Post 48

Episode 3

Hoshi took you on a tour. The ship was much smaller than you’d first assumed. There was only the engine room (or gut), the cargo bay (or med bay), three tiny crew rooms that also doubled as gas exchange alveoli, and the control room. The rest of Shori looked vaguely manta ray-like with a docking port ‘mouth,’ and one large viewing port on her ‘head’ instead of two ‘eyes.’ Hoshi seemed very proud of her. You were grudgingly impressed. You hadn’t realized the genetic engineers had gotten quite so advanced while you had been trapped Station-side, worrying about other things.

In the other crew room, Hoshi had stashed all the mechanical things he didn’t know what to do with. When he opened the door, a disorganized mash of parts and bits towered over you like a canyon. Delicate parts and priceless antiques all jammed together in a mess of poor planning. “Hoshi,” you whisper, in a tight mass of disappointment and looming dread at having to sort through all this crap, “what is this?”

He glances at you like you’re slow. “It’s the integration systems I’ve picked up. Don’t worry, most of them are compatible with your AI. I think. I had to pick up some supporting technologies from different stations, so there may be some redundancy here.”

“Redundancy?” you squeak. “Compatibility? Are you out of your mind? There’s…” you pause to pick up a decades old motherboard with silica chips and let it fall back down to the floor. “…junk. There’s junk in here.”

“Don’t exaggerate.” He picks up something that looks like it died out of a Jules Verne novel and surveys it proudly before gently putting it on the top of the pile. “Some of them even come with manuals.”

“Manuals of what?” you say, in horror. “What exactly were you planning to make out of this?”

He frowns at you. “An ion engine and a galactic locating and tracking system with automatic location mapping. Of course. But then you built it, at least the AI part, so I didn’t have to try to figure it out.”

You groan as he pats your shoulder and heads out the door. “Good luck, Burke. Lunch is in a few hours. I’ll come get you.”

You kick the useless motherboard over to the side of the room somewhere. How in Holy Hell are you supposed to build anything out of this crap?

Several hours later, you emerge covered in grease, toxic metals from bygone eras, and a thin patina of dust to join Hoshi at the tiny kitchen in the control room. The fire station folds back into the walls revealing a small sink and matter converter. Hoshi flexes a skin covering in the floor to fold it into two chairs and a small table and hands you something white, almost-liquid, and semi-lumpy. You take the mug with distaste and give him a pathetic look.

“I know, love, I know.” He sighs deeply and puts his feet up on part of the sink. “Kind of makes you nostalgic for the Astra Stations, doesn’t it? Even if the food was shite, at least you could get some decent alcohol there.” He pauses, and then pulls the mug slowly away from his face as if remembering something. “But…you don’t drink, right Burke?”

“No,” you mumble and stick your face in your nutritional supplement, hoping he’ll forget.

“Come on, pet. What were you doing in that asteroid mine? Someone like you? A nerd of first caliber? Slumming with a bunch of miners? You have a secret, don’t you?” He leans his chin on his hand to consider you and you very carefully don’t make eye contact.

“You were on that Station too, and I don’t see a drill rig in Shori,” you say, hoping to distract him. It doesn’t work.

“I can’t get long range fuel systems to work, so I have to refill the old-fashioned way every few lightyears,” he says, dismissively. “Hence, I need a non-bio propulsion method. But you already know that. Why were you there?”

You don’t answer him.

“Come on, Burke. Tell me your secrets.”

You stay silent.

“At least tell me your first name.”

“No,” you finally say, hoping he’ll get the hint and drop it. “It’s none of your business.”

“Love, I’ve had you naked and screaming under me, but you won’t tell me your name?”

“I didn’t scream,” you say, but it’s quiet and you’re trying really, really hard not to remember any of that.

He pouts, just a little before continuing “Besides, you picked me up, remember? There I was, just minding my own business and you sit down all purposeful and ask for a fuck.” He smiles again and you close your eyes in humiliation at the memory. “So stop with the bad attitude already. I’m just doing what you asked.”

This time you can’t help leaning your forehead against your palm to put pressure on the suddenly powerful headache you have developing right between your eyes. “Shut up. It was a moment of poor decision-making.”

“So it was. For you anyway.” He drums his fingers on the table. “Burkey Burkey Burke. What’s a galaxy-class robotics engineer doing slumming in bum fuck nowhere plotting geosynchronous orbits like a scrub? Did you sleep with someone you shouldn’t have?” He gives you a grin with too much teeth. “I can totally sympathize with that one.”

You sigh. “Just drop it, okay?”

He purses his lips and puts a finger to them, considering. “No, not your style, huh pet? You picked me because I was throwaway. Easy. Wouldn’t mean anything and would be gone in a day. Hmm. Has to be something with your work, right, pet? You wouldn’t have a personal life. Someone like you would work to the bone and be disappointed if you had to sleep. Maybe something political?”

He takes a long look at you and it makes you avert your face. You think maybe he can see it on you, like a stain, and you’re ashamed.

“No,” he says, answering his own question. “You wouldn’t want to break the rules or go against someone powerful enough to fuck you like that. You’re a team player.” He gives you a tiny salute. “Not one of my problems, to be sure, but I hear it can be terribly inconvenient.” He goes back to staring at you with those eyes and those cheekbones and you compulsively look at your nutritional supplement and pay great attention to swallowing.

“What could it be, Burkey? Too prudish for sex, too disciplined for politics, too lonely for gambling. And you don’t drink. Drugs?” He asks, watching you even closer. You try to keep your face still, but you can’t help the little flinch of reaction. Or the flush of shame creeping over you. He leans over to flick the bulls-eye symbol on your left hand. “You thought I didn’t notice, pet? That you’re an Outcast? And for drugs, huh. What was it? Orbital? Machine Maker? No, no, you wouldn’t pick something to make you feel good and relaxed, would you? It would be something for work. Something to amp up your brain, wouldn’t it? Something to make you smarter, let you work harder, do more.”

You can’t breathe. He’s too close. For a moment, you can taste the effervescent tingle on your tongue, the unbearable joy of the drug permeating your bloodstream, the rush of sounds, sensations, information tied to every synesthetic atom of your being. That tingle is lower now, remembered lust. Not just the physical kind that was so easy to throw away, the kind of lust on the drug was perfect. Mental, physical, emotional, combinations of experience and sound and synergistic processing that the brain just wasn’t capable of normally. The energy to finally think. For days, wallowing in all that information-joy. You exhale slowly, trying to make sure your hands don’t shake and that you don’t encourage him, but he sees.

He lets out a low whistle. “It was SnowCrash, wasn’t it? And you crashed hard. That’s why you picked me up, wasn’t it? You were coming off a high and didn’t have a project or anything to put it to.” He leans closer, grabbing your chin to lever your face up to his. “You’re an addict, aren’t you, Burke?”

You snatch your face away and stand up to clean the mug and place it back in the cubby. You don’t answer, but you can feel your whole body shaking just at the memory. In a couple days, the shaking would be from withdrawal. You know this. You’ve tried to come clean before. It was terrifying. The seizures, the fever, the respiratory failure.

“And you were just going to, what, hope that you didn’t die in a couple days? That was your plan?” Hoshi’s voice was calm, almost disinterested. “That seems pretty stupid. Not really your style, Burke, to just hope for the best.”

“I thought I’d be dead by now,” you say, standing at the sink, staring down at it. “It never occurred to me I’d live. Besides, you don’t know me.” But you’re kind of afraid he does.

“Oh bloody hell. You’re still bitching about me saving your life?”

“You should have let me die. I never asked you to save me. Or to blow up my ship.”

“Again with the ship now? How long are you going to blame me for that one?”

You give him a shocked look. “Forever! You blew up my ship.”

He makes a little dismissive wave. “Yes, yes. All very stressful I’m sure. Whatever. You’ll have to let it go sometime.”

“I do not.”

“I’ll tell you what, pet. I need you to do those things you do, with the parts and the grease and the magic to make my ship go, so I’ll go ahead and keep you alive for a little while longer. Off the drug. After that, I’ll shoot you full of the stuff myself and leave you to die on a mining colony if that’s what you really want. I keep telling you I’m a people person.” He doesn’t smile, even though his words sound light. “I’m all about helping.”

You don’t answer. You grip the sides of the sink and imagine that you can already feel your lungs filling with fluid as the drug works its way all the way out. Your hands tighten on the synthetic skin, sending a little shudder through the ship’s walls. You release your grip. “I’ll build you an ion drive and install the AI,” you say, this time without any attitude and head back to the parts room.

You can feel Hoshi’s eyes on you until you shut the membrane that serves as the door and go to one knee in the privacy of the parts room, breathing hard.