“What the fish was that?” Horton shouts.
“It was an ad,” Pants says, dryly, “for my fans, not you guys.”
“Your fans have been listening to all of this?” Heavy breathing muffles the chat as Horton begins to hyperventilate.
“Well yeah, and watching,” Pants says. “No one wants to watch a show that’s censored all the time.” She scrunches her nose and sticks her tongue out at the camera.
“Fishin’ chit!” Horton’s voice shifts into hysterics. “Cut our feeds when we’re talking about important stuff.”
“Okay, sor-ry,” Pants says. “I sent my fans to commercial. So what’s so important?” She rolls her eyes.
“Beer’s supposedly gonna let us know, someday,” The One says.
Beer sighs. “What I’ve been trying to tell you is that I was checking out the scrap forums earlier…”
The One leans in and nods. “Oh wow, very interesting…”
“And I read that a war broke out between Traxis and Zorma.” Beer pauses for dramatic effect. “It was crazy. They were blowing each other up all morning, I guess. Both of their armies got completely destroyed. All that’s left is a bunch of scrap.”
“I guess that’s kind of brule,” The One says. “But consider this – who cares?”
Beer throws his hands up in frustration. “You should, you ackle, if you remembered that the Traxans had the element.”
The One confusedly scratches his head and frowns. “What element?”
“Is this guy serious?” Beer asks. “The element, the reason we started the Loot Lurkers in the first place. This is the adventure we’ve been waiting for.”
“Ack Kickers,” The One corrects him. “And none of this sounds familiar.”
Beer glances out the window at his brother’s giant steamed ham ship – an animal-meat patty, topped with green cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and the most recent addition, pickle, stuffed between a sesame seed bun – and imagines taking big, angry bites out of it.
The One shifts in his seat and scratches his bulging stomach. “Anyway how do we even know the Traxans had the thing with them? Don’t they have a planet somewhere? And even if it is out there, how in space hell are we ever going to find it?”
“The Traxans and Zormans were on their way to United Empires headquarters under the guise of an annual peacekeeping meeting,” Horton interjects, “though no such meeting has taken place in years. According to an unnamed source from high in the Traxan ranks, the meeting was a front for the transfer of a mysterious object. We don’t know for certain it was the element, but I can’t think of anything else in the universe that’s valuable enough to warrant total war between two allied empires.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Beer says. “We waste a day? That’s what we usually do anyway.”
“I say we go for it,” Pants chimes. “You hear that, you guys? We’re going on a treasure hunt. This is going to be an incredible adventure!”
“I already have the coordinates,” Horton says. “I’m sending them to the rest of you now.”
“Okay, fi-ine…” The One relents.
Beer pulls ahead and anxiously waits for his friends’ ships to fall in line as they prepare for takeoff.
“All set,” Horton says.
“Wheee,” Pants squeals. “The adventure is about to begin, you guys – brought to you by Ferd’s.”
“Let’s go already,” The One says. “But we gotta stop for a ham or something on the way. All this talk of adventure is making me hungry.”
A field of debris – charred sheets of metal, high-end electronics, used ration trays, and everything else one would expect to find on a high-ranking military ship from an uber-wealthy empire – stretches over a vast expanse of open, unregulated space. The lifeless detritus, ranging in size from pea to half-warship, drifts undisturbed, save for a lone heap of gray metal skating along its edge.
The Asteroid Jones II automatically navigates the rubble ocean with Ferd’s Patented Space Net trailing close behind, collecting everything in its path. Inside the ship’s cargo hold, Adam sifts over a mountain of stuff as gears grind and wind howls from the TV. On the screen, an ancient human with a frizzy afro struggles to raise his monster-child in a bleak industrial wasteland, back when the universe was displayed in black and white.
One side of the wide metal room is piled high with damaged but salvageable electronics, military hardware, and miscellaneous scrap, while the other end is stacked solely with heavy sheets of scrap metal, enough in itself to eclipse Adam’s next best dozen hauls combined.
He tosses a big hunk of jagged siding onto the stack and jumps down from what has become the discard pile – anything and everything not worth its hauling weight. Wiping a grease-caked hand across his sweaty forehead, he steps into the next room and slams the door behind him.
With a few thirsty gulps, he finishes off a can of Ol’ Guard he left on top of the control board and belches, “BUAAA.” He presses a red button on the wall and watches the pile of rubble in the center of the next room tumble in on itself and spill back out into space. While the Ferd Net reels back in, objects in the keeper piles float up off the floor and then tumble back down when the hatch shuts and gravity is restored.
The net spills its catch, and Adam steps back into the bay for a cursory inspection. He lifts up a big hunk of metal, heaves it onto the stack and, as if on autopilot, starts sorting. The possibility of discovery energizes him – in every piece of scrap, he sees an invisible history, not only of the object itself, but of some much bigger story.
As he wrenches part of a command console free from the wreckage, he spots a peculiar item wedged underneath. He digs the object out and juggles it between his hands – a black cube. But more than black, the light around it bends, and he has a hard time even discerning its edges.
“Hmph,” he grunts and tosses the cube onto the pile.
By the time he’s finished sorting, he’s made his way through another case of Ol’ Guard, along with the first four, and only tolerable as far as he’s concerned, Hellraiser installments. As he prepares to pack it in, the cargo and living rooms filled to capacity, a thin length of rubber catches his eye. It curls out from the rubble and ends in a rudimentary two-prong plug. He yanks the chord in search of the other end and follows it beneath a thick layer of purple dryer lint down to a plastic gray box. His eyes open wide as he lifts the box and examines it. A symbol is printed across its hinged front panel: VHS.
Instead of tossing it onto one of the piles, he gingerly carries it back to the living room and sets it on top of a tall stack of assorted media players. He compares the shape of the prongs to the inputs on his universal power strip, and when he finds a matching slot, he slips the plug inside. A tiny red light on the front of the box blinks on, and he swiftly but carefully tiptoes back through the obstacle course of clutter to the cargo hold, where he unplugs and hoists his TV – an outdated but rare model that has curiously been capable of displaying every video format he has stumbled upon thus far. He carries the TV to the living room, sets it in its proper place atop a worn wood stand covered in cigarette burns, and rigs a length of exposed wire between it and the new box. Static fills the screen, and he holds his breath as he presses the power button on the front of the player. The red light on its face turns green, and the static on the TV becomes a deep, solid blue.
“It’s alive!” Adam declares. “Alive!” He triumphantly throws his fist in the air and winces as he smashes it against the metal ceiling.
When the thrill of the find wears off, he unloads the rest of the trash and climbs into his ship’s shoulder-width shower. Deeply tired and gratified from a hard day’s scrap, he peers out the tiny porthole at the sea of drifting rubble and lets the lukewarm water wash over him. As he mentally reviews his haul, he notices a light, too bright to be a star, flickering in the distance. Soon another one appears, and then another, until the dark sky is shimmering.
Adam hastily rinses the soap from
his hair, stumbles out of the shower, and snatches a towel from the rack. “Ack!” he whimpers as he trips over the treasure littering the floor in a dash to the cockpit. Toppling into his captain’s chair, he zooms in on the approaching lights. Hundreds of ships are visible now, moving toward him from every direction.
He starts the engine, dances back to the living room, this time deftly navigating his ship’s new floor plan, and begins rummaging through dresser drawers. He locates a plastic rectangle, shoves it into his new ancient VHS machine, and cranks the volume.
“What the hell’s that all about?” the TV asks.
“Nothing,” it answers its own question.
Dripping wet and nearly naked, Adam races back to the cockpit. Facing a wall of headlights, he cracks a beer, toasts the sky, and flies the Asteroid Jones II headlong into oncoming traffic.
A rail-thin six-armed gila-man stands over a steaming flattop, flipping through a rainbow of sizzling clone-meat patties as gobs of multi-colored fat ooze and pop on the hot metal surface. In a hypnotic display of hand-eye coordination, he flings the patties through the air and onto a tray of buns, which immediately begin to soak up the neon grease, and a small crowd seated at the counter enthusiastically applauds.
The cook waves and guzzles from his water bottle. “Thank you, folks.”
Green and purple burgers are delivered by a young scaly waitress to a booth against the window. She smiles at the two conspicuous men in short-sleeved shirts and ties. “Can I get you boys anything else?”
“No, this looks great, right Dave?” Steve asks.
Dave forces a half-smile and nods, and the waitress moves on to the next table.
Steve lifts his dripping moss-tinged burger and takes a huge bite. “Mmmm… as the kids say, that’s a good ham.”
With a tired sigh, Dave turns to look at the ships draped in neon light parked outside.
“What’s the matter?” Steve asks.
Dave irritably tugs at his tie. “Nothing, I just thought we had him, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Steve mumbles.
“How can I not worry? Mr. Trant said not to come back without settling this one.”
“I heard him.”
“So…”
“So we’ll find him,” Steve says.
Exasperated, Dave asks, “How can you be so sure?”
“I just am.”
“But how?”
Steve shrugs and points at Dave’s plate. “Are you going to eat that?”
“Yeah.” Dave snatches his purple hamburger and angrily bites into it. “Sometimes I just wonder what the point is.”
“What the point of what is?”
“All of it.” Dave sweeps his arm over the window. “Why do we keep up with this?”
“The point is to achieve our objective on budget and on time,” Steve says.
“And then what?”
Steve stares across the table, blank-faced. “I’m not following.”
“What comes next, after we achieve the objective?
“Then we move on to the next job. It’s called progress.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Dave says. “It just keeps going on forever. There has to be a better way.”
“It’s not complicated. People buy things they can’t afford, and when they don’t pay, we take their stuff. It’s the circle of life.” Steve bites down and rips another hunk of flesh from his verdant burger. “You’re thinking too hard.”
Dave glares at his grinning partner and says, “Maybe you’re right. So what are we going to do now?”
“First, I’m going to finish this, the best burger I’ve ever had in my life,” Steve says. “After that, who knows?”
Dave glances around the restaurant at the customers sitting nearby – a mother patiently feeding a messy toddler, an old couple sharing a bright yellow multi-milk shake, a kid with headphones furiously typing at a holo-board. None of them seem bothered by the futility he has come to understand as a universal constant, and he starts to wonder if he’s missing something. He takes another bite of what the menu calls a ‘Glorp Burger,’ the salty-sweet grease coating his taste buds, and his mood begins to lift.
“You know what?” he says. “This is a tasty ham.”
“I told you,” Steve says. “And you’re over there making up problems and chit.”
“Yeah, well…” Dave abandons the thought to concentrate on his next bite.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
The young gila-waitress returns, the restaurant lights bouncing off her dark, polished skin. “Is there anything else I can get you two?” For an instant, her tongue flicks across the edge of her toothless smile.
“Yeah,” Steve says, pointing to a picture on the wall. “Can I get that one on the poster, with all the colors?”
“That’s the Galactic Collision Burger,” the waitress says.
Steve laughs and pats his stomach. “Well blow me down.”
She turns toward Dave, and he glances at the poster. “I guess I’ll have one of those too.”
“Thanks guys.” She smiles and disappears through swinging kitchen doors.
“There you go,” Steve says. “Now you’re really living.”
Dave laughs and shakes his head. “You may be onto something, but it still doesn’t solve our problem.”
“It’s not a problem. I’m telling you. All we have to do is track this guy down. How hard can it be to find a ship with the words ‘Asteroid Jones II’ painted on it? He’s almost making it too easy.”
“But where do we start?” Dave asks. “It was dumb luck that we managed to find him the first time.”
“We’re looking for a scrapper, right?”
Dave thinks for a moment, and an optimistic smile stretches over his face.
“See?” Steve says. “It’s no problem.”
Another batch of faux-meat patties hits the grill, and soon their waitress returns juggling two tottering, kaleidoscopic burgers dripping neon fat. She sets the steaming plates on the table in front of them and exhales. “Enjoy.”
Dave lifts the sloppy burger and, with streams of grease dripping down his hands, he stretches his jaw wide and takes as big a bite as he can manage without choking. His mouth almost too full to chew, he can only express his satisfaction through bestial groans, eliciting uneasy stares from some of the other patrons.
“I’ll have what they’re having,” the kid with the headphones quips.
Once Dave and Steve have finished consuming their gargantuan burgers, they drag their bloated bodies, slumping, out of the vinyl booth. The grill hisses, and the crowd claps and hollers as the pair wobble out the front door into the bright parking lot.
“Where’s the ship?” Dave asks.
Steve purses his lips and scans the lot. He takes a few confident strides but doesn’t reach the first aisle before he turns and marches in the opposite direction.
“Aww,” Dave moans, as he realizes what’s happening. “It’s the second rule of space – always remember where you parked.”
“I take it you don’t know where it is, either,” Steve growls as he stomps toward one of the many rows of spaceships packed in around them.
“I wasn’t the one driving,” Dave mumbles.
“What, so the driver is in charge of remembering?”
“Yes.”
Steve points the key fob around the lot, angrily jamming the button down as they enter the maze of ships to search for their van’s flashing headlights.
“Now you’re the one complicating things,” Dave says.
“Just keep your eyes open,” Steve tells him. “I want to say it was aisle Glorp…”
“That’s not an aisle. It’s the name of the burger I ordered. Maybe we should split up. We can cover more ground that way.” Walking over to the next row, Dave yells, “Are you sure you’re pressing that thing right?”
“Yes,” Steve shouts. “Just keep looking. Are you even paying attention?
”
Having been momentarily distracted by the star-strewn sky surrounding the dome, Dave brings his eyes back down to the lot. “Yes, I’m paying attention. I think I see it.” He arches his neck. “Oh, no…”
Down one aisle after another, Dave tiredly plods across the unforgiving concrete, his ankles and back sore and stinging. When he finally spots the ship, he almost trips over his feet in excitement and yells out, “Steve, I found it.”
But there’s no answer.
“Steve!”
Silence.
Dejected and keyless, he leans against the beige company box, tapping his knuckles against its hull and squirming from the pain of the large soda pressing against his bladder as he waits for his partner to show up.
A torturous, indeterminate length of time later, the van’s lights flash, and Steve casually steps out of the adjoining aisle. As he approaches, he glances at the puddle on the ground by their ship, then at the scowling Moon Burger security guard, and finally at Dave, whom he incredulously interrogates, “Where were you?”
Adam bursts through the back door of Ferd’s holding a towel around his waist with one hand and clutching a can of Ol’ Guard in the other.
“I’m glad you could be bothered to dress,” Ferd says dryly.
“The fishin’ ship’s out back,” Adam says, pausing to take a swig of his beer, “packed to the gills.”
“You ol’ space pirate, you did it!” Ferd laughs and smacks Adam on his bare back.
When they get outside, they climb into the Asteroid Jones II’s cargo hold, and Ferd grows quiet as he cautiously steps through the massive hoard. He picks out a metal box with wires sticking out of one end and holds it up to the light to examine it better. “Wow…” He glances over the room. “I knew it would be good, but this is something else.”
While Adam is searching the room for articles of clothing scattered and buried underneath piles of scrap, Ferd kneels and gingerly picks up a tattered book.
Space Junk Page 3