By G.R. Nanda
The aroma of freezer-insulated sponge food hit all three of them in the face as soon as Nickel opened the fridge. Lights turned on inside, illuminating transparent plastic cartons of food and powdered formulas.
“Holy mother of Hedonim,” said Steve. Farrul laughed.
“Why Hedonim?” he asked. “Wouldn’t God make more sense?”
“Farrul, I’ve been living a long time dreaming of the technology and civilization we’d been missing out on,” said Steve. “It’s all in Hedonim, so Hedonim’s a lot of what’s on my mind.”
“Hedonim this – Hedonim that,” said Farrul. “I know what you really care about are those hookers in Hedonim. That’s the only sex you’ve ever gotten -” Steve struck the back of Farrul’s head with his palm. “OW!” said Farrul. “You promised you wouldn’t hit me again, Steve! You promised!”
“Come on!” said Steve. “It wasn’t even that hard. You know I’ve hit harder before. None o’ this hooker talk out of you again, Farrul! You’re just jealous because you know you’ll never get laid without my help in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic.” Steve chortled. “I know you’re the one who wants to find those hookers! Why else would you be talking so much about them?” Farrul rubbed his head.
“Ok, I’m sorry,” started Steve, “It wasn’t right of me to hit you like that. I know I promised to never strike you like that again. Shouldna’ done it. I just wanted some seriousness out of you when we’ve got a big jump to make. This Eagle’s really comfy, but we got a lot of hauling ass to do. Better get ahead on it, or we’re gonna get our asses hauled.”
“But!” he said. He moved past Farrul and Nickel and grabbed many cartons of food. “First – let’s eat some goddamn food like I’ve been saying for the past couple minutes.” He stacked cartons on his arm laid across his chest. “Oh man!” he said. “You boys better take some quick, before I take most of em cuz’ I haven’t seen food this good for eating in a LONG glibbing time!” Nickel grabbed a small box of protein powder and a case of an enameled omelet. He held both of them out in front of Farrul.
“Eat up,” said Nickel. Farrul took the food.
“I have no clue what this is and how to eat it,” said Farrul. “But honestly, I don’t really care that much because I’m hungry and I want to eat.”
Nickel grabbed some containers of food for himself and his friends and took them to a part of the basement against the wall, where he set up a table and chairs to eat. He had to bring in one more table to host the additional people.
He brought them to his kitchenette chamber and began to show them how to use a liquifying blender to turn their protein powder into drinkable liquid solutions. At first, he had Farrul pour the powder into the sleek spinning steel cylinder and press the buttons at the rectangular base. Quickly enough, Farrul erred and jammed the inner parts of the cylinder and Nickel eagerly took over preparing the food himself.
Once he was finished, he brought plates one by one filled with ready-made food to their table. On each of their three plates were sliced chunks of pork (sprinkled with protein powder to compensate for the synthesized artificial patches), green lentil beans, microwaved enameled omelets, all accompanied by protein drinks, frothing with bubbles in cold ceramic cups.
Nicke, Steve and Farrul ate savagely to quench their hunger and exhaustion. They ravaged their omelets, tearing apart their synthesized shells with their forks and fingers. They devoured them in their mouths as white and yellow niblets spilled out from their lips. They shredded their pork and after swallowing, washed the meat down with protein drinks. No one spoke and after a while, Steve and Farrul slowed down to savor the food that they hadn’t been able to afford for so long.
Once their plates had been mostly cleared and they were munching on their last bits of food, Steve spoke:
“We should get moving soon.”
“Why?” said Farrul. His eyes were glazed over and protein juice dribbled down his chin, forming dark blue stains on his face. “We finally have a nice place to stay at.” Steve scoffed and shook his head.
“I keep thinking you can’t get denser,” said Steve,”but you always disappoint me.”
“I don’t know if I want to try anymore,” said Farrul. “I’m pretty sick of the world. I’ve seen enough of it to know I don’t want to have a part in it and I don’t want to see anymore of it.”
“Fool!” spat Steve, spraying droplets of protein drink and sending a few bits of pork flying. “You think you’ve seen enough of the world to decide that?! Enough of the world? Look at me! I’m in my 60s and I’ve seen more of hell on this earth than you can even imagine,” he said, speaking his last words in a cold and biting vehemence. Farrul frowned and looked at his lap. “You don’t even know what the world can do to you after it’s chewed you up for more than 60 years.” Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “Listen, Farrul, I’m sorry for yelling and slapping. I really am. It’s not what you deserve – at least not all of the time – definitely not today. Listen boy, I know the world’s been mean to you, and you’ve done nothing to deserve what you’ve been through.”
“We have a shot, okay? We can make it out. As long as I’m looking out for you Farrul, I don’t want you to give up. Okay?”
“I don’t want you to give up, goddamnit!” said Steve, shooting more pork from his mouth. Farrul flinched when a piece landed on his face. “There’s a better future out there. Waiting. That future depends on the willing. I’ve seen it, boys. When I was cooking on that hovercraft, I was cooking for some smart people – people who believed they could use their brains to learn as much as they can to carve out new and better frontiers in this godforsaken world. I don’t think I’ll live to see an earth with frontiers like they were trying to make, but I know I’ll die trying so I won’t die knowing I didn’t try. I’ll know I made it easier for young people like you. You two are my only world. I’ve got nothing else. My wife’s dead. My kids are dead,” he rasped. Steve coughed and sputtered, covering his mouth so pork or his protein drink didn’t fly out. “I’m going to get us to Hedonim. We’re going to get us to Hedonim.” Steve eyed Farrul.
“After all we’ve been through, and all I’ve done – don’t forget that, Farrul – all I’ve done protecting you under my wing here, the least you can do, Farrul, is help us get to Hedonim.”
“How are we going to be safer in Hedonim?” asked Farrul. “How will it be better for survival? Hedonim’s filled with screen ghosts. How are holograms gonna help us? What are we gonna eat? Hologram food?”
“Hedonim has information,” Steve said “Data. Energy. Connections – international – heck, even interstellar. People are coming in and out all the time. We find out what we’ve been missing out on, what’s been going on. Then we hitch a cargo transport for the American mainland. You’re right about food though, Farrul. All we got is whatever’s on Nickel’s hovercraft. If we don’t want to run out before hitching a transport safely, then WE GOTTA GET MOVING! It’s our best option, so let’s not screw it up. Hedonim’s the only place near here where we can use an infrastructure to get info and boot this shithole. Look, once we get to Hedonim, you can choose to do whatever you want. There’ll be lots of different people. Right now, we’re all you got.”
Farrul sighed.
“I’m only going along with this because I owe you, Steve. Without you, I wouldn’t have survived out here. I would have died a long time ago.”
“So you’re in?” said Nickel.
“Yeah,” said Farrul. “Yeah, that’s right, Steve, I’m in. But I can decide whether or not to listen to you one we get to Hedonim.”
“Fair enough,” said Steve. He nodded his head slowly and his face scrunched up like he was going to sneeze. Instead, he burped.
“Breakfast is over,” said Steve. “So we move now. Nickel! Take us to the control room so we can find a way to lift off the Falcon.”
“Actually, it’s the Eagle,” Nickel quickly said. “American Eagle.” Feeling shy all of a sudden, he quickly said, “sorry.”
“No, no,” said Steve. “Don’t be sorry. All it means is you haven’t seen enough movies.” Nickel frowned in puzzlement. “Don’t worry about it. Just take us up. How long will it take for lift off?”
“A bit,” said Nickel. “Ship’s fuel is low and I gotta find a better alternative than straight flying.”
“Will it be takin’ long enough for me to grab some important stuff from camp?” said Steve.
“Yeah,” said Nickel, nodding his head, “yeah, I’ll be talking a while. So you can go outside. But you gotta be real quick – like really quick! The ship can’t wait while I’m warming it up, or else it’ll lose more fuel.”
“Got it,” said Steve.
They went up the elevator shaft and Nickel opened a wide emergency hatch in the back of the control room. Steve jogged out of it as orange fog and cold air came through. Farrul sat in a chair behind Nickel who seated himself in the piloting module. He checked the navigational and airborne systems on the screens before him. Fuel was still low.
“How fast can we go?” asked Farrul.
“Uh…….,” started Nickel. “We might be able to move fast. But only in quick spurts. Let me check how long a hop would take.”
“A hop?” said Farrul.
“Yeah,” said Nickel, opening and scanning the numbers on a flight control analytics readout. “Eagle can’t fly, so what it can do is launch 50 feet up in the air and travel horizontally for a mile-ish, maybe a couple meters short of a mile. It really depends on how much velocity it can maintain in the air. The Eagle does not have enough fuel to do that. We gotta use emergency thrusters.” Nickel’s heart began to beat fast as the gravity of the situation settled in. His arms were shaking. A new life was on the horizon. “The thrusters are going to have to be manually activated and then manually deactivated when we land. Most of the fuel expenditure in a ‘hop’ takes place in the landing.”
Steve was heard entering through the wide emergency hatch. He pulled countless bags and crates through, scraping and grating across the floor. When the movement stopped and Steve stood still, Nickel reached across his module to the basic controls located to his left on the encircling control desk in front of him. Familiar with the ship’s systems, screens and buttons, he instinctively slapped a button, closing the emergency hatch.
“Did ya’ hear me, Steve?” said Nickel. “I was talking about emergency thrusters!”
“Yeah,” said Steve panting. “Farrul and I will activate the emergency thrusters. You navigate the Eagle.” Nickel jumped out of the piloting module and ran to the far end of the control room to lift two hatches on opposite ends of the room embedded in the floor. Gritting his teeth, after he opened a hatch, he pulled out a bulky rectangular device. This was a thruster igniter. After he pulled out the two igniters from the floor, Nickel instructed Steve and Farrul to stand next to the igniters, awaiting the call to pull on the top shaft as hard as they could. The motion would grate mechanics together deep inside the hull of the hovercraft, expelling gas and triggering flames to shoot out of the bottom of the Eagle’s wings. They would have to pull for a long time, until the top shaft stuck in its position. At landing time, the shaft would have to be pushed down, deactivating the thrusters.
Nickel sat back down in the piloting module and used knobs on the desk to choose options on the main screen. He turned a dial to select an aerial phase. As Nickel hovered over an option, the other options faded and the screen now read:
CONFIRM AERIAL PHASE: HOP
Nickel pressed the dial down, clicking it into a lock. He had confirmed the aerial phase.
“The hop started!” shouted Nickel. Underneath his feet, the floor vibrated.
“PULL, FARRUL!” said Steve. He and Farrul jerked the top shaft of the igniters upwards, growling and screaming in their effort to keep it up. There was a deafening roar as the thrusters fired up below the wings outside. Picking up on the initiation, the screens in Nickel’s piloting module blacked out before lighting up in the navigational maps, diagrams and controls. Nickel grabbed a hook from the floor, pulling a steering contraption with side handles up to his chest.
As the Eagle ascended, shooting up through the air, Nickel saw the empty flagpole and deserted tents of Steve and Farrul’s encampment disappear in the orange fog outside of Nickel’s window.
“KEEP YOUR BUTTOCKS STILL!” screamed Steve. “WE ARE GETTING THE GLIBB OUTTA HERE!”
G.R. Nanda 