The black and white pawns don’t fight each other; they join forces. (Bohemian Rhapsody)

The following poem was found in the pocket of noted programmer and chess master, Hex. He was found dead in a bohemian junkheap along with an assortment of homeless people, stray dogs, and one inexplicable parrot.

It can be found at the Museum of Science and Technology in Alba City.

Checkmate

Pawn takes Rook

And the game ended.

King to D1

Even the lowest of servants

Can end the world.

Queen takes Queen

Age was the detriment to youth

Youth was cleverer than age

Youth won the game.

Queen to G6

The Queen betrayed him in the end.

He was too foolish to see all the angles and schemes.

He didn’t even see the revolution coming

Until it was too late.

Bishop to A4

She had fallen in love with the enemy.

They eloped to a new land beyond the cruelty of the cage.

The King was trapped

But he couldn’t see the bars

Until they ate him whole.

Rook takes Knight

There are times when religion is the detriment of life.

It tells people who to fight, who to kill,

Who to love.

It can blind us to the world around us for the sole purpose of giving the cruel and cowardly power.

But there is a rose inside all the cruelty and hatred.

We can pluck it out without killing it.

Knight takes Knight

Anyone can fight against the powerful.

To do so successfully requires, among other things, a belief in one’s self.

A willingness to listen to those the systems of cruelty

Have told you it’s wrong to love.

The powerful have rarely earned their power, often given it by birth.

Overthrowing such power is quite difficult,

But not impossible.

Pawn to C8

The story of war is that of soldiers being told to kill other soldiers.

Sometimes, those who aren’t soldiers are forced to kill soldiers

Because those who speak for God told them to

Because those with power said it was the right thing to do

Because love made them blind in their devotion.

Those in power rarely fight.

More often than not, you will die

For their pointless, bitter war

Queen to B1

Movement in life is quite difficult.

At every corner, there’s someone waiting to kill you

Even those who think single mindedly and straightforwardly can do it.

The stories we tell our children teach them as much.

Power is for the powerful.

They’re allowed to love those we cannot

Because they say they can.

It takes critical thinking to out maneuver their system,

But, ultimately, it’s worth it in the end.

Bishop to D4

The base assumption of chess is that, should the monarchy fall, all would descend into chaos.

The pawns would simply wander aimlessly without a sense of direction,

The knights would kill each other indiscriminately,

Even slaughter and be slaughtered by those they claim to protect.

Not even faith would be enough to keep the world at peace.

But that’s not true. That’s not true at all.

The game of monarchy is one of constant backstabbing and betrayal

One that ultimately has no point other than keeping the monarchs in power.

When freed from the base assumption and allowed to live their lives,

Even a pawn can enact material social progress.

Pawn to A4

Life is a series of movements on a chess board without any players.

You move through the motions, day in, day out.

You are told that the game is kill or be killed.

That to be strong is the best way to approach any given situation

Because some higher power, somewhere, somehow

Is in complete control.

But that’s a load of bupkis. The powerful are just as in control as you are

Just as bound to the rules of the game, even as they cheat at it (for it is their role to cheat and they love it so), as you are

It’s funny, the only winning move in the game of life

Is to smash the board.

The game was complex and strange.

It started when a servant walked into a room she wasn’t allowed into. It wasn’t intentional, mind you. The room was typically open to the public, even to someone as lowly as her.

But that was the day the church was baptizing the new king. There was to be complete privacy, lest their god be angered by the infidelity. So they claimed.

In truth, the Queen wanted control of the kingdom for a very long time. She saw this as the perfect moment to strike, to escape from a loveless marriage and rule the kingdom the way it ought to be ruled.

Any witnesses to what would transpire would need to be silenced. Which is why, quite unfortunately, the servant entered the room. She saw all that they were doing, all they had done. The king was dead. And there was but one loose end to tie.

The Queen’s Knight tried to slay the servant, as many a knight has done. One could say part of the job of being a knight is silencing those who would speak poorly of those in power. Even those close to them.

But tragedy befell the knight as, in his attempts to kill the servant, he loosened a stone from the castle’s walls. The stone held a pillar, which held a roof. With the pillar loosened, the roof shattered, if only slightly. It was enough to smother him.

The bishop tried to escape from the room, destroying itself in the wake of a pointless and cruel power grab. So the story goes, he was able to escape. But then, stories have a tendency of lying about their truth. If only to keep the bishops in their place.

The Queen, likewise, tried to escape. The stories tend to confirm her failure to escape. She was crushed, quite unceremoniously, under the weight of her kingdom’s stones.

For in the end, the story is one with the moral: don’t let the ambitions of women have sway in the affairs of men, lest they destroy the kingdom. The queen may have power, but if not tempered by the cool head of the king, all will be lost.

It is a cruel and awful story. One that exists to control the narrative of the world in favor of kings. Indeed, the story expands to further cruelty, as all defenses of the monarchy do. For how else did the kingdom fall but for one servant to not know her place. Were she to have known where she was meant to be, to be where her masters wished her to be rather than in the place her stupid mind thought she was meant to be, the kingdom would still be standing. 

Of course, as with all stories, there are always escape hatches, even unintentional ones. For the stories, the ones not told in the halls of church and state, offer a different moral, a different lesson. The focus is place, in their telling’s, on the servant, not the monarch. The servant escapes from the collapse of the world. The intentions were clear and understandable. She planned to be in the wrong place, baited the knight to strike at that spot, and slew the vicious monarch. She was mistreated by those in power, those who saw her as disposable. So she played the game her way, and down, down, down the monarchy fell.

Checkmate…

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I miss you dreadfully! (Jupiter Jazz Part 2)

“Are you Ryan Chack,”

“Claudia. Claudia Valespie.”

“Two million right now. Twenty million when you finish.”

One doesn’t say no to a member of the Valespie family, even the black sheep.

“My boyfriend is on Callisto.”

“And you want me to find him?”

He claimed to have “accidentally” killed a mob boss, the head of Valespie family.

That’s not my story to tell though.

When I arrived at the empty church, it was… empty. 

I found his wallet. It had a photo ID with his name on it. 

How could two people both be named “Ryan Chack?”

“Do you have a comrade?” Ryan asked me with his sad, tender face. I found him in an abandoned by calling itself the Lovely Angel. There were some bottles of beer left over after the owners bailed. Ryan was there alone, waiting for no one in particular. When I realized that he would no longer be going to the Blue Crow, I asked around for other bars in the area. The city, like all driving cities, is vast with empty buildings creating the majority of the skyline. One could say it was a ruin of a city, though that would be too kind to ruins. Some of the buildings were still intact while others were on their way to collapse. Just like any other city, I suppose. In truth, the Lovely Angel was my third stop.

“A comrade,” I asked. Comrade has a unique meaning in my family. Or, at the very least, it does for my brother and I. When we were kids, we would play this game with some of our fellow locals. Soviets and Pigs, we’d call it. Half of us would try to steal a thing (usually a ball or a rock. One time, it was girl we knew who wanted to play. I think I can still see the scar on my leg from when that game ended exactly how you’d expect) and the other half would try to protect it. Whenever my brother and I would play the game, we’d be on the Soviet side. And we’d always call each other “comrade.” We’d even call each other that when we weren’t playing. In fact, the last thing I said to my brother before leaving was “It was nice seeing you, comrade.” He smiled when I said that.

Ryan made a small chuckle. “You know, a comrade? A buddy, a pal, a partner.” Though his face and eyes were tender, there was also a shiftiness to the way he asked the question, a mild if earned paranoia to it. Like a dog whose been kicked one time too many. If what Vanessa said is true, I can understand why he’d ask such a question.

“It’s just me. There’s no one else here.” The lie soothes him well enough. Or, at least enough not to flee at that moment. Did he see the shifty fellows outside the bar. The ones who thought they were hiding so elegantly in their blue suits and black sunglasses? Did they really think they weren’t sticking out like a sore thumb, especially when they were stroking their guns the way one strokes a cat: with trepidation and an understanding that things could go tits up at any moment. Did he know they were actually here for me?

Mobsters, as anyone who’s dealt with them can tell you, rarely let go of a grudge. I gave up on a job too quickly and they must’ve came all the way to Callisto to find me. That must’ve been what the two million was for. Security money in case they showed up. The briefcase was in my hands with all the money in it. I slid the money towards one of the hired goons. I put a note in there fingering some other mob boss for what my brother was framed for doing. Felt only right, I suppose. He looked inside, signaled his fellows, and they all disappeared.

Ryan Chack declenched even more. (It feels weird to refer to him by my own name. Like I’m not even talking about myself whenever I say those words. Chack, it seems, is a common Martian last name, though the question of Ryan eluded me for a while.) Ryan must’ve thought I was a currier rather than a bounty hunter. The truth is, I’m neither. I’m a detective, a damn good one at that. I find people, solve mysteries, and try to do the best I can. I see things that not many others do, or say they do. Callisto, for example, is a world designed to make you miserable. The sky is perpetually grey, the world is cold and bitter, and the air tastes like sulfur and misery. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a prison planet rather than an escape from prison planet. Maybe that’s why the ISSP never comes here.

Ryan’s misery was that of someone whose whole life had been ruined by the people he loved. A narrative was beginning to shape out of the scraps, lies, and fictions I was told about him. He was born on Mars with the wrong body. He fought on Titan with the right one. He fought against the Blue Diamonds and the dissidents. He shot children and women and all the other people the military deemed to be the enemy. He was a good soldier and served for seventeen years.

When he returned to Mars, he found himself adrift and confused. His home had been burned in a freak accident. His parents had long disowned him and would only take him back if he went back to who he was when he was a child in a cage of flesh. He, rather impolitely, refused. In the years that followed, Ryan found himself on the streets doing what he could to survive. He was good at it, such that some would call him a ghost. No one could prove that he killed that mobster, stole that vase, freed those dogs. But they knew.

The last thing he did was a job on Earth. He was hired by the black sheep of the Valespie family to kill off the father. They had been together, on and off, for a few years. She helped him become the person he was always meant to be and he loved her in return. Seemed he didn’t like the direction she took in life and booted her out of the family. He was offered seventy-five million woolongs in advance and twenty-five million when the job was done. Something felt fishy about the gig to Ryan, but he wasn’t one to say no, even to a black sheep. Plus, the seventy-five mil was legit and not secretly a bomb waiting to explode. So he took the job.

Getting into the mob boss’s home was simple enough. Just pretend that you don’t exist and everyone else will follow suit. He was an old man, probably old enough to remember the first spaceships. He was very much an earth man with earthly views on fairness and cruelty. I suppose he might have been an interesting man to talk to. Ryan waited until he was well asleep before slitting the old man’s throat. That was when he heard over the intercom that someone had killed all of the old man’s children. All but one, that is. Ideas and implications were clicking in Ryan’s mind. He was set up to take the fall. He fled quite quickly, quicker than the other assassins. There was a story about two kids in the woods he liked. They heard a bear and one kid asked the other why he was tying his shoes, as if he could outrun a bear. “I can’t outrun the bear. But I can outrun you.” He fled to Callisto, the only world no one wants to go to, as evident by Claudia sending me to the world. The only downside was he had no access to the seventy-five million woolongs in his bank account. Ryan spent five months on Callisto before he entered the Lovely Angel to find me waiting for him.

He finished his beer in a single gulp. It left a soapy mustache on his clean face. “Ryan Chack.” He extended his hand out for a handshake. I returned the favor, but with a fake name.

“What kind of name is William Bonvillain? Sounds made up.” He said this with a wry smile of someone daring me to ask about his name.

“It’s as real as Ryan Chack.” In my defense, I’m kinda easy to convince to fall into obvious traps. He started yelling at me, as if I wasn’t the only person in the bar. It felt performative and staged. Did he know why I was there? Who hired me. The rant changed subject quite quickly towards Claudia Valespie and I got my answer: inexplicably, no. He asked me part of the way through the rant, just as he was getting to Valespie, if I was aware of her existence. I lied and said only vaguely. He believed me and went into even more detail about her volumes of lies and deceit. About how she tricked him into having sex with her, just to make him think she loved him.

Perhaps the most fucked up thing about the relationship was that she did love him. She fucked him over, sent him on a job she knew could only end one way. Looking at the relationship from the outside, it didn’t seem like it was a healthy one. Ryan only loved Claudia because of what she did for him. Not that Claudia was completely blameless. Choosing to have the person you once loved killed instead of the more traditional break up is a bit fucked up, to say the least. Plus, you know, she’s a sodding mobster. I’m surprised I was able to find out as much as I did about someone she wanted dead. (I was less surprised to find a bomb on the ship she had loaned me. Not taking any chances, I suppose.)

Eventually, Ryan’s words started to become more slurred and confused. Though, that might have been the tranquilizer I had slipped into his beer. Eventually, he collapsed onto the floor like a cat that had seen where a bag of kittens goes. He was surprisingly light, all things considered. The ship wasn’t too far away. Even in a walking city such as this, it was surprisingly easy to hide a spaceship if you really wanted to. I took off to Mars.

On my way there, I thought about Steven. He was a good guy, all things considered. He had a wife and a bunch of kids he loved. A part of me hoped to have a life like his one day. Sure, I have twenty million woolongs now, but it’s not like money can buy you a family or even friends. I have a small number of them, mostly acquaintances and allies, but they are still, nonetheless, my friends. Plus I have Steven. With the twenty million, I could easily get him off of Mars and on a much safer planet or moon. I’ve heard nice things about Ganymede, though the floating cities of Venus might be more our speed. I can’t wait to get to know Julia and all those adorable little tikes. I can hear the other Ryan shuffle in the background.

“I’ll let you go,” I lie, “if you tell me one thing: why’d you pick Ryan?” He didn’t say anything for a bit.

“Dunno. Just felt right, you know.” Even without looking, I could tell he was trying to find something to get him out of the chains. Wouldn’t be the first and wouldn’t be the last. I think I’m going to continue being a detective, despite my riches. I just don’t think I could stand being so… idle. Some people just need something to do, you know?

“Yeah,” I said with a soft smile. “I know.”

Why Are You Alone?

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The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. (Jupiter Jazz Part 1)

I sit in the bar with a cowboy in my hand, waiting for the end. It began on a Tuesday evening, when I was given the job. My apartment had been wrecked the night before when I called to inform my previous employers that I wouldn’t do the job they hired me to do. Seems certain mobsters don’t take kindly to people not finding those they want found. I was lucky in that they were only able to break the cosmetic stuff before I arrived. At least I can still sleep in a bed that isn’t in tatters. I suppose I should have gotten the room fixed, but I needed to get off of Mars and I needed to get off quick. These types of bastards tend not to stop at wrecking a room.

That’s when fortune gave me one of its rare smiles in the form of a radiant woman. She was dressed in a provocative red dress, the kind you don’t see outside of old noir books. The surgical scars across her body were not as noticeable as she thought they were. She walked with a newness to femininity and spoke like she had always been one. Forgive me if I screw up my language. Sometimes I say something rather rotten when I’m trying to be sweet. But she was stunning. So stunning, I thought I was day dreaming when she entered my little room. All my work was done in there. I couldn’t afford anything more.

“Are you Ryan Chack,” she asked me with a voice affecting curiosity.

“Yeah. I’m him.” I rummaged the room for a box of cigarettes, but apparently the mobsters thought it would be a cruel joke to break all of them in a scuffle. Bastards. Still, a broken cigarette is just as good as an unbroken one, I lie to myself. Fortunately, the lighter still works. “Want one?” She politely refused my gesture. Fair enough. Not everyone gets the appeal of a broken cigarette.

“I have a job for you.” She was curt with me. As I would find out much later, she had a lot on her mind.

“What kind of job?”

“Two million right now. Twenty million when you finish.” The cigarette fell out of my mouth. “Plus expenses.” Now, as many people who know me know, I’m not always one to smell bullshit. And yet, this all rank of it. For starters, she clearly had surgery done on her, the kind someone with twenty-two million woolongs to spend would be able to hide better, let alone two million. As I looked at her closer, the dress she was wearing started to show patches of age and decay. I’d probably notice more in better light, but that might just be even more damning.

At the same time, I wasn’t quite in the position to openly question my employer beyond, “What did you say your name was?”

“Claudia. Claudia Valespie.” That clinched it. I quickly told her I would take the job, whatever it may be. One doesn’t say no to a member of the Valespie family, even the black sheep. The Valespie family was perhaps one of the oldest crime syndicates in the inhabited planets. Despite being Earth based, they had enough clout and power to keep their name on the board. The Blue Diamonds learned that the hard way. You can still smell their remains on Titan. The reasons why she was the black sheep of the family were obvious to me when she first entered the room. I didn’t say them, but she knew I knew once she said her name. She became sadder when she came to this realization.

“My boyfriend is on Callisto.” She presented me with the photo of the guy. He had a smooth face, almost like a baby’s. His eyes were soft and brown, though there was a hint of anger in them. His left center tooth had been chipped and there was a small scar on his lips. His skin was slightly tan, though not dark enough to hide the shiner. He had curly hair, though the sides were partially shaved off. Not in the way one has a mohawk. It looked as if someone had failed to give him a haircut and tried desperately to fix it. Then again, I’m bald so who am I to talk about other people’s hair?

“And you want me to find him?” She nodded. “What’s his name.” She told me. I must have given her a look of incredulity as she immediately followed up the name with a hideously fake laugh before giving me a fake name. I let it slide for the moment. Instead, I asked her if she knew what he was doing on Callisto and she instead told me that he was known to hang out at a bar called the Blue Crow. I’d find out in time what he did and why. I wish I hadn’t.

We drove to the spaceport in the most opulent of cars and towards one of the most mundane of spaceships. I suppose that’s fair. Callisto has a long history of hiding criminals on the run. It stands to reason that they can’t all be murderers. Seeing the moon made me think otherwise. I’d never been to Callisto. No one goes to Callisto unless the ISSP is after you for a sum greater than seventy-five billion woolongs. It was a shithole. Not like Earth where you could at least have a conversation. I mean a proper shithole. It was a barren, desolate planet where the only life was a driving city without any cars in it. And, to top it all off, it was cold as balls.

So finding Claudia’s beau and convincing him to get off the planet wouldn’t be too hard. I started at the Blue Crow. Bartender seemed nice. Or, at the very least, he could act like he wasn’t thinking of the ways he could skin you to make a quick profit. Most of the clientele were either passed out or more focused on whatever was on the tv. Currently, it was that bounty hunter show that everyone watches for some ungodly reason. I never really got that show. It’s just two people talking about who’s going to die or go to jail soon. Sure, the lady had a nice rack and the guy looked like he’d be good for a fun one night stand, but the show just wasn’t worth it. Why watch some crap show with T and A when the internet exists? Or hell, just hire some prostitutes. I didn’t say any of this to the patrons. Even drunk, they were quite a fearsome bunch.

I asked the bartender about the lad. “Yeah, I’ve seen him,” he said with a rather uncharacteristically scornful tone. From the way he was talking to me before, I got the impression that he wanted to sleep with me before skinning me. I wasn’t much of a looker, but I had a similar build to the guy. Twinks, I think the term for us is. Maybe he knew something I didn’t. Then again, the way he said “him” rubbed me the wrong way. He must have noticed as he quickly followed up with, “He comes to the bar once in a while. Usually to listen to Gren. But Gren don’t play sax no more.” I didn’t ask what happened to Gren. His sour face told me the whole story. “Nowadays, the guy hangs out with the… other ladies.” I socked him in the face before heading out. Fortunately, the other patrons were more focused on the sudden increase in free beer to care about me.

“We’ve seen him, ya,” said one of the ladies. Her name was Vanessa and she wasn’t rich enough to look like Claudia. She could barely afford a razor to remove the five o’clock shadow, let alone the surgeries to make her look more like herself. Still, she had a beauty to her. The kind usually talked about scornfully by people who believed normality trumps humanity. She was quite sad, even when she was cheerfully talking about her life. She couldn’t quite stop telling me all the little details. How she realized who she was on Callisto, how she met others like her, how she loved and lost and loved again. So many stories, none of which are mine to tell.

When her story reached my quarry, she told me he was a sad lad. He claimed to have “accidentally” killed a mob boss, the head of Valespie family. A cold shiver went down my spine. The kind you get when an unwanted hand of a ghost touches you. I tried not to say anything, but Vanessa could tell I was worried. She held me, not the way a lover holds someone. But like one holds a fellow person when they realize that there’s no life on other planets, all that’s left is just one sentient species. That we are truly alone. She told me that my bounty, for lack of a better word, was hiding in an abandoned church. And then, she told me the rest of her story.

My life seems to be haunted by abandoned churches. My dad died in one, my mom was born in one, and my brother disappeared in one. I found Steven a few days ago after being hired to find him by some mobsters. It appeared that he had taken on some debt with the mob and had gone into hiding. They just wanted the money and, failing that, him. My job was finding people and he didn’t go by Chack, so they thought I’d be perfect for the job. I recognized my brother instantly. It had been a few years since I’d seen Steven and while he’d gained a few scars and his hair had gone grey, he was still the same kid I knew. Still the same little shit who stole my lunch money and gave it to the homeless girl outside our dump of an apartment.

I found him on the outskirts of Tharsis. He was tending a farm with a wife and three kids (two girls and a boy). We exchanged pleasantries. I asked him what kind of business he was doing with the mob. His wife looked rather worried about this question. It turned out that he didn’t owe squat to the mob. His wife used to be a moll for the mob who helped her “sugar daddy” (I think that’s the right term for kindly saying pimp) skim off from the top. Certain people in the mob caught wind and the sugar daddy put the blame on my brother, a sweet kid who would talk to Julia, his now wife, from time to time. The kids were all his from a marriage that ended in tragedy. That’s not my story to tell though.

He practically begged me not to sell him to the mob. I looked at this guy, who I haven’t seen for years, who I cared about so god damn much, who I was furious for leaving me alone with only the cruel awful world to keep me company, and I said to him, “Of course I’ll keep you safe. What are older brothers for?” He broke down in tears.

When I arrived at the empty church, it was… empty. People had once lived in the church. Some of the fires were still charred with ash and embers. But those who were there were just ghosts haunting the church like God did. I looked around for something, anything to help me find my missing person. Providence came in the confessional. There, he must have been sleeping. Because it was in there that I found his wallet. It had two hundred woolongs, which I pocketed, a picture of the guy and Claudia Valespie (and it was indeed the guy I was looking for) and a photo ID with his name on it. It was the first name that Claudia had given me, the name I thought couldn’t possibly be his. How could two people both be named “Ryan Chack?”

More As It Develops

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Everybody’s dead, Dave. (Toys in the Attic)

Lesson 1. Always eat your vegetables.

The frozen sarcophagus danced in the eternally midnight sky like a ballerina falling to her untimely death. The deadly contents that lurked within, still breathing, still unalive, lacked what one might refer to as consciousness. Once, it was food. Once it was predator. Never was it conscious. To be conscious is to be alive. It was never alive. It laughs at those who thought being alive was alright with the gurgle of the incomprehensible. All meaning from its actions is derived from those who bear witness to its majesty.

It festered in its sarcophagus for over a year before it became aware. Awareness and consciousness are not the same thing. To be conscious is to think two things. It thought only one. It could see the others, prattling away in their nothing forms believing that things like money or bickering or anything other than eating was worthwhile. Contempt could be read into those words just as curiosity, confusion, and envy. Words are the tools of the conscious mind, after all. (An unconscious too, but their words and the meanings that tag along like an unwanted child in a glue factory are incomprehensible to the conscious mind.) The non-conscious has no use for words.

Witnessing its magnificence conjures dreams alien to the human mind. Ideas implanted by it. By something connected to it. The shape of its absence makes a void called the universe. It fills the void with a fungi of mutated life corrupted by being consumed by it. It infects like a virus dancing outside the human form. It smiles as those who think they can catch it the way a cracked brick smiles. It is entropy. It is death. It is eternal. The cosmos is its mother. Man is its father. It has no name. It has no purpose. It only eats and eats and eats. It will not stop. It does not know why. It does not care. To care is to have a conscious. To care is to be alive. To be unalive is to not even notice that you don’t care, let alone notice that you haven’t noticed. To be unalive is to be an “it” and not a person. Not a person at all.

The frozen sarcophagus floats in the eternal night like a child drowning in the middle of the ocean where not even the most carnivorous of sharks or the most vengeful of dolphins could find him. The remains within splurge out of the metallic casket like blood from a stuck pig. It glistens in the night sky with an air of magic and wonder that could only come from a fishing lure. It will be free one day. It will consume. It will survive. It always does. Its children will die, consumed by those who are stronger than them. But it will consume them in turn. All things return to the refrigerator.

Lesson 2. Don’t blame yourself for the failings of other people.

Margaret Janeway found herself floating in the vacuum of space. Again. She had a knack for getting herself into situations like this. Her and her big mouth. She wouldn’t blame other people. Sure, the guard could have refused the bribe instead of taking it and throwing her into the airlock, Mark could have been more honest in his intentions to double cross her, and the gun manufactures could have designed a better gun for people escaping from angry mobsters. But, at the end of the day, she should have known that the gun was busted. It was a 300 woolong gun for crying out loud. Of course something that cheap was going to fail on her. Just like she should have known that a weasel like Mark Waltsman would double cross her. He practically screams “I’m an untrustworthy bastard who wants to watch you be miserable for the rest of your life because I’m just that kind of shit” with the way he talks. Not what he talks about, he could talk about how the sky is blue and you’d still think he was plotting to drown you in it. Of course that asshole was going to double cross her. And the guard… well, she should have known not to trust a bastard with a 1488 tattoo on his knuckles. (In her defense, she didn’t see the tattoo until after she was in the airlock.) Regardless of whose fault it was, Margaret thought, it didn’t change the fact that she was stuck floating in the void of space without any hope of surviving, be it through a lucky spacecraft passing by willing to take aboard an adrift con artist who burnt one bridge too many or the people she had fucked over returning once they realized she actually stole something important from them. But she was in the middle of fuck all nowhere where not even the light of the stars shown (bar one that was just far enough away to allow her to see what she looked like but too far away to attract any daredevils dumb enough to fly into it because they want to be seen as cooler than they actually are) and Mark knew her well enough to have the guards she didn’t bribe check her body for stolen property in the way most slimy men search a woman’s body. In short, she was trapped, destined to live the rest of her life adrift in space until there was nothing left of her but the spacesuit Mark graciously lent her. And then, inexplicably, Margaret Janeway saw a refrigerator floating in the depths of space with the grace of a bowling ball crashing through four floors of an apartment complex and the subtlety of a snake in the garden of Eden asking Eve if she would like something to eat. Crazy universe, thought Margaret. Might be a crashed ship nearby. Maybe even an escape pod. So she floated right atop the refrigerator and towards her end.

Lesson 3. Always help those in need.

Jane Doe, as Dr. Grant Marston was forced to call his patient, was found floating in the depths of space inside a refrigerator. It was a miracle she was alive for as long as she was. Grant did not know how long she was inside that refrigerator, though her body was noticeably warmer than it should have been. It was covered in a black, almost mold like sore. Her teeth were nearly rotten and decayed. They looked like the mouth of someone who had smoked for fifty years even though she was clearly a woman in her mid to late twenties. Her eyes were bloodshot, almost completely red.

Jane Doe did not survive the night. Grant tried to tell himself there was nothing he could do. Indeed, he knew there was nothing he could do. The woman should not have been alive for as long as she was. And yet, he couldn’t help but think of what he could have done to, if not save her, at the very least ease her pain. Which is why he was in the morgue examining her body. The following notes were what he found:

-Left hand broken in seven different places (space suit intact)

            -Blood found underneath fingernails. Run search upon return to Mars.

-Right hand perfectly fine (space suit rupture in index finger)

-Left eye blue, right eye green.

            -Left eye cut (external)

            -Right eye fractured (internal (???))

-Source of sore: center of right hand. Reverberated throughout the body like the insides of a tree.

            -Source unknown

-Teeth crooked, surgery performed on seven/ten occasions.

            -Top center teeth chipped

            -Three teeth missing

            -Wisdom teeth still within mouth; no abnormal growth (???)

-Jane Doe has red hair, cut to nearly a bob.

            -Red hair found inside refrigerator (Ask Proper Martin)

-Bullet wound in left shoulder.

-Bullet wound in right shoulder.

-Bullet wound in right leg. (4)

-Black sore (mold?) found all over body.

            -Not contagious by touch, inhalation, or consumption (I’m looking at you, Ryan)

Martin Smiths was examining the refrigerator Jane Doe had been found inside of. When Grant asked him about the contents of the fridge, he started to laugh while bashing his head into the steel wall. He did not die from this. Grant requested permission to look at the refrigerator for medical purposes, but “Captain” Martin Wilcox denied his request, citing that the psychological effect it had on Smiths was too much for him. In reality, Wilcox also saw what was inside the fridge. If Marston saw its contents, he would be driven mad by the horrors within. At least, that’s what he claimed in his suicide note.

Grant was a bit peeved to be certain. There was so much about this woman he didn’t know. Why did she have a tattoo of a monkey on the bottom of her left foot? Why was she in a refrigerator even though she was wearing a space suit? How did she die? And what bit her? He would only find the answer to two of these questions. The first answer came in the form of a feeling in his left palm that was akin to what an apple must feel when a naked woman eats it upon the request of a snake. When Grant lifted his hand to see what bit him, all that was there was a black mark. The full extent of what had happened to Grant wouldn’t become apparent to him for another three hours. In a way, he was one of the lucky ones.

Lesson 4. Do not open things that say “DO NOT OPEN!!!!!!!!!”

FAMED “GHOST SHIP” FOUND FLOATING DEAD STAR AFTER THIRTY SEVEN YEARS.

The starship Nausicaä, missing for thirty seven years, was found yesterday orbiting a dead sun. The crew within long dead.

The Nausicaä was a medical ship owned by noted billionaire and heir to the Wilcox Corporation, Martin Wilcox the Fourth. It disappeared on Nov. 20, 2071 after a humanitarian aid mission on Titan and did not return to Mars for repairs. The decades long mystery was resolved, however, when a freight ship had discovered the remains after a computer glitch forced them off course.

The Inter-Solar System Police confirmed Sunday that the ship, which had several internal failures but no breaches in the ship’s hull, was the Nausicaä.

Among the crew of the Nausicaä was noted movie star, Martin Smiths. Smiths’s career was notable for his starring roles in such classics as “Revenge of the Deadly Assassin,” “Marco Pollo,” and his award winning directorial debut, “The Man Who Knew Me.” Smiths was a hero to the burgeoning Mars cinema, producing several acclaimed films, including “Blake.” His career was cut to an end when he disappeared along with the rest of the crew.

The Nausicaä’s unsolved case has been the fodder of many a true crime podcast and work of fiction, including Walter Graham’s seminal The Ghost Ship and the fourth season of the Wilcox produced Dark Space series. Upon being asked about the discovery of the ship, head writer Marcus T. Ling was quoted as saying, “I’m excited… to see [the Nausicaä] discovered is perhaps one of my childhood dreams. I can’t wait to walk its hallways.”

Sources within the ISSP indicate that that dream may not come true, as there is a high level of toxicity within the ship that seems to have been the cause of death for the Naussicaän crew. Rumors of a bioweapon secretly implemented on the Naussicaä crew have surfaced, though the ISSP has not made a comment. More as the story develops.

[Update: 12/01/08]

The ISSP has released an official statement:

THE STARSHIP DESIGNATED “NAUSSICAÄ” WAS FOUND FOUR DAYS AGO ORBITING THE DEAD SUN, SOLARIS. THE ENTIRE CREW WAS FOUND DEAD. THE CAUSE OF DEATH HAS BEEN DETERMINED TO BE SUFFOCATION. IT IS BELIEVED BY THE INTER-SOLAR SYSTEM POLICE THAT THE CAUSE OF DEATH WAS A COMPUTER MALFUNCTION, WHICH SHUT DOWN THE LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. THE FAMILIES OF THE DECEASED WILL BE INFORMED OF THEIR DEATH.

Class Dismissed

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What the universe really needs are truckers! (Heavy Metal Queen)

Ural Terpsichore promised himself that this would be his last bounty the way many an addict promises themselves that this would be their last hit. He meant it, as they always do. He promised Victoria after all, and one shouldn’t break the trust of the woman they love. He had broken enough already. She would know eventually the extent of their marriage he broke, but he hoped he could keep that from happening for as long as possible. Some dreams really do come true.

Jenn Smithers was on the run. It wasn’t her fault, all things considered. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t her fault that the old maid looked at her the wrong way. Sure, she was robbing the mansion, but it wasn’t her fault that the maid looked like she was probably going to scream “Thief.” She had to shut her up. It wasn’t her fault, she was forced to stab that old bitch in the heart. There was too much money at stake and too many debts to pay off in order to make a better life for herself, damn everyone else.

Luke Marks owned the bar for a good thirty seven years. It was in his family (or, at least the name) since before space travel was common place. He ran a good crew. Larry, the bartender, was personable enough in their attempts at serving beer. Jace, one of the food staff, was capable at making a delicious tray of meatballs, even if she swore like a sailor. It wasn’t a big bar, all things considered (at most, it could probably fit a good seven or ten people at a time), but it was his bar. His crew. His family. And they all made him happy.

Jason Walters was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He didn’t know why. He had a wife who loved him, three kids who were on their way through college, and a job he was quite fond of. And yet, everything around him felt like it was collapsing into dust and nothingness. He wanted to blame some higher power out in the cosmos for this feeling, even though he was quite aware of its absurdity. And yet, the world felt wrong. Something was missing and that something. Was it the way he was looking at that guy earlier, Jason thought. By the end of the night, revelation would come to him.

Mary Masterson understood trauma. She had just escaped from an abusive relationship not five days previously. The escape involved a large amount of violence and a non-zero amount of death. He would always hold her too tightly, like one holds a dog’s leash when it tries to run away. He would smile with his predator teeth showing. He was open about the abuse, but no one cared. He was too big to fail, as they said of many a failed venture. She didn’t want to kill anyone, not even him. She felt like she had no choice in the matter.

Kate and Julie Marsfelder had been married for just shy of a year. They met at a burger joint three blocks away from the bar. Since then, they had traveled the cosmos searching for adventure and excitement. Recently, they had begun work as a pair of con artists looking to make a quick buck at the expense of several corrupt organization. One such organization had a member of its top brass drinking at a bar not too many blocks away from the burger joint they had first met. Cosmic coincidence, Kate would say. Magic, Julie would reply. They’re one and the same, all things considered.

Steven Blake had been working for the Red Tigers for fifty years. It had taken him that long to achieve the status he so rightly deserved. He had killed, maimed, bribed, stolen, and even tortured his way up there. He had ambitions, as many of his ilk do. He wanted to be seen by the world as someone important, someone to be respected. His syndicate would take over all the other ones. He had a plan, a plan that needed focus and understanding. But he didn’t think it needed too much. After all, there was a pair of lovely angels sitting right next to him offering a drink. How could he ever refuse?

Warren Warrens was considering killing himself. Not so much in terms of actually doing it, but rather the philosophical implications of such an act. He was hired by a small press to write a book about suicide and why people killed themselves. There are many examples he could name from the self-immolating war protesters in Vietnam to soldiers sending themselves to war with the express purpose of dying. And then there were the more personal matters, such as depression making it feel like it’s the only option or out of spite towards someone they’ve stopped caring for. Warren wanted to understand why someone would want to do it. Why should I kill myself, he thought to himself.

Ryan Chack was playing a game of solitaire. He has played the game many times in his life, mostly to clear his mind. But that night, he was trying to distract himself. He didn’t want to think about the scream in the garden. The smell he thought he smelt when he went to investigate. The tears dripping from her blood stained face. The way he hid in the bushes so that she would never see him. The scars on her wrists that could never be self-inflicted. The ones that could. He tried not to think about those things like one tries not to think about elephants.

Bill Smith was thinking about her mother, Lauren. She had died when she was a little girl in a rather unfortunate accident. She accidentally landed on a knife thirty seven times, all of them on the heart. Now, a few days later, she was an adult forced to live in a world of confusion and anger. It had taken her no time at all to track down the owner of the knife. She knew what she would do, she told herself. She would avenge her mother, she would kill this woman, this theif, this murderer. And she would be happy once again.

Ural sat next to Jenn with his left hand resting atop a gun. Jenn reached into her pocket for a knife. Luke was the first one to see. Jason tried to stop it from happening. Mary was the one who did. Kate helped carry the body while Julie drove the car. Steven remained unconscious at the bar. Warren called for an ambulance. Ryan went after Mary. Bill collected the reward.

Bill thought the reward would make her happy. She thought, at least justice would be served. She thought that she was going to kill the murderer as they sat in that car. The murderer’s face was broken beyond repair. She was also unconscious. So if Bill were to kill the woman then and there, she could get away with it quite easily. But she didn’t. She just sat in the car as they approached the police station and took the money. But not even 50,000 Woolongs could make her happy. Her mother was still dead. She’d have to find happiness elsewhere.

Ryan approached Mary with some trepidation. She was alone and terrified, especially after what she had done. He tapped her on the shoulder with a seemingly soft touch. She jumped by this touch as if he had hit her. Ryan apologized immediately. He wanted to talk to her. They were neighbors once upon a time, before she escaped. He liked talking to her, as it helped cool him down when he was at his most manic. And she liked talking to him as his cleverness could ground her from her depression and abuse.

Warren did not have any good answers to why he would kill himself. Sure, there were answers to how he would do it. There are millions of ways to kill yourself, after all. But he couldn’t figure out the why. Which makes writing about people who want to kill themselves all the harder. One can’t quite capture another person’s worldview without understanding. He wanted to understand, but try as he might, he just couldn’t. Ah well, he thought to himself, I suppose I’ll just have to wing it and hope for the best.

Steven awoke with a broken nose in a prison cell. Whatever those dirty bitches gave him caused him to black out for more than a day. The bartender threw him out of the bar at closing hour and the pavement broke his nose. The police arrested him shortly afterwards for vagrancy. Such an insult could not go unspoken of. Steven would find those broads, and he would strangle them. Otherwise, he’d be seen as weak within the Red Tigers, and they had a tendency of culling the weak very thoroughly. Before he knew it, the knife slit Steven’s Jugular wide open.

The plan had gone awry. The con Kate and Julie had planned involved drugging Steven Blake and taking his wallet. It was a scheme in-between schemes to keep the ship around, Kate would explain to Julie. Petty theft of the criminal underworld was nothing compared to what they do on a regular basis. The Red Tigers weren’t a priority, all things considered. There was a new gang making itself known. One that needed to be looked out for less they become a serious threat. They called themselves “Lucifer.” Probably because they want to be really edge, Kate assumed. Ultimately, saving a life, even one that ends up dead, was a higher priority than either of these things.

Mary asked Ryan why he was talking to her. Sure, once upon a time, they were neighbors. But they didn’t really talk that much. On the times they did, she found his babbling quite amusing, somewhat uplifting on the worst days. But what of it? He was hiding something, she could tell that much. He didn’t want to say. Did he see her, she wondered. Does he know. What does he want. I saw, he said. I saw what you did. He wasn’t happy while he was talking. This wasn’t a man who wanted to take advantage of her, Mary thought. Then again, neither was the man she killed when they first met. Unlike that man, however, Ryan then said, How can I help? Mary simply requested he come walk her home. It was dark and you never know who could be watching.

When Jason returned home, he told his wife the truth. He liked guys. But he also liked girls. It was while he was driving home that he realized that. Perhaps the shock of the murder he witnessed shook him out of the edge and forced him to see clearly. Or perhaps the sight pushed him over and now he was on the other side. Jason didn’t know. All he knew was the gap in his life had finally been filled by accepting who he was. He cried when he confessed to his wife. They were silent for at least a couple hours. Or rather, it felt that long to them. His wife smiled when she kicked him out of the house and called him a faggot. One would be surprised if she hadn’t scripted this conversation out months ago.

Luke, Larry, and Jace cleaned up the bar. Fights like this happen every now and then at the Lovely Angel. But this was the Smiling Clown. People don’t fight this dirty, this cruelly here, let alone at all. All three of the windows were shattered, two of the stools were broken, and some asshole was sleeping at the bar even after it closed. They drew straws, but they all hoped Jace could toss the bastard out. She was the only one who could lift a guy of his weight on her own. They were lucky in that regard. Though, sadly, the asshole broke his nose on the way to the street. Ah well, not their problem.

Jenn was in jail for ten years before she was released on good behavior. She was good at this sort of thing. After all, all a guard cares is whether or not you can keep your mouth shut when he asks to be serviced. All a board of directors care about is the color of your skin and how well you can act white. Fortunately for Jenn, being white goes a long while in being considered white enough to be let out early, even if she did kill a non-white or two. She was caught stealing from another mansion by a rather young bounty hunter. Oddly enough, this too didn’t make her happy. But then, Bill found happiness a long while ago. She had fallen in love with a truck driving duo named Jill and Jane. They were going to have a kid soon. Scout if it’s a boy, Lauren if it’s a girl.

Ural Terpsichore was dead.

If My Lady Should Discover How I Spent My Holidays…

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Free Chelsea (The Strange Case of Starship Iris)

Commissioned by Aleph Null

"Penguins get scared too."

The question at the heart of this story about various kinds of people (including, but not limited to, queers, refugees, anarchists, and other kinds of Others) living in the outskirts of a fascist regime is simply this: Just who the hell is listening to The Strange Case of Starship Iris? To understand the implications of this, let’s back up a bit. When looking at a work, one must first ask why is it presented in this format? Indeed, as I was listening to the first episode of The Strange Case of Starship Iris, I was unsure why this was being presented as an audio drama rather than in a more visual format. There were times where Violet Liu openly describes to herself what she’s looking at. Some audio drama presenters have this issue. For example, Big Finish routinely has characters describe their surroundings in detail. For example, in the overall excellent The Chimes of Midnight, Charley Pollard announces that she’s going to write her name and then says her name as she’s writing it. There are some, such as Live 34 and …ish, where the audio drama format is used to its advantage, but typically the format is more seen as a cost saving measure. It’s cheaper to have a character describe what’s in front of them rather than create a set or pay an artist to draw it.

But at the end of the episode, the nature of the format within The Strange Case of Starship Iris becomes clear and in a way that few podcasts do. There are some podcasts that come close. One that comes to mind is Alice Isn’t Dead, where the first season finale reveals that we are, in fact, an unknown operative is listening in on the narrator talk on the radio. However, the second season muddies the waters by having us listen in on her as if she’s another voice on the radio as opposed to being us. Equally, the podcast Between the Wires has a series of found footage auto files in a fascist state. However, at the time I was finished listening to it (season 2), there was no indication that the listener was a part of the narrative. Even Welcome to Night Vale, while positioning us as part of the community, isn’t invested in who we are in the story. The Strange Case of Starship Iris, however, very much is.

Because we aren’t outside of the text. We aren’t some impartial listener without an agenda beyond a desire to be entertained by a story about a ragtag group of smugglers, killers, and dreamers. We have an agenda. We have a reason to listen in on these private conversations, these little moments of insecurity and love. We’re the enemy. We’re the baddies. We’re spying on them.

This is made apparent in the end credits of the first episode. Most shows would have an out of universe speaker list off the cast and crew of the show as well as places where the audience can support further production. However, the credits of The Strange Case of Starship Iris are in universe documents of the “Republic” being inspected by intelligence agents, among which we are. The goodies are being listened to… by us. At one point, when the characters realize we are listening to them, one of them directly address us. Not in a metafictional sense, nor even a “stop listening to us” one. Simply an explanation of her motives. But one of the lines she says hits at the core of our role: Either you hear us, or you don’t.

There is a difference between hearing someone and listening to them. To listen is a passive action. The words enter the brain, certainly, but often the meaning can be ignored. Like listening to music on the radio, focusing more on the sounds made than what is said. A sad song with a happy tune can distract people from the inherent sadness of the song. But to hear someone is to understand what they are saying. To know the sheer horror of the system they are scraping by in. A fascist government where making one wrong move, one tiny disagreement, can throw even the innocent into the pit. One that believes action for actions sake is always the right call, even if it means everyone will die with them. Where the first sign of weakness is an opportunity to destroy someone. Where people can frame the innocent just because they didn’t pay their way to the top and were a bit too yellow for their tastes. That sees torture as a good thing and all the studies against it merely anarchist propaganda. Big Brother is Always Listening. But are the people paying attention. Are we hearing.

Which is to say… what do we do with the information provided to us? What do we do with information that tells us the world is broken, cruel, and monstrous. There are two agents who listen in on the conversations along with us: Agents Park and McCabe (no doubt the latter will end up in a relationship with a woman named Miller in the second season). We don’t get much about their lives outside the recordings. They keep their personal lives outside of their work lives. Indeed, we don’t even learn McCabe’s pronouns until the final episode when they make a decision to rebel against the Regime.

Though what’s interesting is how they come about their decision. Park, for example, is a loyal member of the Regime until it’s suspected that he’s the mole leaking info out to the Regime’s enemies. He’s not, but that doesn’t matter to the Regime. In the end, Park rebels because he realized that the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party was going to eat his face. (Luckily, he only lost an eye. Other people have lost so much more than that.) McCabe, meanwhile, was ultimately press ganged into rebelling against the Regime due to being blamed for things they were not as liable to as the Regime wants people to think. These are not, in short, people who rebelled for reasons outside of their own self-interest.

That isn’t to say they aren’t sympathetic. There are, after all, ways in which they could have responded to the fascist system eating their face that aren’t rebellious in nature. After all, once the Regime realized that Park wasn’t the mole, they immediately let him resume his job within their organization as if nothing had happened. One could argue they would have done the same had they killed the goodies in a very public manner. But they chose to rebel… because they heard. They heard the various little moments of life being lived. The big moments of horror and implication. They paid attention to the story of the sole survivor of Starship Iris, Violet Liu. And like her, they rebelled.

What then do we do about information such as this, when we hear it for ourselves. The story ends with a shift in our role. From the baddies who listen in on the people just trying to live their lives in a cruel, uncaring universe to people. Any type of people really, be they straight, alien, poor, queer, black, man, woman, child, nonbinary, what have you. After all, anyone can hear a rumor out.

She may be in the here and now, but it’s the ghost he sees. (Ganymede Elegy)

Jane Morrison would spend her nights swimming in the river. On some nights, the moon would glisten like satin on her naked form as if she was one with the water. Her green eyes were globes of wonder and alien beauty. They felt at home in this ocean of angel fish and lost dreams.

Jane had a long history with the river. At five, she kissed her first boy. At thirteen, her first girl. Her mother would take Jane to the river every summer to skip stones, fish, and just watch the industrial world around it. It wasn’t like the rivers on Mars or even the historical Earth. Those were outgrowths of nature whereas this river was more man made than anything else. The satellite of Ganymede was founded twenty five years before Jane was born. Initially, the world was an endless sea. Or, at least as endless as any world can be. When man entered the frame, they made settlements over the ocean world. Some were more traditional cityscapes while others were teaming with canals.

Jane swam in one such canal. She called it a river because she preferred the sound of that word. There was a softness to the word that she couldn’t quite place why she found so beautiful. She would talk to Scout Lucas, her recently ex-boyfriend, about it. He would say some rather pretentious thing about the nature of language being inherently sexual and the fluid nature of “rivers” hits a dopamine gland that arouses certain people. Jane didn’t care though. She was too busy looking at him as he talked.

Scout, for all his pretension, had a wry nature to himself. He wasn’t the kind of person to necessarily stand out in a crowd, but one could easily say a pithy remark that would make everyone turn their heads. He was a lean fellow with blue eyes and a depressive disposition. Jane liked that his smile could warm even the cloudiest of days. Lisa Williams, their girlfriend, liked the way his hair would blow through the wind like a bushel of leaves on a cool fall afternoon cascading off a dying tree.

They had met at the river, just three years ago. Jane had just come out of college no better or worse than when she went in. Scout had recently finished a fishing commission with a friend of a friend, and was now waiting for the next gig. Lisa, meanwhile, was drowning. It’s not that she didn’t know how to swim. She knew quite well how to do that. Rather, it was the fact that she was having an allergic reaction to the angel fish that, while not deadly, made it hard for her to stay awake. Jane was the first one of them to see her, though Scout was close behind. By fortune and chance, they swam in an almost synchronistic formation towards the drowning Lisa.

It wasn’t completely easy for them to get Lisa out of the water. As they would later discover, she had a tendency to kick uncontrollably while asleep, which made keeping the covers on a difficult task. But they were able to get Lisa out of the river without too much difficulty. At most, they received bruises that would heal within a day or two. They considered calling an ambulance, though they soon realized that neither one of them had the funds to actually afford the ambulance, let alone a full trip to the hospital. While they were panicking over potentially losing everything they had over someone they’d never met, Jane noticed an odd bruise on Lisa’s thigh. Scout recognized it instantly.

“That’s an Angelfish hug. Happens all the time out in sea, though I’ve never seen one cause someone to react like that. Though, maybe she was allergic…“ Jane suddenly began to look worried. “It’s not deadly,” Scout reassured her, “At most, she’ll be asleep for another hour or so.”

“In that case,” Jane sighed with relief, “maybe we should get her out of here. My place isn’t too far, only a block or so.” Or so, it turns out, was five blocks, the exact distance away from Jane’s small, damp little apartment. It didn’t have much room. At most, one person, maybe two, could live there. The couch was broken with one of its legs missing. The bed was slightly too uncomfortable to get a good night’s sleep. And the window was basically just a hole in the wall. Not that Scout could complain. Life on the sea doesn’t pay much unless you own a ship or catch a monster of a fish, of which he did neither. As such, he lived on the streets like many a person on Ganymede. They laid Lisa on the bed and waited for her to awaken.

Lisa awoke with the groggy speed of an alcoholic. It took her a bit to remember how to speak coherently, and so her attempts at saying “Who are you” or “What happened” sounded more like “Horu” or “Hath pend.” The two were patient with her, having spent the past 25 minutes or so in petrified silence. It took Lisa another five to teach her mouth to speak coherently through saying wrongly right sentences such as “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”

“Spam,” was the first word Lisa said coherently. She didn’t notice until five words later, after which she said, “That is to say… where am I?”

“You’re in my apartment,” said Jane “Not much, I know. But… it’s home.”

“And you are?”

“Jane. Jane Morrison.”

“Scout Lucas,” he said while reaching out his hand to shake Lisa’s.

“Lisa Williams. What happened?”

“You were hugged by an Angel Fish-“

“Angelfish.”

“Whatever, and you had some kind of allergic reaction to it.” Lisa looked at her thigh to see the still lingering bruise of the Angel Fish’s hug. It was asymmetrical in its attempt to be symmetrical. It was like a child’s drawing of a symmetrical figure. Sure, the basic shape had the air of symmetricallity to it, but the details within the sides shifted radically in unique and beautiful ways. “You almost drowned.”

“And you saved me,” said Lisa looking quite fondly at Jane.

“Well, we both did,” she noted quite sheepishly. A small laugh came out of Lisa’s mouth. More a nervous reaction to beauty and confused feelings of attraction than anything else. She looked at Scout in all his lean majesty.

“So what were you doing out in the canal,” Scout asked without a hint of snideness. “That place is full of Angelfish.”

“Well… I like swimming. Haven’t been on Ganymede for too long, and I didn’t know there were Angel-Fish on this world. Always thought they came from Mars. How far are we from the dam anyways?”

“About five blocks.”

“And you carried me all the way here?”

“Well, we took turns. I carried you half the way and Jane carried you the other half.”

“So why didn’t you take me to a hospital?” Jane awkwardly grunted to that question while gesturing to the cramped nature of her room. Lisa noticed a stain of water damage above Jane’s head as well as the cracked, downright chipped, stone floor beneath Scout’s bare and soot covered feet. “Ah. Well, I’m kinda loaded, so you probably would’ve been fine. Then again, I guess I was too asleep to actually ask.” Oddly enough, an air of levity came out of that revelation. Especially when Lisa elaborated on the nature of being loaded as less to do with being a multibillionaire and more to do with her connections throughout Ganymede and the other Jupiter satellites.

Lisa had been spending the past three years working the streets as a courier for various syndicates. She had recently done work for Law Rentzuo picking up his “rent” from the various people who owe him. The work dried up roughly around the time one of his “tenants” shot him in the face in what was deemed self-defense. She had for the guy who did him in. Law was many things, among them the kind of asshole who would mockingly eat an apple while his men did horrible things to those who couldn’t pay their rent.

But one of the benefits of working for Law Rentzuo as a courier is that you come into contact with various levels of society, among them the well-connected as well as the willing to help. As such, people looked a blind eye to a worker willing to help at a moment’s notice. Some even paid a nice tip for such help. Not enough to sustain a life outside of being a courier used between the various syndicates, but enough to afford a house that can fit more than four people.

Scout and Jane moved in after their third date. The first date was because Lisa felt she owed them for saving her life. The second was because the first date went somewhat poorly due to a fire at the restaurant caused by some kids playing with fireworks. The third came about because they realized at the end of the second date that they wanted more and more dates. Officially, they aren’t a couple. Polyamory is typically looked down upon, even on more liberal worlds like Ganymede.

For those three years, they were seemingly happy. They loved each other, to be sure. But, as Jane sawm in the river, she couldn’t help but think about their relative happiness. Could she have noticed if she wasn’t so busy being happy? Could she have seen what he was going through? Could she have prevented Scout Lucas from killing himself?

Lisa was the one to find the body. He was lying in the bathtub for about an hour. Lisa and Jane were out for work, delivering a package and stealing it respectively. He left a note by his body. It only had one word on it. Lisa screamed when she saw the body. Jane ran to her and could only feel numb. Not even tears could come out of her eyes. The funeral will be in a few days, Jane thought in the river. She hadn’t seen Lisa since that night. She bolted from the apartment while Jane blacked out of conscious movement.

She found herself at the river, completely naked. It was a warm river with the moonlight shining perfectly in the water. There was a serenity and softness to being in the river. It was a still river that only moved when the wind moved. At the right time, it could look almost like a mirror of the sky. Her clothes where right next to her feet and she wanted to fly. So she took a dive into that dark abyss. She would return for a few more nights, intentionally this time. It felt right, swimming naked in the river. She couldn’t put a name on why, but it felt right.

On that night, three before the funeral, she saw something at the bottom of the river. The moon glistened on the glass with an intensity of a spotlight. Out of curiosity, she dove down to the bottom where all the strange, wonderful creatures, swim to their heart’s content. When she broke the surface of the river and returned to dry land, she looked at the artifact she had unearthed. It was a pocket watch. It was circular in shape, almost like an anchor. It was a fifteen hour watch, the clock itself shaped like a diamond with curved corners to the point of almost being octagonal. It was old and rusted, probably down at the bottom for years. She could barely see the greyness of through the rust. The more she thought about it, the more it looked like a lock. Something to keep secrets locked within. To keep the past frozen in a moment of melancholy and longing that not even death could end.

Jane looked at the pocket watch and thought to herself, ‘Scout would really like this.’ Then she began to cry.

Farewell…

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