#jet-x

A communications device rang. The otherwise stagnant cubicle suddenly possessed the tiny light of an equally sized screen.

“Star?”

Pulling his head up from his desk, a young worker held one finger down on the answering button. “You don’t comm me unless something’s important.”

“Or, unless I’m getting you to stop your snoozing.” Cosmo Spacely huffed as he crossed his short arms. “Luckily, it’s both this time. Jetson wants you in his office.”

“He could’ve announced that on the system…” The man sat up, stretched out his back and gestured to the speaker up in the corner of the ceiling. Every cube had one.

Mr. Spacely’s gaze softened on the display, addressing his child with more kindness than he’d afforded even his past employees. “Starling. He mentioned those ore mines. Weren’t you—“

Star spit out his response: “I wanted to practice my carving. And they don’t give you any wood, on account of the closest trees being Jupitian!” He pressed the off button, then mumbled, “And it’s Starboy.”

The rectangular prism of George Jetson’s office was roomier and redder than any other place in the JetX building. Like a giant, disgusting hemorrhage. Starboy sat in an overly soft chair, hearing nothing but gears clanking and springs bouncing until…

“Starling P. Spacely. Punctual as always.” The half-muffled tone of someone who almost always had a cigar between his lips.

“Hey, Mr. J.” Star mumbled, not really giving his boss much thought. His eyes wandered to the cabinet behind Jetson’s chair. 6 chunks of crimsoleum ore, all almost perfectly ellipsoid, sat on velvet black cushions behind locked glass.

At least, there were 6 the last time Star was in here. Now, there were 5.

“The sample you took was in line to become the next battery for our most treasured robot.” Mr. Jetson began, sitting down.

“That old maid? What’s wrong with the one she’s got?” The young man leaned back in his seat, tracing the pristine white casing with one finger.

George pulled the cigar out of his mouth and let out a stream of maroon smoke with his next words: “Crimsoleum is not permanent. It’s more durable compared to elements of the past, but we still have to keep harvesting. Depleted ore can be corrosive enough to melt through solid steel. Do you want that happening to Pr1ckle? To any of our staff?”

“Staff” only ever referred to the machines, sentient or not. Like the Jetsons cared about what could’ve been a leftover part from the ISS over a flesh-and-blood mortal under their employment.

“No, I don’t want the cleaning lady to kick the exhaust tube, alright?” Star ran a hand through his deep blue hair. “But I’m not getting my quota filled.”

“If that isn’t the truth.” George whispered while adjusting his verdant, compound monocle.

The exhausted worker sat forward. “My request quota.” Pointing a finger where he probably shouldn’t have, he continued, “I asked for just a couple of logs two weeks ago. This company’s got its claws in every planet in the solar system, and you couldn’t pop over to Saturn and harvest so much as a ringed bonsai for my break times?”

Mr. Jetson seemed taken aback for a moment. As if it had been some time since someone talked to him that way. “You really need a bit of wood to carve?”

“Don’t blame me for Earth’s extinct trees. Blame the phytoplankton you people cultivated so you could saw ‘em all down.” The young Spacely wasn’t holding back.

JetX’s CEO turned in his chair and looked back at his now-incomplete collection of perfect samples. “Do you know how long it will take us to find another fitting mold for Pr1ckle?”

Long enough you can dust off all your little drones and have them sweep the floors. Starboy only thought this sentence. Why he refrained from speaking it aloud, he wasn’t sure. But Jetson turned with a glaring eye all the same.

What? How had he heard…

Starboy reached up. Electrodes on the side of his head, stuck there by a near-silent mechanism in the ceiling…and wirelessly connected to Jetson’s bionic optics. “Ugh.” He tore the sticker-like thing off his temple, only for his vision to become tinted in dark red.

George waited for the coughing to die down before loading up another puff of his cigarette. “Say these carvings of yours are really that imperative to the work ethic you possess.” He steepled his fingers together, sat up straighter, and exhaled.

The young man felt fuzzy. Was this what college-kids of the past experienced, breathing in nicotine and vape powder with their own drugs-on-a-stick? “I…I fucking need those carvings. They keep my hands steady, my head calm…my head…”

“…head hurts…” Starboy barely kept himself from whimpering upon the advent of the third cloud. It was like his eyes were heating up with tears, getting so bloodshot that he could barely see past the fog.

George let out a sigh, adding to the haze. “What do you think you’ll accomplish by trying to fight it? We’ve been over this time and time again…it feels better when you don’t struggle.” He stuck the cigar back in, unrelenting.

Star just grabbed at his own sides and shut his eyes, head weighed down by a mix of shame and fatigue. “You just want me to…make a deaaal with you…” His words.

Holding back a smile was usually easy for Mr. Jetson, but not today. “Slurring? How…unprofessional.”

Star looked back up just in time for the fifth and final puff to do him in. Crimsoleum coated his lungs and might as well have moved his lips for him. Slumping down into the seat, he just weakly replied, “I want…to…carve…”

Mr. Jetson leaned in, watching the red glow brighten in Starling Spacely’s eyes. He looked like he’d just seen Heaven itself. Not that Jetson believed in any gods. That was ancient practice.

“The one you made from the sample. Still got it?”

The implied command was easy enough for a toddler to pick up on. Star plucked a small statue out of his pocket, colored with black and red streaks and shaped like a bear curled halfway in the fetal position. “Ursa…my favorite constellations…” he chuckled, seconds before he just sort of…dropped.

Mr. Jetson took the carving with an examining gaze, then stood to his feet. After unlocking the window with a jet-black key, he placed the ursine shape where the previous oval had been stored. “A theft for a theft. Good work, eh, Spacely?”

Starboy could only see his boss. Not the man who’d ruined his family’s life, or the creep who kept drugging him, or the mogul who swamped him with work and labor every other second for hours a day…

…just. His boss.

“Let’s do a deal. I’ll get you a whole tree’s worth of wood, if you stop whining and let me have my way.” Like an ominous chant, the words cut through all the blurry lines in Star’s head, and he sank into a deep and peaceful slumber.