By David C. Daoust
Growing up, when Colin Vice looked at men, all he saw were rats.
Rats were one of those species that could survive. Even if they were secluded from a flourishing ecosystem, like rats trapped in ghost ships or abandoned mines that had been sealed a bit too tight, these creatures had a way of sustaining themselves. These rat societies would devolve into a cannibalistic nightmare.
When the ‘Organization’ first moved into the Crucible, they found such a nest of rats throughout the abandoned station. The rats had stowed away on any possible transport throughout the Crucibles active lifetime. At one time feeding off what scraps were left unattended. Eventually, these massive rats were abandoned, the same as the station. The station’s life-support was enough to keep them breathing, but once they had chewed through any remaining stores, it left these thieving pests with nothing to steal, which forced them to fend for themselves.
Each one starving, waiting for the rat next to it, to show weakness, to slow down… or just stumble a little, really. At which point the rest could pounce. This left only the survivors, only the toughest, and the wiliest; top rats of them all. Demon rats gnawing at their own kind, the species continued on only as long as they were strong enough to protect their young, which could prove to be an easy meal among those starving fiends.
Young Colin had helped flush the station of these brazen creatures. The animals were bold and desperate, but most of all they were scared. Colin could see it in their twisted little eyes, matted fur oily with a must of fear. The rats that worked together… did so only to insure they received a taste of the next meal.
As Colin aged, he saw this same structure among the criminals that worked for his father. He was the only son of the toughest rat, and he knew the rest of them would pounce if he stumbled. Colin Vice adopted an attitude to throw off those around him. As far as he was concerned, he invented playing ‘tough-guy’, nobody was going to see him weak.
That was all before he’d almost gotten himself killed. That was before he was shot full of holes, before he’d spent so many months being put back together, but most of all, before he witnessed life through a holo-mech.
His Holo-mech separated him from fear, not because of some newfound strength of his own, but for the fact he could not be harmed in that form. His physical body was safely guarded within stasis at all times. What men saw of him in the real world, was an elaborate lattice of solid-light. Even if it was destroyed, he would merely wake up, back in his home. It was an unnatural fearlessness, which he probably didn’t deserve, but was his new reality.
Now, when he looks at men, all he sees are actors.
Men pretend to be what they’re not. The kind, played mean, for they’d been hurt one too many times. The mean, played kind, because it was easier to get what they wanted. All those that pretend to be tough… were just scared.
This showed him, proved to him, how scared he was for all those years.
Every time he felt cornered in his own life, surrounded by all those hungry rats, he would create an imaginary scenario of what he would do, or how it would play out, to prove that he was that top rat; the toughest, wiliest rat.
Colin now knew, first hand, that all that he’d imagined only bolstered him into believing that he could handle whatever may come.
This helped his stride, though it was a weak replacement for experience.
When he’d found himself on his own, toe to toe with men that did not share his vision of himself, Colin’s scenarios did not help him in the midst of reality, and it very nearly cost him his life.
Colin now knew, that all that he had portrayed in the past was rooted in fear. Fear was something everyone felt, which meant this was true for everyone. Everyone feels the same thing in a given situation.
Colin found his life much more easygoing, when he stopped pretending to be surrounded by rats just looking for a taste, and instead replaced them with men and women, pretending to be what they weren’t. Colin saw the world through a different lens. The tough guys became comical. The happy guys were bewildering. Those super friendly? -were liable to eat you.
In the past, he was loud and threatening, all in an attempt to keep people’s attention on who he was. Who was around him. Who was there to protect him. Made sure they knew who his family was. Made them think what might happen to them, if they messed with him.
Now, Colin was cold and distant, but oftentimes friendly. That was his new act, his game. This made it hard for people to read him, because the very real truth was, if they couldn’t figure you out, they’d move on. No one really wants to know for sure. But if they felt they had you pegged, well they’d continue to poke and prod. In Colin’s line of work, poking and prodding could lead to extra headaches.
That was when he was working- at home, he was just Colin. Sure the rats were still there, but Colin understood them a bit better. Fear- It affected everybody. All those ladies that just had to have the tough-guy, were just using them as a shield, to bolster her own act.
All because they don’t know they’re not rats? They’re people, just like everyone else. Colin found he liked being a shield when he could; found it came easy to him. It was all about understanding fear. Theirs mostly, but no one complained.
He awoke to find the Farwall was still black. He must’ve fallen asleep trying to figure out what was wrong with it. No answer was found, obviously. As he climbed out of the over-plush couch in the middle of his living room, he half-wished he’d invited that nurse to stay for a bit longer.
The small bleep could be heard as a call came through.
He answered it.
The stasis room appeared on his Farwall, Deloris greeted him, as many of the nurses, behind her, were still plugging away at the terminals throughout the room.
“The solar gate, it’s open…” Deloris stated briefly as she clicked away at the pad in the crook of her arm, then looked up at him, “I thought you’d want to get straight back…”
“Fantastic,” Colin smacked his hands together in anticipation, “I’ll be right down.”
Colin headed out of his chambers just as the Farwall suddenly went black, then sealed the door behind him, before he made his way through the narrow hallways.
The Crucible wasn’t really a place designed to be pleasing to the eye. Mostly long steel pipes, wires and cords running every which way, through darkened hallways. While you could occasionally hear the scurrying of tiny feet over head, or in dark corners, they were no longer the brazen monsters that had assaulted the hallways when they’d first arrived.
Colin could feel the metal-grate floor through his socked feet as he made his way down the hall. The new occupants, the Organization, had brightened things up slightly. Well, compared to what the Cartels had left behind. Many a wall was decorated with those massive Mining-bots, parts of them anyway. Though many were used as statues or covering pillars throughout the Crucible, mostly in the larger halls.
The Crucible was at one time an active bot-factory. It was built to melt down and rebuild Mining Bots, which were used to mine metals from the fiery planets, too close to the sun. Planets so hot, that even the super dense metals of the mining-bots, would eventually be damaged.
They all reminded Colin of Margo now. He laughed as he thought of that massive bot trying to get the tank back up on its treads. He wondered what happened to her, and who might have taken her body? He’d witnessed the girl-bot body walking about, on that Red Faction ship, before he’d been thrown back to the Crucible. He had a lot of questions about what had happened on Twin Crown, course once he returned, he would be returning to his ship. Provided that scavenger, Craiden, hadn’t found his stash of mechs. Who knows how much of his ship is left intact!
Colin found himself stripped down, and loaded back within the Stasis pod. Wires ran throughout his body, back into the machines that would reroute his brain to his ship. The pod itself would keep his body fed and strong. The liquid created a kind of stasis, while he was gone, his body would not atrophied and his body would continue to function correctly, to feed his brain what he needed to survive, while his mind was rerouted to the mech.
Deloris had just finished lowering him into the liquid, when he first heard the noise. It was like a grinding, repetitive clank, of gears and moving parts. He had not heard it earlier, it was too low, though now that he was back in the pod, the liquid amplified the vibrations.
Just as it occurred to him that the sound had never been there before, his mind suddenly zipped away. All the way back to that small moon, Twin Crown, where his ship was still parked in that barren wasteland. His mind fused with the mech that was, the star ship,‘Spectre’.
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