Sunspot

[Proselyte]

---

So I'm finding reason to believe my hosts' chit-chatting didn't go in my favor.

Up 'gainst the wall! Arms 'hind your back!

Two armed Bretonians, a thickly-bearded big man and a straight-haired woman with a cybernetic hand, see to me standing against the wall of the cell at gunpoint, back turned. The woman briskly strides on over to lock my hands in a pair of stun cuffs, which snap on securely and self-adjust to fit to my wrists.

Is that necessary? I'm not planning to make any trou- mmpf!

I let out an embarrassing squeak. She also just stuffed a linen bag over my head like we're in a holovid. Old fashioned and really damned rude. The bar for treatment keeps getting lower, and that's got me worried.

My rescuers might be about done with me.

Like we're going to be takin' yer word for it, doll.

Yeah. Don't want you slippin' off where you shouldn't be. Try it and I'll cook ya.

To make his point, the bearded man rattles something in his hand. I'm guessing the controls for the stun cuffs. I'm already imagining the nervous shock that'd follow if he pressed the button, and that's more than enough convincing to behave. Even if I never really intended to make some daring escape.

I gulp down my trepidation and stifle the nervous rattling in my hands as best I can. After they finish, the man grabs my shoulder and starts me walking just in front of them. We leave the cell, but I'm walking blind, pulled this way and that by my captors. I'm not feeling very optimistic anymore.

Still. Calm. Don't lose your center.

They wouldn't just up and shoot me after going through the effort to mend me. Or would they? I try and think like a criminal. If he doesn't want any kind of trail, disappearing people draw attention. I made sure to emphasize that, hoping that'd grow a little seed of doubt. Maybe he decided live ones are worse in that regard? After all, nobody's come looking yet. Or have they? But how would they know where I am now? And if anybody found their way here, it isn't here he's even worried about. I don't know. There's too many unknowns to feel certain.

Yeah... that doesn't leave me feeling reassured, being carted around by my maybe executioners.

After a good few minutes of walking, we enter a new room that carries a bit of an echo, leaving it feeling rather spacious. I'm walked down some steps, and up against something that by my guess seems like a small vehicle. The sound of a door unlatching and swinging open is followed by a bark from the man behind me.

Come on, in ya go, sharpish!

I try my best to cooperate with getting essentially shoved into a cramped compartment, where I'm settled into a seat, my legs aching to find clearance against another seat in front of me. One of my escorts, the man I think, climbs in next to me and in making a point, presses my hip with the barrel of his gun. As if the cuffs weren't enough insurance!

You just sit merry, don't struggle. We'll be going for a little trip.

I'm, um, flattered you think I'd try to escape at this point.

Either way, that's not gonna be a problem for you much longer.

I hear an engine start, but none of the exhilaration in my chest from liftoff that I've come to love. Instead, we're rolling forward. It's a groundcar, then. We can't be going far, if that's the case. Perhaps just far enough to dump me out back.

Our vehicle rumbles on, descending at a slight incline through the hissing winds outside for most of the hour-long trip.

Barely a word is spoken.

---

They drove us all the way out to some little settlement, not really all that much larger than David's Hollow on Denver. I could tell there was the bustle of vehicles and even a few aircraft outside, the din of civilization, but I was blind until we pulled in towards our destination. The big man shuffled me out of the vehicle, and promptly yanked the sack off my head.

The brightness stung something fierce at first, but I was greeted with the sight of a walled off shuttleport. Our enclosed quad buggy was parked close to the boarding ramp, next to the landing pad. Mountains loomed in the near distance, with the town looking like it's in some kind of fishbowl valley. So much warmer than where we were, the Omega-48 star casting a reddish hue over the land and buildings surrounding the little compound.

It looked like the place had been closed off to the public. There wasn't anyone else around inside the walls - save for us.

We didn't exchange many more words, and they didn't answer any questions. They simply undid my cuffs, giving me dour looks the whole time, and threw my green flightsuit at my feet. I tied the sleeves around my waist and wore it over my back like a rucksack, which just made me look more disheveled altogether. They were waiting for something.

I figured out what soon enough. An unmarked aeroshuttle swept in towards the landing pad before long, and after it landed the two Bretonians swiftly saw me aboard. I didn't have much time to contemplate the whats or whys. I was just relieved this wasn't a short trip to a shallow grave.

The ramp had raised and the shuttle lifted and pulled out of the port almost no sooner than it had arrived, leaving behind Rudy's people. Nearly stumbled off my feet as she lifted off and had to brace myself against the compartment wall.

But, lo and behold, I'm alone again. On to who-knows-where. That's a feeling I'm quite used to by now.

We gain altitude, but it doesn't look like we're going starside. The Canarian landscape below becomes distant and unfocused, the town we lifted off from fading into the myriad colors and textures of the world many kilometers below. I try to walk up to the cabin, carefully, to talk to the pilot of this shuttle, but the door is locked. An optronic display next to the door flashes a red X sign at me, and an indication to remain seated.

With no way to override the door, call for help, or otherwise make myself a nuisance, I take a seat and wait.

Seated here in the passenger bay, I'm finally able to loosen up and think for a second.

I suppose Rudy made a decision to see me off after all. As expected, with me entirely out of the loop. Courteous goodbyes seem not to be the modus operandi for that gentleman. And I'm the worst kind of fool for letting the guy profit off me and loosing yet another potentially dangerous artifact on Sirius.

That's the way of the sector, I reckon.

Perhaps it makes a good wakeup call. I'm the only one who can fully own what's happened to me, here. Because I didn't want anyone else to pick up the buck. I thought I could find some miraculous answer or relief for our problems alone, and that nobody else was in any shape to shoulder that risk. Well, look what that earned me: pain beyond measure, a coma, my friends likely all thinking I must've died, and a guest stay in an icebox for two weeks.

But it's not as if I'm ignorant of why I felt that way.

A pit forms in my chest at the thought. The same reason I struck out towards every little dangerous promise of the unknown. It always revealed such wonders whenever I took a breath, and just dared to step forward. Bruises, too. Oh, there were lots of bruises. But they never lasted, compared to learning something new. Even during the occupation, the few times I actually willingly got myself into something dangerous, it paid off for everyone. Bruises and all.

This was different.

I should be dead. Period. That's what I would have earned myself, if the universe wasn't so unpredictable. Nobody would have happened on me, and I'd be gone. Just like him. That's what I'd be inflicting on everyone else.

And for what? Poetic satisfaction? How can I keep that up? I've already seen how my behavior affects Levan.

Congratulations on setting a poor example, me.

I brush the guilt aside, at least for as long as it's going to take to get a comm out to him, Becky, Kris. Somebody.

The view through the windows, at least, is far and away more beautiful than the last box I was stuck in. It's comforting beyond measure, seeing the lush planet scrolling below and the star gleaming as it disappears over the horizon behind us.

Reminds me of home.

---

I wake from my first semi-pleasant nap in weeks with a shudder. We must've set down just now, I could feel it.

The humming of the engine must've lulled me off to sleep. Music to my ears after so long.

The shuttle ramp unceremoniously falls, not caring to give me any time to adjust to my new surroundings, and unfolding beyond is a much more imposing sight than whichever town I was passing through on my way out of custody. A towering cityscape, terraced skyscrapers connecting overhead, while streets and wide footpaths fill the space between structures here at ground level, flowing with vehicles and throngs of people.

The night sky displays the stars overhead just barely, thanks to all the light pollution, but one feature dominates overhead: the Barrier nebula cleanly bisects the void above, a vast white trench cutting the tapestry of stars in half leaving only those furthest from it visible to us on the ground. Light reflecting from the nebula bathes the city in something like ethereal moonlight, the night only lit further by the signage, streetlights and vehicles all over. A soft fog rolls between the buildings on this pleasantly cool evening.

It's no spaceport we've landed at, either. It looks more like another municipal shuttleport for local flights, but this one is very much in operation. There's three other pads here, and self-service terminals to pay for tickets.

People of all stripes crowd the pad, and look to scan the shuttle I'm on for a service number that matches the tickets they paid for, seeming puzzled when they realize I'm the only one aboard. It doesn't hold their attention long though, and they go back to minding themselves when they see this isn't their ride.

All passengers are now cleared to disembark. Thank you for your patronage.

A recorded, flat male voice emanates from within the passenger compartment, to hurry me out. I again take the time to go to knock on the door to the pilot's cabin, but still get no reply. I don't believe I'm going to get any explanation for this, but I can infer well enough.

I hesitantly take my first steps off the shuttlecraft out into the open air of the pad, and onto the boarding platform where everyone is awaiting their particular shuttle. No sooner than I step off the ramp does it raise, and the shuttle begins to take off.

I turn to get a look at it one last time, watching the aeroshuttle ascend and skip off away from the platform, back to whatever hole Rudy must've summoned it out of to get rid of me.





I really am free to go.





My shoulders loosen with a deep sigh. This is real, thank goodness.

Alright. I'm alive. Time to gather my bearings.

I walk up and try to ask a stranger, a younger man, a question or two.

Excuse me - could you tell me where we are right now?

You not able to read a sign? Go away.

He points dismissively past the crowd, and goes right back to ignoring me promptly, like everyone else waiting here.

Not entirely unexpected. I look a little rough right now. I find I'm in dire need of a hot shower and a comb.

I peek around the growing crowd, and descend the stairs in the direction he pointed in down to street level, just below the shuttleport landing pads. The sign at the base of the stairs leading back up designates where I'm at.


TASARTE SHUTTLEPORT NORTH


I think Tasarte's the name of the city. Maybe. I don't remember the word from when I was here four years back on my first loop through the Omegas. But, it's a start isn't it? Progress.

I find a metal bench near the stairs that's unoccupied, people still flowing around me by the dozens up and down the stairs and down the street. I take a seat, and realize something.

I'm alone in a city I've never been in before with no ship, no ID, no PDA and no friends. I can fix that if I could just comm someone, but that might be a problem for another reason.

I don't have any money.

---