by Tom Cheshire
When I finally returned to the common room I decided I wasn’t going to speak to anyone. I sat pensively in a Travis-chair, continuing to stare outwardly with a blank expression, waiting for a new argument to wither its ugly head in my direction.
Chloe was doing something to Bob. I was only faintly listening, but decided to start paying attention once I noticed Chloe’s voice gradually increasing in pitch (this tended to happen when something exciting was going on).
“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing, let’s see that again,” she said enthusiastically.
With a faint mechanical click, something on the back of Bob folded outwards with incredible speed, expanding to fill an area over three times wider than the rest of his body. It was as if he’d suddenly sprouted wings. It happened so fast and unexpectedly that it was hard to believe that it was even physically possible. Then again, this was Bob we were talking about. I’d kind of given up feeling surprised about him at this point - it was getting tiring. He could have shape-shifted into a banana and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Even so, this latest ‘Bob ability’ we’d discovered was evidently amusing enough for Chloe to squeal with childish delight as she asked him to demonstrate it again and again.
“Please insert backup drive A into the leftmost storage container, if you would, Miss Chloe,” instructed Bob.
“Which one’s A?” Chloe asked. “There are no letters on any of these.” There was a long pause.
“Um…” said Bob. That was an unusual thing for Bob to say.
“Well?”
“Unfortunately I can only say with 33% confidence which drive that is,” Bob said, unhelpfully.
“Yeah, cos there’s three and you don’t have a clue which is which, am I right? Can you at least admit that?” Chloe asked, cockily.
“Correct, Miss Chloe. I am afraid I am at a loss,” Bob admitted.
“Well that’s great, isn’t there anything that will help us figure it out?” Dom asked.
“Yes,” Bob said. “I believe so.”
“Well?”
“I can access the information from the internal memory banks of backup drive C.”
“Which one’s C?” Emma asked.
“I am afraid I am at a loss.”
“Is there anything else that can help us?” Dom laughed cynically. No response came. “I’ll take that as a no then…”
Bob started groaning. Chloe quickly sensed that he might have a logic suicidal episode and made a snap decision.
“A, B, C. There. Simple,” she said, labelling the three drives at random. “Honestly, Dom. There’s no big deal. If we find out they’re the wrong way round we’ll just switch them later… right?” Chloe turned to Bob for approval.
“I am afraid you may have misunderstood some of the basics of sequential access memory, Miss Chloe,” Bob stated. “It would be unwise to alter the ordering of the drives once you have committed…” Chloe’s face fell.
“We’re screwed,” Dom groaned. “What are the odds of us getting it right, one in a million?”
“One in six,” Bob corrected him.
“Whatever, just go for it.”
With that, Chloe placed all three of the randomly ordered backups into the slots on Bob’s storage ‘wings.’ A few moments later, Bob elegantly folded himself back up with another faint click, somehow compressing the three drives into his smaller shell without completely disregarding the laws of physics in the process. Again, it happened so quickly that none of us had time to understand how it was possible, and at this point I don’t think any of us cared - we just wanted to know if we’d got the order right.
“Bob? Are you okay?” Chloe asked. Total silence.
“Well, shit!” Dom shot an angry look at Chloe. “Looks like you were wrong. Who would have thought that?”
“Ssh!” Chloe stuck out her hand in trepidation. A few agonising moments later, Bob yawned.
“Um…” he said.
“Bob?”
“The backup drives seem to be in order, Miss Chloe. You must give me more time. There is a lot of tidying up to do.”
“Well I’ll be damned. Lady luck shineth upon us,” Dom said, shaking his head. Chloe smiled and gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. Was there a love-hate relationship brewing?
The seconds dragged on. Dom yawned so much I was starting to wonder if his jaw was locked.
“Can’t you give us something to make the wait more bearable?” Chloe asked, tapping her foot impatiently.
“I do not follow,” Bob said.
“Just give us something…” Chloe begged. “Anything at all. You must have something for us by now.”
“Ah, here we go,” Bob replied. We all leaned forwards in anticipation. “I just found this. I believe it will ease the wait.”
Then music started playing. Actual, proper music, coming out of Bob’s speakers. You might think I’d feel some sort of positive emotion at hearing music playing for the first time in however many years. Nope. It wasn’t anything remotely decent; in fact, despite my amnesia I very quickly worked out what type of tune it was… it was elevator music. The sort of generic low-key soul-destroying classical crap that plays when you’ve been put on hold during a phone call. I rolled my eyes. Obviously Chloe had meant for Bob to give us some immediate revelations about our earlier lives to pass the time, but he’d interpreted it as a cue to dive into his long lost soundtrack archive instead. This song was utter garbage; it had already started to grate on us all. The melody was only about 10 seconds long, stuck in an endless, maddening loop. Dom collapsed into fits of ironic laughter. So much for ‘immediate revelations.’ This was going to be one hell of a wait.
The music carried on limitlessly, almost ingraining itself into our psyches. I tried to ask Bob to turn it off but he wasn’t listening – if I pestered him, he’d occasionally spout out random numbers and meaningless words that were probably programming commands. Obviously we didn’t want to risk something going wrong with his ‘tidying up’ routine, so we just had to put up with it. As I sat in deluded frustration twiddling my thumbs I was surprised to find that I wasn’t even noticing the music after a while – it had become normal to me. I shuddered as I realised that fact and then, obviously, became acutely aware of it again. It was infuriating.
Eventually I took to unconsciously counting the number of times the music looped. After that number rolled up to three digits, I knew it was time to get up and do something. I wandered the corridor like a feeble mental patient; the girls had retreated to the ‘bedrooms’ and fallen asleep while Dom was in the bathroom, probably having also fallen asleep. And where the hell was that asteroid at? I couldn’t see it outside any of the windows any more. It must have swung past us, then, but if we were really on a collision course, I could have done without the unfitting tones of the Bob radio station to play us out.
Then there was Travis. He was in the kitchen, but something was… off. As I stumbled past the doorway and glanced through, I felt unnerved as I made eye contact with him. He had an unusually sinister look on his face and he was very, very still.
“Uh… Are you okay?” I asked. “You haven’t said anything in ages.”
“Neither have you,” Travis replied, coldly. That was true, I’d promised myself that I would stay silent ever since my argument with Emma, but something about Travis’ cold stare had made me compelled to break that promise. I knew I had to say something now.
“How are you coping, though?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Travis replied. His stammer was oddly non-existent.
“You waiting for the bathroom?” I unconvincingly attempted to make conversation. Travis shook his head.
“Oh…”
“What about you?” Travis asked. I was mildly stunned because this was probably the first time Travis had ever asked me a question.
“Uh, no… I just came up here to get away from that music, you know. It’s been kinda driving me crazy,” I admitted.
“What music?”
�
��What?” I quickly turned around and started breathing heavily. The tune was nowhere to be heard. Where did it go?
“What music, Joe?”
“Oh, no, no, no, don’t do this to me, don’t you start…” I said, flustered. “I don’t need this.” I took a quick accidental glance at the knife on the kitchen table, which caused Travis to flinch.
“I…” I started to back away. “I’m sorry. You’re right, there… wasn’t any… music. Of course not.” I clumsily stepped back into the corridor and found my head spinning.
Knock knock... It’s like a merry-go-round!
X, this isn’t funny. Are you doing this? Making me imagine things?
Why would you accuse me of such a thing? I’m just here for the ride.
Look, I get it. This is your revenge, right? For me not playing along earlier? All I want is some god damn answers! I can’t put up with these mind games any more!
X wasn’t answering. In a fury, I stormed back to the common room and picked up Bob.
“Bob, can you hear me?” I shook him aggressively. “Listen. I want you to tell me everything, right now. Just tell me… once and for all… what the fuck are we all doing here?!”
“Oh, hello there, Mr. Joe. You seem rather agitated,” Bob observed.
“Please…” I begged. “I can’t take this any longer. I have to know.”
“What would you like to know, Mr. Joe?” Bob asked. “I am currently in the process of performing over a million decryptions from the communication log files we discovered near the airlock. Would you like me to publish the one I am currently translating?”
“Yes, just give me anything… please…”
// 974281 Decryptions in Progress...
_Run{BrdCms_PK01} // Error 05320 – Task Incomplete
_Countermand 05320; _Disp{Temp_BrdCms_PK01}
// Rendering
// Broadcast Communications Transcript 212.1.A9
AS >> What’s up, home boys?
CO << Copy that. Uh, we’re fine, thank you. If you would please keep to the standard greetings terminology when liaising with Central, we could save a lot of time.
AS >> Huh, what do you mean, save time? We don’t need to go through the logistics crap every time I jump on comms, surely?
CO << Afraid so. I’m putting you through to your advisor now.
< HOLD >
CO << Hey there.
AS >> Hey, so what’s up with all this formality bullshit? I thought this was just an informal chat?
CO << Yeah, but you know what management is like. On this sort of range you’ll get blacklisted if you don’t use the proper signcode.
AS >> Yeah, I know. One sec. Um, hang on. I know I wrote it down somewhere…
CO << Look, don’t worry about it, I’ll let it slide. So how are things?
AS >> Uh, fine I suppose. More or less.
CO << You don’t exactly sound enthused.
AS >> Well, you know. Mundanities of space travel and all that. I was gonna ask how things are on Earth?
CO << Same as ever. Kind of wish I could get out a bit more.
AS >> Can’t you?
CO << Not really. You know what the workload is like.
AS >> But you still have time to come on here and listen to me ramble on about my boring life every day?
CO << I’m your advisor, aren’t I? All part of the job.
AS >> Yeah, yeah. Think you should go out and get some sunshine, mate.
CO << Sunshine is overrated.
AS >> Is it? Jesus, I can’t remember the last time I felt the sun on my skin. Not the same out here with the amount of bloody filters they put on the ship chassis.
CO << You’ve only been gone a week.
AS >> Yeah, well, feels like longer than that. Can’t wait for cryosleep, I’m telling ya. I swear, if I had my way with management, I’d be under already. I needs me beauty sleep.
CO << Hey, those pods aren’t toys, you know. You just have to hold out another few weeks.
AS >> And then it’ll be authorized will it? Or are we gonna get some other bullshit jobs to do?
CO << No, you’ll be able to get your beauty sleep.
AS >> Hell yeah! Ain’t you gonna get lonely though?
CO << I’ll be fine.
AS >> Great. I swear this place is already starting to wear me down. Whoever’s idea it was to do the whole ship up in early twenty-first century novelty chic has a lot to answer for.
CO << It’s supposed to be nostalgic.
AS >> Yeah, a little before my time I think. No amount of psycho-reassessment training is gonna change that.
CO >> They put you through all that did they?
AS >> Yeah, supposed to make me feel at home with all the vintage crap they’ve got here. I don’t think it worked. They’ve got a sofa, for Christ’s sake! Real leather and everything. When was the last time you saw one of those?
CO << What’s a sofa?
AS >> Never mind.
CO << So, uh… Your wife called.
AS >> Oh, really? Is she there now?
CO << No, she’s not. Something about your son’s school play.
AS >> Oh, jeez. I forgot all about that… Tell her, uh…
CO << Tell her you forgot all about it?
AS >> No! Tell her I love her, obviously. And uh, I’m proud and stuff.
CO << That’s all you got?
AS >> Hey, I’m not one for poetics. Can you get her on the line next time? I don’t see the point in you getting to do all the sweet talk.
CO << Because I’m better at it than you?
AS >> You cheeky bastard!
CO << Ha ha, I’m only kidding, man. Of course I’ll get her on here as soon as possible.
AS >> Yeah, like, preferably before I’m in cryosleep…
CO << Yeah, I can’t imagine her getting much enjoyment out of talking to a frozen husk.
AS >> Uh-huh.
CO << Not unless she’s into that sort of thing.
AS >> Well there was this one time we went to the stasis museum…
CO << And she got turned on? Oh boy.
AS >> I don’t think that’s any of your business. I do miss her, you know.
CO << Cheer up, alright? You’ve got some smoking hot chicks on board with you!
AS >> Hey, what do you mean?
CO << Don’t deny it!
AS >> I couldn’t look at them that way, you know that right…
CO << Just saying.
AS >> Speaking of which, I think there’s something going on between Simmons and Hammond…
CO << Oh really? You’re using their surnames so this must be serious. Do tell.
AS >> Yeah, I mean they’ve been sitting together almost the whole time we’ve been here. Sometimes it feels like they are just winding each other up but I swear there’s more to it than that. And get this…
CO << I’m listening.
AS >> I was looking into the ship’s energy flow outputs over our daily routines, right? And there was this spike coming from Simmons’ room during the hours when we’re supposed to be asleep.
CO << So what, was the light left on or something?
AS >> No, you see, that’s the funny thing. It was a downward spike. So I asked the intelbot about it, and he reckons the only thing that could accommodate for that much power in that room is the local gravity field.
CO << So it was being switched off?
AS >> Precisely. Now unless Simmons has suddenly got a thing for zero-G sleep – which I very much doubt, I reckon something else is going on in there every night.
CO << Oh, so you’re saying…
AS >> Have you ever tried having sexual intercourse in zero gravity?
CO << I’ve never even been in zero gravity before…
AS >> I thought you were gonna say you’d never had intercourse before. Might explain a few things.
CO << Wait what?
AS >> So anyway, zero-G sex. I tried it once, right. Had a bit of a fling with my instructor back at the a
cademy… Long story. I was young, okay.
CO << Is this anecdote going anywhere?
AS >> So the great thing about, you know, doing it in zero gravity, other than the novelty of seeing breasts bouncing around like slow-motion water balloons…
CO << Uh…
AS >> … Is that orgasms are so much more intense. Because you’re weightless you can really let yourself go. Before you know it you’re shooting off everywhere like a railgun.
CO << Jesus, doesn’t that get a bit messy?
AS >> Yeah, well, that’s why you have to make sure you’ve turned gravity back on afterwards, lest you wanna have to start dodging floating globules of...
CO << I think I’ve heard enough.
AS >> I thought you might have. On that note…
CO << Yes I think we’ll call it a day.
AS >> All righty then, you get back to your work. I’ll get back to doing nothing. Fun times.
CO << Indeed. Goodbye, then.
< Central office signing out >
// End Transcript
“There.” Bob said. “I will send you further transcripts as they become available.”
“Wait…” I paused. “What just happened?”
“I published the transcript. Did it help?”
I was horribly confused.
“Published? What transcript? I didn’t see anything. Where did it go?”
“Mr. Joe, I did as you requested.”
“But where is it?” I was flabbergasted.
Honestly, talk about a lack of basic comprehension skills...
What the hell are you on about?
It’s your own nomenclature. Perhaps you should have chosen a different medium. Books are clearly too much work for you.
“Right. Let me try again,” I groaned. “Bob, can you please just… talk to me and… perhaps we can straighten a few things out.”
“Hey, Joey, can’t have you stealing all the glory!” Dom came storming in, followed by Emma, Chloe and Travis.
“Yeah! Bob, we want answers too!” Chloe said.
“Is he finally ready to tell us?” Emma asked.