Oz FlashFiction #41: Transfer
Title: Transfer
Prompt: 41: Oz - In Space!
Characters: Beecher, Keller, O'Reily
Timeframe: AU. It's Oz in Space, baby.
Word Count: 1787
Transfer
by Severina
They stand in a long ragged row outside the hatchway, two by two. Even without the bright green jumpsuits and the neat little numbers stitched on their chests, it is obvious what they are.
Scud.
Chris sees the word form on the lips of one of the off-world travelers. She spins in a whirl of multi-coloured Antherian silk, face suddenly pale, and tugs at the hand of the little boy she’s ferrying. She ignores his squalls of protest as she urges him quickly away from the loading dock, practically lifting him off his feet in her haste to get away.
She’s the exception. Most of the others -- tourists and interplanetary jetsetters -- look once at the line of prisoners and then away, faces carefully blank.
Overhead, the drone of the new supersonic flyers is something that is more felt than seen: an itch under the skin, an ache in cavities long filled. Some of those in line crane their necks, try in vain to pierce the murkiness of the upper levels. Chris just squints, studies the skin of the rusted tin can that’s going to shortly hurtle him into space, and wishes for another cigarette.
“Rode in one of them once,” O’Reily says.
Chris swivels his head.
Ryan looks up toward the catwalks, rubs a hand absently against his arm like he can still feel the hum of the hovercraft in his bones. “Was fucking this chick,” he says. “Her old man was the head of one of those interstellar corporations, and she‘s going to ‘rebel.‘”. Ryan snorts. “Right. So she decks herself out, slumming down in the barrows. Catches my eye. We’re together for a week or so, floating on Rapture and crashing during the day, and one night, she steals her old man’s pass-card, sneaks me onto one of the new supersonics. Top of the line--”
“You’re full of shit, O’Reily,” Chris drawls.
“No, no,” Poet says, “it could happen, Keller, it could happen. And I could win the Pulitzer Prize for literature.”
“No talking,” one of the hacks barks out.
Ryan leans forward, lowers his voice. “Honest fucking truth, man.” His gaze drifts upward, wistful. “Thing is like a palace. A goddamn palace.”
* * *
“Well,” Chris says, “this ain’t no palace.”
The interior walls of the shuttle are slick with moisture, and a thick yellow sludge has pooled in one of the corners. The rows of seats are torn, encrusted with the accumulated filth of two decades of convict transfers. Chris stands to the side, waits his turn as one by one the prisoners are shoved forward into the chairs, feet chained to the bolt on the floor, one wrist shackled firmly into place on the tattered armrest.
“Place smells like a shitter!” Wangler protests.
“Keep complaining,” Howell says as she pushes him into a chair, “and we’ll jettison you with the rest of the garbage.”
“Fucking dyke,” Wangler mutters under his breath.
Chris heard once about a group of scud that took over a prison transfer flight from Earth to one of Jupiter’s moons. One of the fuckers was a commercial pilot back in the day, and they actually managed to overpower the guards and gain the controls… before they were shot out of the sky while attempting to land.
Chris grew up on the old-time stick shifts, tooling through back alleys in a cloud of diesel, barely avoiding the ever-present Eco patrols. He’s boosted more high-tech hovers than he can count, but he’s never been off the ground like this. So he grits his teeth but doesn‘t otherwise protest when he‘s manacled into one of the chairs, slouches in his seat and watches Ryan’s spine stiffen when Cyril is wheeled into the passenger compartment. The headrest on Cyril’s hover chair bounces into the wall, and Chris’s eyes follow the cloud of fine mold-green particles that drifts lazily from the battered wall and flutters to rest on Cyril’s head and shoulders.
“Hey, watch it!” Ryan protests.
Howell turns, smiles sweetly. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “Did we hurt the little vegetable?”
“He’s not a vegetable, okay? He’s doped up.” His gaze flits to Cyril, whose head lolls on his shoulders, eyes wide and unblinking. Ryan swallows. “He can’t handle this shit.”
“And it’s so nice that the Interplanetary Prison Commission is concerned about how poor little Cyril handles space flight,” Howell says.
“Fuck you,” Ryan snaps.
“Well, there is a lot of free time on this little excursion.” She glances toward Cyril, eyes gleaming. When she runs her fingers lightly through his hair he shudders, even under the influence of the good shit. “Maybe I can give Cyril a little pick-me-up. Hmmm?”
“You touch him and I‘ll--”
“Trouble?” Murphy says.
Howell arches a brow, looks at Ryan with amusement, and for a long moment Chris thinks O’Reily’s going to take the bait, call Howell out, and then the shit will really hit the fan. Murphy’s a stand up guy as far as hacks go, but there ain’t no way he’s taking the word of a scud over that of a guard. Ryan opens his mouth, closes it again. “No trouble,” he finally grits out.
Crisis averted, for now. But someday, Chris knows, O’Reily’s love for his brother is going to get him killed. Better to take what pleasure you can get when you can get it. Look out for number one. Love is for suckers.
“Good to hear,” Murphy says. He turns to Howell, but whatever else he is going to say is lost to the cacophony of sound coming from the hatchway. Someone is protesting, loudly and at length.
Chris shares a look with Ryan as the rest of the prisoners stop their last minute wheeling and dealing to fall silent.
“Great,” Ryan mutters. “New fish.”
Chris lifts a shoulder, turns his attention back to the hatchway in time to see Mineo and Phelan haul the fish into the passenger area, his feet barely touching the floor.
“I’m just saying.” The fish is trying for calm and reasonable, but his voice is getting louder by the second and his eyes are big and round and wild. He swallows convulsively, struggles against the hold on his arms. “I’m just saying… look, I’m not a murderer! It was… it was vehicular manslaughter. I don’t belong here! Don’t you see that?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mineo drawls. He pinchers his grip a little tighter on the newb‘s arm, continues to propel him forward. “Tell it to your lawyer, Beecher.”
“I did! He’s working on an appeal!” The fish digs a little deeper, plants his heels on the rough floor, shakes his head back and forth and won’t budge. “That’s why I can’t go off planet right now! I can‘t! Don‘t you see, I can‘t leave--”
Chris sees the taser flick casually into Mineo’s palm, but the newb doesn’t. When the glowing tip touches his stomach Beecher goes taut, his back arching, and his mouth strains open in a silent scream. Chris watches in fascination as the cords in his forehead stand out in stark relief against his suddenly pale skin.
He’s shoved easily into one of the chairs after that, panting and squirming with the aftershocks, and after a moment the rest of the scud ignore him and go back to their business.
“Hey.” Chris leans forward, taps the newbie -- Beecher -- on the shoulder. “Relax.”
His neck is bent, his too-long hair falling into his eyes. When he raises his head, Chris can see that he’s drooling, another common after-affect of the taser. He raises a shaking hand to wipe at his mouth, meets Chris’s eyes.
“Fuck you,” he says softly.
Chris leans back. Blinks once, slowly. “Sure,” he says. “Your choice, I don‘t give a shit. But Reisgo ain’t Oswald, Beecher. You’re gonna be far from home, and there ain‘t no visits from mommy and daddy and no expensive lawyers on the prison planet. Just you…and them.” He shrugs, cuts his eyes toward the various groups of Latinos and Aryans and homeboys grouped together on the tattered seats, heads bent together. Planning, always planning.
Beecher follows his gaze, swallows dryly. His wipes his free hand on his thigh, stares at it as though willpower alone could still it’s trembling. He’ll be halfway to Reisgo before that affect wears off, and before that he’ll be so dry he’ll be crying for water. Hell, he’ll drink someone’s piss if they offer it. Chris has seen it before. He doesn’t think Murphy would let it happen, but he’s not absolutely certain about that. He makes a mental note to save up a little water from his beaker for the fish, just in case.
“I appreciate that,” Beecher says finally, and Chris is impressed that his voice doesn’t quiver. “But I don’t think I’ll be here long. I don’t belong here,” he says fervently.
Chris can see he believes it. Beecher’s nothing to him, but he still kind of hopes he’ll learn better. “So you said,” he says.
“My crime…” Beecher says. He closes his eyes, winces, before opening them again, meeting Chris’s gaze. “I accept full responsibility for what I did, and I’ll pay the penalty. But it was an accident. I’m not a murderer. The judge, that fucking cunt Judge Lima, she made an example out of me, she--”
“We all got our problems, Beecher,” Chris interrupts. “Right now? Your problem is that you’re being shipped to the end of the fucking universe in a corroded metal box filled with the worst scud in the free world. And the end of the line is a barren rock in the middle of nowhere, where the prisoners outnumber the hacks fifty to one and pretty much got free rein, because no one gives a shit if we kill each other off because that just means one less shipment of food to ship from good ol’ Earth.” He shrugs. “Forgive me for thinking you might like a friend in this new planetary paradise.”
Beecher stares at his feet for so long that Chris thinks he might have oversold it. But he finally looks up, raises a brow. “Friend, huh?”
Chris slants him a smile. “Better than an enemy.”
Beecher shakes his hair back, and Chris finds himself wondering what it would be like -- what it will be like -- to touch those curls.
“Toby,” Beecher says. “My name is Toby.”
“Chris Keller,” he introduces himself as he reaches out a hand. Beecher’s grip is solid despite the temporary nerve damage, his palm smooth, his fingertips uncalloused. Chris holds on just a little too long before he leans back, meets Vern’s eyes briefly over Beecher’s shoulder. “Not to worry, Toby,” he says. “I’ve got your back.”
.
Prompt: 41: Oz - In Space!
Characters: Beecher, Keller, O'Reily
Timeframe: AU. It's Oz in Space, baby.
Word Count: 1787
Transfer
by Severina
They stand in a long ragged row outside the hatchway, two by two. Even without the bright green jumpsuits and the neat little numbers stitched on their chests, it is obvious what they are.
Scud.
Chris sees the word form on the lips of one of the off-world travelers. She spins in a whirl of multi-coloured Antherian silk, face suddenly pale, and tugs at the hand of the little boy she’s ferrying. She ignores his squalls of protest as she urges him quickly away from the loading dock, practically lifting him off his feet in her haste to get away.
She’s the exception. Most of the others -- tourists and interplanetary jetsetters -- look once at the line of prisoners and then away, faces carefully blank.
Overhead, the drone of the new supersonic flyers is something that is more felt than seen: an itch under the skin, an ache in cavities long filled. Some of those in line crane their necks, try in vain to pierce the murkiness of the upper levels. Chris just squints, studies the skin of the rusted tin can that’s going to shortly hurtle him into space, and wishes for another cigarette.
“Rode in one of them once,” O’Reily says.
Chris swivels his head.
Ryan looks up toward the catwalks, rubs a hand absently against his arm like he can still feel the hum of the hovercraft in his bones. “Was fucking this chick,” he says. “Her old man was the head of one of those interstellar corporations, and she‘s going to ‘rebel.‘”. Ryan snorts. “Right. So she decks herself out, slumming down in the barrows. Catches my eye. We’re together for a week or so, floating on Rapture and crashing during the day, and one night, she steals her old man’s pass-card, sneaks me onto one of the new supersonics. Top of the line--”
“You’re full of shit, O’Reily,” Chris drawls.
“No, no,” Poet says, “it could happen, Keller, it could happen. And I could win the Pulitzer Prize for literature.”
“No talking,” one of the hacks barks out.
Ryan leans forward, lowers his voice. “Honest fucking truth, man.” His gaze drifts upward, wistful. “Thing is like a palace. A goddamn palace.”
* * *
“Well,” Chris says, “this ain’t no palace.”
The interior walls of the shuttle are slick with moisture, and a thick yellow sludge has pooled in one of the corners. The rows of seats are torn, encrusted with the accumulated filth of two decades of convict transfers. Chris stands to the side, waits his turn as one by one the prisoners are shoved forward into the chairs, feet chained to the bolt on the floor, one wrist shackled firmly into place on the tattered armrest.
“Place smells like a shitter!” Wangler protests.
“Keep complaining,” Howell says as she pushes him into a chair, “and we’ll jettison you with the rest of the garbage.”
“Fucking dyke,” Wangler mutters under his breath.
Chris heard once about a group of scud that took over a prison transfer flight from Earth to one of Jupiter’s moons. One of the fuckers was a commercial pilot back in the day, and they actually managed to overpower the guards and gain the controls… before they were shot out of the sky while attempting to land.
Chris grew up on the old-time stick shifts, tooling through back alleys in a cloud of diesel, barely avoiding the ever-present Eco patrols. He’s boosted more high-tech hovers than he can count, but he’s never been off the ground like this. So he grits his teeth but doesn‘t otherwise protest when he‘s manacled into one of the chairs, slouches in his seat and watches Ryan’s spine stiffen when Cyril is wheeled into the passenger compartment. The headrest on Cyril’s hover chair bounces into the wall, and Chris’s eyes follow the cloud of fine mold-green particles that drifts lazily from the battered wall and flutters to rest on Cyril’s head and shoulders.
“Hey, watch it!” Ryan protests.
Howell turns, smiles sweetly. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “Did we hurt the little vegetable?”
“He’s not a vegetable, okay? He’s doped up.” His gaze flits to Cyril, whose head lolls on his shoulders, eyes wide and unblinking. Ryan swallows. “He can’t handle this shit.”
“And it’s so nice that the Interplanetary Prison Commission is concerned about how poor little Cyril handles space flight,” Howell says.
“Fuck you,” Ryan snaps.
“Well, there is a lot of free time on this little excursion.” She glances toward Cyril, eyes gleaming. When she runs her fingers lightly through his hair he shudders, even under the influence of the good shit. “Maybe I can give Cyril a little pick-me-up. Hmmm?”
“You touch him and I‘ll--”
“Trouble?” Murphy says.
Howell arches a brow, looks at Ryan with amusement, and for a long moment Chris thinks O’Reily’s going to take the bait, call Howell out, and then the shit will really hit the fan. Murphy’s a stand up guy as far as hacks go, but there ain’t no way he’s taking the word of a scud over that of a guard. Ryan opens his mouth, closes it again. “No trouble,” he finally grits out.
Crisis averted, for now. But someday, Chris knows, O’Reily’s love for his brother is going to get him killed. Better to take what pleasure you can get when you can get it. Look out for number one. Love is for suckers.
“Good to hear,” Murphy says. He turns to Howell, but whatever else he is going to say is lost to the cacophony of sound coming from the hatchway. Someone is protesting, loudly and at length.
Chris shares a look with Ryan as the rest of the prisoners stop their last minute wheeling and dealing to fall silent.
“Great,” Ryan mutters. “New fish.”
Chris lifts a shoulder, turns his attention back to the hatchway in time to see Mineo and Phelan haul the fish into the passenger area, his feet barely touching the floor.
“I’m just saying.” The fish is trying for calm and reasonable, but his voice is getting louder by the second and his eyes are big and round and wild. He swallows convulsively, struggles against the hold on his arms. “I’m just saying… look, I’m not a murderer! It was… it was vehicular manslaughter. I don’t belong here! Don’t you see that?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mineo drawls. He pinchers his grip a little tighter on the newb‘s arm, continues to propel him forward. “Tell it to your lawyer, Beecher.”
“I did! He’s working on an appeal!” The fish digs a little deeper, plants his heels on the rough floor, shakes his head back and forth and won’t budge. “That’s why I can’t go off planet right now! I can‘t! Don‘t you see, I can‘t leave--”
Chris sees the taser flick casually into Mineo’s palm, but the newb doesn’t. When the glowing tip touches his stomach Beecher goes taut, his back arching, and his mouth strains open in a silent scream. Chris watches in fascination as the cords in his forehead stand out in stark relief against his suddenly pale skin.
He’s shoved easily into one of the chairs after that, panting and squirming with the aftershocks, and after a moment the rest of the scud ignore him and go back to their business.
“Hey.” Chris leans forward, taps the newbie -- Beecher -- on the shoulder. “Relax.”
His neck is bent, his too-long hair falling into his eyes. When he raises his head, Chris can see that he’s drooling, another common after-affect of the taser. He raises a shaking hand to wipe at his mouth, meets Chris’s eyes.
“Fuck you,” he says softly.
Chris leans back. Blinks once, slowly. “Sure,” he says. “Your choice, I don‘t give a shit. But Reisgo ain’t Oswald, Beecher. You’re gonna be far from home, and there ain‘t no visits from mommy and daddy and no expensive lawyers on the prison planet. Just you…and them.” He shrugs, cuts his eyes toward the various groups of Latinos and Aryans and homeboys grouped together on the tattered seats, heads bent together. Planning, always planning.
Beecher follows his gaze, swallows dryly. His wipes his free hand on his thigh, stares at it as though willpower alone could still it’s trembling. He’ll be halfway to Reisgo before that affect wears off, and before that he’ll be so dry he’ll be crying for water. Hell, he’ll drink someone’s piss if they offer it. Chris has seen it before. He doesn’t think Murphy would let it happen, but he’s not absolutely certain about that. He makes a mental note to save up a little water from his beaker for the fish, just in case.
“I appreciate that,” Beecher says finally, and Chris is impressed that his voice doesn’t quiver. “But I don’t think I’ll be here long. I don’t belong here,” he says fervently.
Chris can see he believes it. Beecher’s nothing to him, but he still kind of hopes he’ll learn better. “So you said,” he says.
“My crime…” Beecher says. He closes his eyes, winces, before opening them again, meeting Chris’s gaze. “I accept full responsibility for what I did, and I’ll pay the penalty. But it was an accident. I’m not a murderer. The judge, that fucking cunt Judge Lima, she made an example out of me, she--”
“We all got our problems, Beecher,” Chris interrupts. “Right now? Your problem is that you’re being shipped to the end of the fucking universe in a corroded metal box filled with the worst scud in the free world. And the end of the line is a barren rock in the middle of nowhere, where the prisoners outnumber the hacks fifty to one and pretty much got free rein, because no one gives a shit if we kill each other off because that just means one less shipment of food to ship from good ol’ Earth.” He shrugs. “Forgive me for thinking you might like a friend in this new planetary paradise.”
Beecher stares at his feet for so long that Chris thinks he might have oversold it. But he finally looks up, raises a brow. “Friend, huh?”
Chris slants him a smile. “Better than an enemy.”
Beecher shakes his hair back, and Chris finds himself wondering what it would be like -- what it will be like -- to touch those curls.
“Toby,” Beecher says. “My name is Toby.”
“Chris Keller,” he introduces himself as he reaches out a hand. Beecher’s grip is solid despite the temporary nerve damage, his palm smooth, his fingertips uncalloused. Chris holds on just a little too long before he leans back, meets Vern’s eyes briefly over Beecher’s shoulder. “Not to worry, Toby,” he says. “I’ve got your back.”
.