RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 HEADS WILL ROLL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 - HEADS WILL ROLL

By Steven Novak

Scattered around you are the bodies of the Martians you’ve just dispatched, their normally gray fresh singed and burnt from the blasts of your laser pistol. The room smells like a barbeque. It smells like day old fried chicken.

It smells oddly delicious.

In ten seconds the Janitor King or the reinforcements for the corpses sprawled at your feet, or possibly both, will undoubtedly come rushing through the door. Your first thought is to use the light transporter that brought you here in the first place to get the hell out. It’s a perfectly reasonable plan. It makes complete sense. Plus it would be easy. It’s also the best chance you have for survival. It’s exactly the kind of plan you would have jumped at fifteen minutes ago.

Too bad this isn’t fifteen minutes ago.

Things have changed dramatically since the former “King” of Mars asked you to come with him and allowed you to log into his data cube. You aren’t the same person that woke up buried beneath Malloy’s underpants just twenty-four hours ago. You aren’t the same confused and fearful schmuck just trying to survive.

Sure, you still don’t fully understand what’s going on, but you think you might have the answers tucked safely into the pouch around your waist. You’re done running and you’re through being scared. If the bodies of the chicken-smelling Martian corpses at your feet prove anything at all, it’s that whoever is about to burst into the room should be scared of you, not the other way around.

Kneeling down, you snag a second pistol from one of the Martian corpses, and then a third from another. You grab a nearby rifle and toss it over your shoulder as well as a few percussion grenades, and a laser-knife – which you slide into the loop on your belt. After arming two of the still smoking pistols you point them at the still-closed door. Let them come and get you. Let them try. It’s about time you stopped searching for answers like an idiot and started trying to make some instead.

It’s time you grew a pair.

What comes next is mostly a blur. A group of Martian reinforcements blasts their way into the room and starts firing. Your body moves even before your mind has time to formulate anything remotely resembling a plan or a maneuver. This is muscle memory at its finest and most dangerous.

In no time at all the room has become a mass of laser beams, wild debris and billowing clouds of grayish black smoke. You’re sliding, and firing, and spinning, all while shooting holes in the chests of the attacking Martians at an astounding rate. One of the Martian guards manages to get close enough to take a swing at you with a four foot long laser-sword. You dodge the wild strike by dropping low and blast a hole in his stomach with one of your pistols.

Your other pistol takes off his head.

You’re moving too fast for the Martians to handle – your shots are too precise. Behind you something explodes. A severed Martian arm smacks you in the back of the head. A fiery torso slides across the bloody floor beside you, spinning like a top and spraying blood in every direction like a sprinkler. You ignore it.

As the Martians begin retreating into the hallway outside the room, you instinctively follow. They aren’t getting off that easily. No one is getting off so easily – not with you – not ever again.

Hoisting the corpse of one of your attackers into the air, you use the Martian’s body as a makeshift shield and continue to press forward. With your free hand you start firing into the crowd of reinforcements crammed into the tight quarters of the hallway. Though it’s difficult to get an accurate count through the smoke and the noise and the explosions, you think there might be thirty of them.

A Martin head explodes like a balloon inflated just a bit too far. A chunk of Martian brain bounces off the side of your ear like a NERF ball soaked in cottage cheese.

Better make that twenty-nine.

It takes you less than ten minutes to dispatch the remaining twenty-nine Martian guards, and the fifteen or so that swarm in afterward. A half an hour after that and you find yourself holed up in a modestly sized room in one of the Martian slums on the outskirts of the colony. You rented the place under a false name and used some Zircons you stole from the uniform of one of the corpses during your firefight.

You’re nibbling on some dinner you purchased on the way over – it's chicken. The gunfight left you very hungry for chicken. Go figure.

With a bit of creative tinkering you manage to connect the data cube the Janitor King gave you to the room’s rather crummy and remarkably simplistic Martian Television set built into the wall. The thing is so old it doesn’t even offer a brain interface – so old you’re surprised it even turned on. There’s absolutely no reason these two things should ever work in conjunction with one another, but making them do exactly that seems almost laughably simple to you all of a sudden.

You chuckle audibly; a lot of things seem simpler these days.

In no way prepared for the sudden jolt of information, the viewing screen of the ancient television begins to hum as the contents of the cube pop onto the monitor. The interface of cube and this antiquated bit of Martian technology isn’t likely to last long, and when the circuits are fried both contraptions will likely be useless.

You only need a few minutes though – five at the most – five measly minutes and you’ll have your answers.

Moments before the firefight you were smart enough to transfer the contents of the NOSSA surveillance cameras to the data cube. You need to finish watching the video you started earlier.

You chuckle to yourself again. In a weird way the Janitor King was right – turns out it does hold the answers to all your questions.

Quickly coding the transmission to the night in question you watch the screen carefully and notice the all too familiar forms of Saleen and Malloy entering quietly into your quarters back on Earth. With a wild static-buzz the camera shifts to the room's interior and follows the pair as they make their way past your couch, into the kitchen, and then through the door leading to your sleeping quarters.

The screen turns to static once again.

The television you’ve interfaced with is starting to overheat. The information is far too large for it to handle. It’s falling apart quicker than you imagined.

It won’t last much longer.

The static on the screen morphs into a twisty distorted image that stretches dramatically, leaving the feet of Saleen and Malloy on one end of the screen and their heads on the other.

With one hand you smack the side of the Television with your palm, “Come on you piece of junk. Hold together for a minute more!” Instantly the image clears.

You can hardly believe what you’re seeing.

Saleen and Malloy look to be standing alongside your bed. Not only that, but you’re standing right beside them – at least the you that’s dressed in black with dark make-up smeared across your face.

Even weirder than that is the fact that there seems to be another you lying sound asleep beneath the covers.

Like shaking a Frisbee loose from a tree, or the act of smacking that last bit of ketchup from the bottom of the jar, the bizarre image knocks loose the confused memories hidden previously within the folds of your brain. Immediately everything comes flooding back.

You’re not you.

You were never you.

Before the television screen overheats and fizzles out with a puff of smoke, you watch as Malloy fires a laser pistol at the you that’s snuggled under the covers with a stupid grin on your face. The blast opens a hole in your chest so large there’s barely a chest remaining when it’s over.

You were the secret weapon all along.

It all makes sense now. It’s all so clear. That’s why Big Boob Bob seemed to feel such a kinship with you. That’s why he was always winking at you and smiling knowingly. That’s why Malloy was so pissed and confused when you escaped. That’s why your memories have felt so disjointed, and uneven, and distant - they aren't even your memories.

You’re not an accountant. You were never an accountant.

They used the likeness of the accountant to get you into NOSSA and onto the transport to Mars.

Lifting your hand to your face you watch as it begins to morph into a shimmering, slimy blob of gelatinous goo. A moment later it transforms yet again into something more closely resembling a Martian hand, and then again into its original form.

You’re not you.

You’re nobody.

You’re a machine that’s gone haywire – an overheated television that’s burnt out.

The plan was for you to assassinate president Womack with the help of Bob, and then the pair of you – and a few others like you – would replace the Martian presidential cabinet and take over rule of the planet.

The plan failed.

They tried to use you. They tried to turn you into something you apparently had no interest in becoming.

No, you’re not you. You’re everybody. You’re anybody you want to be. And you’re going to make them pay.

Less than a week later, back on Earth, Tan’s body washes up in the sewage system underneath NOSSA headquarters. A day afterward Richardson’s laser blast-riddled corpse is discovered in stretched out in his bedroom. Only fourteen hours after that Saleen’s Amazonian-esque body is found stuffed into her modest locker in the NOSSA training center. Quite a few bones were broken and rearranged in order to get her in there, and it takes a day and a half and a laser-cutter to get her out. Only a day afterward, the NOSSA headquarters are burned to the ground. An investigation brings to light the fact that the company was neck deep into illegal experiments with Mutagenic Cell Alteration – which in layman’s terms means you.

A month later Malloy’s body is discovered in seedy hotel down south. He knew you were after him and had been on the run for some time.

While staring down at the corpse the investigating officer pulls the bed sheets covering him away from his body and is taken aback for a minute by what he sees.

He calls over the first officer onto the scene, “Was he like this when you found him?”

“Yep, exactly.”

“What the hell happened to his junk?”

“Dunno…guess someone cut it off.”

THE END.

RETURN TO CHAPTER 1

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - BACK TO THE NOSSA VESSEL

By M.J. Heiser

You realize in a startling moment of clarity that none of the crap that’s happened to you since you woke up in Malloy’s locker is any of your business. What is your business is the stuff that happened on the ship. You have to get back to the NOSSA vessel, ASAP, get to the bottom of these shenanigans.

President Womack is just going to have to deal with your reluctance to play hero today.

You march with purpose to the wall that somehow conceals the transporter the Janitor King used to bring you both to this weird office on Mars. You show no hesitation in manipulating the control panel – after all, you’ve just proven to be a whiz at hacking through interplanetary computer defense programs. You smile to yourself as the wall of white light and energy appears in front of you, and with a single-minded determination, you move into the light.

Unfortunately, Whiz Kid, you maybe should have taken an extra minute at the control panel. After all, the last person to manipulate it was the Janitor King, and he had it set to transport one Earthling and one Martian. You overlooked that one control, and it’s leading your body through unfortunate contortions through space and time.

You never make it back to the NOSSA vessel. Instead, for the next several months leading to your gruesome death, you’re going to have to deal with being stretched, pushed, pulled, and contorted like so much organic-material taffy – and you’ll spend every day of that time wishing you’d just played the hero.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 10

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 HACKING OFF ALONE

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.10 - HACKING OFF ALONE

By M.J. Heiser

Possibilities swirl through your mind. You can't help yourself from a fleeting desire to know exactly what it was that led to this -- specifically, how in the hell did you end up in Malloy's locker, anyway? The only memory you have from just before that moment was a normal one, of slipping under the sheets in your quarters, glancing at the TID (time information device), and taking a deep drink out of a bottle of water next to your bed . . .

"I really need an answer if the plan is going to work," the Janitor King says, a tone of strained patience in his voice.

"You say this thing has all the answers," you say to him, lifting the datacube slightly in your left hand. A beam of white light catches a corner of the crystal-like material, and the light splinters into a prism.

"It has all the answers a human would need," the Martian answers politically.

"You didn't answer my question. Does it have everything?"

"What are you getting at?"

"You're asking me to take part in yet another conspiracy. I don't like conspiracies. I like the thought that by agreeing, I could save both of our worlds, but what if I'm being played for a sucker? That's been happening to me a lot lately. I don't want to be involved in a murder, no matter how deserving the target is, if I'm being lied to."

The Janitor King smiles at you. "Quite understandable, and a quality anyone would desire in their leader."

You roll your eyes. "Save the political bullshit, okay? I just want to know that I'm getting the real deal out of this." Once again you heft the datacube. "I want to see what's on this."

"Very well," the Martian says, rising from his desk and offering you his seat. "Use my terminal."

You sit down. The chair is obviously designed for the unusual ergonomic needs of a Martian body, but you hope you don't have to use it for long. Naturally, you're familiar with the terminal setup, and you slide the datacube into a notch right above your lap. A holographic screen appears in front of you. Electrons swarm into a recognizable graphic interface, and you're offered an option to view the contents of the datacube in either Martian or Human English.

You turn back to the Janitor King, annoyed that he's standing over you. "Do you mind?"

He looks startled. "What?"

"I want to be alone with this."

"Why?"

You sigh. "Because you may be hiding some tricks up your sleeve. Maybe you've preprogrammed the terminal to show me some really impressive stuff that isn't on the datacube. Maybe you have a dagger and you'll stab me if I look at the wrong thing. It doesn't matter. I want to see what's really on the cube, and I don't want you here."

He's obviously disappointed, and you wonder if you don't sense a bit of outrage coming off of him -- but he nods. He can't do otherwise. Your logic is sound. "Very well, but how do I know you won't make a copy of the information and abandon my proposal?"

He has a point, damn it. He seems prepared to concede your condition, so you know you have to be willing to concede his. "What if I promised you that if what I'm looking for is on this cube, I will gladly go along with your plan?"

A smile spreads on his strange, but noble, face. He nods. "Will 20 Earth-minutes be sufficient?"

"Yes."

"I will return shortly," he says. He may have been surprised and a bit shocked by your desire to see this thing alone, but he's leaving. There's a chance there's good stuff on the datacube after all.

You reach out and touch the electron surface of the screen and choose to view the contents of the cube in English. A directory opens in front of you, listing options for Agriculture, Space Travel and Exploration, Mathematical Theory, Physics, and Women. Your eyes grow wide at the potential knowledge spread in front of you, but you have time only for a cursory glance through the subdirectories in the Agriculture and Women sections (topics include "Growing a field of wheat on a cup of water" and "How to answer the question Do I Look Fat in This?") before you abandon the cube altogether and head instead for a root menu in the terminal.

After all, the one question you want answered right now can't be answered by the datacube containing the Martian equivalent of the Book of Life. You want to know what happened to you.

You hack into the Martian Overworld databank and cross your fingers. If the Martians were as smart as they claim, then they would have hacked into NOSSA's systems for some interplanetary spying. You hit paydirt in less than a minute. You hold your breath and route an encrypted tether from the Overworld systems into the NOSSA surveillance camera files. You're sloppy, but it doesn't matter. You'll be done in less than 15 minutes. You code the transmission back to the night you remember, falling asleep in your own bed, and you switch on the feed from the camera positioned in the hall outside your quarters. You fast forward through the speedy commerce of neighbors heading to bed and rising for work and sneaking bed partners into their rooms. You take special note of the time you would normally be leaving your room to head to work yourself.

There is no activity from your door. You watch anxiously until all of your accountant neighbors have headed off to the great desk farm, and just when you think you must have fast-forwarded past something important, you notice something very strange.

You see yourself, and the image before you makes your blood run cold. It's you, undeniably so, but you're wearing something you've never seen before, a black mercenary's smock and a face of black paint. Your movements are quick and graceful, but there's no mistaking the fear in your eyes as you look around you and access your quarters.

You rewind a few times, watching this other You move like a scared cat and go inside the room. You're just getting used to the idea that either you have a twin or you've been up to some really strange shenanigans when you notice two more figures approaching your room. They're beyond suspicious -- they're familiar. Saleen and Malloy are making sure they're alone in the hall before accessing your quarters and slipping inside.

A loud noise startles you out of your focus, and with a few deft gestures, you log off of the terminal and yank the datacube from the slot. The door to the Janitor King's office flies open, and a squadron of at least a dozen armed Martian toughs enters the room. To your distress, you realize their weapons are drawn and their faces are shielded behind gas masks.

"Step away from the terminal," warns one of the toughs, gesturing at you with his raised laser rifle.

"Yeah, sure, of course," you say, and you step sideways and out from behind the desk. You shoot an accusing look at the terminal, and too late, you realize the Janitor King must have activated a remote-monitoring system. Stupid, stupid, stupid! you think to yourself.

"You are under arrest for accessing confidential Martian Overworld systems," the armored tough-guy intones gravely.

"Great," you reply. "Just half an hour ago I was going to rule the world."

"You will be executed 30 Earth minutes from now."

"What?" Your breathing has stopped. Maybe your heart has too.

"You are not on Earth. You are on Mars. Our systems of justice are a little different. All the evidence we need has been recorded and will be transmitted to your embassy after your execution."

He's smug, and you're terrified. The thing is, you've been terrified for nearly a solid 24 hours now, and you can't bear any more. It feels like a fabric inside you has been growing thinner and thinner, and it finally gives way and releases the animal lurking just below the surface.

"I don't think so," you say, your voice coming out in a silky purr.

The Martian tough guy freezes. "I beg your pardon?"

"You should," you say. "My name is Wallace, and I'm a trained assassin."

The Martian is quick, but you're quicker. He blasts a shot of laser energy at you, and you lift the data cube and let the shot hit the angled corner of the storage device. You know from your training what will happen next, and you're deeply gratified to see the laser split into multiple rays. The prismatic components of the laser are unstable, and they're capable of piercing Martian armor, which they do. Martians fall all around you, including the leader. Only five remain, and you make quick work of the stupidly surprised survivors with your own laser pistol, catching each of them at the joint of the armor between neck and shoulder.

You blow a theatrical breath over the barrel of the laser gun and tuck it away, then stow the datacube with its intact contents into a pouch at your waist. You have maybe 10 seconds to consider your options before either the Janitor King or the Martian guards' reinforcements arrive.

Will You...

A. Run out of the office with twin laser pistols blazing?

B. Use the light transporter to return to either carry out or prevent an assassination?

C. Use the light transporter to return to the NOSSA vessel to track down answers?

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.6 THE SHUTTLE TO NANDITZ

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH. 6 - JUMP ON THE SHUTTLE TO NANDITZ

By JA Souders

Malloy, Saleen, and Peter Tan step from the pod and you panic. You know it’s only a matter of time before they find that blob of a shape-shifter and they come looking for you.

And once they find out you know they plan on killing the president, that’s exactly where they’ll expect you to go. Not. An. Option.

So that leaves following them and trying to play hero. Or jumping on the shuttle to Nanditz and hoping someone there can help you. You decide you’ve never been much of a hero anyway, and take the shuttle.

The only problem with that plan is that the trio hasn’t moved from the pods, and the shuttles are in their final boarding calls. You don’t have a choice. You have to risk it. You rip off the security shirt and try to sneak as quietly as possible behind them to the shuttle pod.

Unfortunately, just at that moment, a little girl with bright yellow pigtails runs into you. You apologize with the intent to keep moving, but she squeals, a high-pitched yell that pierces your eardrums.

“Mommy, mommy look! It’s Smelvis! Can I have your autograph, Smelvis?” She shoves a notebook and pen into your hand.

You groan and wonder how this girl has mistaken you for Smelvis. You look nothing like the alien performer; for one thing, you’re not purple.

You quickly dash off a signature, hope that the trio didn’t notice the girl’s outburst, and push past her to the shuttle.

Just as you’re about to step onto the shuttle, a hand grabs your arm and twirls you around. You're facing Malloy.

He sneers at you. “What’s your hurry, Smelvis? Your fans want your autograph.”

He tugs on your arm and the shuttle doors close.

All you can think as he pulls you through the crowd is that you’re in for it now. But to your surprise, he only shoves you into another shuttle. Saleen is doing something at the controls.

Malloy and Peter Tan tie you up like a hog at a greased pig contest and then secure you to the seat, so there’s no way you can escape. Not that you’re not trying. The ropes bite into your skin as you struggle, but it’s a no go.

Someone had obviously paid attention during rope tying at the academy. Something you wish you had done instead of drinking your way through.

The trio smiles and Saleen wiggles her fingers as they leave the pod. Your stomach sinks.

There is no good reason they’re leaving.

You feel the minor vibrations of the shuttle leaving its dock and wonder where the hell it’s taking you.

You don’t wait long for your answer.

“We have reached…safe distance from planet…Orbiting mode initiated. Self-destruct sequence activated...Have a nice day! And thank you for using Red Planet Transport…

…5…4…3…2…1 . . ."

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 6

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.5 WALLACE, THE ASSASSIN

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CHAPTER 5 - WALLACE, THE ASSASSIN

By Tomara Armstrong

Saleen moves in slow motion toward the door; her long stride and gangly arms cut through the atmosphere like knives. You grab the bill of your cap and pull it down low on your brow, broaden your shoulders, and step into the shadows as Saleen opens the door.

“Captain,” she greets Malloy. “Feeling better?”

“Yes! I just heard on the radio… that ASSHOLE who damaged my goods is floating in the septic pool. Marinating… until someone is willing to fish the SLIME out.”

You see Malloy smile, probably for the first time ever, as he plops down on the leather sofa in the middle of the room. “Ugh,” he grunts; he then grimaces and rubs his junk.

You close your eyes and try not to laugh, but your shuffling feet draws Malloy’s gaze.

“There you are,” Malloy grunts. You give him an exaggerated nod. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on the transport headed to Cydonia!”

You look at Saleen. She shakes her head,.“The conference starts in a few days, and the world’s leaders should have already started checking in.”

You wipe your hands on your pants, nod, and begin to make your way to the door.

“Hold it!” Malloy demands. You freeze, staring at the door a mere five feet away. With a deep breath, you pull your cap down lower and spin around to face the captain. “Good luck, soldier.” You nod, swing around equally fast and practically sprint out the door.

As you tunnel through the labyrinth of halls and corridors, you see a couple of people dressed in the same uniform you have recently acquired. “Hey,” you say to them. “I… uh… was assaulted by that intruder… was knocked out... I can’t remember how to get to the transport.”

They point to the right and you take off down the corridor, following the bend. There are three transport cradles, but only one pod door is open. As you close in on it, the scanner reads Cydonia.

You step into your transport pod and red lights are flashing. You push the large green button to signal you’re present and ready for take-off with five minutes to spare. You stare at the lights and whirling gizmos of the control panel and try to absorb all of the information you’ve just been given.

You are apparently on your way to Cydonia to assassinate some world leader, and you have no idea who it is. You can’t even fly a transport. You start to laugh and shake your head, “Me, an assassin.”

“Pretty funny, huh?”

You jump as you notice a man that resembles your Uncle Ernie buckled into a seat in your pod. He’s eating potato chips and has a trail of crumbs and grease down the front of his grey sweatshirt. “Uh,” you fumble.

“Yeah you don’t look like an assassin to me either.” He tips the yellow bag on its side and pours the remnants of greasy potatoes into his mouth. “But that’s ok… we can help each other out,” he crunches.

You continue to stare at him as he dusts his hands off on his sweatshirt and extends one toward you. “I’m Bob.”

You take his salty hand, “Hi, Bob. I’m…. I’m …” You’re trying to remember who you’re pretending to be, but you’re drawing a blank.

“Wallace, I know… The assassin.” He digs in the bag beside him on the floor. The doors lock, and the pod lights begin flashing again.

“So I’m the assassin. You are… the pilot?”

“Nope.” He pops the cap on a Diet Coke and takes a long swig. “Auto pilot. You should buckle up.”

“Oh.” You sit down and strap yourself into the seat next to Bob, still wondering about his role in this mission. You watch as he digs around in his bag.

“I’m the secret weapon,” he says as he continues to dig.

“Come again?”

He turns and looks at you with a seriousness you hadn’t noticed before. There’s a flicker in his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitches. “I’m… the secret weapon,” he says.

Bob smiles as his face melts into an unrecognizable blob. His body shifts, twists, and turns, settling into the lovely form of Saleen; dark eyes, big hands, and all. She winks at you and quickly molds back into regular old Bob. “Oh,” you mouth as Bob returns to his bag on the floor.

“Parcheesi?” He produces a board game and sets it up between the two of you. “We have about half an hour until we land on Mars’ surface. I’m blue… you?”

“Uh… green.”

Bob is very good at this game, and in the 25 minutes you have been in the pod, he is one roll away from winning the whole thing.

“Bob, is there a plan? I have a bit of a head injury… it’s coming back to me… slowly,” you lie.

Bob laughs. “We should be docking at Cydonia Mensae soon. We have a room booked at the Hilton, but we will have to take a shuttle into the city from the dock.”

You nod and consider your possibilities of escape. You are no assassin, so that option is definitely out . . . but what about Bob? How can you ditch this guy? If you ditch him, will he go and finish the job?

You don’t get the chance to think about it too long; the pod begins to slow and bumps to a stop. The hatch opens and the cab lights begin to blink red, signaling your arrival. “Welcome… to Mars,” a female voice booms over the loudspeaker, “Remember dock number 4-5-3-7-1 Cydonia Mensae. Grab a drink at… the Terminal, get your Martian souvenirs at… The Hot Spot… Refuel at…. The --”

“Let’s go,” Bob pushes past with his bag over his shoulder, “I need a drink.”

“Me too.”

“First I need to take a leak.” Bob heads toward the men’s room. “I’ll be right back.”

You look around the dock, trying to come up with a plan.

Will you...

A. Run. No plan, just go-now!

B. Grab a drink with Bob and challenge him to a drinking contest in hope of getting him drunk and ditching him?

C. Go along with Bob. Enjoy a free hotel stay at Cydonia's luxurious Hilton - you need a vacation, so let NOSSA's corrupt pony up while you figure out how to be the hero?

RED PLANET STOWAWAY - CH 1. MALLOY'S JUNK

CHAPTER 1: MALLOY'S JUNK

By Steven Novak

As you open your eyes you notice the air is stuffier than you last remembered it. It smells worse too – like old socks and cheese – an old sock sandwich. Your head is throbbing and when you reach up to rub the sorest area you discover a lump the size of a golf ball hidden underneath your hair.

What the hell happened? You can’t recall.

Your memory is currently hazier than your eyesight – which is pretty god damn hazy. While attempting to pull your coiled limbs into something resembling a natural sitting position, you notice three haphazardly hung spacesuits dangling just above your head. Scattered in a heap across from you are matching boots, dome-shaped glass helmets, and slightly soiled undergarments.

It’s a storage locker – you’re in a storage locker.

What the hell are you doing in storage locker?

You try to recall the circumstances leading to your waking up locked in a closet next to some flyboy’s dirty laundry, and again you fail. The knot on your head is throbbing painfully on your skull and pressing it against the squishy gray matter underneath. Using the wall behind you as a brace, you eventually manage to hoist yourself into a standing position with a breathy grunt. That’s when you notice the nametag on the breast pocket of the enamel colored spacesuit directly across from you – Capt. Harper Malloy.

Not Malloy - anyone but Malloy.

What the hell are you doing in Malloy’s closet?

Again you try to remember anything – anything at all before waking up. It’s not working. There’s a memory there – a frustrating, annoying snippet of information that you just can’t seem to grab onto. If it were a person you’d punch it in the face.

Unfortunately it’s just a memory and memories have no faces to punch.

“So what’s the plan Captain?”

The voice comes from somewhere outside of your darkened locker. It’s male and it sounds vaguely familiar.

Deep, and gravelly, and beefy in a way that conjures up images of the slimy floor of some unclean slaughterhouse, the voice that responds is undeniable. It belongs to Malloy. “Well, we sure as shit didn’t come here to make any friends, did we Richardson? Those sons of bitches in Washington want us to make nice with our new gray-skinned friends? Nuts to that. I’ve got all the friends I need. Fuck the president's orders…I don’t trust those bastards as far as I can toss 'em.”

Richardson? Lt. Jack Richardson of the Mars IV project?

What are Richardson and Malloy doing together? What are they talking about?

The welt on your head throbs angrily. Wincing in pain you reach up and press back at it in frustration. This succeeds only in causing you further pain.

There’s another voice coming from outside. It’s a bit softer, a bit more feminine. A servo or a gyro, or something mechanical whirs up from behind the wall you’re leaning against and you can no longer make out what Richardson, Malloy and the yet unidentified person outside are babbling about. After carefully maneuvering past the spacesuits and over Malloy’s underpants, you press your ear against the cold steel door. The damn whirring is still too loud. The voices are muffled and confusing, running together, and not making an ounce of sense.

You need some answers.

The knot underneath your hair is pulsing in tune with your quickening heartbeat – testing not only your pain threshold, but your patience as well.

You need to know what’s going on.

Gently you wrap your hand around the door handle in front of you and press downward. The clicking of the lock is louder than you anticipated and you curse yourself silently while hoping the whirring from behind is loud enough to muffle it. Dropping to one knee in the pile of Malloy’s unmentionables you peek through the newly formed crack just in time to see a dark skinned woman you’ve never met and someone that looks vaguely like mission specialist Peter Tan disappear through a doorway on far end of the narrow room. Though Richardson is nowhere to be found, you spot Malloy standing with his back to you watching them leave. Once they’ve gone, he pushes a button on the wall next to the open door and it slides shut with a hiss.

The “room” is barely a room at all – more like a hallway really – long and narrow with a ceiling just under eight feet high. Built into either side are rows of compartments – some closed, some open, each stuffed to the brim with various tubes, boxes, levers, and other such mechanical things of which you know nothing about. Though you’ve worked at the National Outer Space Studies Administration (NOSSA) for years, you’ve spent all of those years as a low-level button masher. Numbers are your game –specifically accounting. You don’t know the difference between a Hydraulic Actuator and Self-Locking Stem-Bolt, and you have no idea what either of them does. In fact, you can’t help but think both of them look remarkably similar to something you might find adorning the walls at an adult sex shop.

“Fucking Martians…” Malloy grumbles to himself from beneath his massively bushy tuft of gray facial hair. “Alliance indeed…think again, you bastards.”

With an annoyed sigh you watch as Malloy snags the thin fabric of his slightly stained t-shirt, lifts it up and over his head, then tosses it onto a small cushioned sitting area to his right. His body is a mass of deflated old-man muscles. His skin is leathery and wrinkled – covered in coarse gray hair so thick it almost looks like he’s wearing a jacket.

The man is a bear – an enormous, sweaty disgusting bear sporting a human bodysuit three sizes too small.

Your brain whispers the word “gross,” but gross hardly does Malloy any justice.

A moment later things get even grosser as Malloy reaches down and drops his pants.

Naked and droopy in ways that are bound to haunt your dreams for years to come, Malloy and his gray-haired genitals are now lumbering in your direction. He’s looking for a fresh change of clothes and he’s heading for the storage locker – the storage locker in which you’re currently hiding. He’s less then ten feet away. Within a matter of seconds ten becomes eight, and then quickly drops to six. A few more steps and he’ll find you.

A few more steps and you’re as good as dead.

What will you do?

A. Bury yourself beneath Malloy's underpants, hold your breath and hope for the best?

B. Shove the door open with all your might and slam it into Malloy -- When he wobbles, kick him in the junk and run as fast as you can?

C. Try your best to explain the situation to Malloy while stripping naked yourself, hoping it will make him feel less intimidated?

IT'S COMING...