Ludo Brax: Intergalactic Gig Worker (Chapter 34)

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Before I could say anything, I was ripped away and thrown back at the foot of the Occurrence.

The contours of the Top Secret Area returned, fading back into my still dazed vision as I lay stunned on the cold floor.

The moment I regained my ability to move, I scrambled to my feet, desperate to find The Woman.

What I found, instead, was Prudo.

Quivering, clutching his mop to his chest like a flimsy weapon, he was staring up at the ceiling, lodging a protest at an unseen foe.

Still too unmoored to make out what he was saying, I craned my neck forward and blinked my eyes a few times.

There was an intense buzzing in my ears, which I was able to do away with by using a trick I had learned back in the Star Scouts to better hear the distant screams of dying suns.

And when it did, what I heard was more jarring than the last tortured moments of Nebulux 7a.

It was those same words again, echoing out through the room like some taunting joke.

"You shouldn't be here!"

Only this time, unmistakably, it was Meg.

Prudo, intimidated in a way that reminded me of a much less traumatized me, stammered back.

"But, but…I was dusting the Guillotine. It's my job. I'm required to do it!"

Meg let forth a disdainful chuckle that went on just a tad too long, like someone had cranked up her settings for theatrical villainy.

"Supervisor Ludo was very clear that everyone was to leave the room," she continued, amplifying and echoing her voice like she was play-acting the role of disembodied evil. "Failure to follow a direct command from a superior is a serious breach of protocol."

The last phrase hung in the air with all its barely concealed threats not far behind. It was hard to know what to think. Meg was being extra scary, it was true. But I knew her well enough to know that something else was going on.

This was the performance of menace, not the cold, dispassionate malice she used to show as she pumped me full of serums meant to extract intellectual property from my nightmares.

I had only come into the scene halfway, but some twisted understanding of her told me she was doing this for a reason. That in her own bizarre, ill-conceived way, she was trying to have my back.

**

Still wrestling with this, and about seven other tangled threads of mystery, Prudo looked at me with pleading eyes.

It was hard not to feel for him. He was, after all, a clone of some of the most endearing parts of my personality — uptight, priggish, chronically terrified of moral contamination.

If anyone was gonna be able to smooth this over, it was me. I knew just the way to talk to a character like this.

You had to flatter his ego, make him feel like you understood the incoherent mechanics of paranoia and obsessive compulsions that made him the self-righteous little freak he was. The key was to act like you were on his side enough to make him trust you, but not so much that he began to suspect you were a shadowy Agent hired to subtly sabotage him.

"Prudo. Everyone knows there's no one here who does their job better than you."

He cracked a slight smile despite his best efforts to remain professional, lowering his mop back down to a nonviolent position. He tugged awkwardly at his turtleneck, perhaps sensing he had overreacted.

"What Meg means to say is that something very important is going on in here. Ordinarily, you know I'd never ask you to break protocol."

He nodded solemnly. Meg chimed in to piggyback my sentiments.

I had this just about wrapped up. One last little sprinkle of conspiratorial flattery and I'd have him out of here.

"Frankly, it's only because you're such a trusted member of the team we even feel comfortable leveling with you like this."

His mop fell down to his side as he clutched his hand to his heart. He looked genuinely touched.

"Thank you sir, that's very nice to hear."

I managed a sly smirk up toward Meg. It was almost unfair, really, how easy this had been. And fun.

Maybe, I thought for a second, if the world was full of other Me's I wouldn't have been flagged as "constitutionally unfit to lead" by those pesky Caste Assignment bozos on the day I was born.

Prudo looked dead in the eyes, so intense I figured he might cry.

Then, something turned.

His exaggerated look of flattery turned into a mocking smirk.

"What day of Agency training did they give you that little tactic of psychology? Or did you just skim the syllabus on orientation day?"

He sneered at me with contempt, the ugly little jerk. He took a big step forward, gesturing to both me and Meg as he continued.

"You really thought I'd fall for that? I see what's going on here!"

Pulling his MegaBrand™ transponder from the pocket of his smock, he hovered his finger over the talk button with evident relish.

"You know, I've used this thing to snitch on just about every employee here. But now, the Bossman himself has been caught entering The Occurrence. Quite literally the most punishable act in the handbook. Does it get any better than this?"

He smiled at me and licked his disgusting, thin lips.

"It'll be an honor to finally turn you in to the Re-Education Committee, sir."

As he brought the transponder up to his mouth and set about providing the requisite amount of genetic material to tune into the Restricted Channel, I figured it was probably time to formulate a plan.

I began to rack my brain. If only there was some way, using, say, acute psychological insight, that I could figure out just what to say to this guy. Some one in a million chance that in this crucial moment, I, of all people, could say exactly the thing to stop him in his tracks.

I had hoped one would just come to me, some flash of inspiration, or, even better, a deus ex machina —

"Oh, come on Ludo. You know what to do!" Meg's voice cut in, sharp and direct. Prudo was so busy cackling to himself he seemed not to notice.

"Think about it. If you were him right now, what would you really want? You are him. Think."

Of course. It was obvious.

The thing that every model of Ludo — no matter how prude, crude, or funny a little dude — had in common: our utter aversion to ever having to do anything, of any kind, for any reason at all.

"Prudo, wait!"

He froze mid-verification, body twisted in a ridiculous pose as the scanner crawled over his shinbones.

"What if I could get you out of here. For good?"

He considered the offer, losing himself in thought for a second.

But, after a moment, having thought better of it, he fired back.

"Pft. Yeah right! What is this, entrapment? Some test to see if I'm subversive? I'm following protocol, Bossman, down to the letter."

His transponder crackled with static as the complicated voice-menu for lodging Official Violations began to rattle off options.

He returned to his task, relaying the bizarre string of words that made up private cryptographic keys to the automated voice.

I interrupted again.

"No. Seriously. Come with me. I'm in charge. I won't say a word."

He was almost done getting through to the proper channels now, having finished painstakingly spelling out the word "frevaloiz" into the transponder.

"Oh yeah? What about my employee file? The trackers they put under our skin. The little spy cameras in our dental fillings!"

He looked up at me impatiently and continued, his voice dripping with ridicule.

"I suppose you're gonna find some way to get rid of all them too?"

My shoulders slumped in disappointment. I didn't know what to do.

What he said was true. I couldn't deny it.

I could take him with me, sure. But the reach of a place like MegaTech™ was so suffocating, we ran the risk of being caught.

I couldn't in good faith tell him I could take care of those things.

I loathed him, sure. But he was me, after all. The least I could do was try not to get him killed.

The stark finality began to set in. In a mere 42 minutes, his complaint would be officially lodged (pending processing time), and I'd be toast.

Just as I began to weigh the logistical challenges of ritual suicide, Meg's voice, with a sudden flash of glee, exploded back into the scene.

"Done!"

We looked up at her, cocking our heads to the side in identical gestures of befuddlement as she explained.

"Your file. The trackers. Your dental cameras. It's like they never existed."

On the monitors, Prudo Brax's employee file evaporated into nothing. From his skin, the conspicuous green flashing lights which had blinked before died at once. He pulled from his molars the smoldering remains of spy cameras.

He looked at me a good long while, still stunned from the rapidity of Meg's obliteration of his ties to this place. I nodded at him in silent support.

He took a deep breath, slumping his shoulders back down into the horribly twisted posture of a Me no longer required to pretend his bones weren't full of holes.

He tied his smock to the end of his mop, fashioning a bindle for his meager belongings. He beamed at me ecstatically, like he'd always been waiting for this moment.

"Let's go home."