by M. D. Cooper
Ben patted his hands along the armrests of his chair before running his hands along the switches for the tenth time in as many minutes. If one switch was out of sequence the Shistain could crash in a fiery blaze, never mind the fact the ship probably wouldn’t alert him of any hazard in his flight status. The worrisome dread threatened to cripple his resolve, if he did not find a way to occupy his fingers. Everything was in its place, just as it was the other ten times.
“Oh shit,” Ben said under his breath as the air traffic controller buzzed through his radio. The startling ping before the woman’s voice entered his ears was piercing. His ears rang as he turned down the volume knob, only to discover her voice was barely audible enough to be made out, thanks to the shitty compression of his radio system. Ben rotated the volume knob clockwise until he could hear her more clearly, constantly in fear that another ping would sound and rupture his eardrum.
“Shistain, you are queued next in line. Are you prepared for launch?”
“Yeah,” Ben said, forgetting at first to depress the switch on his radio. “Yeah, this is the Shistain. I’m ready to roll.” He sat back, confident and excited. Nothing can be better than this, he thought.
Another ping ended his enthusiasm. This earsplitting sound made him wince as another announcement filled his throbbing ears. “Be aware, Shistain, that there are appropriate responses over the radio. The correct protocol if you are ready for launch is affirmative. If you are not prepared to launch the correct response would be negative. A breach in protocol again will result in the grounding of your craft and revocation of your license. Do you understand?” This voice was different, more authoritative. Ben noticed it was sent through a personal channel and not the open channel used by the air traffic controller speaking to him before. Really, that’s a thing?
“Ye…affirmative,” he replied nervously. Nothing was more nerve-racking than having your parade pissed on by someone of higher authority. Ben was trying to have fun with the adventure ahead, but this asshole was coming off like he wanted to ground Ben for using the wrong verbiage. “Fark off, dickhead,” Ben whispered, careful to note whether or not the radio switch was keyed up or not. He sighed, feeling like a coward for not saying what was on his mind to the guy on the other end, but he was just ready to get off this rock. Pride doesn’t mean shit anymore. If that’s true then why did having my dick slapped over the radio hurt my feelings so much? He sat in awkward silence, waiting for the man to come back on the line to chastise him for improper etiquette. Thankfully, it didn’t happen.
“This is air traffic control. Shistain, you are queued next in line. Are you prepared for launch?” It was the original air traffic controller again, her voice much calmer and polite than her supervisor, or whatever he was. Ben wondered what she looked like on the other side of the radio. He imagined she was a blond, petite girl, maybe with some glasses that showed the flight plan over her eye. I bet she has her hair in a bun too.
“Affirmative,” he said, making his voice deeper and more professional sounding to his own ears. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to try and impress her. She had no idea who he was or where he was going. Regardless, he had no intention of ever parking this ship back on Earth ever again. Still, the desire to impress was strong and hard to ignore. The fear of messing up and wrecking the ship into one of the buildings surrounding the tarmac gave him pause. It really didn’t matter that for an accident of that magnitude to occur, he would have to fly half a mile in any direction and make it past a point defense station used to prevent acts of terrorism from damaging the property. By the time his mistake could capitalize on embarrassing him, he would already be dead. Now that’s a comforting thought.
“Shistain, initiate launch sequence.”
“Showtime,” he said musically to no one. It was the time he’d been waiting for and there was no going back now. Ben ran his fingers across the switches and dials, bringing the drive to life and feeling the gentle rumble of its power through his seat. He watched the monitors, the engine parameters escalating to peak performance. Everything was as it should be and all that was left was to be released for flight as his ship hovered over its docking port. “Launch sequence initiated. All parameters are within limits.”
“Affirmative, Shistain, releasing dock port now.” Ben felt the ship lift as the dock port released its hold on his ship. “All visual indications of your ship being self-sustaining have been verified. You are now safe to depart, Shistain.”
“Roger that,” Ben said, his heart pumping with excitement as he lifted the ship higher in altitude. The drive propelled the Shistain forward quickly, the blood in his face draining from all of the force, before his suit inflated and kept all of his blood in his torso, all in order to maintain the blood flow to his brain. The sensation made his head feel five times its normal weight, but the tunnel vision creeping into his line of sight was already fading. Ben flew the Shistain through the glass ceiling and into the open skies, free from the constraints of New York City. He moved the external camera to look down on his home, or the place that he once called home, but now he felt he did not belong there. The streets looked like a grid, the distinct lines fading as he drifted further up the sky towards the dark void of space.
Somewhere in the ever-reaching propulsion of his ship, the sound of air rushing past evaporated, or it could have all been in his mind. But as the darkness loomed, consuming his ship in her vacuum, everything behind him seemed to fade away. The Earth was a shrinking ball behind him as the darkness grew more vivid with each passing second. “I made it,” he said, confidence returning to his voice as he was awestruck by what he had accomplished. Tranquility filled the cabin as he looked out at the twinkling stars, something he could hardly see most nights living in the harshly lit city. The port window of the Shistain was no larger than two fists coming together, but through it he could see his future, his freedom. What others might see as a sea of black, he saw as endless possibilities, and he was finally taking the first step.
Ben looked down at the data to see how fast he was dashing through space. By Earth standards, his ship would be traveling right around Mach I, but as there is no sound in space, Ben wondered if that could even be accurate. Seeing the gargantuan International Space Station from several hundred miles away made him feel as if the Shistain was crawling through space, that perhaps he could walk faster than his ship was moving. But the space station was half the size of Luna and he knew perspective could play tricks on how your mind perceived things when near something so large.
“This is farking beautiful,” he said, his hot breath fogging the port window. He wiped it away, staring out into the nothingness so full of wonder, a smile etched into his face enough to make his dimples stand out in his reflection. “Farking beautiful.”
chap+er five
Thirty days. Seven-hundred and twenty hours of drifting through space, faster than any vehicle on Earth can travel, with only forty percent of that time spent sleeping. The rest of the time was spent mindlessly watching the twenty-one hours of documentaries that successfully downloaded to the computer before he launched. Twenty-one hours out of the more than one-hundred hours he'd purchased from the Net. That meant that through the course of two days, Ben watched three of the programs twice.
“The cyberattacks were just the first violation of the RUS-AM Pact, furthering the distrust between two sects of the governing powers. As the New American government’s anti-Russia propaganda gained popularity within the states, Russia cried foul, citing the militarization of New America a breach to the treaty that essentially ended World War III, not mentioning the fact that the propaganda violated speech laws under the New American Constitution as it was outlined by Russia’s government. Prime Minister Harold Gerald traveled to Russia to stave off the flames of war threatening to bring his states burning to the ground. The result of that meeting was a public execution and the remains of Prime Minister Gerald being sent back to New America in a casket draped with the Russian flag. That symboli
sm was not lost on American officials, and a hasty removal of all anti-Russian propaganda was orchestrated in order to prevent further digression.”
Ben's lips moved with the narration, never fumbling for the correct words to say. He'd seen this program sixteen times and had it committed to memory by the seventh viewing. He no longer needed to have the sound on the program to recite it word for word, but it wasn't why he kept the volume up. The truth was that after thirty days he felt utterly alone. The sound of another human's voice meant more to him than what those words had to say.
“It was fifteen years before the grumbling citizens of New America reared their heads against their Russian overlords. A single shot was fired in the sky, a warning shot from a Russian officer, on June 19, 2382, as American militias formed around the embassy in Sacramento, California. The shot rang over silent fears of growing aggression, but the militia laid down their arms, setting fire to the weapons as a symbol of peace on the brink of war. That single shot…”
Ben's eyelids felt heavy, but not from being tired, or perhaps he was tired and no longer understood what the sensation felt like. He yawned, a shrill sound as he stretched his stifled body and fought to find a reason to care any more about the war that never seemed to begin or have a rational end. It was all bullshit and he had the script down enough to quote the reasons why, but that all centered around the probability that you believed any of the explanations political theorists gave. Ben’s opinion was more akin to dumb luck than any real form of diplomacy. Humanity needed to survive, so the logical conclusion was not to wipe ourselves out in another brutally escalated war. It was common sense in a world where common sense sounded like a superpower.
“To hell with this,” Ben said, closing the program and selecting music to fill the silence of the cabin instead. “What to do, what to do?” He drummed his fingers on his leg to the tempo of the music, something that sounded reminiscent of jazz with an industrial metal vibe. It was random and welcomed, considering the monotony of long days in space were getting under his skin.
It came to Ben’s mind that the isolation he was feeling and the pent-up frustration was because he was lonely. He once wished to go days on end without having to deal with another person and their bullshit, but now he felt that he would give his left testicle to have to endure someone else, even if for a short time. He wiped sleep from his eyes, the crusty remains of dried tears crumbling between his thumb and index finger. His embarrassment of being caught ordering the sex-bot by the delivery woman was waning to the point of nonexistence. Ben canted his head towards the aft section of the Shistain, to the void where the box containing his mystery guest waited patiently in the darkness.
“Should I?” He asked himself, knowing full well what the answer would be, but craving the sound of spoken words over the claustrophobic void of lonesomeness. His fingers danced on his leg, no longer tapping to the beat of the music, but to the thrum of his heart as he anticipated the possibilities that lay ahead if he could muster the courage to open the box and give into the temptation. His hands grew sweaty as he sat in silent contemplation.
Ben leaned forward, but did not fully commit to standing up. He paused another moment or two, waiting for the silent voice in his head to tell him whether he should act. The voice remained silent, snuffed out by the desires of a sexually repressed man cascading towards an uncertain future. The romanticism of his plight fueled the eagerness to copulate with a machine, to take pleasure in its company, to use it for his wiles.
Ben stood; a conqueror of his fears, of his humiliation. The beat of a distant war drum thrummed in his ears as he took the first few steps forward, slowly at first, not wanting to run towards his prize. Ben chose to savor it, to stalk the conquest and enjoy it fully. The war drums drew silent as he made his way to the door into the cargo hold. He realized it was nothing more than a change in the music as it played on the speakers in the cabin, a soundtrack for his lust. The door opened, welcoming him into the abyss. The lights were off, but a single word fixed that. “Lights,” Ben ordered, like a general to his army. The cargo hold was flooded in brilliant illumination, blinding at first until his brown eyes adjusted.
He saw the box, hidden under the workstation where he left it before his journey began. It beckoned to him. “Open me,” he imagined it saying, the words echoing in his mind, reverberating between his ears as a cadence. The voice he attributed to the box was sultry and feminine, luscious and beautiful and all the adjectives he could think of that made his lust burn like a wildfire. He stepped towards the box, dust already gathering on the surface. It was a sign of neglect that he would have to repay with plentiful hours of sensuous behavior. The thoughts of what he wanted to do with the contents of the box flooded his imagination and he found himself thirsty to act on those thoughts. Ben fought the urge to tear the box open, to grapple with the wrapping like clothes on a teenage boy’s first lover. He was a man. He could take his time.
No, he couldn’t.
Ben jumped towards the box, seeking the seam of the tape and ripping it from the cardboard container. It peeled away in painful shreds, delaying his victory, his release. His fingers scrambled to find access; digging between the taped corners and the inside of the box, they flexed, and they gripped, and they tore it away. Cardboard cried in agony as he disrupted the integrity of the container, remnants of its former glory falling to the deck beside him.
With heavy breathing, Ben pulled the cover from the box and beheld a mass of plastic packaging pellets. To his eyes, it looked like a sea of pink plastic, the waves cresting lightly as the ship drifted port and starboard as it careened towards Europa. “What a mess this is going to be,” he said, sinking his hands into the pink pool and finding purchase on the sex-bot’s torso. Ben strained to lift it, feeling the burn in his lower back. He corrected his posture, genuflecting to allow him to lift with his legs. The fleshy torso felt soft, yet solid under his grips and his excitement grew as he rose from a kneeling position and brought the sex-bot out into the open.
Wide eyes stared at the half-naked machine as he leaned it against the work station. Tired and out of breath, he glared at it, his pulse rising, but not for the lust that was burning in his loins. “What the fark?” Before him leaned a male sex-bot, half-clothed, it’s ripped torso displaying muscles Ben had never seen on himself, much less another person. “This can’t be.”
Ben knelt and grabbed the shipping slip from the torn box cover and ran a shaky index finger along each line, pausing when he found the description of the sex-bot. “M/M,” he said, “no farking way.” Frustrated, he crumpled the shipping slip in his hand and tossed it behind him. “And I was embarrassed when I thought it was a chick. I’m glad she didn’t see this.”
Ben stood and stared at the sex-bot, shaking his head in disappointment. The body of the sex-bot was slightly shorter than six feet and had a mocha complexion. The head was bald, but a perfectly manicured, pencil-thin mustache spread across its upper lip. Ben imagined this would be any gay man’s idea of a fun sex-bot, but for him it border-lined on horrific. Not only was he not into guy on guy action, but he would be left alone for the next several months because there was no way in hell he was going to power this thing on. Ben would laugh if he wasn’t so pissed off, but despite the anger he could see the humor in the situation. Unfortunately, he was thousands of miles from any form of civilization and he was going stir crazy. He looked down at the box full of plastic pellets and wondered what he had done wrong in a past life to deserve such a shitty turn of luck. “May as well stuff you back where you came from so I don’t have to look at you,” he grumbled, taking hold of the sex-bot and attempting to lift it from the deck. He strained his muscles, but the sex-bot was top heavy and leaning away from him. Ben repositioned his footing and tried again, wrapping his left arm around the neck of the sex-bot and pulling it towards him. At that moment, the ship rolled twelve degrees starboard, sending the sex-bot’s dead weight towards Ben, and he was unprepared to catch the crashing form of m
echanical manhood. The bot fell onto Ben, the heavy weight knocking the wind from Ben’s lungs. He could already feel a knot forming on his head where it smacked against the deck and his rage was building up to something he had not felt since he was in the Army.
A rapid utterance of expletives fell from his lips and he shoved the bot away from him, straining under the weight to lift it from pinning him to the deck. He shoved away, pushing against the bot’s forehead with both hands as he tried to pull himself free. His left arm shifted under the weight, another Gli+ch triggered by some rogue stimulus tossing it into a mechanical frenzy, causing Ben to drop the heavy head of the sex-bot squarely into his groin. He cried out in pain; the throbbing of nerves laughing maniacally at his expense made his eyes tear up. He used his right hand to punch the bot in the top of the head, his knuckles striking the hard-plated material and sending a jolt of pain up his arm.
“Damn it to hell!” Irritation, frustration, and some other word ending in “tion” coursed through his body. “Get off me,” he seethed, shoving again with both hands, forgetting that his gli+ch-riddled left arm was unreliable. When his left hand made contact with the head of the sex-bot, it sent a jolt of electricity that initiated the startup sequence. To Ben’s horror, the sex-bot came to life, it’s head lifting, and dark brown orbs looking up to him. Their eyes met, locked into each other for a brief moment.
“Hello, my name is Chip,” it said.