by Keary Taylor
Copyright © 2018 Keary Taylor
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
First Edition: November 2018
Book design by Inkstain Design Studio
Cover art by Eddy Shinjuku
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Taylor, Keary, 1987-
Neron Rising (Neron Rising Saga) : an episode / by Keary Taylor. – 1st ed.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Blood Descendants Universe
The Fall Of Angels Trilogy
Three Heart Echo
The Eden Trilogy
The Mccain Saga
What I Didn’t Say
Illegal transactions should never occur this early in the morning.
I shove my feet into my boots, not bothering to lace them up, because that requires brainpower, and I don’t have enough of that when the sun hasn’t even begun to think about touching the tips of the elite towers. But I do have to think about walking quietly. Dad is still sleeping, and considering what I’m heading to do, I need him to stay that way.
The thick smog hits my lungs as soon as I step out of our tiny cube of a home. It’s one of thousands in the Stacks, the low-income corner of this city we call home. I cough, my lungs trying to adjust to all the pollution in the air, and I set down the weaving walkway that zigzags down past the same neighbors I’ve had for my entire life, before connecting to the skywalk that aims me toward the south end of town.
My connect-link beeps and I hold up my wrist, illuminating a screen against my forearm. A message from “The Mole” displays. You’re late.
I speak to my wrist and the words appear on the screen. That’s what you get for scheduling this so early.
Her response displays as an expletive and a searing strike of electricity in my wrist.
Despite the pain, I smirk and shake my head.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, knobhead!”
Someone yells the words at me as I bump shoulders with another individual on the skywalk. I turn, making eye contact, glaring and daring them to cause even more of a scene.
“Share the walkway, you cack!” I yell back.
I turn and blend back into the crowd of people walking to and from work.
There are so many bodies I can hardly breathe without taking in the scent of an unwashed worker, or the potent perfume of the next space hog. I’m jostled and bumped into, and no one, except for the cack back there, seems to notice or mind.
It’s just a part of life here on Korpillion.
When you’re just one of twenty-eight point one billion people, you learn to share the road.
I aim for the alley coming up, but I don’t even cast my eyes toward it. I shift to that side of the skywalk and raise my left hand a little.
Just as I pass it, another hand reaches out from the alley, and hooks the straps of a bag over my fingers. A quick and seamless handoff.
It’s the reason I pay Crag. I give him the credits he needs to buy his drugs and swill, he hides certain packages around the underbelly of the city until I am ready for them—no one knows the dark and hidden places of Korpillion better than him.
Being a homeless addict on this planet will eat you alive, body and soul, but he gets the job done.
I slip a few blocks further down the skywalk and then duck down a side street, dropping down five flights of stairs until my feet touch the concrete ground of terra level. I slip past dingy, solid steel buildings, tucking around corners.
It smells like metal and rust down this low. The air tastes damp, even though there probably hasn’t been a drop of natural rain to hit this ground in over a hundred solars.
It’s quieter down here. No one wants to come down this far, so far away from the sun. It’s all metal frames, the roots of the towering buildings that are constantly being built taller and taller. Our planet is in a constant race to reach new heights and find the sun through the smog.
So I really don’t worry too much as I carry my bag through the silent streets and finally round into a wide opening beneath one of the city’s oldest buildings.
Once upon a time, they would have parked transport vehicles here. But that was before they outlawed those on account of their pollution factor and deemed the common man had to walk everywhere.
Our entire lives are now lived within five square kilometers, or however far our legs can carry us.
Now this space is used to store old pipes and broken welding tools.
From the soot that covers everything, I don’t think anyone beside our little operation has stepped foot in here in at least fifty solars.
“Told you she’d be at least fifteen minutes late.”
I see the man standing beside her reach over and bump his wrist to hers, and hear a small ting, signaling he just transferred her some credits.
She bet the man I’d be late.
“Haven’t you heard?” I ask, stepping inside and weaving my way through the abandoned equipment. “It’s been scientifically proven that those who sleep in longer are actually smarter than those who are early risers.”
I smirk at Reena as I set the bag on an oversized length of pipe that comes up to my waist in height.
Her lips are set thin and she just glares at me, clearly not amused.
But I smile and turn to the bag, unzipping it.
The man beside Reena steps forward, and his eyes fill with the manic gleam of excitement.
“It’s exactly as you asked, fit to the measurements you gave me, and it’s ready for use,” I say, slipping into work mode. I reach inside the bag and pull the gun from it.
The man reaches forward, gently taking the weapon from me, looking it over with what I swear is reverence. Which is actually a relief to me. He doesn’t have that malevolent look in his eye like some of the others do. I can only hope he ordered it as a defensive weapon, and not an offensive one.
“With the budget you presented me with, you get two shards of Neron,” Reena explains. “Given average use of zero shots fired per lunar, it will last you a lifetime.” She looks the man over as she places two, three-inch long shards of glowing blue crystal in his palm. “But if you find yourself in a desperate situation of need, you will get continuous shots for two weeks.”
It sends a wave of cold goosebumps across my arms thinking about it. Most weapons have set amounts of shots they can fire. A dozen. A few hundred if they’re automatic and you’re feeling strong enough to lug around that kind of firepower.
But Neron is pure, clean energy. It packs a lot of punch despite its tiny package.
“You have no idea-” the man begins to say.
But Reena and I both hold our hands up at the same time, stopping him.
“We don’t want to know anything about what you’re going to do with the weapon, or the Neron,” I speak up.
“Less liability,” Reena says.
The man nods his head, understanding, because all twent
y-eight point one billion people on this planet know that what Reena and I are doing is so illegal, it would get us sent to Crion—the prison planet—for the rest of our mortal days.
“Is everything to your expectations?” Reena asks, folding her hands in front of her.
For a criminal, she sure is elegant, with her poised nose, perfect posture, and smooth, porcelain skin. Somehow her clothes are always perfectly clean, nearly as shiny as her auburn hair.
“It is,” the man says. His tone is still breathy, in disbelief, and he can hardly take his eyes off the weapon and the blue Neron crystals in his hand.
“Get us paid so we can all get out of here,” I say the words. I didn’t really think about them, they just kind of slipped out. They gain me a look of annoyance from Reena.
“Of course,” the man says, snapping out of his trance. He extends his wrist to Reena’s first, transferring the credits. And then mine.
I look at the screen, and it shows the forty-nine thousand credits transfer to my account. It comes up as payment for sex.
Prostitution isn’t looked upon in much of an acceptable manner, but it isn’t illegal. If my account were to ever be reviewed, I have to have some kind of explanation as to why I have such large deposits periodically. I have to have a cover story.
“It’s been a pleasure working with you, Mr. X,” Reena says, packing up her own bag and slinging it over her shoulder.
She calls every client of ours Mr. or Ms. X. We never ask for real names, we’d never want to know.
Turning with her, we leave the man to marvel over his very expensive new toy. We both turn to the right, cutting down the side of the massive base building.
I pause for a moment, fishing a rag out of my bag. Looking at myself in the reflection of the window, I set to washing the band off my face.
There are cameras all over this planet. I’m dealing in illegal transactions on a near-weekly basis. I don’t need the cameras knowing my face. So this morning, before I headed out the door, I dipped my fingers in my charcoal-grease mix, and spread it from one edge of my hair, across the bridge of my nose, under my eyes, to the other edge of my hair, masking my face.
I’ve told Reena she should do the same.
But she never listens to me.
“How many more orders do you expect to fulfill this lunar?” Reena asks as we start walking again. She doesn’t look over at me. She keeps her eyes fixed straight forward, almost as if I’m not really here.
Typical. For a criminal, you’d think she was one of the elite space hogs.
“I have two more lined up for delivery before the end of the lunar,” I say, looking around to be sure there are no ears within hearing distance. “I have another potential client who hasn’t made a deposit yet.”
“Keep in touch,” she says as we rise up, taking the five flights of stairs before popping back out on the lower skywalk level. Without another word, she hooks to the right, immediately disappearing into the crowd.
I’m not really sure why Reena dislikes me so much. We’ve been working in correlation with each other for almost four lunars now, and the entire time she’s been nothing but chilly and…almost suspicious of me. Maybe it’s because she was born into this life of illegal activity and I didn’t jump in until I was twenty-two solars. But she’s remained frosty this entire time.
I grab something to eat from one of the hundreds of street vendors. The food is bland and tastes fake, because it is. Considering the entire planet of Korpillion is populated from shore to shore, there is no room to farm real food. Every bit of our food comes from off-planet, or is engineered in a lab.
But it keeps us alive. If it can keep so many others alive, I’ll survive.
Not that I’ve ever known any different.
Checking the time, I pick up my pace, bumping into others as I dart down the skywalk. The trams zoom by, rocking everything around them. Ships drift through the sky up above. The planet is awake, and everyone is in a hurry to make it to work.
I aim for the massive building looming up ahead.
I slip into the crowd filing into the building and wait my turn to scan my handprint to clock in.
“Cutting it a little close today,” a voice from behind me says.
I scan my hand, looking over my shoulder and glaring at Zayne. “Mind your own business.”
“Hard to do when I know how much you need this job,” he says, scanning his hand next. When it beeps, he steps beside me, and we head for the narrow door that funnels everyone into the mass of the building, ready for another day at Horne Energy.
“I keep reminding you, it’s not your job to worry about me and my dad’s financials.” I let out an exasperated sigh as we aim for the employee locker room. Unfortunately, our lockers are located right next to each other. “Hasn’t been in three lunars.”
“Come on, Nova,” he says, scanning his hand once more on the door of his locker, opening it. “Just because it’s over doesn’t mean I can just shut off a solar and a half of history.”
I open my own locker and pull out the fresh jumpsuit some staff member put in there last night. I peel off my tunic and unzip my top and bottoms, stripping down to my underthings.
I thought we were past this. But Zayne still gives me a side look as I change and he slips into his own uniform.
Yeah, he’s nice to look at. He keeps himself in great shape. His dark hair is on trend, and his jawline could practically cut steel. But he’s not mine to stare at anymore, and I was the one to decide that.
“I won’t be late tomorrow,” I say, turning my back to him as I zip up the front of my black jumpsuit. I grab my fingerless gloves from the locker, and set off across the space toward the doors.
There is a front to this building. There’s a grand lobby and big fancy offices. But us grunts don’t ever walk through those doors. We come in through the side, and our access dives right into the heart of the building.
I set through the tunnel that immediately branches off the main outlets. I take a lift down and down, and finally it opens, revealing a cavernous opening.
Everyone in the building calls it the Pit of Hell.
There isn’t a shred of natural light down here. It smells like steam and grease and metal.
It’s the smell of heaven to me.
Pipes and wires and moving components rise and twist in every direction. It’s loud and sounds like chaos.
It sounds like a miracle to me.
I head down the walkway, the one that leads directly to my office and workshop.
It’s immediately quiet when I close the door behind me. I sit down at my desk, and the screens instantly come to life. My eyes scan the reports and analytics, telling me all the problems I have to fix today.
I work for the largest power plant on the planet Korpillion. We’re located in the center of the planet and we send power to this entire side of the globe. Our building spans kilometers of land. It’s divided into sections, four different quadrants, with four different teams who take care of what needs to be done.
I’m a member of the third quad. I’m an engineer, that’s my official title and what my education was in. I’m also, largely, a mechanic. I keep everything running. I fix problems. I build things to make other things run better.
Others might look at me as a grease monkey, but without me, the planet would quickly lose power.
Zayne Nason, who I’ve known since I started here three solars ago, works as an information wizard.
That’s not what he’s really called. But I don’t really understand what it is he does, so I dubbed him a wizard.
The report on my holoscreen says there’s a problem with the pipes on sub-level 4, so I grab the tools I’ll need, and head out.
There’s steam leaking from one of the pipes and it’s hot as the Underworld here in this cramped corner. Gritting my teeth, I set to the task.
“You there?”
I startle at the voice and smack my head against one of the other pipes above me.
> It cracks, and steam starts spilling out of it, too.
I swear, rubbing the back of my head, probably smearing grease into my dirty blonde hair.
“Sometimes you come calling at the very worst times,” I say, grabbing a roll of tape and patching the crack temporarily until I can get the parts to fix this new problem.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Are you with someone?”
I roll my eyes and shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “I didn’t mean that. I only meant that when a voice suddenly speaks inside your head, it has a tendency to startle you and make you crack your head on the pipes you’re working on.”
“Oh, sorry,” his voice comes through, in my brain, like he’s a tiny figure standing right inside my skull, speaking directly into my auditory nerve. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I grit my teeth as I use a wrench to pry the slip sleeve loose. “Just a new bump on the back of my head. How is your day?”
He pauses a moment, and I wonder what he’s doing. “It’s not really day here. I’m on the dark side of a moon.”
“Anywhere I might have heard of?” I ask as it finally loosens and I unscrew the part.
I actually hear him chuckle. “Probably not.”
“Doing anything interesting there?” I ask. I’m normally better conversation than this, but I’m distracted. I’ve got to get these pipes fixed or we’ll start to lose pressure within a few hours.
“Just work,” he responds.
A hissing sound whips my head around, and I see steam spraying out from around my tape. It’s too much. If I don’t get it under control, the whole pipe will blow out.
“Sorry, I have to take care of this,” I hiss, ripping through my bag, praying I’ve got the right stuff to patch the leak; something better than tape. “I’ll connect later, ‘K?”
“Alright,” he says. “Good luck.”
And just like that, I feel him leave my head.
I swear under my breath as I dash for the shut-off valve.
They’re going to be mad at me later for doing this, but at least it won’t cause a meltdown. I should have done this sixty seconds ago, but it’s easy to get distracted when a voice suddenly speaks directly into your mind.