Now that I am face to face with nearly 30,000 words worth of short stories to review and correct. I do not have an exceptional grasp of high level grammar, syntax and the like. My writing style is pretty pulpy or plebeian. I did my university papers with the same layman’s appeal that I use today. I think I was accused of using purple prose once so I don’t try to get too flowery or “cerebral”. That’s not who I am. But I digress. Editing, and editors. You must have a fairly wide continuum in the quality of work you see. Although I couldn’t imagine there being too many commercially successful writers whom turn in work that requires too extensive a review. But I don’t know. I’m a graphic designer who also dabbles in sculpture, so my knowledge of the ins and outs of the world of paid writing is woefully underdeveloped. Looking at forty plus pages to go through a few times is more daunting to me than writing anything. Mind you, I write micro short stories, so if I keep it succinct I can probably write four hundred to one thousand words and be happier than a pig in shit. Creating something from nothing is simpler to me, than making sure what is written follows all the appropriate rules of the english language. Kudos to all you editors out there. And to any writer who takes on the task themselves. Brave souls, the lot of you.
Tag: amateur
Editing the collection of short stories.
Although I do a few drafts of each short story, I have finally been able to collect them all together in a word processor for a full on, hard, deep dive editing session. All 30,000 words of short stories. Fourteen that are interconnected, and seven that are random one offs. At least for the moment. I never know if a story warrants a second view or not until it’s written. Also, work is heating up, and the day job pays the bills, so if I want to have paid invoices coming in, I have to have work going out.
To those that are reading my short stories, and leaving comments and likes. Thank you, very much appreciated. I never knew that writing on my phone could be so much fun!
Best of luck to you all.
I can’t believe I’m sitting here, cowering in my room like a god damn child…
I swear to god everytime I leave though, I can feel an extra set of eyes on me, watching, observing, lying in wait for me. I constantly get chills, and the tiny hairs on my neck stand on end. But I have never, once ever seen anyone out of place near me. Sitting on my tiny bed, staring at the darkly coloured door, it’s raised panels have scuffed paint, breaking the facade of what would be a wood panel, instead it’s a faux paint job, on an atmosphere rated door. The crew quarters for entertainment staff, or “talent”, as my manager Jimmy likes to refer to us as, is massive in comparison to the guys who work the dock yards out on the widest ring of the torus. Those guys sleep in glorified coffins, meant for one, with communal bathrooms, and leisure areas lit like an out of use subway platform. Hell they spend one hundred percent of their time not five hundred meters from where they work all day. You can see the individual berths and all the ships attendant staff from inside their sleeping chamber. Now my room, is about four meters wide, and a full two meters deep, with what looks like an inset bunkbed. But actually the bed is up top, there is a closet to one side from ceiling to floor, and a toilet, shower, sink combo unit on the other side. Below my bed is my crowded desk slash lounge. Littered with scripts, a media screen, a teleprompter and props I’m meant to learn to grow comfortable with. I can spin a six shooter like a son of a bitch. Years worth of side arms training, and all those tech guys on staff to vouch for me, but still not allowed to purchase a hand gun. The potential for calamity it much too high. Even the black uniformed guards all over the station only have access to stun weapons, like bean bags or rubber pellets. At least that is the official word down from the board of directors and all The Company literature available on the subject. But, I’m wasting time, again. Stalling, instead of walking across the sector to go meet with my producer regarding the next season of my show. We’ve finally gotten picked up for primetime. That means bigger budgets, and greater expectations for ratings. I kind of like the idea of staying a big fish in a little pond, but… can’t stop progress I suppose. “Buck up princess! Get that ass in gear.” My father’s old mantra. He was not one to mince words. A real rock you could count on to provide stability in an ever changing world. Standing up from the bed, I walk to the full length closet and pull on my green coveralls. “Ugh, this does nothing for me. Safety first!” Out here, in space, precautions and safety protocols take precedence over fashion. No exceptions, no exemptions. You learn that little quip the hard way. Well, unless you were born up here. But you’d have to overcome a whole slew of other issues if that was the case. I’m an actor, so I’ve allotted some of my prescription allowance to the use of an IUD, so pregnancy isn’t really a concern for me right now. A pregnant gun slinger doesn’t test well with the exec’s. After getting dressed and pulling my thick brown curls into a tight bun, I look back at the door, then to the clock on my desk. I really have to get moving if I don’t want to be late. Checking my map for the tenth time, I approach the door and set off.
There is a soft woosh as my biometrics unlatches the atmosphere rated door to my quarters. I’m really very fortunate, I live in a quiet block within the all green entertainment sector. Being a semi famous actor, I get newer accommodations in a well lit portion of the upper torus. We have more gravity here, with an increased spin. It isn’t exactly earth like, but we don’t float like the people lower down, or further out on the mechanical rings. We have planters full of real greenery, in wall lighting that adjusts to the time of day. With the shift change about to happen within the next hour, all common areas, like the main concourse i’m strolling towards will brighten up, as crew and staff rush to or from their shifts. Every eight hours, like clockwork, the station bustles to life. I’ve heard, whispers, rumors, stories even, unverified mind you, but stories still the same of people having their biometrics spoofed, or copied outright by shady characters during these peak rush periods. Hard not to take them seriously when you are caught up in the swell of moving bodies, as everyone is hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, in the hallways and power lifts. I try to move about the ship prior to these events, so as not to invite undue attention. Last thing I need is some crazy star stuck fan waiting naked for me in my bed, covered in mock rose petals. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. I glance over both of my shoulders. First the right, pause, walk several more steps, then glance over the left. Coast is clear. Not too many other people walking about at this time of shift. This sector is a living, breathing maze. If you haven’t planned where you are going in advance, or memorized the directions, you’ll end up at some random dead end, on god knows what level of the entertainment hub. Not many windows up here. At least, not until you go up to the observation decks. Two whole floors of the torus, wide open space where tourists and the media go during a new vessel launch. The freedom of movement up there is exhilarating. The inner portion even has this majestic hanging garden, full of vibrant coloured rhododendrons and lush ferns, and ground covering ivy. The smell is divine! Lost in thought I nearly miss my turn off the main concourse. Located several meters down the narrow corridor is this tiny little hole in the wall bistro. Seated at one of the only two tables available is Gary my producer, and Jimmy my manager. They’ve taken the liberty of ordering garlic bread-sticks, cheese curds in gravy and some garden green salads for the table. Carbs! , they must want to butter me up for something. Gary stands up, pulling out the third and final seat at our quaint little faux wood table. From the cool touch of the underside my guess is it’s a formica shell over a plate steel skeleton. Soon after sitting down our waiter drops off three glasses of pre poured red wine, in tall stem crystal glasses. This stuff must be expensive, as the gentleman swirl their glasses and sniff at the bouquet, a thin film coats the crystal goblet. Both men sip their drinks, and smile to me. Jimmy sits, arms wide and says “come on Ger’, we’ve been here twenty minutes all ready, catch up. This is so delicious, almost like a porter. Watch yourself though, it’s got some testical tickling kick to it. Feels like seventy proof, if its ten!” Jimmy, not a big fan with HR, tends to speak from his gut and not his head. Taking a bite of a fantastically greasy garlic bread-stick, I lift my glass to my lips. “Salute!” We all say it. Smiles all across the table.
I come to realize, later that I’m being held up by two sets of arms. Half dragged, half carried through the corridors towards the lift. Oh god, no. Not like this. I’m trying desperately to get my feet beneath me, find my bearings, but my vision is swimming and I think I’m going to vomit. I can feel upwards movement. We must be in one of the power lifts. Surely I could catch the eye of a passersby. With the urge to lie down and just drift off to sleep growing by the second, I try again to raise my head. It feels like I have a lead crown holding me down. Not a crown, someone’s hand is stopping me from looking at my surroundings. Panic is setting in. My heart rate is pumping through the roof. I don’t recall stepping off the lift, or even noticing the upward motion stopping. We are crossing what feels like a massive, empty room. I feel myself slowly being lowered down onto a full length bench. Smells and feels like real wood. The grain runs against the palm of my hands. My fingers are dancing in my field of view. I can feel the soft brush of fern leaves against my cheek. I can smell something like flower blossoms. The room is immense, yet dark. The only source of light is minimal, and it’s coming from inside the shrubbery. “Jesus Ger’, look at the state you’re in. Jimmy, help me prop her up. Yes, under her arm, no not there, that’s her tit! Dickhead! Don’t laugh, I’m going to have to report that to HR. Do you realize how much paperwork is involved in that. Jesus man, she’s the star of our first ever primetime serial. Fuck me. Just, you know what. Keep your hands to yourself, and just stand over there, by the windows.” Gary is fuming, pointing towards the massive windows that cover the entire observation deck, from floor to ceiling. Only a handful of bulkheads are in place that could obscure the view of the void beyond. From the vantage point up here, you can see the lunar surface, earth, an endless field of stars and all of the traffic outside the station. A bustling scene of transports, crew moving vessels, supply boats and the guard shuttles. “Hey, Gerri, hon… how you feeling? You knocked that porter back a touch quickly. Had you eaten yet today?” Gary…, it’s Gary, he’s talking to me. “Heeey Gar-ry, I didn’t know you were a twin… what’s… what’s going up, down… on. What’s going on here! Huh, buddy!” I’m finally sitting up, I point a finger deep into his squishy chest. The whole station is spinning around at an alarming rate. Gary takes a step back, and leans down towards me. “Well Ger’, your pal Jimmy said you love to come up to the observation deck when The Company is going to launch a new boat. He was going to take you himself, but I took the liberty of tagging along. Well… tonights the night girl! For the first time ever, the interstellar vessel Margot’s Fever, is going to emerge from the ship yards and head out to the far reaches of known space. This is momentous! I apologize again, for Jimmy’s choice of drink. I shouldn’t have let Jimmy jostle you into chugging a sipping porter. But you’d downed the lot of it before I could chime in.” Gary appears sincerely distraught. “Look, this might be a hard sell, but media will be here shortly for the launch, and what better time to announce your show to the whole of humanity than at the Margot’s Fever launch event. I talked to legal, The Company is excited we’ll help hype up the launch and our show. Synergy Gerri, suitable partnerships.” Gary looks almost hot pink with the joy of his darling show going mainstream, onto the network. The profits for his investment will be handsome. His jolly pink visage is jiggling with unbridled joy.
Within fifteen minutes the observation deck is littered with news anchors, late night hosts, spokes people and cameramen of every shape and size. After a brief word from Gary, I take the stage to present a little speech passed down by legal. Jimmy offers a sheepish thumbs up from his place by the windows. The station rumbles, a deep ominous sound. Jaws drop, as the most enormous starship ever built slowly comes to life. The three massive engine nose cones shake and with an eye watering flash, light up to a neon blue that bathes everyone in cold, yet intense light. Dust and parts of the hulls environmental shielding falls away in a shower of particles, like snow. As slow as a mountain being formed the entire ship crawls across the station, the view of the passing hull is incredible. Visible are the data gathering arrays, sensors, antenna, and port holes. There are still hundreds of people completing the final touches on the exterior hull. A million tiny fireflies, welding rigs shooting sparks into the air. The vessel is trailing sparks like a comet. As the ship comes about, a puff of smoke, so delicate, like the breath from a child can be seen.
Klaxons blare, then immediately go silent. A rush of wind, like a full on tornado rips at the flesh of our faces as we are sucked out through the shattered glass of the observation deck. As we are torn bodily from the station, the last thing we see are sparks, muzzle flashes from black uniformed guards. But they are firing beyond us, out into the dark reaches of space. In mere moments the gathered mass of two hundred people are exposed to the void. Hard vacuum approaches, so fast our helmets and respirators can’t deploy in time. Two hundred dead, all caught on camera, live cast for all humanity to see. A bad omen for Margot’s Fever.
PART X
“What do you remember about the accident out there, anything you can give us…
Could help us piece it all together more coherently.” Says the mousey looking woman from the internal affairs office. If she didn’t have such a short bob of a hair cut, and refrained from looking so sincere or earnest you’d think she was a real hard nosed bitch. But such as it was, she came across as mild and genuinely compassionate. Both traits, I would imagine, she’d need to work extra hard at hiding if she ever wanted to make a fully fledged investigator or a detective, or be more than some hard nosed bastards go’fer. “Not much really. I don’t even remember going in to work that day. I’m still foggy on how long ago this all went down.” Sitting in the white plastic chair, chained to a soft cream coloured formica table with a reinforced plate steel under structure, I’m over come by the itching of my wounds. “Can I get a… you know a hand, my face itches and I don’t have arms anymore. Is it really neccessary to restrain me, bodily. I can’t even walk unassisted yet.” The blast at the dock yards had done a real number to The Company. Not to mention, stolen my arms, killed a very promising career in robotics, and left me with ruptured tendons in both my legs. Those would heal, but my fine motor skills in welding robotic arms in zero g had all but evaporated in one loud, concussive boom. “Am I a suspect. I mean jesus, that blast took both of my fucking arms man. That’s my livelihood. Seven years at the university, four more years as an apprentice, and then having to get my level three certs before doing anything even remotely close to the cusp of cutting edge. No, man. No, fuck. That. Bullshit. I ain’t no suspect, I was fucking robbed. Someone took my life from me, took everything in one fell swoop. So you cut the shit. Cut these restraints off me, and tell me how long I’ve been in this hospital. I know I’m still aboard the station, as everything here is fucking blue!” God damn am I agitated. This line of questioning has been going on for what feels like twelve hours now. Maybe more than that. I don’t know. My blue room, with blue lights and blue sheets, and blue curtains has no windows or media displays. The blue hallway I get frog marched down, on ruptured tendons no less, has no visible details telling me the date, nor time of day, or even what shift we’re in. “Ok, mr. Gendry, you’re right. We don’t need to put you in leg chains, that’s me being a bit over zealous. This is my first real case as a lead investigator.” There she goes, showing contrition, helping me out. I could learn to like this woman, if she weren’t the first face I saw after losing my limbs and any future I had in robotics fabrication. “According to our records the blast happened eleven days ago, around oh three hundred hours. You were on the last shift, or first shift of the day. Not sure how you would describe that. Why don’t you tell us again what you do, erm… did. If not that day, just on the regular. What your job was, is…” the formica table is empty, save for a few sheets of paper and a manilla folder with my work history and medical reports printed inside. Leaning back in my chair, oddly off balance with no arms to cross over my chest, I start into my tale. “Listen, I’m kind of an animated talker. I’m going to need arms, robotics, prosthetics, or regenerative. Whatever they’ve got me insured for that I can try to recapture some of the old glory of my work/life balance. Just as an aside. You know. Robotic appendages are my passion. Wrote a thesis on them, did a practical application on them too. Got great Mark’s. Top of my class. Even got a recommendation from the dean of the university, old Big D “the minotaur” Bradley.” I am positively beaming, I’m so damn smug.
“So as a typical dock worker, I bunk down in standard crew quarters, you know the ones out on the torus, like less than five hundred meters from where I work sixteen hours a day. The glory of rotating continental shifts. Pays well though, eh? Yeah, buddy. Big bucks for those with a class three cert. Not many folks round here get that far along. Especially in robotics, and those outboard drill rig appendages.” I can feel the juices flowing, getting into my story now. Who boy! “Yeah, so lately I was tasked with building a real robust system that can switch seamlessly between ice hauling, towing and full on drilling. Those three elements all have very different tolerances and needs for stress loads, torque, and the ability to swap in/out bits on the fly. A real pig of a job. Designing one is difficult enough, but three, in tandem. Christ! The calculations on the timing alone was enough to write a years worth of papers on. Chip load, bit speeds, stressors out the ying yang. Anyway, I got it designed on paper and then had to fabricate a proof of concept on an old mark twelve The Company had lying around, something called The Jolene Roger.” A sudden jolt, as the investigator sits up straight, comes to life. “Wait, you built a test rig on a mark twelve that had just be laying around? Those were only put in use around Pluto. How is it one ended up here?” Writing furiously on her note pad, looking to the folder to see if she’d over looked this interesting detail. “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t ask where the resources come from, I just build what they ask me too. May I?” Looking up from her notes, the investigator motions for me to continue. “As I was saying, I had to fabricate my proof of concept. So I spent a huge number of hours gathering plate steel, titanium blocks and pistons and shielded hydraulics components and got about eighty hours in before, Boom! Do you know if the rig survived the blast? Some of my welds were exquisite. Like liquid pearl on glass.” A tap on the window of the door brings our discussion to a sudden halt. From behind the door, I can see an older gentleman from the investigative team motion for the woman to step out into the hallway. Quickly, and quietly I watch her slip out of the room. My back is to the wall, and I’m sat facing the door with just the formica table and an empty chair in front of me. The older man is talking into her ear directly, she nods almost imperceptibly. They both look back through the window of the door at me. A flurry of activity ensues as the investigators leave, and a junior officer comes in to take me back to my hospital room. I never even learned her name. No idea what caused them to run off after all those hours of examination and questioning. Must have bigger fish to fry.
“Sorry for the wait Mr. Gendry, or Jack, is it? We had to wait for your official discharge to come through from both the police force and The Company investigators before we could release your new arms to you. They’ve been especially formulated to you based on your biometrics, and the last psych evaluation you had only a couple months ago. We realize the trauma might have pushed you outside your baseline, but we think you’ll find that you can get back to work with only a minor period of adjustment. Seems that recco’ you had from the dean ofvthe university meant you got pushed to the top of the pile for these experimental limbs.” The technician takes me through a laundry list of specifications regarding my new bionic arms, and how to best care for them. Three hours later and I’m heading down the lift to my crew quarters. Life is finally back on track for Jack!
Waiting patiently out on the gangway in the dry docks are a group of unruly out of system technicians. Desperate to harvest the secrets contained in the black boxes buried deep inside the mark twelve capsule The Jolene Roger. The explosive mining charges have been set all over the mobile gantries, the separatists are waiting for the right time to pounce. In the shadows of the torus, an insurgency is building.
PART VII
“Welcome aboard the Non Sequitur capsule, flight commander…
Neil Todd, it’s a real pleasure to meet you in person. I mean, you know… I follow your missions very closely down at Houston Central Command, but as a capsule recycling technician I couldn’t wait to welcome you back to your ship for your next mission.” The tech is a portly woman of about twenty years of age. Her hair is pulled back in a tight braid. Her green coveralls covered in a slew of nicks and tears from repetitive injuries taken on the job. She must be very ambitious to have made lead at this age. It’s not a glamorous position, but techs like her keep the craft in peak performing condition, and well stocked. “Will lieutenant Jenny Todd be joining us soon commander?” I can see her smile growing bigger with anticipation. My wife is a force to behold. She can capture the attention of a football stadium with her wit and charm. People gravitate to her, as though she had her own gravitational pull. “Flight Commander Jennifer Todd will be joining us at oh four hundred. So less than ten minutes if all our instrumentation is properly synchronized.” I’m very attentive to even the merest of slights against my second in command. She also happens to be the mother of my two daughters. And my reason to get up every morning. “Oh, yes… sorry. I forgot about the field promotion that Cmdr Jennifer Todd earned recently. Please excuse me…” the tech is crestfallen, she attempts to slink out of the airlock, and extricate herself from our encounter. “Oh, please… come on, stay. I’m just fucking with you… uh, Capsule Recycle Technician Stacie Bradley.” A brief pause, then you can see the relief wash over her face, the twinkle in her eyes is back. Her shoulders relax out of their tensed up hunch.
“Ok now, ease it back, that’s it, nice and slow now… watch out for those waypoint markers, they’re closer than the last time we shipped out.” I say it in jest. My wife knows this ship better than I do. She is one of the best pilots I’ve ever flown with. We’re the first mission ever to have two Flight Commanders, and we are proud of it. No way were going to split up just so we could captain our own capsules individually. No, the Non Sequitur was where we conceived both of our daughters, it’s where we’ve raised them ever since. Except for the brief interludes between missions, spent in low gravity on the base around the dark side of the moon. Our girls have never known earth. They are brilliant, beautiful and talented junior cadets. A chip off the old block. Tenacious, just like their mother. A woman who is my second in command first, and a devoted wife and mother second. There is nobody else I trust my life, and ship with more.
“The Company has asked us for a run down on the payload again. Seems like there might be an anomaly with the manifests. We are showing added weight on board that they can’t account for… Yo! You who. Neil!… you read me?” Jenny is barking into the intercom, she knows damn well I can hear her, especially at this range. “That’s a copy, Cmdr Jenny. I was given a gift of some super expensive, but real artisanal Chinese coffee, has a hint of spice to it. It’s lovely.” I say it with a smile in my voice, I know what’s coming next. “It’s cinnamon isn’t it. You fucking bastard, you know how much I hate cinnamon!” She enunciates each word harshly. “Well, more for me then I guess. Each bulb has this lovely poem on them, in a very traditional script. Mandarin, and Cantonese. They are a work of art. Shame we have to incinerate all trash for the recyclers.” We are making small talk. The first twenty nine weeks to get out past Mars are tedious and boring. We’ll be testing out equipment as we slowly build up speed. Can’t turn the main ion engines on until we have enough room out in front of us. That reminds me, I have to check in on the sensor and antenna arrays. Part of my daily ritual, I do it so often it becomes automated, deep in that reptilian part of the human brain.
Everyday, day after day, after the girls are asleep and her command shift has ended, Jenny comes to the observation port to gaze at the void before us. I’m always here, tucked behind the fold down table that nestles into the bulk head, eeking out all that I can from the sensor and antenna arrays. She knows she’ll find me here. The first time out to Pluto is something you never forget. So she comes up here and seems to be able to capture the awe every single time. I am unable to do this, and I’m not mad. I love to see her smile. Just like our girls, her dimples pop when she is genuinely happy. Her orange flight suit is immaculate. Jen helps to run a tight ship. She keeps the girls occupied with small science related tasks, and cleaning. Lots of cleaning. They got to skip basic, and flight training by virtue of having been born into it, so to save them getting too cocky, we have them wash everything imaginable. Not to mention their two famous, and intrepid parents. Jen was popular and extremely talented as a test pilot in the air force. I garnered my accolades by designing a capsule for The Company that can take a hit from an asteroid and bounce rather than implode or burst into ten million one micron pieces, us passengers included. For that they let me fly with the best of the best of them. That’s how I met my wife, she piloted the early makes and models of The Company’s capsules. Love at first flight.
There is a heavy layer of smoke, like a painted veil, or gauze in front of my face, it stinks of burning electrical. There are sparks shooting out wildly from exposed wires. I’m tumbling end over end, with both a pitch and yaw. My vision is red, I can feel the sting of blood in my eyes. My head is pounding, I think I’m going to be sick. I can’t tell which direction is up. What is that noise… everything is going black. Why are there horns. God damn my head hurts. Fuck, I’m about to pass out. Fuck, fuck… fuck.
PART III
“Hey, we’ve got an alarm here, main bus three, now four’s on the blink too, five and six…
What the hell is happening.” The control board is lit up like a Christmas tree, warning buzzers, klaxons and every light that blinks is going haywire. “Hey tech, are you seeing this… is this a glitch? This should absolutely not be happening. What is going on out there.” Me and everyone else at Houston Central Control are on our feet, phones are ringing off the hook and support staff are being woken up. The room is in chaos. The Company builds these capsules to ridiculously stringent specifications. Each system built with three redundancies, all on separate breakers, housed in various locations across the bulk of the craft, shielded under plate steel, or lead casings. They recycle them, over and over again because they are so robust. You could plow a five tonne asteroid into the things, and they’d just… bounce. Took some engineering to achieve that feat. The “Non Sequitur“, it really is a remarkable space faring craft. Ugly as sin, spartan in design, but it’s gods be damned sturdy as a mother fucker.
“Can we get all team leads to the tenth floor conference room, repeat, all team leads to the tenth floor conference room, stat!” The voice on the pa system is tense, and the volume has been cranked to ten. No one is going to want to claim they didn’t hear the dispatch from the guys in charge. Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Outside the control room, the tone is very somber, punctuated by flurries of activity, followed by countless hours of waiting. The shadows beyond the windows stretch and shrink, stretch and shrink as the hours bleed into days, then into weeks. The once eager faces have grown grey, pale and worn. Five o’clock shadow has become the norm, in what is usually a very rigorous and stringent dress code. Walk down any hall way and you’ll find cots with passed out technicians, scattered across every corner, every nook and cranny crammed with unwashed bodies.
“So you’re telling me… after three weeks…that he’s simply not responding to our calls? Do we know if the radio and antenna array are in working order? What do we know… people! Listen. Shut up. I need you to sound off. NOW.” Bruce is about to snap, we’ve been coming to these meetings since day one of the catastrophic event aboard the Non Sequitur, waiting for something new to emerge from the raw data. He’s worked CapCom control for two decades now, and nothing even remotely eventful has ever happened. Not even a dropped call. His skin has taken on a yellow tinge, and his eyes have sunk deeper into his broad face. He looks as though he hasn’t showered or slept in days. He has picked up smoking again, so much so that his fingers tips are stained a dark mustard yellow. His over grown dirty fingernails are tap, tap, tapping on the conference table impatiently. “Well uh, we know that he’s… um, Todd…, yes sorry, Flight Commander Neil Todd, we know he’s still alive because he’s the only one with the bio-metrics to log in to conduct the scans off of the sensor arrays. The data packets are flooding back in, terabyte by terabyte. It doesn’t make much sense, what we are seeing.” The under staffer is visibly nervous about relaying this information. “What?” Says Bruce “The radios are transmitting to us? But he isn’t responding to our queries? That’s very unlike Cmdr Todd. What the fuck happened up there.” Bruce is not taking this new information well, he and Cmdr Todd go back quite a ways. Their kids were all born at the same time, both of them. “Well, we um… have some strange readings…” Terry, the capsule tech specialist chimes in. “The Co2 scrubbers must be malfunctioning, they are way below where they should be. They should need to be replaced every ten days, but we’re what, twenty one days in, on the same one…” he is pacing around the room, fingers pinched on the bridge of his nose, grimacing over the incomplete data. A sudden bang at the door startles the group in the conference room. Opening the door is dr. Sanjai, the loose bun on her head is dropping strands of hair over her face obscuring her now red rimmed eyes. “I can elaborate on that Terry, we were finally able to scour through enough of the data packets in the information dumps to mine the medical subsets. I’m so sorry Bruce…” she says stepping passed the threshold, and into the room. “Jenny and both the girls were killed in a blast. They were exposed to the vacuum of space while asleep in their bed pods.” Everyone is awestruck, Bruce sits down abruptly in his swivel chair at the head of the table. The crew quarters are the most heavily shielded and armored portion of the capsule. It’s where protocol sends you to ride out a gamma burst, radiation, or an asteroid impact. “From what we can tell Cmdr Todd suffered a blunt force trauma to the head, his brain waves sank to near dead for a period of approximately sixteen hours. I think… I… I… I believe he may have suffered brain damage in the blast. And from our other metrics, probably a good chance of substantial blood loss. If it weren’t for the antenna array logins noted on a daily basis, I would have believed him dead.” She is standing stock still in front of the room, a stunned silence fills the space. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke covers the low hanging ceiling. There are water spots on some of the drop ceiling tiles. The Company likes to see its money go into the program, and not wasted on ground staff creature comforts. Bruce, after a brief pause is up on his feet again, he resumes pacing in front of the dusty blackboards. They are covered with all the minutiae of organized space flight. “What about guidance, navigation, payload, what are his consumables like, what state is he in. Best guesses, any details, no matter how fine, are welcome.” Bruce falls back into his chair, as though the weight of the world is clutching at his shoulders and pulling him backward. A mousy slender wisp of a man steps through the gathered group. “Derick here, hi guys, from what we can tell both the navigation system and the engines themselves are fine. We have evidence that some of the crew quarters emergency lighting panels are sending out rapid fire bursts, must be sparks firing almost constantly, like the tail of a comet down off the back of the capsule. I mean, like, this is crazy, whatever hit them managed to pin point the crew pods, out of ten pods, the only three grouped together that happened to have people occupying them got blasted, gutted, fucking near vaporized. I can’t believe it…” he has his detailed spec print outs nearly crushed in his hands. You can tell he is fighting the urge to gather a consensus among the gathered technicians and scientists, for just how insane the statistical probability of this is. “The math shows him to be heading off course, hard to gauge at this point, he must have caught one hell of a bounce, that’s what I’m thinking, but right now he’s about seventy thousands miles wide of where he should be. By the time he gets out to the elliptical range of Pluto it could be as much a six, maybe seven million miles off course. It’s really worst case scenario at this point.” The life drains out of him, and he staggers backwards, dr. Sanjai points him toward an open chair. Once again Bruce comes alive, leaping up from his leather chair. “But he could course correct right? We’ve heard that navigation and engine control are operational. What’s our protocol on a redirect from here?”. He looks hopefully to Derick. All hopes are dashed as the single main priority of these missions comes crashing back into focus. There can be NO ability to redirect these missions from earth. Tensions are too high, too much is riding on their success to allow subterfuge from an errant tech or saboteur. He’s got enough food and supplies for ten men over a five year journey. It’s all down to Cmdr Todd.
Isolated out in the far reaches of space, humanities success rests entirely upon his beaten, bloody shoulders – alone.
PART II
“Can you at least look at me when I’m trying to talk to you…
Scott. Put down the controller, take off the head set, and talk to me. God. You’re a big fucking man child. No! No, don’t you dare put that head set back on. Fuck you Scott, Fuck. You.” I’m standing in the doorway to the den, the walls to this windowless room are covered in old creased band posters, and framed sports memorabilia. The room is cluttered with comic books, action figures and empty beer cans. It smells like a gym sock, mixed with a cheap dive bar. I’m surprised there’s no stripper pole in there. The vents are always shut, and he can never be bothered to vacuum. The old dull grey carpet feels gritty underfoot.
“Huh? What’s that? Oh, oh, hey hold up. Sorry fellas…” he’s so calm, talking to his buddies through his head set, getting off the line, logging out as slowly as fucking possible. I can feel my pulse begin to rise. “Baby, babe! Yo… you ok, what’s goin’ on now?” He’s trying me, good god, lord above he’s trying out his, Hi I’m this super charming guy, voice on me. I could just slap him. My blood is pumping, and I’m not in the mood for this frat boy, laid back bullshit. “You know damn well what’s up. You man child! You fucking man baby! Look at all this shit, toys?, Scott really?, you got children’s toys in here. Comic books, toys, video games and fucking model kits. What. The. Fuck!” I clap my hands to punctuate each word. I turn from the doorway, and storm down the hall. It’s the longest stretch of our apartment, it makes for wonderful dramatic effect. I know he’s watching my ass as I storm away. I know it, and I’ll use it against him.
“This again, christ all mighty baby, you gonna do me like that, here? now!” He’s storming down the hall behind me, all one hundred eighty five pounds of him, he is chiseled like marble. He stops outside of arms reach. I can hear his breath coming faster. I can see spittle flecked on his lips as he gets going. “No, no Cheryl, not here. I told you I have to keep things stress free here. You know how bad work gets! You know. You KNOW!” His voice is quavering, and starts to take on a pleading tone. “No, you know what baby, you don’t know. No, don’t shake your finger at me. You want to know what I did yesterday. Do you, do you want to know?” He steps in close to me, I can see it in the whites of his hazel brown eyes, he ain’t going to hold back, he’s going to drop some hot scathing truth in my lap, and I’ll feel both intense love for him for it, and I’ll absolutely hate that I can’t even comprehend it. “Do you want to know what I came across yesterday, at werk!… I came across a mini van, with three kids in the back with their heads cut off at the base of the jaw…”. “Baby, God no, no… don’t say it Honey… please.” I’m pulled into his arms but the dam has broken and he’s not going to stop until it’s burned permanently into my heart. Like surgery done with an ice pick and a blow torch. “Seems the parents were junkies, love doing smack. But what they don’t know is, is that shit got fentanyl in it. Wife was driving, she’s dead as soon as the plunger drops the load in her veins, hot and thick. She couldn’t even pull off the road she was so hot for a quick taste. Crosses through the median, under an oncoming truck full of steel pipes. BAM. bitch, cut those sweet little Angel’s heads right off they necks… they wasn’t even in fucking car seats. Those kids was loose. LOOSE!” I can feel the room start to spin around us. He’s holding onto me just as hard as I hold onto him for support. We collapse together, a puddle of anger, loathing and despair. I think the floor might open up and swallow us whole. Before I can even lean in to stroke his hair, his pager is buzzing on the kitchen counter. Like a shot, he’s up and out the door. I hear something, but it is muffled by the closing door. I can’t make out what it was.
“Well, Cheryl I’m so sorry to hear of your husband’s passing. At least you told him you love him as he left for work that day. Few of us get the chance. It’s not like you two had a fight that day. I mean jesus, could you imagine?” She leans in towards me. “I hear Janis and Robert had a real banger the day he died. It’s eating her alive. But not us. No, we spent the last moments with our noble hunks in the throes of passion.” She’s smiling at me over her wine glass. The red wine must be good, it leaves a slight film on the glass every time she gesticulates with her hands. She smells of flowery perfume, and cigarette smoke. I look through her, to the open bay window beyond. Outside children can be heard playing. They’re laughing, and giggling. “Yeah… at least I have that.”
“You know what I love the most about being out here?…
The unobstructed view of the galaxy around us. Don’t you just love it!” She says, looking back at me, over her right shoulder. Her orange coveralls tied firmly around her waist. Her socks, and her shirt are a brilliant white, not a speck of dirt on them.
“Hmmm… no, all I keep thinking about is how isolated it is out here, and how far we are from anything, or anyone.” I say, staring down at the now ice cold bulb of mock coffee. It’s inky, black-brown packaging has golden markings all over it. I can’t read it. It was a gift from the Chinese agency, from last Christmas. It smells faintly of roasted cinnamon.
“Well, I really can’t get enough of this view, I mean what a breathtaking vista that is spread out before us.” She says it with that ear to ear grin she always has. It makes her dimples pop, her ice blue eyes twinkle in the brilliant starlight. Every day now, she comes to stand at the same view port, always looking forwards – to the stars. I’m hunched over a tiny table that converts to tuck back into the bulkhead. I stand up, and toss my bulb of frozen black coffee into an incinerator bin. This capsule, the Non Sequitur, was meant for ten, still feels cramped, even with just the four of us. A long cylinder of off white padded curved walls, illuminated in phosphorescent white light that has started to show some wear and tear. I will give them this, The Company does love to recycle. This is my seventh uneventful mission out here with one of the jury rigged crafts. “You know… we… I… hmmm, that first twenty nine week stretch out to Mars was tedious. I didn’t get any worth while readings, and there is no sign of the anomaly.” I am not happy. This line of work was supposed to be cutting edge. For fuck’s sake, it is space travel, and you promised us adventure, aliens, or at the very least a chance to bring about the singularity before the fall of mankind. We ventured out here in search of something, anything, anything at all that could be the key to unlocking our full potential as a species. And all I got was this lousy t-shirt. “I am not looking forward to eighty more weeks of this before we make it out to Pluto.” I have been glum for quite some time. I never could muster the same enthusiasm for these missions. Even with the pressure of the world on my shoulders. I just don’t care anymore.
“Same time tomorrow then darling.” She giggles as she says it. Every time with this same schtick. I’m annoyed, but I chuckle anyway. “Of course babe, say hello to our girls for me.” Jennifer vanishes in the dim light, leaving me all of the sparse, utilitarian room. The bright padding fades away to reveal the gathered filth and blood splatter of neglect. The fabric throughout the cabin is stained jet black in places, it reeks of smoke, and decay. The lights inside the observation pod have not come on in quite some time.
Outside the capsule, sparks continue to fall away from the craft’s hull like a giant rooster tail of cascading embers. A large black burn stretches across the jagged edge of what’s left of the crew quarters. There in the distance are vague forms of a woman and two children, suspended in their bed pods, both flash frozen, and boiled in the vacuum of space. The capsule is half a million miles off course, even though the engines and navigation survived the attack in one piece. Denial, much like the void of space, does not discriminate.
PART I
*****
And NOW for shits and giggles you can listen to me narrate Chapter One .
“What do you think happened here”
He says from over my shoulder. I am looking at the body in front of me, laid prone on the floor in a massive puddle of dark icor. “Well, hmmm… from the looks of it, I’d say he put two in the chest, and one in his head, painting that wall over there with bits of brains, skull fragments and hair.” I stand up slowly, have been having nasty head rushes as of late, when getting up from a crouch. “No, not that, my sandwich! Look there’s like one strip of bacon, and like half a leaf of lettuce. Jesus, don’t the rookies even look at this shit before they bring it to us.” He’s mad, turning this way and that, looking to get up in someones face, anyone within arms reach. “Oh come off it. Lunch was an hour ago, put that down and help me put together a reasonable theory of the case.” I spit the words out, realizing my lunch didn’t do much to satisfy my hunger today either. Irritated, we walk out the front door of this rat infested apartment, with its dangling light bulbs, and chipped paint on all the trim. The shared hall is choked with cops, and partially dressed angry neighbours. They’re all in a huff over the noise, and foot traffic coming and going at all hours. Really they’re just mad they can’t smoke crack or meth while so many cops are around. The floors creak under the additional strain of so many bodies. The temperature inside this hundred year old building is intense. Humidity of high summer has condensed on the walls, dribbling down to make foul smelling pools mixed with discarded cigarette ash, and garbage.
“Oh hey! Mind that puddle over there by that green door.” An elderly gentleman says, he has an indistinct, yet exotic look to him. Thinning dark hair, and a far too short kimono over what I could only describe as neon pink fishnets. “Huh? What’s that sir?”. I shout over the din of the gathered crowd. “Well, just steer clear of that shit. You know old lady Darcy’s a hoarder. That cloying smell of rot, vomit, and god knows what is her doing! Can’t even open her front door, it’s so chock full of shit in there.” He is becoming animated with all the young officers around, staring at him. “Some delivery dude came round here last week in fucking flip flops, had to go see a doctor because that puddle of sludge caused a pus ridden growth on both his feet. Fuck’in nasty. Banged on her door for like an hour, in a rage, he was. Poor kid. But what do I know…” My partner mimics the wanking motion with his left hand, the poor man’s soggy blt flopping about in his right. Mayo has collected on his lip, mixed in to his five o’clock shadow. He smells of cheap cologne, and sweat. We turn for the stairs, the black railing is peeling, it shows about twenty layers of caked on lead paint, and walk down the five flights to our squad car. The temperature outside isn’t any better, neither is the smell. Through a cracked window the radio cackles with an indecipherable muffled call. Followed by several clipped responses. In a rumpled tan suit, my partner shouts over the top of the car to me. I don’t hear it.
I can hear the clock, the seconds are ticking over as…
I sit here, in the stuffy, cramped, poorly lit waiting room that stinks of passed gas and desperation. The drab walls are covered in old posters, they look as though they came with the building. Torn, creased posters of a time gone by. Taped up and taped over with each successive room owner. Between coughs, burps and the occasional gasp of pain, all you can really hear is the soft murmur of far off voices, hidden down the long hall, behind a beaten up partition of dubious make. The neon lights are buzzing, the quality of air in here is making me uncomfortable. Why are there no windows? Why are there no vents? Why did I wear such a heavy jacket, there’s never anywhere to hang it, and I’m sweating through my shirt. I’m increasingly aware of the unpleasant aroma emanating from my work shoes. Blessed with foul smelling feet, halitosis and psoriasis. Even though everyone here is lost in their own pain or suffering, I feel everyone’s eyes upon me, flickering back an forth, from flat out stares to furtive glances. I fucking hate it here.
A printer chimes to life, and a warm slip of paper pops out, only the flop to the floor. The receptionist is no where to be seen. A pile of papers has begun to form. I fucking hate it here. “What was that?” The elderly lady beside me who reeks of death quietly asks, her hot sickly breath filling my face, eeking it’s way into my lungs. I feel as though I can taste her. “Hmmm. What? Nothing. Nothing.” I squirm in my soft pleather seat, hating the soreness in my back and the ache between my shoulder blades. My hair has started to mat to my head in the places that static hasn’t made it stand up on end. The heat in here is oppressive. The printer comes alive – again, more papers flit to the floor. We are all unattended.
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