Augh… Fenton groaned. This headache is killing him. It’s the first time he woke up like this. It won’t be the last either. The Calton Rum hit him harder than his father did when he was young. Fenton grabbed his head and supported his way into his office. He knew this day would be worse than the last. And hopefully, this could be fixed with a morning beer or some cheap cigarette he smuggled before take off.
Before he could reach his office, he managed to bump Captain Jake along the way. He’s carrying something. A black plastic bag with a poking glass bottle. Fenton knew what those are. Those are his booze! Fucker tried to steal it from him.
“Hey! That’s mine.”
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Kaz told me he saw you bringing things before we took off.” Jake raised the bag and wriggled it, clinking the glass bottles inside. “My suspicions are right. You’ve been bringing alcohol to the ship again. You know these are illegal, right?”
Fenton couldn’t believe himself. Since when did alcohol become illegal. Just because he’s the captain, it doesn’t mean he could say whatever law that comes in that cavernous mind of his. “We are in space buddy. You can’t impose your planet’s law here.”
“Apparently, I can. We are in a Pangaean Ship and according to Article 3 Section 65, no personnel under 30 can have Class 4 Alcohol or higher contraband. Not to mention, you’ve brought cigarettes which can cause a serious fire in the ship. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take this to the Airlock. Also, I need to remind you again. Take a bath. The twins reported that you stink of alcohol and cigarette for days.”
“Augghhh… Fine. Tell the twins that they stink of motor oil and sweat too.”
“Noted.”
Fenton slammed the door behind him. He couldn’t believe it before, he still couldn’t believe it now. This day just keeps getting worse and worse. His things which cost him all his Poker wins are all gone, flushed out into space. Also, he stinks. It’s not his fault the booze kept him sane enough for this camp. And it’s not his fault they smelled him. Who does that? Well, Fenton is a bit guilty of it.
The place was cleaner than Fenton expected. The captain is a clean freak who wants everything to be perfect. He even dusted the shelves and arranged the bookcase in alphabetical order. The room would be perfect if not for the empty case where his booze is hidden. At least the jerk didn’t confiscate his joint. He hopes.
Fenton pushed a particular spot in his desk, and a compartment popped out above. That’s where his Soul Pipe lies hidden. It’s a colorful tube that glows in the dark, and it’s one of the remaining links he has to his family in Phantasmagoria. The Soul Pipe is passed down from generation to generation. A family keepsake of the Jones Family for thousands of years. They say it is a magical artifact waiting for its rightful owner in the Jones lineage. The look of his family when Fenton turned it into a bong was priceless.
High above his office drawer is a box Fenton hid from common sight. It contained something better than alcohol or cigarettes. He hid it behind a picture of him when he was young. But when Fenton grabbed for it, the familiar touch of the rough cardboard was gone. He used a chair to push him higher and looked for the stupid box. Instead, he found a note saying,
“Don’t look for it.”
The fucker! What’s he supposed to do now? Just sit and wait for people to fuck around and come screaming into his office? Then he would say some cringe advice and all goes well in the end. Then he would wait for the same thing till this ship reaches its destination and he would do the same thing next year. It’s what he signed up for but it’s so boring.
Fenton laid his head on the desk and played with the soul pipe his family treasured for how many goddamn years. As he was rolling it around, he noticed the pipe was glowing. It only glows a faint green when it’s dark. Now, it’s glowing green, then yellow, red and then green again. The design seems to be rotating and dancing in an intricate and rhythmic pattern.
“Am I already high?” Fenton asked himself. Maybe this whole day has been some hallucination or just a fucked up dream from drinking too much alcohol? Maybe he’s still back in Pangaea, in some back alley bar. He pinched himself to find out but all that happened is a prickling pain in his stomach.
“Fuck! This is real.”
He can’t find an explanation of why the pipe is moving and changing from his very eyes. It’s not hologram nor any hard-light construct. Maybe some drugs got stuck inside and it released the concoction of fumes when he played it around. Maybe? Fenton isn’t sure. He stuck the pipe up his nose and smelled if there was indeed some wad of drugs stuck in there but all he could smell is the pepper-like smell of the pipe. The smell tickled his nose and suddenly, Fenton sneeze. Air gushed out of his nose and into the pipe. As this was happening, Fenton felt like his consciousness was being pulled out of his body and congesting in his nose. His view and every experienced condensed in the pipe that soon glowed brighter every second.
The pipe released a screeching sound which suddenly died down when a voice suddenly boomed in Fenton’s mind.
“No viable target,” the metallic voice said. “No viable target,” it said once more.
“Viable target?” Fenton asked. “What do you mean inner voice?”
But no reply came. Fenton could only stare at the pipe that remained glowing in his hand.
“What do you mean?” Fenton screamed. And like before, no reply came. Fenton wiped the snot in the pipe hole and blew a gasp of air inside. The voice rang inside his head, saying the same message as before. Fenton aimed at his desk, his cup, the empty beer bottle in the trash, his unwashed boxers hanging at the back of the door but the same message said the same thing as an echo.
“This thing needs a target, but what kind of target?” Fenton thought for a second, and for a few times in his life, he made the old brain work. An idea came to mind when he realized, this needs a living breathing target. Fenton chooses…