Water and forested islands spread below.
Bits of metal tore off her vessel. Screws. Panes. Another engine. The cockpit finally shattered and showered shards across her.
All Midnight knew was flame, roaring air, blue water and blue sky. And then darkness.
CHAPTER TWO:
THE BLUE STRINGS
Raphael "Riff" Starfire, blues musician extraordinaire, was playing his guitar onstage when the men who had murdered his mother walked into the club.
At least, he considered himself an extraordinary musician. Throughout the night, the crowd had seemed to think otherwise, pelting him with beer bottles, chicken bones, and once even a dwarf. But it was that kind of club. A place in the dregs of sprawling Cog City. Many folks claimed that the entire planet Earth was now the dregs, that the best of humanity had long since departed to the stars.
If Earth is a stain of puke on a rug, Riff thought, the Blues Strings club is a coughed-up fur ball in its center.
In addition to his guitar prowess, he also thought himself quite good at metaphors.
All sorts of sleaze filled the club most nights. Smugglers and bounty hunters sat at the back tables, faces scruffy and hair greasier than the burgers the Blue Strings served. Boozehounds hunched over the bar, their office clothes ruffled, their faces flushed and their cups going from empty to full and back again. Old men in corduroy sat closer to the stage, smoking and sipping rye, bobbing their heads to the music. The old-timers—retired bootleggers and moonshiners—were usually the only ones who appreciated Riff's playing. Something about the blues, shuffleboard, and prune juice just seemed to appeal to the elderly.
But this night it wasn't just the usual assortment of riffraff that filled the shadowy club. This night, for the first time since Riff had begun playing here, Cosmians stepped into the Blue Strings.
Riff's playing died with a discordant note.
All across the club, men turned toward the new arrivals and fell silent. The dwarf, only just recovering from being tossed onstage, hid behind a chair.
"Cosmians," Riff muttered. "I hate these guys."
There were five of them, all clad in black robes and hoods. They could have passed for monks, if not for the heavy guns they carried, nasty things larger than the exhaust pipes of most starjets. The emblem of their order, a black planet with three moons, was embroidered on their chests—the distant planet of Skelkra.
Bloody nutters, Riff thought. The Cosmians were human, but they worshiped the skelkrins, ancient aliens that were probably just a myth. Riff had never been a religious man. His idea of a spiritual experience was hearing the music of his idols, legendary blues duo Bootstrap and the Shoeshine Kid. The idea of worshipping bloody aliens was downright disturbing.
His mother had thought the same.
His mother was now dead.
"Carry on, everyone!" said one of the Cosmians, his voice grainy. "We're only here to enjoy the music."
The man who spoke walked ahead of the other Cosmians, presumably their leader. With every step, metal clinked and machinery buzzed. Riff squinted, peering through the haze of cigarette smoke, and lost his breath.
Oh gods of blues, he thought.
A mechanical arm, tipped with steel claws, emerged from the Cosmian's sleeve. Within his black hood gleamed one human eye, one red mechanical orb.
"Grotter," Riff whispered.
He grimaced. The room spun around him. Riff was there again, thirty years ago. Only a boy. Only a terrified child. That mechanical claw was grabbing his mother, tugging her away. Riff screamed—only he wasn't Riff then, only a boy named Raphael. He tried to attack the Cosmian, to free his mother, yet that claw slammed against his face, cutting him, knocking him down, and his mother cried out and tried to reach him, but they dragged her back, and—
Riff clenched his fists.
But I'm no longer a child.
He touched the scar on his cheek—the scar Grotter's metal claws had left thirty years ago—then let his hand stray down toward Ethel, the gun he always kept on his hip.
Before he could draw, the ten Cosmians raised their heavy blasters toward him.
Riff let both hands return to his guitar.
"That's better," Grotter said, smiling thinly. "Now, Mr. Starfire, how about I buy you a drink and we talk?"
"Riff," he grunted.
Grotter took a step closer toward the stage. The light fell into his hood, revealing his disaster of a face. Half that face was missing, overlaid with metal, the eye a red lamp.
"Riff?" said the cyborg, raising his one eyebrow.
"My name. It's Riff. Nobody calls me anything else."
Riff doubted that Grotter remembered him. Thirty years ago, Riff had been only a kid, barely old enough to tie his own shoelaces. For decades now, Grotter and his goons had been terrorizing the poor neighborhoods of Cog City, preaching their worship of the skelkrins and, sometimes, visiting those who dared criticize their faith. Those people, like his mother, tended to disappear. To Grotter, Riff would have been just another pipsqueak kid.
But I never forgot you, Grotter.
Two Cosmians stepped forward, guns still raised, and grabbed Riff's shoulders. They dragged him off the stage to the sound of scattered applause. As the next performer stepped up—an old saxophone player with one leg—the Cosmians manhandled Riff toward the bar and sat him down on a stool. Grotter reached down and pulled Riff's gun—the beloved old Ethel—out of its holster. The cyborg tucked the gun into his own belt.
"How about I buy you a drink, Riff, and we talk?" Grotter said, sitting down beside him.
Riff snorted. "They don't serve engine oil here."
The cyborg's red eye narrowed with clicking sounds like a camera's shutters. "Ah . . . a joke at the expense of my handicap."
Riff pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward where burly construction workers were tossing dwarves again, this time at Velcro targets. "In case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly politically correct at the Blue Strings. What do you want, Grotter? Don't you and your goons have any rally to shout at or books to burn?"
Grotter gestured toward the bartender, a blind old man in a rumpled suit and a fedora. Old Bat Brown had been a blues bassist before his fingers had begun to shake too much; he now poured drinks to the patrons. The nice thing about Bat Brown was that, with him blind, you never quite knew what drink you were going to get. Bat's method involved grabbing the first couple of bottles he could paw at. Tonight Riff found himself drinking a Memory Killer, a cocktail of Earth's most powerful spirits, which suited him fine. Memories were the last thing Riff needed now.
"You all right, Riff old buddy?" Bat Brown asked, cigarette dangling from his lips.
Riff passed a hand through his hair. "Yeah, Bat. Say, do me a favor, will you? Can you go make my bed for me?"
Grotter leaned forward on his stool, his mechanical parts creaking. "You have a blind bartender make your bed?"
Riff nodded. "Better than a maid, he is."
Bat Brown grinned, showing only four yellow teeth. "Prettier too. Off I go." With that, the old man grabbed his cane, left the bar, and made his way upstairs.
Grotter and the other Cosmians moved in closer, surrounding Riff. One of their guns poked him in the back. Riff felt a little like a stress ball in a cabbie's fist at rush hour—squeezed beyond comfort.
"Now, Riff," said Grotter, half his mouth smiling thinly; the other half was hiding behind metal. "It would be quite easy for my associates here to put a ball of plasma the size of my fist through your back. It would also be quite easy for you to walk out of this alive and well, back to your life of booze, shadows, and bad jazz."
"Blues," Riff said. "I play the blues."
"Quite." Grotter's smile flickered just the slightest. "All you must do to return to your . . . blues . . ." He spoke the word as if it were from a foreign language. ". . . is hand over the woman. We don't want you. We want her."
Riff raised an eyebrow. He looked over his shoulder, then back at Gr
otter. "Woman? Do you see any ladies in this place? Bloody hell, we haven't had a woman walk in here in twenty years. We even got that potpourri here on the bar—lovely jasmine scent, smell it!—and we put on pants and everything, but still no women stop by. Unless you mean Bubba over there." Riff pointed at a burly, bearded trucker who sat nearby, wearing a polka dot dress; the man waved back hopefully. "But I don't think he counts."
Grotter raised his mechanical hand. Joints creaked as the metal fingers flexed; each looked less like a human finger and more like the claw of a velociraptor. Riff winced, sure that Grotter would drive those claws into his throat. Instead, the cyborg thrust the mechanical hand down, closed his claws right around Riff's most sensitive bits, and began to squeeze.
Riff's eyes widened. "Let go! That's inappropriate, man!" He winced. "Though Bubba might appreciate it."
"Do you know, I lost half my face and my arm," Grotter said, squeezing tighter.
Riff winced. "Really? Haven't noticed."
Grotter's claws tightened just a smidgen further. Riff was starting to abandon any hope of ever producing mini-Riffs.
"Yet I kept the parts that make me a man," Grotter continued. "If you do not lead us to the woman, you will not be as fortunate. I know that your father sent the woman here."
"My father?" Riff laughed bitterly. "I haven't seen my father in a year. And I told you, there ain't no women here. I—ow!" His voice rose an octave. "The woman. Right! Uhm . . . I'll lead you to her. If you could just . . ." He gently pried the claws loose. "That's better. The woman. Follow me."
Riff rose from his barstool, gently pushed his way between the Cosmians, and made his way through the dingy club. Gristle Scotch was up on stage now, blundering his way through "Ain't Got No Moonshine Left," while Rumple McNally sat at his usual table, smoking ten cigarettes at once while tapping his feet to the beat. As Riff walked between the tables, the Cosmians marched behind him, and Riff was keenly aware of the guns pointing at his back.
His mind raced and cold sweat trickled down his back. Who was this woman? What were the Cosmians doing here? Those bastards mostly spent their time higher up in the city, bribing politicians, preaching on street corners, and roughing up anyone who dared criticize them. Riff had moved to this neighborhood to avoid this cult of alien-worshippers. Not to have Grotter himself, the very Cosmian who had dragged his mother to her death, show up on his turf.
I'm going to kill you someday, Grotter, Riff swore, his fingers itching to snatch Ethel, his beloved plasma gun, back from Grotter's belt.
They reached the back of the room. Two life-sized dolls with white whiskers and fedoras, sewn of cloth stuffed with straw, sat here at a chessboard. The two original players had died long ago, halfway through their year-long game, and Old Bat Brown had sewn the dolls himself as a tribute. Behind the frozen game, a staircase rose to the second floor where lived Old Bat Brown, a dog who had once wandered in, and Riff.
As Riff and the Cosmians began climbing upstairs, Bat Brown came hobbling down the staircase, tapping his cane.
"All right, Bat?" Riff said.
The blind old man smiled and nodded. "Bed's all made, Riff."
Riff and the Cosmians walked around the old man, climbing higher upstairs. They reached a hallway and Riff opened the doorway to his humble bedroom.
Most men Riff's age—he was about halfway through his thirties now—lived in nice houses, a pretty wife and pretty children at their side. Riff's only wife now hung across his back: Dora, his beloved guitar, signed by Bootstrap and the Shoeshine Kid themselves. Riff's only children now stood on his shelves: actual vinyl copies—real vinyl like in the stone age!—of the legendary duo's recordings. As for a nice house . . . well, his bedroom was small, and laundry covered the floor, but it was cozy, and it was home.
Riff frowned to see an envelope on his bedside table. The letter "A" was printed upon it in an ancient rune. His father's signature. The old magician never signed his full name, only that fanciful letter. When performing his magic tricks on street corners, he'd even have the "A" embroidered on his robe. Riff hadn't heard from the old man in over a year. Hurriedly, before the Cosmians could see, Riff grabbed the letter and stuffed it into his jeans pocket.
"There's no woman in here." Grotter sneered, entering the room behind Riff. "This displeases me."
Riff nodded. "I speak the exact same words whenever I step in here too."
With a sudden burst of speed, Riff leaped forward, bounded across the room, and jumped onto his bed.
A thousand buzzing metallic bedbugs blasted out from under the blanket, flying toward the Cosmians.
Old Bat Brown always kept a few bedbugs around the Blue Strings. The old man used them as gags—slipping one or two into Riff's bed when he was late on his rent, sometimes tossing a handful at patrons who stiffed him on a bill. In small numbers, they were harmless enough, just little metallic jaws snapping on springs.
A thousand flying at you was a little more intimidating.
The little jaws slammed into the Cosmians and began chomping.
Riff reached forward and yanked Ethel out of Grotter's belt.
The monks roared and began to fire their guns.
Plasma blasted through the room, tearing into the walls, knocking down records. Cosmians screamed as the bedbugs snapped at their robes, their hands, their faces. With a shout, the plasma flying around him, Riff hurled himself through the window.
He tumbled through the air and slammed down onto a pile of garbage bags outside.
He rose to his feet, fear pulsing through him, Ethel in his hand. Had the plasma hit the guitar that still hung across his back? Had the fall damaged it? It was signed by his idols, and—
Grotter appeared at the window, slung his gun over the sill, and began firing.
Riff shot a blast back at him, rolled off the garbage bags, and ran.
His arms pumped as he raced down the alley. Old bottles and cans rolled across the cracked asphalt, and laundry flapped on strings that stretched between the windows overhead. Mandy and Tammy, two young women who spent their nights here smoking cigarettes, screamed as he ran by.
"There's goddamn Cosmians after you, Riff!" cried Mandy, her pink hair standing on end. A blast of plasma flew between them, slamming into a wall.
"I know!" Riff shouted. "Little backup fire?"
The girls reached into their bottomless purses, pulled out guns the size of their arms, and began blasting.
"Now you owe me five bucks and your life!" Tammy shouted as he ran by.
Riff kept running, swerving to race down another alley as blasts hit the walls around him. He hooked Ethel over his shoulder and shot blindly while running; the plasma blasted out, searing hot. He leaped onto a garbage bin, vaulted through the air, and crashed through a string of laundry. He hit the ground running, found himself wearing a brassier, and tore it off with a curse. He kept racing, blasts tearing into lamp poles, walls, and fire hydrants around him.
He raced through an old warehouse that stored decommissioned bots, flipped their switches, and sent them racing behind him. He heard the Cosmians curse as they tripped over the metallic critters. Riff kept running and burst out into another alleyway, heading deep into the warren of the dregs.
Riff knew these streets. His mother had died when he'd been only five. His father had rarely been home, either performing his magic tricks on a street corner or, more often than not, traveling the galaxy on some mysterious quest. For thirty years now, Riff had been wandering these narrow streets, finding a home among the gin-soaked blues clubs, the boozehounds, and the old bot shops. Every corner, every doorway, every secret passage—Riff knew them, and soon he vanished into the labyrinth, leaving his pursuers behind.
Finally he barged out into a main boulevard. He leaned against a shop's wall, panting. Skyscrapers soared around him, hundreds of stories tall, their glass walls gleaming. Skyjets flitted among the towers, and a massive airship hovered above, blocking the moon. People rushed back and forth, bustlin
g like they always did in Cog City, this hive of humanity that still lingered on the home planet while the best of the race had long since departed to the stars.
Sweat soaked Riff. The Cosmians were gone. Before checking himself for wounds, he unslung the guitar case off his back. His breath caught when he opened it, and his pulse quickened.
He blew out a shaky sigh of relief.
"You're all right, Dora, my sweetness," he whispered, caressing the guitar within.
It was a red electric guitar, the kind humans had been playing for thousands of years. An ancient, mystical instrument. A bringer of blues. And upon its surface, with black ink, appeared its runes of power: the signatures of Bootstrap and the Shoeshine Kid themselves, legendary heroes of music. Riff closed the guitar case as if sealing a holy relic and slung it across his back.
He stood on the street, head still reeling. A thousand questions raced through his head. Why were the Cosmians, worshippers of aliens, after him? Who was this woman they thought he was hiding? Where was his father?
The immediate question was: Where did Riff go now? He certainly couldn't return to the Blue Strings. With a sinking heart, Riff realized he might never be able to return to that club, the place that had been his only home for years.
His heart sank even deeper when he realized there was only one place he could go now.
"I'll have to go see Nova."
He winced. The Cosmians had scarred his cheek years ago. Nova had scarred his heart. Yet right now, she was the only person who could help him. For the first time in two years, he would have to seek her out . . . and hope that she helped. She was, Riff thought, just as likely to rip out his throat.
He gulped and nodded.
He would seek out Nova, his ex-girlfriend . . . probably the most dangerous person on the planet.
CHAPTER THREE:
ALIEN ARENA
Riff walked through the crowd of roaring, pot-bellied drunkards toward the Alien Arena, the most blood-soaked place on the planet.
Some factions on Earth, such as Friends of Aliens, preached tolerance and acceptance of creatures from the stars. Others, like the Cosmians, worshipped them as gods. Not here. People came to the Alien Arena not to befriend, worship, or study aliens . . . but to watch them bash one another's brains out.
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