The Phillip Side

Although she was a difficult person to make an exact read on, from what Sylvester could tell, Needles was an interesting character, but, aside from her eccentricities, was otherwise harmless enough at least when it came to him and his brother Mikey. Given the circumstances, that was about all Syl could bring himself to ask for.

For all the Myro Construction Agency’s faults, of which there were very, very many, its badness helped to instill a sense of camaraderie among the workers.

However, despite the worker’s unity, there was still the ever-present factor of managerial overreach, making certain the abuse they received tended to outweigh any bonds they made. Every worker, therefore, could say they had it bad in Myro, which made it difficult to fault a person who had managed to be elevated to the prestigious (by Myro’s standards / mediocre by normal people standards) position. All the same, it wasn’t uncommon for a Myro manager to forget where they came from.

Needles, for what little luck he had left, was an anomaly by all definitions of the phrase. She had a kind heart with a dash of eccentricity, and, for the most part, she never took the easy way out or stepped on anyone else’s toes to get ahead.

Sylvester was her exception to the rule, it seemed. In spite of how unhappy it made him, Syl didn’t put up a fuss when they had him and Mikey bunked into separate rooms. The explanation they were provided was that they were a security risk because of Jack’s supposed criminal activity, but Needles later revealed that was a load of b.s. (b.s. meaning bleck sol, it is apparently a type of slimy substance that grows on the planet Tero), and that she herself had seen to it that Syl was relocated because she needed his help.

Sitting on his side of their shared room, his bare feet dangling from a small cot, he watched Needles as she paced in a circle in a state of deep concentration.

“You keep walking like that, there will be a circle imprint on the floor when you leave,” Syl said in jest, breaking  a silence that had persisted too long for any sane person’s comfort.

“And you and your brothers will, for some strange reason, go there to have a cookout, get abducted, and have your lives ruined all over again,” Needles replied, stopping in mid stride to offer a sly wink and a smirk for his troubles.

“You know, that is a lot of sass for someone I’m helping build a rocket ship. Do you know the amount of distress I have gone through? The amount of trouble I could have gotten into?”

“Again, as I have told you an infinite number of times now.” Needles took a deep breath and stopped pacing for a moment. “I am not building a rocket ship. Also, keep your voice down about that. I don’t need to remind you what happens to people who are caught stealing the wrong thing on the wrong day, but would you like me to tell you what happens to people who flat out plan to steal one of Myro’s ships?” Her tone revealed just how much Sylvester didn’t need a demonstration—the punishment was written, quite literally, on posters all around the shops.

“You don’t think I understand how serious this is?” Sylvester tried to show how serious he took this with his own tone. “Tell me, how long does a person usually last out in Duggins? A year?”

“If that,” Needles said, no longer making comments in jest. “But, like I told you, we’ll save your brother.”

“Yeah, when?” Syl fired back. “Day after day you have me doing odd, little jobs, gathering up bolts and screws like I am a vacuum cleaner.”

“What’s a vacuum cleaner?” Needles asked with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s an, … it’s, uh, my planet thing, you would love it though, it also sucks.”

“Always a charmer,” Needles replied, showing no signs of actually being charmed. “Anyways, those nuts and bolts I had you collect were important. It is like drugs on Planet Dohaun, you don’t get caught with more than an ounce of the good stuff or you are locked up for five years. Instead, you only take a little bit. Not too much. I mean, by all means, get your money’s worth, but, this way, if you get caught, you only stand to face a misdemeanor.”

Syl held a straight face, “My Mom said drugs were bad.”

“They were bad. But, with the most recent patch, they’re pretty awesome,” Needles said.

“So, what else do you need?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing!?” Syl said, hopping out of his bed with an extra pep in his step. “Then, why didn’t you say so?”

“Because now comes the difficult part.”

Sly nodded, knowingly. “Convincing Mikey.”

“What? No, … just tell him to grow a pair. That’s easy peasy. No, no, the hard part will be making it all happen.”

“It isn’t that simple for Mikey.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Needles waved him off, turning back to begin pacing again.

“I’m serious.” Syl scrambled to prevent her from beginning that nauseating spinning again. “When Mikey became sick a little while back, Jack Risked it all to come to his aid with the proper medicine, and he paid the price dearly. Mikey has never forgiven himself for that. He thinks it’s his fault.”

“Well then, he should be ecstatic! When you come to him with this news, he will know you are both one step closer to rescuing your brother from Duggins!” Needles stopped again, scratching at the bottom of her chin instead.

“Mikey cried for weeks after Jack was taken.” Syl said, then added, “Mikey doesn’t cry like that. Not anymore.”

“You know, at orphanages, babies don’t cry as much. They realize that their parents are never coming to cheer them up.” Needles added a nonchalant shrug as if that was something that was just a thing and not anything to protest about.

“That’s horrible.” Syl couldn’t manage to keep the emotion from his own voice.

“Yes, but what a peaceful orphanage,” Needles said, a play between a sarcastic and true smile painted across her cheeks.

Sometimes Syl wondered how much of the mental stuff she did was for play and how much was because of the brain rot caused by the constant smell of gas and chemicals in this place.

2.

Needles may have been right to say talking to Mikey wasn’t the most difficult part of the challenges to come, but that didn’t make it easy in the least.

When the boys were abducted, everything all suddenly and drastically started to change for them at once. Beyond the obvious, they went from being a middle-class family of rabbits in a suburban town, to what was little more than slaves in window-dressing, but there was more to it than that.

They had to adapt to their new surroundings by modifying who they were, and quickly. They were forced to toughen up and lock away their emotions, tossing the key down the deepest proverbial well they could find.

When Jack was taken, the key magically floated back to the surface causing the floodgates to open. If, before, they had spent their time walking on eggshells, that was nothing compared to how vigilant Mikey had since become. His daunted demeanor always matched his haunted expression. Which made sense – after all, in Mikey’s mind, he had just turned his own brother into a ghost.

“You could have gotten yourself sent to Duggins!” Mikey yelled, throwing a wrench at him.

Syl ducked beneath it, letting the tool fly over his head and land in the dirt.

“I could have, but I didn’t,” Syl said. “Don’t you want to save Jack?”

That was stupid. Syl knew it was a hair brained comment from the very second he heard the words escape from his lips, but no matter how hard he worked the imaginary fishing pole hanging over his bottom lip, there was no reeling them back in.

“Of course, I want to save Jack! But I also want to protect you!”

“But it isn’t only about protecting me, Mikey. We are all we have, and we have to protect each other.”

“I get that, but, …,” Mikey stuttered, struggling to find the words.

“And, as scared as we both may be, Jack needs us badly right now. We have each other in here, but he is out there all alone. I don’t know about you, but I think I am willing to risk being sent to Duggins if it means all three of us can get out of here.”

“Then, we can try to find Ex’Fi again, to see Mom and Dad again.” Mikey almost looked hopeful.

Syl smiled, relieved that something finally landed to make Mikey see his point of view. “Yeah. Yeah, we can.”

“Just us three, no more Myro Construction Agency.”

“Us three,” Syl nodded. “Us three,” Syl hesitated, then, whispered, “and Needles.”

“Needles!?” Mikey exclaimed, beaming at Syl with a wide-eyed expression.

“She is the brains of the whole operation. You didn’t think I came up with this all by myself, did you?”

“Well, obviously not, but, …”

“Excuse me, but … obviously not!?”

“Sorry.” Mikey managed to look like the most sheepish form of a rabbit possible.

“I am just saying, Needles is a manager, Syl. She has seniority over us, how do you know she isn’t playing you? Snooping you out. Like those drug catchers we used to see Dad watch on TV,” Mikey explained.

“What is with you people and drug analogies?”

Mikey ignored him, not in the loop and not wanting to be. “What if she is playing you,” he continued, his tone becoming more certain. “Seeing if you will betray Myro so that she can serve you up on a silver platter to the higher ups. Like, oh ho, look at these scallywags I’ve caught trying to escape?”

“Scallywag? What is she, a pirate now? What happened to the drug catcher analogy from earlier?”

“How do you know we can trust her?” Mikey’s voice was at a crescendo now.

“I just know.” Syl shot back, finding more passion about this than he realized he held.

“How?”

“Because she has seen a world other than this one.” Syl lowered his voice, knowing he was more convincing if he kept his cool. “She isn’t like everyone else. She wasn’t brought up in this,” Syl said, pointing at the entirety of Myros Construction. “She is like us. She had a family and friends, and she had people she cared about. She knows something other than this, and that allows her to never completely satiate, that allows her to be as miserable as we are.”

“Lucky her.” Mikey’s expression of hope had faded completely to the despair it had harbored since Jack was caught.

“You’re damn right, lucky her. She has what we have,” Syl punched his fist into his palm, “which is the gall to fight against this, to find the bright side in the pitch black of space.”

Mikey looked up at him, biting his lip. His eyes slipped from Syl’s and darted around, checking at their surroundings, and although Syl couldn’t know what he was thinking, he imagined Mikey had to be reflecting on what stood to happen if they did nothing. How one year had gone to two years, and how two years had gone to six.”

“So, what do we have to do?”

3.

For two thirds of the trios, what they had to do was very simple. Since Needles was a manager, as long as she didn’t step on the toes of others with the same seniority, she was free to cherry pick whichever job she wanted to partake in. That meant it wasn’t a problem when it came to setting up a job on a meteor in the orbit of Planet Renfro with herself and Syl. The third part of the trio, however, had their work cut out for them.

Mikey sighed. Why did he have to be the third part of the trio?

In Myros Construction, it was a written and enforced rule that no more than two employees are topartake in a single job. Three was a crowd, Mikey supposed. Three minds were also more minds than Myro had any interest in keeping track of.

Mikey fidgeted with his hands nervously. As much as he may have disagreed with Sylvester’s tactic, he couldn’t hold it against him for not including him early on. After all, he was the reason Jack was sent to Duggins. He was the very reason his oldest brother could very well die or could already be dead. He was weak and useless, and had he not been, he would not have become sick in the first place. For that reason, Mikey understood. He was the carry-on luggage for Syl and his new friend Needles. That meant it was on him to earn his way in, or at least, that was what he told himself.

Thankfully for him, Syl wasn’t the only person that kept things to himself. Mikey had made his own efforts to change their way of living in Myros Construction. His plan, however, had been with Commissary.

Mikey smiled, looking at the generous, burly dog as he yammered on and on. The husky Husky had taken to Mikey. This must had been the third or fourth time he had sought out repairs from Myros Construction.

“Where is your brother Syl at, huh? Oh, I love Syl, both of you are the nicest repair men,” The husky exclaimed.

The animal had a kindness to him that was almost infectious, and even on the worst of days, Mikey looked at the kinder customers as a small sliver of light in the dark, dark world of being a mechanic.

“They have been separating us a lot more lately. I don’t know why,” Mikey said.

“I see, see. Well, that’s okay. I like your friend Brandon here as well.”

Brandon was a meerkat who had been with Myros Construction for more than a few years now. He had been considered a seasoned employee back when Mikey, Sylvester, and Jack showed up, but even with the considerable head start he had, he was still toward the bottom of the food chain. His voice, from what Mikey could tell, was laziness and a general disregard for his own well being.”

“How’s it hanging, Phil?” Brandon asked, offering him a small wave for his troubles, a gesture that the husky took in stride. “So, the issue with your spaceship is that its schwing-schwang has swung its last schwung. It’s a good thing you called us, chico.”

What Brandon said was nothing more than gibberish. He wasn’t much of what anyone would mistake for a mechanic, and was more often suited toward other odd jobs like window washing or swatting a big bug, and, even then, the windows would have streaks and the bug would limp onward. Mikey had tended to Phil’s ship by himself, a trade Mikey had a knack for. If being sold to the Myros Construction Agency had any positive trade offs at all, it was all the newfound knowledge he had to thank it for.

Hopefully, one day he would even get to use it in a way he wanted.

“Always trust the guys at Myros,” Phil replied, offering an over-the-top applause for Brandon and Mikey’s aid. “And Mikey, I know you always say no, but …,” Phil began, waving around a few Papers in his hand.

Mikey waved him off, “I couldn’t accept that, but I appreciate the offer, really. You’re too kind.”

Truth was, he, in fact, couldn’t accept it, even if he wanted to. Myros Construction forbade its employees from accepting any form of direct payment from its customers. Instead, payments were made electronically, keeping all money out of the hands of its workers.

Phil nodded graciously.

“Speak for yourself,” Brandon said in jest, reaching and taking the Papers out of Phil’s hand. “Catch you on the flip side, Phillip.” The way Brandon pronounced ‘flip’ and “Phillip” was indistinguishable in that moment.

As they left Phil behind, Mikey leaned in toward Brandon, “Are you crazy? Do you want to be sent to Duggins?”

“Kid, I have been at Myros for over a decade now. They are not sending me to Duggins for taking a few Papers, just chill.”

“How do you know? They sent my brother to Duggins for stealing a few measly antibiotics.”

“They had a stray hair up their asses for your brother. I don’t know what to tell you about that. Normally, they make the threat and let you off with a warning, rinse and repeat. I have been caught more than a few times now.”

Mikey sighed, considering Brandon’s words. Then, Brandon stopped, offering him a knowing look. He reached down into the pocket of his leggings and grabbed out a single one of the Papers and handed it to Mikey. “Take a walk on the wild side for once in your life, kid.”

Mikey reached for it, and then, hesitated. “Even if I did take it, it isn’t like I could spend it. Anyone at Commissary would know I don’t have any money. Only Managers get allowances.”

Brandon put his paw to his nose as if to say, “Bingo!”

Mikey’s repair jobs with Brandon had educated him in new ways. The more he started getting to know Brandon, the more he started to understand him. What he once thought of as sleazy or mischievous, he now appreciated the true reality of. Brandon may have broken the rules, but they were rules that he never agreed to. What reason, other than fear, was there to abide guidelines posed by ones’ captors?

As mad as Mikey wanted to be at Sylvester for befriending Needles and being proactive in their escape, he couldn’t be that angry about it. He had been proactive himself, and he, too, had kept quiet about it. It had been nearly a month since Jack had been taken and sent away, and as much as Mikey’s own depression wanted him to be stagnant and on the straight and narrow, he knew he couldn’t be. Every job after that fateful day with the husky that Mikey had with Brandon, he took gifts and tips, and sometimes did more than that. Brandon may have acted the fool, but he wasn’t a dunce. In fact, he was brilliant.

“Oh, yes, our mechanic services also come with a free waxing, completely complimentary, only twenty-five Papers,” Brandon would reply, pointing to the sign that clearly stated the services were double that on a normal basis.

“But I thought you said it was complimentary?” A customer would scoff.

“Yes, so compliment it by giving me twenty-five Papers.”

Every small work-oriented spaceship Myros Construction provided was a one-size-fits-all, so to speak. Inside, the spaceships were all equipped for washing all sorts of air crafts, mechanical repair, and even low-grade plasma rifles for exterminating bugs the customers didn’t want to concern themselves with. That meant there was room for some extra curricular services—as long as one was willing to take some risks. The best part, it all came at no one’s expense but the customers.

Every Paper Mikey obtained, he hid away—stuffing it beneath the ever lumpier mattress of his cot.

Where the fun part came in was planning on how to spend it all. To Myros Construction, the money was considered ill-gotten contraband, and thereby, it would be confiscated should he try to use it openly.

That meant it would not be a valid means for him to pay off he or his brothers’ accrued debt.

It was a bummer, but, with a little creativity, he knew there were ways it could be used to help them. He knew how, but he didn’t know by what means, at least until now.

***

Needles nodded her head at the man upfront in Commissary, offering a small smile as she left with all the food she could carry.

***

What came next required some maneuvering, and it required coincidence … and a little bit of luck. The former of which the brothers had tons of (they visited a crop circle the exact night an alien spaceship landed, but the latter, they ran low on (they visited a crop circle the exact night an alien spaceship landed).

Mikey stepped forward in line to take his turn and quickly made an innocuous purchase.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Mikey replied, taking his items and bowing his head, adding in a smile that clearly came as an afterthought to the two tending employees.

Mikey and Brandon departed, and made their way to the shuttle that would bring them to a planet named Jazming. Across from them, in a separate shuttle, Sylvester bowed his head, scrunching in next to Needles — they would just so happen to be headed there as well.

As their shuttle shot off, Mikey tried to make sense of the many emotions overcoming him. As the blackness of space enshrouded them, leaving little beyond blank nothingness to entertain them on their voyage, he suddenly felt conflicted. He wasn’t sad to leave Myros Construction Agency behind. It was an adult place, after all. And yet, he felt … sad. The life he left behind on Ex’Fi was a life he took for granted, and although it had been a mostly horrible, sad and all around bad experience, he had had a new life on Myros – would he look back at it later as a life he took for granted? He hoped not.

4.

For a reason Mikey wasn’t entirely clear on, when they landed on Planet Jazming, they went through the motions of completing the job they were assigned to do.

“What’s the point of this? “ Mikey asked, mulling any logical line of reasoning and finding none. “This is just wasting time, if anything. Are you just wanting one last hoorah for the job we both love so much?”

Brandon smiled, flaring his eyebrows, “What else do we have to do? Some guys need our help and we know how to help them. Do you have a better way to spend our time, waiting for your brother?”

Mikey nodded at him, “Fair enough. We can help them.”

All was business as usual for the remainder of the job. Mikey finagled around with the schwing schwangs, meanwhile, Brandon sold the customers a coat of wax, complimentary (Brandon’s version of what complimentary meant, of course). As the customers’ left them aside, Mikey smiled at a job well done. The last job well done he would ever have to do for Myros – if the gods smiled on their fortune.

Mikey waited until the customers were out of ear shot, then caught Brandon in his gaze.

“So, what’s the first thing you plan to do?”

Brandon looked back at him and laughed, “I can’t say I follow.”

Mikey glared at Brandon’s feigned attempt at naivety. “I mean, after this, you won’t ever have to do this again. You will be free, once and forever. You can do whatever you want, the whole galaxy is your oyster,” Mikey could feel his own excitement get the better of him.

“Oh, that,” Brandon said, nodding his head knowingly. “Yeah, I’m not doing any of that.”

“What do you mean, you’re not doing that!?” Mikey said, stopping dead in his tracks.

“This is you, man. You want to do right by your brothers, and I tell you, man, I respect that. Me though, I’m heading back to Myros.”

“Why would you want to go back to a company that treats you as a slave?”

Brandon smiled weakly. There was something different to this smile than Brandon’s other smiles. Mikey couldn’t exactly place what it was though. The shine in his eyes was different. This smile wasn’t sincere – this smile was forced.

“Since I have met you, you have told me a thing or two about Ex’Fi, and your life and your family.” Brandon slowed down, keeping them behind other crews returning from separate jobs. “You told me about all the things you miss about it.”

“Yeah, and when Syl flies over with the ship, all of us, we will fly over to Duggins, shoot around some plasma rifles, bust out my brother Jack,“ Mikey heard the word aloud and thought it sounded crazy, but he kept his resolve. “And all of us will be able to come to Ex’Fi. You should meet my Dad, he would love you!” Mikey said.

In truth though, it was unlikely their Dad would like him. “If it wasn’t for the blasted hippies in this country, your mom could get away with being a stay at home mom! And, you know what!? I could have gotten away with running a coffee shop for a living also. I could have made bank at running a coffee shop too. I could have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for those meddling hippies, and that stupid dog!” Mikey could hear the words as clearly as if they had been said to him today.

If Mikey’s father had met Brandon, he would certainly classify him somewhere in the hippie category.

“I bet he would, I bet he would,” Brandon said with a small chuckle. “I envy you a lot, you know. Make no mistake, you were handed a raw deal when those smugglers took you. Selfish people doing selfish people things. At the same time … Brandon seemed to lose himself in a faraway place for a moment, then started again, “when I hear you talk about your parents, about the life you had, and what was taken from you, I am envious because you had something to have taken away from you. That means you have something to fight for and take back. Your hope doesn’t just save your life, it gives you the foundation of a life worth saving.”

Mikey remained quiet, but Brandon’s final words hit him like a ton of bricks.

“If you look around you. This is the most I have ever had.” Brandon waved a hand lazily before him and sighed. “I wasn’t kidnapped or sold into Myros Construction, Mikey. I volunteered to be here. I chose this life.”

“Why … why would you choose to be at Myros Construction?” The question made Mikey’s fur crawl. “With everything that is out there, why would you choose this?”

“Because not everything that is out there is good.” Brandon started walking at a normal pace again, hoping to avoid any stares they might be getting from other crews. “At Myros Construction, I am eating okay food, being offered room and board, and doing labor that will most likely get me killed one day, but, outside of Myros Construction, I am not eating food, I am not being offered room and board, and I am begging people to do the labor that will most likely get me killed.”

“Why not start your own business then? Or, or, …,” Mikey struggled to find the words. “Go to a planet that has a better ecosystem, like Ex’Fi? Other than a Doberman that everyone hates, it’s pretty good!”

“I will be straight with you, even finding Ex’Fi will be difficult for you. Think about it. From what you told me, you guys had ‘alien stories,’ you had conspiracies about little green men that probed your peoples’ backsides for some reason.” Brandon slipped in a small chuckle. “That means your home planet is uncharted. It hasn’t been indoctrinated yet. Normally, that happens shortly after they discover space-travel.”

“The swindlers who took us discovered Ex’Fi, that means it can be discovered again,” Mikey said, putting up a front of confidence that he didn’t particularly have inside him.

“That it does, my friend.” “ Brandon said, trying his best to sound encouraging, Mikey thought. “At the same time though, the galaxy is a big, enormous, and never ending place. You are smarter than me, so I know you know that and more. Those smugglers likely saw Ex’Fi as little more than a place to mine for resources. They thought nothing of it, just a big floating orb in a much, much bigger black room.”

“We will find it again.” Mikey said those words with a sense of defiance for the odds.

Brandon nodded back at him. “I know you will. You are a smart kid, Mikey. And, if you and your brothers stay determined, I don’t believe there is any obstacle too great to stop you. For me though, I don’t know about that. I think I am better off here at Myros. I have known out there before and I know in here, and I choose in here.”

“But it can always be better. “Mikey wasn’t ready to just give up on Brandon. “Are you really going to stay with a life where you are not in control because you are afraid to take the reins?”

“You know, kid. As I got older, I realized something – there are bad things out there,“ Brandon glanced over, seemingly deciding to let out something he had held in for some time, “and I am afraid.

“There are good things out there too. Great ones, even.” Mikey had no evidence of that, but with the vast scope of the universe, he had to be right.

“And I am happy to let them simply come to me.” Brandon said, walking toward the shuttle. He smiled again, reaching down and retrieving a box that had been tucked away underneath their seat.

“I prepared a care package for you,” Brandon said, this time his smile seemed to be sincere. “It has about everything you will need, I would say. Some Papers, got you a small, little plasma shooter. Pew pew!” Brandon feigned aiming the small gun at Mikey for reference. “Give Sylvester and Needles my best when you see them!”

Mikey looked down at the box and could feel his eyes begin to sting as they became watery. There was no convincing him. He looked back up at Brandon – now it was his turn to offer him that special, pretend smile, one complimented by the wet, gleam in his eyes.

“Thanks, Brandon.”