Bridge to Elsewhere by Alana Joli Abbott

Bridge to Elsewhere by Alana Joli Abbott

Author:Alana Joli Abbott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Outland Entertainment
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00


— TEAM BUILDING EXERCISE —

By Valerie Valdes

The newly assembled crew of the CS Fedoa sat in plastic folding chairs, arranged in a circle around the blonde-pony-tailed corporate trainer, who currently regarded them with the slightly demented smile of a professional cheer radiator. Her expression and business casual jumpsuit did nothing to diminish the cold, impersonal feel of the space station meeting room, with its bright fluorescent lights and painfully white walls covered in regulation posters explaining employee rights and minimum wage laws. A digital sign scrolled, “Welcome to Limosa Corp!!!” above a small table that held snacks, drinks, and disposables. The free coffee was lukewarm, the free muffins were dry, and the rest of the day promised to be equally unpleasant.

“So,” Bianca de Witt said, her tone unnaturally chipper, her blue eyes wide in her pale face. “Now that you’ve all been formally introduced to each other, our first team building exercise is going to be an exciting game.” She paused, as if waiting for a reaction, but only silence replied. “It’s a kind of role-playing game,” she continued, tapping her datapad. “You’re each going to be given a card, and your card will tell you whether you’re a human or an evil robot. The goal of the game is to guess which of your crewmates is the robot. Every round, you all get to discuss it and vote. If you vote for someone who’s a human, you keep going. If you manage to vote for the robot, you win! If the robot is one of the last two players left, they win. Does anyone have questions?”

Captain D Franklin uncrossed their tanned, muscular arms and half-raised their hand. “I’m sorry, Ms. de Witt—”

“Bianca, please,” Bianca said.

“—isn’t it a little insensitive to play an ‘evil robots’ game when one of our crew is literally a robot?” Captain Franklin gestured at Santi, who sat two chairs down from them. As an Iota model of a Synthetic Astro-Navigation Technician, he was almost indistinguishable from a human, except for his lavender skin, violet eyes, and impeccable posture.

“Thank you for speaking up on my behalf, Captain,” Santi said. “While I’m not programmed to be offended by anything, the situation is objectively problematic.”

Bianca’s red-lipsticked mouth made a moue. “That is excellent feedback, Captain Franklin. Let me send a quick note to our developers to consider using an alternate designation for that.” She quickly scribbled something on her datapad’s surface.

“How about vampires?” volunteered Omeika Tate, the ship’s chief engineer. “They’re not real.”

“Oh, the cards are already printed, though,” Bianca said, scrunching her face into a veneer of concern.

Ankur Agrawal, the pilot, raised a dark brown hand over his head. “We could just, I mean, if we all agree it’s vampires instead of robots, then it doesn’t matter, right? What’s on the card, I mean. Whoever gets the robot card is just a vampire instead.” He looked to Captain Franklin for support, and they nodded.

“I want to be a vampire hunter,” said Dexter Lawrence. The steward sprang to his feet and made a downward stabbing motion toward Grace Namingha, the junior engineer.



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