Spacebreak

+ Bonus chapters…
✮




PIZZA PALACE





It was pouring rain on an autumn Saturday evening in the downtown core of New Vancouver.
Pizza Palace was a multi-leveled building constructed from brick walls and tall glass windows. Light exuded from within, creating a glowing visage of the whole area. A red carpet led down a wide, torch-lined alley from Liberty Street, up a short flight of steps to the golden doors of the entrance. Inside was a network of tables ranging from booths hugging walls to a series of wooden islands between them. A spiral staircase led to the second floor, where there was a Happicade arcade room and separate lounge and bar decorated with mirrors and paintings of mountains. It was a fantastic looking restaurant, inside and out. Unique; it wasn’t a chain. Clean, cozy and well lit, surpassing the reputation of any normal Italian restaurant.
The place was at peak business hours, packed with happy patrons. Soft jazz was playing. The servers were all beautiful women who were dressed very nicely. Dresses, jewelry, tactfully applied make-up, nylons and heels were rampant. The dress code was fancy, setting a high standard for the eclectic clientele populating the place. The oppressive weather accentuated the huddled camaraderie between the customers and staff sheltered inside.
He was sitting in a booth with a gorgeous lady, her generous bosom floating on the rim of a blue dress top. He had short, slicked black hair with a highlighting white tuft, a white tuxedo jacket and neat mustache. He was sipping a glass of champagne.
A pizza arrived with the server on a circular wooden plank. It was a margherita drizzled with balsamic glaze over pesto-coated prawns and leaves of basil. The pretty server said “enjoy,” and glided away.
“This looks marvelous, Voltaz,” the woman in blue said.
“Sapphire, that’s why I wanted to bring you here. Pizza Palace never fails to deliver the highest quality,” Voltaz said.
As he reached for a slice, an oval sapphire ring on his index finger caught the light and shone, iridescent. Sapphire’s attention couldn’t help but be drawn to its mesmerizing effect. He claimed the item was a display of devotion to her beauty, flattering her. However, there was something mysterious about it. She had never seen it before. The origins of where it came from were unknown to her. Politely, she left the topic untouched further than the slight information Voltaz had chosen to divulge. The conversational pleasantries took a hiatus there as they both ate, reveling in the glory of their meal and comfort of each other’s company. It was a nice moment; safe, warm, and shielded from the torrential downpour outside.
A man walked in from the front door, dark and wet, wearing a black trench coat. His chiseled, ghoulish face turned. Darkened, soulless eyes scanned the room seriously. He didn’t look like he was there for pizza and a pint.
Voltaz noticed this briefly and turned his attention back to his date. A glob of bocconcini fell off Sapphire’s food and into her cleavage as she was aiming for her mouth. She giggled.
“Oh my lord!” She said. She put down the half-eaten slice and began dabbing at herself with a napkin and fiddling with her breasts, trying to fish the piece of cheese out from its spelunking, “and here you thought you had a classy date on your hands!”
“Sapphire, it would take much more than a rogue piece of cheese to spoil your class,” Voltaz said. The ring shone again and the bocconcini rolled between her breasts out of the dress, easily popping onto the table with little help from her fingers.
Voltaz looked over at the entranceway again. The man in the trench coat was gone.
“Excuse me, I’m going to wash up,” Sapphire said. She stood and began walking towards the washroom, shifting through the formidable crowd. Her hips gyrated hypnotically as she moved on heels that flexed her legs and buttocks. Voltaz saw the awe she inspired in other people as she gracefully moved past.
The man in the trench coat was sitting at the bar now, nursing a pint, a pickleback present in shotglasses. He draped his coat over the back of the seat, wearing a red plaid flannel underneath. His head turned, glancing over at Voltaz, who looked away before their eyes could meet.
Voltaz looked down at his ring. He put down the piece of pizza, appetite suddenly diminished, and took a gulp of champagne.
Sapphire returned, looking more glamorous than ever.
“Sorry about that. How rude of me!” She said.
“Quite forgiven, my dear,” Voltaz said.
“Now then. Where was I?”
She resumed her meal.
An ambulance approached with a droning siren and drove by, causing the cars on the street to struggle out of the way outside the window. The loudness rendered speech inaudible for the time it took to pass. As Voltaz turned back from looking out the window, his sweeping line of sight caught eye contact with the man at the bar for a long second. Then he faced Sapphire.
“Is something the matter?” She said. “You look a bit frazzled all of the sudden.”
“Judging by that ambulance, something is the matter, for someone,” Voltaz said, “everything is perfectly satisfactory with me.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want anything to spoil our lovely evening together,” Sapphire said.
“I’ll see to it that nothing does,” Voltaz said. He smiled.
Voltaz looked over at the bar again. The man had disappeared, but his coat was still there. Sapphire looked suspicious now.
“Is something over there bothering you?” She said.
“Not at all. I’m simply perusing the interesting clientele of the establishment. It’s such an exciting environment,” Voltaz said.
“It is very amusing.” Sapphire seemed placated. She started eating again. Their pizza was half devoured now. Her perfume was invigorating. The aroma was intensifying the overall impact of her presence. Even her eyes were sapphire colored.
The sapphire ring was cycling through rainbow shades.
“What an exorbitant jewel that is,” Sapphire said, noticing, “I’ve never seen anything like it. The way it plays with the light like that.”
“It’s a very rare sapphire. I had to go to great lengths to get it.”
“Are you going to tell me what those great lengths were?”
“No.”
Sapphire grunted, cutely.
A loud, low rumbling sound enveloped the room and the table began to shake. The cacophony of glasses clamoring and plates and silverware clinking together in unison spawned in a slow auditory ascent. Then it faded away.
“What was that?” Sapphire said.
“That, was an earthquake, I believe,” Voltaz said.
There was a shocked hush in the room followed by mob murmuring as everyone realized what had happened.
“Just a minor tremor, nothing to worry about,” Voltaz said.
“That scared me,” Sapphire said.
The server came over. Their glasses were nearly empty.
“Whoa! That was a little scary,” she said. “No harm done though, it looks like. Can I get you two some more champagne?”
Voltaz gazed at Sapphire, gauging what she wanted. He decided.
“Yes, please. That would be lovely,” Voltaz said. They weren’t finished their pizza yet and he had promised nothing was going to ruin the evening. He made certain to deliver.
“Sounds good,” the server said and walked away.
Voltaz’s hands were on the table. Sapphire could see that his ring had lost some of its blue color. It was clearer now. She thought she could see something embedded inside the jewel. Voltaz moved his hands off the table.
The rumbling began again. Voltaz saw the look of sinking desperation in Sapphire’s eyes. This time the quake didn’t fade away. It got worse. Within seconds the entire room was shaking violently. People were screaming. The tables were rattling. Glasses were smashing. Bottles were falling off the bar shelves, burying the bartender in an onslaught of blunt hits and shattering glass. An extravagant chandelier high above was swinging wildly. The chain holding it snapped off. It plummeted, landing on the server who was frozen standing on the way to bring the champagne, squashing the poor girl in a kaleidoscopic spectacle of glimmering glass and blood. The thunderous sound of the earthquake had drowned out all else. TVs were falling from their perches. People were diving for cover and hiding underneath the tables, grasping on and trying to hold them steady for protection, praying for it to end.
It didn’t end. It intensified. The roof imploded. An avalanche of broken wood, asbestos, concrete and metal fell to the bottom floor, crushing many of the horrified patrons scrambling for protection. A bolt of lightning struck across the newly opened sky.
Sapphire was alive. She was protected beneath the debris covered table, a look of distraught confusion on her face. Voltaz was under there too. He looked up.
The man in plaid was standing in a dust cloud rising from the rubble as thunder erupted. Everyone else in the place was hurt, dead or hiding. The landscape had become a jagged rock precipice strewn with destruction. The quake had stopped. The music was over. A chorus of aghast sobbing and rain were the only sounds.
Voltaz got out from under the table. The plaid shirt man unbuttoned his flannel and tossed it down a chasm. He faced Voltaz across the decorated distance of bodies and wreckage.
“You know what I’m here for,” the man said.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Voltaz said.
“You wouldn’t have given it to me if I asked nicely.”
“I’m still not going to give it to you, Chronus.”
“I expect to take it.”
Chronus had a machete in a sheath strapped to his chest. His skin was deathly pale, dark eyes flaming, a flicker of evil from inside. The costly use of his incantation had drained him. Voltaz was still fresh.
“That microchip you’re carrying is the property of the Spacecruiser Rhinoceros!” Chronus snarled, “my Ochot employersarepissed, Voltaz! They need it for the Spacebreak!”
Chronus leapt over the chasm and unleashed a flurry of flying punches on Voltaz, but the blows were deflected with a mystic pulse shield, blasting Chronus off the attack in an expulsion of wild blue energy, sending him flailing down the chasm. He landed far beneath on a plateau of protruding earth suspended above a dark abyss.
“You stole that chip! You have no right to it!” Chronus yelled upwards, voice reverberating in the echo chamber.
Chronus’s eyes gleamed red, expending his final flair. His feet were smoking as he pounced an uncanny distance upwards towards the opening of the pit, intent on escape. Voltaz couldn’t let him do that. He countered with a descending dropkick to the face, colliding in midair, dropping them both down on the plateau.
The rumble returned. The chasm walls began closing.
Chronus pulled the machete out from the sheath. Voltaz lunged to grab it, but Chronus savagely swiped. Voltaz screamed.
His hand was slashed off at the wrist and fell to the dirt. The hand with the sapphire. Blood leaked copiously from the open-veined stump.
The walls stopped moving.
Chronus bent to snatch the sapphire. Before he could, Voltaz kicked his own hand aside and uppercut Chronus in the face, crunching his nose cartilage, knocking him to his knees. Crackling blue electricity spiraled around Voltaz’s leg as he followed with a superkick to Chronus’s temple, decapitating him. A geyser of blood squirted from between the shoulders as the body flew over the edge and disappeared into the blackness. So did the head.
Voltaz picked up his hand, put it in his jacket pocket and began climbing out. When he reached the top, Sapphire helped him over the ledge, distraught and tearful.
“Voltaz! Your hand!” Sapphire said, queasy.
Wincing, he took off his tuxedo jacket and bandaged his wound.





✸


SPACECRUISER RHINOCEROS





Xalluna was a cold planet. The geography was nearly all tundras and mountains. There was a frozen ocean, amounting for a small fraction of the entire surface area of the world. The weather was harsh everywhere, except within the city, nothing out there in the wasteland except for some tough animals able to exist with sparse vegetation, thick-coated birds and beasts that adapted to the crushing hostility of the environment.
Ockgate was the lone capital. The epicenter of the entire planet, simultaneously ancient and technologically advanced. The old quarter had temples that were built centuries before to worship the original gods. A mysterious apocalypse must have happened along the way. The epoch ended, catapulting the evolution of the species on a path of long-winding reset into the future. Ruins of an advanced civilization with archaic technology were preserved. There were new gods now.
The planet had a relatively small temperate zone. Scientists couldn’t explain why. The reality of its existence was more important than the reason. A foundation had been set up there long ago and grown into a metropolis over centuries. In present time, skyscrapers and fortresses were rife and spreading, making up the majority of the city.
Xalluna was located at a crossroads between larger planets with more desirable ecosystems. Ockgate served as a convenient spaceport for outsiders, attractive to travelers and good for commerce, enabling it to slowly grow into a wealthy, state-of-the-art urban triumph.
In their long seclusion on the home planet, before space travel could reach Xalluna, or anyone could leave, the Ochot had diligently advanced in the realm of transportation, primarily a network of Hyperlink tubes that ran a vein-like structure through every section of the city. A passport supplied by the government was needed in order to use it, which many civilians subscribed to. Once inside the Hyperlink, the passenger would be swept away, riding a platform along the route at a comfortable speed, able to step out into a new sector at any exit point.
The Ochot had been under threat of attack for a long time, thus becoming resilient and vicious against overwhelming opposition. The barrier ring of defense ships above Ockgate was doing an exemplary job since its implementation. A strict filtration of visitors by the guard ships rejected or captured any with illegal or ill-intentions, keeping the city in order and generally unthreatened by serious outside mischief.
Despite being native to a winter planet the Ochot rarely wore much clothing. Within the city or the ships the temperature was carefully moderated. It was a show of pride and strength against nature to bear skin against the elements. Traditionally, they wore only enough clothing to cover the sex organs.
The Spacecruiser Rhinoceros hovered in orbit outside the planet. Inside the ship Delt Kangis was in his seat gazing at the expanse of space outside the window of his chambers. He was a lanky creature, wearing a black speedo, leather gauntlets and boots. His face was plain with gaping red eyes, nose and mouth hidden beneath a layer of wrinkled skin.
The ship was sleek built and relatively compact with a skeleton crew of ten. Its main purpose was facilitating an interstellar superweapon: the Spacebreak. The nuclear cannon could wreak incredible carnage, but the microchip with the codes needed to launch it had been stolen by the rogue known as Voltaz. Attempts had been made by bounty hunters to kill him and recover the chip. So far Voltaz had thwarted them all.
The Rhinoceros was the only Ochot vessel to be equipped with a weapon as potentially devastating as the Spacebreak. The government had spent considerable sums on its development and subsequent implementation into a spacecruiser. It had been tested in the past on derelict planets, wreaking nuclear havoc. Without the chip the Spacebreak was useless. It couldn’t be remade, on purpose. The original creator stressed the importance of extremely restricted access, so it couldn’t be misused. No one else knew the secrets to how it worked. Now, no one did at all. The famed scientist, Dr. Klebold Kundruum, who had spent a period of his life’s work building it, passed away suddenly under dubious circumstances. Some surmised he was murdered with poison, but the official cause of death was unknown and never investigated.
Delt Kangis had risen far in the ranks of favored government agents and space captains. It had come with a good amount of hate and jealousy from his peers, who became rivals. Now he was assigned to the position of being the guardian of the most powerful weapon which couldn’t be used. It was embarrassing. That made Voltaz one of the most sought after fugitives in the universe. Informers had reported he managed to escape to Earth.
Delt Kangis wasn’t a bounty hunter. He didn’t have arcane knowledge. He was a spacecruiser captain. His place was on the ship. There were other responsibilities. So he delegated.
Halfbag Silvertooth was on the vidscreen. Delt Kangis paced up to meet him.
“Captain Kangis, I heard you were interested in my services,” Halfbag said. He was pale, with thin, long hair like a recently deceased corpse, eyes shining like a demon was behind them.
“Mr. Silvertooth, greetings. Your reputation precedes you. I’m told you’re skilled in the arts of reconnaissance, and a warrior of great courage and ability,” Kangis said.
Silvertooth said, “I take it there’s a job you’re interested in my services for?”
“A man by the name of Voltaz has stolen an item very precious to the Ochot government. Multiple attempts have been made to recover it. All have failed. We are prepared to pay you handsomely for the safe return of the Breakchip to the Rhinoceros.”
“A tempting undertaking. Who is Voltaz?” Silvertooth said.
“I won’t lie to you, Halfbag. He’s somewhat of a little weasel. Conniving, slippery, and most of all dangerous, to a frustrating degree. Not to be underestimated. He’s shown significant prowess in the arcane and he knows martial arts,” Kangis said.
“That doesn’t intimidate me,” Silvertooth said.
“You are saying what I like to hear. Superb. The target has fled to Earth. We can provide you with the necessary information to get started, that is, all we know about the situation. Upon safe return of the microchip, you will be paid one-thousand Dominion Crescents. Eliminating Voltaz is not required, but recommended. The universe would be a better place without him.”
“Sounds like a worthy challenge. Send me the info and I’ll start as soon as I finish up what I’m doing, which will be soon. One last thing. I’ll need to receive half the payment now.”
“What if you fail? Then we will have wasted the money. What if you disappear?”
“I never have before. Half now, half when I bring back the microchip. I’m not stupid enough to abandon the mission and try to disappear with the cash. I know what would happen.”
“I’ll have to discuss it with my superiors in Ockgate, but that can most likely be arranged.”
“Good. Then you’ve got yourself a deal. When I receive the first payment, I’ll start.”


















✸

HALFBAG SILVERTOOTH





The desert floor was cracked and uneven, sun blaring down with ballistic heat. A tall wooden post was embedded in the ground. Someone’s bone-thin, sun-peeling body was tied to it with their arms wrapped behind, wrists bound with rope.
Halfbag Silvertooth was standing there, wielding a curved dagger.
His spaceship was parked beside them. It was an LWS (Light Weight Spaceship) named Falling Star, electric razor-shaped with no wings with a simple and compact cockpit with plenty of cargo space in the back.
The prisoner was slowly regaining consciousness as Halfbag smoked a cigarette, patiently waiting. When the young man looked up at him with confused, bleary eyes, Halfbag threw the finished butt on the ground and squashed it into the dust with the toe of his boot.
“Good morning,” Halfbag said.
The prisoner glanced horror-stricken at the dagger and turned his eyes back to Halfbag, struggling pathetically in his bondage before he gave up. He started gagging and retched a little bit of bile.
“W-what are you going to do?” He said.
“Well, that depends,” Halfbag said, tossing the dagger in spirals, catching it by the hilt repetitively.
“Oh god, please don’t kill me. Please. I don’t know anything,” the prisoner said.
“I’m not so sure of that,”
“Who are you?”
“That’s cute. I thought I was the one asking the questions here.”
Halfbag took the man by the pinky finger and casually sawed it off. The young man screamed in agony. Halfbag held up the finger in front of his turned-away face, keeping it there until he looked at his dismembered body part.
“Nine more to go,” Halfbag said. The young man was in shock, squealing and whimpering, fighting the pain.
“How could you do that?” he sobbed, “I didn’t mean any harm.”
“What you mean and what you do aren’t always the same.”
“But, but, I’m innocent. You can’t hold me responsible for other people’s actions.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Halfbag said, then cut off the next finger. The screams lasted awhile, then the man regained a semblance of composure and could face Halfbag again. There was nowhere else to go. The only possible way out was through the conversation. Halfbag waited patiently until the man was finished with the brunt of his agony, absorbing the suffering.
“Please, my father is very rich. You know what my father does? Let me live and he can pay you. I won’t hold it against you. Just let me go. Whatever you’re being paid now, my father can do better than that!”
Halfbag twisted the dagger, staring at himself in the reflection of the steel, mock-contemplatively.
“That’s a very enticing offer. But money isn’t really the full issue here. I’ve got some degree of ethics and honor, I like to think. To accept an offer like that from you, after I already agreed to a contract with someone else about this. That just doesn’t bode well for my self-esteem.”
“Contract? I didn’t do anything! This isn’t fair…”
“That’s the really troublesome thing about life, isn’t it?”
“What is?
“It’s not very fair sometimes.”
“Ahhhh… What do you want to know?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Halfbag smiled with a twinkle, “cooperate and you may come out of this alive. Maimed, of course, there’s no going back on that. But alive.”
The man held his head. “You want to know where… Where the…Sceptre… Is…”
“That would be a good start.” Halfbag held the tip of the dagger up beneath the man’s chin. “Let’s skip right to that, then.”
The wounds had created an incessant dribbling of blood, pooling behind the stake the man was tied to and surrounding his bare feet.
“My father, he’s… Oh god… He’s keeping it…”
“Yes? Go on. You’re so close. You can do it. I believe in you.”
The sarcastic derision stung differently than the blade.
“He’s keeping it in the… The…”
Halfbag sliced off the index finger. A vulture was scavenging above, circling in anticipation. Halfbag threw the severed digit to the bird, who caught it in midair and began eating it on the ground in front of the young man.
“The… The… The… The what?” Halfbag smacked the man in the face with his open palm, forcing him to stay in reality a little bit longer and not faint from shock and pain.
“Tell me now.”
The man was waving his low head back and forth, sobbing.
“It’s in the Sunken Temple,” he said.
“What Sunken Temple?” Halfbag lifted the man’s head with his free hand, but the man couldn’t look him in the eyes. He squinted away, mouth twitching with chapped lips.
Halfbag smiled. His silver front tooth gleamed in the sunlight.
“The Sunken Temple… In the Stormspike Valley… on Asheron.”
The vulture had finished pecking the flesh off the morsel it had been offered. Now it was hungry for more, with a potential feast in front of its avian eyes. Halfbag stood with the vulture as his newfound accomplice, the victim hopeless and depleted.
“The planet Asheron?
“Y-Yes…”
“You wouldn’t lie to me?” Halfbag said.
“N… No! It’s in the… The… Sunken Temple.”
Halfbag believed him. He thought the young man was so weak and cowardly in character he wouldn’t have the guts to boldly lie in the face of death. No, this one would use any last fleeting chance to save his sun-fried skin.
“You’ve won your life but not your freedom. For now. Let’s see how you serve me and we’ll reassess the situation later.” Halfbag cut the ropes binding the man’s hands. He was so exhausted and near-death he fell face first to the ground and passed out.
The vulture attempted to begin nipping at his back-flesh, but Halfbag kicked the bird away. It squawked and settled for the other two severed fingers laying there, then watched disappointed as Halfbag hauled the abused man back to the Fallen Star.
He placed him in the cargo area and nurtured him with water from a bottle out of the mini-fridge, pouring it into his mouth. By some reflex of dehydration he swallowed it unconsciously. Then Halfbag bandaged his mutilated hand.



✸

Halfbag took a syringe out of a bag on a counter top in the cargo room, filled it with liquid from a vial and walked over to the man’s body. He inserted the needle into his arm and pushed the fluid into the bloodstream. That should keep him incapacitated for a while. In the cockpit, he got in the pilot’s chair and engaged the turbothrusters. The Fallen Star took off from the desert, leaving a cloud of blown-up dust in its wake. The ship ascended, soon passing the ozone layer into space.
Now there was a dilemma. He had agreed to undertake the job for the Ochot government, but he still had this prisoner, who just divulged the information about the Owl Eye. He spared the man’s life, now he was his responsibility and he might need him later. Right now he was going to get in the way. A place to drop him would be ideal. Then he could come back later to finish the mission. Halfbag had never been to Asheron. A guide would be optimal, but he would have to break the man’s spirit first, if there still was one. If he died in the desert, and lied about the location of the sceptre there would be no reconciliation. This way Halfbag could still squeeze the truth out of him.
The Owl Eye sceptre originally had belonged to the kingdom of Barbador, located on planet Thora. The King of Barbador, Ernest Tedbaldust, commanded real respect from his people, as the sceptre was said to be imbued with charisma-enchancing witchcraft that made whoever held it beloved by anyone who encountered them. Halfbag’s prisoner was from the kingdom of Gann, also on Thora. His father was King Isemburd Guilhelm, who commanded a savage barbarian army.
Gann and Barbador were the two main kingdoms on Thora. Naturally, they fought for supremacy. The conquest campaign wrought by the Gann army was able to eventually overpower and invade the Barbador empire. Legend has it, King Tedbaldust was killed by King Guilhelm himself in The Battle of Barbador. When Gann usurped the castle, they found the sceptre prominently displayed in an alter in the court.
Many Barbador knights had retreated before the battle, citing impossible odds, but King Tedbaldust was too proud and stubborn to forfeit his kingdom. Over the coming months, the knights, led by a brave up-start called The Shepherd began amassing a new army, adding components of revenge-thirsty savages that had been violated by Gann in the past and lived in the woods.
Gann occupied Barbador, and was busily making reparations to the damage they had done, building the ruins back into a city, this time in King Guilhelm’s vision. The Barbador survivors – peasants and noblemen – were enslaved or executed in mass public burnings. This brash brutality infuriated the outsiders on Thora. The balance of power had fallen completely into the hands of Gann, who dominated the planet except for the hidden patches of rebels amassing a retaliating force in the forests to the west. When word of these enemies reached King Guilhelm, he had the treasures of Barbador extradited in a space freighter and hidden on Asheron, which was a small, desolate planet beside Thora.
Asheron had fledgling Gann colonies, and the addition of valuable items such as the Owl Eye was an attempt at quickening the expansion of the off-world empire. The Shepherd’s guerillas soon began winning some battles of their own, ambushing Gann outposts, solidifying themselves as a real threat to be taken seriously. They started to gain traction in the west, enough to get King Guilhelm’s attention and weaken his confidence. Gann was spending heavy resources on rebuilding Barbador, struggling to manage the territory that was full of new slaves and civil unrest from the conquered.
Barbador became “Gannador”.
This prisoner of Halfbag’s was the son of King Guilhelm, though he didn’t share the fortitude of his father, making an easy hostage. Halfbag stumbled on the chance to kidnap him out of the streets of Gann, and he took it, intercepting the prince on an unfortunately drunken, wandering night for the young man.
Halfbag wasn’t sure how powerful of a hand he held with the prince. He didn’t know what his relationship was with the court and the people, or his father. They could very well not care at all if the prince were to be fed to the vultures. The court could wish him dead. He didn’t have any redeeming qualities, not that Halfbag had witnessed so far, but he was too valuable of a hostage to waste.
These details would have to be worked out at a later time. For now, that mission was going on hiatus. Halfbag had to find the Breakchip now. The Ochot weren’t the sort of people to be taken lightly, or betrayed.
Financially, this was a crucial gig. After this one, he was sitting pretty for awhile. Maybe he could buy that ranch he had been dreaming of, vacation from the merc life, reflect, relax and enjoy himself.
He had given his word to Delt Kangis. He said he was going to do something, now he had to do it. As long as the Ochot came through with that half payment upfront.
He lit up a cigarette as he steered the Fallen Star through space, strategically thinking of his next move. Hours passed. The radio was on, playing sporadic songs interspersed with talk show chatter. An asteroid belt was near, he could see it on the radar, which was more useful for navigation than looking out the windshield. It displayed all nearby space debris, substantial obstacles and places, including his current destination.
The Fallen Star approached a huge rectangular station suspended in space. It docked in the landing bay, where there was one other ship.
Halfbag brought the prisoner to the main office. The place was a space-chain storage facility called “Orfan Storage”. It was fitting because Halfbag intended to use it for a person.
“This ain’t really a jail,” the employee said. He was a short fellow with a ballcap, chewing gum, with overly bushy auburn eyebrows.
“I need to store my property, that’s what this place is for isn’t it?” Halfbag said.
“Yeah, but it’s for items and stuff, you know, furniture and that kind of thing.”
Halfbag held up a hundred dollar bill.
“There’s more where that came from, if you just go along with it for a little while, feed him, keep him alive until I get back.”
“Who is he? I don’t want no excess trouble here. What if people come looking for him?”
“Nevermind that. No one knows he’s here.”
“How do I know that for sure?”
“Trust me.”
“Well, I don’t know, I ain’t no prison warden or slave keeper or whatever.”
The man had a spine. He wasn’t afraid of Halfbag’s presence. Maybe after enough time of working alone in this storage facility, death didn’t scare him.
“What’s your name?” Halfbag said.
“Jethro.”
“I’ll make it worth it, Jethro. I won’t be too long, I’ve just got a pressing engagement I need to take care of. Then I’ll come right back for him. Shouldn’t take me more than a week and you’ll be amply compensated, just keep your lips closed about it and there’ll be no trouble.”
A bribe and a threat had something in common.
“Well, okay, I guess. Sounds like you’re leaving me no choice.” He reached out and took the money.
“I’m imploring you to take the path of least resistance. Then we both win.”
“Alright, let’s see here,” Jethro looked at the grid on his console, “Lot 32 is open.”
Halfbag paid the fee and hauled the prince’s body over his shoulder to Lot 32, led by the employee, who glanced warily at the bandaged hand.
They took a freight elevator to the third floor, walked down the hall and opened the garage. It was a dark, empty room. There was a mouse inside that scurried into a hole when the outside light flooded in. Halfbag slumped the body in and shut the door, locking it.
He got back in the Fallen Star and exited the landing bay, blasting off into space. A beep sounded on his command console. He checked it. It was a file on Voltaz from Delt Kangis, and a payment. Now that that was taken care of, his next destination was Earth.
He put the steering on autopilot and read the file. There was a picture of Voltaz and the microchip. The Ochot knew it had been placed inside a sapphire ring. Voltaz had no official criminal record, but there was a list of petty deeds deemed guilty of. In the photo, his eyes had cunning to them. It looked like his drivers license picture. No smile.
Halfbag flipped open a compartment with a lone button inside that read WARP underneath. He pressed it. A beam fired out of the bottom of the Fallen Star and a swirling purple warp portal opened in front of the LWS. The ship was swallowed by the vortex and transported through a tunnel of revolving plasma and light, traveling speedily towards the Milky Way Galaxy. It emerged out the other end of the portal several minutes later.
Halfbag could see the moon. Dwarfing it from behind was planet Earth. He was becoming a professional treasure hunter fast.




✴

NEW VANCOUVER SPACEPORT

The Fallen Star entered Earth’s atmosphere and descended on autopilot. Halfbag was busy reading the information in the file on the way. It said Voltaz was last seen specifically in the city of New Vancouver. Halfbag was from Earth, but he hadn’t returned in decades. Not since Mother disappeared. It seemed like ancient history. He was a far different person now. Chiseled, hardened by many adventures and misfortunes. He didn’t envy the young version of himself. Lost and chaotic, ignorant of many things that only painful lessons could teach. There was no easy way, not for him. Those that took the easy route, for whatever reason, were at a massive disadvantage versus the real warriors and mettle that existed out there.
He steered the ship towards North America, getting closer rapidly. The vague landmass in the distance rendered with increasingly discernible details as he approached. Through a clearing in the clouds the city appeared. He went straight into downtown, docking in the spaceport. It looked like a smaller version of a football stadium, walls curved, reaching for the heavens. There were many different types of spaceships, most Earth-built, but some were intergalactic.
He took the Legionnaire’s Flux Equalizer pistol from the cargo area in his ship, loaded it with a full clip of twenty APJ rounds, stuffed it in a chest-holster and strapped it on, concealing it with a long jacket. He took a clip of sedarts too.
The side hatch on the Fallen Star opened with a gushing suction sound from the airflow. Halfbag walked out, down the ramp, through the spaceship-filled parking lot and down a short corridor into the main ring of the building.
At customs, the pencil-necked official found the pistol immediately, of course, but Halfbag had a license for it. The man inspected it, side-eyeing suspiciously, probably not having seen many Flux Equalizers in his time. Halfbag could see the slight gleam of intimidation in his eyes, a realization of power beyond his knowledge or ability to match. Despite the obvious personal distaste, there was nothing the official could do to stop him. It was a law and Halfbag had his permit.
He was allowed through.
He took the escalator down to street level and walked through the crowd onto Liberty Street, scanning the area. It was mildly sunny now, and dry. That was unexpected. The weather icon on the command console in the Fallen Star read it was going to continue raining. Computers weren’t always right.
The space station was located in a prime downtown area, flowing with a wide spectrum of interspersed pedestrians. A deluge of homeless people littered the streets, something that wasn’t as prevalent on other planets Halfbag visited recently. He had forgotten about that aspect of Earth. They had been forgotten here too.
He couldn’t deny it, New Vancouver had a distressing aura emanating from the cumulative response of the souls. In many societies on other planets, as he learned in his travels, there was often some kind of unity there, a joint goal or resonance of intention. Here it was disparate, hopeless. The leaders had failed at rallying a common effort. Things had collapsed into self-serving interests in a cauldron of anguish no one understood and was impossible to fully control. Many had been rejected from life, washed-out in the streets in a bleak sea of addiction and loss. The rest weren’t giving off that much positive energy either. The satisfied ones were also the most oblivious. Halfbag could absorb this psychic info by being present among the minds. Why would Voltaz choose Earth of all places?
He knew by intuition now Voltaz was still in New Vancouver. Having never met the man, he could feel his presence in an array of souls swarming the overall area of the city. He sensed that just by looking at Voltaz’s picture and focusing his intention, getting to know him already. He wondered, what was Voltaz’s reasoning for stealing the microchip?
Halfbag wasn’t aware of the apocalyptic damage the Spacebreak could cause. It wasn’t his problem, and he didn’t much care. It wasn’t his job to differentiate right from wrong, or whose plight was just in this situation. His job was simply to recover the chip, and probably kill Voltaz in the process.
Halfbag knew the extent of his own ability, but it would be folly to be over-confident in this situation. Judging by the file, Voltaz really did have supernatural powers. Halfbag had dealt with that kind of thing before, victoriously. Still, it would only take one mistake to be fatal.
The deadline he was under was the one he had set for himself, the consequence of being in the middle of his own mission before this one befell him. He hoped his ego hadn’t gotten the better of him, that he had not taken on more than he was capable of. Life always had its unpleasant surprises.
His second sight was going to be key here in tracking the target. It’s what made him such an effective bounty hunter. He could tune into the frequency of other people, even ones he had never met before, picking up on their brainwaves beyond the capacity of a normal person’s intuition. It wasn’t magic, it was a natural talent strengthened by knowledge and training. Most people had the latent ability to some degree but never worked to evolve it. Halfbag was fortunate enough to have his spark noticed and developed by his mentors in early life. Now he was good at it.
There was a subtle manifestation of Voltaz’s spirit in Halfbag’s mind now, alert to his presence. He couldn’t pinpoint where, not yet anyways, but soon, as he got more acclimated to the environment. Things would start to organize themselves in his mind, filtering out the chaff, leaving the gold like a sifter.
He found the onslaught of signs and advertisements in the environment invasive to his psyche. The overload of pandering on the streets and in the businesses was all so aggressively fake and patronizing. There were juxtaposing blatant, low-level attempts at coercion everywhere he looked. They called that democracy here, if he remembered correctly. It gave Halfbag more respect for subtle systems. At least those ones instilled some kind of mutual drive to contribute. People knew they were running on a hamster wheel here, fed on by vampires.
After the initial disease normalized, he coaxed himself to get to work. It wasn’t his personal horror he was feeling, it was the vicarious horror he was soaking up from the mob he was surrounded by. Maybe Voltaz felt the same way.
Some were natural outliers, born special, separated from the mainstream and gifted or cursed by some cosmic twist. A lucky hand came with the responsibility of following through with what’s been dealt.






✴

SKYCRAWL COVERT





Voltaz was outside Echowood Gardens, smoking a cigarette. Weird bird sounds were emanating from inside the forest. The weather had been hostile, raining for days in varying intensity and violently windy. Now the afternoon sun was peeking through a gap in the clouds. A momentary slice of glory.
The sapphire ring on his hand was an intergalactic bullseye for bounty hunters. Something needed to be done about that. Fate had been fortunate in the regard that so far he had been getting away with it. He didn’t take it for granted, knowing his luck wouldn’t last forever, or possibly even much longer. He was living in a state of fugitive strife and constant anxiety, but he was good at covering. This is all necessary. It will be worth it in the end. The microchip had to be dumped somewhere, preferably in a prosperous way for him.
The Ochot could obliterate cities with the press of a button if they were in possession of the Spacebreak. Voltaz had seen the footage of the test blasts back in the Ordinance Chamber. It was practically his responsibility now to keep that from happening.
His hand was currently being kept in a formaldehyde-filled jar in his motel room. He needed a substitute. Thankfully, the business advances of cybernetic enhancement had boomed in recent years, and replacing his severed hand wasn’t impossible any longer.
Thankfully, his bank account was looking decent, mostly from the skillful thievery he’d been practicing in adulthood. A regular, honest job was something he hadn’t had since his early twenties. Now he was thirty-seven, had been all over the galaxy and in all kinds of adventures. A right hand was worth it. He was prepared to spend on a new hand. He wasn’t that cheap.
Daedalus Gulf was a genetic engineering industry founded by the now defunct company Dynosoft. The Peripheral Spire, the original headquarters of Dynosoft, was located here in New Vancouver. Daedalus Gulf had eventually eclipsed Dynosoft through the sheer magnitude of importance and attention their projects were receiving, buying out the mother company. Space travel became a regular thing for civilians, and a network in the galaxy had been established. Daedalus Gulf had become famous long ago for miracle-working procedures in the realm of genetic engineering and cyber-enhancement.
He probably should have sought emergency medical attention at the time of the hand disaster, but that would have garnered too much attention. That would have been the normal thing to do, but he wasn’t a normal person. He was still on a date with Sapphire then, so he played it as cool as possible. Excruciating pain was suffered but he dumbed it down considerably with booze and painkillers and kept the wound well bandaged.
Disguised on the street in a trench coat and fedora, he approached the seedier neighborhood of Slagwood Avenue outside Chinatown. His Enhanced Pulse Zapper was strapped to his chest, always a good thing to have handy these days. Ever since Pizza Palace, he’d been carrying it everywhere.
There was a certain building he’d heard of through the grapevine. A place that did cyber-surgery called “Skycrawl Covert”. The owner was ex-Daedalus Gulf, a man named Dr. Agnew Rosa. Rumor had it Rosa had gone rogue in the world, outside the safety net of the empire. Voltaz didn’t really care what his reasons were.
Requiem Street was packed with strange, small businesses side-by-side lining the off-kilter neighborhood of Slagwood Avenue. There were antique shops, a laser tag, gun stores, corner stores, computer repair shops, military surplus, tattoo parlors, a pharmacy, a Jumbo Doggo, and an Animal Depot pet store, to name the ones Voltaz noticed. All of which had been vandalized by punk graffiti tags. At the end of the row was Skycrawl Covert, under a red awning with a cybernetic hand graphic screen printed in yellow, wooden barrels on either side and strings of red Christmas lights decorating outside the door.
Voltaz fumbled slowly and lit another cigarette one-handedly in preparation. It was frustrating that he had to alter his method for simple reflex actions like that. He stood there smoking, witnessing the expanse of the courtyard at the end of the street with the passing silhouettes of strangers. Their body language told much of the story about the kind of people that they were. There were police cars staking out something, not very inconspicuously, an apartment complex perhaps. Spacecruisers moved in the far-off sky like slow-moving shooting stars. He took one last drag of the cigarette and dropped the butt to the ground, ready to meet the doctor.
Inside the building, there was a reception desk with a computer, a wall behind it and an open door. Through the door an operating table was visible with surrounding shelves populated with a plethora of medical items; surgical equipment and spare parts. In the lobby, there were framed diagrams on the wall of many of the restorative services offered. The science of cybernetics was an outsider to the official medical community. If this wasn’t legal, Dr. Rosa was getting away with it, which Voltaz appreciated.
Sawing sounds from the back came to a halt when the front door closed. Soon a man appeared through the doorway, with bushy white hair and a thin face with glasses. His nose seemed chipped, which struck Voltaz as odd, for someone who was purportedly a master in cosmetic surgery. Why would you let something like that slide on yourself? It was like if a dentist had rotten teeth. It could be a red flag.
“What can I do for you?” Dr. Rosa said.
Voltaz took his arm out of his pocket, holding up the stump.
“Is there anything you can do about this?” Voltaz said.
“You want a new hand?”
“Restored would be nice.”
“Let’s have a look. Come in, lay down.”
Voltaz followed the doctor into the backroom. He flicked on a light overhanging the reclining chair. Voltaz got in the chair and presented his arm. Dr. Rosa began unwrapping the bandage. When it was off, he glanced at the wound, turned to the table beside them and lay the bandage there. He put on some oversized goggles to address the damage closer. Peering into the wound, Dr. Rosa said, “it’s not infected.”
“Can you fix it?” Voltaz said.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Someone cut it off with a machete.”
“I mean where is it?”
“Sitting in my motel room in a jar of formaldehyde. Can you reattach it?”
“I never have before. Not with a severed real hand.”
“Is there anything you can do?”
“I can attach one of these, for sure. I’ve done that before lots of times.” Dr. Rosa turned to the wall display of metal and plastic cyberhands. “That’s going to cost a bit. The synthetic flesh is expensive.”
“That’s what I thought. What if I brought my hand in? I kept it in good shape. I was thinking you could make something work with the materials you have here and the organic flesh?”
Rosa shrugged. “Possibly. It’s worth a shot I suppose.”
“I’ll go get it right now. What time do you close today?”
“Five. Time is important in a situation like this, but it probably hasn’t reached the expiry date quite yet. Judging by the looks of that.”
“It happened a few days ago. I laid low, but now it’s on my priority list. If that’s something you could do today, I’d appreciate it.”
“That’s a bit short notice. My wife and I have dinner plans.”
Voltaz held up a wad of cash, not unpolitely. “You just said time’s important. Can you reschedule?”
Dr. Rosa watched the cash-wad, measuring the ethics, then took it gently from Voltaz’s outstretched fingers and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Alright, you’ve got a deal. No promises though, I can’t guarantee the outcome, and no refunds, sorry. My time is valuable, even if the operation fails. Like I said, I’ve never done this procedure with someone’s real hand before. Only what you see around you. Cybernetics.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“Come back at five with the hand. That way there will be no interruptions.”

✴

Voltaz returned with the hand jar. Dr. Rosa flipped the closed sign, locked the door and inspected it.
“Looks in good enough shape. A few little spots of decomposition, but we can deal with that. You must have gotten it preserved fast. That was smart. Not as smart as getting immediate medical attention would have been, but it’s your life.”
Dr. Rosa knew not to ask too many questions, and not to judge his patients. He needed clients like Voltaz to sustain himself. If he had some ethical quarrel with every mysterious request he received, he’d go out of business pretty fast. As it was, he was doing alright for himself. Turns out the market for underground cybernetic augmentation was decently busy. The way he was doing it was attractive to a certain group, so the customer didn’t have to go through the official rigmarole of the legitimate Daedalus Gulf. The law got involved at that point.
Voltaz laid down on the reclined chair.
“I’m going to need to put you out for awhile, won’t be longer than an hour,” Rosa said. He had an IV needle hooked up to a certain clear liquid.
“Do what you need to do,” Voltaz said.
Rosa slipped the needle into the top of Voltaz’s left hand and strapped it on with medical tape. It was uncomfortable. Voltaz could feel the chill liquid pumping into his bloodstream. He rapidly began to feel very sleepy. Then he was out.

He woke up drowsy, laid out on the leather couch in an adjacent room. He looked down. There was his hand grafted to the end of his forearm again, stitches lining the connection border. There was a marked color difference between the healthy skin of his forearm and the cold, dead hand. He lifted his arm, disappointed he couldn’t move his fingers. Dr. Rosa entered the room. He had a glass of wine.
“Wine?” Dr. Rosa said, offering.
“Thanks. That would be nice,” Voltaz said. Dr. Rosa poured him a glass of shiraz and brought it over to him on the couch. Voltaz sat up and took it, sipped it. Exquisite.
“The operation was a success, so far, but it’s only part done,” Dr. Rosa said.
“That would explain why I can’t move my hand.”
“Right. I had to remove the bones and replace it with one of these,” Rosa said. He held up a diagram of the exoskeleton he was referring to. “It’s an exoskeleton. They’re actually stronger than bones. It’s made of metal. Ozmium, to be exact. Very strong. This was the best I had.”
It was embedded within the glove of Voltaz’s own reattached skin, brought back to life and reconnected to the matrix of blood vessels and veins within his body, slowly regenerating.
“There will have to be another operation. I hope you don’t have anything better to do this evening. I’ll need to go in and do some fine detailing with the receptors,” he was fiddling with a tool that looked like a pen with a blue laser tip. “This is the essence of all cybernetics, the marriage of robotics and organic structures. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, very fascinating,” Voltaz said. He sipped his wine. The doctor drinking in the middle of his procedure was unsettling, but he had committed now so he didn’t say anything about it, and he was thirsty and Rosa was sharing.
There was something zombie-like about the hand now. It looked like Frankenstein from the wrist down. It wasn’t that far from the truth. Dr. Rosa went to the operating room and Voltaz could hear various metal clanking. The wine was helping.
Dr. Rosa came back in the room.
“Everything is set up, you can come back in,” Rosa said. Voltaz finished the wine eagerly and got up. He had a head rush from the cumulative effect of the booze and the sedating drugs. He walked carefully back into the room. It was time for round two.
When he got in there, it was different. There was an elaborate helmet set up at the head of the chair, with a pilot’s visor, wires and tubes protruding from the back of it, pooling on the floor in a rat-king formation and rising again inserted into a rectangular generator glowing green from the power source. Dr. Rosa welcomed him to lay back down with an extended arm towards the chair. Voltaz resumed the position, faintly nervous still, the emotion submerged beneath the effects of the drugs and alcohol. This had better work the way it was supposed to. He didn’t want to leave here having done more damage to himself with some weird brain-scrambled side effects he hadn’t counted on like a sucker.
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Rosa said, seemingly having read the trepidation in his mind. “This is called a Cerebral Configurator. This is to calibrate the exoskeleton with your brain, so you’ll be able to control it.
Voltaz was commited at this point.
Rosa fastened the Cerebral Configurator onto Voltaz’s head. The inside of the visor was not really a visor at all. Voltaz couldn’t see out of it.
“I’m going to go ahead with the remainder of the procedure now,” Rosa said.
“I’m ready.”
Rosa slipped the needle into Voltaz’s left hand again with no further warning. The prick made him shudder. Then the creeping icy sensation started to flow up his arm, rising up to his shoulder and he was out.

Voltaz was back on the sofa, feeling like he had just suffered an epic nightmare filled with electric shocks and demons springing forth from a shadowy world, lost in some freezing, dim-lit stone labyrinth.
As reality seeped in, he lifted his arm and turned his hand around, flexing tight, sore fingers. He had control. Even the color of his hand had improved since… How long had it been? He looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty. Four and a half hours was a disturbing amount of time to be unconscious and completely at the mercy of a stranger. In a desperate circumstance some risk taking was inevitable if progress was to be made. Dr. Rosa entered the room again with a fresh glass of wine for Voltaz and one for himself.
Maybe that’s what happened with Rosa and Daedalus Gulf.
Rosa said looked pleased with himself. Voltaz took it the operation was a success, taking the wine glass with his re-established hand. The feeling was numb but his fingers were working. Trembling, he took the glass to his lips and sipped the wine.
“How did it go? Anything I should know about?” Voltaz said.
“I think it’s going to work. I did have some obstacles but I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time and it became an interesting challenge for me. That’s part of the fun of being a scientist. The human body is a marvelous thing.”
“What kind of obstacles?” Voltaz said.
“Oh, I had to do some untangling to get the synapses firing. This pen here, it’s called an elliptical spark.” Rosa demonstrated with some drawing motions in the air. “The tissues and the veins and the cyber-components need to be melded. A little poking and prodding with this guy usually does the trick, but it took some experimenting.”
“I see,” Voltaz said. The feeling of being molested while he was asleep was not pleasant, but that’s what it took. He was satisfied with having a right hand again.
“Now, I’ll give you a moment to gather yourself and drink the wine. Then I’ll be ready with your bill.”
“Sure, the bill.”
Dr. Rosa left the room. Voltaz sat alone, drinking. The back room he was in was a sparse one; One window with drawn blinds and a ceiling fan, rotating hypnotically slowly. His head felt muddy. The drugs were still in his system. He guzzled the rest of the wine and stood up, feeling spinny. He left the glass on the table next to an issue of Modern Cyber Monthly and walked through the operating room to the front desk. Dr. Rosa was patiently waiting in the chair behind the counter by a computer, typing, clicking the mouse.
“That will come to $1999 for the labor and the exoskeleton. Those aren’t cheap, like I said, but you’re right, it would have been double if we didn’t use your own hand. Hopefully it works for you.”
“Hopefully,” Voltaz said. The charge was on the screen and he used his credit card to pay the amount.
“Receipt?”
“Yes, please.”
Rosa tore off the piece of paper that spouted from the terminal and handed it to Voltaz. The charges were for Surgery and RH-211V Exo. Voltaz folded it twice and tucked it into his wallet.
“Let me know if you have any troubles.”
“Sure.”
“Like I said, it was my first attempt at an exo-hybrid. Good practice for me.”
“Thanks. Very hospitable and polite with the wine.”
“You’re welcome.”
Voltaz walked out the front door and into the night, groggy but patched up.





☁︎


AUCTION HOUSE





Voltaz took a cigarette out of the pack with his reattached hand, placed it in his mouth and lit it. He stood there smoking. What he just went through was a disturbing experience, but necessary. Going to Skycrawl Covert would keep him off the radar, and he supported Rosa in spirit, relating to a man who had clearly defected in some way and still chose to operate on his own accord. It was actually a clever decision, albeit risky.
The sensations were starting to return at the surgical site. The blood flow was working now. A nagging itch faded into relevancy around the stitches. Whatever Rosa did was miracle work.
Voltaz had to profusely scrub in a public washroom to get the lingering stench of the formaldehyde off. It was still lingering. He hoped that would go away.
His next course of action was to unload the chip, preferably to a suitable home. Unless it was destroyed it could find its way back to the Spacebreak, but it was too valuable an item not to sell. He had to be careful about how he did this.
He got in his car. It was a navy blue ‘77 Oracle with tinted windows. He turned the key. The engine roared into activation and he drove calmly out into the night street grid.
It wasn’t raining. That was a nice change. He wasn’t one to be so profoundly affected by the weather, but it seemed like ever since he had been back in New Vancouver it was windy or raining or both. A dire omen for the superstitious types, which he was.
Things had gotten more complicated. He actually really cared about Sapphire now. He wanted to keep her happy. Getting himself killed over an intergalactic dispute for an alien microchip wasn’t going to do that. It was humiliating what happened to him. He had to force himself not to show weakness when his hand was chopped off in front of her so she wouldn’t think him less of a man, even though he was.
Maybe Sapphire would think having a stitched-on zombie hand was rugged and cool. That’s the best he could hope for now.
Driving along the harbor he turned onto Luxembourg Street, heading north. He was living in a motel called the Cherry Picker on the main stretch of downtown. It was a decent place comparatively, factoring in the cheap rent, but not far away there were other places that weren’t so decent, plagued by derelicts and crime. That was pretty regular in downtown New Vancouver. It was infested, big time, but Voltaz didn’t blame the individuals. Their support systems were hopelessly lackluster for that kind of thing.
He understood you couldn’t expect everyone to conform. Unfortunately this is what happened.
Voltaz could go home, that was the direction he was loosely driving in, but it wasn’t really his home, and that wasn’t really the direction he needed. It was just a crappy temporary motel room. He had no real home. He never did. Not so different from those people on the streets. He wasn’t even sober either, thanks to Dr. Rosa.
It felt late in the game. He needed a solution and fast.
Up the hill, the Oracle drifted with a soothing purr.
The Auction House came to mind. That was a desperation idea, everything was now, but it could work. It was located in West Bayside, not too far from where Voltaz was driving. He didn’t have the time or the connections to make the perfect deal anymore. It wasn’t realistic. He wanted to just dump the chip and run, make it someone else’s problem. It was a huge mistake to take it in the first place. His impulsivity got the best of him again that time. Maybe there was still a chance to redeem himself.
He swerved left through a green light intersection careening down Bayside between a military base, a cemetery, Paramount Plaza and a used car lot. The Auction House was located right before the bridge crossed the inner harbor, beside an abandoned factory with brick smokestacks, a building like a small warehouse with a parking lot beside, fenced in on a cliffside above the water with rows of boats strung up on docks beneath.
Voltaz parked the car, got out and locked the doors with the keychain remote. He walked across the lot, up the steps and entered the glass double doors. It was moderately populated inside with all sorts of people. Some were obviously travelers from the far expanses of space, most probably rarely left this neighborhood; common degenerate types. That was to be expected pretty much anywhere in this town, but especially in a place where items could be put up and sold right away.
Degenerates loved that. He knew. He was one.
There was a bar with metal gates that slid surrounding the long rows of tables populated with drinkers, emphasizing its separation from the main activity here.
Voltaz eyed the ring he’d returned to his hand. These people wouldn’t even understand what it was. No one was going to realize the power that lurked inside. Its value was going to lie in the gemstone alone. That was unacceptable. Or, he could spend some more time and effort and get someone who understood what the chip was. It was so rare and sought after he couldn’t rationalize destroying it or selling it for cheap disguised as something else, especially after pulling the death-defying ordeal to obtain it and escape.
He went to the bar, got a Monkey Back on tap and went and sat down at the end seat of a long table. There was a row of computer terminals with a video display of all the items for sale. People could scroll through the program and bid on them. There was a picture and a description written by the seller. Voltaz considered what he was supposed to write about the chip. Rare magic sapphire ring with microchip containing codes to interstellar weapon of mass destruction. He couldn’t tell the truth. The truth was ridiculous, but the truth was where the value was, so he kind of had to.
The auction items themselves were kept behind a gate with staff who guarded and tended to them, granting buyer access to a locked room behind a large wooden door barred with a golden plate. Voltaz could see someone being let into the room, glimpsing the red walls inside.
The building looked spacious from the outside. For the public inside there was only the bar, the lounging area and the terminals. Most of the other space was for storage. There were three arch-shaped windows with a staff member in each one, waiting for something to sell. Some of the more aggressively talkative patrons would go over and converse with them, being somewhat of a captive audience.
Voltaz finished his beer and went to use one of the terminals. Before he put the ring up for auction he perused what was already there; furniture, jewelry, guns and ammo, swords and knives, video games, musical instruments, medicinal vials and elixirs. He explored the list and descriptions, getting mildly tempted to buy something. The notion of coming away with something new was distracting in a good way; a friendlier thought than the gnawing anxiety about the sapphire.
He turned his head and saw one of the clerks, a troglodyte-looking man who was tall for a dwarf, staring at him with bulbous eyes from within his arched window in the gate. A bolt of paranoia struck into the chest of Voltaz. Anyone could be a spy or an assassin. The odds of this ghastly creature watching him being either of those was slim, but the possibility was worth acknowledging. He had a completely viable reason to be paranoid.
He snapped back into it then and reminded himself what he had to do this for in the first place. There was a good reason, it wasn’t pure greed. He was saving countless lives. This was important. Now he found himself in some waterfront dive trying to decide if he should bail out, but it was too late for that. Far too late.
He wasn’t thinking rationally. So, he turned around to leave, abandoning the idea.
The dwarf was standing there in front of him when he did.
“Can I help you?” The man said.
“I’m just browsing,” Voltaz said. The man looked at Voltaz’s ring. It shone at the flash of attention.
“That’s a very nice ring.”
An unsettling pang affected Voltaz.
“It is. I was thinking of selling it.”
“Well, you’re in the right place for it,” the man said, “I’m Weznil. Pleased to meet you, mister?”
“Sampson. Bill Sampson.”
“Mr. Sampson. Let me know if there’s anything I can assist you with.”
“There might be. This ring is worth much more than it looks like.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“See this inside?” Voltaz held up the sapphire towards Weznil’s face so he could inspect it. Weznil took a monocle out of his plaid vest pocket and peered at the jewel, squinting the other eye. He scratched his bald head between the tufts of white hair puffing out from either side.
“There’s a computer chip inside,” Weznil said.
“There is. The chip is far more important than the sapphire, so I can’t sell it as just a plain sapphire ring.”
“May I ask what it does?” Weznil said, “perhaps I could advise you on the best course with which to sell it, if I knew.”
Voltaz’s intuition told him Weznil really was just an auction house employee, that his offer was out of genuine desire to be of assistance.
“It’s a very important component of a powerful machine in space.”
“What kind of machine? It’s okay, you can be honest.”
“A big weapon.”
“How big are you talking?”
“Huge.”
“Huge as in handheld very big? Or very big as in doomsday device very big?”
“Doomsday device.”
“I see. I happen to know of an eclectic collector of such items,” Weznil said.
“That’s exactly what I’m looking for. I went to a great deal of trouble to acquire this piece. It would be a shame to let it go to an undeserving buyer.”
“A shame indeed. I understand completely, Mr. Sampson.”
“Can you contact him now?” Voltaz said.
“Now? Probably not. I could leave him a message for later.”
Voltaz was thinking, stroking his shaven chin with his thumb and forefinger, looking off to the side.
“Alright. I’d appreciate it,” Voltaz said.
“I think that would be an enticing offer for this man! Hold on, I’ll get a form for you to fill out.”
“A form? On second thought, I don’t think so. I should go.”
“It’s a simple form. It will only take a minute. It’s just a formality for our records.”
Weznil hobbled off back to his station in the archway window, not asking for confirmation. He ducked beneath, presumably to fetch the form and hopefully nothing more devious. Voltaz stood waiting, a voyeur watching the other people.
Weznil returned with a sheet of paper and a sharpie. He handed them both to Voltaz. The sapphire shimmered when Voltaz took the pen. Weznil noticed and gave Voltaz an eye-contact look of understanding. Voltaz meant what he said.
He filled out his name as Bill Sampson, and his phone number, skipping the e-mail address, writing a quick X there instead. He handed the paper and pen back.
“Thank you,” Weznil said.
“I have to be on my way now. Who is this eclectic collector?”
“His name’s William Knight. You may have heard of him. He’s a wealthy entrepreneur. He doesn’t come down here himself very often, but he has personally asked me to inform him of any interesting treasures that appear. Like this one.” Weznil thought for a moment. “Would it be more appropriate to keep the sapphire here in the vault? It would be quite safe. You can trust me. It’s an official auction house and no one with access here would dare touch the thing, I assure you. That way if Mr. Knight should show interest, a purchase could be made without troubling you to return or have any further meeting arrangements, Mr. Sampson. Direct deposit will be sent to you, minus my percentage.”
“How much would that be?”
“It would be quite fair, of course. We can discuss that when necessary.”
Voltaz’s immediate reaction was that of total rejection. Then he paused his thoughts from the automatic revulsion and chose to consider.
Weznil seemed trustworthy. Voltaz thought he’d be able to tell if something was really wrong here.
If he dropped the burden now, he could make a new plan and escape this town, even this planet soon. Hypothetically, if Mr. Knight did buy the sapphire, Voltaz would get a major boost in funds. He could disappear into space and make a new life for himself. This time he would take extreme precautions and put in the necessary effort to make sure no one would find him. The Ochot would have more trouble with the trail on the chip then too, lost in the flux of the auction house, hiding in the crypts of this building and eventually whisked off to an anonymous safehouse elsewhere.
Voltaz slipped the ring off his finger.
“I’m inclined to trust you,” Voltaz said and held out the ring. This seemed like a viable place to store it for now. Mostly he was just sick of the thing. It felt like wearing a heavy nugget of evil.
“I’m flattered my personality is a trusted one. But as I say, I’m a professional man, Mr. Sampson, and your treasure will be kept quite safe in the vault. Safer than anywhere,” Weznil said.
“Perfect.”
They exchanged farewells and Voltaz left. He got in the Oracle, engaged the engine and drove out of the parking lot, turned onto West Bayside and drove across the bridge. He felt moderately exhilarated, like he was finally getting somewhere now, even if it was just a start.

✴

Voltaz ventured into the night. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew where he wasn’t. Not back to his motel room. Not yet. He needed a spark of inspiration. Anything to light the vague path he knew he now must take.
Getting off this planet would be a good start. He fantasized about feigning his death, orchestrating it so it was so publicly witnessed word would reach the Ochot without a doubt that it was in fact him that was deceased. Maybe he could have replicas made of his teeth, place them inside someone else’s corpse and immolate it all.
He was driving through the mountains out of town to the north. The stars were clearer out here, not being covered by a thick layer of smog risen from the city. It was much calmer in the seclusion of the wilderness. Only the road, trees and suburban houses spread out before him. Strip malls and gas stations were necessary checkpoints every few miles or so. He looked at the gas meter. There was three-quarters of a tank. Good, he was prepared. Precognitive action was taken. He smiled a little bit. Things could work out, if he just stayed on top of them. One crucial mistake was going to slay him. Life was dangerous enough without space hunters actively searching for you.
He thought back to that fateful day when he was a prisoner onboard the Spacecruiser Rhinoceros, taking the Breakchip before disengaging an escape pod from the ship and sneakily disappearing. Delt Kangis must have been pissed about that. The thought made Voltaz smile further. Good, he was still capable of smiling. Things were going to be alright. It was going to be better than alright, it was going to be good, he encouraged himself. It was just going to take some hyper-vigilance to accomplish that. He was capable. He was Voltaz. He had special powers. He wasn’t some loser destined to fail. The enemy couldn’t even keep his severed hand off his arm. He laughed at that alone in the car like a madman.
Ditching the chip took a load off his psyche. The microchip carried a lot of weight, too heavy psychologically to be nimble enough to move where he ought to go.
There were a few loose ends to tie up before he could flee. For starters, he didn’t have a ship anymore. It was impounded soon after he landed and not in good condition even if it wasn’t, unsuitable for a long trip in space. The unfortunate encounter with space pirates on his way to Earth left the ship badly damaged. Luckily, the Ochot would equip even a basic ship like an escape pod with a deflector shield and pulse guns. Voltaz wasn’t a skilled fighter pilot, but neither were his attackers and the ship he found himself in was better equipped with superior firepower and defense than his foes. In the end, he used the cloaking device and managed to ambush the situation in which he was first ambushed, blowing three vessels up and flying away to the nearest repair station. The bare minimum reparations were made, just enough to get the ship to Earth. He didn’t want to spend a bunch of money and time repairing a ship he had no intention of ever using again.
He steered the Oracle down a hill and drove out to a grassy peninsula, parked, and got out at the end of a cul-de-sac. Standing beside the car, looking out over the ocean at the sky and smoking a cigarette, the heavens were starting to become more appealing. Wonder and possibility were beginning to materialize in his mind.





✴

SAPPHIRE

Sapphire was driving home after work in her white Epitome sports car. The streets were packed, weather improving. Life had gotten complicated fast, and work was a whole other beast to tackle these days. Being a reporter for the New Vancouver Empyrean was starting to get difficult. Other things were adding up too. For instance, it didn’t take a detective to see that Voltaz wasn’t totally who he said he was. She didn’t think he was lying, but he definitely had not divulged the whole truth. Their relationship had been based on glamour, fun and flirty romance. She didn’t want to spoil that by asking him too deeply about his personal life, knowing he’d been all over the galaxy. What he had gotten up to out there was barely even hinted at in their conversations, and she never asked.
Now everything changed. There were earthquakes and deaths. Voltaz lost his hand. It was insane how he treated that as not a big deal. She knew he was only trying to impress her, but to a disturbingly bizarre and irresponsible degree. She couldn’t help but suspect he was the whole reason that morbid night at Pizza Palace happened. That creepy man had gone straight for him. She saw Voltaz deflect an attack with some kind of magic, but she never mentioned it.
Good men were hard to find. She liked Voltaz. He was charming, dashing, handsome. Everything was going well, until reality struck.
Of course there would be some weird back-story. It went from pizza and champagne to blood and magic way too fast. She didn’t press him too hard for answers then because he was badly wounded. He refused to go to the hospital, citing he could deal with it better himself. Instead, they escaped the wreckage before the police and the medics could arrive.
She pulled into the Grocery World parking lot, drove into a stall, put the gearshift in park and disengaged the engine. Then she sat there, staring out at the passers-by, anxious thoughts floating through her head like disparate clouds in an oncoming storm. Then she snapped back into the present, got out of the car and walked into the store.
She picked up a shopping basket and took the escalator down into the sub-level of the market. The whole place was huge. Grocery Worlds typically were.
She picked up a striploin steak, some salt and pepper, a pack of naan bread, rotini and tomato sauce, minced garlic in a little jar and a burrito and walked to the customer service desk, the only place you could buy cigarettes in the store. She got a pack of Canadian Kings classic size, managing to be polite and perky to the employee despite her underlying stress – who was a short and very plus-sized woman with a lazy eye.
Leaving, outside she curved into an annex and went down a flight of concrete steps around the corner into the Liquor Lords two levels lower. A cheap bottle of merlot was on the menu for tonight. She needed to relax. Wine was a good way to do that.
Ignoring the beggars outside the liquor store, she walked back up to her car, carrying the wine in a paper grocery bag. The wind had picked up considerably. It was annoying, pushing her from in front and behind. At least it wasn’t raining. That was rare recently. It was autumn and it was only going to get darker and colder before it got nicer.
The Epitome wheeled out onto the one-way street and started heading downtown, taking a left turn on Luxembourg. Her apartment was in Applewood Heights, the hilly uplands next to the harbour. She constantly checked the rear-view mirror for potential pursuers. Rational or paranoid, something was amiss. It simply wasn’t normal to be in a near-death situation like she had been, surrounded by misery and death and destruction, and emerge completely healthy. Her mind was in a state of post-traumatic stress. She had the clarity and good sense to recognize that, instead of degenerate obliviously into harmful coping habits.
A bottle of wine made sense though. She deserved a bottle of wine. You couldn’t just avoid every vice, all the time, she told herself. That was ridiculous – and boring. It was probably more harmful, in that sense. Boredom and frustration drove people to do crazy, irresponsible things.

Inside her apartment was messy with clothes strewn about the floor and dishes piled up in the kitchen. She usually had a prudent cleaning schedule. Her cat, Locke, came trotting over and leapt on the couch beside her, waiting for attention. It was a brown and black striped cat with golden eyes, mewing and purring as she scratched his head.
“Hey, Locke. How was your day?” Sapphire said. She looked up. There was a dead bird on the carpet inside the slightly open glass door to the balcony. “That good, huh?” She lived on the thirtieth floor, so it was safe to leave the balcony door open.
Sapphire kicked off her sneakers and changed her jeans into black tights, a professional looking ruby sports jacket into a grey NVU sweatshirt. She grabbed a bag of Mr. Chippy’s Salt & Vinegar potato chips and plumped herself down on the couch, flicking on the TV mounted on the wall with the remote. Locke scampered over to the dead bird, picked it up with his mouth and brought it over to Sapphire.
“Yes, very nice. It’s a bird, I see that. What a competent hunter you are, Locke,” she said, “can you take that thing back outside please? It could have diseases. I can’t afford to get sick right now, if you don’t mind.”
Locke did not obey, defiantly dropping the bird carcass on the carpet instead. Sapphire groaned. Locke was a spoiled cat, and well fed. He didn’t need to kill a bird to eat it. It was just a trophy for him. Sapphire couldn’t hold it against him. It was his nature. In his place she’d probably do the same. Sometimes she thought cats were her spirit animals. She swept it into a dustpan and tossed it in the garbage.
The TV channel was on CNF (Canadian News Foundation). It was the umbrella company Sapphire worked for. Her afternoon show was called “The Empyrean”. She liked to keep tabs on her employers overall scope of presentation and stay updated on current events. There were other news stations in town, but this one was the most prominent. The evening news show, CNF’s premier program “New Vancouver Now!” was on, with hosts Jim Jeffries and Samantha Fox.
Jim Jeffries was an insufferable narcissist. He talked about himself all the time off the air, and a lot of times on air too. Anything anyone else said about their lives he somehow always managed to get the conversation turned back to him. If someone had a story about themselves, Jim always had a similar story involving his own experience that was more extreme. If someone criticized him, he always had an explanation, as if by merely explaining his thought process during the highlighted floundering it could deflect any wrongdoing. It was a flaw. It was annoying. But he was a successful celebrity and made a lot of money. That was pretty much the paragon of success in this society, so it didn’t matter if people didn’t like him, because within the metric of the status quo, he was winning.
That was Sapphire’s opinion. She aimed to not say negative things about people. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
His perfect hair and powdered, frustratingly handsome face pissed Sapphire off just to look at it. But he was doing his job and he was getting paid well and that’s all anyone really seemed to care about in the superficial world of mainstream media.
Samantha Fox was a sweet girl. Sapphire liked her. She had fiery blond hair and big, supple eyes. Sapphire could practically see the stars in them. Sam was a role model professionally. Most of all, she treated people well. Her fame hadn’t eaten out her brain like a swarm of malignant worms feeding on a block of swiss cheese. Not yet anyways.
The constant pressure to perform under the spotlight was enough to crumple anyone over time. Some handled it better than others. Some were crushed into the oblivion of permanent insanity. Life was difficult enough without having a legion of people judging at all times, looking to dethrone and usurp. Some people in the professional world took their careers as a competitive game in which plotting another human being’s downfall was seen as bragging rights.
There was breaking news on NVN. Whatever news there was was always breaking news.
A group of black-clad combat gear gangsters wearing balaclavas were involved in a street shootout with the police, post-bank robbery attempt gone horribly wrong. Sapphire was wide-eyed with attention at the debacle. The video played out of Myrtle street blocked off by cop cars and police tape. Explosions and fires raged in the background. The camera men managed to keep sufficient distance from the carnage, still capturing it professionally. They showed the footage while the hosts narrated the action.
“Earlier today at the Canada Pledge Bank on north Myrtle Street a gang of terrorists assaulted the building and took everyone inside hostage. Their leader made shouting demands from an open second floor window, hiding behind the wall with only a megaphone pointing out. Luckily, a police sniper was able to shoot through the wall and permanently silence the man from any further comment. Thank god, Sam. As the rest of the terrorists tried to escape, the subsequent battle in the parking lot and in the streets reached a level of mayhem New Vancouver has not seen in a long time,” Jeffries said into the camera. He looked sympathetic, but it was obvious to Sapphire he was acting.
“That’s right, Jim,” Sam said, “the terrorists were thwarted by the NVPD in a bloody shootout. Thankfully, no hostages were physically harmed. Mayor Thornton is set to award the heroic actions of the police force in a ceremony held downtown tomorrow.”
“It makes you appreciate the good people in the NVPD,” Jim said.
“It does, Jim. Without them, this town would turn to utter chaos in about five minutes.”
“It’s scary to think about.”
“I agree. Some people have some ethical issues with the police, but without them who would uphold law and order in our society?”
“Sometimes there’s been some overuse of authority, but it’s the best system we’ve got so far and I’m not hearing many ideas for improvements. I don’t think anyone wants total anarchy except for the anarchists and they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“You’d think in a system as advanced technologically as this one we’d come to some kind of consensus as people and act accordingly. Instead there’s just more contention.”
“Let’s pray the hostages don’t have any serious psychological trauma.”
That was enough for now. Sapphire was surprised they said those things on air. That definitely was not in the script. Personal opinions never were.
She turned the channel to Video Atheneum with the remote and searched for some relaxing classical music, hit play, then went to the kitchen and started heating up some canola oil in a cast iron pan. It made her feel crazier to specifically choose to listen to relaxing music.
Locke jumped up on the kitchen countertop and watched as she plopped the striploin into the simmering oil and sprinkled a healthy dose of salt and pepper on it. It began to sizzle. She opened a can of Kitty Kitty Chow Chow cat food and scooped the contents into Locke’s feeding bowl on the floor. He jumped back down and started greedily nibbling at it. She picked a wine glass from the cupboard and poured the merlot, swishing the dark purple liquid around and smelling its aroma before taking a generous swig, then drank the remainder in one large gulp.
That would help. As long as she didn’t become a full-fledged alcoholic.
In the living room she started doing crunches on the wide Mediterranean rug. Something about the rug made the ritual feel more official. She lifted some fifteen pound dumbbells, then returned to the kitchen to flip the steak. After dinner she would probably go for a run around the neighborhood. Maybe out along the ocean walkway if she was really feeling high aspirations. It wasn’t that dangerous in that area at night. Not even for a beautiful woman, like she was. She kept a stun gun in a fanny pack just in case.
Another glass of wine was in order now. Prodding the steak with a forefinger, it was almost medium rare. She poured some wine into Locke’s empty water bowl. It was nice to have a drinking buddy, even if he was a dumb cat.
She couldn’t deny that some serious changes and decisions were going to need to be thought about thoroughly and acted on soon.
Adulthood was confusing. People couldn’t be raised properly in preparation because the technologies advanced so fast. By the time children turned to adolescence and adulthood it wasn’t the same world as it had been.
Sapphire had done everything right in life so far; worked hard, overcome obstacles and achieved her professional goals. She was the host of her own show for god’s sake, in good shape, gorgeous and relatively young, having recently turned twenty-nine.
So why did she feel so hollow? It felt like her life was just play-acting.
Other people who were simply doing their jobs, completely innocent, were getting killed by random circumstances – like falling chandeliers – for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t fair. It all seemed so pointless.
Now she was falling into a negative spiral and caught herself. Nothing good could come of it. She tried to stay positive in the face of overwhelming anxiety. That’s what a strong person would do. She wanted to be one, but here she was, alone, drinking wine with a cat, worried, with nothing to look forward to except the daunting obstacle course that had now become her life.
Things were going to require a serious level-up in toughness and responsibility. What she had attained was no longer what she wanted. A hint of realization was dawning on her. What she really wanted was validation. What she was doing was only what she had always thought other people expected.
The phone rang. It was on the living room table. Sapphire wondered if it was Voltaz, having not heard from him since Pizza Palace. Call display said it was “Mom”.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, hello. How are you?”
“Pretty good, thanks. How’s it going with you?”
“Chilly! I’m just getting my furnace fixed at the moment, there’re some men here working on it. It’s been out for a couple weeks now so it’s been cold here.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s good you’re getting it fixed then.”
“Yes, it is! Anyways, I’m just calling to see how you’re doing. I saw the news about the bank robbery and the shootout! Awful people. Horrible! Please make sure you’re staying safe!”
“I will. Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. At least no innocent people were harmed. Well, physically at least. What a traumatic experience though.”
“You would know! After that earthquake fiasco at the Pizza Palace. Horrible! You’re so lucky! I’m just checking in to see if you’re doing okay because I know how terrifying that must have been for you!”
“It was. But I’m doing alright. Thanks for checking up on me. Yes, I’m very lucky I didn’t get hurt, but other people did.” Sapphire was pouring a third glass of wine. Locke had drank his and he was dozing now in his cot.
“Yes, it’s very unfortunate. So I told you that Auntie Phyllis was having some cancer surgery.”
“You did.”
“Well I’m going to be in town next week to visit her and I was wondering if you’d be available to get some lunch?”
“I think I could find time for that, depending on what day you’re going to be here. You know I work Monday to Friday.”
“I know you do, I watch your show every day. It would be on a Saturday. I’m staying at Auntie Phyllis’s and Uncle Bruce’s place.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll make sure I’m free for Saturday lunch then. Is Phyllis going to be okay?”
“Well, we’re not sure. We hope so, but we’ll see how the surgery goes. It’s going to be on the Sunday. They’re going to go in and cut out a tumor from behind her eyeball. Then hopefully she’ll be clear after that.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”
“No, it doesn’t! Anyways, the furnace people are needing my attention now so I had better be going. I hope you are well and take care of yourself! It looks rough out there!”
It is, Sapphire thought. Why would she call me while there’s people there fixing the furnace? Her mother’s tendency towards auto-pilot thinking frustrated her sometimes.
“Okay, you too. Enjoy your fixed furnace. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Thanks! I’ll see you next Saturday then. Bye.”
Sapphire noticed her mom never said “I love you” on the phone, as if it was unnecessary. It would cheapen the fact with words.











✴

BURROW OUT





Down beneath the bridge in the lower landing of Burrow Out, Halfbag Silverstooth stalked the road. Surrounded by the ocean, condominiums and light forest strips of thin trees, there was an illuminated passage lit by a bonfire in a red oil drum, surrounded by drinking derelicts. They were singing in unison some drunkards tale about an old swashbuckler sailing across the galaxy in search of lost treasure.

“The stars were far apart and shining,
blade in hand, gold-fire blinding,
Which would be the Captain’s way?
For treasure found this fortune day,
Yo-ho-ho, he bellowed
Rum and guns for this lucky fellow,
Yo-ho-ho, he bellowed
Rum and guns for this lucky fellow,”

In the tunnel beside the river the curved ceiling was creating a natural reverb chorus of voices, marred by the sound of the passing cars overhead on the bridge. Tires splashed through puddles, creating a misty rainfall over the barrier every time a vehicle connected. Sporadically, people on bikes would sail past. The trail led all the way into downtown and extended all the way out north into the sub-cities. Halfbag ascertained that from a prior map edifice on the walkway.
One of the men around the fire was roasting a rat on a stick, carefully rotating it slowly to perfection. The wet, gleaming sheen of juices on the rodent meat looked like the thing had been skinned first. Minorly impressed, he supposed that was a culinary technique learned by street chefs.
Halfbag took an upwards sloped path beside the bridge to street-level above. He was getting a feel for the city, immersing himself in the habitat on a long night walk, thinking and waiting patiently. He had the time and there was nothing further he could do until an opportunity presented itself. Like fishing, he would have to be prepared when he got a psychic bite. No clear sign of Voltaz had presented itself in his psyche so far, only a faint back-current of a pulse. He was out there, somewhere, but a lot of things were, currently all blended together in a muddled blob of sensory overload.
Across the street was a hotel with a bar on the ground floor called Pistachio’s. People were playing pool visible through the window. A live jazz band was performing beside them at the back of the room on the stage. The passing cars were setting a rhythmic sound effect of approaching and disappearing engines, buzzing tires on concrete, lubricated by the friction splash of the rain water repetitively unsettled from the ground. The downtown skyline was a looming behemoth in the distance, silhouetted and marked with thousands of window lights, each one a little story of its own never to be known.
Roaming on foot as he had been all day in the wet and cold was getting tiresome. A vehicle would be advantageous at this point.
A bicyclist speedily swerved past Halfbag, nearly clipping his shoulder.
“You’re right in the middle of the bike lane, asshole! Jeeee-zus!” The bicyclist snarled. That may have been true, but it seemed like such a minor inconvenience, one which could be easily avoided by simply slowing down and going around. That would take about one second longer. It pissed Halfbag off, but not as much as that cyclist must have been pissed off already to react like that. When a person snapped and unleashed their rage there was always some lurking animosity about something else already there. Halfbag stepped onto the sidewalk. He could have blasted the man in the back with the Flux Equalizer but it wasn’t worth the ammo or the exertion of effort, these people were so far beneath him.
He was on the bridge above the gaggle of drunkards huddled around the fire, still within earshot. Their chatter had subsided to murmurs, presumably to snack on the roasted rat meat, but then a song broke out once more.

“There he laid,
His dues all paid,
With chests of coins and more,
His foes all dead,
Filled up with lead,
The taverns full of lore,
Into his ship,
Their riches thick,
And his men all had their whores,
Yo-ho-ho, he bellowed
Rum and guns for this lucky fellow,
Yo-ho-ho, he bellowed
Rum and guns for this lucky fellow,”

Halfbag was surprised the singers all knew this song and were able to carry the tune in unison in their inebriated, less than ideal situation. These folks were in a happy mood about getting drunk with bums and eating charred rat in rainy autumn. Personally, he had a higher standard than that for contentedness, but he was amused by their ability to laugh and sing in the face of daunting circumstances. They just didn’t give a damn anymore.
Across the street, outside Pistacio’s in the parking lot, a man was walking towards his car. He got in and drove off, giving Halfbag an idea. It wasn’t a very cunning idea, but the sheer audacity would likely be effective. He jogged across the street into the front lot.
Roughly twenty minutes later an older gentleman in a suit came out of the hotel and walked up to the drivers seat of a black Minotaur SUV. As the man was opening the door, he heard a whistle come from the bushes. Looking up with a perplexed face, a dart came hissing out from the darkness between two tall bushes, piercing his neck. He gasped in shock as the needle did its dirty work. The man stammered about, rapidly losing control of his body. Before he could topple onto the ground, Halfbag pounced from the shadows and grabbed the limp, unconscious body.
He reached in the open door and popped the lock on the back door, opened it, dragged the man and lifted him in, pushing him laid out on the back seat. Halfbag picked up the keys off the ground, got in and used them to drive away. No one saw.
Soaking in the energy of the city, having wandered out on a path across the huge downtown bridge, he had sufficiently acclimated himself. It was time to take a different course. He drove the Minotaur back into the main part of town.
Now he had a hostage again. The man was snoozing soundly from the tranquilizing effect of the dart. The ammo load in the Flux Equalizer was interchangeable with types of bullets. The clip of sedarts was fairly handy, and silent. His issue now was what to do with the prisoner, hesitant to commit any unnecessary murders, but if he let him go, the stolen vehicle would surely be reported. Halfbag didn’t want to appear on the cops radar. Any way he chose there was still a crime committed here. Some kind of trail would be left to haunt him. He doubted if the police had it together enough to catch him before he was able to get the mission done and get off this planet.
A phone started ringing. It was in the man’s pocket. That was something Halfbag hadn’t counted on. Someone was trying to contact him, whether it would be someone who was going to care much if he didn’t pick up or not was relevant. Maybe it was his wife wanting him home, or anyone else with the expectation he should answer. They could get worried or suspicious, or it could be nothing of consequence.
Halfbag viewed cold, familiar eyes in the rearview mirror before he gazed over the man’s sleeping body. He could just strangle him and dump the body in the water and move on, but liked to think he had more imagination than that. That seemed too clinical. The sedarts effect only lasted a half hour or so. If he didn’t think of something, he would have to shoot him up again with more sedatives. He didn’t want to waste all his darts on keeping this person in a perpetual state of slumber. There was only one clip with six darts left.
The phone rang again. Probably the same person. It was distracting.
The Minotaur was idling at a red light in a five-way intersection. He wanted to be in the downtown core now. That’s where Voltaz was most likely to turn up, he figured. Judging by the dossier, Voltaz seemed like a mainstream kind of guy. You could tell that just by looking at him.
Halfbag made up his mind. He had grown weary of carting around other people’s cumbersome bodies. He pulled over into a side street, beside a bottle depot, where a long row of homeless people were having some degenerate street party.
Halfbag parked, got out and opened the door. He searched the back pocket of the man’s pants looking for his wallet. It wasn’t there. He searched his torso by patting him down with both hands. A whiff of cheap cologne and stale cigarette smoke permeated his nostrils.
There it was. He unbuttoned the man’s swanky jacket, reached in and took the wallet out from the inside pocket, opened it and looked at the driver’s license. Harold Waddington, born 2022. There was a wad of cash inside. He stuffed the wallet into his trench coat pocket and dragged the man out. No one in the perimeter seemed to be watching, too distracted in their own oblivious world of self-destruction.
Some of them didn’t even have shoes. Half of them were doing some psychopathic dance on the sidewalk, limbs flailing wildly like they were possessed by idiotic devils.
He left the man seated on the ground up against a chain link fence, got back in the car and drove off. If Harold was accosted by homeless people it didn’t make much difference to Halfbag. Harold would wake up soon anyways. Then the terror of defilement would strike. Once he got his wits back together, he’d most likely call the police. That was fine, Halfbag decided. That was the price he paid. Things were about to get a little more intense, but at least he had a car now. It could always be ditched. Murdering an unconscious stranger was beneath even Halfbag, unless he really had to.
He was on his way back into downtown now. The streets were busy. It was 10:30. Bars and clubs didn’t close here until midnight or two at the latest. Voltaz probably wasn’t lounging around at home, relaxing. So what the hell was he doing?
Halfbag drove by the blocked-off wreckage of Pizza Palace. A clean up crew of construction machines were empty and parked around the torn earth and rubble. That was the same infamous Pizza Palace in the dossier. The earthquake which had strangely only happened in the radius surrounding the building was a big story on the news at the time.
There was even a show by one reporter who was there when it happened.
Her name was Sapphire.