Subscriber Sample: BellStar - Chapter 1.1 - Finding My Porpoise
A taste of the BellStar subscriber experience.
((( This is an example of what the subscriber experience on BellStar is like. As posts go up with the typed pages, which is undeniably and objectively cool, I will also be providing a transcription and a light edit of the typewritten pages that are easier to read on phones and other non-desktop, page-sized devices. This is just a sip of the entire flavor of Subscriber Tea, so if you enjoy this format and you want to subscribe, click the button! )))
The crew of the spaceship BellStar had been looking for a new purpose and work after their captain died. They hired me because they needed help finding their porpoise.
My job was to convince Penny, a porpoise, to cooperate with her own abduction from a research facility. We planned to transport her from her aquatic pen to the tanker truck Ranger drove. Books and Hacksaw would manage extracting Penny with the winch and lifter, while JayJay ran overwatch through the facility’s hacked security system.
I was not a marine biologist by training, but I was knowledgeable enough to have landed this job with the crew of the BellStar ship. Apparently, that was not a high bar or a ringing endorsement.
Convincing Penny the Porpoise had not been the difficult part; keeping her quiet and from interfering was the true challenge.
“Whoa, two real ladies in the meat! I always wanted to meet real females in the meat. It’s just droids who visit me. And this one guy who won’t ever get in the water with me or talk back. Maybe he’s just shy meeting a celebrity like me”.
Penny’s voice kept coming over our coms despite how often we changed channels or blocked her from access. We couldn’t use an area jammer, or else JayJay wouldn’t be able to keep the security feeds from tripping alarms.
JayJay was embarrassed, and like many 19-year-olds, this meant she was pissed and mouthy.
“Would you please just be silent for two minutes, fish face?” the teenager sent in the text and voice in all channels.
“Whoa, Hacksaw! Your interface is so clean for a droid!” Penny was disregarding JayJay’s request, couldn’t hear, or wasn’t bothering to read through her constant chatter. To me, standing next to Penny and pouring water over her repeatedly, I could hear the clicking and chirping from the porpoise that matched the rhythm of her digital dialogue.
“Please don’t, Penny. That’s a personal space. It is very rude,” Hacksaw replied.
“Oh, so that’s why you have a picture of JayJay’s webbed right foot as your background for internal tasks?”
Ranger grunted audibly over coms, which is the equivalent of some people guffawing and laughing uproariously.
“That’s a violation of my patient and doc-bot privilege and privacy!” JayJay, understandably, protested.
“It’s a picture of the whole crew at the beach just two days ago, not a medical record, DoubleJay”. Hacksaw sounded as frustrated as JayJay, but in his own way. For the droid, that meant being as polite and formal as if it were a dinner with heads of state, but still using nicknames.
As was her role on the team, Books cut in over coms but said it loud enough for anyone to hear, including Penny and me standing next to her.
“Cut the chatter, Penny, or I’ll pull this wire in my hand, and you’ll have to wait for Francis before I give you wireless access again.” The XO sounded as cool, collected, and dry as she always was. If I hadn’t seen the woman in her solid flesh, I could be forgiven for thinking she was the member of the team made of metal.
I dumped more water over Penny as I walked beside the lifter’s slow progress towards the loading bay where Ranger had parked the idling tanker.
“Talk to me, Penny,” I said. “Tell me what you’re going to do first once you get off planet. Any kind of fish or food you want to try?” I was trying to pull the porpoise’s focus to only talk to me on a closed band channel I opened up for just the two of us.
Penny immediately began telling me about thirteen kinds of seafood she wanted to try once she had escaped. I half listened and watched the various inter-crew channels blink to notify me that the others were all talking among themselves. Probably trying to calm JayJay and Hacksaw down.
Those two were the best friends and most bitter of rivals in a relationship I don’t think I would ever fully figure out if I spent another 500 weeks with them, instead of the last five days.
The rolling doors started to retract into the ceiling of the pool interior, and the lights in the massive room doused themselves to prevent the light from being seen from the main road just a few hundred feet away. The humming motor of the tanker stood still, but with the lights off. My wetsuit and shoes for swimming dripped across the gravel driveway that covered the magnetic rails in the ground, allowing the hover tanker to sit suspended in the air.
Penny sat in the middle of the soft, cushioned canvas sling laid across the lifter’s arms and flipped her tailfins in excitement as she described some VR game and an avatar for streaming she had been working on. I tried to use some active listening techniques and pay better attention, as I missed the transition to this subject. I kept up with my moisturizing routine and porpoise chatter.
“Tahrah,” Penny said to me, trying to get my attention again, “I am trying to ask you about your favorite aquatic sport. Wait! Wow, I’m going higher. This is a little scary. I didn’t see Hacksaw’s license for operating a lifter or winch. He’s just a physician. Do you think he’s qualified enough?”
I laughed and rubbed her forehead and nose.
“Hacksaw is actually overqualified. Everyone here is, my girlie”.
“Girlie! That’s fun. Vet school is harder than medical school, I’m sure. Anyways, my avatar is really feminine, with a maid costume and a mermaid tail. Do you like the name Penny, mistress of waves, or Penelope, harbinger of cuteness, is better? Branding is really important, you know—”
“‘Harbinger’ is a much better title. It’s definitely not taken,” I interrupted. If I didn’t interrupt, I’d never get a word in. “Now, I’m riding with you for this part,” I informed Penny. I held on to the rising sling. Penny was lifted in as the crane raised her up to the level of the tanker’s rolling open top. My grimace was supposed to be encouraging and not an indication of my lack of upper-body strength as I held on to the lift.
The constant hum of passing traffic on the nearby road alternated between the whoosh of hovercraft and the droning, wheeled vehicles all passing each other along the connecting roadlines among the chain of islands on which the research facility was located. No individual island was big enough to handle a spaceyard or port this far out. I was not looking forward to the trip back if Penny was anxious inside the tanker of water. I sent a mental request to Ranger in chat to turn on the specially mounted internal lights of the tanker. Soft bluish light, mimicking ocean colors, glowed out of the retracted rolltop of the tank.
“Just like I explained to you earlier, Penny, I’ll ride with you in the tank if you ask me, but I’ll be just three feet away in the cab of the hovertruck if you can be my brave girlie during the trip”.
“I’m four years old, you know,” Penny replied, as if this was obvious to everyone and not just marine biologists. “In human years, that makes me older than JayJay and Hacksaw. I’m not a kid like those two”.
The continued silence in the general comms channels was a miracle, probably due to Hacksaw and JayJay being united in their anger at the porpoise’s assessment of their maturity.
Next: Subscriber Chapter 1.2 - Click Here
Subscriber Complete Chapter 1 - Click Here
Subscriber BellStar Table of Contents - Click Here
Sincerely, for now,
Tea