Scum of the Universe

by Grant Everett

  “No.”

  “Or a big chair with a spinny disk thing behind it?”

  “No.”

  “Can we at least make it red?”

  September blinked.

  “What? Why?”

  “It'll go faster.”

  September twitched. She raised a finger, went to say something, and stopped.

  “This conversation is over.”

  Tuesday sighed in resignation.

  “Oh, well. It's not too horrible, I guess.” Tuesday admitted. “It fits in the palm of the hand, looks simple to use…every home should have one.”

  September checked the Nokia thoroughly to check that there wasn't more to it. Tapping the RESET button with sheer curiosity outweighing everything else, not much happened. She inspected the back of it and tutted.

  “No batteries.”

  “What sort do we need? We passed a bunch of vending machines on the way here.”

  September shook her head. “We need two Triple-A Nuclears. Believe me, you can't get them out of a vending machine.”

  “I might have some of those in my remote control,” Tuesday offered.

  “Doubtful. Access to nuclear power sources is highly restricted, even to somebody with my clearance. It would take hours of paperwork to requisition them...and by then the Head of Space-Time would be awake, and we'll both be in the...both be in the excrement.”

  Tuesday looked a little ashamed.

  “Sorry about decking him. It seemed like a really good idea at the time.”

  September shrugged.

  “Based on how hard you hit the Head of Space-Time and the thickness of his skull, I estimate that we have about twenty-five minutes until he comes to. That should be ample time to see if this thing has merit.” September clicked her fingers as her brain finished working on the problem. “Right. All two hundred of The Frontier's back-up computers use Triple-A Nuclear batteries in case the main grid goes down in a shipwide blackout. But even then, the only reason we'd need to use one of the back-up computers is if the entire primary system was instantaneously wiped from all six thousand of its hubs...”

  “Which isn't likely.”

  “To put it mildly,” September took a moment to think. “I think we could safely relieve one of the backup computers of its batteries without any real risk. There'll still be another one hundred and ninety-nine backup computers ready to fill the gap.”

  “So...where's the closest backup computer?” Tuesday asked

  *

  Jimmy was sad.

  He didn’t know why, but at four o'clock every day he got depressed, which was a lead-up to his evening melancholia. After this, Jimmy got upset, then dejected, and finally, just as he was about to go to bed, he got severe gas. It wasn’t pleasant being Jimmy Slummer at such times, but at least it was a definite improvement over how he felt first thing in the morning.

  Jimmy had spent the last hour trying to cook a bourbon and dark chocolate soufflé from an ancient Wikipedia page. As his speciality was whacking together Shake & Bake Chicken, this “soufflé” was a blackened, near-radioactive disaster, and when the other chef on duty criticised the coal-like lump, Jimmy threw it at him. As the concussed chef was being removed from the kitchen on a floating stretcher, he decided to leave Jimmy alone the next time that the fat man had something dangerous in his hands.

  Moping past an eye-height hub for one of The Frontier's many back-up computers - a small bulb the size of a doorknob that he’d never really noticed - Jimmy went about his business of ruining food. Stopping to eat a snack - his tenth this afternoon - Jimmy slurped at the Caramel Fountain bar like a candy junkie until its luscious golden core was gone. He had just finished crunching up the dried-out block of pure ultrasweet as Tuesday wandered in and started sniffing about for something. September was close behind, and Jimmy suddenly felt more confused than usual. How did such a lowlife attract this beautiful, intelligent woman? What was his secret?

  “This area is for chefs only,” Jimmy said to Tuesday as snobbishly as he could manage. However, he positively beamed at September. “Hi, Miss.”

  “James,” she said easily, looking around to see that there weren't any other chefs lurking out of sight. “We'll be quick.”

  “What are you guys doing, anyway?” Jimmy asked, forgetting his goat-and-limburger lasagne as it burst into flames in the oven.

  “Nothing,” Tuesday lied, dedicating absolutely zero effort to the falsehood.

  “We need a couple of batteries,” September corrected.

  September finally noticed the backup computer's hub was directly behind Jimmy's head. Moving him aside by making a dismissive flapping motion with her hands, September used her high security clearance to open the computer hub without setting off any sirens. The Triple-A Nuclears were a pair of glowing, neon yellow cylinders stamped with holographic radiation symbols that spun and changed colours in obvious warning. She carefully passed the dangerous batteries to Tuesday, who popped open the alleged time travel device and started to slot them in. Tuesday didn’t notice that he was cocking the trigger a tiny bit with his other hand.

  “What's that?” Jimmy asked, shielding his eyes from the glowing batteries.

  “Nothing,” Tuesday lied, once again failing to live up to his usual high standards of duplicity.

  “Okay, I want to know what's going on now, Spasm, and no fibs,” Jimmy demanded just as Tuesday installed the second radioactive battery. Taking one step towards his nemesis, ready to deal out a litany of complaints, Jimmy opened his mouth…

  The Nokia gave a comical pop as battery number two slid home. September, Tuesday and Jimmy all disappeared in a storm of electricity, leaving behind six flaming footprints on the kitchen's tiled floor. The localised ball of lightning tore deep gashes into the stainless steel walls and ceiling, and it was lucky that nobody else was close enough to get zapped and shredded (in that order).

  The Frontier’s computer immediately registered that three of its crew members had vanished at 1947 Hours without any clue as to how, why or where.

  *

  The trio of time travellers reappeared somewhere else in that same instant. It was very dark, felt incredibly eerie, and smelled overwhelmingly like feet. It was far too big to be Tuesday's cabin, though.

  “That was…interesting,” Tuesday noted to the total darkness.

  Somebody clicked their fingers, and the rice-sized Omni implant in September's left hand gave off a dim glow. The Omni's built-in holographic projector created six bright floating spheres, and the balls of light expanded to illuminate everything within a fifty metre radius. Now that they could see, it became apparent that the three of them were standing in the middle of one of the cavernous warehouses that made up a large chunk of The Frontier's outer surface.

  Giving her eyes a second to adjust, September patted at her well-lit body. Everything was still in the right place and facing the correct way. Well, that was the most important question answered, at least...

  “Odd,” September noted, reading a small lightscreen projection hovering above the back of her hand. “All of the electrics are out. I can't seem to...”

  She was cut-off mid-sentence by a loud wail. Jimmy, an emotionally fragile man at the best of times, fell on his enormous bum and began to scream hysterically for somebody to explain what had just happened. Tuesday turned around and smacked Jimmy across his dimples in a silent yet succinct way of telling him to calm down. Recovering a bit, though still shaking violently, the fat chef looked up at September. His voice was a squeak.

  “Where are we?”

  “Somewhere in time,” Tuesday interrupted without being asked, feeling as though he may be qualified enough to answer the question. He felt as though he was taking all of this quite well. After all, this particular strangeness only rated in the top five bizarre moments of Tuesday’s life.

  “Time?! What was that thing?” Jimmy asked in horror.

  Both Tuesday and September gave Jimmy the exact same look.

&
nbsp; “A time machine,” September said slowly, amazed that Jimmy had been unable to figure that out for himself. “And just like I'd hoped, in addition to moving us through time, it's also instantaneously transported us across space.” September clapped her hands in glee. “That's great news! When it comes to valuable scientific breakthroughs, it doesn't get any better than discovering a new method of moving through space in a faster-than-light manner. However, I'll still have to figure out exactly why we moved in the third dimension as well as the fourth. After all, just hopping about in random directions in deep space isn't all that useful, not to mention bloody dangerous. But I'm sure it won't take me long to figure it out. Another couple of trips should give me enough data to work with for now.”

  There was a noise like the hiss of a stream just beyond the far extent of the light. They all turned sharply on the spot, listening intently.

  “Did you hear that?” all three of them asked at the same moment.

  September, Jimmy and Tuesday stood perfectly still, their ears at attention. They waited for a good ten seconds, but the sound didn't return.

  “Might have been a faulty steam-pipe or something,” Tuesday offered.

  September scanned the distant roof far above.

  “Perhaps.”

  *

  Once their vision had adequately faded in (and Jimmy finally calmed down enough to stop being an irritating distraction) it didn't take much of a stretch to figure out they were in an enormous warehouse dedicated to footwear. The fact it was full of neatly ordered rows of joggers, basketball boots, thongs, sandals, crocs, slippers, formal dress shoes, uggies and pumps in colourful cardboard boxes was a dead giveaway. There were also endless bundles of purple ship-issue socks rolled up into huge bales the size of apartment blocks.

  “Footwear storage on level ninety-three,” September clarified. “There’s meant to be two or three decades worth of shoes for the entire crew stored here, even if we account for higher-than-projected changes in fashion trends. According to how few of these shoes have seen use, I'd guess we are roughly...three to six months from our point of origin?”

  “How far is this warehouse from Jimmy's kitchen?” Tuesday asked, looking thoughtful.

  “Three point seven kilometres.” September answered without hesitation, doing the maths in her head at top speed.

  When it comes to people having exciting adventures through time, very few of these tales would take place in an uninhabited shoe warehouse. Whether they should stay or go turned out to be an an easy decision to make. After two solid minutes of drudging up a long, long aisle, they passed through a relatively tiny portal and came across the same looming shelves as before. But these ones were covered by something else: hundreds of thousands of tins full of colourful, sticky wrappers.

  “Candy storage. Cleaned right out,” Jimmy said, the pain of this horror showing on his face. He picked up one of the shiny metallic papers and pathetically licked at a tiny chunk of caramel. “This place is Hell. It must be.”

  “Strange.” September noted. “Twenty-five years of sweets, all gone. Down to the last bonbon.”

  “Don't rub it in,” Jimmy sobbed.

  The third enormous section they explored was yet another boring storage area that had been stripped of all value. This time, the now-familiar shelves had been dedicated to canned meats. Millions of empty tins had formed a waist-deep lake of empty metal in the aisles, and they had to wade through it like a clanking swamp.

  September picked up one of the containers and inspected its brutalised edge. It had been stripped of every pinhead of synthetic ham, and was extensively marked up with hundreds of odd dents.

  “Either rats have gnawed at this one, or somebody too stupid to be classed as human has tried to chew their way through vacuum-sealed steel without a can opener.” September dropped the tin. “Either way, moving on.”

  A fourth looming storeroom was stocked with tubes of non-digestible toothpaste, soft toothbrushes, self-foaming razors and crate upon crate of Shower-In-A-Bottle. It was nearly at full capacity. September scanned over the vacuum-sealed canisters as quickly as her eyes were able to move, counting faster than Tuesday could pass wind, and came to an immediate conclusion.

  “There's only about three to six months of toiletries missing, which lines up with the amount of footwear that had been taken from the first warehouse. Yet, for some reason, all the food and beverage supplies have been looted down to crumbs and drops. Either it's become fashionable to get about as a smelly, hairy, barefoot hippy in the last twenty-five years, or something has gone very, very wrong.”

  “I thought you said we were only a few months into the future?” Tuesday whinged.

  September shook her head.

  “That was one possibility. But it turns out there are two. Either the entire crew have spent two and a half decades porking down everything in stores and not bothered to freshen up that entire time – in which case, their combined body odour would be a violation of the Geneva Convention - or some sort of calamity has killed everyone after only a few months of the trip and something...unknown has been eating the supplies.”

  Jimmy blinked. It was the most help he could offer.

  “Couldn't they have just eaten everything quicker than expected?” Tuesday wondered.

  Another shake of the head.

  “No. You saw all those empty vacuum-sealed tins that used to be full of edible supplies, right?” September's voice made it quite clear that her patience levels were at rock bottom. It was like being forced to explain theoretical physics to a senile dachshund. “There is no conceivable way that our crew could have demolished this amount of food in a handful of months. Everyone on board would be dead with ruptured stomachs by the time they reached two percent, if that.”

  Examining the back of her hand, September brought up her Omni's Operating System. It was an all-features model that came complete with a rad counter, virus scanner and other useful gadgets that The Unison had reluctantly invested in. She swiped through an assortment of tests.

  “Look, there's no rad or diseases or anything obvious, so something else must happened.”

  Jimmy put his hand up, as though asking permission to speak. September acknowledged him with a tired nod.

  “Why don't you just ask somebody? You're connected up to the shipwide network, right? Can't you give somebody a bell?”

  September looked uncomfortable.

  “Actually, I didn't want to say anything earlier in case I caused a panic, but when we first got here I tried to access the network...and it isn't there anymore. Sure, all of The Frontier's low-level automated systems such as atmospheric regulation, temperature control and carbon dioxide recyc are working just fine, but that's about it. All of the higher non-essential functions have been terminated, including the messaging network.”

  “Can we walk up there and fix it?” Tuesday asked.

  “Walk?” Jimmy moaned.

  “No chance.” September said. “Anything serious enough to necessitate turning off all the higher systems of The Frontier would be classed as a shipwide emergency of the highest severity. In such a situation, everything would have been automatically sealed - including the elevators, stairwells and ventilation systems - with electromagnets the size of your head. Until the Fleet Admiral gives the all-clear and the higher functions resume, it will all remain locked. Standard safety procedure. Long story short, we're probably stuck down here in the warehouse section.” September's expression went dark. “I wonder if anybody got trapped in a section without food or water? A horrible way to die...”

  “So all the electrics are out, and we're stuck here.” Tuesday clarified. “And what if the Fleet Admiral isn't around anymore? Then what?”

  At that exact moment, that mysterious noise returned; a whispering, babbling sound just on the edge of hearing. The sound was slowly growing in volume and aggression.

  “And we're all alone.” Jimmy summarised. “Totally alone.”

  Ironically, a smelly, ragg
ed figure picked that exact moment to leap out from behind a giant vat of aftershave and place a makeshift shiv to Jimmy's carotid artery. The weapon looked like it was made from a carefully-broken glass shard from a caramel schnapps bottle wrapped in a strip of bullet-proof fabric torn from a purple dress uniform. A single drop of blood at its very tip showed that the shiv was so sharp that it would be more than capable of cutting off Jimmy's head.

  Jimmy made a tiny “peep” noise.

  “What do you want?” September asked, holding out her left hand out palm-first in a peaceful way. Her right hand crept towards the spray-bottle of hydrofluoric acid on her hip. “No need to do anything drastic.”

  “I'm A Little Teapot,” the figure grunted from the depths of a dreadlocked ginger beard. “Sing it. Now. Or we all die. Sing it. It hides us from them. SING IT!”