THE RETRIEVAL IV – CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
The coffin was a re-purposed shipping container for mining explosives. Re-enforced, radiation-proof, air-tight, the perfect seal to preserve a body. David watched from his cockpit as sentries pushed the container across the loading docks, led by Oscar Willington and flanked by a dozen other sentries. Score of a lifetime.
David had encountered human traffickers before. Everyone in the smuggling business dealt with them or, at the very least, shared a room with them from time to time. Human traffickers were considered the lowest of the profession, even those that were coyoting undocumented workers into colonies with strong union contracts.
Human traffickers were all vile. Every damn one of them.
“He was alive, Robin,” David told the computer.
“I know.”
“When did you know?” David asked.
“I registered a heartbeat thirty-four minutes after you brought him on board,” the computer said, the electronic voice almost perfectly toned to empathetic regret.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“This was your score, darling. This is what you’ve worked for your entire career. You were going to be rich, but if I told you, I knew you’d have second thoughts.”
David rested back in his captain’s chair and forced his eyes off the coffin.
“I still sold him, didn’t I?” David asked, but the computer knew enough to not answer.
As the procession disappeared behind steel doors, yellow lights around the docks began flashing. Personnel began walking to the nearest entrance. The lights dimmed and the bay doors groaned open above. Red dust swirled into the docks.
“Shall we, my dear?” the computer asked.
“Get me out of here.”
***
“Congratulations, Robin Brian, you are a billionaire!”
A red circle spun on the screen, indicating the computer was still recording.
“I will tell you more later, but I am on my way home now. Don’t tell anyone, but, well, we are very, very rich. I, uh, I’m not quite sure what to say. I guess I’m a little numb, but, damnit, delete message.”
“Do you want to try again, darling?” the computer asked.
“No, just let her know that we are on our way back.”
“Of course, whatever you need.”
David stood from the captain’s chair and moved to the cargo bay. He punched a button that slid a door around a cylinder. Inside was the Chaos Machine, a tall glass tube flashing with micro Big Bangs, supernovas, racing comets, clusters of universes all contained within a thin shell. The most important advance of human civilization. David leaned toward the Chaos Machine, a hand pressing against the glass. A tiny comet veered off course and smashed against the glass where his index finger pressed. The comet burst into a spray of dust drifting back out into the heart of the machine. David leaned further against the machine, his cheek pressing against the glass. A small universe fell toward him. A large, gaseous, swirling cluster of millions of stars, floating toward the glass, sweeping along the surface, trying to touch David’s cheek. David reached around the machine, curling his arm to the very back where his fingertips felt the neck of a whiskey bottle. He clutched it between his fingers and pulled it out, leaning off the Chaos Machine. The universe moved off the glass, recollecting into its previous shape and gliding back out amid the empty space inside the Chaos Machine. The door swept shut and David sat down on the cargo bay floor as he cradled the whiskey.
David wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to sneak the whiskey on board his ship every time he left home. Robin probably wouldn’t say anything, but David didn’t like the way a lonely bottle looked on board his ship. He didn’t like what it said about him and his ability to withstand the isolation of space. Most trips, he wouldn’t even crack it open, but still liked that it was there. A comfort. A luxury. An “In Case Of Emergency”.
“How soon until we can jump?” David asked, as he cracked the seal of the whiskey.
“Ten minutes. We just need to move a little further into open space.”
“Roger that,” David said, spinning off the cap and taking a pull.
A bourbon. An angry, aggressive bourbon at that. He drank. He drank a little more, then a little more, then a little more.
“So, is fake Robin going to turn me into scrap?” the computer asked.
“No, why would you even think that?”
“Because she said that when you retired, she’d turn me into scrap?”
David chuckled. “She really say that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, fake Robin says a lot of things,” David said. “Real Robin, I mean. Real Robin.
Another long pull and a third of the bottle was already gone.
“Hasn’t it been ten minutes, yet? Robin? Why aren’t we jumping?”
“Um, David?”
“Yes, Robin?” David responded, then took one last pull.
“We have a problem.”
The burn tightened his throat, making him grimace and shiver. He pushed himself off the wall and onto his feet, the whiskey swishing around in his brain. He looked at the bottle, noticing the cap was gone, then checked his pockets. He turned in a tight circle while gazing at the ground.
“I want to get home. Can we deal with it later?”
The circles made him nauseous, so he stopped and closed his eyes, reaching out for the wall.
“Not really,” the computer insisted. There was borderline panic in its voice. “Can you please come to the cockpit, like right now?”
The whiskey was hitting faster than David expected. He opened his eyes slimly and looked back down to the floor, seeing the cap inches away from his feet. He gingerly leaned down to pick it up. His fingers fumbled with it, forcing him to chase the rolling cap around the cargo bay floor. The whiskey dripped from the tilted bottle as he went, marking David’s unsteady path.
“David?”
“Give me a minute, I got problems of my own right now.”
David latched onto the cap, carefully gripping it with his fingers as he brought it up with an intense gaze fixed on the cap. He then noticed the spilled whiskey and laughed. He rubbed at the puddles with his boots, then tightened the cap on the bottle. He staggered back to the Chaos Machine, opened the swiveling door and struggled to reach the bottle back into its hiding spot. A cosmos tickled his nose smashed against the glass.
“David!”
“I’m coming, damn!”
David pushed off the Chaos Machine and took a few moments to let the world settle from its spin. He took cautious baby steps across the cargo bay back toward the cockpit.
“Alright, what’s the problem?” David asked as he staggered across the cockpit and collapsed into the captain’s chair.
“Are you kidding me? Turn around.”
David swiveled the captain’s chair around to see the Wonderboy clone standing a few feet away. David had walked right past him.
“Take me to Earth,” the clone said.
“Also, there’s this,” the computer said. The monitor blinked on. Oscar Willington glared at David, then saw the Wonderboy clone behind him.
“David,” Willington began with his strained, tight smile. “You’ve been in the game long enough to know that stealing from me is a very big mistake.”
“Umm,” David turned from the monitor to the clone, then back to Willington. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Really? Then what is it?”
“Take me to Earth,” the clone repeated.
“Oh, no, you are coming back to me Mr. Lima,” Willington said. “I bought you fair and square.”
The clone looked to David.
“You sold me?” the clone asked.
“Umm,” David struggled, now wishing away the alcohol muddying his thoughts. “It isn’t what it looks like?”
WHAT DO YOU DO?
TAKE LIMA BACK TO WILLINGTON OR ESCAPE TO EARTH
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