On your dad’s back-seat screen, a leather-jacketed man shifts a throttle forward and grins roguishly at the camera. You roll your eyes and let out a groan that your pop thankfully doesn’t notice. God, he must’ve played this about a thousand times.
The man on screen is Dylas Canthrope, the hero of Universal Odyssey, the show that your dad had devoted roughly a third of his life to. A two seasoned series that ‘was cut down in its prime’ according to your dad, it followed the pompadoured space-pirate as he roamed across galaxies, thwarting the nebulous Hegemony and helping out various alien species in a way that wasn’t very pirate-like at all.
Your dad’s grin widens as he watches Dylas point imperiously at his co-pilot seat. Its shapely occupant snaps into a smart salute and minces over to the engine room to stabilize the positronic flux thingamijigs or whatever.
That character, who went by the consonant-covered moniker of Cjara, was the only reason you stomached that show anymore. A petite, mostly-sapient gynoid, you suspect that she was primarily created so the crew could watch the actress cavort around in thigh-high boots and a high-legged leotard. You envy the makeup artist who got to gussy her up in gold metallic paint.
As a child, you had made the mistake of asking why a robot needed to look human and have all the requisite jiggly bits, and your dad answered your question with a detailed description of the servos and gyroscopes in her base that just happened to resemble wide hips, and of course because she’s a pilot she needs to have a good deal of gel padding, for inertia and all that.
You suspected that dad appreciated the show for something other than its rich worldbuilding, and your suspicions were deepened by the traces of golden paint on your mom’s face the night after their anniversary.
You turn your attention back to your book, but whatever interest you can find pales in comparison to what you can see out the window. The embers of filial affection flare up a bit in your chest, and you tap at your dad’s shoulder.
“Look at that,” you breathe, staring at the massive Dysonian sphere that looks to be only a thousand feet below your metal tube. Your dad joins you in goggling, thankfully silent, as you admire the mega-structure. You may not like Wondertainment, but even you have to cop to brilliance.
“That’s where we’re going,” your dad crows, his eyes shining. “WonderGalaxy. There’s more than ‘a hundred little locales in there, each a little slice of an alien world.” He taps his seat-screen demonstratively, where Dylas and Cjara are stumbling around unconvincingly — an asteroid had struck their clunker, apparently.
“The company shelled out for the ‘Part of the Experience’ package, too, so this is gonna be extra special.” He lightly punches you on the arm and grins, and you magnanimously allow it. “Just you and me, sport, traveling the galaxy!”
You return his toothy grin with a rare smile of your own.
This might actually be pretty cool.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
