Hyper
Chapter 9 – Anti-Aircraft

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Cafeteria]

Tom slid his tray onto a table a few over from the rest of the group, pulled out a chair and sat down. He was a bit of a loaner and didn’t want to be bothered with small talk during his meal. He had been eating ship rations for the last few months and the aroma coming from his hamburger was making his mouth water. He grabbed a bottle of ketchup from the middle of the table and squeezed a puddle next to his fries.

Tom Salsbury was born to a single mother who raised him until he was eleven years old and was placed into foster care. His mother had a long battle with the use of street drugs and they finally won. Tom woke up one morning to replace her dead body in the bathtub of their one room apartment on the south-side of Chicago. The memory of her lying in the tub with a cold blank stare had terrified him as a child, and more than a decade later, the event still invaded his dreams and ended his sleep with shock and horror.

He had stayed in foster care for five years causing some trouble here and there—nothing major. When he turned sixteen, he left his foster care family and went out on his own. His first stop was an auto repair shop in Whiting, Indiana where he worked for three years. He started out with the job of cleaning the garage each day and acting as a gopher for auto parts. After a few months the owner realized that Tom wasn’t a complete moron and taught him how to perform oil changes.

Tom lived in a small stock room in the back of the garage and acted as a security guard when the business was closed. He rearranged the card board boxes of toilet paper and grocery items to carve out a small sleeping space for himself; he found a couple couch pillows in the dumpster, laid them on the floor, and then covered them with a sleeping bag to make a bed.

He had coffee and cigarettes for breakfast each day, a bag of pork rinds for lunch, and some type of fast-food for dinner. To remove some of his daily personal grime, he used paper towels and hand soap from the wall dispenser to wash himself each morning in the garage restroom. He cleaned his clothes—a pair of worn out jeans and a black Motley Crue concert t-shirt he got from the Salvation Army—once a week in a large mop pail.

When he was twenty years old, he struck up a conversation with a customer that was getting a water pump replaced. The guy was the stage manager for a small time heavy metal band called Anti-Aircraft. He noticed Tom’s physical size and strength so he offered him a position as a roadie. Tom took the job and left Whiting, Indiana that afternoon. He traveled with the band, carrying heavy sound equipment back and forth from the trailer of a semi-truck to the stage.

Even though it was back breaking work, the job did have some benefits. The bus he traveled and lived on was quite an improvement over what he was used to at the garage. His new job also paid more than the garage, which meant he was able to eat much better and was able to wash his clothes at a laundry mat with the rest of the crew. He even ended up buying a new pair of jeans that he wore with a variety of Anti-Aircraft concert t-shirts.

On the downside, the debauchery found in the midst of a heavy metal band was extreme and during the next three years, Tom dabbled in a variety of drugs as well as alcohol. One day, he woke up hung-over and hungry on the floor of the bus. The big news that day was about the world-wide infection and how many people had gotten sick.

The lottery ticket Tom had drawn provided him with a job as a fresh recruit in the New Military on Mars. When Tom reported to boot camp, military officials took one look at him and knew he would be trouble so they shopped him to the Elixer Pharmaceutical Company to be a part of their security corps.

Elixer was open to having security team members that were close to being criminals themselves, so when they interviewed Tom and saw his past history, they jumped at the chance to hire him. Tom had been making constant trips between Earth and Mars for the past two years as an employee of Elixer; he had just been assigned to the Eylisian Fields a little more than three months ago.

He lifted the greasy hamburger and took a huge bite. He closed his eyes as the flavor of grilled meat began to satisfy his cravings. He chewed for a few seconds and then swallowed. He turned toward the cafeteria line and yelled, “Hey lady, I aint never had a burger like this before.”