Acceleration smashed me against the glass. My stomach felt like it was pinched against my backbone as the force pulled me up from my squat. My lungs struggled against the pressure. Isn’t this how people get embolisms and stroke out?42 Surely Aptat wouldn’t do anything to endanger their valuable cargo, right?
The pod holding the chambers swiveled on a gimbal somewhere above, keeping us in line with the vector of the ship. While I assumed that was to prevent us from tumbling around inside our test tubes like laundry, the entire assembly still swung wildly from one side to the other. The feeling was like that carnival ride with the spinning swings that fly out to the sides, only with unpredictable direction changes, taken without any notice. I worked my diaphragm, forcing air into my chest to keep from blacking out. I turned my head to check on Patton just as the ship maneuvered suddenly to one side. A change in momentum registered deep in my guts.
And the inside of my chamber was promptly covered in vomit. At first I didn’t know where it’d come from. I hadn’t even felt nauseous. The gimbal swung us back the other way and the yellow-pink slurry swirled with the motion, coating the inner surface in a chunk-studded bile glaze. Through a bit of unmarred glass, I saw the others laughing, except for Patton, who seemed fine despite having eaten enough mushrooms to send an elephant to Narnia.
The smell was awful. My clothes wicked the warm liquid to my skin. I tried not to breathe. I shouldn’t have eaten that convenience store hotdog.43
Somehow, though, the shock of sopping in barf brought with it a clarity of vision. What had I done with myself? How did I get here? It was selfishness, wasn’t it? All of those years spent searching for the cause of my unbidden gift rather than using it. There was so much in my head. Maybe instead of crafting locally renowned fish flies, I should have gone into medicine or zoology to find a cure for cancer or prevent the next pandemic. My parents had certainly tried to get me to see the bigger picture, to view my condition through the lens of opportunity rather than as a personal burden. A chance to contribute to the world, to help others. Now I could only see my current situation through the lens of comeuppance for my self-centeredness. Soaking in my own ejecta after abduction by a meat robot.
The pod spun again and I yodeled out another volley. I groaned miserably, resigned to it. Being vomit-covered had a way of amplifying guilt. For a lazy, pathetic, self-absorbed life. For allowing my only friend to get wrapped up in it as well. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled to the pickle jar – Patton’s pickle jar. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed, twisting my head to get a glimpse of him through the chunks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He was too blindly loyal to feel bad for himself. I wished he could hear me, my definitely-not-a-sidekick, only friend.