Maxwell's Demon
Chapter 1-The Shooting Star He Saw
In the dark recesses of that infinite thing sometimes called space a lone ship of iridescent white streaked gracefully through the bleak expanse. It was a top of the line spacecraft, as anyone could tell just by looking. It could easily be seen even from a great distance as it swam through the black vacuum surrounding it in elegant arcs and pinpoint zigzags. It was a breathtaking sight, like a single shooting star on an otherwise starless night. Its captain was a man of great integrity and high honor. He walked as gracefully as his ship flew and his voice was that of a kind commander, stern yet affable. It was obvious that he came from a noble line, possibly royalty. But he was humble and smart and his crew was loyal. His mere presence inspired respect but it was the life he led that earned their allegiance. He had been to furthest reaches of space, to the edge of time itself, and had returned a wiser captain and a better man. He had seen that which few have only dreamed of. His mind was rich with things not many would understand unless they had traveled as he had and it made him awe in wonderment at the miracle that was life. He loved his crew dearly and he loved his ship and the freedom it offered him. He took his beloved machine into a wide arc and just for a little fun as he passed a remote floating gas station he pulled her into a tight spiral. Life was his for the taking and nothing would hold him back.
"Fucking show off." The foul-mouthed captain of the spaceship Deathscythe grumbled as he used what little money he had to fill the large tank of his gas-guzzling heap of junk. His long russet locks were plated into an expert braid that hung limply at his back in the windless air. He stared above through the dome that separated him from the certain death that lurked in the vacuum of space and watched the expensive white ship that streaked across the inky blackness. Rich aliens really pissed him off. His body leaned jadedly against the side of his ship while the gas nozzle was locked into place feeding his ancient monstrosity of a spacecraft. He sighed as he noticed some of the paneling to the right side of his head was chipping off. He sighed again when he turned to the left and saw that the paneling on that side was almost gone.
'There's nothing holding this thing together but the rust. Maybe I should have asked Wufei to buy that heavy duty Space Freighter Superglue.' He wondered sarcastically when he saw his raven-haired navigator approaching from inside the gas station with a grocery bag in his hand. He was mildly curious what the severe young man thought was so important that he had to spend their last few credits on it. It didn't really matter though. They hadn't had enough left over after the price of gas, 200 credits a gallon was spaceway robbery in his mind, for anything important like a meal or hotel room. So, if it made his navigator happy their last 50 credits were his for whatever he wished. But that didn't mean the captain couldn't pester his shipmate about it.
"So Wu, what did you buy me?" The taller boy asked drawing his navigator's attention to him. His slim fingers snuck into the brown grocery bag giving in to the curiosity of his young age as he so often did. They were immediately swatted away by a hand equally young but slightly paler.
"Nothing, this is food for that flying rodent of yours so he'll stop trying to bite my fingers off." Wufei arched one dark accusing eyebrow at his captain who had suddenly taken up the hobby of collecting different sized lint from his jumpsuit.
"Come on Wu-man, every great cowboy has a faithful steed err…animal of some sort. And you know that he's got the best nose you've ever seen." Duo smiled warmly, Wufei frowned with disgust. He absolutely despised that little fur-ball and was hated equally as much by the rodent in return. Unfortunately, Duo was right and the damn thing had proved to be very useful even sniffing out some of their most profitable game. There were days that he still wondered how he had become the navigator to a bounty hunter of all things. And not just any bounty hunter, no, he had to go and get himself tangled up with the one everyone feared. The one that would supposedly take any job offered to him so long as the money was good. Yes he, Chang Wufei, of the finest piloting and navigation academy in the entire Equinac galaxy was right-hand man to the notorious Maxwell's Demon, the cursed bounty hunter. Who just so happened to be attempting to yank the end of his braid free from where it had gotten caught on the loose side-paneling of their pathetic excuse for a spaceship. Wufei could not stop his eyes from rolling, such was his life.
"That little monster of yours was born from pure evil." He stated as he stared in disbelief at the cheerful maniac before him, trying to reconcile the image with that of the diabolical bounty hunter the boy was rumored to be. Duo was supposed to be the best there was, he always got his man no matter how difficult the game. If you wanted a guaranteed catch you went to Maxwell. It was supposed to be almost uncanny the way he could track a man. It was like he could peer into their minds and know exactly what they were thinking or where they were going to go. It was even said that the braided boy was actually a demon from the deep outreaches of space with unnatural abilities. Wufei tried really hard to look past the face of the grinning idiot and see where the rumors came from. And for a second there, he thought he had almost had a brain aneurysm.
"Takes after his master, eh?" The young captain said with a cheeky grin that made Wufei's eye twitch three times in quick succession. In the year and a half that Wufei had been working with him, he had yet to see the guy take anything seriously. In fact, he suspected that most of the big game the boy had managed to catch had either been by pure luck or complete accident. Honestly the boy would walk into a bar and just happen to make friends with some huge bounty over a few rounds of whiskey, or there was that time that Duo had that small head on collision with a wanted killer after 'just closing his eyes for a bit' and leaving the ship on autopilot for six hours. In fact, Wufei really had to wonder where the hell all these rumors about Duo had come from and if maybe Duo himself hadn't actually started them. He wouldn't put it past the braided idiot.
"Well you are both equally stubborn and obnoxious, and your brains are roughly the same size." Wufei smirked at the dumbfounded expression on his captain's youthful face and the boy's sudden loss of words. Unfortunately, as Duo's expression shifted from taken aback to amused mock-annoyance, Wufei knew that his cherished silence was about to end.
"Wuffers, you are so pissy when you wake up." The captain's smirk was a mile wide when he saw he had ruffled the dark haired boy's feathers. He mentally patted himself on the back for that little offhand comment, thinking he had not only gained the upper hand but in fact won the war. He was sorely mistaken. But brash young men such as the captain had been putting their foots in their mouths since the dawn of verbal combat, so it was not at all unexpected when the angry youth returned a triumphant smirk of his own.
"Well if you had to wake up every morning and deal with someone as stupid as yourself, you'd be a little grouchy too." Game, set, and match. Wufei: 16,459. Duo: still the big zip. Duo knew he had to stop having these arguments with Wufei before his morning coffee.
"Hey out of the two of us I would be the genius bounty hunter known and feared by all in the universe." Wufei rolled his eyes.
"And between the two of us you would also be the one standing in a pool of expensive gasoline leaking from that crapheap you call your spaceship."
"Shit!" They say that sound does not travel in space so if you were to die in the dark clutches of the great beyond, it would be impossible for anyone to hear you scream. Of course they had never met Duo Maxwell and were unaware that the boy's voice defied every law of physics or logic. For instance it was deeper than most people would guess by looking at the boy's young face, a nice smooth and unexpected baritone. However, in moments of high stress or emotion, that voice could rise through more octaves than should have been humanly possible. And finally, the most mysterious property by far was it seemed to be able to travel through anything. You name it and Duo's voice could break through it. Coffee mugs? Yep. Soundproof walls? Sure. The cold and unforgiving vacuum of outer space? No sweat.
And so it was at that moment the brave dashing captain of the beautiful expensive silvery-white ship once again looped his craft lovingly over the old floating gas station and was suddenly bombarded by the loudest curse he had ever heard from a disembodied voice in the middle of space. So startled was he by the swearing that suddenly barraged his ears and seemed to come from nowhere that he steered his ship in the wrong direction and crashed into an oncoming meteor. This managed to effectively knock the meteor off its path, which had coincidentally been heading directly for the old gas station where the swearing boy was now shouting at the gas attendant. He absolutely refused to pay for the spilt gasoline since it was stupid to not have an automatic shut off device in this day and age. The meteor was just pissed off that someone had gone and run into him without apologizing and offering to buy him lunch.
Oblivious to his near brush with death, the captain of Deathscythe could now be found sitting at the helm of his ship humming his favorite tune from the new rock-techno group 'Black Hole.' His fingers thrummed ecstatically to the beat on the dashboard in front of him, narrowly missing a few buttons that would have either started the cappuccino machine or caused the ship's core to melt. Moments later he was joined by his navigator sporting a new band-aid on his left pointer finger. He glared at his captain as if asking the braided man to ask what happened.
"We need to get a job." Duo whined pathetically and Wufei just rolled his eyes.
"We've had plenty of jobs lately, we need a job that pays. Every man you catch seems to either have his bounty severely reduced or dropped completely by the time we bring him in. Maybe if you would stop becoming friends with them so we could turn them in right away things might be different." Duo just laughed heartily and slapped Wufei on the back.
"But when they finally get out of prison I'll have a hoard of great drinking buddies." Duo's big grin didn't falter once despite the killer glare he was receiving and the exasperated sigh from his navigator.
"I hope they all buy you a drink since you'll be flat broke. And I hope one of them gives you a lift to the bar because this trash-compactor will be lucky to make it to Zephro Minor." Wufei said and kicked the ship's hull. Duo mocked being stabbed in the heart and died dramatically on the ship's control panel. He sat up and stuck his tongue out at his navigator.
"She may not be pretty but she's got heart, man." Then Duo paused as if contemplating something really deep and philosophical. "Do we have anything to eat?" He asked in a very concerned voice. Wufei smacked his forehead, wishing he could do the same to his captain.
"No, food requires money of which we have none. Unless you want to eat that rodent." A strangled cry was heard from somewhere in the ship's recesses and Wufei cursed the animal's acute hearing. He looked warily at the few uninjured fingers he had left.
"Well I suppose we'll have to go hung…" Duo was cut off by the sound of static suddenly filling the ship's bridge. He glanced up at his monitor and was surprised when it flickered to life and the face of a creepy old man with mechanical eyes appeared. One of the eyes adjusted, focusing forward then back again and a disturbing grin pulled at the corners of his wrinkled mouth.
"Are you the demon Maxwell?" The static hazed voice echoed through the ship eerily.
"Some have called me that. What can I do for you?" The man's distorted face twisted slightly then was broken apart by a ripple through the screen's picture. When it came back together the strange look on the old man's face had vanished.
"I have a job for you."
Ok, now MAYBE I can get something done on either of the other two stories that desperately need updating. Probably not since there's this awful one-shot that's taken up residence in my mind and there's no way in hell it would ever be allowed on And I already pushed my luck with the last chapter of The Cursed. Not to mention, I'd be responsible for the corruption of impressionable youths if I posted that. And I really don't want you guys to start thinking of me as some kind of smut peddler. I think the one-shot will go on my website when I'm done with it then I should be able to re-focus on the cursed, or shakespeare. Jeez, I am the worst author when it comes to updating, someone throw a rock at me.