Anton's Odyssey (34 page)

“What do you know?” Allen snapped rudely. “You’re a moron. I’ve seen your file. You’ve failed ninth grade!”

There was no anger on Hammond’s face. Just a hurt look that read, “How could a friend take such a cheap shot.”

“I’m going back home.” Hammond said sadly. “I guess I’ll see you guys outside when this is over and done with.”

Hammond hobbled away on his crutches. Stress and lack of sleep were clearly affecting Allen for the worse. I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I asked him if we could stay during the landing.

“You’re not returning to your living unit?”

“No, you’ve seen our place. It’s tiny. Once you’re strapped to the wall it can get pretty claustrophobic.”

“Then you should definitely stay here. All the chairs in this room can form an electrostatic bolt to the ground strong enough for landing. You two will find them much more comfortable than the jump seats in your living unit.”

The busty bubbly blond bimbo in the Cub Scout uniform and floral print scarf appeared on Allen’s vid screen. I remembered her well from the lift off instructions months ago.

“Hello,” she said with her large unnatural smile. “I hope you’ve had a good voyage —”

“I don’t need this now.” Allen snapped. With a single keystroke the busty bubbly blond bimbo disappeared, and Allen resumed hammering frantically on his datapad.

“Awe, I was watching that,” Cotton whined. “She had nice boobs!”

“Here read this,” hardly losing a second, Allen reached under his mattress and tossed Cotton a skin mag, one we had looted from Jackass Bob’s living unit.

“Awesome,” Cotton
cried.

“What are you doing exactly?” I asked Allen.

“Monitoring the engine room,” he said without taking his face away from the vid screen. “I’m going to see if our renegade code writer makes an appearance.”

From where I was sitting, I had a pretty good view of Cotton’s skin mag, which helped pass the time. Allen’s computer beeped, and he quickly dismissed a bulletin that read, “Landing sequence initiated. Stay alert for emergency announcements.”

The ship rumbled as we entered Gliese 581e’s thick atmosphere. Allen muttered to himself as he pecked away at the datapad. “Where are you? You’re not here. I’m glad that you’re not here.”

As the rumbling got more intense, Allen finally turned away from his computer and smiled. “Hammond’s right. It’s nothing. I really do owe him an apology.”

“Yes, you do,” I agreed. “What you said hit way below the belt.”

“I was really stressed out,” he said.

“Hammond will understand. Just be sincere,” I advised.

The screen flickered, catching Allen’s attention. As he read the new line on the vid, smiling Allen transformed back into stressed out Allen. “What’s this? Oh no!
He’s back!”

“I am sure it’s nothing to worry about.” I said vapidly.

Allen opened and closed a few more windows, checking several more data points before finally addressing me.

“Oh no!
It’s definitely something to worry about!” He said gravely. “There are fifteen crewmembers officially working the engine room, but sixteen people are logged onto computers there. Someone’s hacked in. He’s there right now. Not just on a computer, but physically present someplace in the engine room. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but I understand now. He’s jacked in a rogue computer. He’s probably lurking in a corner. I think he has a definite destination in mind, and when data becomes available and the circumstances are right, he’ll pick among the many diversion codes he uploaded and activate the one that will land the ship closest to his target. We have to stop him from initiating the code, or he’ll divert the ship and dump our fuel. Then we’ll never get off this planet again.”

Allen spoke with sincerity and confidence. He wasn’t over reacting to some sort of imaginary perceived threat. He had spent the last few days checking and double checking his work and, at that very moment in time, had finally reached the unequivocal, correct conclusion.

“What do we need to do?” I asked.

“You and Cotton need to get into the engine room. We need to figure out who it is and stop him. I’m going to need to stay here to monitor the computers and the trajectory of the ship. We don’t have much time. Once the ship starts to experience turbulent-mediated centrifugal yaw acceleration, anyone who isn’t strapped into a chair with an appropriately strong anchor bolt is going to be pretty useless.”

We spent all of five seconds in preparation, just long enough for me to cram in an earpiece and pin on a microphone so that I could communicate with Allen. Over-medicated, Cotton had passed out in his chair. Were I to wake him, he’d be too groggy and unfocused to be of any help.

Allen shouted directions as I raced from his living unit. The passageways were completely deserted, everyone else either strapped into a chair in a living unit or at a work station. With each step, I could feel the floor vibrate as the Magic Sky Daddy plummeted further and further into the depths of Gliese 581e’s thick atmosphere.

My mind raced.
Allen said I don’t have much time before the ship starts to buck and roll,
I thought.
How much time do I really have? We’ve had no time to prepare and have no idea what we are up against? How are we going to pull this off? Who would do this? Terrorists? No, they’d just blow the ship up. Goons from an organized crime syndicate? No, stranding the ship doesn’t make any business sense. Piety-freaks? Yes, that’s it. It must be piety-freaks.
The cryogens, the assault on Cotton, everything suddenly fell into place.
They’re trying to start their own utopian colony free from the over-reaching arm of government regulation and the oppression of stylish clothing and hairdos. That would explain why they’d dump the fuel. They want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere surrounded by no one but themselves. They’ll defrost the cryogens and free them from incarceration. What would become the rest of us though? Would they kill us?

I don’t recall hearing any of Allen’s directions through the earpiece as my mind and body raced. The path to the engine room must have been processed by my preoccupied mind through some subconscious portal. I seemed to arrive at the doors to the engine room in no time at all. The doors were locked, as a security measure.

“Let me do some hacking,” Allen said through the earpiece. “I’ll get the doors open soon.”

Although it probably took Allen less than a minute, it seemed like ages before the doors finally swung open. I had not stepped foot in the engine room since day one of our voyage and had long forgotten the enormity of the place. Starmen in orange and white jumpsuits were strapped into chairs mounted in front of video terminal displays. Between the noisy whirring of the machines, the rumble of the ship through the planet’s atmosphere, and the intensity of the work before them, nobody seemed to notice I had wandered in.

What am I looking for exactly?
I thought. The noise made it hard for me to think straight.
Stay focused! I’m looking for a piety-freak using a rogue computer.
I searched the room. The sight of all the electronic and mechanical gadgetry was overwhelming. I understood none of it. My head started to spin.
Stay focused! I’m looking for a person acting suspiciously. Pay no attention to the machines!

And there he was! Crouching down on hands and knees was a bald man in a white jumpsuit partially hidden from view behind
some kind of rotating turbine. He was entering data into a tablet computer hardwired into a data port. I rushed him. Just a few meters away, with the light behind me, I cast a shadow over his tablet and he looked up. I saw his badge.
Frederick Chaucey!
I thought.
I know that name. Yes, he’s the one Cotton spied watching a piety-freak program o TV. What did Allen say about him? “No family, keeps to himself,” that’s gotta be the profile of a dangerous piety-freak.

Surprised to see me, the able starman shouted, “Kid, you can’t be here! This place is very dangerous.”

He tried to get to his feet, but I was too quick. With a jump and a leap, I planted a flying knee into his right temple. He crumpled over backwards, unconscious.

“I got him!” I shouted into the microphone with excitement. “I’m in his computer now.”

I tapped on the input screen so Allen could locate the computer.
What did he just say?
I thought.
“Kid you can’t be here!” That’s a strange thing for a piety-freak villain to say when cornered. Wait! Cotton never saw the bald guy’s face when he was spying from the ductworks. We just assumed it was Fred Chaucey, but it could have been somebody else. What do I do?
It suddenly hit me.
Check his eyes stupid. I bet, just like Hammond’s replacement foot, Dr. Zanders probably only keeps a few extra eyes around. If Cotton poked one out, his eyes won’t match.

I rolled Frederick Chaucey over and peeled open his eyelids. Both his eyes were the same color, dark brown. Even the small freckles scattered in each iris seemed to line up well.
Oops!
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.

“That’s not the right computer,” I heard Allen shout from my earpiece. “That computer was only being used to tweak the amperage of an electrical generator. It couldn’t divert the ship!”

I had a sudden flashback of the Star Lounge at the Libra Space Station, my mother asking for one of her M-notes back. “
He has the most beautiful green eye.” How could I have been so stupid! My very own mother handed the identity of Cotton’s assailant to me on a silver platter!
I knew exactly who I was looking for. I scrambled back to my feet.

From my earpiece Allen said, “The computer we’re looking for should be located aft.”

I sprinted. The floor seemed to shake beneath my feet. A glimmer of reflected light caught my eye. I turned to find that awful helmet shaped hairdo ducking behind a wall of equipment.

Around the corner, and I found him. Mr. Fox wore the orange jumpsuit that was issued to him during the airlock repair.
That’s how he got in here without raising any suspicion,
I thought.

He had just finished strapping himself into a jump seat when he saw me. He made no effort to unbuckle himself. He just sat there looking very anxious.
Why isn’t he getting ready to fight?
I thought.

Allen had my answer. “Quick Anton, you have to find the computer. The codes have been activated. Once we experience any significant turbulent-mediated centrifugal yaw acceleration and the stabilizer motors kick in, we’re going to drift off course and dump our fuel.”

Where’s his computer?
I thought. It wasn’t in his hands. He had stashed it somewhere. I stared him down hard, trying to pierce into his mind, taking in every facial feature; the lines on his forehead, the sweat on his brow, his freaky helmet head hairdo, his unmatched green and brown eyes. Anxiety betrayed Mr. Fox. His eyes darted to the left.
I bet he’s wondering if he remembered to lock the computer out.
Back and to the left, I found Mr. Fox’s tablet still plugged into a port. The rumbling of the ship became even stronger.

“I’ve got it.” I said to Allen.

Mr. Fox had not locked the computer out. I could hear him behind me, frantically trying to unbuckle himself.

“Quick, Anton, type in a backslash followed by the word ‘abort.’”

My fingers fumbled across the datapad. The rumbling got so strong the cold hard floor of the engine room seemed to undulate. There was a loud bang and a crash, and I felt weightless. As I flew through the air, I caught a quick glimpse of Mr. Fox. He no longer struggled against his restraints. I couldn’t tell if he was grimacing or grinning. My head hit something very hard, and I was knocked out.

When we were kids, my brother and I got after school jobs as short order cooks at the Bruno Burger. We only spat in the food of customers who were rude to us, and with the money we made we stopped stealing things. Compared to most of the kids from our neighborhood, we were model citizens.

I saved up my money and was finally able to afford a slick-looking personal pocket module. It wasn’t the top of the line model. It couldn’t turn into a robot that could dance, or do back flips, or sort of clean my room, but it was anodized fire engine red, my favorite color. More importantly, it was compact, so it no longer looked like I was sporting a major stiffy when I slipped it into my front pocket.

One morning my slick, compact, fire engine red pocket module woke me up early, so early, the sun had not yet risen, what my little brother used to call “dark o’clock.” I climbed off the couch, my mind still groggy. Cotton lay asleep on the floor in a position so awkward it looked like goons had tossed him from the back of a speeding truck. I had a big day ahead of me. I sneaked down stairs, careful not to wake up Cotton or my friend Billy.

Out the door of Billy’s house into the cold morning air, I walked quickly so I wouldn’t miss the train. A few tired looking goons lingered in the streets, sauntering home after a long night of petty mischief, law breaking, or drunken carousing. I avoided eye contact. Even at this early hour, a typical goon had enough energy for one final violent confrontation before wandering home to sleep into the late hours of the afternoon.

The high-speed rail could have gotten me into Los Angeles in under twenty minutes, but I was on a budget and had to take the snail rail. I was in for the long haul. Alone on the train, we didn’t pick up another passenger until Fontana. A tired looking gentleman in a worn suit staggered in, leaned back against the headrest, and promptly fell asleep. I looked out the window at the small houses that dotted the rolling hills and thought about my friend Hammond who still called the city his home even though he hadn’t lived there in years. I wondered when I would see him again.

The
rising sun cast long shadows along the corridor that separated the two rows of seats. I reached into my pocket and took out the chopsticks Billy gave me along with a pair of dice his father had picked up long ago during a business trip to Las Vegas. I practiced using the chopsticks to pick up a die off the floor and stack it on top of its mate. I was terrible at first, but with a long trip ahead I had plenty of time to improve. By the time we got to Pasadena, I could bring a die to my lips without dropping it onto the floor. I put the dice and chopsticks back in my pocket, and took out my module to check the time. I was slightly ahead of schedule.

I fiddled with my personal pocket module, folding and unfolding it, and scrolling through digital menus. Just a few weeks old, the anodized fire engine red finish was already starting to scratch off. My module’s operating system crashed frequently, requiring me to stick the end of a paper clip in a pinhole at the back to reboot and reconfigure.

I snapped my pocket module shut and turned it over, revealing the module’s origin, “made in Sudan” written in tiny letters. The salesman had neglected to point that out to me in the showroom.
What a piece of junk,
I thought. Fortunately, I hadn’t traded in my older state-issued module. The salesman refused to give me what I thought was a fair price.
When I get back home later this afternoon,
I thought
, I’m going to hock this piece of junk and go back to using my old unit.

At Figueroa Street I hopped trains. I departed at the Hollywood Station. Down the Walk of Fame, I read the names by the palm prints molded into the sidewalk. Most were unfamiliar to me, belonging to actresses and actors dead long ago.

I arrived at the front door of Andy Guo’s Mandarin Palace five minutes before it officially opened. I could smell food cooking in the kitchen. My empty stomach grumbled painfully. A Chinese kid in a white apron offered to let me in early. I thanked him but declined, explaining, “I’m meeting someone.”

To kill time, I walked up and down the block. In the alleyway to the side of the restaurant, a man l
ay face down on a crumpled up section of cardboard box. Based on his attire, a casual button down shirt, chinos, and a thin faux leather black tie, I could tell that he wasn’t an injured goon. He was probably a reveler who had too much to drink the previous night and couldn’t find his way home. He breathed deeply, obviously still alive. Two restaurant workers stood over him, looking unconcerned. “He’s waking up,” one said smiling, but the guy didn’t even stir. It didn’t seem like he was waking up to me.

Ellen arrived, looking beautiful as always. She had changed her hair again. It was up instead of down. I thought it looked great. She wore her dress well.

“Thanks for meeting me here so early,” she said. “It gets really crowded on Sunday mornings. Everyone who’s anyone wants to come here for dim sum, and they don’t take reservations.”

The kid who offered to let me in early let us choose our table. Ellen wanted to sit outside so she could feel the cool breeze across her slim body and read the names written into the Walk of Fame.
The kid poured water into our crystal glasses and asked if we wanted tea.

“Give us a pot of the bo nay, please.” Ellen said politely. Turning to me she explained, “It helps digest oily foods.”

“We don’t have bo nay, but we have pu-her.”

“Are they similar?” Ellen asked.

The boy grinned. “They’re exactly the same.”

“Then why bring it up at all?” Ellen asked, confused.

“Because this is Andy Guo’s Mandarin Palace, not Andy Guo’s Cantonese Palace.” The boy winked and left to fetch our tea.

“That was rude!” Ellen protested. “That b
oy’s going to get himself fired, and, historically, dim sum is a Cantonese dish!”

“Yeah, but you used the wrong language.” I said.

“That’s not the point.” Ellen said.

“I think he’s all right.” I said. “He was just kidding around. He offered to let me in early, you know.”

“Still, he shouldn’t correct the customers. They’re going to fire him.”

“He’s probably Andy Guo’s kid.” I said. “He’s probably so laid back because he’s got good job security. No one’s going to fire the owner’s kid.”

“Andy Guo died over a century ago,” Ellen explained.

“Oh!” I said.
Still,
I thought,
I bet the kid’s not the type to spit in the tea.

The
pu-her tea had a certain detergent like quality when I drank it. Although the taste wasn’t exactly pleasing, it wasn’t repellent either, and the liquid seemed to sooth my empty gurgling stomach. I decided I liked pu-her tea.

Another boy rolled by with a cart loaded with food. I let Ellen pick and choose for the both of us. Billy had warned me that if I
wasn’t careful and pointed to the wrong thing, I could find myself digging into a steaming bowl of tripe.

Sadly, gripping food with chopsticks turned out to be much harder than moving around a pair of dice with sharp corners and hard edges. The shapes, sizes, and weights of the food morsels were entirely different. Ellen handled her chopsticks expertly, but I dropped a dumpling, splattering soy sauce all over the tablecloth. The kid who sat us down handed me a fork and took my chopsticks away. He winked at me again.

“I can’t believe he just did that?” Ellen protested.

“Did what?”

“Took your chopsticks away,” Ellen explained, “as if you’re a baby with bad motor skills or simply incompetent.”

“When it comes to chopsticks, I am incompetent. I never even held a pair until this morning.”

“You’ve never had Chinese food before?”

“Well yeah, the nasty take out they sell in my neighborhood, the stuff my brother said is made from ground cat, but I’ve never been to a proper sit down Chinese restaurant that gives you chopsticks.”

Ellen looked horrified and disgusted. “Ground cat! I can’t believe you said that. That’s so wrong! And racist!”

The boy who took my chopsticks away laughed. Apparently, he had been eavesdropping.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Ellen smiled.
“Oh I can’t stay mad at you.” she said. “You are the hero of the ship, after all.”

Ellen had caught me off guard. It wasn’t like her to dole out compliments. I forced a smile and nodded.

“Oh look at you, being humble. So cute!”

She thinks I’m cute!
I thought.
She thinks I’m cute!

We were both very hungry and were silent as we devoured our food. I knew Ellen was a fan of good manners, so I was careful not to make too many slurping noises as I munched my dumplings.

People started to trickle into the restaurant. With work to do, the boy in the white apron quit eavesdropping on us. Before long, the dining room became crowded and noisy.

As the sun rose, we were no longer sheltered by the shadows of the posh
high-rise apartment complexes that towered over us. I began to feel hot around the collar.

“So have you been thinking about your plan?” Ellen asked.

“About college?” I asked.

“Uh huh.”

There hadn’t been much to think about. I was going to attend Crafton Hills College part time while I continued to work at the Bruno Burger. I lacked the grades or the financial resources to go anywhere else.

“Crafton Hills,” I said.

“Oh!” she said, sounding disappointed.

“Hey, it’s not fancy, just a local community college, but two years ago a college education wasn’t even on the horizon.”

“It’s not that.” She clarified. “I narrowed my choices down to either Berkeley or Stanford. Either way I’ll be in Northern California. I hear long distance relationships can be really tough.”

Long distance relationship! What’s going on here?
I thought.
Why is Ellen talking about a long distance relationship already? When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t even certain if this was really a first date or just a friendly get together!

The sun seemed to be blaring down on me. It was hot, very hot, Death Valley in the summertime hot.
Why am I so hot?
I started sweating profusely, but Ellen looked quite comfortable and wasn’t sweating at all. I had her undivided attention, as if my next word would decide hour futures once and for all.
Why isn’t Ellen hot?

I had a scratchy sensation in my throat. It wasn’t closing shut like I hear happens with a food allergy. Rather it felt as if someone were reaching down my neck and pulling something out.

The noise of the crowd was overwhelming, deafening. Then suddenly it seemed to drown out, complete silence. Ellen moved her lips, but I couldn’t make out what she had to say. A faint humming noise, then a whirr, and then I could hear the distinct sounds of the sleeping man stirring in the alleyway by the restaurant. He moaned. I heard footsteps. The two workers were still there.
Shouldn’t they be serving the crowd on a busy day like this?
I thought.

“He’s waking up!” one of the workers cried gleefully. His voice
sounded very familiar. “He’s finally waking up!”

“Wait, hold on a second,” the other worker said.

The noise of the crowd suddenly roared back, completely overwhelming my senses. My head spun. For a second I was afraid I was going to puke all over Ellen and her elegant dress, which would spoil our date for certain. The roar faded again, and Ellen’s moving lips began to make audible sounds.

“Look at that,” she said pointing to the sidewalk, “the name by those handprints!”

I glared at the name in disbelief. If Ellen hadn’t read the name aloud, I would have thought my eyes were deceiving me.

“
Fiona Mammalot! Isn’t that the woman you and Allen saved from the ship?”

Yes, we were going to save
Fiona Mammalot!
I thought.
But she’d never have her name on the Walk of Fame. The Walk of Fame is intended to entertain tourists and prosperous families. Fiona Mammalot is much too sleazy and would drive people from that crowd away. Funny, I don’t actually remember saving Fiona Mammalot!

“He’s waking up!” the worker in the alleyway said.

“He’s waking up!” his companion shouted.

Ellen spoke, but her voice seemed to come from a distance, as if she were across the street and over to the left rather than right in front of me. “He’s waking up!” she said.

A white stallion charged down the hill, leaping over two Edison Speedgators parked end to end at the side of the road. Muscles gleaming, shorn from his body hair, Hammond wore nothing but his underthings. Hammond directed his steed onward against traffic with the confidence and command of a brigadier general. As my friend rode closer, I could see that he had his old foot back. There wasn’t even a trace of a scar to suggest that the dark midget loner foot had ever been grafted onto the end of his leg. The unreal-ness of the medical miracle was the final jolt that force me into a proper state of lucidity.