The pharmacy could’ve been trapped in its own time and space bubble for how slow it processing medication prescriptions. Brinus sighed, waited, and leaned his head backward and slack against the wall in a waiting seat. The waiting room had one other occupant. Some lady that seemed older.

  “Pardon me miss?” Brinus asked and got her attention. “Are you waiting on prescriptions? It’s been an hour for me.”

  “Oh dear, that’s quite the wait time. I only got here a few minutes ago.” She replied shocked.

  The pharmacist came to the counter and called out a name. “Mrs. Rass?” He called out, and the lady rose from her seat. “Your prescription is ready.” They traded thanks and Mrs. Rass walked out the door free as a bird.

  Brinus sighed and plonked his head back to thud against the wall again. To what did he deserve this limbo?

  “Mr. Helios?” The pharmacist called out and Brinus leaped from his chair.

  “Yes! Finally!” He yelled. “Whatcha got for me?”

  The pharmacist presented a bag with his vape juice cartridge inside. “Thank you for being patient.” He said. “We had some trouble with our synthesizer today, as well, there were network problems. It’s all sorted out now.”

  “You should’ve told me, I could’ve helped, I’m good with computers.” Brinus offered.

  “Can’t risk exposing sensitive information. We handled it perfectly well enough.” He explained.

  Brinus didn’t want to push the issue, but next time, he would ask and offer to help anyway just to speed things along. He was fiending for a pull of his vape, and his body craved it chemically which put him on edge. “Thanks.” That was all he could muster, and let his thoughts just be thoughts.

  Along the way home, Brinus opened his vape juice cart and installed it. He took the greediest and smoothest hit and pulled the medicated vapor deep into his lungs. He held to make sure his body would calm down and react to the hit, then let it out in a white cloud of water vapor into the air. The world quieted for a moment, but it was short-lived. A couple walking by him were laughing loudly and watching a streamer review a terrible game that was full of glitches and errors. It made for comical relief. For Brinus, he didn’t share the joy. The woman’s laughter with her girlfriend wasn’t contagious at all, but rather obnoxious and grating. Brinus shook his head and just chalked up the irritation to him being out of vape juice for too long.

  He took another hit and the same sort of irritation occurred, only this time it was a young cadet playing music loudly on his TriQuarter. He was vibing and eating a quick meal, but the noise was selfish and benefited only himself.

  “Cadet, cut your music! Think about how that annoys other people, you idiot!” Brinus snapped.

  The cadet nearly dropped his food to scramble and turn the volume down. He seemed flustered and tried to agree with what Brinus could make out was, “Sir, yes sir.” His mouth was full of food.

  Finally, Brinus had reached an elevator. Luckily, and to his relief, he had done so and was by himself. The door began to close.

  “Hold the doors!” A lieutenant called out and urged Brinus to stop them from closing.

  Brinus did not though. He leaned over and pressed the ‘close door’ button, and mashed on it harder the closer the lieutenant rushed closer. “I’m so sorry, it’s not working!” Brinus lied through his teeth just as the door sealed shut.

  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He just wanted to be home in his quiet quarters with no sound and nobody around to mess with him.

  The elevator was quiet and smoothly glided along its track to lift him to the luxury quarters deck. Brinus leaned his head back into the vacant air, his annoyance seemed to weigh heavy on his head.

  The elevator clicked ever so slightly. It was negligible, but not today for Brinus. The click was a gear or rotor and it slightly caused a high-pitched grinding noise. The wheel squeaked at a steady constant and was piercing to his ears.

  The elevator finally stopped on his floor and the doors parted. The luxury quarters floor was quiet. Most of them were padded and soundproofed so that nobody could bother anybody else.

  Brinus was finally at his door and went to punch in his entry code. He tapped the keys on the number pad and hit enter. His code, however, was invalid. He tried it again after a groan of yet more frustration he didn’t need. Again, the code was invalid. He tried again and still no access.

  He wiped his brow of a thin glisten of sweat. He was feeling uneasy and anger was beginning to boil in his blood. He did his best to stop and assess the situation. He stared at the digital number pad until he noticed what the problem was. The was a thin clear mineral oil on one of the places where a number would be. The oil was interfering with the press of his finger and was giving the wrong input. Brinus smacked the wall once with his fist in frustration, then used the hem of his shirt to wipe the thin oil from the digital display.

  He slowly put in his code, and finally, the door opened.

  The wall of sound that ear-assaulted him gave him a headache at Mach speeds.

  He entered and couldn’t help but wince and cover his ears. It was at a volume as if a music concert was hosted live in his quarters. As far as partiers go, the only one home was Tangent.

  “Tangent!” Brinus yelled as loud as he could but he hardly could compete with the music. “Tangent!” He tried again.

  She finally noticed him from the couch and tried to turn down the music. She hit the button on volume control and it didn’t work. “Sorry, Brinus! I can’t turn it down! The controls aren’t working!”

  He went to her, grabbed the media controller, and instantly noticed it was covered in mineral oil. He grabbed Tangent’s paw and checked them. Her fur and pads were still soaked in it. Brinus wiped the control off as he did with the door and finally managed to switch off the music.

  “Tangent!” He yelled now unnecessarily loud. “Your paws are covered in mineral oil. What else have you touched?” He asked.

  “It must’ve come from the lab. I didn’t notice it.”

  “Tangent… what else have you touched?”

  “I uh…” Tangent looked off and sighed. “Well, I… I have been home for a couple of hours already and uh…”

  Brinus scowled. “So everything?”

  “Yyyyeah… sorrrrrrryyyy…” She whined.

  Brinus’s anger was growing and growing. Not only that he couldn’t relax, but likely would have to help clean a thin and nearly unnoticeable oily film off of everything Tangent had touched. He must have been turning red because Tangent stared at him quietly and was shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

  The door opened and Simmie came in. “Hey everyone.” He said chipperly. Brinus gave him a quick acknowledging nod and didn’t say anything to prevent a sour tone from leaking into his words. “You ok, Brinus?”

  Brinus just nodded again.

  “Oh ok.” He said despite knowing better.

  Simmie stripped into gym shorts to be comfortable and went to the kitchen for a cold beverage. As soon as his bare feet touched the tile floor, his footing gave out and he slipped, falling hard on his ass with a thump and an ‘oof!’ “What’s all over the floor?” Simmie yelled out.

  Tangent curiously checked her feet, and they, too, were oily. She had also stepped in mineral oil at some point as well.

  Both Simmie and Tangent looked on as Brinus’s anger was brewing and boiling within him. There was a calm before the storm, which could be felt in the air. His hands clenched and let go, clenched and let go, and so on. He looked at Simmie who had seen his upset and displeasure many times. He knew how to deal with the explosion and the aftermath. It was Tangent that made him stop. She didn’t say anything, didn’t do much at all, but her look of anticipation was telling enough that she didn’t understand. Humans were very complicated, and Lapori seemed to wear their hearts on their sleeves. At least, that’s what Tangent had explained once she learned a phrase to express their temperament.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Brinus turned his back to his family. “I’m going out.” He said calmly like a cold fusion reaction ready to ignite. It took effort and much of his might not to slam or hit the door to their quarters.

  Wandering, he found himself in a part of the ship he seldom explored. It was a kind of trash and recycling, an outdated cargo hold too small and unshielded to be used for proper cargo. It lacked security measures and proper surveillance. He saw it as an opportunity to be raw and saw a chair someone had discarded. It was a fin chair, it only needed a quick tightening to make it useful again. To replicate a new one at its size would be costly. Hence it was placed in this hold for possible repurposing. It had, however, found a purpose as Brinus hoisted it over his head and slammed it down with all his might into the metal flooring. It mangled and broke, now being small enough to be placed in the replicator to be properly recycled. He did the same with a lamp, smashing it into dozens of pieces of glass and ceramic. It was a nice one, but beauty was of no effect on his mood. His rage didn’t cease at that, there was an old microwave cooker for those who did their homemade recipes, and a flimsy card table was also a victim of his storming behavior.

  Behind everything he yanked on a frame to something and it gave way. It was the frame of a painting. It was digitally printed on canvas and fastened to the frame manually. Somebody left it there for someone to find and bring home to decorate a barren wall. Without looking, he sent his fist through it, rupturing the canvas to never be whole again and forever splaying the image it held.

  He paused just long enough to see what the paint was. He smoothed out the tears to put the image back together. It was a rendition of the Victory. The ship was painted to look shiny and new like it had never seen a hard day in its career.

  He stared at it.

  It would have been a wonderful gift for Simmie and an honorable addition to their quarters. It was their home, not just their quarters, but the whole ship itself was a giant organism that he and his family inhabited with dignity and respect. He had destroyed the spirit that was captured when it was at its finest. He checked the signature in the corner and read “Satherway.” He didn’t recognize the name so he pulled out his triquarter to look it up online. The name was an easy search. Thomas Satherway was the dreamer equivalent of the designer Howard John Jones. On his wiki, he was the designer of the victory.

  In the ship’s early days of design, it was boxy, utilitarian, and basic. It was his artist friend, Satherway, who said there was no sex in the design. “Spoken like a true Frenchman,” Brinus muttered.

  In an absolute disagreement, the two parted ways, but not before he had painted his streamlined and curvy rendition of the ship over the initial concept. He was responsible for its sleekness, and the Navy chose his artistic style over Howard’s. The wiki ended with Howard and Thomas never speaking again. The painting Brinus had was a reprint of the original painted concept.

  He regretted punching a hole through it now. He carefully folded the canvas back into place and found it wasn’t too broken. He could ask someone to restore it.

  He sat it down and noticed his fingerprints had been burned into the wooden frame. It was peculiar to him. He thought he would have little to no effect on things that weren’t metal. Wood was very fragile. Somewhat rare to find on a starship.

  He laid the painting aside and went to the cargo bay’s equipment replicator. He swiped his ID to gain access to it and tried asking. “Gimme uh… 15 by 15-inch plank of wood… 1 inch thick?” He had never requested this before. Usually, it was food or replacement game controllers. The replicator hummed and buzzed with activity, and in a moment, it produced a piece of wood just as it was asked.

  Brinus saw a blank canvas of his own. He didn’t know what he was doing, or if he did, what to make. The only thing he could think of was his family; Simmie and Tangent.

  He very lightly stroked his fingers across the wood, making basic shapes of two heads. He found quickly that the more he pressed, the darker the wood burned. Some parts were not quite right, but he let it go. Some parts were better than others. With his skills and the control he had of his magic, he was able to draw and paint by himself by burning it into the wood. He didn’t know how, but in some manipulation of physics, he was able to un-burn parts of the wood, lightening up previously dark parts and giving him relief from his mistakes.

  He worked at it, the head and shoulders of Simmie and Tangent next to each other, smiling and being pure. In a way, in a very strange way to him, he was having fun. It was his thing, not like some game he needed to play with someone else, or some work he’d have to do for someone else, no, this was his. His dexterity expanded into using both hands as he sat on the previously destroyed chair’s bottom section. It was like finger painting but with energy heat, and a tight sense of control. He grabbed some small metal pieces of the microwave he had thrown and broke, and etched thin lines into his art. The smell of the burned wood was relaxing and refreshing, unlike metal which often stank depending on the composition and alloy. He was enjoying himself, he was having real fun.

  He stopped when his heart told him to stop. He knew going any further would likely mess up the piece. Sometimes just enough simplicity leaves space for the viewer to fill in the blanks with their imagination. He sat on his new stool with his wood-burned art and stared at it. He had immortalized his love for Simmie and Tangent in a way that transcended photographs or videos. Some things were meant to be burned into existence where they would forever remain. No device to read and display a collection of ones and zeros, just a humble piece of the universe, just a piece of wood. He wanted to practice, get better at it, and develop the skill. His heart wants it, and the heart wants what it wants.

  Brinus took his stool made from a broken chair that he would call his wood-burning stool, he took his pieces of metal from the broken microwave that he would call his wood-burning tools, and lastly, he took the painting of the Victory that he called home. He would get it fixed and restored as soon as he could, just like he does every day on the job. He loved his ship. From all the patchy welding jobs that somehow work to keep things running, to the sign that was jokingly made that says ‘WARNING: Core may explode at any time.’

  Simmie and Tangent were sitting quietly at the table when Brinus walked through the door.

  Simmie was worried. “Where did you go? What’s all this?”

  Brinus smiled but also held back his complete roundabout of moods. He felt on the edge of tears and he didn’t know why. “I found some stuff.” He rolled in the stool and laid the metal pieces on its seat. He flipped the painting around and showed his family the punched painting of the Victory. “I think we can get this fixed.” He said somberly. “Also, I made this.” He handed the piece of wood to Simmie, and Tangent hopped closer to see for herself.

  On it were their portraits in pretty good detail. Below their faces, it read Simmie and Tangent. Above everything, in quite elaborate writing, it read ‘my family.’

  “It’s beautiful,” Tangent remarked. “I’m sorry about the oily stuff. Someone spilled it in the lab and only half-cleaned it up. We got it all out of the quarters with some degreaser and I’m cleaned up.”

  “That’s good.” Brinus acknowledged. There was a chirp on his TriQuarter and Brinus answered. “Midshipman Helios here.”

  The chief medical officer was on the line. “Helios, come to the infirmary immediately, and do not use your vape, bring it with you. That’s an order.”

  Unlike the pharmacy, the infirmary was on point with him. The first thing they did was take the old vape and give him a new one.

  “There was evidence of tampering with your vape. We traced the hack back to its source but it’s been trace-wiped too well. The only word we got out of the source was ‘LUVMOM.’ Do you know what that means?”

  Brinus palmed his face and groaned. “Uuughh. Mom, as in my mother, Marci Helios. That bitch!”

  “Your original vape juice cartridge was hacked and replicated with a substance only meant to make you angry. I hope you didn’t do anything you would regret.”

  “Not really, I can take care of myself.” To the best of his ability, he had.

  “She sneaked code in using the QR codes we scan with each shipment of canned fruit. It micro-assembled a virus together and it got through. Very clever. We’re not looking out and have patched the vulnerability. It won’t happen again.”

  Brinus nodded. It was clever, not terribly original but it had abused an oversight of a system of inventory management not controlled by the military, but the civilian food trade systems. She hacked the label printers to adjust the QR codes and their information ever so slightly, and when another machine scanned all the containers in succession, the code assembled. Being part of the supply manifest, it was allowed behind the security walls and measures, and all the medical and food supplies were listed in the same manifest. Again, it was clever.

  “Mr. Helios, what do you want to do about this? She’s your mother.”

  “I’ll take care of it. If she wants to play games, I can play games.”

  Marci was enjoying her morning coffee, listening to the news of up-and-coming streamers and hit stars that voice-acted in different video games. Her kitchen gleamed white as the maids had sterilized it the night before. It was a day of rest for them, and only the ones who desperately needed a bit of extra cash were desperate or insane enough to work on an off day. Also, it was a Sunday.

  “What’s this?” Marci wondered as she found a fancy medium-sized bottle of perfume. “This must have cost a fortune.” She turned the bottle over and over, but the calligraphy writing was too difficult to read. “Looks fancy.”

  She held it to her neck and gave the atomizer a gentle squeeze.

  The bottle was a device, and it had triggered. The contents of the bottle nearly all at once erupted from the nozzle and coated Marci with a thick layer of Tangent’s lab-made mineral oil. She tried wiping it from her hands, face, and arms, but all she managed to accomplish was spreading it further around. She went for a rag but slipped and fell on her ass to the floor. She could grasp anything and everything slipped from her fingers. She barely managed to pull her Triquarter to call for help, but the oily substance blocked her finger’s inputs, and the sheen on her face made it so the camera didn’t recognize her.

  Again, she struggled to move from the floor, but the oil made everything frictionless, trapping her in her spot in the kitchen. She looked at the bottle again, it was the nearest thing she could grab, and with both hands tried to see if there was something to reverse the oil’s effects. As she smeared oil on the label, certain parts of the calligraphy writing dissolved away, revealing its true message.

  “Get fucked.”