6.1 Assignments

MAYHEM ON EARTH

  “Next!” the conductor called.

  Doctor Tocarris Kardusi stepped onto the platform feeling smug and content, but also a little nervous. She prided herself in being a member of the prestigious Kardusi family, who were famous for their dedicated scientific work in the field of biology. And now, she could give back to her family name by spreading its reputation: She had recently landed her first job at a company as a microbiologist. It was her first day going to work, and she couldn’t help but feel nervous about not only her first work experience outside her family-owned institutions, but the fact that she had the pressure of maintaining her family’s reputation. She had prepared her whole life for this career with her family’s extremely rigorous training in science from a young age.

  Despite being limited in her paths in life by her family, she was fine with her choice of profession as a microbiologist. Sometimes, however, she would wish to leave the fame and expectations of her family name.

  “Starting!” the conductor yelled. He pressed some switches on the console he was working on a distance away.

  Glass walls closed around Tocarris in the form of a cylinder. Machinery powered on. She would never get used to this disorienting form of travel, but on the planet of Gratoo, this was the most efficient one, as it was fast and convenient for traveling underneath the planet’s toxic surface.

  The beams surrounding the machinery focused and intensified and Tocarris found herself floating and repositioned horizontally, hovering mid-air, facing an endless, winding hollow tube before her. Her copper hair that would normally reach her shoulders remained drooped toward the ground.

  “Confirmation from destination station. Accelerating.”

  The accelerators turned on and in a fraction of a second, Tocarris was traveling through pipes underground at Mach speeds. Interestingly, although she didn’t know how the technology worked herself, she had heard that it compresses your body somehow to harden it and allow you to travel through narrower (and cheaper) pipes. A person inside the tube was miniature in width and elongated compared to their normal selves.

  A minute later, Tocarris popped out at the other end of the pipe at her destination, fifty-one miles away. She never liked the pipes. They made her dizzy and she couldn’t think straight during or right after the journey.

  “Received!” one of the conductors at this station called out. “Next!” A person who had been waiting in a line stepped up.

  Tocarris left the station and headed to her destination through the subterranean tunnels. Many visitors from foreign planets would be surprised when they came here, that beneath the ugly uninhabitable rock was one of the richest and most prosperous planets in the galaxy, and a center for scientific research. It was another thing Tocarris was proud of: being a resident of Gratoo.

  After some walking through the surprisingly spacious and well-lit tunnels, she arrived at a grand, open hall. Many people were gathered here. She breathed a sigh of relief and revitalization at seeing that she was at her destination and the location where her new life awaited. At the end of the hall was a grand entrance door and a signboard that read, in large letters, the name of the company Tocarris was hired in: Paradise Vacation Corporation, commonly known as PVC…

* * *

  Tocarris sat in an office chair and patiently listened to her new boss as he briefed her on her first assignment, trying to remain calm.

  “So, Ms. Tocarris, I understand you’re new and all, but we expect you to be ready and able to handle this big project I’m about to give you,” the manager, Mr. Suyoy Joshi, explained in a thick accent and deep voice as he smoked an object similar to a cigar. He was an obese individual, which was rare outside of rich families. “I trust the name of your family, and so I’m gonna assign you to a top-secret project that PVC’s been working on recently, and that I’m the head of. I hope you’ll keep everything confidential?”

  “Of course, sir.” She replied. The Kardusis were well-trusted because of their ability to meet deadlines and keep their work a secret.

  “Good, good. Now, PVC’s recently gotten hold of an unexplored planet. It’s beautiful, really, with vast blue oceans and teeming with exotic life… except for the pest problem,” he grumbled at the end. He turned to the side in his chair, which groaned under his weight, took hold of the cigar, and puffed out before continuing: “We’d like to turn it into the ultimate luxury vacation destination—the whole planet, I mean.” He stretched out his arms to emphasize grandiosity. “I know it’s a big project—probably the biggest in PVC’s history—but you just have a small part in it before we begin the main job of remodeling. You’ll get the specific details of your job later. You’re to head there on a company spaceship immediately. Got that?”

  “Of course. May I ask the name of the planet?”

  He nodded before turning his gaze to some papers on his desk. “Mmm… We call it Shitchi-One, but seems its sentient inhabitants call it ‘Earth’…”

* * *

  Cadonif looked down the hill at the slums below. It seemed some things would never change, especially if everyone on the planet of Sartoog would be paid minimum wages for intense physical labor. The corrupt Unified Interplanetary Federation, commonly referred to as UnIF, did nothing to solve the problem. Sartoog was where everyone’s raw goods and labor came from, and they wanted it to remain cheap. As a result, the Federation stamped out business and any methods for the planet to grow, along with preventing self-sufficiency, to keep the favour of the other planets that they controlled. Everyone had to work to survive. But the work would not lead to a better future for anyone, even their descendants.

  Cadonif, of course, was affected by this. He’d learned long ago to destroy any hopes and dreams he had. Anything he did, he had to do to keep himself and his family alive, forgetting the possibility of ever escaping the miserable slum. He called them family, but his blood relatives had abandoned him as a baby. They couldn’t afford to take care of him, so he was raised in an orphanage knowing just his name. He owed a great deal of gratitude to the orphanage and his ‘family’ in it for raising him and keeping him company. He wanted, now that he was old enough for bigger work, to give back to it. It was quite difficult to do, considering any jobs he found were just enough for himself. Things, like going out and making friends and having fun with them, were things he’d never done and they had never been on his mind, apart from playing with his family every once in a while.

  Looking down at the vast, dense town of gloom and crushed dreams, Cadonif was thinking about his next course of action to make some money.

  “Cad!” someone yelled.

  Cadonif turned to see a short kid a few years younger than him, with glasses, slightly green skin, and long ears that pointed outward, running toward him. He had a line of hair along the center of his scalp that resembled a mohawk, but it was long and drooped to the side and, combined with his big, innocent eyes, did not at all give a punk-like appearance.

  Cadonif, in comparison, was slim due to malnutrition and had short, wavy, brown hair. He recognized the person as his close friend and ‘brother’, Geenud.

  Geenud slowed down as he reached him. He collapsed on his knees and wheezed, out of breath. He was not at all athletic.

  “What’s going on, Geenud?” Cadonif asked, feeling alarmed that something was askew.

  Geenud pointed in the direction he’d come from. He tried to control his breath. “It’s the loan sharks!” he said in a panic. “They arrived at the orphanage, started breaking things, and are making demands! I managed to escape…”

  The understanding of the situation suddenly hit Cadonif. He immediately started running in the direction Geenud had come from. Geenud turned and prepared to travel back along the long path he’d run along.

  Cadonif had the ability to persuade people through speech. It was a power that came from the genes of his species; one that can find and bring out the reason within an individual. Thanks to it, he’d normally persuade the loan sharks to go away and come back later to collect the money the orphanage owed them. But this time, they were smart enough to arrive at a time when he wasn’t present.

  Cadonif raced through the weathered streets of the town, passing by small, decrepit buildings, with Geenud trying to keep up behind him but failing to do so miserably.

  Recognizing the familiar building he’d lived in his whole life, he entered, pushing the door open wide with full force without having any plan for if he encountered his foes. Inside, he found that the furniture and lights were broken, which, in combination with the already crumbling walls, made the living room as if it had been through a natural disaster and then haunted. He found his family gathered there, looking frightened.

  “Cad!” one of them exclaimed and came toward him. It was his ‘mother’, Yatkulla. She was the one who’d raised everyone. “Cad, they took Sagtillette as hostage. They want the full money back within a week!”

  “Within a week?!?” Cadonif said, alarmed. “That’s impossible to gather!”

  By now, Geenud had arrived and collapsed on the floor, panting in a puddle of sweat.

  “That’s what we told them,” Yatkulla explained. “So, they gave us a plan—a method—to get the payment.”

  She asked one of the other foster children to fetch a large sheet of paper. It was a blueprint to the nearby Sartoog Interplanetary Spaceport, which also happened to be the busiest commercial spaceport on the planet, used for transporting raw goods produced on Sartoog to other planets.

  “They gave us this and other information,” Yaktulla continued. “They said that in five nights from now, a shipment of Castignome, an expensive chemical, will depart from the spaceport.” She hesitated. “Cad, they want us to steal it and give it to them. That would also be an acceptable payment.”

  And cash is the only other option… They did this on purpose! Cadonif thought. They really want to get their hands on this ‘Castignome’ and are forcing us to take the risk for them!

  Still, there was no other choice.

  After the family sat for a while, trying to think of better options, Cadonif spoke: “It looks like we’ll have to go through with this… heist.”

  “You can’t be serious,” one girl protested. “Crime? That can’t be an answer. What if we get caught? You know how harsh punishments for this planet’s people are. That’ll put us all in danger.”

  “You’re right,” Cadonif said, “If we all were to go into that spaceport, we’d probably get caught and punished with life sentences in prison.” He took a moment to shudder at the inhuman treatment and disgusting conditions that the prisons had. When everyone was already in poverty, there needed to be some deterrents to make people fear going to jail, where they could receive free food, safety, and accommodation. “That would be worse than just losing Sagtillette. That’s why I’ll go alone!” As he said those words, he felt much fear. He didn’t have the courage to talk to a person he didn’t know, nevertheless sneak into a large spaceport and steal something valuable. He truly didn’t want to do this job, but this circumstance was forcing him to; his family was just that important to him. He would do it just for his ‘sister’, Sagtillette.

  The others looked at Cadonif worriedly and tried to persuade him out of it. It was true that one person going was less risky than all of them, and losing two members was better than losing all, but how much could they expect a person who has never committed a crime to break into a secure government facility?

  “My whole life, I’ve been raised up here. This is my home and you all are my family. I’ve always felt grateful and wanted to pay back somehow. I feel like this is the time for me to do it. I will do it!”

  “Cad is right,” Geenud voiced in. “It is more logical to have fewer individuals partaking in this hazardous criminal act.” It was in Geenud’s natural speaking style to use high vocabulary. “However, in order to mitigate these risks, I shall also participate in the execution of this plan. My ability may be useful in this operation. For example, I can memorize the blueprints and procedure of the plan, and it would be of great advantage and use to do so.”

  Geenud had the ability to memorize information instantly—similar to a photographic memory—and retain it for as long as he wanted. This more than made up for his lack of athleticism.

  Cadonif bit his lip and thought for a moment about the inclusion of Geenud in his team. Eventually: “Fine.” He walked over to the blueprint and looked down at it. “So, Geenud and I are going to sneak into the most heavily fortified spaceport on this planet to heist some chemicals that are to depart on a small, commercial spaceship. We have a few days to prepare and some intel from the underground network the loan sharks are in contact with. What’s the plan?”