The gist: young woman living her life like any other normal person, suddenly finds herself neck deep in a mess that involves magic and a whole list of other things she’s always been told aren’t real.

I decided I [...]]]> As you probably know by now, I’ve written a novel.  I’m working on the second draft right now.

The gist: young woman living her life like any other normal person, suddenly finds herself neck deep in a mess that involves magic and a whole list of other things she’s always been told aren’t real.

I decided I wanted to share this excerpt with you. Comments are most welcome.

Enjoy.

© 2010 Patrick Hester. All rights reserved.

Sam Kane – an excerpt.

I moved to the rail, setting my coffee cup down very carefully.  I heard the ’snap-click’ of a zippo as he lit up.  A stream of smoke shot straight out beside me as he stepped up and looked out at the graveyard.  “What do you think so far,” he asked.

“What do I think?” I replied.  “I think I lost my job today.  I think you are loony.  I think she’s loony too.  And I think it’s time I went home, filled the tub with really hot water, had myself a good, long cry and soaked for the rest of the day because tomorrow, tomorrow I need to start looking for a new job.  Thanks for the coffee though.”

I didn’t even look at him as I turned away.  I saw my entire future going right down the shitter.  The thought entered and fluttered around the edge of my mind that I was going to have to tell my father that I was no longer a cop, that I’d gotten my partner put in the hospital with little chance of a recovery and that I was going to lose everything I had because I didn’t know how to be anything other than who I was; a cop.  And my father, the career officer, the thrice decorated beat cop, he was going to make me feel even shittier than I already did because he just has that way of making me feel like an utter waste of otherwise good genes.

I was halfway to the door when Mayfair spoke again.  “You saw a ghost last night.”  I felt my knees give way and I half-stumbled before windmilling my arms out to stop myself from falling.

“It’s never an easy thing, having your world turned upside down,” he was saying.  I heard him, heard the words, the tone of his voice so somber and quiet, but my mind was back in that apartment building staring down the hall at something that had caught my eye and held it while my partner rushed into the apartment with his gun drawn and at the ready, sure I was right behind him, watching his back.  I could hear him crying out in fear at first, emptying his gun faster than I thought possible.  Then he made a sound I would never be able to forget nor describe adequately no matter how hard I try, all full of anguish and terror and pain, how the pitch of that shriek climbed higher than I thought a human voice could manage.

“We’re told that the boogeyman doesn’t exist, that the world is a place of black and white, right and wrong and everything fits into these neat little columns that can be explained away by science.  ‘The closet is simply a closet’ they tell us, and we clutch at our stuffed animals and pray for the weak glow from the night-light plugged into the wall for our appeasement to extend just a little bit further than it does, for it to chase away the shadow we can see just on the edge of our vision.”

I don’t remember falling to my knees but I did, both in my memory and there on the porch.  I could feel the tears on my cheeks now, streaming down my face in the hot Denver afternoon and yet I felt like I was right back in that apartment building hallway again.  My partner was being ripped apart and I couldn’t move though my mind was screaming at me to help him or run away or do anything but just sit there where I could hear everything happening just a few feet away.  But I couldn’t take my eyes off the face of a child staring at me from down the hall, a child no more than ten years old and yet there was such pain and sadness on her face that it broke my heart and made me want to scoop her up in my arms and hold her safe.

“Eventually, we convince ourselves that what we see isn’t really there, that it can’t be there because that’s just childish nonsense.  We develop a sort of blind ignorance to the supernatural world.  When faced with the impossible, with what cannot be, our conditioning takes over and we cannot accept it for anything other than a hoax or a fraud, something perpetrated by kooks and phonies looking to cash in on superstitious, ignorant fools.”

Her eyes made my breath catch in my throat.  They were translucent and milky and though fifty feet easily stood between us, I thought I could see red veins crisscrossing around the irises.  A voice was whispering in my head, telling me to relax, to let go and to help her find her dolly because she couldn’t go to sleep without it.  Wasn’t I a nice lady, the voice whispered and I nodded, to help her and keep her safe from the bad men?  The air had turned thick and cold at the same time.  Every breath had become a chore, turning to fog as it passed my lips.  Still, a part of my mind was screaming that there was something else, something important that I needed to do, someone I needed to help.

“But there are those moments, those rare and impossible moments, when the world we know crashes into the one we cannot accept and we find ourselves having to cope with something our minds aren’t ready to handle.  As adults, we see the world around us as very cut and dry and so we make excuses, we try to force that which doesn’t make sense fit into those neat little columns and one by one, they start to fall apart because it just doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t work the way we’ve been told it does.”

Somehow, I managed to turn my head a little.  I could see inside the apartment just there, out the corner of my eye.  Could see that this thing, this great big hairy animal thing that was half-man half-dog like I had only ever seen before in movies, was shredding my partner’s torso with these massive claws on its left.. paw?  Hand?  Its fangs were red and dripping, its muzzle covered in blood.  My partners’ blood.  He was still alive, was held aloft by the creatures second, impossibly long clawed hand.  His face was turned to mine and there was this look there – this ultimate, final expression of utter horror.  I screamed in my memory and I screamed on the back porch at Banba as the creature tore at him, and blood splattered across my face.

“And then our world starts tumbling down around us.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore.  Everything was getting warm, warm enough that sweat started streaming down my body, clinging my clothes to me, mixing with the blood on my face.  The ghost had changed as I slipped away from its gaze, the little lost girl fading into a gruesome visage of an old woman with half her face gone and ribs sticking out of a torn and shredded nightgown.  She shrieked like a banshee, extending her bony hands towards me, grasping.  She took a halting, shuffling step forward, and I could see ragged black claws, could feel her need, her hunger to consume me somehow which just created a whole new kind of terror for me.

“Everyone reacts differently.  Some have innate or repressed abilities which can help them cope and move on.”

But something inside me had snapped.  Sure, I was afraid of the old woman, but I just knew there was something more important that needed to be done.  I turned back to my partner, back to his agonized screaming and I found myself screaming too – only my scream was pure rage.  I wanted that creature dead, I wanted it to suffer, wanted it to get the fuck away from Jorge.  I was so full of anger and rage that I actually saw red, and then the heat I felt all around me seemed to focus and move away from me in a straight line that struck the werewolf, if that’s what it was, square in the face.

“Some, a very rare few, have a certain Talent.”

The creature exploded in flames.  Then the flames licked the walls, and everything started to burn.

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It’s kinda funny how things happen.  When I started playing World of Warcraft, a series of random meetings resulted in my meeting tons of new, creative and interesting people.  The same sort of thing happened when I joined Twitter a while ago.  One of those interesting people is John [...]]]>

Cover art by Ashley Quigg- http://www.ashleyquigg.com

It’s kinda funny how things happen.  When I started playing World of Warcraft, a series of random meetings resulted in my meeting tons of new, creative and interesting people.  The same sort of thing happened when I joined Twitter a while ago.  One of those interesting people is John Anealio.

In a music landscape filled with pretty kids made famous for the ability to dance while lyp syncing, I always enjoy finding an indie artist who can actually write a song complete with lyrics, a musical arrangement and, most importantly, they can play an instrument.  John is one of those (he actually plays all the instruments, I believe).

Everyone has to have a niche and John Anealio has found a most unique one; he writes music about science fiction and fantasy stories that he enjoys.

How’s that for original?!

Up until now, the only way to get John’s music was from his site, Sci Fi Songs, but as of December, John released a CD titled simply enough, Sci Fi Songs, with 11 of his best tunes to date (available as a physical CD or for DL at CD Baby).

With titles like ‘Cylon #6′, ‘Summer Glau’ (lyrics by John DeNardo over at SfSignal.com) and ‘The Millennium Falcon for Christmas’, Sci Fi Songs is a must have for any fan of the genre.  Kinda folksy at times, kinda poppy, I find the tunes very nice, very mellow.

Now, I only recommend music if I truly like it and I can honestly say that I like and enjoy John’s music.  As you may have garnered from the bit above, I can be a music snob.  Having said that, Sci Fi Songs is part of my iTunes library and is frequent in my playlists since I ripped it.  I can’t give any higher recommendation than that

John Anealio, Sci Fi Songs – check it out.

~P

Complete Track Listing:

1. The Return of Titus Quinn
2. Rachel Rosen
3. Leodora
4. Cylon #6
5. Summer Glau
6. Angels & Vampires
7. Lonesome October Night
8. Sarene
9. Merithyn’s Promise
10. The Millennium Falcon for Christmas
11. Grasping for the Wind

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Tales from The New Universe: The Legend of Aoudjila

Zohhāk fled from the great city early in the summer, making his way across the blistering desert where he intended to die. His lover had rejected him, taking another as husband after many nights where she whispered through the wall to [...]]]> © 2009, Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Tales from The New Universe: The Legend of Aoudjila

Zohhāk fled from the great city early in the summer, making his way across the blistering desert where he intended to die. His lover had rejected him, taking another as husband after many nights where she whispered through the wall to him, promising that he alone would win her heart and her hand. He left without knowing that her father had arranged the marriage against her will and that she, too, was heartbroken and distraught.

He ran for a day and a night without pause, deep into the desert where none return. He ran until his eyes began to swell, his skin to blister, and his feet to bleed. When he collapsed, the desert rejoiced, for it knew that soon, it would consume this trespasser as it had done a thousand times before and would do a thousand times again.

But Dahae, the great Ezhdehā, saw the little man and his flight into the desert, and she watched him, watched as he ran and ran until his tiny legs could no longer hold his weight and he fell into the greedy desert sands. She came to him, pushing away the sands with her cool breath, cradling him in her arms and lifting him away, deeper into the desert where she knew of an oasis.

There, beneath the shade of a fruit tree, she held the little man, so curious to her mind, and dribbled the precious water of the Aoudjila into his dry and cracked mouth. When she held him, she sang softly the songs of her home and realized that she wanted to know more of this man.

But that was forbidden, for she was Ezhdehā, and he merely human. Still, there were ways around this, so she called on the Daēuua and asked for a boon, and the Daēuua were glad to help her, for they saw that only chaos and pain would come from her request, which they thrived upon. They used their mainyu to transform Dahae into the image of a beautiful human woman, and this was the first thing that Zohhāk saw when he was able to open his swollen eyes again, and he fell hopelessly, endlessly in love.

They spent that night cradled together.

Zohhāk decided to build a home at Aoudjila for his love, a home they could share and live together in as husband and wife. The home became a grand design, growing and growing in size and complexity as his mind tried to design something worthy of her beauty and grace. His brothers came to help him in the desert, and they brought their own families and tools and construction materials.

Zohhāk devoted all of his time to the building of the greatest home ever conceived, and then it became clear to him that a mere home was not enough – his lady deserved a city full of people to worship her as a goddess. So focused was he on building a home worthy of his lady love, that he left Dahae alone most of the time, and she could be seen resting beneath the shade of the fruit tree, her stomach swelling as the months went on but her spirit falling deeper and deeper into despair. She stayed only because of the child growing inside her.

Aoudjila grew from the desert like a tree spurting from the fertile ground near the great rivers of the frigid North. Zohhāk pushed to make every detail perfect for his love, from the smallest petal design in the lattice work walls of the garden to the towers rising higher than any other in all the land, each tipped and trimmed in gold that caught the sun and glowed like stars throughout the day. The walls were of gleaming white stone, matched in the streets and kept clean and swept every hour. This meant that Aoudjila could be seen from far and wide – a gleaming white oasis deep in the heart of the desert.

When he felt it was finished, when he felt that it was at last worthy of his great love, Zohhāk sought her under the fruit tree where he first saw her and fell in love, only she was not there. Concerned, he called for a search of the city. It took hours, for he had built a sprawling city with thousands of people living within its mighty walls. In the end, she was nowhere to be found. It was then that his brothers, chagrined, told him that she had left long ago, years ago, while he was obsessed with building the city and had ignored her altogether. They brought forth his son and told him that he must be a father now, but Zohhāk could only scream for the child had his mothers eyes.

Zohhāk cried for days and the Daēuua rejoiced, for at last, they had their due. They reveled in the misery they had caused, for they had known he would ignore Dahae and knew that she would never remain with a human for long – child or no child.

Zohhāk left in the night, distraught and grieving, and the desert was not kind.  This trespasser had survived for too long, had even had the audacity to build a great city where none had ever stood before. Angry and hungry, the Daēuua whipped the sands into a fury that night and took Zohhāk into their gritty embrace.  But it did not end there, for their anger was great.

A storm like no other was called, the winds carrying the sand higher and higher, swirling and howling while the Daēuua laughed in the night.  They pushed against the shining walls of Aoudjila, splashing over them like water, filling the streets, burying the houses and the gardens so as to consume it altogether.

The desert reclaimed the great city of Aoudjila that night, and no trace of it has ever been found.

Yet still, on quiet nights, when the sands are still and the air is clean, a soft weeping can be heard.  Some say it is Dahae, mourning the loss of her husband, Zohhāk, and the child they made together…

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Tales from The New Universe: The Guardian

All I had to do was save the world.

Her name is Alison. I met her ten years ago. We were married eighteen months later by a Priest without a flock on a mountain with the snow falling all around us and the [...]]]> © 2009, Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Tales from The New Universe: The Guardian

All I had to do was save the world.

Her name is Alison. I met her ten years ago. We were married eighteen months later by a Priest without a flock on a mountain with the snow falling all around us and the sun hidden behind thick cloud cover. It wasn’t love at first site. We both had a lot of baggage.

Eventually, we had four children together; Ben, Ashley, Naomi and Jordan. I got to name the first born, Ben, but then I was told that I lacked the imagination for naming kids as each subsequent child was born. I didn’t care as long as they were healthy, which they were. They’re gone now.

I watch her from a distance, sipping her coffee in one of those little white cups with the lids that seem to be all the craze. I’d forgotten about those. And she doesn’t know me now. We haven’t met yet. Probably never will now.  The guy across from her is her husband.  James, I think.  Never met him.  He wasn’t in the picture when we first met.

The motorcycle vibrates between my legs as I race down the highway. I need to stop watching her. That was another life, a life that won’t happen now, can’t happen.  I can’t seem to let go, though.

The cave serves two purposes; it gives me a place where I can do my work without being discovered and it reminds me of the comics I used to read as a kid. I always was a sucker for comics. No bats in this one that I’ve seen yet. I try not to think about how this cave used to be filled with hundreds of people. If I’ve done my job right, it will never have to serve as a home to so many refugees seeking shelter from the storms.

“Welcome home, sir.” Home.  Right.  The voice is pleasant enough. I based it on Alison’s because I like being tortured. Goes with the whole ‘living in a cave’ motif. So does the giant super computer with the AI running stuff for me.  Amazing what you can do with lottery winnings.

“Telemetry?” I asked as I toss my coat on the sleeper sofa. The heaters I installed a couple weeks ago kick on and start to take the chill out of the air.

“Twelve objects approaching upper atmosphere. Four are viable for reentry.”

Damn. That’s how I screwed up – I never considered debris or stellar drift in my planning or my calculations. Enough of the stuff made it to the planet’s surface to change things forever. My fault. My responsibility.  Now it’s spread out, impossible to find until it’s on target for planet fall.

“Drones?” I asked. Felt a twinge in my gut. They were coming fewer and far between now. When I first came back, they would rip me apart for hours at a time. Now, they were ‘twinges’ that went as fast as they came. Progress, I suppose.

“Armed and ready for launch. Sir? The military has been actively attempting to track our drones for some time. I do not believe they appreciate our efforts to eliminate the debris before it can be retrieved by them.”

No. Of course they don’t. Neither do any of the private contract firms who are also scrambling for more sources of this tech.  But I’m still ahead of them. Decades ahead. Perhaps more when it comes right down to it.

“Cloaking devices are still working, aren’t they?” I ask. The chair squeaks as I sit down, reminding me that I need to oil it. Soon.

“As far as we are aware, yes,” she says. “However, I do not wish to underestimate their ability to cleverly use the technology they already have to break through our countermeasures.”

“We won’t. If they take out the drones, I’ll go myself.” I turn, the suit catching the light just right. Have to admit, I’m putting it on more and more these days. Too many people have gotten their hands on the technology from the fleet, the little bits that have been slowly floating towards Earth since I carried out my plan, mined the area of their arrival and, I thought, blew the bastards to kingdom come. It was all to change the future, save the human race from near extinction.

I never counted on the debris falling to Earth and pushing technology years ahead of where it should be.

“Debris is beginning planet fall.”

“Launch drones for intercept – full countermeasures. Monitor military frequencies and chatter for a heads up on any attempts at interception.”

“Drones are away.”

I lean back, watching the telemetry on the monitor, fingers steepled before me.

“Keyword search has triggered an alert – Tokyo. News is reporting a ‘hovering weapons platform’ attacking the city, threatening to destroy it unless a ransom is paid.”

I sigh. We humans never learn. “I’m on my way.” I put the suit on, a combination of human and alien technology, something I had to build to protect me in space as I laid my trap, and had to modify to destroy alien and hybrid technologies being used back here on Earth. I point my arm and the platform locks the tires of the bike in place and flips, revealing my tethered hovercycle.

“First drone has impacted. Debris has been vaporized.”

“Update me en route.”

Where I come from, the world ended on January 14th, 2007. An invasion fleet appeared behind Mars, then attacked the Earth, killing billions and enslaving the rest. Only a few remained, refugees like me, freedom fighters waging a war to free our world. I traveled back in time, using their own technology against them, to destroy them before they could get anywhere near the Earth. Change everything. Save the world.

I destroyed them, but I failed to save the world.

Now it’s my responsibility to make it right, protect us from ourselves.

They call me ‘Guardian’ in the news.

I suppose that works.

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Tales from The New Universe: SuperHero

The thing about being a superhero is that everyone expects you to save the day all the time, to be on your toes no matter what, to have all the answers.

No one warned me before all of this started that it would be like [...]]]> © 2009, Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Tales from The New Universe: SuperHero

The thing about being a superhero is that everyone expects you to save the day all the time, to be on your toes no matter what, to have all the answers.

No one warned me before all of this started that it would be like that.  I thought it would be a lark; saving pretty (grateful) women from the bad guys and always coming through in the nick of time to save the city, people cheering me on, giving me keys to the city, having days named after me so kids could get out of school to come see parades in my honor.  That sort of thing.

I thought it would be easy.  Stupid, right?

I did get the key to the city early on.  God, fifteen years ago?  Has it really been that long?  The years start to blur after a while, bleeding into each other and overlapping so I don’t always remember things in the right order any more.  I wonder if any of the others feel that way?  There’s a couple dozen of us now, not like in the old days when there were just two or three at most.

Anyway, the rest of it?  Got tired real quick.  There are only so many women you can save before they all start looking the same.  It becomes old hat.  I can’t even count how many times the city’s been in danger and I had to save it with only a couple seconds left on a timer – the bad guys?  They love their timers.  It’s like some bad piece of pulp fiction.

Week after week, the same stuff happening with a new twist and I have to keep up with it and roll with the punches.  It’s exhausting.  Have you ever tried crisscrossing a city ten times in a night because all the loonies were out in full force and pulling crap at the same time?  Believe me – it’s not easy and it’s not fun.

Forget having any semblance of a real life with the secret identity thing.  It’s worse than being married to a cop or soldier.  Every time you go out the door it’s not just people with guns and knives threatening your life, oh no, it’s freaks with frost guns and magic powers and lasers that shoot out their eyes – FRIGGIN LASERS!  Who could sit at home and handle that kind of worry and stress every day?  Not my Martha, that’s for sure.  Left right after the first major threat to the city I faced, when old ColdFront brought the temperature down to ten below and kept it there for a week, demanding ten million dollars before he’d turn his machine off.  Finally found him in the old sewers, the ones they condemned and built right on top of decades ago.  I got pretty beat up taking him down, spent days laid up in bed, covered in bruises, delirious with fever and suffering from exposure.  Lucky I didn’t lose something to frostbite.  That’s when she called it quits.  Left a note as soon as I was up and around again and could fend for myself.

I don’t blame her.  Still hurts, though.

Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day – that’s what this gig is all about.  No vacation days, no HMO plan, no 401K; just a constant, steady beating on your body and your mind, slowly wearing you down until you have a ‘bad’ day and some freak gets lucky because you’re too slow or too tired or just too damned old.  Then it’s ‘game over’ and the city moves onto the next hero to show up and save them from the bad guys.

They have a ‘Fallen Heroes’ museum, you know?  It’s downtown.  Full of pictures, videos and mementos of all the heroes who got sloppy and kicked it – ain’t no such thing as ‘retirement’ for us.  It’s closed three days a week now due to budget cuts and lack of interest.  They used to take kids there on school field trips, but the neighborhood has gone down hill so they don’t take the kids there anymore.  Too dangerous.

If they don’t close their doors, my costume will probably be in there one day soon.  Can feel it in my bones.  They’ll rip the mask off my broken body and everybody will stare at my face and say that I look like anybody else, nothing remarkable about me at all – except for the scars.  Then they’ll figure out who I was pretty quick.  Someone will write up an expose, maybe interview Martha and give her her fifteen minutes of fame.  And for a week or two I’ll be the biggest piece of news on the wire.  They’ll add me to that museum, probably use my spare costume on a mannequin once they search my place and find it, build a nice little glass encased memorial full of the crap I keep in the basement; my souvenirs.  The culmination of my entire crime fighting career reduced to trinkets and knickknacks arranged behind a slab of glass.

It won’t be long until some kid comes along to take my name and run with it, same as happened with the Star Kid when he died two years ago in that embassy bombing.  What a mess that was.  God.

The costume will be different yet close enough that people will recognize him and think he’s me, but it won’t be.  It’ll just be some dumb kid in a mask who never got told what this life would be like if he got into this mess.  He’ll do it because it’s fun when you start, because people will look up to him, and because he’ll think he’s making a difference.

Same as me.

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Tales from The New Universe: Solar City

“Welcome to Solar City” says the card in large, bright blue letters. It depicts your classic suburban dream complete with a row of large houses each with neatly trimmed yards and white picket fences all lined up nice and proper the way [...]]]> © 2009, Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Tales from The New Universe: Solar City

“Welcome to Solar City” says the card in large, bright blue letters. It depicts your classic suburban dream complete with a row of large houses each with neatly trimmed yards and white picket fences all lined up nice and proper the way they can only ever manage in a piece of cheesy art. Each home has a large tree in the yard with a swing made of rope and wood hanging from an extra thick branch that just happens to be the perfect length and height for such a thing, as if it were grown for that purpose and that purpose alone. The sky above is blue and pristine, utterly devoid of clouds and the bright yellow and orange sun with its pointed halo has a smile on its face and sunglasses shading its eyes.

The whole thing makes you want to be there, want to live on that street, have barbecues with the neighbors on cool summer nights when the air feels crisp and the fireflies compete with the local stars to see which can be the better source of amusement and delight for all the little kids you’ll have with your plump wife in the frilly apron and the perfect hair that falls just below her shoulders. It’s all a dream concocted by some corporate stooge who lives in a shimmering glass fortress with an iron skeleton billions of miles away on the edge of an ancient city that can’t even remember what a tree looks like or how grass feels on a cool night between naked toes weary of their cotton and leather day prisons.

The reverse of the card shows a name and an address, neither of which are located in Solar City. Just another wide-eyed dreamer come to make their fortune and thrive in the Utopian splendor of the new frontier, a suburban paradise where work is easy to come by, the pay’s great and there’s two women to every man so your chances of getting laid are spectacular. A genetically engineered chicken in every pot and a house for everyone willing to put in some extra effort, roll up their sleeves and help build a community in the farthest reaches of the universe where such things are not commonplace.

The card doesn’t mention the hundred and thirty degree days because this rock is too close to the sun and the terraforming is still underway, or the fact that water is an expensive commodity and there isn’t enough to keep the average person hydrated let alone to waste on watering a lawn. It doesn’t show you that the jobs are all in the mines where at least it’s cooler by ten degrees if you don’t mind your lungs filling with dust and burning from the gasses or the back breaking labor because the company is too cheap to pay for anything other than hand tools and dynamite and ‘worker safety’ is a myth whispered about in the dead of night like sweet nothings in the ear of your lover. Or how, if you’re a woman, most likely you’ll be spending the majority of your time flat on your back with your legs in the air because the company knows that men who get laid are less likely to revolt and rise up to kill their corporate masters for treating them like a disposable commodity.

The sky isn’t even blue here; it’s a hazy red when it isn’t covered in dark clouds from the great machines pumping gasses into the atmosphere in an attempt to make it all the barest of habitable environments for the human animals thrust upon its surface like so much kindling tossed into the fire.  The whole thing is a lie, a cosmic joke, the endless cosmic joke, perpetuated on every fresh faced virgin stumbling straight off the transport with their eyes still full of the wonder and excitement at the thrill of new adventure and the prospect of a better life. None expected what they received, none were ready for it, ready for the kind stranger who offered to guide them or show them a place to stay til they got on their feet or simply said ‘hello’ to them in passing. They didn’t know that he or she intended to murder them; steal that wonder and excitement from them along with their very life while leaving them to bake in the sweltering heat of an unforgiving sun on a god forsaken hellhole.

Nothing else was taken, just their lives; as if that weren’t enough. They still had what little money they’d begged, borrowed or stole for the trip out to the rim; pittance really, and hardly enough to buy a meal here, let alone start a life. Each still had a suitcase or a satchel or a duffel full of their worldly possessions clutched in their hands or lying nearby, wholly untouched and undisturbed, not that they would’ve been worth much, but here, anything that is worth something is worth stealing if it means the difference between eating and not eating. No sign of rape, no sign of anything at all on the bodies except for the smashed in skull, always from behind, always looking like someone lost a fight with a burning rage and pounded the poor soul to death like a miner pounds on a rock until it yields the treasure locked within or crumbles to useless dust carted out like so much offal.

Then there’s the card. The little postcard, four and a quarter by five and a quarter, sold in the giftshop out at the port and a hundred others exactly like it spread out all across the galaxy like cookie-cuttered boxes that could be inserted into prime real estate without any fuss.  Printed by the Company in mass quantities, impossible to trace and always right there where we can see it, never a speck of blood or gore or anything on it, not even genetic material that the sniffers could sniff out and track. Addressed to the victim but printed not hand written with no return address and a counterfeit payment barcode that somehow, never, ever raised any flags with anybody when it was scanned by the geniuses at the postal service. Placed for us to find right there in the open. Taunting us. Daring us.  Saying ‘look at what I’ve done’.

Seventeen so far. All virgins to this place, to this hell we have to call home because not a one of us can afford to escape it. We eat, we sleep, we fuck – someone else if we can afford it; we find dead bodies on the row. Rinse and repeat with genetically engineered meatloaf on Thursdays.  None of them are the same, except they are virgins; different ages, different sexes, colors, height, weight – all seemingly random and all across the board without any pattern.  Left for dead.  Left for me to find.  Left for me to clean up.  One after another.  An endless, nightmarish stream of broken dreams and bodies baking in the sun.

My job is to find out who’s responsible, bring them to justice, make hell safe again for the virgins, keep the flow of workers to the mines consistent and steady.  A Company man through and through, as if I ever had a choice.  Yay for me.

Yeah. Like the card says, “Welcome to Solar City”.

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Whooops!

If this is the way I’m going out, then bring it on.

That’s what I wanted to say. It’s the renegade in me; the rogue. He’s always saying stupid shit like that, and it never, ever ends well.

Still, when you’re staring death in the face, I suppose there [...]]]> © 2009 Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Whooops!

If this is the way I’m going out, then bring it on.

That’s what I wanted to say. It’s the renegade in me; the rogue. He’s always saying stupid shit like that, and it never, ever ends well.

Still, when you’re staring death in the face, I suppose there are worse things you could say.

“Fuck.”

Like that.

I don’t usually cuss. Honest. I say ’shit’, sure, but that’s not really cussing, right? I admit that, on occasion, a choice phrase or two have been known to slip through and then there’s this f-bomb hanging in the room, kinda like right now, and people are staring at me, and I’m staring at them, and no one is really sure of exactly what to say or how to react. I guess in a situation like this one, the old f-bomb just has a bit more impact because I don’t use it all the time. I suppose, if I were some sort of sailor, I’d probably use it all the time. But, I just find it so crass. It’s sort of like a last resort kinda word, you know what I mean?

“Would someone, please, kill this asshole?”

Now he cusses a lot. You can just tell sometimes, you know? Tall, bald, tons of muscles and no neck, tattoos running up one bare arm and back down the other and this sort of perpetual grimace frozen on his face – yeah, this guy is a cusser. Not that I’m trying to perpetuate any sort of stereotypes or anything. I’m not saying that, just because he has tattoos or muscles or anything, that that precludes him to being this foul-mouthed individual. It’s just, well, he is. You know what? Stereotypes exist for a reason so don’t judge me!

Now, the other four guys – well, three really. I can’t say for sure that the fourth one is a guy or not. I’ve never been able to really tell with the lizard people – it’s the greenish-gray scaley skin that throws me every time. I read somewhere, once – or maybe it was a teacher or something that told me, I don’t recall – anyway, I either read it or heard it, but the gist was, the males had these spikey yellow things on their heads, and the females had these sort of lesser spikey things that were greenish-gold. I know, right? Yellow and gold are so close, you can’t tell either – am I right? And who wants to get close enough to look and tell for sure?

Anyway, the other four – they don’t seem like the cussing type. I can’t know for certain, of course. I doubt they would entertain the idea of a sit down to discuss it. They have other things on their minds right now, and, really – they are henchmen and have to follow orders. Wait – can lizard people be henchmen?

Whooops! Four guns are coming up and are about to be pointed at me and a split second later, they’re going to start shooting. I really don’t want this to be the way I go out, so I’m gonna have to try something a little crazy. Don’t worry – I do this sort of thing all the time. It almost always works out all right. Well, there was that one time with the-but you know what? I prefer to think positively and not dwell on things that my or may not have resulted in certain things becoming liquefied due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control. And a laser.

First, I release the clasp on the harness, which is the only thing keeping me suspended in the air in the first place. Without that, I start falling towards the floor at a pretty alarming rate. The guns are firing now, but they’re pushing those sonic pulses through the air where I was instead of where I am - a key point and one you’d think they would’ve adjusted for by now – not that I’m encouraging them to react quicker or anything.

I hit the ground running. Well, rolling. Not easy, actually. My armor isn’t bulky but nor is it terribly flexible. Rolling? Well, let’s just say that you really have to be desperate to even try it. Which I am. So I roll. The crates stacked two high in this warehouse are the perfect place to roll to. Well, behind. I can hear that they have adjusted their trajectories now, as blast after blast hits the metal crates and starts shaving off slivers and chunks that are not me so I’m fine with it on the whole. I’m safe for a moment. Sure, also pinned down and there really is nowhere to go from here. But I’m not dead, so there’s an upside.

“Should we return fire, sir?” that in my ear.

“Would you?” I asked. Looking up, I could see the hole where the roof had been not quite as supportive as I thought it would be, causing me to fall prematurely into the fray, as it were. Lucky for me we were preparing to crash in anyway, so I had my harness on and a rope attached, otherwise this would’ve been a very different scene what with the splatting and the broken bones and the knees for shoulders…

The rest of my squad were still up there but my second in command? He does things by the book. Even if it means letting me get shot a lot while he waits for the go ahead. What do you expect from a cyborg? Original thoughts?

“This is the police,” his voice boomed through the warehouse. He could do that sort of thing. “We have you surrounded!” Then he started firing, as did the rest of the squad. Thankfully, this meant I was no longer under fire and could breathe again. I peaked around the corner and saw that the bad guys had dispersed, probably taking cover, except for one, who was lying still right where he fell. The bald, tattooed, muscle endowed leader was running out the far door.

“I’m going to do something stupid, follow me when you can,” I said, then started running after him. The cover fire from above became much more vigorous as I ran past hidden bad guys intent on seeing me dead. Actually, I can’t back that up – I have no proof that they actually want me dead, only that they were ordered to kill me. Really, there is a distinction and I need to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The door looks further away than it probably is. I hope. So I’m running. No one shoots me in the back, so my squad is doing their job. I get to the door and plow through onto the stairwell and listen. The bald guy is running down. I can still catch him. Oh. That part about us having the place surrounded? That was a fib. There’s just us, and us is on the roof and in this stairwell and I need to start running now.

This warehouse backs up onto the junkyard, so this side isn’t level with the opposite side; it plunges down about six flights of stairs. He’s two below me and moving fast, so I take the stairs two at a time, then three, then I just sort of hop from one set of stairs to the next, lower set. Which hurts. Just a bit. I can take something for it after.

I have to hand it to baldy, he can move when motivated. Something about having the police chasing them really motivates criminals to sudden and incredible feats of strength, speed and agility normally unseen by the average human being. I suppose it could also be the illegal cyborg upgrades that a lot of them get that factors into it. I don’t judge. Well, I try not to. Mostly. Still, annoying, right? And so unfair.

I manage to close the distance between us, so that when he hits the door and flies outside, I am only one flight of stairs behind him. I blow through the door, ready to go full on sprint, really, really push and use the last of my energy to catch up to this scum-bag, just an all out, full on, classic sort of police on criminal chase. I’ve prepared myself for that, for the exertion and the pain. Bring it on!

So it just blows my mind that he’s only a couple feet away and pointing a gun right at my face. Which sucks. I mean, what kind of criminal turns to fight when they can run, right?

“Fuck.” There it is again. I honestly do apologize. These moments – they simply bring out the worst in me, I suppose. For his part, the bad guy seems to find it amusing because he’s got this smirk on his face. It’s the kind of smirk you just want to slap right off of a face when you see it, just open hand slap so hard their head snaps to the side and their eyes and teeth just sort of rattle around and they have absolutely no idea whatsoever what just happened and then they give you this look of utter disbelief. That’s the kind of slap I wanted to give him.

See, the rub, the crux of this situation is this; the police have been using these non-lethal sonic weapons for decades now, but the criminals? They don’t play by the same rules. They hack their weapons, crank up the sonics beyond lethal and into the stratosphere somewhere between ‘liquify the human brain’ and ‘pop your eyes like soft boiled eggs’. So, with that weapon pointed at my head, I am, without a doubt, a bona fide goner.

Which is the point where the bad guy is suddenly, and violently, replaced by my second in command. Yeah, the cyborg. He just sort of is there. I blink.

“Sorry, sir. Got here as fast as I could.” I stared at him, at the chrome legs and arms, the human chest and head half covered in chrome itself with that one, creepy green eye that just sort of pulsed at me all the time…

“Did you…?” I wasn’t sure exactly how to end that question, so I just let it hang out there.

“Crush the suspect into the soft ground by pile-driving down onto his shoulders from a high altitude?”

I nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, fuck.”

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© 2009 All Rights Reserved

Free Falling

Falling from a thirtieth floor window sucks.

If you don’t have a parachute, it’s worse.  Still, I don’t panic.  I still have the crossbow and the bolt with the line.  Plus the automatic pistol.  I shoot down, shattering the windows below [...]]]> This is an original work of Flash Fiction by Patrick Hester

© 2009 All Rights Reserved

Free Falling

Falling from a thirtieth floor window sucks.

If you don’t have a parachute, it’s worse.  Still, I don’t panic.  I still have the crossbow and the bolt with the line.  Plus the automatic pistol.  I shoot down, shattering the windows below me, then pull the crossbow and shoot for the hole I’ve made as I pass it.  The ground is rushing up, or am I rushing down?

The line is attached to my harness and as soon as the bolt hits, I can feel the tug, feel the resistance.  I have no idea what the bolt has hit or how well it’s in place, so I have to make this count.  I pull the brake and start to swing in.  The machine pistol makes short work of the window and in I go.  I didn’t give myself enough slack though, so I have to cut the line or else get pulled back out the window which, as I already mentioned, sucks.

Luckily, my harness has a dead man’s switch; it slices right through my bi-pattern 9.9mm, Dry-Core two hundred dollar line.  My feet firmly back on solid ground again, I take my first breath in I don’t know how long and then start racing for the door.  I’m in some sort of office, lots of computers and cubicles but no serious lock on the door, just one of those deadbolts with the switch on the inside – I love those.  So easy to get passed em.

Elevator is still locked down, so I hit the stairwell.  I can hear the shouting from upstairs.  The guys who forced me to exit through the window in the first place are not happy that I’m back inside.  It’s my fault they’re on me; missed a pressure sensor on the display case.  I’ll kick myself later.  I pause on the top stair and pull out the small bottle of vegetable oil from my backpack and spread it in a thin line across that stair, then I start down.  From the noise above, I don’t have much time so I skip some stairs here and there.

There’s a satisfying yelp followed by tumbling noises above and I allow myself a brief smile.  The random gun fire wipes it away.  Idiots!  Who shoots a damned gun blindly down the stairs?!  Do they not know that bullets ricochet?!  I go through a door with a giant ‘3′ on it and look around.  Nothing screams ‘use me’ except for the fire extinguisher, which I pull off the wall and start spraying towards the door to create a little fog.  It’s less than I hoped for but it’ll do.  I don’t have much time.  I jump into one of the cubicles and see a stash of Mardi Gras beads.  I cut the string and toss the loose beads down the hall, then spray the rest of the fire extinguisher’s contents after the beads.

If I remember my floor plan correctly, I’ve got another stair well in the north corner so I start running.  I hear the shouting behind me, hear the crash as someone slips and slides.  I round the corner before they can figure out which way I went.  It won’t take them long to catch up though, so this is where all that cross-country training comes in handy because I can punch it and go full out sprint.  I’m through the door and down another flight of stairs in eight seconds, which isn’t bad, though not a personal best.

I’m nearly out of tricks.

The first floor has a security desk and some monitoring equipment but nothing too terribly fancy.  The plan never included having to get out of the building this way.  I can’t imagine the guards haven’t heard the shooting, which means they’ll either be on alert and paying attention or they have called the cops or both.  None of these scenarios especially appeal to me at the moment, but I don’t see another way out at this point.

I slip through the door and listen; nothing comes to my ears and I have excellent hearing.  I push down the hallway, towards the only option left to me; the front doors.  The halls are lined with this green marble tile – pretty snazzy stuff.  I’m hugging the left wall pretty close, trying to get a glimpse of the security desk.  What I see isn’t good, so I stop skulking and step out into the foray.

“Freeze!”

I count at least a dozen cops spread out, weapons drawn, all looking at me.  Behind them I can see a line of squad cars forming a perimeter outside and all of it cutting me off from escape.

It’s so much easier to steal things when you don’t get caught.

I slowly raise my hands, releasing the small flash grenade I palmed before stepping out into the open.  It’s a small, silver ball – my own design.  It bounces once.  Twice.  All eyes are on it except mine, which are shut when it goes off.  Screams but I’m already moving.  Past the disoriented police officers blinking against the spots, through the glass double doors and out beyond the squad cars with their red and blue flashing lights.

I don’t stop until I’m at the door of the limousine.  The driver opens the door and I slide right in.  The man inside is wearing a suit that costs more than my monthly mortgage payment, and he is anything but pleased as I take my glass of champagne and down it.  I slide the 800 year old Japanese sword onto the seat between us, then press the button on the timer.  Twenty-two minutes.  That is a personal best.

“I told you your security sucked,” I say with a smile.  I pour myself another glass of champagne.  Easiest two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I’ve ever made, and all to help fix the holes in this guy’s security.

…then the bastard picks up the sword, admiring it.  The limo starts moving and something occurs to me; the look in his eye as he stares at the sword, that’s lust.  Then he stabs me with the damned sword I just stole for him.  I’m an idiot.  I should’ve known.  I’m still awake when he pushes me out the door of the moving car easily doing sixty-five.  I hit the pavement and take a bounce down the embankment before everything goes dark.

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