[On the Plaza] Zube Goes Terminator, pt 2

I started actively avoiding Zube after he'd told me about his personal mission to save my soul. Cox, of course, found the whole situation hilarious. So did my boss. Which was fine - I could see the humor in it - but it got a little old when I started finding handwritten bible verses tucked in my locker and in the glovebox of the truck. They were never the nice bible verses ("Jesus wept") or the badass ones (like the bit about Ehud in Judges) or the hilarious ones (Like Elisha siccing bears on people in Kings). No. I got quotes from Revelation about many-headed beasts and lakes of fire.

Sometimes there was a little more after the verse. "He is watching" was a favorite. Which is just kinda funny sounding when I write it down here, but when you're getting up from taking a shit and find a quote about hellfire with that written on it tucked into the back pocket of your uniform pants it slides right into creepy and makes a little house there.

Zube never mentioned the notes. If I had to guess, it's because he knew that some places might call it borderline harassment. Not that my boss gave a shit - he thought it was the funniest thing anyone had every done - but mall management would have shit a brick. Not that I would have gone running to them, but still.

So getting weird notes in obscure places became the new normal.

Summer came, and the mall got busy. The notes were still around, but I barely noticed them. School was out, and every fifteen year old with an allowance was blowing it at the mall or, failing that, hanging around on the benches and fucking up the railings in the parking lots trying to perfect their kickflips.

A new liquor store opened up across the street. Which was great - I loved booze, and I hated wasting time driving. Except I wasn't the only patron. Along with the out of school kids, the mallrats of the 18-30 range returned in full force to our hallowed, air-conditioned halls.

They brought their liquor with them. Usually riding in a big gulp cup or replacing some of the soda in a two liter. They'd walk the mall or hang out in the parking structures. Bullshitting, fucking, fighting.

Which mall management fucking hated. It scared the nice folk with the fat wallets who were coming in to watch the Lord of the Rings or Terminator 3 and who spent 30 bucks at the candy shop buying overpriced jelly beans.

So we got to chase them out. Which is why I slowly began to hate summer. I'd hated it already - summer in San Diego is swelteringly hot in a town that is always warm. It was a broiler that summer too - we had temperatures in the low 110's once a week.

Unlike their lesser brethren, the adult form of the mallrat found us more hilarious than threatening. Which was a pain in the ass. The badge and the radio was enough to scare off the larval form - worst case scenario, they were dumb enough to let us detain them and to give us their parents phone number. The older form knew just enough to be a real pain in the ass to chase off - they knew the cops didn't give a fuck most of the time, and that our legal right to kick them out was tenuous at best and borderline illegal at worst. So they laughed in our faces half the time.

For me, it was just a ritual of the job. Get called to chase them off, try, then tell the boss that they'd refused, and go back to cart surfing or whatever we'd found to occupy our time. Zube hated it.

Zube wanted to be a cop so bad he basically was one without a badge. Which, it turns out, is a bit of a problem when the power you have over any given member of the public is somewhere between harsh language and the vague threat of a citizens arrest. Zube went from fuming over management not promoting him to fuming over mallrats being drunk pricks on the right side of the law.

I barely noticed when the notes finally stopped.

It was a saturday afternoon when the call came in to go clear the 'rats out of the main structures second level. Someone had thrown a liquor bottle in the general direction of the foodcourt, which housekeeping reported seemed to be full of piss - judging by the scent of the pile of broken glass they'd arrived to clean up.

It was hot and I had been drinking the night before. So I went for the lazy option and hit the lights on the pickup (a bar of pseudo-cop lights in orange and blue) and cruised up to the second level. If I was lucky, the 'rats would book it when I they saw the flashing lights.

I wasn't lucky. There was a small crowd of them. Five or seven maybe, circled up by a lifted F-150 with bottles in hand and a wreath of smoke surrounding them. So I turn off the lights and park at the far end of the lot, light a cig, and just watch.

This was the tactic that usually got us somewhere. Pull up and ask them to leave, and they'll laugh. Settle down and just watch, and eventually they'll do something you could kick them out for. Someone would piss on a wall. Or throw a punch. Or smash a bottle.

Two cigs later, and nothing had happened. The boss was harping on me too, so I set about getting things done so I could go back to bullshitting with Cox in the other parking structure. I cruised by with the window open.

"Hey fellas. Boss says y'all are gonna have to move along."

"Fuck your boss."

"You wouldn't like that man. He's pretty old." Making a joke about it was probably the wrong answer. The little crowds self-appointed spokesman cruised over and leaned up against the window.

"Step back, man." I said. "No," he replied. He smelled like stale beer and his breath gave me a contact drunk. Something was wrong with his eyes too - this wasn't just some drunk guys hanging in a parking lot. This guy was flying on something more serious than natural ice and wild turkey.

"Step back, please." I hit the signal key on my radio - to this dude, it would look like nervous fiddling. To Cox the next structure over, it was a distinct series of three short, three long and three short beeps. An S.O.S. It sure as shit wasn't official code - my boss would have no fucking clue. But me and Cox had talked about it before, and it turned out that Zube was one smart motherfucker when it came to morse code.

When he refused again, I started putting up the window. He yanked on the glass. Predictably, it shattered. I about shit myself and hit the gas. Smacked the assholes arm pretty good and sent the pickup skittering halfway across the structure. I hopped on the radio and hollered in an 11-99. Officer in trouble. Which was good, because blood was in the water, and the 'rats had taken off after the truck, hooting and laughing like a pack of hyenas.

I was pretty fucked. The ramp down to the structure would require me to pass by the whole group of them, and running for the upper levels would only delay the problem. Odds were they'd beat on the truck (and maybe me) a bit. I had my mace, but that wasn't gonna get me out of it - I didn't really trust myself to use it. If I was lucky, backup would be arriving from the foodcourt, but that meant at least two minutes. If I wasn't, it'd be coming from across the mall.

So I waffled and feathered the engine and moved at just-faster than running toward the far end of the structure. The radio was blowing up. Just about everybody had hopped on to ask for 'status' or the like. Not that I was going to stop to tell them a story or anything. Lost in the jumble was a quiet "15 inbound alpha structure" from Zube.

I was just getting to the point where it was floor it for the second level or deal with a crazy drunk guy climbing onto the pickup when Zube arrived. He came hauling ass across the parking structure, looking for all the world like what me and Cox had always joked about - the cop from Terminator 2.

I saw him in the rear view mirror, coming out of nowhere to grab the collar of the front-running 'rat and yank him around. Dude went down hard and Zube stopped to confront the rest of them. I stopped the pickup. Somewhere between me getting out and getting closer, Zube maced the rest of them. They took off, the unluckier ones howling and pawing at their faces.

"Nice work m-" I started. But Zube was chasing them.

They piled into their pickup, climbing into the bed or the cab. They'd just pulled out when Zube came rushing on. He jumped halfway into the truck and snatched at the keys. The driver floored it.

So there I was, blinking back tears from the thin cloud of mace still hanging in the air, watching a lifted pickup veering down the parking structures main avenue with Zubes' ass hanging out the driver side window. He finally had the good sense to push himself out and drop. He rolled a bit, and the pickup was gone, roaring down the ramp and out into the street.

Zube picked himself up, asked me if I was alright, and patched up his arm with his personal first aid kit. By the time he was finished, Cox had finally arrived, along with management and half the guards on duty.

He didn't save my life. He saved me from a beating at best. Zube was not a sane man. He would never be a cop. But he was a good man.

Years later, well after I'd left the mall and San Diego, I heard from David that Zube had flunked out of getting into the police department on a psych eval. He'd stuck around the mall, and ended up being the key in mall management shitcanning the security director - turned out the guy had been falsifying documents or something.

Zube had taken his position.

[From the Plaza] Zube Goes Terminator, pt 1

Rick Zube was a part timer. He worked two shifts a week (friday and saturday evenings, naturally), and spent the rest of the week working out or doing whatever it is that odd forty-something year old cop wannabes do in their spare time. He'd been in the Air Force (he always referenced his time in the service as "in the military" - presumably because that belied the fact that he'd spent four years as a refueling technician and caught a dishonorable discharge when he got caught with a hooker on base) and worked security on and off for the decade and a half or so since he'd left.

Zube wanted to be a cop, bad. He read cop magazines. He read books about cops. He had three 'tactical' handcuff keys (which were black, see) and a taser and a laser-accurate flat top. He wore aviators when it was sunny out.

Imagine the cop-terminator from Terminator 2, only with a child molester mustache, and you're getting close.

I barely interacted with the guy for a large portion of my time at the mall. We worked the same shift, but the duty officer usually stuck Zube somewhere out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere to keep him out of trouble. This pissed him off to no end. He'd take it out on the boss by being as annoying as humanly possible over the radio, while never precisely breaking the rules.

"Zube to Office."
"Office, go ahead."
"Office, if you could put a call in with the police for the area near Borders, I would appreciate it."
"Say again Zube?"
"Call PD for the sidewalk near Borders. We have a motorcycle parked illegally."
"..."
"It's a... Mitsubishi. Black. License number 3-2-4 Charlie Alpha Foxtrot."
"..."
"Confirm you've got the plate number, office?"
"What is the problem with this vehicle, Zube?"
"It's been parked in the Chili's to go fifteen minute parking for twenty minutes."
"10-4."
"..."
"..."
"Office, have you contacted PD regarding that motorcycle?"
"No."
"10-4." You could hear the pouting.

This sort've shit always cracked me and Dave up. See, we didn't give a shit about what went on around the mall most of the time. If we were doing something (like kicking out the mallrats), it was to keep the boss off our ass or because it was sufficiently hilarious to do anyways. Zube did it because he had a hardon for the authority the shitty tin badge gave him. He did it because it was one long cop LARP for him.

Which was hilarious to watch. Zube would look for a missing CD like he was hunting bin Laden. If there was a rumor someone was planning on stink-bombing the food court, Zube would be on the lookout like someone had just called in a nuclear bomb threat.

It was funny to watch for us. For the boss, it was a pile of trouble as Zube would jump on just about anything and act in his trademark "professional" manner - which usually meant asking for police to be dispatched immediately and then attempting to handcuff the living fuck out of whoever had provoked him. This was occasionally pretty useful - Zube was like a walking citizens-arrest cruise missile if you knew how to lead him on.

Which was nice. Why? Because if you were the one doing the arrest, you were also the one doing paperwork. Paperwork is boring. It means sitting in the office (the one with no AC that smells a bit like piss), with the boss sitting over your shoulder, scrawling out half a dozen pages about the dumbfuck mallrat you hooked when he tried to steal a trucker hat from one of the mall stands.

Zube loved doing paperwork.

So that was his role. He was the guy that we'd call for 'backup' when an arrest was going to have to be made, but none of use really felt like jumping on the grenade of a few hours in the stinkbin engaging in some creative writing.

One of the bookstores in the mall left their remaindered magazines in one of the hallways. Technically they were off limits, but fuck that, this was free access to nerding materials like Dragon magazine, full of random ass shit for D&D. I'd make a pass once a month or so just to see if there was anything worth grabbing, and stowed most of them in my locker for break time reading or for flipping through when I got parking lot duty.

Which was great, until Zube opened my locker by accident one day, and decided that I was a satanist.

I caught him flipping through one of the magazines when I came in on break.

"Oh hey Zube," I said, "didn't think you were into D&D."

He looked up at me. "I'm not. I'm studying it."

"Studying huh? You should try to find a group sometime-"

"I am going to save your soul, Gilbert."

"What?"

So it became Zube's mission in life to show me the sinfulness of my ways. Which was hilarious, because his conception of what a D&D session involved was blood sacrifices and casting spells to control peoples minds.

"I know you've tried casting them on me fourteen. But god protects me."

"Well, okay then," I replied.

Outrim 4

It took two decades for the mystery of KT-39925541-A to be investigated by a manned expedition. The expanding bubble of Human-Majir space contained a multitude of strange phenomena, after all. The expedition, funded by The University of Mumbai (the premier place of higher education for astronomical studies), was a small one. Barely two dozen people in a refurbished transport crammed with sensors and scientific equipment. The crew, mostly composed of tenured professors, graduate students, and a few lucky undergraduate workers were to carry out a series of investigations before reaching KT-39925541-A. It was almost two years before the expedition reached Noviy Moscow - the colony world closest to the object. A young colony world, Noviy Moscow had become embroiled in a civil war. Though the population of the colony barely reached ten thousand people, the divide was bitter. The expedition had been able to take on supplies, but little else.

They made the jump to KT-39925541-A without incident. What transpired after that is a matter of some confusion. What is known was based entirely on the testimony of a few survivors. Unfortunately, none of the expeditions leadership was among them.

On initial scan, the object appeared to be an exceptionally large planet. Though it radiated in the low infrared spectrum, it's emissions were too weak to be that of a star. Further scans puzzled the scientists, as they came back reporting a solid surface, rather than the gases expected. This was extremely unusual - the largest terran world discovered thus far had massed just over eight times Earth. This object was estimated to be about the mass of Jupiter - if the readings were correct, this was a staggering discovery.

The team launched it's entire stock of probes and made a slow approach. Their automated systems confirmed what their initial examination had suggested, and more. The object was solid - at least, the exterior was - and composed of what appeared to be a complex alloy of several esoteric forms of common metals, with a faint dusting of transuranics and unidentifiable compounds.

The first visuals sent back by the probes revealed a massive world scarred by eons of impacts. Massive craters dotted it's surface. Closer examination yielded even more startling results - several of the craters were not craters at all, but massive, incredibly deep tunnels extending into the objects interior. These openings were clearly manufactured - their edges were far too regular, their sides too smooth to be the result of random action. Their spacing was improbably irregular as well - one at each pole, then a series of eight 'rows' of eight tunnels down to the equator. This pattern was mirrored on both hemispheres, and eight more tunnels were arranged along the equator. In total, the team cataloged 

nearly one hundred and forty major entries to the sphere, and as many as a thousand smaller ones. 

The university team named it Shiva. They sent an enormous burst of data back to Noviy Moscow and made their approach. Unknown to them at that time, the primary receptor array of the Noviy Moscow colony had been destroyed in the fighting, and their message lost.

The first man to set foot on Shiva was Dr. Mohinder Sengupta, a professor of Geology and Materials Engineering. The second and those following were his student assistants. His first words on the surface of the sphere were: "It reminds me of the moon, only less." The surface was bleak, plain, and contained little variation on initial inspection.  With samples duly collected, all recoverable probes were used to probe the tunnels nearest the teams landing site. With a diameter of just over a million kilometers to deal with, the team restricted itself to a single major tunnel for investigation. 

Gravity on the surface was minimal, just over a tenth of one gravity. The base camp consisted mostly of one of the ships shuttles. No crew remained on the surface for more than eight hours. Recovered journals and other sources indicate a sense of unease among those that visited the surface - a sense of unbelonging. 

Nevertheless, when the first probes returned messages indicating that the tunnel itself was safe for human transit (i.e, no lethal radiations or other hazards) the expedition leadership granted Dr.'s Scott and Sengupta permission to lead an exploratory team into Shiva. The probes had not yet found the bottom. There were obstructions - vast pylons that occasionally bridged the tunnel, but they were no impediment.

The first ten kilometers of the tunnel were solid wall, much like the surface. Then came the window. The walls became a massive transparent tube with walls of esoteric polymers. Analysis indicated that the walls were nearly a mile thick with an astonishingly low rate of diffraction - the clearest glass any human had ever encountered. Beyond was a vast, inky blackness - liquid water. A staggeringly enormous sea, without a single source of light. It filled the space beyond entirely. A billion cubic kilometers of water.

Their continued descent revealed yet more wonders. After nearly 4,000 kilometers of descent, they found a floor to this ocean. Another ten kilometers of solid wall followed, before the tunnel revealed another level. Four thousand kilometers of open space. The tunnel reverted to a arc, leaving it open to  the vacuum that filled most of the level - but for it's lowest portions which contained, tantalizingly, clouds. A diffuse atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and methane covered the lower portion of this shell - beneath were mountains and forests, a massive ecosystem stretching as far as the eye could see. Gravity here was still quite weak. The team considered a landing before concerns regarding fuel and safety prohibited it - the issue being that the tunnel became a cylinder once more well outside the levels atmosphere, requiring a lengthy ascent to access it. 

It was around this time that the first probe reached a depth of about 120,000 kilometers inside Shiva. It's last transmission before crashing showed a rather abrupt, featureless wall - the bottom of the tunnel, just 30,000 kilometers short of the spheres core.  

***

This has been slowly being expanded for about a month now - most of what has stopped or slowed me down is another project (a fantasy story that's weighing in at about 7500 words that I've hit a nasty patch of writers block with, but that I would really like to continue expanding) and being a lazy fuck in general. There is one post remaining before Outrim becomes a 'completed' setting, ready for use in fiction or gaming. References for this bit and places I've stolen from include Iain M Banks' "Matter", Larry Niven's"Ringworld", and Clarke's Rama. Additionally, movies like Camerons "Avatar" and The Abyss has been inspirations in terms of visuals (the biota of Pandora and the terror-wonder of the deep oceans). Games that have provided influence include "The Dig", an old adventure game, and Blue Planet - one of the few roleplaying games where scientific discovery and adventure are given as much attention as the combat system.

UFP

The ground was hot against my feet, through my boots. The soil here was ash, gray and powdery. Behind me, a plume of it rose, disturbed by my pounding feet. Looking back, I could see still more, pursuing me. The sun shone in my eyes, swollen and red as it fell toward the horizon. Night would fall quickly once it set - I had to find shelter before then, or risk fleeing on an open plain when I couldn't see, and those that chased me could.

I could not help but marvel, as I ran. She had set her fathers Hounds on me, of all things. Me, a simple (if valued) man-slave. One in a position that for most of the altii was little more than another accessory, chosen for fashion and utility, and little more. Not even a particularly valuable one, for how could one put much value on a slave you someday must send to their death?

The idea of escape came to me years ago. The opportunity took much longer. My mistress was a kind one, but I still wore the collar. So when I found the chance, I ran.

I was running still. The too-soft ground was not kind to my aching feet, nor was the hot air much good to my burning lungs. I was on the edge of the empire, a days ride from the free lands of men. Heartbreakingly close to freedom. Across the chain of volcanoes the altii called the Emperors Breath, and (so the stories told) I would find green hills and other escaped slaves, living as equals.

I would never see it. I felt that, burning in my chest beside the demands for air and cool water. Had I evaded my trackers for another day yet, I might have crossed. Now, however, my chances were slim. 

I almost passed over the defile when I first saw it. It was a narrow canyon, at the base of one of the smaller volcanoes. The crevasse was dark, and wide enough for a man to walk down with his arms spread, but no more. It would do. I dashed inside, stumbling when I found hard rock instead of soft ash beneath my feet. I careened off the wall and fell, my pack skittering across the smooth stone to stop hardly two hands breadths from the lava flow at the end of the defile.

It was a slow flow, a gentle eruption of the fires under the earth. It was advancing at perhaps the length of a knuckle every breath. It was cool for what it was, I knew, but the even still the heat of it so close took my breath away. I had, as the proverb went, gone from the pan straight into the fire.

The strap of my pack had just begun to catch fire when I snatched it back, rolling onto my backside and scuttling back a few yards. I could hear one of the Hounds in the near distance, baying. It's sound was like a low, sad song, thin and mournful. I would make my stand here. If I could dispatch the Hounds before she came, I could escape once more, perhaps. My mind seized on that fragile hope, calming my shaking hands as I searched through my bag. The last of my druj was thankfully unharmed, the tiny vial uncracked despite the ride it had taken in my pack. 

Hurriedly, I uncorked it and knelt, facing the flow of molten rock. Closing my eyes, I called up the symbols of earth and fire in my mind, and made them one. I dipped my fingers into the vial, feeling the familiar sting of the druj as it touched my skin. I leant forward, slowly, and touched my fingers to the stone. I hissed in pain - the rock was uncomfortably hot, and only growing hotter as I inscribed the combined symbol. 

When I opened my eyes, the druj was glowing brightly, burning my eyes with it's white-blue radiance. Just beyond, the molten rock had stopped, as if it had met a solid wall. In a way, it had. My ward complete, and holding strongly, I wiped the last, wasted scraps of the druj from my fingers, and stood.

The baying of the Hounds sounded again, far closer. The closest of them, it's call high and clear, came from the canyons mouth. I licked my lips, regretting that I would not have a chance to take a drink before what was to come. I took a deep breath - the air was cool now, deprived of the magmas heat - and drew my sword. 

It was a slender thing, sharp and quick. A duelists weapon, made to kill men. It was woefully inadequate on the battlefield or against an armored man. Or, for that matter, against one of the altii's beasts. It was, however, all that I had. I kicked my pack behind me just as the first Hound padded down the stone toward me.

I had never seen on of the Hounds before so closely. Half as tall as a man at the shoulder, they resemble no dog I have ever seen. Hairless, with skin that is smooth and over their bodies. In color they vary greatly - the one that stood before me was jet black. Further back, I could see another, with dark red or orange skin, pausing at the entry to howl to it's packmates.

The black Hound stopped just more than fifteen feet from where I stood. It turned it's elongated head to watch me, it's dark, burning eyes regarding me from first one side of its skull, and then the other. It sniffed, letting out a deep, wheezing sound before growling, baring  it's enormous, gray-yellow teeth.

I tensed, waiting for the beasts next move. It shifted, massive muscles coiling under it's skin. The growl grew deeper. That was a sound I knew - the sound the altii had trained them for, and the one that every slave knew. That sound demanded submission, instantly and absolutely. It was the sound I had heard when my mistresses father put down one of the great revolts, when I was hardly more than a child. It had terrified me back then, a deep rumbling that implied a swift death would soon follow, even to one as innocent as myself back then.

Being up close, and far less innocent, I felt a tremor run over me. My knees buckled, but only for an instant. One of my caste is made of sterner stuff than most. Ironic that what my masters had trained me for was the thing that would give me freedom. Or kill me. Before conscious thought pushed me to my knees, I was moving. Instinct is a virtue for a duelist, one that is honed early and often. The Hounds head was still turned to one side, one beady eye fixed on me. It flinched as I charged, then let out an outraged croak as the tip of my sword slipped between it's throat and collarbone.

All this took perhaps half a breath. The beast took just a moment longer in dying, slumping to the ground and nearly dragging me down with it. It let out a small, anguished sound as it expired, it's heart punctured neatly. Hot blood covered my hand and the sword's hilt. I yanked it out, clumsily, just in time to see the red Hound coming. It charged the moment it's companion fell, making no sound as it launched itself, powerful hind legs throwing itself bodily toward me. 

Instinct saved me yet again. I obeyed my shrieking mind and threw myself down, landing in the rapidly pooling blood of the dead Hound. The leaping beast soared over me, it's powerful jump carrying it well past where I had stood. Past my ward, through it, and into the liquid rock. It shrieked in pain - a startlingly human sound, flailing as it sank into the burning stone. It was only feet from my barrier, but it stood no chance. 

In it's own way, the dying beast was my undoing. I stood, shakily, and stared in shock. I chided myself for forgetting flesh as one of the elements of my ward. It could have been me falling through the barrier and into the molten rock, or an innocent. I had enough time to just begin considering giving the poor beast quick release when another crashed into me, smashing me bodily to the stone floor. It's mouth latched over my shoulder, crushing teeth biting against me.

I screamed, half in shock, half in outrage. I had kept a hold on my sword, and I was fortunate enough to find it in my free hand. I reversed my grip, nearly losing it when the Hound jerked it's head, shaking me like a toy - demanding my submission in no uncertain terms. The first warning for an unruly slave is the presence of the hound. Then comes the growl. Then the soft bite - the bite that only snapped limbs. After that, the hound would tear them off. I had little time.

I felt the bones of my shoulder creak, then pop, crushed by the beasts jaw. I shrieked in pain. While I did, my unconcious mind took over, and my sword found the Hound's eye, and stabbed. I threw all of my strength against it. For a moment, I felt the jaws tighten as the beast spasmed, before it crashed down in a heap. Sobbing in agony, my free hand slippery with blood and the humors of the Hounds eye, I prised it's jaw open, and slipped my ruined shoulder free. 

I could not move my left arm at all. It hung, useless, at my side, my shoulder a mass of agony. I was not bleeding, but I was broken. Without aid, I would be dead from an imbalance of my humors, or lose my arm to gangrene, or, best of all options, it would heal a splintered mass, and I would never use my arm again. 

Another growl drew my attention. A final hound stood, half a dozen yards away, ready to leap. Alabaster skin and red eyes. To my pain-hazed vision, it looked like death. I could see what would happen - I would dive for my sword. The Hound would leap. It would catch my head in it's jaws, or my neck, and I would be dead. I had no choice.

"Hold," she said. The Hounds massive head turned back toward then entrance, and it cringed. Standing there was my mistress, the lady Anastriana ko'Madrat fer Teneis. Ana, to her friends. The woman that owned me. My oppressor. My closest friend. My childhood rival. The only person in all the world I had ever admitted in my heart-of-hearts to loving more than I loved myself.

She was short for an altii, with a compact build. Broad shoulders and strong arms, running down to a toned core. Her hair was copper red, like most of her people. Her cheekbones were high, regal, and covered with furrows resembling scars, forming an intricate web that stretched from just beside her nose along the bone, until it disappeared beneath her hair. It was this that marked her, indisputably, as one of the altii. These markings were glowing faintly - she was angry, but not enough to let it show in a more conventional sense. 

"You've made a mess of yourself, Airk." She said, quietly. She stepped forward, her armor creaking faintly. She laid a hand on the remaining Hounds head. Her bright yellow eyes finally left mine, moving over the two dead Hounds bodies, and the burning remains of the third. "A mess of the family property, too."

"Small sins, for one that runs." I said. She flinched, then nodded. She pursed her lips for a moment, her marks fading.

"I mistreated you." She said.

"Yes."

"But that isn't why you ran."

"No."

She closed her eyes, drawing herself up with a deep breath. "Tell me why." She said. Her tone was level.

"I'm a free man, Ana. If I have to die, it'll be a death of my own choosing."

She remained quite still as I spoke. Her eyes closed, her expression peaceful. "What am I, then?"

I paused. "A loyal servant of the emperor. Your fathers daughter. A soldier of your house."

She nodded, fractionally. Her eyes opened, brilliant yellow finding mine. "You are what you say you are, and I am what you say I am." She turned, slowly. "Come." She beckoned. "If you must fight me, do it under the open sky."

***

I never met my mother. I was taken from her, nothing more than a squalling baby, hardly more than a few months old. She'd be a seamstress for an altii household and when the yearly tithe came due I was what they came for. I learned to walk in a barracks, trained from the moment I could stand in the art of battle. My bunkmates were the closest thing I had to family. We trained together. Ate together. Slept in the barracks as a unit. We fought, both to hone what we were taught, and among ourselves for scraps or favors from the guards.

I was happiest then. I knew nothing else, and so I found nothing wrong with my life. I grew into a wiry boy, skinnier than my barracks-mates, but faster than them, sly and quick to find advantage. It was those qualities that drew the trainers eyes.

So I was plucked from the barracks in the dead of night, given a room to myself and clean clothes. In the mornings, I practiced with other boys like myself, training with wooden swords as slim as reeds. It was combat still, but different from the brawling I had learnt before. This was the duel, the purest expression of violence in the empire.

In the afternoons, we sat together in the shade, and learned our letters. Scrawling them into the sand. Again, I drew my teachers attention with clean, neat lines and quick fingers.

I was given additional work, told to copy strange symbols, and to memorize them until I could reproduce and combine them without effort. I did not know it then, but they were teaching me the first tenets of warding - the magic of barriers and secrets.

When I was twelve, they revealed to me the purpose behind my lessons. I can still recall the first time I touched the druj, feeling it's icy, burning touch on my fingers. The marvels it created - invisible walls that blocked only flesh, or wood, or flame, or sound. I learnt the combinations of symbols, and the properties of my wards. The more complex the powers or shape of a ward became, the weaker it would be. More of the precious druj would strengthen them, but no barrier could last forever.

But it was power, and I quickly grew to love it. When I learned what I was trained for, I believed I had found my life's purpose. I was to serve as the warder for one of the altii, a living weapon dedicated to my masters defense, serving at his whim. I would act as his secretary and his servant, perhaps even his confidant. In return for his benevolence, I was to lay down my life for his, or for his honor.

I was fourteen when they declared my training complete, and I was sold. I was fitted for a collar, marked with the sigil of House Teneis. I was allowed to walk unchained in public. The awe that the other slaves I met on my journey fed my young ego. The newly tempered sword riding at my side did as well. The looks of contempt I received from the unruly sorts hardly fazed me - I knew what I was.

When I was delivered to my new home, I expected to be welcomed. Instead, I was beaten by my new lord for the insolence in my greeting. Bruised and bloody, he ordered me to sleep in the stables. For the first time in my life, I wept.

In the morning, I was fed, cleaned, and presented again. My lord laughed at my humbler tone and cuffed me on the ear. "He'll do." He said, his markings blazing.

I was ushered from his court, my ears burning. His captain of the guard, still laughing, brought me to the families quarters. I met my mistress there.

"He's awfully small," she'd said, frowning at her mother. I stared - I was a head and a half taller than she, and armed. Her mother shushed her. "He is yours, child. Your warder. If you'll be a soldier of the house, you'll never be without one." 

She threw a tantrum. I was escorted out, to my quarters - a tiny room attached to hers, and told to unpack. 

She protested my unworthiness by ignoring me. She paid me mind only when we sparred, where she fought with a sort of contained rage that made her small size no disadvantage. She beat me perhaps two times in five, and she never forgave me my victories. Her silence spoke volumes. I followed her, of course, like an obedient dog, but her lack of acknowledgement stung more fiercely than any insult she might have hurled.

I had a sort of freedom, once a day. My mistress was given lessons on history and philosophy. By old decree, no slave was allowed to learn either. They were subjects for free men and the altii, but in slaves did nothing but foment revolt or cause unhappiness. 

If I had been a happy slave, I might have believed that, but I was not. At first, I spent my free hours with the guards, trying strong drink for the first time (and regretting it), or wasting my time gambling with bones. I found no joy in either pursuit, so I decided I would sleep instead.

I did, too, until I discovered that I could draw the door to my little room open the tiniest fraction, and eavesdrop on my ladies lessons. At first it was to occupy my time, until I became addicted. Her tutor was a dry, doddering old altii, but the stories he told set my soul to fire. He spoke of the old world, the time that came before, when the races of the world had been one. Stories rich in metaphor and lessons, with foolish heroes becoming monsters or wise men making fortunes.

I listened daily. I learned. I heard him tell how the altii had come to be - a great experiment by a great nation, making themselves greater than all other men. Gifting themselves with resilience and heightened senses and the markings that set them so apart from their lesser kin, they lost only one thing.

Magic. Their gifts were great, but they had twisted themselves, made themselves unnatural. The loss of a few parlor tricks - albeit useful ones - proved no obstacle, as their nation conquered most of the continent.

It was during a lecture on one of these wars of conquest when she spotted me. I'd become uncomfortable sitting still for so long, and moved, just a fraction of an inch. The noise I made could not have been more than the faintest rustle. Her eyes flickered to my hiding place, and met mine. Her gaze held mine for a long moment, before moving back to her tutor.

She found me afterwards.

"You were listening." She said.

"Yes, mistress."

"You are forbidden to by the emperor, yes?"

"Yes, mistress.

"I could have you killed for this." Her eyes were bright. I cringed.

"Yes, mistress."

"But I won't." She continued.

"I-" I blinked, stumbling over my words. "Yes, mistress." She punched my arm.

"Say something else, idiot. If you're going to listen, start taking notes for me." She sniffed. "My hand gets tired."

"Ye-" I stopped myself. "Of course, mistress."

She punched me again. "Stop that." She growled.

"Stop what?"

"Calling me that! If this were a story, you'd only call me that around my father. Call me my name."

"Forgive me." I resisted the urge to bow and scrape. "I do not know your name."

She turned, regarding me sidelong, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Call me Ana."

***

The sun is just starting to go down as we make our way out onto the plain. Ash is beginning to fall from one of the eruptions nearby. Her packs - a more extensive variety compared to my poor satchel - are set just outside the defile. When I make my way out, she is rifling through them. When she turns, she holds a waterskin. 

"Here," she says, throwing it to me, "drink up." I catch it. My shoulder sends jolts of agony along my side as I twist to keep the skin from hitting the earth. I straighten, slowly, and take a long drink. The water is fresh, sweet. It contains no poison, or drug. My mistress is too honorable for such tricks.

I drain the skin entirely, and toss it back. She tosses it, carelessly, on the ground. "Will you still fight me?" She asks, resting her hands on her hips.

"Yes." I reply thickly. I square my shoulders, ignoring the spasm of agony the motion causes. "Will you?"

She looks down at the ash for a moment, then up, squinting into the setting sun. After a moment she speaks. 

"Yes."

She draws her sword. It could be the twin of the one I carry in a bruised, blood-marked hand. Hers is clean, polished. Mine is caked with blood and worse. She flicks her wrist casually, limbering herself up. She's tense, I can see it, her markings taking on a sheen - signaling her adrenaline, her anticipation.

I bring my sword up, keeping my good side facing her. She makes her way closer, her motions too deliberately casual to be as careless as she's pretending. Her first blow I catch with a quick parry, sending her blade sparking off to one side. I block the next almost as quickly. For a moment, it feels like just another sparring match, like the thousands that had come before.

Then she moves, her motion almost too quick for my eye to follow. She flows to my right, her blade slashing high. I deflect it with a desperate swing and take a step back. My balance is off, and she knows it. She gives me a sudden, fierce grin - I recognize it from our sparring. The look she gets when she thinks she has won.

When she comes at me again, her thrust is low and quick. I step clumsily to one side - my shoulder flares with agony. Her blade slips past my defense, it's path takes it through my shirt, missing my torso. She stumbles as the resistance she expected fails to appear, and there is my chance.

My sword flicks down, catching her across the back of her calf. Her armor splits, and she bleeds. I push her away and stumble back. Her expression is shocked, hurt. She straightens, almost primly, the form of her stance perfect. Her blade comes up. She grimaces in pain, and lunges. Her leg gives out, and she falls. I drop my sword and sink down to the ground, sitting heavily.

"You cut me." She said. She shifted, rolling onto her back and yanking at her sleeve, tearing it. Her marks were blazing.

"You nearly killed me, Ana." I said.

She scowled, tying the fabric around her wound - a simple dressing that wouldn't do her much good for long. "I have every right to have tried." She looked lop-sided now, one side of her clothing a mess of ripped fabric. She takes hold of her sword and tries to stand. She yelps as she puts weight on her injured leg, and falls again. 

"It's a clean cut." I say. "A mender could patch it, surely." I move to rise, to help her, but collapse as my hurt arm collides with the ground, sending pain shooting up the length of me.

"How will I get there?" She asked. "We're fifty miles from a mender at the best, Airk." She pushed herself up onto her knees, her face a mask of pain.

"I'm sorry, Ana." I say.

"Damn you, Airk." She hisses, her voice low, hurt. "I'll die."

What she said was true. Unable to walk, she would last only as long as her supply of water - if the beasts of the wastes did not find her first. "If I leave you, yes," I said.

She paused, her eyes fixed on the ground before her. "But you aren't going to, are you?"

"No."

***

-Life at court with Ana, her coming of age.

-Airk gathering his supplies, spending the night in the defile. He cleans Ana's wound and she sets his shoulder. They talk.

-Flashback to Airks first duel. 

-The long walk back. Both of them are low on food and water, and Airk must carry Ana. 

Outrim 3

The years that followed the treaty of Io saw a vast exodus from Earth. Several of the stars near Sol yielded worlds desirable for colonization - whether for their resources or their habitability. The leash held by the Confederation was a loose one. Gaining permission to found a colony was relatively easy. Corporate and government interests, of course, gained the lions share of the best worlds, claiming those that were already hosting earthlike environments or mineral wealth.

But for hundreds of other groups, the path to the stars was thrown wide. For several million dollars, a few hundred souls could commission their own colony on an uninhabited world. For many, the lives they gained were filled with toil - mining or manufacturing - but their existence was independent. They lived under laws they themselves wrote. 

Through out this era, the Majir stood alongside humanity. Many of the aliens joined human colonization efforts. The Majiran youth, especially, took to human culture like ducks to water. Though still cautious and analytical, they found value in mankinds impulsiveness and desire for improvement. During this period, the first Human-Majir children were born. The Majir were, of course, biologically incompatible with humans (they posessed much of the same sexual traits - however, genetic incompatibilities prevented any live births), but human biotechnology allowed for fetuses to be created through the artificial combination of the parents DNA. The process was expensive, but it yielded the most tangible results of the new alliance - hybrid children.

Twenty-five years after first contact, half a hundred worlds bore a human or Majir colony. The Confederation - now simply the Confederation, as 'Sol' had been dropped when the Majir were brought on as a member state - collected a mild tax from each world. It's coffers swollen, it began several large terraforming projects on promising worlds near Sol and the Majir homeworld, building up a core of garden worlds.

Though mostly peaceful, old enmities and new rivalries flourished in the new, dispersed state of affairs. Groups that had been on the decline in the last century on Earth suddenly found themselves in control of entire worlds. Human-first movements claimed several worlds, prohibiting any Majir from setting foot on their soil. Others did the same, but for ethnicities they found abhorrent. 

It wasn't long before the tension broke. Ironically, the levee gave way on Iuch, a world colonized by extremist Majir, who wished to make the world a monastic retreat limited to their species only. Unfortunately, the world was also prime colonization territory. A human colony was approved despite protests.

One would thing that a continent and an oceans distance would be enough separation for anyone, but things came to a head when the human colony gained permission to begin terraforming. The Majir monks, led by an extremist priest, copied the old human technique of suicide bombing. Hundreds died.

So the human colonies terraforming engineers struck back. A captured comet, intended for adding water to the planets atmosphere via aerobraking, dropped straight on top of the Majir settlement. Wiped them out, ever man woman and child.

It didn't take long for the Confederate government to crack down. The requirements for colonization tightened up significantly. Colonies were no longer allowed to restrict their own membership, and several groups (including the old American KKK) were refused permission for colonization.

Though few of the groups seeking colonization rights were affected by these new rulings, the events that had brought them about put a damper on things. The rate of new worlds being settled slowed from monthly to yearly, and finally to the decade mark. Mankind and the Majir were thinly spread over nearly eighty worlds, most of them living in (relative) harmony.

Nobody thought much of it when a survey drone went silent while taking a closer look at what was thought to be a brown dwarf or rogue gas giant a few parsecs out from Callisto. Not at first, anyways.

Outrim 2

The Majir did not arrive one year later.

 

They arrived eleven months, twenty-six days, and eleven hours from the moment the Xingyun made contact with the probe. There was no visual confirmation of their arrival in the days before. Their ships, a trio of spheres, warped into existence just outside Pluto's orbit. They signaled immediately, broadcasting on all frequencies. Announcing themselves, and asking where the leaders of mankind would like to make formal first contact.

The Sino-American alliance, ascendant in their recent victory, used their recently accrued political capitol to nominate an American research base on Io. The facility would provide the required amenities, with the added benefit of being an acceptable loss if the Majir became hostile.

The Majir assented. Their ships accelerated, moving around 1% of light speed, they entered the Jovian orbit. One month later, representatives of every human nation arrived.

The Majir arrived to a room of diplomats. The head of the UN - Miguel Calvo, was the first to shake hands with the Majiran expeditions leader - a male Majir that called himself Houm. The Secretary General greeted Houm in a short phrase derived from the Majiran language, while Houm replied in English.

"We welcome you as honored guests."

"Your hospitality is well received."

From there, the tone was set. Houm and his comrades had alien mannerisms (for instance, Calvo described Houm as smelling "something like cinnamon mixed with fried pepper"), but had clearly prepared themselves. They understood human body language, and emulated it in themselves. 

The meetings that followed over the next several days revealed the motives of the Majir. They as a species had a history quite similar to that of humanity, though their history had culminated in space flight some centuries earlier, around the eleventh century CE. Their home solar system had been colonized for decades.

It was around this point that the Majir became vague. They spoke of a great tragedy that occured on the eve of their discovery of faster than light travel. System-wide, genocidal warfare between the two great powers. Their homeworld nearly destroyed, many of their colonies annihilated, and, apparently, the instigating faction exiled.

The Majir that had made contact informed their hosts that the war set the Majir back centuries - much of their population was dead, and much knowledge lost. However, with the new FTL technology, they were able to expand to new star systems, some of them with habitable worlds. They controlled a dozen systems and called three livable planets their home.

They had detected human radio broadcasts decades earlier, and had dispatched a probe to observe. They had considered making contact immediately, but caution and curiosity won out. It wasn't until the Xingyun ran across their probe that it was decided that contact would be inevitable.

When asked what the Majir wanted from humanity, Houm looked taken aback. Then, slowly:

"Intelligence is rare. The universe is a cold and lonely place. We would ask you to join us in pushing back the night."

His subordinates handled the filthy details. The Majir, of course, wanted certain things, and offered others. Most tantalizingly, they offered the secrets of faster-than-light travel. Alongside, they offered information on the stars surrounding Earth, new techniques for harvesting helium, and more. They asked for human biotechnological techniques and antigravity technology. 

They also offered alliance. Not subsumation into a greater empire, but a true pairing of equals. When pressed, Houm explained that the Majiran population had still not recovered from the war and following exodus. The humans brought the advantage of numbers and innovation. The Majirans would provide the technology and the knowledge.

And so the Confederation of Sol was born - a loose political organization organized from the skeleton of the UN, uniting human space into a single political unit while leaving the real power in the hands of the great nations and alliances. Miguel Calvo was declared interim president until another representative could be named. The treaty of Io cemented the friendly relations betweeen humans and the Majir. 

They taught us to build Kernel drives - miniature black holes contained by a set of esoteric forces. Under current the holes mass would fluctuate. Run enough current quickly enough, and the whole ball of wax would drop out of realspace into a black nothingness human scientists quickly renamed "hyperspace" when the Majir called it "hell". Travel in this nearby universe happened normally, but by following a set of deeply complicated equations a ship could predict it's destination accurately enough to visit specific stars.

The path to the stars was opening to humanity. First contact yielded friends rather than foes.

In the years that followed, a sense of optimism pervaded human expansion. It was not to last, as the new alliances expansion did not go unnoticed...

Outrim 1

If it hadn't been for Shiegenoi and Kent, humanity would have suffocated. Back in c21 we were sitting on a pressure cooker of ecological collapse and failing economies. The old USA was stumbling, hard, and China was still trapped under the thumb of old Communism. Europe was drawing in on itself. The first space elevator was still just a pipe dream.

Then Jacob Kent and Dr. Shiegenoi stumbled across the KS effect. They cracked gravity. Antigravity was born in 2034. It existed as a curiosity, significant only in scientific circles until, three years later, practical small scale fusion reactors came online. Overnight, reaching orbit went from a price-per-pound in the thousands of dollars down to the hundreds.

The first space elevator dropped that price further still. The cost to reach orbit dropped to the single digits, and the first exodus began. National space programs received another infusion. Governments that lacked access to the equatorial elevators (kept guardedly by the nations of Nauru, Kenya, andL Ecuador) utilized KS-drives to reach orbit. Once there, the solar system was the next step.

Mankind spread through the solar system. The pressure came off Earth. At first, the new frontier meant freedom from government and corporation, but it wasn't long until the crumbling nation-states and business interests reached out as well. Humanity had received a reprieve, but it would not last forever.

The years of the first exodus were a return to exploration and adventure. Any person with the will and a bit of cash could stake a claim on Mars or aboard one of the Venusian aerostats. Asteroid miners pulled resources from the belt into the inner system, feeding a hungry economy back on Earth, and a booming colonization effort on Mars. 

The politics shifted, too. China and the US found themselves uncomfortable bedfellows standing against a resurgent Russia and the rising star of United Subsaharan Africa on the world stage. Europe found itself between two global alliances. South America formed a union modeled on the old EU, while Australia formed the center of the South Pacific Treaty Organization. These blocs became the new political unit as the solar system was tamed, with military cooperation gradually transitioning to diplomatic intimacy, and cultural blending on the frontier. The world stood at peace for nearly half a century, the interests of humanity turning outward.

World War Three never touched the world. Our first war out among the stars saw the casual use of nuclear and fusion weapons and worse. The Sino-American Alliance went to the mat with Russia. The SPTO lost an orbital colony in the first months to a derelict American Cruiser, The Los Angeles, when it's KS-drive was destroyed. Spun into a deliberate attack by the SPTO media, it joined the war on the Russians side. 

Neither side ever secured Earth orbit for itself. That was probably for the best, as it ensured that neither side would be free to undertake bombardment. Rather, the war was fought on the shipping lanes. Commerce raiders - frequently converted freighters themselves - would board and scuttle inbound resource haulers. Standing engagements were rare, as both sides navies chased one another through the asteroid belt and beyond. 

There was a ground war. Mars was the new center of the solar system. The Chinese and the Americans had made the planet their primary colonization concern, and it showed. Armstrong City covered a land area half the size of Los Angeles back in the c21. Two million people called it home. Prospectors, scientists, and hydroponic farmers along with a contingent of American Marines and Chinese specops. 

Russians tried dropping an asteroid on it. Would have succeeded too, if the Xingyun de Shiji, a Chinese asteroid hauler inbound from the belt hadn't run across the rock. The Xingyun put out a distress call to the Sino-American navy with the asteroids telemetry. The news that came back revealed that no other ship could intercept the object - the Xingyun was it. The vessels captain ordered nonessential crew aboard their shuttle, allowing them to continue along the present vector. The Xingyun attached itself to the asteroid and began a hard burn.

It was around then that the ore-haulers communications ceased. No one knew it then, but the Russians came in after the Xingyun. ECM systems on the Russian warship blocked the haulers transmissions. They had the civilians dead to rights until the crew of the shuttle pieced together the situation. They sacrificed themselves in a suicide run against the Russian warship, crippling it. The Xingyun's fuel tanks sustained several hits in the interim. They had enough fuel to yank the asteroid onto a new course, away from Mars, on a trajectory that would carry it out of the solar system.

Carrying the Xingyun with it. The hauler had already been running on a light fuel load on it's way back to the inner system, and the skirmish had only worsened it's situation. Altering the asteroids course had placed them in an untenable position. They lacked the fuel to escape - and the new course would carry them out into the oort cloud over the space of a year. They were moving faster than any humans had in recorded history.

All of this played out on live (speed of light delayed) media. The story played out over a space of days. Starting with terror at the prospect of an asteroid impact on inhabited Mars, it transitioned to a triumphal tone as the success of the Xingyun was revealed. Then shock and horror at their plight. The war trickled to a stop as the Xingyun raced through the inner system. The ten crew members on board acquired a morbid celebrity - dead men that gave interviews. Doomed to die and drift out into extrasolar space.

Rescues were planned - including a high profile mission by a Russian trillionaire. One by one, they failed. The haulers speed was too great, it's course taking it well beyond the reaches of any ship that would have the capacity to return. Gradually, the tragedy of the Xingyun faded to updates regarding its position and quotes from the crew. The peace brokered between a chastened Russia and a relieved Sino-American alliance was an equitable one. Russia's star had fallen, however. Several clauses in the treaty forbade the nation from utilizing asteroids as resources, citing the Xingyun disaster.

Life returned, for awhile, to normal. The Xingyun slipped from the minds of most. It wasn't forgotten, precisely, but it had been accepted that there was little to be done for them. Several men aboard commited suicide. Three of them placed themselves in suspended animation. Five opted to remain, awake and working. They had food that would support them for several years. They had water, mined directly from the asteroid that doomed them. They performed voluntary scientific work for Armstrong University, using the haulers sensors for an 'up close' look at the Oort cloud. 

The crew, two Americans, Two Chinese, and a lone Canadian, were the first humans to leave the solar system. Two years after their sacrifice, the Xingyun entered the Oort cloud. The hauler was gradually decaying, losing power as the light of the sun grew weaker and components began to fail. 

Then they found It.

It was a sphere. It's diameter was around a kilometer, and when the hauler first picked it up on sensors, the crew assumed it was a comet or an undocumented dwarf planet. At the behest of the university in Armstrong, the Xingyun focused it's last dregs of power on scanning the object.

It scanned them back. Then it moved, accelerating faster than anything before seen. 

When the news reached the inner system, it exploded across the net in a matter of hours. The Xingyun was back in headlines. Over the space of hours, It approached the Xingyun and matched velocities. Then, a conversation of sorts began. The crew endured frostbite as heating systems shut down to keep communications up. The object, after being dutifully pinged and inspected by the haulers systems, transmitted a heavily compressed file to the hauler. Several days later, the communications engineer - Adrianna Gutierrez - unlocked its formatting. She discovered that the message was a dense set of text - a sort of Rosetta stone, translating English and Chinese into two other written languages. 

Two shorter messages were also attached. The first was "Welcome. Your ascent was faster than expected. We bring peace. We are the Majir, and we are your neighbors. If you allow us, we seek your friendship." An image was attached - it depicted a humanoid creature, standing around two meters in height. For an alien, it's appearance was shockingly human. Their hands and feet bore six digits. Their eyes no iris. The hair on it's head was thick and not hair at all - rather a complex bundle of nerves extending from their scalp. Their skin ranged from grayish to pink. Images of their homeworld followed - another Earth. This one with an orange sun and purple-black plants, but another Earth nonetheless. It lay startlingly close, just eighty-five light years from Sol. The message ended simply - "Estimated Time of Contact - one year."

The second message was smaller, shorter. It read "Do you require assistance?"

The Xingyu was saved. It was a probe, a gatekeeper to the space outside the solar system, sent to monitor humanity until it left the cradle. According to It - or rather, the AI running It - the object was just under one hundred years of age, and perfectly capable of hauling the stricken ore carrier back to the inner system.

The net exploded. Humanities first contact happened well outside any government control. The message was transmitted to all of human space by both the Xingyun and radical elements within Armstrong University. The year that followed was filled with the best and the worst humanity had to offer - the UN became a resurgent force, seeking to unite humanity in name at least, before the projected arrival of the Majir. Two months after the major alliances signed the Oregon protocols, uniting them as a loose confederation, the Nauru space elevator crashed to Earth as a result of newly energized fundamentalist terrorism. The impact devastated the south Pacific, and several lesser attacks followed.

Despite the setbacks, humanity found itself united. Sometimes grudgingly, but united nonetheless. The message from the Majir was one of benevolence, but human history had aptly demonstrated that even the kindest of smiles could conceal a dagger. The union was partially a sign of goodwill on the eve of first contact. 

It was also a military alliance, should the worst come.

[From the Plaza]

They offered me an extra fifty cents an hour if I worked graveyard shift, and I told them no. I liked being around people, even if it meant having to actually do what I was paid to. Graveyard meant a lot of solitude, on your lonesome but for a voice on the other side of the radio, in an unnaturally empty mall. The sorts that ended up working the shift were the fuckups and the weirdos and the folks to whom an extra 20 bucks every paycheck made it worthwhile.

I got stuck working it a few times. Shift always had a high turnover. Folks would fall asleep on duty or steal something, or just quit when they went crazy from the monotony. 

Graveyard shift wasn't a happy place to be.

I always smuggled a book with me when I worked, no matter the shift. Some trashy scifi novel most of the time. Something to read on the frequent snatches of break I took. Graves shift, book was even more important. On graves, a good book might be the only thing that kept you from going crazy from the boredom. Spent a week showing up to work at ten pm. Uniform pressed and perfect until the boss was gone and then it was pretty much casual night. Sitting in the security pickup, radio turned up and book in front of my face. Maybe a cigarette dangling out the window. Reading by the sterile light of parking structure lamps. Watching the traffic on the highway thin til you could have laid down in the middle of it at four am for a quick nap and never feel the breeze of a passing car.

Sitting around with TJ, smoking and bullshitting. Talking about his plans to join the Coast Guard (he'd never been on a boat) and my own dreams of being a cop (which, in retrospect, is even more ludicrous than TJ's armed service career). Breaking the rules by moving around as a pair. Company wanted us separate. Keep us apart to cover more ground. We said "fuck that" and moved as a pair when we could. 

He never mentioned his cousin. I never asked. TJ was a good Dude - he understood the Dudes code, and that some things just aren't for talking about.

Sitting in the parking lot at three AM in the pickup, reading. Radio beeps an alarm. Means a store alarms going off. TJ sends me over to take a look. Shattered glass on the sidewalk. Broken window behind the security fence. Teen aged assholes, not burglars.  Sitting on the bench nearby reading and waiting for the cops to show up. Night guard for the Mervyns next door came out to shoot the shit and ask for a smoke. Cops showed up and I signed off on their report and it was back to the night.

Sitting in the lot, five AM. Watching the city wake up. IHOP across the street opens. Realize I forgot to eat for the last ten hours. Have a cigarette to take the edge off. Chase the homeless guy digging through the trash bins behind one of the restraunts. After he leaves I take a look at the mess and the smell makes me gag. He'd taken a shit back there before foraging for scraps. I call TJ and he leaves the poor bastards in housekeeping a note.

Six AM, and Carnell signs off on my log and me and TJ grab coffee and breakfast across the way. Waitress is bleary eyed. Suns just coming up when the pancakes show. Casts the whole world in yellow and red. It's going to be a beautiful day I think to myself, tucking into my short stack. Too bad I ain't gonna see it. 

An hour later, I'm home. Sleep in my clothes. Don't even get my shoes off. I wake up at eight PM to the sounds of my room-mates partying, and I don't bother showering. I have a beer for my breakfast, and go to work.

Morning

Wake up at eight

with four hours sleep.

Roll over, find a beer

and sip.

Quiet conversation

while she puts on her shoes.

Dozing and listening

to the screen door slam.

When sleep comes again,

I call it mercy.