A brand new short Space 2047-style story inspired by the uploaded manuscript and its characters.
Karen had always suspected that bills were alive. They arrived too regularly, multiplied in dark corners and made people sigh with the tragic force of a man discovering his trousers had been eaten by bureaucracy.
So when Are We There Yet? received a distress signal from Planet Invoice-9, Karen immediately distrusted it. The planet was shaped like an envelope and orbited a moon made entirely of late payment reminders. Brian said they should ignore it. Cedric said they should land and look for coupons. Salomina said that any planet shaped like paperwork deserved to be shouted at from a safe distance.
The ship’s computer offered a memory from the book source: I have bills all the way from the floor of my apartment to the ceiling she said, and then she sighed frustratedly before continuing, “Yes, I really wish that the people that keep sending me bills, would shuffle off of…
Unfortunately the spacecraft had already been pulled into orbit by a gravitational field powered by administrative disappointment. A giant printer rose from the planet’s surface and declared that the crew owed seventeen thousand galactic credits for breathing near a premium postcode. Karen responded by levitating the invoice with her mind and folding it into a paper hat.
The printer was horrified. Nobody had ever turned official paperwork into fashion before. Cedric asked if the hat came in velvet. Brian asked if the fine still counted if the planet was being silly. Salomina took the microphone and announced that all bills were hereby cancelled due to emotional inconvenience.
The printer considered this, jammed itself in protest and printed one final message: “Please hold.” The crew escaped during the holding music, which was terrible enough to qualify as a weapon.
More Space 2047 stories and character posts will appear in the Space 2047 category.