First Day on the Job

Part 1

 
  “What the hell are you doing!? Stop playing with that!” yelled Allan, reaching for the device. Having been distracted from the shiny object in his hands, Bill looked up. “You wanna get us killed!?”

  The two men stared at each other for a moment as they floated, tethered together in the inky blackness of space. Bill seemed to be in a shallow orbit around the larger Allan. They were both in a wide orbit around a dead planet whose name both men had forgotten. The planet’s ‘name’, the letter ‘M’ (or was it ‘N’?) followed by a dash and a series of numbers, was listed on their mission itinerary but it was hardly important. This planet, and indeed every other planet in the universe, was about to be destroyed.

“Sorry man,” gulped Bill. “Just lookin’ is all.”

“Well give it here!” said Allan, snatching the object.

  It was Bill’s first day on the job and Allan had taken every available opportunity to remind him of this fact. In the locker room, in the lunch room, in the hallway leading to the disembarkation area, Allan had made it a point to inform his inexperienced coworker of the pitfalls inherent in his new occupation.

“Do not arm the bomb until you’ve left subspace.”

“Do not play with the bomb once it’s armed.”

“Do not try to return to base before the bomb is fully armed.”

“Do not wait too long after the bomb is fully armed to return to base.”

“Do not, repeat, DO NOT look at the blast.”

  These admonishments were constant and always began with the phrase ‘do not’. The warnings ranged from unnerving to goddamn terrifying and they made Bill wonder why he had ever agreed to do this job in the first place. Then he remembered he hadn’t agreed to do this job, not really.

  Two weeks prior, at least it seemed to him like two weeks prior, a couple of very nice men in very nice suits had come to Bill’s door and informed him that the money he owed to Johnson Bank of America and to Johnson Credit Services had come due. In fact, it had come due quite some time ago. In fact, it had come due so long ago that the accounts in question had been handed to Johnson Collections. In fact, the accounts in question had been with Johnson Collections for so long that they had been, in turn, handed over to CTI’s Ender program (CTI of course being a subsidiary of Malcom Johnson Industries along with Johnson Bank of America, Johnson Credit Services and Johnson Collections).

  The nice men had explained to Bill that because he was now property of CTI, he had only two options to pay off the debt. The first was to pay it off with time…time spent in a Johnson brand correctional facility; not ideal. The second was to become an Ender and risk his life destroying alternate universes for CTI; also not ideal and with the added risk of almost certain death, but slightly quicker.

   After using eight of the ten seconds the nice men had given him to make his choice, Bill had chosen to become an Ender. He had felt confident about this choice, or rather as confident as a person who had just been forced into life threatening indentured servitude in order to avoid a debtors prison could be. Oh yes, he had felt very confident in his decision…that was until four minutes later when the nice men escorted Bill to the black, unmarked van parked in front of his apartment building.

  The preceding four minutes had been spent filling one bag (he had been instructed that it could only be one bag, no larger than a backpack) with whatever he could find that looked important. As he did this, he imagined what must run through the minds of people escaping their burning homes. How did they decide which cherished possessions and family heirlooms to save from the flames of destruction? In the end he imagined he had probably grabbed the wrong things, things he supposed felt right in the moment but which would ultimately be useless to him. They would ultimately be useless to him as Bill was later informed by the nice men that he would not see the things in his backpack again until he was released. Everything else, the sum total of his possessions, would be sold off for pennies on the dollar to help pay his debts. Upon hearing this, Bill silently lamented the fact that he hadn’t stashed anything in his bag that was valuable enough to sell later. He had packed socks and underwear and family photos, the stupid sorts of things a person brings with them when they’re going somewhere to live. He wished the nice men had told him the rules, the things he was supposed to grab.