Vale

Plisken swung his legs onto his bunk bed, his eyes gazing around at the florescent pink walls of his quarters. He wouldn’t have to be living here much longer, surrounded by the remains of his now powdered bunk mate and a pink so bright that it prevented you from sleeping. Scattered around his bed were a myriad of books: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, 1965 Edition; A Text Book of Practical Medicine from the 1950s; Jane Austin’s Emma; Frank Herbert’s Dune; and an almost complete collection of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books (interlaced with the author’s various other works).
Sure, he could pick one of these books up, though they were more like relics from a long gone past now, and delve into their contents, loosing himself in the vast and rich worlds they contained, but why bother? Plisken turned to face the roof of his bunk, the dull grey staring back at him. All those deaths, was it necessary? They shouldn’t have been.
“Hol?” Plisken asked as he sat up in his bed again, dragging his hands over his weathered skin.
“Orrite dude?” came the voice of everybody’s favourite disembodied AI head.
“Where is everyone else?” Plisken asked, finally giving in to being alone in the bunk room.
“The pub. Or is it a bar? I always mix those things up.”
“Yes, Holly, but what one.”
“The one on the promenade.”
“Yes, Holly, a name would be most useful.”
“Parrott’s, I think dude. Why are you thinking of going?”
“Maybe, but I should wait to speak to Cass when she isn’t drinking.”
“Is this one of those important things that are always going on with you?”
“Yeah, but maybe I should catch her before she gets too pissed to know hat way’s up”
“Orrite then dude, I better scarper before things get out of hand.”

Plisken pushed open the door of the bar and allowed the sweat and beer stench to stun him. Parrotts was not exactly his scene and had visited it only a few times and only once before the radiation leak. Usually filled with gaggling flocks of young woman or over obnoxious men relentless trying to pick them up, Plisken preferred the quiet sanctity of the Frog on the Rock, a small and not entirely Captain sanctioned pub tucked away on the promenade and out of sight, over looking a small pond in the arboretum. Though since much of the gaggling flocks of young women and the over obnoxious men relentlessly trying to pick them up were now little more than white powder in small black canisters floating in the depths of space, it made the bar seem a little more tolerable.
“Absent friends,” Cass toasted with Jade at a small table in the corner of the bar. They had yet to clock Plisken and became distracted by Jay and Phil. Plisken slide over to the bar and took a stool.
“What’ll you have partner?” said the bartender, leaning on the bar, his moustache twitching madly.
“Heaven’s sake,” said Plisken, leaning back from the bar, “Someone left the bartender on ‘Wild West Bill’.”
“That’s right partner, so what cane I do to quench that mighty thirst that done been brewing in your throat?” asked the simple holographic VI.
“Just a whiskey, please.” The bartender turned around and busied himself with the myriad of bottles that decorated the back of the bar.
I'm coming out so you better get this party started...
“Oh, just kill me now,” moaned Plisken as the 21st Century pop began to thud out around the bar. “What is it with people and Classical Music?”
Plisken glanced around the bar and an uncomfortable looking Cass was sitting nervously peeling the label of her beer bottle. It was impossible to make out what the conversation between the two women was, the loud music drowning out their voices, but it was clear to see that Cass would much rather not be here, or at the very least not be here with Jay.
“Hey,” said Phi, taking a barstool next to Plisken.
“Aren’t you meant to be dead?” Plisken asked, not taking his eyes off his newly arrived drink.
“That’ll be because I am.”
“Oh, don’t start this again,” Plisken said to himself. Luckily, P!nk seemed to be drowning out his words and nobody noticed that he was talking to himself.
“Hey, it’s your messed up brain that put’s me here, you know.”
“Yeah, well, what do you want to tell me?”
“Well, Mr. Plisken, there is no need to be so short with a woman.”
Plisken’s eyes flicked up and down and around his drink. “I’m sorry; this thing has really taken it out on me.”
“You can’t save everyone, Plisken. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, some people will just slip away.”
“I could save you, you know. I have a Time Drive, hell I should still have my old one kicking about downstairs. All it would take is –“
“Let it go, Plisken. My death, Katrina’s death, everyone’s death – none of them were your fault. Neither was Klocehk’s.”
“No, I know his was not on my hands, for a change.”
“Just go talk to her then, I’m not going to be able to change your mind,” Phi said and vanished from Plisken’s mind.
Plisken pushed himself off the stool, using the bar to support his old frame, and straightened his hat. As he walked over to Cass and Jade’s table, it was clear that Cass was the more sober one of the two, Jade laughing hysterically at some joke that Phil had told.
“I hate to break this party up but –“
“Plisssken!” cried Jay, putting his arm around Plisken’s shoulder, his drink saying dangerously over the edges of the glass, “Why don’t youoo join ush?”
“I’ll pass, thank you,” said Plisken, trying hard not to laugh at Jay as he slumped back down into the chair. “So, can I steal away Miss. Jones for a minute?”
“Yes please,” said Cass, glad to be free of Jay’s company for a few minutes.
Plisken led Cass out of the bar, the bartender offering a Wild West themed goodbye as they left. Plisken picked up an old and battered umbrella just as they closed the door. The old man breathed the stale recycled air deeply; glad to be free of the terrible music and bad drinks.
“What is it?” asked Cass.
“Follow me,” said Plisken, nodding in the direction of the arboretum. Cass followed behind, a confused look across her face.
The walk to the entrance of the West Garden had only taken a few minutes, and Plisken tried to make sure that Cass wasn’t missed from her time with Jade. Plisken hadn’t said anything on their way here, and Cass hadn’t been brave enough to brake the silence, Plisken’s serious attitude blanketing the situation in a calm, though it seemed like it would be a calm before the storm.
Plisken pulled open the door and stepped through, opening his umbrella as he did so. He held it between him and Cass, so that neither of them were soaked by the hydration system of the arboretum, showers of water from the high ceilings. For all intents and purposes it was raining.
Cass followed Plisken as he led her up a small hill, to a flat piece of land that contained a work shed and a small roofless house.
“You’ve been busy, Cass finally said as they reach the summit, standing before Plisken’s homemade door.
“Do you know what you did back on that planet?” Plisken asked, ignoring Cass’ compliments.
“What do you mean?” Cass asked, backing away from the safety of the shared umbrella.
“Look down there,” said Plisken, stepping back in lien with Cass, the umbrella shielding both of them from the rain. Down below the hill, the small village of Huzzards and Rodents sat, nestled between the hill and the forest of West Garden. Most of the residents and visitors had fled to the sanctuary of their homes to escape the rain but a few still milled about.
“What is that?” Cass asked in disbelief, not having come to West Garden in a long time.
“That is Wesgard, an entire village in our Arboretum. Tell me, what do you see?”
Cass peered down at the village in the not too distant distance. “I see the Rodents, little kids, and child Huzzards, playing in puddles.”
“That’s right, and who else is down there?”
“Is – is that a human?” Cass asked as her eyes were caught by the small, black armour clad child that played along side the Huzzards and Rodents.
“Not quite. You remember the cyborgs? All 500 of them are now proud residents of this ship, this home. And look, they have only been here, what, 8 hours? And already their children are playing with those of other races and they have already began to regain the humanity that they lost.”
“That’s amazing..”
“But what isn’t amazing is what you did back on that planet. What you did is something you had no right to do.”
Cass’s expression of wonder at the village quickly warped into that of anger.
“Wha-?”
“No,” interrupted Plisken, “Don’t speak. Did you know those people? People, not monsters. Did you know that most of them had no choice in what they did? Did you know that they had children, Cass? Children like the Rodents, the Huzzards, the Cyborgs, like Max. Did you know they had a plan to take power of the planet from their leaders and abandon their projects? Those soldiers that killed Joshua, do you know what they were? They were soldiers, Cass. Do you know what they were doing? Their job. They didn’t deserve to die like that, Cass. I watched as you drove them mad. I watched as their tortured minds began to collapse under the strain of the horror they were subjected to. I watched as you -” Plisken broke off, tossing the umbrella towards his unfinished house, the handles catching on the door knob. He paced around, the rain cascading down onto his hat and dripping at the brim. He sighed and gathered himself.
“Listen, Cass,” Plisken said, entering his work shed and opening a footlocker, “I don’t expect to forgive you for what you did. Those Monee Frogks, the ones that were innocent, could have lived on the Dwarf. They didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Plisken fished around in the footlocker for something and quickly found it. “Here,” he said, handing Cass a holster, “I need you to take this.”
Cass stared at the object held out for her taking, the rain running down its leather skin. Cass slowly wrapped her fingers around it and took it from Plisken. She inspected what was contained inside the holster and to her shock, it was something that she could not possibly take.
“Plisken, this is your gun,” she said in disbelief, drawing out the LeMat revolver and watching the rain trickle down its gleaming metal surface.
“I need you to find me. I don’t like to ask that you put the crew in danger but this is more important than anything we have done while rolling about in deep space.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I’m not real, Cass,” Plisken explained, “And I haven’t been for a very long time. I’m nothing more than plastic. Plastic with a connection to my mind that is far away from where I am. I woke up in Old Vegas as a plastic doll that has fooled everyone.”
“You aren’t real?”
“Yes, and I need you to find the real me. I’m stuck some where, I don’t know where. But I need you to find me.”
“How?”
“You’ll find a way,” said Plisken. But as he finished speaking, his hand raced to clutch his chest, a strained look across his face. “Hell, it has started sooner than I thought. Must have started too soon. I’m shutting this body down, that way I’ll wake up as the real me where I am. Tell everyone that I’m… that I’m sorry.”
Plisken collapsed into a pool of white liquid, his skin and bones melting and dropping from his body. His clothes piled around the molten plastic and his metal arm clattered to the ground. He hat gently floated in the wind, threatening to be carried away in the breeze that had kicked up, the simulated weather starting again.
Cass was left alone on top of the small hill, her hands wrapped around Plisken’s pistol and the rain soaking her hair.