Waste of Space
Page 22
Bacardi: I’ll have. A lasagna.
[Snout, looking a little scared, grabs some supplies and hurries off toward the kitchen. [Snout, looking a little scared, grabs some supplies and hurries off toward the kitchen. Nico and Titania drag the rest of the food into the lounge.]
Source: Camera #3—Lünar Lounge
[Louise selects a package of hot dogs and heads over to Clayton with a smirk.]
Louise: Here you go. [She opens the package and sticks a hot dog through the hole in the glass.] A wiener for a wiener.
Clayton: It’s frozen. How am I supposed to eat this?
Louise: Defrost it in your tepid bathwater. Yum!
Clayton: [straining to see into the airlock] What else is there?
Louise: Oh, loads of good stuff.
Clayton: [pouting] I need food too.
Louise: You should have thought of that before you did what you did. Now the rest of us get a feast and you get whatever fits through this hole!
[Louise flits away, leaving Clayton to dejectedly suck on the hot dog as if it were a Popsicle. Meanwhile, Nico selects a banana from the pile, and Titania looks accusingly at the airlock door.]
Nico: Convenient, isn’t it?
Titania: That the exact problem that needed solving was so easily solved at the exact right time? Yes. Yes, it is.
Nico: Is it the exact right time, though? Don’t you think it’s weird that they’d wait until we were desperate? Why would they do that?
Titania: To mess with our heads.
Nico: Exactly. [He peels the banana.] Add another point for psychological testing—
Snout: Stop!
[Just as Nico moves in for a bite of his banana, Snout runs in from the kitchen and bats it out of his hands.]
Snout: [panting] The eggs are off.
Nico: Huh?
Snout: The eggs! [He catches his breath.] Don’t know exactly what’s wrong with ’em, but I’ve handled about a million eggs in my lifetime, and these ones just aren’t right.
Titania: What are you saying? The food has been tampered with?
Snout: I wouldn’t put it past them. Would you?
Titania: No. [She speaks slowly, thinking out loud.] DV8’s not trying to kill us—if they were, we’d be dead already. But maybe it’s like you said, maybe they’re using us like lab rats in a psychological experiment, testing us and watching us to see how we’ll react to certain situations.
Nico: Or—[His face darkens as he makes the realization.] Or maybe NASAW’s hijacked the reins away from DV8. What if they’re completely in control now? Maybe we’re the nuisances distracting them from their sciencing, whatever it is, and every time we get close to escaping, they knock us back a few pegs. Like they did with the gas.
Titania: And if they incapacitated us once before, they could do it again. [She knocks a box of Pop-Tarts out of Louise’s hands.] Don’t eat the food, Louise.
Louise: Why not?
Titania: Because it might make us sick.
Louise: But Lord Balway Galway sent it!
Titania: He—[She stops herself, knowing that logic won’t get her anywhere, and rephrases.] He may have sent it—but he would have had no way of knowing whether NASAW . . . sabotaged it . . . while he wasn’t looking. Right?
Louise: I . . . I guess not.
Titania: And neither do we. So until we know for sure, we can’t eat any of it.
Bacardi: Are you kidding me? I’m starving!
Titania: Look, I’m hungry too. But we can’t trust them.
Bacardi: But—lasagna!
Titania: Think about it: they’ve gassed us, thrown us around the ship, and set us on fire—why wouldn’t they mess with our food? And why else would they wait until we’re desperate, then suddenly present a cornucopia that’s vastly better than the glop we’ve been eating for three weeks? They want us to eat it, because they want to stop us from trying to escape.
[Clayton lets out a laugh.]
Clayton: There you go again, buying into the paranoia.
[They watch as he smacks at his fingers.]
Louise: Did you eat that whole hot dog?
Clayton: Sure did.
Nico: But . . . what if it’s poisoned?
Clayton: It’s not. But by all means, carry on with your hunger strike. If the rest of you die of starvation because you refused to eat perfectly edible food, I’m going to laugh my ass off at your funerals.
[Everyone looks back at Titania.]
Snout: So do we eat it? Or not?
[Titania bites her lip.]
* * *
Item: Online article
Source: ViralLoad
Time: 3:01 p.m.
What is going on with our space buddies???
It’s been fifteen hours since the Shwump heard round the world, and man, are the conspiracy theories flying. We all saw those Spacetronauts floating, with our very own eyes—but then Hibiscus came out and stated that everything is a hoax—and now the prevailing theory is that it’s one big psychological experiment? HAVE WE ALL TAKEN CRAZY PILLS?
If we have, DV8 isn’t telling. Other than that bizarre, staged press conference, Chazz Young’s pillowy lips have been sealed up tight. Matt and Kaoru are allegedly in the hospital getting treated for some unnamed malady (Chazz called it “space pox”), but there is no hospital in the Los Angeles area with any record of having treated them.
Not that America needs a reason to keep watching. Waste of Space fever is still gripping the country and hasn’t shown any signs of dying down. If anything, it’s intensified. It’s difficult to go without spotting someone in a Kiss my astronaut T-shirt. Banners and graffiti screaming “Bring Home the Bacon” are a testament to the fandom of the Laika’s beloved pet pig, whose whereabouts are also still unknown.
The longer we speculate, the hungrier we get.
* * *
Item: Transcript of video recording
Source: Security camera—A-X Conoco gas station, Socorro, NM
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Clerk: Can I help you?
Matt: I hope so. We—it’s hard to know where to start. I think we were, like, kidnapped? And then we escaped and we’ve been driving in circles around half the Southwest and maybe Mexico and we got chased out of an IKEA and ran out of food and money and now we’re here?
Clerk: I don’t understand.
Matt: I know. I’m trying to explain a situation that’s not explainable. We were on this show—
Kaoru: {Do not tell him about the show.}
Matt:—and we were voted out, so we were pulled into the airlock and tasered, and then we woke up in the back of the windowless van, and—
Clerk: Look, kid, I don’t want to get involved. Why don’t you call for help and leave me out of this?
Matt: Because we don’t have a phone. We ran over the driver’s phone when we escaped.
Kaoru: {We need to leave.}
Matt: Hey, can we use yours? We’ve been driving for a while and she doesn’t want to take a chance but I think it’s time. We can’t keep driving forever.
Kaoru: {Come on, foolish boy. Get back in the car.}
Clerk: Phone isn’t for customer use. There’s a pay phone out back.
Matt: But we’re out of money. Can I borrow a quarter?
Clerk: Sorry, no can do.
Matt: Come on, man. This is an emergency.
Clerk: You bet it is!
[The clerk pulls out his cell phone, snaps a photo of Matt and Kaoru, and grins.]
Matt: [frozen, confused] What was that?
Clerk: [tapping at his phone] Just sent a photo of you two off to DV8. They’re gonna fry you dry!
Matt: What does that mean?
Clerk: It means you make me wanna puke, son. Capitalizing on other people’s misfortunes, passing yourselves off as those two poor sick kids. How dare you?
Matt: Oh God. Look, sir, this is all a misunderstanding—
Clerk: That’s what they said you’d say. But a superfan like me knows better! [He r
ips open his employee vest to reveal a BRING HOME THE BACON T-shirt underneath.] Catchphrase forever!
[Kaoru swiftly delivers a punch to the man’s face, then runs to a shelf and gathers several bags of junk food into her arms. After a second of bewildered hesitation, Matt follows suit and yanks some bottled drinks out of the refrigerator. By the time the clerk has recovered enough to dial 911, they’re back in the purple windowless van, peeling out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust.]
* * *
After more quibbling over the food and the resulting decision to shove it all in the pantry, the Spacetronauts go their separate ways again, frustrated by indecisiveness and the increasing static electricity.
Item: Transcript of video recording—RAW, UNAIRED FOOTAGE
Source: Camera #9—Kitchen
Time: 4:05 p.m.
[Louise is delivering a speech to her reflection in the pantry door.]
Louise: And furthermore, once I am welcomed onboard the Interstellar Venture V, I plan to make an impression right from the start. I know the standard thing to say is that we come in peace, but I feel like that’s a little trite these days—plus, Lord Balway Galway has always had an appreciation for bold statements. So I’ve come up with something snazzier: BOW BEFORE YOUR FUTURE QUEEN, FOR HER BEAUTY IS UNSURPASSED AND HER VENGEANCE SWIFT AND TERRIBLE—
Source: Camera #6—Bathroom
[Bacardi is in the shower stall, but no water is running. When she emerges, she is fully clothed and tucking something into her bra.]
Source: Camera #8—Bedroom
[Titania is on her knees, looking underneath a bunk bed when Nico peeks his head in. Seeing her on the floor, he tries to leave without being noticed, but fails.]
Titania: Nico?
Nico: Oh, hey. What are you doing?
Titania: Trying to find a morsel of food. Like, a cracker. A mint.
Nico: And?
Titania: No luck.
Nico: Ah.
[He shifts uncomfortably]
Titania: What’s wrong? Besides the given.
Nico: I’m starting to feel weird about . . . what I did. With my mouth. And your mouth.
Titania: You’ll note that I didn’t stop you.
Nico: Yeah, but—do you even like me? Or is this more of a we’re-stranded-on-a-desert-island-so-this-guy-is-good-enough situation?
Titania: Does it matter?
Nico: Uh, yeah.
[Titania gets to her feet, brushing dust off her pants.]
Titania: I don’t know. I didn’t come here thinking about any of that. All I could think about was getting away. Then when Chazz told us there was money involved, all I could think about was using that money to get even farther away. But now we’re trapped here and antigravity is happening and you’re . . . [gesturing erratically at him] you, and things have gotten all complicated.
Nico: Oh.
[pause]
Nico: So do you like me or not?
Titania: I like you. And if we were having this conversation at our lockers after third period and not in a fake spaceship commandeered by unbalanced, evil pirate scientists, I’d probably be hoping you would ask me to prom. Or—wait, what am I saying—I’d probably ask you to prom. Actually, to be honest, I never really saw myself as a person who would go to prom in the first place—
Nico: You’re stalling.
[Titania gives him a sad smile.]
Titania: What I mean is—if we were anywhere else—
Nico: But we’re not.
Titania: So I can’t.
[She looks down at the floor.]
Titania: I took this giant leap into the unknown by coming here, and depending on what comes next, I need to be able to . . . keep leaping. You know what I mean?
Nico: Yeah.
Titania: But Nico?
Nico: Yeah?
Titania: I do like you.
[Nico returns her smile.]
* * *
Item: Transcript of video recording
Source: Nico’s camera
Battery charge: 20%
Time: 4:37 p.m.
[IMAGE: The bedroom ceiling. Nico has chosen to point his camera at Camera #8, its unblinking eye eerily staring back at him.]
When I was in sixth grade, I made friends with this girl at my school who had leukemia. She sat next to me in art class and introduced herself—like I didn’t already know who she was. Everyone did. She was bald, she missed school all the time, we were always being told to keep her in our thoughts. And here she was, this famous figure, talking to me.
Didn’t take long for me to develop a crush on her. And she could tell, could see it happening, the way I got tongue-tied when I talked to her. She never told me to go away, but she never seemed to want to be friends either, always keeping me at an arm’s length. When I finally got the courage to ask her to come over after school one day, she gave me this real sad, judgy look. Condescending, almost. Like she was saying, “Poor boy. You really shouldn’t grow so attached.”
That was the last time we talked. I didn’t understand why she’d acted that way, but when she died that summer, I finally got it.
It’s the same with Titania.
It’s like her bags are already packed and she’s just waiting for the green light to leave.
* * *
Item: Transcript of audio recording
Source: Chazz’s cell phone
Time: 5:10 p.m.
DV8: Chazz?
Chazz: Where are you?
DV8: Two hundred miles from Los Angeles. We should be back at the office in about three hours.
Chazz: And do you have good news for me? Or more bad news?
DV8: Both.
Chazz: Christ on a cracker.
DV8: So we’ve been on the phone for as much of the trip as we could get cell phone service, and—and I think we’ve found them. For real this time.
[Chazz exhales theatrically for several seconds.]
Chazz: That is good news.
DV8: Actually, that’s the bad news.
Chazz: What? Why?
DV8: It’s kind of a funny story.
Chazz: Is it?
DV8: Well, no. See, we couldn’t understand how Soundstage G-69 could possibly be empty, with no sign of any recent activity. After all, we have footage of the scientists setting it up—we asked for regular progress reports during pre-production, and ImmerseFX sent us a bunch of short videos that couldn’t have been faked. So we rewatched them, and everything checks out—there’s the ship, there are ImmerseFX team members installing special effects, there’s the onboard furniture. All housed within a space that looks like Soundstage G-69—except the roof isn’t caved in and it’s not as grungy.
Chazz: So?
DV8: So we had everyone back at the office comb through our correspondence with NASAW. Remember: we allocated Soundstage G-69 for NASAW’s use. And in all their emails to us, that’s how they referred to it too—except for one. In a single email out of several dozen, they wrote “Soundstage G-96.”
Chazz: So? It’s a typo.
DV8: That’s what we thought. But to be safe, we checked it out, and it turns out there really is a Soundstage G-96. About ninety miles away from Soundstage G-69.
Chazz: So? That doesn’t mean they’re there, either.
DV8: But they are! That’s the good news! We tracked the coordinates of your satellite phone calls to Jamarkus, and they’re consistent with the supposed location of Soundstage G-96!
Chazz: Let me get this straight. This all sprang from one little typo?
DV8: No, Chazz, don’t you get it? It wasn’t a typo. NASAW slipped up—that one email was where they made their mistake and tipped their hand. We allocated Soundstage G-69 for their use, but they went behind our backs and used Soundstage G-96 instead. They deliberately misled us so we wouldn’t be able to find them, pretending as though they were in Soundstage G-69 all along.
[noise of something being angrily flung at the wall]
Chazz: Goddammit!
[There is a pause, the only sound that of Chazz breathing angrily.]
DV8: There’s one more thing.
Chazz: What?
DV8: We found Boris. He hitchhiked to the Albuquerque airport and booked a flight—
Chazz: Tell him to cancel it. I need him to come with me.
DV8: . . . What? We were planning to send out another team first thing tomorrow—
Chazz: No, screw that. Your first team accomplished precisely jack shit. I’m going on my own this time. Just me and Boris. And a modest film crew. And a few actors. And . . .
DV8: And who?
Chazz: Silence! It’ll be a surprise. Drama.
DV8: But they’re supposed to be in space. And you, as everyone knows, are not in space. What’s it going to look like when you show up at the door of their ship? You’re going to blow the lid off the whole thing!
[Chazz laughs.]
Chazz: Have faith, my friend. Set up another press conference—I need to get in front of some cameras ASAP. And call—no, forget it. I’ll call him myself.
DV8: Who?
[end of call]
* * *
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
Source: DV8 Breaking News
Time: 5:30 p.m.
[There is no sign of Perky this time. At 5:30 p.m. on the dot, Chazz breathlessly takes the podium, a slightly crazed look in his eye.]
Chazz: ’Sup, America. I’ll keep this brief—me and the tireless team at DV8 have got a long night ahead of us. I have a series of announcements I’d like to make, and following these announcements I will not be taking any questions. Ready?
We have reestablished contact with the Laika.
We have its coordinates.
The Spacetronauts are safe.
However, the ship is no longer under DV8’s control.
We have reason to believe that the Laika has been hijacked by an unknown space criminal—or criminals. We do not know why they did this, we don’t know how they did this, and, frankly, we don’t care to know. America doesn’t negotiate with space terrorists.
[He pauses, perhaps to allow viewers to applaud at their screens.]