Chapter 345: Nobody Ordered the Beef Missile

The cow tried to leave before the opening night, which was a stronger response to our marketing than I had expected.

Its test mount jerked across the service floor while the operator cut the main feed. A separate stored-energy stage kept the fictional drive active, and the plastic animal bucked hard enough to slap its own painted face against the barrier.

[System: That’s not a mechanical bull, mate, that’s a dairy product applying for air support. Tell the bloke to use the emergency dump before it starts liberating the bloody ceiling.]

He had already reached for it, and you were the one who called the military label charming.

[System: I said character, cunt, and it clearly has a difficult one.]

The operator pulled the marked control. The drive slowed, but a retaining bracket bent with a scream that sent everybody outside the line another step back.

Lyra caught my attention before I could launch myself into the mechanism. She pointed at the loose shield vibrating beside the operator’s knees, and I understood why she wanted his position changed.

"Move left behind the wall, because that panel looks ready to audition for your funeral."

He moved just as the bracket failed.

A metal pin shot through the place his head had occupied. It entered my three-meter range, and Hold My Bloody Beer trapped that one projectile in its ridiculous can before it reached the doorway.

The sudden weight dragged my tail lower. Catching something dangerous didn’t make holding it a sensible hobby, and the ten-second limit felt considerably shorter when the can twitched against my body.

Lyra pointed to the cleared containment box. I aimed into it and released before the limit, letting the pin bury itself in the padded back wall while my six-minute cooldown began.

[System: Good catch, champ. You saved the bloke and only looked slightly like a bong trying to return a grenade at the bottle shop.]

We could discuss my technique after the cow stopped threatening regional stability.

The operator shouted that a loose cable cover blocked the manual access hatch. Lyra reached the safe side of the barrier, used Mine Now on the small separable cover, and brought it into clear space against her palm.

She set it down immediately rather than pretending the skill made hot metal pleasant. The operator opened the hatch and completed the shutdown using the controls he had actually trained to use.

I kept my body between the loose tools and the doorway without imagining that ordinary scales had become a wall. Bridget and Cherry helped clear the passage while the crew secured the stopped mount.

The service bay went quiet except for the cow’s cheerful recorded announcement that everybody had enjoyed a wonderful ride.

Lyra looked at me. "You were going to put that in the middle of the club."

"In my defense, I had planned to paint it first, which obviously would have improved morale."

She laughed despite herself, then caught my tail before I could drift closer to the wreckage. Her palm was warm through my scales, and I suddenly wanted a second afternoon in the garden more than I wanted to win an argument with a dead machine.

The installer found the false occupied-seat bridge in the supplier’s service record. I didn’t need instructions for making one, just the order showing who had demanded it and the technician’s confirmation that it explained the signal.

Hansen’s approval sat beside the same commission number used for the swapped cooling controller.

His plan hadn’t required him to buy a weapon. He had persuaded other people to deliver my purchase, then arranged the part that might kill me during the demonstration.

The broker arrived through a video call and stopped defending his subcontracting choices halfway through the first photograph.

"I’ll have the correct cooling controller collected from the freight lot," he said. "The supplier will cover that correction under the sale terms."

"Excellent, and perhaps your next background check could include whether the salesman wants the customer dead."

[System: Ask for a loyalty card, mate. Buy five attempted murders and the sixth comes with a complimentary bloody pudding.]

You sounded worryingly interested in the pudding.

Cherry brought the discarded cowboy bow from the cow’s head and tied it around the evidence folder. Bridget asked whether the accessory helped establish motive, and Cherry said it made the attempted murder look appropriately stupid. Lyra took a photograph before the installer could remove it, giving us one useful record and one picture I intended to send Hansen every birthday.

The replacement unit arrived that afternoon by the supplier’s actual van, accompanied by an installer who looked at the cow and decided to start with the refrigeration.

The missing controller went where we had paid for it to go. The cow’s separate false-seat fault was removed, its mount repaired, and any later ride would require a fresh low-power test rather than another optimistic slap on the plastic.

Old Mate paid the announced quest once the evidence and repair were confirmed.

[System: Five thousand EXP and twenty-five IP, mate. Twenty-four thousand of a hundred thousand, three hundred thirty-five IP, and you’ve learned why secondhand military equipment shouldn’t be purchased because it looks funny beside cheese.]

I had learned that my uncle shouldn’t be allowed near the delivery notes, which seemed like a narrower and more useful lesson.

Lyra took me outside while the crew worked. We sat above the public waterway with cold drinks, and she told me she liked helping with the mess when I actually let her choose how.

"You saved the operator’s head before I noticed the shield, sweetheart. I was beginning to worry that the adventure would expose who carried the brains."

"That wasn’t a secret," she said, letting her knee rest against my side.

The broker’s next message spoiled the quiet. The commission number had appeared somewhere else, attached to an industrial race entry booked through the quarry contractor.

The entry wasn’t merely in my name. Its sponsor prize promised a live delivery of the smoke serpent inside the winning machine, and the collection address pointed toward the same people who had altered our cow.