A week after her 18th birthday, Isis McGowan is ready to take the world on her own terms. Such an idealistic endeavor would be simple enough for any teenager of her stature if not for the fact that her own family history--going back the last one hundred years--wasn't the source of so much scandalous controversy.
Even still, the girl pushes on regardless--until a side trip up the Stratos City space complex to look for a lost artifact puts her in the cross hairs of the Praetorial Guard and lands her in a sea of trouble, mischief, and more than her fair share of close calls in the process.
Even with the help of her new friend (and potential boyfriend), Isis McGowan finds that what she seeks may just be only skin deep--leaving her to question not only life itself, but her own destiny as well.
And with tensions rising within the space complex due to her presence and her battles with the Praetorial Guard, the teen girl must uncover a conspiracy connected with the artifact that could have lasting repercussions for not only this Earth, but also the one place she once called home so long ago…
~1~
Golan Desert.
15th of August. 12,006.
I know that I promised Calis the other day that I would come in to see him at his workshop in Shark’s Bay. But I also promised mom that I would put in some time at home for some last minute (and overdue) chores and a few other things of absolute necessity with my younger brother Trell–before going to bed last night too.
Guess which wore me out first towards the end around midnight my time?
If you guessed right, then you won the Prize of the Day!
Congratulations!
However…me being so worn out on this fine morning would also explain why I was sleeping so peacefully right now and having the usual candy-coated dreams stemming from the week before too. But I couldn’t help but get that distinctive feeling in the back of my mind that I was missing out on something mighty important here.
A steady knock on my bedroom door woke me up faster than the alarm clock perched on my white vanity dresser was supposed to. In fact, I think I had forgotten to set the damned thing again, because otherwise…?
Why would mom be pounding on my door so early in the morning like this?
“Isis? Did you forget to clean out the holding tank out back like I asked you to last night?” Came a very unhappy mom voice.
What time is it again? Came the disjointed thought in my head.
The knocking ceased for a couple blessed seconds after that, then the sound of a brass key being inserted into my locked door followed suit, and finally…?
The torturous creaking noise of my bedroom door opening to beat the band.
I moaned in response to her coming in, curling up in my spent covers and sheets and feeling like death warmed over. I did not want to wake up right now!
Not for all the money in the world.
But my mom was on a business oriented mission to make sure that a teenage girl like me didn’t get her beauty sleep for another ten minutes and started shaking me firmly in the process.
“Isis? Did you not hear me a moment ago?” My mother repeated with a disappointed look on her face.
I did not want to wake up! Why are you waking me up? Why??? I was screaming inside the comforts of my mind.
“Isis McGowan…! Answer me damn it!”
I let out a sorry sounding noise that forced my mom to take a step back in concern. But that lasted only bought me a few seconds at best.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.” She said with quiet approval, but didn’t disturb me any further on that account.
“What do you want…?” I muttered sleepily.
“The holding tank.” My mom repeated again. “Did you clean it out like I had asked?”
There came a measure of silence on my behalf before I answered: “I might have. I don’t know. It was such a long evening. I may not have gotten to it like I promised I would.”
“Well, thanks to you, I checked. You didn’t.”
Rubbing my eyes a bit to get rid of the sleep in them, I said, “Sorry. But I was pretty wiped out after all the house cleaning I did after you and Trell went to bed.”
“Do you want me to ground you again like I did last time? I can tell Calis that he can forget about meeting you today if you don’t at least finish your assigned chores like I wanted you to. You know how dangerous things can get if I let things lapse–especially out here in the middle of nowhere.”
I nodded guiltily. “I know. I’m sorry. I did my best.”
My mother sighed and sat down next to me on my bed.
“Sweetie. Sometimes, that’s not good enough. You have to learn how to be more self-sufficient if you plan on making it out in the world as a professional auto-frame pilot. You can’t afford to keep making mistakes like this. It can be costly if it goes unchecked.”
“Mom…I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but I’m not even twenty yet. I still have a ways to go on that front. And in case you forgot? Last week was the official start to my birthday month as a newly inducted eighteen year old.”
But my mom wasn’t buying what I was trying to sell her at this point. That much I could tell.
“That’s no excuse, young lady. You’re supposed to know these things by now. Eighteen years old or not. You’re supposed to know–as a growing adult I mean.”
Rubbing my face of any stray red hairs that may have dangled down in front of me since rolling over on my bed, I nodded in quiet defeat.
“Fine. I’ll go get the user’s manual that’s still taped to dad’s old work station in the shed out back and I’ll get it done before I leave.”
“You won’t have time.” My mother informed me at that point. “There’s a storm forecast to hit the area in under four hours. You won’t be able to make it to Shark’s Bay if you start with the holding tank right now.”
Fuck. I thought to myself in complete misery. That’s just what I needed to hear!
“So what do you want me to do, mom? Stay or go?”
“Your brother will never let me hear the end of it if you don’t get him his precious power converter and having you two in the house is going to be a handful as it is–so go. Go into town. But the moment you get back, you’re cleaning out the holding tank. And this time, young lady, I want it to shine like it was brand-new. Right off the assembly line over in New Challis in fact.”
I laughed despite myself.
“You know how impossible that is living out here in the desert, right? Nothing stays new like that for very long.”
“I don’t want you to argue with me. I expect it to be done before dark when you return.” My mom reiterated firmly.
I waved at her in a quiet acknowledgement.
“Okay. But can you do me a favor?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Turn my alarm clock off for me?”
My mother looked in the general direction of my dresser and reported back to me: “You never set it, honey.”
I sighed. “Gods…” I whispered. “Not again…”
My mom patted my outstretched arm. “So get dressed. I’ll get some breakfast started so you don’t have to make any noise waking up the rest of the household.”
“Mom…that dumb brother of mine can sleep through practically anything these days. Even a prairie bandit raid. I doubt anything I can come up with on such short notice will bother him much either.”
“That may be so, but I’m still not awake yet. So keep the noise and racket down to a minimum, okay?”
“All right.” I told her, waiting until she got up off my bed and went outside so that I could at least get up and get dressed.
But no matter what, my original plans for today were pretty much shot to hell and back.
“Smooth move, girl.
Real smooth.” I thumped myself on the head in that moment–thinking and imagining what Calis would say to me when I pulled up to his workshop on my dad’s old hover bike.
Whatever it is, you know it’s going to be another one of the old man’s life lectures. I thought with the usual unhappiness in mind.
That’s usually how things went with him. Every day was still a day at school for me. I couldn’t possibly have called out sick or ask for an extended break away from my home studies in this day and age.
Or hell…a vacation. That would have been sweet.
But mom was right about me. I was just nothing more than your average (and very stupid) surface dweller girl. I didn’t have enough intelligence in me to light up a portable ion battery.
Stretching out the last bit on my bed, I could feel the cosmic aches and pains in my legs–going all the way down to the tips of my toes as a result of last night.
But this mattress I was on was hellishly uncomfortable and lumpy in places. In fact, I was laying on such a lump right at this very moment. Right underneath my back in fact. And that had been the source of my current pain and discomfort.
Worst still? I could not move from this spot either.
Light panic began to set in as I contemplated my options. I could not call out to mom because she was already gone for one, and two, I was pretty much on my own at this point.
So…I was out of fucking luck.
God I wish dad was still here. I thought with genuine need. He would be able to help me out of this jam for sure.
But that hopeful thought brought me no comfort or happiness either. Dad had been gone since I was six years old–twelve years ago in fact. A victim of a seriously flawed judicial system wrought forth by an overzealous governing body connected to the Praetorial Guard.
And I wasn’t going to say which one that was either at this very moment.
Though it would be delicious irony if the whole notion of self-governance these days wasn’t such a sick and twisted fantasy–turned reality for many of us surface dwellers to begin with.
I sighed heavily, pushing away that thought and focusing on what I needed to do next.
Like get out of bed.
“Ha.” I chuckled. “With the way I’m positioned? I’ll be lucky if I don’t surreptitiously pull a muscle in the process.”
Or worse…was there even a worse case scenario for a situation like this? I started to wonder to myself.
I reflected on that for a moment, but because I was still not awake yet, nothing soluble came to mind.
A second knock on my door interrupted any other emergency plan I might have been able to come up with the interim.
“You up yet?” My mom questioned from behind the door.
I sighed with some mutual embarrassment on my part.
“No.” I called out to her. “I’m having a problem.”
“What now?”
I looked around myself at that moment. Then I responded back:
“I can’t get out of bed. I think my back may have seized. Can you come in and help me?”
The next sound coming out of my mom’s mouth was one of verbal exasperation and a lot of other not so choice words for the follow up.
“I can’t spend all day fixing your problems, Isis!” She berated me as she opened the door.
I couldn’t even defend myself as she finally turned on the light and threw everything into a state of chaos and anarchy.
“Mom!” I cried out in pain–clamping a hand over my eyes. “You just went and blinded me!”
“Then maybe that will be a lesson to you for doing what I asked the night before–” she fired back, grabbing my outstretched hand and physically hauling me out of bed so fast that I didn’t even have time to think about it.
“Mom!” I practically yelled again at the top of my lungs in complete astonishment–thinking the worst had already happened.
My mother held me up even as I struggled to get my bearings. I was still not awake yet and now I was seeing spots, shadows, and other afterimages in front of me whenever I dared to open my eyes.
“Gods…!” I complained mightily.
“It’ll pass.” My mother informed me then. “It’ll pass. Just don’t fight it.”
“Fat chance of that happening.” I grumbled as I opened my eyes again to look around. But the dirty, dusty–and sometimes sand-covered–hardwood floor wasn’t telling me anything.
Not in this harsh lighting.
But I did spy a couple of piles of old and dirty laundry though when I turned around again for the fourth time, before letting out all of my frustrations in one big sigh.
“Feeling better? Think you can walk?”
I nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. Just give me a second. I think my eyes are starting to adjust.”
‘Well, hurry up. I have your breakfast almost ready.” She said–before letting go of me in that instant.
I half-expected to fall over then. But somehow…I didn’t.
Score one for the home team! I cheered in silent triumph.
I heard the door close again for the second time in a matter of minutes and that left me some time to myself and very little time for anything else.
In my experience, four hours of advance warning may as well be four minutes–due to the uncertainty of things. And being a desert rat, you did not want to start taking unnecessary risks with your life–not unless you wanted to die real quick.
So I ignored the sorry state my room was in right now and focused on what I was going to wear for the day.
I spotted a clean pair of black rider’s jeans on the pile of clean laundry next to my vanity dresser and standing mirror. I went over and grabbed the first pair off the top of the pile, then went rummaging in the middle drawer for a long sleeved shirt designed for arid environments, and finally…?
A quick search for my black bomber’s jacket that had a stylized yellow star on the back of it.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I stripped out of my sweat soaked pajamas and panties and went on the hunt for a clean pair and a pair of low cut socks on top of that.
Slipping those on, I started getting dressed real fast in record time, and put my combat boots on last. The ones with a reinforced steel toe in them.
Taking a quick look in the mirror, I found that my hair was in needing of a quick brushing. That took only a few minutes of attentive care and then I grabbed a couple hair ties on the follow up and managed to make myself look at least halfway presentable.
Of course, nothing could be done for the bags under my eyes. But that’s the price I would pay for not doing my chores on time or going to bed at a reasonable hour either.
“Okay, Isis,” I told the reflection in the mirror. “You can survive on seven hours of sleep. You’ve done it before.”
But my reflection told a completely different story to me.
Yeah, but not in four months! My other self silently protested.
I sympathized greatly, but I was out of time. I needed to go–now.
There was no telling how bad the storm was going to be and I didn’t want to be the first to find out either.
“Sorry, girlfriend. But not much I can do.” I said out loud, my mirror self mimicking the same in return.
I turned and fled the comforts of home and headed for the kitchen to eat whatever my mom prepared me for breakfast.
I just hoped it was good.
~2~
I still could taste the powdered egg substitute that my mom made for me on my breath–along with that second (not so healthy!) helping of the green pepper stew that still had some leftover bite to it.
Why did it have to have spicy beans in it again for the fourth time this week? I thought with some pent up misery–knowing the kind of trouble that would spell later on for anyone within firing range of me personally.
But that was the least of my problems coming out of the house today.
I carried with me my travel pack and a canister of vacuum sealed bean paste and spicy lentil curry
that was intended to be my first lunch for later on when I arrived at Shark’s Bay in a few hours time.
Yes…
A few hours.
That’s how long it was going to take for me to complete the five hundred mile trip one way. (Never mind coming back.)
The door slammed shut in my face afterwards as I finished stepping out onto the front porch leading down the one side of our ground level home–the wind playing with my hair like a fucking tease.
I certainly could feel the cold wind blowing through these parts with unrelenting mercy. The top layers of nearby sand dunes up on top of Robber Hill were still covered in a layer of thick frost and patches of snow that hadn’t melted yet–but winter for me personally was a real headache for those of us who chose the desert life over anything else that was less than cushy.
I still couldn’t recall the last time it had rained here. It had to be awhile. Maybe five years at the least. I simply could not remember.
But for now, it wasn’t the fierce heat or scorching temperatures which had me concerned at this moment. The cold winters in the Golan Desert were a bit on the harsh side–survivable–but harsh.
What worried me now as I looked over at the clear horizon just above my head was the tell tale signs of an approaching storm front that had thrown up a lot of ice water vapor into the air–giving it a strangely yellow tinge to it.
Like I said, water by itself was a rare sight and even rarer commodity in the desert regions that made up the Barren Wastelands.
But the glaring sunlight above me was playing havoc with whatever was going on and it was just making me feel very unsettled. Mom may have said that I had a four hour window, but even from where I stood…? (And looked?)
I was going to be caught up in it right as I got to the settlement itself.
“God Almighty…” I complained to nobody in particular–after I had turned around and started walking down the stairs–hitting the bottom step and crossing the small landing which still had my rows of potted desert plants and a few cacti that I managed to coax to life through some good old fashioned TLC and a lot of mental guesswork on my younger brother’s part. (He helped chip in a bit on that front.)
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