22.Big Bang

Zoey was sitting in the spinning chair with his legs firmly planted in front of him. As he sipped on his cup of coffee, he scrolled through the pages and windows of the UCD. He was looking for a job to do because with four people on one ship, the food wasn't really as cheap as some would hope. Chloe was passed out in their room after a 'workout day', after everything she wasn't the most energetic Frae in the universe.  Ray and Mia were probably having their millionth romantic honeymoon in their room. It was weird to see Ray fall so quickly for someone, especially one that isn't human. Granted that most Frae are similar to humans in almost every way, she still occasionally woke up to Ray with a tower just as solid and structured as his.

"What happened to the universe being in chaos and what not? There's not been a single job this month." Zoey groaned as he talked to himself.

As he continued to empty his cup with every slow minute passing, it felt like an eternity. Zoey continued to talk to himself, which actually wasn't that uncommon but it still caught people off guard sometimes. His head leaned back as his arms fell beside him. He'd actually reached weeks behind today's date and most of them were either already in progress by others or they were spam. You'd think by now that filters would've evolved a little more but like a surprisingly large amount of things in the universe, the technology hasn't been worked on much.

Zoey checked the fuel and it was about time to land and refuel. The ship ran on a multitude of different sources but a large portion of it was through solar power, since they constantly floated around burning stars, it was the cheapest and easiest way to go. Everyone else was either asleep or occupied so Zoey personally looked for the closest planet with a sun or two that wouldn’t burn them to a crisp. He yawned and rubbed his eyes as he clicked a random planet that he picked between three or four different ones. He watched while the dusty ground inched closer towards the ship’s now opening landing gear.

“Welcome to Dimen.” The ship announced over the intercom.

“This place has a link to our ship? When the hell did we land here before..?” He questioned as he started to look back through the flight logs.

No matter how far back he looked in the logs, he couldn’t find a single trace of the ship on the planet. They'd bought the ship new from what they knew so it’s not like there was anything hidden or erased. All of this only continued to raise the question, how is it that the ship knew where it had landed? Zoey refused to give up on his new task as he started to look for any potential errors in the system but was later interrupted by Ray who had come in to figure out why they landed.

“Hey, have you ever heard of a ‘Dimen?” Zoey asked, as he turned to Ray.

“No, why?” Ray asked as a follow up.

“Because the ship knew that this was it, we bought new, right?” Zoey probed.

“Yeah I bought it new, I wouldn't second chance us getting a piece of scrap metal. But the more that I think about it, Dimen sounds familiar.. I just don't remember why.” Ray said as he bit his lip, roaming his mind for the answers.

Chloe came in and leaned against the door frame looking tired as her eyes scanned the UCD screen. She was silently watching and trying to figure out everything that was going on, but mainly why exactly the intercom in the room woke her up and began talking to her. It was slightly annoying to be woken up and some mysterious voice practically screaming into her ears. Granted she was still pissy from being so tired, but there was no way in hell she was going to be able to get back to bed with not knowing exactly what was going on.

“What’s going on, Cutie?” Chloe asked as she leaned over while letting her arms fall around Zoey’s neck.

“No idea, at first I thought maybe the ship had been here before but there’s no way because Ray said he got the ship brand new.” He responded as he began to stroke one of her arms while leaning his head to the side resting it on her.

“Is there a chance that the dealer lied, or maybe Ray?” She asked.

“Right here, Chloe.” Ray said as he motioned his hands.

“I know.” She smiled mockingly.

Ray rolled his eyes and pat her head as he walked out of the room. Zoey blinked a few times rapidly as he watched the awkward silent exchange between the two. With ray now gone, Chloe began nibbling and kissing at Zoey’s neck but was quickly swatted at and shooed away. He was already almost 100% sure that he was going to have even more marks on his body from her tensions being taken out on more than just his insides. Her hands and teeth always seemed to find themselves digging into him one way or another.

“Guys, let’s go! We should probably figure out what exactly Dimen is!” Ray shouted from the other room.

The two groaned in almost perfect unison as Zoey got up, grabbing Chloe’s hand. They soon walked out together side by side. Mia was soon with the rest of them as they gathered their belongings and lowered themselves onto the wasteland of a planet. Dust was clearly blowing in the winds, tracing the now obvious gusts that was obscuring the view of the four as they stared into the never ending dirt mists. It was practically a sand storm on the desolate planet, how was it even possible for such technology to exist here?

From out of the dust clouds a figure appeared, a thin older man came walking with a limp. His eyes showed sparks of hope and potential as he saw the giant metal ship behind the group of four that stood before him. They each slowly tilted their heads almost like a cartoon as they watched a smile form on his face, adding even more wrinkles to his aged face. He limped closer as his smile grew and even began to laugh maniacally like an evil genius.

“You came!” He cheered.

“I’m sorry, you were expecting us?” Ray asked, a little thrown off.

“Of course! You’re the police, aren’t you?!” His voice gave hint to a small amount of doubt in the back of his throat.

The four of them looked around at each other, each more confused than the other as the seconds ticked down. The older man looked at them with a fleeting smile on his face as he watched the group. Zoey attempted to deny any involvement with being right or even affiliated with the law but was shut down quickly as Chloe shoved a finger into his mouth as she used the rest of her hand to cover it. She pressed herself firmly against his backside as she gave him a fake hug from behind him, letting him feel her bulged problem solver on him.

“We are! Sorry we took so long, the ships just aren’t like they used to be! But we happened to accidentally lose the report on the way here.. Could you do us a solid and remind us exactly what the problem was?” Chloe asked with a cunning smile.

“Sure thing!” The man strained as he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction.

The group looked at him with a bit of confusion but soon followed him soon after. As they all walked into the dusty winds, the old man explained how they'd found a large bomb at the bottom of one of their mines. The exact mines that happened to run right under their town. Regardless of how many theories that the group came up with,  none would even begin to explain why a bomb was sitting under a town and somehow had not gone off. No one knew how long it had been there but they could assume at least a couple decades seeing as the town was only built relatively recently.

Once they stepped foot inside the city limits, the group was quickly swarmed by locals. They asked questions ranging anywhere from what the stars were like, to when the bomb was going to kill them all.  Most of the lesser negative questions were answered but when it came time that the noise settled,  it was hard to even ask anyone to take the group to the bomb after having only small chats with most of them while Ray took down as much useful information as he could. After only minutes of talking, a young girl screamed in horror.

"What's wrong with h-" Zoey froze when he saw April wearing sweat pants and a loose t-shirt as she held a knife in one hand and shook her other rapidly.

"Fucking stupid ass slutty fucking fuck faced FUCK!!" April yelled as she threw the knife into the ground, only now aware she wasn't at home anymore.

Everyone stared blankly at her as a slightly horrified expression was set in stone on her face. Zoey could already tell that this wasn't going to be a fun experience due to her ‘anger release program’. Ray shrugged it off and gathered all his notes about the ticking doom beneath them.

"Ah! Our bomb squad of one is finally here!" Chloe laughed as she practically squeezed all the air out of April with a 'hug'.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" April whispered obviously confused.

" We need a bomb to not go boom and seeing as if you. .. take damage? You'll just pop back home! Brilliant right?!" Chloe explained, feeling rather impressed with herself.

April was quickly pushed forward and cheered on by the crowd as she literally inched towards the entrance to the mines. Ray was at least a gentleman and gave her the notes along with a good luck pat on the back.  The rest of the group gathered up as many people as they could and moved them around the ship so that if there was an explosion, the ships defense systems would easily keep them safe.

"What the fuuuuuck... How does this shit even happen to me?!" April groaned as she followed the path indicated by the notes.

"When you get to the bomb, let me know" A staticy voice said, coming from her back pocket.

April jumped and about had a heart attack when it went off but as usual she simply fed it into her rage. She snatched a walkie talkie out from her pocket and began cursing while whispering at the other end. She had no clue why she was whispering when there was no one else around. Everyone on the other side of the walkie talkie assumed it was  due to being in dark mines. It didn't take but more than 10 minutes for April to find the unmistakable bomb laying causally on its side like a plane had dropped a dud.

"Um.. I'm pretty sure I found it.." She said with fear clearly linking each of her words together.

" Alright can you see a panel near the tail of it?" The voice crackled in and out.

"Yyyyes, I see it." She said as she ran her hands over the opening mechanism and pulled a cord that said ‘release’.

"Okay avoid that area no matter what, it's a manual activate" The voice said only a second too late.

April was now wide eyed and frozen in fear as she had already opened it and saw a countdown timer of only 10 seconds counting down. After screaming in the walkie talkie for easily half of that, she started asking herself if she could even survive an explosion. A cut is one thing and it goes away but an explosion,?! Her eyes filled with tears as she saw the timer hit 0. Her eyes closed tight as he braced herself for impact but was quickly surprised when she was hit in the head by a party hat. She blinked and leaned down to pick it up as music began to play. She tilted her head and looked back at the panel which now read, "Happy Birthday, Gregory!"

"Do we by chance know any asshole fuck faces named, Gregory..?" April asked very slowly over the walkie talkie attempting to conceal her burning hatred of her new nemesis.

"Hello, this is Gregory? Did everything work out?" The walkie talkie spat out the voice if the old man.

April could feel her eye twitch the entire silent walk back as she went over each second she panicked in her mind. When she was greeted by the townspeople it was like she was a hero. They cheered and screamed as if they were at a concert and she was the hottest new star of the century. None of them even knew it was just an old delivery pod that companies used back a few decades to go through deep space delivery that have been outlawed due to the exact reason the group was there, it looked exactly like a bomb and caused mass panic countless times. After April briefed Ray about everything, she made her way to the bathroom so that she could take a shower and wash off all the dirt and everything else that collected on her while she was in the mines. She found herself face to face with Zoey after almost running into him while he was brushing his teeth. He stared blankly at her and continued, unphased by the almost face full of.. face he about recieved.