Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  Once more sweeping the wild strands of hair from her eyes, Boudica’s trembling lips appeared, at least to Lucius, flummoxed, and she for once, seemed to struggle in uttering a witty reply.

  Her freckled chin thrust forward and remaining silent, her eyes glared at Bobby like twin volcanic ovules threatening to burst.

  “Hey, why don’t I go get my dad,” Bobby began to direct like an executive, his eyes brimmed with the shine of ecstatic brilliance, “and in the meantime, you guys can start putting together a list of things we’re going to need to make this thing, okay?”

  Though her visible demeanor indicated she still harbored resentment, Bobby could sense Boudica’s rose petalled lips desperate to maintain a stern frown. Lucius – while he too intuited his best friend’s emotional dilemma – did his best to stifle growing amusement as he detected faint chevrons of crimson begin to dart across her dimpled cheeks.

  “Don’t you dare laugh, Lucius,” she warned through a half-smile while balling her fist. “Okay, Bobby, though that’s really nice of you to say,” Boudica replied, still tinged with vitriol. “But don’t ever think I won’t go on hating you.”

  Bobby stifled a spate of laughter as he sprang from the couch and walked towards the door of his bedroom. He found his dad standing in the den before an opened wooden cabinet.

  “Hey Dad, my friends and I need a little help with our science experiment and,” Bobby began.

  He halted and for a moment while holding his breath and, looking closer, he could see a pair of compact black colored weapons strapped to the back wall of the cabinet. He watched as his dad stood in silence, studying a small silver badge shaped like a star held in the palm of his hand.

  “What’s all this, Dad? Is that a praetorian’s badge?”

  Mister Tepper’s contemplative gaze pulled away from his blurred reflection staring back at him from the polished surface of the badge and centered on his son.

  “I was just thinking about when I was younger,” he said as the corners of his mouth began to curl, “back when I first met your mom and before you were even born. It’s what happens when you get older, Son – you get nostalgic sometimes.”

  Bobby craned his neck to study the pair of fierce looking but compact weapons strapped to the cabinet’s rear mahogany wall, and with his eyes growing intense, he caught a sliver of his own reflection from the polished surface of the prestigious silver badge held in his father’s hand.

  “I guess I never really told you about my past much,” Bobby heard his father confess, “but after I got out of Columbia Prep I was recruited for the praetorian troopers – went to the academy and everything but, I don’t know, the sustainability council decided, since they had already filled their quota of breeders to be sworn in as officers for the regions of Columbia and Arcadia, they decided I was going to work at Greenview instead. But,” Mister Tepper went on while running his rough fingers over the shiny contours of the badge, “they put me on the auxiliary list in case they ever needed to deputize extra patrols in the case of an emergency. That’s why I’m still licensed by the council to have these disrupters.”

  Bobby stepped closer to the cabinet and reaching out with his hand, began to run his fingers over the smooth black gun stocks.

  “Does Mom ever get nervous, knowing you have these things in the house?” Bobby wondered.

  “Your mother is the most wonderful and still the most beautiful woman in all Sky Parlor. I was the football captain at Columbia Prep, and she was the head cheerleader. That’s how we met, you know; we went to the prom together – king and queen and all that. I’ve got to admit though, right when we got married straight after graduation, she had reservations about me becoming a praetorian trooper too,” Mister Tepper said. “But what you may have never realized, your mother has very special abilities,” he said.

  Bobby pulled his hand away from the stock of the gun and turning from the closet, Mister Tepper detected puzzlement reflected from his son’s curious expression.

  “What do you mean, Mom has special abilities?” Bobby wondered, “I thought she was just a nurse at the hospital, right?”

  The corners of Mister Tepper’s lips curled with amusement.

  “There’s a lot of stories about your mom and why her UIC credit rating is so high, but for the longest time - going back before we were even married – there were stories going around on the holo-web that she had knowledge of miracle healing powers or something to that effect,” Mister Tepper went on.

  “Miracle healing powers,” Bobby replied in an astonished tone. “Is that why she’s the head nurse at the hospital?”

  “Some of the guys that work for me at the plant, they tell me once there was a six-year-old, this kid who happened to have climbed up that big oak tree out there in the MU courtyard and somehow fell out of it – broke his leg in two places from the fall – well, when they delivered him to the emergency room at Columbia General your mom was the first to attend to him. They say without any other medical treatment, that kid, within one hour, walked out of the hospital on his own two feet, and rumor has it all your mother did was put her hands on him and he was good as new.”

  With his brows formed into an incredulous arc, Bobby unleashed a giddy laugh.

  “Wow, Dad, that’s really something. I mean, here it is I’ve lived all my life with both my parents and I’m still finding things out about them,” he exclaimed. “But what does Mom have to say about all of this, I mean, does she know about all of these stories going around Sky Parlor about her and all over the holo-web?”

  Mister Tepper lightly chuckled and, casting his eyes once more toward the praetorian’s badge in the palm of his hand and striding towards the closet, secured the door shut.

  “Yes, she admits she’s aware, but of course, she denies every one of them. Anyway, that’s why her UIC credit rating is so high, because the patients she’s charged with taking care of never spend any time at the hospital, which saves the administrators the trouble of asking for more UIC credits from the sustainability council to pay out for patient care. So, in return, I suppose, the money she saves them, they put some of it right back into her pocket as sort of a reward.”

  “I guess that’s why our MU unit is bigger than most everyone’s in Columbia, right, Dad?”

  Mister Tepper grinned and nodded with his square jawed chin.

  “I was just thinking too, though, Son,” Mister Tepper said while his eyes seemed to strain with deeper contemplation, “considering all that’s happened at Greenview, I mean about what I told you I saw at the plant,” he paused as he began to enclose his fingers around the five pointed silver star, “that we just might need these someday,” Bobby saw his father’s fist clench and sensed his voice modulate deeper. “To fight against the government whose laws I was sworn to uphold, enforce and defend.”

  *

  Leaving Bobby’s house at MU-21 just before the fall of dusk, Lucius and Boudica felt their limbs shocked stiff with horror as they looked up to discover the late afternoon sky darkened with squadrons of black drones, soaring like raven’s flocks.

  “I wonder what’s going on,” Lucius remarked.

  Boudica craned her neck to peer down the block. A large phalanx of praetorian troopers was assembling near the front of MU-13, the popular Paramount gaming parlor, and she felt her trembling lips begin to numb.

  “Looks like something may have happened in front of Paramount Games,” she remarked, gulping at her arid throat.

  “Hey, Boudica: aren’t those Bobby’s friends that were on the train this afternoon with us?” Lucius exclaimed, pointing his finger.

  They watched from afar as the familiar trio, donned in the uniformed colors of Columbia Prep, preoccupied with their floating holo-screens as they weaved their way onto the main thoroughfare, caused havoc among the raging traffic of speeding bicyclists. Dark shadows fell over them like a sinister shroud, and Lucius felt Boudica draw closer as the black drones began to circle like meat-starved birds of prey. Though his li
mbs still tingled with reservation, Lucius grasped for Boudica’s hand, and with curiosity like a flame igniting his brain’s furnace, his feet began to propel him forward.

  “C’mon, Boudica,” he said to her as he felt the clammy grip of her tremulous fingers, “let’s go find out what’s going on.”

  9

  Paramount Gaming Complex, Sky Parlor’s region of Columbia

  Long ago, terror’s roaring din torn asunder the warmth of the human voice, until only silence remained.

  Black drones buzzed like angry hornets as they swarmed from the cubed teleportals stationed along the deserted walkways snaking between the drab buildings. They began to menace the cityscape, spreading out like the groping tentacles of a sinister octopus. While their camera eyes focused and probed through walls, the drones spun a holographic spider’s web of surveillance over Columbia’s sustainable dwellings, pyramidal tombs lacking epitaphs, huddled in claustrophobic rows.

  In the wake of the drone squadrons from the alleyway’s teleportal, emerged a phalanx of snarling praetorian troopers embalmed in a blue light’s luminous cocoon. Clad in bright orange, skin-tight, synthetic suits and angel-white helmets, they stood ready with black barreled ‘disrupters’ in hand, awaiting orders from their chief.

  Chief Praetorian, Icarus Blythe, briefed his men before marching them between the geometric arrays of eighteen-story buildings. From overhead, came the eerie screech of the monorails streaking along the labyrinthine network of bridge tracks that spanned Sky Parlor’s megalopolis to the edge of the ten-mile-wide buffer zones leading to the city’s enclosing walls.

  “I want everyone to stay alert,” Icarus ordered his troopers. “There have been reports of unlicensed narco-cube trafficking at MU-13.”

  As they armed their disrupters, the men nodded in unison, implicitly understanding “MU” was code for the city’s mixed-use residential housing blocks which were anchored by state-owned commercial establishments along the bottom floors. MU-13 featured a popular virtual reality or VR gaming complex that also specialized as an underground escort service, frequented by breeders willing to exhaust their monthly UIC stipends for the pleasure of carnal relations with gender fluid saints.

  Icarus began to recall the details of his weekly intelligence reports; valuable information compiled from the legions of paid informants spread out over every city borough. Some of these reports indicated the newly programmed saints were upgrades designed by Doctor Zoe, the managing tech and proprietor of MU-13’s VR gaming complex, someone formerly employed by the council.

  While he secretly relished the surrounding stomp of his trooper’s boots, another pertinent detail from his latest intelligence reports sparked Icarus’s recollection. Due to the increased narco-cube and prostitution activities, business at MU-13 had increased ten-fold, making it one of the most popular gaming houses in all Sky Parlor. Privately, he exulted as a vivid expression blazed across the plane of his rock-jawed face. A persistent thought began to fire his active synapse. Since the doctor’s profits had clearly been left unreported to the sustainability council’s tax commission, could this present to him a unique, entrepreneurial opportunity? Mulling more deeply, he also began to recall there were indications these newly designed saints were capable – whenever the fantastical whims of the paying customers demanded – of not only altering their gender, but assuming a nearly inexhaustible array of identities. Potentially, this represented a security threat if the doctor ever developed inadvisable notions of deploying such assets as operating counterspies.

  As his men approached the establishment of interest, Icarus’s keen eyes, in vague amusement, examined the depiction of a snow-capped mountain logo and the infectious ad slogan fashioned on the holographic readout that sprang up from the Nano-chip in his palm:

  PARAMOUNT GAMES: THE SUMMIT IN VR ENTERTAINMENT!

  “Good old entertainment,” Icarus jibed while surrounded by his troopers. “A potent weapon that keeps Sky Parlor’s population obedient to the council, gentlemen. Maybe, even more potent than your disrupters.”

  Having been an ardent student of history while at the Praetorian Academy, Icarus remembered the stories of the Roman emperors who kept their populations passive with ‘bread and circuses’. Since human nature hadn’t changed during the interregnum of intervening centuries, he had grown to believe it was wise for the council to both monopolize and weaponize the commercial concept of entertainment consumption, in whatever form. Control of such profitable opiates as gambling, gaming, narcotics, and prostitution helped to maintain order. Icarus also recognized the illicit activities at MU-13 represented a threat to the council’s commercial monopoly and, to the maintenance of order, a duty to which he and his Praetorian Troopers were sworn to uphold.

  With a jaundiced gaze, Icarus watched the hordes of Columbia’s citizens shuffle along the footpaths winding between the buildings. While colorful images zipped and zagged across the holographic screens that floated before hosts of bewildered faces, each of them seemed imprisoned within their own private dimensions, oblivious to their surroundings. A chuckle caught in his throat as he witnessed a trio of youthful pedestrians, preoccupied with the images on their holo-screens, step out onto one of the main thoroughfares, reserved only for sustainable bicycles and their bicyclists. With their backpacks and the monograms of Columbia Prep stitched onto their uniformed blue shirts, Icarus observed they were academy students just emerged from the Paramount Complex and headed toward the elevated monorail landing a block away. A crowd of speedy cyclists were forced to cut a wide berth to avoid a certain collision while a crumpled food package container cascaded to the thoroughfare’s pavement from one of the student’s careless fingers.

  “Grab those three juveniles, those punks that just illegally wandered onto the sustainable thoroughfare,” Icarus ordered three of his troopers. “I want you to make sure they’re cracked good with a fine of fifty UIC credits each for reckless and unsustainable public behavior and environmental terrorism for the discarded food package. Then, I want you to escort them to the teleportal and lock them up at headquarters. Do it, now.”

  Lucius and Boudica crept along in a sinuous path among the oblivious throngs crowding the sustainable paths running parallel along the main thoroughfare. Strangely, Lucius observed, their movements seemed identically regimented, each face seemed molded into a blank mask, as if concentrating on nothing other than attempting to pretend anything extraordinary was happening. Boudica watched in horror as one of the buzzing surveillance drones dropped from the sky and shocks of blue light like an exclaiming finger shot from its smooth black underbelly. A gaggle of troopers scrambled to surround the trio of their screaming classmates, and while they remained stunned by the drone’s vicious attack and knocked to the main thoroughfare’s concrete, dragged them into the nearest adjacent alley. The midnight black barrels of their disrupters were aimed directly at their heads as they were all made to kneel before the towering, teleportal monolith.

  “Stay on your knees and keep your hands behind your heads. You are hereby arrested for unsustainable behavior and committing one act of environmental terrorism.”

  Lucius shuddered upon hearing the praetorian’s commanding bark. Though he felt his stomach begin to churn with whirlpools of fear, Lucius somehow felt emboldened by what he imagined existed as the combustible embers of anger summoning the turbulent hurricane force of an iron will. Boudica felt Lucius’s grip slip away from her perspiring fingers.

  “Lucius please no, what are you doing – no – Lucius,” she tried to protest.

  “Hey; these are my classmates from Columbia Prep,” he shouted at the black booted troopers. “What have they done wrong, where are you taking them?”

  “Get back and don’t interfere with an ongoing investigation – get back now.”

  Boudica winced as the shouting trooper brandished the stock of his disrupter and shoved Lucius against the dull gray alley wall.

  “Hey; get off of him,” Boudica bellowed.

>   With the intensity of a striking viper, she felt a trooper’s black gloved hand clasp about her snow-white neck.

  “Get back and don’t interfere or you too will be detained for unsustainable behavior – get back now.”

  Boudica felt the texture of the cold gray wall compress against her back as the gun stock of the other trooper tightened against Lucius’s neck. While trapped against the cold alley wall, they felt their convulsing limbs stricken with vicious bolts of terror’s lightning. Lucius saw his distorted image wriggling in the reflection of the scowling trooper’s black visor. Another of the troopers brandished his disrupter, and as a sneering smile creased his granite face beneath the opaque mask, both Lucius and Boudica began to sense the ground whirl beneath their feet.

  “C’mon kids, just give me a reason,” the trooper snarled at the quivering adolescents, adding a guttural chuckle.

  “Alright, you all heard Chief Blythe’s orders,” the threatening sergeant barked to his subordinates. “Let’s get the unsustainable to the teleportal and take them directly to headquarters. Let’s go; do it now. And kids,” the sergeant warned, threatening with his armed disrupter, “you didn’t see a thing, right?”

  Lucius and Boudica’s desperate lungs gasped for breath. They watched the black teleportal gape open, and in a surreal explosion of light, the troopers, along with their classmates, disappeared.

  “Are you okay, Boudica?” Lucius whispered.

  “No, I’m not okay. What just happened, Lucius?” He flinched as Boudica’s caterwaul echoed off the surrounding walls of the alley. “And here it was, I thought Bobby Lee Tepper was the biggest jerk I’d ever met.”

  Wiping a bead of perspiration from his face, Lucius glimpsed Boudica’s willowy image distorted into horrifying fragments in the black mirrored façade of the teleportal monolith.