Squid Ink Incorporated

‘Smoke some more fags’ my colleague urges me, ‘the ash makes it burn slower’.

My colleague and I are smoking z grade crack from a pipe fashioned out of a plastic coke bottle and a foil kit kat wrapper.

We are holed up in a cheap hotel in the crappy end of Kings Cross. Our crack smoking is interspersed with cheap booze, plus copious amounts of fags, joints and the occasional blackout.

It hasn’t always been this way, only a few years ago my colleague and I were in the peak of physical and mental fitness. We were corporate astronauts on a sponsored mission to Phobos. Hailed as the last true pioneers, explorers into the furthest reaches of space, heroes. That was until that whole thing.

As I start to remember the events that led us here I quickly down half a can of syrupy lager. Sensing my pain, my colleague hastily skins up.

Down on the street below the sound of the mob grows louder, jeers, the roar of flame, policemen shouting through megaphones, trying in vain to control the murderous masses.

‘Turn the TV up again’ suggests my colleague; shuffling over to the portable, I spin the volume knob as high as it will go.

The repeat of the comedy panel show we had been watching is interrupted by a news flash, we see our photos on the screen, shots of the mob outside.

The newscaster recaps the history of our mission, the launch attended by thousands of cheering people, our sponsors eagerly telling viewers that we are the pride of the nation. As the newscaster goes on to retell of our misfortune on Phobos, his face drops into a scowl.

‘Turn this shit over’ mutters my colleague, ‘and pass us the stuff’.

My colleague loads the pipe while outside the noise grows louder. I hear windows breaking downstairs, the police had lost the battle, or just given up, the mob were now entering the building.

‘Fuck it mate anyone can make a mistake right?’ says my colleague exhaling a lungful of smoke. ‘Here, try not to think about that whole thing’.

I smoke in rapid bursts, coughing hard, a deep bark that makes my eyes water. Regardless I smoke more, we had been abusing ourselves like this for about two months now, ever since we returned. A desperate bid to try to quell the nausea we had felt since the breakout, the breakout that we had inadvertently caused.

I toke deeply, holding the smoke in my lungs for as long as I can. Perhaps when the mob get here the narcotics might deaden the pain of a thousand angry Londoners beating the living crap out of us.

If only we hadn’t if only we had gone East instead of West, not found that box, not brought it back with us, not caused the…

‘Don’t, don’t think about it Ad, we couldn’t have known, it’s just one of things… shit happens mate’. My colleague snaps me out of the sickening spiral of thoughts that have looped endlessly around my head ever since we opened the box.

The voices grow louder now, I can hear footsteps thumping up the stairs, soon the room door will burst open, the mob will flood in. Any minute now the vengeance of many will descend upon us.

‘I think were out of fags Ad’.

Shit happens.

In deep space redundancy is a matter of life and death. The Corporation had issued a bombshell missive in regard to the fiscal downturn currently being experienced back on Earth.

Due to the current climate we have been forced to make some difficult decisions about the feasibility of the Phobos monolith mission. After careful consideration we have come to the painful conclusion that we will have to make some of our posts redundant. We are deeply sorry that it has come to this, however as I am sure you are aware we are in midst of a universal recession and unfortunately we will have to adapt our business practices if the corporation is to survive. We do hope that you understand that the choices we have had to make have been difficult and that your families will be compensated by a redundancy payment at the universal statutory rate.

I guess they meant that whole thing about difficult choices and the missive seemed sincere.

‘Old Silverback’ our line manger called us all into the canteen; I swear he had lost some hair overnight with the stress.

The strain showed on the faces of the crew, the usually raucous atmosphere replaced with a sullen air of fear and desperation. Chinese whispers drifted cruelly across the room turning the artificial air into a dense fog of paranoia and accusation.

‘Old Silverback’ had just finished a conference call with the board when he floated uncomfortably into the room.

‘There ain’t no good way to say this so I’m just going to get on with it, the corporation has made five of our posts redundant’.

The unspoken malaise in the room grumbled into audibility.

‘It’s not right I know, but the corporation has promised to make full redundancy payment at statutory rate’.

The room erupted into a fit of bitching and moaning, ‘Old Silverback’ waited patiently for the mumbling to die down. ‘The corporation has left it up to us as to who to cut, I can’t see any other way of doing it ‘cept democratically, Nate, bring in the sticks’.

Boson Nathan Green floated in from the kitchen holding a vacuum jar filled with chopsticks.

The crew instinctively knew what would happen next, without speaking they unclipped themselves from the canteen benches and drifted into a single file line leading up to the boson. Each in turn taking a chopstick from the vacuum jar.

‘Old Silverback’ drew the last of the chopsticks and counted down from five. The crew held their sticks up at the end of the count. Each and everyone of them held their breath until they had surveyed the room, studiously comparing the length of their ‘straw’ to the others.

The five holders of the shortest sticks wept, hugged their friends, said a prayer and moved toward the airlock. ‘Old Silverback’ himself was one of the five; he led them in a dignified silence.

Despite the initial uproar, they had all known the risks. The promise of a lifetimes pay for a ten year mission, they had all been briefed on the contract terms. At least this way their families would be catered for, even if it was only at the statutory rate.

* In the boardroom back on Earth, the directors watched the unlucky five being catapulted into the inky blackness of space.

‘Well that went well don’t you think?’ the MD asked the executive directors.

‘Yes I think so, the savings we made will continue to maximise our profit margin’ replied the financial director.

‘Do you think they realised?’ the operations director asked.

‘How could they know we hadn’t budgeted for the full journeys resources? I am sure they bought that whole recession spiel’ the MD asserted. ‘How do you think they will take the news that there will be only enough fuel to bring two of them back with the monolith?’

‘They’re contractors, if they don’t like it we aren’t legally liable to give a shit’ replied the HR director.

‘That’s what I pay you for’ smiled the MD.