Free Unstable Prototypes by Joseph Lallo

Thank
you. Gravity will be reestablished in 5... 4..."
    Lex flicked the meat toward the far wall.
    "3... 2..."
    It rebounded off of the wall and flew back at
him. When it was close, he grabbed at it.
    "1... Gravity reestablished."
    An instant before the weight returned, he
closed his fingers around it.
    For a second or two he simply stared in
astonishment.
    "Yes. YES! AHAHAHA!" he proclaimed
triumphantly, holding it aloft like a trophy.
    "What? What is it?" asked Ma, slightly
startled by the outburst as she finally released her
concentration.
    "I am meat juggler supreme, that's what!"
    "Sir?" said a new voice.
    Lex turned to the door to see the very same
attendant who had brought Ma her water. He froze, meat still in the
air, as she took in the contents of the room. The walls were
flecked with grease and oil from where the various bits of food had
bounced off, and he was holding an uneaten medallion of beef as
though he had caught the final out of a legendary baseball game. Ma
was standing on his lap, staring at him as curiously as the
attendant.
    "I don't know what this looks like, but it's
not what it looks like," Lex said.
    "As our only first class passenger, you are
the first off of the ship. Please gather your belongings, and we
apologize for the inconvenience," she said, as though nothing about
the situation in any way fazed her.
    "Thanks. Give me two minutes," he said.
    "Yes, sir," she said, closing the door.
    Lex unlatched himself and lowered Ma to the
floor, venturing over to his duffel to brush aside a few stray
veggies and make sure nothing got loose or broken during its zero-g
adventure. He placed the hard-earned but no longer edible filet
onto the edge of the couch. While he determined the condition of
his possessions, he whispered harshly to the furry little
ringmaster of this circus.
    "I want to know exactly who this guy is and
what is about to happen."
    "He is a former associate of Karter. Like
you, he helped to test and advise on the development of certain
avenues of research. His specialty was infiltration and
intelligence. I am uncertain of his name, as in his collaborations
with us he requested that we refer to him by no fewer than three
different aliases. He is currently serving a sentence for being
part of a squad responsible for violating three provisions of a
multi-system treaty, officially declaring him a war criminal. Due
to the minimal involvement in the incident and his cooperation with
authorities, he was the only member of his group to be assigned to
medium security. I managed to schedule an emergency fumigation of
his cell block and flag most of the penal fleet of his facility for
a security sweep, thus requiring him to be transported to an
alternate, off-planet holding facility via civilian transit."
    "Prisons can just put criminals on any old
ship?"
    "Only when official vessels cannot be made
available within the required time frame and the prisoner has no
history of violent crime."
    "And what did this guy do?"
    "His squad possessed and activated a class 3,
man-portable energy weapon within a populated area outside the
bounds of an officially declared war."
    "What does that mean exactly?"
    "It means that they were caught using an
experimental plasma cutter, designed by Karter, that was powered by
a miniature fusion reactor. The reactor, if allowed to overload,
could have rendered an entire city uninhabitable."
    "Whoa."
    "That is an appropriate reaction."
    "So what happens now?"
    There was silence. Lex turned to see Ma
rather intensely staring at the filet on the couch.
    "Ma? Did you want the steak?"
    "... No," remarked her voice. A drop of drool
trickled from her lip.
    "Are you sure? Because you look like you want
it pretty bad."
    "What you are witnessing is an autonomic
reaction to certain olfactory and visual stimuli. It is in no way
representative of wants or needs as defined by my higher thought
processes," she said, licking her lips and turning to him. "Please
repeat your question."
    "What