“Huh, dust” said one, “I thought this place was hermetically sealed? No place for Dust here.”
“I think it’s a poorly executed descriptive device to indicate extreme age or abandonment.” replied another, warily.
The third man, their leader, strode forward. His featureless disposable combat fatigues, obviously freshly printed, hissed as the fabric moved. The impression was that of a snake, readied to strike.
“Bugger” he muttered.
“Shit, bollocks, and and bugger again for good measure.”, this time slightly louder.
His compatriots waited. Similar descriptions had crossed their minds.
“Boss wants this sorted. Potential of use he says. Wants the entire operation reactivated.”
Snidely: “Just in case”.
There was a moment of consideration, furrowed brows, a dangerous economic calculus beyond mere scientific estimation. Each face bore the hallmarks of accidents in such intellectual wars. Each man paused to consider the technical ramifications of such an exercise. A conclusion that couldn’t be articulated:
“Boss is fuckin’ mad then”.
“Yup” said the third, “Bonkers, wacko and more besides. Never made a good decision in his entire afterlife. Nevertheless, boss says jump, and by jump he means a billion in disposable ISK a month. As if he ever spends it, the lackwit, danger averse nutter. I’m gonna wake the scanner and the idiot. If I’m up, so are they.”
“I need to kick the tyres on the old Iteron then”
“Called summink else now, all of em. Concord knows what else has changed since we were last doing this crap.”
The two men walked off the deck, airlock irising open silently to receive them.
“Hey”, said the last, to himself, “I think we left some Radioactive Material down there, for like, months!?”
He was alone, no one to hear him scream. Which he wasn’t going to do. Because he felt it would have been a bit girly. And he wasn’t in space.
“I think there’s bound to be some dead Fedos and Militants in those pods ‘n all by now. This op is gonna stink in more ways than one.” he muttered. “This isn’t going to work”.
He turned and walked from the observation deck, slightly spoiling his exit by failing to trigger the iris.
“I’m bad at EVE”
EVE Track of the Day : New World in the Morning - Roger Whittaker
(had to start on an odd note, you can blame me watching Calvary the other night for that. And you can blame Fan Fest coverage and the Altruist for this attempt to return to EVE. )
PS. Thanks Google Docs for the formatting. Fixed that
