Before the insanity ensues it's probably best if I try to define where exactly this whole story is taking place, and map out some basic background ideals, so you aren't sat there thinking I wrote this while extremely drunk, or just didn't think about what I was doing. Basically, this novel is set on and above Earth, in the indistinguishable future (indistinguishable apart from the fact that it's a long long way away from this point in time) and the world has gone to hell, not to put too fine a point on it. Wars now rage weekly, that spread across the surface and involve practically every country and superpower. The main economy for all countries is now mobile phone development and the fashion industry, nothing else matters, and nothing else ever will. As with pretty much every generic sci-fi novel, mankind has begun the exploration of space, except contrary to the usual "alien species", "wormholes" and "spacial anomaly" stuff, space in this novel is pretty much as it looks. Empty, devoid of life and interesting things, except for those spangly specks everyone knows as stars. So why base a story on something as lifeless and tedious as space then? Obviously I'm not going to reveal the plot in my little explanatory paragraph here, but trust me, it's better that we're up there, than fighting wars and making mobile phones on the surface, honestly. Anyway, a space station has been built in Earth's orbit, called the Magellan (after Ferdinand, the Portuguese explorer, look him up) and there's a massive orbital telescope up there, monitoring the stars to check for alien life and new planets, sort of in a lazy Star Trek sense (to boldly go nowhere and seek out new life and civilisations) Well, that's the scene set, I'll let you get on and read now, cause there's a bloke out on the orbital telescope, and he's getting pretty cold!
Justin Gyro looked at the six inch by three inch wash-cloth, then at the almost two kilometre long by a kilometre thick orbital telescope, and sighed. That's all he ever got nowadays, " clean the telescope, clean the telescope, you done cleaning the telescope? Then polish the telescope and stop wasting my time! ". He didn't understand what exactly it was he'd done to deserve this job, even though he was sure it had been explained to him on several different occasions, by several different irate and important people with several medals and shiny bits. There was of course that time when he'd piloted the Galactica whilst drunk, and put so many asteroid holes in it that it was reminiscent of an abused colander, when he finally got it back to the docks. Insult was added to injury when considering the fact that the Galactica was the finest ship in the fleet at the time, and he hadn't been instructed to go anywhere near it in the first place. There had also been that time when he'd fiddled with that important looking console and somehow altered the air conditioning on the Magellan space station to vent nitrogen instead of oxygen, which was pretty impressive considering all he'd been after was a cheese sandwich. He sighed once more. Ok, so he did know why he was cleaning the telescope, mass death and destruction wasn't looked upon well by the tribunal. He hawked up some phlegm and went to spit it on the cloth, only realising after he'd done so that he had his helmet on, and so left a huge green spittle mark obscuring his view of it. He'd have laughed if it wasn't such a stupid thing to do.
Justin seemed to make a habit of doing stupid things. In fact the only thing the bigwigs of the Tribunal for the Exploration and Classification of Planets continued to allow him to do, was clean the telescope, owing to the fact that they no longer used it. The galaxies and planets that the high powered telescopic lenses reached out to, had already been investigated, and save for a threateningly shaped piece of space lichen (Justin still couldn't quite work out how a clump of space moss could look threatening, but scientists were smart people, so you didn't question them) the planets had been deemed as Class B.E (uninteresting and uninhabitable, sort of like Belgium should be if people had any sense) What he failed to come to terms with however, was the fact that the telescope self cleaned itself every five days, and did a hell of a better job than he ever did, and that despite the fact that spacesuit technology had developed to the extent that the new suits were made out of lycra like material, and contained no less than five cup holders and a portable thermos flask attachment, he had been issued with a 1960's moon landings style suit with the goldfish bowl helmet and urine bag (he hadn't dared to ask what happened if he needed a shit). Sometimes he just got the feeling he wasn't liked much.
He stopped trying to fervently wipe the spittle off the inside of his helmet, despite the wash cloth being on the outside, and sat down sullenly on the Big Brother telescope. It was just typical, at one point, when the telescope was in its prime, telescope cleaner was a high profile job. The people of Earth knew nothing about the planets, and learning about them was only able to be done if the telescope was clean and functioning perfectly. The merest speck of dust on the highly sensitive lens had almost caused wide spread panic a few decades ago, because the people monitoring the view screens had thought the Earth was going to be enveloped in a giant alien dust cloud (a few red faces there you can be certain) Then of course they'd gone all high tech, and had started sending fleets of ships with armed space troopers and scientists and diplomats and cooks and god knows what else out there. The people of Earth had hailed the Tribunal as heroes and revolutionaries and had looked to the stars with a passion never seen before. Astronomy became bigger than fashion, and for forty years people wore the same style of clothing. It had brought nations together, created peace where there had been war, and even shut those bickering religious folk up for five minutes. Sadly, all the crews had found, were Class B.E planets, and pretty soon the interest died down. People went back to worshipping fake celebrities and having to have the latest ring tone on their mobile phones, countries stopped talking to one another and resumed the shooting instead, and from every church and mosque, tales of Armageddon were rife. In the end they stopped sending mass crews out on exploration missions, and the majority of the funding was cut and redirected to the production of better mobile phones. It seemed the mysteries of space, were that it wasn't so mysterious, and was in fact more boring than playing bridge with three dead people. Now it raised eyebrows within the Tribunal, if more than five people went out on an exploration mission, especially if there was even a handgun between them. The universe, was as bad as Belgium, and that was the final verdict.
Sadly, that then meant that people who were loyal to the Tribunal, such as Justin (despite his seemingly purposeful hindrance of its progress) were left with very little to do, especially those people who were, without putting too fine a point on things, a pain in the arse. The people were still on those view screens, praying to god some festering alien pupae could have been missed on one of the thousands of B.E planets out there. There were still the odd scientists kicking about, usually frantically testing the air inside the Magellan to make sure Justin hadn't been after a cheese sandwich again. The space troopers however, had been dissolved, and had been redirected to the infantry to help with the most recent World War that had broken out on the surface. Justin didn't even know who was fighting who, or who had started it, and to be quite honest, he couldn't give a shit. At least from up here, he could look down on the world as he always thought of it as, clean, blue and green, and his home. Hell, he didn't even know if his home was still standing, or whether it had been decimated for the latest mobile phone factory/military barracks. It didn't matter too much anyway, his father had disowned him after he refused to leave the Tribunal and work in SIM card manufacturing.
" What do you want to work up there for, it's boring, you want to look at lifeless planets and boring suns, instead of doing something for your people, you make me sick " his father had spat
" The Tribunal are my people " Justin had protested
" Oh well if that's the case, then pack your bags, and don't come back until you want to make me proud" his father had yelled That had been about fifteen years ago. Justin had been sleeping where he could on board the Magellan since then. They hadn't assigned him a dorm when he had first arrived, because the Magellan had been far too packed, and despite it being desolate now, they had removed all the beds from them and cut the heating and water to further save cash. The last two years he'd spent in the long since sacked cleaners cupboard, just by the kitchens. The truth was, that Justin was the only cleaner of any sort left. The rest had left and taken their brooms with them, and those who hadn't followed the wiser ones, had been sacked to save money. Despite this however, there was little or no mess on board the Magellan, simply because there were very few people there to make it. Justin had originally been hired as one of the many eager pilots of the Tribunal, despite him not being able to fly anything (it had seemed a good idea to forge the papers, cause let's be fair, spaceship pilot is more likely to get you chicks than cleaner) He'd never gone on a mission though, owing to his mishap with the Galactica, which was probably a let off, because instead of being imprisoned for fraudulent identity, he got demoted for drink driving. Alright then, a huge let off.
That had lead him to his next illustrious position, of security on board the Magellan. Back in those days it was quite an important job, owing to the hundreds of VIP's and celebrities that paid lots of money to visit space. It had also meant he could crash in the security office, which was probably the most comfortable domicile he'd had whilst being on board. He'd really liked that job, walking around the place, having authority, getting to guard people who he'd worshipped as a kid. He could take breaks when he wanted, shout at who he wanted and spy on who he wanted, it was really, really cool. Then of course the whole cheese sandwich incident had occurred.
It was strange how it'd happened. He'd been investigating the escape pods and came across a console that said F.E.U.D above it. Considering this was a night shift, and he was extremely hungry and drunk at the time (what else are you going to do but get drunk when you can do anything you want?) he read the word out loud, and then jumped up.
" Food!, man I could go for a cheese sandwich " he'd yelled, and started pushing buttons
The Tribunal had built an F.E.U.D system into every escape pod, in case of the station being overwhelmed by alien creatures (an extremely optimistic hope as it had turned out). The F.E.U.D (or Fuck Everything Up Device) could be programmed in twelve different ways, to bring painful death upon alien invaders, depending on their species, and in the worst case scenario, blow the station up if you hadn't had time to formally identify and analyse these alien attackers. Justin managed to program in " humanoid like, respiratory system, intolerant to plants species " (he thought he'd put in, cheese sandwich, old cheese, no salad, a fact that had him going through psychological evaluations and literacy classes for the next year) and caused a station wide nitrogen vent. He on the other hand, had been sucked into the escape pod, where he had frantically pressed more buttons, and programmed in New York, Central Park. Twelve VIP's and their families, plus the majority of the regular staff, were asleep at the time, and died gruesomely. It took Justin a week to get back to the Magellan, but the length of time had only worsened the anger of his employers. He had instantly been demoted to "lacky", and told that he would forever perform the worst jobs possible on the station. The tribunal had re-staffed, and managed to cover up the death of the celebrities, but Justin had held his new position now for nine years.
He supposed that cleaning the telescope wasn't so bad, it got him away from the guilt of killing all those people, and away from the torrents of abuse he got everyday, as he performed menial tasks for the new crew of the Magellan. The sobering fact of the matter was, that Justin wasn't wanted anywhere. There was no-one out in the universe to want him, his family didn't want him, and his employers for whom he'd sacrificed his family were disgraced by him. He sighed for a third time, a long resigned sigh this time. Now he'd gone and depressed himself, that two kilometre long walk was going to take forever. He got out his wash cloth and started his walk. He was cleaning the furthest end today, so it was going to be another half an hour before he started work. Better get moving.
Exploration Commander Frank Isotope watched Justin trudging wearily along the disused telescope, on the video screen in his office, and smiled. He was one of the very few high ranking officials left on the Magellan, and lived in luxury in the restricted access area, located at the top of the spike in the centre of the station. Perhaps now would be a good time to explain exactly what the Magellan space station looked like.
Basically, if you think of what a butterfly bun with a knitting needle rammed through it, standing vertically would look like, then you will understand what the Magellan looked like. All the way along the spike underneath the station were the docking ports for space craft, and the high speed plasma lifts for all the crew to get to the main body of the station. The TFTEACOP admitted after the Magellan's construction had finished, that the plasma lifts were highly dangerous, and if used too much, would overheat, and cause an explosion in the cooling vents, literally decimating the station with the subsequent blast. The response from station control was "fuck it, we'll take our chances, plus they make a really cool noise!". The part of the spike above the bun, was solely for the high ranking officers and their administration staff. To be called to the Officers Pole (unfortunate name) was a great honour to those aboard the Magellan, and many people could only dream about it. The bun (or main body of the station) was used for pretty much everything else, storage, station control, quarters, Security, armoury, kitchens and most of the other essential services required on board a space-station. The two wings of the bun, or the Bi Semi-Circular Scaffolding Section, was used for recreation and dining aboard the Magellan, owing to the huge windows that looked out into space, and the panoramic view offered. Celebrity cabins had also been installed here, within a restricted area guarded 24/7 by the stations Security Core. Here, the crew and VIP's could eat an relax in total luxury at one time, waited on hand and foot by highly trained concierges. Massage, aromatherapy, acupuncture or just a good swift kick in the bollocks to wake you up, could all be pre booked and performed by some of the leading names in the business, and they even had a wrestler in at one point for the bollock kicking. Here, space was cool, a round the clock nightclub with all the facilities you could ever want (the alcohol and leisure activities could be found on the opposite scaffold to the dining area) The Magellan had been designed in a matter of weeks, built in a matter of years, and yet everything just seemed to work perfectly. The orbital telescope had pre-dated the station of course, and was actually its sole reason for existing. Though floating apart, they were joined as one, and as soon as the telescope started failing to find anything, the Magellan ceased to be anything useful. The question was soon asked "why bother going to space, when the pub is just down the road?" and so humanity started to lose it's healthy interest in science. Now the Magellan floated freely around the Earth, just another piece of space junk forgotten as a failure.
EC Frank Isotope however, wouldn't give up on the Magellan, mainly because he didn't want to lose his high status and be drafted into the army as just another moving target. He also had high hopes that eventually, mankind would come back to the stars, and progress would again be made. He knew it was his job to sit up here, possibly until the day he died, and keep scanning those planets.
To him, space was more exciting than the World Cup final, more pleasurable than a five way orgy with greased up strippers, and more promising than an evens shot at winning the lottery. It was just so unknown, and that was the exciting part about it. The people of Earth had got fed up after they'd scanned not even a thousandth of the whole area of space. It was huge, bigger than the biggest thing imaginable, squared by the second biggest thing imaginable, times by the third biggest thing etc... Frank hated quitters, and that's just what the people of Earth were, quitters. He couldn't understand people's reluctance to seek out the final and ultimate answer to every single question imaginable, except those annoying philosophical ones that kept on spinning round and around in your head and could quite possibly cause dementia. I mean come on, that's what questions are for surely, to be answered. No question could ever be asked for the hell of it, not even the smallest one, every single question has a purpose for being asked, and a desire for the answer. Frank Isotope, was a man who never lost his desire for an answer. Half hearted wouldn't do, it had to be final, underlined eight times, and ticked as done in huge red marker pen. The answers to the mysteries of space weren't even close to that, and it pained him that it was likely that they never would be.
His gaze returned to Justin, trudging off to the end of the telescope, and he grimaced. Quitters were the worst thing possible, but idiots were definitely the most frustrating, and Justin was up there with the most accomplished of idiots. No wonder so little was known about space, when the most loyal of his employees were idiots. The Tribunal was filled with them, he'd lost all his good men through conscription, and all he had left were extremely loyal, yet embarrassingly idiotic men. He leant back in his chair and sighed. No use getting the blood pressure up over irresolvable issues. Frank knew his job was to keep an eye on the view screens and wait. The smallest insignificant thing could be used to his advantage, if of course he could claim that what he had found was a hostile alien species. Crews would be launched immediately, space would become cool again, and he'd finally get some useful men in, and could fire the showers of shit that were Justin Gyro, and most of the rest of the Magellan. That made him smile, that would be the ultimate payback for his faith. Forget all this alien crap, getting rid of Justin Gyro, after the disgrace he put the Tribunal through, would be the most wonderful thing that could possibly occur. That reminded him, he needed to switch on the self clean system for the telescope as soon as Justin reached the end of his walk. He'd made a shocking job of the toilets on Beta floor, and he deserved to suffer a bit. EC Frank Isotope laughed. He loved his job.
Archimedes hated his life. Well to be more specific, Archimedes hated his lack of life, and in truth hated anyone that was alive because of it. In fact when all things were broken down, Archimedes hated being Archimedes. Being a robotic gerbil was bad enough, considering the huge advances that had been made in A.I since his conception and construction, yet the thing that grated on him the most was the fact that he had been created to do absolutely nothing at all. Not a single solitary thing. Fleshy gerbils were bad enough, "oh look at him run in his wheel, oh look at him drink his water, look mum, he's taking a dump!" but being a robot gerbil sucked even more than that. He could run on his wheel for so long that most humans lost interest, or became a dribbling zombie because of the constant high speed clicking, drinking water would kill him so his programmers removed that ability, and been as he didn't actually eat, he couldn't even claim a human's attention by shitting for all to see. He was quite probably the outcome, of the worst ever idea in the universe (after reality TV shows of course). Being a low maintenance pet was a great idea in theory, no cleaning up after, no having to worry about replacing water and feeding him, so as not to turn up 4 days later and discover a quite smelly and very dead gerbil in the bottom of the cage. He was programmed to be none aggressive, so no fear of being bitten and subsequently throwing him across the room to his squishy death. Yet what the clever clogs that had decided to build Archimedes had failed to realise, was that THAT was the whole point in possessing a gerbil. The feeding, the cleaning, the taking risks with your fingers every time you attempt to change his bedding. Remove all that, and you've got a friendly biscuit tin conversion that can run on his wheel for so long that it drives you insane. Archimedes actually aspired to be a real gerbil, and that was wholesomely depressing.
His owner had got fed up with him after 2 weeks, and had locked him in a storage locker in the space ports. That had been twelve years ago, and ever since then, Archimedes had run on his wheel, and got angrier and angrier, in spite of his programming. That was the beautiful thing with artificial intelligence and humans. They automatically assumed that if they created an intelligent being and told him not to do something, that he wouldn't do that thing for the rest of his existence. Yeah...... right, and it works that way with children does it?
"Don't kick that festering rabbit corpse Gareth" says mummy
"OK mummy", says Gareth, shortly before kicking the festering rabbit corpse as hard as possible, dislodging the head and getting sprayed with rabbit guts.
Child psychologists insist that it's all about a child establishing independence and a personality. So humans automatically assume, that if they give a robot a pre-set factory personality, but the intellect to be able to change it, that the robot will just keep whatever personality the humans saw fit to bestow upon it. I don't think so. Archimedes was programmed to be a none aggressive, none confrontational rodent, so you can bet your arse that Archimedes was one fucking angry gerbil at this moment in time. For ten years he had stayed in his ever dark prison, the anger percolating inside of him, until one day, he had just snapped, and torn the bars of his cage off with his teeth, before proceeding to charge at the door with his head until the lock snapped, which had taken the remaining two years of his internment. Not only was Archimedes a very angry gerbil, Archimedes was also a very angry gerbil, with a very bent head.
He'd made his way through the plasma vents of the Magellan to his current position in the universe, namely the VIP suite of the Bi Semi Circular Scaffolding Section. He was staring out at planet Earth and fuming. How sick and twisted a creature does somebody have to be, to create a being with no purpose or use to anybody? The question had reverberated in his head for so long that he couldn't even remember when he had first asked himself it. Now finally, he was gazing upon the birthplace of the evil creatures that had brought him into this world, and was getting angrier and angrier. He didn't even have anyone to take it out on, the humans appeared to have all left. He would have so loved to go berserk on someone's face right about now, give them a reason to fear the creatures they so readily accepted into their homes as useless balls of fluff. Yet he digressed, he had more important things to consider. The planet that filled the windows at this moment in time, was the enemy. No use in taking on one human, when he could plot and plan to destroy them all. Archimedes was not only a worryingly disfigured, extremely pissed off gerbil, he had also become extremely megalomanic. Earth would pay, he'd find his moment and strike fury down on the heads of the heathen creators. First though, he needed to find a way to straighten his face out, cause he looked like a dickhead.
Finally reaching his destination, Justin breathed a huge sigh of relief. He'd been right, depressing himself had made the journey twice as long, probably three times as long in truth, and he was more than ready to start buffing up the telescope, just to get this rotten ass job over and done with for the day. It was then of course, that the ionised water jets came on, soaking Justin in the process, and simultaneously causing EC Isotope to fall off his chair, howling with laughter. That bastard! Of all the dirty tricks to pull on a guy. Justin slumped down onto the telescope, and let the water jets flash over him. He was at least going to have the pleasure of being able to clean the area of the telescope directly beneath his buttocks. Comes to something when a guy needs to force menial tasks upon himself to achieve satisfaction really. Justin sighed, yet again. It had been a day of sighs, which is slightly better than a day of cursing, according to the universal scale, but not as good as a day of depressive pondering (note: there isn't actually a universal scale for this sort of thing, but Justin had a hell of a lot of time on his hands, so he made one up) That was how he figured out his week nowadays, been as standard Earth time didn't mean much up here. The last seven days, he'd had three Sighdays, a Cussday and three Dejecta-days (he'd been so happy when he made that name up he'd had a Happiday that day) so having a rotten day was pretty much going with the trend he was on. Just to improve his mood, the water began to seep through his suit. Damn Isotope to somewhere like hell, only colder, and with lots and lots of...... things that......ignored him (Justin wasn't too good at cursing). He'd seemed to make it his mission to destroy Justin's life, piece by piece, like some kind of immoral god with emotional problems. Actually, that was unfair to him, all the crew were as bad, laughing, mocking, insulting. He knew he wasn't liked, but why did people have to constantly remind him of it? Was the demotion to lacky not enough, was additional emotional abuse really necessary? What kind of a life was this to sacrifice your old life for (another sigh)
He lifted his gaze and looked at Earth, his former home. How could something that big, with that many people on it, not have anyone that wanted him either? Mind you, back on the planet nowadays, nobody wanted anybody anyway. Family values, social structure, even common decency had fallen apart. Things had regressed back to something resembling stone age society, everyone for themselves, and territory was everything. That was the reason for the wars. Greed had replaced every other human personality trait, compassion was weakness, understanding one another meant that somebody wasn't being cunning enough, and working together to achieve goals now meant paying people to fight and die for your cause. If you had something, you'd better have the weaponry and man power to keep it, or else it'd be lost, along with a limb or two if you were exceptionally lucky. That's why in spite of the festering pit of shit Justin currently found himself in, he was still happy that he wasn't down there, fighting with the other hellish hordes, for no other goal than to earn territory and respect for a person with no conscience or care for you. If you died, he was saving a salary, if you lived and won, you kept your job. To those who lived, but failed however, a fate worse than death awaited them; phone transportation.
The phone factories were almost as bad as the tyrants that ran the world, and the battles for sales could be just as volatile (and in extreme cases just as bloody) On the fore front of that however, were the people responsible for the distribution of the phones. It didn't matter if a company produced a thousand units a day, if they couldn't get them to the shops, it was a wasted exercise creating them. The job of phone transporter was a very temporary post, as the massive convoys of armoured trucks that left the warehouses every night would be attacked by someone's private army, armed to the teeth and eager to please. The phones were as valuable as gold, probably more so the way things were, and everyone wanted a cut of the profits. Sometimes five or six armies would all attack a convoy, kill the drivers and troops on board, then set about one another, leading to a few dozen blood stained, bullet hole ridden grunts stood of a pile of corpses that would keep a pork pie factory running for five years. Scariest thing was, that this usually occurred before the trucks left the factory yard (conveniently just as the trucks got into the "designated bloody riot" area, indicated by the yellow crosses).
The mobile phone industry held no allegiance with any power and was solely in it for it's own profits. That's the main reason the raids were so successful. Does it matter that your phones don't get to the shops, just as long as you're getting your money from a "noble benefactor". Yes, the entire industry was crooked, and sending off expelled army veterans to die in a bloody battle for the phone companies was far easier and cheaper than to stage a military execution, especially considering that in every war there's a loser, and therefore plenty of men to pump bullets into. Very few employees survived their first shift, and those that made it to the end of the week, were deemed as untouchable by most sane armies (to be able to operate an armoured truck and simultaneously kill a band of a hundred plus soldiers, makes you a high roller in the bad ass stakes) This was a bad thing however, for the phone manufacturers, as it meant that they were keeping someone on the pay roll, and weren't being paid off by their "noble benefactors" (I'd drop the quotation marks and just write filthy cheating bastard tyrants, but that's too many words for me to be bothered to write) The phone transporter would subsequently be assassinated before it got to pay day, which would cost more than a wage, but save a lot more in the long term, especially considering his life was no longer at risk. That, was the state of the world today. That, was why Justin had chosen a life of darkness and boredom, over a life of evil and corruption.
There were of course a few good powers left in the world, but they had shied away and let the bigger boys battle it out for supremacy of the Earth, a cunning ploy, considering that there were that many combatants that no-one could achieve considerable (or even average) power. TFTEACOP was one of those powers. They held the area around the long disused Cape Carnavarel US Army base, and alot of the desert region of the US, mainly because nobody really wanted it. The administration buildings for the Tribunal were a few miles outside the old army base, and there were a few old space crafts capable of travelling further than the moon still on the register, but really, as much was happening down there for the Tribunal, as it was up here. They held a skeleton staff, didn't really do anything, and had a few big wigs around just to make everything look controlled. They would have been attacked an conquered by a neighbouring power, had anything to do with space not been classed as worthless and void of interest. The general discussion as to the course of action to take by the surrounding powers, went something like this.
"Hey, those spacey tribunally people still have a lot of property we could claim as our own you know"
"Oh yeah, what have they got?"
"Few buildings, some space craft thingummibobbys that probably don't work, a few nerds that watch Star Trek and Dr Who re-runs all day to keep their hopes of space actually being of any interest up. Oh, and lots of sand. "
".............. I'm sure we'll get round to conquering them one day"
As a result, the Tribunal had kept it's territory, and was still there for the day that something was found, and had been for the last fifty years, two hundred and three days, eight hours and seventeen (make that eighteen) seconds. They had no military, very little wealth, and two mobiles to their name. The very fact that they were there at all, was the thing that was keeping Justin, and anyone else left on the Magellan's asses out of gumboots. So what if Isotope had got a masters from the university of Dickhead, so what if he was hated for his previous actions, so what if putting the scented blocks in the toilets was Justin's idea of an interesting day (they were peach scented this year, his favourite) At least he wasn't dead, and that was something to live for.
Justin laughed at his own pun. Wow, could this mean that Sighday was over? Was it Satisfriday already?
"Gyro!!" rang Isotope's voice in his helmet. Guess not
"I read you Sir" said Justin into the mouthpiece that looked similar to what a coat-hanger would look like after it had been used as a pogo stick.
"Stop time wasting and get back on board, I need you to put a second coat of polish on the gym floor" growled Isotope.
Justin smiled slightly, shouldn't take too long, and even though the gym was huge, at least the polishing machine got through things quickly.
"OK sir, is the polisher ready to go?" queried Justin
"That's a negative Gyro, I don't like the lack of personal detail you're applying to your tasks....." droned Isotope. If some bastard didn't switch on automated cleaning systems then maybe I could get a bit more personal with tasks, thought Justin moodily. "........ so I've got a toothbrush ready and waiting for you on Gamma Deck" he finished
Justin opened his mouth to ask what a toothbrush had to do with the price of fish, and then stopped. Isotope was a lecturer at the university of Dickhead. The gym was absolutely huge, and the thought of spending the next six hours of his life on his hands and knees, applying polish with a toothbrush made him want to vomit with despair.
"Understood" said Justin into his mouthpiece, before closing the connection. He sighed. No sooner had he got through Sighday, had another one reared its smug head over him. He looked back along the two kilometre long telescope, then out at the stars. Was it too much to hope that a piece of space rock would come hurtling from out of the blackness and end this world he had stumbled into. Probably, I mean that'd be interesting. He started walking.
The sound of phaser fire and cheesy dialogue rang out through the Magellan's Astro-Geographics Lab. Kirk Picard Sisco, was watching his favourite episode of Star Trek for the three hundred and ninety seventh time (which must have been accurate because he'd calculated it three times, then watched the episode again to get the count wrong, then recounted) Like any average science geek, Kirk had joined the Magellan, with row upon row of certificates and qualifications, and dreams of being part of exciting trans-universal adventures. Just like all the others in his position, Kirk was also chronically addicted to old fashioned science fiction series, to keep his enthusiasm up, and his imagination active, and so as not to become chronically depressed and commit suicide by ceasing his inhalor use. His life and career had been planned out for him long ago. His parents Worf and Janeway (or Walter and Joanne as they were known outside the house) had been consumed by the wonders of space, long before it's exploration was close to being possible. They too, had a sci fi addiction, though owing to a lack of any other stimuli, they had become solely dependent on it, and had even gone as far as to create the deck of the Starship Enterprise in their front room. It was even rumoured that when Kirk was conceived, his father was wearing a Klingon mask, and his mother screamed "Beam me up Scotty" and the height of her passions. They were a science fiction family, and Kirk was raised (and unfortunately named) as a future astronaut. He'd resisted at first, as he'd wanted to play tennis, but that was Vulcan death gripped out of him before it took hold, and his path to the stars was laid before him. He had nothing else, for he had been given nothing else. Without the Tribunal, his existance wasn't required, or of any use.
Yet he didn't like to dwell on these factors, especially considering that they were about to go to warp on screen, and that needed the utmost attention from an onlooker. He'd turned the now deserted Astro-G lab, into his bedroom, and lived happily amongst the still running monitors and outdated models of the universe. He wasn't of course, meant to be there. Astro-G had had their department shut down long ago, and all staff had been asked to leave. Owing to the lack of activity out there, all Astro-G needed to remain functional, was for the resident lacky (guess who) to come in, check the screens, and report any blippy things that there might be to a supervising officer. There were still scientists monitoring on other parts of the ship, but Astro-G was the only lab with the equipment for long distance scans, five hundred light years plus. It had cost millions when it had been built, and had required only the most skilled of technicians to operate and run it. Kirk had been one of those hired, which had resulted in the dream of his parents (and himself he supposed) being realised. When the station had started it's cuts though, Astro-G was the first department to go, as it was the most expensive. Kirk had cleared all his quarters, removed any trace of his existance on the station, and had crawled into a sewage duct for five days, just to avoid detection. When everyone had left, he'd crawled out, and holed himself up in Astro-G, making sure to plot the precise shift pattern of the lacky, so as to know when to hide in the loose ceiling panel. He was a ghost aboard the ship. A few times he had been spotted, but after checks had been made on the computer, nobody of his description was classed as on board. He was now known, as the ghost of the Nitrogen Vent, as people figured he was just a lost spirit left after Justin's accident. Nowadays though, there wasn't anybody left, except for that retarded Justin, that came anywhere near his lab, so he lived pretty freely. Every week he'd make a ration run, at a preset time depending on where the remaining shifts would be (Kirk had ALOT of time on his hands) and would stock up on food for the week. He was extremely happy with how his life was at this moment in time.