Chaosmos- Episode 3 (The Odd Couple): She

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Artemis cursed, as LAL’s rocketbike bounced off Pangaea before skidding to a stop. The bike looked like it had been rummaged out from the bottom of a scrap yard heap and was held together by sheer willpower. “And it uses liquid fuel,” thought Artemis contemptuously. Pangaea, which ran on antimatter power, was a state-of-the art machine that could accelerate from a speed of zero to 10 light years in just 2 seconds. The translucent outer casing was made of highly malleable and viscous liquiglass that even a blue supergiant, the hottest star in the universe, couldn’t burn through. Inside, all the controls were made from fortified titanium and the hypergamma ray guns could reach a target 5 light minutes away.

LAL was making fish-faces against the casing. Artemis scowled as she let him in. “Sorry dawl! Still got a long way to go on my manners,” LAL drawled, making himself comfortable on the aircushion, and switching on the massage sensors. “You know,” LAL continued, “I wudda thought you’d be happy to see me.” “Look out there!” Artemis snapped. LAL turned on his side, and supported his face with his hand. “It’s really romantic view, dawl! Who wudda thought? All these years and I didn’t realize you had a thing for me.”

“Oh shut up!” Artemis was seriously beginning to regret calling him over. LAL was cleaning the dirt from his fingernails and humming “… now that she's back in the atmosphere with drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey ye hey heyyy…” Artemis looked up suddenly. LAL looked at her steadily with a gleam in his eyes. “Personally I think it’s a good thing, he said, rolling over on his back again, “This way you get a better view of the moons. But then again, if Taur killed you, you wouldn’t get to see the moons anyway.”

Artemis laughed and fell back into the pilot seat.

“That’s ma gurl!”

“What now, Lobo?”

“Well, I don’t suppose you’d have Shaymaniac’s number now, wud ya? Naw, I didn’t think so. It would be too easy, and frankly a little boring.”

“Shay...?” Artemis protested lamely, “But he died in that multiple supernova explosion stunt he pulled off in the Agni galaxy.”

“Sure thing dawl!” LAL grinned back.

No, please, let it not be Shay, Artemis thought, looking at LAL distraughtly.