by Pete Gustin
“Ohhhh,” I groaned.
“You okay?” Annie asked.
“Yeah,” I replied unconvincingly. The groan had come out inadvertently as a result of both the view and my current line of thought.
“I love you, you know,” I said to Annie.
“I love you too,” she replied, a little surprised.
“I’m really sorry I got you into all of this.”
“Well, if you take out the parts where the police and criminals have been chasing us, shooting at us, or blowing things up around us, it’s been a pretty awesome vacation.”
I really do love this girl.
“So what’s your plan?” I asked.
“Do you trust me?” Annie asked in reply.
“Of course,” I said without hesitation.
“Then you’re going to need to tell Lola that you don’t think you’ll be able to handle the spacewalk, but that I’d like to do it instead.”
Two and a half hours later we were back up inside the little room where the portable STU Unit was located. It was me, Annie, Lola, and no Von. It was just the three of us.
“Sorry you decided against the experience, Mr. Rojas,” Lola said to me. “But good for you, Mariana. You’re going to have so much fun.”
It felt a little bit like she was trying to sell us, which was weird because we already paid the hundred thousand dollars for the STU transfer and the spacewalk.
Lola directed Annie over to the portable STU unit, which was still sitting open on the little metallic table in the middle of the room. Lola grabbed one of the STU Hats and put it on her head, then directed Annie to do the same thing.
Annie did so, but then almost immediately jerked her head to the side and made a face like she’d eaten a rotten piece of fish.
“What’s wrong?” Lola asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“Oh, this doesn’t feel right at all,” Annie said.
I was literally just about to jump in and ask how she would know what it was supposed to feel like because she’d never been a part of a STU transfer before, but then figured it was probably part of her plan.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” Lola said, removing her own Hat and stepping over to Annie to see if she could help.
“No, it’s, it’s not right,” Annie said, looking extremely concerned. “I’ve done dozens of transfers from both sides, and I know how important it is to have a good connection with your Hat.”
Huh? That’s not true.
It literally couldn’t have mattered less how snugly the Hat fit against your head. I actually remembered asking that very same question during my first transfer. At the time, I just wanted to make sure I was doing everything just right. I had been told that the Hat could actually sense your brainwaves from up to as far away as one whole foot. Granted, closer was better, but the Hat fitting tightly to your head was of no consequence to anyone. I’m pretty sure Lola knew this too, but she let Annie go on her little tirade anyway.
“I don’t know if the zero gravity has messed with this one, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s getting all this constant use by non STU Corporation professionals,” Annie was saying in full-blown tantrum mode. “But no, no, no,” she continued, taking the Hat off and putting it back down on the case. “This Hat isn’t right, and I’m not going to use it.”
“Okay. All right,” Lola said in complete surrender, looking a little surprised at Annie’s outburst. “Why don’t we just swap? You can try on my Hat.”
Lola worked for a few seconds unplugging the Hats from the main unit, swapping them out for one another, and then handing the one she was originally wearing to Annie.
“No,” Annie said after putting it on and wearing it for less than two seconds. “No. The fit is all wrong. This feels unsafe.” Then, as if something had just dawned on her, she asked, “Do people know about this? Is everyone aware of how much use these things are getting and how loose the fit has become?”
This struck home. It was only a very thinly veiled threat to go online and write a bad review, but I’m pretty sure Lola, and more importantly, Lola’s employers wouldn’t want that.
“Okay. All right,” Lola said, in full surrender mode again. “We’ve got spare parts for every piece of this portable STU, including two brand new Hats that have never been used before. Let me just grab those.”
Hey, this plan was good. I never would have thought of any of this.
Lola disconnected both Hats from the unit and turned to start walking away.
“Hey, how long until you get back?” I asked.
She looked over her shoulder and gave me a somewhat bewildered look. “I’m just going over to this closet right here,” she said, motioning to a door about five feet in front of her.
“Oh,” I said. “I just, uh, you know. I just wasn’t sure if we were gonna be waiting around here for a long time and . . .” I trailed off, not liking how dumb I sounded in the process.
“Nope,” she replied brightly, removing her PCD from a Velcro pocket, waving it in front of the door, then opening it to reveal a shallow closet full of all kinds of computer parts.
“We’ll just swap these out and get Ms. Ortiz here right out onto her spacewalk.”
Lola was back in super friendly, happy-to-help mode, but you know she had to be steaming inside. Another rich bitch throwing a little temper tantrum and causing her extra work. Definitely not what she was hoping to deal with today, I’m sure.
As for me and Annie, things were going great. Not only did we now know exactly where they kept the spare parts for the STU, but I already had a pretty good idea in my head as to how I’d be able to get my hands on what I needed.
Putting aside the details of that plan for a moment, I decided to walk over to Annie and the STU unit to test something out that had just started to occur to me over the last few minutes. As Lola was exchanging the Hats in the little closet. I poked at the STU case and, sure enough, the thing was either welded, glued, or bolted onto the table that it was sitting on. I exchanged a sheepish grin with Annie, who smiled back. Good thing we didn’t go with my dumb plan. Clumsily knocking the unit over accidentally on purpose definitely would not have worked.
New Hats in hand, Lola closed the closet door and rip, rip, ripped her way back over to Annie and the sturdy STU unit.
Before Lola hooked up the new Hats, she let Annie try one of them on. Taking it in her hand, Annie first held it up in front of her, looking as if she were inspecting the thing. It was all I could do to not chuckle, let alone burst out laughing. Pretending to be satisfied with her little “inspection,” Annie nodded, then put the Hat on her head, where she futzed with it a little bit before nodding again and saying, “Yes. Yes, this is much better.”
“Okay, then,” Lola said with a smile. “You ready?”
“Absolutely,” Annie replied.
“Great, then just look up at the monitor for me, and we’ll begin.”
On the wall, a 2D screen came to life, showing a person in a space suit walking around the exterior of what appeared to be this very space station. It showed video of them from an external point of view and then from a POV cam set inside the helmet. The technicalities and specifications that could be seen on the internal display were of no relevance to this particular exercise. The images on the screen were just there to get the two women thinking about a spacewalk, so their thoughts could sync up. It appeared to have worked, as I saw the STU Unit indicate a mutual link, whereupon Lola tapped a few commands on the screen, which initiated the transfer.
Annie immediately reached up to scratch her head with her right hand, being very careful not to move the Hat. I smiled, remembering that I’d done the exact same thing during my first time. Something happens during the process that causes a little tingle in your head, but I quickly learned that scratching at it did no good since the sensation was apparently somehow coming from within your skull.
Moments later, another light on the Unit indicated that the transfer was complete, and Lola removed her Hat.
“All good,” Lola said. “You’re ready to go.”
“Thank you so much,” Annie said, removing her own hat and handing it to Lola. “And I hope you can forgive my pickiness. Sebastian here gets a little nervous about being in space, and I get a little nervous when it comes to things having to do with my brain. We all have our quirks, right? I really do appreciate it, though.”
Lola seemed to accept the apology gracefully, and the three of us moved to the far end of the room, where Lola opened up a tall, thin locker that held an honest-to-goodness space suit.
Forty minutes later, Annie was all geared up and stepping into a little jump-room that was situated between the one we were in and a platform that was on the outside of the space station. I’m pretty sure it functioned as an air lock, but they called it the jump-room because it was your jumping off point to leave the SS Olympus proper and make the jump into outer space . . . alone.
Once Annie left the jump-room, she was indeed going to be all alone. I guess that’s pretty much the reason for the skill transfer. I suppose they could maybe possibly offer guided spacewalk tours, but the real thrill I think must come from being out there all by yourself.
Annie entered the little jump-room, turned back, gave a big but somewhat tentative smile, and then flashed a big thumbs-up.
“Ready?” Lola asked via her PCD that was connected to a communication device within Annie’s helmet.
“Ready,” came her reply.
The door between us closed, and a minute later the door to outer space opened. Annie just stood there, stock-still. Her boots were magnetized, and the floor in the jump-room was steel, so there was no way she’d be slipping, sliding, or falling anywhere unless she wanted to move. Her first task was to very carefully take one step at a time toward the open door and find the tether attached to the outside of the space station, which she’d need to attach to her suit.
One heavy, difficult step at a time, Annie made her way to the end of the open room, reached for the braided tether, and clipped it onto her suit.
“Tethered,” came Annie’s voice from Lola’s PCD.
“You can head out when ready,” Lola replied.
Annie looked back again, smiled, and stepped out onto a walkway that ran the entire circumference of the space station with nothing but a little hand railing between her and nearly infinite space.
36
“That was amazing!” Annie said exuberantly.
We were sitting in the cafeteria up alongside a long window that Annie had just been on the other side of about an hour ago. The cafeteria was situated on an outer wall in the upper level of the space station, and a portion of the spacewalk catwalk went right by the long windows that ran the length of the room.
“Oh my God, I wish you had been out there with me,” she said.
Somehow, I was finally able to look out the window without getting woozy and was enjoying the spectacular view. Meanwhile, Annie was glued to her PCD, watching the replay of the spacewalk she’d just taken.
“Look! There’s you in the background!” she exclaimed, spinning her PCD to show me the part of the video where a railing-mounted camera showed her out on the catwalk, with me standing alongside Lola inside the STU room.
I smiled, nodded, and tried to give her a little space and time to enjoy this. She deserved it. I mean, she really deserved it. It took a walk in outer space to give it to her, but she had her endorphins going and her adrenaline pumping, and if she wanted to forget about all the crap we were going through for a few minutes, then the least I could do for her was to sit back and let it happen. I did have work to do, though. I knew where all the spare parts for the STU were, and I knew how I’d be able to open the door behind which they were locked. With less than two hundred people on board this space station at any given time, it wouldn’t take me very long at all to start phishing for identities and find Lola’s. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask her last name, but I was hoping there would be only one Lola up here at the moment. Once I found her and once I assumed her identity on my PCD, I would have the same access to the locked door that she had. The only thing I still needed to think through was how we’d get into the STU room. How vigilant was the staff in staying put after they did a transfer? Would there ever be a time when no one was standing guard? If not, could I get Annie to cause some sort of distraction to lure them out of the room? If not to both of those—and I kind of hated to even have to think this way because I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t hurt anyone else if I could help it—I might absolutely have to either restrain or temporarily incapacitate someone to get into that closet. I didn’t want to, but if that was the only way, I guess that’s what I’d have to do.
“Alden. Alden!” Annie’s voice pulled me from my machinations. I think she’d been saying my name for quite some time.
“What?” I finally said.
“Look,” she said very quietly and showed me with her eyes where I should be looking.
Off to my right there was a 2D television monitor mounted on a wall, and looking back at me from the screen was an image of my own face alongside Annie’s.
“Oh no.” I groaned, feeling all the nausea I’d just recently conquered coming back over me again in a wave.
I quickly took my PCD out of my pocket, paired it to the TV, put the volume down low, and held it up to my ear. Annie did the same with her own PCD.
“The portable STU stolen by Alden Heath and Annie Crown was found inside a locker at Grand Central Station. The STU Donor Union says they’re glad to have the unit back, and the STU Corporation confirmed that the reward they offered for information leading to the capture of Mr. Heath and Ms. Crown still stands at two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
I very much felt like I was about to throw up.
The cafeteria wasn’t full, but it also wasn’t not full. There were plenty of eyes attached to plenty of heads in here, and I felt like every single one of them was looking at me, but I couldn’t look up to confirm it.
“Alden,” Annie said quietly.
“Yeah?” I replied softly, feeling like someone was probably standing right behind me and getting ready to throw a noose over my head.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know,” I said.
I looked up and dared to glance around the room. To my surprise, no one was looking at us. The mob was not converging, an alarm had not been raised, and I didn’t see any pitchforks. Funny, when it’s your face on the TV, you kind of think everyone else must be looking at it too. In reality, though, everyone was either looking out the window at their spectacular view of Earth or keeping a very close eye on their pouch of food, trying to make sure they got the edible parts into their mouth, as opposed to having them float off across the room.
Annie apparently saw what I saw but said, “We still need to go.”
“No point to being here anymore anyway,” I said. “I mean, stealing the chipset doesn’t do us any good anymore, and I suppose I could try to steal the whole damn portable STU, but for one, it’s bolted to the table, and two, I’m pretty sure someone would notice me trying to smuggle that off the space station.”
My PCD was still linked to the TV on the other side of the room, and I heard something that got my attention.
“In other STU news, in an effort to continue rehabbing his image tarnished by the lawsuit brought against him by Juliette Hanson nearly two years ago for the manner in which he had acquired her ice-carving skill, tech billionaire Arthur Jade will be attending the annual Blue Crystal Fundraiser Gala this evening and selling his Olympic level skill of archery off to the highest bidder. All funds from the sale will go directly to the Blue Crystal Foundation, and the skill transfer will be taking place right after the auction is concluded.”
I did a quick search on my PCD and found that the Blue Crystal Gala was taking place at the Mason-Daye Theater in Los Angeles the next night.
“We need to get to LA,” I said to Annie.
“What?”
&n
bsp; “And what did that weird Australian guy say about those Flyer things? For a million bucks they’ll take you to any major city you want?”
“What?” she asked again, exasperated. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you in our room.”
Just because no one happened to look up at the TV in the cafeteria then immediately look over and see either of us didn’t mean that no one would be doing it any time soon. It was for that reason that I wanted to get off the Space Station sooner rather than later. If we got recognized up here, there would literally be no place to go but down the Elevator and into the waiting cuffs of law enforcement. I also had an idea about getting into a room with Arthur Jade and his portable STU at the Blue Crystal Gala, and since that was going to be happening in less than twenty-four hours, we simply didn’t have enough time to wait for the next Elevator to arrive tomorrow. We needed to go now.
“And you’re sure there’s nothing we could do to keep you on board the SS Olympus with us?” the older woman named Gabby was asking me.
We’d gone back to the room and contacted Lola to tell her we wanted to book immediate passage on board one of the Flyers back down to Earth. Instead of coming to our room herself, though, this Gabby woman had shown up.
“Lola told me that you might be having some trouble with your equilibrium, Mr. Rojas. If that’s the only issue, we do have a doctor on board who would be more than happy to evaluate your—”
“It’s not that,” I said, interrupting her as politely as possible.
“It’s just business,” Annie said. “We thought he’d be able to get away from the office for a whopping two days, but apparently, even that was too much to ask.”
She was playing the part of the annoyed girlfriend being dragged out of yet another social engagement due to her significant other’s demanding work schedule. As usual, she was doing a way better job of selling our story than I ever could have.
“Well then, it’s fortunate one of our Flyers is available,” said Gabby. “Only one of them was booked from the last trip up on the Elevator, so we’ve actually got three on board right now. Usually, we only have two at a time so, we’re happy we can accommodate you.”