Masked in part by the large crowd of gathered children playing road hockey in the street right out front of the house. The shadows are slowly growing long along the front yard. Birds are chirping, and a subtle wind is rustling the leaves of the two large maple trees obscuring the view of the street from the porch. Stepping out of the house onto the wooden deck, she carries a glass of red wine, a cold beer in her manicured hands, and a box of crackers under one arm. Seated in a wicker chair, her husband is engrossed in the game going on with the children. “What’s the score?” She asks. “I have no idea, but you just missed an epic collision. More of a pile-on really. The girls are watching the ball and their sticks instead of where they are running. Going to have quite the knot on their heads tomorrow. Ha.” He says it nonchalantly, we’ve always given the girls the space to play, and ultimately hurt themselves with the pride of knowledge gained in the disaster. Reaching over his shoulder he takes the proffered beer. Sitting down gingerly, her glass held in her finger tips so as to not spill she pulls up the matching worn white wicker chair. The cushions are well weathered, and covered in maple keys and pollen. She’ll have to dust off her bum when she heads inside later. “Cracker? – no. Suit yourself.” The children are running about, it is semi organized chaos. Children strip the ball from teammates, kids run into one another. Tired kids fall over on the curb and wrestle on the manicured lawns. “So, can we talk about this now – or?” The question left to hang in the hot humid air between them. “Yeah, I guess so. Not like the girls will be able to hear us from here. Look at those muppets, it’s pure melee combat out there! Keep your head up! Look around you! See who’s open.” He shouts in a sudden lively burst. The girls, red faced, continue to battle it out on the street vying for the ball. The neighbourhood kids are all in a giant tangle of limbs and hockey sticks. “So, what’s the deal then. What do her teachers say?” He blurts out the question. Angst writ large across his creased forehead, his greying hair cut short at the temples, with a longer mop on top. “That’s just it, they love her. Say she’s just lovely, a real helper, a good listener, and she’s one of the better students academically.” She says it with a huge rush of outward breath, as though deflating with the sentiment. “Well – fuck. So we get the asshole at night, everyone else gets a lovely child. That’s just perfect.” He says it with a hint of a hysterical laugh underneath. “According to what I’ve read, it means they’re just really comfortable at home with us. They feel our unconditional love, and can drop the goody goody act and be more natural. Or so some child psychiatrists said. I don’t know.” Swishing her red wine around the glass, she looks down the front lawn to the two menacing, but beautiful daughters playing hockey, for keeps. “Good thing they’re cute. I could just strangle those two some times.” “Eh? You fucking think! You saw me, last summer trying to teach her her letters and numbers. Like pulling her god damned teeth out of her head. What a pain in the ass. Then she gets tired at night, cuddles up next me and says she loves me. I melt. Adorable. I love her so much, but what an asshole.” The last part is said in unison. A common refrain among the two parents. “Ok, girls. Ten minutes then you gotta come in to wash up for dinner, ok!” More of a statement than a question. The girls bark back in answer. “Was that a yes?” She asks. “Fuck if I know. They’re still growing, so we must be doing something right. It’s tacos tonight, so I don’t foresee a huge fight to get the youngest one to eat.” Standing up, he dusts off his beige cargo shorts, slips on his berks, and wanders down to the curb. His white plain t-shirt almost amber in the waning sun.The late afternoon sky is a lovely rich blue. Squirrels can be heard chattering in the large fir tree beside the driveway.
Tag: Introspection
“There are – certain harsh truths one has to come up against…
Before they can truly learn what it means to be an adult. Although, we may find some individuals who believe that they have this whole thing down pat. That just isn’t true. However, you know, ignorance is bliss. Sometimes not knowing what it is you don’t know can be sort of freeing. The truth is, we’re all floating together on a rock, specks of carbon in a vast, unyielding and uncaring universe. Fairness, equality, equity… these things are not real. Much like time – memory, or love at first sight. Constructs we built that we choose to live in. The sun does not care. Clouds do not care. No one knows how this thing called life plays out. Existential dread is just the human body coming to terms with how loose a collection of things, and stuff, our lives are made from. We have fooled ourselves into believing in order, and goodness, and the basic underlying tenets of a civil society. But you pull out one stitch, and more often than not the whole thing crumbles.” The sky in the park is vast, and open. The velvety blackness dotted with hundreds of thousands of stars. From their position, lying in the grass upon a gentle rolling hill, the slight breeze sends ripples through the tall grasses surrounding them. The evening is cool, but not cold. The soft call of crickets can be heard in the distance across the wide, and sprawling park. Fire flies have gathered in the low spots between the hill and the plateau where the soccer fields are. Puffs of smoke can be seen weaving lazy trails on the breeze above the teens heads. For the neighbours who back onto the park, the heavy sent of marijuana, and the carried sound of voices is common place. “You know what, Gina… I have to disagree with you on that. I… I think. Gah!” A hearty cough, harsh enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Oh man, I think I just swallowed a bug!” Coughing fit. Scurried fingers scraping at a tongue. “What – what were we even talking about again? I lost track.” Says the younger of the two prone girls, laying head first down the hill, while watching the stars between their feet. “Can you feel the world spinning right now. I think I can feel the world spinning right now. How awesome is that, eh?” “Dude, now that you say it, I kinda do.” “That’s, like… fucked up and shit.” From down the street, laughter can be heard. The lone street light in the park flickers, but never actually manages to come on. Clouds form to cover the moon low in the night sky.
“Ugh, good god, was that you?”
She says sitting up from her lounged position on the soft brown leather couch. Her face ashen, with just a tinge of green around the edges. “Of course not.” I laugh. “It’s the damn dog. You know your mother feeds him raw hamburger all the time.” Getting up from the couch quickly, the stench wafting through the air between them. To avoid a second breaths worth of horrific stink, I bounce over to the fridge to grab a cold drink. The door jingles as the jars inside clink together with the motion. “Jesus, Dog! that’s rotten! You foul little beastie.” Waving both arms about, moving foul jetties of air about the adjoining kitchen. It’s enough to make the nostrils sting, and your eyes water. “Babe – do you need a refill on your drink while I’m up?” Peeling her eyes from her novel, she waves off the question with a limp flap of her hand. “No, I’m good. I have a glass of water over here that I haven’t touched yet, from earlier.” The hour is late, the hall lights are off and only a few sparse beams from headlights can be seen playing down the walls of the living room. The trailing red fading off the tiles in the kitchen as the cars pull down the street. The house is small but cozy, settled on the corner of an intersection. Outside the moon is large overhead, and the street lights have been on for awhile. The sounds of kids playing in the street has long since stopped. Called in for dinner by harried mothers and rushed fathers. Now the muffled shouts of teenagers takes it’s place. It’s a Tuesday night, and our show is about to come on. With a soft whimper, the dog fidgets and shakes as though chasing prey in his sleep. A soft hiss, a subtle wag of a tail, and another wave of the dogs gut rot permeates the couch and its occupants. Suburban bliss at its finest.
“I heard you the first time…
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…
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
The official report on the events surrounding the launch of Margot’s Fever.
Official Document_Mission Briefing for The Company_Designation: CLASSIFIED: RE | Margot’s Fever. ORD NO. 200076317 – FAA
After the events during the launch of Margot’s Fever and it’s alleged subsequent ten year absence [Captain’s Psych evaluation attached in Appendix Sec. 29] we have determined that there was merely an unknown error type during the ships jump to safety after the initial destruction of the observation decks and the shearing off of the starboard thruster housing. The following excerpts are from the various in person interrogations The Company investigators conducted on behalf of the Torus station security council, joint chiefs and the entire board of directors.
Lt. Jenji Tashimoto: Engineering
“I’m not denying anything, sir. It’s only that the events didn’t unfold exactly like that sir. Yes sir. I understand I’m under oath. All I’m saying is, is that those reports you are quoting aren’t one hundred percent accurate. That is all I am saying. I am not calling you a liar. No, No I’m not. Listen ok, I was there alright. Look at my fucking biometrics ok, just fucking read them. We’ve all aged ten years… Ok. It wasn’t mass hysteria, it wasn’t a hoax, we blew the leaders of the [REDACTED] out the god damned air locks, ok. We fucking ate a full two thirds of the [REDACTED] because there was no way we could have known how long the jump using the [REDACTED] engines would take. the math was off… I’m telling you the truth! Just look at the biometrics data…, let go of me… No don’t you dare put that shit in my veins…”
Although some of the stories vary a little bit, the call to check the biometrics data is a popular refrain among the two hundred souls who reappeared after the failed jump by Margot’s Fever. Lt. Tashimoto came very highly recommended for his position in engineering. Although he now seems agitated and to suffer from a severe case of PTSD. His manner was confrontational, and we were forced on more than eleven occasions to subdue him with Thorazine, and later on, Fentanyl derivatives. He was adamant about the time span too. Although the on station sensors only registered their disappearance over the course of less than one half second.
Col. James O’Brien: Medical
“The captain is a good man. Given the circumstances, and the data sets we had he made a judgment call. I know how that goes. You’re looking for a scapegoat, a way to tie this up with a clean little bow, and hang it around his god damned neck. Listen… I didn’t agree with it, but his assessment of the situation was sound. But have you not checked the [REDACTED] scans, we’re all ten fucking years [REDACTED]. Many of those who survived are showing serious signs of malnourishment. That doesn’t happen over a half a second trip, or if you skip your fucking breakfast. He told you. He told you outright that he did not want to captain that ship, and you sent him anyway. No, he didn’t show signs of being suicidal, or of a predisposition towards murderous rage. He was a hard nose captain, who ran a tight ship and could get things done. It was a traumatic event, no wonder he’s showing signs of psychosis. We had a mutiny to deal with. Jesus fucking Christ guys, aren’t you listening to me. We ATE members of the crew! We ate friends, colleagues, mentors, everyone who couldn’t cut it over the [REDACTED] gap, those who fought to turn around and jump back, when we thought we’d [REDACTED]…
The remaining medical staff from Margot’s Fever all parrot the same thing, there was a mutiny, they had to kill the leaders of the challenge group, who wanted to turn around and come home. Many of them junior members of the crew. Those who didn’t realize they were traveling trillions of miles in an instant with no hope of returning home to the same time frame they left. Relativity has eluded these select few. Though none lived to return in order to give us there side of the mutiny. we only have the resources provided to us by The Company, regarding personal notes, video logs and such to go in in making our recommendations.
Lt. Juniper Brash: Navigation
“He told us that we’d gone into the sixth dimension. That we never traveled forwards at all, we just sort of dissolved out of our reality, or existence or what have you, and wound up some billions of years in the future as the universe itself was ending. We saw the last handful of stars before they too winked out. Just empty blackness. Ten years of looking at nothing. No light beyond our own ship board fixtures. No stimulus, nothing on the sensor arrays, nowhere to navigate to or from. He told us, he… he told us that the ships AI [Refer to Captain’s Psych Eval*] told him, after ten years of compiling data, or counting one’s and zero’s as he was want to say, that it was finally time to jump back to where we thought the earth would be. Listen I am telling you, that under no uncertain terms, this ship does not have an AI on board. The only items that you could even possible say had any sort of intelligence are the hull repair drones, and a tiny fraction of the cleaning bots. But their programming only helps them to not get stuck under doors, or tables, and how to recognize damage to the hull’s shielding and environmental protection. It’s just insane. He told us he was talking to a grey metal box full of pink goo kept in a storage room on the engineering decks, and it straight up talked to him, via the ships intercom. That’s fucking nuts, the guy is in-fucking-sane. Sir.”
We have reason to believe that we’ve got enough anecdotal eye witness accounts of the Captain, to place him under protective custody and have him removed to a soft location out beyond Charon. The penal colony there won’t recognize him, and he can undergo the therapy he requires to live a long and prosperous life. Other such similar recommendations are being discussed for all other surviving members of Margot’s Fever crew. Those that confessed to murdering and eating the rest of the crew may be quietly euthanized in transit. And disposed of during course corrections. No physical evidence shall be made available to anyone. Discretion is advised. Code level : Zulu Alpha Prometheus.
It has come down from the top brass that any and all data pertaining to the event is to be purged, or moved off sight to our non disclosed silent operations out beyond UB313. However the security guys have requested data on the Fabric of Reality Engine. They want the data sets from any operations system wide diagnostics that may have been run during transit, and the flight plan, the navigational data. Basically everything about the ship, except data regarding the crew, or their personal logs. Although any entries originating from the bridge, engineering decks, or the sensor arrays will be transferred to them as well.
Official Document_Mission Briefing for The Company_Designation: CLASSIFIED: RE | Margot’s Fever. ORD NO. 200076318 – FAA_Continued
…How can there be this much data in the black boxes. They must have been corrupted. There are millions of terabytes of information in here. The sensors and antenna array data is off the fucking charts. They are recording Gamma bursts from detonating neutron stars for fuck’s sake… The coordinates are bonkers… The data is so complex, it’s not even relevant to three, four or even five dimensions. I think they went to the sixth fucking dimension… I believe that they managed to time travel. Or shift, no phase is a better term, they phased back just milliseconds before they left. The time loop, theorys regarding fate and free will, the theoretics on this will make someone an absolute fortune… It’ll take us decades to cover all the data here. Then we’ll have to parse it all for errors, corruption in the data, or sensor malfunctions… Whatever happened here, it was not what the simulations and math predicted… Glad it didn’t really. If it had, the entire solar system would have compressed down into a black hole and killed all eight billion of us, once they kicked off those experimental engines…
Black Sight: UB313 Research Base
From the limited amount of data given to us, we think that by all accounts the engines worked, just not how we had originally planned. We think what happened was that the trip was not instantaneous, at least not how we humans perceive it. Even light takes years to travel vast distances. From the incomplete data sets made available to us we believe that they got spooked in the blankness of transit, and that they panicked. That would explain some of the blankness in the sensor data. Perhaps the excess of gamma radiation was shielding stars from the ships view. They then made the jump back so quickly that they damn near landed on themselves as they were just about to jump out. We haven’t worked out the temporal science yet. The math guys are trying to work it out now as there is talk of phasing or resolving back into our time space [sic.]. Once the off sight guys review the data, they think they can figure it out fairly quickly. It was a less than one half second jump, so there won’t be too much extraneous data to parse. We have been given no data regarding the crew of the ship, so we have no new information or insight to give there. We would kill for the opportunity to interrogate even just a handful of the two thousand members of crew. We suggest that you commandeer Margot’s fever, send it out to us here, and let us test drive the engines for further insight.
Official Document_Mission Briefing for The Company_Designation: CLASSIFIED: RE | Margot’s Fever. ORD NO. 200076689 – FAA_Continued
Absolutely not. The ship has been decommissioned, and the program jettisoned from the university archives, and all knowledge therein has been purged, in unofficial terms.
Torus Station : Two years after the events of Margot’s Fever.
Inside the media screening suite, sits the HR director Ms. Taylor. She is surrounded by members of the security council, joint chiefs of staff and the full board of directors. The room is quite cramped with all those orange jumpsuits, and their attendant staff. The room smells of rich cologne, Bourbon and some cigar smoke. The walls are painted a mixture of dark green, yellow, red and a rich burgundy. Ms. Taylor has to be conscious of where she stands, otherwise she might fade into the scenery behind her. Her crisp, tailored jumpsuit, a deep burgundy, with Green, Yellow, Red, and Brown arm bands is standing at the head of the table ready to lead the group through vetting The Company’s Official re-enactment of the events that will be released to the masses. “Thank you for joining us here today ladies and gentlemen.” A sweeping arm wave, a gesture of welcoming and of a collaborative tone. Ms. Taylor looks to be about twenty years of age, though she is far older than that. The counterparts in the room are all in their seventies, and are too far gone for the rejuvenation treatments she frequents. She caught that train right on time. The lights in the room go dim, and the movie flashes up on screen.
“So what do you think?” announces the most junior member of the board of directors. Looking around the room Ms Taylor pipes up. “I think that this fictional recounting of those events is a travesty, a total miscarriage of justice. Like a prolapsed anus, that script is both painful and messy. It skips over so much, and portrays that captain as a loon right from the get go. If I know my people, and I know them well, a good portion will hate this. Hate. It. But for the masses, it’s perfect.” with a clap of her hands, the room breaks up and everyone filters out and back to their living quarters.
The rebuild has been tough for everyone over the last two years. The last thing HR Director Taylor wants is to fuel the conspiracies, and set some growing agitation alight. She would have preferred that they answer a few of the tougher questions surrounding the events, and the disappearance of the crew, but she didn’t produce this film, and it’s not her place to edit it. Just vet it with an eye towards morale, and the new normal aboard the torus station. Her inability to know more chafes at her neck. Perhaps a visit down to the Sanitation department might provide some much needed answers. Seeing as how she has had them under her purview for more than two years now, a visit down below might actually be in order. Calling up a display inside the media suite, in the dim lights, she waits while the pinging noise from her wrist biometrics chimes softly in the empty room.
PART XVI
When they told me I had been selected for the maiden voyage of…
Margot’s Fever I told them no thank you. When they asked me why I would turn down the opportunity to be a part of an historic crew going to the edges of the known universe in search of missing elements from our shared human past, I told them I was petrified of the ship, and the potential to be lost to both time and physical space. Too many unknowns, too many variables to weigh and calculate. It couldn’t be done. I thought better of it, but I told them flat out that the fact we could warp space time, and the fabric of our reality scared me to death. Left me in a state of paralysis that could potentially doom the ship. The empty dull faces staring back at me in the board of directors chamber said those were perfect answers, and they saw no reason that I should not captain the ship out to the edge of oblivion with a full crew compliment of two thousand souls. I wept. Then I threw up. I thought about murder, I thought about suicide. I thought about walking through the nearest airlock with no suit on and embracing a heartless cruel death. Instead I shipped out. Margot’s Fever would become a monument to hubris and human folly. And the weight of it all would rest firmly atop my shoulders to grind my soul to dust. And it all began the evening of the ships launch event.
“Alright helmsman let’s pull about on the starboard side and ignite the in system ion engines. Bathe those media bastards in brilliant blue light!” Seated in my captain’s chair at the center of the bridge, I am surrounded by scores of officers, dutifully buried in their tasks. Noses pressed to screens, tablets and work stations alike. Everyone wants to make The Company happy, and putting on this dog and pony show to hype up the mission goes a long way to accomplishing that. Great video feeds and network coverage can boost The Company on more fronts than they’d ever let us in on. Not just morale, but a moral victory for humanity. To finally be able to send man to the furthest reaches of the eternal abyss and live to tell the tale. What a thrill, or so they thought. Those desk jockeys never did anything real beyond count the zeros in The Company cheque book. Keep in black, we got your back. In the red, you best come back dead. “Pulling about starboard side, captain. Ignition in three… two… one… firing all three engines, we are lit sir.” The helmsman is an androgynous Ceresian individual of moderate height, with an undercut and long violet hair on top. Competent. But no ability for banter. The role of captain is very isolating when your subordinates don’t have the confidence for exuberant banter. Where’s my XO, the commanding officer can really give us all shit right when you need it the most. “Ok, now ease off, and let’s float for fifteen kilometers then we should get the go ahead from transportation for us to make our way out of the system before firing off those Fabric of Reality engines.” affectionately known as FOR E’s, like four ease. Never want to be within one hundred au’s of any habitable system when you kick those fuckers off. They run on something like antimatter, would wipe out everything in the system and create a super massive black hole in its place. More of a devastating weapon than a mode of transport. And to think we have nineteen year old technicians trained on its maintenance like it’s just any old engine. Oh, to be young and stupid. So my I’ll placed regard for technology and personal skill. Some shit just wasn’t meant to be bottled up and used at the whim of mankind.
Wee-ooh, wee-ooh, wah wah wah… warning bells are sounding, proximity alerts are buzzing, hull breach klaxons are blaring. Margot’s Fever is starting to list dangerously toward the Torus station. “Navigation, how far out are we… engineering, status report on the hull damage, are we breached? Medical, are we showing many casualties? Sound off!”
“We’re only point five of a kilometer from the station, we’re falling back along the line. Somethings hit us. Whatever it was, it’s massive. The thrusters aren’t responding. I can’t get the ship to course correct.” The navigator is a pale, bald woman who is only about ninety pounds and four feet tall. She looks puzzled and bewildered at the same time. “Engineering here sir. We have major malfunctions all across the board. Hull breaches, engine failures, and our sensors are getting peppered by biologicals. Jesus, I think those are bodies. Christ all mighty, the Torus is coming apart at the seams…” “ok medical, I’ll assume you’re not in a state to collect any possible survivors from deep space?” “No life signs sir. We’ve got enough problems from within the ship sir. Whole decks have lost atmosphere, suffered catastrophic decompression in the XO’s crew compartments. I’ll get back to you sir.” A second violent shake pushes Margot’s Fever right up against the outer torus of the space station. In the dark recesses behind the moon, the glow of the sun adds a beautiful halo around the torn and rended edges of the outer ring sections. Bursts of flame, and geysers of escaping oxygen can be seen. Bodies, like a hail of bullets are sucked out of the station by the hundreds. Beyond the destruction the only thing visible are the exhaust blooms from other ships that are breaking their acceleration towards the dying station. “We can’t take much more of this abuse. What is our hull integrity like security?” By now everyone is shouting over the alarms, alerts, buzzers and klaxons. It is a cacophonous mess inside the bridge. From behind me a deep voice booms. “Hull integrity at fifty four percent and dropping sir. We need to get out of here now.”
Inside the luxurious suite where HR director Catherine Taylor lives, a live cast is showing the horrific deaths, in gruesome detail of two hundred of the most rich and famous members of the torus station. The dead camera men floating out in the void with the gigantic listing ship Margot’s Fever in frame. Gas and sparks and bits of shrapnel are jettisoning off the massive interstellar ships hull. Save for the timer blinking on the media screen, the room is empty and has been untouched for hours.
“Good evening Catherine, I didn’t think we’d see you back in the med bay for another treatment so soon.” The doctor, dressed from head to toe in blue, is the only person on board the torus station with the cahones to call her by her birth name and not by her hard earned title. “Isn’t tonight the big launch event? What I would give for a chance to dress up and mingle on the observation decks. God, what a sight that must be. I bet the hors d’oeuvres must be spectacular.” “Oh, you have no idea. Succulent culinary delights, to be certain. But with two new unions under my purview I’m exhausted. I can’t even bring myself to watch it. I have it set to record. I’ll skim the feed later on, I’m sure.” “All right then Catherine!strip down and we’ll get you sorted out ok. Do you need me to initiate it for you, or can you handle it now, by yourself?” Without waiting for a response the doctor strides across the brilliantly lit room to her office, a small alcove tucked against the far wall. There are several others just like it scattered about the octagonal med bay. “No, please, do it for me. Bitch.” Catherine steps lightly on the cold metal floor and hops up into the medical pod. Pulling the heavy door closed over the tube, the inner screen jumps to life. The biometrics scan immediately, and a cursor and prompt appear to flash before her eyes. Running through the checklist she decides to set the rejuvenation protocol to the three hour full tissue and fiber recalibration setting. More staff under her means she can take the resources appropriate to her station. With this expanded role, she is now, unofficially in charge of some fifty seven percent of all staff aboard the Torus station. She out ranks every other senior member of the board of directors. With a smirk on her face she triggers the program count down. “This never gets old.” She says out loud, it echoes within the small chamber. Over the med pod pa system the clock counts down. “Rejuvenation protocol four set to commence in five… four… three… two… Ooooo-ooonnne….” with a sudden jolt, the coolant gel spurts out, as the med pod system jitters in the midst of the power grid overloading. A look of shock is frozen upon Catherine’s face, as the med bay goes black, and the doctor is drawn helplessly out into the far reaches of space.
“There’s no time. I don’t know who, or what the fuck those exhaust plooms are, punch the FOR E’s, and get us the fuck out of here, now!” “Fucking hell sir. No. I can’t authorize that. I refuse.” Shouts the helmsman. “You what? We’re all going to die out here. The station. It’s gone. Dead. Totally dark. In thirty seconds, those people.” I’m waving indistinctly at a general direction of what I can only assume are a collection of ships. “Killed about forty thousand people, and critically injured this vessel. We have to assume that they have, or will attack every base, rig, ship and station in this system. We must save ourselves. We were never going to make it back here to this time anyway. Fuck them. Punch it. NOW!” I am absolutely livid. In a panic, and can’t give any thought to anyone who isn’t under my direct supervision. “Forget it. I’ll do it my damn self.” Leaning over my console I punch in my seventeen letter override code, ease back the trigger and squeeze, the vision on screen before us goes entirely black.
Three years later, and I am still unable to come to terms with the choices I made while under extreme pressure. Duress, you might even say. Truth is, I wanted the helmsman to ignite the for ease so that I didn’t have to live with the knowledge that I doomed our home solar system. You can’t just extinguish eight billion human lives and go grab a cuppa with your pals after a long shift. For those who survived the initial attack, and weren’t on the bridge, it was life as per usual. The weird thing about the drive was there was no sudden acceleration or thrust to denote we had moved so far so quickly. We folded the fabric of space and popped out the other side. The computer is still attempting to triangulate where we ended up. Three years and it’s still counting ones and zeros to locate us. I jest, but I think we’d jumped through space and into pure nothingness. There are only a handful of stars in view here. And it is unsettling to say the least. The damage we suffered means we only have one chance to make a successful jump anywhere else in the universe. We have to guard that option with our very lives.
Five years out here and we’ve finally had to put a mutinous insurrection to rest. It cost us dearly. Nearly a full two thirds of the crew were either killed in the fight, or jettisoned off the craft for their part in it. Seems the theory of relativity didn’t occur to some members of staff until we had to float near dead in the water for a year. Some of the younger crew members were desperate to turn around and jump home. But you can’t travel thousands of trillions of miles instantly, and turn around and go that same distance back and expect to find ma and pa waiting at home for you. Life as we know it is gone. We have become a myth, a legend. And the unending darkness in isolation is killing us all. But oh! What a fanciful tomb.
“Captain’s journal, entry date, 3700 days since our initial jump. The ships ai has queried me for an update on our location. There are only a tenth of us left. We set out, ten years ago with a full crew compliment of two thousand souls. The last two hundred are a sad, feral bunch. Life is harsh here, among the living dead.” With a loud ping the ships computer alerts me it has an answer ready on our actual location. Turning from the terminal in the bowels of engineering I stumble over to the ships ai compartment. A tiny room, with a gray box full of pink goo in it. “Captain.” “Good evening Margot.” “I have determined our location, would you care to know more?” “Yes Margot, I would love to know where the fuck we are.” “We are currently less than one one hundred thousandth of one percent of an au from earth, in the sixth dimension. The reason there are so few stars here, is that we are witnessing the final stages of the universe. As the stars wink out, all becomes nothing, until it becomes something once more.” Falling to the floor, dumbfounded. Silence. “If we jump, do we stay put but leap dimensions?” I croak out the question to the ships ai. “Yes captain. Our initial projections for the engine were false. It is only a dimensional shift created, not forward movement.” “Do we… can we… can we go back to where we started?” “Why yes captain. Though I would not advise it. Our reappearance could be violent.” “But if there’s a chance we have to try!” Bolting to my feet, I race headlong through the ships corridors, charging toward the long unused bridge. Scanning my biometrics, retinas and finger prints, I breathe upon the service latch to release the biological locks I had put in place. Darting incoherently for my captain’s chair, I pull down the trigger on the for ease engine ignition override.
Resolving back into our regular third dimension with an incredible crash, not quite here, no longer there, we splice half in half out of reality atop of ourselves and the Torus station. Gutting the observation decks, and slicing off all thrusters on the starboard side of Margot’s Fever.
PART XV
I have a lot of respect for editors
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.
“Rolling in five, four, three, two…”
And the producer throws to the reporter seated on a plush white crash couch, in the middle of a small studio. The reporter is dressed in a bulky beige jumpsuit, capable of near instantaneous release of her atmospheric helmet and respirator re-breather. Not used to being in the studio, this intrepid reporter usually reports live from location, out on a ships hull, the outer surface of a far off space station or in a war zone. The reporter, named Janet Hawke, is about forty years old, slightly graying down her part line, with her salt and pepper hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. “Good evening, this is Torus station news, channel seventy three. I’m your host this evening, Janet Hawke. Tonight we are welcoming a very special guest, an historian on the emergence and use of our current biometric interface. Welcome, welcome. Please have a seat.” Gesturing off camera, the view pulls back to place the older gentleman in frame, as he steps through a dark purple curtain, to cross the few steps and step up onto the dais to his pristine white crash couch, under intense white lights, from a rig overhead. After a brief musical interlude the man scoots up into the raised gel couch and makes himself comfortable. “No!, thank you, it’s a real pleasure to be here today. I was told I’d be interviewed by Rosie Reyes, but YOU, the one and only Janet Hawke wow!, you’ve reported on some truly auspicious events. I’m positively tickled pink, I am. Wait until my husband sees this!” With a charming giggle, he affixes his game face, and cues the producer with a subtle gesture that he is ready to proceed. “Now, dr. Benjamin Hoyt, as I’ve come to understand the history of our current technology stretches back more than five hundred years.” “Oh, yes, it really is a marvel, we have so much documentation, patents, interviews and research dating back to the nineteen fifties if you can believe that.” The two, on camera appear to be talking directly to one another, but in studio you can see the fancy white gel couches are actually on gyroscopic frames, and are about three meters apart. Safety, and precaution preclude the old fashion face to face interviews of centuries gone by. The magic of editing, and camera work. Do wonders never cease. “That is truly astounding.” “Quite, but things weren’t always so compact, nor non intrusive like they are now… ah, may I?” Gesturing to a media monitor, cutting back to Ms. Hawke. “Oh, visuals!, please do.” She says, leaning back into her couch and out of frame. A water bottle at her side, she carefully unscrews the lid and takes a sip. “Here you see, are the originals… most archaic huh! A waist band, held with velcro and button snaps, loaded with only a few simple sensors and outputs, with leads to ECG Electrodes, attached to the heart, lungs, kidneys and a power source. This design stayed virtually untouched from the nineteen fifties until two thousand twenty one.” Panning backwards the camera then fades to black, then comes to life as a voice over, with the archival video playing of ancient astronauts talking about their medical devices. “After this period, the devices were miniaturized but still held in place externally with a waist belt. That lasted from two thousand twenty one until roughly twenty sixty.” A new slide show is queued up by the producers and the staff in the editing suite behind the cameras. “Things then start to get very exciting, now we enter the first draft of the wrist control. Though these units were bulky by today’s standards, it was a massive leap forward in technological advancements. We now had a modicum of room in which to affect the body at the atomic level. By all accounts painful to wear, and we have numerous stories of people cutting themselves, and tearing through suits while maneuvering in eva. These units didn’t last much beyond four or five years, somewhere in the vicinity of twenty sixty to twenty sixty four… Yes, yes, we have a clip of one such incident. Sit back and watch.” Dr. Benjamin Hoyt’s feed is cut short, so that he might grab a quick drink, or flush his old suffering bladder. It always makes him pull a funny face as it happens. Makes his husband laugh hysterically every. Single. Time. The producers welcomed the insight given by his publicist Danielle, and built in several such cues into the segment. His inner ear piece clicks on. “We’re back in three, two….” the voice fades out. “From this we leap forward to the first ever capsules designed by oh my, I can’t quite recall…” From off camera the Doctors chipper publicist named Danielle Del Veccio prompts him with the requisite information. “Flight commander Neil Todd and his wife Jen.” Closing her binder, she steps away from the dais the crash couches are upon, and out of the field of view of the studio lights overhead. With a slight flush in the cheeks, Dr. Hoyt starts in again. “Flight commander Neil Todd and his wife Jennifer Todd. Though their work on the Non Sequitur was seminal, they opted to have the sensors removed from their person and integrated thoroughly into the ships systems. Ugly hard shell yellow boxes were placed through all crew areas, and had redundancies built in that are the framework of the systems you see in use today. In my professional opinion I think going external was a mistake, as when their cascading catastrophic failure happened, we weren’t able to get a full diagnostic on his state for well over three weeks. But they were brilliant, so they must have known something I don’t. However, given the era, and what was going on at the time politically, there was very little that could be done.” A sweeping camera shot of the studio as the show moves to commercial break. The lights go up, as an indistinct murmur pervades the room. Notes are added to the script, and portions of the slide show are clipped and tightened up for the repeat cast in several hours time. A large red countdown clock ticks over, as the seconds drop away. The bright studio lights dim.
“And we’re back. If you are just joining us now, expert historian Dr. Benjamin Hoyt is giving us an in depth look at our current state of biometrics, and how it came about.” Reporter Janet Hawke, once again smiling into the camera, her poised position on her gel couch a welcoming visage on the late hour news program. “Well, as I stated before the break, the Non Sequitur and all of the following designs are fairly similar, except that now you find our fully realized subcutaneous implants, with nano bot technology. These units, buried just below the skin, the size of a match book, are now interlinked with nano bots that infiltrate every organ and tissue fiber within the body. Just remarkable technology. We can now keep everyone from catching the common cold, flu, sinus infections, simple blood borne infections, ear aches, tooth aches, blood clots and even regulate the bodies temperature to stave off hypothermia, and hyperthermia.” The camera pulls back to show the good doctor with a massive grin upon his face. Cut to video feed of crowds oohing and aahing, as though they were in the studio. “Though the system is great, we still have to go to medical bay for treatments for Cancer, Aids, and a few other radiation related maladies.” “That is truly, truly remarkable. Man kind has achieved so much!” Janet is gearing up for her closing remarks, but Dr. Benjamin chimes in. “Oh, for the layman, the best thing about the nano integration is that the body sock waste system has been interfaced with nano’s, so no more catheters or Colostomy bags for waste expulsion!” “Can’t forget that! , and with that bombshell, this is field reporter Janet Hawke signing off for channel seventy three news. No exceptions, and no exemptions!” Stepping in front of the cameras the producer announces. “Ok, and we’re out, that’s a wrap people…” the sight of sound boards clacking, lights coming up to full strength, and studio personnel begin to walk about the small studio space. A very tall Venetian walks over to Janet to say. “If we have any pick ups, or pre-roll we’ll come find you in your dressing room. We might have to do a promo or two with Dr. Hoyt, so we’ll keep him out of the green room, and prepped to go on short notice.” Without waiting for a response, the large individual from the Venus science base is heading back to her booth, to triple check the data, and facts on the time lines. Over Janet’s ear piece she can hear her say, “We’ll need to interject some graphics into the slide show that Flight commander Todd’s Non Sequitur and subsequent classes of capsule ran circa twenty two forty until twenty two sixty. Let’s make sure our time line display really pops this time.”
PART XIV
“What is it you said you guys do again?”…
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
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 
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