CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories J. Posthumus (ereader that reads to you TXT) 📖

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He turned his head to look, carefully not moving his hands, and came face to face with a chicken.

It was standing by his elbow and ducked down to look under the jacked-up door at him. This one was black and white with a puffy topknot of feathers atop its head. Bas had to admit the feathers, each one outlined neatly with black, were pretty. But that bright, interested gaze made him nervous in his current vulnerable, immobile position.

“Hey, buddy, how about you back up a little?” Bas cleared his throat. His voice had gotten a touch wobbly at the end as the chicken stretched its neck out, turning its head from side to side to look at him. “Ok, that’s close enough,” he said.

If he let go of the unit he supported, he could chase off the chicken. Chickens were big cowards; he’d learned while measuring the space for the coop. But they were also inveterately curious. Plus, they would peck at anything, including each other.

Gert had told him they routinely indulged in cannibalism and showed him the little isolation coop where they put chickens who had been plucked bald and bleeding by the rest of the flock. But, if he dropped the unit on his face, it was going to be worse than a peck.

A pair of hands appeared in his limited range of vision, moving slowly. The chicken, distracted by Bas, was captured with an indignant squawk, and removed from his field of view. Now he could see familiar boots.

“Are you ok in there?” Gert asked.

“Yes. He hadn’t quite worked up to taking a taste of me.” Bas got back to work. His hands moving quickly, he stripped out the blown fuse and slotted in the new one. “Thanks for grabbing him. I felt like he was going for my eyes.”

The boots shifted a little. “She. And would you like a sandwich?”

“Gert. Do I look like I can have a sandwich?” Bas grunted a little as he tightened the bolts holding the unit inside the door.

“When you can.” She walked off again, and Bas felt bad he’d snapped at her.

He closed the access hatch and wiggled out from under the door, but she was already gone. He closed the door then opened it again. Few things felt as good as getting the job done. Now, to find Gert and apologize.

She had not gone far. Someone had cobbled together a wire cage, and the husbandry techs were putting chickens in it. Gert saw him coming and waved a chicken at him. Its head stayed as steady as though it had a gyro inside it, which Bas found disconcerting.

He shied away from the cage. “I wanted to say sorry…” He didn’t get to finish what he was saying. Another of the husbandry techs—Lindsey, he thought her name was—popped up at his elbow.

“Here, we have sandwiches!” She held up a box and pulled off the lid. Inside were neatly wrapped squares.

“Um. Thanks.” He took one, and his stomach growled on cue.

Lindsey giggled at the sound effect. Gertrude, who was no longer holding a chicken, came over and asked, “How much longer on the doors?”

Bas swallowed. “Well, I’ve got two done, and it’s lunchtime. It’s going to be a while.”

“What happened?” Lindsey asked. She put the box of sandwiches back in Bas’s range, and he snagged a second gratefully.

“Thanks. Well, there was a power surge.” He shrugged. “No idea why. That’s Sam’s department, way above my pay grade. It was over the rating of a component used in all the station doors.”

Gert’s eyes got big. “Even the exterior doors?”

He nodded, adding extra motion for emphasis. “They fail shut. The interior ones fail open. It’s a safety feature. Outside stays on the outside. And, man, am I glad I’m not on that duty.”

They looked at each other. “There are a lot of doors.” Lindsey said thoughtfully.

Gert grimaced. “I guess the chickens will have to wait. We can get some of them in the coop.”

A week later, Bas was reminded of that conversation. They still had not gotten all of the doors working. His little crew was working on doors during every scheduled hour and some off the clock. They had come to the point of looking for a work order of higher priority than the doors, and fighting over it, just to have a break from lying under doors changing blown fuses. Bas was lying under this door, listening to a contented hen clucking somewhere nearby.

He wasn’t quite sure where it was. People had started to hang up curtains over their non-functional doors, for privacy, as much as that helped. The curtains worked as a social barrier for humans. Chickens knew nothing of social norms and probably wouldn’t care if they had. Bas had learned to watch for shit-landmines before he got down on the decking by a door now. And to keep a close eye out while walking through the corridors.

Chickens didn’t just leave unpleasantly liquid surprises in their wakes. The whole station had begun playing a game of hunt the egg, who’s got an egg? From what Bas had seen, the chickens did not approve of this. Humans, on the other hand, seemed to find it hilarious. Eggs were scarce in the cafeteria; which Bas was ok with. He thought of the chickens every time he saw an egg now.

He had gotten the routine with the door repair down to a smooth sequence. Jack it up, wriggle under, locate the unit… For a design that used all the same parts that failed in the same way, and the same time, you would think that the control unit would be in the same place on every door. You would be mistaken.

“What did you say?” Gert’s voice made him startle.

He hadn’t heard her walk up. And…

“Talking to myself. Bad habit.” Bas projected enough, he hoped, to be understood.

“Thanks for