Both Gurinder and Bennet Jr got hurt in exactly the right ways to be placed directly into the captain’s new drone program immediately after getting seriously injured?” Drawls the very drunk interim supply clerk and dock worker Norman Chan a little too loudly. His friends at the hip high bar table all look at Norm sideways over their drinks. “Not this again!” The chorus goes up from the group around Norm. “Come on man, we leave port tomorrow afternoon, let’s just get drunk, fuck and forget about shit for a few hours, man! Just let it go. People are starting to stare.” Slurs a particularly drunk Bennet Sr. His hair a messy tussle of greasy grey. “He’s my son – right? Right. So, so… I’m just glad they had the spinal column haptics that gives him full mobility again ok. That container mishap crushed a good portion of his back. He could, he, he could have died man. Be happy he isn’t dead!” Shouts Bennet Sr over the din of the music blaring in the crowded bar. “I know, I know!” Norm waves his hands, palms out. “It just seems suspicious is all I’m saying.” Norm takes another long pull from his mixed drink. Bennet Sr leans over to rest on his shoulder and says. “Oh hey, that smells good, what is that Norman?” He slurs cheerily, his momentary lapse of melancholy driven away by drink. “Sex on the beach.” Norm says. “What!?!” Shouts back Bennet Sr. “I said Sex on The Beach!” Norman bellows, just as the music goes quiet waiting for the beat to drop. A huge portion of the crowd turns to look at the now flushed and thoroughly embarrassed Norman. The beat comes crashing back in and the crowd cheers! “YEAH!” Norman turns away from his group of friends and winds his way through the packed dance floor of the bar, away from the bar top he was using to steady himself between drinks. Working his way back towards the men’s room at the farthest reaches of the narrow room. The long interior wall is one long bar with mirrors behind it making you feel like the space was wider than it was, in the middle were lengths of bar top between pillars and a few free standing tables, mostly faux wood finishes dominated the bar. Then a walk way, and several day bed like couches under the floor to ceiling cement glass windows that looked out into space. But now caught the glinting sight of the Mars Six Sub-Orbital Aerial Base where the Jolene Roger was docked for Resupply before shipping out to Pluto for an offensive against the Insurgency, and their black ops base stationed at UB313. Passing by the hot and sweaty crowd Norman fails to notice as a few heads turn to follow him as he walks through the crowd. The three men in a triangle formation watch as Norman walks between them and on to the toilets at the back of the room. The smallest of the three watchers types quickly on his wrist communicator without looking down at it. He is smiling and being social with a few women at his slab of the bar. Within moments the three gentleman get a return notification, and slowly they peel away from their gatherings and walk nonchalantly to the men’s room.
Norman passes the last part of the bar and reaches up to grasp the pillar just out away from the wall before nearly falling over a drunk woman legs. How he missed the bright pink tutu is anybody’s guess. Leaning down, gingerly he asks if the young woman needs any help regaining her feet. Instead she pulls him head first by his collar into the space where the pillar meets the floor and he blacks out. Crawling onto Norman’s body she begins to writhe around and shriek incoherently. The gathered crowd turns their backs in an attempt to ignore the weird behavior. With the crew on edge with war looming nobody is willing to get in the middle of anyone’s business tonight. A brief moment later and three men bolt into the bathroom locking the doors behind them. Their shouts, and the sounds of gun shots are muffled by the music and the heavy doors. From the floor the woman rolls of Norman, and fireman carries him out of the club. No one gives them a second look.
Several paces outside the bar the woman sets Norman’s unconscious body against the wall to slump into a crumple of limbs. She removes her dark wig to reveal her bright green, close cropped hair. Ditching her ruffled tutu, and knee high boots and stockings to unfurl her brown jumpsuit that was tied off at the waist and appear like an on duty custodial staff member. She pulls a cleaning cart out of a hidden compartment in the hallway wall and pushes Norman’s body into the over-sized garbage bin. She proceeds to take him down into the sanitation decks well below.
Part Thirty Three : Ghost of the Dirty Starling.
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 