Saint John
Page 1
CONTENTS
Title Page
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What Readers Are Saying
Freebie for Finding Errors
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Preview of The Darwin Protocol
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
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A Small Favor
Other Works
Questions or Comments?
The Goal
My Life Thus Far
Copyright
SAINT JOHN
A short story by
William Oday
WILLIAMODAY.COM
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CHAPTER ONE
International Space Station
Detention Module
Convicted serial killer John Cline laughed when the station’s physician dropped off yet another warm pouch of rehydrated mush for dinner. His stomach gurgled, a result of both hunger and a digestive tract with less than forty-eight hours of experience in micro-gravity. He reached through the bars and grabbed the offered packet. The label read “Freeze-dried Fresh Organic Peas”.
“Freeze-dried fresh, huh? Smells fishy to me.”
“It is not fish. Your daily protein requirement of fourteen grams was administered this morning.”
“It was? Which color was that?”
The station’s physician, Dr. Petrova, glared at him without so much as a change of expression. Either the Russian was that good at glares, or it was the only expression he knew.
“Yellow. Rehydrated eggs.”
John grimaced. Odds were good this was going to be the hardest time he’d ever done.
“What? You deserve better than the crew? We should flush you out an airlock and be done with it.”
“And yet here I am, an astronaut on the International Space Station. Living out every kid’s dream since Armstrong did the hopscotch on the moon.”
“Mankind sent you away to die.”
John squeezed out a glob of the dull green goo and watched it drift upward in front of him. He chuckled.
“Feeding me this garbage couldn’t have made that clearer.”
He pushed off and floated to the ceiling. Misjudging the effort required, he smashed his head against the metal panels before coming to a stop. He hadn’t felt so totally incapable since learning how to ride a bike at the age of six. He assumed it was all part of the punishment, all part of the grand plan to make him pay for his perceived sins. He anchored on a handhold and opened his mouth just in time to catch the glob as it continued its ascent.
Disgusting. He’d eaten old people that tasted better.
“Fresh, my bahooch.”
Dr. Petrova pushed off to leave and then paused. “Why did you choose this?”
John had never really thought about it. At the sentencing, the judge had offered death by lethal injection or seven consecutive life sentences to be served in a new experimental program. The program had emphatically not been explained at the time. But there was never any hesitation because if door number one was the end, then anything behind door number two had to be better. He looked up at the stern Russian, who was now upside down and below him.
“What can I say? I’m a people person.”
Dr. Petrova snarled, an amazing feat considering his expression again didn’t change. He pushed through the bulkhead and left the detention module.
“I’ll take steak and eggs for breakfast tomorrow. A tiny bottle of Tabasco wouldn’t hurt.”
The doctor didn’t respond.
John sealed the pouch and attached it to a clip on the wall. Maybe it would taste better if he was hungrier. That hadn’t made a difference yet, but maybe he hadn’t gotten hungry enough. The problem was that it was hard to get hungry. His 6 x 6 x 10 cell didn’t offer much room to move. Besides that, microgravity made pushups a pointless exercise.
Using handholds and childishly awkward contortions, he managed to spin around and face the round porthole window. The deep blackness of space glittered with pinpoint lights. Billions. More. He hoped there truly was intelligent life out there because there certainly wasn’t any on the blue planet below. He was about to have another go at that pouch when one pinpoint in particular caught his attention.
Unlike the rest, it moved.
Not in a lateral way, like from point A to point B. But it got bigger. Noticeably bigger. John stared, wondering what kind of star might do that. A supernova maybe? Were they all about to get wiped off the galactic map by the death of a dying neighbor?
The velvet black shimmered, like a silk scarf billowing in a gentle breeze. The porthole blinded him with a flash of white. It faded back into darkness and his jaw would’ve dropped were it not for the lack of appreciable gravity.
A giant mother-honkin spaceship blotted out the sky, or space, or whatever the entirety of out there was called up here.
CHAPTER TWO
The enormous craft was like nothing John had ever seen before. It reminded him of the creatures in those nature documentaries about the ocean. It looked like the love child of an octopus and a lobster. All black. The hard light of the sun showed flowing curves chopped short by jagged edges. It was hard to judge distance in the vast emptiness of space, but John guessed that it was at least as big as the one stoplight town where he grew up in Nebraska.
John watched as the object drew closer. Small peaks that looked like thorns soon resolved into immense structures as big as skyscrapers.
One swept by the window, blotting out the view. An instant later, the detention cell lurched sideways. The far wall jumped over and smashed into his shoulder. The shriek of rending metal sent a shiver down his spine.
He covered up as another wall wheeled around and slammed into his chest.
WAAAAWOOOOWAAAAAWOOO.
An emergency siren screamed. The soft yellow glow of the cabin lights flickered and shut off. A domed light in the ceiling flashed red.
He scrambled back to the window and gasped as a long arm of the space station tore free and spun gracefully away.
The station's comms sounded.
"This is Commander Lewis. We have a level one emergency. Hull integrity has been compromised. All crew prepare for emergency evacuation. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is —"
The station shuddered and a deafening screech cut the message short.
The walls of the detention module crumpled and shifted, the perfect right angles of the corners giving way to distorted fractures. The bars at the front of the cage bent. The corner at the top pulled away from the frame, creating a small opening.
A high-pitched hissing grew louder.
Dr. Petrova appeared at the bulkhead, his face white except for the gash on his forehead. Small globules of blood separated and drifted into the air.
John’s stomach turned, in that frenzied way it always did when the blood started to flow. He pulled to the front of the cage and yanked on the deformed bars in the corner. They were loose, but didn't give way.
"So Doc, can you get me out of here?"
Dr. Petrova looked confused. "We're abandoning the station. Commander Lewis has ordered me to retrieve you."
"Great. Let’s get going."
Dr. Petrova wiped at the gushing wound on his head. He stared into John's eyes. John could see the mental calculations whirring behind the light blue irises. He saw the decision even before the body reacted. The muscles in the doctor's jaw clenched. He shook his head.
"I can not do that."
“Don’t leave me to die here, Doc!”
Dr. Petrova pulled the bulkhead door closed and spun the wheel to seal it shut. He looked through the small glass window in the door, his expression heavy with guilt.
People were such suckers. Such bleeding hearts. At least they were when John got to them.
Still, John did his best to look terrified and abandoned. He gripped the bars and screamed. Another violent shudder ripped through the station. The module on the other side of the sealed bulkhead shook. A huge black hunk of metal tore through the wall behind the doctor.
John watched with rapt attention.
The room tore in half and the yawning blackness of space appeared behind Dr. Petrova. His face went pale and glistened like an ice cube. John had never seen life drain from the eyes so quickly.
A chromed panel spun through the vacuum and hit the frozen doctor’s chest. His body shattered into a million pieces. The shards exploded and drifted apart leaving nothing where a living human being had been just a moment ago.
John never knew space could be so inspirational. His own lack of imagination was almost humbling.
His ears popped as the pressure in the room changed. The tip of his nose tingled with the chill in the air. The hissing sound set his teeth on edge.
The detention module wasn’t going to be hospitable to life much longer. Worse yet, it wasn’t going to be hospitable to his life much longer.
CHAPTER THREE
The first thing John had to do was get out of this tiny cell. He glided up to the corner where the bars had peeled away from the ceiling. He pushed his head through and wiggled and squirmed until his shoulders were stuck. A hard edge of metal bit into his neck. He strained harder, and the unforgiving edge sliced through his skin.
Bleeding out like a cut pig wasn’t going to help anything.
He couldn't fit through. If only this had happened a month from now. After a month on that grog, he’d have been skinny enough to sail through with no problem. He squirmed backwards and broke free. He needed another couple of inches of clearance.
Chewing a loose piece of skin on his lip, he considered what to do next. If he died in this mother-scratchin’ hole, he was going to kill somebody. His breath fogged the air. His fingers felt thick and clumsy. The tip of his nose burned.
He clenched the bars, feeling warm anger build in his chest. He reared back and kicked one of the bars, longing for it to be something softer and more sentient. Something that could appreciate the brunt of his rage.
To his surprise, the bar moved. He floated down and grabbed hold of it. He jiggled it an inch in either direction. He braced his feet on either side and then yanked with all the strength in his wide back. The bar squealed and broke free.
He wasted no time in angling the bar through the opening and pinning the end in the corner of the wall on the ceiling. He grunted and strained, and finally managed to lever the opening a little wider.
The exertion and thinning air had his mind reeling. Black spots like dark matter stars winked in his vision. He squirmed through and this time made it.
Free at last.
Only he was still trapped in the detention module of a deteriorating space station two hundred miles above the surface of the earth.
A pleasantly anonymous female voice spoke over the ship's comms. “Warning. Oxygen levels at fifty percent and dropping. Hypoxemia will occur in five minutes."
Hypo what? Didn’t sound good. And he could already tell it didn’t feel good.
Just wonderful.
To pass out and die? What an idiotic ending to an otherwise heroic escape.
John glanced out the porthole where he’d last seen the doctor floating off in a million different directions. Nothing but the emptiness of space greeted him on the other side. No luck there.
He looked around the tiny room. The space outside the bars was smaller than the space inside. There were no other hatches. The wall was a maze of access panels and exposed circuitry. He noticed one near the floor in particular, larger than the rest. He pulled himself down and dug his thick fingers around the edges.
It was too tight. He couldn't get a sliver of a fingernail under it.
The pry bar.
It had torn free with a tapered jagged point on one end, like a makeshift spear. He pushed off the floor and smacked the top of his head into the ceiling where the bar was floating. He awkwardly maneuvered into position and jammed the tip of the spear into the seam of the access panel. He pulled back and the metal panel popped free and tumbled gently through the air.
A run of blue and yellow cables disappeared into the dark recess. He grabbed his new spear, snugged it up against his chest, and wiggled into the ductwork. He breathed shallow breaths to keep his lungs half-empty, both to give him space to maneuver and because the frigid air was starting to burn his lungs.
"Warning. Oxygen levels at thirty percent and dropping. Hypoxemia in three minutes."
CHAPTER FOUR
John struggled through darkness for what seemed like forever. And then his head smacked a hard surface. He punched it and a panel popped out, tumbling through the air.
He pushed out of an open duct halfway up the wall. His hands shot toward the floor to brace his fall, but then he floated in place.
He realized how much he missed the simple things. Like things that fell down when nothing but air supported them.
He looked around.
“Warning. Oxygen levels depleted. Hypoxemia imminent.”
Some kind of maintenance module. Stacks of crates brimming with unidentifiable spare parts. A domed light in the ceiling flashed red. Spools of wire that were probably awesome for doing things he didn’t care about.
And then something that mattered.
A suit. The white kind with the big domed helmet.
His chest rose and fell in rapid, empty exertion. Cold sweat beaded and cracked from his brow. His heart thundered in his ears.
He shimmied in to the pants half. Then up through the torso with the boxy pack attached. His breath formed crystals that lazily spun away from his lips.
How did they do it when they suited him up before?
John retraced the memory. He lowered the helmet over his head and fumbled with the clasp. His fingers could barely curl.
His hands were a deep blue.
He attached the gloves and sucked in a breath that wouldn’t come. Like the air inside the suit was empty.
How the goat-fornicator did they turn on the air in this thing?
The black spots in his vision had grown and were now a connected field with shrinking spots of color.
He punched a panel of buttons on the suit’s right forearm. His eyes closed. Or maybe they were open and the remainder of his vision went dark.
A faint hissing sound mixed with the furious thumping of his heart.
John collapsed inside the suit. His last thought one of detached discontent.
To die before truly leaving his mark on the world.
Wasted potential.
He slipped away for a time.
From far away, a soft crackling sound.
“EVA Suit X11, this is Houston. Come in.”
What was that?
“EVA Suit X11, this is Houston. We are receiving biometrics telemetry. Commander Lewis, are you there?”
The thumping of the world slowly receded and John opened his eyes. Or else the color in his vision drove away the darkness.
“EVA Suit X11, this is—“
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
A cheer crackled through the suit’s comms.
“Yes! Mission Director Ulson speaking. Who is receiving?”
“John Cline at your service.”