Chapter 31:
Aurelius glanced up as his older brother as he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch next to him. Aurelius was plugging away on a game controller, defending the universe against evil alien robot ninjas from another dimension on the family’s holoscreen and could only spare so much attention even for family. Magnus picked up a spare remote and it slipped right out of his hands.
“Dammit, Aurelius! You got engine grease all over my controller again! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oh… Yeah, sorry. Forgot to wash my hands after helping Dad.”
“Goddammit.” Magnus said, wiped the controller on his pants, “I don’t know why Mom and Dad just don’t buy you your own game system…”
“Why would they? I have yours.” Aurelius smiled.
“I’m sick and tired of always picking up greasy controllers or getting halfway through a game before the thing falls apart because you didn’t put it back together right.”
“Quit complaining. You have a Turbo button now.” Aurelius said.
Magnus looked down at the controler in his hand. There was a little green button that hadn’t been there yesterday. Raising his eyebrow he pressed the button, causing a little light to blink.
“You’re welcome,” Aurelius teased.
“I can’t wait till you get your own games.”
“Aren’t you going off to college soon?”
“Is that your way of telling me you won’t miss me?”
Aurelius shook his head playfully, “Not so much. Just hope you’re not taking the Y64 with you.”
“Punk.”
“I think Dad’s right though. Going to college first seems like a better idea. Gives you more options.”
“I can’t do that, Aurelius. I just got to get out of here, off this planet. Out of this dusty nowhere town. Life’s too short to sit around here waiting for something interesting to happen.”
Aurelius knew how exceptionally well Magnus had always done in school. He excelled in everything from history too astrometrics and joining the Service-Corp was the quickest way to see the cosmos and put those two subjects to good use. At least in his eyes, it was. Aurelius couldn’t count the number of times Magnus talked about wanting to see the other worlds in the Frontier like Solace and Independence. He had an a very detailed plastic model of Archer’s Agony Space Station hanging from the ceiling in his room that he had put together when he was in primary school. Aurelius, in contrast, was a terrible student, always caught fiddling with something in the garage or playing a hologame instead of doing his homework.
“And maybe even one day visit the planet where we all started—Earth.” Aurelius knew this was Magnus’s dream, “I don’t think I have to tell you why I wanna get out there.”
“Yeah, but jeez, Magnus. You get such good grades, and here you wanna go join the military and throw it all away. I think that’s Mom and Dad’s big issue.”
“Well… I’m going the second high school is over with. No one can stop me...”
There was a short pause while they just sat there watching Aurelius vanquish an entire space ninja army on the hologram in front of them.
“So what are you gonna do after I’m gone?” Magnus asked.
To this day, Aurelius still remembered that question. It was burned into his mind. Had he known what was going to happen, maybe he would have had a better answer than “I dunno.”
“You’re not gonna have me to run interference every time you get in trouble.”
“Maybe I’ll just have to stop getting in trouble” Aurelius said with a deadpan expression on his face but a second later they were both laughing.
“Wait a sec…” Magnus said, “Aren’t you grounded right now? You’re not even supposed to be playing games.”
Aurelius shushed Magnus, “Dude, keep it down.”
Magnus shook his head, laughing. “Fine, it’s your funeral if you’re caught. But hey i’ve got homework to do. I’ll play some Golden Spy with you later.”
...
Aurelius turned over, severing his link with the dream. At least this time he was able to wake up before the dream turned into a nightmare. He was laying there, in his bunk on the Freedom’s Reach with little more than a vague lingering sensation of a cab ride that brought he and Jerula back to the docks. His head was pounding as the reckless fun of the night was now slipping into a raging hangover. Memories of home always came when he was in a state like this, maybe it was a punishment for his indiscretions or maybe drinking weakened the barriers Aurelius had put up to keep those painful, memories at bay.
Aurelius’s stomach felt like it was collapsing in on itself. He slithered off the top bunk and landed on his feet. Jerula was all but comatose on the bottom bunk, snoring away. Evidently Paul and Nyreen had made it home safe as they were cuddled up under a blanket together on the bottom of the other set of bunks in the room.
Aurelius dug around in his jacket pocket for a second and then popped a couple of Fizzies before drinking from the bathroom faucet. He tried to lie back down but didn’t feel much like going back to sleep, he was awake now. He distracted himself with thoughts about the pretty little number he remembered meeting earlier in the night. He couldn’t stop thinking about her or how she had slipped right through his fingers. He had been there holding her in his hands but it hadn’t been meant to be. Still Aurelius could dream, those perfect curves, the way she caught his eye from across the yard and made everything else fade away. She was something he’d never get another chance at and she haunted him. If only he had the ten thousand the dealer wanted. He could picture the twin engines and rear stabilizer so clearly and wondered how comfortable the upholstery in the cockpit would still be. He wondered what it would feel like to own his own Sparrow-Class Planet Hopper. If he only had enough, he’d drag that thing all the way back home too Strife if he had to. He’d have his first, very own planet hopper. He only had another year before he had to decide whether to extend his contract with the Corp or to open up his own shop. Either way, he wanted that hopper. What could he do though? Get up, go down to the yard, talk the guy down to eight thousand and be back to the Freedom’s Reach in time for pancakes? He didn’t know the guys in cargo control like Jerula did. If he had some cash left over, maybe he could bribe them. He didn’t know what to do, but lying here wasn’t helping any. If anything it just seemed to wind him up more and more.
Even if the dealer wouldn’t take less it was still worth a try, Aurelius didn’t want to leave Earth saying he hadn’t at least tried.
Aurelius pulled himself off his bunk and looked himself over in a mirror making sure he looked well enough before he made his last trip into the city. He also checked his wallet, he wanted to make sure after the night he had that he at least still had the eight thousand he had had at the start of the night, or most of it anyway.
Aurelius flipped through the bills counting them out to himself; one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. It was odd there seemed to be more here than he had thought. Seven thousand, eight thousand, nine thousand. There was definitely more here than he thought. Ten thousand, eleven thousand, twelve thousand. Aurelius didn’t know what had happened, he had expected to find a bit less than eight thousand, maybe quite a bit less considering he seemed to remember having a very good time. So where did the extra four thousand and change come from? Aurelius quickly checked to make sure he hadn’t somehow ended up with someone else’s wallet, but there was no mistake, this was his but the money certainly wasn’t. Aurelius went through all the ways a Strifer, who didn’t even speak Tarranese, could earn four thousand in one night and quickly abandoned that line of thought. None of the options were all that flattering and if he had resorted to one of them, he figured he’d rather not know. Something was nagging at him though, something about Jerula rolling little blocks with a group of other people. Something about a girl and Jerula telling him… What had Jerula told him? It didn’t matter, he was sure Jerula had said something, and he remembered him shoving a wad of bills into his hand hard enough to leave a bruise.
...
Jerula woke suddenly from what was, if not a sound sleep, than at least a very deep one. At first he wasn’t sure what was going on, there was sound, deafening sound. The sound seemed to be trying to communicate something, probably that Jerula had drank way too much the night before, though he was willing to accept that this might just be a side message and resigned himself to trying to decipher what it was trying to say to everyone else.
“....Hour. Please finish all personal matters and report to duty stations at that time. Message repeats. The freedom’s Reach will be departing Earth in one hour. Please finish all personal matters and report to duty stations at that time. Thank you.”
“That settles it, the captain hates me.” Jerula said, trying to lever himself off his bunk and become approximately conscious.
Jerula looked around the bunk room, Paul and Nyreen were pulling on uniforms in what Jerula could only describe as a vindictive way. He glared at them for a moment so they would understand exactly what he thought of them being awake and moving at this moment before turning to scan the room for Aurelius.
“Hey... Where’s the other guy who should know better than to start the world before I get up?” He asked in the general direction of his other two bunkmates.
“No idea.” Nyreen said. Her cheerful voice making Jerula hate her even more than before.
“You two got in after we’d gone to bed, and he was gone when we got up.” Paul finished, managing to be slightly less hateful than Nyreen, but only just.
“You two are a bundle of help.” Jerula said.
“We aim to please.” Nyreen said.
Jerula was trying to figure out exactly how to express his thoughts on the subject of their aims when the hiss of the bunk door sliding open made him turn around.
“Good morning!” Came Aurelius’s voice from outside, and to Jerula it sounded like he had been drinking sunshine and pissing flowers.
“I hate you all so much right now.” Jerula said clutching his pounding head and turning away from the door so he wouldn’t see the inevitable smile on Aurelius’s face.
“Oh don’t be mad, I brought you something.” Aurelius said.
“Leave it on the table and leave the room, or whatever it is, I’m going to beat you to death with it.
“Oh you’re going to like this. Come get some before it gets cold.” Aurelius said.
“You know I could snap your arm like a twig, right? Wouldn’t take all that much.” Jerula said, though he did roll over figuring the sooner he humored Aurelius the sooner everyone would leave him alone to die.
“Now is that anyway to thank the man who brought you the best hangover cure in the world?” Aurelius said.
“Silence and a gun?” Jerula said.
“Close.”
“Smells good whatever it is.” Jerula said.
“Best Pho in town, or so I’m told. Now seriously it’s getting cold and you’ve got to be on duty in Forty five minutes.” Aurelius said passing bowls to Jerula Paul and Nyreen.
A few minutes later, as Jerula was drinking the last of his broth he was forced to admit he really did feel somewhat better. Maybe not perfect, but alive and he’d settle for that right now.
“You’re a good man, Aurelius, I might not hurt you after all.” Jerula said.
“Thanks. Nice to know I can make long term plans.” Aurelius answered.
“I said might....”
“Anyway it’s the least I can do. You guys enjoy the rest of that, I want to head down and check on something before my shift starts.” Aurelius said turning from them and heading back out the door.
Jerula was curious what Aurelius could need forty five minutes to check on, but right now he didn’t have the energy to ask. Instead he ladled himself another bowl and devoured it more or less in one go, figuring if a little was good, more must be better.
“I’ll really have to do something nice for him after this, maybe when we get back to Strife I’ll treat him to a few drinks with the money I won last night...”