Story Fragment #3

(written during one of my Vancouver adventures)

              The bright red directional lighting guided their entry, and they took the Baseliner in real slow. The lumbering craft connected to Tirath station in one smooth motion, and the boarding hallway locked into the entrance bay and became pressurised. There were no crews of workers to unload the supplies and take stock, as this was the task of pre-programmed machines. It was cruel enough to send delivery pilots to a place like Tirath, let alone actually have official staff working on the inside. The pair watched as massive hydraulic arms separated the immense supply trailer and began unloading the cargo. There were thousands of large boxes to unload, all color-coordinated to designate their contents. As the arms moved methodically, the boxes were neatly stacked inside a vast warehouse, from which they’d be mechanically distributed to automated food and water dispensers and various other resupply stations throughout Tiraths’ population network. They moved in such a clockwork fashion in the darkness, so efficient and precise, much unlike the human occupants inside. 



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“How long do we got here anyway?” asked the co-pilot.

     “Hell, I already answered that bout’ a half-hour ago. This your first long-haul or what?” replied the pilot.
  “Well, yeah, it actually is,” the he laughed nervously, “wasn’t expecting everything to take so long you know, like why don’t they just run these ships by computer anyway. It’s like we’re just babysitting them. I’ve heard stories of other crews in the other colonies you know, brutal shit. They’ll get attacked or something, have to fend off the guys that want to make it back to earth, but mostly I’m worried about getting lost out there, I mean there’s so many things I don’t know where to begin-”

             “Boy, first thing you got to learn is to shut the hell up. Ain’t nothin’ gunna piss me off more the a motor-mouth,” he stated, “we’ll be here for maybe a day or two while they unload, they got a place down there we can bunk for the time being.”

              Neither crewman was excited about stepping onto Tirath Station. While the unloading took place, the secured quarters inside the delivery bay were supposed to be safe, but every freight-pilot had heard stories. It was though that in the unlikely event of a breech, parts of the facility were pumped with nerve gas to 
kill off the intruders, and that was comparatively tame to what else was known. 

           The pair of pilots exited their ship and ventured into the dim, cavernous warehouse, saying nothing as they did so. Their cold breaths created clouds of condensation, as the station lacked enough power to keep it warm, despite the improved solar-panels. It didn’t matter much though. There was no sense in giving the poor, useless, and destitute a habitable place to live.

 

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     Ixy Fletcher wasn’t herself tonight, she was mad at a lot of things. Her partner seemed like he was one part skill and three parts insane, which put a bit of a compromise on their operation. It got to the point that she began to reconsider the whole thing, even though it meant too much given that the ship was in town. Her cold hands were tucked into the sleeves of an oversized blue hoodie, but still she shivered. 

       Planet Tirath was always cold, and the sky was always a mixed wash of faint stars that were usually masked behind a thick layer of artificial lighting. The dull mixture was accentuated by an unhealthy brownish haze over the horizon line that continued to grow worse as time went on, and nobody claimed to know what kind of affect all that pollution had. The huge grids of solar panelling blocked out the sun’s light, and you couldn’t even see earth, but she didn’t really want to see it. She’d seen it plenty of times, and each time she did an unimaginable pain began to work its way through her, like some forgotten reservoir of repressed anxiety that had begun to rise up. It was difficult to explain. She then began to wonder if anyone was watching them, and a wave of paranoia clouded her thoughts. She began to wish that she wasn’t there at all. 

            The only time you could notice any hint of genuine concern in Ixy's voice was when she would worry about being caught by one of those hovering drones that patrolled the city streets. There wasn’t an all-female prison on Tirath to begin with, so she’d be nothing more than a high-grade piece of currency in the holding cell they’d drag her off to. Everyone might as well all be dragged off to a holding cell, she thought, nobody she knew was good enough to deserve freedom. Her paranoia then transformed into a mix of doubt and worry, she wanted to get away all of a sudden. She wasn’t stable, and her thoughts were jumping all over the place like some bizarre circus of confusion. Not like she’d ever seen a circus before though, only read about them.

          “Let’s just get out of here, it doesn’t feel safe.” she insisted, “it’s not that I don’t trust you, but we haven’t worked together really... we should start with something smaller.”

          Elrick lowered his busy hands for a moment and gazed up at the skinny girl, his grimy face was contorted with frustration. He’d told her to shut it all night, she was always whining about something or other. She’d approached him, for fuck’s sake, and now she thought of him as some kind of inept fool. He had five times the experience she’d ever hope to gain in her life, so he took great offense to any backtalk. Young people were always stupid enough to assume that you knew little because of your age, which made him even angrier.

         “Are you kidding me? I didn’t come all this way to give up.” He retorted, “If you want to do the hard job like me, then I’ll grant you the right to complain. So fuck that.” His voice had been corroded by alcohol and drugs, and caused him to speak in a harsh tone, which in turn caused Ixy to discard any use of polite conversation. He grunted and turned back to the subject of his attention. He was hunched in front of a small computer screen that was built into a delivery terminal in an alleyway behind The Motor Hole. It was a seedy joint that was managed by a quiet Asian man who spoke with the kind of undecipherable broken English that few could understand. Businesses and stores were pretty thriving in the slums of Tirath, but it had been much worse when they’d all first arrived. Only problem was, very few people actually gained any benefit out of running a legitimate life, so where there was order there was twice as much crime. Both Ixy and Elrick had been hacking delivery terminals for years, it wasn’t big money or anything, but steady at least. Nobody had really caught onto them yet, only the more elaborate and obvious crimes went noticed in their block. 

          “Do you worry about getting caught?” asked Ixy, “have you heard what they do to you in lockup?”  Elrick wheezed a laugh or two.

          “I’ve been there a couple times myself actually, but I don’t give a shit about being caught anymore. I’m probably too good to get caught anymore anyway,” he boasted.

Ixy disregarded his egotism and pursued the issue further. “What was it like in there? How long where you in for?”

          “Kid, if I told you how bad it was you’d probably never commit another crime in your life,” he admitted. He paused temporarily and gave a blank stare for a moment, like he’d just been crushed by a load of depression. He then reached into his beat up jacket and lit a cigarette as he returned to his work. “I’d rather be out here living with the vermin, nothing’s as bad as that place. But, unless they issue a massive system-wide upgrade we shouldn’t have too much to worry about.”

          “You’re probably right, but try not to make any mistakes.” Ixy commented.

          “Just pass me the scrambler, we’re almost done here.” explained Elrick, and Ixy felt reassured to an extent as she opened the tattered red travel bag that was slung around her shoulder. Inside it was an assortment of jerry-rigged cutters and circuit busters, a bizarre arsenal of recycled security equipment and electronic paraphernalia. 

          “Take it.” Ixy withdrew her hand from the bag and took out a crude looking instrument. It was a homemade contraption that looked to be comprised of a million different things, but it worked pretty well as far as she knew. Elrick grabbed with the device with his grime-stained hand and slowly positioned it over the console, carefully aligning it as though a shipment container would, and he watched as it worked its way through a few weak security barriers in a rapid stream of prompt windows and loading screens.

         “What a waste, I could have done this shit manually” he laughed, “Old Jin should expect to get knocked off more often with a piece of junk like this.” Ixy watched as a thin wisp of cigarette smoke it curled and rose up against the stringy veins of his left hand, it dissipated into the recycled air before reaching the top of his broad shoulders. Elrick lifted his arm to take another drag, his worn face was an amalgamation of filth-clogged pores under sloppy tufts of facial hair, and his ragged clothing was a dark patchwork of stained material. His eyes were covered by a pair of circular tinted goggles, and the top of his head was wrapped in a black bandana. He looked like a stereotypical man of crime, and made no attempt to hide that fact. Ixy felt worried being around him, he seemed to be making weird gestures at her since they’d met up. She then began to worry that if they ever did get caught and she got away, he’d turn her in to reduce his own sentence, her paranoia was getting worse. 

          She was shaking slightly, and sweating lightly, and then he looked over with a face that scared the shit out of her. He was grinning darkly, and squinting his eyes in a sadistic sort of way as he removed his goggles and put them around his fat neck. His eyes were pretty red, he was definitely intoxicated. Then he began to speak to her in a seemingly caring voice.

          “Alright sweet-heart, just relax. All the hard stuff is done. If I did screw up, we’d know by now, but since there’s an absence of police sirens in the air, I think you should do me a favour...” he said. She started to wonder what the hell he meant, and then he slapped her on the ass with his slimy stained hand. She was fucking repulsed, and he began to blurt out a hoarse chuckle. His overhanging gut shook with glee from beneath his rotten vest. She snapped back and glared angrily at him as her facial expression became filled with contempt.

          “Get your fucking hands off me,” she stated emotionlessly, “just get the goddamn money.”

          “For fuck’s sake, you need to unwind a bit,” he replied. He looked pretty angry now, and began speaking in a very cold and introverted way. “I’m getting the goddamn money, but don’t expect there to be all that much in here. This place makes most of its money from products that aren’t endorsed legally, as I’m sure you know.” explained Elrick. He began to wonder why Ixy was so paranoid and irritable. He rested on the conclusion that it was probably her time of month, and said nothing more.

        Ixy shivered as her exposed skin caught goose bumps, her faded hoodie and sweatpants pants did little to insulate against the biting cold, which seemed to be worse than usual. Console surfing was something she had grown to crave like a fast paced addiction; only satisfied by the success of a quick hit. Crime was on the rise around the city, and it seemed like less and less was being done to contain it. The cops mostly patrolled the shopping strips and commercial districts, and rarely came down to the residential slums of the city. Drugs and prostitution weaved around every street corner in an interconnected web of corruption and indecency, and it had been that way for over a decade.

        “Hey, keep sharp!” Elrick’s croak of a voice snapped her back to reality. “I think something’s going on inside, so make sure everything’s packed up.” Elrick listened as a live band begin their performance with the sound of grating guitar noises inside the bar, it sounded faint from outside.

         “It’s all good, just hurry. We’ve only got about ten more minutes before the next security check comes through, and I don’t have extra cash to bribe him.” Ixy reached into her pocket and held a thick wad of stolen cash, it was going to be her ticket off Planetropolis, and she hadn’t told anyone except her best friend, Tynea. They were planning to leave together once they paid off one of the port security workers to gain passage on one of those massive earth-bound cargo vessels, and they only needed a little more money. Earth had been something they’d only read about in school and saw on the news, it didn’t seem like a great place, but it seemed like a paradise compared to Planetropolis. The ships only came once a month to supply the massive space colony that orbited earth like a small moon, and there was one docking tonight. Ixy knew that this last job would seal their voyage, and it was an exciting thought.

        The dim pub was packed with the type of lowlife scum it ought to be packed with. Everyone from child porn distributors to robotic pimps lined the squalid interior, mountains of empty liquor bottles and illegal drugs were piled high at every table. Cindy was one of the many patrons who would expend the majority of her miniscule income on supporting her habitual alcoholism, and she was too drunk to realise that she was snorting someone else’s drugs. Even after she had noticed, the fluorescent lines of psychoactive green powder were too alluring to pass up.

      “Hey, you bitch! You did my line!” came a nearby scream. A drunken hooker with translucent heels and a bad hair-do glared viciously at Cindy, who didn’t even notice. She had an evil look in her eye, like someone who had nothing to lose. Moments later, the sound of a beer bottle being smashed against a steel table caught Cindy’s attention as the hooker stood up with the shank in her right hand. Having realised her mistake, Cindy glanced up and tried to make a plea of innocence, but her glowing green nose and bloodshot eyes did little to solicit mercy.

      “Wait... just... it was, just a-” Cindy’s slurred voice was cut off as the angry hooker jammed the broken glass bottle into her face repeatedly, and her screams were masked by the raw wash of melodic aggression that came from the live band. Bits of blood-spattered glass chewed up Cindy’s face something fierce, and she’d been fighting to get into her purse to yank out her gun. She slumped to the ground in a bloody heap as the hooker leapt on her to finish the job, a few degenerates cheered on as the brutal confrontation took place. Cindy tried to scream out the most foul and insulting barrage of hatred that she’d ever thought up in her life, but her face was completely ripped up and she couldn’t speak. At least the drugs had killed the pain.

       “You’re going to get it now bitch, goodnight!” announced the hooker as she cocked back her arm for another vicious assault. Before she could finish the job, Cindy quickly drew a small firearm and began shooting as if bullets were going out of style. The shots rang out, hitting the hooker and almost everyone nearby, and a general uprising of violent behaviour descended on the room. Cindy kept squeezing the trigger, causing the hooker and several others to fall back as they died in a hail of bullets, which inspired several more people to draw their weapons and start firing indiscriminately. Tables were used as battering rams and people were trampled to death as everybody fought to escape while more gunshots erupted. The band, oblivious to the chaos, kept playing at an ear-splitting volume.

       “What the hell’s going on in there?” questioned Elrick. He was bent over the delivery console and finishing his process of faking a large C.O.D. using stolen verification codes, a common method of tricking the system into paying for an invisible shipment. Ixy looked up as the familiar crack of gunshots permeated the air. To her, the sound was like ordinary background ambiance, but it would most likely attract police attention.

       “Ok just finish it already, let’s go!” She began to panic.

       “Jesus, just a few more minutes, since when do cops care much about a bar shooting in shit town.” Several seconds later the sound of sirens pierced the atmospheric ruckus of the bar-room uprising.

   “Shit!” yelled Elrick, who was now frantically tapping the touchpad screen.

       “What are you doing? Isn’t the scrambler supposed to do that?” inquired Ixy

   “Yes, and it broke. So can you shut-up and help me now?”

By now the drunken riffraff had spilled onto the sidewalk in front of The Motor Club, the police neared in on a pack of squad bikes. The pair crouched in an attempt to remain unnoticed, but they both knew that the delivery consoles would be the first thing that the police would check when they arrived, since drunks would often vandalize them after trying to use them to call a cab. Ixy reached into her pocket and clutched her own gun out of instinct and worry, she knew how brutal the cops could be, and assuming that Elrick finished in time, she would never see this decrepit place again. The thought of killing hadn’t crossed her mind in awhile, but this was kind of an all or nothing night, and nothing would stop her.

     “Fuck, hurry up! This thing is so goddamn slow!” exclaimed Elrick. His face was red with anger, and he tapped harder and harder on the little screen out of annoyance. “We got to go – I can’t finish!”

   “Just finish the damn thing!” Ixy replied, feeling the anger herself.

       “It’s not like that, it will take too long, this thing is messed up all to shit, and I might not be able to-”

    “Do it...” Ixy ordered, pressing her gun up against the back of Elrick’s head. “I don’t care how long it takes.”

In a frown of resignation, Elrick resumed his work amid the full blown riot occurring in the alleyway, the drunks from the bar had reverted to an animalistic state.

    “So, it’s like that is it...” he said darkly. Ixy said nothing, she was overcome with regret. She didn’t fully expect herself to pull the trigger in the first place, but the thought of escaping Planetropolis had gripped her mind so intently that little else mattered.

     “Listen, I’m sorry. Just finish it, give me half the money, and we’ll be on our way.” she got mad at her own weakness for apologising to him, since he’d done worse to her in the past.

     “Yeah, why is it that the ones who say sorry got a gun to your head? There, got it.” Elrick breathed a sigh of relief as he inserted a rectangular plastic key card into the console, a second later he withdrew it and Ixy did the same.

      “There, happy now? Little cunt’s got her money. Get that piece out of my face.” He demanded.

        “I never want to see you again you piece of shit.” responded Ixy. With the quickness of a lynx, she shot out his left knee cap and picked up the bag of tools in one swift motion before kicking him over as he yelped out in pain. The act was concealed by the uproar of a public frenzy surrounding her, and she slipped into the crowd as the cops arrived with a salvo of tear-gas. 

 ============

           Ixy contemplated how Elrick would try to track her down as she traversed through the dark alleyways. The thought of him finding her after what she’d done was enough motivation to keep her sprinting at full speed, although her breath began to grow shorter after each stride. Beads of perspiration accumulated on her brow as she sat down on a bus station waiting bench that was no longer in use. Colourful neon hues danced against a series of water drainage puddles. She glanced at her watch and realised that she had to get to Jean right away, the cargo ship was departing within the hour, and they couldn’t waste any time. They’d both avoided mobile communication, as it could easily be recorded and traced, and most port authorities were extremely wary of stowaways. 

===============

        Jean sat in the windowsill of his second story apartment, gazing out at the pale sky as he tried to catch a sign of Ixy. He’d been waiting for nearly a half hour, and was wondering if she’d show up at all. He wouldn’t leave without her and he knew that she wouldn’t do the same, but still he worried. Tonight was their big chance to make it to earth and start over, to make lives for themselves. There was no opportunity on Planetropolis, almost everyone he knew turned into a drug head or worse, and it had been getting worse. He’d never touched the stuff himself, it was extremely addictive and he knew how it could destroy people, like his father. Ixy’s addiction greatly worried him, but she told him she’d give it up once they escaped. She had started using a few years back, and already he began to notice a change in her personality. She went from being very a very generous and loving girlfriend to an introverted pessimist in a few short years. It was a harsh assessment, but one that fit the bill. Jean held on to the hope that she’d change back to normal during their month-long passage to earth, but they needed to leave immediately.

     “Hey up there, look what I got!” Ixy announced, her voice was full of exuberance. Jean was startled by the introduction, but he recognized the voice as he looked down and smiled. Ixy was holding a wad of funds, and she had a big grin on her face.

      “You made it! Holy shit you made it...” he replied “come around back, I’ll let you in. Keep it quiet huh?” She blew him a kiss, and hopped away as Jean scrambled to double check all his belongings for the fifth time, his excitement was barely containable. Ixy stood in front of a large monochrome door as she waited, all the while wondering what excitement the night would hold. A moment later, a small beep came from the twin doors as they separated, she bounded through and ran up the staircase.

They met in the entry way of Jean’s apartment as Ixy wrapped her arms around Jean and kissed him on the neck. He glanced back at her with a rare expression of affection, and the couple shared a brief moment of comfortable silence.

     “So this is it... finally getting out of here, we better leave now.” he said. Jean was fully weighted down by the excessive amount of luggage he carried, and Ixy looked at him disapprovingly. The man at the docking station had explained to her that space was so limited that they could only bring on one bag a piece, which meant only rations and water could be packed.

      “There’s no way they’ll let you on there with all that stuff. You have to leave some behind... sorry.” explained Ixy. “We can get new stuff when we get there, just don’t worry about it. Leaving everything behind isn’t an easy thing to do but we’ve got to, look at me!” She was still breathing heavily from her sprint over, and only carried one small bag of bare essentials.

      “Rations and water, that’s all we need, now let’s get a move on.” she insisted. With a dumbfounded look, Jean dropped the load reluctantly, and the pair headed out into the darkness.

They kept quiet and said little en route to the docking station, Ixy still worried about the police activity that went down at the pub. She was concerned about Elrick turning her in, but she knew that he wouldn’t risk his own skin to do something that stupid. Chances were the riot wasn’t even under control yet, which made it all the better to act as a diversion as the duo broke into the dock. They both crept up to the auxiliary entrance near a series of garbage disposals, and Ixy immediately reached into her tool bag.

     “Alright... let’s see here. If I get this wrong, the alarm goes off and we blow it, so wish me luck.” She said. Jean looked up at her with a horrified look on his face, but gave her a nod of reassurance.

    “Just as long as you’re sure...” he added. She flipped through a key ring of assorted spikes and scanners, and picked out the smallest one. It was shaped like a small cylinder, with small metal teeth that bristled around its exterior. She guided it to the lock, and paused for a moment before inserting it hesitantly. There was a small clicking sound, followed by a green light atop the door frame.

   “Yes, right one!” she said with joy.

    “Shhhh! Keep it down huh?”

She gave Jean a sly smirk and the two slipped into the large building. The warehouse was more cavernous then they both thought, with enough space to house a star-ship. Hundreds of multicoloured boxes crammed the vast space, it was this month’s supply shipment all ready to be distributed. Ixy began to wonder what the colour coordination indicated, or even if it had any significance, but her thoughts were cut short as they moved hurriedly to the departing vessel. The cargo liner was unlike anything either of them had seen in reality, neither of them had been aboard a spaceship.

Ixy turned to Jean and began to speak quietly.

  “Alright, it says we need to take this ladder and hang a couple lefts.”

    “What says?”

 “A schematic I drew up, didn’t you do any research on this place?”
   “Uhh yeah... I must have forgotten it.” he shamefully admitted.

She smiled and looked into his eyes.

 “You go first.”

He climbed up the lengthy ladder, and they both moved through the spacious hallway before arriving at another door, Ixy knew the right key for this one.

    “Only the outside door has a rotating frequency, this one’s static.”

Jean could only stand and watch as she worked.

      Moments later, the sound of alloy-clad work boots reverberating against a steel grated floor echoed throughout the cavernous docking warehouse. Ixy paid no attention to the sound initially, having suspected that it was coming from the person who would grant them access into the baseliner, but as it grew louder so did her feeling of uncertainty. The sound was familiar in a way that didn’t evoke happy thoughts, it was Elrick. As a surge of fright caused her to mental state to freeze up, as if it had temporarily disconnected itself from space and time, Jean looked at her with a concerned expression.

“What’s wrong, is it working? He inquired softly. The clanging sound ceased for several seconds, and transformed into an erratic stagger, Ixy could smell the stench of strong alcohol and rotten garbage. She could identify that smell without a doubt in her mind.

     “It’s him!” was all she could manage to say with her strained voice before she inhaled a gasp of dread. Jean whipped around took a step back as he confronted the drunken lunatic.

      “Look whose back bitch. Where’s your gun now?” Elrick spat. ‘I’m getting on that goddamn ship and you two are going to get me on, or you’re dead!” Blood stains soaked through his pants as he shambled towards them a severe limp. Ixy took notice of the firearm in his outstretched grip and she didn’t hesitate; her gun was drawn as a mutual signification for battle. Both guns blasted with a simultaneous crack as the shootout broke out. The combatants unloaded on one another in a fit of uncontrolled anger, and they squeezed off rounds as if quantity was better than quality. Elrick hit the ground moments after Ixy ran out of bullets, and Jean hit the ground also. It had all happened so fast, like some indiscernible blur of muzzle flashes and body movement. At first, Ixy believed that it was her who had been shot as yell of pain filled the air, but it wasn’t her voice. An eerie silence loomed over the room as the violence ended. Ixy screamed as she looked over and watched Jean struggle to balance himself on all fours. He’d been shot twice through the chest, and blood was spattered all over his clothes. Elrick laid stone dead near the entry way, the contents of the exit wound from the back of his head now decorated the supply crates behind his corpse.

       “Jean!” Ixy dropped her weapon and ran to his side as tears welled up in her big blue eyes. “Oh no, you’re bleeding badly -I need to get you out of here!” The scene had transitioned from clamouring confusion to absolute distress in the blink of an eye.

Jean collapsed under his own weight and rolled onto his bag, he was now coughing up hot mouthfuls of sticky blood. “How did that... damn scumbag find us...” the words barely escaped his mouth as he fought to speak. The familiar sound of police sirens began to rise up in the background as Ixy quickly realized that the noise surveillance system would have been triggered by the blaring gunshots.

       "Oh god Jean, you’re hurt bad. Just stay still and don’t talk!” Ixy’s hands were shaking tumultuously as she wiped away the tears that streamed down her fair skinned face.

       “I’ll be just fine... go on... get in the ship before it leaves...” Jean paused momentarily as he coughed and gasped for breath, pools of blood seeped out to the ground from either side of his chest “the cops will take care of me, go!” His strength gave out as his head came crashing down to the concrete, Ixy screamed again.

    “No! I can’t leave you here like this - I don’t care about the ship. I love you!” The words escaped her mouth almost as a residual afterthought, because she knew that he had died moments before saying them. Her fists became sharp stabs of pain as she pounded them into the solid ground as she sobbed.

     “No... not like this... that fucking animal!” The summation of every horrific emotion and thought that Ixy could imagine clawed at her mind with a seething fury that was impossible to slake. She unquestioningly slammed a fresh clip into her smoking gun and expended the ammunition into Elrick’s porcine body, and no small amount of self control was required to suppress her developing urge to commit suicide. She fell to her knees at Jean’s body, his eyes were closed shut and the colour was drained from his skin.