The Deceiver

My name is Zeus Taquanador. I am 16 and was born born on the planet Earth in the year 2510. My father is Lorman Taquanador and my mother is Janita Taquanador. They were both killed in the Sasquanian invasion of Earth in 2523 and I survived, but barely. My uncle Carlito saved me and shot me into deep space in the last space pod. That was when I was 13.

My life is very different now. It is 2526 and I am very poor and I have very little to call my own. School doesn’t matter after you become 12, and that was on Earth. There really is no school system in the Outer Rim of the Milky Way, as the outer rim is mainly a tourist destination rather than an industrial area. Me? I’m just in this area to make money. I really do not wish to live in this system much longer.

What is my job? I am a garbage boy, working for the Galactic Sanitation Corporation (GSC), the only real industry in the Outer Rim. I make relatively small amounts of money, but it is enough to live off of. A loaf of bread a day, some Altarian chicken, and a bottle of Somatian water and I’m set for the day. Though my job pays a small amount, it is an extremely hard job. I don’t get much vacation and I have to work with a pain all day. The pain has a name too, because it’s a person. His name is Jango Nightstream. He doesn’t need the job, he’s already rich, but what does it matter.

My job is to get out of the garbage ship, hit the tractor beam on the truck to lift the garbage, and put it in the ship. It sounds easy, but it is extremely scary to do this each day, especially when Jango tries to blast away without me. Yes, he really does hate me.

Things took a change once the boss changed our route. The routes are the paths that the garbage ships take to the different systems in the galaxy. We shifted routes from the Betelguese route to the Sirius route. This change, however, made my life completely different.

* * *

“But Mr. Garretton, we know our own route! We really shouldn’t be taking on another one!” I told Mr. Horace Garretton, the boss of GSC. He is a very interesting character, but not always right in the head.

“I have decided to switch you to the Sirius route now,” Mr. Garretton told us. “Milxer and Samgoy will take you’re old Betelguese route.”

“But that’s my route!” screamed Jango, impatient as always. “Uh, I mean, our route. And we have been doing this route since we started!”

“I have decided and that is final! Now get out of my office!” said Mr. Garretton, and that was that.

We marched out of the office into the long, blue hallway connecting the different departments. We are the Sector Z branch of the GSC. In the Sector Z branch of the GSC, there are four different routes in the Sector Z branch. There was a department for each section of the Sector. There was the Algebraan department, the Sirius department, the Betelguese department, and the Solar department. The Solar department is where I used to live. I’m not exactly sure if Jango was born on Earth, but it really doesn’t matter.

Each stop on the route is tracked by a signal beam that is near the pick-up point by the stop. Jango tells the garbage ship which signal beam to go to and we land near the beam. I push the tractor beam and pull the garbage into the ship to be incinerated. The excess gas is released through the air lock. Seems easy, but it is relatively hard, especially since Jango moves the ship so the garbage intentionally misses. This being said, it is his source of entertainment and we usually get back later than every other squad. After getting back, the boss yells at us because we are back too late. He scolds us because everyone has a route that is longer than ours and we get back later. It gets annoying after a while.

So Jango and I were walking down the big blue hallway and into our post. We got into the garbage ship at the Sirius loading bay and headed off. Along the way, Jango stopped at the McDonalds, which is now a space franchise, and got a Galacta-Burger before we started. The stench was awful. Like onions drenched in dead fish. I hate his lunches.

On our new route, we stopped at the first garbage stop and everything seemed normal. We continued to each stop and picked up the garbage. When we got to the 295th stop, it got a little different from normal. There was a girl outside, and she was more beautiful than the stars above Betelguese at night. I could tell Jango noticed her too, because he made a mad curve and parked right there next to her. I could tell she was scared. Jango jumped out of the ship straight away. He said something that sounded like this:

“HimynameisJangowhatsyours?!?!”

The girl looked confused and extremely out of place. She ran and hid behind the signal beam that gave us the location of the garbage pick-up point. I hopped out of the ship and ran over behind the signal beam. The girl had ran out of the way and behind the signal beam. I hadn’t really had time to look at her, and I really couldn’t now as I was running and trying to catch up to her. When I saw her for the first time, she looked like another human; like one who had moved off of Earth a while ago. Either that or a generation of humans that never lived on Earth…

I got to the beam and saw that she had tripped over a piece of scrap metal. Luckily, though, she only twisted her leg. It wasn’t that bad of an injury, so I pulled out my Mender-800 and I got to work fixing her up. The Mender-800 is a beam that you shoot onto an injured body part and it fixes the body part. It only works on more minor things, like a twisted ankle, or a cut/scrape. For worse things like broken bones, people need to see glacti-doctors.

Her leg was working just fine as she got up and started to walk around. She decided to test her leg by doing a cartwheel. She did the cartwheel just fine, and apparently Jango saw it, because after she did it he ran up to her and tried to talk to her again. I could hear him give himself a pep-talk.

“Alright Jango,” I overheard him say to himself as he walked over to this girl, “don’t blow this. You only got one chance with this girl. It’s not like on Betelguese where every girl loves you. You got to try.”

He got to the girl and said, “Hi! My name is Jango Nightstream. What’s yours?”

“My name is Tequila. Tequila Stardust,” she said. As she said it, she looked a little scared. I’m pretty sure it was from the aftershock of almost being run over by Jango.

Then I decided I had better go over there. I reached out to shake Tequila’s hand, but she immediately took it as my offer for a handshake was a threat to her existence. Because of this, I wound up being the victim of her Mech-Gloves strength powers. The strength of her gloves helped her to flip me. Thus, I wound up on my back, covered in dirt. Jango laughed at me, while Tequila was trying to understand what she had just done. Apparently, she realized what she had done after Jango was forwarding pictures on his Beam Phone. Beam Phones are phones that are connected via signal beams, just like the trackers for the garbage ship. You get a signal anytime, anywhere. That is great if you’re using the phone for calling people, but it gets really annoying when Jango takes pictures of me being stupid and sends them to all the people on Betelguese, the planet we live on.

I was still on the ground when Tequila realized what she had done and that I wasn’t trying to attack her or anything. To prove I was okay, I stood back up, just to be pushed back down by Jango.

“Take that wimp!” he said as he laughed and took more pictures.

“Don’t do that!” yelled Tequila, but I could tell she was only a second or two from laughing. “It’s not right!”

She miraculously recovered and slapped Jango across the face with her Mech-Glove, leaving a hand sized imprint across his face. That looked like it really hurt, but I could tell that she was holding back. She really didn’t want to hurt Jango, the insanely cool, popular kid all the guys want to be friends with and all the girls want to date. After smacking him, she came back to me and asked me if I was okay. She helped me up and she gave me a hug to make me feel better. Jango couldn’t believe that this was happening. For effect I made a very rude hand gesture to him when he saw.

He almost got up and came over to me and pounded me for that, but instead he pulled out his beam and typed a few things in and sent it. A moment later, I got something in my pocket. It was a message sent from Jango. It said two words:

“You’re dead.”

And so I decided that it was officially time to get going.

We hopped into the ship and I waved at her as we left. She waved back and all felt good for once. Once I sat down, I thought about what I was going to do with the money I’ve earned thus far in my career. I was thinking of saving for a complex house, but I really think I should get a space car. It will be better to use to see Tequila again. I have a feeling about her, I just know it.

***

After work, I relaxed at The Lodge. The Lodge is a hangout for people under 21 Earth years, which apparently is also the same time standard that every other place in the galaxy uses. Who knew?

I walked in The Lodge and who was the first person I saw there? Jango, telling people how he met the cutest girl and how he made me look like a fool in front of her. I never get a break with him. And the worst part? When I walked in he instantly noticed me.

“Hey look everyone!” he yelled. “It’s the dude who got pounded on earlier! Let’s all point and laugh at his humiliation! Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha haha ha hahaha!”

Nobody laughed, or pointed. It was complete silence as everyone turned to the door and Tequila Stardust entered the room in clothes that glittered all over the room. She literally looked like stardust–whatever that is. I think that was the effect she wanted that outfit to have on people.

She went over to Jango and proceeded to slap him again. This time it looked harder than it was before.

“Don’t make fun of him again!” she yelled and came up next to me. “Let’s get out of here before he starts being a jerk again,” and we left. We went to the grounds and she was about to talk but she got a message on her phone.

“I have to go,” she told me. “My dad’s being a pain, again. Bye Zeus!” She waved and got beamed up to a ship and blasted away.

I heard a voice from behind. “Wheres you’re girlfriend, jerk?” said Jango, as he punched me in the shoulder.

“She isn’t my girlfriend, and she left anyway Jango,” I told him.

“Aw, too bad. She won’t get to see her boyfriend get knocked to the ground,” he told me as he pushed me onto the asphalt. His friends were there, watching the fight. They hate when he picks on me, but they like his better side, so they try to ignore it. I was still on the ground.

“You’re just a scrawny, little, weakling! Just stay down there under my foot,” yelled Jango while he was laughing at me. I was trying to just lay there and be lifeless because I just wanted this to end. But Jango had other plans.

“Hey Tequila!” he belted. “Get out here and see your boyfriend get crushed beneath my feet!”

And that was all it took for Tequila to come rushing down here to my rescue. But she couldn’t work up the courage to get out here and help. I was on my own.

“See?! He can’t get up!” Jango told the crowd of people that had come to see what the commotion was about, among them was Tequila. “You’re such a wimp Zeus! A freak! A loser! You don’t belong here! Get out! Go back to you’re hut and cry yourself to sleep like you do every night!”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated being humiliated by this jerk. I pulled a laser knife out of my pocket and stabbed his ankle. I keep it there just for emergencies, and now was one.

“For the love all that is pure! Why did you do that?!” he said, as he fell over, clutching his ankle. It was bleeding. I didn’t want to do it, but it was in the name of self defense, and I had to.

Everyone was looking at me, the kid with the bloody laser knife. Quite a few people were cheering me on, happy that I taught that jerk a lesson. Jango’s friends didn’t know what to make of the fact that their leader was taken down. Tequila looked like she wanted to hug me and drink a bottle of orange bubbly to forget about Jango. I could use an orange bubbly right about now too. So Tequila and I went into The Lodge and each grabbed an orange bubbly. Everyone kept staring at me, unnervingly. I went straight home after that. I wanted to sleep.

***

I got home late that night and just fell asleep. I had a strange dream where I was being eaten by a lobster from Earth. I don’t know exactly why.

So I woke up in the middle of the night in my loft craving a lobster. I didn’t have a lobster, so it made sense to just go back to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and I went took the tram to the office. Jango was there already, his ankle looking like new. He was angry with me, and I think I knew why.

“Boys,” said Mr. Garretton, “I would like you two to continue on the Sirius route, like yesterday. And do not get off task! Or I shall be forced to send your way an assassin!”

We gulped at that.

“Who will tickle you to death with fluffy feathers!” said Mr. Garretton.

We felt relieved.

“Of doom,” finished Mr. Garretton. “Alright boys, good luck today!”

The one thing that Jango and I can agree on, is that Mr. Garretton has one screw loose.

We started our day in silence, not daring to speak a word. The ride to the first few stops was relatively quiet for a morning. Usually it is much louder, because he is either picking on me, or eating a sandwich. Either way, it is a noisy affair. Then we got to Tequila’s stop, and I took a look over at Jango.

Jango was all dressed up! He was wearing a bright blue blazer and a shiny overcoat. It was startling to see him dressed like this. I didn’t know how he had done it so fast, or how he had changed and flown the ship at the same time, but he did! Then I realized why he was doing this. I didn’t think he would be like this, but he wanted Tequila, and he wanted her badly. I was going to have to fight him for her. I really didn’t want to, but I was going to have to. This was going to be one grueling day.

Tequila apparently wanted to come with us today. Jango was grumbling about something. I overheard him say this:

“I needed it to be on the planet. Grumble grumble.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew he wanted to be down on Tequila’s planet of Jabraan, in the Sirius system. Now I was confused and glad that we weren’t down there.

Meanwhile, I was showing Tequila how to use the tractor beam. I was explaining it very simply to her too, and she didn’t get it exactly.

“You’re supposed to push the red button on the side of the ship and the tractor beam pulls the garbage up,” I told her. “You then put it inside the ship and you dispose of it.”

“How does the tractor beam work again?” she asked.

“You push the button and the trash comes up,” I told her. She got it eventually.

Jango was getting impatient. He was walking around with a laser sword and a laser gun. I don’t know why, but I’m scared to find out.

We had just finished part of the route and we decided to hover in deep space to chill for a while. Tequila and I were relaxing and talking near the ship door.

“So what was Earth like?” she asked me.

“Too mechanized,” I said, “it needed to be more green. More life-filled.”

“Ahh, I see,” she told me.

“Yeah” I said. And Jango lost it.

He ran out of the cockpit of the ship and lunged at me with the laser sword. I did not know how to react. He was coming for me, straight at me. I could barely move, and if I did, would he hit Tequila?

I came up with the answer. I grabbed Tequila and moved her out of the way. Still clinging to her, I hit the “Door Open” button. Jango flew out the door and into deep space. Tequila and I stared at his body flailing, until movement stopped, and life could no longer be observed from him. She held my hand tightly, and I could see tears dripping down her eyes. I could feel tears coming down my eyes too.

***

The ceremony was filled with tears and silence. Nobody wanted him to go, and I apologized sincerely to his parents, who understood that he was trying to kill me and I needed to defend myself. I wish I had found a better way to defend myself.

The reception was somewhat less monotone, as people congratulated me for standing up for myself for once. I felt glad that I could finally look myself in the eye and say: “I’m a man now.”

Tequila was sad, but she understood what he did was wrong.

“He is probably in a better place now,” I told her.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. She heaved a sigh and I kissed her. And I remembered that if I hadn’t grabbed her out of the way, she would have been gone too.

***

The story itself is 3236 words! I’m so proud of myself! Please comment and have your friends read it too!