Stories

Angel Meteor

Many thousands of years after human-kind set foot on their moon, the mortal races of the Milky Way galaxy have been united under a common civilization.  Einstein is a Jupiter-like gas giant orbiting a yellow dwarf star five thousand light-years away from Sol.  Orbiting Einstein are three rocky moons; Cox, Thorax, and Tsuki.  Cox has been colonized for many hundreds of years, and so has Tsuki, but only recently has Thorax been terra-formed for colonization.  Cox was in the middle of a vicious revolution when the NeoGen corporation decided to begin the terra-forming process on Thorax.  The two moons are usually on opposite sides of Einstein, so they stayed out of each other’s ways for the most part during the war.  Little did anyone know that the actions of the war would indeed have an affect on Thorax... hundreds of years later. 

            In high orbit around Cox, in the year 17,098 of the Cosmic Calendar, the star-warship Dawn of Methuselah patrols the space near Cox.  The ship’s captain and his first lieutenant are the only ones on the bridge.  The bridge is huge, and the two human men are in the center where the main console is.  The bridge is on the bottom of the Dawn, and the floor is made of plasma-reinforced glass.  Below their feet, the captain and his lieutenant can see Cox off in the distance; it is maybe the size of either one of the two men’s hand when extended in front of their face.  Although physically alone, the two men are not by themselves.  They are conversing with a holographic display of the high chief of the NeoGen corporate military. 

            “What I am about to tell you gentlemen does not leave the bridge,” said the high chief to the two men on the ship.  He went on, “we have sent in a an extermination team.  By now all of the refugees have fled the world for Tsuki, and now there are only revolutionaries on the surface.”

            “Why send them in now?” The captain asked. 

            “We were waiting for civilians to leave.  There has already been too much bloodshed.  We are not the blood-thirsty monsters the colonists think we are.  I don’t want the blood of women and children on my hands.”

            “What is an extermination team?” The lieutenant asked.

            The high chief told him.  Extermination teams were top-secret mini armies of bio-androids.  Androids designed and built with killing in mind.  They are nearly indestructible, extremely strong, and perfectly accurate and highly skilled with any weapon.  Androids were used rather than men in powered armor because of their purpose.  They kill everything and anything perceived as a threat with no remorse what-so-ever.  They literally have no other purpose in life but to kill. 

            “The shipment will be there in three days,” the high chief went on. 

            “Three days?” The captain asked.  “That is when the terra-formers will be dropping the life-bomb on Thorax.  They’ll be closing off all space around Einstein, you won’t be able to-”

            “We have already set it up with the terra-forming department.  We chose that day specifically for security reasons.  No one will be in the airspace around Einstein so we can sneak the exterminators in secretly.”

            The war on Cox has gone on for ten years.  NeoGen terra-corp terra-formed the world 5,000 years ago and recently the citizens have become fed up with corporate rule, so they rebelled.  They tried to force the corporation out peacefully at first, but when no progress was made the citizens decided to take up arms.  NeoGen has a powerful corporate military, one of the most formidable in the whole galaxy.  The patriots of Cox were fighting a losing battle right from the very beginning. 

            Over the corse of the Ten-Year War, refugees fled for nearby Tsuki, but also to more distant locations out of both the planetary and star systems.  The warriors have stayed behind.  It looks very bad when a corporation glasses an entire planet full of innocent civilians.  Now that the last of the refugees have been confirmed off-world, NeoGen can make a perfectly legitimate military strike to end the war once and for all. 

            On the Dawn of Methuselah, the captain and his lieutenant are discussing the attack.  The young lieutenant has never heard of androids being used for this purpose.  He has seen them in the army, but has never seen them used for black-ops. 

            “They have done this thousands of times since about 10,000 CC,” the captain said.  “This is not a rare occurrence.  They drop them down in a war-zone with designated targets and they wipe them out.  They need to be shut down as soon as the final target is neutralized, or else they keep killing with no remorse.”

            “Why have I never heard of them?” The lieutenant asked.

            “Because they send them into losing battles, and when they’re done everyone is usually dead on both sides.  Not to mention their status as ‘top-secret’.” 

Indeed these androids have been used to end the lives of billions.  Androids are a registered species in the galaxy, but these exterminator androids are different.  They have a strict, irreversible programming, rather than an open free will, like most androids of the galaxy.  These exterminators are also much faster, stronger, and more durable than conventional androids.  It would take a powerful weapon to kill one of these exterminators, if it were held down.  If it comes down to a one on one fight, only a mythic would ever stand a chance against and exterminator.  The only practical weapon against them is their off-switch, which will be held by the captain of the Dawn of Methuselah. 

They day has come and the exterminators have arrived in the Einstein planetary system.  They come stored on a cargo ship owned by NeoGen.  Each one of them are shut down until they  activated for safety reasons.  They are dropped in sealed chambers in high orbit, once their capsules crash to land they explode and the exterminator is exposed to UV rays, which activate them.  The UV rays cannot do anything without a commander first activating them from their central hub on the cargo ship. 

In orbit around Einstein, the cargo ship makes its way through the NeoGen terra-former’s blockade.  Both the military and terra-forming operations are organized by NeoGen so this is supposed to be a simple mission: let the cargo ship sneak in while the space is closed to public traffic. 

The cargo ship must first pass by Tsuki, then Thorax, before arriving at Cox.  Tsuki is inhabited by the peaceful Terxan race.  The Terxans are human-like in mind and body.  Their only physical differences to a man is that their skin comes in shades of green and red, and their eyes are bigger and darker.  They are also shorter because their home planet has more gravity than the Earth.  Anyway, the cargo ship carrying the exterminators passes by Tsuki with no issue, and makes its way to Thorax.  The Terxans have no part in the revolution on Cox, so they are obviously left alone. 

Orbiting Thorax are eight terra-forming frigates.  These frigates have the task of terra-forming worlds.  They are some of the largest ships ever built, reaching up to 20 miles in length.  Their main fuselage is a very long, narrow cylinder with structural supports placed every half mile for thirteen miles.  On either end of the cylinder is a section extending downward.  These sections are much larger than the cylinder and contain the enormous equipment used for terra-forming.  On the foreword end, a giant pressure hose injects elements and compounds into the soil.  They inject liquid oxygen that immediately vaporizes into the atmosphere.  They also inject liquid nitrogen and CO2 that vaporizes the same way.  Other chemicals injected allow for instantaneous growth of plant life, wherever a seed may fall.  The rear end contains the ship’s anti-gravity engines which keep it afloat three miles above land.  It also contains the final element in terra-forming, a bomb containing seeds and other organic compounds, which are introduced to the newly sprayed surface.  When these bombs are dropped, not just a few plants but whole, rich, lush rain-forests.  There are enough seeds in each bomb to cover over a million acres, and each frigate has three.  Each one is dropped strategically to create brand new wilderness, but also allow room for human settlements.  The funders of the Thorax terra-formation are not looking to build cities, they want a simpler life with simple technologies.

The NeoGen cargo ship carrying five hundred bio-android exterminators makes its way gently past Thorax just as the terra-forming frigates entered low orbit above the world.  They had finished spraying five hours ago and were waiting for the chemicals to set.  Now that the surface is ready, they are preparing to drop the bombs.  The cargo ship will not be anywhere near the frigates when they perform their operations. 

As the cargo ship makes its pass, a blip comes up on the skipper’s radar.  It is a small attack fighter, and it is coming from the other side of Einstein.  It is coming in very, very fast.  It appears by the cargo ship almost instantaneously,  and immediately the skipper is hailed.

“We are the liberators!” Shouted a voice from the attack fighter.  “We found out about this and you will pay!”

Without hesitation, the attack fighter fires upon the cargo ship with a powerful rail-gun.  It hits a vulnerable spot, the undercarriage where the exterminators’ capsules are located.  They are uncovered, ready to be dropped from orbit.    The skipper was quick to respond to the attack, immediately firing a torpedo at the fighter, destroying it instantly.  The cargo ship is designed with battle in mind, and the rail-gun had little affect on the capsules.  The attack only managed to break off about three capsules, which the skipper assumed would be sucked up by Einstein and destroyed deep within its raging atmosphere.   The skipper was wrong.

As the cargo ship flies further and further away from Thorax, those three capsules containing three exterminators fall closer and closer to Thorax.  Eventually they get sucked in by the gravity.  As they fell, the terra-forming frigates dropped the first lance of bombs.  One of the three capsules falls close to a bomb, hitting the ground just one minute before the bomb.  The freshly sprayed surface is extremely soft, like very deep mud.  When the capsule hits land, it does not explode they way it should have.  It wouldn’t have mattered, the skipper has not activated the exterminators yet.  Not that any of that would have mattered, because the terra-bomb is about to hit ground.  When it does, it lets out a thunderous shock wave, and then explodes.  Billions of seeds and organic compounds are thrown into the air, once they fall to the ground, a fully formed plant sprouts up almost instantaneously.  Plants of every kind imaginable, and billions at a time.  Thousands of blank acres at a time are instantly transformed into a lush new rainforest. 

When the exterminator’s capsule hit, it was sucked several feet into the ground.  Then a whole new landscape of vegetation instantly appeared above that.  The capsule containing this exterminator will be buried for a long time to come. 

                                                            600 years pass…

The bounty hunter Marcus Pond on his ship the Mud-Dog enters the Baradda star system, on his way to the Einstein planetary system, where the world Thorax exists.  He was born on Thorax 230 years ago, and is making his way back after over 100 years of traveling the galaxy.  In those hundred years he got by as a bounty hunter, putting away over 50,000 fugitives and criminals.  He has no enemies on Thorax, and it may be the last place where that is the case.  He has found this out the hard way over the decades, so many planets have outlaw connections it is virtually impossible to lay low.  Fed up with hiding, Marcus returns to his home where he knows he will be welcomed with open arms. 

Other than travelers who come and go, nobody ever leaves Thorax.  Marcus was one of the first locals to begin a life off-world.  Everyone on Thorax is so poor they can only dream of ever leaving the planet.  Marcus’s father is a rich industrialist, the richest on the world.  He is also a hero to virtually all 60,000 citizens of Thorax.  Philanthropy is an understatement, Marcus’s father pays the fees to NeoGen to keep the world terra-formed.  He also single handedly keeps the economy going so the citizens can rely on themselves rather than other worlds.  All of Marcus’s father’s money goes to the people, he lives in an average home; but with some above average amenities. 

Making his way closer and closer to Thorax in his one man, long distance transport the Mud-Dog, Marcus has high hopes for his return.  He has not spoken to anyone on the world in a few years but he has sent several messages to his father about his return, so his father should know he is coming. 

The Mud-Dog passes by Cox on the opposite side of Einstein from Thorax.  Cox has changed dramatically since the resistance movement was silenced 600 years ago, it is now an industrious and advanced world.  Covered almost entirely by great cities, Cox is a shining example of the pinnacle of human technology.  Marcus notices the odd overabundance of air traffic around Cox, so he stays far away from orbit around the moon. 

Halfway from Cox to Thorax is Tsuki, the Terxan world.  Humans and other races also live on the world peacefully with the Terxans.  There are thousands of worlds where more than one species coexist peacefully with each other.  Marcus flies nearer to Tsuki because there is much less space traffic, and he likes to look down on worlds from orbit. 

With Tsuki in his rear-view, Marcus approaches Thorax.  There is no space traffic around Thorax.  When entering high orbit, the Mud-Dog’s AI Deemus begins to speak in his deep, disembodied voice. 

“We are approaching Thorax,” said Deemus.  “But the space port is not expecting anyone.”

“That can’t be right,” said Marcus. “Oh well, request permission then.”

Deemus pauses for a moment to converse with the AI of the space port.  After a brief moment he continues, “we have confirmed permission, Marcus.  Would you like me to take us down?”

“No thanks, Deem,” said Marcus.  “I got this.”

Marcus brings the relatively small ship down into the atmosphere manually.  It is a shaky ride, but all ships are designed to take it.  He makes it down to the surface without a problem, and lands in the abandoned space port.

“Only one parking spot?” Deemus queried. 

“Yeah, they’re not a space traveling bunch here,” Marcus said about his people. 

The space port is unmanned, only a single AI runs the entire place.  There is no reason to have a person in the port, because they would be doing basically nothing for day after day. 

Marcus puts Deemus on a chip and inserts it into his multi-media wrist device, so he can go with him.  Deemus can be heard coming from a speaker on the wrist device.  Marcus exists the ship and looks out at his homeworld and feels a burst of nostalgia.  He used to come to this space port as a child whenever someone would take off or land, which was very rare.  He loved to see space ships, and dreamed for years about going into space.  He finally got that wish one day, left and never looked back for a hundred years.  Now he is back home. 

He did not get the reception he expected, nobody was even there to see him land.  The entire space port was abandoned and rundown looking.  No one had been there or used it at all for many years.  Looking at the GPS on his wrist device, Marcus locates the nearest town.  Not his home town, but one very near to it.  Leaving the Mud-Dog behind, Marcus makes his way on foot to the town, hoping to find someone who could comfort him in his tough situation; perhaps an old friend or family member.  Whoever he may find, it would be a surprise to see him. 

Thorax is covered almost entirely by thick forest.  Trails and settlements are built into the forests, and Marcus makes his way through thick brush to get to the nearby town.  The town of Old Morrow.  The streets are cobble stone, the buildings are of brick and mortar.  Outside the buildings there are more places to park a horse than a motor vehicle.  The spots of civilization scattered accross Thorax are a throwback to an ancient world of man.

At the Spirit Horse Tavern, an old regular sits at the bar.  The tavern is occupied by a few older looking men sitting alone at tables.  The old men are probably in their 900’s, and sit quietly sipping on their ale.  Marcus enters the tavern, his dark glasses and long, leather trench coat immediately distinguishes him as an off-worlder.  That and his wrist device, Thorax does not use the most current technology.  They live a simpler life relatively free of anything high tech.  There is electricity and television sets at public places, but most private homes on the world are free of such amenities. 

All of the old men and the bar tender immediately divert their attention to this new face.  As he scans the tavern, Marcus realizes he does not recognize anyone in it.  He approaches the bar tender and begins to speak.

“Do you know where my father is? His name is Randolph Pond,” Marcus asked. 

Immediately, the bar tender pulls out a gun from behind the bar and points it at Marcus.

“What’s it to you, boy?” The bar tender said. 

“I just told you, he’s my father.  I am Marcus.”

The bar tender keeps his eyes and gun fixed on Marcus, but with his other hand begins to rummage behind the bar.  He pulls out a pocket tablet, blows off the dust and switches it on. 

He holds the tablet up to his mouth and says, “Pond, Marcus...  Search.”

A tiny robotic voice on the device says, “searching,’’ and the device begins to chirp, before making a louder beeping noise.  “Pond, Marcus,” the tiny device says.

The bar tender looks at the data file on the screen and sees a picture of the man standing in front of him.  His eyes widen and he immediately lowers his weapon.

“Marcus? It really is you! You have returned!” The bar tender rejoices. 

The other old men around the tavern immediately get up and crowd around Marcus, looking for a chance to shake his hand and meet him.

“Can you tell me where my father is?” Marcus asks the bar tender.

           “Mark... he died fifty years ago...” the bar tender said, with sadness in his voice. 

            Marcus does not say anything, but looks down in sadness at the bar counter in front of him.  He takes a seat on one of the stools and bangs his hand on the table.

           “Gimme one of the strongest you have,” he says.

           The bar tender puts a short glass on the table and puts two ice cubes in it.  He then gets a green bottle from the shelf behind him and fills the glass up halfway with the green liquid.

           “It’s made by Cryomans,” the bar tender says.  “Those brutes really know how to get wasted.”

           Marcus downs the whole glass at once and slams it on the table.  By now the other men have settled down back at their tables.

           “What do I call you?” Marcus asks the bar tender.

           “I’m Wyatt,’’ he says.

           “Good to meet you, Wyatt.”

           Marcus finds a room at a local inn where he tries to sleep, but can only think about his father.  Why didn’t anyone tell me? He asks himself.  How did this happen? 

           Deemus uses an app on Marcus’s wrist device that produces a frequency to put him to sleep.  Marcus immediately succumbs to the frequency and falls into a deep sleep.  Deemus shuts down for the night.

On the other side of Thorax is the small town of Morning Burrow.  The town has been planning an expansion into the nearby woods for some time now, and is beginning the early stages of clearing the trees.  A man named Brian is digging a ditch to test the soils under the trees to see what type of foundation would be best for buildings around here.  It is an all-day job, he needs to dig a hole up to 20 feet deep to get a good enough sample of the soil.

           After 18 hours of work, Brian hits something hard.  He is not sure what it is at first, he thinks its a rock so he hits it hard with his shovel.  It lets off a metallic sound.  Brian begins to dig it out and sees that it looks like a human cryo-chamber.  He hits it with his shovel again and the outer casing shatters.  Inside, Brian sees what he feared most: a body.  Poor old Brian reaches into the casket to examine this perfectly preserved specimen.  As soon as he touches the “man’s” chest, its eyes open wide and it grabs Brian by the throat.

           It holds on so tight Brian cannot even scream.  His eyes begin to bleed and his face is turning purple.

           “Commencing mission,’’ the “man” said, as he ripped Brian’s throat right out of his neck.  Blood sprays on the “man’s” face and gets in its eyes, but it does not bother it. 

           The “man” looks down at Brian’s mutilated corpse and smiles.  He then performs a scan of the entire planet, giving up his identity to no one as an android.  An exterminator.  The very exterminator that fell to this world 600 years ago.  The name on his capsule says Jerry-78.001.  They are given names and numbers to help keep track of them.  Jerry is ready to begin his mission: kill the rebels on Cox.  He has no idea when or where he is, but his mission parameters say to kill everyone on the planet he was dropped on.  His scanners pick up a small settlement nearby, as well as other people scattered throughout the forest performing the same task as our late friend Brian.  Jerry goes for those men first.  He has no strategy, he needs no strategy.  He is an unstoppable killing machine and he will kill the ones closest to him first... and go from there... 

Marcus has been in Old Morrow for two days now.  He learned much about what happened during his absence from Wyatt.  He spends virtually all of his time at the tavern.  He asks, Wyatt answers.  Wyatt stays at the tavern all day long and only closes for six hours a day.  He takes short breaks but it seems like he can just stand behind that bar serving drinks forever. 

           Marcus has learned that his father fell ill at age 700.  He was unable to fight the disease, or more likely unwilling.  When he died he left his entire fortune to Marcus.  He had hoped that people would be able to get in touch with Marcus, but because he was trying to lay low from the outlaws, nobody was able to find him.  Marcus never got the message that his father died. 

           The people of Thorax have been waiting for Marcus to return to restore balance to the economy of Thorax, which has basically gone to shit since Randolph Pond’s death.  Randolph didn’t leave anyone in charge of his finances because he only trusts his own son with the great responsibility.  Randolph was a hero and a business champion, but he was also a paranoid crazy person.  When Marcus was younger, his father would give him a map into the woods and said it lead to a new present, but it would usually lead to nowhere and Randolph would deny he ever did such a thing.  He wouldn’t do it just to annoy Marcus, it seemed he truly had some form of psychosis that causes him to do those things.  Marcus learned to live with it though, and he believes it made him a better person.

           Marcus knows nothing about finances, so he leaves the task of balancing the economy to Deemus.  They both know that they cannot fix everything over night and that it will take some time.  It looks like Marcus is here to stay for some time now. 

           On the media set behind Wyatt at the bar two mecha are doing battle in the Ultimate Mecha Championship.  It is an event that is broadcasted galaxy wide and it akin to an ancient “Super Bowl.”  Marcus watches with Cryoman vodka in his glass as a local news bulletin intervenes on the broadcast.

           A reporter onscreen begins to speak in a calm, collected voice, “this just in from Morning Burrow: eleven men have been found murdered and mutilated in the forest surrounding the village.”

           “What the hell..?” Marcus hums to himself in disbelief. 

           “There was no sign of struggle at either scene and each man is believed to have died instantly,” the newscaster went on.  “We will give you more details when we get them.”

           The UMC returns to the screen with one mech still standing over the destroyed body of the other, its pilot standing on its shoulder with his arms in the air.

           “Who could have done such a thing?” Marcus asks.

           “Someone evil,” Wyatt says.  “Someone not of this world.”

           Deemus pulls up various data files on past events on Thorax.  He finds little on any killings.  In fact he finds none, there has never been a murder on Thorax. 

           “Somebody may have found out about you,” Wyatt says to Marcus.  “They are unhappy with how the economy turned out, they may want to kill you.”

           “Then why would they kill all those men?” Marcus asks rhetorically. 

           “Perhaps they are unhappy with the new land development,” Deemus suggests.  “They may not believe in spreading into the forest, it happened 17,000 years ago on planet Gia, when---”

           “I don’t need a history lesson, Deemus,” Marcus interjects. 

           On the media set the same newscaster as before appears onscreen again, this time looking physically distraught, not like how she was before; calm and composed.  She also appears to have just finished crying, her face wet from the tears.

“People of Thorax this is a high alert Delta.  NeoGen officials on-world have ordered all civilians to stay in their homes and-- and don’t let anyone inside.”  She begins to breakdown again, but continues, “officials have found-- officials found that the entire town of Morning Burrow has been murdered.  All 459 citizens were killed in what looks like an Exsang massacre.”

           The newscast shows images of the horrific scene as officials pack up and take away the mutilated bodies. 

           “Vampires!?” Marcus shouts.  “I thought those things didn’t feed on humans anymore?!”

           “They don’t,” says Wyatt.  “This wasn’t Exsangs, the bodies were not drained of their blood.”

           “Then what the hell kind of a demon did this?” Marcus shouts.

           “Who says it’s a Mythic?” Deemus says.  “The Mythics have good relations with mankind.”

           “The Ultras have good relations with man, most of those Mythic species are bastards,” Marcus responds.

           “But Mythics keep to themselves, on their own planets,” Wyatt says.  “I don’t think this was Mythics.”

           Marcus sits quietly to himself to reflect.  He realizes what he has to do.  “I have to find it and kill it,” he says.  “I am the only one on this planet who’s a warrior.”

           An old man sitting at one of the tables at the tavern who has been listening, who always listens, lets out a laugh.  “You call yourself a warrior, kid?” He says, laughing.  “What makes you think you’re cut out for--”

           “I am a goddamn bounty hunter!” Marcus shouts, and the man shuts up. 

           “I can use a gun, too,” Wyatt says.

           “Then let’s get to my ship to pick some out.”

           Wyatt closes the tavern and the two men leave to get to the Mud-Dog. 

Deep in the forest, Jerry stalks his next group of victims; the small town of Swamp Hide.  There are 189 citizens of Swamp Hide, and they are all heeding the warning of the NeoGen officials.  Jerry walks calmly through the town square and can see how they people have locked themselves away.  Each window and each door is boarded up and sealed shut.  There is not a single soul in sight, but he can see every one of them in infrared on his scanners.  His powerful nerve center immediately calculates the best attack sequence.  His simple non-strategy is to kill the closest and easiest.  He has no other reason to exist other than to perform his mandate. 

           Jerry smiles as he figures out his best plan of attack.  He goes first for the small shops nearest to him where people are hiding behind the counters.  He knocks on the door to one, provokingly.  Then, without waiting for a reply, he rips open the solid, reinforced pine door like it were paper and throws it accross the street.  The people in the shop instinctively scream and he jumps over the counter and slaughters them mercilessly.  Two girls, an older woman and a man.  He grabs the faces of the young girls and closes his vice of a fist, crushing their skulls instantly, and causing their brains to splatter.  The older man and woman scream in horror as the young lives in front of them are taken in the most horrific of ways.           

           The old man takes out a rifle and fires it at Jerry, hitting him in the face.  The shot has no affect on him, and Jerry does not hesitate to retaliate.  Jerry forces his hand into the man’s gut and pulls out a jumbled mess of organs.  He then takes the man’s rifle from his hand and shoots the man in the face; his blood gets all over the woman who has backed up into a corner in fear.  Jerry approaches her with blood and a smile on his face.  He points the gun at the woman’s face and pulls the trigger.  It is empty, it only had two shots.  They woman has a moment of relief before Jerry drives the barrel of the gun through her left eye socket and out the back of her skull.

           This shop was done.  Jerry continued onto the next shop, and then the next, and the next.  He eventually made his way through every building in Swamp Hide, killing every citizen.  Out of the last home, Jerry can hear sirens off in the distance, approaching fast.  Instead of running, like any good criminal would, Jerry stands in the town square waiting for the corporate police to arrive. 

           Two squad cars show up carrying two men each.  They stop about ten meters away from Jerry, get out of their cars and point their weapons at Jerry.

           “Freeze, asshole!” One officer shouts from behind his car door. 

           “I have done nothing wrong,” Jerry says.

           “This town has a security feed, asshole! We saw everything!”

           The public building and street cameras captured everything Jerry did.  Not that it would matter, Jerry is unstoppable.  Jerry walks toward the officers and they open fire.  Each metal bullet bounces off Jerry like insects.  He gets close enough to grab one of the officers by the flesh on his chest and slams him into the car.  This kills that officer instantly.  Jerry then pushes the squad car into the officer on the other side of it, crushing him to death, blood spraying everywhere.  The other two officers keep firing, doing no damage to Jerry.  Jerry picks up a fallen officer’s weapon and tries to fire at the other two officers, but it is out of ammo.

           “Goddamn squirt-guns!” Jerry shouts in anger as he throws the gun at the officer on the far side of the other patrol car, penetrating his skull and causing a huge portion of it to explode from the force.  Jerry then grabs the last officer by the throat, and using his free hand drives two fingers into the mans eyeballs.  The officer screams loudly for a second before becoming silent with death. 

           Jerry looks out in pride on the blood soaked streets of Swamp Hide.  The smell of death and iron is in the air.  Once again, there are no survivors of this massacre.  Jerry’s scanners pick up no further life-forms nearby, so he moves onto the next town on foot, through the dense forest.  He leaves no trace of his existence behind, only the corpses of those slain.         

           Through thick brush Jerry runs at impossible speeds.  He weaves through the branches like a snake through water. 

Back at the space port, Marcus and Wyatt board the Mud-Dog.  In the back of the small ship is an armory.  In it is a wide variety of weapons: rail guns, laser tubes, metallic projectile weapons, beam weapons, both plasma and solid blade swords, grenades, a few boom sticks, and at least one rocket launcher.  All that plus a month’s worth of ammo for each piece. 

           “Quite a collection you have here,” Wyatt remarks.

           “Take your pick,” Marcus says as he picks up his favorite weapon; the guided sphere.

           Guided spheres are solid steel balls that are controlled by an anti-gravity device located in a glove worn by the user.  The glove allows the user to send the sphere anywhere, at any speed.  These are very deadly, renewable ammunition weapons.  They never run out of ammo because the sphere keeps coming back to the user with the glove. 

           Wyatt picks up an old buck-shot and a revolver pistol.

           “What kind of experience do you have with a gun?” Marcus asks Wyatt.

           “Hunting,” he replies.

           Marcus takes it as it is and hands Wyatt a box of ammo and a ruck-sack.  They each load up a sack of ammo and leave the ship.  They go to the leisure room on the Mud-Dog and prepare their weapons on the table.  Marcus switches on the media set. 

           On the set the newscaster is bringing live coverage of the aftermath of Swamp Hide.  If the killer were to have waited around any longer, it’s likely the reporters would have been slaughtered as well. 

           Marcus and Wyatt decide to begin their search for this demonic killer near Swamp Hide.

           “Swamp Hide is on the other side of the world,” Wyatt says.  “It will take a few days to a couple of weeks to get there in my car.”

           “We’ll take the Mud-Dog,” Marcus says.  “With a space ship that journey will take minutes.”

           The two men continue to prepare for the impending battle, while Deemus is uploaded to the ship’s hub.  Deemus takes control of the ship and takes off for low orbit.  Just above the atmosphere Wyatt is able to look down at Thorax.

           “It’s beautiful from up here,” he says.  “I’ve never been into space.”

           Deemus takes the Mud-Dog around to the other side of the world, where Swamp Hide is, and he takes the ship down.  Entering the atmosphere is a new and jarring experience for Wyatt, he has never been in such a situation.  The shaking, the heat, the flames right outside the windows.  Marcus sits tightly as Wyatt screams humorously in terror.  Marcus laughs at his friend.

           The Mud-Dog lands in a field just outside Swamp Hide and the two men and the AI exit the ship.  They encounter the news team and several officials helping with cleanup.  An official dressed in a HAZMAT suit with “NeoGen” printed on his chest approaches the men. 

           “You cannot be here,” the man says.

           “I am Marcus Pond, and I’m a bounty hunter,’’ Marcus says. “I am here to hunt down the killer.”

           “Marcus Pond?” The man asks, humbly.  “I heard you were back, we’ve been waiting for you.”

           The man identifies himself as Jonah, an official working for NeoGen.  He takes Marcus and Wyatt to a security room in the town hall of Swamp Hide.  He then shows the men the tapes of the killer’s attack on the town.  Marcus and Wyatt watch in horror as each citizen is killed one by one. 

           “I can’t watch this,” Marcus says as he turns his eyes away from the view-screen. 

           “This was no mythic,” Wyatt says.  “This was an exterminator.’’

           Marcus and Jonah look perplexed at Wyatt.  The two have no idea what he is talking about in this context. 

           “Exterminators were a now declassified military weapon of mass destruction,” Wyatt says.  “They were bio-androids built by a variety of corporations.  They were sent down to worlds to wipe out opposing militaries.  This one may have been lost on this world and somehow got activated.”

           “So why would it just kill everyone?” Jonah asks.

           “Because that’s what they are programmed to do.”

           The three men stand silently for a moment, reflecting on this new information.  Finally, Wyatt begins to speak again.

           “They’re virtually unstoppable,” he says.  “I’m not sure our weapons will stop this one.”

           “Then what do we do?” Marcus asks.

           “There is one thing...” Wyatt says. 

           Wyatt then takes out a knife he grabbed from the armory, and jams it into his wrist.

           “What the hell are you doing!?” marcus shouts as he grabs for the knife.

           “Wait, stop,” Deemus interjects.  “I had a feeling about this the moment I met him...”

           Wyatt cuts away a strip of flesh, revealing a metal skeleton lined with wires and circuitry.  Wyatt is an android.  In fact, he is a repurposed exterminator. 

           “They replaced my indestructible flesh with a more realistic set,” Wyatt says.  “I figured showing you like this would be the best way to reveal myself.”

           “Why did you keep it a secret?” Marcus asks.          

           “You never asked.”

           Wyatt wraps his arm in a bandage and the two men make their way outside.  Wyatt attempts to activate his scanners after many years of them remaining inert.  He is unable to do so.  His programming has been totally reverse engineered.  He can no longer fight, he can no longer scan.

           “I thought I might still have some part of that life, but I guess I was wrong,” Wyatt says. 

           “That doesn’t mean we’re dead in the water,” Deemus says.

           Deemus is right.  The wrist device where he resides uses a neural link to interface with its user.  The link is DNA specific but any android can use one if the AI is willing to integrate.  Marcus could give Wyatt the wrist device and Deemus could effectively take over Wyatt’s body using an app designed for that purpose.  Deemus has a large database of hand to hand combat styles and weapons training.  Deemus will use Wyatt’s body to fight the exterminator.  Deemus also has his own scanners, and he can use Wyatt’s old tubes to amplify his signal.  They should find the exterminator very soon.

Jerry is making his way to the next nearest town.  He moves swiftly through the trees and sneaks up on his prey discretely.  This next town, Water Place, is just as silent and dead as Swamp Hide.  The townspeople all cower in their homes as Jerry lurks outside, calculating. 

           Near a group of homes, Jerry makes his first move on this new town.  He breaks open a house’s front door and can see a family of five cowering in the basement on his scanners.  He kicks down the door leading to the basement and walks down the steps.  From outside the home, blood curdling screams can be heard.  Every neighbor in the whole area can hear the screams of this family as their lives are taken from them. 

           Jerry exits the house and moves onto the next one.   He goes through five houses, killing everyone he meets.  Some try to fight, but it is in vein, and their deaths are even more horrific and painful.  When exiting the fifth house, Jerry picks up a new contact on his scanner, it is a space ship coming down from orbit.  It is the Mud-Dog. 

           The Mud-Dog lands in a small field behind some of the houses.  Jerry runs for cover to remain covert.  Two men exit the ship, armed to the teeth.  Jerry’s scanner shows that one of the men is an android classified: Deemus.  The other is an unidentifiable human male. 

           “We know you’re out there,” Deemus shouts.  “I can see you, clear as day, on my scanner!”

           Jerry comes out from behind a tree and approaches the men.  He puts his hand up as if he were giving himself up.  He is smiling, staring straight at the human.

           “He looks just like any other man,” the human says.

           “Yeah, and who are you?” Jerry asks.

           “I am Marcus, a bounty hunter, and I am here to kill you!” Marcus says.

           “Step aside, Deemus, androids are not under my mandate,” Jerry says as he gets into a fighting stance.  Marcus also prepares himself by pointing his weapon at the android. 

           Jerry charges at Marcus with a ready fist, but before he can reach the man, Deemus gets in the way and throws a punch.  The punch catches Jerry off guard but he manages to dodge it.

           “By attacking me, you have become my enemy,” Jerry says.

           The two androids begin to fight one on one.  Other than different types of flesh, the two are evenly matched in every way.  Deemus has adapted to the body well and is using his database full of martial arts styles to guide him.  The two go at it for about a minute throwing punches and dodging, never landing a significant blow. 

           Marcus fires a round at Jerry.  It does not hurt the exterminator, but it makes him let his guard down long enough for Deemus to react.  Deemus throws a powerful punch right at Jerry’s face.  This causes Jerry to fly back several feet. 

           Jerry gets up and stares straight at Deemus, he was unaffected by the punch.  Deemus, however, now has to deal with shattered and torn knuckles on his right hand. 

           Pointing at Marcus, Jerry shouts “you’ll pay for that you ape!” And then refocusses his attention on Deemus.  “And you cannot win with that primitive flesh.”

           Deemus looks down at his shattered fist, and then back up at Jerry.  Deemus charges at full speed and begins to punch Jerry over and over with the same fist, destroying it more and more with every blow.  Jerry does not fight back and only laughs at Deemus, but after about a minute, he begins to feel it.  The flesh has been torn, and the metal skeleton is exposed.  It is beginning to inflict damage on Jerry’s face, so he jumps back to avoid the blows.  When Jerry jumps back, Deemus jumps foreword throwing punch after punch.  Soon, after many blows, a small patch of Jerry’s metallic skeleton becomes exposed from under his skin.  Jerry then begins to retaliate.  Soon, the two androids are going at it full force, landing blow after blow.  Deemus shows more surface damage than Jerry, but the punches are taking their toll equally on both parties.  The two do not stop or slow down to catch their breath, they just keep fighting.

           “Kick his ass Deemus!” Marcus shouts from a few yards away in the grassy field. 

           The two androids begin to shift their battle closer and closer to the Mud-Dog.  Try to get him onto the ship, Deemus thought to himself.  On the ship I can finish him off before he kills any more.  With over a thousand victims at this point, Jerry must be stopped. 

           The two androids fight an even battle.  Deemus’s flesh has been torn to shreds and bleeds profusely.  His flesh consists of biological skin and muscle tissue, but underneath it is his indestructible metal skeleton.  Jerry’s skin is undamaged, but that matters not in this fight. 

           Deemus finally takes Jerry by a chunk of flesh on his chest and just throws him at the Mud-Dog, slamming him up against the side at full force; the ship shakes.  Deemus uses his remote access to open the hatch on the side of the Mud-Dog.  He grabs Jerry and throws him into the ship.

           “Deem, what are you doing!” Marcus asks in surprise. 

           “It’s the only way, Mark,” Deemus says. 

           His plan is complete, he has forced Jerry into the ship to enact his final solution.  Marcus was unaware of this plan.  Wyatt, still fully aware of his surroundings yet not in control of his body, is fully aware of Deemus’s selfless plan.

           Deemus takes the wrist device off and throws it to Marcus.  Marcus looks at it with a new understanding of what is going to happen.  On the wrist device Marcus can see a series of numbers... counting down.  Deemus shuts the hatch to the Mud-Dog.  As he does Jerry lunges for him and Marcus can see the ship begin to shake from the outside.  The ship then begins to vibrate; it is about to self destruct.  Marcus has no need to run, the self destruct mechanism on his ship does not create a violent, fiery explosion.  Instead the ship creates a tiny black hole in the center that consumes the entire ship and then dissipates into nothing.  It happens fast and quiet, the black hole sucking the Mud-Dog into an infinitely tiny point, and then it disappears from existence.

           Marcus looks out at the empty grass field and smiles.  He is proud of what his friend has done.  They were always willing to sacrifice everything to stop Jerry.  Wont be going to space for a while, Marcus thought to himself.  He was stuck on Thorax.  The truth was that he couldn’t be happier.  He went there to lay low but he found a purpose. 

           “It’s unfortunate, though,” Marcus says.  “Deemus sacrificed Wyatt right along with him.”

           “No he didn’t!” Said Wyatt’s voice from the wrist device.  “He downloaded me to this device before taking over my body entirely.  I was in this thing from the very beginning.”

           “What will you do now?” Marcus asked.

           “I know where to get new bodies on the net, they’re not hard to find,” Wyatt said.

           Marcus attached the device to his wrist and made his way back to Water Place to help survivors and get in contact with officials.  Though some were killed here, this town can say they survived the massacre of the exterminator. 

           Marcus must now take over the roll that his father once filled.  He must start work on getting Thorax out of this depression.  He has a lot to fix now, he must deal with whole towns, whole economic centers being wiped off the map.  He has much work to do in his future, and without a ship he has no reason to leave these people behind again. 

Marcus has set up a camp in the field outside Water Place to help personally console survivors of the massacre that happened three weeks ago now.  He lives in a simple tent with a simple camp set up around it.  He has spent so much time cramped up in a space ship, nature is a comforting alternative.  Marcus enjoys this simpler existence, he has h

ired lawyers and economic experts to help him fix the world.  He knew from the very beginning that he could not do it alone. 

           Wyatt has purchased a new body; a younger-looking model.  A model that is not an ex-exterminator.  He still tends bar at the Spirit Horse.  Marcus has also downloaded a new AI to his wrist device.  Her name is Deema.

Underling

The dense, blue maw of the jungle engulfed him like a feeding snake. Gunfire and dirt surrounded him, consuming him, sucking the energy out of his weakened consciousness. Bullets and explosions were the only sounds; that and his comrades screaming as they fell, suffering, dying, one by one. The superior light-based weapons of the enemy meant instant death. He was never going to win. The outcome of the battle had already been decided. As his comrades met their fates, he watched; unable to help, unable to scream, unable to move, unable to breathe. They killed his men until Seran was all that was left, but even his deep blue eyes turned black as he died in front of his best friend. They were more than human, but were technologically out-gunned in every other way. That was when Argon jerked to, taking in a huge breath of air and screaming at the same time.

Argon Underling woke up sick to his stomach like he did every morning. It was like his version of an alarm clock was a disembodied spirit who enjoyed punching him in the gut every morning. He immediately ran for the waste bucket attached to his wall and vomited up a thick, greenish goop that immediately filled the room with an odor that pierced his nostrils. Bracing himself, he let out heave after heave of that sludge. After about six huge chunks, he was done, but still exhausted. He looked down into the bucket, breathing deeply, the stink was too much. He put his hand over an orange touch-plate and a holographic keypad manifested above it. Argon pressed “enter” and the waste bucket regressed into the wall. A few mechanical sounds and a chime later, it reemerged, clean and smelling of fresh cinnamon.

“Lights,” Argon said, and the lights in his tiny room came on.

Argon’s room was indeed tiny, about four by six meters. That was enough for a man like him to live, but not enough for anyone to be happy. His walls were covered in vents and pipes that pumped oxygen and clean water in and out of the room. Wires and deteriorated light fixtures hung from the cracked and half-missing ceiling tiles above. The whole room, save a single wall, was painted in a dark, dull green that was worn and chipped away from years of being left unattended. Each wall displayed something useful, like drawers, a toilet and shower, a desk and chair and of course Argon’s bed and the only door to the room. The wall which had the desk and chair sitting up against it was the only wall that was totally flat and white.

“TV,” Argon said, and the white wall lit up and began showing the news. It was the only network that he could get down there, as he lived within the bowels of a planet, deep below the surface. Since Argon had only ever seen the surfaces of his world twice, that TV was his only portal to the society above.

Argon lived in the deepest part of a layered artificial world. The layer in which he lived was the dark and sewer-like realm known as the bowels, where lower-class citizens lived in tiny compartments, packed together like eggs in egg crates, stacked on top of each other. Argon lived in a huge cuboid atrium with a grid-like arrangement of compartments lining the walls. It was one hundred compartments wide by one hundred compartments tall. Some larger compartments housed shops and even a few small factories which produced all sorts of things for the cities above. At the top of the atrium was a ceiling that held artificial light fixtures which fluctuated from light to dark to simulate night and day. Argon never noticed the difference between night and day, it was pretty much always dark down there. People moved about via terraces lining the walls in front of the compartments, but there was no floor in the center of the atrium. In the center was a high drop and a deep hole at the bottom of which was a reservoir of water that kept life of that atrium going. Argon would often lean on the railing to look down, he liked to see the water rushing out of pipes on the walls and into the reservoir. No one ever dared jump down there, unless they were suicidal, for there would be no way back up and the processors below the surface of the water would chop any man to bits. Argon lived in that dark, bluish hell of an atrium, devoid of proper sunlight for all but three of his 128 years of life. That damp, echoey atrium was one of hundreds of thousands underneath the surface of that world; the artificial world known as Ezekiel.

Ezekiel was built in several layers. The layer above the bowels was the first surface, lit by an artificial sun, and geographically resembled the surface of a natural planet. It was covered in jungles and cities and suburbs and mountains and deserts and canyons. The ones who lived in extravagance compared to Argon called that layer home. Floating seven miles above the first surface was the ceiling; a thick, metallic shield that covered first surface entirely, like a matryoshka, connected to the ground below by huge tethers. Built within the mile-thick ceiling was a realm much like the bowels, but the people living there were actually well off. Built atop the ceiling was the great, world-sized city. The city was full of glass and steel and lights and super-structures, with thousands of individual transports weaving through the sky in an orderly grid. The city had its own atmosphere and blue sky, making it the official surface of Ezekiel. The city was where the upper classes of Ezekiel lived, and where most outsiders would visit.

Ezekiel orbited an ice giant named Matthew. Matthew was big and blue and a wonderful sight to see from the city. Argon had seen Matthew before.

Argon was, for the most part, a stranger to the realm above his own. He learned a little bit from his TV, but the programs cycled throughout the day and Argon rarely payed attention to any of them. They were sort of like background noise that he would glance at occasionally if they were talking about something interesting. He got most of his information from his computer.

Argon attached his phone to his wrist and sat at his green, iron desk. He put his hand flat down on an orange circle painted onto the surface and lifted his wrist. A holographic keypad rose and then spread out to a desktop display and holographic keyboard.

Using his eyes to navigate, he first checked his mail; no mail. He then checked his identity page; no notifications. He checked his first favorite news site; more murders on the surface, the Ultras were doing something profound, the score of the previous night’s robot rumble, another murder, a revolution had erupted on planet Cox, NeoGen developed a cheaper trans-light engine... article after article was the same boring crap as every other day, literally nothing of any interest. Bored of that news site, Argon moved to another. It had virtually all of the same articles, but they were written by different jerks. At times like that, Argon would wonder which jerk was copying which. Bored of everything, Argon went back to check his mail; no mail. He checked his identity page; no notifications. He then went back to the news sites; still the same articles. Argon then decided to check the message boards. He followed movies and politics of the surface and beyond, although he had never seen a movie and the politics didn’t affect him. Nothing interesting on the message boards, so he decided to check his mail; no mail. He checked his identity page; a notification! Argon was thrown by this sudden notification, not quite happy to see it but relieved at least. He selected it; it was an ad for a TV show that he was following, but could never watch. Screw the ID page, back to the news sites; still nothing new.

Argon repeated this process for about an hour, seeing rarely anything new. He lived 11,000 years into the Cosmic Century; when the entire Milky Way galaxy was at the doorstep of every citizen, when anyone could get a ship and fly about the planets, when the races of the galaxy lived in harmony under the control of the Ultras. It was perfect. It was fantastic. It was amazing. In reality, there was no one word to describe the state of the galaxy, and Argon’s condition was proof of that.

Argon slapped his hand down on the orange circle and the display went away. Burying his face in his hands he rubbed gently, trying to prep himself up for work. Above his bed on the wall was the room’s only sad excuse for a window where he had a small tea leaf growing. Watering that little guy gave Argon something to do to pass the time in his tiny little compartment. The leaf took great care to maintain, as the little bit of light coming from the atrium’s ceiling was far from enough to let the tiny plant thrive. Argon never intended on using the plant to make tea, it was just the first pod he saw at the shop, and he wanted something to take care of. Somehow, that little guy survived on neon lighting and old-tech bulbs, and Argon really had no idea why.

Argon made so little money that he couldn’t afford a single sick day, so even after throwing up a storm he would go to work. Money was beyond tight for Argon, he could barely afford the food at the market and he hated the rest of the world for it. Down in the bowels, there were factories and warehouses where the lower class would build anything, from the robots that maintained the cities above to vehicles that carried the surface dwellers about. Argon worked making the latter. He would stand in one spot for six hours a day, seven days a week, cutting sheet metal to prepare it for assembly. Argon had no actual idea what the piece he specialized in crafting actually did. He just cut it, by hand, using a plasma knife, every day, for the past ten years. Before that, he hopped around from job to job, factory to factory, cutting, assembling, testing, doing nothing that felt fulfilling. The only thing he ever did that was fulfilling still haunted him every day.

In the transport factory, many machines moved about and many workers did their thing making all sorts of noise. One man near Argon’s station used a rivet gun to attach Argon’s piece to some other guy’s piece. The rivet gun made a loud and fast rattling sound as it worked its way down a seam. The sound of machine gun fire, putting Argon’s mind in a place he didn’t want it to be. Almost every time that rivet gun went off, Argon could see their faces. Both the faces of his men, and the face of his best friend going blank and falling.

When the red light at his station turned green and Gerry, the guy on the next shift showed up, it meant freedom for Argon. He would go nowhere else after work but home, not the market, not the Dragon’s Den, home. As soon as he arrived back in his little compartment, Argon would first water his tea leaf, then he would make use of another plant.

His stomach was still trying to escape through his gullet. To ease his suffering, he used something that even in the bowels of a planet was easy to come by. The plant known as Dragon-Leaf, a smokable drug that induced sensations of euphoria. Argon pulled a small tin container and an e-cig from his top-left drawer and sat down on his bed. He stretched his hand out over the edge of his bed and a steel table rose from the floor, green and chipped. Argon only used that table for one simple procedure: he took a pinch of the Dragon-Leaf, which was ground to a powder, and packed it into the center slot of the e-cig. He closed the slot and as if by magic, the e-cig vaporized the leaf. Argon inhaled the contents. The magic kept working, as Argon’s stomach pain was quickly eased. He went from nausea to hungry in almost an instant. The leaf worked wonders for him, it helped him get through the day. He could have gone to a Den and smoked with others, but after work he always felt less social (as if he was ever social at all).

On this day, like any other day, Argon laid on his bed and smoked the leaf for hours. Argon had nothing more to do, so he smoked. That was what he did, and it was the only time he could get away from the mindless loop of using his computer. It was the only thing that provided him with an escape. In the bowels of Ezekiel, the only way to make it day to day was to provide yourself with some form of escape. For the people who lived within Ezekiel, as with Argon himself, there was virtually no way to get out, no metaphorical ladders for anyone to climb. The bowels was a pit out of which no one could escape. Surface dwellers would often refer to the bowels as the “black hole,” and the portals that led down there as the “event horizon.” Once you crossed the event horizon, once you entered the bowels, there was no escape. For everyone who was down there, there was no escape.

With his Dragon-Leaf, Argon was able to escape. Other bowel-dwellers would use various other types of drugs, far more dangerous ones, ones made from unnatural chemicals, but Argon was happy with his Leaf. It was all he needed, but far from all he wanted.

After sitting in silence for hours, taking drag after drag of the seemingly limitless vapor of the leaf, Argon was significantly... escaped. Staring up at his dim and leaky ceiling, he saw inspiration. He imagined himself flying a starship through space. He was the captain, and he was respected by his entire crew. Space dragons and pirates would attack his ship, but he would use his inhumanly quick thinking to save himself and his crew. He would kill dragons and thwart entire space cartels, then party with his crew afterwords, often scoring with the ladies. When he wasn’t captaining a ship he was flying with the Ultras on Gladius, the world where the mythics roamed free. Argon’s whole life was in his imagination; the life that mattered to him anyway. The effects of the Dragon-Leaf would last for hours, and Argon would take in every luxurious second. The leaf helped to keep his mind from wandering into that place where he didn’t want it to go. The leaf always made Argon feel better, it was the only way he could get himself to eat. Unfortunately, that meant he had to go out high if he wanted to get food.

Still feeling the effects of the leaf, Argon made the (poor) decision to venture outside of his compartment. Argon stepped out onto the terrace and there were others outside, going about their business, leaning on the railings, looking out with dreams of escaping. Escape was on most people’s minds, or at least Argon assumed so. The only visually appealing elements of the atrium were the neon light sculptures. Those sculptures, advertising businesses, displaying addresses, or just decorating, lined the walls inside the atrium. They would hang from pipes or struts or windows or doors or anything else they could be fastened to. Argon was always infatuated by their appearance.

Argon made his way to a set of elevators in the corner of the atrium. Puddles and leaky pipes lined the walls outside the compartments, it wasn’t much different than inside Argon’s compartment, save for the neon lighting. The creaking sound of metal expanding, contracting, and warping could often be heard echoing through the bowels. It was a solemn reminder that the world Argon lived under was one made by man. The way continents on some natural planets drifted, the metal and iron structure of this artificial world wanted to move freely, but the design did not allow for it. Argon entered one of the elevators and made his way up to level 60, where the atrium’s market was located. Always the most crowded, busy market workers mingled fast and loud with citizens on that level. A long assembly room stretched deep into the side of the atrium, making up the market. Lining the walls of the large room were the market venders, in the center were tables and benches for eating. Like almost always; nearly every table was taken up, there were lines of twenty people or more stretching from every vender, everyone was talking, and everyone was loud. Argon’s favorite food vender was in the back of the hall, beyond the sea of heads. Weaving in and out of each citizen was a challenge, but Argon was hungry enough not to think about it. He kept moving, opting not to go to an easier vendor. It turned out he had no choice. His favorite vender, Habbie, was closed. Argon could tell that from halfway down the ways. Oh no, Argon thought, as he was not in any state to deal with new people. I shouldn’t have smoked, I’m doomed. For Argon, there was no greater horror than having to deal with new people, especially since he lived in a realm where not everyone was as friendly as they could be. Making it worse was the euphoric effects of the leaf, still looming in his system. Being high always made things harder. Now something already difficult was made worse.

With his heart pounding, not knowing what to expect, Argon stood in the line for a vender who sold similar food to Habbie. Everyone around was talking, either face to face or through communicators, and none of them were silent. Argon was fortunate enough to live in an atrium inhabited solely by humans, for he dreaded dealing with any other species. Terxans he could deal with, but anything else made his heart race. He was twenty-second in line at first but since the lines moved so quickly in that market it only took a few short minutes for Argon to get to the front. The merchant was short and fat, wearing a trench-coat and fedora. He had an eyepatch and his one good eye was so milky that Argon couldn’t tell if he was looking at him or not.

“Yeah, waddaya having?” the merchant asked Argon.

“Do you have heart cakes?” Argon asked. Heart cakes were basically a type of meat pie that Argon would get almost every day. He liked to stick to things he knew well when trying out new places.

“Yeah we have those,” the merchant said, “A dollar sixty.”

“A dollar sixty!?” Argon said.

“A dollar sixty,” the merchant repeated.

“Habbie sells them for fifty cents!” Argon shouted. “What’s the deal here!?”

“Look,” the merchant said as he put a piping-hot cake on the counter in front of Argon, “you want it? It’s a dollar sixty. And hurry up, will ya? You’re holding up the line!”

Argon looked down at the cake. Using its neural scanners, Argon’s phone rang up point fifty cents and delivered them to the merchant’s register.

“No,” the merchant said, frustrated. “A dollar sixty! Not fifty cents! Do we have a problem here, chump?”

Argon looked at the cake again. It was steaming, inviting him in. His stomach grew stronger than his common sense and he made a decision. Argon grabbed the cake and ran. Screw that guy, he said to himself, inflating prices is a worse crime than what I’m doing. The merchant screamed and ordered security to go after him. Security in the bowels was the only sign of an outside world. The force was made up of private mercenaries who would rather have a salary than have to live from job to job. They were the only beings who could cross the event horizon and come back out at the end of the day. The reason why they could do that was simple; technology. They had personal energy shields should anyone below get hold of a weapon and try to use it against them. They also had DNA sensors in their own weapons which rendered them useless to anyone who tried to steal them. The security downstairs on Ezekiel was made up mostly of new mercenaries, they were slightly inept, trying to gain experience, but still had the tools to use lethal force.

Two officers (as the mercs were referred to, even though they were not actually officers of any kind) chased after Argon, but in the dense crowd, it was hard for them to keep up. Stuck in the crowd himself, Argon made another choice. He jumped over a vender’s counter, cake in hand, and ran into its kitchen. The officers swiftly gained on Argon. They hopped the table, scaring and angering onlookers. Argon was already in the storage room in the back before the officers reached the kitchen. Argon was cornered, the only way out of the storage room was.... The officers reached the door of the storage room and stopped, standing face to face with Argon.

“Give up,” one said, out of breath, “you’re cornered.”

“Yeah, kid, let’s go,” said the other.

Argon looked at his only exit, a lift in the back of the room. He also looked at the piping hot cake he still had on a plate in his hand. Argon pressed “open” on a keypad and the door opened up. Argon stepped into the lift.

“Don’t even think about it, kid,” said an officer.

“You don’t know where that leads,” said the other.

“Actually,” Argon said, “I do.”

The officers lunged at Argon and he threw his cake at the face of the first one. The scalding cake burned the officer’s face and he fell to the floor in agony tripping the officer behind him. That gave Argon enough time to shut the door, activating an automatic cycle sending him upwards. The destination of that cargo lift was to the place where all of those merchants got their goods... the first surface.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap ,oh crap, Argon thought as he hurtled upwards. The lift moved at a speed not meant for humans to bare. All of Argon’s blood rushed to his feet, causing him to pass out. Everything went black and Argon dropped to the floor, hitting his head hard enough to break the skin, and he was out.

#

The sounds of machine guns returned. Argon’s unit was again overrun. One by one, Argon saw his comrades fall, just like he did almost every night. Just when Seran, Argon’s closest ally, was about to meet his end, something strange happened. Instead of dying like the others, his blue eyes sank to black and he simply disappeared. He was gone, but somehow it felt like he remained. Like the essence of his existence was still there, lingering.

As Argon’s dream faded he came to, slowly, and hazily. His eyes struggled to stay open as they captured visions of other beds and glass separators in between them. The haze began to dissipate and Argon realized he was in a hospital, or at least what he thought must have been a hospital. He had only ever seen pictures of hospitals and their rooms, and the place where he was matched those images almost exactly. He regained his full vision and sat up to look around. Data was displayed on the glass separators between the beds. The one nearest to Argon showed his identity and health status. The hospital had scanned his eye-prints, matching him to his medical file and identity information. Argon’s phone was on the table next to his bed, turned off. He rubbed his wrist where the device was usually attached. His skin felt cold and dry like it always did since he had the thing on so often.

“Hello?” Argon said, weakly. His stomach was aching, he could feel nausea seeping in.

A hatch on the ceiling opened up and a robot with simple arms, a head like a slightly feminine hockey mask, and a torso like a clean-white, stubby cylinder descended. It had no legs and was suspended on a bed of antigravity. It floated about gracefully on a wave of blue energy that left a quickly dissipating wake.

“It is good to see that you are awake,” the bot said in a feminine and articulate voice. “I am N.U.R.S.E.-Unit 313. The procedure the doctors put you through has a high mortality rate.”

Argon was confused, “wait, wait, wait,” he said, “what procedure?”

“You had a concussion and serious brain trauma,” 313 said. “The doctors had to clone your brain and repair the damaged parts.”

“Where am I?” Argon asked.

“Hospital, foundation number zero zero point five one, first surface, in the trauma recovery unit,” 313 said.

“How did I get here?”

“You were found, unconscious, in a cargo transport unit, and were brought here. When you are fully healed you will be relocated to the Herald Correctional Facility until the time of your trial.”

“Trial!?” Argon shouted. “What did I do!?”

“Accessing,” 313 said as she paused for a moment. “Rations theft, evading arrest, assaulting an officer, unauthorized use of a cargo transport, and forced consumption of resources.”

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” Argon asked.

“You would not have died,” the bot said. “You would have been in a coma for much longer and possibly would have ended up brain dead. The doctors fixed you so you could stand trial.”

“You should have just killed me then,” Argon said.

“I am not authorized to end human life.”

“Someone should have killed me.”

“There are very few on this surface who are authorized to end the life of a human individual in your position.”

Argon didn’t say anything. His heart was pounding at the thought of having to stand trial, and the possibility of life in prison. Prison was kind to no one during the years of Argon’s existence and he knew that very well.

“Do not worry,” 313 said, “they are usually kind to veterans.”

Just then, Argon’s mind went somewhere else. The machine guns and the dying and the faces. Three years he spent on a world not far from Ezekiel, fighting an enemy he knew nothing about. Argon wretched and began to vomit again. He got out one mouthful before the robot injected him with medication, settling his rampant stomach.

“What the hell happened?” Argon said, whimpering. “I just wanted a cake! I just wanted some food!” He buried his face in his hands and began to cry. “I can’t go to prison,” he said. He paused for a moment... “I won’t go to prison.”

Argon took his phone from the table and attached it to his pale forearm. It booted up in a few seconds and he was ready. Argon made a decision and grabbed 313 by her arm and threw her out of his way to run for the hallway. As he burst out of his room, two guards next to the door immediately turned to grab him. These were actual police officers from the first surface, they were well trained and not the inept mercenaries from downstairs. As such, they did not need safety precautions on their weapons, because who would want to steal their guns? They should have had them out, though, because Argon was a slippery bastard. He immediately grabbed the personal weapon from the closest officer to him and took them both out with it. Weapons in a hospital were hardly ever set to kill, so both of those officers fell to the ground unconscious while Argon ran off.

Down the hall three more officers were already alerted to the situation. They grabbed at their weapons to stun Argon but he was faster than them. Three squeezes of the trigger led to three more officers falling limp to the floor. Doctors, robo-nurses, and patients alike screamed in fear of a man taking out security guards and running down the halls in nothing more than a hospital gown. Alarms began to sound in the hospital and Argon made for the stairwells.

“Sorry,” Argon said to a frightened doctor before he burst through the door to the stairs.

Argon ran down those stairs barefoot, jumping down each set of stairs. At the top of the stairwell, security officers were on their way down after him. Argon leapt down one set of stairs after another. Before long, his feet were bruising, but he did not want to go to prison. Once he finally reached ground level he hobbled out of the stairwell and limped through the lobby to the front door where there was strangely little security. Outside the hospital was a single road that led to a suburban town in one direction and a big city in the other. In between was nothing but blue-treed forests. Outside the hospital was a man about Argon’s size sitting on a bench. Argon made another choice and ran up to the man, pointing the gun at him.

“Give me your shoes!” Argon yelled. The man screamed and put his hands up, not sure what to do. “Give me your freakin shoes!” Argon shouted again. The man quickly took his shoes off and tossed them over to Argon. At that moment, several security officers burst out of the hospital and ran after Argon. With the shoes in one hand and the gun in the other, Argon ran for the tree line. On the smooth cement of the hospital patio, Argon’s bare feet were fine, but in the forest they would not be so fine.

Having sprinted ahead of the officers, Argon began hopping on one foot to try to get the first shoe on. Once he got that one on he ran some more and hopped around to put the other shoe on. With both the shoes secured to his feet, Argon was able to run farther, faster. The officers were closing in on him, almost able to grab him. Argon shot at the boot of the officer in front, tripping him and causing the rest of the officers to topple over him. With that, Argon was able to disappear into the forest. The trees were dense and there were very few pathways through the foliage. When he was too far for them, the officers stopped their pursuit, but the search for Argon Underling was not over.

Though his feet were aching and his muscles burned, Argon kept running. Deeper and deeper into the forest he went until he could no longer see or hear any signs of civilization. Eventually, he stopped to catch his breath and rest. In the center of a small clearing in the forest, Argon let out a roar and vomit spewed from his mouth. He wretched maybe ten times before starting to feel better. When his stomach eased, he sat down on the ground and plopped onto his back. He was staring up at the sky which was visible through the trees. It wasn’t a real sky, it was the artificial ceiling of Ezekiel’s first surface. Above that ceiling was the planet-sized city. There were tiny lights scattered all across megastructure, resembling stars. Argon looked at those stars for a short while before falling asleep.

#

Argon could see their faces. He could see them dying. Almost every one of them was a man whose name he had forgotten, but he remembered their faces like they were his own. He remembered Seran’s name, though. He would always remember Seran. But unlike the case with rest of the men in his unit, Argon had somehow forgotten how Seran died. He just saw his blue eyes turn black and disappear into oblivion.

When Argon awoke he was still in the same spot in the forest. No one had found him yet. Argon stood up and wretched, he felt sick. Not only that, but the pile of puke from the night before had permeated the air around him. Dragon-Leaf always helped him feel better, but he didn’t have any. He had nothing, he was still in a hospital gown and stolen shoes. The feeling of nausea overcame him and he began to heave. There was nothing in his stomach to throw up, so he just heaved and heaved. Only tiny bits of stomach bile came out, but it was enough to relieve the nausea for a while. Argon stood up, covered in sweat, and looked at the ceiling to get his bearings. He began to walk north, away from the hospital. He had no idea where he was going, all he knew was that it was the opposite direction of the people who wanted to find him.

Argon could keep running, but that would mean he would have to keep running. There was no way he could run forever, but for now, it was his only choice. So he walked... and walked... and walked. For a man who grew up and lived almost solely in a tiny pocket of metal underneath the surface of a constructed planet, he sure didn’t enjoy the outside world as much as anyone else. The dense forrest he was traversing resembled the battlegrounds of the war he fought in. The war was on a forest planet. The entire place was covered in nothing but forests and two small oceans. No one fought over the oceans. Though most of the war was fought in the space above the planet, Argon was stuck in a ground unit with other lower-class citizens, including the late Seran. Though they were all low class in his unit, Argon was the only one who hailed from the bowels of an artificial world. The soldiers of his unit were all perfectly adept at navigating open air spaces, but for Argon it was something new. He would trip over tree roots, get stuck on vines, pricked by thorn bushes, and attacked by angry animals. The environment was not kind to him, but over time he became more and more used to his surroundings, thanks in part to Seran, the man who befriended him. And now, many years after that war, he again found himself in an environment not suited for a bowel dweller, but it was an environment he could survive in. So on and on he went, deeper and deeper into the forest, constantly being reminded of Seran and the things he learned from him. Argon could always see Seran’s face, it was hard not to think of it.

Argon must have walked for at least an hour with a sore stomach before he began to smell smoke. As he moved onward, he began to see faint lights off in the distance between the trees. His slow walk turned into a steady jog as Argon ran toward the lights. As he got closer, he began to see that the lights were emanating from a house in the middle of the woods. Beams of the light glowed between the trees, like sunlight shining through skyscrapers. The house itself was ancient-looking, having a thatched roof and log walls. Yellow light emitted from its many wide-open windows. The house was intimately surrounded by trees, and was overgrown with vines weaving between the logs. Not knowing what to expect, Argon approached the house silently. Once he reached a vantage point, he could see a large man in a rocking chair inside the house facing away from the window. Before Argon could get a good enough look at him, the man stood up and walked toward the front door. Argon tried to hide behind a bush, but the big guy was already out his front door, staring him right in the face. They were hardly face to face, the huge man was almost ten feet tall and just as wide around. After seeing Argon, the man made a finger-gun and tiny arcs of blue electricity that were emanating from his phone began to warp around his hand.

“Who the hell are you!?” the man shouted, finger-gun pointed at Argon.

“My name is Argon Underling.”

“Underling? You’re from downstairs?”

“Yes, I am.”

The man put his hand down and welcomed Argon inside. He introduced himself as Flag Gorteksky. He smoked tobacco out of an ancient-looking pipe and spoke with a loud, rusty voice. He had a great long beard and wore suspenders over his big ol’ white and red striped t-shirt. He gave Argon some clothes and a drink of magic tea and sat him down on a couch in the living room of the rustic, wooden house. The walls of the house were lined with ancient relics, including weapons, jewels, masks, and chests of gold coins and jewels. A fireplace blazed on with a light rifle hanging on the wall above it. Flag was a humble hermit who lived in the woods of Ezekiel’s first surface where he was totally safe from the outside world.

“Tell me,” Flag said, “what brings you to the first surface of our wonderful Ezekiel, Argon?”

“It’s a long story,” Argon said, “I’m basically just running away.”

“I have heard some horrible stories about what goes on downstairs, lad, but I have never experienced living there for my own self.”

“It’s not so bad, you just have to get used to the darkness and echoes.”

“A bold place to live, but I fear it is not a place where one such as I would find himself.”

Flag and Argon talked for quite a while, sharing stories of life on and inside Ezekiel. Argon told Flag his war stories, emphasizing his hatred for the job. When Argon had just finished his education (there were schools where he lived), he wanted to get out of the bowels. He decided to enlist in the military and would begin training up top on the great city of Ezekiel. That was what gave him his best chance of leaving the planet altogether. After Argon enlisted, sure enough, a war broke out between the colonists of Ezekiel and neighboring worlds, and the NeoGen corporation over control of planet Matthew, the world around which Ezekiel orbited. The war reached the nearby forest-moon James, where Argon was posted with Seran. Seran taught Argon the ways of the forest. The two young soldiers became close allies and, together, made up a formidable presence. They were not just well trained, they were also genetically modified. A typical soldier serum was implemented in their unit, giving each member heightened senses, faster reflexes, a stronger build, and much faster legs. They were super human. Their muscles never atrophied, a trait useful for long space voyages, and their bones never lost density no matter what. Even after years of doing nothing in the bowels, Argon was still more than human.

Argon stayed on James with Seran for three years, holding a fort with fellow soldiers. Toward the end of the war, Argon and his unit were sent on a mission to assassinate a general, but were ambushed. That was the battle Argon always remembered. That was the one he had to re-watch every time he fell asleep. One by one, each member of his unit was taken out in the fire fight. He remembered each of their gruesome deaths in exact detail, which he told to Flag. But for some reason, he could not remember how it was that Seran fell. Argon knew Seran was dead, or at least he thought he knew, but he could not remember how it happened. Eventually the colonists won the war and gained independence for Matthew and its moons, but the soldiers were left with nothing more to do. Everyone who survived was basically sent home. Argon was reunited with his most dreaded life-mate, the bowels, and was left without his only friend. Argon was left alone in the bowels, friendless and without any use for his education. He was never going to see Seran again, he was never going to feel fulfilled again, he was never going to escape again.

Flag was also a war veteran. He fought in a war between cryoman insurrectionists and human colonists about six hundred years before Argon came to his place. Big ol’ Flag lost comrades and loved ones, but at the same time freed a group of humans from a group of corrupt cryomans. Flag was a war hero, he saved three evacuation shuttles on planet Vin during a glassing of the world by the cryomans. Flag then proceeded to destroy the seventeen cryoman ships that were doing the glassing with just a single corvette vessel. Most, but not all of the planet was lost, but the survivors had Flag to thank for their lives. Flag was an upholder of the law, and was an avid follower of police activity. To him, the word of law was more valid than even the word of the Ultras.

“I like to make sure the police of our great land are getting the job done properly,” Flag said as he adjusted the holo-dials on a police scanner app on his phone. Argon looked at it and his heart sank.

“What’s that?” Argon asked, knowing full well what it was.

“I do not think you have to worry about it laddie,” Flag said as he switched his device over to a clock.

“Where is the nearest city?” Argon asked, trying not to look like he knew what was up. “I need to get out of here.”

“Head northeast for about three miles until you reach a road, then head north on the road until you reach Central City. You cannot miss it, not with the elevator leading to the ceiling, you can spot that monument of man from miles away” Flag said. “Not that it matters, boy-o.”

Three knocks on the door were followed by a “come in” from Flag. Two police officers opened the door and stepped into the house. Argon’s heart sank even deeper than before, he wanted to throw up.

“Argon Underling,” an officer said, “you are charged with assaulting an-”

Before the officer could go on, Argon grabbed an ancient and rusty sword off of Flag’s wall and swung it at him. Both officers retaliated with their guns. Flag also charged up his finger-gun and aimed it at Argon. Argon was quicker than them, as he smacked away the officers weapons with the sword and hit them both on their helmets hard enough to knock them down. Flag shot pure bolts of plasma out of his finger-gun, but missed Argon with every shot. War hero, huh? Argon spun around with his sword and sliced off Flag’s hand that controlled the plasma. Flag screamed the type of scream that gave people nightmares. The two officers rushed up to their feet and lunged at Argon. The first officer met the wrong end of Argon’s sword and took a blade-full of metal to the gut. The officer fell to the floor with a sword in his belly and coughed up a lungful of blood. The other officer looked down in horror before Argon grabbed a nearby wooden chair and broke it over his back. The chair shattered to pieces and the officer fell, knocked out, on top of his partner.

“Holy crap!” Argon shouted out loud. Flag was still screaming and bleeding profusely. “I just killed a man,” he looked at Flag, suffering, dying, “maybe two.”

Argon got himself together and bolted out of the house and into the dense woods. He ditched his phone, it made him easy to track. He headed northeast to where that road Flag spoke of hopefully was. Argon hoped it wasn’t a lie Flag told him to throw him off. It was dark out, but Argon kept moving forward. The lights on the great ceiling above him were arranged in specific patterns that allowed first surface dwellers to find north, south, east, and west. Essentially, the lights were a giant compass, which Argon thankfully knew how to read. As he walked, his stomach began to feel foul again. The only thing he could think of that would make it feel better was Dragon-Leaf. It had been almost two days since he had last smoked. The nausea didn’t slow him down, though, and he kept walking. The deceased faces of his fallen comrades flashed through his mind, almost never stopping. He tried to think of other things, things like captaining a starship and defeating space pirates. He tried to think of things more glamorous than war, but he failed to do so miserably. His dead comrades were the only things occupying his thoughts. Them and Seran, but Argon still couldn’t remember how he died. Why was it that he could recall the others’ deaths so vividly but had no memory of Seran’s final moments? He knew he was dead, he was listed KIA after the war. There was a funeral, an obituary. Argon knew it happened, he knew he didn’t hallucinate all of that. He knew he wasn’t going mad.

With his mind occupied, Argon walked for another hour or so until, wouldn’t you know it, he found a road. It was a two way mag-lev highway with six lanes, three on each side. There were no transports coming from any direction. The road was entirely abandoned, but Argon decided to follow it anyway. He walked north, where he could see the great tether, for only about ten minutes before the first transport came whizzing by. It didn’t stop. It was quite unlikely that the passenger even saw Argon at all. People usually slept in their transports or used their phones while the machines drove themselves. When the car can do the driving, why focus on the outside world? It was almost like there was no outside world for those people at all.

After a short while, Argon could see the city off in the distance. In the center of the city was the base of the tether that led to the ceiling and to the city above. It was a massive structure and was made of perfectly engineered, virtually indestructible materials. It was what brought Argon to the surface for the first time all those years ago during the war. Argon stopped in the middle of the road and stared at the megastructure. A smile came to his face.

Argon moved forward toward the city, which itself was a small hub of skyscrapers surrounding the elevator. Each building was connected by a network of bridges and tunnels. Suddenly, a whistling sound was followed by the hum of electro magnets charging as another transport closed in on Argon. Unlike before, this transport slowed down to a halt next to Argon. Out of the transport came a hip young fellow wearing sunglasses and a vest with no shirt under it. The fellow had a huge smile on his face and vapor-smoke poured out of his transport. The contemporary young hippy was Tentpol, and he was an avid user of Dragon-Leaf. He happily offered Argon a ride to the city and the elevator. On the way there, Tentpol offered up some leaf to Argon, but he didn’t need it. His stomach felt okay and he didn’t think he needed to get high, he was just focussed on getting away.

Tentpol brought Argon as far as the elevator and was gone as fast as he arrived. Three skyscrapers surrounded by gardens and terraces and bridges led up to the tether, which was massive. It was as wide as twenty buildings and took up a tenth of the area of the whole city. The city itself was a gilded sea of glass and steel, glistening in the false sunlight. It was a shining beacon of civilization. The tether had over two hundred elevators working at any given time, and was a testament to what mankind could do. That was what the city dwellers thought anyway, Argon saw it as overkill. They didn’t need that many elevators working at once, and how could they call that a monument to mankind when the entirety of Ezekiel was artificial and indeed created by mankind? None of that mattered, though, for Argon it was his way out.

Shuttle transports brought citizens about the buildings and terraces and up to the elevator terminal itself. There were many types of elevators; cheap ones with tin-can seats and an extremely slow rise, and expensive ones with whole private suites and a high-speed rise, and, of course, everything in between. Argon had no choice but to head for the cheap elevator, which took two hours to reach the top and had tight compartments filled with secured seats. Argon approached a kiosk at the travel center where he had to get a ticket. He approached a bitter-looking female who probably wanted to get away just as bad as himself.

“I don’t have my phone on me,” Argon said to the clerk on the other side of the desk. She sighed.

“That’s fine,” she snarked, “just put your thumb on the thumb-pad.”

Argon did as she said but there was a problem, Argon’s identity was being rejected.

“Try again,” the clerk said.

So Argon tried again. A red light began to chirp for a second before turning green and a transaction was made.

“I think it thought you were a criminal for a second there,” the woman said.

“That’s so weird,” Argon said, holding back his shock. What the heck just happened? He wondered.

Argon was sent to the cheap elevator platform where hundreds of others were waiting for their ride. After a few minutes they were all let aboard, and Argon was one step closer to escape. Packed in like sand in a bell mould, Argon and about three hundred other jerks slowly rose to the ceiling. With no windows looking out in that ride, Argon could only think. He could only anticipate the surface. He was almost there, he was almost free.

A half-hour into the ride, Argon fell asleep. He dreamed about Seran. He saw that his old friend living in the clouds, high above the world. Seran and Argon were floating above a great city, and both of them were laughing. There was a third, faceless man there who Argon didn’t know, but he did somehow know that the man could fly. Before much of anything else happened, Argon was awakened.

“Hey,” a rude voice said. “Get up!” It poked Argon in the gut and he jerked awake.

“What?” Argon muttered. “What is it?”

“We reached the top, get out,” a lift attendant said.

“Jeez, alright,” Argon said as he undid his straps and got up. He walked down the aisle to the exit, regaining his composure after his nap.

Through the portal to the terminal, Argon made his first steps onto a whole new world. The elevator terminal on the true surface of Ezekiel was brilliantly adorned with windows and holographic displays. Outside the windows was a beautiful sight; endless miles of skyscrapers and megastructures that were blanketed in a blue sky that stretched beyond the horizon. For the first time in maybe a century, Argon saw a real star hanging above him in the skies to the east. The warmth radiating from it fizzled on Argon’s face, giving him a real impression of the majesty of the Universe. In the skies to the west was Matthew, blue and massive. Cutting through the skyscrapers was a grid of hundreds of tiny transports, hovering in perfect unison. Argon stood by that window for a few minutes before losing himself. He was so mesmerized by the view of the city that he didn’t notice the security officers approaching him from behind. A tap on the shoulder led to Argon’s heart sinking. He turned around to see two officers staring him down.

“Uh...” Argon uttered, “yes?”

“It’s him,” an officer said into his communicator.

“Do you mind coming with us, sir?” the other asked.

Argon turned around and looked out the window. He could see his reflection covering the city. He was going nowhere, he was trapped. Inside the terminal there was nowhere that didn’t lead to security personnel. Argon was caught, he knew that that was where his journey would end. He escaped, it was good enough for him. He turned around again to face the officers and held out his wrists to be cuffed. An officer took out a small metal piston with a button on it and put it between Argon’s hands. Two rings of hard-light manifested from it and wrapped around Argon’s wrists, cuffing him securely.

Argon was taken out of the terminal to a police transport on a dock outside. The transport was designed for moving prisoners, and had seats with straps lining the inner walls. Argon was strapped in at the shoulders to a seat so tightly that not even the Ultras could break him free. Sitting at the front of the transport, secured only by a basic seat belt, was an officer holding a carbine and wearing thick powered-armor. He was staring right at Argon, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking since he was wearing a full-faced helmet that obstructed his expressions. The police transport took off into the sky and joined the grid of flying metal weaving through the city. There was only one window Argon could see out of in the back of the transport. Through that window Argon could see the great city of Ezekiel reaching out into infinity. Through the scattered skyscrapers, Argon could see the sun setting on the horizon. The orangey light of the K2V shined through the sparkling buildings in brilliant beams which engulfed the city. Argon could only smile.

Through that tiny window, Argon could see a floating police platform hovering above the city. What threw Argon was that the transport he was in flew right by it. Why wouldn’t they stop at the closest police precinct?

“Why aren’t you taking me there?” Argon asked the armored officer.

“Shut up,” was all he said, so Argon complied.

For ten minutes Argon stared out that back window, until the transport arrived at its destination. It landed in one of many docks on the floating platform that was the region’s police headquarters. The platform, like all other police platforms, floated high above the city, making escape by criminals almost impossible. The armored officer undid Argon’s straps and pulled him out of the transport. Two official-looking fellows were there to escort Argon into the precinct.

“We’ll take him from here,” one of the officials said.

The armored officer handed off Argon and got back into the transport which then flew off into the grid. Argon was escorted, still cuffed, into the precinct. Inside was nothing but chaos, similar to the marketplace of Argon’s atrium in the bowels. There were hundreds of people, all of them trying to talk over each other. A grid of desks lined up along the floor and each one had an officer and a perpetrator sitting and arguing. Whether they were giving a statement or being processed, they were doing it at twice the volume that would have been preferred. There was only one desk that had an open seat and Argon was taken directly to it. He was sat down across from an official wearing dark sunglasses. The two escorts left Argon alone with the official, or however alone they could have been in that chaotic room. The official put his hand on a blue circle on his desk and a holographic display manifested.

“My name is Officer Callmen,” the officer said. “I’m going to be processing you.”

Argon nodded, his face stern.

“Let’s see,” Callmen said, as he flicked through holographic screens. “Theft of rations, resisting arrest, two accounts of assault on an officer, unauthorized use of a cargo lift, forced use of hospital resources, trespassing, slaying of an officer, slaying of a citizen, and unauthorized travel through the ceiling; all within forty eight hours. How do you plead?”

Argon paused for a moment, he noticed a familiar tone in Callmen’s voice. “Well, I guess I did do all that stuff, but I was just looking out for myself,” he said.

“Not something they can tolerate on this planet,” Callmen said. “We’re going to transfer you to the Halied Holding Pen six miles southeast of here until your trial. You made a lot of poor choices lately, Argon.”

Before saying anything else, Callmen removed his sunglasses revealing two brown eyes occupying a familiar mug. Though he didn’t make eye contact, Argon could see very clearly who was sitting down in front of him.

“When I heard you were on the run,” Callmen said, “I made it a personal effort to make sure that if you were ever taken into custody, you would be taken here, to me.”

“How did you-?” Argon began to say, tearing up.

“It’s been a long time, Argon,” Callmen said, “it is good to see you again, even under these circumstances.”

“But why-?” Argon tried again.

“I escaped, Argon, I made it out. And now here I am.”

“You faked your death?” Argon asked.

“Keep your voice down,” Callmen said. “Yes, I did. So, technically, the man you knew as Seran is very much dead. I am Callmen, I am a surface dweller.”

“Seran,” Argon said.

“Callmen,” he responded.

“Callmen,” Argon continued, “you’re alive!?”

“Well, here I am,” Callmen said, smiling. “I had to swap out my eyes to acquire this new identity.” He paused to clear his throat, “We were expendable, Argon, back in the war. I had to free myself from a doomed existence.”

“If we were expendable then why did they spend so much money to make us strong?” Argon asked.

“That was the point,” Callmen said. “They couldn’t allow people like us to live a normal life after a war. We were all meant to die fighting.”

“And yet, here we are,” Argon said. After a short pause he asked, “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Like I said before,” Callmen told him, “we are going to transfer you.” He leaned in close to Argon and said “ya know, not many people can get off one of these platforms, unless you know someone who can fly...” and slowly leaned back.

Callmen gestured for two officers to come over. “These two will escort you to the transport.” Callmen then looked Argon directly in the eye and said, “we’re going to take care of you.”

Behind Argon, two armored officers approached and grabbed his arm, standing him up. Callmen and the two officers escorted Argon out of the precinct to the transport docks outside. A transport came in, unmanned, and attached itself to the dock. There was a tiny gap between the transport and the dock where a human could potentially fit through. Over a small section of the gap, a ramp extended from the transport. The two armored officers began to move Argon.

“Wait,” Callmen said, and the armored officers stopped, holding Argon. Callmen approached Argon and met him face to face. Argon stared back at him, his eyes began to water.

“Such a shame,” Callmen said, grinning, “looks like you’re going back downstairs.” Callmen’s eyes then rotated to the small gap between the dock and the transport. Below the gap was a line of transports moving within the grid at high speed. Argon looked and could see it, he then made eye contact with Callmen again, who said “it’s a long way down.”

Callmen smiled as he turned around and walked away, gesturing to the armored officers to take Argon into the transport. Argon was pulled toward the transport, but he could see straight down between that gap. Suddenly, his hard-light wrist bindings somehow came undone, much to the surprise of the two armored officers and Argon himself. Argon could see a small transport stop mid-air under the gap, just a few meters below the platform. Without hesitation, Argon made a decision.