“I don’t see the command for ‘communicate,’ Lieutenant.”
“Leave that to me. I was able to commandeer the array’s recalcitrant communications package while you were sleeping. Simply speak when you are ready.”
The boy collected himself.
Taking a deep breath, he looked into his furry companion’s steady, fixed gaze and began.
As the boy spoke, outside in the light reflected from the binary host planet above them, Tommy and the servibots continued to load Comet from the cargo conveyor that conveniently appeared from the wreck’s outer hull.
Emergency medical supplies, clothing suitable enough for a growing boy, and many other useful items went into the HMT’s storage holds while it recharged. Almost all of the sought after power cells and provisions were efficiently loaded on board by the tiny utilities.
In the dark blue, star-filled night, imperceptible beams of tachyon energy sang out from the massive communications array, escaping the planet’s surface for an eons-long journey into deep space. The array’s perfect systematic accuracy made it an ideal vehicle to carry the boy’s words into the universe.
The first message sent from this body in nearly a quarter century would be repeated over and over, sweeping into every possible vector of the cosmos, until either the entire universe had borne witness to it, or its energy supply had run dry.
By dawn, it had completed its first sweep of the heavens, and was well into its second.
• • •
Refreshed after a much needed ten hour rest and a long, hot shower, the boy emerged from the Quartermaster’s supply deck wearing a fresh new uniform.
“It’s labeled FEM-XS, it’s the smallest size on board, Tommy. Don’t pull out anything bigger unless you guys want to see me to spend all of my time pulling up my pants,” he said into his headset.
With Talkie-Book hanging from a strap over his shoulder, no longer confined to the darkness of an overstuffed bag, the refreshed explorer made his way to the central lift to meet Moebius.
“I thought I told him to wait for me,” said the boy, looking down the corridor.
“Perhaps he’s waiting for us on the lift.”
At the platform, the toybot was nowhere to be found.
“Moebius? Come on Moebi...it's time to go!”
Still no reply.
The boy knew one sure way to find him, and pulled out his headset to see the cat’s live feed and uncover his whereabouts.
“Moebius where are you?” he asked, halfway expecting to see himself standing at the lift, monitored by a kitty in “hide-and-go-seek” mode, but the feed was nothing but static.
“Meeooww?” came the reply, echoing down the passageway from an unexplored section of the level where Talkie-Book had indicated nothing useful was stored.
The boy knew that sound in his friend’s voice. Of all the variations of “meow” that the cat used, he knew this was the one that meant “trouble.” The boy pulled out the pistol from the holster inside his coat, and ran in after the cat.
When he arrived, he found Moebius waiting by an opened hatchway. He removed his goggles to read the sign at the entrance: “NURSERY.”
“Lieutenant, what’s a nursery?”
“A place where new organisms are grown for transplantation to another location.”
As they entered, the Lieutenant prepared himself. Other than the ship’s reactor, this was the one place he did not want the boy to discover.
“Hey, this room doesn’t have any dead things in it!”
“No, it does not.”
“Plenty of power in here, too. Everything looks like it’s still running, even all the lighting works.”
The boy was right: this chamber was powered directly by its own power core. It was designed to operate independently from the rest of the ship. In the event the ship’s main power supply was to be irreparably damaged or destroyed, the chamber would not experience even a slight fluctuation of energy because the things that were stored in this compartment were the single most important items on the entire ship.
“It’s people!” exclaimed the boy, rushing in to view up close the twelve stasis cells lined up against the walls.
“Talkie LOOK! They’re people! Why didn’t you find this earlier?”
“Yes, it does seem quite...obvious, now. I don’t know how I could have overlooked it.” Talkie-Book carefully parsed his words. He did not want to lie to the boy.
“Who are they?”
“I believe they could be additional members of the crew.”
“Really, and they’re still alive? How do we get them out, Lieutenant?”
Talkie had no reply, suspecting he’d probably said more than he should have. The boy didn’t notice this as he examined each of the vertically oriented cells, his growing sense of urgency approaching critical mass. He found six empty cells, a count that matched exactly the number of dead bodies they’d found on the command deck. Unable to see anything through the glowing, opaque contents of the occupied cells, he prompted the Lieutenant again.
“Lieutenant?”
Silence.
“Lieutenant, how do we get them out?!”
“I do not know that we can extract them safely.”
“What do you mean? Can’t we just push a button or override a control or something? We’ve been really good at doing that since we got here.”
Assuming this chamber was like all the rest they’d been in, the boy surveyed the room for a central console, but there was none in sight. Only the wall of equipment facing the cells looked like they might possibly have a port in which to plug Talkie-Book. He scrutinized it thoroughly until he found a port and produced the correct jumper. Without hesitation, he plugged the apprehensive Digitome in.
It would not be enough.
“I am unable to access any of the stasis cell instrumentation. These units appear to be autonomous.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the system that manages them has been locked out. Without knowing how to correctly awaken them, we could accidentally harm them by attempting it.”
“But we have to, don’t we? What if we’re their only hope for survival? Shouldn’t we at least try?”
“As you know, there are no guarantees of survival for anyone, and these risks are unacceptable in my opinion. At this time, these ‘people’ appear to be safe where they are,” Talkie-Book rebutted, trying to remind the boy of the hardships he had personally endured, hoping to persuade him to abandon the idea.
“So what?” countered the boy, “That sounds like every day to me, Lieutenant!”
“I cannot condone this action, Detective. You do still realize where you are, don’t you?”
The boy was oblivious to the implication of his guardian’s words and moved to examine the nearest of the cells more closely. His overwhelming desire to end his isolation overruled the Digitome’s seemingly indifferent warnings.
He searched until he found an access panel at the base of the far end of the wall containing the stasis cells. Kneeling down, he noticed a strange depression in each corner of the covering that reminded him of something he’d seen before. Pulling his multi-tool out, he matched the pattern to one of the tool’s machined heads, and began removing the cover.
Moebius agreed with Talkie-Book and tried to dissuade the boy from his course of action, only to be rebuffed by one sweeping arm gesture.
“Not now Moebi.”
“Detective, we should wait until we have more information to...”
“NO! If we don’t help them now, who will?”
The panel fell to the floor, its manual controls unveiled. There was no data port, only two unmistakable rectangular buttons, one marked: LOAD, and one marked: EXTRACT.
“Easy,” he said to himself.
“We’re getting these people out of here today, Lieutenant,” he declared, heroically.
With a simple push of a button, the extraction began.
The boy stood up and backed away to watch as the self-powe
red chamber spun up from a quiet hum to a prominent rumble. On the front of each unit, a status panel slid open to monitor the progress of each individual inside. Highly pressurized vapors were released simultaneously from all six occupied cells.
The boy noticed Moebius uncharacteristically backing away from the sight.
“It’s OK, Moe-Moe, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” assured the boy.
Minutes later, the white fluid inside each chamber drained out. Looking into the first cell, the boy was able to see a face coated in the thick, viscous solution. His excitement grew as he anticipated meeting the crew.
Soon his loneliness would be replaced by the companionship of real, live people!
As each cell labored through the procedure, all associated systems appeared to be functioning correctly.
“Look Moebi, it’s working!”
As more of the preserving goo slid off in globs from the figure closest to him, more features began to emerge. The boy could plainly see now that the occupant inside was an adult female.
“Look! It’s a lady!” he marveled.
He was startled when the young woman unexpectedly opened her eyes. They were the prettiest sky blue he had ever seen. A smile crossed her face as she focused on him through the glass, nearly bringing the boy to tears.
The beautiful exchange lasted only a moment, and was one he would never forget.
He was not prepared for what came next: the beautiful blue eyes rolled up into the female’s head, and she began to convulse. Her body jerked as what seemed like gallons of white vomit spewed in a torrent from her mouth. The cell’s status panel went red, and a piercing emergency klaxon filled the chamber.
Something had gone horribly wrong.
“NO!!” the boy screamed, unable to imagine the cause as each unit failed in sequence.
He could do nothing but panic.
“Talkie please! Help me! Do something!!” he begged.
Through Moebius’ eyes, Talkie-Book could only watch, unable to reply as the boy’s spirit was assailed by the catastrophe.
“Talkie please, please! Help me! Help me!”
The female inside was now hemorrhaging a bright stream of blood from her eyes, nose, and mouth as she began to succumb to the violent decompression taking place inside her body. Frantically, the boy pulled out his pistol and took aim at the cell, but he could not see through his shock clearly enough to pull the trigger or decide what he should be shooting at.
He was powerless.
He had done enough.
The girl’s body stopped twitching and her muscles now relaxed, free of life. Her dying gaze fell onto the boy.
The mournful whine of each cell’s flat-line pronounced death within.
The boy stood, paralyzed in the wake of his actions.
He hadn’t listened.
Consequences.
Devastated, he turned away in shame.
Moving slowly through heavy tears, the boy could no longer hear the din of the blaring emergency klaxon.
He unplugged Talkie-Book, but before putting the device back into his backpack the boy turned to Moebius and, with all that he had left, addressed the Lieutenant.
“You...were...right.”
Staggering into the corridor, he closed the chamber’s hatch behind him, sealing the Nursery for good, and walked away.
• • •
Inside Comet, he sat staring vacantly into space, as Moebius sat in his lap in a futile attempt to console the boy, while outside the newly integrated duo of Comet and Tommy requested a destination.
“Resume our original heading,” said Talkie-Book.
The transport and its occupants glided up the crater wall, and back into the forest, leaving the communications array behind to continue its sweep of the heavens, repeating its message...
“Stand-by Detective...ready? Begin.”
“Hello...can anyone out there hear me? This message is for anyone out there who can. I am here on this planet...what's it called again Lieutenant?”
“Shinju.”
“Right, Shinju. There's really no one here but me, as far as I can tell. Sorry, I don’t really even know where Shinju is, but I do know it’s in the Lucky Star system, and we’ve got a big beautiful planet that we orbit around with our moon, so that might help a little, but if you can receive this message, you can probably figure that out for yourself.
“Anyway...if there is anyone out there who can see this, please come and visit anytime, OK? And if you could hurry up and get here quickly, that really would be the best, I think, because well, it’s pretty lonely and...there’s no one...”
The boy’s emotions rose up suddenly, and he paused to take a breath. The last thing he wanted to do was send a message of him crying like a baby out into the universe forever.
“I…well, it would be nice to...have some company...or even…some new friends…so, come by and visit as soon as you can, OK? It’s really pretty here and there’s lots to do...”
He wished he could say more, but couldn’t think of anything else to add.
“This is Johnny Seiko of the planet Shinju, see you soon...over and out.”
“Transmitting...” said Talkie-Book.
To Be Continued...
• • •
Thanks for reading HARD LESSONS, An Introduction to The Half-Life of Johnny Seiko. Word-of-mouth makes all the difference for any new book to succeed. Please consider leaving a review at the website where you downloaded this eBook – even if its just a line or two; your positive recommendation is essential to the future of the series, and would be greatly appreciated.
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About the Author
C.F. Shifflett II is a Southern California native who, when he’s not on Shinju, spends his days moving pixels from one side of the screen to the other as a freelance graphic designer, and spends his nights standing on the shoulders of giants H.G. Wells, Jack Williamson, Richard Matheson and Maya Angelou...reaching for the stars
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Table of Contents
Epigraph
Chapter 1 – Pursuits
Chapter 2 – The Wreck
Chapter 3 – Tommy
Chapter 4 – Alone
About the Author
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The Half-Life of Johnny Seiko - Part I: Hard Lessons (The Boy From Shinju) Page 6
