Angry Jasper: Fifty-six

Jazz dressed and went down to Skull boy’s pod. The door was open, and he could see the kid at the glass, mesmerized by the strange creatures of Europa’s hidden ocean. He paused before going in and checked his credit pod. Full payment. Skull boy’s mother had deposited the full amount into his account before the end. The old bird must have known, he thought. He almost felt bad for all the stuff he said to her. He almost felt bad. Well, that was that, he thought, switching off the credit pod. There was just one last detail to attend to.

God, the kid was hideous, Jasper thought. Skull boy’s oblong face was reflected in the glass, superimposed against the turquoise aquatic world. Shame that the only person who could stomach a look at the little snot was dead. It didn’t hardly seem fair. Jazz could see that the kid looked terribly sad.

“Thinkin’ about your mom, kid?”

The kid shook his head without looking at Jazz. “About what you’re thinking.”

“You can read minds too?’

He turned. “No, but I know you’re gonna get rid of me.”

“That’s a little harsh.” Jasper couldn’t bring himself to look at the kid. “For your own good.”

“I know,” he sighed, and sat heavily against the glass.

“You do?” Jazz knelt beside the boy.

“I’ll spend a couple years in a corporation orphanage on Uranus. I’ll be abused by a hybid named Moose. You don’t want to know how. When I’m military age they’ll ship me off to a unit on the frontier. We’re at war by then, maybe the worst anyone ever imagined. I’ll survive a massacre. That’s how the corporation learns of my secret, and they ship me off to some remote research facility for the rest of my life.”

“See?” Jazz exclaimed. “That’s not so bad, eh?”

The kid wasn’t buying it, that much Jazz could tell. It was all for the best though; for him, and for the kid. And why should Jasper feel guilty? He was Angry Jasper, not Papa Jasper, or Daddy Jasper, or Freeload Jasper, or Best Buddy Jasper. He was Angry Jasper, and that’ how he wanted to remain. None of this was his fault. But then if that was true then why did he feel like such a dick?

Skullboy’s eyes held his accusingly. They trapped him, and that pissed Jazz off to no end. T made him feel responsible. Like he owed the kid, or Madame - the deceased Madame - something beyond the simple tenants of their initial contract. All he had agreed to do was rescue the kid from Chicago and return him home. Hell, he had already done far more than he had to. It wasn’t Jasper’s fault that the Earth blew up, smashing the wheel and his mom to bits.

So what if Jazz had come to like the kid? Skull boy kind of grew on a body, like an ugly little mole that you just sort of picked at, and then felt bad when it fell off finally. But it wasn’t about liking or not liking a damn thing. Jazz was a loner, a freighter trash kid who wore a broken heart on one sleeve (The one he led with in a fight), with a chip on his shoulder that would crush most folks, and who wore regret like a suit of armor. What the hell would he do with a kid?

“It’s really for the better,” said Jazz, feeling as though he was trying to convince himself as much as the kid. “You had nice home. You don’t want to traipse around space with the likes of me. Don’t you have an uncle, a grandparent, something somewhere?”

“Nobody.” Skull boy lay back on the floor. He curled into a ball, covering that ugly damn head. It cut through Jazz’ cold and bitter heart like a knife. Jazz stood and paced the room for a moment, wanting to shout or bust something. Suddenly he stopped and looked at Skull boy. He’d said something, and in all the emotion Jazz nearly missed it.

“What did you say about a war?”

“An alien invasion,” the kid’s reply was muted and dejected. “They overrun the frontiers, blah, blah, blah.”

Jasper knelt beside Skull boy, alarmed. “You’re not pulling my chain?”

“Why would I?”

“So when does this invasion… from where, how long?”

“It’s already started.”

“Thomas, survived?”

.”He rises through the Corporation and opens the frontier for a full fledged invasion.”

Jazz stood and backed away from the kid. He pressed his hands against the glass and found it cold.

“Thomas?” he said, more to himself that to the kid. He turned back to Skull boy. “And you’re certain he didn’t die on Earth?”

Skull boy shrugged. “I get the feeling he didn’t.”