Chapter 02: ...Or Cooling Off?
"Enough of this," I told myself.
After burying those Hellish thoughts I had, I took a deep and invigorating pull of cool air to further calm myself down. The shower tended to do a better job at calming me for multiple reasons, but I had to start it back up for that to work. And I needed to get my crap together first if I wanted to resume my wake up.
The frigid wake-up ritual I regularly performed was a necessity for... Reasons. A big one when coming around after that dreadful dream I just had. It, the shower, did the trick to manipulate my senses into thinking I put out that non-existent fire. The second reason was that it gave me a boost in waking the Hell up. Third one would be to freshen up after sweating like a stuck-pig being turned over a fire. And the fourth was to simply get ahead of Rick on a morning shower and an early start on the day.
Anyways, I was already here and wet, so I turned the shower-head back on. Before the cold water put me into a hypothermic shock, I got up and out of the tub. The reason I got out was because it would take a moment for the temperature to become roomy. My imagined fire was out and I was done with freezing my buns off.
The clothes chute was nudged and kept propped open by my foot while I pulled and peel the disheveled and soaking wet shirt off of my lean torso. Once I took it off, I held it up and saw the shirt was completely ruined. From the collar down, it was torn almost in half. No wonder my shoulders were exposed to Rick’s touch. I supposed I made an attempt to rip it off while I slept. Made sense when I recalled the constriction I desperately tried to dislodge from my abdomen.
Ruined or not, I tossed it in and down the chute. As I did so, I glanced at my reflection when turning away. This stranger in the mirror was never what I envisioned myself being. It was that STIM messing with my head. I lifted my hand and gave the stranger a wave. What greeted me in the mirror was an unburnt living existence of myself.
This was me. I smiled back at that whole and healthy reflection.
My hair was technically considered and labeled as blonde by the system, but under the bathroom light it looked like I was closer to being a platinum. Short too, cut in the way I liked it with not a single hair’s length longer than my pinky. I didn't enjoy the feel of anything touching my neck, let alone something brushing along these chalk-white shoulders. When Mom let my hair grow out, it felt like the hairs were actually something crawling on me. Being how she was a nature lover and had us visiting the great outdoors all the time, I was regularly freaked out about a hitch hiking bug.
That reminded me of something that freaked other people out: my eyes. They happened to be green. That kind of startling color of revival when found in the fields back home, where it had been intentionally scorched into an ash and allowed time to nourish the newborn earth. Grass... Except how beautiful Mom told me they were, I had also known these were from a recessive gene. Something that had gradually receded into near extinction. Everyone tended to have some shade of brown eyes. And back to my hair, that had a different story. Mostly all the heads I saw were light as wood or to dark dirt, but I've had come across people who were lit up like an orange flame or slicked back with blood reds and down to the oddly pitch blacks.
My coloration was mine. Unique and was an extreme distance from all those who saw themselves as the norm. Mom believed that made me special, but I wouldn't mind having a bit more color added to my looks. Green was fine, but the hair and my skin’s complexion made me look and feel not so hale and hearty. Like I'd be roasted alive under our sun…
Or be mistaken for a Krypt. The latter impression had caused me to feel a tinge of anger because they’d be half right. I've had been called that before; a full blooded Krypt. Not something I wanted to be mistaken for in my line of duty. They were the enemy. Especially if I ever did managed to somehow graduate from the STIM. Once I got my congratulations, I'd be shipped off to someplace that was more Hellish than I could ever dream up.
That was why I worried about Rick. To go to Asmore...
The thought of our final destination caused me to be filled with an undeserved remorse. I quivered at with bottled up anger. It wasn’t fair to be born into this enforced fate.
Born… I tilted my head to peer down at my body for a few seconds. For a Bourne, I really didn't feel like one. We are suppose to be superhuman. Enhanced with the Messi-hai, which was a reactive agent that had been introduced into more than just our blood, but spreaded throughout our known galactic network. To compare it with one of Lee’s “classic” movies from Earth, it was the fabled Spice, but the stuff wasn’t required to fuel stellar engines.
Messi-hai pushed humanity towards a new height of unnatural evolution. But I, and every other Bourne, couldn’t live without it. A required prescription that amounted to a drop was daily administered into our bloodstream. Different story when we were on a mission, and much more when Krypts were involved.
“Enough,” I quietly asked, begged myself to stop, shook my head, and closed my eyes to end it. This wasn't something I wanted to be thinking about. Our whole lives were messed up because of that crappy stuff. In case my wandering mind didn’t receive the message, I repeated, “Enough.”
Looking back up at the mirror, I could see that enough time had passed to have my reflected image blurred by the steamy fog. I guessed the shower had been running too long on hot. That could be corrected easily enough, and I was delighted to have a simple distraction.
Thing was, I used to hate showers. Taking a bath was different because the water could cool and I could slip comfortably in. That was back when I lived with Mom, and I could’ve been standing under the scalding spray of water, trying different angles to hit the right spot for our knob to eventually work. Back then, it was best to let that boiling pot to cool off and bathe.
Now was different. Normally on the Oak, the shower could be adjusted with its system. I could bring it up with a transparent hologram and have a selection of options like an adjustable thermostat for our shower. I faced the shower and waved to bring up the Oak’s system. A button appeared here before me, which I tapped to turn on, and up came another for what temperature to set it at.
Our cosmic dwelling, the Oak, was not the best boarding academy in the galaxy. "Hell, our star system isn't even the greatest," I whispered downward to no one but myself. But it was now home. “Better than Asmore,” I, again, whispered.
Again with those thoughts… I dunked my head under the stream of water as if it could wash away those drifting thoughts. That pressurized stream had hit the top of my head, drenching my hair, and ran down the short length to be sputtered off of my lips. My eyes closed and I tried to wash out the rest of my thoughts.
A blank, peaceful mind.
Taking in another deep breath and tasting the humidity, I resolved myself and got in to start scrubbing. A handful of condense soap was roughly rubbed between my hands before I sudsed up my face, swiped my palms upwards, and slicked back my hair with a combing of my fingers. I continue like this for a little until my hair felt like it had been matted with a cheap shampoo.
Satisfied with the tippity top, I then fumbled with the bar of soap over the back of my hands and forearms before I slid my way underneath them. The soap’s course was delayed before reaching my pits. I took a second or two to rinse off the bar before making my attempts to purge the unholy recesses of my arms.
Ever since puberty, I excreted something that stunk under there. I kept clean, but any bit of exercise or labor caused me to sweat and pull in a collection of whatever I had on me to those pits. I woke up in a cold sweat, an odor existed, and if I still wanted to have company around me, I took care of it.
One quick stop around my flat stomach and then gradually circulating my soaped-up hands around to both of my sides. The hard part was reaching my back, though. Sometimes I wished that there would be trees in the dwelling, just so I could use a stick and poke it into the bar of soap. Instead, I had to struggle, my elbow in an awkwardly funny salute as I reach for the no-man's land between my shoulders. I rolled back the balls of my shoulders, stretching the span of my collar out, when I heard —
-SLAM-
Startled, the soap was skidding and slipping around from where I dropped it behind me. I held my shoulders tight to my body, crossing my hands down over my crotch in insecurity. I stared at the door to the bathroom as I chilled out. I didn't know Rick was still awake. Moreover, I had not realized he hadn't shut the door. I should’ve noticed and took care of that myself, but my mind was occupied and I was desperate for liberation.
The question I had was why he woke up. Maybe the shower's steam billowed out and disturbed him, or the sound of the shower bothered his ‘nightcap’, or he'd been worried that I didn't return to bed. Probably not the last one since he'd been fully aware of my morning ritual.
There was the chance that, I guessed, he really was troubled — much more than I was. I still cared.
My attention turned away from the door and down around the tub to look for where the soap had buzzed off to…
After I finished up washing and rinsing, I stepped out of the shower to dry off. I could’ve used the system to assist in that department, but the towel was something I still prefered to use over the holographic options available. From what I’ve heard, there was an air conditioner that could blow dry us, but if I were to click the wrong button, I’d freeze or fry way beyond tolerance. I didn’t want to wake back up in intensive care for something that stupid.
But I had a problem. I spent a minute or two looking around, checking drawers, but I couldn’t find the towels. There was no way we used them all up, so where the Hell were they?
Poking my dripping wet head out of the bathroom door, I took a look around in our currently dark room. I couldn't imagine them being in here, but then again there was always the chance that they never made it past a certain point of return. We were always called away from our hobbies or chores for some duty or another. The probability of Rick flinging his towel off to quickly dress wasn’t impossible.
Nope. Not a single leafing towel in sight. There was no light, but I could make out each and every shape in there just fine. And I didn’t recognize a whole folded stack or thrown in a pile liter of towels anywhere.
In disappointment, I let out a sigh and considered trying my luck with the Oak not blowing me away onto a rolling stretcher. But then I looked to my own bed for salvation. I knew the fitted and spreadsheet would be soaked in seconds, what was worse was that it probably already was soaked by me — from that horrifying STIM. I could probably substitute the blanket for a towel. After that, I could throw it on the floor in response of me having gone out across it all dripping wet. Once dried, I’d chuck the towel and sheets into the laundry chute.
This sounded like a plan, man. I got to it.
Going out, I shut the door behind me softly more for Rick’s sake than anything else. I pulled away the blanket from the top of my bed enough to lean down my head and shoulders, scrubbing the threaded fabric with my drenched fair-hair, and running the soft material down and around my neck. After I finished that up, I pulled the blanket the rest of the way off and around my slim body. I just let it drape down over my shoulders like a cape before pulling it shut in front of me.
Turning around and away from my bed, I sit down feeling like a cocooned caterpillar awaiting transition and for its freedom. In the meantime, my green eyes adjusted to the dark a little better. I could make out the sparkly tracks shaped like wet feet on the floor tiles. I would have to throw this thing down soon before Rick ends up slipping — or me, if I somehow forgot about it.
Looking away from the wet floor, I chanced by noticing an immediate movement in Rick’s bed. Of course it was him rolling around. Judging by his twisting and turning under the covers, I somehow disturbed him.
Then he turned on his side to face me. He was just staring back at me with a frustrated look like I’ve been keeping him awake on purpose.
After a moment of silence passed between our stare-off, I asked, “...What?”
“Get dressed,” he mumbled and turned back around to ignore me.
“How do you know I’m not wearing anything under here?” I rose the blanket up with a shrug to indicate what I meant, but he didn’t respond.
Gradually, I turned away when he didn’t do or say anything else. I guessed he was still kinda upset at me for initially and continually disturbing his slumber. For both our sakes, I believed he didn't want to converse for a good reason. He was tired and all this would’ve done was drag this sleepless night out longer with us arguing.
But our conflicts were a sign of caring. When we stopped talking, that meant we didn’t care anymore. He mentioned as such and left me alone. I wouldn’t do that…
“I do care about you,” I whispered softly and left it at that. I also looked away from him and would heed his command. But first, I had a floor needing some tender love and care.
Taking the blanket off, I threw it over onto the floor between me and the bathroom. It made a somewhat soft landing and created a nice bridge that could soak up my wet mess. Then I got up off the bed and walked over to step on it. One bare foot scuffled up into the blanket, then the next did the same, and I repeated the process of bundling the blanket closer and closer to the bathroom until I manage to recover my slick tracks.
Finished, I left the blanket at the bathroom door in a scrunched pile, but only for a second. In a squat, I tenderly picked up the blanket, straightened up, walked to the chute, and opened it up for an instant slam dunk.
Now I was… I was not ready to get dressed. My oral hygiene had almost been forgotten. I didn’t want to risk getting a single drop of paste on my clothes. If I did, I’d get to shucking right away. If I didn’t, I could see and hear the jeers about the white stains being mistaken for something completely different.
“Not again,” I said and then started to brush myself up.
“Sid,” I heard him call out to me, but I kept on brushing. But I stopped when he got snarky. “As vulnerable as you make yourself out to be, it isn’t any wonder they didn’t believe you.”
Switching the toothbrush into my right hand, I reached out with my left and slammed the door shut. I didn’t need that incident on my mind this morning… Or ever.
There was a quick knock to grab my attention. Then I heard him apologize through the door. “Sorry. I didn’t… I’m just tired and wasn’t thinking —”
“Yew doh,” I swiftly mumbled, regardless of a foam filled mouth like a rabid animal. If he understood what I said — which was that he didn’t think — then he hadn’t minded the verbal jab.
One rinse later, I put the items away and opened the door. Rick was right back under his covers in bed. He might’ve been asleep, but it didn’t matter at the moment. I was only going to take a moment to get dressed and leave.
Just like I had adjusted the thermostat for the shower, I was flipping through the simulated drawers for what to wear. I selected a shirt of denim-blue and a matching pair of jeans. The two images combined and highlighted a confirmation for me to select or cancel. One tap later and they appeared on me with a flourish of sparks. Lee mentioned it was like Star Trek-like glitter beaming clothes on him. Despite his insistence to watch the show with him, I only had time for his movie nights, so I never got into that series.
In all honesty, I would’ve preferred dressing myself the old fashioned way. I remembered Mom teaching me how to do it, but this system was a nasty enabler. I didn’t like it, but there were no other choices to be had. The clothes didn’t exist, just like those drawers I rummaged through. Mine and everyone else's outfits were materialized on the spot upon demand.
This particular set I chose was because I tended to squeeze into tight spaces and needed to wear something durable. And there were a lot of niches I had to slide in because no one else could. Out of everyone I knew on the Oak, I was comparably considered the little guy. All others averaged around seven foot — or roughly over two meters — to a whopping extra head taller. Give or take a little change from the measurements there, none other could’ve accomplished the tiny feats I did without shaving off something vital from their height and girth.
It was a Bourne thing to be suped up that big. I acknowledged we were bigger than normal humans because of my mother and her kind. Us Bournes were enhanced and this was just another quirk of the Messi-hai. It could create any change — reasonably within a legal boundary. But outside the Accord, there was an infinite spectrum of possibilities. That stuff had gone in good, and worked wonders on humanity, but it also came out real bad too.
Not that it was something that happened to me, but I did get cheated. I blamed the Messi-hai on bigger crap going on out in our galaxy and the neighboring ones. What that stuff did to me was simply short me on a couple of inches off an under-average Bourne. I was almost six foot. This gave me the label small or little. I was not. I was taller than a lot of folks who were not Bournes… But that didn’t matter on the Oak. Towering Bournes were all that I’d ever encountered here.
This was stupid and I shook myself up to get that thought out of my head. And I got a move on to the next item on the list: socks and shoes. Those easily appear with a flick of the wrist and press... Okay, several presses of a button. That was new. I supposed there was an update to the system. I didn’t get a message about that, but now I had something to search and read about while waiting for my shift to start.
The system was easily accessed anywhere within the Oak or in its frequency range. All of these features were thankfully designated under my login. And that profile had every accurate statistics about me to prove who I was before anything got accessed. But I was not sure if the doctors on board updated the system with that or if the Oak itself could somehow read me. I bet that was an interesting observation of my body growing and upgrading from a halfbred kid to an underwhelming teenage adult Bourne.
After getting dressed, I picked up the sheets from my bed within a pinch between my fingertips. Not minding that they dragged behind me as I headed back over to the bathroom, I threw them into the laundry chute too. Not too certain of this, but I thought I remembered someone saying to me that the chute led to an incinerator. I doubted that it was intended for our laundry to be washed. What was the point? We could simply create them again practically out of nothing with the tap of our fingers.
If anything, the reason we couldn’t snap our fingers and have those clothes vanish on their own was the time to process it and silliness. The Oak wasn’t perfect and the higherups conceded on agreeing to one or another proposal, but no magically disappearing outfits. I agreed too as there were enough young ones who would abuse it for a quick laugh.
The chute could be a storage and dump everything, like garbage, out into space, but that wouldn't be an instant transfer into the expansive void. It would start to stink, so if my refuse was dropped and stored away, I believed everything would be incinerated for sanitary purposes shortly after.
With one good shake of my head, I roughly threw off whatever remnants of sleep I still had in me. The shower did help and all, but waking up early was always felt and stuck around. It could be curbed by not eating often as much. It didn’t sound too healthy, but the reason why I abstained was because it tricked my body into believing I needed to be up soon to grab some grub before the rest of the guys stirred. An early bird practice.
As I was heading for the door, I noticed that Rick had buried his head beneath the pillow. I almost laughed at the sight, but his behavior this morning cut that amusement out. I thought, ‘Maybe he finally managed to shut out my existence?’ Well, that was good for him. I didn't want to be the annoyance, the why to him not getting any sleep anymore. His STIM could take that fall for me. I blamed it for my years, so I saw no reason why I was to be tagged It by him.
Before I stepped out and closed the door to our room, I took in one more good pull of air into my lungs and let it out real slow like. Really, I was serious about what I said earlier. I did care and worried about Rick. If he was heading where I thought, then the guys evaluating us are not gonna let his declining psyche slide by for much longer. He'd be shipped and madly frolic with the rest of their kind in the Asmore system.
Now that place was literally a burning Hell. Everyone from there had something going on with their heads. None of it good, either. It was stuff we either learned from school, by word for word from veterans, or the occasional documented flashback shown on the big screen.
Again, this wasn't stuff I wanted to be thinking about early in the morning, but my mind wouldn't shut up. I wanted to get my mind off of pressing the replay button on my STIM too.
Hell, I couldn’t stop it. I thought about what would happen if our minds were tricked into thinking we had died. If in the STIM, I would’ve ceased to be the instant that hole in my chest appeared. Would we? Would we actually die in our sleep or was it then when the failsafe woke us up? Probably the latter, but just not fast enough to avoid the suffering. That was perhaps what had woken me up this morning.
Hell, I guessed that meant I did sorta die. I had to wonder which was it that triggered the STIM to wake me. Was it when I went through suffocation in the flames, shock of being shot through the heart, or the loss of blood?
With violence, I shook my head. This was done enough to give me a head-ache. A precisely sharp one right in the curved corner above my brow. It was probably sinus related, considering I had thrown my head around to toss my equilibrium way off its kilter.
My palm was pressed up against a sturdy surface, a wall. I leaned against it and started to chant, "Deep breaths. Calm down. Deep breaths. Calm down," over and over again. I inhaled the to the point of becoming lightheaded and I smiled like there had been a rich and intoxicating aroma in the air. When my mind was blank, I said, "Drive everything out. Look ahead and see what comes up. Take everything in slowly." I finished that saying that line with an exhale. I endured a little without oxygen before taking in another lungful. Before long, I felt the buzz in my head gradually tingling down my spine and throughout my body.
When I finally chilled out, I followed my own suggestion and looked around. The hall right outside of our room was a long one. Really long. There were closed system generated portals to other rooms, or if I walked down either way far enough, dorms for the rest of our Oaks.
To be an Oak was to be a part of a family. I'd be Sidney Oak and my roomy was Rick Oak. Our blood was tied when we boarded the Oak dwelling.
This wasn’t the only dwelling in our galaxy. The second dwelling would be filled with Aussies. If we’d boarded that one, it would have made us Sidney and Rick Aussie. Instead, we were Bourne-Sidan Oaks. That name would tell any and every human we were Bournes who came from the Occidan Star system and that we lived in the Oak dwelling.
Why Sidan and not Occidan? Funny story behind that… There were two dwellings in Occidan. Both had a petty quarrel over how to pronounce our own star system. One was Oak-sidan, us, and Aus-sidan, them. We never concluded who was in the right, but managed to pull up a calling card from the negligible dispute.
In no time at all, I felt the lift of my smile being genuine. This topic was a bit more appealing to think about than the previous trash I had floating around inside my noggin. Actually, thinking about junk had me wondering what kind of breakfast I should eat.
Down the hall, I could see that I was not the only one awake. I found it to be a pleasant surprise because it wasn’t company I had been wary of being alone with. And before I could willingly let my presence be known, he spotted me.
"Yo' wassup?" Lee called out his typical 'Good Morning' to me. He was always an alright kind of guy. There were outdated trends he liked to pick up from antiquated pop culture and give them a try out. If he annoyed someone with it, then he’d shelve the act for later when encountering someone more open-minded. Of course, these performances never quite lasted too long. It was boggling how he invested so much time to research these old trips down Earth’s memory lane. I supposed he enjoyed our ancestral past and found a way to excuse himself for the time to “study” instead of work. I had no idea how he managed the time to rest up.
"Good Morning," I said and felt my body was not quite agreeing with me as I fought against the urge to yawn. I thought, ‘Great timing body. You sure know when to rear up your ugly head at the exact right moment. Couldn't you have done this before being seen?’
Lee had a curiously amused look on his face that suggested he saw my inner-turmoil. He waited until I finished tensing against the strain of sleeplessness, then he laughed.
"Ha, I think you could use a few more winks before it gets 'Good,' ya know?" He had made a good point.
My pace was easy for him to remain by my side, so I ended up walking with him to the cafeteria. I didn’t mind, but I was at a disadvantage to be witty with him.
That thought gave me a question to ask him. "What is on the menu? Anything strong enough to wake me up?"
He looked me over, and I caught the puckered brow on his forehead. Then he shrugged and said, "I could think of a thing or two, but I doubt you'll find it on the menu."
What was he talking about now?
"Is that supposed to be a line from somewhere?" I'd guessed another movie or show he had binged on overnight. Sometimes, I really wondered if dwelling on the past was as good a thing he made it out to be.
There his shoulders go again, bouncing up to shrug off my question. "Dunno, sounded right, might have come out of something or nowhere."
He grinned at me, then looked away to take a peek around the corner at the open cafeteria. When I did the same, I saw the whole place looked to be practically empty.
Practically, but not entirely.
The cafeteria had a Robby in there. I watch him raise a hand in greeting while his other hand situated near his munching mouth on some kind of disintegrating club. It looked like more of it was falling apart than being consumed. But I might’ve been wrong about it being a club. Maybe a submarine? A sandwich. I was gonna go with it being a long sandwich and I wasn’t going to ask him for clarification. When it came to Robby, I settled with basics.
"Hi," I said without any indication of emotion. And that was all I would be saying to him too.
"Yo' wassup Roberto!" Lee spoiled the cold front I was trying to put up with his morning greetings. I didn’t like that he directed his cheerfulness at the worst possible candidate to receive any kind of kindhearted blessing.
Not surprising that Robby took his time eating his sloppy bite rather than return the greeting to us. But he did stare at me with a look of thoughtful interest. It was bad enough I had to see him this morning, but him ignoring Lee's enthusiastic greeting and the direct look he gave me had managed to get onto my next nerve. It was one thing to exist as a pain in the ass and another to present his existence by focusing all that pain onto me. Next, I would’ve bet and won that I'd have to listen to him prattle like nothing happened between us.
We were walking past the empty tables towards him — not by my choice. I had to attend the counter nearby him if I wanted breakfast. Until I got there, I watched Robby in the event he had anything to say.
He swallowed the bite and took his time, again, to clear his teeth. Not with a toothpick or anything openly displayed like that. I could tell with the bulging impression of his tongue sweeping behind his lips. His golden-honeyed eyes were kept locked on me this entire time. I began to wonder if he was waiting for me to start this crap.
When he was done, he sighed, patted and cleared away the lettuce and breadcrumbs that were dropped onto his broad chest, and finally announced, "Morning."
The half eaten sandwich was sat down on a dish in front of him. For just a second, he looked around, then his eyes were back on me, and the same hand he used to drop the sandwich was now swept in front of him as an offering to us to sit.
Regardless of how I felt about him, I currently declined and motioned towards the counter to show I was not intentionally being impolite towards him. I headed past his table and for the lined up trays at the counter while I heard Lee seeming to be more intrigued to socialize with the waste of space.
The arrogant guy wanted to be our leader, yet he hadn’t shown any action to do so. And, no, bossing everyone around didn’t count. If he wanted to show us the ropes, he could demonstrate, not bark at every little thing we did wrong. I didn’t believe it mattered that he was two years our senior. There had to be an example made for us to fall in line.
Then again, I was rightly being harsh judging him, but for the wrong excuse. I was still upset over what he had done to me. Holding a grudge wasn’t healthy in our company.
Fairly thinking about it, we hadn't been given a chance to really display the degree of showmanship Robby required to prove himself. Rey was a different story on legit accounts, but that was when he had drawn the short straw and gone off alone on a solo mission. We hadn’t heard from him in a long time, but he came back. And with him was the lack of ambition to rise in our ranks.
He got a real taste of war. Not the experiences we had yet to encounter, but his dreams had to have been shared in the STIM. Which meant he was to blame for the all too real dropship fire. I had to wonder if Rey lived through that… And before I could contemplate on it any further, I backtracked onto my earlier train of thought.
Opportunities. Yeah, when could any of us have the opportunity to upgrade? Our tasks regularly have been revolving around the security of stranded ships until they could be hauled out of there. There were also the times we located Messi-hai out in our system and had to secure that point. Only the hot rescues were of importance, but they were also few and far between. I could count five times I'd been involved.
One: we had a stranded ship that had encountered a crystallizing Messi-hai. The magenta stuff attempted to entombed the occupants in a shimmering shield of its oversized gem. We broke them out and picked up the pieces for processing. The occupants’ appreciation also turned out into a nice little cash grab for us Oaks.
They got their jump start and were back to trailblazing across the Occidan.
Second: there had been a couple of Masses that had been lost. These guys were another type of human, not like us Bournes, but more in-tuned with nature in a hippie-way. Creative, artsy, flashy, all-love-and-peace, and let’s not forget to mention all the free love in the universe.
All of our mothers were Masses, but we didn’t carry over any of their genetics. They were more like a surrogate mother. They just carried us around in their womb until it was time to be born. They raised us newborn infants up into toddlerhood. Then came the separations to be reborn...
Anyways these Masses were simply lost and we permitted them to tail us to our dwelling until their heads cleared enough to get out. I forgot to mention they were almost always baked. Not all of them, but, most, yeah...
Third: that was a mess. We didn't get to them on time. Only by documentation did we learn that they were Bournes-Sidans on their way to Asmore. Unfortunately, they ran into the cloudy type of Messi-hai and were ionized in their shuttle like kernels of popcorn in a microwave. I refused to go in there — one of the times I argued with Robby — and everyone else began to agree when I pointed out the whys. We ended up towing the shuttle back for further investigations by another unfortunate team. I have no idea what happened to them.
Fourth: now this involved a bunch of shuttles on their way from Omaggus to reach Aidan. The two systems were neighbors, but they somehow went through us. I guess it had been by accident. I heard that they were set upon by Messi-hai Lurkers and those nasty buggers wanted to take a piece out of their ships. Lurkers formed together better when they had more solid material to work with. Well, when these shuttles sent out their distress signal, we thought that it was just going to be a rescue. On the way there was when we heard about the Lurkers and got surprised when we sailed in through a swarm of them. That only meant a major Lurker was acting as an idle hub station and we were in for a starfight.
Yeah, we weren’t suited for that kind of combat. The higher ups had sent out our own distress signal and we got a second surprise on that mission. Everyone had a chance to see the Old Glory do its thing. Oh, Old Glory was the name of Occidan's flagship, a Dreadnought not only representing Occidan but a ship that could solo a war. It had the firepower to turn out the lights in a star system simply by removing the star. Nobody was willing to do that just yet, and I was glad. I liked living, but because every sane human also enjoyed that luxury, Old Glory didn't get to do a whole lot. So when it was given an opportunity to show off its firepower, the Occidan flagship did not disappoint.
The fifth and last time: we had a false flag. Not to be mistaken for a false alarm. A false flag meant a trap. The ship was registered in the reports for having a legitimate reason to be there, and the zone they were in hadn’t been known for anything in particular. The crew were supposed to probe the unknown there and go back home with the news. So, from our point of view, it had appeared as a normal distress signal for a disabled ship.
We followed our protocols and went out to investigate. Yes, there were signs of life onboard. And when we ran the checks with them, they obviously checked out. I wasn’t expecting anything more than neighboring Masses or Aidens out on an expedition.
What we found were Krypts. These were not the kind of people who want to be saved, rather that they want to drag us all down into Hell with them. Not only that, but in their messed up heads, it had to be done in a way that left a mark for all to see. What these guys did was horrible: suicide bombing. They waited for us to come out and greet them before they dropped the act. If it had not been for our Messi-hai infused suits, we would have been plastered to our own ships and our crystallized remains incinerated off the hull to purge it of the Messi-hai contamination.
That and they timed it wrong. Rigging a ship to explode is one thing anyone could’ve done, but it was an entirely different matter knowing when to blow it up and take a Bourne with them.
Krypts... I hated them like nothing else in the galaxy. I knew some of the Bourne used to be Krypts, but that was back in the final days of what everyone called ‘Ew’ like they were disgusted. It was formally and formerly known as the Existence War. A very gross period of our time. And on the subject of gross stuff...
"Ugh," I groaned and shook my head, feeling sick to my stomach thinking about this crud again. I wanted to have an apatite. Instead, my thoughts kept going back into dark places. I took a carton of purified water and grabbed an English muffin with a side dessert granola bar. At least the bland stuff wouldn't upset my stomach.
When I dropped them on my tray, I headed back to the table with my companions still chatting. Kinda. Lee was doing most of the talking while Robby kept eating. When I got there, Robby’s attention was directed at me, and when he got his look, then his gaze fell down to my meager meal.
"That's all you ever eat," he commented. I gave him a blank stare, then focused my attention on my muffin and shrugged in response. But he was persistent against my indifference and said something to get a rise out of me. "You want to not look like a Krypt, then eat something filling.” I flashed my green gems at him and had been about to speak up there and then, but he was apparently not finished speaking. “Like this," he said and held up the half of his sandwich for example.
Despite the anger boiling to spill out of me, I put a lid on it fast and looked at his meal. I could see the glistening oils on the tomato, the stringy lettuce brightly giving off the glimmers of light from over our heads, a pasty looking slice of cheese was attempting to escape its slippery clutches of the squished breading, and then there was that slab of oozing meat tucked between all of that with the adhered sauce of off-white colored mayo.
"Ugh, no," I commented with my anger turned directly and quickly into revulsion. I shook my head and regretted the action. My stomach told me it was not up for this and with good reason. I couldn't think of ever eating that stuff. I'd rather be given an IV infusion to keep me kicking than deal with the opposing party turning over my stomach. I could envision the toll it would go through trying to process that grease, let alone everything else in that thing.
"Look, it isn't going to kill you," he breaks off a quarter from the half and kept the chewed end for himself. He offered me the untouched portion and said, "Eat it."
Turning to Lee, I saw he had looked over to me and smiled. He said, "It is good. You could use some meat on your bones."
My face had done the opposite of Leroy’s and I stared at him for a few seconds before blindly taking the offered half from Robby. Then I glanced and stared at it.
"It isn't going to bite, either," Robby slathers on the abhorrent topic.
To note: I was not skinny. Maybe a thin, but not skin and bones. The enhancements to our bodies from the Messi-hai had made certain we were at peak constitution... Well, within reason. No one expected a halfbreed to take to it like I did.
And as for this, I was just not feeling it today, or yesterday, or last week, and maybe the month before that. Rick was getting my gut all tied up in a knot.
"Look, I'll eat… I’ll eat better," I attempt to say in a blazing failure. I tried to sound convincing as I continued to give the quartered sandwich the stink-eye. "I am a bit stressed out, that's all."
Robby and Lee both gave me this silent look. It was actually starting to get to me they were on the same page about this. Crap…
"What?" I didn’t want to discuss myself here. I really desired a peaceful place for me to wake up and prepare for the day.
They looked to each other from across the table before settling back on me, then Robby asked, "Are you going to tell us?"
"If ya wanna," piped in Lee right next to my ear.
Why was Lee also involving himself in this? I was silently wondering for a few seconds what they were now talking about. I no longer thought Robby had intended to converse about our one-on-one. That had led me into thinking this was about someone else. Somebody who also wasn’t in the right condition for a fight.
If I should get this case about Rick's mental state off my chest, I wouldn’t be the only one to figure something out. Or I could simply carry the burden until he got his own butt reported through the STIM. If he was going to be found out sooner or later, wouldn't it be better to break the constraint in my chest now than wait? I supposed that was so...
"It's Rick..." I began, thinking carefully not to lay this on thick. "I don't think he's going to be staying with us much longer." I placed the sandwich down on my tray and picked up the muffin to eat instead. I bit into it while watching the other two for a response or reaction.
Lee kind of rolled his shoulders back in a shrug. I figured he would not having anything really witty to comment on that disclosure. Robby on the other hand had given me an intense glare. He might have been ready to say something to me, but our morning meal conversation was interrupted.
A single blare of obnoxious noise bleated out at us and across the cafeteria to bounce its sound around every open corner for all to hear. We watched the walls change from their casual pallor to a screen of information. Just from the sound of the alert, I already had an idea what this was about.
"That for real?" I heard Lee spout the dumbest stuff sometimes.
Robby goes ahead and breaks it in, "What do you think?” He stood up, and then to both of us — bossy as usual — he said, “Round everyone up."
We three hopped to and headed back to grab our roommates, but for me it had nothing to do with following his order. I knew that we all had to gather and get a briefing on what was going to happen.
Now I could note down a sixth rescue to add onto my list...
