One slip of the wrong kind of drink, and those pirates will be on the toilet for hours. While they do that, let's tow this disabled boat to the authorities! -- Anon Guest
"Did you like my alcohol?" said Trader Shan, twiddling with his own fingers. "You got everything from the crate marked Special Reserve, VIP's Only right?"
"First thing," said the guard. "We had a good old booze-up on your elite overlords' expense."
"Such a pity. Nice knowing you all," said Shan. "Reckon you've got like a couple of hours before the symptoms kick in."
"...symptoms?"
"Yeah... that -uh- special reserve? That was for Deregger CEO's to confiscate. Slow and painful death. Sorry. If it helps your morale in your final hours, I'm doomed to starve and dehydrate to death in this cell, and so's my hitchhiker friend over there."
"What?" said the Hitchhiker "I just wanted a lift to Betelgeuse Plaza! What the shit?"
"Accept your death with dignity, friend," sighed Shan. "I can't get to the antidote 'cause I'm locked in here."
"You have an antidote? Where is it? Tell me or die!"
"I mean... you're not giving me better options, here. Either I die quick or I die slow. I dunno about you, but I'd rather have the extra days. And if you kill me? You still don't know where I hid it."
"Why would you hide an antidote?" wailed the hitchhiker.
"So the Dereggers don't get it before I do a payable service for the CRC. Duh." Shan waved at the cell around him. "They do this bullshit, too. When they have the time." He turned his attention back to the cell guard. "Speaking of time... tick tock. I can get to the antidote pretty easily, but you? I'm not so sure."
"Fuck you, we're taking your ship apart panel by panel."
"Hurry u-up," Shan singsonged. "One hour and -uh- forty-two minutes remaining."
The guard ran. The hitchhiker was left boggling at Shan. "What. The actual. Flakk?"
Shan was disassembling parts of his clothing, piecing them together into a new configuration. "Calm down, it's a dumb trick that only works so long the story doesn't get around. Please. Don't tell anyone about this."
"About what? Giving them everything they wanted? They're going to kill us for sure."
"They'll be too busy being sick. That 'special reserve' was doped with cascara. A relatively harmless emetic."
"If that's the poison, what's the cure?"
"More cascara. They'll be debilitated for the rest of a standard day. Plenty of time to lock them out and tow them home."
"But we're locked in here!"
"Not for long." The device, now assembled, clicked, and the force shields fizzled out. "They never take your clothes off."
"I have to get me one of those."
"I'll get the CRC to hook you up. But first things first... they'll actually be falling over in about twenty minutes. Lots of time for the panic to sink in enough to make it easy to take them down." Shan took the time to disassemble the device and put all the parts back from whence they came. "You want coffee? Let's have some coffee before get going on the rest of the plan."
[Photo by Kaur Kristjan on Unsplash]
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