22nd Day - Overqualified
Reading time: 4 min
Well, I should have read the job description past the salary, but I was eating my last can of expired tuna and had no idea how to survive for another thirteen days without robbing a bank.
The job seemed designed around me; so much that it could have been a set-up. They needed a janitor, experienced in heavy machinery maintenance, able to cook unfamiliar and limited food, preferably possessing a high degree of education, fit like a firefighter and—this, I must admit, sounded strange—with a twin brother.
I tick all the boxes.
I am a janitor; at the moment. I work in a high school just outside Pasadena for $550 a month; not enough to buy food and pay the rent, but enough to stay in the country. Because I worked in a fracking centre in Ukraine, I’m experienced in heavy machinery maintenance. Those drilling rigs have the resilience of a toothpick. Plus, cooking in the oddest situations is kind of my speciality. In fact, I was the cook of my battalion in Afghanistan, and I can assure you there are no supermarkets among those mountains. I have a PhD in Particle Physics, obtained at the Moscow State University before I started moving around. I’m fit: fit enough to get to the semi-finals of America Ninja Warrior, only to slip before the last jump and lose my spot to Lucy. Lucy; I hate her. And, finally, I’ve got a twin brother living in Saint Petersburg. He’s a middle manager for a boiler manufacturer, and in his spare time, he likes to criticise each and every one of my decisions. Apart from our life choices, though, we are identical.
In hindsight, I should have known what I was applying for. There’s only one place where you would need such a highly qualified janitor, and it’s not so difficult to guess. Also, the ‘twin’ requirement stank of experiment; I should have known they were going to contact him.
In my defence, as I already said, that wasn’t my best decade and when I saw the two hundred grand offered, I just stopped reading and sent my CV.
Just the last of my regrets, I suppose.
Dimitri called me the same day I received the hiring letter.
“How’s my favourite brother doing?” I said.
“Have you gone mad? Are you insane or just the stupidest being in the Milky Way?”
“Come on, what have I done now.”
“They called me. NASA called me, you idiot.”
“So? It’s almost a quarter of a million. Didn’t you want to open a candy shop or something?”
“I want to start a consultancy firm, thank you very much, but that’s not the point. What do you think is going to happen when they find out?”
“When they find out what?”
“Who you are; dumbass.”
“How would they?”
“You must have had a stroke; you can’t be serious. The mission.”
“What about it?”
“It’s on Titan.”
As soon as my brother mentioned it, I understood the gravity of the situation. I should have read the whole job description. I just assumed I’d be working in the International Space Station.
“Fuck,” I said.
“My exact same thought.”
“What do I do?”
“What you do best. You disappear. But now, thanks to you, my dear brother, I have to disappear too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’d better be. I had a family here in St Petersburg.”
“But wait, what if I don’t? What if I accept the mission?”
“You must be joking, right? I know it’s been half a century now, but the bounty on our head is still very much out for grab. Dead or alive, brother.”
“What if I can pass as a human?”
“How? They’ll detect your DNA as soon as the spaceship enters the atmosphere.”
“Faecal matter.”
“What?”
“Faecal matter! That stinky stuff humans expel.”
“I have a child; I know what faecal matter is.”
“But I bet you haven’t experimented with it.”
“I’m listening.”
“You can use it to mask your genetic footprint. I use it to read the Titan’s daily every other week.”
“You what?!?”
“Calm down, it works. I’m going to be the janitor of the spaceship: I’ll have access to the waste of the entire crew for months, maybe years! I don’t know exactly how far behind humanity is on space travel.”
“So, what you’re saying is…”
“What I’m telling you is that I can get to Titan, undetected, and finish the job.”
Dimitri fell silent for a moment. “Can you really?”
“Yes, brother. Yes, I can.”
