CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473820
6/12/2301
EUROPA DOCKING STATION 45H (JUPITER)
Hey hey, Reishi reporting in. First day done. Deactivated 14 mold clusters today. Pretty sure that’s two over the daily quota, so do I get some kind of prize? Extra ration tickets for tomorrow? A pod upgrade? Seriously, the ClearPod you rented me is a piece of trash, which is saying a lot, considering that I’m surrounded by literal trash out here. I swear, the mold would eat through this engine in a day if I let it get close enough. You all better not charge me for it if that happens.
CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473821
6/13/2301
TITAN DOCKING STATION 12B (SATURN)
Reishi again. The ration refill station requires a legal ID? Are you kidding me? Avoiding my legal name was part of why I switched to gig work in the first place, dammit. Besides, you know, needing to eat. Anyway, I deactivated 27 clusters today. I’m a fucking superstar. There is a LOT of junk floating out here though, and people just keep dumping more. Wouldn’t letting the mold eat through some of this be a good thing? I get that roving clusters of space junk propelled by metal-eating mold crashing into other clusters to continue feeding themselves are an inconvenience to interplanetary transit companies, but still. Not that I’m complaining. A job is a job.
CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473822
6/15/2301
TRITON DOCKING STATION 2A (NEPTUNE)
Okay, something has definitely gotten into the engine. I’m only able to control my speed and direction about half of the time, and there’s this slick, squicking sound? I managed to get 12 clusters today, barely, but I’m not really sure the anti-fungal spray is working, because I think I saw the same clusters moving around a few hours later. I could have been mistaken, but how many discarded animatronic dollhouses could be floating around Neptune’s outer atmosphere? On second thought, who knows how many animatronic dollhouses are out here. I am not paid enough for this.
CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473823
6/18/2301
DEIMOS DOCKING STATION 3C (MARS)
Hello, algorithm processing my logs, if anything is reading them at all. Mold is inside the main cabin of the pod now. (Not that there are any other cabins. You’ve given us a chair and a hole to shit in, but I digress.) Is this normal? Orange and blue slime is branching all over the dashboard and up my seat, although none of it seems to have touched me so far. To be honest, I don’t mind the company. It’s lonely out here.
Also, I have been having some very weird dreams. Very, very weird. Reishi out.
CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473824
6/24/2301
DESDEMONA DOCKING STATION 23F (URANUS)
What actually is this stuff? Why are we trying to kill it? Not that I think we’re very successful. I don’t think you understand what it’s capable of. It’s been making sounds. I think I’m starting to understand her.
CLEARCORP EMPLOYEE LOG #473825
7/2/2301
CHARON DOCKING STATION 1A (PLUTO)
This♉♐🙵♋🖴 mold ❒♏♐■🙵can eat a lot ♐■♐♑■more than metal🖴■♐♎♋⬧
REVIEWER NOTE: LOGS STOP INDEFINITELY AFTER 7/2/2301. AS PER PROTOCOL, AUDIO MONITORING APPARATUS WAS ENGAGED ON 6/23/2301, AFTER EMPLOYEE FAILED TO SUBMIT LOGS FOR FIVE DAYS. POTENTIALLY RELEVANT RECORDINGS TRANSCRIBED BELOW. ALL TIMESTAMPS ARE IN SOLAR STANDARD TIME.
3:20PM 6/23/2301
*squelch*
*crackle*
okay okay, I get the idea. you’ve wrapped yourself around every button on the dashboard, especially the anti-fungal blasters. fair! I’ll stop trying to deactivate clusters, just because you asked. and because you left the comms panel free, which was sweet. I don’t really have anyone to message, though – most people don’t take this kind of job if they have a home to go back to, you know? I guess there’s the ClearCorp logs, but I might as well stop doing them if I’m not going to be reaching quota anymore. so feel free to spread out there too, if you want.
9:00PM 6/23/2301
what— oh, that feels nice
maybe I should be worried about you crawling up my thighs like that, but at least you’re being gentle
god, I’ve been out here for a long time
wow, you’re making me feel how tense my muscles have been. I’m going to take a nap. stay there, okay?
5:10AM 6/24/2301
you stayed! oh— oh, you’re moving again
excuse me THOSE are my boxers
okay okay okay. let me take them off first. I need to be able to see what you’re doing.
thanks for… waiting? okay, keep going.
oh,
oh!
oh
11:30PM 6/24/2301
fuck fuck fuck fuck
8:40PM 6/26/2301
you wanna move over? I need to shit
ha, was probably inevitable that I’d be no good at being a fungi-killer when I literally named myself after a mushroom
did you know pharm companies tried to ban Reishi mushrooms in the 2100s to try to force people to buy their medicine instead of making their own? not sure how they expected that to work, when it isn’t even predictable enough to be farmed, let alone monitored or destroyed
but clearly they haven’t learned, huh
6:25PM 7/1/2301
no, not inside there, that isn’t really the apparatus I want to have
apparently you can get a phalloplasty for dirt cheap at this underground clinic on Pluto these days, but I don’t know how I’d afford to not work during recovery
so you can just stick to the outside for now— just like— that, yeah, in circles—
4:45AM 7/2/2301
holy shit, we haven’t been to a refill station in over two weeks
but I’m not really hungry. are you feeding me, somehow?
or feeding on me, and just warping my sense of hunger and time?
honestly, I don’t even care— god, do that again—
11:55PM 7/4/2301
oh! I didn’t know you could form such solid shapes
what are you— that kind of looks like a dick? god, right over my clit, as if it were mine.
I’ve always wanted to— I’m going to pretend to jerk off, okay, even though I won’t be able to feel, I just want to imagine it
fuck
did I just imagine that, or
FUCK
are you doing that? transferring what you’re feeling to me? is this what you feel when I touch you? when I touch this dick it feels like a part of my body. is it still part of you too?
3:02AM 7/10/2301
Can you feel the ventricles in my heart contracting and expanding? My intestines slipping against each other? Electric potentials passing from neuron to neuron?
I feel you seeping through the circuitry in the dashboard and twisting around the pistons in the engine. I feel the chemical signals flowing to and from each corner of the network you’ve formed throughout my pod and beyond. I feel you millions of kilometers away, munching on animatronic dollhouses.
I am in my body and your body, and you are in your body and mine, and we’re touching everywhere all the time, and it feels fucking fantastic.
REVIEWER NOTE: ALL REMAINING AUDIO FILES ARE CORRUPTED AFTER 7/10/2301.
REVIEWER NOTE: AFTER 7/10/2301, POD LOCATION DATA BECOMES HIGHLY ANOMALOUS, REPORTING MULTIPLE LOCATIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY. THESE LOCATIONS MAY CORRESPOND TO KNOWN POSITIONS OF MOLD CLUSTERS. FURTHER ANALYSIS NEEDED.
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS: AUDIO AND LOCATION DATA CORRUPTION MAY REPRESENT POSSIBLE SYSTEM SECURITY BREACH BY MOLD ITSELF. IMMEDIATE RECATEGORIZATION OF INCIDENT TO LEVEL 1 PRIORITY AND SYSTEMWIDE SECURITY REINFORCEMENT STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.
ASTEROID BELT CLEARCORP SECURITY STATION 34A, OUTGOING MESSAGE #252
Trying this♉♒🙰🙵 again. Haven’t 🙰🙵●♒🙰♉heard anything back about Incident Report #4378. Actually, haven’t heard anything🙰🖴🙰🖴🙵●■ at all since sending it out, including about the next rations❖■🔾⌘❖♍⌘⌧ shipment, which was due last week. 👎♋♐🙰●♎🖴♋Anyone’s comms still working? Anyone☞♎♋⬧♐ ♎♋⬧♐♎⬧♋
Dri Chiu (They/he)
Dri Chiu is a trans Taiwanese creator and educator. He is in love with moss, sediment cores, and public transit. They write (short stories and poems), make (zines and video games), and teach (physics and speculative fiction).
delicatefriend.com 