Chapter 168: The Drane's Arms

<Well, isn't this just lovely,> BB sighed in the back of my mind. 

I could tell that he was being sarcastic, and to be honest, his sarcasm wasn't exactly misplaced. 

I wasn't sure about what I had been expecting from a place called 'The Drane's Arms', I was even less sure about what I had been expecting from a place that had been built at the bottom of a megacity right next to the core of a planet. 

I probably should have been expecting a dive bar. If I had been expecting a dive bar, I probably wouldn't have been as disappointed as I was feeling in the moments after I walked through the doors of the pub. 

As an Englishman, I was used to a very certain sort of pub. 

In an English pub the ceilings would usually be quite high, with lights hanging down off of them. The bar itself would take up the bulk of the room, with high stools for sitting at it if there was nowhere else free in the room or if, for some strange reason, you wanted to have a chat with the barkeeper. 

For the most part, everything would look like it was made of wood. Not necessarily a good standard of wood, mind you, but wood nonetheless. 

The Drane's Arms was not like an English pup in any way, sort or form. 

For a start, while the establishment looked like it might have been big on the outside, it was actually pretty damn small on the inside. 

The room was essentially a small rectangle with the bar taking up one half of the room and the seating area, which was nothing more than a gross wooden bench with some equally gross plasticky looking tables in front of it. 

The floor seemed to be made of the same concrete material as the road outside had been made of, though this was something I could forgive considering that was probably something that had been designed specifically to resist the temperatures of the planet's core as well as possible. 

Despite the place looking like total crap, it was pretty busy. 

People of all shapes and sizes, and surprisingly all species, were drinking, listening to music coming from some kind of overhead system, and bobbing in time with the beat. It was honestly so loud that I could barely hear myself think. 

With an atmosphere like that, I could almost be fooled for thinking the place wasn't half bad. 

<You realise you don't actually have any cash to pay for any alcohol, right?> BB asked, his voice was incredulous.

I was beginning to see how much disdain he actually had for this plan for some reason. I didn't take BB to be the sort of AI that sided with concerned mothers all across the galaxy. 

Nevertheless, what he didn't know was that I'd managed to swipe some cash out of the register of the doctor's infirmary when we were hiding from the dranes and the officer, so in actual fact, I had plenty of cash to buy any drink that I wanted. 

I made my way through the crowd, slowly pushing my way past people. I had to be careful here. With my levels of strength, it'd only take one wrong twitch and a group of baseline humans would be turned into paste depending on the extra resistances that their body augments gave them. 

I managed to make it over to the bar without breaking anyone, which I saw as an absolute win. It wouldn't have been a good first impression to make if I had started off my time down in the Furnace with a bout of mass murder. 

I glanced up at the drinks that lined the back shelves, realised that I didn't recognise any of them because this was an alien planet in a completely different universe than I was used to, and then nodded to the barkeep to try and get his attention. 

I wasn't sure if the man behind the bar was a man or if he was actually a robot, there didn't seem to be a lick of visible flesh anywhere on his body. 

It was only the eyes that gave him away. Those were human eyes, there was no doubt about that. 

"What'll you have?" The mechanical barkeep asked, his voice was a similar grating to that of the dranes that I'd run away from. I was building up a sneaking suspicion about where this bar got its name. 

"Barkeeps choice," I replied. 

He seemed surprised by that but nevertheless turned toward the litany of bottles that lined the back wall. He picked up a glass bottle of something clear and viscous and brought it back to the bar with a shot glass in his other metal hand. 

A small dash of the sticky, viscous fluid was poured into the glass, followed by another clear liquid from a tap that seemed to fizz slightly as it hit the glass. 

I wasn't sure what it was, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what it was either. 

"That'll be two coin," he said over the noise of the bar. 

I fished into the pocket of my trousers for two of the coins I'd swiped from the counter and handed them over. He seemed pleased with that, so I grabbed the drink and brought it up to my lips. 

The liquid smelt harsh and acidic, but I knocked it down the hatch anyway. 

There had been very few things that had knocked me down during my time in this universe, but whatever I had just sampled had nearly managed to do it. 

In other words, the drink was rough. 

"I'll have another of those," I said, an easy smile on my face and a glint in my eye. 

He raised a mechanical eyebrow and shrugged, pouring another of the same drink, "Don't think I've seen you around here before stranger," the barkeep said as the fizz started up once again. 

My smile widened slightly, I'd got him talking. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.