by Logan Hunder
“Why are you taking your shirt off?!”
“Because I am better than the machines!”
RECENTLY PROMOTED AND EVEN more recently disgraced Guantanamo security agent Peters stood in a vacant hallway with his nose stuffed in a corner. Behind him was a hefty prison steward with a hand clamped to the back of his head, holding it in place. They had been standing there in silence for a couple minutes now with all their coworkers passing by without the slightest amount of surprise or intrigue.
“You got it all wrong, man,” he reasoned into his wall nook. His well-rehearsed grin and chuckle manifested by habit while doing so. “It was just a little misunderstanding! And I mean, what, do you really think anybody actually wants you to sit here and hold me all day?”
“Sir, I’m under orders to hold you here until you calm down.” The man replied with an articulate and slow-paced diction. “Your partner has complained of dark and erratic behaviour that he described as ‘totally freaking him out.’”
“He’s being ridiculous!!” Peters slammed his fists against the wall. “And I am also upset! Where is my retribution!? Look at how upset I am! Gaze! Gaze in terror! How can you expect to gaze with my perfect face crammed in this corner like . . . like . . . take your stinkin’ paws off me, you damn, dirty . . . gofer!”
“Sir, I’ve asked you for calm behaviour and you’re giving me the opposite.”
“Fine! You wanna see calm! I’ll show you calm! I’m gonna be so damn calm that you’ll be able to feel the storm that’s coming.”
“Now you’re making it so even your calmness can be considered erratic and threatening.”
“Let go of me! I’m calm! I’m calm! I AM CALM!”
A shrill beeping began emanating from the hand holding his head.
“What is that?! What are you doing to me?! If you’re injecting me with something then I swear I will—”
“Man, that’s just my damn watch!” The attendant barked. He removed the hand from Peters’s head and silenced the device with a finger before folding his arms. “You clearly ain’t gonna calm down, ’cause you clearly got yourself some messed-up anger problems!”
Peters crossed his arms right back and leaned against the wall, shifting his foot back and forth trying to balance. His mouth hung open for a few moments, struggling to form words.
“Ssssssooo . . . uh, w-what are we gonna do then?”
The burly fellow shrugged.
“We? I’m goin’ home. My shift just ended. My daughter’s got a recital; y’all can do whatever the hell y’all want now, for all I care.”
“Oh no way! What kind of recital is it?”
“Zero-G ballet.”
“Wow! I hear that’s really hard to get accepted into.”
“It is, but she’s just so good. She actually got the role of Clara in their production of The Space Nutcracker this year!”
“That’s awesome, man! Good for her!”
“Well thanks, buddy! We’re real proud of her. And hey, I could probably comp you tickets to the next one if you’re interested?”
Peters clasped his hands in front of him, earnest smile etched upon his gaunt face.
“Well, that sounds just lovely.”
“Right on, right on. I should get going, then; don’t wanna miss it. Catch ya later, Peters. And I’ll get right back to you about them tickets!”
“Looking forward to it!” Peters called after him with a wave.
“Oh,” he added. “Hey, Stewart? If I don’t see you again, just know that I like you, man. And I’ll miss you.”
Stewart chuckled and shook his head as he kept walking.
“Why d’ya always say that whenever I leave, man . . .”
MEANWHILE, IN A CHAIR in a room in a hallway that was a different hallway than the previous hallway, Johnson sat with his arms and legs crossed. His current case was a curious one. But not in a Benjamin Button kind of way; it was more of a spook sort of thing. He knew nothing about the woman sitting across from him besides her name, and he only got that from the ship’s log. Other than that, her file was completely empty. As far as the collective knowledge of the Earth Defense Coalition was concerned, Kim Cox did not exist. Even facial scans turned up nothing besides likely Italian heritage and an age estimate of approximately fifty, though many have claimed the camera adds ten years.
After the last few fiascos, Johnson opted to abandon his Officer Brutality approach and opt for his best attempt at one of those calm and methodical modes of investigating. Initial impressions were bad. Whoever she was, Miss Cox was one of the less-easily-intimidated women who found themselves in that seat. That much was clear from the moment she ducked the punch and headbutted the “Welcome to Earf” guy in the face. Even after being thrown in a holding room, the severity of her situation never seemed to sink in. The way she sat there with a cool nonchalance, staring up at the ceiling and ignoring questions like a man stuck clothes shopping with his girlfriend, was almost enough to turn the tables and make Johnson the one who felt uneasy.
But just in case it wasn’t enough, his partner burst through the door. It was actually more of a flamboyant slide through the doorway, but its unexpected nature granted it burst-like qualities in the mind of the presiding agent. The way Peters stood there frozen in place, eyes wide and grinning at the two of them while taking breaths that sounded like hisses, didn’t help to mitigate the creepy factor.
“Oh, hello,” he greeted the two of them. “Sorry I’m late. I was a little . . . held up.”
Johnson threw his arms up in exasperation.
“Bro, you were supposed to wait outside until you calmed down!”
“But I am calm!” Peters purred. “We are all calm. Surely Johnson should be able to tells.”
“Oh, great, now you’re talking like Gollum—Jesus Christ, man, can you please blink? You are making me SO uncomfortable.”
“Well, you know what makes me uncomfortable, Johnson?!” Peters seethed. His glance traced its way over to Kim as he paced, lingering for a moment before returning to his rant.
“I am uncomfortable with what has become of my line of work!”
“This line of work that you’ve been doing for about a half hour?”
“Yes, that line of work!!”
He used both hands to push his hair back before placing them on the table, gripping it with the tension of a root canal patient. The lone light dangling from above magnified his sharp features, casting shadows over his deep-set eyes and under his cheekbones.
“Do you take your job seriously, Johnson?”
Johnson blinked at him.
“Of course I take my job seriously. I’m sitting here trying to do it.”
“Oh really? How’s that goin’ for ya? Asking lots of . . . questions? Getting lots of . . . answers? Then maybe . . . oh, I don’t know . . . assessing those answers? Trying to decide if they sit well with you? Or—”
“You’re about to bring up the machine again, aren’t you?”
“—maybe letting a machine do the work for you?”
“God damnit, bro!”
He got out of his seat and joined his partner in a similar pose. Noses snuffled, pecs twitched, and Kim yawned.
“It’s a lie detector,” he continued to admonish. “It’s like the metal detectors we use at the front door. But with lies. What is so hard to accept about that?!“
“Don’t you act like it’s the same!”
“ . . . It’s literally the same!”
“It is NOT the same! Nobody is made to feel powerless by the metal detector. Nobody looks upon it with fear and apprehension, knowing it peers into their psyche, leaving them helplessly cowering beneath it. But no . . . no . . . you don’t understand! How could you understand, you . . . you, you, you BITCH!?”
“I’m sorry—are you saying you want to be the one making people feel powerless and cower and stuff?”
“I want the power and I am entitled to it!!”
He slammed his fist against the table, then g
ripped his hand with the other one and winced. After a moment to shake his head, he carried on.
“I am the one to be feared! Me!! You think the machine is here to help us. You think we are still the masters while it does our bidding. You fool! It’s not here to further our power. If anything, it does just the opposite. It shackles us with accountability! I mean what, what, do you think we should just walk in here and sit in these, these ass-clamping peasant chairs and be all like ‘Oh, hello, I’m Peters and this is Johnson. We were wondering, oh, I don’t know, are you a terrorist?’”
“That’s . . . that’s actually a fantastic idea. We’ll know right away if they’re guilty or not.”
“I DECIDE WHO IS GUILTY! ME!”
The tablets strewn about the table began to dance in rhythm with his pounding fists. He turned his fiery fury onto Kim.
“And you.” It was less of an acknowledgement and more of a retch that sounded like words. “Sitting there all smug. Thinking you’re untouchable. Oh, but how wrong you are.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Johnson said. “What, are you gonna start beating her before you’ve even asked her anything? Let’s all just calm down here, huh? I wouldn’t even waste my breath on this one, bro. She doesn’t scare, like, at all. She won’t even open her mouth.”
Peters’s lips contorted as he considered the proposition with both tact and sedation.
“For the last time, I. Am. Calm. I’m the calmest person here. I’m the calmest person in the world! In fact, I am so damn calm that I’m not going to leap across this table and slap the shit out of you for claiming I’m not calm!”
“Oh, you’re gonna threaten me now? You don’t wanna unleash the dragon, bro.“
“Is that supposed to mean you? You’re the dragon? And you’re subtly trying to imply you’re caged right now? And if I don’t back off then what? You’re gonna throw a can of protein powder at my head?”
Johnson took a deep breath. When his lungs could hold no more, he let it out twice as slowly as he drew it in. All the while, he kept his eyes closed.
“You know what? You’re right,” he said with a pretentious tranquility. “I shouldn’t be reacting to your flare-up like this.” Eyes still closed, he folded his arms in front of him. “Try and bait me into a fight all you want; I am too zen for you. You don’t have any power over me.”
He was finally able to see his friend for what he was. All these years of doing pointless busywork surrounded by the solar system’s most dangerous faces, and yet he never saw the monster in his midst. Even though he’d totally dropped the observational ball, he also couldn’t help but feel just a little bit smug about his superior ability to handle power. However, while his words were correct, they were poorly chosen. Despite the fact that he could now figuratively see past the superficial charm to the self-aggrandizing megalomaniac underneath, standing there with his eyes closed like an idiot meant he literally couldn’t see the aforementioned sociopath pick up his chair and bash him over the head with it.
Johnson’s head recoiled back and bounced off the table on its way to the floor where it came to a stop. Blood leaked out of the two newly opened wounds, one on each side. Perhaps still in a fit of rage, or perhaps aware of the astronomical lawsuits that can be levied when someone survives with brain damage, Peters went in for the coup de gras. With a chair instead of a pick, he worked on the railroad for a good thirty or so uncomfortable seconds. Achieving the grisly shattered watermelon look proved to be beyond his capabilities, as skulls are much more fortitudinous than movies and TV would have one believe. Therefore, he reluctantly settled for stepped-on pomegranate before dropping the bloodied seat to the floor.
All was quiet in the room, save for the rhythmic breaths of exertion. Johnson’s hand twitched now and again, but as his partner recovered, he did not. Peters checked his shoes. They seemed clean enough. His gaze moved to his former friend, switching to neither horror nor mirth at the sight of him. If anything, it was a look of relief, like when the novocaine kicks in. He pressed his palms against his face and rested his elbows on the table. Those once-buggy eyes turned dreamy and he resumed that creepy smile. Only this time it was directed at Miss Cox.
“So,” he broke the ice in breathy tones. “Now it’s my turn to get to know you.”
Kim finally lost whatever interest she had in the ceiling. With a soft exhale, her eyes and head rolled all the way around before settling on the remaining agent. Some guys were really bad at getting hints.
11.
THE SECRET OF THE OOZE
CAPTAIN COX HAD BEEN sitting alone in his cell for so long now that his face had stopped hurting. As a life long law loyalist, this was a position he never dreamed of finding himself in. Well, there was that time he bought Krispy Kremes but pressed the number code for cheap dinner rolls. The attendant didn’t question him when he claimed he made a mistake, but she knew. Oh, she definitely knew.
So maybe he shouldn’t be surprised to have ended up in here, given his willingness to commit acts of such depravity. Still, he’d be lying if he didn’t find the implications unnerving. With his pale, lean bod and his feathery blonde hair, it didn’t take a genius to figure out how all the other inmates were going to see him: everyone was going to think he was a wimp. He would have to find someone and bribe them into letting him shank them just to show everybody he ain’t no goof.
It sure was taking a while for them to send someone to talk to him. Maybe the pursuit of justice was regarded around here as a kind of tortoise and hare type of dealio. Or maybe it hadn’t been that long at all, and he only thought it had because he had no way of telling time inside this otherwise-empty holding cell. Or maybe they had forgotten about him and he was going to become one of those neglected prisoners who slowly goes insane due to cabin fever. Or maybe he was already serving his sentence because everything was decided on the other side of that door without him . . . which would also lead to him going insane with cabin fever! This was getting maddening! Thankfully, the door opened and his mental torture could stop—potentially to be replaced by real torture, but he could fret about that later.
“Good afternoon, Mister Cox,” Sir Percival Todgerworth uttered with audible smarm.
“Captain Cox.”
Percy sighed and set his tablets and space mug on the table. He smoothed his tie, smoothed his hair, and smoothed his hands before taking a seat with a slow elegance. Once comfortable, he clasped his fingers and regarded Cox with a sober expression.
“You are not a captain, Mister Cox. You have no military affiliation, nor any other officially recognized designation of importance. You are merely a man who claims ownership of a piece of machinery staffed by simpletons who follow your orders presumably because you are either paying them or threatening their lives. I have a canoe that I enjoy paddling on the Thames; it grants me the same qualification to be considered a captain by your standards.”
The space captain seemed rather elated by that last comment.
“I don’t mind calling you captain if you want. It could be something we have in common! Maybe even help smooth things out a little between us, y’know?”
“You know what will help smooth things out between us, Mister Cox? You explaining to me why a child of an affluent family, such as yourself, not only attended but completed Education Station’s most prestigious university program, their coveted Master’s Degree in Everything, only to devote his time to a job that we’ve nearly replaced with giant slingshots.” Cox’s mouth fell open.
“Whoa, whoa there, buddy! Well look at you with your, well, oversimplifications and stuff! You can make any job sound dumb with the right wording.”
“Do it with my job, then. Right now.”
“Oh, well, okay then. Um. What’s the point of secret agents anyway, huh? Sneaking on into other countries and taking their stuff and . . . and their information. Why not try asking them first? See, that’s the problem with today’s society. Everybody just assumes everybody else is gonna say no! And then they’re too afra
id to be the first one to say yes, so they also say no. And then we get all stuck working against one another because nobody was brave enough to reach out! So maybe your job isn’t dumb, but it’s the product of dumbness.” Percy took a dignified sip from his mug.
“I see,” he said with a nod. “Well, I suppose that answers my question from before. Of course, it also prompts the question of how you managed to graduate from the school mentioned during the aforementioned question.”
“Hah. I get it; you’re making fun of me. But I swear I passed the same way everybody else did. With good marks too! And they weren’t influenced at all by any of the huge donations my parents made.”
Something in the way Percy stared at him with bored eyes, slowly slouching into his chair, made him seem unconvinced. Without adjusting his squished posture, he picked a tablet from the table and mulled it over.
“Mmm, yes. I will take that into consideration,” he mused as he read. His tongue ticked, filling the silence as he tried to reconcile the man before him with the man on the form.
“So tell me then, Tim . . . er . . . Timon Cox. How did your parents come by this vast wealth with which they can command prestigious schooling but not gainful employment for their child? Surely there was some sort of nepotistic job within their company that would offer a better life than this.”
“Oh, they don’t have a company.” Cox replied. “After they got rich, people started sponsoring them to get blackout drunk at nightclubs and take selfies. You know, like all rich people without incomes.”
“I am familiar with the practice, yes. Yet that explains neither the origins of the funds nor your current occupation. I mean, even without a family company, it’s common knowledge that even the most dimwitted and unmotivated of upscale youth can always rely on being offered lucrative employment to lavishly spend their parents’ money, so long as it too is accompanied by visual documentation.”
There was a beat; the first time Cox didn’t answer straight away. The room almost seemed to dim as he couldn’t help but avert his gaze for a moment.