Fast Fiction 12.04.06
THE SHIP, PT. 3
1748 words by Stanley Lieber
It was Lunsford, all right. QCL Corp.
I really didn't need to verify.
I had spellchecked three hundred individual songs, processing each manually. One at a time, because Lunsford refused to let anyone use the automation tools. All of his interns were on leave for various reasons. He'd popped out of his office a couple of hours prior and handed me this improbable stack of leaves. One leaf per song! Then disappeared just as quickly as he'd arrived. Meanwhile, at an access junction on the abandoned floor, my own "interns" were spreading porn onto the mesh like organic peanut butter onto a sandwich. At least the security exposure that had shown up in the previous night's scans would be healed by lunch time. Possibly in time for me to put Lunsford in the freezer and be on my way; if I would allow myself the slightly unrealistic hope. When it came to my work, I was an incorrigible optimist. For various reasons, it paid to keep positive.
I cracked open a Gray Pop and chugged it back. Its frothy, neutral-toned agents coated my throat with pep cells. It was also damned delicious. Though honestly I should have been focusing on losing those extra pounds I'd picked up while working on the assignment. Only a week to go and I'd be shipping out again. Obese, and probably made a mockery of by my teammates. I glanced down at my belly, then, hesitantly. All right, shit, I'll purge the pep cells before going to bed tonight. So much for the perks of the job.
Presently, I belched.
I squeezed my eyes shut and listened for my heartbeat. The sounds of machinery in the room ran my thoughts aground. Wave upon wave of diverse electronic complaint, crashing together into a ubiquitous aural foam. So loud I could not feel the reassuring pulse of my circulatory system clicking against my inner ear. I wondered: Am I finally dead? Have I been recalled to base? What?
Then, reasoning; what was this showing up in my viewer window? Some of the security was leaking out: Wonder what the pajama shits are? Text 667-SHITZ to find out!
Well. It was old-fashioned stuff but it would work. That is to say, if the interns could keep their hands out of their pants long enough to smear it all into place properly. I crushed the empty Gray Pop can on my forehead and then sent it into the trashbin. There was more groundwork to be laid before my part of the assignment could proceed. I went over the progress reports again and made sure that everything was being smoothed down according to plan. On schedule, a relief; but the boys were only into the El field by now.
It would take more time.
It may have started as a reaction to the percept team's sudden loss of attention. It may have been something else. What was positive was that things were not going well for the team stationed upon the top deck of the USS FUCK. Piro's prodigious organizational efforts notwithstanding.
"You men, eyes on the horizon," directed Piro.
A waved sloshed over the deck, sending a couple of the team off of their feet. They immediately righted their gaze to stern.
"Not what I meant," said Piro.
"Water's getting choppy," hollered Thomas Bright, emerging from belowdecks. "You sure you don't need to get your folks strapped in?"
"We'll be fine." Piro reinstated his leg to the side railing and leaned upon it with his elbow. He motioned toward the sun, which was only just now slipping below the relatively static line of the horizon.
"It's no wonder they were having trouble, staring into the sun like that. Probably ruining their eyesight."
"Worrying about that is my responsibility," said Piro, clearly irritated at Thomas having raised the issue.
"Hey, fuck's'cuse me. I'm here on behalf of the boss. He's trying to mentate down there. Only the ship's rocking too much. Giving him a migraine."
Piro's face didn't change. "Understood."
Satisfied, Thomas returned belowdecks.
Piro kicked one of the men in the seat of his uniform. "I said eyes on the horizon."
We were in before Lunsford came back.
I sat down behind his desk and played around with his knick-knacks. Action figures, mostly. Even one of himself; though the depiction was idealized, anatomically enhanced almost beyond recognition. There were some doodles carved into the arm of his chair, apparently with a pocket knife. What a barbarian. Inside of his desk, a half of a pack of Green rubbers.
He burst through the doorway of his office just as I had one of the Green rubbers out and stretched over the barrel of my gun. I suppose it painted an odd picture for him. Well, shit, I thought, back to work.
My first shot punctured the digitally enhanced prophylactic and then the rest of the flexible, greenish material blew away as I carried forward with renovations to Lunsford's ribcage. There were pieces of Green all over the place at that point, and I laughed when I saw that some of it had become stuck to his cheeks and eyelashes. The debris dispersed in a natural, fractal pattern as I emptied the rest of my clip into the middle of his face.
Mission accomplished, then. Lunsford's leaves were falling all around him and for a few seconds it lent the ambiance of an appealing seasonal display, though in this context lacking the incentive to commerce. Some of the leaves would cluster together on their way down and exchange data via semaphore protocols. Kind of beautiful, I observed to myself.
By the time everything had settled to the floor my interns had caught up with me and they proceeded to scoop up everything of interest. I fished in Lunsford's pockets for a cigarette and came up with some off-brand that must have cost even less than what I usually smoked. I stripped off my necktie and tossed it onto Lunsford's chest, followed it with a flick of ash and then, with some effort, I produced a fair amount of Gray Pop-discolored spittle. We gathered up what we needed from his office and left the body for housekeeping.
"USS Fuck, Redaction Day savings," Lt. Commander Wetbeard sighed into his mouthpiece.
"This is Plinth. I'm calling on an outside line because the intercom in my stateroom is non-functional. I need you to call Piro down here for me."
"I'll get right on top of that, boss," said Wetbeard, straightening slightly in spite of the fact that no one could see him in his watch seat.
A low-flying aircraft became momentarily visible to the percept team and the ship rolled to starboard.
"Did you feel that?"
"Feel what, boss?"
"Nevermind."
"I'll send Piro down right away, sir. Anyway it looks like he could use a break."
"Tell him we'll have Thomas steer the team."
Lt. Commander Wetbeard stared at his phone. While his rank as Lt. Commander was merely a job title, and not an actual rank in any known naval organization, he was still conflicted over whether or not to question the orders of Plinth Mold. It had been some time since Wetbeard had needed to contemplate the ramifications of any of the orders that were issued to him. His mind ran several possible scenarios in the background as he awaited the flash of confidence that would indicate a suitable course of action had been selected. Accordingly, the two conflicted halves of Lt. Commander Wetbeard continued to negotiate, exchanging bits of information at last-century speeds. Fortunately, Plinth severed the uncomfortable silence before too much time had elapsed.
"I'm sending him up now," Plinth said, and hung up.
And with that, the crisis was resolved.
In all, fifteen of my team were disqualified from active service based upon their performance in the Lunsford simulation.
I was seriously contemplating retirement because of it. It was not bad enough that I'd been busted down to professorship; I had to be roundly insulted by the selection of students assigned to me, as well. I fairly ached to commit governmentally sanctioned violence against an entrenched group of radical dissidents, or at least to fire a weapon at a stationary target in a taxpayer-funded firing range. Both options were out of the question, owing to my present situation at the Farm. They'd even revoked my weapons licenses so that nothing in my arsenal could be activated or equipped. And I maintained a very, very large arsenal, comprised chiefly of non-standard munitions acquired through various back channels and private merchants. For now, the weapons would lay in wait, unable to further the interests of the nation I served. Unable to be used but still considered active property of an active duty officer. It was classic bureaucratic entanglement. A particle existing in two contradictory states at the same time. Over the first six months of my demotion I was convinced I would be slipped a deep-cover assignment which would attempt to exploit my new status as a pseudo-civilian. It never came.
In truth, there was a good reason for my demotion, but I won't go into that right now. Let us merely observe that it is considered bad form to tally a large number of civilian casualties in the course of a simple courier assignment, and leave it at that. There were extenuating circumstances, to be sure; but, like the review board which oversaw my case, I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than to listen to me complain about all of the ways in which I was sabotaged by the petty reprisals of middle-management and, once in place, rendered impotent by a broken supply line. It did not help that Chrystal Pepsi had become my new case officer shortly before we shipped out, and that the offending mission was my first under her command.
Chrystal Pepsi. Now there was an officer I would unequivocally refuse to die for, full stop.
Seeing the paperwork and sensing the scenario I was being slotted into I was, understandably, quite disgusted. It's unprofessional to admit this, but I'm certain my feelings toward her also affected my performance during the mission. I'm also pretty sure she realized that would be the case, when she issued me the assignment. My immediate cognizance of this only fed into the problem.
I'm used to being a target, but that doesn't mean I'll just sit around, not doing anything about it, once I find out.
I suppose in many ways I actually am a traitor.
To be continued...
creative.commons.attribution-noncommercial-noderivs.2.5