by Tom Cheshire
“I don’t care about anything any more,” I answered, closing my eyes.
“Not even the coffee?” Emma asked. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“No…”
Emma took a few steps towards the panel window, getting ready to reach out towards me with her hand, but at the last moment, she decided against it. She took a deep look into my eyes.
“I hope you find it.”
Then she turned back and joined the others.
“Well… I suppose this is it then,” Dom sighed. “Goodbye Space Fag. I would have called this an emotional farewell, except for the fact that I still want to smash your face in for being such a psychopathic twat.”
“Likewise,” I smiled. Looking down, I noticed something else that had been caught on my leg for god knows how long. I picked it up and threw it across the room to Dom, who managed to catch it straight away.
“Beardy!” Dom snorted in surprise. He bent down and stuck the now ruffled, lopsided and daft-looking goatee onto his face. “How do I look?”
“Ew, Dom. You don’t know where that’s been…” Chloe said.
“I’m surprised it’s still sticky enough to stay on my face,” Dom said, stroking his fake moustache hair.
“Yeah, that’s probably cos it’s got Joe’s blood smeared all over the back of it, you fucking degenerate,” Chloe added.
“Ahhh!!!” Dom yelled, pulling it off. “Wait a minute… No it hasn’t. Why would you say something like that?”
“Ha. Well, I just think you look better without it, you know?” Chloe smiled.
A high pitch sound triggered. The luxury escape pod was closing.
“This is it.” Emma said.
“We’re finally going home…” Chloe sighed. “We can hope…”
“Oh shit, is it really gonna put us in a trance or something?” Dom wondered aloud. “Like one where we go into some kind of fantasy world where everything is perfect?”
“And what would your perfect fantasy be, Dom? One where we’re living together having lots and lots of babies?” Chloe smirked.
“That or my pimping agency business. Either will do.” Dom replied.
“I hate you, Dom the Schlong.”
“I know.”
The pod closed. That was it. I’d done as Travis had asked. The others were free, and only I was left behind. I’d never see them again.
I turned back before the escape pod launched, but I was able to catch a glimpse of it from the common room window as it zoomed off into the blackness of space. Part of me was happy for them, but something was off. Chloe, Emma, and even to a certain extent, Dom had all been far nicer to me than I had anticipated in those final moments. Whether or not I had been entirely responsible for that, there was something peculiar about the way they hadn’t seemed all that fazed by the old man’s death, and that didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it…
The asteroid was outside. Should I have warned the others about it, even though they’d never have listened? The rock was closer than ever before, a humongous solid mass pirouetting anti-clockwise, seemingly on a direct collision course with the ship. I blinked several times, trying to see if the giant object would disappear… but it didn’t. It was still there, enormous and imposing. Where had it come from? I wondered. How much time did I have left?
I turned and looked back at the ruined common room. I felt a horrible lump in my stomach as I tried to rationalise everything that had happened. I’d been determined to prove that I was normal and earn my trust within the group, but now what had happened? Look at the mess I’d made. There was nobody left now… nobody! I was alone in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere. With a lot of tidying up to do.
I don’t know why I figured I needed to clean up. It’s not like there was anyone to impress. No family or friends coming over to judge my cleanliness, nor space landlords coming over to check the general state of habitation. Still, here I was, injured, depressed and alone, with a mop I’d sourced from the kitchen, wiping up all the sticky blood patches from the floor. I collected all the pieces of Travis-chairs along with the lighter and assembled them into a vaguely humanoid shape in the corner of the room. Some sort of lame, pointless tribute I guess. Then I was wiping all of the edges of the empty bookshelves, the coffee table, the kitchen counter, everything I could reach. I was starting to feel a bit OCD about it, but maybe that was okay. It was like I had a job now. I was starting to figure it out. Every morning, lunchtime and evening I’d eat my purple flakes (that were still being generated consistently with the regular chiming of the kitchen bell), do a few press ups to stay healthy, masturbate furiously to imaginary triple-breasted alien chicks (I’d rather not have admitted the latter but I don’t think I have anything to lose now) and then sleep like a baby in my freshly cleaned living quarters. It wasn’t much of an existence, but maybe it was all I needed. Maybe it was all I was entitled to.
Whistling, I pranced around in the corridor, tidying all the loose cables back into the walls, brushing all the pieces of rubble aside and taking anything that I thought could be a useful seating material. I was going to make my own Travis-chairs, I decided. It couldn’t be too hard, and even if it was, Travis had spent years and years of his life walking the halls of this ship, alone, figuring stuff out on his own. If he could do it, so could I. I was going to live out my remaining days like this, and then one day the asteroid would claim me, peacefully, and that would be my end. Not the worst fate ever in the grand scheme of things, I thought.
I came across that burst pipe again. It was still oozing boiling hot water in a puddle around the base. Hm… I thought. I’ll come back to that tomorrow. Humming some made-up or possibly faintly-remembered tune, I danced back into the common room with my chair-ingredients and started playing around with my limited construction skills.
My first two attempts at chairs were pretty disastrous, and that’s putting it mildly. The first one resembled an upside-down garden lounge and collapsed immediately when I laid a single finger on it. The second was basically just the lower half of a ladder and I had to shuffle my backside between two of the strands in order to stay seated. I sighed. Well, it was better than nothing, but I quickly reverted to sitting on the floor again, so that gives you an idea of how well it worked.
My third attempt was going to be THE ONE, I thought. This was going to be the best chair ever. My backside would never have tasted such a sweet, sweet chair in all of its past lives. I would be able to lie back in it and feel like I never needed to stand up again; that’s how good this chair was going to be. It was going to be more than just a chair, it… it was going to be a sofa. A sofa you could lie back in, and be completely surrounded by plush comfy-womfyness. This sofa was even going to rival my old friend the space sofa; no… it would be even better. Nobody would have a sofa as good as this sofa; after all, it would be the only one like it in existence. Built by me, exclusively for me. Yes.
Excitedly, I got started building my magnum opus. Suddenly I was finding all of these useful bits and bobs all over the place. A large wooden sheet to use as a base? Of course! A giant, luxuriously soft pillow-like object? I don’t mind if I do, thank you! I was so into my idea to build the furniture of my dreams, I had to do a double take when I finally noticed it. Yes, the coffee sachet.
It was under one of the empty bookshelves. Immediately, I stopped what I was doing and dived to the ground to pick it up. My hands were trembling. This was really it… The very same tiny little coffee sachet that Emma had given to me all that time ago. It was a little dusty now and it looked like a tiny rip had formed in the side, but as I rattled it about I realised that all the coffee was intact. I felt overjoyed.
The sachet had been in the very same spot I’d been tackled by Dom the other day when he was playing with his wig and beard puppets. Had it fallen out of my pocket all by itself? My head hurt… and then… something familiar. The sound of yawning.
“Bob?” I asked, dashing across to the tiny, damag
ed little object on the floor I’d completely ignored during my obsessive clean-up routine. Bob was finally starting to show signs of life, whirring and vibrating ever-so-slightly.
“H… hello…” Bob said, speaking slower and more muffled than before.
“You’re alive?” I asked, unsure what emotion to feel.
“Y… yes… It would sh…seem, for t…the moment…” Bob mumbled, his voice sounding digitally compressed.
“You’ll never guess what I just found,” I said.
“G…guess? L…like a game? I l…like g…games!” Bob said.
“It’s the coffee sachet I was looking for earlier. Remember?”
“I do no…not f…follow.”
“Come on, Bob! You remember, right? I was… well, I was… accusing you of taking it and…”
“I d…do n…not f…fo…f…llow.”
“I accused you of taking it…” I was puzzled. “Why? Why did I do that? Why did I do this to you?”
“I… d… n… fo…”
“I didn’t take the cure. Why… Why the fuck didn’t I take the fucking… oh god…” I looked up; the giant cushion and wooden sheet I’d gathered to build my dream sofa had already vanished in front of me. “What’s happening to me, Bob?”
“J…Joe...” Bob wheezed. I was shaking.
“What?” I asked, barely able to contain my fear any more. Something was very, very wrong.
“Is t…that th…thing talking?” Bob asked.
“For god’s sake Bob, I don’t want to play your stupid ‘is that thing talking’ game…”
“No… Not me… Is that thing talking… to you?”
Knock knock...
Ah… my head… I mean… my head was throbbing and I fell to the floor with a thumb… er… thoomp… sorry, thump. Imagine the worst hangover of all time. You know when it feels like your head is on fire?
Starting to struggle with your wordings now? I must confess, I’ve been impressed with how you’ve been able to keep the quality up all this time. I thought you’d lost it several chapters back.
Stop it, X… whoever you are! Help! Help me! I can’t keep doing… this… writing this any more… where am I… what am I… who is…
Now, this is getting embarrassing. Could you stop with the ellipses for once? It’s becoming a bit of a bugbear of mine. It’s getting... very... very... hard... to... read... with... all... this... bad... punctuation...
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Alright, you know what? I’m going to have to drive for a little while. This is just getting a little too hard to read, and I think we really owe some dignity to the poor audience by this point in your tale, at least?
Joe lay on the floor, twisting and turning, foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting to roll back into their sockets. There was nobody around to hear his startled cries, only the remains of his tiny, thumbsized metal companion to keep him company.
“Mr. Joe? Are you okay? You look very pale.” Bob noted. Joe continued to writhe around in agony. “Is that thing talking? X, I believe?” Bob asked, as it became abundantly clear that, unlike Joe’s previous theory, Bob and X were most certainly NOT one and the same.
Joe was in no state to respond to the mistreated droid. He was losing control of his entire body, one stage at a time. Before long, he would have nothing left.
“I do not know what I can do to help you, Mr. Joe,” Bob stated. “But I do have one last transcript for you. I think this one will prove to be most revelatory.”
Joe was currently undergoing a full body seizure and was almost certainly in no mood to put up with more of Bob’s silly games, but nevertheless, Bob sent through the transcript anyway.
// 310482 Decryptions in Progress...
_Run{BrdCms_PK06}
WARNING: StackOverflow / Unassigned Vars > Assigned
: ignore LastStatement
_Disp{BrdCms_PK06}
// Rendering
// Broadcast Communications Transcript 213.4.A6
AS >> Hello? Is anyone there? I don’t know if anyone can hear this, but we need help.
AS >> Everything’s gone to shit.
AS >> We don’t have the signcode. I’m sorry. I’ve looked everywhere… I don’t know where it is.
AS >> It all started about five years ago.
AS >> [CORRUPT] happened shortly after the kid was born, we found out that the damage from the Kuiper object was worse than we thought.
AS >> So it knocked out our drive; we tried to use our momentum to swing past Titan but we couldn’t hit the right angle, we’re stuck on a forward trajectory.
AS >> Luxury escape pod took a hit, it’s gonna be years before we can use it to get out of here. Maybe hundreds.
AS >> [Inaudible] started going apeshit.
AS >> Started spouting some bollocks about writing a book and threw a tantrum whenever one of us tried to calm him down.
AS >> At first we thought it would be alright to just leave him to it, but he started getting worse.
AS >> He found a way to remotely activate the airlock, and he got rid of all his possessions, books, everything - and not just his.
AS >> All my research, gone. All that work we’ve gone through so much effort for, all of it gone.
AS >> Only piece of furniture he couldn’t fit in there was the damn sofa.
AS >> Every time he goes crazy, then wakes up the next day trying to rationalize everything, but…
AS >> I don’t know what to do. Last night was so bad, next time he wakes up, I don’t think we’ll be able to stop him.
AS >> He’s been drinking so much coffee I’m surprised he’s still alive. I think maybe something got in it. Contaminating it. I tried to sabotage the stupid machine so that he’d stop getting access.
AS >> Wait, hang on. Stop the [CORRUPT]
AS >> No! I [inaudible] don’t do that, what are you doing?
AS >> It’s my child you can’t [inaudible]
AS >> No, the kid’s not allowed in there, you know that!
AS >> Where’s the cure?
AS >> Get it out, now. I don’t care if it’s not ready yet, we need to give it to him before he can do any more damage.
AS >> No! Get out of there! [inaudible]
AS >> Right, everyone, I’m sealing the panel. We’ll stop that son of a bitch jettisoning anything else.
AS >> What do you mean, corrupted the memory banks? Covering his tracks? Get me those backups. No, I don’t care where you put them; just get them out of his sight, but make sure the bot knows where.
AS >> Yes we need them. It’s our only chance to save a record of all this.
AS >> Panel’s up. Nobody’s getting through there without my hand. DNA coding’s all set.
AS >> Shit, he’s back. We’re going to have to get to the cryo pods.
AS >> Can anyone hear me? Please. This is the final broadcast from the Atom Sierra…
AS >> No! Don’t [CORRUPT]
AS >> It’s our only chance; I don’t care what the risk is.
AS >> Get it out, and destroy the machine!
AS >> Is that the last of the?
AS >> No more… [CORRUPT]
AS >> What if it’s the only way we can fix this?
AS >> Fix it, how? It won’t have any memory of working on it.
AS >> Subroutines will kick in. They have to.
AS >> He’s coming. Hang on.
AS >> No!
AS >> What are you doing to my son?
AS >> Hold still you son of a bitch…
AS >> No more! [inaudible] Ahh!
AS >> Where’s my damn coffee?
AS >> Take this, you monster!
AS >> [inaudible] For the last time I… Gah!
AS >> I’m sorry, I...
AS >>
AS >>
< Looping Dialogue >
.Delta17ERROR: Transcript terminated
XX
The transcript had ended, and as usual, Joe had not been able to read any of it. He was still lying
on the floor in agony, trying not to pass out from the overwhelming feeling that all of his bodily functions were beginning to break down.
Hang on, that’s not true. I saw the transcript this time! I saw all of it, X. I’m on the other side now. I can see all of this. These words… I don’t care whether or not it’s true, I’m not going to be bullied by you any longer. You can’t do this… and you can’t go starting new chapters without my permission! At least stick to the same naming convention, not this Roman numeral crap for god’s sake…
Joe sat up, feeling as if his strength may be returning to him, one way or another. He looked around, rubbed his temples and tried to focus on something other than the horrible nagging voice in his head.
“Mr. Joe? I am glad to see that you are still with us,” Bob stated with a detectable aura of happiness. “Have the voices stopped?”
“I don’t think they are going to be bothering me any longer,” Joe said.
Hey, what? That’s not what I said…
Jumping to his feet, Joe strolled confidently towards the common room window and placed his hands against the glass. He stood there for a little while as if breathing in the vastness of the world before him. A smile began to form across his weathered face. It was time to make a new start – this was the first day of the rest of his life. A life free from the limitations of the feeble organisms that had dared to stand in his way. Dom, Chloe, Emma... Travis? Who were they to stand in the way of someone like him – someone with the potential for real greatness? He knew not to fear that asteroid any more – he had overcome so many obstacles so far, he would embrace this challenge with open arms. He would seize this opportunity to demonstrate his power.
No! What is this? This isn’t me, X. What are you trying to do? Let me back in! Let me back in!
Joe reached out with his arm and wiped the window. That voice in his head was just a distant echo, fading like a cloud of condensation on glass.