by Logan Hunder
“Huh. I never thought to consider her opinion.”
Cox turned the display off.
“There’s no time to waste, Mister Padilla!” He declared as he clasped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “His advances will go nowhere with her, but we still need to go find that room and meet up with them so we can get out of here. Can you tell from that recording where they are?”
Willy shrugged.
“Yeah, totally. That’s sector 7G.”
“Where is that? Is it far?”
“Not really. It’s on the other side of this window.”
They both turned to look out of it. The control room in which they stood overlooked the arena like a luxury box in a stadium. Kim and company could be seen mingling in the middle, blissfully unaware of their tiny audience. Without another word, Cox hefted a chair and hurled it through the glass. Errant shards cascaded down the angled walls into the interior courtyard to the soundtrack of the bouncing metal chair that accompanied them.
“Dude, why did you do that!? There’s a door right there.”
“I said there’s no time, Mister Padilla, the woman awaits! Also, I didn’t see it.”
He sailed through the window after his projectiles. His tucked knees narrowly missed the jagged lip of the remaining glass before coming to land in a smooth transition onto the downward slope. He slid a good two or three feet before friction brought his lower half to a grinding halt and his top half picked up the remaining duty of propelling him forward. There was a loud thud when his head slammed against the floor. Everyone down below turned around just in time to see the tumbling blonde accidental acrobat perform four cartwheels, three firebird leaps, two salchows, and a partridge in a pear tree. His routine came to an end at the very bottom, where he landed perfectly on his feet and, after stumbling a few steps, proceeded to play it all off as though it had been entirely intentional.
“Hullooo,” he greeted the commune, blinking away his dizziness. “What are you guys talkin’ about?”
“Who the hell is this?” Joakim asked nobody in particular as he stalked over to confront the newcomer. Cox was slightly less dwarfed by the behemoth than the other crew members, but not by any amount that would count. Even drawn up to his fullest height, the best he could manage was a decent look at the man’s mesmerizing neck tat. However, not even the roughened giant in his midst was beyond having only the best assumed of him.
“Why, I’m Tim Cox!” He declared, holding out his hand. “Kim’s husband.”
Joakim engulfed the hand with one of his own bear paws.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Rather than reply, Tim raised his free tiny hand and gave the meekest of points towards his better half. Joakim turned around; first looking at Whisper until she shook her head. With no other women left to suspect, even the basest amount of deductive reason was adequate to determine the answer. His eyes barely lingered on his old flame before coming back to the man who had succeeded him. All the while, ever-raising eyebrows steadily crinkled his forehead like an accordion.
“You . . . !?” He began. With another whirl, he faced Kim once more, Tim being helplessly dragged along. “You got married?! And wait a second . . . you took my name as an alias.”
Kim shook her head.
“Well, actually, I took it ’cause it rhymed with his and made us seem like a folksy and innocent-looking couple.”
“Is all that right, ya little homunculus?” Joakim asked the man he was nearly dangling.
“Ow—I mean, yep!”
“I see. This is very unexpected,” the giant rumbled. He released Cox’s hand and moved his grip to the littler man’s back. Powerless to resist anyway, the captain allowed himself to be guided into the fold next to the familiar faces. Now held captive by captives within the prison in a sort of prisonception, as it were, the thought of being found by the guards suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Instead, they had no recourse but to wait on the decision of their fate.
“Well then,” Joakim clasped his monstrous hands in front of his belly. “I am sorry, Mister Cox. I did not know.”
“Captain Cox.”
“Captain Cox. Makes sense. It would take a fine man to make an honest woman out of a menace like her.” He smiled at Kim and gave her a wink.
“Well, I didn’t do anything besides give her the means,” the captain gushed, putting an arm around her. “The decision to stop killing people for money was all hers!”
Whisper made a coughing/choking sound.
“Um, what?! You said she was a space cop!”
“Well we had to explain her, uh, I guess ‘knowledge and skills’ somehow! Oh, whatsamatter there, Miss Wang? Didn’t think old fogeys like her were cool enough to be hired killers?”
“ . . . What?! Since when do you think being a hired killer is cool?”
“That’s right! It isn’t!” Cox cheered. “Nice to know some of my parenting is sinking in.”
He then remembered the company he kept and glanced around.
“ . . . No offence to you guys, or anything.”
“I would be more offended if you did consider us cool,” Joakim reassured him. “So, are we going to get this jailbreak we were talking about underway, or are you going to find a ‘cooler’ way to get out of here?”
“Well, that depends! What’s your plan?”
“Ummm,” Whisper interrupted. “Are you really just gonna move on and skip elaborating on the hired-killer thing?”
“Yes, I am!”
THE PLAN ITSELF WASN’T the most harebrained scheme Cox had ever heard. Of course, his barometer wasn’t exactly the best measuring device for that sort of thing, but, frankly, he was more relieved than anything to be able to hand the reins over to the professionals. Joakim and his band of merry goons hopped to work so quickly and with such a confidence that it was amazing they hadn’t broken out of this place already.
They split into two teams: the splinter cell and the everybody else. A small squad of orange-clad lads, along with Whisper, stole off into the winding tunnels, while the larger of the two groups lay in wait. The reasoning behind the arrangement was indeed explained before it was put in motion. However, for reasons likely attributable to his own personal attention flaws, they eluded the confused captain. Now that it had begun, he was far too afraid to ask. So instead he hung about with those who remained.
It was actually a pretty lax atmosphere for an impending assault. Many of the inmates broke off into a pickup game of dodgeball after the complimentary magazine rack got pillaged. Others had started a fire and were tending to the bubbling stew dangling from the spit atop it. Willy, having finally emerged upon realizing the milling mob wasn’t in a murder-y mood, immediately surrendered his gun to Joakim (without being asked) and took a spot on the floor. Not sitting; laying.
Not five minutes after the detachment of the detachment, the sound of running footsteps was heard; someone was thundering their way towards them. It was just one pair of feet, but a large pair from the sounds of them. Ears perked up all around. Joakim levelled his weapon towards the exit, while those who held dodgeballs cocked their arms back. A couple others, not wanting to feel left out, rolled up their magazines into weapons slightly less useful than their bare hands.
The steps grew closer and louder until finally a portly, pale, and petrified looking man wearing a guard uniform so ill-fitted it resembled the strings tied around a pork roast appeared.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Donald sputtered, grinding to a halt in front of the troops.
“Donny!” Cox cheered from behind a larger man. “Is that you, buddy?”
“Cox . . . ?”
“That’s Captain Cox!”
“I don’t even have to call you that when we’re on the ship.”
“Yeah, that’s him.” Cox informed everyone as he stepped out. “Okay, we’re ready to begin now!”
“We already began a few minutes ago,” Joakim corrected. “Shhh, don’t tell him that!”
“We were
going to come find you, Donald,” Kim cut in. “But we sent Whisper up to the ship, so it’ll be ready for us to make an escape. Plus, I couldn’t keep dragging her around with me.”
“Makes sense,” Donald shrugged.
She folded her arms and looked at him sideways.
“How did you get out of your cell anyway?”
He folded his arms right back, nostrils aflare.
“I told you I went to SIT,” he bragged haughtily. “I just dismantled all their tech blockers one by one.”
Willy sat up from the floor. As he leaned back on his hands, he looked up at Donald, then to Kim, then finally to Cox, before opening his mouth with a smacking noise.
“Dude. How has nobody ever escaped from this place?!”
“‘Ey boss?” An interchangeable, generic prisoner called in from the hallway. “Bird’s in ’er nest. Asset room is clear.” Joakim dropped any and all interest he had in the previous conversation.
“Excellent. Alright, everyone, now we begin. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em, then come grab a gun and join in the fun.”
Cheers and “yeah buddy”-s emanated from around the room. On Joakim’s signal, the floodgates opened and the racers were off. Cox and Co. trundled alongside the excited men, following them as they opted not to take the exit and instead wound around the labyrinthine halls until reaching a large storage room. Despite being all on the same team, people pushed and shoved their way into the weapons cache like the Hawthorne Army Depot blowout sale. That is, all the people except Cox; he wasn’t as keen to take part in the bonanza.
“So these are just for a show of force, right?” He asked as they left. “We’re not actually going to kill anybody . . . right?”
“Oh yeah,” Joakim answered without looking. His stride was so long the captain had to half jog just to keep up. “We do this for fun around here.”
“See, but do you actually? Because I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.”
After arming themselves with weapons to match their wills, they followed the signs leading to the hangar and burst through the final barricade. The room dwarfed even the cell-block from which they had come. Ceilings as high as the non-existent sky covered the hundreds of yards of open terrain. Insulated cables hung like vines from the rafters, and loose helmets and tools littered the grated floors. Not a soul milled amongst the scattered ships and assorted chest-high walls. Entire carts of equipment and received shipments had been left abandoned. The whole room emanated an eerie calm, occasionally groaning with the shifting of metal, but otherwise as cold and lifeless as the space that could be seen through the forcefield at the far end.
The prisoner platoon shuffled and coughed. Occasionally, there would be a clank, and they’d snap their rifles to the ready, but within moments, they would droop once more.
“Well, where are they?” Kim nudged Joakim with the butt of her gun.
“Oh, they’ll be here,” the king con reiterated. His peeled eyes scanned the expanse as if expecting someone to jump out and yell surprise. “Strike team does their job, then the herd of pigs will stampede on through those doors on the far end next to the space shield at the other side there. Right into our hands.”
Ceasing the scanning for a second, he cleared his throat and called to his troops.
“Look alive, boys. Find some cover. Just because you’re wearing orange doesn’t mean you should be standing around like a damn construction crew; get a move on!”
“I don’t want to be rude—” Cox began.
“Oh, god, what now?”
“—but I was just thinking . . . why did you lure them here to the hangar? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just lure them somewhere else and then we could all escape without any fuss?”
Joakim chuckled one of those low, cough-like laughs.
“Well, I suppose because that would take all the fun out of it, Captain Cox.” He chuckled once more and, upon seeing the captain’s sinking face, added: “Come on, do you want to live forever?”
“I think there’s somewhere in the middle ground between now and forever that I would prefer to live to, if I’m being honest.”
Joakim turned and squinted at Kim.
“This guy? Really?”
“Hey, man,” the tired-looking woman sighed. “Some people like it when a guy has a perfectly healthy outlook when it comes to death.”
A shrug and a snuff was all he gave in return before turning back around.
“Hah, women . . .” He teased her husband. “Who can understand ’em . . .”
Then, even the most vigilant were caught off guard when what light the room had began to fade. Only enough remained to illuminate the fog rising from between the grates in the floor. With visibility rapidly declining from above and below, dissension and fear spread like plagues amongst the less-disciplined occupants. Covers were blown, tactics were abandoned, and fruitless attempts were made to backtrack through the now-locked hangar door.
Then the weightlessness began. At first it felt like adrenaline; a solid push from one’s leg would propel them much further than it ever had before. But afterward came the paradoxically sinking feeling of being stuck helplessly floating upwards into the air. It started with just a few of them, but before long even the less spry reluctantly began to take to the sky. The dark room quickly became rife with the soon-to-be shot. All the cries of anguish and frenzied flails contributed was a denser atmosphere of unrest, dropped rifles, and dislodged shoes.
As overpaid members of the space trucking brigade, Cox and crew were the only ones equipped to contend. In sync they all reached down, or up, depending on their orientation, and flicked the switches in their shoes, resulting in gentle descents and getting shot with looks of disdain and even unbridled hatred. Kim touched down for just long enough to flick her magnets off and launch herself upwards again, spreading her arms and scooping some of the floaters, barrel of mon-keys-style. Effective as it was, it only fuelled the desperation of those still adrift. Her crew accompanied her on the second pass. Together they launched upwards just in time to have a front row seat as the shutters in the walls opened up and the room became bathed in spotlights.
Fully kitted soldiers surrounded them on either side, sticking rifles through each balistraria like medieval archers. Those with mag boots—and those hanging on to the limbs, clothes, or hair of those with mag boots—plummeted back to the hanger deck just in time to avoid the vault becoming alive with death. Laser shots flew from the walls like sparklers, each coming with their own individual pew that, when put together, produced the most ominous techno music one would ever hear. Any prisoners still clutching glow-stick shooters returned fire as best they could. However, between the floating and the freaking out, the only people they ended up shooting was each other.
“Plug the holes!” Joakim roared, throwing any loose debris he could find at the arrowslits.
It was clear the circumstances were dire when not a single one of the societal dregs responded with “That’s what she said.” Thankfully, when fear levels were at the point where the innuendo center of the brain had gone dormant, the fight or flight impulses still persisted. With nowhere to fly, it really narrowed down the options. Kim was the first to join in the efforts, eagerly snatching up some floating debris and following Joakim’s example. With hovering helmets in one hand and buoyant boots in the other, she proudly demonstrated her ambidexterity when it came to throwing. Cox also contributed in his own way. With floor in one hand, and more floor in the other, he demonstrated his ability to crawl along a floor.
Although he could barely see through the wavy golden locks that were matted to his face, the sounds of the situation were more than enough to keep him in the know. In case he went deaf, though, which was becoming increasingly likely at this point, there was no shortage of people being sent flying across the hanger, providing visual updates until they smashed into piles of crates. It was a strange phenomenon in and of itself, since lasers had no mass to impart force onto those they struck.
But in the face of it all, he continued to crawl. When shrouded in dense fog, he would poke his head up like a prairie dog from time to time to keep his eyes on the objective. Occasionally, he would get clocked in the head by an unidentified floating object, but eventually he reached the end of his jaunt. Unlike the frenzied inmates, the door was not his interest; beside every door was a console, and in every console was a mic’d receiver, which was hooked up to the station’s computer. Usually, such receivers could pick up commands from across a room. Unfortunately, even modern sensor-sensitivities couldn’t process commands very well when delivered amid more grunts and cries than the sauciest male-centric smut. The only way to make his voice register was to get close enough to slip it some tongue.
“Siri!” He yelled into the AI’s noise hole. “Siri! Close the shutters!”
“Please state name of—.”
“Captain Cox!”
“I’m sorry. There are no captains in the system with that last—”
“Oh, for—Private Cox!”
“Oh, Hello, Captain. Sure, I will get right on that.”
The vast majority of the uneducated prisoners had never heard of ASMR, but that didn’t stop them from feeling it when the shutters whirred themselves down between them and the firing squad. Cox breathed a sigh of relief as heavy as any when the lights, both baneful and benign, were blocked, bathing the barricade in blackness.
“Hey Siri, what say we get some light of our own in here?” And there was light. And everyone saw the light. And it wasn’t great, but it was sure better than being blind.
“Give us a bit of gravity too, maybe about fifty percent. And how about some music? Make it a classic. Something to lighten the mood a bit, but still upbeat enough so we’re inspired during all this against-all-odds escaping stuff.”
Those who still had consciousness scooted to their feet. Most made a beeline for the weapons they’d dropped, pausing only after retrieving them to take in the sombre a cappella opening that blared over the PA system. Cox smiled around. He hoped someone would recognize it, but no one even caught his glance. Oh well, he was still pumped up. With a helmet upon his head and a crate-lid shield on each hand, he scampered away from the doors, which were likely to soon be stormed with troopers.