“Whoa there,” said Aptat. “You’ve had your tantrum and that’s understandable, but your brain is mine.” A mist descended from the upper circumference of the cell. “Sleep now, Flyguy. There will be a time, not too far off, when you will look back on your stay here with great fondness.”

38 tlhlngan Hol to Klingons. Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam!

39 Where non-honey producing flying insects of the order Hymenoptera put their babies.

40 Also known as homoplasy – I’m indulging you, right now. Don’t push it.

41 It’s called ‘heat dumping’ when a squirrel does it – It’s called tripping balls when Patton does it.

42 Yes.

43 Four. You had four convenience store hotdogs. Quatro.

44 Mammals with sectioned stomachs. Cows, for example.

45 And cold. *Wink* – It’s your dick too, man.

46 Pemmican was an undeniably genius life-saving food eaten by Indigenous Americans. It is a mixture of dried meat from whatever game was available, usually buffalo, elk, or deer, beat into a powder and then mixed into rendered fat along with regional berries – I don’t want to know what’s in space pemmican.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I slept eventually. Or I think I did. My awareness booted up when the lights returned and it only seemed natural to conclude that sleep must have happened. Whatever depth of slumber I experienced had been somewhere within the vacuous strata of nothingness that lives below where you dream, leaving my mind an oily swirl. I perceived a low vibration in my gut. Vigilance, perhaps. Fear. Panic. All of the above. The farther we got from Earth, the more real it became.

I tapped the Indiglo® button on my Timex. Yep. I’d slept alright. For thirty-seven hours.

I considered the Boom-Train, still in my hand. Being a last vestige of my life back home, I was attached to it, thankful now that Cheap Jim had been so cheap. The wearable body bag didn’t come with pockets so I tried to put the hook through a strap-hole in my watch, but it just fell out.

I caressed my earlobe, felt the tiny scar in the center of it. Junior year of high school, I’d found myself in a fit of lust over Agatha Jensen, who at the time tended toward the bad boy aesthetic. Figuring to raise my game, I’d gotten a two-for-one deal on a kanji tattoo and an ear piercing the summer before senior year. I’d hit campus for the fall semester with a diamond stud and jorts to ensure that the ankle ink was on display. Agatha never paid it any notice, which in retrospect, was for the better. That way I didn’t have to explain what it meant.⁴⁷

I pressed again at the scar in my earlobe, then brought the tiny hook to it, touching the skin. Didn’t feel so bad. I pressed harder. Still, not too bad. Screw it. I gritted my teeth and pressed the hook into the flesh until it popped. Pain came, but it was worth it. I pulled it through until the body of the fly hung directly below my ear. Who’s the bad boy now, Agatha Jensen?⁴⁸