EXTRACT FOR
Space Monster Trash
(Odile Hawker)

Detective Karwen entered the dingy storefront and let the door slam behind so that they could hear her. They already knew she was coming, so she might as well announce it. Maybe instead of jumping her, they would roll out the welcome mat and pour her a glass of brandy. Or better yet, just answer her damn questions without putting up a fight.



This job used to be worth it. At first, the paychecks were good, but lately, those had been few and far between. Right now, she did not like it. She was sick of working for peanuts when everybody and their brother wanted a piece of her. It was getting too personal. 



She had already survived one ambush this morning. However, she had already proved that she could take anything they threw at her. Her ray gun was a comforting weight as she scanned the room. Karwen needed answers, and she had been slumming around the shantytowns of Ganymede for the past two weeks trying to find them.



It was the same old mess that she found in every rundown shop on this trailer park of a moon. The smell of cheap alcohol and organic syntho teased the edges of her senses. Dust coated the display cases, so the items were gray shadows underneath the filth. The glass jars on the shelves contained amorphous blobs that Karwen swore were moving slightly. As she went to peer more closely at them, she heard a noise in the back.



Karwen pushed aside a filthy curtain and moved cautiously down the hallway. It was cleaner than the front, but the walls were covered in dirty pictures, and they all featured the award-winning, intergalactic whore, Scyia. Porn viewers hung on the walls with 3-D loops of skanky jelly humanoids endlessly taking it in every orifice. Purple jelly flesh bounced and wiggled as the porn star looked coyly over her shoulders. Tinny voices called out begging for more when she came close enough to trip the advertising sensors.



Karwen smirked. She definitely had an appreciation for the way the female jelly jiggled, but she needed to take care of one last piece of business before enjoying herself. Still, her trip down the hallway was leisurely, and if she stopped to write down a vidcode or a username for future reference, it was justified for research purposes.



As Karwen got closer to the end of the hallway, she realized that the gasps and pants were not only coming from the posters, but from someone in the next room. Someone was having a good time judging from the cries of pleasure.