Episode 112. Part 5
Jump to:
When Arden’s safe in the elevator, he tells Christian over the comms what he’s just seen. Christian’s already counted about two dozen waiters so far and doesn’t even bother looking. If Mike’s here, then Mike’s here, and that’s good enough.
Arden gains the lobby, goes to the bench and tells Rina he needs the rest. Rina passes the strap over her head and holds the bag out to him.
Rina: I want my bag back.
Arden: Oh, yeah. I’ll bring it back.
Rina: Thank you.
He goes back for the elevator and when he does, the Muscle sitting on the bench gets up and follows him.
Arden: Can I help you?
The Muscle says nothing but pushes the elevator call button. He crosses his arms and blocks Arden’s path as they wait for the thing to arrive, and gets in the elevator with Arden when the doors open. The Tong dude is big, taciturn and covered in scars. Thoroughly intimidating. Behind them in the lobby, Rina had risen from the bench when the Muscle moved for Arden, but with the lack of any violence, she’d sunk back down to wait.
In the elevator, Arden looks up at the Muscle.
Arden: So. How’s the weather up there?
The Muscle still says nothing and they both listen to the muzak playing over the speakers for the rest of the ride up. Ding! The doors slide open, the Muscle waves Arden through, and Arden quits the elevator gladly. He glances back and sees the Muscle following him, and there being nothing for it, Arden returns to the table with the man hulking behind him.
Arden: (to Christian) I’ve acquired a shadow, I think.
Christian: (brightly) Excellent. We’ve got nothing to hide.
Anything to yank that kidnapper’s chain, right? Off to the side, another Tong guy sporting his own set of scars makes his way to the table, and the odds go a bit sideways. There are three dogs in this fight now, possibly four if Mike’s pursuing his own agenda, and the outcome is now highly unpredictable.
Feels like home, lemme tellya.
The newcomer is smaller and wiry and dressed nicer than the usual sort of Muscle. Christian looks up with a pleasant expression, yanking the kidnapper’s chain some more.
Christian: We’ve made some friends.
Outside on the roof opposite, Nika’s found a better spot on top of the elevator housing and she’s got a clear line of sight all the way to our table. She frowns at the two Tong standing at our table and gets ready to shoot, aiming to take down the bigger guy first.
Inside the restaurant, Mr. Nice Dresser says to the kidnapper:
Nice Dresser: Sir, I’m terribly sorry for your meal, you’ll get a full refund and I apologize for cutting it so short.
Kidnapper: What are you talkin’ about? I haven’t got my meal yet.
Nice Dresser: I’m afraid you’re quite done here, sir.
Christian splays his hands in plain view on the tablecloth and Arden shifts farther away from the kidnapper, making their message clear: We are so not with him....
The kidnapper looks over at the table where his back-up is supposed to be and we all follow his gaze to see the men there getting escorted off the floor.
Christian puts his hand over Emma’s: ...but the girl is with us.
The Muscle from the lobby fastens one big hand on the kidnapper’s shoulder and lifts him from his chair. Mr. Nice Dresser watches the two of them leave and turns to Christian.
Nice Dresser: I hope this hasn’t been too much of a disturbance to you.
Christian: This, I have to say, is an excellent restaurant and I will recommend it to all my friends.
Arden: The food is really good here.
Christian: And the service has been excellent.
Nice Dresser: We try to be selective about our clientele.
Christian: I understand. Thank you.
Nice Dresser: And if you would pass the word on to Mr. Carter, this should settle our debts.
Christian agrees. Massively. Seriously. Christian states aloud that he’s ready to have Mike’s baby at this point. He calls Nika and Rina over his comm.
Christian: Nika, cover us. Rina, get us a taxi.
Nika keeps her weapon ready and Rina gets off the bench and gets that taxi. Christian thanks Nice Dresser again, leaves the table with Arden and Emma, retrieves the weapons they gave up, and ride the elevator down. Outside on the curb, Rina’s got the taxi waiting and everyone piles in. On the roof, Nika sees them climb into the taxi and she breaks down her rifle, bags it and hits the street. The taxi goes down the block and around the corner and she sees it pull to a stop. She lopes over to meet it and gets in. The ride back is accomplished without a hitch and the reunion once aboard is tearfully joyous.
Job done.
And we didn’t even have to shoot anybody. Arden calls Gibbs and leaves a message saying everything went smoothly, releasing him from his obligations. Once the girls are finished and calmer, we sit them down and Christian asks Emma some questions.
Christian: What was that?
Meaning, well, just about everything we went through to get her back.
Emma: When I was first working, I met this guy. And at the time, we talked about possibly running off. (Turns to Miss Tolson) This was before I knew you. (Back to Christian) And we had talked about how it wasn’t fair that the Tolsons had so much and we had so little… and we’d talk about maybe doing something, but we never really made any plans. We didn’t have any plans for that. And then when we got here, I thought I’d look him up—not to be with him, because I don’t want to be with him—but I just wanted to let him know, I wanted somebody to know that I was free. That I was gone from that. I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone…And that’s…He said he wanted to, he needed to see me…and they just grabbed me and they were going to put me up for ransom.
Christian: You told them where you were.
Emma: Yeah….I thought we’d all have a good time. I thought that we would go out, that he’d show us Persephone, that I could do something. And not just be the servant girl who was always … just helping.
Christian: (sighs) Here is what’s going to happen. You are going to stay on the ship until we leave. We don’t know this man and I don’t think you really know him, either. We don’t know whether he will try again, we don’t know if he will ever—we were very, very fortunate he picked that restaurant. Had it been anywhere else, it may very well be you’d be dead right now. Or that you would have nothing to start your new life with. You will get a chance to be more than a servant girl. You will get a chance to live your life. But you are not going to do it until we reach our destination.
Nika: Actually, I beg to differ. I don’t think anyone on this vessel has treated her like a servant since she came on board.
Christian: That’s true, too.
Nika: And I take some offense to the fact that she felt that was entirely required.
Arden: 'Felt what was required.' I’m missing something.
Nika: That she felt that that was something that was happening enough that she had to go call her little friends.
Arden: Well-lll, she wanted to show off to someone.
Emma: It wasn’t about you.
Arden: Yes. It’s about her.
Nika: Yes, I’m aware of that.
Christian: Don’t. (to the girls) Obviously, you have some things to work out.
We table the discussion and the girls retreat to their stateroom. To work those things out or not.
Mike walks aboard a little while later. We rush over to ask him where he’s been. Christian is happy to see him. Very happy.
Christian: Mike! (hugs!)
Rina: Coming from him, that’s alarming.
Mike suffers the hug, moving awkwardly and keeping his hands in his pockets. Arden, trapped between the two of them, worms out from under.
Christian: Thank you.
Mike: I hated for you to think that all your passengers were just a bunch of hard work and no benefit.
Christian: (perish the thought!) No. (sobering) I have a message: You’re even now. Or they at least hope you are.
Arden: (pointing to Christian) And he wants to have your babies.
Mike: Not really a fair trade, but—
Arden: What? The babies?
Christian: I appreciate, certainly, you calling in a favor for us. Thank you. You have most certainly helped earn your passage. Not that you had to earn it.
Arden: With the technology these days with cloning and stuff, I wonder if two guys could have babies.
Rina: (to Arden) Let’s don’t go there.
Arden: Probably not. We’d still have the XY chromosome.
Rina: Please. I have to live on this ship with you.
Arden: What? It’s just a curiosity thing.
Rina: (looks Heavenward) Uhnn…!
Mike uses this exchange to sneak off to his quarters and Arden catches the move, spies something odd about Mike’s body language and his hands, now out of his pockets. His hands are bloodied, mostly at the knuckles. Which explains the pockets, not the typical Mike thing to do.
Arden: Mike. Can I see you in the infirmary a moment?
Rina ducks around Arden and sees, finally, what she should have seen immediately. Christian notices it too, and wonders aloud if Mike had to beat up a waiter to get take his place at the restaurant.
Mike: No. I’m okay.
Arden: No, no, I think it’s important.
Mike: No thank you.
And he goes aft for his quarters.
Nika: Hey, Mike….
And he keeps on walking. Looks like the cure’s definitely taking hold.
Rina: Oh, god…..(sighs)
Arden: I wouldn’t have pointed it out, but I needed to see him in the infirmary.
Christian: That’s enough, by itself. (nods at Mike’s back)
Rina: I’m going to be seeing him later tonight anyway. I’ll beat it out of him.
Arden: Really? That’s surprising.
Christian: All things considering, where else would he go?
Arden starts pulling stuff out of his bag and loading Rina down with them. She’s cross-trained with Arden long enough to render any first aid Mike wouldn’t take from him. Nika says to Christian that, for the record, there’ll be no more keeping stowaways.
Rina: (tit for tat) Hey, I can just kiss it make it better.
Arden: I so don’t wanna know….
Rina grins: Gotcha!
Rina asks Christian if we’re still going to take on the livestock gig as cargo, and gets a big damn affirmative on it. The two thousand credits are worth more than the risk posed by incompetent criminals. Besides, we need the money. We agree on that all around and pull out reheated take-out from Mama Liu’s for our dinner.
With everyone thus occupied, Nika takes the opportunity to take a basin and washcloth back to Mike, out of sight of the others. She finds him in the crew head cleaning up. She steps in, sets the things she brought aside and closes the door.
Nika: I hope you don’t really feel that way. It’s just our run of luck has been bad lately.
Mike: Either you’ve had ridiculously good luck in the past or you’re mistaking opportunities for bad luck.
Nika: Possibly. Thank you for stepping in.
Mike: We’re doing good.
Nika: Well…(breathes a laugh) …Let’s hope this is the start of doing good. Seriously, it wouldn’t have gone as smoothly if you didn’t know, I swear to God, everyone in the Verse.
Mike: Well, it’s not free. There are sacrifices to be made.
Nika: There are, true.
Mike: But. You never know when you’ll be able to call something like that in. It’s an opportunity.
Nika: (quietly) This would be why I didn’t go to work for you. (A beat.) Come join us for dinner when you’re ready.
Nika leaves him to it and sits down with the others around the table. Mike pulls up a chair a minute or so later. Arden remarks that any incident we can walk away from with no blood trailing behind us is a good one.
Rina: I’d call this a win.
Nika: Yeah. As I said, let’s hope this is the start of good luck, because this one turned out well.
Mike: Don’t worry about Frankie and Gino. They aren’t going to bother anyone for a while.
Christian: (Lightbulb!) Ah…!
Arden: I feel so sorry for them.
Christian: I do, too…(Laughs) Actually, no, I don’t.
Arden: I do.
We table the topic on that note and scarf down the dumplings before they get cold again.
Over the next few days, we wait on the livestock cargo and Omar tells us of the price he got for our drugs. 200 credits. Nika remarks that prior to our livestock gig and the 2000 it netted us, we’be jumping for joy at the prospect of holding one-tenth of that in our hands. Christian snarks back at her that if we’d stop taking on deals before he can do his job of upping the price on them, we’d be happy like that a lot more often and over more money, too. He still thinks he could have gotten a better return on the drugs. But when you consider we stole them, anything we get for them is pure gravy. That argument falls on deaf ears and Christian insists on negotiating for a better price.
Nika: Sure. If you think you can do better, knock yourself out.
Christian is surprised to find that he can’t. The market is tougher on Persephone than he thought. We accept Omar’s price and pocket the 200. We get that monthly maintenance done—Rina does exceptionally well and manages a few tricks that actually brings the price of the maintenance down for that month by nearly 10 percent.
Friday, 11 Nov 2518
Kore, Eavesdown Docks
06:30 hrs, local time
Dr. Taylor arrives with her primate charges. Two orangutans and four gorillas, named Zira, Zaius, Cornelius, Maximus, Ursus, and Cocoa. Two of the gorillas are males. Taylor’s assistant is Cesar, a nervous, youngish, and fairly good-looking man. He sees to it that the cages—fairly large ones, but cages still—are loaded aboard on one of the upper-deck containers, and gets the animals settled in their journey. Rina helps Cesar load the animals aboard, lowering the container on the winch and wheeling them in. While she and Cesar are thus occupied, Christian assigns Taylor the last remaining passenger quarters and Cesar receives the last unoccupied crew quarters.
Taylor has brought the transport papers for the animals, properly signed and authorized, and hands them to Christian when he asks. She also pays us the agreed-upon 2000 credits up front.
We are short on just about everything and the 2000 credits fall into our grateful hands like manna from Heaven. Dear God, we can buy food now. Fuel. A paperback novel or two. Live like normal people again.
Actually, we go a little nuts. Seeing how Taylor has turned out to be so lucrative a passenger, we decide that perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss to make the ship more comfortable for future passengers, netting us more money. Amenities like the aforementioned paperbacks as well as a few board and card games for the passenger lounge make a welcome addition to our stores.
As do 210 days’ worth of food, which Christian straightaway stows in our food locker and walk-in. Mind, we’ve got an 18-19 day journey ahead of us with nine human mouths to feed out of that 210 days’ worth of food…but it’s good food. We may yet avoid eating the paste til after we arrive at Lassek. A little variety on the table does wonders for morale during the long stretches.
Other purchases toward our comfort include a weight bench and exercise equipment for the crew lounge. If we’re going to be encountering the rough and tumble on a regular basis, we’re going to have to maintain ourselves in good physical condition in order to meet it. Rina is particularly pleased—she’s missed working out and worries about losing her tone. And as long as she’s settling things, she gives Christian her tailored tunic outfit toward the general ship’s stores—she owes Nika the 26 credits it took to make it and since no one’s been paid out of their ships’ shares yet, due to lack of revenue, this at least puts in something of value toward what she owes. Nika totally waves it off, of course, but Rina’s got her own set of books to keep and they are meticulously maintained.
Arden and Christian discuss something else of importance to the crew—we’ve enough money now to actually buy an operating theatre module. Even better, it’s something we can have installed in the old Captain’s quarters. Just have it brought aboard and we’ll slide it right in. The fitting will have to be finessed once we get underway, but it shouldn’t be anything outside Rina’s ability to accomplish. The purchase is agreed upon and arrangements are made for delivery and installation. We are now going to have a proper med-bay for Arden, and he’ll be able to work as a proper doctor again. Much happiness is coming from that end of the corridor.
Meanwhile, as Rina is helping Cesar set up and bolt down all the monitoring equipment for the animals, running leads and wires and the what-not, the assistant takes her aside and, checking to see they aren’t being overheard by man or beast, passes on some advice. She’s noticed he’s a little twitchy, enough that she empathizes with the man, and she leans in close to catch what he has to say.
Cesar: (whispers) Don’t spend too much time around them. They’ll get into your head. They’re making us do this.
And he points surreptitiously to the gorillas.
You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.
Rina manages to keep her opinion behind her teeth, thanks the man seriously, and goes back to work, and tries not to listen to all the internal alarms Cesar has set to ringing. Apes? Mind Control? Ridiculous. She eyes the animals as she runs her leads and plugs them in. Still… There might be something to his claim and on the chance that he may be right, Rina resolves to inform Nika and the crew as soon as possible.
Better safe than sorry.
Jump to:
Back to Season One: Foundations
Back to EPISODES
Back to Mutineers Homepage
