Arden, of course, despises Brian. Why? He's loud, obnoxious, overbearing, self-riteous, etc etc etc. Arden takes a certain delight in baiting and tormenting Brian, and in this story, he tells Neil, the ship's computer, to broadcast certain sounds to whatever location Brian is in...
"Playing headgames with the insane is bad karma" a friend once told me. I've found this to be true, and Arden certainly will in later encounters with Brian.
I had a great deal of fun with this collaboration.
brni
The above was written for an audience that was familiar with the stories of the Starbucket crew and hangers-on. It's a dozen years later, and the chances that the average reader has access to those stories approaches the null set. So I figured I'd tell a little about Anakata and Nick.
Anakata is not a pretty girl. If I remember correctly, she was big (over six foot) and "big-boned" (in a Grace Jones sort of way). Though she was physically very fit, she had massive body image issues which she tried to address through body modification (razor-claws, new eyes that could see into the infrared spectrum, etc). She was easily the most dangerous and the least stable person on the Starbucket.
She had a somewhat complete psychological breakdown after a traumatic event that left her both physically and mentally scarred. Nick took care of her in her sickness and slowly brought her back toward sanity and happiness. They became romantically involved. Life was good. Then Nick was killed.
Nick was a Time Lord and also Death (in the Sandman sense). He was a fairly elegant Victorian sort, with a morbid sense of humor and a certain joie de vie, but also an underlying sadness (as part of him was always out reaping). Nick was also kind and respectful of everyone, even such social outcasts as Brian.
Arden was a whole new personality. Not a particularly nice one. As Nick's regeneration, he felt that he owned all of Nick's possessions, one of which was Anakata. He's charming and personable, in that bad-boy frat-boy sort of way, and was able to charm Anakata. Of course, when he breaks her heart, he may find himself regenerating again, but that's his problem.