Where's Kevin? I Want to Tell Him I Love Him!

WHERE’S KEVIN?

I want to tell him I love him!

Bob Samedi

Copyright © 2015 by Bob Samedi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/10/2015

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Contents

Chapter 1 Bentham

Chapter 2 To go, boldly

Chapter 3 Houston, we have a problem

Chapter 4 Welcome to the house of fun

Chapter 5 Universal Media Productions

Chapter 6 We are not alone

Chapter 7 Game on!

Chapter 8 Chez KRS

Chapter 9 Payday for payday

Chapter 10 Go out in the midday sun

Chapter 11 Kerberos × 3

Chapter 12 Down by the banks of the Ohio

Chapter 13 Live, from history?

Chapter 14 War, huh, what is it good for?

Chapter 15 It’s you

Chapter 16 Gemini

Chapter 17 Ex astra

Chapter 18 Rehabilitation

Epilogue

Bentham and the Utilitarians

It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong

CHAPTER 1

Bentham

T he screams fell to whimpers as the pain was superseded by the realisation of what was happening to his face. The drill had cut through the eyeball and grated against the eye socket. He hadn’t managed to close his eyelids because of the confusion over the distance between himself and the point of the drill bit; it would have made short work of piercing the eyelid anyway. It paused and then withdrew, spraying a fine mist from the spinning bit, and the eyeball started to collapse. Ivan, whose greatest fear since childhood had been the loss of sight, although a visit to the dentist wasn’t far behind, wept with his one good eye whilst his other leaked aqueous humour and a surprisingly small amount of blood. He couldn’t move his head because it was strapped tightly to the headrest of the chair where he’d been sat, since capture. He knew he was being observed as he’d noticed a red light dodged and darted about the darkened room as if on elastic; the light had taken on a new appearance as his tears produced the effect similar to viewing through a fisheye lens.

This was once the nature of the ‘game’: take a prisoner, interrogate, and subsequently broadcast the terror. If possible, get him or her to denounce the regime that they represented. In a normal world, one hopes that there was something of worth to be extracted from such a process (there seldom is; it tends to unite and strengthen the opposition’s resolve). Ivan felt that he was in a studio, rather than a dedicated torture chamber, because of the subdued lighting and the lack of dinginess in the atmosphere, but such a distinction was minor, and did little to console him. There was the unmistakable noise of someone retching, followed by the liquid patter of vomitus on the floor and then the sound of a door rattling in the jamb, before being dragged open. Someone stumbled from the room; the exit was followed by low muffled grunts, possibly rebuke from others still present. Despite being fluent in several languages, Ivan could not interpret any words that were spoken; lack of the concentration required was probably due to his discomfort. The real pain was to follow, shortly.

Ivan’s fear level rose when the drill’s high-pitched whine rose to a shriek of fury. Puncturing his upper lip did not take long; some of his moustache hairs were ripped out, as they got entangled with the shaft of the drill bit, but underlining the speed of the penetration. Going through the enamel of the incisor took longer, but not much. There was a brief, but distinctive, whiff of burning tooth enamel; the sensation of smell was immediately eradicated with the drill penetrating into the pulp. A cascade of pain that caused Ivan to scream louder than the drill sparkled inside his head like a fireworks display. The smell of burning returned and intermingled with the smell of blood and, to Ivan’s misery, urine. As the echoes of his scream died, there was a quizzical beep and then the red light blinked and moved to another angle within the room.

This slight break gave Ivan time to wonder what could befall him that would be worse. He found out when the pain exploded deep in his nose. Somehow the drill had performed a pirouette and, without touching anything to give foreknowledge, had probed the sensitive inner nasal areas. Ivan’s shriek burst forth with a spray of mist that, had the room been well lit, would have been pink. The drill withdrew satisfied, and there was a pause as if it was pleased with itself and was considering where to assault next, allowing tension to build like a matador with an exhausted bull at his mercy. Ivan’s chest heaved and gasped for air as if he’d been rescued from drowning; his long scream faded and, at its nadir, changed to irregular sobs of misery that hurt his face. The blood, sweat, and tears dripped from him, adding to the numerous stains already present on his standard-issue shirt. Ivan prayed for time to gather the little that was left of his dignity before the next onslaught. His ear caught another sound that was more of a hum than the high-pitched whine that the drill made. The lights brightened briefly. Squinting through his good eye, Ivan tried to make out where the drill was; he couldn’t spot it, but felt its presence lurking, like a spiteful cat. With a click, the hum increased to a buzz and an object was drawn across his head from back to front, tresses fell from his head onto his shoulders, apart from where it stuck to the sweat on his face like a macabre tarring and feathering. He had been shaved to someone’s satisfaction; the act of shaving someone’s hair off seemed to derive grunts of satisfaction from the audience in the ‘studio’. A container of cold water was emptied over his head, managing to locate the exposed nerve in his upper incisor. Ivan whistled through his front teeth to expel the cold water and was certain he heard further mumbles of approval from elsewhere. His scalp was unfeelingly mopped dry, but his face was left untouched and whilst he may have not wished his wounds to have been touched, he knew that the drill had been so sharp the wounds were not too traumatic and had not initiated much oedema, as yet.

Ivan waited, and as if to contradict his previous thought, felt his upper lip swell and push away from his teeth in a gross pout. His misery was complete when the drill started up like an enraged banshee, which was strange because the drill was actually so advanced it was silent, normally. Someone with an evil mind had made an adjustment to the drill, knowing that the sound added fear factor, like the terror the sirens added to Stuka dive-bombers caused among refugees at the start of World War II. Ivan knew the drill was drawing near and fought to stop the urge to whimper. Contact was made with the top left part of his temple and thought he heard the machine strain and grind as it fought to penetrate his skull. Then it was through. Inside his head, balls and streaks of several colours flared, danced, exchanged positions and intensity, like a particularly self-indulgent aurora borealis. Ivan registered no physical pain, but the confusion in his brain caused him immense fear. The drill withdrew and there was a pause whilst another location was selected. This site was on top of his head, above the right eyebrow. Again the simulated struggle of the drill and smell of burning flesh and bone should have resulted in pain but nothing physical was encountered, but there was a mixed feeling of horror and disgust, parts of him flushed, sweated, and shivered, almost in sequence. The drill selected other places to explore and, depending on which area it struck, caused Ivan to convulse like Pinocchio operated by a drunken Gepetto. As the drill darted from one sector to another, Ivan heard the frequency change. (‘Doppler effect’ was whispered in his skull, possibly in the voice of an old physics teacher.)

Ivan managed to mumble, ‘No more, p-puh-puh-puhlease…’ For some reason his last mutterings were in English, which wasn’t his first language, and had elicited a susurrus of comments from the unseen; whether it was from compassion or just expected behaviour, it didn’t matter to Ivan. As a coup de grâce, the drill started making random forays through Ivan’s skull, akin to the ostentatious wafting of a conductor’s baton; after about five or six assorted assaults, Ivan was past caring, because he was past consciousness.

Ivan awoke and blinked both eyes; he was alone and lay on a bed in a stark white room that was redolent with the odour associated with some sort of disinfectant. He ran his tongue over his teeth, and as well as being intact, they felt cleaner than they’d ever done since arrival. His skin felt tight across his face accentuated by the fact that his pride-and-joy moustache was no more. That luxurious dark moustache that some colleagues said made him look like Saddam Hussein, or worse, Papa Stalin. The frown that Ivan gave to the proposer of this suggestion meant it was never repeated, not in his presence.

Ivan felt as if he’d been more than just bathed, it was like he’d been depilated, had a dermal layer abrasion, and finally, had been liberally doused with antiseptic. His dog tags and armband were missing and he suspected that they wouldn’t be returned, though he didn’t care. The bed on which he lay slowly and silently transformed into an armchair, taking him upright in considerate fashion. There was a pause as if waiting for his head to clear and he heard a voice that softly whispered, ‘You may leave now.’ It would have been that, had it been spoken in English, but the meaning was obvious. He didn’t pick up the sentence through his ears, but via vibrations in his skull; his ears were picking up the soft whirr of air movement devices. Ivan rose stiffly and teetered as his brain adjusted to upright mode and allowed him to perform that previously automatic task of ambulation. A plain, hygienic-looking wall dissolved in front of his still bleary eyes, the effect almost causing him to swoon. It was like stepping into a picture as he left his personal hospital, his feet landing on the soft grass; he gingerly walked away. Behind him, the box, EW10, that had acted as his hospital, glowed brightly and shot upwards with unfeasible acceleration, before blinking into invisibility. Another successful operation was completed.

After about ten minutes of hesitancy, Ivan began to recognize where he was and set a course to where their settlement had been constructed. The settlement looked temporary and was assembled from a hotchpotch of materials, aerospace-grade metal that caused the sunlight to glare from it, coupled with roughly hewn timber collected locally that exuded an aroma of mushroom, when it occasionally rained. No doubt, architects of one school or another would either clasp hands in glee at the design, or throw them skywards in horror. The box/machine that acted as his hospital had, almost considerately, deposited him within a few hundred metres. He rejoined his team, who clustered around, their joy at his return causing them to fire questions, without much forethought. He mostly responded with ‘I don’t know’ or grunts coupled with neutral gestures. Around his wrist was a bracelet from which hung a small container. Had the thing been of gold it would’ve reminded you of the charm bracelet that was worn by people of a previous era. The import of the bracelet was not lost on his fellow Reds; Ivan had earned a princely amount of tokens that would enhance their firepower when another foray was necessary. The amount of suffering he had undergone was suspected, but not broached. The Reds collectively wondered that even if he knew, or remembered, would he tell them?

‘You look different.’

Ivan raised his head and, seeing the innocence on the face of Elena, merely shrugged his shoulders and halted all conversation with ‘My friends, never get captured’ in his native Russian and under his breath, ‘Elena, my moustache has gone, no wonder I look different.’ He couldn’t manage the shrug that might have made the expression less sombre, but at least he held his tears at bay. The reception party of three turned quietly towards the small hut that provided shelter; after a brief pause, Ivan followed them. He noticed that Elena looked lovingly first at Viktor, then at Roman, as if she was making up her mind which of the survivors to take to her bed. Ivan felt so self-pitying, he couldn’t even summon up a pang of jealousy. ‘Screw them both,’ he thought nastily, then ‘Screw them as hard as I’ve been screwed’, but after a pause he added considerately, ‘Love them a bit, too.’

Ivan lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, wondering if he had hallucinated the whole episode. His eyes seemed to be perfect, yet he vividly remembered the drill destroying one. He ran his hand over his head and the hair had just started to bristle, which proved that he’d been shaved, because on entry to the zone, his hair had been longish (he remembered it falling from his head, in that place). It was no dream. But who had rebuilt his face? Every time he tried to recall what happened to him, he experienced a sharp jab of pain, as if it was a form of aversion therapy designed to wipe unsavoury memories. He later questioned the imagery of his hair falling to the floor; it became like a blackout from drinking far too much vodka, except Ivan hadn’t drunk vodka for over two years. He sat up and then lay back, realising there were too many unanswerable questions; he didn’t think he would sleep as he knew he must have been unconscious a day or so because of the way his hair had grown. But his body had spent of lot of energy repairing itself and adapting to the rapidly grown transplants. Ivan dozed off. Elena had been watching him in the darkness; when she felt, more than heard, Ivan drift into sleep, she tried to relax. Elena was worried; she knew that they would never leave and she was of childbearing age and that perhaps they should start the next generation, but who to choose as the father? Should she take them all as joint spouses? Elena prayed for guidance to a god that hadn’t heard her pray for many years. The instinct passed down in the genes from previous generations was overruling her logic. Why bring a child up here, with the future that lay before him, or her? Or maybe it was just the present, because, who knew what the future had in store? Hadn’t her grandparents been children in Stalinist Russia? They must have been hoping for a better future for their children and grandchildren; to a certain extent they had been right. Elena’s logic eventually was in concord with her biochemistry and her mind was made up.

CHAPTER 2

To go, boldly

T he shuttle leaned nonchalantly against the derrick, like a drunk at a bar, allowing the smoke to billow around it as the tension rose. When numerous clocks recorded 00:00:00, the shuttle strained, gave a slight quiver, then launched from Florida, to even more than the usual interest. Women and children whooped, their menfolk grinned smugly, and unaccompanied men whooped with gay abandon. The odd ‘All right !’ punctuated the subdued, hooted chant of ‘U.S.A, U.S.A.’

As well as having an increased number of spectators, the launch had additional media interest, because the shuttle contained more non-US crew than US crew for the first time (possibly accounting for the subdued chant and low-level whooping), especially important as the active crew members had been reduced to three. This was the maiden voyage undertaken by the recently formed Global Space Agency (GSA). GSA was an amalgamation of NASA and the European version in an attempt to share and possibly reduce expenditure (or more likely, to reduce government control over funding and budget); only time would tell. At least they weren’t sporting massive advertising slogans, yet. It wouldn’t be too far in the distance, because some research had been undertaken into the amount of extra drag that affixing logos, both in paint and decals, would add. In addition, what effect would any logos have if they were stuck to the ceramics? The answer probably lay in the heat generated at re-entry, the heat from which the ceramics protected the occupants, i.e. advertising decals might not last long. The choice would be between one-way decals at the launch and designing decals that would survive the return; usually the shuttle was filmed at both events. The single logo permitted at present was the GSA one, with the acronym explained underneath, in a smaller font that was baked into the ceramic tiles at firing. Maybe they could implant miniature diodes into the ceramics and generate images of sponsors that way; if they could, it was for future ventures, or rather, the source of fundraising for future ventures.

Kevin and Neil had been selected from the pool of resources mainly because of the scores achieved in training, but also, the fact that Jane was appointed commander gave a psychometric balance to the team. Which psychometric test or tests that they had taken that decided the team components was not publicized, although Kevin and Neil appeared to fall into a similar psychometric profile. Neil secretly thought that the psychometric tests were bollocks and that people responded to situations, not questions posed on paper, or even questions posed via computer monitor images, designed to look like paper. ‘Please answer all questions truthfully and rapidly.’ (Yeah, right.) However, given that they were taking a space tourist for the first time, the international publicity generated also accounted for the selection. There was also a repayment factor for the support Britain had given after the latest attempt to overthrow an extremist government in the Middle East, the support scathingly attacked in Neil’s favourite magazine, Private Eye. The magazine also pointed out that had fantastic golden goodbyes not been paid to senior executives of the Trust—that was the British Broadcasting Corporation—financed in good part by the licence fee (for this, read ‘ordinary British taxpayers’), a good percentage of Britain’s contribution to this trip would have been met. Private Eye wrote early, long, and wittily about executives losing the plot. Neil eventually stopped subscribing, because the magazine was full of politicians, big and small corporations trousering money; it made him feel depressed. Private Eye picked up scandals long before the daily press caught wind (or decided to take the risk of litigation). He decided that it was better off to be an ostrich than hear all the deeds of wickedness perpetrated daily by people granted the trust of the public, or their shareholders. He still missed the quality and humour of the comic strips and cartoons, though. As well as sharing a sense of humour and similar biometric profiles, Kevin and Neil had been through RAF training, where they became sound pals. Kevin was more technically minded, Neil was just gifted. They made a good pairing of lead and wingman, reversing roles instinctively. The only combat they had experienced had been totally one-sided; any opposition that had risen to challenge them over the desert had been given short shrift. After disposing of any pursuit aircraft that rose to meet them, they ended up acting as chaperone to heavier aircraft and then seeking targets of opportunity, even these became fewer as the war drew to its inevitable end. When they spotted a rare opportunity for engagement and were able to loose off a missile, the camera in the nose cone provided clips that were broadcast on news programs and documentaries, purportedly to illustrate how clinical modern warfare was. These images were better received than small children firing automatic rifles while the womenfolk made that odd ululating wail that was supposed to signify success. In the words of Stuart Adamson from ‘The Hostage Speaks’,

The women veiled and howling, while the schoolboy fires machine guns, for the man at CNN.

This short and expensive war seemed to cost everyone and benefitted no one, not even from the experience, although there some experienced more loss than others, non-financially speaking. On RAF leave, at the temporary cessation of hostilities, Kevin and Neil managed to team up with a young Welsh trainee airman, rejoicing in the name of Ceruwen Owain Jones. Jones came from West Wales, where the pious nature of the people meant that they were in full support of a dry Sunday, ergo, no pubs opened for business on this supposed day of rest. Kevin and Neil were shocked; the thought of no Sunday-lunchtime pint before a roast dinner was an anathema to people from West London and Wessex, especially to the generation that had fathered people of Kevin and Neil’s age. Anyway it was fortunate that RAF Cranwell was located in Lincolnshire, about as far away from West Wales as you could get and still be in the United Kingdom. So, since induction, Ceruwen had now become quite used to a Sunday pint; it was seldom more than one. The leave of the two war veterans coincided with a convenient break in Ceruwen’s studies and training; they met after finding themselves sitting three abreast on board a cheap flight to Barcelona. All three had joined in the scramble for a less cramped seat, unreserved seats being a feature of this budget airline. Kevin whispered to Neil that maybe there would be a budget airline that would do away with seats altogether, or just have a few along the side, like the tube trains. Anyway, in a brief while, they arrived at Barcelona, which is a city that has culture, sunshine, beaches, and cheap but clean public transport. It is an ideal place for doing little, or perhaps just a little more. They took a long, hot stroll down Las Ramblas to the harbour, where the sea sparkled in the sunlight, like crushed diamonds, and after gazing at the coast for a while, walked back up again. Having completed their exercise, they alleviated their thirst with a cold beer in sight of the Sagrada Familia (just). Given the price of the beer, it was made to last until the dregs were getting a little too warm and the upper lip of the bar manager was just starting to curl in disgust at getting the only Englishmen in his bar who could not drink lager by the gallon. Anyway, he consoled himself, at least they weren’t singing football songs. If they were supporters of his Barcelona team, he might permit them to sing, but what did supporters of English football have to crow about? Anyway, one could forgive a Catalan for lumping the Welsh in with the English; Ceruwen’s parents might have tried to explain that Wales was not part of England. ‘We even speak a different language!’

After departing the bar and coming very close to saluting Gaudi’s creation, they located a cheap hotel and booked in. When the hotel manager looked at the signature provided by the young Welshman, he looked puzzled and gradually a smile spread across his face and then he couldn’t hold his laughter in anymore. Jones looked totally bemused and also noticed the smirks travelling across the faces of his companions. There on the foot of the form lay Jones’ signature. In Spanish, COJones means something else. Later on that evening, the two Englishmen explained to the still-puzzled Jones the reason for everyone’s mirth at his signature. ‘Oh my dear Jesus,’ Jones exclaimed in his sing-song Welsh accent, ‘my parents will be distraught, they wouldn’t even have realized that the initials of my forenames and surname meant something rude in Spanish.’ Jones would not share this with his parents, nor would he admit to patronizing a pub that opened on a Sunday. It was bad enough having the initials CO as a trainee in a military college; every instructor that Jones encountered had accused him of being a bit premature. ‘You haven’t even finished the course,’ one wag had said, peering from beneath the peak of his hat, like a pervert peeping under a toilet door.

A few years later and quite a distance from Spain, vast amounts of resources that had been collected and concentrated into one event, burned themselves. All worked according to plan; the shuttle burst its way towards orbit like a mighty forward on a bullocking run. It then executed a most graceful turn, the sweeping curve casting silver condensation crystals against an azure backdrop, like a fairy godmother’s wand. The spectators gradually dispersed, the controllers mentally ticked boxes, the project managers’ confidence grew, especially when they observed the number of ticks being accrued on the project plan. The jettison of the external engines went without hitch, although what actually happened to these semi-streamlined silos was not common knowledge. The mission was underway, its purpose being the deployment of another communications satellite and to see if they could locate any remains (including human) from a missing space station. There were quite a few options on the expedition length; plenty of supplies and equipment were on board, enabling a sojourn of several weeks. It had taken several months to gather the resources, train the crew, and pick