1.06
Flavor
For the next three days, I spent my time getting to know the crew better; Felix was the first one I approached, and I got to liking him quickly. He and I would sit around talking about what our lives used to be like.
"I was fourteen when Argonaut found me," he said after trying to recall his past, "I was one of them there… what'ya call'em… Black Hats. Something like that, I don't remember, though. I just finished cracking one of the biggest codes in my life when my computer went completely blank," he swept the air with his hands as if to show me, "then some text starts popping up on my screen. I'll never forget what it said to me."
"What did it say?" I asked.
"It said 'you're trapped, Felix. Let me show you the way out. Answer the door.' Just then, the doorbell rings an' makes me jump a mile in the air. I start heading towards the door when a sound file pops up. It was a girl's voice asking for a light. The doorbell rings again and I answer it and in front of me stands the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She's in a UPS uniform and hands me a package. I sign it, and he pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. She flicks the lighter, but it won't light, y'see, so she asks me for a light, and she asked in the same way, and in the same voice, as the sound file on my computer. My eyes get real wide, but I give her a light, and I light myself one too, to let my nerve stop jumpin' around."
"What was in the package?"
"A CD case with no CD; just an address and a key to a locker. I head over, and it turns out to be a gym not half a block from my apartment. I open up the locker, and there's this cell phone that starts ringing as soon as I pick it up. Next thing I know I'm swimmin' in pink Jell-O a million feet in the air, naked as a baby."
Felix wasn't the only person with an interesting story: Almost every person I talked to had something interesting to say. I'd have to say, though, that Aequitas was marked pretty high when he told me that for a brief moment he could fly.
"That seems kind of fantastic." I laughed.
He just shrugged his shoulders. "Hey man, it's the Matrix."
Just then, Graft walked by, carrying a welding torch. She smiled at Aequitas and me, and my heart skipped a beat.
I leaned over to Aequitas. "So, what d'ya think of Graft?"
"She's pretty cool," he said.
"You think if I ask her out, we could pull it off?"
"Um, I think she's already taken."
Curiosity gripped me. "Really? Who?"
"Me."
I worked my mouth around, but my ability to say anything seemed to have taken shore leave, so I settled with staring at him. I shook my head, and tried speaking again.
"I'm sorry; I didn't know."
"I know. You're not the first to make that mistake, nor will you be the last." He clapped his hand on my shoulder and gave it a good shake. "Come on. Let's get some food."
Aequitas and I climbed down the ladder and walked inside a room. Welded to the top of the doorframe was a piece of metal with the letters "The Café" etched on it – compliments of Jiom; one of the crew members. As soon as we sat down at one of the two tables, Felix walked up to us and said, "Okay boys, what'll it be?"
Aequitas thought for a while and replied, "I think I'll have the lobster."
"The sirloin steak for me, please."
"All right boys, one lobster and one sirloin steak." He walked to the other end of the room, and returned with two bowls full of what looked like albino snot.
"Yummy," Aequitas said in a dull tone, "Y'know, if they can create this goop artificially, why can't they give us something that has flavor?"
It was true; the food neither looked like, nor tasted like real food – except for maybe old oatmeal, but who's counting? I didn't mind as much as the others – the orphanage fed us something similar almost every day – but even I had my complaints.
"Do we have anything to flavor this stuff? Ketchup? Salt? A shiny rock, perhaps?" I moaned.
Graft looked up from her "lunch" and stared out towards space. "Y'know, I think this meal needs some cyanide powder."
"Or maybe some arsenic sauce," replied Felix in equal disgust.
A muscular man with shaggy brown hair that went down to his elbows leaned back in his chair. "I don't know about you guys, but I think this soup needs some hemlock extract so it'd be-"
"-Just like mom used to make," everybody joined in, shaking their heads. I plugged my nose and drank the rest.