There was no use. There was just far too much on Kate’s mind. As much as she needed this, it just wasn’t going to happen. Kate reached down and tapped the fat little silver robot on the head. Buzz looked up from between her open legs at her with a perturbed expression. She had picked him up used in a rummage sale for a bankrupt mining operation on some barren asteroid. Buzz was an antique model with jerky and awkward moves, and it had cost Kate a pretty penny to get him working again. The pair had been fast friends ever since. The spinning vibrator on the front of his head whirred to a stop.
“Did you?” Buzz asked with a hollow little groan. Kate closed her legs and sat up.
“Can’t.”
“Not even close?’
“Sorry,” she frowned.
“Could have told me ten minutes ago. Damn near ran my battery down.”
Buzz detached the vibrator from his nose socket and stowed in a storage spot in his leg. He could see that something was bothering her. Buzz hated that he even cared enough to ask the question. With a wave of his stubby mechanical hand the light in the ship, dimmed to a more romantic tone, brightened. Kate was sitting on a big red heart-shaped bed adorned with shimmering maroon satin sheets and fat pink pillows. There was a small lavatory to one side. A black lacquer serving bar separated the flight deck from the rest of the ship.
“All right, drama queen. What crawled up your tail and died, besides Governor Maury?”
Kate wrapped a sheet around her shoulders and looked out into space. She paid no mind to the ship following at a distance.
“Ask you a question, Buzz?”
“That depends. Want to hear the answer?”
“What am I doing, running around the solar system, tramping around for the rebellion. Where is this…”
Buzz cut her off with an exasperated sigh. “How many times are we going to have this same conversation?”
She turned and started to speak. Her expression was just pathetic. Buzz had half a mind to slap her.
“Don’t say it,” said. “If I hear that name one more time I’ll blow a friggin’ gasket!”
In fact he might even blow two, and a couple of springs! Kate flopped onto the bed and twisted around there for a moment in anguish.
“Why do I love him, Buzz?” she moaned. “Why couldn’t we be happy, work for the Corporation and retire to an idyllic little town on the wheel. Settle down, have a normal life like other folks, maybe a kid or two.”
“Why?’ Buzz asked indignant. “Because you’d blow your damn brains out!”
“I don’t know,” she lamented, unconvinced.
He went to her. His tone softened. “Well I do. Sweetie. This is the life you have because it’s the one you crave. Can you see yourself baking cookies for the PTA bake sale, cleaning house all day waiting for Jazz to come home from work-whatever it is he might do honestly?” He stroked her face. It had been a long time since he had seen her this bad. “Could you do all that knowing about the rebellion?”
“Most folks get by just fine never carrying a wit about the rebellion. It’s so far away that the rebellion isn’t even relevant to their lives.”
“But it is to yours, and you’d sooner die than walk away from a just cause. Now get dressed we’re coming up on the moon.”
Buzz hobbled towards the flight deck and prepared for landing at Cygnus Prime, the once sprawling moon colony. The place had fallen on hard times and now was a dumping point for refugees, smugglers and riff raff from all across the solar system. It was a dangerous enclave, and Buzz hardly relished the thought of landing there.
Buzz knew something was wrong when Kate failed to join him on the flight deck. He needed her there as they landed, particularly at CP, where the space Traffic Control left much to be desired.
“Kate, get your ass up here!”
He turned to find her lost in thought, staring down at the floor, holding tight to one of the big pink pillows. His tone softened.
“Baby, we’re going to land in a minute.”
“I’m out, Buzz,” she said distantly. “After we transfer the credits over to the rebellion I, I…” there were tears in her eyes. Her gaze was so very far away. Kate’s expression was dejected and broken.
It wasn’t quite sympathy he felt, but rather a certain muddiness in his components. He had been programmed for crisis resolution, and Kate was a near constant emotional crisis. Mechanical things he could deal with easy enough. When he saw Kate that way it damn near overloaded his circuitry.
“Why don’t we take a break,” he offered. “Get away for a while.”
“No, Buzz,” Kate shook her head, “I want out. I’ve decided.”
“Okay. Just as long as you don’t junk me too.” It was the best he could do for a joke.
Kate managed a smile and stroked his egg-shaped silver head. “You’re my best friend.”
“Just cause I can get you off!”
She giggled despite her mood and rubbed his arm cold metal arm. “It helps.”
Friday, April 16, 2010
Angry jasper: Thirteen
Madame Pie was in her study. Some tinny-sounding Cambodian Pop music was playing. She was facing the window and the garden beyond from a small chair. The garden was lit by the filtered sun so that all the colors were accentuated in dramatic pastels. Out past the garden and through a pair of red leafed crabapple trees the ring curved gently upwards into a bank of puffy white clouds. Madame Pie was covered in a broadly woven black wool shawl. There were crumpled tissues around her. She had been crying, and wanted everyone to know that she had.
Her hair was straight and gray, curving up gently at the ends just above her small shoulders. She glanced over her shoulder, acknowledging Jazz in the least possible way. He could see that she was not an attractive woman by any means. The years, he mused to himself, had not been kind to her. And those years, Jazz figured, began well before she was born.
Jazz disliked her right off. He hated rich folks as a matter of course. They didn’t know what hard work really was, and Jazz resented that more than anything. Sure, they might have done something menial once upon a time, but never out of necessity. They didn’t know the ache of exhaustion in the pit of their back, or the strain in a body unsure of where its next meal would come from or the trepidation that one day a body would just give out. She turned and regarded him as if he was a rat or some low thing that had just crept through the door, and to be honest, that’s just about how he felt.
“You’re mister Jasper?” she sort of sneered, indignant. “Thought you’d be more, well, impressive.”
He chafed under her stare and had a mind to grab his crotch and tell her he had something impressive for her. “Could have picked someone else.”
“You come highly recommended.” She looked him up and down. “Though it is difficult to see why.”
“A toilet ain’t particularly pretty,” he smirked, brushing away dust just to annoy her, “but it gets the job done.”
The analogy sounded much better in his head.
Madame Pie stood. She was a frail woman. She held onto the chair for balance. “I don’t like you Mister Angry or Jasper. You are a low creature; crude and filthy.”
“On good days.”
“Putrid and vulgar and disgu…”
He cut her off. “Make it a whole lot easier to handle your insults if I knew how much you’re willing to pay.”
Madame Pie almost seemed shocked by his callousness. “And that’s all this is you, money. Isn’t that right?”
“Well, I was hoping you and I would hit it off. Maybe I could swing by for weekends, golf on the green, supper by the pool. I might even let you paint my toenails while we told secrets about the other girls.”
Her jaw tightened. Madame Pie was never one to tolerate insolent servants. “Money is of no concern.”
“Money is of great concern to me.”
“No doubt,” she grimaced. “I imagine it helps to keep you in swill and low women.”
Jazz smirked. “Sure helps.”
“I’ll get to the point, so we can minimize the mutual suffering of each other’s company. My husband had business on Earth. My son accompanied him. They were shot down over rebel territory yesterday. I have reason to believe my son is still alive. I want him returned to me.”
“What about your husband.”
“He was well insured.”
“Bet you’re a riot in the sack.”
“Not your type I’m afraid. I don’t have fleas.” He started to reply, but she cut him off with a curt wave of her long thing pale hand. “I have reason to believe he is being held by the rebels.”
Jazz scoffed. “It’s a suicide mission!”
“I’m prepared to pay one hundred thousand credits. Half now, and half when my child is safely returned.”
“Earth. Rebels. Death. I wouldn’t go down there to piss on your kid if his head was on fire for a hundred thousand.”
“That’s more money that you’re likely to see in a lifetime in your life of work.”
“Dead men don’t need money.”
“Might use it to,” she looked him up and down again, “bathe, for a start.”
“Think I’ll be doing this forever?” Jazz shot back. He’d had just about enough of her condescending attitude. “I got dreams, lady. I got plans, and they don’t include going on a suicide mission to save your brat!”
Truth was, jazz didn’t have any dreams, not that he could recall anyway. He might have hoped once that he and Katy would be together, with some dream job like flying freighters around the solar system. Now, he was just trying not to die completely broke, and keep busy enough to put off thinking about his sad, sad life for too long.
Madame Pie laughed spitefully. “Oh, how the poor cling so dearly to dreams and pale hopes. Pathetic creatures so robbed of hope they hold to trinkets and the dulcet commiseration of fellow pathetiques. Blessed are those who fight our wars and clean our toilets. Sad, sad, Mister Jasper.”
“If that’s all then, I’ll be going.” Jazz started for the door.
“Two hundred thousand,” she said.”
“Good luck to you,” he replied without looking back.
“Three hundred thousand.”
Jazz stopped dead in his tracks. He swung around and tugged at the collors of his jacket, straightening them.
“I’ll start tomorrow.”
Jazz pulled the door open and paused. There was one more thing.
“How will I recognize…”
“Trust me, Mister Jazz, there will be no mistaking my son.”
Her hair was straight and gray, curving up gently at the ends just above her small shoulders. She glanced over her shoulder, acknowledging Jazz in the least possible way. He could see that she was not an attractive woman by any means. The years, he mused to himself, had not been kind to her. And those years, Jazz figured, began well before she was born.
Jazz disliked her right off. He hated rich folks as a matter of course. They didn’t know what hard work really was, and Jazz resented that more than anything. Sure, they might have done something menial once upon a time, but never out of necessity. They didn’t know the ache of exhaustion in the pit of their back, or the strain in a body unsure of where its next meal would come from or the trepidation that one day a body would just give out. She turned and regarded him as if he was a rat or some low thing that had just crept through the door, and to be honest, that’s just about how he felt.
“You’re mister Jasper?” she sort of sneered, indignant. “Thought you’d be more, well, impressive.”
He chafed under her stare and had a mind to grab his crotch and tell her he had something impressive for her. “Could have picked someone else.”
“You come highly recommended.” She looked him up and down. “Though it is difficult to see why.”
“A toilet ain’t particularly pretty,” he smirked, brushing away dust just to annoy her, “but it gets the job done.”
The analogy sounded much better in his head.
Madame Pie stood. She was a frail woman. She held onto the chair for balance. “I don’t like you Mister Angry or Jasper. You are a low creature; crude and filthy.”
“On good days.”
“Putrid and vulgar and disgu…”
He cut her off. “Make it a whole lot easier to handle your insults if I knew how much you’re willing to pay.”
Madame Pie almost seemed shocked by his callousness. “And that’s all this is you, money. Isn’t that right?”
“Well, I was hoping you and I would hit it off. Maybe I could swing by for weekends, golf on the green, supper by the pool. I might even let you paint my toenails while we told secrets about the other girls.”
Her jaw tightened. Madame Pie was never one to tolerate insolent servants. “Money is of no concern.”
“Money is of great concern to me.”
“No doubt,” she grimaced. “I imagine it helps to keep you in swill and low women.”
Jazz smirked. “Sure helps.”
“I’ll get to the point, so we can minimize the mutual suffering of each other’s company. My husband had business on Earth. My son accompanied him. They were shot down over rebel territory yesterday. I have reason to believe my son is still alive. I want him returned to me.”
“What about your husband.”
“He was well insured.”
“Bet you’re a riot in the sack.”
“Not your type I’m afraid. I don’t have fleas.” He started to reply, but she cut him off with a curt wave of her long thing pale hand. “I have reason to believe he is being held by the rebels.”
Jazz scoffed. “It’s a suicide mission!”
“I’m prepared to pay one hundred thousand credits. Half now, and half when my child is safely returned.”
“Earth. Rebels. Death. I wouldn’t go down there to piss on your kid if his head was on fire for a hundred thousand.”
“That’s more money that you’re likely to see in a lifetime in your life of work.”
“Dead men don’t need money.”
“Might use it to,” she looked him up and down again, “bathe, for a start.”
“Think I’ll be doing this forever?” Jazz shot back. He’d had just about enough of her condescending attitude. “I got dreams, lady. I got plans, and they don’t include going on a suicide mission to save your brat!”
Truth was, jazz didn’t have any dreams, not that he could recall anyway. He might have hoped once that he and Katy would be together, with some dream job like flying freighters around the solar system. Now, he was just trying not to die completely broke, and keep busy enough to put off thinking about his sad, sad life for too long.
Madame Pie laughed spitefully. “Oh, how the poor cling so dearly to dreams and pale hopes. Pathetic creatures so robbed of hope they hold to trinkets and the dulcet commiseration of fellow pathetiques. Blessed are those who fight our wars and clean our toilets. Sad, sad, Mister Jasper.”
“If that’s all then, I’ll be going.” Jazz started for the door.
“Two hundred thousand,” she said.”
“Good luck to you,” he replied without looking back.
“Three hundred thousand.”
Jazz stopped dead in his tracks. He swung around and tugged at the collors of his jacket, straightening them.
“I’ll start tomorrow.”
Jazz pulled the door open and paused. There was one more thing.
“How will I recognize…”
“Trust me, Mister Jazz, there will be no mistaking my son.”
Angry Jasper-Twelve
Jazz took the sky tram to the wealthy estates on the far side of the ring. Above him fields, reflecting ponds, rainforests and small towns raced by in an iridescent blur of blues and browns and greens. Patchwork corporate farms appeared idyllic and eternal, like their long extinct earth ancestors. The trip took the better part of an hour, offering ample time to ponder the paths might have gone. Didn’t take him very long to realize it had gone exactly where he allowed it to go, either on purpose or by neglect.
The platform was packed with working class folks, the sullen and humbled servants to the rich. They were in a hurry to get home. Jazz had to fight against the crush of bodies when the tram doors opened. He winced when someone inadvertently jammed his wounded side. Jazz stumbled onto the platform, barely clearing the door before it slammed shut. In the blink of an eye and a fading electric whine the tram was gone.
The ride down to the wheel was the hardest part of the trip. The little gravity pod dropped the better part of two thousand feet in a matter of seconds. On the ground Jazz waited for his stomach to rejoin him. He watched the pod disappear into the sky just as quickly. He had done it a thousand times, but never quite got use to it.
He found the estate without a great deal of difficulty. It was bounded by a high vine covered wall. The placed appeared ancient, like some French country manor. The vines were thick and deep. Fat green leaves grew in broad patches, exposing the pitted stone beneath here and there. The entrance was protected by a huge iron gate. A shiny black security ’bot sailed over the wall and hovered before him so close he almost swatted it away. Jazz had already been cleared. The eye scan confirmed that well enough. A brain wave scan proved his intentions were peaceful enough. Jazz swiped at the’ bot when it got too close. It buzzed angrily, swinging wildly to one side to miss the swipe where it banged fence loudly. The gate opened slowly, revealing a long drive of crushed red stone bordered by spindly Cypress trees.
It was a mansion, like an old French villa, complete with turrets and tall colonnades. Gravel crunch softly beneath his feet. To either side were lusciously manicured gardens. A pair of white doves fluttered away across the yard. A tram streaked by high overhead, nearly lost to wispy white clouds brushed across the cerulean sky.
The Pie family was old money. They had made their fortunes during the alien invasion scare of the Twenty-Third Century by securing contracts to build security bases beyond the orbit of Pluto. The bases were all but deserted now. There never had been any aliens, and many believed the patriarch of the Pie family had merely manufactured the whole thing. There were even calls for an investigation, but just as it had throughout human history, money has its dirty little privileges. The family was big into politics now, though no one in the family was actually a politician. They remained behind the scenes as one of those powerful families in the Solar System. It was Mister Pie who advocated forced resettlement of the earth, claiming it had to be dismantled to extinguish the rebellion and sever mankind’s irrational and infantile connection to this sun as the species made the eventual push towards interstellar space.
The platform was packed with working class folks, the sullen and humbled servants to the rich. They were in a hurry to get home. Jazz had to fight against the crush of bodies when the tram doors opened. He winced when someone inadvertently jammed his wounded side. Jazz stumbled onto the platform, barely clearing the door before it slammed shut. In the blink of an eye and a fading electric whine the tram was gone.
The ride down to the wheel was the hardest part of the trip. The little gravity pod dropped the better part of two thousand feet in a matter of seconds. On the ground Jazz waited for his stomach to rejoin him. He watched the pod disappear into the sky just as quickly. He had done it a thousand times, but never quite got use to it.
He found the estate without a great deal of difficulty. It was bounded by a high vine covered wall. The placed appeared ancient, like some French country manor. The vines were thick and deep. Fat green leaves grew in broad patches, exposing the pitted stone beneath here and there. The entrance was protected by a huge iron gate. A shiny black security ’bot sailed over the wall and hovered before him so close he almost swatted it away. Jazz had already been cleared. The eye scan confirmed that well enough. A brain wave scan proved his intentions were peaceful enough. Jazz swiped at the’ bot when it got too close. It buzzed angrily, swinging wildly to one side to miss the swipe where it banged fence loudly. The gate opened slowly, revealing a long drive of crushed red stone bordered by spindly Cypress trees.
It was a mansion, like an old French villa, complete with turrets and tall colonnades. Gravel crunch softly beneath his feet. To either side were lusciously manicured gardens. A pair of white doves fluttered away across the yard. A tram streaked by high overhead, nearly lost to wispy white clouds brushed across the cerulean sky.
The Pie family was old money. They had made their fortunes during the alien invasion scare of the Twenty-Third Century by securing contracts to build security bases beyond the orbit of Pluto. The bases were all but deserted now. There never had been any aliens, and many believed the patriarch of the Pie family had merely manufactured the whole thing. There were even calls for an investigation, but just as it had throughout human history, money has its dirty little privileges. The family was big into politics now, though no one in the family was actually a politician. They remained behind the scenes as one of those powerful families in the Solar System. It was Mister Pie who advocated forced resettlement of the earth, claiming it had to be dismantled to extinguish the rebellion and sever mankind’s irrational and infantile connection to this sun as the species made the eventual push towards interstellar space.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Angry Jasper-Eleven
Jazz had been going to Doc Redhorse for years. He worked out of a small office in the front of his turn of the Twentieth Century house at the edge of town. With big white turrets, bright sunny windows and a broad green-painted porch, the house appeared to have been lifted from some country lane circa 1910. The grass of the neatly trimmed yard was bright green. A crooked old willow hugged one side of the house. Colorful rushes of daffodils and snapdragons crowed at the porch, running along the narrow walkway to the Doctor’s door. There was a pair of rocking chairs by the door. A lavender shawl was draped across the smaller of the two. It had been there since Misses Redhorse passed on a few years earlier.
Jazz limped up the walk, cradling his chest. The pain grew less and less tolerable in proportion to Jazz’ sinking mood and energy. He paused at the step. The quiet country lane stretched among farm fields and small banks of woods. It arched with the curve of the wheel, through a small town and a distant rain storm. The sun was high overhead, where it was stretched by the clear ceiling of the wheel and separated into it’s constituent perspective at the edges.
First time Jazz saw Doc Redhorse was not long after he’d “met” Kate. Jazz had lost his hand in a nasty scrape with pirates attempting to hijack a freighter he was guarding for a paltry two hundred and eighty credits a week. Jazz came to in the infirmary, his body battered and torn. It was as close, at least up to then, to death as he had come. It was a moment in which life, or clinging to it was still in question and, in no small part, his decision. Indeed, Jazz might have made that decision, especially after seeing the shredded remains of his hand.
At that moment a face appeared over him. The Native American’ light brown flesh was smooth and handsome, framed by thick black hair. His eyes were deep agate pools, overflowing with a gentleness and brilliance that immediately stilled Jazz’ fluid emotions and runaway thoughts.
“I’m Doctor Redhorse,” he winked. “I’d shake your hand but…”
“Bad joke, doc,” Jazz managed.
“Don’t you worry.”
“Seen my hand, Doc?”
“Which hand do you jerk off with?” he grinned. Anyone else Jazz might have reached up with his good hand and choked the guy. There was something innocent and pure about Redhorse’s bedside manner.
“Use both hands, Doc. Out of necessity.”
“Gonna put you to sleep now,” he nodded to the anesthetist. “Have you healthy and defiling yourself again in no time.”
Jazz might have lost the arm if not for Doc Redhorse. Took the better part of twelve hours of micro-surgery and micro-nerve grafts to attach an artificial hand. It wasn’t about six months after that hen Jazz accidently stabbed himself in a bar fight-twice…front and back.
Doc Redhorse hadn’t fixed his eye, when a compressor exploded in the ship as he was making grilled cheese sandwich on it about tens years back. That’s why it looked as badly as it did, with the spider-web scars and the nasty discoloration that made Jazz appear like some bizarre cyborg character from some cheap Twentieth Century Sci-fi novel.
Jazz knocked loudly at the door. A passerby might have thought it rudely or obnoxiously loud. The old Doc was a little loud of hearing these days. It brought a certain levity to his wife’s funeral, as each time the Priest read a passage Redhorse would put a hand to his ear and reply: “Eh? Oh, right.”
It was only a couple years since the funeral, but as Redhorse came to the door Jazz could see the time since had been unkind. The doctor was bent nearly to the waist. He wore A thick old fashioned pair of eyeglasses, when he surely could have afforded a new pair of eyes if he wishes. His silver hair was unwashed and thin. Despite all that he recognized Jazz instantly.
“What did you get busted up now, Jazz?” His tone was dry, but with that certain sense of humor. He turned away from the screen door. It creaked as Jazz pulled it open and went inside.
“Hybrid fugitive with a piss poor attitude.”
“Give him what for?”
“Better than I got,” said Jazz. It was best not to have to mention the bartender’s part.
“Did you get him?”
“Just dropped off the head.”
“What can I do ya for, son?”
“Took a sucker punch to the ribs. Got another job coming up and I’d sure like to be as strong as possible for it, Doc.”
The dark house was quiet and comfortable. A soft breeze through open windows pushed old lace curtains and carried the scent of flowers and grass through wide, airy rooms decorated with real Art deco style furniture and big colorful landscape oils. The wood floor creaked with each step as they made their way along the hall to the Doc’s naturally lit examining room.
Jazz yanked off his shirt and sat up on the long examining table. The cold blue vinyl gave him a chill that resonated painfully through his chest. A nasty yellow and black bruise extended clear around his body. Jazz groaned and had a time trying to lay back at first. Doc Redhorse turned, holding an image resonance pen, IRP for short, and noticed the difficulty Jazz was having.
“One of these days, boy, they’re gonna put a tag on your toe.”
“Do it myself, Doc, if I wasn’t so damn chicken,” he replied. Say, why don’t you go and get your eyes fixed or get that back straightened. Hell, Doc, you could even get a whole new body just about!”
“Whole new body don’t fix a broken heart,” lamented the good doctor with a fatalistic smile.
Jazz sighed in agreement. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Redhorse began to run the IRP just above Jazz’s torso. In the air above an artificially colored hologram of Jazz appeared. He clicked the pen once and the skin peeled away. Clicking it several more times left only the ivory white image of Jazz’s ribs and spine. On one side the fourth and fifth ribs were very clearly busted. The fourth was broken in two places and had turned a bit, which was likely the cause of most of Jazz’ pain.
“How bad, Doc?”
“Seen worse.” He clicked the pen several times, moving through layers of tissue. Redhorse painted the extent of the bruising around the ribcage. “Ought to think about settling down, Jazz. Find a nice gal and have a kid or two.”
“Where would I go, Doc?”
“Take over this place when I’m gone.” He went to the cabinet for another instrument.
“Don’t talk that way,” Jazz moaned. “Still got a lot of good years left.”
He returned to the table. The instrument cam one with slight hum. He touched it gently to Jazz’ wounded side. As he ran it up and back the bones in the hologram steadily healed. “I’ll be a hundred and seventy next month. I could hang on for another forty or fifty years, but for what? I was married to the wife a hundred and forty-seven years. Don’t get me wrong, Jazz. I’m thankful for my friends and patients, but all the time in the world don’t mean a hill of beans without the misses.”
Doc Redhorse waved the fee. He and jazz shared a glass of decent brandy out on the porch for a time. The rain storm moved in and it poured good and hard for a bit. When it was done Jazz stood and stretched. The pain was mostly gone, but still lingered, especially where the hybrid had slugged him.
“Be careful for a bit. Let that heal good and proper.”
“Can’t thank you enough, Doc.”
It would be the last time he’d see Doc Redhorse, sitting on that porch, working the brandy around the bottom of his fat round snifter. Part way up the road Jazz turned and waved one last time, pausing to imagine himself growing old there with Kate, the shawl wrapped around her frail shoulders. That vision dissolved into something closer to reality, with the two of them spilling out the door and down the steps clutched in a death grip at one another’s throats.
Jazz limped up the walk, cradling his chest. The pain grew less and less tolerable in proportion to Jazz’ sinking mood and energy. He paused at the step. The quiet country lane stretched among farm fields and small banks of woods. It arched with the curve of the wheel, through a small town and a distant rain storm. The sun was high overhead, where it was stretched by the clear ceiling of the wheel and separated into it’s constituent perspective at the edges.
First time Jazz saw Doc Redhorse was not long after he’d “met” Kate. Jazz had lost his hand in a nasty scrape with pirates attempting to hijack a freighter he was guarding for a paltry two hundred and eighty credits a week. Jazz came to in the infirmary, his body battered and torn. It was as close, at least up to then, to death as he had come. It was a moment in which life, or clinging to it was still in question and, in no small part, his decision. Indeed, Jazz might have made that decision, especially after seeing the shredded remains of his hand.
At that moment a face appeared over him. The Native American’ light brown flesh was smooth and handsome, framed by thick black hair. His eyes were deep agate pools, overflowing with a gentleness and brilliance that immediately stilled Jazz’ fluid emotions and runaway thoughts.
“I’m Doctor Redhorse,” he winked. “I’d shake your hand but…”
“Bad joke, doc,” Jazz managed.
“Don’t you worry.”
“Seen my hand, Doc?”
“Which hand do you jerk off with?” he grinned. Anyone else Jazz might have reached up with his good hand and choked the guy. There was something innocent and pure about Redhorse’s bedside manner.
“Use both hands, Doc. Out of necessity.”
“Gonna put you to sleep now,” he nodded to the anesthetist. “Have you healthy and defiling yourself again in no time.”
Jazz might have lost the arm if not for Doc Redhorse. Took the better part of twelve hours of micro-surgery and micro-nerve grafts to attach an artificial hand. It wasn’t about six months after that hen Jazz accidently stabbed himself in a bar fight-twice…front and back.
Doc Redhorse hadn’t fixed his eye, when a compressor exploded in the ship as he was making grilled cheese sandwich on it about tens years back. That’s why it looked as badly as it did, with the spider-web scars and the nasty discoloration that made Jazz appear like some bizarre cyborg character from some cheap Twentieth Century Sci-fi novel.
Jazz knocked loudly at the door. A passerby might have thought it rudely or obnoxiously loud. The old Doc was a little loud of hearing these days. It brought a certain levity to his wife’s funeral, as each time the Priest read a passage Redhorse would put a hand to his ear and reply: “Eh? Oh, right.”
It was only a couple years since the funeral, but as Redhorse came to the door Jazz could see the time since had been unkind. The doctor was bent nearly to the waist. He wore A thick old fashioned pair of eyeglasses, when he surely could have afforded a new pair of eyes if he wishes. His silver hair was unwashed and thin. Despite all that he recognized Jazz instantly.
“What did you get busted up now, Jazz?” His tone was dry, but with that certain sense of humor. He turned away from the screen door. It creaked as Jazz pulled it open and went inside.
“Hybrid fugitive with a piss poor attitude.”
“Give him what for?”
“Better than I got,” said Jazz. It was best not to have to mention the bartender’s part.
“Did you get him?”
“Just dropped off the head.”
“What can I do ya for, son?”
“Took a sucker punch to the ribs. Got another job coming up and I’d sure like to be as strong as possible for it, Doc.”
The dark house was quiet and comfortable. A soft breeze through open windows pushed old lace curtains and carried the scent of flowers and grass through wide, airy rooms decorated with real Art deco style furniture and big colorful landscape oils. The wood floor creaked with each step as they made their way along the hall to the Doc’s naturally lit examining room.
Jazz yanked off his shirt and sat up on the long examining table. The cold blue vinyl gave him a chill that resonated painfully through his chest. A nasty yellow and black bruise extended clear around his body. Jazz groaned and had a time trying to lay back at first. Doc Redhorse turned, holding an image resonance pen, IRP for short, and noticed the difficulty Jazz was having.
“One of these days, boy, they’re gonna put a tag on your toe.”
“Do it myself, Doc, if I wasn’t so damn chicken,” he replied. Say, why don’t you go and get your eyes fixed or get that back straightened. Hell, Doc, you could even get a whole new body just about!”
“Whole new body don’t fix a broken heart,” lamented the good doctor with a fatalistic smile.
Jazz sighed in agreement. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Redhorse began to run the IRP just above Jazz’s torso. In the air above an artificially colored hologram of Jazz appeared. He clicked the pen once and the skin peeled away. Clicking it several more times left only the ivory white image of Jazz’s ribs and spine. On one side the fourth and fifth ribs were very clearly busted. The fourth was broken in two places and had turned a bit, which was likely the cause of most of Jazz’ pain.
“How bad, Doc?”
“Seen worse.” He clicked the pen several times, moving through layers of tissue. Redhorse painted the extent of the bruising around the ribcage. “Ought to think about settling down, Jazz. Find a nice gal and have a kid or two.”
“Where would I go, Doc?”
“Take over this place when I’m gone.” He went to the cabinet for another instrument.
“Don’t talk that way,” Jazz moaned. “Still got a lot of good years left.”
He returned to the table. The instrument cam one with slight hum. He touched it gently to Jazz’ wounded side. As he ran it up and back the bones in the hologram steadily healed. “I’ll be a hundred and seventy next month. I could hang on for another forty or fifty years, but for what? I was married to the wife a hundred and forty-seven years. Don’t get me wrong, Jazz. I’m thankful for my friends and patients, but all the time in the world don’t mean a hill of beans without the misses.”
Doc Redhorse waved the fee. He and jazz shared a glass of decent brandy out on the porch for a time. The rain storm moved in and it poured good and hard for a bit. When it was done Jazz stood and stretched. The pain was mostly gone, but still lingered, especially where the hybrid had slugged him.
“Be careful for a bit. Let that heal good and proper.”
“Can’t thank you enough, Doc.”
It would be the last time he’d see Doc Redhorse, sitting on that porch, working the brandy around the bottom of his fat round snifter. Part way up the road Jazz turned and waved one last time, pausing to imagine himself growing old there with Kate, the shawl wrapped around her frail shoulders. That vision dissolved into something closer to reality, with the two of them spilling out the door and down the steps clutched in a death grip at one another’s throats.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Angry Jasper-Ten
First thing he needed was to turn in the fugitive's head and get paid his bounty, jazz docked the ship and took a rail car down to the surface. It was a short ride into town. The place had the look of small New England hamlet, circa 2012, just before the great world war. Folks went happily enough from small shops, sidewalk market stalls and pleasant little cafes It was always sunny and always a perfect 74 degrees. Like some little piece of god-damned heaven.
The assessor’s office was on Maple Street, just past the flower shop and Morty Zuckerman’s deli in a little red-brick storefront. There w ere bright white lace curtains in the large front window, and in the glass door. The letters were etched upon the door in gold lettering. It might have been a street circa Earth in the 1940s, except that the light was just a little off, a consequence of the Wheel’s solar filters. A little bell over the door tingled as Jazz entered. He glared at it for a moment, and damn near ripped it off the wall. The tiny office was empty. There were a row of old chairs along the window, far more than the place ever needed. Jazz went to the counter and slapped his hand down hard beside a small bell. It rattled loudly just the same. When no one answered he shouted at the back office.
“Growing old out here!”
“Hold your horses, fella.” An impish little man in suspenders and a visor shuffled through the door. Small round spectacles teetered at the edge of the man’s round red nose. A notepad was tucked under one arm. His shirt was ivory white, and cut sharply by heavy black suspenders. “Good golly, mister, where is the fire?”
“No fire,” said Jazz, upending the sack, spilling the head and associated mess onto the counter. “But my friend is gonna turn soon.”
“Lord! Excuse my French, but what am I supposed to do…?” The assessor jumped back against a desk, lifting his legs absurdly into the air, sparing his shoes a dousing of fugitive gruel oozing and splattering on the floor beneath him.
Jazz pulled the wanted poster from his jacket and unfolded it. “Got five thousand credits coming to me.”
The assessor made no effort to hide his annoyance with Jazz. Who did? He purposely took forever with the paperwork. After nearly an hour, minus the assessor’s fee, wheel tax, various Corporation taxes and the like the assessor transferred to Jazz’s account a cool twenty-two hundred credits?
“Got to be some miskake,” Jazz almost thought he might cry.
“No mistake, mister.”
Freakin’ taxes were strangling the working man, Jazz lamented. Twenty-two hundred wasn’t enough to even get the ship repaired. He was better off junking the thing and taking a nice boring janitor position on the wheel. Jazz grabbed the little man by the suspenders and hauled in off the floor.
“What are you trying to pull here?”
“That’s how it goes,” the assessor trembled. “I don't write the tax code.”
“Ought to pound you into a pulp just for fun.” Jazz reeled back mulling over whether or not to bust the guy in the face.
“Marge, help!” cried the assessor to the back office. Jazz couldn’t help but laugh. What a puny pathetic creature. Nothing he hated worse than a man who couldn’t hold his own in a scrap.
“That’s right, call your little wife, maybe she’ll…” the words trailed away as the biggest meanest woman he’d ever seen appeared in the door. She had a baseball bat in one hand, and look that told jazz she knew how to use it.
“Marge?” he swallowed hard.
“Oh. I’m gonna enjoy this!” Marge charged through the office like a pissed off buffalo. She chased poor Jazz the better part of a block before he managed to lose her, doing his best not to linger over the fact that it took him that far to outrun a fat old woman!
The assessor’s office was on Maple Street, just past the flower shop and Morty Zuckerman’s deli in a little red-brick storefront. There w ere bright white lace curtains in the large front window, and in the glass door. The letters were etched upon the door in gold lettering. It might have been a street circa Earth in the 1940s, except that the light was just a little off, a consequence of the Wheel’s solar filters. A little bell over the door tingled as Jazz entered. He glared at it for a moment, and damn near ripped it off the wall. The tiny office was empty. There were a row of old chairs along the window, far more than the place ever needed. Jazz went to the counter and slapped his hand down hard beside a small bell. It rattled loudly just the same. When no one answered he shouted at the back office.
“Growing old out here!”
“Hold your horses, fella.” An impish little man in suspenders and a visor shuffled through the door. Small round spectacles teetered at the edge of the man’s round red nose. A notepad was tucked under one arm. His shirt was ivory white, and cut sharply by heavy black suspenders. “Good golly, mister, where is the fire?”
“No fire,” said Jazz, upending the sack, spilling the head and associated mess onto the counter. “But my friend is gonna turn soon.”
“Lord! Excuse my French, but what am I supposed to do…?” The assessor jumped back against a desk, lifting his legs absurdly into the air, sparing his shoes a dousing of fugitive gruel oozing and splattering on the floor beneath him.
Jazz pulled the wanted poster from his jacket and unfolded it. “Got five thousand credits coming to me.”
The assessor made no effort to hide his annoyance with Jazz. Who did? He purposely took forever with the paperwork. After nearly an hour, minus the assessor’s fee, wheel tax, various Corporation taxes and the like the assessor transferred to Jazz’s account a cool twenty-two hundred credits?
“Got to be some miskake,” Jazz almost thought he might cry.
“No mistake, mister.”
Freakin’ taxes were strangling the working man, Jazz lamented. Twenty-two hundred wasn’t enough to even get the ship repaired. He was better off junking the thing and taking a nice boring janitor position on the wheel. Jazz grabbed the little man by the suspenders and hauled in off the floor.
“What are you trying to pull here?”
“That’s how it goes,” the assessor trembled. “I don't write the tax code.”
“Ought to pound you into a pulp just for fun.” Jazz reeled back mulling over whether or not to bust the guy in the face.
“Marge, help!” cried the assessor to the back office. Jazz couldn’t help but laugh. What a puny pathetic creature. Nothing he hated worse than a man who couldn’t hold his own in a scrap.
“That’s right, call your little wife, maybe she’ll…” the words trailed away as the biggest meanest woman he’d ever seen appeared in the door. She had a baseball bat in one hand, and look that told jazz she knew how to use it.
“Marge?” he swallowed hard.
“Oh. I’m gonna enjoy this!” Marge charged through the office like a pissed off buffalo. She chased poor Jazz the better part of a block before he managed to lose her, doing his best not to linger over the fact that it took him that far to outrun a fat old woman!
Angry Jasper-Nine
Jazz watched Katy’s ship as it pulled away from the Governor’s palace, at the top of the Space wheel. There was no mistaking its gleaming silver phallic profile. He groaned with heartache and turned away. Jazz failed to notice the pursuit craft shadowing Katy at a distance.
He preferred to think of himself as an orphan. It wasn’t true, but as far as anyone else knew Angry Jasper was an orphan. Fair number of folks believed that’s what made him so angry, and Jazz was always happy to encourage that myth. But then a lot of folks reconstruct their past to fit the pretense of their future or to soothe their own egos. Jazz was no different. Which wasn’t to say growing up was good. It wasn't, not by any stretch.
His father had worked a methane freighter running a route between Neptune and a handful of frontier outposts beyond Pluto. Depending on his mood, and in direct proportion to the amount of Martian rot-gut Bourbon Jazz consumed, his dad was either a mechanic, an engineer, a pilot or a galley cook. Each tale depended fully upon his level of self pity at that particular moment. By now Jazz had told so many different tales, he was no longer certain what his old man did. What was true was that the guy wasn’t a pleasant soul to be around. He was quick tempered, and just as quick with a backhand, and Jazz, and that smart mouth of his, had caught that hand a fair number of times.
Back then the freighters were a good deal slower, and paid a lot less, that is until a number of crews mutinied or turned to piracy. Families often accompanied the crew on runs that might last an earth year or more. Those were the days when most everything was still measured in a standard Earth time.
His mother was a whole other story. She liked to tip the bottle morning noon and night. It got so that Jazz couldn’t recall a time when she wasn’t sloshed, or passed out in her own festively colored regurgitation So, given all that, you might say Jazz was an orphan. In every tall tale is a cornerstone of truth, and Jazz carried his stone alternately in his heart or chained to one ankle.
Jazz watched Kate’s ship disappear behind the black limb of the moon. He might have pounded the console and yelled out loud from the heartache just at seeing her ship, if not for his busted ribs. Instead his head just sort of dropped to one side, as Jazz let out the longest and saddest moan. Memories flooded in upon him, all of them about Kate. In all the solar system and almost a trillion souls, why was there no one who wounded his soul the way Katy-did…did? Sometimes the universe doesn’t seem big enough to run from a busted heart.
He recalled the first time he’d seen her, all those years ago when he was working for peanuts flying security for freighters.. He didn’t recall on purpose. Instead the memory was like one of those old phonograph records playing over and over again. It was like trap, like some part of his guilty heart was intent on torturing him either for finding her or for letting her go. Either one seemed like a burden at this point.
It seemed a lifetime since that first magic moment. It seemed forever since that first time Kate threw a drink in Jazz' face as he drenched his interplanetary sorrows in that d ark and dingy space bar. There was nothing as beautiful as the grimace on her face as she fired a full glass of hooch at him with the utmost venom. Not that he hadn't had a drink or two-or twenty-thrown in his face, but there was something more to the w ay Kate did it. Hate for her was passionate and erotic. She was se4nsuously cynical and inspiringly vengeful, qualities he found far more stimulating than any other he could conceive.
He slapped her hard across the face, the sensation almost electric and arousing as the spit flew from her mouth. The slap wasn't a bind reaction to her initial affront. Something told him to slap her, and that doing so was more a matter of fate than anything else. Jazz only wished that something had also warned him about the roundhouse slug she delivered a moment later.
“Bitch!” jazz spit a mouthful of bright red blood at the floor. More ran down his chin and dripped onto his chest. Jazz smiled. It was wonderful and exhilarating!
“Pig!” she snarled, her arm and fist cocked for another go.
Twenty stall shattering minutes later Kate was leaning against the stall door, fighting the urge to grin through her eternal angst. She was puffing on a cigarette. Jazz pulled up his trousers, wanting to shout for the most amazing sex of his life, with the most amazing woman he'd ever known.
“I suppose I should go,” she chewed her lip, doing her damndest to appe ar aloof. Kate wanted him to believe this was hardly more than another casual lay when she wanted to scream and leap into his arms and never let him go.
“See you again?” he asked.
“Don't know. Small solar system.”
She pushed open the stall door and flipped the cigarette butt away. She stood at the busted bathroom mirror adjusting her clothes, and teasing her long red hair with her fingers. Jazz watched her from the stall. She was in profile, silhouetted against the mildewed walls of the bathroom, fat cobwebs hanging in the corner. He marvelled at the curve of her back, sloping back to the roundness of her ass and knew right then and there he could never love another woman.
“Let me ask you a question,” he began. “What's a girl like you doing in a crummy place like this?”
She turned to face him, threw back her head and scoffed. “That was about the best csrew I ever had. Don't dick it up by turning this into a cliche.”
It was six months before he made it back to that quadrant again. There wasn't a day he didn't think of her. The moment he walked through the door and s aw her at the bar he knew she felt the same. Being the secretly romantic souls they kept hidden from the re st of the universe they consummated their love the only way that seemed fitting. Forever after that toilet stall would be their special place.
He preferred to think of himself as an orphan. It wasn’t true, but as far as anyone else knew Angry Jasper was an orphan. Fair number of folks believed that’s what made him so angry, and Jazz was always happy to encourage that myth. But then a lot of folks reconstruct their past to fit the pretense of their future or to soothe their own egos. Jazz was no different. Which wasn’t to say growing up was good. It wasn't, not by any stretch.
His father had worked a methane freighter running a route between Neptune and a handful of frontier outposts beyond Pluto. Depending on his mood, and in direct proportion to the amount of Martian rot-gut Bourbon Jazz consumed, his dad was either a mechanic, an engineer, a pilot or a galley cook. Each tale depended fully upon his level of self pity at that particular moment. By now Jazz had told so many different tales, he was no longer certain what his old man did. What was true was that the guy wasn’t a pleasant soul to be around. He was quick tempered, and just as quick with a backhand, and Jazz, and that smart mouth of his, had caught that hand a fair number of times.
Back then the freighters were a good deal slower, and paid a lot less, that is until a number of crews mutinied or turned to piracy. Families often accompanied the crew on runs that might last an earth year or more. Those were the days when most everything was still measured in a standard Earth time.
His mother was a whole other story. She liked to tip the bottle morning noon and night. It got so that Jazz couldn’t recall a time when she wasn’t sloshed, or passed out in her own festively colored regurgitation So, given all that, you might say Jazz was an orphan. In every tall tale is a cornerstone of truth, and Jazz carried his stone alternately in his heart or chained to one ankle.
Jazz watched Kate’s ship disappear behind the black limb of the moon. He might have pounded the console and yelled out loud from the heartache just at seeing her ship, if not for his busted ribs. Instead his head just sort of dropped to one side, as Jazz let out the longest and saddest moan. Memories flooded in upon him, all of them about Kate. In all the solar system and almost a trillion souls, why was there no one who wounded his soul the way Katy-did…did? Sometimes the universe doesn’t seem big enough to run from a busted heart.
He recalled the first time he’d seen her, all those years ago when he was working for peanuts flying security for freighters.. He didn’t recall on purpose. Instead the memory was like one of those old phonograph records playing over and over again. It was like trap, like some part of his guilty heart was intent on torturing him either for finding her or for letting her go. Either one seemed like a burden at this point.
It seemed a lifetime since that first magic moment. It seemed forever since that first time Kate threw a drink in Jazz' face as he drenched his interplanetary sorrows in that d ark and dingy space bar. There was nothing as beautiful as the grimace on her face as she fired a full glass of hooch at him with the utmost venom. Not that he hadn't had a drink or two-or twenty-thrown in his face, but there was something more to the w ay Kate did it. Hate for her was passionate and erotic. She was se4nsuously cynical and inspiringly vengeful, qualities he found far more stimulating than any other he could conceive.
He slapped her hard across the face, the sensation almost electric and arousing as the spit flew from her mouth. The slap wasn't a bind reaction to her initial affront. Something told him to slap her, and that doing so was more a matter of fate than anything else. Jazz only wished that something had also warned him about the roundhouse slug she delivered a moment later.
“Bitch!” jazz spit a mouthful of bright red blood at the floor. More ran down his chin and dripped onto his chest. Jazz smiled. It was wonderful and exhilarating!
“Pig!” she snarled, her arm and fist cocked for another go.
Twenty stall shattering minutes later Kate was leaning against the stall door, fighting the urge to grin through her eternal angst. She was puffing on a cigarette. Jazz pulled up his trousers, wanting to shout for the most amazing sex of his life, with the most amazing woman he'd ever known.
“I suppose I should go,” she chewed her lip, doing her damndest to appe ar aloof. Kate wanted him to believe this was hardly more than another casual lay when she wanted to scream and leap into his arms and never let him go.
“See you again?” he asked.
“Don't know. Small solar system.”
She pushed open the stall door and flipped the cigarette butt away. She stood at the busted bathroom mirror adjusting her clothes, and teasing her long red hair with her fingers. Jazz watched her from the stall. She was in profile, silhouetted against the mildewed walls of the bathroom, fat cobwebs hanging in the corner. He marvelled at the curve of her back, sloping back to the roundness of her ass and knew right then and there he could never love another woman.
“Let me ask you a question,” he began. “What's a girl like you doing in a crummy place like this?”
She turned to face him, threw back her head and scoffed. “That was about the best csrew I ever had. Don't dick it up by turning this into a cliche.”
It was six months before he made it back to that quadrant again. There wasn't a day he didn't think of her. The moment he walked through the door and s aw her at the bar he knew she felt the same. Being the secretly romantic souls they kept hidden from the re st of the universe they consummated their love the only way that seemed fitting. Forever after that toilet stall would be their special place.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Angry Jasper-Eight
The Earth-first rebels were a hodge-podge band, the offspring of fools and the destitute, the proud ancestors of those who might have believed the Earth was flat, or that God gave a rat’s ass what happened on that derelict planet. Never mind that Earth’s destiny was to one day, billions of years from now, to be consumed by our dying sun.
The original seed of the revolution was, of course, the fugitives who had opposed the ascendancy of the Corporation. Those men and women were Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Indian, Arab and African, fully a representation of the world’s amazing diversity. But war, and suspicion, corruption and the centuries had reformed the revolution just as surely as the elements had reduced the once proud Egyptian pyramids to mounds of sand and broken stone. The rebellion succumbed from within to the same petty squabbles, power grabs and ignorance it eschewed in their Corporation foes.
Over centuries of near constant warfare, the rebels had been reduced, or chased, into a vast, if disconnected network of subterranean refuges. It hadn’t always been that way, and for a time before retreating underground (literally) it almost appeared the rebels might prevail, at least enough to sue for something approaching peace. Indeed, the wholesale stripping and pillaging of the planet’s resources by the Corporation had all but ceased following a hand full of successive victories against the Corporation. But revolutions are odd creatures, and never what their pie-in-the-sky conjurers intended. Scattered, antagonistic and contemptuous of one another, the rebels lacked the unity to repel the Corporations exploitation of their factionalism.
One might believe this would be a proper time to quote some long dead philosopher, something about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps Defoe’s words of wisdom about how every man would be a tyrant if he could. Maybe the religious angle, something on how power and money are the roots of evil, or maybe things are best when they’re left simple. Let’s just say that the offspring of those original good and true fugitives did not follow in their forefather’s footsteps, and that power turns every man into a pimp and a schmuck!
The original seed of the revolution was, of course, the fugitives who had opposed the ascendancy of the Corporation. Those men and women were Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Indian, Arab and African, fully a representation of the world’s amazing diversity. But war, and suspicion, corruption and the centuries had reformed the revolution just as surely as the elements had reduced the once proud Egyptian pyramids to mounds of sand and broken stone. The rebellion succumbed from within to the same petty squabbles, power grabs and ignorance it eschewed in their Corporation foes.
Over centuries of near constant warfare, the rebels had been reduced, or chased, into a vast, if disconnected network of subterranean refuges. It hadn’t always been that way, and for a time before retreating underground (literally) it almost appeared the rebels might prevail, at least enough to sue for something approaching peace. Indeed, the wholesale stripping and pillaging of the planet’s resources by the Corporation had all but ceased following a hand full of successive victories against the Corporation. But revolutions are odd creatures, and never what their pie-in-the-sky conjurers intended. Scattered, antagonistic and contemptuous of one another, the rebels lacked the unity to repel the Corporations exploitation of their factionalism.
One might believe this would be a proper time to quote some long dead philosopher, something about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps Defoe’s words of wisdom about how every man would be a tyrant if he could. Maybe the religious angle, something on how power and money are the roots of evil, or maybe things are best when they’re left simple. Let’s just say that the offspring of those original good and true fugitives did not follow in their forefather’s footsteps, and that power turns every man into a pimp and a schmuck!
Angry Jasper-Seven
“The most powerful weapon ever built. Put an end to the Earth-firsters once and for all!”
She might have guessed, but the words still stabbed through her. She managed a smile, which is what made her by far the best spy in the rebel alliance. Inside she was scared as hell, figuring how she might get word back to Earth without blowing her cover. By the looks of things time was running out. It appeared that the weapon was almost finished. Just when the Corporation was likely to put it to use was the real question.
“Nearly ready, huh?” she asked, working at any crumb of information. Maury eyed her suspiciously. He had always harbored some quiet suspicion of her. He was suspicious of everyone, the consequence (or attribute) of growing up in a crime family. Nothing he could necessarily put into words, but definitely something. For so long he merely counted it as his natural suspicion of every woman’s quiet intention. Women played by different rules. They could make passionate love with a man while planning his demise at the same time. But more than that he never quite grew comfortable with the way she so completely and quickly disappeared after each tryst.
“A month, maybe two.” It was lie and he knew it. The weapon was nearly ready. Despite the frenetic pace around the contraption, his men were going through the final system checks. By all reports the weapon would be working within the week.
“How much to keep me quiet?” she flirted.
He stood and wrapped a sheet around his rotund little body, like some overstuffed Caesar. Maury turned abruptly, suddenly jealous and curious all at the same time. Not that he had any concrete cause to be either, but then a man in his position could not be too careful.
“What do you do with all your money? Certainly I’m not your only client.”
“That’s my business.”
“I could find out.” His eyes narrowed slightly, as though trying to see through her.
She stood and stepped into her white leather corset. A shiver of dread ran down her spine. She smiled nervously, pulling on long knee-high boots. “You could, and the next time you get horny call a hybrid.”
“Ha, at least they don’t argue all the damn time!”
“Lot’s of things they don’t do, or know how to do,” she cocked her brow knowingly. “And that, my love, is why you pay me the big credits.”
“Indeed,” Governor Maury chuckled as she turned and left his chamber. He groaned slightly watching Kate's womanly ass rise and fall with each step. She did indeed do and know to do all sorts of things hybrids didn’t know to do. And she was an expert, but there was just something about her. There was something behind those eyes Maury didn’t trust.
His curiosity was enough to have her followed. He could do that as the regional Governor. He could do almost anything he wished. It was jealousy pure and simple, and the thought of someone else tapping that gorgeous ass pushed him over the edge.
An aid entered in Katy’s wake to remind Maury of his schedule. He was a small, officious looking bean-counter in a tailored pin-striped suit and glasses far too big for his gaunt face.
“I should remind you,” he began in a thin, nervous voice, “there is a meeting of the finance comm….”.
“Never mind that,” said Maury, cutting him off. “I want Katy Did followed. Monitor her transmissions. I want to know where she goes and who she sees. And I want to know what she does with my credits!”
“You suspect something, boss?’
“I suspect everything, and something is not right about our little space skag.”
“One more thing, Governor. One of our ships is missing somewhere near Chicago.”
“Casualties?”
“Unknown, boss, but ambassador was on board. There are indications some of those on board survived and were captured by the rebels. We have an unofficial message indicating the rebels are interested in a prisoner exchange.”
“Any intelligence on the rebel base?”
“Not yet, sir. They are far too careful, masking their movements and guarding their transmissions.”
“Get someone on the damn ground!” exclaimed Maury.
“Our patrols simply disappear without a trace, Boss.” His tone was almost pleading. Maury gave a throaty sigh and waddled across the room where he could look out at the Earth. The sheet slipped baring far too much of that fat hairy crack of Maury’s for the Aid to stomach. Dirt was caked there among pimples and pustules, some of which looked on the verge of infection. The Aid looked sharply away and tasted the acidy bite of bile in the back of his throat.
“And what of this Thomas?”
“The rebel leader?”
“Yes, the rebel leader, you pug!” Maury grunted. The Aid, who was well use to the Governor’s infamous tirades and insults, pulled an antacid from his pocket and swallowed it quickly.
“Almost nothing,” the Aid replied. “He seems as much of a mystery to them as he is to us.”
Maury turned and narrowed his eyes at the man, who probably weighed less than his last meal. He went over and straightened the man’s lapels in the most suggestive and threatening way. “You’ll get me that information.”
“It is quite impossible to crack their security, Governor.” He regretted the words the instant they left his lips. He was already cringing, closing his eyes. Not so much for the expected explosion, but for the usual shower of spit and rancid bits of old food that accompanied those explosions. Only this time it didn’t come. He warily opened one eye, surprised to find Maury pacing the room, as if in great thought.
“Prisoner exchange, huh?” Maury was naked now. He pressed his hands to the glass, his man boobs and protruding stomach crushed there too.
“The rebels have made a tentative offer.”
“Signal the rebels and tell them we are interested in what they have to say, but make no promises.” He turned and regarded the Aid for a moment. “If my hunch is correct we might deal with the rebels on Earth once and for all.”
She might have guessed, but the words still stabbed through her. She managed a smile, which is what made her by far the best spy in the rebel alliance. Inside she was scared as hell, figuring how she might get word back to Earth without blowing her cover. By the looks of things time was running out. It appeared that the weapon was almost finished. Just when the Corporation was likely to put it to use was the real question.
“Nearly ready, huh?” she asked, working at any crumb of information. Maury eyed her suspiciously. He had always harbored some quiet suspicion of her. He was suspicious of everyone, the consequence (or attribute) of growing up in a crime family. Nothing he could necessarily put into words, but definitely something. For so long he merely counted it as his natural suspicion of every woman’s quiet intention. Women played by different rules. They could make passionate love with a man while planning his demise at the same time. But more than that he never quite grew comfortable with the way she so completely and quickly disappeared after each tryst.
“A month, maybe two.” It was lie and he knew it. The weapon was nearly ready. Despite the frenetic pace around the contraption, his men were going through the final system checks. By all reports the weapon would be working within the week.
“How much to keep me quiet?” she flirted.
He stood and wrapped a sheet around his rotund little body, like some overstuffed Caesar. Maury turned abruptly, suddenly jealous and curious all at the same time. Not that he had any concrete cause to be either, but then a man in his position could not be too careful.
“What do you do with all your money? Certainly I’m not your only client.”
“That’s my business.”
“I could find out.” His eyes narrowed slightly, as though trying to see through her.
She stood and stepped into her white leather corset. A shiver of dread ran down her spine. She smiled nervously, pulling on long knee-high boots. “You could, and the next time you get horny call a hybrid.”
“Ha, at least they don’t argue all the damn time!”
“Lot’s of things they don’t do, or know how to do,” she cocked her brow knowingly. “And that, my love, is why you pay me the big credits.”
“Indeed,” Governor Maury chuckled as she turned and left his chamber. He groaned slightly watching Kate's womanly ass rise and fall with each step. She did indeed do and know to do all sorts of things hybrids didn’t know to do. And she was an expert, but there was just something about her. There was something behind those eyes Maury didn’t trust.
His curiosity was enough to have her followed. He could do that as the regional Governor. He could do almost anything he wished. It was jealousy pure and simple, and the thought of someone else tapping that gorgeous ass pushed him over the edge.
An aid entered in Katy’s wake to remind Maury of his schedule. He was a small, officious looking bean-counter in a tailored pin-striped suit and glasses far too big for his gaunt face.
“I should remind you,” he began in a thin, nervous voice, “there is a meeting of the finance comm….”.
“Never mind that,” said Maury, cutting him off. “I want Katy Did followed. Monitor her transmissions. I want to know where she goes and who she sees. And I want to know what she does with my credits!”
“You suspect something, boss?’
“I suspect everything, and something is not right about our little space skag.”
“One more thing, Governor. One of our ships is missing somewhere near Chicago.”
“Casualties?”
“Unknown, boss, but ambassador was on board. There are indications some of those on board survived and were captured by the rebels. We have an unofficial message indicating the rebels are interested in a prisoner exchange.”
“Any intelligence on the rebel base?”
“Not yet, sir. They are far too careful, masking their movements and guarding their transmissions.”
“Get someone on the damn ground!” exclaimed Maury.
“Our patrols simply disappear without a trace, Boss.” His tone was almost pleading. Maury gave a throaty sigh and waddled across the room where he could look out at the Earth. The sheet slipped baring far too much of that fat hairy crack of Maury’s for the Aid to stomach. Dirt was caked there among pimples and pustules, some of which looked on the verge of infection. The Aid looked sharply away and tasted the acidy bite of bile in the back of his throat.
“And what of this Thomas?”
“The rebel leader?”
“Yes, the rebel leader, you pug!” Maury grunted. The Aid, who was well use to the Governor’s infamous tirades and insults, pulled an antacid from his pocket and swallowed it quickly.
“Almost nothing,” the Aid replied. “He seems as much of a mystery to them as he is to us.”
Maury turned and narrowed his eyes at the man, who probably weighed less than his last meal. He went over and straightened the man’s lapels in the most suggestive and threatening way. “You’ll get me that information.”
“It is quite impossible to crack their security, Governor.” He regretted the words the instant they left his lips. He was already cringing, closing his eyes. Not so much for the expected explosion, but for the usual shower of spit and rancid bits of old food that accompanied those explosions. Only this time it didn’t come. He warily opened one eye, surprised to find Maury pacing the room, as if in great thought.
“Prisoner exchange, huh?” Maury was naked now. He pressed his hands to the glass, his man boobs and protruding stomach crushed there too.
“The rebels have made a tentative offer.”
“Signal the rebels and tell them we are interested in what they have to say, but make no promises.” He turned and regarded the Aid for a moment. “If my hunch is correct we might deal with the rebels on Earth once and for all.”
Monday, April 12, 2010
Angry Jasper-Six
Katy-did didn’t look like a space hooker. She was real, not some Barbie Doll male fantasy with catty eyes, lace and some prefab hybrid measurements. Hell, most Corporation hookers were lynx or cockatoo (no pun intended) hybrids, so it was essentially bestiality. A client was as likely to pick up the mange as they were the some nasty social bug. Hybrid hookers were production line tramps, genetically modified and cultured to fill some mass market fantasy of the average patron.
Not Kate. She was one of a kind. She wasn’t submissive and fragile, with long straight hair and geometrically perfect breasts. She wasn’t ready at a moment’s notice to bend herself into unnatural positions and never use the word no. Katy knew how to please a man, and failing that, put the fear of god into him!
Katy-did was beautiful in a sort of wild, un-tempered and untamed way. She could be demure in a lover’s embrace, and handle herself in a bar fight, which she had even known to start on occasion.. She was smart enough to play dumb when it suited her, and clever enough to eviscerate an opponent in an argument.
Wasn’t a soul who knew Kate’s true history. As far as anyone was concerned she’d grown up an orphan, bouncing from one foster home and orphanages to another before acceding to her current profession. The small but influential and powerful list of Corporate elites simply assumed she followed a passion, or at the very least the only real thing she was good at doing. It was an assumption she cultivated and exploited to the hilt.
Not that the story wasn’t partly true. Truth of it was, despite virtually reinventing her history, and a sacred mission that necessitated all this, Kate was damned lucky she hadn’t ended up in prison somewhere along the line. She might have ended up on a work detail on some god forsaken asteroid, or servicing greasy-knuckle dragging Hydrogen harvesters on some gaseous planet, slurping down her laments in a seedy Saturnian tavern.
For all practical purposes Kate really was an orphan (sometimes the best covers are those that rely on some modicum of truth). That past explained volumes about her on again-off again, semi-obsessive relationship with Jasper. She’d lost count of the places she was bounced around to, or preferred not to relive those dark years. There was no real record of her natural mother. Just a notation on her records of a teenage girl with no name and no history.
Katy stood naked at the end of the bed, framed by the great window of the governor's bedroom, bared to the whole Milky Way. Her full, pouting breasts, womanly hips and untrimmed muff warmed in a bright sun just peaking from behind the crescent Earth. Kate’s rust red hair framed her narrow face in a sort of tossed bob, just teasing her bare shoulders. That hair contrasted in the most stunning way with her intensely green eyes. She closed them tightly and tried to believe she was anywhere but where she was at that moment. She thought of Jazz, and wished it was him instead of the Governor. A nipple brushed the cold glass and a chill ran through her.
The polished obsidian tiles were cool beneath her bare feet. At a glance she seemed to float among the stars. The tiles were imported, or stolen some would say, from earth. She could tell by the feel that they weren’t cheaper imports like Venetian or from Neptune’s moon, Triton. There was a quality, a luster and depth to them, as though they had captured something of that bygone world of trees sunsets and… The thought nearly led her to a dangerous place. Katy pushed it away and sighed deeply.
In the distance a strange looking contraption floated. It was sort of oblong and silver with a huge funnel at one end. At the opposite end of the object was a much smaller hole, and something akin to a lens. It was partly obscured by platforms and space-suited technicians swarming over the entire length. Packs of Corporation fighter maintained clear space all around the object. Kate couldn’t help but think Governor Maury was compensating for his puss-tuous little member.
“You have an amazing ass!” said Maury, sucking back a load of snot, from his big white bed. He was a gluttonous pig, the spawn of a moon family that had, it was rumored, made its money hijacking it’s own cargo vessels and double billing the Corporation. Those were the days when the solar system seemed a much larger place. A time before the Corporation had damn near strip-mined every moon, ravaged Earth and ruined Mars with hideous dredge marks.
Maury spoke in a halting way, the words broken by wheezing, sickly breaths. His eyes darkly contrasted the splotchiness of flesh stained by a corrupted soul. She turned and thought that she would rather vomit than return to bed, let alone ride that sweating lump of flab again. He was slumped against the headboard, that gelatinous belly folded grotesquely a half dozen times or more. Who could stand to look long enough to count? His legs were open to her, his pathetic manhood hidden beneath that overhanging girth. Katy forced a smile worthy of an Oscar.
“You’re a pig!” Kate liked dimples on a man, but not six hundred of them!
He laughed and coughed. The two usually went hand in hand. “Most powerful pig in the solar system.”
“And yet you can’t deal with a ragtag bunch of rebels.”
It was a sore spot with him. She knew it and was proud when his mood darkened.
“Don’t make it easy to like you,” he said, feigning a bruised ego.
“Don’t want you to like me,” she smirked, wagging her hips. “I want you to pay me. By the way, you shorted me on credits the last time.”
“Did I?” he said unconvincingly. “An oversight.”
“No doubt,” she lay beside him and stretched alluringly. “I’m sure you’ll make good on your debt, Governor…with interest.”
Maury’s face burned bright red. He would never tolerate such insolence from anyone else. Then again, no one else was Katy-did. He reached beside the bed for his credit pod. Katy wore hers on one wrist. She held it up and watched as the credits were transferred to her account.
“You could fund a small army on what I’m paying you,” he grumbled.
“Don’t give me any ideas.” She looked again at the strange object. “So what is that thing out there?”
“I could tell you, but then I would have to ki…”
“Kill me?” she scoffed. “You break a sweat just breathing. So what is it?’
“Why do you want to know so bad?”
“I’m a curious girl.”
“Too curious for your own good, I fear.”
“Just looks powerful and strong, like a big, hard…” he cut her off.
“I shouldn’t tell you this. If the Rebel Alliance were to find out, well, we'd have big problems, that's all.”
“Then don't tell me.” she sort of pouted, looking off across the room.
“It's a weapon,” he finally conceded, against his better wishes.
Whatever the thing was it damn near gave Maury an erection. Not that anyone could have found it under all that blubber. The thought made her shiver. It sometimes made her gag, when she was alone, the things she did for money. Of course, it wasn’t just the money. There was so much more at stake, and that made all the vile things she did for Maury nominally palatable.
“A nuclear deice is exploded at the rear,” Maury continued, pausing to fart loudly, grinning proudly as he did, as if he’d given birth to something brilliant. “It emerges as highly concentrated energy beam. It’s supposed to be a secret, Kate.”
“Trust me?”
He laughed at the suggestion. “Not in the slightest.”
“But you told me anyway,” she said with a sly grin and a wink.
“Can’t help myself,” he said. “Must be that gorgeous ass.”
“Very impressive.” Her tone was suggestive. Funny how the instruments of war always resembled a man’s erection, as though the biology of sex, the thrusting, the penetration and rage inherent in a man’s sexual psyche predicted humanity’s violent nature. Seduction was all too similar to siege warfare, for once an opponent’s walls were breached (by cajoling or by force) penetration was inevitable. And men, after the deed was done, soothed their egos by declaring some sort of conquest; that they had conquered something, when in reality, it was either given or stolen.
Not Kate. She was one of a kind. She wasn’t submissive and fragile, with long straight hair and geometrically perfect breasts. She wasn’t ready at a moment’s notice to bend herself into unnatural positions and never use the word no. Katy knew how to please a man, and failing that, put the fear of god into him!
Katy-did was beautiful in a sort of wild, un-tempered and untamed way. She could be demure in a lover’s embrace, and handle herself in a bar fight, which she had even known to start on occasion.. She was smart enough to play dumb when it suited her, and clever enough to eviscerate an opponent in an argument.
Wasn’t a soul who knew Kate’s true history. As far as anyone was concerned she’d grown up an orphan, bouncing from one foster home and orphanages to another before acceding to her current profession. The small but influential and powerful list of Corporate elites simply assumed she followed a passion, or at the very least the only real thing she was good at doing. It was an assumption she cultivated and exploited to the hilt.
Not that the story wasn’t partly true. Truth of it was, despite virtually reinventing her history, and a sacred mission that necessitated all this, Kate was damned lucky she hadn’t ended up in prison somewhere along the line. She might have ended up on a work detail on some god forsaken asteroid, or servicing greasy-knuckle dragging Hydrogen harvesters on some gaseous planet, slurping down her laments in a seedy Saturnian tavern.
For all practical purposes Kate really was an orphan (sometimes the best covers are those that rely on some modicum of truth). That past explained volumes about her on again-off again, semi-obsessive relationship with Jasper. She’d lost count of the places she was bounced around to, or preferred not to relive those dark years. There was no real record of her natural mother. Just a notation on her records of a teenage girl with no name and no history.
Katy stood naked at the end of the bed, framed by the great window of the governor's bedroom, bared to the whole Milky Way. Her full, pouting breasts, womanly hips and untrimmed muff warmed in a bright sun just peaking from behind the crescent Earth. Kate’s rust red hair framed her narrow face in a sort of tossed bob, just teasing her bare shoulders. That hair contrasted in the most stunning way with her intensely green eyes. She closed them tightly and tried to believe she was anywhere but where she was at that moment. She thought of Jazz, and wished it was him instead of the Governor. A nipple brushed the cold glass and a chill ran through her.
The polished obsidian tiles were cool beneath her bare feet. At a glance she seemed to float among the stars. The tiles were imported, or stolen some would say, from earth. She could tell by the feel that they weren’t cheaper imports like Venetian or from Neptune’s moon, Triton. There was a quality, a luster and depth to them, as though they had captured something of that bygone world of trees sunsets and… The thought nearly led her to a dangerous place. Katy pushed it away and sighed deeply.
In the distance a strange looking contraption floated. It was sort of oblong and silver with a huge funnel at one end. At the opposite end of the object was a much smaller hole, and something akin to a lens. It was partly obscured by platforms and space-suited technicians swarming over the entire length. Packs of Corporation fighter maintained clear space all around the object. Kate couldn’t help but think Governor Maury was compensating for his puss-tuous little member.
“You have an amazing ass!” said Maury, sucking back a load of snot, from his big white bed. He was a gluttonous pig, the spawn of a moon family that had, it was rumored, made its money hijacking it’s own cargo vessels and double billing the Corporation. Those were the days when the solar system seemed a much larger place. A time before the Corporation had damn near strip-mined every moon, ravaged Earth and ruined Mars with hideous dredge marks.
Maury spoke in a halting way, the words broken by wheezing, sickly breaths. His eyes darkly contrasted the splotchiness of flesh stained by a corrupted soul. She turned and thought that she would rather vomit than return to bed, let alone ride that sweating lump of flab again. He was slumped against the headboard, that gelatinous belly folded grotesquely a half dozen times or more. Who could stand to look long enough to count? His legs were open to her, his pathetic manhood hidden beneath that overhanging girth. Katy forced a smile worthy of an Oscar.
“You’re a pig!” Kate liked dimples on a man, but not six hundred of them!
He laughed and coughed. The two usually went hand in hand. “Most powerful pig in the solar system.”
“And yet you can’t deal with a ragtag bunch of rebels.”
It was a sore spot with him. She knew it and was proud when his mood darkened.
“Don’t make it easy to like you,” he said, feigning a bruised ego.
“Don’t want you to like me,” she smirked, wagging her hips. “I want you to pay me. By the way, you shorted me on credits the last time.”
“Did I?” he said unconvincingly. “An oversight.”
“No doubt,” she lay beside him and stretched alluringly. “I’m sure you’ll make good on your debt, Governor…with interest.”
Maury’s face burned bright red. He would never tolerate such insolence from anyone else. Then again, no one else was Katy-did. He reached beside the bed for his credit pod. Katy wore hers on one wrist. She held it up and watched as the credits were transferred to her account.
“You could fund a small army on what I’m paying you,” he grumbled.
“Don’t give me any ideas.” She looked again at the strange object. “So what is that thing out there?”
“I could tell you, but then I would have to ki…”
“Kill me?” she scoffed. “You break a sweat just breathing. So what is it?’
“Why do you want to know so bad?”
“I’m a curious girl.”
“Too curious for your own good, I fear.”
“Just looks powerful and strong, like a big, hard…” he cut her off.
“I shouldn’t tell you this. If the Rebel Alliance were to find out, well, we'd have big problems, that's all.”
“Then don't tell me.” she sort of pouted, looking off across the room.
“It's a weapon,” he finally conceded, against his better wishes.
Whatever the thing was it damn near gave Maury an erection. Not that anyone could have found it under all that blubber. The thought made her shiver. It sometimes made her gag, when she was alone, the things she did for money. Of course, it wasn’t just the money. There was so much more at stake, and that made all the vile things she did for Maury nominally palatable.
“A nuclear deice is exploded at the rear,” Maury continued, pausing to fart loudly, grinning proudly as he did, as if he’d given birth to something brilliant. “It emerges as highly concentrated energy beam. It’s supposed to be a secret, Kate.”
“Trust me?”
He laughed at the suggestion. “Not in the slightest.”
“But you told me anyway,” she said with a sly grin and a wink.
“Can’t help myself,” he said. “Must be that gorgeous ass.”
“Very impressive.” Her tone was suggestive. Funny how the instruments of war always resembled a man’s erection, as though the biology of sex, the thrusting, the penetration and rage inherent in a man’s sexual psyche predicted humanity’s violent nature. Seduction was all too similar to siege warfare, for once an opponent’s walls were breached (by cajoling or by force) penetration was inevitable. And men, after the deed was done, soothed their egos by declaring some sort of conquest; that they had conquered something, when in reality, it was either given or stolen.
Angry Jasper-Five
Absolutely the world sucked. So what? The world has always sucked. It just sucks worse now. Maybe it sucked a whole lot worse in that little Texas town than most other places, but that was a matter of opinion. The town hadn’t changed a great deal. It was still a crossroads to nowhere. The railroad tracks cut across the town, but they hadn’t been used since the last half of the Twenty-first Century. There were gaps in the tracks in places. Links of rail had been pilphered by scavengers; others were covered over by hard-baked sand and soil.
Who would have guessed that Crawford Texas, a po-dunk town where a President no one could recall any longer retired, would become the capitol of the sovereign republic of Texas. This was thee last bastion of the Corporation’s waning hold on the planet. Like some modern day Rome besieged by barbarians, the Rome of a dying planet it battled constantly for its very existence.
And some of those battles were epic, destined to go down in the heroic annals of the Corporation for whom the good citizens of the republic fought. Those who hadn’t given up entirely on Earth and fled. There was the battle of Texarkana, the siege of Galveston and the rebel raids against Laredo to name a few. It was, in a very real way a clash of cultures, of a part of humanity that was weaning itself of terra firma and clawing its way into the universe, against those who clung to the memory of a world gone by. It was a war between twenty-four century civilization and Twenty-first Century heathens. It was the last stand between those who believed in reason science, and the religionists. Of course that was all just a matter of perspective, or loyalties.
Space sucked too, but in a different way. Mankind had colonized much of the solar system and had begun to plunder the inner planets as it pushed towards the stars. Officially it was the Corporation. Certainly it wasn’t a democracy, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Of course, it wasn’t a dictatorship either, which might have made the paperwork easier. It was some mysterious oligarchy, a secretive politburo made up of nameless power wogs, a cabal no one knew the names of, but everyone feared. They ruled like mob bosses of old, collecting their dues from obedient minions and falling on the disobedient like a ton of shit.
The solar system, such as it was, had been parceled off into a confederation of near feudal governorships. Under the wary eye of the Corporation, and within limits, each governor was free to run his little fiefdom as he saw fit. This faceless cabal didn’t dabble in the day to day lives of their trillion or so subjects. They cared little for the minutia and little operas of the powerless. Here is where they lost sight of the fundamental rule that guides the course of history. Even the smallest events, and the unseen dramas of nobodies can have terrific effects, and one was about to have profound impact on all humanity,
The Corporation. A lot had changed in almost four centuries since the Great Pandemic of 2054. The whole process had begun some years before that. Some half witted despot had traded lofty words on a paper for profits. Diplomacy was devalued and warfare exalted, simply as a means to an end. Ears and eyes and souls were overwhelmed with Corporation propaganda paraded as patriotism. Wars for profit they came to be called, consumed the planet. It started slowly at first, the tentative steps of private corporations into the actual execution of warfare. The profits followed, and like the good businessmen they were corporate leaders followed then chased the money.
Somewhere along the way the line between Corporations and government had become blurred. Kind of like nailing a hot cousin; forbidden fruit. Power and money are like that. Best to have one or the other, but mixing the two was just asking for trouble. Might not become evident right away, but sooner or later you know you’re gonna end up with melon-headed mutants for kids.
It was the pandemic that really tipped the balance. The virus had been around for decades, languishing in frogs of all things. Pollution and climate changed had wiped out a good many of the slimy little beasts, all except for a sturdy population in Wisconsin. But if there is one thing about virus’ is that they mutate and adapt quickly to a new host. It made the leap to humans one chilly autumn evening in an undercooked bunch of frog legs. The virus spread like wild fire, and in the worst imaginable way-explosive diarrhea! In just short of a year it wiped better than half the population of the planet.
Governments collapsed. Accusations between nations erupted into sudden wars and nuclear exchanges. The dead, covered in their own filth, littered the streets, picked over by animals, or rotted untended. Whole cities ceased to exist, and the few survivors banded together out of desperation. In America the President lost his mind and became a drooling fool. The Pentagon fractured and fought battles in the streets. The country seemed lost, and crumbling into the same primitive existence much of the rest of the world descended into.
It was a corporation that stepped into that void and took up the reigns of power. Strati-corp became the de-facto rulers of the nation, organizing a new civilization upon the ruins of the old. The fools who clung to the idea of government for the people and by the people were marginalized, ridiculed and finally hunted. Driven underground they became the seeds of resistance against the Corporation, and the genesis of the Earth-first movement. The Corporation’s rise was sort of like a Rottweiler mounting a Schitzu in the street. Only when the deed was done that gluttonous Rottweiler ate that little Schitzu.
There are some who subscribe to the view that Strati-corp was behind the virus, and that they had planned the whole thing. Whatever the truth was its ancient history now. Ask the resistance and one is likely to get one answer. Everywhere else no one much cares anymore. What matters is what is. Guess that cousin was just too hot to pass up!
Who would have guessed that Crawford Texas, a po-dunk town where a President no one could recall any longer retired, would become the capitol of the sovereign republic of Texas. This was thee last bastion of the Corporation’s waning hold on the planet. Like some modern day Rome besieged by barbarians, the Rome of a dying planet it battled constantly for its very existence.
And some of those battles were epic, destined to go down in the heroic annals of the Corporation for whom the good citizens of the republic fought. Those who hadn’t given up entirely on Earth and fled. There was the battle of Texarkana, the siege of Galveston and the rebel raids against Laredo to name a few. It was, in a very real way a clash of cultures, of a part of humanity that was weaning itself of terra firma and clawing its way into the universe, against those who clung to the memory of a world gone by. It was a war between twenty-four century civilization and Twenty-first Century heathens. It was the last stand between those who believed in reason science, and the religionists. Of course that was all just a matter of perspective, or loyalties.
Space sucked too, but in a different way. Mankind had colonized much of the solar system and had begun to plunder the inner planets as it pushed towards the stars. Officially it was the Corporation. Certainly it wasn’t a democracy, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Of course, it wasn’t a dictatorship either, which might have made the paperwork easier. It was some mysterious oligarchy, a secretive politburo made up of nameless power wogs, a cabal no one knew the names of, but everyone feared. They ruled like mob bosses of old, collecting their dues from obedient minions and falling on the disobedient like a ton of shit.
The solar system, such as it was, had been parceled off into a confederation of near feudal governorships. Under the wary eye of the Corporation, and within limits, each governor was free to run his little fiefdom as he saw fit. This faceless cabal didn’t dabble in the day to day lives of their trillion or so subjects. They cared little for the minutia and little operas of the powerless. Here is where they lost sight of the fundamental rule that guides the course of history. Even the smallest events, and the unseen dramas of nobodies can have terrific effects, and one was about to have profound impact on all humanity,
The Corporation. A lot had changed in almost four centuries since the Great Pandemic of 2054. The whole process had begun some years before that. Some half witted despot had traded lofty words on a paper for profits. Diplomacy was devalued and warfare exalted, simply as a means to an end. Ears and eyes and souls were overwhelmed with Corporation propaganda paraded as patriotism. Wars for profit they came to be called, consumed the planet. It started slowly at first, the tentative steps of private corporations into the actual execution of warfare. The profits followed, and like the good businessmen they were corporate leaders followed then chased the money.
Somewhere along the way the line between Corporations and government had become blurred. Kind of like nailing a hot cousin; forbidden fruit. Power and money are like that. Best to have one or the other, but mixing the two was just asking for trouble. Might not become evident right away, but sooner or later you know you’re gonna end up with melon-headed mutants for kids.
It was the pandemic that really tipped the balance. The virus had been around for decades, languishing in frogs of all things. Pollution and climate changed had wiped out a good many of the slimy little beasts, all except for a sturdy population in Wisconsin. But if there is one thing about virus’ is that they mutate and adapt quickly to a new host. It made the leap to humans one chilly autumn evening in an undercooked bunch of frog legs. The virus spread like wild fire, and in the worst imaginable way-explosive diarrhea! In just short of a year it wiped better than half the population of the planet.
Governments collapsed. Accusations between nations erupted into sudden wars and nuclear exchanges. The dead, covered in their own filth, littered the streets, picked over by animals, or rotted untended. Whole cities ceased to exist, and the few survivors banded together out of desperation. In America the President lost his mind and became a drooling fool. The Pentagon fractured and fought battles in the streets. The country seemed lost, and crumbling into the same primitive existence much of the rest of the world descended into.
It was a corporation that stepped into that void and took up the reigns of power. Strati-corp became the de-facto rulers of the nation, organizing a new civilization upon the ruins of the old. The fools who clung to the idea of government for the people and by the people were marginalized, ridiculed and finally hunted. Driven underground they became the seeds of resistance against the Corporation, and the genesis of the Earth-first movement. The Corporation’s rise was sort of like a Rottweiler mounting a Schitzu in the street. Only when the deed was done that gluttonous Rottweiler ate that little Schitzu.
There are some who subscribe to the view that Strati-corp was behind the virus, and that they had planned the whole thing. Whatever the truth was its ancient history now. Ask the resistance and one is likely to get one answer. Everywhere else no one much cares anymore. What matters is what is. Guess that cousin was just too hot to pass up!
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