by Gina Damico
Louise: Um, I can hear you.
Bacardi: [grabbing his chin and pulling it toward hers] Don’t look at her. Look at me. I have boobs.
[She points them directly at Camera #5.]
Clayton: [grinning] I gotta say, your fame-whore game is on point. Bet you’re getting shitloads of screen time.
Bacardi: You think so? [She hiccups.] Yay!
Clayton: So what do you want out of all this? Your own show? Endorsement deals?
Bacardi: I told you, I wanna join the CIA.
[Clayton bursts out laughing.]
Clayton: What, Cocktail Imbibers of America?
Bacardi: [giving him a teasing push] No, the real one! The CIA needs internet people! [very seriously] They have a lot of internets.
Clayton: Right. And if that doesn’t work out?
Bacardi: I dunno. Isn’t Chazz your uncle or something? Maybe he can give us a show together!
Clayton: [looking slightly disgusted] Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’m gonna be pretty busy when we get back. I’ve got big plans for my time here. People are going to want to talk to me. Important people. [He is lost in thought for a moment, then snaps out of it and winks at her.] But hey, for an ass like yours? Hit me up once we’re back home and maybe—maybe—I’ll grant you a second or two of my precious, invaluable time.
Bacardi: Thanks!
[She goes back to licking his face. Nico enters, spots Titania, and joins her.]
Nico: What’s wrong? Don’t want to take a dip in the human petri dish?
Titania: I thought about it. Ultimately decided that now was not the time to invite a bacterial infection into my life.
Nico: Is there even a medical team on call if we get sick or hurt?
Titania: I don’t know. Punch me in the face and we’ll find out.
What the audience doesn’t know, and what DV8 attempts to disguise with filler and cleverly added commercial time, is that the kids barely produce anything watchable this week. Again. Whereas nothing happened in Week 1 because everyone was still too new and reserved, Week 2’s tedium comes because they’re all too freaked out. Once they realize how much is at stake—that they could be kicked off the show against their will, or, slightly worse, killed—a new mood settles through the ship. A tense, introspective mood that’s mighty boring to watch.
So once again, Chazz Young throws a panic bomb at them.
[A high-pitched screech fills the room, water splashing as everyone scrambles to cover their ears.]
Titania: Great. More beeping.
[The bubbles begin to modulate, cutting in and out in a rhythmic, pulsing pattern. Nico and Titania rush to the pools edge and peer in.]
Nico: What’s happening?
Louise: [mouth agape as she watches the bubbles] Are they . . . is that a pattern? [She ogles the water’s surface, her mouth moving as she counts out a rhythm.] Maybe it’s a code!
Clayton: Yeah. It says you suck.
Bacardi: SICK BURN! [She attempts to high-five him, miscalculates, and tumbles under the surface of the water like a drunken seal.]
Louise: I bet it’s a communication from an alien intelligence! Come on!
[She flops across the hot tub and gets out, splashing everyone in the process. Nico and Titania watch her go, while Clayton and Bacardi go back to making out.]
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[Jamarkus, Matt, Kaoru, and Snout are playing Operation. Kaoru removes the Spare Ribs. Colonel Bacon seems offended. Louise storms in, dripping wet.]
Louise: You guys! Aliens are trying to communicate with us through the hot tub!
[Everyone looks at the hot-tub window, against which Clayton and Bacardi are pressed at an angle the FCC deems worthy of pixelation.]
Kaoru: {Ew.}
Snout: Colonel Bacon, don’t look. [He covers the pig’s eyes and shouts at the pool.] Come on now! He’s just a baby!
Louise: No, no—the bubbles! They’re pulsing in a distinctive rhythm, like it’s a code or something!
Jamarkus: To the hot tub!
[Everyone follows him except for Kaoru, who turns her attention back to the game, removes the funny bone, and gives Camera #4 an ironic look.]
Source: Camera #5—Spa
[Clayton and Bacardi don’t even look up as their shipmates pile into the room.]
Titania: Come to sample the human soup?
Louise: [jumping back into the water] Come on, you can hear it better when you’re in here!
Matt: Surely we don’t need to submerge ourselves to—
Jamarkus: Everyone in! [He removes his clothing with all the speed of a seasoned stripper and flings himself into the water. Matt, Snout, and Colonel Bacon follow.]
Clayton: [finally breaking from Bacardi’s face] Is it orgy time? [growing increasingly intrigued as he watches the others hop into the water] It’s orgy time!
Louise: No. We’re trying to figure out what the bubbles are saying.
Jamarkus: [listening to the water] I think . . . my God, I think it’s Morse code!
Louise: Do you know Morse code?
Jamarkus: I do!
Clayton: Of course you do.
Snout: Is it aliens? Ask them what they did with my tractor!
Jamarkus: It says—hang on—[Screwing up his face, he listens.] “Pulsing, surging, bubbly bliss—nothing’s more serene than this.”
[Louise gasps.]
Louise: By the moons of Dinatorq . . . [shouting at the ceiling] Lord Balway Galway! I’ll be your bubbly bliss!
Snout: Wait, wait, wait. So it did mean something?
Jamarkus: Afraid so, my friend.
[He looks meaningfully into Camera #5 as music swells.]
It’s a message.
[MUSIC CUE: “E.T.” by Katy Perry, featuring Kanye West]
[END OF ACT ONE; CUT TO COMMERCIAL]
Item: Transcript of video recording—RAW, UNAIRED FOOTAGE
Source: Camera #5—Spa
Date: February 5, 2016
Titania: Or a hot tub jingle.
Louise: But who’s it from?
Titania: Probably the hot tub company.
Louise: And what do they want?
Titania: To sell more hot tubs.
Jamarkus: [to Titania] Hey, hey, hey—that sort of doubt and second-guessing is detrimental to our mission. True scientific breakthroughs always come from keeping an open mind and allowing creative thinking to expand, no matter how radical or unexplainable things may be.
Louise: Yeah! [to Titania] What do you know anyway? You’re not a professional space expert like Jamarkus and me—
Jamarkus: Well, hey now, you’re not—
Louise: And we think that it’s real. What more proof do you need?
[Titania opens her mouth to reply, but looks at Nico, who shakes his head, barely suppressing a smile.]
Titania: You know what? I don’t. [She and Nico start to leave.] Enjoy your speech bubbles.
Nico: Maybe they come from the Planet Jacuzzi!
[Dissolving into laughter, they push each other toward the door. Nico tries to pull it open, but the handle slips from his grasp.]
Nico: Whoa. Who locked the door?
Titania: It’s not locked, just stuck. The humidity is warping the wood. [She grips the handle and gives it a good tug, popping the door open with a cringe-inducing screech that startles everyone, with messy results.]
Colonel Bacon: [distressed squeal]
Snout: Oh, cripes. Fire in the hole, everyone out!
[The spa is hastily abandoned. Most of the cast members end up in the bathroom to shower, but Titania and Nico steal away to the Confessional Closet instead, still laughing.]
Source: Camera #7—Confessional Closet
[They sit on the floor, across from each other.]
Nico: Because humidity is totally a thing that’s allowed on a spaceship. It’s not like water droplets would harm the instruments or anything.
Titania: Wood is great too. Not a fire hazard at all.
&nbs
p; [Their giddiness soon fades.]
Titania: I’m only laughing because I’m so disappointed I want to cry.
Nico: Me too. Should have known it was too good to be true.
Titania: I guess that’s on us, right? It’s not like this is the first time a network media conglomerate has tricked a bunch of sad, desperate kids into appearing on TV. It’s just the first time they did it with the empty promise of outer space—
[Beeping fills the air once again, along with the announcement of “HOT-TUB CHLORINATION COMMENCING.” Titania automatically puts her hands over her ears and waits for it to pass, her eyes squeezed tight. When it stops, she heaves a quivering sigh.]
Nico: You okay?
Titania: Yeah.
Nico: Why . . .
[He trails off; there’s no need for him to ask out loud. She rubs one foot against the other.]
Nico: It’s just—I’ve told you so much. Don’t you trust me?
[Her eyes soften.]
Titania: Yeah. I guess I do.
[She swallows]
Titania: It’s because it reminds me of the hospital, after the accident. The machines beeping. The monitors.
[She rubs the spot near her scar as she speaks.]
Titania: Want to know why my favorite color is blue? Because it was the only calming thing about that hospital room. Blue floor—not sky blue, not navy blue, not ocean blue—but this gorgeously saturated blue blue. The definition of blue. The walls and the ceiling too. Blue above, blue below. I’d lose myself in blue for hours trying to ignore the beeping. Drenching myself with it. Drowning in the blue, to drown out the noise.
Nico: [quietly] Did it work?
Titania: Never for as long as I needed it to.
[They fall silent again. Titania wipes an eye with her wrist and clears her throat.]
Titania: Anyway. [Her eyes dart back and forth as she tries to figure out how to shift the focus away from her] Who do you live with now that your parents are gone?
[Nico, grateful for the change of subject, lets out a breath.]
Nico: My older brother. He’s seven years older than me, so he’d already moved out and gotten a job by the time the fire happened. I went to stay with him afterward, and he became my legal guardian.
Titania: Do you get along with him?
Nico: Get along? Yeah. But that’s about it.
Titania: What do you mean?
Nico: He resents me. Me being there, intruding on his life.
Titania: Even though—
Nico: Even though it’s not my fault, yeah. I mean, it’s not like he tried to get out of it. He took me in right away. But I know he’s sick of me. He got a taste of adult life, being out on his own, and then here I came, a needy pile of responsibility he never asked for. All that freedom, gone in a second. No warning, no time to prepare. Bam—you’re a parent now. Deal with it.
And he’s been great—never complained, never got directly mad at me. And I know he’s hurting too. He misses Mom and Dad, although we never talk about that stuff because—I don’t know, because we’re boys and boys don’t talk about emotions, all that macho junk. But I can see the bitterness underneath sometimes. Like, he’ll say things, normal things, but you can tell there’s a hidden meaning behind them. Like when he’s on the phone with his girlfriend. “Nico needs new sneakers for gym.” But really: “Could have saved that money to take you out to dinner.” “Still haven’t gotten that promotion.” “Because I had to leave work early to go take my stupid non-kid to the dentist.”
It’s easier now that I’m older—I can do more stuff on my own. But I know he wants to move in with his girlfriend, maybe get married—and he can’t do that while I’m around. Or he doesn’t feel like he can.
He’s probably having a blast right now. I mean, I’m sure he misses me—I miss him—but I don’t think he’s crying about it or anything.
[Nico bites at his nail.]
I shouldn’t complain. I had a happy childhood, considering. There are lots of worse ways it could have gone.
Titania: There always are.
Nico: But still.
Titania: But still.
[pause]
Titania: My parents hate me.
Nico: Every kid thinks that.
Titania: Yeah, but mine really do.
Nico: I’m sure that’s not—
Titania: I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. No one likes to think that two people who loved them so hard for seventeen years can suddenly stop, just like that. But it can happen. It did to me.
Nico: But not out of the blue, right? There had to be a reason.
Titania: There was.
[Titania appears to be on the verge of saying something big. But she gives her head a small shake.]
Titania: I could no longer look them in the eye, and they no longer wanted me to.
It’s worth noting that although Nico and Titania have many conversations throughout the rest of their time on the ship, and although the chats would be much adored by fans of their budding relationship, DV8 doesn’t air a single frame—not after the two of them come to the realization that the show is bogus. The risk of them exposing the fraud is too great.
From this point on, Nico and Titania have a tremendous amount of power. DV8 knows it. And DV8 fears it.
* * *
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
[continued]
[START OF ACT TWO]
[IMAGE: Chazz in the studio. He has a stack of index cards in his hand and a swoop to his hair that can only be described as “sail-like.” ]
Chazz: Welcome back, space fans! This week’s elimination is coming right up—but first, let’s take a few minutes to get to know our breakout star of the week. That’s right, I’m talking about America’s newest sweetheart: Enormous Robotic Arm!
[For five full minutes DV8 plays a montage of clips featuring Enormous Robotic Arm—snippets of late-night show monologues, screenshots of memes, the countless parodies that have sprung up online—in another barefaced attempt to replace the entertaining content that the Spacetronauts have so rudely declined to provide, what with their meaningful conversations and incriminating discoveries and all.
Eventually the episode cuts back to the ship—just in time for the Instigating Plot Point of the Week.]
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[It appears to be late morning. Most of the Spacetronauts are eating eggs in the lounge.]
Nico: Damn. For powdered eggs, these are delicious, Snout.
Snout: Thanks!
Nico: You’re a good cook.
Snout: Aw, nah. I just know how to rustle up some grub in a hurry. Reckon it came naturally to me, growing up on a farm. Eggs for breakfast, eggs for lunch. Sometimes I have egg dreams!
Nico: You have a chicken farm?
Snout: Chickens, pigs, corn, potatoes, a few other vegetables. Some raspberry patches.
Nico: Wow. I’ve never even seen a farm.
Snout: You a city boy?
Nico: Yeah, I live in the Bronx. New York. With my brother. [reddening] It’s a weird situation.
Snout: Aw, I’m sorry, buddy. That sounds rough.
Nico: It’s not ideal. But I can’t complain.
Snout: Hey, everyone’s got their own manure to scoop. I always got food in my belly and a bunch of animal buddies, but my daddy’s getting old, and soon it’ll be up to me to take over the farm. And we’re having a rough go of things these days, what with the economy and all. We’ve had to cut back on expenses, and it’s getting harder and harder to squeeze out a profit. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. [He frowns and swirls his fork through his eggs, then gives Nico a grin.] But hey—at least at home I don’t have to eat powdered eggs!
Nico: [smiling back] At least there’s that.
Bacardi: Hey look! [pointing out the Windows Window] There’s something out there!
[Everyone in the room adopts a skeptical look, except for Nico and Titania, who exchange wary glances.]
; Clayton: Like, a flying vodka bottle, or . . .
Bacardi: No, for real. I swear I saw something!
Clayton: The only thing you’ve seen for the majority of this excursion is the inside of a toilet seat—
Snout: Wait, I see it too!
[Everyone watches the Windows Window as one by one, the stars wink out. Passing by is something dark, massive, and invisible—until a glint of black metal shines in the reflection of the sun.]
Snout: What is that?
Kaoru: {An animation.}
Matt: Maybe it’s the shuttle they sent to pick up Hibiscus?
Snout: No way. All these days later?
Jamarkus: That’s no shuttle. [He stands in a dramatic fashion. Music swells.] That’s something . . . else.
Matt: Maybe it’s someone trying to contact us!
Jamarkus: [his face darkening] Or destroy us.
Clayton: And beat me to it? How dare they.
Jamarkus: Everyone remain calm. I know what to do. [He takes a seat at the control panel.] I’ll fire a signal flare. If what we saw is nothing—then no harm, no foul. If a dark and sinister enemy really is out there, they’ll know we’re friendly because we didn’t shoot directly at them.
Clayton: Or they’ll shoot at us anyway because they don’t adhere to your random set of moral rules.
Jamarkus: I say it’s worth a shot. Laika, permission to fire flare?
Robot Voice: PERMISSION GRANTED.
[Jamarkus presses a complicated combination of buttons on the panel. A streak of light fires across the Windows Window.]
Matt: Now what?
Jamarkus: Now we wait.
Snout: Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.
[Kaoru recognizes the word “fish” and brightens.]
Kaoru: [in English] Fine kettle? Of fish?
Snout: Yes, ma’am. We’re in a real mess up here.
[Realizing there is no fish, Kaoru deflates.]
[MUSIC CUE: “Grenade” by Bruno Mars]
[END OF ACT TWO; CUT TO COMMERCIAL]
* * *
But that’s not quite where the action ends. When Jamarkus fires the flare, all the anxiety that’s been building since Hibiscus’s elimination finally bubbles over.
