Garbage Day

Liam McDonald loved his job. Sure, maybe there wasn’t any prestige value, maybe he was looked down upon by society, but his was a terribly important occupation. And Liam McDonald was perfectly suited for his vocation. He was a garbage runner.

No, not a mere garbage collector, one of those hapless souls who, in grimy overalls, gather human refuse to be recycled. Liam McDonald was a runner. His job was to clear Earth’s atmosphere of junk, broken satellites, abandoned ship parts, rubbish, lost hardware, and everything else one found in the traffic lines of the skies. Liam, and the 49 others like him, combed the shipping lanes in souped-up ancient shuttles, collecting rubbish in tractor-beam nets and running it into the sun’s heat well to be burned up.

Liam, like his 49 compatriots, was single. No messy next-of-kin, in case of accident or misadventure, ancient shuttles being what they were. Liam had a serious problem with authority, and a rebellious streak far beyond the norm. In an earlier century, he would have been called a hoodlum, a greaser, or a thug. Liam had no social skills, and much preferred solitude. He was illiterate, but in a society of computer-fed pap, illiteracy was unremarkable.

The garbage runners lived in their ships, docking only to refuel, restock, imbibe, and copulate, generally in that order, and as cheaply as possible. No counting the beers and the prostitutes Liam McDonald had run to earth, so to speak. Shipboard amusements were equally lofty—computer games, mostly X-rated, all the porn a man could want, and a holographic woman for when games and pictures just weren’t enough. Garbage runners worked hard, played hard, and generally died hard, often getting themselves killed over drugs, women, or beer.

Liam McDonald was very good at his job.

Space station 42 had a seedy reputation. And the Starlight bar, despite its trite name, was the seediest bar. Only the strong went in, and only the strongest came out again.

Liam sat, or rather slouched, over his beer, giving birth to what would the next morning be the worst hangover of his life. He was severely pissed, as he’d just lost 5000 credits in antigrav pool. He staggered to his feet, looking through the gloom for someone to take his anger out on. His eyes wandered to a young, clean-cut crewman, probably just out of cadet school, getting blown by a topless prostitute. The kid was moaning and groaning, as though it were his first time. Perfect, the jackass was due for a lesson on the importance of silence in a drinking man’s bar.

Liam shambled over, grabbed the prostitute by the hair, and shoved her face onto his erect cock. The boy stood up, penis shrinking, and opened his mouth to protest. Looking at Liam’s angry face, the boy gulped, and closed his mouth. Liam sat, downing the cadet’s beer in one gulp, and watched the comp-tv as he enjoyed the prostitute on the boy’s credit.

For some unaccountable reason, the comp was tuned to the news. “Warning! Warning!” the monitor blared, “alien ships approaching!” The newswoman turned to her backlit screen, which showed a photo of the supposed alien ship. Liam didn’t care a twopenny damn about aliens, but the newswoman had one hell of an ass. He admired the view as the news droned on.

Later, when Liam passed out, the prostitute alerted the bouncer, who dumped the runner in an empty bed upstairs.

Six hours later, Liam dragged himself out of bed, pissed, gave himself a perfunctory shave and wash, and went to reclaim his ship. Comp-tvs all throughout the station were screaming of possible attack from the aliens. Service-men and women were running helter-skelter, looking terribly important and busy.

Ignoring the hubbub, Liam climbed into his old shuttle, and took off.

The alien nonsense was still going strong. Warships were scattered throughout the traffic zones, running drills. Liam shut his eyes wearily. Military funding had been halved last season, and obviously the bigwigs wanted to prove their necessity. “Hogwash,” thought Liam, and he tucked his ship onto a service route, out of their way. Even Liam McDonald knew better than to mess with the military when its fur was flying.

Paying little attention to the constant updates pouring out of his ship’s comp-tv, Liam set about his work. Ship sensors were detecting metallic flotsam ahead, and Liam chased it down, netting it in the tractor beam, and searching the skies for more.

That’s when he saw it. A gigantic monolith, looming over the planet earth. Big, ugly, and bad. Even through his sensor screen, Liam could sense how bad it was. “Holy Shit!” he exclaimed, as the alien ship opened fire. Streaks of blue laser-like beams flooded the skies, evaporating the earth, and its environs.

Liam’s dying thought was, “But who will clean up the mess?”