"untitled Charlie and Mitchie project" Ch1 rewrite1

Hello. This is an expansion/rewrite of the first chapter. I'm finding the right balance. I want there to be warmth and kindness all through this, while still propelling the book forward. Science fiction was the first genre I ever loved, and all my first stories were science fiction. Charlie and Mitchie are reinvented here, (They come from my horror novel One Bloody Thing After Another, ) given a new chance at their friendship in relative peace :P

--- Joey

1.

It was my day off. No mops, no brooms, no gravity scrubbers. No chemical cleaning agents or oxygen strips. No smock. No rubber boots. A good night's sleep changes me. It changes a lot of things, it turns out. I'm never going to see Earth again, for instance. Nobody on this ship is. But I didn't know that yet. I'm under no obligation to know things on my day off.

There's no window in my cabin, but there is a small inset "window panel" behind some curtains. It keeps us from feeling like we wake up every day trapped in a box. Is it programmed to shine brighter on my day off? It feels that way. The whole room feels hopeful. I should ask Marlene.

Showering is a reminder that my body isn't a steel wall panel. When I wash and disinfect a wall panel, or a vent cover, I make it new again. This ship is designed to last forever. Every floor I scrub will be scrubbed a million more times, and after every cleaning it will be indistinguishable from the day it was installed.

Not me. It doesn't matter how carefully I scrub my body, it'll never be pristine. It never was. I'm not a spaceship. Thank god. Imagine living forever. 

Imagine the chit chat. 

I don't think about death a lot. Most days I shower quickly and efficiently. It's a step in the process. It provides the satisfaction of ticking a box, moving on to the next task. Correctly preparing myself for the work day. But on my days off, there's no rush. I linger in the hot water. I just stand in the melting feeling. Washing isn't work on my day off. It's a pleasure. I let myself sink into the warm acceptance of not being a steel wall. 

After I shower, I dry myself. I open the closet where my Janitor uniform hangs. 

"Not today, Satan," I tell it, and I push it aside.

I put on my civilian clothes. I pull on my civilian shoes. I look in the mirror, and I put on my civilian reasonable look of contentment. 

"Hello." 

Then I open the door and I start my day. 

Today, there was somebody waiting for me. Jonathan. He was standing across the way, leaning against the wall. 

"Good morning," he said. 

"New job?" I said. "Congratulations. Holding up walls seems like a promotion from bothering people."

"I'm not trying to bother you. I waited until the ship said you were awake, Charles. You think I like getting yelled at?"

"I didn't yell," I said. Jonathan looked skeptical. "I expressed my opinions firmly."

"I need you to sign off on the specs for your service animal. Then I'm out of your hair."

"No thank you," I said, at a very reasonable volume. "I don't need a service animal. I work hard, I am good at my job. I carry my weight."

"It takes two minutes," he said. "This doesn't have to be a big deal."

I shouldn't have agreed to take that medical exam. But they had threatened to remove me from the work rotation otherwise. They were always lording that over me, like they were doing me a favor by letting me work.

"I'm not the bad guy here," Jonathan said. "I don't want to bother you on your day off. You asked me not to interfere with your workday. You were very clear on that. Do you remember? And if you ever responded to your messages, I wouldn't have to be here at all."

"I respond to every official message I receive." 

"You respond with a single question mark," he said. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Oh, that made me happy. 

It was the perfect response. A single question mark. It could mean anything at all, or absolutely nothing. But it was a response. You couldn't say I didn't respond.

"I think my email was very clear," I said. "I don't know how I could have made it more simple." I gave him a polite civilian smile. "I hate seeing you so stressed out, Jonathan. You don't want to end up with a service animal yourself." 

He did not like that.

"They're going to send me again," he said. "They're going to keep sending me."

"Then this isn't goodbye," I told him. "It's 'see you soon.'" 

I gave a polite nod, and walked off toward the elevator. By the time I turned the second corner, Jonathan was out of my mind, and I could already smell the forest. It was going to be a good day. I could feel it.

The elevator ride down to the transfer deck was a quick one. Still, it was enough time to notice that whoever was assigned to clean the elevators didn't take very much pride in their work. The undersides of the handrails weren't clean. The bottom of the control tablet had dust on it. Dust! There were so many delicate electronics hidden in these walls. It was just irresponsible to let dust build up. 

Careless. It spoke to a pattern of carelessness. Not just one bad day. How many times have they cleaned in here and only paid attention to what was right in front of them? There was so much more to cleaning than just the visible surfaces. I fought the urge to wipe the underside of the panel.

No. 

It was my day off. 

I like my job. I find it rewarding. I'm a vital part of a functioning system. This is a retirement home on a tour of the solar system. An endless route, while we all waited to die. But I have a job. I live on the crew decks, because I do my part.

But I don't do elevators. And today was my day off. 

On my day off I go to the forest. 

The elevator let me out on the transfer deck, and there was no line. Only Marlene, standing in front of the automatic door to the sterilization room. The door wasn't opening for her. She stepped back and then stepped forward. Still nothing. Her hair is a sharp silver, and it suits her. She looks good.

"Is it broken?" I said, and she turned to grin at me.

"No, it's me that is. Hi Chuck! I figured it out. I'm invisible." 

I reached where she was standing and the door recognized me. It slid open with no problem at all. 

"See?" she said. "Perfect working order!" Her service animal was clinging to the collar of her shirt. A small bat, with a snub little face. I can never remember his name. "Prom," she said. "You always forget. He doesn't mean anything by it, Prom. You've got a weird name is all. Hard to form associations. Mnemonics or whatever. What? Oh." She smiles at me. "I never went to my high school prom," she said to me. "I was suspended for changing everyone's grades by one percent."

"One percent?"

"It makes all the difference in the world, Charles." The door closed again, and Marlene waved her hand in front of it. Nothing happened. "Wave at the door," she said. So I waved at the door.

It slid open.

"I don't want to spook you out," she whispered. "But I'm a ghost now."

And then she turned and walked away.

"Bye," I said. But she was already gone.

I should have invited her to join me.

It is ridiculous that to get to the forest, with its gentle dark charms, you have to pass through a blue-light sterilization room. When you first stepped into the room it seemed like a simple perfect square. The walls had no markings, no vents, no light fixtures. But then it starts.

There are so many more types of blue than you realize. Some of them are bright, some are inside out. Some of them strobe underneath your skin, instead of on the surface. And then it's over. You're clean on the inside. 

The door to the forest opened for me. 

On the other side of that room, there was no ceiling. The whole forest stretched out and above me, up and up, into a faint blue sky. Clouds. Beside me there was a bench, where I sat and took my shoes off. The dirt under the skin of my feet was soft. Soil. I loved the feeling of my weight sinking into it. Like it was accepting me. Alive. 

Paths led off in all directions. In between the leaves and the trees. The bushes and vines hung above the moss covered forest floor. There were so many different species of plant life. That whole deck of the ship is a forest. It stretched up above me, to a canopy of leaves. And higher. The sunlight was bright there, near the entrances, but down the paths it was darker. 

I loved the cool air down here. I loved to feel life all around me. There are sixteen decks dedicated to the forests and algae colonies. Only one of them is open to the public, though. Curated. The plants there are more diverse. A giant park for the staff and residents to visit. Landscaped to include benches and more vibrantly coloured plant life. Again, careful psychological planning I'm sure. But it works. And it isn't a small park. A whole deck is a lot of forest. Miles and miles of pathways and hidden valleys, they tell us. Streams and low hills.

I went as deep into the forest as I could. Far from the entrances and the staff on their lunch breaks who came to eat on the benches. Far from the guided botanical tours of various species that the residents could take. Deeper. 

There are entrances scattered around the deck. You're never too far from one, but there are places where the light doesn't reach. Where people don't wander as often. 

I stayed on the path out of respect. I loved the feeling of soft soil under my feet, but I didn't want to crush the moss or the small mint-smelling leaves. But oh, how I would love to disappear into those trees. To just sink into the real darkness. 

I found myself a thick tree beside the path and I sat down. I leaned back against it. The bark was soft with decay through the thin fabric of my shirt. I closed my eyes. I listened to the sound of birds up above me. Hidden speakers in the tree canopy. The rustling in the dark off to my left. And then behind me. 

I liked to sit deep in the green, where the sound of other people couldn't reach through the dampening soft leaves and algae. I could sit for hours, just breathing. Listening. Dozing off to sleep and waking back up. Sometimes I couldn't tell which was which. 

I imagined that there was a door, far back in the dark. With only shafts of simulated sunshine to reach the forest floor. A door that led to stairs, not an elevator, but old stone stairs that are carved down and down into the other decks. Where stranger and more wild forests of plantlife grow and bloom and live.

There are sixteen decks of nature. We are only allowed to visit this top level park. The other decks are part of the life support system. They provide the ship with oxygen. A delicate balance, they say. Protected from our prying eyes and our unbalancing interference.

I imagine that the decks get wilder and wilder below. That eventually they turn to swampland. To marsh. To salt water and plankton. Giant creatures in almost pure darkness, moving gracefully through the kelp. I liked that. I liked to imagine those creatures moving so slowly that you could hardly tell. It helped me to feel -

"Charles," The voice startled me out of my dream. My deck supervisor stood above me. Even he looked more peaceful in the slivers of light through the canopy above. "There you are," he said. He didn't sit down. It took my eyes a moment to really focus. 

I didn't stand up for him. It was my day off. And in any case, he wasn't the boss of me. I answered to the ship itself. I answered to my duties. To the clean floors and walls. To the replacement faucets and leaking pipes. I answered to flickering windows and strange stains in dark unused cabins. To -

"Charles," he said again. I sighed. Finally awake.

"I don't need a service animal," I told him. 

"I heard," he said. "Jonathan came to see me."

"Oh no, did I hurt his feelings?"

"You know, I think you did. He has duties just like the rest of us. It's frustrating for him when he can't finish a task."

"Maybe he needs fifteen minutes in the wellness room?"

The floor supervisor sighed.

David. Or Daniel. I could never remember his first name. He was the supervisor for our whole deck, and everyone just called him Supe. Or Soup. He liked it. He interpreted it more like Superman than Chicken Noodle I imagine. 

"He's just the messenger," Soup said. "Your last medical put you on the list for a service animal, and in my experience that means you're getting a service animal. You can choose the species, though."

There are service animals on my deck. Not a lot of them, but some. They're always happy things. They're always fluffy little bundles of love and encouragement. I heard their noises, sometimes, in the corridors. Yips and mewling that somehow sounded like "Yes!" and "That's exactly right!" They didn't actually talk, but they might as well have.

Thank God I don't live with the other residents. My deck houses the nurses and doctors and patient attendants. Computer programmers. The event co-ordinators and Bridge instructors and masseurs. The janitors. There are fewer yes-bots.

But there are some. I've seen them, cats trotting along beside their humans. Small dogs yapping yes yes yes. Some people with a rat on their shoulder, or a bird. Marlene with her bat Prom. Whispering in her ear. Because that's what they do. They reassure you. They're programmed to encourage you, and to help you when you've forgotten something. 

I sound judgemental. I don't mean to be.

There is a patient attendant in the cabin next to mine, and he sits with the dying. He's technically a resident, like me. But he's also taken a job. He's a companion. 

He doesn't nurse, or clean, or care for the residents in any physical way. He simply makes sure that they aren't alone. When they wake up in the middle of the night, he's there. He's there to say, "I'm here." And it wears on him. Emotionally. He's been sitting in a fluorescent room too many times when someone has died with the lights on.

There are a lot of times when I come home from work, and I think about knocking on his door. Asking him if he wants to get a drink. Or some food. But I never do. I don't even know his work hours. Besides, who am I to think he wants my company? If it were me, I would resent someone's pity, I think. I resent my own pity. 

Why do I think I could ever understand, or that I could be any help at all? 

He has a service animal. And I respect that. The work he does is important and it's necessary, and if he can come home to his cat and laugh or just talk at his pet about something reassuring, or something trite and silly, and it helps him? I'm glad. Human beings aren't always going to be there for you.

"If you don't pick, they'll just send a dog." Soup said.

"I don't need a service animal. I enjoy my work. I enjoy my days off." I looked up at him. I didn't like that he was above me. I regretted not standing. "Well, I usually enjoy my days off," I corrected myself. The edge in my voice didn't bother Soup at all. Not his problem. He shrugged.

"Be nicer to Jonathan," he said. "He's just a kid."

"Lots of people are nice to Jonathan already," I said. "I bet he finds me refreshing."

"He does not find you refreshing."

"Well, I am."

I watched him walk away, and just before he disappeared into the green, he stopped.

"Treacle," Soup said.

"What?"

"I couldn't think of the word. Treacle. That's how it feels down here in the forest. I can see why you love it. Treacle." He smiled to himself for remembering the word, and then he was gone and it was quiet and soft and cool again.

For a while I tried to relax back into the daydreams of whole oceans beneath me. Sea creatures that have long been extinct, brought back to life by genetic scientists with a twinkle in their eye. Not for any reason but because they could.

I love the idea of life that isn't human. Plankton and sea worms a dozen decks below, in hidden oceans. Living secret lives without ever seeing a human. Without ever being seen by a human. I have always loved the idea of life that goes on without us. That thrives whether we are there or not. It makes me feel like I am a small part of something bigger. Unimportant in the best possible way. 

But it felt academic now. I felt like I was imagining the creatures, not dreaming them. It felt detached. I was sitting in the dark, and it was cool, and calm, but I was wide awake. Soup's visit had woken me up. 

There was no point sitting there anymore. So I climbed to my feet. Braced my hand against the tree for balance. There was a dull ache in my hip, but I ignored it. I would have to eat soon anyway. So many times I forgot to eat, lost in dreams down there. 

It was still early. I could venture further today. Eat at one of the nice restaurants.

Sushi. I could eat sushi. All the way on the other side of the ship there was a sushi restaurant run by a woman who was always in a bad mood. The food wasn't anything special, but that wasn't the point. She was the point. She prepared the food and she served the food. There was no, "have a good night!" There was no, "thank you for coming by." 

She was cold and indifferent. Eat or don't eat. It didn't matter to her.

It was refreshing, watching her snap at customers. 

I just needed to change into my goin' out clothes. 

The elevator ride home was quick. My mind was out ahead of me, already sitting down in an uncomfortable chair in the sushi restaurant. The proprietor was already dropping a menu on my table without a word. 

I walked down two long hallways before I realized I was being followed. First there was a feeling. And then I caught a glimpse in the reflection of a glass door. A shape behind me. Small and blurry. 

I didn't know whether to slow down or speed up. If it had just been a person I would have ignored it. But it was too small. Too strange. It was following at a respectful distance, but it was following. Doing its best, anyway. The shape moved with a weird see-saw motion. The movement was unfamiliar. Alien. I couldn't just ignore it.

I turned around and immediately I could see why it had been moving so strangely. It only had three legs. I don't know dog breeds. He was small and grey, and he was missing his front left leg. There was a hitch in its giddy-up. The eye on the same side was completely white. He stopped walking and sat down a few feet from me. We looked at one another in silence. 

So they had sent a service animal after all. They were done asking. He wasn't what I expected. He wasn't a fluffy little ball of joy. 

He didn't wag his tail. Which is fair enough. I didn't wag mine. 

He just looked at me, head cocked to one side. 

I had never seen a service animal like this.

Service animals were robots. And they were all perfect. Fun. Cheerful. Comforting. 

Pretty.

This little guy was not pretty. He had a face for dog radio. 

His tongue lolled out from the exertion of walking, and his breathing sounded labored. 

"I don't need a service animal," I told him. "I don't care what the medical tests say about my feelings. Or my psychology. Or whatever box you think I ticked." 

I stood there staring at him, trying to feel indignant. But he wasn't running at me or jumping on me all excited and fake. He sat down and panted. Exhausted. I found it difficult to be mad at him. He didn't choose this anymore than I did. He wasn't trying to cheer me up. He was just sitting there, struggling to catch his breath. 

I started to feel like an asshole. Normally that doesn't bother me.

Fuck it. There was no reason to just let him wheeze like that.

"Let's get you a drink, at least," I said. I turned and kept walking toward my cabin. Then I stopped and looked back at him, waiting. He climbed to his feet. 

He followed me the rest of the way to my door. But when it slid open, he just sat looking up at me. So I stepped through, and beckoned. He just sat there. Eventually the door slid shut in his face. I pushed the button and it opened again. He sat there like a dope. Fine.

I went and filled one of my cereal bowls with cool water. Not too cold. I find it hard to drink water when it is too cold. Maybe it's the same for dogs. If they make robots that are too dumb to come inside, maybe they make them with cold-sensitive teeth. 

When I opened the door again, he was still there. He wouldn't come in, so I went out. I sat down and set the bowl of water in front of him. He sniffed it cautiously and then he started lapping it up like he hadn't had anything to drink in weeks. He was splashing it everywhere. I'm surprised any of it got into his mouth.

"I don't really think you're dumb," I said, watching him. "I wouldn't go into a stranger's cabin either. Hey. Hey, slow down. You're gonna make yourself sick." He did not slow down, though. 

I could hear the hum of the ship's engines deep below, quieter than the splashing gulping small wet noises that were getting all over the floor. When he finished, there was water everywhere except the bowl. He had a collar. I reached out and ran my fingers around it. There. A name tag. 

"Hi Mitchie," I said. "I'm Charles."

He only had one good eye, but in the clear bright eye there was something that seemed very real. He didn't hold himself like one of the service robots. He didn't want to cheer me up, or tell me how smart I am. 

If anything, he looked tired. He looked like he just needed a home. 

"It must be a hard life out there for ugly robot dogs."

Maybe that's what my psychological profile had told the ship. Maybe that's a kind of service animal, too. Not everyone needs something to take care of them. Some people need to care for something. I'd never considered that. I have my work, and my trips to the forest. I'm not unhappy. And I don't think I'm lonely.

But the idea isn't offensive, either.

Mitchie. I looked down at him. He needed a home. I could give him that. For now, anyway. In any case the ship was just going to keep sending people to bother me about it. And maybe I'd like him. Maybe he'd like me. 

I stood up, taking the bowl with me.

He put his head on the floor right in a puddle of water, and closed his eyes. 

"Okay," I said, and he looked up at me. I pushed the button to open my cabin door. "Come on if you're coming."

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