Triple M

     DING!

     The bell on the coffee brewer loudly alerted Marc that his delectable caffeinated drink was ready to be consumed. It was somewhat of a rarity now; with so many technological advances, hell ships could fly to distant systems hundreds of lightyears away in a matter of      weeks through magical wormholes, it was downright a miracle coffee was still around. He figured with all the advancements, there would be mystical pills you consumed to get your coffee fix sated. Well, technically there were, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he was glad there was coffee, and the coffee was ready.

     Marc waddled over to the dark brown machine and stubby sausage fingers grabbed the steel cup with steaming black liquid inside. He raised it to his nose, giving it a satisfying and exaggerated snort of aroma before flicking a button to turn off the machine. The red light on it blinked off, and he smiled while he made his way slowly to his kitchen’s cooling unit. It wasn’t large, maybe an arm’s length wide and a human’s torso tall, but it held what he needed. A wave of his flabby hand in front of it made it produce a happy beep boop and its front door retracted inside to reveal the chilled contents within. He grabbed the clear glass bottle containing hornless-goat flavored milk, poured an eyeballed tablespoon of it in there, then returned the container. The door shut promptly as he turned to walk away with another satisfying bleep blop that sounded like it was saying “thank you” in some coded machine language.  Or it was saying “hope you die soon.” Either way, he didn’t care and kept moving at an overweight snail’s pace to his office.  

     The office was adjacent to the kitchen, which was by design. A converted bedroom, the “office” was a collection of a half dozen holovids mounted to a long wall to his left as he walked in. Instead of clothes where the closet would typically be, he stashed boxes of candy and adrenaline drinks. They were terrible for his health, which he figured already hit rock bottom so it was only uphill from here anyway.

     He sat down in the chair facing the holovids, and it groaned from his weight that struggled to stay within the chair without spilling over. The six holovids sprang to live, displaying live feeds from different news channels around the Core. The coffee was still burning hot, but it also helped him focus on any juicy new events. Beautiful and elegantly dressed news reporters gave their individual takes, that somehow all blended together to Marc, on their channels, trying to inform the uniformed of what they should be aware of, and how they should feel about it. Well, that was his job, and he was going to make sure he did it better than any of them.

     Marc pressed a couple buttons on the glowing keyboard in front of him. He read the headlines, pulled up his trusty recording software that featured the most simplistic visual interface imaginable (which was still almost too complicated for his computer illiterate mind) and made a couple notes in another program to the right side of the projection.

Aetherials piss off pouty Emperor Tenon

Then destroy a literal underground arena

Before finally escaping with a supposed G. I. defector

     Today is going to be a good one, he mused. The Grid personality glanced at the time on that bottom central holovid, made sure he was comfortable with a few butt wiggles, then pressed a button on his illuminated keyboard resting on the desk in front of him. It was time to go live.

     “Welcome to Triple Down with Triple M. If you didn’t already realize by now that I’m Triple M, then you should probably go jump off the nearest building, you moron! I’ve got some real shit to talk to you about today, so if you aren’t willing to open your ears and mind, why the hell are you still listening? Go play your virtual games and live your useless life in blissful ignorance.”

     He coughed a couple times, swallowing the chunk of phlegm that had dislodged itself and made its way to the top of this throat. The gross pause allowed him to take two more sips of coffee to wash down the mucus before continuing.  

     “Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever I get a chance to piss on the almighty Emperor, I piss as much as possible. From what I’m hearing, it sounds like I’m not the only one. Not one, but TWO Aetherials were spotted on Coropolis yesterday. As if that wasn’t enough to blow your mind, well get ready for it to completely explode. They got into a tussle with some Captain Douchebag guy, then they supposedly killed an innocent civilian in cold blood.” He used air quotes for supposedly, though no one could actually see him doing it.

     “Okay, well that would be enough for me to go on about for a while, but it doesn’t stop there, folks. They then crashed a local underground, and I mean that in more ways than one, fighting ring and caused some real chaos there. The death toll is still being counted as I speak. Who knows how many bodies they took out in that hell hole?” He had no idea if that was true, but half the “facts” the other reporters were, well reporting, weren’t either. It was all a game; he was just another player like everyone else. Another series of coughs occurred followed by more sips of steaming coffee before he continued.

     So that’s crazy, right? Two Aetherials in one place, who manage to escape, kill some guy, then trash an underground arena. Well, it doesn’t stop there. Turns out, I’m getting reports that they escaped with the help of defected Galactic Imperium member. That’s right, one of their own didn’t just betray them, he took a big smelly dump in their backyard and then rubbed their face in it! You can’t right a story this crazy even if you wanted to! I can only imagine the face on big, bad Tenon when he hears about this. I’d bet you ten creds about forty more people are going to be jettisoned into the endless abyss of space after this.”

     More hacking of phlegm, followed by more sips of his deliciously bitter coffee, before he concluded this section of his show for the morning.

     “I’ve been Mad Marc Maddoc, thanks for listening to Triple Down with Triple M. Maybe you all aren’t so bad after all. Or maybe you are a bunch of weird degenerates. Don’t know, don’t care. Go do something useful now and I’ll be back in two standard hours to tell you my opinions on today’s happenings and why I’m right.”

     He pressed a button and stopped the recording, then sat back in his chair, a satisfied smile stretching his flappy cheeks. His coffee was over half empty, and that wasn’t going to fly. Triple M needed his coffee, and the people needed Triple M.