"Giallos"
Episode II: 'Running Away Toward Danger'
There is no worst place to be than on a spaceship that you really, really, don't want to be on. Getting off of one fast, or slow for that matter, can be somewhat of a challenge; especially when the people in charge of said spaceship are insistent upon you remaining aboard. Unlike an adventure vid, there's never a launch prepped and readied for spaceflight while at the same time left unattended; and space suiting out an airlock in the middle of vast emptiness isn't really an option to the practical minded person who has survival as one of their objectives.
As Giallos, a rather small (or as she would say, "petite")opifex, replaced the vent covering of the ceiling shaft she had climbed up into she was wishing that she had remained oh so woefully ignorant regarding such trivia.
Hearing a beeping sound, she stared down through the vent's slates and saw a courier drone speeding towards her from down the corridor.
"Life signs detected," it buzzed; " identified as Chantel Caris. Location updated."
It came to a stop right the vent.
"Miss Caris!" Bellowed an all too human, and too often heard, voice with such fury as to threaten to blow Giallos off of her perch inside the ventilation and service shaft. She was amazed that the probe tadpole frame held together while relaying such a voice.
The voice belonged to Ms Ira Anderson, Direct Supervisor of Shipboard Personal Entertainers. For the sake of record keeping, Ms Anderson was classified as human, though Giallos suspected her supervisor was the end results of a failed experiment to create a female atrox.
"Come down here at once, you little lynx!"
"OK, Ms Anderson!" Giallos answered with a sly smile. As stupid, and deadly, as her situation was, she was enjoying it in a tantalizing and stressed out sort of way.
She jumped onto the vent covering she had just carefully replaced; which happen to be the same vent covering the probe was hovering beneath.
"Death from above, fraghole!" She scream as she hurled down with all the force her 39 kilograms of mass could muster.
Which, as she realized when she bounced off the probe and into a wall, isn't a whole of hell of a lot of force.
Dazed, she looked around at the probe and would have sworn that it appeared embarrassed for her. It even beeped in an assuring way that it would keep her little stunt just between it and her.
"I should have been an atrox...." She mumbled as she leaped up and shot down the corridor in a flash.
It was a regret she didn't have long to savor because, as she rounded the corner on a dime, it was replaced by the new regret of running headlong into a pair of Dionysos security guards who just happen to be atroxes.
Surviving the impact just slightly better than say, a bug hitting the grill of a hovertruck; Giallos found herself in a heap between the security guards and the quickly closing probe. The adrenaline rush was fading away; leaving her feeling hollow, her limbs suddenly weighing 300 kilograms and a dire need to pee.
"Miss Caris," the probe boomed, "Please report to my office for an emergency performance evaluation."
An atrox each grabbed one of her arms, and jerked her into the air with such g-force that her eyes rolled back into her head.
"We gonna take you to see the lady now." One of them said.
Giallos fumed as she swung from their arms like a very angry handbag, "they couldn't do this if I was an atrox."
Giallos soon found herself seated right in front of her supervisor?s desk. Ms Anderson sat with her back as straight as the wall behind her and her hands folded in what would be a nice pup tent for someone of Giallos size and a really annoyed look on her face.
"Miss Caris" the large, perturbed woman rumbled like a large earthquake about to swallow a small village;" the Dionysos Entertainment Corp. is not happy with you."
Giallos braced herself for the aftershock. It came.
"I am not happy with you, Ms Caris!" She shook the room.
Giallos bet Miss Anderson was an Atrox.
"I'm not happy with me either." Giallos replied. Which, if unrepentant, was sincere.
"The event s of the last 24 hours has force the Dionysos Entertainment Corp. to evaluate your present and future value against the threat of you destroying more company assets.
Giallos tried to follow along. The atroxes behind her also looked puzzled (well, more so than usual for their breed).
"Ugh, I thought she was a hooker that killed someone?" One on them asked the other.
"AHEM!" Ms Anderson announced that she was continuing.
"I've been given permission to liquidate our investment in you for a one time acceptance of hard credit that will offset your lost as company revenue producing asset."
Giallos began to suspect she was being executed by means of tedium.
"So, are you going to sell me or kill me?"
"Maybe she?s going to kill you and sell your body parts?" One of the atroxes mused.
"AHEM!" Ms Anderson barked.
The two guards immediately bolted into positions of attention.
"Well, I am rather curious." Giallos pouted.
Ms Anderson paused, and gave her a long and hard stare.
"Your feelings are of no consideration here, Miss Caris."
With that said, Ms Anderson returned to the administrative systems interface pad that was lying on her desk. She made one final scribble with her finger tip and there was a weak clicking noise as she finished.
She looked up at Giallos, and there was a look of satisfaction in her eyes.
"Goodbye, Miss Caris." She said. "You are now someone else?s little money pit."
And then, she smiled. In that smile, Giallos saw one of the ugliest people she has ever seen.
As if on cue, the doors to the office hissed open and in walked two black clad enforcers escorting (or being escorted?) by an even darker man of the nano breed.
"Uh oh!" Yelped one of the guards behind her. Omni Tech security."
In unison, with surprising spring, her two guards stepped away from her.
Giallos started to turn towards the Omni Tech personnel when her limbs went suddenly cold and all the blood in her body seem to roar into her head.
"Welcome to Omni Tech, Giallos." Greeted the nano technician. His lipless smile was the last thing she saw as she blacked out.
well written, Gia.
hey wait a sec!
