Episode 24: Space Games

You are being redirected to the Capital.

P. J. Raygun’s first thought, as he looked at all his clean, organized stuff, was simply to sell it. For many years, he had accumulated junk. With Nebula X’s help, he now had a lot of working machinery and valuable parts. All of it was not only categorized and labeled, but repaired and polished as well. Raygun even had Nebula X stand guard over his valuable possessions – there was no room for it indoors.

This posed a problem for Raygun. First, Nebula X was visible to everyone who came by, and second, this was another inefficient use of her time. The more P. J. Raygun had, the greedier he became.

Finally, he called his friend Sgt. Snowpants to man the yard while he took the droid where she could be more beneficial to him.

Nebula X had electronically placed all of P. J. Raygun’s items on the classifieds, and customers began arriving right away.

MEANWHILE…

Krate and Ash passed their time and kept their minds sharp by playing games. A team of Earthbound scientists had developed games that simulated various scenarios that would be possible during space travel. Krate and Ash were amused by the game where the most severe challenges consisted of contaminated water, fatigue and computer bugs. The problems they encountered in real life were so far beyond those in the game as to make it laughable.

Corporate sponsors took full advantage of the video feeds from the ship.

The space games were hot sellers back on Earth. Anything endorsed by or in any way connected with Lander and Azimuth was a hot ticket.

Far from the advertising machine that they powered, Lander and Azimuth felt isolated and at times forgotten, millions of miles from the world they knew. The public’s conception of the men was as far from who they had become as the game was from life in space. Glossy, flawless, shallow, the public hung on every sound byte from space.

MEANWHILE…

Flash could make out the continents of Earth, and reported this to Bertha, who sat in front of the radio in her basement, munching popcorn and leafing through magazines.