Strange Sci-fi Tales - The Beginner's Guide to Everything Part 8

Part 1: [link] Part 2: [link] Part 3: [link] Part 4: [link] 

Part 5: [link] Part 6: [link] Part 7: [link]

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           Previously on the Beginner’s Guide to Everything: Mary Brown, the most normal girl in the multiverse, found herself stranded in Hazard, the danger dimension. Most of her coworkers on the Beginner’s Guide survey team were eaten by a three-headed T-rex. Then Mary was suddenly reunited with her least favorite person, Ronnie Ray. After the group managed to elude the aforementioned beast, Triz returned with a gold coin. Convinced there was treasure nearby, she led the group off in search of it. With no ship or plan to escape, the group had no choice but to seek this treasure. It was either that or sit around and wait to be eaten. What terrors await them next?

~--~

           After Jerry wisely retrieved the recovery beacon from the remains of their ship, the group of five followed the trail of gold coins. Triz marched in front, eager to find the treasure. Ronnie promptly followed, ready for a quick score. Jerry floated behind in no rush. A-2 and Mary lagged behind, the former at half her usual enthusiasm and the latter only with them so she wouldn’t be alone.

           After ten minutes of wandering lost through the jungle, the group found a fairly solid trail of gold coins along the ground. Ronnie and Triz greedily snatched each one they found. The end of the trail led to a rocky outcropping overlooking a small valley with a large cave. The valley was filled with the giant bones of the many horrible creatures that stalked the jungle, which proposed a scary question. What made all those bones?

           “Cyborg,” Triz looked at A-2, “ussse your ssspecial eyesss to find what made thossse bonesss.”

           “I’m a navigator, not a tracker, but whatever,” A-2 shrugged and looked down at the valley. “Well, there is that thing nibbling on them,” the cyborg pointed at a particularly fresh set of bones by the mouth of the cave. At the base of one of the ribs was a small furry creature, no larger than a house cat. It was a little ball of fluff with a tiny mouth gnawing at the giant bone.

           “Well, that doesn’t look so bad,” Ronnie commented.

           “Oh no, I know where this is going,” Mary put her foot down. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing. It looks cute, but I bet it’s going to rip our heads off when we get close.”

           “What makes you say that?” A-2 asked.

           “Well, maybe because it’s the danger dimension, and everything here seems eager to kill us?” Mary exclaimed. Her point was sound; too bad no one but A-2 paid her any mind.

           “Alright, who what’sss to give and a thwack, and we’ll be off?” Triz asked.

           “How about we give you a thwack,” a voice announced from the tree line. Following that, three of their coworkers, a couple of rubber-forehead aliens, and a little green man emerged. They were covered in scrapes, cuts, bruises, and acidic burns. “You left us for dead!”

           “You guys are still alive?” Jerry puffed. “Last I saw you, the three-headed lizard was going for you.”

           “No thanks to you, gas ball,” the green man spat. “five of us managed to get away. We lost one in a sinkhole and the other to a giant plant. We narrowly avoided death by exploding coconuts only to find you didn’t bother to wait for us.”

           “The way you sssay it, I had no reassson to think you were alive,” Triz pointed out. “There wasss no point in ssstaying there.”

           “Yeah,” another coworker got in her face. “And where did you guts run off to in such a hurry, huh?”

           “Treasure, duh,” A-2 admitted.

           “Treasure...Treasure?!” The green man fumed. “Instead of mourning your coworkers, you go running off after treasure?”

           “I say we deserve a cut of that,” one of the rubber-forehead aliens declared. “how about 100% while you stay out here and do nothing.” The three survivors marched down into the valley.

           “Wait, don’t there’s a-,” Mary tried to warn them, but the three ignored her completely.

           “What do we do?” Ronnie asked Triz.

           “Let them go,” Triz answered. “If I’ve learned anything in my pirates daysss, it’sss that you alwaysss let sssome fodder go firssst.”

           “A-2, I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m liking this situation less and less,” Mary whispered to the cyborg.

           “Good point, but let’s watch this first,” A-2 observed the three coworkers.

           “Is this what made all those bones?” The green man looked down at the puffball. “There’s no way.”

           The little creature looked up at the three and immediately let out a pitched squeal so loud it even forced the five onlookers to cover their ears. The three survivors, meanwhile, were almost paralyzed by the shrillness of the sound. Which made it all the more difficult for them to react to what happened next.

           “Oh, wow, what’s that thing?” A-2 managed to adjust her mechanical ears to tune out the sound. The other four could only glance at what she was talking about. However, once they saw it, they quickly forgot about the sound.

           An indescribable horror had emerged from the cave, so large only its head and hands popped out of the cave’s mouth. The terrifying creature was so utterly freakish that it made the three-headed T-rex look like a playful puppy by comparison. It was so awful the five onlookers quietly deleted its finer features from their brains. Instead, they chose to focus on the gruesome deaths it inflicted upon their coworkers. The details of which shall be omitted for the sanity of the reader, but in short, there was nothing left to mourn.

           “What in the holy mother of fuck was that thing!” Mary shouted.

           “Jerry now’sss our chance,” Triz proclaimed, “dissstract it with your gassseousss form, and you’ll get a forty percent cut of the treasure.”

           “…,” Jerry thought for a moment. “Deal,” he floated over to the monster, drawing its attention to the right.

           “Forward, Ronnie, treasssure awaitsss,” Triz ran as fast as her legs could take her, Ronnie following close behind.

           “Forget that, I’m not going in there,” Mary refused to move, “I’d rather be eaten by the three-headed lizard than…than whatever that was!”

           “Yeah,” A-2 stood by Mary, “I’ve realized I’m screwing up on the whole getting excitement out of my life. This was fun at first, but there’s a difference between falling into dangers and knowingly marching into it.”

           “That’s…I didn’t expect you to say that,” Mary commented.

           “I’m careless and detached, not stupid,” A-2 declared. “Of course, not that standing out here is necessarily safe either, but hey, since that’s probably the alpha predator, I doubt anything else will dare to tread nearby.” On cue, the ground shook again, and the three-headed rex’s roar could be heard nearby.

           “Why do you insist on doing that?” Mary lost the last little bit of hope she didn’t even know she still had.

~--~

           All things considered, the first two minutes of Triz and Ronnie’s race for supposed treasure went very well. The massive monstrosity that was currently swiping at Jerry’s gaseous form took up most of the cave’s center. To the point, it touched both the ceiling and the floor. On the bright side, it was so big it didn’t notice them running alongside its flank. That was until the two encountered another fluffball.

           The tiny creature immediately let out its squeal, and its monstrous roommate took notice. The beast bent around like a snake and began charging down the cave, tracking the noise. Triz and Ronnie fought the urge to scream themselves.

           “Shut up, you little rodent,” Ronnie tried to punt the fluffball away. However, the attack only made the small creature scream louder. As if in response, the beast sped up its descent into the cave.

           “Bad idea,” Triz raced away, Ronnie followed suit.

~--~

           Upon seeing the beast retreat into the cave to follow their coworkers, Mary and A-2 debated whether or not to enter the cave themselves. The repeated squealing of the exterior fluffball gave them pause, but the roar of the three-headed lizard gave them motivation. Deciding that the lizard was the more pressing threat, the duo ran for the cave’s right side.

           “Hey Jerry, what to come with?” A-2 asked as they passed by the floating gas cloud.

           “Nah, I think I’ll chill out here for a bit,” Jerry replied. With no time nor desire to argue, Mary and A-2 stormed inside the cave, hopefully to relative safety.

~--~

           “Well, this sucks,” Ronnie fumed as she and Triz pressed their backs to the wall of a dead end. The beast clawed and scraped at them, but its large size just barely prevented it from reaching them. If the two were to so much as lean forward a bit, it could snatch them.

           “Never thought thisss would be how I went out,” Triz sighed. “Wish I had a ssstiff drink right now.”

           “Don’t be so dejected,” Ronnie assured. “We may not have found the treasure, but Ronnie Ray always has an escape plan,” the pink-haired fugitive pulled out her interdimensional transport device. “I got a transmitter on whatshername’s back, we’ll be back outside in a flash.”

           “You’ve got a portable interdimensssional transssport device?” Triz pointed out. “Why don’t you jussst leave here then?”

           “This is a stripped-down variant; it only goes to wherever the transmitter is,” Ronnie explained. “Now let’s leave,” the two joined hands as Ronnie flicked the switch, beaming them away.

~--~

           ‘This is really bad,’ Mary dared not to speak.

           ‘So many of them,’ A-2 admired the sea of fur and fluff. The two hadn’t found treasure or a hiding place, but they did see where the fluffball came from. A whole nest, perhaps even a colony of the little screamers were packed in a large section of the cave. Luckily for the two women, all the fluffballs were soundly asleep.

           ‘If we wake even one, imagine what the noise will do to our ears,’ Mary gulped.

           ‘I wonder if we can sneak by,’ A-2 thought. ‘I wonder if I can take one home. Best not, noisy pets wouldn’t work for my apartment.’ The two were at a crucial decision point. Dare they tread further and risk drawing the beast’s attention by disturbing its fluffy friends? Or do they turn back and hope to find another way through the cave. Luckily for the duo, they wouldn’t have to agonize over it for long as the choice was made for them.

           Ronnie and Triz teleported right in front of Mary, landing softly on a clump of the fluffballs. The two, still dazed from travel, made a confused look towards Mary, wondering why she wasn’t outside. Their next question had to do with where exactly they were, as for their last question…

           “What are we standing on?” Ronnie looked down, only to see an endless sea of tiny black eyeballs staring at her with annoyance. “Oh, S-!” Ronnie’s curse was drowned out by the deafening chorus of screams that followed.

To Be Continued…

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When approaching hazardous environments as part of your job it's important to keep safety regulations in mind. Never go in alone, don't provoke dangerous animals and always remember the potential for injury. Remember getting into an accident hurts everyone, you, your family, your coworkers, your boss and your company.

Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy 

~~~~ 

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Strange Sci-fi Tales - The Beginner's Guide to Everything Part 7

Part 1: [link]

Part 2: [link] 

Part 3: [link] 

Part 4: [link] 

Part 5: [link] 

Part 6: [link]

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           Previously on the Beginner’s Guide to Everything, Mary Brown, the most normal girl in the multiverse, started her first job as a member of a factoid team at the Beginner’s Guide office. Her mission: survey Hazard, the danger dimension. As can be expected, things went wrong immediately, with their ship crashing and giant lizards eating her coworkers. The cyborg A-2 had to go and make things worse by opening her big mouth and tempting fate, thus leading to a giant three-headed T-Rex charging into their camp. An event that would also endanger the interdimensional fugitive Ronnie Ray, who would teleport into the middle of this mess at an undetermined but rapidly approaching moment.

~--~

           Mary, A-2, Triz, and Jerry debated whether they should run for their lives, freeze in shock or hide. Mary, unaccustomed to high-stress workplaces, froze in absolute horror. A-2 was forced to remain with her as Mary’s hands were still clamped around the cyborg’s mouth. Triz wasted no time in running for dear life, while Jerry remembered he was a sentient gas cloud, and the monster wouldn’t eat him regardless.

           Triz wisely ran out the ship’s back end, breaking open a window before diving out and bolting for the tree line. The rest of the survey team ran around like headless chickens, making them quick food for the three-headed lizard. Jerry just floated above the whole massacre, hoping to ride it out. Mary continued to stare at the bloodbath before her, having completely forgotten her ever-tightening grip on A-2’s mouth. The cyborg appeared largely unbothered by Mary’s grip but continued to speak as though her voice wasn’t muffled.

           Having eaten or scared off most of the survey team, the monster decided that the giant metal thing lounging in its territory would be its next target. Mary watched the beast charge her with a silent acceptance that she was likely about to die. Usually, she’d be screaming her head off, but absolute shock tends to take the air out of your lungs.

           So, as you can imagine, she was quite surprised that she wasn’t dead once the T-rex tore through the ship. In fact, the beast seemed to deliberately avoid her as it ripped apart every section of the vessel except the bit she was standing on. However, there was only so much ship for the monster to destroy before it got to her. So, in her brief moment of lucidity, Mary finally worked up the courage to run for it.

           A-2 followed after her before skipping ahead into the tree line. Mary’s legs gave out before then, and she collapsed onto a nearby rock. The three-headed monster had grown bored of trying to eat metal by then and turned around to find the two tiny shapes that had run off in the middle of its mauling.

           ‘Okay, I need to stay perfectly still, it’s vision is based on movement, right?’ Mary thought. ‘No wait, wasn’t that disproven? And is this even a T-rex or a suspiciously similar alien and…? Oh shit no…’ Mary snapped out of her chain of thought long enough to remember there was a man-eating monster marching towards her.

           Thankfully, it seemed to beast was still partially oblivious to her presence and had its eyes on the trees rather than Mary. If she was absurdly lucky, the lizard might just pass her by. Unfortunately, she would never know if that would be the case, as that’s when Ronnie Ray, fresh off her escape from the cryo-prison, beamed to her location.

           “What is she-?” Ronnie noticed Mary’s terror. “Oh, F-!” Ronnie’s curse was cut short as she narrowly dodged the lizard’s chomp. The fugitive ran with speeds that would make Olympic sprinters blush with envy as she fled from the lumbering beast.

           “Why is she here?” Mary wondered before realizing she had been blessed with another chance to escape and decided not to waste it. Fleeing into the tree line, she ran into A-2, who was currently carving a hole into a tree to hide in. “What good will that do?”

           “If it can’t see us, it can’t eat us,” was A-2’s logic. “Also, you might want to cover yourself in this.” The cyborg splashed Mary with some mud. As the ground shook again, Mary decided not to argue and dived into the tree with A-2. The lizard came stomping buy, ripping, and tearing everything in its path. A few moments later, Ronnie came by, breathing heavily.

           “Stupid lizard fell for the old double-back trick,” Ronnie noticed the tree with the hole in it and wandered over to hide.

           “Boo!” The mud-covered A-2 sprang out, damn near giving the pink-haired fugitive a heart attack.

           “For fuck’s sake, mud people,” Ronnie leaped back. “Oh, wait it’s just M…whatshername and someone I don’t know.”

           “Well, if it isn’t R…whatshername who almost got me killed twice in the same day,” Mary realized she didn’t remember Ronnie’s name.

           “I could say the same. What are you doing in this cursed place!” Ronnie exclaimed.

           “I got a job, and I didn’t read the fine print,” Mary admitted. “What are you doing here?”

           “Oh, I put a transmitter on you back at the station,” Ronnie revealed. “It should have beamed me into an endless office complex that I could hide out in until the heat died down.”

           “Well excuse me for not being your perfect escape plan,” Mary yelled. “I just want to go home…Not even that; I just want to be somewhere safe again.”

           “Well, Mr. three-heads ate our ship and most of our coworkers, so that’s going to be hard,” A-2 pointed out. “Hey, if Triz isn’t alive anymore, can I be the boss?”

           “Knock yourself out,” Mary shrugged as she turned back to the now – hopefully – safe camp.

~--~

           It was about what she expected, a pile of scrap that was once their ship. Blood everywhere, three headless giant lizards, possessions, and equipment scattered around. Surprisingly, there were no remnants of her coworkers; Mary assumed the monster didn’t like leaving food on its plate.

           Thankfully, Jerry and Triz had survived the ordeal, much to A-2 mild disappointment on the latter. Regardless, the group reconvened and discussed what to do next. Much fuss was brought up over who the hell Ronnie was, but the fugitive passed herself off as a new employee. A-2 found the idea too amusing to deny, and no one bothered to listen to Mary.

           “I know you’re all likely displeasssed over today’sss eventsss,” Triz stated. “Not to worry, I’ve found a sssilver-lining.”

           “Dare I even ask?” Mary said, knowing she would be ignored.

           “Thisss,” Triz revealed a gold coin, which immediately caught Ronnie’s attention. “When I ran off in the other direction, I found a whole trail of thessse. Looksss like there be treasssure nearby.”

           “Now that’s a corporate initiative I can’t get behind,” Ronnie jumped for joy.

           “What good is treasure if we’re all going to die anyway?” Mary pointed out.

           “Onwardsss, men…er women and gasss cloud,” Triz ignored Mary and marched off back towards the direction of the supposed treasure. Everyone followed suit, aside from Mary at first, but not wanting to be alone, she reluctantly followed. Better to die rich than in a lizard’s belly, right...Right?

To Be Continued…

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The most important part about dealing with a disaster in the workplace is recovery and bouncing back. Time is money after all and downtime leads to lost profits. So, it's important to be able to keep downtime in the face of disaster to a minimum and recover as quickly and fully as reasonably possible within your capabilities. Who knows, maybe said disaster could be the key to future successes and opportunities?

Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy 

~~~~ 

Support me on Patreon: [link]

Strange Sci-fi Tales - The Beginner's Guide to Everything Part 6

Part 1: [link]

Part 2: [link] 

Part 3: [link] 

Part 4: [link] 

Part 5: [link]

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           Previously on the Beginner’s Guide to Everything: Mary Brown, the most normal girl in the universe, met her new coworkers on the factoid survey team for the Beginner’s Guide to Everything. Her ex-space pirate boss, Triz Claxy, welcomed her and the cyborg A-2 aboard their Cannister-class vessel and set out for their first job. Surveying Hazard, the danger dimension, for factoids, much to Mary’s horror.

           Meanwhile, or rather a little bit after that, Ronnie Ray, interdimensional fugitive, escaped the GOTM cryo-prison thanks to a bureaucratic error. The pink-haired criminal wasted no time in beaming to Mary’s location using a transmitter she planted on her earlier. Only to be dropped in the middle of a dangerous situation at the worst possible time. How will they get out of this mess?

~--~

           Sometime before Ronnie’s ill-fated escape from the cryo-prison, Mary, A-2, Triz, and the rest of the factoid team landed not so gracefully in Hazard. The dimension lived up to its name right away; they immediately passed through some kind of electrical field that fried their ship, hence the lack of a graceful landing. Thankfully, their vessel was more than hardy enough to withstand the crash, but the same can’t be said for its occupants.

           “Ow, my everything,” Mary moaned as she awakened on the floor of the vessel, having been ping-ponged around its interior along with everyone else.

           “Let’s go again, let’s go again,” A-2 repeated insistently, sparks flying out of her circuits.

           “Anyone who’s left, casssualty report,” Triz sprang to life, a big bruise on her forehead.

           “By some miracle, we’re all alive,” Jerry, the sentient gas cloud, answered. “No, wait, I think we lost Steve.”

           “Then where isss he?” Triz asked.

           “I’m not sure, I think he-,” Jerry was interrupted by a figure splatting on the ground outside the ship. “There he is. Casualty report: Steve.”

           “All thingsss consssidered, that’sss pretty good,” Triz brushed off Steve’s demise. “What do you make of thisss…whatever we landed on?” The lizard woman looked out the window to observe the dense jungle they had crashed in.

           “By some miracle,” Jerry opened up their onboard copy of The Beginner’s Guide, “we landed on a planet without a toxic atmosphere, which only make up 0.00000000001% of all celestial bodies in Hazard.”

           “Exccccelent newsss,” Triz observed all the newly formed holes in their vessel. “Well then, thisss vesssel will get usss nowhere,” she picked up a heavy duffle bag, “I sssay gather your posssesssions, and let’sss get to factoid hunting. It will take our mindsss off or inventible doom.”

           “Aye.” “Fuck.” “Sure thing, boss.” “I hate my job.” The other members of the team commented as they gathered their belongings.

           “A-2, let’s go,” Mary struggled to her feet and shook the cyborg.

           “…again…let’s go again,” A-2 continued to repeat.

           “Wake up,” Mary slapped her.

           “Oh, hey there,” A-2 snapped back to reality. “Are we there already?”

           “We’re going to die, like Steve,” Mary sighed.

           “Who’s Steve?” A-2 stood up and glanced out a nearby window. “Oh, I can see why you’d say that.”

The factoid team was in no rush to leave their vessel. However, they also weren’t keen on staying in a crunched-up ship with fried circuits. Thus, the crew was in a limbo state between rushing out the door and taking their time, leading to quite a spectacular display of haphazard evacuation.

Mary, with nothing to her name but the clothes on her back, just sat and watched. Equally uneager to step out into a place known as the danger dimension. A-2, who did bring quite a few belongings with her, also sat and watched while she waited for her auto-repair system to fix her damaged circuits. Luckily for them, the rest of the team were too involved in their own war between half-assing and rushing things to notice the duo doing nothing.

“A-2, I’m confused,” Mary looked at the cyborg. “What’s the difference between a dimension and a universe?”

“Lots,” A-2 replied simply. “But, between you and me,” she leaned up to Mary’s ear, “the wackos writing and reading the Beginner’s Guide don’t know the difference. It’s better to think of this place as a plane of existence. The multiverse is just a giant cylinder filled with layers of stacked disks. The disks are the full universes, and the planes are like little bubbles inside those disks. Size is relative, though, so one bubble could be a whole universe while another could be as small as a hotel room.”

“Uh…Okay,” Mary nodded, trying to absorb the crash course on the multiverse.

~--~

           “Triz, if you don’t mind me asking,” Jerry inquired as the two moved out the last of their equipment and belongings, “what facts are we supposed to collect here? The official report I read was fairly vague.”

           “Whatever we can,” Triz answered. “Every other sssurvey team they sssent out never came back, so the higher upsss are looking for anything to ssslap on the pagesss. The bonusss payout was great though ssso I didn’t sssecond guesss their methodsss.”

           “Oh, no,” Mary muttered as she heard their conversation. “We really are going to die.”

           “Ah, don’t be like that,” A-2 assured. “Sure, this place is supposed to be uber dangerous, but we’ve been here for a bit, and nobody…only one person has died so far.”

           “That doesn’t make me feel better, and you’re tempting fate,” Mary exclaimed. On cue, a scream echoed from outside. The duo looked out the window to see one of their coworkers being carried off in the mouth of a giant lizard monster.

           “Well, there goesss Johnny,” Triz was unfazed by the sudden death. “Hey, Jerry, now that I think about it, I forgot to asssk if our recovery beacon sssurvived the crasssh.”

           “It did. I’ve had it off and on for a while now,” Jerry replied.

           “Any repliesss?”

           “Yeah,” Jerry answered. “They said to stop bothering them.”

           “Who isss they?”

           “No clue, but they keep yelling at us whenever I turn on the beacon,” Jerry shrugged in a way only a sentient gas cloud could. Before the two could deliberate over their situation any further, the giant lizard had apparently finished eating Johnny, and still feeling peckish, returned for seconds.

           Ready for its return, the rest of the survey team, pulled out a variety of weapons. Primarily consisting of pepper spray and tasers, and tried in vain to scare off the beast. The lizard watched its prey scramble about curiously for a second before chomping on one of the rubber forehead aliens and trotting off to enjoy its meal.

           “Did you really come here with no weapons?” Mary exclaimed.

           “Huh?” Triz noticed Mary’s presence but struggled to recall who she was. “Of courssse not, I brought my trusty lassser pissstol.” The lizard woman brandished a tiny gun that looked like a space toy from the 1960s.

           “Well, as long as he doesn’t bring back friends,” A-2 chimed in.

           “A-2, what did I just say!” Mary screamed. At that moment, the giant lizard monster came back with three friends, each looking particularly hungry.

           “Wow, I think it, and it happens,” A-2 realized. “Hmm,” she pondered this for a moment. “Well, you know what they say, there’s always a bigger fish.” As the words finished leaving her mouth, the ground began to shake, and a patch of nearby trees began to rustle.

           “Why?” Mary groaned as a massive lizard monster, resembling a T-rex with three heads, emerged from the tree line. The other four lizards, immediately noticing the discrepancy in size, decided to fight for their food. Certain the numbers advantage would be enough. After three of them had their heads bitten off in sequence by the three-headed monster, the fourth had a change of heart and scampered away.

           “And then-!” A-2 began.

           “Shut up,” Mary clamped her hand around the cyborg’s mouth as the three-headed monster charged the survey team.

To Be Continued…

~~~~ 

Workplace accidents are an unfortunate fact of life, sometimes things just go wrong and people get hurt. The import thing is to have appropriate measures in place to prevent or mitigate these disasters.

Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy 

~~~~ 

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Strange Sci-fi Tales - The Beginner's Guide to Everything Part 5

Part 1: [link]

Part 2: [link] 

Part 3: [link] 

Part 4: [link]

~~~~

           Previously on the Beginner’s Guide to Everything: Mary Brown, the most normal girl in the multiverse, found herself with a new job at the Beginner’s Guide to Everything office, following the complete destruction of her own universe. Assigned to be nothing more than a redundant middle man to a team collecting factoids for a glorified traveler’s brochure. Mary desired a little more excitement in her life and decided to join her new superior, the cyborg A-2, for some fieldwork.

           Meanwhile, little thought has been spared for the fugitive Ronnie Ray, who got Mary in this situation, to begin with. The contents of her 1,000 solar cycle stay in the cryo prison will be covered in a moment; for now, Mary has her first day at a new job…

~--~

           Mary observed the marvelous spaceship that would serve as their transport and home for the near future. However, marvelous is not the right word; junky, rusted, and clunky would be far better descriptors. Spaceship is also a deceptive descriptor that implies it only moves through the vacuum of space. The Starford 212 Cannister-class ships can move through time, space, and numerous other dimensions with the same ease as a dilapidated jalopy navigates a bumpy country road.

           As its class implies, the 212 was shaped like a soda can; the front even opened up like a pull tab. It was much smaller than the Bottle-class ship that Mary rode in before, but it was still about the size of a small plane that had packed on a few pounds. While in its prime, the vessel would be an example of a sleek, futuristic and sterile transport. Today it resembled a soda can that had sat rusting in a junkyard for an alarming number of years.

           “Is that thing safe?” Mary inquired.

           “No clue, but I’m sure that won’t matter,” A-2 ineptly foreshadowed their grim future. “Why don’t we meet our new coworkers? Not that they’ll remember you, but still.”

           Mary held her tongue; she was used to the “nobody remembers her” bit at this point. “Better to be wallpaper than a nail that sticks out and gets hammered,” she’d always tell herself.

           The two casually walked inside the vehicle and came face to face with their new coworkers. Most of them were weird-looking aliens; a few of the beings resembled humans. A few more beings resembled humans but with rubber foreheads, and lastly, there was a sentient ball of gas. However, at the front of the ship, looming over them all by virtue of sitting in the raised captain’s chair, was a lizard person.

           The lizard stood on two legs, scales covering them from head to toe. Their clawed hands dug into the worn leather of the captain’s chair while their slender tail hung over the back. Despite this unusual appearance, Mary found herself drawn mainly towards their pirate hat and eyepatch, which seemed out of place in the sci-fi room. The only other thing of note was a large name tag pinned to their shirt that read, “Triz Claxy – Lead Surveyor.”

           “Nice to meet you, boss…lizard,” A-2 held out her hand. “I’m A-2, your new assistant, and this is my assistant Mary.”

           “Pleasssure to meet you,” Triz’s voice surprised Mary with how feminine it sounded. If she had to put it into words, it sounded like a 50s something woman with nasty smoking and drinking habit who like to emphasize ‘s’ sounds.

           “So, boss lizard, if you don’t mind be asking, what’s with the pirate getup?” A-2 brought up the elephant in the room.

           “Oh, it’sss jussst a holdover from my ssspace pirate daysss,” Triz revealed. “But I’m passsed all that now.”

           “So, you’re an ex-con,” A-2 bluntly stated to Mary’s horror.

           “Yesss, but we’ve got a lot of ex-cons here, don’t we?” Triz replied.

           “Wait, who else here is an ex-con?” Mary exclaimed and was met with everyone else in the room, sans A-2 and the sentient gas cloud, raising their hands.

           “Put your hand up, Jerry,” one of the weird-looking aliens said to the gas cloud, who reluctantly formed a gaseous hand to raise.

           “You know, technically, you’re an ex-con,” A-2 said to Mary.

           “No, I’m not,” Mary snapped. “I was kidnapped by convict…er, someone who became a convict after they kidnapped me, but not because they kidnapped me…oh, forget it.” A-2 chuckled at Mary’s expense, but no one else so much as reacted.

           ‘Although that does make me wonder, how is Ronnie doing?’ Mary pondered. ‘Not that I care, but…no wait, that’s right, I don’t care,’ Mary shrugged. Triz soon made an announcement they would take off within the hour. Mary settled into an unoccupied corner of the ship and prepared to treat this whole thing as an extended work trip.

           “Destination: Hazard,” Triz declared, “the danger dimension.”

           “I’m sorry, what?” Mary blurted out as the Cannister-class ship rocketed off into the boundless void with a creak and shudder.

~--~

           Ronnie Ray thanked whatever higher power was watching her above. Most people sent to cryo prison typically stay there the entire sentence, parole, bail, and the like are fairly hard to arrange while in cryostasis. Nothing short of a mass prison break, which is also rare when 100% of the inmates are on ice, or a bureaucratic error can get one out early.

           On an unrelated note, the officer in charge of Ronnie’s case forgot to check a box on page 38 of the paperwork. A long game of bureaucracy telephone later, Ronnie’s sentence length was accidentally set as 1,000 nano cycles instead of solar cycles. The result was Ronnie went right from her brand new cell to release in roughly the span of a few Earth seconds. Naturally, the guards found the whole situation suspicious and were planning on reviewing the case. Ronnie pretended to accept this before running away the second they took their eyes off her.

           The fugitive had hidden in a dark corner of the cryo prison where only an extremely dedicated janitor had any hope of discovering her. While she was safe from being discovered, Ronnie’s real problem was that she lacked any food or water. At this point, her choices would usually be to stay down here and expire or return above and go back to her cell. Luckily for Ronnie, she had prepared a third option.

           “Didn’t think I’d get to use this,” she pulled out another remote device similar to the one she had used to dimension jump with Mary before. Hidden safely alongside her knock-out spray in a cavity one shouldn’t mention in polite company. “I had hoped to save this for a dramatic escape at my trial, but judge, jury, and executioner back at the station took me off guard.”

           The device whirled to life and began to lock onto a specific signal. It was taking its time, but it would only be a matter of minutes. Ronni grinned as her plan was coming back to fruition.

           “A good fugitive always has a backup escape route,” Ronnie declared to herself. “That transmitter I planted on M…whatshername will be my salvation.” The device locked onto the signal and prepared to dimension jump. “She should be smack dab in the middle of an endless office building right now, or maybe an apartment. Wherever she is, I should be able to sneak away long before GOTM even knows I was there.” With the flick of a switch, she was beamed right to Mary’s location, ready to begin her life as a fugitive anew.

~--~

           Much to her shock, Ronnie found herself materialize in the middle of a dense jungle. As she got her bearings, she realized how hot, humid and sticky it was. Overall, the scenery was lovely, but she could do without all the people screaming. Ronnie wondered what the hell Mary was doing here or if her transmitter was bugging out. A quick glance revealed Mary was nearby, just a few meters in front of her, curled up beside a rock. The former secretary had a look of absolute horror on her face but wasn’t looking directly at Ronnie.

           “What is she-?” Ronnie turned around to see what the fuss was about. The giant lizard monsters with three heads baring their teeth at her answered that question. “Oh, F-!” Ronnie didn’t even have a chance to finish her swear.

To Be Continued…

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Meeting new coworkers can be awkward as you try to adjust to a new workplace culture. It's only made worse when you're not clear on the finer details of your new job or where you might be working. Doubly so if you dive in head first into your new role without thinking.

Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy 

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