Bou Rai.
The Rainese, especially the citizens of Mikuler, were mostly women. From the bosses in the corner offices to the march of street level citizens, all of these women sported distended , pregnant bellies, each heavy with unborn babes in the still sleep of suspended animation. Among the swarm of pregnant women were few men and fewer children. The other two peoples, even when obese, were the Flat Bellies of the world.

Like any planet, there was a history behind the hustle and bustle of post-industrial society. There was mostly the ‘pregnant pacing’ of this world that justified so many decisions. With the populace uniformly pregnant and the men a negligible minority, there was no special treatment among one’s fellow woman.

To the horror of offworlders, Bou Rai was no stranger to rudeness, crimes, atrocities, and outright war. Life was valuable. Such was human, regardless of planet. However, the life of an unborn was  never put into too much high regard by the Rainese, especially when most fetuses were in the deathly sleep of indefinite stasis. Greatly pregnant women went to battle and fought on front lines.

Mikuler had prospered and evolved from the ingenuity of war machines. Mikuler was not just a pretty tourist attraction, but a testament to the work of the ruthless Sharrian Empire that had conquered most of the world. Bordering on its central park were the ruins of the  All-Throne,
There were scarce few that were proud to be Imperial Sharrian by ethnicity. Though one just happened to be on Rising Street South.

Leaning against a wall, admiring it all behind stringy bangs, was a dark-skinned woman with a red trenchcoat, striped blue tights, and a stretch-marked belly that peaked out under her striped, golden T-shirt.

Another woman, younger, paler, shakily rubbing her hands together, approached the Native Imperial. Her smile twitched in a way that could only be seen as pathetic. “Hey, Nona.” She managed above a whisper, over the din of the chatty crowds and people talking on their tele-comms.
Nona smirked like a smug shark.

The shuttering, less-pregnant woman tried not to cringe any more than usual.
Nona always smiled like that. They both new it. “Ratanya”, said Nona in a sing song voice “I’m not going to bite. Again. Besides, darling, that was the Festival of Fangs. Two years ago.”

Said holiday also had origins most of the Cluster would consider unthinkable for a race of pregnant women. In short, an ancient religion devoted to blood sacrifice traded its ruined temples for fangs and claws, creating the Rainese vampire. Nona had been tempted to join the remnants of Blood Cult, but declined for a number of reasons. Not that Ratanya had known that.

Ratanya tried not to think about that one holiday night, where she thought Nona had finally snapped out of pretending to be sane and had begun her inevitable rampage, if only for the brief duration of ‘Tanya’s panic attack.

Nona rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers until the other came out of her flash back. “Try to stay in the present, deary.” She chided with shameless hypocricy “You came here for a reason, didn’t you?” She stood away from the wall and turned into the near alley, where her office was tucked in the back door of the fabric factory.

She heard a distinct absence of following foot fall. Nona turned around. Two figures stood in the entrance of the alleyway. Tanya was out of sight, probably scurrying away with a fat wad of bills in her pocket and a prayer on her breath. The two larger women, larger in height, width, and even girth than Nona stared her down.

As a history buff, Nona couldn’t help but chuckle at how ill equipped the thugs were compared to just about any gravid in most given generations of old.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Nona rolled her eyes again. As always, no one could see it behind the forelocks that reached just short of tickling the tip of her nose. “I can understand being too cheap to hire a man-thug or two, but your boss didn’t even bother to send some decent Flat Bellies to do her dirty work?”

At least against a Flat Bellied Warrior, someone who had birthed and then remained nonpregnant, Nona would have been able to truly test her metal. These cows were just...insultingly pathetic.
“We’re more than enough.” One said confidently. It was too dark in the alley and too bright in the background to tell the two apart. Not that Nona really intended to give them that much respect. Their body language would be enough for future references.
Nona turned and ran.
Fast.
The thugs immediately gave much slower pursuit. Nona could outrun most men, let alone a couple of knuckle headed womb-balloons. She vaulted over debris, took a dumpster and jumped the fence. She landed into a front flip and skewed roll, just about the only way the women on the planet could cushion a fall, especially at Nona’s size. Ironically, it was because of this fact that fences were shorter  than on other planets.

Pregnant Pacing, the most distinguishing thing in the human history of Bou Rai. On Bou Rai, everyone one and everything had trouble with a belly in the way. Things built to oppose enemy preggos had to be built and maintained by more preggos. The Rainese had all the dynamics of other humanities. Just at a slightly waddling gait.

Still, the thugs did not even try to get over the fence. They were far to pregnant and sane to consider following a mad woman like Nona, who seemed the type to run into traffic, if it suited her. The woman closest to the back door of the fabric factory kicked the door down. It gave far too easily. It probably wasn’t even bolted. Even without looking, the other woman could tell the place had been cleared out.

“Madame won’t like this.” Said the enforcer, her head shaking at the useless scraps that taunted her. The other, stocky woman palmed her face and just made her way to the street end of the alley.
“She never does.”

--

A block away, Nona was heading to her other decoy office, glares trailing behind her. With everyone pregnant, it was much ruder to bump into strangers. Nona didn’t care. The average Rainese body was very tough and shock-absorbent. How else would their species survive long enough to leave the wilds behind. Sheer fertility could only carry them so far. Like germs, they adapted from the scarcest of survivors, who would then repopulate all lost numbers and then some.

Of course Nona knew that better than most.

She was a ‘doctor’ for a reason.

It was only several blocks away from the secondary lab and it would take minutes to set it ablaze, collect the money from the insured party, and be on her merry way off this planet, at least for months or years at a time. There was a whole, wide cluster of planets to explore around just the local star. Each would have a scarcity she could fill for a profit. Especially planets with war on the surface. She could offer them one of the greatest weapons every general would covet: More soldiers.

Before all that, she needed to meet a certain owner of a mobile fortress that would become the host to her base of operation and manufacturing. She just hoped the owner, a man more dangerous than any war-dealing, wouldn't hold her tardiness against her.

--
Elsewhere in Mikuler, a fast food restaurant  barely sat apart from the other holes in the wall. It was a five-floored brick with graffiti tagging much of the side. The front was tagged as well, but with a professional touch and with not only the permission, but the guidance of the owner.

‘The Sweet Cake Lot’, it read. It didn't look the part, even when looking through the windows.
The inside was greasy and sticky, with just enough beige and coffee brown  arcs to make it look sophisticated from several paces away. A man took up an entire table with sheer hostile air, distinguished by his boots on the table, golden horns and crest from his forehead to the back of his skull, and an inky black ball  hovering over his shoulder.

Of all the places in Mikuler (a place that literally meant ‘child-bringing’ in common Kangen), these square meters were the least crowded in all the city. The pregnant women steered away from him, knowing a Kanguul would treat even an annoying greeting with deadly permanence. The odd, Rainese man or two kept the space clear by standing as living pillars against the Kanguul’s unfriendly aura.

Said Kanguul was slurping a half-frozen treat from a cup that was the most offensive shade of pink short of gruesome violence. It tasted as bad as it looked, but it was sugar and the joint did not offer a single slice of cake.

Really.

“What kind of place has the name ‘ The Sweet Cake Lot’ and runs out of cake on a work day?” He griped to himself and maybe the floating ball of black over his shoulder. “May this place be ever damned in the Book of Evil.”

The black orb quietly thrummed, as if grunting in offense.

“Not literally, Chap. Despite my profession, it’s still just an expression.”

Chap, Ronu’s personal chapter of said Book of Evil, didn’t make another sound, but did hover over to a napkin to slash a message with a tendril of ink. The appendage retreated before Ronu could even finish reading the note.

‘The Doctor is in the Lot,’ it read. Ronu sighed.

“Yes, I know, she’s supposed to be here. You've wrote that message on the last seven napkins. Kortuza forbid I actually spill any of my-“

The front door swung open and Nona, his client, was sweating heavily and slumping his way.
“What took you so long,” he asked, ignoring that she was the greatest belly in the entire establishment and rightly entitled to a bit of tardiness. “I thought you said you were faster than most men.”

Hugely pregnant as she was, not every excuse was universal. That went doubly so for the fertilely pot-bellied Rainese and anything to do with gestation.

“I am” she wheezed, flopping into the seat next to him. “But not for more than ten blocks.” She slumped against him, but could not muster her usual cocktail of threatening subtext and disarming flirtation. “Darling, how much do you expect from a lady in my condition?”

“A ‘lady’ wouldn’t set foot in this place. If you mean a pregnant woman, like all of you are on this planet…” he took another sip of his smoothie “well, I’d expect you Rainese women not to know about special treatment for preggos. And I expect more gym memberships with so few men to leer at you while cranking out stale pick-up lines.”

Nona looked up at him. Or at least turned her head in his direction. With her hair, her line of sight was always in question. She would have said something witty about her getting off this planet, but just went back to putting her head on his shoulder. She could feel he was relaxed, making his dense musculature a perfectly firm pillow.

“Ronu…shut up and carry me to the migraporter.” She was dead serious.  Never mind the mob bosses out to destroy her and maybe everything she stood for.  Never mind that the man she was ordering was doubly godlike, hunter of the strongest evils and avatar of a woolly, dragon-titan. She was tired, everything burned with exhaustion, and she’d come out alive having outright insulted more dangerous company.

“Look, Nona.” He finally finished his drink and put the cup firmly on the table. “You’re cute, round, and kind of sexy for a preggo, but I need to see the cash. I need to know you can carry your own weight. Metaphorically speaking. A little bit literally, too.”

Nona pouted and slipped the man-knuckle sized wad of bills into his pocket. Then, somehow the world must have tumbled because he had her bridle style and was standing up before she could blink. Yes, she was capable of blinking. She swore on many holy relics, to many people, that she indeed had eyes.

“If you aren’t passed out, I’d suggest you close your eyes during teleportation.”
In a twist of space-time, they were gone.

There was only a gasps of surprise and the closing of a vacuum pocket in their wake.

And there was also Chap, who was annoyed at being ignored, before he too vanished into Slip Space.