a short story by Jake M
“So, I take it you’ve caught on that I’m not an inspector.”
Trinidad Monterroza sat, handcuffed to a steel chair, at the back hatch of a one-way Interstellar Ltd. freight ship careening through the stars at speeds that would blow your coattails back. The growl of the freighter engine rumbled a low drone in his ears as he started calculating his escape.
“I sure have, Monty,” Officer Sterling hummed, a cruel gaze boring a hole through Monty’s sweat-slicked forehead.
“Oh, no need to be so casual Lieutenant,” Monty smiled. Before he could open his mouth and list off all of the more formal things the space cop could call him, Officer Sterling’s face had turned beet red.
“You have a lot of nerve calling me that after the stunt you pulled in the Lambda Quadrant!”
“Oh, right, my bad,” Monty sighed, wiggling his fingers in the digicuffs. “Not a Lieutenant anymore. Just Officer Sterling.”
Sterling seethed before remembering that he wasn’t the one cuffed at the back of a galactic shipping truck.
“You won’t embarrass me like that again Monty,” he sneered through a sinister grin. “In fact, I’ll make sure they won’t even be able to reassemble your atoms when I’m through with you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, no need to be so rash, Sterling.” He knew what he was implying by that. It wouldn’t just be the cold vacuum of space, he would kick him into the engines. Make it look like a hasty getaway that ended badly. “Why can’t we make it fair and square, huh?”
“Have you ever made it fair and square for me, Monty?” Officer Sterling fumed, obviously filled with embarrassment from every time Monty had made a slick escape from his clutches.
“Oh come on,” Monty threw his head back. “That time on Megasatellite Borealis wasn’t fair? You had a whole squadron for backup! If anything, it wasn’t fair for me. You know how hard it is to hail a gravicab after 11 PM?”
“Shut up!” Sterling roared, ferociously slamming his steel-toed boot on the floor dangerously close to Monty’s feet.
“Sterling baby, watch the boots. They ain’t cheap,” Monty responded. This was true, but it’s not like Monty coughed up a single cent for them either.
“You’re so lucky I don’t just throw you out into the exhaust ports right now.”
“Oh yeah?” he raised an eyebrow, calling his bluff. “Do it then. You got nothing to lose and everything to gain, don’t you?”
Sweat pooled against his back, watching Sterling consider it. Luck be a well-built, handsome man tonight, Monty prayed. The officer’s look warped from sadistic power-trip to sober realization. Perfect.
“I’m a small fish, but I’m still worth more alive, aren’t I?” Monty said with a sly grin.
“First smart thing you’ve said Monty.”
“A compliment! I’m touched, Sterling. What’s next, dinner?”
“Don’t push it.”
“Right, I know when I’m in a bind. Speaking of, you’re not gonna keep me like this the whole time, are you?”
“Nice try. I won’t fall for that one again.”
It was worth a shot. Time for Plan B.
“No sir, you don’t fall for the same trick twice. A cut above the regular Galactic Fed,” Monty mused, hoping for the praise to find footing in the pockmarked ego of Officer Sterling while he wiggled his fingers under the backside of his belt for a holdout pick.
“Two for two. You know Monterroza, you’re too smart to be a criminal,” Sterling said, smiling.
“You’re right, I am! But I’m also too suave and roguish to be a Fed,” Monty replied, tossing his long, curly hair in a suave and roguish fashion.
“You call it roguish, I call it a lack of discipline.”
The pick slipped from his hands and he jolted to grasp it, causing the chair to screech against the metal grate floor. Not a fine moment.
“Oh puh-leaseeee Sterling, baby. Don’t gimme the Fed Academy spiel,” Monty groaned, playing off the noise as an overblown reaction.
“The Academy made me who I am!” he shouted. Monty stopped fiddling with the pick, detecting a hint of insecurity in that bluster. Well, who was he kidding, hardly a hint. It was about as subtle as a xenon sign.
“If you don’t mind my presumption Sterling, what has it made you?”
The air in the freighter grew still and tense. Monty clearly struck a nerve, he found a foothold and dug deep.
“A better man.”
“Better how? Stronger? Kinder? Happier?”
“You’re walking a dangerous line for somebody in your position, Trinidad.”
“And you’re lying to yourself, Pascal.”
Monty tilted forwards in the chair. He’d changed his expression, no longer a cocky sneer, but raised eyebrows, as if beckoning a confession.
“You wish you were as free as me.”
“Shut up! You can’t read my mind!”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah! You’re not a psion.”
“You ever met a psion? Know what they look like?”
Sterling hesitated. He glared at Monty from the side, as if inspecting him for some kind of psion-telltale. Monty played into it, hunching over his shoulders like he was hiding.
“What if I told you it was my best kept secret?" Monty pressed.
The gears in Sterling's head were turning as he scratched his clean shaven chin.
Yes, Monty thought, jump to the wildest conclusions you can Sterling, I know you can do it baby.
"It would explain how you've been so good at evading me this long."
Yes!! Oh Luck be the burliest trucker at the dive bar. It couldn't possibly be that you're denser than a black hole!
"Exactly."
Sterling’s expression shifted again, some of his sense coming back to him. That was the trouble of having such a record of fooling somebody, they do eventually catch on to when you’re winning.
“Prove it.”
“Huh?”
“Prove to me you’re a psion.”
Monty just about grinned ear to ear. He hadn’t done his favorite magic trick in a while.
“Anything for you Sterling!” he answered, sticking out his leg from the chair. “Mind grabbing me my deck of cards?”
A quizzical eyebrow shot up. The officer opened up the pockets of Monty’s pants and pulled out several decks of playing cards, fair decks, stacked decks, rigged decks, decks rigged to catch fire-
“Yeah, we’re not using any of these.”
“Hey, I’m fine making it fair and square.”
“Here,” Sterling said, pacing over to a stack of crates and wedging his fingers under the lid of the top. “You did know this freighter was headed to a casino right?”
“I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t.” This was true actually, he just jumped in the first freighter he saw and made a break for it. Sterling pulled a fresh, sealed deck of branded playing cards and pulled over a folding table in front of Monty.
“Great, crack that baby open,” he began, warming up for his upcoming routine, “feel free to inspect that deck like the Academy sergeant is watching. Then, grab me three cards, whichever ones you want.”
Sterling flipped through the deck, assuring it was a clean set of cards. No tricks, no marks, nothing. He set the deck to the side and laid down three cards: the ace of spades, the queen of hearts, and the two of diamonds.
“Fantastic. Perfect. Now, Sterling, you know that a psion’s energy is very powerful, correct?”
“Yeah?” he replied, apprehension creeping into his voice.
“So be very, very careful while you do this for me, or you’ll blow us both to kingdom come. I’m going to tap into my psychic reserves to predict… the card you’re going to choose.”
Sterling was buying it, recoiling from the dramatic energy Monty had imbued the back of the freighter with. Why did he ever drop out of acting school?
“In order to channel this power, I need to write my prediction on a piece of paper. I’d grab one myself but, you know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
By this point, the pick had found solid purchase in his hands and was poised right at the entrance of the digicuff lock, ready to strike the weak circuit pin and blow the lock up like a firecracker. Of course, he had a show to put on first, it wasn’t often he had such an interested audience.
“Right, ok. But you’re not coming out of those cuffs,” Sterling replied, pulling out his near-empty ticketbook and pen. Monty almost couldn’t stop himself. Oh, just watch me baby.
“Just put the pen in my mouth.”
Monty took the pen between his teeth and closed his eyes, humming mystically and pretending to strain. Expert flourishes of facial muscle scribbled out his prediction: the queen of hearts. It really didn’t matter what he wrote in all honesty, it could have been any of them. What mattered is what came next. He let the pen fall from his mouth with an exhausted sigh.
“There,” Monty huffed, “now fold it up, keep it in your chest pocket.”
“Why?”
“So you know I’m not screwing with you Sterling. There’s no tricks, no sleight of hand, it’s real,” he panted, hair obscuring his face as his head hung forwards. He peeked through his locks at the officer, gingerly folding the paper and tucking it into his shirt pocket, awaiting the next step. I am so good. On with the show.
“Hoo, ok, lemme catch my breath,” he sighed, leaning back. “Alright, you want proof? Here we go. Pick two cards for me.”
Sterling hesitated, carefully considering his three options. He laid his hand down on two of them. The ace of spades and the queen of hearts.
“These two.”
“Okay, then we’ll just rule out of the two of diamonds. Put it back in the deck.”
Sterling slid the two selected cards forwards and put the two of diamonds back into the deck.
“Now take both the cards you picked. Look in your heart, and give me one of them.”
Yet another long hesitation. Again, it didn’t matter what Sterling would pick. After all, Monty was essentially picking for him. If he’d picked two cards that weren’t the queen, he would have just ruled those out. No matter what he does now, Monty can make it seem like it was Sterling’s decision all along, to pick the card he keeps or pick the one he gives away. Sterling held out the queen of hearts.
“You pick the queen of hearts?”
“Yes.”
“Go ahead, check the prediction.”
Sterling pulled the paper from his pocket, and his face paled at the result. Monty almost felt sorry for him. He knew some 13 year olds who could figure out how the trick worked.
“It… I… oh my stars. It explains so much.”
“Like I said, it’s my best kept secret,” Monty beamed. The act now drew to a close. He slotted the pick into the keyway.
“I knew it! I knew there was something incredible about you Monty. Something that put you above the rest of the trash I see every day.”
“I know, I know, I’m incredible. But Sterling baby, before you go buying me dinner and drinks, I do have one thing left to ask of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Did they ever tell you at the Academy that you shouldn’t put a psion in digicuffs?”
“Wh-”
Before the electrical signal that relayed Sterling’s horrible realization could make it to his prefrontal cortex, Monty jammed the pick into the circuit pin and blew the cuffs open in a blast of noxious smoke worthy of a stage show, blowing the playing cards everywhere. Free at last! Exit stage left. Monty scrambled for the cockpit of the freighter as Officer Sterling choked on the cloying mist of electron dust, pulling the radio from the dash.
“Blue Wanderer, this is Trinity Montana, just calling to say that I’ve got 10,000 tons of plastic explosives on board and I’m headed straight for Megasat B! Please send every single Federation squadron fighter available to intercept me. Au revoir!”
He loaded himself into the jumpseat of the cockpit and buckled up for an emergency eject. Through the descending glass of the escape pod, he saw Sterling, tears streaming down his rage-crazed visage, incoherently bellowing. Monty gave him a little wave.
“I’ll let you leave me a tip next time!”
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