Rasp thought he was dreaming, back in his bunk on the asteroid with a hard-on and a contraband bag of ZipZap Remedy. The warmth behind his eyes welling as soon as he popped the cap and inhaled. His muscles sinking into the sleeping pad he sacrificed a demerit space for. Something muscular and cold slid over his belly and tucked itself under his lower back, rocking him. He could feel a warm shift in the air over his naked body and reached down to drag his RadAttack blanket over his chest. It wasn’t there.
Rasp jerked up and tried to open his eyes. His eyelids were crusted with something rigid and cold. He put the heels of his hands to them and rubbed. The substance melted off with the warmth from his hands and seeped into his eyeballs. A slight burning was replaced by a cool sensation. A place Rasp had never seen came into sharp focus. Shiny, filmy rainbow patterns drifted up the walls of a cavern with bright blue-white walls. He nearly floated, the gravity was so light absent his suit. The floor glowed a luminous turquoise. A faint booming trembled the walls and floor.
His usually painful joints from the years of mining felt light and flexible for the first time since Earth. A large shiny-skinned tube of muscle surrounded his waist and supported his back. A long black tendril stroked his cheek and seemed to sing to him, but there was no sound.
“Where am I?” He asked, not knowing who he was addressing. Thinking better of it, he amended his introduction. “Who are you?”
A voice came into his head. Louder than the slingshot around the moon. Louder than rocket engines. Pain scorched his optical nerves.
MOTHER
The events that led him here came rushing back.
“Excuse me, MOTHER, but can you talk more quiet to me?”
The muscle tube loosened and frantically patted his hair, petting his jaw and rocking him.
EXCUSE ME
An image of a silent ice geyser popped into his head.
“It’s ok. That’s good. Yeah, quiet like that.”
QUIET LIKE THAT
Rasp looked around at the iridescent walls that heaved and retreated around him. His stomach growled. The tendril snaked over to his stomach and touched it, furling and unfurling with each hunger pain. Rasp knew he should have been afraid, like the time the paneling on the reentry craft he was in ripped off and flew past the portholes, directionless as he drifted. But his heart rate was steady and his skin was dry.
“I have to get back to my shuttle, MOTHER.”
Feelings of confusion throbbed in his temples. Not his feelings, MOTHER’s.
“I need to, um, consume to live.”
HUNGRY
“Yes, hungry.”
A grayish translucent tube squeezed from the larger tube holding him and snaked toward him. It pressed against his ear, and then his nostril. It reared up and slid around his hip toward his glutes.
HUNGRY CONSUME PRESENTLY
Rasp realized that MOTHER was trying to feed him, searching for an orifice to deposit some sort of nutrient into.
“Whoa, MOTHER, not there. That’s not where I consume from.”
WHERE
“Here.” He pointed to his mouth.
The tube unfurled from his body and drifted to his mouth. Rasp’s gag reflex activated at the smell of something yeasty and acrid emanating from the penny-sized opening at the end of the tube. His stomach contracted, and his mouth filled with salty water.
CONSUME
“What is it?”
GOOD
“Is it safe?”
YES
“It smells kind of bad.”
Sadness flooded him, a feeling like he once had when he offered a girl a hug back in the sheltering space, and she told him he was brown like dirt and pushed him away.
“I’m sorry MOTHER. I will consume.” He projected his feeling of regret towards MOTHER. He conjured an image of a sunset from Earth as an apology.
He took the tube in his hand and guided it to his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut. A cold, fishy paste flooded his mouth. He choked and swallowed. It filled his belly immediately. The haze of malnutrition and space-body syndrome lifted, and he felt full. Full for the first time in a long time. A memory of something spicy and hot lingered on the fringes of his memory. Spicy. He could not remember the last time that sensation crossed his tongue.
“Thank you, MOTHER.”
The thrumming under the floor increased for a moment, and a feeling of joy welled up in him.
“Are there others?”
OTHERS
“Yeah, like me?”
YES
“Where are they? How can I reach them? Are they alive?”
MOTHER crooned and wrapped another loop of muscle around his shoulders, bunching them and then releasing them. His cervical vertebrae cracked and loosened.
HURT
“They’re hurt?”
HURT MOTHER
“They hurt you?”
YES
“How?”
MOTHER’s pain overwhelmed him for a moment. An image appeared in his mind of a mining rod jutting from the planet’s surface, pinning a part of MOTHER’s vacillating network of arms to the cold seafloor. Rasp focused hard on the pins that held the oscillating driver in place. They were Fastener Deluxe 15mm. Easily removed.
HURT MOTHER HURT CHILDREN
“MOTHER, I can help. I can make it stop hurting. I was a miner.”
???
“Don’t worry about the details. I can help. I can fix.” His voice bounced around the cavern.
CAN YOU TALK MORE QUIET TO ME
Rasp recognized his own words and laughed.
“Ok, ok you win. That’s pretty funny.”
YOU HELP MOTHER PLEASE
“You have to get me to quarry site to help, ok?”
???
“The hurt spot.”
OK
MOTHER unlooped from his waist and moved him to the floor of the cavern. His bare feet tensed from the cold, and he jumped back into MOTHER’s grasp.
“Too cold for me. Do you have my suit?” He imagined his tattered space suit.
CONSUMED
“You ate my suit? Was it good?”
NO
“Well, I can’t walk here without a suit.”
MOTHER stretched up an arm to the ceiling, widening and spiraling, splitting the skin with a sound like ripping fabric. The skin tented into a booth with an opening exactly Rasp’s size.
MOVE HERE WITHOUT A SUIT
The tip of a black tendril floated down and pointed toward the hole.
“You want me to get in there? You know I have to breathe air, right?”
YOU BREATHE AIR NOW
“Ok, you’re right. I’m breathing now. I trust you.”
TRUST MOTHER
“Ok, I said ok.”
Rasp stepped into the skin void and closed his eyes. The acrid, fishy smell of the feeding tube overwhelmed him. The opening sealed shut with a shudder. MOTHER’s skin slid tight over his shoulders and belly, encasing him. Panic tinted his vision red as the skin moved up his throat towards his mouth and nose.
“MOTHER, can you hear me?”
No answer.
The skin folded over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils, pouring into his lungs. He struggled against it, fighting and writhing, pressing the heels of his hands against the surrounding membrane. His chest opened, and a yellow sun ripped across his vision. He was standing on a white beach, snow floating around him and landing in soft ticks around his feet. A geyser puffed steam across the expansive opaque lake. The icy lake was crisscrossed with deep crevasses. Rasp turned in a circle, patting his arms and touching his throat.
“MOTHER?”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
MOTHER
“You scared me.”
TRUST MOTHER
A thin membrane covered his body and face, leaving his vision wavy and strange. His breath puffed through it, fanning white in front of him.
MOTHER HURT
“Ok, I know. Let me look around some. I might need some tools.”
???
Rasp thought about how to describe tools to MOTHER. He imagined the Commissary tool room they rented from at the mining base on asteroid R-657. He had tried so hard to save enough credit to buy his own tools, but the Pornographic Art Films and Shine Gummies drew him in, especially when he was tired and lonely. He was tired and lonely a lot drifting on those space rocks. Strange to be so lonely with warm bodies packed all around you. The Corporation even had an advertising campaign to combat “The Feelies.”
If you’re lonely and you know it, eat a pill
If you’re lonely and you know it, eat a pill
If you’re lonely and you know it, then your account will surely show it
If you’re lonely and you know it, eat a pill
MOTHER pushed an image of a windowless metal building nestled next to The Corporation’s Mining Spire Complex. A symbol Rasp recognized as an old brand he remembered from childhood of a blue, star-pocked circle with a red orbital pattern was emblazoned on the door.
He repeated the word printed under it, trying to remember its meaning. GNASA. GNASA.
TOOLS
“Ok. I’m going. I’m going.”
He put his membrane-encased foot onto the ice pack, one, then the other. His breath freezing and falling before him. A shadow sailed under the ice and the door to the metal building opened a handspan. Rasp was afraid.
***
The Holy Book™
New Understanding Version
Chapter 2 Verses 18-26
18 And so rose a great machine from the mountainside, bigger than the people had ever beheld, and they called it Dragon, and they called it Economics.
19 It had 177 heads, each with divergent eyes that did see every transgression the people did commit. Its teeth were as viruses, invisible except to those who seek.
20 And seek the people did. And they invited Dragon into their dwellings, feeding it with the blood of their own kin.
21 In return, Dragon fed them with dalliances and diversions for which the people did pay a price, though the price was fair and in accordance with The Market, for which Mechoben did provide stability and prosperity before His First Ascension.
22 But the people did grumble amongst themselves and demanded more of The Corporation, which did provide purpose and striving for them. They said ‘If Mechoben was so great, where is He now?’
23 The elders distributed texts to the young, who were primary amongst the grumblers, saying ‘Did you not heed us? The collection and keeping of credits is immoral and you are the worst among us. Did you not hear our lessons on patience?’ But the young did not heed them.
24 They stopped their tithes and contributions, angering the elders, who did say unto them ‘My reward is on Mars, for I did as Mechoben asked, and there are many crowns for the obedient.’ The young did rise up in their lust and greed before The Second Ascension, demanding control. But they had mercy, as was always their fatal sin.
25 Mechoben, seeing this from the First Ascension Ballroom on Mars, was troubled.
26 He returned to the people of Earth, bearing gifts. He brought CyRolex and Armani. He brought berries from across five oceans. He brought garments impossible to rend, and the young were satisfied for a time.
***
Alona stripped off her UltraSoft Griffy Bam Bam Suit in Saturn Gold before stepping into the anti-grav Bicky Ball court. Her three-fingered hands ran along the sealant points to pop the seams off her skin, leaving deep pink dents under her arms. The Anti-Degrade Skin Soother smelled like the modeling clay she used to play with in school before they removed her – despite Pai’s wealth – when The Corporation discovered her heritage.
Her familiar slid from her right nostril to her left in a slick black flash before she caught it and flashed a feeling of longing into her chest. It took training to differentiate between her own feelings and her familiar’s. She mentally checked off the signs that it was just a small tantrum from the Natsar. She made a note to visit the tank later and bring a small offering. An image of Rasp, sitting with his hands pressed between his knees, rose in her mind. The skin on her flanks mottled deep baboon red in the mirror. An embarrassing side effect of her DNA.
She waved her hand over the Bicky Ball court settings and drew the screen up.
The SUIT/NO SUIT prompt blinked in front of her. The audio had been broken for a Martian year.
“No suit,” she said.
The word NO SUIT bounced around the screen mimicking the movements of the Bicky Ball. A SUIT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE. ARE YOU SURE? YES/NO.
“Yes.”
PARTNER/NO PARTNER?
Alona looked at her implanted biowatch. Pai told her last week that a new partner had been ordered and was in transit in time for practice. “But only if you stream it. You know it’s against Mechoben’s third commandment to engage in sport or art for personal use only. Monetization keeps us accountable,” he had said, his hand hovering above her shoulder.
Her middle finger hovered over the NO PARTNER option before she realized someone was standing in the Bicky Ball Court. The aging A.I. had failed to detect them. Her heart thumped. This house played tricks.
“Excuse me, are you my new Bicky Ball partner?” Alona asked.
The person turned, and Alona realized it was a girl only a few cycles younger than she was.
“I think so. The Cryo has got me a little confused.” Her voice was deep and her Bicky Ball suit was on upside down and backwards. The girl’s thin legs poked through the stretchy collar at the bottom. Her green eyes held Alona’s gaze under dense brows. Her hair was cropped short, against Corporation standards for females.
Alona, forgetting her nakedness, went to check her own suit before remembering its absence at the feel of her gooseflesh. She kept her distance, eyeing the thin stranger in her house.
“What’s your name?”
“My name?”
“What do they call you?”
“They called me Gram at the factory.”
Alona used her calm voice. Her dumb voice. The voice that got her through her prohibited schooling.
“Are you here to play Bicky Ball with me? Or what were you told?”
“Um, they don’t usually tell us what we’ll be doing once we’re bought. I mean once our labor is contracted out by The Corporation,” she said, her voicing echoing around the chamber.
Alona tapped on the comm link by the door before remembering it was broken.
“Well, we should probably get you into that suit correctly, unless you want to play skinny like me.”
“I don’t know the rules.”
Alona approached her and began tugging at the leg hole of the suit that Gram’s head poked through, rearranging her hair and smoothing her dark brows. Gram relaxed under her touch after a moment, her intense gaze still flicking from Alona’s face to her breasts.
“I have a girlfriend,” Gram said.
“Oh? Isn’t that,” Alona lowered her voice with a smile, “…prohibited by The Corporation’s rules and bylaws?”
Gram noticed her smile.
“You’re not going to file a report with HR, are you?”
“Not if you promise to play Bicky Ball with me.” Alona extended her pinky. The holy promise.
Gram wrapped her pinky around Alona’s smallest finger and squeezed. She giggled and looked at the floor. Several of Gram’s teeth were missing, and the ones remaining were glazed with a fine layer of blood. The smell of sick flesh reached the back of Alona’s throat. She realized that this almost-child was too damaged to play Bicky Ball. She would need to be treated by Dr. Robot – The Doctor that Never Sleeps.
Alona withdrew from her and brought up the rules for Bicky Ball on her tablet.
“Ok, read this and go with Friendly Bot to go see Dr. Robot,” she said.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Read,” Gram said. “School went away after The Event where I was, and ‘reading is for the bored and boring,’ is what they used to tell us.”
“Did they? Well, you see this symbol here? The ear? Just tap it. That’s the audio version.”
Gram peered at the tablet as Friendly Bot rammed into her heels. Alona picked up the heavy black robe she had tossed aside earlier and flung it over her right shoulder.
“Well go on. I’ll meet you after you’ve been properly inducted into the household. Have you met Pai?”
“No.”
Friendly Bot nudged against Gram’s right calf. She tucked the tablet under her arm and followed the insistent little bot out into the hall. Alona sighed and watched her walk down the hall. Pretty little thing. They were releasing them for private sale earlier and earlier it seemed.
***
A Brief History of Bicky Ball
The earliest influences for Bicky Ball include a primitive game called tennis, where participants played against one another on a physical court with a ball made of petroleum-based plastics and fibers and a device called a racket, which was an oval-shaped tool also made from petroleum-based plastics and fibers, though some of the more elite players used rackets made of carbon fiber. The racket had a grid of taut plastic string which allowed the ball to bounce more easily from racket to racket.
Like tennis, Bicky Ball was designed to give the economy drivers and job creators a bit of leisure time in between their tremendous efforts to employ and retain the labor of both Earth and the Moon Colonies.
The advent of Bicky Ball came about after the second pandemic required the global populace, especially our job creators who were too crucial to expose for any reason, to refrain from large gatherings and group play. Bicky Ball was designed by two of the most qualified sub-Corporations, Nike and Apple, in order to feed the need for recreational play to enhance greater problem-solving abilities.
Contrary to popular belief, the use of the anti-grav chamber was an addition to the game that came later, probably due to the Skylabs and Martian Relocation Programs, which predated Cryo and Flight Warp. The Holy Building of the Brand could only continue if the influential were kept healthy through exercise and stimulation.
Materials Needed:
* 2 players of the male sex
* Bicky Ball Court with Consistent Anti-Grav drives or Airlock Isolation measuring 20 feet by 20 feet by 20 feet.
* 1 Borzer Ball
* 2 Frackus Rods
* 1 Set of Sensors to be harnessed from points A, B, C, and D (see diagram)
* 1 Bicky Ball
* 2 public screens to display results from sensors
Rules:
Both players must have sensors attached to the correct anchor points as shown in the diagram. These sensors must be connected to the screens for public view, as part of end scoring is the heartrate, hydration, and respiration rate of each player. Better stats can be used as a tiebreaker, in the event of a tie, but otherwise they will be tallied in the final score.
Once the public scores are available for all to view, and the sensor points are applied correctly, the Borzer Ball is released before the players into the court. The Borzer Ball is manufactured by Nike. Only Nike Borzer Balls may be used for competition of any size or venue. The Borzer Ball is controlled by a sophisticated A.I. and can move in three dimensions, though the pitch and yaw will vary based on the data input by the official Nike Bot Trainers. The Borzer Ball will remain alone in the court for 5 minutes to analyze data.
The players are then permitted to enter carrying Frackus Rods. Both players will start with gravity engaged, unless they are using an Airlock All-Natural Court.
The Bicky Ball, which is a misnomer as it is more of an elliptical, like the ball that accompanied American Football or Rugby (see diagram) shall enter into play when the A.I. reads the appropriate data coming from the sensors. Meaning, whichever player achieves the correct heart rate, respiration rate, and hydration level will have the Bicky Ball released on his side of the court.
Until the Bicky Ball is released, the Borzer Ball is programmed to move randomly around the court, displaying the player’s most embarrassing recorded moments.
History:
The most famous match was in the Bicky Ball Pro Trials on the Muskian Transport of the Third Age. This was before the prohibition of women from the sport, due to the need to preserve their fertility after The Event. Curiously, the match was between Haster Grim, the male inheritor of Very Valves fortune, and Hager Hillah, the female inheritor of Very Valves’ sister company (when such things existed) Great Valves. It was coincidence the two were on the same transport. Such things were only overlooked as a result of the second pandemic, which caused some organizational disorder, as nearly 30% of the administrative staff were quarantined or died.
It should be noted that even in these times before women were separated for their own protection, it was a rare occasion for men and women to play one another in Bicky Ball, as the sport contains some physicality and spatial reasoning.
Hager Hillah had schooling as a statistician, unbeknownst to her opponent, and had been studying the court for three months before the match. She used machine learning, using her own personal devices, to map and analyze every match ever played on the court and then calculated the odds for the particular patterns the Borzer Ball was mostly likely to take, ensuring her the early capture and dispersal of the Bicky Ball to her side of the court. She also trained her body to reach and maintain these static statistics for the entire round, ensuring an edge to her competition using mathematics. Some historians argue that this was the catalyst to the segregation of the sexes in the larger sense, though that has been disputed.
Hager’s plan worked, and she received the Bicky Ball and padded the odds, just as she had planned.
But in a bizarre turn of events, Haster Grim overcame her physically even in the anti-grav chamber, when she executed a charming, but useless maneuver where she attempted the final goal. Unedited recordings of the match show that the physicality was brought on by the memory recording of Haster dining on a female-formed android that he had hunted in an illegal preserve in the United Sub Saharan Arab Emirates, which was formerly a country known as Mauritania. Again, we should note that android hunting and consumption is and continues to be legal, but highly discouraged. It was particularly shocking that the android resembled his late sister, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances years before.
Haster caught her midflight, wrapped his arm around her throat and choked her to unconsciousness, saying “well she can’t win if she can’t think.” He then forced her unconscious body into the goal socket, breaking her arm and several ribs in the process. The gaming computer deemed this to be Hager’s most embarrassing moment and played it several times over.
The officials found nothing in the rulebook to suggest that this action did not comply with the “any means necessary” clause and awarded Haster the game.
Hager and her company tried to sue Very Valves, but were unsuccessful as Hager signed a release of liability before participating in the game.