Blood and Profit: Chapter 26

Rusty had officially moved into his office early in the second week he had access to it. Currently he was pacing back and forth and trying to figure out a more efficient way to express his rage than punching something. The door chime beeped.

“Go away Toll!” He yelled.

Carter’s voice was muted due to the door but he could still hear “Open the door kid.”

Rusty growled, and begrudgingly pressed the button to let Connor in. Rusty went back to pacing.

“Looking good Rusty.” He said entering the office.

“Feeling good Carter” Rusty grunted.

“I love that movie.” Carter said. Plopping himself into Rusty’s office chair.

“What movie?” Rusty asked.

“Trading places, but that’s not important.” I need to have estimates on how we can bring the ring system back online when everything is all said and done. I’ll need graphs, time lines, and smart sounding science words that stink of certainty.” There was no humor in Carter’s face.

Rusty stopped pacing and his shoulders slumped. “I honestly have no idea how long it will take nor do I have the first bit of data to even start dreaming of an estimate.” He sighed.

“Then put together a team and start working on one. You just scared a lot of people, it’s time to start thinking about calming them down.” Carter puffed on his nano stick.

Rusty sat on his cot. “Look I’ll talk to Toll tomorrow, just –“

“I don’t care about Toll, you found the system reset commands. Finder’s keepers, He who controls the spice controls the universe, and other such platitudes that mean ‘responsibility sucks, get used to it’’ Carter stood up and walked over to the door. “We can’t just break the universe and walk away kid. We have to put our toys back when were done with them.” He pressed the keypad and the door slid open.

Rusty shook his head. “How are you always so flippant about this stuff?” He asked.

Carter puffed on his stick. “Because what you’re doing with the ring system is what I’m doing with human lives, difference is, human lives can’t be reset like nothing ever happened. Being flippant with people I trust is how I stay sane.”

Rusty nodded. “I’ll get my team together tonight.”

“Good” Carter stepped into the hallway, the door started to close and Carter stuck his hand out to catch it. “Rusty?”

“Yeah?” Rusty asked.

Carter hesitated for a second. Rusty was looking out the window at the fish. Carter knocked on the door jam “Watch trading places.” Rusty looked at him and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah I’ll do that.” He said.

Carter left the room and the door closed. 

Shades of Justice: Chapter 1

The play was a disaster. Not in a hilariously quirky teen sex comedy kind of way either. Sonya could handle directing a flaming pile of high school theater if it was jerky, stilted Shakespeare or the schools fortieth presentation of ‘Our Town’ But the districts new list of ‘age appropriate’ material had nothing from Shakespeare, in fact it had nothing on it written before nineteen ninety six. So she and everyone else were stuck with ‘Let’s all be good students. A musical in five acts.’ The evening had mostly been wasted muddling through the opening number which took up half the first act ‘five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred detentions’. There were six weeks of rehearsal and she already hated the play as much as the rest of the cast.

She finished her performance notes, gathered her things into her backpack and slide it over her shoulders. She shut her desk lamp off and made her way to the auditorium exit. The door handle echoed in the empty hall. As she got closer to the parking lot she could hear the music coming from the football players cars. Thankfully she had parked several rows down and would be able to avoid them for the most part.

Gordon had had better practices, hell he had had better days. But thankfully the day was over and he could go home, ice up his foot and look at the nearly three thousand photos he had taken during the spirit day assembly.

Gordon pulled the strap of his duffel back higher up onto his shoulder as he hobbled out toward the parking lot. A girl with wet hair came out of the girl’s locker room and saw him, she did a double take for the girl’s locker room but decided to stay. Gordon stopped walking, they stood silent in the hallway.

“Bummer about the game yesterday.” She finally offered.

“yeah.” He nodded. He turned and continued to hobble for the door. She walked beside him.

“Was coach pretty mad?” she asked.

Gordon leaned against the wall next to the exit door. “I had to make five field goals every five yards all the way back to the thirty five yard lines. So yeah, I’d say he was pretty mad.”

Kelly looked unsure of herself. “Is that a lot?” she asked as the girls locker room door exploded open again and the cheerleaders appeared in an exuberant pack. The leader of which grabbed Kelly’s hand.

“Let’s go Kelly, the guys are waiting.” The leader pulled Kelly into the mob and they headed out to the parking lot as a single unit. Gordon saw the rest of the team had parked their cars around his and were spraying it down with shaving cream and silly string. He sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall.

Kelly watched as the other girls climbed into the backs of half a dozen different cars. The head cheerleader also happened to be her sister which was the only reason she was in this situation. Her sister had climbed into the back of Tori’s car. He was the captain of the football team and a self-centered douche bag. “Get in the car Kelly!” she heard her sister shout over the music. Tori took one look at her wet hair and damp clothes and shook his head.

“Not unless she’s got a dry towel, I don’t want that pool water messing with my interior.” He ran his hands over the passenger seat. Kelly unzipped her bag and started to pull out her only towel. Two of the guys defacing the jeep jumped into one of the other cars and the driver peeled out and took off. 

“Too slow!” Tori yelled as he reached across slammed his door, revved his engine and took off after the rest of the pack. Leaving Kelly alone next to a jeep covered in piles of silly string and shaving cream.

“You guys suck!” she shouted futilely after the long gone caravan of popular kids.

Gordon hobbled up to his jeep and set his bag down. “if you help me scrape this mess off I can give you a ride home.”

“Thanks” She said, not thinking twice about the offer. Calling her parents was out of the question. She began to grab handfuls of wet slimy gunk off the driver’s side window. Each fistful hit the parking lot with a light splatter. Sonya walked past them as they worked to uncover the Jeep.

“Hey Kelly, how’s the swim team?” Sonya asked.

“Really great actually. We’re undefeated so far this season and I’m anchoring the 400 relay.” She slid a huge clump of string off the windshield. “how’s the play?”

“It’s a dumpster fire.” She replied, pulling a cigarette out of her bag and lighting it. “Don’t narc.”

“They can’t all be winners.” Gordon offered as he scraped crap off his car.

“I take you it speak from experience.” She sniped back. “Kelly you need a ride home, or you good with the white knight here?” She finished her cigarette and flicked the dead butt.

A blush began to form on Kelly’s face.  Sonya smiled and turned toward her car. “I’ll take that as a ‘get lost’ then.” Far in the distance what sounded like intermittent pounding on a bass drum. “Besides, sounds like the rest of the Calvary is coming back.” The thudding came closer and soon it became apparent it wasn’t on the ground but in the sky. Then just above the tree line were flashes of light. The flashes and the booming got closer and were definitely the same thing. Gordon got out of his jeep to get a better look at the spectacle. There were three smaller flying objects chasing a single larger flying object. The larger one being chased was venting smoking and on fire. The prey ship took a direct hit and it became clear that it wasn’t staying in the air much longer and it was coming awful close to the school.

“RUN!” Gordon yelled, slamming the door to his jeep. Kelly and Sonya didn’t need further encouragement and quickly shot past him as the crashing ship made its way toward the parking lot. The girls made it to the library door only to find it locked. “MOVE!” Gordon shouted and they were barely out of the way as he shoulder checked the door at full speed. It exploded into the library and Gordon hit the ground hard. The girls entered the building and helped Gordon to his feet, He growled in pain when Kelly touched his right shoulder. The ship hit the parking lot in a ball of flame and skidded toward the library.

“Gordon lets go!” Kelly screamed. The trio found and open door into the stacks and made their way to the far corner of the building as quickly as they could. It seemed impossible but the ship tore into the library seeming to have lost no momentum. They were against the furthest wall with nowhere left to go. Sonya doubted the huge group study desks would provide much protection but she shoved Kelly and Gordon under them as they heard the ship smash through row after row of stacks. They had no way of knowing if the ship was still coming because each row of stacks was falling into the next like dominoes. Until the final book stack crashed on top of the desk they were hiding under.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 25

The meeting was over. It had not been a snoring meeting. It hadn’t even been a talking or a listening meeting. It had been yelling meeting. Toll stormed out of the conference room enraged. Rusty followed after him.

“Toll wait!” he shouted.

Toll spun to face him. “You don’t know it you’ll be able to turn it back on!”

For the first time in his life Rusty stood his ground. “Yes! There has never been a system wide shut down. We have nothing, not even theoretically that tells us what to expect!”

“Don’t you think that the lack of information about this is all the proof you need that it shouldn’t be done?” Toll asked.

“Our entire plan hinges on shutting the ring system down. Whether or not it comes back on doesn’t matter!” Rusty stood fast.

“Yes it does! Without the ring system we can’t get home!” Toll gestured wildly, yelling at the top of his lungs..

“We’re never going home Toll!” Rusty exploded. “You never once thought through any of the consequences of your schemes! This is home now! That’s the consequence of coming here! Get used to it!” Rusty was red in the face. The other conference members quietly left the conference and headed the opposite direction down the hall.

Toll looked like he was about to fall apart. “Not if we can get back through the ring first.” He almost whispered.

 Rusty’s face was returning to its normal shade. “I’ve spent my entire life ignoring how truly selfish you are. There is so much more at stake here than whether or not we get home. The fact that you can’t see past your own nose has always gotten us into trouble. And if you’re not careful its going to get those fools you call pilots killed.” Rusty was still to angry to care about the daggers in Tolls eyes. “We’re here, we have responsibilities that we can’t run from, deal with it.” Rusty turned and stormed down the hall. He passed Ophelia and Carter without a word.

Ophelia moved to follow after rusty but Carter stopped her, nodding in Tolls direction where he was pacing, then suddenly exploded and punched the wall. His hand crumpled and he yelped as Ophelia stepped toward Toll. The knuckles on his ring finger and pinky were already starting to swell up and turn colors. “The movies never tell you that it hurts to punch things.”

Ophelia pulled her phone out of her pocket, pressed a couple buttons and then held it to her ear. “Yeah I need a medic in meeting corridor C, thanks.”

Blood and Profit: Chapter 24

Three days in the group of trainees had shrunken considerably. The vomit comet alone caused a third of them to quit. The ones who were left had logged nearly ten hours of simulator time a day. Toll got them into their real planes on day four. With eighteen trainees and only fifteen planes Toll decided to break them up into squads of three, sending three squads up at a time and overseeing their tests and mock combat trials. By the seventh day Toll was very nearly a zombie and his trainees were lucky to have avoided serious injury or death by the end of the week. He sent a message to everyone giving them the day off.  He knew that they would do wild and crazy things like sleep for more than forty five minutes at a time and possibly even eat full meals or take showers. He finished sending the message out and placed his phone on the bedside table. Toll shut his eyes with every intention to sleep through the next twelve hours of human history.

Which is why there was a knock at his door. He opened his eyes in defeat and shuffled across the room, hitting the keypad revealed Carter. He was leaning against the door jam. His nano inhaler permanently attached to his bottom lip. Toll glared at him. “How much time in a day do you spend trying to look like a heart throb from the 1950's?” He asked while moving out of the way to let Carter in.

Carter stood up full and turned away from the door. “How much time does the sun think about trying to set in the west?” He asked. “We've got a meeting.” He said walking down the hall.

Toll left his room and trotted down the hall to catch up to Carter. “Is this a talking or a listening meeting?” He asked.

“As long as it's not a snoring meeting you can do as you please.” Carter offered.

“Donuts?” Asked Toll.

“That is the German word for meeting.” Carter replied.

“You're in a mood.” Toll pointed out.

“I'm a scientist, this wannabe junta stuff makes me uncomfortable.” Carter muttered

“So why do it then?” Toll pried.

“Because if me being uncomfortable keeps septillions of people alive then i'll gladly be uncomfortable.” He stated. Toll nodded. Cater glanced at him. “You look like hell by the way.”

“That's it, I wanna break up.” Toll snapped.

“Eh, I only asked you out in the first place because my friend bet me I couldn't turn you into the prom queen.” Carter shot back. He opened the door to the meeting room. Toll followed him in.

                                                                                                                                                        

“Always with the maple bars! Who the hell likes maple bars!” Toll yelled as the door slid shut.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 23

The tunnel let them out onto a small coast air strip. They drove by a small collection of civilian air craft and carter weaved around plane after plane. Carter stopped the cart next to a single seat zero G fighter. It looked old and was clearly second or possibly third hand. The original corporate ID tag had been hastily scrubbed or scraped off. Carter turned the key and shut off the cart. “it's not much but it's all yours. Whether you -”

“shhhh you're ruining the moment.” Toll said, holding up his hand to quiet Carter. Carter stayed quiet. “She's beautiful.” Toll stepped out of the cart and walked over to the ship. Running his hand along the side almost lovingly. “Why give me the plane first? What's the job?'

Carter got out of the cart. “The job is why I showed you the plane first. We have fourteen more just like this one. There's only one problem.”

Toll turned to face Carter. “There's not one combat pilot among this nation of egg heads.”

Carter smiled and took a draw off of his stick. “There is one, I'm hoping he can turn out fourteen more.”

Toll looked back at the plane. “You want me to take fourteen completely green pilots and train them as a unit for a mission that happens when?”

Carter smiled awkwardly “two weeks.”

“Two weeks” Toll kicked at loose concrete jutting from a crack in the runway. “you were smart to show me the plane first.”

“I am one of the smartest people on the planet.” Carter tipped an invisible hat.

“That was probably a more intimidating statement before humanity colonized the stars.” Toll shot back.

“How hard is it to shut up and be intimidated?” Carter asked as he sat back in the drivers seat of the cart.

“If I admit that you don't intimidate me, can I still keep the plane?” Toll asked as he pushed an old yellow rusty stair case toward his plane's cockpit.

“Yeah I guess so.” Carter sighed, slumping into the drivers seat.

“Give em two hours to check this thing out then have my unit gathered. We don't have much time to waist.” Toll said as he started his climb up the stairs.

Carter pulled a phone of out of his jacket pocket and typed furiously on the screen. “Toll hold on a second.” Toll stopped a few steps up the ramp and turned around just in time to catch the phone that Carter had tossed at him. “That's yours. Contact information for everyone you want to talk to is already in it. There's another cart parked next to the security station a few hundred yards back the way we came. You're cleared for flight as soon as you're ready to go. Anything else?”

Toll looked around the airstrip. “This isn't our only airstrip is it?” he asked as he finished climbing into his plane.

Carter shook his head. “This is an old hobbyist airstrip.” There's an actual airport about sixty miles north of here.”

Toll had situated himself in the seat and was buckling himself in. “Good because this is hard enough by myself. Overseeing fourteen others without ground crew would’a been a nightmare.”

Carter smiled. “Your nightmares haven't even begun yet. I'll see you in a few hours.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Toll said reaching up to close his cockpit.

“Enjoy your flight.” Carter yelled as the cover latched closed. He turned the cart back on and spun it a hundred and eighty degrees to head back toward the tunnel.

The conference room was filled with a motley crew. Thirteen humans and one Baceten. Carter opened the door and let Toll into the room.  Toll took a quick survey of the room immediately noticing the Baceten. “Ok first question. How many of you have any kind of flight experience at all?” Two hands went up, one of which was the Baceten. “All righty then. Before we get to learning things like names and playing team building games were all headed to the simulators because if you can’t keep from crashing we can’t bond into an incredibly unlikely feed good team of misfits that beat the odds and become a crack team of colorful hotshots. On the off chance that any of you have any questions, my name is Toll and until each of you have two hours of simulator time none of your questions actually matter. So, everyone stand up and follow me.” Toll exited the room and the rest of the group followed him out and down the hall. Leaving Carter alone in the room.

“Well, at least he's not bored anymore” he said to himself as he left the room.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 22

Three weeks. If took three weeks for Toll to go completely stir crazy at the San Pedro Shelf Command Compound. The first week was easy. Rusty had fallen in with the group of scientists attempting to use the ring system for long range communication. Toll watched old videos from the pacific free zones data network. The second week was harder, the movies no longer held Toll's interest. Rusty had begun sleeping in the lab space he was using to scour the code that operated the rings. Against his better judgment Toll asked if there was something he could help Rusty do. This led to easily the worst two hours of his life. Scanning lines of code for specific command prompts. At 96 minutes he went out for coffee and never came back. He roamed the compound often enough that members of all three guard shifts knew his name. By Thursday of week three he was beginning to contemplate stealing a sub to go on a joy ride. Instead he went back to Rusty's office. The door was locked, he tapped the door chime. There was a crashing thud followed by a groan from inside the office. Another moment and the door opened revealing a barely awake Rusty.

“Toll, whats up?” rusty asked while wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“I'm bored, entertain me.” Toll demanded while trying to look as pathetic as possible.

Rusty shook his head. “Sorry man, I got work to do.”

“Yeah, I've seen your work, I don’t blame you for falling asleep.” Toll leaned back against the far wall.

“I don’t know what to tell you dude. Why don’t you see if Carter or Ophelia need any help?” Rusty asked.

“Because they’re both super busy with super important sciency ambassadorial importantness.”

“I'm busy as well Toll.”

“Yeah, busy sleeping.”

Rusty stooped leaning in the doorway. “Unless you want to help me look for specific segments of code, I’d suggest you go annoy someone else.”

Toll stood up off the door way, “Yeah fine i'm going, I’m going.”

Toll set off down the hall toward the main labs. Attempting to run into Carter was as good an idea as any. He knew the command level of the compound was restricted the same as most of the labs that Carter spent his time in but it was entirely possible that Ophelia would be able to get him temporary access or possibly let Carter know that Toll was looking for him, Or maybe Ophelia would have something for Toll to do. Toll turned the corner and nearly ran right into Carter.

“I was just coming to see you.” They both spoke at the same time.

“What did you need?” Toll asked.

Carter took a deep breath from the nano printer hanging from his mouth. “Word on the street is that you're bored.”

“We're under water.” Toll replied.

“What?” Carter asked, caught off guard.

“There's no streets under water.” Toll explained.

Carter pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger to relieve the pressure of the randomness. “Not that it matters but it's slang.”

“Of course it matters!” Toll exploded. “You're a person of great importance, you can't just go babbling about under water streets and not expect people to wonder if you've lost your mind.”

Carter held his hand up to stop Toll. “do you want the job or not?”

Toll's shoulders slumped. “Yes please.”

Carter turned and headed back down the hall. “I thought so. Follow me.”

Toll trotted to catch up. “Where are we going?”

“To show you you're new job.” Carter offered with no further explanation.

“Fine keep the mystery alive then.” They walked down the hall for a moment in silence. “Hey Carter?” Toll asked.

“Yeah?” Carter sighed.

“I'm pretty sure that 'word on the street' is a colloquialism not slang.” Carter pressed the pad next to a door and it opened with a hiss, revealing a small two man electric cart sitting on a road that headed up a large tunnel. “Or there's a literal street and I need to shut up.”

Carter sat in the drivers seat of the cart. “And get in the cart.” Toll nodded and scrambled to get into the cart before Cater took off.

Blood and Profit: Chapter 21

Near midnight Toll returned to the room that he and Rusty had been assigned to. Rusty was still awake, looking something over on a tablet.

“Thanks for not warning me at all about Third's sense of humor.” He smiled as he shut the door.

“Thanks for dragging my ass over two million light years from home.” Rusty replied, putting his tablet down.

Toll sat on his bunk. “Punishment accepted.”

Rusty looked out the tiny porthole window by his bed. “That wasn't your punishment.”

Toll looked shocked. “Seriously? That robot isn't even remotely funny and that story took like five whole minutes to tell. If that wasn't my punishment please get it over with cause, damn.”

Rusty put his feet on the floor. “You know we're never going home, right?”

Toll looked skeptical. “Of course we're going home. And I'm going to take the blame for everything.”

Rusty shook his head. “Damn right you would, but we're not going home so you're off the hook.”

Toll stood up. “I'm not off the hook until I say I'm off the hook. And why do you have to be so defeatist? We're going home, trust me.”

“Well that seals it. Now we're definitely never making it back home.” Rusty laid on his bunk dejectedly.

“What makes you so sure?” Toll asked.

“When you say 'trust me' it pretty much means 'I have no clue what I’m doing right now but as long as I keep doing it then hopefully everyone will forget this was my idea in the first place.'” Rusty turned off the light above his bed.

Toll stared at the ceiling in the darkness. Unable to deny his friend. He rolled on his side. “We're getting on that ship and we're going home.”

Rusty sighed. “That’s a better plan than I've got so sure, why not.”

Neither of them fell asleep, they just laid silently in the darkness. “What do you think their doing back home right now?” Toll asked.

“Nothing. Things are as blissfully dull and slow as they have always been. They probably had a party to celebrate getting rid of the two biggest nuances in a generation but then happily went back to their quiet boring dull lives.” Rusty rolled over, his back to Toll.

“Sounds nice.” Toll remarked. There was silence for long enough that he wasn't sure if Rusty was still awake.

“Yeah, it does.” Rusty finally offered.

It wasn't much longer until they had both fallen asleep.