Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
My bed, such as it is, is pushed up against a hearth. There’s a fire of sorts burning in it, but they’re not real flames. It’s more like a small reactor that makes spiral flames shoot up toward the top of the box, emitting a very pleasant heat.
All I have to do is sit here while he bustles around after me, this alien who has killed millions and is now very keen to get me some nice soup. I know I’m lucky to be alive. I also know that my luck could change at any moment. May as well enjoy this while it lasts. I don’t see any signs of any remnants of my uniform. I can assume that it was mostly destroyed, and what parts weren’t will soon be recycled into something else.
“Here,” he says, appearing again and bringing me a steaming bowl of hot orange soup. I am half-surprised that he has something so digestively familiar, and then I remember pumpkins are amazing. A lot of Earth food is popular among other alien species. We truly did arise in the garden of Eden.
I taste it under his expectant eye. Obviously, I am going to tell him that it is amazing no matter what it tastes like. But then it hits my tongue and a sound of real pleasure makes its way out of me, regardless.
“This is delicious!”
“Thank you. You are probably not used to real food; most of what is served in ships and ration packs is APF. It never tastes the same as the real thing.”
“APF?”
“Approximated printed food. Instead of using real ingredients to make something to eat, amino acids, proteins, vitamins. and minerals are fed into a printing machine that creates a likeness of foods that used to exist in deep history.”
“But we sell all sorts of produce from Earth.”
“You might think you are selling produce, but to reduce transport costs, all of it, no matter what it is, has to be ground into a fine powder and reduced to the sum of its parts before it can be transported. It’s then fed into a machine which turns it into a slurry which is then once again fed through ionic separation chambers…”
I could listen to Manik talk about absolutely anything, I realize suddenly. Everything he says is absolutely fascinating to me.
“So though you may be technically eating Earth-grown food, it is no different than any other slurry-based cuisine.”
“Wow,” I say, as I fill my face with real organic material grown in actual organic dirt. “You can really taste the bugs and the soil, but in a good way.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Manik says, pleased that I seem to agree with him.
It is good food, and I need it. I didn’t eat much before I left on my mission. I get nervous that things will go wrong. It turned out this time those nerves were absolutely correct. Things have gone very fucking wrong.
Manik has once again disappeared into the rear of the cave and is hard at work. He intends to dress me immediately, which I appreciate. I wonder what kind of seamster he is. Is that the word for a male seamstress? My implant seems to think so.
Nothing is going to plan. I have gone from hoping to make an insane amount of money to hoping I can survive. Funny how life likes to throw that kind of curveball. Just as you think you’re about to get ahead, bam, you’re abducted by a murderous and potentially psychotic alien who is probably using the skin from his previous victims to fashion you a cute outfit.
If I have learned one thing in my relatively advanced years, it is that you have to be adaptable. There’s no point holding onto the past or obsessing over what could have been. You’ve got to face forward and deal with the here and now, knowing full well that in the end, everything is a bit meaningless. I’m sure smarter philosophers have said that more eloquently, but I think that’s probably the key to a happy existence, or at least a tolerable one.
I check out the cave from where I’m sitting, and aside from the bone artwork, which is frankly distracting, he does have a great deal of technology here. Some of it he probably brought with him; other things bear the stamp of elite bounty hunting organizations. It’s fair to assume they were donated against the previous owners’ wills. The thing about Manik is that every time someone has tried to catch him, all they’ve actually succeeded in doing is making him even harder to catch.
* * *
Manik
She’s cute. She’s cute and she likes my soup. I like the way her cheeks go rosier in hues when she’s happy or warmed by soup. I’ve decided I don’t like how she looks when she’s afraid, and that is strange because I usually absolutely adore the look of fear in the eyes of my enemy.