“We saw.”
“It was my gun they used.”
“Not your fault. There were more of them than usual,” said Razz solemnly.
“Will Limbus send Harper back to his family somehow?”
Timothy pursed his lips. “No,” he said after a moment.
The Sticker looked at Razz, who looked away. “Work’s done today. The Princess’s clean crew will take care of the rest here.”
The Sticker growled in pain as he stood. “So what happens to Harper? No mysteries, guys. I ain’t in the mood.”
Razz sighed. “He’ll be taken down to be rendered and prepped for consumption with the rest of these bodies.”
“Along with the aliens? You said the Princess had particular tastes though.”
“Yes, but she won’t turn down getting one of us.”
“Not ever,” Timothy added.
Razz and Timothy were in a funk for a couple weeks after losing Harper. Especially Razz, being the youngest of all the men there. The Sticker wagered he’d never seen anyone he cared about die. Both men would often tell the Sticker stories about Harper while preparing for the day’s work. Some of the stories were funny, some serious, but all equally endearing, and to hear them speak about their friend this way proved them decent guys, which made the Sticker feel more at peace with the company he was now in.
As much as they liked to go on about Harper, neither Razz nor Timothy wanted to share too much about how Limbus talked them into this job on the Princess’s slaughter ship. The Sticker knew how they felt and kept that particular course of events from their conversations. He figured they would all end up sharing everything eventually. After a month of killing Fanjlions, Bezdebos, Horta Sa-inj, and Grettish Friars, they were more like comrades in a war, rather than employees working a job.
And just when life on the Princess’s ship got predictable, her tastes would change. They would learn from her robot emissaries that Fixer guns gave the meat a “smell” or that the bludgeons she next instructed them to use had splintered some of the spines and bone shrapnel had spoiled the meat. Now, a full two months later, the Sticker and his two fellow slaughterers were using short-hafted spears, not much different than the long knife the Sticker was accustomed to in the stockyards.
After their kills, a fleet of peculiar robots would sanitize the floors and transport the bodies to the rendering facilities. Their gelatin-red bodies reminded the Sticker of the cinnamon bears he used to eat with abandon, before he developed several root canals. These robots had no visible power supplies or hinged iron limbs like those he’d seen in movies. The eyes were the only mechanical looking component to them, alarming yellow diodes that blinked as they processed information. Efficient at their tasks though, the robots kept things moving in an orderly fashion, especially the emissary models that conveyed messages in unstilted American English.
The Sticker would watch them move around like furious gummy children, pushing mops heaped in gore, moving puddles of thick alien blood with squeegees, picking up corpses and flinging them into the small dump trucks. It was amazing to behold mechanical devices moving around so fluid and unerring.
Which was why the Sticker couldn’t understand the sorry-ass lag-time and glitchiness of the personal computer in his dorm room. Tasha had the computer sent over a couple days after he arrived. The laptop was modern, nothing special, save for the fact that the self-sustaining battery never lost a charge. So again, why all the lagging? Why all the glitches? He was grateful to have some sort of connection to Earth, but this was weak.
The Sticker didn’t post much to any social sites, but he was an avid lurker that read about his friends and sometimes distant family members. One person held his attention the most, however.
He sent Annette another message the day he set up the computer: Did you ever read my email?
The answer came back a few days later. Tell me where you’ve gone. I’ve received phone calls from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the EPA, and the police department. Your boss, Gerald Bailey, was put in the hospital with a life-threatening infection. They are blaming you.
He typed back: Sorry to hear that. I’m out of state. I don’t think I’ll be back in a long time.
A week passed and another email came through: You need to get back to me soon about this. Are you in town still? I’ve called your uncle Pete, and he hasn’t heard from you.
He replied: Did you get my last email? I said I’m out of state.
Her response: Do you want to go the Freeman’s BBQ this Saturday?
The Sticker sat there, scratching at a burning claw wound from a Grettish Friar on his cheek. Annette had sent this email years ago… why was it coming through again?
Huh? he returned to her.
Then a follow-up email came in: So what state are you in then????? This is serious. You need to contact me.
He didn’t bother to respond.
The next morning the Sticker quickly got dressed. Aside from warmth, the jumpsuits nourished and hydrated them as well. The small amount of body fat he’d had before was nearly gone. He would have felt great had his body not been constantly abused by outside factors. As he suited up, feeling nice and full, satisfied, he heard a knock at his door. He slid it open and found one of the cherry red emissaries standing there.
At first he got a bad feeling that spears were no longer acceptable and the Princess would now like them to strangle her various forms of cattle, but the robot relayed a message from Tasha, in her own voice.
“I’m sorry that I will be unable to visit the ship. The chain of command in our division has insisted I remain on Earth. I’m sorry for this. I hope the lap-top with internet access will bring you some repose. I’m working on getting you transferred, or at least your contract altered so you don’t have to be locked into five years. Take care of yourself and I’ll contact you soon.”
The robot backed away and gracefully strode down the hallway.
The Sticker felt so far away from anything real, but that guidepost for reality wasn’t the Earth, but Annette. Before he slept every night, he wondered if she missed him. With each day that passed, did she realize her mistake? He knew her dreams, saw them grow up from a modest beginning and blossom out. She wanted to become an accountant, but hated school. He coached her through the lectures, tests and all the dreariness that came with it, and then just last year she became a CPA. She thanked him. Profusely. Did she forget the man who did that for her? Would there be a moment when she reflected back to the time she’d felt so small and he made her feel like a giant?
He didn’t want praise. He just wanted some credit.
If she really was going to leave him forever, he at least deserved that.
He attempted to email her several times that night.
Six months passed after those attempts.
No other email came through.
Not even those of the panicked legal sort.
Nothing.
The same day he vowed to stop using the computer was the first time he heard the Princess’s voice. He was loading Fanjlion bodies onto the conveyor and while one of the actuators momentarily powered down, there was a brief course of silence through the rendering facility. The Princess’s scream was pained and infant-like in its misery, and the Sticker thought, without much further reflection, that’s the voice of the thing that will chew me up someday. My body will be mush in her mouth. She’ll swallow me down.
And Annette would never know the difference.