Re: [JMC_Blue_Dwarf] gravity is a harsh mistress
Dren pulled open the air conditioning vent to Bell's room. "Dirk!" he cried.
Dirk was floating comfortably in the middle of his room, watching TV.
"Huh," Bell said as he looked around. "Hey" Noticing Dren above him. "Why
are you crawling in the vents? Man, you look like shit."
"I'm in big trouble." Dren moaned.
"Free for two hours and in trouble again. oh, thanks for fixing the toilet."
"No trouble. Look, I ran into Harris. He and I got into it, so he chained me
up over a damn pit and left me to rot."
"That's jacked up. what are you going to do?"
"I don't want to talk about it here, that psycho probably has the place
bugged. Get the space suits and let's go outside."
"The room's not bugged. Either tell me what's going on or piss off. Can't you
see that the Dukes of Hazzard is on?" Dirk levetated with his hands cupped
behind his head. Zero-g was a great stress releaver.
"Harris's going to check the surveliance tapes to prove that I stole the suit,
then there's no telling what else he'll do. The man's psyco. His elevator
doesn't go all the way to the top. He's a few bricks shy of a load. A few
sandwiches shy of a picnic. A..." Dren continued on with his insanity alnalogies.
Finally, Dirk got tired of it. "Come on. Let me check something out." They
both floated down to the Promenade. "Where exactly did you get the suit?" Dren
lead him to the spot. Dirk looked around and found only one camera that covered
the area. Just to make sure, he took out a small vid screen that he had
downloaded the Dwarf's design prints into. Sure enough, it was the only camera.
He floated up to it. The little bubble around it was charred and melted. Dirk
removed it and examined the camera inside. "You've got nothing to worry about."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Dren asked.
"Dead men tell no tales," Dirk said pointing to the camera. "Seems as though
this camera was a little too close to the battle. Shrapnel has logged itself
into the relay circuits. Most of the wiring was fried from the heat of those
grenades that were being tossed around." Dirk wiped his finger across the lens.
A black soot covered his finger. "And it seems as the lens was overheated.
There is no way an image went through this thing. The last thing this camera
saw was the blast that did it in." He pushed himself away from the ceiling and
back down to the floor. "Even if they could prove you stole the suit, you were
arrested before anyone made or filed a complaint, and you were denied civil
liberties. Space Core and the JMC frown on attempting to murder crew members by
either starvation or dropping them down ten levels of a ship. Now lets get back
to the room before the Duke boys finish fouling up Boss Hogg's plan." Dirk
kicked up off the floor and floated back towards his room.
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