Astro-Nuts

by Logan Hunder

  “Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “Didn’t you say it’s because I have a laser hole in my airlock?”

  “No! I’m just giving you a ticket for that because I’m mad now! I pulled you over because your ship’s registered pilot is a new driver and you’re not properly displaying an N on the back.”

  “I swear I didn’t know she was underage!” Cox insisted. “That’s a really strange defence. Almost like you’re trying to make a joke.”

  “Alright, this has gone on long enough,” Percy interrupted. Completely indifferent to the blaster rifle inches from his back, he walked away from Kim and up to the border agent. The man didn’t look up from his tablet until the Brit ripped it from his hands.

  “I can appreciate the necessity of the menial laws that you and your kind are tasked with enforcing. However, you have stumbled into an investigation of a much higher calibre. My associate and I suspect these individuals of harbouring a fugitive and aiding in the transport and potential distribution of a biological weapon. On the orders of Her Majesty the Queen, you are now to stand down and comply with any further ord— why are you brandishing your wrist towards me?!”

  “I don’t know how much of it that you guys got,” the agent said into his wrist. “But I am definitely going to need backup. All of it.”

  10.

  “The Gang Goes to Guantanamo”

  EVER SINCE THE EVOLUTION of culture, mankind has oft concocted tales of the wondrous places that lay beyond their reach, high in the sky. Then technology advanced enough for them to discover that nothing was up there besides huge balls of stuff they already had and an inconceivably large amount of nothing. Some continued to delude themselves into thinking all the cool stuff was still just too far away to see; others started filling the sky with things like chemtrails, predator drones, and smog in order to prevent themselves from being foolish enough to ever get their hopes up again. But no matter what discoveries were made, the notion of a heaven hiding somewhere up there had never completely gone away. Many have even gone in search of it; and the unluckiest of them sometimes thought they found it.

  In actuality, they found a little place called Guantanamo Docking Bay, voted “The Universe’s Worst Vacation Spot” for ninety-nine out of the last hundred years. Many surveys had also determined it to be the current leading cause of apostasy.

  Hovering two-hundred-and-fifty freedom-units above the Earth, it was the only place where one could still hear the Barney theme song. Constructed as an homage to one of the most notorious prisons in the world’s history, Azkaban, “Space Guantanamo” infamously served as a detention centre for the extraordinarily dangerous and the extraordinarily unlucky. However, guilty or not guilty, the techniques allegedly employed within the desolate concrete walls seemed to be universally effective. In its brochures, the institution boasted a zero percent recidivism rate since the day it opened. Some might have said that’s an easy figure to achieve when you’re a place that never lets anyone leave, but that’s why they’d never asked for public input.

  Despite all the good it claimed to do, there were still those who would speak out against the establishment. Claims of human rights violations and unlawful confinement were standard fanfare that the haters would blare. But all that ever resulted in was budget cuts and empty promises. No attempts were ever made by anyone to shut the place down. There was just something about the fact it was “way up there” that seemed to make people not care. “It’s in space,” they would say. “It’s the space people’s problem.” Others would even attempt to defend the prison, insisting it couldn’t be all bad. After all, it cured ALS almost singlehandedly from the contributions it generated doing the Ice Bucket Challenge.

  In the minds of most, however, Space Guantanamo had nestled itself neatly into that moral grey area where they technically opposed it, but found it wasn’t really an issue they faced often enough to feel compelled to do anything about. It was a necessary evil, almost. Like traffic, or advertisements, or Mondays. Sure, most of the time none of those things involved rectal infusions, but they were still pretty annoying and much more common. So they were essentially on the same level of badness.

  To those who worked there, it was generally considered to be a normal job not dissimilar to other roles within the correctional system. Really, they were just a lesser-known branch of the judicial system that still provided a public service. They weren’t sadistic monsters. They put their pants on in the morning, still laying in bed half-asleep with a toothbrush hanging out of their mouth, just like everyone else. Ask any of them and they would assure you that their job wasn’t all waterboarding and Russian roulette like those darn moving holograms would have you believe. They spent their days interacting with and getting to know the vermin people in their care. They sought to truly understand them. To rehabilitate them. Or at very least to convince them to go be somebody else’s problem. And just because they were sometimes forced to Jack Bauer the location of the bomb out of somebody didn’t mean they were bad people.

  THE DAY THE NEW prisoners arrived had been fairly unremarkable. Even their arrival didn’t do anything to shake things up. “Prospective terrorists” was their moniker. But “Terrorist” was a term that had become a lot less meaningful with time, like “Love” or “Hitler.” The correctional officers had worked with enough alleged offenders to know judgement was something to be reserved. Getting excited too soon often led to being let down.

  A group of them were stationed around the breakroom table when the door burst open. In stepped a mousy-looking woman with a fitted black skirt and a bun so tight it was a good thing hair didn’t require circulation. She carried a stack of tablets in her hands. After thumbing through them for a moment and separating five, she looked up at her mingling minions.

  “Eenie, meenie, miney . . . Johnson and Peters! You look bored; have some work.”

  Johnson and Peters did not look bored. In fact, they had been trying to look as busy as possible. But scrubbing at the table with a sleeve and filling every mug with coffee wasn’t convincing enough to escape their boss’s watchful eye. The stack hit the table with a sound reminiscent of a whip crack and she pursed her lips down at them.

  “It’s about time you two stepped up from . . . whatever it is you currently do around here.” She said. “This case should be simple. Group of five accused of smuggling a chemical weapon. Their ship is in impound and the prisoners are in cells. Just figure out what’s going on.”

  Not one to take questions, she left them to their own devices. And also the devices she left them.

  Peters was first to act, snatching a few e-files for himself.

  “Hmmm. Uh huh. A few years working together. None of them on any watch lists. Sounds like we got ourselves a freshly radicalized group of agitators.”

  “Or! Or . . .” Johnson suggested. “Maybe, and hear me out here, someone is trying to frame them! That would be cool, right? We could be the guys that get to the bottom of it and find the real terrorists.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s Guantanamo. Nobody’s innocent here. What we really need to do is find which organization it was that infected these morons and then get medieval on all of their asses.”

  One of their coworkers put down his fork.

  “Maybe you guys should try interviewing the detainees before you start drawing conclusions?”

  “Shut up, Frank!” They both snapped back at him in unison.

  “Do you want the case!? Huh?” Peters egged him on.

  “You wanna be the one to handle this group of bloodthirsty psychopaths?!”

  “Well, I mean . . . yeah, sure. If you guys don’t want the case I guess I could take it off your hands.”

  “Well, you can eat a dick!” Johnson snarled. He snatched up all the tablets in his arms. “These were given specifically to us, so obviously you can’t be trusted with them!”

  They both sneered at him before packing up their supplies and heading out. Frank just sighed and returne
d to his beans. One day he’d pay off his ex-wife’s house and retire. One day.

  NEITHER JOHNSON NOR PETERS perused the files any further on their way down the hall. With chests out and arms swinging like a big Broadway number, they marched down towards the first interrogation room. Peters was first to get there. He reached for the handle with a pale, sinewy hand but Johnson quickly blocked the door with a much beefier arm.

  “Wait, wait,” he urged. “We should have a plan or something. Or like, a tactic!”

  “Hmmm, you’re right.”

  They stood outside for a moment scratching their chins and muttering to themselves.

  “How about good cop, bad cop?” Peters suggested.

  “Good cop, bad cop!” Johnson exclaimed. “It’s a classic!”

  “It’s a classic,” Peters agreed. “And that’s because it works! Alright, I’ll go in first and I’ll be real hostile—”

  “So hostile!”

  “—And just when they’re starting to think ‘Oh no, I thought I was the psycho-est person here but now I’m trapped with a real psycho. Who knows what he’s gonna do? Why is he turning off the camera? Why is he unzipping his pants?’ That’s when you’ll come in with your slick black hair and devil-may-care attitude. And they’ll think ‘Oh man, I better tell him anything he wants to know or he’ll leave me in here with that incredibly handsome crazy person!’ It’s the perfect plan!”

  “The perfect plan!”

  “Alright, give me about two minutes to get ’em nice and scared, then come in and do your thing.”

  “You got it!”

  Devilish smile upon his lips and an unprofessional level of excitement in his eyes, Peters punched the code to open the door. It slid open wide and he took half a step inside before he registered who was seated at the table awaiting him. They hadn’t yet made eye contact before he leapt out of the way and pressed himself flush against the wall while smacking at the close door button with a toddler-esque coordination.

  Johnson gaped at him.

  “New plan,” Peters stated. “You are gonna be the bad cop.”

  “Wait, what?! Why do I have to be the bad cop now?”

  “Well look at you, man! It only makes sense. No one is gonna believe someone who looks like me is crazy.”

  “What the hell! I don’t look crazy either!”

  “Well okay, no, but you look crazier than me!”

  “I can’t do crazy, man!” Johnson insisted as he paced back and forth, shooting wild glances and tugging at his hair. “I just can’t. I’m too zen, and my body screams discipline, and I’m gonna be worried the whole time that he doesn’t believe me, and then I’ll get flustered, and I’ll blow the whole thing!”

  “Okay, okay, fine!” Peters relented. He pondered the situation for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Alright, don’t be crazy then. Be a hardass!”

  “A what?”

  “A hardass! One of those angry, driven-by-justice types. Like Officer Brutality!”

  “Officer Brutality! That guy’s my hero!”

  “Alright, good! Go be Officer Brutality.”

  “This is why you’re the idea guy!” Johnson grinned as he pressed the passcode. “I mean, how long have I loved that show for, and never once have I thought to try and be him at work.”

  “Game face, man. Game face.”

  Johnson bared his teeth and raised his hands like claws at him before stepping through the door. Once inside, his expression soured into that of a drill sergeant smelling flatulence. He chucked the stack of electronic files onto the table, ignoring how they became strewn about, and glowered down at the young lady sitting quietly on the other side.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Wang.” He growled at her.

  She opened her mouth to respond. Before she could, he sucked air through his teeth and slammed his palms onto the glass table.

  “WANG!!” He screamed.

  The rush of air and spit particles that hit her in the face forced her to blink hard against the unsolicited bellow. Johnson took that as an opportunity to take a few deep breaths, then pick a tablet from the table.

  “That’s what’s listed in your file,” he continued to growl. “Wang. Whisper Wang. Is that your name, Miss Wang? Whisper Wang?”

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Whisper Wang. Graduated at the top of her class, Whisper Wang. Youngest person to ever be enrolled at the flight academy, Whisper Wang. Voted most antisocial member of her grad group, Whisper Wang. Well there’s just one problem then, ‘Whisper Wang.’” He raised his hands, causing her to pre-emptively flinch. “Whisper Wang is a pretty damn Asian-sounding name!”

  He pointed his finger toward her with the dramatics of a court scene in a soap opera. It was a little lost on Whisper, since she happened to already be familiar with her own ethnicity.

  She frowned at his hand.

  “So what?”

  “So what?!” He repeated. “So what?! Well I’ll tell you so what! Everyone knows Asians can’t drive!”

  Whisper’s jaw dropped. But before she could respond, the door burst open.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Peters said, his voice calm and sultry. He stepped inside with head high and hands behind his back. “Are you alright, Whisper? I can call you Whisper, right?”

  “No, you can’t!” Johnson snapped. “Because something isn’t adding up here! Identity theft isn’t a joke . . . whoever you are!”

  He slammed his hands on the table again.

  “How about you tell me what’s really going on, huh! ‘Cause I think the person in this file is a bit too qualified to be named ‘Whisper Wang!!’”

  “How about we all calm down a little bit,” Peters soothed. He took a seat in one of the chairs, then sidled it along the side of the table to get closer to her. “This young lady is clearly distressed, let’s start it a little easier. So, Whisper, you’re a pilot huh?”

  “Well, I was! Probably not anymore, though . . .” She grumbled, sinking into her chair.

  “How old are you?”

  “Sixty-three. I just have great skin.”

  “Such a clever thing,” he intoned, sidling a bit closer. “But it might help your case if you can verify the information in your file.”

  “‘Kay . . .” The side of her mouth curled down in opposition to her rising eyebrow. “Fine, I’m . . . eighteen.”

  “Nice, nice . . .”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. So, you like flying, Whisper?”

  “Sure. I guess. It’s fine. I dunno.”

  “Aw, c’mon, now; it’s gotta be better than fine. You got licensed at thirteen. I bet you love it.”

  “Sure, yeah, definitely love, and not parental pressure or anything.”

  “Family? Ugh, I don’t want to hear about them. Talk about flying more. Do you drive stick?”

  “I . . . it’s a spaceship, not a backhoe.”

  “That’s a shame. You should branch out. I bet you could do all sorts of things with these little hands.”

  “Like choke people?”

  Peters grinned.

  “I could get into that.”

  “Oh.”

  “You got a boyfriend, Whisper?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, c’mon!” He teased. “You can tell me! In fact, you have to tell me.”

  She blinked up at him.

  “I . . . are you hoping I do or something?”

  Peters chuckled with an exaggerated mirth. He grinned up at his bewildered partner, then looked back at Whisper. Slowly, he rose from his chair and loomed over her head, talking through the dark hair that obscured her face.

  “I’m just saying you can get into a lot of trouble for lying to me, Whisper,” he grunted into her ear. “I’m a federal officer. I’m also the only friend you got right now. You don’t want to lose your only friend. You want to do anything you can to keep him. You wouldn’t want me to leave you alone in this room with him, do you?”

  Eyebrows slowly creeping toward
her hairline, she rotated her head over to Johnson. The man stared doe-eyed with his mouth agape at the both of them. Then she felt Peters’s bony hand grab her chin.

  “Don’t look at him, look at me,” he ordered her through clenched teeth. He stared into her dark eyes with his own cloudy ones. “Is your boyfriend the one who got you into this? How old is he? How far have you two gone? You ever been with anyone else?”

  “H-hey, Peters, can I talk to you outside for a sec?”

  “I’m working here!!” He snapped.

  “I really think you need a quick break,” Johnson insisted. He grabbed onto his coworker’s arms and started to pull him away. Peters struggled against his burly partner, never breaking eye contact with Whisper. As a last-ditch effort, he grabbed onto the metal table to anchor himself, dragging it for several feet before the piercing shrieks of friction and futility forced him to let go.

  “Do you even know what it’s like to have a real man?!” He screamed just before being pushed out the door. Johnson spun back around to face Whisper. His hands slid back and forth down his pant legs and he bit at his lips.

  “I . . . I don’t really know what that was,” he admitted.

  After realizing it had fallen open again during all of this, Whisper closed her mouth and quickly reassumed her usual expression, with an added purse to her lips.

  “You suck at being the good cop.”

  In lieu of any wit to wisecrack back, Johnson instead replied with a cough. Not even a manly cough—a feeble and awkward cough that snuffed any semblance of control over the situation. With his entire plan and persona completely thrown off, he now saw no other recourse but to give an awkward nod and walk out of the room. A second later he came back in, scooped up all the files, gave another nod, and was gone once more. Peters was waiting for him just outside. Heavy breaths puffed in and out of his nose.

  “What the hell was that?!” Johnson demanded of him.

  “I don’t know!!” Peters sarcastically whisper-yelled back. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell was that!? You didn’t even give her time to answer any of my questions!”