Chapter 84: The Off Button
I kept my eyes on the threat under me. The snake had coiled itself back up into a small ball, its tongue going in and out as if to scent the air.
Because I wasn’t giving Jun Li my complete attention, it took a few moments for his words to process. "You never give me such a nice, even number. If I decide to kill this thing, what is my chance of dying alongside it?"
There was a long pause before Jun Li decided to answer my question. "If you tried to kill it, right this moment, I calculated an 89.925% chance of death."
"You do realize that there is a big difference between ’about 80%’ and ’89.925%’." I couldn’t hold back my sigh. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. So, what to choose? "What about the drug that the Sisalik had to keep me under? Would that work to knock them out?" I asked.
I could earn more money if I could bring this thing back alive, and it would reduce my risk of dying. "No," replied Jun Li. It is too weak to knock out anything that is not human."
Gee, I felt so special.
"Then how do I kill this thing?" I demanded. If I couldn’t knock it out, then death was the only other option. I would just have to make sure that I wasn’t included in that statement. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time I proved Jun Li’s statistics wrong.
"Its scales are reinforced, similar to your suit armor," said Jun Li, not really answering my question.
"Oh, so now you have a bunch of information on this thing. Where was this before?" I sneered. I frantically searched my brain for where the weakness was on a typical Earth snake. According to legends, dragon skin was completely impenetrable, except for a single scale on the back of its neck. It was referred to as its ’reverse scale’.
On a snake, the top of its head was its weakness. So, if I combined the two of those things, then there should be a reverse scale on the very center of the top of its head.
I mean, what was the worst that could happen?
"All right. I’ll be right back." Thank God I still didn’t seem to have that fear gene right now because this would be a bad time to develop one. I would fully admit that I was starting to get worried about all the feelings I was... feeling. But I was still able to do stupid shit because I had no fear.
"You holding on?" I asked Night, hoping that he could hear me. And even if he couldn’t hear me, I was almost certain my suit of armor would keep him close to me. Taking in a deep breath, I rotated until my head was turned down and turned off my anti-gravity setting. Shooting down to the ground, I unsheathed my wrist blades. As I approached the blue target, I punched through the very top of the skull with my blades.
However, I apparently didn’t think things through all the way. The dead snake (yay me) fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. However, my blades were stuck inside its skull, and as such, I fell with it.
Once the snake was laying on the ground, me crouched down on its head with my blades still embedded in it, I turned off my camouflage mode. "Okay, Jun Li," I grumbled as I tried to pull out my arm with little success. "The first of five Bothrops is dead."
"I am sorry, there appears to be something wrong with our communications. I could have sworn that you just said it was dead," said Jun Li, his confusion clearly coming through the comms.
"I did," I said, now seeing if I could just retract my blades without actually taking them out of the snake first.
"Do you want to tell me how you managed to kill it so easily?" I paused and looked up at the sky as if I could see Jun Li from where I was.
"Easily?" I asked, my blades finally coming free. As soon as my blades came out of the head, blood erupted from the wounds, showering me in fluorescent purple blood. Growling my displeasure, I tried to shake the blood off of my armor. "Did you really just say that killing that thing was easy?"
"Well, it took significantly less time than I had calculated," sniffed Jun Li. I swore under my breath as I jumped off the Bothrops lanceolatus.
"And because of that, you assumed it was easy? Why don’t you come down here and see how easy it is!"
"Now, now, no need to be testy. Could it be your time of the month? I was reading online that women become irritable and unmanageable when they are menstruating." That was it. I was going to install parental controls on the internet as soon as I got back to the ship.
"I found the fucking off button, okay?" I said, not bothering to answer. In fact, if I had calculated it correctly, I should be in the exact opposite stage of my cycle, stupid ovulation phase.
"The Bothrops lanceolatus have an off button? I don’t have records of that," said Jun Li, smartly changing the subject.
"Well, I found it. I pushed it. The snake died," I said with a sneer. I tried to brush off as much blood as I could. I might love the color purple, but when I was covered in it, I wanted it to be by choice, not because I killed something. "Now, how do we get the snake back to the ship?"
"Well, that’s the thing," said Jun Li slowly in a way that I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about it say. "I found some tracking devices in your backpack; you can just put one on the snake, and I’ll bring it up."
That was it, I was going to unplug the stupid AI as soon as I got back. What the fuck!
I took off my armor and, after petting the overly cute Night, gently took him off of my backpack. Once he was safe on the ground, I opened the bag and hunted for the tracking device. "What does it look like?"
