= A slow, very slow, work in progress. I mull things over in a manner that is not described as quick and it takes a couple of tries before my writing ability even begins to tap "almost allright" on the shoulder. So bear with me, if you're even halfway interested in the work. =
=Original Prelude, maintained for posterity=
The droplet, a speck, of antimatter dashed through the stars wrapped securely within its massive cocoon of rapidly decaying electromagnetic energy. An errant molecule of hydrogen, a lonely scrap of long drifting space dust would have been more than enough to alter this moment, but all was swept aside before the torrent of energy radiating from the fiery ball. When it collided with the outer hull of the unshielded transport, the reaction between the durasteel and antimatter particle was catastrophic. The resulting blast of energy sundered the vessels hull and laid bare its plasma reactor, which was itself already in its final stages of destruction, its volatile energies flooding from structures too stressed to maintain containment.
Seconds slipped by and the transport erupted into a brilliant cascade of fire, its final spark of life to be found in the quickly dimming control pod spinning into the void, frozen atmosphere sputtering as that too disintegrated into nothing resembling a vessel.
He found it easier to look at what he had done from an academic perspective. Had written about it from an academic perspective before, but those days were long past.
"Saddle up gents, word has it the calvary is on the way and it's high time we scadooted. Good shootin back there, a good kill."
He swung the cumbersome bulk of his CTE-10000 into formation with the Leo Mathews and the rest of the Xeno strike group he chanced one last look towards the small field of carnage that they had wrought. A large convoy of broken Kishiro transports and mauled fighters burnt their last between the shorted trade lanes, it was a hellish view.
But it had been a good kill. They were all good kills, when you killed for something greater than yourself.
He reached into his pocket to fetch a smoke from the worn pack squatting in his jacket pocket. Placing it to his lips he performed a practiced double tap on the foil cylinder, moments later the tip sparked to life and he took an appreciative drag.
The man next to him, if you could call the seventeen year old sporting a scattering of sparse hairs a man, broached the question burning in both of their minds.
"You think this is going to work?"
"It'll work." Was replied behind a crackle of burning paper.
"No one's ever done this before."
"That's why it'll work"
"But if it doesn't..."
The smoker chuckled ruefully and took another drag as the two blobs of humanity below neared the point of convergence. The din of their shouts could be felt more than heard above the whine of the patrol craft hovering above the demonstration. The same songs, chants and cries that had echoed through these streets for over two centuries.
Houstons noon sun took on a burnt tangerine hue as it fell behind the thick smoke emanating from the hydrocarbon refinery the mass of protestors were marching towards. The patrol craft fired their beams of light into the surging crowd of protestors as the street went dark under the haze, lighting the rows of raised fights and waving signs, now only a block away from the LPI line.
"If this doesn't work we're in a world of ****."
He took another drag, thankful for the distraction from the panic racing through his heart, praying his face communicated something other than the failing cool of a terrified fifteen year old wearing a jacket one size too big to fit, a beard a year too young to suit his face and actions far too heavy for his youth.
"But if it does work you're in."
The cigarette bobbed once in agreement, blue eyes watching as two groups of humanity met in opposition. The second the first hand touched the first shield it was an unlawful congregation, that was the law. Seconds later the sickening clicks of the riot control mechanisms started to tapdance on the wills of the two boys, suggesting that anything other than sitting down, rolling up and possibly ****ting out their hearts wasn't in their best interest. He knew the agony in the street would be worse. This is when it could fall apart.
Do you know why we reckoned thisd be a suitable gesture? His sponsor broached amidst a grimace.
The crowd broke, they dropped their signs and ran from the wall of inhuman noise. Neural wails perfected over centuries to really, really ruin the day of someone on the wrong end of the offices of the law. In their scattered wake he could see the sea of signs, bearing the familiar slogans of this district of Houston. Police brutality, slave state, fair days work for a fair day's wage. The testament of a district with 80% unemployment where everyone had a job, once they were picked up by the LPI for social vagrancy anyways. Social credits earned over a vat of fuming hydrocarbons to be processed into fertilizer to feed Rheinland farms.
I dunno Allan, because one of the suits down there is the guy banging my mom?
The first shots rang out below, this is what the LPI were waiting for, the real protestors. The real menace. The ones who would kill them in their sleep, the ones who broke the factories and arranged the riots. The ones who would leave a foreigner bleeding face down in a gutter.
Just about right Allan replied. But not exactly
The LPI charged, their feet trampling the signs beneath. Above them the patrol cars trained their spotlights on the flicker emanating from firearms.
Then why?
The shooters broke, the LPI pressed, the street of signs all but vanished beneath their feet.
Because we wanted to see if youd be able to look those people down there in the eyes when you handed them those signs of yours. Bit about yer arsehole fath
Then the world ended.
The concussive blast of the explosion lifted the two and sent them tumbling as the street below erupted in flame. Their plan, his plan, burning fit to set the clouds above them alight with the flame. He felt more than heard the report, the sound of a low flying patrol craft crashing into a building as it strove to compensate for the heat and pressure.
A hundred signs, laden with plastique, carried unwittingly to form a street of mines. Poetic, he thought, and the perfect disguise for their deadly intent. Allan rolled with a groan then inched towards the side of the building to take a brief look over the side. He didn't want to look, he didn't want to see the result of that explosion amidst the mass of humanity rushing over it. He was hoping his reward for this day could be, hope against hope, being spared that. There would be other days for that. Not today.
Allan crawled back, eyes alight with something he didn't want to think might be echoed in his own.
"Fecking A David. Welcome to the Xenos."
He took a drag, the flare echoed by the burning clouds above.
David Chambers leaned terribly close to the pyramid of soggy cards stacked before him, breath brewed to shatter time and space contained behind pursed lips, bloodshot eyes moving uneasily between the tower he was crafting and the Queen of Hearts lightly held in his lightly trembling hands The oily card alighted gentle alongside its brothers. Another pillar received its foundation. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his bearded face with a sense of supreme satisfaction. The tower had reached its fourth level and it was time to pull out two things, another deck of cards and another shot.
He gasped like a diver as the Midnight Hobo seared a path to his belly, no warm afterglow with this blend, and giggled as he noted the name of the deck: proxies and women, epic stacking material indeed. He leaned back his head and belched the laugh reserved for the drunk and the mad, enjoying the salutary retort issued by the dusty corners of the lonely hangar. He returned to humming some moronic bopper ditty that had been playing in the Holstered Pistol, the bar sitting some three decks above in this particular wing of Barrier Gate, from whence he had secured both the bottle and the compliment of cards before retiring to his post for the evening.
He lay a pair of cards against one another, the edges long since warn from their former crisp plasticity to a fuzzy cloth. He noted with some amusement that the corner of the ace in his hand was marked. The cards fit cleanly, their surfaces virtually adhering to one another. There was something magical about cards which had years on their shoulders. Books without words, just the fold of places where a hundred deals had softened
their edges or, in this case, the odd mark which doubtless had a story behind it.
But those were the thoughts of a thinkin man. A thinkin man was not what he wanted to be that night and, as such, he picked up the bottle again with a salutary wave towards some unknown figure or ideal and tipped back another soul shattering bolt of the vile stuff. He didnt know which dog had been drowned in what tub of onions but, god damn, it must have been an ugly fraking dog.
The hanger of the Reaver Mercenary company stood silent save for the noises produced with no small effort by its sole inhabitant; as they had every night following his initial employment. The job had seemed, at first, to be a god send. A chance to drown his mind in work. The complexities of solving the mechanical and logistical needs presented by the wide variety of ships employed by the average merc outfit, a means by which to secure a place on this station before someone figured out that the best place for a vagrant was outside. What he had gotten was a silent hanger replete with ships settled under tarps. It felt like he was the night watch as a gaddam sepulcher.
They didnt fly. Which means that he didnt work. Weekly maintenance routines turned into busy work, clean grease emanating from bearings which hadnt been put to task in months. Engines turned over purred like newborn kittens. Day after day of checking in to a room silent save for the sway of plastic moving under the gentle urgings of the stations ventilation.
A little peace and quiet as the last frakking thing he had been looking for and, so, he figured it was just as well to give circumstance a little company in the second to last thing he was looking for. With that thought he wagged his finger at himself and giggled, causing the tower to wobble wildly before his whiskey soaked breath. A wonder, he thought, that it didnt burst into flame. But, ah, there was the think word again! Gascon! Another belt to the hatch!
He didnt know what had killed the outfit. But he could guess. The hangar was a graveyard of ships carefully labeled and cataloged. He had strolled over and attempted to squeeze labor from each enough times to be familiar with that, at the least. Amidst the Falcattas, GMG craft, IMG bombers and other miscellaneous testaments to the diversity of her staff there lay one empty series of slots. Labeled in the hangar and on the ship manifest as belonging to one Violet Reaver. He had seen enough wings fold, felt enough spirits die with a name, to formulate a guess that whatever heart and spirit had once driven this place had taken a nosedive when Missis or Mister Violet had decided to take a bit of a powder.
The fifth level of cards began to take place and, with dismay, he realized that he was coming dangerously close to being bored. Just as well that the ships were locked down. While amusing he doubted that his evening would be well served with a DUI in a Praetorian on the slave trail. He placed the final card on the fifth row with something akin to regret, as though signing off on a chapter of the evening which took the sense of good times with it. He took another obligatory pull from the bottle but his mind, drowning in the cheap **** as it is was, hardly noticed the difference.
Slave trail. Thats what did it. Thoughts back on the Innocence Lost. Hah. Frakking apt name.
He eyeballed the tower before him for a moment, wondering if he should upset the table and have a grand dramatic row. But, like scraping your knee as a kid, the fun wasnt really in it if no one else was there to pat you on the head.
He chuckled ruefully as he suddenly recognized the connection of that night so long ago with this one. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took another long pull then, raising it above the tower let it fall. The cheap thing shattered on impact, causing the tower to collapse around it. David allowed himself to fall backward in his chair, head spinning in its bath of whiskey.
He pointed a finger upwards towards the florescence above. A circle of dimming vision conjuring the elevator all over again.
This wasnt good. Things were moving far too quickly. There was supposed to be confusion after the blasts, mayhem, a panic of bodies into which he could seamlessly integrate.
Not this wall of vehicles and innumerable stabbing lights from patrol ships above.
It hadnt been five minutes since the charges had gone off, the firestorm was barely contained beneath a layer of foam, debris and bodies alike buried beneath the mass of retardant, and the streets were flooded with riot response units. As though they had been waiting for this to happen. Demonstrators were huddled in quick-pens, cuffed and laying on the ground, some were being roughly interrogated on the street by screaming officers.
The two youths watched from their perch behind a shattered office window. It was difficult to make out the specifics of what was taking place below. The sick red light of the setting sun was almost entirely obscured by the remaining detritus cast by their explosion. But one thing was evident and could not be hidden behind darkness nor uniform: These were not the common street thug LPI with whom they were familiar. David quietly muttered as they witnessed the smart movements of the officers forming up protestors around descending Grizzlies.
What was that I said about a world of ****?
Allan grunted We earnestly and sincerely need to get right the frak out of here. Come on
They traced a confusing path through the maze of abandoned machinery that dominated this floor of whatever long decayed building it was that they were inhabiting. The uncertainty of the situation compounded by a sudden sound of rapid movement from somewhere a floor below them. The proximity of danger was casting a sudden and extremely unwelcome specter of reality over the situation, a reality which had been entirely absent amidst the almost abstract concept of what they were doing. A shout rang from below and a pulse of light breached between a crack in the floor. World of **** indeed.
The two made their way to the doors of a dated elevator and gingerly attempted to pry the rusted portal open. Davids heart nearly vacated the premises when the door emitted a heart rending screech with the unwelcome movement. A moments pause to ascertain the impact wasnt necessary, the noise of movement below erupted into a symphony of voices. The two shot each other a panicked glance and, with an eruption of effort, wrenched the doors apart.
The shaft was barren of car or cable. But it still possessed a service ladder. Allan hurriedly pushed forward to grab ahold of the first rung and began a frantic descent. David looked on for a split moment of hesitation before his mind was made by a sweep of light emanating from the ascending officers. He scrambled into the dim tunnel and began his plunge into darkness. However his hand barely touched the the first rung before the metal, with a tortured shriek, broke free of its moorings. He fell backwards through the darkness, dimly aware of a human scream. Then he landed on something which kicked the air from his lungs and the senses mind. It wasnt until a hated beam of light cut through the dimness above that he found the will to urge his body back to life. A remaining burst of adrenalin from a body that felt more like a battered shell with every passing moment.
He sat up, his body felt broken, but moved. His head felt like it could barely contain the panicked blood pounding through, yet he could think. He shakily rose to his feet to find an adjoining passage before a weak cry brought his eyes downwards, settling with something almost akin to surprise on the twisted form of Allan. Allans leg hung at an impossible angle, jeans wrapped awkwardly against themselves.
A sudden beam of light stabbed down the shaft and David instinctively stepped into the passage. He looked down at Allan, now enveloped in a trained beam reveal how desperately wounded his friend was.
David took another step back.
Da.. Dav... God.. .Man help. Where ar... going? Allans eyes burned with a sudden fever through the blood coating his face, his voice finding sudden strength as he nearly shouted his condemnation. Where are you going!?.
David turned on his heel and ran down the passage, he didnt look back at the belch of a repeater, nor at the choked sob of pain which followed. He didnt need to. He doubted he would find a waking moment where he wouldnt see what he knew lay behind him.
The passage terminated at an overgrown loading dock. A brief scramble into the pitch of the new evening took a short distance into an adjoining reservoir. The filth of the still water feeling like a haven against the sense of impending horror. The blaze of light cast by slow moving patrol craft terminated some blocks away but, still, he ducked into the putrescence until he felt fit to drown and began a slow journey to the south.
It occurred to him that the rest of his smokes were now ruined.
= Much like the Antimatter, this is a short bit of prose I wrote in the long past to attempt to frame some of the ideas I was crafting... If not for the character but at least for the environment. Again, for the sake of posterity, I'm going to store it here. =
I still remember that tram ride, after all of these years it remains one of my most vivid memories. Racing through the heart of Liberty, through the heart of Sirius, from the spaceport that brought me here to the distant corner where I was to take up my post. The floods of people filtering past was as overpowering as the views that screamed by the windows when our journey would pull us from the earth and into the light.
I remember, for a brief moment, spotting the towering relic of the sleepership that brought us here and was awed, before again we were pulled beneath the earth to the next transit point.
My post had been a humble one. Teaching positions were still valued in spots around Liberty where AI instructors couldn't compete with the operating costs of by poor servants such as myself. If I found myself beaten one day on the way home by a pack of Rogues I would haul myself back to work, or find myself without work to return to. The vandalized machine would simply die, it lacked the need to struggle.
Of course this invariably meant that such dangers were very real. Neighborhoods such as that one where petty crime syndicates doled out living spaces and men worked one day to the next in depression in full knowledge that they were an executive penstroke away from ruin. Tempers were always quick to flair and tensions high, where anyone thought to have an un-libertonian accent could find themselves on an unforgiving slab being verified by family members in short order.
Communities of stacked apartments nestled between silent factories, as LPI vessels slowly drifted overhead, shining lights through the cracks of crumbling towers. Home to thousands without a living soul for miles.
He felt sick with fear, his stomach crawled with it, his lungs burned with it. It was all he could do to not simply collapse with his head between his legs, trying to hold back the urge to vomit. He had no idea where to go now. Would they even take him now that Allan was dead? Were any of -them- even left after that raid? How was he going to explain his absence? Could he even go home? Ever? What was home now?
It was well and truly night now. The streets were blacked out in the wake of the protest and the stars hidden beneath a thick wall of smoke. He wasnt completely sure where he was, or whos turf he was in. His mad journey through the aqueduct had taken him through a number of switches as he fled in panic ahead of imaginary pursuit. The only frame of reference he could grasp was a dim snatch of illumination cast by a half dozen slow moving patrol-craft in the smokey distance. But even that might be a phantom of his imagination, for it too swiftly vanished.
David realized he had stopped moving when the shivering began. He remained immersed in the sludge of the aqueduct, now barely capping his knees, but he was soaked through and the blackened night offered little warmth. Without the fuel of panic he felt suddenly drained, stiffening muscles offering up little beyond a stumble towards the sharp incline of the reservoirs walls. In this new moment he wanted nothing more than to escape the numbing cold of the water which had taken him untold miles. He blindly raked his fingers against concrete until they found something which he could grasp, a vine, which supported his weight well enough to carry him to something resembling a ledge.
There he collapsed on his back, staring upwards into the pitch. For a moment there was a shrill fear that he might be blind. Some passing shrapnel had torn a nerve which he had not felt through the panic, some watching god had struck him sightless for his betrayal. David waved a hand in front of his face and saw nothing. Black against black.
The hand collapsed to the weight of fatigue; landing atop the bulk of the sodden package in his jacket pocket. Instinct roused him long enough to sift through the foil, miraculously drawing a smoke which had escaped immersion unscathed. He drew it to his lips, tapped the foil twice and waited.
A moment later the familiar flare blossomed to life, bringing a promise of light and a gift of heat as the smoke rush to his lungs. Relief and thanks flooded through him with the warmth of the smoke, the crackle of the drawn paper. A noise which echoed hollowly in his mind like the belch of the repeater.
That was all it took.
Fear and guilt surged through his stomach and he was suddenly sick. A hasty roll nearly took him down the embankment, body feebly striving to hold itself in place against the incline while he retched, his body offering nothing beyond a burning yellow film. When his shudders calmed his body collapsed onto the embankment and resumed its violent shuddering. The cold, panic and fear coaxing him to dance in his ill earned shelter.
David rocked himself to sleep. Moaning feverish apologies to an unseen Allan, the father he never knew, a life he never knew, the people in the streets, the officers in the building, anything to take him back from the things he had done that day and the fear of what was yet to come. Anything to save him and make it go away.