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Cal Carver’s last day on Earth started badly, improved momentarily, then rapidly went downhill. It began with him being sentenced to two years in prison, and ended with the annihilation of two thirds of the human race. Somewhere in between, there was a somewhat enjoyable moment when he ate a lemon drop, but otherwise it was a pretty grim twenty-four hours all round.
“Good. Right. Of course you do,” said Cal. He waited, cranking his smile up a notch to be on the safe side. It was a smile so dazzling, you could practically hear the ding as the light reflected off his teeth. The warden, however, appeared unmoved.
If he had to guess, Cal would have said it was an officer’s uniform, although he had no idea which army it belonged to. A space-faring paramilitary wing of the Catholic Church, perhaps.
lampshade. If it was a lampshade, though, then it was one that had clearly been designed by someone who’d never seen a lampshade before, and who had also just taken a potentially fatal amount of LSD.
It reminded Cal of the time he’d worked in a customer services call center which, despite everything that had happened recently, remained the worst six hours of his adult life.
“Forget it, doesn’t matter,” said Cal. “None of this explains why I’m saying ‘fonk’ instead of fonk.” He pointed to his mouth. “See? I just did it again.” “The chip’s translation system filters out certain words and substitutes them with something less likely to cause offense,” said Sinclair.
Cal asked. He held up a hand and began listing on his fingers. “Fonk, shizz, pimsy, bamston, cump, twazz… Shizzing motherfonking jotztrumpet. Arrgh!” “You get the idea…” Sinclair began, but Cal wasn’t finished yet. “Amshoop. Amswod. Amsclod? Bedge, donchenod, dirty fonking slodgebiscuits.” Cal threw his arms in the air. “Argh! Damn it!”
“Is that a curse word?” “You’re damn right it is!” cheered Cal, triumphantly. “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, dandge.” His face fell. “Dandge. Dandge. Oh… fonk it.”
“The first few warp jumps can be a little disconcerting,” Loren said. ‘Disconcerting’ wasn’t the word Cal would have used for
Then his innards and his soul had slammed back into place, as if attached to his body by a length of elastic. Colors had swum before his eyes. His eyes, in turn, had somersaulted around inside his head like the barrels of a slot machine, while his head itself had dripped down his neck like melting ice cream and pooled in a puddle in his lap.
“Very good, sir,” said Janet. “Who should I send?” Sinclair glanced behind him at the screen. “Sir?” said Janet. “Who should I send?” A grin twisted its way across Sinclair’s face. “Everyone, Janet,” he said. “Send everyone.”
