We decided it was time to give Roxy, the rAge mascot, a makeover and commissioned local artist Stephen Spinas to revamp her aesthetic with some new contemporary glam. It’s been almost two months of iterative file names like roxynew.psd, roxynewfinal.psd, and roxynewfinal_realfinal.psd, and Roxy is ready to show us what she’s got.
SUB-SPACE WARP IN 3…2…1…
To commemorate the debut of our New! Improved! Now With A Cat, Omg! Roxy, this an excerpt from the upcoming sci-fi novel Roxy and the Quantum Clones of Euphorion-VI by Anne Onyme.
Loading her blaster with a new thermo-cart, Roxy considers her options.
– Evaluate the damage from the detonation at DynoCorp’s factory and compile a report.
– Go back to the ship and feed Ziggy.
One of the embryonic sacs pops with a wet “splot”, the drones hovering over the nursery momentarily startled into a buzzing tumult. A pale, glistening amniotic sludge dribbles from the fissure, steaming in the cold of the busted cryotanks.
That’s one more option.
– Take off, and nuke this entire site for her Uncle Morbiid.
Not for the first time, Roxy asks herself how she got into this mess. It’s been one sleazy spaceport to the next since the incident on Euphorion VI, except now she’s stuck with this stupid cat because she made a promise. As if on cue, Ziggy yawns and starts licking at his paws. And, ugh, did he just fart? He farted. She didn’t sign up for this. Sign up for what? Roxy remembers that she has more immediate problems than an adopted cat with a toxic asshole. Maybe that toxic asshole could be weaponised, she thinks, but that’s a job for the bio-modders at Kazan Station.
For now, she’s got this clean-up job to finish, or it’s going to be Earth-I all over again and who wants that? Option three it is.