“How’d you get this job, Tasha? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She smirked. “My father runs this company.”
“Ah. I never could have worked for my old man. Bet that’s hard.”
Tasha was distracted by something on the screen. “Not really,” she replied, “haven’t seen him in seventy-two years.”
The Sticker laughed at this but Tasha’s look of concern deepened. She picked up a slim red cell phone from under the desk and held it next to her ear. After a moment, a miniature voice answered. “You’ve sent my guy to the Princess’s ship. Just what do you think you’re doing?”
She waited, her green eyes absorbing an answer she didn’t like.
The Sticker glanced up at the wall and his mouth fell open. He hadn’t noticed before, and this was a testament to how truly unobservant he was, but thirty or more framed photos stared back at him: there he was with a bat over his shoulder in little league, another in front of burgundy satin curtains with his prom date Ruth Pietro, another in his blue overalls standing next to a water tank at Fabulous Onion Foods, and another, there with Annette on the strip in Las Vegas, the weekend of their marriage and subsequent honeymoon. There was even a photo of him around twelve or thirteen, not too much older than Tasha, and he was in a canoe with a young woman. He wore a smile. His mom wore one too, though less sincere. The photo had to have been taken only a year or two before she ran off with that other man. Since then, he’d only heard from her on birthdays and once last New Year’s when she was drunk off her ass.
The Sticker’s eyes fluxed from her photo back to Annette’s. No, he thought, they were different people. That was a different situation.
“This is the exact same crap the directors pulled on me last time,” Tasha told the phone angrily. “Yeah, yeah, I’m listening.” She looked at the Sticker and made a gabby hand-puppet.
The Sticker’s eyes came back to rest on Annette, hand on the lacy white hip of her wedding gown, the MGM Grand, an omnipresent green behind her. How could she consume him still? Here, in this strange place he’d happened upon, a whole new world, and all that twisted inside his bitter mind was his wife’s shadow. He’d stepped way outside of his bubble, more than he ever bargained for, but evidently his heart and mind hadn’t come along for the ride.
“You miss her, don’t you?”
He looked at Tasha. Her conversation had ended without him noticing, the cell phone resting quiet on the desk.
“I really don’t want to talk about that.”
“I’m good with that.”
“Why do you have so many pictures of me?”
Tasha batted her eyelashes. “I adore studying you.”
“Funny.”
“So, okay then, I’m going to do everything I can to transfer you from this assignment. You might have to spend a couple months there, but—”
“I don’t care. Is the pay good?”
She tilted her head. “How’s four hundred and fifty thousand a year sound?”
“Much better.”
“Marginally,” she said with a giggle that trailed off. “Really though, ordinarily I wouldn’t assign you to something so dangerous. I’ll check in on you though.”
“Sounds fine, except the part with me doubting whether I’m schizophrenic now. That aside, I’m used to dangerous jobs.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why you’re Super Slaughter Man.”
He blew out and rolled his eyes.
Tasha’s face furrowed with concern. “But you haven’t worked in one of the Princess’s ships before, and few have lived to say so. You’ll be asked to do more than stick a knife in a brain-dead animal’s throat. Depending on the Princess’s appetite, you may have to make hundreds upon hundreds of kills on any given day. It will all be challenging.”
“Could be.”
“It will be,” Tasha reinforced and stood from her chair, only coming to his waist. From a drawer, she took out a single sheet of paper and a pen and put it before him. “You will have three or four other workers helping to spread the work out. So, is this something you think you can do? If it is, go ahead and sign and we’ll get started.”
“I can’t really say if I can do this, not until I know what these animals are.”
“I’d love to tell you, but what the food source is can change on a whim with the Princess’s tastes.”
“The meat is only for her, eh?”
Tasha nodded solemnly.
The Sticker read the contract. It was the simplest, shortest legal document he’d ever seen. He had to read it three times to make sure he wasn’t missing something. Afterward, he signed on for the job.
“Did you need to return home? Or are you ready to start today? You won’t be taking anything with you. All your needs will be met there.”
“Where do my wages go?” the Sticker asked, eyes again on Annette in the honeymoon photo, frozen in laughter, lost in Las Vegas sepia tones.
“Special account,” she replied. “No taxes. The IRS is not an issue for us, if you’re wondering.”
“Sounds stupendous.”
“Great, I’ll show you to the membrane station then. You’ll like it. It’s not completely cutting edge travel — really more of a bastardized human version of Gultranz patch gating. It has improved quite a bit though and is probably more secure than the alien technology.”
“Alien… sounds weird to hear that word used seriously.”
“It won’t be weird for long.” Tasha sauntered around him and made for the hall.
“Wait.”
She turned. “Yes?”
“Will I able to check Facebook over there?”
The membrane station was a rectangular chamber with a smoked glass observation window from beginning to end. Those on the other side of the window looked out to a blue ramp hanging with long glassine flaps, which reminded the Sticker of some kind of science fiction car wash.
Tasha sat him down on a short stool, the only piece of furniture in the room. Just in his boxer shorts, it was weird enough being there with a kid, but he blushed a little when a young Japanese woman in medical scrubs entered to take his vitals.
Tasha stood behind the technician, hawking maternally over the process. “You’ll receive a one-time injection of DNRM-33,” she explained.
“And that does what?”
“It sounds scarier than it is, but it will modify your DNA and RNA to accept instructions from the membranes, so your reassembled structure doesn’t take on abnormalities.”
“That’s a mouthful. Does the drug work for everybody?”
“You have a seventy percent chance of success.”
“What?”
Tasha laughed. “I’m kidding. This is a reliable molecular alteration. I’ve never heard of a problem, ever.”
The technician held up the syringe. The fluid inside was clear, benign. “Ready?” she asked.
The Sticker nodded and received the injection. He wasn’t too fond of needles, but as long as he looked away and focused on his breathing, he could handle it.
“Will I feel anything… from this?”
He noticed her phone was at her ear now. “Yes, this is Willing,” she said. “He’s received DNRM-33 therapy. You can fire them up. What? Oh, are you kidding me? Why the hell is he doing that?”
The door opened and Trevor Milstead walked in.
The Sticker could not accept this. The man, his old boss, in that moment, had become the most unbelievable thing in the room. Trevor looked more tanned, just as Annette had. He wore a silk Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. Some expensive sunglasses nestled in his thick movie star hair.