“Just part of my cover for the people around.” She smiled and winked at him. “I’m an artist if anyone asks.” He has a lot to learn about me.
Destiny began her walk away from the car, down the drenched and grimy sidewalk in East Hastings. She paid little attention to what the rain was doing to her ginger hair, dyed of course to mask her age of forty-one. Between that and her vigorous daily workout routine, few people truly knew her real age. Throw in the art tube, and she looked like college student. And to think—she hadn’t even kept up with all the new fancy antiaging biotechnology that had been invented.
She continued her walk, paying little attention to the homeless humans and Hashmedai. She saw a group of prostitutes speaking to someone in a car that had pulled over. They were both Hashmedai. Threesome with two Hashmedai women. What a brave soul. She grinned and walked past, briefly thinking about a time she was a working girl. Though she was much better than these girls, as she was an escort, she never walked the streets. She was above that, a high-class and very expensive escort, working out of Los Vegas, before it was glassed. She sighed and thought to herself, Those were the good old days. She missed those times, especially Jazz, her favorite client.
Destiny arrived at the location, a boarded-up store. The door was ajar, and she could hear voices coming from within. This must be it. She entered and quickly performed a threat assessment of the location. Overturned shelves, four shady-looking men wearing sweatpants and shirts, probably bodyguards and probably packing heat. They all had something large in their pockets, ePistols like the one she handed over earlier, no doubt. Arn emerged from the shadows with open arms, his guard was lowered, a perfect opportunely for Destiny do something she’d been dreaming about for the last few months.
She ignored the four men, and her feet took her toward Arn at rapid speed. Her fist slammed against his jaw, launching his body to the floor. Fucking asshole. She heard the hissing sounds of four ePistols powering up. They made the same noise Radiance magnetic weapons made when activating. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference, as the tech behind eWeapons was based on Radiance magnetic weapons-Railguns, aided by a computer built into the weapon.
Destiny could see blood slowly trickling out from Arn’s mouth as he spat out a tooth and slowly rose to his feet. “What the fuck was that for?” he asked.
“Bio-fucking-metric weapons. I requested not to be given those.”
He finally got to his feet and said, “So my stock got a few of the defects, my bad.”
Biometric weapons would activate only if the fingerprints matched with the assigned prints programmed into the weapon. It was possible to hack and remove the biometric programming, but even the most skilled hackers had issues with it. The United Nations of Earth (UNE) did not want their weapons in the hands of terrorists and criminals and went out of their way to make it an irritating process.
“Your stock had me sitting in a hospital bed for a month. Your stock had me bury eight of my good friends,” she said, jabbing her index finger toward his angry face.
“Well fuck, I’m sorry.” More blood slowly dripped from his mouth. She had gotten him good. “I’ll hook you up with some better guns.”
Her hand reached back toward her art tube as her head slowly tilted to the side to see if any of his bodyguards had stepped closer. No sign of them, though she knew damn well four guns were being aimed at the back of her head. “I have a new dealer; I’m fucking done with you.”
“So you just came here to fucking deck me?”
“I want a refund.”
“Seriously?” Arn said with a surprised voice. “No refunds.”
“Customer is always right,” Destiny said as her other hand clasped around Arn’s neck. “I want a refund…Now!” Her last action triggered four sets of steps that she heard behind her. There wasn’t a drop of fear in her, however. None of these thugs had a real combat training unlike the police, Radiance, and UNE forces she’d been fighting for the last few years.
“Get fucked, you stupid fucking cunt!” In attempt to break free, Arn wrapped his hands around the hands that she was using to choke him. His grip was weak, compared to Destiny’s; her hands didn’t move. She let out a slight grin as he turned his head to the side to address the four men closing in behind her. “Have at her, boys; I ain’t paying you by the hour!”
Let’s dance. The hand choking Arn pushed him back to the ground, while her other hand quickly pulled her art tube to her front. Her instincts led her to leap and take cover behind the checkout table. Perfect timing, as magnetically accelerated bullets ripped through the air. Destiny’s quickly moving fingers opened up the tube, and out came a katana and an arm-mounted Hashmedaian guardian shield. She arose to her feet, this time with a rectangular-shaped blue energy force field protecting her from the second barrage of bullets.
Her feet guided her to the four men, who did not attempt to move from their position, while her hands guided her katana to either stab or dismember their bodies. Each hit released jets of blood across the air, raining down on her like the rain outside not long ago. Her left arm, which had the guardian shield device strapped to it, periodically rose to block weapons’ fire from the last remaining bodyguard, whose severed head hit the ground shortly afterward.
Arn remained on the floor, trembling in fear as Destiny’s blood-soaked body graciously stepped toward him. Her blue jeans were now purple; her leather jacket was dripping red. She hovered over his body and the placed the tip of her blade between his eyes. “Now,” said Destiny, “where’s my fucking money?”
… … …
►►Flight 4219, Perth to Vancouver, Earth
► Sol System
White clouds hovered over the eternal blue of the Pacific Ocean. A sight that would be changing soon, as this flight from Perth, Australia, to Vancouver, Canada, was coming to an end. Ken Smith sat back and relaxed in his first-class seat aboard an Earth-to-Earth (ETE) transport. He preferred the first-class seats from the Earth-to-Space (ETS) transports that he frequently flew to Mars, as they were equipped with holo vids. ETE transports didn’t take long to reach their destination with their high speeds, as they traveled exclusively on Earth. ETS transports, however, made trips to locations throughout the solar system. Even traveling at a fraction of the speed of light, it could take a flight several hours to reach the moons of Uranus.
An announcement played over the transport’s intercom to all the passengers aboard, stating that they’d be in Vancouver within ten minutes, making this a forty-five-minute trip. He sometimes missed the old-world plane trips, in which a flight from Perth to Vancouver would take nearly a whole day and require at least one stop along the way. The message on the intercom replayed again, this time in Chinese, then a third time in Radiance, which caused him to chuckle.
There were no Radiance races aboard this transport that he could see, though with Linl it was damn near impossible to tell just by looking. Carbon-copy humans, he liked to call them. Most flights had a few Radiance races aboard. Since the uplifting of humanity, Radiance continued to have a few ships from Alpha Centauri trickle in, dropping off nonmilitary personnel to live on Earth. Most of them were just laborers and construction workers to help rebuild cities razed by the demonic Hashmedai. A few others were scientists and engineers, though many of them stayed on their ships, setting foot on Earth, Mars, or the moons of the gas giants only to work with human scientists and engineers. Recently, merchants and missionaries started to show up and live among humans, proving to be a double-edged sword of sorts.
The increased presence of civilian Radiance races was no doubt helping humanity’s economy, advancement, and recovery from the war. However, the longer Radiance continued to remain on Earth, the more violence people were forced to witness thanks to the Hashmedai Liberation Front (HLF). After the war, as a way to repent, groups of Hashmedai offered themselves as slave labor to human communities hit hard. After all, they lost the war, and the ships that weren’t nuked, fled or crash-landed, leaving
behind thousands of soldiers and ship crew members. As time went on, those communities took in these Hashmedai, allowed them to have a place to live and eat, and eventually settled down and started families.
Those at Radiance weren’t too happy to learn that their people would be living and working on a planet that hosted small Hashmedaian communities that were breeding. Pressure was put on the UNE to step up and deal with the problem, especially after a dozen Radiance civilians ended up murdered or assaulted by angry Hashmedai. A few humans got in the crossfire too, as they were mistaken for Linl. Thus, the HLF was born; humans who formed an emotional attachment and sympathy to some of the Hashmedai took up arms and launched a series of terrorist attacks against Radiance, anti-Hashmedai groups, and UNE forces deployed to deal with large and active Hashmedai communities.
No one knew exactly where their base of operation was, but Vancouver had been a hot spot for HLF activity, as Canada featured one of the largest Hashmedai communities on Earth. It’s no surprise to many that the Vancouver region was dubbed the “Radiance Graveyard,” though the UNE preferred to label it a “red zone.” There were eight red zones worldwide.
“Prepare for landing,” the pilot of the transport announced over the intercom.
Ken’s thoughts returned to the present, and he gazed out the window to watch the transport descend from the thick mist of clouds that soaked the craft in rain. The sight of Vancouver in the distance emerged, resting at the foot of the mountains, virtually untouched by the war with the exception of a few extra postwar skyscrapers. The city grew larger as it came into view. Ken was the reminded of a feature of old-world traveling that he missed—the rush of an aircraft, slowly landing to the runway. Transports were all based off Radiance tech, and so they were capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). Gone were the days of needing a runway to land or fly to the skies, the transport simply landed next to the transport hub, formerly known as an airport.
A network of hallways led Ken to the baggage claim area; his hands stroked his blond hair in a frustrated manner. All these advances and we’re still using this system to claim our baggage? What’s going to stop someone from walking up and taking your stuff? After fifteen minutes of paranoid waiting, he obtained his travel baggage after it came into view from the rotating treadmill and proceeded to the Earth Rapid Transit Train platform. This used to be part of the skytrain system; he had fond memories of traveling on the skytrain network when he was a kid during the prewar days. Once Radiance showed up, they offered to upgrade and network Earth and later Mars with a rapid transit system that was commonplace on Radiance planets. As Ken recalled, the people who helped design the newer trains in Unity City, came here to Earth to undertake this project. And it showed; the interior of the train was identical to the train network used all across Australia, which apparently is the same design as the ones in Unity City on Lejorania Sanctum.
At last, Ken thought as he arrived at his intended destination, an upscale condo in the Yaletown district of Vancouver. Little did the people in the outside world know, his suite was a safe house for Earth Intelligence and Security Service (EISS) agents such as Ken. As far as his wife, Yvonne, and others were concerned, Ken was there on business, overseeing the launch of a new retail outlet.
“Computer,” Ken said. “Lights.” The darkened condo was illuminated with lights in the hallway, kitchen, and living room.
“I hope your journey was a pleasant one, sir,” said the computer. It had an Australian accent much like Ken’s—a little taste of home while he was away.
“Too short, but enjoyable,” he said as he walked toward the kitchen. His hand interacted with a holographic window in front of the refrigerator to display the contents of the fridge. “Computer, are there any new messages for me?” he asked.
“Please stand by,” it replied. “You have no new messages at this time, sir.”
“Thank you,” he said, stepping into the living room to sit down with a holo pad in hand.
“Shall I contact ‘overlord’ and inform them you have arrived?” the computer asked.
“Negative,” he said. “Do it…tomorrow morning. I need to rest.”
And by “rest,” Ken meant shagging two smoking-hot escorts for the night.
His holo pad loaded a directory of all the local and expensive girls in the area. They were expensive for a good reason. Radiance frowned upon the idea of sex work and had been pulling strings within the UNE to deal with it. Ken found this amusing, as brothels existed within the Radiance Union, highly illegal and rare, but they existed. If he didn’t know any better, it was almost as if Radiance were trying to mold the human race into the sixth member of the Radiance Union.
Holographic pictures of half-naked women appeared before him while he swiped his hands from right to left, causing the projection to scroll and load additional ladies. The hardest part of dealing with these lovely ladies was ensuring that the ones you wanted were available.
He felt fabulous about doing this with next to no guilt in his chest. He knew damn well Yvonne would be sleeping with the grounds keeper of their home the moment she got the chance. One of the perks of being in the EISS was that it was easy to spy on your wife when you were out of town. The moment she stopped sucking his cock, was the moment he’d stop dealing with these ladies; fair is fair.
… … …
►► Surrey, Earth
► Sol System
I’m never going to get this, Lyir thought as he sat on his bed, holo pad in hand with his homework from school displayed. Being a Hashmedai boy going to school in a human world put him at a disadvantage, especially when your English literature teacher lost his family during the invasion. Lyir had pale, cream-colored skin and light-blue hair, much like his mother Pernoy, whom he lived with in this Surrey community. His mother and father had helped rebuild the community, yet here he was, on the verge of failing, quite possibly because he wasn’t born a human, or so his friends claimed.
“Lyir,” his mother called out to him in the Hashmedai language. “Come down for dinner.”
“I’ve still got to finish my homework.”
“You won’t finish it correctly on an empty belly,” she retorted. “Come down and eat your damn food.”
His teenage body took a seat at the dinner table with his mother, Pernoy. Rare steak was the meal for the night. Pernoy had extremely long blue hair with traces of white in it. Her eyes were orange, while Lyir’s eyes were a deep red. Off in the distance, an old-world TV was on, broadcasting the evening news. As the two ate, Lyir gazed at the damaged TV screen; the headline caught his attention: “Heroes of Earth Returned At Last.”
His half-sister, Eupiar, sat on the couch next to the TV. The contents didn’t seem to interest her, just the holographic display screen of her laptop. Unlike Lyir, Eupiar was half-human; their mother, Pernoy, was a noncombatant severing aboard a Hashmedai ship during the invasion only to crash-land. The US Marine aggressors held her and the surviving crew captive.
One of the soldiers started to develop a certain affection for her and remorse; after all, Pernoy was here because she was ordered to come. Night after night of secret playtime during their “interrogation secessions” resulted in Eupiar’s existence. Sadly, her father never got the chance to see her grow up; he was killed trying to help Pernoy and Eupiar escape to into Canada.
“Hmm, they’re back,” said Lyir, turning away from the news headline. “What do you think, Mother?”
“Not much—they were bound to return to Earth sooner or later,” she said before taking another bite of her juicy meal.
“But those are the people who blew up the command ship, causing you and all the other Hashmedai to be stranded here.” Lyir returned to his meal, while he curiously awaited his mother’s reply.
“I don’t hate them, if that’s what you’re trying to get at,” she said. “They did what they had to do. It was war, and we were destroying their world.”
“But don’t you want to be off this world? Isn’t
that the reason you never cut your hair? Because then ends of it existed back when you were still in the empire?” A loaded question, but his young inquiring mind was hungry for knowledge that didn’t have to do with schoolwork.
“If those folks never destroyed the command ship, or if there had been a way for me to get home, I would have never met your father, or Eupiar’s.”
“There must have been a way for you two to meet had things been different; you were both in the military, after all.” Lyir often fantasized about the idea of parallel universes where things were different. The thought of him never having to experience the depressing life he was living thus far always tantalized his mind.
“Not really,” his mother said. “I’m from the deep space colonies. The frigate I served on joined up with the fleet because they were short one.”
He thought for a moment, slowly putting the facts together. “And Father was from Paryo.”
“Exactly, we would have never crossed paths regardless. And don’t forget about your sister. Neither I nor her father would have met.” Conclusion: in order for him, them, to exist, the last twenty-two years had to have played out the way they did. Life is not fair at all.
There was semisilence once again at the dinner table as the two ate, while the TV continued to play the news. Eupiar tied her half-human hair into a ponytail, it was dyed in a mixture of colors, a galaxy style, they called it. An ombré of colors, it started from silver at the top of her head, transitioned to light blue and dark blue, and ended with black at the tips. Her heavily tattooed arms stretched forward, and she resumed whatever the hell had her so fascinated with her laptop. A headline on the TV stated, “Four Men Found Dead at East Hastings Early This Afternoon.” The doorbell rang and ripped Lyir’s attention away from the TV and his sister. Took him long enough, he thought as he looked at the third dinner plate on the table, untouched and getting cold.
Uprising of the Exiled (Splintered Galaxy Book 2) Page 2
