Checking Out- The Complete Trilogy

by T W M Ashford

  ‘Go on, in you get,’ said Milty, clambering into the driver’s seat. He set his toolbox down in the footwell between his legs. ‘It’s a bit of a squeeze I’m sure, but it’s not like you’re a pair of mastorhinos. And I cleaned all the grease off only yesterday.’

  I don’t know what a mastorhino is, but Pierre and I wrestled our way into the back of his buggy all the same. I hoped Milty Bootka wasn’t lying about giving his vehicle a scrub-down. After days on the lam, I was still enjoying how clean all my clothes felt.

  ‘Hold onto something,’ Milty grumbled over his shoulder as he turned a key in the ignition. ‘This lady can’t go fast but she sure loves to put up a fight all the same.’

  With a splutter the engine roared into life. It was the sort of roar that could only come from an old-fashioned Diesel engine, the sort of roar born from red cans of gasoline. All those years and all that technology, and yet the universe hadn’t moved on an inch. I guess oil was still cheap. It’s certainly easy.

  The buggy rose into the air with a jerk, coughing out from its exhaust a few times, and then proceeded to fly about five or so metres above the floor of the station. Every now and then Milty would have to weave around a pylon or a forklift driver, but otherwise it was a pretty straight flight towards the silos.

  ‘Easy to get lost round here when you’re new,’ he said, shouting to be heard above the noise of the engine. ‘You guys are new, right?’

  My stomach clenched. We were getting dangerously close to entering the second and preferably avoidable second stage of Pierre’s plan.

  ‘Yeah, you could say that,’ replied Pierre, glancing in my direction. ‘It’s our first day, that’s for sure. How do you find working here?’

  Milty Bootka bobbed his head from side to side.

  ‘It’s decent enough, I guess,’ he replied. ‘Yeah, can’t complain. It’s regular work. The pay is pretty decent. And the healthcare plan covers my wife too, which she’s happy about. There you go, we’re here. Careful as you get out.’

  The station must have had a surplus of crates covered in plastic sheets, because Milty brought the uncomfortable shuttle to a loud, belching stop behind yet another stack of them. Pierre and I wasted no time removing ourselves from the vehicle.

  ‘That’s the equipment depot right over there,’ said Milty as the engine continued to rumble along. He pointed towards a squat, square and wholly unremarkable metal structure that teetered on the absolute edge of the space station. ‘If it’s your first day you’ll probably want to report to Stephen at reception. That’s the door on your right. Okay, I’d best be off before they put out another call. See you around, guys.’

  The buggy rose back up into the air with another guttural hiccup and blast, and soon enough the amphibious engineer was gone.

  ‘Well, he seemed nice,’ I said.

  ‘You wouldn’t find him in the backroom of any Port Iridium opium den, that’s for sure,’ replied Pierre, already marching towards the depot. ‘Hurry up. Sooner or later someone will start asking questions if they see us standing out here like a couple of lost lemons.’

  I caught up with him, but instead of approaching the reception doors Pierre veered off towards the side of the building. The alley down there was much too close to the edge of the facility for my liking. I started to feel a bit queasy. Stars should lie above me, not below.

  There was a row of narrow windows lining the side of the depot’s ground floor. Pierre was standing on top of a pile of pallets and peering through their glass.

  ‘Dumpsters drowning in dirty uniforms, workbenches with silhouettes where the tools should be, cantankerous old administrators holding clipboards…’ muttered Pierre, squinting.

  ‘See anything useful?’ I whispered.

  ‘Ahem,’ came the loud and heavy sound of a throat being cleared behind us.

  Pierre and I turned to face a cross-armed, leather-faced security guard whose torso appeared to eclipse the entirety of Ophenia Four.

  ‘What I see is a pair of unregistered intruders whom I ought to throw into space,’ he added.

  Pierre hopped down from the pile of pallets and stood beside me, arms raised.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered to me, trying to hide a confident smile. ‘Part two of the plan is going to work, I guarantee it.’

  ‘So you’re inspectors, then. Funny. Nobody called ahead to tell me about any inspectors.

  We were sitting in a pair of uncomfortable, plastic chairs in front of an uncomfortable, plastic desk, listening to the man sitting opposite us talk. In some ways the foreman, a Mr. Percival Green, resembled the furniture of his office - not just uncomfortable and plastic, but thin and ready to fall apart as well. He reclined in his chair and stroked the point of his chin whilst the security guard who’d found us waited outside the office door.

  ‘Well, it’s not like Head Office to tell me much about anything these days,’ he laughed, shaking his head. He leaned forwards and the front two legs of his chair returned to the floor with a snap. ‘It’s not like I’m running a syphon mine for them here or anything!’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me started on the poor communication skills plaguing WeiKing-Co at the moment,’ replied Pierre, leaning forwards to mirror the foreman’s body language. He clasped his hands together in his lap. ‘The company didn’t even tell me and Mr. Webber that we had this job until last Tuesday. My oh my. It’s as if they want to make our jobs more difficult, am I right?’

  I must say, I was impressed. When Pierre talked me through the plan, no part of me had thought that the second stage would work. But Pierre had been right, or just plain lucky - though with Pierre the two usually seemed to amount to much the same thing.

  History does repeat itself, though considering the universe was undergoing something of a second draft, I suppose in this case history was happening for the first time. Pierre’s great plan was to do to this poor foreman exactly what Ms. Rundleford - sorry, Doxy the octowürm - had done to him: pose as an inspector. His logic? If it was good enough to fool him, it was good enough to fool everyone else too.

  Not that I’m complaining, of course. Pierre being proven right once again was much better than being ejected out into space without a helmet.

  ‘So, what can I help the two of you with?’ asked Percival, as he typed away at his computer, rearranged his glasses and continued to stroke his chin. He looked quite human, if you overlooked the four arms. ‘Anything, erm, particular you wanted to check while you’re here? I can pull up some records, if you’d like?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Pierre, waving the suggestion away. ‘We were hoping to be in and out before you even realised we were here. It’s best that way with impromptu inspections, you see. No chance for anyone to sweep all the hazards under the industrial carpet. Everything’s looking great so far though,’ he added, noticing how pale the poor foreman’s face had become.

  ‘Oh thank goodness,’ Percival sighed. ‘Not that everything isn’t always great, of course,’ he hurriedly added, dabbing a handkerchief at his sweaty brow. ‘I run a tight ship here, I do.’

  ‘Oh, we’re sure,’ smiled Pierre, looking to me. I added some reassuring nodding. ‘Though I suppose while we’re here…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The fissure, that one,’ Pierre said, pointing out the window as if there was any other fissure he could have meant. ‘Could you recap the safety protocols for me? I mean, nobody’s ever fallen into it, have they?’

  Percival laughed and clutched one of his many hands to his chest. ‘Heavens, no. Nobody’s allowed near that thing without two dozen safety checks and a harness tethered to a supervisor’s security station. If an engineer gets within even a molecule’s width of that blinding monstrosity they get reeled back faster than you can pluck a moulting gnarleck. We haven’t had so much as a single accident in the sixty-two years I’ve been working here. Not regarding the crack, at least. Somebody stepped onto a gravity lift once, but that was an unfortunate accident. And the company knows that!�
�

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s fine,’ said Pierre, smiling through gritted teeth. I could almost see the metaphorical rope with which he was pulling the conversation along. ‘Of course, I know that nobody’s ever gone inside. That goes without saying. But tell me - has there never been a situation when a technician has needed to venture further in? How did you install all those clamps holding the syphoning equipment in place, for example?’

  ‘Oh! The clamps?’ Percival Green craned his neck to look out of the window behind him. ‘Nobody installed them. Well, that’s not true. Nobody had to go up there to put them in, is what I mean. We have a modified exploratory vessel that we pilot remotely. It’s got room for a couple of technicians, but there’s no way I’d be crazy enough to send it up there with anyone riding in it.’

  My heart fell. That was hardly the news I’d been hoping for. I was going to end up in that fissure whether it was good for me or not. Couldn’t I at least be given some glimmer of hope beforehand? A reply something along the lines of, ‘Oh, one person went in. He came back in one piece, it was only his mind that got scrambled.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Pierre, not giving up. ‘But what about the vessel? That goes inside the fissure. How much repair work needs doing on it once it’s back out?’

  ‘Why, none,’ replied Percival, looking nonplussed. ‘It comes out in the exact same state as it goes in. We give it a scrubbing down as a precaution, but otherwise… No. Good as new each time. I guess it’s because it’s all metal and stuff, just like the syphon cables that suck up all the antimatter. Non-organic, you know what I mean?’

  Pierre straightened his uniform and adopted as authoritative and snooty expression as he could muster. ‘We’d like to see this vehicle,’ he said, looking down his nose, ‘and see it up and running, if possible. Where would we find it?’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ replied Percival, jumping up from his seat. His face grew apologetic. ‘It’s back at the equipment depot, I’m afraid. I’ll have one of my security team take you over there right away. Again, I’m awfully sorry about the inconvenience, if there’s…’

  An enormous horn rang out across the facility, deep and angry. It was so loud we could hear it even from inside the foreman’s office.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, getting to my feet. ‘Please tell me it was just the whistle for lunch.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ replied Percival, his brow furrowing and the fingers of his four hands wringing together into a ball of worms. ‘Whatever it was, I don’t think it was us.’

  ‘Erm, George?’ said Pierre. He was standing beside the windows and trying his hardest to remain professional, but his eyes were too wide and his legs were starting to wobble. ‘Mr. Webber, I mean? Would you kindly come take a look at something for me?’

  I hurried over whilst Percival Green tried contacting his receptionist through his intercom.

  ‘Do you recognise that?’ asked Pierre, pointing in the direction from which we’d first approached in our stolen spaceship. ‘You know, the big one?’

  My eyes followed his finger and my stomach shrunk the way an apple does as it turns rotten.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I think,’ Pierre whispered under his breath, ‘that we might be in a bigger spot of trouble than we thought.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The Roaming Havoc floated above the mining facility, blocking what little of the sun’s light still shone from behind Ophenia Four. A great many searchlights beamed up in its direction. A great many artillery cannons were being pointed back in ours.

  ‘What in God’s name are they doing here?’ I snapped at Pierre. ‘You said they were probably just picking up supplies back at Port Iridium. Supplies with which to attack a mining facility?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know what they’re here for?’ hissed Pierre. ‘They might be here to steal the energy, sure. But maybe they’re here to buy it, you know? Save some money by cutting out the middle-man?’

  I peered out of the window again. Some of the engineers had stopped working and were staring up at the ship, bemused. Others were running for cover.

  ‘Something tells me they didn’t make an appointment,’ I groaned.

  ‘Hey, you know what?’ said Pierre, grabbing me lightly by the arm. ‘Doesn’t matter. None of it does. Maybe it’s even a good thing. Maybe with everyone distracted by those guys we can grab the vessel and head for the fissure without anyone trying to stop us.’

  We were edging towards the door of the foreman’s office when the screen in the corner of the room burst into life… as did every screen and every speaker across the whole facility, apparently. The picture showed an angry alien with a bony skull mask for a face, whose teeth had been filed into points. I recognised his kind. He was one of the Skrelliks on board the Roaming Havoc.

  ‘Workers of this WeiKing-Co cosmic crack syphon mine,’ came the snarling voice of the man on the screen, ‘please stop what you are doing. It has come to our attention that you are harbouring a pair of thieves. Someone amongst you stole a ship belonging to our leader. We tracked it to this facility. Deliver the thieves to us within five minutes or we shall come down and take them by force. Consider this ultimatum quickly. The ship will be recovered regardless of your decision.’

  The screens all around the facility switched off with a crackling whine.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whispered.

  We turned to face the foreman who was, quite without realising, still holding down the button of his intercom. He raised one of his four hands to his open mouth.

  ‘Mr. Green,’ said Pierre, raising his hands. ‘Listen. We can…’

  ‘Don’t stand there talking, you idiots!’ shrieked Percival, tapping away at his computer. A hologram of a phone’s dial-pad appeared in the air in front of him. ‘Get out there and find those thieves before the Skrelliks blow us all up! Oh dear, oh dear…’

  Pierre and I looked at each other, not quite believing our luck.

  ‘Who are you calling?’ I asked, as Pierre tugged me towards the door. ‘The, erm, law?’

  ‘The law?’ laughed Percival, madness bubbling up in his voice. ‘There’s no law this far out, and it’s not like they’d go toe-to-toe with the Skrelliks anyway. No, I’m phoning Head Office. They’ll know what to do, right? Right?’

  We left him to his panicked phone call and darted out into the corridor. Percival’s security guard was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What do we do?’ I snapped, once we’d closed the door to Percival’s office behind us. ‘They’re going to blow up the whole station, Pierre! Should we give ourselves up? Or do you think they might be bluffing?’

  I remembered the sheer amount of weaponry that adorned the exterior of the Roaming Havoc and almost laughed at myself. Nobody bothers to bluff when they’ve got more cannons than the British navy.

  ‘We are not giving ourselves up!’ hissed Pierre. ‘Aside from the fact that the fate of the entire multiverse rests on our shoulders, do you have any idea what the Skrellik troops would do to us if we got caught?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Question: do you know how long the average human’s intestines are?’

  ‘What? No?’

  ‘Would you like to find out?’

  We heard screaming from outside. Pierre and I rushed past the corridor’s holographic potted plants and pressed our faces against the window at its end. Down below, engineers were fleeing down the narrow, metal walkways. A crowd of Skrelliks had debarked a rectangular landing craft and were firing plasma rifles and throwing spears that sparked with electricity. The five minute countdown to total annihilation wasn’t up yet, but apparently our assailants weren’t against some mild terror in the meantime.

  ‘Okay then. You might have a point. What do we do?’

  ‘We stick to the plan,’ said Pierre, his eyes darting around the corridor. ‘The foreman said that the remote mining vessel had room for two engineers and always came back intact. He also told us we could find it in the equipment
depot. We make our way back over to that building using all the chaos out there as cover, and then fly the vessel inside the fissure. Simple. Never been simpler. Where are the damn stairs?’

  I pointed at the stairwell to our left.

  ‘Ah. Right. Hurry up then.’

  I followed a frantic Pierre down the dozen or so flights of stairs that connected the suspended, square office building to the rest of the mining facility. ‘The foreman didn’t seem all that sure anything organic could survive the journey into the crack, Pierre. I’m really not sure how happy I am with the idea of dying in the next few minutes.’

  ‘Well go and surrender yourself to the Skrelliks then,’ said a breathless Pierre. ‘See how much better you are with them. Or stay here and get yourself blown up. Right now your best chance of survival is going inside that fissure, quite frankly. Though I suppose if you surrendered, it might buy me some time…’

  ‘Can we at least talk about it?’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ snapped Pierre, stopping halfway down the last set of stairs. He grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘There is nothing to talk about. Nothing. We might die if we go in there, but we will die if we stay here. And then everything will. Viola doesn’t exist anymore, George. She’s gone. My hotel is gone. Everything you shared with your wife and child - it might be in your head but that’s all gone too. And every alternate version of them has been erased as well. Do you understand, George? There isn’t a chance we might die if we go in that fissure. There’s a chance we might live.’

  ‘Sam and Chloe never… they never existed?’

  ‘They did, in your history,’ continued Pierre, tapping my temple with his finger. ‘But that’s a history that dies with you and me. So we’re doing this, alright? No more questions, no more quibbling. Never has everything or nothing been more applicable to a goddamn situation.’

  An awkward silence hung between us, punctuated only by the sobering sound of screaming and rifle fire outside.