Finnegan Transmitting

By Eva Schultz

Not again. Gerald could not do this one more time.

He rubbed his eyes. Michael’s words glowed at him in angry orange from the vidscreen:

REPORT INADEQUATE. RANKS MUST NOT BE ABBREVIATED. REFERENCE TIMECORPS REG. 927.3. RESUBMIT.

Gerald pushed back from the console and floated across the capsule until he bounced lightly against the opposite wall. He punched one hand into the other, forced himself to take a deep breath, and gazed out the viewport at Sisyphus 8, the little planet rotating benignly below.

Its unstable atmosphere made it the perfect location for the Corps to test its latest time machine prototype, but he wished someone lived down there. He needed someone, anyone, other than his lieutenant to talk to. And Michael needed something else to do besides nitpick his every move all day.

“Finnegan transmitting. Preparing to initiate launch,” came Michael’s nasal voice over the speaker.

Gerald cringed. “Copy.”

After a pause, Michael said, “Finnegan transmitting. Corporal, we’ve been over this. Start each transmission with your identifier.”

Gerald gnawed on his lip to keep from screaming. It made no sense to follow this obscure regulation when there was only ever one other person transmitting. But he knew he couldn’t say anything; he had to stay on Michael’s good side to earn his promotion and qualify for the time machine test pilot program. “Haynes transmitting. Copy.”

“Finnegan transmitting. The prototype will be in position in forty-seven seconds. Preparing to disembark.”

Gerald moved down the console, punching in codes, delaying his response as long as he thought he could get away with it. “Haynes transmitting. Copy. Releasing pod clamps.”

This was his sliver of solace each day, when Michael went out in the pod to take readings on the time machine prototype. Two blessed hours without that soul-sucking, career-shriveling maniac.

He looked out the viewport of the tiny pod, barely larger than a coffin, letting his mind wander. Only eight more months, and his rotation out here would be complete. He could survive this. He had to.

Because if Michael didn’t recommend him, he’d be a corporal for another year, doing the same scut work, all the same reports, over and over. And with every year, his chances of getting into the test pilot program grew smaller.

“Finnegan transmitting. Please respond.”

Gerald jerked back to reality and hit the comm button. “Copy. I mean, Haynes transmitting. Copy. Go ahead.”

“Finnegan transmitting. Corporal, remember to redo your report while I’m running these tests. Full titles, no abbreviations.”

Gerald felt fire starting to rise in his throat.

“I’ll be placing a note in your permanent file this time,” Michael continued. “And any subsequent time going forward.”

For a moment, all Gerald could hear was his pulse in his ears and his own ragged breath as he tried to swallow the words he wanted to scream. There was nothing in the universe but him and Michael, him and this demented being who was going to spend the rest of time making him redo and redo every single idiotic task imaginable.

The decomp reader flashed, indicating it was about to complete its sequence and release the pod with a soft push toward the planet.

A push wasn’t enough. He needed a shove. A shove out of Gerald’s life forever. There was no one here to see; it would all be chalked up to an accident.

Gerald jammed the heel of his hand against the button and held it down. The mechanisms on the side of the station whirred, and Michael’s voice began, “Finnegan trans—”

The pod blasted off at a force three times higher than was safe. Gerald held his breath, staring out the viewport at the pod’s trajectory. Hitting atmo at that rate, it wouldn’t achieve orbit but would instead fall through the purple skies to the planet below. Never to be heard from again.

He let out a laugh, choked on it a little, and then broke into hysterical giggles, the joy ripping up from his belly and tearing him into pieces. Happy, free pieces that would never have to hear that stupid, nasal voice again.

The time machine prototype floated into view, and Gerald’s laughter died in his throat. Michael’s pod should have passed near enough the prototype for readings, without any risk of impact. Instead, he had pushed Michael straight into the time machine’s path.

He watched the pod collide with the machine, noiselessly igniting a blue flame that flashed against the atmosphere.

As Gerald stared, the flames began to quiver and warp. An instant later, the wreckage itself began twisting out of and back into its original shape, shimmering with silver light. Then the walls of the station all around him began to bend and bubble and glow, and a piercing whine filled his ears as he pressed his hands against his head.

His mind swam with garbled scenes of space station life: filling out reports, arguing with Michael, tinkering with equipment. Was he dreaming? Was he dying?

Everything disappeared. For several long moments, the universe was only blackness. Then, slowly, the station took form around him again, white and clean and mundane. Gerald breathed out long and slow, looking around in disbelief.

The message transmitter beeped, and he tapped the screen with a shaking hand.

REPORT INADEQUATE. RANKS MUST NOT BE ABBREVIATED. REFERENCE TIMECORPS REG. 927.3. RESUBMIT.

He stared out the viewport and saw Michael’s pod, docked to the side of the station, waiting to depart.

Not again. Gerald could not do this one more time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eva Schultz lives in Naperville, Illinois, where she is a business writer by day and a fiction writer by night. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction and 365 Tomorrows, and she won the Writer’s Digest Your Story #93 contest for publication in their March/April 2019 issue. She lives with a big orange cat named Gus and enjoys drawing, painting, and watching pro-wrestling.