Lester slid the door shut behind him and locked it. The last thing he needed was a nosy redneck poking his head in and asking what the red button did. Lester didn't need the distraction and he certainly didn't need the stench of certain crewmembers that felt that bathing with any frequency was a sign of weakness. If any piloting needed to get done, someone could knock first.
Lester slid into the pilot’s seat and fiddled with a few dials, running a few tests.
Orchid arched her back and stretched out her legs before crawling back under the stairwell. Having spent a few minutes exploring the ship that she had been on for six days now, she had come across a cortex card and monitor that someone had just left out to find; by her standards anyway. The ship was right on schedule for Persephone. Listening for any sounds, she flipped open the monitor device and found "Underdog's" frequency. Unwrapping and popping a pop sucker into her month, another thing that she found while exploring, she connected to the frequency and crossed her toes for luck.
Somewhere across the expanse of inky blackness, a light went off on the console next to Lester. A wave, and not from an ID he recognized. He clicked accept, and a girls face appeared onscreen.
Lester blinked. He expected someone hairier, or more unpleasant. Or both. He waited for her to introduce herself.
Orchid blinked her blue eyes a few times to make sure she was seeing the screen correctly. she hadn't expected the wave to work for another day or so. Licking her now dark red lips, she pulled the sucker out of her mouth and smiled. "Hey, is Timmy around?" she asked as her hand went up to twirl one of her pigtails.
"Who?"
"Timmy. Tall, beefy, bit of an idiot, but he has brown hair and blue eyes. Last name Weiss."
"Oh. You mean the captain. Yes, he's around. Would you like me to connect you?"
"You call him captain? I thought that was him living in his own fantasy realm again and talking nonsense." Orchid said as she giggled to herself. "Do you say please and thank you captain as well?"
"He doesn't pay me nearly enough to do that."
Orchid cups her mouth from laughing to loud for others to hear. "So what do they call you?"
"That depends on who's asking."
Orchid acts as if she was looking behind her and then back at the screen. "I was under the impression I was. Or were you searching for a name? Cause in that case I asked you first."
Lester smiled. She might be trying to kill him, or helping people who might, but that didn't make her unlikable. "Yes you did. But I can hang up on you and you wouldn't know who to name when you complained to Eli."
"Complain? Me? No, I would never. If anything I want to make Timmy's life harder versus the people around him" she shrugs as she pulls the sucker stick out of her mouth and blows a bubble. "So you call him Eli now. Hmm...that won't last long." Orchid smiles to herself and blows another bubble.
Lester leaned forward and made eye contact with the camera. "Look, either tell me who you are or I'm hanging up on you and programing the computer to stop accepting calls from your cortex address. Dong ma?"
"Well if you say it like that how could a girl resist. My name is Orchid, its nice to meet you..." Orchid pauses for a minute. "This is where your supposed to enter you name into the conversation."
"No," Lester countered, "this is the part of the conversation where you explain what that name's supposed to mean to me, or the part where I hang up."
"Well let's see Orchid is from the Greek word orchi, meaning "testicle". Never liked that aspect of my name much."
"Nice talking to you." Lester waved bye-bye with one hand and reached for the 'off' button with the other.
"Fine. I hate admitting it but you win. I'm..." Orchid gulped. "I'm Timmy's younger sister." Orchid shivered. "Don't make me say it again."
Lester had no reply to this.
"Yes, he IS human and has some family. Hard to believe, I know." Orchid sighed. "So does that buy me a name, or at least more time? Your finger is still over the 'off' button."
"I'm trying to decide you're lying. And if you are telling the truth, whether this makes me want to hang up on you more or less." Regardless of what he decided, he leaned back from the console. "It would explain a lot."
"Hey I can't pick my family. And there is no comparison between Timmy and I. Though he does act like a big vagina sometimes I have never the stomach to actually look for sure. I think I am going to start calling you Bob." Orchid placed her gum behind her ear and pulled out a fruity oaty bar to munch on. Another thing she found lying around.
"Nice to meet you." Even as Lester said it, he was surprised to find it was true.
"I'm glad to meet you Bob." Orchid smiled and brushed some crumbs from her shirt. "So last I heard you guys are headed to Persephone?"
Lester's bullshit radar pinged again. "And who told you that?"
"Mom... you’re a bit jumpy?"
He folded his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry. Your brother has a knack for making enemies, and no offense, but you haven't exactly presented me with a valid Ident Card, so I'm going to have to take your word."
"Yeah that's Timmy, never one to make friends. He used to play with himself as a kid and not in the thrilling fantasy wet outcome he does now... You could always just get him to know for sure."
Lester put a hand over his eyes, as if to futilely prevent the mental image she painted from permanently searing itself on his retinas. "I take it back. You are definitely his sister."
"I don't think that's a good thing. Dammit, now i have some self reflection and alterations to do." Orchid crossed her arms and pouted her lips.
"Or intensive gene therapy." Lester almost felt sorry for her.
"At least there is someone out there that understands, makes it a bit easier."
"Maybe you could join a support group. Do you have any siblings?"
Orchid pretended to sniffle and dropped her head. Pretending to brush a fake tear from her eye she choked up her voice, "No, unfortunately not."
Lester shrugged. "Dunno what to tell you then."
"So...Persephone?"
"Why do you need to know?"
"Well..." Orchid moved to her left to let Bob see her surrounding. "I am currently on a ship headed to Persephone to met up with what I hope is Timmy and make his life a living Hell. For my own amusement you know. And want to know if Mom had the right planet. If not this whole trip was bullshit."
"I take it your brother is utterly unaware of this?"
"Like most things in life and all woman and the location of a clit...yes. Or so his girlfriends say."
Lester had no response to this.
"Yeah...so." Orchid pulled out a bag of jelly beans and popped a couple into her mouth.
Lester wondered briefly where she was calling from, a candy shop? "You're kind of terrifying. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Terrifying?" Orchid thought for a moment. "No can't say anyone has, not to my face anyway. Why do you say that?"
"I'll make you a deal. If you promise to never, ever again mention to me anything about Eli's sexual habits or lack thereof, I will tell you where we're landing next." Lester thought for an additional second. "Also, you can never tell Eli we had this conversation. If you do, they'll never find your body."
"I can promise to 'attempt' to never mention Timmy's lack of performance in front of you. And anyways I was hoping to just drop in with him not knowing; my lips are sealed. Though they might wonder why I start calling you Bob on the ship."
"If the rest of the words out of your mouth are any indication, I doubt they'll question it."
"For all you know my name is Bob."
"All the more better." Orchid smiled with her eyes and pulled out a beer to kick back with her jelly beans.
"So if you don't want Eli to know you're coming, why did you try to call him?" Lester tried to gauge the girl's age. He wasn't quite sure she was old enough to drink beer.
"Well I didn't so much want to call him, versus just calling the ship. He is so lazy I knew he wouldn't be around in the cockpit. I was just asking for him to see if I got the right ship. Knowing him and his lack of creativity much less a brain "Underdog" was probably something he plagiarized." Orchid took another swag of beer and closed her eyes as she felt her body relax and absorb the alcohol. The contents of her stomach (a sucker, fruity oaty bar, and jelly beans) were no match to metabolize the beer. She blinked to keep Bob in focus.
"Are you alright?"
Orchid paused and snapped open her eyes. She had never been asked this before and it sounded odd when directed towards her. "Why do you ask?"
"You look..." Lester searched for the correct word. "... squiggy."
Orchid giggled at Bob's attempt to depict her. "Squiggy? What does squiggy mean?"
Honestly, Lester had no idea. "Um... not good. Noun. From the Latin."
"I see..." Orchid set the empty beer bottle down and popped open another.
"Well are you?"
"I'm ok. Bit cramped up but I'm breathing. How are you?"
Good question. Lester considered it carefully. "Squiggy."
Not good Orchid thought. Orchid suddenly become worried. "Is everything ok? Did something happen?"
"Honestly, you might want to consider going home."
Orchid put her head back in the shadow to prevent Bob from seeing her eyes well up with tears. " I can't," she said in a very leveled tone. "What happened?" Her voice was pleading to try and get Bob to explain.
This wasn't going well. Maybe he should have hung up on her. "Well... Your brother has a knack for finding trouble. Constantly. In droves. You're probably safer running off to join the circus. Not that I think you should join the circus."
Orchid started to catalog her hormones. 'Yep she should be starting her period tomorrow and the alcohol must be making the symptoms worse,' she thought. Not wanting to let Bob think she was a total loose screw she perked up quick. "I do have great balance and look at these legs. They are just asking for a leotard to show them off. Anyways don't worry about Timmy I'll whip him into shape even if I have to get one of those leather whips with jewels and metal accents."
On second thought, it was coming increasingly obvious to Lester that this chick was running away from the circus, and not towards it. And as usual, this girl had presented him with a statement for which there was no good response. Lester went with: "Ok."
"So where are the troops rallying?"
Torn between the sensation that he was about to do a very bad thing, and his intense desire to make Eli's life a sliver more painful, Lester sent her the coordinates. "If asked, you didn't get this from me."
Orchid smiled ear to ear. "Thank you Bob. I'll save a beer for you. Anything else you would like?"
An Orchid-to-English translator, he thought. "No... I'm good."
"You sure? I saw a purple plush dinosaur itching for a good home."
"Really. I'm good."
Orchid started to hear movement above her. "Gotta run, see you soon Bob."
Orchid's face blinked off the screen. The speakers let off a soft hiss as Lester powered off the screens and ducked back under the console. For several minutes, he didn't work at all, opting instead to take the scene in: A rat's nest of wires ran in and out of unlabeled panels of electronics and boxes. Many wires went no where at all, terminating it frayed ends that jutted out into the air like thorns on barbed wire. It was less a matter of figuring out what was wrong than why the ship was able to fly in the first place. It was a demoralizing sight.
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Lester slid the door shut behind him and locked it. The last thing he needed was a nosy redneck poking his head in and asking what the red button did. Lester didn't need the distraction and he certainly didn't need the stench of certain crewmembers that felt that bathing with any frequency was a sign of weakness. If any piloting needed to get done, someone could knock first.
Lester slid into the pilot’s seat and fiddled with a few dials, running a few tests.
Orchid arched her back and stretched out her legs before crawling back under the stairwell. Having spent a few minutes exploring the ship that she had been on for six days now, she had come across a cortex card and monitor that someone had just left out to find; by her standards anyway. The ship was right on schedule for Persephone. Listening for any sounds, she flipped open the monitor device and found "Underdog's" frequency. Unwrapping and popping a pop sucker into her month, another thing that she found while exploring, she connected to the frequency and crossed her toes for luck.
Somewhere across the expanse of inky blackness, a light went off on the console next to Lester. A wave, and not from an ID he recognized. He clicked accept, and a girls face appeared onscreen.
Lester blinked. He expected someone hairier, or more unpleasant. Or both. He waited for her to introduce herself.
Orchid blinked her blue eyes a few times to make sure she was seeing the screen correctly. she hadn't expected the wave to work for another day or so. Licking her now dark red lips, she pulled the sucker out of her mouth and smiled. "Hey, is Timmy around?" she asked as her hand went up to twirl one of her pigtails.
"Who?"
"Timmy. Tall, beefy, bit of an idiot, but he has brown hair and blue eyes. Last name Weiss."
"Oh. You mean the captain. Yes, he's around. Would you like me to connect you?"
"You call him captain? I thought that was him living in his own fantasy realm again and talking nonsense." Orchid said as she giggled to herself. "Do you say please and thank you captain as well?"
"He doesn't pay me nearly enough to do that."
Orchid cups her mouth from laughing to loud for others to hear. "So what do they call you?"
"That depends on who's asking."
Orchid acts as if she was looking behind her and then back at the screen. "I was under the impression I was. Or were you searching for a name? Cause in that case I asked you first."
Lester smiled. She might be trying to kill him, or helping people who might, but that didn't make her unlikable. "Yes you did. But I can hang up on you and you wouldn't know who to name when you complained to Eli."
"Complain? Me? No, I would never. If anything I want to make Timmy's life harder versus the people around him" she shrugs as she pulls the sucker stick out of her mouth and blows a bubble. "So you call him Eli now. Hmm...that won't last long." Orchid smiles to herself and blows another bubble.
Lester leaned forward and made eye contact with the camera. "Look, either tell me who you are or I'm hanging up on you and programing the computer to stop accepting calls from your cortex address. Dong ma?"
"Well if you say it like that how could a girl resist. My name is Orchid, its nice to meet you..." Orchid pauses for a minute. "This is where your supposed to enter you name into the conversation."
"No," Lester countered, "this is the part of the conversation where you explain what that name's supposed to mean to me, or the part where I hang up."
"Well let's see Orchid is from the Greek word orchi, meaning "testicle". Never liked that aspect of my name much."
"Nice talking to you." Lester waved bye-bye with one hand and reached for the 'off' button with the other.
"Fine. I hate admitting it but you win. I'm..." Orchid gulped. "I'm Timmy's younger sister." Orchid shivered. "Don't make me say it again."
Lester had no reply to this.
"Yes, he IS human and has some family. Hard to believe, I know." Orchid sighed. "So does that buy me a name, or at least more time? Your finger is still over the 'off' button."
"I'm trying to decide you're lying. And if you are telling the truth, whether this makes me want to hang up on you more or less." Regardless of what he decided, he leaned back from the console. "It would explain a lot."
"Hey I can't pick my family. And there is no comparison between Timmy and I. Though he does act like a big vagina sometimes I have never the stomach to actually look for sure. I think I am going to start calling you Bob." Orchid placed her gum behind her ear and pulled out a fruity oaty bar to munch on. Another thing she found lying around.
"Nice to meet you." Even as Lester said it, he was surprised to find it was true.
"I'm glad to meet you Bob." Orchid smiled and brushed some crumbs from her shirt. "So last I heard you guys are headed to Persephone?"
Lester's bullshit radar pinged again. "And who told you that?"
"Mom... you’re a bit jumpy?"
He folded his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry. Your brother has a knack for making enemies, and no offense, but you haven't exactly presented me with a valid Ident Card, so I'm going to have to take your word."
"Yeah that's Timmy, never one to make friends. He used to play with himself as a kid and not in the thrilling fantasy wet outcome he does now... You could always just get him to know for sure."
Lester put a hand over his eyes, as if to futilely prevent the mental image she painted from permanently searing itself on his retinas. "I take it back. You are definitely his sister."
"I don't think that's a good thing. Dammit, now i have some self reflection and alterations to do." Orchid crossed her arms and pouted her lips.
"Or intensive gene therapy." Lester almost felt sorry for her.
"At least there is someone out there that understands, makes it a bit easier."
"Maybe you could join a support group. Do you have any siblings?"
Orchid pretended to sniffle and dropped her head. Pretending to brush a fake tear from her eye she choked up her voice, "No, unfortunately not."
Lester shrugged. "Dunno what to tell you then."
"So...Persephone?"
"Why do you need to know?"
"Well..." Orchid moved to her left to let Bob see her surrounding. "I am currently on a ship headed to Persephone to met up with what I hope is Timmy and make his life a living Hell. For my own amusement you know. And want to know if Mom had the right planet. If not this whole trip was bullshit."
"I take it your brother is utterly unaware of this?"
"Like most things in life and all woman and the location of a clit...yes. Or so his girlfriends say."
Lester had no response to this.
"Yeah...so." Orchid pulled out a bag of jelly beans and popped a couple into her mouth.
Lester wondered briefly where she was calling from, a candy shop? "You're kind of terrifying. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Terrifying?" Orchid thought for a moment. "No can't say anyone has, not to my face anyway. Why do you say that?"
"I'll make you a deal. If you promise to never, ever again mention to me anything about Eli's sexual habits or lack thereof, I will tell you where we're landing next." Lester thought for an additional second. "Also, you can never tell Eli we had this conversation. If you do, they'll never find your body."
"I can promise to 'attempt' to never mention Timmy's lack of performance in front of you. And anyways I was hoping to just drop in with him not knowing; my lips are sealed. Though they might wonder why I start calling you Bob on the ship."
"If the rest of the words out of your mouth are any indication, I doubt they'll question it."
"For all you know my name is Bob."
"All the more better." Orchid smiled with her eyes and pulled out a beer to kick back with her jelly beans.
"So if you don't want Eli to know you're coming, why did you try to call him?" Lester tried to gauge the girl's age. He wasn't quite sure she was old enough to drink beer.
"Well I didn't so much want to call him, versus just calling the ship. He is so lazy I knew he wouldn't be around in the cockpit. I was just asking for him to see if I got the right ship. Knowing him and his lack of creativity much less a brain "Underdog" was probably something he plagiarized." Orchid took another swag of beer and closed her eyes as she felt her body relax and absorb the alcohol. The contents of her stomach (a sucker, fruity oaty bar, and jelly beans) were no match to metabolize the beer. She blinked to keep Bob in focus.
"Are you alright?"
Orchid paused and snapped open her eyes. She had never been asked this before and it sounded odd when directed towards her. "Why do you ask?"
"You look..." Lester searched for the correct word. "... squiggy."
Orchid giggled at Bob's attempt to depict her. "Squiggy? What does squiggy mean?"
Honestly, Lester had no idea. "Um... not good. Noun. From the Latin."
"I see..." Orchid set the empty beer bottle down and popped open another.
"Well are you?"
"I'm ok. Bit cramped up but I'm breathing. How are you?"
Good question. Lester considered it carefully. "Squiggy."
Not good Orchid thought. Orchid suddenly become worried. "Is everything ok? Did something happen?"
"Honestly, you might want to consider going home."
Orchid put her head back in the shadow to prevent Bob from seeing her eyes well up with tears. " I can't," she said in a very leveled tone. "What happened?" Her voice was pleading to try and get Bob to explain.
This wasn't going well. Maybe he should have hung up on her. "Well... Your brother has a knack for finding trouble. Constantly. In droves. You're probably safer running off to join the circus. Not that I think you should join the circus."
Orchid started to catalog her hormones. 'Yep she should be starting her period tomorrow and the alcohol must be making the symptoms worse,' she thought. Not wanting to let Bob think she was a total loose screw she perked up quick. "I do have great balance and look at these legs. They are just asking for a leotard to show them off. Anyways don't worry about Timmy I'll whip him into shape even if I have to get one of those leather whips with jewels and metal accents."
On second thought, it was coming increasingly obvious to Lester that this chick was running away from the circus, and not towards it. And as usual, this girl had presented him with a statement for which there was no good response. Lester went with: "Ok."
"So where are the troops rallying?"
Torn between the sensation that he was about to do a very bad thing, and his intense desire to make Eli's life a sliver more painful, Lester sent her the coordinates. "If asked, you didn't get this from me."
Orchid smiled ear to ear. "Thank you Bob. I'll save a beer for you. Anything else you would like?"
An Orchid-to-English translator, he thought. "No... I'm good."
"You sure? I saw a purple plush dinosaur itching for a good home."
"Really. I'm good."
Orchid started to hear movement above her. "Gotta run, see you soon Bob."
Orchid's face blinked off the screen. The speakers let off a soft hiss as Lester powered off the screens and ducked back under the console. For several minutes, he didn't work at all, opting instead to take the scene in: A rat's nest of wires ran in and out of unlabeled panels of electronics and boxes. Many wires went no where at all, terminating it frayed ends that jutted out into the air like thorns on barbed wire. It was less a matter of figuring out what was wrong than why the ship was able to fly in the first place. It was a demoralizing sight.
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