The Disturbing Disappearance of the Dozen Doughnuts
On a freighter, night and day are meaningless. Numbers shining artificial dayglow on your face from a nearby chrono, keeping you a slave to their assumed correctness, one factory reset away from insomnia and chaos. The chrono beeped, you woke up, maybe had a stim to your lonesome in your own small corner of privacy before anyone else was around to crowd you.
That's my world. I thrive there.
In and out, the smell of purple smoke thick in my own personal space, the ember so close to my lips trying to compete with the accusatory glare of the chrono across from me. Atmo scrubbers kick on, a computerized absolution of my filthy habits. Still, I sit in the dark until the nicotine reminds me of nature's needs.
A gurgle.
On a freighter, your life is packaged and stowed. Whether it's base commodities like fuel and weapons, personal effects, or cargo. You are what you bring with you, and you aren't what you don't. Goes double for food. First order of business is survival. Buy in bulk, and buy for shelf life. Fresh fruit and veg? It's a shore leave fantasy. This is the realm of the can, the vacu-seal, the freeze-dryer, and the ever-popular preserved food item. From an ivory tower of privilege, you'd probably call it junk. To me, that just makes me a survivor. No matter what you called it, your body was certain to tell you when you needed it.
"Lights."
Yellowed light bars blinked artificial dayglow around age-beaten metal walls studded with posters. Sirens hawking cheap sex folded out in holomag inserts danced their eternal jigs on every wall. Images of comfort when all other scenery changed.
My feet hit cold deck plate, accelerating my wide awake state. A stretch, a scratch, a glance in a body-length mirror that reflected back judgments. Thirty-something, ten pounds shy of where I ought to be. An Adonis made of gristle. Time to try to rectify part of that at least.
My hand hit the switch to open the door, which slid along creaky tracks with a groan. Silence greeted me down Layla's corridors, a rare sound that you could almost lose amid the ambient white noise of engines running below. A few paces foredeck, and a shimmy up the ladder brought me to the top deck, the cockpit, and most importantly, the galley. Visions of artificial breakfast floated through my brain as I ashed the last gasp of my stim in an overfilled ashtray. There on the table, a box waited. I knew the prize that lay within.
I ran a hand over the top to liberate the lid, but the box moved with my movement, betraying a container that was lighter than it ought to be. A cold panic doused the last vestiges of sleep from my brain, and in a sudden motion, I tore the lid free.
Inside the box were signs of a crime.