Angry Jasper-Four

Jasper stepped into the dusty Texas sunlight with his hard fought prize and a few busted ribs. The heat hit him like a blast furnace. The stale dry desert air choked his throat. With the abuse to his body each breath came haltingly and with blazing waves of pain. Biting his lip, Jazz climbed down to the street as gingerly as he could and limped away from the bar just as quickly as he could. Not that Jazz feared the bartender might change his mind and shoot him in the back, but rather he was eager to be rid of Crawford and the rest of the scarred and dust-choked planet as soon as possible.

He’d left the engines on the ship running. Last he’d seen it the ship was hovering a foot or so above an old terrestrial road. It was too much to expect that it would still be running. Sometime between the time he climbed down and the time he took an apocalyptic pummeling the engines had quit. The ship had skidded part way down an embankment and the port fin was half submerged in some foul smelling waste pooled there.

Jasper swore as he climbed onto the oblong hull gray. The bubble canopy was already coated with thick yellow dust. He had to kick at side of the canopy once or twice before it finally opened. Jazz climbed inside and pushed the head into a storage compartment that was just a shade too small. A good swift kick closed the metal door. Something cracked as he did. Likely the fugitive’s great flat nose, Jazz figured. He chuckled, but it was cut short by a white hot stab of pain in his side.
“Still kickin’ my ass,” he grumbled at the locker.

The ship was in need of a good cleaning, inside and out, Jazz observed. It was an observation he made fairly regularly, while never quite getting to the actual doing part of that thought. He strode across the cargo bay to the console. There was an old hammock to one side. A yellow foam mattress pad pressed through the lengths of rope. A blue gray military blanket hung off the side and small stained red pillow lay in the pit of the hammock. There were papers, a couple plastic coffee cups and old clothes strewn about.

A collection of ancient paperback books he'd come upon in a Triton junk shop overflowed from a plastic crate beneath the hammock. They were all stories of hard-lovin’, hard drinkin’ gunslingers by writers like Paul Ledd, Luke Short, Cort Martin, Lois Lamour and Zeke Masters, with titles like Devil’s Jackpot, naked Outpost, Six Gun Outcast and Badman’s Bordello. He come across them in rummage sales and little junk shops all across the Solar System. They were about the only things he ever read. In those long lost empty hours between planets Jazz read himself into each story. He’d read them so many times he almost knew them by heart.

The cockpit closed and sealed with a hiss as he climbed behind the controls. He popped a square tape into the ancient eight-track tape player installed under the control panel. A Tom Jones song came on.

It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone.
It’s not unusual to have fun witb anyone,
But when I see you hanging around with anyone,
It’s not unusual to see me cry. I wanna die.

The song always made him long for her. It made him a little melancholic, and longing for what might have been. But then life was never about what might have beens, but rather what was. And that was true in spades when it came to Jazz.

The twin ion engines came to life an instant later with a deep resonant hum. It stuttered a bit but then settled into a perfect Rhythm. The ship might have looked like it had been to hell and back, but the engines were top notch, and worth every credit he’d paid. As for the rest of the ship…not so much. Jasper whacked the air compressor with the side of his hand. It rattled and shuddered before coughing out clean cool air. That filtered air quickly chased away the dusty dry Texas heat.

There was a message on the computer screen. It was an urgent message from a Misses  on the space wheel. Jazz didn’t recognize the lady right off, and the quality of the transmission didn’t help. He could tell from her tone that she was obviously distraught. More than that, she was transmitting from a private residence on the space wheel, out near the moon. No doubt the old bat was loaded, and that made her message urgent for Jazz as well.

First things first, Jazz thought, pulling the seat harness around him where it clasped near each hip and shoulder. He rapped a hand around the joy stick between his legs, pulled back slightly and played it back and forth a bit. The ship rocked from side to side as the stabilizers pulled free of the ditch then lurched, throwing him hard against the harness.

“Ho, Christ!” he howled in pain.

Jazz intended to get his bounty to an Assessor’s office on the Space wheel before it turned and strted to stink. Well, before it began to stink worse than when it was attached to the fugitive’s body. He’d collect his bounty and get his ribs patched up before going up to see the good-and rich- Madame .

The ship tilted skyward and climbed steadily until the curve of the planet came into view. Far below a tortured world, burned barren by waste and war and neglect, shrank quickly. Off to the east plumes of thick black smoke rose along the long dried basins of the Great Lakes. Rebels units and Corporation ships were locked in fierce combat on the outskirts of old Chicago, now little more than a ruined war-scape. Glimmering like fireflies in low earth orbit a dozen or so Corporation ships waited their turn to rush in and pummel the beleaguered rebel army. Jasper steered well clear of them. He’d had enough excitement for one day. He angled the ship towards the moon and activated the overdrive with the flip of a toggle switch. There was a tugging sensation until at last he pulled free of Earth’s gravity. Jasper groaned at the brief pressure to his wounded chest.

Just beyond the crescent moon, like a ghostly apparition to a once fertile earth, the space wheel shimmered in the sunlight. It was massive, turning slowly like a giant pinwheel. Frail gleaming filaments connected the wheel to a pearl-like control module at the center. Four long thin wings angled away from the module ready to throw up dense ion shields that could steer and maneuver the wheel. Jasper gave the planet one last look and flipped the bird to Corporation forces and rebels alike.

Angry Jasper-Three

In a flash the fugitive grabbed a metal stool and flung it at Jasper with deadly accuracy. Jasper rolled to one side and fired at the same instant. The ARP round was a glancing blow, leaving a nasty burn across the man’s chest before smashing a fist size hole in the wall. The room filled with the sour stink of singed flesh and hair. Howling madly he charged Jasper. It was all Jazz could do to keep out of his way as he cleaved through tables and chairs like an angry Rhino.

Jasper dove and tumbled end over end and came up behind him. He aimed the ARP carefully before the man could turn. Two round struck home to either side of the man’s spine, cauterizing two neat holes clean through to the waning twilight beyond. The fugitive howled in pain, the wounds, which would dropped a normal man, only served to make the hybrid sod angrier.

“Damned hybrids!” Jasper growled.

He hated hybrids. Jazz cursed under his breath. He would never have taken this job had he known up front. God damn it, someone could have warned him! A body just never knew what he was getting with one. Might be some bloke cross bred with elephant DNA for construction work, or a wolf for warfare. Hell, once he nearly bought the farm tangling with a hybrid bred for underwater work with a hammerhead shark. Still had scars on his ass and back as the guy tried to bite Jazz to death. The way this one took those last two rounds Jasper sardonically thought he must be part Bronto-friggin-saurus!

“Uhgg!” The guy slammed Jasper in the ribs just as he was coming to his feet. It was a cruel upper-cut, from a fist that felt like a '74 Buick. The unmistakable crack of shattering bone filled the bar as several of Jazz' not-so-gracefully aging ribs took the full brunt. Jasper sailed half way across the room and came down hard, gasping for air. The ARP-2 leapt from his hand and skidded across the floor.

“Now you gonna die, Bounty hunter!”

The hybrid’s mammoth foot eclipsed the light and threw a shadow across Jasper’s face, from his forehead to the middle of his chest. The way the guy had cleaved through the sturdy tables Jasper felt sure the guy would crush the life out of him in one or two good stomps.

That’s it, thought Jasper. Time seemed to pause. He felt like a stone tossed into a deep well, waiting for the eventual ker-plunk of cold dark death. He was frozen, waiting for the inevitable. Hell, he almost welcomed it. Not that it mattered much. Just a miserable end to a miserable life. Besides. He was tired. No, he was damn tired of chasing scum back and forth across the solar system for a few thousand credits here and there, swilling away his lamentable heart on cheap booze and space tramps. What did it matter anyway, with the world going to hell in a hand-basket anyone foolhardy enough to remain on Earth was living on borrowed time. Jasper had no home to speak of, no kin, and hadn’t achieved any sort of wealth. About all he owned outright was a beat up old ship with a couple billion miles on it.

“Squish you like a bug,” the fugitive laughed murderously.

Suddenly jasper caught his breath, enough to grab the guy’s foot and swung a foot squarely into the guy’s gonads. The hybrid shrieked in pain and managed a good stomp despite, smashing a hole in the floor beside Jasper’s head.

Jasper made a break for the ARP-21, but came up a little too soon. An upper cut from the hybrid sent him flying again. Thankfully a table was there to break his fall. It left him even farther from the weapon now. Jasper calculated his chances of reaching it the hybrid bore down on him again. It was hopeless. Jasper was trapped, staring into burning red eyes hungry for blood.

“Gonna eat your liver,” Bounty hunter. “Any last words?”

“Gotta say,” Jasper began, “ you got a face only a mother could love.”

“Huh?”

“Mother Godzilla, that is!”

The fugitive erupted in laughter. A deafening roar abruptly eclipsed that laughter. The fugitive’s head detached in a great spray of blood and flesh and neck bone. The head tumbled lazily through the air, it’s expression one of confusion more than surprise. It bounced off the wall and landed between Jasper’s open legs, those bloody eyes staring in disbelief. With that the fugitive blinked one last time before life left those eyes forever. The body teetered momentarily then pitch sideways, landing with a building shaking thud. Jasper looked up into the twin barrels of an old fashioned 12 gauge shotgun. The bartender stood at the other end of those twin barrels. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Somebody’s gonna have to pay for this mess,” he said.

Jasper swallowed hard. “This here fugitive is wanted in three zones. Got a hefty prize on his head.”

“Well there’s the head. Unless I get some compensation I’m gonna put it up behind the bar, right next to yours.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jasper. “I’m good for it.”

“You’re good for it now,” the bartender said unequivocally, “or I’ll let go this other barrel.”

“No need.” Jasper reached into a pocket and pulled his small credit pod. The shiny black body fit neatly in his palm. It was badly scuffed and the tiny screen was cracked and blank. He shook it once and frowned at the paltry number of credits in his account. The bartender snatched it away and studied it a moment.

“That’ll do,” he said, quickly tapping in his account number. He kept the shotgun trained on Jasper until the transfer was complete. When it was finished he tossed the pod onto Jasper’s chest.

Jazz stood with some effort, wincing and holding his busted ribs. The bartender cleared the plasma clip from the ARP and kicked the weapon over to Jasper. Jazz stared at it for a moment, weighing how much he wanted it against the excruciating prospect of bending over to pick it up.

“We’ll call it even,” said Jazz, pulling a paper sack from his belt. He stuffed the gruesomely disembodied head inside, opening the sack and tapping the head inside with the tip of his boot. Jazz limped across the busted up tavern towards the door, cradling his wounded ribs with one arm, and holding the sack with the other.

“We’ll call it justifiable homicide if I ever see you around here again,” the bartender grumbled.

Jazz started to say something, something smug and witty. He stared at the bartender for a long moment trying to come up with something to take the bartender down a notch or two. The bartender pointed with the shotgun.

“Got something you want to tell me, Bounty hunter?”

“I got nothing,” Jazz sighed, thinking better of a wise comment, which wasn't like him. Jazz always had a comeback. He was always quick with a verbal shot, even though it tended to get him trouble more often than not. He was losing his touch, he thought, and that felt worse than the pain in his chest. It wouldn’t be that way come morning, but for now that’s the way it was.

Angry Jasper-Two

The door swung open, banging loudly against the wall. Daylight splashed across the filthy floor. The stranger stopped just inside, his footfalls falling like two hollow exclamation points. The only thing missing was the clang of spurs, or someone playing an upright piano in the corner, some cowpokes backing anxiously away from the bar and a rabble of done-up dancehall girls in low cut tops and frilly dresses. Cliché, indeed!

The sound startled the proprietor, half dozing behind the bar, sort of leaning back against the cracked mirror, his arms folded tightly at his chest. He was a sturdy soul, with more neck than shoulders, scratching out credits from dregs in a place not fit for the living. Hell, this place would have been sacrilegious for the dead too. The bar keep’s white button shirt was stained in spots with rust-red blood from ancient dozen scrapes. It was thread-bare and a shade too tight. All the blood was somebody else’s. A black apron was tight below the bowl of his belly. The telltale contours of a set of brass knuckles was conspicuous in one of the apron pockets.

The barkeep was up in an instant, a well-used aluminum baseball bat raised in the air, as if both actions were second nature, the way most folks might wake with a yawn. Several thick blood-matted hairs curled from places at the end of the bat. It wasn’t much of a way to welcome customers, but by the looks of things the stranger wasn’t there for the hospitality. Besides, earth was no longer a place for useless courtesies. If a body wanted to be pampered and gushed over there were plenty of those snooty-type digs scattered across the solar system.

His eyes narrowed on the stranger, whose tattered cape and dusty garments were whipped by the broiling Texas wind. It was a man. That much he could tell, the stranger’s face partly hidden by a scarf and dark goggles. One arm and black-gloved hand was still outstretched from shoving open the door. The other arm remained beneath the cape, no doubt resting on a weapon. Behind him, at the end of the desolate and steadily darkening street, a small gray ship wavered unsteadily like a drunkard a few feet off the ground,. There were odd mechanical banging and clunking sounds that coincided with the ship’s errant dips and sways.

The stranger tugged the scarf and goggles down under a square jaw. Ragged scars concentrated around the man’s left eye. That eye was all together different from the right. It was a cheap mechanical implant, no doubt the consequence of a botched procedure or some godforsaken Jovian clinic, veritable meat factories for freighter trash or the rough-necked sods working Helium and Methane farms. The mechanism behind the eye whirred annoyingly, though only the stranger could hear it. The sound reverberated in his skull and gave him the most awful migraines. At the moment it merely pissed him off.

The fugitive at the end of the bar looked up slowly. A line of drool oozed from his lip and pooled beside the empty vodka bottle. If there was murder in his eyes before, there was hunger for it now. He had dined on the liver of one bounty hunter, and incinerated two more. One poor schmuck he had pulled the fingers and toes from one by one. That done he moved on to various other appendages until there was nothing left to remove. He took another swig of booze and slamming the bottle down hard on the bar, banging like a gunshot as he did.

The gnarled bartender was already sweating bullets between them. He lowered the bat and sighed heavily. There wasn’t much chance this would turn out good. He did the only thing he could at that moment and poured three shots of bourbon. He downed the first one and gave another to the fugitive. The fugitive gave him a curious look.

“Go ahead,” said the bartender, setting down the last shot in front of the stranger, who was now standing at the bar.. “Probably gonna be your last.”

The stranger slammed the shot without taking his eyes off the fugitive. He sort of shivered as the bitter spirits ran through him from head to toe.

“Martian,” he said low, recognizing the origin of the rot gut instantly. He’d lost count of the number of hangovers inflicted by cheap Martian Bourbon, each the consequence of a busted heart.

“Imported,” the bartender said.

“My favorite,” he smirked dryly.

“Rot gut,” snorted the fugitive.

“I ain’t pretentious.”

“Gonna trash the place, ain’t ya?” The barkeep almost seemed to take it in stride. Not happily, but in stride.

The stranger nodded respectfully to the fugitive. “Depends on him.”

“In case you’re wrong, got a name so I know where to send the body? Or what’s left of it?”

The stranger started to answer, then smiled and said. “Jasper. Angry jasper. And just save my shootin’ hand. The only part of me that’s worth a damn.”

And that was stretching things. There wasn’t a part of Jasper worth a damn without her, and God only knew where the hell in the solar system she was, not to mention with whom. She was the cause of his busted heart, well, from Jasper’s perspective anyway. Not that any of that mattered much now. Which wasn’t to say he was looking forward to getting bent in two or pounded like a rusty nail by the fugitive. Wasn’t open to question any longer that there would be a fight, only what the outcome would be.

Jasper had a twisting feeling in his gut that this would, like the bartender said, turn out good. Seemed a damn shame he might die in some crappy bar, in a crappy Texas town on a crappy little planet without seeing her one last time. He looked past the bartender and straight in the dark and dangerous eyes of the fugitive.

“Friends call me Jazz. You can call me Angry.”

Jazz’ eyes narrowed on the monster across the bar. Didn’t matter a wit what he was wanted for, only that he was wanted by someone willing to pay good money. This time it was the Corporation, but it might as well have been anyone willing to pay the right number of credits. Jazz had worked for some pretty unsavory types over the years, tracking crooked business associates, two-timing tramps, punks skipping out on mob debts and all manner of scum all across the solar system. Wasn’t a place he wouldn’t go and a man he would fight. Didn’t make Jazz the most loved guy, but it made him one of the most sought after. Staring down the slack-jawed mope across the bar, Jazz looked at it like he was hunting a rabid predator, nothing more and nothing less.

“Welp,” Jasper licked his chops, tasting the bourbon again. “Best not to put this off any longer.”

Truth of it was Jasper didn’t have to do this in the bar. He could have just as easily waited the guy out, He could have waited till the fugitive stumbled out or got tossed into the street by the bartender, which by the size of him seemed like the least likely possibility. That would have been the easy way, and that just wasn’t Jazz. He was a Twenty-second Century man in a Twenty-fourth Century world. Out of date, some folks would say, but Jasper called himself traditional. Better folks would call him freighter trash, the son of a Grinder mechanic, those behemoths pushing asteroids and comets from planet to planet.

He looked around the bar, sort of taking in the arena of battle, as it were. Jasper was asking for a whole lot of pain picking a fight in here. There wasn’t much room to maneuver. He’d need every bit of space he could get to take this pug down. Even then he was sure to take a good pounding. Not that he cared. A healthy dose of physical hurt would go a long way to soothing the pain in his heart. Bitch!

“Come a long way, Bounty hunter,” drooled the fugitive. He grabbed the bottle and squeezed it in those mighty hands. It shattered there with a muffled crack. A thin line of blood ran from the enclosed palm, mixing with the drool and the vodka and the cigarette butts. He grinned a filthy grin, unconcerned by the ragged lacerations to his palm.

“Drug me a long ways, you sad sack son-bitch,” Jasper moved away from the bar, stepping aside near the middle of the room.

The fugitive spit. It was a massive amount of brownih liquid that made an audible splat on the floor near Jazz’ feet. He curiously eyed the blood now pouring from a dozen deep cuts in his palm. It was like he was looking at someone else’s hand, not his own. He chuckled and smeared the mess down the front of his shirt.

“Bout five minutes they’re gonna drag you away by your heels, bounty hunter, that is if there's anything left worth dragging away.”

As the mutt stood Jasper’s nuts sort of recoiled into his body. The guy wasn’t just huge, he was a freakin’ monster! That misshapen, oversized gourd he called a head nearly touched the ceiling. It would have been a step forward in the evolutionary chain to call the guy a mutant- a hybrid!

“Ain’t armed,” he said, swinging his head from side to side. Sort of the same motion an angry elephant makes before charging. “I ain’t going quietly either.”

Jasper drew the weapon from beneath his cape. It was an ARP-21, and looked rather like one of those revolvers from the Old West. But it was a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more powerful. The Arrayed Resistance Pulse-21 pistol fired a mercury-encased plasma round that changed shape and density depending on the target. The power meter, just behind the barrel, came on bright and strong. If there was one detail he attended to religiously, it was maintaining his weapon. As for the rest of his life, eh, that was another story.

Jazz pointed the ARP squarely at the fugitive’s broad-as-a-barn chest. He knew it was going to take a clean shot to the heart or head to bring the guy down. Anything less gave the hybrid a fighting chance of tearing Jazz limb from limb. Of course, a head shot was out of the question. That is if Jazz intended to get paid. The guy snorted, staring down the barrel of the ARP. He was completely un-phased. Jasper even thought he saw a grin crease the guy’s slimy lips.

Angry Jasper-One

CHAPTER ONE

The World Sucks




ONE
The sun was just coming up, blood red through the dusty haze of a pitched battle on the horizon. Bright orange and red laser arcs chewed the sky at unseen targets. The long low continuous rumble of distant war shook the dusty streets of that little Texas town, somewhere south the ancient city of Dallas, which was now a deep and lifeless crater. The rectangular silhouette of a Corporation freighter rose silent across the oblong disk, running for hard mars. Ships went far more frequently than they came these days. It left an undeniable impression that the earth was being abandoned to the Rebel alliance, and that the last Corporation enclaves might be overrun at any time. That sense was fully evident on the deserted streets of tiny Crawford.

The freighter climbed quickly, keeping just ahead of two rebel rockets that raced skyward before tumbling impotently back to earth. The rebellion was problematic enough on earth, but they had taken their cause throughout the solar system. Their operatives and saboteurs were woven and concealed within every level of the Corporation. For now they were a latent cancer, biding their time and waiting, even as the Corporation hunted them relentlessly.

The freighter threw a shadow momentarily across the wood plank floor of an all night tavern. The ship and fat red sun were neatly framed by the tavern’s only window. A rusting metal sign reading THE SANCTUARY creaked on rusting hinges, a few decibels louder than the encroaching battle. There were three bullet holes in the window. All of them went out.

The place was empty, almost. Its wood blank wall were sooted from decades of tobacco smoke, spattered blood and filth. The tables and chairs were simple, adorned with cheap white doilies and tea-light candles in yellowing shot glasses. Much of the furniture appeared to have been repaired many times over, the legs broken or shortened so that some leaned precariously. The floor was worn to bare wood. Faded centerfold harlots, most torn, or sporting obscene scribbles were tacked to the walls at odd angles.

The bar reeked of stale beer, sweat and ammonia fighting to conceal the biting stink of vomit. It gave the place a dark and dangerous quality, like a back alley crime scene. A Hank Williams’ song was playing from a small and ancient radio behind the bar. It only confirmed the languishing desperation of the place.

A lone figure sat at the end of the bar, half consumed in shadow. He could see the door from where he sat. Not that he was expecting anyone in particular, just in general. He had his fair share of enemies, and was a fugitive a dozen times over, from Jupiter to the moon. He'd come to Earth in a halfhearted wish to join the rebellion. Not because he cared a wit about their cause, the so-called Earth-firsters who clung to the fool-hardy belief that man's place was on the home planet, the place of mankind's birth and evolution. They believed that abandoning Earth for the stars was an abomination, a denial of the very essence of our humanity. If nothing else, the fugitive figured, he'd get to kill someone and get paid for it!

Naw, he didn’t put much faith into all that Earth-first tripe. The fugitive didn't buy a lick of it, nor did he give a Titan-sea-slug either, but he figured it was the last place in the whole god-forsaken solar system where the Corporation could touch him. Only problem was, he’d have to go and fight if he crossed to the rebel side. Not that he ever ran from a fight, but he preferred them where when and with whom he chose.

Even the Corporation had long ago forgotten his original crimes. Not that he would admit any guilt, not often anyway. He bragged about them when he felt the need to bend the ear of a fellow drinker or some hybrid trollop he was momentarily smitten over. Didn’t much matter what those crimes were anymore. All that matter was that they felt like part of a larger process that was quickly coming to its conclusion. Just what that conclusion was exactly, well, who could say?

He was a huge sod, with arms the size of tree trunks. His mis-formed face was folded with a feverish scowl betraying a murderous mood. The deep lines of his brutish forehead overlapped, shadowing deep-set black eyes. A huge double chin and crooked jaw line protruded almost grotesquely outward. Scars, odd lumps and strange patches of hair covered his face.

That massive head sort of lolled back and forth to a rhythm of short, grunting breaths, like a mad dog that ought have been put down long ago. Drinking only helped focus his nasty mood. He’d gone through a bottle of vodka already, and was well into his second. Giant hands wrapped fully around the bottle, as though he meant to crush the thing, or that he might just swallow the whole damn thing, bottle and all. The ashtray before him was filled to overflowing.

The guy stunk something awful, a putrid mixture of sweat, turned liquor and death. The kind of stink that chased flies away, made hogs bury their nose or made maggots gag. But it was his expression that told the lout’s story best. It was the face of a man who knew he was done for, and now it was just a matter of how many he would take down with him.

He lit a cigarette and looked up through a cloud of smoke at a figure striding down the center of the street. Tumble weed bounced between the approaching stranger and the tavern, chased by a dusty gust of wind. The fugitive grinned and crumbled the lit cigarette in his palm. When life becomes a cliché, he thought of the tumbleweed, then its time to get out. But he was damned to leave this world easily, and certainly not alone!

ANGRY JASPER-Title

AN
ANGRY JASPER
ADVENTURE

SKULLBOY AND ESCAPE FROM CHICAGO

A NOVEL

BY

W.C. TURCK

Exclusively at Blogspot

THIRD BOOK IN THE CHALLENGE

a bit of a change from the two heavy pieces I've just completed. "Angry Jasper," is a wry and risque Science Fiction piece inspired by the old paperback Westerns by authors like Luke Short, Court Martin and Zeke masters, with titles like "Naked Outpost, Badman's Bordello and Six-gun Outcast. The heroes were hard lovin', hard drinkin' men with a chip on their shoulder, fighting for a bit of justice in a cruel world, and taking love where they could get it-often from an old flame in some dusty frontier brothel.

Jasper is an interplanetary bounty hunter on the trail of the kidnapped kid of a wealthy family. He's in love with a space hooker named kate, who spies for the resistance. Kate and Jazz are great in bed, the best each has ever had, but can't stand one another otherwise. But their seperate trails are about to crash land them together on a barren and strip-mined Earth and a battle in which the fate of the planet and mankind hangs in the balance...

Emmetsburg: The End

Blue sky overwhelmed the rolling farms and small painted banks of woods as John turned his truck onto the county road south from town. The road ran straight to Mallard through the sweet oblivion of the Iowa landscape as a ribbon of dusty white gold. The storm left the world reaffirmed for its passing. Bright green trees glistened in the folds. The world was as perfect as a painting. Even a flock of geese, moving in from the east seemed part of some earthly ballet, each movement precise and choreographed.

John pushed the clutched down hard with his left foot and wiggled the gear shift until it caught with a crunch and the old Ford lurched forward a bit.. The emptiness of the road lent itself perfectly to deeper thoughts, and John indulged them fully. There were no regrets over not living someone else’s life, because he didn’t know those lives. He knew the one he had and that was more than enough to worry about. John might have wished more for Anna, but more is an un-ending word. More doesn’t take stock of blessings. More is blind, and consumes without conscience and without end. With Anna, John could never have wished for more, nor would it ever have sufficed. He knew, however, that a day would come when their life together would come to an end, and knew on that day he would wish for more.

He topped the small bridge fording the creek. It appeared precisely as it had in his dream. The trees and shadows all but hid the creek from view. In glimpses John could see that the storm had fattened the creek. Water thundered across empty fields and rushed in muddy brown torrents, licking at the bottom of a bridge that should have cleared it easily. To the right tightly clustered trees clustered to the steep banks, obscuring much in midnight blue shadow. He was sure he'd caught a glimpse of something hidden among the shadows.

John forced himself not to look. He told himself he wouldn’t stop, He told himself it had merely been a dream, but little more than a quarter mile from the creek John turned around and went back to the bridge. He sat there for a time, his convincing himself of the foolishness of all this. Still, he climbed from the truck and crossed the road. Each step felt immensely heavy. The blood ran cold as he climbed down the embankment and peered into the churning creek…


THE END

Emmetsburg: Eighty-one

Golden-brown. John woke early, just as the morning sun was hitting the highest roofs and treetops across the road, as though the curtain of night was being withdrawn from the world. The storm had moved off sometime during the night, but the world was still wet. The air was light with the scent of grass and of all things enlivened by the rain. He lay there for a time listening to Anna’s soft slow breaths. The room was still, almost to the point of becoming deafening. It still carried the essence of their love making some hours before. John took a breath, but it stuttered in his chest. A tear slipped across his cheek to the pillow.

John felt suspended, as if the world had congealed around him, formed into some sort of new mineral. Not like amber, but more like warm sweet molasses, in which he could move and breathe but with resistance. And he felt warm for it, as though at the edge of a fever.

John sat up quite suddenly, planting his feet firmly on the wooden floor, testing its veracity. He looked back to Anna. She was still asleep, apparently undisturbed. The blanket was stretched across her rounded belly. John dared to run his hand lightly across it, pressing the palm lightly, smiling with a mixture of love and terror at the slightest movement within. He stretched and rolled his head around once or twice to loosen the tension residing, dissipating a kink that threatened a headache. John sighed again.

He left her asleep in bed and went to the back door. He pushed the screen open disturbing a hand full of sparrows on the back step. They fluttered away, running low over the wet grass, chattering all the way to the trees at the back of the yard. In the early morning light the overnight rain rose as steam from the grass and bonding with the air in a symbiotic relationship, like too perfect lovers. That diffused light gave everything a dreamy, painted sense.

Just as in the dream, pieces of black tar paper from the roof littered the yard. The Irises, which had been flattened in the down-pour, were beginning to find their feet again. It all gave John an eerie sense of déjà vu, and helped to erase the flimsy line between reality and his mind.

We are dreams, thought John, and just as fleeting. We are moments in time, waves upon an unknown shore, falling upon the memory of those before and erased by the waves to come. He could count on nothing except his own arrogance and the decision to love Anna. Everything else was hardly more than a notion, which is where he was happy to leave them.

John looked at his hands. They were coarse and calloused and strong. He made a tight fist with each and flexed the fingers again, exhilarating at the life in them. The dream had alternately shaken and reaffirmed him. After a time, his thoughts spent on the dream, which was already fading from memory, John went back in and dressed.

Anna awoke just as he was slipping on his shoes. He smiled dreamily at him and stretched with a groan to awaken her senses. The sunlight through flowery lace curtains painted quiet shadows across Anna and the bed. She stretched again and smiled as though she might burst with light.

“God, I slept like a rock.”

“Didn’t hear the storm?” he asked.

“I was dead!”

“Storm took off part of the roof.” John stood and tugged the suspenders over each shoulder.

“Oh dear!” Anna gasped.

“Patches here and there.” He reached over and ran the back of his fingers across her cheek. “Run up to Mallard and see Bert Himmel about a roll of tar paper.”

He leaned and kissed her softly. John buried his face in Anna’s neck a moment, savoring the warmth and musk of her soft skin. As he drew away Anna wiped her fingers softly along his nose.

“Be careful.”

He started for the door, dragging his fingers along the edge of the bed, as if it was the world and he was holding on for just as long as he was able. “Won’t be gone long.”

“John,” said Anna, as he reached the door.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He nodded. The words lifted him. John found her green eyes. “Me too.”

Emmetsburg: Eighty

They were gathered tightly above him. Some of the faces were familiar. Others were strangers to him. One of the soldiers was waving people back, urging the others to give John some air, as if air could undo the mortal damage done to his body, as if air could stop the crimson blood flowing freely from John’s body into the warm Iowa soil.

The rain had moved off. A thunderhead grew in the distance. John watched it grow along an axis, spreading across the eastern sky, Like floating white-capped mountains. It was like another world that he could well imagine among the folds, the contours and plunging canyons. He imagined towns and roads and farms where love and life were idyllic. Not like this one, burdened with sin and guilt and pain.

Someone wiped sweat and dirt from his face. He could no longer feel it, much as he could no longer hear the voices, the birds fluttering in the yard or the Myron Himmel weeping nearby. Life was falling away, darkening at the edges. It was losing focus, everything but that distant thunderhead, which felt like a destination. It felt like home, and like home broke his heart and gave him hope just the same.

Anna pushed through the circle of faces around him. Kneeling cradled his head, her expression somewhere between a forgiving smile and unfathomable grief. For John seeing her was the ultimate destination. Whatever awaited him beyond the threshold of this life, it was her face that would see him through. There was nothing more. There was no sadness, no guilt, no sense that he was leaving the world too early. Worries and recriminations are the fantasies of romantics and novelists. In the end it all comes to nothing, sweet beautiful nothing. Death comes. Death comes.

Emmetsburg: Seventy-nine

Crimson. John’s truck roared around the bend, straight at the wall of townsfolk who were still unaware and fully focused on the soldiers and police ahead of them. The rain and rumbling thunder masked the rattle and bang of the old truck. It bore down seemingly intent, despite john’s better intentions, upon smashing directly through those unsuspecting souls.

The effort to move at all became a gargantuan task. His body was charging from life as much as his spirit fought desperately for every remaining moment-if only to see Anna once more or to prove some purpose for all this, and that there was still justice in the world instead of a blind lottery folks alternately succumb to or gorge upon.

Nothing was working for him. This damned body seemed all but out of his control any longer, as if some long denied separation between the body and will was now undeniable. His eyes were liquid, drifting, heavy and unfocused. He swung his head wildly and shook it again and again in a waning attempt to keep them open a little longer. John moaned in an attempt to rally body and spirit once more.

“Anna!” he cried, not knowing for sure if he’d actually spoken the word. But it allowed him the strength to jam his hand down upon the horn at the final instant. People dove from the truck as it cut a swath through the crowd. It was all the effort he had left. John’s head tipped back and his arms fell away limp.

The truck careened hard to one side. The group of soldiers about to fire on the crowd suddenly reeled back, fearing the truck might swing their way. Instead it cut hard across the road, fully separating Myron Himmel and Avery Lysander from the rest of the protesters. They were still struggling for the gun when the truck sped past and slammed into the embankment with a terrific bang, nearly flipping end over end. The sound startled Myron enough for Avery to wrest control of the gun, just as it went off.

It was the gunshot that riveted everyone’s attention, more that the crash, at least at first. The bullet had grazed Myron’s cheek, chopping away a bit of his ear. Blood poured in a torrent, making the wound appear for worse to the stunned onlookers than it actually was. He stood apart from Avery, now alone in the gap between the crowd and the government men, in his hand the smoking gun was now the final tombstone for his schemes and crimes.

Emmetsburg: Seventy-eight

“I can’t do it!” Myron Himmel hung his head. He was still cradling the gun. It was still wrapped in the cloth. It’s weight sickened him. His father would never have condoned this. His father would never had become implicated in crimes and shame. That Myron had been blinded to the truth by grief was hardly an excuse. Bert Himmel wasn’t some Bible thunper, by any stretch, but he had imbued in his children a deep moral upbringing. He would have been ashamed of his son.

“I won’t do it!” Myron brought his eyes up to meet Avery’s. Myron was still weak in his resolve, and a part of him expected some answer from Avery Lysander,

“You’ll do it, all right,” growled Avery. It wasn’t about the battle for him. It was about the aftermath that suited his needs.

“Why me? Why not you?”

Avery didn’t have a proper answer. He stared blankly at the boy, murder rising in his veins. Myron almost wished he had said something, instead the boy found all he needed to know of Avery’s true motivations.

“You little bastard!” Avery slapped Myron hard across the face. “After all I sacrificed for you and your family. I didn’t have to do nothing…”

“And you won’t do nothing now.”

“The hell I won’t.”

“You won’t ‘
“Cause you’re a coward. You need all us around you to hide your crimes. Well I ain’t no more. I’m gonna confess it all, starting with my part.”

“You won’t.”

“And then I’ll beg God and C.W. for forgiveness.”

Avery grabbed for the gun, but Myron’d had enough of all this. Somehow he’d make amends, or failing that, work his whole life to atone. He drew away, despite that Avery was so much stronger for his hate and rage. The cloth fell away and a woman screamed. One of the soldiers saw it and cried to the others. A dozen rifles went up as the young recruits took aim at the crowd.