Rocket Repo: A humorous space opera (Reassembly Book 1) Page 2

  Yes, he wanted Eli out of his head — all this was on his account — but he also wanted off this stinking, lonely planet. Isolation kept his past from catching up to him even better than marrying Tatiana would’ve, but enough was finally enough. There were other, better places to lay low, which he could only do once Eli was out of the picture. Places with women, and beer, and entertainment, where he could be anonymous, save his money, and retire to Pretensia with all the other old crooks.

  A drop of sweat tumbled off his nose and landed on the hot die, sizzling as it evaporated.

  He cracked the die open and gave it a little tap. The final part came out cleanly, a thumb-sized cylinder with staggered rings running up and down its length.

  “What’s this thing do?” Geddy asked aloud, turning over the freshly cast part in his gloved hand. Mostly he shaped and cut panels in the Penetrator’s outer skin. Anything exposed to the barrier had to be made of pure shinium. Eli continually stressed the importance of this.

  — It’s the key.

  “I suppose we’ll spend all next week making a hood ornament?”

  — This is it.

  He carefully picked it up with the tongs and plunged it into the water, releasing a burst of bubbles and a puff of steam. Once it cooled, he removed his gloves and inspected the part more closely. Another day or two and he’d have the burs filed down enough to give it a go. A quick test flight around Trebek, the nearest moon, and it would finally be time to say sayonara to this dump.

  — You must protect the key. The only one who should ever fly it is you.

  He slipped the still-warm key into his pocket, removed his face shield, and shut down the forge for the last time. “Fair enough, pal. In the meantime, I’d say we’ve earned ourselves a little celebration. There’s a bottle of Old Earth with my name on it.”

  — Not to rain on your parade …

  “Lemme guess. You forgot a cup holder.”

  — No, nothing like that.

  Geddy hung the face shield on its hook and tossed the thick gloves on the table as he emerged into hazy, reddish light of their two suns. Soon, hopefully, he could amend his current definition of fresh air. It was only slightly less putrid outside. It got a little better at altitude, which was half the reason he lived in Tati’s old penthouse in Semenov Tower.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, barely believing he was so close to the end. Whatever Eli had to say couldn’t spoil this moment.

  “Can it wait ’til tomorrow?”

  — Today is April tenth.

  A blanket of dark anxiety settled over him. It couldn’t be April again already, could it? “You’re shittin’ me.”

  — I do not shit.

  He heaved a sigh. “Then I guess we’ve got an extra stop to make.”

  The contents of Earth 2’s mausoleum, cremains, and digital assets had made the trip to Earth 3 with everyone else. The spring after the last transport departed, Geddy returned to the old house at the military base and erected a little shrine to his late parents.

  The last two vehicles that still held a decent charge in all of Laguna, the only city on the planet, were a maintenance truck and a motorcycle. He used the truck exclusively to shuttle parts to the spaceport, where the Penetrator was housed. The bike was just for fun. He wasn’t entirely confident it would make it from the smelter out to the old base and back. If not, he might have a long walk. But it was either that or not go at all, and this was his last chance to say goodbye.

  Breaking down a city of one million was slow business. Even seven years on, autonomous equipment still carried out the tedious work of chopping everything up for salvage. Two “crews” had begun at the far end of the manmade lagoon in what used to be known as the rough part of town and were working their way toward downtown. Each had to chew through about six kilometers’ worth of city.

  The two big destructors — basically lawn mowers with whirring wrecking balls instead of blades — could level a fifty-meter swath from the lagoon to the edge of the city in about a week’s time, then turn around work their way back to the water. Excavators with metal claws would follow behind and load the debris into trucks that hauled it to the space elevator.

  He figured he had a year, give or take a month, before they reached downtown. Fortunately, he’d be long gone by then.

  Giving the wrecking crews a wide berth, he took the long way to the base, much too far for any sensors to pick him up. At this point, there probably wasn’t any reason to be paranoid about being discovered, but why take the chance? By the time he reached the main gate half an hour later, the bike’s batteries were down to ten percent. Now he had to stay long enough to charge them to at least twenty-five.

  Either the bots were programmed to leave the base alone or they were saving it for last. It probably still had value as a military outpost. Whether the old Planetary Defense Force was being rebuilt on Earth 3, he didn’t know. A great deal of money had been spent on defense during the Ring War, but they never got drawn into the fight.

  Ivan Semenov, Tatiana’s father, discovered there was much more money to be made cleaning up after a war than fighting it, thereby multiplying their fortune. What began as a humble refuge for the last million or so humans quickly became a sprawling, overwrought paean to the very excesses that put them there. In that regard, the base was a welcome throwback to the earliest days of the Laguna settlement, utilitarian and simple.

  No matter how many times he visited the old bungalow on C Street, smack in the middle of the housing afforded to officers and their families, he still struggled to place himself there. His father, Lucas, who he idolized, was a sergeant major in the PDF and its most gifted pilot. His mother was a docent at the Museum of Space Exploration out at the spaceport. She knew a million stories about Old Earth. It was a peaceful, joyful time, and he had had lots of friends.

  But on April 10, 2402, everything changed.

  Geddy returned from school with all the other PDF brats to a gloriously empty house. It was his parents’ twentieth anniversary, and his old man had something special cooked up. He’d talked his superiors into letting him take a military shuttle north to see the Ice Castles, skyscraper-sized crystals pushed up through a deep crack in Earth 2’s crust by its hyperactive geological forces. The idea was to have a picnic, spend the night, and watch the suns come up.

  For Geddy, having an entire night to himself was a rare treat. He ate a dinner of cake and ice cream, played video games, and went to bed with a stomachache. To a thirteen-year-old on a military base, it hardly got much better. The next day, he ate the leftovers for breakfast, eliminating all evidence of his sweet indulgence.

  Later that morning, a PDF colonel named Pritchard — his dad’s commander — and two airmen knocked on the classroom door and held a muffled conversation with his teacher. When she pointed out Geddy, glassy-eyed and pale, he assumed the worst. And he was right.

  Pritchard sat Geddy down in an empty classroom and explained that there had been an accident, and that both his parents perished. Both the ship and their bodies were unrecoverable. Though the news tore him in half, but he had no option but to accept it. There was a full military funeral, with honors, and praise was lavished on them both.

  With no close relatives, Geddy was placed in the care of a foster family. They were nice enough but didn’t share Geddy’s determination to learn exactly how an ace pilot like his father was brought down by a no-brainer trip to the Ice Castles. The PDF’s investigation concluded it was an equipment malfunction, and that was that.

  For whatever reason, he never believed it. Still, he pressed his foster parents to challenge the PDF’s account, but they advised him to process his grief and move on. The resentment that followed built to the point where Geddy decided to stow away on a freighter during a refueling stop the day after he turned fourteen. He didn’t care where it wound up.

  Clearly, he should’ve. Seventeen years on Kigantu turned him rotten. If he hadn’t left when he did, he’d be an irredeemable lowlife like everyone else in that godforsaken sandpit.

  But even though he’d come back here each of the seven years he’d been alone on Earth 2, it was always hard to go inside. He sat on his bike outside the cookie-cutter home for a few minutes screwing up the courage to do it.

  — You don’t have to. I just thought–

  “It’s okay. I would’ve forgotten.”

  After a time, the incessant metallic rumble of destructors in the distance, he climbed off and went inside.

  There wasn’t much to the shrine, really. Just an old screen on the kitchen table playing a series of home movies in an endless loop, powered by a solar cell on its last legs. As for the house, any number of PDF families had come and gone since he was a kid. It was just a shell around a fading memory. He’d park himself at the head of the rectangular table and watch the looping video from start to finish, then raise a glass of Old Earth northward and toss it back. There was only one swallow left in his dad’s old bottle.

  Early on, the practice elicited tears. He’d pushed away thoughts of his childhood for so long that seeing it play out again was almost like watching some movie that set up how happy all the characters were just to pull the rug out.

  With each passing year, he felt more and more disconnected from this version of himself, as though he and his parents had merely been actors in this sad and forgotten tale.

  After an hour, Geddy abruptly shut off the display and flipped it face-down on the table, then rose to stretch.

  — What are you doing?

  “This shit’s bumming me out.”

  — Would you like to talk about it?

  He retrieved his leather jacket from the hook by the front door and slipped it on. “Nope. That’s enough trips down memory lane. Today’s about t
he future.”

  — What about your drink?

  “There’s an unopened bottle at the museum with my name on it. Right now, we’re gonna say goodbye to Cherie, get shitfaced, and start fresh tomorrow.”

  — You’re sure you don’t want to–

  “Yes, Eli, I’m fucking sure, okay?! They left me alone, and once I deliver you, I’ll be alone again. Finally.”

  He marched outside, leaving the door wide open.

  — Aren’t you going to close it?

  “What’s the point?”

  Geddy threw his leg over the bike and flipped up the kickstand, then slid on his sunglasses.

  — At least make yourself a copy of the video. I really think you’ll wish you–

  “Enough, Eli! My god, you’re like the mother-in-law I never wanted. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t even want out of my head.”

  Eli paused.

  — I’m only trying to help.

  “Yeah, well, thanks for your concern, but I, for one, can’t wait to have you gone.”

  He gunned the motor, squawking the tire as the foul wind tugged at his hair. Eli didn’t say another word the whole way back to town. Technically, he was only a consciousness wrapped in an impenetrable microscopic shell. A spore, a thing, capable of thoughts and conversations who happened to see the world through Geddy’s eyes. He could no more read his mind than make him feel.

  Yet, amid the crowded headspace occupied by his parents, the PDF, and practically every life choice that led him to this weird point, he had carved out a generous sliver of room for Eli, his best and only companion. That was more than he’d ever afforded anyone. And as he drove, he could almost feel that little space fill with hurt.

  Maybe he wasn’t so indestructible after all.

  Chapter Three

  Come Here Often?

  Laguna Luxe Mall sat at the edge of a perfectly circular manmade lake, practically a city unto itself encircling the base of Semenov Tower. Geddy shuffled along the empty halls, more or less retracing his previous steps through the patina of dust on the floor.

  A scanner at the entrance used to read your account balances to see whether you could even afford to enter. He’d never actually seen the inside until Tatiana took him shopping for engagement rings, making him feel as though he’d won a contest. Even now, he didn’t quite belong.

  Seven years after it was abandoned, most places in Laguna still had power. The geo plant was offline, but the solar arrays still gave the batteries enough juice to keep the lights on.

  He paused at the tall glass doors that opened onto the veranda outside the lagoon entrance and peered across the water. A cloud of dust and debris indicated where the machines were tearing hungry, ragged bites out of the city. They were close enough now that he could clearly see “Semenov Planetary Systems” emblazoned on the side, perhaps a kilometer away. By the time they reached the tower, he’d be on another planet.

  Geddy turned aside from the entrance and continued through the mall, his pace quickening until he arrived at the Intergalactic Concierge Kiosk. He unconsciously smoothed his hair.

  — Seriously?

  — Don’t judge me. You said you’d never judge me.

  — Your priorities are confusing.

  He stepped into the circle, and a woman materialized from thin air. Today’s randomly generated outfit was a tasteful, yet sexy black dress that hugged every curve. Her lush, gravity-defying red hair tumbled over her bare shoulders in impossibly silky waves. Horn-rimmed glasses called to mind a hot librarian — one of his favorite looks. Did the algorithm know this was his last visit and pull out all the stops?

  “Hello there,” she cooed in a faintly British lilt, cocking her head playfully. “Your name’s … Geddy. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” He brushed a bead of sweat from his upper lip. His cheeks flushed.

  “Welcome back to Laguna Luxe, Geddy.” Her teeth flashed blinding white. Did he glimpse a tongue stud? My god. “I’m Cherie, your–”

  “Personal guide to the wonders of the cosmos,” he finished. “Believe me, I know.”

  Cherie the red-headed librarian. What a sendoff! For all he knew, he might never see a woman again. Unashamed, he undid his zipper.

  “My records indicate you’ve come here many times.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Many.”

  “What can I do for you today? You can ask me for directions, arrange travel, or order merchandise from practically anywhere in the universe. The sky’s the limit.”

  She beamed her perfect Cheshire smile and placed a dainty hand on one hip while the other absently fluffed her hair.

  In the early days, the hologram could reference their previous interactions. Since she started glitching a couple years ago, however, all she ever remembered was that he’d been there before. He couldn’t have said whether he preferred the familiarity or the novelty.

  “So, Geddy, now that we’re friends and all, tell me how I can help you.”

  “You already are.”

  “Quite a beard you’ve got there, mister. Did you know Laguna Luxe Mall has two salons?”

  “Not interested.”

  She studied him up and down, noting the pants bunched around his ankles. “Uh-oh … it seems you’ve had a clothing malfunction. Perhaps I could interest you in some new trousers?”

  “Whatever. Take your time.”

  “Hmm,” she mused. “Looks like you’re a size 34. Perhaps something in Grelorian wool? It has a beautiful drape.”

  “Knock yourself out,” he panted in return.

  Geddy ordered six pairs of pants in different colors, two watches, cologne, and booked an afternoon tour of the Haunted Caves of Eicreon. The system wasn’t connected to anything. He just kept ordering stuff for as long as it took using Tatiana’s sterling credit.

  “I’ll have those delivered to your door. Are you still at 1607 Miranda?”

  The sound of his old address always brought a smile to his lips. No one ever lived there after him. The evacuation was already underway by then. Still, it was odd the order seemed to actually go through. In the past, his visits to the kiosk ended with the woman saying it couldn’t be completed at this time.

  Must be another glitch. He shrugged it off, pulled up his pants, and refastened them as he turned to depart. “Sure, sweetheart. If I’m not there, just leave it outside the door.”

  Geddy removed the key from his pocket and set it down on his nightstand, then continued stuffing food and supplies into the plastic crate. The ship was so tiny, even it would be a tight fit, say nothing of his pack and a change of clothes. Eli said he wouldn’t need any of it, which was supposed to be comforting but only made him wonder if it was really a one-way trip.

  It still would be worth it to get Eli out of his head.

  — Help me understand why we can’t perform our test flight today.

  “Because I need to get properly drunk, that’s why. I’ve worked my ass off for seven years and there’s a bottle of OE with my name on it.”

  — You celebrate by poisoning yourself?

  “That’s how humans roll, baby. Why are you antsy, anyway? You drifted through space for eons. What’s another day?”

  — I guess I’m just excited.

  “All the more reason to get squared away now. We can jump right into preflight checks first thing in the morning.”

  Geddy set the crate on the hand trolley, then looped the strap of his duffel around the handle and wheeled it out into the wide hallway. Once the last transport left, the one carrying Tatiana, he’d moved into her old place. The Semenovs practically owned Earth 2 and she had the penthouse to match, occupying the entire top three floors of the tower.

  After descending in the elevator, he crossed the polished marble floor of the ornate lobby and exited where the maintenance truck awaited. He loaded his stuff into the back and headed toward the spaceport.

  Before he inadvertently turned Earth 2’s atmosphere into history’s biggest fart, it had become a premier tourist destination. Ships sometimes had to circle for hours to get landing clearance. There had even been talk of building another spaceport on the fringes of the city, but it never materialized.

  As he turned up the winding road to the spaceport, Geddy stopped to watch the distant circular platform of the massive space elevator rise skyward with a full load of scrap. It only made about four trips per day. Though fully automated, it reminded him there was still a whole universe out there. It accelerated slowly before disappearing through a thick layer of low, jaundiced clouds. Before the accident, they were wispy and white.