The Henderson Helios: A Sci-Fi Adventure Novella Read online

  The Henderson Helios

  A Sci-fi Adventure Novella

  BEATRICE CROWL

  The Henderson Helios

  Beatrice Crowl

  Swell Creative Works

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  Copyright © 2021 by Beatrice Crowl

  Cover Design – Creative Paramita

  May 2021. US Edition. All rights reserved.

  Not part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictions, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  It Starts with an Engine

  No Fucking Way

  The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Done

  I Don't Believe in Authentic Earth Lemurs

  Untitled

  The Smartest Thing I've Ever Done

  It Ends with an Engine

  It Starts with an Engine

  Cigarette ash dropped onto the engine block. I grumbled and brushed it off with an oily rag. This old engine had enough problems. No use piling ash on top of the damn thing. Not yet, anyway.

  A blonde woman poked her head through the door to my workshop, waggling her fingers to get my attention. I didn’t look up at her.

  “Um…Elly? I think I’m gonna go now.” The blonde—what was her name again?—pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “I had fun last night.”

  I’d been way too drunk to remember last night. I did remember the woman though. Just, everything was out of order and a little blurry, like a dream. A good dream. I needed to stop bringing them home with me. It made the morning-after extra awkward.

  I nodded and glanced up. Okay, she was hot. Not my usual type, but I could see what the appeal had been at the time. Now, what was her name?

  “Maybe I could call you or….” The yet to be identified woman trailed off.

  And here was the awkward part. I exhaled a stream of smoke. “I don’t think we need to make any more of things than they are, okay?”

  The woman—Kiley? Kacey? Katrina? —stepped back, recoiling. “Fine, then. I’ll just go.” She turned. “Bye, I guess.”

  I waved a distracted hand but kept my gaze on the engine in front of me. As soon as the nameless blonde left, Ryan entered with a beer in each hand. He’d probably been waiting outside for the inevitable dismissal.

  He kicked the engine on his way over. “Why do you do that every time?” He passed me the sweating bottle and pulled up a chair. “It’s shitty.”

  “Better than the alternative.”

  “What? Being nice to women you sleep with? Would that really be so hard?” His Eldroon accent jangled my ears.

  He was constantly on my ass about this shit. I rolled my eyes. “If I’m nice, then they think we’re dating. If they think we’re dating, it’s harder to convince them we’re not.”

  “Or you could—crazy thought here—date someone.”

  I glared at him before taking a swig of the beer. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous, Ryan.”

  “I’ve been your apprentice for two years now, and I’ve never seen you in a relationship. Maybe it’d be good for you. Cheer you up a little.”

  “What would cheer me up is getting this 280 working.”

  A friend of mine, Hapsie, had found the thing in his junkyard and had given me the heads up. A Solar Forward Model 280 from half a century ago, pre-war antique. He didn’t know the provenance of the piece. He’d said it had just appeared as he’d walked outside one morning, but he figured I’d be able to do something with the relic. Now, two weeks later, his faith in me wasn’t paying out. I couldn’t even get the damn thing running, much less upgrade it in any way. The hunk of metal sat idle in my workshop, taunting me daily.

  “It’s the fuel flow.” Ryan sank back in the chair, looking pensive as only a teenage boy could.

  “I know it’s the fuel flow.” I whacked the side of the engine with a heavy spanner. Nothing happened. “I need to replace the alternate cabling, but they don’t make the size to fit this thing anymore.”

  “It’s just a dumb ol’ machine anyway. Why not work on something newer?”

  I sighed and stepped backwards to collapse in my chair—the squeaky one, not the wiggly one, keeping my gaze on my obsolete opponent. Ryan was a good kid. War orphan. Had shown up digging through my dumpster for scrap a couple years ago. I could’ve chased him off, but I let him stick around instead. I could use someone to fetch me things, and at least he’d get some mechanical training. Would help him last longer than if he were on the streets. Especially with that fucking Eldroon accent.

  Eldroon was the butthole of the La Diyor megacity. Or maybe it was the colon. During colonial planning, Eldroon had just been the area beyond the budget-slum Back 40 district that was used for waste dumping and chemical runoff. Nobody was supposed to live there. But given a couple hundred years, you had enough stubborn dummies who wandered out there for “freedom” and built little homes to form a proper community of sorts. Eldroon folks kept to themselves, usually, though a few meandered into the Back 40 on occasion. Most…well, let’s be real: a handful of generations living in the center of a toxic waste zone? Not great for much of anything in terms of normal human development.

  Ryan was bright, though. Fucking hard to understand. He sounded like his mouth was full of marbles and spit, but incomprehensible accents didn’t mean a person was stupid. Just meant it was harder for them to prove their smarts to people.

  In any case, Ryan had spent enough time in Eldroon to pick up the accent before waltzing back to the Back 40. It was an upgrade, of sorts, and I tried to give him the deluxe slum experience. Even built a small bedroom for him, complete with a functional door.

  Okay yeah, I was not the best caregiver for a teenage boy. I fully admitted this. I smoked too much, drank too much, cursed too much, and yelled too much. Somehow Ryan was coming out well-adjusted despite my deficiencies. I couldn’t credit myself with that. I think he came in that way, and he’s just sensible enough to withstand my bullshit.

  “The 280 was made by Intelgen, the pioneering all-colonial engineering corp,” I said. “They were revolutionary when they started up. Sticking it to the big Core corps.” I exhaled a breath of smoke. “All-Hands philosophy, openware, the works. But as they got big, they closed off. Patented everything. Restricted manufacturing for replacement parts.” Like the cabling. “Now that they’ve gone under, there’s nobody making anything for it anymore. It’s what happens when you get greedy, Ryan.”

  Ryan’s head lolled backwards, long-suffering through my diatribes. “Thanks, Aesop.”

  “Show some respect for my wisdom here.”

  He got quiet. “I worry sometimes. Like, about what’s gonna happen to you once I leave.”

  My chest tightened. His tone was different. How old was he now? Sixteen? Seventeen? About old enough to start looking at an engineering school somewhere. Old enough to be on his own and not need me anymore.

  I took a drag from my smoke. “You’ve started looking at schools, haven’t you?”

  “I’ll be old enough for admittance to Becker or the E.I. next year.”

  “Those are good schools.” I’d gone to Becker. But then, he knew that.

  He rolled the beer bottle between his hands nervously. “I owe you a lot. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for you. An
d I’m not leaving you forever. I’ll come back on holidays and breaks. But I just worry about who’ll take care of you when I’m not around.”

  I chuckled. “Take care of me?”

  He gave me a knowing look. “You know you would live in a filthy hovel and eat nothing but whatever Yuuto’s rat cart is serving up if it weren’t for me.”

  “I got along fine before you came along, kid.” It wasn’t right for him to worry about me so much. “You need to go make something of yourself.” And do it better than I had.

  “I would feel better if you at least considered the possibility that you could have a partner of some sort. Some nice woman who likes you that you also like. That sort of thing.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, mussing up the bedhead. He rarely brought up my perpetually unpartnered status. “Come on,” I said. “I’m not the partnering type. Look, there’s that tech expo going on down in Hightower. Best Tech of 2346 or some nonsense. I got an invite. Let’s put this 280 on hold and see if we can’t get some inspiration.”

  He looked sheepish. “Actually, I was gonna go out with Celia and Brian to check out the new project over in the Melkov area.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I can do the expo myself.”

  He stood. “You’ll have fun, I’m sure.”

  “Right.”

  Lots of fun.

  * * * *

  I hated expos. Lines of tyrannical companies hawking their wares, talking up their features, outright lying. At least my celebrity was wearing off as the war became more distant. Right after, I’d have an avalanche of self-serving assholes congregating around me, wanting my attention or time or whatever. Before the war I’d been an unknown grease monkey wasting an elite engineering degree, but after scraping together a design for the rebellious colonies, I was the next big thing for a hot minute.

  In the human system, there were the Core worlds and the Outer Core. That “Outer” made all the difference. The Core worlds were the first to be terraformed and developed by the big corporations. The Outer Core—the colonies—were the next stage. The corps did the terraforming, but the people who settled in the Outer Core did all the actual work of building. The Core just had trouble acknowledging that. They forced us to always send them taxes, as if they did anything for us. They bossed us around by limiting our self-governance. Made fun of our accents. Basically, they were all-around assholes. So we got pissed off and pulled the rug out from under them in a glorious colonial revolution that had been very, very close to successful by the time we had to surrender and accept a humiliating peace treaty.

  I came out of it okay. The colonies had needed engineers, and I had practically volunteered my time. My design gave them an edge in their battles over the shipping routes. The engine hadn’t been flashy, but I got cred for patriotism if nothing else. So as the bitter taste of colonial defeat had settled in, I’d had a gallery of interested parties waiting to see what I would do next.

  But my encore never came, and the sycophants got bored. Now I was slowly turning back into an unknown grease monkey. Circle of fame.

  I blew out a stream of smoke as I stood outside the convention center, debating whether to actually descend into that madness or if I should just camp out in a bar all day. The conversation with Ryan had put me in a foul mood, as had his decision to ditch me.

  Parents of teens had to deal with this sort of stuff. Kids got older. They spent more time with friends. They eventually left to go to school. But I never thought I’d have a teen. I never thought I’d have a kid. I was utterly unequipped for the feelings that went with it. My general approach to dealing with emotional whirlwinds was to drink them away, but it was harder to do that knowing that Ryan worried about me so much.

  Fine, then. I could pretend to be a functional, responsible adult. I could wander around the expo floor, shake some hands. Maybe I’d act like an actual professional who networked, shared ideas, maybe picked out a gift for the orphaned teen who lived with me. At the end of this little daydream, Ryan hugged me while crying and calling me “Mom”, which just felt weird.

  I threw the cigarette butt on the ground. Okay, so none of that would happen. But I’d ridden the rail all the way from the shitty Back 40 part of town to the ritzy Hightower part of town, so I might as well go into the expo.

  It was crowded. Too crowded. I got my badge and shoved shoulder through the mass of bodies to get to the expo floor. It took up the space of ten hurlball courts. A hanging gondola dangled at the ready if you wanted to quickly get from one side of the floor to the other. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, though, so I just wandered.

  I was in front of a booth showing a new toilet robot when I saw her. Myka Benton. She walked confidently across the floor of the expo, placid smile on her face, as always. She stopped when she reached me. “Ms. Henderson. How wonderful to run into you.”

  Myka was henchman to Adela Glezos, regional VP of Cadinoff Corporation—the ultimate Core corporation. Glezos headed up Cadinoff’s business in this slice of the Outer Core. We’d all had a run-in about a year ago when Glezos had tried to rope me into designing some exclusive model for Cadinoff. Since then, Myka had had a habit of popping up with that mindless smile, always reminding me that Glezos still wanted me. Of course she’d show up at the expo.

  “What is it this time, then?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What’s your boss want?” I enunciated around the smoke in my mouth.

  Myka’s off-putting smile widened. “You do know that Cadinoff Corp has a booth here at the expo? Not everything is about you, Ms. Henderson.”

  Except when it was.

  It was a shame. If it weren’t for her employer, Myka would be pretty. Shorter than me by a head, she had light brown skin and curly ringlets that fell around her face. I’d never seen an authentic smile on her, but I imagined it would look nice. She had dimples along with bright brown eyes. Of course, being at the beck and call of Glezos, she was outfitted in some overpriced professional assemblage with a collared coat and a pressed skirt that ended at her knees, complete with ridiculous heels.

  I turned back to the toilet robot. It was a robot for when you were on the toilet. Like a bidet but more visionary, according to the manufacturer. Myka joined my side as if we were attending this expo together. “Of course, none of this is really cutting edge,” she said. “It’s all been in development for years. We’ve known about it.”

  “So why are you here, then? Is Glezos making you work the booth?”

  She laughed a soulless laugh. “No, of course not. I’m here for the night expo.”

  “Night expo?” I thought this thing ran till 6:00 PM.

  “You don’t know?”

  Here it was. “Okay, fill me in. Dangle your info. Go ahead.”

  Her smile never broke. “If you want the interesting stuff, you have to attend the night expo. Did you get an invite?”

  My invite was only for the day. This secret night expo had to be some Cadinoff bullshit. I blew smoke into her face. “Let me guess. You can get me in? As a favor, of course.”

  “Why, since you bring it up…”

  “Can we pretend that the world you live in is straightforward and people just say what they want plainly without a bunch of mind games?” I spoke slowly. “Why do you want me at this ‘night expo’?”

  She gave me a knowing look before casually turning away. “The question is why you want to go to the night expo. I’ve heard you have a Model 280 you’ve been kicking at for a bit now.”

  Of course she knew about the details of my day to day. I expected Glezos had my entire place bugged. Cadinoff probably charted my bowel movements on a spreadsheet. I should refuse to take the bait just on principle.

  But I had to admit, that was a nice-looking carrot she was dangling. Maybe there was something to this night expo thing.

  “Okay, how will the night expo help with the Model 280?”

  She watched the amorphous crowd streaming past. “You’re not going to get it wo
rking with the tools you have now. The fuel flow is damaged, and the company that made the replacement parts for it folded during the war.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I figured that out on my own. I’m an engineer, you know.”

  “But,” she said. “Tonight there’s a new company offering up universal parts that promises to restore some of these old junkers. It could get your Model 280 going.”

  I could see the appeal for a company to fill a market there. Plenty of space scrap around that really didn’t have to be junked. Still, “So why wouldn’t I wait for this shit to come to market? I don’t need to go to some night expo for that.”

  Myka’s facial expression shifted. Same smile, but her eyes changed. Usually her expression was friendly but neutral. Suddenly, it was just friendly. It was only there for a moment before she went back to her corporate mask, and I couldn’t say if I was imagining the whole thing.

  “Cadinoff is buying out the company next week,” Myka said.

  “Huh?”

  “The plan is to keep the manufacturing and patents under the Cadinoff brand so that Cadinoff becomes the monopoly supplier of vintage engine parts.”

  “I don’t buy shit from Cadinoff.”

  “I know,” Myka said. “So you might want to buy it from the original company. Tonight.” She took a step backwards. “I’ll let the entrance staff know to expect you.”

  I watched as she walked away, confused as fuck. Not about the company takeover. No, that wasn’t a surprise. Cadinoff ate the smaller start-ups like a starving monster. I was confused as to why Cadinoff’s loyal foot soldier was giving me the heads up about it. What was in it for her?

  * * * *

  I got roped into lunch with other alumni of Becker Academy. I wasn’t strong-armed into it, but I was stuck in the unenviable position of having no good excuse to duck out, so I ended up at an uninspiring banquet table surrounded by other engineers. To a one, every other alumnus had gone on to some prestigious corporate career. They made millions.