by Tom Cheshire
“Why yes, Miss Chloe. I believe they would.”
“And that sofa, how far away is it from us now?” Chloe stared at the suit. She had already told Bob all about the whole incident with Dom.
“Using the information you disclosed to me, I can triangulate co-ordinates based on the time, position and rough trajectory speed of the sofa based on the size of Mr. Dom’s bicep muscles. I estimate that the sofa is located at a distance of 12.8 miles from our current location.”
“And this space suit here, how far does the cable stretch?”
“Approximately 15 miles.”
Chloe rubbed her hands together with glee. “Guys…” she said, looking out towards the bulkhead doorway containing the airlock. “Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?”
10
“Hnngh!!!”
That was roughly the sound that came out of my mouth as I attempted to perform a simple clockwise motion with my left knee. I was testing out my range of movement in the space suit – to describe it as ‘limited’ would be putting it mildly. Whoever designed the stupid thing clearly hadn’t put much thought in for comfort. Imagine wearing five layers of restrictive period costume whilst swimming through treacle, and you might get an idea of what it felt like.
“Are you ready for the helmet, Joe?” asked Chloe.
“No.”
“Good.”
On went the helmet anyway. It locked into place with a worryingly subtle ‘clunk,’ like a car door that hasn’t been closed properly. I probably should have checked that it was secure, but I guess I had far too many other thoughts rushing through my head at the same moment.
For one thing I had very quickly become acutely aware of my own breathing, a side effect of suddenly having a glass visor in front of my face. I wondered if I was going to suffocate to death, but then I remembered the two large oxygen canisters attached to my back. I had no idea how the suit’s airflow system worked, or even if it did. In fact, were those canisters even carrying oxygen? I hadn’t really thought this through…
“How much longer, Bob?” asked Dom.
“Just a few minutes, Mr. Dom. I am currently running 5,000,000 virtual simulations of this mission to determine whether a sufficiently high standard of safety will be met.” Bob announced.
“Right, fair enough.”
Fair enough? This was my life at risk!
“How you doing in there? Comfy?” Chloe asked, intrigued.
“What do you think?” I mumbled back, my voice distorted by the helmet.
“I think you should cheer up, ” Chloe said. “After all, you’re going to be doing us all a favour.”
Cheer up? No way was that going to happen.
“I didn’t ask for this, you know!” I shouted.
It was true, I definitely hadn’t. From the moment Chloe had first divulged her completely-barmy-no-way-is-that-going-to-ever-work-batshit-insane-plan of space-walking out to the sofa, I’d made it perfectly clear that I didn’t want anything to do with it. That it was an insane, suicidal idea and none of us knew anything about working a space suit.
Of course, Chloe wasn’t going to back down, and the others – Bob, Dom, even Emma, were beginning to believe that it could actually work. We’d be able to bring the sofa back, find the backups, reboot Bob and finally understand what was really going on. If there was any chance of us getting those backups – no matter how ludicrous the task at hand, it was going to happen, no questions asked.
A couple of hours before first donning the suit, while Chloe was first attempting to work through the details of ‘Operation Sofa Space,’ I snuck out back to the common room to look for Travis. He was sitting down on one of his chairs, staring at the floor like a lonely, broken old soul.
“Hey, Travis. How you doing?” I asked, standing behind him and trying my best to sound sympathetic.
“Uh, fine.” Travis mumbled.
I attempted to explain to him what was going on. To my surprise, he didn’t sound too perturbed by Chloe’s plan, but he didn’t want to get involved either.
“I guess they can try that…” he shrugged, indifferently.
“Travis, none of us know what we’re doing,” I said. “You’d probably know what to do better than any of us.” I wanted to believe that, even though we’d all been experiencing the same amnesia, Travis had always seemed to show a certain level of technical intuition that the rest of us were lacking.
“Nah, s-shouldn’t think so,” Travis shook his head. His eyes were glued firmly to the floor. I walked around and crouched down in front of him so that he’d have no choice but to look me in the eyes.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you want to go into that room?”
“I…” Travis took a deep breath. “I’ve never been in there before.” That was a strange answer.
“Well, yeah. None of us can remember going in there before,” I reassured him. “It’s a really cool room actually.”
“It’s d-different,” Travis said. “I know I’ve never been in there. Ever.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said.
Travis grunted.
“So you’re still not coming?” I asked.
“I can’t.” Travis whispered.
Well, that was that. I headed back to the hidden room where I found the others, still discussing the space-walk idea like it was ever going to work. I don’t think any of them had noticed I’d even been gone.
“So the airlock de-compresses and re-compresses in just 10 seconds? Without, like, completely blowing your brains out?” Dom was asking Bob.
“Correct, Mr. Dom. The suit is specifically designed to be versatile in adapting to a variety of atmospheres, climates and vacuum-based conditions,” Bob said.
“That’s a mean feat of science if I ever saw one,” Dom commented, unexpectedly developing an interest in futuristic depressurisation technology.
“Well, then. There’s no reason why we can’t do this, guys,” Chloe said confidently.
“It’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack…” I muttered.
“I do not follow.” Bob said.
“It’s an analogy, Bob. What I mean is, how are we going to find one tiny little sofa out there?”
“Joe, were you listening earlier?” Chloe growled. “The suit can automatically home in on objects of interest. We’ll find it, of course we will!”
“You make it sound so easy…” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Of course, Joe. How hard can it be?” Chloe replied, only half-joking. Famous last words?
“Whatever,” I said, feeling deflated. I clearly wasn’t going to talk her out of it.
“If you really think we’re gonna struggle to find it, we’ll split up,” Chloe said. “We can all grab a suit, get geared up, head out there separately and then we’ve got a better chance!”
“There’s one problem there,” Emma piped up, raising her hand. “There’s only one suit.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, I’ve looked everywhere…”
“Miss Emma is correct. I can only confirm one Exo-Max Cyber-Axon Fusion Travel Suit in the immediate vicinity,” Bob said.
“Oh, well… in that case,” Chloe scratched her head. “We’ll just have to decide who goes.”
There was a long silence.
“Any volunteers?” Chloe asked.
“We could draw straws…” Emma suggested.
“What with?” Dom asked. “There’s nothing we could use…”
“We could try rock-paper-scissors,” I proposed.
“What the hell is that?” Dom seemed perplexed.
“I don’t know, it’s something I just remembered.”
“Is that the thing where you spin a bottle?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” I think the amnesia was starting to get in the way of our ability to make democratic decisions.
“We’ll do a vo
te then,” announced Chloe. “Votes for Dom?”
“Woah, guys, I think we’re getting off track a bit here,” Dom stated, throwing his hands in the air. “Let’s be rational. Now, I know I’m not the, ah… slimmest-built dude among us,”
“You can say that again,” said Emma.
“What I’m saying is, I don’t think there’s any way I’m gonna be able to squeeze into that tiny little thing, so…” Dom continued.
“Too fat, eh?” I chuckled.
“I’m not fat!” Dom snarled. “But that suit is clearly a better fit for one of you lot. And I mean, I don’t think any of you guys really want me anywhere near that sofa again…”
Now that I thought about it, he had a good point.
“Right, fine. Dom is excluded from the vote on the basis of being a fat prick,” Chloe said. Dom didn’t say anything.
“Votes for Emma?”
Dom raised his hand.
“Dom, you can’t vote if you’re not going to be putting yourself forward,” Chloe tutted.
“Oh, come on!” Dom grumbled.
“Let’s try again,” Chloe breathed. “Votes for Emma?”
“Now wait a minute…” I cut in. “Emma’s been having a hard time recently. She…” Emma shot an awkward glance at me so I stopped short of telling the others about the incident in the cryo room.
“Stop defending her, Joe! Seriously, let her take care of herself!” Chloe yelled. “So I’ll say it again. Votes for Emma?” Both Dom and Chloe raised their hands.
“Two in favour, one against for Emma,” noted Chloe.
“Hey, wait a minute, you said Dom couldn’t vote!” I said, angrily. Chloe ignored me.
“It’s okay, Joe. I’m okay,” Emma said.
“No, it’s not okay!” I was fuming now. “What about you, Chloe, eh? Votes for Chloe?”
Chloe gasped in bewilderment. “Well, obviously I’m not going!”
I was practically speechless at this point.
“This whole thing was your idea!” I yelled.
“Yeah, exactly! That’s why I’ve got to stay here, to give directions. Make sure everything goes as planned. I’m not going to risk us jeopardising the mission because I wasn’t here making sure it all goes smoothly.”
“But that’s why we’ve got Bob…”
Chloe ignored me. As far as excuses were going, Dom’s was far more palatable.
“Right, where were we…” Chloe moved through her imaginary rota. “Votes for Travis?”
“Travis isn’t coming.” I said. “He won’t step foot inside this room. He’s not a part of this.”
“Tell you what, let’s forget the whole voting thing,” Chloe said. “Joe, you’re going.”
“What? That’s not fair!”
“Of course it is. You haven’t got an excuse.”
“But I’m the only one who thinks this whole idea is completely awful!”
“It’s a brilliant idea and you know it. Now get in the fucking space suit,” Chloe ordered.
I wasn’t going to give in so easily.
“No excuses, eh? What about my injury?” I pointed furiously at the cut on my forehead. “All the grief you’ve been giving me about that. What if I start smelling the coffee again? What if I’m not thinking straight?”
“We know there’s nothing wrong with you, Joe,” Dom said.
“How do you know that? How do you know anything?” I exploded. “We’ve established, basically, that nobody knows anything about anyone. And nobody knows anything about themselves, or space, or space suits, or space-walking in space suits, least of all space-walking in space suits on the lookout for bloody space sofas!”
“Calm down, Joe,” Emma whispered, tearfully. I was starting to scare her.
“I’m just saying!” I choked on my words. “It’s not going to work… This is insane,” I reached out and grabbed the suit. “But if I have to…” I paused and several obscenities went buzzing through my head. “I’ll do it.”
Knock knock... There’s a first time for everything. You said so yourself.
So there I was, fully suited and about to embark on a mission so ridiculously barmy that I could hardly believe anything was real any more. I’d been facing the airlock for a while, staring vacantly and trying to psyche myself up for the ludicrous task I was about to undertake. Just a quick trip outside to the local furniture store, I tried to tell myself. I swivelled around, slowly and with great difficulty, raising my arms to a horizontal position.
“How do I look?” I asked, pointlessly.
“I think you look cool,” said Emma.
“I think you look like a giant space fag,” said Dom.
“I think you look ready,” said Chloe. “Bob, all set?”
“I believe so, Miss Chloe. My simulations have indicated that this mission does indeed operate under acceptable safety standards.” Bob declared.
“Great! We’re all set then!” Chloe beamed.
I turned back around and closed my eyes. “Bob… What exactly did your simulations say?”
“That this mission operates under acceptable safety standards.”
“Meaning?”
“I do not follow.”
“Tell me some odds!” I shouldn’t have said that…
“From the 5,000,000 simulations I recorded, I found that only 43% of potential scenarios resulted in a fatality. Demonstrably it seems conclusive to me that this mission is statistically more likely to succeed than to fail.”
“That’s still not very safe!” I yelled.
“I am sorry, Mr. Joe. Would you like me to repeat the test with alternate significance metrics?” Bob said, detached.
“No, screw it.” I sighed. “I’m ready.”
“Splendid. In that case I would like to run through the mission parameters one last time.”
“I thought that was Chloe’s job,” I said, complacently. I knew Chloe wasn’t going to be as much help as Bob. I knew she knew it too, even though she’d managed to bullshit her way out of being in my position.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Joe. Please hear me out,” Bob continued. “Your objective, the sofa, is situated perpendicular to your launching axis. You may adjust your trajectory by carefully siphoning the zero-gravity directional matrices of the-“
“Bob, I’m going to stop you there,” I said. “Because I didn’t understand a word of that.”
“I apologise, Mr. Joe. Would you like me to repeat my previous sentence at 50% speed?”
“No, but could you just spare me the technical crap?” I pleaded. “Remember I don’t know what any of it means. Explain it to me like I’m five years old or something.”
“Oh, I see.” Bob said. He then switched his voice to the even more overly colourful tone of a nursery school teacher.
“Hello, Mr. Joe! You are a spaceman today! Space is very big and cold. In space, there is no air…”
This went on for a while, until I finally got Bob to talk to me on the right level.
“Once you have been ejected from the airlock, you will be travelling at a constant speed of 80-90 miles per hour. At this speed, you should be able to make visual contact with the objective after about 15 minutes. You can then manually adjust your speed and direction by making natural body movements. We will communicate with you via the built-in audio comlink at all times. Remember, your goal is to retrieve the sofa and pull it back to the airlock.”
“Is the airlock even big enough for a sofa?” I asked.
“There is a sufficient amount of space.” Bob stated. I peered through the window. Just barely, I thought.
“I see, and this cable’s gonna keep me supported, yeah?” The supposedly 15-mile long cable was hooked rather primitively to the back of my suit between the oxygen canisters. It ran massive loops around the room and through the walls with the other end attached on the outside of the ship.
“That is correct,” Bob reassured.
“I’ll be alright for breathing, yeah?” I asked, tapping one of the canisters.<
br />
“That is correct. You will last several hours on your current supply. I would advise against taking any longer than two hours.”
“Any other advice?” I asked. Bob seemed to think for a while.
“Try to avoid spinning,” he said.
“Why? What will happen?” I asked.
“You may become nauseous.”
This was it. I stepped through the bulkhead into the airlock chamber, following some final words of encouragement (and discouragement) from the others. The heavy bulkhead door sealed shut behind me with a tremendous thump, and a countdown started.
10 seconds. The decompression process had begun. I couldn’t feel anything. I guess the suit really was working.
9 seconds. I was about to step outside, the whole entirety of space around me. Part of me couldn’t help but feel a giddy excitement over that.
8 seconds. Over the audio comlink, I heard Dom call me a ‘gaylord.’
7 seconds. The whole time on this ship I’d felt a bit like I was trapped in a box. Perhaps getting out in the open was exactly what I needed.
6 seconds. Perhaps I was the best person for this mission after all.
5 seconds. My head was spinning.
4 seconds. Wait… what was it Bob had said? Being launched at up to 90 miles per hour? Was I ready for that?
3 seconds. Was I ever going to see any of the others again? Was this a one-way trip?
2 seconds. “There’s a first time for everything.”
1 second. Well, shit.
11
The first time I went swimming, I wasn’t prepared. I mean, I thought I knew what water was like. As a little kid I was used to leaving the taps on in the bath and letting the water level fill up as far as it would go. If I was feeling adventurous, I’d stick my whole head under the bubbles, keeping my eyes wide open even as they started to sting. I was the ruler of my private bath kingdom - all would bow down before me!
Then came the leap from the kiddie bathtub to the full-sized swimming pool. All of a sudden there was a hell of a lot more water for me to dominate. No problemo! If I could conquer a bath all by myself, I could take on this unchartered territory, easy peasy! The first time I was taken to the swimming pool, I couldn’t stop myself - I dived into the shallow end with an almighty splash. Wow! This was great! I bounced around excitedly, ready to show what I was made of. My dad was on-guard, urging me to stay at the kids’ end of the pool, but why should I? I was the water master! The water master takes orders from nobody!