Chapter 13

MATT

I was lying in the middle of the floor. The scratchy shag carpeting of my tiny little studio still smelled like spilled beer and failed smoking sessions. The night sky darkened my wide deck window and the only thing that gave me even a little bit of light was the out of service crackling of a TV long past the age of cable. I watched the “no signal” box bounce around for a while before I curled up onto my side and stared at the coffee stain on the wall. It was horrible. It was home.

There was a knock at the door that shouldn’t have been behind me, “rise and shine the light has come!” Lucas shouted out and the door slid open, the only futurisitc chink in an otherwise perfectly dull apartment. “Isaiah sixteen and- ah I forget the rest. Come on!” He clapped his hands, “up and at ‘em we’ve got shit to do!”

I said nothing. Didn’t even look at him. I heard his steps approach my back and his foot tapped my leg, “Hey come on. Get up already.” He sniffed the air, “Yeesh, I give you a hologram and this is what you do with it? What’s that smell?”

“Coffee stain.”

“Huh?”

I pointed at the wall, “I put a coffee stain here, but it’s not the same.” I pressed the remote he had given me and the stain flickered to another spot. Then it flickered back. “It won’t center where it was. It’s always just out of place.” I pressed it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

“You uh… sure are loving space huh?”

And again.

He bent low and snatched the remote away from me. He pressed a button and the room fizzled out to its default look. I spread out on my back, “I don’t want to.”

“You ain’t got a choice, crime boy.” He said. I didn’t bother answering, didn't even bother getting up. 

“What’s the point? Who’s going to care? If space prison is anything like this, it won’t be so bad.”

“Ughhhh.” He grabbed my leg and started dragging me toward the door. I let my body slack up like a ragdoll, but he kept dragging, “Ooh lookit me I’m Matt, I go on a big space adventure to save Earth and I spend it sleeping nyeeeehhh- Jeez you need to cut back on something man.”

Eventually I gave up and walked the rest of the way, if only because getting dragged around your friends spaceship was lame. We took the elevator down to the garage where Krazmundo was circling the Cruiser. He was wearing a flak jacket, and two of his hands held a small clipboard while the other set seemed to caress the Cruiser like a newborn baby. He was muttering to himself. I caught traces of “better not have hurt you” and “stupid human doesn’t know…” before he fell back into his alien language. Lucas was sitting on what looked like a large busted motor, staring at him slack jawed and tired. After about twenty minutes of this he almost fell asleep, but snapped back up when Krazmundo cleared his throat, “Alright! That settles preliminary inspection. Now on to practical, gotta check the lights, the oil and-”

“Or we could just go!” Lucas said and got on his feet, “babe, nothing really happened to the ship while I was out. It’s fine.”

“You left it alone in a forest! That recklessness is-”

“All the more reason you like me.” He strode over and stroked Krazmundo’s arm, “You can double check its status later, we’re on kind of a time limit here.” he nipped the keys off of Krazmundo’s waist and jiggled them in front of his face. “Come on! Matt’s shotgun!”

He ran up to the Cruiser and started climbing into the seat. I made to follow, but Krazmundo’s hand smacked across my chest and made me stop. He seemed to flex his teeth extra wide for me as he took the massive rifle from his back and used two of his hands to display it, “you see this?”

“Hard not to.”

“This is twenty pounds of Kanturian craftsmanship, the likes of which your puny little head couldn’t begin to understand.”

“Looks like a gun to me.”

“It- it’s not a gun! I-” His mandibles seemed to click in desperation, “okay so it is! But it’s better than any gun you’ve ever seen before.” He pulled back the chamber at its top to reveal a carefully placed structure of steel beams, a faint red glow emitted from the slot they were stuck in. “See those? That’s pure steel on your planet, and it feeds into a chamber that can super-heat or super-cool them at precise speeds and increments for two types of hard hitting ammo.”

“And what kind of ammo is that?”

“Ammo that hurts, and ammo that really hurts.”

“Oh. I see.”

He put it back together and returned the rifle to his back, “If you get in my way, or hurt Cass in any way, I’ll use the ammo that really hurts on you, instead of the ammo that just hurts. Get me?”

“Wait so… you’re planning on using at least one of those ammo’s on me? Regardless?”

He huffed, satisfied, and started for the Cruiser without another word. “No hang on,” I said, “you- you’re gonna shoot me? Lucas!”

“Can’t hear ya buddy, too busy choosing our tunes!” He called out. Kraz got up into the passenger seat and settled himself in. He was so tall, he had to hunch just to make it work, Lucas took notice, “Babe you usually sit in the back, don’t you?”

“It’s fine.” Kraz said.

“But Matt was gonna take shotgun.”

“He’ll get one later.”

I hopped into the back seat and swiveled up towards them, “he’s gonna shoot me!”

“Awh, that’s what he said when we first met!” Cass beamed.

Honestly, I didn’t understand what Lucas saw in this guy. He was rude, pushy, arrogant, and only while we were scrunched up in that Cruiser did I realize how bad he smelled. It was a musk that reminded me of a damp harbor in the middle of July. Hot and wet.

Lucas fired up the Cruiser and a Britney Spears song started blasting from the speakers. I crossed my arms, “seriously dude?”

“Figured you would want something a little more mainstream.” He said, I glanced over to Krazmundo who was using two of his hands to cover his ears while the others were across his stomach. Just like mine. I shifted my position, doing my best to look annoyed but not in the same way he was annoyed. It was completely different, I promise. I had been surrounded by that music for the entirety of my childhood. This thing had only just heard of it and probably had it on a list of reasons to invade Earth. Lucas was singing along as the machine lifted up off the ground and out of the dock.

I looked outside to try and take my mind off of the song. We were in a completely different area than before. A great orange stain blotted the otherwise black void of stars around us. Within the cloud, I could see faint red, white, and blue dots that reminded me of what I would see from Earth. For the first time I found myself looking at them not as stars, but as other planets and galaxies. Each with their own complex systems and politics that I couldn’t understand if I tried. There were other things out here. I could be unknowingly looking right at some creatures' home, and they would know about me about as much as I would know about them. My trance was kicked out of me by the sudden burst of a rocket fueled machine jetting past us, causing the Cruiser to rumble in its wake. I fell off my seat and ended up face first on the hard metal pit below us, right next to the crumbs of a long since gone bag of chips.

“Seatbelts, Matt.” Lucas said, “you gotta wear them up here too.”

“Yeah yeah.” I said and picked myself back up, ignoring him. My eyes followed the faint light trail that the ship had left behind to what seemed to be our destination. I watched that ship join hundreds of others in various shapes and sizes that were pulling in and out of a massive metal hive which floated seemingly dead center of the orange stain. The immensity of the place became more overwhelming as we approached. It stretched downward like the hidden layer of an iceberg, framed by countless metal walkways that spiraled in and out of it. Faint strips of light decorated them, pink, blue, red, yellow a flickering rainbow of designs too distant to make out. Among them, shadows of passerby skittling like ants. We soon joined the steady stream of ships that surrounded it and followed it into a gaping hole which itself was surrounded by more lights and floating video screens, each with words in languages I couldn’t understand.

“Critwell Station.” Lucas said after timing how long I was staring, “the place where bounty hunters and aristocrats alike cut their teeth on trades, bounties, drinks, drugs, gambling, other illegal things- ya know, city slicker stuff. Beautiful isn’t it? But stay close, this place can be dangerous. Especially since you’re only the second human to ever come here.”

“And you were the first? How did you handle it?”

“Oho man, how could I have handled it better?” He said, “the first time I was here my hair was way shorter, ugh it was gross. I was at this bar, right, real hole in the wall joint. Then this big slimy guy was trying to nab me for… reasons. I socked him in the jaw, then his friend who was this big wall of meat, I’m talkin’ frozen cows, started going for me. So I grabbed the one-eyed slimeball- which is a phrase you really shouldn’t repeat in polite company- and tossed him out the window to a sprawling street about four stories below. And then I heard some glass shatter and my head really started hurting, next thing I know all three of us are arm in arm on the street corner singing some war song and heading to the closest motel we could find! It was- hooo… not one of my best decisions actually.”

By now the music had switched over to a low pulsing vibe that illustrated the deafening silence a little too well. Even Krazmundo was awkwardly shifting in his seat. He cleared his throat, “Does uh… does that spot still itch?”

“Eh, only a little.”

“And you want me here?” I said, “Why? This place sounds dangerous as fuck.”

“Because, we’ve got a guy.” Lucas said glumly, “he can help.”

“Wait, who?” Krazmundo said. He looked to Lucas who was avoiding his gaze. “Cass, who is the guy we’re here for?”

“No one. Just…” A cough not so suddenly overtook her, “Ghevilighskfh”

“Eli?!” Krazmundo shouted, damn near bursting my eardrums, “No chance. Turn us around.”

“Babe, he could help.”

“He wouldn’t help his left foot if he could make money off it. Plus he smells funny.”

“So do you.” I said,

Kraz jabbed a finger at me, “Stay out of this!”

“Boys hush.” Lucas said, “Kraz, I like the musk, and Eli could help us unravel the particulars of Matt’s bounty. He has his ear to the ground on most things around here. If anyone would know anything, it would be him.”

“Yeah if he doesn’t leave us for dead first.” Krazmundo grumbled.

“That was one time!” Lucas said, “and to be honest he was kind of justified.”

Krazmundo glared at him. Lucas tried to keep his eyes forward, but was obviously starting to crack under the pressure. I could see it in the way his back straightened up the second Krazmundo said, “you sure about that?”

“Well it- I mean- heyhey look we’re inside the funnel anyway, no going back now ah well.”

Before either of us could say anything else, Lucas cranked up the volume on the music and hitched the Cruiser forward. We were inside a large round hall lined with more ads and lights than ever before. A few ships passed by us, while a couple others kept pace. I tried to glance inside their windows to see what the things driving these might look like, but all of them were too distant, small, or obscured for me to really get a good look. The hall gave way to a large open ended space that was packed to the brim with spaceships all in different stages of coming or going. Below us stretched what was simply a massive parking lot that ran wide along a large steel wall, spanning far into a horizon point. This, I assumed, was the entrance to the station proper, and like everything here it was huge.

We floated down to the parking lot and Lucas kept stealing glances over the side to see where he could land. “I really should invest in that monthly VIP pass.” He grumbled, “you had it once, right Kraz?”

“Yeah, but it’s not really worth it. Twenty extra bucks and for what? A shorter walk to the wall?”

There didn’t seem to be much of an order for the ships to land in, only common agreed practices in how much space between them was needed. This was difficult to judge when every single ship had a unique design to it. Some were spheroid, others triangular. There were fancy looking gilded ones and ones that looked less like ships and more like run down hovels retrofitted with rockets plastered in bumper stickers and patches of cheap repair. I swear, there was even a Harry Hausen UFO among the bunch. It was all just very very weird.

Eventually we came to a stop next to a green generic looking rocket that had a logo of a planet on its fin. “alright kids, remember where we parked.” Lucas twisted around to me, “now I know they beat you over the head with this in school, but trust me when I say don’t talk to strangers.”

“Gee thanks, m- dad.”

“Adorable. Just don’t get yourself killed.”

“I think I can handle myself.” I said, “On Earth it was just shock. I was unprepared, but so far space just seems kind of like home, just weirder.”

“I’m just saying, maybe go ahead with some caution. You’re new so-”

“No no no.” I went for the door, “if you can treat all of this like your own personal sci-fi episode then I can do the same!”

Before they could stop me I hopped out of the Cruiser, landing on a solid metal ground  that had a thin layer of dust on it, most likely from ships coming in carrying small bits of other planets on their gear. I looked out to an ocean of beings from other planets packing in and out of their ships. Some were in groups talking amongst themselves, while others seemed rushed with business I couldn’t begin to understand. Some of the features on display didn’t mesh in my head well. One second I’d see what looked like an arm, only for it to open up like a mouth and talk to something that looked like an octopus with a mustache. My attention was taken by a trio of small pink creatures in gray robes who were hurrying toward me, chattering in their own language. They huddled around me, gazing up with big black eyes and their faces were dotted with antennae. Each of them had a wooden box in their hands, and seemed to be gesturing between themselves and me while saying… something.

“Uh… hi?” I said.

“Hiiii” one responded, straining its lips over the word, it raised its box up to me and shook it in my face.

“You- you want me to open it?” I made a gesture like I was opening something in the air, and the creatures nodded. “Oh so, you’re like some kind of welcoming committee? Okay. Sure. Uh…” I reached out my hand, pressed my thumb against the box’s crease and slowly made to lift it up, then Lucas smacked me back and stood between me and them.

“Hey! Hey! Back off!” He cried, and whipped out his gun to swat at them with, “you little troublemakers! Can’t leave a tourist alone, huh? Stanaveni! Gedahere! Gedahere!”

One of the creatures leapt back and pulled down its hood. A wide mouth cracked down from its eyes and screamed, revealing a set of razor sharp teeth. The others joined its screech and it took Lucas taking direct aim at them to get them to scurry off. Lucas was shaking his head and grabbed my hand, “dumbass! If you had opened one of those you would have been transported to a planet light years from here and forced to play a bloodsport based on the box you chose!”

“Holy shit. I- I didn’t know.”

“Yeah well, we don’t have time for vacations.”

Krazmundo landed next to them, “Aw, no battle planet?” He locked the Cruiser and tossed the key to Lucas.

“Maybe after all this. Come on, let’s go.”

We continued on, weaving in and out of the crowded lot. I tried my best to watch myself, but jumped when I heard a screeching noise next to me. Lucas grabbed my arm and steadied me as a large worm like creature sputtered words in my direction. Hot gross saliva smacked my cheek, and I had to turn away just to keep it from my mouth. “Woah hey hang on pal.” Lucas said, “he’s new here so just-”

The creature roared again, and Krazmundo responded in its own language. Then he looked at me, “Apologize.”

“What?” I said, wiping spit from my face.

“You stepped on his tail.” Krazmundo huffed, “So apologize.”

I looked down, and sure enough its tail was slivering where I once stood. I looked at the thing, and winced as the folds of his cheek caught another spray of spit. “I uh… I’m sorry?”

Krazmundo seemed to translate, though the sentence felt a little long. I heard my name roughly pronounced. Whatever it was he was saying, the creature’s gaze seemed to soften and it looked at me with a peculiar expression. Lucas smacked Krazmundo’s chest. “Don’t say that!”

“Say what?” I said.

“Nothin’” Krazmundo said, barely hiding his grin.

“Matt-tuh?” The creature said and slithered up to me. It got close and a third eye opened up at its forehead. I jumped back, freaked out, but the thing advanced. “Matt-tuh” it said again, and seemed to be using the eye to scan me up and down.

“Y-yes?” I said.

Lucas hopped in front of me and took out his gun, “Alright back off! What, you never seen a human before?”

“What did you say?” I said.

“I told him you were stupid, that’s all. I didn’t expect this.” Krazmundo grabbed it at its skin flap and pulled it back. It shrieked in panicked, angry words before wriggling off of him and gunning right for me. I instinctively shielded myself, bracing for the worst. Lucas tried to take point but it swatted him away and embraced me in its flabby arms. I tried to squeeze out, but the grip was too tight. The creature leaned up to my ear and whispered in a harsh slimy voice. Its tongue scraped against my earlobe, teasing me. I struggled against it, but my hands kept slipping off of its skin.

“I…can…seeeeee.”

Earth English, unmistakable in the slurry of words I didn’t understand. It could see? What did that mean?

Its embrace was broken by the sound of laser fire. Lucas had fired near its tail, and was aiming for its head.

“Get lost!”

The thing only nodded, like its job was done, and started away, leaving me covered in a goo that I really didn’t want to think about.

I tried to wipe some of it off and Lucas tried to help. “Do you get shit like this every day?”

“Pretty much.” Lucas shrugged.

“I think you just got married.” Krazmundo tittered.

“It said something to you.” Lucas said, “What was it?”

“I… I don.t know.” I said, “something about how it could see? I- ugh this is so gross.”

I did the best I could to wipe away the rest of that gunk off my face, only to wipe it on my shirt. “Please tell me there’s a shower nearby we can use.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t lie anymore, didn’t I?”

“Do it this once, please.”

We came to a large metal door that, surprise, had more alien script around it that I couldn’t read. It was a large open gate that the crowd was flowing into. As we stepped beyond it, I could smell tinges of vapor mixed with rust and dirt. Smoke trailed the air above what looked like a crowded marketplace. City streets sprawled before us, tracing out the bases of buildings that stretched into a metal sky. I couldn’t see where the station ended, or even where it began. It was like we were underground in the sky. Each building was dotted with sparking neon lights that flooded the space with yellow and orange. Pipes zig-zagged around them, and disappeared beyond my eyesight further into the city. Moisture fell from them, creating tiny pockets of rain in the atmosphere, making my clothes feel like they had just come out of a dryer not-quite-dry. Krazmundo pulled on the collar of his flak jacket.

“You could always take that off if the heat bothers you.” Lucas said, raising an eyebrow which received a snort from Krazmundo. I rolled up my sleeves and fanned my face.

As I considered the crowd, I wondered what sorts of illegal things were happening right in front of me without me even knowing it. Aliens were scurrying, yelling, even just sitting and drinking strange colored substances. Some looked our way, and I felt Lucas’ grip get tighter. For a second I liked it, then remembered who that was and slipped my hand away.

A couple of aliens squeezed by us and nearly made me stumble over. Lucas delivered a pointed elbow to one of their chests, who spun around and made a rude looking gesture in response. Lucas grinned, “ahhhh, nowhere like Critwell.”

“So where are we gonna find Eli?” I asked, which got me a similar push from Krazmundo. I looked up at him, “as if I haven’t been through enough already, I don’t need you-”

“You know you don’t have to speak too loudly to be heard around here.” Lucas said. He arched his eyebrows at the thickening crowd, “besides we’re here for breakfast. Remember?”

I got his drift, “B-breakfast. Right. Got it.”

We continued down the city streets for a while before we came to what looked like a small cafe. Compared to the angled tall buildings around it this one was out of place. It was small, chrome, and had a thin red light on its frame that seemed to shimmer all around it. I could see the silhouettes of one or two people in the windows, but any features were obscured. Lucas led the way through the front door, a ringing bell announced our presence.

“Hey howdy hey! It’s ya girl, Cass!”

As soon as I stepped in I was assaulted by the smell of smoke. The place was cramped, about the size of a train car. The walls were plastered in weathered photos of different foods. Some were familiar to me: eggs, bacon, even pancakes. But the odd off color of a sausage or weird texture of what might have been potatoes threw me off. There was a countertop carved out from the wall which led to a doorless entryway behind it. Every place to sit had a menu in front of it printed in a glossy laminate. Country-sounding music played from the speakers of a more-or-less functional jukebox in the corner. Beside it, two gruff looking patrons sat. One had their nose in a newspaper while the other nursed a cigarette. It inhaled, and smoke filtered out through the top of its head. They both turned to look at us, sneering. I felt my arm begin to shake and gripped it tightly. I went for the farthest booth away from the counter I could and sat down, content to just look out the window and not at them.

Lucas went forward, boots clicking on the linoleum floor, and leaned over the counter. “Yoo-hoo! Some service please!”

“I’m on break!” A feminine voice shouted back with an ear grating accent, “If ya want somethin’ you’ll wait!”

“Break? Eli gives breaks now? Come on! Get us some grub!”

“She heard you.” I said. Lucas glanced around like he wasn’t expecting me to be there.

“Talk about service, they already put out the whine.” He slid over and plopped down at the seat across from me. Krazmundo followed, though the small plastic seat was hardly enough to accommodate his size. He had to wiggle a little to fit himself in. A violent crack made all of us jump, especially him. 

He looked down at his seat and cleared his throat, “Uh. It’s supposed to do that.”

I glanced over at the other two aliens who were still glaring at us. My shaking arm only got worse, and I started tapping the table. Lucas looked at the menu, he drummed the surface with his fingers, “come oooon! Give us our grub!” I couldn’t help but notice this made the other aliens’ glares tighten.

“What are you doing?!” I stammered.

“Trying to get things along!”

“Well yeah but she’s on break.”

“So?” Lucas said. “You guys keep wanting to hurry.”

“You never worked in the service industry. Th- there’s rules about this kind of stuff?”

“I think I’ll have a salad.” Krazmundo said, “they got Kantur greens here?”

“What kind of rules?” Lucas said.

I counted off my hand starting with my thumb. “Always tip. Never send something back. Don’t go anywhere 30 minutes before close,” I slammed my hand down,  “and NEVER fuck with our breaks.”

“You gettin’ a little PTSD there buddy?”

I grumbled and stood, “If you had stayed on Earth maybe you would have some perspective for this kind of thing!”

“If there’s gonna be a fight take it outside. We jus’ got the blood out from the tiles.” We saw a tall reptilian woman standing at the ready. She wore an orange frilly uniform and had scaly pink skin. Her eyes looked like a snake’s, and if I had learned anything about snakes it was that her triangular head meant she was venomous. Clawed fingers tapped at her notepad, and she held a rusty pen between them. Her forked tongue tasted the air every now and then, almost on a schedule. She looked to me and sighed, “and though I ‘preciate the defense, it’s no good. we ain’t even got no union.”

I sat down. “Oh. Well uh maybe you sh-”

Jendrak, as her nametag suggested, seemed to ignore me, “‘course I told the boss we needed a union. Said I’d like to have more breaks, but boy you shoulda seen the look on his face. Haven’t seen ‘im that mad since the freaky slime blob annihilated our bathroom.”

“I think I know that blob.” Cass said.

“Sorry, do I know you?”

“Well I’m-”

“‘Cuz see you were usin’ Eli’s name earlier and I’m pretty sure that means I woulda’ known you. But then again there’s a lotta folks ‘round here I don’t know.”

Krazmundo piped in, “Actually Eli-”

“Lemme guess, you’re Janet right? Of the crispy dingoes? Ah, I love me some roller derby. The carnage on that rink! Ooh! One time me an’ my ex were there and one-a your gals elbowed another one into the wall and I got blood on my top! I still ain’t washed that one, ya know. I hear a good bottle-a Quasar Cola would get that right out, but I ain’t ever even drink that stuff. Tastes like bathwater ta me. Honestly, folks jus’ keep orderin’ that stuff. You ask me?”

“I didn’t but-”

Lucas was ignored, “Woomy, that’s a soda worth drinkin’ right there. If only SOMEONE WOULD ORDER IT!”

The shout made even the music stop as she glared over to the doorway behind the counter. We exchanged nervous glances, unsure if it was a good time to chime in or not. Then  she turned back, slowly, and said, “hang on… Eli killed Janet. Who the hell are you?”

“Someone who wants a burger.” Lucas said, “and uh, one of those Quasar’s you seem to hate.”

“Yeah sure. Whatever.”

She wrote down the order and pointed at Krazmundo. “You?”

“Salad. Extra cheese.”

Then she pointed at me, “and what about you, wide eyes?”

 My voice caught in my throat. I stammered for a moment before glancing down and pointing at the first spot I could “A- a number 14!”

She stopped half-jot and stared down her snout at me, “you sure about that?”

I gulped, what was so different about my order? I looked to the others for help but they were equally confused. I looked back at her demanding copper eyes and nodded, “w-with a water. Please.”

Jendrak took two seconds too long to write the rest of my order down. “Interesting. Yer new around here, huh?”

“Um.. yeah.”

“Eli’s been wonderin’ when you’d be here. I’ll let ‘im know.” Before any other questions could be asked, she grabbed the menus from us and walked away with soundless footsteps. Her tail seemed to keep watch on us as she stepped behind the counter and disappeared through the doorway.