Kaleb's Critters

Sage Marinetta was dead, but that in itself wasn’t much reason to mourn. Hundreds of thousands died every week in the contests—aired live for the pleasure of the raging, rabid public. Humans died, and no one cared. It was all part of the great vehicle of progress; of entertainment; of profit. Death is humanity’s greatest ally, and ethics, the cornerstone of the old world, were no longer relevant: no longer conducive to the interests of mankind.

Morality died, emaciated, old, and rattling on the frail, polluted winds of evolution.

Sage Marinetta committed suicide on a distant world: he applied for contest with himself.

If his crewmates didn’t care, then who would?

Chapter 5

Hell is paved with the opposite sex.

“She changed the fucking locks,” Robin growled, punching the rec room wall in frustration.

“Bud, women are cruel, heartless skags. Get used to it.”

“Lay off, Simey. Not everyone shares your perspective,” Abe scowled, tossing another few plastic rotobucks into the center of the table. A loud crash reverberated from somewhere else on the ship. “Dex! What are you up to back there!” There was another crash, followed by muffled cursing. Abe sighed and tossed in one more chip.

“I thought you of all people would agree with me,” Nowell sneered, meeting the pilot’s bet with a clatter of plastic. “Women aren’t exactly your thing, eh Dutchy?”

Abe glared, but said nothing. Robin hardly noticed the conversation, steeped in his own problems.

It had been two days since his fortuitous job interview: two nights spent in a guest room at the CAS compound, two mornings of cold, unanswered phone calls (*giggle* Stop, Robin!), two round trips to District Nine on foot, through the low, morning smog, and two failed attempts at getting into the small, yet well-kept flat he had once shared with a loving woman.

She was there. Robin knew she was there. Jenna wasn’t supposed to head to the shops at noon, and even then she usually didn’t leave until one. She was inside, hiding from him, ignoring his calls, chimes, and frantic knocking.

That bitch… why? Why was she doing this? Robin didn’t understand anymore. He just wanted a change of clothing… and maybe to talk. Leaving for three months without any kind of contact beforehand would spell the end—the real end—of their relationship.

Something ugly wormed its way into his stomach, squirming and heavy.

Jenna was always so patient, but three months of nothing? Robin would never see her again.

“Sometimes I wonder if he’s been stimming it,” Abe grumped, pulling the stack of rotocurrency that once sat innocently in the pot back to his side of the table. “I mean, its not really my business, but I can’t have my sister’s kid hopped up on chems off-world: she’d kill me if he bought it out there.”

“Why you keep him on as a copilot eludes me, Ableman,” Nowell groaned, eyeing the moving chips petulantly. “You don’t owe your sister a damn thing, and he’s completely useless. Did he even go to the Trade Academy?”

A bulb in the light bank above popped, showering the card-table with bits of fiberglass before the room plunged into darkness. After a moment of silence, Simon, with obvious condescension, spoke again:

“I think I proved my point.”

“God Dammit, Dex!” Abe shouted. Robin heard a crunch of glass and a grunt, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps moving toward the rec-room door. His eyes adjusted; just in time to see the pneumatic gate slide open and Samuel stomp out, worn fists clenched menacingly at his sides.

DuWain Dexton III—“Dex”—was Shiela’s copilot and Samuel Ableman’s nephew. Robin had yet to meet him, not because he was avoiding the meeting, but because the twenty-year-old trade student had been waist deep in titanium paneling, fuel pipes, and yellow vacuum insulation since yesterday. According to Abe, the man was convinced there was something clogging the fuel lines near the ship’s aft that was affecting thrust capacity or something like that.

Unfortunately, half those lines fed into the main power converter—hence the flickering lights.

“The hell is the point of my job if I can’t fire anyone?” Nowell groused in the dark. Robin guessed the frustrated representative was talking to him, but didn’t answer.

He thought about Jenna.

“Get out, Robin. Just get out.”

He got out, and now she won’t let him back in. Robin tried not to let his imagination wander—his clothing sold in Alley-West, old electrical parts pawned off in District Eleven, and bank account sucked dry to buy tanning supplements—but his mind betrayed him. Everyone was betraying him lately…

The lights came back on, beating back the darkness into scattered, oily shadows. A pool table, a bank of computers, a bar, polished to a mirror-like shine, and a basketball hoop jutting dangerously above the stairwell to the lower decks emerged to the low drone of Nowell’s complaints, completing the illusion that everything was okay; that everything was as it should be.

But it wasn’t. It fucking wasn’t okay.

“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Simon huffed, clearly irritated. Robin kept silent. He stared at the pool table from his position at the bar, following the creases and imperfections in the felt surface with his eyes. The sound of playing cards slapping and rubbing and mingling together drifted over. “Well screw you too, Newbie.”

Plastic shifted across metal, cards were dealt, and heavy footsteps heralded the return of the second gambler. Rising from the lower decks, Abe passed under the basketball hoop, arms hanging limp at his sides. He crossed the room slowly—a wraith in steel-toe boots—and slumped at the card table with a weighty sigh.

“Dumbass electrocute himself yet?” Simon sneered, doling out two cards to each of them—one face down, the other laid bare for all to see. He was the dealer now. They had been switching. Fair. Nowell was unpleasant, but fair: every crewmember was just in his own way. Not like Jenna…

“Twenty-One?” Samuel sighed, “What happened to poker?”

“You’re winning, that’s what.”

“Fine.”

Both men took a moment to glance at their cards and place their initial bets. Robin watched, waited, but didn’t participate. He had nothing to gamble with anyway.

“You never answered my question,” Nowell muttered, dealing himself another card: a two of spades atop his seven of the same. A thin smirk twitched at the corners of his mouth and he threw another ten rotobucks into the center of the table.

“He’s fine… just nearly irradiated himself is all,” Abe grunted. “Hit me.” Another card joined his six—an eight of hearts. The pilot paused, checking his bottom card one last time, before pushing half his stack of coins into the center. He leaned back, frustration at his nephew melting from his complexion. Stone faced, yet casual, he spoke once more: “Why don’t you head down there and help him, Robin? You’re an electronics man, right?”

That actually sounded great to the young wire-bug: he would do anything to distract himself from his estranged housemate back in Old Metro. Robin slipped off the stool and quickly made for the pneumatic doors. He was through the threshold when an indignant squawk from Simon froze him in his tracks.

“Hold it, Fairweather. E-engineering isn’t in your contract: just camerawork. Get back in here.”

Heartbroken, Robin marched back in, and as he made his way back to his seat at the bar he listened as Samuel defended him.

“Oh give him a break, Simey. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to just sit around?” the pilot said, glaring at the other crewmember before casting Robin an apologetic smile.

“Channel insurance doesn’t cover electrical injury to those not specifically entitled to an engineer’s position,” Nowell droned, turning his attention back to gambling as he met Samuel’s bet. The spindly man slid every rotobuck to his name into the pot, seemingly without a second thought. “He zaps himself and damages Channel property without proper vehicle insurance and it’ll be MY head, Ableman. You know that.”

There was silence for a moment as the two men stared at each other, and, finally, Samuel let out a long sigh. “You’re an asshole, Simon.”

The pale channel rep just shrugged. “It’s in my job description. Now are you gonna play or not?”

Abe gave one last look in Robin’s direction, and shrugged—What can ya do? He settled back into his seat at the table and tapped his fingers on the two cards that lay face-up. “I’m good to show, if that’s the end of it.”

Simon nodded, smiling, and drew one more card from the pile. Plastic snapped and fluttered, revealing the four of diamonds. The representative looked down, smile faltering. “Uh… final bets?”

Deep, base laughter rolled throughout the rec room. “You haven’t got a cent left, Nowell. Just flip ‘em.” Abe turned over his bottom card: another eight. “Twenty.” The pilot smiled smugly and leaned back, planting his heels on the corner of the table with a small chuckle of victory. “Been waiting to gamble with you again for over a month, Simey. I hear we’re goin’ somewhere temperate this trip and I need a new bathing suit.”

“Twenty-One,” Simon sniggered, dragging the contents of the pot toward his side of the table. Samuel shot up, searching the table in disbelief for Simon’s cards.

“Two, nine, thirteen… twenty-one…” the pilot deflated, snorting in annoyance. “Motherfu—”

Expletive half-completed, a sharp whine of static feedback drowned out his distaste in Simon’s victory.

The ship’s intercom clicked, and out poured the heavily-accented voice of the most senior crewmember:

“Boys, this is Burnow on the line,”—who else?—“Stop sittin’ around an’ meet me in ‘Processing’. The science package just came in.” Robin stood up, but the announcement had yet to end. The soft sound of a pneumatic door sliding open heralded the arrival of another voice on the line.

“I’m *wheeze* here, hah… I’m here Mr. Burnow *gasp* what… where is it?” a young voice rasped, out of breath. The electronic speakers gave it a sort of keening, pleading inflection, preventing any real recognition of who it was.

“Dexton? Blazes is wrong with you, boy? Stop drippin’ coolant on the security systems!”

“Sh—oh shit—Shit, sorry Boss.”

“And don’t curse,” Burnow growled, the intercom reverberating with his annoyance. The system cut out—another eardrum searing whine—and the rec room dropped into silence.

It didn’t last long.

“Idiot,” Nowell chuckled, as he went back to collecting his winnings. “Didn’t you warn him about that?”

“He’s just excited, Simon,” Abe sighed, running a hand across his face in exasperation. “It’s his first trip out and he’s excited.”

Robin could relate, honestly. This was a dream come true—aside from the whole “girlfriend stole his livelihood” thing…

“Fuck, man, we have too many greenhorns on this trip! I say we get rid of your fuckup nephew and keep Fairweather, here.” The Channel rep cocked a thumb over his shoulder at him, and Robin smiled nervously, glancing between Simon and Dexton’s uncle. He didn’t want to be the center of this conversation: not at all. “He’s quiet, and doesn’t break things. I like that in a cameraman.” Nowell paused, turning around and giving the fidgeting man a critical look. “Sage was too damn peppy all the time, at least until Sulara.”

“Leave Sage out of this,” Abe growled, taking a step toward his wraithlike crewmate. “Burnow says we take them, so we take them, and that’s final.”

“Oh please don’t let there be a fight,” Robin prayed to himself. “Not now. Not because of me…”

“I know that, Dutchy,” Simon sneered, “I’m simply making an observation.” He slung a small bag from his belt and dumped the pile of rotobucks he’d won inside, drawing it closed with a black, nylon string. Gingerly, the sack of money slipped into a pocket on the inside of his billowing smog jacket, and he strode toward the door. Looking back, he spoke one more time: “Mustn’t keep the Boss waiting, eh? See you upstairs.”

Robin watched Ableman carefully, staying where he was. The seething pilot clenched his fists, grimacing angrily after the quickly striding Nowell, and ground his teeth.

“Come on, Fairweather,” he snorted, shaking his head once; twice; thrice. His expression softened, and his body relaxed. Eyes closed, he smiled sadly. “Like he said: ‘We mustn’t keep the Boss waiting.”

Together, they left.

“The hunter awaits.”