Charles Martin's Blog, page 20

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE WITH THE JERRY BENNETT CH. 3

“It takes a stronger man not to fight.”

The voice echoed from deep within Jerry’s childhood. Was she a second grade teacher? Maybe third grade? Curled brown hair. Pixie face. Even though he was very young, Jerry knew she wore too much makeup, but her words still resonated. They fit snug with his evolving perception of faith and the spiritual walk.

She dabbed the blood from his split lit. The alcohol stung, bringing more tears to Jerry’s child eyes. She used a wet cloth on his dirty face as Jerry wondered if their age difference would matter in thirteen years.

His first unrequited love and he couldn’t even remember her name.

Jerry opened his steel eyelids to see the sky above him. Highway signs zipped past. A digital readout in his mind clocked their speed at 65 miles per hour. Straps held him down to the trailer bed. He didn’t really feel them as he would if he had skin, but sensed their tightness. He turned his head to the side to see a police cruiser matching speed. He looked above again, finding helicopters approaching, the media vultures descending. Little green boxes framed the helicopters, zoomed in, logged them as non-military. Cars were stopped on an overpass ahead, civilians looking over the edge of the bridge as the convoy passed. Jerry felt exposed, ashamed. A pang in his heart still longed for a good, cleansing cry. He considered converting his flamethrowers so he could weep fire.

The thought made him laugh. He then heard through the electronic distortion the timbre of his old voice. He laughed more, louder, embracing the emotional release.

And the convoy pressed on. His last thought before falling to sleep was whether anyone had told his wife what was happening.

Confused images fluttered through his mind. Robots at war. A metal planet. Steel and plastic faces that seemed strangely familiar. A voice. A logo in red. A logo in purple. A planet eating other planets.

He woke as the truck pulled through the gates of a fortified military prison. He accepted this new life passively, certain a path would present itself even if that path was death.

Jerry was left strapped onto the trailer bed within a darkened storage space, large cargo doors squealing as they rolled shut. He looked over to the aluminum walls knowing that the only thing holding him to this place was himself. The straps could be snapped, the door ripped out of the wall, the fences trampled or flown over. But he felt a need to not fight. To be the stronger man.

Lights buzzed awake, illuminating the lonely space. Men were approaching. Three in black and white suits flanked by National Guardsmen with rifles.

“Release him,” one of the black-suited men called. His face was lean, weathered, hard. A man who had been hard to kill for decades and would continue to be hard to kill for many more years to come. He could be a long forty, he could be an ageless seventy.

“Thank you,” Jerry said, his voice pious and soft, even through the digital buzz.

The straps slackened and were pulled to the side. Jerry sat up, still anticipating the human body aches that he would never feel again. The lack of pain made him feel more isolated.

“Why didn’t you try to escape?” the black-suited man asked.

Jerry looked to the others. They stood quiet, ready. Jerry swung his legs around as the trailer bed groaned under his weight.

“It seemed the right thing to do,” Jerry said. “I am not exactly the fighter type.”

He thought about quoting his teacher, but feared it would seem silly or insulting to these career warriors. No one responded, so Jerry felt compelled to further explain.

“I’m kind of a teddy bear, actually.” Jerry burped out a laugh, but still no one responded. “Like, if there is a spider in the house, I’m the guy that captures it and throws it outside. I don’t even feel comfortable playing Grand Theft Auto.”

“That is good to know, Mr. Bennett,” the black-suited man finally said. “We’ve encountered enough fighters today.”

“What? I’m not the only one?” Jerry stood and the guardsmen backed away, raising their rifles. Jerry rose his hands, smiling diplomatically through his steel beard as he sat back down.

“No, you are not the only one, Mr. Bennett,” the man continued. “There are over four hundred accounts of humans turned into whatever it is that you are now. This is global and it is a damn mess because most of you people are not quite so accommodating to authority.”

“I don’t even like to cut into lines,” Jerry said. “Even if there is no one in front of me, I still walk through the tape maze things they use at movie theaters.”

A guardsmen chuckled at that. The black-suited man smirked.

“So, what now?” Jerry asked. “You hide me away at some underground bunker and cover this whole thing up?”

Now the black-suited men laughed, including the leader.

“Have you ever worked for the government, Mr. Bennett?”

“No.”

“The only good secret we’ve ever kept is that we are terrible at keeping secrets,” the black-suited man said. “No, there is no covering this up. We are now trying to figure out how to contain hundreds of superhuman robots rampaging across the world. We are trying to find the ones we can work with and, Mr. Bennett, I think we can work with you.”

Jerry’s heart glowed at this. His smile was broad, making his beard lift like Norman Rockwell’s Santa Clause. His smile quickly faded though.

“My wife?”

The black-suited man frowned.

“I think you can appreciate how complicated this situation is, Mr. Bennett,” he said. “I simply don’t know how this will all unfold. I will not make you a promise that I cannot fulfill, but I will try to find a way for you to see her again. I don’t know when, I don’t know how. We will just take this one decision at a time and, if you help us, I will help you. Okay?”

The sorrow found whatever was still human within Jerry’s mechanical body and twisted and stretched it. The pain was real. The pain was comforting.

A siren sounded outside the building. More sirens joined it. A side door swung open and a guardsman ran in.

“They’re coming!” he shouted. The guardsmen ran to the cargo doors. One slapped a button and the cargo doors groaned as they rolled open.

Automatic weapons began popping around the perimeter. An explosion.

The black-suited man looked to Jerry.

“Will you fight for us?” he asked.

Jerry thought of his teacher, thought of his wife, thought of the damage robots like him could be doing all across the world. Another explosion.

“Jerry!” the man shouted.

Jerry nodded his head, terrified, but certain.

“Okay,” the black-suited man said. “Get out there and do some good!”

WHAT DO YOU TRANSFORM INTO?

Truck        Train        Plane        Cannon        Submarine        Or        Stay a Robot

PREVIOUS / NEXT

*If you are interested in participating in a Choose Your Own Adventure Commission, email charles@literatipressok.com for pricing and more information.

 

Choose Your Own Adventure with The Jerry Bennett Ch. 2

The Parish slept along with the rest of the Plaza District, nestled between the other galleries, artsy retail shops, and clever restaurant concepts like a pack of mutts piled together to survive the cold winter night. He wanted to chuckle, but remembered that there were no vocal chords left to resonate his once boisterous laugh.

He wasn’t sure if he felt cold because of the crisp morning air, or if it was the absence of true nerve endings. His sensations were all now false. Distant impression no more vivid than a rumblepack on a video game controller or the fake scents of a scratch-and-sniff book. Jerry was aware that he would be crying if he had the capability. Sorrow to joy to sorrow and back to joy. At least this made him still feel human.

Kenny’s car sidled up to the parking space next to him. Jerry felt the car’s vibrations, even smelled the exhaust. Glimmering green words appeared in his mind, identifying the car style, focusing in on Kenny’s face, pulling up his Facebook page, playing a video of a cat with a lightsaber posted on his timeline.

Kenny rose out of the car and stared at Jerry, or rather Jerry’s truck. Kenny ran to the Parish, tested the doors, then cupped his hands on the windows so he could look within. Kenny unlocked the doors, then looked around the Plaza District.

“Jerry!” Kenny shouted as if calling a stray dog in the woods.

Kenny walked to the modest white pickup truck and placed his hand on the hood to feel the warmth of the engine. He scanned the Plaza District again, pulled out his phone and punched in a number.

“Hey, Jerry’s truck is outside the church,” Kenny said into the phone. Jerry thought he could faintly hear his wife’s voice on the other side of the line.

“Yeah, just sitting here,” Kenny continued. “Okay.”

Kenny lowered the phone and dropped it into his pocket. He placed his hand on the hood again.

The touch comforted Jerry.

“We’re praying for you buddy,” Kenny whispered, eyes closed. Moments passed, Kenny turned and returned to the Parish doors. Again, Jerry was left with a hopeless confusion.

Yet, somewhere deep within the machinery of his new body, he sensed grace still glowing like a candle deep within a cold, hollow mine. He wanted to move, he wanted to find answers, but he needed time to think.

But the police cruisers arrived too soon, penning Jerry inside the parking spot. A tow truck soon followed. Jerry was panicking, but fought his instinct to hop the curb and speed away.

Jerry focused on the tow truck, watching the driver fuss with the chains, lowering the towing fork, guessing at what fate the tow truck would lead him to. Examinations by detectives, maybe a scrap yard. Perhaps she would keep him around, savoring the reminder of her missing love, but perhaps it would be too much for her. Jerry couldn’t blame her.

She just as alone and terrified as Jerry. He thought of running just to run and disappear forever so she could mourn and heal.

The tow fork slide beneath Jerry and a red light flashed a warning in Jerry’s mind. Its intensity grew as the driver unhooked the cables and attached the first to Jerry’s frame.

Images appeared. Six. A truck, a plane, a cannon, a train, a submarine, and a robot. Confused, Jerry watched the images glowing in his mind, unsure of their significance. They blinked, Jerry sensed they begged a decision. Curious, Jerry chose.

Movement, fast, and throughout his body. It felt as if he was breaking at every joint, his guts twisting, a severe dizziness sweeping over him. He was off-balance, his orientation spinning. He was on his feet, stumbling, falling backwards from the tow truck, but the chain snapped tight. He fell onto a knee, gazing now out of a singular pair of eyes, looking over a metallic, angular body, the tow truck hooked to his arm. Police officers were scrambling behind their cruisers. The tow truck had been pulled up onto the curb. Jerry unhooked from the truck and stood, keeping his feet, but swaying like a drunk.

Pistols were pointed at him. Jerry rose his hands defensively. Other flashing images placed boxes over the pistols. A screen emerged, labeled “Weapons” and containing a rocket launcher, a chain gun, a sword, and what looked to be a flamethrower.

“No!” Jerry told the screen, then started at the sound of his own voice. It was electronic, clear, loud, and distinctly his. The Parish door swung open and Kenny ran out, stopping before Jerry. They stared at each other. Jerry looked to the windows of the Parish to see his own reflection. He stood nine feet tall, thick-shouldered, but still bearing his thick, grey beard and black-framed glasses, both now steel.

“Jerry?” Kenny called. Jerry looked down to the man.

“Yes,” Jerry spoke, testing his voice.

“This is impossible.”

Jerry looked to the cops, then back to his pastor.

“Tell my wife I am still here,” Jerry said, his voice faltering. “Tell her I am still alive. I don’t know what happened, but I still love her.”

Kenny’s mouth moved, but couldn’t find words.

“Pray for me,” Jerry said.

“I will.”

Jerry turned to the police officers, pistols still aimed. Sirens were approaching in the distance. He felt swarmed, the terror almost overwhelming.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Surrender                OR                Run

 PREVIOUS / NEXT

*If you are interested in participating in a Choose Your Own Adventure Commission, email charles@literatipressok.com for pricing and more information.

Choose Your Own Adventure with The Jerry Bennett

Jerry did not know that he was a truck, only that the very young morning light brought with it a terrible disorientation. He woke on the street, unable to move, unable to talk, the sound of his ringing cell phone faint, as if inside a pocket hidden within his clothes.

He attempted to bend at the waste, push off the cold asphalt, but his body would not respond. His call for help was overwhelmed by the trunk’s angry horn. His angry horn.

Jerry was terrified. His vision was broken into a collage of images, showing the street from various angles around his new, steel, chrome, and chipped-white paint body. Wherever a reflective surface, a distorted image was captured and sent to Jerry’s overwhelmed mind.

Hours passed, the street slept aside from a few early commuters startled as Jerry called out to him through the blasting horn. One braved a creeping walk to the truck to glance inside the cab. To Jerry, the frightened woman was looking directly through one of his dozen eyes. He spoke in a horn, she stumbled backwards, nearly falling onto Jerry’s front lawn. She hurried away.

The phone rang again. Jerry willed for a hand to move to it, still unaware that no hand existed.

Jerry’s wife emerged through the front door and gazed at the truck, at Jerry. He called with his horn and she stiffened. She’d been crying. Her delicate, beautiful face more fragile than he’d ever seen it. He called again. She ran across the lawn and threw open the driver’s side door. A flurry of bizarre sensations followed as the shimmering vibrations awoke feeling throughout Jerry’s strange, new body. He saw through the tilted rearview mirror as she plucked up the cell phone and slammed the door shut. Through the reflection of the driver’s side window, Jerry saw the only woman he had ever loved flee from him and retreat back into their home.

He was certain he’d shouted her name at least seven times, but instead he’d only honked his horn.

Police cruisers arrived. Neighbors gathered on the periphery of their property, some concerned, some curious. Jerry now believed he was dead, watching as a spirit trapped into the street’s gutter like the settled morning mist.

He did not call out again, recalling the terror in his wife’s face. He only thought. No memory of the night before existed within his mind, but a vague idea that he’d suffered somehow.

A bird landed on his hood, but he did not understand the steel as being a part of his body. Not yet. The bird walked, its claws clicking and scraping. Jerry felt the vibrations. It was not like pain nor pleasure, but it was something tangible and real. He began to dread as his new existence began to untangle within his mind.

A police officer opened his door again. The heavy man leaned onto the truck seat, digging and searching through Jerry’s every crevice. Jerry felt the weight. Through the reflection on the rear window, Jerry saw his glove compartment open. He saw the mess of maps and insurance verification forms that he kept meaning to clean out. Jerry finally understood. The horror woke his body.

Jerry screamed. The shrill horn terrified the officer, who scrambled outside and fell down to the grass. The officer kicked the door closed. The doors locked, the engine growled, Jerry became aware of every bolt, every wire, every drop of fuel and puff of exhaust. He felt how the tires pressed onto the road, how the spinning gears engaged.

The police did not have time to get to their cars by the time Jerry disappeared down the road.

WHERE DO YOU GO?

Church            OR          Medical Research Lab?

NEXT

*If you are interested in participating in a Choose Your Own Adventure Commission, email charles@literatipressok.com for pricing and more information.

My Phat Status: Roofie O’Tool’s 2

PREVIOUS/NEXT

Relatable Heroes

PREVIOUS / NEXT

America’s not so Christian History, or Why Jesus Loves AP History

Oklahoma pastor and Republican state representative Dan Fisher introduced House Bill 1380 last week, a piece of legislation intended to defund AP History classes in order to protect the myth of American Exceptionalism. How a state representative who is so completely tone-deaf to truth manages even to get elected is not so easy to explain. Only 40.7 percent of registered voters in Oklahoma bothered to go to the polls in the last election, but to be fair, this is Oklahoma, so if 80 percent had gone, Fisher might still have been elected.

Fisher, for those who aren’t familiar with his history, is the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Yukon. It is a relatively large church considering its location in Oklahoma City’s westernmost major suburb, a place that has been a haven for the white flight demographic over the past few decades. Yukon’s high school mascot is a miller, an unapologetically happy cracker in overalls whose job is to mill grain. Yukon used to be an agricultural town before Oklahoma City’s growth found its way to Yukon. White-flighters love “small town values,” and Yukon has exploded with cookie-cutter starter homes arrayed like brick soldiers in neat grids on what used to be wheat or corn or alfalfa fields.

Fisher managed to collect many of these white folks flocking to Yukon and, over the years, he has managed to be both a successful pastor of a growing church and a voice of unreason, tapping into the fears of conservative Christians who see the end of days in nearly every cultural shift with which they are uncomfortable. When he finally partnered with two of Oklahoma’s most vocal theocratic pastors—Steve Kern[1] and Paul Blair—the partnership helped solidify Trinity as a very non-Southern Baptist church.

Along with Kern and Blair, Fisher participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday during President Obama’s first campaign for the presidency.[2] The three “pastors” defied IRS regulations concerning non-profits and political speech by endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama from their pulpits. They fancied themselves part of a historical fraternity of pastors known as the “Black Robe Regiment,” who spoke frankly about politics and helped shape the moral conscience of the young United States.

Whether or not this Black Robe Regiment managed to do much of anything other than pontificate from their pulpits is up for historical debate. Congregants rarely take their pastors very seriously when the pastors wander off the Biblical text into political speech. In fact, they rarely take them seriously any time the pastors say something with which the congregants disagree. Pastors are notoriously self-important when assessing how much their views shape the views of their congregants. People tend to join churches because they have friends in a congregation or for other complex reasons, not because their pastor speaks with moral or political authority. To believe otherwise is simply an exercise in ego masturbation on the part of the pastors.

Fisher parlayed his pastoral popularity into a run for state office. Whether or not that is something pastors ought to do is yet another area of potential dispute, but Fisher is not so much worried about spiritual care for a congregation as he is with helping dictate a “spiritual climate” of the state. He wrongly believes, as do many other conservative Christians, the false narrative of America as a Christian nation. That this concept actually means nothing outside a vague idea that Christians ought to be in charge is lost on Fisher and his tribe. Even among Christians of good conscience, it’s widely believed to an utter fiction. Real Christian scholars like Mark Noll and George Marsden have written about this myth of a Christian America, but it’s easier to believe a lie that prefers our tribe than accept a truth that offers equality to people outside the tribe. This is, of course, one of the great ironies of “Christian America” conservatives: a tribe ostensibly committed to the truth pursues a lie in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

This is the subtext to Fisher’s bill to ban AP History courses. He dislikes the College Board’s focus in the curriculum because it points out the country’s many, massive failings. How someone tells an honest history without mentioning the many ways in which the United States has failed is unimaginable. The problem for Fisher is that “Christian America” condoned slavery using the Bible; we marginalized minorities and women using the Bible; we justified the genocide of Native Americans using the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”; and we invaded countries, exploited the poor and the weak, seized territory from sovereign nations like Mexico, denied rights to all kinds of demographics, including ethnic and religious minorities and LGBT citizens. To catalog all of America’s sins would take a document at least as long as the Bible. Rather than contend with this harsh and undeniable truth, Fisher would prefer that teachers not teach it. And why?

If America’s manifold sins are catalogued, most especially those sins for which the Bible was offered as justification, the Bible will be shown for what it is: a deeply schizophrenic set of narratives that can be molded to fit any context, and one that is singularly devoid of moral authority inasmuch as it has so often been used as an immoral authority. Secondly, America will be revealed to be what we actually are: an often great nation but also an often abusive and evil nation that relies not on the providence of the Christian God to lead us, but on our own base desires, prejudices, fears, and yes, sins to guide our actions—many of which found their justification in the Bible. Fisher’s Christian America falls apart in AP History class because it never existed, and that a man of faith pursues the establishment of a lie with such singular dishonesty while calling on God to witness his prophetic anointing speaks to the corruptive influence of religious narratives used to secure secular power.

 

[1] Kern is the husband of Sally Kern, a state legislator who is best known outside Oklahoma for insisting that “the gay agenda” is a greater threat to America than terrorism. Their marriage is the perfect union of paranoid and ignorant.

[2] They would do so again in his second campaign, and in spite of President Obama’s Christian confession, they chose the Mormon candidate Mitt Romney, ignoring a century of Baptist teaching that Mormons are a cult that preaches a false Christ. Political narratives are far more important that religious narratives for theocrats.

Ralph Ellison Festival in Film Row

6:30 – 11 pm Friday, February 20, 2015

On Film Row, 700 W. Sheridan in Oklahoma City

As an author with grand aspirations of critical acclaim, or even just minimal recognition, getting the chance to herald one of our very own, homegrown literary luminaries is to affirm that our often-overlooked state is capable of producing an important voice.  John Selvidge and I first began talking about this event a year ago during our Ralph Ellison book club. Selvidge came to every meeting with pages of discussion notes on “The Invisible Man”, breaking down the dense, but approachable novel that vividly portrays the black experience in mid-twentieth century America. Rather than using the book club as an excuse to do some high-minded drinking, Selvidge and crew dug into each chapter with an earnestness I hadn’t experienced since college.

Though it was just a book club, it felt like important work.

And, of course, we awed at how under-appreciated Ellison was in his very own hometown. We decided to form an annual event as a way of shining his light a bit brighter in OKC. The inaugural Ralph Ellison Festival will be hosted by OKC’s Film Row District. We began plugging away at this idea in the summer and were very fortunate to receive enthusiasm and support from the Gregory Jerome, Skip Hill, Ralph Ellison Foundation/Library, IAO Gallery, The Paramount, Dunlop Codding, and numerous other supporters of Oklahoma’s cultural heritage. We are pleased that this modest idea has outgrown two Ellison fanboys and ballooned into an ambitious multi-discipline, district-wide event featuring some of the brightest creative minds in Oklahoma. See the event’s mission statement and a detailed schedule of events below or at www.ralphellison.com.

The Ralph Ellison Festival exists to celebrate and honor the life, work, and legacy of Oklahoma City native and acclaimed author Ralph Ellison. With our festival, we seek to establish a yearly forum of art, music, and literature designed to raise consciousness in Oklahoma about Ellison—arguably the state’s most significant literary pioneer—but also to celebrate the work of local artists under a unifying, multicultural banner worthy of Ellison’s ideals. As he wrote, “America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many.” Ellison also wrote, “the world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.” Maybe we could find the same to be true of Oklahoma? We dare to dream.

All events are free and open to the public.
6:30 PM at Dunlap Codding (609 West Sheridan Avenue)

Opening remarks by Festival organizers.

Reading by poet Quraysh Ali Lansana followed by a wine and jazz reception

7 PM at IAO (706 West Sheridan Avenue)

Festival book fair begins featuring Literati Press, Mongrel Empire Press, New Myth Comics,This Land Press, Write Bloody Publishing, and several  more.

7 PM at The Paramount (7 North Lee Avenue)

Music: Christian Pearson (in the theater)

7:30-9 PM at IAO

Multimedia performance installation “Visible/Invisible: Inside the Ellison Scriptorium”

7:30 PM at The Paramount

Music: Culture Cinematic (on the Café stage)

8 PM at The Paramount

Music: The Max Ridgway Trio (in the theater)

9 PM-11 PM at The Paramount

Concert/Reading in the Upstairs Jazz Lounge featuring Gregory Jerome (and his band) with Special Guest Poets Lauren Zuniga, Candace Liger, and Quraysh Ali Lansana

(all-ages show, adult beverages will be available in the bar)

Visual art will be distributed throughout all venues.

The Chaos Machine: Choose Your Own Adventure For Edward

*This is part of the choose your own adventure fundraiser I am doing to pay for the original content from our fabulous staff of writers and artists provided for free on our website. If you are interested in participating, send an email to charles@literatipressok.com or contact me on Facebook or Twitter. Going rate for an adventure is only $20(five rounds). Print copies of your adventure are available at an additional cost.

The Chaos Machine

Floating in the ether inside a dead ship 3,000 light years from the nearest Community Pod, Edward was blessed with an abundance of time to think about the woman he left behind in hopes of finding riches among the stars.

He knew her face better than he knew his own. The way her smile burst out like the birth of a universe with heat, passion, beauty, and a touch of the impossible. The eyes he’d never fully understood—sculpted sharp and serious, an exotic and dangerous emerald-green possessing mystery as impenetrable as a goddess’ chiseled into the frieze of a temple.

Touching her had always felt like a violation of something sacred and to let go of her was to fall away from the sun into an inescapable void. He couldn’t bear to even stand apart from her in a small room or sleep more than an inch from her warm skin inside their cramped, twin-sized bed.

Why had he left her? He was often unsure, remembering only some vague hope that two years of hard work for the X-Verse Mineral Exploration armada would reward him with wealth. That wealth could buy her the life that would either lift him up to her level or pull her down to his. A new house, a retirement account, college for whatever kids would come along, vacations, clothes, a future. That’s why he left—to become worthy of her.

After hundreds of hours in simulators, he was assigned to a freshly minted and absurdly-priced X-42 Scatterbug, the smallest craft to ever possess its own Chaos Machine. Looking like a thin, rounded pond creature racing along the water’s surface, the ships were capable of flying through harsh atmospheres for trips to planet surfaces, able to withstand extreme heat, and knocks from space debris. It was the most maneuverable and adaptable machine ever sent to space.

The Chaos Machine was the key, the thing that made space exploration possible. Not even fully understood by its own engineers, the Chaos Machine was notoriously fickle, but the most important invention in the history of mankind. It was able to create gravity and transport a ship instantaneously across the universe. Until the first models of Scatterbugs came along, the Chaos Machines were only installed in the Community Pods that first ignited the interstellar space race. X-Verse needed single person ships to scout out natural resources among the vast oceans of debris floating amid the solar systems.

And Edward was awarded the most advanced Scatterbug ever built to seek out his fortune. Yet, three weeks into his first assignment, Edward jumped right into an asteroid belt and impacted a storm of ice crystals which ruptured his power cell. Ten days later, no ability to call for help, his emergency back up only able to sustain his life support systems for another twelve hours, Edward awaited death in a 2 trillion-dollar casket.

Edward’s dead Scatterbug wasn’t entirely dead though. There was the thermal flare. Intended to signal passing ships, Edward guessed that firing the thermal flare could also nudge his dead ship toward a passing asteroid. A tethering hook could be shot to the asteroid’s surface and, if Edward was lucky enough, there might be a convertible energy source that could be mined from the giant rock. He’d already patched the power cell, it just needed food. If his emergency backup could convert whatever he found on the asteroid into fuel, then he could wake the Chaos Machine and jump back to Earth. It was his only way back home. His only way back to her.

As he eyed a listless asteroid slowly drifting toward his ship, lights appeared. Very distant, but clearly man-made. Someone had jumped just outside of the asteroid belt. He clicked on his instruments. Fuzzy and depleted, the monitor was still able to focus in on the lights. Edward knew immediately that it was not a Community Pod. Shaped more like a naval destroyer, it was a thing meant to seek and destroy, a thing to avoid at all costs. A Solar Hopper owned by Regency Science and Energy, a rival corporation with no qualms about pirating in order to stake their claims on resource-rich planets, moons, or, in this case, asteroid belts. They’d come up with their own version of the Chaos Machine and were bent on destroying X-Verse’s monopoly on deep space exploration.

Despite the horror stories he’d heard during training about Regency, Edward doubted they would kill him. He could signal, they would see it. They would take the ship, of course. They would steal the technology, they would interrogate him, perhaps ransom him back to X-Verse, but his chances of survival were better inside their ship hull than trying to pull energy out of a random asteroid.

He looked back to the drifting rock, guessing at how much hydrogen and oxygen it might possess.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Mine the asteroid                            OR                          Signal the Space Hopper?

 

A tall column of blue fire burst from the top of the Scatterbug, like a glimmering horn sprouting from its skull. The craft fell into a gentle rotation, but Edward feathered the stability jets to keep the craft in one place. Each blast of the jet was taken from his oxygen reserves and wouldn’t be enough for propulsion, just enough to keep the Scatterbug faced to the Space Hopper. He wanted to be discovered by X-Verse’s most brutal competitor, he wanted them to see his beautiful ship, like Edward was holding a prime tenderloin filet out to a rabid mongrel.

The thermal flare burned for nearly thirty seconds, surely long enough for the Space Hopper’s tracking cameras to pick up the abnormality, identify the small ship, and alert the crew. Edward sat in the cockpit, hand on the control stick, thumb resting on a black button with a red ring that controlled six pulse rockets. The lone offensive weapons the Scatterbug possessed. Two would be enough to irreparably rupture the Space Hopper’s hull, but that ship didn’t scare Edward. It was what brutal machines that beast might belch out.

Rumors and stolen, cryptic blueprints hinted at a militarized fleet of small, unmanned ships being produced by Regency. X-Verse executives had long accused Regency of preparing to launch an arms race, but had never possessed hard proof of Regency producing ships with overtly offensive capabilities. Three Community Pods went missing over the last year and a half though, all without a single transmission for help. Maybe one loss could be explained by a catastrophic error in their Chaos Machine, but three? Everyone at X-Verse and the wider space community suspected that Regency had stepped over the line from corporate bully to outright pirate.

A red light burst to life on Edward’s display. The oxygen reserves were almost depleted. He realized for the first time that the Space Hopper could just wait. Knowing that the ship was distressed with a wary, desperate, and perhaps dangerous pilot on board, the captain of the Space Hopper could just let time kill Edward, so their rescue mission would instead only be a recovery mission. Interstellar Laws handled both instances differently. A shrewd captain would know that a dead man required much less paperwork than a survivor.

Just as Edward began to look back at the drifting asteroid with new-found appreciation, the Space Hopper gasped a bright, beaming light that burned into the cockpit. Edward held up his hand to block the light. He could make out shadows within the light, but couldn’t focus on anything more.

A light shield comprised of millions of micro-flaps closed on the Scatterbug, shutting off his view. Edward’s eyes burned, but at least he knew that the Space Hopper had made a decision. Whether salvage or rescue, they were coming.

And perhaps they wouldn’t wait if they wanted to salvage. They could simply kick him out into space. Make him walk the plank, just like a proper pirate crew would. Oddly, the thought amused him.

A loud clank announced metal impacting the ship’s hull. The ship tugged forward. They were pulling him in. Edward thought of the space suit. In theory, he could hide from them. Perhaps escape out the air lock and drag behind the ship, detach as they were reeling the ship in, then find another way into the Space Hopper. Get on board on his terms. He couldn’t fathom how he would be able to refuel the Scatterbug and escape the cargo hold of the Space Hopper, but it felt better than just waiting and putting his fate into another’s hands.

But he could reason with the captain. They would have the ship one way or another, but the pilot would be valuable too. He could promise to feed them information in exchange for his life. Buy time, offer to show them the capabilities of the Scatterbug in exchange for a trip back home.

A trip back to her.

Perhaps, this way, he’d have an even better chance of slipping through their fingers, saving his Scatterbug, and returning home a hero.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Try to slip in undetected?                             OR                          Negotiate with the captain?

 

They met on her 21st birthday. She never remembered because she was fabulously drunk by the time they bumped into each other at a crowded, artsy dive bar. She passed out on the shoulder of a drag queen while Edward was discussing theoretical physics. He laughed with the drag queen about his inability to hold a woman’s attention, then lifted her into his arms. It was the first time he’d actually felt her, shocked at how little she weighed and how perfectly she felt curled against him. She insisted on taking her car back to her house. He wanted to take his own, even offered to come back in the morning to give her a ride to the bar. She refused again, so he left his vehicle behind to deliver the beautiful woman safely home in her own chariot. He carried her inside, put her to bed, then walked seven miles back to the bar. A frigid downpour erupted halfway. It was brutal and exhilarating. It was the first time in his life that he felt truly noble.

As Edward eased out of the airlock and hooked onto the bottom of the Scatterbug, he thought of how electrifying that rain felt on his face. Like he was in a movie, the camera retreating, him dancing in the puddles, forever warmed by love at first sight.

He was in a new movie now. A death at every turn movie, the kind you don’t survive in the real world and he was trapped with his nerves inside the stifling space suit. The airlock sealed him outside. All he heard was his thumping heart and his short, tense breaths. He gripped the tether, then used his other hand to pull against a bar just beneath the air lock. He needed to stay underneath the Scatterbug and, hopefully, out of view. He did inch his helmet away from the hull just enough to eye four small ships shaped like six-pointed Christmas stars on the top of a pine tree. They were attached to chains which they used to drag the Scatterbug toward the Space Hopper. The ships were small, too small to contain living pilots, but they did possess rows of small missiles attached to each of the ships’ wings, like righteous angels of death.

Out of nervous habit, Edward felt for the data pad affixed to the outside of his suit on the chest. It was his lifeline during space walks, his link to the Scatterbug and the Chaos Machine within. That data pad would also be his key into the Space Hopper, provided he could find the entrance before his oxygen ran out.

Edward unhooked as they approached the gaping cargo door of the Space Hopper. He’d never seen one of the transports up close and could now see how it dwarfed X-Verse’s Community Pods. The Space Hopper wasn’t meant for colonization and exploration, it was meant to control area like the naval aircraft carriers on Earth. Where the Space Hopper jumped, it owned.

Once the shadow of the Space Hopper swept over the Scatterbug, Edward pushed away, dropping below the entrance and gliding beneath the Space Hopper. With a control built into his right glove, he flexed his right finger to release oxygen out of his tank through a jet that sent him veering back up to the Space Hopper hull. He gripped along the smooth surface, grasping for any angles. The sheer metal swept by, he released another blast to push him into the hull. His body rolled. He caught sight of a protruding bar and jammed his arm through, catching it in the crook of his elbow. His shoulder groaned as tendons strained, but his momentum stopped as his body flailed. He steadied, looked around him, noticing an airlock fifty feet further beneath the hull.

He pulled himself close to the hull, then pushed along the bottom toward the air lock. His trajectory was separating from the ship, but he had nothing to grab onto. He waited. The air lock approached, but his direction sent him drifting. He released more oxygen. He moved back toward the hull as the air lock came within grasp. His gloved hand met the release bar, but slid off. He emptied his oxygen tank, correcting, pushing him back toward the air lock. Red lights flashed inside his helmet, a robotic voice insisted “Return to ship immediately. You are out of oxygen.” He felt the air go stale as the tank stopped circulating.

Edward’s breaths were bigger than he wanted as he retrieved his data pad from off the chest of his suit. He pulled a cord from the side of the pad, found the port on the control screen next to the air lock, and plugged in his data pad.

“Begin emergency open air lock,” Edward said as calmly as he could manage. “Do not notify ship personnel.”

On the data pad, a swirling circle indicated that the machine was thinking and communicating.

“Permission required for boarding,” the data pad read. “Request permission?”

“No, emergency open on grounds of International Salvage and Rescue protocol,” Edward said. “Do not notify ship personnel.”

The data pad was thinking, negotiating with the Space Hopper computer, both programs likely confused by the odd request. Edward knew that international space law allowed for emergency boardings of ships, but usually in response to an SOS broadcast.

The air lock gasped out air, the release bar turned, then the latch swung open. Edward climbed in, pulling the air lock shut behind him.

He was safe for the moment and alive for as long as the crew didn’t throw him back off the ship. By now, his Scatterbug would be covered with Regency scientists, perhaps mercenaries too. He couldn’t stowaway forever, he needed a way back home.

He could send a broadcast if he could find the communications computer. Call in the cavalry and hope for the best. Refueling the Scatterbug and escaping the cargo hold seemed impossible, but perhaps with the right diversion, he could buy enough time.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Diversion?                           Or                           Send  A Distress Signal?

 

Edward was startled that the enemy looked no different from those at an X-Verse Community Pod, wandering the halls of a corporate building, or playing on company indoor soccer teams. They were just people. Talked the same, looked the same, not surly and devious, no telltale markers of evil intentions. Just bored, laughing, and going about their day.

But capable of killing. Maybe. Probably. Not worth risking his life.

So Edward crept through the halls, having long-ago discarded his space suit. He kept close to the walls, ducked under windows, and only eyed the crew to know where not to go. He gripped the data pad tight to his chest.

Edward didn’t know the layout of the Space Hopper. It wasn’t part of his training since X-Verse never envisioned a time that a Scatterbug pilot would ever attempt something so dumb as a boarding an enemy ship. Edward was surprised at how different the Space Hopper was from the simple, wide open halls of the Community Pod. The Space Hopper was cramped, more like the World War II Naval Destroyer that his father took him to when they visited California. All tight turns, metal stairs, and obscure instruments, nobs, and buttons that meant something to somebody on that ship but made no sense to Edward.

The maze actually comforted him, since it was much easier to sneak into the guts of the Space Hopper. Plenty of dark corners to duck into, plenty of alternate paths to circle around clusters of chatting crew members. It seemed almost too easy.

So, of course, the intercom buzzed to life.

“We have a stowaway, initiate lockdown! We have a stowaway, initiate lockdown!”

Hushed questions, then hurried, clanking footsteps. Edward froze in place, cursing silently. As far as he knew, X-Verse didn’t have a plan for being boarded, so he didn’t have a clear idea of what lockdown would entail. Surely the personnel would hide away in locked rooms to avoid becoming hostages, the Scatterbug would be swarmed with sentries, the captain would be sealed up in the control room. Then men with weapons would scour the ship looking for him. Probably a short-range stunning device, blunt objects, but surely nothing with projectiles, not with the threat of a hull puncture. Though he did remember something about Russian cosmonauts taking shotguns up into space.

Did they just not see evidence that he opened up the air lock, were they guessing, or had they found the Space Suit he crammed into the incinerator chute? It seemed like such a brilliant idea, but got stuck.

“Dumb, Edward, dumb.”

He took a breath to clear his mind. He had to get moving. They knew the ship, knew its obvious hiding places that Edward would think were just as clever as stuffing his Space Suit where it wouldn’t fit.  The only thing he was certain of was he needed to find the heart of the ship. If he wanted to panic everyone on the ship and draw them away from the cargo hold, there was only one sure way to do it.

A long gangway stood before him, each step a gentle clank no matter how careful he shifted his weight. Beneath him, another level with lights glowing from windows he couldn’t see into, but they also couldn’t see up to him. He proceeded with as easy as footfalls as gravity would allow.

He smelled them before he heard them. Harsh aftershave like mildew and dried autumn leaves. Edward didn’t know if it was the constrained space or the man just had no regard for others stuck on the ship with him. Edward was halfway across the gangway now, unwilling to take another step, sure that if he could smell them, they would hear him move. Edward waited, hearing fabric rustling, approaching steps, a grumble about “drills.”

Then they were beneath him. Clothing was vaguely military like a militia from a third world nation without the means to produce proper uniforms. No helmet, just a brimmed hat, no patches aside from a Regency logo. They both held batons about a foot and a half long, metal, would definitely leave a bruise, maybe a skull fracture. He noticed a button near the grip and guessed that it would release an electrical current to add some sparkle to their little hurt machines.

They paused and both looked over a data pad featuring a layout of the ship. Edward peered down over their shoulders onto the green and black design, looking for landmaks, seeing flashing red dots that he assumed equated to sentries wandering the hallways, looking for the stowaway.

If he survived this, she would love this story. They often talked of boarding a train as hobos, going wherever the tracks took them, stay the weekend, and find a way back home. They spoke of it so much Edward really assumed it would happen. Just as he had assumed the same thing of marriage.

Instead, he fled to the other side of the universe.

One of the men muttered “clear” into a microphone hanging around his neck, then the pair walked on. Edward smiled. He’d seen what he needed to on their data pad and, in just a few more turns, he was there.

The Chaos Machine.

The room was small and dark. Unguarded because who would be dumb enough to sabotage a Chaos Machine? It could lead to the instantaneous death of everyone on board or jump them right down the throat of a black hole. But it wasn’t about being dumb enough, it was about being desperate.

The Chaos Machine was a tall glass cylinder with tiny bursting lights, micro suns and universes popping into and out of existence. A million micro Big Bangs happening over and over again as particles collided in incredible speed and intensity, creating the chaos that allowed the ship’s computer to hack physics on the quantum level.

Edward had read three books on his own Chaos Machine, but still felt he understood so little about it. Even the engineers that developed the first Chaos Machine admitted that they had no firm idea how or why it worked, but only that it did. It told reality that the ship had its own gravity, that the ship was no longer in Point A, but was now on Point B a trillion miles away. A god. Humanity was mass producing gods.

But gods that were easy to confuse.

Edward plugged his data pad into a port next to the Chaos Machine. Regency’s version of the Chaos Machine was essentially a stolen design from an early X-Verse version, so Edward knew just what to do. A few lines of code here and there, unplug the data pad and await the chaos inside the machine to spill out across the entire ship.

He turned for the door. It slid open before he punched the button and two sentries with sparkling batons stood in his way. They grinned like jackals, now looking evil.

But Edward grinned bigger.

The Chaos Machine pulsed a bright white. All three men flew away from it as gravity swiveled 90 degrees. They fell into the wall in a heap. A sharp sting hit Edward’s back as the baton shocked him. He rolled away, grabbed the baton and smacked one man in the face. The spark sent him into convulsions. Edward jabbed the other in the gut, the man immediately jerking and twisting as electricity coursed through his veins.

Edward retrieved his data pad and ran along the wall, leaping across a hallway, having only a vague idea of which direction to head for the cargo hold. A white pulse belched from the room with the Chaos Machine, gravity swiveled again and Edward rolled to the ceiling. He regained his feet, scrambling ahead, having to jump over webworks of pipes and emergency sprinklers, but making good time. He knew the pattern and timing of the gravity shifts, which the rest of the crew didn’t, so if he kept his head, he might have a chance of refueling the Scatterbug, opening the cargo hold and fleeing into the relative safety of space.

But his own Chaos Machine would need thirty minutes to warm up after he started the engine. It needed time to get the micro Big Bangs blooming, to give his computer the chance to jump Edward back home. He could speed for the asteroids, try to dodge between the floating boulders and risk an impact, perhaps another rupture, or stand and fight the Christmas Stars of Death, hoping to survive long enough for the Chaos Machine to wake up.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Flight?                                   OR                          Fight?

 

By the time Edward reached the cargo hold, the gravity had shifted over a dozen times. He was battered, his lip dripping blood, but he imagined he was in better shape than the crew. His stomach boiled acid from the nausea-inducing gravity swings, but he pushed forward, running along the ceiling and jumping up to climb through the door leading into the massive cargo hold. Supplies and tools were tossed around the ceiling with some men crumpled into sickening heaps like broken rag dolls, some hanging from the floor up above, gripping anything locked down.

Edward worried that crew would soon reach the Chaos Machine to debug the program. Time was running out. Based on his pattern, gravity would swivel two more times before it would be on the floor again. His Scatterbug, as he suspected, was clamped onto the floor, now thirty feet above his head. Along the right wall were three rows of Christmas star drones, locked into place, awaiting their chance to seek out something to kill. He counted twenty-one, ready to be unleashed on whoever defied the Regency empire.

Edward felt the gravity tug to his right. He clung to the door, absorbing the shift, steadying himself as everything in the room not locked down crashed along the wall. Bodies collected into a pile, blood streaks marking their paths. Death. Something he was responsible for. It was a hard thing to comprehend, something he knew he would only be able to untangle once he was safely back on Earth. Something he would have to answer for, if not with jail time, then with guilt and uncertainty.

He shut off that part of his mind and lifted his data pad. He tapped onto the link to his ship and waited for the connection. A swirling circle flashed to a green infinity symbol. Diagnostics ran on the Scatterbug as the computer stirred awake. Regency had refueled the ship as Edward hoped. They’d want to fire the ship up so they could examine its capabilities, steal what they could before kicking the ship off into space and returning home to show off what they learned. They could claim salvage, but there would be difficult questions that followed, specifically about the missing pilot. Better to steal and dump.

This reassured him, that he must have made the right decision. Kill or be killed. Edward initiated the start-up cycle for the Chaos Machine and waited for gravity to shift again.

But then gravity was gone. They’d reached the Chaos Machine and shut it down.

“There he is!” a voice shouted from the floor. A man clinging to a bolted down metal crate pointed at Edward as a handful of other survivors looked in Edward’s direction.

He scanned the cargo hold, looking for a port to plug his data pad into. Along the far wall, a small monitor glowed next to the cargo doors. Edward pushed off the wall, gliding across the cargo hold. Infuriated threats sounded off across the room as the survivors gathered their courage. A wrench spun past Edward’s head, bouncing off the cargo doors. Edward caught the wrench and wedged it under his armpit. He guessed he had a few minutes of zero gravity before the Chaos Machine reset. He’d need to be inside the Scatterbug by then with the cargo doors open. He couldn’t fight inside the Space Hopper. He needed room for his ship to maneuver.

Edward slammed against the wall next to the monitor, clinging to the frame of the cargo doors as his body bounced. He settled, pulled out the cord from his data pad and plugged it into the monitor. As he’d hoped, the controls weren’t encrypted since Regency hadn’t anticipated an intruder boarding their ship.

Metal groaned and the Scatterbug unsettled from the floor, drifting up slowly. A yellow light began flashing, an electronic horn sounding.

“Shit! He’s opening the doors! Get to the controls!”

Edward gave himself one minute before the doors opened. Men were pushing off various spots in the cargo hold and floating toward Edward. Edward lifted the wrench and slammed it into the monitor. Sparks and broken glass spewed out. He pushed away from the wall toward the Scatterbug. He wielded the wrench as a weapon, threatening the men floating past who dodged and rolled away from him.

He released the wrench, lifted the data pad and tapped a button. The Scatterbug’s rear air lock gasped open. He reached the hull, quickly pulling himself along the outside of the Scatterbug, swinging around the end and slipping through the air lock. He closed and sealed the door, a rush of relief following. The pressurized chamber hissed, equalizing, then the other end of the air lock slid open to allow Edward to pull himself along the ship toward the cockpit.

Through the forward windows, he saw the men floating toward the Scatterbug, the light still flashing yellow. Two men were digging through the wires of the monitor beside the cargo door. Edward punched buttons, scanning his systems, arming the missiles, warming up the propulsion system. The familiar hums and buzzes as welcoming as a lover’s “hello.”

A thud brought his attention up. A crewmember was on his hull, climbing toward the window wielding the wrench Edward had left behind. The crewmember raised it, preparing to smash the window.

The doors growled open, the empty space sucking the air out of the cargo hold. Everything loose tumbled out the opening doors. The man released the wrench and clung to the Scatterbug, meeting Edward’s eyes. For a brief moment, Edward wondered if they would have been friends if they’d met any other way.

But then the man was gone. Gasping and freezing, he fell into the infinite. His body would likely never be recovered.

The propulsion system fired, the Scatterbug shot out through the cargo doors and zipped out through the floating debris, a body bouncing off the hull. Edward swung the Scatterbug around, his thumb resting on the black button with a red ring. The drones would be released soon. He only had six missiles. He could just destroy the Space Hopper now, wait for the Chaos Machine to wake up, then jump home. He felt the resistance of the button. His thumb begged to press down, but he hesitated. He checked the timer for the Chaos Machine. Nineteen minutes. He would need to survive a swarm of drones for Nineteen minutes, then he was home and there would be no more death for today.

His thumb moved from the button and he waited. With fourteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds, the drones poured out of the cargo hold and turned for the Scatterbug. Edward pushed the thrusters into full power, speeding at the drones. He unleashed a single missile into the swarm, hitting the lead. It burst into a fireball, winging drones around it. The swarm belched out a flurry of smaller, quicker rockets.

Edward turned the Scatterbug away, pointed down toward the Space Hopper, leading the rockets behind him. He veered from the Space Hopper, caught the swarm breaking off into two groups, one trailing him, the other trying to cut in front of his path. He turned again to split between them. He jerked over to plunge into the tail of the second swarm. It burst off in all directions, pulling off the rockets confused by the mess of heat signatures.

Edward pulled away, seeing on his radar that two rockets still followed him and were closing. The first swarm was now speeding his direction. Another cloud of rockets were released. Explosions erupted from his right where drones failed to outrun their own weapon systems.

Again, the Scatterbug turned, this time away from both swarms and toward the asteroid belt. The rockets closed quickly. Edward wound through the first smaller rocks. Explosions from behind as some of the cloud didn’t register the obstructions in time. Still more death followed.

Edward wound around a larger asteroid, dipped around another, the cloud thinning as rockets couldn’t make the turns in time, built for speed instead of agility. The Scatterbug escaped the asteroid belt to meet the swarms. He unleashed three missiles in quick succession, right through the center of the swarm. Two exploded, destroying or disabling six drones. The Scatterbug slipped through the debris, forcing the swarm to veer around, unloading another wave of rockets. Edward pointed the ship back toward the Space Hopper, opening up the jets and racing for the ship. The rockets were almost on top of him as he reached the hull, dropped down beneath the Space Hopper and climbed back around the other side. As he suspected, the Space Hopper disabled the rockets when they got to close, not wanting to risk the ship’s integrity from a rogue explosion.

The swarms slipped around both sides of the Space Hopper. Edward steadied the ship into position next to the Space Hopper, daring the drones to fire.

A buzz erupted on his monitor. A communication. It echoed several times before Edward finally punched the monitor, answering the call.

A woman appeared, blonde, pretty, but stern. Edward could tell from her eyes that she was trying not to appear enraged and rattled.

“Move again and we will fire,” she said simply. “Surrender and we will take you back to Earth for trial.”

Edward rotated the Scatterbug to face the Space Hopper.

“Fire and I destroy your hull and kill your crew,” Edward said.

The captain looked off-screen. A crewmember stepped into frame and whispered into her ear. She nodded and the crew member moved away. She looked back toward Edward.

“You’ve killed twelve of our people,” she said. “Why?”

“Just trying to get home,” Edward said, thinking of the love of his life. Wondering where she was, if she still loved him, if all of this had been worth it.

“We would have taken you home if you would have just asked us,” the captain said. “What did you think we would do, just kick you out into space and leave?”

Edward flushed red, furious and suddenly unsure.

“Yes,” he answered.

The captain’s eyes narrowed.

“Really?” she asked, her eyes wide, almost hurt. Her surprise unnerved him. A green light appeared on his display, announcing  the Chaos Machine was online.

“I’d seen your drones packed with rockets that could destroy my shift several times over,” Edward said. “We know you’ve taken three of our Community Pods. I wasn’t going to be next in line.”

The woman was either good at pretending or sincerely had no idea what he was talking about.

A voice drew her attention away. She nodded, looked back to the screen.

“Go home, pilot. Tell X-Verse that you single-handedly started a war. Then consider your life, knowing that, no matter where you go, we will find out who you are and we will make you pay.”

Edward looked away from the screen to the swarms of drones, rockets trained on him. Knowing that he would replay this event for the rest of his life, he second-guessed every decision he’d made, haunted by every life he’d taken.

But those drones are war machines. Regency are pirates. I had no other choice. This thought would become his mantra for decades to come, repeating it when the nightmares came, knowing that he would never fully convince himself that it was the truth.

The End

Thank God

PREVIOUS / NEXT

Hindenburg w/ Bison

Hinde