MILO

Did Milo enjoy the work as an electrical engineer? It paid the bills and put food on the table, fueling his interest in cooking. The hazardous working conditions should be daunting but not for him. As of last year he had worked the longest on the site in this profession. High voltage killed colleagues every year and those lucky enough to survive accidents had to retire with crippling injuries. Other colleagues quit before bad fortune struck them. It was a poor man’s job. No one had bothered him about his lack of accidents. The shipyard personnel probably assumed he was too competent to make those mistakes. How silly of them.

Milo took a deep breath, sucked in his gut, broadened his smile and straightened his posture.

“Hi, Linda!” Milo said as he entered the reception.

Linda glanced up from her hand terminal. “Good day!”

After he turned the corner he let out the breath and his gut fell forward again. Today didn’t feel right. Tomorrow maybe.

He stepped into the vac suit’s unfolded back with a smile and walked out to the shuttle, which he arrived in time for. It was cramped with personnel, but Milo managed to squeeze and strap in properly. The shuttle rocked as the docking clamps disengaged and sped towards the half constructed dreadnaught. People talked loudly around him. Sharing gossip and banter. Milo sighed and turned away from it. With a simple command the suit’s faceplate turned black. The command also turned off the suit’s internal speakers. Milo stood still inside the darkness and silence of his suit. A quiet moment before a shift was the best way to start.

But as every moment before it had to end. Milo’s faceplate turned transparent again, the speakers turned on. The shuttle rocked as magnetic clamps locked it into place.

“Be safe, work hard!” a man’s voice yelled through the shuttle’s speakers.

Seams appeared on the back wall and the bulkhead door slid open. The magnetic boots of his suit clicked online. Some things were made easier in zero gravity, some things became really dangerous. He disengaged the straps, walked forward and entered his working environment. The half finished interior had cables running everywhere, terminals being installed, electrical outputs put in place, lighting strips attached to the ceiling, bulkhead door slotted into their sockets and tools of different sizes floating everywhere. A ridiculous scene. The grind begins anew.

The thing about constructing these massive ships was that it required an insane amount of people and work hours. To build them was an enterprise beyond reason, like when the ancient Egyptians decided to build the pyramids. All the little things that needed doing and then every piece needed redundancy.

A power tool floated in his path. Milo shoved it to the side and walked on. At least he worked alone on most shifts, away from the floating dangers.

The med bay was only one of many in the ship, today’s task would be to install some of its hardware. He walked passed the med bay and continued forward until he met an airlock. The half finished dreadnought was not pressurized, so the lock didn’t ran through its cycle. Milo went through, sat down on the edge and locked his magnetic boots to the hull. What a marvelous thing.

From this distance the true immense size of Europe13 became obvious. The space city had a spherical outer shell which held buildings and the atmosphere in place. Patches of the shell were made from a transparent material, giving the people inside a great view of space. Balconies some called those rooms. Docking stations for starships were spread across multiple locations and were easy to spot since they extended the Europe13’s spherical shape. Smaller classes of starships could use the docks to gain a berth inside the shell, while larger starships had to dock outside. Starships moved around the city looking like ants in an ant colony. What an amusing thought.

-

Countless languages were spoken aboard the space city of Europe13. Every month new people immigrated from Earth, space cities and planets based colonies. English was well known to be the first language, but almost half the inhabitants could not speak it. The French really disliked English. If one visited a french sector of the city or a city in France and tried to speak English, good luck on communicating.

Active translators were not cheap and Milo had decided not to buy one. To make him understood by the Spanish man he had to write down the items on his hand terminal. It translated the grocery list instantaneously. The Spanish man shook his head. Real goat cheese was not available. Milo left the shop with the other items in a biodegradable bag. He could visit one of the marketplaces in the inner rings, but their prices were crazy. A year’s salary to buy some genuine food stuff. Every week he tried to test different shops around the outer rings, but he had to settle for synthetics.

Milo made his way to the nearest cart hub. He still felt energized after the incident in Captain Samuels’s corvette, like a fully charged battery. He looked at his fingers and focused on the tickling feeling that always occurred when the electricity came to life. Sparks jumped between the finger tops. Electrical tendrils chained from finger to finger, but they died down quickly. It had been in the middle of his teenage years he had discovered this thing. No accident, no chemical waste had spilled over him, no radioactive spider had bit him. Nothing like that. Just a regular day; an early morning when he had loaded the coffee brewer up a jolt of electricity had jumped the gap between his fingers and the start button. After an overhaul of the machine some days after it was discovered that the brewer’s circuitry had malfunctioned and along its multiple failsafes, turning the brewer’s metallic body into a death trap. But Milo had not felt pain or discomfort from the electrical shock, it had felt tingling. Milo put his hands on the brewer and kept them still. Crackling sparks of electricity jumped along his arms, but he only smiled.

A cart carried him to the hub closest to home. People ran past him as he entered the apartment complex. Angry voices. Someone shoved him and he almost dropped the bag of groceries. Milo swore in the direction of the man. There were pleading between the loud shouts. Milo clasped tighter around the bag and walked slowly towards the sounds. When a knife penetrates a body it makes a wet, disgusting sound. He tensed. Blood snaked around the corner. The pleading voice faded as the sound of knife stabs took over. Over and over again, the wet disgusting sound. What should he do? Cold sweat ran along his back, his muscles froze. He stared at the blood flowing across the floor. Flee. Breathing became shallow and quick. Eyes widened. The stabbing stopped. A man’s shadow took shape from around the corner. RUN! Milo turned and ran faster than he had ever before.

His apartment.

Door unlocked.

The bag made a thud when landing on the floor, the door locked behind him. He puked. So heroic of him. Someone had just been murdered and he had done nothing to stop it. Nothing. Shame washed over him as his muscles relaxed from the running and the puking stopped. His hands trembled. How could he be such a coward? Weakling. What could he have done? Sparks jumping between his fingertips would not have saved anyone, only gotten himself killed. The victim was dead and police would soon arrive to sort things out. He could have done something, anything! Thrown the bag at the assailant. Anything to delay until the police arrived.

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“Coward,” Milo mumbled, sitting in a corner and leaning at the two walls with yellow puke on his clothes.

-

Skin parted as the knife slid into the body. Blood gushed out of the wound. The knife was pulled back and shoved in again. Milo rolled to the side of his bunk to avoid the cold, wet stain of sweat in the sheets. A pungent smell of body odour. What if he had been earlier? Intervened the murder with a lightning bolt? But picturing himself stopping the criminal could not make the terrible nightmares go away.

Sparks were not lightning bolts and would not stop anyone. The difference in voltage could not be mistaken. In an electrical system you upped the flow or intensity of the charged particles. Could his body mass determine the current stored amount? Or could the naturally generated electricity be increased? He had felt charged after the interaction in Sam’s ship. Energetic, really. It sounded correct. An external source of electricity could be used to boost his body’s storage. But only temporary. The sense of being energetic had diminished, meaning that the overflow difference with his natural capacity could not be stored for greater lengths of time. Could his body and mind be trained to hold more? What if he fattened up? The larger the battery, the larger the charge?

A series of sharp knocks at the door. Milo’s analysis fell into pieces, but he promised to continue it at another time. Maybe he should perform some tests too? Milo sighed, dad would have loved this scientific angle. Besides the bed his hand terminal chimed, he accepted the call.

Captain Samuel’s square face appeared on the screen. “Howdy! Eh, Milo. Let me in. We got to talk.”

The instinctive response in the wake of such an authorial figure would be: “Yes, sir!” Tired and smelling of sweat, Milo hesitated.

“I am trying to sleep, Sam. Why are you here?” Milo asked with squinting eyes.

“Been thinking. You know, about the incident in my ship,” Sam said.

No reason to avoid it. Why keep it a secret? Sam was his closest friend. Talking about it might even feel relieving. The door slid open as Milo commanded it from the hand terminal. Sam’s presence was immediate, the brawny man had a way of taking up space. Straight back, chin up and wide shoulders. Like an aura.

“Do you have something reasonable to drink?” Sam asked.

The captain looked far more awake than Milo, who felt like a wreck after being awake half the night. Witnessing a murder before trying to sleep did that to you.

“There should be some bottles of non-alcoholic ginger beer in the fridge,” Milo said and stood up. Sam stood a head taller than Milo, but in his vicinity he might as well be a tiny mouse. Milo stepped into yesterday's clothes.

“I said reasonable. I know a quiet pub close by, let’s go there,” Sam asked. “Not a fancy place, but not a dump either. Just right.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Milo said with a smile.

Ginger beer made a tingling sensation on his tongue when he drank it. Crispy cold. A genuine delight. Sam had gotten them a private booth. The musky scent of stew being prepared caressed Milo’s senses, his stomach confirmed with a low growl. He usually didn’t visit taverns, but this one was nice. Surprisingly calm place, not at all what he had expected. Of course there was chatter, but not upsettingly loud. He could see himself visit here some other time and eat more stew, drink more ginger beer.

“So. Milo, open up. I want to know why you survived the high voltage incident,” Sam said. “You should have dropped dead at that moment.”

Was Sam’s plan to get him drunk and loosened up, to make it easier for him to talk? To spill secrets.

Sam didn’t give him time to respond. “How long have we known each other?”

A crystal memory. “Eight years. Ever since my first day at the assembly yard. I walked inside the wrong corvette and you made me work the entire day, rewiring your fusion reactor. I was almost fired on my first day because of you. Good thing you knew my boss.”

The depth of Sam’s laugh always surprised Milo. “Haha. Yeah. There was plenty to do and we didn’t want to fix it ourselves. Also, you always have to scout for new talents.”

“Why are all military ships so goddamn alike?” Milo asked and sipped his beer. A fond memory now years afterwards, but at the time it had been embarrassing.

Sam finished his third one with a sweep. “You know. Regulations. No harm was done. Your father and I reasoned with your superior. Your father is a good man, I like him.”

New beers arrived with a plate of hot snacks. The synthetic and crispy bacon went nicely along with the drinks. Milo took a moment to think. He didn’t want to confuse Sam unnecessarily. He owed Sam the truth.

“As long as I can remember, I have had this thing. Electricity cannot hurt me. It is like my body absorbs it. That is why I elected to work in a job involving hazardous electricity. Other people don’t need to get hurt when I can do the work safely. Sometimes I can make sparks jump between my fingers,” Milo said. “I have not thought much about it because that is the limit of what it does. I have tested things. It amounts to nothing more than sparks and absorption.”

Milo pushed the table cloth to the side, he didn’t want to accidentally burn it. He placed his hands on the table, palms faced up and fingers spread apart. He focused on his fingers, trying to command the sparks to jump between them. But nothing happened.

Milo shrugged. “But only sometimes. Now, it doesn’t work.”

Sam’s big smile reminded Milo of the smiling bear he had seen in a cartoon one time. “Like a superhero?”

“You are insane,” Milo said, sighed and looked away.

Two bowls of stew arrived, served by a robotic waiter. Good, warm food mended one’s mood and wellbeing. He stuffed himself and leaned back. The tavern’s lighting made Sam’s face look fiercer than usual, like a wolf’s frown.

Milo coupled his hands over his stomach. “Well. Higher adrenaline levels didn’t activate the sparks. I don’t know what controls them.”

“In what context?” Sam said.

“There was this murder in my apartment complex the other night. That sound I heard. Over and over again. It will never leave me,” Milo said and swallowed. And the victim’s last gurgling call for help. He shivered even though the tavern was pleasantly warm.

“Fear is a fickle thing. Soldiers are plagued with fears. Those who say that they never are afraid are those that are suffering the most. Fear play tricks on you. If this power is connected with your thoughts and brain, maybe its access was locked down?” Sam said.

Milo had never thought the man could ever feel fear.

“But you have this feeling that you really would like to stop that man from being murdered?” Sam said.

“Of course. But I felt crippled. My legs froze, my brain locked. What can a lazy man like me do?” Milo asked.

Sam nodded. “That is very human. Fear puts you down, makes you hesitant and questions yourself. You convinced yourself that you only tried to avoid harm. You are not lazy,” Sam said and looked at Milo’s overweight stomach. “Well, you are lazy but that is not relevant.”

Milo frowned. “How can that not be relevant? Laziness and confidence do not hold hands.”

“You got a point, Milo, I will give you that. Fear is conquered with confidence. You need to shatter your reluctance. What if you tried to be brave, tried to be a hero? Grab the action by the throat. With a trusty, shotgun wielding buddy by your side nothing bad could happen. If your sparks wouldn’t deliver, well, my shotgun would do the trick,” Sam said and smiled.

Sam swept another beer and called for the waiter.

Milo laughed. “You are insane. Are you telling me to run into certain death?”

“Think about it. Your lack of confidence and abundance of fear might be holding you back. Maybe you just need a good shove to find your groove,” Sam said. “Even though you are not in my crew, you are still crew. Still family. If that makes sense to you. Milo, you are my friend. I want you to succeed in life. To be happy and feel fulfilled. I am not trying to get you killed. I am aware of my violent tendencies, but this time it is not about that,” Sam said.

Milo raised his beer. “Fine words, friend. Fine indeed. Thank you. I believe you.”

Their beer bottles clanged together. The alcohol was getting the better of him.

“Well. I would have tried to get rid of you, but you are too goddamn stubborn,” Milo said and they laughed together. “Always trying to sign me up for your crew and asking me to fix your ship.”