Every Jank Needs a Junkie
Every Jank needs a Junkie. That was the first rule, and if any crew wanted to get out with their souls intact and their ship full of loot, it was to be treated as sacred doctrine. This rule was why I was here, shivering from my various withdrawals and desperate to get started. The four of us lounged around the circular, tattered couch bordering the small pit that sank a few feet into the floor of the main living space. Our legs were up and resting on the cushion in the center, almost equidistant from one another like we were posing for some holo-photographer. Truth be told, we were lucky that this archaic hulk, welded together from junk metal and scrap, could even hold pressure and keep us alive in vacuum, let alone have a comfortable pit for us to relax in. It of course had to be ugly on the outside, that was kind of the point, but no one said it had to be drab and uncomfortable on the inside. Some Janks took the roleplaying way too seriously. We did not.
They initially found me in a rundown watering hole located in a rapidly decaying town, one so rusted through that it had long ago discarded its name and identity, almost as if its residents were ashamed of its mere existence. These days, folks just referred to it as ‘Rustville’. Most of the prior residents with a few spare credits and any amount of self respect had abandoned the vile place in favor of one of the domed cities that recently sprung up on the planet. My kind, the Junkies, were blamed for the state of things around here. They viewed us as a homeowner might view a rodent infestation that had gone on long enough so as to be unstoppable, uncontrollable. I can’t say I disagreed with that sentiment.
I was sitting at the bar top (seemingly the only seat in the bar free of sludge or rainwater), deep in my cups and deeper in my withdrawals, when a large man and a woman with a look of disgust on her face strode in and took a seat on either side of me. Far too focused on the sickening task of swapping out one poison for another, I took no notice of either. I hoped in that moment to shed the shakes of a particular variety of smack I could no longer afford and replace them with the intoxication of moonshine, at least temporarily, before the absence of the smack made me sicker than sick. The man cleared his throat, loudly enough to break through the mental barrier that protected me from distraction.
“Howdy,” he said while nursing his own glass of shine that the bartender silently slid in front of him.
“Piss off friend,” was the only reply that I could manage. I had no strength or patience to spare for small talk with a stranger.
“Not yet. Hear me out and I’ll cover your tab.”
The stranger had said unexpected, magical words. I decided instantly that I would listen, if only for a moment.
“I’ll hear you then, and say thank you at that. What’s your business? Your clothes are far too clean for you to be a local.”
“Right indeed. We aren’t from here. We’re Spacers, so no planet is home to us, especially not this heap. I’m Fixer, and the gal staring daggers at you is Tech. We came to this planet, to this bar specifically, because a source of ours, a friend of yours in fact, told us you’d be here.”
“Gonna kill Randall,” I muttered. “I take it you have some illicit adventures upcoming, and you wish to employ my services?”
“That’s about the gist of it, yeah. You come highly recommended.”
Tech let out a laugh with a sneer drawn across her features.
“Got a problem then, love?” I inquired of her.
“She isn’t fond of junkies. She’s a professional though, I can assure you.”
“Sure she is. Well, I do so hate to have wasted your time and drinking money, but I won’t touch the junk of jobs like that again. I almost died trying to kick Scripted Light last time, and not the fun kind of death. No, no it would have been the dead-as-dead-can-be kind of death.”
“We were told as much by Randall, but our offer should interest you. We have roughly one hundred doses, and they’re yours for the duration of your employment. You can use them at your leisure as long as we have enough for this and future jobs, and as long as you don’t use them to screw us in any way.”
“Sounds nice, but one hundred is a very finite quantity, friend. What happens when you run dry? Toss me out the airlock before I go mad from withdrawals?”
“If only. I’d be happy to do it,” the woman to my left said, not smiling. I could tell she wasn’t joking.
“We’ll get more,” the large man said, ignoring her. “No running dry. Use it whenever you want and we’ll get more when we need to.”
“You must really need a Junkie to waste such rarities on pleasure. You know how expensive it’s become? The labs that invented the stuff stopped production when it leaked into the market.”
“Aye, we know, but we have a deal worked out with a supplier. It shouldn’t be any trouble to acquire new stock.”
I tossed back my moonshine in one long gulp, felt the burning, spit flavored booze set my throat and stomach ablaze.
“Fine,” I said, slamming my empty glass on the counter. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as you collect your belongings.”
“Don’t have none,” I replied, wobbling drunkenly off of the barstool. “Shall we?”
After a short walk to the nearby launch pads, we boarded their drop ship and took it up into orbit, none of us sparing a last glance towards the planet that would surely be as ugly from up above as it was on the ground, perhaps even uglier. Their passenger vessel was parked in low orbit and waiting for us while it spun around the Junkie planet in a silent, silvery promenade.
“She’s called The Trespass,” Fixer told me as the autopilot flew us in.
“A little on the nose isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. Ain’t the job boat though, so it doesn’t matter much.”
“It isn’t? You’ve got two ships?”
“Hard to call the other one a ship in the shape we leave her in, but yes, two ships.”
“Wait,” I said as we walked out of the drop ship and into the cramped hangar of The Trespass. “You have a second ship that you intentionally leave in rough shape? What kind of job is this?”
I had been too drunk and too eager to get my hands on the substance they dangled in front of me like a carrot to ask about the job before we departed. I was in it now, regardless of what they had planned, though with two ships, I had already made a sound guess.
“Standard ‘Hook and Board’, nothing too wild.”
“Even a trash Junkie like you can handle a ‘Hook’ right?” Tech kindly chimed in.
“Done ‘em before,” I said, concealing my anger. I hated ‘Hook and Board’ jobs more than anything. They were risky, even with a Junkie on board. “Aren’t you worried about Hunters?”
Hunters did as their name implied, and Janks, the crews of ne’er-do-wells that raised the crime statistics wherever they went, were their prey. They were mercenaries that existed in the moral grey area of vigilante justice that looked for Janks like ours, captured them or just blasted them, looted their ships, then fenced the goods. They were paid well for taking us out, paid a bit more for taking us alive, but the best money they made was from the looting. The one piece of good news in regards to Hunters was that they didn’t hire Junkies on account of their own set of moral principles, and Junkies avoided them entirely, not particularly fond of the fact that Hunters killed off their potential employers.
“We always run the risk of hooking us a shark, but do your job right and it won’t matter.”
We walked into the main hall of the ship and were silently greeted by a giant of a man, bald and bulky with a rough brown beard hanging down to his chest.
“This is Goon, our gunner. He’s one of the better ones I’ve worked with. Don’t expect much conversation out of him, though.”
Goon had a deep scar across his throat, likely from some job he had taken on before this Jank had formed, and was entirely mute because of that nearly fatal injury. Fixer had discovered that he wasn’t good for much more than the necessary violence our thievery called for, but he performed his job relentlessly and admirably each time and for that, we were grateful.
Goon nodded and walked off to a room on the right, presumably his quarters.
“We’ll rest now, and upon waking we’ll head to the derelict hunk of junk we’ll be flying for this job,” Fixer told us all. “Any questions?”
“I’ve got one,” Tech said. “When do I get to push the Junkie out of the airlock?”
Fixer’s laugh was full of mirth and while Goon couldn’t laugh, a wide smile appeared on his face. I just stood there, not knowing if I should be worried or not.
“Junkie, you’re sleeping in the storage room, second left. We put a cot and blanket on the floor. Rest well.”
We slept for roughly eight standard hours before we took the drop ship to the vessel we would use to entrap an unlucky hauler. I didn’t dream during those eight hours. I never did.
———
“Right then,” Fixer said, standing from the couch in the pit and stretching in his exaggerated way, making his muscles bulge as if he were some jungle cat, waking from sleep and ready to hunt. “You ready, Junkie?”
All eyes were on me. The ritual had begun with those words our de facto leader had spoken. According to him, the first words spoken always had to be the same. It was a superstition he held, that carefully uttering those words would keep a Junkie from messing up.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” I said, trying to hide the eager quivering in my voice. Tech undid the clasps on the leather pack that rested in her lap and opened it up, then lifted the injector from its foam padding and handed it over to me with a glare full of the substantial contempt and disgust she felt towards me.
The clear tube that held my beloved Scripted Light was already loaded into the device that in a few moments would pump my body full of that beautiful wonder drug, and I began to salivate as the flickering bulbs hanging from the ceiling shone their luminescence through the murky, bluish fluid that had a consistency almost identical to that of blood. Her feelings towards me and my kind were to be expected and were widely shared amongst the professional thieves that made up our community of degenerates. I was the necessary filth that each Jank needed. A Junkie’s primary job was to take the drug that was far too addictive and painful for most to even try, and to tell the Jank what they saw while on their trip. Scripted Light was the stuff of wonders or nightmares depending on who you asked; a drug truly unique in every way possible. A trip typically lasted a few hours from a Junkie’s point of view. You shot it, lived life as if everything were normal, then, as the dose wore off, time grabbed you by the shirt collar and pulled you back to when you first injected. From the rest of the Jank’s point of view, the Junkie injected the Scripted Light, writhed in their seat, suffering what looked like more pain than any one person could tolerate, then sat for a few minutes more, eyes glazed over. That was it.
Once a Junkie had even just a single trip, getting off the stuff was existential torment, the withdrawals far more psychological than physical. As long as a Junkie had their supply, they could shoot up and live for a little while, then immediately live those moments again, changing anything they had seen during their trip. The other high though, the more grim half of the pie, was getting to embrace the feeling of our own deaths before things all went back to before and began again. Death on Scripted Light was almost an addiction all its own. It made sense in a morbid sort of way, at least it did to a Junkie. After all, why wouldn’t someone want to know what it was like to feel the death of the blessed self without facing the consequences and having to face that permanent descent into the eternal void beyond? Who wouldn’t want to cheat Father Death of his most recently acquired bounty, to give that old bag of bones the finger, to feel that rush of Junkie immortality?
“Show some appreciation, Tech,” I said, giving the words with an intentionally crooked smile that I hoped would haunt her for multiple nights to come. “I’m the one who watches your back, after all.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. Just get it done.”
Fixer and Goon looked on in anticipation, ready to get started.
“Right,” I said as I put the business end of the injector firmly into the side of my neck and pulled the trigger without hesitation. The shot of Scripted Light stung at first, then set my whole body on fire with more pain than one might experience in a lifetime, filling me through with what would hopefully amount to a few hours of glorious life and foresight after my entire being felt like it was being torn to pieces and set ablaze by some horrific, torturous deity or devil. My vision left me for three or four minutes, then all pain was gone and I was back, everything feeling normal again.
“Time to get to work,” Fixer said right after my pain ended. “Junkie, tell me now. First? Or second?”
Another vital rule to follow in this line of work was to check with the Junkie to see if the Jank was currently operating inside of a Scripted Light trip or in what amounted to the real, permanent timeline. Knowing told them whether this was an exploratory mission we could be a bit reckless in, or if the Junkie had already taken their trip and had information on what transpired over the course of the next few minutes or hours.
“First,” I said.
“Good. Tech, I want you to jettison the scrap we have in our bay and use the cargo arm to gather it all up and position it just in front of the gouge. Make it look like a real nasty accident. Once done, trigger the SOS, medium range. Should be enough to get some bites before long.”
Tech stood and moved swiftly to her console to begin laying the bait. They had fashioned a very convincing looking tear in the side of this ship, ripping clean through to the other side. The idea was to look weak, disabled, in need of urgent rescue. We had left The Trespass a few thousand kilometers away. This banged up thing was just the decoy.
“Goon, Junkie, have your flechettes loaded and ready. Safeties off. As soon as they dock and open the hatch, start shooting. Get in there once the boarding party has been taken care of and dispatch with the rest of the crew. And remember, don’t even think about looting until we’re alone. Not a single credit. Focus on the task at hand. Clear?”
We nodded, pulled our sidearms from their holsters and set them in our laps, safeties off and ready to perform the dirtiest part of the job. This Jank had broken one of the rules of the trade already; never give a Junkie a gun. It was fine though. I’d done this before and with such a small crew, it couldn’t be avoided. Janks always ran jobs with flechettes, which was another rule to follow, this one without exception. The ammunition made quick work of anyone we needed to dispose of, but wasn’t capable of puncturing a hull and getting us all killed from rapid decompression. Fixer had his own pistol out and held it by his side, standing by the hatch and eager for what came next, but Goon and I stayed seated, resting before the show, not knowing how long it would take before someone came to our aid.
Then, we waited. We had set our trap in low orbit to attract the attention of some benevolent cargo vessel that used these shipping lanes to deliver their goods to other planetary ports, but not close enough to alert planetside authorities of our pseudo-emergency and trigger an official rescue that would cut this whole operation short and likely yield some significant prison sentences. We didn’t have to wait long, however. Not quite an hour after the signal went out, a Mid-Class vessel hailed us on the radio. Sometimes I had to dose up twice depending on how long it took to hook a ship and reel it in, but this time things were quick, and I was thankful. Two of those injections so close together was almost too much pain for even the most experienced Junkie to have to go through.
“Calling out to the SOS, this is Hauler 7152, please respond if you’re still alive in there. I repeat, calling out to the SOS, please respond if you can.”
“We’re here Hauler,” Tech said. “Our life support is down and we’re almost out of air, but we’re hanging on. Thank God you showed up.”
“That’s good to hear. Is this the captain I’m speaking to?”
“No, just a Technician, but the captain and most of the crew are dead. It’s just me and one other.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s get you two out of there before you join them, shall we? Permission to dock?”
“Granted. And thank you Hauler.”
The craft (on the larger side for a Mid-Class) approached and engaged its thrusters to match our ship’s spin, then brought its airlock gently to ours with an efficiency that made it seem like this particular Hauler pilot had done this before. Our ships went through the sealing procedures necessary for a tight lock, then we heard the loud wisps of air that filled the chamber. Goon and I stood from the couch and got into position next to Fixer, weapons held steady and pointed towards the hatch.
“Coming aboard,” the captain of the other ship said as the circular entrance pushed outward towards us. Without hesitating to see who awaited us on the other side, we began firing. The clanks of ricocheting flechettes rang through the hull as our shots hit only the metallic surfaces inside of the airlock. My blood went cold as I realized what was happening.
“They’re Hunters! We’ve been made!” shouted Fixer as riot shields fell forward from the inner sides of the airlock and two of their crew appeared with their own weapons ready. Goon and I dove towards the pit to avoid the spray of deadly needles but Fixer wasn’t fast enough. Hundreds of rounds of the tiny ammunition shot out and filled his bulky chest with metal, and Tech was hit by the shots that got past Fixer’s large frame before she could even turn and react to the unexpected assault. Both fell quickly, dead before they landed with lifeless thuds on the rusty floor panels below us.
The two crew members of the Hauler strode through the hatch, apparently not having seen either Goon or myself. They must have believed Tech when she told them over the radio that there were only two of them on board, even if they didn’t buy the rest of the deception. We stood and returned fire, dropping both of them with ease, then stepped over their bodies and through the airlock. Another of their crew was waiting for us, hiding behind one of their crates of cargo that was left sitting in the main hallway, but we were expecting him. We unloaded the rest of our clips on the poor soul before either of us stopped firing, just to be sure he was down. We took no chances after what had happened to Fixer and Tech.
Goon turned to look at me, eyes wide with panic, and held up one of his hands with a single finger pointed up, then held a second finger up as well, all while mouthing the words ‘First, or second?’ I held up one finger and he sighed with relief. So his friends weren’t dead, not really, and his life wasn’t at risk either. My job was to tell them everything when I was taken back to the time of injection. This was just the dress rehearsal. The show had not yet begun. We reloaded and moved on.
The Hauler was comprised almost entirely of cargo bays, with only a single long hallway stretching to the bridge and a small sleeping chamber at the end. The ceiling was made almost entirely of metal grating, barely concealing the wiring and pipes of the ship, and the walls were painted a sterile, utilitarian grey. Goon smiled at me with both relief and excitement when he saw the inside of the sleeping quarters. Only four bunks and a few personal effects. Three down, one to go. The killing was almost finished, and then we could check the loot before everything reverted and see if we had some valuable plunder to look forward to.
We ran to the bridge and took the steps up into the room, two at a time. The captain was waiting for us in the bridge by the controls to the ship, gun pointed at us as we walked through. We had expected this, but anticipating an ambush versus knowing all details and positions involved in the ambush are two very different things. The shooting began instantly, but as with all shootouts between only a few people and their firearms, it felt like minutes passed but was over in seconds. The three of us were firing, sparks flying everywhere as shots missed and met steel and electronics. Before long, only my gun was firing, my clip not yet empty. When I stopped shooting, I looked down at Goon, dead, his body slumped against the wall by the door next to me. The captain was down too, and while I couldn’t see his body, his boots stuck out from behind the controls and didn’t move. Blood was on the displays behind where he had stood moments ago. I wasn’t sure if it was Goon or I that had landed the killing shot, but he had probably been filled with so many rounds that it didn’t really matter.
I looked at my own self and found that I had taken multiple flechettes to the chest. There were only a few spots of blood soaking through my shirt, but I knew that I was looking at wounds that would prove fatal. Breathing was already becoming a painful affair and I knew that I only had maybe five minutes to live as my left lung started to fill with blood. I wasn’t afraid though, and why should I be? This would all end and begin again as soon as the darkness came, and I would get to feel it all before avoiding it entirely when it almost came to pass the second time. Feeling this intimacy, this closeness, with only a temporary death, was the high only a god might know. I had a job to do though and would have plenty of time later to meditate on the experience.
I moved as quickly as I could to the first cargo bay on the left, and as I stepped inside I was greeted by crates stacked floor to ceiling in long rows. I panicked, knowing I didn’t have the strength to lift any of those containers full of mysterious goods and open them up to see what was inside. The panic subsided, however, when I saw a single crate, sitting on its own by the other entrance to the hold. I knew I was about to die then and that this would be the only crate I could peek inside of before the trip was over. I limped over, pulling in rattling gasps of air as I started to drown in my own blood, and tapped the OPEN command on the touchscreen.
The lid parted in the middle and the lifts underneath brought each half up and to the side of the waist-high crate. Fasteners and welding equipment, tagged for sale, were all that was packed inside. I hit the edge of the crate weakly with my fist. Another job that would probably end in useless junk. We could sell this stuff and get our ship some fuel, could buy food and supplies for a few months while we prepared for another job, but that was all this had amounted to. I reached down and dug around in the hay that covered the cargo to see if there were any valuable, high grade welders that might ease my frustration, but my hand fell upon something else instead, a small black toggle hiding under the pile of junk. My heart began to race excitedly and I was given just enough time to lay eyes on the real cargo as I flipped the switch and a second set of lids lifted and parted, dropping some of the welding supplies to the ground.
Hundreds of vials of Scripted Light and enough credits to retire with sat in the hidden compartment, likely stolen from other Janks the Hunters had gunned down. With this amount of Scripted Light, I would never have to track down another dose of the stuff again. I would never have to take another job for credits to survive on, and Scripted Light to feed my Junkie appetites with, never have to only dream of all of the future luxuries I could never have afforded before. Best of all, I could live anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours of my life twice whenever it pleased me to do so, and live through death as many times as I wanted. I could inject the Scripted Light and dive off of the tallest cliff, pick a firefight with any ship or person I deemed worthy of at least one death, experience whatever rush I decided to pursue at least once with no consequence. I could do what I wanted, then live again, forever. And best of all, I could chase whatever substance sounded wonderful in the moment, then go back without the hangover or physical addiction. It was all I needed. And one crate was enough, even if every other case in the ship contained only junk.
As I fell to the floor, no longer able to stand, I felt the effects of the Scripted Light begin to wear off. No time for the finality of a death on this trip. Well, next time then. My consciousness felt as if it was being tugged on by some invisible hand and before I could blink one final time in that moment, I found myself sitting in the pit with my new Jank, everyone still alive, ready to set the bait and rob whatever ship was unlucky enough to come to our rescue.
“Time to get to work,” Fixer said shortly after I came to. “Junkie, tell me now. First? Or second?”
I stayed silent for a moment, then looked at each of them with the forbidden knowledge of their imminent deaths and the cargo of a lifetime, waiting just a mere hour into the future. I thought of the near unlimited supply of Scripted Light and credits that waited for me, and even a ship to stash it all somewhere safe.
Of all the rules to follow, there was a golden rule that every Jank should follow when embarking on any dangerous jobs, a rule that Fixer, Tech, and Goon had all forgotten. Never, ever trust a Junkie.
“First.”
“Good. Tech, I want you to jettison the scrap we have in our bay and use the cargo arm to gather it all up and position it just in front of the gouge. Make it look like a real nasty accident. Once done, trigger the SOS, medium range. Should be enough to get some bites before long.”
Eric Franklin is the author of several short stories and a full length novel, titled “Secondhand Darkness”, that will hopefully find a publisher in the not-too-distant future. He enjoys writing Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction, but also spends time experimenting with Postmodern prose and story structure (or lack thereof). He is heavily inspired by the works of William Gibson, Thomas Pynchon, and Jeff Vandermeer. Eric lives in Holland, MI with his wife, daughter, and three lovable, hyperactive dogs.