Chapter 2: THREE YEARS PRIOR

 There is some context I should explain. I know, it's a bit inconvenient to do it now; but context is what gives meaning to all that we are and all that we do. Captain Chez was not always a pirate. 

Before that, he worked in a research lab for a private exploration company, developing technology for zero gravity to advance exploration and research endeavors. Basically, he made useful stuff for a company that sent people into space so that they could find and learn about the stuff that wasn't on Earth, and hopefully turn a profit from it. 

The company was owned by technology billionaire, Mac Whitter, who fancied himself a space cowboy. He spent his time split between Earth and the space station in orbit where he would annoy the genuine researchers who tolerated his interferences. About every five to six months, he'd return to Earth to indulge in publicity, women, expensive food, and gravity. And although Mac Whitter would never admit it publicly, he found space to be boring. It had been fun at first, but after a while, there wasn't much to do on the station. All the fun and luxuries of living were on Earth. Whenever he was on the station, he just longed to be back on Earth enjoying his fame and money. But he had a particular image he wanted to uphold. And so, except with his old school mate – Chez, he would never admit any of this. 

Whitter Aerospace Technology Headquarters

10:23

Chez groan at the sound of hoops and hollers coming down the hall towards his lab. He took a moment to close his eyes and count several meditative breaths in preparation for the interruption he was sure would lead to another request for an inane device. He had just enough time to pull a tarp over a few sensitive projects he was working on when the lab door opened.

"CHEZ!" The boom of Mac Whitter's voice filled the room. Mac was dynamite wearing slacks. Everything he did was loud and disruptive. He breezed into the room like a man who owned the entire damn building. 

"You're back," Chez said with no inflection and turned his full attention to his routing tools and PCB. 

"Fuck yeah I am." Mac carried an opened box in the pit of his left arm and smiled ear to ear. He had returned two days ago and was rip roaring and ready to party. He was in his late thirties but had the energy of a man in his twenties. Chez suspected this energy was pharmaceutically enhanced, but Chez wasn't a saint nor above pharmaceutical enhancements himself. 

"God damn, where're your cups?" Mac asked as he looked around the lab. 

"At home where they belong." 

Chez heard rummaging and looked up from his work in time to see Mac dumping out the contents of a square penholder onto an already disheveled desk. 

"The fuck, Mac?" 

Ignoring Chez's protest, Mac peered suspiciously into the penholder, blew into it twice, deemed it fit enough for drinking out of, and headed for Chez. 

"You live like a goddamn university slob," Mac criticized. He set the penholder on the edge of Chez's worktable and removed an amber bottle from inside the open box, before tossing the box aside. He removed the rubber seal, unscrewed the cap, and poured the rich amber liquor into the penholder. Mac shoved the makeshift cup into Chez's hand with an eagerness too sincere not even Chez's salty mood could ruin it.

"It's a limited-edition Scotch whiskey from Johnnie Walker Blue Label," Mac started saying the instant the whiskey hit Chez's lips. "You can taste it can't you? That hint of hazelnut, right before you get that hit of tangerine or whatever fruit it is. Good, isn't it?"

It was. Chez liked whiskey and Mac always gave the good stuff. 

"Shame we've got to drink it out of such shitty cups." That last comment Mac said more to himself. 

"Oh no, not shitty cups," Chez mimicked Mac's voice. But Mac was too busy finding himself his own drinking vessel to notice Chez's mockery. He poured a drink into a small plastic container used to hold spare parts for circuit boards. Those spare parts were now in a messy little pile on the corner of the worktable. He slowly sipped the whiskey with his eyes closed and groaned with pleasure, savoring the smoky rich flavors. 

"Fuck yeah! Okay," Mac said, remembering why else he'd come into the company offices. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a couple sheets of folded paper. "I had an idea for this magnetic grapple hook that connects to the body of a space craft and reels the wearer in quickly without having to wait forEVER to weightlessly drift into the desired direction." He placed them in front of Chez.

Chez looked at Mac's rudimentary sketches for the magnetic grappling device. "If you were in a hurry, why not use the propulsion jets on your suit?"

"They use fuel. I'd rather save that fuel for an emergency."

"And this would be used for a stationary space craft or one that is in motion?"

Mac grinned at Chez's suspicious tone. "Does that matter?"

Chez sighed, set the sketches to the side, and rubbed his sleep weary eyes. "Only if you want the pull strength to keep you anchored to the space craft while it's in motion, but somehow cancel out the magnetic field to allow you an easy release from the craft so that it doesn't become a permanent umbilical cord." Chez envisioned Mac creating a zero-gravity rodeo with rockets and magnetized grappling hooks. 

Mac shrugged dismissively. "You'll figure it out," he said. Since he'd delivered the idea for the next space toy that he wanted Chez to develop, he was ready to change the topic. "Oh, what're you doing?"

"Working, Mac. It's not even 11:00. People work at this time." Chez suspected it was about time to expel Mac from his lab and get back to said work. He started to tidy the mess on his desk. 

"Nope. Noope." Mac grabbed the routing tool from off the desk and held it out of Chez's reach. "I just got back into town. Take an early lunch break and come out with me. I'll tell your boss." He smiled.

"My boss is an irresponsible man child with his head up his ass who'd rather spend his time womanizing and boozing his way through his ancestral fortune instead of putting his very pricy advanced education to good use."

Chez pushed away from his desk and stood up. Mac had grown accustomed and even enjoyed Chez's stinging bluntness. "Sounds like he could use a buddy to help tamper his more irresponsible instincts," he argued. 

Chez glared stoned faced at the slightly older man. Mac groaned. "Fine," he said defeated. "I'll just stay and help you with whatever you are working on."

Chez swore, seeing no way out of the intrusion. He grabbed his coat and stomped his way towards the door.

Mac snickered. "I'll bring the liquor, shall I?" He followed Chez out the door. "We can stop by someone else's desk on the way out and upgrade our cups."

Many hours later, Chez scanned his key card and stumbled half hungover through the doors. It was already so late, most of the other employees had left to go home for the night. There were always a few family-less people like himself whose work straddled the line between passion and obsession. But tonight, as his footsteps echoed down the hallway, the lab seemed especially lonely.

In the lab, Chez pulled back the tarp and sat down to finish the circuit board. Time fell away when he was immersed in work. When the door was noisily flung open, Chez realized the sun was already up and the office was again alive with other employees. 

Mac lurched halfway into the lab. He leaned heavily on the doorframe with one hand clamped above his head to anchor him into place, lest he tumble in. He wore dark sunglasses, was still unshaved, and his hair looked tussled by a pillow. But he managed to have put on clean clothes: a crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and dark navy pants that didn't match his usual style. Recklessly dangled in his left hand was a mostly empty cup of coffee that he'd grabbed at some café along the way. 

He groaned, pulled back from the doorframe, and disappeared down the hall. A moment later he reappeared with a chair that he'd borrowed from a neighboring office. The back legs of the chair dragged noisily behind him until they stopped opposite Chez's worktable. Mac plopped heavily into the chair he'd procured, crossed his legs, loudly sipped his coffee, and only then lowered his sunglasses to reveal his haggard eyes. 

"You didn't go home last night." Mac said. 

Chez inhaled deeply, like he was just waking up. He rubbed his face and his own unshaved jawline. Chez had left Mac at a nightclub around midnight to go back to his apartment. He'd explained that he had to be up early to finish something for a deadline the next morning. But instead of going straight home and getting a few hours of rest, Chez had stumbled into the lab to finish up his project. And now it was morning. 

"No. You did?" He asked. There was a tone that implied that Mac didn't look all that rested either. 

"Not to my home." Mac stressed and yawned widely. He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes. "I slept at your place."

Chez rolled his chair over to a small cabinet on the side of the worktable and opened the top drawer. He pulled out a morning kit with the essentials you'd expect to find in such a kit: toothbrush, comb, eyedrops, deodorant, electric razor, and so forth. He started what was by now a well-practiced morning routine. 

"You broke into my apartment?" 

"Yup. I thought you'd be there. And that you'd wake me up if you got back later. I took your bed."

"And my clothes."

Mac inhaled sleepily. He looked down at his borrowed wardrobe and shrugged. "A little tight in the shoulders."

Chez ignored him. He unscrewed the white plastic lid of a bottle, popped two white tablets into his mouth, then zipped up and put away his morning kit. 

"You should go home." But Chez shook his head and reached for what was left in Mac's cup to help him swallow the tablets. 

"I have a meeting at 9:00, and some work still left to finish."

Mac didn't argue. He sat quietly in his chair and watched Chez go about his work. Chez's phone rang as he put the finishing touches on his project. 

"Yes?" he answered his phone, angling it between his jaw and shoulder so he could use both hands to screw on a panel. "Conference Room 3 is ready. People have started to arrive," said a voice on the other end of the line.

"Yes, I know. I'm on my way. I'll be there in 10 minutes." Chez hung up.

"I thought you'd left," Chez said when he noticed Mac still sitting there. 

"Nope. Still here."

Chez gathered up several pieces of equipment. "I need to leave. Be sure to close the door when you let yourself out. And remember to bring that chair with you."

Mac grumbled. "You should keep a chair for other people to sit in."

Chez grabbed his jacket and headed towards the door. "I don't want people sitting. This is a lab, not an office."