To Dick’s left sat Allen Nosk, the South African gemstone heir and automotive investor, responsible for tunneling beneath earthquake-prone Los Angeles and marketing flamethrowers to nerdy virgin basement dwellers. Nosk made a puckered up duckface back at Memphis in an attempt to look cool.

Directly across from him sat a bald, bearded man in a lab coat and thick black goggles. The man wore a fake mustache, and a monocle stuck to one of the lenses of his goggles with a piece of tape. He also wore a backpack. The man had not introduced himself at the launch site back on Earth, and Memphis had simply assumed this ticketed passenger was perhaps one of Zif Banjos’ more eccentric investors. The disguised man in the lab coat gazed back at Memphis with a curious look and a rotten, yellow smile.

“Hello,” said the man. “I’m a billionaire.”

Something about the stranger didn’t sit quite right with Memphis, but all was forgotten as the space capsule reached the peak of its ascent at just over 62 miles above sea level.

“Welcome to the fun zone, gentlemen!” cheered Zif Banjos, as he unbuckled from his seat and floated weightlessly across the cabin. “Who wants to catch some Skittles?”

Memphis opened his satchel and pulled out a 45 vinyl single of the hit song that had launched his empire, Boobular Doobs, a one-hit wonder from a horror movie soundtrack of a bygone era. He spun the record in zero-g and a smile cracked his wrinkled face.

Banjos launched colorful candies across the cabin to Allen Nosk, who floated upside down and caught them in his mouth. Nosk pulled a ping pong ball from his sack and spun it toward the floor. Banjos tossed a handful of candy towards the smiling man in the lab coat. The candy ricocheted off his black goggles and face and floated freely around the capsule.

The man in the lab coat pulled a helmet from his backpack and put it over his head. Zif Banjos was the first of the billionaires to notice the blinking device the man placed on the hatch of the spacecraft.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” cried Banjos.

“Give me all your wallets,” said the man in the lab coat, as he pulled a gun from his satchel and pointed it at each of the billionaires. Nosk and Memphis froze where they floated at the top of the capsule.

“Are you daft, man? Why would any of us bring our wallets to space?” said Memphis.

Zif Banjos pulled out his wallet and nervously tossed it to the grinning man in the lab coat, who put it in his satchel.

“I’ve got this covered! Hoohah! Look out now!” yelled Allen Nosk, who kicked off the wall and threw handfuls of ping pong balls that bounced off the man’s helmet and clacked erratically against the windows.

“Stop it,” said the man in the lab coat. “Empty your pockets and give me your satchels. What about jewelry? Give me your jewelry.”

“I don’t have any jewelry,” Nosk lied. “Are you crazy?”

“Me? Crazy?” cackled the man in the lab coat. “You’re the one who has butt hairs growing out of the top of his head.”

“That’s my natural hairline,” huffed Nosk indignantly.

Zif Banjos snorted at Nosk’s statement as the man in the lab coat snatched their satchels.

“Why are you laughing,” Nosk snapped at Banjos. “You were a balding pencil-neck fifteen years ago!”

“And now I’m a fucking astronaut, so fuck you!” spat Banjos.

“Gentlemen!” shouted Dick Memphis as he turned to address the man in the lab coat. “Sir, what makes you think you can get away with this?”

“Empty your pockets,” the man said as he waved the gun around in the air. “Quickly.”

“I have a few emeralds,” said Nosk, who handed a fistful of gemstones over. “Do you take bitcoin?”

The man scooped the shiny rocks out of the air with his satchel and produced a small pen-like device with a red button from his pocket.

“Please! Don’t do anything stupid,” pleaded Zif Banjos.

“Stupid? Me?” giggled the man in the lab coat as he zipped up his satchel. “I’m not the one flying to space to eat candy or lording over an island full of monkeys.”

“They’re lemurs,” said Dick Memphis.

“Okay, well, you are all terrible people and you deserve everything that’s about to happen to you,” said the man in the lab coat as he pressed the red button and activated the explosive device attached to the hatch with a small bang and some sparks. “Thanks, guys. This has been a blast.”

The hatch of the space capsule blew off its hinges and wheeled into empty nothingness. The man in the lab coat pressed the button on his pen a second time, and a small rocket activated from the bottom of the device and propelled him out the hatch. He kicked off into space and sent the capsule spinning. The billionaire “astronauts” inside desperately clutched at their throats and frantically gasped for oxygen as the capsule began its descent.

The man in the lab coat adjusted the satchels looped over his shoulder, stretched out his arms and bore witness to the majesty of Earth from above as the sun broke the horizon.

“Someday, all of this will be mine,” the man in the lab coat whispered to himself.

How unfair it is, he thought, that a handful of business executives can exploit tax loopholes and wage slaves to hoard enough cold hard cash to fund senseless luxuries like balloon expeditions, monorails, and private space programs while all the average people below labored, struggled, and starved. He chuckled to himself knowing that in nine minutes the world was about to become three billionaires lighter and a much better place.

The man in the lab coat began to fall back to earth. A rush of air whipped at his arms as he plummeted faster and faster towards the ground. He clutched tightly to the satchels as he reached speeds over 500 mph. Somewhere after reaching 670 mph, the man in the lab coat was traveling faster than the speed of sound and produced a sonic boom that was heard for miles. He had reached speeds of 833 mph before his staged parachutes deployed from his backpack. His descent slowed and he gently glided back to Earth.

The man in the lab coat’s assistant, a young tattooed woman in tight black leather, a lab coat, and pointed stilettos, sped along a barren highway in a black Escalade. She chased after his GPS signal until visual contact had been made. The man in the lab coat dangled from the primary parachute, a brightly colored rainbow canopy with a big frowny face symbol painted across it. He soared towards the awaiting Escalade, where he skimmed the ground at 60 mph and came to an abrupt stop on his rump.

He detached the parachute, walked to the car, and tossed the satchels in the back seat.

“How was your flight?” asked his assistant in a thick Russian accent.

“First class,” chuckled the man in the lab coat as he removed his helmet and disguise. “Now drive.”

The Escalade pulled off and drove away down the empty country road. Moments later, the space capsule smashed into the ground in a nearby field. All that remained of the billionaires in the crater were three red splatters, a broken record, and a few ping pong balls.