Off Rock

by Kieran Shea

  Leela didn’t respond, so Jimmy counted to ten.

  It was, as they say, an eternity.

  “Specialist Vik, this initiative was not, repeat, was not approved by ASOCC. Do you copy?”

  “Yeah, I copy. Have you had your tea yet?”

  “What?”

  “I said, have you had your tea yet?”

  “Never mind my goddamn tea, you jerk. Taking a crawler and a long drill and setting off on a solo back-to-back without proper authorization is—”

  “I know, audacious of me. Look, I’d really like to elaborate but, gee, is there any way we could do this off the record, over?”

  “Nothing is off the record, Specialist Vik. You know that.”

  “All right, but let’s just say I’d rather not be airing our dirty laundry over the comm link. All this lobbing back and forth, conversations like this are permanent. My guess is you don’t want that.”

  A second, horrible eternity. Times two.

  Maybe three or four.

  Jimmy suddenly became aware of a thickening sensation in his bladder and remembered the extra-large coffee he drank earlier. Stupid diuretic. He should have peed in the crawler’s waste sleeve before equalization and heading off. Jimmy really hated relieving himself in his spacesuit.

  “ASOCC, Specialist Vik requests an offline conference, over.”

  “Goddamn it, stand by.”

  “Standing by, ASOCC.”

  Jimmy kept drilling with his portable and retrieved another screwbolt from the satchel tethered to his waist. Each inlay needed seven of the titanium screwbolts in order to be set properly, and the screwbolts needed to be tested for strength before he could move on. He turned his head and let his suit lights flood the shaft’s crevasse below him. A couple of hundred meters down, he could barely make out the outcropping where he had secured the empty drill case. From where he floated, the straps looked like they were holding, but the distance down there and the work ahead of him—he’d another twenty-plus inlays to set before he could work on cutting out the gold.

  Jimmy’s thoughts waffled. This was so crazy. There was no way Leela was going to be good with what he’d done. Right now, with her telling him to stand by, in all likelihood she was probably wigging out back at the command center and thinking of nine different ways of torpedoing his and Jock’s plan. For all he knew she might be getting those Chinese brothers to come out and take over for him. Oh man, Jimmy thought. He was so toast.

  “Specialist Vik, ASOCC agrees to your request for a private dialog. Switch comm link over to channel six immediately, over.”

  “Roger.”

  Jimmy reset the comm channel on his wrist pad. When Leela’s voice intensified to a sharp screech he winced.

  Wow, if you think space is cold…

  “You idiot!”

  “Before you say another word, Leela, corral your ponies for a second.” Jimmy secured another screwbolt and pulled on the head. “I’ve been thinking. You’re right. I’m ashamed to admit it, but all this time you’ve always been right. I know this might sound strange, but I got to say… I’m feeling a bit put out admitting just how right you’ve always been.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “Me.”

  “You? What do you mean you?”

  “Me. My attitude and behavior. Me.”

  “Oh, for the love of—I’m not your priest, Jimmy.”

  “No, you most certainly are not. Come to think of it, do people still have priests?” Jimmy lined up another screwbolt. It slipped and started to drift off, but he caught it and lined it up again. “Never mind. What I’m trying to say here, Leela, is… call it conceit, call it me being a typical testosterone-crippled jackass, but you’ve always known me better than I’ve known myself.”

  “Well, gee, la-dee-dah. Bite me and so forth, okay? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well, I can’t count the number of times when you’ve told me how I never really applied myself or even tried to live up to my potential. Anyway, after we talked in the locker room I got to thinking. Maybe it’s time I did better.”

  “Totally irrelevant.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “All right, so you want to do better. Hooray and hurrah for you. So you want to do better at what exactly?”

  “I don’t know. I want to be a better person, I guess.”

  Leela’s voice tightened. “I don’t see how any of this has to do with you pulling this unauthorized nonsense.”

  “Please, Leela, just let me finish.” Jimmy bent forward and rested his helmet against the shaft wall. “Look, I know that lately I’ve been at the top of your shitlist. Lord knows, you’ve got your reasons and the right. Man… I thought all this would be easier for me to say, but you and me? Our relationship, before and now, the way I’ve been so distant and scattered? There’s no question I’ve been a complete ass.”

  “No argument here.”

  “Okay, so I want to prove to you I’m capable of doing better. Not only doing better as an Azoick employee, but I want to prove to you that I’m capable of doing better by others in general. I know I sidestepped the proper procedures, but I’m out here now and things are going great.”

  Leela sighed. “You’ve really put me in a very difficult spot here, Jimmy.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Yes, you have! This is way, way out of line. And now is definitely not the appropriate time for a discussion like this. Confidential dropouts are looked down on, so what am I going to say, huh? Sorry, but my ex-boyfriend had a moral crisis? God, this is so typical of you. So selfish.”

  Man, if she only knew the half of it.

  “I know,” Jimmy said, “but all this… couldn’t you, I don’t know, put some sort of managerial shine on it? For old times’ sake?”

  Leela hit the comm’s squelch button. Jimmy winced again.

  “Managerial shine? I can’t believe you! You know what this is? This is nothing but a grade A pile of bullshit, that’s what this is. What, you think I’m going to put my job in jeopardy just because you’ve had some long-overdue personal revelation and suddenly feel now is the time to announce you want to be a new man? Holy creeping crap, Jimmy, get over yourself. Azoick regulations are clear. And I am not, repeat, I am not going to cover for you. Get off site and return to base at once, over.”

  “Negative.”

  “WHAT?”

  “I said, negative. Look, I’m setting up my fourth inlay now.”

  Being barely on his second, this was, of course, a brazen lie, but Jimmy needed a break to pull Leela off of her recalcitrant position. The subsequent pause on the other end wasn’t exactly another eternity, but as the length of time grew Jimmy had a sense that Leela’s hidebound mental wheels might be turning in his favor.

  “Did you say you’re on your fourth inlay?” she asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  “God, just how long have you been out there?”

  “Not long at all,” Jimmy replied. “I had an extra-large coffee before I set out, and I’ve been ripping right along.”

  “But you’re on your fourth inlay? That’s, why, that’s outstanding.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But even so, that still doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”

  “Done to who? To you or to the company guidelines?”

  “You know what I mean. Stop playing games.”

  “But I’m not playing games, Leela, I swear. And don’t order me back to base. Look, you want to reprimand me? You want to bust me down to some chuck bucket detail, punch my ticket with Azoick or kick me off this damn rock, then do it. But don’t order me back to base. And don’t dump all over my aspirations and tell me I’m incapable of change.”

  The next eternity was the absolute worst—a throbbing void of tenterhooked nothingness with only the feathering in-and-out psshing sound of Jimmy’s breath. Like a stunned mule, a slow minute plodded by until eventually Jimmy thought, well, that’s it. Gam
e over. Any more pleading with Leela on his part and she’d probably assess his resolve as weak. If she didn’t elect to cover for him, so much for Jimmy’s tentative secondary plan of ticking her off further and getting himself canned from Kardashev 7-A and Azoick altogether. Jimmy grieved over how he’d have to pinball down the shaft and fit as many demolition inlays above the gold as he could before heading back to base, and the vivid knowledge that his new life as a rich man was now kaput was gutting. Of course Jock would be completely cheesed that everything went tits up, but screw Jock. Who ever said life was fair? All evidence proved otherwise.

  “Leela, do you copy?”

  “Stand by, you son of a bitch.”

  “Son of a bitch standing by.”

  Jimmy stayed on task and kept drilling and testing the screwbolts as the last shreds of his hopes withered away. When at last he heard a lengthy, exasperated breath in his ear he imagined the sound being a gust of karmic wind sucking him off a cliff.

  “Oh, all right,” Leela said grudgingly.

  Jimmy repressed a laugh and his whole face contracted.

  Whoo-hoo!

  He couldn’t believe it! The jubilation that Leela had been coaxed into cutting him some slack prompted a quick happy jig and tight fist pump. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Leela said. “I must be out of my gourd to agree to it, but if what you’re telling me is true and you’re already on your fourth inlay, well, I guess I could think of something to make it look good.”

  Jimmy’s face relaxed. “Oh, man, that’s great, Leela. That’s just great.”

  “But I want updates, you hear? Updates on the hour and by the book while I’m on shift. For the rest of your back-to-back, if it comes to that, log your hourlies per procedure and forward all your time files to ASOCC. Don’t futz with those hourlies because you know I’ll check.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “I suppose I could put it all on what’s his name—Dickerson. Shouldn’t be too hard to pin it on that goldbricking dolt. I’ll say you two cleared all this baloney verbally and Dickerson neglected to file the proper authorizations before he pulled his medical.”

  “Hey, sounds good to me.”

  “But listen up, Renaissance Man,” Leela warned. “If you have the slightest problem out there, and I mean the slightest, or if you can’t finish the work on your back-to-back, or if you fail to log in your hourlies after I’m off shift? You’ll be cleaning vertical trapezoid mills for the remainder of the Kardashev 7-A operation, as well as your next Azoick assignment, wherever that may be. Got it?”

  “Copy that. Gee, thanks, Leela. I really owe you one.”

  “You owe me nothing. Just don’t screw up.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. Switch back to the primary comm channel now, over.”

  Jimmy knew he needed to cherry the sundae, so to speak, so he quickly deterred Leela from going back to the primary channel.

  “Leela, hold on…”

  “God, what is it now?”

  Jimmy took a sip from his hydration tube and swallowed. His next fabrication was going to be a doozy. With his plan of getting fired, Jimmy believed it was necessary to gussy up the circumstances a bit to ensure believability. No doubt in hindsight it might have been easier to break some other regulation to get canned, but to really sell it and get himself bounced for good Jimmy felt he needed to fashion a pattern of behavior. He needed to cozen Leela’s perceptions. Despite outward appearances, Jimmy knew Leela’s feelings were still tender, and admittedly at first he’d some hesitations about manipulating her in such a cruel way. But then he reminded himself of his soon-to-be new life and wealth. Perhaps somewhere down the line he would make it up to her. Send her an anonymous gift or something. Roses on her birthday.

  “Um, I was thinking, you and me… maybe later if you’re free, we could, I don’t know, maybe we could, like, talk.”

  Alas, there were no more eternities.

  “What did you just say?”

  Jimmy screwed up his face. “Um, yeah. Like, I was thinking. Perhaps I could stop by your quarters, or if that’s not cool, maybe we could take a walk out to the observation bubble or something like we used to. This new man stuff, it’s kind of funny, but there’s been a lot of other things on my mind lately too.”

  Leela hit the squelch button again, and Jimmy dreaded that maybe he’d taken things too far. Oh man… would Leela change her mind and renege on covering for him?

  Oh, please… no.

  Leela responded, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? You want to talk after the way you’ve humiliated me? I mean, why? Why now?”

  “I told you, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh, well, if you’re all disposed to go on and on about mending your shortcomings maybe you ought to take it up with your buddy Jock. I’m sure that maggot has plenty of regrets with his fucked-up life.”

  What?

  “Jock?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah, I ran into one of the solar parasol scabs in the gym before I clocked in. She said you two were as thick as thieves in the canteen. Maybe that slimebucket has some insight into your new reinvention, though I doubt it.”

  Blinking rapidly, Jimmy pushed back from the shaft wall. “What does me talking with Jock have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve told you a thousand times, Jimmy. You really ought to stay away from that guy.”

  In retrospect it may have been foretelling, but like so many admonitions Jimmy chose to ignore in his life at that point he’d no way of knowing just how right Leela would turn out to be.

  13. TOP UP, HOMUNCULUS

  After lassoing the loop of an IV bag around the neck of the life-sized cardboard cutout of Miss Jupiter 2772 and piercing his left arm with a properly gauged catheter, Jock lined up a hypodermic, inserted the twelve millimeter needle, and released an enriched trans-amphetamine elixir into his distressed system.

  Jock had a number of pilfered medical supplies in his quarters. Anesthetics. Top-notch antibiotics and anti-depressant mood euphoriants. He’d set aside several vials of his current specifically fabricated concoction for those times when judiciousness failed him and he didn’t have the stamina to lard his way through. He was getting on in years, and with senescence it seemed Jock’s limits at elbow bending had once again failed him. Not being able to hang out the cat like he used to was getting to be a real drag.

  Minutes later, however, the IV cocktail worked its magic and he felt reborn. Not as bright as a waking baby, per se, but alert enough to be hungry. Picking up a package of barbecued-flavored soy jerky, he fed a leathery staff into his mouth. With his vim on the mend, at least now he could think straight.

  Ninety-eight percent purity at fifty kilos…

  Good God almighty, how fortunate was he? Of all people, Jimmy Vik dropping this propitious salvation in his lap—it was as if Kismet had at last set its light upon him and now it was up to Jock to make it all work out in his favor. Of course with Jimmy he’d paraded keen savoir-faire and excitement, because he knew better than to show trepidation with such an opportunity in play, but holy hell—a score like this? This sort of thing only came along once in a lifetime. Ten lifetimes. Eager as he was, Jock was still a pragmatist at heart. Most of the time, with intrigues and schemes of lesser bents, he knew that these things unraveled without due diligence. There were so many quirks and budding snafus to consider.

  Poor, deluded Jimmy. There wasn’t a cold chance in hell he was going to let some hump like him come out on top with all this. It was a shame, Jock supposed. Essentially he liked Jimmy (as much as he liked anyone, which wasn’t saying much), but with so much profit before him Jock needed to keep up the “uff” in his buffaloing. Hell, fifty kilos of gold was a king’s ransom, a fortune with zeroes stretching out like a long string of shiny balloons.

  Swallowing a rough portion of the jerky, Jock thought about how he and Jimmy had gone on about trust not being a one-way proposition. Ha. To Jock trust wasn�
��t a proposition at all. With Jimmy out at Fifty-Seven doing all the hard work and banking on Jock playing fair that was Jimmy’s biggest mistake. The man’s half-share grandeur dreams of la dolce vita were on borrowed time.

  Back down at his quarters, when he’d shared the somewhat shady ins-and-outs of getting the gold back to Earth, Jock had mentioned a reliable associate in Hong Kong, and once again he admired his own skills at the anecdotal cha-cha. When crafting a good con, it was essential to bowl over an unsuspecting mark with liberally strewn mercurial half-truths and exotics. Maybe it was because he was all starry-eyed about becoming well-heeled, but Jimmy had lapped up all of Jock’s talk about Hong Kong like a champ. Despite societal upheavals, conflicts, and geopolitical collapses, for centuries Hong Kong had held on to its enigmatic repute for being a mercantile haven. The fact was, however, Jock had never set foot in Hong Kong in his life. He was shocked he even remembered the name of the bloody interstellar skyport. But he reckoned with a suggestive double-entendre name like Chek Lap Kok, the skyport’s name must have stuck in his memory somehow. Certainly he’d read about the seamy hostess club offerings in the Wan Chai district, but the closest Jock had ever come to the city was picking up a takeaway order. Steamed spring rolls and maybe a side order of deep-fried tank prawns.

  No, Jock had already worked out the gold’s final destination, and the terminus was someplace where Jimmy Vik and his tiny mind, if he lived long enough, would never know. Going forward all that was needed now was for Zaafer to load the gold and adjust the coordinates into a quarantine hold.

  Bloody Zaafer. By all measures, that dumb kid was clueless. Surely before he made his skip back Zaafer would be another wretched chore that Jock would have to scratch off his list, and while he had an inkling on how to take care of the young tech, Jimmy Vik presented a more distinct problem. Jimmy was a grown man. While he was affable, from experience Jock knew that a grown man (certainly a former rugby halfback like Jimmy) if dicked over could turn violent. Blowing sunshine up Jimmy’s arse would only go so far, and after a hungover Jock had blown up at him, Jimmy seemed tense and suspicious. Yet with Jimmy voicing his intention to get fired from Azoick proper, it shouldn’t be too hard to lose him completely, possibly before Jock and the gold made it back to Earth. So much booty, if Jock got it all back home, not only could he pay off The CC, he could hire a private army of bodyguards and build himself a fortress. If Jimmy did try to track him down to seek retribution, then, sadly, a more sinister end would be required.