Anton's Odyssey

by Andre, Marc

  “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.

  Chapter 10: Hero and Savior

  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 lay 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.”

&nb
sp; “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 boy’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.

  “He’s waking up!” Hammond shouted.

  Great, I thought, I dream about finally getting a date with Ellen, and my subconscious forces me to see Hammond wearing nothing but a tiger-striped thong!

  Slowly, I opened my eyes. Hammond stood over me looking ecstatic. “He’s waking up! He’s waking up!” he cried.

  Allen and Ellen were there too, smiling. Dr. Zanders hunched over and shined a pen light into each of my eyes. His own eyes were bleary and baggy. He had lost some weight and was growing a scruffy beard, but he looked pleased. I tried to sit up, but my back seized, sending electric jolt
s of pain down my legs and into my toes. Dr. Zanders put a hand on my shoulder to restrain my movements.

  “Don’t try to sit up just yet. You’re severely de-conditioned and will just hurt yourself. In a couple of days, we can start doing some therapy exercises to help you get your strength back.” he said.

  “How long have I been out?” I asked.

  “Three weeks.” Ellen said.

  “Three weeks!” I said in disbelief. “What happened?”

  “What do you remember?” Dr. Zanders asked.

  “I hit my head,” I said. “I hit my head really hard.”

  “That you did.” Dr. Zanders said. “You were completely non-responsive when they found you. Shortly afterwards, you stopped breathing entirely. I had to intubate you. Up until a few minutes ago, you were on a vent. The good news is that your heart never stopped, but it’s still possible that you might have suffered some mild brain damage.”

  Great, I thought, Brain damage! So much for my dream of attending Crafton Hills College!

  “I’m pretty sure you’re stable now.” Dr. Zanders said smiling. “You gave us all a really good scare. I’m very glad you’re back, Anton. But if you will excuse me, I have many other duties to attend to.”

  Dr. Zanders dragged himself out of the room. I could tell by the way his shoulders slumped that he was completely exhausted. Whereas I spent the last three weeks unconscious, he had barely slept at all.

  Allen grinned. I grinned at Allen. Hammond smiled. I smiled back at Hammond. Ellen smiled and winked. I smiled back but didn’t wink because I wanted to keep her sign of affection between just the two of us. Nobody could seem to think of anything to say.

  “Where’s Cotton?” I asked. My three friends promptly stopped smiling.

  “Oh no!” I said. “He didn’t get hurt too, did he?”

  Hammond shook his head vigorously. “No, it’s nothing like that. They just had to lock him up for a while.”

  Only three weeks on a brand new planet, I thought, and Cotton already got himself into trouble, arrested even! Figures!