Chartreuse || ONC 2022

▪︎ Digi Log 9 ▪︎

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Micro-Tokyo, Neo-York
08:17

"So, Major Tom is the commanding officer of Big Sister's mortal troops?" Ava-1 clarified.

"That's right," Whitlock confirmed. "He was a military space commander in his time. Retired now. Or s'posed to be."

Ava-1 created a file in her brain's storage archive for Major Tom Jones and subconsciously began adding data. "That's some loyalty," she muttered. "To come out of retirement to serve Big Sister. He must be a real winner."

"No, there's no loyalty involved," Nova said from behind the counter. She pulled out an aerosol can of surface cleaner and began spraying down the fiberglass. "Major Tom is the one exception to her band of devoted lemmings. He's an interstellar hero. Big Sister is blackmailing him into servitude."

"What?" Ava-1 exclaimed. "How? What's she got on him that could warrant forced loyalty?"

"His wife," Whitlock said.

"Big Sister kidnapped Major Tom's wife?!"

"No, no, nothing like that," Whitlock replied. "His wife is in a cryo recovery pod at Neo-York Hospital."

Ava-1 gasped. "She's in a CRP? So, she's one unplugged day away from being dead?"

"Exactly," Nova interjected. She wiped the cleaning agent off the titanium counter with a cloth and a pleasant citrus scent filled the shop. "And CRPs are expensive."

"Glitches and gigs!" Ava-1 cursed. "Big Sister is paying for Major Tom's wife to be kept alive, isn’t she? Let me guess, as long as he plays the part of the good little dutiful soldier."

Whitlock tapped the side of his nose. "You got it."

"What's wrong with Mrs. Jones?" Ava-1 asked. "Mutation? Tumor? Terminal illness?"

"None of the above." Whitlock shook his head, his wavy black hair swishing across his goggles. "She was injured. On the Space Oddity."

"The Space Oddity..." Ava-1 accessed her backlog archives. The name was familiar. She scanned the data to refresh herself. "Ah! The luxury cruise vessel that travels around the circumference of the dying star, just outside the gravitational pull. I've heard the views are to die for!"

"And for the two hundred and twenty-eight people aboard the Space Oddity three years ago, it was almost true," Nova said, her mouth set in a grim line.

"What?!"

"On their descent back into the planet's atmosphere, a chunk of meteor debris struck the airlock seal," Whitlock explained. "A crash was eminate. It should have happened. But Major Tom and his wife were two of the passengers on board. Major Tom had dealt with a similar collision during his military days, and he rushed to the flight deck. Mrs. Jones got the passengers into brace positions inside the emergency pods."

"No freaking way..." Ava-1 murmured, awestruck. "He was on vacation, and he saved them all?"

Whitlock nodded. "Alniscient," he called. "Pull up the recorded audio from the crash of the Space Oddity."

"Accessing data," the soothing female voice chanted all around them. "File XPC91-B. Stand by."

There was a crackle and some stactic, followed by the unmistakable sound of rushing air. It roared through the shop, as if Ava-1, Whitlock, and Nova were present in the flight deck of a doomed space craft in the midst of a rapid decompression.

"Ground Control to Captain Kirk," sizzled a voice over the radio. "Captain Kirk, do you copy?"

There was a myriad of static and air interference, then: