Another juicy chapter for lenghty readers. I still obey the disclaimer.
CHAPTER 14. WELCOME ABOARD THE AXIOM
Chief Gofer waits tensely as the elevator quickly passes deck after deck; but his mind was running a mile a minute, thinking of the importance of the pod's contents he's transporting and what's going to happen. He looks up at the elevator holoscreen; from docking that they left 13 levels below, the Main Deck was still 37 levels up, and the bridge was another kilometer forward through the deck. As much of a large-scaled technological wonder and achievement the Axiom is; he hated having to travel so far, in a maze, especially to just relay something very vital to Command. And he's goanna have to go through passengers once he gets on deck, something not very well liked of by most of the crew. At least he has an independently running transporter tram, one that runs in its own directions instead of prelighted paths for the civilian hoverchairs; that sped things up a lot.
He glimpses a look behind him; he thought he heard a sound. There was nothing, just the obedient but oblivious stewards, standing at attention patiently waiting to transport the scout pod. He turns his attention back to the elevator door, he wished they were their by now already.
Wally hid behind the transport, behind the guards as the Chief looked back. The elevator ride was smooth and without a peep. Almost as quiet as travelling aboard the A.R.V. He could only hear his own breathing. He bet that these men had excellent attention spans, he could be found any moment. So he held his breath, trying not to expose himself, he prayed the elevator ride wouldn't last much longer. He looks away, inwardly sighing in relief.
Wally looked at the catatonic Eve through the chassis; still hiding behind the transport. Wally patted the side of the pod her head is on, like he was petting her, taking care of her.
"It's going to be alright, Evah, I'm here." He was chasing her without any foresight to whatever lies ahead. The way she is now, even at the hands of other humans, she seemed to be in some form of harm in his eyes, still frozen, and completely unsure what 'Code Green' means. Could it be that she is to be harmed? Taken away? Or any other way that could separate or end in pain for him and Eve?
The elevator doors open, drawing Wally's attention to the tram already moving out. It comes to a stop just outside the elevator; waiting for something. Wally risks a peek from the corner of Eve's pod to see a long passageway filled with things moving by at high speeds. -Wait, those things passing by are more humans! All of them are on trams just live Eve, all moving about at whiplashing speeds. They are crew; technicians, engineers, mechanics, welders, electricians, stewards, painters, cleaners, suppliers, and so on. The long sterile corridor is florescent lit and has outlined paths for the crew. There are about eight of them, four each going in opposite directions. It's a maintenance level in rush hour, everyone on their way to their directives throughout the ship.
Wally's neck gets sore from trying to process the fast-moving vehicles and humans inside them, fascinated by it all. He wonders how-in-Forthwright's-name is he goanna get through that with Eve as he looked at her. He only notices Eve's transport is gone.
"Aah!"
Adrenaline spikes in his mind as he realizes Gofer's tram has left, without him! He had to think quickly, her pod is moving fast and has only a split-second to figure out what next.
"Oooooh boy." He looks at the speeding traffic; he gulps at the thought of trying to go after her through here. The road is to narrow on the sidelines, he has to go into the flow of traffic.
His heart is pounding in his head now, now he has put himself in danger and Eve is leaving again, he better move quick! He spots an opening between two passing hover trams, moving fast but far enough apart for Wally to jump through. At least he thinks so…
He times it carefully, too early or too late, he gets squashed or rammed over.
He makes his move, and jumps in between the passing vehicles.
"Whoa!" The driver of the hover tram stops suddenly.
'Crash!'
But only ends up causing the next tram to crash into him, and the next one to crash into that; Wally has created a pile up.
No one was hurt, but Wally almost killed himself and them there. He reassesses his surroundings. The maglev highway is too narrow for him to walk in between. If he can just climb onto one of those transports, it'd make his trip a lot easier. But he still has to move! Eve is getting farther and farther from him!
"Ah, screw this." Wally just rather jumps onto a vehicle to carry him there, not walk in between and harm anyone else.
A freight tam passes by and...
Wally is yanked off his feet as he grabs onto the passing tram. He felt like he had his arms ripped off, because it hurts to grab on like that. He collects his composure as he stands up on the freighter; the people driving haven't noticed him yet. As he looks ahead, there's an intersection coming, the paths split into other directions, Eve is going straight ahead, but his tram isn't! He'll have to jump onto another one. He needs to wait for another vehicle to pass his at just the right moment.
Wally jumps again…
He hits the side hard as he tried to board another freighter. He hits the ground, skidding to a halt. Wally winces and whines at the pain, he scrapped a good portion of skin off of his knees and elbows; and he has a newly forming bruise on the side of his head. The driver in the freighter shouts curses at Wally, but he doesn't care. Wally looks around, he notices his glasses have fallen off, he retrieves them before they got run over by the traffic. He puts hisglasses back and sees that he is right in the middle of the intersection, not standing on any of the lines, he's safe for now.
But the traffic is chaotic, all of the vehicles passing each other and missing each other by inches as they change directions. Now he can't remember where Eve went, Wally begins to panic at being lost.
In the direction that seems to go up a slope, there is a sign that reads: AFT MAINTANENCE CORRIDOR -To –AFT PASSENGER CORRIDOR, under it is a tram with a familiar cryopod in the distance!
"Evah!" Wally is so relieved and drawn, that he immediately runs through the passing intersection vehicles chasing after Eve. He was oblivious that the hover trams almost ran him over and the resulting pile up as they braked to stop.
Wally continued to run up the sloped passageway. Wally doesn't care to realize that the passageway he came from was not too narrow to run through anymore.
Wally reaches another set of hover lines. But they seemed different now. Instead of white lighted paths, their blue. Wally notices a strange looking hover vehicle in front of him. He runs up to see what it is.
The vehicle is a hover chair. And sitting in it… a creature. It's a big creature. A really REALLY BIG creature! Fat is actually a better word.
Wait a minute, Wally notices the tan skin, face, and features of a human body. The creature is actually a human!
This was certainly the fattest human Wally had every seen. It was a male BnL passenger; he looked like a giant human infant, looks like he weighs 450-500lbs. His skin was bloated like a blob, and soft to the touch like jello; he wore a red jumpsuit that bore a BnL logo. His arms and legs are short, and stubby, like they were never meant to be used for anything. "Is it possible for humans to be like that?" Wally wonders as he looks at this strange new being.
The man was reclined in the chair; the chair itself seemed automated, guiding itself along the blue-lighted maglev lines on the floor. A holoscreen seemed to be presented right in front of his face, and speakers were mounted on his headrest, blocking his peripheral vision, completely lost in his own sensual world. He is talking to someone on the screen.
"Look man, I've been in my cabin all morning, so why don't we say we hover over to the driving range and hit a few virtual balls into space?" the man sounded bored out of his mind.
"Nah, we did that yesterday I don't wanna do that." The man on the holoscreen complained.
"Well then what DO you want to do?"
Wally was lost looking at the man that he doesn't notice the exact man he's talking to is right next to him.
"I dunno, somethin'." Wally looks over his shoulder to finally see him, he is another BnL passenger also just as fat and baby-looking like the other man, and he too, lost in his own world of the hoverchair. Wally just looks at them, the two humans have no idea that they are within each other's presence.
"Huh" Wally slows down his pace as he reaches the entrance to the Main Deck; Wally merges in, and is struck with amazement.
The corridor is bustling with human activity. There must be hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of other humans everywhere.
They are ALL fat, in hoverchairs, with the same red jumpsuits, and holoscreens in their faces just the ones he saw a second ago. The floor is criss-crossed with hover lines. A maze of perplex directions of hover chairs. Wally's mind can't process all of them, moving in all directions, and talking nonstop.
Wally carefully makes his way past line after line of hoverchairs toward another concourse, until gets into the same direction of the traffic flow. He realizes that not one person has noticed him yet. Who couldn't? He remembers he is the skinniest and filthiest human on the Axiom, he can't be hard to find walking dirt against a sterile environment; not to mention comparing his skin and bones appearance, he really stuck out like a sore thumb. No, everyone remains oblivious to their surroundings; glued to their holoscreens, trapped in their own virtual realities. Each one of them had over-developed fingers tapping commands into their chair's armrest keypads. Wally sees one woman complaining she's hungry. Out of nowhere, a small hovering drinkbot arrives on demand, bringing an unbelievable large 3 Litter cup of a liquid food like substance, like a fast food kind; the pad just puts the cup in her open hand and she gulps it down. And she didn't move a muscle, if she had any.
Wally looks all the way around him again, they were all either ordering food, playing games, and chatting. Chatting, chatting, chatting, and ever more chatting! It's deafening and everywhere! People talking mindlessly to one another without moving, moving without any reason to; they all amaze and disgust Wally somehow, how can people live like this? As the ultimate example of couch potatoes.
Wally passes through another tunnel: AFT PASSAGER CORRIDOR -To - MAIN DECK. The lit end of the tunnel shines bright as Wally sees clearly before him, in complete awe, the Main Deck.
A feminine voice echoes throughout the vast open space, "BUY N' LARGE, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BE HAPPY. YOUR DAY IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US!"
It's a city-sized ultramall, a half metropolis/half consumer-goods shop inside a giant starship.
Living quarter rooms rise hundreds of floors up, and elevated hover lines move in all directions like freeways. In the distance, there are shopping centers shaped and sized like futuristic skyscrapers; all of them have endless holographic Buy N' Large advertisements on them, where the voice was directed for, as if to endlessly baragge people with its consumerism. And beyond that, was the sky? Impossible, he is in space. But Wally then notices the fake designed sun up above. It had a BnL logo (how appropriate) with the time and temperature on the face (12:16 PM/ 72˚ F). It's just an image projected on the inner dome of the Axiom's hull; but it's high enough to be called the sky, it must be hundreds of meters high. The Axiom feels A LOT bigger from the inside.
"Hey drinkbot!" Wally snaps back into reality when his senses register someone is addressing him.
A man to his left, in a hoverchair has hovered up to him and is trying to hand Wally his empty cup, still isn't aware that Wally isn't a drinkbot, nor of any surroundings like everyone else.
"Here, take the cup."
Wally backs away a bit, but the man asks again.
"I said: Take The Cup." He sounded like he is becoming slightly annoyed. He tries to reach out further to Wally, finally breaking his eyes from the holoscreen in front of him. "Uuh.." Wally tries to utter he isn't a bot. But the man presses on.
"Come On! Take The Cup!-Whoa!" He reaches out to far, and falls to the floor.
He is stuck on the floor, his baby legs and arms can't get him to move, and instead he can just flail his limbs like an upside down turtle. Wally grabs the drink out of his hand like he told, trying to at least do what he told him to do.
Red lines appear under Wally's feet, and immediately, two stewards brush past Wally, almost shoving him over to where the man has fallen.
The stewards then redirect the flow of stopped traffic around the man.
The man looks up at the stewards; they are just helping the other oblivious humans, not him. He tries to get the stewards attention.
"uh, stewards, hello? A little help? Please?"
One steward turns to the man on the floor, regarding him with an empathetic face. "Please remain stationary, sir, a service bot will be here to assist you shortly." He said in a practiced line.
"Uh, anybody? Help?" He tries to ask the crowd, but they are all to busy either ordering food, playing games, and chatting. Wally feels a ping of guilt for the man, he could've just taken his cup and he never would have forced himself to fall over. The two stewards, as broad and strapping as they were, aren't doing anything much other than making sure that these people get to their oh-so-important destinations on time. He must feel pretty embarrassed for causing their delays, and no one else is even offering to listen to the poor helpless man on the floor; they just inconsiderately pass him by. To correct his actions, Wally takes the matter into his own hands.
But not before Wally stuffs the jumbo size cup into his utility bag, out of his curiosity.
He picks up the man by the back. "Whoa!Wha- Whats going on?!" The man looks shocked.
Wally grunts as he strains against the man's weight, he's lifted heavy cubes before and developed a practiced lift, but not of this man's mass, likely 400lbs. But he manages to lift him high enough to drop him back onto his hoverchair, the man groans as he lands on his belly.
"Are you alright, sir?" Wally asks the fat man.
The fat man looks surprised as he sees Wally before him.
"Uuuuh…yeah…thanks." He replies. He had short blond hair, freckles, and brown eyes. And he clearly doesn't know how to respond to the dirty, rail thin man before him; like he's the strangest person he's ever seen.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Wally" he introduces himself, trying to shake his hand with him, its pretty awkward with his mechanical hand against his bulbous palm of a hand.
"Uh, I'm Jon"
He seemed confused, like he couldn't get his bearings; he must've been in a virtual stasis for a long time, isolated from the outside world like Eve.
Eve! It hit him like a ton of bricks; The awesome of the ship has made Wally almost completely forget he was searching for her!
"Evah?!" Wally blurts out, frantically scanning all directions for her.
"Uh, no, it's Jon." He thinks he misunderstood, but doesn't know about this 'Evah'.
Wally spots an open maglev monorail in the center of the deck lobby. Not that it was the only noticeable structure other than the thousands of identically dressed people, but the familiar pod attached to a tram boarding the monorail, with Gofer and his steward escort.
"Evah!"
Wally sprints after the monorail, already forgetting Jon, leaving him even more confused.
"Uh…bye, Wally." Jon shyly waves farewell.
That was interesting. Jon wonders if he will ever see that strange man again.
The monorail is about to depart, Wally guns it with whatever strength he has into his legs to make it!...
Just as the last car was about to pull out, Wally successfully leaps on, but ends up hitting his shin.
Wally now has more pain to wince at, but now he has also caught up with Eve. The monorail picks up incredible speed as it cruises down the central parts of the city-ship.
As the tram made its way down, Wally takes another minute to be left in wonderment at the scenery, it's a total blast in comparison to what he grew up in his whole life. He sees a day care center full of fat infants being taught by a robotic nanny; being fed treats and BnL predesigned education. They pass by a BnL food court, all of the people seemed to be preoccupied mostly by eating nonstop, or drinking, because they seemed to be eating and drinking 'lunch-in-a-cup' as the ship's computer voice says it is. He also notices that everyone had those large sized lunch-in-a-cup at hand, most preoccupied with eating, guess that explains the obesity. The tram passes a 'Feel Beautiful' beauty salon. Wally sees lots of female passengers entering to get their hair done, new make up, their skin tuned, etc by beauticians, who probably weren't paying attention to them. They remind him of the female characters in Hello Dolly, who worked and focused a lot on their physical appearance, in order to look attractive, or stylish. Only difference here is that they are just as glued to their holoscreens as much as everyone else. How paradox, they worry about prettier looks when they don't actually look at each other. Wally never understood any of it.
He doesn't understand anything here; this way of life that he couldn't possibly imagine.
Everything was so bright and clean, the sterilized air far from the toxic but accustomed stench of garbage and rot he grew up in. It tingled his tainted lungs to breathe in and out of this pollutant-free environment. The whole ship full of humans felt alive, the sounds of music and cheerful voices he's never heard before, nothing like the cries and screams of workers dying or begging for mercy. No, here it was booming with life, peaceful, but alluring with pointless luxuries. So much so the happy noises were deafening to him, his ears sensitive after spending decades in perpetual silence.
Nothing like Earth, this was actual civilization.
Wally's attention is drawn to the many jumpsuit fashion holo-Ads, the ship's voice comes on.
"ATTENTION AXIOM SHOPPERS, TRY BLUE, IT'S THE NEW RED."
"Oooo…" The passengers next him actually notice something out of their holoscreens. Then they just push a command on their chair's keypad and all of their red colored jumpsuits turn blue. They go back to chatting, as if nothing happened.
"Whoa" Wally is fascinated by how much technology has changed these people, just having to lift a finger to get what they want.
When he turns his sites to the front end of the monorail, he can see Eve's tram, he makes his way over to her. But another obese human blocks his way, a red haired woman busy chatting on her holoscreen. Wally tries to squeeze through to the other side, if he could just…
The woman's chair backs up, pinning him to the wall.
"Ah!" Wally flails his arms as he tries to slip out.
His head is sore, and there's not enough room to go around the woman, he'll have to get her to move. But she's too busy to care to notice who's around her.
"Date? (scoff) Don't get me started on the date. Every holo-date I have been on has been a virtual disaster!..."
"Excuse me ma'am?" Wally tries to get her attention, she's still oblivious.
"…If I could just meet one, one who wasn't so…superficial."
"Ma'am?" Wally taps on her headset, she still doesn't acknowledge him.
"I mean, there are no good men out there!"
"Ma'am?!" Wally voices louder and tap harder. He tries to pull off her headset.
"I Know! I know because I scrolled through them all- " her headset shortens out as Wally accidentally breaks it off. "What The?!" She gasps, her holoscreen flicker off and her jumpsuit color defaults to red. Wally backs away, as if he did something terribly wrong enough to feel her wrath.
But she doesn't yell at Wally, she still doesn't notice him yet. Her green eyes are a bit contracted as she takes in the light and try to focus on the far away structures of the main deck. When her vision clears, she is mesmerized by looking at the passing cityscape of the Axiom, like she's seeing the outside world for the first time.
"Uuuh…Excuse me? Ma'am?" Wally whistles to get her attention.
"Huh?" Her eyes meet Wally's. She's just as confused as the fat man, Jon; unsure of what to say at this weird man.
"Uuh…Can I move to the other side? Please?" Wally asks politely, pointing towards Eve.
The woman looks at him for a second, still fazed by how dirty he looks until she follows his finger to the other side of her chair, to the vacant spot next to a cylinder mounted on a tram. She slowly realized he was asking her to move back a little bit.
"Oh! Oh, um, sure, go ahead!" The woman commands her seat to hover back as Wally gets through.
"Ah, thank you, miss…?"
"Mary" the woman introduces herself.
"Wally" he gestures to himself as he waves goodbye to Mary as he makes the last few steps to Eve's pod.
Wally sighs in relief that he is back with her, after losing her and roaming the massive ship.
He climbs onto the back of the tram; Gofer shouldn't be able to see him, as long as Wally doesn't have to run after them again. He clings onto the pod protectively, not wanting to go through so many distractions and misadventures again.
Took a while to figure how to describe everything, but hey, thats whats part of writing. R&R.