“You are here for the post, yes?” She looked him up and down. He didn’t think she was scrutinizing him, because nobody wanted this job, and they would take anybody.
He had already been hesitated through. “Yes,” he said. Fuck it all and yes. Fuck everything including your life and yes. You are headed to the last outpost in the known universe, a place which has seen more horror . . .
She smiled, a pretty Asian lady. She whisked her hands downward and then came up fanning forms, which she laid out in front of him. “Please take a seat and fill these out.”
He took the forms and a clipboard and a pen and went to the seating area, nervously looking out the front door. It was his aim to get on the next ship out to the last post before his landlord caught up with him. He thought he had taken all the geobugs off his stuff but you can never be too sure. These days they can build the things the size of pubic hair. His landlord would blow him away where he sat. His landlord was one mean motherfucker.
Cody hastily filled out the forms and brought them up to the desk. “When does the next reefer leave?” (Reefer, of course, is the term they use on boats for ‘refrigeration systems’ - taking a ship out to the last outpost meant that you, too, went popsicle-stick.)
The nice Asian lady with the beguiling smile looked over the forms and showed him her dimples: “In ten minutes, Mr. Cody.”
“Ah, Cody is my first name.”
“Yes, of course.”
As he was looking at her a red light flashed across her left eyelid, causing her eyes to immediately flit to another place on her desk which he could not see. “This man a friend of yours?” she asked. She toggled a switch and on the screen behind her a man appeared walking up the stairs with a shotgun in his hands; apparently this was live video taken via surveillance camera.
Cody laughed nervously. “Wha–? Ha ha no.” He rubbed his chin. “He does look a little familiar.”
The lady motioned with her fingers and on each side of her a dark door slid open and two oversized armed guards stepped out. Cody stepped away from the desk, panic-stricken. “Whoah! Whoah! Whoah!” he said. “I’ll leave, I’ll leave!”
The lady looked at him with an eyebrow arched. “These men aren’t for you, Mister Sebastien. These men are for him.” She looked ahead as Cody’s previous landlord stepped through the door. He saw the two guards and muttered, “The fuck–” before they both shot him simultaneously, blowing his head clean off.
The lady looked at Cody again. “You are our property now, Mister Sebastien and we have to protect our interests. Welcome to Zanzibar Universal, Inc.” The dark doors slid back up once again veiling the guards. Several blood bots were dispensed from unknown floor doors and set about cleaning up the mess.
The lady waved Cody to a red door sitting heretofore humbly in the corner. “That way, Mister Sebastien.” she said pleasantly. He nodded to her and took up his bags and went.
the post.
He walked up a large dark ramp. A man on the left partially obscured in shadow threw him something, “Here, take this.” Cody dropped his bags and caught it: a space rifle. It had a strap so he hung it across his back before picking up his bags again. “Thanks,” he said to the man, and continued up the walk.
When he got to the top it was a round room with 12 pods hemming it in. There were only four other people there. Three men and one women. He nodded to them all and took in the woman: she leaned against her bed in her freeze clothes and regarded him without a word. She had long black hair and mocha skin. She smiled at him. His named appeared on an electronic scroll bar over the bed sticking out of his pod. He went to it, stowed his bags under the bed and picked up the pack of freeze clothes laid out just under his pillow. He looked around for a change room, saw the bathroom door perched between two pods and went to it. He relieved himself, washed his hands and changed. He peered at himself in the mirror. The enormity of what he was doing right now hit him and he blinked back tears. He tried to keep his eyes open a couple seconds so they would dry before he went back out with the others. The countdown started over the speaker system so he hustled back out there, dabbing his eyes with his sleeves pulled up over his hands. Put his old clothes under his bed and jumped onto it.
He gave the girl one last look. He tried to imagined them actually talking when they got to their location . . . maybe being stationed together . . . him coming over to her place to make some spaghetti, if they had spaghetti up there. He closed his eyes and tried to dream those thoughts as the countdown closed and the big freeze began.
When he awoke his eyes immediately went to the girl: her pod had been opened and what looked like her intestines and one leg were the only thing left on the bed. There was splatter all over the glass portion of the pod, including one eyeball facing his way.
A technician assisting in the wakeup saw him looking and chuckled. “It sometimes take a while to get your space legs.” he said. He pointed to another door. “You can go over there when you’re ready.”
He wanted to clean up but he wanted to get out of there more. He grabbed his stuff and went up to the door and through it, up a long dark ramp. There were things moving about in it and he stopped suddenly, waiting to see what they were. One came up to him and licked his hand. A dog. Several of them. They sniffed him and moved off. He continued up the ramp, the walls around him plastered with space graffiti. Ahead of him was a larger room with a lot of lights and a fair degree of commotion. He passed a mirror and stopped to take a look at himself. Still in his freeze clothes, dried vomit stuck to his chest, hair stiff, big flakes of dead skin under his eyes and around his nose. Carrying two black satchels with all his worldly possessions. Rifle slung across his back. Shit, keep it together, he told himself. He went up.
the post.
“Who gave this joker a space rifle?”
Two guards and a fat man suddenly crowded him from behind. He stood just past the doorway looking into a largish room painted black with two lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. Several foldout tables stood at the opposite end of the room, manned by a duo of bored-looking clerks. There were two lines, and only one person waiting in each, with two people being waited on. The man slumped in his chair on the right looked catatonic, and the clerk was having a hard time communicating with him. A guard pushed himself off the wall and came forward to slap the unresponsive man across the back of his head with the butt of his rifle. Several dogs were milling about the place, smelling the corners and sniffing the floor. The floors and walls were all stained with long since darkened alien archipelagos.
The fat man repeated his question, “I said, ‘Who gave this joker a space rifle?’”
Cody replied, “Someone gave it to me after I signed up, as I was walking up the plank–”
The fat man smacked Cody across his forehead. “Shut up! I wasn’t talking to you!” He nodded to the guard. “Take it.”
The guard extended his meaty hand to the strap and Cody obliged, trying to wriggle out of it.
Cody stood looking at the fat man, not sure what to do next.
The fat man slapped him across the forehead again. “Well, go stand in line ya mighty git!”
Cody went and stood in the line to the left, where at least the new recruit presently being interviewed was actually speaking. Cody looked to the right line again and the man who had been sitting there was being laid out on a gurney by two of the guards. “Next,” the clerk said. A passenger from Cody’s flight, a small chubby Korean man, stepped up.
Two of the dogs in the corner started growling at the other. One of the guards nearby kicked the closest dog in the ass to push it closer to the other one, thereupon starting a fight. Both dogs gnashed and kicked and hair flew until one yelped and managed to dodge away.
Cody had his turn in line and sat in the chair facing the clerk.
“Name?”
“Cody Sebastien.”
“You are here for the post?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still mostly alive and cognizant after your space flight?”
Cody frowned. “Mostly. I think.”
“Are you ready for your post, Mr. Sebastien?”
“Yes, but . . . I would like to shower and eat something first. Maybe put my stuff away.”
The clerk nodded. “Of course, but no. Your shift has already started. According to your contract, you must be on shift at all times when sheduled unless mortally defunct.”
“Sorry?”
“Dead, unless dead. Three-quarters dead, to be precise. Here,” the clerk stood up and wrapped a band around Cody’s wrist. “This band will show you the way to the factory.”
“Where do I put my stuff?” He raised his bags.
The clerk tsked. “They should have told you when you signed up. You can’t bring anything with you to the post.” He nodded to a guard and several came forward to wretch Cody’s bags away from his hands. They went to the back of the room with them and a large iron door Cody hadn’t noticed before swung open. There were flames inside. Into this hole Cody’s two black satchels containing his last remaining possessions were thrown.
The clerk said, “Well, you will get one of your wishes, Mister Sebastien. You will receive a chemical hose-down before entering the factory floor. Goodbye.”
Cody immediately felt a tug on his new wrist band, as if magnetic, something pulling him toward the door. He obliged, nearly knocking over his chair as he did so. He went through the door and into another corridor, this one sloping down. His wrist lead him at a trot.
Soon the chubby Korean caught up. “A factory?” He asked. “Nobody said anything about a factory!”
Cody shrugged. “I don’t know.” he said.
The chubby Korean’s face was screwed up with anger. “I thought we each had our own suite up here. I thought we would be space observers, or . . . soldiers. But working in a factory? What kind of factory? Are we prisoners here?”
Cody frowned. “I don’t know, man.” he said. He wasn’t feeling well; in fact, he was beginning to feel quite sick. Maybe he hadn’t received his space legs yet, either.
The corridor finally ended and there was an open round door there ringed with rouge, and what lay within strangely dark.
“My name is Egg, by the way,” the chubby Korean said.
“Cody,” Cody replied. He nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
Egg nodded back. Both were exerting muscle to pull their wrists back, which were pulling them to the opening. “Well,” Cody said, pointing his head back up the corridor. “We can’t go back that way.”
Egg looked back up that way and his face screwed up again, like this time he was going to cry. “We’ll help each other, right?” His bottom lip was quivering.
“Yes, yes of course.” Cody said, feeling obliged.
Egg stiffened up, suddenly looking bolder. Braver. Calmer. “OK,” he said. He looked deep into Cody’s eyes, saw fraternity there. He took a deep breath. “I’ll go first.” Egg jumped through the hole. Instantly Cody heard screaming. The hole closed. Another hole opened closer to Cody and a clerk stepped through, catching the look of horror on Cody’s face. “Oh dear, was that hole open?”
Cody nodded.
“Did someone go through?”
Cody nodded again. The clerk called back through the room from whence he just came: “Hey Larry, we lost another worker! Who left the goddamn Dark Hole open again? Goddamnit, that’s not funny, Larry!”
The clerk motioned to Cody. “Come on.” Cody went. “And take off that goddamned band, too. Those things are sometimes as bad as Larry.”
the post.