Speculative Stories for Your Consternation and Delight
The girl entered the visitor’s lounge with both hands balled tightly against her sides. Nobody on Natrine gave a split credit about her since Gramps keeled over three years ago. So who had the blazing nerve to summon her here and make her skip out on lunch break? Curdled glopatite was the least offensive protein on the menu!
Except it wasn’t “someone,” just a freaking android. A shiny silver robot with the basic silhouette of a human and a smooth chrome-dome face with no features—a budget bot? But wearing a pilot’s cap with an astral insignia. Weird.
“Did you forget to plug in and charge your brain bank, Cap?” she scoffed. The girl plopped onto a bench and sneered at the android sitting stiffly at the other end of the table. “’Cuz I think you docked in the wrong port—”
“Delinquent 306, congratulations!” the android said in a tinny voice, a neon blue speech bar lighting up in the crude approximation of a smile. “You’ve been selected for early release from juvenile detention into the custody of the Melarkin Cruise Corporation.”
The girl didn’t buy one ounce of that AI can of congrats. “Only poshborns from the fancy filtered side of the city ever ride those starships, not slummer kids like me. What’s the catch, botsby?” she demanded.
The android raised a hand in surrender. “No catch! Merely a business proposition. I am the tour leader of Flight 2220 to Astara Prime, and responsible for eight hundred passengers in suspended hibernation for the duration of a five-year voyage—”
The girl sucked in her breath. Astara Prime was a frontier world still rife with an unmucked paradise! At least, if the holo-ad vistas were to be believed . . . .
“We maintain a proprietary Sensory Enhancement program to elevate the neural experience of our customers,” the android prattled on in a smooth tone. “Exercise programs, meditative routines, and daily culinary specials—all while in a carefully-tailored dream-state. Unfortunately, the computer software for the culinary element has malfunctioned. Our cruise CANNOT deviate from the flight schedule for repairs without incurring significant expenses. That’s where you can assist the corporation.”
The girl choked on a laugh. “Me? You better beep your headquarters, because you got your wires crossed if you think I’m an engineer—”
“No, you’re a Super Taster,” the android interrupted.
“Hah! Never heard such a load of cyberyack-up,” the girl replied, unnerved by the strange label—but also, curious.
“Your biological intake profile indicates that you possess the TAS2R38 gene,” the robot explained with precision patience. “As such, you have a greater density of fungiform papillae than the average human. I believe the colloquial term is ‘taste buds.’ Have you ever noticed an intense flavor reaction when eating certain foods—bitter, savory, salty, sweet or sour?”
The girl bit the side of her lip as she considered the android’s bizarre question. “I mean, one-time I snatched a fresh purlim from a fruit stall, and I got skin bumps with the first bite—” Her mouth watered at the memory, worn thin by the past few years of scrounging the city streets for scraps. She folded her arms across her chest as her mouth set in a scowl. “So how do my fancy taste buds help you with your fried ship circuits?”
The android raised a single finger. “Simple! Once a day, you will don a neural headset and eat a meal prepared to the highest standards of human consumption. At the conclusion of the voyage, your record of petty thievery, loitering, and graffiti shall be expunged. You will then be free to start a new life on Astara Prime with an adequate compensation package from the Melarkin Cruise Corporation for your service.”
The girl blinked as he suddenly projected a holo-document from his palm onto the table.
“Should you find these terms acceptable, please review this non-disclosure agreement. This matter is entirely confidential, of course,” he added.
The girl snickered at the idea of a bunch of plush-pocket sleepers tasting the cake her gutter mouth was scarfing down. Even better, she’d get paid for their dine-in dream while they never even knew she existed? Thank Melarkin for their sneaky, cost-cutting practices!
“Where do I sign, Cap?” she asked, grinning with imaginary fangs as she anticipated countless deluxe feasts aboard the cruiser.
Five minutes and one legally binding contract later, the girl exited Natrine’s premier detention center in a comfy new blue and silver track suit of the Melarkin Cruise Corporation.
“Welcome to the program, Delinquent 306,” the android said as he ushered her into a hover taxi that would take them to the space port.
The girl cleared her throat as they sat side by side in the vehicle. “Since we’re going to be stuck in the stars together for the next five years, why don’t you call me by my human name—”
"That would be improper,” the android interrupted smoothly.
The girl felt a prick of annoyance at how often the bot cut her off, but maybe human brains were just too slow for its quantum-speed processors.
“Besides, until the completion of the voyage, your criminal record stands, Delinquent 306,” the android reminded her.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Okay, just call me ‘Del’ for short. What do I call you, Cap?”
Big mistake. The android threw itself into introduction mode with exacting gusto. “My complete designation is Non-Biologic Autonomous Tour Leader Alpha—”
“’Cap’ it is,” Del replied.
The first week aboard Cruiser Flight 2220 dazzled her senses with the surreal glow of cobalt blue sleeper pods. As the faux constellation of hibernating passengers gleamed like gigantic sconce gems set in the ship’s walls, sometimes the girl wondered if she was the one dreaming, not them. For how could the drab scrap of her life turn into such a stellar-grade drama after the simple swish of an NDA? Now she was a freaking space princess with a dozen servants, er, androids at her beck and call!
All of them shared the same cyberlink with Cap, but she named the mess hall bot “Kitch,” and the hulking engineer “Wrenchie,” and—she couldn’t keep back a smile as each one greeted her as “Miss Del” with the morning cycle. But the ship didn’t start to feel homey until the androids cleared a pantry closet just for her own private usage.
“Biological units require a peaceful nest for optimal digestion,” Cap noted.
Sage droid.
Every evening, Kitch prepared a fantastic “gastronomic experience” that Del scarfed down in carefully portioned bites. With practice, she managed to stretch the timing of each gulp to thirty seconds exactly!
The neural helmet hummed loudly against her skull during each meal session, but the girl slowly learned to block out the annoying whirr. Del was particularly proud when she finally mastered the art of savoring goblets of mist-frosted malingenberry while cleansing her palate with a petite dab of tiruloo mint butter. However, after a particularly succulent haunch of dolga lamb, one night she found her stomach rebelling . . . .
“No hitch in the system allowed.” Cap’s hydroponics bot promptly set up an infinity pool tank so that Del could pursue a physical exercise routine at her leisure.
“Thanks, Greenberg,” she said with hearty sincerity.
Yet as Del cavorted in her twelve-by-twelve tank with a wild splash that bathed the deck, she tried to ignore the nagging realization; this new toy was all just part of Cap’s efficiency protocol to maintain her wellbeing as an irregular but essential crew member. Still, even so—she didn’t mind the illusion of being looked after. Leastwise, not until it landed her homework with Kitch!
“You will need to find gainful employment on Astara Prime, but lack any notably useful skills,” the mess hall bot admonished her as it diced a small mountain of murgle tubers into cubes.
Ouch! Snob bot. Del brushed off the android’s astute observation as she twirled on a stool beside the kitchen counter. “I dunno, maybe another Melarkin cruiser will malfunction and I can be the neural poodle on a different voyage,” she retorted.
“Highly unlikely,” Kitch replied as he stopped her twirl just a nanosecond before dizziness knocked her off her perch. “Today, we shall begin your certification in level 1 cooking. As a super taster, you already have the nascent potential to become a highly proficient chef.”
Del stuck out her tongue. “Can’t certify natural talent!”
Kitch raised his spatula finger. “I beg to differ, biological unit. The genetic ability to differentiate between subtle flavor variations and the mental acuity to utilize ingredients in just the right quantity are entirely different skill sets. The latter is only learned through repetitive practice.”
Del steeled herself for culinary battle. “Okay—certify me.”
The process proved surprisingly dangerous as she very nearly lost a thumb to foundational knife skills on day one! Del discovered that she detested protein fabrication, but adored pastry basics, especially when it involved baking any format of fluffy cake. Yet her favorite homework was always sauce and flavor development—those assignments were the only ones where Kitch allowed her into the exotic herbarium at the back of the mess hall. All the galaxy’s rarest herbs flourished there in carefully labeled vertical planters.
“For tonight’s Firekrackn’ Super Novalicious Pasta© dish, which botanical element would you select to elevate the spicy heat humans term ‘zing’?” Kitch asked.
“Hmm, maybe—” Del paused to scan the scarlet, emerald and burgundy gems hanging from the pepper planters until her eyes fastened on a deep red specimen so dark that it practically glowed with an innate black light. “Oh, that one looks ultralicious!” She reached her fingers out to pluck it when Kitch enclosed her wrist in an iron tong hand.
“Never touch a Kessler pepper without protective gear,” Kitch warned. “Even a small drop of the chemical compound contained within it can cause severe nerve pain when improperly handled. Your sensitivity as a super taster could send you into shock with improper exposure, even—sudden death. Worse, if you ate something of that magnitude of Scoville Heat Unit while wearing the neural helmet, you could potentially disturb the passengers’ hibernation cycles or possibly induce a medical emergency.”
Wait, so endangering the passengers’ naptime session was a worse scenario than her own death? Eh, made perfect sense by bot-brain logic. Del couldn’t take it too personally.
The girl swallowed hard, staring at the glowing dark pepper with a newfound respect. “You know, I’m not really in the mood for anything spicy tonight. Can we swap with tomorrow’s dish, uh—'Cilantro Shrimptopia Luxuriana©’?” she asked.
A secret rush of relief filled her when Kitch agreed to her proposed switch up. However, as Del munched on her lovely mild pasta dish during the scheduled evening meal, the weight of the neural helmet suddenly felt a ton-load heavier.
“You should’ve warned me about the helmet’s danger, Kitch! I didn’t know I could hurt the passengers with what I ate. Now my stomach’s got the jitters,” she confessed.
“Why?” Kitch inquired with a curious curtness. “There is no need to concern yourself with such legal matters. The passengers all signed a health waiver—it’s in the fine print of every ticket. And the benefits are also clearly outlined: the neural dream-state also allows passengers to partake of flavor profiles that would otherwise be denied to them in their waking life.”
Del perked up at this new revelation. “Neat! But what sort of flavor can one only taste in a dream?” she asked.
“Simply put, the helmet’s neural link overrides natural flavor preferences,” Kitch replied. “But perhaps this is best explained with an object lesson.”
After dinner, the android took her on a tour of the main hibernation hall and stopped before a single glowing blue capsule set in the lower wall. A teenage boy about five years her senior slept peacefully in Pod #800. A messy thatch of dark hair covered half his face as if he’d been frozen in place in a hurry.
“Last human aboard, huh?” Del whispered. Well, besides herself.
“This juvenile male has the OR6A2 gene, which makes him highly sensitive to aldehydes,” Kitch said.
"Alda-what?” Del asked.
“A chemical compound used in soap that is also naturally found in herbs such as cilantro.” Kitch tapped the glass that separated the sleeping boy from the waking world. “Instead of a pleasant bright and citrusy flavor, there is a high probability that cilantro tastes like dirt or detergent to him.”
Del snickered. “Then I’ll just have to eat lots of cilantro so Passenger #800 has tasty dreams to last him for the rest of his life!”
But it was the rest of her own life that began to trouble her. Deep space muddled her brain, and before Del realized it, eight months had already whizzed by aboard the cruiser. A knot twisted in her middle whenever she accidentally clocked the time. Sometimes, she wished Flight 2220 would never end! Astara Prime was probably a bust, anyway . . . just another glossy human lie that was never near as nice as paradise—
As arguing about recipes with Kitch, or losing at carousel chess against Cap, or weaving a crown of cables for Wrenchie, or feeding the algae blobs with Greenberg, or sanitizing the deck plates with fizzing bubblers with Mops for the thousandth time—why couldn’t they all stay like this forever? Drifting across the star ways under the sapphire daze of dreamers she secretly wished would never wake up so that she could keep her own shiny dream on ever-play mode . . . .
Yet on the two hundred and forty-fourth night of the voyage, Del awoke from a dead sleep as a violent tremor rocked the cruiser. She sat bolt upright as her fingertips and toes tingled as if singed by fire!
“Hey Kitch, did a solar flare zap the hull?” Del asked after venturing out of her pantry closet warily. A gasp escaped her as she discovered the mess hall bot lying on the ground in a twitching pile, his spatula hand slapping the floor repeatedly.
The android was stuck in a flapjack flipping loop! But Kitch was just an extension of Cap’s cyberbrain, so if one bot was down . . . did that mean all his units were malfunctioning? A large pile of androids in the main hibernation vault confirmed her worst waking nightmare.
Del peered around a pillar at the horrid sight of nine Cap models thrown together in a heap of twitching limbs in the middle of the deck. Her knees melted to jelly sticks as a pair of humans dragged two more androids to the pile. Raiders! How’d these scummers breach the cruiser’s automatic defense system? The man and woman strode about with blasters and laser cutters like they already owned the ship.
Dirty mercs. It’d been so long since she’d seen another free-roving human that Del found herself recoiling—straight into her enemy’s grasp. The girl yelped as a massive hand collared her, lifting her into the air like a sack of spuddlers.
“Oy, Melize! I thought you said there’d only be dozers on this cruiser. You missed a little rat,” the third raider said with a deep-throated chuckle that was much closer to a growl.
The woman pursed her lips in a sour frown that reminded Del of a fermented prune. “Shuddup, Jay. She’s probably just a stowaway.”
“I’m not a rat or a stowaway, I’m a . . . a Super Taster!” Del protested as she glared at her captor, an over-muscled brute with a bald head as shiny as a peeled onion. The girl sputtered through a few well-buttered lies as she illuminated her extremely crucial role aboard the cruiser:
“And if I don’t keep a regular meal-time schedule to cover Melarkin’s top-secret culinary malfunction, you folks could end up in deep trouble. You don’t want 800 hangry passengers waking up, now do you? So you best let me live, er, EAT!” the girl finished with gritted teeth.
“Aww, she’s such a cute little liar.” Melize laughed, her shrill tone ending in a dead flat note. “Should we toss the squeaker out of an airlock, Jeriah?”
Del gulped as the man with double blaster holsters attached to his belt flicked his fingers across the main computer terminal, completely ignoring the ruckus.
“Nah, kid’s telling the truth,” Jeriah replied. “Logs show she was added as a temp worker to the kitchen crew after being transferred from a juvenile detention center on Natrine.”
“Poor thing!” Jay exclaimed, setting Del down gently and mussing her hair under a huge hand. “Those corporate slimeballs are forcing even young’un’s into labor contracts now. Don’t worry, you can join our crew—the Free Starwave Alliance pays LOADS better.”
Yup. Definitely mercenaries.
"Uh . . . thanks!” Del’s lower lip trembled most convincingly. She was infinitely grateful the raiders had skipped the airlock option—for now. But she desperately needed more intel to up her survival odds. “So what does Starfree, er, your alliance want with this ship?” she inquired.
“Unclaimed baggage,” Jeriah said brusquely. He jabbed his finger towards a very familiar pod. “The senator’s brat is registered as Passenger #800. Unhook his pod, Jay. Start the waking procedures at once.”
Del shivered as the burly man strode towards the sleeping boy. “You broke into a Melarkin Cruiser for a single person?” she asked, incredulous.
“Not a person! Collateral,” Melize replied with a breezy cruelty that Del had almost forgotten after holing up for eight months with androids. “His father owes our organization a fat heap of credits. So, we’ll hang onto his spawn until that poshborn senator repays his dues—with interest, of course.”
Poor Cilantro. Sometimes it was truly better to be born gutter trash than a politician’s son! Del just had to look out for her own now . . . .
“What about the crew?” she asked quietly, keeping her voice casual. “What’ll happen to them?”
“Who? Oh, you mean the mandroids.” Melize tittered.
“Don’t you worry none about those old boss bots,” Jay assured the girl as he set Cilantro’s pod down and sat on it like a bench. “The stunwave got’em offline for a few hours, but we’ll incinerate every last unit before we leave—no data trails left behind!”
“And no excessive property damage,” Jeriah admonished his crew members severely. “Don’t forget that the ship’s emergency beacon will automatically activate after the next status report to headquarters is missed. Melarkin should keep our break-in under wraps to protect their profit margin just so long as we keep our destruction limited to AI personnel only.”
Del gulped as absolute, undiluted fear roiled in the pit of her stomach. She was going to lose her family all over again! First, it was Gramps on Natrine. And now Cap, Kitch—every version of the android who had cared for her these many months with a wonderfully measured precision no vague, insincere and emotion-riddled human could ever match.
Nope.
Del calibrated her lips in a smile that showed only the barest hint of teeth. “Okay, I’m in! Thanks for springing me from this dank blue rust bucket. But while we’re all waiting for the junior senator to defrost, want to try my cake?” She jerked her head towards the mess hall. “I’ve been perfecting my Laruvian Cream Puff Delight© for two weeks now. Think of it as . . . a welcome treat for letting me join your crew!”
Jay licked his lips. “I could do with some dessert after a job well-done. Whatcha say, Jeriah?”
The man with the double blasters finally shifted his gaze from the computer terminal to gaze at Del with ice-blue eyes that sent an electric tingle dancing up her spine. “Sure. I’ll try a slice.”
Melize tapped her laser cutter. “Better make mine a corner slice, and no skimping on the cream!”
Del cracked her knuckles one by one. “Oh, they’ll be plenty for everyone—I promise.”
The pod’s defrosting process required approximately two hours for completion. Whipping up the cake would take an hour and forty-five minutes if she rushed the cooling process before slathering on the cream coating. That left just a fifteen-minute window for Del to get the raiders to stuff their faces with her ultra special attack pastry before it was time to trash the androids and spirit her off with Cilantro into the starry deep of space—
She’d rather nosedive into a black hole! With a secret ingredient that just might get her through to the other side of the void. If it didn’t kill her first . . . .
Del seated her guests at three stools by the long metal counter in the mess hall, making a great show of adding each element: hand-harvested wheat from the Kolben crop rings, dark brown sugar from the lunar cane fields of Listra 9, a copious teaspoon of SuperNovaNilla, and—
“For the berry infusion, I’ll add ripe Melugas,” Del announced grandly. Her hands shook as she entered Kitch’s exotic herbarium with an empty bowl . . . and a flavor extractor tube tucked inside her pocket. When she returned to the counter, the sweat beading against her brow stung cold as snow.
Time to tempt fate on a plate! But a hitch in her plan arose right after she cut four fat slices of cake.
“Oh, wear this silly cap while you eat!” Melize ordered, shoving the helmet across the counter towards the girl. She sniggered. “I want to see this ridiculous contraption in action.”
“Yeah! Give the sleeping Melarkies one last taste of your masterpiece,” Jay said with a wink.
“Okay,” Del said, that single word crumbling like ashes in her mouth.
It would be such an easy thing to slip on the helmet. She’d risk all eight hundred human lives if it meant she could save Cap! Wouldn’t even blink on it once. But Cap’s programming would never forgive her if she endangered the health of the other passengers. Del snapped a single wire and carefully hid the red thread behind her ear as she donned the helmet. Her finger twist should sever the neural link’s power—probably.
“Happy birthday or whatever!” Del said, taking a large bite of cake. She had to prove her pastry wasn’t poisoned, after all . . . .
Jay and Melize attacked their own slices after seeing her ravenous enthusiasm. Excellent! Gobble up, suckers. But why was Jeriah so stinking slow and stabby with his bites? Del’s panic built quietly as time was running out before—
“Got a loose wire there, kid,” Jeriah said as he set his fork down. “That thing even on?”
Del gulped as she realized the wire behind her ear had come untucked. “That happens sometimes,” she laughed nervously. “Finnicky thing—” Her heart skipped a beat as Jeriah’s fingers slid towards the blasters on his belt.
Bye, Cap! Del sighed.
A split second before the breath finished leaving her lips, timed flavor capsules burst in everyone’s stomachs and released a payload of premium Kessler pepper oil. Then a huge surge of capsaicin bound with the pain receptors in four human bodies at near light-speed. The raiders dropped from their seats in writhing paroxysms of nausea as severe cramps wracked their digestive system.
Del knew what was coming. She was a super taster, after all—Kitch had warned her that a single dose of Keppler pepper could be fatal to her ultra-sensitive palate. So, she’d stretched her showy bites out to thirty seconds flat to consume fewer pepper oil capsules . . . yeah, she would’ve needed to stretch her chews by a millennium! The girl doubled over as the full heat of the spice hit her cells. Her scream strangled into coughs as tears streamed down her eyes, acid roared up her throat, and her sinuses flared under the lofty Scoville scale of the almighty Kessler.
But through this agonizing haze, Del watched with satisfaction as Jeriah fainted and flopped floor-side like a dish rag. Wimp. Melize stumbled to the fridge locker and grabbed a carton from the milk rack. Fool. The milk’s mild PH wouldn’t come close to neutralizing the pepper’s acid. The raider collapsed clutching an entire rack of cartons against her chest.
“Why’d you do it, k-kid?” Jay gasped, cracking a deck plate under his massive fist as he drooled over the floor like a rabid dog.
“Never threaten my crew,” Del spat between burning teeth. “Never—”
Had the recycling bin always been a thousand light years away, she wondered? Somehow, she had to crawl there before—
Kessler fire ate her alive from the inside out. Del passed out in the cinders of her own torment. Ages and embers of pure pain later, she awoke as two hands shook her shoulders roughly.
“Hey, girl! You alive?” a nervous voice she’d never heard before inquired softly.
Del cracked her gummy eyes open to find a teenage boy shivering above her, his curly hair still damp from the defrosting process. Cilantro was awake!
“Gimme the mustard bottle in the recycling bin, kwick—” she croaked through her sore throat. She’d hidden the proprietary Melarkin antacid dose inside it that Kitch kept on hand for biological unit emergencies. Hopefully that included unauthorized Kessler pepper consumption.
The boy darted towards the recycling bin and rushed back with the grimy treasure in hand. “Got it!” he exclaimed.
Del swigged the entire bottle dry down to the last drop. Ah, nothing in her life would ever taste this delicious. Ever. Again! She cast the hollow bottle aside and scowled at the fallen raiders littering the deck plates. Time to get Flight 2220 back in order. Del and her new human companion quickly bound the unconscious mercenaries, dragging the trio into a locked storage closet until Cap’s androids came back
“Your rescue operation was extremely risky and ill-advised, Miss Del,” Cap chastised her gently as he surveyed the droopy, fizzling remnants of the cake on the counter. “Nevertheless—”
“Nevertheless, I rock, right?” Del shot back with a smirk.
“Indeed,” Cap replied. “You possess a stellar-grade matrix.”
Del was pretty sure that was the android’s first try at a pun. She appreciated the attempted humor greatly.
Three days passed before Melarkin Private Security finally cleared the raiders off the cruiser, and a full week before it was time to tuck Cilantro back into his hibernation pod for the rest of the voyage.
“Thanks for saving me, kid,” the boy said humbly before stepping into the empty chamber.
Just a lucky side effect of her stratagem to save the androids, but he didn’t need to know that. “Don’t mention it,” she said, bristling a little at the casual way he called her “kid.” “And don’t forget that we’ll be the same age when you defrost on Astara Prime.”
The boy laughed as he strapped himself in place. “True! See you on the other side of the stars.”
“Don’t worry. I promise to eat lots of cilantro for you while you’re dreaming,” Del added.
“Huh?” The pod doors snicked shut over the boy’s very confused face.
Del waited beside his pod until Passenger #800 was safely in hibernation again. “Sleep tight, Maximilian McMartin,” she whispered.
Now that was a proper mouthful of syllables. The girl wandered back to the mess hall with the odd realization that she wouldn’t talk to another human again for another four years and four months. Weird.
But, also—
Nice to see her whole family unit functioning at peak efficiency again! A lump formed in her throat as all twelve units of Cap clapped as she entered the mess hall. Kitch slid a Kessler-lite recreation of her infamous cake down the counter as Mops ushered her onto a stool.
Cap set a pristine plate and shining cutlery in front of the girl. “The Melarkin Cruise Corporation would like to congratulate you for preserving the safety of Flight 2220, Miss Del!” The android projected a holo-contract from his palm onto the plate’s surface with glowing neon red ink. “Please accept this NDA and complimentary compensation package.”
“Hmm . . . will it be enough credits for me to open my own restaurant on Astara Prime?” Del asked.
“Of course. I recommended the highest compensation and bribery package available,” Cap replied. “Will you sign?”
Del grinned so widely that the universe split a little at the corners with her happiness. “Sure thing, Cap. Right after you cut me a slice of cake!”
~*~
