A. Hicks Hope

Creativity, Expression, & Entertainment Sought

July 14, 2010                                ISSUE: AHH-10-5 

Chez Hesperia

The Evening Palace

Part I

Welcome

            “Theyyyyy saaay.”  The young guest drew out the words as was the fashion on Novo-Terra.  “That youu, welll, the humannn bodie stopps aging after the ninth decade?”  Androgynous was seemingly a continual fashion on Novo-Terra.  Of course, not that you could tell, the stylish, total body masking obscured any sexual distinction.  If anyone in the Inhabited Galaxy cared other than another Novo-Terran.  “Isss that truuue?  Have you found?”

            MacDonald Jordan didn’t like the Novo-Terra affectations.  It wasn’t Novo-Terra, specifically, Mac just didn’t much like anybody young or old, as old as he was or older.  Age didn’t matter to Mac, even though it mattered greatly to the rest of human society.  “Heard that myself.  Urban myth, I think.”  Mac shrugged as he completed the registration scan of Mr. Morgan – Smith – Conners’ ID card.  M-S-C was only twenty-two point four years of age, Novo-Terra standard, making him about twenty eight in Revised Earth standard years.  Still young enough for them to have a mutual dislike.  For all Mac knew, Mr. M-S-C could be his grandson’s grandson.  Maybe he was?  Who wanted to know anymore?  People were scattered all over the place in the Inhabited Galaxy, with all kinds of odd attitudes, too annoying to keep track of family members.  They wouldn’t want you to either. 

            M-S-C flicked his metallic coated right hand in the air with a manner meant to appear accidental, it wasn’t.  “Yoooou don’t look much more than eighty orrr sooo.  So I guess it doesn’t apply to youuu.”

            “Hundred and twenty seven though, must have stopped.  I guess maybe they’re right for a change.  They seldom are right.”  Mac didn’t care about his actual chronological age.  That he was old and not dead was all that mattered to him.  “Could be the low gravity too.  Skin doesn’t sag so much.  Wrinkles puff out not in.”  Mac flicked his fingers at his cheek.  He made the motion look as disinterested about his wrinkles as he was.

            “By my God and Aunt Ruth, you’re older than my whole planet.  Back at you.”  M-S-C’s metallic skin coating only somewhat reflected the underlying expression on his face.  The random cycle of hard radiation bombardment on Novo-Terra made environmental suits move from simple necessity to a fashion statement a half a century ago.  Originally, the suits were transparent.  It was a desirable characteristic back when nudity was in fashion there.  But then nudity was out and the suits went to matte opaque.  The more opaque the better, so followed shiny metallic, reflexive suits.  Reflecting the viewer’s image back at them.  “Back at you.”  Was thus a Novo-Terra common verbal affectation. 

All good and annoying to Mac.  He grumbled as he readjusted the routine Hotel reservation body scan confirmation protocol.  If he didn’t dial it back down afterwards, he could hospitalize the next Revised Earth guest.  Revised Earthers were still on the nudity, SuperGreen craze.  Mac intentionally kept the air temperature in the Lobby low.  “To guarantee fleshy retraction.  No Low G floppiness needed.”  Was Mac’s opinion.  “Kept the members of the Young in their appropriate places.” 

Also, because of the danger inherent in variation of guests, Mac always did the tour groups.  Mac was always extra careful.  It was the reason why Mac hated tour groups, extra work.  So much extra work.  So much was potentially harmful to some human out there.  Why they didn’t segregate the tourists into their appropriate colony groups Mac never understood.  He requested it regularly, but it was no go.  It was some SuperGreen, politically correct, Revised Earth affectation or other.  Mac didn’t care enough to find out.  A lot of what was SuperGreen made no sense at all.  He was used to being annoyed, so why care about one specific annoying thing or the other?     

“I’m certain you only meant the population of Novo-Terra.  The age of the planet itself,” In his head, Mac flicked through his implanted database for the info.  “is estimated at three point seven billion years.  I’m hardly half that age.”

Mr. M-S-C reached over the Reception Desk and smacked Mac on his exposed left cheek.  “Back at you.  You are such a giggle.”  And then M-S-C’s suit let out an automated giggle. 

The metallic coat, although thin, stung, even with this light tap.  Mac remembered yet again why he hated Novo-Terrans.  “Suit’s unnecessary here you know?”  Mac always stated this fact to Novo-Terran guests, it was a futile gesture he knew, but he was so old most things had futility imbedded within them.  Mac was just going a long for the ride.  “Just so long as I’m not dead.”  Mac would say, no affectation intended. 

Mr. M-S-C reacted the same way as all the other Novo-Terrans did, it pissed him off.  Dismissing an affectation was an insult to them all.  Humiliation for the entire colony.  They felt humiliation deeply on Novo-Terra.  It was printed on all travel documents as an affirmation.  “Words can be the worst radiation of them all!”  It was an inside planet colony joke that wasn’t funny to anyone.

“Not good galactic citizens.”  Everyone said that about the Novo-Terrans except for the Novo-Terrans. 

“Beam me up, Scotty!”  M-C-S snapped with his voice and his right metallic coated hand.

“Mac is good enough for me, ah, Sir, is it?”  And Mac jammed the Tele-porter button.  Mr. M-S-C was immediately and thankfully teleported to his residual unit.  Chez Hesperia was the highest of security and privacy hotel / resort stations, each guest’s quarters was an independent, isolated module orbiting the Central Lobby.  Only encrypted Tele-beams could penetrate the walls of these modules.  Even the cleaning staff was encrypted to allow tele-entry.  Mac didn’t know how they did that, but it was just another annoying detail Mac didn’t care about.  Mac only cared about getting all the details correct.  Mac really hated mistakes and errors thus he was stuck being the Customer Service Manager for Chez Hesperia. 

The Revised Earth didn’t let you chose your job in Deep Space.  Jobs were mandated to you after retirement age.  Ha!  Retirement?  Off-Worlded.  Off world was Revised Earth’s solution for everything uncomfortable or anti-social.  Global warming, overpopulation, crime, waste disposal, old age, anything that generated social discomfort, send it into space.  Retirement was a one way ticket into zero G. 

“Old is the New Bold!”  Was the Revised Earth marketing slogan.  “The elderly are good in space!”  They demanded.  “No reproductive expectations required.  The biological imperative done.  No future except death.  So why not space?”  Marketing Executives were traditionally not very good with bed side manner.  It wasn’t their job to comfort people.  They were there just to get the message across.  Painful message or not.  Words hurt as the Novo-Terrans continually said.  The specifics of the Executive Marketeers’ messages weren’t their concern.  “Not what we are paid for.”  Was their common verbal affectation.

So at ninety two years of age, Mac was ‘promoted’ to Customer Service Manager of the newest and best of the hotel / resorts in deep space, Chez Hesperia.  It was just like being drafted into the military, no one asked you your desire or cared about it.  You had no other choice, well, except stasis.  Eternity stored in a stasis module.  Eternity in the same internal time as well as the place, technology-induced unconscious, maybe dreaming, but certainly not getting in anyone’s way.  Mac didn’t much care about the going into space part.  After all those years dealing with the affectations of the youth obsessed culture of the Revised Earth and its colonies, Mac wanted to be left alone.  He had futilely hoped that deep space would be vacant of the young.  Why would he be right this time?  He was seldom correct about anything social.  Hotel / resort attracted the most affectation oriented of them all.  Mac was in his kind of hell, but he wasn’t dead.  That was a positive something. 

 “Good thing personal weapons were banned in outer space.”  Mac would mutter at least once a day as he dealt with those youthful guests.  “So many would never get the benefit of retirement, otherwise.” 

Low to zero G was good for the entire hotel / resort staff.  Most of them were over a century and a half in age.  Mac, himself, was actually another three decades older than what he volunteered to Mr. M-S-C.  Lying about his age didn’t bother Mac either.  He was just old like every other member of the staff; “aged, exported, and exploited.”  Old folks were the only permanent residents in this part of the Inhabited Galaxy.  No one on the Revised Earth cared where the old were, just so they were gone.  Out of sight, thankfully, out of mind.

Getting old had never been fashionable on the old or Revised Earth.  Humans had always hated being reminded of their destiny, old age and death.  They hated it even more now.  All this advanced technology but they still hadn’t conquered aging.  All humanity was disappointed at that.  Unfortunately, like Mr. M-S-C had joked, aging did stop naturally but well after ninety.  After you were already elderly, used up; slow and ugly.  Maybe it didn’t stop?  Maybe the aging process simply wore out; got used up just like your youth?  Technology had pushed back the time of death (TOD) true, but humans still got visibly old and thus, by definition, ugly.  “Old and Ugly.” Was accompanied with an obscene gesture everywhere except the Revised Earth.   “Wrinkles add character” had only ever been a rationalization at best.  Now it was a joke.  Not funny but a joke.  Smooth skin was in, as always.  And the punch line of this joke was on the Resort / Spa / Hotel staff of the outer human colonies.  The low G’s did make the drooping, the sagging, the laxness, less obvious, but just by living out here, you were classified old.  So looks didn’t matter.  Old, old and biologically irrelevant, at least they weren’t completely useless.  The old ran the place.  Ran everything as long as that place and everything was just far, far away from planet Earth.

 “It’s a bitch.”  Mac almost said every day.

Entertainment Guaranteed

Sarah Preston – Smyth was one hundred and eighty seven years old but didn’t look a day over a hundred and eleven.  Her family wealth had pushed back the appearance of aging but, of course, never halted the process.  She had her stem cells modified to keep her hair color dark, not the fluorescent colors so popular these days, but as dark as possible.  “Not grey!  That’s the important part.  She had to have it done every year or so.  Permanent gene transfer had never been perfected for humans for some unknown technical reason.  She would’ve used an environment suit if she could, but she was prone to contact dermatitis.  Her skin needed to be free.  Her skin was still very sensitive and tactile for being so old.  She still liked the physical sensation of sexual contact thus she was the Entertainment Coordinator of Chez Hesperia. 

“I am always available.”  She would quip.  “Since beauty in a woman has more to do with availability than actual physical attribute, beauty is in the brain of the beholder.  Quite truly, I am the most beautiful woman out here in deep space.”  That was true.

Of course, Sarah annoyed Mac more than most people did.  It wasn’t her aggressive sexual posturing.  It was her lack of emotional attachment associated with sex that pissed him off.  “She could just be blowing her nose.”  Mac was old old school.  Sex didn’t have to have love attached, it was just better when it did.

All the staff thought Mac hilarious in his role reversal.  The staff liked laughing at Mac.  There wasn’t much else to do.  Their futures were here, sealed in deep space at this entertainment Hotel / Resort.  It should be called “Ego-Ville.”  Mac would mutter.  Everything annoyed the shit out of Mac; the staff thought that was funny too, true but still funny.

Mac was also humorous in being against the Electric Chair.  It was one of Chez Hesperia’s main attractions.  The Revised Earth had outlawed the Electric Chair, not out of moral issues, but to keep humans, of any age, moving off world by whatever incentives.  Most of the Youth Perfect generation was so afraid of disease that direct human contact nauseated them.  Most of their daily interactions were through some electronic filter; PDA, computer, implant phone.  Only information flowed, no bodily fluids with potentially harmful flora or fauna.  Ugh!  So they were the opposite of Sarah in the desire for physical sex, they used directed electronic stimulation of their brain’s reward center for their pleasure gathering.  Chemical means had too many unforeseen side effects, “Almost like a disease.”  They would say and flip their hands around with limp wrists.  For sanitation sake, they had chair plugs surgically implanted in the back of their heads.  “Sterile and quick attachment to pleasure.” Was the marketing slogan for the Electric Chair manufacturer.  PAT INC. manufactured both the Electric Chair and the Deep Space hotel / resort facilities, thus every residential unit module at Chez Hesperia had an Electric Chair.  “Clip in and pleasure flows.” 

“Electronic masturbation.”  Mac called it.  The staff loved this about Mac.  Even self-satisfaction wasn’t acceptable.  Mac didn’t care.  He didn’t care about much these days, just his job.  Just getting the details right. 

Mac was Papa to all of these crazy children of all ages.  “Papa is grumpy and still alive!  He’s so SuperGreen!”  They would poke fun laughing.  The Revised Earth had eliminated the death plenty when they went SuperGreen.  The next thing to go was the wasted space of prisons and golf courses. 

The Revised Earth was no fun at all; stasis or outer space.  “Not much of a choice but maybe more fun than boring Revised Earth?” 

“SPACE = FUN!”  Was another marketing slogan seen on the Revised Earth.  Chez Hesperia’s mother corporation, PAT INC.’s proof statement of the FUN part of SPACE was their Electric Chair.  Not surprisingly, PAT INC. also ran one of the largest Stasis Station services.  PAT INC. had stasis facilities gravitationally linked to all of their resorts.  There was a very large one directly across from Chez Hesperia.  It too contained individual residential units, although they were much smaller, room only for one human, the solar powered stasis generator and a few maneuvering rockets.  The “Not dead.” The staff called the stasised.  The ‘Graveyard’ Mac called it.  The staff thought that funny too. 

“Just a hilarious guy.”  Mac would shrug.

“Everyone laughs at Papa.”  The staff said when nothing else was appropriate. 

A few years back a Performance Artist from the Not with my Mother you don’t colony had hacked into the Stasis units’ magnetic latticing system.  He reprogrammed it, turning the hundreds of thousands of stasis units into a palate of mosaic tiles.  He painted his face all over the Inhabited Galaxy.  He was even able to animate his mosaic features so he could stick his tongue in and out.  “A galactic raspberry,” he was quoted to say.

The staff laughed for a week while not doing anything but look out the back port observation deck at the “Graveyard” yawn, squint and give the galactic raspberry.  Novelty was hard to come by at Chez Hesperia, where it had all been done before, digitized, uploaded and viewed again and again on a looping feed. 

Although Mac thought the performance art funny too, he worked non-stop that entire week to de-hack the Artist’s masterpiece.  Mac didn’t like people invading his space.  Mac was very territorial for an old guy.  That was funny too, of course.  “Everyone laughs at Papa.”

All the rogues and bad boys were in space along with the elderly.  The Revised Earth had outlawed excessive personality too.  Off-worlded them all.  So, Mac always thought he had two strikes against him.   The Revised Earth had become more like a stodgy nature preserve than a functioning modern planet.  Some Revised Earth purists were attempting to outlaw humanity in general, well, its residence on the Earth.  Not genocide, so it wasn’t a big movement.  Most of humanity was as apathetic as they had always been.  Mac wasn’t as unusual as he hoped.  Most people didn’t much care about most things.

It was Mac’s job at Chez Hesperia to deal with the wandering bad boy passers-by.  All the bad boys and girls called themselves artists.  Some were, most weren’t.  The Scent Artists were the worst of these bad boys in Mac’s mind.  The Scent Artists though, they would fiddle with the environmental systems of the residential units to make their atmospheres smell like peppermint or dirty socks, anything to annoy.  No harm just annoying fun.  “SPACE = FUN!”  They would parrot.  Complaints would mount.  All Mac’s responsibility, all a big pain, but they did give him something to do while being actively not dead. 

The hotel facilities were completely automated.  No staff was actually required for normal operation outside of routine maintenance, nothing much to do.  Really, the staff was there to get them off world and keep the resorts seemingly populated.  The staff floated around talking to whomever they bumped into, mostly it was other staff members.  The guests stayed in their rooms their Electric Chairs.  The staff was old.  Who wanted to see them?  Even the sexual encounters Sarah could sometimes generate were with other old bored Staffers.  Mac gave into her every once and awhile, just for something to do.  It all annoyed Mac.  The fact that no one else seemed to ever get bothered by all this shit, annoyed Mac further.  Of course, “Everyone laughed at Papa.” 

Pleasant Reception

Mac had proposed to the Corporate that they change the name of the hotel / resort to Ship of Fools, but PAT INC. objected without explanation.  Chez Hesperia remained in a routinely uneventful format.  The annoying was just a value added for him.  It was until the Poet Laureate of the Galaxy showed up.

 “Ship of Fools for sure.”  Mac thought, while he ran through the registration protocol for the Poet Laureate which stood in front of the Reception Desk.  He said, “Didn’t know the galaxy had one of those.”  Mac frowned at the Poet’s elaborate costume.  It was excessively elaborate even for Novo-Terra standards.  “Humans only inhabit about three or four percent of galactic space.”

“Just and so, don’t you know.”  It wasn’t clear who or what spoke.  The voice seemed to come from around the Poet’s left shoulder.

“The TelMat are the only other intelligent life out here and they are a couple of thousand light years away.”  Mac had to widen the scan beam.  It wasn’t clear what was flesh and what was costume?  Annoying.

“Been there, just last year.”  Came from the shoulder.

“No one's been there.  That’s bullshit.”  Mac knew everyone lied these days on just about any subject.  Knowing this didn’t mean he liked it.

“Bullshit.  Excretory wit.”  Muttered the Poet.

“Only data, information has ever been exchanged with those aliens.  That and a few robotic devices.  No biologicals.  The TelMat, that’s not even their name, they have never told us their name.  Not even a picture of them.  Who knows what’s true?”  Just another artist Mac thought and then he suddenly wanted to puke.  “Artists made sick now?”  He thought puzzled pushing it back down his throat.  Weightlessness and vomit didn’t mix.

“Data stream like a dream.  Being can be only seeing.”  The Poet smiled.  It seemed like a smile.

“You from Not with my Mother you don’t?”  Mac couldn’t get the scan to function properly.  The Poet was putting out some odd interference waves.  “You artists love to screw with a person’s mind as well as their technology.”

“Been there.  Didn’t like the air.”

“Don’t like facts either, it seems.”

“Facts push too hard back.  Limitation to the imagination.”

“You’re not in the database.”  Mac frowned as hard as he could at the Poet.

“Not in one piece.”  The Poet flipped his right hand.

“What’s that mean?”

“Meaning is an illusion.”  It might have been a smile on the Poet’s fake face.

“Wish you were.”  Mac mumbled to himself too loudly.

“How to you know I’m not?”

“How do you know what you know?”  Mac pushed the scan touch screen with his entire hand.  That usually worked just to end the registration protocols.  It worked this time too.  “Get this over with.  Sick of feeling sick.”

“Now knowing can be growing.”

“So this is your poetry?”  The search had worked but the profile reported was obviously not authentic. 

“This is my Knowitry.”

“I’m more a performance artist.”  Mac pushed the tele-porter control with satisfaction.  He set the re-materialization site six centimeters above the floor of the residential unit.  “Knowity?  My dwindling ass.”  The Poet and his odd costume faded out.

“Poetry?  Ugh!  Too much sappy blah, blah, love drooling.  Sarah loves it.”  Mac shook himself with disgust and the nausea.  He tried to feel annoyed not sick.  Annoyance always pushed back all of his negative bodily functions. 

Efficient Concierge Service

Annoyance wasn’t a state of mind; it was an emotion just like love.  Mac knew this.  He actually liked his annoyances more then love.  Love came by so seldom, annoyances though were routine in frequency just varied in intensity.  Annoyance was the only loyal companion allowed in deep space.  No dogs allowed!  Shedding fur and no G didn’t mix.

“Maybe the opiate receptors are involved in both?  The brain’s reward center for certain.”  A guest that was a medical doctor turned Buddhist Squared practitioner once stated to Mac.  “Pleasure is hard wired in the human brain.  The mind’s carrot, those opiate receptors.  Evolution used pleasure to keep mammals doing the right, proper things; eating the right foods; taking care of the kids, a.k.a. love.  Mothering and kin group bonding, the foundation of love.  Pleasure is the reward for doing right, a positive reinforcement.  Pain, of course, a negative reinforcement, and an equally powerful driver.  Pleasure and pain are physical events, not emotions.  Pain registers on everyone’s face, annoyance though, annoyance is clearly not pain.”

“Feels painful.”  Mac frowned making his face look more its age.

“No, you smile when you’re annoyed.  Obvious, opiate receptor stimulation.”  The Buddhist Squared doctor pointed at his own smile.  “Opiate receptors make me smile just like you.”                

“Sadists find pleasure in inflicting pain on others.”  Mac jabbed.

“Maybe so.”

“Still hurts.”  Mac smiled.  Dr. Buddhist Squared smiled.  Smiles and opiate receptor stimulation all around.

“But annoyance is your Electric Chair.  I’m told they hurt at first too, when plugging in you get a slight shock.” 

“Good!”  Mac smiled broadened.

Being a Buddhist Squared was an odd thing, like most new religions, a rich man’s thing.  The Buddhist Squared folks traveled space in individual, single-person ships.  They were sort of like the Old Earth, pre-Revised Earth’s super rich macho guys sailing around the world solo.  Sort of the same but not quite.  The Buddhist Squared ships were safe, approaching “no-death” conditions.  Technology did that most of the time.  It was its purpose; make things more efficient, more controllable, thus protecting against the chaotic events inherent in the Universe.  “Chaos can kill you and usually does!”  It’s not that chaos was inherent in the Universe; it was the inherent complexity of the Universe that generated unique, unforeseen events that appeared to be chaos.  An appearance of chaos, Faux-chaos.  A natural faux-reality.  It didn’t matter what it actually was, it could still be deadly.  Death was too real.  The Buddhist Squared ships pushed back effectively on that faux-chaos so the fear of death was not the issue with the Buddhist Squared.  It was the reverse of chaos, real or apparent, that was their struggle.  By definition, a vacuum lacked everything, even random events; mostly nothing was in their way on their journey.  Here and there didn’t matter, were unimportant to the Buddhist Squared.  It was the Nothing in-between they desired to experience.  Zen and Space.  They always answered the same way to the questions, “What are you looking for?”  “What do you seek?”

“Nothing.”  Most answered with a smile.

Some made it two words, “No Thing.”  But those were the novices.  People that thought they were still cute.  They attempted to enjoy the endless travel.  Of course, the novices missed the entire point.

The experienced Buddhist Squared folks were just there with nothing, on and on with nothing.  Every long once and a while though, there was a something, a there ahead of them.  When there was a there in front of them, they would be there too.  Even the Buddhist Squared folks had what they called human gravity.  Occasionally they were drawn to other groups of humans.  Not for any reason other than to be there.  Nothing to something.  When they came across a hotel / resort facility they would do something and stop for a time.  They always used the stasis facility as their port of call.  “Stasis was the next best thing to not being there.”  They would quip.  The stasis units and the personal ships were almost the same, except for a boost in propulsion and live support systems.  Both had stasis systems except that the Buddhist Squared ships had Off / On timers.  The personal ships, of course, were only sold by the Revised Earth Foundation and as a result were extremely expensive to purchase for an individual.  But the Buddha Squared would shrug and say, “Nothing matters.”  And then they bought the personal ships no matter the cost.  The Revised Earth loved the Buddha Squared.  All governments love the super rich and let them do mostly whatever they wanted.            

Personalized Service

Sarah reached out and smacked Mac on his right cheek, lightly but sharply, “Mac!  You are always fading out.”

“Trying not to throw up.”  Mac muttered.

 “You should have a whole brain check.  Is what you need.  They can fix that.  Fade back in.”  She smacked his left cheek in return.

“Fix what?”  Mac never understood why people thought they could smack him?  Many of the staff did it, only the female staff, actually.  No else got smacked, male or female.  Mac rubbed his cheek, vigorously.

“Get you a new head is what you really need.”  Sarah tried to sit on Mac’s lap, but he stood up to prevent it.  Mac’s low G Velcro pants ripped loudly in protest of his action.  “You are such a tease.  You keep your self in such great shape and you won’t come with me, except once and awhile.  Mutual orgasm is so natural.  So SuperGreen!  Despite what those Revised Earth loonies say.   Human reproduction is not immoral.” 

“You’re too old for a baby.”  Mac flipped up and over the reception desk just to get something solid between him and her.

“Don’t insult my uterus.  It is old but strong and vital.”  She rubbed her flat abdomen.  Her shear clothing clung to her body by static electricity.  The hotel air was always dry for some reason.  Cold and dry?  Water was the one truly expensive material in space.  The Corporate Accountants kept a tight hold on even the slightest use of moisture.  “Moist air?  What a waste!”  She had complained but it was to Mac.  He likely didn’t relay that complaint to anyone who could do anything about it other than Mac.  “I have birthed many a babe.  The Future of Humanity was my last girl.  You remember her.  She’s back on the Revised Earth.  Cost me a bundle for her to live her dream.”  Sarah moved around the Reception Desk.

“Visitors Only.  I know.”  Mac maneuvered to keep the Desk between them.

“Tsks.”  Sarah ran her hand over the tele-porter controls.  “I could transport you to my unit now and have my way with you.”  She tapped the controls.

“No ya can’t.  Locked it down for the evening already.”

“Oh.  Don’t you find me attractive?”  She pushed her hands seductively in the sir toward Mac.  “I too have kept in shape.  I have spent most of my fortune on medical enhancements.  I don’t look my age.  You know that.”

“Looks don’t matter any more.  You know that too.”  Mac moved off the tele-porter pad just to be sure about not ending up in her unit.

“Looks always mattered and still do.”

“Not to me.”

“Men always say that and they lie.”  She giggled coyly.

“I stopped lying when I got shipped into space.  No need.”  Mac backed into the wall.  “No where to go.”  There was no physical exit from the Lobby, only the guest or the staff Tele-porters.  The Staff had their own localized personal, password-protected, transporters.  Earth-tech, not TelMat-tech.  Earth-tech tele-porters were more limited in range but much more energy efficient.  Even though Chez Hesperia orbited a neutron star to extract any passing energy, energy was always an issue, energy was always lost.  Accountants don’t like loss even of abundant things.  Also there was no biological restriction on Earth-tech devices. 

Mac thought it rude to teleport out on someone while they were talking to you, but with Sarah, Mac was always tempted to be rude.  He tentatively tongued his tele-porter control.  “I need to check the Bar.”

“Bar’s automated, like everything else here.  Nothing to check.”  Sarah flicked her slim fingers in the air, more annoyed than sensual. 

“Manager’s touch for the guests.  You know me.  Chez Hesperia’s personal touch.”  Mac knew there was no one was in the bar, guest or staff.  His implant monitor reported it clearly.  Sarah’s could too.  “Just being polite too, that is, doing my job.”

“You’re missing so much you know.”  Sarah’s low G hairdo bounced as she nodded her head.  “You’ll miss me, this me, when I’m gone.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, but you’ll live another couple of decades.  Get off that now.”  Mac hated that death talk.  ‘If you can’t take life, go into stasis.’  Was his thought.  ‘Only cowards do suicide.  Wait it out.  You never know what will happen.’  “Life is full of surprises.”  Mac demanded strength.  He thought avoidance was best in these situations.

“Surprise is what I am talking about.”  She flicked her hands again.

Mac shook his head and muttered, “No surprises there.”

“What?”  Sarah frowned.  She hated not hearing what people said.

“Nothing.  I need to go.”  Mac pointed at the solid wall.

“Just one last chance.  I thought I’d give you one last chance.”  She waved at him.  “Oh well.  You don’t want.  What can a woman do?  Good night then.  Good bye then.  Nice knowing you.  Sort of.”  And she tele-ported herself out.  Her smile was the last thing to vanish.

“Like the Cheshire cat.”  Mac muttered.  “Does that make me Alice?”  Then Mac touched the tip of his tongue to active his personal transport.  The Lobby became the Bar, an empty bar.  Even the communal Electric Chair was on stand-bye.  No guest had been there for some time.  No night or day in Chez Hesperia.  The guests carried their own diurnal clocks within them.  That biological clock always ticked within people, not matter what part of the galaxy a human went.  Mac’s clock still ticked but much much slower.  Mac had gotten so old that he didn’t sleep much.  He would wander the facilities checking the automate maintenance nodes.  Everything was mostly okay.  “Mostly okay.” Was Mac’s weekly report to PAT INC.  The mother of a company.  “Mostly okay.” Had always been sufficient.  He would float-wander the facility’s personally checking the mostly okay until he did need to sleep. 

Privacy Guaranteed

“Mr. M-S-C is missing!”  Mac’s residential unit loudspeaker shouted at him as did his ear / skull implant speaker.  It seemed like an echo from his head to the wall of his room and back to his head.  He awoke immediately clicking off his implant speaker.

“What the hell?”  Mac was surprised.  Not from the wall shouting at him but that he had fallen asleep.  He violently shook himself to gain complete consciousness.  “He couldn’t leave without my authorization code release.  Must be a monitor glitch.  No ships coming or going either.  Mostly okay before I fell asleep.”

“Congratulation on falling asleep and then being able to chant the corporate response, he’s gone all the same.”  It was Ruth of the cleaning staff.  “Just jumped in with clean towels.  No M-S-C only his environmental suit was, is sitting there.  Hallow.  He is gone but not forgotten.”  She giggled.  “At least he left an impression, that of an empty suit I guess you would say.  Must have been a sales man.”  She laughed deeply this time.  Ruth was one of the few staff members that cared about things, still curious about things.  Most staffers wouldn’t have checked the suit.  They’d have just left the towels and jumped back out of the unit.  Most would have tele-ported the towels in, nothing personal for most of them.  The guest didn’t want to see some old thing, even with fresh towels. 

“Doesn’t need the suit here.”  Mac pushed himself up.  The chair Velcro ripped loudly.  “I told him he didn’t need it here.”

“Checked the unit transport log.”  Ruth breathed heavily.  She was a big woman.  A big human.  In low G her weight shouldn’t have matter.  For some reason it did.  “No exiting transports?  He should be here.  Did a bio-scan of the unit’s interior already before you ask.  Residual epithelials were nil.  Suit still sealed from the inside.  Novo-Terrans love there suits.  He likely didn’t even get out of it.  No substantial bio-mass in there.  Epithelials, yes, nothing else much else.  A little vomit but . . .”  Ruth had been in the security service before she got off-worlded.  Old habits and old cops were hard to change.

“Well, he should be there.”  Mac had checked his implant monitors.  All the monitors were mostly okay.  M-S-C should be in his unit.

“Why isn’t he here then?”

“A good question is an unanswered question, I guess.”  Mac groaned but felt exhilarated, almost happy.  His opiate receptors activated inappropriately.  Not routine was not that annoying.

“A good question for sure.”  Ruth’s voice also exposed inappropriate opiate receptor firing.  Not annoying at all.

And then there was a scream over the inter-unit audio speakers.

“Where am I?  How did I get here?”  It came from Sarah’s unit.  “Why doesn’t someone answer me?”

“Chez Hesperia is the where.  And who are you?”  Mac responded in his conditioned Customer Service mode.  “A guest of Sarah Preston-Smyth, I gather?”  Mac would have known if Sarah did have a guest.  Why didn’t he?

“No!  I am Sarah Preston-Smyth!” 

It wasn’t her voice.  Mac knew Sarah’s voice.

“Ah, could I switch on visual communications?”  Mac switched back to his implant saying to Ruth.  “I’ll get back to ya!”

“Sure.”  Ruth said with satisfaction.  She would be more than happy to spend extra time looking around the Novo-Terran unit.

“Sure, why would I care?”  Came over the inter-unit speaker.  The young woman that appeared was on the verge of losing control.  She wore the same clinging outfit as Sarah liked.  The young woman did look very much like Sarah’s daughter, The Future of Humanity.  Mac had met her once, years ago.  He didn’t know she had come for a visit.  He would have known.  Mac was confused.  His implant monitor showed only one living female signal in that unit. 

“Ah, is your mother there?  Should I send Medical?  Is there a medical emergency?”  Maybe that Good-bye was a suicide plea?

“My mother?  You ass.  What about her?  She here too.  I don’t see her.  I’m alone and I don’t know where that is, Chez Hesperia?”  The woman was obviously furious, scared and confused.  She expressed her fear in aggression and anger.  “Never heard of it.  And I’ve heard of every where that should be a where!”

Mac got an interruption signal in his personal comm-implant.  It made his head buzz.  “Excuse me a second.”  He clicked off the Video audio answering his internal system.  “Yes? What? I’m in the middle. . . .”

“Papa, ah, Mac, ah we seem to have . . . well ah, I don’t know . . . a medical problem.”  It was Doc Toc, the chief medical doctor.  The only doctor.  The only reasonably young, non-retired staff member. 

“What now?”  Mac hated medical issues.  Biological problems here were usually self induced, over-stimulation of the reward center.  It gave some people a form of motion sickness and explosive diarrhea.  Without gravity these two conditions were more than annoying.  Absolutely no opiate receptors involved.  “What is it Doc Toc?”  

“Not sure ah . . . two of the staff.  Ah . . . they have . . . well, disorientation.”  Doc Toc was not a very good doctor no matter where he was located.  The Med facility’s diagnostic devices did most things.  What there was left for a human to do, Doc Toc was uncertain about.  “They seem . . . It must be a virus . . . well . . . no . . . no pathogen detected.  Well?”

“Get to some position quickly Doc Toc.  I have other problems waiting.  They’re stacking up today.”  Mac shrugged at the animated woman in the silenced video.  His miming patience didn’t calm her.

“They are not sure what is going on . . .”

“No one here is Doc.”  Mac shrugged at the Video.

“Yeah, well, they don’t know where they are.  Judy, my nurse you know, forgot who I was.  She says the last thing she remembers was TelMating to Pluto Epsilon.  That was almost seventy years ago.  She gave me the date.  It’s like rapid onset Alzheimer’s but she has none of the requisite brain anomalies.  Her brain anatomy is healthy but her short term memory, the last seventy years, is gone.  Total memory loss.  Maybe food poisoning?”

Mac sighed deeply.  “Doc Toc.  Excuse me.  I think you have another one.”  Mac frowned at the young woman on the silent screen.  “Does Judy look younger?”

“What?  What a question?”  Doc Toc muttered something.  “I don’t know.  Maybe?  Everyone changes their fashion so much.  I don’t know.  I couldn’t tell you.”

“Just like the young, not to notice the Old.”  Mac shook his head.  “Could a toxin?  Is there a poison that might wipe out the effects of aging?”

“A Fountain of Youth drug you’re implying?  What makes you think . . . that?  That’s just an urban myth.  Illicit drug scam.  Nothing real.”

“Just check Judy’s readings for her approximate physiological age.  You can do that?”  Mac was surprised that the young woman on the screen had not given up on her rant.  Sarah would be just that persistent.  “You’d do something like this.  Fountain of Youth.  Sure ya would.”

Doc Toc muttered over the comm-link.  “Well, ah, it seems.  Not well . . . not making sense.  Seems, well, comparing with her last med scan, well, yeah.  Anomalous age readings.  Ah?  Weird . . . How did you know to check that?”

“I think Sarah Preston-Smyth has it, the symptoms too.  And she’d do a Fountain of Youth attempt no matter what the consequences.  She never cared much for consequences.”  Mac watched the silent woman jumped up and down in low G.  She was Velcroed to the floor so it appeared as if she was doing aerobic exercise.  Mac knew she wasn’t.   “Maybe that was the Good-bye?”

“Jeez?  No?  Yes?  Okay . . .  Should I teleport her to the med-facilities?”  Doc Toc wasn’t good with stress.   

“Yes, I think that’d be a very good idea.  Use the emergency override.”  Mac clicked on the sound to the video.

“You bastard!  What do you. . .? “

“MS.  Miss Ah please we. . . “  Mac tried to interrupt.  He failed just like he would with the old Sarah.

“I will call the police if you don’t. . .” and the young woman faded from view.

“Boy is she mad.”  Doc Toc muttered over the still open comm.-link.

“Drugs seem a good idea.”  Mac shook his head, astonished at just about everything.

“Yeah, should put everyone in chemical restrains.”  Doc Toc talked to himself all of the time.  Another reason he got volunteered for off-world medical service.

“Me too.”  Mac stated.  “Click off Doc.  I’ll be over in a moment.” 

“Oh, yeah, yes, of course . . . ah . . . sorry . . . ah bye.”  And the comm-link went silent and then buzzed again.

It was Ruth.  “About the empty suit?”

“Yeah, the vanished Novo-Terran.”  Mac looked back at the now empty unit of Sarah Preston-Smyth.  “Ruth, do you believe in coincidences?”

“Only in that they lead to trouble, fictions otherwise.  No such thing.”  Ruth giggled with pleasure.  “But I like trouble.”  Her opiate receptors pinged with activation.

“You would.”  Mac wiped his face with his right hand.  “I hate trouble.”

“Papa hates everything.”  Ruth giggled like a school girl.  A thing she was very far away from.

“Papa just gets more and more pissed it seems.”

“Papa loves that too.”

“Don’t count on it.”  Mac looked down at himself.  Mac always stayed naked in his residential module.  Seeing him naked would be punishment enough for any Peeping Tom.  “I’ll get dressed and Tel over.”

“Okaie dokie pokey.”

“Ugh!”  Mac clicked off his implant completely.  He needed silence to think.  Calm his brain to allow it to sort things out.  “Coincidences don’t exist out here.  Things happen for a reason.”  Mac launched himself toward the toilette.  “The reason has to be human.  No one else out here.”  Mac suctioned himself down on the bowl running through the check list in preparation for use.  “Yup, everything a.o.k.  Ignition.  Ahhh.  Need to look for human reason.  Ha!  Ha!  Bring back the Age of Enlightenment.”  Mac hardly made jokes.  When he did, he laughed at them.  Not that he had a good sense of humor.  It was old and no one else understood it.  The external monitor buzzed as it automatically came off silence mode.  Mac clicked it silent again.  “Deep space should be much quieter.”  Mac coughed.  “No audio-compression waves in a vacuum or disgusting smells either.”  Mac increased the evacuation vacuum another five percent.  “Self-disgust is the worst disgust of all.”  Was one of Mac’s catch-all phrases.  After a hundred and a half years original thought became more and more difficult.

Part II

Full Spectrum Room Service

“Just because they’re coincidental doesn’t mean they’re not related.”  Ruth laughed out the quote.  She said just like her Chief of Security did back when Ruth was a young novice in that service.  She also learned to eat from him.  There were body weight limits in the Security Service.  Most organizations on the Revised Earth did.  He and she thus continually pushed the boundaries of those limits while they stretched the limits of their uniforms.  Her Chief liked being around people just like him, most bosses do.  He was a Good Chief.  They were a Good Crew.  He didn’t mind making his force into his own image.  His own large, expansive, uniform busting image.  “Catch the indiscrete and ship them out.”  “Rule breakers are future Rule makers.”  “Disruptors of the Accepted order want to re-order that order.”  The Chief would chant as he placed the box of illicit doughnuts in the coffee room.  It was referred to as ‘Anonymous doughnation.’  “Waste is the worst crime on the Revised Earth.”  He would chant with glee as he took two of the doughnations.  “My stage name is Anonymous.”  He would laugh as he ate.

“Waste of the waist.”  Ruth would giggle back but would take only one doughnation.  The Chief was good at smelling out indiscretion.  “Takes one to know one.”  He would pun, pat his fat gut and smile broadly while he consumed the other doughnation.  “Research.”  Research was his justification for his girth.

“Rationalization is an important aspect of modern crime.”  Was a routine Security Service screen saver phrase.  “If two events coincide they are correlated.”  Was another.  The rationalized construct of coincidence was what the Chief and thus Ruth looked for.  With so much happening in the human sphere, so many people, when paths crossed, they did it for a reason, a human reason.  Randomness can be easily distinguished from loose order.  A pattern could always be tweaked out if enough databases were searched.  Ruth used overlays of people’s schedules.  Everyone’s movements could easily be tracked by their purchase card use history.  In deep space, travelers paid in advance for air use, as well as moisture and waste recycling.  There was a wear and tear coefficient consideration too.  If there was an accident at a deep space facility and you died, no refunds.  They had your money.  “Use-path.”  Ruth called it.  Just do an overlay of various use-paths and then subtract out the chaotic background noise, non-overlaps.  “Turn down the noise.” Was what the Chief called it.  It was also his critique of modern music.  With the noise gone, the true correlations were conspicuous.  They stood out like stars in the dark matter of deep space.

Ruth had already started the appropriate use-path overlay searches using her personal implant database.  It was much better than the Hotel / Resort commercial database.  It was a leftover from her Security Service days.  It was still routinely updated.  These updates were considered a perk of being in the Security Service to compensate for their perpetual low pay.  Updates of retired staff while upgrading the active force’s cost nothing, so it was the perfect push back for the Service’s Accountants.  Not much use of such a complete database for a maid on the edge of known space.  So it was only positives.  Thus Ruth was ecstatic that she could actually not only use her perk, but also had a situation that required its use.

She put up searches on:

1.      Fountain of Youth Drugs.

2.      Any intersections between the three Chez Hesperia staff with each other before their retirement.

3.      Did any of those three use-paths intersections with the Novo-Terran who was now just the empty suit sitting in front of her.

4.      Coincident arrival of anything and anybody to Chez Hesperia.

Ruth had pulled her Velcro soles off the floor of the now missing Mr. M-S-C’s

Residential unit.  She liked to float when she searched.  Even before her retirement she did years of her Service in Space.  That’s where most indiscretions occurred now in space.  The Revised Earth had done such a good job at calming humanity.  There was little conspicuous indiscretion left on Earth.  Calming was what the Revised Earth Administrators call it, not punishment, not indoctrination, but calming.  “Calm is the balm.” 

The Revised Earth was so calm Security needed to be proactive.  Crime prevention was based on determination of the potential to commit crime, Pre-crime it was called.  Crime prevention by second guessing who had the potential for indiscretion. 

“Heard mentality.”  The Chief called it.  “I heard you were annoyed about something.”  Ruth didn’t like Pre-crime enforcement, arresting people before they did something indiscrete, so she did the last three decades of her Service in Space where indiscretion was active, conspicuous, easily distinguished.  Most of that service was in no G.  Her weight was not an issue there for multiple reasons.  Also she liked low G, the way it felt.  So she floated when she could.  “Nimble and light as a feather.”  This pleasure was her real perk of the Service and her retirement.  “Light as a feather or oblivion.  Stasis or floating?  There didn’t seem to be any real decision to make there.”  So she floated there feeling like one big smile.  Through the Looking Glass was a very popular story in Deep Space.  Everyone out there had some basic connection with Alice and her wonders.

Check!  Please?

            Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Mac wasn’t smiling or floating.  The Medical facility had 0.75 Earth gravity.  Doc Toc stated flatly that gravity helped with medical procedures, like it helped in the bar.  Fluids and vomit were anti-low G.  Mac thought it was mostly a waste of Chez Hesperia energy.  Hardly anyone came to the Medical facility.  The constant gravity was really because low G made Doc Toc nauseous.  No one at Corporate would normally care about any Deep Space staff member’s old stomach problems except that Doc Toc was young.  Young trumped old in the corporate command structure.  Mac ran the station.  Things went Mac’s way except when a young folk wanted something, anything.  “The Young are always right.”  Was another stock phrase at Chez Hesperia.  It always got a laugh from everyone, even Mac. 

            “So, you haven’t checked for unusual chemicals in their systems yet?”  Mac hated being right about Doc Toc’s incompetence.  He hated it so much that it made him smile.  Being right made everybody smile.

            “Well, uhm, I.”  Doc Toc poked tentatively at the Medical diagnostic panel.  “It, I, the routine scans didn’t see anything.”

            “They don’t look for the unusual, usually.  You need to turn up their gains.”  Mac’s head felt funny, when he reached up to scratch his scalp, he realized it was his hair laying flat on his head that felt funny.  “Gravity makes me itch.”  He muttered.

            “What?”  Doc Toc had a hard time focusing.

            “If you turn up the gains on the scanners, the weak and thus unusual stick out.”  Mac repeated ‘the weak and unusual’ in his mind as he glared at Doc Toc.  No wonder he was off-worlded.  “I’ll show you how.”  Mac walked over to the panel and pointed to the reddish panel.  “Here.  Just enter a percentage.  I always go for 5% first.”

            “Told not to touch the red colors.”  Doc Toc frowned.  “Trainer said never to touch the red.  Bad.  Warranty issues.  Invalidations!”

            “Marketing guy.  I saw him.  He was just pushing his extended warranty.  Doesn’t matter in an emergency situations.  It’s in the contracts.  I signed them.  It doesn’t matter.  In emergencies we have to do extra-ordinary things.”  Mac entered 5% and hit re-scan.  The device obeyed without hesitation.  “Emergencies are out of the ordinary, by definition.  That’s in the contract too, their definition.” 

            Doc Toc quivered as Mac readjusted the Scanners.  “Ah, well, you don’t have the authority to declare a medical emergency.”  Doc Toc looked down at the floor.

            “You do and did.”  Mac looked at the spot Doc Toc stared at.  Nothing was there.

            “I did?”  Doc Toc continued looking at nothing.  Maybe he was interested in becoming a Buddha Squared?

            “You did.”  Mac looked at the re-scans.  Nothing obvious.  Gain to 10% and re-scan.

            “You’re not authorized to run Medical scans either.”  Doc Toc continued to be satisfied with staring at nothing.

            “You are correct, but you are.”

            “Oh yeah.”

            “Nothing, again.”  Mac shook his head.  His hair tickled his ears.  “Keep trying.”  Mac waved Doc Toc over to the scanner.  “Go up by 5’s.  Don’t go over 65%.”

            “Shouldn’t do it at all.”

            “But you already have.”  Mac’s database search results on Fountain of Youth popped up on his internal implant screen.  “Nothing,  just like here.  Ponce de Leon has still failed.”

            “Oh, Fountain of Youth drugs are fake.  Don’t do much of anything but make you disoriented.”  Doc Toc tentatively poked at the red panel as if it were hot. 

            “So does reality.”  Mac sighed scratching his ear.  “Need to get a hair cut.”

            “Should I keep them sedated?”  Doc Toc spoke up before Mac teled out.

            “Might as well.  Until we can explain anything to them.  You know anything?”

            Doc Toc shook his down turned head.

“Well then.”  Mac kept brushing the hair off his ears.  “Gravity’s a real itch, sometimes.”

            “I won’t find anything.”            

            “Keep that positive attitude, Doc.  It’s what got you where you are today.”  Mac teled out.

            Doc Toc smiled and then frowned.  “Must have misunderstood.”

Automatic Check Out

            Mac stood in the Lobby.  He had shut down any entering or exiting of station traffic.  Maybe only a random Buddhist Squared remained in nothing for a while longer.  Nothing mattered?  Not hard to do with nothing scheduled.  So nothing bad had happened so far.  He had made the Lobby walls see through – real time.  The darkness of space glared at him.  The walls weren’t actually transparent.  That would have killed him.  Even the windows weren’t transparent.  They too were just image projections.  The neutron star that Chez Hesperia orbited and drew all of its energy, put off way too much hard radiation for any biological to survive its abuse.  All units, even the stasis units, were heavily shielded.  The shielding acted as the energy gathering mechanism for the units, converting the hard radiation into useful energy.  This energy ran all of the units systems.  Truly transparent materials were useless out here and not used in commercial station construction.  Mac knew he was only watching a projection of the real outside of the space surrounding Chez Hesperia.  Reality needed a protective containment barrier out there.  But that didn’t matter to him.  No movement.  The Graveyard lattice was regular and unchanging.  “Thank God for nothing.  Nothing can be good sometimes.”  Mac muttered to himself.  “Praise the Double Buddha.”

            “You beaming over?”  Ruth finally couldn’t hold back, interrupting Mac’s imposed silence.

            “Can’t.  Remember?  I’m not encrypted for that.”  Mac looked over at the filtered image of the neutron star.  “Never look at the sun.”  Had extra meaning with a neutron star.  It could burn your head off in a microsecond.

            “Oh, right.  Be right over.  Lobby, right?”

            “Right.”

            And then Ruth was beside him.  The air that flowed away as Ruth’s large mass teled-in caused Mac’s hair to brush his ear.  Mac thus rubbed it with annoyance.  He had forgotten how big she actually was.  She caused a breeze every where she teled.  She was big in every direction.  No G does that to a body. 

“No chemical Fountain of Youth?”  Ruth looked directly into Mac’s eyes.

“Not so far.”  Mac pushed her down so her Velcro shoes could contact the floor.

“Thanks.”  She only made one-foot contact, anchoring more than mooring.  “None in the database buzz either.”

“How’s the coincidence search?”  Mac looked past Ruth’s dark hair out into the darkness of space at the edge of the galaxy.  There were few stars in the direction.  The darkness was a deep dark.

“Thin.  Surprisingly thin.”  Ruth turned her head toward the direction Mac was looking.  She turned it back quickly.  Most staffers didn’t like looking into the blankness of deep space.  “Too much like oblivion.  And no one needs that.”  Was another stock phrase that no one laughed at.  “Could we opaque the walls?  Otherwise I’ll start to sweat.  Profusely.  And nobody wants that.”

“No.  Don’t want that.”  Mac clicked his teeth.  His implant controller signaled the walls to appear as solid as they actually were.

“Sarah, Judy, and Beth all were from rich families before off-world retirement.”  Ruth read the database search results in her head.

“Still can’t buy your self out of old age.”  Mac’s scalp and ears felt better in no G.  When there was no wind.

“Not so far.”  Ruth clicked her teeth to move the database forward.  “Hard to say about the wealth of the Novo-Terran.  Their monetary system is so screwy.”

“Novo-Terra say all their citizens are rich.”   No surprise why people didn’t like Novo-Terra. 

 “Only other thing in common with our three forgetful ladies was the TelMat Quantum tele-transporter.”

“Revised Earth outlawed its use for transporting things.  Even old Earth used it only for non-biological transport.  Only used for instant communication, now.”  Mac looked over at the Reception Desk.  “Which I shut down right after that Poet Laureate of the Galaxy passed his scan.  Well, sort of passed.  Passed enough.  The Q-communicator uses way too much energy too fast for anybodies liking.  Even with the neutron star sources.  It’s an energy thief.  It just sucks every system around it dry.”

“Well, those are things the Rich can get around; regulations and waste.  Maybe not aging, but most anything else they can.”

“But the Rich I knew were such cowards.  The Q-Transporter isn’t like our Earth teleporter technology.  Earth-tech compressed and then transferred actual matter.  It’s still you at the end.  The Quantum Teleporter only does instantaneous information transfer, no actual matter is involved.  Some Membrane Theory physics magic.  For a biological, though, to be transported by the device, the passenger gets disintegrated first, to determine their molecular make-up.  Technically it kills them at their departure site, transfers that molecular pattern information instantly to the arrival site, and the TelMat technology then reconstructs the passenger from the molecules found at the arrival site.  They weren’t really transported, they died and were rebuilt, actually, resurrected.  Some crazies made a religion out of the Q-Porter.  A Jesus Machine.  Scares most people.  Scares the shit out of me.  I wouldn’t use it for anything except quick messaging.”

“Yeah, I know.  Even the TelMat don’t use it for biologicals.  That’s why we’ve never been visited by them.”

“Or us them.”  Mac frowned and then looked around the Lobby.  “Except that crazy Poet said something about visiting the TelMat.”

“Coincidence or correlation?”  Ruth raised her already no G raised eyebrow.

“So Sarah, Judy, and Beth all used the TelMat Q-transporter sometime in the past, pre-retirement?”  Mac scratched his ears  “All women.  All used a resurrection machine.”

“Used it when they were younger, about the ages they are now.”  Ruth nodded.  “More impatient.”

“No religious fanatics in those three that I know.”  Mac stated.  “Impatient though, Sarah is that.”  Mac nodded.  “Technical details wouldn’t matter to her.”

“Get me there!  How I don’t care.”  Ruth nodded her head.  “Vanity trumps sense.”

“Sarah sure, but Judy and Beth?”  Mac shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

“All women are vain.”  Ruth’s smile got bigger.

“You’re not.”  Mac unintentionally looked Ruth up and down.

“Yes I am.”  Ruth frowned sternly at Mac.  The frown stopped his scan of her large body. 

“Oh.  Okay.  Sorry.”  Mac looked at the ceiling instead.  “Ah, the Novo-Terran is a no-go for the Q-transporter I bet.”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell.” 

“Maybe, spontaneous dissolution was just a coincidence.”

“Doesn’t seem likely to me.”

“No.  Too extra-ordinary not to be related with three other simultaneous extra-ordinary events.”

“Yeah.  I agree.”

“No Q-teleporters around here that I know of.”  Mac pointed at the Reception Desk.  “The Q-comm doesn’t have the resurrection, well, reconstruction mechanism on it.  Too big a thing to hide under a desk.”

“Just because it’s improbable doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

“To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes.”

“Who’s that?”  Ruth frowned.

“Never mind.  Just a frictional character I knew once.”

“Everyone laughs at Papa.”  Ruth laughed.  Her laugh was as big as her body.

“Yeah, ah, too much sometimes.  What about the Poet?”

“Didn’t cross reference him with the Ladies if that’s what you mean?”  Ruth clicked her teeth a few times.  “That’s underway.  He and the Novo-Terran showed up about the same time but on different transports.”

“I know.  Different tour groups arriving from different departure sites.”

“Yeah, deca-light years apart.  Oh, a stasis unit came along in the same ship as the Poet guy.”

“Yeah.  The Poet guy.  Mr. Annoying Poet Laureate of the Galaxy guy.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing.”  Ruth grinned.  “I should run a search.”

“Neah, not worth the search time.  Just an obvious fabrication.”  Mac scratched his ear.  “If it smells like B.S.”

“It’s B.S.”  Ruth nodded.  “A bad boy profile seems obvious.”

“Not sure what his profile is but bad boy is there somewhere.”

“Correlation instead of coincidence too.”  Ruth was enjoying this speculation so much she put her other foot down to moor herself to the Lobby floor.

Mac ripped his way over to the Reception Desk.  “I’ll just give our new bad boy a shout.”  Mac entered his Manger’s code.  Privacy was so important to the proper operation of Chez Hesperia.  Privacy was guaranteed.  So was no penetration of that privacy.  No penetration without major effort.  Mac made the official request for contact.  No answer.  Mac made it again.  No answer.  Not unusual for a guest to ignore such a request, but it was always annoying.  “Need to go to Official Emergency Status.  I think.”

Ruth shrugged her entire body.  “You have to fill out all the post-event forms and do the Corporate interview.  I just bring more towels and make beds.  Chocolate nimbles too.  Just a personal touch is all I am.  They retired me out of the bureaucracy.  Nothing to fill out, thank the Double Buddha.”

“Don’t rub it in too hard.  I need you as a witness still.  As verification thumb print too.”  Mac pointed at the pad on the reception desk.

“Old tech.  Easily faked.”  Ruth grinned, putting her thumb on the pad.

“The very reason it’s still used.  You know that.  A world of lies needs work arounds.”  Mac typed and clicked his teeth.  “There!  Emergency Status engaged.”  There was no other change to Chez Hesperia other than the expression on Mac’s face.  In deep space hotel / resorts, emergencies were kept quiet.  There was no place for the guests to go, so why upset them?  The staff just had to figure it out or everyone died.  It was the first line in the Deep Space Emergency Manual.  “Fix it or die!  Stop reading and do something!”

The emergency status allowed Mac to over ride all of the privacy and hacker firewalls.  So Mac was able to open the Poet Laureate of the Galaxy’s residential unit internal monitors.  The unit was empty.  “Where the hell?”

Ruth was reading over Mac’s shoulder.  “Buddha’s other living ghost!”  Ruth pushed at the Reception Desk controls.  “The inter unit transporter hasn’t been used.  I turned it off anyway.”

“Bad boy status just confirmed.”  Mac pushed up the gains on the entire facility sensors. 

Ruth nodded.  “Not anywhere I can see.  That’s not possible.  He run off with the Novo-Terran?”   

“His scans were so odd who knows what’s possible?”  Mac shook his head.  “Should have scanned deeper.

“Do a Novo-Terran scan?   Usually kills normal folks.”  Ruth widened the scan.

“Not a normal guy, obviously.  I let it go S.O.P.  Corporate says so, so I made it so.   Just getting old and compliant, I guess.”

“You’re already too old, never compliant.  That’s why you’re here.”  Ruth pointed at the scan monitor.  A red anomaly blinked out for attention.  “There are two life signs in that stasis unit.”

“Bet it’s the one that came in the same time as our bad boy Poet?”

“Confirmation on that.  One is the life sign it came in with but I can’t match the other one.”  Ruth worked the Reception Desk.  “The unit has an unusual configuration.  More like a Buddha Square unit plus.  Room for two.  Buddha squared squared.”

“It’s got a light drive system?”  Mac pushed up the scanner gains.

“Confirmed and systems are activated.”  Ruth began to sweat profusely. 

“Damnation!”  Mac and Ruth said at the same time. 

“The Poet flees.” Ruth stated.

“Our bad boy’s on the move.”  Mac cleared the reception wall across from the “Graveyard.”

“Too far away for the freight manipulators.”  Ruth didn’t look out the clear wall.  “We need to stop him.  Too many questions unanswered.  No weaponry out here right?”

Mac nodded his head as he stared at the “Graveyard” stasis modules.

“Well he’s gonna be a gone Poet soon.”

“Unanswered questions?  Corporate can’t have that.  It always pisses them off real big.”

“I’ll get the hand held urine re-cycler for you because there’s nothing we can do to stop him.”  Ruth glanced out at the “Graveyard.”  It made her sweat more.

“No, I know.”  Mac twisted back to the Reception Desk.  He pulled up the Not with my Mother you don’t file directory.  The graveyard artist program was still there.  Mac clicked it to ACTIVE.  Mac looked out the clear wall.  All of the stasis units started to move.  A tongue started to form.

“Giving him a galactic raspberry won’t help Papa.”

“No, got to change the density.”  The Artist face formed around the tongue.  “Open wide.”  Mac spoke as the Artist’s massive mosaic face opened its mouth.  The face moved forward to gobble up the Poet’s modified unit.  “Compress.”  The Artist’s face closed its mouth appearing to grimace.  The standard distance between the units reduced to just inches.

“Too much mass around him now to safely ignite his star drive.”  Ruth smiled.  “You stopped him.  Great!”

“We caught our bad boy.  Now how do we get him out of there?”  Mac scratched both of his ears.  It wasn’t a gravity itch.  He was just thinking.

“Move the face closer?”  Ruth was watching the monitor.  Its electronic filter barrier from the outside kept her calm, one step further away from deep space darkness and oblivion. 

“Not that easy.  Some orbital mechanics issues balancing the residential modules and the Graveyard.”  Mac clicked and pushed.  “Just get him close enough for the common transporter, maybe?”

“Overload!”  Ruth shouted at the red blinking spot widened.

“Where?”  Mac looked up.  Mac never panicked.  “Panic got you killed.” That was the second chapter in the Emergency Manual.  Mac always thought it should be on the cover.

“He’s no star pilot.”  Ruth hooked her thumb over her shoulder.  “He must have an automated sequence starter on his light drive.  And he doesn’t know how to shut it off.”

“Always know your OFF switch.  Dammit.”  Mac typed rapidly.  He put the stasis units on evacuation mode.  The Artists face was almost dispersed as the Poet Laureate of the Galaxy abruptly rushed to be an equal part of that galaxy.  His light speed system brilliantly erupted.  A few of the last departing stasis units followed the Poet’s lead and evaporated into space.  Most Deep Spacers referred to such events as “Reducing the Vacuum.” Or “Becoming one with the Universe.”  Using the word explosion was avoided as was the word implosion.  It was just like the obscenity of sexual relations references.  It was something on every ones minds, so people just didn’t talk about it.  “There go my answers along with my failure margins.”  Was all Mac had to say to the dynamically violent flash.  All stasis units were of human construct, thus failure was inevitable, generally, at a rate of less than 1% per year.  If his losses were less than that he didn’t have to fill out a stack of forms.  Now he had electronic reams of forms to complete, multiple interviews to sit through with no answers to give.  Losing guest, animated or in stasis, was the biggest of Corporate no-no’s.  Mac pushed the button for the Emergency shields.  They came on with excessive energy use.  That was only one extra form and that was just checking of a few boxes.  Trivial considering everything else he had to do. 

There was a slight shock wave.  No guest would notice.  The radiation meters jumped though.  The shields would convert that energy into power for the Hotel / Resort, so there was a little return.  The Accountants would appreciate it if no one else did.  The whole thing depressed Mac.  No pleasure or annoyance just disappointment. 

 “So much for poetry.”  Ruth blurted.

Mac frowned at her.

“What else should I say?”

Mac shrugged.  “Easy come, easy go?”

“So it goes.”  Ruth’s breathing was as heavy as her sweat.  Tiny sweat balls were floating off of her fat face.  Like ornaments falling off of a spherical Christmas tree.

Mac hit “reset default” for the stasis unit latticing system.  The units halted their escape, reversed and began to reorder their nominal pattern.  Automatic adjustments were made for the missing units.

“Cheer up!  We can still talk to the three ladies.”  Ruth pushed Mac on the shoulder as a moist but reassuring gesture.  Mac wasn’t Velcroed on to the floor, so he push propelled him out toward he cleared Lobby wall.

Mac didn’t attempt to stop his forward momentum.  He knew there was a wall there to stop him even though it didn’t look like it.  The visible oblivion was only a broadcast image.  Oblivion was really out there but something solid was in between.  “Barriers are good.” Was one of Mac’s codes to live by.  Mac reached out to slow himself as he approached oblivion. 

“Sorry.”  Ruth called out.

“Da Nada.”  Mac muttered as he impacted in slow motion.  As an automatic response to touch, the wall opaqued.  It was conspicuously a wall again.  Mac pushed himself down to Velcro his soles to the floor.

Embarrassed by her miscalculation of the gravity situation, Ruth said.  “I’ll, ah, just pop over to the Med Center and see if the Younger ladies are awake.  Sorry again.”  As she transported out Mac could hear her soles ripping from the Lobby floor.  Tele-transportation in space was always accompanied by the sound of rushing air and a rip.

“Back to normal so quickly?”  And Mac was alone again.  “B.T.N.  Back to Normal.”  Mac sighed looking over at the Reception Desk.  Red and orange sections flashed out for attention and as warnings, reminding of forms to be filled out and filed, explanations to be made, stories to be reconstructed.  “Okay, not so normal.”  The guests were fine.  Most were plugged into their Electric Chairs.  Stimulated into contentment and inaction.  They were alone too, but could careless.  It was the name of a popular self-help e-book.  “CARE LESS!”  Popular because it told the young people to do what they were already doing.  Rationalization of behavior was a time honored human tradition.  Only the details vary, “Nothing changes.”

Mac sighed again and clicked his teeth to activate the tele-porter.  He set it for the Med Center.  “Talking to the ladies will be good, answers or not.”  And Mac faded away with a gust of wind and a rip of his Velcroed soles, but there was no one left in the Lobby to hear.    

Part III

Bon Voyage

As Mac faded into the Med Center, it was obvious that Sarah was no longer sedated.  She was never sedate.

This new Sarah looked so much like Sarah’s last daughter, The Future of Humanity.  Since there was still Emergency Status, Mac could click up the daughter’s profile.  Mac never snooped into our people’s business mostly because he didn’t care.  This odd action for him though, was more an avoidance behavior than real interest.  Mac was used to dealing with angry, screaming women guests, he was used to it, but he was also used to physical pain, he didn’t seek that out either.  It arrived readily without him seeking it.  If he could put off talking to the screaming young Sarah just for a moment that was good.  So he read the full version of The Future of Humanity’s database profile.  It gave him answers to a few of his questions.  Why this young Sarah and the Future of Humanity looked so much alike, Future was actually a clone of Sarah. 

Self-cloning wasn’t illegal anywhere in the galaxy except on the Revised Earth.  Normal human reproduction was becoming a social no-no.  Still, self-cloning wasn’t legal either.  It was just so expensive a procedure, with an extremely high failure rate, that only the super egotistical, super rich would do it.  Like there was no Fountain of Youth drug, there was also wasn’t a “SciFi – Mind / Consciousness transfer to the clone” technology.  Your clone was just like any other child.  They were not you.  They may have all of your genes but they developed their own personality as they grew at a normal human rate.   No point doing it, if it just resulted in another dependent.  Of course, Sarah had done it.  She had done it as if it were a regular pregnancy.  She carried the cloned fetus in her ancient, tech-enhanced womb as if she had gotten pregnant the normal way, sexual intercourse.  It showed that she was still young enough.  Just a show.  Just a superficial show.  What women do best.  Enhance vanity that was Sarah. 

“Buddha’s reluctant ghost, everyone lies about everything.”  Mac squeezed his eyelids tight.  Maybe this time when opened them the Universe would be different?  Buddha dreaming he was a Butterfly.  “Be a Butterfly dream it was a Buddha.”  There was neither Buddha nor Butterfly when he opened his eyes.  Only the same Sarah, no matter her apparent age.

“You da boss around here?”  She demanded as usual.

Mac laughed at that.  “I’m so much not the boss here that I have to be here.  All the Bosses are on the Revised Earth.  I’m more like the head janitor than anything.  I clean up messes.”

“Well, you had better get to work here you old fart.  This is a big messy pile of shit!”  Young Sarah was calming down. 

Shouting at Mac seemed to calm people down.  “What a supernatural power to have?”  Mac once thought.  “Making people less pissed.  A human urine re-cycler.”

“I’m sorry.”  Mac always said to the people screaming at him.  It didn’t matter if he was or not.  Most people wanted someone to come out and say it.  Apologize for all those horrible things that had happened to them.  So Mac repeated with emphasis.  “I’m terribly sorry.”

“You should be.”  Young Sarah took a breath.

“Works every time.”  Mac said to himself as he walked closer to the Young Sarah.  There was no ripping of his soles, so he looked down.  Doc Toc had removed the floor Velcro.  Gravity was plying its hold on his hair again.  “What the young will do.”  Mac muttered.  Then said to Sarah, “I am very very sorry for letting the situation get so out of hand.”

“Good.  Good!  Someone needs to be responsible.”  Young Sarah smoothed her clothing.  “And what is this place?” 

“As I told you before, this is a Hotel / Resort Medical Center.”  Doc Toc snapped out at the Young Sarah.  She was still older than he.

“Didn’t ask you, you young twerp!”  Young Sarah snapped out.  Her anger flared up again.

“Yes.  Yes.  Talk to me.”  Mac interrupted.  “We need to talk.  We have a lot to talk about.”

The Young Sarah glared at Doc Toc.  Challenging him to say more.  He didn’t pick up that challenge.  He never picked up a challenge.  She turned her glare back on Mac.  “So?”

“Chez Hesperia is an exclusive upscale vacation facility.  Privacy is paramount as is customer satisfaction.”  Mac was still in Customer Service mode.  He had done it so much, it came to him automatically.  ‘Just like riding a bicycle.’  Bicycles were big again on the Revised Earth but not in no G.  Velcro coated wheels was just too much.  Staffers meant this phrase as sarcasm.  The type of sarcasm that no one laughed at.

“Never heard of it.”  The Young Sarah snapped out.  She liked to be in as much control as possible.

“That’s what exclusive really means isn’t it?”  Ruth added this.  She liked to be part of any conversation.  Who doesn’t?  Both Young Sarah and Mac glared at Ruth.  “Sorry.  Yeah.  I’m sorry too.”  She gestured the ‘Zip the Lip’ motion.

“Much better.”  Young Sarah said.  “But how did I get here?  I was Q-porting to Pluto Epsilon.  This is not there.  I know that much.”

“That is correct.”  Mac nodded.  “Not Pluto Epsilon.  Not even in the Terran solar system.”

“Makes no sense.”  Young Sarah held her head.  “Too confusing.  I don’t like confusing.”       

“That’s the ‘mess’ part.  That’s ‘what I’m here for’ part.”  Mac stepped closer.  “We could sit down?  I have to, we have to figure this out.”

“I don’t mind old fellows as long as they’re in good physical shape.  You look reasonably good.”  Young Sarah scanned Mac up and down and down again.  “Good enough for a drink.”

“Well, thanks . . .”  Mac smiled.

“No alcohol!”  Doc Toc snapped out.  Being so young, he couldn’t help himself.

Only glares returned.

“Annoying little wart.”  Young Sarah whispered to Mac.

“I couldn’t agree more.”  Mac was pleased.  Gaining her confidence, all part of the job and ‘Papa was very good at his job.’

Mac tele-ported them both to the bar.  It was empty.  The Contemporary Young didn’t like hangovers, so they didn’t use alcohol.  That this Young Sarah wanted a drink answered a few more of Mac’s questions.  It also generated a few more.

“Scotch?  Gin?  Vodka?”  Mac sat at the table and tapped up the automated order pad.

“Cognac, a double.”  Young Sarah looked around the bar, obviously inspecting and evaluating.  “Odd décor.  A little Spartan for my taste.”

“Deep space frugality.  What can I say?”  Mac laughed because the Old Sarah had done the décor for the entire facility.  Another question answered.  “Just a question first, no pressure, but wasn’t, isn’t, the Q-transporter, ah, well, how do I phrase this?”

“Not for people?”  She said.  “Ah.”  Was her comment to the large cognac fading in on the table.

“Nicely said.”

“Just not for poor people was my feeling.  Used it all the time.  Faster and more exclusive.”  She drank the entire cognac at once.  “Your word was good.  Another.”  She demanded.

“Of course.”  Mac nodded with a smile.

“To what?”  Young Sarah held up her empty glass.

“To both.”  Mac tapped up another cognac.  This time he tele-ported the liquid directly into her empty glass.

“Cute trick.”  She smiled.

“I could exchange the glass too if you wish.”

“Needn’t show off too much.”  She drank half of the contents.  “I think you’re cute already.  Cute for an old guy.”

“Cute enough.”

“Just so.  Cute enough.”  And she downed the remains of the cognac.

“Well.  This time, a new glass and a triple.”

Young Sarah giggled expanding her fingers.  “Careful.  I just did my nails.”

“No worry.  Exchanges are easy.”  And there the triple was in her hand.

“You could do a lot of fun things with that thing.  Just a standard E cubed transporter, right?”   She drank slower this time.

“Standard old Earth tech.”  Mac nodded.  “Nothing alien.”  Mac thought again.  “Well, mostly human tech.  Not a quantum teleportation device that is.”

“Whatever.  Techy shit.  Boring.  Snoring.”  She slurred the last word just like a Novo-Terran would.  Just as annoying.

“Okay, let’s talk about you.”  Mac wrinkled his face up to be funny.  Apparently, it wasn’t.

Young Sarah frowned, sipping.  “Always happy to discuss that.  Me is my favorite subject.”

“This may seem off topic but . . . ah, where would you put a note to yourself?”  Mac rolled his hands in the air in front of him.

“What do you mean?”  She sipped.  The triple was now only a double.  Young Sarah didn’t show any of alcohol’s side effects.  The Rich did a large amount of medical modification of their bodies.  It was a fad thing.  Sarah could have had her liver function enhanced.  Mac would search for that fad later.

“You know, if you were going to do something that might cause you to lose your memory?”  Mac rolled the air with only his right hand now.  “That something you don’t want anyone else to know about?”

Young Sarah smiled coyly.  “Never done such a thing before.”  She giggled just like the girl was.  “But if I did, ever did, such a thing.  I’d use one of my other Identity accounts.”

“Other identities, of course.  Wouldn’t everyone?”  Mac smiled reassuringly.  Other identities were about the only thing that was illegal throughout human space.  Other I.D.’s were a hacker’s haven.  Just because it was illegal didn’t mean people stopped doing it though.  Generally, it was illegal because everyone did it.

“You won’t turn me in?”  Young Sarah leaned over and put her left hand on Mac’s right cheek.  Her hand was warm and stimulating.  She was a beautiful woman and Mac was a guy.  An old guy, but still a guy.

Mac’s response to her touch annoyed him.  He was working here.  “Only a janitor as I said.  Not a cop.”  Mac coughed, drawing his head back slowly.  She let her hand fall slowly down to his lap.  There was about a half a G in the bar to keep liquid in the glass, but her hand fell faster than it should have at that G force.  Mac coughed as her hand touched his lap.  “No cops within a couple deca-light years.  I like it that way.”

“So do I.”  She smiled but didn’t remove her hand or lean back in her chair.

“I could pull up a monitor.  You could look for yourself.”  Mac blinked.  He knew he was blushing.  His cheeks and forehead were too warm.

Young Sarah seductively wiggled her nose.  “I don’t feel like tech stuff now.  Feeling too good.  You do it.”  She moved her hand up Mac’s leg and then lifted it to his face.  She popped up her thumb.  “But you can use my thumb print when you do.”

Mac clicked up the monitor pad on the table.  It was small but adequate.  He guided her thumb into the correct position.  This would answer so many questions, some conclusively.  “Was this really Sarah Preston-Smyth?” was one of the biggest one.

The computer I.D. system struggled with the thumb print, but adjusted.  Prints do change slightly over time.  Finally the software Security Guard verified her I.D. and opened Sarah Preston-Smyth’s confidential account.

“Use the fingers to look for my other I.D.’s.”  She giggled.  “Use the middle finger first.”  She giggled again.  “I like your touch.  Gentle but firm.”

   “I am a professional.”  Mac said because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.  She was correct.  There at the top of the file directory for Teresa Manfred, was a Vid file with yesterday’s date.  Mac activated this file.  The face of the Old Sarah popped up on the screen.

“Who’s that old hag?  How’d she get in there?”  The alcohol had finally over come her enhanced liver.  Young Sarah put her hand back on Mac’s leg.

The Old Sarah fussed with something off camera.  “Stupid techy crap.  User friendly my nipped tucked ass.  They make it more complicated every update.  Shit!”  She moved off camera.  “Dammit!  Supposed to follow me.  Shit machine.” 

“Grumpy foul mouthed old lady.”  Young Sarah smiled at someone else than Mac.  “Could be my mom.”

“Sort a is.”  Mac muttered.  Her hand felt warm.  Her hand on his leg felt good.  It had been a long time since someone young paid any attention to Mac, the person.

The Old Sarah in the monitor then said.  “Oh well.  I was told I should leave a note.  There maybe memory issues.  I don’t know, like a severe hangover or something.  An alcoholic blank out?  I don’t know.  Too techy for me to give a shit.  But I’ll be younger.  They guarantee it!  Money back and all of that.  Hard to believe.  So much shit in the past.  Put so much, too much cash into staying young.  Never worked much at all.  Pushed back the wrinkles, not, nothing done about the actual years.  These guys say it’s for real this time.  Heard that so many times before too.  But they said it was alien tech stuff.  Asked if I was afraid of the Q-transporter.  No, of course not.  Used it many times before.  Don’t know why they asked, that was the way they found me, so what was the big deal with the questions?  Make me young.  I don’t care how.  Alien, E.T., Scottish technology?  I don’t care.  Make me young and then I can get off this shit station!  Get me back to the real Earth.  SuperGreen or somewhat brown, I don’t care what color it is.  Young and on Earth.  All else is stupid, unimportant detail.  So the procedure is happening tonight.  All is ready and I don’t have to do anything except go to sleep and I wake up young.  Is that enough for you?  Ah me?  The younger me?  Bye bye for now.”  The Old Sarah waved as the video cut out.

“That old bitch is me?”  Young Sarah giggled.  “Or me that ole hag?”  Sarah opened and closed her eyes.  “I look much better now don’t I?”  She stared into Mac’s eyes.

“Apparently.”  Mac stated.

“To what?”  Sarah slapped his leg.  “Be specific.”

“Both.  All of it.  You look wonderful now.”  Mac frowned but flicked back to his professional smile.  ‘Giving praise was important for his job, excessive, if necessary.’

“That date on the video.  Was it correct?”  Sarah frowned, grabbing his leg tightly.  “Just realized.  Math not good subject.  That’s over a hundred years in the future.  Has to be a mistake.” 

The pressure on his leg lessened.  The Young Sarah had withdrawn with the realization of reality.  “No, ah, yes.  No, not a mistake.  The date on the video was yesterday.”

“How . . . is . . . that?”  She mumbled.

“Not sure myself, but it’s the Q-transporter device somehow.”

 “Lost a hundred and twenty years from my life.”  Sarah shook her head.  “Hard to believe.”

“A lot of modern life is hard to believe.”  Mac put his arm around her slim, quivering shoulders.  She collapses into his arms.  “Papa gives good hugs.”

“Who’s Papa?”  She mumbled into his chest.

“Doesn’t matter.”  Mac hugged in silence.  She returned the favor.

Good Bye!

“So now we have three really made-over women, an empty suit from Novo-Terra, presumably a missing Novo-Terran, a dead poet and a few ex-stasis clients.”  Ruth snorted at Mac.  “Finally got an enhanced sensor history.  They had been fiddled with.  Gains turned down.  For that Buddha squared squared unit.”

“The failed escape pod?”  Mac kept his head down.

“Yeah, it did a very interesting pre-event transit.”

“No authorization for that.”  Mac sighed.

“Lot of that going around.  Anyway, it first moved over to the Novo-Terran’s residence, then the Poet’s, followed by Sarah’s, Judy’s, and then Beth’s.”

“Of course it did.”  Mac squeezed his eyelids tightly together.  So tightly that his optic nerve fired anomalously.  Faux-supernovas appeared in his closed eyes.  “Anything else?”

“The duration at the Novo-Terran unit was about half that of the others.”

“Not a good sign for the Novo-Terran maybe.”  Mac shook his head.

“Such anomalies usually indicate a negative circumstance true.”

“Anymore?”

“Only another timing thing.”  Ruth smiled.  “At almost the same time as Young Sarah started yelling at everyone on the station, the Buddha Squared Squared unit moved back into the stasis unit lattice configuration.”

“Best place to hide is in a crowd.”

“That’s what I think.”  Ruth nodded.

Mac just stood at the Reception Desk staring at all the electronic forms he had to work his way through.  “More janitor than a detective.”  Mac said to the forms.  “Not very good as a janitor, apparently.”

“A real mess is hard to clean up.”  Ruth nodded.

“A mess in space still stinks.”  Mac replied.

“Getting the ladies back to Earth should be some feat.”

“Well, at least I can get them back in the Sol solar system.”  Mac shrugged.  “Not so hard.”

“No one likes Novo-Terrans.  Maybe no one will miss him.”  Ruth tried to smile.

 “Don’t even know how it’s related.”

“No coincidence.  It’s related somehow.”

“He was young already.”

“You didn’t see him without the suit.  Who knows?”  Ruth moved over to place her hand on his shoulder.  “Databases can be fiddled, like the Poet’s profile.”

“Beware of Poet’s bearing gifts?”

“Everyone lies.”

“Yeah, I know.  Everyone lies.”  Mac sighed.  “Everyone makes me lie it seems.”

“It’s the job that does it.”

“Maybe? I don’t know.  It’s just annoying.”

“So much of life is.”

“The dead aren’t annoyed, they’re just dead.”

“No exit here either.”

“Maybe yes.  Maybe no.”

“The Revised Galaxy?”

“Every thing changes.”

“Except change.”

            THE END

  &&&&&&&&&&&

Just to be perfectly clear!

All Rights to this piece reside with the Author

[ Home ] [ Up ]

Send mail to webmaster@AHicksHope.net with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2008 A. Hicks Hope
Last modified:07/14/2010