Overdrive

Overdrive

Phillip W. Simpson

Published by Arete Publishing

Copyright 2005 Phillip W. Simpson

Felix Tebbitt woke
early. His AI cheerfully informed him that it was 6am and he better get his
arse into gear and get to work. He looked around. This certainly wasn’t his
apartment and he was buggered if he knew how he got here. A mystery and a very
bleary mystery at that. He had a vague recollection of going out last night to
one of the new Anti gravity 3D bars that were popping up all over the place in
the asteroid.

The woman he’d met
there and the one now lying prone and snoring on her side, had seemed pretty,
intelligent, and, - most attractive of all, interested in him, - had suggested
in a rather coy and flattering way that he come back to her place. Felix had
been drunk and suspected he still was which certainly encouraged his “little
head” to take over all negotiations and major decision making. In retrospect,
he doubted whether she had been either coy or flattering since he was drunk and
horny and would’ve shagged a soggy rag in the middle of a muddy field.

That was, however,
irrelevant. The fact was he was here and not in his small and cluttered
apartment. Her’s (his AI supplied her name – Simone - , physical dimensions,
and asked if he wanted a play back of any of last night’s activities – he told
it no), was a lot larger than his lower level dwelling. The ceiling was white
with an expensive looking sensor array hanging directly above him. It occurred
to him that the sensor was for some reason important but decided to give his
brain the morning off, mentally shrugged and proceeded to climb out of bed.

The importance of
the sensor array became immediately apparent when he discovered himself
floating in the bed’s field 6 feet from the floor. The array on the ceiling was
projecting an AG field around the bed from which he had no idea how to extract
himself. Helpfully, his AI provided details and played back him and Simone,
naked, giggling and drunk entering from a circular hole underneath the bed and
gaining access from a ladder she had placed there.

After several
aborted attempts, Felix gingerly extricated himself from the glowing blue
bubble, put a foot on the first rung of the ladder, missed the second one and
elegantly face-planted onto the floor.

“Fuck," he
said, fingering one tooth that seemed much looser than it had 2 seconds ago. He
got up, stood still for 30 seconds, waited for his head to stop spinning while
feeling his face for anymore damage, then scanned around for his clothes.

For its size,
Simone’s bedroom seemed rather sparse. There were many built in hold-all’s
distributed around the bright orange (ouch) walls, and a large floor to ceiling
window dominating a quarter of the wall space and providing a panoramic of the
asteroid’s central chamber. He walked over and stood buck naked looking out at
the impressive view. Simone (still snoring, bless her) obviously did all right
for herself. Unbidden, his AI told him she worked as a managing supervisor for
a StarCruise line.

Near the top of
the chamber, some 300 meters above him, Felix was able to see the glow tubes
that approximated real sunlight about 1km away. The hard bright light enabled
him to see the far side of the chamber some 3kms away. Five hundred meters
below, a small heart shaped central lake lay nestled within a small forest of
lush green miniature firs. Narrow white paths threaded between the small trees,
all leading towards the lakes edge and bearing more than a passing resemblance
to arteries spreading out from a central organ.

At this time of
the morning, Felix could only make a couple of people utilizing the space. This
was communal recreation space. All residential apartments were situated in the
walls overlooking the chamber whilst all commercial interests lurked deeper in
the asteroids rock strata. Felix’s own apartment, less expensive and
strategically situated, was about 300 meters lower and about 45 degrees further
around.

The asteroid was a
large one. Coleridge had a population of roughly 200,000, mostly working for one of the commercial astroengineering firms, associated support industries, and
recreation providers. Orbiting 30,000 kms above the planet Unamuno, Coleridge,
like the other 45 asteroids in orbit, were bought here en masse 120 years
earlier from a local asteroid field, towed behind a huge industrial “shifter," 
and enclosed in its giant field like so many marbles caught in a large
transparent bag. Coleridge, with a diameter of 16kms, was one of the bigger
ones in orbit and differed as it was the only one that specialized in
astroengineering. Most of the others were devoted to recreational purposes –
not surprising, considering Unamuno’s reputation as a “games world."

Noticing his
reflection in the window, Felix paused and flexed mightily. Any hopes of
impressing himself were dashed when his muscle definition hardly changed
despite straining so much that his eye balls almost popped out. The sudden rush
of blood to his head forced Felix to steady himself against the unbreakable Plexiglas.
He looked at his reflection with bloodshot eyes. Dark complexion, 5’8,"
lean and handsome in a boyish way but hardly physically imposing, he decided he
probably looked better with clothes on. Moving away from the window, he began
to look in earnest for his clothes.

A quick scan
around the apartment told him that either his clothes were playing silly
buggers and had hid themselves or the apartment’s utility droids had tidied
them away. Concluding that the first scenario was unlikely, he asked his AI who
agreed with his hypothesis. Unnecessarily, his AI went on to confirm that yes,
his first guess was unlikely as his clothes weren’t sentient and had no
internal propulsion system. Sounding frustrated and bored, his AI then informed
him that its last recorded memory had seen his clothes piled in a disheveled
heap under the bed, and as they were no longer there, they were obviously
somewhere else. Felix thanked his AI with heavy sarcasm and repressed another
urge to giggle.

He began fossicking
in the hold-all’s. After 5 minutes diligent work and some distracting moments
playing with Simone’s lingerie, his efforts were rewarded with gold, or more
specifically, gray. His gray coverall with his name coded into the back. He’d
gotten a lot of stick from the boys about that. They said his mother had done
it, but the truth was he had, and thought it was a very practical idea, thank
you very much.

Simone was
obviously a convert to the relatively new trend of having a variety of clothes
as opposed to the one multipurpose coverall. Unlike most people who possessed 2
or three Coverall’s, Simone had a variety of “real” clothes. Most people
preferred to use Coverall’s as they took up less space and had the ability to
transform themselves into whatever the wearer desired – including shoes. They
were self cleaning and only had to be serviced once every six months. Felix
slipped his on, waited while it linked to his AI and then instructed it for “workaday clothes 3."

The gray coverall
changed color, starting at his feet, hardening and darkening into black work boots. The transformation moved up his body, creating black linen pants, a white linen
shirt, open at the neck, and black jacket. So equipped and with a last glance
at the still quietly snoring Simone, Felix quietly made for the door.
Hesitating at her lounge room door, he debated whether to wake her or leave her
a note at least. His morals getting the better of him, Felix turned towards the
main holo projector in the lounge and after stepping into its field left a
quick message and then just as quickly, exited her apartment.

 In the corridor
outside, Felix paused to grope in his jacket for his hangover sniffer. With
steadily increasing anxiety, he realized it must have fallen out in Simone’s
apartment. Cursing, he turned briefly back towards her door, mentally debating
whether to go back but finally discarding the idea in favor of walking to work.

Nebula Inc, his
employer, was situated about 2kms away, buried deep in the rock of the
asteroid. Felix began working there some 5 years ago, almost immediately after
graduating from Unamuno’s premier Astroengineering college, Ralph Emerson
University where he finished 2nd in his year. In Felix’s opinion, the guy that
finished first cheated. Discarding numerous offers for immediate employment,
Felix took a year off to bum around the galaxy with a few friends, drinking,
attempting to womanize, more drinking, and some staggeringly impressive
displays of falling over. Nebula Inc snapped him up as soon as he set foot back
on Unamuno and 2 years ago he was promoted to Senior Design Engineer.

Nursing a rather
sore head and rapidly getting the hump with walking, Felix instructed his AI to
summon a cart, scaring the bejesus out of him when it silently rolled up to his
right shoulder 30 seconds later. Hopping in, he let his AI instruct it, closing
his eyes and silently praying that he enter a subspace time warp and somehow
arrive at work 12 hours later; a time where his hangover would be long gone. Two
minutes later, his AI informed him they were outside work.

“Bugger," he
said aloud. The cart, governed by the Asteroid’s central AI and disturbed by
the sorry state of its recumbent occupant decided to vocalize its concerns.

“Your
blood-alcohol toxicity level is well above normal levels. Do you require
medical assistance?," it asked.

Felix sighed. It
was pretty much a given that if a person was using his or her’s AI for all
interactions with the Asteroids governing AI and if the Asteroid detected
something physically wrong with that person, it would start communicating
directly. Annoying, given that Felix didn’t feel like speaking to anyone, let
alone a hyper personality computer program, but it was to be expected.

“Have you got a
hangover sniffer?” he asked.

“No”

“Then fuck off and
leave me alone”

He got out and
walked towards the front door of Nebula Inc.  The cart hung around for a few
seconds longer and either satisfied that its recent passenger was still in
possession of its basic motor skills, or irritated by his reply, drove silently
off. Felix didn’t give a toss either way.

His AI initiated
its security entrance code and the doors opened automatically for him. As he walked
in, the lights came on revealing the stark reception area. Nebula Inc was a
fairly small company. Only 10 employees on this asteroid, and as far as he
knew, in the whole Camus system to which Coleridge and Unamuno belonged.

6.30am. No one in
yet. Well in reception anyway. Not surprising really. Their receptionist,
Sheridan, didn’t normally turn up until 9am and that’s if they were lucky.
Effectively, Felix was the senior most employee and thus, technically in charge
of the office.  He walked behind her reception desk to find the area strewn
with debris. Bending down, it appeared to be mostly Sheridan’s personal items,
including a startling large dildo. Someone had obviously just upended her
drawers. Probably Sheridan, he thought irritably; in a hurry, on her way out to
some bar. Muttering darkly to himself, Felix walked towards the main doors to
the engineering section. Unbidden, his AI again fired the code into the door
which swung open as he approached. He stopped walking when he saw what was lying
in the corridor, propped up against the wall. 

Felix had seen a
dead body once before. When he was 10, his uncle Manfred and a few of his
cronies had taken Felix and his older brother Rupert on a hunting trip in one
of the designated hunting regions of Unamuno. His brother, being 4 years older,
had been initially invited but Felix had spat the dummy so much that Manfred
had agreed to take the two of them. Not that Felix really wanted to go hunting,
and frankly, putting a plasma rifle in the hands of a 10 year old child was as
ludicrous as tying a piece of steak to your dick and then entering a cage full
of hungry dogs. However, it was the principal of the matter. Felix didn’t want
to be left out. Understandable mentality for a 10 year old boy.

The men had gone
hunting for genetically engineered Elan. The largest of the gazelle; on Earth’s
African Savannah nine hundred  years earlier they could weigh over 1000 pounds
and stand 7 foot high. Unamuno’s GE version, weighed almost double that and
stood over 9 foot at the shoulder. Their efforts to find an Elan on this
particular day however, were to go unrewarded. Manfred, frustrated and
swearing, spied a pack of huge warthogs, and after instructing the boys to
remain where they were, set off in pursuit accompanied by his heavily armed
friends. Elan were not aggressive, but warthogs certainly were, and despite the
boys protests and wingeing, Manfred was not about to tempt fate and his
brothers wrath by having his boys turned into human sis kebabs.

One of Manfred’s friends
remained with the boys. His name was Perry. Felix thought he was a dickhead. 
Tall and lanky with long greasy hair and bad breath, Perry was as uncomfortable
with the boys as they were with him. After a couple of failed attempts at
conversation, both parties gave up and Perry went to stand a few meters away to
smoke a cigarette. The boys spent the time trying to focus their rifles, and in
Felix’s case, actually lifting his and holding it steady – difficult
considering the rifle was almost as long as he was tall. A loud crashing in the
undergrowth to Perry’s left saw all three turn their rifles in that direction.
The next thing Felix could remember was seeing a incredibly fast furry shape
streak from the undergrowth, bowl Perry over and clamp massive jaws around his
shoulder. It was a saber tooth. Some bright spark had GE'’d some a few years
ago, and despite the governments best efforts to eradicate them, rumors still
abounded whenever someone disappeared in the hunting regions.