The Stars Have Eyes - Chapter 18

Joe woke up feeling strangely tired. He was usually the sort of bloke that could fall asleep on command and would stay out like a broken lightbulb until he was fully rested. Yet that morning his first thought upon regaining consciousness was that he really didn’t feel like getting up. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t gotten enough rest. A glance at the clock on the wall revealed he’d slept for a solid ten hours, which was much more than the usual six-to-eight he got. A build-up of mental or physical fatigue might explain his condition, but that absolutely wasn’t the case given his effortless lifestyle.

The culprit behind Joe’s incidental listlessness was none other than the king-sized bed. The mattress was made up of a highly adaptive smart-foam that regulated both its shape and its temperature to ensure maximum coziness. Having never experienced such ultimate comfort in real life until a week ago, Joe was rapidly becoming addicted to it. The natural light pouring in through the window also dyed the room in a soft, relaxing glow. Last but not least, Maggie was hover-sitting at the foot of the bed with her eyes closed. On top of being a sight for sore eyes, she was humming some melodic tune under her nose.

Overall, the master bedroom was immersed in an almost idyllic atmosphere of calm, and Joe felt as if his moving about would somehow ruin it.

“Good morning, Master Mulligan.”

And then Jeeves cut right through it like a proton torpedo.

“Your breakfast is ready, and I would encourage you to eat it before it gets cold.”

The robo-butler coasted silently over to the side of the bed, his hands gripping a special serving tray with an incredibly appetizing aroma wafting from it. Even Joe’s advanced laziness couldn’t fight that enticing smell, so he sat up and leaned against the backboard. Jeeves placed the mini-table over his legs, allowing the man to have a gander at the contents of his meal. There were two sausages and two strips of bacon, all of them grilled to perfection. A single fried egg seasoned with some fragrant herbs rested in a separate plate. Two pieces of fresh toast covered with marmalade – starberry, judging by the off-pink color – awaited him as the ‘dessert’ portion of the breakfast. And, of course, no British meal was ever complete without a nice, warm cup of refreshing tea.

“Blimey, Jeeves. You blow a fuse or something?” Joe said, suddenly feeling fully awake. “I can’t eat all this.”

“My daily diagnostics scan revealed no faulty components, sir. Shall I run another?”

The man winced as he was subtly reminded that he was speaking to something, not someone.

“There is no need,” Maggie chimed in from the foot of the bed. “That will be enough for now, Jeeves.”

“As you wish, Mistress Oh,” the butler bowed before leaving the room.

“Seriously though, this is way too much,” Joe turned to Maggie.

“I recommend you eat as much as you can. Force it down if you have to.”

“… What?”

“Your body is frail and thin to the point of being borderline unhealthy. Now that I can exert greater control over your sustenance intake, I designed a diet that should alleviate that in a natural way.”

“Ah. Right.”

They did talk about that yesterday. Joe felt a bit guilty because there was nothing he could really do to thank Maggie for this life of luxury she had secured for them. Sure, he had his reservations at first, but once he was settled in it all felt too good to be true. The girl had assured him that his presence and ongoing existence as her anchor was recompense enough, but it didn’t feel that way to him. So, he brought up the idea of how he could maybe get better at this ‘anchor’ thing, and it was decided that he’d work on hardening his pathetic constitution. That way the stress on his body would be significantly lessened in case Maggie had to reconstitute herself again.

So Joe ate the bountiful breakfast as heartily as he could manage. He got up to the final piece of toast before hitting the absolute limit of his tiny stomach. The girl readily and merrily finished it off for him. Watching her crunch down on that marmalade-covered toast in tiny bites made Joe realize two things. The first was that she probably expected that the breakfast would have leftovers, which was why she had instructed Jeeves to use her favorite starberry flavor for the confectionary. The other thing was that Joe did indeed have room for one final piece of ‘dessert.’

Namely, a good morning kiss from Maggie, which she readily provided. Just a regular one, though. That first cosmic smooch had been a special occasion. All the ones after that were normal. Which wasn’t to say they weren’t spectacular. Quite the contrary. Greeting Maggie’s lips with his own was the highlight of Joe’s day. It made him feel giddy, tingly, and relentlessly optimistic to the point of being insufferable. The only complaint he had was that he wished his girlfriend would initiate a kiss every now and then. Sure, she started the first one, but that was after he had forced her hand. Lips. Whatever. The point was that it felt awkward and greedy for Joe to have to do it every time, so he subconsciously held back.

With breakfast sorted, Joe stepped into the auto-wardrobe to get dressed and left Maggie in the bedroom so she could return to her work. The girl had a whole bunch of new responsibilities that required extensive computations and analysis. As such, she usually had to spend anywhere between eight and twelve hours a day doing ‘unfathomable intellect’ things. She usually got her responsibilities sorted while Joe slept, but it would appear that last night’s conundrums were especially challenging. The man had no idea what exactly she was working on, nor would he understand even if he asked her for an explanation, so he didn’t bother.

As Joe walked past the living room, he noticed their semi-permanent house guest was in it. Agent Johanson was wearing a rather unwomanly white-and-blue tracksuit instead of her usual military attire. It was, apparently, the only set of casual clothing she had bothered to bring. The reason she was wearing it presently was because she was exercising. As a soldier on active duty, she had to maintain a certain level of physical fitness at all times. She was also a psionic, which meant her mental muscles had to be just as strong. That was why she worked out both aspects of herself every morning. At that particular point in time, she was doing one-handed push-ups while simultaneously using her telekinesis to move a twenty kilo dumbbell up and down. The way her upper body bobbed up and down in time with her ‘brain-reps’ was a sight that never failed to impress Joe.

“Good morning,” he greeted her merrily.

“Morning,” she replied between heavy breaths. “Is the Class-3 still busy?”

“She is, but come on, AJ. She has a name. We talked about this.”

The woman refused to respond and kept stubbornly going through her workout routine, causing Joe to sigh heavily. He had tried several times to get her to loosen up a bit, but she refused to acknowledge that Maggie was a person. She kept treating his girlfriend like a thing, a potential enemy to be wary of. This passive-aggressive hostility was one of the many reasons why Joe had never had any luck with human women. He just didn’t know how to deal with that sort of attitude, so he usually just backed off and ran away. However, he was left brimming with confidence every time he and Maggie shared a kiss, so he decided to push the matter a little.

“Alright, let’s hear it. What did she do to piss you off this time?”

Agent Johanson’s motions stopped. She sighed heavily. She didn’t have anything against Joe in particular. He was just a naive plonker that got sucked into the vortex of madness known as Magh’rathlak the Observer. If anything, she kind of appreciated his relentlessly casual attitude. It helped her keep herself mentally grounded, otherwise that Class-3 would drive her insane. Or, well, it would do so quicker than it was currently doing.

“I was told to write forty two haiku poems by noon today,” she shared.

“Ah. What’s a haiku?”

“It’s some ancient format with a weirdly specific syllable count. I guess the upshot is it doesn’t have to rhyme, but that only makes it weirder. Who’s heard of a poem that doesn’t bloody rhyme?!”

“Maggie has, apparently.”

“I guess at least it’s better than that counting exercise she had me do. I mean, seriously, what kind of assignment is ‘start counting and see how far you get in six hours?!’ What even is the point in that?!”

“Maybe it’s like those cheesy martial arts movies. You know, the sensei telling the student to do seemingly random chores to build up their muscles without them realizing it?”

“That… I actually hadn’t considered that. I mean, I was told I’d be put through experiments so I expected something a lot more… experimenty. Like, weird machinery, invasive mind-reading, or getting brain-blasted on the daily. Stuff like that, you know?”

“Wait. You want to get brain-blasted?”

“Not especially, but it’s better than being given a block of wood and then told to carve it into toothpicks. Where did it even get a block of wood?!”

“Huh. So that’s where one of the dining room chairs went. Anyway, try and look on the bright side. At least when you’re done with your daily tasks, you get to have as much of Jeeves’ tea as you like.”

“… Jeeves does make a killer cup of tea.”

“I know, right? Say what you want about that slimy weasel of a director, but he knows his blends.”

“Ugh. Don’t get me started on Millington, or I’d be court martialled faster than you can say medulla oblongata.”

“Is… is that French or something?”

“Ew. By the Queen, no. It’s the scientific term for a part of the brain.”

“Ah. Actually, that reminds me.”

Joe stepped into the living room rather than stand outside the doorway. He turned to face the rather large portrait of Mechalizabeth II and gave it a big wave. His civic duty fulfilled, he left Agent Johanson to return to her workout and stepped into his new favorite place of all time, the games room. There was a multi-purpose entertainment table in the middle that could transform to accommodate any number of leisurely activities including, but not limited to, poker, snooker, chess, and a vast collection of board games. The walls were lined with monitors, terminals, arcade machines, holographic projectors, and other forms of electronic entertainment.

Joe wasn’t interested in any of those at the moment, though. A creature of habit, he headed straight for the collection of four cutting edge virtual reality pods on the opposite end of the room. Well, one of them was technically his old, beat up, and possessed pod, but that didn’t make it any less fancy than the sleek and shiny ones next to it. Not in Joe’s humble opinion, at any rate. He climbed inside and logged into V-Life, same as he did every day.

As per usual, his first order of business was to check his digital mailbox. It didn’t have much besides several hundred new advertisements. There was a message from Cullen, which mostly raved about some obscure shooting game that he described as ‘fooken sick!’ Joe wasn’t particularly into that genre so he felt like giving it a pass until he read about its core gimmick. The main feature of the title was that the player took full body control of a giant stompy transforming robot to suppress the primitive native population of some hostile alien world. Aptly named Colonization Quest 3: Director’s Cut X-Treme Edition Remastered, it evoked the ancient spirit of the Original British Empire. Namely, using superior military technology to absolutely dominate vast swathes of land.

Joe didn’t particularly care about the morally objectionable theme, though. As in, it completely went over his head. He just wanted to stomp around as a giant transforming robot, so he added the title to his backlog. There were about a hundred and eighty titles before it, so there was a good chance he’d never actually get around to it. Moving on, he also had an e-mail from his mum. Nothing special, just the usual checking in on him and asking how he was doing. He decided this was a good opportunity to tell her he’d finally gotten a stable girlfriend. He hadn’t done so previously because he didn’t want to get his mum’s hopes up. Or his own, for that matter. However, his relationship with Maggie had progressed to the point where he no longer hesitated to call it a romantic one, so he sent the woman a long, rambling message about how wonderful the girl was.

He then figured it was about time he told his mates about the incredible digs the two of them had moved into. He was rather embarrassed about it at first, primarily because of the overwhelmingly gaudy decor. However, he and Maggie had given the place a total overhaul over the past week. In truth, the girl had done most of the work. Rather than throwing out the old furniture, she simply morphed it into a more comfortable and simplistic style with her space-wizardry. There was, of course, a properly official term for the technique, but Joe was a simple guy, so ‘space-wizardry’ was enough for him. In any event, his only contribution towards the redecoration effort was to provide a vague sense of aesthetic for Maggie to work with, and she handled the rest. Apparently she just recreated pieces of furniture she found online since it was easier for her than creating new designs on the fly.

Still, the end result was pretty damn good, so Joe felt he should get at least part of the credit. More importantly, the new apartment was now the sort of place that he would have no qualms showing off, so he messaged Cullen and Benny to invite them over sometime. Both of them responded almost immediately, stating that they were pretty stoked to check it out while also offering congratulations. Only then did Joe realize he’d have to actually explain where, how, and why he and Maggie wound up with so much stuff out of nowhere. He figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to spill the beans about her true cosmic self, but at the same time he didn’t want to lie to his best mates. Oh well, he was sure Maggie would figure something out.

Having caught up on personal correspondences, Joe quickly skimmed through the neighborhood message boards. There was a freshly-locked discussion that caught his attention. It would appear some of the more rebellious residents were taking the piss out of the strict superintendent lady. Joe didn’t like poking fun at her since she was only doing her job, but he had to admit, some of the stuff in there was pretty funny. The rest of the new topics weren’t anything noteworthy, just the usual neighborly arguments. Things like weird smells coming from apartments, people hogging the elevators, or heated discussions between fans of rival sports teams. There also weren’t any official announcements that required the residents’ attention, so Joe decided to stop browsing the public forums and entertain himself with a spot of gaming instead.

In particular, he felt like expressing his creative side by building an entire space station from scratch in a title called Astral Engineers. Though he chose to do so on a whim, it was actually a serious time investment that would take a solo player over sixty hours to complete. Joe was determined to put that effort in because he had something special in mind. He wanted to design a robust industrial installation with a focus on efficiency that he could proudly present to Maggie. The girl liked that sort of thing, so he had a feeling she’d appreciate the thought and effort he intended to put into it.

However, he barely got started on planning things out when a soft bleep in the back of his head notified him that his presence was required in the real world. There was nothing else for it, so he temporarily abandoned his project and emerged from the pod to find Jeeves waiting for him.

“Pardon the interruption, Master Mulligan. There is an unexpected visitor at the door, and I have strict instructions not to interrupt Mistress Oh unless absolutely necessary.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine. Who is it?”

“The gentleman identified himself as Officer Grant Maloney, sir.”

“Huh. Alright, I’ll go show him in. Go put the kettle on in the meantime, would you Jeeves?”

The robo-butler just stood there, its camera-face flicking and clicking as it tried and failed to parse that request.

“I mean make some more tea, you bloody bolt-brain,” Joe rephrased his request.

“At once, sir.”

The man shook his head in disbelief as he trudged off towards the front door. He kept forgetting that Jeeves wasn’t programmed to understand roundabout talk like ‘put the kettle on.’ Just two days ago the butler was stuck in an hour-long logic loop because he was present when Joe had tried to explain to Maggie exactly how he had ‘beansed the telly.’ Thankfully the ancient tech support technique of turning him off and back on again solved that, but the man was starting to worry he might accidentally break Jeeves for good one of these days.

“Morning, Mr. Mulligan.”

“Morning, Officer.”

The two men greeted each other the instant Joe’s face emerged from behind the front door.

“I’m kind of amazed you found this place already. Guess your dream of becoming a detective isn’t far off, eh?”

“Haha. Hardly, Mr. Mulligan. It was a simple matter of looking up your new place of residence. I also happened to notice that Miss Oh got her citizenship, so congrats on that. I imagine quite a lot has happened since we last spoke.”

“Yeah, it’s been kind of mental. We even got a robot butler named Jeeves, how sick is that?”

“Oh, so that’s a butler? That explains a lot.”

When Maloney looked up Joe’s new address, he couldn’t help but notice that ‘Mags Oh’ was also listed as an occupant. Putting two and two together, he figured out that the non-aggression pact between the girl and those army types had gone through. There was clearly more to it than that, though. For one thing, Maggie had been granted diplomatic status, like that of an ambassador or foreign dignitary. Between that, the new apartment, and the robo-butler, he deduced that the deal had gone far beyond its original scope. For the better, by the look of things.

“You’re here to see Maggie, then?” Joe inquired.

“Indeed. I’d like her input on this case we’ve been working on, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all, though you’d have to wait a smidge. She’s doing some heavy duty brainwork at the moment, but she should be done pretty soon.”

“That’s quite alright, it’s hardly urgent. I’ll just pop by later.”

“You sure? I’d be more than happy to show you around, assuming you’ve nowhere else to be.”

“Well, alright. If you insist, then I shall take you up on that offer.”

It was only after that painfully polite exchange that the officer went inside. Joe instantly started showing the place off, starting with the games room and the refurbished sitting room. The policeman was genuinely impressed and complimented the couple on their simple yet homey decor. Afterwards Joe directed Maloney towards the living room and told him to make himself comfortable while he went to check on Jeeves’ progress with the tea. Unfortunately for the officer, his host had neglected to mention there was a third resident of the apartment. The policeman had no idea either since that person’s name wasn’t on the list of permanent occupants. Said person was likewise unaware that the household had a guest.

So, when Maloney went into the living room and nearly bumped face-first into Agent Johanson, both were struck by a moment of panic. The woman reacted first by elbowing the stranger in the solar plexus to stun him. She then grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, and pressed his face against the wall. The officer took a few moments to recover from the surprise attack, after which he retaliated without hesitation. He kicked back at his assailant, managing to catch her leg with his foot. This knocked her off-balance and loosened her hold on him. Maloney broke free and skillfully counter-grappled Johanson. He forced her to the ground, making sure to pin her down by putting his weight against her back with a knee. The woman struggled but, as expected, was incapable of besting the much heavier man in a contest of force.

However, that was far from the psi-op’s primary recourse. Though somewhat exhausted from her workout, she nevertheless mustered enough mental strength to invoke her psionic abilities. A giant invisible hand grabbed Maloney by the torso and lifted him off of the woman’s back. It raised him up in the air and suspended him near the ceiling. The man tried to struggle free on instinct, but the only thing he accomplished was knocking a vase over with his foot. At the very least it didn’t break upon hitting the floor since the soft carpet cushioned the impact. Realizing that further resistance was futile, the policeman ceased flailing and quietly requested backup by activating the distress beacon on his belt.

Meanwhile Agent Johanson struggled to her feet and looked up at the mysterious intruder. Their eyes met for a second time, at which point both of them just kind of froze. It took them a few awkwardly silent moments, but they were able to recognize who the other party was at roughly the same time. Their confusion was understandable since they had only met by chance once, about two weeks ago. Even then they hadn’t even exchanged words, not to mention it was under extraordinary circumstances.

“What in the Queen’s name is going on here?!”

The physical confrontation had happened so fast that Joe had only now shown up to see what all the ruckus was.

“Uh…” Agent Johanson grimaced. “Sorry about that. I didn’t recognize him at first and I… overreacted a bit.”

“A bit?!” the host raised his voice. “What sort of psycho just attacks someone out of the blue?! A police officer, no less?!”

“I said I’m sorry, alright?! I was just pumped up from finishing my workout and my arms moved before my brain did.”

“That’s all well and good, but I’m not the one you should be apologizing to!” Joe pointed at the still-suspended policeman.

“I would like to get down now,” Maloney pleaded.

The woman gently lowered him down to the ground while he quietly called off the signal for reinforcements. Once he was firmly on the floor, AJ muttered another apology and retreated into the guest room to hide her embarrassment.

“Yikes. What’s her deal?” the policeman asked.

“Oh, she’s just a bit high-strung since Maggie’s putting her through some complicated psionic training thing. Please don’t think badly of her.”

“Ah, that would certainly explain it. Miss Oh does have a way of… unbalancing people at times. What was her name, again?”

“Agent Sarah Johanson, but I just call her AJ.”

“Alright, well, in case I don’t get the chance to do so myself, please inform Agent Johanson that I completely understand and that there are no hard feelings. Or charges.”

“Will do. Now then, do make yourself at home. Jeeves will be here with the tea shortly.”

“Thank you.”

Both of them graciously moved past the violent incident and had a pleasant chat about inconsequential things while the butler served them tea. The conversation then gradually shifted towards Maloney’s case. The policeman was a bit hesitant at first, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to share. After all, the matter wasn’t so sensitive that sharing a few interesting details would cause any trouble for Joe or for himself. He wasn’t even certain his suspect was actually a criminal. So, while avoiding any specifics like names, times, and places, Maloney broadly explained the case he was tackling.

Long story short, there was a suspicious individual that regularly travelled between four neighboring star systems, and Butterpond-4 was one of his stops. He went by about once every two or three months, each time carrying with him a barrel-sized storage container filled with sand. The suspect would then transport this container somewhere down to the planet via personal shuttle, and then come back a few days later with a slightly different load of sand. It seemed obvious that he was smuggling something, but nobody could figure out what. The authorities ran meticulous tests on the bizarre cargo time and time again, but all the results pointed it to being just plain sand one would find on any wild beach. It had also been sterilized as per regulations, so they couldn’t even pin that on him.

“So yeah, docking authorities have been going nuts trying to figure out this guy’s deal,” Maloney rounded off his explanation. “I didn’t have anything else going on so I decided to have a crack at it. I didn’t have much luck either so I’ve been asking Miss Oh for a bit of guidance.”

“Wow, sounds complicated. Any luck so far?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. I sent inquiries to the other systems but it was the same story everywhere. Just a guy carrying sand around.”

“Maybe it’s a religious thing?”

“That’s what I thought as well, but if it is, it’s obscure to the point of being practically nonexistent.”

“So he’s a loon. Let him be, I say. It’s not like he’s hurting anybody.”

“I don’t know… I watched some of the interviews my colleagues put him through. He seemed perfectly in control of his faculties. Also he has his own shuttle. You need to go through meticulous psych evals to be allowed to pilot one of those.”

“Huh. Odd you should mention that. Maggie wants to earn a shuttle license herself, actually.”

“Really, now?”

“I know, I was shocked too, but apparently she wants to take romantic joyrides through space. She’s already started picking out what model to buy once she earns enough money for one.”

“That’s nice, though it’ll be a while. Shuttles are mad expensive.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad. I mean, your sandy nutter has one, right?”

“No, I’m serious. Even a half-decent economy model is about half a million poundingtons.”

“Blimey!” Joe’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s insane! I, uh, might have to talk to her about that.”

As the simple man shook his head in disbelief at the ridiculous sum, his comments left the policeman a rather curious thought.

Didn’t his suspect have a different shuttle every time he passed through customs?