So foreword here to explain, this story is going to be for the assignment “Different Point Of View – Same Place”.Ā Which says to write out a movie scene from a different character’s point of view. Well since we need to do have our characters intersect with other characters, I thought this would be cool to warp a bit and instead of doing a movie scene, I’d use another classmate’s story (In this case, it is my radioshow group mate’s intro story for his character Donnie Rejj,
. The idea being how would a sci fi rendition of my character go about his business upon arriving at the scene. I figured in the vastness of space, where a single man can be hard pressed to be noticed, to keep up his mortuary mystery he’d need to be part of a bigger mysterious organization that can have myths around it.
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Each step CrawlstonĀ took deeper into the station caused thicker and thicker fog to condense on his facemask’s eye lenses until they were little more than white plates. Unlike the miners who had uneasily greeted him at the air lock, his enviro-suit was visibly archaic, using materials and technology not seen on a modern suit in dozens of years with a gaunt, almost skull-like facemask that looked like something warriors of the Great War would’ve worn millenia ago on Earth.Ā It lacked the modern conveniences of the miner’s suits like naturally fog resistant glass, even so, he seemed unphased by the near opaque wall of condensation on the lenses as he purposefully strode into the empty facility. Only a hand torchĀ he carried with him lit the dank interior of the building. Despite protocol being for a miner to escort him to the bodies, none volunteered and instead all skulked around the ship they arrived on, talking to each other on private comms channels that Richard was unable to tune into.
Crawlston already knew where his objectivesĀ were to be located and went directly to his first task. It was said to be a bar, Ā but Crawlston had seen drug dens with more style and character than it. A barrenĀ room of steel walls that reflected his torch’s light wherever he showed it and beaten up, semi rusty stools greeted him, but he ignored them all, instead instantly locking his vision on the giant concrete slab that served as the bar’s counter, where a man was slumped over, almost like a drunkard save for the rouge pool that was spread out on the counter and dribblingĀ downĀ thru the grated floor.
Without wasting a moment, Crawlston approached the corpse, finally taking a moment to clear the dog from his lenses before bending over to inspect the body.
“Incision, base of skull, two point one centimeters wide, five point eight centimeters deep. Severance of spinal chord likely cause of death”
Nobody was around to hear him, but the auto-mnemonic Ā electronics device implanted into his skull immediatly recorded all of his statements for later study. He reached into a pocket on one of his hips and pulled out six circular pads, each about the size of his palm and the thickness of a Ā bottlecap. With practiced hands he applied a disk to each limb, the man’s back, and the man’s head. Upon placing the final one, all six lit up red and a shimmering field encased the dead barkeeper. With a casual wave of his hand, the six pads started humming and lifted the barkeeper from his slouch, gently leaning him back into a reclining position. Where the blood had been slowly oozing out the back of his neck and his mouth, it had ceased within the field. Another hand wave as he walked out of the bar and the dead man started drifting towards himĀ as he made his way to his ship.
Beyond the airlock, the miners were still standing glumly around, mutely refusing to lift their heads to look at the undertaker or his freshest charge. They all knew the procedure in the event of deaths such as these, up high sends an undertaker, body disappears, nobody speaks of it or else ‘accidents’ happen. Once the man was gone, they’d get life support back on and a new engineer and barkeeper would be sent out. The less they thought about it, and the less they questioned it, the better.
The body gently floated up the ramp to Crawlston’s ship as Crawlston watched. Once it was securely on board, he turned around and walked back in to find his next objective, a Mister Danny.
