Chapter Two

The second installment of my upcoming science fiction novel.

Chapter Two

Adam didn’t like jail. He didn’t like the idea of being holed up, behind bulletproof glass with air holes, like some sort of zoo animal. He’d tried explaining to the ASF a******s that put him in this cell that this was all some big misunderstanding, but they didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t blame them. After all, he’d killed two ASF officers. He could imagine how they might take that personal.

He’d barely been back on Sentinel II for ten minutes before he’d had cuffs slapped on his wrists. They could have at least given him time to collect his paycheck. But when you’re a cop-killer, they really don’t care about your problems anymore. Quite frankly, he was surprised that he hadn’t been called into a private room for some sort of “discussion”. A discussion, he imagined, would be between him and a few batons.

This is what happens when you take s**t jobs with s**t pay out of some sort of “moral obligation”. Every time he threw feelings into the mix, things got complicated. He needed to remind himself of this next time someone gave him a sob story. But still…what kind of heartless b*****d would let a man live with his daughter being kidnapped?

Adam sat on a long stretch of bench that jutted seamlessly out of the concrete wall, his head tilted back as he stared at the ceiling. What was the punishment for killing ASF soldiers? He’d once had to make a visit to one of the many penal facilities past Sentinel IV. It was the only building on a floating rock, in the middle of a giant belt of floating rocks. He was told that the prisoners there would sometimes be taken out to other asteroids to work the mines. He didn’t much like the idea of having to spend time on one of those places.

“--out of your minds? The report was sent out this morning! Open this door already,” said a voice from the doors leading to Adam’s hall. He turned his head and looked over as a man dressed in a white and gold uniform came marching in, hat under his arm, flanked by two men in black military ASF suits. The man, a red-haired man in his late thirties, approached Adam’s cell. Adam grinned widely.

“Delvin! S**t, is it good to see you!” Adam exclaimed, a slight tilt rising at the edge of his words, belying a faint Irish accent that had yet to fully disappear. The man, Delvin, shook his head.

“Good for you. A bloody f****n’ headache on my end. Go on, get this man out of here. Unlock those doors,” he said, addressing one of the uniformed soldiers. The man quickly slid a passcard across a flat panel by the door. It slid open and within seconds Adam was out of the cell. He pulled Delvin into a hug, before letting go so the ASF officer could lead the way out.

“I was starting to wonder. Can you believe this s**t? I’m gonna have to ask for a pay bonus after this fiasco,” he said, shaking his head. They walked out of the hallway and into the main corridor. They were standing in the central security checkpoint for Sentinel II. Desks were crammed into every available space, people rushed by them in a hurried frenzy, while security personnel escorted newly arrested criminals to the holding areas. Sentinel II was the busiest Alliance space station in the solar system.

“You’re lucky I managed to get you out at all. You shot and killed two ASF Lieutenants. And don’t go on about how they were corrupt. I know, I did my research. To think that two men in our system were contributing to human trafficking,” Delvin said, shaking his head. Adam just shrugged, taking his jacket and his gun from a large metal box that was waiting for him at the front desk. He placed the handgun in the holster beneath his armpit and pulled the jacket on over it.

“Right? Corruption in the ASF? Who’d of thought?” Adam said with a smirk.

“There was a time when you could trust the man next to you…,” Delvin said. Adam rolled his eyes.

“God, you and Gavin. If I have to hear about the golden days of honor and morals amongst the ASF one more time…,” Adam said, shaking his head and signing a clipboard that the lady behind the front counter shoved his way. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette, placing it between his lips before taking a few steps towards the door. “Look, thanks for bailing me out, Delvs, but I’ve got a paycheck I need to collect on. Send me a message sometime, we’ll get a beer,” he said, turning towards the door.

“Adam, there’s one more thing…,” Delvin said, just as Adam was about to walk out into the halls of Sentinel II.

“Look, we’ll catch up later. I’ve really got to…,”

“Adam, it’s about Gavin…,” Adam stopped in his tracks, turning to look at Delvin with a sinking feeling in his gut. Looking back, he couldn’t remember exactly what Delvin said. He’d known the words that were coming just by looking at his eyes. He didn’t go after that paycheck. They didn’t have that beer. His only clear memory after that was of starting up his ship and setting a path for Earth. The controls were keyed in, the destination set, and he sat down in the cockpit with a numbness that just crept its way deeper into his bones. As Earth came into view around the moon, he lit up a cigarette and tried to think of anything other than Gavin…

　

~::~

　

Adam hated this city. When he learned that Gavin had decided to settle down in this s**t hole, he almost didn’t believe it. The irony of it was almost too much. Adam had escaped this hell-hole by joining the old man’s crew, and when the crew disbanded, the man decided to retire in the very place Adam had fled from. It was hard to believe. And once again, Solomon City has robbed another good man of his life…

Adam had spent nearly an hour just sitting on his ship, staring out the cockpit window at the trash-strewn streets. Rain pattered against the glass, tracing lines that blurred into each other on their slow descent. F**k..., he thought, for what must have been the hundredth time since he docked at the Solomon City Docking Port.

Staring out at these streets, he’d been surprised by just how many old thoughts and emotions came back to him. The image of an eleven year old boy, clinging to the bloody stump where his arm used to be. He was sure he’d never come back to this damnable city ever again. You just had to go and die here, of all places, didn’t you? Probably laughed about it…

“Oh, to hell with it,” he said, standing up and walking out of the cockpit. It almost felt wrong, walking through the halls of this ship. After all, it had been Gavin’s ship. Why he’d chosen to give it to Adam, of all people, was beyond him. He’d always seen more in people than most did, and it was evident when it came to Adam. He wasn’t exactly the prize child most would think. Sure, he was good at his job. And sure, even being one of the younger members of the old crew, he’d led most of the missions. But it wasn’t because of his wonderful character. It was because of his skill. Most of the lessons on life that Gavin drilled into Adam’s head had fallen on deaf ears.

P A L A D I N was a beautiful ship, that was to be sure. It was one of only a few hundred Redmar XII Battlecruisers that were ever put into production. Out of those couple hundred, most of them had been destroyed or wound up in ill-repair. They didn’t discontinue production because the ship wasn’t good. No, there was some legal reason behind all of that. It was a pity, because the ship was definitely a goddess in the heavens. It was spacious enough to comfortably allow a crew of twenty to live in it, which was exactly what you needed if you were going to be spending any sort of time traveling in space. But in a battle? Well, Adam wasn’t that great of a pilot, but back when Evy was behind the controls this ship had gotten them out of many tough situations.

As his thoughts traveled to Evy he paused, thinking to the reason behind his visit once again. I wonder if she’ll be here…, he wondered. In fact, he wondered how many of the old crew would show up. Odd that they should all get back together for such a horrible reason. Alright, enough with memory lane, man. You’ll be late.

He made it to his quarters, changing out of his plain clothes and into a black suit. The process was slow. Painful. He was surprised he could keep his hand steady as he fixed the cuffs on his coat, straightening his black tie in the mirror. A man in his late twenties stared back at him. He considered shaving, cleaning up a little bit. But the five o’clock shadow he had wasn’t that bad, and he was already running late. He took a deep breath, steadying himself for everything that was to come. The reason behind his visit. The city he was walking into. The memories that would come because of both. The good and the bad, all meeting in one place. No wonder it was storming outside.

Why this city, of all cities? he wondered, once again. Sighing he lit a placed a cigarette between his lips and turned, walking out of his room and through the halls of the battlecruiser. He stepped out through the exit door and down the ramp, leading into the sleek hallways of the Solomon City Docking Port, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lip, hands in his pocket.

Out on the streets, it would be hard to tell right away that you’d just stepped into hell. The Port was in the upper echelon of Solomon City. All sleek white walls, glass buildings, and neon signs. You’d think you were in garden-girdled Babylon. But as he hopped in the cab and was led further south into the city, you realized the truth. It wasn’t Babylon. You were in Sodom, on the eve of it’s destruction. The sleek buildings became old and decrepit. The neon signs here only accomplished casting vague shadows on the dirty, mud-filled streets and alleys. Call girls called out the cab as they drove by. At one point he saw two people huddled around the unmoving form of a body in an alley, the flash of a needle seen just before they passed by.

“Home, sweet home,” he said, with a slight shake of his head. At those words, his cab driver looked back at him in the rearview mirror.

“You from here?” he asked, as if a little surprised. It must have been the suit that threw him off. Adam still had a recent cut across his brow, covered with a small bandage and the look that told most people that he got in his fair share of trouble. He figured it must have something to do with the tattoos, because it wasn’t his dashing grin.

“Yeah, a long time ago. I used to live over in the old Danville Building on Cashfield,” he said, glancing up at the man. He was a heavy set man, with a thick neck that hinted at the tribal tattoos he must have underneath his shirt. His head was shaved bald and he stared out from behind a pair of lightly tinted glasses. He looked like an islander, maybe, with his caramel coloured skin tone and the dark colour of his hair.

“Aww, man, I hope you weren’t planning on visiting old family or nothin’,” he said, shaking his head and looking back at him once again. Before Adam could ask what he meant, he told him. “That place was leveled. Blew up. Some junkie had a lab in there and it caught the whole place on fire and it burned to the ground. At least, that’s what the news said…”

Adam thought back to the s****y apartment buildings he’d grown up in as a kid. Before the incident. He thought back to that eleven year old boy, holding onto the bloody stump where his arm used to be. Then he thought about the building, laying in a pile of ash. He was happy. In fact, he was only upset that it hadn’t been him who had done it.

“Nah, I’m here for a funeral,” he said, staring back out the window. The man said something about how he was sorry, but at that point in time Adam wasn’t listening anymore. He simply watched as people rushed around, hiding from the rain. Sodom’s people fleeing from the wrath of heaven…

He perked up as he saw a familiar looking building, neon sign flashing through the thin grey curtain of rain. The sign proclaimed it as Donny’s Bar. You could see where a sign had once read Levitto’s, the faint outline of the letters showing on the paint above the door like a dirty tan-line. Right next door was another small bar with a sign that said Patty’s Pub.

“Hey, let me out here, I’m gonna walk,” he said. The cab driver pulled over to the side of the road and Adam quickly scanned his wrist across the door handle. A few dollar signs lit up on the bracelet around his wrist and the door unlocked.

“Be careful out there, buddy!” the cab driver yelled, before Adam slammed the door shut and opened his umbrella. He ran across the street to the building that said Patty’s Pub, opening the heavy wooden door and stepping inside. He shook the water from his jacket and looked around. The pub was small; about a dozen little tables, a few booths, and a TV in every corner. Pictures of four-leaf clovers, green countryside, and Celtic knotwork let you know that you’d just stepped foot in an Irish pub. If that wasn’t enough, the only music came in the form of some native Irish instrumental. The kind people played on St. Patty’s Day to feel like they knew what it was like in Ireland.

There were only a handful of customers at the moment, so when Adam came inside, it drew the attention of nearly everyone there. Including the bartender, a short, broad-shouldered man with a receding hairline and thick black eyebrows. He was the most, non-Irish looking man anyone had ever seen and when he called out to Adam, it was with a thick Italian accent.

“Adam? Is that you? Get over here, boy, and let me get a look at you!” the man shouted. Adam walked over to the bar and the man’s eyes widened, confirming that he was indeed the man he remembered. “Where have you been? It’s been…,” the man paused to count on his fingers, “…ten…no, twelve years? You were but a boy when I last saw you, now look at you! You know, we all tuned in to see the ceremony. Our own Adam, a war-hero and all that. What brings you back home?”

Adam sat down at the bar, shrugging his shoulders. Patty, the bartender and owner, sat a beer in front of him. He took a quick drink and let out a sigh.

“A funeral. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine…,” he said. He was getting tired of hearing people say they were sorry. Offering their condolences. Adam glanced back at the door. “So, you and your brother are still at odds?” The bartender scowled.

“To hell with him. He can keep to his s****y bar and to that w***e. I want nothing to do with either of them,” the man said, grumbling. Adam couldn’t help but smile at that. Some things never change. It was Patty’s brother who ran the bar next door, Donny’s. The two bars used to be one bar, back in the day. Until the two brothers got caught up with the same woman. They split the bar in two, and when Patrick opened up his part, he decided to make it an Irish Pub. He didn’t seem to care that he was Italian. Or that his name wasn’t even Patrick, it was Vito. But, it was the only Irish Pub in the neighborhood, so it took off with the local Irish men and women, who had been waiting for a new pub to open since Old Darcy’s shut down.

As for the woman? Adam heard she ran off with some pilot with a bunch of money she stole from the both of them. Women…, Adam thought before taking another drag of his cigarette.

“So, you’re here for old Gavin’s funeral, then?” Patty finally asked. Adam looked over at him and nodded. The bartender shook his head. “Nasty business that. He was a good man. Used to come in here every once in awhile. And to think that some junkie took his soul…,”

“Yeah…,” Adam said, feeling a knot in his gut. Some junkie…, he thought numbly. Solomon City was full of them. Carrion-feeders. Soul junkies that scoured alleys for the unfortunate dead so they could get some string of a soul from their body before it all faded away. The human soul. The best drug on the market. Every kid with a textbook knew about its discovery. About the man who learned to measure and extract it. About the War that nearly tore the Earth apart, when the world discovered you could inject another person’s soul into your own for a sort of “permanent high”. Even in the aftermath of the War, with the Alliance regulating most of the solar system, there were those that still sought that high. Most won’t kill for it. Taints the soul. Violence, depression, any negative emotion. You want the person to have died happy or the soul is junk.

But here and there, you get a junkie that gets desperate. Maybe the number of homeless dropping dead in alleys was in short supply that month. For one reason or another, if the urge gets too strong, they’ll resort to murder. In a place like Solomon City, that story was a dime a dozen. It was easy to see how someone could write Gavin’s murder off as that. But Adam couldn’t believe it.

Gavin was a soldier. Even at his age, there were few people that could get one up on that old man. No, there was something else going on here, and Adam was going to figure out what it was.

“When Gavin would come in here, was he ever with anyone?” Adam asked. Patty paused for a moment, thinking.

“Actually, yeah. Twice. Older fellow, about his age. Smelled like a cop. Well pressed coats and the like, right? Figured they were old war buddies by the way they talked, though I can’t remember his name…,” he said. Adam nodded. He started to pay for his drink, but Patty just waved him away. With a simple ‘thanks’ and a ‘catch you later’, Adam stepped back out into the rainy streets of the Dreads. He had one more place he wanted to see before the funeral.

~::~

Gavin’s Antique Shop was a dingy little building in the part of the city that the officials had never bothered putting up street signs for. In the rain, it looked like something from an old black and white photograph. All the neon signs were off, police tape across the broken front door. Adam stood across the street, smoking a cigarette under his umbrella, trying to inhale the smoke through the stone in his throat. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his shoe.

He stepped over the police line and into the dry interior of Gavin’s shop. It was a small, cramped little thing full of metal shelves and boxes, piled high with every odd contraption you could think of. The man had always been a bit old-fashioned, but some of this stuff made even Adam raise an eyebrow. Clock radios? Different times, he guessed. It was hard to tell what was in a mess because of the break-in, and what was just the natural state of Gavin’s shop. It wasn’t until Adam reached the back of the front room that he saw where most of the damage had happened. Glass littered the floor where a cabinet had been shattered. Bookshelves had been overturned and cabinet drawers were flung open. And in the middle of the floor was a bloodstain where once Gavin had lain. Adam knelt down in front of the stain on the floor, fingers touching a single shard of shattered glass. Then he pulled his gun out and spun around, pointing it at the person who came in from the back room.

“Easy there, Adam…,” the man said, raising his hand. When Adam saw who it was, he couldn’t help but shake his head in disbelief.

“Walt? F**k, I nearly shot you…,” Adam said. The other man chuckled, putting his gun back into his holster. Adam did the same. He noted the slight flash of a badge on the man’s belt before both gun and badge disappeared behind his coat.

“Good to see you, too, Adam. I figured I might find you here, when you didn’t show up for the wake,” the old detective said. So, this was the ‘old war buddy’ that Patty had said Gavin would come in with every once in awhile.

“I had to see it for myself. They said some junkie broke in, trashed the place, took Gavin’s…took Gavin’s soul…,” he said, trying to swallow and wet his dry lips. “Were you…,”

“Part of the case? No, it’s out of my jurisdiction…,” Walt said. Adam rose to his feet, dropping the broken shard of glass and staring at Gavin’s old friend. Four years ago, it was this man who had pinned a medal on his chest. Now he was a detective in Solomon City? It sounded like a bit of a step down to Adam. But then again, Gavin had been running…this place.

“Look…I’m sorry. I know he was like a father to you,”

Adam didn’t say anything. He walked to the back of the shop, glancing around the cluttered workbenches, filing cabinets, and photos on the walls. There were a few markers indicating where evidence had been photographed, before being bagged up and taken in for analysis. A sign on the floor next to the back door. All of the bolts were unlatched. Why would the back latches be undone if he’d been killed in the front room? What happened here, Gavin…

Finally, he saw the photograph. It was set in an old-fashioned frame on the wall, next to an ASF calendar. Adam reached up, pulling it off the wall and running his hand across the front of it. You always were a sentimental old b*****d…, he thought with a shake of his head. The whole crew was in this photo. Before the Raider Wars. Before everything went south for Paladin. There was Gavin, smiling wide. Simon in his tailored suit and calm demeanor, holding Elizabeth’s hand. Adam was grinning right next to Gavin at the front and behind him was Evy, holding bunny ears over Adam’s head as if they were in the fourth grade.

“She was at the wake…so were the others. The ones that are still left, that is…,” Walter said from behind him, snatching Adam away from his reveries. Great…that’s just what I need. A fight at a funeral…, he thought. Adam placed the photograph back on the wall.

“You know a junkie couldn’t get one over on Gavin, right?” he finally said, voicing the thing that had been waiting silently in the room to be brought up. Walt let out a heavy sigh.

“Adam…the man was getting old. Everyone has their run, and he’d finished his. Let’s just…,” Walt began, but Adam cut him off.

“Gavin wasn’t killed by some junkie, Walt. Tell me you know that. Tell me, and help me find out the truth. We both know I’m not gonna let this drop,” he said. He whispered the last few words. He met Walt’s eyes. The graying detective let out another sigh, pinching between his eyes.

“I know…come on, let’s go to the funeral. They’re expecting you to give some words. We’ll talk about what I found out when this is all over with…,” Walt said. Adam nodded. Good. They both knew that this conversation wasn’t over. But for now, they had more pressing matters to attend to. Adam pulled out a cigarette and followed Walt out of the shop. There was a car parked out front, but before they got in, Adam had one more question. “How does she look?”

Walt smiled and said, “She’s wearing a dress.”

~::~

It was almost an hour before they reached the small church on the outskirts of the Solomon City slums. The Dreads as people there called the place. Walt pulled to a stop in front of the building, a stone cathedral, nestled amidst the shambles of society. Rain poured out through the mouths of stone gargoyles, peering with stony eyes upon the sinners of Solomon City, waiting for night. Adam told Walt he‘d meet him inside, then stepped out into the rain, popping open his umbrella and walking up to the cathedral doors. A church ceremony for the death of a man who’d had his soul taken. It seemed wrong. All of it’s wrong. There isn’t anything right about any of this. Gavin dead. Gavin murdered. Returning to Solomon City…it’s all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be this way…

He shook off the thought, instantly lighting up a cigarette as he reached the top of the cathedral’s front stairs, under the cover of the church’s awning. He took a deep drag, turning his back to the church and staring out into the streets. “Well, at least we know that God would make a good director. He even added rain for the funeral. Very touching…” he said out loud, shaking his head and taking another drag. He wasn’t looking forward to going in. Not just because of the man that laid in the coffin. The idea of seeing any of the old crew…it was odd. It’d been four years since he’d seen any of them. And for this to be the thing that brought them back together. It wasn’t right…

Author's Note

Again, this is from my first draft. Read this so that when you buy the clean, final draft in stores you can understand how the story took shape and evolved. lol j/k but really, I'd love to hear some thorough reviews and constructive criticism. If you offer pointers, please cite specific parts of the text so I can better understand where to improve. ^^

Reviews

[Hester Vane]

There was a time when you could trust the man next to you…,” Delvin said.

Nice!
I'm really enjoying this, i know you probably know that a re read and edit is needed but its nothing major so i wont go on about it! Great story that's moving brilliantly. I'm looking forward to seeing how this character and the one from chapter one mix! Great stuff

[KAOlmsted]

You know, I read the description first and went "Ah man...science fiction? What the hell..." *laugh* But I was pleasantly surprised. I write crime/detective fiction myself, so, clearly, that is the genre I enjoy reading. This was really well done. Taking away that whole flying to Earth thing in the beginning *grin* I actually got into the story. I think you've painted quite a picture here for us. If I had one issue, it would be this is a bit long...it could easily be cut into two, maybe even three chapters. You've got 4,464 words here. I generally try to keep my chapters anywhere from 1,300 to 1,700 words long...obviously, I have some that are shorter and some that are longer, but never more than 2,500. You get more than 2,500 and people start to go cross-eyed ;-) I'd like to read the first chapter before I offer any more, but I haven't got the time tonight. I will return, though. I'm interested in this...Thanks so much for sharing it with us.

-kimmer