The spotlights high in the ceiling snap off, shrouding the battlefield of the Stellar Arena in thickening darkness. The spectators have all departed, heading off to attend either magnificent victory parties or dismal pity-fests for their leagues. On Earth, where viewers get to marvel at the battles on their big screens, once the channel gets switched to SAS reporting or local news, nobody really thinks about the goings on after the war.
That is, unless you are a member of a very elite group known by few. The BADGE Space Station Maintenance Crew.
This is one of their stories...
"Ewww. Gross. Whose blood do you think this is?" Ralph held up his mop-head, which was steaming as the fibers melted away. His cleaning cart was already half empty of supplies. "It smells like cat pee."
His partner, Johnny, kept his back turned. "It's better not to try and guess, my friend. It used to be that you could make a mint picking up after these fights. There was always some mad scientist waiting outside the back door with bundles of Bux just waiting to get blood and tissue samples. Put my kid through college off what I made selling some of Strange Quark's hair a while back."
"Why'd ya stop, Johnny?" Ralph said as he continued to mop up the large puddle of fluid on the floor.
"With the space arena here, they dispose of everything all nice and neat in a torpedo shot right into the sun," Johnny said. "No more tossing a plastic garbage bag out the back door when nobody's watching, ya' know."
Ralph nodded. "No back doors on a space station. Only airlocks."
"Exactly, my friend. Exactly."
The two of them swept, mopped, wiped, and power-washed in silence for a few minutes. A meteor flew overhead, bringing a flare of brightness to the room.
"Did you watch any of the fights this war?" Ralph asked.
"Bits and pieces. Bits and pieces. You've seen one fight between capes, you've seem em' all eventually." Johnny pretended to point his his hand at Ralph as if emitting an energy blast. "Pow. Zap. Yeouw!!!"
Ralph clutched his hands to his heart, the mop handle clattering on the floor. "Oh. You got me, Hot Wings. You got me."
Johnny chuckled. "Weapons of Mass Destruction. Bah. They should call themselves Weapons of Big Messes. Everywhere they go, they're smashing or breaking something. Did you hear the call Joe got about having to fix the toilet in their viewing box? Whatever they tried to flush wasn't wanting to go anywhere. It reached out of the bowl and grabbed poor Joe around the neck and tried to pull him in!"
"What did he do?" Ralph asked.
"Married it. They actually make a cute couple. I never imagined anything with tentacles could be attractive, but once you get past her single eye, she's sort of cute."
"I get it. I always wondered why he kept calling his kid Squidly." Ralph knelt down and picked something up. "Hey, got another tooth here. What's that? Number One-thousand and forty-seven?
"Thousand and fifty-five. I found a bunch over their while you used the can." Johnny looked hopeful. "Any gold in it? Don't forget to check for fillings."
"Nah. It's kinds sharp and pointy, though. Ouch!" Ralph dropped what was in his hand and jumped backwards. "It tried to bite me. It jumped in my hand and was going to dig in."
Johnny reached into his cart and pulled out a jar half-full of a clear liquid. He opened it as he walked over to Ralph's side. "Drop it in here before it grows back into another of whoever it was. Don't these heroes with regeneration know better than to leave their bits all helter-skelter?"
"Hydrochloric?" Ralph asked as he picked up the tooth and deposited it in the liquid. A bright green steam erupted upward as the enamel burned away.
"Fluoroantimorphonic. Latest thing from BADGE R&D. Great as a stain remover too," Johnny said as he spun the lid down onto the jar. "You about ready to go tackle the locker rooms?"
"I've got to finish up around the team dugouts first," Ralph said. He pulled a clawed device off of his cleaning cart and walked around the staging pen where heroes waited to take the field as others fought. He picked up towels, More-Fun candy bar wrappers, and Starbux coffee cups. Amidst the mess, he found a wad of bright purple clothing. "What's this?"
Johnny held up his hands, waving them wildly. "No, man. Don't do it. Don't..."
Ralph took the clothes in his gloved hand and pulled the bundle of cloth apart, revealing a large pair of spandex briefs. "Oh, god. Who leaves their dirty underwear out here? Oh. There's a name written on the tag. 'Property of Lykos'."
"We'll that will save having to put it in the lost and found bin," Johnny held open a black trash bag for Ralph to deposit the undergarment within. "You've seen what some of these heroes wear. Don't mess with it unless you're willing to see things mortal men like us aren't supposed to know of. Couple of wars ago, I found what I thought was a bag of money. Turned out, it was one of Abra Kadabra's component pouches. You don't want to know what was in that thing. It's a good thing our insurance covers psyche visits."
"Let's wrap this up and get the locker rooms done. Sooner started, sooner finished, right?" Ralph prodded. Together, he and Johnny moved to the outside of the Avengers 51 locker room
Johnny moved to push open the door, but Ralph stopped him. "Hold on. Don't you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Johnny leaned closer to the door that had been painted a brilliant red. He then heard several loud crashes and multiple cries of pleasure.
"Oh, yeah. Give it too me." The voice cried out. "It's true. It's true..."
Johnny took a couple of steps backwards. "Smoke break?"
"Sure, partner," Ralph said as he also backed away from the racket within the locker room. "Let's make it a double. Seems like someone's going for extra innings."
0 Comments