Tag: audio fiction

Yep, things are weird. I expected weird, but I mostly expected green people with bald heads and huge eyes weird. I’ve got a whole different crate of weird going here. Like, for example, I wanted to figure out why the D&G wing melted down, right?

Olivia wouldn’t let me. 

ELECTRIC SHOCK wouldn’t let me. We figured out the tanners in the pods got cranked up to “bake,” which is weird that there’s even a setting that high, but whatevs, Gated Galaxies, you do you. Anyway, I was trying to get to the circuits, but every time I did, she just said, “It’s not my fault” and blocked me. She wouldn’t tell me where the problem was, and when I tried to follow the lines, I got zapped!

The only one who can get answers out of her seems to be our shirtless hacker, Leet. That’s a little creepy too. If she had hands, I’m pretty sure she’d be the one who took his shirts. 

Anyway, we’ve lost a bunch of rich folks—Olivia says it’s about 5 percent who got toasted just after launch. Speaking of rich folks, Colin seemed to know a lot of them, or at least their names. And I’m pretty sure I saw him either crying or giggling over the list. But hey, with that accent, he’s totally working class, so maybe he cleaned their chimneys or something.

Meanwhile, I’m still looking for the proper manuals for the ship. I mean, I totally shouldn’t be here — I never finished Basic Training. Hell, I didn’t even get through the pre-training video, and it’s only 11 minutes of bad music and “you can do it,” “are you feeling juicy?!” rah rah team-building crap. I found an ancient Mandarin <> Modern English dictionary, but the only manual in ancient Mandarin is the one that explains how to open the windows, which probably won’t be all that useful. It took me almost a week to figure out the first sentence, which seems to be “season with brine and fugu,” but I could have that wrong.

不要打开他妈的窗户，你这个白痴。

Anyway, the passenger manifest is below. If nothing else, their families should have some record of what happened to them. Maybe not the truth, though. I mean…. ending up on the windshield of a spacecraft is a bit…what’s the word? gouache. 

More soon. Ish.
Captain out. 

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Yeah, so what I expected to happen isn’t what happened. I thought I was going to jump into my pod and wake up to push the “Terraform Now” button. Instead, I’m already awake, and we basically just passed the moon. OUR moon. Earth’s moon. Like, the one you can see out your childhood bedroom window and dream about visiting for your ENTIRE youth….ness. Is that a word? Youthness?

Anyway, I didn’t actually expect to see it this time. Once out of earth’s atmo, I crawled into my pod, cranked up the sleepy stuff, and yawned off for the next quarter century or so. Twenty-eight minutes later, I’m getting “wakey wakey” from some little street urchin with the history of humanity crammed in its weird little head (plus a lot more besides, as she constantly reminds us), and there’s a stinky janitor, and things have already gone pretty wrong. Oh, and if you look at the port-side windows, you can see the moon. 

But, the Oz 9 was one of the few that made it past launch, so I guess I’m not the biggest eff-up in the fleet? That said, the D&G wing totally melted down, a bunch of our “resting” guests are now “eternally resting” guests, and we accidentally hit the ship behind us with a windshield-full of human goo, so the bar for biggest eff-up is REALLY low.

I got to meet the rest of the crew, so that’s a good thing, I suppose. Leet is this sort of giant who claims to be a hacker but doesn’t seem to recognize technology, Joe’s the stinky janitor who mops obsessively and sneaks up on you, and Colin — I have no idea what Colin does other than sip his martini and complain. I thought the manuals on the bridge and in the crew room were fakes, like a joke, because none of them is in English, but we haven’t been able to find the real ones, and our AI claims her translation circuits are offline.

Speaking of the AI, Olivia … I don’t know what to say. The jury is out for lunch, as they say. Something very shifty happened in those 28 minutes, and the ship’s cameras are, of course, under Olivia’s control. Here’s hoping she’s not the culprit. 

Captain out.

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Apparently the text for “early training” was actually a “get here quick, we gotta go now,” because they just loaded up the crew pods. I could only see them from a distance, but one pod was enormous. It took eight guys and two forklifts to get it in. I heard a weird electronic squeal when they got it aboard. Probably just the overloaded forklift, but it sounded almost human.

Anyway, I guess the Congressional inquiry wrapped up faster than expected, which is great news. Means the ships are spaceworthy and ready to roll! As the captain, I have to pod myself after takeoff. It’s kinda crazy that they want us to pilot ourselves out of Earth’s atmosphere when they’ve got the ships practically on top of each other, but they say we can “draft” each other that way and save fuel.

There are about 30 ships in our launch area, and the combined rumble and thrum of that many engines is incredible. Apparently it’s blowing out windows up to 4 miles away. Oops. Someone’s getting fired! Crap. I hope it’s not me. It can’t be me, can it? I really should start reading the emails they send me. 

Hang on. Someone’s waving me over. 

(Later)

Holy shizznits, kids, I’M ON BOARD THE NINE! She’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my whole life. I mean, the bridge is so new, everything is still covered in bubble wrap (YESSSS!), and I had to use my pocketknife to get rid of the packaging. Even the helm had a strip of paper around it reading, “Sanitized for your safety.” I cut that ribbon like a Mayor at a mall.

I’ve been running through the takeoff protocol, which is on a Post-it note on the arm of my chair. You’d think it’d be a bit more … detailed? But it’s basically “poke this button, poke this button, pull this lever, pray.” “Pray” is unsettling, but I’m getting that G2 has a sense of humor. I just found the “manual,” and it’s in some funky language I don’t speak. Cut ups, man.

As soon as we’re safely out in space, I’ll crawl into my pod and wait for Earth-point-two to appear on our horizon. I hope they remember to take the newspaper off the front window thingy.

Captain out. 

 

 

 

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OK, it’s weird how many sandwiches they keep loading onto the ship — I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, given the atomic cloud of pot smoke that came out of the 9 when they opened the cargo door this morning — but it’d be nice if they invited the CAPTAIN to the picnic, sheesh. And the pre-picnic; apparently there’s no pee test to be a space captain, WOOT!

They actually started loading up some of the pods already. That’s crazy to see. All these totally posh folks with these weird looks of horror frozen on their faces, being loaded up on dollies and wheeled aboard. One guy had to have an extension on his pod because he was holding a martini and couldn’t put his arm down. I mean, come on….. It’s not like he’ll be taking a sip for the next 25 years or so.

I think I saw one of my crew, the janitor maybe? sneaking around, trying to get in. He looks a little familiar, like maybe I knew him when I was a kid or something? Anyway, I was mostly distracted that the dude’s pants were falling down. Like, srsly, get a belt. Sheesh. They call ME “Madpants”…. 

Oooooo, weird. They just fired up the engines. They’ve had some systems running for a while, mostly to get the ship oxygenated and to prep for the pods, but this is the first time I’ve heard the full engines. It’s amazing; I can feel it in the ground, running up from my feet, through my body, and making my hair stand on end. This is what excitement feels like, if you could feel it. I mean you CAN feel it, I know I know, but I mean if you could feel it externally rather than infernally. 

Heard one of the stevedorks talking about how he wouldn’t fly on one of these Oz model 8000s because apparently they were bought at a “fire sale.” Like a for-real fire sale, like if they didn’t find a buyer, they were just going to set them all on fire. What a waste that would have been. I mean… look at her! She’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

Just got a text for the crew to report for “early training.” Weird…. 

Captain out.

 

 

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