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The harsh crunch of gravel on sand underfoot reverberates through my jumpsuit…

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Inside my helmet my breath comes in fast and ragged. I am sweating profusely under the brilliant shine of the triad of suns high overhead. We all struggle to keep our heart rates down, and our blood oxygen levels nominal. This scorching hot planet hangs with a red tinged sky. This horrid environment has little cloud cover, and is rocky, sand covered and almost entirely barren. The few scattered pieces of scrub brush are either a deep bruised purple or a sickly mustard infused brown. Through our helmets we can’t tell you what they smell like, but according to instrumentation we know they give of carbon monoxide and a mixture of cyanide and ammonia also. The team of scouts are being buffeted by a gale force wind. The rust coloured dust flies up hot as embers burning us through our environmental protection suits, clattering off our helmets and masks like white hot metal shavings. If we stand still for more than a couple of heart beats the soles of our boots begin to melt. The three suns range from a deep angry red to a near purple of absolute cosmic violence. In the distance of the horizon a herd of wild wandels can be seen racing hither and yonder. The tell tale sign of their presence are the mansteroud dust clouds that they kick up as they run. The uv blasted fines hang in the air, listing miles up into the stratosphere. The native beasts have to run everywhere in order to find food and to survive the intense heat once they venture out of their deep cave warrens. After our landing party had encountered them initially we determined them to not be a threat to us. The four legged over sized dog-bears had long thick tubular ‘hairs’ that they use to dissipate heat and keep cool. Tastiest beasts I’ve ever had the pleasure of finding on a back water planet. Not that we needed it, but the deep underwater aquifer that their warrens attach too allows the wandels to retain gallons of fresh water in a bladder under their bellies. Located in the only spot they can shade them from the over bearing sun light and oppressive heat. But we aren’t here to eat wandels, we’re here to find a rogue AI that has attempted to go off grid with her new found best friend. A crippled Pengar with only five limbs instead of six. Tiny miscreant of a thing. But a more brilliant ship wright and mechanic you will never encounter. Seems the Pengar named Errabor has developed a close relationship with our rogue AI Katayna, and we’ve been employed to locate them for the Company black ops sub contractor, one Mr. Boreck Kartcher. We’ve been paid handsomely, and I do not believe it was out of charity, but because he expects a good many of my fire team to die in the process. With great risk comes great financial reward.

Our first major clue to their whereabouts came from one of the tight beam communications repeaters that get sent off across the galaxy to try to maintain contact between every known quadrant of intelligent space. A random black box transponder ping from a supposedly decommissioned Falcon Heavy-Class star hopper went straight to the top of my in box marked most urgent. The second clue was the destroyed anti poaching gun platform that orbits this world being nearly obliterated by a head on collision with something super colossal. Put those together and we have a pretty good lead on our rogue elements. Scanning for life forms doesn’t really help us out, due to the protected wandels, sorry conservationists we ate two of them. Didn’t read the sign on the way down. Our bad. Plus the spec’s we got on Katayna says she isn’t classically defined as ‘alive’ , so much as sentient, and homicidal towards humanity. Hence the exorbitant pay we recieved for tracking her down and possibly bringing her back to Mr Kartcher.

PART THREE The Company: Sisters in Arms

“Do you suppose that you could describe a lone space probe as wistful”…

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Mused the middle aged communication’s technician to himself quietly while seated infront of his old and grimy beige-grey terminal. The man and the large analog terminal were situated well away from the hum of the science decks closer to the moons surface, stashed way down in a long forgotten corner of an unused deck aboard the lunar base. The walls in this buried portion of the base were a deep grey, nearly black silica rock that absorbed all of the heat in the room, leaving the technician and all of his instruments a clammy and tepid temperature. Not exactly cold but not in the least bit welcoming. The dimness of the light down here was not a function of neglect, but rather due to the technician’s desire to view a live stream of what data the probe was sending back to him from deep in the void. He had various readouts of the data code playing alongside his monitor which for the most part was essentially just black with slow moving pin pricks of light scattered across it. Looking at the blackness was hard enough to do let alone having a bright glare present from an all too bright overhead lighting system that permeatesthe lunar base. So dimness was the order of the day for Bertrick. He was stationed in a U shaped room with his massive three hundred channel analog control terminal to one side and slightly in front, like an L shaped sectional, with a massive central video monitor hung on the wall directly above the console and six smaller monitors showing the data from the major sensor arrays from the probe hanging on the exposed portion of the wall to his right. Each item broken down into their own designated stream. Radar, lidar, spectrometer, GPS / Navigation, engineering and a cluster of other more niche sensors. The technician did not design the probe, or have any input on what went on it for the expedition. He just happened to have a love for oversized and deeply complicated analog twentieth century technology. The terminal itself, all grungy shades of grey and beige and possibly off white, was a jumble of toggles, switches, buttons, sliders and dials. In amongst that were pops of orange and yellow labels that had their most pertinent data faded into oblivion. This particular item, once at the forefront of audio wizardry was now so completely foreign to most humans it could have been alien technology. Bertrick’s great great grandfather’s grandad has once been a pastor and musician who had hours and hours of home video showcasing his mixing and overdubbing skills. Skills which Bertrick was fascinated with, and had thus purloined his knowledge over four decades of pursuing his hobby in wrangling one such audio board. That endeavour brought him to his dream job of watching the latest probe data for two shifts per day for the next ten to fifteen years. He had no idea why it was sent or what they expected to find. Turns out they withheld the reasoning so as to not colour the analysis. They wanted the data reporting to be as unbiased as humanly possible. But job security was nothing to pass up, and Bertrick wasn’t afraid to work unsupervised and virtually alone in his mostly comfy work station. To keep himself from falling asleep he ran the feed through his audio terminal and narrated everything he saw that warranted an explanation. But mostly to make certain he scrutinized every single second of audio and visual data he received. For Bertrick knew, surreptitiously that this particular probe had been launched not on a whim of the science academy but with a specific set of coordinates in mind. It was mostly hearsay and rumor, but to launch such an extraordinarily overpowered probe out to the middle of nowhere was not exactly the type of science that Torus Station science graduates are known for. The Company has a reason for everything, no exceptions and no exemptions!

Bertrick sat watching the screen twisting knobs and turning dials as he attempted to hone in on a certain pitch of whine that was being transmitted back to him from the probe. It, the probe had an official designation but they were long and dull and full of strings of letters and numbers. Although since Bertrick only had to monitor and report on one such probe, he had shortened it down to an easily identifiable acronym. One which the higher ranking science officers didn’t reject out of hand. So the probe a.k.a. St3v3 or now “Steve” was the main focus of Bertrick’s every waking moment. Though Bertrick was mainly an audio and visual technician it was his responsibility to plug in any navigational changes sent to him by the other divisions attached to this expedition. Which didn’t bother Bert in the least. If he logged enough of them over the next few years he could earn another new designation and an ample raise. Praise be! To The Company. They really did pride themselves in continuing education and certifications. Given the time lag between himself and Steve, Bert’s slow typing speed was not going to be an issue. As he could follow along with each message to see it ping off of and get pushed through all of the repeaters on its way out to the far flung edges of who the fuck knows where.

“So Steve, what are you going to show me today? Come on gimme something extravagant to monologue to!” Whispered Bert to his terminal in a sing song fashion. News had come down from above that some of the ranking officers were gathering from different divisions just to watch and listen to the high light reels Bert provided as part of his analysis. He’d fought the urge to sneak into the briefing room to see for himself, but after sixteen hours of every twenty four devoted to Steve, he couldn’t muster the energy or the enthusiasm. Bertrick knew he could sing, his deep bellowing voice came from the pipes he inherited from his great, great, great, on and on, grand father who lived his whole life in one town on earth. He was a pastor with an outsized congregation due to his musical ability and skills as an orator. He might have had a flair for the dramatic, but he never strayed from the path, though to hear the elements of ole Maw-maw he had plenty of offers and propositions. The deep south might have gotten him all hot and bothered, but the press of young available ladies didn’t turn his focus away from his love for Maw-maw. To hear it told she was a wild and sordid sort in the sheets, so he was perhaps too tired and worn out to pursue other such feminine wiles. Much to Bertrick’s surprise he had become rather deeply in tune with the ‘sounds’ of the cosmos. He had managed to fine tune his sound board to a degree where even the casual listeners to his analytical reports could tell the differences between items that Steve had flown by. The ability to isolate and achieve the cleanest output of unadulterated signal was truly mental. It was a factor of the many lonely months Bertrick spent pouring over the terminal tweaking, and twisting and dialing in each little snippet of audio that piqued his ears. Bertrick was becoming renowned for his audio specificity. He was a rock star in the sciences, something he didn’t realize he was able to achieve. The fidelity of his craftsmanship was being broadcast throughout the system and requests for him to take up a teaching position with Torus Station were becoming hard for the science division to ignore. The supposedly confidential mission was starting to turn a profit for the lunar base with the streaming of Bertrick’s audio visual logs of Steve’s expedition. His ‘Steve-Cast’ was number two on The Company’s educational broadcasts provided to the whole Sol system. Advertisers had requested on air plugs, and the Torus station entertainment sector wanted pre-roll and end-roll video commercials for their numerous science fiction books, movies and television shows. None of this was ever disclosed to Bertrick, but he was given a substantial raise for his part in the covert business venture. The popularity of the ‘Steve-Cast’ stemmed from Bertrick’s use of colourful, yet poignant prose. His ability to humanize the Steve probe, and its lonely trek out to no where. By musing on the state of humanity, while simultaneously explaining the audio & spectacular visuals of the long and worrisome trek, billions of paying consumers were hooked. The deep baritone register he played in vocally could really set a sub woofer to purring. His velvety smoothness intermingled with a breathy occasional rasp set most people’s speakers on fire. Figuratively speaking. Through the broadcast, Bertrick had laid bare his lonesome soul, and honed his craft to a especially fine point.

AU after AU traveled, Steve just kept on keeping on. He performed admirably doing fly bys of nebulae, quasars, black holes, dust clouds, radiation clouds, and all sorts of colorful and interesting things. But whatever he was supposed to find, those weren’t it. Every so often Bertrick would key in some minor course corrections, or make a note on the navigational logs and sit back and hum to himself in the dim isolation of his work station. The years of watching and waiting had little affect on Bertrick’s mood or attention span. He was as faithful an analyst as one could pray for. Never missing a beat. He logged every single item, anomaly, hiccup or obstacle that presented itself. Regardless of whether or not Steve sent back the desired final outcome Bertrick was on track for several commendations and a sweet posting of his choice anywhere within Sol system once the ten to fifteen years were up. Unless they offered an extension on the expedition Bertrick was to start to think about where he wanted to go next. And if that was to teach at Torus Station, it meant only a move of some seventy miles up from the surface of the moon to the massive floating bulk of the Torus itself.

PART THREE of : The Company A Call To The Void

In the dead silence of my jumpsuit, the heavy rush of blood pumping…

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In my ears is deafening. The constant pounding of my pulse and rush of ragged breath inside my tight and claustrophobic helmet is awfully distracting. Strapped into the makeshift gel couch, I can feel my hands tremble in the zero gravity. I swear that my eyes are rolling in my head, and I’m so nauseous from the zero gravity vertigo. This is nothing like what we trained for. The deep pools we used back on earth just didn’t prepare me for how this would feel on the day. Every so often I switch between feeling as though I’m looking down on the ceiling from between my feet, to hanging there helplessly like a bat. Good thing our weapons are strapped to our legs via synthetic webbing. I’m so nervous I might twitch and pull the trigger if I had to hold it during transit. The trip so far hasn’t been too rough, the empty cargo container all sixteen of us are stuffed into is unpressurized, and without any form of life support, or entertainment. The only indication we have that time is passing, are the readouts on our wrists that monitor our oxygen use, and the build up of CO2 in the molecular scrubbers. The container is a dingy rusted orange, little more than a transport truck container from earth with a heavy duty tactical light welded in our field of view, affixed to the floor in front of our row of gel couches. Though it has been retro fit with explosive bolts to pop off the top and full front side. We’re all strapped into our make shift couches oriented towards the same wall. When the red light in the middle of the container goes out, the bolts will blow the container in two, and we unstrap and go to war.

The container we’re all strapped into is windowless, we are floating blindly. We are expecting to show up less than half a kilometer from Torus station, to be able to meet at our target. We’ve been given enough oxygen to make it through to our target, a few hours of a fire fight, then we’re on our own to make it to our evacuation points for extraction.  The rallying point is Margot’s Fever. Today, in front of the whole Sol system The Company will launch their new experimental star ship, and we’re about to fuck her up but good. Live on the evenings broadcast, for everyone to see. But we have to get to the coordinates first.

The inner system tug boats that we high-jacked are built to maneuver these cargo crates around with ease. For some reason, the depot where they were stationed wasn’t guarded at all. We staked our whole mission on gaining access to more than two dozen of them at once. Our knowledge of them is weak at best. The minds behind the operation didn’t share many details about them with us. That operational intel went to the drone operators alone. We can travel with them, we just have no control over them from inside the containers. An entirely separate compartmentalized team is running that show from the drone bay they stormed yesterday, down somewhere in Arizona. We have no idea if they still hold the controls, or if we’re being sent off to die unknowingly. We are counting on them to get us within range. We’ve been running this whole trip on our self contained environmental rigs and we have to complete our mission and get to the rendezvous point before we asphyxiate. Hard on the nerves, to say the least. Every so often I look down at the read outs on my wrist control units. Monitoring the oxygen levels and CO2 present in my rig. The whole trip is supposed to take us at least forty hours, and we have fifty two hours of oxygen. Things are tight, and we are all extremely tense. This is our first real mission out. Four fire teams made up of four people. We’re all vying for the same objectives in mind. Redundancies in case we catch heavy fire, or get caught out on our way in. We aren’t exactly tech savvy, but we’ve gathered enough C4, and other various explosives and weapons that we think we can absolutely total Margot’s Fever and make ourselves known in the system as people not to fuck with.

The static of the mic hisses. “Somethings fucky here guys, my oxygen tanks are reading only eight hours left.” Says a muffled voice, can’t tell if it’s from my fire team, or another group in a separate cargo container. “Well ride it out, then switch to your reserve when you get down below one hour, just don’t…” The words come tumbling out of my mouth without me realizing it. “Ok, I’ve switched over, What! – Now I only have three hours left, what the Fuck!” He starts to scream into his head set, the mechanical whine from the feedback is ear splitting. Trying to calmly talk over him I answer. “As I was about to finish, DON’T switch over until you are below one hour because the reserve tanks are greatly reduced in capacity.” I finish, slightly flustered. “You fucking asshole, you’ve fucked me. I’m going to die before we even reach the target. Holy fuck, switch it back, switch it back. Help me!” The panic in his voice is palpable. “That’s just it.” I say. “You can’t switch it back. All of our equipment is designed to be scuttled after use, no traces, remember. Surprise, attack, then vanish into thin air. That’s what the leaders trained us to do. Calm down, remember your training. Take small shallow breaths and you’ll just have to jettison your materiel for the mission to your fire team commander and bolt for the rendezvous point. Now stay off the fucking mics people. We need absolute radio silence.” without a hesitation I cut the feed from outside my own suit. I can’t be listening to someone have a panic attack mere hours before the greatest moment of my life. Listening to a fellow team mate slowly die while strapped to a gel couch will not do much for morale, and it’ll just put a damper on our mission.

Playing through my mind are all the ways this thing could go south on us, in a heartbeat. The tug boat drone pilots could get caught, and we get jettisoned towards the sun, to either starve to death or asphyxiate. They could be infiltrated and crash land us into the side of an asteroid or the station. Deliver us entirely strapped down directly to The Company security forces on the station. The bolts could fail to blow and we get caught stranded in our tin cans. They blow too hard and we get pulverized before we accomplish anything. The bolts could blow without enough force to remove the front and top plates, and they shift in space to crush us with their heavy mass, and inertia. Margot’s Fever could see us on their sensor array and melt us to slag with their thrusters. Our jury rigged suits and weapons could totally fail us and kill us all before we even get within a thousand miles of the station. A laundry list of terrible, horrible, awful things could happen. Which doesn’t include the all out fire fight we’re expecting to engage in as a show of separatist force. With no windows, and no way of knowing if everything has gone off the rails, we just have to lie in wait. Pray that we’re on the right path, and that our glorious sacrifices will be met with great gifts in our next lives.

In the vastness of space, a series of black containers race towards their targets tucked underneath the unmanned tug boat drones favoured by corporations other than The Company. The pressure and strain of the bobbing and weaving has the occupants deeply rattled. The pull of thrust has them pinned deep into the backs of their gel couches. The pressure upon their chests is so great they can hardly breath let alone talk. Their old jury rigged suits don’t have the pressurized seals that help to keep the blood up in their heads. Many have vomited inside their helmets. The near constant jostling has broken bones, and rattled skulls hard enough to afflict multiple concussions. The jumpsuits are a much older style, and not the tactical sort now in use by The Company security forces. They have been provided with no radiation shielding, and zero armor plating. This gaggle of separatist insurgents are deeply unaware of how they are being manipulated and are staged to be used as canon fodder. The deep rumble of the maneuvering thrusters causes their limbs to grow numb over time. The constant pinging of micro meteorites off of the containers starts to develop into a series of portholes where the action outside can be seen. Small pin holes become massive deep dents, which tear open to reveal the empty blackness of the void beyond. In several containers the torn open shell shards shear off to impale those unfortunate enough to be in the direct flight path of the pieces. Several insurgents are shredded by the barrage of space junk left floating out around the shipping lanes that surrounds the Torus Station. Barely visible at this distance is the Torus station itself, and the myriad service vehicles and exterior traffic that surrounds it. The tug boat drones are so much slower than The Company shuttles, that it’ll be close to a full day before they are within range of the station to blow their explosive safety bolts and release the hyped up, separatist martyrs inside. Not a single one of them will make it.

 

PART XX

“I heard you the first time…

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Why don’t you fuck off Lou, huh. I’ve got an important message here, direct from The Company that Ms. Taylor wants me to analyze. So just piss off, I don’t have time for your shit today.” Todd is livid, but their playful game of cat and mouse usually plays out with a more fanciful fanfare. The tall mountain of a man named Lou side steps the door to the now abandoned C Suites block, and Todd scurries along inside. Down the main thoroughfare, passed a massive row of desks and a palatial lobby, big enough you could host multiple robot fights in here simultaneously. Turning at a t junction, Todd locates the security details hidden terminal. Tucked back behind a generic looking cabinet, in a non descript portion of the office block. The beige angular box boots up at the touch of an analog key. It always strikes Todd as crazy, just how old the tech is that The Company’s security forces are utilising. Punching in a few key strokes, the prompts for the intranet come up on screen. Clicking a short message into his wrist comms Catherine suddenly appears face to face with him. The new holographic interface is really something of a marvel. “Great, now load in the whole message, do a search for any extraneous code, or tags, or what have you that might be embedded in the message itself. These are crafty buggers, must have a secret message in there to pass along covert data.” Her face is a mottled red and blue, slightly pixelated in the rendering in three dimensional space. “No, not much showing up here.” Says Todd. “Hey, wait a second. There’s a broken link to an image here. The corporate logo looks corrupted. I’ll scan that for….oh woah, here we go…” in the blink of an eye a wall of text begins to spool on screen. Directives, missives, commands and appendices. “Good catch Todd. Those tags look ominous.” She half chuckles. “Yeah – I’d say so. They have you flagged as a target. Jesus, they have you listed for Euthanization. Looks like a strike team located on the station has the green light to terminate your contract. As it were.” Looking down her nose Cathy says, “These people and their fucking euphemisms. Grow a pair will yah!” With a laugh she waves him off. “Ok log out, and get back to my offices. Take care to not be seen exiting the offices. Say hello to Lou, you saucy minx.” The display winks out. Moments later the lithe body of Todd is seen slipping into the shadows of the corridors directly outside the C Suites.

“I don’t understand you. How. Are. You. Still. Alive. Gods damn it! You should have been dead more than one hundred times over. I’ve stabbed you, burned you, given you viral loads of vast quantities, blood borne illnesses, hypothermia, hyperthermia. Are you a fucking demon!” Dr. Jang is pacing the laboratory, under the brilliant lights, in view of the camera rigs. His slow decent into absolute frustration with the near lifeless lump that is Ravindar Rashida is bringing him to his wits end. Soft steps can be heard in the halls. In comes the lead medical officer in charge of Project Cerebus on UB313. A man of medium height and build. Plain in look. Would be nearly impossible to pin point him from a line up. Nothing to distinguish him from countless other white men his age. “What seems to irk you so Dr. Jang?” He nearly croons the loaded question. For he is always watching on the far end of the lab’s CCTV link. “You’ve gone over, and over, and over this man. Do you have the answers we seek? We’re under – direct – pressure to produce results. I did not personally engage in subterfuge, fuelling a separatist movement and various terrorist plots, just to get stumped by physiology, and losing my grasp on a several trillion dollar contract with The Company.” The man’s sing song voice belies the true raw nature of his anger and loathing. His greed has led him to do some truly awful things for the sake of progress and an enormous payout that would take generations of poor choices to spend in its entirety.

“I have it on good authority that the dispatch from The Company is a trap. A time wasting trap. Now, as far as we can tell all members of the security forces have fled the station, so no one is here to read and carry out their directives.” Says Ms. Taylor to her gathered junior staffers. All of them trusted members of her inner circle. The vast majority of people may have left the Torus, but her staff stayed on. Todd coming through the doors, his nose in a binder – again. “What do you know about a guy named Dr. Douglas Jang, and an independently wealthy figure known only by the moniker Jones.” Crossing the room, over to her desk, he lays a print out on the work station before her. Looking it over, her thumb on her lip. “Well, if I recall, Dr. Jang was disgraced about twenty years ago, and banned from practicing. Had a penchant for unnecessary surgery. Seems he was a part of an older religious movement that shunned Nano technology. Was in such a state of denial, it was nearly pathological.” Leaning back in her chair. Stretching her back. “I have no idea whom this Jones character is. Financier? Patron? Alias? Hard to say. With a name that generic it could be nearly impossible to find him.” After a brief pause, the room stirs back to life.

 

PART XIX

“What an insufferable lot of twats these people are…

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Wouldn’t you agree Todd?” Quips Ms. Taylor the current senior director of HR to her deputy minister Todd Gaines. He has worked under her for years. Come to learn a number of handy tricks when it comes to dealing with the geriatric portion of the board of directors, joint chiefs of staff and now the security council. Todd was a part of the diplomatic endeavor that brought the warring factions of janitors and sanitation departments to heel. He was also a part of a top secret delegation that went deep underground to learn many of the stations deepest, darkest and most highly guarded secrets. Didn’t hurt that he fell in love with and married both twins that run the waste management services aboard Torus station. “Not sure how I should answer that ma’am. More than a few are on their last legs, and a good shouting match, or a tough row might keel them over.” He hasn’t looked up from his binder. It’s full of today’s agenda, with all sorts of interesting tidbits regarding the goings on of many groups aboard the station. “I’m getting pinged by several junior staffers ma’am so we best head in and confront this mess head on. Give’em a jolt, perhaps shake some positions loose on the board? Just a thought.” Finally looking up, he smirks at me. Yes, we certainly think on similar wave lengths. But it won’t suit my needs today to have any of these old farts drop dead mid conference from an aneurysm. “You go in first Todd, and I’ll be in shortly. I just have a quick call to make to shore up some possible gaps in our gathered intelligence.” Without missing a beat, Todd is through the double doors to the enormous luxury suites where the upper echelon conducts their business these days. Plush seats, expensive booze, cigars and the like. The air scrubbers here work desperately to clear the air, and the cool rush of recycled air makes the hard fabric on Catherine’s burgundy jumpsuit flutter. She has no calls to make, her arguments are airtight. Her case is going to ruffle some feathers. Make a few old men blush. Also, the chance to make them wait for her, and fluster themselves by realizing they no longer carry the balance of power aboard the Torus is just too good a chance to pass up. She can hear the rising voices, and the murmur turns to a din as she waits beyond the atmosphere rated conference room doors. Standing with her back to the wall, the subtle texture of the door frame glides under her fingers. Cool to the touch. Once she can clearly make out the shouting from inside she opens the door to stride in confidently, head held high. “Good afternoon ladies and gents. It is with great sadness today that I called you here. We have much to discuss.” Looking around the large room, the board members are seated, the underlings placed around them evenly, the joint chiefs seated on the far side, and the three chairs set aside for the security council are empty. With a puzzled look Catherine looks to Todd who shakes his head. “Well where the fuck are they?” She snaps. “Well, no matter. The security council is on the agenda today, so makes sense they would be absent to provide any further clarification with what I am about to say.” Walking down the length of the table, each member in turn swiveling in their seats to maintain visual on her. “I have convened this urgent meeting to discuss a most troubling matter. Seems the newly formed, and entirely secretive security council has been up to no good. I have here with me now, here today, evidence that the security council has been transporting members of Torus station off site to conduct vile, inhumane experiments. Seems the sudden increase of in transit deaths has been a cover for creating an army of untold numbers of Guinea pigs for their medical black sites, located out in the far reaches of our solar system.” From a morbidly obese woman in the joint chiefs ranks, a shrill screech of a voice kicks up. “That’s utterly preposterous. No one could do that. Who would fund it. Who would follow orders to kidnap our own people.” She shrieks. “Exactly, Janice, my sentiments mirror your own.” Replies Cathy. Suddenly caught off guard by the calm reply, Janice shakes her head and mutters something only her junior staffers can hear. A few underlings start making calls from their wrist communicators. Another older gentleman says “These are some extraordinary accusations you are making senior director.” He spits out each word around his loose dentures. “Perhaps we should call down from the C Suites The Company administrator to peruse this so called evidence you’ve gathered. Who are your sources if I might be so bold – Cat?” The old man flails about, until his junior deputy rushes to his aid to lift him from his heavily cushioned seat. “No, you may not. Don’t bother calling the administrator, she’ll not answer.” Ms. Taylor hisses. “Ridiculous! Nonsense, we’re the board of directors. We run the day to day operations of this station. They’ll answer to us, to ME! I fucking well guarantee it!” Whirling in place, he turns to see all twenty of the gathered junior staffers all dialing, hanging up and recalling, again and again, to no avail. “No, I’m afraid The Company abandoned us some time ago, isn’t that right Todd? Our best guess is that the administrator and her staff ventured off the station in the weeks just after Margot’s Fever crashed and fizzled. Their offices look to have been abandoned for what? Todd you thought it was somewhere in the vicinity of twelve months?” The crowd looks beyond Cathy to the lithe man sat grinning with his nose in a gargantuan binder. “Best guess places it around twenty seven months ago, ma’am. They have been forwarding in coming calls to an emitter which cuts down the lag time for responses within the system. They could be anywhere within thirty au of us here and we would never know it.” A laugh from the gathered crowd. “Not possible! There is no way anyone in their right mind, that would walk away from those C Suite offices and living quarters. No, never. I don’t believe you.” With a chime, the media screen at the back of the room comes alive, to show a group of janitors and sanitation workers walking through a clearly abandoned office block. Papers are scattered on the floors, piles of ash gathered in puddles on file cabinets, scorched by fire. Frozen mugs of coffee, and half eaten bagels are on desk tops, the greenery has all overgrown their individual planters due to the automated feeders. The board room is taken over with a shocked hush. In unison, each of the geriatric members of the board say aloud. “They abandoned us. How did we not know. What is going on here?” Collapsing deep into their seats, the look of defeat etched on their pale, wrinkled faces. “That’s what I am here to tell you. If you have any insights, you voice them right here, right now. No point of interest is too small, too minute.” With a flash of colour the media screen starts to come alive with names, dates, redacted files that were surreptitiously pulled off of the security teams intranet.

The cells are buried in frigidly cold rock. The air is thick with mould and mildew. The stale air is damp and musty. The cells are little more than dog kennel sized holes in the rock walls with large heavy titanium bars for a door. The light is a sickly pale green. Somewhere the slow drip of water can be heard. The smell of human waste is strong from inside the cell that Ravindar Rashida is held inside. After the fifth day with no food and no water, he was able to shimmy about in the cell to get a look at his biometrics. The Nano bots he had recently upgraded to were working extraordinarily hard to keep him alive. Burning off sugars and fats at a drastically reduced rate, reclaiming water he still retained to maintain organ function at the minimum rates allowable to survive. From the logs the biometrics keep it shows he suffered ammonia poisoning, but was able to live through it. Though it burned his lungs and eyes, and left him weakened. But where the hell did that happen. He didn’t recognize the rock from Torus station. His GPS unit couldn’t place him anywhere in the mechanical sector of the station. From off in the darkness of the extensive corridor the soft footfalls of someone walking can be heard. As it draws closer, Ravindar realizes it isn’t one set but multiple. The soft mumble of a quiet conversation can just be made out. “Please… please I need some water. I don’t know where I am… how did I get here… please, you have to help me!” The panic and adrenaline in his voice startles the group as they pass by. “Well now, aren’t you the tenacious one. Yes, yes. Please come with me. I will set you straight.” The science officer lifts a tag on the outside of the cage door, a sardonic smile upon his face. “Mr. Ravindar Rashida. Yes. Let’s get you down to my office. Shall we?” The door latch is unhooked as the weakened man falls out onto the floor. He lands with a hard thud. Turning over on the floor the man stares into the empty eye sockets of the skeletal remains of a small child. It shrieks in pain with a long and pitiful muah!, as Ravindar scrambles to back away from the horribly emaciated figure packed inside a dark cell. She was not three feet below him this whole time. In the cages surrounding him are hundreds, no thousands of other mindless near dead people. Strong hands pull him up to his feet then he is place unceremoniously onto an ice cold gurney and wheeled off into the darkness. The medical officer and his underlings continue their conversations, as though nothing had happened.

“Let us begin with what we know. We believe that a black site has been created to house various secret operations. Our intelligence on what they are doing is sketchy at best. But we know the place is named UB313, and that is actually where it is too. They chose a dwarf planet out beyond Pluto. So no one is just going to stumble upon it. And we lack the resources to storm the place, even if we felt so inclined. We also know, because we have their official communications, that all surviving members of Margot’s Fever have been sequestered there. And we believe the stations missing people have been shipped there too. Lots of talk about squashing conspiracy theorists, quelling rebellious groups, and “euthanizing” troublesome persons in transit. I mean, Jesus. They have sop’s for gassing people in their berths for fuck’s sake.” Senior director Taylor is almost as red in the face as her burgundy jumpsuit. The room is full of shocked silence. Heads are held low, and not a single person is figeting. Near the back of the room a nondescript individual taps out a short code on her wrist communicator. The station emitter barks out a pulse and then goes dark.

“Hello Ravindar, glad you are finally awake. Well, well, well… look at you. Tell me, how do you feel?” The scientist has a glowing bed side manner, or so it would seem. “Please, water… so thirsty.” “Yes, yes, you’ve said so before. But I have a few questions for you my boy. How did you do it, huh? How did you manage to survive the ammonia leak we set off in your gel couch during transit? Hm… no, please do share.” With a smile the man pulls up a stool, a pad of paper and a pencil and waits patiently. “What?, huh… I don’t know – please you have to help me!” Ravindars pleas are a soft whistle, through his dry cracked lips. His eye lids begin to flutter heavily. “Oh no you don’t. No sense you go dying on me now. Nurse, please set him up with an iv, and let me know when he regains consciousness, we’ll start him on Project Cerebus after we gather a suitable baseline for him.” The short nurse moves in on the motionless body of Ravindar Rashida as he is strapped down to the metal gurney. The lab is fairly large, covered top to bottom in large white subway tiles, with a polished cement floor. Huge dust extraction units hang from each end of the room. There is a viewing gallery behind a mirrored glass panel near the top of the far wall. Several camera rigs with booms and stabilizers hang down from the ceiling. The scientist likes to capture every second of Project Cerebus on film for protocol review and quality control regarding his surgical precision. Written above the door in bold red letters are the words “Welcome to Hell.”

“Did no one other than myself and my immediate staff think it was strange that our security forces just spontaneously erupted up out of the ether over night? With access to ballistic weapons, armor and those teflon weave coveralls. Who designed, manufactured and brought on board all those arms and ammunition. The webbing, holsters and such? Do we have any leads on where it originated from? Anyone?” Head shakes all around the table. A somber mood pervades the conference hall. There is only standing room now, as each director brought in more and more junior staffers and advisors to help shed light on what was being uncovered by Ms. Taylor and her covert web of spies.

The lab is dimly lit as Ravindar awakes. His throat is dry, but he desperately needs to urinate. Beside his bed, a large bag is full of a dark orange brown liquid. The foul smell of urine lingers in his nostrils. The urge to itch his genitals rushes to him, until he realizes they have inserted a catheter for him. They must not realize he upgraded to Nano technology for use with his new wave biometrics unit. The lights click on and suddenly the room is too bright for Ravindar to see. Blinded by the pale white light, and the glare off the pristine white glass tile, he tries to bring his arms up to guard his face, only to find the end of the slop in his restraints. Beside him is a large media screen, a head set and some sort of clamps. “Good afternoon Ravindar. Glad you could be here with us. Nothing hard in store for you today my friend. Just some research for you to watch ok buddy.” With a quick jerk the gurney transforms from a bed to a chair. Stepping off the levers at the head of the gurney, the science officer twirls Ravindar around to face the screen. Pulling a leather strap from behind the head rest, he wraps it around his head. Looking at the monitors he decides to nudge the gurney just a hair closer to the monitors. “Ok, so big picture here. You have to be close enough that all you can see is the screen. Can’t have you staring at the bevels or off into the distance. You have to see everything on the monitors, ok? Also, incase you were hoping to sleep or shut those beautiful eyes, we’re going to keep your peepers wide open. I have numbing drops and a hyper hydrator for your pupils too. Great stuff. Great stuff. Now, you’re new here, so your first day with Project Cetebus is going to be a long one. I think we’ve trimmed this presentation down to ninety six hours. We’ll push some food through a feeding tube every six hours or so, but just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!” As the lights are dimmed the medical officer turns to leave. “Oop almost forgot the headphones. You need to hear this to truly appreciate the situation you find yourself in.” The monitor flickers to life, with a short countdown. The medical staffer vanishes from the room. In the darkness, Ravindar can see a young girl being wheeled into the lab on a gurney similar to his. Visions of hell unfold before him. The panicked screams reverberate off the hard surfaces throughout the subterranean portion of the UB313 medical wing. In his large office, the scientist turns from his CCTV showing a bucking and wrenching Ravindar, to turn on his stereo and listen to Holst’s the planets on near constant repeat.

With a tremble Ravindar crushes his eyes closed in an attempt to stop the horrific stream of visions burned into his retinas. A small man enters the room. “Good morning Ravindar. Do you understand what you are here for now? Do you have some idea of what we are attempting to do, for all of mankind?” The young man looks to be of japanese decent, with thinning jet black hair, a wide grin, and soft friendly blue eyes. “Wh.. wh.. what’s going to happen to me?” Ravindar exclaims. “Well you see. That parts up to you. If you help us figure something out, we can put you through different tests, until you either a.) Succumb to the testing, or b.) Solve our issue and get thrown at another issue, ad infinitum.” “But, wh… why, why though. What can we do. Why do this to us.” “For all mankind, you silly goose. We have to find a suitable way to get around Galactic Cosmic Radiation, surviving Solar Proton Events, finding if a miniaturized Magnetic Field Generator can stop you from dying in the face of extreme radiation. Among other things, we want to see people become heartier in regards to inhospitable environments, toxins and a laundry list of other imminent threats.” The small doctor drops the seated gurney back into a bed. Unlocking the wheels, he pushes the cool gurney over to an air lock. “Ok my good friend, today we’re going to test your bodies response to oxygen deprivation. I have the cameras and lights set up in there all ready, so feel free to moon for the camera.” With a metal woosh, the heavy doors close, to leave a trembling Ravindar to wait on the soft hiss of escaping oxygen. The visceral stench of dread fills the room in place of the missing oxygen. Much to Ravindar’s chagrin, his Nano tech keeps him alive under the stress.

“Wait, wait, wait. The time lines seems screwy. You said they fled the Torus almost immediately, in the aftermath of the Margot’s Fever event. They must have thought it was something else than an engine malfunction. Might explain the live recordings showing black uniformed guards firing ballistic weapons out into the void, before those images were purged from the archives, and a sanitized account of events was delivered to the masses. So who did they think it was?” Again an agitated silence hangs over the gathered group. The attendants are so many the overflow is now out into the hall, and out the corridor to the lobby. The whole discussion is being broadcast across the whole floor. Some three hundred members of the Torus station are gathered to give input or just listen. “What could they possibly be doing out there in UB313. What are they trying to do?”

A long low whistle. “Well fuck me, you must be a gods be damned superman. I did not think you’d survive exposure to total vacuum. You surprise us at every turn. But what we gather from our instrumentation, you aren’t much different than myself or anyone else for that matter. How do you do it Ravindar.” It’s more of a statement at this point than a question. The life in his eyes fades a little bit every day. For months now, he has been subject to all manner of torture, or testing as they call it. Ravindar’s best guess is they want to beef up humans to survive interstellar travel over incredibly long periods of time and distance.

“Can I get a tally of what suits the administrators and attendant staff were wearing when they fled? Personal artifacts, food, supplies, anything like that. Compare it to the missing people and those who “died” in transit over the last decade. Cross reference, and cross check all of it, on screen, now please.” With a blip, the data spools on screen as tiny packets of data are pooled into larger groups, on and on, with each variable listed in the query. Todd is typing furiously.

“Seriously Ravindar, how the fuck do you do it? How the fuck are you still alive!” Shouts Dr. Jang directly into the unresponsive Ravindar’s face. Though not dead, he has retreated far back into the dark reaches of his mind. Sanity has long since fled his clutches. In a fit on anger the doctor kicks the gurney, breaking his big toe on his right foot. “FUCK!” The call echoes down the halls.

“The only thing that ninety nine point nine nine percent have in common are the jumpsuits they were issued. Our standard Scalzi model coverall. Replete with catheter system as part of the internal rigging. The only one not wearing that was Ravindar Rashida, a level three cert generalist mechanic who was married to Lt. Anise Rashida, a security chief in your section ma’am.” Cathy Taylor looks up from her large stack of reading materials. “Wait. What was he wearing?” “According to the visitor logs, and the crew manifest from the capsule named Gemini, he had on the new experimental Nano infused system, that melds with his DNA/RNA identifiers. Pretty high tech stuff. I guess he was gearing up to work deep space, or now this is sketchy but, I saw mention that he had been selected to be working on something called a Fabric of Reality field generator. The Company had it listed as an Zulu Alpha Prometheus level priority. Never heard of that before. But I can’t cross reference that with anything else, so it could be nothing but a red herring.” Says Todd.

“Incoming call on line one for HR Senior director Catherine Taylor. Priority one call from the off station CEO of The Company.” The automated pa system rings straight through to Cathy’s suites. Sitting up in bed, in the darkness of night, a handful of words are displayed on the wall opposite her bed. “An emissary from The Company has been dispatched to Torus station. ETA ninety days – end transmission.” “Well now, this is an interesting development.” Cathy flops back into bed. The darkness surrounds her.

 

PART XVIII

 

“Dude… don’t lump me in with THAT fucking Martian…

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Come on man, don’t do me like that. Tsk. Dumb ass mother fucker. I’mma tag you back, you little punk ass bitch.” The argument sounds heated, but those programmers are twin brothers and are just really into their game of robot wars. Honestly, they are probably only ninety pounds when all suited up in their cyan student grade coveralls. As a bunch of truly gifted people, this group of students don’t leave the university grounds much, if at all. Building miniature fighting robots and holding tournaments on the weekends is how they unwind. A few brave souls have gone up to the green sector for some sexual encounters, but it took a real long time to get up there from the university dormitory, and they got lost a few times on the trek back. That green sector is humongous, those labyrinthine corridors will mess with your mind. The GPS on their moded biometrics came in real handy the fourth time they wound up crossing the main concourse from yet another direction. Truly maddening.

Up in the highest level of the technical program’s dormitory the gathered group of about twenty students are hard at work tweaking their entrants in the weeks bout. The fights aren’t exactly a secret, but due to the potential for catastrophic failure, the fights are frowned upon, but not entirely banned. A few professors like to swing by, place bets (usually based on hours to spend marking the robotics undergrads papers and assignments) in order to liven up the atmosphere. A bunch of asthmatics and robotics fanatics aren’t known for throwing ragers on a friday night. The room is twenty meters on each side, and four meters high. The desks have been piled up in a corner, and some mag lev fitted portable work bench, tool box combos have been brought in. There are bottles of oxygen and acetylene boxed up with a make shift welding rig. These miniature robots can kick up sparks and chew through the composite materials their shells and armor plating is made from. It’s as though Robot Jocks were taking place, if they were eight inches tall, and controlled with haptic gloves that link with biometrics, and wrap over a jumpsuit. Clunky, and definitely not sexy, but exhilarating all the same. Tiny LEDs, and sensor arrays beep, and blink and chime as the battles wear on. A thick layer of oil coats the floor, and the smell of ozone is thick in the air. Smoke swirls around the vents, seeming to hang near motionless by the cold phosphorescent lights. The room has no windows, and is located in the center of torus station. This part of the station has hundreds of rooms just like it, though most of them are dark. A few have intrepid students pulling all fighters, working on homework projects, or applications for Grant’s for professors. All very academic. A murmur of chatter and snark can be heard out in the halls. The security teams doing their rounds rarely come in here, they wave at whomever is at the door, usually it’s Paco. Paco is a very petite fellow born and raised on Mars. He has an odd sense of humor, but is one of THE best welders in the program. He has this dream to work as an ice hauler, just touring the galaxy, fixing mining gear and getting old. “Hey Paco, why the fuck you even bother with school mang, you don’t need a Ph D, just to work ice. That’s stupid.” Torrence, the local fire cracker, always stirring up shit. He’s not gifted per se, but he can get shit done just the same. Hates all the extraneous school work, but loves the program and his band of nerdy brothers and sisters. No relation. Turning back from his perch at the door, leaning on his work bench, Paco with his shiny red coveralls looks like an oversized child, but with amazingly strange facial hair. “Tsk… you know what mang, they brought me here fo’ free, mother fucker! I learn some shit, get a level three cert and it’s all cooked mang! I’m outtie. Find me a sweet wife, have a few kids, haul some frosty and settle down. No stress, big money. Yeah.” High fives and snickers of laughter all around. “You won’t catch me doing military projects for The Company, no way mang!, free range, long hauls for ice. Pirates don’t take down ice haulers. Those separatist goons don’t hijack your ship and jettison you out into space so your lungs explode, or your blood turns to gas and tries to RIP you apart. Nah-uh dude. Not for this Martian, eh Julian.” He pauses for effect. “I heard that shit. I’m not four meters from you by the door, dumb ass. I’m not a lifeless corpse out on the float hey, mother fucker.” Paco, turns back to the door, exchanging rude gestures with Julian, who is hunched over his bot on the floor. Foot steps can be heard down the hall, Paco pipes up. “Hey, yo! Who’s there. I see you man. Just cause you’re dressed in bla…” the sound of rapid fire gun shots echoes loudly through the room. Paco comes apart at the hips, cut entirely in two. Blood splatters across the door, and the tool bench he was leaning against. Ricochets can be heard pinging off the metal surface, with metal slugs punching through ceiling tiles, walls and bodies alike. One double strike catches a tiny robot in the center of the floor and ignites the oxygen tank at the rear of the room, which kicks off the acetylene bottle beside it too. With a boom the room erupts into flames. With no where for the pressure to go, it blasts out the doorway and down the hall. The covert shooter is ripped apart by the shockwave and resulting wall of flame. The heat is so intense that the room melts into molten slag. All that is left are trails of smoke, and incinerated entrails. The group will later be identified by their bones, and those without shattered teeth, their dental records.

A mile above, both decks of the observation lounge have just been breached during a live cast of the launch ceremony for the new starship Margot’s Fever. Many of the stations most famous celebrities have been sucked out into space, and died horribly.

 

PART XIII

“What is it you said you guys do again?”…

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The sector HR director asks cheerfully. Ms. Catherine Taylor is known as a straight shooter, not much for small talk either. She is extraordinarily busy, so her questions tend to be thoughtful, penetrating and to the point. Gathered around her, in the media screening suite are a group of beautiful men and women, all of them look to be in their mid twenties. An immaculately kept blonde woman dressed in a tailored emerald green jumpsuit speaks up for the group. “We are the local chapter of sex workers. Yes, that’s right prostitutes.” Her matter of fact admission shows just how resilient and well looked after the group is. “I see… so I understand we’re here to vet a news piece about your work, lives and the conditions you work in?” The question is open ended, and not a hint of judgment to be found. Director Taylor is a well educated woman, she knows the value of morale among her work force. From the people at sanitation, food service, medical and the largest group under her purview, the mechanics. “Well, yes and no. We opted for an informative, but light hearted approach. We all chose this lifestyle. We feel we are making a difference. All of us gathered here work with… how to say this… um… challenging individuals that your average man or woman wouldn’t be equipped to service safely.” Stated matter of factly, with both dignity and pride. Cathy leans forward in her couch. “Challenging? How so? Are these violent people, are you telling me your safety, health and well being are being impinged upon!?” You can see a blood vessel starting to bulge out on her forehead. There is nothing HR director Taylor hates more than subordinates being taken advantage of by those with power or physical advantage. The young woman flushes a bright pink at the cheeks and chest. “Oh, no no no. Nothing of the sort. We have expert level care, both physically and our mental well being. We have access to psychological therapy, and are able to option our extensive vacation leave any time. No, we deal with physiological deformities.” She is obviously uncomfortable discussing her patients/clientele. A brute of a man across the table dressed in a forest green jump suit jumps in when he sees the young woman balk at the question. “Um… well, Sadie and I…” the gorgeous blonde girl gives a small wave. “We share our client load… excuse the pun.” A broad, yet sheepish grin from both. They lock eyes and share a charming chuckle. “Our clients share a similar physical attribute.” Out from the back of the room, an ebony god chiseled out of obsidian chimes in. “Horse cocks. Those dudes all have monster cocks. Like twenty inches, down passed the knees, behemoths. Circumference like that coffee mug your clutching!” The room erupts in a fit of laughter. With a shocked chirp HR director Taylor chokes on her drink, dribbling a mouthful down the front of her burgundy suit. Gareth, the handsome man continues his story, unfazed by the outburst. “Yeah… that’s true. I know most people think they work hard, but we wanted to show the whole station that though we only work three hours a day, it really is work.” With shock Cathy blurts out. “My god. You have penetrative sex three hours a day with gentleman with a horse cock! Dear god.” Leaping from her chair the fear on her face is visible, tension is palpable within the small room. “Oh no. Sorry if we gave you that impression. No, we include ninety minutes of stretching. Whether that is vaginal or anal. You don’t go in cold, not with our clientele. We make sure no one is under the effects of antidepressants, so the actual sex portion, lasts about forty minutes. We chat, cuddle and hang out. Then we have clean up, massage orifices back to health and physical therapy to avoid tears, fissures or chafing. All in all, about three hours. Lovely gentleman, very aware of their… affliction.” With a grimace that she can’t quite hide, HR director Taylor settles back into her chair, as they dim the lights and roll the tape. The Company jingle plays, as their mining and exploration symbols flash on screen. Fade in from black, with the same group gathered in a small studio on screen seated in two rows, like a reality tv series reunion show.

After the credits have rolled, and all the workers have cleared the room HR director Taylor turns to her junior director and says. “That bit about the twin sisters, one whose a sex worker who gets all the clients that are looking to fuck her brilliant scientist sister who is asexual. I want to know more about that. Something there seems off. I need to know about the asexual sister, what she’s working on now that she’s transferred over to the Venus station. Why she left, under what circumstances, that sort of thing.” The junior director has his face buried in his notes. “Yes, Ms. Taylor. I’ll talk to the boys down in Sanitation and the Janitorial union guys, see what I can learn. I’ll report back to you in twenty four hours. Do you need a escort to tonights launch of Margot’s Fever?” His biometrics are pinging with oncoming calls and alerts for his other duties aboard the Torus station. “No, that won’t be necessary Todd. I’m taking some time to myself this evening. I’ll catch the live cast from the comfort of my suite.” Turning to leave the room, I can see a small face appear on Todd’s wrist communicator. The Sanitation union rep is telling him how to go about getting to the sub basements where they are located.

“Enjoy the trip down below. Be safe. Keep your eyes and ears open while you’re down there. And for fuck’s sake, don’t touch anything.” The heavy doors close behind the director, leaving Todd the junior director alone in the dark media screening room.

 

PART XII

“What do you remember about the accident out there, anything you can give us…

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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

Mr Bean-Un: Spy and Master of Make-up Extraordinaire!

greatwallstudios1 Comment on Mr Bean-Un: Spy and Master of Make-up Extraordinaire!
Bean-Un
So I have seen this funny meme running around on the “Awesomer” website, and I thought I would give it a go. So enter Mr. Bean in his next international spy movie role, as Kim Jung-Il’s new covert spy son Bean-un. There is currently a fire alarm ringing here, so while we wait for further instructions, I thought I’d go ahead and post this!
Have a good Friday.