Sunspots and Forever Dark Omnibus

by Gary Martin

  There is a massive low rumbling bang from beneath us, the whole ship heaves and the three of us go flying forward. There is a horrible sound of grinding metal and smashing glass; sparks and fire start spurting out of the consoles. I get thrown into the pilot station, pain shoots through my back, and I can see flames and thick black smoke everywhere. I don't see where Kerry and Mark have ended up, but someone is screaming. I struggle to move, but I'm fading in and out of consciousness. I try to stand but I fall to my knees, then everything fades to black.

  14

  “John, wake up! It's nearly eleven. You could win medals for the amount that you sleep.”

  I rub my eyes and see that Ez has a coffee in one hand, and some sort of healthy breakfast bar in the other. What I wouldn't give for a fry-up right about now.

  “I'll leave these here, but I want you up in ten minutes.”

  She puts the coffee and breakfast bar on the bedside table, smiles and leaves. I sit up, grab the coffee, and take a sip. Yuk. It either hasn't been stirred or there's no sugar. Oh well, even like this it's still better than anything on Sunspot 2.

  Even though this would technically be my three month break now, knowing that I don't have to go back to that ship feels pretty good. So far though, I haven't spent the time wisely. I've spent the last month and a half since handing in my notice pretty much drinking with Terrell and Jacob every night until stupid o'clock in the morning. I think Ez is beginning to get annoyed by this, but so far she hasn't said anything. It's probably time I tried to get out of this cycle of drinking, and attempt to get a new job. One with fewer hours, and hopefully less pricks to deal with. I will miss Kerry though, but probably not enough to contact her again. Does that make me a bad person?

  I down the coffee in one glug, then get out of bed. I put my dressing gown on and head downstairs.

  Ez is sitting reading her tablet at the kitchen table, and it occurs to me that it must be the weekend.

  “Good morning, my little booze monster,” she says, but I think I sense a hint of annoyance. “There's fresh …” she looks at the coffee pot and pulls a slight face. “Fresh-ish coffee in the pot, if you want it.”

  I look at the pot. My mouth still tastes like crap from the drink last night and the coffee I've just had.

  “I think I'll pass. Do you fancy going out and getting some breakfast?”

  She looks at me, then at the clock on the kitchen wall, then back to me. “Breakfast?”

  “Okay, lunch-fast? Or break-unch?”

  “Yeah, sounds good. Do you want me to pair up Bruce and Brucette while you get ready?”

  “I thought I'd left Bruce at the pub.”

  “No, he's where he normally is.”

  I'm a bit concerned, I'm sure I drove him to the pub. I don't remember how I got back last night, I really hope I didn't drive home in him. I'd be incarcerated for a full year if I'd have been caught, even if Bruce was on autopilot. Hopefully the days are just blurring in to one, and I'm getting mixed up.

  “I don't think you took him last night anyway, didn't Jacob pick you up?”

  That was it. Thank fuck. I really need to stop drinking my head out every night, I'm really beginning to lose track.

  “Can we walk? I don't think my stomach could cope with the journey.”

  “That's fine, we'll go to the café with the nice milkshakes. What's it called? You know … it doesn't matter; whatever it's called, it's the closest one.”

  The Sun is way too bright for my hangover, but we're half a kilometre down the road before I even think about sunglasses. It's too late to go back, and my gurgling stomach is telling me that bacon is more important than vision at this moment in time. Strange how the Sun seems less bright when you're right up close to it, dumping waste materials.

  Ez decides to take us down the path by the river. It'll add on a few minutes to our journey, but it is a lot nicer than walking next to the road, with the constant whooshing of silent cars speeding by, blowing you sideways. Ez sits down on a bench that faces the water, and beckons me to join her.

  The glare on the water feels like it's burning out my retinas, and is making my headache worse. As we sit in silence for a minute or so, I start to get the feeling we're about to have a serious conversation. I'm not sure my brain is going cope.

  “I love this spot. Everything always seems so tranquil. So quiet.”

  It is a beautiful spot, but I'm hungry and my head hurts. All I want to do at this moment is to keep moving until we get to the café.

  “John, I know since I asked you to finish your job you've been a little … I don't know, what's the word … lost? I know you don't want to rely on me financially, and I truly get that. But for us to move forward, I needed you out of that awful job. The time we spent apart was just too destructive to our relationship. But now, since you've quit, you seem to be on a destructive path of your own. You're drinking every night. You really need to grow up; you're all nearly forty and you act like teenagers. I like Jacob and Terrell, I really do, but you're all bad influences on each other. I'm working my ass off to put us in a good position for the future, and you're just pissing it up against a wall.”

  It's all true, and I can't argue with any of it. I look out over the river, and then down to the gravel path, trying desperately to come up with a reason why I'm doing this, why I seem to be rebelling against what should be a perfect life. But I have nothing. So I stay silent. She waits a moment for a reply, but when none is forthcoming she carries on.

  “You know my boss? Well, I think you know him, Rupert Rawling?” The name rings a bell in my head.

  “He's the one who was caught masturbating over the equipment, right?” I say and smile to myself.

  “Is that really the only thing you remember me saying about him?” she says. It was.

  “He's a good man with a nice family, and someone decided to start some malicious rumours about him. I told you because it was funny and something he just wouldn't do.”

  “You've mentioned him loads of times, but I've never actually met him face to face.”

  “No, of course you haven't. You're always away on that ship of yours whenever we've had any work-related social gatherings. Anyway, he's been acting really odd recently, and seems to be getting cold feet about the project we're working on. I don't know the full picture as I only work on small elements of it here and there. But he seems to think that the plug will be pulled anytime soon, and that we'll all be reassigned. If that happens, I'm going to take some time off, and we can spend some proper time together. And maybe even think about the possibility of having children.”

  Alarm bells ring in my head. I sit up straight.

  “We've talked about this a hundred times,” I say. “We're not having kids. I don't want them, and you don't want them. You said they'd fuck up your career.”

  “I'm at a really good point in my career at the moment, pretty much where I wanted to be at this age. Having a baby wouldn't ruin anything now, it would just put things on hold for a while. I could go back in where I left off, when I'm ready.”

  Here we go again. When did having children become such a priority for her? She used to be more adamant about it than me. I've stayed in the same position this whole time. I don't really want them. She seems to have gone from No way, absolutely not, my career is far more important. To Let's have babies, and fuck my career.

  “Ez. We have this argument almost every time I'm about to head back to the Sun. It ends up with me being miserable and alone for three months, and I'd imagine it's similar for you. Except that you have friends to talk to, and I'm trapped on a tin can with a bunch of people I don't really like, and certainly don't want to open up to.”

  She looks at me for a few seconds, and then looks back out over the water.

  “I guess that's true, I'd never really thought about it like that. But you're not going back this time, you're staying here. And to put it bluntly, you could easily be a stay at home dad.”

  I look at her sharply.
/>   “Fuck that.”

  I realise that she has it all planned out, and probably has done for a long time. And now, finally, all the pieces are in place.

  “I'll let the idea sink in, and we'll talk about it again in a few days.”

  With that she stands up, grabs my hand and pulls me up. I'm feeling shell-shocked and not sure I know what's going on.

  “I think it's now definitely time for break-unch, or would you prefer lunch-fast?” she says, and I suddenly realise how ridiculous I sound.

  “Um … just brunch I think.”

  We head to the café in relative silence, not an entirely uncomfortable one, but my head is reeling. I'm going to need another evening with Jacob and Terrell to talk through the events of this morning, and to get their unique wisdom on the situation.

  15

  “Tonight, my good friends, will be a night like no other. We won't simply be staying at The Fire and Water to whittle the night away, no, no, no. Tonight will be something very special indeed. For I have procured us three tickets to the finest drinking establishment in the city. The one and only Jupiter Rising. Ten floors of truly awful music, ten floors of watered-down piss, ten floors of over-priced drugs, ten floors of terrible lecherous men, ten floors of buff, sexy men, and ten floors of sexy scantily-clad ladies. Tonight, my friends, we go into the realms of the unknown.”

  Terrell looks over to me and puts his hands over his face. I feel the same: Jupiter Rising is a shit-hole of epic proportions.

  “Really, Jacob? Why would you do that to us? This is probably my last night out with you guys for a while, and we're going there. Really?” I say.

  The waitress turns up and puts three litre glasses of lager on the table, looks at Jacob with a sneer, and walks away. He just smiles. The company logo on the side of the glasses is glowing red and slowly changes to blue when the tiny mechanism inside has chilled the drink sufficiently.

  Jacob picks up his glass when it's ready and drinks deeply from it, then puts it down on the table loudly.

  “That is precisely why, John. If it’s our last night together, then let's do it with as little style as possible,” he says.

  “I get that, but I really have something serious I need to talk to you guys about tonight, so I thought maybe a quiet one.”

  “John, three words are going to sum up tonight: stupidness before seriousness,” he says, and then holds his glass in the air.

  Terrell picks up his drink, bangs it against Jacob’s already half-finished one, and takes a massive swig.

  “Ah, fuck it. I'm in. Come on John, this could be the final chapter of the three musketeers,” he says.

  “The three musketeers? We've never called ourselves that. The three drunken bastards, more like it.” I sigh. “Okay, I guess I'm in. Not that I have much choice. We are going to regret this though.” I bang my glass against theirs and attempt to down my drink. I don't even get to the quarter-way mark before I start gagging and spit a mouthful on to the table. Luckily, only Jacob and Terrell see me do this, otherwise we'd have probably been kicked out. The waitress was already annoyed with us, but she seems mainly annoyed with Jacob. He won't tell us why, but Terrell seems to think it has something to do with Jacob sleeping with her one night, and then sleeping with her boyfriend the night after. They still point at me and laugh.

  After our drinks are finished, we leave a tip and Jacob books us a taxi to the club. We walk outside and the three of us wait in the rain shelter until the taxi decides to turn up. There are four large circled Ts in what used to be the car park, and our taxi lands on the one closest to us. The side door hisses open and the driver shouts out Jacob’s name. We get in and sit down.

  “Here we go, boys, the point of no return,” Jacob declares, and pulls out three mini bottles of something luminous and blue. He passes one each to Terrell and me, and downs his in one. We look at each other and down ours too, as the glowing blue mouth effect it gives us only lasts about an hour, but is brightest ten minutes after you drink it. We're going to look ridiculous when we get there. But then, that's the point. Three old men entering a club, that is predominately filled with eighteen to twenty-five year olds, with bright blue glowing smiles. We're so cool.

  The cab then slowly moves itself into the mag-lane ten metres above the road, and with a loud buzz that signals its roof is within the magnetic barriers, it heads off at full speed, and the backs of our heads hit the head rests. Only service vehicles are allowed the conversions needed to make them able to hover and use the mag-lanes. It makes taking a bus or a taxi a hell of a lot quicker than driving, especially in the city. It also means that bus and taxi drivers need special licences and a lot of training to pilot these vehicles, and has put most of the road-based taxi drivers out of business.

  Out of the window I spot the club between buildings that are blurring past at high speed. It's a huge tower covered in lights and screens, in the middle of an industrial estate. It looks out of place, and in the daylight just looks tired and old. It's a beacon for anyone who wants to dance, take its many varieties of mind-altering drugs, have a one night stand, a quickie by the dustbins, or a fight. A classy place.

  The taxi comes to a stop, slowly moves itself out of the mag-lane, and sets down about thirty metres from the club. The driver presses a button and our retinas are scanned with a bright red light. There is a fast beeping noise, and he acknowledges that we've paid by unlocking the doors.

  16

  Outside, the place seems to be as crowded as the club itself is probably going to be, but there doesn’t seem to be a queue. Each level has its own entrance, which avoids a lot of the congestion.

  “Jacob, which one's the rock level?” I shout over the noise of people and thumping bass coming from above.

  “Not sure, probably near the top I'd have thought. Not going there yet though, I've got a plan.” With that he walks over to a water machine, pulls out a litre bottle and proceeds to down it. He then walks to one of the bouncers and asks what level is generally the most popular.

  “We're going to level four first.” He smiles a sly little blue smile, and I think I know what he's planning. The three of us walk through the foyer and towards the level four stairwell. All the hip and sexy people seem to be headed this way too, and they all seem to have almost no clothes on. The men: tight shorts, naked torsos, and shimmering tattoos across their bodies and arms. Very in fashion right now. The women: essentially wearing just lingerie that has been repurposed as the standard nightclub uniform. There must have been a point sometime in the past when a mini dress just wasn't mini enough anymore. I'm not complaining though.

  Once up the stairs, the muffled beat gets louder and I start to feel it in my chest, as if it's trying to change to beat of my heart. The crowd stops and waits patiently at the giant doors, willing them to open. When they finally do, the strobe lights floating just below the ceiling lead us in. The beat stops being muffled and becomes sharp, and almost intolerably loud. Jacob disappears in ahead of us, and Terrell taps me on the shoulder. He tries to say something to me, but I can only see his lips moving and have no idea what it is over the racket. He then drags me in the direction of the bar, and we get quickly stuck in the tightly-wedged, claustrophobic mass of people waiting to be served. There is nothing to do now but wait and hope the bar staff don’t just serve the people who show them the most cleavage.

  Jacob then grabs us both by the shoulders. We turn and look at him, confused. By some miracle, he's already been served and managed to find us a place to sit. He definitely doesn’t have the most cleavage out of the three of us, that’d probably be me, but he probably has the most charm. Either way, that man works fast. Once we sit down, he puts the three Emergency Stops he's bought us on the table, and we all smile in unison. I’d forgotten that they served them here. I pick up the small yellow box, attach it to my arm, and wait for them to do the same. Once they're all in place, we count down from three, and then hit the big red button on the top. The needles inside the yellow box pie
rce our skin, and the modified opiates hit our blood streams. We all then lay back on the sofa, mouths slightly agape. My body feels really heavy, too heavy to move, but I feel like I'm floating at the same time. It’s a good feeling. The effects will only last about ten minutes, and the addictive element has been removed, but the club will only serve you one per night. There are plenty of other ten-minute hits available, but each person is limited to four different hits in one night. The owners of the club have to be super strict on this policy now, because the previous owners were just too relaxed about it. Jacob told me of one night, probably about a year ago, when a group of friends took it in turns to buy as many as they could from the bar, and took them all at once. It was a terrible idea that ended very badly. Some of them got serious brain damage and had to be euthanised in the days following, and some just died on the spot after their brains literally melted and drained out of their ears and eye sockets. The owners of the club were promptly arrested, and executed soon after.

  Once the effects of the Emergency Stop have worn off, Jacob stands up and tries shouting something at me, but I just can't hear him, so I point to my ears and shrug my shoulders. This place is horrible. I like being able to talk, and I've got a lot to discuss this evening. The repetitive pounding bass is getting in the way of everything except drinking, drug-taking and dancing. And there's no way I'm dancing.

  He laces his fingers together and bends his knees, and I just look at him. I finally realise he's miming for me to give him a bunk-up, so I copy his stance, and he runs at me. He lifts his leg and puts his foot between my hands. I push up while he jumps, and he grabs one of the floating strobe lights above us, and hovers slowly above everyone dancing and getting their groove on. I realise with horror that I may have just put his plan in motion.